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00:04 Well, this morning we are going to conclude our series in the Old Testament. We've been traveling through
00:09 the desert. We're finished with um Exodus. And this is a little section in Numbers before we go to our Christmas
00:18 series. And after that, new year 2014, we'll be looking at the book of Ephesians. If you're going to prepare,
00:24 beautiful. They call the Ephesians the queen of all epistles. have a read of that as we prepare for next year's
00:30 series of sermons. Uh today we end off in the desert. Very nasty episode um about serpents.
00:40 Nobody likes serpents. Doctors in particular, we love serpents
00:45 and our emblem is full of serpents. And I suspect it comes from this um there
00:50 are various theories how it came about. Uh but I suspect it comes from this episode in way back in history when
00:58 people were healed. How many of you here like serpents? Put your hands up. Ah
01:03 one. One. Pastor Mark. Oh wow. My second son
01:08 loves serpents. You know whenever we we go for any tour snake show he'll be there. Whatever everybody will be
01:16 running away but he'll put his hands he'll be grabbing and all that. So probably like Pastor Mark. Um so let's
01:23 look at this episode and see what the Lord has for us this morning. The serpent in the desert. So what happens
01:29 is uh let from Mount they set out. Let's start with a word of prayer first. Lord we ask that you speak to us. Help
01:36 us understand your word that we may sink it into our lives and that may it may do its work. It will not return void. It
01:43 will it will produce a work for we ask for Jesus' sake. from Mount they set out, by the way, the Red Sea to go
01:49 around the land of Edom, and the people became impatient uh on the on the way.
01:55 Now, just to put you in the background, Numbers chapter one starts off with the Canaanite king called King Arab who who
02:02 heard the Israelites on the way and and they attacked the Israelites. And the Israelites actually went to the Lord in
02:10 prayer and beseeched for help. And what happened was that the Lord answered they they trashed the Canaanites. They
02:15 defeated them. It was a fantastic victory. Um but they couldn't go around
02:21 uh straight to the Canaan. They had to go around um the land of Edom. Look here, they take one big round here,
02:28 okay? Before they go up in the canon into the land because their cousins, the would not let them pass. So
02:34 they go all the way around. And this is a very treacherous route, okay? This is
02:39 a treacherous route. In fact, uh the modern-day hero Lawrence of Arabia operated around there during the World
02:46 War II and it was a terrible place. Even the bravest of his men were terrified
02:52 because they had lots of snakes, um cobras, spitting cobras, vipers and all
02:57 that. So, it is a terrible place. They had to go through and the p people became impatient because at a long route
03:04 um people spoke against uh God, against Moses. Why have you brought us out of
03:10 Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there's no food, no water, and we loathe this worthless food. Does it not sound
03:17 familiar? Every time something goes wrong, a little glitch, a few extra
03:23 miles, a bit more pain, a bit more hunger, why have you brought this out to die here? This is the common refrain.
03:30 People get impatient. There's no food, there's no water. We I mean, how can you say there's no food, there's no water,
03:36 and you say we loathe this worthless food. There is food. In fact, there are the people who have got 40 years of
03:42 miracle. Every morning you wake up, you have this fine white powder called mana.
03:48 It's sweet. It's beautiful. Imagine having a miracle on your doorstep every single day. And you turn around and say,
03:54 "Look, I don't like this worthless food. It's horrible. Uh we we want to uh have
03:59 something else." Dissatisfaction. This is the core of human beings, isn't
04:04 it? If you look back in the Garden of Eden, you've got a situation. We've got man and woman, perfect couple, isn't it?
