The Example of Stephen

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, October 10, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Acts 6:8-15; 7-1, 51-60.

            The stoning of Stephen.  Older Christians will probably remember hearing about it, but it’s a story we don’t seem to talk about much anymore.  Most church school materials don’t talk about it.  When I googled it, the most recent church school lesson I could find on it was dated 2010.  There are not many Bible studies on it, and most of them are old, too.  I don’t remember the last time I heard a sermon preached on it.  And I’m guilty of being part of that, because I don’t believe I’ve ever preached on it before, either.  But it’s an important story.  And given the state of the world, it’s a story that may become more and more relevant to us as Christians.

            We don’t know anything of Stephen’s backstory.  He’s first introduced to us just a few verses before what we read today.  He’s one of seven people that the twelve apostles choose to oversee the distribution of food among the followers of Jesus, so that the twelve can devote themselves to ministry.  Stephen is described as “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit”.  And that’s all we learn of Stephen until the verses we read today.

            As we read it, some of you probably thought of some parallels to the story of Jesus.  Stephen was “full of God’s grace and power” and he “performed great wonders and signs among the people”.  We don’t know what kind of wonders and signs.  Did he heal people the way Jesus did?  Did he feed people the way Jesus did?  Could he drive out demons, calm a storm, turn water into wine?  We don’t know.  But whatever they were, they must have been pretty impressive.

            Opposition arose to Stephen among the religious leaders of the time, just as it did with Jesus.  And just as with Jesus, these religious leaders tried to argue with Stephen.  And they had about as much success arguing with Stephen as they had arguing with Jesus, which is to say none at all.  Stephen had the wisdom of the Holy Spirit behind him, and there’s no greater wisdom than that.  So Stephen won all the arguments.

            And so, just as with Jesus, the religious authorities made up some stuff against Stephen.  They accused him of blasphemy.  They hauled him in front of the Jewish court, the Sanhedrin.  And again, just as with Jesus, the religious authorities stirred up the people and produced a bunch of witnesses to lie about what Stephen had said and done.  

            And as all this is happening, people look over at Stephen.  And we’re told “his face was like the face of an angel.”

            We don’t really know exactly what that means.  After all, none of us has ever actually seen the face of an angel, so we don’t know what that would look like.  It could mean that there was some physical change in Stephen, that his face took on some sort of unearthly glow, like we’re told happened to Moses after he would be in God’s presence.  That’s possible, but I don’t think so.  We’ll come back to that.

            But Stephen is sitting there, listening to all these lies.  And finally, the high priest asks Stephen, “Are these charges true?”  

            This is where the parallel to the story of Jesus breaks down.  Jesus, as you may remember, made no attempt to answer the charges against him.  He was silent.  Stephen was not silent.  Stephen makes a fairly long speech.  We just read the end of it.  He goes back through the history of Israel, starting with Abraham, then Joseph, then Moses.  He talks about how the people rejected Moses, and by doing so rejected God, and so God turned away from them.  

And then Stephen says the part we read.  He tells them that they are just like their ancestors.  He calls them “stiff-necked people” who are resisting God’s Holy Spirit.  He tells them that they and their ancestors have prosecuted every prophet God ever gave them.  They killed the one who predicted the coming of the Messiah.  And then, then killed the Messiah himself.  

Now, Stephen was not a fool.  When he said this, he knew what the reaction of the religious authorities would be.  He knew that he was pretty much condemning himself to death by saying what he said.  But he said it anyway.  

Like Jesus, Stephen could have avoided death.  He could have compromised.  He could have recognized the authority of the religious leaders.  He could have backed off, backed down, soft-pedaled things.  But, like Jesus, he would not do it.  God’s Holy Spirit had led him to do what he did and say what he said.  And Stephen was not going to compromise or soft-pedal what God’s Holy Spirit had led him to do.  Stephen was going to follow God’s Holy Spirit wherever it led him.  I think that’s why Stephen’s face was like the face of an angel.  He was at peace, a heavenly peace, because he knew he was following God’s Holy Spirit.  He would follow the Holy Spirit wherever it led him.  Even if it led him to his death.

We admire Stephen for that, of course.  But, as I said, we don’t really talk about his story very often.  I wonder if the reason why is that the story of Stephen convicts us.  We see Stephen’s incredible faith in Jesus, a faith that was so strong that he was willing to die for it.  And we admire Stephen for the strength of his faith.  But thinking about the strength of Stephen’s faith makes many of us realize how much weaker our own faith is.

Now, I don’t mean to judge anyone, and I don’t mean to criticize anyone.  The only ones who know how strong your faith is are you and God.  But could you do what Stephen did?  Could you stand up in front of a hostile group of powerful people, and openly proclaim your faith in Jesus Christ?  Could you do that, knowing that these people you’re talking to have the power to kill you, and in fact probably will kill you after they hear what you’ve said?

You’ll have to answer that question for yourself.  And maybe it’s a question we cannot answer for sure until we’re in the situation.  Speaking just for myself, I very highly doubt that I could do what Stephen did.  I’d like to think I could.  I wish I had that much courage.  I wish I had that much faith.  But if I’m honest, I’m pretty skeptical about it.  I doubt that I could do it.

Let’s look at it another way.  Suppose we took the threat of death out of it.  Could you just stand up in front of a hostile group of people and proclaim your faith in Jesus Christ?  

Suppose we took the hostility out of it.  Suppose the group is neutral.  Could you just stand up in front of a group of people and proclaim your faith in Jesus Christ?

In fact, let’s take it still farther.  Suppose the group is a group of your friends.  Could you stand up in front of a group of your friends and proclaim your faith in Jesus Christ?  And if your answer is yes, here’s another question.  When’s the last time you actually did that?

Again, my point is not to judge you.  I’m not saying we’re all going to hell if we cannot do these things.  And also, I cannot presume to know the answer for you.  I hope you’re better at this than I am.  I don’t doubt that some of you are.

But here’s the thing.  We think about these questions, and we think of them as hypothetical.  We think of them as theoretical.  We don’t really think our faith will ever be tested in this way.  And so we don’t worry about it very much.

And maybe our faith won’t be tested in this way.  Living out here, in our small towns in the middle of South Dakota, there’s probably a pretty good chance that it won’t.  A pretty good chance--but I would not say a zero chance.

There are people all over the world who are having their faith tested in ways they never thought possible.  And it’s not just people in places half-way around the world.  There are pastors in Canada who have been jailed for holding church services that the government did not approve of.  There are pastors in the United States who have been threatened with jail, and with large fines, for holding church services that the government did not approve of.  We want to think it cannot happen here, but there is no reason it cannot.  The people in the places where it did happen probably thought it could not happen there, too.  But it can.  It can happen anywhere.

