The Son of God in the Wilderness

Today we come to a passage that may be familiar to some of you. As we heard read for us, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness. There He faces temptations of the devil. Most sermons that I've heard and that you may have heard on this passage would very quickly jump to the way in which Jesus responds to the various temptations of the devil and then the preacher would pivot quickly into applying it to how we should answer temptation with scripture in our own lives. This approach, however, simplifies the passage to the point that I believe misses the actual point that the author is trying to make here. For starters, with that approach we have a main problem. You aren't Jesus. I'm not Jesus. Jesus is more than an example. We see Jesus do all kinds of things in scripture that you and I don't do. So we can't boil it down to simply an example. It's got to be more.

This passage is not about us. For that matter, this passage isn't really totally about temptation either. The main thing in this passage is the identity of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Luke, who wrote this gospel account, tells us right upfront that his goal in writing is that we can have certainty about things taught about Jesus. In other words, that we can know for sure that the teaching of the apostles is true and that Jesus is who He says He is. Luke spends the first three chapters of his account introducing us to Jesus through the account of his birth, dedication, childhood lightly, testimony of John the Baptist, and Jesus's baptism. He ended chapter three with the genealogy of Christ. Here in this encounter, he gives us more proof that we can be CERTAIN that Jesus is the Son of God.

Today I'm going to walk you through this passage by looking at how Satan challenges the identity of the Son of God, How the Son of God answers the challenges, and why we can run to Jesus when tempted.

**Let's pray and dive in.**

I. Satan challenges the identity of the Son of God.

Right away we notice three pieces of information that are important to our understanding of what is going on in this passage. First, we see that Jesus was led by the Spirit. Jesus's trials were part of God's plan and at His leading. God never tempts anyone but following the Lord will not keep you from facing temptation. In fact, as you follow the Lord closer you will encounter temptations to act against His will.

A second piece of information is that the devil is the one tempting Jesus here. Luke doesn't describe him in any more detail but we should assume that the readers would have been familiar with him. It reminds us of the garden of Eden when the devil appears in the form of a serpent and tempts Adam and Eve to distrust the Word of God. Temptation will try to get you to doubt what God has said. Gen 3:1-6

The third important point of information for us to know is that this is located in the wilderness and Jesus is hungry. This leads straight into the first temptation. But not only has He not eaten but the fact that He's in the wilderness should call to mind the Israelites, God's chosen people, when they wandered in the wilderness. They were ready to go into the promised land as God had told them and they sent spies in. The spies stayed 40 days in the land. But we read in Numbers 13-14 we read about this. The people refused to believe the Lord's promise and because of their rebellion, He sentenced them to wander in the wilderness for forty years, one year for every day the spies had been in the land.

So there is a significance to Jesus being hungry in the desert for forty days.

Before we proceed in the passage I feel I need to address a question that may come up in your mind and heart. Could Jesus have sinned?

This question has been raised and discussed by Christians and Bible students for many years. The answer is a little more complicated than a yes or no. In order to understand this in the short amount of time I have to deal with it, I want to use Mike McKinley's helpful explanation. We must think of Jesus's temptation in light of Adam's. Jesus was 100 percent man and 100 percent God. As a human, Jesus would have been able to sin, like Adam did. However, as the Son of God, following and led by the Holy Spirit, He would not have the desire to sin. He showed Himself to be faithful where Adam was not.

We've got a lot at stake here. Adam, the son of God was tempted and fell. Israel was tested in the wilderness and sinned by grumbling and not trusting in God's promise. Would Jesus, the second Adam succeed where the first failed? Would the new Israel succeed where the former had failed? What if it falls apart? It is this moment of tension when the devil comes and tempts Jesus in three specific ways that we have accounted here. Each of them correspond with something Jesus gets from God but challenges Him to take the shortcut to it by bowing the knee to Satan. He goes at it by first calling into question Jesus's identity as the Son of God. Look at verse 3.

Luke 4:3 ESV

The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”

A. Provision (v. 3-4)

The first temptation deals with God's provision. The temptation is given when Jesus must have been hungry after not having food for forty days. The question is, would Jesus trust God for what He needed or would He take the shortcut to providing it Himself? This temptation isn't about food. It's about trust. Adam and Eve were tempted to disobey the Word of God and eat for themselves. Israel grumbled in the wilderness not trusting God to provide.

