God bless you, everybody. Let's go to the word together now. If you would, what I'd like to do is kind of pick up right where I left off on Thursday night. And I'd like us to open just for a few minutes. I read this on Thursday night, but I think it's a great place to start just kind of threading one message into the next. Go to Numbers chapter 21, Numbers chapter 21. And if you listen to Thursday night, you kind of heard this portion of this already, but I'll be a little. I'll try to move through it quickly and then and then we'll move on from there. Numbers 21 and verse four, let us pray one more time and ask God that he would lead us and teach us as we study his word. Our father in heaven, Dear Lord God, as we look into your Word now, we're really convinced, Lord, that this is what we need more than anything. And it's always been needed before anything like is going on in our society now. This was already true. What we need more than anything is your Word. We need to hear from you. We need your wisdom. We need your truth, your unchanging truth in an ever-changing world. We need that anchor that is your truth, that our minds might be grounded and solid and our hearts might be stable and secure. As we read and study your word now, I pray that maybe this special season of all of our lives would be a time where everyone makes a rededication and a new commitment to love and to cherish and to exalt the scriptures, your word, which you have given to us. And now, Lord, I pray that you would open our eyes to wonderful things from your word. and give us guidance and instruction and encouragement today. In Jesus' name, Lord, I pray. Amen. Numbers chapter 21 and verse 4. Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. And the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses. Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There's no food, no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread. So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and many of the people of Israel died. Therefore, the people came to Moses and said, we've sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us. So Moses prayed for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole. And it shall be that everyone who is bitten when he looks at it shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. And so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. This passage of scripture goes obviously all the way back to the ancient world and goes back to the time when the children of Israel, after they had come out of Egypt, under Moses' hand as God was leading them by using Moses. They were wandering in the desert and God was leading them around and God was even providing for them food every day by making the manna appear on the ground and the Lord was leading them And it became an existence for them that, for whatever reason, they saw fit to start complaining against Moses and against God. And while they were journeying, that's what it says, they became very discouraged, very discouraged on the way. Maybe we feel a little bit of that ourselves today. We're a little bit discouraged. But they began to complain, and they complained both against God and against Moses. And they asked God, why did you bring us out here? Did you just bring us out here to die? There's no food, there's no water, there's no nothing. And they even said, we, this loathsome, this worthless bread, we loathe this worthless bread, which God had been providing for them. So the Lord didn't take kindly to that, of course, because God was actually being very gracious and very good to them, even in the midst of the hardship of their wandering. So God did something severe But for the purpose of disciplining his people, he sent fiery serpents. And these serpents, they went throughout the land and they bit the people. And when the people were bit, many of them became sick and many of them died. And so the people got the message and they humbled themselves and they went to the Lord, or they went to Moses and they said, we've sinned against the Lord and against you. And they asked Moses to pray. And so Moses prayed for them. And then God in verse eight, it says, told Moses to do something that might look a little unusual, but it becomes actually an event that's so important That later on, centuries later, when Jesus is on the earth, Jesus will use this very event in a very powerful way, which is ultimately what we're going to look at. But look at what God tells Moses. Make a serpent and set it on a pole. That is, fashion a serpent out of bronze and put it up on a pole. Hold it up. And so anyone who just looks at it, if he's been bitten, if he just looks at it, he'll live. So Moses did it. Made the serpent, put it on a pole. And so it was, if the serpent had bitten anyone, when they looked at the bronze serpent, they lived. Amazing thing. With that history in mind, turn with me to John chapter 3 in the New Testament. My main point in reading that was not to talk about the fact that the people complained in a hard time, but perhaps there is something that could speak to each of us about that as well. I'll leave that between you and the Lord. What I really want to see is how Jesus used this in having this incredible amazing conversation that he was having with Nicodemus and this becomes really the basis for everything then that we want to talk about here today. In John chapter 3 what's happening is Jesus is having a conversation with Nicodemus by night. Nicodemus is a very well-respected, highly respected rabbi. He's referred to as a ruler of the Jews. And he goes to Jesus by night, which might be some indication of the fact that he was not too comfortable about the fact that he was breaking ranks with the rest of the Pharisees who were very skeptical of Jesus, which is putting it mildly. But he goes to Jesus and he says, we know that you're a teacher who has come from God because nobody can do these miracles that you're doing unless God is with him. And the conversation progresses to the point where Jesus at one very powerful moment brings up the story that I just read to you from Numbers chapter 21. And this will help us to understand what's going on. In chapter 3 and verse 14, Jesus says to Nicodemus, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. And