[Jesus said:] “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

John 3:16-17

“If you want to identify me,” the writer Thomas Merton once wrote, “ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.” 

What are you living for? And what is keeping you from living fully for that? 

These are good questions to ask in this season of Lent. Questions that get right to the heart of what matters in this life. Questions that help us to uncover our core beliefs. 

Core beliefs are important. They are those deeply held convictions of ours that shape how we see ourselves and how we look at the world. 

We can have any number of core beliefs, even without realizing it. They are often formed early in life. They are kind of under the surface most of the time. But they are always there. And they are profoundly important because they shape how we live our lives – everything from the career we choose, how we treat people, who we vote for, and even our religion. These are decided by our core beliefs. 

But these beliefs are so deeply ingrained in us that we can have trouble even knowing what they are. They can be positive and helpful, but they can also be negative and unhelpful. They make us who we are. And sometimes they keep us from living fully the way that we want. 

So today I thought I’d spend a little time thinking about these core beliefs. And especially on one of the core beliefs that we find in scripture. It’s a famous one, but I think it’s worth spending some time on this morning. And it is from today’s gospel reading, the conversation that took place between Jesus and the Pharisee named Nicodemus. And it is in that conversation that we get perhaps the most famous verse in all of scripture, John 3:16. 

And I want to think about this verse as a core belief, and see what it can teach us about how to live our lives fully and faithfully. And, really, I am going to spend most of my time on the opening six words of this famous verse: “For God so loved the world.” Even in these six words, we can find three core beliefs that all followers of Jesus share.  

For God

First, of course, is the core belief that there is a God. Not everyone in this world believes in God. And I am not judging them here. In fact, John 3:17 teaches us that God did not send the Son into the world to condemn or judge the world. So no judgment here. But just the recognition that believing there is a God is a core belief that shapes how we live our lives. 

When we believe in God, we believe that there is more to this life than the day-to-day of our existence. There is more to this life than we can see. And there is a higher purpose to our lives, a deeper meaning. Our life is changed by this belief. 

It is kind of like walking a path that diverges in two. You get to choose one of these paths. The path marked “There is no God.” Or the path marked “For God so loved the world.” Choosing that second path leads your life in a completely different direction. You may not be quite sure what that is. But it can never be the same as it was. It makes all the difference, as a famous poem puts it. 

Here is how the great Lutheran, Dag Hammarskjold, who served as Secretary-General of the United Nations until his death, put it in his private journal, discovered after he died and once published became one a spiritual classic: 

“I don’t know Who – or what – put the question, I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone – or Something – and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.”

He was certain that existence was meaningful once he chose the path of belief, once he answered the call to faith. And his life, in self-surrender, now had a goal. 

That is the power of holding a core belief. His Christian faith became his compass and his hope, even though very few people even knew of his faith until this private journal was published. 

We, too, have been asked the question. We may not know Who – or what – put the question. But we said Yes. Yes, we believe in God. And from that hour, our lives took a turn toward meaning. That core belief has shaped our lives. We have invited God into our story, and that has made all the difference.  

So Loved

But having a core belief based on John 3:16 is not just about walking the path of faith. The Pharisees, remember, all believed in God, even as many of them were plotting to kill Jesus. 

Many people – too many – have believed in God and done terrible things in our world. 

There must be more. And there is. Because this famous verse, John 3:16, is not just about faith; it is also about love. “For God so loved the world.” 

We don’t just believe in God. We believe that God loves the world. We believe that God loves us. That is a core belief of ours. Or at least it is supposed to be. But it is amazing how many people know they are supposed to believe this, but still question or doubt it. 

I have mentioned this once before, but it’s worth mentioning again here. And it is a simple exercise that the Christian psychologist, David Benner, does with many of his patients. He invites them to close their eyes and imagine God thinking about them. What, he asks, do you assume God feels about you when you do this? 

And the psychologist who does this says that a surprising number of people say that the first thing they assume God feels is disappointment. A number of others assume that God feels anger. In both cases, he points out that it is their shortcomings that they believe first catches God’s attention. And one of his main tasks, as he works with them, he writes, is to convince them that they are wrong. To convince them that they are loved. 

A core belief that we are somehow a disappointment to God will change how we live our life in all sorts of ways. And so, if you imagine God feeling that way about you, let me remind you of this very simple, life-changing truth: 

That God loves you. So much that he gave his only Son for you. God’s love for you, in Jesus, is never ending and never changing. No matter what you have done or not done. You are loved. God cannot love you any more than God already does. And God will never love you less. And all that God really wants, all that Jesus really wants, for you, is for you to experience that love as a deeply-held core belief. A belief so deeply-held that it frees you to live out of that love, and to share that love, in all that you do, and in everything that you are. 

The World

“For God so loved the world.” Okay. I’ve looked at the simple core belief that there is a God. And the powerful core belief that God loves us. But what about the core belief that God loves the world? Think of that – about what it means to believe that God loves the world. Of holding that as a core belief. How does this shape our life? 

Let’s think about the world, and especially about what that means in John’s Gospel. The word is “Cosmos,” and it first shows up in John 1, which says of Jesus that: “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him.” The world that God so loved did not know Jesus. 

But not only does the world not know Jesus. It hates him. In John 15, Jesus said to his disciples: “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” The world that God loves is the same world that often hates Jesus and those who follow him. But it doesn’t change God’s love. Nor does it defeat God. 

“Take courage,” Jesus also said to his disciples (in John 16): “I have conquered the world.” He has conquered the world with love and for love. And nothing can defeat that. 

And, finally, in John 17 Jesus prays for us in these words: “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”

We do not belong to the world, just as Jesus did not belong to the world. We belong to God. In other words, our core beliefs are not shaped by the world; they are shaped by Jesus. And once we recognize and embrace that, we are ready to be sent into the world, just as Jesus was sent into the world. To love this world, even when it rejects us. To love this world, even when it hates us. To love this world because God loves this world. God loves us. That is our core belief. And that core belief is like a huge rock thrown into a still pond. It ripples out of us and into this world. This world that God so loves. Always has, and always will. 

Closing 

“All I want to say to you is, ‘You are the Beloved.’” That is what Henri Nouwen wrote to a secular journalist who asked him to describe his core belief as a Christian.

“Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence,” Nouwen wrote. And then he wrote: “I am putting this so directly and so simply because, though the experience of being the Beloved has never been completely absent from my life, I never claimed it as my core truth.”

And I think that is why I am putting all of this so directly and so simply today. Because it is a core truth that we do not always claim. We know that God loves us. We know that God loves the world. But until we really claim it, with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, it will not serve as the central core truth of our lives. 

It will keep us from living fully for the thing we want to live for. And the thing we want to live for is God’s love for us and for all our world. May we be filled with this love until it ripples into all the world, the world that God so loves. Amen.