Look up and Live

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Well, if you’ll take out your Bibles this morning, I want us to, as we continue on with our study that we’ve been doing of some of the places where Jesus was foreshadowed in the Old Testament, some of the places where God used pictures to point to Jesus in the Old Testament, I want to walk you through a couple of passages of Scripture this morning, one that at least in part is going to be familiar to a lot of you. For many of us, John 3. 16 is the first Scripture we memorized, or among the first at least. We may be a little less familiar with the whole passage that that takes place in, John chapter 3, although you may have spent some time studying the story of Jesus and his conversation with Nicodemus.

Fewer people know the story from the Old Testament that Jesus draws from in this conversation. You see, in this conversation that we’re going to look at in just a moment, Jesus draws on something from the Old Testament to make a point. Sometimes physical objects, sometimes art and creations can symbolize something else.

And I kind of enjoy it when they do. My wife and I like art museums. I’ve dragged the kids to some and they’re not as excited about it as I am. But I like looking at paintings.

I like looking at sculptures, especially when they look like something. I’ve never really gotten into the, even when I was having to study art for a credit at OU, I hated the stuff where it just looks like they sneezed paint on a canvas. I don’t get that.

Or this statue, this little, trying to remember the name of the artist. I won’t say it in case some of you like this guy. But we had to study this sculpture of this woman. And it just, I mean, it looked, my children could have made something better than this.

And I mean, this thing is worth thousands and thousands of dollars. Well, what does this sculpture tell you about the artist? It tells me that he’s overrated and I could have done a better job.

You know, I like it when stuff looks like stuff. Like in Oklahoma City, I like the statues that are downtown of the land run down there by the Bricktown Canal. Because I look at those and I can tell what they’re supposed to be. There are other sculptures in downtown Oklahoma City.

There’s this thing that’s a bunch of red, I don’t even know what, shapes stacked on top of each other. Big, expensive sculpture out in front of a bank. I remember it scared me to death when I was a kid.

Because there was some movie where there’s a lady with long red fingernails, and she does something like this that a kid just.. . And I just remember thinking it’s like big fingernails.

I don’t know what in the world that sculpture is supposed to be. It means nothing other than just scary fingernails. But I like when the art represents something and when you can tell what it is.

And Jesus used an instance when the art, the thing that they had crafted, represented something and represented something very important. So we’re going to start in John chapter 3 this morning. John chapter 3, as we get into this conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, where he points to a piece of, well, you could call it a piece of art.

It’s something somebody made at God’s direction in the Old Testament. and he uses it to illustrate a very important point about himself. We’re going to be in John chapter 3 and we’re going to pick up partway through the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.

Once you’ve turned there, if you’d stand with me as we read from God’s word together, if you’re able to stand, able to stand without too much trouble. If you don’t have your Bible with you, it’ll be on the screen. Or if you’re using our digital bulletin, you can just click the little link and it’ll take you right there to the scripture.

We’re going to be in John chapter 3 starting in verse 10. This is after Nicodemus has gotten very confused about some of the things that Jesus has said already about being born again. Jesus answered and said to him, are you the teacher of Israel and do not know these things?

Most assuredly I say to you, we speak what we know and testify what we have seen and you do not receive our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

He who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And you may be seated. Nicodemus is a Pharisee.

He’s a well-known guy, a prominent figure, somebody who’s well-respected in the community, as a spiritual teacher and a spiritual leader, somebody who should have had answers. But he came to Jesus looking for answers that he knew he didn’t have, and Jesus did. So Nicodemus came to him and Jesus told him that there was a need for him to be born again spiritually.

And Nicodemus didn’t understand this because he confused it with physical birth. He starts talking to Jesus about not being able to crawl back into the womb, which why he thought that’s what Jesus was saying, I’ll never understand. So Jesus pointed out the absurdity of what Nicodemus was saying, not only earlier on talking about climbing back into the womb and being physically born again.

But he also points out the absurdity that somebody who claimed to be a teacher in Israel would not understand basic spiritual principles. That’s what he starts out in verse 10 by saying, are you a teacher of Israel and you don’t know these things? Shouldn’t you know this?

I mean, you claim to be an expert. Shouldn’t you know what’s going on here? Shouldn’t you know what God is doing?

But Nicodemus didn’t. For all his claims to know God’s word and to know God’s will, Nicodemus really didn’t have a clue what God was doing. But Nicodemus was in luck because God’s truth doesn’t come from us.

