The Rev. Canon Dr. Brett Cane, February 21, 2010
Lent 1: 8:30 a.m. Holy Communion and 10:00 a.m., Litany & Holy Communion
Learning to Love #1: “Security”
Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Luke 4:1-13
Opening Prayer:
Lord Jesus, you were tempted to doubt your Father’s love; help us now, to see how we can face that temptation and rest secure in the fact that we are loved by God and reject all enticements to gain our security in false and destructive ways, through the power of the same Holy Spirit who was with you in the wilderness. Amen.
Introduction
Over the past thirty years the Lord has been leading me on a journey of personal healing. This journey will continue as long as I have breath! At the heart of this process has been the need to acknowledge and receive God’s love for me. As I have ministered to others during this time I have noted that many of their issues have been rooted in the same need. I have seen that the false and harmful paths I and others have taken are futile attempts to find love and security in wrong ways and we need to be called back to the Father and his design for our lives.
Calling us back to God and calling us to take up his design for our lives is what Lent is all about. For the next six weeks our sermons will explore responding to that call through “Learning to Love.” We will look at the many dimensions of love – love between God and ourselves and love between ourselves and others. We will explore intimacy and commitment, how love goes beyond mere kindness and takes risks and how love is self-giving and involves suffering. But today we begin with the foundation of all love – the ability to receive and accept God’s love for us. The security of his love must be there before any other love can truly develop.
To do this we will examine the description of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness. We will see that his greatest temptation was to doubt God’s love for him. Then we will see the false and harmful ways in which he and we are tempted to get the affirmation we need. Finally we will look at how to resist those temptations and open ourselves up to receiving God’s love.
Doubting God’s Love for Us
I said that as I look at my own experience and that of others, our journey to wholeness begins by being able to acknowledge and receive God’s love. Conversely, our journey to disintegration begins with the temptation to doubt God’s love and our relationship to him. In Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, twice the devil says to him, “If you are the Son of God…” (verses 3, 9). God the Father had just declared to Jesus at his Baptism, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). This is precisely what Satan picks up on – to get Jesus to doubt God’s word, his love and his relationship with him. Jesus was tempted to distrust God’s good intentions for him and take matters into his own hands.
But isn’t this what we saw in the Garden of Eden when we looked at Genesis 3 a few weeks ago? The serpent’s lead-in to Eve began, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat …?’ God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God” (Genesis 3:1, 5). The temptation was to doubt the Father’s love: “God doesn’t have your best interests at heart – he is keeping something back from you.” The very ploy Satan used to tempt Eve he used to tempt Jesus. And he uses that same ploy with us today.
With us, the devil comes and says, “Does God really love you? Are you really his child? Look at the pain and disaster in your life…this shows God doesn’t really love you. God doesn’t know what he is doing…you know better…go about things your own way.” Some of us have deep wounds from our earliest days. There may have been deliberate sin against us by others. There may have been complexities in our family relationships – the lack of affirmation from a mother or father. These dynamics have programmed us, deep down, to believe that we are unlovable. Others of us have done things we think can never be forgiven and have made us unworthy of God’s love. Satan, as our accuser, picks on our weaknesses and turns us inward on ourselves – away from God and his promises to us. We are tempted to doubt God’s love and his best intentions for us.
Seeking Security in Other Ways
As result, we are then tempted to seek affirmation and security in ways other than God has designed. This is what happens to Jesus in the temptations. He is tempted in three areas of his life:
- First, physically: “Tell these stones to become bread” (verse 3). Satan gets at us through our legitimate physical needs – such as food and sex – and seeks to get us to abuse these and find the love we seek through satisfying our physical appetites in unhealthy ways.
- Second, psychologically: “I will give you all their (kingdoms of the world) authority and splendour” (verse 6). Satan panders to our egos – our desire to be liked and admired. We seek affirmation through achievement and status.
- Third, spiritually: “Throw yourself down from here…he will command his angels…to guard you carefully” (verses 9-10). Satan wants us to abuse God, to take him for granted and use him for our own ends. We want forgiveness without repentance or change in life. We don’t want God for who he is but for what he can give us.
Now, it is interesting that these temptations are manipulations of legitimate needs. It is a use of good things in wrong ways. Having taken us down the path of doubting God’s love for us, we are moved further away from him by doubting God’s timing and God’s means:
- To doubt God’s timing: to doubt God’s timing is to get us to take short cuts. To sin is not to want something bad to happen to you but something good – but it is to happen in your timing, not God’s. Jesus was tempted to turn stones into bread – is food wrong? He was tempted to have the adoration of the entire world and to have God perform a miraculous act to deliver him from death. – were not these things good in themselves? Yes, but the timing was wrong. They all happened to Jesus eventually – he did feed 5000 people, he has received the adoration of the world (“every knee shall bow”) and he was saved miraculously through death (the resurrection) – but it was in God’s timing, not ours.
We want to grasp and have instant perfection and happiness – as in the Garden of Eden – to know right and wrong instantly. When you pray, do you get upset because God doesn’t answer you “yes” right away? The request might be good, but the wrong time. For example, sex is very good – God created it – but it is be used in his timing, in marriage – to express a unity, not to try and create it. In our search for security and love we are tempted to doubt God’s timing for our lives.
