Sermon presented July 20, 2008 at Grace Fellowship Church.
Winning is losing - losing is winning. We see this in the life of Jesus. We see it in the life of the early believers. We may see it in our lives. Then again, maybe not. But in the final analysis that doesn't matter all that much. What do we see in the Scripture? What is in the life and ministry of our Lord and Savior? Winning is losing - losing is winning.
When I first make a statement like that, many Christians immediately go to a different pasage of Scripture than the one I intend today. Though we would affirm that Mark 9.35 is in the Bible and that if we wish to be first we should be last and servant of all, that isn't our main text today. So now that we know where we aren't going, let's see where we are going.
Two events serve as bookends for the temporal earthly ministry of Christ. Those two events frame nearly all that we know of Jesus' words and deeds. They are foundational to understanding this Christian life. They are the temptation and crucifixion of our Lord.
In the temptation and the crucifixion we see divine power and authority introduced and brought to fruition. My desire today is that we mght see and understand more of the way our Lord works in this world. How is his divine power shown to us? How does our Lord and savior show his authority in this world? I think sometimes we assume that God's ways are our ways and His thoughts are our thoughts. Time to change that thinking. I pray that my ways may be conformed to God's ways and my thoughts may be conformed to God's thoughts.
Many of the ideas I have for us today are not my own ideas. We should be very careful of people who bring their own ideas. Of course, we want to be careful of the people we borrow ideas from as well. But I think these are carefully borrowed ideas and that at least the parts I have borrowed are faithful to Scripture. I'll try to define things carefully and fairly, looking to Scripture as we move on.
Important ground rule: We don't generally understand what God is saying to us, at least not very well. So we need to listen carefully and accept what he is saying, not necessarily what we think he ought to say. In Matthew 13, where we will go next week, Jesus says something kind of cryptic to his disciples. He says (NIV):
"9He who has ears, let him hear."
10The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?"
11He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 13This is why I speak to them in parables:
"Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand. 14In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
" 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
15For this people's heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.' 16But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. "
See that people whose eyes are on themselves, who look to their own preconceived notions of what is right and wrong, strong and weak, wise and foolish - those people won't receive the things of God. They have turned themselves from the hearing of faith. I can picture them with their eyes closed as tightly as possible and their fingers in their ears trying not to see or hear. No surprise. In our sinful nature that's exactly what we do. Jesus has revealed himself to his people, though. He has given us eyes to see. He has given us ears to hear. He has given us a heart to understand, turn, and receive healing. At least I hope he has. We will know when we see, hear, understand, turn, and receive.
So there's our ground rule. We don't generally understand what God is saying to us. But he's saying it anyway and he will accomplish his purpose through what he says.
Now we need to make a couple of shorthand definitions. We often talk about power or authority. But we don't always define that power too well. For these concepts we need to get a fairly clear picture of two different types of power. And for a shorthand, I'll call them "right handed" and "left handed" power.
Let's try to get a working definition of right handed and left handed power. Those of you who have studied Luther's two kingdom theology need to forget what you know for a while. This isn't that. So leave those ideas behind. They are useful but not for this.
I'm right handed. Doctors who study the brain might say I process information in ways typical of right handed people. I tend toward linear thinking. Outlines work well for me. Pictures don't. That's generally more typical of righties than of lefties. Right handed power works more this way: Come up with a plan, execute the plan, no fuss, no muss, mission accomplished. As an example of right handed power, I want to break up a concrete sidewalk, so I take a sledge hammer and beat the daylights out of it until it comes apart.
Left handed power is different. I can't quite understand it. I'm a rightie. But I'll try to explain anyway. Left handed power looks a lot more like gentle influence or even inactivity. Think about "making" your garden plants grow and mature. That's what we'll call left handed power. As an example of left handed power, I want to break up a concrete sidewalk, so I plant a bunch of acorns right beside it and wait a dozen years. Or I find a crack in the sidewalk and pour some water into it every time there's a below-freezing day. The mission will be accomplished though I don't seem to be doing much.
Come with me now to Matthew 4 and the temptation of our Lord. We will look at the right hand and left hand power shown there. We'll keep praying for eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts to understand and turn. Of course, the fact that we are praying for those things does mean we already have them.
Let's read Matthew 4.1-4 together.
1Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3And the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." 4But he answered, "It is written,
"'Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
In the first temptation we see that God's power has nothing to do with food, drink, or other earthly sustenance.
Satan comes to Jesus with a plan to solve hunger. Jesus has been fasting and is hungry. Satan's proposal sounds good. "You can have all the food you want. For that matter, say the word and nobody in the world will ever be hungry again. Nice plan, right? You just need to cut loose and be God, Jesus! Make the plan, put it into operation, end of story. No more hunger for you or anyone else." That fits our right handed sesnsibilities just fine.
What is Jesus' response? He's decidedly left handed about the issue. There are more important issues than making sure suffering people have all they like at no personal cost.
Why does Jesus act this way?
The Bible doesn't say, I don't know, I refuse to speculate. That's just the way it is. Our Lord has spoken. He has not given us a limitless supply of rocks which turn to bread. He has not provided food for all the poor and hungry. Even when we try to distribute things to needy people, it's hard to identify people with real needs, it's hard to supply those needs, and people manage to become needy no matter what we do. Jesus says "the poor will always be with you." He's right. We don't know why.
We continue now to Matthew 4:5-7 (NIV).
5 "Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple 6and said 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,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.'"
7Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
In the second temptation we see that God's power is not shown by the preservation of this current bodily life or by our doing things that will look like a show of power.
Satan tells Jesus how great it would be for him to do a death defying public leap from the temple. "Wouldn't it be great? You could let people see that God really does care. You could get lots of attention stirred up. Maybe we could direct mail market the event, have balloons, a clown, a raffle, invite some NASCAR drivers and three generations of the Knievel family, and make everyone feel right at home while we show what God does when we are really radical. Sounds good, right? God really protects his people."
What is Jesus' response? "God doesn't work this way. He will show his hand of protection and mercy according to his own plan, in his own way, to whom he desires. It is not our place to doubt or test God." We fear, love and trust in God above all things. We do not put him to the test to see if he is enough God. He is decidedly enough God for everyone who is in danger of death. And that includes all of us.
We now turn our attention to Matthew 4.8-11.
8 "Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9And he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." 10Then Jesus said to him, "Be gone, Satan! For it is written,
"'You shall worship the Lord your God
and him only shall you serve.'"
11Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him."
In the third temptation we see that God's power belongs to him and has not been given to anyone else. The Lord does not show his power and provision because of our claim to deserve it, our goodness, our faith, but because He is the great and mighty God.
Satan comes to Jesus and tells him he can have everything imaginable just by misplacing his worship. "Go on, I'm the prince of this world, after all. And you can have all that power you want."
To this absurd blasphemy Jesus restates the first commandment. "There is only one God. We serve only him." And all this that we see in the world? It doesn't belong to Satan. The whole world belongs to the Lord. He made it, he filled it, he sustains it, he will bring everything to its proper conclusion in the end.
Despite Satan's attempt to pull Jesus off-message, despite Satan's false claims to authority which is not his own, despite all the rambling theological arguments which can make us feel the need to trot out lots of evidence of the reality of God and use natural revelation to prove everything the Scripture asserts, despite all this Jesus does not come off-message. He asserts the truth, which has never changed, and brings the critical issue back to who God is and what He deserves.
Remember, just about every sin we can think of is somehow a violation of the First Commandment. Think about it. What is the first commandment? You shall have no other gods. What does this mean? We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. Can you think of a way you can truly keep this command and enter into sin? I can't.
This moves us to the other bookend of Jesus' life. We've seen four things already:
1) We don't understand God's power or nature very well. We like things to be right-handed.
