Transcript
Read time: ~49 min
Well, have you ever wished that you could sub somebody else in for you? You've got a big test. You're going, yeah, I didn't prepare for this. If only I could just tap somebody in, get them in and let them take the test instead. Presentation at work, whatever it is, that feeling of I'm in trouble. I could really use somebody else to do this for me.
Maybe you've had a professor who's really nice and lets you do a retake. You already failed the test. You bombed it. It was terrible. And you're like, please let me retake it. Please give me some kind of credit. They let you retake the test. All right, fine. And then you fail again. It doesn't get much worse than that. You just know, man, I can't do it. I just can't do it. Whatever this test is, this project, I can't do it.
That is all well and good when you're taking a test at school. You know, you don't want to get an F, but it's fine. But that is actually the exact situation we are in in our spiritual lives when it comes to trying to defeat temptation. When we come face-to-face with temptation, there's that sin that we know we're not supposed to, we know, and we can feel the tug of temptation, and we're trying to fight it, we're trying to not give in, and then we give in again. We failed the test. And we failed it a million times. And if we got a redo, we'd fail it again. We failed it so much. We've sinned so much that it's already so bad it can't be fixed. We could be given so many redos, and we would never be able to beat it enough times to make up for the entire mess that we've made, not resisting temptation for our whole lives, failing at passing this test.
I'm sure we can each think of our own scenarios in our life, that sin that you can't beat, that you try to fight it, it keeps coming back, and it's made your life a mess. And you feel... Completely discouraged, like, man, this is impossible. I actually can't beat temptation. I think it's actually impossible. If I could take the test 100 times, I would fail.
And just to be clear, it is a test. It is a test. When you're tempted to disobey God, It's a test of your loyalty to him. It's a test of how much you trust his word, his promises. His word is good, he said. These laws are good for you. And when you break them, you're not only just disobeying, failing right there, you're also saying, yeah, Lord, I don't fully trust this. I don't fully trust your promises.
We fail all the time. We've made a mess of things. We've done the opposite of take the test and pass. We get a zero on this test of fighting against temptation. So we're at the point, I think, in our lives, when we think about our relationship to sin, temptation, where we've realized, if you're a Christian, you've definitely come to this point, you've realized, I just need somebody else to take the test, man. I need to sub somebody else in. I'm never gonna do it. I need somebody to take the test, and not just take the test, I need somebody to do so good on the test, they could fix every single time I've messed it up. It has to be such a great performance that it completely fixes this mess that I'm in.
That's where we're at when we are really honest with ourselves about how we do against temptation. We don't do good. We would do much better if we could just have somebody do it for us.
We're in Luke chapter four this morning, if you wanna turn there. And we're in a very familiar passage in Luke chapter four. Jesus being tempted by the devil in the wilderness. These famous three temptations, a very familiar passage. And there's a lot of things that this passage is about. But I think we often miss the main point of it. It's true that this passage is about how we can defeat temptation. What's a strategy to defeat temptation? Well, how does Jesus do it? It's a little bit about that. This passage is about strategy of Satan. Yeah, how does Satan tempt us? We can definitely learn that from this passage. But it's about more than that. That's not the main point.
This passage does show us how perfect Jesus was, a human being who can defeat temptation. We learn about Jesus' perfection. It is about him being a sinless savior. If he sinned, of course, he'd be in trouble. It's about all those things, but actually, why was Jesus in the wilderness? Why is this even happening? Couldn't Jesus have faced temptations along the way somewhere? Why is it that there's this, we have this in all the gospels, where Jesus goes out and faces these three specific tests against Satan. Well, here's the actual main point of this passage that we sometimes miss. The point of this is that Jesus has to face this test in the wilderness because we failed it. It's not that Jesus just has to be perfect and sinless for himself, he does. For him to be a perfect sacrifice, yeah, he has to be sinless. But the reason why we have this account of Jesus being tempted, tested by the devil in this extreme circumstance is because we need him to do it because we can't do it. Because we failed so terribly, we need Jesus to succeed in this test on our behalf. We wouldn't need this episode if we hadn't failed so spectacularly. This episode is about Jesus facing the test of temptation for us on our behalf. We need a perfect representative son of God to face this test because we can't do it.
And let me show you what I mean. I think actually the whole Bible has been building up to this point. You remember Genesis chapter one, we have Adam, the first human, the firstborn son of God, the literal first human ever created by God, as Luke told us in the last chapter, the son of God, Adam is God's son. And Adam was supposed to be, as God's son, this representative, priest, king of humanity. He's supposed to be ruling in the garden. He's supposed to be multiplying, having dominion over the earth. He's supposed to be this representative of humanity, as the perfect son of God.
But of course, we know what happened to Adam. He was tested, he was tested. He had a command from God, and he didn't trust that command. He didn't believe that command. He disobeyed that command, and then Adam fell into temptation. This person who was supposed to be the perfect son of God on our behalf, beating the test for us so he could rule as our king, failed. And right there in the third chapter of the Bible, we're like, man, we're in trouble. We're on the third page of this thing, we're already in trouble.
