“Lead…to be Tempted…”

An sermon based upon Matthew 4: 1-11

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership, 

Second Sunday after the Epiphany, January 19th, 2020

A man who owned a small-town grocery store saw a little boy come in one afternoon. The little fellow stood near the front door looking at a barrel of apples. He would look up at the man and back down at the apples. Finally, the man went over and said to him,

"Son, are you trying to steal one of those apples?"

The boy replied, "No, sir. I'm trying to keep from it."

THE TEMPTER CAME…

In today’s text, Jesus had a choice to make.   And in making this choice Jesus was ‘trying’ to keep from ‘stealing’.  This something Jesus was being tempted to ‘steal’ was the very identity or name God the Father had just given to him at Baptism, when God said: ‘This is my Son, whom I love’ (3:17). 

Like Jesus at his Baptism, at our own Baptism into the Christian Faith, we too are given a new name.  In some Christian groups during the ‘christening’ process, infants are still given ‘Christian’ names. Most Christians today don’t actually get new names, like when Saul the Hebrew became Paul the Christian, but this is still what Baptism means.  When we are baptized into faith in Jesus Christ, we are baptized ‘into the name of Jesus Christ’ (Acts 2:38).  Paul explained: “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Cor. 5:17 NIV)   

The person who is ‘baptized into the name of Jesus’ is named, like Jesus, as ‘the child, God loves’.  This is what you are to learn as a Christian.  As the old gospel hymn says, being a Christian means you ‘take the name of Jesus with’ you.  As Christians, whether everyone becomes a Christian or not, we believe that every human person should be ‘named’ as a person whom God loves.  

But we can ‘throw away’ or ‘lessen’ this ‘naming’ can’t we?   When Dylan Roof sat in that Bible Study in the Immanuel Church in Charleston, S.C., on a Wednesday night back June of 2015, he decided to ‘throw away’ the name God gives.  He decided to throw away the core biblical and Christian truth that “God is no respecter of persons’ and that the people in that black church where just as much loved by God as white people are loved by God.

By acting out of this hate, Dylan Roof also ‘threw away’ his own name too.  Maybe Dylan couldn’t throw away God’s love even for him, for no human being can do that, but what Dylan Roof did was to throw away the ‘name’ of love he had an opportunity to ‘bear’ (1 Pet. 4:16) because he chose not to bear it.  When the 21 year-old Roof took his pistol and shot those God loving people in cold blood, he refused to bear or wear the name of love that God had given to him, as well as, God had also given to them.

And we can do this too, can’t we?   While we may never shoot an innocent person, we can belittle people, mistreat people, ignore people, or even abuse people with the thoughts and the words we say, or the deeds we do or don’t do.   We can forget to bear the name of love that God has given us too. 

This is the ‘great temptation’ isn’t it---to lose the ‘name’ of love in the choices we make?  We can wear and bear the name of love in our humanness, or we can refuse to bear it at all.  In Jesus Christ, God has given us his love to ‘bear’, being called and challenged to ‘bear one another’s burdens to fulfill the law of Christ’ (Gal. 6:2, KJV).   This ‘law of Christ’ is the both the ‘name’ and the ‘burden’ of love we are given to ‘wear’ and to ‘bear’ in this life.  Love is a ‘gift’ that freely comes from God like a ‘dove’ and like an affirming ‘voice’.  It is a ‘name’ of love freely spoken to us, but it is still a name we can refuse or choose to ignore.

As a human being, Jesus had this choice to make, just like we do.  The writer of Hebrews says that Jesus was ‘in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin’.  Perhaps that helps us understand why we have this ‘temptation’ story in our Bible.   Jesus was being tempted in the wilderness just like Israel had been tempted; with hunger, with various tests and with true or false worship.  According to biblical story, it took 40 years of wandering in the wilderness for Israel to pass that test.  Here, Jesus is being confronted with the same kind of test in 40 days.  

What we especially need to understand about Jesus’ test, however, is that at about the same time Jesus heard God’s voice’ of love affirming who he was, Jesus was immediately ‘led up by the Spirit’ to be ‘tempted by the devil’.    At first glance, this means that it was not a ‘sin’ for Jesus to be ‘tempted’ or ‘tested’, just like it isn’t a ‘sin’ for us.  We are taught to pray ‘Lord, lead us not into temptation’, but we are to pray this way because the realities of life, death, and the devil too, will always put God’s love to a test through us. 

