Key points
- 1
1God sometimes leads us through things that don't make sense, and complaining rather than trusting only prolongs the journey.
- 2
2God doesn't always remove the problem, but He graciously provides a cure — if we will act on it.
“Jesus was proving to the world, I'm not a good teacher. I'm not a moral person. I am God. And if you've seen me, you've seen the father. And in Jesus, the invisible becomes visible. The unknowable becomes knowable. The untouchable becomes touchable. But the miracles were the byproduct, not the goal”
- 3
3To see and enter the kingdom of God, every person — no matter how religious — must be born again by the Holy Spirit.
“God did not come to make you a slightly better version of you. You are broken and fatally flawed. But this is the good news of the gospel, is that through what Jesus did on the cross, you and I have an invitation to be made new again”
- 4
4Jesus deliberately connects the bronze serpent to Himself, revealing that the whole Numbers 21 episode was a foreshadowing of the cross.
“All of that was a cosmic setup to preach the gospel. Friends, this is what the Old Testament is if you'll see it. The Old Testament is screaming if you'll listen, that there is a God that has come to save your soul”
- 5
5Biblical belief is not merely intellectual agreement but active, weight-bearing trust — stepping onto the bridge, not just admiring it.
“What John essentially says is that it's one thing for you to stand at point a, to look across the ravine to point b and say, I believe that this bridge will get me across. It's one thing to say that, but the word that John uses in the Greek for believe is you don't really actually believe that that bridge is gonna get you to the other side until you step out on it”
- 6
6Treating God like a 'cosmic Coke machine' — expecting Him only to act in ways we understand — causes us to miss the real work He is doing.
- 7
7The cure must be 'lifted up': Jesus was physically lifted on the cross and must also be exalted as Lord in our hearts.
“sometimes what God will ask instruct us to do things that we we don't completely understand. We don't understand how step one gets to this finished project, but maybe we don't need to understand it all and we can just trust the guy that is the intelligent designer behind it all”
A story from life
Pastor Daniel's account of ordering IKEA kitchen cabinets and spending two and a half days assembling them with his father
Application
Pastor Daniel's call to action is direct and personal: stop treating God like a cosmic Coke machine that is expected to perform on your terms, and instead do what the snake-bitten Israelites had to do — look up. That means moving beyond intellectual agreement about Jesus into genuine, weight-bearing trust that reshapes your whole life. If you have never truly been born again, today is your moment to surrender, pray, and let the Holy Spirit begin a heart transplant. If you have been sitting in that in-between category — calling yourself a Christian but living as though your life, money, and decisions are still entirely your own — the invitation is to step fully onto the bridge. For those who responded, the next step is to let someone at Rock Point walk alongside you at rockpointe.io.
