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Speaker 1Good morning. Morning. You all happy to be here on Veterans Day? Yes. I am too.
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I was looking around a little while ago and I thought, you know, a lot of times in a lot of rooms when you say, would all the veterans rise? You look around and you go, wow, so many. And then sometimes you realize that, wow, there aren't a whole lot here right now, but every one of us is here because of those. Every one of us is able to to freely worship because of those who have given the ultimate cause for freedom. I'll come back to that at at points during this message but we're going through a series on John three.
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Something weird to something wonderful, I say. From the the first service that we did on John, we're talking about John one and I went, transcendent and screamed it and then brought it down to the imminent Christ, God man and that's what that was a little weird for some people using Forrest Gump as an illustration might have been weird. Anyway, I'm not talking about that this week. We went through John two and we talked about the wedding at Canaan. We talked about Jesus calling Nathaniel.
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We've gone through that. So, something weird to something wonderful. John three sixteen is in there. And so everybody is kind of expecting one thing I think. Oh my.
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All right. I'm going to start somewhere totally different. Atop Mount Nebo, which is also known as Mount Pisgah in modern day Jordan, the Western Side of Jordan, overlooking the land that God had promised to Abraham. And when he called Moses and told him to go get the people out of Egypt, the whole burning bush experience was somewhere right around in here. And if you go there today, you will see this.
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Giovanni Fantoni's serpentine cross. It stands as a memorial to two separate events in biblical history. One of those is from the Old Testament. One of them is from the New Testament. It's a gorgeous piece.
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You can see it right there, and that ratty looking thing around the top is a snake, serpentine cross. So we are in a series from John, and this is what you might expect this sermon to be about. Nicodemus comes at night because John three starts off. There was a man of of the pharisees called Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you're a teacher come from God.
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No one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him and Jesus answered and said to him, most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, He cannot excuse me. Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God and Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? So, the concept of being born again, we hear a lot of sermons about and Nicodemus struggling with that issue. I've heard tons of sermons about.
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But it goes on from there. Jesus says, most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I say you must be born again.
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The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it but cannot tell where it comes from, where it's going. So, is with everyone who's born of the spirit and Nicodemus answered and said to him, how can these things be? Still struggling with that issue. Jesus answered and said to him, are you the teacher of Israel? Now, he recognized that he was a Pharisee and that he was devout and that he was a teacher of Israel.
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So, this makes a little more What is what's coming down the line? Are you a teacher of Israel and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, we speak what we know and we testify what we've seen and you do not receive our witness. The Pharisees are not receiving the witness. If I have told you earthly things and you don't believe, how will I, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
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No one has ascended to heaven but he who came down from heaven, that is the son of man who is in heaven. Let's pray. God, thank you for your word. Thank you for the clarity of it. Thank you that you and thank you for the little things that you did in advance so that you could use them later.
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A callback, lord, so that you have lessons for us. God, every single one of us has in our lives particular moments that you can use as callbacks to know that's the place. That's the day. That's when God saved me. That's when God convinced me.
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That's when God called me. All of those things. God, I pray that that day would be the day for some of us, for for all of us. It's in Jesus name, lord. Amen.
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So, up through verse 13, concept of being born again, the theme was struggling with that issue. And usually, sermons on John three go to John three sixteen from there. There's a big fat whosoever. It's a very real invitation for whosoever will may come, and then there's the explanation of God's plan of salvation and a big fat hymn of invitation where I'm from. So and it takes nine verses sometimes, but we just keep on singing to come on down.
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But before we get there, Jesus takes Nicodemus in what we might find to be a very weird direction. And some of y'all know this. In fact, I know that some of you know it because Pascal knows it, and that impresses me. She knows it because of Awana. There are a lot of y'all here who are Awana volunteers and you're pouring into kids' lives and you're pouring scripture into their lives and it's coming back.
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And if I ask Pascal right now, I won't put her on the spot but if I ask her what John three fourteen and fifteen said, she would know. And that's awesome because four months ago, she didn't know. Jesus has a callback. I mentioned in the prayer. He mentions Moses and a very specific incident from Israel's wilderness wandering.
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So, in our series on John three, would you turn with me in your Bibles to numbers 21? Numbers 21 and it'll be up on the screen if you don't have your Bible with you. You all know a callback. I know that there are a couple of improv comedians in the building. I think they're not in this service.
