God Can!

[Below you'll find the message shared during both worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio earlier today. Also, you can watch live-stream videos of both services.]

Matthew 14:13-21

Today’s Gospel lesson, Matthew 14:13-21, tells us about Jesus’ miraculous feeding of more than five-thousand men and unnumbered women and children.

I want to focus on just one part of this lesson and its meaning for us today. Matthew tells us: “As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.’” (Matthew 14:15)

In this fallen world, everything has a price. Everything’s a commodity to be bought, sold, or owned. Marxists and capitalists completely agree on that. So did the disciples. “Jesus,” they say, “the crowd is going to get hungry out here. Send them away so they can buy the food they need.” The corollary of their request, of course, is, “And, if they don’t have the money, that’s their tough luck”.

The disciples are right, under the Law, aren’t they? The Law says: “If you want a meal, you’ve got to work for it; if you want a miracle, you need to be worthy of it; if you want salvation, you need to be a good person.”

But the laws of a fallen world cut no mustard with Jesus, God the Son. According to God’s Word, none of us deserves to be fed.

None of us deserves the miracles God brings to our lives.

None of us deserves to be saved from sin, death, and eternal damnation.

“Surely I was sinful at birth,” Psalm 51:5 rightly says.

In light of Jesus’ innocent suffering and death for us sinners, the apostle Peter writes that “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” (1 Peter 3:18)

The kingdom of God doesn’t work like the kingdoms of this world.

By God’s grace given in Christ, there’s nothing we must do to deserve life, forgiveness, or material blessings from God, because there’s simply nothing we can do to deserve anything the God revealed in Jesus Who has secures for us.

There’s nothing about sinful Mark Daniels that deserves forgiveness or new life from God.

And I had nothing to do with the fact that I was born in an era of medical wonders that means that, once again this past Monday, I received a pacemaker and defibrillator that could help me live beyond what would have been expected in previous times by someone who suffered from the widowmaker heart attack. I should have been dead twelve years ago!

In this world of sin, death, and fallenness, there may be no such thing as a free lunch, but in the Kingdom of God, everything is a free lunch. That includes every spiritual and physical blessing you have.

In light of the fact that anything they might give away was from God anyway, Jesus tells the disciples, “You feed the crowd you claim you don’t want to see faint from hunger!”

The disciples tell Jesus: “We can’t!”

But, friends, “You can’t; God can.”

When the world cannot forgive our sins, the God we know in Jesus can and does. “For if while we were enemies [of God], we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son,” the Bible tells us, “much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:10) By the grace of God, you already are forgiven all your sins, although you don’t deserve it. Your call is to daily turn to Jesus to receive for free from Christ what the world can’t give you.

When Jesus says, “Go, make disciples.” We say, “We can’t.” Jesus says, “Go and I’ll make disciples through you.” By the grace of God, the Church has been making disciples of Jesus even though we’re incompetent sinners. 

Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” We say, “we can’t.” Jesus says, “Just go to your neighbor and I will love your neighbor through you.” By the grace of God, you are the vehicles of His love for all. 

Jesus says, “Feed the hungry. Care for the poor. Give the hope of the gospel to those who aren’t even interested.” We say, “There’s no way we can do that, Lord.” Jesus acknowledges that we can’t. But He can do these things through us. In Mark 9:23, Jesus says, “Everything is possible for one who believes."

Give Jesus your loaves and fishes, give Him all that you can’t do and through you, He will demonstrate all that he can do.

The feeding of the 5000 happens within the context of the disciples being together with Jesus as part of the fellowship of the Church Jesus was then creating. God, of course, can work in the lives of individuals. But no one will remain long connected to Christ outside the fellowship of the Church. Or our connection will become self-directed. We’ll go off on our own tangents. In the fellowship of the Church, we grow together, we keep each other on track, we encourage one another, we lovingly call each other to the carpet.

The disciples never would have had the courage to give Jesus those five loaves and two fishes if Jesus hadn’t been pouring power and faith into them. The Church is Christ’s creation, the fellowship into which He is constantly pouring power and faith. It is His very body in the world.

After telling the disciples who couldn’t feed the crowd to feed them, Jesus gave the disciples the food needed. It’s like when Jesus tells us to believe in Him, to trust in Him, then freely gives the gift of faith to those who daily take up their crosses and follow Him. (Ephesians 2:8; Luke 9:23)

Jesus specializes in doing for us and through us things that we can’t do.

Not only does Jesus feed the crowd in today’s lesson, He also feeds the disciples. And there were leftovers!

In the shadow of John’s execution, with His cross clearly ahead of Him, Jesus gives a sign that He can provide grace and daily bread and power for living to all people.

And in His Kingdom, all of these things are free gifts!

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah foretold Jesus’ invitation to all people: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.” (Isaiah 55:1-2)

The gospel lesson ends: “They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.” 

Friends, receive all that the God revealed in Christ gives you: your body, soul, health, money, home, family, and friends. Receive too, the forgiveness, new life, and eternity, given without price, given to those who receive them by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

You can never receive or give more than Christ is willing to give to you or through you, materially or spiritually.

When we can’t; God can.

That’s Jesus’ message to you in the feeding of the 5000. Amen

The Good That Comes From Faith

Here's today's online worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church of Centerville, Ohio. Have a great week. God bless you!

What's the Big Deal About Feeding 5000?

[This was shared during worship with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, earlier today.]

Matthew 14:13-21
Today’s Gospel lesson, Matthew 14:13-21, tells us about Jesus’ miraculous feeding of more than five-thousand people. This incident is recounted in all four gospels, not only in Matthew’s, but also those of Mark, Luke, and John. In addition to that, Matthew and Mark also tell us about a time when, similarly, Jesus fed more than 4000 people. The feeding miracles get more attention in the four gospels than does the history of Jesus' birth--the narrative of the first Christmas--which only appears in Matthew's and Luke's gospels.

But it’s fair to ask what exactly is so important about these miraculous feeding incidents that, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the writers of the four gospels made certain to tell us about them?

What is the significance of the feeding of the 5000?

And, more to the point, what is the significance of this incident for people gathered for worship in 2014?

The first thing to be said is that Jesus Himself thought His miraculous meals were important and that the lessons they taught about Him and His kingdom needed to be remembered by disciples like us.  In Matthew 16:9, He asks the disciples: “Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered?” But what are the lessons that the first disciples and that we twenty-first century disciples are supposed to take from the feeding miracles?

Take a look, please, at our lesson. It begins: “When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.”

The thing that Jesus heard had happened was the execution of His cousin, John the Baptizer.

Jesus was undoubtedly grief stricken.

On top of that, He had to know that now, both the crowds who had reposed so much hope in John and the authorities who had taken John’s life, would turn their focus, for good and ill, but mostly for ill, on Him.

Jesus came into our world to die for our sins and to rise to give new life to all who believe in Him. With John’s execution, Jesus’ own suffering and death drew closer.

So, Jesus, just as He had done when John had been arrested some time before withdrew to a solitary place.

To grieve.

To pray.

To prepare.

But when Jesus got off the boat meant to take Him to a place of peace and respite, He was met by an enormous crowd. We've all been there, haven't we? We're all set for downtime and suddenly, without warning, there's a party at our house.

But in this circumstance, Jesus, true man as well as true God didn’t vent His spleen. He didn't say, “Go away. I need time to myself.”

Instead, Matthew says that Jesus had compassion on the crowd and healed people. So we see the very first significant thing in this incident even before Jesus fed the crowd. It’s this: The God we know in Jesus Christ is available.

Jesus is interruptible.

He has time for us.

He’s anxious to listen to us.

He has compassion for us.

He has compassion for you.

A woman came to me for counseling years ago. She gave an impressive catalog of her sins. There were a boatload!

