Reigniting Passion in the Desert

Story of Anthony of the Desert

In the 3rd century, men and women began leaving the metropolitan cities of Cairo and Alexandria to pursue lives of prayer and holiness in the wilderness. Some of this was due to increased persecution, some because of the compromises they saw coming into the church. They became known as the Desert Mothers and Fathers, and they were possibly some of the most radical prayer warriors of all time.

One of these Desert Fathers was Anthony, now known as Anthony the Great or Anthony of the Desert.

Born in 251 AD in Egypt to a fairly well off family

By 18 both parents had died leaving him a sizable estate

Several months after their death, while in church, he heard story of Rich Young Ruler and Jesus’ command to “go, sell everything you have, and come follow me.” Felt like Jesus was saying that directly to him.

Sold or gave away all that he owned and lived among some tombs in the desert near his village. A short time later, seeking greater solitude, he would move further out into out into the desert, and there he would live for the rest of his life, dying at of 105.

He wasn’t the first of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, but he would be the most famous thanks to a biography of his life written by the great church father St. Athanasius of Alexandria. His book, The Life of St. Anthony, became a best seller in the ancient world, full of accounts of Anthony’s conflicts with demons, one in particular that left him physically bloodied.

Anthony became the father of monasticism. But what drove him to the desert wasn’t a desire to make a name for himself or to launch a movement. He spent most of his life shunning those things. He went to the desert to follow in his master’s footsteps. He was driven by a simple thing: greater passion for Jesus.

———————————————————————-

Today we mark the first Sunday of Lent. For the next 6 weeks we’ll be in a series called Water in the Wilderness. We will journey with Jesus into the desert as we head toward the cross and resurrection. Along the way we will meet other faithful guides like Anthony of the Desert who will help us on our way.

IDK about you, but I’m not a fan of the desert. When I see pictures of one, all I see is parched ground, dust, and stunted shrubs. I know there are those weirdos - I’m sure none of you - who find the desert somehow beautiful. To me, the desert seems like a place completely barren of life.  Bleak, desolate, even God-forsaken.  So your not going to catch me scheduling a vacation to The Painted Desert or the Badlands or Bryce Canyon.

BTW, I’m not alone in my feelings. Throughout history, deserts in general were to be avoided. They represented danger for travelers - if wild beasts or bandits didn’t get you, then the elements would.

Unfortunately, not all deserts can be avoided, can they? Because not all deserts are physical. Sometimes against our wishes we find ourselves wondering in a spiritual wasteland. A desert of the soul. During these times we could apply the same descriptions: we feel spiritually bleak, barren, desolate, and even God-forsaken.

When we find ourselves in these spiritual deserts they can make us feel like we’ve done something wrong, that we are being punished for something. Why is God letting this happen? Julie’s encounter with coworker this week… Clarify God using the desert vs causing the desert.

There’s lots of reasons we may find ourselves in a spiritual desert:

An unfulfilling job or lacking clear direction in life

A painful relationship

An unanswered prayer

An unsettling transition - new job, new city, new church

Chronic health problem - everyone else seems to be getting on with life and you’re sidelined

Perhaps the most universal desert experience has been called the “dark night of the soul”. For no reason you can think of God feels distant.

Whether physical or spiritual, deserts just seem bad. Best avoided, or barring that, then something to get through as quickly as possible.

But...

What if the desert serves a greater purpose in your life. What if God leads you to the desert as an intentional plan to do something in you that can only be accomplished in the crucible of desert experiences. What if it’s not cruelty that brings you to the desert but God’s desire to bless you? What if the water your soul needs can only be found in the wilderness?

This morning we’re going to follow Anthony example, following Jesus into the desert. We’ll see that The desert isn’t a dead end; it’s a divine doorway. The desert is where God can reignite our passion for Jesus.

Pray

——————————————————————————

How does God us the desert to reignite our passion? Through separation, preparation, and consecration. See what I did there??

First, The desert as a place of separation.

“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.” (Luke 4:1–2, NIV)

Jesus is still wet from his baptism when the Spirit leads him into the wilderness. And just btw, the Judean wilderness is a desert. It’s not the Ozarks. He’s just had a mountain top experience at the Jordan River where the Spirit descends on him and the Father’s voice thunders “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:22, NRSV)

And now he’s alone with nothing but silence. He is separated from sources of comfort, companionship, even from the basic resources considered necessary for survival.

For Jesus, this is a necessary withdrawal. Before he begins his public ministry, he needs the undistracted company of his Father. In the desert the “noise” of being just “the son of a carpenter” is stripped away so he could fully inhabit his identity as the Son of God. Here is where his dependence on the Father is firmly cemented. In the desert Jesus is assured that his Father is sufficient.

The separation of the desert forces us to evaluation our dependencies. If we’re honest, rather than finding our security in God’s sufficiency, we often try to find it the wrong things: being successful in our job, being popular, accumulating wealth, a relationship. None of those are necessarily wrong, but their “noise” keeps us from hearing what we must hear above all else: that we are “beloved”. Our souls become parched when we aren’t often drinking from the well of our belovedness in God’s eyes.

You can’t hear a whisper in a thunderstorm. Sometimes only the separation of the desert creates the silence necessary to hear your Father’s voice again. Out of a deep love for you he will lead you into the desert to recenter your dependence on him. You learn an essential spiritual lesson: you’ll never know that God is all you need until God is all you have. In the silence of separation, our passion for Jesus can be reborn.

Next, The desert as a place of preparation.

“The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’” The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’” The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.” (Luke 4:3–13, NIV)

The devil comes to Jesus with three temptations: physical appetite, worldly power, and testing God. Underneath, what he’s really doing it trying to get Jesus to take the crown without the cross through physical autonomy, political power, and spectacular stunts.

In our modern society the devil comes with different temptations. Richard Foster argues that “In contemporary society our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in ‘muchness’ and ‘manyness,’ he will rest satisfied.”

Through these temptations, Jesus isn’t just surviving them; he’s being sharpened by them. This was the spiritual preparation he needed in order to prepare him for his destiny with the cross. It was this victory in the desert that enabled him to later have victory in the garden as he faced the immensity of what was about to happen to him. “Father, if there is any way let this cup pass from me. But not my will but yours be done.”

The good news is that God does not need to prepare you to become the savior of the world. But you do have assignments that he will need to prepare you for. The desert is where he develops your spiritual stamina. It’s where you are trained to say "no" to the flesh and "yes" to the Spirit. And when we emerge from the fire, we find that we didn’t just survive; we were forged. Passion and purpose were worked into our soul.

Finally, The desert as a place of consecration.

“Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.” (Luke 4:14, NIV)

We began with Jesus being led into the desert “full of the Spirit”. Now, he returns from the desert “in the power of the Spirit”. Through this “trial by fire” he emerges fully consecrated to God’s purposes. To consecrate something means to set apart, or dedicate completely it, to God. In the desert Jesus becomes fully surrendered to the Father’s will. And the Spirit that anointed him in baptism now empowers him for his mission: to announce and demonstrate the good news that God’s kingdom has now arrived.

This is the same thing our spiritual deserts can do in our life - IF we will let them. There is a way to walk through the desert like ancient Israel; constantly grumbling against God and complaining to God. I’ve done that plenty of times. And I can tell you every single time I emerged from the desert no better than when I went in. I missed God’s blessing.

But when we enter the desert, understanding that it is not punishment but preparation, we also become fully consecrated to the Father’s purposes in our life. And we emerge with a divine energy we never had before.

I can’t tell you how many people have told me their stories of finding themselves in the desert, and then realizing as they emerged on the other side, that that was a breakthrough moment in their life. Their consistent testimony is that the wouldn’t want to go through it again, but they also wouldn’t trade what they received in the process.

The truth is that if we will submit to God in the desert, we discover that the wasteland is never wasted. We emerge with greater purpose, power, and passion.

——————————————————————————- Anthony went into the desert because of his passion for Jesus. He went in alone, but then a strange thing happened.

People began hearing about this “holy man” who lived in the desert. Pilgrims began journeying into the desert to seek his counsel or to ask for prayer. They would bring him their infirmities and in many cases they were healed.

Anthony did his best to avoid all this. He even tried moving further into the desert. But soon other hermits began to gather around him, and before he knew there was a community of hermits looking to him as their spiritual leader.

People from as far away as Spain and Rome came seeking this recluse. Over his lifetime thousands sought him out. Through the separation, preparation, and consecration of the desert, having fled the world, he began to change it.

—————————————————————-

The truth is that I still want to skip the desert. But it seems the desert is necessary for our development.

Moses spent 40 years in the desert watching his father in laws sheep before he was ready to become the shepherd of Israel.

The apostle Paul spent 3 years in the desert after his conversion before he was was ready to be the apostle to the Gentiles.

It was necessary that Jesus underwent the trial of the desert to prepare him for his vocation of salvation.

And, so, it’s probably going to be a necessary part of your road as well.

In the desert, God:

Separates us, removing noisy distractions so we can hear clear identity.

Prepares us, using our trials to build our strength.

Consecrates us, causing us to lay down our will so that we can take up the Spirit’s power.

And through the barrenness of the desert, he reignites our passion for Jesus.

———————————————————-

How’s your passion for Jesus? Scale of 1 - 10, 10 being you’re so hot you’re catching others on fire, the other end being lukewarm or frigid, where is your passion sitting?

Maybe the first response to this message - and to the season of Lent - is to just be honest about where you are. It’s not like God doesn’t already know. Sometimes the most authentic prayer we can pray is just to acknowledge that we don’t want what we ought to want and to ask God to “fix our want to”.

Maybe you feel like you are in the desert right now. Maybe your response it to change paradigms. Stop seeing this desert moment as a punishment or adversity to endure, and as an opportunity to grow in intimacy with Jesus. Stop asking “why is this happening” and start asking “what are you wanting me to learn”.

Whether you are currently in the desert or not, the one thing we most need to hear on a regular basis is that we are loved. God calls you his beloved. But the noise of life can leave us distracted and deaf. And so maybe God’s call to you is to enter a voluntary desert. To intentionally choose more solitude during this season so that you can more clearly hear God’s voice. This is part of what is behind our fast from media - stripping away the noise and triggers that cause outrage in order to better hear God speak over us.

The desert isn’t a dead end; it’s a divine doorway. There is water in the wasteland for you.

—————————————————————-

Communion

Invite people to stand.

Invite Communion/ministry team forward.

Every Sunday we close our time by receiving Communion together. This symbolic meal reminds us of Jesus’ sacrifice. In it we testify that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again. Jesus said it is his body and blood, true food and true drink. It is a grace given to us for our spiritual nourishment.

We think Jesus invites everyone to this table. If it’s your first time, or you’re not even sure yet where you stand with Jesus, we think he would welcome you here. If you would like to participate, after I pray step into the nearest aisle. Someone at the front will take a piece of bread dipped in wine and offer it to you as the body and blood of Jesus. If you prefer not to have wine, close your hands together and that will be the sign for them to give you a sealed container with grape juice and a wafer.

What is the Spirit doing this morning?…

As we come to the table this morning, let’s rejoice together with all God’s people in his promise in Isaiah 35 to renew the desert places:

The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.

Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

and those the LORD has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. (Isaiah 35, NIV)

Thank him that he has already begun to renew the desert though Jesus. By the blood of his cross he has washed and renewed us. Through his victorious resurrection he has guaranteed us eternal life. Through his ascension and the outpouring of the Spirit he has made us one with you.

We remember Him who for us and for our salvation, on the night that he was betrayed...

Come Holy Spirit and overshadow these elements. Let them be for us your body and blood so that we can participate in your redemptive work for us. May we find mercy, healing and salvation through the finished work of the cross. Amen.

Invite the worship team to receive Communion first.