Temptations
Notes
Transcript
The first humans, the first Adam, was tempted saying “will you be God?” The second Adam was tempted “will you be truly human?” Here we see Jesus tempted right up the old “hierarchy of needs”: food, safety, esteem and self-actualization. Jesus has the power and option to respond as fully-God at every moment. Instead, he resists temptation as fully human, responding with nothing but the Scripture available to all. Thus we have a “high priest… in every respect tempted as we are, yet without sin.” He is the master of human life, the ultimate example, the perfect (shalom) human. We follow in his footsteps not only because “He is Lord” but also because he knows how to do life in righteousness and abundance.
MasterClass
MasterClass
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RECAP: Baptism
RECAP: Baptism
This incredible cinematic moment. John reluctantly baptizes his better cousin, Jesus. And the heavens are torn open, and the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove, and a voice from heaven “This is my Son in whom I am well pleased.” Jesus sees it… and John sees it.
What an incredible springboard into ministry. So Jesus immediately inherits all of the disciples of John and catapults on to the stage of history with great fanfare!
Nope. The Spirit leads him off into the wilderness for the Temptations.
(No, not those temptations)
The Temptations
The Temptations
Matthew 4:1–11 (ESV)
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Devil comes from “diabolos” and literally means “slanderer.” Later Jesus uses an Aramaic word, “Satan,” which literally means adversary.
The same wilderness John the Baptist came out of, Jesus goes into… to be tested, to be “trialed,” to be “tempted” by the evil one.
I have a few assumptions about this whole event.
I believe this was a real trial and temptation for Jesus. This isn’t play acting, this isn’t a foregone conclusion. He was sent to be “tempted” and Hebrews later says “he was tempted...” so I think Jesus, in his humanness here, was actually tempted.
2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
We’ve talked about the “rule of 3” and we say humans can live “about three weeks” without food. They can live longer… but 35-40 days is when severe starvation sets in. Sometimes the Bible uses the number 40 as a stand-in for testing and trials. Raining for 40 days and nights, Israel in the desert for 40 years, Moses fasted for 40 days, Ezekiel laid on his right side for 40 days...
It is powerfully symbolic of all the testing and trials of the past… but I have reason to think this is a literal 40 days.
And, Luke tells us, he ate “nothing.” And I don’t think he’s pounding fruit juices like I might even on a shorter fast. So when the Bible says “he was hungry...” I think he is beyond any hunger I have ever experienced. Near to death with it.
3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
And, you know what, the tempter is right. This is a truth: if Jesus is the Son of Man he can command stones to becomes loaves of bread. He invented matter, He was the Word spoken over all creation, if he can multiply bread and fishes, transmogrify water to wine, he can figure out the stone to bread matter energy conversion.
But Jesus doesn’t do that.
4 But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
Jesus responds with Scripture. Out of Deuteronomy, a reference to God’s miracle of “manna.”
3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
4 Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years.
40 years, same clothes, brutal.
God gave manna to teach the Israelites to be fully dependent on Him… and that they needed Him for more than bread alone. Jesus knows what 40 years never taught the Israelites.
Not just bread, everything was provided for them. Food and clothing.
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple
Did they walk? I’m thinking teleportation. Maybe vision, that language is used elsewhere. If a wandering starving dude is set on the pinnacle of the temple, there might have been a scene.
But somehow, the devil takes him to Jerusalem, he’s on the pinnacle of the temple… Some have estimated 150 feet, 15 stories give or take.
This is the South East corner over the Kidron valley and that’s something like 450 feet.
6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ”
Again, Satan speaks truth, but twisted. He quotes from Psalms 91, referring to “he who dwells in the shadow of the Most High...”
7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”
and again Jesus answers with Scripture. Again from the book of Moses, from Deuteronomy 16, specifically the people freaking out about no water and God had Moses strike the rock and water came out.
Satan is twisting praise songs, Jesus is quoting God’s Word in context, applying exactly the lessons God was attempting to teach to life and how to live it in righteousness.
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.
Is there a mountain that shows “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory?” Is this a mountain on the moon? Is this a hypothetical dream mountain… or just a high nearby peak and seeing “all the kingdoms of the world” is by metaphor to all that they see stretched out before them? Don’t know, doesn’t matter. But the promise of Satan is not metaphorical.
9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”
Satan offers dominion over all the kingdoms of the world. And it is no empty promise. Jesus doesn’t question his right or authority to offer this. The dominion of the earth was given to Adam and Eve, and in the Fall and ever since, we have given that dominion over to the devil. Satan. The adversary. And with promises like this, if man got it back tomorrow, Satan would have it again by the afternoon.
