Verdicts are rendered Monday-Friday in courtrooms all over the world. Verdicts are rendered 24-7 in the hearts and lives of human beings. What goes into a verdict? What determines its pronouncement?

In a time when we understand the unreliability of eye-witness accounts and the emotional manipulation of oral testimony as well as the flaws of the system in processing physical evidence,  we wonder. We see wrongful convictions come to the forefront and we are equally aware that guilty parties of atrocities often escape justice. Where does the hammer of truth come down?

This is just an outline, but it is the outline for my sermon today based on four words from Jesus in John 3,  "This is the verdict."

It is the ultimate and most important verdict: Where do you fall in respect to the pin-point center of truth?

When all are guilty of something and much, how can there be "no condemnation?"

We actually take one word and build an acronym from the larger text.

One hour loss of time, preachers, and you can lose a whole day of preparation! If you are stuck this morning, feel free to expand on this. "There is no condemnation."

If you, church folks, sleep in and don't make it to church today, "no condemnation." Chew on this.

And …if one insists on self-justification, is there anything but self-condemnation?

Where and what is the verdict?

The VERDICT

John 3:14-21

“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. “

 “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

 “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

 “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”

The VERDICT is this:

V- VISION – Light has come. It presumes darkness that must be penetrated by the brilliance of overwhelming luminescence. It presupposes a need for such intervention, but it also proclaims that something has happened to change all the definitions and deprivations in the lives of wandering souls.

I- INTIMIDATION – People love darkness. Love of darkness seems so antithetical to who we were meant to be. Even our biological make-up craves the vitamins produced by exposure to light. Without light, we die.

R- REPULSION –They are repelled by light and love darkness because they are fearful. In the darkness, we can imagine and reconstruct our own reality. We do not have to face ourselves. If we gaze into a mirror, we see nothing. If we look at the world, we do not have to see it as it is. Of course, we gain no vision of a better future because we are unwilling to see the present.

D- DREAD – They are fearful because their deeds are evil. People who persist in darkness do not want to be exposed. Not only do we not want to see, but we do not want to be seen. Believing the world to be harsh and God to be even harsher, we avoid exposure. We retreat into self-justification. We are convinced that the only way to avoid condemnation is to avoid the truth about ourselves. We have no active concept of grace.

I- INVITATION – Light invites those who desire to and are living by truth. Truth draws people toward light. Light, in return, draws people to truth. Before we factor in love and, specifically, "God so loved …. that He gave," we have only fear and self-loathing wrapped in the skin of self-avoidance, and self-aggrandizement. God's invitation in Jesus comes to us where we are and as we are.

C- COME! – Living in the light allows us to live openly and honestly before God and ourselves. You are invited to come clean with God and come to Him by faith. The message of the morning is to come believing, trusting, receiving. It is to come with a faith-investment in the fleshed out incarnation of Truth, Light, and Love that is so compelling that the soul cannot do anything but follow or retreat to the darkness of self-deception.

T- TRANSFORMING TRUTH – It is in the first verses of this passage.

• The Son of Man has been lifted up. As Moses lifted up a serpent, with all of the ugliness and indictment of his people symbolized in that redemptive intervention of God, so the Son of Man is lifted up, obvious, in-our-faces, exposed, bleeding love, to draw us to Himself.
• All who will do so may come. "Whosoever" never excludes any but those who would exclude themselves.
• There is no condemnation in Him. None. Nada. Condemnation is yesterday's news. The gospel is good news. Repentance is good news.
• God loves the people of this world and that includes YOU!

What will your verdict be?