In this great love and wonderful freedom God gives us we all have choices to make, but God has a very different agenda than the devil does.  In the book of James we read that “no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; (Jas. 1:13 NIV).   Thus, when Jesus was ‘led by the Spirit’ he was ‘tested’ by the Spirit at the same time he was being ‘tempted by the devil’.  This may sound contradictory, but this is the Bible’s way of saying that love gives us a choice to make.  Because God loves us freely, even in a sinful, fallen world, love comes as a spiritual ‘test’ which can be used by the devil to ‘tempt’ us to be less than who God has named us to be. 

Whether we are a young child, or a mature adult, every one of us continues to face this ‘test’ of love which we can either choose or refuse.    As one pastor wrote: “There are certain things that can be said with certainty about every person.   We know that everyone of us will die.  Everyone has a longing for something more.  And everyone of us faces some kind of test and temptation (From Paul Duke’s sermon,  “Surviving the Test”).   Temptation comes to us, no matter what religion we have or don’t have, no matter how much or how little we have, and no matter how strong we are or how weak, we all have to make and live with the choices we have in life.  And the greatest choice is always the given to us through love. 

THE DEVIL TOOK HIM…

There is something else we need to see in Jesus’ temptation, which also points to our own calling as disciples.  Jesus was tempted in different ways, which here is being illustrated by three most basic ways:  Jesus was being tempted with his physical needs—his appetite.  Jesus was being tempted with his emotional needs—his need to have human approval.  And finally, Jesus was being tempted in his spiritual needs---his sense of worth and purpose.   These are needs which all human beings have in one way or another.  And even if you say you aren’t very religious, you can still see human need and desire written between the lines of each temptation. 

We could get into each of these in detail, but what strikes me most, is this one point in the middle temptation, when it says that ‘the devil took’ him ‘to the highest point on the temple’ (4: 5).  What we should especially make note of is that Jesus was not just tempted by the devil when he was his lowest, either ‘in the wilderness’ or when he was ‘hungry’, or ‘lonely’,  but Jesus was also tempted when he was ‘taken to the holy city’ and asked ‘to stand on the highest point of the temple’ (4:5).   In a similar way, we are not only ‘tested’ during our lowest points in life, but we are also tested’ at our ‘highest points’.  Twice, the devil took Jesus to a ‘high’ places, after the ‘temple’ then on a ‘high’ mountain (4:8).   It was there, on top of the world of his day, God’s loving name was most ‘put to the test’ (v.7).   

Could we also come to understand that this is also how it is with our own test and temptations in life?  Could we understand that God’s love and God’s name is most tested in us, is not just when the ‘chips are down’ or when tempted to take ‘a lower or lesser road’ in life, but the test also comes, and perhaps for us Christians mostly comes, because we find ourselves at a privileged and most opportune place?  It was exactly because Jesus carried God’s name and God’s love, that he was tested in these ‘high places’.  Being ‘tested’ and ‘tempted’ at a very ‘high place’ could be how love comes to be most tested in us.   

That’s how it was with Tom Long, a respected Christian teacher and preacher, who told of searching the aisles of the hardware store for a tube of "Super Glue,"  He couldn't find it, so he went up to the customer service desk to ask for help from the young man standing at the cash register. He was on the telephone and, when he saw him coming, he turned his back.  He was making a personal call, so Tom just waited. The call went on and on ... "So did you like the movie ... really? ... Oh you're kidding! ... What did Susan say? ..." Finally Tom cleared his throat. He gave a sharp look and kept on talking. "That Susan's ... Oh, I know, I hate that ... So, you going to the game Friday? ..."

Tom was beginning to be impatient: "Pardon me," He said, "I need to ask one question."

The young man let out a great sigh and mumbled into the phone, "Catch ya' later, Charlie, I gotta go." He looked up with an exasperated expression that said, "Well, what are bothering me for, spit it out."

"I'm looking for 'Super Glue,'"  Tom said.

"It's on the third aisle, in plain view," he said with disdain.  Tom said he walked down the third aisle, and the farther he, the angrier he got. “How dare that young man be so rude to his customer? Tom said he was ‘tempted’ to go back up there and give him a piece of his mind!  He was ‘tempted’ ... As a Christian, and as a customer, being the one who was ‘in the right’,  Tom said he was ‘tempted, and perhaps for a good reason, to go back and give that fellow ‘a piece of his mind’? 