She wanted to be right with God. She wanted Jesus. But she was certain that Jesus would refuse to hear her, that God would never forgive her, and that God wouldn't even have the time for her.

I assured her that if we want Jesus, it’s evidence that His Holy Spirit has already been at work on our hearts for this simple reason: Jesus always wants us.

Even if we’ve made it a habit to violate every one of the ten commandments every day, Jesus is still available with forgiveness and new life.

He’s available to us too, when we’re hurting.

He’s available.

Next in our lesson, we read: “As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.’ Jesus replied, ‘They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.’ ‘We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,’ they answered. ‘Bring them here to me,’ he said.”

The disciples weren't being ogres here. They were being completely sensible.

They were in a remote place. They didn’t have enough to feed this throng.

The disciples weren’t suffering from compassion fatigue. They simply saw no way to feed all those people.

And they were right. There was absolutely no way they could feed the 5000.

But Jesus told them, “Give me everything you have. I’ll make something of it.”

The second significant about this miracle: We can’t; God can.

Jesus says, “Go, make disciples.” We say, “We can’t.” Jesus says, “Go and I’ll make disciples through you.”

Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” We say, “If you knew how annoying my neighbor is, you’d know I can’t do that.” Jesus says, “I know how annoying your neighbor is. Furthermore, I know how annoying you are. Make yourself available and I will love your neighbor through you.”

Jesus says, “Feed the hungry. Care for the poor. Give the hope of the gospel to those who aren’t even interested.” We say, “There’s no way we can do that, Lord.” Jesus says, “Depend on me and act; ready, fire, aim; I will make a way.”

In Mark 9:23, Jesus says, “Everything is possible for one who believes." Give Jesus your loaves and fishes; He will take care of the rest.

Let me point something out here. This entire incident happens wMithin the context of the disciples being together with Jesus. God, of course, can work in the lives of individuals. He does it all the time. But no one will remain long connected to Christ outside the fellowship of the Church. Or our connection will become self-directed. We’ll go off on our own tangents. In the fellowship of the Church and in the fellowship of small groups within the Church, we grow together, we keep each other on track, we encourage one another, we lovingly call each other to the carpet. The disciples never would have had the courage to give Jesus those five loaves and two fishes if they had stood alone with Him on that hillside. The Church is Christ’s creation. It is His very body in the world. Being a Christian is no solo operation.

Verse 19 says: “And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.”

This folks, is truly a foretaste of the feast to come. Believing Jews had for centuries looked forward to the time when the Messiah would invite all who believed in Him to His eternal table. And in Matthew 8:11, Jesus had said: “I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.”

You and I are privileged to receive a foretaste of Jesus’ eternal table every time we receive the bread and wine of Holy Communion. We see the connection with Holy Communion (and the ultimate messianic feast to which it points) in the verbs describing Jesus’ actions as He fed the 5000, all of which appear in the New Testament accounts of the Last Supper, where Jesus instituted the Sacrament. Jesus takes the food. He gives thanks. He breaks the bread. He gives it to the disciples. And the disciples give it to the crowd.

From the time Israel wandered in the wilderness and fed on manna, God’s people have looked to God to feed them, to provide for them. Jesus teaches us to pray for “our daily bread.” We look forward to that day when “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language [all who have turned from sin and trusted in Jesus Christ as their God and Savior and Lord over their lives], [stand] before the throne and before the Lamb” and partake of all the blessings God has in mind for His people.

Here, in our lesson, in the shadow of John’s execution, with His cross clearly ahead in Jesus’ sights, Jesus gives a clear sign that it is all true, that our hopes in Him are well founded.

The One Who could feed a multitude with a few scraps of food is good for all His promises.

He is the way and the truth and the life.

He is the only way to God. He is the way to new life, freed of sin and death.

He is our only hope.

The feeding of the 5000 is a sign that everything the apostles told us about Jesus, everything we confess about Him on Sunday mornings, is true.

