Look and Live
July 26, 2026
Preached by Noah Gwinn
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
What are you most tempted to complain about right now?
How might those complaints expose what you're believing about God?
Can you think of a time when God used hardship, discipline, or suffering to reveal something in your heart?
Noah said that God doesn’t always remove suffering from us, but that more often God works by sustaining us in the midst of our suffering. How have you experienced God's presence or sustaining grace without your circumstances immediately changing?
The central message was: "Though our sin is way worse than we think, God's mercy is way better than we think." Which side of that truth do you tend to struggle to believe more—that your sin is serious, or that God's mercy is sufficient?
What does it mean practically to "look to Christ" today?
The sermon ended by reminding Christians that we never outgrow our need to look to Christ. Which situation do you most need to look to Christ in this week: guilt, temptation, suffering, anxiety, disappointment, or something else?
Scripture Reading
Numbers 21:4-9
4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. 5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” 6 Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 7 And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8 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.” 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
If you’ve been in and out over the summer, I’ll just remind you that across the summer, we’ve partnered with our friends at Midtown Community Church as well as Liberti Church in Camp Hill for a sermon series called One God, One Story, and we’ve looked at six Old Testament passages to see a few of the many ways that Jesus fulfills the Old Testament. I don’t know about you, but it has been a gift to sit under different preachers and celebrate the unity we have in Christ even though we attend different local churches. But unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and today is the last sermon in this series. As you heard read, the passage we’ll look at is all about venomous snakes biting people, and believe it or not, from this passage there is a lot to learn about us and a lot to learn about Jesus. Let’s pray together that we’d see Jesus from Numbers 21 this morning.
Heavenly Father…
INTRODUCTION
Let me take you back in time and tell you a wild story. Six weeks ago, I was at Midtown Community Church preaching the first of the Old Testament passages in this series. I’m beginning this very sermon, and as I’m diving into my introduction I look down and see my beloved friend, Pastor Grek Kabakjian, looking at me and laughing in the front row with his wife Alexis. Naturally, when you are presenting something and you see people looking at you and laughing, you go into panic mode. I’m here thinking, “did I just say something dumb? Do I look weird? Like what is going on?” I made a mental note to ask Greg what that was all about. After the service, I totally forget to talk to him about it… until later that night when I get a text from him that reads, and I quote, “Bro. I forgot to tell you this. We literally have the same sermon intro. Like concept for concept.”
Now here is some very important information. At this point, by the time Greg sends me the text, I have already preached the sermon. Greg has only barely started writing his. So naturally I respond, “So you’re changing yours, right?” He responds, “I think I’m going to keep it.” So of course I look, and I see that while I preached at Midtown before him, he was preaching at Liberti and at my own church before me. And lo and behold, he did keep it. So, while Midtown knows that he plagiarized my sermon, you all and Liberti will think that I stole from Greg. So, at the risk of you hearing content that may seem eerily familiar for the next minute or two…
In Oscar Wilde's novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the main character Dorian is given a wild bargain. While he remains young and handsome, a portrait of him hidden away in his attic reflects all the negative effects of his life and choices instead. As Dorian descends into selfishness, cruelty, and sin, his outward appearance never changes. To everyone around him, he still looks just as charming, attractive, and respectable as ever. But locked away from prying eyes, the portrait in the attic becomes increasingly ugly. Every act of evil leaves its mark. Every compromise deepens the portrait’s corruption. The picture reveals what Dorian truly is.
The tragedy of the story is that Dorian spends his life avoiding the portrait at all costs. He doesn't want to look at it. He doesn't want to face what it truly says about him. As long as he can keep it hidden, he can keep living however he wants and pretend that everything is fine.
Most of us live the same way—we work hard to maintain an image. We compare ourselves to others. We focus on our strengths. We explain away our failures. We turn a blind eye to our own sin and brokenness. We convince ourselves that we're basically good people who just need a little improvement around the edges—improvement we can achieve through mindfulness or listening to the right podcast or finding the right therapist or devoting ourselves to a fitness routine or excelling at work or getting educated or finding someone to spend the rest of our life with. Don’t get me wrong, most of these can be good things, but do they solve the deepest level of brokenness inside you and I?
Like, what if we could see a true portrait of our hearts? What if every selfish motive, every bitter thought, every proud impulse, every act of unbelief were displayed before us on a canvas? The Bible says that picture would be far worse than we imagine. Numbers 21 confronts us with that reality. The serpents in the wilderness are like this kind of portrait – they reveal the deadly poison of sin among God's people. Yet God doesn’t expose their venom in order to shame them. He exposes them in order to save them.