Are you ready for it, if it does happen?  Am I ready for it, if it does happen?  Again, I cannot answer for you.  But for me, the answer is, probably not.  I don’t think I’m ready for it, if it happens.  So what can we do to get ready?

Stephen was able to do this because he was “filled with the Holy Spirit”.  So if we want to have the courage Stephen had, if we want to have the courage God wants us to have, we, too, need to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

That’s something we pray for.  We pray for it every time we take Communion--part of our Communion liturgy asks that God’s Holy Spirit be poured out onto us.  We pray for it at various other times, too.  

We pray for it--but are we really serious about it?  Do we really want to be filled with God’s Holy Spirit?  Or do we really want to do things our own way, and just have God’s Holy Spirit in the background, something to rely on to bail us out when we get into a tough spot?  

The reason Stephen was filled with God’s Holy Spirit is because he was obedient to God’s Holy Spirit.  He had decided that he was not going to do things his own way.  He was not going to wait until he got into a tough spot to call on God’s Holy Spirit.  He was going to live his entire life, every bit of it, being obedient to God’s Holy Spirit.  Again, he was going to do what the Holy Spirit told him to do, and say what God’s Holy Spirit told him to say, regardless of the consequences.

So it seems to me that’s where it starts--with a decision.  A decision to follow God’s Holy Spirit, no matter what the consequences might be.

We make that decision not fully understanding what the consequences might be.  When Stephen first made that decision, he probably did not fully understand the consequences, either.  He probably did not realize that the decision he made was going to lead to his death on earth.  But he made it anyway.  And because he had made that decision, he was able to follow through on it, even at the cost of his life.

It’s not an easy decision.  It was probably not an easy decision for Stephen.  It’s not an easy decision for us.  But we need to think about it.  We need to pray about it.  And we need to do what we can to get ready.  Because if we wait until the test actually comes, it may be too late.

Stephen’s faith is an example to us.  May we follow his example, and have the courage he had.  May we decide to follow God’s Holy Spirit, no matter what the consequences may be.

 

The Key to Peace

The message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on October 3, 2021.  The Bible verses used are John 14:23-27.

            Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.”

            That is one of the most wonderful thoughts in the whole Bible, don’t you think?  To be at peace.  To feel the peace of Jesus Christ in our lives.  To live lives that are at peace.

            Do you feel that peace?  I hope you do.  I hope we all do.  But I doubt it.  Not all the time anyway.  Maybe sometimes we do, but I suspect a lot of times we don’t.  

And don’t get me wrong, that’s not a criticism of anyone.  It’s just that life throws an awful lot of things at us.  Life can be stressful, for all kinds of reasons.  We have health concerns.  We have relationship concerns.  We have concerns about our families.  We have concerns about our finances.  We have concerns about our jobs.  We wonder if our lives are really making any kind of a positive difference.  We wonder if our lives matter, whether anyone would even notice if we were gone.  

And that just scratches the surface.  There are all kinds of ways in which life is very stressful.  And when we undergo all that stress, it’s really hard to feel any kind of peace.  We hear those words of Jesus, and they sound really good, but--they also seem kind of impossible.  It sounds great in theory, but in practice, that kind of peace just seems like something that’s never going to happen to us.

It may have sounded impossible to the disciples, too.  Jesus said this to them just before he went out to the garden of Gethsemane.  Judas had already left, on his way to betray Jesus.  The disciples did not know that at the time, but they did know that they were in danger.  In a little while, Jesus would be arrested, beaten, and killed.

I assume, when that happened, that the disciples thought back on this, this last evening they had spent with Jesus.  And they thought of Jesus’ statement about peace.  And they must have thought:  Peace?  How in the world can we feel peace?  The Messiah, the Savior, has been killed.  And they may be coming for us next.  It feels like we’ll never have peace in our lives again.

But if they thought about it some more, they may have realized that Jesus gave them the key to how they could feel that peace.  He gave it to us, too.  It was in the first two sentences we read tonight.  “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.  My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

The key to feeling the peace of Christ is loving Jesus.  And the key to loving Jesus is to obey his teaching.  If we obey Jesus’ teaching, God will be with us, and we will have peace.

Simple, right?  Well, in a way, yes.  It is simple.  It’s just not easy.  

We’ve talked about this a few times, but Jesus’ teachings are not always things that are easy to obey.  Jesus told us to do things like love our enemies.  Jesus told us that if someone takes something from us, not only should we not ask for it back, we should give them more.  Jesus told us that we must deny ourselves and take up a cross to follow him.  Jesus said we should expect the world to hate us, just like it hated him.  

Those are all hard things for us to do.  They are for me, anyway.  There are lots of times I don’t feel like loving my enemies, even though I know I should.  If someone takes something from me, I sure want it back.  And I sure don’t want to give them some more.  There are some ways in which I can deny myself, but there are a lot of ways in which I don’t, and I really don’t have much desire to.  

And I most definitely don’t want to be hated.  I don’t know anyone who does.  I’ve never been this super outgoing person who’s always surrounded by his posse or something, but I do like it when people like me.  And I don’t like it when they hate me.  And I really don’t know anyone who does.

This is, as they used to say, where the rubber meets the road.  Because I suspect all of us here would say that we love Jesus.  One of our favorite old hymns is “Oh, How I Love Jesus”.  But do we?  Do we really love Jesus?  Because Jesus said if we love him, we’ll obey his teaching.  If we don’t want to obey Jesus’ teaching, can we really say that we love Jesus?

This is why it’s hard.  We want to feel the peace of Jesus Christ, the peace that he promises us.  But a lot of times, we really don’t want to do what it takes to get that peace.  We want to find a shortcut.  We want to find a way to get the benefits of feeling the peace of Christ without having to pay the price.  And Jesus says it does not work that way.  So what do we do?

Well, here’s the good news about this.  Jesus knew this was going to be hard for us.  Jesus knew, quite frankly, that a lot of us would find it impossible.  In fact, some of the disciples might have found it impossible.  So, Jesus told us we do not have to do it by ourselves.  

Listen to what else Jesus said:  “All this I have spoken while still with you.  But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

Jesus did not just leave us to do these things on our own.  When Jesus left, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, came.  And the Holy Spirit will teach us how to do this.  The Holy Spirit will teach us how to obey Jesus’ teaching.  The Holy Spirit will teach us how to love Jesus.

