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From this assurance of God’s favor, Jesus goes to the wilderness, there to endure a time of testing that readied Him to teach and bless, so we, by water and the Spirit, baptized into Christ’s ministry, are often led to paths of service through mazes of adversity.

Grace, mercy, and peace be yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading, as well as the Epistle.

So, what did you give up for Lent? Chocolate maybe? Or wine or beer? Maybe you were one of the braver ones and gave up broccoli or asparagus or brussels sprouts. Well, isn’t it interesting that we do such a wonderful tradition, not because it’s biblically mandated, but because it gives us an opportunity to focus on the great giving up of things, obviously, that our Lord did. But let’s turn it around. Why don’t we use the time of Lent, rather than giving up chocolate or something, to call people that you haven’t telephoned in a while, and write a card to someone whom you haven’t corresponded with in a while. Invite someone to church that you haven’t invited, or you have but it’s been awhile. Put regularly in the offering plate a larger check. Teach Sunday school, hint, hint. We need some teachers. Take the opportunity of this time as we focus upon what God has done for us to do and serve somebody else. But, as we know, to do such service and to extend or stretch ourselves, places us in a time of testing or tribulation. And usually, we spend most of our opportunities in life adjusting fire and posturing so that we can avoid such service and extra responsibilities, sometimes wisely and sometimes…well, let’s face it… lazily.

God has placed you from the moment of your baptism into His service. We are in a full-court press, run-and-gun kind of offense and defense for the entire length of the game of our life. Some of us get the moment of timeout and we’re on the bench to rest. And some of us right now are in the midst of the game and are dealing with a 300-pound Shaq who is on our back all the time. God’s testing and tribulation are exactly that. They are His. He is in control of your testing. He is the One who has allowed those things to come upon you. He has not orchestrated your decisions on what you have done, but He has allowed those things to happen to you, not for the sake of crushing you, though it feels at times overwhelming, but for the sake of building you up and strengthening you, just as a wise coach pushes you in practice so that you excel in the game. There is no practice in this life. God thrusts us in the game whether we think we’re ready or not. But our responses are just that. They’re our responses. God does not puppeteer us, as James said so well. Let no one say when he is tempted, “I’m being tempted by God.” For God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire, and then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is fully grown, brings death.

The children of Israel when they were being led from Egypt at where they were in bondage to the Promised Land of Palestine, at each point where they got themselves into the pickle was when they wanted to rebel against the direction and the road down which God was leading them. He was setting them up for success by bringing them and providing for them all along life’s way to the Promised Land. And they would at times say, “Okay, well, it’s not as big of a struggle now. Let’s just plant ourselves here. We’re away from our struggles in Egypt. The Promised Land is too abstract for us, so let’s just set up shop here.” And that’s when they would get themselves into trouble. But that’s when you and I get ourselves into trouble. When we begin to make this place known as the wilderness in which you and I live and in which you and I are in service to God to be a second home rather than merely a campout. It’s not a third home or a fourth home. It is a campout. It is a temporary dwelling, like the tabernacle, moving toward the permanent dwelling of Heaven, the New Jerusalem. And what God has done is continually remind you with various events in your life that this world is not all that there is. This life is not all that there is. And He has done that through the testing in your life.

You could regale me with insight and story of God’s work in your life through these various trials and tribulations, as I could to you, but isn’t it interesting… we forget after we have gone through. Like a mother, the pain of childbirth, forgets after she has born children and says, “You know, I would sure love to have another one.” Okay, but at least some… some of y’all do that.

You don’t forget those things, do you? I know I do though. Having gone through it and you go, “Whew, I made it.” That’s your time on the bench. That’s your time to rest and recuperate, which God gives you at times before He thrusts you back in the game. He may even thrust you before you think you’re ready back into that game, back to that run-and-gun offense, back to the full-court press, back to when your tongue is hanging out of your mouth and you’re wondering with your heart pounding and your lungs burning, “Lord, call the time.” And He just looks at you from the bench and says, “Keep going, my son and my daughter. The game’s not over.”

When Christ was thrust out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, Christ did not trip and yield so that He could cover up and pay for all of the times when you and I did trip and yield to the flesh, and it’s roaring and raging within us. For our laziness, He never was lazy. For our undesirability to see the glass half full, He always saw it half full, because we always are complaining about it being half empty. Jesus endured all things in that wilderness for you and for me to show and to fulfill. He is the fulfillment of what you and I are incapable of doing. And just as we sang in that hymn, it is our life in the wilderness. That’s the baptismal life. And in that life, He can take us all the way to the knife above the neck for the slaughter of the one and only Son, and He stays us before we thrust it down. But He didn’t stay His arm for you, did He? He finished and went down and thrust it into His one and only Son out of which flowed blood and water covering you, and all of the times when you and I have complained, have bemoaned what God is asking of us, have been judgmental of what God thinks and His desire and will for us, because it is our flesh and Satan’s desire to firmly lock us into this world and not see it merely as a campout, a passing through to the real home that awaits us.

When Jesus fulfilled those 40 days in the wilderness, it wasn’t a magical 40. It was the time allotted. It was the completion. It was that time for you and my time. Some of us are pulled out of this game early, at a young age; some of us are pulled at a later age chronologically, but either way, this is not our home. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights with whom there is no variation of shadow due to change. The good and every perfect gift that James speaks is not an earthly blessing. That would be to completely narrowly and myopically view God as merely a dispenser of material goods. Every good and perfect gift is that which you and I have none; His strength to endure; His balm to heal our failures; His bandages to bind up; His repair of that which we have broken; that He does promise and does give and always shall and always will. And He does it here.

When you look around and you see other believers here among you, you know they’re not perfect, just as I know you’re not perfect, and you know I’m not. But we’re encouraged by one another because we know it’s here that we receive every good and perfect gift and are bound up so that we may go out and step back into that game again. It is here where we will saddle up to that altar to be strengthened by one another for both of us come as beggars and both of us leave as inheritors of eternal life so that we can be thrust back out into that game again. Here is where God dispenses such every good and perfect gift to His children who live the baptized life in this wilderness and will be brought home with, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Enter into the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. In the name of Him who speaks and gives Himself to you, Jesus. Amen.

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting.

Amen.