04:12 No fighting, no arguing, you know, perfect couple, perfect garden, and
04:20 they're still dissatisfied because all the Satan has to say is that did God say you couldn't eat of any tree in the
04:26 Garden of Eden? Yes, can eat all but but that one. You see, so what Satan did was
04:32 they fished up some dissatisfaction. Even though they live in the most perfect place in the world, the most perfect garden in the world, Satan has
04:39 to come up and say, you know, maybe the best tree is the tree of the knowledge good and evil. That's why you cannot eat
04:45 that one. And here we have the spirit of impatience, the spirit of uh
04:50 dissatisfaction well up. So it really doesn't matter how well you are, how
04:55 rich you are, how much how well endowed you are, satisfaction, dissatisfaction comes. It's very common part of our
05:01 human nature. Yeah, I read this article where even in Korea where we've got the largest church in the world, many
05:06 Koreans are actually leaving the mainline churches that continually disillusion with the way the gospel is
05:13 preached about emotionalism. Uh, and they're called what we call the Canaan congregants. What they do is that
05:20 they're still Christians, but they just don't go to church. They sit at home, maybe worship through the internet. 42%
05:28 have attended church for 45 to 15 years. 52 have not attended church for last 10 years. 30% left the church because they
05:35 wanted less rigid religious experience. 53% would like to return to church at
05:40 some point in the future. So we've got even Christians very dissatisfied with church. There's no church that sort of
05:46 suits them and they they want to worship as independent Christians at home. Uh
05:52 this is a very famous painting the look of beauty in the past. If you lived 200
05:58 years ago, you would want to look like this, right? And then 1960s, you come, a
06:05 woman called Twiggy Lawson comes up and everybody look at her. I want to be like that. You know how how people they're
06:12 never satisfied. If you're round, you is no good. If you're thin, also no good. And we've got this whole industry made
06:18 of everyone looking and and grabbing their abs and saying, "I need to look better." We're totally dissatisfied the
06:24 way we look, the way we talk. uh even job satisfaction recent survey all over the world through about uh se 30 over
06:31 countries found 60% women or workers are dissatisfied with their jobs many of
06:37 them looking for another job whatever job you had you're not satisfied uh even relationships um you know in the world
06:43 has said that marriage is no good so therefore what we'll do is we'll have a test drive first we have live together
06:49 and then only we get married maybe we'll stay married longer right but the data
06:55 comes out The 19% of people who have lived together before they get married
07:00 ultimately think about divorce compared to 10% who never lived together and they think about divorce. So again it doesn't
07:07 quite work out because we're intrinsically something is out of join. It's like a bone that's out of joint.
07:13 One of you can be very rich. This is a nice show I saw recently. again research for this uh servant
07:19 Naomi Watts very great actress and she acted the life of uh Diana the most
07:25 beautiful woman in the world the most desired woman in the world the most royal woman in the world and totally
07:30 unhappy right from childhood you can watch the movie it's so sad she says nobody in my family ever loved me my
07:37 father and mother divorced and I'm in this marriage and there are three of us it's a little bit crowded and she's
07:44 meaning Camila and and all the time through that failed marriage she's
07:49 looking for love one after another and she lives in a gilded cage you can see her par palace Kensington Palace
07:56 beautiful place one person staying there all the rest are servants and she's just looking for love she's totally
08:02 dissatisfied very sad in fact there was an article in Daily Mail they came out
08:07 and have this new condition I don't know whether you have it in this church called emotional flu all right 54% of
08:15 interview in the UK thought that most they were most dissatisfied life. They could have a good job, a good car, a
08:22 good country to live in. UK is not bad to live in, you know, except for the weather and they're still dissatisfied
08:27 with their lives. In fact, dissatisfaction is the new norm. If you're not dissatisfied, something wrong
08:33 with you. So, so no matter what and and I think it's uh professors have
08:40 academicians have looked at why well because the increasing expectation of society isn't it the richer you are do
08:47 you want to live in a better suburb so you move from USJ4 to Ara damsara but in
08:53 Ara damsara your house is the smallest of all the houses in Damsara Ara right so you must upgrade to the largest house
09:00 in Damasara Ara and then of that Damsara is not not so good except compared compared to the real damsara, right?
09:06 Then you're going to move to the real damsara and then you start off with a small house there, right? So, so it's
09:11 always dissatisfaction and what we call the tyranny of choices. You got so many choices in life that you're always
09:17 dissatisfied. You got this emotional flu that we have and these are bunch of symptoms. I want you to check whether
09:23 some of you have not. Constant fatigue, loss of sense of humor, freneticism
09:30 where you rush around constantly, being less decisive than normal, a tendency to drink or smoke more, becoming more
09:36 socially withdrawn, becoming more aggressive than usual for no apparent reason. If you have any of these, then
09:42 you're suffering from the emotional flu, which is actually a a uh spiritual
09:48 disease. Now when they got emotional flu, the Lord sent a cure. The Lord sent fiery serpents. The word is fiery, not
09:56 deadly. It's fiery. There's a reason why he used the word fiery. It's burning uh among the people and they bit the people
10:03 so that many of them died. All right? So they've got this fire thirst in their
10:08 hearts for something more burning thirst, right? So God sends them really big serpent and bite. You get more
10:14 burning. So you burn in the inflammation, you burn until you basically die. So it's a horrible
10:20 situation. And uh these are the cobras that are spitting cobras. You know, there are 90
10:26 80% uh accurate within 8 ft. All right. And this is the kind of snakes that populate in that particular area. Lots
10:32 and lots of them uh there. And um yeah, that's a good shot. And the people came
10:39 to Moses and said, "We've sinned. We have spoken against the Lord and against you. pray to the Lord that he take away
10:44 the servant uh serpents from us. And Moses prayed to the people. You see, whenever we we run into trouble because
10:51 of our own uh ungratefulness, trial comes and the first thing the humans do is what? Take away the snakes.
