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Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent – February 22, 2026
Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7, Romans 5:12-19, Matthew 4:1-11
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Humanity has a long track record of giving in to temptation. In fact, this failure goes all the way back to the first two human beings, Adam and Eve. We heard about their failure in our first reading for today. After God created them from the dust of the earth, God placed Adam and Eve in a garden, the Garden of Eden. It was literally Paradise, which is what “Eden” means. They had everything they needed. They didn’t have to work. They didn’t have to worry. They didn’t even have to wear clothes! God provided everything they needed in that garden, giving them only one simple command: “You can eat freely from any of the trees in the garden except for one – except for that one in the middle. Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you do, you will die.”
Enter the serpent. The serpent came to Adam and Eve to tempt them. The temptation came in the form of a question: “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden?’” It was a temptation to doubt God’s Word.
Yes, that’s what he said,” Eve replied. Eve even quoted God word for word. So far, so good. But the serpent wasn’t done! The tempter then said, “You will not die! God was just saying that because he knows that if you eat of that fruit your eyes will be opened and you will be like him!” Eve thought about this. She looked at the fruit, which looked really tasty. She especially liked the idea of this fruit making her wise, god-like. So, she took it and ate. Adam was there too, and also ate.
The temptation wasn’t merely for some tasty fruit. Adam and Eve weren’t merely tempted to indulge in a forbidden pleasure. That was part of it, to be sure, but the temptation went deeper. They were tempted to dismiss the Word of God. They were tempted to follow their own course. They were tempted to be their own gods. They fell to this temptation, and with that bite, everything changed. Humanity has never been the same. As St. Paul writes in our epistle reading for today, Adam and Eve’s sin has infected everything ever since.
Our gospel reading from Matthew takes us into the wilderness with Jesus, where he spent forty days and forty nights facing temptations of his own. For anyone with even a basic familiarity with the Old Testament, if you hear the words “wilderness” and “forty” as the setting for a story, you can’t help but think of Israel and the forty years they spent in the wilderness. And you should! This story of Israel’s forty years in the wilderness provides crucial context for understanding Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness.
After God rescued his people, delivering them out of slavery in Egypt, bringing them safely through the waters of the Red Sea, they entered the wilderness. And it was in the wilderness that they faced a series of temptations. The first temptation came when they got hungry. I think we can all sympathize here. Most of us aren’t at our best when we’re hungry. God’s people certainly weren’t. As their stomachs growled, they began to growl too! They grumbled against Moses, their leader. They grumbled against God. They foolishly started to pine for the days they spent as slaves, where, in their highly selective memories, supposedly the food was better.
Their grumbling was bad enough, but in their hunger they were tempted to turn away from God. Things weren’t going exactly as they wished, and they grew impatient with God. Moses told them that one does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Well, they weren’t having anything to do with that. They were tempted to doubt God’s promises, God’s goodness, God’s Word, and they did. They failed.
The temptation to doubt God’s Word grew even stronger when the water ran out. When that happened, Israel dared to challenge God: Are you going to take care of us, or not? Are you going to give us water? Did you deliver us out of slavery only to let us die out here in the desert? They wanted God to prove himself right then and there, on their own terms. They dared to test the God who had parted the waters of the Red Sea in order to save them. Moses warned them, saying, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” But they did just that. They fell to this temptation too. They failed.
When Israel entered the Promised Land, they faced yet another temptation. At that point they had the Ten Commandments, the first of which was: “You shall have no other gods before me.” But there were other options now for them to consider, other gods to flirt with. There were the gods of their neighbors, gods who demanded less and seemed to promise more. And if you read the Old Testament, you know well that just about every time a new god was dangled in front of Israel, they worshipped it! Any shiny new idol that caught their eye became their god! Another temptation, another epic failure.
These stories provide the essential backdrop for Jesus’ time in the wilderness. Like Israel, Jesus was hungry. Seeing an opportunity, the devil came at him with a temptation: “If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread.” But Jesus answered using the same words Moses spoke to Israel: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” As with Israel, Jesus was tempted to have God prove his promises. “Throw yourself down from this mountain peak,” the devil demanded. “Let God prove that he will save you!” And again, Jesus answered using Moses’ own words: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” Finally, the devil invited Jesus to fall down and worship him. Jesus replied by saying, “Away with you, Satan!” And then Jesus cited the First Commandment: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”
Do you see what is happening here? Where God’s people failed, Jesus succeeded. Where God’s people stretching all the way back to Adam and Eve gave in to the temptations of the serpent, the deceiver, the tempter, the evil one, Jesus successfully resisted. Jesus beat the devil at his own game, leaving him nothing to do but slither away in defeat.
We are now in the season of Lent. Lent is our own forty-day journey in the wilderness. As we heard on Ash Wednesday, this is a season in which we contend against evil. It is a season in which we wrestle against the temptations in our lives. It is a season of spiritual warfare as we take more seriously our own battle against the devil and his lies.
Jesus’ own forty days in the wilderness is instructive for us. He teaches us some moves we can use in this ju-jitsu match against the tempter. Jesus models for us how important it is for us to know God’s word and to hold fast to God’s promises. He teaches us that God’s word strengthens us more than bread ever will. Jesus teaches us that living by faith and living by proof are two different things. Jesus teaches us the urgency of obeying the First Commandment to have no other gods, especially not the god of self. This is so important! As Adam and Eve found out, being your own god doesn’t lead to Paradise – it leads to death.
Jesus gives us an example to follow. We can find strength and courage knowing that he is by our side in this battle. But there’s something even better going on here. As important as it is to learn from Jesus and resist temptation and contend against evil, something deeper is going on here in Jesus’ encounter with the devil. There in his own wilderness, Jesus has done what humanity could never do. Jesus has done what Adam and Eve and Israel and you and I could never do. Jesus walked in perfect faithfulness. Jesus walked in perfect righteousness. Jesus resisted every temptation. Jesus succeeded at everything a fallen humanity has failed at, and he goes on to share his victory with us.
This is precisely what Paul is saying in our second reading for today. Paul talks about how death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses throughout all of humanity – but that now Christ has come to be a new Adam, bringing us a new beginning, bringing us new possibilities, bringing us new life. Paul explains that just as Adam’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so Jesus’ act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. Just as by Adam’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by Jesus’ obedience the many will be made righteous.
Humanity’s long track record of giving in to various temptations includes you. It includes me too. It includes every human being who has ever lived except for one. And the good news of the gospel is that this one man, Jesus Christ, has sent the devil running. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus scored a win for humanity – for you and me – by resisting every temptation. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus defeated the evil one – first in the wilderness, and then, more decisively through his death and resurrection. Because of Jesus’ act of perfect obedience, we have been saved. Because of Jesus’ righteousness, all has been made right between us and God. Through him, we receive forgiveness and a new life.
With this new life comes new strength, so that when the tempter comes whispering in our ear, all we have to do is mention the powerful name of our Lord Jesus, and we can watch that snake slither away like the defeated enemy he is.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church