John 3:13-15 (Look at Him!)

Maybe seated. I didn't write this down, but I was just reminded of a story. Just as we were singing and if you're wondering why I was reminded of it. I have absolutely no idea. It didn't connect at all to the song.

It didn't connect anything we were talking about but It's a story of when I was in Iraq. I was there I was a 18 year old and It was the 4th of July we were right outside of this town called Samara and There was lots of mortar and artillery attacks that were happening and I was on night shift duty that night and I decided that because it was the 4th of July and because our infantry guys were shooting flares up into the sky.

That that I would take it I would take it easy and I would take off my equipment and I would enjoy the show kind of like a firework show out in the middle of the desert of Iraq and The flares were not meant to be entertaining.

They were meant because we were doing a raid on a town. But I thought it was pretty coincidental so I took all my gear off and just so happens my sergeant comes around the corner and Finds me and puts me on heavy duty work for two weeks.

During the hottest part of the day at 140 degrees in in Balad, Iraq. I was pulling roving guard duty. I was sweating like crazy my shirts would would actually dry hard so that they would crack because how much salt I had expirated and I'll tell you the best drink of water that I've ever tasted in my life was after guard duty was over and I pulled it out of the the fridge and it was so cold and it was so delicious.

And it wouldn't have tasted that good had I not went through the hell that I'd went through eight hours before now. To me, that's what we're getting at in John 3 13 through 15. We've seen Jesus go to war against false worship and against false Faith.

Christ the Warrior Against False Worship and False Faith

But we're coming up to the surface for air and we're gonna see in this passage today one of the most beautiful Pictures of the gospel that can found anywhere in the Bible. So let's pray and Let's revel in what Christ has done.

We're gonna go into the the depths for a little bit. But when we resurface, we're gonna see the glory of Christ. So let's pray The Lord Jesus, thank you so much for all that you've done thank you for this passage and Lord, I pray that as we Examine the depths of our own depravity and as we dive deeply into our sin.

That Lord, I pray that just as that bottle of water was the best bottle of water I have ever personally tasted that Lord this example of Jesus. This picture of Christ would be one of the sweetest things that we've seen.

Because it's against the backdrop of everything that we bring to the table. Which is our sin and our ugliness and our failure and yet even in that Christ Has redeemed us. So Lord, I pray that we would get a picture of you today.

Lord, I pray that we would worship you today and Lord. I pray that when we leave here. That we would leave with a song in our heart for what you have accomplished in Jesus name. Amen. Now again, the portrait of Jesus that we've been trying to look at is the warrior Christ.

It's not the meek and mild Jesus that we often hear about in Sunday school. This is the warrior Christ. He's the one who came into the city of Jerusalem in AD 28 and he flipped over tables and he chased people out with a whip.

You don't hear that often about our Christ. He prophesied the destruction of the temple in 42 years after he made that declaration. It was left in ash and rubble and it was taken from the Jews. Because they were using it to pad their pockets to abuse the people and to reject God for their own self-made religion.

And let me just say it this way I was thinking about this this week. I hope Jesus would do the same thing to us now. Hopefully we have our own building that he would take away and he doesn't burn down this building.

I'm just kidding. But if we get a building and we one day start using it to abuse people if we get a building and we one day start using it to gain wealth and status and success like many churches do if we get a building and we start trying to abuse people with false doctrine and Keep them under heavy weight of religion if we do that if we miss God because of our religion.

My prayer is that God would shut us down. I'm not praying for God's patience and mercy when it comes to the Shepherd's Church. We're not special. He is special. It's not our mission. It's his mission.

You see we live in a part of the country that I don't have to remind you is dying spiritually. Every time that we turn on the news, I know this is a theme lately, but this is the world we live in. The mission of God is too important for us to float around somewhere in the middle.

It used to be true that we could live in a country and in America where we could have a faith that didn't cost us. Anything but by the grace of God, I believe those days are over. I Believe that the wheat and chaff are gonna be separated.

I believe that those who truly believe in Christ are gonna have to stand up and proclaim allegiance to Jesus and those who don't Are gonna have to go the way of the world and don't use this language to alarm you by any means.

