Good morning everyone.
My name is Jordan and today's scripture reading is from Luke 4, 1 through 13.
It's page 886 and the Bible is in the back of the pews.
I'll give you guys a few seconds if you want to find that.
Page 886.
Alright.
Then Jesus left the Jordan full of the Holy Spirit and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days to be tempted by the devil.
He ate nothing during those days and when they were over he was hungry.
The devil said to him, If you are the son of God, tell the stone to become bread.
But Jesus answered him, It is written, Man must not live on bread alone.
So he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
The devil said to him, I will give you their splendor and all this authority because it has been given over to me.
And I can give it to anyone I want.
If you then will worship me, all will be yours.
And Jesus answered him, It is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him only.
So he took him to Jerusalem, had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, If you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here.
For it is written, he will give you his angels orders concerning you to protect you.
And they will support you with their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
And Jesus answered him, It is said, Do not test the Lord your God.
After the devil had finished every temptation, he departed him for a time.
This is God's word.
Well, I invite you, if you do have your Bibles, go ahead and turn to that passage in Luke, Chapter four.
We will be hanging out there today along with a few passages I'll jump to.
I'll let you know as we go along.
But we have been in our series Ashes and Ashes, the glory of the gospel is this time and season we're in called Lent.
And it leads us up to Holy Week, Good Friday and ultimately the resurrection of Christ at Easter.
And it's a time for reflection.
It's a time for us to feel the weight of our humanity.
There were three kind of ways that we wanted to look at it.
Three, three eyeglasses we wanted to look through as we looked and considered the scriptures over the last few weeks.
And that that was first.
We wanted to see the gravity of the fallen human condition.
The gravity of the fallen condition of humanity in our sins.
And then we wanted to see out of these scriptures and passages, number two, the goodness of the character of God.
God is showing who he is.
He's revealing who he is through these passages and through these themes.
And we want to have our eyes to see the goodness of God's character.
And then finally, the kind of rubric that we're looking at these scriptures through is the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
How do we bring it home to the reality of what Christ did on our behalf?
And so today we're going to look at a central text to the season of Lent.
And that is the text of Jesus's temptation.
If you've been with us here at Village for a while, we did cover the same story out of the book of Matthew last year.
I believe we even covered this when we were at our church in the park, if I remember correctly.
I remember sap dripping down on my head and all over my papers and everything.
So I was tempted to run, to move.
But this time we're going to look at Luke's version.
And Luke's version is interesting.
It has some very interesting context to it and some particular purposes behind the writing of it.
We believe that Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, put to paper this passage and that it was formed in such a way
to cue us into a few things.
And some of those things we're going to explore this morning.
And I'm looking forward to that.
A couple of the themes, though, that we are cued into in Luke chapter four is who is Jesus, really?
Who is Jesus and what is his purpose on earth?
Luke, who was the author of this gospel at the beginning of the gospel of Luke, says this.
He was, and this is one unique feature of Luke, is that it has this intro in it.
And the intro says, many have undertaken to compile a narrative, this is Luke chapter one, verse one,
about the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as the original eyewitnesses and servants of the word
handed them down to us.
So it also seemed good to me since I have carefully investigated everything from the very first
to write to you in an orderly sequence, most honorable theophilists,
so that you may know the certainty of the things about which you have been instructed.
So Luke one starts with this context that Luke is writing a gospel, but he's writing for a person.
A person has hired him, is what they suspect.
He has been hired to go do an investigation to find out, are these stories true?
Did this man, Jesus, really come?
Did he really die?
And so Luke went out, Luke was not a disciple who walked with Jesus on the earth as far as we know,
but he was someone who went out and investigated the claims of Christianity.
He spoke to the eyewitnesses.
He may have met with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and asked her, what was it like?
What did you hear?
What did you see?
Or his brothers, or those in different towns and cities?
And he compiled all that together in this book to show not only the details,
like an eyewitness account of the events, but to show their connection
to the deeper roots of the faith in the Old Testament.
And some of those connections that we see made here in Luke chapter four are,
the first one is Adam and Jesus.
Adam and Jesus.
So Adam is what? The first man, right?
The first one created.
And he's created in the garden paradise by God.
