Pastoral Letter 106

Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,

Greetings to you all in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The heavy rain in the last two weeks has caused devastating floods in Queensland and NSW, people have lost homes, property and lives. We are grateful that we’ve been able to safely worship together and have enjoyed Mark’s music for the whole month. Masks are not mandatory, but please feel free to wear one if you would prefer. We hope and pray that we will keep on worshiping together for the rest of the year.

Our weekly activities recommenced last week, with Movie Night on Tuesday and TIME4U on Wednesday. Last Sunday after worship, we had our AGM meeting and if you were not able to join us, you can ask for copies of the reports given during the meeting.

As I have indicated earlier, you will still receive my brief Pastoral Letter with the Order of Service, Message and hymns every week. Those who will not be able to join us on Sundays, they can worship with us at home. Please have a small roll of bread and a cup of wine or juice for Communion.

Be safe and well, continue to pray, remembering those who need care, support and love and let us know if any member of the congregation that you know of needs our help and prayers.

Here are some more prayer points for this week:

1. Pray for all those who are suffering because of the devastating floods in both states of Queensland and NSW –  South East Queensland and North East NSW.
2. Pray for those who have lost loved ones, homes and property.
3. Pray for the poor, the sick, the vulnerable, the struggling and the stressed.
4. Pray for world peace and ask for God’s blessings.
5. Pray for the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and those who are suffering, hoping that the situation will deescalate soon.

Please let me know if you or anyone else has prayer points.

Best Regards,

Krikor

MESSAGE

The Three Temptations

Luke 4:1-13

Forty days, in the wilderness. That was the amount of time that Jesus spent after His baptism and before His three-year ministry. It was a time of preparation, planning and putting His thoughts together and most probably going over His strategy. He spent His time in prayer and meditation.

One of the central pillars of our faith is the fact that when Jesus walked this earth, He was 100% man and 100% God, that is, He had both a human nature and a divine nature. And a part of that is the belief that even with His human nature, He never sinned. But just because He never sinned doesn’t mean He wasn’t tempted.

The Bible says: “For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” (Hebrews 2:17-18) 

The story is told in the fourth chapter of Luke. It was at the beginning of Christ’s ministry; He had just been baptised and went into the desert for forty days and during that time He fasted. And at the end of the forty days Satan came and tempted Him.

So, the question is: Was Jesus really tempted?

There are some who say that even though the temptation was real in the sense that it actually happened, because Christ was 100% divine, He wouldn’t have given into the temptation. If that is the case, then He wasn’t 100% man – and that’s part of the mystery of the incarnation. My own theory is yes, the devil tempted Christ, and yes it was a temptation. Because Jesus did not have a sinful nature, those temptations had to come from an outside source, in this case Satan.

It was at this point that Jesus would have to decide how He would do His work.

God was saying: “Take my love to the people of the world, love them, die for them if you have to, but conquer them with your unconquerable love.”

Satan on the other hand was saying: “Take the power that you have and demand the submission of mankind, win the world through might and force.” And so, Jesus had to decide that day, would He follow the way of God or the way of Satan.

This morning we are going to look at the story and discover what we can learn about being tempted and defeating temptation.

Everyone is tempted in one way or another, that’s part of being human. And every one of us will respond to temptation in only one of two ways. We’ll either give in or we won’t. It’s as simple as that. No in between, no uncertainty here, it’s either yes or no, win or lose.

Let’s look at The Three Temptations. We are all tempted in one way or another. Our temptations are all different, what tempts me may not tempt you. But there is a common thread that runs through all our temptations.

As a Pastoral Management teacher has said that in ministry people are tempted by one of three things: “The gold, the glory or the girls.”

A Wesleyan author wrote a book called “Sex, Power and Money”, and that was no more original than the gold, the glory or the girls.

We can be tempted by our:

1. Appetites – Food

Luke 4:3 – Then the devil said to Him: “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

This one goes back when God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and they had complete freedom to do anything they wanted, except they could not eat from the tree of Knowledge. They could have cut it down and used it for firewood and been done with temptation once and for all, but they didn’t. They were tempted to eat, and they did.

Now we aren’t talking about appetite here in the sense of a Big Mac and a large order of Fries or a big full plate of Middle Eastern food. No, this is the temptation to satisfy our physical desires, even when we know that it is wrong. Every one of us will be tempted at some time or another and those temptations normally are more powerful when we are hungry for whatever it is that Satan is tempting us with. Satan knew that it wouldn’t have done much good to tempt Jesus with bread when He had just gotten up from a feast and so he waited until He had gone without food for forty days.