And so, we come back to what it seems like we come back to so many times:  God’s Holy Spirit.  We need to open our hearts and open our souls to God’s Holy Spirit.  We need to feel God’s Holy Spirit with us.  We need God’s Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us and teach us.  That’s the only way we can obey Jesus’ teaching.  And that’s the only way we can feel the peace of Jesus Christ.

If we have God’s Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us and teach us, we will be able to do all the things Jesus taught us to do.  We will be able to love our enemies.  Our possessions won’t be so important to us--we will know that God will take care of us and will give us what we need.  We will be able to deny ourselves, because our focus won’t be on ourselves, it will be on Christ.  We won’t care what the world thinks about us, because we will know we have the love of Jesus Christ, and that’s all we really need.  And that will give us peace.

Now, I don’t want to sound like this is some kind of magic formula.  Again, it’s simple, but it’s not easy.  God’s Holy Spirit will do all this for us, but we have to allow Him to do that for us.  God’s Holy Spirit will not force His way in.  We need to invite Him in.

And the best way I know to do that is to pray.  Now, I don’t want to sound like prayer is some kind of magic formula, either.  It’s not like all we have to do is say a quick prayer and boom!--God’s Holy Spirit comes in.  It’s not that easy.

At least, it’s never been that easy for me.  If it is for you, that’s awesome--I don’t mean to be limiting what God can do.  But for me, it’s always been a process.  I pray for God’s Holy Spirit, and over time, I start to feel God’s Holy Spirit.  I start to feel peace.  And then, I let the doubts and the worries and the fears come in, and I start pushing God’s Holy Spirit away.  So, I need to spend more time praying for God’s Holy Spirit.  And, over time, I start to feel God’s Holy Spirit again.  But for me, at least, it takes time.  And sometimes it’s a matter of two steps forward and one step back.  Or maybe one step forward and two steps back.

But it’s a process, and it takes time.  If it does not work that way for you, if you can feel God’s Holy Spirit instantly and never stop feeling Him, that’s great.  But if you’re more like me, where it’s a process that takes time, I want to tell you this--don’t give up.  Keep at it.  Stay in the process.  Even when it feels like you’re taking steps back--even when it feels like you’ve taken a lot of steps back--keep at it.  Keep praying for God’s Holy Spirit to come to you.  It’s worth the effort.

  If we keep praying for God’s Holy Spirit to come into our hearts and into our souls, eventually, we will feel that.  We will feel God’s Holy Spirit as part of our lives.  Then we’ll be able to do the things Jesus told us to do.  We’ll be able to obey Jesus’ teaching.  We will love Jesus.  And we will have peace.  It may take some determination, some persistence, on our part.  But having the peace of Jesus Christ in our lives is more than worth it.

 

The Best Way to Show Love

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, October 3, 2021.  The Bible verses used are 1 John 5:1-12.

            What would you say is the best way you and I can show love to people?

            Well, there might be a lot of things.  We can go visit someone who’s going through a hard time.  We can support the local food pantry, doing what we can to see that people have enough to eat.  We can give someone a ride to the doctor’s office when they’re not feeling well.  On a larger scale, we can give to charities that feed people or provide clothes for people.  In a United Methodist sense, we have UMCOR, the United Methodist Committee on Relief, which helps people in the wake of natural disasters around the world.  We also, of course, can give to our local church, and I hope you feel confident that it will use the money wisely.  

            And of course, this only scratches the surface.  There are all kinds of things we can do to show love to people.  If we really thought about it, we could use the entire time left in worship coming up with ways to show love to people, and we still would not come close to listing them all.

            But, while those are all good things, none of those things is the best way to show love to someone.  The best way to show love to someone is to do whatever we can to help them accept Jesus Christ as the Savior.

            The Apostle John, in our reading for today, wrote this:  “This is how we know we love the children of God:  by loving God and carrying out his commands.”  Let’s think about that for a minute.  The way we know we love the children of God, is by loving God, and carrying out his commands.  So, if we don’t love God and carry out his commands, we don’t really love the children of God.

            And maybe you’re thinking, now wait a minute.  I know people who don’t love God.  I know people who don’t even believe in God.  And yet, those people are good to their families, their good to their friends, they support the community, they even help people in need sometimes.  They may not believe in God, but they do all kinds of good things, things that help people.  How can you say they don’t love the children of God?

            Well, first of all, it’s not me saying it.  It’s the Apostle John saying it.  But again, let’s think about this.  I also know people like those I’ve just described.  I know people who don’t believe in God, and yet do all kinds of good things in the community and help people in all kinds of ways.  And that’s fine.  I’m glad they do those things.

            But those things, while they are good things, only help us in our lives on earth.  They help make our time on earth a little better, a little easier.  But that’s all they do.  

            That’s not nothing, of course.  But you know, our lives on earth are short.  Maybe a hundred years or so, at the most.  For some of you younger people, maybe that sounds like a long time, but it really is not.  In fact, which each passing year, I realize more and more just how short one hundred years really is.  

            And compared to eternity, one hundred years is basically nothing.  The Bible tells us that a thousand years are like a day to God.  What’s a hundred years?  A long lunch?  A hundred years is the blink of an eye compared to eternity.

            If we don’t love God, our entire focus will be on the world.  And again, I’m not saying what happens in this world is unimportant.  When we have the chance to help someone in this world, we should.  That shows love for God, too.  What I am saying--and what I think John is saying--is that our main focus should not be on this world.  Our main focus should be on eternity.

            That’s why John goes on to say this:  “everyone who is born of God overcomes the world.  This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.  Who is it that overcomes the world?  Only the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God.”

            Again, we should help each other in this world whenever we can.  But as Christians, our main focus is not on what happens in this world.  Our focus is to overcome the world.  And our focus is to do whatever we can to help others overcome the world, too.

            Think about the life of Jesus Christ, while he was on the earth.  Jesus healed a lot of people, and that was awesome.  But think about those stories of Jesus’ healing.  Jesus would heal people for a while, but then he would stop.  

There were more people he could’ve healed.  We’re told at various times that people from all over would bring people to Jesus to be healed.  Jesus could’ve spent his entire time here on earth doing nothing but healing people, and he would never have run out of them.  There would still have been more people who needed healing.

And the same goes for feeding people.  We read about times when Jesus fed large numbers of people with just a little bit of bread and a few fish.  And that was awesome, too.  But again, there were lots of hungry people Jesus did not feed.  He could’ve spent his entire time on earth doing nothing but feeding people, too, and he’d never have run out of hungry people.

