In Numbers 21, we find the nation of Israel wandering the wilderness and waiting to get into the land God promised them. While traveling a road called Hor that ran along the Red Sea, the people began to do what people do best: complain. The Bible says they spoke against God and Moses, saying, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” (Numbers 21: 5, NIV)

If you were to read the Gospels in the Bible side by side, you’d find lots of similarities throughout. Matthew, Mark, and Luke especially tend to report the same events of Christ’s ministry on earth. This especially helps us to cross-reference and gain lots of perspective on the same lessons and miracles that Jesus gave to us. And each Gospel in kind shows its own emphasis on Jesus.

But each Gospel is uniquely different, each one offering us completely new insights into the life of Jesus and offering some stories not found in the other accounts. This particular day recorded in John 2 sounds familiar, and yet is not. Here, we find Jesus in the temple during Passover and upon finding merchants and money-changers in the outer courts, He passionately cleanses the temple. In other words, He kicks the opportunistic businessmen out of the temple, clears out their animals being sold for sacrifice, and breaks up their tables and stalls to clear space for worshipers to offer sacrifices and pray.

In John 2, Jesus attends a wedding in which the wine runs out. In those days, it was a party foul to host a wedding and not have enough wine for the whole party. When the wine runs out, Jesus’ mother, Mary, asks Him to intervene and sends a few servants to help Him rectify the situation. Jesus tells the servants to fill up the waterpots that were being used for the purification ritual for the wedding ceremony. The servants fill up these six stone jars that each hold about twenty to thirty gallons.

It seriously boggles my mind how quickly Israel could forget God’s goodness, mercy, and provision towards them. The Jews left Egypt and began their journey in the wilderness in Exodus 15, and here we are in chapter 17 and already we’ve seen 3 different iterations of them having a need, shaking their fists and Moses and God about it, not trusting in God to fill it, and God supernaturally proving Himself by fulfilling their need with a miracle. And what’s worse is that those are just a couple of chapters at the beginning of a 40 year-long journey! We know that there are still many, many more times that Israel repeated that same pattern.

But we are the same way. And just think: If Israel found it hard to rely on God and constantly fell into habits of questioning Him despite the miracles and wonders they witnessed, how much more so is it for us?

Imagine you have a huge debt. I’m talking six figures. Whatever it is– medical, educational, a mortgage– it is crushing and the interest rate on it means that you will be paying it off for the rest of your life. The payments on that debt are so high that you will have to work and work and work around the clock to try and make it. Forget about vacations, luxury items, and eating meals out. You’re just lucky to have food on your table. Everything you think about, do, and work towards seems to have that debt looming over it, shadowing everything. No hope, no relief, no peace.

Christians get a bad wrap. Why? Because most of the time, we preach a message that comes off “holier than thou” to a world that is comfortable in their sin. I can’t count how many times unsaved people have said something along the lines of, “It’s okay, I’m gonna live it up with my friends at the big party going on in hell when I get there.” And I know it’s meant to be a joke, albeit not a very funny one, but it just goes to show how tightly people will cling to their sin and their comfortable pleasures, despite the fact that those things will never add up to eternal salvation.

At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, He gives a lesson on a mountainside. There is a great crowd of people around Him, and they are all attentive to what this Messiah has to say. For the Jews, they believed that Jesus was here to free them from Roman occupation and rule, restoring them to political power and peace, and reigning over them victoriously whilst pouring out spiritual and material blessings over His chosen people the Jews. But in Matthew 5, the beginning of what has more popularly become known as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus sets a very different tone than what the Jewish people assumed of a Messiah for generations. Instead, Jesus lays out more of a foundation to discipleship; what daily life looks like for someone who belongs to the Kingdom of Heaven, and how His followers should ethically live.

