Sermon Title: Maybe You Deserve It
Bible Text: John 3:13-15
and Numbers 21:4-9
Sometimes things happen
to us and we wonder why. Assume that just before you are
ready to leave on a well-planned trip, you have a major repair
situation at you home. You look up at the sky and say, "Why
did this happen to me?". Then you look again and
say, "I don't deserve this."
Jesus certainly didn't
deserve what happened to him, lifted up on the cross to
suffer. He willingly obeyed. Endured the cross so
that believers could find a way out of sin and a saving way to deal
with what the world gives us at times.
A stirring passage in
John 3: 15 touches on this idea. Jesus says, "The Son of Man
must be lifted up, just as Moses lifted up a serpent in the
wilderness." This is a reference to Jesus, being
lifted up on the cross. Have you ever why Jesus used this
story from the life of the Israelites? It is a story from
Numbers 4, happening after God's people had beens set free from
Egypt. They had wandered in the wilderness. They
were doubting God's wisdom and complained that Moses was not leading
them well. God must have been sadded by their lack of
faith. He caused an event to happened that jolted them out of
this unfaithful life style.
God sent poison snakes
among them. Some people were bitten and died. They
came to Moses and aske him to pray that God would take the snakes
away. "We have sinned against God and we are
sorry". They repented. Moses prayed, but instead of
taking the snakes away, God told Moses to make a bronze snake and lift
it up on a pole. All who looked at the lifted up snake would
live. This is the image Christ is referring to in John
3. Christ becomes the one lifted up. When we lift
our eyes to Christ on the cross and believe, we have life.....life
everlasting.
So, in a way,
the people of God deserved that happening. It was the only
way God could get through to them. Sometimes in our live too,
we deserve the event. It is not that God is trying to hurt
us, it is God doing the only thing that will break through to us.
The "5 ECTS Of
God" tell this too.
1. Sometimes
God uses problems to DIRECT you.
2.
Sometimes God uses life to INSPECT you.
3.. Sometimes
God uses things to CORRECT you.
4. Sometimes
God uses situations to PROTECT you.
5. Sometimes
God uses life to PERFECT you.
Lent is that time when
God asks us to look inside and see what might be there that is standing
int the wayds of a new commitment to follow Christ. For the
people of old it took a bronze snake to lift their eyes to God's saving
power. For us, it is Christ on the cross that lifts our eyes
to the renewal of Christ in our lives.
May we lift our eyes to
the cross and be made new.