40 Days in the Desert: Faith Formed in the Wilderness | Lent 2018

It’s Not About You (2 of 6) February 25, 2018

This is the second Sunday of Lent and so week 2 of our 6-week sermon series, 40 Days in the Desert: Faith Formed in the Wilderness. I’m glad that you could be with us in worship this morning as we continue to look at ’ time in the desert… the lessons we can learn from his experiences and from the way he responds to having his identity and calling tested by the enemy.

Last Sunday we began this series with a message called, Welcome to the Wilderness, where we saw how the Spirit sent Jesus into the desert after his baptism, after he is confirmed as God’s beloved Son, the Messiah, to eventually offer himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. And not only was Jesus’ time in the wilderness something the Father wanted for shaping and preparing him for his mission, but we also looked at how God wants to do the same for us at various times in our Christian journey.

So, last week we were invited to see hardships and trials, or spiritually dry and barren seasons of life, as discipline from a loving parent. In other words, it is for training us and forming us to become mature in our faith. Therefore, it is right to see the wilderness as an opportunity to deepen our commitment and trust in God, for the Spirit to reveal what’s in our hearts, and for us to decide whether we’re going to be and do what God wants, or shrink back and do what we want instead.

Because as we will see this morning, if we want to follow Jesus and actually grow in our faith, becoming fully alive in Christ, we must regularly practice self-denial. Did you hear that? Let me say it again. If we want to follow Jesus and actually grow in our faith, becoming fully alive in Christ (i.e. to be a healthy and whole human being) we must regularly practice self-denial.

And that is the primary focus of this sermon, in a message I’ve entitled, It’s Not About You. But before we pick back up where we left off last week, and look at Jesus’ first temptation, I’d like to begin by addressing (or going further) with something I said last Sunday. If you were here, you may remember me saying that I don’t quite understand the skepticism about today, particularly in the church. Here is why I said that, and why I feel we need to take this seriously.

You probably already know this, but there are people in and outside the church who want to dismiss the devil as a superstitious relic that reflects the primitive, prescientific

1 40 Days in the Desert: Faith Formed in the Wilderness | Lent 2018 thinking of an uncivilized age, or that the devil or Satan is just a metaphor for talking about temptation, evil, and/or our evil impulses.

However, historic Christianity is quite clear that Satan is a real spiritual being that leads the fallen angelic (or demonic) opposition to God’s divine program, i.e. according to Scripture and Jesus himself. So, we should be slow in dismissing something just because it doesn’t fit with what is predominately a post-modern Western worldview, while the vast majority of cultures in the past, and in the present, have believed in the possibility of miracles and the reality of the devil or evil spirits.

And.. and… if we call Jesus Lord, we gotta think twice before we attempt to correct his theology. As we will see in this series, Jesus goes toe-to-toe with Satan in the wilderness. And then left and right he’s casting out demons that recognize him as the Son of God, worried that he’s come to judge them before their time.

Jesus will go on to say that Satan is a thief that comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He says he is the father of lies, a liar from the beginning. He is the prince of the air (world), and the ”god” of this age who blinds people to the truth, who seeks to stop people from coming to Christ for salvation. And all of this helps us to understand that Jesus believed his greatest enemy, the real threat, wasn’t the Roman Empire, but a spiritual kingdom of darkness that works behind the scenes manipulating humankind. So, we can’t dismiss or erase something so foundational to Jesus and the gospel message.

Listen to what historian and religious studies scholar Jeffrey Burton Russell writes: “The devil is not a peripheral concept that can easily be discarded without doing violence to the essence of Christianity. He stands at the center of the New Testament teaching that the Kingdom of God is at war with, and is now at last defeating, the kingdom of the devil.” Russell continues: “The central message of the New Testament is salvation: Christ saves us. What he saves us from is the power of the devil. If the power of the devil is dismissed, then Christ’s saving mission becomes meaningless.” And as I said, Russell’s comments are based on a simple reading of the NT.

