190310 Sermon on Matthew 4:1-11 (Lent 1) March 10, 2019

190310 Sermon on Matthew 4:1-11 (Lent 1) March 10, 2019

Temptation is tricky business.  It’s tricky because the devil is tricky.  He is a liar and the father of lies.  The trouble with lies is that they can become so believable.  The devil is very good at lying, and we aren’t very good at sorting them out.  Who can know the heart of Man?  The evilness of it is beyond our comprehension.  And so the devil’s lies find a ready reception in our heart.  So far as our Old Adam is concerned, we vastly prefer his lies to God’s truth.

Compounding the trouble of temptation’s trickiness is time and change.  Perhaps if we were only tempted once, and the temptation would go away, then we would have more success at it.  But the devil and his demons are persistent.  If we do not fall today, then it might be tomorrow.  Today they try this, tomorrow they try that.  And then they go back to this again.  We’re thrown off balance.  Pressures increase.  Release is desired.  It is as the hymn writer puts it: “I walk in danger all the way.”

We are given some help in this dangerous, difficult, and tricky business by the example of our Lord Jesus recorded for us in our Gospel reading today.  Jesus is tempted three times in three different ways.  There is a similarity in his response to each temptation.  He quotes Scripture all three times.  He also focuses his attention on God all three times.  The devil would like him to think of other things instead of waiting upon God.  In the first temptation he would like Jesus to focus on his hunger.  In the second he’d like Jesus to focus on an idea, on a bit of theology.  In the third he’d like Jesus to focus on the glory being offered to him.  All three times Jesus turns the mind’s eye away from these things to God and his Word—his will and his promises. 

But today instead of dealing with all three temptations, I’d like to look closely only at the first temptation.  The first temptation is the devil’s suggestion that Jesus should satisfy his hunger by turning stones into bread.  What is going on here?  Some Christians have thought that the devil is trying to taunt Jesus like, “I bet you can’t do that.”  This would be asking Jesus to use his divine power in a superfluous and unbecoming way.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with this interpretation, but I don’t think it really gets to the heart of the issue.

What is at the base of this temptation is a desire.  Jesus is hungry.  That’s one desire people might have.  There are many others.  We desire comfort.  We desire health.  We have sexual desires.  Fulfilling these desires gives us pleasure.  Having these desires and being given pleasure are not sinful.  God himself built these desires into us as his creatures.  The trouble is that we are predisposed to treat these things as though they are the ultimate purpose in life.  What is life all about?  What are we doing here?  How should we live?  A very common answer to these kinds of questions is that we are supposed to enjoy life.  We should live for pleasure.  We should live for loaves of bread.  We should live for the weekend where we can live only for ourselves.

Having pleasure as your goal in life will inevitably bring about specific sins that are too numerous to list them all—I’ll only mention a few.  It will promote lust and perversion.  Why deny urges if they give you pleasure?  It will promote greed and stinginess—if you give all your money away, then what will be left for you to enjoy?  It will even bring about murder.  Why do most murders happen?  Is it not because someone has gotten in the way of somebody else’s pursuit of pleasure?  This can even lead to the murder of one’s self in suicide.  When pleasure is gone, when the devil convinces a person that life isn’t worth living anymore, then a person might kill himself or herself.  But God has given us no authority to kill ourselves.  The only ones God has given authority to kill are those in government, and they are only to kill those who are guilty where justice demands death.  Otherwise it’s strictly hand-off to everybody else, including murdering yourself.

Here I’m going to mention again something that is coming at a hundred miles an hour—physician assisted suicide.  It’s going to be legal before you know it, and your friends and your family might start doing it, and you need to be prepared to call it a sin—not encouraging it or condoning it.  Otherwise if you are not prepared, then you are going to be invited to their goodbye and going away parties before they do the deed, and you will go, because you want to be polite. 

The reason why physician assisted suicide is coming so quickly is that the logic for it is already in place.  It’s the way people already think.  People believe that the way life should be lived is to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering.  So if someone has a terminal illness, and the illness is going to be difficult or painful, then why should a person continue on?  Can’t you almost hear the devil saying that?  The alternative seems like unnecessary suffering: You want happiness.  It seems that happiness is not in the future for you.  So why not call it quits?

The reason why we should not kill ourselves is because we fear and obey God.  God has said, “Thou shalt not kill.”  He has not given that authority to us.  That should end the matter.  In addition, though, is this important thought—that we are not on this earth only for pleasure and enjoyment.  The reason why we are on this earth is because God has created us.  This is the main thing.  Life is not about the enjoyment of eating a loaf of bread, nor is this what is even necessary for sustaining true life.  True life comes from eating every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.  It is recognizing that God is the one who is in control of my life, and I will take what he gives me.