And there he, along with Eve, are made to co-rule with God,
all of God's creation under his counsel and wisdom.
And they're given free reign to eat of the fruit of the garden,
except for one tree, right?
One command, one command in the garden.
Don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of the good and evil.
And so they're placed there.
And they're given this opportunity, this vocation.
And yet they are tempted by an evil one, an evil spirit, a serpent,
who comes and says, did God really say?
They get, he gets Adam and Eve to question God's goodness and God's word.
And in a moment of temptation, they see that the fruit is good.
And they reach out and they grab it and they take it for themselves,
breaking the command of God, not loving God with all their heart,
not honoring God or fearing him, but instead taking for themselves
what has been forbidden of them.
And in that moment, their eyes are open and they see their nakedness,
and they fall from the state that they once were in.
That's the first Adam, the first man.
But then along comes Jesus.
And Luke does something interesting right before the passage
that we read this morning in Luke chapter four.
He lists a genealogy.
Oftentimes genealogies come at the beginning of the book.
But he waited and then he lists a genealogy right after Jesus' baptism.
And the genealogy begins first with Jesus.
And then it works its way backward.
And whereas the genealogy that's listed in the book of Matthew
is intended to find ultimately Jesus' connection all the way back to Abraham,
this genealogy keeps going further back.
It goes further back, all the way back to Adam.
And it shows Jesus is the representative of all of humanity.
He lists out the case for the history of humanity, the history of humankind,
and he traces Jesus all the way back to Adam.
And what does it say of Adam?
It says that Adam was the son of God.
Everyone after was the son of their father.
But Adam, where the genealogy ends, the son of God.
Adam, a son of God.
Well, doesn't that sound familiar with regard to Jesus?
Jesus, the son of God.
Because right before that is the baptism.
And what happens at the baptism of Jesus?
He goes into the waters at Jordan.
And when he's coming up, what happens?
The Holy Spirit descends on him in a physical appearance like a dove,
and a voice comes from heaven and says,
You are my beloved son.
With you I am well pleased.
You are my beloved son, son of God.
Jesus, the son of God.
Adam, born the son of God or created the son of God.
And we have this Adam and Jesus interplay.
From Jesus back to Adam, the whole of the history of the human race.
We see from the first Adam to the last Adam.
The first Adam to the second Adam, Jesus.
Something else that we see though is Israel and Jesus.
This comparison that Luke is trying to draw here.
He's trying to say that not only is Jesus the new Adam,
but Jesus is also the new Israel.
In the book of Exodus chapter 4, 22, talking about the Exodus from Egypt.
Exodus 4, 22 says this.
Let me turn there really quick.
Exodus 4, 22, the Lord instructed Moses,
When you go down to Egypt, make sure you do before Pharaoh
all the wonders that I have put within your power.
But I will harden his heart so that he won't let the people go.
And you will say this to Pharaoh, this is what the Lord says,
Israel is my firstborn son.
I tell you, let my son go so that he may worship me.
Israel is the son of God as well.
Israel is considered in the Old Testament the son of God.
We see that again reiterated in the book of Hosea.
Hosea chapter 11, verse 1.
When Israel was a child, I loved him.
Out of Egypt I called my son.
Israel was personified as if it was the child of God, the son of God.
And we see again in Jesus, the son of God at his baptism.
There was the first Israel and now there's the last Israel,
the new Israel in Christ.
There was the first Adam and now we have the new Adam in Christ
and the last Adam in Christ.
Israel was baptized in the Red Sea as they passed through the waters.
It was like a baptism.
That's what really baptism is all about,
the imagery of going through the waters or passing through the waters.
Israel was baptized as they went through
and entered into 40 years in the wilderness.
Jesus was baptized.
The Holy Spirit came and he entered into 40 days in the wilderness.
He is going to great lengths to show us the connection between Jesus
and the fulfillment of all of humanity and his history
and the fall and the answer to the fall
as well as all of Israel's history in Christ, the new Israel, is fulfilled.
He wants us to understand the connection that the text is about Jesus.
And here we have to take a moment to think about this text
because a lot of us approach the Bible this way.
We hear something like Luke chapter 4.
