Into The Wilderness
Sermon
From Upside Down To Rightside Up
Cycle C Sermons for Lent and Easter Based on the Gospel Lessons
Jesus was tempted.
We know the story is there, but it isn’t our favorite, is it? Somehow it tarnishes our ideas about Jesus. Was he as wimpy as we are, almost ready to step over the edge of whatever morality we might have left, at the first offer?
Ray Stedman, great twentieth-century preacher, remembered a morning at a restaurant. He was the featured speaker at a large church conference out east and was finishing his presentation notes as he ate breakfast. The eatery had unique décor, including good quality and artfully fashioned pewter salt and pepper shakers on the tables along with matching creamers. Pastor Stedman knew that these would nicely complement his wife’s collection. Every table had a set, so the restaurant obviously had more in its backroom storage. Pewterware cost a bit, but in volume like this they had to be a cheap item for the restaurant to replace.
Pastor Stedman knew he could slip the shakers into his briefcase and nobody would be the wiser. Still, being the man and the pastor he was, Reverend Stedman resisted temptation. Instead, he used the story as an illustration in his sermon the next Sunday morning, back in his California church. Yield not to temptation! Everyone smiled and nodded.
Four days later, however, a package was on Pastor Stedman’s desk. Someone in his congregation decided to contact the restaurant, find out about the pewter tableware, ordered a set, and gave it to him anonymously as a show of appreciation.
The following Sunday morning he beamed appreciatively as he told his congregation about the special gift. They laughed together, and then he said, “I saw a great TV in a store this past week…”
Ahhh… temptations! They come in all forms, don’t they? That is just as they did for Jesus.
Why Is This Happening?
We are used to reading bits and snippets of biblical books, like this story of Jesus’ temptations, in isolation from one another. Yet Luke intended that we hear the gospel as a whole, and that we keep this incident in its context. If we look at what lies on either side, we realize that Luke has at least three important ideas for us to understand as we think about Jesus’ temptation. First, right from the beginning of this gospel every finger points to Jesus as a phenom, as a wunderkind, as a prodigy, as the “next great thing.” He was born miraculously! He was feted by the great prophetic voices of the day! He confounded the scholars when he was only twelve, and his public coming out was shouted loudly by none other than the greatest religious figure of the day, John the Baptist. Jesus was the next new thing, and all the lights were pointing in his direction. When Jesus was tempted, we are keyed up to expect him to pull out his sword or light saber and slash his way to victory. But he did not. In fact, Jesus’ way of dealing with these great evil threats seems almost trite and benign. Quote a few scripture verses? Turn his back on the devil? Saunter away as if nothing happened? Hmmmmm…
Second, Luke and the other gospel writers gave us big hints that Jesus was walking in the footsteps of Old Testament Israel. Jesus was tempted “in the wilderness,” spending “forty days” there, just as Israel did between leaving Egypt and entering the promised land. Not only that, but the temptations themselves paralleled Israel’s most challenging wilderness experiences:
After forty days in the wilderness, Jesus was starving, Jesus was feeling the power of his connection with God, and Jesus was weakened enough to consider throwing himself on the “magic” of God’s snap-of-the-finger, make-it-all-right providence. Like Israel in the wilderness, Jesus had been bounced around, experienced highs and lows, and was possibly ready to listen to any whisper of temptation that came along.
The third thing Luke wanted us to know was that this story was a foreshadowing of an ominous future. Notice again the premonition of more bad things to come that Luke used to close the episode: “When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). Round one went to Jesus, said Luke, but round two and who knows how many more were still to come. The temptations would morph. They would snipe in at a different angle. The fight was not yet finished.
All three of these things ― desperation, access to power, and success ― were the key ideas Luke wanted us to focus on as we tracked with Jesus through this challenge. They were also the things Jesus wanted us to think about in ourselves, as he walked our walk with us.
Desperation
It happens too often, doesn’t it? Years ago, I watched a young couple bury three newborn sons in three successive years on foreign soil, far from family, despite the best efforts of medical science. In my career as a pastor, I have heard so many times the desperate cries of women who cannot get over the horrible pain of what fathers did to them in the secrecy of childhood bedrooms. I have seen robust faith degenerate through years of setbacks and loss.
Elaine Pagels, in retelling the story of a particular sect of early Christians, said, “History is told by the winners.” There is a lot of truth in that. Who remembers the losers? Who keeps tabs on the has-beens? Who records the disasters of those who fade away under pressure or disaster?