I believe this is consistent with the heart of Christ. I'd rather you be hot or cold because you're lukewarm. I'll spew out of my mouth. Jesus was the lion hearted fire-eyed whip brandishing royal Lord who would not allow his house to be perverted.

And become a den of thieves. And as Christians, this is not just the job of ministers. It's not just the job of deacons and elders. All of us have zeal because the Holy Spirit lives in us for the house of God and for true worship.

Because Christ is our Lord. Christ loved those things. We should love those things, too. We say we also see Jesus going to war against false faith. We saw two weeks ago that he would not entrust himself to false belief and that anyone who approached him had to approach him rightly.

And we see the reason for that. Jesus knows the heart of man. Jesus knows that our hearts are desperately corrupted with sin and that no one not even the very best of us would ever seek God. For for the sake of God for love for God.

We would always do it out of self-serving self-seeking motivations and Jesus does not entrust himself to that. That's John 2 23. Sure, the crowds may have believed in his signs. They may have enjoyed his wonders.

They may have been moved to raise their hands and clap at his messages and cheer at his signs, but they did not love him. They didn't treasure him. They couldn't do that and That's the point that we learned a couple weeks ago unaided.

By the sovereign grace of God. They would have stayed and remained in their sins because no human being in our own power and our own strength will ever truly love Christ. We may be impressed with him, but we'll never adore him.

We may cheer for him, but we'll never cherish him. No one approaches God rightly in their sin and their flesh because the wickedness of sin perverts our ability to actually love. It cancels our ability to have true and perfect affection for anything other than ourselves.

Sin is a gangrenous cancer of the soul and it so deeply blinds the hearts of men that it's an impenetrable darkness. I was talking to Haley this week about the Mariana Trench. I don't know if you've ever heard of this place, but it's the deepest part of the ocean.

It's so deep that not a single ray of light Can find it. Until James Cameron and his little Swimming machine that he made went down. I don't know what it's called when he went down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

That was the first time some of those creatures that existed down that deep had ever seen a ray of light. Most of them had eyes, but they didn't work. Because when you live in darkness, you will be blind.

It's not until the light touches your eyes that you can see. That's what Christ does. Christ is the light that touches our dead eyes and makes the makes them see. Without God our default mode is self and Jesus does not entrust himself to that.

You will either love God on his terms or you will not love him at all. That's why I think Jesus tells Nicodemus about the new birth, right? It's a simple metaphor. We don't cause our physical birth. Therefore we didn't cause our spiritual birth.

Jesus is pointing to the fact that we need direct and decisive intervention from God in order to be saved. It's kind of like a Patient who's flatlining on a table. They don't reach out and grab the paddle to shock themselves back into life.

They can't. Unless the great physician grabs the paddle and shocks us back into life. We would remain dead in our sins. Today, I want us to go a step further. See from Jesus's interaction so far in this dark Season of John 2 through John 3 where we don't see a lot of light.

We've learned that we cannot save ourselves and we've also learned that we need God help. God's help in order to save us. But what we don't understand yet is how is Jesus going to save us? What is Jesus going to do in order to rescue his people?

That's what we're gonna learn today. And that's where we're heading. We're gonna learn not only that we cannot save ourselves and that we need God's help. We're gonna see explicitly what Jesus was willing to do in order to rescue and redeem his people.

So with that, I want us to read the passage for today. I Want us to explore what it teaches us. It's gonna teach us four truths and Then by the end of it, I hope that we are filled with the most ardent praise for Christ.

So this is what John 3 13 through 15 says and by the way Let me just say this this section of Scripture has been vastly overshadowed because of John 3 16. John 3 16 is one of the greatest verses. It's amazing.

But these verses are really beautiful. I hope we'll see them. Jesus says the Nicodemus no one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven the Son of Man as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of Man being lifted up.

So that whoever believes in him will have eternal life. Now again, we're gonna cover four things in this passage and those four things are again. We're gonna reiterate the fact that we cannot save ourselves.

We need God's help and then we're also gonna see that Christ is the one who descended to take on our curse so that he could Be our cure. We're gonna begin with the most obvious point. Jesus says No one has ascended to heaven.