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But a callback in literature is when something is mentioned early on and then towards the end, that's the thing that they need to close the loop. In comedy, a comedian might get up and have a joke that just kills in the beginning and then throughout every once in while he'll mention the punch line of that joke and it will be a callback. It's something that people know about, but it's not necessarily something they're dwelling on and it surprises them when he calls back to it. Jesus is using Moses in this example as a callback to get Nicodemus. And I think he gets him.
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I think we have proof that he gets him later on. So let's just read straight through. Numbers twenty one four through nine says, and they traveled from Mount Hore 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 is no bread.
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There is no water, and we detest this miserable food. Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them. I'm sorry. I'll I'll snicker. That's not nice for me to snicker.
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Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them. They bit the people and many Israelites died. This is serious. 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.
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So Moses prayed for the people and the Lord said to Moses, make a snake and put it up on a pole. Anyone who is bitten can look at it and live. So, Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole than when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived. Is that a weird story? That's pretty weird to me.
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Knowing the law and knowing what the law that God had given to Moses and about the whole graven image thing and all of that, it just seems strange that this would be the way that God did things. Let's talk about it and see what the story is about. So what is the story about? Three s's. Sorry.
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I couldn't pass it up. Being being a preacher, they always are looking for alliteration. This one was just too good. So three s's. The first s is for sin.
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I know it sounds churchy to say sin, and it kinda sounds like you're doing this, leaning over the pulpit and pointing when you say sin. We all have sin. Sin has fallen short. Sin is missing the mark. Sin is not coming up to God's glory.
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None of us do. So don't feel like I'm pointing the finger. I'm pointing a lot of fingers this way too. But the first s in this story is about sin. What is the sin?
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And they traveled out of the the the the They spoke against God. First of all, their sin was against God. They spoke against God. We take blasphemy to just be saying two words together. That's our typical thought about blasphemy is when you say this word and this word in close conjunction, that's blasphemy.
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Speaking against God in any form is blasphemy and we're guilty of it. Just like they were guilty of it. They spoke against God and against Moses. So not only they speak against God but they spoke against God's appointed servant. I won't go into that one.
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This is not what the sermon. I mean, it is the what the service is about. The sermon's about but they spoke against God and they spoke against his servant. But the third sin is the one that probably has been jumping out at me all week long this week and the week before. They said, why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?
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What were they doing in Egypt? They were slaves. They were slaves in Egypt. Yes. They were slaves in Egypt.
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Why have you brought us out of slavery, Moses? Why have you brought us out of slavery, God? That's a weird question, isn't it? There is no bread, there's no water, and we detest this miserable food. What is the miserable food that they're talking about?
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Now this is probably thirty eight, thirty nine years after they had left Egypt. Mana. Mana. God had sustained millions of people in the middle of one of the hardest places to be in the world, in the desert. Supernaturally giving them exactly what they needed to survive and live.
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If you read 21 verses one through three, they had a triumphant victory over another army. These are people wandering in the desert. That's crazy. What was manna made of? Like cliff bars?
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That's ridiculous. They they had everything that they needed. They complained earlier on and they got quail. God's like, okay, quail. But they were complaining, grumbling.
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They were discontent. They were not content with the provision that God had made. Thirty something years of traveling and God had given them exactly what they needed not to be stored up. Wouldn't let them break the Sabbath so he gave them enough the day before the Sabbath to last them through the Sabbath so they didn't even to pick it up off the ground. If they gathered too much, trying to gather too much, it would rot.
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Y'all know the story about manna. The detestable food, miserable food that they detested was God's holy provision for their lives. Now, what is the most detestable thing that you can think of? If I get if we gave a phobia test to this whole room, most likely the number one would be either heights and not so much out here or snakes. Snakes.
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I can hear you. When I was in the eighth grade, got suspended from school. I mean, excuse me. I missed school one day. I got suspended from school for fighting.
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So while I was home on my vacation, it was a miss it was mistaken identity. I'll go into it some other time. While I was home, I ran outside on the back porch, and I was just in shorts and flip flops, of course. Actually, one flip flop. I went back in.
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I was barefoot and saw. I went back in. I put on one flip flop. I came back outside, and I stepped on the backside of a rat snake's head. And I picked him up, and I carried him over to the sawmill where I grew up around the sawmill, my grandfather owned the sawmill.
