Do Less Not More: Lent I

As I approached Lent this year,
the Lord said 
"Do less,
not more."

When God speaks to us,
it is often desceptively simple.
God invites you to do something
and then you discover 
that the thing he asked you
was either not what it was about at all,
or completely impossible,
and you are left desperate for his help.

Today we heard a story we have all heard before.
It is deceptively simple.

God formed a man
out of the dust of the earth.
The Lord breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life
and that creature became a living soul.
And then God 
put the man 
into a beautiful garden
and gave him simple directions.
Name every creature
and be fruitful and multiply.

And there was a another detail
there are two trees
in the garden,
and the man is told
you can eat everything in the garden.
You can eat all the plants
and you can eat from the tree of life.
We forget this detail.
But you must not eat from the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil.
If you eat this tree,
you will die.

And then God created a woman
to be the help of this man,
because it was not good for him to be alone.

And there was a creature in the garden,
who was subtle,
crafty,
or
clever.
He was smart
and had been around.
You see,
this garden
was intended as heaven on earth
where man and God would live together in relationship
and where God and man would 
reign over the earth.
And this serpent
was not a snake,
but a spiritual being 
described in other places as "a son of God."
The same word is used for the firey serpents who attacked
the Israelites in the wilderness
and the serpent made of bronze.
And this serpent
came to the woman
and he said,
"I hear that you were told you can't eat from 
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."
And the woman
rightly,
said God said they could eat every tree,
but that one.
And the serpent said,
"oh."

And then he did what the demonic always does,
he gave her the truth
with a twist.
It wasn't an outright lie,
it was a distortion.
And the distortion
always twists the character of God.
"Well, you will not die,
you will know good and evil,
and then you will be like God."

You see,
the enemy was trying to keep this young thing
from knowing the truth.
She already was like God.
She didn't know who she was 
and so she fell into the trap.
And she began to enter a dialogue with evil.

And so,
the woman
took the fruit,
she gave it to her man
and they ate.
And then
their eyes were opened,
and they had that experience
we all have.
They saw the promise
and the blessing
slip through their fingers.
And the words
that we said on Wednesday
were spoken by God:
you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.
You are now going to die.
Death entered the world.
Through one man.

Let's fast forward.
The effects of this little episode have now 
spread throughout the world.
And now,
instead of a beautiful garden
we are in a desert.
He is in one of the driest places on earth.
The sea is dead.
The sand is white.

We have another man.
This one is alone.
And he is out in this dry place
with no food and no water.
And this same serpent comes
this time he has a different name.
He is not very creative,
and he uses the same tactics.

He distorts the truth,
and again
tempts Jesus with more than what God says.
The temptation is always to the more.
Do more than the directions.
And so he says
turn bread into stone
tempt God by attempting suicide
rush the process and worship me.

And this is the interesting thing.
The snake uses the Bible to tempt Jesus.
And Jesus
retorts with the Bible.
But Jesus isn't using the scripture 
because it has magic power.
Jesus is quoting the scripture
and telling the serpent
one thing.

I know who I am.
And this is what the scripture says of me.
I came to fulfill.
I am the one the scripture speaks of.
I am the LORD your God
and you cannot put me to the test.

And Jesus
out of his center
of being and well-being
rebukes the devil
and he must flee.
This isn't about some method 
that Jesus used to overcome temptation.
Jesus didn't do anything.
Jesus was.

Do you get this?
Jesus was a different kind of human being.
He knew who he was.
And the Power, Presence, and Person
of the Holy Spirit
in him
moved from the inside out.

A few weeks ago
the Lord asked me to invite our community 
to intentionally fast from media
during Lent.
There is amazing power in agreement.
Fasting from media
is a very difficult thing
in this world.
And for many of us,
we use media
as a form of anesthetic to deal with the pain
coming from the days we live in.
The first thing you have to experience
is detox
and withdrawal.
It takes a couple days 
to accept the pain
and the noise you feel
when you remove the distraction.
And then we have people
who want to do more than what God asks.
God said turn off the media,
and that is really hard.

He didn't ask you to do a lot of heroic extra things.
He asked you to get quiet and do less.
And I have had a few reports 
of folks in our community 
trying to give up a lot of stuff 
in addition to the media fast.
This media fast is the hardest thing 
you are going to do.
Trust me.
And it is painful.

It is just as disobedient to do more 
than God asks
than to not do what God asks.

When you do more than God asks
that is what Paul said to the Galatians,
you are adding to gospel,
and that is witchcraft
because you think your activity is going to give you favor with God.
Your activity
will only open up the door to a curse.

God isn't asking you to do more for him.
God is asking you to make space
so that you will come into agreement with him.
This year has already been interesting,
because we have seen 
a lot of powerful shifts in lives
in the first three days,
because a handful of people have come into agreement
to fast and pray.
This is probably the most powerful thing we have ever done
as a community.

And this is the point,
and the point of lent.

We forget who we are.
When you come to Christ
Paul tells us in II Corinthians 5:17
that you are a new creation.
That is not a metaphor.
Paul is not saying,
now you have been born again
and you agree with Bible stuff,
and you have to try to live a moral life.

No.
Paul is saying to you,
you are filled with the breath of life.
You have died with Christ in baptism
and you are now
reborn by water and the spirit,
and you are now
a totally different being.
You are more than your original parents
Adam and Eve
who were innocents
and easily duped by the serpent.

You are "holy" beings.
You are "redeemed"
not innocent,
but restored.
You are more than you were
and you can live out of that place.
You can rest in who you are
and when the enemy comes at you
you do not have to do anything
or try to outsmart him.
You simply have to say,
I am in Jesus.
Jesus is in me.
I am a new creature
and this is the truth.
I can breath.

Greater is he who is in me.
I don't have to do more
to have influence in heaven or against the devil.
I don't have to hustle to build something.
I only have to do what God says.
Nothing more
nothing less.

That's good news.

That's the kingdom.

We have seen so much power flowing 
in this community 
from this simple act of obedience.
We live in a church
where everyone does what is right in their own eyes.

Imagine if all the Christians
actually did whatever God said,
and just that.
We would be unstoppable.

As we begin lent,
I want to invite you to join us in this fast
at whatever level you are able.
And if you are trying to do more than 
God asks,
or you are pushing back against me 
and my leadership
in this area,
I want to gently ask you to repent.
We deal with a lot of witchcraft,
and most of it comes from 
the baseline of rebellion and stubbornness in the 
church in the US.
Most of the witchcraft and spiritual attack
I deal with
comes from Christians
who are not listening to God.
The days for this are past.

God is calling us 
toward the passover of the Lord,
Easter,
and to a renewing of our calling to be 
bearers of the glory of God.
Repent,
and believe the gospel.
Amen.