But there's also this amazing prophecy that you probably have heard before from Genesis chapter three. God comes in there, he goes, all right, I know you messed it up, but there's one day going to be another son. Eve is gonna have a son one day, a seed from your line of Adam and Eve. And that son, he's actually gonna get it right. He's gonna be what Adam should have been. He's gonna be the perfect, true son of God that passes the test of temptation, that passes the test of loyalty to God, that passes the test of trusting only in God and obeying him perfectly. And that son, as our perfect representative, is gonna crush Satan. He's gonna crush the serpent. And so for the rest of the Bible, from that point onward, you're waiting for that son to appear.
You're going next chapter, Cain and Abel, maybe it's one of them. Nope, Cain kills Abel. Okay, maybe it's Noah, he survives the flood. Maybe Noah's the son that's gonna crush the serpent, this perfect obedient son. And then Noah gets drunk. Maybe it's Abraham, right? Maybe he's gonna be the one. And then we learn Noah's gonna come through Abraham, but it's not Abraham yet. So it keeps happening throughout the Bible.
And there's one really interesting one. In the book of Exodus, you get to Exodus, and God tells Pharaoh, hey, let my people go because they're my son. Israel's my firstborn son. They need to come out in the wilderness and serve me. And you go, oh, maybe it's not one person, maybe it's Israel. Maybe Israel can be the one, God's son, to do this, to represent the world and obey God.
So God goes in, He rescues Israel out of Egypt. He sends them through the waters of judgment, which crashed down on the Egyptians. They come out on the other side. He takes them out in the wilderness to serve Him and to test them. He says that, He's gonna test them in Deuteronomy 8. It's a test. Are you gonna believe me? Are you gonna trust in me? Are you gonna obey me? Even when I take you out here where there's no food. Are you gonna trust that I'm gonna provide? And we all know how that goes, not good. They didn't trust him. They wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. They complained, they tested him. They worshiped other gods like almost immediately.
So we've got this whole Bible building, building through the whole Old Testament. Who's gonna be the son? And then we get to Luke. We get to Luke chapters one through three and you go, oh, this has gotta be him, right? You've got a miraculous virgin birth. You've got prophetic songs. You've got angels coming down. You've got this little kid schooling people in the temple. And then, you have in chapter three, which we saw last week, Jesus getting baptized, a literal voice from heaven. God the Father audibly saying, this is my son, with whom I am well pleased. And you're supposed to go, he's here, this is it. This is the guy who can fix my mess. Every time I've failed, it's an unfixable failure. I can never pass the test. Jesus can pass the test for me. That's what this whole thing's been setting up.
Luke even gives us the bonus of the genealogy that goes all the way back to Adam, right? Right before this passage, we've got This is my son from the baptism, and then genealogy, son of Adam, son of God. So Luke is setting us up in this chapter to go, all right, we've been waiting for this son. God said, this is him. Luke says, remember Adam? This is the new Adam. Remember Adam, how he was God's son? Well, here's God's son who's going to do what Adam couldn't do. That's what we have in this passage. That's why that's the main point of this passage. There's other things in there. We'll talk about temptation. We'll talk about how to defeat temptation. But mainly this passage is about the fact that we can't do it. We cannot resist temptation. And now Jesus is gonna come and be that perfect Son of God to do it for us. That's what Luke points out to us right in the beginning here in the first two verses of Luke 4.
So hopefully you're there at Luke 4. Look at these first two verses. This is Luke showing us that God is sending his son into the wilderness to be tested on our behalf. Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.
God sends his perfect son into the wilderness to be tested for us. So this is immediately following the baptism. He's out of the water, a voice from heaven, this is my son, the dove descends on him, and then as he's going back, he returns, and then the spirit, it says, drives him, leads him into the wilderness, where he's about to be tempted by the devil, the story we know.
And I just want you to notice that this is not a setup from Satan. Satan wasn't waiting for Jesus right after the baptism to try and trip him up. God sent Jesus to the wilderness. God, the Spirit, commanded Jesus to go out into the wilderness for 40 days.
Why is this happening? I thought Jesus was going to begin his ministry. I thought, Jesus, what exactly is going on here? This is what I mean by Luke showing us that Jesus is the new Adam, the new son of God. Jesus is the new Israel, the new son of God who's gonna do what all the others failed to do. What Adam failed, Jesus is gonna fix it. What Israel failed, Jesus is gonna fix it. That's what Luke is telling us.
