Ash Wednesday 2025
Notes
Transcript
Start of Service
Start of Service
Good Evening everyone, and welcome to our Ash Wednesday Service tonight. This service by design is meant to be simple so that we are totally focused on the worship of God both through scripture and worship music.
Starting tonight and over the next 40 days that lead to Easter are the most holy days of the Christian year. Pastor Rick did a great job explaining the Holiness and the Love of God on Sunday. The original use of the word Holy was to be to be set apart. So these days need to be set a part. This is a time to be intentional in your following of Jesus. For some of us that will include giving something up that is getting in the way of our relationship with Jesus. But I would say that what we need most is finding places in our lives that we add more time with God.
Music
We are going to look at the three temptations of Jesus. I will say one thing up front. Jesus uses the Word of God to resist the devil and send him fleeing. The 3 temptations are still used by the devil today. That is going to be main concentration of the message tonight. How these 3 temptations are still used against us. The answer for all three is the Word of God
If you have your Bibles we will start with
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
Every person ever since the fall of man has spent time in the wilderness. This is where your faith is refined by God. This is the place where you learn to rely on God and the place where we are humbled before a mighty God. The path is narrow though, and while Jesus will lead you out of the wilderness. The sad fact is that many will be left to wander in the desert. That is what is happening in our culture right now.
The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Jesus is hungry, He has not eaten in 40 days. There is always two things happening with God. There is the lower part of the story and the high part of the story. The bread is not just bread but it is what actually sustains us. The devil tempts us with our sinful desires. Where do you go when you feel angry, sad or even happy? The devil doesn’t want you to go to the sustaining Grace of the Father but instead to take a short cut to our sinful desires.
Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
The manna that rained down from Heaven in the story of Exodus, the sustaining Grace of God that we have now. This is what we are to live on, we are not to live on the wordly desires because in the end they leave you broken. God will lead you to eternity. A challenge to see God working every day in your life, much like we should write down things we are grateful for. Find three beautiful moments each day and write them down. Make sure these are specific moments, not something general like the weather. God is still giving us manna each day.
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
This temptation concerns the prophecy in
For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
The devil will quote scripture to you. He will goad you into testing God. If God is real, then He will surely save you, I implore you not to test God. While God is love, there is also justice. The devil wants you to take God’s place. He wants you to think you are actually in charge but you are not because the devil failed to include this verse from the prophecy
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
Jesus is protected because Jesus always knows the Father is first. God is the creator and sustainer of everything. When we place God first in our lives and we humble ourselves before a mighty God then God will protect us. God will not act when it is against His will. If you have questions take them to God. I do not always understand everything and I must go to God for wisdom. There is a difference between questions and testing.
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
In this temptation the devil is offering the world now but it takes away Jesus’ true purpose for being here. The devil offers the same thing to us. We are offered the world, look at what kinds of things people have access to. Through the internet there are whole worlds that are false that we have access. Even our Christian faith has been compromised for the world. There are consequences though. The devil’s main goal is to get you away from God and keep you from the eternal rewards that are awaiting us.
Music
As we close this evening. I would ask that you spend the evening taking an objective look at how you are following Jesus. Not in a way to be shameful but in a way that we can find more ways to strengthen our relationship with Jesus
Let us pray
