Numbers 21.4-9 + John 3.14-21

I read once that the devil was having a yard sale, and all his tools were marked with different prices.  

They were a fiendish lot.  

There was hatred, jealously, deceit, lying, pride—all at expensive prices.  

But over to the side of the yard on display was a tool more obviously worn than any of the other tools.  

It was also the most costly.  The tool was labeled, 

“DISCOURAGEMENT.”

When questioned, the Devil said, “It is more important to me than any other tool.  When I can’t bring down my victims with any of the rest of these tools, I use discouragement, because so few people realize that it belongs to me.

We live in a broken and fallen world where it becomes very easy to fall into the trap of discouragement.  

In today’s political and economic climate, the list of worries grows by the minute:

Am I going to lose my job?

What decision is the government going to make next?  How will it affect me and my family?  

Who is going to be the President next year?

I have a family to take care of.  How will I provide for their needs?

I have bills to pay.  Where is the money going to come from to pay them?

And the list of worries grows and grows.  

And, as we worry and as life unfolds and not everything goes according to our plan, we become impatient and discouragement sets in.  

The problem with impatience and discouragement is that they lead us away from God as we try to lean on our own power and understanding instead of His.  

We only get discouraged because life does not go as we have planned it out in our own minds.

In this morning’s main Biblical text, chosen for us by the lectionary for this Fourth Sunday in Lent, we are going to visit a very interesting piece of history from the Old Testament.  

Now, to remind you, the Old Testament is the first part of the Bible that tells us everything that happened from Creation up until about 400 years before Jesus as born.

In this piece of history, found in Numbers 21.4-9, we are going to get a glimpse into a time when God was doing miraculous things for His people but, the people didn’t feel like he was doing them good enough or fast enough and became discouraged in their impatience.

Let’s look at this Biblical text together now.

Numbers 21.4-9 says this:

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. (Numbers 21.4-9, ESV)

In this Biblical text, we learn many things about how discouragement functions in our lives.

First, discouragement leads to speaking against God.

The Israelites, we are told, immediately point the finger at God the moment they become uncomfortable.  When life does not unfold in the manner that they believe it should, those whom God has shown Himself to time and time again, stare God directly in the face, raise their finger and say “You have brought us out here to die!”

When we get discouraged, we automatically forget all that God has done for us, to us, in us, and through us.  

The Israelites forgot all that they had experienced while following God—transformation from slavery to freedom, a complete unharmed escape from the largest and most powerful empire on earth, miraculous provision of food from the sky, and drinking water pouring forth from rocks in the wilderness. 

In a moment of discomfort, having to spend some time in the hot desert away from the comforts of living in a settled area, the Israelites became discouraged because this was not the life that they would have chosen for themselves.  In their self-centered sinfulness they cast God’s works for them aside and spoke against their Creator and Savior.

You may be sitting there saying to yourself “How could they forget all that they experienced while following God?”  But I am here to tell you that you do exactly the same thing!

Our speaking against God sounds something like this:

My food isn’t tasty enough…

My clothes aren’t stylish enough…

My body isn’t beautiful enough…

My house isn’t big enough…

My car isn’t new enough…

My family isn’t refined and educated enough…

My church isn’t exciting enough…

My paycheck isn’t big enough…

Instead of saying “I am thankful to God for His provision.  He has given me a job, a house, a family, clothing, food, life, and a place in the body of Christ,” we criticize everything that we have and do and go through because we want to be God and think that we could run creation in a better way.  The very second in time that life does not go the way we want, the very second people do not do what we think they should, the very second that our plan does not match God’s plan, our impatience leads us to discouragement and we ultimately end up pointing the finger at God and accusing of Him of doing things wrong.

Second, discouragement leads to speaking against God’s appointed leaders.

We are told that the Israelites spoke against God and against Moses who was God’s appointed leader.  

Moses spent time in prayer, God called Moses by name, God chose and appointed Moses to lead His people through some miraculous but difficult times, and God directed Him step by step.  

Even though Moses stood up for God’s people, protected them, and led them, when life got difficult, Moses became just as guilty as God in the people’s eyes.  Moses was actually more guilty because as God’s representative standing before them, He was tangibly and physically present.  So, the people’s discouragement with life was unloaded on Moses who was doing nothing but following God.

And each of us does the same thing.  Sin flows out clearly in our words, attitudes and actions: “I don’t like what God is allowing to happen in my life, both inside and outside the church and because you are God’s representative standing before me, leading me through this difficult time, you are guilty by association.” 

Third, discouragement leads to a false view of reality.

In one breath, the Israelites say “there is no food and no water and we loathe this worthless food.”  Well, which is it, do you not have any food or is the food you have not the food that you want?