Now that means no one. We don't have to be a Greek scholar to know that no one means no one what he's saying. Is that there's no heavenly Wonka Vader that a few special people can have access to there's no spiritual Iron Man suit that a some Of us can fly up and go to heaven.

It means that if you're a space and time bound creature, then you cannot ascend to heaven. That you're stuck. Why that's our first point because man is cursed. Man is under a curse and man cannot ascend to God.

To pick up the language from the Bible in Genesis 3 we are cursed. Sin has caused a separation between us and God and not only between us and God but between heaven and earth. Heaven and earth used to be an overlapping reality where God could move in and out of space and time.

Effortlessly, it's it's as if God is walking with him in the garden. Then he's no more and then he's all of a sudden with them. Heaven and earth were overlapping dimensions, but because of sin heaven and earth were torn apart and This is not just a vertical gap.

Because if heaven were always up for us, then that would be strange given what we know about The heliocentricity of the world it would mean that it at some points in the day Heaven is up for us and down for the people in China.

That doesn't make any sense. Heaven is not a vertical gap. It's not a matter of distance. It's a matter of dimension. It's totally Inaccessible for us who are lost in our sin. We can't will ourself there.

So when Jesus says no one has ascended to heaven. He doesn't mean that no one hasn't gone high enough. He means that no one is worthy enough. Because we're born in our sin. We are born conceived in sin.

Now that might be a controversial point unless you're a parent. That we are born children of sin. Have you ever dealt with a baby? Projectile vomit screaming tempers red-faced anger kicking you in the face.

You're just trying to love them and here they are. They're absolutely melting down because you in. Your sin did not differentiate between a hungry cry and a burping cry and you're supposed to know that.

Having an infant is like caring for an emotional time bomb. They swing their arms. They hit you they use their razor-sharp paper-thin claws talons to rip your face off. They're not innocent. They're dangerous body.

Bachman once said that God made infants so small that they would not kill you and He made them so cute so that you would not kill them. You don't have to teach an infant to sin from the moment. They're conceived in the womb.

They're haters of God. Just like us they're rebels of righteousness and they're inherently narcissistic. There's not a single moment. You've ever held an infant where they're caring about what you think or where they care about whether you're tired or whether you've lost sleep or whether.

Whether any whether whether anything that they are not worried about you. They're only inherently worried about their selves. You better meet their needs or you're going to suffer. It's almost like a hostage negotiation.

If you don't meet their demand someone in the house is probably gonna die. It's that kind of flamboyant infantile aggression, it's easy to excuse in a baby, but we would never excuse that in an adult.

Because it's sin. Our children as cute and cuddly. They are are born in sin. They don't have to be taught and it's in their nature and I only bring that up. Because from the moment we are born into the moment that we die.

We are conceived in this thing called sin that we cannot escape from we can learn coping mechanisms. We can learn how to be more patient. We can learn how to be more Considerate of other people we can learn how not to have meltdowns on the floor.

Hopefully we don't do that as adults at our jobs. We can learn techniques, but we cannot escape from sin. We were born in it. Now I bring this up because many people today will look you straight in the eye and they will tell you with all Confidence that they believe that they're going to go to heaven and if you dare ask him dear brother sister.

Why do you believe this? Why do you think that you're gonna cross the? Chasm between us and heaven. How do you believe that you are going to ascend the unassailable? How do you believe that you were gonna do what Jesus said?

You just could not do. And many people look you smugly in the eye and they will say it's because I'm a good person not perfect. But I've done enough and I believe that at the end of my life God is gonna look at me and he's gonna let me in because I've been better than most that's foolishness.

Does God not have a standard of righteousness? Does God not have standard of holiness that he would be unjust if he went against? In that I don't know if you've ever heard the story of Icarus Who Ascended he it was a Greek mythological story.

He put on these wings and he and he he put the feathers on his arms through wax and as he got closer and closer To the Sun it melted and he went crashing down to the earth and that's where we get the Greek word hubris or pride.

That's what that is. If we believe that we could ascend the heights of heaven with our good works when we come into contact with the real Sun We will come crashing down in our human inability and we will not Make it.

No one ascends. That's what Jesus says. No one is that good? Even the demons in hell believe that and they're not bought into that delusion. In another passage Jesus says to the rich young ruler. No one is good, but God alone.