The lesson ends: “They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

With our modern sensibilities, we may read that bit about “besides women and children” and think, “What a sexist, patriarchal thing for Matthew to write.” I can understand how some might think that.

But consider this for a moment: In first century Judea, women and children were supposed to be barely seen, never heard, and certainly not accounted for. But Matthew accounts for them! He makes a point of mentioning the women and children for the simple reason that in the eyes of Jesus Christ--in the eyes of God--every human life matters. Every man. Every woman. Every child. All are the objects of His love and compassion. All need Jesus. And Jesus wants to bring life to all who are willing enough to receive Him as their Savior and King.

There’s much more to this incident than we have time to talk about today. But remember, please, the four things that we've talked about today that give it significance, that make it important.

First, the God we know in Christ is always available. Call out to Him, as Martin Luther put it, “in every time of need.” He will hear.

Second, give yourself to Christ and He will take care of the rest. It won’t always be easy. There will be times you question His will and His wisdom. (I know that I sometimes do. "God," I ask, "do you really expect this of me?" And knowing from His Word, the Bible, that He does, I strive to accept His will.) Struggle to surrender and do God's will and, often even against your will, He will fulfill His purposes for your life.

Third, Jesus has prepared a feast for us, a celebration that will last eternally for those who trust in Him. Knowing that encourages us any time we’re laid low by life or just feeling, and this is a technical theological term, blah. Neither blah nor tears are the eternal destiny of those who follow Christ.

Fourth, in the eyes of Jesus Christ, everybody counts. He died for all. He rose for all. He offers everlasting life to all who believe in Him.

Now, if you can't remember those four things, then just remember Jesus. He is our God and our only hope. He's all you really need to remember. Amen!

Learning to Be Like Jesus

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Matthew 14:13-21

I knew a man named George who served in the army during World War 2.

After VE Day, George was part of the occupying force in Germany. Every day, he encountered families and many orphans who had no food, no place to bathe, and no habitable place to live. It broke his heart and he never forgot it.

This experience became the subject of a promise George made to God. Wherever he found hungry people, George vowed, he would do what he could to feed them.

He lived that promise. For the rest of his life, George would find out about people who needed help and somehow get groceries to them. Fellow members of the Lutheran congregation of which he was  a part got wind of what he was doing and asked how they could help. Eventually, George’s efforts became part of the congregation’s ministries and budgets. Well into his eighties, George was still taking food to people in need. And, whenever his personal resources or those of his church were skimpy, he would call area pastors and ask if they or their churches could help someone whose needs they couldn’t address.

When he died, people were asked to forget about sending flowers and instead, provide money for his church’s ministry to the poor. Thousands of dollars were raised.

George’s life is a story of Christian discipleship.

The word disciple—mathetes in the Greek language in which the New Testament was written—means student.

This doesn’t mean that the follower of Jesus is someone who compiles a lot of religious information, as if Judgment Day were going to be like a final exam deciding whether we get a “passing grade.” To be a student (or disciple) of Jesus means that, by the way we live, we’re learning each day to be more like Jesus.

And being like Jesus is the ultimate goal of every believer. This is mentioned often in the New Testament.

• 1 John, for example, says that when Jesus returns to the earth, “we will be like Him.” 
• 2 Corinthians says that as we follow Jesus, we “are being transformed into” His image. 
• Romans says that followers of Jesus are being “conformed to the image of His Son.” 

All of this is the work of God’s Holy Spirit, of course. We can’t make ourselves more like Jesus. But you and I can make the decision, each and every day, through a life style of "daily repentance and renewal" about whether we will be open to the work of the Holy Spirit to make us more like Christ.

This is why in one of the greatest passages in the New Testament, the apostle Paul says, “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…” In other words, confident in God’s love and grace for you, take the attitude of a servant. Let the Spirit work through your open heart and will to make you more like Jesus. Being like Jesus must mean, as it did in George’s case, being compassionately moved by the same things that compassionately move Jesus.

