What does First B Jackson teach about john 3:16?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First Baptist Jackson, teaching on John 3:16 almost always begins a step earlier, with the strange story in Numbers 21 where God told Moses to lift a bronze snake on a pole so that anyone bitten by a venomous snake could look at it and live. Pastors Brian, Mark, and Neil have each worked through that Numbers passage precisely because Jesus himself reached back and grabbed it when he explained himself to Nicodemus: just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes may have eternal life. The cross is the pole, and Jesus is what you look to. That Old Testament moment turns out to be the logic of the gospel, and John 3:16 is where that logic lands.
The teaching takes the verse seriously as a statement about who God actually is. Pastor Greg McDaniel, preaching at a Christmas Eve service, called it the first scripture many people ever memorize and pressed on what it actually describes: a God who does not rule with violent power but pursues the people He loves by sending His one and only Son, leaving glory to take on humanity. The cost matters here. Jesus humbled Himself and died a shameful death, but He did it out of love, and because He lived a perfectly obedient life and gave Himself willingly, the gift held out in John 3:16 is genuinely free and genuinely open to anyone who looks to Him in faith.
The faith involved is not complicated, but the teaching at First Baptist Jackson is honest that it is real. The bronze snake in the wilderness was irrational by any ordinary measure, yet anyone who looked lived and anyone who did not, died. That is the pattern. God makes the way; we either look to it in faith or we do not. The invitation is not to understand everything first but to look.
Taught from John 3:14-16 · Numbers 21:4-9 · John 3:16 · John 1:11-12 · Philippians 2:7-8
The passage taught · John 3:14-16
14 As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15 that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- March 17, 2019 Look and Live A Wyoming pastor traces the strange bronze snake of Numbers 21 to John 3:16, showing how God's provision in the wilderness points to salvation through Christ alone.
- March 17, 2019 Anyone Who Looked Lived A Wyoming pastor traces the bronze serpent in Numbers 21 through John 3:16, showing how God's strange remedy for sin points to Jesus lifted up on the cross.
- December 24, 2013 6.30 pm Christmas Eve Cantata “One Night, One Star, One King” A Christmas Eve service at First Baptist Jackson where Pastor Greg McDaniel and the choir tell the story of Emmanuel, God with us, born to bring hope, joy and salvation.
- November 11, 2012 Sin, Sorrow, and Salvation A Wyoming pastor connects Moses lifting the bronze serpent in the wilderness to the cross of Christ, tracing sin, sorrow, and salvation through John 3 and Numbers 21.
Mentioned along the way
- December 22, 2024 Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward Men Pastor Ray explores the angels' Christmas declaration in Luke 2:14, tracing God's goodwill toward humanity through Greek grammar, scripture, and the tension between God's sovereignty and human responsibility.