Look and Live

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I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to John chapter 3, and if you would please hold your place at verse 13.
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John chapter 3, verse 13. Before we read
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I want to have you consider a question. What is the ultimate focus of the
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Bible? What is the ultimate focus of the
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Bible? That's a somewhat difficult question because when we consider the fact that the
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Bible doesn't just deal with one subject, I've heard it said and I think it's true that the
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Bible could be broken into four parts. The fall, excuse me, creation, fall, redemption, restoration.
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That's the whole Bible in four words. But if we were to step back from all of that and say, what is the ultimate center?
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What's the one thing that draws it all together? Maybe better asked would be the question, who is the person that the
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Bible focuses on? Who is, you got it. Who is the focus of the
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Bible? The answer is Jesus Christ. This is what is called having a
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Christocentric view of the Bible. Christ is at the center of it all.
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Christocentric interpretation I believe is in line with what we learn in the New Testament.
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Paul said his aim was to preach the Gospel, which means he was to preach
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Christ. He directed Timothy, preach the Word. But what was the
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Word when he was telling him that? It was the Old Covenant Scriptures. It was the, what we call the
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Old Testament. They didn't have the New Testament yet. It was currently in the process of being written and then would take even longer to be recognized.
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And then to be canonized as determined this is God's Word. And yet the
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Apostle Paul tells the preacher Timothy, preach the
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Word. Preach Christ. On the
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Emmaus Road, Jesus modeled an approach to expositing the
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Old Testament Christologically. If you remember when Jesus was on the road to Emmaus, He was talking with the two disciples.
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And in Luke chapter 24 it says, Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the
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Scriptures the things concerning Himself. He interpreted in all the
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Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Jesus' key statement in that chapter is this,
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He said, Everything written about Me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the
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Psalms must be fulfilled. What's He saying in that verse?
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He's saying the law, the prophets and the Psalms are written about Me.
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And everything written about Me must be fulfilled.
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Hermeneutics is the science and art of interpreting the
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Bible. Graham Goldsworthy, who is a commentator, wrote about interpreting the
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Bible according to Christ as the center. And this is what he wrote.
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He said, The hermeneutical question about the whole Bible correlates with this question, What do you think of Christ?
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The hermeneutical center of the Bible is therefore Jesus in His being and in His saving acts. The Jesus of the
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Gospel. We can say that while not all Scripture is the Gospel, all Scripture is related to the
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Gospel. That is its center. The Bible makes a very radical idea inescapable.
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Not only is the Gospel the interpretive norm for the whole Bible, but there is an important sense in which
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Jesus Christ is the mediator of the meaning of everything that exists.
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In other words, the Gospel is the hermeneutical norm for the whole of reality.
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Everything that has ever happened or ever will happen is meant to point to the glory of Jesus Christ.
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He is the center of history. And so this morning, we're going to continue our discussion last week.
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Last week we were looking at what we call the connection points of Scripture.
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Because we're studying through John's Gospel. And in John's Gospel, Jesus has this interaction with this man named
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Nicodemus. And as he's talking to Nicodemus, at one point he says, You're the teacher of Israel and you don't understand these things?
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He had just been talking about regeneration and the gift of the Spirit and how the Spirit works.
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And he says, You are the teacher of Israel and you don't understand. You're not making the connections.
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You're not seeing the connection points between what I'm telling you and what has been written. And so today we're going to continue that conversation in verse 13.
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And we're going to see this amazing connection point that Jesus makes regarding himself in a relatively obscure passage from the
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Old Testament. A passage from the book of Numbers, chapter 21.
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Where God sent serpents to bite the people of God as a judgment upon them.
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And God then provided provision for their healing. And Jesus uses that event as a pointing to himself.
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So let's stand and read, beginning at verse 13.
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Jesus is speaking in verse 13 and says, No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the
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Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the
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Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word. I thank you that now as we have the opportunity to dive into these verses.
