A Different Perspective Official Podcast

After we've been serving God for a while – well, we get to feeling that we're entitled to be special in His sight.  And the real temptation – and it's a temptation of pride – is to put God's love to the test.
You know we all need encouragement and validation and when we're travelling down a certain path in life it's great when somehow people confirm that we're on the right path, someone looks at the career you've chosen and they say to you, "Gee you do so well at that." I mean that's a wonderful thing isn't it? And so often we want God to confirm that we've chosen the right path too. It would be great to have His confirmation and encouragement but sometimes, you know sometimes at those times God just remains silent, have you ever noticed that?
Sometimes we want the Lord to confirm that we're on the right path and He just doesn't say anything and you know, when we're walking in faith and putting it all on the line for God, it would be really nice for Him to whisper, "Well done good and faithful servant, keep going." And yet so often He chooses to remain silent and those times, it can be a real wilderness experience. Why does He do that? What's going on?
We like to live life on the surface, you know the externals. The recognition, there's the success and the things we can buy and the comfort and the travel and the holidays, you know all that stuff but God, God wants to go to a much, much deeper plain with us, much deeper way below the surface and that's why this week we've been talking about the hidden things of God. Hidden because it's wisdom that lies below the surface, hidden because it's often not until we have a spiritual wilderness experience that we discover them.
This week we've been looking at the wilderness experience of Jesus Christ. If you were with us earlier in the week you would have heard me talk about His public baptism, He went down to the Jordan River, He was baptised by John the Baptist, He comes up and heaven opens up and God speaks down and says:
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
What an awesome thing and immediately following that God picks Him up and throws Him out into the desert where He starves for forty days and the devil comes after Him with a pick axe. He goes from the middle of the river of God out into this desolation, this wilderness and its Gods way to have Him starving for forty days and He's tempted by the devil.
Over the last few days we've looked at the first two temptations. The first one was after forty days; the devil tempts Him to turn the stone into bread, to end the suffering for himself, to end His hunger, to meet His needs in His own strength rather than in Gods strength. After all why not, He was hungry? Because that would be turning your back and the will of God for your life even if that will involves suffering and Jesus turns round to the devil and says, "hang on":
Man doesn't live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
He rejects the devils temptation to take matters into His own hands.
The second temptation we looked at yesterday. The devil took Him up to a high mountain and said:
Worship me and I'll give you all of these kingdoms.
It's about chasing after worldly success, about taking the world and leaving God behind and that's so easy to do too because there's such a fine line between serving God and falling in love and worshipping the works of our own hands instead of God and Jesus said:
No it is written, "You will worship the Lord your God and serve Him alone.
For Jesus it was so much more important that He be found humbly serving His Father instead of being given all the kingdoms of this world.
Today we're going to look at the third temptation; it's something that Douglas Webster in his book, "Under the Radar" called "The Great Performance". Have a listen:
The devil led Jesus to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the highest point of the temple. 'If you're the Son of God' he said, 'Throw yourself down from here because it is written, "He will command His angels concerning you to guard you carefully. They will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against the stone".' And Jesus answered the devil, 'It is written, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."'
In his book, "Under the Radar", Douglas Webster puts his finger right on what's happening here when he writes this:
The career path for Christian leaders is marked by the cross, an incentive that doesn't have much cross-over appeal into the corporate world or our post modern society. Self-denial is a difficult concept to translate into today's leadership literature. The path leading to a cross is far more humbling than it is heroic and all true leaders are led along this path but the temptation to avoid the path to the cross by trying to achieve something great for God confronts us as did Jesus.
We're tempted to escape the cross with our spiritual pride intact; we want to feel enthusiastic about Jesus while avoiding the way of Jesus. You see that's the temptation. You get to a point where you've been walking with God for a while and you've been sacrificing, you've been suffering and you get to figuring, "Well God you know, I've earned something here. I've earned a short cut, it's time for you God to validate me, it's time for you God to do some miracle. To say, 'You're heading down the right path, you're special to me.'"