He goes out into the wilderness for 40 days. Was that just a random number that the spirit made up? No, it's symbolizing that Israel was in the wilderness for 40 years failing. Now Jesus is gonna be in the wilderness for 40 days succeeding, fixing their mess. He's hungry, he has nothing to eat. Israel's biggest problem in the wilderness, where they're testing God, they're not trusting God, is because they go out of Egypt with plenty, God takes them into the wilderness specifically to test them, to say, hey, are you gonna trust me? And they're immediately like, hey God, where's the food? Why can't we go back to Egypt where there's food? So why is Jesus not eating in the wilderness? Because he's gonna fix what Israel messed up the first time.
Luke is pointing out to us that the reason why Jesus is let out into the wilderness by the Spirit is because we failed and He has to fix it. He has to do it for us. If he does it, he will be our representative head. His obedience will apply to us. If he goes and completes the test, all of our mess, he fixes it. All of the things Israel did wrong, Adam did wrong, all the times we failed, if Jesus succeeds in the wilderness, he does it for us so we can be righteous. His one act of obedience will make the many righteous.
God often tests his people. This is a test for Jesus. It was a test for Adam, it was a test for Israel, and here's a test for Jesus. And he has to pass this test because we can't do it. That's what's happening in this passage.
So how does Christ do it? How does he represent us? What does Christ have to do to pass the test? What is the thing that we can't do, that we always fail when we are tempted? He does it by obeying in the place of those who cannot obey.
Let's read the main chunk of this passage. These three temptations from the devil, starting in verse three. The devil said to him, if you are the son of God, command this stone to become bread. Jesus answered him, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone.
The second temptation, the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said to him, to you I will give all this authority and their glory for it has been delivered to me and I give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours. And Jesus answered him, it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.
In the final temptation, he took him to Jerusalem, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against the stone. And Jesus answered him, it is said you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.
And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Jesus, this final true son of God, passes this test on our behalf through obedience. He proves that he trusts the Lord by completely obeying every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Before we get into each temptation, explaining what's happening, I just wanna give you an overview of what all these temptations have in common. Because I think they're confusing. We're used to this passage, we know Jesus wins, we know he beats him, but we're gonna dig into each one of them. They seem actually a little confusing when you think about it, but here's what they all have in common.
The first thing they all have in common is that Satan is trying to get Jesus to doubt his status as the son of God. Satan was there in the garden. He heard that prophecy that one day a son of God would crush his head. And he's successfully thwarted many of those sons of God throughout history. Now here's the real son of God. The demons know who Jesus is, Satan knows who Jesus is, and Satan's goal here is to mess up Jesus's mission as the son of God.
Jesus has just been told, by God from heaven, you're my son. He gets driven into the wilderness, and for 40 days he's eating nothing. And Satan's thinking that here at the end of these 40 days, Jesus is at his weakest. Maybe I can get him to mess up and try to be the son of God in a way he's not supposed to be. You'll see how that works as we go through these. So all these temptations have to do with Satan trying to mess up the son of God. We need a perfect son of God, and Satan's gonna go, are you sure you're the son of God, Jesus? Prove it. Are you sure you're the son of God, Jesus? Well, come on, show me. He's trying to get Jesus to sin and mess up that role as son.
All three of these temptations also have to do with Jesus being tempted to not trust what God's word says. That's like at the bottom line of all of these. There's different subtleties that Satan uses here, but at the bottom line, Satan is saying, hey, do you really trust what God said? Very similar to what he does to Adam. Did God really say that? He's trying to get Jesus to go, I know God said this, but maybe I'll just do this instead. That's what Satan's angle is in all three of these temptations.
And in all three, Jesus defeats Satan by obeying God's word. Instead of doubting God's word, he obeys his word exactly, and that is how Jesus defeats Satan, passes the test for us. Every time we've disobeyed, Jesus fixes it by obeying in our behalf.
So let's go to the first temptation in verses three through four, where Jesus obeys God by trusting in his provision. So let me read it again, just two verses. Verse three, the devil said to him, if you are the son of God, command this stone to become bread. And Jesus answered him, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone.
So the devil knows Jesus is weak. He hasn't eaten in 40 days. I mean, this is the very end of 40 days of not eating. I can't even imagine how hungry you would be at that point. I mean, I don't even know if the human body can barely handle that. You'd be delirious, you'd be...
So he's striking at the time when Jesus is at his weakest, and he goes, aren't you hungry, Jesus? How about some bread? And then you read this and you go, wait a minute. Is eating bread a sin? How is this a temptation? Would the... Eating bread's not a sin, so maybe the sin is, like, how is this tempting Jesus? Is it a sin to change stones into bread somehow? He's God, that can't be a sin. He changes water to wine. He multiplies loaves of fish. It's not a sin for him to change stones into bread. And even Jesus' answer's a little weird. Man shall not live by bread alone. And they just move on. And you go, what does bread have to do with temptation again?