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Lord, I thank you that we have this opportunity to study this. And I pray that while we do this, that you would keep me from error.
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Oh God, as you know, as I pray every week, I'm a fallible man, capable of preaching error.
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And for the sake of your people and my conscience and your great name, I pray that you would protect me from wandering, protect me from hubris, protect me from false teaching.
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As all of those things, I am certainly susceptible to. I pray that you would fill me afresh with your spirit and that your spirit would be the teacher.
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That as the words go across the ear, that the spirit would cause them to go into the mind and even into the heart.
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And Lord God, that you would change hearts through the preaching of your word. For the believers,
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Lord, I pray that their faith would be increased, that their conformity to the
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Lord Jesus Christ would be grown. And Lord, for those who do not know
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Christ, who have not bowed the knee to him,
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I pray today that they would look and live. Lord, may it be according to your word, in Christ's name, amen.
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In John chapter three, Jesus is visited by a man named
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Nicodemus. We've talked about this over the last several weeks. But just to remind you of the context,
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Jesus is visited by this man, Nicodemus. He is called a ruler of the Jews, which means he is probably a member of the
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Sanhedrin, which is the Jewish ruling council. Jesus tells him of the doctrine of regeneration.
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He says, unless you are born again, you will not see the kingdom of God.
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Unless you're born of water and of the spirit, you will not enter the kingdom of God.
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And thereby, he tells Nicodemus the barrier for entrance to the kingdom. You will neither see it nor enter it.
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You will neither perceive it nor participate in it if you are not born of the spirit.
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And so we have stressed the last three weeks as we have examined the doctrine of regeneration. What does it mean?
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What does it not mean? We have stressed this truth. If you are not born again, meaning born of the spirit, meaning born of God, John chapter one, verse 13, if that has not happened, you are not fit for the kingdom of God.
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We are born flesh. That which is born of flesh is flesh, but we must be born of the spirit that we are prepared for the kingdom, which itself is spiritual.
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And so Jesus said, unless you are born again, you will not enter the kingdom of God.
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Nicodemus did not understand Jesus's words. Nicodemus was confused. Nicodemus says, how can these things be?
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Jesus derides Nicodemus. You are the teacher of Israel and you don't know these things?
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And last week we talked about why he should know these things. Why should he understand these things?
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These things are explained and prophesied in the Old Testament, something Nicodemus was supposed to be an expert in.
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Jesus said, you are the teacher of Israel and you don't know these things. You haven't made the connections.
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And so, when we arrive at verse 12, we find ourselves in this last verse.
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Jesus said, if I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
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Jesus making a distinction there between the things that he has told him. He has used earthly examples being born.
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He has used earthly examples of the wind and the trees. He has used these earthly examples.
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He says, if you can't understand the earthly things, how will you believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
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And therefore, we move into verse 13. And in verse 13, we have
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Jesus making a statement about himself that is probably one of the most subtle references to his own divinity that is in the scripture and is probably easily overlooked.
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We believe Jesus is God in the flesh. Amen. We believe Jesus is the second person of the
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Trinity. We hold to what is known as Nicene Orthodoxy, meaning we believe that the
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Nicene Council actually got it right when it explained that there is one God and there are three persons who are called
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God and these three persons are co -equal, co -eternal, and distinct, that the Father and the
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Son are homoousios, meaning they are of the same substance. They are of the same essence.
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So when we refer to God the Father, we refer to God the Son, we refer to God the
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Spirit, we are talking about one God in three persons. This is important because there are a lot of people today who want to argue that.
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There are a lot of people today who want to come to your house early on a Saturday morning, dressed very nicely, bringing their awake magazine to give to you, to tell you that Jesus Christ is not
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God in the flesh, but is in fact a creation of God.
