The attack of a king

Matthew 4:1-11

Gidday Everyone,

Have you ever done a good thing, but you did it with the wrong motivation?

Well as a parent, it’s quite hilarious to watch this happen as an observer. My wife and I have to contain our laughter when our boys do this, which often happens at breakfast.

Every Saturday we do pancakes for breakfast, and one of our boys is well onto the art of getting the best pancake. He worked out quickly that the first pancake is never the best. And when he discovered this fault of dad’s cooking skills, did he share the news with the others? Not so.

Rather, he would get in the kitchen first, ask about the pancakes and then turn to one of his brothers and offer them the first. Like as a genuine gift, like they deserved it and he wanted them to be happy.

And goodness me, it worked. The guy was a hit. He did a good thing for his brothers and he was awesome.

Which I know that in my heart, as much as I told my son it is wrong to do a good thing for a bad motivation. I knew that my heart also needed to be told that.

Which is why I’ve really struggled with this passage this week. It’s honestly been the hardest one to work on, and not just because there’s lots to read about it. But because the heart issue of this passage is just so relatable. It’s very much an everyday kind of passage, which is why it’s also been so great to dwell in it.

Today we find ourselves in the Temptation of Jesus scene.

We are given a snapshot of three temptations Jesus faced, that together show us the reality of the spiritual battle that is happening between God and Satan.

Because in the context of Matthew, the author of this gospel. Matthew is very focused on the kingship of Jesus, and it is here at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, at the start of his teaching, Matthew is making it clear for the readers, who the real enemy of God King Jesus is.

And so because Matthew is punchy with his writing, he writes this quick narrative which actually tells us everything we need to know about Satan in order to understand what it takes to live a life for Jesus.

Which is three things really. Three lessons for resisting temptation, which are:

Persevere in God’s Word

Trust God

Live for God’s kingdom

So lets start with the first lesson,

Persevere in God’s Word

At this point in the book of Matthew, Jesus has just been Baptized and the very first thing Jesus does is to head out to the desert, Verse 1, “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”

Now, on one hand, the very first thing to happen to Jesus after he was Baptized was that he endures an attack from Satan.

But on the other hand, the attack was not exactly immediate, I mean 40 days of hanging out in the wilderness is quite a long time. With no food, and no Netflix. It would have been quite boring, quite mundane, each day passing, with nothing much to do just watching yourself get weaker and weaker.

Because, for Jesus, Satan waited long enough so that Jesus was at his weakest. You know the guy is sun-baked, malnourished, hungry and no doubt very tired and lonely.

That’s when Satan decides to act against Jesus

Day 40 in the desert is apparently that day. And I’ll be honest, if that was me in the desert, by hour 4, I’d be pretty ripe for tempting, so day forty is a stellar effort.

And 40 days is no accident, it’s very intentionally 40, so that people reading Matthew’s Gospel were thinking, hey the people in the Old Testament called Israel spent 40 years in the wilderness, Jesus must be comparing himself with them.

Yes, Jesus is comparing himself with Israel, and this narrative is exactly contrasting that Jesus is able to do what Israel could not. So it’s worth noting that there is a strong comparisson of Jesus to Israel going on.

And so with that in mind, Satan says to Jesus

“If you are the Son of God command these stones to become loaves of bread”

Now, Satan knows exactly who Jesus is. He’s not questioning the status of Jesus. Rather Satan is challenging Jesus to use his position as the Son of God for selfish gain. As in, Jesus, do a good thing, but for the wrong motivation. Eating is good, but Jesus using his power for selfish gain is not.

See the issue isn’t about the food. Food is good.

Rather the issue on display is whether Jesus will use his power to serve himself.

And we might actually kind of side with Satan on this one, because why not just feed yourself Jesus?

You can handle this very reasonable problem of hunger by simply turning stone into bread, I don’t really see the issue.

And so we ought to hear how Jesus responds to Satan in verse 4 “It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

So, Jesus is not denying that food is good. Rather he’s saying that as good as food is, it is God’s word is that is most essential for life.