So here's what I think this is about here. This temptation isn't about food or creating food. This is a temptation for Jesus to provide for himself instead of trusting God to provide for him. He wasn't supposed to be eating. The fasting was part of the test. Remember, he's redoing what Israel failed. Israel made a mess, he's gotta fix it. The main thing Israel got in trouble for in the wilderness early on was not trusting God for food. It was a whole thing about food. There was manna, there was quails, there was water from a rock. It was a whole thing about food if you go back and read through Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
So Jesus has been commanded by the Spirit, go out in the wilderness for 40 days to do what Israel couldn't do and trust me, I'm gonna provide for you. That's the implicit thing here. You're my son, God just told him, you're my son, I'm pleased with you, now go in the wilderness for 40 days. The temptation for Jesus here is to not trust that God will provide for him for those 40 days and instead take matters into his own hands and provide for himself. That would be the sin, not trusting that God will take care of him and doing it himself.
And Satan, remember, is goading him. He goes, hey, if you're the son of God, you can do this, right? He's saying, I know you're the son of God, Jesus, prove it to me. You don't seem like the son of God right now. You're famished, you're weak. What kind of son of God are you? You think God is really taking care of you? Why would God let you be famished and weak and horribly, almost dead in the desert? God doesn't care about you. You're the son of God, just make bread, man. Prove it to me. You see how he's sort of jabbing at Jesus to try and get him to break God's commands, not do what he's supposed to be doing in fasting, not trust that God will provide for him instead.
Well, you're gonna say, nah, you know, and prove that he is who God says he is, the Son of God. Jesus faces this temptation to not trust in God's commands, not trust in God's promises to him for us. The reason Jesus is out there starving after 40 days, having to fight off the devil, trying to not eat bread when he's starving, is because we've failed to trust God. We fail to trust God all the time. We fail to trust God's promises to provide when we tell a little lie to try and get ahead in our job, try and get that raise. We just lie a little bit. That's failing to trust God that he will provide for you. We fail to trust God when we keep silent instead of evangelizing and telling our neighbors about God's love for them. God promised he would be with us. God promised he would give us the words to say when we are in front of adversaries and instead we're cowards and we're quiet, we don't speak up. We fail, we don't trust God's promises.
We fail to stress His promises when we run to other things to fulfill us besides Him. God says, I am enough for you. Find your rest in me, I will fulfill you. And we go, I'm feeling rough today, man, I'm anxious. Let me just go eat a bunch of food, you know? Let me just run back to my video games and get buried in those, right? All the time we fail, we sin, we disobey God, and fail to trust his promises.
That's why Christ had to go out in the wilderness and fight off Satan and trust that God would provide for him at his weakest moments. And of course, Jesus passed that test by obeying. He quotes Deuteronomy 8.3, and he says, I'm not gonna break the word of God, Satan, I obey God. And you read, man shall not live by bread alone, and you're going, what does that have to do with provision? But if you go and read Deuteronomy 8,the whole passage where Jesus is quoting it, it's in perfect context for what's happening here. Deuteronomy 8is all about Israel being tested in the wilderness with food and failing. And God says, I sent you out here to test you, and you didn't listen to me. The reason I'm testing you out here, God says to Israel, is to prove that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. So Jesus is saying, God sent me out here to test me, that I trust in him and his word, not in my own ability to provide for myself. No, Satan, I will not be disobeying God.
Jesus fixes Israel's mistake, He fixes Adam's mistake in not trusting God's command to not eat from the tree, and He fixes our mistakes. All the times we failed to trust God and tried to take matters into our own hands, right here Jesus fixes it on our behalf. He does it for us so we can have His righteousness.
How about the second temptation? In what way is Jesus doing this for us? Let's read it again, verses five through eight. The devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said to him, to you I will give all this authority and their glory for it has been delivered to me and I give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours. And Jesus answered him, it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.
In this next temptation, Jesus obeys God. By trusting His plan to give him power. And let me explain what I mean by that. This temptation really boggles my mind. That Satan would think that Jesus would ever worship him. How on earth would God be tempted to worship Satan? You read that and you go, what? And Satan's making quite the big boast here that has had theologians throughout history arguing about what exactly he means. Satan goes, hey, you see all the kings of the world, they're mine. And you're going, Satan, what are you talking about? The kings of the world are God's. How could they be yours, Satan? So there's a lot going on here that is confusing to us. So I want to first explain, does Satan have this authority to give? Because I think if Satan doesn't have this authority to give this stuff, then what is tempting here for Jesus? I think Satan does have the authority to give this stuff, and let me just show you. He says, in verse six, I'll give you all this authority, for it has been delivered to me. So certainly God has authority over everything. He's sovereign. The heart of the king is in his hands. He turns it like a river. God is, of course, sovereign. He has the ultimate authority.
But God has, in His sovereignty, which we don't understand all the time, given some of this authority to Satan. He's given Satan some authority on earth. And this is actually... We don't like to think about it, it's confusing, but it's all over the Bible. For example, Ephesians chapter two, Paul calls Satan the prince of the power of the air. He's at work in the sons of disobedience in this world. He's the prince of this world, Paul says. In John 12,Satan is called the ruler of this world. You go, I thought God was the ruler of the world. Well, God has given Satan authority in this worldly place to rule the worldly things of the world. How about, this is the biggest, this is the craziest one. 2 Corinthians 4,Paul calls Satan the god of this world. The god of this world. God has given Satan some kind of dominion on this earth.
