Worship
Service for February 22, 2026
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: The Lord is my light and my salvation.
P: We will not be afraid.
L: The Lord is the stronghold of my life.
P: We will not be afraid.
L: Even when our adversaries and foes seek to
destroy us,
P: We will not be afraid.
L: Come to the house of the Lord and behold
God’s beauty.
P: We will sing to the Lord and trust God!
L: We will see the goodness of the Lord.
P: We will be strong and place our trust in
God!
Opening Hymn – Christ of the Upward Way Hymn #344 Blue
Prayer of Confession
We confess to You, O God, that
we are often afraid. The criticism of
others, the uncertainty of our own time, the hardships that veil our eyes from
Your loving purpose, our own failure, and the evils of terror and war threaten
to undo us. Too often we despair and act
as if You have abandoned us. We give in
to fear and retreat into self-preservation at the expense of others. Forgive us, God. By the power of Your Holy Spirit, renew our
faith and courage so that we may find in our Lord Jesus Christ Your sure
promise of love and salvation. Lead us
along Your way and help us to face each challenge in our lives. Give us strong hearts and clear vision to
resist evil and trust in You until we are finally at the table with You in our
eternal home in heaven. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: God does not give us up to the temptations
and ways of the world, but shelters us with love, with hope, with grace.
P: We are forgiven people. Our songs of joy are lifted to the One who
forgives.
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
Jesus Christ, light of
the world, we dare to bring our whole selves before you this morning, asking
that you shine your purifying light on us once again. Illumine the dark corners no one else sees –
the shadows of doubt, the pockets of loneliness, the specters of fear, the
gloom of discouragement. Lift our face
to behold you in the full radiance of your light, that something of your
perfect love, truth, and peace may radiate into our lives and awaken us to the
full truth of who we are, by your grace and in your mercy.
Gracious Lord, shine your healing light into every place of
darkness and despair, we especially think of those living under threat of
violence – like those in the Ukraine, and in so many other places in the world,
too, Lord.
We also lift up to you our friends and loved ones…
As we open our hearts, souls, and minds to you in this holy
hour, hear the deepest movement of our inner selves – listen to our silent
prayers this day….
Help us Lord, hear your challenge anew for us to be the
light of the world, and to let our light so shine that it brings thankful
praise to You, the source of all light in heaven and earth as we pray together
saying;
...Our Father who art
in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors. And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. AMEN.
Hymn – Beneath
The Cross of Jesus Hymn #92/320
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm
32
Second Scripture Reading – Matthew
4:1-11
Sermon –
Lenten Wilderness
(based on Matthew 4:1–11)
There are moments in our lives when
everything seems clear, especially when it comes to our life of faith. The heavens open. A voice speaks. The sign or call to us feels unmistakable. And then, almost without warning, the ground
shifts beneath our feet.
That is how the fourth chapter of
Matthew begins. In Gospel of Matthew,
Jesus has just come up out of the waters of baptism. The Spirit descends like a dove. A voice from heaven declares him beloved. It is inspiring and affirming to all those who
were paying attention and heard it.
And then Matthew writes: “Then Jesus
was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” He was led by the Spirit. He wasn’t tricked, he wasn’t abandoned, and
he wasn’t lost. He was led. Which is important for us to grasp, because
it means that wilderness is not outside of God’s purpose. Being in the wilderness is not the opposite of
being called. Sometimes being in the wilderness
is the first step in following God’s purpose for us.
Before Jesus ever preaches a sermon,
before he calls a single disciple, before he heals any part of another person’s
body, he is driven, led by the Spirit of God, into the desert, into the
wilderness.
For forty days and forty nights he
fasts. Matthew tells us pretty directly:
“He was famished.” I guess so, I’m
usually famished by 3 in the afternoon if I’ve forgotten to eat or been to busy
to eat that day, let alone forty days going without food. And the tempter arrives at the moment of Jesus’s
weakness.
Temptation rarely comes when we are
strong, well-fed, with all of our wits about us. It comes when we’re tired. It comes when we’re depleted. It comes when we are lonely and delirious enough
to listen. “If you are the Son of God,
command these stones to become loaves of bread.” Notice the Tempter’s strategy. The Tempter does not begin with something obviously
wrong, morally bad or evil. The Tempter begins
with something practical. Sensible. Reasonable even. Jesus hasn’t eaten for forty days. He’s famished.
You have the power to do it, the
Tempter is saying. Why not use it? I mean, seriously, what is sinful about bread? Later, in this very same Gospel, Jesus will
multiply loaves of bread for thousands of people, who were hungry. Why not do it for himself. Hunger matters to God. Bodies matter to God. The problem is that the issue isn’t about bread. The issue is about trust. And Jesus knows it. Jesus answers by quoting Deuteronomy: “One
does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of
God.”
