Confronting Temptation

For that reason, we are spending this year seek to KNOW Jesus more fully, so that we can FOLLOW Him more closely, in order to SHARE Him more passionately.

We walked through His birth back in December, seeing how Matthew carefully and intentionally showed how Jesus was the one the OT promised would come as the Messiah/Savior.

And that He was Immanuel, God come to live with us and among us.

And because of that, Matthew showed us He was worth knowing, following, and sharing.

A couple of weeks ago, we looked at Jesus’s baptism in Matthew 3, seeing the example Jesus and His cousin John gave us of the meaning of repentance and the purpose of Baptism.

So today we are moving on to chapter 4 and the Temptation of Christ.

Matthew 4:1–11 CSB

1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 Then the tempter approached him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” 4 He answered, “It is written: Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city, had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: He will give his angels orders concerning you, and they will support you with their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” 7 Jesus told him, “It is also written: Do not test the Lord your God.” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 And he said to him, “I will give you all these things if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus told him, “Go away, Satan! For it is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” 11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and began to serve him.

Temptations when Reading

I want to speak to a few temptations we may have when reading about the Temptation of Christ.

The Timing

Without realizing it, I think we can miss something very significant about the timeline of Jesus’s life here.

Russell Moore in his book on Matthew 4 says “In order to understand the temptations of Jesus, we have to understand that Jesus’ hair was still wet when he stepped out into the desert.”

The word “then” is a significant word because it means that the words God the Father spoke over Jesus as He came out of the Jordan were followed by the Spirit leading Jesus into the wilderness.

This spiritual high that seems to mark the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, is immediately followed by a really difficult challenge.

If you have been a Christian very long then you likely have experienced seasons much like this.

And if you are new believer, you might be in the midst of that season right now.

When we read this passage as if much time has past between Jesus’s baptism and His showdown with the Devil, we can fall into the dangerous trap of assuming spiritual fruitfulness or passion is kind of like a temporary immunity or shield protecting us from temptation or attack.

The reality that Jesus shows us here is that in the highest heights of our faith are when we are often most prone to temptation and attack.

Was He really tempted?

The second temptation we face is to question the genuineness of Jesus’s temptations.

Matthew has established that Jesus is the God/Man; that He is 100% God and 100% man.

Was He really tempted like we are? Could He really have ever fallen into temptation, or was this just a performance?

What’s at risk when we read this passage with that thought in our minds is to conclude Jesus really has no clue what it’s like to be tempted.

And that would be a mistake for us to believe.

Hebrews 4:15 CSB

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

Pastor Dick Lucas gives a helpful analogy as we think about what the author of Hebrews is saying here:

“Think of two weightlifters. Let’s say both athletes are trying to lift 500 pounds over their head. The first pulls the bar off the ground, then quickly up to his knees, but then he drops it after a two-second struggle. The second lifter also pulls the bar off the ground, up to his knees, but then he lifts it up to his waist and fi- nally, with two great thrusts, up and over his head. Who knows better the heaviness of those weights? The point is this: those who resist temptation are those who feel the weight of it most.”

Jesus wasn’t just putting on a show, He was/is a real human, with desires and appetites.

He not only felt the weight of the temptation like we do, but felt the FULL weight of it and the resolve to reject it.

Could He have really sinned?

Now that lead to another very good question: Could Jesus have really sinned?

And the answer really is YES and NO.

Jesus has 2 natures that coexist.

He was fully God, meaning the divine, eternal, all-sufficient, omnipotent nature of God existed in Him.

But at the very same time, Jesus was fully man, meaning He was a living, breathing man with a beating heart, a functioning brain, and a innate ability to reason and make decisions.

So in Jesus’s divine nature He could not be tempted because God cannot be tempted, so in that sense, Jesus could not have sinned.

On the other hand, in Jesus’s human nature He was tempted “in every way as we are” meaning that Jesus felt the same impulse to sin, but He resisted.

David Platt is helpful here:

“Think of the person in the world that you love the most. Picture them and then let me ask you an absolutely horrifying question: Could you murder that person? And as soon as I ask that you’re thinking, “Absolutely not. I am repulsed at the very idea that you’d even mention that. There’s no way that I could hurt that person in that way, that I love so much.” And in that response what you’re thinking is, “I don’t have the moral capability of murdering that person.” But if you understood my question, “Could you murder that person?” in terms of physically performing an action, though it’s unfathomable to you, it would be physically possible.”

Jesus, as God, could not have sinned. His moral nature is incapable of that kind of action.

But, as Man, Jesus could have sinned, could have turned the stones into bread, jumped off the temple, or worshipped Satan, but He didn’t.