Because of the fickleness of our experiences and the frailty of our existence, our travels are rarely even keel. We rise to heights of ecstasy. We drop to “sloughs of despond,” as Bunyan put it in The Pilgrim’s Progress. We ride the roller coaster with its cheers and fears, some of them deeply disturbing.
We had a moment of that desperation in our family years ago. There was a section in one of our city parks called “Storybook Gardens.” It was a children’s village filled with scenes from nursery rhymes and fairy tales. There were animals to touch, feed, and watch, as well as playgrounds for jumping, running, and climbing.
There was also a maze. It was made of four-foot fencing covered by opaque canvas, a human puzzle full of blind alleys and dead ends. Our girls ran right on into the maze when we first saw it. Kimberly dashed ahead, banging about this way and that, and finally blundering her way through by trial and error. But Kristyn and Kaitlyn got stuck and trapped. The walls closed in on them. There was no way out. Suddenly, a desperate crying and fearful wailing rose above the maze! And Daddy, who could see all things, had to rescue them from the melancholy of the maze!
The Maze Of Melancholy
There are times in all our lives when we enter the “maze of melancholy.” We feel weak, helpless, and lost. The walls start closing in around us. There is no future and no past ― just the hopeless grim skies of now.
We see Jesus there, in this wilderness spot of temptation, and know that this will not be the last time. It reminds me of the songs of William Cowper, a member of John Newton’s congregation in Olney, England, in the 1700s. Some of his poetry has found its way into the classic hymnals of the church. “God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform,” says one song. Another declares, in a wonderful confession of confidence:
What God ordains is always right; he guides our joy and sadness.
He is our life and blessed light; in him alone is gladness.
We see his face, the way of grace; he holds us in his mighty arm
and keeps us safe from every harm.
(in the public domain)
But William Cowper was a troubled soul. He began to slip in and out of depression. He spent a year and a half in what was then called an “insane asylum.” His hymns began to take on a darker color. During those bleak times, he penned this cry of spiritual loneliness:
Where is the blessedness I knew, when first I sought the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view of Jesus and his word?
(in the public domain)
Cowper died of a broken heart and a crushed spirit. Sometimes we want to die, too, stranded in our own “maze of melancholy.”
Yet the only way out is through, as Jesus shows us. Scripture is our link to heaven’s resources: light in the darkness, stability over shifting footfalls, strength when muscles give out, resilience against temptations.
Early last century, Tommy Dorsey, the “blues” songwriter and musician, had a moment when the world had collapsed around him, and he wandered in his private “maze of melancholy.” He sat at his piano and wrote this little prayer: “Precious Lord, take my hand….” Read through those lyrics.
We know that place, don’t we? We cry with him: Lord – take me to be with you.
Or, with Jesus, we affirm that we only find our way, “by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
The Lure Of Success
But sometimes the temptations do not crowd us in or trap us in desperation. Instead, they promise us the world. “Just do this, and you will get what you know you deserve!” “Just sign here, and we will guarantee you a win!”
Maurice Boyd, a former colleague of mine, pastoring the church down the street, remembered an incident that sealed the impact of his father on his life forever. Boyd’s father worked in a shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland. During the Great Depression, work dried up. Times were tough and for three years his father was out of a job.
Then one of his father’s old bosses at the shipyard approached him. This important and connected man would find work for Mr. Boyd. He could guarantee it, no matter how much worse things got. All Mr. Boyd would have to do would be to buy a life insurance policy from the man. It would work to their mutual benefit: the boss’s income would increase, and Mr. Boyd’s work income would be guaranteed!
It was a great deal, except for one thing: it was illegal. Maurice Boyd remembers his father sitting at the kitchen table with the whole family surrounding him. There his father counted the cost. He reviewed their desperate financial situation. He ticked off the outstanding bills and the money he would be making, ought to be making, if only he said yes to his boss.
Boyd’s father wrote it all down on a sheet of paper: the gains and the losses, what he could make and what he could lose. Then he wrote down a category that Maurice Boyd would never forget: integrity. Integrity — what did it matter if he gained the cash to pay the rent, but lost his ability to teach his children right from wrong? What did it matter if he gained the dignity of a job but lost it each morning when he looked at himself in the mirror and knew that the only one reason he could go off to work instead of someone else was because he cheated?