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They'll say he's a God, but not the God. That is a heresy called
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Arianism. It was condemned in the fourth century and it continues to be condemned today by all
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Christians, because it is not what the Bible teaches. And there are many places in the
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Bible where Jesus is outright called God. They'll say the Bible never calls him God. In the beginning was the
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Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the
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Father, full of grace and truth. It just said the Word was God. So it actually does say he is
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God. But there are many other places where we see subtle references to Jesus being
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God. Jesus went around forgiving sins. And you remember what the Pharisees said when he forgave sins?
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Who is this man who forgives sins? He makes himself equal with God. Yes, they weren't wrong.
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They were just wrong that he wasn't equal with God. They weren't wrong that what he was doing made himself equal with God, because nobody can forgive sins except God alone.
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And Jesus went around forgiving sins. Jesus demonstrated his own divinity over, over, over and again.
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And so when we come to verse 13, we can't miss this. This is a reference to his own divinity.
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Notice what it says. No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the
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Son of Man. Notice right away, it says no one has ascended into heaven.
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I don't know about you, but when I read that, my initial thought is, wait a minute. I know at least one guy.
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His name's Elijah. And wasn't he caught up in a whirlwind?
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And did he not ascend into the heavens? And we don't know exactly how
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Enoch got to be with God, but it said he walked with the Lord and he was not, for the
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Lord took him. We don't know if he actually ascended into heaven like Elijah did, but we know he went to be with God and didn't have to die, which is a wonderful blessing.
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And those of us who are alive when the Lord comes, we'll get to experience that. We won't have to die. That's a blessing. So what does
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Jesus mean when he says no one has ascended into heaven? Well, I am convinced that Jesus is actually referencing an
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Old Testament passage here from the book of Proverbs. If you'd like to turn there, I'll show you why
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I come to this conclusion. Go to Proverbs chapter 30 and go to verse 1.
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The words of Agur, sons of Jacob. The oracle.
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The man declares, I am weary, O God, I'm weary, O God, and worn out. Surely I'm too stupid to be a man.
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First of all, one of my favorite verses. You ever felt that way? You just, I'm just so dumb.
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I'm too stupid to be a man. I'm not the understanding of a man. I've not learned wisdom, nor have
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I knowledge of the Holy One. Who has ascended to heaven and come down?
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Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment?
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Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name and what is his son's name?
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Surely you know. So the writer of Proverbs here, this proverb of Agur, is personifying
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God himself, or personifying wisdom as God himself. And he's saying, man, in comparison to God's wisdom, we are foolish, we are stupid.
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Who is it that can ascend and descend? Who is it that understands the mind of God? That's the idea.
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Who can understand the mind of God? Who can go up and come down?
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The idea is only God. Only God can understand himself, the Spirit of God.
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Doesn't 1 Corinthians say that? Who understands the mind of God? Only the Spirit of God, right? The idea, who really is it?
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We are people, and as a people, we are ignorant. Who can it be who grasps the wind in his fists, and wraps up the waters as a garment?
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Only God. So this idea of who has ascended and descended, it's
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God. So Jesus here, in verse 13, going back to John, Jesus says, no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven.
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This is not talking about Elijah going up in a whirlwind. This is not talking about Enoch walking with God.
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This is talking about the relationship of the Son and the Father. Who has been in the presence of the
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Father from all eternity? Who has ascended? He who descended.
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And note this, beloved. Jesus descended from heaven in the incarnation.
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Jesus was not created in the womb of Mary in his divinity.
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Now his humanity came into being in the womb of Mary. But his divinity has always been.
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And in the womb of Mary, what took place was that tremendous hypostatic union where the eternal divine nature of the
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Son was joined to the person of Jesus of Nazareth in the womb of Mary, where he then grew as the
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God -man. And Mary has been called Theotokos, the God -bearer, because she bore
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God in her womb. The God -man. Who has ascended into heaven?
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The one who descended from heaven. And then he identifies himself as what?
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The Son of Man. The Son of Man. A messianic title.