But Jesus did not do that.  He did not spend his entire time on earth healing people and feeding people.  Why not?  Those would’ve been really good things for him to do.  Think of all the people he’d have helped.  Think of how many people’s lives he would’ve made better.  Why not do it?

The reason, I think, is because if Jesus had done that, the message of salvation and eternal life would’ve been lost.  People would’ve believed in Jesus--but they’d have believed in him as a miracle worker.  They would not have believed in him as the divine Son of God.

Plus, if Jesus had done that, he might not have been killed by the Pharisees.  Maybe he would have--you never know.  But a guy who was just a miracle worker, a guy who could just heal people and feed people, would not necessarily have been a threat to them.  Maybe they’d have just let Jesus go.

And that might sound great.  But--the point of Jesus being killed was to take the punishment we deserve for our sins.  It’s the reason the divine Son of God was sent to earth in the first place.  If Jesus had not been killed, he would not have fulfilled his mission.  Salvation and eternal life would not be available through faith in him.  And you and I would still be subject to taking the punishment for our sins that we deserve.

Jesus cared about the lives of people on earth.  He did things to make people’s lives on earth better.  But that was not his main focus.  His main focus was on salvation and eternal life in heaven.  As Christians, that should be our main focus, too.

John closes this passage with this:  “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.  Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

Again, it’s not that our lives on earth are unimportant.  It’s that our lives on earth are so short compared to eternity.  When we do something nice for someone, we’ve made their day better, and that’s good.  Again, we should do that when we can.  But our focus should be on helping people receive salvation and eternal life.  And that can only be found through faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.

I want to make clear that those two things are not exclusive of each other.  We’re not talking about an either/or.  We’re talking about a both/and.  James said, “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?”  And that’s true.  I am not suggesting that the things we do to help others in this life are not important.  They’re very important.

The point is that we should not stop there.  Because we could say the opposite, too.  If we take care of someone’s physical needs, but do nothing to help them receive salvation and eternal life, what good is that?  It’s important to help people on earth, but it’s even more important to do what we can to help them receive salvation and eternal life.  

The only way we can love the children of God is to love God.  The only way we can love God is to keep His commands.  And the very last command of Jesus Christ while he was on earth was, “Go and make disciples.”  Not heal people.  Not feed people.  Not make people’s lives better on earth.  “Go and make disciples.”  

The best way we can show love to people is to do whatever we can to make disciples of Jesus Christ.  By doing so, we will do what we can to bring them to salvation and eternal life.  There will never be anything we do that will be more important than that.

 

Avoiding the Blahs

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on Sunday, September 26, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 19:19-26.

Do you ever feel like your life is just kind of--blah?  

I mean, you’re doing your best to live a good life.  You feel like you’re doing what you’re supposed to do.  You’re trying to be a good person.  You try to treat people right, to help them when you can.  You try to be there for your family and friends.  And yet, somehow--it just does not seem like it’s enough.  It’s not that anything’s going wrong, really.  You look at your life, and you feel like everything’s going okay.  It’s just that--it seems like there’s something missing.  You don’t know what it is, but--you feel it.  

And you don’t know what to do about it.  So, you pray.  And--nothing really seems to be happening.  You don’t really feel like God is hearing your prayers.  Again, it’s not that anything’s really going wrong.  But you know, deep down, that everything is not as it should be.  There’s something missing, and you don’t know what it is or how to find it.

I think that’s what was going on with the man in our reading from Matthew tonight.  A man comes up to Jesus and asks what he needs to do in order to inherit eternal life.  

Now, to the people around Jesus, that would’ve seemed like an odd question.  The Jewish teachers told everyone what they had to do to get eternal life.  Everyone, at least everyone who claimed to be a faithful Jew, knew what the requirements were.  You were supposed to follow the rules.  Follow all the Jewish law to the letter and you’d get to heaven.  Jesus knew that.  The people around Jesus knew that.  

And surely this man had to know it, too.  So Jesus knows there has to be something more behind his question, but he’s not going to say what it is.  Instead, he’s going to let the man tell him.  So, he gives the answer that any good and faithful Jew would give:  follow the commandments.

And the man gives another odd question.  He asks “Which ones?”         

That’s an odd question because the Jewish teachers would’ve said, “All of them, of course.”  And again, everyone who claimed to be a faithful Jew would’ve known that.  You were not allowed to pick and choose which parts of the law you were going to follow.  You were supposed to follow all of the law.           

And Jesus still knows there’s something more behind these questions, something this guy is hesitant to ask.  But Jesus is not going to say it for him.  Instead, Jesus simply responds with a list of some of the commandments.  Now, Jesus was not saying these were the only ones people were supposed to follow, or that the ones he did not list were not important.  He was using these as examples.  He was saying, in effect, “You know which ones.  Everyone knows them.”  Jesus was still trying to get the man to tell him what he really wants to know.           

Finally, the man tells him.  He says, in effect, I’ve kept all the commandments.  I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do.  But it just does not feel like it’s enough.  I feel like there’s something more, and I don’t have any idea what it is.  So please, Jesus tell me.  What more is there?  What am I missing here?           

Now we get to the heart of it.  The man has done what he’s been told to do all his life.  And yet, somehow, knows that it’s not enough.  He knows there has to be more to it than just keeping the rules.  He knows he’s missing something.  But what?

The man felt like you and I sometimes feel.  Like his life was just--blah.  He’d been following all the rules, doing all the things he was supposed to do, but it just did not feel like it was getting him anyplace.  He did not feel like he was any closer to God by doing that.  It’s not that he felt bad, really.  He just, well, did not really feel anything.

A lot of us have been there, at one time or another.  Not really feeling bad, but not really feeling good, either.  Sometimes, not really feeling anything.  It’s like we’re just kind of going through life on cruise control.  We’re living good lives, but we’re also living quiet lives.  We’re living safe lives.  We’re not sure that anything about our lives is really making an impact on anything or anyone.  We wonder if our good, safe, quiet life has any purpose, any meaning.  Sometimes we feel like we’re just kind of there, like we’re just going through the motions of life.

That’s what this man was telling Jesus he felt like.  He wanted Jesus to tell him something he could do to give his life some meaning, to give it some purpose, to help him feel closer to God.  

We have no idea what he expected Jesus to say.  Maybe he thought Jesus would tell him to go on some sort of a long fast.  Maybe he thought Jesus would tell him to make a major pilgrimage or something.  Maybe he did not have any particular expectation.  One thing I think we can be confident of is that he did not expect Jesus to say what he said.  Jesus told the man to go and sell all of his possessions, give the money to the poor, and then come back and follow him.           

