Jesus is Tempted - Mitch Levingston

Luke 4:1-13

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’ ”

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’ ”

The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you carefully;
they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ ”

Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”

When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

...

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TRANSCRIPT

 

All righty. So this morning, we start the first of our, lent series, looking at passages to help us prepare for Easter. And what better passage to look at than Jesus 40 days of being tempted by Satan in the wilderness.

This is the benchmark. This is the reason why the church set aside the 40 days before Easter. Because this is what our Lord and Savior did. He went into the wilderness, wrestled with Satan, and came out a victorious. That's why monks went out into the desert for periods of prayer and fasting. We also simulate what our Lord did to overcome the palace of darkness and evil.

And so this morning, we kind of kind of do two things. We're going to spend a bit of time looking at some of the cool cultural context. Why I think it's cool. The cool kind of cultural context that Luke was tapping into the Old Testament images, how it fits in with his narrative, but also to just give you some practical tools.

I'm going to draw from the toolbox of church history so you can walk away with some head knowledge, but more importantly, some practical knowledge of what to do when you face temptation. Could we just have the Bible? Could the next slide, please? There it is. Perfect. Now, if you read the Gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Luke side by side, you notice that Matthew has Jesus being baptized, by John the Baptist.

And then Jesus immediately goes into the wilderness. Now, if you read Luke's account, which we did this morning just before we just before Jesus, this Luke describes Jesus in the wilderness. Luke gives us his genealogy. Now, he loves reading genealogies in the Bible. Look, I see one hand, a fellow Bible nerd. Yeah. Let's face it, Bible genealogies aren't the most interesting things out there.

So why would Luke do this? Why would Luke, Jesus baptize? The spirit comes down on him like a dove. And then we get this quite long and let's face it, quite boring genealogy. But if you look at it closely, and this is what I think is really cool. So see it says he Jesus, when he began his ministry was about 30 years of age, being the son as it was suppose, of Joseph, the son of healing.

It goes on and goes on and on and on and on all the way back. Now let's read who that last son is. Let's read that together. The son of Adam, the Son of God. Okay. Luke's making an important theological message here is that, remember, Adam? Adam was the first man to be created with that parents. God formed him from the dust of the ground and brave new life into him is similar.

Like Jesus, it's like the first Adam. This is the, I guess, the mystery of Jesus being God and man. But Jesus doesn't have an earthly father says speak. He has his heavenly father, just like the first Son of God, Adam. Now what did that first Son of God Adam do? Was he obedient or disobedient? Disobedient? Okay, so that's a problem.

Now Jesus is going to do what Adam failed to do. He needs to go and wrestle with Satan. Now, there's a reason why Jesus goes into the wilderness. The wilderness is the place where the Israelites failed. Yes. Now, before the Israelites went into the wilderness, what was a really important moment that happened with Pharaoh's army and a big body of water?

What happened? Yeah, passing through the Red sea. And the Apostle Paul describes that as a bit of a start to the word be baptism. Okay, so if the Apostle Paul could recognize that what the Israelites did when they passed through the Red sea was like a baptism, now Jesus has done like Jesus has been baptized as the Son of God.

The Israelites were also kind of called the Son of God. They were recognizes, God said to Moses, the Israelites, my firstborn son, like the nation itself, was the first born son, and they were baptized by crossing the Red sea, went into the wilderness, and spent 40 years there. Because the judgment now Jesus has been baptized. He has gone into the wilderness not for 40 years, but for 40 days.

Luke is making this account to make you realize that Jesus is the embodiment of Israel herself. Israel failed. Jesus does not fail. And the other cool thing too, is there's lots of little cool things here is that Israel spent 40 years in the wilderness. Moses spent 40 days on a mountain getting the law of God. In fact, Moses would say that when the Israelites failed after the sin of the, golden calf, Moses says in Deuteronomy 925, for 40 days and 40 nights I lay down before the Lord because he intended to destroy you.

I pray to the Lord that you would not destroy these people. Now, we don't really know what Jesus was doing in these 40 days, but we can probably assume that he was praying to his father on behalf of Israel's salvation. That's kind of the cool things there, that's all. Like the the background that Luke is building up for us.

