It's more of an introduction
than I need. I'm sure a lot of people hear what's going on with
me from my grandma. She's like my secretary. You
deserve a raise. One thing that has been coming
to my mind this morning, as I've been thinking, is just the truth
of how free we are in Christ. And what got me thinking about
that was just like, just recently, just some of those times, I'm
sure it happens to all of us, where just things from your past come
up in your memory and you remember shameful things that you've done.
And you start to feel shame all over again. And it's easy for
the mind to dwell on those things. But this morning it just kept
coming to mind that I'm so free in Christ. He's set me free.
And whatever Whatever shameful thing that I'm dwelling on that
I've done in the past, whatever sins that I've committed, I can
be sure that that is a sin that Christ took to the cross with
him. And he paid for it, and he made
it his own, and it's no longer my weight to bear. It's his to bear. He bears it
for me, and I don't need to feel shame. I'm free from those things. And I think another way that
that applies is just in preaching. I got the chance to come in here
last night and just go over my sermon and just practice to empty
pews a little bit, and I think that that really helps me, but
just in this process of writing this sermon, I don't know, I
normally, I write my whole sermon, like literally every word that
I'm gonna say in like a manuscript, and then basically just like
read it off and have it memorized, but I'm trying to get away from
that and just work off of, you know, less on paper and more
just interaction and, I don't know, being led, I guess. And
so I was looking at, you know, this outline and I think my mind
can just be so deceived in just the way that I'm preparing and
that if my outline is perfect and all of it just clicks, then
the sermon is going to go really well and it's going to be greatly
used. And, you know, that's just not
the case. And I'm standing here empty pews
last night, like, practicing this, and I'm thinking, like,
man, I really don't like this outline. Like, it's not, like,
it's just not clicking, you know, and I wish it was better, and
this is, like, not gonna go well, but just that reassurance, even
this morning, that when you're lifting up the gospel, like, I'm free from just the stress
of needing this perfect outline, of needing these perfect words. And just the truth that if this
book is opened up and Christ is preached, God can be pleased
to use it. And so this morning, in this
message, this sermon title, Christ Must Be Lifted Up, and I just
pray that Christ is revealed through these words and that
we would be blessed by it. And so I'm gonna go to God in
prayer and then we'll get into the word. Heavenly Father, Lord, we love
you and we praise you. You're altogether worthy of praise.
And we're glad to be here this morning to worship you. And I
just pray the simple prayer that your spirit would teach us these
spiritual things. that these truths would sink
into our heart, that you would lead us into further love and
adoration of our Lord Jesus. Please let this sink into our
hearts. Amen. All right, so this morning, we're
gonna start in the book of Numbers, chapter 21. So if you're gonna
follow along in the Bible, go to Numbers 21, verses four through
nine. Christ must be lifted up, and
this passage is all about lifting Christ up, and it's in the Old
Testament, and I love that. I'm gonna read the passage here.
They traveled from Mount Orr along the route to the Red Sea
to go around Edom, but the people grew impatient on the way. They
spoke against God and against Moses and said, why have you
brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There's
no bread. There's no water. And we detest
this miserable food. And then the Lord sent venomous
snakes among them. They bit the people and many
Israelites died. The people came to Moses and
said, we sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against
you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.
And so Moses prayed for all the people. The Lord said to Moses,
And so Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then
when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake,
they lived. So this passage When we open it up, it takes
us to a tense time in the life of the nation of Israel. I think
tense is the best way that I could describe it. It's in the midst
of their 40-year wandering in the wilderness. And recently,
It's the account that Moses and Aaron disobeyed God at Meribah
when the people were thirsty and they needed water. And God
told Moses to speak to the rock and that God would provide water
in that way. And Moses was frustrated and
he, instead of speaking to the rock, he struck it three times. And God, in his provision, still
poured forth water from the rock. But regardless, Moses and Aaron
were disobedient. So that had happened recently
and. On their wanderings, Israel came to the land of Edom, and
they wanted to pass through Edom to get to the Promised Land.
And the ruler of Edom said, you can't pass through here. We don't
want you to pass through here. And they turned Israel away with
an army. And that would have made their
journey significantly shorter. But instead, they were turned
away and set to backtrack and take a longer path. They came
to Mount Orr, where Aaron died. Again, because of Moses and Aaron's
disobedience, God told them that Aaron would die on top of Mount
Orr, that he wouldn't see the Promised Land. And so Moses and
Aaron and Aaron's son climbed to the top of the mountain. And
they took off Aaron's clothes and put them on Aaron's son.
