Decide Beforehand

Matthew 4:1-11
I once heard about a financial adviser who’d been told by a couple consulting with her that they found it impossible to put any money aside for savings or tithe money for the purposes of God. “We have no debt, but also no savings” the husband said. “We start out by trying to keep current with our bills,” the wife added.

The financial adviser nodded knowingly. “That’s the problem,” she said. “You should pay your bills, of course. But you haven’t adopted the ‘decide beforehand’ method.” She explained that instead of starting with paying their bills, then deciding how much money they had to save or give to God, they needed to “decide beforehand” how much they were going to save and give. Then they could pay their bills and adjust their spending habits accordingly.

She said: “The best way to deal with the unexpected storms that come along is to make your decision before the storms hit.”

Today’s Gospel lesson, Matthew 4:1-11, finds Jesus facing a storm of temptation and testing from the devil. If Jesus hadn’t adopted the decide beforehand method when it came to His relationship with God the Father, He never would have stood the storm, He would have caved into sin, and you and I would still be condemned for our sin, lost to God forever. So, we can say that if Jesus hadn't decided beforehand how He was going to deal with situations like He faced in the wilderness, salvation would have become a lost cause.

Before looking at Jesus in the wilderness, we need to set the stage. In Matthew 3:13-17, which recounts an incident that happened just before the events in today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus undergoes John the Baptizer’s baptism of repentance. True, Jesus had no sin for which He needed to repent, but Jesus was intent on connecting Himself fully to the sinful humanity--including you and me--who He came into this world to save. John told Jesus that it was he who should have been baptized by Jesus, not the other way around. But as Jesus explained to the reluctant John: “Let it be so for now. For in this way we shall do all that God requires.” [Matthew 3:15, Good News Translation] Having undergone the baptism that His Father required, God the Holy Spirit descended to Jesus as a dove and God the Father called from heaven to say of Jesus: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” [Matthew 3:17] It was a spectacular moment!

Like the spectacular events that happened some time later on the Mount of Transfiguration, it could have been tempting for Jesus to just stay there on the banks of the Jordan savoring the moment. But Jesus had work to do. And before He did that work, He had to get ready for it.

Turn to our Gospel lesson, please. (You’ll find it starting on page 676 of the sanctuary Bibles.) Verse 1: “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”

Why did the Holy Spirit do this? If Jesus had come into the world to offer His sinless life on a cross, wasn’t the Holy Spirit putting that entire mission in jeopardy by subjecting Jesus to these temptations to sin? What if Jesus sinned in the wilderness, caving into His hunger and the taunting of the devil? Why wouldn’t the Spirit just carry Jesus from the Jordan, where He was baptized, and onto Jerusalem for the cross and the resurrection?

As a quick aside, let me give you three quick reasons why Jesus had to undergo temptation. First, as we see from His words to John the Baptist, Jesus had to undergo the same stuff you and I undergo. [Matthew 3:15] All that God required had to happen. If Jesus was never subjected to severe temptation to sin, He couldn’t be said to be sinless. Second, Jesus had to be sensitized to how hard it is for we human beings to resist sin. That way, when we come to our Father in Jesus’ name, He can be an advocate Who understands you and me from the inside out. Hebrews 4:15 says that in Jesus: “...we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” Third, Jesus had to be refined for His mission. The verb, πειρασθῆναι, translated as tempted in our lesson can also be translated as tested.

The devil probably thought that he was in the driver’s seat with Jesus when Jesus arrived in the wilderness. But, in fact, Jesus was there because the Holy Spirit sent Him to be tested, refined. Here, we see that God can use the same events for His purposes that the devil tries to use for his ends.

It's not unprecedented. In Genesis 50:20, Joseph, the dreamer who had saved Egypt and his own people, forgave his brothers for selling him into slavery, telling them, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good…” The brothers acted from evil intentions, but God used what they did to bring good things about, including the refinement of Joseph for his mission of saving a whole region from famine.

The temptations to sin that come to us can be used by God as tests to refine and strengthen our faith and our characters. In 1 Corinthians 10:13, we’re told: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

In the wilderness, facing temptations that were tests, Jesus learned to rely on His Father to the full extent He needed to rely on Him to fulfill His mission.

If you and I are going to fulfill our missions, fulfill the promise of our lives, and live with God for eternity, we too must learn to rely fully on God when we’re tested or tempted.

So, how did Jesus do this?

He decided beforehand how He would face temptation and He learned to use the most powerful weapon in the universe to do so.

We see this in all three of the exchanges between the devil and Jesus in today’s gospel lesson. But look at just the first one to see what I mean: “The tempter came to him [Jesus] and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” [Matthew 4:3-4]

Every time Jesus was tempted, He responded with God’s Word.