There’s a lot we can and will say about this passage, but here is the one main thing that I want us to see today. The good news of the living Jesus is this: you and I are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.[1] I’ll say that again. The good news of the living Jesus is this: you and I are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope. Those words, borrowed from another pastor, who borrowed it from another pastor, will serve as our outline this morning. To put it another way, first, we’ll see how our sin is way worse than we think, and then we will see how God’s mercy is way better than we think.
OUR SIN IS WAY WORSE THAN WE THINK
To see how our sin is way worse than we think, let’s look again at verses 4-5.
4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. 5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.”
Since we’re just dropping in here out of nowhere, let me offer some context and bring us all up to speed. Today we’re looking at a passage in the book of Numbers, and just like we’re picking up in the middle of a story, so is the book of Numbers. This book follows the Old Testament books of Exodus and Leviticus, where we’re told the story of how God’s people were enslaved in Egypt for 400 years. And after these 400 long years of oppression under Pharaoh after Pharaoh after Pharaoh, God miraculously frees his people. Using 10 plagues to show God’s victory over the Egyptian gods, the one true God breaks down Pharaoh’s resolve, with Pharaoh finally telling the people to go. Under the leadership of Moses, God leads his people out of slavery. But before long, Pharoah changes his mind and chases them down all the way to the Red Sea. The people are left between, you might say, a rock and a wet place. The army behind them and the sea in front of them. And in another display of God’s power over Egypt, he parts the sea in front of them, and they walk to the other side on dry ground, with the water closing in on the Egyptians behind them. The people of Israel begin setting off into the wilderness, with God leading them and giving them food from heaven every day to sustain them on their journey.
It’s an incredible, miraculous story of deliverance and provision. But here the people are, 40 years later, still wandering around in the same desert, still eating the same bread from heaven. They’ve been walking for so long that the generation who left Egypt has pretty much all died off and the next generation has taken their place. And so we pick up in our passage with the people passing by a very familiar landmark. It says that they set out by way of the Red Sea. The sea that should trigger for them all kinds of memories and stories of deliverance. A representation of God’s faithfulness to them.
But how do they respond? Do they respond in faith and thankfulness? No. They respond in impatience. They respond in grumbling. And to be fair, a lot has happened to them. I mean they’ve been wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years. But even just in the recent past for them if you flip back to the chapter before this, there had just been a lack of water in the place where they settled, two of their most prominent leaders had just died, and they had just had a pretty rough go of it with one of the nations around them. They are so troubled by all of these recent events that it doesn’t even matter to them that they and their parents were delivered from slavery! I mean that was 40 years ago! Who cares what great things happened in 1986, life is rough now!
But just because their circumstances are hard, that doesn’t mean that their complaints are justified. Actually, their complaints sound more like a kid who is angry at their parents. I mean, just listen to this one line: “there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” (v. 5). A couple thoughts. First, in the chapter right before this one, although there was no water in the place that they had camped, the Lord miraculously provided water for them. Out of a rock! So, complaining about water? Really? That’s no problem for God! And second, no food? There has literally been bread from heaven raining down on them six times a week for four decades. Don’t say there’s no food or water. And then they follow up the no food and no water comment by saying, “also we hate this horrible food.” Like okay, one minute you’re saying the food doesn’t exist and then you say the food is awful. Which is it? Is God not providing or do you just not like what he provides? Do you see that? Their complaints are rooted in their impatience and hardness of heart, not in reality.[2]
Man, how many times are we the same way? How many times do you and I look at all that God has provided for us, scoff, and then ask for more. How easy is it to complain about your home, your church, your car, your financial situation, your spouse, your lack of a spouse, your kids, your job, your coworkers…. Friends, you and I will find endless ways to complain. Our hearts, much like the hearts the people of Israel, are bent on the idea that anything is better than the here and now. Whether we look back on the past with rose colored glasses or we put all of our hope in a better future, we are awful at finding contentment now. And that’s the character of sin. The venomous forked tongue of sin whispers in our ear that what God has given isn’t enough, and so we need more. And not only that we need more, but that God is to blame for our lack. The text says in verse 5, “the people spoke against God and against Moses.” It’s God’s fault.