Our English word, compassion, is a compound meaning to suffer with. In the New Testament's original Greek, a common word for compassion reflects ancient people's belief that our emotions weren't centered in the heart, but in the gut. Compassion is that stirring of the gut that happens when our sympathies are aroused.

• It's what makes you want to pray or send a check to Lutheran World Relief when you see pictures of starving children in Somalia.
• It's what makes you want to intervene and pray when you're at the store and see children being neglected either by parents who fail to discipline them or by treating them unkindly.
• It's what makes you so concerned about the eternal destiny of a classmate or coworker that you want to share Jesus with them.

We give water away during our Kindness Outreaches out of compassion. Those who receive these acts of kindness may not need the water, but they do need the One Who sends us.

Compassion looks at the needs of others and is stirred to sympathetic action.

Compassion is the openness of heart toward others that comes to those whose wills and lives are open to the God we know in Jesus Christ.

In that connection, please pull out the Celebrate inserts and look at today’s Gospel lesson. It begins with Jesus learning that John the Baptist, has been executed. Jesus goes by boat to a spot where nobody lived, no doubt to pray and to consider how John’s execution foretold His own. He needed to process His feelings. But crowds sought Jesus out. We’re told in verse 14: “When He went ashore, He saw a great crowd; and He had compassion for them…”

This isn’t the first place we’re told of Jesus’ compassion for crowds. Another is at Matthew 9:36. Please turn to it in the pew Bibles, page 556. It says: “But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd.”

What aroused Jesus’ compassion for the crowds in these two passages represent the full breadth of God’s concern for all of us. In the Matthew 9 instance, Jesus has compassion for the crowds because of their spiritual condition. They’re disconnected from God, unaware of their need to turn from sin and to believe in Jesus to gain eternal life with God. All they know is that they have a hunger to be with Jesus.

In Matthew 14, in our gospel lesson, Jesus looks at another crowd and sees all that was wrong in their physical condition, their need for healing. Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, shows us that God cares for our whole beings.

As disciples of Jesus, people intent on learning to live like Jesus, our call is to have the same compassion for people that Jesus has. Bob Pierce, the missionary who founded both Samaritan’s Purse and World Vision, often prayed, “Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.”

And it’s exactly here that, until this past week, I had always faulted the disciples as they’re portrayed in today’s gospel lesson. Look at verse 15. The disciples tell Jesus that they’re in a remote place and that he should send the crowds away so that they can get food.

I had always thought that the disciples were being selfish here, that they wanted Jesus to themselves, and that they didn’t care about the crowd. Some of that may be true. But one New Testament scholar has convincingly written that like the Savior they followed, the disciples felt the crowd’s need for food.

But they didn’t have food to give to the crowd, or very little of it. So, rather than having this whole throng in the middle of nowhere with nothing to eat, the disciples thought that the compassionate thing was to send them away to find food where it could be found, in the nearby towns. Their suggestion wasn’t a failure of compassion, but a failure of faith.

In verse 16, we come to the centrally important part of this entire incident. Jesus tells the disciples that the crowds needn’t go away. “You give them something to eat.” “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish,” they say.

Now, we’ve all heard or read about the feeding of the 5000 many times. But have you ever considered this: What if the disciples hadn’t told Jesus about the five loaves and the two fish?

What if they had pretended, as maybe all of us have when approached by someone asking for money, that they didn’t have anything "on them"?

The disciples felt compassion for the hungry crowd, but this was all they had…a few scraps of bread and two measly fish. What was so little in the face of so great a need?

We know what happened. Jesus took the bread and fish and fed the whole crowd, one composed, Matthew says, of five thousand men plus women and children. A conservative estimate of the entire crowd would be about 15,000 people.

But the feeding of all those people may really be the second miracle in this incident.

The first miracle may be that the disciples were willing to disclose to Jesus (and then give to Jesus) all that they had. The grace of God in Jesus had broken down any selfishness they might have felt and filled them with compassion for others!

