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Up-to-the-minute jumping-off points for sermons, linking the reading to the latest news and global issues.

 

Choices in testing times

In Eden and the wilderness, Adam and Eve and Jesus had choices to make. In testing times how do we choose what is right?

 

Context

  • In both of the creation stories in Genesis, we read of the generosity of God in gifting the goodness of creation to humanity. The first calling of humanity is to care for God’s creation. When we get this right the results can be wonderful as the stunning landscapes at the Winter Olympics have shown us. But, as the climate emergency reminds us, we have not always made a good job of fulfilling this calling. In a recent Guardian newspaper article entitled Nothing says ‘I love you’ like Valentine’s tat, Amelia Tait points out that 62% of Britons throw away perfectly good homeware (70 million items a year). In testing times for the planet, and consequently for humanity, we have important choices to make.
  • In Genesis 2, Adam and Eve were ashamed of what they had done and tried to hide from each other and God. They are not alone in this. The award-winning rapper Guvna B (who was featured on the BBC’s Songs of Praise on Sun 15 February 2026) gave a Word on the Streets interview during the 2020 Everything conference in which he said this: I'd say the only thing more exhausting than standing out and being true to yourself is waking up every day and having to put on a mask and pretend that you're someone that deep down you know that's not you. If you wake up in the morning and try your best to be who God has called you to be, it might be daunting. It might be risky, but you can go to bed knowing you've given it your all. And that is one of the most satisfying feelings that I've ever felt in my life. 

Every day we have a choice to make. Do we put on a mask and live a pretence? Or are we true to who God has made us to be and to God’s calling on our lives?

NB In Matthew 4 the devil tempts Jesus to adopt the mask of superstardom by selling his soul to the devil. Jesus resists by remaining true to God and to himself.

  • In his wrestling with the devil in the wilderness Jesus uses scripture to resist and repudiate the tempting offers presented to him. In 2025 Bible sales in Britain hit a record high, with sales surging 134% since 2019, marking the highest level since records began. Evidence perhaps that, in testing times, more people (and younger people in particular) are turning to the Word of God for the guidance they need.
  • Both the Genesis and Matthew readings this week are stories of temptation. There has been much debate recently about the power of social media to tempt people – especially young people – into making harmful choices. Australia became the first country in the world to choose to ban under 16s from using social media to reduce the harmful temptations young people face.

 

Ideas for sermons or interactive talks

  • Explore how we make choices in testing and tempting times. Discuss the power of temptation and the forms of temptation that are particularly prevalent today. In particular you may wish to explore the temptations to live in a way that damages God’s creation contrary to humanity’s first calling to care for the natural world.
  • This week’s texts could be helpful for an interactive talk around the guidance that informs the choices we make in testing times. What are the principal sources of guidance for us? Are they the cunning (serpent-like) algorithms of social media or the seductive but sometimes deceptive advertisements of powerful corporations? Or do we take our guidance from God’s two great texts: creation and scripture?
  • You may want to take this further by exploring how we handle God’s word to us. Are we faithful to God’s word or, like Adam and Eve in the Genesis 3 story, inclined to ignore what God says in pursuit of the seductive and tempting? Do we ever misuse scripture taking isolated verses out of context as the devil did in the temptation narrative of Matthew 4? How can we be like Jesus staying faithful to God’s word to enable us to do what is right?

 

Questions for discussion

  • How can we support one another in these testing, tempting times?
  • What good news stories can you share of how people have:
    • resisted and overcome temptation?
    • cared well for creation?
    • discovered the life-giving wisdom of scripture?
  • What particular temptations:
    • do we face in these testing times?
    • do young people in particular face?
    • pull us away from humanity’s first calling to care for creation?
  • How do you read and use scripture in a way that is life giving and not damaging?
  • What are the dangers of simply plucking a verse out of the bible?

 

Pastoral note

If you do choose to explore the theme of temptation you may wish to offer prayer for anyone who is really struggling with temptation at this time. If you do so, please ensure that all appropriate pastoral and safeguarding protocols are followed.

Andrew Roberts is a husband, father, Methodist Minister and the author of Holy Habits. He enjoys watching football and cricket and once appeared on national TV dressed as a giant sunflower (BBC Get Your Own Back).

 

Note from Ailsa, Roots Website Editor

To participate in creation care during Lent, have a look at:

 

 

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Connecting faith with everyday, real-life issues for young people

Half-truths

As I sit down to write this, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor – formerly Prince Andrew, 8th in line to the throne – has been released under investigation after being arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office this morning. This coming following the release of millions of files relating to Jeffry Epstein in America over the past few months. Without wanting to make any judgements before police investigations are complete, it could well turn out that years – decades – of half-truths, and potentially mistruths, are finally catching up with Andrew.

As we see in today’s reading from Genesis, deception and half-truths have been part of the human story since the fall in the Garden of Eden. "It wasn’t me, God; it was Eve... It wasn’t me; it was the snake..."

Sound familiar?

Whilst we may not be accused of the things that Andrew has, we can relate to the:

  • half-truths and deception;
  • implying that it might be someone else’s fault;
  • distancing ourselves from a given situation to get ourselves out of a tight spot every now and again.

Throughout scripture, we see God challenging this human tendency of half-truths by bringing things hidden in the darkness into the light. God calls His people, His Church – me, you, those with whom you worship every week – to shine light where there is darkness so that these half-truths and deception can be brought into the light.

Jonathan Buckley is Youth Development Worker at YMCA White Rose and Redevelopment Manager at St Paul’s Church, Parson Cross, Sheffield.

 

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