We are able to overcome the temptation to value something other than God supremely when we seek to spend time in God’s presence...

This week, we have been looking at an event from history where the Devil transported Jesus in a vision to a location and placed all the kingdoms of the earth below Him where He could see their glory, their greatness, and their splendor. Upon positioning Jesus where He could see the greatness and splendor of these earthly kingdoms, the Devil then made an enticing offer to Jesus: "All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me."

By offering Jesus the opportunity to have command and control over all the earth in exchange for worshipping him, the Devil was enticing Jesus to value him supremely instead of valuing God the Father supremely. The Devil was enticing Jesus to place him as the object of His devotion instead of placing God the Father as the object of His devotion. The Devil was enticing Jesus to express His submission and dependence to the Devil instead of to God the Father.

We talked about the reality that worship is more about what we do than what we say. Often what we say we worship is betrayed by what we actually worship with our time, talent, and treasure. Remember, temptation entices us to take a God-given desire beyond God-given design in a way that results in us rebelling against God’s design. Thus, we can often be enticed to take a good, God-given thing and make it a supreme thing that becomes the object of our worship instead of God.

Jesus responded to the enticement of the devil to value him supremely instead of valuing God the Father supremely by commanding the Devil to go away from Him. You see, Jesus recognized and acknowledged the reality that there is no other being that was to be of supreme value. And because of that reality, Jesus commanded the Devil to depart from Him.

What is so interesting is that in another account of Jesus life that is recorded for us in the Bible called the gospel of Luke, Luke adds the additional detail that the devil left Jesus until an opportune time. In other words, the devil departed Jesus but still kept his eyes on Jesus, waiting for the right opportunity to attempt to entice Jesus toward evil and away from God. So the devil waited. And the devil waited.

The devil waited until a Thursday evening when Jesus and His disciples gathered together in Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish feat of Passover. However, while the devil waited, the devil was not idle. The devil enticed more and more self righteous religious leaders to place themselves in opposition to Jesus. And the devil enticed one of Jesus closest followers, a man named Judas, to betray Jesus.

However, the devil was not finished when it came to his desire to entice others toward evil and away from God. The devil then turned his attention to the rest of Jesus closest followers. After celebrating the Passover meal, after proclaiming to the disciples that one of them would betray Him; after addressing an argument that the disciples were having when it came to who would be known as the greatest disciple by teaching them that one who would be greatest must become like a servant; Jesus turned to His closest followers and made a profound statement that would change the tone of the entire evening. A statement that Luke records for us in Luke 22:31-34:

Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; ³² but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers." ³³ But he said to Him, "Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and to death!" ³⁴ And He said, "I say to you, Peter, the rooster will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know Me.

Now to fully understand what is being communicated with this statement, we first need to understand something about the English language. You see, in English, the singular and plural form of you look identical. And because of that reality, what Jesus is saying here can be misunderstood. So Jesus statement would sound like this: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift all y’all like wheat; but I have prayed for you Simon, that your faith may not fail; and you Simon, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers."

In other words, Jesus was letting His closest followers know two things: that Satan was going test the disciples, like wheat would be tested, to determine whether or not they were genuinely devoted to Jesus as a result of their confident trust in Jesus and that Peter would temporarily fail the test. However, Jesus also let His closest followers know that He had prayed for Peter that he would rebound from his temporary failure and would return to strengthen His fellow disciples.

Now Peter would not even consider the possibility that he could fail such a test. Peter would not even consider that he could be enticed toward evil and away from Jesus. It did not matter that Jesus told Him exactly how it would happen; from Peter’s perspective, it was not going to happen. However, just a few verses later, in verse 39-40, Luke gives us a glimpse of what happened:

And He came out and proceeded as was His custom to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed Him. ⁴⁰ When He arrived at the place, He said to them, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation."

In other words, Jesus commanded His closest followers to spend time in communion with God the Father through prayer so that they would not be enticed toward evil and away from God. Now notice what Jesus does next in verse 41-44:

And He withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, ⁴² saying, "Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done." ⁴³ Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. ⁴⁴ And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground.

