"The Wilderness of the Soul"

     Dear Friends in Christ,  

I want you to consider with me for a moment the setting in which our text for today takes place. Some translations call it the wilderness; some call it the desert. For our purposes right now let’s call it the wilderness of the desert. And what do you find there? Parched ground, sharp rocks, shifting sand, burning sun, thorns that cut, distant horizons that waiver in the sunlight. That’s the wilderness of the desert.

Not at all unlike the wilderness of the soul where we find parched promises, sharp words, shifting commitments, burning anger, rejections that cut, distant solutions that are ever beyond our reach. That’s the wilderness of the soul.

And while some of you may know a little about the first wilderness we’ve just looked at, I have a hunch that all of you know the second all too well. Jesus knew them both. So as we continue our study of Jesus in my current sermon series entitled “The One and Only,” we want to spend some time with him this morning as he faces the worst that this world and Satan could throw at him.

And the first point we want to look at today is that these days in the wilderness were not typical days for Jesus. Oh, I have no doubt that Satan was always nearby wherever Jesus was, lurking in the shadows, subtly waiting for an opportune time to pounce on him. But there was nothing subtle about Satan in our text. This was nothing short of an in-your-face, all-out attack that the evil one brings to Christ at a time when Jesus was very weak and vulnerable. That’s why I say that these 40 days in the wilderness were not typical days for Jesus.

And the days that you find yourself in the wilderness are not really typical days either. We’re not talking this morning about a stressful day at work or an argument that you have with your spouse or a bad case of the flu. We’re talking about job interview after job interview with nothing to show for it. Doctor after doctor with no answers or cure for your health problems. Heartache after heartache with no relief in sight. Sleepless night after sleepless night. We’re talking about those times of intense personal struggle that can test the faith of even the strongest Christian. Things like overwhelming crippling grief, extended illness, divorce, debt, depression – all of these can lead you into the wilderness of the soul.

So also can the transitions of life that we sometimes experience. In fact, prior to Jesus’ wilderness experience he went through a transition in his life. For he had left his home in Nazareth where he had lived for the past 3 decades. Then he had just been baptized by John in the Jordan River, a baptism that marked the beginning of his ministry, a ministry that would touch the hearts and lives of countless people, yes, but a ministry that would ultimately lead him to the cross.

So what about you, my friends? Have you been through any transitions lately? Or do you know of any that might be looming on the horizon? Perhaps a job transfer; maybe a promotion; maybe a job loss. How about the birth of a child, getting married, leaving home? While the transitions of life can sometimes be exciting, they can also leave us ripe for a journey into the wilderness.

And how do you know when you’re in the wilderness? I would suggest 3 common denominators that go along with the majority of these types of experiences. First of all, you feel alone. Now you may not be alone. In fact, you may be surrounded by people. But from your perspective, no one understands what you’re going through. And even if they could, they wouldn’t be able to help you. At least that’s how you feel. So there’s this overwhelming sense of aloneness and isolation that sweeps over you when you find yourself in the wilderness.

Then secondly, your struggle seems endless. In the Bible the number 40 is often used to represent extended times of testing. Noah and his family faced rain for 40 days and 40 nights at the time of the great flood. Moses and the Israelites faced the desert for 40 years on their way to the Promised Land. And Jesus in our text faced 40 days of intense temptation in the wilderness. And don’t think for a moment that Satan only brought to him the 3 temptations that are recorded in the Gospels. Rather I believe Jesus spent one month and 10 days slugging it out there with the evil one.

So the wilderness is not only a lonely struggle, it’s a long one too. Then one more thing. In the wilderness you are tempted to do the unthinkable. Jesus certainly was, wasn’t he? He was tempted to team up with Satan, to skip the life he’d been sent to live, to bypass all the gore that he knew was coming and to instead go straight for all the glory. James, the half brother of Jesus, tells us in his New Testament epistle that when one is tempted “he is carried away and enticed.” Did you catch that, my friends? Temptation carries you away – away from God, away from what he would have you do, away from his best that he has in mind for you. And it entices you. What may have been unthinkable prior to your wilderness experience all of a sudden becomes thinkable during your wilderness experience. A lengthy struggle in a marriage can make a good man look twice at the wrong woman. An extended illness can make even the strongest of Christians contemplate suicide. A string of stress-filled days can make a bottle of alcohol look like the magic cure-all. Put simply, the wilderness weakens our resolve.

One author describes the wilderness as “the maternity ward for addictions.” Binge-eating, budget-busting gambling, excessive drinking, pornography, 80-hour workweeks – all of these are short-term solutions to long-standing, deep-seated problems. And under ordinary circumstances you wouldn’t even consider them as a solution, but like I said, in the wilderness you are tempted to do the unthinkable.