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One of Jesus's favorite titles to use of himself. And if those of you who remember
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Brother Mike's class as he taught through the book of Daniel just a few months ago, as he was teaching through Daniel chapter 7.
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That's been more than a few months now. But a year ago when he was in Daniel chapter 7. It says in verse 13,
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I saw in the night visions and behold the clouds of heaven and there came one like a son of man and he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom and all the nations and peoples and languages should serve him.
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His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall never pass away and his kingdom is one that shall not be destroyed.
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That is the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's identifying himself here. He says who has ascended into heaven?
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No one has ascended into heaven except for he who descended from heaven. And who is he? He's the Son of Man. And who is the
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Son of Man? Me. You see
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Nicodemus, getting back to the context. You see Nicodemus, I've explained you earthly things. Imagine if I told you heavenly things.
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No one has ascended into heaven. No one understands those things except he who has descended from heaven.
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The Son of Man. Why? Because I come from the
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Father and I know all. You can't even understand the basics.
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You can't even understand the earthly. Imagine if I told you the heavenly things.
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Can you, just for a moment, can you imagine what it's going to be like when we get to heaven and we learn all the things we don't know now?
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Can you imagine for a moment what it's going to be like when we're in the presence of God and God begins to open our eyes to things that we just can't even fathom right now?
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What an amazing moment it's going to be. Just the reality of seeing Christ face to face is going to make all of us fall to our knees.
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But the experience of growth, the experience of glorification, when we see him as he is, we shall be as he is according to 1
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John. We shall be glorified and in that moment we will understand what we've never understood.
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Like the baby in the womb cannot understand the life outside his mother's womb so too can we not truly understand the life on the other side of the veil of this life because when we step into eternity all things will be new to us.
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And these are the things Christ understood. No one has ascended into heaven except for he who descended from heaven, the
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Son of Man. Now, we move to verse 14.
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And in verse 14, Jesus chooses by his grace to give
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Nicodemus an Old Testament analog to help him understand at least a portion of what he is about to explain to him.
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Because what he's about to explain to him is he's about to explain to him the basics of salvation.
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And that is that salvation is by faith in the provision that God has given.
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Let me say that again. Salvation is by faith in the provision that God has given. Now we could say, understanding what we know, salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone and Christ alone, right?
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But prior to the coming of Christ, how did people get saved? Did they get saved by keeping the law?
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No. They got saved by trusting in the provision God had made. It's always been by grace through faith in the provision that God has made.
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All of those provisions in the Old Testament pointed forward to the one final provision of Christ. But it's always been that.
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How did they get saved? They trusted in the provision of God. And so Jesus, trying to connect this in the mind of Nicodemus, he's going to point him to an
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Old Testament picture of himself. And he's going to say, you remember that? Well, that was actually about me.
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So, let's actually look at the example that he gives.
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Verse 14, it says, And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the
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Son of Man be lifted up. Right away, I won't ask for a show of hands, because it would be unfair.
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But I wonder how many of you remember this story? Because I'll tell you,
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I remember it very well. Because it's the worst judgment in the
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Old Testament, in my opinion. Because I carry a very severe case of Ophidiophobia.
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And if you don't know what Ophidiophobia is, that is the fear of snakes.
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They ain't got to be poisonous. I don't care. I don't even like lizards. That's just snakes with legs.
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I just don't care. I don't like any of it. My son, one day, my wife called me.
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I was in my office at the house. She said, come outside. Your son caught a snake. No, thank you.
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I walked outside. He looked like Moses. He's holding the snake. I was expecting him to become a staff. This is the worst story in the
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Old Testament, in my opinion. In fact, my first class I ever took in seminary was the book of Numbers.
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And I don't remember reading this story growing up. I remember the first thing they said, taking the class on the book of Numbers. We're teaching you how to understand the
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Old Testament, exegete the Old Testament. You're going to study the book of Numbers. Go home, read the whole thing this week. That was our first assignment.
