March 12, 2000

LESSONS: Genesis 9.18-22; 1 Peter 3.18-22; Mark 1.9-15, NRSV

1. Have you ever heard of WWJD?
1. In Christian circles a few years ago there was a very popular acronym.
1. It was silk screened on tee shirts
2. It was embossed on bracelets
3. It was cast in medallions
4. It was worn and talked about everywhere.
2. What is WWJD? Acronym for What would Jesus do?
1. This is a very easy question to ask.
2. It is a very difficult question to answer.
3. To be truthful, I am very wary of statement like this one.
4. Our answers can be too glib and even dangerous.
3. But for this morning let us try to understand what Jesus did.
4. This is because what he did he did not only for himself, but for all human kind.

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MAIN BODY:

1. The lesson is short and specific, bare bones, the few details pointing to the necessary conclusion.
1. Jesus was baptized and then he heard the voice of God affirming his status and position.
2. The spirit immediately drove him (sent him away) into the wilderness.
1. Jesus was not driven by force, but by divine imperative
2. He went willingly because it was necessary in fulfilling the divine plan.
3. There he was confronted by many temptations.
4. Do you understand the meaning of the concept of temptation?
1. Temptation is to be put to the test
2. It is a seductive inducement to apostasy.
3. It is an enticement to compromise
4. It is an influence to become self-dependent
5. It is an appeal to base life on law rather than love.
2. Temptations will come.
1. We need to be clear on the source of temptations.
1. We pray "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
2. As if it were God who was leading us into temptation.
3. It is better understood in the NRSV
4. (Matthew 6:13 NRSV) And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.
2. The writer of James spells out specifically the nature and source of temptation.

(James 1:12-17 NRSV) Blessed is anyone who endures temptation. Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. No one, when tempted, should say, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one. But one is tempted by one's own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death. Do not be deceived, my beloved. Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
3. There are only two sources of temptations
1. Satan was appealing to Jesus to ignore or compromise his basic principles.
2. The temptations of one's own corruptible desire.
3. Temptation is not sin.
1. There is an old gospel song that makes this perfectly clear.

Yield Not to Temptation⁽¹⁾

Verse 1.

Yield not to temptation,
For yielding is sin;
Each victory will help you
Some other to win;
Fight manfully onward,
Dark passions subdue,
Look ever to Jesus:
He'll carry you through.

2. We are better able to deal with temptation and its results when we ask, not what would Jesus do, but rather what did Jesus do?
1. Not WWJD but WDJD
2. Jesus provides us with an example so that we might not get lost in the midst of our own ignorance or rationalizations.
3. Here are some illustrations which may help us to understand how to meet temptations.
1. Each of them meets the challenge that Jesus faced in the wilderness
2. They may help is to a better understanding of the dangers that we constantly face.
3. A Sunday School teacher challenged her children to take some time on Sunday afternoon to write a letter to God.
1. They were to bring their letter back the following Sunday.
2. One little boy wrote, "Dear God, We had a good time at church today. Wish you could have been there."
1. Where was God?
2. God was there, but perhaps was not seen.
3. WDJD
4. (Matthew 4:4 NRSV) But he answered, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
5. We do not live not by bread alone.
6. But by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
1. Christ is the word and the wisdom of God.
2. We obviously need to be where the word is spoken and understood.
3. We need to let the word permeate our lives so that as bread is nourishment for the body, the word becomes nourishment for the spirit.
4. Two old friends met one day after many years. One attended college, and now was very successful. The other had not attended college and never had much ambition.⁽²⁾

The successful one said, "How has everything been going with you?"

"Well, one day I opened the Bible at random, and dropped my finger on a word and it was 'oil.'

So, I invested in oil, and boy, did the oil wells gush.

Then another day I dropped my finger on another word and it was 'gold.'

So, I invested in gold and those mines really produced. Now, I'm as rich as Rockefeller."