And then Aaron died on top of the mountain, and Moses and Aaron's
son came down. And then most recently, they moved on, Israel moved on,
and God gave them a victory, a military victory over this
nation of Arad. It was a Canaanite nation. And
the Israelites, they begged God. They said, if you will deliver
these people into our hands, we will totally destroy their
cities. And God listened to Israel's
plea and gave the Canaanites over to them. And so they had
military victory over this Canaanite nation. And so now they continue
to move on, and they're working their way around Edom, again
backtracking on this longer journey than they suspected. And they
are impatient, and they're grumbling, and they're complaining against
God, and they're complaining against Moses. Why have you brought
us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? You know, we
might as well have stayed in Egypt. They had food there. They
had water there. Why have you even brought us
out of Egypt? And here, in their grumbling
and their complaining, really the people, they share a problem
that's common to all people. And we share the same problem.
And it's this It's born of our flesh. It's the sinful tendency
to neglect the memory of God's previous provision and instead
to turn to bitterness in our current circumstances. It's to
forget what God has done graciously in our past and now that things
are tough to forget that and to grumble and complain against
God. And you know, there's no doubt
that these circumstances that Israel is facing, that they're
difficult circumstances. That's true. These were difficult
circumstances. They're wandering in the wilderness.
They were turned away. Their journey is longer. It's
probably very hot. They're almost out of water. They're probably out of the water
that God provided for them at Meribah. They're hungry and want
better food. Those are difficult circumstances.
And, you know, when our outward circumstances are difficult,
when things are tough in our lives, it's kind of like the
dial on our life is being turned up to 11, you know, and everything
seems louder and more urgent and more serious. And I think
a good way to illustrate that would just be like, me ask the
question, like, what's the dumbest way that you've ever hurt yourself?
What's the dumbest way that you've ever hurt yourself? The dumbest
way I've ever hurt myself is a couple of years ago and I'm
sitting in the kitchen and I'm studying and doing homework.
And then, you know, all of a sudden I have to go to the bathroom.
And so I get up and I am moving between the kitchen through the
hallway to the bathroom and I'm walking quickly and I caught
my pinky toe on the doorframe, and it cracked. And all of a
sudden, I'm in blinding pain, and I stick my fist in my mouth,
and I'm limping over to the couch, and I just, I honestly just sit
on the couch with my fist in my mouth for like a minute, just
bearing with the pain. And that's just a picture of
like, in a time like that, physical pain is one of those outward
circumstances that turns the dial up to 11. And you know,
when that happens, tend to be, stuff just pours out, like rage. All of a sudden, I'm just very
angry, you know, and if we ever need something to show us that
we're really a sinner, it's catching your toe on something. So the dial, it's turned up to
11, and stuff like that can push us towards sin, but it can never
make us sin. Outward circumstances, they don't
make us sin, they don't make us grumble, they don't make us
complain, but whenever we sin, it's always of our own accord,
and it's what's inside of us that comes out, right? It's a
chance that we've taken to sow seeds to the flesh instead of
sowing to the spirit, and that's what Israel is going through
here. And so in their grumbling and
in their complaining and in this time of difficult circumstances
and temptation, I see a great parallel here with Israel and
the Lord Jesus. In this 40 years of wandering
in the wilderness, when they're tempted by their lack of food
and lack of water and their difficult outward circumstances, we're
reminded of when our Lord Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. After he was baptized in the
Jordan, the spirit led him out into the wilderness and Jesus
was tempted. He was out there for 40 days
and 40 nights. The Israelites were in the wilderness
for 40 years. It's easy to see the parallels,
but when Israel sinned against God, when they grumbled and when
they complained, What was Jesus' reaction to temptation when Satan
tempted him in the wilderness? Well, Jesus, he was sinless in
the purity of his mind and in the purity of his being. It never
even crossed his mind to sin against God, to grumble and to
complain. And so there is a great parallel
as to where Israel is disobedient, Christ is obedient. When we are
disobedient, Christ is obedient. And so we could pray to God in
times of difficult outward circumstances, when we're tempted to complain,
when we're tempted to grumble, that we would be reminded of
our Savior Jesus and just the vast amount of riches that are
in Christ that are there for us. The bread that we've found
in Jesus that completely satisfies us, that completely nourishes
us, that gives us, you know, not physical life, but eternal
spiritual life that will last forever. Of the security that we find
being clasped tightly in God's hand. May we be reminded of those
things. And now, in Israel's grumbling
and in their complaining, in judgment, God sent these fiery
serpents. Some translations say fiery serpents.
