Karen Beilharz: Welcome to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia
that seeks to glorify God through biblically sound, thought-provoking and challenging talks and interviews.
In this episode from a chapel service held on Tuesday the 11th of March, 2025, Peter Grice, Bishop of the
Diocese of Rockhampton, speaks on Luke chapter four, verses one to 15, and the testing of Jesus by Satan.
He reminds us that Jesus testing proves beyond a doubt
that he's the real deal.
He's worthy of our trust and praise.
Furthermore, as those who serve him, we too will face testing just as he did.
We hope you find the episode helpful.
Peter Grice: Gracious Lord, we thank you that you're a communicating God.
We pray that this morning we would hear your voice, but Father, greater than that, we pray that we'd heed it.
We pray this in Jesus name.
Amen.
Now if you're able, please have that reading open before you.
It's uh, Luke chapter four, verses one to 15.
So John and I arrived here slightly earlier this morning and we went for a bit of a wander and
we popped upstairs and we saw all you first years doing Greek learning about the future tents.
And it got me thinking, it got me thinking, wouldn't it be nice if there was a, a dramatic change of, uh, policy and Greek.
Was assessed in the following way.
At the end of your first year of Greek, you'd be sat down and asked a simple question, do you know all your paradigms, including the participants?
Yes or no?
Oh, yeah, yeah, I do.
Alright, good.
Tick, you're done.
And then I got thinking, well perhaps we could apply that to every subject.
You know, just read a book here, or watch a movie there, or whatever, a podcast and.
I regret to inform you.
That's not gonna happen.
It's not happening.
Why?
Because as a potential employer of you, I want to know that you've been pushed.
I want to know that you've been tried and tested.
I want to know that you true, and I want to know that you are the real deal.
Why?
Because gospel ministry.
If you are not the real deal, the chances are you won't survive out in a parish, in a ministry, in the mission field.
It's hard work and you need to be the real deal.
Now, if that's true for ministers of the servant of God, if that's true for the servants of the Son of God, surely it holds true.
That the son of God himself must then be the real deal, which then raises the very natural question, well, how would you test the son of God?
What areas would you put the examination?
Well, it wouldn't be probably Hebrew Bible or New Testament.
It probably wouldn't be church history or even theology or even Greek.
What would you test the son of God?
What are his core subjects?
Can I suggest that there are three?
Yes, three subjects for the son of God?
He was tested on provision.
Firstly.
Secondly, pride.
Thirdly promise.
Okay.
Firstly, a bit of context.
In this part of Luke, his narrative arc is as follows.
We've been introduced to Jesus.
He is been proclaimed by John the Baptist.
He's been endorsed by God the Father.
The Holy Spirit has descended on Jesus at his baptism.
He's inspired.
Then Luke takes a little diversion into a genealogy and tracks Jesus lineage straight back to the divine, father himself, back to God.
Now Jesus is being tested.
To establish whether he is the real deal.
Firstly, provision.
Now in the Greek in verse one, it actually starts the second word in his debt.
But I suspect, and I wouldn't go to the stake on this one, that there is a contrast.
You've got this genealogy, these were the leading up to, but in contrast.
You have Jesus the son of God.
I wouldn't be sure about that, but it's certainly suggestive.
But what is sure, what is explicit from the text is that Jesus goes in at his spiritual peak.
He's at his utmost.
He's full of the Holy Spirit.
He's returned from the river, the Jordan, to the wilderness.
He's been led by the Holy Spirit, God's presence.
This is no trial by ambush.
This is no trial by ordeal.
This is part of a divine program that has Jesus' full spiritual participation.
And in verse two, we have a convergence.
We have a, an explosion of intertextual typology, and we can reel 'em off without much difficulty.
What are they?
Well, the wilderness.
40, the devil's seductive, silky tones, the son of God compared with the people of God.
You've got bread and you've got a few others.
If you wanna dig a little bit deeper, this is a very loaded and rich setting.
For Jesus' examination, all the bases are covered.
In this testing as the son of God to work out whether Jesus is actually the real deal.
So this is going to be a searching examination.
Now, the word there tempted just means to be tested or pushed or to just to see if he's gonna deviate and go offline.
And his examiner is none other than the chief accuser himself, the counter advocate, Satan.
Jesus ate nothing for that 40 days.
