Sermon - Rogate 2020 - John 16:23-33

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

“Prayer is a joke, a waste of time; stop praying about it and just do it!” Or so says the scoffer who mocks Christ. For many of the heathen in our world, prayer is a joke, and in their minds it’s no different than virtue signaling without ever actually doing something about the problem. And I suppose they believe that because prayer is treated like a joke by many Christians, who do use it in order to virtue signal without ever actually even praying. 

There is some truth to the heathen’s mockery. Consider how often we say we will pray for someone, just to make them and ourselves feel better, but then never actually do so. Consider how often we write on social media: “#praying,” in order to show others our spirituality, but then we never even pray. In that same vein, why do we tell people we’re sending them our thoughts and prayers? That doesn’t make any sense, the only One who hears our prayers is God, not the person who needs our prayers… and thoughts do nothing for anyone unless they become words which are spoken to God and others.

For many Christians, prayer is a joke. It’s a time to flabber your lips about without ever saying anything. It’s an opportunity for virtue signalling. It’s a waste of breath. But such things aren’t prayer, thank God. Rather, prayer is looking to Christ through faith, in the midst of tribulations, so that in Him we may have peace now and forever.

Our Old Testament lesson today is quite illustrative for us in regards to prayer. During Israel’s 40 years of wandering before reaching the promised land, “the people became impatient on the way. 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.’” 

This is interesting and should teach us something: the people believed in God’s existence and they spoke to Him, yet they still lost their faith in Him and didn’t pray to Him, rather they spoke against God while eating His food He miraculously provided for them every day. What this should teach us is that it’s not enough to simply believe God exists and speak to Him; even the demons do this and they shudder!

As punishment for their unbelief and chastisement for the remnant who still believed, “the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.” My brothers and sisters, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” If you sow only pleasures of the flesh, then you will reap only corruption of the flesh; if you sow the fruits of the Spirit, then you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. 

The Corona Crisis, along with other sicknesses and diseases of our day, they play a similar role to that of these snakes. For those who are unbelievers, God sends sickness as a means of discipline to awaken them from their sleep of sin, so that they might feel contrition and confess their sins. For believers, God sends sickness as a sort of chastisement to keep the believers from falling asleep in the faith so that they might be maintained by repentance of their sins.

Thus we see the fruits of these snakes upon the Israelites: “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.” The fruits of these snakes was repentance over sin, whereby the people once again trusted in God and prayed to Him as dear children pray to their Father.

But note again the way in which God answered their prayer. They asked that the snakes would be removed from them, and yet God did no such thing. He left them with the snakes, who still bit people, but He gave them a remedy. “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.””

What God did here was in fact far more merciful and loving than taking away the snake and its venom! He allowed the people to still get bitten and harmed, but He provided the way of escape and the only way was by looking towards God. The real issue for the people wasn’t that they were being bitten by snakes and dying, the real issue was that they were losing their faith! God sent them snakes to cause them some temporary suffering so that they would be moved to repentance over their sins and trust in God for their salvation, both from the serpent who bites and the serpent who tempts to unbelief. 

God does the same thing with us today! Our real problem isn’t that we get sick and die, it’s that we so easily lose our faith! God sends sorrows, crosses; He sends us suffering so that we would look to Him, be moved to repentance over our sin, and trust in Him for our salvation. Except instead of looking to the serpent on the pole, we look to the Son on the pole; “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.”

What are we doing whilst looking upon the Son of man lifted up on the pole? Praying and heeding our Lord’s promise and command: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He will give it to you… Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” 

Prayer therefore is much more than simply moving your tongue or flabbering about your lips about like a flag in the breeze. Rather prayer takes place primarily in the heart! Of course the tongue is necessary also, “for with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” But the foremost part of prayer is faith in Christ who forgives our wretched sins and leads us from this life of sorrow to the life of joy which is to come. Prayer is a habit not only of the lips, but of the heart which believes that God loves us for the sake of Christ.

God answers the prayers of His faithful Christians, perhaps not in a way which often pleases the flesh, but always in a way which leads us to the fulfillment of everlasting joy and peace. Prayer always leads to peace, as Christ says: “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” 

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!