Fairhaven Sermon 3-9-2025

So as I mentioned earlier this morning, we're starting our journey through Lent with a new sermon series. The series is called Steadfast Love, a Lenten playlist, and a playlist as in a list of songs, right? The songs will help to illustrate various aspects of this time of year. And each week we will have a different song to listen to. Also during the coming weeks, of course, we'll be praying our way through the Breakthrough Prayer Book, either as individuals or in small groups.

So we've got a lot of things, a lot of new things sort of coming at us this Lent. Before I dive into these though, I wanted to also mention the Ashes to Go this past week with, first off, thanks to everyone who helped out with that. I wanted to share with you how very much the Ashes to Go was appreciated by the people who stopped in. Many people told us they were on their way to work and didn't think they'd have a chance to get to a service later.

They were so glad we were here. That's okay. Grab him. And anyway, so the folks who stopped in, they told us that they were so glad that we were here.

And the person who came, we gave them some Lenten prayers to pray. We also gave them an invitation to the Wednesday night services, and they were very much appreciative of this. And I also wanted to mention that many of them said how much they love our sign out front. They look at it every day when they go by, and they just really appreciate that.

So I just wanted to share with you some of that feedback. We had about 15 people, I think, came through for Ashes, and I think maybe next year, if we just advertise a little better, we might get more than that. But even so, it was a good day, not cold like it was last year, so it just went very, very well. So before I get to the song for this week, as sort of a lead into this, on Ash Wednesday, for those of us who attended service, when we received our ashes, we received them with the words, Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Now, the older I get, the less I feel like I need to be reminded of that. In the words of Stephen King, in the movie The Green Mile, We each owe a death. There are no exceptions. But sometimes, oh God, the green mile is so long.

And this echoes the feeling in the song for today. What is it that we need when the green mile starts to feel too long, and how can we help people who are feeling that way? Andra Day had an answer in this week's song, Rise Up. In her song, the singer has a friend who is feeling really, really down, so far down, that he or she feels like giving up. Now, the song doesn't say what the trouble was.

Might have been illness, might have been losing a friend, might have been a job situation, but the singer says to her friend, You can't find the fighter in yourself, but I see it in you, and we're going to move mountains, she says. The phrase moving mountains means a lot to me personally, as well as to many people of faith, because God has moved mountains for us, and God has promised that if we have faith just the size of a mustard seed, we'll be able to move mountains, too. And I imagine the person that she's singing to doesn't feel much like moving mountains at that particular moment, but she says, We're going to walk it out, walk it out. It reminds me of an old college friend who suffered from a mild form of epilepsy.

Every now and then she would just sort of zone out and become unaware of her surroundings. And those of us who knew her knew what to do. We would just take her for a short walk, like down the hill, down the hall, and back again, and she'd just sort of zone back in, and she'd be fine. Like the song says, we're going to walk it out.

And in a similar way, God walks with us. God walks it out with us, even if we're not always aware of it. It's a great song to hear, especially this year when it feels like the past two months have been a year already. I mean, this past two months we have had people who've lost loved ones, people who've taken family or friends to hospital, while every day seems to bring new bad news.

The song, this song is good because it reminds us that when God looks at us, the eyes of God's love see what is possible, even when we can't see it. So we're going to walk it out with Jesus. We're going to move mountains with Jesus. Which brings us to Psalm 91, which we read a moment ago.

This Psalm talks about God as my refuge and my fortress. The Psalm talks about leaning on God and relying on God's strength. Interesting note, by the way, for those of you who are familiar with Amy Grant's song, El Shaddai, if you've ever heard that, the opening verses of Psalm 91, the words in Hebrew include the names El Shaddai and El Elyon, both of which Amy Grant uses in her song. The name El Shaddai implies provision as taken from the word for breast, as in a mother feeding her child.

And the name El Elyon means God most high. So we see in these names both God's tenderness and God's power. Another interesting side note, number two here, El Elyon in the book of Genesis is connected with the name Melchizedek. Now those of us in the Bible study might remember that.

Melchizedek was that mysterious priest who met Abraham and who later King David wrote about in the Psalms saying, You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, which is a prophecy of the Messiah. So we have a connection here from Abraham to Jesus, all in the first few verses of Psalm 91. Anyway, back to the Psalm. Our hymn on eagles' wings, which we just sang, is basically Psalm 91 set to music.

It's no wonder this song means so much to so many people. The first time that I heard the song, my college roommate and I, both of us were music majors at the time, and we were at a funeral. And the soloist sang On Eagles' Wings. We'd never heard it before.

We looked at each other and went, Wow, what a great song. It was one of those moments where we're like, We're going to hear this one again for sure. I doubt that Psalm 91 was written for a funeral, but it was written to remind us of God's loving protection no matter what. It was written to help us express that wonderful feeling of contentment and well-being when we are in God's comforting presence.

You who live in the shelter of the Most High, say to the Lord, My refuge, my fortress, my God in whom I trust, and he will raise you up on eagles' wings. What a great comfort that is. Psalm 91 doesn't promise that we will never have trouble, but it gives a foundation to our faith that helps us get through those times of trouble. So given this, it's interesting that in our gospel reading for today in the book of Luke, the tempter who tempts Jesus starts out with a line from Psalm 91.

The tempter says, He will command his angels concerning you to guard you. On their hands they'll bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone. Let me back up to the beginning of the story now. So the past few Sundays we have been reading about the beginning of the end of Jesus' time on earth, his transfiguration, his final journey to Jerusalem.

