Who Gets to be Tested?

Temptation: The Temptations of Jesus • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

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Theme: Testing God is a lack of Trusting God. Purpose: Trust God's protection in the good and bad. Mission: Grow in our Trust of God. Gospel: Jesus had victory over temptation.

Notes

Transcript

Luke 4:9–13 NIV

The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

Introduction: Forrest Gump and lieutenant Dan

12 - Testing God is Not Trusting God.

Not Trusting God’s Goodness: This temptation mirrors Adam and Eve’s Temptation in the Garden

In both, Satan uses or twists God’s words - Truth but mis-direction.

The Lexham English Bible Chapter 3

Did God indeed say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, 3 but from the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, God said, ‘You shall not eat from it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die’.” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You shall not surely die. 5 For God knows that on the day you both eat from it, then your eyes will be opened and you both shall be like gods, knowing good and evil.”

Here Satan twists Psalm 91

The Lexham English Bible Chapter 91

For he will command his angels concerning you,

to watch over you in all your ways.

12 In their hands they will bear you up,

lest you strike your foot against a stone.

This is subtle argumentation from scripture to lead his would be victim to mis-trust the goodness of God.

As humans we can be very prone to this. The Negative tends to make a bigger impression than the positive.

As humans, we tend to:

Remember traumatic experiences better than positive ones.

Recall insults better than praise.React more strongly to negative stimuli.

Think about negative things more frequently than positive ones.

Respond more strongly to negative events than to equally positive ones.

For example, you might be having a great day at work when a coworker makes an offhand comment that you find irritating. You then find yourself stewing over his words for the rest of the workday.

When you get home from work and someone asks you how your day was, you reply that it was terrible—even though it was overall quite good despite that one negative incident. - Kendra Cherry “What is Negativity Bias?”

We do this with God as well, We often miss all of the Generosity of how God has provided for us, because we focus on the things that did not go well for us.

The Test is, God Show us that you are really good.

Not Trusting God’s Presence - Jesus Quotes Deuteronomy 6:16

Deuteronomy 6:16 LEB

You shall not put Yahweh your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.

The Story of Massah

The Lexham English Bible Chapter 17

Water from a Rock

17 And all the community of the ⌊Israelites⌋ set out from the desert of Sin for their journeys according to the command of Yahweh, and they camped in Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink. 2 And the people quarreled with Moses, and they said, “Give us water so that we can drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test Yahweh?” 3 And the people thirsted for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why ⌊ever⌋ did you bring us up from Egypt to kill me and my sons and my cattle with thirst?”

4 And Moses cried out to Yahweh, saying, “What will I do with this people? A little longer and they will stone me.” 5 And Yahweh said to Moses, “Go on before the people and take with you some from the elders of Israel, and the staff with which you struck the Nile take in your hand, and go. 6 Look, I will be standing before you there on the rock in Horeb, and you will strike the rock, and water will come out from it, and the people will drink.”

And Moses did so before the eyes of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the ⌊Israelites⌋ and because of their testing Yahweh by saying, “Is Yahweh in our midst or not?”

And of course this story happened after God saves them from the plagues, saves them from Pharoah at the Red Sea, Provides food and water for them. - They are testing whether God is really with them or not.

We mis-interpret things not going the way we want it to for God not being present or God leaving/forsaking us.

Or Mis-interpretting suffering/discomfort as an absence of God’s presence.

So the test is, “God, if you show up in a way that I ask, then I will believe that you are with me.”

The story of the man in the flood who prays for God to deliver, and he sends all kinds of people to help him, but refuses because "God will provide." Drowns and then asks God about it.

Grief Stages - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance - Bargaining is what Satan here is trying to get Jesus to do. - Jesus exhibits Anger, Depression, and Acceptance on Palm Sunday. - But he does not bargain with the Father, nor does he deny the reality.

Testing God for the Spectacular on our Terms:

Commentary on the Gospel of Luke: The English Text with Introduction, Exposition and Notes The Temptation (4:1–13)

It should be noted that the rabbis identified the person addressed by God in Psalm 91 with the Messiah. The Midrash, known as Pesiqta Rabbati (162a), records a traditional belief that Messiah would manifest himself standing on the roof of the temple. The part of the temple indicated in the temptation narrative may have been the part overlooking the “Royal Colonnade”—which Josephus (Antiquities, xv, 11, 5) describes as looking down a precipitous descent into the Kidron valley, the height being so great as to make the spectator dizzy.

