Jan 20 - Prepare to Be Tested

Prepare to be Tested as the title for today's sermon, baptized by water purified by fire. The scripture this morning is for Luke 3 verses 21 through chapter 4 verse 13

Herod added this to them all with all the things he has done. He locks, John up in prison.

When all the people were being baptized Jesus was baptized too and as he was praying heaven was open and the Holy Spirit descended on him and bodily form like a dove. And a voice Came From Heaven. You are my son whom I love with you. I am well pleased. That Jesus himself with was about 30 years old when he began his ministry. He was the Son, so it was thought, of Joseph.

Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit left the Jordan and was led by the spirit Into the Wilderness for 40 days. He was tempted by the devil. Eat nothing during those days and at the end of them, he was hungry. The devil said to him if you are the Son of God tell the stone to become bread. Jesus answered, It is written, man shall not live on bread alone. The devil led him to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, I will give you all the authority and splendor. It has been given to me and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me it will all be yours. Jesus answered, it is written Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

The devil went into Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the Temple. If you are the Son of God, he said turn 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 their your foot against the 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. Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the spirit and news about him spread throughout the whole Countryside.

This morning I want to start with an anecdote about software testing. Its something that I'm familiar with in my last job. I wrote a piece of software for the company since they didn't have something in place already

for relaying instructions to people and Order how to build something in the shop, and the software testing took some time. It took months, really, in order to get something that was usable on the floor. I know in software testing it it takes about 10 minutes for each use case test and a

use cases is where you test whether something is going to function in a specific way, or not. Like you're looking up something he hit the enter button and something happens. Each test is about 10 minutes and you generally do, if you have 10 minutes to test and that's all you're doing for 2 to 3 days, you're you do 144 test over those two to three days. A hundred and forty-four seems like quite a lot. Some releases take every year. So the software company is releasing new version like every year. Some companies like Microsoft released a virgin maybe every three to five years. So imagine over a whole year you're thinking about testing 1500 times per version of the software. So that's a lot of testing, it really is.

In education we test a lot. We have a hundred and twelve mandatory standardized test now on average, between kindergarten and 12th grade. Now, we spend about 20 to 25 hours pool per school year on testing. And usually we have tests that are not New York State mandatory Test 2 times per class each year, if you're taking seven classes, that's that's 14 test and that's the standard state-mandated mandatory testing. That's a lot of tests, and we constantly test we constantly test are memorization, our ability to process the information and to see if we're learning how are teachers not designed the classes to teach. You are all aware testing for. The ways in order to go through processing an error to figure it out, Okay, how can I best get this thing to work? I mean you're thinking that you have certain procedures to go by. In my manufacturing plant, we had procedures to go by. Like I said at the beginning making that software, we had procedures to go by for everything that we built, and everything that we built had a certain version. And so, the procedures for each version of that thing that we made had its own they had its own procedure and its own testing according to that model.

At the beginning of chapter 4 say Jesus was full of the spirit and led by the spirit to Jesus. Just had had come away from his baptism. He had John baptized them to fulfill not just scripture but to fulfill as you said all things that are necessary. for the things to come do we know it really know what that means? No, but she just said it was necessary. And so that's why he had John baptized him and it became evident at his baptism that the father was to come and coming to speak and to bear witness to Jesus. Who he was as God's son as the Messiah The Spirit came also in a visual way, upon Jesus to bear witness to Jesus as the Messiah as God's son. That he was the one to come to deliver his people from these things. So, Jesus being baptized and being filled with the spirit at this time. He was led by the spirit Into the Wilderness.

And Jesus being led into the wilderness.

He was full of the spirit. And this implies with him being tested in full or the spirit at this time that Spirit had come on him and Power in order to conquer the temptations of the devil.

Jesus is both led by the spirit and led by the devil in this passage. Look over the wording. It specifically says that Jesus was led by the Spirit to enter the Wilderness, but he was also led by the devil, during these times of temptation

Not sometimes, our Destinies are determined by how much we allow ourselves to be led by the spirit or led by the devil. We have a choice to make. Jesus was led into the wilderness. Not Led Led to temptation but led to the Wilderness it Temptation comes anyway, whether Jesus was led to the Wilderness whether he was led to Jerusalem, whether he was led to the next town over whether he was led to a cave or out in the desert. The Temptations come in this particular case, he was led by the spirit to be in the wilderness and not I would think that the sphere LED Into the Wilderness to be apart from all the other distractions that he might come across at the time, to focus on God to focus on being with the father, to be focused on being filled with the Spirit, so he can determine the best way to to conquer these temptations.

