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

“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

.  

Works Cited

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

Disciplines of Discipleship

            Spiritual disciplines are practices followers of Jesus do regularly in order to condition their minds and spirits to receive and live in the grace God gives in Jesus Christ.  The classic disciplines include prayer, scripture reading, silence, solitude, fasting, worship, and others.  In 2019, at HillSong Church, we will begin the new year inviting our church family to take up the disciplines, with a twist.

            Fasting, prayer, scripture and the other classic disciplines are most definitely encouraged.  And within our execution of these time honored, well proven disciplines, we will focus on disciplines designed to raise our awareness of our own walk through life.  We are Jesus’ disciplines. Read that and let it sit with you.  You are one of Jesus’ 21^st century disciples!  So, you and I and all who live out faith within the HillSong Church family will commit to disciplines intended to form us as we follow Jesus’ lead in every aspect of our lives.

            These disciplines of discipleship will be learned in our church-wide emphasis on “Walking in the Light” of Jesus.  “If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we will have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).  America sorely needs cleansing from sin.  Our church’s witness to the salvation we have in Christ is emboldened as our fellowship is strengthened.  And our fellowship is strengthened as we join together in a shared effort.  So, in order to be more effective in drawing others to Jesus and in order to live with greater joy and richness in our faith, we join hands together and leap into 2019, walking in God’s light.

            The disciplines we will learn begin with disciplines of seeking and observing God at the work in the world.  That’s week one of the church-wide emphasis on walking in the light.  The wise men we meet in Matthew 2:1-12 found their way to Jesus because they were looking for Him.  We will develop daily practices that heighten our senses.  God is at work in the world around us all the time.  We’ll learn to live our lives looking for him and seeing him.

            In week 2, we will read Matthew 2:13-22 & 3:13-17 as we learn disciplines of obedience.  Note the ways Joseph, John the Baptist, and Jesus all live in radical obedience to God.  In small groups and the sermon, we’ll discover how taking up disciplines of obedience shape us as disciples.

            Week 3 of the CWE, January 20-26, will focus on disciplines of submission.  This is the next step after we’ve committed to obedience.  Submitted to God, Jesus was driven into the wilderness where he fasted for 40 days and then faced temptation from Satan (Luke 4:1-13).  What disciplines lead us to submit ourselves completely to God’s rule in our lives?

            January 27-February 2 is the fourth week of the church-wide emphasis on discipleship.  We’ll learn disciplines of Justice and liberation, taking our cues from Jesus’ sermon (Luke 4:14-30), and the reaction of the congregation that heard him preach it.  Clearly, participating in disciplines of justice takes us beyond just practices in our individual lives.  Commitment to justice means we are, in the name of Jesus, committed to flourishing of the poorest and most disadvantaged of our community.

            In the fifth and final week, February 3-9, we will read Luke 5:1-11.  There Peter says to Jesus, after doubting what Jesus has instructed, “Yet if you say so, I will” (5:5).  There are places in our lives where we want to control our life narrative.  In learning the discipline of following Jesus, we’ll be guided by Peter’s surrender.  Just as he said it, so too will we learn to say it.  “Lord, if you say so, I will.”  Even if I don’t understand, I will follow.

            Spending 2019 committed to disciplines of seeking/observing, obedience, submission, justice/liberation, and following, we will see our church formed in the image of Christ.  Moreover, the Holy Spirit will bring hurting, lost people into our church family where they will find salvation in Jesus.  It is going to be an incredible year at HillSong. I can’t wait for it to begin.

When We Dream (Joel 2:28-29)

Sunday, November 22, 2015

          We have prayed that God would grant wisdom and give revelation to HillSong Church.  These seven weeks have had an inward focus.  Our direction is Godward.  We have collectively, as a family of worshipers, as brothers and sister in Christ, pointed our faces toward the Lord.  We have joined voices and together asked God to speak.

          In the process, we have reflected upon who we are God’s people.  There is a sense of what a Christian should be.  We describe, generally speaking, what a church should be.  We have emphasized what HillSong Church is called to be in the first quarter of the 21^st century. 

          These prayers will not cease as we conclude this church-wide emphasis on discernment.  Understanding who we are in Christ is a constant process.  However, it is now time to reflect on what has been revealed; this is also the time to cast our gaze down the road and ponder where we are headed and also to see who, from afar, is coming toward us.

          We have talked about HillSong being safe place.  We strive to be a place of welcome where one can come and be loved and be encouraged and nurtured.  This will always tested as we who make up the community are born-again, spirit-filled yet also tempted by our weaknesses and by the devils’ wiles.  We, the people yearning to create safe space, sometimes are the ones who make it unsafe.  But we press on, we try again, as we welcome the next one through the door.

          In the safe space, our community, we worship.  In worship, our hearts are laid bare before the Lord and we pray that we actually meet God in those encounters.  In meeting God, we are forever changed.  We are made new – new creations. 

As new creations, we are then sent into the world to announce that something has happened.  God has done something.  God has come in human form, in the flesh.  That’s Jesus!  He is God in the flesh and in Him the Kingdom of God has come near.  In Him, people have forgiveness of sins and rescue from death.  We are sent to proclaim that He is Lord and King and people can have life in His name.  We are sent to help people become His disciples.