And this is so important for us to understand as we face temptations in our life and as we learn from Jesus how we are to stand strong and resist.

He knows us, He relates to us, and He is WITH us.

Discounting the Spiritual Stuff

The last temptation we might have is to get lost in the Spiritual aspect of this passage.

Does Satan really come and tempt Jesus? If there really a spiritual world a war against us?

And the answer really is simple, even if it is hard for us to fathom: YES, we are in a spiritual war that we can see, but is influencing our lives in real and significant ways.

Ephesians 6:11–12 CSB

11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens.

We often look to Hollywood when we think about angels and the demonic.

We think about Michael Landon in “Highway to Heaven” or Roma Downey in “Touched by an Angle”, both of which played Angles sent to earth to help people in need.

And we think about The Exorcist and all the other movies that show people being possessed by demons and doing crazy things as priests splash them with water.

And though those things may capture aspects of biblical ideas, what Paul is teaching in Ephesians 6 is the our daily lives are influenced by the spiritual forces around us.

We are tempted and enticed by spiritual forces.

That doesn’t mean there is a demon behind every bad thing that happens or every struggle we have, but that the battles we are in are not just physical or emotional battles.

Your struggle with anger or lust or greed or worry or addiction…is deeper than your physical nature and so it requires more than just a bit more elbow grease.

We need Spiritual Help and Spiritual POWER.

This is all wrapped up in these 11 verses and intended to help us stand firm in the midst of temptation.

The Nature of Temptation

The heart and purpose of this account is intended to teach us the nature of temptation.

Jesus faces 3 temptations from Satan and these three really reveal the nature of ALL temptation.

Every temptation we face as human beings can be traced back to the roots of these three samples.

So Jesus is showing us not only the nature of temptation, but He is also giving us an example of how we are to conquer each one of them.

1 Corinthians 10:13 CSB

13 No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it.

You might think the temptations you face are more complicated and uncommon than anyone else has faced.

And that is exactly what the Devil wants you to believe, but Jesus is showing us here that the schemes of the devil and our sin struggles are not anything new.

Nor are the ways and means for us to resist and find our way out.

So let’s look at each one seeking to understand the NATURE of the temptation and the RESPONSE to it.

1) Tempted to PROVIDE for ourselves.

The context of the first temptation is important: “After fasting for forty days and forty nights...”

Satan comes to Jesus in a moment of deep hunger, but the real temptation was not the stones that could be turned into bread, but was for Jesus to let His appetite drive Him to provide for Himself rather than trust God the Father to satisfy Him.

Satan opens up his temptation by questioning what God the Father had just said about Jesus at His Baptism.

“If you are the Son of God...” He isn’t denying Jesus is the Son of God, he is tempting Jesus to not trust God to provide for His needs.

“If you are God’s Son, then why are you out here starving to death? Does He really care for you? Can He really provide for you? Why not just take care of yourself?”

And it was in Jesus’s power to provide for Himself. He can turn water into wine, make the raging sea be still, and provide for thousands of people with a boy’s lunch.

This isn’t new, it is the same strategy Satan used in the garden, tempting Adam and Eve to doubt God’s love for them by keeping something that looks SOO good from them.

Appetites are strong motivators aren’t they.

We have been fasting on Mondays and I must admit, it has been hard.

By 3 in the afternoon, my body is yelling for food and I must admit, Kathy Law brought homemade guacamole to YAM a couple of weeks ago and I just couldn’t refuse.

The temptation was serious, but ultimately my flesh was weak.

Our appetites aren’t sinful.

It isn’t sinful to desire food, sex, intimacy, acceptance, or whatever it might be.

It is when those appetites become our overwhelming, driving focus.

And when that is the case, we are tempted to doubt whether God really loves us, whether He can really provide for us.

Satan takes that which is good and twists and distorts it:

He takes our appetite for food and tempts us towards undisciplined overeating.

Our desire sleep and he tempts you toward apathy and laziness.

Our desire for sex and he tempts us toward lust, pornography, adultery, homosexuality.

And like Jesus, the evil one begins to ask us “if God really loves you, why are you so hungry???”

And to this Jesus responds by quoting Deut 8:3

Deuteronomy 8:3 CSB

3 He humbled you by letting you go hungry; then he gave you manna to eat, which you and your ancestors had not known, so that you might learn that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Jesus is proclaiming that God is good and that He will provide for our EVERY need and He will satisfy us more than any morsel of food or attention from another person.

