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.
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