So the question is, how do we handle it when we find ourselves in the wilderness? Well, I think a good place to start would be by looking to Jesus and listening to Jesus because he’s the only one who has ever come forth from the wilderness unscathed. He’s the only one who has ever faced the devil head on and emerged victorious every single time. So what does he have to say to us when we find ourselves in the midst of the wilderness? Two things.

First of all, he says, “Trust my work.” You may think that Jesus’ time in the wilderness was Satan’s idea, that he was suckered and seduced into this time of intense temptation. You may think that Satan came to the wilderness looking for Christ. But I would suggest to you that it was the other way around. In fact, our text tells us that much when it says that Jesus was “led by the Spirit in the desert.” But why? Why would Jesus knowingly enter this domain of darkness where he knew the devil himself would be waiting for him?

Well, does the word rematch mean anything to you? When was the last time that a sinless soul stood before the source of all sin? It was in the Garden of Eden, wasn’t it? Adam was that sinless soul. And he failed miserably, didn’t he? So Jesus, who is sometimes called the 2^nd Adam in Scripture, came to succeed where the 1^st Adam failed. But why? Why was that even necessary? Well, it was necessary because in order for Christ to be your Savior and my Savior, he had to do more than offer himself as a sacrifice for sin. He had to be a perfect sacrifice. So he had to live a perfect and sinless life. And in order to do that, he had to be tempted in every way that we are.

Actually though when you compare the temptation of Adam with the temptation of Jesus, there’s really no comparison. For Jesus had it a whole lot worse, didn’t he? Remember, Adam was tempted in a beautiful garden. Jesus was tempted in a dreary wilderness. Adam was tempted on a full stomach. Jesus was tempted while fasting. Adam had a companion at his side: Eve. Jesus had no one. Adam was tempted to be sinful in a sinless world. Jesus was tempted to be sinless in a sinful world. It’s almost as if Jesus is climbing into the ring with Satan and saying, “Ok, devil, you’ve been haunting and hounding my children since the beginning. Why don’t you pick on somebody your own size, you big bully? Why don’t you see what you can do with me.” And Satan accepts the challenge. But not once does Jesus waiver. Even in his weakened, vulnerable condition, he succeeds where Adam failed. And because he did, Paul writes these wonderful words in Rom. 5:18: “Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it” (MSG).

Put simply, Jesus became your substitute. He did for you what a fellow by the name of Bobby Aycock did for his friend, David when they both found themselves in boot camp in 1959. David was a very likable fellow, but he was lacking in physical strength. And one thing he simply could not do were pull-ups. There was no way he could pass that part of the fitness test. So Bobby Avcock who had such a fondness for David came up with a plan. He donned his friend’s T-shirt. That shirt bore David’s last name, 2 initials, and serial number. You see, this was still early on in the training process and the superior officers didn’t know faces yet. They just read the name and numbers on the shirts and passed or failed the men on that basis. So Bobby did David’s pull-ups, and David came out looking pretty good without even breaking a sweat.

And Jesus did the same for you, my friends, when he donned not your T-shirt but your flesh and did for you what you could have never done for yourself. So when you’re in the wilderness trust his work. And then secondly, trust his Word. In fact, don’t just trust his Word. Learn his Word so that you can do with that Word what Jesus did with it in our text. And that is to use it as a weapon. For every temptation that Satan brought to him, Jesus countered it with a quote from Scripture. “It is written…It is written…It is written” is how he began each of his replies.

Now let me ask you something, my friends. If the Bible was good enough for Jesus during his wilderness experience, don’t you think it just might be good enough for us too? Everything you and I need for survival in the wilderness can be found in that holy book. We just need to read it. We just need to learn it. We just need to trust it.

I don’t know how many of you are watching the current “Survivor” series on television, but I think it’s going to be the best one yet because it features heroes and villains from past years. Well, the last few times that I’ve watched an entire “Survivor” series, at one point they do a challenge where some of the participants are blindfolded. Then they have to find huge pieces of a puzzle that are scattered all over the place and that their teammates then have to put together once they have found all of them. And the only way they can locate those pieces is by listening to their one teammate who is not blindfolded and who is shouting out directions to them. It’s an incredible exercise in trust – trusting the voice of the one who can see what you cannot see.

And so it is with us. When we find ourselves in the wilderness, we especially need to listen to and trust the voice of our Master, for he alone knows the way out. And he alone knows how to put the jumbled pieces of our life back together again.

So even though you may feel as though you’re alone in the wilderness, I hope you’ve seen today that you’re not. Even though you may feel as though your struggle is never going to end, it will. Jesus’ did and yours will too. This too shall pass. And even though you may be tempted to do the unthinkable in the wilderness, please don’t. Instead, simply trust Christ’s work and trust his Word, knowing that the One who is faithful has big plans for you, plans to one day take you from this earthly wilderness to his heavenly paradise where you will never again experience the wilderness of the soul.

      Amen.