Boyd’s father declined the job and the family groveled through several more years of poverty. Yet, of his father, Maurice Boyd said, “He discovered that no one can make you feel inferior without your consent, and that one way you can keep your soul is by refusing to sell it. He realized that whatever else he lost …he didn’t have to lose himself.”
Where did Boyd’s father get an idea like that? He got it from Jesus. From Jesus, who pushed back against the devil in the wilderness, knowing that the shortcut did not end up at the same destination. Yes, Jesus deserved the acclaim of the crowds and the kingdoms. Yes, Jesus wished for reconciliation between heaven and earth that did not come at such a bloody price. Yes, Jesus desired to remount the throne of glory without passing through Gethsemane. But that would be an alternate reality. That would be a fairy tale in which “they lived happily every after” by bedtime.
And we know it too.
The Greatest Seduction
But the last temptation was the hardest, wasn’t it? No longer desperate, clear-headed and strong, Jesus seemed to be a double winner. That is precisely where evil brought its last seduction.
“You have faith! You have great faith!” Trust God! Live as if it matters!
Here is where the insidious call of the “health and wealth gospel” summons. God wants you to have it all! You don’t have because you don’t ask! Prove your faith by your works!
Yes, yes, yes. A young couple started worshiping with my first congregation. They were members of a church in a nearby town, but they said they were looking for more; more spirituality ― more life ― better preaching ― sincere worship. So they came to join us.
I met with them, wanting to get to know them. I also basked in the accolades they gave. I ate it up.
Then came the hook. This couple had been married for more than two years but did not yet have children. They wanted to have babies, lots of them. They believed that they were destined to have a large family. In fact, they had kept themselves pure before marriage, knowing that God would bless their union. It was biblical.
Here they were with me. Could I pray for them to get pregnant? After all, I was a “spiritual” man. They could see it! I prayed. I prayed fervently.
And they believed. Each Sunday she came to worship wearing maternity dresses, proving her faith to God, to me, and to the church.
But the pregnancy did not happen. For whatever reason, they remained childless. In a short while, they disappeared from our community. Someone who knew them well said that they were now worshiping with another congregation where the new minister was a firebrand. It was another place where they could prove their faith in an even more dynamic way.
The lure of success says to be pious! It says to have faith! Throw yourself into a dangerous situation, said the devil, and God will send angels to protect you!
And still we have to live. There is something low-key and tame about how Jesus got through this wilderness wandering, just as it was for the Israelites. Keep walking. Keep trusting. And keep your faith.
The tests continue. The exam is long. But grace abounds.
The Armor Of Humility
Thomas Long told about the process of examining seminary students for ordination in a Presbyterian church in North Carolina. The students needed to pass an intense examination out in the church somewhere. The ministers in the area got to grill a student on any point of theology for as long as they wished, and sometimes the questioning lasted a long time.
Thomas Long said that one of his clergy colleagues who had served the same congregation for more than thirty years sat in silence throughout those ordeals. He never said a word, never asked a question, never demanded a clarification, until the very end.
Then, just when the examinations seemed to have run its course, the questioners were getting tired, and the seminary graduate started to think the ordeal was over, this gentleman stood. “Look out there,” he said. He pointed to a large window at the side of their meeting hall. “Tell me when you see someone walking out there.”
The candidate sat there, neck craned, and looked for a while. “I see someone,” he said.
“Do you know the person?” asked Long’s friend.
“No, I don’t.”
Said the elderly gentleman, “Describe that person to me, theologically.”
This sage of North Carolina claimed that one of two reasons was always given. When you sift through all the academic lingo and verbal padding, some seminary graduates said something like this: “There goes a sinner who’s on his way to hell unless he repents and gives his life over to Christ.”
The other answer went something like this: “There goes a person who is a child of God. God loves that person so very much, and the best thing that can happen to him is to find out how good it is to love God in return.”
“They’re both right,” said the elderly man behind the strange question. “That’s what the scriptures and the church have always said. Still, as I’ve watched these fellows come and go over the years, the ones who answered my question the second way made better pastors. Mark my words!”
Do you believe it? If you do, then you probably have already peeked into the world of Jesus’ wisdom in the wilderness of temptations. For when the roll is called up yonder, the grades on the report cards that make it won’t be A for excellent, B for good, or even C for nice try.
The only grade that will make it will be G for grace.
