Be Careful Out There!

Grace unto you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. From our Gospel lesson this morning, we hear these words: The Spirit immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness and He was in the wilderness 40 days, being tempted by Satan and He was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to Him. So ends the reading of our text, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ.

Some of you may have remembered there was a TV show back in the eighties, one that I really liked, and it was called Hill Street Blues. Hill Street Blues was a police show, and it was in the Hill Street area. And that's why it was that, and blue stood for the blue of the policemen wearing blue. So anyway, they would always begin and there would be a little theme for the theme of the show, then, they would always go to the roll call room, and all the officers getting together in the morning before they went off. And there they'd have a briefing with Sergeant Phil Esterhaus. And he would always go through everything that they needed to do, and then they would start to get up, and then he'd say, "Just one more thing: Let's be careful out there." Well, let's be careful out there. Maybe what we, in a sense, could say what goes on here, we're now in the safety of God's house until we're safe here. I always think it's sort of like when we go up to Camp Luther. When you go into Camp Luther, it's like this isn't ordinary up here, because this is a whole Christian Community here. We're not being affected by the outside world, and we come here with the same idea that when we come here, we come here to worship. Until we sing our opening hymn "A Mighty Fortress," and then we make confession of our sins as we do every Sunday, and then receive the good news that we're forgiven. We hear God's word, and this morning, we heard how Abraham was tested, and that's what she talked about with the children this morning. Abraham was tested and told to sacrifice his son. And then we hear God's word. We're now hearing God's word through the sermon and then when we lived after that, we go in to our prayers and then we come forward and receive that assurance that we are forgiven when we come forward to the Lord's Supper and then we go out there. And maybe it'd be good if we we put this banner up there, which said "Let's be careful out there." Or, we go with something better though, don't we? We go with the words of the benediction: "The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and grant you His peace." And then we leave. Or sometimes there's been times when we get into our cars and as we're leaving from the parking lot, it says "You are now entering the mission field." It's so easy when we're sitting in here to feel so comfortable that we don't have to worry about outside temptations. But on the other hand, just to let you know that: don't worry, Satan doesn't say that he just stopped outside the doors and says, "I'll leave them alone while they're here in church." Satan's still trying to work at us right now. He's trying to divert you from hearing God's word and how it can apply to your life, and so he's working overtime on us who are sitting in here in God's house. And as we know, well, we can be very tempted. I may have already lost you in the sermon cuz you're already thinking about "What am I going to do if it snows this afternoon?" I mean, that's what happens. Satan comes in and says, "I'm going to get them." Or it's like someone said, you know, right outside the front doors is were Satan set up a chapel. But Satan is very much alive and well and so he's even here in our worship. And so, speaking of the devil, it's sort of like this is what it's always been the first Sunday in Lent. It's always been about the temptation of Jesus. Now, this morning, we only have two verses, two verses that Mark recorded. But if we took a look at Matthew and Luke, we find out that they've got a lot more, and that's where we know a lot more about the temptation of Jesus, but not here in Mark. In fact, we have the baptism of Jesus, which we dealt with in the first Sunday after the Epiphany: we dealt with the baptism of Jesus. And then it Mark 1 there, we've been going through that, hearing the Gospel where we found out that Jesus taught with authority and that people were astounded at Him, and there were all kinds of things that already taken place. But now this Sunday, we come back to the temptation of Jesus. And so it is the word - the key word for this morning is that Jesus was tempted, or he was tested. And so it is that we take a look and say that He would be tempted to sin, and so He goes out though and into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan, and Jesus, being man, had to realize that He, too needed to be tempted, and so as we know, in the end He wins. But Jesus in His ministry was also tempted in other ways too. There is the time in which Jesus had done so many wonderful things that they wanted to make make Him King. Instead, in these words in Scripture: perceiving then that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him King, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by Himself. In Mark 8, which is going to be the Gospel next Sunday, we find out that Jesus told the disciples, He said, "The Son of Man must suffer many things that He was suffered to die and rise again," and then Peter takes Him aside and says "Lord, do you know, this can't happen to You." And what does Jesus tell him? "Get behind me, Satan." So, just because Jesus had had this encounter there in the wilderness doesn't mean that that was all over. Satan continues to work at Jesus. And so we have our words for the scripture this morning. Immediately, He goes out into the Wilderness and He goes there for 40 days. Now, when you think of wilderness, what it look like? I had the opportunity to go to Israel, and wilderness, maybe we think of the wooded forest around here in the north Wisconsin. It's more like if you've ever been to the Badlands or to Death Valley it's sort of like just nothing there. That's what it was like for Jesus to be out there in the wilderness for 40 days. And speaking of 40, this isn't the first time, our encounter with the term 40, or the number 40. If you stop and think about it, there was the flood. It rained how many days? 40 days and 40 nights. Moses goes up in the mountain to get the Commandments. He's up there 40 days and 40 nights, and then there were the 40 days that the spies went and spied on Israel and because the children of Israel didn't like what they heard when those five came back, God said "For every day that they were spying, I'm going to make you in the wilderness 40 years." And so we got a lot of 40s. In fact, and we get to Lent and we've got 40 days. So, for 40 days, Jesus was tempted, but in a sense, Jesus took it to Satan. Jesus didn't run away from Satan. He goes in there and Satan tempts Him. And so it is that Jesus is tempted.