So I think he does actually have authority, and he's actually using his authority that he's been given to tempt Jesus. He says, some people have said that Satan's lying. He's just lying, he's the father of lies, there's no way. It's possible, I think he might be lying at least a little bit, because he says, I can give this authority to whoever I will, and I'm not sure that's true. God gave him that authority, God gives that authority. Satan just doesn't get to do whatever he wants with it. It's all metered out by God. So anyway, he tempts Jesus with this authority, and he says, if you'll worship me, I'll give you this authority. And you go, what? How could Jesus ever worship God?
Well, here's the temptation. The temptation is not the power itself, the power, authority, glory that Satan is promising. It wouldn't be wrong for Christ to take that power and authority and glory. What would be wrong is for Christ to not trust God to deliver him that authority in the right time, and instead try to take a shortcut and worship Satan to get that authority quicker. So think about this. Jesus is just heard, he's the son of God. Then he's been sent into the wilderness. And he's 40 days, he's completely worn out. But when we read in scripture about the Son of God, there's a lot of promises about how he's gonna have all the power, he's gonna have all the glory. For example, Psalm 2is all about the Son of God and how he's gonna rule the nations. And in Psalm 2,verse eight, the Psalm says, ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession.
So the ends of the earth, the nations, all of it, are the Son of God's possession. Jesus knows this is true. It's a promise that He, as God's true Son, will be given all authority over all these kingdoms of the world. It will be taken back from Satan and given to Him. It's His right. So it's not wrong for Him to take the power. What would be wrong for Him is to not trust that God will give Him the power, instead try to take it for Himself. Try to take a shortcut. Just bow to Satan one time, get all the power, and miss the suffering He's about to do. All this power does belong to Christ, but it has to get to him somehow. It is in Satan's hands now, and the way it gets to Jesus, as we will see in the rest of the gospel, is through suffering, is through pain. He has to go to the cross to get this power.
It's a very similar temptation that Jesus is feeling there at the end near the cross. Lord, if there's any other way we can do this, let me out of this, but if not, I'll do it. It's a temptation to miss the suffering, to try and still get the glory, a shortcut. Worship Satan, get all the glory I'm owed anyway.
It's hard for us to wrap our mind around, but this had to be a real temptation. Jesus really was tempted. To test it, to see if he would be loyal to God, trust that God will give him the power, or could he just take a shortcut to the power because he's the son of God? It's Satan again trying to go, Jesus, come on man, you're the son of God, you're owed this stuff, just take it. All you gotta do is worship me, just take it, Jesus. You're the son of God, what are you doing out here in the wilderness? Take what's yours. That's what Satan is saying to Jesus.
And the reason why Jesus is out here in the desert, up on a mountaintop, looking at the kingdoms of the world, being tempted to worship the devil is because we are the ones who have compromised our worship to God. He wouldn't have to be out here if we hadn't failed to worship God alone. We do it all the time. We think we worship God alone, we want to worship God alone, but then we serve something else other than Him. We serve our own self-interest. We serve the whims of other people. We bow to the wishes of other people instead of just serving God and obeying what He said. We fail to worship God when we sort of wimp out when the going gets tough. God is our Savior, and He says we will face trouble in this world, and when you try to avoid the suffering and go, well, God, and you kind of just avoid it, that's not worshiping and serving God alone. That's dodging what He has for you in your path.
The reason why Jesus is out here doing this is because we all the time are tempted to not worship Christ, and then we fail. We do. We worship things besides God. We try to take shortcuts instead of trusting what God has said. But thanks be to God, Jesus defeats the devil in this temptation. He again completely obeys God's word. He quotes this time from Deuteronomy chapter six, which is one of the most important parts of the entire Bible, okay? It's called the Shema, if you've ever heard of that. It's this famous passage, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And it goes and talks about who God is. And what are we supposed to do for this God? This one God who we serve, we're supposed to love him. We're supposed to love neighbor. And then you get down to this verse 13 where it says, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.
Jesus fixes what Israel couldn't do. Israel has been given this clear command, worship God only. It's the most important command. Jews today still memorize this verse. One of the most important verses in the entire Old Testament. They're supposed to worship God alone and of course Israel we know worships all kinds of stuff besides God throughout that whole time. They're supposed to be God's son, they're worshiping other stuff. So Jesus comes to fix it. For the things Adam messed up, for the things Israel messed up, and for the times we've messed up and not worshiped God, Jesus comes and worships him perfectly, obeys him perfectly, trusts in his promises, and worships him alone for us so that we can be made righteous.
