An Interview with Max Lucado: Preaching John 3:16...Continued from page 2

Preaching: When you preached John 3:16 in the series in your own church, did you think of yourself as preaching with an evangelistic thrust or a pastoral emphasis? What was your approach to these sermons?

Lucado: What I thought I would do in that series is talk to the unbeliever who is interested – interested enough to come to church but not interested enough to cross over. I targeted the unbeliever. I talked about the change that happens if you believe God loves you. I talked about the power of the phrase “one and only Son” – what separates Jesus from anyone else? You know, the passage is at once devotional and apologetic. It’s devotional because it talks about the love of God, but it’s apologetic because it talks about what separates Jesus from anyone else.

That phrase “one and only.” In a sense we’re all children of God – Jesus is called the one and only Son. Monogeneo is the word, God’s only “genetic” child. He bears the very essence of God. What we say about God we say about Jesus. So the promise rises and falls on the identity of Jesus.

“Shall not perish.” You could spend a year speaking on the phrase. “In Him.” Not in them, not in yourself – believe in Him. Then that dualistic outcome of history, “shall not perish.” So I spent some time talking about: Is there a hell? If so, what is hell? “Eternal life.”

Every preacher needs to preach a series on John 3:16 – not just because I wrote a book on it! Honestly, in our time as ministers, we’ve got to acquaint our churches with John 3:16.

Preaching: What kind of response did you get to the series?

Lucado: Phenomenal. It wasn’t any accident that we had 50 percent more baptisms last year than we’d ever had. It jumped up. It’s a large church – these days 5,000 is not as large as it used to be! – but we’re about a 5,500 member church. We had 500 baptisms during the course of the year, and I think it’s just acquainting people with the gospel. It was a wonderful response.

Preaching: It is one of those passages that people think they know, but they haven’t really gotten below the surface.

Lucado: I think you’re right. The verb “gave” – what does it mean that God gave His Son? It’s an opportunity to talk about the substitutionary atonement of Christ. It assumes there is a God – you start right there with the word “God.” So every word is worthy of our focus.