then, of course, verse 16 is the verse from this passage that everybody knows, that for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And because people know verse 16 so well, Perhaps they don't realize that really most of verse 16 is just a restatement of what he said in verses 14 and 15. What verse 16 does is it adds the motive of God's heart for doing what he did in giving us Jesus. He loved the world so much that he gave us Jesus. I know we went over this on Thursday, but this is going somewhere, trust me. Then what God, what Jesus does here, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Right? Referring back to that story with Nicodemus, which Nicodemus would have instantly known, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Right? What happened in that story in the wilderness that we just read? There were people who were sick, dying even, because they had complained and God had judged them. They were bitten. And God made a way for them to be healed. And the way for them to be healed was to look to this serpent on a pole that Moses had fashioned at God's direction. Jesus said, just like that, I'm going to be lifted up. so that basically the same thing would happen. Whoever looks to Me, that is, believes, right? Whoever believes in Me, whoever looks to Jesus with the eyes of faith, whoever looks to Him and believes that He is the Son of God, the Messiah, the One who was coming to actually rescue them from their sins, the One who was coming to bring salvation, whoever would look to Him and believe would not die. but have everlasting life. Just like in the old days, they looked to the snake on the pole, and they were healed. So it is in the time when Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus, and still today, the person who looks to Jesus is healed. Healed of what? We're not walking around snake-bitten, but we are walking around sin-bitten. And that's the whole point. Jesus came to bring salvation and healing from our sin. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah, speaking of what Messiah would do when he came, said, by his stripes or by his wounds, we are healed. The way a person in the midst of walking through life and all of life's battles and struggles and all of the sins that we find ourselves so easily ensnared by, the way to find redemption and healing and mercy and forgiveness from those sins is to look to Jesus. Look to Him. That is to hear the word of His gospel Humble yourself. Acknowledge that you have sinned. You know, God's word is clear. Those same children of Israel were given God's laws. And the reason they found themselves in that trouble is they were disobeying God's laws. But if we look at ourselves, We're really, as individuals, no better, right? I mean, he has commands that tell us not to lie, and not to steal, and not to use his name in vain, and not to covet, and all sorts of commands. Honor your father and your mother. Don't worship any other gods. Don't commit adultery. Jesus said even to lust after someone was to commit adultery in their heart. The law says don't murder anyone. The Bible says if you just hate someone in your heart, you've committed murder in your heart. We're all sin-bitten like those people were snake-bitten. What do we need? Because God loves us, because God loved the world so much, He sent Jesus that all who will humble themselves like the children of Israel did. They humbled themselves and they went to Moses and said, we've sinned against you and we've sinned against God. Please pray for us. If a person who is aware of their sinfulness, but aware of the goodness and the holiness of God, will humble themselves and turn to Jesus. Humble themselves and look to Jesus. Look at Him. That is, believe with all of their heart. God will wash their sins away. God will forgive them and they will be healed of their sin. I start off with that repeat of what we did on Thursday night because what I didn't do is go on from there to show that there are two other ways in the Bible then a person should, as we walk through life, look to Jesus. To be first reconciled with God as a sinner. means or requires, needs that we believe and that we receive Him. As many as received Him, the Bible says, to them He gave the power to become the children of God, to those who believe in His name. If you're watching this now or you're listening to this now, if you need salvation and the forgiveness of sins, turn to Jesus. Look to Jesus right now. Believe in Him. Cry out to him. Yes, Father, I've sinned against you, but I need this. I need Jesus. I need your forgiveness. Believe that Jesus is the son of God and receive him by faith. And if you have received Jesus by faith, now what? Now we continue to walk through our lives. And as we walk through our lives, what do we find? We find that there are troubles, difficulties, like what we're in right now. What do we do then, now that we've been saved? May I say to you, the very same thing that the new newly awakened sinner does in looking to Jesus is then what we continue to do. We need to continue to look to Jesus. Turn with me in the Bible to Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 35. Hopefully you have a Bible and you're following along. Hebrews 11.35. Now Hebrews chapter 11, it goes through a whole list of names of people that lived way back before Jesus was here on the earth, going all the way back. And it describes one at a time these maybe great figures and how they believed in the Lord, how they had faith in the Lord. and what God did in them and through them because of their faith. And the point is to show how without faith it's impossible to please God. And what I noticed as I read through this chapter and read through all these names is you eventually reach the point where, in verse 35, The names stop and you're just kind of namelessly presented with other people who continue to do. Because aside from maybe some of the more famous ones, the better known ones in scripture, down through the ages God has always had his people. who believed in Him. And when they believed in Him, it didn't make their lives easy. God has always had His faithful ones who walked through hardship and difficulty, times maybe that are like ours now, and situations that are much, much worse even than what we're going through right now. And it says in verse 35, reading to the end of the chapter, women received their dead raised to life again. This is all by faith. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, look at this, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. I would love to stand up and simply say to you, week after week, in hard times even like this or any time, look, everything's just going to be okay, right? And in the end, everything's going to be way better than okay. Everything's going to be perfect because we're going to be with the Lord. But as we walk through our lives, You can't just walk up, you can't just say to people who love God and believe in God, everything's going to be good. Everything's going to be okay. We need to remember part of living is enduring hardships. Part of being a child of God is walking through those difficulties and keeping your eyes on him. Like so many who have gone before us have done. What does it go on to say in verse 39 and all these All these people who went before us, who walked through very hard things with faith in God. It says, all these having obtained a good testimony through faith did not receive the promise. The promise was a reference to the fulfillment of God's promise to send Jesus to bring salvation. This is a reference to people who lived before Jesus came. They walked, they endured, their faith was in the fact that God had made this promise and was going to send deliverance through the Messiah, but they did not live to see it happen. It says they did not receive the promise. God having provided something better for us, right? That is to say, where are we? We have the advantage of what? Having lived in an era and in a time when we can look back and know with perfect clarity what the fulfillment of that promise was. That God gave Jesus so that through faith in Him, we are reconciled to God. God having provided something better for us that they should not be made perfect apart from us. So we are all, whether it was someone who lived before Jesus came or someone who lived since Jesus came, we're all perfected, that is we're all brought to completion the same way. That is through faith, through faith in the promise that God made is what they believed before Jesus came. And now we just, we know the details of that promise. That Jesus is the Messiah and he died for our sins and rose from the dead. And all those from the beginning, salvation has always been by faith. All the way back to Abraham. Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now, look at verse one of chapter 12. With all of that in mind, look at the conclusion that it makes. This is beautiful. Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, that cloud of witnesses being like, imagine all of those people who have gone before us, right? It's like a cloud of witnesses, all these other people. Since we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of God. Hallelujah. How do you unpack that? What does that say to us? The people who lived before us, they walked their life. They ran their race. Now those of us who have faith in Christ, it's our time. Whether it's the situation we find ourselves in now or whatever it may be, it is our time to walk and to endure. So lay aside every weight. Lay aside the sin that easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. looking to Jesus who is the author and finisher of our faith. We're looking to him, having already been brought to him and looked to him that first time when we were originally saved and born again. We are to continue as we live day by day to look to him, look to him. Listen, the picture that's drawn here is the picture of running the race. And the scripture says that Jesus is the author and the finisher of our faith. Right? And the whole idea of all of that is that the author means that he is the originator of it. He is the creator of it. He is the one who wrote the book on salvation, if you will. He's the author of our faith, and he is the finisher of our faith. That is to say, he's the completer of our faith, the perfecter of our faith. If you want to think of it in terms of a race, he's the person who's standing there saying, go, at the beginning, and he's the person who's standing there at the finish line waiting for you. And we run the race. And how do we run the race? We meet him in the beginning. He says, go. And all along the way as we run, our eyes are fixed on him, no matter what we're going through. Jesus Himself went through a life like that, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Jesus Himself, in other words, Jesus, when He was here, listen, it was no easy thing for Jesus to go to the cross. It was no easy thing for Jesus to accomplish what He accomplished, but how did He do it? He knew what was at the end, sitting down on that throne at the right hand of His Father in Heaven. The joy that was set before Him, He kept His eyes on the joy. Yeah, the shame was there. Of course, He despised the shame of the cross. But listen, the joy, the joy that was set before Him, the destination, the finish line, sitting down at the right hand of His Father after He had risen from the dead, that gave Him the strength to run the race all the way to its completion. And here the scripture tells us, let's do the same. Like all of those people of faith and all those things they endured, the scourgings, chains, imprisonment, they were stoned, slain with the sword, destitute, afflicted, wandering in the deserts. They all walked through because they kept their eyes on the finish line. And that's how we're supposed to walk as well. That's how we're supposed to run the race, looking to Jesus. So the race starts out by looking to Jesus and becoming his child. Then as you run, as you go along through life, you continue to look to Jesus to find strength, to find encouragement, to find wisdom, to find guidance, to find everything that we need to run the race. Turn to him. You having a hard time with all this? I am too. We all are. You having a hard time with this? Look to Jesus. He's the author. He's the finisher of your faith. Keep your eyes on Him. Stay in prayer. Commit yourself to the Word. Keep in contact with each other and maintain fellowship in this new kind of living that we're all