So how's lent going? Maybe some of you may have
let go of something during the lent sacrifice
But maybe have you already started to maybe renegotiate
Maybe you've decided. Hey, you know what? I didn't
really need to give this up for lent Maybe I
could just kind of change it up a little bit.
Would that be okay? Or you were adjusting it
because you said, you know, it's just not quite
that doable after all or Maybe you were just
deciding you know what? I'm just going to go
ahead and give this one up this year. I will
try again next time. How many times that it's
something we decided we were going to let go
of during Lent, and yet we're the ones who decide
that we're not going to follow through after
all. It's remarkable how quickly that we discover
something about ourselves. The moment we say,
I'm not going to have this thing here. That's
the very thing that seems to glow brighter. The
dessert tastes a little bit better whenever it's
forbidden. The phone feels a little heavier in
our pockets when we've promised that we're not
going to check it. The boundary just kind of
sits there, but it hums from our pockets. See,
there is something in us that reacts to the word
no, like dry timbers reacting to a spark. See,
Paul wrestles with that in Romans 7. He says
he would not have known coveting if the law had
not said do not covet. The commandment that was
meant for life somehow becomes an opportunity
for sin. The line in the sand doesn't just reveal
the problem. Somehow it seems to stir it. Why
is that? Why does being told not to reach for
something make us want it? even more. See, the
question though, it's older than Lent and it's
older than Paul, it takes us back to a garden.
In Genesis 3, everything is given except for
one tree. Abundance is everywhere, all these
fruits, all these vegetables, all these things
that are out there, but one boundary, and suddenly
that one tree becomes the center of attention.
Centuries later, we're going to be looking at
the wilderness in Matthew 4, not a garden, not
abundance, just hunger. But again, there will
be a voice that is whispering about bread, power,
and shortcuts. Two moments in our message today,
two temptations, two humanities that are standing
in the balance, and somewhere between that garden
and that wilderness. is the explanation for why
Lent exposes us so quickly and why our hope cannot
possibly rest on our own willpower. When we step
into the garden, we need to start with something
very simple. What did God actually say? God did
not give Adam and Eve a maze of regulations.
He did not bury them under fine print to trick
them into breaking a contract. In Genesis 2,
God gave one clear command. You may eat from
every tree in the garden, but from the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not
eat. It's one boundary. In a world of abundance.
But listen carefully to Eve's response in Genesis
3 when the snake asks her about the command.
She says, We may eat of the fruit of the trees
in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat
of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst
of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest
you die. But God never said, do not touch it.
Okay, already something has shifted. The command
has grown sharper, heavier. It's been expounded.
That tells us something. Because then the issue
was not a lack of clarity from God. The issue
was something beginning to stir within the human
heart. The boundary felt restrictive. The command?
It felt suspect. The goodness of God was being
quietly questioned, and it made the command feel
even harder to follow. When we think about how
difficult it seems we sometimes assume Adam and
Eve were set up to fail Because if we're honest
that is how life often feels to us Temptation
it feels overwhelming obedience feels uphill
We think of course they ate the fruit who wouldn't
But they're not in the same condition that we
are We are born subject to sin. They were not
We wake up each morning with desires that are
bent inward They did not We fight impulses that
we did not choose to have They were created upright
free able not to sin and Yet, they still chose
it That is what makes the fall so weighty. This
was not weakness because of corruption. This
was rebellion within freedom. They had every
capacity to trust the Word of God. And instead,
they trusted the whispering of questioning and
temptation. And when they did, something catastrophic
happened. Original sin is not just that Adam
and Eve committed the first bad act. It is that
their fall bent the entire human race. Scripture
teaches that we are born into that corruption.
It's not neutral, not spiritually blank slates,
but we're already curved away from God. That
means that sin is not just imitating those first
parents. It's our inheritance. We're not sinners
as a result of our sins. We sin as a result of
being sinners. We inherit a nature that is corrupted
a will that distrusts God a heart that wants
our own ways That's why lent feels so exposing
because when we try to discipline ourselves We
discover something unsettling The resistance
is not outside of us. It is within us It shows
up when forgiveness feels optional, but resentment
feels justified It shows up when we pray for
God's will, but quietly we prefer our own timeline.
It shows up when we replay conversations in our
head instead of releasing them in forgiveness.
It shows up when we justify our impatience because
we feel overworked. It shows up in the quiet
confidence that we would have handled the Garden
of Eden better. We sometimes struggle with that
idea of inheriting something broken. We ask,
how can I be affected by something someone else
did? And yet we understand inheritance everywhere
else. Children inherit physical traits without
choosing them. Eye color, bone structure, predispositions
to certain diseases. Scientists even talk about
inherited patterns of behavior in animals. A
puppy immediately born into the world already
knows how to root for milk. A sea turtle hatched
on a beach somehow knows to move out to the ocean.
Instinct is passed down. Patterns are embedded.
If we understand that physical life carries inherited
traits, why is it so strange? to think that spiritual
life does as well. We are born into Adam's line,
and Adam's line is fallen. This corruption does
not only touch our souls though, it ripples through
creation itself. Our bodies break down and don't
behave as God intended, our minds misfire, the
ground resists gardening, the relationships we
have fracture, even the world groans under decay.
Death was not part of the original design. Disorder
was not part of the original design. But now
both are woven into our daily experience. We
do not sin merely because we imitate Adam. We
sin because we are born from him. And that is
why we cannot fix ourselves. If the problem were
only behavior, we could try harder. If the problem
were only environment, we could change that.
But the problem is inheritance. The problem is
nature. Which means a solution cannot come from
within Adam's line. It has to come from outside
it. Now this scene shifts from a garden that
is lush with fruit to a bare wilderness. From
shade and abundance to sin and hunger. From Adam
standing beside a tree to Jesus standing in dust.
The first Adam faces a simple boundary and pushes
past it. Jesus faces real hunger, real weakness,
real temptation, but he follows what's right.
And we have to ask why does it matter though
so much for Jesus to say no to these things?
Because Satan's temptations, they're not ridiculous.
They're pretty reasonable. You're hungry? Well,
turn stones into bread. I mean, what's the big
deal? Or prove to everyone who you are so they
can follow you. Just jump from the temple and
let the angels catch you. You will silence all
the doubters. Or take the kingdoms of the world
without having to go to the cross. Rule now and
just skip the suffering. Each temptation whispers
the same line spoken in the Garden of Eden. You
can have the good things without trusting the
Father. You can grasp it. You can secure it for
yourself. But Jesus refuses. Why? Because there
was a purpose for being in the wilderness. There
was a reason for fasting. There was a reason
for hunger. Jesus was not wandering aimlessly.
He was preparing for the journey to come. He
was consecrating himself to the Father's will.
The deprivation was not pointless. It was forming
him for what was to come next. And that's part
of what Lent is training us for. Because when
we let something go, it's not because that thing
is always evil. Bread is not evil. Food is not
evil. Sweets are not evil. What you enjoy to
drink is not evil. Comfort is not evil. The issue
is whether we believe we need them more than
we need the Father. You see, Lent peels back
our illusions about the things that we want.
It reveals how quickly we justify getting them.
How easily we say, what's the big deal? Just
this once, right? Just a little compromise. Just
one shortcut. Jesus stands in the wilderness
and says no where Adam said yes. But he is not
resisting as someone born into Adam's corruption.
Conceived by the Holy Spirit, Jesus enters humanity
without inheriting its bent. He is not dragged
by some inward rebellion. Jesus stands free.
And sometimes that bothers us. Of course he resisted
temptation. He's God. That's not fair. But think
about what we're actually saying. Imagine you're
drowning in a river. The current is stronger
than you thought. Your limbs are giving out.
You cannot reach the bank. And then someone on
solid ground throws you a line, braces themselves,
and pulls you out. And once you are coughing
on the shore, you shout out, That's not fair.
