Sermon 20th January 2013

Today, our Assistant Minister, Gill Tayleur, preaches based on the reading from Luke 4: verses 1-13.

JESUS’ TEMPTATIONS

Have you heard the one about the vicar who parked his car in a no-parking zone in central London because he was short of time and couldn’t find a parking space with a meter. So he put a note under the windscreen wiper saying: “I have driven round this block looking for a parking space for half an hour. If I don’t park here now, I’ll miss my appointment. FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES.”

But when he returned, he found a parking ticket, along with this note. “I’ve been round this block for 10 years. If I don’t give you a ticket, I’ll lose my job. LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION.” 

This morning we continue our journey into Luke’s gospel

with the story of Jesus’ temptations. Last week we looked at John baptising people in the River Jordan, as he challenged them to repent of their sin.

John baptised Jesus too, and Luke tells us that when Jesus was baptised, a voice came from heaven saying, “You are my own dear Son. I am pleased with you.” And then Jesus headed into the desert for 40 days. And there he was tempted by the devil.

Now before we go any further, I had better say as I have before, and as Cameron has, I believe in the devil as a real being, a created but rebellious fallen angel who is constantly fighting against God and those who follow him.

The existence of the devil is not a subject I’m going to tackle this morning, but I hope that whatever your view on it, you can see the existence of evil in the world. We don’t have to look very far do we, just turn on the television,

or open the paper? Or indeed see our own anger or greed let loose. And I hope you’ll recognise there is such a thing as temptation to do wrong.

Now to Jesus in the desert. As theologian Tom Wright says

in his commentary on Luke: After Jesus’ baptism, with the words “You are my own dear son” ringing in his ears,

there were questions to be faced: Was this true, was he really God’s own dearly loved son? What did it mean to be God’s Son in this special unique way? And what should Jesus do as Saviour?

The 3 temptations can be read as possible answers to these questions. We don’t know whether Jesus was tempted in an audible conversation, or in a string of ideas in his head. It doesn’t really matter, but either way the temptations were plausible, they were attractive and they made a lot of sense. [Our temptations do too, they’re often plausible, attractive and seem to make sense at the time.]

The first temptation, to turn stones into bread when Jesus hadn’t eaten for 40 days. Well, God wouldn’t want his “own dear Son” to be famished with hunger, would he? 

The second temptation, to worship the devil in order to rule the kingdoms of the world. If God wanted Jesus to rule over all the world, as the angel Gabriel had told Mary, why not go for it?

And the third temptation, to get God to save Jesus spectacularly from harm. If Jesus was Israel’s saviour,

why not prove it by a stunning display of death defying power?

....................

3 clever, plausible, attractive ideas. Make yourself something to eat. Get the world to fall at your feet, as God has promised. Prove who you are.

Jesus didn’t attempt to argue – arguing with temptation

is often a way of playing with the idea until it becomes irresistible. Instead he quoted Scripture. The passages of Scripture Jesus quoted, all came from the book of Deuteronomy, from the time when the Israelites were 40 years in the desert after escaping from Egypt through the waters of the Red Sea. The parallels with Jesus spending 40 days in the desert after his baptism in the waters of the river Jordan, are obvious. But during their 40 years, the Israelites grumbled against God, they worshipped idols, and continually put God to the test. In contrast, Jesus refused to do those things. He was going to succeed where they failed.

In response to the first temptation, to turn stones into bread when he hadn’t eaten for 40 days, Jesus said physical needs and wants are important, but loyalty to God is more important. He wouldn’t use his power for himself, but for the good of others, as God intended.

To the second temptation, to worship the devil in order to rule the kingdoms of the world, Jesus knew he was to become the world’s true ruler, but the path to it would be by humble service, not by seeking status and power.

And to the third temptation, to get God to save Jesus spectacularly from harm, from death. Jesus knew that trusting God didn’t mean acting stupidly to force God into doing a stunning rescue. The power Jesus already had and would soon be displayed in healings, was to be used for restoring others to life and strength. It wasn’t for cheap stunts. Jesus’ status as God’s Son led him not to showy prestige, but to humility, service & finally death. The Devil tempted him to avoid death with a dramatic angelic rescue, but Jesus knew he had come to die.