In the wilderness when the
Israelites were wandering, manna fell one day at a time. Enough for the day. Not for tomorrow. Dependence on God was built into their life of
faith. The temptation here is not simply
about food; it is about self-sufficiency.
Turn stones into bread. Turn your
gift into leverage. Turn your calling
into control. And the world tells us
this all the time; we are the masters of our own destiny. No!
What must come first? Our
obedience to God.
How often are we tempted to solve
our anxieties with power rather than prayer? To secure ourselves by our own ingenuity
rather than by daily trust in God? We
live in a culture that worships autonomy. We prize independence. We celebrate those who “pull themselves up.” And yet the prayer Jesus will teach us is not
“Give me this month my strategic plan.” It
is “Give us this day our daily bread.”
The wilderness asks: Will you trust
God enough to be hungry? When we are
weak and feel depleted, that’s a hard ask.
When we feel that we are at the very end of hope, that’s a hard
ask. But God asks us that anyway.
Now, the second temptation is more
dramatic. When that doesn’t work, the tempter
takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem. Imagine the scene. The holy city. The sacred center. The crowds below. “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself
down.” And this time, the tempter quotes
Scripture. That detail alone should make
us think very carefully. The Bible can
be misused and it is all the time, but those who want to have control over
you. It can be plucked from context. It can be employed to justify ego,
nationalism, cruelty, or fear. The enemy
of our souls does not always argue against Scripture; sometimes he argues using
it.
Jesus responds, again from
Deuteronomy: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” This is the temptation of spectacle. Leap. Let
angels catch you. Let the crowd gasp. Prove your identity to the world.
Here our faith becomes performance. Our trust becomes theater. We know something about this temptation. Churches are not immune. Pastors are not
immune. Christians are not immune. There is pressure for us to be impressive. To go viral. To be noticed. To build platforms instead of communities. To equate visibility with faithfulness.
But Jesus refuses to confuse the
spectacular with the sacred. He will
reveal glory, yes — but not by manipulation. Not by forcing God’s hand. Not by staging
miracles to secure an applause. In a
world addicted to attention, restraint is revolutionary.
The wilderness asks: Will you trust
God enough to go unnoticed, for now to be unseen? Will you trust God to lead you to the right
ways of being faithful, of being Christ’s hands and feet on this earth?
The final temptation is breathtaking
in its scope. All the kingdoms of the
world and their splendor. Political
authority. Economic influence. Cultural
dominance. “All these I will give you,
if you will fall down and worship me.” Here
the temptation is totally open in its nakedness: power without suffering. Authority without a cross. It is a shortcut to the kingdom Jesus so
desperately wants for us.
And it requires only one thing:
redirected worship. Not atheism. Not the denial of God. Just a subtle shift of allegiance. Jesus responds with clarity: “Worship the Lord
your God, and serve only him.” The
struggle is not merely ethical; it is liturgical. What we worship shapes what we become. If we worship power, we will sacrifice the
vulnerable. If we worship security, we
will demonize the stranger. If we
worship success, we will compromise integrity.
Jesus refuses to build the kingdom
of God with the tools of domination. He
will not grasp that power. He will not be
coerced.
He will not bow. Instead, he will walk
toward Jerusalem, toward rejection, toward crucifixion — trusting that
resurrection, not control, is God’s final word.
And so the wilderness asks: Will you
trust God enough to relinquish your power and allow God to lead you?
The story ends quietly: “Then the tempter
left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.” Angels did not and do not prevent the
testing. They simply arrive afterward. There are seasons when we, too, find
ourselves in wilderness — congregations navigating uncertainty, communities
fractured by injustice, families walking through grief, bodies bearing
diagnoses we did not expect.
We may wonder whether the silence
means abandonment. But this story and text
in Matthew insists otherwise. The same
Spirit who leads into the wilderness remains present there. And the same God who names us beloved does
not rescind that word when the desert winds blow.
Temptation is real.
Hunger is real.
Fear is real.
But so is God’s grace.
In the end, the wilderness does not
define Jesus. It clarifies him. He emerges not weakened but resolved. Not confused but grounded. Friends, Lent always begins in the wilderness.
Faith always passes through desert
places. But the story of Jesus Christ
reminds us that wilderness is not where God abandons us; it is often where God
forms us.
Thanks be to God. AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
We dedicate, O God, our lives and all that we
have to the work of life, of love, of peace.
Receive our gifts this day and lead us, not into temptation, but in
wisdom and courage. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord Hymn #441/405
Benediction –
Friends,
go out into the world with confidence and strength in the Lord. May you always be at peace with Him. AMEN.
Postlude
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