I'm assuming that he had some fluid and uh, but basically it was nil, solids by mouth, excuse me,
40 days without food.
And at the end of 40 days, terse, Luke, and understatement.
He was hungry.
You're kidding, right?
He was famished, he was beside himself.
He was climbing the walls.
Jesus was hungry.
So Q verse three, the examiner, and you can imagine the smooth, persuasive tones.
It's so reasonable.
See, Satan's had practice.
He did it in the garden as well, where he just said to eve, look, did God really say et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So reasonable.
It's not an imperative attack, but a subjunctive influence.
What does he do if.
If you are the son of God, there's a rock there.
Turn it into an artisan sourdough loaf.
Go on.
You know you want to,
you're hungry.
It's a regrettable happenstance.
Surely you can use your power to correct that, turn that rock into bread and remember the manner.
See, God did it for his own people.
Surely he'd want you to do it for yourself.
You can see how the, the line of reasoning goes.
It's very seductive.
And to someone who's starving, I think very compelling.
But what's he doing?
It's all very reasonable.
But he's encouraging Jesus, tempting Jesus to use his divine power to serve his own needs, to provide for himself to make provision.
And in the process, he's accusing God of not providing.
Of failing in provision of stepping outside the program.
To serve itself for his own ends.
And basically to say to God, I've gotta go it alone.
I can't trust you to provide, so I'll do it for myself.
Thank you.
Now to a man starving, that's sorely tested.
Now, verse four.
Jesus responds as it's written, sorry, this is ESV.
Uh, man shall not live by bread alone.
So that's Deuteronomy eight, three.
And the context is God testing whether the people of God are obedient after the manner.
See the manner was provided to encourage the people of God to come back to faithfulness, the wilderness exodus generation,
that were they gonna trust God or not, even when he provided for them, are they going to trust God's provision?
The answer, of course, in the wilderness was the answer was no.
But Jesus uses this text to say, I trust in the word of God, even if my ancestors did not, I.
Trust God's provision.
Full stop.
So that's round one to Jesus.
Jesus has just been tested.
The subject is provision that's done and dusted.
I hope none of you are hungry this morning.
I. But craving food is powerful.
On Sunday night, I flew into Brisbane from Rockhampton in the middle of an ex tropical cyclone.
Yeah, I know, right?
And you're welcome.
We brought it with us
Brisbane airport.
The grassy bits were lakes.
I actually had a serious worry whether we were going to make it because we were, we were.
There were rooster tails everywhere.
That's spray.
I got to my motel, which was fine.
Across the road there was a Woolies, which was even better, and I thought, right, I need some food.
I haven't eaten.
I got to Woolies.
The guy in front of me had just been served, and then the announcement came round that F OSS had gone out.
The whole system in Australia, in Woolworths.
I was one guy behind being served with my basket full of stuff, man.
So I then had the ignominious 10 minutes of putting it all back in the shelf where I got it from.
I tell you what, I was tempted to slip that Snickers just quietly.
I didn't, I didn't.
Okay.
I left hungry and then I rewrote this talk, so I, we'll see.
Sorry, I'll just grab some water.
Uh.
So I think, um, I speak with a measure of credibility about hunger, God's provision.
Let's just pause for a second.
Firstly, I wanna raise an important caveat before we go on.
This is the reading from the first Sunday in Lent.
And it can be used as a case study.
Jesus abstained.
So must the faithful spend 40 days abstaining in the preparation for Easter.
That's, that's a fairly traditional, uh, lic Oh, and other interpretation.
So, you know, people give up chocolate.
You're kidding.
Right?
I had a friend in ministry who gave up cigars.
He was a non-smoker.
He, he thought it was funny.
Anyway, is this what the text is telling us to do?
Is it what it's saying?
I. Well, Leon Morris, in his commentary, he thunders No, no, it's not Jesus.
The son of God is being tested to see whether he is the real deal as the Son of God.
Full stop.
However,
and I want to unpack this further on, uh, as followers of the Son of God,
question, uh, will there be implications and consequences for the people of God?
So let's just keep that in intention.
So do we abstain for Lynch?
Sure.
Why not?
But make sure you're focusing on the son of God, not your own devotion.
Okay?
So if you want to give up something,
make Lent, bring Jesus into focus, not your own devotion into focus.
That's what I'd say about that.
