C, Midweek Lent 4 - The Lord's Prayer #5 - Matthew 6:10b,12 "Forgiving us in Heaven"

 Your will be done in heaven – Forgive us our sins

Tonight, and next week we focus on the petitions “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” and “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”.

We will split these petitions into two parts, as we peel off another layer of the Lord’s Prayer, to see how the Holy Spirit brings us to the Father, through Jesus Christ, as the gap is bridged between our evil and the Father’s holiness.  And next week, we will examine God’s will on earth being done when we forgive each other.

But first a clarification in the word order of the text.   The English translation does not help us much with the progression of the Greek text, which actually reads, “Let become the will of you, as is in heaven also on earth.”  In the English text, God’s will on earth comes before his will in heaven.

However, the Greek version of the forgiveness petition reads much the same as the English, reading, “And send off (or forgive) to us the debts (or sins) of us, as also we have sent off (forgiven) the debtors (sinners) of us.” 

Therefore, tonight we focus on God’s relationship with us.  Theologically speaking, here we are dealing with God’s will being done in the vertical.  This is how he repairs the breach between himself and us, so we can have a relationship with him as our loving Father.

In our society today everything is geared to encourage us to follow what’s pleasing to us.   God’s will is what pleases him.  So, what does God want from us?  Or better asked, why are we here on earth?  What is our purpose, why do we exist? 

Today we have a society in deep depression over these very questions.  Left to our own efforts, understanding and feelings, we look into ourselves and see foolishness and despair.  Society lives not knowing what or why it lives.  It also dies not knowing why it dies, where it’s going, or why it’s going to experience death.  Faithlessness and hopelessness, is leaving many to question their purpose, leading to fatalistic living and chaotic dying, in the darkest possible way.

When one looks into their heart, they see what Jesus says comes out of the heart, and they see they are defiled by the commonality of their humanity. 

Jesus says, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him.  For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:20–23 ESV)

Many are pleased with these things in their lives.  But when the things that please, no longer please, many lose hope rather than turn to what pleases God the Father.

So, what pleases our Father?  Last week we heard that his kingdom is coming, and we need to be led away from all kingdoms that tempt us away from his kingdom coming to us.

It pleases God when his kingdom comes to us, and we are not tempted to believe otherwise.  When we come into his kingdom, we get back what humanity lost in the garden of Eden.  We get our relationship with God, so we can once again receive from him and worship him for doing so.

In our humanity there is no way we will ever come to the decision that we need to receive from God and glorify him and worship him to fulfil our function or purpose as humans living on this earth.  Rather we are without fear in God, without trust in God, and are overcome by desires to please ourselves.  However, God the Father is pleased to come to us and implement his will of forgiveness amongst us.

It pleases God to come to us through the perfection of Jesus Christ who completes the fulfilment of the Law.  Not only does it please the father but it also pleases Jesus Christ, whom we are told in the book of Hebrews, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God”.  (Hebrews 12:2 ESV)

Jesus’ joy was to please his Father.  We hear testimony of this when, in the Garden of Gethsemene, he prayed, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.  Remove this cup from me.  Yet not what I will, but what you will.”  (Mark 14:36 ESV)

It was Jesus’ joy to take the blame for that which is our shame.  Likewise, even while suffering horrendous pain from the injuries that would lead him to suffocate and die a torturous death, Jesus said to his accusers and killers, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34 ESV)

And to the criminal who rightly was suffering for his crime, and said to the other crucified criminal who railed at Jesus, “‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?  And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.’  And he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’  And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’”  (Luke 23:40–43 ESV)

Jesus came to fulfil the will of God.  As the Apostle John says, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.  But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,  who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:11–14 ESV)

God’s will is to forgive us through Jesus Christ.  When he does this the vertical relationship is restored.  Jesus fulfils the first table of the Law, the first three commandments from the Ten Commandments. 

It was Jesus’ pleasure to have no other Gods than our Father in heaven.  It was Jesus’ pleasure to glorify God’s name and not use it in vain.  Instead, he was faithful unto death.  And Jesus kept the Sabbath holy in his life and in his death.  Jesus did this in joy, it was our Father’s will, and this pleased our Father in heaven!

God is pleased to forgive.   God the Father does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked. 

 Through the prophet Ezekiel, God tells the exiled Jews three times, he hates death, saying, “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?” (Ezekiel 18:23 ESV)

“For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.” (Ezekiel 18:32 ESV)

“Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”  (Ezekiel 33:11 ESV)

God wants nothing more than to forgive you and bless you with his presence.  Jesus has come down Jacob’s ladder and gives us access to God, by being lifted up on the cross.  This is the vertical reconciliation and God calls you to believe it.

He does not want us to try building towers to him.  Humanity has tried this before and still God had to come down and see what was going on at Babel.

Now we are reunited as one language in Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit showers us with Pentecostal blessings.  Now, you and I, can stand together, before God the Father believing, and receiving from him, the forgiveness of our sin.

We can ask our Abba, Father, praying, “Your will be done, not my will!  Forgive me my sin, help me to believe I am forgiven, and need not try to earn my forgiveness.”

We now live in the knowledge of Jesus Christ! Our purpose is restored.  We can praise our Father in his kingdom, for his power and glory!

This is God’s good and gracious will and it pleases him when we know who we were created to be and do, what he created us to do.  Amen.

Next week we focus on our horizontal relationships when we forgive each other through the freedom given in Jesus’ forgiveness of us and how the Holy Spirit makes the Father’s will, our will.

C, Lent 4 - 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, "Ambassadors for Christ"

 2 Corinthians 5:16-21   From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.  Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.  All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.  We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

When the prodigal son returned home the father runs out to receive him.  The younger wayward son who formerly treated his father as dead, comes home, and the father celebrates saying to the older son, “It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.”

In Saint Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he says we are, “Ambassadors for Christ”.  He also says because we no longer regard Christ in the flesh, we are to regard anyone in Christ as a new creation.  He says,  “The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

However, being honest with myself here in this text, I struggle!  I see many of my Christian brothers and sisters, and behold, I fail to see the newness of Christ in them.  I don’t see them as new creations, but as the same old, same old, as my inner being grates against the grain of their personality. 