And so we get to asking God for something impossible. Not for the right reasons, not because we want to serve Him and bring glory to Him but in order for Him to validate that we're something special. In a sense we want God to start being our servant rather than us being His servant. This temptation is about turning the created creature relationship on its head and putting us on top of the heap and that that is why Jesus names it for what it is, putting God to the test.
Growing old is great as long as it involves growing wiser and wisdom, in Gods economy, starts and ends with one thing. You can read it in Proverbs chapter 1; verse 7 where it says:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom. Fools despise wisdom and discipline.
In other words wisdom is based on a right relationship with God and when, when you've been doing stuff for God for a while this is a really easy temptation to fall in. And it's the temptation the devil fell into when he tried to put himself above God. To believe in Jesus is to follow Jesus, He's not only the truth He's also the way and in this wilderness we discover the hidden things of God.
When we're under pressure and hungry and tired and the devil pulls along side and tempts us … tempts us to provide for ourselves, tempts us to chase after worldly success, tempts us to make God our servant rather than our Lord, this is when we discover who we are, this is when we discover what we believe and this is the place that God would teach us these lessons in a powerful way that would shape who we are.
When we are shaped on the anvil of the wilderness and abandonment and vulnerability, we learn the most amazing lessons. This is where we discover the hidden things of God. We discover in the wilderness what humility and persistence and prayer is. In the wilderness we discover who's Lord. It's a special, special time.

You know something – worldly success and recognition are a seductive thing.  Even as we go about God's business.  It turns out though that there's a fine line between serving God and chasing after recognition.
Things are not always what they seem, have you noticed that? With people and, you know, so often with God. I don't know if you do this but sometimes I think I have God in a box that's way too small for Him, He just doesn't fit. My thinking is narrower than His and so often I'm focused on the small picture when He's working on a much bigger picture.
I'm focused on how I feel and what my needs are and He, He's focused on developing my character and on drawing me closer, on pruning me back so that I can flower and blossom. Is it just me or do you kind of relate to what I'm saying? Sometimes I plan on achieving this or achieving that for God and His plan, His plan is for me to wait humbly at His feet. God can be so frustrating at times don't you think?
This week on the program we're digging a bit deeper to discover the hidden things of God. I mean, we're people and each of us is different and we all have needs and hopes and ambitions and dreams and even when those things involve God, it's so easy just too kind of wander off and leave Him behind, to start pursuing our own plan instead of waiting on His. You know something; wait is a word that appears an awful lot in the Bible and no more beautifully than in Psalm 5, verse 3 where it says:
In the morning O Lord you hear my voice, in the morning I will lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.
And you know, invariably when God's word talks about us waiting on God it means exactly what the psalmist just wrote. Waiting with expectation – not waiting impatiently, not waiting miserably, not waiting saying, "You know something; this is never going to happen," – waiting in expectation or in other words, in faith.
I wonder sometimes whether we're not more focused on becoming achievers, on being self reliant than on humbling ourselves before God and waiting on Him and becoming God achievers, God reliant.
Over this week we're looking at the great temptation when Jesus was led into the wilderness. He was baptised in the Jordan by John and when He came up out of the water, at that moment heaven was opened up and He saw the spirit of God descending on Him like a dove and a voice from heaven said:
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
What a stunning baptism and straight after that God picks Him up and throws Him out into the desert. Luke chapter 4:
Jesus full of the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan and was led by the spirit into the desert where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and at the end of them He was hungry.
I bet He was. Here's one of the hidden things of God and it's the things that we discover about God in the desert, in the wilderness, are so much deeper than when we're just racing around being successful and happy. It's really important when we start walking around in a wilderness to know what God's up to.
Douglas Webster, in "Under the Radar" writes this, he says:
Contrary to the popular notion that links fullness of the Spirit to worldly success, Luke relates the fullness of the Spirit to Jesus' wilderness experience and stresses Jesus' extreme vulnerability in the Spirit before the devil. Jesus, full of the Spirit, is led by the Spirit into the wilderness, a place of testing and utter weakness. There is a close correlation between the Spirit's presence and power and Jesus' vulnerability and weakness.