Just listen to 1 John 3:8, where the apostle writes: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.”

So, there you go. This is central to the good news about Christ. But still people struggle with it. And you know I think what often makes it difficult to accept the reality of Satan is the way he is depicted and the way we imagine him. I don’t know what you think of, but we’ve all seen the devil depicted as a creepy red guy with horns, a

2 40 Days in the Desert: Faith Formed in the Wilderness | Lent 2018 pitchfork and a spiked tail, (probably derived from the Greek god, Pan) or maybe some other ridiculous image that makes the whole concept seem silly and bizarre.

And while I’m not personally opposed to the possibility that the devil can manifest himself in various forms, or that depicting him in physical form for the sake of story can’t be helpful (I think it can), I recognize that sometimes our attempt to depict Satan in any physical way can complicate matters. I get that.

For example, there have been a few Jesus films where the portrayal of the devil in the temptations of Christ was almost comical, or even political. If you saw the Bible mini- series from a few years ago, it’s pretty hard to argue that Satan didn’t look a lot like President Obama. Seriously? Ugh!

And I know this is really a subjective thing, whether or not you found this next depiction helpful (I did), but if you’ve seen Passion of the Christ, you know that Mel Gibson portrayed Satan in the last 12 hours of Jesus’ life, lurking in and out of scenes in human form, but it seems if he was visible, it was only to Jesus.

If you didn’t see that film, here is what Satan looked like. [PICTURE]

This particular shot is from the Garden of Gethsemane scene at the beginning of the movie. Jesus is praying in anguish, and Satan appears, speaking to Jesus in a malevolent voice, saying, “Can one man really bear the sins of the world? Nobody can carry this burden. It’s far too heavy for you. It’s too costly. And nobody is worth it.” Then a snake comes slithering out of the darkness, reminding us of the Garden of Eden, and Jesus stands up and crushes the head of the serpent (Gen 3:15).

Here’s the thing… if a dark, androgynous figure like this doesn’t help you, fine. It might be best, and closer to reality, to imagine and think more along the lines of gravity or radio waves. He’s real and we feel his effects, but we can’t see him.

And I’m telling you this because we need to accept the reality of the devil, understanding that what we imagine has an impact on the way we live, the way we pray (if we pray), and if we are learning how to resist the evil one as Jesus did. Now, let me say a couple more things here and we will get to our Scripture text for this morning, where we will see Jesus encounter Satan for the first time.

What we know or can gather from the Scripture is that Satan is a created being. This isn’t your standard eastern cosmic dualism where you have an all-powerful God and an

3 40 Days in the Desert: Faith Formed in the Wilderness | Lent 2018 equally powerful devil. No, instead, according to the NT, this rebel leader was created and counted among the angels, spiritual beings with free will who were made to serve as messengers and helpers of God and man that have the ability to move from other “spiritual” dimensions into our own. But at some point in the primordial past, this once powerful leader of heaven chose to turn against the Creator and his creation.

But the truth is, we don’t know a whole lot about Satan’s origins, nor do we know how or when this great rebellion took place. What we do know, what the NT speaks to a great deal, is what his aims are and how this agent of evil works on earth. And that’s what I want us to think about with the sermon today. How does the devil tempt and influence us? And then highlight the importance of denying ourselves.

The NT tells us that Satan tempts people to sin, he inspires false teaching, he pushes us to doubt and fear, and he incites hatred of Christians. The apostle Peter said he’s the enemy who prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Furthermore, the NT teaches that Satan influences people to lie, gossip, cheat on your spouse, not forgive others, to become bitter, and to even fall into legalism, where you live by rigid rules and accuse and judge others who don’t share your views.