And the first thing we go is,
what are my three points for how to tackle temptation?
But Luke is going to such great lengths to tell us it's not actually about you.
Luke chapter 4 is not about you.
Luke chapter 4 is about Jesus.
Luke chapter 4 is about what he was able to do
in the face of all of humanity's failures.
Luke chapter 4 is about elevating Christ higher than any one of us, high above.
And so we ought to first begin by approaching, is there practical information here? Yes.
Is there an example to follow? Yes.
But not in our own strength.
Not in our own strength.
Every king of Israel failed when tempted.
Every single one of them.
When tempted with power or prestige or idolatry, they failed.
You and I are not that much different in and of ourselves.
Let's dive into the words of the text though.
Luke chapter 4, we'll look at verse 1 and 2.
ama
The first thing we should take note of is that
that Jesus was led by the Spirit to the wilderness
to be tempted.
And therein disrupts a little bit of the narrative
if your mind has formed around the narrative,
this idea that Jesus went there
and he subjected himself to prayer and fasting
and he became weak and then temptation was thrust upon him
to see how he would respond.
Jesus was led by the Spirit to the wilderness
in order to be tempted.
He had just been filled with the Holy Spirit
at the baptism and now he's led by the Spirit out.
And here the author, Luke, is trying to make a connection
back to the book of Deuteronomy chapter eight
where the people of Israel were led out of slavery.
And in Deuteronomy chapter eight verse two,
it says, remember, looking back at their exodus from Egypt,
remember this, that the Lord your God led you
on the entire journey these 40 years in the wilderness
so that he might humble you and test you
to know what was in your heart,
whether or not you would keep his commands.
So the people of Israel were led out of Egypt
and into the wilderness for 40 years by God to test them
to see if they would keep his commands.
And we see Jesus being led by the Spirit again
out into the wilderness for 40 days.
For us, you and I, temptation usually comes to us.
You know, it comes out of nowhere.
It comes with a fleeting glance or something that pops up
or we don't know how to react to it
and we sit there for a moment and we debate
and then our desires start to well up
and then James talks about our desires
and it gives birth to sin and then sin to death, right?
And we're drawn into this temptation.
We're drawn into this temptation.
We can't stop it.
It's a flood.
It takes us and it runs us through the wringer
and on the other end we're defeated
because we gave in.
We fell into that temptation.
Jesus didn't go out haphazardly
to just accidentally fall into temptation.
He's led into the wilderness by the Spirit
because he went out there for a different reason.
He went out there to overcome it.
He went out there in the power of the Holy Spirit
to face down the evil temptation
that every one of us has failed in the face of
and to stand up against it and to watch it fall once for all.
He didn't go out there as a weakling.
He went out there with the power of the Holy Spirit
to do what we could never do.
He went out there to kick its butt.
Oh.
That's the first thing we need to see
as he's led out there, but then let's talk
about the temptation.
So temptation number one, verse chapter two.
Verse four, chapter two, I'm sorry, chapter four, verse two.
He ate nothing during these days
and when they were over, he was hungry.
The devil said to him, if you are the son of God,
tell these stones to become bread.
But Jesus answered him, it is written,
man must not live on bread alone.
Jesus hungry after 40 days of fasting and praying,
we would be hungry too.
We would be tempted.
But one of the things that we should note in this, again,
if we're so quick to jump to making our,
inserting ourselves into the story,
is Jesus was tempted with turning rocks into bread.
How many of you can turn rocks into bread?
Yeah, Jordan, okay.
Talk afterwards.
Jesus was tempted with something he could do,
something he knew he could do.
It's no temptation to tempt me into something
that I'm incapable of doing.
I am never tempted to hijack a fighter pilot,
you know, fighter jet, and go for a joyride.
Never, I wouldn't know what to do.
I wouldn't make it off the runway.
I'd explode, I'd die, I'm not tempted.
You could never tempt me to do that.
Jesus was tempted to turn bread,
to turn rocks into bread or stones into bread,
because he was capable of doing it.
He could do it.
He could do it, he could use his power
to feed himself bread from these stones.
An interesting parallel is the fact that Adam and Eve
also faced a temptation over food, huh?