The second thing, and this is we all know this, you can already see that Jesus is responding to Satan's baths by using the word of God, the shield.
The sword, whichever image you want to use.
Now, that's famously well known, but it's not a bad point to note at this point.
I wanna return to greater application later on.
But let's proceed to the next test.
Jesus'.
Next examination.
We move from provision to pride.
Verse five, please.
So verse five, there's some sort of miracle going on where Satan takes Jesus on
a bit of a global show and tell instantaneously all the kingdoms of the world.
I paraded before him in all their pomp, circumstance and glory.
There's more typology there if you wanna drill into that as well.
Kingdoms of the world versus Kingdom of God, all shapes of size in an instant and overwhelming instance.
Go and pick one.
No, no, no, no.
Don't pick one.
Have the lot.
All of it.
It's all yours.
And notice in verse six, there's a focus on authority and glory.
Can I rephrase that?
Power and prestige.
Power and prestige are that intoxicating cocktail that drives imperial ambition
across the globe and across the ages, and Satan sells Jesus, I can do this.
It's been given to me.
It's been delivered to me.
I can give all this to you.
Really?
He can't do that.
That's not in his contract, is it?
Well, actually it is.
Two Corinthians what, which we've heard a bit of today.
Two Corinthians four.
Four.
Paul describes Satan as the God of this world.
Now, if Satan couldn't offer the world, well, it would be a pretty hopeless test, wouldn't it?
Jesus would say, look, get knotted.
You can't do that.
That's it.
As it stands though, this is a very, very shrewd, very telling test.
So Jesus calls these bluff, but the real test is this.
What sort of kingdom are you going to be?
What do you desire, son of God, so-called?
Do you desire, power and prestige as the world or the path of pain and sacrifice?
In verse seven, comes as a very nasty sting in the tail.
Almost a passing thought.
Oh, by the way, if I'm gonna do this transfer.
You are gonna have to transfer your allegiance from God the father, to the father of lies.
Think about it.
Wow, all this will be yours, but at some price, what an offer.
It's glory without Gethsemane stronger than the foundations of the earth.
All shall love me and despair.
Thank you, Tolkien, but as gala Gladio rejects the ring of power in verse eight, Jesus does not flinch.
He dispatches the offer and bolsters it by the word of God.
Deuteronomy chapter six, verse 13, worship and serve God alone.
It's a very tight echo and resonance with the first commandment, and Jesus prevails using scripture once more.
First round, provision tick.
Second round, pride.
Done.
In doing so, Jesus rejects pride, power, and privilege, which shapes so much of our society and enterprise.
You may be tempted, uh, in ministry.
'cause you, someone almost certainly will say to you, oh, I'm okay.
I live, I, I I followed 10 commandments.
Have you heard that?
I have multiple times.
If you're feeling very cheeky, say to the person, well, can you recite them from one to 10?
If you're less so, I'm probably more pastorally inclined.
Just say to them, look, how do you go following the first commandment?
How do you go no other gods before me?
It means that we treat God as God.
The kingdom of God is not about power and prestige.
It's about service and sacrifice.
Pride has no place in that economy.
So the final test, I'm gonna call it Promise.
Did you notice how all of the points started with pr?
Okay.
We move from promise to presumption.
So verse nine, there's another minor miracle.
Jesus and Satan are teleported to Jerusalem, the temple, the centre of God's presence,
the refuge for the people of God, the epicentre of the Jewish nation and spirituality.
He's at the pinnacle of the temple, and we are a bit unsure as to where exactly that was.
It's up high on a roof somewhere.
All right.
Beckoning 200 feet or so below is the floor of the Kidron Valley.
Jesus is up there swaying in the breeze.
What a place to test this promise.
And Satan now changes tack.
He reverts back to the first test.
If you are the son of God, throw yourself off in one dramatic, definitive, presumptuous,
indulgent, flourish, and see what God does because, and this is where he gets tricky.
G, grab tie, perfect passive.
The formula of scripture, it is written, it stands written, and remains standing That.
His angels will guard you.
They'll bear you up.
You will not strike your foot against a stone.
He's quoting.
Let's see what God does do this spectacular gesture.
It's a promise affirming gesture, is it?
No.
No, it's not.
It completely ignores verses one to 10.
The context is controverted.
Psalm 91.