- To doubt God’s means: timing is not the only short cut; methods and means are another. Sin, again, is wanting something good to happen to you – but in your way, not God’s. The devil likes to put thoughts in our heads such as, “You know this situation better than God, do it your own way.” In each of the three temptations Jesus was tempted to avoid suffering. He was tempted to shortcut God’s methods and means – victory through self-sacrifice. But this was precisely what he had been called to do at his baptism, to identify with sinful humanity as the Suffering Servant who would end up being “bruised for our iniquities and pierced for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53: 5). Jesus was not to use his power as an easy out for himself, but as a blessing for others. When he turned the five loaves and two fish into a meal for 5000, it was for others – not as a quick fix for himself. Jesus was to experience a miraculous intervention by God – the resurrection – and he was to receive the adulation of the universe – but it was to come through suffering – dying on the cross for the sins of the world. Jesus’ walk of faith was to be one of self-giving love, not self-serving power.
One of the greatest enticements for us to take ungodly short-cuts (i.e. sin) is to avoid pain. Not that we should delight in suffering, but we should recognize that, sometimes, the only way through to victory is through suffering, bearing the pain that self-sacrifice or misunderstanding will bring us. Jesus calls us to take up our cross and follow him. In our search for security and love we are tempted to avoid suffering and doubt God’s means for our lives.
At the beginning of Lent it is good to ask yourself – looking at the physical, psychological and spiritual dimensions of your life: “Am I trying to achieve security, love and affirmation in wrong ways?” “Am I trying to take short cuts and do things in my timing and through my methods and means and not God’s?”
Resisting Temptation and Receiving God’s Love
So how can we resist temptation and receive God’s love? Jesus’ response to his temptations show us the way:
- Know the Word of God: the first thing is to know the Word of God. How did Jesus answer each of his temptations? By quoting Scripture: “It is written…” (verses 4, 8, 12). Each of the passages he quotes in response to the devil comes from Deuteronomy. It is possible he knew it off by heart and was meditating on it during those forty days. When we doubt our relationship to God or his love for us, our response is to recollect what God has said about us and his promises for us. Genesis 1 tells me I have worth because I am created in the image of God. 1 John 4 tells me: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to die for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10). God loved us to the death. When we are beset by self-doubt we face Satan straight in the face, quoting Scripture as Jesus did: “Yes, nothing I do is good enough – I am not worthy of myself – but ‘God who is rich in mercy, has made me alive in Christ’ (Ephesians 2:4); ‘He who has the Son has life’ (John 5:12); ‘If any one opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him and he with me’ (Revelation 3:20). I have taken God at his promise, and he has made me his own in Christ. Yes, I am a child of God by his grace.” Lack of assurance will make any Christian ineffective. Take God at his word and rest secure in what God has done for you in Christ. Assurance through the Word of God is the key weapon in facing temptation to doubt God’s love for you.
- Prayer: the second thing is to look to Jesus’ example in prayer. In the wilderness, he had time to be alone with God to pray – to listen to him and commune with him. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed. This pattern of open communication with God, practicing his presence daily, is a key in fighting temptation. In prayer we thank God for what he has done for us in the past. As Jesus was meditating on Deuteronomy in the desert, he would have recollected chapter 26 that we heard read earlier. He would have remembered that God had delivered his own people – a powerless slave-nation – out of bondage in Egypt against all possible odds. Thanking God for how he has blessed and shown his love to you in the past can help in counteracting the discouragements of the present.
- The support of others: Then there is the importance of the support of others. In the story of Jesus’ temptations in Mark it says, “He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him” (Mark 1:13). The Lord knows we cannot succeed alone. When Elijah was feeling abandoned and in the depths of depression in the wilderness, the Lord sent an angel (1 Kings 19:5-7) to strengthen him with food – his practical needs. Elijah was also told (19:18) of seven thousand others who were also standing firm for the Lord – there were others to support him in his emotional needs. We need the help that God provides – the angels and Christian friends and fellowship. It is with the help of others than we can receive counsel and prayer for the deep hurts within that often prevent us from seeing and receiving God’s love. Do not isolate yourself when you are tempted to doubt God’s love – head for the phone or e-mail or your fellowship group. God makes his love for us tangible through the support of his people.
Conclusion
When you doubt God’s love for you, take comfort from this passage. First, in the midst of testing and temptation, remember God is present in the process; Jesus “was led by the Spirit in the desert” (verse 1). Second, if Jesus was tempted in this area, don’t be surprised if you are. Thirdly, if God could use temptation to help Jesus be more secure in his love relationship with God, he can do the same for you. Finally, don’t be surprised if you continue to face temptations in this area – Jesus did – as it says in verse 13, “The devil…left him until an opportune time.” Folks, your temptation to doubt God’s love will be life-long! But, in the midst of your temptation, rest secure in God’s word to you, “You are my child, whom I love; with you I am well-pleased.” Let God love you.