The object of this temptation was to seduce Jesus to test the faithfulness of God in a purely arbitrary manner and to expect of Him a spectacular intervention for His safety. Satan thus wants to tempt the Saviour to fanaticism—a sin of which many Jews at that time, and especially during the Roman-Jewish war, were guilty (their fanatical bigotry was indeed the main reason why the war ended with such terrible results for them). The conception of the promised Messiah accepted by many Jews, was in many respects that of a fanatical earthly leader (like Theudas or Judas the Galilean).

So we can Test God in this way as well. God we are going to do this spectacular thing for you, and so you are obligated to support it. - At the root of that is a heart of pride - to show others how great we are, not how great God is, or even how great we are for “Trusting God.”

Me wanting to put pressure on Western Seminary to take the Missional Training Center.

There's something in each of us that wants to leverage God and his power for our own purposes. We try to bargain with him through prayer, church attendance, giving, or short-term obedience. We promise to do what we think he wants us to do, if he will do what we want. - By THE REV. ERIC YEAKEL

13 - Jesus Does not Test God, but Trusts God.

By responding in the manner that he does we can see that Jesus....

Trust’s God’s Goodness - Back to the first temptation that Man does not live on Bread alone, but the very word of God.

We do not need to Test who we trust.

Remember for week 1 - The Word for Test is a test to reveal the heart or character of a person.

To Test the Lord is to test the heart or character of God. - Jesus again is here tested so we can see the heart and character of God.

God is wholly trustworthy so the test is unwarranted, but we have sin, so a test can often reveal our own heart.

In this temptation, Jesus in a sense redoes Adams and Eves original sin, but Passes. He trusts God is Good.

Jesus also Trusts that God is present.

Jesus responds once again by quoting from Scripture (Deuteronomy 6:16). Commentator Darrell L. Bock writes, “The Old Testament background is significant. Israel had presumed about God’s goodness, doubting why he had sent them out into the desert and promised them the Promised Land. They had tested God at Massah (Ex 17:1–7). Jesus refuses to demand God’s protection on his own terms” (Darrell L. Bock, Luke, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series [Downers Grove, IL: IVP Press, 1994], 85).

John 14:31 LEB

But so that the world may know that I love the Father, and just as the Father has commanded me, thus I am doing. Get up, let us go from here!

John 8:28 LEB

Then Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will recognize that I am he, and I do nothing from myself, but just as the Father taught me, I say these things.

In this temptation Jesus is doing what the Father asked him to do, to be sent in the Wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tested. He got no word from the Father to throw himself off the Temple - He only does what the Father says and does. He is Fully surrendered to God’s Will.

And so with that, Jesus does not test God with the Spectacular - for the Show. To be sure, Jesus does amazing things, but the are most amazing because they are done for others - not self promotion

Jesus combats once again with scripture, but lets be clear - he also corrects the mis-use of scripture.

Quoting Scripture out of Context.

Quoting Scripture in a way that allows tradition or our culture to twist our understanding of it.

“God does not give you more than you can handle.” - Fasting for 40 days is more than a human can handle, but God sustained him. “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” - Are we idolizing cleanliness here? - be careful.

14 - How Can We Trust God More?

Yes there are negative things in this world, but God has also been generous. Fight back the negative bias, by daily thanking God for all of Blessings he has provided.

When we put aside our agendas and surrender to God, he takes responsibility for the outcome of the journey. Which means the most secure, most purpose-filled place you can ever be is in the center of God's will. This begins with the prayer "Thy will, not my will be done." By THE REV. ERIC YEAKEL

Learn Satan’s Tactic here....“Did God really say…?” or “Are you sure the Bible really means you can’t…?” - Continual Bible Study and reading it in its context is very important. We can too easily be swayed by our own cultural understandings or desires than to read what it actually means. This is a long term strategy - not over night. - Why we are stressing people get in Bible Studies and Life Groups.

4. What Adam failed to do in his relationship with God when he faced temptation, Jesus succeeded in doing. He is our perfect representative. When God looks at us, he does not see Adam, but Jesus. He sees the one who did not give in to temptation but instead lived a perfect, sinless life so that we might live forever with God because of Christ’s righteousness.

5. Finally, temptation isn’t a sin. Jesus was tempted in every way but did not sin (Hebrews 4:15). Be encouraged when you face temptation; you are going through something Jesus also went through, and you can be guided by how he faced it, and with the knowledge that whatever the outcome of your situation, your standing before God is secure because of the work of Christ.

Conclusion:

Are you bargaining with God? How is you testing God? Are are you Surrendering to God?

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