Freedom from Doubt!

3/9/25

1st Sunday of Lent

Message; “Freedom from Doubt!”

Scripture: Matthew 4:1-11

Matthew 4:1-11

The Temptation of Jesus

(1) Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. (2) After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 

(3) The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

(4) Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ “

(5) Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 

(6) “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: ” ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ “

(7) Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” 

(8) Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 

(9) “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship

me.”

(10) Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’ “

(11) Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

This is the word of God, for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

 A teen-age boy told his parents he was going to run away from home. “Listen,” he said, “I’m leaving home. There is nothing you can do to stop me. I want excitement, adventure, beautiful women, money, and fun. I’ll never find it here, so I’m leaving. Just don’t try to stop me!” As he headed for the door, his father leaped up and ran toward him. “Dad,” the boy said firmly, “you heard what I said. Don’t try to stop me. I’m going!” “Who’s trying to stop you answered the father, “I’m going with you!”

 Humans are always declaring their freedom, wishing for more “space,” announcing that they belong only to “themselves.” We want to be free from the commitment of a job we don’t like, or the enslavement of the kitchen. Or even commitment to our family responsibilities.

 Airplane companies claim to set us free, and medical companies say the same. There are deodorant companies which promise to set us free from the worry of underarm wetness and odor; a certain toothpaste declares we can be set free from dull teeth. Then we are promised freedom from pain by Tylenol, Excedrin, Bayer, and others. Other products play on our desperation for freedom by telling us we can be free from “ring-around-the-collar,” and Lysol sets us free from germs. We want freedom to sleep at night with a clear conscience, freedom from fear of death, and above all, freedom from the terrors of the judgment day.

 Matthew, Mark, and Luke all begin their stories of the adult life of Jesus at the Jordan River, where he is baptized by his cousin John. In baptism, Jesus identifies with us, and with all people everywhere. And, there, at the baptism, God said, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” At the beginning of the story, the gospel writers want to make it clear who this is they are telling about: this is Jesus, the Son of God!

 Jesus knew, as He must have known for some time, that God was calling Him to a special mission. Now was the time to begin it. So, He went into the desert to sort it all out, to better understand the nature of God’s call. He stayed in that desert, fasting and praying for 40 days (that’s where we get the 40 days of Lent.) And, his time in the desert was much like the 40 years Israel spent in the wilderness on their way to the promised land. During that time, both Israel and Jesus were tempted, or, put to the test. And, they emerged from the test even stronger in faith, not in spite of the testing, but in large measure because of it.

Jesus went into the desert because he wanted to leave the world of many voices, telling Him what to do. Like many teenagers. The difference being that He wanted His father to come along. He wanted to hear the One voice, the voice of God.

 What he discovered was that even in that remote desert there was more than one presence, and there was more than one voice. There always is. It was up to Jesus and it is up to us to sort out the many voices we hear. To focus on the One voice that is the source of truth, the source of strength, the source of life. 

The ultimate question is: in the presence of many voices calling to us, enticing us, and tempting us, to what voice will we listen? What will bring us “Freedom”? “Freedom From Doubt ”?

 Jesus was there without any human companions, so he must have told this story to the disciples later. He must have considered it to be a turning point in his life. If God was calling him to be the Messiah, the question was, what kind of Messiah was he to be? The people wanted a Messiah like David, the greatest of the Hebrew kings. They wanted a Messiah who would recruit an army, defeat the Romans, and bring back the good old days of peace, pride,

and prosperity. Would Jesus listen to the voice of the people and attempt to do all those things? It occurs to me that sometimes the voice of the majority is the same as the voice of the devil.

 It would have been far easier and more popular for Jesus simply to go along, and to become an earthly king. But, that’s not the choice he made. Listening to the voice of God, he rejected the urging of the people. Jesus sensed that God was calling him to be a suffering servant, one who would win people not by force, but by the redemptive power of a love, that loves enough to suffer. Jesus was called to the way of the cross.