God lets these snakes attack the Israelites, and they bite
them, and they poison them, and they die. And they die quickly.
Now these snakes, the color, they're probably red or gold
to correlate with just the types of snakes that were in that region.
Their bites had this venom that acted very quickly and when they
were bitten, they died. Like death was 100% when the
Israelites were bitten by these snakes. And the people, as they were
being bitten and as they were dying, they were scared and they
were led to repent of their sin. They said, we sinned when we
spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will
take the snakes away from us. So they recognized that they
were guilty of sinning against God and sinning against Moses.
And they begged Moses to plead to God to save them. And Moses
did. And God told Moses to fashion
a bronze snake and put it on a pole and put it up somewhere
where the whole congregation of Israel could see. And the serpent was made out
of brass. It's made out of brass or bronze, you know, and so it
resembled these very same things that were that were biting the
Israelites. Probably pretty close to the
same color, and it looked just like the snakes. And then God told Moses to do
this, and I'm assuming he told Moses to communicate to Israel
that whoever looks at this bronze snake on this pole in faith will
live, that God will save them from this judgment. And so Moses
communicates this to Israel, and then in the midst of this
judgment anybody who would look at the bronze snake on the pole
in faith would live. They would be saved from these
serpents and saved from the venom. When anyone believed the promise
of God and looked, they were instantly cured. And so that's
this account in the Old Testament of the bronze snake being lifted
up on the pole. And now I want to move forward
into the New Testament, into John chapter 3. And this is where
we'll spend the majority of our time. So if you're following
along, open up to John 3. We're gonna be centered on just
verses 14 and 15, but I'm gonna give the context of this whole
conversation with Nicodemus. And here it's this famous conversation
where probably the most famous verse of the Bible is found.
And Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a member of the Jewish ruling council,
he finds his way to Jesus by night. Not during the daytime,
but he comes to Jesus at night. And I'm not exactly sure if that
means that if it was found out that Nicodemus, a ruler of the
Pharisees, was found getting teaching from Jesus, that that
would be an embarrassment to him. I'm not sure, maybe. Or even there's one There's one source that said
this might even be a common thing for Jewish teachers to do is
to get together at night and to study the Bible. I'm not sure,
but maybe a little bit of both. I'm sure that Nicodemus probably
would have found some shame if it was found out that he was
sneaking to Jesus at night. But anyway. He came at night,
and it seems that he was almost eager to be taught by Jesus. That he was eager. He calls Jesus
Rabbi, and that was a sign of respect. That was a term of respect.
It means great or large teacher. And he says, Rabbi, we know that
you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform
the signs that you are doing if God were not with him. And
so it's clear that he has some level of respect for Jesus, and
he acknowledges Jesus as a great teacher from God. And he says,
you must come from God if you're teaching these things and doing
the things that you are doing. Probably in his understanding,
not meaning that Jesus literally came from heaven as incarnate
God on the earth, but just that he was taught by God or enlightened
by God in spiritual things. In moving on in the conversation,
Nicodemus probably asks Jesus some type of question concerning
the coming kingdom of God. It's not exactly recorded here
in the conversation. But from Jesus' response in verse
three, Nicodemus probably asked him about something about the
coming kingdom of God. And Nicodemus, he likely had
a severe misunderstanding about the kingdom of God. Going along with Jewish thought,
he probably thought that all of Israel would have a place
in the coming kingdom of God, that all Jews would take part,
and that the Messiah that was coming would lead them to military
conquest against Rome, to set them free from Rome, that the
Jews would be free. They probably had this understanding
that all Jews would take part in this because they're the descendants
of Abraham. Because they were the ones that
were delivered from Egypt, delivered out of slavery, and led to the
promised land. That they were the ones that
were given the law that they were God's chosen nation that
he was pleased to work through at that time. So it would have
been unthinkable that not every Israelite would have a place
in the coming kingdom of God. And Jesus, he opposes that sentiment. He opposes it strongly in his
response in verse 3. Jesus replied, "'Very truly I
tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are
born again.'" And so instead of being a descendant
of Abraham, instead of claiming this lineage, instead of claiming
this heritage that the Jews had, Jesus said, in order to see the
kingdom of God, one must be born again. And the conversation moves
on. Nicodemus is awestruck and he
says, how can someone be born when they're old? You know, taking
