Sermon “It’s a Big Bad World Out There” John 3:10-21
Our Lord, grant that we may look to you and follow you, the beloved one of the Father, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
It’s a big bad world out there, isn’t it? In our readings today we saw time and again that we face challenges, and they are big challenges. We run around doing our own thing, trying to work out the way we will live in the here and now, and we do it all only to realize that we were looking the wrong way. We try to trust our heart. We try to interpret our circumstances. We try to live each day like it’s a gift of God, but we find something goes wrong. Our heart deceived us. Our circumstances led us down a wrong path. Our days are a gift from God but we find we don’t know how to appreciate or use that gift. We thought we’d have a nice tiptoe through the tulips but we didn’t count on finding all those stinging nettle plants there, reaching out and biting us. We trust in luck, but then we have to confess that if it weren’t for bad luck we’d have no luck at all. Life is pretty rough. There are surely dragons in the land, and we aren’t ready, not ready at all.
Do you realize, though, that we aren’t the first generation to see this? Do you realize that it is not at all a new situation? Think back with me for a moment through our readings. Abraham received a great promise. He would be the father of many nations. There was just one problem. He had no children. And as time went on and on, he still had no children. Finally, when he was a hundred years old and his wife was ninety God gave him the promise again. Of course it sounded ridiculous. Nobody that old has children. But a year later they had their child, Isaac, the child of promise. So finally there’s a child. Now maybe there’s a chance that Abraham could be the father of many nations. But in our reading from Genesis today we saw Abraham receive God’s command to sacrifice his son. This is the one chance to see the blessing of God. This is the child of promise. But here God is telling Abraham to kill his child, his only child, the one whom he loves, the one who would be the heir of Abraham’s promise. What does Abraham do? He believes God. And God, rich in mercy and grace, provides a substitute, a ram who will take Isaac’s place.
What did we see in James? We saw that God’s promise is not what tempts us. We saw that we are tempted when we try to pursue our own evil desires. We are tempted when we trust our heart. We are tempted when we try to interpret our circumstances. We are tempted when we leave God’s loving promises out of the picture and run off about our own business. We are tempted when we try to make God’s promises come true rather than letting God be God. And what happens when we fall to that temptation? We enter into sin, following our father Adam, taking righteousness into our own hands, denying the grace of God. We are cursed, we are condemned, and we are able to do that all by ourselves. Then, just the way we would predict, trusting our heart, following the path our circumstances have laid out for us, we get ourselves more and more entangled in sin, leading to despair. We end up without hope in this world. Who is going to deliver us? Who will help us? We look to Jesus, who was blessed by God and who went immediately into the wilderness. And we who have been blessed by God run off into the wilderness where we are lost without a map, without companionship, without provisions, without a way to escape.
In the end there’s just one way out of this deadly situation. And that way out is through Jesus, who, blessed by the Father, endured temptation in the wilderness, then returned from the wilderness. But how are we going to receive the help we need from Jesus? Better not try to trust our hearts. That’s what got us here in the first place. So we go the route that Nicodemus did. If you were following along on our Bible reading challenge you came to John chapter 3 this week. Let’s look to verses 10-21 of that text to find how Jesus guides Nicodemus out of the wilderness. Read along with me if you’d like. Again, we’re in John chapter 3, starting at verse 10.
10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”
What did Jesus just say about himself? He compared himself to the bronze serpent in the desert. I believe that comes up soon in our Bible reading challenge. The people of Israel were grumbling. They weren’t trusting God. They wanted to take matters into their own hands. God sent venomous snakes which would kill the Israelites. But as the people were realizing their failure, God also had Moses lift up a bronze copy of the snake on a pole. If the people would look at it in faith they would not be killed by the snakes. There’s our key. Just as Abraham looked to God in faith and trust, just as the Israelites looked to God in faith and trust, so we look to Jesus, the Son of Man, trusting that through him we receive eternal life. This isn’t trusting our heart. It isn’t following our circumstances. It isn’t doing what may seem the wisest thing in the eyes of our world. But it is precisely what Jesus says to do. We look in faith to the one who came from heaven, knowing that he is the one who gives eternal life.
This, after all, is why Jesus came in the first place. His intention was to give eternal life, to take our life which was falling apart, and give us his permanent version of life in exchange. He didn’t come to condemn us. He didn’t come to destroy us. He didn’t come to shut us out in the dark. He came to give us true, abundant life. He came to rescue us from the wilderness of our sin and shame. He came to bring us out of darkness into his light. And he did it by being raised up on a pole, just as the bronze serpent was. Jesus rescues us by his very death on our behalf. Jesus rescues us from sin by becoming sin for us. Jesus rescues us by being subject to the shame and condemnation that we by rights should have received. Jesus rescues us by replacing us in death, then being raised again to life, showing that he is the firstborn from the dead.
What do we find when we trust our hearts? We find out that it’s a big bad world out there. What do we find when we look to Jesus? We find that Christ has been crucified for sinners and that he richly and freely gives us his forgiveness, life, and salvation. Let us look to him today. May today be the day when we are delivered from our bondage in the wilderness. May today be the day of salvation. May today be the day when we see that the Son of Man was raised up in our place. May this be the day when we walk in the light again, knowing that he has delivered us from sin and death into his wonderful light.
So now may Jesus Christ, the light of the world, shine upon us, letting us see him clearly. Amen.
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