I might tolerate them trying not to be rude to them, but in God’s word I am called to be reconciled to them, as Christ has been reconciled to them.  How can I be reconciled to them when all I want to do is distance myself from them?  The longer I stand in their presence the greater the risk is of me opening my mouth and causing greater separation.

How am I to be an ambassador for Christ, when within the depts of my being, I seek to rid myself of those I really do not want to be around?

Alternatively, there are those with whom I really love sharing my time!  I welcome the opportunity to have experiences with them, sitting around, chewing the fat in friendly fellowship.  I yearn for a repeat of good times with them, as I have had with them in the past.

But even here, if I am honest, has nothing to do with being an ambassador for Christ.  I don’t want change according to Jesus Christ, for the benefit of Jesus Christ!  I want sameness for myself!  I would rather be one of those proverbial birds of a feather, flocking together.  Perhaps I believe there is safety in numbers, or in familiar surrounds, company, or like-mindedness.

So, what is it that I actually want?   What is it that I’m seeking?  What is it that I really want to worship?

What I do find is a fundamental, deep desire to trust only in myself.  I assess things by way of my reason or thoughts.  My feelings fill me with a spirit of what I believe to be good or bad.  So, I look at the deeds of others and measure them according to what I think best for me.

Like the older brother in the parable, so often I do not act as a true ambassador.  I don’t see anything new with my brothers and sisters in Christ.  I see the same old garbage, I hear the same old, I, I, I, prattle, and “I” feel the self-serving desire to distance myself.

So, the question I ask myself, what actually is an ambassador?  I need to look more into what reconciliation is, or how being reconciled works.  I realise I am so weak!  I need the Holy Spirit to open God’s word in my heart!  I need a new spirit because my human spirit wants nothing more than to silence that which I find annoying, it wants my word to be the last word.

The first thing we can examine is, our Heavenly Father’s love.  Like the father’s love in the parable of the prodigal son, God’s love has nothing to do with any one’s ability to love him back.  God’s love is not conditional on what we do or do not do.  

God’s love “is”, it just is!  It exists and streams from his being to all without prejudice or favour.  Our Father in heaven’s love is impartial and it flows to all people through Jesus Christ, regardless of their faithfulness to him or their rejection of him.

My love, however, struggles with partiality and prejudice.  My love is given conditionally to those to whom I know will return it to me in kind. 

As a Christian, as one who is freely given God’s love of forgiveness, God expects me to learn through lived experience, the reason I receive his love has nothing whatsoever to do with my performance.  I am a being created by God, to be loved by God, despite what “I am and do” as a child of fallen humanity.

This puts me in the same position as those who had knowledge of God through his Word, in Jesus’ day.  I am the same as those who had access to God through the Law and the Prophets of the Old Testament.  The teachers of the law, the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the militant Zealots, and the everyday faithful Jewish mothers and fathers are the same as you and me. 

They are the elders of Judaism and the Law.  We, are the elders or seniors of Christianity.  Therefore, we are ambassadors of forgiveness and renewal through Jesus keeping the Law.  We are ambassadors of Christianity because we continually receive the reconciling work of the Holy Spirit. 

The word ambassador in the Greek is presbuteros, and means elder or a representative, and it’s from where we get the word presbyter or presbyterian.

The elder brother in the parable should have stepped in to stop his brother leaving and functioned as mediator between his father and the younger son.  Similarly, we, as elder brothers in the Christian faith, who’ve knowledge of Jesus Christ and experience the forgiveness of our sinful nature and deeds, should likewise, be merciful ambassadors or presbyters.

However, it’s easier for us to be more like the elder brother in the parable.  We grumble against our brother receiving love and mercy from the father, rather than celebrate the new life and sonship the father has lavished on his child who has been redressed and recovered by his love.

There are a number of issues needing to be addressed with us, as the elder brothers.  My sin separates me in just the same way as my wayward brother.  I have received the same reconciliation as my brother because of my Heavenly Father’s love.  And I do not determine the time frame or parameters for forgiveness, lest I exclude myself from being redressed or recovered by my own deluded decisions.

The sins one does, are not a sign that one has become a sinner, but that one always was a corrupt sinner, and all people need to be recovered by God’s love and forgiveness.  Therefore, the covering of sinfulness begins in baptism and is an ongoing event, worked by the Holy Spirit every day of one’s life.

Apples fall from apple trees, and oranges from orange trees!  The fruit that falls from the tree does not make the tree!  Fruit can identify what the tree is, but the tree is, what it is, regardless of it producing fruit or not.  Similarly, sinners produce sin.  The being of a sinner is their being, irrespective of them sinning or not.  You are a human being, being human, regardless of what you do!

However, this does not justify us, doing despicable human things!  This is not permission to keep sinning, but instead it’s a lesson in God’s compassion, forgiveness, and love.  It’s here we have an opportunity to look intently at Jesus Christ and see our sin, what it did to him, and learn from it.  We also look at Jesus Christ and see his righteousness, what it has done for us, and learn from this as well.  We see the being of Jesus, as a human being, being and doing what we were originally created to  be and do.

This is a crucial lesson learnt as ambassadors for Christ.  If each of us don’t learn from our sins and experience of God’s mercy and forgiveness, we end up being ambassadors against Christ.  You and I become ambassadors for ourselves.   Our hair might go grey, and age might set in on our faces, but an ambassador of oneself, will remain a spiritual baby having not learnt a thing from life in Christ’s forgiveness.

This is why Saint Paul implores and pleads for the Corinthians to be reconciled to Jesus Christ.  To stop being infants of the faith, continuing in sin, without learning about themselves from it, and its forgiveness, to trust and follow Jesus. 

We are people who know our human nature and spirit and rely on the covering of Christ with his Holy Spirited nature.  Paul pleads and prays, “be forgiven, forgiving, sinners!”

Yet here I am, day in day out, still struggling to let the Holy Spirit, to see my brothers and sisters in Christ as new creations.   When I fail to see them as new creations, I fail to see myself as a sinner needing daily forgiveness!