That’s a really big thing Jesus was asking this man to do.  Could you do it?  I don’t know that I could.  I know I certainly have not.  Neither has anyone else I know.  Don’t get me wrong, there are people in our parish who give very generously.  But I don’t know anyone who has sold absolutely all of their possessions to follow Jesus.

And I don’t know that Jesus requires us to.  This is the only time the gospels record Jesus ever saying anything like this.  There were lots of other people Jesus met, including his own disciples, who did not sell off all their possessions, and Jesus does not seem to have told them they should.  This seems to have been something specifically required of this one man, rather than something that we’re all supposed to do.

But why would that be?  Why would Jesus require this one man to sell all his possessions, if he did not require that of anyone else?  Yes, we’re told the man had great wealth, and we assume Jesus knew that.  But Jesus had times when he talked to other people of great wealth, and he did not tell them to sell all their possessions.  So why did Jesus tell this man to do that?

I think what Jesus was telling this man, and what Jesus tells each of us, is that it’s not good enough to just follow the rules.  I mean, it’s not bad to follow the rules.  But it’s not enough.  It can lead us to just live a good, safe, quiet life, and the goal of a Christian is not and should not be to live a good, safe, quiet life.  Deep down, this man knew that.  And deep down, we know it, too.  That’s why our lives feel blah sometimes.  It’s not that we’re doing anything wrong, necessarily.  It’s that we’ve put our lives on cruise control, and that’s never a good thing for a Christian to do.  

The goal of a Christian should be to live a life that’s dedicated to Christ, and that kind of life can never be on cruise control.  A life that’s dedicated to Christ cannot help but have an impact on others..  A life that’s dedicated to Christ will have an impact on others even when we don’t specifically intend it to.  A life that’s dedicated to Christ will have an impact on others even when we don’t realize it.  There’s no way we can avoid having that impact when our lives are dedicated to Christ.           

That’s why Jesus said what he did to this man.  Jesus could’ve told him to tithe, but if he was following the rules as he says, then he was already tithing.  Jesus could’ve told him to just increase his giving, and he probably would’ve done so gladly.  The thing is that something like that would not have gotten this man’s life out of cruise control.  They’re good things to do, don’t get me wrong.  But they are not things that would’ve gotten this man out of his good, safe, quiet life.  There’s nothing about increasing his giving that would’ve changed this man’s life.  This man needed more than just another set of rules to follow.  He needed to feel God’s Holy Spirit in his heart and in his life.  He needed to put his full faith and trust in Jesus.

We need to feel God’s Holy Spirit in our hearts and in our lives.  We need to put our full faith and trust in Jesus.  That may not mean that we need to sell all our possessions.  But it does mean we need to change something.  If we really want to follow Christ, if we really want to make an impact on others for Christ, it’s not enough to just take small, safe, quiet steps.  We cannot just do a little more of the things we’re doing now.  If we really want to follow Christ, we need to take the cruise control off.  We need to somehow, in some way, do something that will open us up to feeling God’s Holy Spirit with us.           

What that means is different for each of us.  It does not necessarily mean that each of us has to sell all our possessions.  What it does mean is that something has to change.

And that’s scary.  It’s scary to change our lives, especially when, as I said, it feels like there’s nothing particularly wrong with our lives right now.  It was scary for the rich man to change.  He could not do it.  We’re told that he walked away sad.

And that’s the thing.  It is scary to change--but deep down, we know we need to.  We know that if we don’t, that feeling that something’s missing won’t go away.  We won’t have God’s Holy Spirit in our lives the way we should.  And we’ll be sad, too, knowing that something’s missing in our lives but not doing anything about it.  

            Let’s not be content with our good, safe, quiet lives.  Let’s not live on cruise control anymore.  Let’s ask Jesus what we need to do to inherit eternal life.  And then, let’s do it.  It could be scary.  But when we go the way Jesus leads us, we’re always going in the right direction.  And that blah feeling will go away, because we’ll have God’s Holy Spirit in our lives.

 

From Death to Life

 The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, September 26, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Ephesians 2:1-10.

            Are you a good person?

            You probably are.  I don’t think there’s anyone here whom I would say was not a good person.  None of us is perfect, of course--I most certainly am not.  And we know we’re not perfect.  But still, as I look out at all of you, I don’t see one person here whom I would say was not a good person.

            But here’s the thing.  When we say that someone is a good person--or if I say that I’m a good person--what’s our standard?  How are we measuring goodness?  We’re measuring it by other people, right?  We’re comparing ourselves to other people.  We’re saying, well, I may not be perfect, but compared to a lot of people I know, I’m pretty darn good.  I’m doing the best I can, anyway.  I think I’m doing all right.

            I suspect that the people of Ephesus, whom the Apostle Paul was writing to in our reading from the book of Ephesians, would probably have said the same thing.  They’d have said, you know, we may not be perfect, but compared to a lot of people, we’re pretty darn good.  We’re certainly doing the best we can, anyway.  We’re doing all right.

            And then, here comes the Apostle Paul.  And Paul tells them they’re not doing all right at all.  They’re not pretty darn good.  He tells them, “you were dead in your transgressions and sins”.  That word “transgressions”, by the way, means breaking the law, in this case, God’s law.  So Paul is telling them, you are not good at all.  You’re breaking God’s laws.  You’re not doing what Jesus told you to do.  In fact, you’ve been doing that so much that, for all practical purposes, you were dead.

            How do you think the people of Ephesus reacted to that?  Or, look at it this way:  how would you react?  How would you have reacted if I had started this message by telling you, “You are not good people.  You are breaking God’s laws.  You are not living the way Jesus told you to live.  You are sinning so much that you are dead in your transgressions and sins.”

            How would you react to that?  Probably not very well.  And I suspect that the people of Ephesus did not react very well to it, either, when they heard those words of Paul.  No one would want to hear that.  I would not want to hear it, either.  So why would Paul say it?

            It gets back to what we’ve talked about in some of our recent messages--our need to recognize our sins.  If we allow ourselves to think, “Hey, I’m doing pretty good,” we’re also likely to think, “You know, I really don’t need to change much of anything.  I’m doing all right just the way I am.  Yes, I’m a sinner--I get that bit--but you know, the Bible says we’re all sinners.  So really, God cannot expect me to do any better than I am.”  And we just keep living the way we’ve been living.  