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Just read the book of Numbers all the way through. I get to chapter 21 and I, this is awful.
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So with that in mind, let's turn there and read it. Turn in your Bibles and read this awful story. It's in Numbers chapter 21 and verse 4.
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Numbers chapter 21 and verse 4. Remember, this is during the
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Exodus. The people of God are in their wilderness wanderings and they have a tendency to murmur and complain against God.
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Sound familiar? Well, this is what we read in verse 4.
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It says, From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the
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Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way.
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And the people spoke against God and Moses. Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?
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For there is no food and no water and we loathe this worthless food.
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I just want to stop right there for a moment and say this. Isn't it ironic that they say there is no food and we loathe this worthless food?
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Yeah, they just said there is no food. No, there's not the food they wanted. They had plenty of the food
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God provided. What did God provide them in the wilderness? Manna, which means bread from heaven.
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Actually, actually manna, the word manna means what is this? It's the idea of what is it?
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And they would gather it up and they would make cakes out of it and different things, bread and all, and they would eat it. They didn't like it.
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They got tired of it. It's like being on the carnivore diet. Eventually, even a steak gets old.
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No, it's just they got tired of it. They didn't want it anymore. There's no food.
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There's no water and we loathe this worthless food that you've given us. We loathe the provision that you've given us.
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Verse six, then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died.
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A fiery serpent is a poisonous snake. And it tells us right here, the judgment of God was the sending of these serpents into the camp so that they would bite them and they would experience the pain that comes with dying from snake bite.
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I don't know if you've ever seen a poisonous snake bite. It rots the flesh.
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It sends poison to the heart and eventually it causes the body to die.
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It's painful. It's miserable. And it's the judgment of God on the people.
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And the people came to Moses, verse seven, and said, we have sinned for we have spoken against the
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Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us.
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So Moses prayed for the people. Right away, I just want to commend Moses here.
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Notice it says twice, not only did they speak against God, but they spoke against Moses.
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Says it the first time, it says it again the second time. Their words were not just words against God, their words were against God and his man.
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But who did they go to in their hour of need? Moses, they went to God's man.
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So even though their words against him were hateful and hurtful and spiteful when it was time to receive the need, they knew where to go.
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And also they knew that he would listen. Even though he had been the object of their scorn.
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Even though he'd been the object of their hatred. And he'd been the object of their words of derision. All it says is he prayed for them.
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Moses prayed for them. And the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole and everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live.
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Y 'all, just, what is that? This is, has to be the strangest provision that God could command.
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Because he didn't say tell him to drink this potion or tell him to go wash in this river or tell them to drink some wine or eat certain foods.
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He said, you're going to take a snake, or rather, excuse me, you're going to take a piece of brass, bronze, and you're going to form it into a snake and you're going to put it on a pole and you're going to erect this pole in such a way that anyone who wants to look at it can look at it and when they look at it, they will be immediately healed.
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Everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live. I've thought a lot about this passage.
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I've thought a lot about what Moses must have thought. That's a peculiar command.
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Not completely abstract, because God has done other things that have called the people to trust, build a tabernacle, build an ark, build these things, right?
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So it's not completely foreign. But in this sense, it is odd because it has no other analog before it no real analog that healing would come through this statue that would be formed in the very image of the thing that's bringing the pain and the suffering.
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And so Moses, verse 9, made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole and if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
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When we consider the immediacy of the provision, make the bronze serpent, put it on a pole, whoever looks at the serpent will be healed and live.
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The text doesn't tell us this, but we have to at least consider the fact knowing the hardness of some of their hearts that there were those who said,
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I ain't gonna do it. But there were those who looked and lived.
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There were those who looked and lived. As it says, anyone, if the serpent has bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
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So that's the story that Jesus is referencing now when he's talking to Nicodemus in John chapter 3.
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He says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up.
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Now, in what way would the son of man be lifted up? The son of man would be lifted up on a cross and the son of man would be suspended between heaven and earth for the purpose of providing for us an atonement for our sins.
