The One We Long For
Your Sunday Chapel: Numbers 24:17 · Deuteronomy 18:15–18 · John 5:39–46
Welcome to “Your Sunday Chapel.“ Today we will be sharing from our archives and a message that was originally entitled “Longing for a Leader.“ As usual, we attach the actual sermon audio along with an accompanying devotional and questions for personal reflection or small group discussion.
“Our Father in heaven, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in Thy sight O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer. And let me preach as if never to preach again, as a dying man to dying men. Through Jesus our Lord. Amen.”
The Audio Message
The Devotional Message
We all long for the hero who will lead us out of our fears.
There is a line in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe that carries more weight than it first appears: “Aslan is on the move.” Lewis knew what he was doing. He had read Augustine. He had read the Scriptures. He understood that the human heart arrives in this world already aching — already reaching for something it cannot name, already leaning into a horizon it cannot see. The longing for a leader is not a political instinct or a cultural habit. It is deeper than that. It is woven into the fabric of creation.
We see it in history — in the way ordinary men followed Churchill and Eisenhower into something larger than themselves. We see it in story — in the way our hearts quicken when Aslan stirs and Edmund’s battle begins to turn. We see it in the Scriptures, most remarkably in the way God used even a hired prophet to speak truth he had not intended and did not fully understand.
Balaam was a prophet for profit. Not good. King Balak of Moab hired him to curse Israel, a people he feared. But three times Balaam opened his mouth to curse, and blessing came out instead. His own donkey saw what he could not see (O the things that Creation knows). And then Balaam himself saw something beyond the immediate horizon: “A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel” (Numbers 24:17).
With a donkey to lead him, old Balaam tried to curse and ended up blessing, and being an unlikely leader himself, he pointed us towards a kingly Star and a scepter. But he was looking at a prophetic mountain range blue with distance. Joshua was one peak. David was another. But the range kept extending— toward One who would hold the scepter, crush every enemy of the soul, and reign without end.
Moses saw it too, from the east bank of the Jordan. He would not cross over. His own hand, raised in frustration against the rock, had cost him the entrance. He knew what that meant — not merely for himself, but for the people. All great leaders eventually come to the end of themselves. That is not failure. It is the design. Their insufficiency is meant to deepen our longing, not disappoint it: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen” (Deuteronomy 18:15).
Moses was passing the mantle — not merely to Joshua, though Joshua would come. He was pointing beyond every earthly successor to the One who would one day stand before the religious leaders of Jerusalem and say: If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me (John 5:46).
Jesus Christ is the leader the human heart has always longed for. He is the star out of Jacob, the prophet greater than Moses, the One who does not merely point toward the Promised Land but opens the way into it — not by the conquest of armies, but by the conquest of sin and death at Calvary. He is the only leader who can crush the true enemy of our souls. And he is the only leader who will get us home.
Augustine named this longing plainly: O Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. The restlessness is not a flaw. It is a compass. And it points — through every story we love, every hero who stirs us, every leader who falls short — toward Christ.
He is not still in the manger. He is not still on the cross, nor in the sealed tomb. He is risen. He intercedes. He is near. And if the longing in your heart has not yet found its resting place, this moment is sufficient:
“Hear my prayer, Father: I need the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. I am lost in the woods of this world. I do not have the coordinates to find my way home to You. Come to me. Lead me to You. Fill me with Your Spirit so that I can follow by faith and obedience.”
If that prayer is yours, it has been heard. He will lead you through all the days of your life. And beyond. Far beyond.
Soulwork
Six Questions for Personal Reflection or Small Group Discussion
1. Where do you most feel the longing for a leader in your own life right now — in your relationships, your work, your faith, or your sense of direction? What does that longing reveal about what you most deeply need?
2. Balaam was a reluctant and unlikely instrument of God’s truth. Can you think of a time when God used an improbable person — or even a difficult circumstance — to speak something true and formative into your life?
3. Moses acknowledged his own failure and pointed the people toward One greater than himself. Is there an area of your life where pride or self-reliance is keeping you from acknowledging your limits — and from pointing others, or yourself, toward Christ?
4. The sermon observes that the longing for a hero is woven into our stories, our history, and our hearts. How have you seen this longing expressed — in a book, a film, or a chapter of your own life — in a way that ultimately pointed toward something, or Someone, greater?
5. Jesus told the religious leaders, You search the Scriptures . . . yet you refuse to come to me (John 5:39–40). Is it possible to be theologically informed and yet spiritually distant from Christ? What does genuine nearness to Jesus look like in the ordinary rhythms of daily life?
6. Augustine wrote that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. In what ways has your own restlessness — whether born of ambition, grief, or searching — eventually drawn you closer to Christ? Where are you restless still?