By Rev. Dr. Brent Russett – Asbury Free Methodist
September 22, 2024 – Matthew 4:1-11
Last week we started at four-week series on Spiritual formation. Spiritual formation is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of God, ourselves, and others. This is a journey of becoming persons of compassion, and people who forgive. It is a process where God makes us into what we were truly created to be. We become people who spend time with Jesus, become like Jesus and do the things that Jesus would do.
I know a lot of you people. You aspire to be all that you have been created to be. You would love to be more peaceful and kind, generous and loving, joyful and strong. You want to be the kind of people who when the storm comes you stand firm. You want to be the kind of person who lives in a place of deep godly contentment. You want to be the kind of person who responds appropriately to life’s grief and pain, joy and celebration.
Yet you, like all of us, have this vision of what we want to be, but we find it hard to get there. I want to be peaceful, but I find myself angry. I want to be joyful can I find my soul riddled with fear and anxiety. I want to be loving, and I am not sure what that means in my day-to-day life.
Have you ever been there? You see who you want to become, and you see who you are and you see the chasm between those two things. So, what do you do?
If you were to go into chapters and browse their self-help section, you would see that many gurus, past and present, have ways for you to change yourself. Some of these books are helpful and some are not. But we have become comfortable with the idea of self help. We like the idea of self help because if we can help ourselves, we are in control of the process.
That is why when we get to today’s part of the definition of Spiritual formation and talk about “being conformed,” it becomes somewhat awkward. We would be much more comfortable with the idea of conforming ourselves to the image of Christ. But Spiritual formation is about being conformed to the image of Christ. It is a process that we are not in control of. That makes a lot of us uneasy.
Our early life is all about learning to be in control. If we cry our parents respond and we get what we want. As children we constantly struggle with the desire to get our way and the rules that are enforced upon us. When we get older, we become a little more savvy. We try to get people to do what we want them to do. We want them to get on board with our agenda.
In fact, one of the prime values maybe the overarching value of our culture is what psychologists would call the autonomy of self. In other words, I get to decide for me. I get to be in control of me. If you were a kid on the playground, you express it by saying “you’re not the boss of me,” If you are an adult, we focus in on our rights. We value control.
This constant struggle with control is a crucial part of our Spiritual journey. I don’t mind Spiritual formation as long as I get to control it. I’m OK with it as long as I set the pace, the agenda, the direction, I have no problem with it. What we struggle with is letting God take control.
Robert Mulholland says, “In the final analysis, there is nothing we can do to transform ourselves into persons who love and serve as Jesus did except make ourselves available for God to do that work of transforming grace in our lives.” He goes on to say,
“Graspers powerfully resists being grasped by God. Manipulators strongly reject being shaped by God. Controllers are inherently incapable of yielding control to God. Spiritual formation is the great reversal: from being the subject who controls all other things to being a person who is shaped by the presence, purpose, and power of God in all things.”
Come with me to Matthew 4
Matthew 4:1–4 (NIV)
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
When we look at the life of Jesus, we see him submitting to the will of God over and over again. Here we see him being led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted. He didn’t leave the wilderness after 10 days and say I think I should go back into town and get some food. He stays where the Spirit has led him, and the Spirit has led him to an uncomfortable place. He has led him into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.
This first temptation about turning stones into bread is about trying to get Jesus to take control of the situation rather than submit to the hand of God. He knew that the Spirit had led him into the wilderness. He knew he was called the fast. Satan comes along and says you’re hungry, fixed the problem. Jesus says, there is a higher order of good here. I am choosing to follow the word of God, the leading of the Spirit rather than fix my hunger. I am giving up control so that God may have control.
Satan’s temptation was for him to do something rather than be who he was called to be. There is still the same temptation for us today.
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Being and doing our intricately related. But we need to get the order straight. Our culture says that if you hold a prestigious job, you must be someone. Our culture says that if I know what you do I know who you are. But our culture has reversed the biblical order.
Our doing flows out of our being. In Spiritual formation, we are tempted to think that if we do the right things we will be the right kind of Christian. It is as if our doing will bring about our being.
There is a strong relationship between what we do and who we become. That is why we talk about Spiritual disciplines. But we always must remember that God is the one who transforms us. We cannot transform ourselves. Our part is to put ourselves in places and postures and present ourselves to God in ways that enable that transforming work of grace.
The transforming work of God is like setting our sails on a sailboat. We want to move from where we are to where we are called to be. So, we do the right things. We hoist the sail. We set the rudder. We tighten the lines.
Some people stop there. They believe that they are sailors because they’ve done all the right things. They believe that they are Christians because they have done all the right things. But you only start to sail when the wind blows. You are only transformed by the power of God and the work of his Spirit. You can only be Christlike when the Spirit blows across your life.
