Prayer Lifts Your Eyes Up To The One Lifted Up FOR YOU Numbers 21 4 9

  Rogate, the Sixth Sunday of Easter                                   25-May-2025
Sermon Text: Numbers 21:4-9
Sermon Theme: “Prayer Lifts Your Eyes To The One Lifted Up FOR YOU!” I. Trusting Our Own Ways Brings Discouragement (vs.4). II. Despising God’s Gracious Gifts Brings Death.(vs.5-6) III. Confessing Our Sin We Beg Our Shepherd To Intercede.(vs.7). IV. The Lord’s Answer Fixes Our Eyes On Jesus!(vs.8-9)
I.N.R.I. Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Jesus preaches, Joh 16:33 These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." If Jesus lives and the victory is won...why do those who follow Him have tribulation as they journey through this world.
    We live in the tension of “now and not yet.” God the Holy Spirit preaches through St. John, 1Jn 3:1-3 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. (2) Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. (3) And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” We are the Father’s children called by name as the Holy Spirit baptized us into Jesus cross and empty tomb. Now we are ‘children of God.’ Not yet has it been revealed what we shall be in the life of the world to come. We journey onward in hope. Hope flowing from Jesus’ comforting promise, Joh 14:1-3 "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. (2) In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (3) And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” We know we shall be like Him when He comes in glory to judge the living and the dead on the Last Day.
      We join our voices with our martyred our brothers and sisters in Christ. St. John testifies, Rev 6:9-10 When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. (10) And they cried with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" “How long, O Lord?”
      “Are we there yet?” “How many more towns do we have to go through?” We’ve heard our own children whine on a long road trip. They are excited to reach the destination, but the journey is tiring, boring, mundane. When I was child, on a thirty-six hour drive to visit Grandpa and Grandma in Northern Alberta, Canada, we passed the time trying to spell our names from letters on road signs, singing songs, or sleeping. Now it is easier to distract our children with mindless entertainment on screens, but soon they grow bored whining - “How much longer?”
    Dear Christian, we are on a journey like the children of Israel of old. The eternal promised land is our destination. Learn from the exodus of God’s Church in the Old Testament how to journey. On the night before Jesus’ exodus to the cross, the grave, and the empty tomb to win our freedom from sin, death, and the devil - He strengthens us for our pilgrimage: Joh 16:23-24 "..... Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. (24) Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. Learn well: “Prayer Lifts Your Eyes To The One Lifted Up FOR YOU!” I. Trusting Our Own Ways Brings Discouragement (vs.4). II. Despising God’s Gracious Gifts Brings Death.(vs.5-6) III. Confessing Our Sin We Beg Our Shepherd To Intercede.(vs.7). IV. The Lord’s Answer Fixes Our Eyes On Jesus!(vs.8-9)
I. It had been a long journey for the children of Israel. Their stubborn unbelief lengthened their journey from a few weeks to forty years of wilderness wandering. Breaking faith with God’s promise to give them victory over all their enemies - they first generation chose to die in the wilderness. Beware of your own sinful flesh. The Holy Spirit teaches us through James, “Jas 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” The true reality you confess as you rise every morning in the promise of baptismal adoption in the words of The Apostles’ Creed - isn’t ear candy - it is our life - we do it. How? We cry out in prayer to our heavenly Father through His Son by the Holy Spirit. Jesus teaches us to pray, “Father, Thy will be done!”
    Trusting our own ways only leads to discouragement. Listen! (vs.4) Wandering towards the promised land was from one graveyard to another. Numbers 20 begins with the death of Moses’ sister Miriam and ends with the death of his brother Aaron. How long? “Pastor, why am I still here?” I’ve heard from many elderly Christians. ‘Is it alright to pray to die?” Jesus teaches us to pray, “Father, deliver us from evil” This is a petition for our final hour - set alone by our Creator - now we trust His good and gracious will to keep us in His Word and the Faith until we die.
      The children of Israel knew where the promise land was, but now the Lord leads them in the opposite direction on a long detour. It didn’t make any sense to their reason. They become discouraged. We blindly follow where google maps or waze leads us on road trips, but we think our God and Savior has no idea where He is leading us. Repent! Learn from Jesus to pray! God tenderly invites you to believe - He is your true Father - you are His true children in Jesus!