 I think that became clear to Jesus there in the desert. His time there was a time of testing needed to clarify His purpose. Freedom from doubt. It would be a great thing if something like that can happen to us during our 40 days of Lent. It will be a great thing if we can become clear about who we are as children of God, clear about what God is calling us to do, and clear about our commitment to do it! “Freedom from Doubt!”

 Let’s look for a few moments at the setting for Jesus’ temptation/testing experience. Matthew records for us that Jesus was led by the Spirt into the desert. There would not have been anyone else around for miles. And the devil used the setting as a source of temptation. I can only imagine what that desert look like and what Jesus must have seen and experienced.

 I imagine under foot, there are stones worn smooth by thousands of years of running water, stones that look very much like loaves of bread. To the left and to the right, there are the rocky cliffs and high mountains. And it’s fascinating to me that the same setting, the same event can be used either for inspiration or for temptation, depending upon who is doing the interpretation.

Think about this, Jesus would often use natural settings as sources of inspiration. He would see a farmer planting seed, and he would begin a parable, “A sower went forth to sow…” He would see a shepherd tending his flock, and Jesus would say, “I am the good shepherd, I knowmy sheep, and my sheep know my voice.” Jesus would call attention to a vineyard and say, “I am the vine, you are the branches,” using the setting as a source of inspiration.

 But here, the devil points to things around them and uses them to tempt. Remember, Jesus had just come from one of the high moments of his life. There, at his baptism, he had heard God say, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” A great moment of inspiration! But as soon as he got into the desert, the devil took that time of inspiration and turned it around, planting seeds of doubt. He began the temptation by saying, “If…if…if you are the son

of God, do this, do that – if! If you are the son of God, then prove it!” And, if he was the son of God, and if he was to be the kind of Messiah the people wanted, the things he was tempted to do seemed reasonable, even desirable!

 If Jesus did the three things he was tempted to do, those things would hold great promise for an earthly kingdom: bread for him, and for the world, political control of all nations, a spectacular feat to gain the attention and the affection of the masses. Why not? Why not? If that is what you want to accomplish.

 Here in the first days of Jesus’ ministry, he shows us something important: temptation is real. And it comes to all of us. It came to Jesus, and it comes to us, every one of us. And, this time in the desert was not the last of Jesus’ struggles with it. You remember that Peter tempted him to reject the way of the cross, and Jesus said to him, “Get behind me, Satan!” And, that struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane – the struggle so intense that sweat appeared on his brow like great drops of blood – Jesus was tempted again to reject the cross and to say “No” to what God was calling him to do. No, Jesus had recurring temptations, and we will too, as long as we live.

 I’ve never been able to believe in a red devil, with horns, and a tail, and a pitchfork. That stereotype is too easily dismissed. I don’t care whether you call him or it the devil, Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, the deceiver, the tempter. I don’t care whether you personalize it or depersonalize it. But, whoever or whatever it is, we have to deal with it. We know it all too well, don’t we? There is something at work in the world and in us that tempts us to be less than we

know we ought to be. To doubt who we are. There’s always something or someone to tempt us to move away from God toward the dark side. Paul knew about it. That’s why he said that we have a battle on our hands. We’d better put on the whole armor of God, so that we can stand against the wiles of the devil.

 I don’t know about you, but in my wrestling with the devil, I have learned how clever he is. He knows where my weak places are. He knows what buttons to push. He knows how to place those devilish rationalizations in my mind. Thoughts like, “No one will know – just this once won’t hurt – you’re entitled – besides, everyone is doing it.” Have those thoughts crossed your mind?

 Generally, these beliefs don’t work out very well. And yet we believe that we are the exception. That the negative consequences won’t happen to you. You’re the exception!” He knows our weaknesses, doesn’t he? Promising us “freedom from doubt’.