2) God's power doesn't have anything much to do with earthly sustenance.
3) God's power doesn't have much to do with preserving this present bodily life or bringing attention to himself through obvious signs.
4) God's power belongs to him and nobody else.
If you are like me, you are at least a little bit uncomfortable with God's idea of what real power is. You realize it doesn't match our ideals too well. You probably want to change your ways to be more like God's ways and see the futility in that attempt. So now it's my job to make you . . . less cofortable.
We are all familiar with the narrative of Jesus' crucifixion, death, and resurrection. We can all confess that Jesus, though sinless, was put to death, that he died in our place, and that the third day he rose again from the dead, showing that he is the firstfruits of the resurrection of the dead and that he has conquered sin and death. That's just plain basic Christian doctrine.
Does this seem like a powerful act on God's part? We picture Jesus beating death to death with the bloody crossbeam he was hung on. Yeah, power. But sometimes it is helpful to look at a familiar event through the lens of a less familiar parallel. So I'd like to tell you a brief story. This is also a borrowed story, at least in its basic concept. I'm not that creative.
It was a bright sunny summer day, much like today. A lot of people were on the beach that day, enjoying the sun, sand, and surf. There was a new lifeguard on duty, but, as normal, nobody really paid much attention to the lifeguard. He was a little out of it anyway. He had forgotten his whistle and was wearing a non-uniform pair of shorts. He looked kind of ragged and talked like a hick, frequently saying odd things. But everyone was having a good time despite him. The tide started to go out. Since there were fairly forceful undertows, all but the strongest swimmers got out of the water while the tide was going out. All of a sudden, one young girl realized she was too far out and was being dragged out to sea. Hearing her screams we all looked at the lifeguard stand, which was empty. Then we saw the lifeguard's head. He seemed to have forgotten the lifeboat provided for his use and was swimming out to help the girl. We all watched as he reached the girl, was attacked by a shark, and disappeared under the bloody water together with the girl. They did not reappear. We called the police, who came and scouted around, dragged around the bottom with a hook and a net, searched the surrounding shoreline and sent patrol boats out. Neither the girl's nor the lifeguard's remains were found in the next two days. The third day, the lifeguard came out of the water alone, assured us everything was all right, stayed around for a while telling us odd things, then flew off into the sky.
Is everything all right in the resurrection of Christ? What kind of power is this? I thought Jesus came to conquer sin and death. He doesn't look much like a winner in his poverty-stricken lif or death. How about now, after the resurrection? People don't fear, love, and trust in God above all things. People are hungry. People are dying. Every day around 155,000 people die in this world. That means that in the past 20 minutes we can expect that about 2000 people have died in this world. I thought Jesus conquered death.
He has conquered death, but he has not done it in the right-handed straight-line no fuss, no muss, no hassle mission accomplished manner that I would have chosen. You see, the one who seems like the loser is the winner.
Through this quiet victory, his death on the cross on our behalf, the winning of Christ which looks suspiciously like losing, our Lord and Savior has atoned for the sins of the world and has seated himself on the throne which belonged to him all along and which does not pass away. And he has proclaimed the message of forgiveness that I proclaim today. This is that Gospel which is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. Jesus has done what we couldn't and wouldn't do. What must we do to be saved? Would you ask that question if you didn't believe? Not in faith you wouldn't. Do you believe that Jesus has actually accomplished something? He has accomplished salvation on your behalf and on my behalf. He has atoned for sin. God's righteous requirement is satisfied. And that is the Gospel I proclaim to you today. Notice I proclaim the Gospel, I don't try to persuade you of it. That's right handed power. But the fact is that whether you and I believe or not, Jesus has atoned for sin and has procured forgiveness. That's a done deal. Do we believe? I pray that we might. Remember as we gather around the Lord's table the Lord's body broken for us and his blood shed for us. We don't earn it. We just believe it.
Lord, help my unbelief!
Amen.
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