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Our sins have brought to us the judgment of almighty
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God. We haven't been bitten by a snake, but we do bear the sin of our forefather
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Adam in our veins. And we carry it out in agreement with him every time that we sin.
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I always think about this when people tell me, well, I don't like that Adam's sin affects me.
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I say, well, every time you sin, you agree with him. Every time you sin, you're voting for him.
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You're saying you were right to represent me because you were a good representative because I'm a sinner the same.
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Adam represented me in his sin. And when he sinned, sin entered the world and death through sin and death spread to all men because all sinned.
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Every single one of us stands before God. Outside of Christ, we stand before God in what condition?
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Under the judgment of God. Jesus is about to say this. And in the weeks ahead, we're going to start at verse 16.
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Next week, that most powerful verse, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him will not perish but have everlasting life.
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But it goes on to say that we're condemned already Why are we condemned already?
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We're condemned already because of sin. It sickens my stomach and turns my heart when
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I hear men say, I'm a preacher of the gospel, but I don't preach on sin. Because the very fact is if you don't preach on sin, you don't know what you've been saved from.
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And if you don't understand sin, you don't know what it is you need to be saved from. Jesus did not come to give you a better life.
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Jesus did not come to fix your marriage. Jesus did not come to fix your bank account. Jesus did not come to fix your 401k.
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Jesus did not come to make you emotionally healthy. Jesus did not come to satisfy your every longing.
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Jesus came because you're a sinner and you deserve the wrath of God and you were under the wrath of God and you were there receiving the punishment of God, which is death and you will receive death.
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But at your death, what will happen? You will either continue to receive the wrath of God and punishment or you will look at his provision and live.
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As the people in the wilderness were sitting there having been bitten possibly multiple times, their arms and legs turning black as the necrosis was coming into their flesh and they began to feel death overtake them.
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Moses says, look at that serpent and you will live.
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And the one who looked lived. His flesh was healed.
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The poison was eradicated. His health was restored.
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And from death, from the bite of the serpent, he was saved. Jesus says, as Moses lifted up the serpent, so must the son of man be lifted up.
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For what reason? That whoever believes in him will have eternal life.
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What does it mean to believe in him? It means to trust in the provision that God has provided through him.
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Remember what I said earlier, what does it mean to be saved? By faith in the provision that God has given.
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Salvation is by faith in the provision that God has given. This is why I hold so firmly, so strongly to the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
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Because I do not believe I can add anything to the cross any more than the people of Israel could add something to that bronze serpent.
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Moses didn't say, I'm gonna... God didn't say to Moses, put a bronze serpent on a pole and everybody's got to come up and take a dollar and staple it to the pole.
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Or everybody's got to come and lift up the pole and run around and sing a song. Or everybody's got to come up and kiss the pole or bow to the pole.
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No, he said, look and live. And Jesus says, as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up so that everyone who looks at him will live.
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Jesus calls us to stop trusting in ourselves. And trust in what he has done.
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To stop trusting in our own works and trust in what he has done. To stop trusting in our idols and trust in what he has done.
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To stop trusting in what we have accomplished and trust in what he has done.
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To look and live is the call of the gospel.
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Do you realize what Christ has done? On that cross when
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Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied. Every sin on Him was laid.
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Here in the death of Christ, I live. All my sins are forgiven.
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Like the poison that ran through the body of those people that was killing them.
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I had the poison of sin that had already brought about my spiritual death. And Christ came and He took the sin upon Himself.
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And He drank down the punishment to the very last drop. And He satisfied the wrath of God on my behalf.
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So that my sin became His sin. You know what
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Colossians says? It says, you were dead in your trespasses in the uncircumcision of your flesh.
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God made you alive together with Him, having cancelled all of your trespasses, forgiven all your trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.
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This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. Nailing what to the cross?
