Undoing the Done, or The Same Old Tricks, or The First Temptation of Christ, or Death Becomes Me

This morning at church I am teaching the young adult class. We are studying through Luke, and to be honest, I am apprehensive. As I read through Luke I cannot ignore how much Jesus says about helping the poor and using our riches for Kingdom business and not for personal gain. I'm apprehensive for two reasons, one is I go to a rich church. I certainly don't mean that everyone in the church is loaded. The vast majority are hard workers: business people, farmers, skilled laborers, teachers, college staff, etc. It is a congregation full of very decent, hard working, honest people. It is very middle class, and it is a generous middle class. But what I don't see is the poor. That bothers me. I really don't think poor people feel welcome at my congregation. It is certainly not because it isn't friendly, they are. But it's that feeling of walking into a place and realizing "This is not where I belong. They are nice, but they don't understand. Nobody looks like me here. I don't deserve to be in a place like this." It is a very middle class church, and it's expectations are middle class.

The second reason I am apprehensive is this: I fall into the exact same category. Sure, right now I work a minimum wage job, but I get my bills paid, I drive a nice car, I could dress really nice if I wanted to. I am more concerned about keeping myself entertained and fed, and ignorant of the struggling families that live within even a mile of my house. I waste a lot of money on myself and things that don't really mean much. I am middle class, and my expectations are middle class.

So it is with this that I come to Luke. And this is what I am going to talk about tomorrow- ok, later today:

Luke 4:1-21

I knew I was going to talk about the temptation of Christ in light of the first temptation in the Garden of Eden. They parallel each other. Satan still tempts the same way with the same things, but then why change when it works so well? What I noticed this time is that the temptation follows the genealogy of Jesus, which ends with "the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God." Several generations right back to the beginning, right back to the garden where this divine plan that Jesus is carrying out had to be put in place so that humanity had any hope at all. Jesus had to face the same temptations that Adam and Eve faced. (As a side note, guys, quit blaming Eve for this one and read Genesis 3:6. He was right there with her, and he didn't hesitate when taking the fruit. He was doing what most guys do very well; he was playing stupid.) Satan's big lie was that it would give them wisdom, knowing right from wrong. What it would really do is make them self-aware, and when one is aware of desire burning in them, it takes a miracle from God to stop one from doing whatever to fill that desire. Self awareness without God's wisdom becomes self-addiction. Satan wanted Jesus to buy into Himself. It's that same trick he's always used. This is the only time it wasn't successful.

So in this divine battle Satan hits Jesus with the big 3: lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. All sin is simply self-addiction, and these are the three subcategories. In the garden the forbidden fruit was "good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom." I don't like how the NIV puts that last part, it is more like desirable for becoming like God. Now Satan has his turn with God in the flesh, and that flesh means He has the same desires we have: He got hungry, He got thirsty, He had a sex drive, He got irritated, He sweat, He bled, somedays He woke up sore and His back was stiff. He was flesh like we are flesh.

He was at the end of a 40 day fast. He was hungry. Not the emotion confused for hunger we so often have, not the "I'm bored so I think I'll eat" hunger. Not the social, hang out with friends and get an appetizer hunger. He was physically starving. He didn't just want food, He needed food. He was at the end of his physical existence. And He could do something about it, and no one would have thought bad of Him to do it. Except His Father. The temptation was for Jesus to become self-addicted. "Turn this stone into bread." And in some ways this may have been stronger because Jesus could have. He had great power. The end of His hunger was all around Him. "Man does not live on bread alone," came the answer. There are more important things than even taking care of our own needs. Life comes from God, and He is the only sustainer. Life is more than food. Jesus wasn't going to buy into a "my needs" mentality, even when His needs were great.