There is more to life than what is “visible and edible, tangible and collectible, bankable and investable.”¹³ To die hungry with the gospel in your heart is to die with the hope of ever- lasting life. But to die with your mouth stuffed, your belly filled, but your heart cold to the gospel is to die everlastingly. Better to die with an empty belly and a full soul than with an empty soul but a full belly.— Douglas O’Donnell

Do not sell your soul for a temporary full belly.

2) Tempted to PROTECT ourselves.

Satan’s next temptation is ultimately a divine “trust fall”.

He brings Jesus to one of the highest points in Jerusalem, then he himself quotes scripture.

It ought to scare us to know that Satan knows the Bible probably better than most of us know it.

He uses God’s own Word to tempt Jesus to test whether God is trustworthy or not.

“If you really are the Son of God, let’s see what He does if you jump off this building. Surely a loving Father will save His one and only Son?”

Imagine this very scenario in your own house.

You walk into the driveway and your son is standing on the roof of the house yelling down, “Dad, I don’t know if you really love me, if you really do care to protect me and provide for me, so if you do then catch me when I jump.”

Might you say to your son “look around buddy. The house you are standing on, the clothes you are wearing, and the food in your stomach are all things I have provided for you because I love you.”

“Remember how I took care of you when you were sick, coached you when you played baseball, took you on trips, helped you with your homework, taught you to swim, hunt, fish, and so many other things. Why now would you need to put me to the test.”

This shows up in us when:

We are tempted to twist God’s Word to hold Him to promises He has never made.

We are tempted to question God’s plans for us when they don’t go the way we would like.

We are tempted to doubt His love when something goes wrong.

We’re tempted to ask for signs that He’s still with us when He has shown His faithfulness to us over and over again.

We are tempted to complain to Him about the circumstances of our lives, believing He owes us more for how much we have done for Him.

And to this Jesus simply responds with Deut. 6:16

Deuteronomy 6:16 CSB

16 Do not test the Lord your God as you tested him at Massah.

That passage is referring back to the Israelites in the wilderness.

God had miraculously brought them out of slavery in Egypt, the most incredible display of power and protection God had shown His people to that point.

But when they got hungry and thirsty they began to complain, asking “Is God really still with us? Does He even care about us?”

It is to that Moses is telling the people to trust the God who over and over again has proven Himself trustworthy.

And if you want to test God, test Him through listening to His Word and following His ways, then see who He is and what He will do.

3) Tempted to PROMOTE ourselves.

Satan’s final temptation is for Jesus to skip all that lies ahead of Him and just receive the very thing His life, death, and resurrection will ultimately accomplish.

“If you want to rule the world and every knee bow down to you, then simply bow your knee to me and I will give you all of it. Why go through all that is coming when you could have it now.”

Jesus knew that in 3 short years from this point He would face the most excruciating thing anyone has ever faced.

The very thought of it caused Him to literally sweat blood hours before His death.

But Satan’s promise was nothing compared to the plans and promises God was working in the life of Jesus.

It is easy for us to see that in Jesus’s life.

Bowing to Satan wouldn’t gain Jesus compared to the promises of God the Father.

What is more difficult is for us to see that the promises of Satan and of the world are fake, empty, and hopeless.

It is hard for us to see that the pursuit of wealth and financial security will is not the way toward salvation.

It is hard for us to see that attaining some measure of success in this world is not the way to heaven.

It is hard for us to see that the being loved, appreciated, and accepted by people isn’t what will make our lives meaningful.

The lure of self-exaltation is the temptation to make ourselves the center of the universe.

To worship our own power, our own plans, our own purposes, and our own pursuits.

All at the expense of worshipping the one who is truly worthy of it all.

Jesus knew that Satan’s promise was empty and His words are profoundly empowering.

Matthew 4:10 CSB

10 Then Jesus told him, “Go away, Satan! For it is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”

“GO AWAY SATAN!! I am finished with your lies!”

Jesus trusted that God’s plans, God’s purposes, God’s promises, and God’s provisions were enough for Him.

And so His life was going to be about making much of His Father in heaven.

And that is what our lives are to be about as well.

1 Corinthians 10:31 CSB

31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.

Colossians 3:17 CSB

17 And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Matthew 6:33 CSB

33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.

Response

1 Corinthians 10:13 CSB

We cannot conquer temptation in our own power or ingenuity.

It is only through Christ and the power of the Spirit that we can stand firm in temptation.

Perhaps the most incredible message from this passage is this: Jesus confronted the temptations we face and He destroyed them.

This isn’t a passage necessarily about HOW to not fall into temptation, though there is a lot to glean about that.

Really this is a passage showing us why Jesus is worth giving ourselves entirely to, to Know Him, to Follow Him, and to share Him with others, because in Him there is nothing that can separate us from the Love of God.