10:59 We don't like the snakes. We kind of dictate to God what to do, isn't it? So the natural things to take away the
11:05 snake. We're sick. Take away the illness. If we're in financial trouble, take away the debt. That's what we want
11:12 to do. We seem to tell God what we want to do. But this is what God does. And
11:17 the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent. Set it on the pole and everyone
11:22 who is bitten when he sees it shall live." Hello. What do you think about this? This is weird because God's
11:31 solution isn't to take the snakes away. That means lots of snake still got more snakes. But God provides a solution.
11:41 So which means they're going to live in a land everywhere they turn still got snakes. So every other day they get
11:47 bitten but when they get bitten they turn and they look this great big monstrous snake on top of this great
11:55 pole and you're going to look at the very thing that caused you to die. Isn't
12:00 it? I mean you hate snake when you live in that place. Whenever you steal a snake you want to run away. And then God
12:06 says no no no you better look at the snake properly. and you turn around and you see this great big snake. And when
12:11 you look at the great big snake, you will live. In fact, the solution is absolutely stupid. It's a ridiculous,
12:17 unbelievable solution. Why would you want to look at the very thing that caused you to die? It's like gun kills
12:23 you, look at gun. H every day look at gun. H
12:29 I mean, it's ridiculous, isn't it? It's the most ridiculous solution ever. And
12:34 um all they had to do was look and Moses made a bronze serpent, set it on a pole,
12:41 and if the serpent bit anyone, he would look at it, look at the bronze serpent, and he would live. So what they had to
12:48 do was, you know, they didn't have to, you know, you see the movies when you get bitten the snake, put a tonic, then
12:55 Indiana Jones will cut here, then suck it out, spit it out, right?
13:01 and then inject penicellin and the surgeon will come and debride with cutaway bits and don't have to do
13:07 anything. Don't have to go near the snake to touch the snake or or to do certain rituals and dance around. All
13:13 they had to do is what? Look. Why? Because Moses is telling them, God
13:20 is telling them, you know, that's what faith is. It's just looking. It's not
13:25 what you do. You know, it's your attitude of your mind whether you trust this is God's solution or not. And it
13:30 and it takes human effort completely out of the constellation. I mean when you say look anyone can look. A poor man can
13:38 look. A rich man can look. A broken man can you're dying also you can look right. If you carry you there and then
13:43 you your eyes just go and then you look. It is the simplest thing in the world.
13:49 You can just look and tell you in faith in God it's a simple flicker of your
13:55 eye. Anyone can do it. Don't come and tell me I can't believe in Jesus. All you have
14:01 to do is just flick your eye and just look. Now we go to New Testament and you look
14:06 at John chapter 4 and John chapter 3. And I I parodyied two people next to
14:12 each other. How God deals with both of them. One is a woman who is an outcast
14:18 uh who is a Samaritan whom nobody likes misinformed not very bright sleeps
14:24 around has five husbands and she's also a snake bite victim because in her heart is a sin death of
14:31 sin inside her and she needs the cure and what God does to her what Jesus does
14:37 to her well you know your cure very simple drink water I will give you the
14:43 water the living water so that from your heart will come out springs of living water. Very simple, isn't it? Then
14:48 you've got the professor of theology, Nicodemus, very proud, one of the 70, the
14:54 Sanhedrin, politician, theologian, and he comes and the first thing he says to
15:01 Jesus, he said, "Uncle, please tell me." You know what he says? We know, we know
15:08 my CIA service, all of this. We know you're a teacher from God. He starts off that way. We know for you come if you
15:15 know and then fellow comes at night some more. Why does he come at night? Because he doesn't want to be seen. He comes is
15:21 very proud. We know we know all about solutions. We know all about salvation. We know all about God. And what does
15:27 Jesus do? Jesus treats this theologian different from he treats the woman. Woman said, "Drink water, you'll be
15:33 saved." He says to this theologian, "Hey brother, you must be born again." Huh?