As I write this, I am officially 36 weeks along in my pregnancy with our first child. Each day is a mixture of wild anticipation and timid caution. Are we ready for her? What else needs to be done? Are we going to be good parents? How else can we possibly prepare for the labor, birth, postpartum period, and the transition into parenthood? Every way you slice it, it all feels like new territory. I’ve babysat before; I’ve watched my mom and dad raise my brother from a young age. But none have been fully mine– none of them have been a child grown in areas only I have ever occupied or borne of my body.

I always find it silly when I’m talking about Jesus to someone and they say something along the lines of, “I can’t be a Christian. God doesn’t want me. I’m too far gone for all that.” In theory, I can understand what they mean, and I can sympathize with the fact that someone thinks they are outside of God’s love for them or that they’ve done something to disqualify them from being a part of what God is doing. We might all feel like that at some time or another– caught up in our flesh and sin, knowing we have done wrong– and felt that there was no way Jesus could save us after knowing how despicable we are. To feel that way is to not understand what Jesus did on the cross, and the full extent of that salvation extended.

We’ve been traveling through the opening verses of the first chapter of John, going section by section to break down this beautifully complex introduction to the Gospel. The above verses continue to use this analogy of Jesus being the Light coming into the world, illuminating the Truth to those that accept it. Last week, we went into the section of verses that spoke about John the Baptist, and how his ministry bore witness to the light of who Jesus was going to be. John, himself, was not the light but he was a witness to the coming Light.

Have you ever been in a place where you honestly believed your sin discounted you from serving God or made you unworthy of salvation? I’m sure we’ve all been there. We’ve all grappled with our worthiness of God’s goodness from deep within the sin that separates us and Him. You think what you did was bad, but have you ever been a lying, deceitful prostitute? We find one in the pages of the book of Joshua; Rahab, a prostitute living in the city of Jericho– yes, THAT Jericho– a city that was one of the biggest bosses that Israel had to defeat before reclaiming the land promised to them by God.

The struggle between works-salvation and faith-salvation is one that I find many Christians grapple with. Like it or not, many in the church pew tend to think that their ticket to heaven gets upgraded based on how many good things they can do for the world and other people. And don’t get me wrong, sometimes I get in my head like that too because this whole world runs off of a performance-based lifestyle. How many likes can I get on this post? How can I excel at work to get a promotion? How can I excel at school to get good grades?

I’ve been leading us up to this moment for a few weeks now. First, we got to see Abram and God lay out the terms of the contract; Abram needing a son, and God promising to give him that son and make him into a nation. Then, we got to see the making of a contract, seeing the beauty in the seemingly bloody and violent covenant.

I think my favorite part about Jesus is that He does very intentional things in a roundabout way. The course of action He takes is almost never the one we would, but it always seems to work out better than what we could have ever forced together in our own strength. It’s because He sees the whole picture. We see dust, He sees an opportunity for life. We see a storm, He sees an opportunity to teach. We see a cross and a tomb, He sees grace and eternal life. So when the paralytic man in Mark 2 is lowered through the roof to sit right in front of Jesus, everyone expects Jesus to heal this man’s broken body. Instead, Jesus throws us a curveball.

Let me tell you: This verse has been a process within my heart this week, so I guess the best place to start is the inspiration for what is shaping up to be a series centering around our key verse for today. I am writing to you at my work desk on my first day back from a girls weekend trip to Asheville, North Carolina. On my first day there, my mom and I decided to take on the big tourist attraction in the area: the Biltmore Estate. For those who don’t know, this colossal mansion and its surrounding acres of property are known as the largest private home in the world. Built by the Vanderbilt family (yes, the shipping and railroad empire you learned about in high school American history), it’s one of the best looks we have back into the lifestyles of the rich and famous just before the turn of the century.

Do you ever find yourself feeling like you are surrounded; like you feel like you need to be scared of everything? Life can be so overwhelming at times, it feels like it completely encompasses you day by day. We have all been there, and when you are feeling that way– when you are letting the world invade your thoughts and emotions– you are forgetting the who God made you. You are forgetting the platform that you stand on each day and how the Lord arms us with his love and strength.