If you read newspaper advice columns, like Dear Abbey, very often, you will recognize a scenario that comes up again and again.
It is usually a woman who writes in about the man she loves. She insists they really love each other, but there’s this problem. She just can’t keep him happy. She likes to go out with her girl friends every once in a while, but he gets nervous that she might be seeing another man if she goes out, so he tells her, ‘If you loved me, honey, you wouldn’t go out like that.’ So she has quit seeing her friends.
He likes to drink, and when he does he often gets pretty unreasonable and sometimes gets in trouble. She asks him to cut back. He promises that he’ll work on it, but he has a lot of stress on him at the moment, and her nagging doesn’t help. So he tells her, “If you love me, honey, you’ll understand and give me time.” But the more understanding and time she gives him, the worse the drinking gets.
And now he wants her to move in with him. And she doesn’t think they are ready. Abby, what should she do?
And Abbey, or any counselor who hears this all-too-common story has to say, “every couple has their ups and downs, but this guy is using you. He is manipulating you. Love requires trust. Love requires commitment. The faster you break this off, the better. You are enabling him to abuse you. Have you heard this story before?
Now let’s jump back in time several thousand years to the story we just read from Psalm 78. The story originally comes from the Book of Exodus, but the Psalm tells it in a more compact way.
The people of Israel had been slaves in Egypt. They called out to God for help and God came through with a miracle. Pharaoh let them leave. But Pharaoh soon changed his mind and soon the Israelites found themselves trapped with the Red Sea in front of them and Pharaoh’s soldiers coming up rapidly from behind. They called out to God and God came through again by opening up a way for them to go through the Red Sea and then drowned Pharaoh’s soldiers as they tried to cross behind the Israelites.
As they set out across the Sinai desert, one day they came to a pond of water, but the water was too bitter to drink. God came through and enabled them to make the water drinkable. Another day their food was running out and God provided this mysterious manna for them to eat.
One day they traveled as far as they could go and couldn’t find any place with water to make their camp. And what did they do? Did they humbly ask God for help? Did they say, “Lord, you have always shown us what to do in the past, what shall we do for water this time?” No, after all the times that God had been there for them, they grumbled. They accused God of bringing them into the wilderness for the purpose of killing them. After all the things God had done for them.
Can you hear the voice of the manipulating husband here? “God, if you really loved us, you would do this, and this, and this, and this.” If you loved us, demanding again and again for God to prove his love. They were determined to have things their way and in their time. They weren’t interested in waiting for God’s time and God’s way.
And God had things under control. There was no need to panic. Apparently, there was an underground spring there. God told Moses to hit a certain rock with his walking stick, and there was the water. Why did they doubt? Why were they demanding?
For centuries people looked back at this moment as a serious sin. God was God and they were his people. God had proven himself again and again; that he knew what he was doing and that he would take care of them. Who were they to come to God like this, putting God to the test, saying, “God you have to make things quick and easy for me. If you really love me, you will.”
This is our third week talking about the temptations that Jesus wrestled with. Temptations aren’t really fun to talk about. Who wants to have to wrestle with themselves? Its hard work to sort out what your deepest motivations really are. Our passage is clear that the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness for the purpose of wrestling with the temptations. We usually prefer the parts about God leading us beside still waters and restoring our souls. But the reality is that much of what God does to restore our souls happens through a cleaning process where everything is closely examined and then thoroughly scrubbed. So it is an important process, something God’s people have especially done during Lent for many centuries.
Well, in the third temptation, the devil suggested that Jesus force God’s hand by jumping off the pinnacle of the temple in front of a crowd. God would send angels to give him a safe landing. Everyone would be impressed. He’d be off to a rushing start on his ministry.
But Jesus could smell the danger in the suggestion. He had come to earth to function just like one of us. And we have no business dictating to God what God has to do. This morning we look at the third temptation that Jesus faced in the wilderness.
This week, let me read it for you, Luke 4:1-13. I encourage you to always have our text open in front of you. You’ll find it on page 61 of the New Testament section of your pew Bible.
