Prayer for Tempting Times
Matthew 4:1-11
March 9, 2014[1]
What do you think of when you
think of times of temptation?
Maybe you remember Flip
Wilson’s sketch about Geraldine bringing home a new dress and defending herself
by saying “the devil made me do it!”[2]
Or maybe you remember that
night at the restaurant when you had just finished the main course and then the
server comes over with that big tray, filled with all sorts of concoctions and
confections, all of them temptations.
Undoubtedly, most of us can
remember times in our adolescent years—times that may seem humorous now—when
something challenged our values. We can
laugh about those times now. We make
nostalgic movies about them. But when we
are in the middle of the struggle, temptation is no laughing matter.
Jesus himself was subject to
temptation. In our Gospel Lesson, we see
Him tempted three times.
First, Satan tempts him to
use His divine powers to turn some stones into bread. He was hungry. He had the power. Wouldn’t it make sense to use his divine
gifts to exercise some “self care?”
Second, Satan takes Jesus to
the pinnacle of the Temple and urges Him to jump. God has promised to send His angels to the
rescue, so there is no need to worry.
Wouldn’t that be great PR? People
would talk about that miracle for ages!
Third, Satan takes Jesus to a
high mountain and shows Him the kingdoms of the world. Satan promises to Jesus that he, Satan, will
give him authority over all those kingdoms if Jesus will only bow down and
worship him. It seems like such a small
thing to do in order to gain so much power.
It’s easy for us to sit back
and nod our heads, concluding that Satan didn’t have a chance against
Jesus. After all, Jesus was the Son of
God, right? I certainly believe that Jesus
was the Son of God, but I don’t think that made his time of temptation any less
real. Jesus also was human, and being
human, He was “tempted in every way, just as we are…” (Hebrew 4:15). His temptation
was real, and Jesus’ struggle with temptation was real; otherwise, the whole
scene was no more serious than Flip Wilson’s comedy routine.
The story of Jesus’
temptation is important because Jesus shows us how we can deal with
temptation.
The key that enabled Jesus to
overcome temptation is not found in the words He spoke to the Tempter, although
those words were important.
The key is not found in
simple will power, although will power is important.
The key that enabled Jesus to
overcome temptation was that Jesus was able to remember, even in the middle of
tempting times, who He was. Jesus was
the beloved child of God. Jesus was able
to remember who He was because He had cultivated and developed His relationship
with the Father through hours and hours of prayer.
It is worth noting that
Matthew tells this story immediately following the story of Jesus’
baptism. In a very dramatic moment, just
as Jesus came up from the water, the heavens were opened to him and he saw the
Spirit of God descending like a dove and resting upon him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my
Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16-17). Jesus knew
who He was; and His identity as a child of God was so deeply engrained in Him
that He was able to recall His identity even in His hour of greatest testing.
Jesus shows us that we too
can overcome temptation by remembering and reaffirming our identity as children
of God. But to do so, we need to develop
and cultivate our understanding of our identity through prayer.
You have heard me quote a
definition of prayer from William A. Barry: prayer is a “conscious
relationship” with God.[3] This relationship is available to all of
us. We may not have the experience of
hearing a voice from heaven; but we are in relationship with our Creator,
nonetheless. I suspect that much of the
time, we go through our lives unaware of the presence of God, but that does not
change His presence, His availability to us.
Prayer brings God’s presence into our awareness. To use Barry’s words, it is a “raising of the
mind and heart to God.”[4]
God is present with us at all
times, but God does not force himself on us.
He leaves us free to pay attention to Him or not. He leaves us free to ignore Him or not.
But what happens when we pay
attention? By developing this conscious
relationship with God, we become more and more like Him. We learn to treasure His words, to remember
them. It was by developing such a
relationship with God that the Psalmist could say, “I have hidden your word in
my heart that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11, NIV). I like the way
that the New Revised Standard Version puts it:
“I treasure your word in my
heart, so that I may not sin against you.”
Do you see how Jesus used the
Word of God in responding to temptation?
It was only by spending time with God, reading and meditating on God’s
word, that Jesus was prepared to respond with God’s word in times of
testing. Each time Jesus was tested, He
responded with words from His Father:
· When tempted to turn stones into bread, Jesus responds
with words from Deuteronomy 8:3: “One
does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of
the Lord.” (Matthew 4:4).
· When tempted to make a spectacle of Himself from the
highest point of the Temple, Jesus responds with words from Deuteronomy
6:16: “Do not put the Lord your God to
the test…” (Matthew 4:7).
· When tempted to turn His allegiance away from God in a
bid for power, Jesus responds with words from Deuteronomy 6:13: “The Lord your God you shall fear; him you
shall serve, and by his name alone you shall swear.” (Matthew 4:10).
It
was by remembering who He was, by meditating God’s word “day and night (see Psalm 1:2) that Jesus was able to say
to His tempter, “Go away, Satan!” (Matthew
4:10).
It
was through hours of time alone with God, developing a conscious relationship
with Him, that Jesus was able to remember who He was. The prayer for tempting times is not just an
emergency lifeline for us to use for the first time in a moment of crisis; the
prayer for tempting times is the prayer that precedes tempting times. It is the prayer that seeks to know God, to
learn of Him, to become like Him.
But,
being human, we sometimes need words to cling to in the moment of crisis. What can our prayer be for those times? There is a prayer that, in our humanness, in
our sinfulness, is available to us that Jesus himself could not pray: “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13).
That prayer of humility
recognizes our weakness, our sinful nature.
That is a good thing. But when
you pray that prayer, don’t let your last thought be that you are a sinner,
because that is not the identity you have been given in Jesus Christ. This is a time to “remember your baptism,”
and the new identity you have received through Jesus Christ. You are a child of God. In times of testing, and at all times,
remember who you are and to whom you belong!
You are a child of God. Remember,
and be thankful!
Copyright © 2014 by Thomas E.
Frost. All rights reserved.
[1]
Preached at Cunningham United Methodist Church in Palmyra, Virginia.
[2]
Flip Wilson on the Ed Sullivan Show, viewed on YouTube on March 8, 2014 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SLifea3NHQ.
[3]
William A. Barry, S.J., God and You: Prayer as a Personal Relationship (New
York: Paulist Press, 1987), 13.
[4]
William A. Barry, S.J., God and You: Prayer as a Personal Relationship (New
York: Paulist Press, 1987), 13.
No comments:
Post a Comment