I am Convinced that... Love Overcomes

Today we start a new series, just in time for Lent. It’s a collaboration between me and my pastor cluster. We decided to call the series “Convinced” and focus on this truth: I am convinced that there is nothing that can separate me from the love of God. Let’s get started!

We are a people at war, and there are casualties all around us. Almost everyone has been affected in some way or another. We are in the midst of a terrible battle, yet some don’t even realize we are at war. This is because the war isn’t one that is merely held in the physical plane; it is a spiritual battle. All you need to do to see the effects of this spiritual battle is look around you. Our country is a mess – politically, financially, and morally. And we’re the good part. It seems like a day can’t go by without a new suicide attack somewhere, usually with religion as its stated rationale. Sex crimes are reported all the time, and the perpetrators are priests, pastors, family, and other trusted members of society. Addictions are rampant: alcohol, drugs, gambling. Marriages are crumbling. We don’t even have to look outside our own church to see problems. In our very church I see a battleground. We have been experiencing crisis over the past several years. Most recently, we have entered into a financial crisis, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence. When I arrived here in Millersport, we did a sermon series on the full armor of God. I told you that when we start to acknowledge the reality of spiritual warfare, that Satan will renew his attacks on us. In my favorite movie, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, we find Theodin, King of Rohan, discussing war with Aragorn. Aragorn is trying to convince Theodin to send the warriors of Rohan into battle, but Theodin is concerned with the safety of the people of Rohan. “I cannot not risk open war.” Aragorn responds by telling him, “Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.” Rather than meet the opponent head-on, Theodin would rather retreat to the safety of their fortress and hide.

Many of us respond the same way. We need to be reminded that open spiritual warfare is upon us, whether we would risk it or not. In his book, The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis wrote, “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

Focusing on spiritual warfare can lead us to either extreme; many of us have a practical disbelief in spiritual forces of evil, unbelief in Satan, and refusal to accept that there is an unseen battle around us. We explain away what others explain as spiritual attacks with rational and logical explanations.  Or we can go overboard and attribute every bad circumstance to the devil.  Those of us old enough to remember him laugh as Flip Wilson offers his punch line, “The Devil made me do it!” (if you don’t know who Flip Wilson is, you can find him on YouTube).

Here’s the deal; spiritual warfare is upon us. But that’s not the end of the story. Paul writes to the church in Rome, saying: I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

As we go through Lent this year, we are going to be looking at Spiritual warfare in the Gospel of Mark. But there is no sense in giving the devil credit and airtime that he doesn’t deserve. Instead, we will be looking at it through the lens of Jesus Christ. I am convinced that Jesus Christ wins, and through the Book of Mark we can see how we can have that victory as well.

Let’s get started. If you’ve got your Bibles, we’re going to be looking at Mark 1:9-13 today.

At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

Mark doesn’t go into the birth narrative or the genealogies; he starts with a brief introduction to John the Baptist and immediately goes into the passage I read. We are first introduced to Jesus, who hasn’t done anything yet. He’s being baptized by John, and he sees heaven torn open and the Holy Spirit descending and God the Father speaks audibly to him. Amazing! How many of you experienced that at your baptism?

Now I don’t know how God speaks primarily to you, but He usually uses His Word and His people to speak to me. Sometimes He has spoken miraculously to me, but honestly I have never heard that audible voice. So when God speaks audibly, we ought to take note.

God tells Jesus: You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased. I love this verse. There is nothing random about this verse, including where it occurs in the Gospel. What has Jesus done up to this point? If you answered “nothing” then you’ve got it right. God the Father tells Jesus the Son that He loves Him – independent of Jesus’ actions, God loves him and is pleased with him. This is true for us as well, and this is the first lesson we need to understand when we are dealing with spiritual warfare: God’s love for us is independent from our actions.

Paul puts it this way: God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8). I am convinced that God’s love will always overcome. There is a reason God spoke His love audibly to His Son at the beginning of His ministry. Because God knew that even for His Son, living for God will always encounter resistance.