Jesus very literally in the sense of, am I supposed to literally
be born from my mother's womb again to see the kingdom of God? And further on down in the conversation,
Nicodemus says, how can this be? And he's awestruck, and he
doesn't understand, and this is an indicator that Nicodemus,
he's ignorant and reveals that he's still spiritually blind
and he's unable to discern the things of God, thinking that
one would need to be born again from his mother's womb and not
understanding the need to be spiritually born again. And Jesus,
he rebukes Nicodemus in the sense that Here, I'll just read it
in verse 10. You are Israel's teacher, said
Jesus, and do you not understand these things? And so Jesus' rebuke
to Nicodemus is that you're a teacher of Israel and you're supposed
to teach spiritual things. And if you don't understand these
simple spiritual truths, this simple doctrine of the kingdom,
of the necessity to be born again, then how will you understand
any other spiritual truths concerning the kingdom of God? And then Jesus He uses the bronze
serpent to illustrate the necessity of being born again. And I just
think that this is so cool and that Jesus is such a great teacher
that here he's talking to a teacher of Israel and he reaches back
to this account in Israel's history that Nicodemus would have known
and been acquainted with very well. and he reaches back and
he uses it to illustrate a spiritual truth to him. And Jesus is the
best teacher and we can be glad that we have his spirit living
inside of us that teaches us spiritual truths, that illuminates
the scripture to us that we would understand the truths of God
and of his kingdom. And so Jesus, in verses 14 and
15, says, And here we would call this bronze serpent from the
Old Testament, we would call it a type or an illustration
of Christ, a type of Christ. And a type, that just means it's
a person or an item or an event that acts in the same way as
some aspect of Christ. You know, it shows us a pattern
of some aspect of Christ and how he works. And these are all throughout
the Old Testament. And these different types of Christ, they
anticipate Jesus. They point forward to Jesus. And here Jesus reveals that the
bronze serpent here is a type of him. And these types, these illustrations
from the Old Testament, this just reveals that the Old Testament
It just makes it come alive. It's not just this this book
of moral teachings. It's not just all these laws.
But it's all meant to point forward to Christ. It all anticipates
Christ. I think about Noah's ark and
the spiritual truth of Christ that that points forward to.
That the ark saved Noah and his family from the floodwaters of
God's judgment. And that truth that anybody that
is found in Christ is saved from the floodwaters of God's judgment. That Christ is the ark. And if
we're found in him, we are saved. I think about the manna, the
bread that fell from heaven during Israel's wandering in the wilderness. This manna that falls from heaven,
that sustains the Israelites, that keeps them going, that feeds
them. In John 6, Jesus calls himself the bread of life. That whoever comes to me and
eats this bread will never be hungry again. that whoever goes
to Jesus, they'll never be hungry again, that they will be spiritually
satisfied, and that they will have not physical life, but they'll
have spiritual everlasting life. He's the bread of life. I think
about the Levitical priest system, that whole system of priests
and offerings and sacrifices, sin offerings that were offered
up Sacrifices for the people's sins
to appease the wrath of God. All pointing to Christ, how He
is our High Priest. How He was the perfect spotless
Lamb of God that was the perfect one-time sacrifice for His people's
sins. The sacrifice that was sacrificed
once on the cross for all time, for all of His people's sins,
never needing another sacrifice ever again. He's the sacrificial
lamb. And all of those things, they're
in the Old Testament, and they point forward to Christ. And so this just goes to show
that all scripture, all of scripture reveals Christ. And in Luke 24,
this is exemplified in the account of the two disciples who were
met by Jesus on their road to Emmaus. They're walking to Emmaus,
and the risen Lord Jesus, after his death on the cross and after
he rose again, he appears to these two disciples. And it said
that he taught them from the scriptures the things concerning
himself. And he started with Moses and
the prophets, and that means the Old Testament. He was teaching
them the things concerning himself from the Old Testament. And so when we read all of Scripture,
and we're reading it from this historical, redemptive context
of how God is working redemption throughout history, Scripture
is opened up to us. And it acts to point us to Christ. And now here we can talk a little
bit more about just this actual type that we have here, this
symbol of the bronze snake up on the pole and the parallels
that it has to Christ. And really this is amazing. It's
amazing. And, you know, I'm going to list
these things off. And we don't need to read into
them too much, but I think with an illustration or a type like
this, it's okay to say, and it's just gonna leave us in awe of
the parallels between this snake and Christ and how it points
to him. But the serpent was made of brass or bronze. And it is this meaner metal.