However, the Holy Spirit works in us the ability to see we need a Saviour.  We need a big brother who is the true Ambassador, and this Ambassador is Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the Ambassador!  The Ambassador of all true ambassadors, the Reconciler of all faithful reconcilers!  The Holy Spirit brings us to the Ambassador’s embassy, the tent embassy, the temple embassy of his body on the cross.

Jesus Christ is a true elder brother!   Not me, not you, the pharisees, nor anyone else can be this elder brother as Jesus is.  He is the perfect reflection of our heavenly Father’s love. He is the Mediator, and he is the Reconciler.

So, we see in ourselves traits of the prodigal son and the pharisaic older brother, what can we do?  We run to the true elder brother to cover and reconcile us to our Father.   

We hear the Word of God in Psalm thirty-two and see the wisdom of the Father’s love, Jesus’ faithfulness, and the Holy Spirit’s work in our continual reconciliation and forgiveness. We pray to our Father, knowing from the bitter experiences of our sin that we are surrounded by his steadfast love!

I uncover my guilt and acknowledge my sin.  The Holy Spirit leads me to say, “I will confess my sins to the Lord”.  And I know that he promises to forgive the iniquity of my sin!  I hear the promise of Jesus’ presence so the rush of great waters, my great sin, will not overcome me. I know I am blessed, my transgressions are forgiven, and the sins I cannot cover, are covered by Jesus!  

You and I are delivered, forgiven, and covered.   The Holy Spirit is our counsellor, teacher, and instructor.  He reconciles us into Jesus Christ and enables us to be ambassadors for Jesus Christ.  Amen.

C, Midweek Lent 3 - The Lord's Prayer #4 - Matthew 6:10a,13a "Lead us into Your Coming Kingdom"

Matthew 6:10a,13a   Your kingdom come … Lead us not into temptation.

After our Father in heaven has shown us his holiness, made us holy, and sent us back out into his world, having been made holy by the blood of Jesus, we go with the promise that God’s kingdom is coming. 

What a beautiful promise we have, despite all the transient kingdoms of this world, an eternal imperishable kingdom that’s coming by God’s gracious mercy and will, to all who believe in him.

In actual fact, his kingdom has already come to us, it is coming to us, and it will come to us as promised. 

Our Father’s heavenly kingdom has come to us through Jesus’ death and resurrection.  His kingdom has come to us, through the water and the word of our baptism into Christ the King’s death and resurrection.

The kingdom daily comes to us through the word of God as the Holy Spirit deposits the kingdom within us and guards it for Jesus’ and our sake.  And because we have received the kingdom by the work of Jesus at the cross, and the work of the Holy Spirit bringing us to Jesus, we can call on our Father, just like a little child runs with open trusting arms, to his or her daddy.

Because the kingdom of God is with us, in us, and eternally around us, we can tell our Father all things with which we need help, both good and bad.  We have no need of fear of rejection when we confess to him all our failures, looking for forgiveness for all disasters we have brought on ourselves and others.

The kingdom of God will also come to us in the future.  We live with the promise that God’s kingdom is coming, despite having to travel the way of death, as a result of sin.  But the promise for us, is that the death we will experience, won’t be a death of eternal separation from God, but one in which we will be transformed into holy heavenly beings. 

What that is we do not exactly know.  But we wait with eager expectations knowing that the old, will be done away with and finished.  We will see Jesus in all his glory, and we will see ourselves for whom God originally intended us to be.  You will see the new you, that which for now, God has hidden within the sinfulness of your human flesh.  All who have died trusting in Christ will see their completion in Christ, which even now the Holy Spirit is depositing within.

Our Father’s kingdom is holy.  He is holy in his kingdom.  We are made holy for his kingdom, we are being made holy for his kingdom, and we will be made holy for his kingdom.  At this point in time, we know and live in holiness by faith, and in hope we look forward to our holiness being revealed, once our earthly death strips us of our sinful nature.

Coupled within the Lord’s prayer, place alongside the promise of the heavenly Father’s coming kingdom, is the plea for us not to be led into temptation.  These temptations are temptations to seek, find, or build for ourselves different kingdoms as well as being deceived into believing God’s kingdom is not for us, or not coming for us.

The petitions, “your kingdom come” and, “lead us not into temptation”, are petitions for the working week. 

As we go to work on Monday we pray “your kingdom come”.  We go to work each new week with the will, not to work for ourselves a contrary kingdom, to the kingdom of God.   But we go bearing the kingdom of God, so others might see something different in us, and we might be given the opportunity to be the conduit, through which God’s kingdom can come to them.

But we also go, knowing because God is giving us his kingdom,  he also sends the Holy Spirit with us, to lead us.  We go out from God’s house each week with faith.  Not our faith!  But faith given by the Holy Spirit, faith in Jesus Christ having been raised from the dead, who now sits at the right hand of God the Father in his kingdom.  This faith comes from hearing the word of God.  Therefore, the kingdom also comes when we hear the word of God!

We go out into the kingdoms of this world knowing, like Jesus, we will encounter many trials and temptations.  But as we go, we do so, praying for him to lead us.  We are being led out from God’s house in faith, knowing our destination is back in God’s house next week, where we once again will be rested and restored, fed, and forgiven.

There is a temptation that God’s kingdom is not coming which lead many to live a fast life of working for the weekend.  This kingdom usually ends in hangover, but worse it also leads to fatalism, violence both sexual and physical, depression, self-destruction, community chaos, emptiness, and hopelessness.

The faith with which we go out, is also intertwined with hope, because of the father’s love for us.  Faith gives us the means to live with Christ in our day to day lives.  Likewise, hope helps us to die with Jesus, in our day to day lives. 

When there is no hope in Jesus, humanity is ultimately overcome with the hopelessness of death.  But the sinful self, seeks to trust in its own blind principles, and impotent powers.  The old Adam is constantly wooed and seduced by the powers and principles of the world.  Behind this is the devil with all his powers and principalities.

So, when God seeks to kill things in us like pride, self-righteousness, vain glory from our goodness, lust, jealousy, hatred, greed, and other passions of the flesh, the old Adam within, the human spirit, fights against God killing these things. 

The old Adam is overcome by temptations of the things God seeks to kill within us.  Through enticement by the world, and the devil, the old Adam is led to choose kingdoms of its own doing, while rejecting the one holy kingdom of God.