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1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.
3 The devil said to him, `If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.' 4 Jesus answered him, `It is written: `One does not live on bread alone.'
5 Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And the devil said to him, `To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.' 8 Jesus answered him, `It is written: `Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.'
9 Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him. `If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written,
`He will command his angels concerning you to protect you,' 11 and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'
12 Jesus answered him, `It is said, `Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' 13 When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time."
I can imagine that Jesus faced similar temptations many times during his ministry. I can hear him praying, “Father, I need help, but all you’ve given me are these fisherman. And having that tax collector, Matthew, hanging around does not make us popular with the crowd. I can do great things for you, but first you have to give me some real quality people to work with.” And I can hear his Father answering him, “I gave you this group of 12 for a reason. These are the right ones. Work with them. I know what I’m doing”
I can hear him being tempted to pray, “Lord, before I head down to Bethsaida again, I really need you to get that one Pharisee off my back, or I just can’t face it.” “All right, Lord, we need more money right now or we can’t go on.”
What if Jesus had gotten into that kind of thinking that always put demands down first? “Father, I’ll do this for you, but I really need a better medical plan first.” “Lord, I’ll go anywhere you send me, if you promise I don’t have to travel out of town much.”
And it is so easy for us to come to God with one demand after another, prescribing tests that God needs to meet in order to prove himself to us.
God, I’ll worship you, if that person who bugs me isn’t there.
Lord, I’ll keep coming to church, if it always gives me a warm feeling inside. Keep it comfortable. Don’t challenge me too much.
Lord, I expect you to give me the kind of strong faith that will get me through any difficulties and make me happy all the time, but you have to understand that it’s just too much effort right now to do the work of feeding that faith. Bible Study and praying, those things are hard for me. You just take care of it, OK?
Lord, if only you would do this for me, then I would be happy. But then there is another if and another and another and another. Always bargaining, always demanding, always implying that God hasn’t done his part and needs to do more.
Huckleberry Finn told his friend that he tried praying once. He asked for fish hooks. They didn’t come. So, he figured he wouldn’t bother again.
And Jesus said “no” to that temptation right at the start. “God does not have to prove himself to me. I am here as a servant. I’ll obey and not demand. I will live each day as it comes to me and trust that God has already put into it all I need. I will love the people whom God brings into my life and not push them away while I dream of finding people who are easier to cope with. I will trust that when difficulties come my way God knows what he is doing. I will not turn my back on him. I will not question his wisdom or his goodness. I will not put God to the test.
Can you feel how this type of thinking turns things upside down, with us in God’s seat, and God expected to be our errand boy? Can you feel how easy it is to get into the habit?
But God does not leave himself above all accountability and God does not expect us to blindly believe without ever having a chance to see he is there. Actually the Bible says very clearly that there is a time and way to put God to the test and we are invited to do it.
In Malachi 3:10, God says to the people of Israel, “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.” God invites us to put him to the test by obeying his commandments in detail. Here he promises that we will see his provision if we present to him a full tithe, a full 10% of our income. God invites us to put him to the test, but only on things he has promised to do.
Jesus told us to forgive and then adds the promise that if we do, we will be forgiven. If you are tied up in knots inside with resentments against others and frustrations with yourself, put God’s promise to the test by choosing to let go of the resentments towards others, forgiving them. Sometimes that takes time and hard work, but as you do it, watch how your own sense of being forgiven and accepted by God will grow.
There are beautiful promises all through the Bible, every one waiting for us to put God to the test. For example, we read in Isaiah 58, 6-10, “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.”
Can you hear the promises in there? He uses beautiful imagery. Our light will break froth like the dawn. Our healing will spring up quickly. The Lord will answer our prayers. Our gloom will be changed to the brightness of the noon day sun.
But that happens when we have the basic principle very clear. God is God. We are his servants. He will not be our servant. But if we will be his servants, and serve on his terms, he will prove himself to us again and again. AMEN