Do you remember how sin entered the world? God had blessed humanity with the glory of creation and gave them endless trees to eat from, just to not eat from one. But a serpent slithered into paradise and whispered a lie in the ear of the first woman and man. A lie that said that God had not provided all they needed or wanted. Which means that in the beginning, the serpent convinced Adam and Eve to be dissatisfied with perfection. And that means that if you and I were in the garden today, we’d find a way to be dissatisfied there too.[3] It’s not just that we’re dissatisfied with life in a broken world, we’d be dissatisfied with paradise. Knowing that means that you and I can at least rule out the possibility that our ache for more will be satisfied by getting more stuff. No amount of financial freedom, job security, romantic relationships, or goal achievement will cause your heart to rest.
So what’s God’s response to the people’s impatience and grumbling and complaining? Look at verse 6.
6 Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
Whoa. The people complain about food and water, and that is met by God sending deadly snake bites? A little over the top, don’t you think? Well, no, actually. But to see this, we need to ask the question, alongside the great theologian Indiana Jones, “snakes… why did it have to be snakes?”
Well, for one, a snake was an image of Egyptian power. Think about this. When God calls Moses to be the leader of his people to deliver them from slavery in Egypt, what is one of the things he tells Moses to do? He tells him to throw his rod on the ground. When he does, the rod turns into a snake. And God tells him to pick it up by the tail. When he does this, the snake turns back into a rod. This was to highlight God’s power over Egypt, and specifically over Pharoah. In fact, think about Pharaoh himself. What was at the center of Pharaoh’s headdress, just above his forehead? A cobra. The image of the serpent and Pharaoh were so closely aligned in the Hebrew imagination. And this isn’t just guesswork. The Bible illustrates this. In Ezekiel 29, God tells Ezekiel to prophesy against Pharaoh saying, “Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon [some translations say, ‘the great serpent’] …” (Eze 29:3). And again, in Ezekiel 32, the prophet speaks against Pharaoh saying, “You consider yourself a lion of the nations, but you are like a dragon in the seas…” (Eze 32:2). That word, “dragon,” again, can be translated “serpent.”
So why snakes? Because the people were looking back on Egypt a little too fondly. So, God was basically saying, “you want Egypt? I’ll give you Egypt!” Do you remember who your master was in Egypt? In case you forgot what Egypt is really like, and what I really saved you from, here’s a glimpse.
But it goes beyond just that. Let’s return to the train of thought we were following a few minutes ago. In the beginning, the whisper of a serpent convinced people that what they had was not enough. That image of a serpent becomes something the other biblical authors pick up on generally to highlight demonic deceit and power. Of course, we just talked about how this is applied to Pharaoh, but there are other examples as well. Most especially, the image of the serpent becomes tied to Satan, the devil. In addition to the way we see Satan at work as the serpent in the garden of Eden, this is made most clear in the book of Revelation when the apostle John calls Satan, “the dragon… that ancient serpent” (Rev 12:9; 20:2).
So, again, why snakes? Because God is trying to wake the people up to the reality of their sin. God was showing them that their sin was way worse than they thought. They did not see that their impatience and their grumbling and complaining was actually revealing that their hearts were far from the Lord. They didn’t realize the venom that they were spitting when they blamed Moses and God for their discontentment. They didn’t realize that when they were disgusted with food from the Lord it was actually an indication that they were poisoned with disgust for God himself.
Friends, I don’t know if we realize that our sin is way worse than we think. Our sin is not some small little thing that we need to be working on. Our sin is a deadly serpent that you and I need to kill, otherwise it will be killing us. Your sin, even your private sin – your grumbling, your complaining, your pornography addiction, your greed, your desire for other people’s things – your sin is not “okay” when you feel like it doesn’t hurt anyone. Your sin is an offense against the God of the universe who made you and loves you and wants a better way for you. Your sin is as deadly as the snakes in Numbers 21. And God wants to wake them, and us, up to that reality. How will you respond to his wakeup call? How did they?
Look at verse 7 with me.
7 And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.
God sent the snakes to act as a wakeup call, and it worked. The people confess. They repent. They ask for Moses to pray for them. They needed to see their physical sickness before they could recognize the sickness in their soul. And when they see that their sin is way worse than they thought, they turn to the Lord. Friends, when your sin is exposed, what do you do? Do you try to keep it locked away in an attic like Dorian Gray, or do you see your sin, kill it, and sprint the other direction?
GOD’S MERCY IS WAY BETTER THAN WE THINK
Well, we’ve seen that our sin is way worse than we think, but now we’re going to see how God’s mercy is way better than we think. Look with me at verses 8-9.
8 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.” 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
I’m sure many of you have seen the classic movie, The Karate Kid. In the movie, the main character Daniel asks for Karate lessons from Mr. Miyagi, the maintenance man at the apartment complex where Daniel’s family lives. But instead of Karate lessons, what Daniel gets is a bunch of chores. He gets frustrated because what he asked for is not what it seems like he is getting. But by the end of the movie, of course, you realize that the chores were the lessons, Daniel just couldn’t see it in the moment.