It wasn't the most precious metal, you know, of all those metals
is one of the cheaper ones. And so bronze was probably, out
of all metals, this improbable savior to be fashioned into this
snake for the Israelites. And in the same way, Isaiah 53
too tells us Christ had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him. Nothing in his appearance that
we should desire him. And I don't want to read too
much into the physical, actual, like what Christ looked like.
But the truth that he looked like a man. He was a man, like
us. A normal man. He didn't have
the appearance of glory or majesty. He had an unimpressive appearance
and he was an unimpressive and improbable savior. The bronze serpent was probably
shiny, right, that the Israelites could see it. Many of them were
probably very far off. There were a lot of Israelites.
There were thousands. So the congregation was probably
very big. So they probably couldn't see just the actual definition
of this bronze serpent, but if they could see even just the
glint from very far off of this shiny bronze serpent, they were
healed. Oh, we know that Jesus, he's the king of glory, shining
in splendor and in majesty, sitting in heaven, ruling and reigning. We know that the snake, that
it was shaped like a snake. It was shaped like the very thing
that was condemning the Israelites. And it had this venom, but this
bronze snake, it had no venom. It was shaped like the thing
that was biting the Israelites, but it had no venom inside of
it. It wasn't a real snake. And Jesus, he was man. He was man. But he knew no sin. There was no sin in the Lord
Jesus. He was perfectly spotless, completely
pure in mind and in heart. And this bronze snake, a snake
is an emblem of the curse that the fall of man, Satan used the
deceitfulness of the serpent to deceive Eve. And she ate of
the fruit, and Adam ate of the fruit, and mankind fell. And
so the snake is forever. It's this emblem of the curse. And the Lord Jesus on the cross,
Galatians 3.13, says that he became a curse for us. Or rather, he took on the curse
onto himself. And so we see all of these amazing
parallels of the serpent on the pole and the Savior on the cross. And it's just amazing. And so Jesus uses this as to show us this truth of the
necessity of being born again. And so let's talk about this
spiritual truth, the fact that we need to be born again. And
so Jesus had to be lifted up on the cross to save us from
our sin. He had to be lifted up. And I have recently been reading
this biography of this man named George Whitefield. And George Whitefield, he was
this English-born preacher in the early 1700s, the mid-1700s. And he came over many times from
England to the United States. Well, it wasn't the United States
then, but it was the colonies. And he came and he was an itinerant
preacher, meaning that he traveled all over the place. And he set
up shop and he preached to the people. And this was at the very
beginning and going on into this period of the Great Awakening
where the gospel was preached throughout the colonies and many
came to know Christ. And George Whitefield, man, he
was a character. He was a tall guy, and he was
broad in stature, and it's said that he had a lazy eye, and he
wore these robes, and he would set up shop in these fields. And it was said that his voice
thundered and boomed across the fields, and that tens of thousands
of people all at once came and listened to him preach and that
he could be heard from miles away. And it was said that over
the course of his itinerant ministry, that over 78% of all of the Americans
in the colonies heard him preach at some point or another. And
so I'm reading this biography and I'm like, man, like this,
he's amazing. And this part the other day is
talking about his what was included in his preaching. What was the
content of his preaching? What was the content of his evangelism? And this particular section was
saying that he did not shy away from preaching the doctrine of
sin in the fall of mankind. And it kind of worked its way
through one of his sermons and just his teaching on sin. And so I want to talk about that
a little bit, of just like this is the necessity of being born
again. This is why Jesus needed to be
lifted up on a cross to save his people from their sins. The teaching on sin, it seems
to have fallen out of so many pulpits. Right? It seems to have fallen out of
so many pulpits. And, you know, that might just
be for the fact that it would be unpopular. You know, if people
come to church and they hear about how they're inherently
a sinner, they won't come back again. Right? And our pews will
be maybe less full if people are offended. But it's very necessary to preach
on this truth because it's exactly why we need a Savior. And if we don't understand this,
then we don't understand Christ. We don't understand why he came.
And so in this doctrine of sin, and why we need to be saved,
we need to be saved for our active disobedience against God. We need to, and active disobedience,
I mean like our actions, like in the things that we do, you
know, like lying, stealing, cheating, murdering, anything that goes
against God, anything that's disobedient to God. You know,
and in those active ways, we've sinned countless times against
God when we have disobeyed Him, right? And not only in our active
disobedience, but in our original sin. It's not only what we do,
but it's who we are that makes us guilty before God. It's who
we are. And by that I mean that we all have this sinful, fallen
nature that we are born with. And that is because Adam, the
first man, when he sinned, mankind fell. Because he was our head. He was our representative of
mankind. And Romans teaches this truth,
that when our head fell, we all fell. And when Adam sinned, we
all sinned. And you know, I used to think
when I heard that, like, that is not fair. That's not fair,
that I would be punished for something that my ancestor did,
you know? It says, and come to realize,
like, that's not fair, says the guy that has actively sinned
against God in rebellion tens of thousands of times, right?
