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"Temptation" Sermon preached by John C. Hall on February 25, 2007 Text - Luke 4:1-13 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” 4 Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’ ” We usually think of temptation in connection with something bad. What’s interesting about Jesus’ temptations is that they’re about things that are good. Satan says, “Turn these stones into bread.” That could feed a lot of hungry people. Think of the grain surpluses. Satan says, “I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the world.” If Jesus controlled the kingdoms of the world, the world might be a more peaceful place. In the third temptation, Satan says, “Jump from the top of the temple.” He even quotes scripture on this one. “The angels will hold you up.” A stunt like that would impress a lot of people, and it would certainly make God’s power more obvious. Satan isn’t tempting Jesus to do something bad. He’s tempting him to do something good. And that’s why anything is tempting. Something is only tempting if it offers something we consider good. You eye the cookie jar because cookies taste good and you want one. But temptation also involves the need for restraint. Cookies taste good, but if you do it Mommy will get mad. Or you’ll gain weight. Or one cookie will leading all the cookies and you’ll get sick. But why does Jesus resist these temptations? Why doesn’t he turn stones into bread? What’s the downside? Or why not have power over the kingdoms of the world? Why not demonstrate God’s power by jumping from the pinnacle of the temple? Today, instead of talking about individual temptations, I want to explore Temptation with a capital T. What lies behind all temptations? Temptation involves a conflict between desire and restraint. The desire is to make our lives better, and the struggle is over how to make them better. How do we balance short term pleasure and long-term well-being? This is the struggle we’re always working on, in both feeling temptation and in resisting temptation. The reason we want to make our lives better, is because we feel they’re not quite good enough. Some need or longing is still eating away in us. Something’s missing. Last Sunday, Madlyn Bynum got us thinking about how we talk to ourselves. Some of the things most of us have probably said to ourselves are: “If only I had just a little more money. If only my job were a little easier. If only my family were a closer to the way a family should be. And, most of us have probably had the thought that ultimate peace is just around the corner. I started noticing this when I was in junior high school — certainly an emotionally rich time of life. I had a burning desire to be on the basketball team. I thought, and maybe prayed: if only I can make it. I’ll be happy. One day in school my pants ripped down the back seam when I bent over. I was mortified. I thought, if only I can get through the day without anyone seeing my underwear, I’ll be happy. Today, kids wear their underwear on the outside of their clothes, so this wouldn’t happy today. The example dates me. Or I’d done something wrong and was afraid of getting caught. Or I was sick in bed, feeling like I was going to die, or wanted to die. In all of these cases, I prayed, “God, just get me through the one thing. I’ll never ask for anything again. I’ll be happy and I’ll shut up.” In all these cases, the crisis passed, and I was relieved. But that blessed feeling didn’t last. And I wasn’t happy forever. And I didn’t shut up. I think this has something to do with why Jesus resisted these temptations, even though they seemed to be good things. After these temptations, Jesus went on to do many good things, in fact many of them were along the same lines as the temptations. He fed the hungry, for example. Not by turning stones into bread, but by multiplying loaves and fish. It amounts to pretty much the same thing. He performed miracles. He did things to make the world a better place. And we’re called to try to make the world a better place too. It’s certainly our nature to try to make our lives better. Now, I know that the terms “control” and “manipulation” have nasty connotations. But that’s what we all do. We call it persuasion. We call it effective communication. We call it reason. We explain things to other people so they’ll see the situation our way. Shari manipulates the choir so they’ll sing better. A teacher manipulates students so they’ll want to learn more. A doctor manipulates patients so they’ll take the doctor’s advice. It’s all for a good cause. We’re all involved in building up organizations, like schools, families, churches, businesses, and governments — all to serve the greater good, to make the world a better place. This is what we’re supposed to do. And sometimes we put up with a lot of aggravation and frustration to do it. There’s always a struggle, wherever there’s life. We could all use a few more miracles. Some people struggle to get out of bed in the morning. Some people struggle to find work that’s rewarding and that they can live on. Our families give us a lot of comfort, but they also disappoint us. This is why babies provide so much hope. Babies are symbols of hope in the Bible. With a baby, we have (or we think we have) a clean start. If you can do a good job of raising this baby, then you’ll have the kind of wonderful human being in your life that you’ve always longed for. I heard a mother recently say, “I had this beautiful, loving child who came into my life. And then, one morning, fourteen years later, I woke up and found a stranger living in my house that I didn’t even recognize.” We’re called to have hopes and ideals. But they are also temptations in this sense. We’re not going to achieve our ideals. We’ll never get the world, or even our own lives, to be perfect _ whatever we think “perfect” means. That may sound like bad news, but it’s really good news, in the sense that it takes the pressure off, and it takes the guilt off. We all wish our lives were perfect. But knowing they can’t be perfect, saves us from having to feel like a failure if they’re not perfect. So let me state this form of the gospel very bluntly. It’s probably not your fault if your family is a little messed up. That’s how families are. It’s not your fault if you feel some emptiness. Humans are made to want more. In his temptations, Jesus recognized that he wasn’t supposed to have control over everything. And notice that Satan didn’t leave him alone after this episode. It says Satan waited for an opportune time. Satan will come back into Jesus’ life. Jesus wasn’t supposed to have power over everything, and we’re not supposed to have power over everything. We can’t be at peace completely, but we can make peace with that. We can be at peace with not being at peace. Well, we probably can’t achieve that either, really, but you see what I mean. We can make progress toward peace by being reconciled to the fact that the moments of peace we have are fleeting. We promise God and we promise ourselves: If I can just get this one more thing, I’ll never ask for anything again, and then sometimes we get it. And it feels great, for how long? About three minutes. Maybe an hour. And then the struggle creeps back in. We need more. That doesn’t mean something is wrong with our lives. That’s just the way life is.
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