15:38 What? Born again? Are you kidding? I've been there, done that. know how to go back into my mother's uh tummy and then
15:44 get born again. That's a that's a trick we can't do. We don't know that one. And so he's puzzled. You know, if you're
15:50 smarter you, the smarter you are, the harder it is for to come to know Christ, you know. Yeah. Because we know you
15:58 already know. You already know how to how to know. So that's a problem. You see, so Nicodemus knew. So therefore,
16:05 God throws him a curveball. You think you know how you going to get born? Born again. So that's the issue and then and
16:12 then therefore he quotes this verse as Moses was lifted up the serpent in the
16:17 wilderness so must the sand son of man be lifted up and whoever believes in him
16:23 may have eternal life. So therefore Jesus goes back to numbers 21 and picks
16:29 up this episode and he parallels it with Jesus Christ. That means there's a big
16:34 thy hanging on the cross and who is that? Jesus the biggest snake.
16:42 Horrible, isn't it? Shocking. It's absolutely shocking. If you were you Nicodemus, you say, "What? You're saying
16:48 the Messiah going to hang on a is is going to be hanging on on a pole."
16:54 A and the issue here is that if you look in Isaiah 52, which is a prophecy about Jesus coming and look at this verse very
17:02 clearly. Behold, my servant shall act wisely. This is pertaining to the
17:08 Messiah. He will be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. The prophecy says
17:14 he'll be high. He'll be exalted. He'll be glorified. Everybody will look at him. It is like the the language of
17:21 kings. And on the other hand, look at the other verse. As many were astonished at you,
17:28 his appearance was so marred beyond human resemblance that his form was beyond that of the children of man.
17:36 The Messiah will be so lifted up and so exalted, but his face, his body will be
17:42 so deformed. He doesn't even look like human being. You know what he looks like? A snake. He's going to look like a
17:49 snake. All right? Because he'll be so badly beaten. And so therefore, Jesus is
17:55 trying to put a parallel. When I'm lifted up, I'm going to be like that
18:00 serpent. And the reason why I'm going to be like that serpent, you're going to have to look at that serpent. You're
18:06 going to have to look at me. You're going to look at all the thorns. You're going to look at all the bruises. You're
18:11 going to look at all the wounds. You're going to look that because that agony
18:17 belongs to us. So he's on the cross simply because of
18:23 our sin. If you look at the shame for our sake he made him to be sin who knew
18:29 no sin that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
18:35 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a a curse for us. For is written cursed is everyone who is hanged
18:42 on a tree. That's important. No one can just you know you talk to many of your
18:48 friends and they talk about God will forgive them the sin. No one can just forgive. If I take your, you know,
18:55 Michael's, uh, I go to his house and and and I I I go and play around in his in his living room and I break a lamp,
19:03 there's only two choices, you know. Michael can be very nice in Asian light and smile. It's okay. It's only a
19:10 $54,000 vase from Ming China. It's okay. Now, when he does that, I mean, he
19:16 absorbs the loss. Nothing is free, you know. Or he could be very you know this one 54,000 one you
19:24 know what to do the right check and make it right. There's no such thing. There's
19:29 no free lunch in life that all the if you're an accountant all the credit and and you know debit will be have to be
19:36 balanced. There's no free lunch and so therefore no one can just forgive and
19:42 God can't do that just as well. So therefore there has to be a solution. There is a shame of Jesus hanging on
19:48 cross. And when we look at the cross, we see the shame. We see our own shame. And unless you see the shame and see our own
19:56 sin hanging on the cross, unless we see the great snake, unless we see the picture of Jesus of beaten beyond
20:01 recognition, we will not understand and feel salvation. You have a story in Luke
20:08 chapter 7 of two people. Again, always man versus woman today. All right? And
20:14 men aren't in a good light. And here we have a man who is Simon the Pharisee
20:20 again part of the group that says we know see men always know you know or we
20:25 think we know right he invites Jesus to his house and and he
20:31 doesn't do anything when Jesus comes he doesn't even get his servants to clean his feet he doesn't welcome him very
20:38 much say come I eat like you stand around this open house kind of thing but the woman who is a sinner prostitute
20:45 what she do she sees Jesus. She runs forward to Jesus. She's crying. When
20:51 Jesus is sitting down, she she pours her tears on his feet, wipes his hair, her
20:57 his feet with her hair, takes a whole alabaster jar full of perfume, which uh
21:04 Edward likes. That's why he sings about it every time he he does worship.