Deut. 8:3- tells us God is the one who caused them to hunger and the one who provided manna for them to eat...

Deuteronomy 8:3 ESV

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.

But here, Jesus conquered temptation by trusting in the Word of the Lord as His provision.

B. Power (v. 5-7)

The power and authority that are offered by the devil here would be a shortcut to what Jesus already had coming to Him via the Father in even greater measure. Satan offers a chance for Him to take a kind of glory for Himself apart from the plan and will of God.

The devil is essentially offering Jesus a crown without a cross. On Jesus's answer to this temptation hangs our very salvation. If He would chose to take the offer and take the crown without a cross then there would be no payment for our sin and we would be guaranteed an eternity apart from God in hell. As I said, the tension here is great.

C. Protection (v. 9-11)

The tempter decides to use and twist scripture in a way to get Jesus to give into his temptation. It would be a spectacular stunt. People would have seen it and imagine how his ministry would have grown if people had seen him safely on the ground. But Jesus wasn't there for stunts. He wasn't there to gain a following by this kind of publicity. He was sent to proclaim the good news of the gospel, be rejected by the people, crucified for the sins of the world, and to raise from the dead defeating death and the grave. Israel once questioned the whether the Lord was with them or not in the wilderness. Exodus 17:7...

Exodus 17:7 ESV

And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Here in Jesus we have the new Israel being tempted to not trust the care and provision of God the Father. He does not test the Lord to see if He can be trusted. He trusts the Lord. He takes God at His Word.

II. The Son of God answers the challenges of the enemy.

In all three of these temptations we see Jesus respond with God's Word. He trusts God's Word as true and good. He puts God's will and obedience to God and God's plan above what

Thereby proving His identity as the Son of God. The Word in the flesh. Jesus is the answer to the lies of the devil.

In order to be the perfect, sinless sacrifice for our sins, He had to resist temptation.

This furthers the plan of God in the world. His defeating temptation was in our place. For us...

Satan was trying to wreck the salvation plan of God. He wanted to derail God's plan.

III. Because Jesus defeated temptation, we can run to Jesus when tempted.

In our modern, pragmatic world you likely would rather I said, when you are tempted, do this, and this, and this... We want the do, do, do. But sometimes the application is trust, trust, trust. The main application here is not to be able to speak the Bible at our temptation. Jesus did that and we should too. But we should not boil it down so that Jesus is merely standing in the desert, facing down the devil as an example for how we should do it. That's not the whole picture. He doesn't stand there as only our example but as our Savior. That is the key. This is the Son of God, succeeding and being faithful where Adam was not. This is the second Adam. The new Israel being faithful when the first Israel failed to stay faithful to God.

Jesus beat temptation. The Son of God defeated every temptation that was thrown at Him so He could be the spotless lamb that takes away the sin of the world. He could therefore, be the perfect sacrifice. He defeated temptation in my place. In your place. You couldn't. But He did. Do you understand? The only reason you can have any victory over sin and stand firm against temptation is because He did it for you, in your place. He, the Son of God...did this. You can be certain about it.

He resisted temptation and we can rest in our identity as sons and daughters of God because of His identity as the Son of God. When tempted, we don't attack, we run to Jesus. We rest in Him and in the victory that He won. That's way better truth than just speaking memorized verses at temptations coming your way. A child of the King is secure and can trust God through Jesus and obey the Word of God. Hear this another way: YOU DON'T HAVE TO GIVE INTO TEMPTATION --> Because Jesus has set you free by His death and resurrection.

But we have a great Savior who died for our sin. So that when we do sin, there is a price that was paid for it.

When we are tempted:

provision - to not trust that God will provide what we need, when we need it - Run to Jesus. Trust His Word.

power - when you have the opportunity to take some measure of glory for yourself in a way that is against the will of God... - Run to Jesus.

protection - when you are tempted to not trust that God's way is best or that He means you harm. - Run to Jesus. Trust His Word.

And here we come to that secondary application. We run to Jesus in the Word of God. Jesus is the Word made flesh. So answering temptation with the Word is answering temptation with Jesus. You need to know the Word.

Run to Jesus who defeated it all

PRAY

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