In each case, Jesus saw through the temptation. He saw it for what it was. He saw the wrong in going along with it.

And he refused to; he resisted temptation.

So what about us?

We’re unlikely to be tempted in the same ways Jesus was,

but whether or not we go along with it partly depends on whether  we see temptation for what it is. Do we see the wrong in what we’re tempted to do? We all know how subtle and incremental temptation can be. This little bit is alright, and a bit more, and a bit more...

Sometimes we do know quite clearly that what we are tempted to do is wrong. Last week Cameron spoke about making right or wrong choices. Sometimes they’re in front of us quite plainly and we know it.

Other times it doesn’t seem so clear cut, as what we’re tempted to do may not be wrong in itself, but it may be a temptation because it’s the wrong time, or the wrong reason, for doing it.

I think we often try - and succeed – in fooling ourselves

that there’s nothing wrong in what we’re about to do,

and what we’ve done before. We say, it’s OK. We make excuses. Excuses like, It’s not my fault! I was provoked!

Or, it’s very understandable, it’s only human, or other people do much worse than I do!

They’re excuses – but they don’t excuse us. We are still responsible, very much so. Using excuses to try to wriggle out of recognising our wrong doing for what it is, when we’re tempted or when we’ve already done it, simply isn’t good enough. Because as we heard last week, God HATES sin. He HATES it. He LOVES us, but HATES it when we sin.

We can get a bit of a glimpse of how this might be,

imagining a really good parent – who loves their child deeply, but when that child repeatedly thumps their younger brother til he bruises, or tells calculated lies,

or deliberately smashes something in anger – at an age when it’s done on purpose - the parent hates it. Wishes they wouldn’t do it. It doesn’t stop them loving their child,

but they are very angry and upset with what the child has done.

God HATES our sin, even though he LOVES us despite it. As Cameron said last week, so STOP IT. STOP IT NOW.

How? How do we do that? When we’re tempted, what do we need to do? We need to recognise temptation for what it is, even when it’s clever, plausible and attractive.

Tom Wright again: We need to learn to recognise the voices that whisper attractive LIES to us, and to distinguish them from the voice of God, and to use the simple but direct weapons provided in Scripture to rebut the lies with truth.

One way of looking at temptation and sin is in terms of

lies and truth. Let’s look at Jesus’ temptations in this light.

The devil whispered to Jesus the lie: you’re not really God’s beloved son!

In the first temptation, he tempted Jesus with the lie

that God’s not really looking after you, he doesn’t really love you – you need to look after yourself. Make some bread! You need to look after number one! .... That’s a lie. For Jesus and for us. The truth is, God does love Jesus, and us, and our relationship with him and loyalty to him is the most important thing. The truth is, “Man cannot live on bread alone.” We need spiritual life and food as much as physical. We need to rely on God for them.

In the second temptation, the devil tempted Jesus with the lie that if Jesus bowed down to him, he’d have power and wealth, and that all would be well. That was a lie – if Jesus bowed down to the devil, there would be no rescue for us from evil and death. It would have completely wrecked God’s plan for the salvation of the world. The truth is that worshipping and serving God

in accordance with God’s purposes is the right – and best – way to live.

In the third temptation, the devil tempted Jesus with the lie that it’s OK to test God, you need to prove who you are. The truth is that we’re to believe and trust in God and his word, not by twisting Scripture as the devil did to Jesus, but genuinely and trustingly.

I’ve found this way of looking at sin, and temptation to sin,

in terms of truth and lies, can be quite helpful. For we’re all tempted to listen to lies, and believe those lies, and live according to those lies. It comes out in all sorts of ways.

There are lies about ourselves  – deep down we may believe the lie that we’re unloved, unaccepted, unworthy and rejected, by God and others. I’m a nobody, I’m weak, I have nothing to add, I won’t be missed if I’m not there. I have to hide away in shame or self hatred.

Or in order to be loved and accepted, I have to make sure I get attention, or go to extreme lengths to prove myself, or say and do whatever it takes to make sure others always think the best of me.

Or to try and feel better about myself, I’m critical of others, or superior, or want to always be in control, or satisfied by what I think I’m entitled to.

