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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 Jesus’ 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 Satan 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.
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