Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Hello everyone.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is Pastor Benjamin.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, Orlando.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com.
Evan Pederson: Please bow your heads and pray with me.
Evan Pederson: Eternal God, in the reading of Scripture, may your word be heard.
Evan Pederson: In the meditation of our hearts, may your word be known.
Evan Pederson: And in the faithfulness of our lives may your word be displayed.
Evan Pederson: Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Evan Pederson: Amen.
Evan Pederson: Today's scripture comes from Numbers twenty-one and John three.
Evan Pederson: Please remain standing if you are able.
Evan Pederson: From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom.
Evan Pederson: And the people became impatient on the way.
Evan Pederson: And the people spoke against the Lord and against Moses.
Evan Pederson: Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?
Evan Pederson: For there's no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.
Evan Pederson: Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many of the people of Israel died.
Evan Pederson: And the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you.
Evan Pederson: Pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us.
Evan Pederson: So Moses prayed for the people.
Evan Pederson: And the Lord said to Moses, Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live.
Evan Pederson: So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole.
Evan Pederson: And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
Evan Pederson: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
Evan Pederson: This is God's word.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In an interview with NASA, Elon Musk was asked, could Mars sustain human life?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, Elon Musk believes that becoming an interplanetary species will eventually be our most attractive hope for survival.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so what he wants to do is he wants to terraform Mars.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He wants to make it more Earth-like so that it's habitable to human life.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He's even been quoted as saying, I want to die on Mars, just not on impact.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And when we look at our text this morning, we see that learning to walk in the wilderness is our most attractive hope for survival.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That as we live the Christian life, wilderness is the rule, not the exception.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so the question I want to ask and answer is how do we walk through the wilderness?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: How do we walk through the wilderness?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And with that, I have one single point, which is that we look and live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We look and live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: If you have a Bible or a device or the worship guide, go ahead and get Numbers 21 in front of you because we're going to walk verse by verse through this passage together.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Numbers 21, verse 4 says this.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The wilderness is actually a main character in the book of Numbers.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's not only the setting, it's actually the condition in which everything else is happening.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so as Israel's wandering in the wilderness, some things you have to realize is that the wilderness, biblically, is the opposite of the Garden of Eden.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The Garden of Eden was a place that had well-tilled land and was plentifully watered, and there was abundance and growth and fruitfulness, but the wilderness is barren and desolate.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, humanity was born in the garden and will one day dwell in the city, and the in between is the wilderness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so many of our anxieties in modern life come from our tension of the times, of what it looks like to live here and now in this wilderness experience.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But the wilderness is God's academy.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Everybody he loves, he sends into the wilderness at some point.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Whether it's Abraham or Moses or Elijah or John the Baptist or Jesus or Paul or you, you will all have stints in the wilderness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, the desert teaches by taking away.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, many of us, we think we learn through addition, more books, more classes, more podcasts.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's how we learn and grow.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But actually, God often teaches through subtraction.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because when you're in the desert, there's deprivation and desolation.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He starves out all other voices and all other sources of identity and comfort and success and greatness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because the wilderness is a place where we are invited to face what we would rather not face.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So, because of that, it requires what Jesus calls patient endurance.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look with me again at verse 4.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It says, And the people became impatient on the way.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: There's a book called Endure by Alex Hutcheson.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I'd commend it to you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's about endurance sports and the limits of human strength and elasticity.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And he has this great definition of endurance in there.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He says, Endurance is the struggle to continue against a mounting desire to stop.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Endurance is the struggle to continue against a mounting desire to stop.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And for the Israelites, that mounting desire got to be too much for them.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And they grew impatient on the way.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, in the Christian life, we're called to trust the slow work of God, but we are often impatient because we want to reach the end without delay.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We want to get there already.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's what the Israelites were experiencing.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so my question for you this morning is how are you becoming impatient on the way?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What does that actually look like for you?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And it's different for many of us because your wilderness might look like unemployment or even just a miserable job.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It might look like broken relationships or chronic pain, it might be loneliness, exhaustion, it might be unanswered prayer.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Many of us are in wildernesses.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What does it look like for you?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: How is it that enduring in this wilderness is actually becoming unbearable over time?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What do you do with your impatience?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, Israel's impatience actually reveals something deeper.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It reveals something about what they believe about God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look with me at verse 5.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And the people spoke against God and against Moses, and here's their charge.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is a charge of murder in the first degree.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: God, you intended to kill us in the wilderness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's why you brought us here.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why would you do that to us?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's that's how they lash out in their impatience.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And the reason why is because your view of God will shape the story that you tell yourself about what you're going through.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What you believe about God will shape the way that you spin a narrative inside your own mind.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And those scripts that we tell ourselves are so important.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: They shape our lives and our perceptions.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because in our pain, we often misinterpret God's purposes.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's what Israel's doing here.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, the stories that we tell ourselves have profound power in our lives.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is why.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: There are no bare facts.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What I mean by that is you're constantly taking in data and then whipping up a narrative to make sense of it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Your subjectivity always gets involved whenever you're perceiving things.