 But not only does he tempt us at our weak places, he can even use our strengths to weaken us. I heard of a pastor who was a superb preacher. He took it seriously, and worked at it. One night he was working on the sermon for the following Sunday. He little son came in and asked his daddy to come tuck him in. The father told him to get into bed and he would come in a few

minutes to give him a goodnight kiss and tuck him in. But then, he became engrossed in his preparation, and much later, he remembered the promise. He went into his son’s bed room only to discover that the little fellow was already asleep.

 That story breaks my heart, because it has a familiar ring to it. His passion to be a good preacher – a good thing – had tempted him that night to be a bad father. Do you hear it? The tempter even turns our strengths against us if we are not careful.

 Well, if temptation is real and if we will be wrestling with it all our lives, how best to deal with it? Let’s look at how Jesus did it. There, in the desert, every time he was tempted, he quoted scripture. And, don’t miss the fact that all of the scriptures he quoted were from the Exodus.

 When facing his own struggles in the desert, he looked back and remembered Israel’s struggles in their desert.

That should give us a clue as to what scripture is. To quote scripture is not like rubbing Aladdin’s lamp to produce a miracle. It’s not like holding a cross out in front of a threatening vampire. No, it works like this. Listen now, because I’m about to say something important. 

To quote scripture is to remember. It is to recall how God has been faithful and dependable in times past. It is to recall how God’s grace and strength has always been sufficient for our every need. And, as we remember, God Himself comes to us and gives us what we need to resist temptation. God comes and gives us what we need to cope. And God uses that experience to make us stronger and more faithful followers of Jesus. Scripture is not just the record of what God said and did long ago. It is the means by which we open ourselves to Him so that He can do it again right here, right now!

 Let me give some examples. When someone has hurt us, and we are tempted to become angry, we allow that experience to damage the relationship. If we continue to rehearse the hurt, we give it more power, and the situation becomes worse. But, if we change our focus to God, allow Him to come and remind us of the number of times He has forgiven us, perhaps our hard heart will begin to melt and we receive the power to love and forgive, and healing begins.

 When we are tempted to compromise with our own values we become less than our best, the more we focus on the situation, the more the tempter shows us how to rationalize and gives us “good reasons” for doing the thing we know we should not do. But, if we focus on God, God comes and reminds us that we were made for something better than that. We are a child of God and the very best in life comes to us when we act like it.

 When we have been diagnosed with an illness, the more we concentrate on the illness, the more power we give it, and the tempter uses that to weaken our resistance. But, if we will focus on God, God comes and gives us strength and courage to resist, and frees all of the body’s recuperative powers to fight back.

 You get the point. We need not be in this struggle alone. When we are tempted to be less than our best, when we are tempted to despair, to give in, or to give up, turn to the scriptures.

 Remember who God is and what He has done, remember that God’s grace and strength have been sufficient in the past, remember all of that and then God will come and do it again, right here, right now.

 Where did Jesus go from his desert experience? Instead of being weakened by it, he was strengthened by it. He immediately left the desert, called his disciples, and got at the task to which God had called him. He was very clear now about who he was and what he was to do.

 He was God’s son, and he was to be about his Father’s business. I love the way Matthew closes the wilderness story. Jesus had turned his back on Satan and turned toward God, the Bible says that angels came and ministered to him. Angels came and ministered to him. That is a beautiful way of saying that God was there, God was real, and God’s grace and strength were sufficient. 

“Freedom from Doubt!” is achieved by the grace of God through his Son, Jesus Christ.

 In the desert temptations, Jesus taught us how to have,”Freedom from Doubt “. Jesus was called to the way of the cross, by the One true Voice.

 Pray with me.

Father, we are tempted by voices, other than yours. Help us to remember who we are, who’s we are, and all that you have done for us in the past by your grace and strength. Place, our lives in your loving hands. Giving us, “Freedom from Doubt”. Give us the grace to do just as Jesus did, and in whose name we pray. Amen.

In His Service,

Pastor Joe