How much of ourselves are we willing to give to Jesus?

On the cross, Jesus spent His whole life to buy your freedom from sin, death, and eternal separation from God. Jesus died and rose so that all who surrender to Him can have life forever with God.

The more we yield to Jesus—the more of ourselves we give to Him—the more He will do in our lives and the more He can do through us.

That’s what the first disciples learned the day Jesus fed the 5000. It’s the lesson that my friend George’s life teaches.

It’s a lesson we all can learn as we give ourselves to Jesus every day.

Recently, Ann and I heard from a dear friend. She was excited about exciting new developments in her life, a shot of unexpected joy, possibilities, and purpose. But then, she told us, it shouldn’t really be that surprising. “Not long ago,” she explained, “I did something I’d never done. In the past, I bargained with God. I’d tell God: ‘If you do this, I’ll do this.’ But not this time. I told God, ‘I’m wide open. Whatever you want!’” In the book of Ephesians, we’re called to give glory to the God Who “is able to accomplish abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine.” Our friend is learning that truth.

We all know that bad things happen to faithful people and that we live in a fallen, imperfect world. The mystery of prayers not answered as we expect them to be will be with us for as long as this present world exists. But what Jesus showed when He miraculously fed a huge crowd with the food offered by the disciples is that if we will offer our whole selves to Him, we can become conduits for the blessings of God on a world of great spiritual and physical need.

And as we give ourselves to Jesus, God’s Spirit will move us closer to the goal of being like the One Who died and rose for us. That’s God’s aim for our lives and for the life of Saint Matthew. May it be our aim for our lives and for Saint Matthew too. Amen

Temptation and the Only Way to Handle It

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Matthew 4:1-11
We know the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness almost by heart. It comes up every year on the First Sunday in Lent.

Fresh from the amazing moment of His baptism in the Jordan River, when a voice from heaven had said, “This is My Son, the Beloved, with Whom I am well pleased,” Jesus, goes into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

There’s comfort to be found in this incident. It reverberates with a truth to which the preacher in the New Testament book of Hebrews points when he says of Jesus: “…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.”

As we go through the season of Lent, it’s good for us to remember that Jesus endured the wilderness and the Garden of Gethsemane and Good Friday and the cross—times of temptation, testing, and terror—not because He had to, but because He wanted to. He chose to endure these things for the same reason that He underwent John the Baptist’s baptism of repentance even though Jesus had nothing for which to repent. Jesus did all these things “to fulfill all righteousness,” to connect with us at the deepest and most intimate level, to go through all that we go through, so that having endured even death itself, He could be raised to life again and share His resurrection with all who turn from sin and trust in Him to give us new lives!

All of that is implied in the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. And it’s incredible!

But today, I want to ask you to try to look at this incident with fresh eyes. As you do, I’d like to ask you to keep two questions in mind:

• What is temptation? 
• And, How can temptation be handled? 

Jesus confronted three temptations from the devil: to turn stones to loaves of bread; to throw Himself down from the top of the Temple, betting that God and His angels would prevent Him from being hurt; and to take control of all the nations of the world simply for bowing down and worshiping the devil.

There’s nothing inherently wrong or evil in what the devil tries to entice Jesus into doing in these temptations. Jesus would, in fact, at different times later in His ministry, do things very similar to what the devil prompts Jesus to do in the wilderness. Jesus would later turn some fish and bread into a feast for a crowd of 5000. He would walk on water, something at least as amazing as levitating in the air after throwing oneself from the top of a temple. He would also be the one to bring the kingdom of God into the world.

So, what’s the difference between temptation and a harmless suggestion? Two things: Motivation and timing.

• When Jesus later fed the 5000, He didn’t do it for Himself; He did it for a crowd that He could see was hungry and Who needed to know Who the real bread from heaven is. 
• When Jesus walked on the water, He did it to foster and encourage the flagging faith of apostles to whom He would soon entrust the mission of sharing the gospel with the world. 
• When Jesus brought the kingdom of God to the world, He did so unencumbered by any debt to the evil from which He came to save a sinful, needy world. 

