201. [Lent Study] Walking Into Wilderness

The heavens open over the Jordan and a voice calls Jesus “Beloved.” Moments later, the Spirit leads him into a wilderness where every shortcut beckons. That tension—identity affirmed, then instantly tested—anchors our journey through Matthew 3–5 and frames a richer understanding of Lent as a season of honest formation, not hollow performance.

We explore how the early church guarded truth by retelling it, and how desert fathers and mothers chose prayer, fasting, and solitude to hear God clearly. Along the way, we map the three ancient temptations that still stalk modern life: the urge to provide for ourselves on our terms, the impulse to protect our image and avoid pain, and the lure to promote ourselves with power divorced from obedience. Each is answered by Scripture not as a slogan but as a story lived—words planted in childhood, prayed in community, and practiced in secret.

From the Kidron Valley’s shadow to the quiet room of Matthew 6:6, we show why turning down the world’s volume is the only way to notice God’s whisper. We talk identity before activity, and offer simple, concrete rhythms to carry you beyond a sprinting faith: close the door, open your Bible, sit in silence, and let gratitude steady your heart. If you’ve felt the pull toward shortcuts or the pressure to hustle your way through a dry season, this conversation will help you reframe the desert as a place of clarity, courage, and character.

My hope is that this podcast helps grow your faith and equips you to accomplish your dreams and goals!

Follow me on Instagram
Follow me on Facebook
Follow me on TikTok

Transcript

Setting The Scene In Matthew

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to another episode of the podcast. Today I'm going to be sharing a teaching that I recently did at our staff chapel. My hope is that this encourages you and that your love for God's word deepens. We're going to be in the book of Matthew. The book of Matthew. Matthew chapter three. And we're going to kind of read along quite a bit. And it says this, then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. And John tried to prevent him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and you're coming to me. And Jesus answered and said to him, Permit it to be so, put it so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Then John allowed him. And when he had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were open to him, and he spot saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and a lightning upon him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights afterward he was hungry. Now when the tempter came to him and said, If you are the son of God, command these stones to be made bread. And he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him up into the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, If you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against the stone. And Jesus said to him, It is written again, You shall not tempt the Lord your God. And the devil took him up an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, All these things I will give to you if you will fall down and worship me. And then Jesus said to him, Away with you, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only you shall serve. Then the devil left him, and all the angels came and ministered to him. Skipping over to Matthew chapter 5, verse 11, it says, And seeing the multitudes, he being Jesus, went up on the mountain. And when he he was seated, his disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and he taught them. One more scripture in our reading. It's going to be in Colossians chapter 4, verse 2, and it says, Colossians chapter 4, verse 2, and it says, continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving. So we are um in uh Lent, and um we see in this scripture, Jesus is taken into the desert, and um the journey of Lent and even Ash Wednesday is about 1100 years old. And for us to know that um Easter and Christmas were both began to be celebrated within the church for the reason of this to confront heresies that were happening in culture about Christ. So keep in mind that scripture for us, you have 66 books bound together into one book. This concept is a very different um thing that anybody else would have known of. And in fact, um I got to go with my um my classmates um for school. We got to go to the largest privately held theological library, I think it's in the world. And y'all, I was nerding out so hard. They had a first edition New King James 1611 Bible.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

My life is complete, it is done.

