At the church where I serve, we
are spending the weeks leading up to Easter in a sermon series entitled
Tempted. We launched into this series by talking about the reality that we all
face temptation and that, as followers of Jesus, we are called to say no to
temptation and to say yes to a life that reveals and reflects the obedience of
Jesus in the face of temptation.
And because of that reality,
during this series, we are spending our time together asking and answering four
questions when it comes to temptation. We are asking and answering the
questions “What is temptation?”, “Where does temptation come from?”, “What are
the core temptations that we all face?”, and “How do we overcome temptation?”
And during this series our hope
and our prayer is that God would move in our heads, our hearts, and our hands
as we answer these questions in a way that results in us living a life that
consistently says no to temptation and yes to a life that reveals and reflects
the obedience of Jesus in the face of temptation.
This week, we are going to look at an event from history that
is recorded for us in a section of an account of Jesus life that is recorded in
the New Testament of the Bible called the gospel of Matthew. In this event from
history, we will see the Devil attempt to tempt Jesus toward evil and away from
God. And it is in this event from history that we will discover a timeless temptation
that we all face as we live out our life here on earth, along with a
timeless principle that enables us to overcome temptation. So let’s jump into
this event from history, together, beginning in Matthew 4:1:
Then Jesus
was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Matthew brings us into this event from history by
providing for us the context in which this event from history would take place.
When Matthew uses the word then, he is connecting what we are going to look at
this morning with something that previously happened in the life of Jesus. In
Matthew 3:13-16, Matthew records the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptizer in
the Jordan River.
This act of baptism was Jesus way of identifying
Himself with humanity so that He could allow Himself to be treated as though He
lived our selfish and sinful life so that God the Father could treat us as
though we lived Jesus perfect life. Matthew described God the Father’s response
to Jesus desire to identify with humanity by explaining that the Holy Spirit
descended upon Jesus, while God the Father proclaimed “this is my Beloved Son
in whom I am well pleased”.
And it is in this context, after being baptized, that
Matthew tells us that Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness. In
other words, Jesus was led on a journey by the Holy Spirit from the Jordan
River, which is actually located below sea level, into the desert wilderness
east of the Jordan River, which was at a much higher elevation. And here we see Matthew reveal for us the reality that
Jesus lived His earthly life by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus relied on
the power and the strength of the Holy Spirit to live the life that we were
created to live but refused to live in relationship with God and one another.
Matthew then explained that the
reason why the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness was to that He could
be tempted by the Devil. Now as we discovered last week, to be tempted is to be
enticed into evil or improper behavior. Temptation is
an enticement towards evil. Temptation is an enticement to take a God-given
desire beyond its God-given design.
In addition, Matthew tells us that the being who
would be enticing Jesus towards evil was the Devil. Now Jesus and the other authors of the letters that make
up the Bible teach us that the Devil is the leader of a group of supernatural beings who known as demons. We
also know that the Devil and demons have superhuman, but limited knowledge and
power. The Devil and demons are angels that were created by the Lord before the
creation of the universe, who rebelled against God sometime before the fall of
humans that is recorded for us in the very first letter in the Bible in Genesis
3.
And the Devil and the demons that follow the Devil
are driven by a desire to destroy the Kingdom of God and the people of God. The
Devil and the demons are driven by a desire to be worshipped as gods instead of
worshipping God. And, as we discovered last week, the Devil, who is often
described in the Bible as the tempter, will attempt to arouse and provoke our selfish desires for pleasure, possessions, or
prideful position in a way that results in those selfish desires dragging us
toward evil and away from God.
Now a natural question that
could easily arise at this point is “Well Dave, let me get this straight: The
Holy Spirit is leading Jesus to a place where He would be enticed to do evil?
The Holy Spirit is leading Jesus into temptation on purpose? Why would the Holy
Spirit do that? I thought the Holy Spirit was supposed to keep us from evil,
not lead us to evil? So what is going on here?”
If those questions are running
through your mind, I want to let you know that those are great questions to be
asking. And my response to those questions would be this: How do we know that
Jesus lived a perfect life? How do we know that Jesus never sinned? You see,
the only way that Jesus could be truly obedient; the only way that Jesus could
demonstrate and prove His obedience, was to be placed in a position where He
could be disobedient, right?
The only way Jesus could
demonstrate and prove His allegiance to someone is to be placed in a position
where that allegiance was challenged. The reason why the Holy Spirit led Jesus
into the wilderness to be enticed by the Devil toward evil was so that Jesus
could prove and demonstrate His allegiance to God by demonstrating His
obedience to God. This is what the writer of Hebrews was referring to when he
wrote the following in Hebrews 5:8:
Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the
things which He suffered.