Such ungodly behaviours are often based on the lie that we’re not really deeply loved and accepted by God. Lies about ourselves, others and him. God doesn’t hear or answer my prayers. He can’t really change me, he can’t really be trusted.

Lies, all lies!

But we can fight the lies with the truth. Both in the moment of temptation, as Jesus did, and as a way of life. We can consciously embrace the truth in our day to day lives.

We might do this in several ways.

First, we can receive and accept the truth in our minds, in our thinking. We can read God’s truth in the Bible, and apply it to ourselves in a conscious deliberate way. We do this together on a Sunday, we’re doing it now, and many of us do it during the week, individually or in small groups.

Let’s make sure we read – and take in – the truth in the Bible for ourselves. In a few weeks’ time, we’re going to suggest a plan of short daily Bible readings from Luke, that we can all do through Lent.

Then sometimes we can receive the truth in pictures, stories or parables. Jesus used them a lot to convey truth,

and mulling over gospel stories, imagining ourselves in them, can impact us more deeply than just a quick read through. Or sometimes we may be given a picture that represents truth to our hearts better than words, a picture we have when we are praying, or one that leaps out at us from somewhere else.

And we can embrace the truth with our voices, declaring it out loud, to help root it in our hearts and minds. We can speak words of truth, for ourselves and one another.

Rebutting lies with the truth is one way of fighting temptation. And that fight is ongoing. Our reading this morning ends in verse 13 where it says that the devil left him for a while. In other words, he’d be back. Jesus beat him in the desert, but there were more battles to come, culminating in the final showdown at the cross, where Jesus triumphed over the devil supremely for all time.

Temptation continued for Jesus, & it certainly does for us too! And although Jesus won these battles in the desert, we know that we will sometimes fail. We will sometimes give in to temptation, and sin. That’s the sad reality.

But we know what to do when that happens. We heard from Cameron last week how to repent, with 4 Rs: we need to Recognise our sin, Repent, say sorry, Receive God’s forgiveness, and Replace that is, change, our behaviour. There’s another R sometimes added in to that list – Realign. Realign ourselves with the truth. Spot the lie that drove us to our wrongdoing, and renounce it, and so Realign ourselves with the corresponding truth. It’s like the truth is a straight line, or straight path, and when we wander from it, and go all crooked, we need to get back in line with it, need to realign.

So the question for us this morning is, what lies are we listening to at the moment?

And what is the truth?

And how do we live in that truth, as a way of standing up to temptation?

The answers for each of us will be individual and personal.

Let’s think about them, pray about them, and if we have someone we can talk to about such things, let’s talk about them.

The bottom line truth is that we are, each of us, deeply loved by God. Oh he hates it when we sin, hurting him, ourselves and others – and it has real consequences, now and in judgement, as we heard from John the Baptistlast week. Remember today is the day before, so STOP IT TODAY! But we’re still loved – loved so much he sent Jesus to die for us, to deal with our sin, as we’ll celebrate with Communion in a few minutes.

So in response to God’s love, this morning let’s renew our commitment to fight temptation, and pray for God’s strength to do so. For that’s the way to fullness of life!

Living God’s way and resisting temptation is not about denying ourselves anything that’s good for us. It is about living our lives to the full by living as God made us to be.It’s about becoming the person that our loving Father God designed us to be and living His design for our life – what could be more glorious?!

So let’s pray.

Thank you Father God for your wonderful love for each of us. Help us to know that love so deeply that we can spot, and fight, the attacks and lies the devil throws at us each day. Help us to grow in your truth,

so that we can resist temptation

and grow to live Godly, holy lives of worship and service.

In Jesus powerful name we pray, amen.

Sermon 13th January 2013

Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker, preaches based on the reading from Luke 3 verses 1-18

“For nearly a decade scientists have told city and state officials that New York faces certain peril: rising sea levels, more frequent flooding and extreme weather patterns. The alarm bells grew louder after Tropical Storm Irene ... when the city shut down its subway system and water rushed into ... Lower Manhattan. ... With an almost eerie foreshadowing, the dangers laid out by scientists as they tried to press public officials for change in recent years describes what happened this week: Subway tunnels filled with water, just as they warned. Tens of thousands of people in Manhattan lost power. The city shut down.” The same article in the New York Times at the end of October last year went on to add: “What scientists, who have devoted years of research to the subject, now fear most is that, as soon as the cleanup from this storm is over, the public will move on.’ Mind you, the 50 people in New York killed by Hurricane Sandy will never know if that does happen, or not: for them, it’s too late.