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Neuroscience has proven that we don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so, in light of that, look at the evidence that Israel marshals to charge God with the crime.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look at verse 5 again.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It says this Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Here's the purpose: for there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So the evidence that they give is there's no food and no water.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But notice what they notice.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In other words, you think some of us think if we could just see God show up and blow up, if we could just see a miraculous intervention, then we would believe.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But they forgot that God fed them every day with bread from heaven and brought water to come out of a rock in the desert.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And yet they claim no food, no water.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, if you want to grow in self-awareness, you need to begin to notice what you notice.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Pay attention to what you pay attention to.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because the reality is your mind takes in so many stimuli all at once that it couldn't possibly make sense of all of it, so it has to filter most of it out.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Most of what you see, hear, and feel, you don't actually, you're not even actually aware of that.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, the reason why I say that is because your attention follows what you're interested in, and where your attention goes, your awareness flows.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Let me let me make that plain.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I don't attend to the fact that when I'm singing, it's not great.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But every now and again I wonder if my bat my pack is on, and the poor people in the overflow room are getting another vocalist up here.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And in that moment, my interest in making their life less painful and my attention to my bot my battery pack expands my awareness in that moment.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That happens almost every Sunday.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, why this matters is because every day you have a hundred things to give thanks for and a hundred things to grumble over.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Every day.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You choose.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because joyful people don't just happen.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The default is discouragement.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But you choose to attend to what you attend to.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You begin to notice what you notice.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And as you do that, you begin to expand your awareness of God's goodness in your life.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But if you choose to look at the lack in your life, you will loathe your life.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look at verse 5 again.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It says, For there's no food and no water water, and we loathe this worthless food.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So let me ask you, what is the story that you're telling yourself about your situation right now?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Notice what you notice.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, nothing distorts our perception like deception.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look with me at verse 6.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now you gotta ask yourself when you read this, why send serpents as the form of judgment?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is how I meditate, this is how I read the scriptures, is I ask questions and then I meditate on those questions until I get some sense of an answer.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so in Numbers, God judged the people by having the earth swallow them up with fire from heaven, with quail that came out of their noses.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why serpents now?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Well, remember the story of scripture.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It was a serpent in the garden that first insinuated God is not good.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: God is withholding from you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so in the Bible, because of that, venom becomes a metaphor for lies.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Let me give you some examples.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Psalm 58 says this they go astray from birth speaking lies.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: They have venom like the venom of a serpent.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Romans 3.13, they use their tongues to deceive.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The venom of vipers is under their lips.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: James 3.8, no human being can tame the tongue.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It is a restless evil full of deadly poison.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, like Eve and like Israel, we buy into the same serpentine subtext of deception that ends up distorting our perception.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's what's happening in our text this morning.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so, listen, many of us are living in lies right now.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You've made agreements in your life with that forked tongue whisper that chatters on and on and on inside your head.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And as you've made agreement with those lies, you've begun to go wayward in those areas of your life.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And just remember, it's both God's kindness and his severity that are meant to lead you to repentance.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: To turn back.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so if we identify with the serpent, you will feel the fiery effects.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's what this text is trying to teach us.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so what do we do?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Well, actually, in this case, we do what Israel does.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We confess.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look at verse 7.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, confession is not simply saying, I'm sorry.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Confession is telling the truth.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I've watched enough detective docuseries and shows to know that when they get in that dark room, right, and they got the light on them, and they're like, Where were you, July 13th, right?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: There's a whole intense moment.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What they're not looking for is for the suspect to say, I'm sorry.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: They want them to tell the truth.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's confession.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so right now, if you find yourself aware, heightened in your sensitivity that you've been living lies, simply acknowledge them to the Lord.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Tell him the truth.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: God, right now, I believe lies about who you say I am.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I believe lies about my the world that we live in.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I believe lies about the people in my life.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I believe lies, God.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You're simply telling the truth.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But don't just tell the Lord.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Tell someone who can pray for you.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Maybe that's your circle, maybe that's your spouse, maybe that's your friend.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But just go to them and say, Hey, I have sinned.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Will you pray for me?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's exactly what Israel does.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look at verse 7.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Pray to the Lord that he take away these serpents from us.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So Moses prayed for the people.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Something beautiful happens here.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: When Moses prays, the Lord makes a way immediately.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Well, Martin Luther said that prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of his willingness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: God wants to deliver Israel from the serpents.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He wants to deliver us.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He desires that.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In fact, 2 Peter 3 says it like this the Lord is patient toward you, even in your own impatience.