He did that because He had decided beforehand exactly how He would face life’s tests and the devil’s temptations.

Way before He faced off with the the devil, Jesus had stored the Word of God in His heart. He was ready for whatever the devil or the world threw His way, because He had taken time to learn--even memorize--God’s Word.

And even when the devil recited Scripture back to Jesus, distorting it to try to convince Jesus to pull stunts to make God prove Himself, Jesus was ready.

That’s because through His study of God’s Word, Jesus not only knew the Word, He knew His Father.

Jesus was able to resist temptation, face the world’s tests, and fulfill His mission on earth for two reasons: He knew God and He knew God’s Word.

He had decided beforehand that no matter what, He would stick with God and with God’s Word.

The best time to learn how to face tests and temptations is before they happen, not just as they’re threatening to swamp you. Jesus decided before the storm hit to know God the Father and to know God’s Word.

Listen: This is a great Christian congregation.

No church I know has a deeper commitment to mission.

No church I know has a higher percentage of its members who seek after God and take prayer so seriously.

No other church I know would have payed for the salary and benefits of a staffer working at another church, which this congregation did last year.

Living Water has been tested by adversity and tempted to walk away from doing things God’s way. It has chosen God’s way, always, every time.

But we’re in our own building now. We’re growing. We’re comfortable. We feel vindicated in our faith. That’s why this is a spiritually dangerous time for our congregation.

We can expect the devil to attack Living Water. Not a frontal assault (he’s too clever for that), but a nibbling on the edges. He might incite a little gossip here, attack relationships there, create spiritual indifference, cause little disagreements over completely unimportant things. Nothing big. Just a bunch of little things which that jerk named Satan loves to turn into big things.

This is a faithful church and, other than God Himself, the thing the devil hates the most is a faithful church! This is why each of us must internalize the gospel lesson’s call to decide beforehand what we will do when storms hit, when we’re tempted, when we’re tested.

And temptations and tests are bound to come. If the Son of God, God in the flesh, Jesus, was not immune to this reality while on earth, we surely can’t expect to be immune. But even our testing can being God glory. 1 Peter 1:6-7 tells us: “In all this [that is, in your salvation and your relationship with God secured for you through Christ’s cross and empty tomb] you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed [that is, the day Jesus returns].”

If we are to be all that God made us to be and if we are to have life with God, we must know God and we must know God’s Word.

I’m going to repeat that (and know that I’m talking to you, whoever you are): If we are to be all that God made us to be and if we are to have life with God, we must know God and we must know God’s Word.

This is urgent business! You never can tell when life will hit you with another storm. Decide beforehand to be ready.

Decide that no matter what it costs you, you will be committed to knowing God and His Word.

No matter what sins God demands you leave behind, you will be committed to knowing God and His Word.

No matter the effort, you will be committed to knowing God and His Word. If you’re not in a Bible study yet, join one now.

If you’re not spending time in God’s Word on your own a few minutes each day, start now. Start with the gospels of Matthew or John, a chapter a day.

And I invite you to do what I’m starting to do these days, memorize Scripture.

Store up God’s Word in your heart and get to know your Father in heaven with the intimacy that Jesus died and rose to give you. Get to know this Lord Who sent His Son so that all who turn from sin and follow Him are and will be filled with the new and everlasting life of God for all eternity.

Know God.

Know God’s Word.

Then, you’ll be ready for anything.

Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Robin Williams and the Disease of Depression

Nearly a decade ago now, an elementary school principal in the community where I then lived left a successful faculty meeting, drove up I-71 north of Cincinnati, pulled her vehicle to the side of the road where that stretch of Interstate runs high over a river valley, and flung herself off the bridge to her death. An entire community was shocked, not the least because the meeting which she'd led just before her suicide had found her as her usual bright and funny self.

More than that though, this was a woman who, as an educator, had been passionately committed to doing what was best for the students of her school. She was an encouraging presence in the lives of those kids. She never would have willfully or knowingly done anything to mar their psyches, such as delivering to them the memory of her suicide.

Yet this beloved educator who knew the name of all the students in her building took her own life, an act that deeply risked harming the psyches of her students. But no one who knew her blamed her. It would have been barbaric to do so. People understood, as my thirty years in ministry have confirmed, that suicide is rarely the rational act of a willful, selfish human being. For every suicide bomber or kamikaze pilot who takes their own lives in what are obviously self-centered, hateful acts, there are thousands upon thousands of tenderhearted, loving, caring people who take their own lives. And they don't do so out of selfish rationality or willfulness.

They do it because of depression.