It talks about the protection that God offers, the faithful I.
It is not a crass invitation for God to demonstrate his character and his credentials, his own faithfulness.
And for the third time, Jesus calls this out again using the Bible.
This time, Deuteronomy chapter six, verse 16.
Don't test God.
The wilderness generation did so read Psalm 95 if you'd like to.
God doesn't need to prove himself.
God's promises are trustworthy.
His word is true.
Don't test God.
And that's that.
And that was that three tests done and dusted.
Verse 13, all the angles were summed up in these three Loki of provision of pride and a promise.
The testing of Jesus as the son of God is complete.
It's satisfied, and Jesus, the son of God is the real deal.
Satan is defeated and he goes off stage and is backgrounded by Luke until 22 3
when he performs his part in Jesus being betrayed where he whispers in Judas ear.
So Satan's done and the result is Jesus returns in the power of the Spirit.
So you got that nice sort of spiritual bookends of this perpe.
He goes and he preaches and he's glorified.
By all did you catch that?
Glorified by all.
And so thus, our passage is finished.
He proves equality is the real deal and he gets it done.
He.
He gets the word out, the kingdom of God is at hand.
The tests are done provision, pride, promise.
And unlike the wilderness generation, Jesus prevails Jesus as the son of God is the real deal.
So let's wrap this up.
In the two minutes, I probably don't have, I want to make some fairly tight application to us, at the very least.
Firstly, and most importantly, this passage yells at us.
That with all his testing, Jesus has credibility.
He is the real deal.
He is worthy of our trust.
Full stop, trust.
Don't test first thing.
Second thing is a little bit more nuanced, so bear with me as ministers and all of us are in ministry, all of us.
As ministers who serve the son of God, I'm gonna say we will face testing.
Now, I wanna bolster that assertion with some Bible.
Luke, chapter 11, verse four, in the Lord's Prayer.
Lead us not into temptation.
Charisma, the same word that was used throughout, uh, Luke four.
Same word, Matthew six 13 ads, but deliver us from evil or in some text, the evil one.
Hebrews chapter four, verse 15.
Jesus sympathized.
'cause he was tempted Peros like us, but he didn't fall.
So Jesus' Venn diagram is this big, the big circle.
Ours is littler, but it's in it.
That's what it's saying.
You will be tested in ministry.
And I want to conclude by using the three subjects in Jesus' examination.
Firstly, provision.
Now we know this.
God provides for faithful gospel ministry, right?
Yeah, of course.
And then once you're in ministry and you've got a family and you've got a heritage listed house with a roof that leaks,
and then you've got a parish that's getting frustrated and the giving goes down, and then you start asking the question.
You realize as you look at the monthly p and l, that your livelihood depends on donations from volunteers.
And you get that crippling pang of vulnerability and that nagging small voice will, or even can God provide
leaders not in temptation, God can and will provide provision.
Secondly, pride.
Your youth group doubles in the second week of term.
You preach on the Sunday morning.
And the parish bully comes up to you and says, that's the greatest sermon I've ever heard
offer.
Trees go up, numbers go up, enrollments go up,
can happen.
And then the nagging small voice says, well, it's, it's really about me now, isn't it?
Aren't I good?
The jealous, abusive seed of narcissism takes root.
Lead us not into temptation.
God comes first.
Not us.
Not me.
Thirdly and finally, promise.
Testing God's fidelity using anything from the car, parking, prayer, so relevant in Newtown to the less trivial recovery of a sick loved one.
Will God do this for me?
And that nagging small voice, does God even keep his promise?
Is he trustworthy?
Lead us not into temptation because God makes and keeps promises.
Period.
You've been very patient with this bush minister.
I'm gonna close.
The testing of Jesus was provisioned pride and promise, and it proves Jesus credentials as the son of God.
Jesus, as you all know, is tried, tested, and true is the real deal.
So can I just leave you with every blessing as you prayerfully promote, preach and proclaim Jesus the real deal.
The Son of God, can I pray for us?
Gracious Lord, we thank you that in Jesus we have your son.
The word became flesh.
We thank you that we can trust him.
We thank you that we can trust you for provision.
We thank you that we need not be proud, and we thank you that your promises are true and trustworthy.
I. We pray that we would follow you and that we'd be the real deal, and we pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Karen Beilharz: Thank you for listening to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College.
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