Author: TechCommittee

March 1, 2020                                                                                  Text:  Matthew 4:1-11

Dear Friends in Christ,

            Come in real close . . . I’ve got a secret . . . I can be a smart-aleck.  Shocked?  Hyperventilating over this sermonic revelation?  Take out your bulletin for today.  Look at our opening hymn.  What does it tell us to do?  We stand!  My home church in Decatur did this with many of their hymns when I was a wee little lad and I didn’t always feel like standing…but I did…believe me I did.  To express my displeasure I would write on the worship folder – We sit! – and I would hand it to the usher on the way out.  I doubt that guy thought I would be standing in a pulpit today.  There were other smart-aleck moments – playing a mannequin at my friend’s sister’s clothing store at Hickory Point Mall, getting my freshman English Class to bombard our teacher with paper wads and all the grief I gave my mom over the years. 

            The thing is that little guy has never completely left me.  Just ask my friends and family.  What is that voice in my brain that motivates such behavior?  What temptation can I not overcome? 

            Can you relate?  I am almost certain you can.  Maybe it is not being a smart-aleck but it is something from your younger days that no matter how hard you try as an adult it is shadowing you constantly.  Can we stare into the darkness and overcome it?  Negatory, good buddy.

            We need a stronger one.  We need someone outside of ourselves to step into the picture.  We need Jesus.  Let’s take a song line and make it the title . . .

“TEMPTED BUT THE TRUTH IS DISCOVERED”

            Before we venture into the desert let’s get a few things straight.  The devil has power but it is limited.  Satan knows the words of Scripture – He even quotes them.  The only way to defeat your adversary is to know His playbook.

            The temptations take place in the wilderness – Satan’s home field.  It is a place of nothingness with few points of reference and endless sand and rocks. 

            Satan was smart and subtle.  He is saying to Jesus, “grab a little glory now.  Turn stones into bread; throw yourself down and you will be protected; bow down and worship me and you can have all these things now.”  Thankfully Jesus would not play that game.  Jesus was tempted but the truth is discovered.  Jesus knew that His destiny was the cross.  Jesus fought with the only truth He had – God’s Word.  It was The Word fighting with the Word. 

            Satan would have one more attempt after this in a garden outside of Jerusalem.  Jesus sees the cup of wrath he must drink to overcome our sin.  He looks into the abyss and even asks to let the crucifixion pass from Him.  Jesus was tempted but the truth is discovered.  In the end, He asks that the Father’s will be done.  It was.  It is.  Only through suffering and death is God making right what has gone wrong – He enters the darkness and brings forth light in the resurrection of his body from the dead.  Jesus makes right what has gone wrong by taking on Satan in the wilderness, in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the cross, triumphing over every temptation thrown His way and lighting our darkness with the light of His resurrected flesh.

            Jesus’ cross is where you see both your salvation and the pattern of your life.  When your suffering becomes so intense and the darkness so deep, trace on your forehead the baptismal cross that binds you to Jesus, who continues to feed you with his very body and blood at his table and then in Jesus say, “Not my will, but thy will, be done.”  Tempted but the Truth is Discovered.

            During the troubling days of World War I, many songwriters did their best to raise the morale of the troops in the field and the folks at home.  Felix Powell penned a little ditty for those troubled with their worries.  Powell encouraged the fearful person to put their troubles behind them and smile instead.

            If we just pack up our problems and put them away that is only a temporary solution.  The true cause of our troubles is sin.  Either inflicted by giving in to the devils’ temptations or the consequences of living in a fallen world, we are unable to pack up and put away our own troubles.  Only Christ can permanently banish our problems.  No pasted-on grin will chase away the devil, but when Christ smiles on us, we know the old evil foe is vanquished and our joy is made complete.