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The Lord is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, the Lord wants us to look and live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's what we see in verse 8.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And the Lord said to Moses, here's his provision, here's his way.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why is this the way the Lord wants to cure snake bites?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What is happening here?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so what God's wanting to do is He's wanting to help them to face their fears.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: God is trying to suck the venom out of the lies that you believe.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And this text is not only theologically rich, it's also psychologically insightful.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, because decades of psychological research show that the most effective treatment for fear-based disorders is called exposure therapy.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I would go as far as to say it's the only thing that works.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Nothing else will cure you from anxiety disorders, fear disorders, nothing else but exposure.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Well, this is what this is.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Exposure therapy is the sustained yet safe confrontation with whatever you fear.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Sustained yet safe confrontation with whatever you fear.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because exposure therapies believe that at the heart of your suffering is avoidance.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's your unwillingness to look at what you're afraid of.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So you see why God lifts up a serpent in front of them and says, Look and live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's exposure therapy.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So when I'm working with clients in my counseling practice, one of the things I will do is I'll come up with little experiments to do with them.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Somebody comes with social anxiety, I'll say, Hey, you have an event coming up where there's going to be people.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I'm encouraging you to find one person that you trust.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And sometimes it's me, if if they're willing and if that makes sense, find one person that you trust that will go with you to that party.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I want you to walk to the front door.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I want you to check in, feel what it's like to be you in that moment.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Your heart's racing, your mind's spinning.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What's the story you're telling yourself in that moment?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Attend to what you attend to.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But you've got a person there who's with you, who's gonna encourage you, comfort you, be a source of safety for you as you step into that party.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Yeah, you might say something stupid.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Yeah, you might get salsa on your shirt.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's okay.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You're gonna be okay.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And you can leave whenever you want to, but I encourage you to stay as long as you can.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's exposure therapy.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's how it works.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, extrapolate that to wherever your fears are.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Sustained yet safe confrontation with whatever you're afraid of.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's the only cure.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's the only cure.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so, because of that, uh, my poor children have to be the children of a therapist.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so this is what happens.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Uh, I read Jonathan Haidt's work on uh anxiety and this anxious generation, and he says one of the cultural factors that's actually threatening the resilience of the next generation is what he calls snowplow parenting.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Now, I don't know if that preaches in Orlando like it would in Detroit, where I'm from, but just imagine for a moment, there's this white stuff, not manna, it's um it's it's snow and it comes from the ground or from the sky and it lands on the ground, right?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I'm not gonna go there.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But snow plow parenting is this these parents that get out in front of their kids and they plow everything that might be a source of frustration, fear, or failure out of the way in order to make their kids' lives as easy as possible.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And it destroys their children.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Like a baby bird, it needs to struggle to hatch from the egg or it will never fly.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's true for your kids as well.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so, knowing this, that my kids are gonna be culturally malformed if I'm not careful, I've tried to catechize them to counterform them.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So it looks like this when I sense that my children are scared, I get down at their level and I talk really quietly and softly, and I say, What do we do with our fears?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And they say, Daddy, we overcome our fears with faith.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And I say, Do you trust me that you're gonna be okay?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And then I push them into the deep end.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: No, I'm just kidding.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That last part, that last part isn't true.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Some of you are like, I'm gonna call somebody to report you on this.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But I do, I do this.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Uh, if my kids say I can't, I say can't is only your last name.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Let's do this.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Let's go.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The reason why I say this is because avoidance is at the heart of your suffering and your children's suffering.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Do not avoid the wilderness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Do not turn away from what you fear, turn towards it, look at it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because when you look, it's the only way that you can live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's the at least psychological message of Numbers 21.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so the people were dying of snake bites, but if they looked fear in the face, they would live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is a form of divine exposure therapy because God makes us fear, God makes us face what we fear in order to free us from it, and there's no other way.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The only way out is through.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look with me at verse 9.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In my research, I was baffled by this stat.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: More people die from venomous snake bites each year than ever died from Ebola.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's wild to me.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And there's only one effective treatment for venomous snake bites, it's anti-venom.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Um, and I know how to make anti-venom because uh I read a Scientific American article this week.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And in there, there's like three steps.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is what it looks like.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You start with doing something called milking the venom from the snake, which I assume is a lab intern's job.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: So you milk the venom from the snake.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Second, you inject that venom into a horse or a sheep, and then third, you actually bleed that animal to extract the antibodies that they produce.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Thus, you have anti-venom.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: There's so much symbolic amazingness to this, like the fact that the Bible is regularly trying to remind us that the life is in the blood.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It's just a really incredible thing.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But but here's one thing I don't want you to miss.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Snake venom is used to create anti-venom.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The source of judgment is the source of salvation.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's how Jesus, the greatest preacher to ever live, taught this text.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look with me now at John 3.14.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is Jesus talking.