That’s not to say that the way we’ve been living is terrible, necessarily.  But if we just accept ourselves the way we are--if we say, “I’m doing fine just the way I am”--we’re not going to try to change.  And we won’t be the people God wants us to be.

So Paul says this to get their attention.  But then, Paul says this, “you followed the ways of the world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.  All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.”  Paul is saying, look, I’m not singling you out.  All of us are like this.  Every one of us has done this.  We followed the ways of the world.  We followed Satan--the ruler of the kingdom of the air.  We all lived selfish lives--gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.

Paul is not saying this to hammer the people of Ephesus and beat them down.  And Paul does not say it to hammer us or beat us down, either.  But he is saying that it’s important that we recognize this.  It’s important that we recognize the sinful lives we live.  Not excuse them, not pretend we’re doing okay, not sweep our sins under the rug.  Recognize them.  Admit them.  Acknowledge them.

And understand that God recognizes them, too.  God does not think we’re doing pretty good.  God does not think we’re doing fine just the way we are.  Because God is good.  God is perfectly good.  And compared to God we are not good at all.  In fact, compared to God, there is very little about us that’s good.  And, as Paul says, we are by nature deserving of God’s wrath.

But here’s the thing.  God’s view of us--God seeing that we’re not doing pretty good, that we’re not fine just the way we are--is not bad news for us.  It’s good news for us.  In fact, it’s the best news for us there could ever be.  

Why do I say that?  Well, Paul tells us why.  “Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”

You see, it’s because God sees who we are--it is because God knows we are not pretty good, we are not fine just the way we are--that God sent Jesus Christ to earth.  Yes we are deserving of God’s wrath.  But because God loves us so much, because of God’s incredible mercy and grace--God did not want to give us the punishment we deserve.  And so, God sent Jesus Christ to earth.  God sent Jesus to tell us how to live.  God sent Jesus to show us how to live.  And God sent Jesus to die for us.  God sent Jesus to die, to take the punishment that we should get for our sins.  It was only through that death that Jesus could conquer death itself, rising from the dead.  

And because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, you and I have the chance to avoid God’s wrath.  We have the chance to avoid the punishment we deserve.  God--again, out of God’s incredible love and mercy and grace--gave us a way out.  All we have to do is accept Jesus Christ as the Savior.  When we do, God puts us on an equal footing with Jesus himself--as Paul says, God “raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms.”

That is an incredible gift God has given us.  And Paul emphasizes that, too--this is a gift from God.  We have not earned it.  We don’t deserve it.  God does not owe it to us.  He says, “It is by grace that you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast.”

It’s an incredible gift--but it’s one that you and I have to accept.  God does not force this gift onto us.  You and I have to accept it.

It seems so incredible to us that anyone would not accept it.  Why would anyone not want this gift?  Why would anyone not want to avoid the punishment we deserve?  Why would anyone not want to receive salvation and eternal life with the Lord in heaven?

But there are people who don’t.  There are people right here in our town who have not accepted Jesus Christ as the Savior.  There may even be people in our families who have not accepted Jesus Christ as the Savior.  They may or may not say they have, but our words are not God is interested in.  God is interested in our hearts.  And no matter what anyone may say, God always knows whether anyone has truly accepted Jesus as the Savior.  God always knows whether we have acknowledged our sins, repented of them, and desire to change.  God always knows whether we have accepted His gift, or if we still think we’re pretty good the way we are and don’t need to change.

And make no mistake--the Bible makes it clear that acceptance of Jesus Christ as the Savior is the only way to heaven.  Jesus himself said so.  Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.”  

Sometimes we might wish that was not the case.   It’s become popular now not to believe that, to say that there are lots of ways to heaven, that Jesus is only one of many ways to eternal life.  But that’s not what Jesus said.  And our opinion about it really does not matter.  God did not take a poll of human beings to determine the way to salvation.  God said there is one way and one way only, and that’s through faith in Jesus Christ.

And if that seems unfair to you, remember what Paul said here.  We were by nature deserving of God’s wrath.  God did not have to provide any way to salvation.  God could have required every one of us to accept the punishment we deserve for our sins.  It is only out of God’s incredible love and grace and mercy that God did provide a way to salvation.  And he was willing to allow His divine Son to be killed in order to give us that way to salvation.  That’s a pretty awesome love God has for us, that God was willing to do that.

Let’s accept that love.  Let’s accept Jesus as the Savior, so that we may have salvation and eternal life.  And let’s do what we can to convince others to accept Him, too, so that they may also have salvation and eternal life. 

 

Repeating Lessons

This is the message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on Sunday, September 19, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Mark 8:1-10/

            This is not the story we usually think of when we think of Jesus feeding people.  The one we usually think of is the story of Jesus feeding five thousand people.  We’re familiar with that story--the disciples go through the crowd, looking for food, and all they can find is one boy with five small loaves of bread and two fish.  Jesus blesses the food, tells the disciples to feed the people with it, they do, and there are twelve baskets full of leftovers.

            But that’s not the story we read tonight.  The gospel of Mark has that story--it’s in Mark Chapter Six.  But this is not that story.  This is the story of Jesus feeding four thousand people.

            So, what’s the difference?  Well, one thousand people, obviously.  But what else?  And the real question is, why does Mark include both stories?

            It’s an interesting thing to think about.  The gospel of Mark is the shortest of the gospels.  We usually think it’s the shortest because Mark really gets down to the basics.  Mark does not even include the birth story of Jesus.  Mark starts with a few perfunctory verses about John the Baptist, and the next thing you know Jesus gets baptized and starts gathering disciples.  Mark does not include anything that is not essential to the message of Jesus as the Savior.  

And yet, Mark includes these two stories that are almost identical.  There has to be a reason.  After all, we’re told that all scripture is useful to us.  In fact, we’re told that all scripture comes from God--is “God breathed”.  There is something we’re supposed to learn from this.  What is it?

            After all, it’s not enough to just say, well, Mark included two stories because Jesus fed people twice.  I mean, I don’t doubt that Jesus did feed people twice.  He may have fed people more times than that--for all we know, there may have been similar instances of Jesus feeding people that were not included in the gospels.  But that’s the point.  The gospels themselves tell us that Jesus did many things that are not included in them.  So again, why did Mark include these two nearly identical stories?  What are we supposed to learn from them?  And specifically, what are we supposed to learn from the second story that we could not learn from the first?