These verses highlight a similar dynamic happening for the Israelites. If you remember, in verse 7, they ask for Moses to pray to the Lord so that he would take the snakes away. And so Moses prays, and does God take the snakes away? No. He tells Moses to make a bronze snake and set it on a pole. The Israelites were probably feeling a little bit like Daniel from The Karate Kid – “This isn’t what we asked for! We wanted the snakes gone and now you’re making another snake?” We don’t know exactly how they responded, but I bet there was some serious confusion.
And, truly, it’s a fair question. If before, we asked why God sent snakes, now we can ask why God told Moses to make a bronze snake and set it on a pole. And I’ll just tell you the answer up front. I believe the answer to that question is that God is in the business of saving people through unexpected means. And I think we see that a few different ways.
One way we see that God saves people through unexpected means is by not taking away the disease but instead offering a cure for the disease. Here’s what I mean: if you notice, after Moses makes the bronze serpent and sets it on the pole, the people still get bitten. This is important to remember because there could be a temptation for many of us to think that when God answers our prayers, he will do exactly what we ask just the way we ask for it. If we were in their case, we might expect him to take away the snakes – to take away all of our pain and suffering. But that’s not always how he works. God’s M.O. is not always to take suffering away from us, but to sustain us in our suffering. This is precisely what Jesus is getting at on the night he was betrayed when he prays for you and I and he says to God, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15). Christianity doesn’t promise you freedom from struggle or pain, but it does promise you a God who will give you everything you need in the midst of your struggle and pain.
While we’re talking about pain and suffering, I’ll just add that often times, God allows pain and suffering in our lives with the goal of driving us closer to him. That’s what he’s doing for the Israelites here. Yes, the snakes are judgment, but they are also an instrument God uses to draw them closer to himself. There may be suffering in your life as a direct result of your sin, or there may be suffering in your life that seems to have no connection to a particular sin in your life. But regardless of why you are experiencing suffering, there is surely a deeper purpose for your pain. God is doing something in you. There’s a famous quote from author C.S. Lewis you may be familiar with. He says,
“pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.’ [Pain], Lewis continues, ‘is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it … removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul.”[4]
You see, pain forces you out of the illusion that you and I live in a neutral position in relationship to God. When pain enters your life, you will either blame God or run to him, but you can’t just ignore him anymore. When you are bitten by the snake and you are hanging in the balance between life and death you can either choose to turn to God, or you can turn your back on him. And that’s a fitting illustration for us because the reality is that all of us have been bitten by the snake. All of us are hanging in the balance between life and death. And all of us have an opportunity to turn to God and receive new life. More on that in a minute
Another way we see that God saves people through unexpected means is by making the people look at a picture of their curse for their healing. And the first unexpected thing here is that they don’t need to do anything. They just need to look at the bronze serpent. There is nothing they need to achieve. The only prerequisite to receiving salvation from looking at the bronze serpent is that they were bitten by a snake. And friends, the only prerequisite to you receiving salvation from God has already been met as well. You, too, are dying and in need of a cure. To add to this, the other unexpected thing to note is that the people look to a picture of their curse for healing. They don’t look to a picture of what they would expect to be an antidote. They don’t look to an ancient herbal medicine that might have helped them or to a doctor, they look to an image of the very thing that has the venom in its body.
And this is where all of this story comes to a head. Because this series that we’re in together is focused on how Jesus fulfills the Old Testament. And maybe you’re already seeing these connections without me needing to draw them, which would be really exciting. But maybe for some of you, the connection isn’t as clear. It certainly wasn’t clear for a man named Nicodemus who lived in Jesus’ day. You see, Nicodemus was a Jewish religious leader who had spent his life devoted to the study of what we call the Old Testament. In fact, he likely had this very story from Numbers 21 memorized. As Jesus was going about his ministry, Nicodemus got curious. So, one night he came to Jesus under the cover of darkness, and asked Jesus questions about his ministry. Jesus tells him that he needs to be born again in order to see the kingdom of God. And the phrase, “born again” might be semi-familiar to us because it has taken on a life of its own, but consider how confused you might be if you had just heard that for the first time.
Nicodemus sure was confused. He responded to Jesus,
“How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”… 9 “How can these things be?” (John 3:4, 9)
Jesus clarifies what he means by telling him how to be born again. Here is where this conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus really connects to our story today. Jesus continues,
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:14-16)
Did you catch that? Right before the most famous verse in the Bible, Jesus essentially says, “you know that story about the bronze serpent? That story is about me. What? How?