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And so I picked this snake up, and I was going over. Please do not mistake my mimicry of this guy for derision. I love him to death. But I went over and there was an older man that worked for my grandfather named Crip. And Crip said, what you got there, man?
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And I'm, you know, in the eighth grade. And I said, I got a snake. And I was about from here to the house across the street, and we were screaming. He goes, what did you got there, man? I said, I got a snake.
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You wanna see? He goes, I seized it fine from him. Seized it just fine from him. He didn't want to have anything to do with that snake, and neither did anybody else. I eventually just let the snake go.
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But I I don't I mean, I know it's biblical and all to hate them, but I I don't have that big of a problem with them. But I'm in the I'm in the slim minority on that. Most people hate snakes. So these people are taking God's provision and detesting it and speaking out against God and his servant. So the sin is the first part of this thing.
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What's the second s? The second s, what this story is about is for sorrow. Now I preached, I don't know how long back about the difference in godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. And that's something that pursues me. I am convinced that sorrow within itself that's not a churchy word altogether.
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All of us know what it means because all of us experience sorrow, grief, loss. We all experience it. But I am convinced that it's neutral. Sorrow within itself is neutral. It can go one of two ways.
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Either it is worldly sorrow, which does not produce anything Paul says except for death. Or it is godly sorrow, which Paul says produces repentance. And in this case, their sorrow was seen in three different ways. Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them. They bit the people and many Israelites died.
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First of all, their sorrow was seen in their affliction. Their snake bit. Have you all heard the term snake bit used recently? I think it's a redneck term that's become more popular in popular culture. Snake bit is, officially, I looked it up with the Merriam Webster snake bit these days, experiencing a period of misfortune or inability to succeed.
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Going through a period of tragedy and loss might be described as snake bit. A significant percentage of the American populace felt snake bit Wednesday morning. Almost half. Not over half, almost half. But the affliction is not a place.
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That's not where it ends. The affliction in this case, I believe that we see that it was godly sorrow. God sent the snakes, but he did it for a reason and I think they got it because it says, the people came to Moses and said, we sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. What is that? That is agreement with God about your sin.
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That's repentance. That's a place where you say, oh, yeah. You're right. That was wrong and I'm sorry for it. So, they were sorrowful in their affliction, which led them to be sorrowful during their repentance.
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And the last part there, the pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us was a petition. So in their sorrow, in their affliction, in their repentance, and in their petition, that's where the sorrow was seen. So what's the story about? The next s, it's another churchy word, is for salvation. Through the sorrow, through the repentance, through the petition, Isn't it great to know that salvation was available?
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Salvation simply put, if you think that's just a churchy word, I don't know what that means. Nobody uses that today. It's simply being put from a place where you were in harm's way, removed from that harm, and put in a place of security and safety. I think of that on Veterans Day too. That's some my dad was in, the army during Vietnam.
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He's drafted, spent two years, in Vietnam, and he has lots of stories about salvation. I can't talk about it without crying. So, I thank you very much for your service and move right on. It is becoming safe when you had been in danger. I wanna back up for just a second and talk about sorrow.
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When we think about sorrow, a lot of times we think, well, things aren't going that way. It makes me sad. These are the Israelites. They have seen God provide. Can if you think back, Moses is probably one of the few males that was his age, anywhere near his age.
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Think about the sorrow involved in these women, mothers that are Moses' mother's age. Knowing the land that they left Egypt, that the pharaoh by decree could just say kill all of the Hebrew children and then they did. Moses was hidden away. He would have been one of few guys that lived that age. That's sorrow.
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It's very, very deep. So I'm I'm convinced that that kind of sorrow when they start saying things like, why did you bring us up out of Egypt where we were slaves, where he could do whatever he wanted to to us. I know that it's rough. I know that it's bad from time to time. We do get discontented.
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I don't want to make light of it. The third S being for salvation. The Lord said to Moses, make a snake, put it up on a pole. Anyone who is bitten can look at it and live. So I wanna see about the salvation three things, and one of them was that that was the divinely appointed way.
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What? I mean, really. Make a snake, put it on a pole. If anybody looks at it, they live. Does that make any sense to y'all?
