[Machine transcription]
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading. So last Wednesday we began the season of Lent. Forty days until Easter. Of course not counting Sundays. There’s Sundays in Lent, not of Lent. Lent. And the 40 days are symbolic of the 40 days about which we heard in the gospel reading where Jesus went out into the wilderness and was tempted by God, allowed to be tempted by God. It was God’s will. And so after 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry and Satan came. Now last Wednesday, on Ash Wednesday, I spoke to you about validation of God’s identity of you, that we are not to seek validation from ourself. We are not to seek validation from one another. We are to cling to God’s validation of us as my beloved son and my beloved daughter. And just as here on earth, being a son or daughter implies you have one father, not two. So it is with your heavenly father. Now that you are his son or daughter, you are only his son or daughter. You call him only as your father. However… In this morning’s Old Testament reading, Satan is introduced to us, as well as in this morning’s Gospel reading. And he’s introduced to us and shown us that his will, that is Satan’s, is to tempt all of mankind. But let’s be more honest, to tempt you, as one of God’s children, to deny your identity as God’s son or daughter. He is called the devil, which is another word for the slanderer. And he loves to slander your identity to yourself and slander your identity to the Father concerning yourself, which then wells up fears and doubts and concerns. He’s also called Satan our adversary. And it is his will until our entrance into heaven, God will allow Satan to roam this earth like a prowling lion seeking someone to devour. And his will is always opposed to yours, having been made God’s child, and to the Father. He is also called the tempter in this morning’s text. And as tempter, he will always appeal to your flesh, he will always appeal to your pride, and he will always appeal to your fears. All for the intent of getting you to deny your identity… As God’s son or God’s daughter. Your true identity. What God has declared. Now notice immediately in this morning’s text, the verses preceding Jesus being thrust out into the wilderness, the father declares Jesus’ identity. The father calls him in his baptism, this is my beloved son. Son. With whom I am well pleased. The Father defines for Jesus, and most importantly for you, his identity, who he is. And then he thrusts him out into the world of the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights. Not too unlike yourself. Having been baptized into Christ, having been defined and validated by the Father’s declaration of who you are, You then are thrust into the wilderness of this world during your 40 years of wilderness journeyings until you are brought home and you become the arch enemy of Satan. But this Jesus was thrust into this arena not to show you how to fight Satan. Listen carefully. Jesus did not come in this text to show you battle tactics in order to enable you to triumph over Satan. Otherwise, Jesus becomes nothing more than an example And brothers and sisters, that’s nothing more than law, and law will lead you to hell. In this morning’s text, Jesus comes as not example, but as fulfiller, faithful fulfiller for you, because you need a savior, not an example. Have you heard of the idiom crash and burn? It’s kind of a hyperbolic statement about completely and totally failing, utterly failing. Failing. That concept of crashing and burning is exactly what happens to Adam and Eve in this morning’s text. They have just been created in God’s image. God has spoken to them and affirmed them as to their identity as his creatures. Not just any creatures, but the only creatures made in his image. Having validated these, his creatures, Satan comes, doesn’t he? And what Satan desires us to do, but to get them to deny their identity as God’s creatures and for them to figure out their own identity according to their own self-evaluation. And then they don’t do it apart from one another, they do it with one another, one validating the other. So not only are they evaluating themselves and validating themselves, they’re also getting their validation and identity from one another, which is going to be skewed. Because it’s not based on what God proclaimed about them at the very beginning. That’s crashing and burning. Instead of trusting in what God had defined them as and clinging to their identity, they rather would cling to their own evaluation of what is their identity. Paul spoke about this in this morning’s epistle reading when he said, Sin came into the world through that one man, Adam. And death came through that one man’s sin. And now death has spread to all because all men sin. All men have crashed and burned. All men have fallen and can’t get up. All men have utterly and completely failed and cannot, no matter how hard they try, validate and evaluate themselves in any fine fashion. The judgment following one trespass is what brought condemnation. Now, along comes the one man, the Son of God, and he lives not by his own evaluation of himself, nor does he live by how the people define him. He lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God for you, not for himself, for you. St. Matthew this morning is not proclaiming Jesus as an example to you, as to what you need to do so that you can then say, I can triumph over Satan, I can achieve this. He’s proclaiming to you Jesus’ work for you, for you who have crashed and burned, for you, for all the times you can maybe say what you have done, Satan will remind you and your flesh will be willing to listen for all the times when you haven’t and have caved and have given in. When you and I have denied our identity by misusing it in order to do what we want to do because, oh, well, God’s going to forgive us. For all those times did Jesus live by every word that came from the mouth of God. And did he not fail? No. He’s the one who worshipped and served God alone. No. Purely and perfectly, not you. For all the times when you and I have denied our identity as son and daughter of God and have acted out in words or in deeds, God is not with us, I have to do something about this that I’m in. For all those times did Jesus endure faithfully trusting in God’s validation of who he is. And declaration of what his will is for him. And how he would provide for him. For all the times when you don’t. And just as when you have denied your identity as being from the Father. As your one and only Father. Does Satan love to remind you of all the times when you’ve acted as if he was your daddy. As if he was the one who begat you. As if you are flesh and not redeemed sinner. For that did Jesus then live again. As the faithful and perfect obedient son to the Father. For that did Jesus faithfully not only obey but serve God and all to fulfill it for you. At every turn, Satan is trying to get Jesus in this morning’s text to misunderstand his identity. At every turn in this morning’s text is Satan trying to get Jesus not to live out his mission for you. But instead to live it out for himself. Why? Because you and I do misunderstand our identity. And because you and I do live out our life for ourself and not for our Lord and Father. Satan attacks you, but he attacks your failures. He attacks your fears. He attacks every one of your negligences. And he attacks every one of your collapses. The kind of people that are in hell… They’re the kind of people who looked at Jesus as only an example, and they tried to live their life like that and didn’t see him as a savior. Hell is full of people like that. Heaven, on the other hand, is full of people only who saw Jesus as savior and not just as example. Heaven is full of people who see Jesus just as savior, not example. This is what Jesus has done for us. That we might continually be called sons and daughters of the Father. And that we might have confidence when Satan comes and battle him not with our record, but with the record of the one who was made flesh for you. In his name and by his grace. Amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