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He says, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, mind you, he's talking about numbers 21.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Jesus didn't skip numbers in his Bible reading plan.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Notice, you maybe didn't track with this, but the next verse is 16.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: For God so loved the world.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The most famous verse in all scriptures, right after this, this is the context.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, Jesus was a Bible guy.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He read the Bible, he taught the Bible, he interpreted his life in light of the Bible, and he saw that the deepest point of contact between the bronze snake and himself was this act of being lifted up.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's the thing that he wants to draw the comparison to.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The Greek word for lifted up only occurs four times in the Gospel of John, and every single time it refers to Jesus physically being hoisted up on a cross to be crucified.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The Son of Man is lifted up on a cross.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, Moses looked lifted up the snake on a pole so that all who were bitten might look and live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In the same way, Jesus, the Son of Man, must be lifted up on the cross so that we might look and live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, we all have snake bites.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We have the venom of lies injected into our lives, and we live in light of it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We've lived into those lies in various ways.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so not only are we wounded, we have battered bodies and shattered souls, but we are also wayward because we've made agreement with those lies.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And we've lived apart from God because of our deception, distorted perception.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And we accuse God of things, and we get impatient on the way, and all of those things are true of us, just like it was true of them.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But God's anti-venom for us is to look and live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He wants us to, just as the bronze serpent kind of looked like the fiery serpents, but they but it couldn't wound, in the same way, Jesus took on our flesh in every way, yet without sin.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, in both the wilderness and Golgotha, God confronts us with what terrifies us the most most and then turns that into our instrument of healing.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What do we see when we look at the cross of Christ?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We see everything that we most fear.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: In the cross of Christ, we fear rejection and we see Jesus was abandoned on the cross, dying completely alone.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We fear unjust suffering.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Jesus was crucified by a false trial and trumped-up charges.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look and live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, we fear humiliation and shame.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Jesus was spat on and mocked and nailed naked to a tree.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look and live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We fear death, but Jesus defanged death by putting it to death on the cross.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look and live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, the means of your judgment will be the source of your salvation.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Fasten your eyes if you want to be set free from lies.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's the invitation.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But the look is a look of faith.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, it means seeing Jesus with the eyes of faith.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Look again at John 3 15.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Jesus said, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That here's the line whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, when I say look and live, you might go, what does that even mean?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That feels abstract, that's not concrete.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Give me a to-do list or a coaching plan.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Might be able to get after that.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: I'll do some of that exposure therapy stuff you're talking about.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What does this mean to look and live?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Well, it means to direct your attention.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It means that some of you, Jesus has been trying to catch your eye for a little while, but you've allowed him to maintain space in your peripheral vision.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And he's saying, if you want to believe, don't look at your faith, look at me and live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Reorient your entire life in my direction.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Turn towards me so that you can see.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: There's some researchers who paid 13 volunteers to pedal on a stationary bike at the same pace for as long as they could to measure the psychological component of physical limitations.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Okay, this is what it looked like.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The cyclists were split into two groups, and the second group, on average, actually rode 13% longer than the first and reported that it was easier.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What was the difference between the two groups?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: That's what a good scientist would ask, right?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: The difference was they had images that were flashed so quickly in front of them, it was imperceptible.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: But one group had images that were sorrowful and confusing and threatening, and the other had images that were happy and exciting and positive.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: 13% more effective, longer lasting, more endurance.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: What does that matter?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Well, listen, to look and live, we have to bring the truths of the gospel in front of our eyes so that we can see them, so that we can have patient endurance.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is what this looks like in suffering.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Jesus died, so that means that I know this suffering, this wilderness I'm I'm walking through right now, couldn't possibly be punishment.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Because Jesus already took it for me.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It looks like thinking Jesus is alive and well, bringing that in front of your eyes.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Resurrection is true, therefore Jesus must be with me even in this wilderness.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Maybe I can patiently endure a little longer.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: 13% longer?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: It means recognizing that Jesus did not suffer so that you would not suffer.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Jesus suffered so that when you suffer, you might become like him through it.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You see, when we look and live, we recognize that if Jesus is victorious, it means that if I don't quit, I win.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Patient endurance.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And so we want to stare until we can say, see him there hanging on the tree.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: He bled and then he died and then he rose again for me.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: And when you can say that from the heart, what happens is Jesus said, I must be lifted up on the cross.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Why?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: To give you eternal life, offering it freely to everybody right here, right now, who will simply look and live.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Let's pray.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Lord Jesus, we come before you now.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We see you with the eyes of our heart.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Would you enlighten the eyes of our heart, Holy Spirit?
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We wish to see Jesus not only hanging on the cross for us, but risen in victory for us, seated at the right hand of God the Father.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: God, we praise you that you know our frame, and you know that we need sensible signs in the sacraments.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Thank you that as we come to this table, we get to see Jesus in the bread and the wine.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We get to behold and look upon him by faith.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: We pray this in his name.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Amen.