So why did He need to go into the wilderness? The bottom line is, why did why did Jesus need to do this? Because, you see, Jesus needed in a sense to show who is boss. Who is the one in charge here? I mean, when you read Matthew and Luke, it's sort of like Satan sort of sounds like he's in control. He said, you know, "Jump off the tower here from the temple and God's angels will carry you." Or, he said "Turn these stones into bread. You can do that." Or, "Bow down and worship me." It's sort of like Satan is in control, and yet every time, Jesus countered. And how did He counter him? He countered him with God's word. He countered him and Jesus proved to him once and for all that Jesus was the one who was in charge here. And Jesus is the one who is going to be victorious, and that Satan couldn't drag Him down, and so from this wilderness experience, we find out that Jesus charges on, and He's tempted in different ways, like I've already brought up, but all along the way there were different times in which Jesus could have folded, so to speak, but He didn't. Remember when they came to arrest Him there in the garden? They're taking Him in, and Jesus says, what? "Hey, if I want, I got Legions of angels I could call on, but I'm not going to do that." He allows Himself to be spit on, ridiculed all through the trial, which we will find out again in here during Lent, and Jesus just lets it happen. when He's up there on the cross, they say, "Hey, if you're the Son of God, come down from the cross." And the truth of the matter is Jesus could have what? Climbed down off the cross. But why didn't He? Because, you see, when He started on His journey on this journey back there with that temptation there in the wilderness right after his baptism, you see, He went on that journey, because He came to suffer and to die and to rise again. Jesus came to suffer for our sins. Was He tempted? Was He tested? Absolutely. And yet, what did Jesus do? He put aside his Divine Glory so that He would suffer and die and pay for the sins of all of us. Now the truth of the matter is, is are we tempted? I think there's different kinds of temptation. There's a temptation I have it every time I walk into Kwik Trip, I have to go through this thing trying not to buy Glaziers. Or Dunkers, or to buy my favorite, the pershing, it's a cinnamon roll, and on my way here this morning I gave in and I got my coffee, and I got my pershing roll. But you see, there's other kinds of things people tell me. "I don't know, I'm not trying to drink any Mountain Dew." Or there's someone else who just told me they said, "Hey, I thought about this and you know, what I could do is I could quit the job I presently have and get a job that's paying more, even though I really love what I'm doing, but I need a job that pays more because I'd really like this better home." I'm not sure what your temptation is, if it's sweets or whatever, but that's one kind of temptation. What we're talking about here is that there is a spiritual temptation. In fact, we talked about it and we pray about it every time we say the Lord's Prayer: lead us what? Not into temptation. And I think Luther does a marvelous job when he said what does this mean? And Luther said, "God certainly tempts no one to sin, but we pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world and our flesh may not deceive us, or lead us into misbelief, dispair, and other shameful sin and vice, and know we be thus tempted that we may still in the end overcome and retain the victory."

And so let's be clear: God doesn't tempt us to sin. God may test us. And that's what it talked about in James this morning in that second lesson: James had said these words "Let no one say when he is tempted 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil and He Himself tempts no one." Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians wrote it this way: he said, "no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, He will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure." You know, sometimes people - I always think about these things - people say, "I don't know how much more I can take." This passage here really helps me out. God's not going to give me more than I can take. God's not here trying to break us. He's not trying to say "I hope they lose, I hope by that their willpower that they maybe quit following me." The truth of the matter is, is that you see with sin, came this horrible thing that there are going to be trials and temptations that come along in our life, and you and I all know that. They come along. And that's what's sin brought into this world. We know that when things don't always go our way, and there is a temptation to say, "God, what did I do wrong that you're getting me for?" God isn't out to get us. You see, that's why He sent his Son to suffer. To suffer and die to pay for our greatest problem, and that is our sinfulness that separates us from God, and yet God comes along and says nothing shall separate us from the love of God, which is ours in Christ Jesus. God's not out to get us. If He did, then Jesus could have basically walked off that mountain and said to the angels, "Let's get out of here. I don't need this." But you see, God in His love and in Jesus says "I'm going to walk to the cross and I'm going to pay for the sins of all people, because you see, that's the only way this is going to work - that they can enter into your eternal heavenly home." It's through faith in Jesus Christ. And so, there's going to be temptations and there's going to be those times in which we we're going to say, "Wow, this is tough." But in the end, you see, God is in control. He is in control when He told Abraham, "You know, you're going to have to sacrifice." And in the end, it was Abraham who had the right words in which he said to Isaac when he said, "Where's the lamb?" And he said "God will provide it." He had that kind of a faith that said somehow, someway, God will provide. And you see, that's what our faith does for us. It allows us to get through the times in which we're high on the mountain in our life, but there are times in which we're down in the valley, and then we can say the Lord is my Shepherd. Or there's those times in which Jesus says, "There's times in which I've got to carry you because you need to be carried." And so, God is a great God. He watches out for us. And so it is just like God, our Lord went out into the wilderness after is all over. It says the angels came and ministered to Him, and then it says that He went from there and He began to preach. And what did he preach? It says the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel. And so that's what we do during Lent: we repent - that's why the purple - and we say we're sorry for our sins, and we then take a look at the Gospel, the good news of what Jesus' journey did. It took Him to the cross where He died for our sins, and then He rose again to conquer death. What more do we need? So the good news is if we leave here knowing that we need to be careful out there. Amen. And now may the peace of God which surpasses all our human understanding keep our hearts and Minds through faith in Christ Jesus into life Everlasting. Amen.