Sermon manuscript:
We hear quite a bit about temptations in our readings this
morning. The first one ever was “Did God really say?” “Did God really
say you shouldn’t eat from that tree? Why that tree? Just that tree?” And Jesus
was tempted in different ways. Maybe he could satiate his hunger by turning
stones to bread. He could show his glory by plunging from the temple. He could
acquire the earth by worshipping the prince of this world rather than
purchasing the world with his suffering and death.
These temptations can seem rather distant and inapplicable.
Not a single one of us has been tempted with the exact particulars of any of
these temptations. None of us have had to choose whether to eat from a certain
tree, put on display our miraculous powers by changing stones to bread, and so
on. And yet there is something that draws these temptations together. All
temptations seem to strike out against the goodness and faithfulness of God.
That seems to be the lie that is beneath the temptations—God isn’t good. God
isn’t trustworthy. So you better see to it yourself regardless of his wishes.
Let’s briefly see if this is so with the temptations we’ve
heard about today. Adam and Eve weren’t originally concerned about whether God
was good to them or faithful to them until the idea was introduced to them that
God just might be holding out on them. Adam and Eve didn’t really have anything
to complain about when they were created. They were creatures. God was God.
They lived as the creatures God created them to be. They had but one command: “Don’t
eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”
The serpent got them thinking, “Why shouldn’t we?” There
must be some reason. The command, the serpent figured, couldn’t have been for
Adam and Eve’s good. It must be because God is stingy and jealous of his
prerogatives. He’s a tyrant who wants to keep humanity as his slaves. Keep them
stupid. If only Adam and Eve were to eat from the tree they would become like
God. They would know good and evil. And so the real meat and substance of Adam and
Eve’s sin is what they came to believe about God. God wasn’t good. God wasn’t
for them, but against them.
The same thing is true with Jesus’s temptations. He had been
kicked out into the wilderness to be miserable and perhaps eventually starve. “Turn
these stones into bread.” But Jesus answered, “Man shall not live by
bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” If Jesus
threw himself off the temple, he could test whether God’s Word was true, for
then the angels would catch him. He could know if God loved him. “You shall
not put the Lord your God to the test.” The final temptation can only be
understood with the awfulness of Jesus’s passion kept firmly in mind. “Bow
down and worship me,” is the most direct, blatant, almost ridiculous
sounding temptation, but that had to have sounded a lot easier than the difficult,
basically impossible, road that Jesus knew lay ahead of him. Beneath these
temptations lay the questions: “Is God for you or against you? Can he be
trusted or should you see to things yourself? Are you happy or not?”
Perhaps you’ve learned in your Catechism instruction that a
sin against any of the other of the Ten Commandments is also a sin against the
first commandment. The first commandment is that we should have no other gods.
That means that we should fear, love, and trust in God no matter what. Temptations
to break any of the other commandments strike out also against this first commandment.
For example, the second commandment requires us to use God’s
Name rightly. A temptation here is to wonder what good that will do me. I don’t
need to pray; I need to work. I don’t need to praise or give thanks to God.
What good is that going to do me? I need to plan and train. I don’t need to
gather with other believers for praying, praising, and giving thanks. I have
better things to do. God won’t help me through these things, even though he has
promised to do so. I can better help myself.
Or take the fourth commandment, “honor your father and
your mother.” I don’t need to do that. I won’t be blessed by God for doing
that. Plus I don’t want to. They command me to do things I don’t want to do.
Or take the sixth commandment, “you shall not commit
adultery.” There’s an old country and western song that croons, “Heaven’s
just a sin away. Heaven’s just a sin away.” Commit adultery and you’ll have
heavenly pleasure. God won’t help me find a spouse. God won’t give me a spouse.
Or the spouse he gave me is no good. Another one is what would make me happy.
Behind every temptation, and the most awful thing about
every subsequent sin, is the judgement against God. God’s no good. God’s commands
are no good. They destroy happiness or they keep me from happiness. They’re not
what I want to do. They are impossible to actually keep—so that’s kind of stupid
on God’s part. Common sense tells us that good laws are laws one can actually
keep!
There are also judgements against God’s promises. God
promises to bless all those who keep his commands, but temptation says that
that’s not true. You won’t be blessed. You’ll be miserable. Plus you’ll never
make it. You’ll have to give in eventually to temptation.
And then think of the life that Jesus tells us we should
live. Do you want to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him? Does
that sound like fun? Does it look like Jesus was having fun? Why do it then?
Plus there’s that rather common, and even academically respectable opinion: Maybe God’s
not even real. Did God really say? Maybe there’s not even a God who can say!
Temptations abound!
And there is only one thing that is able to help in all the
temptations. It’s a simple answer, a Sunday School answer, and thus easily
despised: The only thing that can help is God’s Word. Adam and Eve notably
failed to return to the simple, not hard to understand, Word of the Lord.
Jesus, perhaps you noticed, answered all three temptations with: “It is
written…” The Word of God is the indispensable thing for knowing what is
going on. The Word of God is indispensable for correctly understanding what
your life is for and what it is all about.
