Sermon: "Facing Evil"

1st in the "The Healer at Work" series.
Delivered January 6, 2008 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

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Well in April 1976 my grandfather died of lung cancer. He had smoked all of his life. Around this time of year; it was New Year's Eve, I think it was 2001, my father died of emphysema. He had smoked all of his life, except for maybe about the last 4-6 years. I got news last summer that my brother who is a smoker is now getting treatments for his breathing. He is not even 50-years old. The world is full of dangers. It is full of disasters. It is full of all kinds of things that we can't control; hurricanes, fires, diseases, earthquakes. All kinds of things impact us and whether we like it or not it comes into our life and it changes us forever. Death is one of those things. The world is full of dangers yet much of the dangers we face, we face because of choices we make. People smoke despite the fact we know it causes diseases. People lose their homes to hurricanes, because they built their homes on a beach. It's true. People lose their homes to fires, because they saw this beautiful place to put a house in the middle of the trees where it would be so spectacularly beautiful and they would have a view, but those are the very trees that have caught fire and have burned down their homes. We face all kinds of heartbreak and suffering, because we abuse drugs, because we cheat on a spouse, because we drink and drive, because we give into anger and seek revenge, because we don't do our exercises and won't take our medicine. We face a lot of difficulty. None of these things are forced on us. At some point we choose to go with the desire, to give in to the temptation, all the time knowing that it might have consequences.

This is so much a part of universal human experience that huge portions of the bible are set apart to dealing with this. In fact, you might view the bible as a manual for dealing with this issue of living in a world where we face temptation and give in. By the time we come to the third chapter of the bible we find Adam and Eve succumbing to the temptation to do evil. They chose evil. They chose self-sufficiency over obedience and submission to God, despite knowing there would be consequences. All the people we get to know in the bible well are people who face temptation and give in. Even people we consider heroes, people like David and Moses and Peter and Paul, all fail, all succumb, except one, only one. The one who is unique is Jesus.

I am going to read you a passage in a moment. In today's passage we are going to watch Jesus as he faces evil head on. We are starting a series this week called "The Healer at Work." Luke was a native, Greek speaker and one of the other meanings for the word "Save" or "Savior" is "Heal" or "Healer" and Luke uses the term many times in his gospel about Jesus being savior. As a physician, as a healer Luke may have been very intentional about using a word frequently that brings to mind to us the fact that Jesus is the one who is healing the breech between God and humanity, healing what life is supposed to be all about. And so, we are going to look for a few weeks at Jesus in action and watching him heal, because we are disciples and by disciples that means we follow Jesus. We watch him, we listen to him and then we emulate him. So we are going to spend a few weeks doing that and learn more about what it means for us to be healers in a broken world. So let's take a look at Jesus, the healer, the savior, right now as he faces evil.

Chapter 4 of Luke and I am going to begin at the first verse:

"Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread." Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone." 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 splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours." Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only'." The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "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." Jesus answered, "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test." When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time."

Let's pray: Lord, we thank you for this your word, a light to our feet, a lamp on the path, and so we now pray that you will open our eyes help us to see what we need to see, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

First of all, as we go into this passage its theology time. I want to talk a little bit about how Jesus is our representative in this passage. First of all, Jesus represents Israel at this moment. Israel came out of Egypt, went through the Red Sea, went through the water and was protected through the water and that water became judgment upon Pharaoh and his chariots. And when they came through this experience God declared that here was Israel his first-born son. Jesus gets baptized by John. He goes in to the water of judgment as well and comes out. He is declared also to be God's son. Obviously the meaning is so much deeper and more profound with regard to Jesus, God in flesh, but in that there is a parallel, both go through the water, both are declared to be the Son of God. Jesus is representing Israel. After Israel came out through the Red Sea, they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. During those 40 years they got involved in idolatry, they grumbled and complained, they did everything possible to test God. They failed miserably. Jesus goes in to the desert; in to the wilderness for 40 days, instead of 40 years and in that time Jesus obeys God perfectly. So here is Jesus a representative, the one through whom Israels destiny was to be fulfilled and he is obeying God perfectly, as Israel's king.

But Jesus also represents all of humanity at this moment. This confrontation between Jesus and the devil is the first time in scripture that humanity wins totally over evil. This is from the beginning of Jesus' life through his resurrection there is a total win over evil and it's the only time in history. Jesus, the last Adam, chooses rightly for God every time, as the new human Jesus begins the work of starting a new righteous human race. Jesus deliberately empties himself of divine privilege. God becomes human, truly human and he lives out life as it was meant to be from the start. Jesus is totally obedient; the man who is altogether righteous, the human who never loses his relationship with God. He represents all of humanity.

