“Overcoming Temptation” Luke 4:1-4

“The Temptations of Jesus”

A Sermon Series

“Overcoming Temptation”

Luke 4:1-4

Introduction

At Niagara Falls, in the spring, the ice breaks loose and begins rushing down the river. Large blocks of ice flowing toward the falls, In that broken ice you can see that there were carcasses of dead fish embedded in the ice. Gulls by the score gather and ride down the river feeding on the fish. They come to the brink of the falls, their wings would go out, and they escape crashing into the falls.

Occasionally, one gull will delay being engrossed in the carcass of a fish, and when it finally came to the brink of the falls, out would go its powerful wings. The bird will flap and flap but they will have delayed too long so that its claws had frozen into the ice. The weight of the ice was too great, and the gull is plunged into the abyss.

The material possessions of this world, the tempting opportunities that seem so harmless, can entrap us if we become too attached to them. They will take us to our destruction if we cannot give them up.

Today we begin our study of Luke 4 and how Jesus resisted temptation, and so can we, as His disciples.

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The First Temptation (v. 1-4)

“And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness[1] 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” 4 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’”

(v. 1) In Luke 3:21 the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus at His baptism that had taken place at the Jordan River, “. . . the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” At Jesus’ baptism all three persons of the Trinity are present, The Holy Spirit descending upon The Son of God, and the Father speaks. Jesus’ baptism officially marks the beginning of Jesus’ ministry as the Messiah. It is right at the beginning that Satan strikes.

Watch Out If You Beginning Something New/Big.

So being full of the Holy Spirit and having the Spirit remain with Him[2], He was led by the Spirit (into the wilderness). The idea is that Jesus is continuously under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, for the entire forty days. But Jesus is now ready to begin His ministry as Messiah because the Holy Spirit is present with him.

Jesus, after the resurrection, did not want the disciples to begin their ministry as apostles until the Helper came, Jesus told them to wait in Jerusalem, Acts 1:4-5 “And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Jesus knew that the disciples needed a helper, the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives in order to accomplish their mission.

John 14:15-16, 14:26 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,” . . . “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

The Holy Spirit was given to the disciples to accomplish their mission, He was with Jesus his entire ministry as the Messiah, and at the moment a person places their faith in Jesus He is with them to do that which God has called them to do. We must learn to listen to the voice of the Spirit in our lives – the main way He guides the believer is through the Word of God.

What is not clear is did Jesus fast for forty days and then he was tempted all three times, or was he tempted along the way during the forty days and the hunger temptation came later, and even these three things may just be examples of the temptations and Jesus faced others. Lenski says, “the temptation continued during the entire time that Jesus was (thus) led.”[3] Jesus appears to be tempted for forty days in the wilderness, culminating in the last three which we have recorded where Satan reveals his presence and speaks with Jesus.

“being tempted by the devil,” the word tempt means “to test” – “Depending upon the one doing the testing, it may mean to test to prove a thing genuine; or it may mean to test to prove something false or bad. In the former sense God tests people. But it is in the latter sense that the devil puts them to the test. It is in this dual light that we may understand the temptations of Jesus. God permitted Him to be tried to prove Him genuine; Satan tried Him in an effort to prove Him false.”[4]

We already know that Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, and now Satan is seeking to lead him somewhere else. The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness for the express purpose to be tempted by Satan. He had tempted Adam and Eve away from God, so he attempts to do the same with God’s Son.

Satan will not declare that it is him that is seeking to lead you instead of the Holy Spirit. We must discern the spiritual. Galatians 1:8 “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” It may even be a well-intended person like Peter in telling Jesus to stop talking about the cross, “But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Who Is Leading You?

John 10:27 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

 (v. 2) “he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.” When there is physical, mental, emotional, strain we are weakened which gives Satan opportunity to lead us, to tempt us while we are in a weakened state. Forty days of going without food, Jesus was weakened and very hungry – then Satan strikes with his temptation.

Watch Out When You Are Tired (Emotionally, Physically, Mentally, etc).

 (v. 3) The one behind the scenes, now comes to the forefront and for the first time in the gospel is given a name, “the devil.” Diabolos, slanderer, or accuser. Originally, a holy angel named Lucifer (according to Isa. 14:12), the highest of all created beings, “blameless in all his ways,” until unrighteousness was found in him and he became so arrogant that he wanted to sit upon the throne above the stars. To make himself like the Most High. As a result of this, he was cast out, along with a third of the angels who chose to join him in his rebellion.

The Bible describes him as a liar, a murderer, a dragon, a snake, the evil one, the accuser, the god of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the roaring lion, and the one who tempted Adam and Eve bringing all of humanity into sin and the fall.[5]

(v. 3) “The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, . . .” Satan is referencing what God has just said at Jesus’ baptism, “You are my beloved Son,” then prove it by “command this stone to become bread.” Satan returns to an old playbook, the play is simple, doubt. This is “exactly as he did in Genesis 3:1 “Did God actually say, . . .” Satan uses Scripture to not to teach but to deceive.

“If you are the Son of God,” The “if” is questioning the fact. Satan demands the Jesus provide proof. Why would the Son of God be hungry? Why would God the Father abandon His Son to hunger? Jesus is physically hungry (he is a man), yet is claiming to be “the Son of God” (God). How is Jesus to prove that He is “the Son of God?”