Satan offers Jesus a shortcut to victory: the crown without the cross. More about that next week.
Is this a temptation to Jesus? On the one hand, yes. We know that Jesus, as the time of crucifixion draws near, will pray to God, sweating blood, “Father, if there is any other way...”
Jesus wants another path, another way, another option. Here is one offered to him.
But unlike the other two, the price is unsubtle. Is there anything inherently sinful about Jesus making bread? Or making unsafe cliff diving stunts? The sin was in not trusting His Father for provision, testing His Father’s for life and safety...
This is unsubtle. Bow down and worship.
I imagine the first two were hard, I picture Jesus with a smile of triumph here, knowing he has passed every trial and temptation.
10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ”
Again, Jesus responds with Scripture. Perfect strategy for fighting temptation and every kind of spiritual warfare, by the way.
Again from Deuteronomy 6. You don’t have to memorize all the Scripture, treasure up what you have in your heart.
And the devil knew it was over.
11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
And when the temptation was over, God’s provision comes flooding in. Saving his life, restoring his body, food and all the things. Maybe they moved him back from the mountain on the moon, I don’t know.
How do we know this whole event happened?
Only Jesus could have told his disciples this story. Why would he share such a time of weakness?
Look at Satan’s strategy here. He hits the whole gambit of human need.
Maslowe’s hierarchy of needs
If he’s ever going to have a chance at bringing Jesus down in sin, here it is. This is his best shot. And he waits until Jesus is near to death with need.
Hear how this all echoes the first temptation of man… but beautifully reversed.
Once again Satan seeks to twist the words of God. “Did God really say…?” Or “didn’t God say this...” to lead humanity astray. It worked with the first humans… “Eat this and you will be like God.”
Hear, instead of paradise, plenty everywhere, the first Adam with every need met i plenty...
Instead you have the wilderness. Devoid. And a man starving near to death.
And the temptation Satan brings to the Son of God: will you be truly human?
Will you be TRULY human?
Will you be TRULY human?
Jesus had the power to fix all of these problems the whole time. He could make bread anytime.
Anyone ever been on a diet? Cut out carbs or candy or something? I cut out soda this year. I got hooked on Diet Dr. Pepper years ago at a company where we had a free vending machine. At any moment I could hit a button 30 feet away and have a fresh burst of tasty caffeine.
How hard is it to quit when your solution is RIGHT THERE! Jesus had the answer to his literal starvation… right there. Snap of the fingers, ongoing temptation at every moment.
Jesus had the solution to his own health and safety at every moment. From birth to cross, angels on standby. Infinite cosmic power ready and willing.
Jesus had a road, an option, to power and Kingship without all the noise and suffering.
And to each, he put his trust in His Father, who would provide what was needed when it was needed. In the leading of the Holy Spirit, for it stresses in all three Synoptic Gospels, it is the Spirit that led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted. This is where God wanted him. And Jesus, moment by moment, refused to act out of his own power.
Only by the power of the Holy Spirit.... and then only to do what he “saw His Father doing.”
In his humanness, he responded exactly as you and I can, as we should. Trusting our Father, empowered by the Holy Spirit, with the Word of God on our lips, resisting Satan and seeing him flee.
In so doing, he showed us true humanity. Human life as it is meant to be lived.
Our Great High Priest
Our Great High Priest
14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Jesus was fully God, the eternal Son of God… and it’s easy to picture him like some kind of God invested meat puppet. Or even, as the early gnostics imagined, an illusion of a man. But Scripture is clear, Jesus was clear, he was absolutely fully and completely human. Everything it means to be human, Jesus was.
He took on our humanity. Where his “Godness” would overwhelm what it means to be human, if that’s a thing, Paul talks of him “emptying himself” to take on human form in full. We call that “kenosis.” We don’t know exactly what that took, but we know this...
Jesus was fully human. And so in living life, he experienced full human life… and did it perfectly. Competently. Expertly.
And so when he then teaches us how to live life…
He isn’t the distant philosopher guessing how to do it better.
He is the Master of Life. He is the one who has and is doing it best… and is now graciously inviting us to watch, and learn and follow in his footsteps.
He invites us into life and life more abundant. Here, let me show you how to do that.
The next bit he is going to invite his disciples.
Then he does miracles that gather a crowd.
Then he teaches, and we have here in Matthew the greatest sermon of all time. The sermon that folks have been studying and learning from for millennia. The Masterclass on how to do life.
14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.