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Last updated on
Mar. 16, 2004
Journey Toward Jesus
First Sunday of Lent
Delivered February 29, 2004
by Pastor Werner De Jong
Text: Luke 4:1-13; Romans 10:8b-13
Main Idea: We are tempted to stray from Jesus, and live life on our own terms, which results in sin and loss of life. Jesus graciously promises to forgive and save/heal all who return and call on his name.
Purpose: To call the listeners to return to Jesus, if they have strayed from him. To encourage the listeners that Jesus offers forgiveness, healing, and salvation to all who turn to him and call on his name.
Introduction: Part 1: Today is the first Sunday of Lent. Every year the season of Lent brings the church back to basics, back to issues that are absolutely central to our faith. This is because Lent anticipates Good Friday and Easter, the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord. Lent therefore reminds us that Jesus is the centre of our faith, it reminds us that we do not follow an abstract religion but a living Lord, in short it reminds us that Christianity is Christ.
At the same time Lent is a period of self-examination. It provides us with an opportunity to reflect on our relationship with Jesus. Is he the very centre of our lives, or have we strayed away from him? Do our lives revolve around our loving Lord, or is Jesus just another satellite orbiting around our lives, whom we occasionally notice but often forget?
This year's Lenten worship materials, put out by the Mennonite Church, have an excellent theme. The theme is this: "I will arise and go to Jesus." It is an invitation which invites everyone who has strayed from intimacy with Christ to return to our Saviour's welcoming embrace. The theme reminds us of Jesus' parable of the wandering son, the prodigal who requested an early inheritance, left the loving home of his Father, and decided to live for himself in the world. But his selfish choice only ended up making him miserable, and he awoke one day, completely broke, in a farmer's field, eating pig food. So he said to himself: "I will arise and go to my Father. I will confess my sin to him. I will tell him I am not worthy to be considered his son, but perhaps he will treat me as a servant, for even my father's servants are much better off than I am now. " And to his complete surprise, when he set out on his journey home, he found his father waiting for him, with arms wide open, longing to embrace him, ready and eager to forgive, and so excited that he threw a party.
That is such an enduring parable because we all want to experience love like that. We long to know that someone loves us so much that even when we have treated that person terribly he or she is still willing to accept and forgive us. That person is God. But the joyful reunion with God is reserved for those who humble themselves, confess their sins, and return to follow Jesus. It is the gift to those who say, "I will arise and go to Jesus." God loves those who don't return, and longingly waits for their homecoming, but they will never know his love if they don't repent. It is not that God has turned his back on them, but they have turned their backs on God. The call of Lent therefore is to recognize the ways we might have drifted away from our central identity in Christ, and to repent of them. Without embarrassment the texts of the Lenten season speak very directly regarding sin, and we must be open to hear the challenge if we want to be healed. In the end we must say to ourselves, "I too will arise, and go to Jesus, and say, ‘I have sinned against you.'"
The temptation to stray: We begin with our morning gospel reading from Luke, which clearly speaks of the temptation to stray, the temptation to wander away from life with God and do our own thing. Only in this case, the temptation to stray was not directed at us, but at Jesus himself. But we can certainly learn from this account, for we are often tempted to stray in the same ways that Jesus was.
Just before he began his public ministry the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness where, after forty days of fasting, the devil came to him with a three-fold temptation. Each of the three temptations was designed to entice Jesus away from obedience to his Father, and therefore from a relationship with him. The Father had shown Jesus the road he must travel, one of suffering and humility, a road which went to the cross, in order to bring life to others. But Satan came to Jesus and proposed a fork in the road, he suggested that there was an alternative way to fulfill his mission. He wanted Jesus to stray away from his Father and his Father's will, for he knew that would spell an end to Jesus' life-giving mission, and instead leave all humanity in a state of spiritual death.
The temptation to live independently of God: First of all Satan asked Jesus to command stones to become loaves of bread. At one level this appeal related to Jesus' hunger after his long fast, but at another level the devil posed the question of how Jesus would exercise his power throughout his ministry. Would he act independently of God, and become a self-serving wonder-worker, who flexed his power to his own ends? But Jesus steadfastly refused the temptation saying, "One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." Jesus hungered above all else to feed on God's will for his life, which included the way of the cross ("My food is to do the will of the one who sent me"). He refused to live independently of his Father; rather, he acknowledged that life is only found in dependence on God, in obedience to the words that come from God's mouth.