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No. We're scientific modern and postmodernists, and it does not make any sense. But it does not matter that it does not make any sense because it was divinely appointed. Just like the one who said you will each have two eyes. The one who said, this is the form of a man.
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This is the way he will be. The one who said, this is when the sun goes up. This is when the sun goes down. This is when the tides will come in. This is when they won't.
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Who has appointed the seasons of life. When he said, make a snake, put it up on a pole. That's what he meant. Moses didn't say, but can't we use something and tie off the, you know, suck the poison out like they do in the western movies? No.
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No tourniquets, no antivenom, none of that stuff. God said, this is the way that it was going to be. So, what did Moses do? Moses by this point, I think had learned his lesson. We saw an immense leadership deal the other night that Moses at the burning bush when God said what he wanted to do, he was like, but but I'm have a stammering tongue and I don't I don't think that's for me.
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No. And God said, yes, it's for you and he had learned in all of his desert wanderings that God was going to provide, that he was providing and so when God said to Moses, do this, the next verse is beautiful. I love this. He says, so Moses made a snake and he put it on a pole. So that the it was divinely appointed.
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It was divinely suitable. We see here that when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived. So not only was it the way God said that it would be, it was suitable and it was effective. It worked. It works because he said it would work.
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Was that something weird? You know the first time that I think that I heard this story, I'm embarrassed to say I was already on the mission field. That may sound crazy for you all who have had Awana and have read through. I've read through the Bible several times, but it's easy to skip over one thing in the New Testament that says, Oh, just like Moses did such and such. And I think, Yeah, I read that part.
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I read that when I was reading through the Old Testament. But it's hard to put the chronology and everything else together. When I got to Mexico, a guy came down and he was talking about it and I said, what are you talking about? He goes, well, just like Jesus says in John three fourteen and fifteen, just before three sixteen. I was like, three sixteen, I know.
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The guy with the rainbow wig and the big sign and we hear three sixteen all the time. People have it on T shirts and on bumper stickers and all of that. That's it is the, yeah. I had an aunt that asked me in Sunday school, what's your favorite verse? And I thought, how weird it would be to have a favorite verse.
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They're all true. They're all good. They're all God's word. But now, I get why she said that. Three sixteen is a great verse.
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It's wonderful. But this story is what set Nicodemus up for that verse. Does that make sense? He's a teacher of Israel. He would have known that story a lot better than I did.
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And so he knew what that was about. It was about their sin. It was about their sorrow. But it was also about their salvation. And that was temporal.
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They lived from looking at that snake, then they died later. Some of them died in the promised land, some of them died in the wilderness. But that, was what the story was about. So from the something weird now to the something wonderful. Back to Nicodemus.
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He's a true seeker. He came at night probably because he didn't want for anybody else, the Pharisees that know. But he had some cool things to admit that we know you're from God because nobody can do the things that you do if he wasn't. So, he's a sincere seeker and Jesus says to him, just as in the same way that Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness. That was in faith.
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Moses listened to God and he did what he said. So, the son of man must be lifted up. That lifted up right there is both literal and figurative. Jesus was speaking of the cross. Just in that same way that he lifted up that snake on that pole in the desert.
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The son of man must be lifted up. He's talking about a cross at Calvary. That everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. This is not temporal this time. Those old testament stories are great morality tales about how we should live our lives in a godly way, but they have eternal consequences now.
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It's not just temporal. They may have eternal life in him. So the three s's are still the same. Sin, sorrow, and salvation. All of us have been poisoned with sin.
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We shouldn't let ourselves forget that. Romans three twenty three says that three three twenty three, another good one of us says that all have sinned, fall short of the glory of God. We all miss the mark. No one's better off on their own than anyone else. Sorrow exist simply because sin exist.
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If it's not your sin that's given you sorrow, it's somebody else's sin that's given you sorrow. That's why it exist and it spurs us on to do the right thing which is to repent. And salvation comes by turning our eyes on Jesus. I have a good friend named Alan Levi. He is a singer songwriter.
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He was a lawyer for like he went to training and practiced law for like ten or twelve years and just felt terrible about himself all the time and felt like he was not doing what he was supposed not to say that all lawyers are like that. That's the way he was. He said he just couldn't keep on doing that anymore. And so he quit. And he's a singer songwriter and has been.
