Resisting the temptation to covet

Sermon for Invocavit – Lent 1

Genesis 3:1-24  +  2 Corinthians 6:1-10  +  Matthew 4:1-11

Over the last three Sundays, we talked about Pride as the root sin in the human heart, but there’s actually something that comes before Pride, something deeper, the condition that originally led to Pride. We call it by several names. Original sin. The vice of origin. Concupiscence. Coveting. It’s the desire or the longing for something that God hasn’t given you. It’s dissatisfaction with God. Once that longing, that dissatisfaction, is conceived in the heart, it gives birth to every other sin, with Pride at the top of the list, because if your desires and your longings are turned away from God, then the most natural place for them to land is on yourself, so that you end up thinking more highly of yourself than of God, also known as Pride.

Adam and Eve had no natural longing for the fruit from the forbidden tree. On the contrary, their desire was for God, to know Him, to have Him for their God, to obey Him and not to do anything He had forbidden. So the devil’s first task in the Garden wasn’t to get Eve to eat. It was to get Eve to desire to eat from that particular tree, to long for something God hadn’t given her, to attract her desires away from God to something else, like a powerful magnet tugging at a compass so that it no longer points north as it should. And then, once that was done, it was a simple thing to convince her to eat the fruit in order to get that thing that she now longed for.

In order to instill that longing, the devil had to tell a series of lies. They weren’t outright lies. He started with a bit of truth, half-truths, but then twisted them, spun them into something evil: You will be like God, if you eat from that tree. That’s what he got her to long for. And as a result, the sinful longing, the dissatisfaction with God that took root in Eve’s heart not only led her to eat, but to entice Adam to eat, and as a result of that, this sinful longing and dissatisfaction with God—this original sin—passes down to Adam’s and Eve’s children, so that it’s now an innate condition of our soul.

But God made a way for Jesus to be descended from Adam and Eve without inheriting those sinful longings and dissatisfaction. He was born of a virgin, without the help of a man and with the divine working of the Holy Spirit. That made Him the only human being who could be both the Son of Man—that is, the Son of Adam—and still be without original sin, as Adam was before the Fall.

So the devil had his work cut out for him in today’s Gospel, trying to inject a sinful longing into the heart of the Son of Man so that He would sin against God and fail as our Savior. Let’s consider the three temptations recorded for us in Holy Scripture and how our Lord responded to each. I think you’ll find them all too familiar.

Jesus had been led out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to conduct this miraculous 40-day fast, no food, no water—like Moses had done on Mount Sinai when he received the Law from God. At the end of the 40 days, He was hungry. So, for the first temptation, the devil takes advantage of Jesus’ natural desire for food: If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. If only he can get Jesus, not just to desire some bread, but to long for it, to set His heart on it, to become dissatisfied with God for not providing it right away when He wanted it. That would lead to Jesus becoming impatient with God, even angry with Him.

There’s a lie hidden within this seemingly innocent suggestion to provide bread for Himself: Your Father in heaven doesn’t really know you, doesn’t acknowledge you or appreciate you, doesn’t care about you, won’t provide for you. He makes rules and laws that are too unreasonable to obey. You deserve better treatment. God is not good. You don’t need Him.

The solution he proposes? You have the power to get what you want, to get what you need. Don’t worry about God! Don’t wait for God! Just do it! Take what you want, right now!

Waiting for God to provide, to help, to save. You know how hard that can be. And so you know how easy it can be to believe the devil when he tells you, You need bread, and you need it now! Just substitute for bread anything that you really want or think you need. And you know how tempting it is to push God out of the equation entirely. Pursue your career without worrying about God! Pursue your dreams, your desires, your cravings! Build a family! Build a life!

How does Jesus respond? It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”

When the first temptation didn’t work the devil turned to a second temptation: He took Jesus up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down.” And then he even quotes from Scripture to back up his suggestion. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” If only He can get Jesus, not to abandon trust in God—that would be a step too far—but to misplace His trust in God, to tempt God to help Him in doing something for which God never promised His help. Of course, Jesus knows better than to jump off a building, but then, don’t you often know better before you go and do something stupid?