Jesus, the last Adam, a similar temptation as the first Adam,
standing face to face, hunger.
Will you use your power to reach out
and take these stones and turn them into bread?
So that you can feed yourself.
What is the response?
What does Jesus say to this first temptation?
He says, man must not live on bread alone.
And again, the author is drawing us back
through all of this discourse back to the people of Israel.
These are the words of Christ,
and he's pointing us back to Israel
in Deuteronomy chapter eight.
Deuteronomy chapter eight, verse one.
We see these words, but in the context of these words,
it's important, whenever the script of the Bible
drops in a passage, particularly in the New Testament,
and we see one line, one verse.
As good Bible readers, you make note of that verse,
you find out where it is in the Old Testament,
and you read the whole context.
Because the author was shorthanding something.
He was dropping a little clue there,
a little Easter egg for you to go
and spend some time meditating on God's word
from where it came from.
And so Deuteronomy chapter eight says,
begins with this, carefully follow every command
I am giving you today.
Well, we could meditate on that one for weeks right there.
Carefully follow every command I am giving you today
so that you may live and increase,
and may enter and take possession of the land
the Lord swore to your ancestors.
Remember that the Lord your God
led you on the entire journey those 40 years
in the wilderness so that he might humble you
and test you to know what was in your heart,
whether or not you would keep his commands.
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, so that you might learn,
so that you might know.
And so Jesus responds with Deuteronomy chapter eight,
and the question here in this temptation for us
as we're sitting here and we're reading,
and we are reading ourselves into it,
we're going, is he gonna give, is he gonna cave?
Will Jesus use the power that he has,
or will he feast on God's word alone?
C.S. Lewis in his, the screw tape letters,
there's one demonic force talking to the other
about us and their temptation of us,
says it is funny how mortals always picture us
as putting things into their minds.
In reality, our best work is by keeping those things out.
Keep the word of God out of your mind.
You won't live according to the word of God,
you won't trust in the sustenance of God's word,
you'll fail.
Keep you away from the Bible, keep you away from study,
keep you away from learning, keep you away from church,
you'll fail.
You don't have to put plant ideas in your mind,
it just keeps things out.
The question is, will Jesus rely on his power,
or will he rely on his word?
40 days, hungry.
Man, I'd be hungry.
I'd be dreaming about everything.
I'd be dreaming about Chick-fil-A and In-N-Out,
I'd be dreaming about all of it.
I wouldn't be turning the rocks into bread.
But man, the temptation, setting in,
the temptation, setting in.
And what does Jesus respond with?
He responds with the word of God.
He says, no, man is not supposed to live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
He stands on God's word.
Again, you wouldn't even, in the Luke narrative,
you wouldn't even know the rest of that scripture
unless you go and study it, unless you go and meditate on it.
So that's an important point.
Go meditate on God's word.
Notice that the devil doesn't tempt
with any sort of blatant evil deed.
Go murder that guy.
Go steal that thing.
No, no, all it involves is,
can I get you to no longer fear, love, or trust God?
In other words, can I get you to break the first commandment?
Can I get you to break the first commandment?
If I can get you to break the first commandment,
because all of those are first commandment issues,
if I can get you to break that one,
you've broken the whole law,
because you've broken the greatest.
If you don't trust God, if you don't fear God,
if you don't love God more than everything else,
he wins.
So he tempts us to get us to take our eyes off of God,
to get us to take our eyes off of trusting God,
and to put it on ourselves.
And that's what he's trying to say.
Look at yourself, look how hungry you are.
He did this with Adam and Eve.
Oh, don't you want wisdom and knowledge?
God's trying to keep something from you.
He's not good, he's trying to hide something from you.
Get your eyes off of him and get it on your need.
Meet your need, fulfill your need.
And Jesus says, no, I'll stand on the word of God,
and I'll speak it.
Jesus didn't employ any divine power
to withstand this temptation.
You know, he didn't, wah, and then, you know,
force field, shield, or anything like that, you know?
It's like, no.
The full of the Holy Spirit,
he stood on the word of God, as it.
That's important, it's important,
because when it does come to apply to us,
we need to remember that.
The second temptation out of verse five.
The second temptation, verse five through eight.