But let’s be clear, the devil doesn’t make anyone do it. Instead, he influences our thinking and he exploits our weaknesses. As the book of James will tell us, it’s our own evil desires, impulses, and inclinations that Satan wants to exacerbate. But as James says, if we will submit ourselves to God and resist the devil, he will flee (James 4:7). And that’s exactly what Jesus will do in the wilderness with each temptation. Let’s go now to Luke chapter 4, and we will begin with verse 1. Luke 4, verse 1.

Luke 4:1-4 NIV 1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” 4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

First, you’ll notice that we’re reading from Luke, instead of Mark, where we were last week. That’s because in Mark’s fast moving gospel, he doesn’t detail the three specific temptations mentioned in Matthew and Luke. He just tells us that Jesus was tempted by the devil for forty days and was with the wild animals, and then the story moves on. Luke’s narrative, however, tells us more. And he describes Jesus being “full of the Holy Spirit” and not just sent or led into the wilderness, as it was in Mark and Matthew.

4 40 Days in the Desert: Faith Formed in the Wilderness | Lent 2018

That’s because Luke has a particular interest to point out the peculiar role of the Holy Spirit in carrying out and completing God’s plan, in his gospel and in his second volume, the book of Acts. Of course, in Acts, we find the Holy Spirit that filled Jesus at his baptism is the same Spirit that can fill us and lead us as Christ’s disciples.

Look again at verse 2. Pay attention to what Luke says. Jesus was tempted for 40 days, and it’s not until the end of those 40 days, when Jesus is at his most vulnerable state, that Satan tempts him with three significant temptations. Temptations that specifically target Jesus’ identity and his calling, where his responses to those tests define him and his ministry. As I said before, they all go to the of this question: What kind of Messiah is Jesus going to be? And he shows us with his choices.

But what about the first 39 days in the wilderness? What was Jesus doing? What was he experiencing? There are a couple movies that I’m aware of that have explored and speculated what that time was like. Many of you are probably familiar with the controversial film made in the late 1980s, The Last , starring William Dafoe. The film shows Jesus walk into the desert, draw a circle around him in the dirt, and then he says to God, “I’m not leaving this circle until you speak to me.”

In the days ahead, Jesus’ identity is questioned, as he questions the goodness of God. He is tempted with power, with ambition, with lust, and he wrestles with the thought of never having a family of his own, and much more in the wilderness. It’s the human side of Jesus that we don’t often think about. And let’s be honest, throughout our history the church has struggled to hold the divinity and humanity of Jesus together. But we must continue to do it, i.e. believe that Jesus is fully God and fully man.

There’s one other film I’ll mention, one that came out about three years ago, called, Last Days in the Desert. (btw: I’m not recommending that you watch these films)

Ewan McGregor plays Jesus. And in that story, Satan periodically comes to Jesus as a doppelganger, a mirrored image of Jesus, but with evil intent, which I think is a clever way of saying that the temptations come to Jesus in his own thoughts, in his own head. In other words, Satan communicates to Jesus through his thoughts, through his fears, through his doubts.

There are a couple of lines I can’t forget. One is when Satan, played by Ewan McGregor, looks at Jesus, played by Ewan McGregor, and says, “Your father… everything matters more to him than you.” Jesus says, “My Father loves me.” And then Satan’s reply, “He loves himself only.” Kind of reminds you of the exchange Satan has

5 40 Days in the Desert: Faith Formed in the Wilderness | Lent 2018 with Eve in Genesis 3. And in another scene, Satan tells Jesus he’s nothing special and says, “There are many sons of God.” And Jesus says, “No, there is only me.”

Here is a shot taken from, Last Days in the Desert. [PICTURE]

In my opinion, I do think this is the most helpful way to think about how the devil tempts Jesus, and how the enemy may also tempt us: by way of our thoughts. Therefore, I think it is appropriate to say that the mind is both the way in which God speaks to us (as I’ve said before, his voice rides the waves of our thoughts), but the mind can also be where we resist the lies of the enemy. In that way, it can be a real battlefield at times.