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That's how he's made his life for a long time. I gave about 40 CDs out to y'all last year and this is a little clip, three minutes long and if Nancy could play that, I'd appreciate it.
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Speaker 2He took a name, Jesus, and walked among us inviting, welcoming, at times pleading with us to return to God and to love the right things in the right way. Few of us listened and eventually, as you know, we killed him. We whipped him almost to death, drove nails through his hands, and made him hang on a wooden cross until he died. All because he was guilty of calling us to love God and to love one another. Maybe you wonder, what's with the cross?
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Why is that such a big deal to the followers of Christ? Why can't we just be nice to each other, sing songs on Sunday, feed the poor, and skip all that part about Jesus dying on the cross? I'll be honest with you. It is rather difficult, especially for our twenty first century minds to grasp the necessity of Jesus' death. After all, I suppose that God could have waved a wand or issued a blanket pardon to humanity but that's not what he did.
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Amen. Instead, from the very start, when we divide God and ate the forbidden fruit, you know, the Adam and Eve story. God said that there must be justice, a payment of a penalty. Now, it might seem cruel to us and it is cruel, but sacrifice was the means of rescue that God established from the outset. For thousands of years, the people brought animals to God, bulls, goats, lambs, doves, but none of those was ever fully acceptable to make things right.
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They were just a symbolic and temporary remedy of sorts until an adequate payment could be made for our sin. What the animal offerings really did was point to Jesus, who would one day come as the one and only sacrifice that God would accept once and for all. In short, it's through the cross that Jesus rescues the world. And in a very real sense, Aaron, when Jesus died, everyone of us was there.
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Speaker 1Amen. What Alan just said right there, the cross is not a place for argument. It is the divinely just like said, sin, sorrow, salvation, they're all still with us today. The salvation part of that was divinely appointed. That is the way that God said that it would be and it is not for us, the created to tell tell the creator how he's going to do things.
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It's divinely appointed. It is divinely suitable and it is divinely effective. There's more that comes with it than eternal life, eternal salvation. There's abundant life and everything else that comes with it but it is the way. So, this maybe an unusual way to go into communion.
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I'm skipping an invitation in a in a sermon on John three. This is crazy. The invitation today really will be during this communion. I'm going to sing a song. The words will be up on the screen.
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If you want to sing, you're welcome to sing with me but you can sit there. If I can have the offering team come forward on the third verse, the the communion team come forward on the third verse. Allen said in a very real way, we were all there. If you look back to that that picture of the snakes in Moses twenty one forty nine, that picture that was up there, there were some of those people who were looking towards that cross with that snake up on the top, and they were being saved. Some of them still had the snake hanging off of them, and there were others that would not turn their eye that way because they wanted to do things their way.
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They were wrestling with their affliction. They died. Nancy, would you flip the slides for this?
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Speaker 3Were you there when they crucified my lord sometimes it causes me to tremble tremble tremble were you there when they crucified my lord were you there when they nailed him to the tree were you there when they nailed him to the tree sometimes it causes me to tremble tremble tremble were you there when they nailed him to the tree communion team if you'd come forward were you there when they laid him in the tomb were you there in the tomb sometimes it causes me to tremble tremble tremble were you there when they laid him in the tomb
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Speaker 1As we enter upon the Lord's table, I want to share together just a few thoughts, not long regarding Jesus's death so that we can approach the table with the right spirit, the right attitude. Jesus said, do this in remembrance of me. It's a very simple thing. It's a very simple command, very simply defined. It's an act of remembrance and on Veterans Day, it gets me even deeper because so many have given so much and we can relate it to human examples all around us.
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We do this here today to remember what the Lord has done. Naturally, the simplicity of this table that need a lot of profound explanation, bread and cup. Bread is the body. Cup, the blood. All a reminder of the cross, the way divinely appointed for us.
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To have salvation. Just like my friend Alan said, it's no place to argue with God. It's a place of surrender and acceptance. This is the place where sin and sorrow meet salvation. He's made the way for you but you must accept it by the simple exercise of the faith that he has given and what he has decreed.
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If you have accepted him, you are welcome to take of the bread and the cup. If you haven't, I'd love to talk to you afterwards. God, I ask you to your blessing on this symbol of your body as we distribute it, lord. Let us consider the sacrifice that you made on our behalf. Amen.