When the writer of Hebrews uses
the word learned here, this word conveys the sense of directing one’s mind
towards something in order to produce an external effect. In other words, Jesus
set His mind towards being obedient in a way that He realized, produced and
proved His obedience through His attitudes and actions. Jesus was led by the
Holy Spirit and empowered by the Holy Spirit to demonstrate and prove His
perfect allegiance and obedience to God the Father and the Kingdom mission He
had been given by God the Father.
You see, Jesus shows us what it
means to be truly human. Jesus provides for us the example of how we are to
live our lives here on earth. As followers of Jesus we are called by God to
live Spirit filled lives. In other words, our lives are to be controlled,
influenced and empowered by the Holy Spirit so that we would reveal and reflect
Jesus to others as we live in relationship with God and others.
And as followers of Jesus, we
have the very presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives to empower us the follow
Jesus example of allegiance and obedience to God the Father in the face of
temptation. After providing the context for the event from history, Matthew
then gives us a front row seat to this event from history beginning in Matthew
4:2-3:
And after He
had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter
came and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command that these
stones become bread."
Now to fully understand what is happening here, we
first need to understand a few things. The first thing we need to understand is
what Jesus was doing when He fasted for forty days and forty nights. When a
person fasts, that person is giving something up in order to create space for
God. When a person fasts, that person spends the time that they would be
normally doing what they gave up doing with God.
The most common fast that the letters that make up
the Bible talk about is a fast from food. When a person fasts from food, that
person spends the time that they normally would be eating with God. When a
person feels a pang of hunger, a person who is fasting uses that pang of hunger
to direct them to God instead of to food. When Matthew says that Jesus fasted
for forty days and forty nights, that does not mean that Jesus did not eat or
drink anything; that means that Jesus did not eat anything for forty days.
Now as you might imagine, after not eating for forty
days and forty nights, you would be pretty hungry. And that is exactly where
Matthew tells us Jesus was at. And it was at this point, when Jesus was hungry,
that the tempter, the Devil, approached Jesus in an attempt to entice Jesus
toward evil.
You see, the Devil sensed that the hunger of Jesus
made Jesus vulnerable to temptation. Jesus was not at 100%. For forty days, a
growing desire for food had been welling up within Him. And now, the Devil
sensed that Jesus would be at His weakest; the Devil sensed that Jesus would be
most vulnerable. And in the same way, the Devil will often seek to entice us
towards evil when we are weak, when we are isolated, when we are vulnerable.
And it is at that moment that the Devil made his
enticement to Jesus known to Jesus: "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become
bread."? In other words, The Devil basically says to Jesus “Hey Jesus, I
know you are really hungry; I know that you really desire to eat. And hey, we
are in the middle of nowhere, there is no food to be found. Well Jesus, if you
are really God, why don’t you use your power as God to turn some stones into
bread.”
Did you
notice how the Devil is tempting Jesus here?
I mean, is it a sin to be hungry? Is a desire to enjoy a good meal that
satisfies one’s hunger wrong? No the desire to eat and enjoy a meal is a good
God-given desire. To enjoy a steak dinner is a gift from God.
You see, the issue, the enticement, is not the
desire. The issue, the enticement, is how we satisfy that desire. Remember temptation
is an enticement to take a God-given desire beyond its God-given design. By
calling Jesus to command these
stones to become bread, the Devil calling Jesus to satisfy His physical needs
and desires through His own supernatural means and power. The Devil is enticing
Jesus to take control and be autonomous. The Devil is enticing Jesus to meet
His desires in a supernatural way that demonstrates that He does not need
anyone, but that He is needed by everyone. The Devil is enticing Jesus to meet
His desires in a way that demonstrates how relevant and necessary He is for all
humanity.
Now here is a question to
consider: Is this not the exact same temptation that many of us constantly
face? Are we not constantly tempted to demonstrate that we are relevant? Are we
not enticed by a desire that people would take us seriously? Are we not
constantly enticed to be driven by a desire to demonstrate that we are needed
and necessary? Are we not constantly enticed by the desire to be autonomous, to
be in control and in charge of our lives? Are we not constantly tempted by the
desire to demonstrate that we have everything under control, that we are self
sufficient, independent people? Are we not constantly tempted to demonstrate
that we are dependable, not dependant?
However, while we are often
enticed to satisfy our desire for control, for autonomy, for relevance; while
we are often tempted to demonstrate that we are needed and necessary, the
reality is that control and autonomy are a myth.
Control and autonomy is a trap. The goal of control, autonomy, and self
sufficiency are unworthy goals because we are never really in control; we are
never really autonomous and we are never really out of community. They are
unworthy goals because we were never designed to be in control, to be
autonomous, to be outside of community. We see this reality revealed for us in
Jesus response to the Devil.
Friday, we will discover a timeless truth as we look
at Jesus response…
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