Lent, Tradition, And Heresies

Desert Fathers And The Birth Of Lent

Practicing Separation And Solitude

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Um, it was amazing. King James 1611, first edition Bible. It also had a replica of the Ten Commandments that are like day, they estimate them to be 2,700 years old. And just fun fact, how big do you think the Ten Commandments are? Yeah, you're all doing your hands. Yeah, I always pictured them being kind of like the size of Perla. Like I pictured because you think God's hand wrote it. So I always pictured it had to be big. It's literally the size of my hand and like a half. But you think it was like small enough for Moses to be able to go up Mount Sinai and come down, and they were transporting them everywhere with them. So then I'm like, God's finger writing that, like, wow, he's really good. Um but, anyways, so um when I was there, so I'm saying all this to say, where was I going with that? Um, desert. Oh, yes, heresies. And so everything that we have, all these celebrations is an oral tradition that we celebrate. So the way that the gospel was told, the way that it was carried generation to generation is orally. So even like the Passover, the importance of the Passover is that every time you celebrate it, you're retelling the story to your children and your children's children, the story of God's faithfulness. And so a lot of the heresies that confronted the early church, they really don't plague us as much today. Some of those heresies. The reason why is because you have been orally trained through the telling of scripture, through Christmas and Easter, the retelling of the story. And so there is something so holy about this Easter season and retelling about the cross and retelling about what happened. And so what happened in the Linton journey and where this comes from is from the desert mothers, the desert fathers. And so it was around the year 300 that we see uh Constantine comes into power in the mid-300s. He has his conversion to Christianity, and then now we don't see the early Christian, the early Christians being persecuted anymore. And so, because of this, um, the people were like, we are going to, because in the highest level of Christianity up until that point, it was regarded to be a martyr. And so now Christians aren't being martyred anymore, and they want to be able to exemplify their um diligence towards Christ. So they retreat into the deserts. And this is where we see monastic communities begin to be formed. And it's these people who are denying their flesh, denying themselves, and literally live a whole life of asceticism, or some of them just go away for a few years to do nothing but to pray, fast, and hear from God. Like that's it. And so that's where we um see this emergence out of that culture, that time. Then we see around the year 1,000 to 1100, we see Lent being celebrated for the first time. And what it is is that those monks, what they were doing is they were living a lifetime of being in the desert. But us in the 40 days leading up to Easter, what we're doing is saying, as as the monks retreated for a lifetime, we are retreating within ourselves to seek God. So we are retreating to seek God. And then the 40 days, less the Sundays that we celebrate, because for them it's called a mini resurrection. So it's a reminder of the resurrection every Sunday that we come together leading up to the cross. So it's anticipating the Lord's return. Are we doing okay? Great. So what I want you to consider as we go through these next few weeks together and like as you're contemplating is what might it look like for us to be a people who seek separation in order to pursue spiritual growth? Like, what does that look like for you? Like you're not gonna quit your job for the next, you know, 40 days, tell your family goodbye. I'm gonna go live in a desert. But I think that we can retreat inwardly, right, at certain times of the day and set our face to intentionally seek God. And so Jesus' advice and prayer in Matthew 6, verse 6, he says, go into your room and close the door. And this is here is the importance of privacy and separation from the distraction and the disruptions of this world. And so, like, even for us, I'll just say this time of year is very busy. Like, there's a lot of things calling for our attention, but we must purposefully shut the door to the distractions, to the noise of life. And the desert, Jesus, so the 40 days leading up to Easter, it's supposed to symbolize the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness. And so it's to mirror those two for us. Desert is highly symbolic in the Bible. Um, we see that in the Bible, whenever God's get ready to transition somebody into a new season, he takes them in a wilderness season. And I'll say for us as Christians, we love the green pastures, we love the table, we love those places, but we push really hard against the wilderness. But biblically, every time God was getting ready to use somebody in a big way, he would take them into a wilderness season. It was Moses in the back side of the wilderness that God shows up to him in a burning bush. David alone in a sheep field is where God prepared him in that wilderness season for the palace. Elijah in the wilderness in 1 Kings 19, God reminds him of who he is and the call of God that's on his life. So, wilderness seasons, um, they do something in us. The desert is always going to be for us a place of prayer. It's a place of testing, it's a place of silence, it's a place of solitude, it's a place of self-denial, it's a place where we find wisdom, it's a place that we grow in our humanity, but more than anything, it's shaping the character within us. And if you find yourself, maybe you're not in an actual desert season right now. This 40 days is saying, God, I rebrace every season you bring into my life because it's in, it's for my good. It's for my good. And we see here that Jesus is literally, he goes from being called the beloved son of God. This is my son in whom I'm well pleased. And the very next thing that we see is that Jesus is taken into a wilderness season. And I have found that whenever God gives an announcement in my life, on the heels of that, is gonna come a season of me being tested. Do I trust what God just said? So just fun fact, Brian announces there's abundance. That's the word for the year, abundance. And everybody's like, Yeah. And I went into Ashley and I was like, All right, fortify the ship. Because anytime God announces a word in your life, there's gonna be a moment for you to not trust the word he just said. Jesus told the disciples, go to the other side. They get in the boat, what happens? A storm, and they think they're gonna die. Jesus just told them to go to the other side. The promise was the prophecy that they were gonna get there, but it's also the prophecy that there's gonna be a moment to question, Am I gonna get to the other side? And so God speaks this um to Jesus, and he Jesus is immediately led by the Spirit into a place of testing. All of the testing of Jesus was not because God was absent.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

He was alone yet had companionship.

