February 22, 2026 (Lent)
Beulah UMC & Oak Grove UMC
For this season of Lent through Easter Sunday, we are focusing on the theme, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” The inspiration for this 7-week sermon series comes from the hymn of the same name.
This hymn was written by Isaac Watts, one of the most recognizable of all the hymn writers. He was born in England in 1674. When his hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” was published in 1707, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism was only 4 years old! This hymn became Isaac Watts crowning achievement.
There is a great story about Isaac Watts when he was a boy and before he became a prolific hymn writer. He complained to his father who was a pastor that the hymns they were singing in church were deplorable. He said, “The singing of God’s praise is the part of worship most closely associated with heaven; but its performance among us is the worst on earth.”
His father responded by rebuking him and saying, “I’d like to see you write something better!” And the rest as they say is history.
Isaac Watts ended up writing 750 hymns, 15 of which are in our United Methodist hymnal. We sing one of his hymns every Christmas Eve, “Joy to the World.”
His hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” is based on Galatians 6:14 where the Apostle Paul writes, “May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to, and I to the world.”
So that’s a little background information about this very deep and meaningful hymn of faith that we are using for our season of Lent theme. Just wanted to give Mr. Watts the credit he deserves for inspiring this 7-week sermon series. Each week of this series, we will sing at least a verse or two of this hymn.
As I was putting this sermon series together and was thinking about this hymn, it occurred to me that the season of Lent is a time for us to not only survey the wondrous cross, but also the different aspects of our lives that God is calling us to survey during this season of reflection and repentance.
And these areas of our lives are based on our appointed scripture readings for each of these Sundays.
So, for today, we’re going to focus on surveying our temptations. Next Sunday, we will be surveying our faith. The following Sunday, we will survey our spiritual thirst. The week after that, we will survey our heart and the Sunday after that, we will survey our grief.
And then on Palm Sunday, March 29th, we will survey the wondrous cross, the actual title of the hymn. And then, we’ll conclude our 7-week sermon series on Easter Sunday by surveying the empty tomb. So much for us to survey over these next several weeks!
What does it mean for us to survey our temptations?
Well, we first need to be willing to enter into the wilderness if we truly want to survey our temptations. Why the wilderness? Because this is what Jesus did when he began his ministry.
After Jesus was baptized, he then was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. The Season of Lent is also a time for us to be lead into the wilderness. Why would we want to go to a placed that is desert-like, is dusty, and is really just a bunch of rocks?
It’s because it’s in the wilderness where we can devote some serious time in reflecting on several important things. So, for one, when we spend time in the wilderness, we come face to face with who we really are. We are able to see our true selves and not just the image that we want to project for others to see.
And secondly, when we go into the wilderness, we become much more aware of what is really important in our lives because we’re not emboldened to a busy and frantic schedule. The season of Lent is meant to offer us a change of pace so that we can slow down, take a deep breath, and find renewal for our souls.
The third thing that spending time in the wilderness does for us is that it helps us to hear and clarify who God is calling us to be and what God is calling us to do.
And the fourth thing is that spending time in the wilderness helps us to face our temptations and overcome them which is our focus for today. We are told that when Jesus entered the wilderness, he was tempted by the devil.
Susan Gray is a United Methodist pastor, and she shares about a time in her life when she entered a spiritual wilderness. It was during the winter of 2000 when she, her husband and their three school-aged children moved to Indiana. At the time, she didn’t realize that it would become a wilderness journey for her.
She says that she ended up learning some very important lessons during that experience. One of the lessons she learned and is a lesson that a lot of pastors learn at some point during their ministry is that who she is to God is far more important that what she does for God.
Before, she had thought that it was all up to her as the pastor to help the church grow, but over time she came to discover that the church could run just fine without her. That humbling experience while she was in the wilderness helped her to see that serving God is about community and shared ministry.
When we spend time in the wilderness, we experience these humbling moments when we are reminded that it’s not about us. It’s about what God can do in and through all of us together!
