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If there's one thing that's universally feared
by our culture, it's the possibility of failure. We love
success but shrink from failure. We've seen some fairly
spectacular corporate failures over the past year. There
was the failure of Harris Scarfe, the collapse of the
insurance giant, HIH, then of One.Tel followed soon after
by Ansett going into receivership, and late in the year
the collapse of Enron, America's largest gas and
electricity company. Reading about some of those failures
you get the impression that one reason they got to the
point of no return, was that their managers didn't want
to face the fact that they were failing. Instead they
tried to cover it up. They fiddled the books. They hid
things from the auditors. Looking back with hindsight you
realise just how foolish that was. So why did they do it?
Why didn't they realise it was better to tell the truth
before it got too bad? Was it because the fear of failure
was so strong? Because if they admitted failure they
might lose their jobs? Quite possibly. We live in a world
where people love success. Achievement is applauded, but
failure is hidden away. Where people dissociate
themselves from anyone who is tainted with failure. If
there's a black sheep in the family, no-one mentions
them. |
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Matthew had something like that in mind when he
sat down to write his account of the life of Jesus. You
might like to turn back to the start of Matthew's gospel.
Matthew begins with an account of Jesus' genealogy. That
is, his family tree. Now lots of people today are into
family trees aren't they? We love to know where we've
come from and who our forbears were. Although, as I said,
we tend to gloss over the black sheep when they appear.
Well, Jesus family tree is an interesting one. It
contains all sorts of people, both famous and unsavoury,
good guys and black sheep. There's Jacob, who stole his
inheritance from his brother Esau, Judah who helped sell
his brother Joseph into slavery, Rahab who was a
prostitute, Ruth who came from the cursed nation of Moab,
and even David who committed adultery with Bathsheba and
then had her husband killed to cover it up. There's a few
skeletons in that cupboard aren't there. |
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Not only that, but as we look at the way Matthew
has arranged his genealogy, we notice that he's
punctuated it with the high point of David's Kingship and
the low point of the exile to Babylon. This nation that
initially grew to be a powerful entity eventually failed
to fulfill its potential. And as we think further about
that we realise that of the original 12 tribes, 10 have
faded away, disappeared, and only 2 remain. And although
those 2 tribes have returned from exile, they've just
staggered along without any great success; so that as the
New Testament opens, things are in a bad state. They've
failed politically - they're now a subject nation - but
also spiritually. Both Jesus and John the Baptist begin
their public ministry by pointing out the people's
failure to follow God and their need to repent. And it's
clear that there's a demonic force at work, bringing the
Jewish people down to failure. |
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Now the supernatural has also been in the news a
bit lately with the Harry Potter books and movie, and the
Lord of the Rings. I saw a report in the paper the other
day about a prison in the US that's just appointed a
witch as a prison chaplain. Not that she casts spells or
anything, of course. According to her, her witchcraft is
based around concentrating the spiritual forces of the
world to bring about healing Apparently the inmates were
quite disappointed that her magic couldn't melt iron bars
or be used to put a curse on the warders. But of course
they didn't really think her magic was real. You see,
people don't really want to think about spiritual powers
as being real. They certainly don't like to think of the
devil as being active in the world. It's all very well
for shows like Mysterious Ways or X-Files to open up the
idea of spiritual forces at work in the world that we
can't explain, but that's only TV. We don't like to think
of a personal demonic dimension that might be active in
our lives. Yet Matthew presents this as a very real
factor in Jesus' experience, and we need to take it
seriously as well. |
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Satan still stirs up opposition to God's work
and still tempts us to failure to obey God. And we do
fail over and over again, don't we? So when we come to
Matthew 4 and Jesus' encounter with the evil one it
catches our interest. Here we find not failure, but
success. So we search it out to find the secret of his
success. And of course the key, is it not, is the word of
God. Jesus' use of God's word drives the evil one away.
And so we try to emulate him. We try to face up to
Satan's attacks armed with God's word. But do we succeed?
Do we actually remember to do it? Well, in fact most of
us discover that this technique doesn't work so well for
us. It isn't as easy as it first appears. And so it
becomes not a hope, but an irritant. It promises success
but gives only partial victory mixed with failure. So
what do we make of Matthew 4? Well, the trouble is we
tend to come at it in isolation to its surrounds. Like
watching 'The Return of the Jedi' without having first
seen 'Star Wars' and 'The Empire Strikes Back'. We don't
really understand what's going on because we don't
understand what's gone before. |
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Let me quickly sketch the background that
Matthew provides. He begins with Jesus' genealogy:
beginning with Abraham and the promises that God made to
him. That should remind us of God's promise that through
Abraham's descendants, all the nations of the world would
be blessed. Then he goes on to David, the great king
whose throne would last forever. But then, following the
return from exile, the genealogy finishes with a whimper.
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After the genealogy we come to the virgin birth.
