Year A First Sunday in Lent

Sermon 9^th March 2014

Text Matthew 4:1-11 – What would Jesus do?

As I drive around the streets I see many symbols that identify a person as Christian.

One of the more popular ones is the image of a fish that you might see as a decal on a car.

Or you might see a sticker advertising 89.9 LightFM the Christian radio station.

One that we don’t see a lot of these days is a symbol that many wore as a bracelet during the 90s – it was 4 letters – WWJD – standing for What Would Jesus Do?

It was intended to encourage a person during temptation or faced with a difficult choice to ask themself – what would Jesus do in this situation.

It was intended to spur us on to making the right decisions when confronted with a crossroad in our faith.

What would Jesus do when confronted with a decision to do right or wrong?

Obviously Jesus chose what is right and so should we.

But sometimes it’s not so clear and so we would ask – what would Jesus do in this situation.

Satan offered Jesus a choice – change these rocks into bread – throw yourself from this high place – bow down and worship me.

On each occasion Jesus made the right choice – what would Jesus do – that’s what we should do also.

In our first reading we heard about the choice placed before Adam and Eve:

You can choose to eat from any tree in the garden – but you must NOT eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

If you make that choice then surely you will die.

And so we learn they made the wrong choice and suffered the consequences.

That’s how we read it and that is also how what we call “legalism” is introduced into the Christian faith.

You have to make the right choices – you have to do what Jesus would have done.

And I believe legalism can be worse than making the wrong choice.

Compare 2 churches in the New Testament.

The Church at Corinth – a church that made many wrong choices – choices that left them divided.

Paul brings a word of grace to them because grace is how God deals with sin through wrong choices.

The other church is the Galatian church – a church that turned to legalism.

Forcing the members of the church to follow a particular way of life in order to receive God’s approval.

Paul had no word of grace for them:

Instead he says: I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel which is really no gospel at all (Galatians 1:6,7)

You foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? (Galatians 3:1,3)

Adam and Eve were given a choice – a choice to eat from any tree in the Garden of Eden.

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was not part of the choice.

It was a commandment to not eat and if you did then you would surely die.

And now Paul reminds us that through that one man – Adam – sin has entered into the world.

And so for Christians it’s not about going back to the Garden of Eden situation and this time making the right choice.

No, it’s too late for that.

The damage has been done.

The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23)

The account of Jesus temptation is not a lesson in how to get it right this time.

No it’s a question of authority – that Jesus has authority of Satan.

That Satan cannot defeat Jesus as he did Adam.

That Satan no longer has the power of death:

“Death has been swallowed up in Christ’s victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)

Our protection comes not from resisting temptation, not from obedience, but from living under the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

Paul too struggled with temptation when he wrote;

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:14-25).

Legalism says that if Paul knew what he was supposed to do then he should have done it.

Grace, according to Paul, delivers us from death through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And that’s why Paul said in our 2nd reading:

Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. (Romans 5:18)

That’s why King David in our Psalm today said:

Blessed are they whose sins are forgiven.

Not, blessed are they who keep God’s commands.

This is not to say that it doesn’t matter what choices we make.

No, Paul would be the first to argue against that:

In Romans 6 he says:

Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace?  Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? (Romans 6:1,2)

We all face choices every day, and sometimes it’s really difficult knowing what to do in particular situations.

Or we may find, like Paul, the good we know we should be doing we don’t do.

And the evil we know we should not do this is what we keep doing.

Again in the book of Hebrews we see this direction not to obedience but to grace.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:15,16).

Having told us that Jesus was without sin when tempted it does not then direct us saying that we should be able to do the same.

No, it is pointing us to the sympathy of Christ who knows our struggle with temptation and sin.

And then the writer of Hebrews directs us, not to obedience but to grace.

Let us approach the throne of grace with boldness so we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

This is so liberating.

It is not liberating in that it says we are free to sin.

No, it is liberating in that we are not bound by the law and legalism.

The temptation of Jesus is the age old struggle that we all face.

Obedience to the law is not our way to God.

Eve and Adam show that even though they are  given everything they could ever need, humans would still choose to disobey

The way to God is through his love and mercy.

God loves the world so much that whoever believes is not condemned but saved. (John 3:16)

Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (Romans 10:13)

Luther taught that the proper use of the law was to direct us to the Gospel and then after we have received the grace of God to seek obedience as a response to God’s grace.

The law and commandments are not to obtain God’s mercy.

You have it through Christ.

Luther tried so hard to please the tyrant of a God who simply demanded more and more good works.

Life is hard.

We want to do what is right for God.

But what is right is to let God’s grace direct our lives:

The temptation of Jesus by the Devil was to lack trust in God.

You’re hungry – look after yourself and change these rocks into bread.

God said he would care for you – perhaps you better see if that’s true and jump.

Rather than live in God’s Kingdom, I’ll give you your own where you can be like God – just like Adam and Eve were promised.

The Devil also tempts us into not trusting God’s grace.

If you’re a child of God, why did you sin?

Maybe you better make up for it by doings all these good things.

But it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).