When you give someone ‘a piece of your mind’, what ‘piece’ do you mean?  The ‘mean’ piece, right?   Interestingly, Tom Long was being not being tempted to do something wrong.  He was being tempted from a ‘high place’ from even his ‘rightful position’, which was a ‘place’ he could be free to choose not to show this fellow any love.   Like any of us in that situation, he was being tempted to give in to his feelings, to forget his calling, and to overlook the command to love, even this sinner, who God loves.

This was the ‘intent’ of the devil with Jesus, wasn’t it?  It wasn’t so much to get Jesus to do wrong, but it was to get Jesus to claim his ‘rights’ in a lesser way.  Besides, what’s wrong with having an appetite?  What’s wrong with having people take notice?  What’s wrong with being ambitious enough to accomplish whatever you can?  Jesus’ temptations were based on normal, human ways of life. 

But, as we all know, each of these human needs can be perverted and corrupted too, can’t they?  While the Spirit sent Jesus out in the wilderness to prove himself, the devil wanted to prove that Jesus wasn’t able to sustain his ‘high calling’.  And while we certainly aren’t tempted exactly like Jesus, we are tempted in some similar way.  In the realities of life and living, we are constantly tested and tempted to ignore the call, to fail the command, and to forsake the cost of love.  It was the devil’s intent to get Jesus to ‘settle for less’ in his high calling.  It is still the devil’s great scheme, to get us to live by a name and by a love that is less than the best we can live.

THEN, THE DEVIL LEFT…

We are told, that Jesus was able to resist the devil’s temptations, and so can we.  Of course, it was the Word of Scripture that enabled Jesus to respond to and resist the devil’s temptation, but it wasn’t the Scripture in his Bible, but it was the Scripture that Jesus carried with him always in his heart.   What kind of ‘Scripture’ do you carry around with you, in your heart?   

While there are several ways Jesus was tempted, and are different ways that Jesus resisted the devil, and we can too, everything Jesus answered from his own heart, finally boiled down to one single response.  What the devil wanted Jesus to name and to have is what Jesus told us the Lord’s prayer, only belonged to God.  Do you remember at end of the Lord’s prayer, where it says, right after “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’, then it says, ‘for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever?   When you claim any of these things which only belongs to God; the kingdom, the power, and the glory, then the devil always has a way to get you.   But if you are willing to ‘let God be God’ and let God be in charge of your life, the devil can’t even get in a ‘word in edgewise’.  That is, when you choose the way of love, as God names it, and you refuse to play God yourself, and you refuse to take God’s position with your life, but you are willing to be ‘humble’, to serve, to answer God’s love with your life, and you remain human, then the devil leaves.  The devil knows that he can’t ever be in charged, when we give God charge over our hearts and in our lives.

So, while it make look like this story about Jesus’ temptation has nothing to say to you,   since we aren’t any kind of Messiah, the deepest truth is that this story speaks straight to the ‘highest’, biggest temptation we all have; to be like God and to say what we will only do, love, and serve what we want.  What the devil was offering Jesus, is what the devil still offers us; a way to be in charge and not to bear the cross of love.  

Let me close with some final words I found from a pastor who’s already gone on to his reward.  Mark Trotter wrote: “I have to be honest, and say, my future is increasingly a matter of concern to me. I mean, I've made plans. I've stored up provisions. I've tried to take charge of my life. You know that phrase, "Take charge of your life." The wise men of this age tell us to do that, and I have tried to do some of it.’  But, he continued: “I've been around long enough, and I have buried enough people, to know that if you think you are in charge of your future, you're a fool.  You are being tempted. And the temptation is to lead you away from where our security really lies. It doesn't lie in your plans, but your future lies in God's plan. Your plans may fail. You may never realize the fulfillment of your plans. You may have a future you don't want. So don't be tempted to think that you are in charge of your future. "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever." 

And as far as I know, there is only one way keep trusting God to be God and to keep resisting the devil.  You have to also know what Jesus knew;  that ‘you are God’s beloved child’ in whom God is already ‘pleased’.  When you already know that you are loved, it’s amazing what kind of traps in life that you can avoid.  And when you trust God’s love enough to live from, in and to keep living toward his love, even when life hurts, you will be able to resist the hateful ways the devil who, like a roaming lion, constantly seeks whom he may devour.  But if you walk this way of trust and love, no one, and nothing, will be able to ‘snatch you’ or ‘tempt you’ away from God’s unfailing love.  Amen.