And there's a there's actually a deliberate movement here in how Satan tempts Jesus makes the next slide up, I should say Psalm 106. Here we go. Psalm 106 and the temptation of Jesus. Now, Psalm 106 is a psalm that's written to remember the history of Israel. Sad to remember just the highs and the lows. And the psalmist goes through three temptations that the Israelites faced.

I might write them up there, but you can say that the first one is food that they gave in to their cravings. The second one is false worship, and the last one is a testing by God. So you see here, it's all really, really deliberate. Now this stuff here is by accident. The fact that Satan tempts Jesus was pretty much the same three things meant to show that.

Well, okay, is Jesus gonna succeed or isn't he not? Jesus is not like the Israelites who failed. Jesus is so much greater. And in fact, all the responses that Jesus gives to Satan comes from the book of Deuteronomy. And so from Deuteronomy. If you look and it says in Scripture, Deuteronomy, do you want six? Verse eight is the passages that Moses wrote to the people when they're on the cusp of entering the Promised Land?

And so even just picking those passages to refute Satan, like Moses spoke the words of Deuteronomy six, chapter 6 to 8 as a way to say hey to next generation. Don't be like that generation who spent 40 years in the wilderness and who went into the promised land. You guys need to listen and be obedient, okay? That's all the fun.

Got a cool Old Testament facts, all the allusions here. Let's look at some of the temptations. And the first temptation we're told is that Satan tells Jesus to turn stones to bread. Now, bread is interesting. Bread is actually a steaming hot pot of Jesus ministry. Jesus fed 5000 people. He fed 4000 people. He gave us the Lord's Supper by bread.

Breading on itself is not evil. There's nothing wrong with bread but bread used in the wrong context, as in here is disobedience. I think that's important for life. It's helpful to remember is that Satan may tempt us with things that, on the surface may not seem to be wrong, like, well, you know, if you're hungry here, turn these stones to bread.

God doesn't want you to be hungry. He want you to suffer. And I think this is one of the important things when we do look at temptation. It's not all temptation isn't just evil. You can just, you know, commit this wrong thing or do this good thing. Perhaps we attempted to go down a path that looks good because we have to remember Satan presents.

So as an angel of light, I think that's really helpful for us to remember. But also what is cool here is that from from up a church, from a biblical point of view, is food equals self control. Yeah. The very first commandment that God ever gave to people, it was about food. It was about self-control. Hey, you can eat all the fruit from the garden.

You want to just donate that one fruit from that one tree. I think that's why fasting is such an important spiritual discipline, because actually tapping into the first commandment that God gave, hey, if you want to be a wise person, control what you ate. That's why Jesus response is, yeah, it says it is written, man shall not live on bread alone.

It's our Amanda. Yeah, sure, we need food to live. God create food for us to survive. But that's not all that we need. We need God's word. That's so important. That's why Jesus, he can respond that way. Hey, bread is good for me at a later date. Not right now. The bread I need is the bread that comes from God's Word.

And the second temptation we see which will be up on the screen is, The devil leads Jesus to a very high place and shows him all the kingdoms of the world. And he says, I will give you all their authority and splendor. Sorry. I'll give you all their authority and splendor. It has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.

If you worship me, it will be yours. Football declaration. How on earth could Satan say that he could do it? How could he say that he has all these kingdoms? Isn't isn't the world. God's isn't the earth. God doesn't isn't God the creator and sustainer of everything? Well, the answer to is both yes and yes. What I mean by that when Adam and Eve were created, they were told to rule over the plants and the animals.

Now, in Genesis chapter three, let's let's just, you know, we know it's Satan. But what's the description of the creature in the garden? What is it? Is, snake serpent. And what are Adam and Eve supposed to do? They meant to rule over the plants and the animals. And so by Adam listening to Satan instead of, you know, ruling over him, he has no sense given authority of the earth to the serpent.

In fact, Scripture will talk about this, in a few places in, some New Testament letters, such as two Corinthians chapter 4 or 1 John 519 or Ephesians two, we're told that Satan is the ruler of this world, but the prince, the power of the air. So in this weird sense, it's like, well, Satan has sort of mean he's usurped the authority of the human.

He say, well, I can give you this. Jesus, if you don't go to the cross, I can give you all the authority that you want with ease and comfort. And Jesus response responses is written worship the Lord your God and serve him only. The third and final temptation, Satan, takes Jesus up to the temple, and there he he as a standing on the highest for a temple.