After commanding His closest followers to spend time in communion with God the Father through prayer so that they would not be enticed toward evil and away from God, Jesus does exactly what He commanded His disciples to do. Jesus spent time in communion with God and basically asked God “Is there any other way? Is there any other way that I can accomplish the mission that You have given for Me apart from what is about to happen to Me? Is there any other way? Yet never the less, I am not going to settle for anything less than doing what You want Me to be doing.”

You see, Jesus spent time in communion with God through prayer because, as the weight of what Jesus was facing weighed down on Him, Jesus felt the enticement towards evil and away from God. Jesus felt enticed by the desire to live His life in submission and dependence to something other than God.  And in His agony as He spent time in communion with God the Father in prayer in the midst of temptation, God the Father sent an angel to support and strengthen Him as He was being enticed towards evil and away from God.

 After spending time in communion with God the Father and after being strengthened by God the Father as a result of His communion with Him in prayer, Jesus went to check on how His closest followers were doing. Luke reveals for us how they were doing in verse 45-46:

When He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow, ⁴⁶ and said to them, "Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not enter into temptation."

Instead of spending time in communion with God the Father through prayer so that they would not be enticed toward evil and away from God, the disciples spent time sleeping. And on the one hand, who could blame them. After all, they were exhausted; the events of the past week had been emotionally and physically demanding. They were running low on both physical and emotional energy.

So while Jesus spent time in communion with God the Father through prayer and was strengthened by God the Father as a result of His communion with Him, the disciples were in a position where they had neither communion with God the Father or power from God the Father. Luke then reveals the results of their efforts in verse 47-51:

While He was still speaking, behold, a crowd came, and the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was preceding them; and he approached Jesus to kiss Him. ⁴⁸ But Jesus said to him, "Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?" ⁴⁹ When those who were around Him saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, shall we strike with the sword?" ⁵⁰ And one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear. ⁵¹ But Jesus answered and said, "Stop! No more of this." And He touched his ear and healed him."?

As Jesus responded to His arrest by faithfully engaging in the kingdom mission He had been given, the disciples fled. Peter, who only hours earlier denied that he would fail any test of his devotion to Jesus, reacted to Jesus arrest by cutting off the ear of a servant of the High Priest. And when Peter’s efforts in his own power failed, Peter fled.

Peter fled and followed from a distance as Jesus was unjustly tried and wrongly convicted of crimes that He did not commit by the self righteous religious leaders of the day. Peter watched from a distance and Jesus was attacked and beaten by a mob of self righteous religious people who mocked Jesus as they beat him. And then it happened.

As Jesus was being beaten and taken away to the Roman government to get permission to crucify Jesus a rooster crowed. And at that moment Luke tells us that Jesus turned and looked at Peter. And at that moment Peter felt what every one of us have felt. At that moment Peter knew that he had failed. And in the moment Peter went out and wept bitterly.  Peter went away and wept bitterly because he knew that he had been enticed towards evil and away from Jesus. Peter went away in failure and was nowhere to be found when Jesus was crucified.

You see, Peter failed because Peter failed to respond to temptation the way that Jesus responded to temptation. And it is in the differences between their responses to what occurred during the events that led to that first Good Friday that we discover a timeless principle that enables us to overcome that temptation.

And that timeless principle is this: We are able to overcome the temptation to value something other than God supremely when we seek to spend time in God’s presence. The timeless reality is that the antidote to the temptation to value something other than God supremely is to heed the example of Jesus and seek to spend time in God’s presence.

You see, spending time in God’s presence will keep us from getting enticed to value something other than valuing God supremely because it is when we spend time in God’s presence that we are able to see God as being of supreme value. And spending time in God’s presence will keep us from getting enticed to value something other than God supremely because it is when we spend time in God’s presence that we are empowered by God’s presence to reject the temptation to value something other than God as being of supreme value in our lives. 

Spending time in God’s presence will keep us from getting enticed to value something other than God supremely because it is when we spend time in God’s presence that we are empowered by God’s presence to reject the enticement to place something other than God as the object of our ultimate devotion in life. And spending time in God’s presence will keep us from getting enticed to value something other than God supremely because it is when we spend time in God’s presence that we are empowered by God’s presence to reject the temptation to live our lives in submission and dependence to something other than God as God in our lives.

Because that is what Easter weekend is all about. Easter weekend is about a cosmic conflict over the power of selfishness, sin, and death: a cosmic conflict over the power of temptation that entices us towards evil and away from God...