Depression is a disease that can be chronic and low-level. But it also can rage in the lives and psyches of its victims like Stage IV cancer and be every bit as destructive, taking the lives of those who are afflicted by it.

As a pastor, I have observed how the physical disease of depression can undermine the beliefs and values of its victims, leaving them susceptible to self-loathing and self-destruction which is from hell itself. Nobody rejoices over suicide more than Satan.

The death of Robin Williams gives rise to these thoughts, of course. I don't know where Williams was spiritually. But I do know that someone who so cared about people would never have willfully or knowingly committed an act with the potential for plunging so many who relied on him for laughter and uplifting entertainment, not to mention his family and friends, into depression and sadness themselves.

It was depression that killed Robin Williams. And it was Satan, using that depression as a contact gel to Williams' psyche, who overrode the comic actor's better judgment.

When considering his death, it's best of course not to elevate him beyond what he was in life, an imperfect man of massive talent and good will for others who struggled with addictions as well as with depression.

And it is even more important that we not elevate ourselves at Williams' expense by believing lies, such as, that his death was the result of some deficiency in his character. Or that it was the act of a selfish, self-absorbed willfulness. Or that it stemmed from a posited malaise felt by those of his political beliefs, as it least one media commentator has claimed. Such explanations may feed our egos, but they're precisely the kinds of lies that the devil wants us to believe in order to put us off his deadly scent.

Williams was felled by the disease of depression. Period.

Fortunately, we do have means of dealing with depression. There are medications for that depression which is physiologically based or that has become rooted in a person's physiology. There is quality counseling available. There are suicide hotlines.

But the first line of defense is the depressed person's family and friends. It's true that the depressed often become adept at hiding their depression--as was the case with that principal and apparently, with Robin Williams. But when deep depression in those we love becomes known to us, we can say something. We can do something: Talk with the depressed friend, recommend that they see their doctor. Above all, we can pray for them.

These are all the same things we would do for someone we suspect of suffering from other physical maladies--from pneumonia to cancer.

Depression should be thought of in the same way.

He is the Champion, My Friend! (And You Need Him!)

Satan loves nothing better than for people to think he doesn't exist.

Don't make that mistake!

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you're engaged in spiritual warfare. And you are the spoils of war that the devil wants to take and you are the great prize God wants to save for His kingdom.

The closer you are to Christ, the more the devil wants to take you and the more temptations to sin--whether the renunciation of faith, treating others lovelessly, adultery, despair, idolatry, bearing false witness, taking God's Name in vain, or others--he will push your way.

If you aren't a follower of Jesus, you will remain blissfully ignorant of the war going on for you. That, sadly, will indicate both that the devil is confident that he has you in his pocket and that you have either never heard of the new life Jesus gives to those who repent and believe in Him--shame on the Church and on Christians, if that's the case--or that you have never opened yourself to the saving help that God provides to all who trust in Jesus.

Because we are, by nature, "in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves," as we Lutherans often say in our confessions (cf., Psalm 51:5 and Romans 5:12), we are incapable of resisting temptations to sin with our own strength of will or character.

We can't choose to believe in Christ. We can only choose to surrender and let God create both faith in Christ within us and the power to resist temptation and live as the free children of God we were meant to be.

We need to rely entirely on Christ.

In this connection, I find the second verse of Martin Luther's hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God, especially comforting and empowering:

"No strength of ours can match his [the devil's] might!
"We would be lost, rejected.
"But now a champion comes to fight [Jesus],
"Whom God Himself elected.
"You ask Who this may be?
"The Lord of hosts [God's angelic armies] is He!
"Christ Jesus, mighty Lord,
"God's only Son adored.
"He holds the field victorious!"

In 1 Corinthians 10:13, you can read: "No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and He will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing He will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it." I have learned the truth of this Biblical promise. Whenever I have truly wanted to resist temptation, I've been able to call on my "champion," Christ, and resist.*

Don't be fooled. Satan does exist. So does the temptation created by Satan, the world, and our sinful selves.

But Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, is alive today and stands ready to fight for and empower any who are humble enough to rely on Him to give them forgiveness, life, and the power to resist temptation and keep on trusting in Him.

Jesus is the champion who has come to fight for you. Let Him.
 
AMEN!

[For more on this subject, see here.]

*Conversely, there have been times when I have conveniently ignored God's will in order to commit the sins I've wanted to commit. In such instances, I have thought that I was exercising my free will, when in fact, I was making the only kinds of choices we can make when we spurn the freedom from sin and death God only provides for those who cling to Christ: bad ones.

A Good Word for Pastors and Congregations

Watch out for our adversary, the devil.