Preacher: Pastor Tim Redfield

Date: March 10, 2019

Text: Luke 4:1-13

There is a war going on in our lives. We are fighting a serious spiritual battle. The devil comes at us together with his allies – our sinful natures and the world around us. He wants us to sin so much that we start to think that there is nothing wrong with a sinful lifestyle. He wants us to fall from faith and to fall into unbelief. The devil uses many tactics which we call temptations. He is not going to stop waging this war. Today, we get to see some examples of those temptations that the devil tries to use on us. He tried to tempt Jesus using the same temptations he uses on us. Thankfully, Jesus proved that he is our Savior. Jesus conquered those temptations.

Part 1: He was tempted just like we are tempted

The devil always tries to get us to turn away from God. Going back to the first temptation in the Garden of Eden, we see that he uses the same tactics that he used on Jesus. He came to Adam and Eve and tempted them with the fruit of the tree that they had been told not to eat from. Satan tried to get Adam and Eve to think that they could have great glory – they could be equal to God – if they just ate the fruit. Also, the devil twisted God’s Word in order to get Adam and Eve to doubt. He came to Jesus in our text today and tried to tempt him with food. Then Satan tried to tell Jesus that he could have great glory if he just worshipped Satan. And finally, the devil tried to twist God’s Word.

When the devil came to Adam and Eve, he got them to fall into sin. That fall into sin brought sin into our world. Because of sin, we all deserve death. The devil comes to us today with similar temptations. His goals are to get us to doubt our loving God. He wants us to question if God has our best interests at heart. Is God really providing for us? Is God really giving us everything that we deserve? Is God really going to do everything that is written in his Word? The three temptations of Jesus show us ways that we sin against God.

The devil had been tempting Jesus for 40 days. The Bible lists only three of those temptations. These temptations are also pictures of tactics that Satan still uses today. For the first temptation, the devil said, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3). This temptation seems easy for Jesus to resist. It would be an abuse of his divine power. However, Jesus was true Man. He had been without food for 40 days. He was very hungry. Why not help himself to some bread? What would be so wrong about satisfying a basic need for food?

The devil was attempting to get Jesus to think that God wasn’t going to provide for him, to get Jesus to look to himself for his daily needs. The devil tempts us with this same kind of thinking. He entices us with earthly desires. The devil uses greed and materialism. He makes us think that we are not satisfied with our Lord’s blessings. He tempts us to focus on attaining more possessions and more wealth. He tries to make us doubt that God is providing for our needs. He puts that thought into our heads, “If God really loved you, he would give you all that your heart desires.” How often don’t we agree with this thought? There are times that we place too much emphasis in satisfying our physical needs and wants.

For the next temptation, the devil takes Jesus to a high place and shows him all the kingdoms of the world. He said, “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours” (Luke 4:6-7). This seems like such a straight forward lie. The devil didn’t really have all the authority. God did. And yet it was a real temptation for Jesus. The devil was trying to tempt him to give up the suffering of the cross. He was telling him that he could rule the entire world without giving up his life. All he had to do was perform one misplaced act of worship.

The devil still tempts people to worship him rather than God. He doesn’t come out and say it so blatantly but he uses the same tactic. He promises worldly power and glory. He wants us to put anything in our lives before God. He can turn just about anything into an idol. God has blessed us with many things for our entertainment and recreation and yet the devil tries to get us to value our sports or hobbies more than God. He wants us to focus on the glory of this world rather than the glory that God wants to give us. He tempts us to focus all of our time and energy on becoming wealthy or establishing a legacy for people to remember us by after we are gone. There are many false idols in this world which try to take us away from our Lord.

In the third temptation, the devil tries to twist God’s Word. He took Jesus up to the highest point of the temple and said, “If you are the Son of God, 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’” (Luke 4:9-11). The devil tried to trick the author of the Word by using the Word. He tried to create doubt about what appears to be a sure promise of God. He wanted Jesus to think that the Word was unreliable.

Of course the devil still misquotes God’s Word. Just look at all the churches that he has convinced to depart from the truth of God’s Word. He emphasizes certain portions of God’s Word and ignores other passages in order to confuse people. For example, he emphasizes the truth “God is love” over and above “whoever does not believe will be condemned.” The devil tricks people into thinking that God would never send anyone to hell because he is too loving for that. This is just one of the many ways that he tries to convince people that sticking to God’s truth is not important. If everyone is going to heaven, why would it matter what we believe? The truth is that God will punish those who do not believe in him. God will send unbelievers to hell.