Why God Uses Wilderness Seasons

Names Of The Enemy And Their Meaning

Mary’s Formation And Jesus’ Shema

Temptation One: Provide For Yourself

SPEAKER_01 12:54

And in your wilderness season, it's gonna feel like God's not aware of what's happening in your life. Three descriptors that it tells us that the devil is described as. Um He was described in this passage as the devil, he's also described as the tempter, and he's also described as Satan. Three names devil, tempter, Satan. And each of them tells us the character of what the enemy does in our life. The name devil or Satan in the Greek, they're interchangeable words that can also mean accuser or opponent. And so you've got the beloved with the accuser, you've got the beloved with the opponent, and you have the beloved with the tempter. And so here Jesus is, and something that I've been thinking about because Jesus through this is quoting the Shemmah, um, which was would have been told to him even as a young boy. So the Shema was quoted um every day in Jewish homes. And something I've been thinking about lately is um Mary, whenever she finds out that she's pregnant with Jesus, she bursts into song and it's called the magnificent. And the magnificent, what's beautiful is she's singing this praise to God. But when you read the book of James, and when I was reading through it on the shred in January, I was like, James is the brother of Jesus, and you can hear the magnificent in James's writing. And Jesus, whenever he's on the cross, the Bible has three different languages that is in it. Um, it's Hebrew, Greek, and um Aramaic. Jesus speaks in his last moments, he speaks Aramaic. He could have spoken any language, but he chose Aramaic. His mother would have spoken Aramaic. And in the moment on the cross, in his greatest despair, the words that his mother had whispered over him. I want you just to consider that. That's what comes out of him in that moment. And James, as he's pinning, he's pinning the words that his mother would have spoken over him. It wasn't just a song she sang, it was a life. And so Jesus, here he is in this moment of temptation, his very first thing and his inauguration, if you will, into ministry. Can you imagine, Pastor Tylan, if you were being ordained, which by the way, it's just like a year ago that you became ordained, that we sent you into the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by the devil. We're like, well, let's see if this is gonna stick. Say bye to your kids, bye to your wife. And what comes out of him is this shamma, and it's Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 5. And it says this, it was daily recited for them: love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And Jesus here in uh Matthew 4 is quoting from Deuteronomy chapter 6. Deuteronomy chapter 6 is when Moses is preparing the Israelites to go from a place of wilderness into the promised land, which is Canaan. And Jesus here is being the fulfillment, he is the fulfillment of Israel. He is getting ready to go from the wilderness to take the promised land, Canaan, which is the church, to redemption of all mankind. That is the fulfillment. Jesus here is tying it all together, but just imploring you to consider the faithfulness of Mary in this moment and the things that were sown into him in this moment was preparing him for that wilderness season. Like never take for granted the words that we speak over people, the prayers that we pray over people, because it's storing up in them a language that when the tempter comes, when the opponent comes, when the accuser comes, they're able to stand before the enemy. So a few things that we see happen here in the wilderness that I think still happen for us in our life is in our wilderness seasons, we can begin to try to trust my ability to provide for myself. Trust my ability to provide for myself. Here the devil, the first thing he says, because it says that Jesus was hungry. Well, yeah, if you've ever fasted for 24 hours, you know that you're hungry. Now I need you to think about this. He is the Son of God. He is the one who saw the cattle be formed. He was a part of that with the Father. He was the one that saw the first crop of wheat come up from the ground. He is able to turn anything into anything. He is fully able, and yet he restrains himself from that power. But I want you to think about that in Matthew 14 and in Matthew 15, it tells us that Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fish for the crowd, and they were satisfied. Here's the thing is that knowledge is knowing information, wisdom is knowing when to apply the information. And in one season, he was to rely on God's provision. And in the next season, he was able to be who he is and make substance come out of nothing. And I just I want you to implore to consider this is that in your wilderness season, there's going to be a temptation to provide for yourself. Provide for yourself a way out, provide for yourself what you need. And we've got to have the wisdom to know that just because I'm able to do something, doesn't mean that it's what God's will is in this moment. Because Jesus was able, but it wasn't God's will. And in that moment, it was him trusting in the Lord for God's perfect provision. In John 19, 28, we see Christ on the cross and he says, I thirst. The one who fed thousands refused to provide again for himself in the end. This wilderness season and the wilderness of the cross bookending his life. Luke would say that uh Satan departed after tempting Jesus looking for a more opportune time. And I would say to you, leading up to the cross, these 40 days that we're in right now, the enemy came multiple times to tempt him to again provide for himself. The next thing in a wilderness season is to trust