Yesterday we looked at the first temptation, the temptation for Jesus to turn the stones into food; I mean to end the suffering in His own strength, apart from God. It was the logical thing to do; it was the devils logical delusion. Wasn't really a temptation, I mean after all, Jesus was famished, Jesus was the Son of God and Jesus answer was:
Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
In fact it was a firm "no" to the devil, "I will wait on God for my provision, I will trust in Him even if I have to starve to death." It puts pay to any notion of self reliance.
Today we're going to look at the second temptation and you can read it if you want to in the Bible in Luke chapter 4, verse 5:
The devil led Him up to a high place and showed Him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world and he said to Jesus, "I will give you all their authority and splendour for it has been given to me and I can give it to anyone that I want. So if you worship me it will all be yours." And Jesus answered, "It is written worship the Lord your God and serve Him alone.
You see the devil led Jesus up to a high place and showed Him the most seductive prize of all, all the kingdoms of the world and the devil said, "Worship me and I'll give all this to you." Now there's a huge jump here from the basic need for bread which was the first temptation, to the greatest thing that he could show Jesus, all the kingdoms of the world. And note Jesus doesn't debate the devils authority to say this, Jesus speaks to the devil not with sarcasm or scorn but with respect and here's the temptation for us.
The temptation is that we go after worldly recognition and worldly success, that we achieve what Gods called us to do, in affect, idolatrously. That we end up worshipping the works of our own hands instead of God Himself.
Much of what's being said today about the vision of the Church seems to fit with this second temptation. Take a serious long look at what's projected as a compelling vision with hype and excitement and delusion and success. Every Church seems to have its own personalised, customised vision, where do you find that thinking in the Bible? And this fits right into the second temptation. There's a lot of second temptation Christianity going on, Christianity without Christ, what a sharp contrast between that and those beautiful words of Psalm 5:
In the morning I will lay my request before you and wait in expectation.
Jesus had it right, Jesus went to the devil and said, "No! It is written, 'worship the Lord your God and serve Him alone'." You see the devil offered Jesus all and with the word 'only' Jesus defeated the devil. Jesus said, "I'm not chasing after worldly recognition, I don't want to be in charge of all these kingdoms, I don't want people to think well of me. That's not what this is about; my life is about worshipping God and serving Him alone."
It's so easy to worship what we do for God and then leave Him behind. It's so easy to chase after the recognition and the praise of other people and forget that what we're doing is meant to be for God's glory and not our own and I don't care what it is we do or who we are, we all suffer this temptation. Can I tell you, the temptation is the greatest when we're in the wilderness like Jesus was? How tempting must it have looked to be given all those kingdoms, all He had to do was worship the devil once.
I've decided there's something so much more important than what I do for God and that's my relationship with Him. That's what this wilderness is about, learning those things, the hidden things of God in a way that we somehow just, just can't forget.

When the going gets tough, it's so much easier to sort things out for ourselves – than to rely on God.  Really…..in fact, when we're hungry, why shouldn't we feed ourselves?
It's a funny thing that from time to time God leads us out into the wilderness and then, it seems, He leaves us there to fend for ourselves. When I think of Jesus out there for forty days in the wilderness without food, He must have been starving, literally. Forty days with nothing to eat, He would have been feeling dizzy and weak and completely vulnerable. All His natural support mechanisms and defences stripped away.
I mean, if that had been me I wonder whether I wouldn't have been sitting there after forty days thinking, "All right God, so You told me that you'd called me and you told me you had some bold plan to use me to change the world and you told me that I'm Your Son so, so why aren't You providing for me? Why have You thrown me out here into the desert to starve and the only person you've given me for company is the devil himself?" Imagine you're out there in the burning sun starving, what's the most logical thing for you to do?
I remember a time when I was training to be an officer in the Australian Army, it was four tough, hard years and on more than one occasion they took us out on survival exercises and we didn't eat for days and there we were carrying a heavy pack and a machine gun and ammunition and everything it seemed except for food. And they'd give us a map and a compass and they'd say, "Well we can't get food through to you here." So they'd give us a grid reference over the radio and we'd have to navigate 25 kilometres over hill and dale where there would be a food drop.
