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Tuesday, January 22, 2019

"We Belong to God" (Luke 4:1-13)


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“We Belong to God” (Luke 4:1-13)
Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC
Sunday, January 20, 2018

            As I mentioned last week, I was in the National Guard for six years.  The obligation was 1 weekend a month and 2 weeks every summer.  We grunts had a lot of time where we sat around until officers came with orders.  
            During the down time we talked about any and everything.  On one occassion, dirty jokes were told, guys exaggerated and lied, and then, the topic of religion came up.  I stayed quiet and listened.  Guys were arguing, throwing around opinions.  One guy boasted, “I don’t know much about what you guys are saying, but I have accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, so I know I am going to Heaven.  I’m set!”  Smiling, he gave his buddy a triumphant high-five.
This was a boisterous, life-of-the-party type who cursed and drank with the best of them.  Nothing in his words or actions suggested that Jesus had any voice in the way he lived.  He claimed Jesus was his Lord.  But, he did not live under Jesus’ lordship.  He acted as his own master.
I was a youth pastor for five years before I became a senior pastor.  Once the youth group was hanging out waiting for the Bible study to start.   A 15-year-old girl, Meghan,  talked up a storm, bragging about all she had done, naming guys she had been with and what she had done with them.  She wanted to show off how worldly she was.  I got fed up and asked her, “Meghan, do you know what it means to be a Christian?”  She put her hand on her hip, struck a defiant pose, and said, “It means I have declared Jesus Christ to be my Lord and Savior.” 
Like my fellow soldier, she spoke words of faith.  But, she was not living under Jesus’ authority.  She thought she was her own authority.  The soldier I mentioned?  He lived the way he saw fit; his way, not God’s way.  I wonder how many of us live a Christianity in which we, each individual, acts as his or her own authority.  What we have talked about in this sermon series up to now, seeking and obedience, allows us to step toward Jesus, but still on our own terms. 
Along with the wise men, we follow the star.  We work on spiritual disciplines that help us see God in daily life.  It’s something we do.  Like Joseph, John the Baptist, and Jesus, we live obediently.  We choose to do what God says.  We commit throughout 2019 to practice spiritual disciplines that strengthen our resolve to live obediently.  
We can live observantly and obediently and we must if we want to follow Jesus.  But then we take a next step.  Once we decide to condition ourselves to walk in the light by seeking and seeing God in daily life and obeying God in daily life, then we have to submit to God.  We have to emphasize the “Lord” part of the claim “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.” Until we submit to him as Lord, it’s an empty statement. 
Fully submitting to Jesus is countercultural.  Our culture tells us to feed our own happiness.  It’s all about me.  Life is all about you.  When we become Christians, we know “it,” life, is not about us at all.  We live for God’s glory.  We belong to God. 
In his analysis of the encounter of Jesus and Satan in the desert, New Testament professor Joel Green shows the tension between submitting to God and submitting to other authorities.  Jesus goes to the wilderness because the Holy Spirit led him. 
I think he planned the fast.  His 40 days in the wilderness recalls the 40 years of wandering the Israelites did, recorded in the book of Exodus.  God freed them from slavery in Egypt, but instead of worshiping God and waiting on God, they created a golden calf and worshiped it.  So, God allowed them to march in circles for 40 years.  Jesus would reenact this time of Israel’s desert trials with his 40-day fast.  Only where Israel failed to show faith, he would succeed.  Weakened by hunger with his spiritual alertness heightened through the prayer and fasting, he would do what Israel did not: rely on God for salvation.  The devil shows up to test Jesus.
            In the devil’s opening salvo, he invites Jesus to abandon his 40-day fast.  The devil knows Jesus has divine power.  There’s nothing wrong with a hungry man eating bread.  Jesus was hungry.  If you are the Son of God, turn the stone to bread.  What clever irony!  To prove your relationship to God, you simply need to abandon the fast meant to help you focus on God.  
            Jesus responds by turning to the word - Deuteronomy 8:3.  “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”  Jesus would eat; he would feast.  First, he had to submit completely to God and this required denying himself in order to fix his eyes upon the Father.
Next the devil tempts Jesus to declare himself independent of God and to then give his allegiance to the devil.  If Jesus will do this, the devil tells him, he can rule the the earth: Rome; Greece; Persia.  He can have it all.  Just reject God as Father and become the son of the devil.  Again, Jesus relies on scripture, Deuteronomy 6:13.  “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”  In worship, we humble ourselves and exalt God.  The devil tempted Jesus with power, but he humbled himself and pledged not to rule, but to serve. 
Rely on God before relying on food.  Serve God and don’t worry about ruling anyone.  What would the devil come up with next? 