Immediately after God pronounces His love for His Son, Jesus is taken to the desert for forty days of temptation. I am convinced that whenever God is on the move, Satan attacks. As you might know, several of my pastor friends are collaborating with me on this series, and my friend Rob, the pastor at Summit Station, shared his experience with us. God is obviously moving in a powerful way there; they have vibrant ministries to children and families, they are doing significant mission work, and their worship services are jam packed. Rob knows that God has more in store for them, so he started preaching a series on the vision of the church, and every time he preaches on God’s vision for the church, crazy stuff happens. On the first Sunday when he began talking about vision, two squirrels fought up and down the window sills around the sanctuary, distracting the congregation through the entire message. Coincidence? Possibly. The next week, a cat got into the sanctuary just as Rob began to preach. After ten crazy minutes, Rob finally caught the cat by the scruff of its neck and took it out… and the cat took a chunk out of Rob’s finger. Another coincidence? The very next time Rob preached on vision, they had a first-time visitor who heckled Rob through the whole message and who continues to call the church and leave long, rambling messages. Rob hadn’t heard from him in a while, but as soon as he began to speak on the vision again, guess who called on that Sunday morning?

You could always find a logical explanation for all of this, but I’m convinced that Satan is trying to distract that congregation from what God is doing. Rob shared that there weren’t that kind of attacks when he was in another church where God was not so obviously on the move.

I share that to say this: our church is going through some tough times. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that when we made a deliberate move to grow spiritually that Satan’s attacks started. When I got here, on top of the bookshelves in the church office was a grand drawing of a new church building. I was told that a building program was imminent, but that the goal needed to be spiritual growth first. So we put all of our emphasis toward spiritual growth, beginning the cell group ministry, focusing youth ministry on depth, teaching significant classes on hermeneutics, marriage classes, Rudy’s current class on Jesus, depth in our Sunday morning messages… And we’re being attacked.

Did you notice that Mark doesn’t detail the temptations Jesus was tempted with? Matthew does, and Luke does. But Mark doesn’t. I think that’s deliberate. After all, Matthew and Luke only show three temptations, but Mark lets us know that Jesus was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. The temptations are ongoing. We undergo ongoing temptations. Satan has tempted me to temper down my sermons, to focus on other true aspects of scripture, but not to go after him. To offer self-help sermons “how to be a better you” instead of offering the one Truth that Satan fears most: Jesus himself. I have been tempted to defend myself from the downright nasty, unchristian things that have been said about me. I have been tempted to not talk about hot topics like money, just because I get complaints – by the way, you can go with the Old Testament command to tithe (that’s 10%) or you can go with the New Testament mandate that it all belongs to God – and you can’t serve God and money and it’s pretty obvious that this is an issue in our community and church. There have been times when I have been tempted to just throw up my hands and say, “forget it all.”

But I am convinced that love overcomes.

There is a little phrase in the scripture that I often read over without even thinking about it. Jesus was in the desert, being tempted, and this is what Mark records: He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him. Did you ever notice that? When I think of wild animals, I think of lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) – fearsome animals. Jesus is in the midst of them, yet angels attend him. He has nothing to fear.

We are in the same situation. There are wild animals all around us, whether they take the shape of financial woes, discord at home, troubles with a job, whatever realm Satan is attacking in. Open war is upon us, whether we would risk it or not. To go back to the situation I opened with, when Theodin, King of Rohan, finally decided to go to war, he brought his troops against a mighty opponent that outnumbered them tremendously. Then at the last minute, reinforcements came. But we don’t even have to wait for those reinforcements, because they are always with us. Much like the angels who attended Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit with us.

The work of God will always encounter Satan’s resistance, but remember this: No matter what happens, no matter what you’ve done, no matter how Satan accuses and attacks you, you are beloved by God. That will not change. And remember that through our temptations and struggles and Satan’s attacks, God will never leave us or forsake us.

As we begin this journey in Lent and this study through the Book of Mark leading up to our celebration of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter, I invite you to pray with me for this church. I have been praying that God will do something here that only God can take credit for. I don’t want it to be something that gives me glory or any of us glory; I want God to be glorified. Please join with me in focusing your prayers during this time. I have been working with six other pastors for several months on this series, and we have committed to pray and fast for one another. Every morning I pray for them by name and for their churches, and they are praying for us. This is the only way to fight Satan; to be fully committed and connected to God through Jesus Christ, led by the Holy Spirit.