I already had that opening all lined up before I turned my computer on yesterday morning. What a coincidence (or something!), then, that one of the advertising banners on the unrelated webpage that I was browsing should have been placed by the US Government. This winter it’s running an awareness campaign called, “Today is the day before”. That’s the slogan which arises from their core message: “Prepare for tomorrow”. So, “What does the day before look like?” it asks – beneath pictures of a tornado. Well, “It looks like today”, is the answer it gives. So, today is the day to prepare then, the website advises, with all sorts of links to help you to do just that. (If you’re interested, check it out for yourself at http://www.ready.gov/) But get ready today; while you still can, it warns!

That’s a message I’m sure John the Baptist would have fully approved of. He wasn’t warning the people of his day about tornadoes, hurricanes, or tsunamis, much less of planes flying into buildings. He had something far more dreadful - in the truest sense of the word - in mind. More full of dread, and even more urgent: “The axe is already at the root of the tree”, he told his hearers – though quite why you brood of vipers are listening so intently to this I really don’t know!

 I wondered if anyone would laugh when I said that – and what kind of a laugh that would be! “Is he being serious? Might he actually mean me? Does he know something that I wish he didn’t? Or is this just some preacher’s ploy? Should I play along, then? Is it more embarrassing than that? Whatever it’s about, hopefully it’s not going to carry on like this too much longer, though.”

I hope that I’m allowed to put such words into your mouths. They would likely be in my own head, if I was sat where you are. You see, I’ve been around Christian circles since the 1960’s. So I know that God loves me; that He wants the best for me; that He is on my side. I know too that He is endlessly, eternally kind, gracious, forgiving; and that He smiles on people like me who try to live as good, Godly and responsible a life as we can. My tongue may be a little in my cheek as I say that – but there is, in fact, a lot of Godly truth in there. Trouble is, it’s far from the full truth – about God, or me; but the parts that are conveniently left out of that portrayal are those parts that are decidedly inconvenient for us.

Well, thank God for John the Baptist, then! Those are precisely the parts of the truth, about God and about humanity, that John put right in the faces of his First-Century hearers. They are the parts about the God of justice, who hates sin. They are the parts about the God of judgment who will chop down all the trees that bear no fruit. They’re the parts about the God who separates the useful from the useless – the wheat from the chaff – and burns all wasters. This is the holy God whom John came to get the way ready for. And John’s very clear, and firm advice was that people should respond today. They should do so in ways that are practical, and make it obvious that we have ‘got’ it; because the day before tomorrow’s judgment looks just like today – and the one who is coming will baptise with the Holy Spirit, and with fire!

Now I’ve clearly got more than little ahead of myself here. Of course I’ve done it deliberately. If you forget everything else that I say today, my hope and prayer is that you will remember this, in a truly life-changing way: the day before really does look just like today. So today is the day to get ready. So, yes there is plenty that needs saying about the start of a new series for this new year. There is lots to be said about the Gospel-writer Luke – and about how we have landed up going from here in his account of Jesus’ life. And yes that is ground that will indeed be covered today – even though it’s so familiar to many of us. But this time it’s all very firmly set in this context – of what John the Baptist came to do. To name it aloud, there is a practical response that the preaching team believe God is looking for from us at this point: it’s one of changed, repentant lives of faith.

Now I think that Luke wouldn’t much mind us using his biography in this way. He began it with an aim statement of his own, in the first 4 verses of his book. He said that there were lots of writings about, based on eyewitness accounts of what Jesus had said and done. As both an amateur historian, and a scientist – and nobody doubts that Luke was a doctor – who’d become involved in the expanding Christian story himself, he had decided to put it all into an orderly account. He addressed that to ‘Theophilus’ (meaning ‘lover of God’) – who may have supported him while he wrote it – and said that this was to help him, Theophilus, to know the certainty of what he had been taught. And that has been to the benefit of whoever has read this book ever since: it gives us solid, ordered fact.