See, people thought we’ve got to go to the Pharisees. We’ve got to go to men like Nicodemus. We’ve got to go to these religious elites because they can tell us things about God that we could never find out for ourselves.

But the truth is, it’s not dependent on us. It’s not dependent on us to figure out who God is or what He wants, He tells us. Apart from His Word, okay, apart from what He has revealed in His Word, I don’t stand any better chance than anybody else in this room of knowing about God and what He wants and what He expects.

God is so far beyond our comprehension, we can’t just fall backwards into the truth. He had to show us. He had to tell us.

God’s truth doesn’t come from us or from our teachers and this idea of ascending to Him. You know, Jesus says that about no man has ascended to God. And He talks about the Son of Man coming down.

He’s talking here about it wasn’t up to you teachers to go and find your way up to God and to lead us back. It was up to God to stoop down and tell us about Himself. And so when He says the Son of Man descended, He’s talking about how no man could get to God.

We couldn’t figure out our way to God on our own. Jesus Christ came down and showed us exactly what God is like. That’s why the New Testament tells us that if we’ve seen the Son, we’ve seen the Father.

Not that they’re the same person, but they share a nature and they share an essence. And so if we’re familiar with Jesus, we know just what the Father’s like. Talked about this some last week that the Bible calls Him the image of the invisible God.

Express glory of His person in Hebrews chapter 1. It was not about us ascending to Him to understand him. It was about him descending to us, which Jesus did.

And he spells out in verse 13. But then Jesus used an earthly example to illustrate this spiritual truth of why God the Son descended. Why Jesus Christ, God the Son in human flesh, would come down and spend time among us, what on earth he was doing here on earth.

In verse 14, he gives us this example as he’s talking about how he came so that we could be reconciled to God. And in verse 14, he said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Now, to make sense of the example that Jesus gave here, we need to make sure we understand the story he’s talking about.

So we’re going to take a closer look at it this morning. And if you could, turn with me to Numbers chapter 21. Numbers chapter 21, that’s way up at the beginning of your Bible.

Numbers chapter 21. Verse 4 says, Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom, and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way. Okay, this is when they are on their way, they’ve come out of slavery in Egypt, and they are on their way to the promised land, they are wandering, they’re trying to get to the promised land.

If memory serves, this is before they were told, no, you have to wait 40 years to enter in. They are headed that way now, and they’re hoping to go the direct route. But there were some problems there with some pagan kings who didn’t like them, who didn’t want them around, had probably heard the stories of how their god showed up Pharaoh, how our god showed up Pharaoh, and didn’t want anything to do with these people, and just said, you’ve got to go the long way around.

You’re not coming through our country. And so they were being made to go the long way around, and they got a little annoyed by that. Sort of like if I ever miss the exit from my house on the highway to go home.

I have to go clear to Elgin and come back. All right, I don’t want to do that. They were upset.

They were having to take the long way, and they got discouraged. Verse 5, there’s not a problem necessarily with them getting discouraged, but it’s in how they reacted to it. Verse 5, and the people spoke against God and against Moses.

Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread. So they’re speaking against God.

They’re speaking against Moses. And it’s not just that they’re upset. I think God could have handled that if they were just upset.

But what they’re demonstrating here is a lack of trust in God and His character. Ultimately, they’re questioning God’s character. They’re making God out to be some kind of monster who has toyed with them, who teased them with this idea of freedom coming out of slavery and bringing them into a land of their own into this promised land flowing with milk and honey, but really what he’s done is set them free and brought them out into the desert to starve to death.

They’re acting like God is that kind of monster. Why would you bring us out here just to do this to us? There’s no food and there’s no water.

But even their own statement is contradictory because they said there’s no food and there’s no water and we loathe this worthless bread. See, God had been providing for their every need. God had been sending food down every day in the form of manna.

Not that there was no food, it was that they were tired of what he was providing. It was no longer good enough. And so they’re complaining.

And again, I think the complaining about the food is not even. . .

Yes, it’s ungrateful. And yes, we would have serious words for our children if they did that sort of thing. Actually, we have had serious words for our children when they’ve done that sort of thing.

But I think more at issue here is the idea that they’re saying, why would you bring us out here just to leave us here? As though the God they worshipped was a God that was going to do that. They’re questioning his character.

So the Lord said, okay, you think that’s how I am? Let’s, verse six. So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people and many of the people of Israel died.