One more temptation. Satan pulls out all the stops here and starts quoting scripture to Jesus to try and tempt him with scripture. Verse nine, he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. And Jesus answered him, it is said, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Here's the final temptation, Satan's last chance. He goes, all right, Jesus, you say you're the Son of God and you keep quoting scripture to me. Here's a scripture about the Son of God. This whole time Satan's been sort of playing on do you trust what God has said about you, the Son of God? Do you trust that God will give you the power? Do you trust that God will provide for you? He goes, all right, Jesus, here's a verse about the Son of God. Since you like to quote those so much, do you believe this verse? If you believe this verse, you'd prove yourself to be the Son of God if you just threw yourself off here and the angel saved you.
This is really interesting because Satan actually quotes the verse correctly. He's not misquoting the verse. It's word for word. It's from Psalm 91. It's verses 11 through 12. It says exactly this. He will command his angels concerning you to guard you. On their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against the stone. So Satan actually quotes it perfectly. It's a true verse. Everything in the verse is true. God will send his angels to protect Christ. God will watch over him and bear him up and keep him safe. It's all true. And yet, it's a temptation, it's a lie. Satan is twisting it.
So what is the temptation? It's the same temptation we've been having this whole time. It's the temptation to not believe the promises about being God's son. When you test the promise of God, when God says, I promise that I will forgive you, and then you test it and go, well, how far can I go, though? Let me see, if I do this, will you forgive me? To test God's promises is to not believe his promises. It's to disobey him. It's to not trust that his word is true. It is disobedient to not trust, to put God to the test and not trust what he says.
Satan, it's amazing where Satan stopped this. It's not that his quote was wrong. His quote was correct, but his quote was out of context. If you look at the first verse of Psalm 91,it talks about he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. So this is a psalm about the Lord protecting His people who dwell with Him. Not a psalm about people going out to do stupid stuff to see if God will protect them. This is about running to God where He will protect you. And the craziest thing about Psalm 91is where Satan stops quoting. If you just go one verse further to 13, The next verse is, you will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot. Jesus quotes this messianic psalm, or Satan quotes this messianic psalm to Jesus to try and tempt him to test God, and the very next verse of the psalm is about how Jesus is going to crush the head of the serpent. It's an allusion back to the son of God who's gonna crush the serpents. Satan takes scripture out of context, tries to twist it, And Jesus has to face this temptation. It is a real temptation. Do I trust that God is actually with me? That I am his son, that he will protect me? Maybe I should test it. Because I'm in the wilderness for 40 days, I'm dying. Should I test it? But Jesus knows the context of Psalm 91. He's not gonna be tricked by that. But Jesus has to face this temptation because of us, because we do get tricked all the time. We all the time lack faith, and we test God. We fail to trust him, we put him to the test, when we presume upon his grace by continuing to sin. When we go, yeah God, I'm just gonna do this one more time, because I know you'll forgive me. That is a sin, that is disobeying God, that's testing him. We fail to trust him, we test him. When we take scripture out of context and abuse it, when we take scripture and try and make it fit our own agenda and do whatever we want with it, that is not trusting what God actually says there. It is putting him to the test. Thankfully, again, Jesus defeats Satan by obeying God's word. He goes back to Deuteronomy 6. You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. This is again in the context of Israel testing God So through all of these three temptations, Satan has tried to get Jesus to go, are you really the Son of God? Maybe do this one thing just to show us. And through all of them, in all the ways that we fail all the time, in all the ways that Adam and Israel failed, Christ succeeds. He obeys, he trusts God no matter what, he places entire faith in God's word, and he obeys God's word perfectly. Jesus is the true Son of God who has come to be our representative, to do what we couldn't do on our behalf. There's no doubt anymore. If you've been reading through Luke chapter 1, every single chapter is about how Jesus has come to be this son to save us, and now he's proved it once again by being obedient where we weren't. He's fixed all the mistakes of Israel, all the mistakes of Adam, and all of our mistakes. And he has started this first blow that will crush the serpent's head. What is the finishing blow that will finish crushing Satan? Satan runs away at the end of this, verse 13. He departs until the opportune time. Well, Satan thinks, I know, an opportune time. Let me see if the Romans will execute this guy, and I'll tempt him there. And you have, at the foot of the cross, the same temptations. If you're the son of God, prove it. Get off the cross. Save yourself and others. Satan comes back with the exact same tricks at the next lowest point of Jesus' life, the lowest point, as he's being killed and facing the wrath of God for our sins. Satan comes back. And once again, Jesus obeys God, defeats Satan, and this time strikes the final blow, crushes the serpent's head. Because not only does Christ obey and fix our mess, he makes us righteous when we can't be righteous, he also takes our punishment for all the things we've jacked up. All the sins, all the punishment we deserve, he takes it, and that's the final blow that crushes Satan's head.