So over you go and you get there and there was no food and you'd radio in and they'd say, "Oh look sorry, the truck couldn't get through, we'll give you a new grid reference, 32 kilometres over hill and dale." And this went on for days. And then every now and then you'd get a food drop by a helicopter and they'd drop like half a ration pack for 4 men when you're supposed to have 1 each every day.
And we had no idea when it would end. We'd get grumpy and hungry and weak and our moral was pretty low, we'd sit there at night with our stomachs, well our stomachs had given up rumbling we were that hungry and we were a small squad of 4 men and we sat there and talked about these mongrels who were doing this to us and, "Let's walk out to the nearest highway and hitch a ride home."
I look back on that experience now and it was so hard back then but it built our characters. It's something that's hard to explain but when you go through something like that it teaches you things in a way that you don't forget. And the obvious temptation in the middle of all of that was to grumble and complain, to do something to provide for ourselves, to go out to the highway to hitch a ride home, to go and buy a pizza, you know.
And its exactly the same thing when the Lord puts us into a spiritual wilderness, the most tempting thing under the sun is to provide for ourselves, to seek provisions separate from God rather than relying on Him and so it's no surprise that when Jesus was led by God out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, the very first temptation of the devil is where he tried to hit Jesus in exactly that spot. Have a listen, Luke chapter 4 it comes from:
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and at the end of them He was hungry and the devil said to Him, "If you're the Son of God tell this stone to become bread." And Jesus answered, "It is written, 'A man does not live by bread alone.
Douglas Webster in his book, "Under the Radar' writes this, he said:
The popular, easy to read books on leadership are of no value in the wilderness. They're not the kind of books you want to read when you're lonely and suffering. Titles like Developing the Leader within You or Leadership 101 or Success One Day at a Time, well they never make good reading out in the wilderness. Seminary degrees and graduate programs may help but they don't produce leaders. The best networking and mentoring in the world doesn't compare to the importance of the wilderness experience.
You see, what God was wanting to teach Jesus here in the desert was not self reliance, it wasn't ingenuity or innovation or imagination or invention. It wasn't the ability to forage on the land; it was none of those things. For forty days Jesus was famished, He was weak, vulnerable before the devil and the greatest temptation of all was for Jesus to meet His needs in His own strength. After all He was the Son of God, I mean He was entitled, I mean what the heck, why not? He was hungry, He was in need, He was the Son of God no one could deny that. In fact, that very first temptation, it probably didn't feel much like a temptation at all, it was purely and simply providing for His own needs.
In many respects this first temptation was a logical seduction, the temptation to meet our needs, even the most acute need of starvation, in our own strength rather than waiting on God. Wow, that's a strong temptation, to end the suffering because we can. It happens in our lives when we're in a situation perhaps a relationship and its hurting and we go and do something that we know isn't from God but we just want to end the suffering in our own strength.
Again, Doug Webster relates this story in his book when he was pastoring a Church and all the people in the Church were giving him a hard time and his temptation was to run away, to throw it in, to say, "That's it, I've had enough, I'm going to go and look for another Church." But he went to a man by the name of Eugene Peterson who's the man who translated the Bible into the translation called, "The Message" and Eugene Peterson gave him some godly advice that went something like this. He said:
As I've continued to think and pray I want to urge you not to be too eager to solve the problems and get rid of the suffering that is coming from the murmuring congregation and to believe that God knew what kind of congregation it was when He called you there and that perhaps the pain that they inflict is being used for God's purposes of Holiness in you.
See, when we are in the desert and we've been hungering for forty days we've got this acute need, this acute pain. What we want to do is to end the pain but God's view, God knows that:
… suffering produces endurance and the endurance produces character and the character produces a hope and its a hope that doesn't disappoint us because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that's been given to us.
That's what Paul writes in Romans chapter 5, verse 3.