In this confrontation the devil presents Jesus with his rights as the Son of God, right to provision, right to power, right to protection and each time Jesus turns to scripture. In fact, Jesus turns to the same book of scripture; the Book of Deuteronomy, the second time the law is given. And what the law promised was those who live, those who obey the law will live by it. Those who obey will live. No one obeyed; therefore, the only thing the law could do is to condemn us. Jesus is the first one who stands under the law that says those who obey shall live by that obedience. He is the first one who does live, because he obeys. The only human to ever do so. Jesus faces evil squarely and wins.

Now let's look at each of the temptations that the devil brings to Jesus. The first was the right to provision. If you are the Son of God, you've got to be hungry. You've got the power to turn these stones into bread. You don't even have to walk out of the wilderness. As weak as you are just eat. Jesus replies in effect, "You suggest that feeding my body may take precedence over obeying God, but God has told us that man shall not live by bread alone. Therefore, I will not do what you say." He lives under the law and wins.

Satan then comes up to him with this right to power. "It's natural for you the Son of God to exercise power. Worship me and you've got it all and you've got it all now." No wait and Jesus replies, in effect he says, "You offer me universal power at the price of worshipping you, but God has told us to worship him only, therefore, I will not do what you say." Jesus obeys.

Then the devil comes at him with the right to protection. "It's only natural that you as the Son of God would be protected by God. You are the answer to the hope of all nations. God is going to protect you, so there can be no doubt in your mind or anyone else's; show how important you are by letting God spectacularly protect you." Jesus replies in effect, "You propose that I test God's promise for my own assurance and convenience, but God has told us that we are not to test God, therefore, I will not do what you say."

Jesus faces evil and wins. He obeys. He submits to God. He lives as humans were created to live, as they are supposed to live. This interaction in the wilderness where Jesus says no to the evil one should have happened in the garden. It should have been Adam and Eve that were telling the devil, "No, we will not do what you said. God has said, therefore, I will obey." And so now we find Jesus taking that place, as the second Adam saying no when humanity is supposed to say no.

Now we are called to follow Jesus. We are supposed to be just like him, to be healers in this world, to be his agents, to be his servants, to be children that reflect the character and glory of the father, but we cannot be healers in this world; we cannot have ministry without facing evil, without facing temptation and winning. So that's the first point that I want to make. We cannot serve God without facing evil and winning. Now, we are not talking about living a perfect life. That has never been a part of reformed theology and it's never been part of the life of this church. There are no perfect people. But we are talking about actively engaging against evil and winning. Serving God demands a good life. It may not demand a perfect life, but it demands a maturing life, a holy life, submitted to God, consecrated, tested and obedient. When we are not holy we are part of the problem. We are not healers. We are not servants. We are not ministers. We are broken healers though. We can acknowledge the fact that we do have the besetting problems. We do have blind spots in our lives. We do have things that we struggle with that not everybody struggles with equally. Those are realities in our lives. We never come having all the answers at work in our life at any time. We are broken healers. But, that does not mean we are defeated. We are supposed to have real victories over evil in our life.

Second Timothy 2, Verses 20 and 21 put it this way:

"In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work."

The call is to cleanse ourselves from the things that keep us from being an instrument useful to the Master.

So facing evil and winning is a necessary part of our growth and our service. That is the first point. The second is, we will be tested by facing evil. It is a universal experience of all who follow Jesus Christ. A person who has never faced temptation is not good, they are merely innocent. In this world as it stands now the way we experience goodness is by facing evil and choosing the will of God. That determines goodness. Now this goodness is tested in various ways, obvious ways. Do not murder. Do not steal. Watch your sexual morality. These are obvious ways we know that determine choosing right and wrong in the world, but they are not all that explicit and that clear. Think about the temptation that was just given to Jesus. The first temptation is you are hungry; eat. It's totally legitimate to eat. We are created to eat. I love to eat. But at this point there was a call of God on Jesus' life and he was not allowed to do it at that moment and that was part of the test. So something otherwise normal and good was still at that point something he had to discern that he wasn't to do.

Let me give you an example from my own life, because we are all tested even in these less obvious ways. Everybody here who has been around for a while knows that before I was here I was at First Presbyterian Church in Baton Rouge, as the minister for mission and pastoral care there. But that isn't the first time I was offered a job at First Presbyterian Church. Ten years earlier than that, actually about 11 years earlier than that, Debbie and I were praying about going to Japan and had come to the discernment that we were called by God to head to Japan and the response of the Presbyterian Church bureaucracy was how about Thailand? No, not Thailand. We want to go to Japan. It's awfully expensive. We are not sure. We don't have a person on staff who knows the situation. I mean we got all kinds... we were neck deep in paperwork and confusion. No promises at all, but we felt this calling to go to Japan. At that point with no promises, having to wait basically they were saying well maybe in the next year or so something will happen. We get a phone call from First Presbyterian Church asking whether I want to be on staff to be their director for young adults. Yes, I was young enough to be the director of young adults at some point in my life. What a plum job. In my opinion it was the best church in the Presbytery. The pastor there was someone I longed to work with. And so, I said, "Well you know there is a possibility here, but we are going to Japan and we feel like that will happen in about a year." And he said back to me, "Well this is a two year commitment. You need to join for two years and then maybe God will call you to Japan after that, but if you are going to take this position it has to be for two years."