So here, Christ makes us righteous by doing it for us. There, Christ forgives our sins by taking the punishment for those sins for us, and in all, as Satan, at those two moments, tries to take down the Son of God, he defeats Satan and saves us. That's what this passage is about. It's about the Son of God being tested because we failed, so he does it for us. Jesus now continues in verses 14 to 15, and he's already now fixed us, right? I mean, he's gonna continue doing it through his ministry, but he's done the hard work, passing the test of being righteous for us. And now he's this newly inaugurated son of God. He is now returning from the wilderness in the power of the Spirit, having all his promises confirmed from God. Now he knows, yes, I am the son of God, I've defeated these temptations, God was with me, God sustained me, the Spirit was with me. So now he's gonna go back and start his ministry in the power of the Spirit. And as this newly inaugurated son of God, he goes, this is me, I'm him, I'm the guy from Genesis 3.15. Now he begins his ministry.
And now what does he do in his ministry? He goes out. And teaches us to obey like he just obeyed. Look at verse 14. Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country, and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. So having passed this test by obeying, God's Son now is going to teach us to obey. He comes out of the wilderness in the power of the Spirit, back to Galilee, and he begins his ministry. And a report about him is going around throughout all the country. And what's the report about? Well, you've had this guy, a lot of people heard a voice from heaven say, this is my son. Then that guy disappeared into the wilderness for 40 days. And everybody's like, what happened to him? This is my son, what happened to him? And then he shows back up. And they're like, all right, what's he gonna do? And what does he do? Verse 15 teaches. He goes around to churches and preaches sermons and does small groups and Bible studies with them and reads the Bible. We're gonna see that starting next week, how Jesus teaches in the synagogues. But this triumphant Son of God, filled with the Spirit, comes back from defeating Satan, this cosmic battle for our souls. He defeats Satan and he goes and he starts his ministry and he teaches. He goes around teaching and a report's going around. It's the guy, it's the Son of God guy. He was in the desert, now he's teaching. Come hear what he's saying.
These two verses serve as sort of an intro for the rest of the book. This is what we're gonna see. We're gonna see Jesus going around and teaching. And what does Jesus teach? What kind of stuff is Jesus gonna teach us in the rest of the book of Luke? What is Jesus' ministry about? He's defeated Satan for us. He's done the righteousness for us. Now what's he gonna do? What's his ministry all about? Well, he's gonna teach In the next chapter, how the Old Testament points to him, he's gonna teach about the good news of the kingdom. He's gonna teach us about how to live faithfully through fasting and Sabbath keeping and loving our enemies and judging others. He's gonna teach us how to pray. He's gonna teach us parables about how the kingdom of God works. And he's gonna teach us about how he's gonna die for us and how we can be saved. So in other words, Jesus doesn't just stop after defeating Satan and being righteous for us. He goes out and teaches us and disciples us and teaches us how to obey like he obeys. He doesn't just do the work for us, He then gets us to work by empowering us and enabling us to defeat Satan. We actually don't have to give in to temptation every time. We don't have to, because Jesus defeated temptation, and throughout the rest of the book of Luke, He's gonna give us help, teach us, disciple us, change us to how we can defeat temptation.
But even in this passage, we see how He is already teaching us, through His example, how to fight temptation. The main thing we need to do, based on this passage, when you are tempted, is obey scripture. That's it. Obey scripture, that's the whole thing. You're being tempted to disobey scripture, obey it. Believe it and obey it.
And we can't obey those commands in scripture unless we actually know what the commands are. So for each of us, maybe you started your new Bible in a year plan because it's January, we need to read our Bibles often and we need to read the whole thing. How many of you have ever quoted out of Deuteronomy chapter eight when you were feeling tempted? How well do you know the whole thing? Could you go anywhere in the Bible to help you fight against temptation? How do you know you're obeying God's commands if you don't even know what they all are?
So read your Bibles in this new year, but specifically keep track of what you're reading and make sure that you're actually getting the full counsel of God's word. All of the places where God both commands us to do things and helps us do those things. I meant to bring one up here, but we have a Bible reading plan out in the lobby, it's on the table in the little, you know, paper tray thing, that just has every chapter of the Bible on it. Take one of those and keep track of what you're reading. If you haven't read Deuteronomy 6in years, start in Deuteronomy and start checking off the chapters to make sure you're actually reading the whole Bible so you can follow God's commands, so you can believe his promises.
We also can't use God's word to fight temptation like Jesus does. We can't obey in the face of temptation if we don't actually have the words of scripture to call to mind. Of course, if you're near a Bible and you're feeling tempted, grab a Bible and start reading. Go and get help from God's word when you're being tempted.
