CMLC 2025-03-09 Sermon

Howdy. Well, I got to give you all props.

Alright, you got through daylight savings, you've dealt with the beginning of spring break,

and you have suffered through the tree pollen with me.

We got, we're here, so yes, we managed to find our way to church today.

So, God bless you all. And I gotta tell you all, do you know what a cult classic movie is?

Alright, cult classic, right? Oh, Pulp Fiction, okay, fair enough, absolutely, absolutely.

There are a few that I don't know that I'm allowed to actually say in church, but a cult classic is typically a movie

where it's not really a big mainstream movie that everybody knows of, but it has a really strong following.

Like, the people who love it really love it, okay?

And one of the ones back in 1999 was Office Space.

How many of you watched Office Space?

Yeah, okay, good, good, okay, a few, alright, awesome, awesome, very good, alright.

The rest of you, I don't know if I can say you should watch it, but it is hilarious if you do decide to watch it.

But with it though, is there was always this one character that I always felt so bad for Milton.

Yes, Milton, and he was, people were always walking all over him.

There was always people just ignoring him or pushing him aside.

And the one thing that kept breaking his heart was that he never got a piece of cake at the office parties.

And he would always say, last time I didn't receive a piece.

And so they're, you know, like passing along the cake from one person next, you get when you pass it to the next person.

And the idea is that eventually everyone has gotten a piece of cake and you get to eat it, except he kept passing them along

and then they were running out, so they stopped giving them.

And so he's standing there, he's looking around, and he's just like, why didn't I get any piece of cake?

And that was heartbreaking to me because cake is just one of the best things that exists.

It's like, whenever I am at a wedding, the first thing is on my mind.

I mean, yeah, okay, husband and wife, you all are very cute, I'm very happy for you, go blah, blah, blah, be happy.

What's the cake, alright?

It's like, I hope that you got something good, right?

And in my mind, I think you'd see there's usually two different kinds, okay?

You've got the really good one, okay?

It's maybe like it's a vanilla cake with a buttercream frosting and a raspberry ribbon in the middle, okay?

And then you've got the spice cake and you're like, come on, who came up with spice cake?

Who puts that at a wedding?

That's just mean, I mean, come on, alright?

Now, I did go to one recently, okay, and they had this amazing carrot cake.

Oh my goodness, it was delicious, alright.

And with that is that, honestly, as soon as I saw somebody walking out with a piece of cake on a plate,

I was in the middle of a conversation, I'm like, I gotta go.

And I just want, I beeline right over there because in my mind, I'm like, I need a piece of the best cake that they have.

And then when I realized that they had cut the other cake and I'm like, ooh, I need a piece of that too.

It was also carrot cake, but it's okay.

I had two pieces of cake and life was good.

Alright, so now that you understand where my priorities are when I'm at a wedding,

so yeah, looking forward to my next invite.

But what we realized though is that in my mind, I was so desperate to go get the cake

because I was afraid that there wouldn't be enough.

In my mind is this idea of if I can get my hands on it and make sure that I can have it,

then I feel safe, I feel secure, it is mine.

And that was one of the things that oftentimes we can be so afraid that there's not enough of something

that we're not willing to give up what we may already have right in front of us.

We know that if we were to let it go, there might be something better, but it's right there in front of us already.

We call this a scarcity mentality.

It's the idea that you're afraid that there won't be enough.

And so you're going to latch on to whatever you have or what you can receive in front of you

because you're terrified of letting it go.

And this idea plays into what we learned about the first fruits, the first fruits of the Lord.

See, you need to keep in mind what had happened that was leading up to this.

There had been 40 years, 40 years of wandering through the wilderness.

Every day they would go and gather up these flakes on the ground called manna

and they were able to make just enough food for that day.

They could not make any extra food except for the Sabbath and even that was only for two days.

There was no saving it. There was no what you're going to get next.

You eat what is right there in front of you for 40 years.

And after that they finally are going to come into the promised land

where they can grow crops and raise livestock and things will be good.

But how did they know that they would still be given what they needed each and every day?

See, that's one of the things is that they were no longer going to need to be afraid of going hungry.

So whatever they had in front of them was not the only thing that they were going to receive.

So imagine you've been working hard.

You've been tilling the ground. You've been raising the animals.

You've been taking care of everything and you finally have the first fruits that are going to come there.

The first animals, the first crops, the first graves, the first whatever you may have

and what is the first thing you'd want to do?

Do not tell me that I'm the only person on Thanksgiving who is with their plate

eating some of that turkey before you even get to the sweet potato casserole.

Come on. You're like, it's right there.

I just go and munch on that and then your grandma slaps your hand and it's like, you wait for the prayer.

You're like, yes, ma'am. Okay. Yes, ma'am.