We know the story is there, but it isn’t our favorite, is it? Somehow it tarnishes our ideas about Jesus. Was he as wimpy as we are, almost ready to step over the edge of whatever morality we might have left, at the first offer?
Ray Stedman, great twentieth-century preacher, remembered a morning at a restaurant. He was the featured speaker at a large church conference out east and was finishing his presentation notes as he ate breakfast. The eatery had unique décor, including good quality and artfully fashioned pewter salt and pepper shakers on the tables along with matching creamers. Pastor Stedman knew that these would nicely complement his wife’s collection. Every table had a set, so the restaurant obviously had more in its backroom storage. Pewterware cost a bit, but in volume like this they had to be a cheap item for the restaurant to replace.
Pastor Stedman knew he could slip the shakers into his briefcase and nobody would be the wiser. Still, being the man and the pastor he was, Reverend Stedman resisted temptation. Instead, he used the story as an illustration in his sermon the next Sunday morning, back in his California church. Yield not to temptation! Everyone smiled and nodded.
Four days later, however, a package was on Pastor Stedman’s desk. Someone in his congregation decided to contact the restaurant, find out about the pewter tableware, ordered a set, and gave it to him anonymously as a show of appreciation.
The following Sunday morning he beamed appreciatively as he told his congregation about the special gift. They laughed together, and then he said, “I saw a great TV in a store this past week…”
Ahhh… temptations! They come in all forms, don’t they? That is just as they did for Jesus.
Why Is This Happening?
We are used to reading bits and snippets of biblical books, like this story of Jesus’ temptations, in isolation from one another. Yet Luke intended that we hear the gospel as a whole, and that we keep this incident in its context. If we look at what lies on either side, we realize that Luke has at least three important ideas for us to understand as we think about Jesus’ temptation. First, right from the beginning of this gospel every finger points to Jesus as a phenom, as a wunderkind, as a prodigy, as the “next great thing.” He was born miraculously! He was feted by the great prophetic voices of the day! He confounded the scholars when he was only twelve, and his public coming out was shouted loudly by none other than the greatest religious figure of the day, John the Baptist. Jesus was the next new thing, and all the lights were pointing in his direction. When Jesus was tempted, we are keyed up to expect him to pull out his sword or light saber and slash his way to victory. But he did not. In fact, Jesus’ way of dealing with these great evil threats seems almost trite and benign. Quote a few scripture verses? Turn his back on the devil? Saunter away as if nothing happened? Hmmmmm…
Second, Luke and the other gospel writers gave us big hints that Jesus was walking in the footsteps of Old Testament Israel. Jesus was tempted “in the wilderness,” spending “forty days” there, just as Israel did between leaving Egypt and entering the promised land. Not only that, but the temptations themselves paralleled Israel’s most challenging wilderness experiences:
- “We’re starving, Moses! Make a miracle and give us food!”
- “We won against Pharaoh’s army! We can be the most powerful nation in the world!”
- “God loves us! God will do anything for us!”
After forty days in the wilderness, Jesus was starving, Jesus was feeling the power of his connection with God, and Jesus was weakened enough to consider throwing himself on the “magic” of God’s snap-of-the-finger, make-it-all-right providence. Like Israel in the wilderness, Jesus had been bounced around, experienced highs and lows, and was possibly ready to listen to any whisper of temptation that came along.
The third thing Luke wanted us to know was that this story was a foreshadowing of an ominous future. Notice again the premonition of more bad things to come that Luke used to close the episode: “When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). Round one went to Jesus, said Luke, but round two and who knows how many more were still to come. The temptations would morph. They would snipe in at a different angle. The fight was not yet finished.
All three of these things ― desperation, access to power, and success ― were the key ideas Luke wanted us to focus on as we tracked with Jesus through this challenge. They were also the things Jesus wanted us to think about in ourselves, as he walked our walk with us.
Desperation
It happens too often, doesn’t it? Years ago, I watched a young couple bury three newborn sons in three successive years on foreign soil, far from family, despite the best efforts of medical science. In my career as a pastor, I have heard so many times the desperate cries of women who cannot get over the horrible pain of what fathers did to them in the secrecy of childhood bedrooms. I have seen robust faith degenerate through years of setbacks and loss.
Elaine Pagels, in retelling the story of a particular sect of early Christians, said, “History is told by the winners.” There is a lot of truth in that. Who remembers the losers? Who keeps tabs on the has-beens? Who records the disasters of those who fade away under pressure or disaster?