Satan knew that the Messiah would perform miracles, so the temptation is not can he do it? It would not have been wrong for Him to do a miracle and eat the bread. He does this at the feeding of the five thousand.[6] The crowd including Jesus was hungry, they multiplied the bread and they ate it (including Jesus).

But here, at the prompting of Satan to doubt that God would take care of Him, Jesus needed to provide for Himself, Jesus by doing the miracle would have the failed the test. “That act would mean distrust of His Father.”[7] Jesus did not need to prove to Satan that He was the Messiah, He would trust God the Father to lead him in what to say, and what to do.

Hunger (financial difficulty, loss of a loved one, physical handicap, etc.) does not mean that God has abandoned you. God has saved you from your sin, provided the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life, promised and provided eternal life and a place with Him in eternity. He has been with you all along the way (and now 40 days you are hungry).

Jesus responds to Satan’s temptation by quoting Deuteronomy 8:2-3 “And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 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.”

From this passage we begin to understand the forty days of Jesus being in the wilderness were parallel to the Israelites being in the wilderness. God was testing with hunger, and now He was testing Jesus, “to know what was in their heart.” Where God’s people failed, Jesus would succeed. He would pass the test. The Israelites murmured and complained. They wanted to go back to slavery in Egypt, eat from meat pots, because they doubted God would provide what they needed. Jesus never doubts, and He trusts God to provide.

There is also a reference to where Adam had failed, “The early church father Ambrose said, “as Adam is cast out of paradise into the wilderness, so Christ, the new Adam, goes into the wilderness on our behalf, then come forth from that temptation to lead us back to paradise.”[8]

Jesus’ heart reveals that Jesus trusts the Father. “man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” He is also recognizing that in that hunger, He (the Son of God) is a man. Fully God and yet Fully Man. And as the representative of all mankind, what Paul calls the Second Adam,[9] he passed the test that Adam failed. Jesus was tempted to “provide for his material needs apart from the will of the Father and furthermore, to go outside the natural order to meet his needs, to momentarily suspend living like a real human.”[10]

This is the whole point of Hebrews 4:15-16, Jesus was tempted (as a man) but did not yield to the sin, “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.”

Fight Against Temptation by

Remembering and Trusting What God’s Word Says.

 God has given us two major weapons to fight temptation, the attacks of the enemy; 1) The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and 2) the Word of God. “It is written. . .” Jesus attacks the temptations with Scripture. (Read) Ephesians 6:17 says to take “. . . the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,”

“Man shall not live by bread alone.”[11] It doesn’t say that we don’t need bread, but bread is not all that there is to life. Everyone has to eat, but much more important is to learn to trust God. Bread doesn’t keep us alive – God does. Man is body and spirit, both have to be fed. Satan’s encouraging Jesus to hurry up and make some stones into bread, so that he could appease His stomach and forsake His higher calling to be the Messiah is the test Jesus passes.

Don’t seek to appease your flesh (your bodily desires) at the forsaking of God’s call upon your life – wait and allow God to direct you as to how you should get what you need. Imagine having a full stomach and all your physical needs provided for, piles upon piles of bread, more bread than you could ever eat in a lifetime — yet having no purpos God has not called us to makes piles of bread for our own stomachs. God will provide in such a way that fills your body and your soul.

Jesus possessed divine power. Why not use it? Because to do so was to distrust God and seek to use this power in a way that God had not directed. Don’t you have a gift, a talent, a blessing from God? What’s wrong with using it? If you are using it for your own gain, apart from God’s direction, and for you own glory, then that is sin.

Consider also, how God provided for the hunger of the people in the wilderness. They had manna that would appear every day (except Sunday). And they had quail that came in every day (except Sunday). God provided for their hunger, He “fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know,” God fed them in such a way where He received the glory, no one had ever experienced God’s provision this way.

If Jesus turned the stones into bread, it would be acting on His own, and not the Father’s will. God would now do things in a new way (The Messiah would do things in such a way that no one saw coming – like the cross, and being raised from the dead) – where God would receive the glory. If we trust God something new and unexpected may arise where God gets the glory, and we receive a blessing of being used by God in a way no one expected.

God wants to fill us with His presence (Holy Spirit),

guide us in our purpose (more than bread), for His glory (not our own).

The pufferfish looks about as threatening as a pet goldfish but it carries deadly toxins that can kill a person after just a few bites of puffer sashimi. Every year several people in Japan die from eating this unique fish delicacy and many others get sick. The danger is so great that Japanese chefs must receive years of training to learn the intricate skills of removing the lethal toxin before they can be certified to serve puffer. Flirting with sin is not only foolish, it can be fatal.

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[1] This account is given here in Luke 4:1-13, and Matthew 4:1-11. It must be Jesus’ account of what happened since there were no witnesses.

[2] See John 1:33.

[3] R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Luke’s Gospel (Minneapolis, Minnesota; Augsburg Publishing House, 1946) 224.

[4] Hobbs, 80.

[5] John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Luke 1-5 (Chicago, Illinois; Moody Publishers, 2009) 255.

[6] Matthew 14:13-21

[7] Lenski, 229.

[8] David Lyle Jeffrey, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible, Luke (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Brazos Press, 2012) 66.

[9] 1 Corinthians 15:22

[10] R. Kent Hughes, Luke, That You My Know the Truth (Wheaton, Illinois; Crossway Publishing, 2015) 135.

[11] Lenski, 231 “What succeeded in Eden, in the land of plenty, failed in the destitute desert.”