God is teaching us not to rely on our own goods, not to rely on our own abilities, not to rely on other people, not to rely on the devil, not to rely on ourselves. God wants to teach us in that wilderness this wonderful lesson to learn to rely on Him so that when things get bad, when things get beyond us, when things are so much bigger and harder than we can ever imagine, we can think back to that wilderness and remember the last time God provided for us.
He never leaves us there longer than we have to be there, this is the wonderful hidden thing of God, that He wants us to learn to rely on Him and when we go out there and try and provide for ourselves that's the great temptation, the logical seduction of the devil himself.

If I were God – the last place I'd send my Son would be into a desert to be tempted by the devil.  But fortunately – I'm not God and it turns out that the wilderness was exactly where Jesus needed to be.
In this day and age success is something that we can see on the outside and by and large people mostly want to be successful. A bit like that time when Jesus was baptised and the heavens opened up and God spoke:
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
Now that didn't happen when I was baptised but if it had I would have known that I was on a fast track to success in the Kingdom of God. But what God did next with Jesus was to lead him out into the wilderness.
God does some odd things sometimes; at least that's how it feels when we look at it through our human eyes. He doesn't think the way we do, He doesn't behave the way we do and when we find ourselves out in that wilderness, that mismatch in expectations, means that often we just don't understand what He's up to.
That's because success in our eyes is an outward thing. You see it in the secular market place and, let me say, you often see it in Churches too. A guy called, Doug Webster in his book, "Under the Radar" puts it this way, he says:
For all practical purposes the fullness of the Spirit seems to mean realising your full potential, becoming the kind of person everyone else wants to follow, being someone who makes things happen, competing to win and being able to prove your success by numbers. Many popular Christian writers on leadership don't even bother to distinguish between worldly success and spiritual success because in their mind the two are virtually one and the same.
Today we're going to draw that distinction and it's a sharp distinction indeed. Here's the picture, Jesus gets baptised, we looked at this yesterday but we're going to have a quick look at it again today. He comes down to the Jordan River, it's flowing, it's full of life giving water, there's a crowd and have a look at what happens when He goes to be baptised, Matthew chapter 3 if you want to have a look, in verse 13:
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John. As soon as Jesus was baptised, He comes up out of the water and that very moment heaven was opened up and He saw the Spirit of God descending on Him like a dove and a voice from heaven said, 'This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased'.
That's an awesome thing, that's an incredible picture and throughout the whole Scripture there's nothing else like it, it's completely unique but what happens immediately following that, we can read it in Luke's gospel, his account, straight after this baptism, straight after this miraculous event, he goes:
Jesus full of the Holy Spirit returns from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and at the end of them He was hungry.
Hungry, He must have been famished, He must have been starving. I mean I've gone without food for a few days and I tell you, you start getting dizzy and weak. The contrast between this spectacular baptism and the wilderness couldn't be more stark. The Jordan River with its crowds and Gods amazing deeds on the one hand and the desert, the wilderness on the other. It's so counter intuitive, it's so not what we would expect God to do but this wilderness for Jesus was an essential wilderness.
You see we expect success to follow success. We expect to go forward and up and up and up and up and up but Gods plan goes much deeper than that and if we were to discover the hidden things of God then the wilderness, the wilderness is essential.
Let's have a look at what happens to Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit. Now that's something we kind of equate with someone being charismatic and successful on the outside but He was filled with the Holy Spirit when He was baptised to equip Him for this time in the wilderness.
The crowds have gone, the audible voice of God is gone, the dove is gone, that lovely flowing river has gone and it's replaced by a desolate wilderness and the devil tempting Him and hunger and temptation and weakness and vulnerability and trial after trial.
Forty days without food, weak and needy, God takes a step back to prepare His Son. See Jesus learns obedience through what He suffers and look at who took Him out to the desert; it's easy to misread this passage. The devil? No. Look again:
Jesus full of the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert.
This was Gods idea, in fact in Marks account in Marks gospel; he puts it this way:
At once the Spirit threw Jesus out into the desert.