So when you and I say that we are good, we have just said that we are God. If Jesus is right and no one is good, but God alone then we are not good. Our friends are not good. Our neighbors are not good.

There is no one good. But God it would be like a lunatic sneaking sneaking into a throne room and announcing himself as king. Just because he says it doesn't make it true. And he will be thrown out of the kingdom unto his face because of that act of defiance against the great King.

In the same way we cannot pretend that we are something that only God is. We can't fraudulently sit on his throne thinking that he will not defend his name. What do we deserve? Since we are not good people.

Well, the plain and simple fact of Scripture is that God owes us nothing. But the just and holy punishment that we deserve. In the beginning when God made Adam and Eve. And he said do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and if you do on that day You will surely die.

The fact that they did not drop dead in that moment is not that God does not have a standard. It was not that God doesn't care about his holiness. It was because God in that moment was being incredibly gracious.

The fact that you and I live and move and breathe and The wrath of God does not overwhelm us and the justice of God does not crush us is not Because God doesn't care and it's not because we and me and God are homies and bros and that he just he just loves me.

Just the way that I am. No. It's because God is gracious. Infinitely gracious more gracious than we could ever possibly deserve and if for a moment he would to pull his grace back we would fail. That's the first aspect of salvation.

We cannot ascend to God. We can't. There's a human inability. There's a curse that is at play that we cannot overcome. So therefore we have to stop believing in ourselves. Which is an unpopular message in today's society millions and millions of dollars are made in self-help nonsense many churches have given themselves over to this sort of jargon that if you just believe in yourself and you believe that You're special just the way that you are then you'll find fulfillment in life.

That is not true. We find fulfillment in life. By first understanding that we cannot ascend we are not good and we must look outside of ourselves to find these things. Biblical salvation does not begin by coming to terms with how good you are.

It begins by coming to terms with how lost you are. That's the first point. The second point is That Jesus does not leave us hopeless in that. Let's read what Jesus says. He says no one is ascended into heaven but he has descended.

No one is ascended into heaven, but he who descended from heaven the Son of Man that's the second point that we must know is that Christ has condescended. First point we are cursed, but Christ has condescended.

Christ has come down. Jesus is saying since none of you could ever come up to me. I'm gonna come down to you. I'm gonna leave heaven and I'm gonna come and I'm gonna dwell with you. And this is Monumentally important when it comes to the discussion of true biblical salvation because salvation is not about a bunch of different Ideologies trying to bumble and fumble their way up the mountain and somehow all of them are gonna find God.

That's not true all of us are down at the bottom of the mountain with broken legs on life support and we cannot breathe and God and his grace Descended the mountain and came down to us. It's not about finding our way up to him.

It's about the fact that he came down. All of the other world religions in the world get this wrong. They nuance it differently. But they say basically if you do this and if you do that and if you do a little bit of this Then you'll find your way to life.

It's a lie. Only the only life we could ever find is if God comes down to us. Now when I use the word condescend Derek saying this word earlier, it's beautiful word. Do you know what it means? Because when we say that we're not saying that Jesus is being condescending.

Like we see in culture where you watch. Where you watch news shows and everybody's talking over each other and using ad hominem attacks and they're they're blasting each other and they're and they're pumping themselves up in this sort of Heightened place where they can look down and talk to the person who they're speaking to that's not what Jesus is doing.

He's not unrighteously trying to claim a higher position for himself. There is no higher position that Jesus could claim for himself because Jesus has the highest position. He is the name that is above every other name so that at his name every knee will bow and every Every tongue will confess that he's the Christ.

So when Jesus condescends, we're saying that he humbled himself in order to come down. We're saying that when he came down in order to dwell with us. He could not come down in his perfect full form because we could not have handled it.

He came down to us in a humble form. He took on the form of a slave just so that we could get to know him. He limited himself even though he is limitless. The all-powerful Lord my helpless in a manger the same man Who made Mary's womb is the one who submitted himself to it?

The same man who made his parents are the one he's the one who submitted himself to their authority. I mean as a kid think about how much temptation that would be. I Made you. I don't listen to you, but yet he didn't do that.