So he took him up and showed him
all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
The devil said to him, I will give you their splendor,
and there is all this authority,
because it has been given over to me,
and I will give it to anyone I want.
If you will then, if you then will worship me,
all will be yours.
If you will worship me, all will be yours.
Again, that slimy serpent in the garden,
you will be like God.
If you simply take and disobey, you will be like God.
The devil attempts with something that is promised,
he's tempting Jesus here with something
that is promised by God to the faithful king,
to the faithful Messiah.
If you remember back in Psalm chapter two,
Psalm chapter two, there's a promise made to the king,
or the faithful king of Psalm chapter two.
And here's what that promise is in verse seven of Psalm two.
I will declare the Lord's decree.
He said to me, you are my son.
Today I have become your father.
Ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance,
and the ends of the earth your possessions.
I will give you the nations of the world,
and the ends of the earth will be your possession,
because you are faithful.
This is your inheritance as the faithful one,
the faithful king.
It's yours already, it's yours through your faithfulness.
And Satan comes and says, oh, let's circumvent that,
let's go around that, let's not go that way.
I got another way.
You can avoid all of the faithfulness,
you can avoid the cross, you can avoid the suffering,
you can avoid the obedience, just bow down to me,
and I'll give it all to you right now.
Don't ever take anything from Satan.
If he offers to give you,
don't ever take anything from Satan.
Talk about strings attached.
Oh my goodness.
If he says, I will give, you say no, thank you.
Pass.
He says, I'll give you what is really your inheritance
from your faithfulness.
I'll give it to you now if you simply bow down.
And how does Jesus respond?
Jesus responds by saying,
it is written, worship the Lord your God,
and serve him only.
We're gonna be good Bible students
and go back to that hyperlink.
So Deuteronomy chapter six,
because there's more in there that we need to see.
Deuteronomy chapter six,
and we'll just read verse 10 through 15.
When the Lord your God brings you into the land
he swore to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
that he would give you a land with large, beautiful cities
that you did not build.
Houses full of every good thing
that you did not fill them with.
Sisters that you did not dig,
and vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.
And when you eat and are satisfied,
you guys remember the garden, right?
That was God's creation.
He planted it.
He put it all there.
They enjoyed the favor of it.
And he's saying to the people of Israel in Deuteronomy,
when you enter the land,
and you enter cities that are already built,
and gardens that are already planted,
and you began to feast and eat on them and are satisfied,
verse 12, be careful not to forget the Lord.
Be careful not to forget the Lord who brought you
out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.
Fear the Lord your God,
worship him and take your oaths in his name.
Do not follow other gods,
the gods of the people around you.
For the Lord your God who is among you is a jealous God.
Otherwise the Lord your God will become angry with you
and obliterate you from the face of the earth.
Be careful not to forget.
That word forget is a pretty strong word.
It's an active choice to put out of mind.
Be careful not to actively remove from your mind
and your heart the remembrance and the reality
of what God has done on your behalf.
Again it's a first commandment issue.
Don't displace God from his rightful place in your life.
If you do that you've broken every law, every command.
Don't forget God.
And in light of that, Jesus says,
worship the Lord your God and serve him only.
And that leads to the final temptation.
When Satan takes Jesus up to Jerusalem
and he stands on what is called the Pinnacle of the Temple
and it would be a place of prominence
where maybe others might see or witness a miraculous event.
Or if it's a different location on the Temple Mount
then it's one where the Lord your God
it's one where you stand on the corner
and if you leapt off it would be into a valley down below
that goes way deep and it would just be
an extraordinary thing to see as you leapt off
and thousands upon thousands of angels rescued you.
So he takes him up and Satan tries in this temptation
one more technique, one more tactic
and that is now Satan is going to quote scripture.
He is gonna quote scripture back at Jesus.
He tries his hand at it
and so he quotes from Psalm 91.
Psalm 91 and he says,
if you are the son of God, in Luke chapter four,
if you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here
for it is written and he's quoting from Psalm 91,
he will give his angels orders concerning you
to protect you and they will support you with their hands
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
If you hold your finger there
and you turn back to Psalm 91,
you'll see a few things in verse 11 through 13
that stand out.
