Dan Herold | Mathew 4:1-11 | February 14, 2016
(Sermon begins at 22:36)
How many of you have ever had one of those page-a-day calendars with Bible verses on it? The ones where you tear off a page each day and each page has an inspirational passage on it… Or maybe you have a bible verse emailed to you each day or maybe you have an app on your phone that sends you a bible verse each day. Those are great aren’t they? It’s awesome to have something that automatically sends you encouraging words from scripture to start your day of with God’s word.
There’s a fairly popular picture of one of those calendar pages floating around online…you may have seen it somewhere. It’s a beautiful page with a gorgeous purple flower in the corner and at the top there’s a Bible verse. The verse is from Luke’s account of the gospel lesson we read this morning. The verse is from Luke 4:7 and it’s printed in the old King James. It says,
“If thou wilt worship me, all shall be thine.”
Awesome words! Words that might inspire you. Words that you might love to hear…until you remember who said them. Those beautifully inspiring words are the words Satan used to tempt your Savior! If Satan can use such beautiful words and something as unassuming as a bible verse calendar to spread lies and temptation, then we certainly have a formidable enemy.
In our Gospel reading this morning we heard about Jesus being tempted by Satan…in fact we hear about 3 specific temptations. But Jesus, our substitute, resisted every temptation for us; he resisted the temptation to be self-serving, he resisted the temptation to test God, and he resisted the temptation to worship a false god.
We are told that Jesus went into the desert where he fasted for 40 days and nights, after that he was hungry. After not eating anything for 40 days and nights thats understandable! Just think how you would feel after not eating for 40 days. You’d be cruising down the interstate just waiting for the next big blue square you see in the distance along side the road.
But when Satan presented the closest thing to fast food that anyone in the first century knew, Jesus resisted the temptation to feed his selfish human desires and instead waited for God to provide. Satan came to Jesus and said,
“If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to turn into bread.”
It would have been so easy for Jesus to do that! If he could turn water into wine, surely he could have turned stones into bread. But Jesus replied to Satan,
“It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Jesus knew what Satan was doing. He wasn’t just trying to get Jesus to satisfy his hunger, he was trying to make him serve his own purposes rather than God’s. Jesus faithfully resisted that temptation by using the tool God has given us. He did nothing but quote a Bible verse, Deuteronomy 8:3, and Satan was shut down and had to move on.
So next we are told that Satan took Jesus to the holy city, to Jerusalem, and took him to the highest point of the temple. Now the temple was built on a mountain, on Mount Moriah, and the highest corner sits right on the edge of the mountain, so when you are standing on the highest point of the temple you are standing on the highest point of a building which is on top of a mountain and you would be looking straight down into the valley below. And while Jesus stood there, Satan said,
“If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
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But once again, Jesus saw through the lies and resisted Satan’s temptation. In reply Jesus said,
“It is also written, do not put the Lord your God to the test.”—Deuteronomy 6:16.
Jesus shot down one more of Satan’s lies using the best weapon there is…God’s word.
Now that the Super Bowl is over, if you’re like me, you might be looking forward to the beginning of baseball season. I think if Satan were a baseball pitcher he’d be pretty frustrated with Jesus. First, Satan threw Jesus a change up and tried to get him a little off balance, but Jesus knocked it out of the park. Next Satan threw him a slider—it looked good at first and then right at the end it broke off in another direction. But Jesus handled it well and hit another home run. For his third and final pitch now, Satan is getting pretty irritated and he’s ready for a fight. He’s tired of getting shut down so he’s trying to put Jesus away. So this next pitch is a 100 mph fastball high and tight. He’s gunning for Jesus now and trying to take him down.
“The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
To the sinful nature this is the ultimate temptation…unlimited power, being made ruler over all the kingdoms of the earth and all that you had to do was bow down and worship Satan—something our sinful nature would readily do for such a grand reward. But again, Satan was lying. He didn’t have the authority or the power to deliver what he had offered, but he was hoping that the offer would be too good to turn down.
It might seem like this would be the easiest temptation for Jesus to resist since he was God and had control over all the kingdoms of the world already, but think about the situation. Jesus had been in the desert for 40 days and nights with no food. He was undoubtedly very physically weak when Satan came to tempt him. And in the wider context, Jesus had set aside some of his power as true God to become true man and live on this earth. So Satan’s temptation here is actually very well thought out. He was saying to Jesus, “Why should you not rule over all the nations of this world? Why shouldn’t you be the supreme earthly ruler? What good is your Father in heaven who sent you here to live like this? Just bow down to me and I’ll give you everything you want.”
Satan still says the same things to us. He promises to give us more money, more fame, more friends, or a happier life if we just follow him. He tempts us to question God, to doubt him, and to think we could find something better to put in his place. And at times we give in to those temptations…but Jesus didn’t. As our perfect substitute Jesus even resisted this attack from Satan. Jesus said to him,
“Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”
And when Jesus said that and hit a home run off of Satan’s best pitch, Satan gave up and left. He went away and God remained faithful to his promises and sent his angels to care for Jesus.
So what do you take away from this account of Jesus being tempted? Is it a model for how you can resist temptation? In a way, yes. Jesus used the same tool that we have at our disposal to fight back against Satan: the Word. We have that all powerful tool to use, but there will still be times when we fall into temptation. So, the point of this lesson isn’t that we can resist every one of Satan’s attacks just like Jesus, but the point is that Jesus resisted every one of Satan’s attack for us! Thats’s the heart of the gospel, that God loved us so much that he sent his Son to be perfect for us. And what’s more, we have a Savior who wasn’t immune to sin, he was tempted in every way just like we are and he had to fight! He knows what it is like to be attacked by Satan so he can relate to us and help us in our struggles. Through his own struggles Jesus won the ultimate victory which he freely gives to those who trust in him as their Savior.
The lesson we learn from Jesus being tempted in the wilderness is that as our substitute Jesus resisted every temptation for us. Our sins no longer have any hold on us because Jesus took them to the cross where they were washed away in his holy and innocent blood. Jesus most certainly suffered, he endured more pain than any of us could imagine, but at the time when he had the perfect opportunity to quit he didn’t. He didn’t quit fighting for your soul then and he never will. That is the comfort we have in our sinless Savior.
Amen.