It is meet, right and salutary that we should at all time and in all places give thanks to you O Lord, Almighty Father, everlasting God through Jesus Christ…that with cleansed hearts we might be prepared joyfully to celebrate the paschal feast with sincerity and truth, therefore with angels and archangels...

Listen to that phrase again, "...that with cleansed hearts we might be prepared joyfully to celebrate the paschal feast with sincerity and truth..." You will recognize this from the service of the Sacrament. This line is from the proper preface for Lent. It gives us the purpose of observing Lent. We observe Lent so our hearts will be cleansed even more, so that with cleansed hearts we celebrate Easter with even more sincerity and more confidence that it is in truth.

Let's put it really simply. We go through Lent, so we can grow in our faith. Now, how's that? That's basically what we are saying in the preface for Lent. We don't simply go through Lent because it is the 40 or so days that precede Easter, and it's nice to have some kind of theme while we are getting there. No, it's not just something that seems like a good thing to do. We go through Lent to be able to get the most out of our Easter celebration; and to get the most out of it, our faith must grow.

Isn't that what we want? Aren't we all agreed that a strong faith is a good thing? What does that look like? What DOES a strong faith look like?

Hmmm...saving faith is trust in God, and trust in God is dependence on Him to treat us with mercy because we don't deserve anything good. So, first, a strong faith depends on God's mercy. As inclined as any of us are to look at the things we do-we go to church, we are nice to people, we love our families, we may even tell others about Jesus-a strong faith would not look at these things. It's too busy looking at God's mercy which is in Christ. It doesn't stop to look at anything it has done. It looks to Christ alone.

Second, when it sees all God has done, it seeks to glorify Him more and shame Him less. It doesn't obsess over what God expects but looking to the Gospel for strength recognizes it is not capable of doing any of it. It recognizes that on its own, it could do nothing but shame God, but with the help of the Holy Spirit through the gifts of the Gospel, it can and will glorify God.

This glorifying doesn't mean it wants to sing His praises all the time. It's not like our God who is so self-giving and generous is actually starving for attention and really wants nothing more than for people to talk about how wonderful He is and sing about His power and majesty. Rather, He is glorified by the soul humbly seeking His mercy and then in turn, serving its neighbor.

That brings us to the third thing about a strong faith. It seeks to serve its neighbor. This is the visible proof of faith. It doesn't serve its neighbor because it must. A strong faith knows it needs to do nothing. It sees salvation has been won by Christ alone, but still wants to serves its neighbor. What does your neighbor need? Without even asking what can be done, faith is such a living and active thing, that it has already done it.

So, this is our goal as we go into Lent and prepare for Easter. We want our faith to be stronger, which means it looks at itself less and Christ more, seeks to glorify God more and shame Him less by looking toward His mercy, and which glorifying happens most visibly, that is for everyone to see, by serving our neighbor more and ourselves less. The bottom line, though, is it looks at Jesus and Jesus only.

Worthy goal. St. Paul said, "Work out your faith with fear and trembling." Please understand, when he talks about working out your faith, he doesn't mean that you do this for the sake of your salvation, but rather resisting all efforts to look at what you do.

Instead, when we come to Easter, we will be celebrating our baptisms. Remember: "It's never better than when you're wetter." You can't improve on perfection. When you were baptized, you were announced perfectly righteous. The perfectly righteous life of Christ was credited to you. You were covered in Him. You just don't get better than that. So, working out your faith, has nothing to do with your salvation. Instead, it has to do with what we have been talking about for these last 5 minutes.

But even though it is a worthy goal, not all will you support you in it. In fact, you have pretty powerful enemies who strongly oppose it. We've been praying about those who oppose you this whole past week. We have been asking God to guard and keep us so the devil, the world and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair and other great shame and vice.

I know that not everyone has been doing this, but it is for everyone. Look at the prayer card. When it says, "All ages," it is suggesting all ages, from Pre-school to the seniors of our congregation to pray the sixth petition. That was last week's portion from the catechism. And when it says, "5th grade and up," it is suggesting that all ages from 5th grade to our seniors should be praying this.

What a great start for Lent, even though it wasn't planned, because it's good that we have a healthy respect for our opposition. By the way, when we had our little family devotion before the meal on Ash Wednesday, I heard some of our older members trying to pray the sixth petition but having trouble because the words have changed. I'm so sorry. As you can tell, the kids learn a version with more modern language, and I'm afraid we need to accommodate our children. But speaking of the children, I heard the Midweek kids really strongly when we were praying the 6th petition and its meaning. Thank you parents, for helping your kids learn how to pray it. Keep up the good work; keep using this as a part of your family devotional time. And I encourage all of you to do this. That's why we go Sunday to Sunday and not Wednesday to Wednesday with the assigned learn by heart portions. It's to encourage the entire congregation to pray it for the week.