“Safe-New-Sent;” these words have become a mantra at HillSong.  But this is not all God has revealed.  Relationships matter.  We are a relational people.  Watch what happens when the worship service ends today.  People don’t flood to the exits.  I have been in church services where when the final song is over, people head for the exits like the building is on fire.  Here, people linger to talk, laugh, and embrace.  We love each other.

And our relationships are expanding.  New people come all the time.  Now, new congregations are in the fold with Zion Karen Baptist Church and Iglesia del Amor de Dios meeting in our buildings.  When our elders and deacons met a month ago, one of the observations we took away from our conversations was God is bringing the nations to HillSong.  And we are thrilled about that.

As a relational people living in fellowship with a divine calling to welcome the sojourner and seek out the lost that we might help them find the way to salvation, where do we go from here?

I appeal to the words of the prophet Joel.  He spoke of judgment and called a sinful people to repentance, but then, God showed him a new day dawning.  Here’s what God says through the prophet Joel.

^28 [a] Then afterward
    I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
    your old men shall dream dreams,
    and your young men shall see visions.
²⁹ Even on the male and female slaves,
    in those days, I will pour out my spirit.

          The dreams that come don’t originate with us. God says, “I will pour out my spirit.”  God’s Spirit visits us, and then the dreams come.  The good in our lives, the purpose which drives us to live and to live in a certain way comes from God.

          Joel shows that we dream God dreams.  To be people of faith, to follow Jesus, is to believe in visions and to experience dreams.  What’s more, this is all of us.  This is not reserved for the spiritual superheroes among us.  Nor is this purview of the privileged or the experienced or those more honored than others.  Children prophesy, senior citizens see things they’ve never seen before, and slaves dream and show the truth of God.  The revelation of God is generously shared as God desires to give it.

          But, what in the world does this mean?  The prophecy from Joel is beautiful and inspired and incomplete, because it doesn’t seem to ever become reality. 

          Then Jesus.

          Jesus comes along, and then Joel makes sense.

          In the book of Acts a series of events takes place.  First, Acts picks up right after the resurrection.  Jesus, who died and was buried, is walking about in his body resurrected.  The disciples see Him depart.  He goes to Heaven, to the right hand of the Father.  Then, after 40 days, the Holy Spirit rains down in tongues of fire on the disciples gathered in Jerusalem for Pentecost.   As they are filled, they speak the languages of all gathered there.

          It doesn’t make any sense.  These are Galilean fishermen, not educated linguists.  Yet with unmatched eloquence, they tell the story of God coming in the person of Jesus, dying, and offering salvation to the world.  The crowd, astounded, doesn’t know what to make of it all.

          That’s when Peter stands and says this.

¹⁴ But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. ¹⁵ Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. ¹⁶ No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

¹⁷ ‘In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
    and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
    and your old men shall dream dreams.
¹⁸ Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
    in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
        and they shall prophesy.
¹⁹ And I will show portents in the heaven above
    and signs on the earth below,
        blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
²⁰ The sun shall be turned to darkness
    and the moon to blood,
        before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
²¹ Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

          Peter’s way of making sense of all that happens is to appeal to scripture – the prophecy of Joel.  But Joel only makes sense when understood in terms of the resurrection.  Why can Peter say that the spiritual phenomena that happened at Pentecost is the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy?  Because Jesus was raised.  That spirit was and is the Holy Spirit of the Lord filling His people.

          Joel’s prophecy continues to be fulfilled as we gather, worship, glorify God in Jesus Christ, and band together as His people.  In this context, the church together, the Spirit pours new revelation and calls us to the work of holy living and holy love in the midst of a hurting and dying world. 

          Where do we go from here?  We worship – together.  We give and receive forgiveness – together.  We passionately discuss the issues of our day.  Sometimes those conversations heated, but it is for the sake of the Gospel because when we go over the issues of the day, what we are really talking about is how sin continuously wounds men and women.  When discuss, because we are Spirit-filled Christ followers, our discussion always comes back to figuring out, in the power of God, how we help heal the wounded.  This too is something we do together.  We live into the calling God has placed on us.

          An issue pressing the world right now, shows this point.  I have been in a number of conversations, debates, about how a nation like America ought to respond to the attacks in Paris and to the crisis of thousands of displaced Syrians.  Some argue that sound foreign policy is to send those Syrians elsewhere.

We don’t even think about sound foreign policy.  We know that our security is in the Lord, not in our government.  We want those who hurt at our doors so we can love them and help them.  Refugees who cannot find a shore?  This is our moment.  To care for them is to live into our calling.

Also, this morning, we have seen where we go from here.  In Baptism, in new members sharing their stories, our fires as a relationship people called together are rekindled.  The newly baptized believer and the newly welcomed member sharing there are hearts as we open our hearts to them and to all who come – this is what we are about.  This is who we are.

Next is Advent, that season in which we remember the coming of Christ and anticipate His return and the final, complete establishment of His Kingdom when Heaven and Earth come together. 

I pray that you will dream dreams the Holy Spirit plants in your heart.  I pray each of us will see our individual relationships with God become deeper, more real, and richer in the season ahead.  I pray God will shape HillSong Church so that in this place His love rules, and people grow into a full understanding that we are His.

AMEN