A point that we all tend to struggle to understand. See we will struggle to understand the essential need we have to live in God’s word. Because there’s an element where that doesn’t make sense. Because I know that I need food to live, and I’m well confident I can live my whole life without reading a book. So how is God’s word essential for life?

Good question.

And it all comes down to what all of God’s Word speaks about. For it speaks of God’s gift of life eternal in a perfect relationship with God in his kingdom.

All of scripture speaks of God’s grace that is given to each and every person who has faith that Jesus paid the debt of my sin. He took all the wrong things I had done and made me clean that I could live with God.

So Jesus is saying that yes food is good for your life now. But, you will be hungry again, whereas, God’s Word is what gives us life eternal, therefore live on every Word of God.

And so Jesus doesn’t turn the stone into bread, he doesn’t use his power to serve himself, instead, he perseveres in the struggle, he perseveres in God’s Word.

Because this has been my struggle for the last week, imagine, having an opportunity to do a good thing for the wrong motivation. And then choose not to do the good thing.

Which is such the challenge for all of us, yet such a witness and encouragement when we value more, the motivation to serve others, rather than serving ourselves.

That would look like my son saying to his brothers, hey boys, I’ll take the first one because it’s usually dad’s worst one, I’m happy to give you guys the better ones.

Now, it might scare us to do that because we may fear getting walked all over and taken advantage of. But hey, that’s kind of the point. Because people will take advantage of you for serving them, and so we persevere in every Word that comes from God, praying that others would experience the love of Jesus through our service of others.

Then Satan ups the stakes with the second temptation where Jesus will show us that is it for our good to trust God, and not to test God.

Trust God

Have you ever been in a position where you forced the hand of someone else. Like when you’re playing cards or a board game, sometimes you can force the player next to you to make a certain move based on what you did.

As a kid, I once learnt how to force my dad to buy me something that I really wanted. When I learnt to read, I noticed in one shop that there was a sign that said, if you open it you buy it. Or something to that effect. Now the toy I really wanted was a matchbox car, I don’t remember what one but I remember when dad said, no toys on this trip, that I thought, right. Well, we shall see about that, and I ripped the box open, making sure the box was destroyed and I put it on the counter. I was like 6 or 7.

Well, boy did I learn about forcing dad’s hand to buy my toy. I did get my toy, but I also really disappointed my dad.

A situation in which Jesus does a far better job of being an obedient Son. Here we have Jesus being tempted for the second time. And Satan, having read the scriptures knows what God will do for the sake of his Son.

Verse 6: Satan says “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ”

Here, Satan is saying to Jesus, you and I both know that God will send his angels to protect you. There is no way that you will be harmed in jumping off this high place.

Therefore the issue on display here is, Jesus being tempted to force the will of God. Essentially testing to see if God will do what he has said he will do.

Because once again, Satan is not wrong here. Like the bread temptation before, this is something that God has the power to do.

But will Jesus make God act?

No, Jesus says ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test’

And we ought to have noticed that both Satan and Jesus are using scripture for their arguments. And they are both saying true things.

So it’s worth noting that just because someone can quote a line from scripture, does not exactly make it wise to do what they say.

No, when it comes to scriptures command, we ought to consider how it’s being used before we act.

And in this instance, Jesus knows that Satan is twisting scripture to entice Jesus to force God’s will. To force God to act.

But Jesus shows that he would rather trust God and serve God rather than serve himself, so he doesn’t jump.

And once again, Jesus had a chance to do a good thing for a bad motivation.

It’s dangerous to be up so high, they didn’t have a lot of tall buildings, so being this high is like standing on top of the burge Kalifa in Brunei.

So it is good for Jesus to safely descend from such a height. Which the angels would most certainly do for him.

However, it would not serve God if Jesus was to force God’s angels to act out of selfish gain.

And isn’t that just the challenge for us?

You know, the only person in the history of the world who had the actual power to force God’s will, was Jesus. But my goodness don’t we try.

God, send me a sign and I’ll believe that you exist. God if you make this horrible situation that I’m in just go away, I’ll love you forever!