And you might say, well, that’s, isn’t that so harsh? Doesn’t that confirm what they said? No, they never deserved to be brought out of Egypt in the first place.

It was God’s grace toward them. None of us deserve the good gifts of God. It’s his grace toward us.

But even at this, he used this as he does so many times throughout the Old Testament, uses a punishment or a discipline to get Israel’s attention, not for the purpose of crushing them for their disobedience, but for the purpose of calling them back to Him. Because as we’ll see, God also offers a degree of grace to them. So He sent these fiery serpents among the people.

They bit the people. We don’t know exactly what kind of snakes they are, and I didn’t want to see pictures, so I didn’t Google it to try to find out. All right?

Got enough little snakes at my own property, I don’t want to deal with somebody else’s right now. But the articles that I saw in commentaries suggested that this was a kind of carpet viper that would have been called a fiery serpent either because of the coloring of it or because of the results of the bite. Either way, snakes, venom, people, it’s a recipe for nothing good.

Verse 7 says, therefore the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. So this was as drastic as this step was, it had the desired effect of getting the people to realize what they had done wrong. And so they did what they should have done.

They called out to him. They said, we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he may take away the serpents from us.

So Moses prayed for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live. So moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole And so it was if a serpent had bitten anyone when he looked at the bronze serpent He lived so god told them make this Statue of a snake out of bronze put it up on the pole And if you’ll just if you’ll so much as look at it you’ll live that seems easy enough Jesus said That this was an example of what he came to do.

He said just like the serpent was raised up in the wilderness so the Son of Man will be lifted up. And then he talks about the forgiveness of sins, the condemnation that we’re all under, and the forgiveness that God offers because the Son of Man has been raised up like that serpent. And so realizing that Jesus says, this is a picture, this really happened, by the way.

I’ve told you before, when I say something is a symbol or a picture, I don’t mean that it did not happen as a historical event. I believe it actually happened, but I believe God also is clever enough to orchestrate it to point to something that he knew was coming in the future. So Jesus said, this helps you understand what I’m coming to do.

So there are some parallels between this story that will help us understand what Jesus came to do and would help Nicodemus understand what Jesus came to do. And one of the parallels, one of the truths that’s illustrated by this story is the fact that all of humanity suffers under a curse, suffers under the curse of sin. Israel suffered under this curse.

These serpents were going in and out among the people, biting everybody they came into contact with. The people were suffering as a result of their sin. Now, the Bible doesn’t teach that every time we suffer, it’s because of something we’ve done wrong.

Suffering is in the world as a consequence of sin, but sometimes we suffer for the consequences of other people’s sin. Sin doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It affects everything.

But there are instances recorded in Scripture where somebody sinned, and they suffered according to that sin. This is one of those instances. God sent the serpents in here, and the seriousness of these bites that were inflicted demonstrated to them the seriousness of the sin that they were committing.

Not so much complaining, but in questioning the character of God. In saying God is not good. In treating God as though he was some kind of monster.

And by the way, as this poison spread among the people, it also demonstrates how the poison of that sin would spread among them if left unchecked. It’s like with snake bite. You’re supposed to apply a tourniquet and all these.

You’re supposed to quarantine off that area and get to the hospital because you don’t want it to spread through the whole body. It’ll affect everything. And so there was this curse of sin that came in the form of snake bite.

Well, that’s not just an Old Testament thing. The New Testament talks about a curse of sin when John 3. 18 says, he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Folks, it’s not just the unbelief that is the reason we’re condemned. People say, so a loving God really would send me to hell just because I didn’t believe in him? No, we’re condemned already.

He says here, we are condemned already. We are not condemned initially because of our unbelief. We are condemned because of the sin that’s within us.

We are condemned because of the sin that is part of our human nature and that we go and carry out. We are condemned because of that sin. We remain condemned because of our unbelief.

Because if God sends the lifeline and we reject it, then we remain stuck in the same predicament. But he says we’re condemned already. If Jesus came and we don’t believe, we’re condemned.

If Jesus never came, we’re condemned already. It’s just the nature of where we are in our sin. Sin is anything that disobeys or displeases God.

And people sometimes say, well, why is that such a big deal? Why can God not let it go? There was a horrific article several years ago, probably a decade ago now, in Christianity Today that compared God to a drama queen.

Oh, I preached several sermons about that. It said, why can’t God just let sin go? Because sin is that which is against the very nature of God.