We get discouraged because we place ourselves at the center of the world and the truth is that we are not the center of the world.  

When discouragement sets in, it becomes almost impossible to judge things objectively.  All words and actions become magnified as an attack on us personally.  We become blind to truth and reality and our sinful hearts and minds create a false world where we are always right and everyone else is always wrong.

Fourth, discouragement leads to telling lies to justify your wrong attitude and behavior.

Because we end up in a false reality where it is the world verse us, we end up lying as we describe what we believe to be going on.  

For the Israelites, they lied and said they did not have any food when in fact, God was provided food for them day after day by dropping bread from the sky.  

In order for us to always be right and never be wrong, we have to create and describe a reality in which we are perfect and know-it-all and those lies are nothing but a slap to the face of God Himself.

Fifth, discouragement leads to God’s Judgment.

Due to the impatience, lack of trust, and outright disobedience toward God demonstrated in our discouragement, God brings forth the law which shows us the guilt of our sin and sets out the method of punishment.

For the Israelites, God punished them by bringing snakes to bite and poison them.  When the Israelites saw the snakes they would have been quickly reminded of the serpent in the Garden of Eden that helped usher sin into the world by making Adam and Eve discouraged with their perfect life with God.

and because of God’s judgment…

Sixth, discouragement leads to a need to repent and be forgiven.

When the Israelites were confronted with the sin associated with their impatience and discouragement, they saw their wrong measured against God’s law and came to Moses admitting “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.”

When God heard their repentance, He answered their prayer and cry for help in a way that exceeded anything that they could have asked for.  

The Israelites asked for the removal of the serpents, which meant that those who had already been bitten would die and suffer the penalty for their guilt.  However, God, in His grace and mercy, does not remove the snakes because their sin deserves to be punished, but God provides a way to be healed and restored to life.  

God has Moses create a pole with a serpent on it and promises that whoever realizes their sin and their need to be forgiven and looks up to the serpent hanging on the pole will immediately find themselves healed from the punishment they are receiving because of their sin.  

God places a serpent on top of the pole so that every time the repentant look at it to be forgiven, they are reminded of their sin (the serpent) and God’s grace in providing a new life in spite of their sin.

For you, sitting here in the pew today, life is hard and you do become discouraged, probably daily, and in that discouragement you do not trust in God, you speak against God, you speak against His leads, you buy into the picture of a false reality and you often try to justify all of that by telling lies to get the pity vote from others.  

However, God has provided forgiveness for you; He has lifted Christ up on the cross to receive the punishment for your sin.  

When you come to the foot of the cross and look up at Jesus who became sin for you, you are reminded of your grumbling against God but you are also shown the grace and mercy of God who provides a way out from that sin through healing, forgiveness, and restoration to life with Him.

In his book Hidden in Plain Sight: The Secret of More, author and pastor Mark Buchanan illustrates God’s love through the story of Tracy. He writes:

Tracy is one of the worship leaders at our church. One Sunday, as she sat at the piano, she talked about the difficult week she’d just been through. It was chaotic, she said—a mess of petty crises on top of a rash of minor accidents, all mixed up in a soup can of crazy busyness. It had left her weary and cranky. She got up that Sunday to lead worship and felt spent, with nothing more to give.

However, Tracy’s 8-year-old daughter, Brenna, helped her gain new perspective earlier that morning. When Tracy had walked into the living room, the window was covered with marks. Using a crayon, Brenna had scribbled something across the picture window, top to bottom and side to side.

At first, it seemed like one more mess for Tracy to clean up. Then she saw what Brenna had written: love, joy, peace, patience, kindnece, goodnece, faithfulnece, gentlnece and selfcantrol (in Brenna’s delightful spelling). 

Mark writes: “Tracy stopped and drank it in. Her heart flooded with light. It was exactly what she needed to be reminded about: the gift of the fruit of the Spirit that arises, not by our circumstances, but by Christ within us.

And then Tracy noticed one more thing Brenna had written at the edge of the window: Love one another. Only Brenna, in her creative spelling, had written: Love won another.”

As Mark concludes: “It’s what Jesus has been trying to tell us all along. You were won that way.”

And, then he quotes our second text from the Lectionary this morning, saying:

[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. ¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹ And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light becausetheir works were evil. ²⁰ For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. ²¹But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3.14-21, ESV)

Cast your discouragement aside this morning.  Admit with the Israelites “I have sinned for I have spoken against God” and come to the cross where Jesus gives you peace with God by providing the healing and forgives you need through His life, death and resurrection for you. Trust in Him whom we have seen is able to do more than you can ask or imagine.

This is the Word of God for you today.

This is the Grace of God for you today.

Amen.

Pastor Fred Scragg V.

March 10, 2024