Jesus’ motivation was never to serve Himself, but us. Temptation is the enticement to do otherwise good things for the wrong reasons or at the wrong times or in the wrong ways and for ourselves.

But how do we handle temptation when it comes to us, as it does every single day? There are, I think, three ways we can choose to deal with temptation, only one of which works.

One of the wrong ways is logic. (We sometimes call this “common sense.”) If Jesus had used logic or common sense to resist temptation, He might have told Himself, “My mission is to live and die without sin. Only a sinless sacrifice of Myself on behalf of the human race will fulfill that mission. Therefore, I must withstand temptation.”

How do you think that would have worked? When you’ve been without food for forty days, logic doesn’t cut it. You want to eat! Jesus might well have become so desperate with hunger that He could have built an equally logical argument for caving in to the devil’s temptations. “After all,” Jesus could have thought logically, “My ultimate aim is to take control of the world’s kingdoms. What difference does the method make?”

Of course, had Jesus followed logic, the jig would have been up for us all. Sin and death would have kept their power over us and God, mired in sin Himself, would have been made powerless to help us. If we rely on common sense or logic to get us through our temptations, we will not stay true to God.

Another method people use to try to deal with temptation is to follow their hearts. We hear this advice all the time. “Follow your heart,” we’re told. Jesus could have tried this, but he didn't. Listen: Following your heart when it comes to life’s tests and temptations may be the quickest road to hell you can find.

Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse—who can understand it?”

Ecclesiastes 9:3 says, “the hearts of all are full of evil; madness is in their hearts…”

Our emotions are afflicted by sin. Had Jesus relied on His emotions when the devil tempted Him, He would have caved into the temptations in a heartbeat! Hunger and other desperate experiences affect our emotions and when we rely on our “heart” to guide us, we make really bad choices.

How might Ohio State’s football coach Jim Tressel have reacted to the emails sent to him by attorney Christopher Cicero if he had chosen not to let emotions (or logic) get in the way? I’m not picking on Coach Tressel. We’ve all tried dealing with life’s tests and temptations by following our hearts or our logic. The difference is that the media isn’t around to report when our bad decisions blow up in our faces.

There’s a third way to handle temptation and Jesus exhibits it in our lesson today. Please go to our Gospel lesson on the Celebrate insert and look at verse 4. To the devil’s suggestion that He turn stones to bread, we're told:

But he answered, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" 

If you have a pen or pencil handy, you might want to underline those words and take the insert home with you to consider during the week.

First spoken by Moses to the Israelites just before they entered the promised land, those words tell us how Jesus handled temptation and how we can handle temptation. Jesus knew that only the word of God gives us life! God’s Word that spoke creation into being also fills the pages of His book, the Bible. And so, to deal with temptations to diverge from God’s clear commands for human beings, commands that we can see clearly in the Ten Commandments, we steep ourselves in God’s Word. We spend time each day reading it, praying about it, discussing it with Christian friends. We consider it in its entirety and not just individual verses or aspects of it that please us or that we can use to justify doing the wrong we want to do. Emotions will lead you astray. Common sense will too. But the Word of God will never let you down!

A prominent southern California preacher told about a conversation he had with a young man about a night that changed the young man’s life.* Bored, he went to a bar and started drinking and flirting with a good looking woman. He was unmarried. She was divorced. “Let’s go to Las Vegas,” the woman suggested.

The young man immediately put his glass down, paid the bartender, took the woman’s arm, and headed for her car. She told him to drive and snuggled closely to him as they roared through the night.

But then, maybe remembering what he had been taught as a child, the thought crossed the young man’s mind that this was a pretty cheap thing for him to do. He caught sight of himself in the rearview mirror and remembered that he was, as the Bible puts it, “fearfully and wonderfully made,” a child of God with incredible potential for good. He began to feel disgust and self-loathing for what he was about to do, something he had done with other women many times before. He couldn’t do this.