If your children came to you and said, not just I’m disobeying you, but I hate everything about who you are. Would that be a problem for you? Anybody awake this morning?

Would that be a problem for you? Okay. Just making sure.

See, it’s not just that we’re choosing a different path. We are choosing the opposite of who God is. We are embracing everything that is offensive to Him, embracing everything that is the complete opposite of who He is at the essence of His being.

We are, in effect, choosing evil. And so we’ve sinned, and that sin separates us from a holy God. God is infinitely holy.

And like any just judge, He has to deal with that sin. He has to deal with that violation. It has to be punished.

And so we are laboring under the curse of sin. Their sin, again, was not in their complaining, but it was in their hostility toward God and even their hostility toward His blessings. He had blessed them with freedom.

And He had blessed them with food. And they were looking at both of these things like they were a curse, weren’t they? You’ve brought us out into the desert to die, and we loathe, we despise this bread that you’ve provided.

They were hostile toward God and his blessings, and if we’re honest, a lot of times we can be the same way. Our fallen human nature has this inherent hostility toward God that’s going to show up in our sinful words, actions, thoughts, and attitudes. It shows up.

I don’t care how moral of a life you live. I don’t care how few vices you have. We still have this streak of rebellion in us that when we face the instruction or the correction of God, something bows up inside of us and says, I don’t want anybody telling me how to live.

And it’s present in even the most religious among us because we’re sinners. All of us are sinners. Not just pointing fingers and trying to be the hellfire and brimstone preacher and say, you’re a sinner.

No, I’m a sinner. We are all sinners and that sin bears condemnation. It bears a consequence.

And Jesus says, Jesus said that we are condemned already. The first truth that we see paralleled in both stories is that all of humanity suffers under the curse of sin. But the second truth that both of these stories reveal is that the grace of God is freely offered to sinners.

The good news is that God looks at us even as undeserving as we are, even as hostile as we tend to be, and he offers us grace. Grace is a fancy church word, but it simply means the kindness of God that we do not deserve. That God is kinder to us than what we have earned or ever could earn.

And we see this in verse 8 here in Numbers. Then the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole and it shall be that everyone who has bitten when he looks at it shall live. God said, fine, you’ve disobeyed me.

You’ve been hostile. You’ve done all these things. You deserve the consequence you’ve received, but I’m going to make a way of escape.

I’m going to make a way for you to live. It’s not that they suddenly went from deserving death to deserving life. This second chance at life was a gift from God.

And in the New Testament, in the passage we looked at, verse 17 says, For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world. He didn’t need to because we were condemned already. He sent His Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

We did not deserve for God to sacrifice His own Son on our behalf, and yet that’s exactly what He did. And as I’ve said numerous times before, the world looks at this exclusive claim that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no man comes to the Father but by Him. The world looks at that and says it is narrow-minded to think that God would only offer one way.

It’s harsh to think of a God who would only offer one way of salvation, And my answer to that is that it is one way more than what we actually deserved. And so it’s not a question of God’s harshness that He would only offer one way. It is a testament to God’s grace that He would even offer one way.

Despite what they deserved, God in His kindness offered a way of escape through the bronze serpent. If we’re all guilty, then we all deserve His judgment, and none of us deserve to escape it. And in each of these cases, the way of escape came through lifting up that very thing that afflicted man.

It was the snake bite that afflicted man in the book of Numbers. And so God had them raise up a bronze serpent on a pole. For us, it’s the sting of sin that has bitten us, that has poisoned us.

So the Bible says that He made Him who knew no sin to be made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Jesus Christ took responsibility for our sins on His shoulders, and He was nailed to the cross in our place. Our sins were lifted up on that cross with Jesus Christ so that God could freely offer His grace to sinners.

And then a third truth that’s paralleled in both stories is that salvation requires us to believe God’s promises. It requires a response on our part. It says in Numbers 21.

9, So Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. And so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. God said, put the serpent on the pole.

Look at it and you’ll live. To my knowledge, that is not a medically tested and proven recipe for snake bite, right? I’ve never heard that anywhere else.

I’m not questioning that it happened. I believe it happened. But I’m saying this is not some treatment that they said, oh yeah, that sounds great.

We’ve always heard that’s an old folk remedy for snake bites is the statue thing. As a matter of fact, a lot of them probably reacted the way we would. If my child was bitten by a snake and I said, wait a minute, let’s make a statue.