And the thing is because it's right there, but instead of trying to consume it,

you're going to give it back to God.

Because what does that do?

It shows number one, you trust that there is more to come.

You trust that it's not just whatever's right in front of you,

but rather you trust that God's timing for what he's going to provide will be there.

And even more than that is that you're willing to wait for what is good

and you're willing to realize that everything you have belongs to God anyway.

See, the thing with a scarcity mentality where we think that all that's there is that

all that we can get is what's in front of us is that can actually lead to laziness.

Because instead of making the extra effort,

instead of pushing a bit harder to get what would be better,

instead you're going to stop at whatever's right in front of you.

You're going to take whatever comes first.

You're going to take whatever is the easiest.

You're going to take whatever you can get at that moment.

Because here's the thing, are you going to have enough time to go home

and to cook the meal and prepare it,

spend time with your family and have the opportunity to pray

and thank God for everything and then be able to appreciate what's going to nourish your body?

Or are you just scrambling to grab whatever might be there?

You're driving down the road, you're heading home,

you know that you have food that you can cook there, but man, Taco Bell's like right there.

I mean, come on, they've got those cantina chicken tacos, you know, they're pretty good.

The soft tacos are a little bit better than the fried ones.

It's right there.

But you know that if you wait,

that what is coming down the road will be better because it's what God has given to you.

And that's so much of what we end up discovering about why it is that these temptations for Jesus

were such a big deal because Jesus knew God's plan and timing.

And this was not that plan and timing.

See, there are three things that Satan is bringing up.

And the first one always threw me.

The first one always threw me.

What is such a big deal about turning a rock into bread?

I mean, that sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

Look, they're rocks.

Okay, no one's harmed.

Nothing bad happened.

It's bread.

I mean, yes, you've got the carbs and if you're on a gluten free, you got the atkins.

I get it.

That's bad.

But Jesus is not on atkins.

Okay, carbs didn't exist back then, right?

So we don't have to worry about it.

But here's the thing with it, though.

He's still saying that it's not bread alone, but rather every word that comes from the mouth of God,

comparing the Luke passage to the Matthew parallel,

is to realize that Jesus is saying no because he was led into the wilderness for a reason.

If you notice, Jesus was right by a river.

He was around all these other people.

I'm sure they had plenty of food.

And he was at a time and a place where people were being pointed and saying,

this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And all these things he could have already had, but the Spirit of God led him away.

The Spirit of God led him away.

Why would the Spirit of God lead you into the wilderness?

Because sometimes you need to be away from everyone and everything to be ready for the next stage in your journey.

Sometimes we need to be away from everyone and everything to actually hear what God is trying to say.

When was the last time you actually had time away from everyone and everything?

And for all the families with the little kids, you're like,

I can't even go to the bathroom by myself, so I don't even know.

But to realize that the time to step away, because Jesus knows where this path is going to lead,

and he knows that he needs to be ready for it.

So to take these 40 days in the wilderness, the parallel from the 40 years of Israel to the 40 days to spend out there,

is to realize that this is something to teach and to lead and to guide.

And that if you were to cut it short and just go ahead and get some food now,

his time of prayer and solitude would be disrupted.

Because sometimes we're supposed to sacrifice something to fast, to take a time away,

because it can actually help us with our prayer life and our time with God.

But it wasn't just that.

There was also this part where Satan is putting him up on the top of this mountain,

and saying, I will give you all of these kingdoms, I have the authority to give them to you.

Isn't it amazing whenever people get this mindset of I'm the person who can give you anything and everything that you want,

as long as you just follow me?

I'll get you what you're looking for.

And we're all just human beings.

I find it amazing whenever even pastors that I've known are like, don't question me.

Follow me and everything that I say.

And I'm kind of like, y'all, I don't always make the best decisions.

Y'all might sometimes need to question my choices at times.

So, granted, I can't decide whether to keep a beard or not, so don't even ask me other things.

But with that is to realize that Jesus knows that the authority doesn't rest with Satan.

And that as much as this could have been the easy path, it wouldn't have been real,

and it wouldn't have been right, because the real path was going to have to go to death.

See, that's the thing is last week when we talked about Moses,

and to realize that at that moment when he went up the mountain knowing that it was his time to die,

we know all the dumb things that Israel did.

He could have totally tried to just go with them and cross over.

You know what, I'm like right there.

We can just, let's just go really, really quick.

But he went up because he knew that his time had come.

And that's one of the things that we end up seeing is that the easy route does not mean that it's something that we're meant to have.

And even third, being at the top of the temple, just throw yourself down, the angels will catch you.

It's like some really crazy stage diving experience or something here.

Jesus being the rock star that he was, people were not necessarily listening for his guitar solo that day.

He wasn't Eric.