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He nailed Christ to the cross. But what did Christ become when He was nailed to the cross? He became sin who knew no sin.
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I think there's something to be said for the image of the snake. The snake is evil, right?
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We always think of the serpent in the garden and we think of the serpent in Revelation. We always think of the serpent as evil and I think they're right because snakes are bad.
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But there's something that we have to think about identification.
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Put the serpent on the pole, identifying that which is on the pole with that which is killing you and look to it and live.
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Christ becomes sin on the cross and I look to Him and I see
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Him bear my sin. He identifies with what's killing me and He takes it on Himself.
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He takes it on Himself and what do I get?
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I get the reward of His righteousness. My every sin is laid on Him therefore
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God can forgive me but if God forgives me it's not enough. You say, what do you mean it's not enough?
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It's not enough to just be forgiven because if you're just forgiven that means you're not righteous, you're just neutral.
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The kingdom of God is not for the neutral, it's for the righteous. I must not just be forgiven of my sins,
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I must have a positive righteousness to stand before God and so Christ takes off the veil, the robe of His righteousness and He clothes me with it like the father of the prodigal son who took off his robe and He laid it on His son and He clothes me in His righteousness so that I can stand before God as the apostle
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Paul says, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from keeping the law but a righteousness which comes through faith in Jesus Christ.
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So it's not just my sin laid upon Him but it is His righteousness given to me and thereby my standard before God has been met in both ways.
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I am both completely forgiven and perfectly righteous not because of my goodness but because I looked to Him the provision that God has made.
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Beloved, have you looked to that provision today? The Bible says whosoever does will have eternal life.
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Whosoever does, look, will live. I am certain that within this room there are those who have yet to look and live.
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For those who have, we're about to experience the table once more to get to look at the bread and the cup which does what?
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Points us to the once for all sacrifice. It doesn't redo the sacrifice.
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It points us to the once for all made sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when we experience the bread and we eat it and we drink of the cup and we receive it, we are again being reminded of the pardon that we have through the work of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. But this morning if you are here and you have not trusted in the
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Lord Jesus Christ, my call to you is to consider whatever it is you're trusting, whatever it is you are trusting in, turn from it and trust in Christ.
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I'll leave you with this thought. In the book of 2 Kings, many, many years after this event happened with Moses in the wilderness, in the book of 2
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Kings, the bronze serpent was still in the midst of the people of Israel.
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And at that point the people were worshipping it. I'll read this to you just for a second.
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This is only a few verses from 2 Kings chapter 18. In the third year of Hosea, son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign.
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He was 25 years old when he began to reign and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was
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Abi, the daughter of Zechariah, or Abi. And he did what was right in the eyes of the
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Lord according to all that David his father had done. Listen to this. He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the
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Asherah, which was a pagan pole that had been put up. And he broke into pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it.
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See, the people of God didn't understand this provision that had been made and they turned it into an idol, a false god, and it needed to be destroyed.
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Many people do not turn to Christ because they're still clinging to their false gods.
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During the time of the Reformation, which had followed the Crusades where the
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Roman Catholic Church had sent into battle many men and many of those men brought back pieces of wood from Jerusalem claiming they were parts of the cross.
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In fact, John Calvin said, if all of the pieces of the cross that people believe are pieces of the cross, he said there would be enough wood to build a ship.
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But you see, people want to look for something to worship other than Christ, so they look at a piece of wood, that's a piece of the cross.
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Or that's milk from the breast of the Virgin Mary, or that's the skull. These are relics in the
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Roman Catholic Church. If you look, they'll bow down to a skull of a saint. Don't look to relics.
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Don't bow to icons. And don't worship idols.
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Look to Christ and live. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for your truth. I pray God that now as we come around the table, that we would recognize that this table is not something to be worshipped.
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That this bread and this cup are meant to be held in reminder of the once for all sacrifice of Christ.
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Let us remember what Christ has done. Let us look to Him and live.