The world is Satan's. He has the power to do with it what he wants. Only God's presence and mercy that hold back the full furry of angry destruction the evil one would like to initiate. But it is temporal. The earth will pass away, and Satan will only be left with hell, which is not a place where he reigns, but is a place that was created to torture the evil one himself. Satan is more scared of hell than any human, because he knows its horror, and he is continuously reminded of the majesty and splendor of being in God's presence. But that wasn't good enough, He wanted to be God. He was not equipped for the position, and most of all he is not love, nor can Satan create. That is God's power alone. So God gave him what he wanted, a place where he could be top dog. But Satan can't sustain life, so he only has what is passing away. The earth is passing, so it is Satan's. But, oh, this earth looks good and it certainly has it's wonderful pleasures. "If you worship me, it will all be yours." This is one time in the Bible where Satan is telling the truth. Satan knows the world is worthless, it is a burden off his back to get rid of it. He gives it to us all the time and then sits back and laughs. He knows he'll get it back when we die. Besides, why not have someone to join you in hell. Misery loves company. Look at the stuff the world has to offer. Look at all the pleasure. I would give in in a second- Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Cribs, Pimp My Ride, Bill Gates' fortune, Wilt Chamberlain's "scoring" and even King Solomon's fame all rolled into one. It's yours baby!!! But it is self-addiction. All that you can see is yours to do with as you please. Sure it is pleasurable and nice. But it is empty and fleeting. The high goes away and there is nothing to sustain it. It is a gradual slide into hell because it is all fleeting. And then when it is too late you realize it was hell to begin with. "Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only," is the response. Jesus knew the eternal. Jesus knew He was not here for Himself. Jesus knew He came to die so that true eternity would be gained. Jesus was not hear for His own gain. Jesus knew never to pick the temporary and shiny over the eternal and grimy. Heaven in it's worse state is infinitely better than hell in its best state. As the hymn says, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow mighty dim in the light of His glory and grace."

Then comes the third and most seemingly ridiculous, but the one that got us here in the first place. "You know who You are. You know that God would never allow you to be hurt. You're God, show it!" The temptation is a little different, because Jesus is God. To us it's "You can be your own God, or be like God." It's self-addiction. "If only I could make people do what I wanted them to do. If only people payed more attention to me. If only people knew who I was!" is the cry of our hearts. In the previous temptation Satan told the truth, this one is all lie. "Your important, God will take care of you." How much whining do we hear today like this? "Why would God let this happen?-I don't deserve this!-Why can't I get what I deserve?" Because we believed the lie, bought into ourselves, and bought into a god that is supposed to do our bidding. We've thrown ourselves off the temple believing that somehow we shouldn't crash at the bottom, that God will send every angel at His command to protect us because we are important. But Jesus answered, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." Jesus was to give fully of Himself, not use His position of authority to command what He wanted. He was to give Himself over as the sacrifice of love, and in the process teach what it looks like to overcome self-addiction. Would the angels have saved Him? I don't know and really it's irrelevant- if He jumps, He's lost and we have no hope because has chosen Himself over us. But Jesus wasn't going to buy into Himself, He was going to buy into humanity. And it cost Him everything. He took nothing for Himself.

And then the devil left--until an opportune time. The one quality Jesus and Satan share is persistence. He'll be back.

Then Jesus goes to the temple and proclaims He is here. And they're not going to like it, because He is going to ask the good religious people to get over their self-righteous addiction and start looking beyond themselves. And then He proclaims that He is not going to focus on them, but the outcasts. Their self-addiction rears up and screams, "Pay attention to us! Tell us how good we are!" He won't. He is not asking us to be good moral people, He is asking us to follow Him and die. It takes Jesus one worship service before the they want to kill Him. It's not the glorious god in the box we so often worship who makes us feel good about ourselves and tells us we're right. It is the eternal God asking us to go ahead and kill what is going to die anyway. It is the only thing that will save us. "Then Jesus said, 'If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?'" (Matthew 16:24-26). We were meant for eternity, and to find it we must die to the temporal because it is Satan's and it is already dead, and it is already hell.

"And the smell of our sacrifices still fills up my head. There's just a few left at the altar, Lord, all the rest of them have fled. And we've cried and we've tried and we've sweat and we've bled, but we don't just need atonement, we need to be raised from the dead."--Don Chaffer

I am self-addicted and I want to die. May I die into Christ so that He may live through me.