The first thing is Satan in quoting his scripture,
he twists it.
In fact, he leaves out in a very, very important part
in the very first verse.
This is what Satan says, he says,
he will give his angels orders concerning you
to protect you.
But if you turn over to Psalm 91
and you read verse 11, it says,
for he will give his angels orders concerning you
to protect you in all your ways.
Now you and I reading in all your ways, we go,
oh, that's whatever I wanna do, right?
Whatever I do, God's gonna protect me.
No.
No, it's already been established that the way
that they are to walk is the way of God,
the way of his word.
His word is a lamp to their feet and a light to their path.
And so when it says in all your ways,
it's all your ways as you are obediently following God.
As you're obediently trusting in his word,
he will protect you.
It's not a blanket statement no matter what you do.
It's about being in his word, standing on his word,
and living according to his word.
And if you would do that, he will protect you.
He will stand with you.
But Satan leaves that out because Satan knows
that Jesus is here on a mission.
And if he stays in the way of God,
then it's going to be right through the evil one.
And he's trying to get him instead to fail.
But it continues, he says, he quotes verse 12 just fine.
They will support you with their hands
so that you will not strike your foot against the stone.
But then he stops.
Satan stops right there.
And do you know what the next verse says?
You know what the next verse in Psalm 91 says?
What is gonna be the result of all of this?
Verse 13 of Psalm 91.
You will tread on the lion and on the cobra.
You will trample the young lion and the serpent.
Oops.
Satan grabbing for his scripture,
grabs the double-edged sword of the word,
of the word of truth, and cuts himself on it.
The very next line, as we go back and we look at it,
we go, oh my gosh, he will protect you in all your ways.
He will not let your foot hit,
strike so that you can crush the head of Satan.
You can crush the head of the serpent.
Again, this is another hyperlink.
You've gotta go back to Genesis.
And the promise that one from the woman
would crush the head of the serpent.
And this is a promise to him that if you walk in God's ways,
he will protect you.
If you stay in his word and you walk according to his word,
all kinds of things can come against you,
but in the end, the serpent will be crushed.
Amen.
Satan tries his hand at twisting scripture,
and Jesus responds by saying,
do not test the Lord your God.
Do not test the Lord your God.
And the final scripture I'm gonna reference back to
for that one is Deuteronomy chapter six,
verse 16 through 19.
Remember I said that Jesus is the new Israel.
He's recapitulating or reliving out the
the
the life of the Israelites in their failures
in the wilderness.
And where they failed, he's succeeding in the wilderness.
He's standing on point for point where they failed.
He's standing on God's word and he's succeeding.
He is the new Israel.
And he is the faithful Israel.
In Deuteronomy chapter six,
reading in verse 16,
says,
do not test the Lord your God as you tested him at Massa.
Carefully observe the commands of the Lord your God,
the decrees and statues he has commanded you.
Do what is right and what is good in the Lord's sight
so that you may prosper and so that you may enter
and possess the good land the Lord your God
swore to your ancestors
by driving out all your enemies before you
as the Lord has said.
Says, do what's right. He says,
don't test the Lord your God as you did in Massa.
Well, Massa is referring back to Exodus chapter 17.
You don't need to turn there.
But during the Exodus, in Exodus chapter 17,
the Israelite community left the wilderness of sin
moving from one place to the next according to God's command
and they camped at a certain place
and they went to Moses and said,
man, we are thirsty, give us some water.
And Moses said, why are you complaining to me?
Why are you testing the Lord?
In other words, is not God out here with us?
Is he not leading us?
Does he not love us and care for us according to our needs
according to his time?
Why are you pushing it?
Why are you complaining and grumbling against the God
who has led us thus far?
And the people thirsted for water
and they grumbled against Moses and they said,
why did you ever bring us out of Egypt where we were slaves
and having to work really hard and getting whipped
and getting beaten and killed?
Why did you ever bring us out of Egypt to kill us
and our children and our livestock with thirst?
And then Moses cried out to the Lord,
what shall I do with these people?
In a little while, they're going to stone me.
The Lord answered Moses, go on ahead of the people
and take some of the elders of Israel with you.