What I am saying to you about your life is that it is a
battle against temptation and the devil. You are constantly being tempted to
sin against the Ten Commandments and to abandon the station in life that God
has called you into. I know without a shadow of a doubt that it is by being
obedient and faithful that you will be blessed. I know without a shadow of a
doubt that you will be blessed by being obedient and faithful even if God’s
heavy hand were to crush you, send all kinds of pain and sadness upon you. You
will be blessed; I know it! But I can only know that from what God says in his
Word.
Without God’s Word our life must inevitably be understood in
different terms than as being a battle against temptation and the devil. Without
God’s Word life might be understood, for example, as the pursuit of happiness.
What makes me happy? Surely not following God’s commands. What makes me happy
is fulfilling my own desires: More money, more sex, more honor, more dopamine,
more stimulants. Plus we don’t want any pain and we don’t want any sweat on our
brow. So let’s get rid of anything that might cause that.
What can be easier than to fall into thinking about one’s life
along such lines? This is even how we prefer
to envision life. We want to be deceived. We want to believe that it doesn’t
matter if we keep God’s commands or believe his promises. We want to believe
that we know what good is and evil is—that’s an easy one. Good is what is good
for me. Evil is whatever is bad for me. With that knowledge firmly in hand, it
follows that one should never forgive, never give in, never serve, never
sacrifice, never suffer. Live each day as if you mattered most and everybody
else should just fend for themselves. Again, nobody has to teach us to live this
way. This is the way that we want to live!
It is only God’s Word that can tell us anything different.
Life is a battle against temptation and the devil, and our sinful flesh always
thinks the devil sounds quite reasonable. It is a battle to believe that God is
for us and not against us. God is good, even if the earth should give way and
the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.
One of the most important passages of the Bible says, “Abraham
believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” We are
justified by faith in God’s promises, in God’s goodness. God’s promise is that
because of Jesus, goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life
and you shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Yea, though you walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, you should fear no evil, for the
Lord, your Shepherd, is with you. His rod and his staff, they comfort you. God
is for you.
It is inevitable that you be tempted. You are tempted every
day. And you have fallen into that temptation and you have sinned. Understand that
according to what we have talked about today your falling for temptation and
sin is not just a sin against this or that commandment, it is also a sin
against the first commandment. Whenever you give in to any temptation you are also
making horrendous judgements against God even though those judgements are
usually made unwittingly. You are saying that he is foolish, or nonexistent, or
untrustworthy, or any number of other evil things. Sins against commandments, such
as the second or third, might not even bother your conscience, but that only
shows how leprous and unfeeling your soul has become.
But my answer to your sin is not that you had better get
busy fixing yourself. How I’d like to respond strikes at the root of all
temptation. Instead of your stupid judgements and thoughts about God I can tell
you quite plainly that God is good. I can even say that God is for you and not
against you. You might not believe that, but I don’t care. Your unbelief
doesn’t have the power to change who God is. God is good. God is for you, even.
God justifies you. God forgives you.
I wouldn’t dare say these things on my own. To say something
like that is admittedly extreme—especially when you consider all those
temptations that you've heeded and thereby made horrendous judgements against
God. Nevertheless, I can say these things because of God’s Word. This is laid
out so very nicely in our epistle reading that I think a child could grasp Paul’s
arguments.
Paul talks about two great historical figures, compares and
contrasts them. The one figure is Adam. The other is Jesus Christ. Paul says,
through Adam sin came into the world, and through sin came death. And that
death has spread over all mankind. If ever we should doubt the power of Adam’s
fall, we only need to consider the pall of death that hangs over all people,
together with the decay and disintegration that leads up to our death. Adam brought
disaster.
In like manner Jesus is one
whose effect extends to all. In that way he is like Adam. Adam changed
everything. Paul says, likewise, Jesus has changed everything. But instead of
Adam’s sin and death, Jesus brings justification before God and eternal life.
So, Paul says, “just as one trespass led to a verdict of condemnation for
all people, so also one righteous verdict led to life-giving justification for
all people.” Condemnation came upon all people in Adam. By the righteous
verdict rendered in the sacrificial death of Jesus, life-giving justification—rightness
before God—is bestowed upon all people. Being justified means that you are
right and good. That is to say, when you are justified God is for you and not
against you. No one ever needs to doubt what is going on with God’s will toward
them because of Jesus and what he has done. Jesus’s good work of redemption and
justification stands as solid as a rock even if your sins be like scarlet.
Knowing this truth about God,
knowing that God has forgiven you and justified you, that he is for you and not
against you, you can now turn away from what is always behind the devil’s
temptations. The devil would have you believe that God is not for you. You have
to do it yourself by hook or by crook. You dare not ever give up your claims.
Nobody will ever give you anything, you have to take it. God probably doesn’t
even exist so why be bothered about his commandments, and so on and so forth.
These are all lies.
The truth is that God does
exist. His commands and promises never fail. And the most outstanding and almost
unbelievable thing—taught only by God’s Word—is that God is for you. God
forgives you. Just as in Adam’s fall all mankind fell, so in Jesus Christ,
righteousness and justification extends to all people. If it extends to all
people, then it must also extend to you, O Sinner.
God is good. God has done this.
God is for you.
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