Think about it like this. You and I have been poisoned by the serpent. From the beginning, you and I have bought into his deception and have been given the venom of death. We have chosen our own way over God’s way. We have slandered him and said that what he has given us is not enough. But in love, God provided an antidote for the serpent’s venom – a way for us to have life again. God sent his very Son, not to come looking like the cure we might expect, but rather in the form of sinful man, bearing all of the likeness of the curse in his body (Rom 8:3), yet without the serpent’s venom (Heb 2:17).
Jesus became a curse for us (Gal 3:13), lifted up on the cross for anyone to look on him for life. Indeed, John 3:16 tells us that “whoever” looks on him will not perish but will receive new life. It doesn’t matter if the serpent’s bite has made you an alcoholic, a sex addict, a slave to substances, immensely self-centered, drawn to other gods—it doesn’t matter what kind of sinner the venom has turned you into, Jesus Christ is a real savior for real sinners like you and me. You, sitting right where you are today, in all of your weakness, woundedness, and waywardness are exactly the kind of person that Jesus is eager to save and was lifted up on the cross for. You don’t need to work for his healing, you don’t need to clean yourself up, you don’t need to do anything but look. Look and live. Waste no time. Like the people of God in Numbers 21, your life hangs in the balance. The venom is rushing to your heart. You need healing today. Look to Christ for life and healing now.
Church, although you and I are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope. Though our sin is way worse than we think, God’s mercy is way better than we think. And his mercy will outpace our sin every time.
CONCLUSION
This was the message that was shared on a snowy Sunday in January 1850. The story goes that that morning, a 15-year-old boy was walking to church, but the snow prevented him from reaching the church where he had indented to worship. As the blizzard intensified, he looked for the nearest church he could find and ducked into a small Methodist Church down the road. Whether because of the snow, the regular size of the church, or both, only maybe a dozen people were inside, and the pastor himself wasn’t even able to make it due to the storm.
Quietly, a poor man from the congregation looked around, grabbed his Bible, and walked up into the pulpit to preach. He opened up his Bible, and there was Isaiah 45. He read verse 22 aloud: “look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” He didn’t even pronounce the words correctly, but he began to preach anyway.
The poor preacher pleaded with his small congregation to look to Christ. To look to Christ on the cross, to look to Christ in the tomb, to look to Christ risen from the dead, and to look to Christ who has ascended to the throne of the universe. After preaching for about ten minutes, he looked at his congregation and easily identified the only visitor, the 15-year-old who stumbled in out of the snow. The preacher looked at him and said, “young man, you look very miserable.” The boy thought to himself later, “well, I did; but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made on my personal appearance from the pulpit before. However, it was a good blow struck.” The preacher continued: ‘And you will always be miserable—miserable in life and miserable in death—if you do not obey my text. But if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.’ Then he shouted, with all the fire of revival in his bones, ‘Young man, look to Jesus Christ.’[5]
It was in that church service, hearing the call of a poor man who had never before preached, but yet was faithful to proclaim the welcome of Christ, on that blustery January morning that Charles Spurgeon was converted. Charles Spurgeon, who went on to become one of the greatest preachers in history was converted by the simple call: to look and live.
Friends, I pray that you, this morning, will look to Christ and live. It doesn’t matter what you have done, Jesus is calling you this morning to look to him for life. If you already belong to Christ, look on him again. Christian, you do not outgrow the need to look to Christ. The same Savior who first healed you is the one who sustains you. When guilt accuses you, look to him. When suffering confuses you, look to him. When sin tempts you, look to him. But if you have never looked to Jesus in faith, look on him today. Let him heal you from the serpent’s venom. In him you will find life, and life everlasting. Look and live.
Let’s pray. Heavenly Father…
[1] This thought originated with Jack Miller but has been made famous by Timothy Keller. This particular version is adopted from Keller’s Meaning of Marriage, 44.
[2] Much of this paragraph inspired by lines from Jeremy Treat’s sermon, “How Does God Save?”
[3] This paragraph inspired by Tim Keller’s sermon, “Moses and the Bronze Serpent”
[4] C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 91, 93-94.
[5] This version of the story adopted from Justin Taylor’s article, How the Snowpocalypse of 1850 Led to Spurgeon’s Conversion 164 Years Ago Today on the Gospel Coalition’s website. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/charles-spurgeons-conversion-in-a-primitive-methodist-chapel/