            Well, let’s look at them.  Both involve large crowds of people.  In both cases, we’re told that the people did not have anything to eat.  In both cases, we’re told that Jesus had compassion for the people.  In both cases, we’re told that they were in a remote place, so that it would not be easy to go and get food.  In both cases, they had just a few loaves of bread and a few fish.  In both cases, Jesus tells the people to sit down.  In both cases, Jesus gives thanks and tells the disciples to start distributing the food.  In both cases, everyone got enough to eat--we’re told that “they ate and were satisfied”.  In both cases, there was lots of food left over.  There’s a slight difference in how much--in Mark Six it’s twelve basketfuls of food, in Mark Eight it’s seven basketfuls.  Maybe they had different size baskets, I don’t know.  But that, and the number of people fed, are about the only differences we can see.

            It seems like our examination of these two stories does not get us any closer to understanding why these two stories are both in the gospel of Mark.  There seem to be almost no differences, and the differences there are don’t seem to be particularly important.

            So, could the reason these two stories are both in the gospel of Mark is not because they’re different, but because they are the same?  Is there something we can learn from the fact that Mark included two nearly identical stories.

            Well, let’s think about it.  One thing it shows is the desire people had to hear Jesus, to learn from Jesus, to receive healing from Jesus, and to just be near Jesus.  It’s not a desire that was limited to one group of people in one specific place.  It was a desire that many groups of people in many places had.  And it was a desire that was so strong that people would just take off, leave, drop what they were doing, on the spur of the moment, to go and be with Jesus.  They would do this with no preparations and no provisions.  They did not bring food--they probably did not bring a change of clothes or money or anything else, either.  And they followed him a long way--again, we’re told that they went to “a remote place”.  And when they started to get hungry, when it started to get dark, they did not think, hey, you know, maybe we’d better get home and get something to eat.  They stayed.  They stayed with Jesus.  That’s how strong their desire to be with Jesus was.

            How strong is our desire to be with Jesus?  Obviously, we have some, because we’re here.  Or, we’re watching the livestream.  That’s a good sign.  Not that going to church is the ultimate measure of our desire to be with Jesus, but it is one measure.  How we pray and how often we pray is another measure.  How often we think about the Lord as we go through our day is another measure.  How much our lives show our Christian faith is another measure.  And there are others, too--I don’t pretend this is a complete list.  But think about it.  How strong is you desire to be with Jesus?  And how strong is my desire to be with Jesus?

            Another thing it shows is how much Jesus loves us.  In both of these stories, we’re told that Jesus “had compassion” for the people.  And that’s important, too.  Jesus’ love for us is not something that he feels once in a while.  It’s not a sometimes thing.  Jesus’ love for us is constant.  It’s twenty-four/seven.  It’s every hour, every minute, of every day.  No matter where we are.  No matter what we do.  Jesus will always be there for us.  No matter how many times we need him.  There will never be a time when Jesus says “I’m tired of having to do things for these people all the time.  I’ve had enough.  They should take care of themselves and leave me alone.”  Jesus will never say that.  Jesus will never say anything like that.  Jesus will always be there for us, and Jesus will always love us.  Always.  No matter what.

            Another thing it shows is how the people trusted Jesus completely.  When they got hungry, when it got dark, they did not leave.  They trusted that Jesus would take care of them.  Remember, the verses we read tonight said that the people had been with Jesus for three days.  We assume that’s three days with nothing to eat.  You know, Jesus called himself the bread of life, and said that whoever came to him would never be hungry.  That’s John Six, Verse Thirty-five.  

We usually assume that was a metaphor, that Jesus did not mean it literally, but maybe there’s a sense in which it was true.  Have you ever gotten so wrapped up in something, have you ever gotten so involved in something, that mealtime came and went and you did not even notice?  Take that feeling, multiply it several times, and that’s what the people felt when they were with Jesus.  They were so intent on listening to what he said, so eager to be with him, that they did not even notice that they were hungry.  But eventually, of course, the need for food makes itself known to us, no matter what.  But again, they did not leave.  The people trusted that Jesus, this man who was the bread of life, would somehow be able to feed them.  And, of course, he did.

There’s at least one more reason Mark might have included both of these stories, as similar as they are.  I’ve heard people try to explain away Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand, as if it was not really a miracle.  They say, well, you know, there probably were lots of people there who had some food.  They just were hiding it.  And then, when they saw that one kid come forward and offer what he had, they were ashamed, and so they brought out their food.  

That’s not an explanation that’s ever made much sense to me, but a person can always find a way to explain away Jesus’ miracles if that’s their goal.  But by including both stories, Mark is saying, in effect, look, this happened more than once.  Are you trying to tell me people were hiding food both times?  How does that make any sense?

This story--both these stories--has lessons for us.  We need to have a desire for Jesus.  We need to have a desire to be close to Jesus.  We need a desire to be with Jesus, and to have Jesus with us.  We need to be so intent on following Jesus, so focused on Jesus, that all the petty little things in life, the things in life that we think of as being oh, so important, go away.  We don’t even notice them.  All we notice is Jesus and following him.

And when those things do force themselves on our attention, trust Jesus to take care of them, and take care of us.  Because he will.  Jesus cares about us.  Jesus has compassion on us.  Jesus loves us.  Always.  And forever.

It’s not an accident that Mark included both of these stories.  It’s not an accident that God inspired Mark to include both of those stories.  They are there to help us.  They are there to guide us.  They are there to teach us.  May we learn their lessons, and have a complete and total desire for Jesus.

 

Resisting Temptation

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, September 19, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Luke 4:1-13.

            We talked last week about our need to confess our sins.  But there’s a larger question that we did not talk about.  Why do we sin in the first place?

            We acknowledge, of course, that we are fallen, sinful people.  We know that none of us is without sin.  But think of a specific sin.  For most of us, we’ve got a lot to choose from, but just think of one.  And ask yourself:  “Why did I do that?”

            I cannot give the specific answer for anyone but myself.  But I suspect there is at least one factor that is common for all of us.  In the short term, we thought that our sin would benefit us in some way.  I don’t necessarily mean that we were being selfish, although we certainly might have been.  But we thought that things would be better for us if we committed that sin.  We may have convinced ourselves that things would be better for someone else, too--maybe for lots of people.  But we also thought things would be better for ourselves.  The chances are, when we choose to commit a sin, there is some way we think we will be better off if we commit it.

            And sometimes we are--in the short term.  After all, that’s what makes sin so tempting--we think it will make us happy, and in the short-term it may.  But if it is sin, there will be long-term consequences, and those consequences will not be so happy.  But the way Satan attacks us with sin is by trying to keep us from thinking about those long-term consequences.  Satan tried to keep us focused on our short-term happiness, not what might happen in the long run.