He says, if you are the Son of God, he said, throw yourself down from here. For he's written, he will command his angels concerning you to guide you carefully. They will lift you up in their hands that you will not strike your foot against a stone. Now Satan here is quoting from Psalm 91 and Psalm 91. Verse four says, he will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge.

And his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. So some money one promises that that God will be a shield and a comfort. And you know he's in. Satan expands upon that, commanding his angels to concern you, to guard you. You know, like your foot won't strike against a star. Psalm 91 is a psalm of promise, of protection.

And again, this is a bit like the first temptation using something good, using scripture. But miss applying it. And so the assumption here is Satan is like, well, if you've been baptized by the spirit, if you're designated as God's son, he's not going to let something bad happen to you. So by throwing yourself off, God is going to rescue you.

But Jesus hasn't come just to be a trick pony. It's just display acts of power for the sake of displaying acts of power. Instead, he he says, do not put the Lord your God to the test. That's what the Israelites did at a place called Nasser. They waged and complained about. God wasn't doing enough for them. And so it was saying, it's like, well, you don't put God to the test.

He's going to be the judgment simply by throwing himself off the temple. So Satan wanted Jesus to do to reenact that moment at Massah, where these are lots put God to the test. Okay. So that's sort of that's kind of the more biblical side of things, looking at the Old Testament. Now let's go practical. Okay. How can I how can we take this passage and apply it?

Well, I've actually got a book here. It's a book called by a rigorous of Pontus. It's called Talking Back. And if I, Greece was a fourth century Egyptian monk. And when he was in the wilderness, he wrote this book talking back as a manual for other monks who was struggling with temptation. And if I just recognize that there was sort of eight things that the devil can tempt you with, and those eight areas are gluttony, lust, greed, sadness, anger, apathy.

What's something he called vainglory or vanity and pride? And if you ever heard the seven Deadly Sins, we heard of that maybe. Yeah. This is kind of where that list came from. If I guess. Right, this and what he recognized was that this is where demons can be really clever is I can help put a put an idea into your mind to say something just, you know, passes through you maybe for a second and you can act on that.

And the book is quite intense. It's a it's a huge manual. But I thought that's today we'll just go through some of those, so we can have them on the screen. The first one is gluttony. And so against the thoughts that suggests to me the loss of bread, oil and other things that we need is was a passages is came from one Kings 17 for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says, the jar flour will not be used up, and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day Lord sends rain on the land.

An example is lost against the thoughts establishing our heart, which the Lord sees as having been committed, and he uses he. One Corinthians ten eight. We must indulge in fortification, as some of them did, and 23,000 fell in a single day. And it goes on and so forth. And so while you probably don't have to buy the book and read it, each of the eight sins has about, no joke, about 100 sort of points of different thoughts can be overwhelming.

You can see here what he's doing. He's helping Christians to fight temptation. And the reason why the book is called Talking Back is because he looked at what Jesus did in the wilderness. And when Satan tempted Jesus, Jesus didn't sit there in silence. What does he do? He talks back. Now, I have never had a demonic voice say something to me out loud.

I don't know, maybe I have, but I personally have it, but certainly had thoughts run through my brain. Hey, we've probably all had that. Yeah, we've had some sort of thought come up within us, some sort of temptation. Some make like a seed within us. And once it's sort of in our mind, we have a choice, a choice to act on that thought or to resist it.

And why? This is what if I argued the best way to overcome that is by talking back, actually saying it out loud, just like Jesus did. And so this is where the value of actually memorizing scripture comes into play, of having a few key scriptures that you've got in your toolbox and being able to talk out loud and breaking that thought where it is.

And as we come into, this season of lent, lent is a great opportunity to actually step into the wilderness. Whether you recognize or not we are in a spiritual battle. There's a battle between the the forces of God and the forces of evil. And that's what the early monks recognized is that but going into the wilderness, I wasn't doing it just to escape the world that she went in to battle.

If you ever have a chance to read Athanasius, biography of Saint Anthony, that thing is wild. Saint Anthony, like he was battling demons left, right and center. It seems so bizarre for us here in 21st century Sydney, because it's just not something that we encounter. This is a spiritual text. We get a lot more subtle, a lot more subdued, a lot more hidden, but the real and present nonetheless.