I admit that this is mysterious, where the mind and the soul or spirit meets. But according to the Scripture, our minds can be conduits for the Spirit or for spiritual evil, depending on what or who we’re pursuing, and whether or not we’re guarding the gate of our minds, or just letting anything (or anyone) come in and set up house. So, I invite you to think about Jesus’ temptations in this way. Jesus is a man, and he is experiencing testing and temptation in the same way the rest of us do.

Back to Luke 4, verses 3-4.

Luke 4:3-4 NIV 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” 4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

What’s going on here? First, as each temptation is dealing with Jesus’ Messianic identity and mission, it’s important to see that Jesus isn’t going to be a welfare king that is only out to simply wow people with miracles and feed bellies to win them over. Yes, he is interested in the poor having food to eat, but he’s also concerned about their spiritual well-being. It’s both.

Secondly, on a personal level, his own immediate need for food is denied. Clearly his hunger is real or this wouldn’t be a real temptation. But Jesus refuses to misuse his power as God’s Son, which Satan wants to call into question. Jesus denies himself as he is aware that turning stones to bread for selfish gain is outside of the Father’s will.

And then look at Jesus’ response. He responds, as he will with each of the three temptations, by quoting the Scriptures. In this case, he quotes from Deuteronomy 8:3, a verse that speaks of how God provided manna for the Hebrews in the desert. Don’t

6 40 Days in the Desert: Faith Formed in the Wilderness | Lent 2018 miss that. Jesus recalls a passage of Scripture to align his will with God’s will and remind himself of what is true. This aids Jesus in his ability to deny himself and resist the temptation. Remember that.

Now let’s flash forward to an episode in Jesus’ ministry where we see him continuing this practice of self-denial, as he tells his disciples, after Peter’s great confession, that Jesus is the Christ, that the Messiah must suffer and die at the hands of his enemies.

Mark 8:31-38 NIV 31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.

Listen carefully, brothers and sisters. Jesus teaches us in the wilderness, and then here in Mark 8, that if you want to obey God’s word, it will require that you deny your evil impulses. It means we can safely assume that we won’t always see things the way Jesus sees them. And in order for us to obey and submit to Jesus, we must deny ourselves.

Truthfully, there is some level of self-denial in every act of faith. If you’re going to resist temptation and obey his commands, you gotta deny yourself. If you’re going to forgive others, you have to deny yourself. If you’re going to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, you will have to deny what you want along the way. Why? Because it’s not about you. And the best thing you can do for yourself is to accept that it’s not about you. You see, the path of Christ is one of emptying, of surrender, of humility, of selflessness, of submission to the Father and what he wants, because Father knows best.

And Jesus shows us that we are never more fully human than when we live for others, not for ourselves. Which is really difficult for us, especially those of us living in the United States. I don’t know if it’s true, but it certainly rings true that we are living in the most narcissistic, self-absorbed, “selfie” generation that ever lived.

7 40 Days in the Desert: Faith Formed in the Wilderness | Lent 2018

And there has never been a better time to listen and learn from Jesus, the God-man who overcame sin and death by denying himself, as seen in his resistance of evil within and the tempter without. For it’s this Jesus that can help us mature in our faith and be fully formed in his likeness, which is the call of every disciple.

Listen to what the author of Hebrews says about how Jesus can help us in our pursuit of holiness. Hebrews 4:14-16 says: “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

As we go to him to receive this mercy and find this grace in our time of need, let us put these things into practice as we encounter temptation and overcome with Christ.

Finally, here are a few practical steps to help us do that:

1. Take the thought “captive” before you make it your own and act on it (1 Cor. 10:4-5)

2. Deny yourself (it’s not about you) and align your thoughts with Scripture, accepting what is true and real (Mk. 8:34; Lk. 4:1-4)

3. Replace what is unholy with what is holy; redirect your thoughts and God will “renew your mind” (Phil. 4:8; Rom. 12:2)

[CLOSING PRAYER]

D.D. Flowers, 2018.

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