Sermon Notes — March 9, 2025
Luke 4:1-13
March 9, 2025
Soul Food: The Nourishment We Need
Dr. Craig Goff
As our text was read we heard about how Jesus spent some time out in the desert. I have preached from this text many, many times. It comes around pretty often during the Season of Lent. In the past as I have preached from this text, I’ve talked about what the temptations were and what they mean. Those are helpful topics to reflect on. Today I would like to keep things even more simple.
We know from hearing this text that Jesus went into the desert. We know that he fasted 40 days and 40 nights. We know that he met the devil while he was there. We know that he overcame the temptation that he faced, and we know we know that afterwards he was hungry.
Who wouldn’t be?
However, what we sometimes overlook is a super important question — why did he go out into the wilderness?
The answer is one of those things that can hide in plain sight. Let’s look at the very first verse.
“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan, and was led by the spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted.”
Jesus didn’t go out into the desert because he thought to himself, “wow, now that I’m baptized and preparing for my ministry if I’m going to be able to do what God wants me to do, I’m gonna have to get in shape spiritually. It might be good if I go out and meditate and fast for an extended amount of time.”
That sounds like something you would expect him to say or think, but that’s not the way it happened.
Jesus’ going out into the desert wasn’t something that he thought of on his own, he was sent by the Holy Spirit.
In Wesleyan theological terms, we would say Jesus was propelled to go into that time of temptation through God’s prevenient grace.
We sometimes forget how our ability to withstand temptation and our capacity to repent comes as a gift from God. It is not something we find the strength to do in our own power.
God‘s grace doesn’t cause us to face temptation and repent, but it does enable us to do what we could not do on our own.
My good friend and former professor, Ted Campbell, who later became one of Steve Lafebver’s professors at another school, is an amazing amalgamation of various influences. He is from Beaumont Texas. He kind of talks like someone from Beaumont Texas. He plays country music on the guitar like someone from Beaumont. But he’s also an Oxford University graduate and holds a PhD in Wesleyan theology. He was also the president of one of our Methodist Divinity Schools.
He is a brilliant and creative person. In his capacity as a guitar player from Texas, he has rewritten a famous folk song called House of the Rising Sun.
Dr. Campbell’s version is a “Methodist” version.
I am going to sing a slightly edited version of Dr. Campbell’s House of the Rising Sun.
There is a house down in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun. But I was raised a Methodist, so that’s a place I was taught to shun.
Now, Methodists don’t drink hard liquor and gambling is not our idea of fun. We’re not going to spend our lives in sin and misery in the House of the Rising Sun.
Prevenient grace taught my heart to fear, and justifying grace my fears relieved. We are going to live our lives in that sanctifying grace, until the end of our years.
So mothers, you better get your babies baptized, and teach them to live by the Golden Rule. Believe in Jesus, try to reform the world, and get yourself to church and Sunday school.
That is good Texas Wesleyan theology inspired by hard living down in New Orleans.
Notice that line: prevenient grace taught my heart to fear ….
One of the ways we are taught the faith is through stories.
We live, as you know, in a world of competing stories.
“Everybody has a story”, as Steve Martin once said in a famous movie.
If we are going to live as Christians in this world with so many competing stories we have to know the Christian story.
Luke chapter four, verses one through thirteen is an important part of our story. It tells us that like Jesus we don’t combat temptation or resist temptation on our own, but we draw strength to combat and resist temptation from God’s Spirit, guided by God’s word.
Like it says in Ted’s song:
Prevenient grace taught my heart to fear, justified grace my fears relieved we are going to end our lives and that sanctifying grace until the end of our years.
That is the Christian story. Prevenient grace prepares us for what is out there in the world just like prevenient grace was the force behind Jesus being sent out into the desert for a time of testing and to establish his identity as a child of God and as the son of God.
There are two basic storylines in Jesus‘s experience in the desert. One story is God’s story. The other story is the devil’s story. God‘s story is about service. God’s story is about others. God‘s stories is about mercy. God‘s story is about love. God‘s story is about compassion.
The devil’s story is about self-indulgence. The devil’s story is about acquiring power. The devil’s story is about getting what you want and forgetting everybody else.
Today’s text is all about soul food which is the theme of our current worship series, which will run through Easter Sunday.
God leads us and prepares us for temptation, but ultimately, we decide how we will respond. We choose our own diet. Will we choose self-indulgence and a striving for power or a reliance on God’s grace and spirit?
No, we can’t combat and resist temptation on our own, but we do have to make a decision. Are we going to base our lives on the story of God and God’s word or are we gonna base our lives on the devil and the devil’s lives?
Maybe we need to hear the lyrics of our song again. I will just read them for us.
As you listen, just imagine being out in the wilderness being offered competing stories. Which story you will you listen to? Which story will you allow to shape your life and the life of your children? Here it is once again, the Methodist version of The House of the Rising Sun….