In the same way, we allow ourselves, either to be led by the Spirit in the direction the spirit would have us go and be led by Scripture, rather than be led by the devil in into our temptations, and fail by them.

The Lord's Prayer has us ask the Father to lead us not into temptation.

Here the word 'into' is the is the key word? Lead us not into temptation. Since Jesus was led into the wilderness (probably the Judean) by the Spirit. However, Jesus was not tempted by the Father, the temptations came by the devil.

The devil has been given authority and time here in our lives in this world in order to tempt us, to test us and just like software and just like in education, the testing does come and the testing sometimes comes very often. Sometimes it comes less sometimes it's easier for us and sometimes it's much more difficult.

So we should not just pray to be faithful to God, but, as it says in the Lord's Prayer, we can also pray that we are not lead into many Temptations. We can ask the Lord, to have Grace on us, to have mercy on us, to not bring us to many Temptations.

We're already brought into this life and we have many temptations that come to us. But we can pray for lessened temptations.

So we're given the offer just as Jesus would was to be led by the Spirit in obedience. We follow knowing that there will be a blessing on the far side of being obedient in that temptation.

We'll all be tested. It depends on whether we will be obedient to the things of God, being full of the Spirit and knowing Scripture, or whether we are going to be

following in disobedience being tempted by the devil. Bring brought into disobedience and doubt of God's provision, God's authority and God's favor with half-truths and misinterpretation.

See God's provision comes in these scriptures through the devil sing to Jesus, aren't you hungry won't you turn these stones into bread? In his authority, test in God's authority, by the devil lying and saying that if he has power and authority over all things and can give it to Jesus and all he has to do is worship Him.

Or in favor, the favor of God that was on Jesus and the devil tempting him with saying just throw yourself down from here, the angels will catch you. These are all half-truths and misinterpretations of the word of God and a misunderstanding of how God works in and through us in the world.

Look here in verse 3 and 4. Did the Devil tempt Jesus with with a bread, changing the stone into bread and Jesus use us scripture, Deuteronomy 8:3 where it says man shall not live on bread alone.

And next year in 6, 7 and 8. So, this is where the devil challenges Jesus and says worship me and I'll give you all these things in Jesus responds to Worship the Lord your God and serve him only from Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 13.

And also hear verses 9 through 12 where the devil actually uses scripture as a part of his argument. A miss interpretation of the scriptures, or not necessarily or interpretation, but a misapplication of the interpretation of scripture

So, Satan here knows the scripture.

And, he says from Psalm 91 verses 11 and 12, he will command his angels angels concerning you to guard you carefully they will not lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

In Jesus does not argue with him about the scripture and whether the scripture says this and where they're necessarily his interpretation is incorrect, but the impications for the scripture. Jesus says from Deuteronomy chapter 6:16, do not put the Lord your God to the test.

It isn't about whether the father would delivered Jesus from things that would hurt him. It isn't about whether or not this promise of God would be fulfilled.

This is about whether or not Jesus who would use the favor that God had given him in order to distract him from his mission. And Jesus mission wasn't to show off,

that he had the power of God to keep them from dying. It wasn't about showing power on a throne and he wasn't about showing spiritual power such that people wouldn't question him anymore. This was about Satan testing God whether God would do this particular thing.

The devil has completed every temptation up till now. It suggests that the three recorded temptations were only the climactic ones of a long series of temptations. And for now, he left Jesus for a season.

See no matter who you are whatever Temptations will come,

we pray that they would not come often. I pray that you will find the way out of the temptations. God will deliver you, he will make that known to you, he will make that way.

Jesus asked to be baptized to be filled with the spirit and he knew the scriptures. In between the filling of the spirit and knowing the scriptures together interpreting the scriptures as the Spirit would have them to be interpreted,

we use them to defeat the devil's temptations.

And we should seek to be filled with the Spirit. We should seek to know the scriptures so that we can defeat the enemy and by these, we can prepare for the next season of testing.