When Jesus went into the wilderness, I’m sure that he was thinking about his Jewish ancestors who, several centuries earlier had spent 40 years in the wilderness. God had freed them from slavery in Egypt and led them to the Promised Land. But it was during that long journey in the wilderness where they needed to learn to trust God to provide for their needs.
And it wasn’t just about Moses leading them. It was about all of God’s people learning to trust God together.
So, as we spend these next 40 days in the wilderness and make this journey to Easter Sunday, it’s important for us to remember that we are doing this together. We are learning to be God’s people together. We are helping each other face the temptations of hunger and thirst. We are here to encourage each other especially when we are feeling weak, tired, and discouraged.
The reason why our church calendar always has the season of Lent is because I’m not so sure that we would put this wilderness journey on our calendars each year. Why not just fast forward from the celebration of Christmas to the joy of Easter, and just skip this long 40-day journey in a hot and dry wilderness?
But we don’t grow in our faith by fast-forwarding. We grow in our faith by slowing down and by being willing to spend some time in the wilderness.
Maybe we don’t like to enter the wilderness because we know that it’s going to make us feel really vulnerable.
We don’t like to be taken out of our comfort zones. We don’t always like to wake up 30 minutes earlier in the morning to spend that extra time in prayer. We’re not always that thrilled to give up something for Lent like fasting from a meal each week because we know it’s probably going to make us hangry. You ever get hangry?
We’re not wired to put ourselves in a position where we feel vulnerable. We much prefer to surround ourselves with every comfort we can possibly have because it insulates us from exploring the deeper realities of who we truly are.
Being vulnerable in the wilderness might reveal our soft spots and those areas of our lives where we allow temptations to get the best of us. Think of the season of Lent as our spring training where we are getting into spiritual shape so that we will be able to fully embrace the good news of Easter and the empty tomb.
We are told that when Jesus was in the wilderness and was hungry, he was tempted to turn stones into bread. But we are told that Jesus overcame that temptation by relying on God’s word.
I have to think that the reason why Jesus was able to feed 5,000 people with just five loaves of bread and two fish later in his ministry was because he was able to overcome this first temptation in facing hunger himself. My hunch is that when the disciples told Jesus to send that big crowd of people away because they didn’t have enough food, that it was this experience in the wilderness that led Jesus to trust God to give what little they had.
And I also have to think that the reason why Jesus was able to heal the sick, restore sight to the blind, and perform all of those miracles was because he was able to overcome the 2nd temptation where the devil wanted Jesus to use God’s power for his own purposes. When Jesus healed someone or turned water into wine, he was doing those signs and wonders to point people to a loving God.
And I have to think that that the reason why Jesus was willing to die on a cross for the sins of the world was because he resisted the 3rd temptation in the wilderness in which he was offered all the kingdoms of the earth earth in exchange for worshiping the devil instead.
By resisting that temptation, he was able to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, “not my will but thine be done.”
This is why Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness and faced those temptations because it prepared him for what God had sent him to do, to be the Savior of the world.
When we enter the wilderness, it’s an opportunity for us to survey the temptations that would keep us from living out who God has called us to be. These 40 days in the wilderness is what prepares us for what lies ahead as we seek to be faithful to God’s calling in our lives.
The wilderness is where we are reminded that if we are to overcome our temptations, we just need to rediscover what it means to lean on God. Lean on God rather than on our own strength. Lean on God who knows us better than we know ourselves. Lean on God during times of struggle, hardship, and temptation. Lean on God when you are feeling weak.
As our closing hymn will remind us, “O how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way, leaning on the everlasting arms; O how bright the path grows from day to day, leaning on the everlasting arms.”
As we begin this 40-day wilderness journey, let’s lean on God together. Let’s lean on God together by living by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Let’s lean on God together by not putting God to the test. Let’s lean on God together by worshipping the Lord and serving only him.
Let’s lean together on the promises of God.