in my ability to protect myself. Trust in my ability to protect myself. He takes him up into the holy city. So he goes from being in the wilderness, and the geography of this is like quite a ways, and theologically it's debated. Did he have a vision or was he literally transported there? We don't know. But I will tell you this: that being up on the holy city, he was looking down at the valley of Kidron. And the valley of Kidron is where the blood of the sheep would run on the Passover. And it would be the valley that he would go from the Mount of Olives to pray. He would go through the valley literally into the palace courts where he was tested and tried. And so he's literally looking at the place where he would be betrayed by uh Judas. Are y'all following me right now? And and literally, so it's not just his denial to save himself in that moment, it's also his denial to save himself when Judas comes and kisses him in the garden. It's both. We see the bookends of both that will happen in his life. And there's gonna be this temptation when you're in a wilderness season to begin to defend yourself, to begin to protect yourself, to begin to build up walls around you. And I just want to challenge you may we be like our Lord and refuse the temptation. In fact, even on the cross, uh the Bible tells us in Matthew 27, 40 that the soldiers mocked him. If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. In other words, if you're really God, why won't you save yourself? And the enemy in your wilderness season will want you to try to save yourself. Get yourself out of the pain, get yourself out of the situation, defend yourself. Okay. The third thing that happens in a wilderness season is I begin to trust in my ability to promote myself. Promote myself. Here he shows him, he's like, all the kingdoms, everything. I'll give everything to you. And Jesus basically says, No, like I'm I'm not gonna do that. And I love this because after the resurrection, he tells the disciples in Matthew 20, uh 28, verse 18, Jesus says, All authority has been given to me. And the devil's gonna want you to find a shortcut through your wilderness without obedience. And you're gonna have this like temptation of promoting yourself, making your own way, opening up doors. There used to be this saying by Smith Wigglesworth that I used to like, but now I really disagree. And he says, if God's not moving, I'll move him. You can't move God. And literally what the devil is tempting him to do is just move God for yourself. Like you're going to have authority, but have it without the suffering, have it without the rejection, have it without the pain, have it without the stuff. But Jesus was going to trust God's plan. So the desert is this place where what we heard in public is now tested and tried for ourselves. It's a place that we hear God more clearly. In COVID, um, there was all these people that were saying that the birds sounded louder. Um, I remember people posting on social media, they're like, it's like the birds sound louder. Like, and there is uh this, I read this article and it was a college research group that literally they measured the sounds of the birds. And they found that in COVID, that the birds did not get louder, they actually got quieter. But the reason why people thought they were louder was because the noise of the world had gotten quieter. There was less cars on the road, there was less noise pollution, and because of that, even the birds stopped singing as loud. And I'm saying this to say is that shame is shouting in your life. God is whispering. And the wilderness gets us alone with God where we can stop hearing the shout of shame and hear the whisper of God. Why moments of worship are so important, even this moment that we just took us in. And there's different expressions of worship. There's loud praise, there's all these things, but I do think there's a measure of being still and hearing God and just quieting your soul, quieting what's happening because the birds are singing, right? And it's not that in moments of prayer that they're any louder, it's just that we've turned down the noise of the world and we can hear him better. Okay. So in our world, noise, hurry, and crowds keep us engaged in the muchness and the misiness of life. And it's why seeking out solitude, prioritizing time and prayer, Bible reading, worship is so important. Hear me. If these aren't rhythms in your life, you will not be doing ministry for the long haul. And we don't, the kingdom doesn't need more sprinters. We need more marathoners. We need people going like Paul. I have run my race. I didn't run a 5K, didn't run a 300 sprint. It's not where will you be in a year, where will you be in 10 years? And the rhythm of prayer, the rhythm of solitude, the rhythm of your scripture read. When life gets crazy and you find yourself in a wilderness, Revelation chapter one, I want you to think about this. It says, when John was on the island of Patmos, he was in this, he was called up in the spirit of the Lord on the Lord's day. He was still honoring the rhythm of going to the temple to worship, even though he was on an island by himself. Are y'all hearing me? Those rhythms are what sustain you. So the Colossians 4 2, it says that we read, devote yourself to prayer, being watchful and thankful. The Greek word that Paul uses to devote is the word pros care proskare and prosker tarot. And it is uh it means to be earnest towards, to persevere, to be constantly diligent, to attend, to give oneself continually upon, to continue in, to wait on. The word is used 10 times in the Greek and the New Testament. Ten of those times, 10, I'm sorry, and of those 10 times, eight of them are because of prayer.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