Of course, the power of temptation is multiplied because our society has reverted to the philosophy of ancient Rome that said: “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

Or perhaps it’s the philosophy of the not so ancient 60’s that said: “If it feels good; do it.”

But the question is:

Why do we do things when we know they are wrong?

Why do we often say things that we know they are wrong

Why do we hate people when we know that they will be hurt?

Why do we just think about ourselves when we know that there are many who need our love and care?

If you were to answer honestly it would be because we enjoy those things and feel satisfied. We do those things even when we know that to do so is to be disobedient to what God wants in our lives.

What Satan was asking of Jesus seemed relatively harmless; just turn the rocks into bread. What could be wrong with that? Nothing, but Jesus knew that wasn’t what He was supposed to do. And ultimately that’s how we need to view things.

Is this what God would have me to do? And if we are going to do that, then we need to believe that God has the very best at heart for us.

2. Power

Luke 4:5-7 – Then 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 splendour, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So, if you worship me, it will be all yours.” 

The rest of the temptation that Eve faced was power. Genesis 3:5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”

To be just like God. People are still trying to be like God. What Eve was after wasn’t knowledge, it was power. Satan was offering Jesus the power of world dominion without the sacrifice of the cross.

People are too willing to pay whatever price they need to in order to achieve the power they crave. They will sacrifice their morals, their ethics, their integrity.

Most of the problems in today’s world are caused by a quest for power. Read the papers and listen to the news. Why does Russia want to invade Ukraine? Land, no they have land. They are fighting for power, who will be in charge. Russia wants the power that comes with being in control.

3) Fame

Luke 4:9-11 – Then the devil led Him to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the highest point of the Temple. “If you are the Son of God, 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.’”

“Just think Jesus, all you have to do is one little circus trick and everyone will know who you are, and they will bow down and worship you. Again, no harm no foul, the angels will protect you. So, if you jump off the temple walls, everyone will see that you don’t get hurt.”

This is also the temptation of pride; Madonna made this statement: “I won’t be happy till I’m as famous as God.” She’ll never be as famous as God, but I would suspect that she has done some things in the quest for that fame that has dishonoured God.

We can easily give many examples of people who want to be famous and everyone to know them for who they are. These people could be musicians, politicians, artists, athletes, business people, lawyers, CEOs, even preachers and ministers.

The appetites (food), power and fame, these three that will cause us to stumble.

But can we win?

3 Strategies of Winning

1. Use the Book God has given us as guidelines for living, they are contained in the Bible. Time and time again people choose to consciously disobey His word, and then blame God for the mess they are in. Three times Satan tempted Jesus and all three times Jesus responded by saying: “It Is written” or “It says”. And gave a response to the temptation out of the word.

In Psalm 119 David asked: “How can a young person keep his way pure?” And then he answers his own question. “By living according to your word.”

Two verses later he adds to it by saying Psalm 119:11 “I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”

The Bible will only do any good if you know what is in it.

Devotional books are wonderful, but they are no substitute for reading God’s word.

2. Don’t Underestimate Temptation. Remember what we pray in the Lord’s prayer: “Lead us not into temptation.”

As long as we live in this world, regardless for how long and how many years, we will always be tempted to do things. Sometimes we are tempted to impose our ideas on others, trying to convince them that they are good, and everyone will benefit from; while in reality we will be only the ones to gain. Humans have the tendency to have the ambition to be better, happier and wealthier than others. Also, there are many other forms of temptations that we confront in our daily lives, as if temptation follow us, wherever we go and irritate and inflame our desires

Jesus’ brother James wrote in James 1:14 Temptation comes from our own evil desires, which entice us and drag us away.

Don’t go looking for temptation and don’t underestimate it, and when it comes, try to resist with God’s help.

3. We can win, we don’t have to lose. The promise is here in the book, and we don’t debate the book and say: “I couldn’t help myself, or the temptation was too strong, or the devil made me do it are cop-outs”. The Bible, the word of God, promises us that we can win over temptation. Let’s read the promise together, but this time let’s personalize it 1 Corinthians 10:13. “No temptation has seized us except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear. But when we are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that we can stand up under it”. The temptations in our life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than we can stand. When we are tempted, He will show us a way out so that we can endure.

God has promised to show us a way out, so our part is to look for that way out.

But remember, if we are going to master temptation, then first, we are going to have to let God master us.

What happens next?

Listen to the result in Luke 4:14 Then Jesus returned to Galilee, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

If Satan tempted Jesus, he would surely tempt us and will keep on tempting us. He will tempt us for Appetite (Food), Power and Fame.

Not being perfect like Him, we need power from above to resist the temptations and rest assured that we can, and we will, if we put our trust in Him.

Amen!