He drags Jesus to the rooftop, the pinnacle of the temple.  A fall from there would be deadly.  Then, the devil tries to beat Jesus at his own game.  He quotes scripture accurately. Psalm 91:11-12, “For the Lord will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.  On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”  If the word of God you keep quoting is true as you say it is, then if you fall from this great height, nothing will happen.  You’ll be protected.  Throw yourself off.  Let’s see how much you really trust God.  Again, Jesus reaches back to Deuteronomy, this time chapter 6, verse 16.  “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
Rely on God before relying on food.  Serve God and don’t worry about ruling anyone.  Trust God, don’t test him.  At that point the devil departs.  And then, Matthew’s Gospel reports, those angels the devil said would help Jesus came and did exactly that (Matt. 4:11).
The devil knows the scriptures better than any of us and can use the Bible to lead us down the wrong path, away from God.  The devil will use anything he thinks might work to lead us away from God.  Professor Green points out that the scriptures are valuable because they bear witness to God’s purpose.  “The scriptures are interpreted correctly by those who are unswervingly committed to God’s purpose and in line with God’s purpose” (Green, p.28).  We do not worship the scriptures.  In the scriptures, we meet the God we worship.  We are not submitted to the scriptures.  In the scriptures, we hear the words of the God to whom we are submitted.  The Bible is authoritative because it brings us to the word of God. 
By following the lead of the Holy Spirit, by understanding the scriptures in light of God’s mission for him, and by leaning on God when temptation came, Jesus fully gave himself over to God so that his life was not his, but belonged to the Father.  As I said, he would go on to times of feasting.  He would stand in fearless opposition both to the Jewish king Herod and to the Roman governor Pilate.  And, he was never swayed when people around him tried to win him from flattery.  In full surrender to God, Jesus was completely free from the shackles of human authority, all of it tainted by sin.  He carried out his mission to preach salvation, give healing, and point people to the Kingdom of God after he received the freedom God gave.
What does full submission to God look like for us?  We submit our marriages to God.  We submit our careers to God.  We submit our appetites, longings, money, and dreams to God.  We seek God and obey God so that we are positioned to lean in to God so completely that no part of our lives makes any sense apart from who we are in Christ.  
I’ll watch football this afternoon.  As I do, I submit to God.  I don’t mean I pray for my team to win.  That would be the opposite of submission.  One submitted knows God loves everyone on both teams and everyone in the cities both teams represent.  Submitted to God, I am God-aware during the game, as I watch commercials, and in my interactions with the people who are with me as we watch the game.  It may be a simple as that - remaining God-aware.  It may mean modeling calm and peace if the game doesn’t go my way.  I have had many times in my own life when I have utterly and completely failed in submitting myself to God while watching my team lose; or while driving in bad traffic; or while trying to appropriately, lovingly discipline my children.  I need to be reminded of the call to submission in normal places of life.  We all do. 
I am not suggesting a 40-day fast, although a pastor friend of mine did exactly that.  A 2 or 3-day fast might be better.  We need disciplines that help us submit ourselves fully before God.  You have to find what works for you.  Here is a suggestion.  Envision your life in segments - relationships, family, career, interests, commitments.  Now, focus on one of those segments, for example, your job. 
Write down everything about your job you like.  Write all the reasons why you have that job.  Write all the expectations of you on that job.  Write all the temptations you face related to the job.  Four lists - what you like; why you have the job; expectations of you; temptations you face - all in the context of that job.  There should be 3-5 entries on each list. 
Now, under each list, write how what you’ve written changes when you see it under God’s authority.  This exercise should take time and be something you go back to every so often as you pray regularly.  You may have one sense right now of how this aspect of your life looks when God’s light is shined upon it.  After a few months, it may look different.  This can be a yearlong process, submitting your career to God.
The goal is to become a person fully connected to Jesus in that context, your workplace.  And we do this in all the segments of our lives.  But start with one. 
I invite you to live under Jesus’ rule because I believe that is the best life you can hope to have.  The only way to see if this is true is to try it.  Try this week a discipline that helps you lived a fully God-directed life.  Jesus  said, “I have come that you might have abundant life” (John 10:10).  He wants joy for you.  We find that joy when we die to self and life for Christ.  Follow him and see what that life is like.
AMEN


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Works Cited
Green, Joel B. New Testament Theology: the Theology of the Gospel of Luke. Cambridge University Press, 1995.

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