We're being literally seeing like a demonic apparition, like Saint Anthony dude, or has this little voice that passes through your mind for half a second. It's still real. It's what excites me about lent is that it's a chance for us to kind of go into the wilderness. Now, I doubt any of us are going to go move to the Judean wilderness for 40 days, you know, fasting and praying, but we can all journey into a metaphorical wilderness, part of that's just giving up some of our luxuries, giving up some time to pray.

And it's hard. It's really hard because to fast and to pray and to give up things, we begin to realize just how much baggage and dependency we have. And if you have signed up for the challenge, part of it is, is, need to write out your why. Why are you doing this? And the basis of that comes from John 321 where Jesus says, hey, if you step into the light, no deeds of darkness are hidden.

That's part we actually have to step out under the blazing sun of the wilderness and make ourselves vulnerable to God. And how will silence? It should be golden. But it isn't. Because when we sit in silence and give up all the noise and distractions around us, we do have to confront ourselves. We have to confront our weaknesses, our temptations, our vices, and our habits.

I have to confess that before doing these lent challenges, it'd be pretty hypocritical May if I didn't do them myself. So I spent the months beforehand doing these. Have to admit, I found the social media one the non screen time one for me the hardest. I remember the first night because normally what I like to do is if I'm washing up or swimming in the house, I listen to a podcast, listen to music.

It's quite normal and it sounds ridiculous to say. It's actually almost felt my body like doing this. Like, I can't handle this. I can't just wash up and not have something going on. I have to be listening to a podcast. I've been listening to an audiobook, and it was actually in the silence. I found myself going, Lord, just get me through this.

All I want to do is just like, look at my phone. It seems crazy to say that that's how dependent I've become. Look at my phone. I mean, I'm listening to some lecture, some audiobook or just music thing. Even that he's. These are good things. But in confronting that source have made me depend upon God so much more.

That's what I love about doing this. Just a season of giving up something in order to rely on God more fully. Author Becky Aldridge. She writes, desert time is vital to a mature relationship with God. If we are committed men and women of faith, then God is going to bring us to the desert at some point to look deeply at ourselves and see all of us the way God sees us.

This means we will have to confront the dark spots of our lives and the things we do our best to hide from God and from the rest of the world. Jesus was no different. He was led by the spirit in the wilderness, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. Jesus faced Satan. Then the devil left him and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

That's from Matthew's version. We faced Satan, our own temptations in our desert time, just as Jesus did. And just as Jesus was not alone in the desert battle, we are not alone either. That's important. Friends part this season. If you do feel called to sign for these lent challenges, don't do it online. Have an anchor. There's a reason why I'm asking to sign up so I can have a list of people.

Pray and pray for you because we're not doing this online. We do this with the strength of the Holy Spirit. This we have the angels and I don't know how they minister to us. I don't know if they give us bread like they did with Jesus, but they're they're supporting us. We have our brothers and sisters around us moving forward together in this spiritual journey.

I'd be remiss of me to say that, well, just this lent challenge, you know, your problems will be sorted. Well, it's not that simple. Unfortunately. And there will be things in us so have to wrestle with and struggle with, and perhaps they won't be dealt with until our Lord returns. But as I finish, I finish with just two more quotes on on comes from Eugene Peterson.

Eugene Peterson says one aspect of the world I have been able to identify as harmful to Christians is the assumption that anything worthwhile can be acquired at once. We assume that something can be done at all. It can be done quickly and efficiently. This isn't just a tick, a box and your life will be perfect. This is a journey, a pathway.

This is just part of that pathway to becoming more like Jesus. And for Shane and his kind of view on fasting, and he says there are only two philosophies of life. One is first, the feast, then the headache, the other is the fast and then the feast. The third joys purchased by sacrifice. Always sweetest and most enduring. Let me pray for us friends.

Now. Yeah, Lord and father, I just pray, Lord, that you be our source of strength, a source of love and our source of comfort. Oh Lord, we don't know what we're going to face. We know what's going to happen today, tomorrow. Who knows what troubles and temptations and sorrows we may face. But I do pray, Lord, that you watch over our paths, that you do be our shield in those times of temptation, that, Lord, that you guard us from the thoughts of the evil ones.

Help us to talk back, as Jesus did, against the lies of the evil one. And Lord, I pray, as Jesus told us in those words, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.