You know, who am I to talk? I'm not any better than Adam. And in this sinful nature, it's
this It's deep down to the core. It touches every aspect of who
we are, every faculty in our mind and in our heart. And that
doesn't mean that we're as bad a sinner as we could be. It doesn't
mean that we're all running around murdering people. We're not all
murderers, but it means that every single part of us is touched
by sin. And not only our active disobedience
and our sinful nature, but we're guilty of self-righteousness. Of self-righteousness. Of thinking
that the things that we do, you know, can somehow make up for
the bad things that we do. That we can do good works in
order to cancel out our debt with God. You know, the more,
sure, I'm a sinner, and I do bad things every once in a while,
but you know, they're really not that bad, and they definitely
don't deserve eternal punishment. And so if every time that I sin,
I rack up a little debt with God, then I just need to go to
church more. I just need to give generously
to people more. I just need to read my Bible
more. I need to be a better guy in
order to cancel out that debt. It is the self-righteousness
that thinks that any of our good works hold any sway with God. They really don't. When we, outside
of Christ, if I try to do something good that earns merit with God,
it's like I'm handing God this white rag that is just stained
by my sin. That I'm trying to hand Him something
clean, but I'm handing Him something dirty, because my dirty hands
are getting all over it, and it's unacceptable to a perfectly
good and perfectly pure God. And not only are we guilty of
self-righteousness, we're guilty of unbelief. Of unbelief. And in saying that, I mean just
the unbelief, well, first of all, like the
unbelief of God in general, maybe that he even exists, but also
just the unbelief that I'm a sinner and I need saving, right? And I'm not willing to believe
that, but I'm willing to believe that I'm a pretty good guy on
my own. So all of those things add up
and it's really a total depravity before God, meaning that every
single part of us is sinful. And so this is why Jesus needed
to be lifted up on the cross to save us from our sins. Because
of our sin, really our sin and our sinful
nature, look into that parallel of the Israelites and the bronze
serpent, their venom from those snakes that was coursing through
their veins and killing them, 100% kill rate, that is our sin and
our sinful nature. Coursing through our veins, 100%
kill rate. Nothing that we can do to save
ourselves from that venom, completely reliant on an outside source
to save us, to be our cure. But moving along to God's justice,
you know, that act of sending the serpents on Israel, that
was an act of justice. That was an act of bringing justice. And our sin against God, it requires
justice. God is perfectly good, and he's
perfectly holy. And really any amount of sin,
even if I did one thing that disobeyed God, I would be deserving
of God's righteous punishment. Sin can't be in the presence
of God. God needs to punish sin. And
that is completely right. You know, like, that's an aspect
of God that is actually praiseworthy, right? That God loves justice
and that God does justice and carries out justice. If God didn't
carry out justice, we would hate him. We would hate the idea of
him. That all these unrighteous acts,
that all of this debauchery and wickedness that is done on the
earth will go unpunished. We inherently love the idea of
justice and want justice to be done. And so it makes sense that
in our disobedience and our sin against God, it needs to be punished,
that he is a God that loves justice and he does carry it out. And so without this cure, without
this outside source that saves us from our sin, we are rightly
underneath the condemnation or rightly underneath the wrath
of God in a very deserving way. So we need somebody to step in
for us. We need somebody to step in for
us. We need a savior to be lifted up. We need a bronze snake that
is lifted up that we can look at. That we might be saved. We need a way to be born again. We need a way to be born again,
to be rid of our inherent sinful nature that is deserving of condemnation. We need to be born by God's Spirit. And so Christ, he was lifted
up on the cross to make atonement for sinners, to make atonement
for his people. And in the very same way that
God told the Israelites that whoever looks at this serpent
up on the pole will live, anybody who looks at Christ and his atoning
work on the cross in faith and trusts in it will live. That venom that's coursing through
our veins, that sin that is an inherent part of our nature. We will be free from it. We will
be cured. On the cross, he took on our
sin. He paid for it, he made it his.