            A quick note before this message ends.  While the teacher found the stunt quite funny, to my amazement, I do not advocate bombing your teacher with paper.  I learned a lot about grace that day.  I pray we learn about grace every day.  Jesus, the purveyor of grace looked into the eyes of Satan and won.  He showers that grace on us when we don’t deserve it.  See the Truth in a new light this morning – He was tempted but His Truth is discovered.

                                                                        Amen.  

February 23, 2020 – Transfiguration                                         Text:  Matthew 17:1-9

Dear Friends in Christ,

            David McCasland wrote about an experience that happened to him some years ago.  A woman was stalled at an intersection with her car hood up and she flagged McCasland down for help.  Here’s the account:

            “’I can’t get the car started,’ she said.  ‘But if you jiggle the wire on the battery I think it will work.’  McCasland grabbed the positive battery cable and it came off in his hand.  It was obviously too loose!  ‘The terminal needs to be tightened up,’ he told her.  ‘I can fix it if you have some tools.’  The woman replied, ‘My husband says just to jiggle the wire.  It always works.  Why don’t you just try that?’  McCasland thought to himself, ‘Then why doesn’t her husband drive around with her all the time so he can jiggle the cable.’  Finally he said, ‘Ma’am, if I jiggle the wire, you’re going to need someone else to do it every time you shut the engine off.  If you’ll give me two minutes and a wrench, we can solve the problem and forget about it.’  Reluctantly, she fumbled under the front seat and then extended a crescent wrench through the window.

            “As he repaired the terminal, McCasland thought about the many times he tried to get ‘quick fixes’ from God.  ‘I have this problem, Lord, and if You’ll just jiggle the wire, things will be ok.  I’m in a hurry, so let’s just get me going again the quickest way possible.’”

            At the Mount of Transfiguration we learn that God doesn’t simply jiggle wires.  He guides our living in this world and, through that, prepares us for the world to come.  Many will follow if only they can be spared the uncertainties and sufferings of tomorrow.  But it doesn’t work that way. 

“LIVING THE NOW BETWEEN THE HERE AND THERE”

            The text begins, “After six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.”  Six days after what?  Six days after he told them that they must deny self and take up their cross and follow Him.  Jesus is talking the here and now.  You might gain the world but you will forfeit your soul.

            They are led up a high mountain.  What a moment for these men but also getting there would be strenuous and tiring.  Like life in the here and now.  We strain and tire ourselves to get the most out of life.  We want to enjoy our creature comforts.  But no matter how we mask it, the world is still decaying away.

            Jesus is then transfigured and Moses and Elijah are with them.  What were the disciples seeing?  They were seeing the glory of Christ.  Jesus is God the Son.  Secondly, by seeing Moses and Elijah, the disciples glimpsed the glory of Heaven.  That’s why Peter wants to build the tents.  He wants to stay there forever.  Who wouldn’t want that?

            The earlier words of Jesus “take up your cross and follow me” had faded into the background.  They had traveled from the here – earthly, to the there – heavenly because they were followers of the Christ.

            We to will make that same journey.  We will go from here to there.  From earth to heaven also because of our Christ connection.  But what about the now?  How can we draw strength for the days and possibly years ahead of us?  How can this trip up the mountain help in our day-to-day living.

            “He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud over shadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.’” (v. 5)

            What an encouragement for them.  That moment impressed upon them the eternal victory in Christ is certain.  There is still suffering and cross bearing in this fallen world but Christ has made an eternal home a sure thing.  The Father is pleased that His Son would do everything necessary to secure our forgiveness and eternal life.

            God loved and loves us in spite of ourselves.  In the now we have minds riddled with hideous thoughts and words and deeds.  Yet He would give His Son to pay for that.  And to believe that is to have everlasting life.  Light!  Glory forever!

            At the Mount of Transfiguration we learn that God doesn’t just jiggle wires to make things go.  He prepared the disciples then and He is preparing you and me now to live for Him in this world.  And, in Christ, our lives here overflow with this promise:  “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23:6)

            Living the now between the here and there is never without the presence of Christ’s love.

                        Amen.