Sermon - 2019-03-10

Today within the gospel, we hear of the temptation that Jesus faced right after his baptism.  Now each of the temptations is significant because they are representing the same temptations and distractions that we have in our life every single day.  They are things or ideas that can distract and actually take us away from God. However, today I want you to take note, not of the temptations themselves but the work and relationship that Jesus had before facing these temptations.

Sitting down with each one of you, I could help you discover what it is that your temptation is within your own life, perhaps without you even realizing.  Yet realizing the temptation and realizing what is greater than that, is something that would change our motivation and thus keep our focus on something that is far more important.  Today, I want you to become aware of what is even greater than that temptation so that as you are facing it, you may have the tools and knowledge to overcome and even more be motivated to see the greater picture.  

Now many of you know that Jesus is important and that we should be following him as disciples but for many of us, we come and hear of what it is that we are hoping to gain by following Jesus.  For millions, they seek the gift of everlasting life, for others, they come to find a simpler means of living, for others, it is what they were born into and continue to uphold. However, what if the “what is it you get out of the relationship” is not the motivating desire that God is wanting us to understand?  What if that is only the first step of journey to get us motivated and ultimately, we are called to be so much more than that?

As I was preparing for this sermon, I was reading a passage that stuck out at me from Charles Colson’s Loving God.  Mr Colson wrote:

“Most of the great figures of the Old Testament died without ever seeing the fulfillment of the promises they relied upon. Paul expended himself building the early church, but as his life drew to a close he would see only a string of tiny outposts along the Mediterranean, many weakened by fleshly indulgence or divided over doctrinal disputes. In more recent times, the great colonial pastor Cotton Mather prayed for revival several hours each day for twenty years; the Great Awakening began the year he died. The British Empire finally abolished slavery as the Christian parliamentarian and abolitionist leader William Wilberforce lay on his deathbed, exhausted from his nearly fifty-year campaign against the practice of human bondage. Few were the converts during Hudson Taylor’s lifelong mission work in the Orient: but today millions of Chinese embrace the faith he so patiently planted and tended. Some might think this divine pattern cruel, but I am convinced there is a sovereign wisdom to it. Knowing how susceptible we are to success siren call, God does not allow us to see, and therefore glory in, what is done through us. The very nature of the obedience He demands is that it be given without regard to circumstances or results.”

-—Charles Colson, Loving God, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, I987, pp. 32-33

Now reading this and reading our Gospel for today, I am reminded of the much greater relationship that Jesus and others have had with God.  That it was not an end goal that not only helped them but it truly helped others. Now this is not radical but it does change our perspective on our motivation and I would hope how we are engaging different aspects of our life.  I hope that our relationship with God is not a transaction, I give you my life so that I have eternal life. I hope that you are not doing good things in order that you might receive something in return either from God or from the person.  

I hope that you would be able to see past all of this and realize that what God is strive to construct and have you apart of it all is the Kingdom of God.  Yes even here on Earth. Each and every one of us lay a brick and make room for more and more within the kingdom.