Here is a birth that fits an OT pattern - the birth of
Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Samuel; all children whose birth
came about against the odds. But this is different - here
we have something that surpasses and fulfils the rest - a
virgin birth. Here is the one who will be Immanuel, God
with us. This is an event foretold by Isaiah 700 years
before: "A virgin will be with child and will give
birth to a son and will call him Immanuel." Next
comes the visit of the Wise Men. Herod wants to know
where this child is; the wise men tell us who he is. And
what do we discover when Herod calls in his lawyers? That
this child is the Messiah, the promised King, who was to
be born in Bethlehem and who'd restore David's throne to
its former glory. |
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So what does Herod do? Does he go to find the
child and welcome him? No, he sets out to kill Jesus. So
Joseph and Mary are forced to take Jesus into exile in
Egypt, just as the first Joseph had taken the people of
Israel into Egypt 2000 years before. Now can you see
what's happening here? Matthew has recognised God's
patterns - exile and exodus - he recognises the
fulfilment of prophecy 'Out of Egypt I called my Son'. 'A
voice is heard in Ramah, Weeping and great mourning.' But
now it's Jesus who is identified as the Son of God - and
just as importantly it's Jesus who's identified with
Israel. Here is the one who is coming to take on the
responsibility, the identity of the nation. In the midst
of Israel's failure, the great prophet, John, arises to
announce the day of the Lord, the coming of the great
King. So Jesus appears as the Saviour. // But the
question is, will he be able to do it? |
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And so we come to Chapter 4 - to the Contest.
Jesus is led into the desert to be tested. Who is he? God
has just told us at the end of Ch 3. He's the beloved Son
of God. And where is he taken? To the desert, the
wilderness, the site of Israel's great failure to follow
God. The question is, will he succeed where they failed?
Notice that he's tested at the same points as they were -
hunger, desire for miracles, and idolatry. And how does
he fight these temptations? He returns to the Old
Testament where the original temptations are recorded.
When Satan tempts him to turn the stones into bread, that
is, to create manna for himself, he turns rather to
Deuteronomy 8 and uses God's words from that time. Then
Satan takes him to the Temple, close to God - and this
time he quotes Scripture at Jesus. What do you do when
you're being tempted and a Scripture verse pops into your
mind? I once heard of a Christian Nudist group who based
their activities on the verse in Genesis 2 about Adam and
Eve being naked and not being ashamed. Well, I think they
needed to do some work on their theology of sin and the
difference between Gen 2 and 3. But what do you do? Do
you use Scripture to interpret Scripture? That's what
Jesus does. He again returns to Deuteronomy - he says
'Don't put the Lord to the test'; that is, to see if God
is really with you, as the people of Israel had done. |
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Finally the devil shows him all the kingdoms of
the world and their splendour. This is the one who's come
to save the world - this is what he's here for! And the
devil offers to give it to him! To save him all that
trouble. In Gethsemane, the night before he's to be
crucified, Jesus prays that God might take this cup from
him. And here the devil offers to do just that. He
doesn't need to go through all that suffering. Just kneel
before the devil, just once, it won't hurt. You'll save
all that strife. But no, Jesus chooses the worship of God
alone, and the path that leads inevitably to the cross.
And so, in the end, Satan flees. |
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Well, lets by all means see this as a model for
how we should stand against temptation, but that's not,
in fact, the main point of what God wants to teach us
here. So what is? The main point is this: that Jesus has
fought, on our behalf, the battle with the devil, to win
it on our behalf. At last there's one who'll stand
against evil and win. He's the fulfilment of all the
hopes of Israel; the one in whom all the promises of God
find their Yes! And so we sing at Christmas, 'The hopes
and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.' |
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So how do we defeat Satan? This passage is a
help. It does give us an example, a model to follow in
our battle against temptation, but that's not enough. In
the end all we'll be able to do will be to echo Paul when
he says: 'O wretched man that I am, who will rescue me
from this body of death?' But you know that quote from
Romans 7 goes on to speak of Christ's victory over sin on
our behalf. Christ has won the victory so we can claim
the victor's crown. This is the wonder of the Christian
gospel. Listen to how Romans 8 begins: 'There is
therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of
death.' We'll be going through Romans over the next few
months, but for now let's remember this: even though we
constantly fail in our efforts to obey God, if we're
followers of Jesus Christ, if we've made him the ruler of
our lives, then his victory over sin is ours, his success
overrides our failure. Ultimately our battle against sin
is won, not in the way we deal with temptation, important
as that is, but in the cross. If you haven't ever made
the decision to make Jesus the ruler of your life, to
become one of his followers, then today you have that
opportunity. I'd love to talk to you later about what
that might mean for you, and how you might go about it.
If the thought that you might be a failure as far as
obeying God is concerned worries you then come and talk
to me after the service, because Jesus offers us great
comfort if that's our concern. As we start a new year, as
we strive to keep those new year's resolutions and as we
move towards the celebration of Easter with the season of
Lent to remind us of our need to be more faithful in our
obedience of God, let's remember that our victory lies
not in our success or failure, but in the Cross of
Christ, in his perfect obedience to God and in his risen
life which he gives as a free gift to all who follow him. |