Because of the fickleness of our experiences and the frailty of our existence, our travels are rarely even keel. We rise to heights of ecstasy. We drop to “sloughs of despond,” as Bunyan put it in The Pilgrim’s Progress. We ride the roller coaster with its cheers and fears, some of them deeply disturbing.
We had a moment of that desperation in our family years ago. There was a section in one of our city parks called “Storybook Gardens.” It was a children’s village filled with scenes from nursery rhymes and fairy tales. There were animals to touch, feed, and watch, as well as playgrounds for jumping, running, and climbing.
There was also a maze. It was made of four-foot fencing covered by opaque canvas, a human puzzle full of blind alleys and dead ends. Our girls ran right on into the maze when we first saw it. Kimberly dashed ahead, banging about this way and that, and finally blundering her way through by trial and error. But Kristyn and Kaitlyn got stuck and trapped. The walls closed in on them. There was no way out. Suddenly, a desperate crying and fearful wailing rose above the maze! And Daddy, who could see all things, had to rescue them from the melancholy of the maze!
The Maze Of Melancholy
There are times in all our lives when we enter the “maze of melancholy.” We feel weak, helpless, and lost. The walls start closing in around us. There is no future and no past ― just the hopeless grim skies of now.
We see Jesus there, in this wilderness spot of temptation, and know that this will not be the last time. It reminds me of the songs of William Cowper, a member of John Newton’s congregation in Olney, England, in the 1700s. Some of his poetry has found its way into the classic hymnals of the church. “God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform,” says one song. Another declares, in a wonderful confession of confidence:
What God ordains is always right; he guides our joy and sadness.
He is our life and blessed light; in him alone is gladness.
We see his face, the way of grace; he holds us in his mighty arm
and keeps us safe from every harm.
(in the public domain)
But William Cowper was a troubled soul. He began to slip in and out of depression. He spent a year and a half in what was then called an “insane asylum.” His hymns began to take on a darker color. During those bleak times, he penned this cry of spiritual loneliness:
Where is the blessedness I knew, when first I sought the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view of Jesus and his word?
(in the public domain)
Cowper died of a broken heart and a crushed spirit. Sometimes we want to die, too, stranded in our own “maze of melancholy.”
Yet the only way out is through, as Jesus shows us. Scripture is our link to heaven’s resources: light in the darkness, stability over shifting footfalls, strength when muscles give out, resilience against temptations.
Early last century, Tommy Dorsey, the “blues” songwriter and musician, had a moment when the world had collapsed around him, and he wandered in his private “maze of melancholy.” He sat at his piano and wrote this little prayer: “Precious Lord, take my hand….” Read through those lyrics.
We know that place, don’t we? We cry with him: Lord – take me to be with you.
Or, with Jesus, we affirm that we only find our way, “by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
The Lure Of Success
But sometimes the temptations do not crowd us in or trap us in desperation. Instead, they promise us the world. “Just do this, and you will get what you know you deserve!” “Just sign here, and we will guarantee you a win!”
Maurice Boyd, a former colleague of mine, pastoring the church down the street, remembered an incident that sealed the impact of his father on his life forever. Boyd’s father worked in a shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland. During the Great Depression, work dried up. Times were tough and for three years his father was out of a job.
Then one of his father’s old bosses at the shipyard approached him. This important and connected man would find work for Mr. Boyd. He could guarantee it, no matter how much worse things got. All Mr. Boyd would have to do would be to buy a life insurance policy from the man. It would work to their mutual benefit: the boss’s income would increase, and Mr. Boyd’s work income would be guaranteed!
It was a great deal, except for one thing: it was illegal. Maurice Boyd remembers his father sitting at the kitchen table with the whole family surrounding him. There his father counted the cost. He reviewed their desperate financial situation. He ticked off the outstanding bills and the money he would be making, ought to be making, if only he said yes to his boss.
Boyd’s father wrote it all down on a sheet of paper: the gains and the losses, what he could make and what he could lose. Then he wrote down a category that Maurice Boyd would never forget: integrity. Integrity — what did it matter if he gained the cash to pay the rent, but lost his ability to teach his children right from wrong? What did it matter if he gained the dignity of a job but lost it each morning when he looked at himself in the mirror and knew that the only one reason he could go off to work instead of someone else was because he cheated?
