[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Dear Saints,
Some of the men of the congregation were gathered down for the men’s retreat at Camp Lone Star the last couple of days, listening to Pastor Whedon teach on 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians too, where Paul reminds us, rejoice always. Like he does to every church, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. This is the will of God for you, that you would be filled with joy.
In fact, Pastor Whedon reminded us of this quote from Nietzsche. I’ve been looking for it and I haven’t been able to find it, so I haven’t verified. And even if it is a Nietzsche quote, I’m not sure if we should take it too seriously. But the content of it has been challenging me; it’s been stuck in my mind ever since he said it. The quote goes like this: Nietzsche says that the church lost the world when the church lost its joy. Did you get that? That the church lost the world when the church lost its joy. And I think that might be right.
I think that when we read in the scriptures about the Christian life, about the early church, even in the midst of trouble and persecution, there was something that identified the Christians, something that marked them and set them apart, and that was joy. And I do not think that that is the first word that people would use to describe the church now. Oh, those Christians, no matter what happens to them, they’re always full of joy. May God, in fact, grant us that joy. May He restore to us the joy of salvation. Because the Christian argument is one that brings joy.
Now, there’s a lot of, and I want to set it up this way, because there’s a lot of ways that humanity is crafted to try to live the good life, to try to do something worthwhile, to try to achieve something helpful. And of all of the different attempts to perfect humanity, I think at the top of all of the tries and all of the philosophies and all of the arguments would have to be Phariseeism. I mean, it’s certainly better than Stoicism, which says that, well, you get better through suffering until you die and it’s over, or hedonism, eat, drink, and be merry, tomorrow we die, or Platonism or any other religious endeavors. It must be that Phariseeism is probably the best that we can come up with on our own together with the law of God that says, well, if I can just be good enough, if I can perfect my life enough, if I can keep the commandments enough, then I can make myself acceptable to God.
And the Pharisees were after that. They were trying hard. They were dedicating everything that they had to this attempt to be good according to the Ten Commandments and the Law of Moses and all the other laws that they added to it. In fact, that’s why they were adding laws to it, to make sure that they could keep the law. And you have to just look. If you just had all the lists of man’s attempt to be good or to be saved or to be religious or to be holy or to be whatever, that Phariseeism has to stand at the top.
And that’s why we see when, in the text from John chapter three, Nicodemus coming to Jesus at night, that there’s this two arguments that are now going to happen, the argument of Phariseeism, which is the best that humanity can do, and then the words of Jesus. And when we see them in contrast, we see where this joy comes from. Paul contrasts them already for us, and this is kind of a shorthand to what was going on with Nicodemus and Jesus. Paul gives us the contrast in Romans four, which is pretty astonishing.
Paul says, to the one who works, it’s in verse four, to the one who works, his wages are not counted to him as a gift, but as what is due. In other words, if you go to work, how many of you—let’s just, maybe I can do a survey—how many of you have ever sat down to write a thank you note for your paycheck? I mean, you could, I guess, you’re grateful for this, right? But you don’t write a thank you note for your paycheck. Why? Because you worked for it. You did the work and then you were paid. In other words, if you do the work, it’s given to you not as a gift, it’s what you do. It’s your wages. That’s Phariseeism.
To the one who works, his wages are not counted as gift, but as what is due to him. So the Pharisees want to present themselves to God so that he would give them what they are owed. But listen to what Paul says next. This is the shocking, kind of astonishing truth of Christianity. This is what when Christianity comes into the world. It says this thing that is all, it’s—you wouldn’t believe it unless it’s written down, spoken by the mouth of God himself.
To the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. And this is what Christianity says to the world. This is the light that shines into the darkness. This is the argument that’s made by the death and resurrection of Jesus, that into this world of striving and trying and failing and into this world of sin and even in this world of attempted good works, into it breaks the light of the gospel that says, to the one who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
In other words, God comes to us not giving us what’s due, but giving us his gifts. Now, Jesus is trying to explain this to Nicodemus, and it’s just blowing his mind. I mean, Nicodemus, remember, was the best of the—he wasn’t just a Pharisee, he was part of the Sanhedrin, so that’s part of the 70, a number of the 70 judges that were ruling in Jerusalem. And he comes to Jesus at night—this is early in his ministry—so maybe Jesus is there with John and Peter and Andrew and Nathaniel and Philip, probably the five of those guys, and they’re staying in Jerusalem, and Nicodemus comes and knocks on the door and he comes in.
They’re probably astonished, and Nicodemus starts the conversation trying to butter Jesus up. We know that you’re a teacher come from God, and Jesus is just right into him. No one can see the kingdom of God unless he’s been born from above. Now Nicodemus is kind of used to this sort of sparring, this Pharisee thing, kind of rabbinic back and forth, and so he says, how can you be born again? Are you gonna go into your mother’s womb a second time and be born again? Jesus says, unless you’re born from above, unless you’re born of water and the Spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God, and Nicodemus just throws up his hands. This makes no sense to him at all.