But you're gonna be in situations where you don't have your Bible to remind you to go, what was that promise again? You need to know God's promises in your heart and in your mind. So let's memorize scripture. There's all kinds of tools out there that can help you memorize scripture to help you defeat temptation. Andy Davis has a whole book on how to memorize scripture, his method for memorizing it. You can, if you Google his name, I think it's a free PDF, he has a whole website. There's also, this is a really great way to memorize songs. We live in an amazing age where you can just Google a verse and then somebody's got a song out there that's that verse put to music, and you'll have that song memorized in two lessons. I still have verses memorized from songs I learned in children's church as a kid. The whole, you know, the Fruits of the Spirit, there's all kinds of ones. I remember the song. So if you feel like you're terrible at memorizing, there are ways, devices, things you can use to help you get scripture in you so that when Satan tempts you to disobey scripture, you can go, no, God promised this, God said this, and you can defeat temptation like Jesus does here. Here's the other thing we can learn from Christ. Again, we're gonna see how he teaches us throughout the rest of this book, but one of the things he teaches us in this passage by his example is we can learn how Satan tempts us. We can learn about who Satan is, how he operates.
And here's the main thing I feel like I take from this passage about Satan is that he's opportunistic. He's not gonna tempt you when you're doing great. He's gonna tempt you when you're down and out. He's gonna tempt you when you're having your worst day, when you're depressed, when you're hungry, when you're tired. That's when he's gonna attack you, when you're less likely to be able to resist him.
There's this acronym that I think is really helpful. I think it's from a secular, you know, psychology something, but I found it to be really helpful. HALTS, or HALTS, H-A-L-T-S. These are the times when you're at your most susceptible to temptation. When you're hungry, angry, lonely, tired, and stressed. If you find yourself home alone, lonely, you're tired, you're stressed about work, That's when you're at your most susceptible. That's when your defenses are at the lowest. That's why Satan attacked Jesus at the end of the 40 days when he was starving. It's because naturally our defenses are lower. That's when Satan will attack you.
So we can at least try to avoid those situations as much as we can. If you're feeling lonely, call a friend. Get out of there. Go hang out with some people. Go to bed on time. Get enough sleep. It's amazing how much easier it is to fight temptation when you're awake and you're not just exhausted.
So there's things we can do to fight temptation that we learn from Christ here, but here's the main thing. We should use the tools Christ has given us to fight temptation, and the main tool he gives us is himself. He gave himself in this passage so we could be saved. He gives himself on the cross. Right now he's giving himself, fighting temptation for us.
So now we should reach out to Christ. He gives himself to us. He will help us defeat temptation. Listen to these verses from Hebrews chapter four.
Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Jesus gave himself for us, not just on the cross, but in his whole life. His whole life was for us, and one major part of his whole life was defeating temptation for us. Being tempted, defeating it, and now he sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us, And He's given us access to the Father. We've been united with the Father through Him. Now we can run to Him and go, Jesus, I know you were tempted like this. Help me, help me. He will not reject you. He will not go, how could you be tempted by that? Come on. He's gonna go, yeah, I get it. I was tempted by that. Let me help you.
Christ is here for us. He's given Himself for us. So that we may find mercy and grace for help in time of need. You need grace when you are tempted. Run to Jesus, pray to him, and ask him for grace to help you when you are tempted.
Jesus has felt the full force of temptation, far more than we ever have or will. I first heard this from John Piper, but apparently he got it from C. S. Lewis. Christ, because he was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is the only man who knows what full temptation means. If you're trying to fight temptation and you give in, you may be experienced like 3% of the full temptation. But Christ experienced 100% of the devil's temptation. He's able to help you as you're fighting off that 5, 10% that you're feeling.
The other thing that Christ gives us to fight temptation is his spirit. The spirit is all throughout the first four chapters of Luke. The spirit led him into the wilderness. The spirit's empowering him as he returns from the wilderness. And Jesus, when he ascended, sent that spirit to us. The spirit that helped Jesus fight the devil, you have that spirit. The spirit that is leading you through temptations, that led Jesus into temptations, leads you through them. It's the same spirit. So we can ask the Lord to give us more of his spirit, to have the spirit help us and empower us. And we can use that status of being a son of God with his spirit, empowering us to motivate us to not grieve that spirit, but to have his help in fighting temptation.
All of this leads to Jesus's glory. Look again at verse 15. It ends, this passage ends with Jesus being glorified by all. This word, the verb glorify in Luke is used nine times. Eight times in the book of Luke, glorify is about God the Father. Glorifying God the Father. We saw it in chapter two with the shepherds. Here, Jesus is being glorified just like God the Father is being glorified. He has proved himself to be the true Son of God, truly man and truly God. And as he goes around teaching, helping us, making disciples, helping us to be more like him, that is bringing him glory. That is bringing him glory as God, the God who came to fight temptation for us.
So as he goes and disciples us and sanctifies us and gives us his spirit and prays for us, that brings him the glory he is due as God, as the true son of God, the one who came to represent us and by his one act of obedience to make the many righteous. Jesus has passed this test for us, he's made us righteous, death brought us forgiveness, and now he is living so that he can teach us and help us to defeat the temptations that we will face as we follow him.