We do know at least a bit more about Luke, and that’s worth saying now too. He definitely wrote a second volume, and he intended to do that from the start. With the book of Acts as well as his gospel, Luke is the largest word-contributor to the New Testament, then. He appears in Acts himself, as one of Paul’s travelling companions. He was a Gentle, non-Jewish, convert to the faith; most likely Greek; and was certainly well educated in terms of how he wrote. His clearly wasn’t the first Gospel written, but the scholarly consensus is that it was completed by the mid-60’s AD. About 40% of its content is very similar to Mark; another 20% is much like Matthew; but over 40% of Luke’s book is unique to him. He writes about miracles that no-one else has; there are parables of Jesus that we can’t read elsewhere; and that all adds to our gaining of a much fuller picture of Jesus.

That’s illustrated by the fact that we’re in Luke chapter 3 when we read about John the Baptist. Mark starts his account with this dramatic appearance, at this very specific time in Israel’s history that Luke now names. But Luke has taken 130 verses to set the scene, with stories that nobody else has. He wrote of the prophecies and the promises of the one to come, the one we’re still not ready to meet yet – because we first need this clearing blast from John. We’re not quite ready to back there just yet ourselves. First I need to say that the church year that began at Advent is the year of Luke. We don’t always follow the exact Church of England pattern of readings, and we’re not doing so now either. But between now and Easter those that want to do have the chance to read every word of Luke, to get the whole, full picture of Jesus.

That will take some work to do of course; but what that’s of worth in life doesn’t? Our aim, our hope as preaching team is that you will want to put in that work. It may be that you have never read a full, ordered account of Jesus’ life. Well here is that chance; and you may just be surprised, both by what you do read, and also by what you don’t. You might then want to decide whether you believe what you hear week by week: about who Jesus is, what he has done – and about what response that then demands of you. There are many here who have already made those decisions, and know what you believe and why. It never hurts to do a refresher course; but this may well be more than that for you. Tom Wright says in his commentary on Luke that Christian living is far more than ‘just’ repentance; but it is never any less than it.

All spiritual advance starts with a turning from whatever is holding us back from obeying God. It involves a turning to as well, as practical means of breaking the patterns or chains that bind us. We all need to do that in some way, no matter whom, or what we are. When I was training we had a session led by the national press relations officer. He told us that statistically there was at least one person in the room who was doing something that they shouldn’t be doing. “Stop it now!” he told us. He pointed out how we were all smiling in agreement, trying to convince him that it wasn’t us he meant. But he still said that before we completed our training at least one of us would contact him for help with a story that was about to break in the national papers. I don’t know if he was proved right. What I do know is that the last time I told this story here, based on the same statistics, everyone smiled in agreement that people really should stop doing what was wrong – which wasn’t them. That included the person who within months came to see me with their life in pieces because of the wrong things that they had been doing when I said “Stop it now!” – just as I’m saying again today, to you.

The people who came to hear John realised that they needed to make changes. “What are we to do, then?” they asked. And John had very practical answers for them – in general, and quite specifically for the soldiers and tax collectors who wanted to get ready today. There isn’t time to look at that, or much else, in any detail now; but do note the principles at work here; because those are what we each need to live by from here. The principles are that we are all invited to make wrong choices: in our job; in our relationships; in our lives: but we don’t have to give in to those. We can get ready to live God’s way, and then work that principle out in the specific decisions that we each face today.

Before now I have used 4 R’s to help explain how repentance works. Here they are again, briefly: first we have to Recognise our sin for what it is; then we need to Repent of, or say sorry, for it; we then Receive God’s forgiveness; and the fourth R is to Replace that sin with new ways – in these sorts of ways that John spoke of. It’s vital to recognise that this is a way of life, not something that we move on from. The decisions that we take today, to get ready for whatever tomorrow may bring, are to be taken in the context of the God whom John declared. It is the same God we come to know in Jesus: the God who loves us and is all merciful; but who also demands that we be holy, as He is holy – and then helps us to live for Him, and in Him. Such is adventure that lies ahead for each of us, as we work our way through Luke’s Gospel: and today is the time to get ready for that, because today is the day before! And so let’s pray ...