I mean, you recognize how radical this is? Jesus is saying that you’re not climbing up to heaven. You’re not clambering up to heaven. You’re not working your way up to heaven. It’s not what you’re doing at all; you’re being born—it’s a family thing. It’s about as much work as the first time you were born. It was plenty of work for your mom, but for you? You have to be born from above, water—and Nicodemus says—and Jesus again is after him, are you a teacher of Israel and you don’t understand these things? If I tell you earthly things and you don’t believe it, how are you gonna believe when I tell you heavenly things?
Look, it’s not a matter of coming down from heaven. Jesus says, the one who ascended into heaven is the one who descended from heaven. And then Jesus says, look, it’s like this, just like the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that all who believe in Him will not perish but have eternal life. Now what is that talking about? This is the Old Testament account. You’ll remember when they were wandering in the wilderness and the people were complaining, which seems like what they were always doing, but I think if—in 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, we would probably be caught complaining every now and again too.
But they were complaining, and the Lord this time decided to rebuke them by sending in snakes, which is horrible to imagine, that here they are, camped, and from all the edges of the wilderness all these snakes are coming in and biting the people, and they’re all starting to get sick and die from these snake bites. So they repent and they go to—and they say, Moses, would you please pray for us? We need God to deliver us from all these serpents. And so Moses goes and he prays and the Lord says, not a problem, I’ve got you covered. Here’s what you’re to do. Make a bronze serpent and put it on a stick and lift it up so that everyone who looks at it won’t die but live.
Now, I just—I cannot help. I’m just thinking about how this would have gone. If you’re imagining you’re there and you’re dying of a snake bite or whatever and you’re like, Moses, hey, what are you doing in the tent? You hear this hammering, ding ding ding ding—what, what are you—we need some help out here. And Moses says, no problem, I got it covered. What are you doing in there, Moses? And he says, don’t worry, I’m making a bronze serpent. We’ve got plenty of serpents out here, Moses. We don’t need more serpents. We could use something like an antidote or a doctor. The last thing we need is more serpents. And Moses says, trust me, this is what the Lord says. He wants a bronze serpent to be lifted up, and whoever looks at the serpent is going to be saved.
And the people said, Moses, that’s ridiculous. You can’t be saved from a snake bite by looking at a bronze serpent. And he says, no, this is what the Lord has instituted. Now, it sounds foolish. It must have sounded foolish to the people there who were bringing their sick to Moses so that they could be healed. It must have sounded absolutely absurd. But I’ll tell you what’s even more absurd, is when Moses comes out of the tent with a bronze serpent and he lifts it up and the people say, that’s stupid. I’m not looking at that.
Look at the serpent. Now, why does the Lord do it this way? I mean, why doesn’t the Lord just send the serpents away and heal the people, or why doesn’t he give them the medicine, or why does he do it this way? Well, first, we don’t know why. We don’t know the mind of the Lord, but he always does things this way. He always does his saving work through means. I mean, he could just forgive your sins, but he’s decided to mix that promise of forgiveness with the water that’s in the font, or to put that promise with the bread and the body and the wine and the blood on the altar. He just does it that way. He could just split the Red Sea, but he uses Moses’s rod to do it. I mean, he could just heal the blind man, but he uses spit and mud. The Lord always uses—he always uses means to deliver us and to save us.
That’s one thing, but the other thing is that the Lord, he wants to give the people a picture of what salvation is. And this bronze serpent lifted up in the wilderness stands as a rebuke to Nicodemus and all the Pharisees and all the Pharisee-ism that lives in our own flesh on every thought that I’ve gotta do something, that I’ve gotta manage something, that I’ve gotta accomplish something for my own salvation. No, Jesus says, look, salvation works like this: just like Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so that everybody who just looked at it would be saved, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.
That bronze serpent on the stick is a picture of Jesus on the cross. And this is what salvation is. This is what it means to be born from above. This is what eternal life looks like. This is what it takes to come into the kingdom of God, not a heroic endeavor by your own efforts, not some quest that pushes you to the limits of your capacity, nothing like that. It’s simply this: look to Jesus. Trust in Him. Whoever believes in Him will not perish, but will live forever.
This is the good news of the gospel. This is the argument of Christianity. This is the witness of the cross, and this is the reason for your joy. God loved the world, that means you, so much that he sent his only begotten Son so that whoever believed in him would not perish, but have eternal life. And this light has dawned. God does not treat you like you deserve to be treated. He loves you. He forgives you. He rescues you. He redeems you. He covers you with his blood. He takes away your sins. He gives you a clean conscience. And he smiles at you, not only today, but on the judgment day and eternally he smiles at you. You and your life is his joy just as his death is your joy.
So God be praised. Jesus has been lifted up and we see it and we believe it, and believing we have life and joy in his name. May God grant it for Christ’s sake. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.