Let’s say he’s lost his mind. You think you heard God tell you make a statue? That doesn’t make sense.

And I can almost guarantee you that somebody in Israel said, no, not doing that. Not doing that, that’s crazy talk. It made no earthly sense to look at that statue and think it was going to heal anybody.

So you know who did it? You know who turned and looked at the statue? The people who said, it doesn’t make sense, but God said it and I believe him.

The people that said, it doesn’t make sense, but God said it and I believe him. And again, this is not a blind leap of faith. God has a track record of proving himself and fulfilling his promises time after time after time to where God said, if God said, look at the serpent, look at the statue, hey, it sounds crazy, but God’s done some crazy stuff before and he’s always taken care of us.

That’s paralleled in what Jesus said in John 3, 14 and 15. Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. Today, people still say, you mean I just believe in Jesus and my sins are forgiven?

I’m suddenly good with God. All I have to do is have faith. That’s crazy talk.

See, everything within us, everything within our human nature, every other religion in the world says, if you want to get right with God, there’s stuff you’ve got to do. There’s this list of things you’ve got to work through. All these boxes you’ve got to check off.

Surely I’ve got to contribute something. God says, turn to Jesus and live. We’re only going to do that if we believe God’s promises.

It is a major stumbling block for a lot of people to say, I just have to believe in Jesus. No. I had a friend of mine who used to say, if I told people that the way to salvation, if we found some text that said the way of salvation was to get out in the middle of I-40 with a quarter and roll that quarter with your nose all the way to Oklahoma City, there’d be people who would do it.

I can’t imagine. Trusting Jesus just seems like a lot less work. But you know what?

There would be people who would do it. And we know that because there are people who climb mountains of stairs on their knees because they think it’s going to bring them closer to God. There are people who walk across hot coals or lay on beds of nails because they think it’s going to bring them closer to God.

There are people in the United States of America who whip themselves until they bleed and hang themselves on crosses up in secluded parts of the Rocky Mountains because they think it’s going to bring them closer to God. And so while I kind of chuckled when my friend said that about rolling the quarter with your nose, when I thought about it, he’s right. There are people who would do it.

But tell people God promised that he’s already paid for your sins and all you have to do is believe. people say no I’m not doing that that’s crazy it’s not a matter of things making sense now understand when I say this I’ve told you before I’m a skeptical person I’m an evidence person I’m not one to just say well that’s what I was told so go with it what I’m saying is we don’t have to understand everything before we take God at his word we have evidence that God has been faithful we have evidence throughout the scriptures God has kept his promises, that God has done everything he said he would do. And so I don’t have to understand why he did things this way.

I don’t have to understand why he would love me enough that he would send his son. I don’t have to have all my questions answered in order to believe God and his promises, because he’s already proven himself faithful time and time again. And so for people who said, you know what, it sounds crazy, but I believe God, they turned and they looked at the statue, and it wasn’t the statue that did anything for them.

As a matter of fact, centuries later, people were trying to pray to the statue. They were worshiping the statue as an idol. One of the kings had it destroyed.

There was no power in that statue. It was their belief in the promises of God. It was their faith.

And God’s saying, because of your faith, here’s what I’m going to do. The same thing is true for us if we’ll believe in the Son that He sent. Again, I’m not pushing blind faith.

I spent a month this spring talking to you about the historical evidence for the resurrection. If you’re looking for somebody who says faith means believing in spite of the evidence, you’re looking for the wrong guy. What I’m telling you is God has proven himself time and time again throughout scripture.

We have the stories, we have the testimony of history that God has been faithful and kept his promises. And his promise to us is that if we will turn to his son in faith and believe that we’ll be forgiven. God calls us in both cases to look up and live.

For us today, we are afflicted by sin. That sin that is within each of us separates us from God in this life and in the life that’s to come. But Jesus came to be lifted up from the earth on that cross, to bear responsibility for my sins and for yours, to shed his blood and to die in our place so that we could be forgiven.

And God’s promised to us what Jesus said in John 3 that we read. You can see it right there in red and white. Is that if we will believe, we will be forgiven and not perish.

This morning, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, that’s the only way for your sins to be forgiven. That’s the only way for you to be right with God. Is to recognize that you’ve sinned and that you need a Savior to believe that Jesus Christ died to be that Savior and rose again.

And then on that basis, ask God for the forgiveness that He promised, and you’ll have it.