The lie hidden within this seemingly insane suggestion is not so unfamiliar to us: God will take care of you no matter what. As you go about your life, doing whatever you want, you can trust in God to take care of you. In fact, you can even grumble and complain against God (like the Israelites did in the wilderness right after God had rescued them from the Egyptians and brought them safely across the Red Sea on dry ground), and He’ll still take care of you! You can thumb your nose at all of His commandments, and He’ll still take care of you. Again, the devil takes a little truth from Scripture and puts a spin on it, his own interpretation of it.

The implication? Cast yourself down and trust that God will take care of you anyway. Or to someone living today, do drugs! Marry the person who doesn’t share your faith! Have an abortion! Stay home from church! Hang out with whatever friends you want! Drink more! Pray less! And still go on convincing yourself that everything will be fine in the end! God would never abandon you, would He?

Jesus’ simple response to these lies and temptations? It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God.’ His words accuse us for all the times we’ve fallen for this lie, acting against God’s commandments and even our better judgment because we trusted that God would help us anyway. At the same time, Jesus is acting here, not only as the One who shows us how we should have behaved but didn’t, but as the One whose perfect behavior mercifully covers the failings of those who trust in Him.

The third and final temptation in our Gospel is the biggest one of them all. The devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” You can have everything you’ve ever wanted! Earthly wealth, glory, and happiness! All of it! To hell with God!

Even if the devil can give these things—and, to some extent, he can here in this world where he is prince—the lie is that you’ll be happy if you all the things you want. You’ll be happy without God. You’ll be happy if you turn your back on God. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have the money to do all the things you want to do? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be loved, to be popular? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a bigger church, a larger community of fellow believers, a greater impact on the people around you? Whether it’s peace with the world, so that you’re no longer constantly fighting against your own society, or whether it’s the glory of the Roman Church or of the Lutheran synods or even of the big Baptist churches, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a share in it? Think of all the things you’re missing out on! Think of how alone you are! All you have to do, is compromise a little, bend a little, be a little more flexible. Then you can have what you really want!

These are real temptations. But Jesus teaches us the response of the perfect Son of Man: Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’

In each case, in each temptation, Jesus felt the tug at His heart’s compass to long for something besides God. But the compass needle never budged. His desire remained fixed on God, His dear Father, and the Holy Scriptures gave Him all the armor He needed to stand firm without sinning.

Of course, the devil doesn’t have to convince us to long for something other than God or to focus on ourselves; our compass already points inward by nature. He doesn’t have to work hard to convince us that God isn’t good. Our flesh already believes it. He doesn’t have to work hard to make us impatient with God, or to believe falsely about God, or to long for the life we could have, if only we gave in to sin. We’re already predisposed to all those things.

But there is peace in naming our sin, in acknowledging, that’s what I’m feeling, a longing for something God hasn’t provided. Because once we acknowledge it, once we name it, we can confess it, and, precisely because Jesus resisted the devil’s temptations, we can receive forgiveness for it.

Because Jesus, our Substitute under the Law, resisted every temptation and never allowed His heart to be pulled away from God, we now have a Savior who can offer us His own righteousness in place of our disobedience. God knows that our hearts are not tuned to Him as they should be. So He offers us Jesus as our Champion. What He does, God will count to us who believe in Him. What He suffers, God will count to those who believe in Him. The forgiveness of sins is now ours because Jesus never gave in to sin.

And for the forgiven, we are also given a powerful instruction in today’s Gospel, in recognizing the ways that the devil tempts us and in responding as the Son of God responded. Jesus shows us what it looks like to wait for God. He shows us how to use prayer and the Word of God so that we are not led astray into misbelief or other shameful sin and vice. He shows us how to prefer poverty to riches wickedly gained, how to prefer loneliness to heterodoxy, how to choose conflict with friends and family rather than to choose friendship with the world, which always means enmity with God.

Trust in Christ, both for forgiveness and for the strength to resist temptation. It is your calling as a Christian, as one who is to follow in the footsteps of Christ, who resisted temptation for your salvation and in order to help you when you face temptation. Use and rely on the Word of God, as Jesus did. And as He promises through His apostle: God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. Amen.