He pulled the car off to the side of the road. "What are you doing?" she asked. “I’m getting out,” he told the woman. “It’s your car. Go on to Vegas if you want to…I’ll thumb a ride back.” He shut the car door and watched the woman speed away angrily. “Suddenly,” the young man told the preacher, “I felt ten feet tall! I never felt so good in my life!”

Folks: God wants to help you have moments of triumph like that, moments when you opt for the dignity that goes with being a citizen of God’s kingdom instead of just another hopeless sinner looking out for number one on the highway to hell.

Jesus Christ went to a cross for you. He rose from the dead for you. He did this so that you can share in His victory over sin and death. He gives those who believe in Him the same power to resist temptation that He had in the wilderness, the power of the Word of God.

He also promises to those of us who, unlike Him, aren’t perfect, the opportunity for second chances for godly living like that young man took when climbed out of that car and walked away from sin. (I've been taking Jesus up on second chances for over thirty years now!)

But Jesus offers even more to those who, through the power of God’s Word, face down temptations and evil. Please pull out a pew Bible and turn to page 557. Look at a single verse there, Matthew 10:22. Jesus says:

And you will be hated by all for My Name’s sake. But [the one] who endures to the end will be saved.

Persevere in trusting in Jesus. 

Read His Word and be ready to face all that life throws at you. 

Read His Word and walk more intimately with the God Who wants to save you from all that would destroy you, Who wants to give you life as God designed it to be lived. 

Hold onto Christ and His Word and you’ll hold onto life. Amen

*Retold here.

To Help You Prepare for Worship on Sunday, August 3, 2008

[Most weeks, I try to publish at least one post dealing with the appointed Bible lessons for the upcoming Sunday. My hope is that I can at least help the people of the parish I serve as pastor, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, to prepare for worship. Others may find these explorations helpful because we use the same Bible lessons used by most other North American Christians each Sunday.]

This Sunday's Bible Lessons:
Isaiah 55:1-5
Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21
Romans 9:1-5
Matthew 14:13-21

The Prayer of the Day:
Glorious God, your generosity waters the world with goodness, and you cover creation with abundance. Awaken in us a hunger for the food that satisfies both body and spirit, and with this food fill all the starving world; through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

Take a Look at...
(1) The brief comments of Lutheran Old Testament scholar Ralph W. Klein on Isaiah 55:1-5:

• The opening two verses of this pericope are an invitation by Yahweh to a free divine banquet. As divine king, Yahweh imitates earthly kings at their inaugurations.
• The passage is filled with irony. Those who are hungry and thirsty are invited to "buy" without money and without price. People spend money and work hard for that which does not benefit them. Christian preachers may wish to refer to the free banquet offered in the Eucharist.
• Verses 3-5 ring the changes on the old promises to David (cf. 2 Samuel 7). God promises to make with "you," that is, the whole community an everlasting covenant, the sure promises to David. Hence the covenant is democratized. What had formerly been promised to David and his dynasty is now promised to everyone. This is a good example of a hermeneutical application, where the prophet takes "what was once meant" and shows what it might mean in his time. Strictly speaking, there is no messianic hope in Second Isaiah, and the only messiah mentioned is Cyrus the Persian (Isa 45:1).
• Just as David ruled nations, so the people are promised that the nations will acknowledge them. The guarantor of this promise is Yahweh your God, the Holy One of Israel.
• The gospel for the day is Matthew 14:13-21, the (free) feeding of the 5,000.

(2) The even briefer comments of Anglican Chris Haslam on Psalm 145, here.

(3) The extensive comments on the Roman text by another Anglican who, unlike Canadian Haslam is from Australia, Bryan Findlayson, can be found here.

(4) Here is a sermon on the Gospel lesson from Matthew by the wonderful Methodist bishop and preacher, William Willimon, whose books and other writing have been inspiring me for more than twenty years.