Literally, threw Him out there. In other words this wilderness was essential at the beginning of Jesus ministry; it was the sovereign choice of God to throw His Son out there in complete vulnerability. Into that deserted lonely place, deprived of the help and the protection of others, kind of like a sheep deserted by his shepherd, thrown out there by God Himself. Just Jesus out there on His own to be tempted by the devil.
You see, God wants to go so much deeper with us than some worldly veneer of success. He's not interested in our popularity, He's not interested in how successful we are at work or in ministry, He's not interested in other people patting us on the back. No, He has a hidden plan to forge our character, a character that will stand completely alone in the midst of that wilderness for Him. A character that will rely wholly on Him no matter what the world throws at us, a character that's forged in the furnace of the wilderness ready to be about God's business.
When we look for a leader, when we look for a disciple so often we are looking for people who are successful with a demonstrated track record who seem to have all the outward skills and appearances. How often do we ask about humility, endurance, suffering, prayer life, trials, character? These are the things that Gods interested in; these are the hidden things of God that He wants to forge in the furnace of that wilderness.
All the self help books out there describe a trajectory of success but the Bible doesn't, it marks our lives with the cross of Christ, sacrifice and suffering. Its Gods choice, Gods choice as Webster writes in his book is to forge us in the wilderness of solitude, not in ivory towers, not on dream teams but on the anvil of loneliness, abandonment and weakness.
You see Israel in the first century were looking for a messiah. They were occupied by the Romans, they were suffering but they weren't looking for Jesus, He didn't look like anything what they were looking for. Here some bedraggled guy, nothing much to look at who wanders out of the desert after forty days of being tempted. He's hungry, He's vulnerable, He's been tempted.
He's got none of the trappings of success, nothing to commend Him except this. That in that hidden place He withstood the devil, in that wilderness all alone, hungry and weak he relied on one thing and one thing alone, the fullness of the Spirit of God within Him to get Him through and then and only then was He ready to begin His journey to the cross. Then and only then did God release Him to bring the good news to the poor, to give sight to the blind and bind up the broken hearted.
That's exactly the same with us, the Lord leads us into the wilderness, that essential wilderness and then, then He seems to desert us, to leave us all alone except for this. That for each one of us who's placed their faith in Jesus Christ, He has left His Spirit in us, the Spirit who will sustain us, the Spirit who in our weakness and vulnerability will defeat Satan and in that place we discover the hidden things of God.

We like surface things, comfort, recognition…worldly success.  We just do.  But as Jesus discovered, as He starved in the wilderness – during those tough times….it's about something much deeper.
I wonder if I ask you to define success, exactly how would you go about doing it? I mean what does success mean to you? I know that for a long time success for me meant recognition, wealth. Whatever I chose to do, being the best and reaping the rewards and then when I had the rewards, spending them in ways that demonstrated that indeed I was successful.
Success meant achieving, being seen to achieve and in every way reaping the rewards and that's pretty much the way of the world. Everything the advertising industry does reinforces that image of success, it's a surface thing and by implication the things that constitute success, according to the world's rules, those outwards signs of success, they're supposed to make us happy on the inside. Well, at least that's the theory.
I read a book recently by Doug Webster and it's called, "Under the Radar". It's one of those short books that just blew me away. This week on the program we're going to unpack that a little bit to see what he has to say. He makes the point that some of the most successful leaders he knows are people who have achieved so much but they're people that you or I will never, never know.
In a sense they're men and women who followed Gods call on their lives and flew under the radar of public recognition into the hearts and the lives of men and women and children around them. And it challenges our worldly images of success. Inevitably these great leaders are people who have spent time in the wilderness, people who have struggled and been vulnerable and allowed God into their lives in the midst of that wilderness.
Webster challenges me with this statement:
We shouldn't be surprised that the Bible calls for leadership that the world doesn't recognise as leadership. We have trouble identifying the 'David' type leader whose character and leadership have been forged in the wilderness while caring for the sheep.
