Sermon Text: Numbers 27:15–23
Date: June 14, 2026
Event: Proper 6, Year A [Confirmation Sunday]

Numbers 27:15–23 (EHV)

Moses spoke to the LORD, 16“May the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the community, 17who will go out before them and come in before them, who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the community of the LORD will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”

18The LORD said to Moses, “Take Joshua son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and place your hand on him. 19Have him stand in front of Eleazar the priest and the entire community. You will commission him in their sight. 20You will give some of your authority to him so that the entire Israelite community will listen to him. 21He will stand before Eleazar the priest, who will inquire for him before the LORD with the decision of the Urim. He and all the Israelites with him, the entire community, will go out at his command and come in at his command.”

22Moses did just as the LORD commanded him. He took Joshua and had him stand in front of Eleazar the priest and the entire community. 23He placed his hands on him and commissioned him, just as the LORD spoke through Moses.

The Gospel Goes from Generation to Generation

Nothing lasts forever. Sometimes, that’s a good thing. You’re going through a hard time in life, and you know that it will pass and something better (or at least different) will be around the corner. Eventually, for new parents, that baby will sleep for more than 18 minutes at a time. But sometimes it’s tough. You have to come home from the dream vacation. That friendship or other relationship that you thought would be precious for the rest of your life disintegrates underneath you. Effort in training for a sport ends with an injury, leaving you unable to compete—the very reason you were training in the first place.

This morning in our readings, we have a lot of torch-passing. Jesus to the disciples, Paul and Apollos to the Corinthians, and in our focus this morning, Moses to Joshua. While they might not all be the exact end of their respective eras, they all point to an upcoming transition. Eventually, Jesus’ work would be done, and the disciples would be the ones to preach and teach the gospel. Eventually, Paul and Apollos would be called home to eternal life, and the Christians in Corinth would have to press on without them, but using the training they had been given. And not long after our First Reading, Moses would die, and Joshua would take over as leader of Israel as they finally received the blessing of the Promised Land from God’s hand.

This morning, we’ll get a hint of that as well. As Miles and Karl are confirmed, as we hear them profess their faith, we’ll be reminded that those of us who are older will not be here forever, that eventually the value of the gospel and the responsibility to preserve it and share it always pass on to the next generation, and we want to do everything in our power to ensure that they are ready to receive it. But is it really us who do that?

At the time of our reading, Moses knew that his time leading Israel and his time on earth in general was drawing to a close, and it wasn’t just because he was 120 years old. Back in Numbers 20, we saw a repeat of the scene at the end of the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness that we saw at the beginning. The people were in a place with no water, and they were complaining that they had been brought out of their slavery just to die of thirst in the wilderness.

At the beginning of these forty years, God had Moses strike a rock with his staff, and God sent water from the rock for the people to drink (Exodus 17). But this time, God gave Moses different directions: “Take the staff and assemble the community. You and Aaron, your brother, speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will pour out its water” (Numbers 20:8). But Moses was so angry with the people that in his frustration, he took his staff and struck the rock with it as he did the first time forty years earlier. Now, God still provided water for the people through this, but God was clear that what Moses had done was wrong: “Because you did not trust me enough to honor me as holy in the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this assembly into this land which I have given to them” (Numbers 20:12). Moses’ public sin of striking rather than speaking to the rock meant that he would not be the one to lead these people into the Promised Land; that task would fall to his sucessor.

Despite Moses’ frustration with the people, we can see his heart at the beginning of our reading. What is he concerned about? That the people will have no leadership, and this whole thing will be for naught, which will include the destruction of the nation. So he prays for them. He asks God very specifically to give them someone to lead them in his place so that the community of the LORD will not be like sheep without a shepherd.

What is God’s answer? “Take Joshua son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and place your hand on him.” Notice what God’s qualification for Joshua was. Not that he was a good leader, or a motivating speaker, or a great military strategist. But the Holy Spirit was in him. His faith and dedication to God would drive him, just as it had driven Moses. Joshua would be the one who would boldly and confidently tell the nation to choose what religious path they were going to go down in the future, but made it very clear, “as for me and my household—we will serve the LORD!” (Joshua 24:15).

The single most important thing to God was not the physical well-being of his people (though that was certainly important). No, the single most important thing to God was the spiritual well-being of his people, their eternal good. Sin would be their constant companion in so many different ways, and yet God would always promise to remove their sins as far as the east is from the west, to bury them in the depths of the sea. His promise of a Champion from Abraham’s family who would crush Satan’s head always remained God’s prime focus, and it was important that the people stood firm in their trust in God’s mercy.

Nothing has changed in the 3,400 years since Joshua took over for Moses. What do God’s people—all people—need? We need the gospel, we need the message of God’s loving forgiveness, because sin is just as much our companion in this life as it was for the Israelites. We need leaders who will guide us in the truth, and we need to pass that truth on to the generations that will come after us.

We’re going to get to see that happen this morning in a very special and heartwarming way. Both Miles and Karl, after enduring four long, grueling years with their pastor in catechism class (it wasn’t that bad, was it??), are here to present themselves to be confrimed in their Christian faith, to take up the mantle of adult membership in our congregation, to join us at the Lord’s Supper and receive Jesus’ true body and blood with the bread and wine for the forgiveness of their sins.

And this is not just a rite of passage; this is not akin to graduation from middle school, high school, or college. Those events mark the end of something, whereas confirmation marks the beginning of something: the beginning of an adult life surrounded in the love of God as we find it in his Word and the sacraments. A lifetime of digging into the condemning truths of God’s law—that we deserve hell for our many sins—and the predominating power of the gospel, that Jesus truly is the one who freed us from those sins and that because of his love for us, we will be in eternal life with him.

When Jesus sent out the twelve on their first practice mission trip in our Gospel this morning, he encouraged them with this overriding truth: Freely you have received; freely give (Matthew 10:8). That is a stunning reminder for us as well. We have been given this gospel message, this forgiveness of our sins, freely and generously by those who came before us. We have the Christian faith as an inheritance handed down from our faith family in generations past. So we, too, should share it with the next generation. We, too, should be Joshua to the Israelites and share the Spirit that has been given to us. We should be the disciples, proclaiming the truths we’ve learned from Jesus himself.

So later today, as you leave this place, consider anew the gift of eternal life that has been given to you, as well as the faith to trust all that Jesus has done to make that eternal life yours. And then consider how you might take this to the next generation, whether they be younger in age or younger in faith. How can you share God’s goodness with those yet to be born, with those yet to learn about their Savior’s love, with those who suffer now but will find relief in the life, death, and resurrection of their Savior? How can you mimic the commendable faith-life goals that our confirmands will express in their essays this morning?

More than any dream vacation or meaningful relationship, we do not want the gospel to end. It is something we don’t want and frankly cannot allow to disappear. God has promised that such a thing won’t happen, but he has also entrusted us with caring for it and sharing it. Let’s take it seriously. Let’s take up the call as Joshua took up his new position and ensure that, well after we are gone, others will learn about and cherish their Savior in some small way because we saw to it that they could hear it.

Lord, send us out into those harvest fields and do not leave us or any of your people as sheep without a shepherd. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria