Oops!

Text: Matthew 4:1-11

Focus: Jesus temptation.

Function: To help people see that God knows we fail where Jesus succeeded: GRACE

Form: Topical expository (on THE atonement)

Intro: To continue in the vein, or theme, of Wednesday night's Ash Wednesday Service, I want to talk about temptation, failure and sin.

Do you remember that right before Jesus' arrest, He told the disciples that they would all fall away that night? You can read it in Matthew 26:33-34.

• Peter bragged that he would be faithful no matter what.
• He was actually proud and was setting himself above the other disciples.
• He knew that he loved Jesus.
• And he couldn't imagine turning his back on the Savior.
• I remember for myself I used to say this:
• “I can't wait to get to heaven because I will never be tempted to sin again.”
• I'll never have to ask for forgiveness again.
• Repentance will be a thing of the past.
• I will never miss the mark.
• It's because of our love for Jesus that we want to please Him.
• So, I can relate to Peter's bragging.
• But he failed terribly that night because we can never perfect ourselves.
• We are not perfect and we need Jesus.
• So now, I guess the best response is this: “Oops.”
• -I'll explain that at the conclusion.

Jesus was and is perfect.

Because of His perfection, He alone can be the sacrifice for our sins. Hebrews 7:26-28

This temptation story is a story of God's mercy.

I'm going to do a little theology lesson on why I believe in the atonement.

(REPEAT) Because of His perfection, He alone can be the sacrifice for our sins.

We read in Genesis 33:20-23 that Moses could not see God because if He did, it would kill him.

The theology is that God is so holy, so majestic, so powerful that in His presence, we would die because of our sin.

In Matthew 27:51 we read that when Jesus died, the veil guarding the holy place of the temple was rent, top to bottom, -rent by God- not humans- so that humanity can have access to God.

Because of Christ's sacrifice, the Holy Spirit dwells fully in the hearts of men and women.

Because of Jesus' sacrifice for us, we are reconciled to God

This, to me, is the real joy of the good news. We are brought back into God's family.

And in three places in the NT, we are told that we are sealed, we are secured by God, through the promise of His Holy Spirit.

We are now God's Children and our care is in God's hand.

So what about sin?

In times like these, it seems to be a nasty word.

Because it has been abused, or misused, I don't like the word very well.

It divides the world into two categories either “the lost” or “the righteous.”

But modern theology has changed the meaning of words to suit its purpose. The word for righteous means “just” and should be translated that way.

Actually, there are two categories in the Bible, “the just” and the “evil doers.”

If you read the prophets who announced the coming of Jesus, and if you interpret the rest of the New Testament based on the teachings of Jesus, you quickly understand that a righteous person is a “just” person.

Abuse has happened with the words, when we say that we are the "righteous," and they are "sinners." Then we imply that we are somehow more valuable, and more importantly, others are less valuable. Jesus was a friend to sinners.

And it gets worse. You see, modern theology has adopted a sin based salvation instead of a grace based salvation.

This causes us to focus on “not sinning” instead of “doing the right thing” and that is a recipe for failure.

If you say to your kids “don't put beans in your ears,” the first thing they will want to try is beans in the ears.

Go to the original temptation, original sin.

The tree with the forbidden fruit was directly in the center of the garden. Adam and Eve faced that temptation every single day.

Did God set humanity up to fail?

No, the first thing we need to remember is that God is an humanist.

God believes in people.

Romans 2:14-15 tells us that even those outside the faith have a God-given light inside of them that leads them to do the right thing.

Like Jesus, I believe that there is value in every single person. I believe that in every person is the image of God.

God calls out to that part of Him within every single person with His appeal to love, with the offer of His mercy, with the offer of His grace.

Adam and Eve sinned. They rebelled against God's clear command and the saddest part of it was that they caught the idea of shame.

Immediately, they covered themselves.

Evil entered the world after the fall.

God was calling out? “Adam? Eve? Where are you?”

And He is calling us today.

He wants to save us.

He wants to save us from sin, or perhaps the better way to understand it is to save us from the evil that is prevalent today.

This Devil's temptation of Jesus is symbolically the same temptation to which Adam and Eve succumbed. Genesis 3:6:

⁶When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Good for food: turning the stone into bread, Pleasing to the eye: the Devil showed him all the kingdoms of the world: and desirable to make her wise like God, be like God and jump from this high spot of the temple.

The same three points are referred to by John. He refers to this temptation as the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life. 1 John 2:15

In the wilderness, Satan recreates the temptation from the garden. This is the temptation that lead all of humanity to be broken away from God's family.

Good news. Jesus didn't fail.

God wants humanity back in His family.

He wants us back without judgment.

We can't bridge that gap.

So God joined humanity and did it for us.

And because God is pure and sin cannot abide His presence, but He wants people, Jesus overcame the sin that drove Adam and Eve out of the garden and God's presence. He did it for us.

But evil still exists today.

Until evil is wiped out, we have a job to do.

God left the Church in this world to continue the work of Jesus, simply, peaceably and together.

So what about sin, shame or this constant failure?

A sin based religion is not what Jesus taught, John 3:17 -I did not come into the world to condemn the world....

Remember, God believes in us. He does. He believes in everyone just like we believe in our own children.

We live in a culture that measures everything by certain standards of performance.

When I am preaching it is such a great temptation to fall into the trap of telling people exactly what to do, how to do it, in order to have a successful Christian experience.

But you see.

The point of this wilderness experience is grace TO US.

GRACE TOWARD US!

We couldn't do it.

And again, that is not about shame, failure, or God having an ego to prove that He is the best person in the room.

No. Not at all. It all changes with a grace based faith instead of a sin based religion.

The change comes with the Holy Spirit in us.

I love the book “The Shack.” In the original printing, on page 209, the 2^nd full paragraph of the character who plays God says: “I am a verb. I am that I am.”

“I am that I am” is the name God gave to Moses.

“I am that I am” means that I am the universal force. In Scientific terms, it could be “I am the Big Bang.”

But for the Christian this concept is liberating.

When God is only a noun, He becomes this standard that we measure ourselves against and fail every time.

Now, only God is perfect and that is why we worship Him.

But He made us in His image with four great longings.

We long for God, for spirituality, we long for beauty, we long for justice and we long for community.

He gave humanity the ability to excel in these things.

Why do we worship? It fills this longing in our hearts? Longing for God.

I saw a couple of figure skaters once whose performance was so good that I wept at its beauty. That is from God. And that is through humanity. Longing for beauty.

When I heard the testimony of Malala, the young Muslim woman who was shot in the head by the Taliban, I was brought to tears. First, she describes the terrible violence and fear that her region endured and then she told us how she was fighting them with peace. Longing for justice.

This Church. People visit and they stay. And so far, the reason everyone has told me that they stay is because of the way you welcome people. This is love for community.

All of these things show the human potential of Christ in us, the hope of glory.

And yet, when we compare ourselves to Jesus' success during this temptation, we could fall into the trap feeling like failure.

But God is a verb. The Holy Spirit is in us. God empowers us to succeed in what He has given us to do.

In a grace based spiritual economy, when God calls us to serve Him, the responsibility for success is God's.

In a sin based spiritual economy, when God is only a noun, something to live up to, instead of it being God's responsibility to succeed, it is our burden to perform.

And that, my friends leads to shame.

Jesus did it. He did it for us to bring us back to God.

So, when I sin, I like the answer “oops.”

Not that we celebrate failure or sin.

No. But God is in us. Now that Jesus' sacrifice has been accomplished, we have power to be the good that Jesus preached.

The temptation of Christ leads us to grace.