It makes you think. We're going to look at this week, Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus in the desert, being tempted by the devil. Here's the Son of God and He ends up in this dark and lonely place but just before we go there, I'd like to share with you what happened to Jesus immediately before He ends up in the wilderness being tempted by the devil and it's the story of His baptism, it's pretty spectacular story. Matthew in his gospel chapter 3, verse 13 puts it this way, he says:
Jesus came down from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John the Baptist but John tried to send Him away saying, 'Look I need to be baptised by you Lord and you come to me?' But Jesus replied, 'Come on, lets do it, its proper for us to do this and to fulfil all righteousness.'
So John consented. And as soon as Jesus was baptised He came up out of the water and at that very moment heaven was opened and He saw the spirit of God descending down on Him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, 'This, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased'.
Now I want you to think about that for a moment, is that success or what? I mean you go down to be baptised, you're coming up out of the water, the heavens open up, God speaks:
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
This man is special, I tell you what, if I was in my baptism and that happened to me I'd be thinking, "Man I have arrived, I have made it, I am on a fast track to success in the Kingdom of God." Wouldn't you think the same?
And if we were standing there watching this, seeing Jesus come up out of the water and hearing that, God speak and the heavens open up and the spirit of God descend down on Jesus like a dove. We'd be saying, "now here's a man who's successful, here is a man worth following. This is exactly the sort of man I'd want to appoint as the head of my dynamic, fast growing, successful, contemporary Church. He's got all the outward trappings of success."
And you see that in so many Churches, again Webster writes:
Pastors and lay leaders alike judge success by worldly standards. The allure of great numbers and grand visions and expensive budgets and creative programming but it's only a matter of time before they become disillusioned with the experts and the consultants and the executives whom they've chosen to run their Church according to a competitive business model.
Has a bit of a ring of truth about it doesn't it? Because in Gods plan, well in Gods plan there's something more something much more, something deeper.
This baptism of Jesus going into the Jordan and being baptised by John, it signalled the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. You see, the first three decades of His life, He was an apprentice carpenter in His dads carpenter shop in Nazareth, making chairs I guess and coffins and doors and God wasn't in a hurry with Jesus but now, now Jesus is about to be launched into public life, into public ministry and He ends up with a stunning ministry.
We can read it in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, He heals people, He does amazing miracles, He does all sorts of things and ultimately He's crucified on the cross and rises again.
So this was a fitting ceremony, a great rite of passage, pretty showy stuff to launch Jesus in His public ministry and if you or I were God, my hunch is we would have said, "right He's ready, lets send Him out to the temple or the synagogue or lets go and do miracles. Let's get Him out there, let's get the recognition, let's get Him on the circuit. Maybe He should write a book or two and publish and have a radio program."
Surely from there, Jesus was on a fast track to success but look what happens next, immediately following that baptism. Luke's gospel says this, Luke chapter 4, verse 1:
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and at the end of them He was hungry.
Well some fast track, I mean Jesus had a wilderness experience ahead of Him; He got led into the desert. I mean I don't know if you've ever been in a desert, maybe you live near one. I mean Australia is 80% desert and what I know is when people get lost in a desert for a few days they can end up dying.
I mean it's a harsh, horrible place, extremes of temperature, hot during the day, freezing cold at night. If I was God I wouldn't have sent my Son there, I would have put him in somewhere comfortable and set him up for his ministry. Fortunately I'm not God.
Jesus had a wilderness experience starving, bedraggled, alone, vulnerable. In fact there couldn't be a starker contrast between His baptism in the Jordan, fresh flowing living water, all these crowds, the public shows up, God shows up. Compare that to the wilderness, this place of desolation, completely alone except for the devil. Some fast track, some, some plan God, what were you thinking? But this was Gods chosen way and we're going to look at that over the next few days on the program.
Jesus full of the Holy Spirit comes back from the Jordan and was led by the spirit into the desert. You see it wasn't the devil that took Him there, it was God that took Him there because God had a plan, God knew that Jesus needed to spend some time in that wilderness, vulnerable and weak being tempted by the devil before He would be ready for the ministry that God had planned for Him.