Dear Christian friends:

Here in California during the heavy rainstorms recently a few lives were lost and millions of dollars in property damage resulted. These calamities represent some of life's tribulations. Others are illnesses, crimes, accidents, loss of loved ones, and war.

These adversities test our faith and they happen to Christians and non-Christians alike. However, Christians may also face ridicule, rejection and discrimination from non-Christians.

We thank God for good times, peace and prosperity, but bad times do come inevitably, sometimes sooner than we might expect.

A strong political tide swept a congressman out of office, much to his surprise. At a victory dinner for his opponent, the defeated old lawmaker was asked to say a few words. He rose and dryly said, "I am reminded of an epitaph on an old tombstone in the cemetery. It reads: "I had expected this, but not so soon."

We Christians need to be prepared for the inevitable days that try our faith. Only when we resolutely face those days trusting God's grace are we able to say with confidence: "We shall overcome!" Our text, which is the Gospel lesson for today, helps to give us this resolution and confidence. It assures us that:

Sometimes it is hard for us to believe that God is on our side and that we shall get the victory. When we are actually experiencing these various kinds of hardships and trials we may tend to panic and experience terror, despair and a feeling of defeat in life. We may not at such times believe that victory is ours, and we become vulnerable to Satan.

As I said before, we Christians face the same kind of difficulties in life as non-Christians, but in addition we also undergo tribulations precisely because we are Christians, because we follow Christ's way and the heavenly Father's way, which the world does not follow and despises.

Modern dangers or temptations that we Christians face include pressure, scorn and ridicule from a society whose lifestyle contrasts drastically with Christian commitment. Michael Medved, co-host of the weekly PBS television program, "Sneak Previews" in an article entitled, "Popular Culture and The War Against Standards," documents this.

Some pertinent excerpts: "In the visual arts, in literature, in film, in music of both popular and classical variety, ugliness has been enshrined as a new standard, as we accept the ability to shock as a replacement for the old ability to inspire... Today the movie business regularly offers us characters who are smaller than life, who are less decent, less intelligent, less noble than our friends and neighbors... A war against standards leads logically and inevitably to hostility to religion, because it is religious faith that provides the ultimate basis for all standards."

In documenting the hostility against organized religion he cites a popular TV show, "The Simpsons." In one scene the cartoon Simpson family is gathered around the dinner table. The father, Homer, intones sarcastically: "Dear God, we pay for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing." This is supposed to get a laugh, and probably does from many of our popular culture people who are anti-God.

This popular cultural war against Christian standards and ideals, plus the afore mentioned adversities, tests our faith. At times we may wonder if God is really in control and if he will deliver us from evil, if we shall get the victory.

Our text, as well as many other passages of the Bible assure us that we shall indeed overcome. It assures us that Christ's victory is our victory.

When President Abraham Lincoln was told that the North would win the Civil War because God was on their side, he wisely replied, "I am not as much concerned whether God is on our side as whether we are on his side."

We should not presume that God is for us just because we do a bit of good now and then or that we are by nature some how better than the enemy.

The one and only reason God is for us is because he has sent his Son Jesus the Christ to die on the cross for the sins of the whole world.

Christ's perfect work of redemption has turned away God's anger, and caused him to turn his gracious face to us in love and mercy. There has actually been a change in God's attitude toward us because of what Jesus Christ, his Son, has done for us. Instead of being against us God is now for us.

Jesus got the victory over Satan and all evil for us. In order to appreciate this we need to look more closely at Jesus' victory. What kind of battle was it?

Satan tempted Jesus to give up His mission as the Christ. In our text we read,"And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered." (verses 1-2)

Our text tells us that Jesus, "returned from the Jordan." What had happened there at the Jordan River? There John had baptized Jesus! There the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit came down on Him! There the Father spoke from heaven saying, "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." (Luke 3:21-22)

There at the Jordan the Father himself declared Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Mary to be also his very own Son, the Christ, the Savior. There at the Jordan he was anointed to be the Savior of the world.

But Satan wanted Jesus to forget God's call and be the Christ that most of the Jews were expecting, a Christ who is only a man a Christ who will be a great earthly ruler, the same as King David had been almost one-thousand years before when Israel was a world power.

They were not expecting the Christ God had promised through the prophets, his own eternal Son, a Christ who must suffer and die on a cross, a Christ who will establish His eternal, spiritual and heavenly kingdom, which eventually would replace the kingdoms of this world.

If we study the three temptations listed here in the text, we see that all three are basically the same. They tempt Jesus to be the earthly, military king that most of the Jews expected and wanted. In these temptations Satan offers Jesus earthly riches and glory without the Cross.

Thank God! Jesus resisted every temptation that Satan offered. Later on, during the three years of his ministry, Satan tried again and again to tempt Jesus so that he would not fulfill God's good and gracious plan to redeem the world, especially in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he was crucified.

Our text foretells this when it states, "When the devil had finished all his tempting, he left him until an opportune time." (verse 13) Jesus refused to listen to Satan in all these many temptations. He resorted to prayer. He submitted to the heavenly Father's loving will. His love for the Father and for us enabled him to resist Satan's temptations and get the victory!

Jesus' victory over Satan is also our victory. Because Jesus obeyed the Father's good and gracious will and refused to obey Satan's evil will, we now have forgiveness of sins. Jesus suffered our punishment on the cross, the wrath of God that we and all men rightly deserve.

If we humbly confess our sins and sinfulness and believe in Jesus' atonement, his victory is our victory. Paul says, "Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 15:56)

Since Jesus' victory is now our victory, we Christians are confident that by his continued grace we shall prevail and overcome. Although we accept responsibility for our choices and actions, we realize that life is neither fully nor finally under our control. There are forces at work in the world which are much more powerful than any human might, and they are controlled only by their Creator.

In Ephesians 6:12, St. Paul says, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (false religions non-Christian)

Human beings are not the real enemy. When those Hollywood producers of slime and filth make anti-God films and continue to make them in spite of the fact that they are flops at the box office, making little or no profit, its got to be because the agents of Satan have taken control of otherwise rational minds.

Since the enemies are not human, the weapons needed to fight them are also not human. Christ's victory gives us the weapon which is justification by grace through faith in him. And this faith is ours through the Word and the Sacraments.

John tells us: "for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water (baptism) and blood (the Lord's Supper)." (1 John 5:4-6)

So when we are tempted, when peril, trouble or even death itself faces us, we are comforted and strengthened by the assurance of God in Word and Sacraments that God, "who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all will also freely give us all things." (Romans 9:32) The "all things" means the final, glorious victory over all evil.

By Gods grace and the Spirit's power through the Gospel Word and Sacraments, we are confident that we shall overcome. We can boldly say with St. Paul: "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or 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)

Amen.