However, all contrary kingdoms to God’s coming kingdom, are houses of cards.  They are thinly veiled kingdoms of hopelessness.  But the devil knows, if he keeps us in the darkness of this deception, our hopelessness will become eternal.  Our hope in false kings and fake kingdoms will take us to death but not through it!

For us, though, we go out into the kingdoms of this world in faith, bearing Christ to a world that’s losing its hope.  You and I are a “faithful presence” of God’s kingdom coming to those who need God’s kingdom, but for whatever reason are not receiving it. 

We are those who are being led from temptation, into repentance, through forgiveness, and into the coming kingdom.  We are witnesses of weakness, demonstrating the hope we have, through the daily deaths we suffer, where we allow ourselves to die, day by day, for Jesus to live in us, and through us.

We endure deaths like, aging, loss of abilities and confidences, bearing of false witness against us, slander, bullying, rejection, loss of property, depression, and destitution.  We also suffer when we recognise the poverty of our spirit, so we can confess our sin.  All kingdoms must die so we can see God’s kingdom coming in all its power and glory.

Finally, our physical death comes too.  But this is the final glorious coming of the Father’s kingdom for those who have allowed the Holy Spirit to drown them in the death of Jesus Christ and raise them to a new life in Jesus Christ’s resurrection over death. 

Faith will lead us out into this last week here on earth, just like all the other weeks.  However, this week will end, once and for all, having had our faith and hope realised when we open our eyes to the eternal house of God the Father, and see Jesus seated at his right hand.  We will see God’s glory streaming with pure unadulterated love, from the throne of his kingdom having come.

Then we will worship forever, that our Father’s kingdom has come, and we have been led by the Lamb of God and the Holy Spirit, into the power and glory of our Father’s kingdom.  A kingdom of eternal peace, joy, and love.  Amen.

Next week we hear our Father’s will in heaven is to forgive us our sins, and we will hear how he does this and continues to do this.

C, Lent 3 - Luke 13:1-9, "Just Desserts"

Luke 13:1–9 (ESV) There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.  And Jesus answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.  Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”  And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none.  And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’  And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure.  Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

At the present time fighting goes on in the Ukraine.  Recently, floods have killed and displaced families in Australia.  The last couple of years have been testing on a worldwide scale due to Covid-19.  Before that, extreme dry led to black skies, where day turned to night, as bushfires ravaged our country and smoke filled our lungs.  Not to mention, the daily occurrence of tragedies and violence that affect many communities, families, and individuals.  

When you hear of these things happening, reported on the news, or spread as gossip in social media, how do you react?

 It is easy to become an accuser.  To think or say, “They probably deserve it?”  And if it is someone close who has offended us, it’s even easier to let the self-righteousness rise within and think or proclaim, “they’re getting their just desserts!”

We have been conditioned as watchers and judgers.  To join the army of armchair accusers, or the thumb-texting throng of thugs.

There are many bad things going on in the world.  How are we to view them?   We are baptised into Jesus, yet still struggle with desires, feelings, and thoughts they’re getting their just desserts. We so often find ourselves choosing a “It’s what they deserve” mentality!

With this mental frame of mind, Christians often make three mistakes, asking ourselves…

“Are we to recoil from the world and build walls around ourselves, insulated with cottonwool, to protect ourselves from the “evils” of the world?”  If we do this, we might just have found ourselves constructing a comfortable coffin in which to die all alone!

“Should we seek to infiltrate the world order, or should I say, disorder, to bring in a world Christian order?  Then I can implement what God wants!”  The problem here is that what would get implemented would be my law of disordered affairs.  Not God’s order or peace!

“Should we try to find favour with the world, and make the church a “safe place”, acceptable and relevant to the world?  Then they won’t get what they deserve because together we will make for ourselves a better society in which to live!”   No!  We would become so safe; God would not be tolerated.  And without God being with us, how safe would we be?

These three all fail. The first, a neutral curved in on the self-mentality.  The second, a militant war-mentality.  And the third, a goodness-mentality.  The three are not reality but are the narrowness of the human mind seeking answers in the self.

The report comes to Jesus that the Romans had killed some Galileans sacrificing to God.  Like us, the people were looking at the Romans for being the guilty aggressors.  They should not have been anywhere near those sacrificing let alone killing them and letting their blood desecrate the sacrifice.  They would have expected Jesus’ condemnation of the Roman pagans for doing this. 

Then again it was Galilean Jews who were killed and not the Jews of Judea.  Everyone knows that the Galileans are not as good a Jews as the Judean Jews!   Perhaps this is why they were killed, and the Romans desecrated the sacrifice!

Jesus then leaves off the Romans and Galileans and speaks of an accidental disaster where a tower falls on eighteen Judeans. Well, maybe they were not as good a Jews as those whom the tower did not fall!

Such is our mentality, to think this way.  But Jesus says, “No”!

To get an understanding why Jesus tells his hearers, “No!”, let’s go back to what’s going on today, and change the story a bit, so we can simply see the error of our ways.

Fighting in the Ukraine, Ukrainians and Russians are dying, some are killed just living in their country.  Some are Russian men, whom if they do not follow orders, will end up in something like a gulag in the former Soviet Union, or worse, shot.  Are the Ukrainians and Russians getting what they deserve?   Now picture them and replace them with Jesus Christ!  Would he be getting what he deserved?

Those who have died from Covid-19.  Those who have been denigrated for not being vaccinated, or those vilified for being vaccinated.  Replace them with Jesus Christ.  Is he getting what he deserves?  Those drowned by floods, burnt to death by fire, or who have lost everything, what if they were Jesus Christ, would they still be getting their just desserts?  Or the parents who have lost a child, what if you replace the parents with Jesus Christ, or the child with Jesus Christ?  Is Jesus deserving of these deadly desserts?

We soon realise how crazy it is to play, tit for tat, suffering for sin.

When Jesus hears about the tragedy of Galileans slaughtered or the Judeans flattened, he does not attribute fault, nor accuses the perpetrators or victims.  Instead, he addresses those before him, and says, “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Jesus addresses the mentality presented to him, and dives straight to the heart of the issue.  He does the same with us too, who are no different to those of his day, as he walked to Jerusalem to die. 