Take the staff that you struck the Nile with
in your hand and go.
I am going to stand there in front of you
on the rock of Horeb.
When you hit the rock, water will come out of it
and the people will drink.
Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel
and he named that place Masa and Meribah
because the Israelites complained
because they tested the Lord
and what was the test?
The test was this.
They tested the Lord saying, is the Lord among us or not?
Is the Lord among us or not?
The question for Jesus in temptation three is,
is the Lord among him or not?
Is he full of the Spirit of God or will again
he rely on his own strength and his own miraculous power
and Jesus says to this test, yes, I know my mission
and I know my purpose and I know my God
and God will sustain me at all the right moments,
at all the right points, even to death,
he will sustain me.
Consider that, Jesus went faithfully to death.
Now for us, death is final.
We have this finality to it, right?
If I die, there's no tomorrow.
Jesus went faithfully to death believing that
at the moment of God's will,
he would rescue him and so he passed through death
and God rescued him from death
and therein is a hope of resurrection that you and I have.
Chad Bird, a scholar, says this way of this scripture,
Jesus, as the son of the Father,
the last Adam and the man Israel,
undid the failures of our fathers
in paradise and in the wilderness
by remaining steadfast and faithful to his Father,
thereby winning victory over all the forces of evil.
Jesus did all of this
and it's important as I close up that we remember,
this is not about us.
It's so easy to fall into the trap to think,
okay, what am I supposed to do now?
You're supposed to glory in that.
We're supposed to be strangely warmed within
over the fact that what we could never do, he did.
We're supposed to see the truth of the gospel
and the fact that where we failed to obey, he obeyed.
Where we fell to temptation,
can you guys remember a time when you fell to temptation?
This week, on your way here, since you've been here,
when you looked across the way
and you had that feeling in your heart
toward your brother or sister,
can you remember a time when you were tempted into sin
and you could not resist?
He resisted.
You and I don't know the depths, honestly, on most days.
We don't know what it means to endure temptation
because we give in so quickly,
we don't know what the full weight of it is.
We've never got to the point on our own strength
to get all the way through it.
So we don't know what that's like
because every time we get into it on our own strength,
we give in.
And that's the point, we always will give in
in our own strength, always.
But if there's anything to look at Christ
and to glory in him and what he did
and then to go, how do we live this way?
It's to see that he stood on the word of God,
he was firmly planted in the word of God
and he lived and trusted that God was with him.
And therefore, he could stand through every temptation
no matter what.
And he's the only one, he's the first,
who went there, stood in the face of evil and temptation,
and the temptation left.
He didn't leave, he didn't run.
The temptation, the tempter left.
The tempter left his presence.
You and I, we give in.
He stands firm.
And it's our giving in to the temptations of sin
that mean that we are lawbreakers.
We're lawbreakers and therefore guilty
before a perfect and holy God.
But he was perfect in his obedience,
standing on God's word.
And therein, I said earlier,
one of the keys to understanding the application
is to remember that from his baptism
full of the Holy Spirit, Jesus went in
to face down temptation.
If you are in Christ,
you receive the Holy Spirit.
You are filled with the Holy Spirit,
and the same power that was at work within Christ
is working in you to change your desires
and to will and to work according to his good plan
and purposes within you.
And that means when you face temptation,
you do not have to stand on your strength alone.
But you can stand upon the strength of God himself
in the Holy Spirit within you
and on the truth of his word,
and you can face down any temptation in this life
and overcome it.
You could never do that on your own.
Don't try it.
We spent too many years trying it,
but instead, stand upon the truth of his word
and upon the reality that God is with you
if you are in Christ.
And therefore, any temptation before you can fall.
You do not have to give in.
Don't give in so easily.
Hold firm.
This is why the Bible has so many instructions
in the New Testament, to stand steady, to hold firm,
to stay strong in the face of it,
because the Spirit within you will get you through it,
will lead you through the temptation
if you hold steady according to his word,
in his word, living according to it.
We are called
to live according to the Spirit
and according to his word.
And the message that Luke is communicating to us
is look what Christ has done for you.
Look how he facedown temptation.
Live in Christ.
And you too, by his power and his strength,
can face down temptation.
Let's pray.