doing together in whatever best way you can. But look to him, just like you look to him when you first heard the word of the gospel. Continue to look to him, no matter what's going on around. Look to Jesus. There's a third point, then we look to him for salvation, just like the snake on the pole in the old days. We look to him for strength as we're running the race. But we also look for him to come again. We're looking for his appearing. Turn to Titus chapter 2. If you have a Bible, Titus chapter 2. The book of Titus is a letter that was written to a man named Titus, thus the name. It was written by the Apostle Paul. It's the Bible, so it was written by God. But God used the, you know, the experience of these men who were founding the church in the early days to bring forth his word, his scriptures into the world. So it reads like a letter from Paul to Titus, and Titus is told, here's how you ought to order your church. And as you come into chapter 2 of this, he talks about speaking to the older men, to the older women, to the younger women, to the younger men, speaking to bond servants to be obedient to their masters, all of that. How you live as a believer is important, because as it says in verse 10, we want to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. Then he comes to verse 11, and I love these verses. These are some of my favorite verses in the whole Bible here, verses 11 through 14. Why? Why do we live the way that we live? Now listen to this. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It's a reference to when Jesus came to make the sacrifice that he made. Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly. The grace of God that is in Christ Jesus, which brings salvation to us, is then also a teacher of us in how we ought to live. His grace brings salvation. His grace brings wisdom and instruction as well. We should deny ungodliness, worldly lusts, live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age. Now look at this. Looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works." Well, if you've been following the flow of the message here, you know what I'm focusing in on is that phrase right in the middle where he talks about how we're looking for his glorious appearing. That is a big part of how we're supposed to live. This whole passage of scripture is written to Christians to teach them how they ought to live their lives while they're here. And right in the middle of all of it was this word about looking for Christ's appearing. In what's going on in the world today, maybe you've heard or thought to yourself or spoke, there are people who are thinking like, is this the end of the world? Is this the end of the country? Listen, listen. I don't, in a way, it almost doesn't even matter. In the Bible, for Christians, we're never just looking ahead to the end of the world, as they say. What we're looking forward to, what we're looking ahead to, and we have our eyes fixed on, is the return of Jesus Christ. From the moment Jesus rose from the dead and then ascended back to heaven, His followers were told this same Jesus, just like you see him go, you're going to see him come back. That generation that was told that didn't live to see it. There will be a generation that is alive that will actually see the return of Jesus Christ. But for the church, for Christians, We look to Jesus to receive salvation. We look to Him day by day for strength as we walk through our lives and through difficult times. And we continually, continually keep our eyes on heaven. Keep our eyes on His kingdom. Keep our eyes on the future. Listen. Maybe you're thinking to yourself that like things like this, we talked about it last week a little bit. Jesus spoke about things like what is going on now. Maybe being a little bit of a rumbling of the fact that his return is drawing near. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord if that is the case. But listen, what we are to be doing is walking through our lives looking to Him and looking for that glorious appearing. You know what I did? I looked through these verses that we have in front of us here and I saw it's all one sentence and it reads Fairly logically, if you take verse 13 out, it would say, You see, it reads logically and flows even without that statement. What does that show me about that statement? When Paul wrote this, when God had Paul write this, he very deliberately and purposely made sure that his children, the people of God, understood that as they live, as they walk in God's grace, and as they live in their lives the way that God wants them to live, make sure you keep your eyes open for his appearing. We long for his appearing. We're not looking for the end of the world. We're looking for the beginning of a very different world. We're looking for the beginning of a very different reign, a very different king, and a very different kingdom. We are looking forward to the return of the righteous one, the holy one, the beautiful one in whom there was no fault, no defect, nothing evil, nothing bad, nothing but truth and righteousness and power and glory. We're looking forward to that. And through faith in Christ, here's the best part, you have a place promised, assured in that world, in that kingdom. That's why as you live and you walk now, you keep your eyes fixed on Him. We look to Jesus for salvation. We look to Jesus for strength day by day, and we look to Jesus for his glorious appearing and his return and the establishment of his beautiful, perfect, eternal, wonderful kingdom, which through faith in him, you are promised a place in. Is that not good news? Is that not great and wonderful news? My friend, my brothers and sisters, anyone who's watching and listening to this, if you have not received Jesus as your Savior and your Lord, look to him. Believe. If you're battling and struggling with discouragement because of what's going on now or anything else in your life as a Christian, Look to him and find strength. And all of us who are his children by faith, as we live, let's keep our eyes heavenward. Let's fix our gaze on the heavens as those first apostles did as Jesus ascended and look for that glorious appearing and that glorious return of our great Lord and Savior. And let that be encouragement and peace for you today.