He humbled himself. We're not just saying that he simply descended from heaven and all of his glory. There's a moment at the Mount of Transfiguration where Jesus pulls back the curtain and his disciples can't handle it.

There's a moment in Isaiah where Isaiah sees the glory of God and he says that it's about to rip his body apart. There's a moment at Mount Sinai Where God shows up on the mountain and the people cannot handle it.

If Jesus came down in his full glorious form. No one could have ever known him. So not only does he descend he condescends. He comes down in a way that we can know him. Which I consider to be the greatest act of humility That's ever been recorded.

God in his unimaginable grace desired for his sinful people to know them and he sent his one and only son Jesus Christ. To make that happen. These two points are The first aspects of what a biblical salvation actually is.

We cannot ascend to God. So God in his grace descended and condescended to us. But how does Jesus save us? That's the question. What does Jesus do in order to save his people and It's here that verse 14 is where Christ begins the explanation he points to Nicodemus and he says this as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.

Even so the Son of Man must be lifted up. Now. This seems like an odd shift. Jesus is talking about no one who can ascend to heaven. Except Jesus who is descended and now he's trying to point Nicodemus to this Passage in numbers 21 and he's saying this is what salvation is.

If you understand this scene in numbers 21, then you'll understand what salvation is. So for us I Think we have to understand what's going on in numbers 21 before we can really see The beauty of what Jesus is actually pointing to now the background numbers 21 the scene that Jesus is alluding to people of Israel Again are getting ready to enter to the promised land like we said earlier.

They have been constantly turning away from God over the last century and God had constantly as a good father punished them and Brought them back. He's responded to the rebellion at various times with various punishments.

Now if you read through the book of Numbers and you get beyond the census data where most people's Bible reading plan fails. Then you'll realize that Israel is a very stiff-necked people. They're very ungrateful People, they're very hard-hearted people Who the Lord graciously puts up with for the sake of his promises and not for the sake of their goodness.

He continually rescues them from their selves, even though they do not deserve it. So when we get to numbers 21 We see an incredible display of the future coming of Christ that I just I think is Glorious, so turn with me to numbers 21 as we look at What Moses is doing and how this ties into what Jesus is doing?

The people spoke against Moses. Why have you brought us up out of the land of Egypt to die in the wilderness? This is normal Israelite grumbling for there's no food and water and we loathe this miserable food and Then it says the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and They bit the people.

So that the people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and they said we have sinned. Because we have spoken against the Lord and you intercede with the Lord so that we may reprove that we may remove the serpents from us and Moses interceded for the people and Again, God is gracious.

The Lord said to Moses make a fiery serpent and set it on a standard that just means a pole. It's like make a picket sign with a snake in the middle of it. That's what he's saying and And it shall come about that everyone who is bitten when he looks at it he shall live and Moses made a bronze serpent set it on a standard and it came about that if the serpent bit any man when he looked to The bronze serpent he lived now.

This is undoubtedly a strange passage. The people of Israel Just had an invasion of an army of snakes that came into their camp they're getting bit and they're dying and the solution is to make a snake and Put it on a pole and put it in the middle of the camp and say if you get bit and look at it strange on the surface.

Underneath it though. There's some pretty fascinating features that I want us to explore again. The Israelites are complaining about God. They're rebelling against him and they're punished by a snake.

What's that remind you of. I Don't think it's too hard to make the connection with Genesis 3 where the people Adam and Eve the forefather and foremother of the Israelite people were grumbling against their God and they come under a curse by a snake.

It's the same pattern Satan coming in the garden as a serpent tempting and leading humanity into sin and suffering is the archetype. For what is going on in numbers 21? It's the exact same pattern Satan comes and brings temptation temptation brings sin and suffering.

And Curse, it's the same pattern every single time. So I'm not surprised that they are being attacked by an army of serpents and they're experiencing curse. They're being physically bitten by poisonous snakes and they're dying because of that but there's an even greater spiritual attack underneath the surface.

Where the great enemy is causing them to grumble. Where he's causing them to complain against their God and to reject him and through their rejection. They're going to experience suffering. That's always the pattern.

When we suffer because of sin it is always because we have given in to a lie from the enemy. It's the same for us today. Now hopefully when you get home, you're not going to be invaded by an army of vipers.