When God punished Jesus on the cross, he was punishing a guilty
man. Not in the sense that Jesus was
ever sinful, but in the sense that Jesus took my sin and called
it his, just as if he was the one that did it. God made atonement. for the sins
of His people that all who would look at Jesus and His work on
the cross would live, that they would have eternal life, that
we would no longer need to pay for our sins, that justice could
be done on the cross, that justice could be rightly done, that my
sin could be punished, but I'm not the one that pays for it.
We're not the one that pays for it, but Jesus is the one that
pays for it. Rightly making a way that justice
could be done, but God could show his mercy and show his love. And so how do we look to Christ
on the cross? It's said that we need to look
at him that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.
How do we look at him? Well, God's Spirit needs to work
and we need to be born again. There's this necessity that we
must be born again because of our inherent sinful nature. Because we can't do any good
work. We can't turn to God by ourselves in our sin, but we
need something outside of ourselves to save us. We need God's spirit
to work in our hearts to convict us of our sin, to convince us
that we are sinners and that we are not right with God and
that we need, that we stand underneath His condemnation that we are
rightly deserving of the wrath of God that is poured out on
sin. The Spirit needs to work in us
and convince us of that truth. God's Spirit needs to give us
faith, needs to give us the faith, the faith that looks at Christ
on the cross and grasps Jesus and says, He is mine, that He
is my Savior, that He took my sin and paid for it. That's what
happens when we're born again, that the Spirit works in us. In this conversation, Jesus says
that the Spirit is like the wind, and we don't know where it's
coming. We don't know where it's going.
We can't see the wind. I don't know if nowadays that
we have technology that actually tells us where the wind is coming
from. I'm not sure, but the Spirit is like the wind and that we
can't see it, and we can't see where it goes. So we must be born again. We need to pray that God's Spirit
will illuminate His truth to us, that He would convict us
of our sin. We need to pray and beg that
God would give us the faith to make Christ precious to us, to
make Christ a savior for us, that when we see Christ on the
cross, that we see a bleeding God that went there to pay for
the sins of his people. And so Jesus needs to be lifted
up. He needs to be lifted up to save us from our sins. And
Jesus needs to be lifted up in ministry and in the proclamation
of the word to save God's people from their sins. So he needs
to be lifted up on the cross, but in our preaching and in our
conversations, Jesus needs to be lifted up. And there's, excuse
me, We need to lift Jesus up through
the preaching of the gospel, and we need to trust the Holy
Spirit that he will work and that he will do everything. You know, there's a lot of things
that get lifted up in the place of Jesus in the pulpit. there's moral teaching that gets
lifted up in the place of Jesus. You know, that if we would just
do better, if we would sin less and strive to be better people,
then we'll find peace with God, that we'll have peace with God. there are really other versions
of Jesus that get lifted up on the cross instead of the Jesus
that we see in the Bible. Some people might lift up this
nebulous, obscure, kind of hazy, Savior who died a long time ago
on a cross for sins. And now we have this book that
we need to get together and read every Sunday, but it's really
not requiring anything of us. Some people nowadays, authentic
is the buzzword. That we need to be authentic
in our church. that we need authentic community,
that people need to see real community, that people need to
see real preaching, that people need to see a real love for the
people who are down and out, the poor, the homeless, that
people need to see this authentic Christianity that is good for
the world. And so many times when people
use this term authentic, they're not talking about the authentic
Christ. I'll tell you what, like the
real authentic thing is this Christ who was born from a virgin,
who was completely sinless, that knew no sin, that he lived on
this earth and he was completely obedient to God, completely pure
in mind and in heart, who knew no sin, who loved his Father,
who perfectly obeyed his Father 100%, who went to the cross, who came to
the earth to die, who didn't come to the earth to be served
as a king, but came to serve. He came to the earth to die.