21:09 And I tell you, Edward's right because it's a beautiful song. And that alabaster jar is worth nine months worth
21:16 of nine months worth of pay, you know, nine months worth of Edward's pay, you know, put inside that. And he's cleaning
21:23 that and and and she's crying. And then there's a difference. You know, the difference is Jesus said this, let me
21:30 read to you. Telling woman says, "Simon, did you see this woman? I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet.
21:35 She has wet my feet with her tears. Wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss from the time I came in. She has
21:41 not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with ointment.
21:46 Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. And the whole issue is looking at
21:51 the cross makes us look at our sin. When
21:57 we see our sin, we allow the sorrow and pain of the reality of sin to creep into
22:03 our soul. All too often when we talk about sin, especially in this generation, we just sin. So what? It's
22:09 like a garden variety caterpillar. We don't think about it. We just flick
22:15 it off off like a fly. It's not important to us. But here, this woman feels the depth and the gravity of her
22:21 sin. So that she's in tears. And Simon the Pharisee feels nothing because he
22:27 thinks he got no sin. And so therefore, this gentleman is in
22:32 much danger. He wasn't forgiven of his sin, but she was forgiven of her sin. And looking at Jesus in the cross, every
22:38 time we look at the cross, we look at the serpent up there, we see our sin, we confront our sin, it cuts us down into
22:46 size. So when we take the Lord's supper, we look at the the blood, we look at the
22:51 elements and it tells us of our sin and something happens inside. Something happen if it's something if nothing
22:57 happens inside means there's no reality of sin in our lives. Imagine
23:02 the Titanic and if you're on the Titanic and the joy that you feel is that you're on the best ship in the world 1912 April
23:12 only got money can go inside you're poor you're downstairs right at the bottom like Leonardo DiCaprio and what's her
23:18 name Kate Winslet right yeah okay and and and
23:24 what happens is that everyone's singing everyone having joy why because they think it's a great ship going to go to
23:30 America America best opportunity. What happens if someone tells them and
23:36 that's the kind of joy that you actually have uh if in five 10 what three hours
23:43 time you will hit an iceberg and you will go down will there be any joy? No.
23:50 But what happens I tell you in five hours time you're going to hit the iceberg you're going to go down. But before that another ship is going to
23:56 come. The ship is called Carpathia which actually came but this Carpathia came four hours too late but this time
24:03 we come on time num num because when you hit the first it's going to be there and then you can transfer out of the ship.
24:10 Now will there be joy in the ship? Well a different kind of
24:16 joy isn't it? The kind of joy that there's danger ahead and but a ship is coming. We're going to
24:25 hit the thing, but this ship is going to come and save us. You see, in in the
24:30 Christian faith, when we look at the cross, it's the same thing. The joy that we have is not the the joy of the
24:37 revelers on the Titanic who who are just having a good time because of a good time and they don't know the future. The
24:43 joy is the people who are in the Titanic who know they're going to be saved from a catastrophe by a ship that's going to
24:48 come. There's gratefulness, there's thankfulness, a bit subdued, but that's the kind of joy that they actually have.
24:55 Uh this is Dietrich Bonhoffer and a website showed you follow Jesus on Facebook. What a huge sacri sacrifice
25:02 you've made. You know, Christianity today is as simple as I like Jesus.
25:08 Click hey or confirm friending.
25:14 You know the Christianity that we have today is like that one you know. You know I look at the kind of books that we
25:20 we where people come and write uh secret to effortless success wholeness and victorious living where we're where
25:27 destined to reign 100 days of favor your your best life now.
