First Sunday in Lent, 2002
Pastor
You can read about my Turkey-Syria study trip at http://www.cedarpark.org/library/books.htm
Deuteronomy 32:15 (page 148 in the pew
Bibles)
“Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; filled with food, he became heavy and
sleek. He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Savior.”[1]
We do not
want to be as
This is
the Lenten Season. There are forty
regular days that lead up to Easter. During that time Christians examine their
lives and become more aware of our sins.
We voluntarily humble ourselves through fasting, identifying with the
fasting and suffering of Jesus in the wilderness in preparation for his
suffering on the cross.
We want
to be aware of our sins so we can trust Christ to forgive them. We need to know that our sins put him on the
cross. When we see Jesus hanging on that
cross in the Easter Passion Play, “The Victor,” we need to know that we put him
there. Not the Romans, not the Jews, but
it was our sins that crucified Jesus.
The only
way a person can ever become aware of their personal sin is by humbling
themselves because by nature we kick against any suggestion that we might be
wrong. That is the meaning of the phrase
in verse 15, “Jeshurun grew fat and kicked.” God wanted to correct them but they kicked
against the goads of correction. Just as
a shepherd would use a stick and occasionally poke his animals back into line,
God will sometimes poke us. But an
unruly animal will kick at the stick and fight against the correction. Every mother of a pre-schooler
knows exactly what I am talking about.
They might only be two years old but they already know more than you
do. Well, there is a little bit of that
pre-schooler still in us. Everything you ever needed to know about sin
you learned before pre-school and you have never forgotten it. We are pretty much right about everything and
if you disagree there is clearly something wrong with you.
We fast
during this time because fasting is the only way that the Bible identifies as
“humbling.” Ezra said, “…I proclaimed a fast, so that we
might humble ourselves before our God…”[2] God said as much in Isaiah 58 “Is this the
kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself?”[3]
David also said it in Psalm 35, “…I put on sackcloth and humbled myself with
fasting.”[4]
Scripture
This
is what I am asking you to do for the next forty days. I am asking that you fast to be aware of
your own sins and for the benefit of those that God wants to help. When you fast, take what you would have
spent, and give it to the needy. That is
what the alms box in the foyer is for.
Between
now and Easter, all almsgiving will go to the Mission of Mercy in
Your fasting can be of any
kind. Of course, it could be one or
two days a week where you eat nothing.
·
You could eat a highly reduced amount of food. Never super-size.
·
You could eat only very simple foods for the next
forty days.
·
You might decide to eat no candy or other
sweets.
·
It might be giving up soft drinks
·
Or give up one latte a week or maybe one latte per
day, or none at all until Easter.
It can
also be a time when we address some of the bad habits we pick up. In a few weeks we will have our annual
service dealing with life-controlling habits.
Maybe you will decide not to use tobacco or alcohol during this period
of time. Some people decide not to watch
any television or go to any movies, or view any DVD’s. Another person might turn off the radio or
listen to no music.
We fast
to humble ourselves and become attentive to God. In part, we also fast to answer the question,
who is in charge of my life? We like to
think we are, but I wonder if it is so.
Someone might ask, why do you do all that stuff. Those things don’t
control me. I could stop any time I wanted to.
You think so? Would you do it for
the Lord for the next 40 days?
Pride is
the idea that we deserve to be indulged.
Everything in our culture says we should put ourselves first and indulge
ourselves. Cars, houses, clothing, food,
drinks, special treatment are reflect the indulged
person.
A vow of
poverty is when a person chooses this lifestyle all year round. Like the gift of singleness, it takes a
special grace from God in order to do that and it is not the general path that
Christian should take. However, each
year, we participate in the humbling of our souls before God for a spiritual
purpose.
God is
more than happy to give us more than enough, but he wants you to remember that
it isn’t all for you.
In the
Old Testament he required that the corners of the field be left unharvested and if any heads of wheat fell to the ground
while being harvested, they must be left on the ground. It was for the poor and the seed from which
he would prosper them in the years when the land was to lie fallow.
Change your focus for a few days from this life to eternity. Instead of feeding your stomach, let God feed your soul. Instead of being satisfied with pleasure, be satisfied with God. Instead of noise, be content with silence. Instead of life revolving around you and what you want, let it center on God.
[1]Matthew Henry
offers this Commentary
“Security and sensuality, pride and insolence, and the other common
abuses of plenty and prosperity, v. 15. These people were called Jeshurun-- an upright people (so some), a seeing people, so
others: but they soon lost the reputation both of their knowledge and of their
righteousness; for, being well-fed,
1. They waxed
fat, and grew thick, that is, they indulged themselves in all manner of luxury
and gratifications of their appetites, as if they had nothing to do but to make
provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts of it.
They grew fat, that is, they grew big and unwieldy, unmindful of business, and
unfit for it; dull and stupid, careless and senseless; and this was the effect
of their plenty. Thus the prosperity of fools destroys them, Yet this was not the worst of it.
2. They kicked; they grew proud and insolent, and lifted up the heel even against God himself. If God rebuked them, either by his prophets or by his providence, they kicked against the goad, as an untamed heifer, or a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke, and in their rage persecuted the prophets, and flew in the face of providence itself. And thus he forsook God that made him (not paying due respect to his creator, nor answering the ends of his creation), and put an intolerable contempt upon the rock of his salvation, as if he were not indebted to him for any past favours, nor had any dependence upon him for the future. Those that make a god of themselves and a god of their bellies, in pride and wantonness, and cannot bear to be told of it, certainly thereby forsake God and show how lightly they esteem him.”
[2] Ezra 8:21
[3] Isaiah 58:5
[4] Psalm 35:13
[5] Isaiah 58:6-12