The Founder and Perfecter of our Faith

[00:00:00] Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. [00:00:11] Lent is a time of discipline, which is why on the first Sunday of Lent, there is daylight savings time. [00:00:27] Welcome to Lent, and well done. [00:00:34] You made it. [00:00:39] Why discipline, you might ask, why does Jesus go out in the wilderness for 40 days and fast and pray? [00:00:50] Jesus goes out in the wilderness. It's not just like going on a retreat into the mountains, although that would perhaps do a similar thing. [00:00:59] But this is a desert. [00:01:01] Anywhere that's wilderness in the land of Israel, pretty much is desert. There's nothing there. It's dry. [00:01:09] It's difficult. [00:01:11] And he's out there praying. You might ask, like, what's he praying? [00:01:17] You know, the entire book of Psalms. The Psalms are prayers that ancient Israel prayed and that Jesus prayed, that the church has prayed ever since. [00:01:30] Well, maybe he prayed Psalm 23. I mean, that would not be surprising. He's probably out there praying the Psalms as part of his prayers. [00:01:39] Psalm 23. Part of it goes, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. [00:01:48] Well, there Jesus is, out on his own in the wilderness. Where there isn't. Well, there aren't green pastures. Right. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want out in the wilderness. You do want. You want for everything, especially if you're fasting. Shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. Well, that's not the wilderness. That's not the desert. He leads me beside cool waters. Like, now, you're just rubbing it in, you know, out there in the desert. [00:02:22] Right. But that's the key. See, Psalm 23, and all those beautiful words about green pastures and still waters. It's not about living in an outward paradise. [00:02:37] It's about an inward paradise, an inward garden of Eden that God cultivates through his word. And so Jesus is out there in the wilderness. Why? [00:02:50] Well, so that he looks to the source of the true paradise. There he is, out in the wilderness without food and water, without those green pastures. And, well, maybe it's dangerous, too. I mean, there are wild animals and it's not exactly the safest place. [00:03:11] And he's praying. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. [00:03:23] So in the midst of complete lack of everything he needs, in the place where even his safety is compromised, there he has God with him and, let's say, the ability to focus. Now, there's a, you know, Jesus boy, He is a, let's say A spiritual warrior. You know, if ever there was a human being who was righteous, who had the right mindset, it's him. In fact, he's the one. He's the guy. [00:04:00] He's the one who became like us in every way, but without sin. [00:04:06] If anyone can defeat the devil, it's Jesus. That's what he came for. If anyone can go through the greatest suffering and need and remain focused on his heavenly Father, it's Jesus. That's why he came, to do that for us. [00:04:25] And so we see him out in the wilderness training. [00:04:29] We see his discipline. [00:04:31] And it's like watching an athlete that you admire. You know, maybe there's an athlete that you admire. Anybody have an athlete that they admire? [00:04:44] Like Jackson? Who's your favorite football player? [00:04:49] Peyton Manning. Yeah, that's a good one. [00:04:53] So do you think that he trained? [00:04:57] Did he learn discipline? [00:05:00] Yeah, if he just sat around on a couch eating potato chips or something like that, like, you know, he could want to be the best football player ever. But you only get there through great discipline and training, right? Like, if. It's been a long time since I've done any real exercise, right, But I can remember back when I, you know, trained for something and you have to. You have to deny yourself, right? For a while. There was one time that I trained for a marathon. Not very well, but it worked out in the end. And, you know, you work up to running long distances, it's like, what, you're going to go out and you're going to run like 17 miles. How do you even do that? Well, you just work up to it. You run a mile more each time, and pretty soon you're going for a long period of time and your body can just take it. You can breathe better, you can go longer without food, although in that situation you have to eat some. [00:06:06] Your body gets trained so that it's disciplined and it's able to handle more. [00:06:13] Well, if athletes have to train their bodies in order to succeed, in order to win the victory, then how much more should we be training spiritually? [00:06:28] Our faith needs to be exercised. It can be strengthened. [00:06:34] And that's why Jesus is out in the wilderness. Jesus doesn't, in a sense, you could say he doesn't need training. Jesus doesn't need discipline. [00:06:45] He was born a hero, which is true, except he's a human being. [00:06:52] And as a human being, he's showing us this is what the life of faith looks like. [00:06:57] This is what victory looks like. [00:07:04] Human beings, we need training. [00:07:07] So what's the training for? What's the end goal. [00:07:11] What are spiritual muscles? How do you even apply this image of the athlete