Look Up And Live

Look Up And Live Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-15 In life, there will be times when your faith is going to be tested. Even if you or someone you know isn't a Christian, whatever it is you're putting your faith in will be tested. Everyone has faith in something, and everyone's faith will be tested because everyone will be held accountable. You will have to answer for how you've lived your life. Now, for the Christian, being tested is the simple fact of following Jesus. If you're not being tested, if you've never gone through some sort of trial, then you've stopped growing in your faith. If you've never asked "Why" or "How," then it means you've got all the answers. It means you've figured everything out. It means you, as John Wesley said, have gone onto perfection. And it feels so good being perfect, that you're never coming back to sinners saved by grace like myself. It means you're above the wrong you see in everyone else but are too perfect to help anybody else achieve the perfection you think you've found. It means you're so complete that you fail to realize any need for maturing your faith. It's always looking inward and down instead of outward and up. It's forgetting that even John Wesley, who taught that every active follower of Christ was going onto perfection, understood that nobody could ever achieve complete perfection this side of eternity. It's ok to have faith in yourself and be physically and emotionally strong. But if you're relying more upon yourself and your strength to make it through this life, then you're not as perfect and actually weaker than you think. Having faith is not unique to Christianity. Whatever it is people put their faith in is always something outside of them that is stronger than they are. Everyone looks outside of themselves in hopes of building a stronger inside. Having faith isn't unique to Christianity, but having faith in Christ is. Christianity is about following a risen Savior, not worshipping a dead hero. And believe it or not, you are the one who determines how close of a relationship you have with Jesus Christ. You're the one who determines how much faith, if any, you'll place in Christ Jesus. You won't live on this planet forever. Your days are numbered. Therefore, the question of faith becomes whether you look inside yourself and your own abilities and strength, or if you reach out to Jesus, who dwells on the other side of eternity and wants you to be where He is. Faith asks, "Do you Look Up And Live?" And I don't just mean live on earth, but where you'll live for eternity. Not that long ago, an atheist had an old tree in his backyard that fell over during a storm and landed right on top of his neighbors' house. The atheist called his insurance company to see if he was covered. His insurance agent was a churchgoing person who knew all about the atheist's lack of belief. With this in mind, he gave the following response to the atheist: "If your tree fell over because it was dead, we cannot cover this expense; you will have to pay for the repairs on your neighbor's home yourself. However, if the tree fell because of 'an act of God,' your insurance will cover it. So, which one do you consider it to be?" "Which one do you consider it to be?" is the question we face in today's Scripture. Only instead of a tree, we have snakes. Now here, I'm kinda like Indiana Jones, "Snakes. Why does it have to be snakes!" Well, I believe God chose snakes because most people are afraid of snakes. Even one snake will arouse the most comfortable daydreamer because everyone knows the power over life or death one snake has. Even if you're not afraid of snakes, snakes demand your attention. Snakes demand your respect. Snakes determine your actions. Attention, respect, action, the 3 things God was looking for from the Israelites because, like the snakes, God has the ultimate control over life and death. Today's Scripture reveals how the Israelites were complaining again. Moses led them in a longer way to their destination. When we're driving and trying to get somewhere, all of us hate it when we see those detour signs because it takes more time to get to where we're going. And we're in a car! Imagine how the Israelites, who were walking, must have felt. And when things weren't going their way, they began to complain. How many of you know how easy it is to complain when things don't go as planned? We can be very impatient people, not realizing that those detours that are taking us in a different direction are actually meant to help, not hinder. Detours take us down paths we never would have traveled on our own. God knows all the detours in your life, and He uses them to help teach you new things about yourself and about God. God uses detours to help you mature in your faith because when you don't know where the detour is taking you, it's forcing you to look outside of yourself and trust in the one who placed those detour signs there in the first place. The Israelites were not where God needed them to be geographically or emotionally, so they went on a detour. But on that detour, "the people grew impatient. 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! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!" Have you ever "detested" what God has provided? To "detest" something is not just to despise it, but it's to reject and have no use for it. Have you ever rejected or thought you've had no use for the things of God? That was the Israelites mindset. In everything they knew about God, they still looked inward at themselves by trying, again and again, to rely upon their own knowledge and strength to get through life's journey. Now, one thing about our English Bible is that English doesn't provide the rich meaning that many of the words have in the Bible. Just look at today's Scripture and notice the 2 words used for God. God calls Himself by different names to help us better understand more of who God is. Verse 5 says, "They spoke against God," and verse 6 begins, "The LORD." The name used for "God" in verse 5 is Elohim. Elohim means "The Strong Creator God." "In the beginning, Elohim created the heavens and the earth." God is Elohim, the strong Creator who creates out of nothing. In verse 6, you'll notice that "LORD" is all capitalized. In fact, in the OT, "LORD" in all capitals is found over 6,500 times! Every time you see "LORD" in all capitals, it's referring to God's Name as Jehovah. Jehovah means "The Relational God." God is relational, which helps emphasize the fact that following Christ, who is our "LORD," is not a religion but a relationship. Jehovah can sympathize with you because He is relational. The Israelites knew God was a relational strong creator, but their inward stubbornness kept leading them astray. So God sent them snakes! You may ask yourself, "Why did God send them snakes? I mean, verse 6 even says that 'many Israelites died.'" Why would a loving God do such a thing! Well folks, if you'll turn to our NT reading, that's the same question Nicodemus was asking Jesus. John 3 begins with Nicodemus coming to Jesus by night because he was afraid of what others might think. Nicodemus sat down with Jesus, and they talked about earthly things because he couldn't believe the heavenly things. Nicodemus was too busy looking in at himself, at his own strength, his own education, his own knowledge, and his own power. He was too busy thinking he was eating with Jesus at Burger King wanting everything his way. He was too busy looking inward. So Jesus used today's OT Scripture to teach Nicodemus a crucial point, you must Look Up And Live! God will do everything in His power to get you to come to Him, even if that means surrounding you with snakes! However, God won't force you to choose Him. The snakes were there, but God also provided a cure. God told Moses to "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." God doesn't want "anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9), and if that means you have to learn through pain, AMEN, So Be It! If pain prevented people from following God, then we'd have no apostles, no missionaries, no preachers or pastors, and no Christians. Even though this world's not perfect, it can look pleasing to the eye. And if your view of the world gets brighter and heaven gets dimmer, a loving God will do what it takes to get you to refocus and come back to Him. God didn't force anybody to look up at the snake on the pole, but those who did look up lived. That's the message Jesus was trying to get across to Nicodemus. Jesus was saying, "You know what, you're not God! You have to stop looking inward at earthly things and look outward by faith at heavenly things, because with faith, you'll see Me and be healed." The Israelites were bitten by snakes, but everyone is bitten by sin. They felt little initial pain, then intense suffering. Sin causes little initial pain because "there is pleasure in sin for a season" (Hebrews 11:25), but then comes intense suffering. The snake's poison led to physical death, and spiritual death comes from sin's poison. The bronze snake was lifted up in the desert; Christ was lifted up on the cross because "God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Looking to the snake spared one's life, and as Jesus said, "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in Him." Jesus is calling for Intentional Attention. Jesus is calling for you to respect who He is by acting in faith that His ways are better than our ways, even when those ways seem like detours or led to snakes. Intentional Attention is not looking inward but Looking Up To Live. Intentional Attention is not paying sole attention to your surroundings or circumstances; it's about being intentional about your faith and paying more attention to the LORD who has been raised up for you. Feelings led the Israelites astray and to death. Faith led them to life in God. It's not feelings, but faith that the Israelites, including Nicodemus, needed to learn. Most people don't come to church, stand in front of the pew, and wonder if it can hold them up. I've never seen any of you do that. Most people don't study the pew, evaluate the pew, and wonder if the pew will hold them up. They just sit down. They exercise faith. That faith is not based on their feelings about the pew, but rather on the confident trust and faith that the pew is strong enough to hold them up. But the reverse is also true. If someone says how they believe the pew is strong enough to hold them up, but never sit down, they're not exercising their faith because they're not acting on what they said they believed. Jesus isn't calling for feelings, but faith. Jesus knows your circumstances. He knows the troubles that surround you. He knows your feelings and what makes you feel trapped. He knows your sin. And He is asking the Israelites, Nicodemus, and you, to have faith. To have intentional attention on what He has done, and not on your own strength. Jesus is asking you to take up the call to Look Up And Live! I can imagine the Israelites were squeamish, being surrounded by snakes nipping at their heels while being told to look up at a bronze snake. I can imagine they prayed for God to remove the snakes and give them a clear path. But God choose another way. God left the snakes there, but God also gave them a solution to the danger that surrounded them. All they had to do was Look Up And Live. "Look Up" doesn't sound like much of a commitment. But it's a call to move out of ourselves and to allow someone else to take the lead. "Look Up" means hope, anticipation, belief, confidence, and an expectation that God is Elohim and Jehovah, the strong relational Creator. Today's Scripture isn't about a snake. It's about acknowledging that you need help; That you need a Savior. It's about surrendering ourselves to that which will save us rather than thinking we can do it ourselves. It's admitting the poison of sin in our system will kill us if we don't do something radical! It's about obedience to the One who will rescue you, if you just Look Up And Live! AMEN 2