            That’s one of the things we see in our reading for today from the gospel of Luke.  Jesus is out in the desert.  And Satan comes along and tempts him to sin.  

            One thing we need to realize, as we hear this, is how real those temptations were for Jesus.  When we read this, we tend to think, well, he’s Jesus.  He’s the divine Son of God.  Of course Jesus can resist temptation.  And of course he did, but it was not that easy.  Jesus was and is the divine Son of God, but he was also fully human while he was on earth.  And the temptations of Satan were not easy for him to resist, any more than they would be for you or me.

            The first temptation was for Jesus to turn a stone into bread.  Now, think about this.  Jesus was hungry.  He’d been fasting for forty days.  “Hungry” is probably not really a good-enough word to say what Jesus felt.  He was starving.  And the devil comes along and says, hey, you can do something about this.  Just turn that stone into bread.

Think of how tempting that had to be.  It’d just be a little bread.  No big deal.  Just a little something to eat.  Who would it hurt?  Besides, who’d know anyway?  Jesus was out in the wilderness.  There was no one else around.  Yeah, it might be a little selfish, but so what?  You deserve it.  It’s not like Jesus would be taking food away from anyone.  It’d make things better for Jesus, it would hurt no one, and nobody would even find out.  Why not do it?

Jesus did not do it.  At least a part of him had to want to.  But he did not.  He knew he was not supposed to use his powers to benefit himself.  And he knew that somebody would know.  Two somebodies, really.  One of them was God the Father, and I’m sure Jesus did not want to let his father down.  But the other one was the devil.  The devil would know.  And there would be long-term consequences.  Because, you see, that’s another thing about temptation.  If we give in to it once, it becomes that much easier to give in to it again.  And that’s where the long-term consequences would come in.

Jesus knew he had pretty much unlimited power, at least in human terms.  Yes, he could use his power in this case to benefit himself.  And maybe it would not hurt anyone.  But once he did that, it would be that much easier to use his power to benefit himself again.  And then again.  And then again and again.  Think of the times he was on the road, with little to eat and nowhere to sleep.  He could’ve just turned a stone into a comfortable bed for himself.  Think of the times he got frustrated with the disciples.  He could’ve used his power to make them smarter, give them more understanding.  Think of the times Jesus was arguing with the Pharisees.  He could’ve just given them a good zap to change their minds.  Think of when Jesus was on the cross.  He could’ve come down from there with no problem whatsoever.  It would’ve been easy.  And if he’d given into temptation this one time, he might have given in those other times, too.  And he would not have fulfilled his purpose as the divine Son of God.

The second temptation was to take power.  The devil says, here Jesus.  You can have authority over everyone and everything on earth.  All you have to do is worship me.

Think about how tempting that one had to be.  Satan says, think about this, Jesus.  Think about all the good you could do with that kind of power.  You could heal everyone.  You could end war.  You could make end poverty.  Just imagine it.  Imagine no possessions.  I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger.  A brotherhood of man.  Imagine all the people sharing all the world.  And all you have to do, Jesus, is worship me.  You don’t have to do it in public.  Nobody needs to know.  We could have heaven right here on earth.  It’d just be making the world like it was supposed to be in the first place.  Why not do it?

Short-term gain.  Not just for Jesus, but for lots of people.  But Jesus did not do it.  Again, at least a part of him had to want to.  But he did not.  He knew that, no matter how good his intentions might be, taking power in this way would not work out. It might have been good in the short-term.  But again, there would be long-term consequences.

What Jesus knew is that, in the long-term, if he obeyed God the Father, he was going to have authority over everyone and everything on earth anyway.  He did not need to worship Satan to get it.  Yes, in the short-term, some people might have been better off.  But in the long-term, humans would have lost salvation and eternal life.  And that was too big a price to pay.

The third temptation was for Jesus to demonstrate his greatness.  The devil takes him up to the highest point of the temple.  He says, jump.  Jump off here.  You won’t get hurt.  Go ahead.  Do it.

And that had to be tempting, too.  Think what would’ve happened.  There’s Jesus, on the top of the highest point of the temple in Jerusalem.  He jumps.  He lands, unharmed.  Instant fame, right?  He’d have been a celebrity.  Everyone would’ve listened to him.  And everyone would’ve believed him.  Everyone would’ve known Jesus was the Son of God.  An incredible short-term gain.  No having to travel around.  No having to gather a bunch of disciples.  He could take a short-cut.  All the disciples he needed would be right there.  And they’d worship him.  Simple.

Short-term gain.  But Jesus knew the power he had, and he knew how he was supposed to use it.  Yes, he was going to work miracles, but they would be miracles of healing.  They would be miracles of feeding people.  They would be miracles to benefit other people, not miracles to benefit himself.  Showing off in that way might have made things easier for Jesus in the short-term, but it would’ve made Jesus’ ministry all about himself.  It would’ve made his ministry a cult of celebrity.  That might’ve worked, for a while, but Jesus’ message—God’s message—the message of loving God and loving others--would’ve been lost.  There would’ve been a short-term gain, but there would’ve been terrible long-term consequences.  

And there’s one more thing about this.  Jesus resisted these temptations, but that was not the end of the story.  It was just the end of one episode.  And at the end, we’re told that the devil “left him until a more opportune time.”

That will happen with us, too.  Resisting temptation will not make temptation go away.  It may go away for a while, but it will come back.  Satan will come back at us, usually at a point when we’re weak.  It’s something we constantly need to be on guard against.  And the way to do that is to stay close to God, just like Jesus stayed close to God.

What’s tempting you right now?  Whatever it is, I suspect it’s something that looks like it would really help you, in the short-term.  It would make things easier.  It might even save you some trouble--in the short term.

But what are the long-term consequences?  Because there will be some.  Satan is trying to keep you from thinking about them.  Satan is trying to keep you from recognizing them.  But they’re there.  Pretending they’re not won’t make them go away.  Any time we sin for short-term gain, even if we convince ourselves we have good reasons for doing it, there are long-term consequences for that, and they’re never good.

Jesus was subject to temptation all his life on earth.  And so are we.  We always need to be aware of the temptations around us.  They look good at first.  They seem to be for the best in the short-term.  That’s why they’re so tempting.  But in the long term, they’ll come back to hurt us.  And they won’t be following the will of God.

Jesus resisted temptation, and so can we.  If we stay close to God and do our best, we can follow God’s will.  And God’s will is always the best, in the short-term and in the long-term.