The hardest thing to do is to pray.

Temptation Two: Protect Yourself

SPEAKER_01 27:07

You prayer is a discipline. Y'all know what I'm talking about. When you like anything else, like God, I'll do it. Like, you need me to mop the floors of the church, I'll do it. Like straighten chairs, got it. Make a spreadsheet, no problem. Sing in worship, 100%. Be quiet and hear God. It's a discipline, but that's why it needs us to be diligent. It takes diligence, it takes patience, it's cultivating in us the fruits of the spirit. Okay, so but in this season of wilderness, and as we're going through these 40 days, I want you to consider what do I always have time for? If you never go a day without Instagram, but you go days without prayer, it's because approval of man is your idol. If you never go a day without Netflix, but you go a day without prayer, it's because entertainment is your idol. What do I always have time for? What I love, I prioritize. So as I love Jesus, I'm willing to go into the wilderness places with him, the quiet places. And in those quiet places, I'm learning not to provide myself, not to protect myself, not to promote myself, but to trust in him. So and like Jesus, we go into the wilderness because we are beloved, not to become beloved, but we are beloved. And Jesus didn't just go up to these solitude places one time in the 40 days. The very first thing he does with his disciples, Matthew 5, 1, is he pulls them away from the crowd, he takes them up onto a mountaintop, and he gets them alone. He's teaching them the same way his father taught him. You're my son, you're my beloved, and whom I'm well pleased. You're gonna be my disciple, you're gonna follow me. Now you're gonna have to go some places you don't want to go. You're gonna have to leave the crowd, you're gonna have to leave the noise, you're gonna have to leave the distractions. And in Matthew 5 through 7, we see the Sermon on the Mount. And it's in those moments they heard words that the crowd never heard. And it's in our moments of prayer that we hear things that nobody else hears. It's just moments between us and God. And it's these deep revelations that speak into the very being of who we are. So to close out this time, um, I would love to read this prayer from you. It's by a lady named Jan Richardson, and uh this will conclude our time together. And it's it's called Beloved is Where We Begin. If you would enter into the wilderness, do not begin without a blessing. Do not leave without hearing who you are, beloved, named by the one who has traveled this path before you. Do not go without letting it echo in your ears. And if you find it is hard to let your heart, do not despair. That is what the journey is for. I cannot promise this blessing will free you from danger, from hunger or thirst, from the scorching of sun or the fall of the night. But I can tell you that on this path there will be help. I can tell you that on this way there will be rest. I can tell you that you will know the strange graces that come to our aid only on a road such as this, that fly to meet us, bearing comfort and strength, and come alongside us for no other cause than to lean themselves toward our ear and with their curious insistence whisper our name, beloved, beloved, beloved. I love you guys. Have a great day. So if you can do me a favor and share this podcast with a friend, family member, or maybe on your social media, help us get the word out so we can help others.