Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Today we are going to see Satan’s temptations square off against the Truth - namely Jesus Christ who referred to Himself as the Way and the Truth and the Life (John 14:6).

And we are going to see how Christ uses the truth of the Word of God to combat the temptations laid before Him.

At this point in history, the New Testament was yet to be written and so we are going to see Christ combat Satan’s temptations through quoting the Old Testament.

We can learn a lot from the Old Testament.

Many people today try to avoid reading the Old Testament as much as possible.

But this does them a great disservice.

As we will see today, Jesus quotes from the book of Deuteronomy at least three different times during His temptations in the wilderness.

The areas that He quotes are directly addressing the sins of Israel.

Christ points out the areas that Israel sinned in regards to the temptations that Satan throws at Him.

As we go through trials and temptations, God oftentimes uses the Scripture to remind us of a situation similar to the one we might be facing.

And the Holy Spirit can guide and direct us in the way that we should go in order to fight against the temptation.

This is why the Bible is referred to as the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17).

The Holy Spirit takes the Word of God and uses it as an offensive weapon as we combat the attacks of the evil one.

Join me as we see our Perfect Savior show us how to fight against temptation as we read Luke 4:1-13:

Prayer

Today we will see three ways that can stand in the truth while fighting against temptation.

The first is…

I.

We Can Fight Against Temptation By Standing in the Truth of God’s Provision (1-4)

Jesus is stated to be full of the Holy Spirit right after last seeing the Holy Spirit descending on Christ like a dove at His baptism (Luke 3:22).

This refers not to Jesus needing to be more God - He was already 100% God and 100% man as we have discussed.

But this refers to the fact that He is under the full control and leading of the Holy Spirit - the third Person of the Holy Trinity.

In fact, Luke uses the Greek word katabainō (cot-ah-ben-oh) meaning to ‘come upon’ in Luke 3:22 to describe the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus.

While Luke uses the Greek word pimplēmi (peem-blay-me) meaning ‘to fill’ to describe people like John, Elizabeth, and Zechariah who are seized by the external power of the Holy Spirit.

In essence, we see that Jesus was anointed and led by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit that has just participated in the inauguration of Christ along with the Father in Jesus’s baptism, now leads Jesus from the Jordan River into the wilderness where Jesus will be tempted by Satan.

Isn’t this how life works brothers and sisters?

It seems like right after some of the highest moments in our lives, that is when temptation comes.

Jesus has just enjoyed the Presence and confirmation of His Father and the Holy Spirit.

He, who has been in perfect union with the other two members of the Trinity for all eternity, has enjoyed their intimacy in a mighty way at His baptism.

And right after this, trials come.

Church:

Beware after a mountaintop experience.

I’m sure many, if not all, of you have had similar experiences.

You share the Gospel and lead someone to Christ and are ecstatic.

Nothing could be any better than what you are feeling right now.

Someone has went from death to life because of the work of God, and He chose to use you as His mouthpiece in this interaction.

You got to witness God saving someone firsthand!

Or maybe you just had an amazing spiritual growth moment.

You have never felt so close to Christ.

You are on cloud 9 and it feels like nothing can bring you down.

Whatever the mountaintop experience was, hours later temptation comes.

And unlike Christ, you aren’t always successful in defeating it.

Maybe you give into that temptation that you have been fighting so well for so long.

Maybe you start to waste countless hours online, or spend hours giving into your addiction of gaming, or you start re-posting and sharing that juicy gossip you just saw on Facebook or Twitter, or you continue to ruminate on perverse thoughts that keep coming up.

And in a matter of minutes to hours - you went from the mountaintop to the depths of the valley.

Today we are going to see how to fight those temptations.

The Scriptures are clear that God gives us a way out of temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13).

We can have victory over them.

Let’s learn from the Master how we need to handle these.

Before moving into the first temptation, it is important to note that Satan and his demons oftentimes do not hit us when we are at our best.

They like to wait until we are at our worst physically and emotionally.

And that is exactly when Satan hits Jesus.

Jesus eats nothing for forty days.

And all the while, Jesus is being tempted by the devil.

We don’t know every temptation Satan brought in those forty days but there were enough that the writer of Hebrews says the following:

Obviously there were countless temptations Christ faced.

But Luke only records three of the final ones brought before Christ.

Satan saves these big three for the point of Jesus’ maximal human weakness.

Luke 4:3 (ESV)

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

And the first thing that Satan says before even getting to the temptation attacks the very heart of the Trinity.

If you are the Son of God.

Satan tries to make Jesus doubt the very words of the Father only weeks prior to this.

What did the Father say to Jesus at His baptism?

Luke 3:22 (ESV)

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.”

God the Father had acknowledged Jesus Christ was His Son.

And now Satan went to attack the very truth that had just been said to Him.

Satan works that way with us as well.

Does God really love you?

If He did would He really allow you to go through cancer, or an unfaithful marriage, or a job loss, or fill-in-the-blank.

This has been a temptation of Satan since the beginning.

Genesis 3:1 (ESV)

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

This is where truth is so important.

We can’t go on our feelings.

We have to remember the truth of God’s Word in order combat falsehood.

We must know who we are as the Bible teaches us.

We are a new creation.

We are loved by the Father.

We are adopted as sons and daughters.

And we are sealed with the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of our salvation if we have truly repented - or turned away from our sins and have believed in Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins and rose three days later.

Satan then gets to his actual temptation later in verse 3. Command this stone to become bread.

On the surface level this seems like a pretty harmless temptation doesn’t it?

Christ most certainly can do it.

He multiplies 5 loaves of bread to feed 5,000 men not including women and children later in His ministry (Matthew 14:13-21).

But what is at the heart of this temptation?

Satan is tempting Jesus to distrust God’s provision for Him.

Intertwined in this temptation from the outset was to get Jesus to doubt the love of God the Father as well as we already mentioned.

Satan has already aimed at damaging the relationship of Christ and His Father by questioning His Sonship and now he hits at this relationship by questioning God’s provision and the Holy Spirit’s leading.

As Pastor John MacArthur states, “This was a serious assault not only on the deity and perfection of Jesus Christ, but also on the unity of the Trinity.”

How does Christ respond to this temptation?

He quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 - man shall not live by bread alone.

Wow, there is power in that statement.

Christ sees beyond His physical hunger.

He sees the depths of this temptation.

He doesn’t rationalize the temptation and make excuses for it.