I Really do pray that for you, but we are attacked in the same sorts of ways when we give in to the enemy's lies. When we reject God's Word and when we grumble and complain against him. And when we suffer the lingering effects of the curse, we understand why we've given back into the sinful pattern.

But I think this also is more indicative of lost people as well because here you have a group of Israelites who are alienated from God. They're wandering around in their own blindness. They're being attacked with no hope of a solution.

No hope of a cure and If they remained alienated from God, and if God doesn't show up in his grace, they will die. That is the plight of every single person who does not know Jesus Christ. If they remain in their sin if they remain wandering in their error.

And if they die in that they will die and there is no cure for the poison that they have been inflicted with in their sin. I believe the reason that Jesus Demonstrated this first and foremost is because it so nicely demonstrates the connection between Satan sin and suffering and also so nicely Demonstrates the plight of the people who give in to that Temptation.

They need a cure, but they're waiting on God those people could not save themselves from the snake bite. They had to wait on the Word of the Lord to tell them how to be saved. But now what I found even more fascinating is Not only that they were being attacked by the serpent that's easy we see that all over the Bible.

What I find fascinating is that the cure is by putting a serpent on a pole. That's fascinating. God tells them to make a bronze serpent put it on a pole elevate it over the people put it in the middle of the Camp and if they're bitten by the snake if they look to the serpent and they will find Healing in this passage.

We see both the serpent bringing sin and misery and yet this serpent that's elevated providing the cure. What is going on here. What I understand this passage we need to understand two other Old Testament passages.

And I'll tell you you hold on just for a second I'm not the preacher who's gonna overlook this stuff if we need to go in five Old Testament passages ten Old Testament passages to Understand a New Testament passages.

We're gonna go there. I don't want to lose you. But I want you to understand why is an elevated serpent on a pole Hope for these people and how does that connect to Christ and if we don't go here, we won't know that.

So follow me Genesis 3 15, that's the first verse you need to understand God says to the serpent Right after he's tempted Adam and Eve. I will put enmity between you and the woman. That's the vision and Between your seed and her seed and he that's a seed of the woman.

That's an ancestor of Eve. He's gonna come and he's gonna bruise the serpents head and the serpent is going to crush his heel. What this is and we don't have time to go into it, this is a prophecy of the future Messiah this is the very first prophecy in the Old Testament of the Messiah that a child of Eve and not a child of Adam meaning he Will be born of a virgin is going to come and he's going to crush the serpent who led humanity into error.

This Christ this Jesus is going to come and he is going to crush the serpent. But in so doing he will be pierced. Now and we'll get into more about why that is so important in just a moment. But I want to now share with you the second biblical passage.

That you really need to understand if you're gonna understand what is going on in Numbers 21 and that second passage comes from Deuteronomy 21 Verses 22 and 23. Here's what it says. If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and He's put to death for that and you hang him on a tree his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree.

But you shall surely bury him on the same day. For he who is hanged is accursed of God. So that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance so not only Do we see that the coming of the Christ is going to crush the serpent and that the serpent is this sign of Wickedness and evil and we need to understand that if we're gonna understand numbers 21 the serpent hanging there but also It is an awful judgment from God to be hung on a tree.

To be bound to a tree to be affixed to a tree. It is a symbol and it is a sign from Deuteronomy 21 that it is that God's curse has fallen upon you and this theme goes all throughout the Bible where men and women are cursed at a tree or Because of a tree or being affixed to a tree.

And I'll just give you a few examples of that just so you that you you see the point of it. Adam and Eve are cursed at the foot of a tree and Because of their curse they bring a curse on everyone. The chief baker in Exodus 40 if you remember the story that there's two Individuals who go before Pharaoh there's a baker and there's a wine bearer and the baker Falls under the curse of Pharaoh and he is impaled on a tree.

It's a symbol of curse In numbers 25. There's this wicked King who is slayed by a woman. And the way that she kills him is by driving a tent peg into the temple of his forehead. Demonstrating that he was under the curse of God and Samuel David's son is trying to stage this coup d 'etat where he's gonna try to take his father's kingdom away from him.