That doesn't count. You weren't drowning like
I was. Wouldn't that be absurd? You don't need
another drowning victim. You need someone standing
where the current cannot sweep them away. But
you see, the only person who truly knows the
strength of temptation is the one who never gives
in and never had to deal in the same. in the
first place. The one who never gives in, but
never had to be one weak enough to give in. The
one who resists feels the full force, while the
one who surrendered never did. Jesus does not
resist temptation because temptation is easy.
He resists because he is strong in obedience.
He is strong in trust. strong in love for the
Father. And here is where the Gospel beats for
us, because He did it for us. He didn't need
to go through it in the first place for Himself.
The first Adam stood in a garden bursting with
life, and he reached for what was not given to
him. And in that reaching, everything cracked.
Death entered, corruption spread, the ground
resisted. The body decayed. The soul focused
on itself. And we protest. It's not fair. Why
should we be subject to what they did? But if
we're honest, what confidence do we really have
that we would have done better? We struggle daily
to trust God with far smaller commands. We rationalize.
We soften boundaries. We adjust the wording,
just like Eve did. we explain away rebellion
in ourselves while condemning theirs. If anything,
our attempts to justify Adam and Eve reveal how
deeply their condition lives in us. So the issue
was never fairness. If God were concerned with
strict fairness, the story would have ended in
Genesis 3. Instead, from that very moment of
the fall, God was already speaking promise. Already
clothing, shame, already marking out a people.
Already weaving mercy into history. Faith has
always been the thread. Trust in His Word has
always been the way. And then the Word became
flesh and dwelt among us. Not to observe, not
to sympathize from a distance, but to stand where
Adam fell. Jesus enters the wilderness as the
second Adam. Where the first Adam grasped, the
second Adam refused. Where the first doubted,
Jesus trusts. Where the first chose himself,
Jesus chose the Father. And he does not stop
at just resisting bread, spectacle, and power.
He goes all the way to the cross. You see, we
were carried by a current that we could not fight.
Christ stands on ground Conceived by the Holy
Spirit not born under Adam's corruption He faces
temptation without bending towards sin. He feels
its full force and does not yield So when he
pulls us from the water, we do not accuse him
for not drowning We thank him for not drowning
ourselves Because now there is a new inheritance.
We inherited corruption from the first Adam without
asking for it. We inherit righteousness from
the second Adam by faith. The first passed down
death, the second passes down life. The first
handed us condemnation, the second gives us his
obedience. Created and credited to us as if it
were our own. This is not fairness. It's grace.
Fair would have left us in the river. Grace sends
us the sun. And that reshapes how we see Lent.
When we let something go, it is not a competition
with other believers. It is not a spiritual scoreboard.
It is not about who sacrifices more or who struggles
less. We are not measuring fairness. We're training
our hearts. We let go during this season of Lent
of the unimportant things to remember who truly
never lets go of us. We fast not to impress God,
but to expose our illusion of always being filled.
We surrender comforts to learn that comfort was
never the Savior. We feel the ache so we can
rediscover the deeper satisfaction that has already
been secured for us in Christ. Some of us wrestle
with temptations that others do not Some of us
have addictions and burdens that feel uniquely
heavy to us and again the whisper It's not fair
No No, it's not But neither is the cross Neither
is a righteousness that we did not earn neither
is an inheritance that we did not secure Neither
is eternal life that's given freely to those
who trust. We are not walking this wilderness
alone. The second Adam has already walked it.
He has already won. And by faith, his victory
is ours. You are not in the wilderness trying
to win something. You are there because Christ
has already won everything. You are not negotiating
an inheritance. You already have one. You're
not fighting for righteousness. You've already
been given righteousness. So when Lent exposes
you, it does not threaten. It reminds you who
your Adam truly is. Because the first Adam brought
death, but the second Adam gives you life. His
victory is not fragile. It doesn't fall away
when you stumble. It is completely yours. So
in this season of letting go of the things we
do not need, may we cling more tightly to Christ.
Not to our strength, not to our discipline, not
to our performance, but to him. Because the one
who stood in the wilderness for you still stands
for you even now. Thanks be to God.