25:33 Yeah. This is like following Jesus is like going on Facebook ma and so therefore there is no grappling with the
25:41 great snake on the cross. There's no grappling with our sin. And so therefore, this is basically cheap
25:47 grace. You know, Dietri Bonhoffer was hanged a few weeks before the end of
25:53 World War II. He would not he would not compromise with the Nazis. Let me read
25:58 you a book he wrote before he died. And he talks very seriously of something that's happened today. And this was
26:05 written 60 years before it happened. And he writes, "Cheap grace is a preaching
26:11 of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without
26:18 confession, absolution without personal confession, cheap grace is grace without
26:23 disciplehip, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ living and
26:28 incarnate. The only man who has a right to say that he's justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to
26:36 follow Christ. We have gathered like eagles around the carcass of cheap
26:41 grace. And there we have drunk of the poison that has killed the life of
26:47 falling Christ. We in this generation 60 years after he wrote these words in an
26:53 unpersecuted community full and replete with luxury and comfort are at risk of
27:00 cheap grace because we don't feel our sin. So every time you come to the Lord's supper, every time you come to
27:06 the cross, we need to plum the depths and understand how great a sinner we are
27:14 for us to feel the joy. This is my car. uh um chapter 7 verses 8
27:21 to9 beautiful verse I want you to look very carefully Micah's attitude is not
27:26 to be totally full of remorse every day I see you with long face or totally full of grace and triumph you know what Micah
27:34 that's look look at rejoice not over me oh my enemy when I fall I shall rise
27:40 when I sit in darkness the Lord will be a light to me I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have
27:45 sinned against him until he pleads by cause and execute judgment for me. He will bring me out of the light and I
27:51 will look upon his vindication. Look very carefully at all the areas I underline. He says, "When I fall, I sit
27:59 in darkness. I bear the indignation of the Lord because I've sinned against him." For for for my car, sin is a very
28:06 real thing. He's going to sit in the darkness. Who puts him in the darkness? God. Because
28:12 he sinned. It is a serious matter. He grapples with the sin in his life at the
28:18 same time. Look at the other part of the verse. All the other underline. I shall rise. The Lord will be a light to me.
28:25 Until he pleads my cause, executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to
28:31 the light. I shall look upon his vindication. See, there are two things. When you look at the cross, you see one
28:37 the shame and the pain and the indignation and the horror of your sin. On the other hand, you see vindication.
28:43 He says, "I will rise. I will be a light. The Lord will be a light. He will plead my cause. He will be a lawyer.
28:50 He's going to stand and plead my execute judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light. I shall look upon his
28:56 vindication. So, a Christian is one that's not too
29:01 sorrowful because you're sorrowful, but not to ex the extent of despair, but yet
29:07 you're joyful because God has promised you salvation. So, there's both. Um, so
29:12 therefore, when you look at Christ being raised up, not not only the shame, there's also the glory. The glory is
29:17 perfect obedience, perfect love, and his path to glory because God Jesus goes
29:24 back to God via the cross. He doesn't go back any other way. And when you see Jesus hanging a cross, this is a picture
29:30 of perfect love. This is a picture of perfect obedience. And that is his
29:37 glory. Which means God really values obedience. If you are and his son is the
29:44 ultimate example of someone who's totally obedient to Christ. Natin
29:49 Naimola is a a pastor who opposed Hitler me many many times in meetings where
29:56 thousands of uh other pastors in in Germany uh conformed gave in to Fit
30:03 Hitler. He actually opposed him and Hitler died and Martin Nimola actually
30:09 had a dream always same dream you know and the same dream was that uh Jesus
30:16 Christ met Adolf Hitler and then Jesus Christ uh asked Adolf Hitler why you so bad to all my people
30:24 why you like to kill people and and do all those bad things. Um and and and you know what Adolf Hitler said in his
30:30 dream, "Well, because I never knew how much you loved me." That was sad, isn't it? I mean, Martin
30:37 Nimola after meeting Adolf Hitler so many times never once mentioned that
30:44 Jesus loved him. And that really struck. And the cross,
30:50 if the cross means anything to us, we need to be able to tell other people of
30:55 the shame, of the glory, and how how important it is to us. And here we actually have a famous evangelical
31:00 leader lead. Maybe Hitler could have been saved. I don't know. But it's the
31:05 onus on us. So we're supposed to be born again by looking to Jesus. Very simple.
31:12 A blind uh anyone can look. Not only looking, you can look to him
31:17 for transformation. Not only for salvation, eternal life. When you look at Jesus, you are transformed. Here is
31:23 Hebrews. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of weaknesses, let us also lay aside every
31:28 weight and sin which clings so closely. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. So he describes the
31:35 author of Hebrews describes looking to Jesus for this race in life. And how do
31:40 you run this race? Well, this is how you do it. Looking to Jesus. So when we look, we not only look to be saved, we
31:46 look to be transformed in order to run the race of endurance. Looking to Jesus, the founder, perfector of our faith, who
31:54 for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the
31:60 throne of God. We're going to look to Jesus because he's the founder, the author, the perfector of our faith.
32:05 That's how we're going to run the race. So we need to look to Jesus. This is a true story of uh
32:12 Dick and Frank Hait. This gentleman was born in 1962
32:18 with quadriplegia. He cannot walk and he's got cereble palsy.
