Look and Live

In one paragraph

The sermon worked through a strange, often-overlooked episode in Numbers 21, where God told Moses to put a bronze snake on a pole so that anyone bitten could look at it and live. Pastor Neil connected that story to Jesus's nighttime conversation with Nicodemus in John 3, where Jesus pointed back to that very moment and said the Son of Man must be lifted up in the same way. The point was that the...

Read together

1. Numbers 20:14-29 Moses sending messengers to Edom, Aaron's death on Mount Hor
2. Numbers 21:1-9 the Canaanite king of Arad, the venomous snakes, and the bronze snake on the pole
3. John 3:14-16 Jesus telling Nicodemus the Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted the snake, and God's love for the world

Talk about it

1. Patrick was captured as a slave and came to know Christ deeply during that suffering, then felt called to go back and share the gospel with the people who had enslaved him. Has there been a hard season in your life that God used to draw you closer to Him or to prepare you for something you did not expect?
2. The Israelites were being fed manna from heaven every day, yet they called it miserable food and complained against God and Moses. Where in your own life do you find yourself grumbling about God's provision even when He is clearly meeting your needs?
3. The bronze snake on the pole seems strange to us, and Pastor Neil said he thinks it is weird too. What does it tell you about the way God works that He would choose a means of salvation that does not make obvious sense to human reasoning?
4. Jesus told Nicodemus that just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, the Son of Man must be lifted up so that everyone who believes may have eternal life. How does seeing that Old Testament story as pointing forward to the cross change the way you read the Old Testament more broadly?
5. The clip from Alan Levi said the cross is not a place for argument with God but a place of surrender and humility, and that we have to confess that Jesus' death was made necessary by our own sin. What does it look like practically to keep coming back to that posture of humility rather than drifting into thinking our own effort or goodness can fix the problem?