Now if you don’t hoist your sail, if you don’t set your rudder, then when the wind blows, you are not going to move much. What you do matters. But it only matters when it is empowered by God.
I seem to spend a lot of time urging people to have daily in regular prayer times. I seem to spend a lot of time urging people to read scripture, to go to church, to take part in communion, to engage in meaningful Spiritual disciplines. I urge that because those things are the things that you can do to set your sail. I encourage those things because regularly doing those activities put you in a place to receive God’s transforming grace. But make no mistake, these things do not transform us. God meeting us in those things transform us.
There are sometimes when you go to God in prayer, and it is wonderful. You sense the presence of God. You read God’s word, and it seems to speak to right where you’re at. You hear God’s encouragement and God speaking into your life. There is a peace that you have when you leave that time, and it is good.
There are other times when I do the exact same thing. I go to God in prayer. I read God’s word. I listen for God’s voice, and I come away from those times not sensing anything.
I have found that either is OK. It is not my job to transform my heart. That is God’s job. It is my job to put myself in a place where I can receive God’s transforming grace. I have come to realize that anything of eternal value is done by God. Yet it seems that his invitation is open for us to cooperate with him.
Being that we are human, we sometimes mix up the means to an end with the end itself. It is easy to think I am doing all the right stuff and that is what makes me a good Christian. Have I prayed. Check. Have a read scripture. Check.
Those things are means to an end. For those of you who are married, how do you think your spouse would respond if you went “I have had a conversation with my spouse today” check. I have done my chores around the house today. Check. If your spouse thinks that you are going through a checklist to have a relationship, it is probably not going to go good for you.
It is the same with God. We don’t have conversations or pray for the sake of prayer. We don’t read the word just to gain more knowledge. It is about our relationship with God. Conversations with him, hearing from him, facilitates the relationship. But it is the relationship itself that transforms us. It is God who transforms us.
Matthew 4:5–7 (NIV)
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
In this temptation Satan is essentially saying to Jesus “prove yourself” if you are the son of man prove it by jumping off this temple. If you are who you say you are then angels will catch you.
Prove yourself. Isn’t that what our world tells us to do all the time. If you work and have a job review it is essentially about whether or not you have proved yourself. We have this saying in our culture “your actions speak louder than your words.” But Spiritual formation says before actions and before words there is who you actually are.
Jesus in this temptation, essentially says, “you are trying to test me. Don’t do that – I know who I am.”
I have found that this is one of the big temptations of Spiritual formation. We feel like we need to strive to prove ourselves. There is the temptation to prove ourselves acceptable to God. There is the temptation to try to earn our salvation after we’ve been saved.
But you know that our salvation is not based on what we have done but what God has done for us. At the end of the service, we’re going to celebrate communion. That is about acknowledging what Jesus has done is enough.
When we learn to rest in the fact that we are a child of God, that we have been forgiven, that we have God Spirit inside us, that we have been made part of the family of God – when we can rest in that, the need to prove ourself is gone. There are things that we do because we are part of the family of God. But only God can adopt us into his family. There are things that we do because we have been forgiven and have been made new, but we don’t earn that we receive that by grace.
Part of what it means to be conformed to the image of Christ is learning to rest he and what God has done for us. Again, it goes back to what God has done not what we have done. He is in control of the process we are not.
Matthew 4:8–11 (NIV)
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Satan comes to Jesus and says if you worship me I will give you everything. Jesus says Nope.
When we are being conformed to the image of Christ we will have to deal with the same temptation.
Most of us are not tempted to worship Satan. But most of us do you have idols that we are tempted to worship. An idol is everything that is more important than God, that takes precedence over God. An idol is what we have given ourselves to and that rules over us.
Sometimes idols can be tangible things like money or having the biggest and best stuff. Most often our idols are intangible things like comfort or prestige or power. Anything that is good can be distorted and made into an idol. Family and friends, career and reputation or even religion. Satan comes along to us and says I will give you what you want if you worship. Of course, he’s never that straightforward.
He is a liar and the father of lies. He will try to sell you the lie that you will be content if you have such and such or are such and such. But most people find that when they get what they want it is not enough. Our human hearts are not satisfied when they are disordered. They can only be ordered when God is above anything that would set itself up as an idol. Part of being Spiritually conformed to the image of Christ Is choosing God over idols.
Even in that God must do his work. It often takes the power of God to smash the idols in our lives and in our hearts. But God will not do that without our cooperation.
Spiritual formation is about being conformed not conforming ourselves to the image of Christ. Because there is no way we can do it on our own. But our temptation is to try. We hope that if we do the right things we can be the right person. We try to prove ourselves instead of resting in who God has made us. We try to serve God and idols and it doesn’t work.
My question to you is are you trying to conform yourself to the image of Christ? Or will you put yourself in place where God can do the work?