With a mentality of “getting one’s just desserts”, we will not just die, but eternally die!  This is the mindset like that of believing in good and bad karma.  But good and bad karma is just another name for knowledge of good and evil, where we become the judge of what is good and what is bad, without the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Jesus demonstrates that all of us would be condemned to death if we got what we deserved.  Like the fig tree we would have long been ripped out of the ground and thrown out. 

Jesus tells us, now is always the opportune time of repentance, when we judge otherwise, we accuse and condemn ourselves the moment we open our mouths in judgement.  We reveal we deserve death and are guilty, just as much as anyone who has died. 

Perhaps the death of others is a warning to you and me!

So, as we walk in remembrance towards the cross with Jesus, we picture him nailed to the cross, but as a Saviour nailed there in our place.  We picture ourselves rightfully on the cross for our sin and all the sin in the world today. 

And as we do, we realise it could be me, facing death right now!   We see in others the same sinner that’s in me.  We do not excuse; nor do we accuse!  But we intercede, we pray as if we were Jesus, who continues to do the very same thing for us. 

In fact, we are called to be little Jesus Christ’s picking up our crosses, dying to self, and resolutely marching towards our resurrection and eternal life having been made perfect with the blood of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Heavenly Father, you sent your Son, Jesus Christ, to take our place as the fruitless tree, and was crucified on a cursed tree, to give us life and make us fertile, through your death and resurrection.  Send you Holy Spirit upon us to lead us in your perfect mercy and compassion, so we can work as the body of Christ, sharing steadfast love with others, who need to receive the Gospel.  Amen.  

C, Midweek Lent 2 - The Lord's Prayer #3 - Matthew 6:9b,13b Luke 11:13 "Deliver us from Evil into Holiness"

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13 ESV)

Hallowed be your name… But deliver us from evil.

We have an Almighty God, who is our Father in heaven.  He transcends all of creation and the earth.  He is more powerful than the power humanity can collectively muster on earth.  Those who have had opportunity to see his glory, and that of his risen Son, fall down in reverence and fear in his presence.  Yet he wants nothing more than to be in fellowship with us.  He has created us out of his power and glory, to join him in his kingdom, and worship him in his power and glory.

But how can we who are evil come into his glorious kingdom without repercussions?   This Almighty God—who is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, present everywhere, inside and outside of time, perfect in every way, in patience, generosity, and sinlessness—is holy.

Jesus died to bridge the gap between evil and holy; he is the Christ, the Messiah who redeems us through his death.  But how can he deliver us into the Father’s holy kingdom and presence when our being is embedded in evil? 

When the disciples got a glimpse of the glorified Son of God at transfiguration, they were afraid and perplexed; they did not understand or know how to approach Jesus’ holiness. 

When Saul was confronted by Jesus on the road to Damascus, he too recoiled and was blinded by the glory of the risen Christ. 

So too was the Apostle John.  He shared a special relationship with Jesus in his ministry and is call “the one whom Jesus loved”.  But we hear in Revelation, he fell at the feet of Jesus as though dead when Jesus appeared to him on the island of Patmos.

If Paul and the Apostles react this way, those who knew and walked with the man from Nazareth, how are we to come into God’s presence?

The Introduction of the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father and the doxology form the outer layer of Jesus’ prayer.  The Holy Spirit teaches us that God the Father is transcendent and present inside and outside of time.

Now the Holy Spirit leads us from this heavenly eternal transcendent reality and teaches us how Jesus joins the great divide between his holiness and our sinful nature and deeds, which Jesus rightly says, “makes us evil”

The essential nature of God’s Spirit is holy, so the Holy Spirit works to bring us to the glorified holy Son of God and our holy heavenly Father.  This work is spelt out by Jesus in the Lord’s Prayer and fulfilled in his death and resurrection.

The Holy Spirit makes us holy, by delivering us from evil into the holiness of Jesus.  Like a courier the Holy Spirit delivers us.

Martin Luther says it best in his explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed.  He says, “I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and kept me in true faith. In the same way he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it united with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church day after day he fully forgives my sins and the sins of all believers. On the last day he will raise me and all the dead, and give me and all believers in Christ eternal life. This is most certainly true.” 

The Holy Spirit is the great doer and shaker of the Trinity.  He has been sent by God the Father and God the Son, to bring us to the Son so we can receive and believe the Gospel.  This gift makes you and me holy and keeps us, keeping on in Jesus. This gift is God’s Holy Word and hearing it creates faith.  In Romans ten we learn, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”  (Romans 10:17 ESV)

The Holy Spirit works faith so we as individuals and as the collective body of Christ remain in Jesus, pray his prayer and other prayers in his name.  The Holy Spirit also fights against all evil within us, and that which works from outside us tempting us to reject God and his holy gifts and live without him.

Living without God or making ourselves God is the evil that leads to all evils.  And the Holy Spirit works tirelessly to deliver us into the bosom of God’s mercy and the holiness of Jesus.  

Jesus was clothed in the weak flesh of humanity with all its desires, he resisted the devil, and pressure from those around him to please them rather than the Father.  He was weak as we are weak, yet without sin.  But despite his perfect life, bore the evil of our flesh on the cross, and was delivered into death.

So, the Holy Spirit leads us to pray, “deliver us from evil”.  We can be reassured we are being delivered from the evil of ourselves into the holiness of God’s kingdom, power, and glory.  We are being delivered from the powers and principles that demonise us within from day to day.

We are being delivered from the evil of this world that comes to us through others, and the many gods we have created for ourselves. These are the evils to which our sinful selves naturally gravitate towards because of the Old Adam within.

And we are being delivered from the devil and his entourage of powers and principalities, that are overcome and completely powerless to the name of Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit in which we pray, deliver us from evil, into the holiness of Jesus’ name.

After Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray the Lord’s Prayer, he continues encouraging them to be consistent in the power of prayer.  He says, “…I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” (Luke 11:9–10 ESV)

Then he says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13 ESV)

If God the Father would send his Son to die for you on the cross, and he wants you to be with him in his kingdom, so you can worship him and glorify him, he will certainly give you all the assistance your need to be delivered from all evil into the holiness of Jesus’ name! 