Now God is not stingy.  He satisfies our desires, gives us pleasure, and almost always alleviates our pain.  And so we should be filled with thanksgiving for all that he gives.  If you are wondering what you can give thanks to God for, go and read in your catechism the answer to the question, “What is meant by daily bread?”  There you’ll have a good long list of things we ungrateful grumblers never think about, much less give thanks for.

But I won’t pretend that God doesn’t also send us sadness.  He might put us on an involuntary fast where we don’t have money to buy our pleasures and comforts.  He might take away our health in this way or that way.  What are we to do then?

Jesus shows us in his answer to the devil: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”  It is not bread or pleasure or health or happiness that constitutes our life.  It is our God who does that.  God the Creator and you the creature are the main thing.  And so lift up thine eyes to the hills from whence cometh thy help.  Do you want someone to complain to?  Complain to God.  The psalms are full of lamentations—complaints—to God, and one of the reasons why the psalms have been given to us is to teach us how to pray.  God is not impressed by our lying to him.  We dare not try to manipulate him by being polite to him.  Instead, pour out your bitterness and frustration to him, and await his salvation.  How different this is from stoically remaining silent, or using empty philosophies and popular sayings to make yourself feel better!  We should move our eyes from the lack of bread to our God.  We should turn our eyes away from what we want to the God who ultimately withholds nothing from his saints that is good for them.

In addition to turning our eyes to the Lord, Jesus also calls attention to the Word that God speaks.  This also is very important and helpful when we are being afflicted with sadness and trouble.  God’s Words spoken in his commandments will turn you away from solutions that involve you in murder, or theft, or adultery, or some other deal with the devil, and to seek your help from God alone.  God has also given you his promises.   And since God is not a liar, these promises are something you can count on.

You know the promises God has made to you.  We speak of them all the time.  He has promised you rescue from death and the devil, the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.  Laid up for you in heaven is a rich inheritance that surpasses all the experiences we have had on this earth that are weighed down by sin and death.

Luther often likened these promises from God as being like the sun and the afflictions that are laid upon us as being like the clouds.  Sometimes there isn’t a cloud in the sky, and the sun is a plain as day.  We need only to look up and know of God’s good favor towards us.  But sometimes he gives us sadness and trouble.  And like clouds can black out the sun, so also our troubles can seem as though they are going to totally overwhelm us.  Pain, sorrow, death—all these things are not child’s play and it can make a person wonder what is going on.  Why is God doing this?  Where can I get some relief?  What is going to happen to me or to those I care about? 

This is where it is necessary for faith to pierce through those clouds and remember that there is the sun behind them.  Though you can’t see the sun, and you can only see clouds, you know that it is still there.  Eventually the clouds must pass and the sun will shine again.  It could very well be that the clouds will not part before we die, but if we hold on by faith, then we will see the glory of the promises that have been made to us like we never have before.

Our life does not consist of the relative happiness or unhappiness that we might be feeling at any given time.  What our life consists of is God and his will towards us.  So long as that remains constant and so long as we remain faithful to that, then we can put up with anything for the time being.  No matter how bad something might be that we are experiencing, we know that it will last only for a little while.  What are even years or decades compared to eternity?

Although Jesus experienced pleasure, he did not live for pleasure.  He lived for God and for love.  That is how it must be for us as well, since we are his disciples.  By not indulging every pleasure, by not despairing when we are put into misfortune, and by keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, we overcome the devil’s temptations.

Remember always that the devil operates by lies and deception.  It is only by getting us to believe his lies that he has any power over us whatsoever.  The truth is that Jesus has overcome the devil and ransomed the whole world so that none belong to him anymore.  That is what Jesus’s atonement did.  That is the truth and that is a fact.  And so it is only by redirecting our eyes away from Jesus, away from our God, that the devil is able to do anything.

That is why Jesus always goes to the Word of God, and that is where we must go also.  No philosophies about life, no common sense, no experiences are going to teach you about the inheritance you have in Jesus.  If anything, the wisdom that can be gained from these things tends to lead you away from trust in God’s promises to some other understanding of life. 

And so we must imitate Jesus.  He does not argue with the devil.  He does not debate him.  He does not try to beat him at his own game.  He simply speaks the truth.  Life is not for pleasure.  Life is for faithfulness.  God will give me what he deems fit, whether that be pleasurable or painful.  If it is pleasurable, then I will give thanks to God for it.  If it is painful, then I will await his deliverance when it is right for him to lift his heavy hand that afflicts us.  What I will not do is take my life into my own hands and live only for myself.  That might seem like it should get us ahead in this life, that is should give us happiness, but it doesn’t.  That rebelling against God is not good for happiness can already be seen in this life, but not as clearly as we’d like.  It will only become clearer though with the coming of the judgement and the eternal realities of heaven and hell.  And so don’t be tricked!