Immediately this raises a question for us: Are we following our Lord's example in this way, are we depending on God for life, or do we try to find satisfaction by doing our own thing? Do we hunger to do God's will, or do we cling to our independence? God's word is very clear at this point: it is a grievous sin to live independently of God, and to seek to satisfy our hunger for life apart from the Creator of life. As God said through the prophet Jeremiah: "My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that hold no water." No words are minced here–God considers it evil when the people he created look to anything else but him to find meaning and satisfaction in life. God considers it evil when people refuse to depend on him for life, and stubbornly pursue their own agenda. Not only that, but it is an absolutely fruitless pursuit, doomed to failure, for the living water we long for can only be provided by God. As we saw in a sermon from Jeremiah a few weeks ago, happiness is never found by directly pursuing it, but only by seeking to live rightly before God. Whenever we seek our own happiness rather than seeking God's righteousness, we stray. We can know we have strayed from Jesus if obeying God isn't the greatest desire of our hearts, if we don't find our greatest joy and satisfaction in living for Christ. Anything less than that represents a digging of our own cisterns, trying to find satisfaction in anything other than God. Another word for that is idolatry. Idolatry is simply worshipping anything other than God, including our own happiness. We'll never find what we are looking for that way–rather, we need to arise and go to Jesus.
The temptation of idolatry: Idolatry is actually the second temptation which Jesus faced. The devil led him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in an instant. Then he said, "All of this will be yours if you bow down and worship me." Jesus refused, saying, "‘It is written, Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.'" Our lives are to have one focus, the worship and service of the Lord our God. If we stray from that, it is sin.
There is more to this second temptation than the blatant temptation to idolatry. There is subtlety here. Satan was tempting Jesus with a short-cut, with a possibility that the suffering way of the cross could be by-passed. Satan promised Jesus that he would make him king of the nations if he would simply bow down and worship him. Now Jesus did come to establish God's kingdom, he did come to reign as king of kings. But his father asked him to inaugurate the kingdom through servanthood, suffering, and death; Satan said he could have it all right away. He could have it cheap. He could avoid the cross.
This also raises a question for us: How do we respond to the temptation to avoid the suffering that sometimes goes hand in hand with obedience to God? Do we ever avoid doing something we know God wants us to do because it makes us uncomfortable? This could apply to so many different things. For example, if we have wronged somebody, do we go to that person and apologize and seek forgiveness as Jesus asks of us, or do we avoid the situation because such a response calls us far out of our comfort zone? Not to seek reconciliation when we should is sin; it is to stray from Jesus. There are so many other specific applications we could make, but the general principle is this: We will be tempted, even as Jesus was, to avoid obeying God when there is a personal price to pay. We will be tempted to adopt a cheap discipleship, one that costs us little or nothing. But to give in to the temptation and to avoid the cost is sin, it is disobedience, and it leads us away from God. If our relationship to God feels distant today, one very real possibility is that it is because we have wandered from God by seeking to avoid the cost of obedience. When we don't take seriously the claim that Jesus is Lord, when we don't daily seek to submit our will to his, we will drift away from him.
The temptation of popularity: Let's move on to Jesus' third temptation. The devil took him to the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem and said, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for God will send his angels to protect you." Here we have another kind of temptation–it is an appeal to Jesus to test God, to do something his Father never asked him to do, just to see if the Father will be there for him. But it goes deeper than this. At another level it extends to an appeal to Jesus to fulfill his ministry by resorting to unnecessary miracles and magic. Think of the following Jesus could attract if he used his power like this, for show and display. His popularity would soar. But Jesus refused saying, "It is not right to test God like this."
This temptation is also one that we are familiar with. It is the temptation to engage in Christian service not for God's sake, not because God has asked us to do it, but in order to gain popularity, or to have others think highly of us, while at the same time hoping God will bless what we do. That also tests God. God asks us to serve him with pure motives. When we serve God for any self-seeking purpose it is sin. When we help others or give money or fast or pray in such a way as to attract attention to ourselves, that is sin. God wants us to serve him out of a love for him, not out of a desire for personal popularity and attention. When our motives for service are wrong, we wander away from Jesus, who gave his life for us out of a pure heart of love.
Just before we conclude this first part of the message, we need to state the consequence of giving in to temptation. Sometimes we laugh temptation off, our culture certainly makes jokes about how sinfully delicious certain things are, but God's word is deadly serious about the consequences of surrendering to temptation. Let me close by reading for you from James 1:14-16: "A man's temptation is due to the pull of his own evil desires, which greatly attract him. It is his own desire which conceives and gives birth to sin. And sin when fully grown produces death–make no mistake about that, brothers of mine" (Phillips translation). What hope then is there for any of us? Our only hope is to arise and go to Jesus. (Hannah will now lead us in the singing of our theme song).