Pray for the Holy Spirit, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to deliver us from all evil. Amen.

Next week we continue the series on the Lord’s Prayer, “Your kingdom come… Lead us not into temptation”.

C, Lent 2 - Genesis 15:1-15,17-18, Psalm 27, Phillippians 3:17-4:1, Luke 13:31-35, "Forsaken House - Forgiven House"

Luke 13:31–35 (ESV) At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”  And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.  Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!  Behold, your house is forsaken.  And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”

Two of the readings today speak about a house. 

First there is Abram.  He saw his house would be inherited by a servant of his household and not a born heir.  Then, in the Gospel reading, Jesus speaks about Jerusalem and its house being forsaken.

Saint Paul’s epistle to the Philippians, speaks of the body of a person being transformed into a glorious body by Jesus, to be like Jesus.  He teaches the listener to imitate him and others who set an example, as those who have been made Christ’s own (Phil 3:12) through the righteousness of faith (Phil 3:9).

There is no mention of a house in this text per se,  but the body of a person houses one’s understanding, feelings, and desires.  Paul laments over those who have let their bodies become houses of unrighteousness, just as Jesus laments over Jerusalem becoming a forsaken house, that no longer was willing to allow God to gather its people from danger.

These two examples of unwillingness and rejection to follow God’s will, are warnings for us as individuals and church who wish to be of the house of God.  Do we above all else seek God, and want to be with God?

In Psalm twenty-seven it reads, “One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4 ESV)

Is your ultimate goal to do as the Psalmist does?  To dwell in the house of the Lord, ALL the days of your life!  Is God the most beautiful of all beauty to you?  Do you wait for the Lord?  Or rather, do you trust in your own efforts? 

Those Paul speaks of as putting their understanding, minds, or feelings in earthly things, will be misguided, and will not be transformed from our lowliness into the glory God wants for us.  He says their end is destruction.  They’re unwilling to stand firm in the Lord, and therefore, are enemies of Christ.

Jerusalem is the centre of Jesus’ attention, and he says of those who should be the children of God, but have rejected the prophets, “your house is forsaken”.  If God’s house in Jerusalem can be forsaken, then so too can the house of your body, if you or I push away God’s protection and the transformation, he seeks to perform in all of us. 

This makes us more like King Herod than King David.  Have we become sly cunning foxes, parading  as people of God, justifying ourselves in a princely lifestyle and seeking Jesus for our entertainment only as Herod did? 

Should we be more like King David who trusted in the Lord, even though he was the highest in the land?  Who allowed God to confront his sin as an adulterer, and murderer, and confessed his sin to the Lord?  Who despite being king of Israel, allowed God to make him increasingly aware that his greatest enemy, was not the foreign countries around him, but rather the very core of his own sinful being?

If all this makes you feel uncomfortable and uneasy, good, it should!  If you feel like a fox that has been caught in the spotlight of God’s glory, and your life has been one of secret doubling back on yourself to hide your tracks in the darkness, this too is good.  If you feel, understand, and realise your situation as caught out, with impending doom as a result of your activities, it’s not a bad thing.  And if this hasn’t happened in your life as of  yet, it will.

When your death is put on your agenda, when the end of your life is imminent, if you haven’t beforehand realised what the consequence of sin is, death will show you.  How does the thought of death make you feel?

Abram saw his house was dead, because he had no heir onto which he could pass on his inheritance.  In his old age he was as good as dead, and an heir seemed impossible.  But it’s when we are as good as dead, that the power of God can be realised, and we’re called to put all our understanding, feelings (good and bad), and trust in him.

With Abram God first takes him outside and shows him the stars, then after this he makes a covenant with him.  But this is a covenant like no other in the Old Testament.  Covenants require both sides to make a promise.  Here though there is only a promise made by God.  Abram was in the state of deep sleep, a stunned, or deathly state, and is solely the recipient of God’s covenant.

When the severity of God’s law comes upon us, it causes death within us, and although it makes us feel woeful and as though we are dead, it’s a good thing.   We need to see what the house looks like if God vacates and leaves the house empty.  Here I am speaking specifically of the house of your body.

Jesus declares Jerusalem forsaken, dead, rotten, and off.  Like a piece of rancid meat, he rejects its house.  Yet Jesus returns to Jerusalem to die and be cast out, as if he was the cunning and sly fox that we have become in our sinfulness.  He becomes our rottenness and is cast out!  He dies because of the deadliness we bear.  That which he wishes to expose in us, he covers with forgiveness.  He also casts out feelings of guilt and gives us his blessing.  We are blest because he comes to us in the name of the Lord!

When we allow the Holy Spirit to expose our sin, so we can confess it, it gets covered by Jesus’ death.  When we allow the Spirit to invoke the death of our sin, we allow him to raise us with Jesus Christ to life eternal. 

When God does this, he out foxes the fox within us, he out cunnings the cunning within us, he shrewdly uses fear of eternal death to save us from our second death.  We are reminded in baptism eternal death is now deceased in those who hold onto faith in God and reject faith in oneself.

We also know of the deadliness of our house and the life Christ brings to it, and in this we continue in hope for those who have become dead to God’s church, and to be restored in love.  So we pray, doing the work of God, asking they be once again given the desire to be in God’s presence, and receiving his gifts of life, that will take all who seek God to death and through it into God’s eternal presence.

Saint Paul holds out hope for the Jewish people, despite their unbelief.  He knows, he was made dead by Christ but was graciously grafted into him through his death on the cross.

We too, stand before God with the same hope as Paul, having been grafted into Christ, despite being as good as dead…

Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness.  Otherwise you too will be cut off.  And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.  For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.  (Romans 11:22–24 ESV)

If God can sever his chosen people, the Jews, and graft them back in, he can also revive the faith of those who have become dead in the faith.

Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,  despite the deadliness within.  In fact, we can thank God for showing us our deadliness, in just the same way Jesus knew Jerusalem was the place where others died and he would die, yet declared, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Let us pray.  Heavenly Father let us die to self, pick up our cross and resolutely walk with Jesus.  Protect us from all that can sever us from eternal life, and hear our prayers for those whose faith has died, so they might be grafted back into the life-giving blood of Jesus Christ. Amen.