32:23 And this is father Dick who's got heart disease. And one day when this gentleman
32:28 was young uh in his teenage they did a made a computer for him and he was able
32:33 to with movement of his heads learn to speak with the movement of his head. So the computer translate the movements of
32:39 his head and he found that there was a boy who was disabled who needed money and he told his father we need to raise
32:46 money by entering this race. Father say you're crazy or what? You can't even move around at all. And so what he did
32:54 was he persuaded his father and his father actually uh put him on this. This
33:01 is the first Boston Marathon when they put in on this and this fellow with heart disease starts pushing him
33:08 and he pushes him him for that race and 1,000 other races. And in 1992 they did
33:17 a full 3,735 miles in 45 days. You know can you do
33:23 that? And you know why he did it? because the son says when you're pushing me I don't
33:30 feel disabled anymore. I feel like a superman and and and they also join
33:36 triathlons. You know what triathlons are? You run, you bicycle hundreds of miles and you also go on the water and
33:42 he's basically swimming with an thing tied around his neck and his son in a boat at the back. Why? Because a son
33:48 doesn't feel disabled anymore. He does all the work uh everywhere all over the
33:53 world. This is him uh competing all the time. time and his I think his heart disease went away already.
34:01 But the bottom line is that it is a perfect picture of the Christian life.
34:06 We are like dick. We are like the son in the wheelchair. That's God. That's Jesus
34:13 pushing us along. When he's pushing us along, we don't feel disabled anymore. We don't feel
34:19 full of sin anymore. We don't feel secondass anymore. Because when we live our Christian lives, all we have to do
34:24 is look at him and he will push us. He will get us there because he's the
34:29 author and perfector of our faith. We don't look to Jesus as an example. I mean, Muhammad Gandhi loved Jesus
34:37 Christ. Did you know that he followed Jesus Christ? His ideas of passive
34:42 resistance was because of Jesus Christ. But he never accepted Jesus Christ because he only looked to Jesus as an
34:47 example. The problem is if you look to Jesus as an example, will you be motivated to live like him?
34:55 Yes or no? Who will be motivated? If you look Jesus as an example,
35:01 I had a friend who's uh in KL now. So I must be very careful.
35:06 He's a very clever person but very irritating to me. Uh
35:13 I was in Bookie Bintang boy school. Uh and and and this fellow is name is Leslie Lie. He's a endocrinologist now.
35:20 He won't mind me saying this, but he's the most brilliant man I've ever met in my life. Every exam, you know, he's he's
35:25 got a score 100. I can't believe it. Science, maths, whatever it is is 100.
35:30 Unbelievable fellow. Fantastic example, isn't it? Always the teacher say, "Hey, look at Leslie. You think we loved him
35:37 or we hated him?
35:44 I'm number two, number three. You'll never get number one. You know, very say but God, what is the chance? You know,
35:50 even in Christian Union, you know, he is also like perfect, you know, to thank God he doesn't preach.
35:60 So, I mean, he was very brilliant person, but you see it's different if you have a person as an example. If he's
36:05 so brilliant, you look at it, you get fed up, you know, you can't do it. So you don't look see Mama Ghani got it
36:11 wrong. You don't look to Jesus's example. You get Jesus to inject himself
36:17 into you so that he's pushing you along. You know all of us are like whom we are like the tin man. If you look at the
36:22 wizard of Oz you know what a tin man was. Tin man loved a girl who was an
36:28 assistant to the evil witch of the east or west. I don't know whether east or west whatever it is. And what did the
36:33 the the the witch gave him an axe. An axe very funny turned around and chopped his own hand off. So he chops his one
36:39 right hand off and he replaced with a tin hand. Chops this one off, replace with another tin. And soon the whole body is tin. And he replaced his heart
36:47 with tin. Why? Because he doesn't want him to love the girl anymore. And so therefore the tin man follows Dorothy in
36:52 the yellow brick road to see the Wizard of Oz. Why? To change the tin into a
36:57 real heart. CS Lewis takes this example and says, you know, we don't look to Jesus's example. We look to Jesus as a
37:05 person who will inject his love, his view of the world, his power, his spirit
37:10 to change the parts of our life that like thin us, wooden in the heart and and have no feeling and has got no love
37:17 of God. To change our heart from that of tin into the heart of Jesus Christ, soft
37:22 and loving and beautiful. That's what Jesus Christ will do for you. On that
37:28 day, this Isaiah, the man will look at his maker. His eyes will look at the Holy One of Israel. He will look not to
37:35 the altars, the work of his hands. He will look not and to what his own fingers have made. So the the the trick
37:40 is to look at Jesus and not look at all the things that we have made. We're so busy every day looking at things that we
37:47 have made or we are still making our own idols of our life. The old idea is to look at what Jesus does.