But now comes to the time to see why we pray it. And we kick off the Sundays in Lent by looking at the one who opposes us, who went up against Jesus first. We look at his words, his deceitful and yet pious-sounding words. Yes, pious sounding. They sound right. They sound godly. Look at what he said to the first sinless man, the first Adam. "You can be like God." Now that doesn't sound all bad, but that was not to be for the first sinless man. He was not God. And behind the offer was the claim, "God doesn't really love you, if He doesn't let you be like Him. If God really loved you, He would actually want you to do this." Satan had Adam question his status as God's son.

As we look at what he does and says to us and what he says to Jesus, we see the techniques are the same. "Are you really a son of God? Are you really a Christian and one of God's children? If you were, you would love coming to church more. If you were, you wouldn't sin. If you were, you would tell more people about Jesus.

Do you see his strategy? He tells you, "Look at your life. Prove your sonship by what you do." These are Satan's lies. God would have you look to see what He has done, and that alone. Satan would have you looking at what you have done and what you do, to prove what is already known.

Now, let's compare the temptations of the first Adam and the second Adam, Jesus and see what I am saying. Both were tempted by eating. Will you eat the fruit, Adam? Will you try to prove God's love by tempting Him? Will you turn the stones to bread, Jesus? Will you seek to prove you are God, even though you clearly know who you are, Jesus?

We know the answers. Adam fell. He ate the fruit. He believed Satan's lies and actually thought he could become like God. Jesus resisted. He did not turn the stones into bread. He did not seek to prove He was God, even though all appearances would seem to say otherwise. He seemed so far from the omnipotence that was His as God, while his stomach was knotted up and he was feeling so weak after fasting for so long, and yet He resisted.

It worked for Adam, maybe he could still do it with Jesus. He tries a second time. He hisses as you can imagine Satan would do, "Prove to me and everyone else you are the Son of God, by throwing yourself off the high point of the Temple." Jesus sidesteps this one too. No, He doesn't need to prove Himself to Satan or anyone else. And He is certainly not going to do it at the prompting of Satan.

Now, Satan reveals his plan all along. Why does he want Jesus to prove He is God? So Jesus won't go to the cross. If Jesus listens to Satan, He will have shown a lack of faith in the clear Word He Himself has spoken. He becomes disqualified to go to the cross. Satan has failed with the first two temptations, now he goes straight for the jugular. "I will give you the kingdoms and all the souls in them, if you fall down and worship me."

Jesus knows who he is dealing with. The devil can't make good on his promise, and Jesus won't even bite. How tempting that offer must have seemed, though. Gain all the souls, restore them to the Father, and without ever going to the cross.

You want curtain no. 1 or curtain no. 2? Curtain no. 1 is everything you dream, Jesus, the whole reason you have become human. Yes, it can all be yours, with one small action. You get it, without all the pain. How could you refuse? Curtain no. 2, on the other hand, is filled with misery, unbearable misery. It even calls for your Father to reject you, and when that happens, can you even be sure you will reach your goal, Jesus? You don't have to think hard. Is there even a choice? I know what you want, Jesus. Just say the word. Drop to your knees and it's all over.

Boy, would that be right. It would be all over. Jesus wouldn't need to go to the cross. He would have blown it. But He didn't. He told Satan exactly what he and we need to hear, "You shall worship the Lord your God only, and Him only shall you serve."

It makes you want to stand up and cheer.

Why does this matter? Why do we observe this series of temptations every year? Because it tells us what the letter to the Hebrews says, "He was tempted in every way and yet was without sin."

Here is your holy One. Don't look at yourself or your efforts. That's the devil telling you to do that. This is the one who covers you. His righteousness has been credited to you. If you should wonder how you stand before God, look at Jesus resisting these temptations, and recognize there were even more. And yet, despite all of them, He stayed true to his mission. His love for you was so great, He would not be deterred from the cross. Look at Him and see that this is how you are seen. You are seen as the one who has successfully fended off the devil. You are the one who is seen as the one who chose curtain no. 2, even though you know full well, that you and I, had we been in the situation, would have chosen curtain no. 1 in a heartbeat.

Don't look at Him, as though He is showing you how you ought to do it. You could never do it. This would be Satan speaking, the one we have been praying the Lord would guard and keep us from so we are not mislead into false belief. Satan would have you take your eyes from Jesus on the cross, and place them on Him to see how you ought to live. Don't fall for it.

When Satan comes along, tempting you to think you could actually be good enough, call out by looking to the One who truly was. When the difficult times come, and Satan in their wake, call out by looking to the One who by His sinlessness for you, has given you access to the Father. Call out to Him, by looking to Him, and without you even being aware, your faith will grow. When Easter comes you will be ready, with a cleansed heart, to joyfully celebrate the paschal feast in sincerity and truth.

AMEN