Theme Hymn, Responsive Confession and Assurance of Forgiveness: see back of bulletin
Part 2: The Mercy of Jesus: The theme song we just sang expresses beautifully the welcome that straying sinners can expect to receive when they turn to Jesus: "Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore; Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love and power." In the book of Romans the great apostle Paul summarizes our situation like this: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23). Earlier in the service we read another passage from Romans, Romans 10:8b-13. That text is a wonderful affirmation of hope for people who recognize their own tendency to wander away from their loving Creator. The reading ends with this verse: "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." Everyone, without exception.
The book of Romans is full of the message of God's grace, and our text certainly bears that out. At the very centre of God's grace is Jesus, who bore the penalty for our sins by dying on the cross. We don't have to earn this forgiveness, we don't have to win God's favour by keeping every single commandment. That's impossible, none of us are good enough to buy God's acceptance, it is the most liberating thing in the world to realize that, even as Paul writes in Rom. 3:23-24: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by God's grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Our relationship with God is not rooted in our self-sufficiency, but in God's goodness. Every single one of us has failed in some way to obey God perfectly, and not a single one of us is good enough to merit God's mercy. But that doesn't stop God from loving us. And that doesn't stop God from offering healing and forgiveness to all of us, through Jesus, even as our text says, "No one who believes in him will be put to shame" (Rom. 10:11).
What does we do before we can experience God's healing arms of forgiveness embracing us? Just this one thing–that we arise and go to Jesus. God's arms are always stretched out to us. Like a loving parent he is more than eager to receive any children who have strayed. He always stands on the hilltop and waits for us to come home. The promise our text makes is this: If we recognize that we have strayed, and turn to Jesus, and cry out for mercy, we will receive it. It doesn't matter what we have done, or how far we have wandered. The father heart of God will never, never, ignore the voice of anyone who seeks his mercy. All of the texts we read this morning bear that out. Listen again to Deuteronomy 26:6-7, which speaks of Israel's experience of slavery in Egypt: "When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labours on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction....The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm." Listen again to Psalm 91:15: "When they call to me, I will answer them." And listen again to Romans 10: "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved....For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved'" (vv. 9, 13).
Paul wrote these words in the first place for those people who had never turned to Christ for new life. If you have never confessed Jesus as the risen Lord, if you have never made the decision to submit your life to the one created you, and loves you, and died for you, and who now reigns over all, the invitation is for you. If you arise and go to Jesus, and ask his mercy and confess your sins, he will forgive you, and will grant you the gift of eternal life, and the angels in heaven will throw a party because another of God's lost children have returned home.
If Paul's text primarily addresses those who have never accepted Jesus, our other texts address those who are already God's children. Just because we belong to God doesn't mean we are immune from Satan's temptations to stray. If Jesus, God's own Son, was tempted to stray, you can be sure that we will be too. If we succumb to temptation, and stray from Jesus, it hurts our relationship with our Lord and affects our ability to experience him and his love. It also affects our relationships with other people, for sin always takes away from the fullness of life in one way or another. When we disobey God there is a good chance that at the same time we have hurt someone else. Obedience to God brings life to others, as we see in the ultimate example of Jesus, but disobedience brings misery to others. That is why Jesus wants us to seek the forgiveness of others when we have wronged them, so there can be healing. And in the same way, and this is the glorious good news, Jesus offers forgiveness to us when we have wronged him. If you have already received Jesus, but have strayed from your loving Lord, and feel yourself far from him, then don't hesitate, but arise and go to him, and he will embrace you in his arms. You will be granted forgiveness and a second chance, or a third, or a fourth, or a seventy-seventh! (see Mt. 18:22). For as our song said, "In the arms of my dear Saviour, O, there are ten thousand charms." Not magical charms, of course, but divine charms of grace, love, mercy, healing, forgiveness.
Conclusion: In conclusion, the invitation to arise and go to Jesus is for all of us. He calls us to him, and he challenges all of us to have one focus, one centre, for our lives, the worship and service of the Lord our God. But when we wander from that, we can rest assured that God's single desire for us is that we return to him. We may have been striving to live independently of our Lord, but Jesus graciously calls us to depend again on him for life, on our fountain of living water. We may have been trying to get away with a cheap discipleship, with one that costs us little or nothing, but Jesus graciously offers us the opportunity to receive forgiveness by returning to him and choosing obedience even when it hurts. We may have been living in such a way that we seek to gain attention and personal status, but Jesus still cares for us and says to us, "Call on my name, and I will show you mercy, and give you all the love you long for." No matter how we may have strayed from intimacy with Christ, Jesus stands ready to receive us. Like the loving Father of Jesus' parable, God waits for us, even now, with arms wide open. Don't let anything keep you from experiencing the warmth of his hug.