And he went to the cross and he was lifted up on a cross,
beaten and bloody. And on the cross, this transaction
was made. where the sins of his people,
of anyone who would ever believe on him, that their sins were
laid on this perfect, pure, spotless lamb. And the punishment of God,
this wrath of judgment on sin was poured out on the one person
that didn't deserve it, on the one person that didn't
deserve it. And so it's there on the cross that justice was
done, that sin was paid for once and for all, that this transaction
was made, that the worst of us was laid on Christ and the best
of him was laid on us. And of course, he was taken down
from the cross and he was laid in a tomb. And three days later,
he rose again. He rose again in the inherent
power of his own person. He rose from the grave, showing
that not even death, not even sin, could hold the Son of God. Not even death could hold this
Savior in the grave, and he rose again showing that he was this
victorious Savior. That our greatest enemies that
we face in this life, sin and death, that he was victorious
over both. that He won the victory on the
cross once and for all. And then, of course, He ascended
into heaven and took His seat at the right hand of the Father,
and there He is ruling and reigning, and He's very alive. We don't
worship a dead Savior. We worship a living Savior who
is there right now, ruling, reigning. It is there that Jesus holds
salvation in the palm of his hand. He's paid for it. That anyone who calls upon him
to be saved will be saved. It is said that anyone who comes
to me, anyone who is weary and heavy-laden. If they come to
me, they will find rest." And Jesus means eternal rest. It's this offer that Jesus gives.
If you come to me, you will find rest. If you've been striving
underneath the weight of sin, If you've been striving underneath
the burden of trying to prove yourself to God and earn favor
with God, come to me and you'll find rest. You don't need to
strive anymore. You don't need to bear that burden
anymore. I will take it. Jesus gives the offer that whoever
comes to me, I will in no way turn them away. Well, that sounds free, doesn't
it? That sounds like a free gospel.
That sounds like free salvation. That sounds just as free as look
to this bronze serpent on this pole and live. Just look at it. These Israelites, It doesn't
matter if they were deep in the throes of pain and death, if
the venom was just about to consume them and they were perishing.
It doesn't matter if they had just been bitten or if they were
yet to be bitten. If they looked to that serpent
in faith, they would live. It doesn't matter if they were
on the very far edges of this massive congregation and they
couldn't even see the form of this serpent. But if they looked
in that direction and they caught just a glimpse of this glint
coming off of this snake, if they looked in faith, they would
live just as well as if they were right there in front of
it. This is a free offer of salvation
that Christ gives, whoever. And I think that that free offer
of the gospel is just a glorious thing. And that needs to be preached. That whoever comes to Jesus,
Jesus will give them eternal life. They will be forgiven of
their sin. I pray that the Holy Spirit helps
people to recognize that they're sinners, right? That they recognize
that they're sinners, but then that it would be revealed that
there is a perfect Savior who came to save sinners. that people might be distraught
by their sin, but then find the loving embrace of the friend
of sinners who came to die for sinners. And anyone who comes
to Jesus, Jesus will take their sin from them. That burden will
be taken off their shoulders. No longer will they need to work.
No longer will they need to strive. But Jesus paid it all, and he
will wrap them in his righteousness. the righteousness of a man who
never sinned. He will wrap them in his righteousness
as if they'd never sinned in their life. God will look at
them and see a pure and blameless and spotless child of God. And you will be made his child. You will be adopted into his
family. where all of these rich blessings
that Christ earned for you will be kept for you in heaven. And then when you die, Christ
will come and he will take you to heaven where you will enjoy
those immeasurable blessings that he earned for us. And he will take you and you
will spend forever with him. Isn't that a thought, that we
will spend forever with Jesus, enjoying the blessings that he
purchased for us by his blood? That's authentic. That's the
authentic gospel. That is the gospel that needs
to be lifted up. And we're not to do the saving. We're not to urge people to profess
to be saved. We're to leave that all up to
the Spirit. We're to preach the truth. We are to lift Christ
up in preaching. We are to lift Christ up in sharing
the gospel. And let the Spirit do the rest.
And let the Spirit do the rest. So I think that's where we're
gonna stop today. And I'm gonna end us here in prayer. Lord, thank you for these truths.
Thank you for the truth of the new birth, the second birth. Thank you for those of us that
are believers, that you have worked in our heart to reveal
our sinful nature to us, to reveal that we can't work for salvation,
that we need to be saved. Thank you for the faith to look
at the cross, for making Christ precious to us, that we see a savior who took
our sins on himself, who paid our debt. We pray for the world, Lord,
that your Holy Spirit would move across the world. We know that
you will move where you will, and we ask that you would be
pleased to bring conviction of sin, to bring people to the foot
of the cross, to bring people to the Savior. We ask that many would be saved. I remember when I was walking
on this earth, dead in my sins, in my transgressions, thinking that I would be all
right. Thank you for your spirit, for
revealing that to me. Thank you for saving me. Thank
you for a wonderful Savior. Thank you for this new life that
follows being born again where We can actually do things in
worship that please you, that you're pleased by the worship
of your children. That we can live for you, that
we can serve you. Thank you for all of these truths,
Lord. We pray this in your name, amen.