http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2009/3883_God_So_Loved_the_World_Part_2/
This is called love—great love—in Ephesians 2:4-5: God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (cf. great mercy in 1 Peter 1:3). This is great love that goes way beyond offering to spiritually dead people that if they will believe, they will be saved. This love conquers our deadness. It gives new life, and brings us to faith, and unites us to Christ—all in one sovereign instant.

Let me read it again: God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Gods quickening love made you alive. Thats why you were able to believe (cf. John 10:16; 11:52).

C. Jesus Love for His Sheep

You can see this love going beyond John 3:16 in the way Jesus talks about his sheep in rest of the Gospel of John.

In the rest of the Gospel of John, the relationship between being a sheep of Christ and believing on Christ is not that we believe in order to become sheep, but that God makes sheep in order that we may believe. This is clear in John 10:25-26. Jesus says, The works that I do in my Fathers name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. So we dont first believe in order to be a part of Jesus flock; God makes us part of Jesus flock in order that we may believe.

This means that when Jesus says in John 10:11, The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, we know this is a greater love than John 3:16. He lays down his life for the sheep means that he dies not just to offer the sheep eternal life but to make absolutely certain that his sheep will believe on him and follow him and have eternal life. In John 10:16, Jesus looks beyond the present fold of believers and says, I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also. And John 11:51-52 says he died to gather them. He died in order to bring his chosen sheep to faith.

John 10:27-28: My sheep hear my voice [thats how you can tell they are sheep] and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. Why do they come? They come because the Father has chosen them and gives to Jesus. John 6:37: All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. They come because God draws them. John 6:44: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. John 6:65: No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.