As Debbie and I prayed about that, we had a choice to either join and then lie to them and after a year leave anyway or put aside this calling that we felt was very clear that the next big step for us within that year of so was Japan. And so, we had to say no. I had no idea that at that time that ten years later when God's call for us for to be in Japan was ending that we would get a letter from First Presbyterian Church saying, "Would you join staff now as one of our pastors?" Because at that point I was ordained and I had some experience to join as one of the mission pastors. I could not believe the grace of God to hand me that wonderful opportunity just a little later. The reason I mention this is because this specific kind of call where I sensed the direction in our lives, that Debbie and I have prayed about, that then right as we are committing ourselves to that, another plum job, a shortcut to something that I want comes out of the woodwork. That has happened at least three times in our lives. It seems to be the sort of typical temptation for us.

So some of the testing that happens, some of the focus that God is putting in to our lives comes in subtle ways and we have to have the discernment and the strength to be able to work through those things. We will be tested and winning, even though we will never be perfect, winning often, winning sometimes is part of our growth and doing right is incredible protection for us when we then get involved in ministry; to actually have done the right thing.

The third point. The word of God is an essential weapon in facing evil. It's the word of God that gives us the essential instructions of what to do when we face evil. Jesus knew what was right and wrong by the word of God. He quoted from Deuteronomy and that's how we know it's also from the word of God. The word is a light. The word is a lamp. And so, if we have a problem, how do we handle our anger? We go to the scripture and it says, "In your anger, do not sin. Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry. Do not give the devil a foothold." If someone else is angry at us, we have directions in scriptures. Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the alter, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave the gift in front of the alter, first go and be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. What do we do when we are faced with sexual temptations? The word tell us that it is God's will that you should be sanctified, that you should avoid sexual immorality, that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen who do not know God. What should our attitude be towards money? The word tell us, no servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other or it will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

The scriptures show us where to draw the line in the sand. And God uses the scriptures by the power of the Holy Spirit to resolve and to have the strength to do what is right. In other words, the Holy Spirit speaks through the word to instruct us about what is right, but he also speaks through the word to empower us to want to do what is right. For it is God at work in us, both to will and to do his good pleasure. God is at work. We are not alone in this.

So that brings up the final point as we face evil. It is through Jesus' power that we win in facing evil. Jesus has won. He is the start of a new humanity. He is the last Adam. And so, he is the one who gives us the resources to be humans who learn how to live right with God. So it means that we look to him. It means that we pray as part of our struggle in facing evil. It means that we ask for help of the Holy Spirit and look for the instruction of the word. We don't do it for him. We do it by him. He is the vine and we are the branches.

Now we have a new theme verse for the year. The session deliberated about it. We thought about it; the staff did. It comes out of Luke 12, Verse 35. Now at the start of Lent I am going to preach about this verse in context, so you will get the rest of the sentence, which is Verse 36. But I want you to look at Verse 35 now, because that is the heart of it. "Be dressed ready for service and keep you lamps burning." We believe as a session this is a theme for this year; to be ready for service and to be people who are doing the things in our lives to cultivate that flame of what God is doing in us so we are always ready, because this is going to be a year of opportunity. So God is calling us to be this sort of people, dressed, ready for service and keep our lamps burning.

So I will be preaching on that at the start of Lent and themes will come out of that from the Book of Luke that we will look at as well. Being ready for service, people ready to listen, ready to love, ready to serve, ready to obey. These are the kinds of people who can transform a city and impact the world. God can really do things through people who are ready. But being ready requires that we face evil and that we win. The scripture tell us that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness through his power at work within us, through these he has given us his great and precious promise, so that through them we might be delivered and escape the corruption of the world causes by evil desires. God has given us everything we need for life and godliness. We need to be ready. He has given us everything we need for life and godliness in Christ and that's our promise. Now, we can make any excuse we want, maybe great excuses for not being perfect and I will be in line to make my own excuse for not being perfect. We can share our excuses for not being perfect, because they are absolutely true. We are not going to be perfect. We have great excuses, but there is no excuse for not getting better. So let's get better. Let's be ready.

At this table we see what God has done to make us ready. This is one more way that Jesus was a representative. In this table we celebrate that Jesus was our representative in being the sacrifice for our sin to take upon himself the punishment that was due to us. So as we come to this table we celebrate Jesus, our representative, who's done everything and has given us everything we need for life and godliness. Let's pray.

Gracious God, we thank you now for Jesus the host of this table and we ask now that as we draw close to you, you will fulfill your word by drawing near to us. Strengthen us, open our eyes and show us what's next and help us to lift our eyes to the great sufficiency of what you have offered. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

© 2008, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org