to the spiritual life? [00:07:19] Well, you see Jesus doing it. [00:07:25] The thing about Jesus in the text that we read From Luke chapter 4, Jesus is out in the wilderness and the temptations come. [00:07:34] And it's not just that Jesus has, like, all the right ideas or something like that. Like, what is it that Jesus does? [00:07:42] And the answer is that he remains focused on God and receiving from God's word and not the word of anyone else. [00:07:52] So you see him there. He's hungry. He's been fasting for 40 days. And the devil says, turn these stones into bread. It's like, well, what's the harm in that? [00:08:04] Well, the harm would be Jesus lending an ear to the devil. Like, you don't take the devil's ideas and make them your own. [00:08:14] Instead, what does he do? Like, where does he get his answer? He quotes God's word. [00:08:21] And one that's pretty pertinent. It's from the time when the Israelites were in the wilderness. [00:08:27] And God says, here's why, Israelites, you went through the wilderness and you didn't have paradise. You didn't have food, you didn't have water at times until I provided for you miraculously. Here's the purpose for all that discipline, so that you would learn that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. [00:08:50] The reason that the Israelites went through the wilderness and suffered was for their discipline. So that they would learn what. What was the result of their discipline. So that they would learn that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. It was to turn their attention to. To God's word, to train them to look to God's word. That's what Jesus does in his temptations. All three of them told to us in this passage. [00:09:24] That's what victory looks like for us, too. Now, here's the deal. [00:09:32] We don't have the power to do that on our own. Like, there's no defeating the devil in isolation. [00:09:42] Sort of like the Son of God became one of us. [00:09:47] Jesus Christ. He came, made himself like us in every way, but without sin, because all of us were with sin. [00:09:58] So he comes, becomes like us, but unique, uniquely righteous in order to lift us up into his own righteousness. [00:10:09] The way we get that is by paying attention to him. It's by faith in him. That's why during the season of Lent, the gradual this that we repeat every Sunday is, oh, come Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. [00:10:30] Like even the faith, the attention toward Christ, like that's given to us by Christ the founder. It's like he established this with his own faith, with his own attention to God, with his own unwavering attention toward his heavenly Father. You see him out there in the wilderness winning against the devil. [00:10:56] And that's what he gives to us. That's what he founded for us, so that in him we can receive the righteousness of God. [00:11:05] And the temptation wasn't the hardest thing that Jesus went through. [00:11:10] This was training. But you see his victory as he goes to the cross. [00:11:15] The second part of that verse here, or I'll just say it all again. Oh, come, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. [00:11:34] There, Jesus is Jesus who won the victory. [00:11:39] You know, it looks hard to be in the wilderness being tempted by the devil and to not have eaten for 40 days, you know, and to win the victory. But if you fast forward, Jesus went to the cross with people spitting on him and beating him and mocking him, you know, like, that's a different kind of wilderness. That's the ultimate wilderness where you. You lose respect, lose honor, you lose comfort, security, your life. [00:12:14] That's what Jesus did for us. And through it all, remained laser focused on his heavenly Father and on the Father's Word. You know those famous words that he spoke on the cross? [00:12:33] I can't think of the first word. [00:12:36] My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? [00:12:41] That's a psalm. There he was in the wilderness, being tempted by the devil. He's praying. He's praying on the cross. [00:12:50] My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And that's a prayer of faith, actually. [00:12:55] And that psalm ends in hope, hope of rescue by God. And, well, yeah, he was rescued on the third day. He rose from the dead, victorious through all that, through the ultimate suffering, through the ultimate wilderness, Jesus won. [00:13:15] How did he win? [00:13:18] It's because in every kind of wilderness that Jesus experienced outwardly, he received paradise within. [00:13:30] See, that's. That's the key. [00:13:33] Jesus received living waters from God's word and spirit, and that's what we receive in Jesus. You know, Jesus said, if anybody's thirsty, let him come to me and drink. And out of his heart will flow rivers, streams of water. It's like you don't just become paradise, but. But you become paradise that waters the earth, waters those around you. [00:14:04] None of this our doing. All because we're in Christ. And that's what Christ is. [00:14:10] Jesus Christ is paradise. And so Lent and this discipline, it's about learning to follow Christ wherever He leads and to be in him and to be found in him and to find everything that we need in Him. [00:14:28] In Jesus name, amen.