We certainly have fallen into the devil’s traps on many occasions. At times we have doubted God’s promises and followed after the idols of this world, or misunderstood his holy Word. Fortunately, Jesus obeyed the law for us. He overcame temptations by using God’s Word.

Part 2: He perfectly overcame with God’s Word

In response to every temptation of the devil, Jesus perfectly followed the will of God. Jesus showed himself to be our perfect substitute who could obey God’s commands. As the author of the letter to the Hebrews writes, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. But we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus is our high priest who understands our weaknesses. He understands that we fall into many sins. We know that he has been tempted in the same way. But he is our perfect Savior who redeemed us by never sinning.

Jesus replied to every temptation by using God’s Word. In response to the first temptation to turn a stone into bread, he replied, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone’” (Luke 4:4). Jesus pointed out that we need more than just food to survive. We also need the spiritual food that God gives us. Because God provides for our greatest need by saving us, we trust that he will also provide for our physical needs. We don’t have to look to the strength of our hands for daily bread. God will provide.

When Jesus was tempted to worship the devil for worldly authority, he said, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only’” (Luke 4:8). The only one who deserves our praise is the God who created us, saved us, and sent his Spirit to work faith in us. Whatever false promises the devil tries to use on us are absolutely nothing in comparison to the real and lasting treasures that our God is going to give us.

Then when Satan tried to twist and confuse the message of God’s Word, Jesus pointed out the correct way to look at scripture. Jesus said, “It says: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test’” (Luke 4:12). We don’t test God’s promises to protect us by jumping in front of a train or by driving our cars recklessly. Rather we let scripture passages interpret other scripture passages. Certainly God promises to be with us and protect us but he also wants us to live responsibly.

Jesus showed us the way to resist the devil, by using the Word of God. God’s Word helps us to resist the temptations of the devil and it also gives us the strength to keep on striving to serve our Savior. In our spiritual warfare against the devil, the Word of God is “the sword of the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:17).

This sword is a powerful weapon which can defeat every temptation. Jesus used this sword of God’s Word while he was on earth to fight off those temptations and to completely defeat the devil. Now we have been given this sword. God has given us this weapon to help us in our daily spiritual battle against temptations. The more we know about God’s Word, the easier it is to use this sword to not only defend ourselves but also to attack the devil.

It is an incredible blessing that Jesus has defeated every temptation of the devil for us. Because he was sinless in our place, we are now forgiven for all the times that we have failed to resist the devil. Jesus conquered those temptations for us and then he continued the fight all the way to the cross. He not only had to resist temptations in our place but he also had to suffer the punishment for sins in our place. The battle against temptations went on throughout Jesus entire life. The spiritual war reached its climax on the cross. On the cross Jesus won the final battle. There he fully paid the price for our sins.

Now God has worked in our hearts to give us the faith to trust in Jesus sacrifice. We know that he resisted temptations in our place. We know that he died on the cross for us. God gives us his Word to strengthen our faith and to help us to resist the temptations of the devil. The devil tries to drive us away from our Savior. God uses the Word to keep us connected to Jesus. We want to continually be strengthened in the Word so that we are prepared to stand up for our faith. Even though Jesus defeated the devil, the devil still wants to drag us down to hell with him. Let’s stay in the Word so that we can be strong and so that we can use that powerful sword of the Spirit which Jesus used to conquer temptations.

Conclusion

Just like I said earlier, we are in a war. The devil is not going to stop trying to defeat us. He will continue to use the same temptations. God uses his Word to help us to understand what those temptations are going to look like. Fortunately for us, we do not have to conquer those temptations. We know that we fail repeatedly. Our Lord Jesus conquered every single temptation for us. Jesus used the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God to defeat the devil. He ultimately defeated Satan on the battlefield of the cross. Now he has given us his Word. He has forgiven us and he has given us eternal life. God uses his Word to keep us in the faith and we use his Word in the ongoing fight against the devil. Thanks be to God that Jesus has conquered temptations for all of us.