“Security and Refuge in God’s Love” -“Connecting with Jesus, One Another, and Others in the Unconditional Love of Our God (Together, in a variety of ways)” Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Romans 10:8b-13, Luke 4:1-13
The liturgical season of Lent raises awareness of the role of sin in our lives as well as society and culture. Followers of Jesus must balance the awareness of sin with our God who is loving, compassionate, and our ultimate hope.[1] This balancing act is disturbing, since it beckons us to resist conforming to the living Word (Jesus) and the written Word (the Bible). However, the gospel calls us to a lifestyle of nonconformity. It begs us to “…persist in the disturbance until [we] get face to face with the Lord himself.”[2]
Janet and I have been supporting Plant with Purpose, a ministry committed to the reforesting of the Dominican Republic, for the past thirty-eight years. Another problem in the Dominican Republic is the high mortality rate of children. Hundreds of children die everyday due to malnutrition. Scott Sabin, the Executive Director of Plant with Purpose tells this story about a friend of his on a recent trip to the Dominican Republic:
She visited a slum and in a small, dirty cardboard and aluminum shack, she met a girl her own age, with a tiny baby. After an initial introduction, through an interpreter, the girl began to talk excitedly and begged my friend to take her baby. “Please,” she said. “He is so small you could fit him in your purse, and no one would ever know. You could take him and give him a better life.” My friend, of course, said no. The young girl began to sob. “If he stays here, he will die. There is no hope for him here.”
Temptation. Temptation is the tool the devil used against Jesus and uses against us to motivate us to conform to society and culture’s definitions of moral and ethical…right and wrong and to end the disturbance. Temptation is the enticement to go against the teachings of the Word of God, living (Jesus) and written (the Bible). Whether it is the temptation to gossip, smuggle a baby out of the Dominican Republic, or rationalize away the Truth, the enticements to sin are many.
In order for Jesus’ humanity to have significance, he had to face the same temptations we do. Jesus has lived our lives in that he has experienced our temptations and not conformed to their enticement. Jesus had fasted forty days and forty nights. The devil came to Jesus three times with temptation. The first temptation came in the form of making Jesus think he would only be able to survive by the sustenance of bread as opposed to the Father’s faithfulness. The second temptation bated Jesus to violate the first commandment by replacing the Father with the devil for his loyalty and affection. Finally, the third temptation asked Jesus to manipulate the Father and to use his power in a self-serving way.
Temptation is punctiliar and progressive. That is a specific moment and progressive moments. Temptation is the mechanism used by God to guide us into obedience and true freedom.
Life is an ongoing series of choices. Your choices matter. The fulfillment of God’s plans for humanity requires our cooperation with God. Anytime we are enticed to sin, we are tempted to test God’s faithfulness. Listen to the words of Anne Lamott on conforming to temptation which ends the very important “disturbance.” Anne writes,
I was scared much of the time. Life was utterly schizophrenic. I was loved and often seemed cheerful, but fear pulsed inside me. I was broke, clearly a drunk, and also bulimic. I was cracking up. But a feather of truth floated inside the door of my mind-the truth that I was crossing over to the dark side.[3]
Anne was tempted with sexual infidelity, cocaine, alcohol, and religious syncretism. She gave in and was confused until she gave it all up and accepted Jesus Christ into her life. The pressures and temptations to return to her old manner of living were ongoing and many. When we believe that a particular temptation is impossible to overcome, we conform to cheap grace and costly relativism. Oswald Chambers, the author of the daily Devotional My Utmost for His Highest writes, “If the temptation is possible to overcome in our own strength, then it is not a real temptation. If the temptation is impossible to overcome, then it is the thing we have to ask God to do for us.”[4] And Jesus has already overcome every temptation we encounter.
The temptation to conform to the cultural values of materialism, entertainment, the coarsening of discourse now offered by many churches as the gospel, must be resisted. Moreover, let us not retreat to a form of religious absolutism rooted in cultural nostalgia or a “tinny patriotism.”[5] Peter Gomes writes,
If there is any good news that is truly good news for everybody, and not just for a few somebodies, it is this: God is greater and more generous than the best of those who profess to know and serve him. This is the radical nonconformity with the conventional wisdom that Jesus both proclaimed and exemplified, and alas, it cost him his life. Will we hope to fare any better, as disciples of his nonconformity?[6]
The Deuteronomist challenges us to confess that God’s faithfulness is the basis of life.[7] It is resting in God’s faithfulness that we’ll know our greatest security and refuge. And Paul, in his letter to the Roman Christians, tells us to call on the Lord, at all times and in all ways, and we’ll be saved.
With what temptation are you preoccupied? Lent is no time for heroic resilience. Lent is the time Christians purposely give our faith permission to work on us. Lent invites you to turn to the cross as an act of freedom to love fearlessly and to live beyond the boundaries you and the world around you impose. Lent beckons you to affirm God’s promise and generosity to you and all people. Lent convicts you to ensure there is a basic standard of living for all, regardless of religious, racial, or ethnic identity. Lent insists that you work for the basic needs of all—education, health care, food, clothing, and personal/family security are met. Lent reminds you that God is good and will use you to care for those in need.[8]
A posture of gospel nonconformity requires a rejection of the “good news” promoted by the prevailing cultural consensus. Conforming to the gospel manifests itself when followers of Jesus challenge the prevailing cultural consensus; the status quo. And that is the gift of Lent, my friends. Amen.
This sermon was preached on Sunday, 09 March 2025 by the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh
in the Great Room and Sanctuary at Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas
Copyright Ó 2025
Steven M. Marsh
All rights reserved.
[1]Adapted from Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 2(Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 32.
[2]Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1935), 60.
[3]Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies (New York: Pantheon Books, 1999), 39-41.
[4]Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, 60.
[5]These ideas gleaned from Peter J. Gomes, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus (New York City, New York: HarperOne, 2007), 60.
[6]Peter J. Gomes, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus, 63.
[7]Gleaned from Thomas W. Currie in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 2, 26.
[8]In the six paragraphs above, I was influenced by the writing of Anne Lemott, Peter Gomes, and Oswald Chambers. In addition, I was challenged by the thinking of Carolyn J. Sharp, William Greenway, Barbara K. Lundblad, Anna B. Olson, Shively T. J. Smith, and James C. Howell in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby and Carolyn J. Sharp, editors, Connections, Year C, Volume 2 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 24-26, 26-28, 31-32, 33-34, 35-37, and 37-39.
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