The successful friend was so impressed that he rushed to his hotel, grabbed a Gideon Bible, flipped it open, and dropped his finger on a page.

He opened his eyes and his finger rested on the words, "Chapter Eleven."

1. WDJD
2. (Matthew 4:7 NRSV) Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
1. When we leave God out of our personal equations, we often put God to the test.
2. We get ourselves in tight places and then we bargain.
3. God does not either respect nor honor such bargaining.
5. There is an Indian parable in which a guru had a disciple and was so pleased with the man's spiritual progress that he left him on his own.⁽³⁾
1. The man lived in a little mud hut. He lived simply, begging for his food. Each morning, after his devotions, the disciple washed his loincloth and hung it out to dry.

One day, he came back to discover the loincloth torn and eaten by rats.

He begged the villagers for another and they gave it to him. But the rats ate that one, too.

So he got himself a cat. That took care of the rats, but now when he begged for his food he had to beg for milk for his cat as well.

"This won't do," he thought. "I'll get a cow."

So he got a cow and found he had to beg now for fodder. So he decided to till and plant the ground around his hut.

But soon he found no time for contemplation, so he hired servants to tend his farm.

But overseeing the laborers became a chore, so he married to have a wife to help him.

After time, the disciple became the wealthiest man in the village.

The guru was traveling by there and stopped in. He was shocked to see that where once stood a simple mud hut there now loomed a palace surrounded by a vast estate, worked by many servants. "What is the meaning of this?" he asked his disciple.

"You won't believe this, sir," the man replied. "But there was no other way I could keep my loincloth."

2. WDJD

(Matthew 4:10 NRSV) Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"
1. The word is not a word of wealth, but a word of faithfulness.
2. Wealth is desirable and necessary but only in the context of faithfulness.
4. From Jesus we learn the danger of temptations
1. From Jesus we learn how to meet temptations
2. From Jesus we learn how to become victorious in the face of temptations.
3. We learn how to live even the meanest of times and places.

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CONCLUSION:

1. Near the city of Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil, is a remarkable facility.⁽⁴⁾
1. Twenty years ago the Brazilian government turned a prison over to two Christians.
2. The institution was renamed Humaita, and the plan was to run it on Christian principles.
3. With the exception of two full-time staff, all the work is done by inmates.
4. Families outside the prison adopt an inmate to work with during and after his term.
5. Chuck Colson visited the prison and made this report:
1. "When I visited Humaita I found the inmates smiling - particularly the murderer who held the keys, opened the gates and let me in.
2. Wherever I walked I saw men at peace. I saw clean living areas, people working industriously. The walls were decorated with biblical sayings from Psalms and Proverbs....
3. My guide escorted me to the notorious prison cell once used for torture. Today, he told me, that block houses only a single inmate.
4. As we reached the end of a long concrete corridor and he put the key in the lock, he paused and asked, 'Are you sure you want to go in?'
5. "'Of course,' I replied impatiently, 'I've been in isolation cells all over the world.'
6. Slowly he swung open the massive door, and I saw the prisoner in that punishment cell: a crucifix, beautifully carved by the Humaita inmates - the prisoner Jesus, hanging on a cross.
7. "'He's doing time for the rest of us,' my guide said softly."
2. We all face temptations.
1. Temptations to accept bread that does not give life.
1. To remain ignorant of the Word.
2. To fail to use the word.
2. Temptations to acquire wealth for wealth's sake and not for God's sake or the sake of the Christian community.
3. Temptations to power
1. To control or to dominate, to impose our own will on others
3. Christ has met the test.
1. In a sense he did time for all of us.
2. Through him we can also meet the temptation and live successfully and well.

2. Jackie's Fortnightly Joke Bin, The Door Magazine Online, September 1999, www.flash.net/~thedoor.

3. Mark Buchanan, "Trapped in the Cult of the Next Thing," Christianity Today, September 6, 1999, 66.

4. Max Lucado, In the Grip of Grace (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1996), 113.