Look to the Cross: God So Loved the World

Devotional

Day 1: The Necessity of Being Born from Above

A new life is not something we can achieve through our own efforts or by simply being good people. It is a profound transformation that must come from God Himself. This rebirth is not of the flesh, but of the Spirit, a work of grace that ushers us into the kingdom of God. It is an essential beginning, a fundamental change that reorients our entire existence toward the divine. Without this spiritual birth, we remain distant from the life God intends for us. [27:31]

“Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.’” (John 3:5-6, NRSV)

Reflection: In what ways have you perhaps reduced your faith to a matter of personal ethics or being a "good person," and how might God be inviting you to embrace a deeper, more transformative relationship with Him through the Spirit?

Day 2: Looking Upon the Source of Our Healing

God often uses unexpected means to bring about our restoration. In the wilderness, healing came not from avoiding the symbol of judgment but by gazing directly upon it. This act required faith and trust in God's prescribed remedy, even when it seemed strange or counterintuitive. It was in looking at the very image of their affliction that the Israelites found their cure. This pattern reveals a profound truth about how God brings life out of death and healing out of brokenness. [30:04]

“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.’ So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.” (Numbers 21:8-9, NRSV)

Reflection: Where in your life are you currently facing a "poisonous" situation or a consequence of brokenness, and what might it look like to honestly look at it with God, trusting that He can bring healing even through the most unlikely means?

Day 3: Seeing Our Sin on the Cross

When we look upon the cross of Christ, we are confronted with a stark and honest picture of our own humanity. We see the full weight and consequence of sin, rebellion, and selfishness. It is a mirror that reflects not a sanitized version of ourselves, but our true condition and our own culpability. This gaze can be difficult, yet it is a necessary step toward genuine repentance and understanding. The cross reveals the depth of our need. [34:17]

“When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’” (Luke 23:33-34a, NRSV)

Reflection: As you consider the cross, what specific aspect of your own life—a pattern of thought, a recurring action, a withheld forgiveness—do you see reflected there, inviting your acknowledgment and confession?

Day 4: Seeing God’s Love on the Cross

The cross does not only reveal our sin; it supremely reveals God’s boundless love. In the midst of the suffering and agony, we hear words of forgiveness and see an act of ultimate self-giving. God’s love takes on the sin of the world and absorbs it, offering healing and eternal life in return. To look upon the Son of Man lifted up is to see the incredible length to which God will go to reconcile us to Himself. [35:49]

“But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8, NRSV)

Reflection: How does understanding the cross as the ultimate proof of God’s love, rather than solely as a reminder of sin, change the way you receive forgiveness and extend grace to yourself and others?

Day 5: The Life-Giving Response of Trust

The appropriate response to the cross is not merely intellectual agreement but a posture of active trust. This belief, or pistis, is about entrusting our whole selves—our past, present, and future—to the one who was lifted up for us. It is a confident reliance on Christ’s finished work that results in being born anew. This trust is the channel through which the gift of eternal life is received and our new creation in Christ becomes a reality. [37:50]

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16, NRSV)

Reflection: What is one practical step you can take this week to move from simply assenting to the truth of the gospel to actively placing your trust in Christ’s work on the cross for a specific area of your life?

Sermon Summary

Lent frames a return to the basics of faith, focusing attention on John 3 and the necessity of new life in Christ. Nicodemus appears as a learned Pharisee who comes to Jesus by night—an image of spiritual darkness and secret curiosity—prompting a conversation about seeing the kingdom of God only through being born from above. The text rejects a Christianity reduced to mere ethics, insisting that true entry into God's reign requires a radical re-creation: what is born of the flesh remains flesh, while what is born of the Spirit becomes spirit.

The narrative draws a deliberate parallel to Israel’s wilderness episode when Moses lifted up a bronze serpent. That image prefigures the Son of Man being lifted up on the cross; looking at the crucified Christ parallels the Israelites’ healing when they fixed their gaze on the serpent. Seeing the cross summons two responses simultaneously: recognition of personal sin and the reception of divine mercy. The cross does not merely expose guilt for its own sake but places that guilt into the embrace of God’s forgiving love, where sin is borne and swallowed up.

Belief in this context receives careful definition: pistuo means trust, not mere intellectual assent to propositions. Trusting in the crucified and risen Christ entails submitting one’s woundedness and guilt to the healing offered there and receiving a new identity—eternal life and rebirth as a new creation. The passage insists that God’s purpose in sending the Son was not condemnation but salvation, and that gazing upon the lifted Christ invites transformation rather than mere sentiment.

Liturgical responses—confession, the creed, prayer, and the Eucharist—flow naturally from these truths, calling hearts to look again at the cross, to trust where trust alone can heal, and to live out the Lenten discipline of returning to what matters most: the gift of God’s love in Christ that rescues and renews.

Key Takeaways

1. Born from above, not moralism True entrance into God’s kingdom demands a new birth that reconstitutes identity, not simply better behavior. Moral improvement leaves the fallen heart intact; rebirth changes the inside—desires, loyalties, and ultimate hopes—so that life flows from union with the Spirit rather than mere habit. This re-creation upends self-sufficiency and calls for dependence on divine life as the source of moral fruit. [27:31]
2. Look to the lifted-up Son The bronze serpent story reframes sight as a sacramental act: to look is to receive healing. Fixing the gaze on the Son lifted on the cross functions as a spiritual medicine that makes visible both the cause and cure of human brokenness. That gaze asks for honest encounter—it does not flatter or excuse, but it opens the way for mercy to take effect. [31:11]
3. The cross shows sin and mercy The crucified Christ reveals human culpability without leaving it without remedy: sin gets placed upon the One who absorbs it. Seeing the cross brings cognitive clarity about wrongdoing and an experiential reception of forgiveness at the same time. This double vision prevents false self-justification while inviting restoration. [34:01]
4. Belief means trusting, not agreeing Pistuo calls for trust that entrusts life, not mere intellectual assent to facts. Trust turns the heart toward Christ’s person and work, yielding existential reliance that reorients hope and action. Such faith produces the transformative gift of eternal life, a living union that changes the whole person. [37:50]

Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[02:12] - Lent and worship focus
[07:06] - Confession and psalm
[14:01] - Gospel reading (John 3)
[24:18] - Nicodemus comes by night
[27:15] - Born from above explained
[28:54] - Serpent in the wilderness
[31:11] - Lifted up: the cross
[34:01] - Cross reveals sin and mercy
[36:21] - John 3:16: God’s gift
[37:50] - Belief as trust
[39:24] - Creed and confession
[49:54] - Thanksgiving and prayers
[64:19] - Communion and blessing

Bible Study Guide

Bible reading: John 3:1-21 (ESV)

Observation questions

What two things does Jesus say are necessary to both "see" and "enter" the kingdom of God? (John 3:3, 5)
To what Old Testament event does Jesus compare his being "lifted up"? (John 3:14)
According to the sermon, what two things does a person see simultaneously when they look at the crucified Christ? [34:01]
How is the Greek word for "believe" (pistuo) defined in the sermon, and what does that definition imply beyond intellectual agreement? [37:50]

Interpretation questions

Why is the concept of being "born from above" or "born again" a more radical solution to the human condition than simply trying to be a better, more moral person? [27:31]
In the story from Numbers 21, why would God instruct the Israelites to look at a bronze image of the very thing that was causing their death? What spiritual truth does this illustrate about how we are to look at the cross?
If God's purpose in sending his Son was not to condemn the world but to save it (John 3:17), why is it still necessary for the cross to first reveal human sin and guilt? [34:01]
How does the idea of "gazing" upon the crucified Christ function as a means of receiving healing and new life, rather than just an act of historical remembrance? [31:11]

Application questions

In what areas of life are you most tempted to settle for a Christianity of "mere ethics" or being a "nice person," rather than embracing the need for the Spirit's ongoing, transformative work from the inside out? [27:48]
The sermon suggests our culture teaches us to say, "I'm okay, you're okay." When you honestly look at the cross, what specific sins, self-absorptions, or brokenness do you see that you need to stop excusing or absolving yourself of? [32:21]
"Looking" at the cross in faith means trusting Christ with your wounds and guilt. What is one area of shame, regret, or personal failure that you need to actively entrust to his healing mercy this week, rather than just feeling bad about it?
The Israelites had to actively look at the bronze serpent to be healed. What are some practical ways you can "fix your gaze" on Christ crucified this Lenten season—through prayer, confession, worship, or meditation—to receive the spiritual medicine he offers? [31:11]
Eternal life is described as a living union that changes the whole person. How would your daily priorities, decisions, and relationships look different if you operated more consistently from this new identity as a "born from above" child of God, rather than from your old self?
The cross places our guilt into the embrace of God’s forgiving love. How can remembering this truth free you from either the weight of condemnation or the trap of self-justification when you fail?

Sermon Clips

When I put my trust in Christ, crucified on the cross, who reveals not only my sin, but also the ever greater mercy and grace of God, when I look with confidence on the son of man lifted up like that bronze serpent in the wilderness, what happens? I receive eternal life. I find salvation from my sin. I am born again as a new creation, and you are too.

That's the incredible good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what that cross is all about. So, dear friends, look on it again today, trusting everything that Jesus did for you and for your salvation, and thank God for his astonishing gift of love. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

What do we see when we look at that cross, dear friends? What ought we to see? Well, we ought to see all the forms of sin and evil being laid on Jesus, including our own self absorptions and selfishness and lusts and petty offenses, our running away, denying, betraying, and abandoning God. All of the brokenness within us is made visible on that cross.

Whenever we are tempted to say, I'm okay. You're okay. We need to look again at that broken man dying on the cross and remember our own culpability and sin put in there. We too are guilty of hammering in the nails. But let that not be all we see.

So what's going on here? Well, why would looking at the image of the source of their trouble cure them? Well, let's consider a modern analogy from psychotherapy. It's common knowledge that many of the things that cause us psychological pain are caused by repressions, suppressions, and forgotten traumas. But in the course of psychotherapy sessions or spiritual direction, as these things come to light, as those who are suffering look at what tormented them, they can actually have a curative power. Looking at what hurts us can, in fact, bring with it a kind of healing.

Now there's nothing wrong with being nice people, and I hope you are all very nice, think. But as one Christian writer puts it, Christ did not come to make us nice people. He came to make us a new creation. You cannot enter the kingdom that he is talking about simply by being nice. You must be born again, born from above, born into something new.

What it doesn't mean is simply to agree to certain propositions or ideas. You know? Canberra is the capital of Australia. Oh, yeah. I believe that. You know? That's a very restricted sense of belief. A better way to understand belief in the Greek, pistuo, is to trust. What Jesus is saying is those who trust in him may not perish but have eternal life.

Ask a question about this sermon

Chatbot

What should we see when gazing at the cross?

How does looking at the cross bring healing?

What does being born of water and Spirit mean?

Look to the Cross: God So Loved the World

Devotional

Day 1: The Necessity of Being Born from Above

Day 2: Looking Upon the Source of Our Healing

Day 3: Seeing Our Sin on the Cross

Day 4: Seeing God’s Love on the Cross

Day 5: The Life-Giving Response of Trust

Sermon Summary

Key Takeaways

Youtube Chapters

Bible Study Guide

Sermon Clips

Chatbot

Look to the Cross: God So Loved the World

Share