C, Midweek Lent 1 - The Lord's Prayer #2 - Matthew 6:9, 1 Chronicles 29:10b-13, Psalm 145:10-13 "We join with Jesus in his Prayer"

Our Father in Heaven… for the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours now and forever.  Amen. 

Last week at the Ash Wednesday service, we began learning about Prayer.  Throughout this Lenten Season and on Maundy Thursday we look at the Lord’s Prayer and its petitions.

While Jesus was on earth, he spent much of his private time in prayer.  Full of the Holy Spirit, Jesus was led out to quite places to pray.  When we peruse the Gospels, we hear that he prayed.  Sometimes, he prayed in public, to demonstrate it was not his power healing the person, but rather he was submitting to the power of God.

We too can submit to the power of God in prayer.  And when we do, we judge correctly the three realities of prayer…

1) We were originally created to be in fellowship with God.

2) Since the fall we are weak and helpless.  But, because of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of the Father, we are now “blessedly helpless”.  

3) All our right prayers are Holy Spirited prayers. 

Although Jesus was the Son of God, he gave up his authority as the Son and took on the weakness of humanity.  In doing so, he became the archetypal Son of all humanity, the Son of Man.

Jesus glorified God in his fellowship with God the Father in prayer.  In his healings, those around him also glorified the Heavenly Father.  And, when others sought to glorify him, he avoided the opportunity for them to do so, not letting it happen.

But Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit throughout his ministry.  He joyfully praises God when the seventy-two disciples returned praying, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.  (Luke 10:21ESV)

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Luke 10: 22 ESV)

Hear how this prayer of praise becomes teaching.  A little later on he teaches about the Holy Spirit and how he teaches, saying, “And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say,  for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”(Luke 12:11–12 ESV)

The Holy Spirit teaches us what to say and what to pray.  Jesus full of the Holy Spirit taught the disciples what to pray.  Through his word to the Apostles, in the Written Word of God, he teaches us who have been filled with the Holy Spirit what to pray.  In our weakness we need the Holy Spirit to lead us in what to say and what to pray.

Today, we focus on the first thing and the last things the Holy Spirit teaches us and leads us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer.

Our Father in Heaven… for the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours now and forever.  Amen. 

The introduction comes straight to us from Matthew 6:9.  The Lukan equivalent begins simply with, “Father”, in Luke 11:2.  However, the doxology of the prayer is nowhere to be seen in the prayer that Jesus gives. 

Before we go discarding it from the prayer, we need to realise, what this doxology is, and from where it comes.  We must first return to Jesus’ prayers and ponder the heart of Jesus.  It has long been held that the Lord’s Prayer summarises the entire Psalter of the one-hundred and fifty Psalms.  The psalms that were written down by Kings David and Solomon, other temple authors, and the prophets, are the prayers of Jesus inspired in these men and written down long before Jesus was incarnate in flesh.  But once in the flesh he prayed the very prayers he inspired them to write.

Prayer fulfills God’s desire to be in fellowship with humanity, and we glorify him in that fellowship.  The Holy Spirit leads us in glorifying the fellowship of Trinitarian love with us, and within us.  We glorify God with praise and thanksgiving. 

We find this language of glorification right the way through the Psalms, and we find it in the words that come from Jesus’ lips.  We also hear it come from the lips of those who praise God, when they witness the acts of Jesus, while he moves amongst the people of Judea, Samaria, Galilee, as well as the gentile surrounds, he visited.

To narrow the doxology to one place in the Psalms, we hear the Lord’s Prayer doxology, most clearly in Psalm 145:10-13…

All your works shall give thanks to you, O LORD, and all your saints shall bless you!  They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power,  to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendour of your kingdom.  Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations.  The LORD is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works.  (Psalm 145:10–13 ESV)

Outside of the Psalms we also hear a similar doxology recorded in First Chronicles chapter twenty-nine.  First and Second Chronicles are the historical record of worship events including the building of the Temple, so it is no surprise to see a similar doxology here.   King David prays these similar words, when he charges the assembly prior, to Solomon’s anointing as king, and his death.

“Blessed are you, O LORD, the God of Israel our Father, forever and ever.  Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours.  Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all.  Both riches and honour come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.  And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.” (1 Chronicles 29:10b–13 ESV)

These words of glorification are prayed by an assembly.  Even if Jesus is to pray by himself it is within the assembly of the Triune God.  He prays in a Trinity of Love, together with angels and archangels.  But even on earth King David leads the congregation before God and calls on his name in prayer.

So we come the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer.  We pray “our” Father not “my” Father.  Why?

Firstly, because Jesus teaches us to do so.  But he does so because of the greater reality of what we are called into.  This greater reality is not just the hidden reality of the Trinity, the angels ands archangels, but also the whole company of heaven. 

Secondly, this reality is a catholic reality.  Lutherans tend to recoil when we hear the word catholic, thinking we mean Roman Catholic.  But believing Romans like us who believe in the Lutheran Church are all a part of the catholic church.  As we confess in our creeds, we are apostolic and catholic in faith.

Thirdly, we adhere to the words of the apostles, and therefore we are gathered by the Holy Spirit into one holy congregation around Jesus Christ. 

This includes those who have gone before us, and now worship in the company of heaven. 

And it includes all who worship in the realm of time on earth, in our congregation, parish, denomination with others around the world. 

It also includes those still yet to be born, baptised, and abide in the faith given to them.  These are our unborn children, and the generations to come.  All these are the catholic church gathered by the Holy Spirit before Jesus, inside and outside of time.

When we say, “Our Father”, we pray as the body of Christ, and we join in the fellowship of God’s kingdom, glorifying him for his power and his kingdom, which is a kingdom of love that extends to us here on earth through forgiveness.

This introduction can be prayed as a perfectly succinct prayer in itself, “Our Father, the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours now and forever.  Amen.”  This prayer stands on its own and honours God in his eternal realm. 

But we are given petitions to pray here on earth by Jesus.  And these petitions teach us how the Holy Spirit moves us from evil to holiness.  The Holy Spirit does this so we might join Jesus, our ascended Great High Priest, in his petitioning the Father of love in heaven.