But what we end up seeing is that Jesus is not trying to get everyone's attention.

He knows that the people in Jerusalem are not going to want to listen to them.

They're looking for a miracle.

They're looking for something amazing.

And he's going to be telling them to repent and to turn to follow him.

This would have been the easy way to get their attention and to get them to follow him.

But this was not what it was that he was meant for.

Satan put all three of these things right in his hand.

He gave them back over to God.

Because instead of grasping at it, Jesus held off the temptation.

But how do we do when we are faced with that?

Be honest.

Where is it that you feel right now that there is something that you really wish you could try to get to or achieve quickly?

But you know that there's a longer path in front of you.

And you just don't want to accept it.

What is it that you are avoiding right now?

What are you avoiding in your life that you just don't want to have to put the extra effort to take time away to seek God's will?

You just want it to be done and finished and obvious.

But God calls us to lay aside the things that may make us lazy.

Because what may be right in front of us does not mean that it is what God is calling us to.

When I told you all what's upon a time, I had been planning to go up this mountain, Akatanango, in Guatemala.

A friend of mine had said, hey, let's go do this.

And I'm like, I don't know. This seems kind of intense.

No, it'll be great. It'll be great.

We start heading out and at the last minute, my friend ends up ditching me and saying, no, I changed my mind.

And I'm on the bus heading over to go to this hike in Antigua.

I don't know anybody. I'm still working on my Spanish.

Yo quiero aprender español muy bien. Paraná, lo puedo.

So it's like, okay, I'm getting there. What am I going to do?

So I'm like, okay, well, you know what?

Maybe I could just let it go. Okay, my friend's gone. Not a big deal.

And by the time I got there, all the regular tour groups had already closed for the day.

And even on top of that, normally the tour takes two days and I was supposed to leave on the second day.

There is every reason that I should just let this go.

But there was something in me.

Just said, you know, Jason, I bet you could do this.

I bet you could do this.

And I ended up at the hostel that I was staying at.

Found a tour guide that was going to do the whole trip in one day.

Starting at 5am the next morning.

Six people. I was the slowest out of all of them.

But getting to the top of the mountain, I wept like a baby.

Because I realized I could do this. What other things could God put in my life that I could do to?

The thing is, is that the easy path does not always lead us to hearing God more clearly.

And to be able to give over to God the things that we want to cling to are,

what is it, our money, our time, our energy, what it is that we feel that we have and we don't want to let go of.

But to trust it to give it over to Him.

Because sometimes the sacrifice may be the very point that we needed to see.

Because our sacrifices are not the things that somehow give us righteousness or salvation.

But sometimes the sacrifices we make are meant to be the lessons that we need to learn.

See, making the better choices, they may be harder for longer, but they're still better.

There may be the times whenever, some of us, not everybody,

but some of us have a thing with food where if we see something that's new that we've never had before,

or it's special that we know we're not going to have it every day, we have to eat it immediately.

Or even the time whenever a person I really wanted to pursue was right there in front of me,

and I jumped at the chance for a relationship that ended up blowing up right in my face.

Or whenever it was known that, yes, I have a job that is safe and secure,

but if I don't walk away from this now, I will never pursue the thing that I know God wants from me.

Is that sometimes we have to let go of what's right in front of us so we can pursue what God actually wants for us.

See, that's the same thing about temptation. Temptation isn't always obvious.

Temptation isn't always a don't do bad things, only do good things.

Temptation can oftentimes be, is this really the better thing that I have for you?

And there are not any easy answers for this. This isn't a checklist for me to tell you.

If you do all these different things, you're going to always follow the right choice

and always know exactly what God wants. I can give you good ideas.

But what I do know is that more than anything is that taking the time with God will always help.

Yes, it is good to take counsel with other people that you trust and that you know follow after God,

but without the time directly with God, you're always just filtering it through someone else's opinion.

And that's part of why we spend this season in fasting.

To take time away from the things that fill our belly so that our heart and mind can be more filled with God's word.

Because let's be honest, whenever our belly is too full, how easily do we stay alert and listen to God?

See, that's the thing about this is that there may be some things that would make you more lazy and more distracted

because you would get exactly what you want when you wanted it.

But when we bring God our first fruits, then we're showing him that we trust that he is the one to give us what he wants for us,

when he wants it for us. Because believe me, I know what it's like to wait.

And I know what it's like to have something right in front of you that may seem exactly like what you hoped for the whole time.

But when it isn't in God's timing or in God's way, it doesn't bring you God's blessing.

So may we be willing to seek what God gives to us.

Not just trying to grab the first thing that comes along because it's there, but to be willing to say,

God, I give you what I have and I'm willing to trust you to give you what you want for me.

May we trust God this morning and always with everything that we have. Amen.