II.   Twice in Proverbs wisdom teaches, Pro 14:12 There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death. Self-chosen spirituality and alternate paths to paradise apart from Christ Jesus lead only to death now and eternal death and torment in hell. If you don’t believe it - study Genesis 3 and the fall of our first parents despising God’s Word and gifts to follow Satan’s lie of godhood trusting their own feelings, desires, sight, and strength.
  Despising God’s gracious gifts only brings death. (Vs.5) On long car trips children are prone to tantrums - we are no different. Sinful we despise God’s gifts. We accuse God of only leading us away from the world to die in the wilderness of His Church. We despise feeding on the Bread of Heaven at His altar every Sunday - it makes the service too long we whine. We despise the pure water of the Gospel preached - it isn’t the sugared soda the world offers. We call the Bread of Heaven - food not fed to God’s Holy angels, but placed upon our sinful lips “worthless.” We might not say it out loud, but every Sunday we sleep in ignoring the Divine Service - we say it by our forgetting the perfect law of liberty.
  What happens when we turn our back on God’s gracious means of grace within His Church? (Vs.6) We chose the way of death. God graciously gives us what we want - life apart from Him is living death. The children of Israel were bitten by poisonous serpents bringing a slow painful death. Don’t look into the perfect law of liberty - the Gospel and forget whom God has washed you to be in the blood of His only begotten Son by the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit.
  Learn from Jesus to pray, “Father, lead us not into temptation” Father, don’t let the devil, the world, and especially my own lazy sinful thinking and flesh - lead me into false belief, despair, or other great shame, and vice.” ...Although we are attacked by these things, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory.   Daily repent! Return to the Lord your God! Rejoice to enter the House of the Lord every Sunday!
III. Learn from Jesus to pray! “Father, Hallow Your Name among us!” Father, let Your Word be taught to us in its truth and purity! Father, by Your Spirit through Your Son strengthen us to live according to Your Word!” Prayer doesn’t coerce our Triune God to do things our way. It leads us in His only saving way - the way of honesty and humility.
    Facing death the children of Israel come to themselves - like the prodigal son - they remember their good and gracious Father. (Vs.7) They beg Moses, their shepherd, to intercede - praying in their behalf for God’s mercy. They want him to plead with God to take the serpents out of their camp.

    We too confess our sins. We sin against God and the shepherds Jesus sends us by His Spirit within our congregation. Just take the serpents away - then we’ll be fine. If the devil stops troubling me - I won’t sin. If the world stops distracting me - I’ll be in Church. We lie to ourselves - the truth isn’t in us. The enemy is our own fallen flesh - the good we would do - we don’t. The evil we seek to avoid by our own thinking and doing we keep repeating. We are wretched - we need deliverance from outside of ourselves!
IV. We need God’s kingdom to come! How? (Vs.8-9) It makes no sense to our own reason or strength! Why look to a serpent raised up on a pole? How can that save us? Repent! Learn to trust the promise of deliverance in Jesus hidden in all His actions! God's kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity. Apart from the Holy Spirit sustaining you in Christ centered faith in Jesus through the Gospel you cannot be saved.
      Hear Jesus preach baptism to Nicodemus: Joh 3:14-15 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, (15) that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. The serpent on the pole is a type of Jesus’ sacrifice for us sinners. Salvation comes only through Jesus by Holy Spirit sustained faith looking to the Crucified and Risen Savior. This Faith is gifted to us dead sinners in baptism - we are born from above by water and the Spirit. It is never your doing, your choice, your decision - it is the Father’s saving gift in His Son by the Holy Spirit!
        Prayer fixes your eyes on your Crucified and Risen Savior - Christ Jesus! Now as we journey He teaches us to pray. Morning, evening, and at night - Jesus draws near through His Word wrapping His nail pierced hands around yours as you breath forth His word, ‘Our Father, Who art in heaven.” God the Holy Spirit breathes forth the life of Jesus through His Words back into your ears. We pray together members of Christ’s Body the Church - Heb 12:1-2 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, (2) looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
      This weekend we remember soldiers who fought for our God given liberty. Combat teaches soldiers to pray - there are no atheists in a foxhole - ask any combat chaplain. In the battlefield of this world wield the sword of Christ’s Word - pray! Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Amen.