Boyd’s father declined the job and the family groveled through several more years of poverty. Yet, of his father, Maurice Boyd said, “He discovered that no one can make you feel inferior without your consent, and that one way you can keep your soul is by refusing to sell it. He realized that whatever else he lost …he didn’t have to lose himself.”
Where did Boyd’s father get an idea like that? He got it from Jesus. From Jesus, who pushed back against the devil in the wilderness, knowing that the shortcut did not end up at the same destination. Yes, Jesus deserved the acclaim of the crowds and the kingdoms. Yes, Jesus wished for reconciliation between heaven and earth that did not come at such a bloody price. Yes, Jesus desired to remount the throne of glory without passing through Gethsemane. But that would be an alternate reality. That would be a fairy tale in which “they lived happily every after” by bedtime.
And we know it too.
The Greatest Seduction
But the last temptation was the hardest, wasn’t it? No longer desperate, clear-headed and strong, Jesus seemed to be a double winner. That is precisely where evil brought its last seduction.
“You have faith! You have great faith!” Trust God! Live as if it matters!
Here is where the insidious call of the “health and wealth gospel” summons. God wants you to have it all! You don’t have because you don’t ask! Prove your faith by your works!
Yes, yes, yes. A young couple started worshiping with my first congregation. They were members of a church in a nearby town, but they said they were looking for more; more spirituality ― more life ― better preaching ― sincere worship. So they came to join us.
I met with them, wanting to get to know them. I also basked in the accolades they gave. I ate it up.
Then came the hook. This couple had been married for more than two years but did not yet have children. They wanted to have babies, lots of them. They believed that they were destined to have a large family. In fact, they had kept themselves pure before marriage, knowing that God would bless their union. It was biblical.
Here they were with me. Could I pray for them to get pregnant? After all, I was a “spiritual” man. They could see it! I prayed. I prayed fervently.
And they believed. Each Sunday she came to worship wearing maternity dresses, proving her faith to God, to me, and to the church.
But the pregnancy did not happen. For whatever reason, they remained childless. In a short while, they disappeared from our community. Someone who knew them well said that they were now worshiping with another congregation where the new minister was a firebrand. It was another place where they could prove their faith in an even more dynamic way.
The lure of success says to be pious! It says to have faith! Throw yourself into a dangerous situation, said the devil, and God will send angels to protect you!
And still we have to live. There is something low-key and tame about how Jesus got through this wilderness wandering, just as it was for the Israelites. Keep walking. Keep trusting. And keep your faith.
The tests continue. The exam is long. But grace abounds.
The Armor Of Humility
Thomas Long told about the process of examining seminary students for ordination in a Presbyterian church in North Carolina. The students needed to pass an intense examination out in the church somewhere. The ministers in the area got to grill a student on any point of theology for as long as they wished, and sometimes the questioning lasted a long time.
Thomas Long said that one of his clergy colleagues who had served the same congregation for more than thirty years sat in silence throughout those ordeals. He never said a word, never asked a question, never demanded a clarification, until the very end.
Then, just when the examinations seemed to have run its course, the questioners were getting tired, and the seminary graduate started to think the ordeal was over, this gentleman stood. “Look out there,” he said. He pointed to a large window at the side of their meeting hall. “Tell me when you see someone walking out there.”
The candidate sat there, neck craned, and looked for a while. “I see someone,” he said.
“Do you know the person?” asked Long’s friend.
“No, I don’t.”
Said the elderly gentleman, “Describe that person to me, theologically.”
This sage of North Carolina claimed that one of two reasons was always given. When you sift through all the academic lingo and verbal padding, some seminary graduates said something like this: “There goes a sinner who’s on his way to hell unless he repents and gives his life over to Christ.”
The other answer went something like this: “There goes a person who is a child of God. God loves that person so very much, and the best thing that can happen to him is to find out how good it is to love God in return.”
“They’re both right,” said the elderly man behind the strange question. “That’s what the scriptures and the church have always said. Still, as I’ve watched these fellows come and go over the years, the ones who answered my question the second way made better pastors. Mark my words!”
Do you believe it? If you do, then you probably have already peeked into the world of Jesus’ wisdom in the wilderness of temptations. For when the roll is called up yonder, the grades on the report cards that make it won’t be A for excellent, B for good, or even C for nice try.
The only grade that will make it will be G for grace.