Next week, we continue on our journey of joyful discovery, examining the Lord’s Prayer and its petitions as prayer worked in us by the Holy Spirit.  But also, as a teaching or doctrine of the Holy Spirit, how the Holy Spirit practically bridges the divide between evil and holiness.  Amen.

C, Lent 1 - Luke 9:28–43 & 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 "Wealth in the Wilderness"

Romans 10:11–13 (ESV)  For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”  For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.  For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

When Jesus was confronted by Satan in the wilderness, Jesus knew of a greater reality than Satan.  We might think, “Yes, he knew because he was the Son of God!”  But if it was because he had higher power as the Son of God, he could not be the Saviour of you and me, or any other person.  There would be an unbridgeable gap, between the greatness of the Son of God, and the weakness of humanity.

However, the greater reality to which Jesus was akin, was not his relationship to God as the powerful Son.  But rather, his human weakness and perfect trust, allowing him to put aside his divinity, and wander in the wilderness, knowing his Father in heaven would hear him in his human weakness.

Jesus was no less hungry than any person would be, having been wandering in the wilderness for forty days.  His desire for food would have made his stomach wrench in pain. 

As he wandered alone without kingdom or someone to talk to, the human desire for partnership and property, a place to call home, would have been made all the more painful by the searing heat of the sand and loneliness. 

And when Satan took him to God’s temple in Jerusalem, and challenged him with the Word of God, the temptation to justify the evil inclinations of Satan and listen to him rather than trusting God would have been just as enticing to Jesus as they would be for you and me. 

In all three temptations, Satan temps Jesus with the question, “If you are the Son of God?”  He tempts Jesus to reveal his power as Son of God, so Satan could use it against Jesus, and those Jesus calls through the Gospel.  Satan wants to demonstrate a divide between the divinity of God and the weakness of humanity.

But Jesus repels Satan, and because he does, we can too!  Like Jesus we need not tap into the wealth of our works, the abundance of our intellect, or the power of a higher lived life.

No!  Instead, we are called to “not” let shame, desire, or a need to prove ourselves worthy, lead us into temptation.  Rather, we are called to trust God with the wealth of weakness, just as Jesus bore his weakness as wealth in the wilderness.

After all, just like Jesus, you and I are travelling with the riches of God through this life.  Just like Jesus you carry his wealth of weakness in the wilderness.  How can this be?

When Jesus enters the wilderness, we hear he didn’t go by his own effort, but was led there by the Holy Spirit.  Mark’s Gospel says it even stronger, saying, “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.”   (Mark 1:12 ESV) Literally, the Spirit threw him out into the wilderness.

Jesus works with a greater reality, and we are called to do the same, even unto death.  He knows the suffering that this will bring to us. 

He says, “I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.  Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation.  Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.  The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.”  (Revelation 2:9–11 ESV)

Just as Jesus entered the wilderness, led by the Holy Spirit, you have been given the Holy Spirit and he will lead you in your weakness.  This is the richness of God’s wealth working for you, despite your human spirit desiring and scrambling to save face from the shame of being seen weak in the world.

Saint Paul tells the persecuted church in Rome, “For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.’  For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.  For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”

So, what are the riches of God?  And how do we get them?

Firstly, Jesus himself, the perfect human man, submissive in weakness to our heavenly Father, is the greatest gift to all of us.  He is our wealth in the wilderness of our lives.  His love for the Father, trusting solely in him, and not in himself being the Son of God, is his gift to us.  However, because he is the Son of God who humbly submits in weakness and trust, makes this gift forever more profound and great!  

Similarly, as Jesus trusted in the Father, we are called to daily trust Jesus for giving us the gift of faith, and for the perfecting of faith within us, even as we have been made holy Sons of God in baptism.  We literally trust Jesus by calling on his name, and in calling on him we are saved.

Calling on Jesus’ name allows us to look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  (Hebrews 12:2 ESV)

Secondly, the great wealth or richness we have is the Holy Spirit.  When we call on Jesus’ name the Holy Spirit is given.  The Holy Spirit and Jesus are inseparable and when we call on Jesus, we get the Holy Spirit as well.

Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit after receiving the Spirit in baptism, we too have received the Holy Spirit in baptism.  In fact, we not only receive the Holy Spirit, but also God the Father and Jesus Christ, God the Son, in all his risen power and glory.  Therefore, just as Jesus is the founder and perfecter of faith, the Holy Spirit is the worker of faith within us.

When the Holy Spirit works faith within us, he is working holiness in us.  If we were to work faith, we would work faith in ourselves and work our way out of the weakness Jesus worked beating all the deeds of the devil and his evil entourage.  In fact, we would work Jesus and the Holy Spirit out of ourselves.  Ultimately, we would do what the devil sought to do to Jesus when he sought to tempt him in the first place.

Thirdly, the great wealth we have is the richness of the written Word of God.  Paul tells us in Romans chapter two verse four, the riches of God are kindness and forbearance and patience, and are meant to lead to repentance. (Romans 2:4 ESV)

This gift is not to lead us to shame and hiding but repentance through confession.  Shame is replaced by belief and trust in Jesus.  We too, endure in weakness, with the wealth of the cross, and despise its shame, looking with trusting joy to the Lord our God. 

The gift of the written Word keeps us from becoming delirious in the wilderness.  The richness of the Word stops us from becoming transfixed on any mirages of fleeting earthly wealth.  All this kind of wealth will vanish the moment we leave this worldly wilderness and stand before the Father, on the day of judgement.

Hear how Jesus both disciplines and loves us in his Word, so we can be saved.  He says, “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.  I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.  Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.” (Revelation 3:17–19 ESV)

What is this gold, refined by fire, which we are to purchase?  It's the wealth of his weakness where he trusted his Father, all the way to death on the cross, descent into hell, and resurrection from the dead to the right hand of the Father.  This gold of God is the forgiveness of all our sins.

How much does this gold cost?  It costs you nothing!  This gold makes us rich in the righteousness of Jesus, and it opens our eyes in this wilderness to the wealth of love God has for us.

Therefore, be zealous for the weakness of Jesus!  Covet his weakness and call on his name!  It will not lead to shame!  Instead, you will be saved by his wealth in the wilderness. Amen.