But Luke 4 that we just heard just takes us back to the beginning, the very beginning of Jesus' ministry. And at this point in time, Jesus has not yet done anything in public other than be baptized. And immediately after that, the Spirit led him into the wilderness for a time with God and a time of testing. So Jesus is in this dry, rocky wilderness for 40 days without food.

The number 40, by the way, is important in Scripture. Noah had 40 days of rain. Moses had 40 days without food on Mount Sinai. Israel was 40 years in the wilderness and we have 40 days of land.

But number 40 keeps repeating itself, so we kind of watch for that. While Jesus was there in the wilderness, the tempter came and tested him. And all three temptations start out with the words, If you are the Son of God. If Jesus had any doubts about who he was or what he was born on earth to do, these temptations were designed to bring those doubts to the surface.

Likewise with us, by the way, one of the tempter's greatest attacks on us is to call into question whether or not we are really children of God, whether or not we are really saved, to make us doubt. And we can answer temptation the same way Jesus does, with the words of God. Jesus was human, just like us. He had the same Scriptures that we have.

He had the Old Testament. His mother Mary, I'm sure, told him about his birth and who he was, that he was the promised Messiah. But Jesus had to learn, just like we did, as he grew up, one day at a time, who he was, what he had come to earth for. God was with him and the Holy Spirit was with him as he learned and grew.

But only at Jesus' baptism do we actually hear God speak out loud in Jesus' hearing, where he says, This is my Son, my beloved. Listen to him. Up till then, he hadn't seen or done that. The miraculous wasn't there.

Everyday living. So Jesus didn't have a whole lot to go on, really, growing up. But we know that Jesus knew the Scriptures well. He understood the law of Moses.

And Jesus understood the law not as a list of do's and don'ts, but as a means to human thriving. The Ten Commandments and all of the law are given so that human society would thrive as God says, so that you may live and increase. Jesus also understood that God is our provider and that God showed this to Israel by giving manna to Israel in the wilderness, day by day, one day at a time, everyday, without fail, in order to teach the people to trust God on a daily basis. God could have given the people a week's worth of manna all at one shot.

But God did not do that. God gave the manna daily so the people would learn to look to God for their needs everyday. And this is what the tempter wants to destroy, this relationship of trust. So temptation number one, the tempter says to Jesus, If you're the son of God, turn these stones to bread.

Now, could Jesus have done that? Sure. The ancient Hebrew prayer says, Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth. Jesus had the ability and it would not have been wrong for Jesus to do it, except that the real temptation was to use one's own power to take care of oneself while losing sight of what God had in mind, that is, God's bigger picture, and also losing sight of God's trustworthiness. Jesus' reply shows that he identifies with us, with the people of God.

Because we can't make bread out of stones. We wait everyday for God's provision. And since the people of God are in the position where we need to depend on God everyday, our Savior does the same, in solidarity with us. Jesus is committed to living the way we live and walking with God in ways that we can also walk with God so that we can see how it's done.

So temptation number two, the tempter says, All power over all the earth has been given to me and I will give it to you if you will bow down and worship me. Of course the first question is, is he telling the truth about this? Does he really have control over everything on earth? And if so, he seems to be offering Jesus a shortcut, a way of becoming the ruler of the earth without having to endure the cross. Now for those of us here on the planet, it may seem to us like the evil one is in charge of this planet sometimes. I mean, C.

S. Lewis once wrote a book, a science fiction book called Out of the Silent Planet in which all the planets in the entire universe that have life on them were always singing praises to God and making beautiful music except for the planet earth. Because of our sin and rebellion against God, earth was the silent planet. And the story is about how music was brought to our world.

Planet earth certainly is in rebellion against God. There are unspeakable evils that are done in this world every day. But I think the tempter's lying when he says he's in control of it. The tempter's power is in making us think he's in control.

He brags and he boasts and he swaggers and he makes himself bigger than he is. And his power is in blinding the eyes of non-believers to how near to us God really is. But Jesus doesn't fall for it, not for one minute. It's written, he answers, it is written, Worship the Lord your God and serve only Him.

That's commandment number one in the Ten Commandments. But more than that, Jesus knows his Father God. He knows how good God is. There's no way he's going to worship anybody else.

So temptation number three. The tempter says, If you really are the Son of God, throw yourself off the temple. Because it says in scriptures, namely Psalm 91, which we just read, He will command his angels concerning you to protect you. And on their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.

Now again, could Jesus have done this? Could he have leaped off the top of the temple? Are God's angels really at his command? Yes. Jesus said to the people who arrested him on Good Friday, Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father and he will at once send me more than 12 legions of angels? See yes, Jesus could have, but he didn't. Because Jesus loves and trusts his Father God, and Jesus loves us. So Jesus answers, It is also written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.

' Interesting footnote to Psalm 91, where the tempter, which the tempter quoted, in the very, very next verse after what he quoted, it says about the godly person, You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot. It's interesting because in scripture the devil is sometimes referred to as a young lion looking to devour or a serpent who deceives. So Psalm 91 takes care of both. Jesus does not indulge himself in heroic self-reliance.

Instead he trusts in a strong relationship with God, and this Lent we are invited to renew that relationship. Jesus declares the good news. God loves us, and therefore we can trust God even in times of temptation, even in times of darkness, and especially in the tough times. We can trust that God is with us, and we can live in the comfort of knowing that God loves us.

No matter how low we go, when Jesus is with us, in the words of the song, we're going to rise up. We're going to rise up. Amen.