SPECIAL DAYS: First Sunday of Lent

February 21, 1999 - LESSON: Matthew 4:1-11

SERMON TITLE: We Are the Champions

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INTRODUCTION:

1. Read the following quotations from Vince Lombardi, the former coach of the Green Bay Packers who had some wonderful thoughts about winning.
1. "Some of us will do our jobs well and some will not, but we will be judged by only one thing-the result."
2. "It's easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you're a winner, when you're number one. What you've got to have is faith and discipline when you're not yet a winner."
3. "Success demands singleness of purpose."
4. "Winning is not a sometime thing: it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do the right thing once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing."
5. "Winning is not everything--but making effort to win is."
6. "I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle-victorious."

MAIN BODY:

1. Life is made up of winners and losers.
1. No one likes to lose.
2. We accept the losing.
1. Some negatively.
2. Others graciously.

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3. We want to win.
4. We want to win, to be champions.
1. We are not fighting it out on the playing fields of the sports world.
2. We are not fighting it out in the intellectual areas of life.
3. We are not fighting it our in the corporate sector.
4. Our battle is the battle for the soul, not the other's soul, but our own.
2. In this battle we have the most potent and powerful force in the universe on our side, that is if we want him on our side.
1. Jesus was and is a champion
1. He was tested on the fields of battle.
1. The weapons were not the usual weapons of warfare.
2. The weapon was an incitement to think and to do that which subverts will and purpose.
2. Jesus was tested and succeeded in overcoming the force arrayed against him.
1. There were three tests.
2. They encompass all of the tests that can come to any of us.
1. Stones to bread.
1. Your hungry.
2. But the appeal is to self-indulgence
2. Throw yourself down
1. the appeal is to testing God
1. To question knowledge
2. To question faith.
3. To question God.

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2. To play god.
3. Kingdoms of the whole world.
1. Here is power.
1. If you had the power what would you do with it?
2. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
2. Here is wealth.
1. This could all be yours.
2. It is a better dream than willing the lottery.
2. If we take the time to understand how Jesus succeeded it can generate excitement for us and in us
1. We want to be champions.
2. This is the way to accomplish it.
3. We will be tempted and tried.
1. Those are the opening words of a marvelous gosp4el song, "Farther Along."

Tempted and tried we're oft made to wonder
Why it should be thus all the day long,
While there are others living about us,
Never molested though in the wrong

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1. In 1 Corinthians 10:13, we read:
1. No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful,
2. he will not let you be tested beyond your strength,
3. but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.
2. How was Jesus successful?
1. He did not have a secret that is not known to us.
2. He did not have power that is not available for us.
3. He used what had been and is accessible to us.
3. If you look at the three tests that he met successfully, you will find the means to be able to meet your own.
1. The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."
1. [4] But he answered, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
2. [5] Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, [6] saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"
1. [7] Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
3. [8] Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; [9] and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."
1. [10] Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" [11] Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

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4. Jesus does not argue.
5. Jesus offers no rationalizations.
6. He responds with: "It is written."
4. Does that appear to be too simple, too naive?
5. It is not.
1. We have the power of the word.
2. We can apply the power of the word.
3. We can be champions through the word.

CONCLUSION:

1. We look to Jesus who is the author and finisher of our faith.
1. (Hebrews 4:14-15 NRSV) Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. [15] For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.
2. He overcame the temptations of the evil one.
3. So may we.

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