Which are good things. It’s good to believe that God exists, it’s good to not live in horrible situations. But we can’t do it by telling God to serve us. By testing to see if God loves us, and then we will trust him.

No, that’s bad motivation. Rather, trust in God. Trust that he is real, he is good and that he loves you.

Because that is what an unbelieving world needs to see. An unbelieving world is testing God all the time. What the world needs are people who trust God, even when it’s hard.

Like Jesus standing on a high place, life in danger, not an ideal situation, yet he trusted God. Imagine a world where Christians would show such display of what it means to trust God. Because trust is God is what the world needs most.

which leads us to the final temptation. The ultimate show down, where we learn that the only way to live is to

Live for God’s kingdom

Verse 8 “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me”

Hey Jesus, you can have all the world, the only catch is that I will be your god.

We only have to read that a few times to see that, what Satan is offering is something so beyond what Satan could deliver on.

For there is so much lying, so much deception in Satan’s words that we might almost think that Satan has all that power.

Up until now, Satan has spoken of true and good things but from bad motivation.

And here he does the same, but this time, Satan reveals his ultimate goal.

Jesus, I will give you all the kingdoms of the world. And we might think, hold on. That’s a good thing. Isn’t it the goal of God to have all nations and all people bow before him?

Yes, that’s good! But now we are ready for the bad motivation. And here it comes. “If you will fall down and worship me”

But this time it’s not just bad motivation. It’s bad everything. And in more ways than one.

Because in reality Satan knows that God is far more powerful than him, he know’s there is only one way to truly beat God and that is to try and get God to destroy himself.

See the plan here is to offer Jesus what Jesus expects to happen one day. For in all reality, all the kingdoms of Earth are to worship Jesus, for that what the world was made for. And one day when Jesus returns, that will happen.

So, if Satan could just ever so tempt Jesus, who is at his absolute weakest, into not doing all the things that he came to Earth for. Not dying on the cross, not rising from the dead, not defeating death and putting sin to an end. If Satan could just get Jesus to do this one sin… Well…

In all reality, there would be no world left that could worship Jesus, for if the Holy God was to sin, then God would not be God, he would self destruct. And in a world that is kept alive and sustained by the Holy God, it would not go well for the world if God were to self destruct.

Which is all to say, that Satan would have achieved his ultimate goal of destroying God. For that’s the stakes of the battle. This battle is not for an eternity of I’m king now, oo your king now. Kind of back and forth. No, the Spiritual battle is a battle of everlasting life against the final death.

And so, Jesus responds to this offer of death from Satan,

Verse 10 “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ”

And so Satan leaves, because at that point there’s nothing left for him to do. He’s revealed his ultimate plan, been called out and must now be on his way to face the final death that, we can all read about in the book of Revelation.

So for Jesus, who, at his absolute weakest was able to fight off the temptations of Satan, is now left in the embrace of the angels, whom we now assume were feeding him and helping to get his strength back.

We are left in this last temptation with a sense of absolute relief in the victory of Jesus over Satan. What a joy it is to know that even in Jesus’ absolute weakest, he is still able to resist temptation. Serving others and God above himself, persevering in God’s word, trusting God and worshiping God alone.

For that is that strength we turn to in our time of temptation. Jesus is the one who knows how hard it is to serve others and God above himself, and worship God alone. Jesus is our God our king.

Which is great news if you’re a follower of Jesus,

But the truly scary part about the last temptation of Satan, is that this is the reality for those who don’t live with Jesus as their king and savior.

The reality for anyone who lives for the worship of something other than God, gaining for themselves nothing but worldly glory. For the reality is self destruction, the reality is death.

Because for the follower of Jesus, the one who worships Jesus as king and Savior, the end result is life eternal, secured by the blood of Jesus, who puts Satan to death in the final battle. Eternal life is a reality that cannot be taken from the faithful follower of Jesus because Jesus wins.

Eternal life that many in our city are not on the path towards, because Satan’s lies are so good. His lies tell us to have and do good things, but all with the motivation to serve ourselves.

So may we all serve others by persevering in God’s word, Serving God by trusting him, and live for God’s kingdom worshiping Jesus the true king.

Lets pray