Money in the Word Episode 1: John 3:16

A look at John 3:16 and what it teaches us about generosity from Ben Wacek, CFP®, CKA® of Guide Financial Planning.

Merry Christmas and welcome to the first episode of "Money in the Word." My name is Ben Wacek. I am one of the financial planners here at Guide Financial Planning and I am excited to go through a well-known passage of scripture with you guys today. With that, I'll go ahead and pull that passage up on the screen. You guys probably recognize this passage, it's arguably the most well-known passage in Scripture. It says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life," and that's in John 3:16.

Just a little bit of context for where this passage comes from, you might remember the the story of Jesus talking with Nicodemus. Nicodemus is a Pharisee and he comes to visit Jesus at night presumably because he doesn't want others to know that he's going to visit Jesus. He asks Jesus the question "What do I need to do to inherit eternal life?" and Jesus tells him that you must be "born again." Shortly after that as they continue to have conversation, Jesus says this passage to him, and so this is Jesus saying these words to Nicodemus.

This might not be often thought about as a Christmas passage or relating to Christmas, but my hope is that by the end of my time here with you today that you'll see why this is a Christmas passage. Around Christmas time we often think about giving gifts. Giving gifts, receiving gifts, that's a big part of just our culture around Christmas time. Hopefully most of the reasons that those gifts are given and received are for good reasons out of love for another person or again, just out of joy in our hearts that we're wanting to give to other people. 

Oftentimes, you know, gifts are given for other reasons, too, that maybe aren't so good. Maybe that's an obligation you just feel like you need to around this time of year. Giving gifts to people even though maybe you know that's not something that is something you choose to be doing. Or maybe you feel pressure because somebody else has given a gift to you and and you feel like your response needs to be able to give a gift back. As we see in this passage, God is also a Gift Giver. In the second line we see here it says that he gave his only Son. God is a generous God. He chose to give him to us, and his reason for giving this gift is for the perfect reason it says in the first line here. He so loved the world that he gave his son, so he's not doing this out of any kind of obligation or because he feels like he has to. He's doing it because he loved the world and this is something that he chose to do.

Also, you know, it's not because we've been good enough or we've checked certain boxes or lived a perfect life that he does this. In fact, in Romans 5:8 it says while we were still sinners Christ died for for us. And so even when we are at our worst, God chooses to love us. And so I think this is just an amazing passage of showing that God is a generous God. He gives to us, and he does this out of our love for us.

If we continue on in the passage, it says after he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. And this is the best gift that we could ever receive. Because of this gift of giving his Son, born as a baby, we have an opportunity that if we believe in him we won't perish, but we'll have eternal life with God in heaven for all eternity. So yeah this is why I think this is such an amazing gift. What the birth of baby Jesus meant for us is first of all that God loved us, and secondly that if we believe in him we can have eternal life with him. Eternity in heaven.

I hope this passage is as encouraging for you as it is for me. I'd like just to close in prayer to wrap up our time.

Lord, I thank you for your Word. I thank you for your generosity and for the gift of your Son. That he was born in Bethlehem in a manger and that you came not to be served, but to serve and to give your life as a ransom for many. So Lord, I just praise you for your generosity. I pray that at this Christmas season as we have the opportunity to give and receive gifts that we would be reminded of the gift that you gave to us. The perfect gift, the best gift, the gift of your Son. So I thank you for that gift and for your generosity. We pray these things in your name. Amen.

Well, thank you again for joining us in this very first episode of Money in the Word. Hopefully you found it to be helpful. We hope to do a lot of these, and so if you'd like to get more of these if you can just click below. You can click Subscribe, or if you click the Like button, that just helps more people to be able to find us. What we hope to do in these videos is just take a passage of scripture and help you to see what what does the Bible have to say about how we should view money, or how we should use money in order to glorify God in all that we do. So Merry Christmas and I hope you enjoyed this video.