37:54 2 Corinthians 3:18, we with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are
38:00 being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. From this comes from the Lord who is the
38:06 spirit. What we're saying is that we need to be looking to Jesus not only to
38:11 salvation but for transformation. The more we look at Jesus, the clearer he
38:16 becomes, the clearer he becomes, the more clearer we can see, the more we can be we can be obedient. And the more we
38:23 obedient, the clearer we'll see. So the process of looking at Jesus and seeing
38:28 how beautiful he is. And when you see his beauty, it so captivates your heart
38:34 that it then transforms and melts all the thin parts and puts the in flesh.
38:40 That's what it means. So worship is just looking and being enthralled by the
38:46 beauty and power of Jesus. And that changed the metal into flesh.
38:52 That's exactly what the verse says. Frank Lawbach is one of the probably the
38:58 only American missionary who actually started uh who actually got his name on a stamp. And why he got his name on a
39:05 stamp was uh through the world literary literacy crusade where you have started
39:10 people uh teaching people to read and write English all over the world. He's well recognized for that. He's also a a
39:17 Christian that has learned how to have Jesus looking at Jesus every day. He
39:24 tells us how he does it. When he wakes up in the morning, his first thing he says, "Good morning, Lord. What would
39:30 you like me to do today?" And he this a conversational kind of prayer. I don't like this conflict, Lord. I He has a
39:37 conversation. And then when he's got a problem at work, instead of relying on looking to his own hands, his own
39:43 strength, he's saying, "Lord, I've got a problem. I I'm operating. It's difficult. I, you know, can you help me
39:50 here?" So throughout the whole day, there's a conversational kind of focusing on Jesus that that basically
39:56 draws the power of Christ into their lives. You see, you can't come to church
40:01 on Sunday, ask God to inject your tin man, and then you become flesh. You've got to keep looking at him
40:08 throughout the week. Even if you have a nice meal at a restaurant, oh Lord, praise you. Wonderful. Love the
40:14 spaghetti. You know, because God made the spaghetti. And there's a spirit. The
40:19 moment you do that, there's a spirit of thankfulness, the spirit of presence of the Lord with you all the time. But the trouble is we don't want to have Jesus
40:26 with us because a lot of stuff that we do, we don't want him to see. Because we don't mention him. We think he cannot
40:31 see. I'm doing this stuff. don't look now. Uh that doesn't quite work whether he
40:38 see I mean he will see. So it's learning to put him into our lives gradually that
40:43 transforms us into him. Finally um when we look to Jesus now
40:52 he's no longer on the cross. He's seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
40:59 That's where he is now. is not some pitiful fellow you cannot recognize hanging on a cross. He is God. And we
41:06 look to someone who is at the right hand of God. And the psalmist says, "I have set the Lord always before me. Because
41:13 he's at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. My heart is glad. My whole being
41:18 rejoices. My flesh dwells secure." You know what the right hand is? The right
41:23 hand is the hand of power. You know what the right hand is? Is the hand of work.
41:28 You know what the right hand is? That's where Jesus is. What the psalmist is saying that when Jesus is at my right
41:35 hand, he's not my left hand. You know, it's in the place of honor in my life. He is the one who will actually do my
41:41 work for me. He will live my life for me. He will walk my day with me. That's
41:47 what I mean when I put God in my right hand. How many of us would like to put
41:52 God at our right hands to keep our eyes fixed on him? Let's pray.
41:59 Father Lord, we just thank you for your word and we want to confess that many times
42:07 we have not looked at you. We have looked at our problems. We have looked
42:14 at our nightmares. We have trembled at the opposition.
42:20 We have been defeated. But this morning, you invite us this morning to just do one simple thing.
42:28 Just to lift up our eyes, to look to you, to see your face, to see your love, to
42:34 see you high and exalted and mighty. And Lord, this morning we want to say,
42:39 Jesus, you are our Lord. We want you at our right hand. We can't live the way we do in the world because we don't have
42:45 the power. We need your power. We need your strength. Be at our right hand. be
42:51 our right hand. We ask this for Jesus' sake. Amen.
43:03 Please remain standing for the meditation.
