The Temptation of Jesus
Notes
Transcript
The Temptation of Jesus
The Temptation of Jesus
Intro
However, many Christians are surprised when their temptations seem to grow in intensity, even after they commit to Jesus.
The story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness teaches us that struggle always follows commitment.
Even more, struggle is the test of faithfulness.
When the first disciples dropped their fishing nets to follow Jesus, they probably never anticipated the struggles that would follow.
Tradition says that all but one of the disciples would be martyred.
Saying “yes” to God came with a cost, and the same is true of us today.
Experiencing temptation and overcoming the Evil One is one of the ways we become stronger—able to continue saying “yes” to the great cost and great reward of following Christ.
Create a list of options, such as “Would you rather eat ice cream or fruit?”
Create a list of options, such as “Would you rather eat ice cream or fruit?”
Create enough questions for four rounds, making the decisions more difficult with each round.
For example, maybe the last round’s question would be something like, “If it was a given that you would be successful at whatever you tried, would you rather establish your own business or solve a major world problem?”
Ask four to five students to volunteer to answer these questions.
After you have made it through all four rounds of options, explain that some choices are easy and some temptations seem easier to avoid.
As time goes on, we often face more and more difficult choices and greater temptation to choose what seems best to us or will bring us the most recognition.
When faced with some difficult decisions, Jesus made the right choice every time.
He battled temptation by using the Word of God, and we can follow His example when faced with temptations and difficult choices in our own lives.
So let read
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,
“ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “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.’ ”
Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,
“ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God
and him only shall you serve.’ ”
Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
• How can we stand strong against temptation, especially in the face of difficult decisions?
Lets pray
So lets set up the story:
Recall last week as Donnivan talked about Jesus’s baptism.
So Jesus has this moment where he comes up out of the water and the Spirit of God comes down on Jesus like a dove and a voice comes from God the Father: saying THIS IS MY SON WHO I AM WELL PLEASED.
This is a huge moment.
Jesus comes out of the waters of baptism, God tells him, my son I am well pleased!
And the spirit that just came like an innocent dove, leads Jesus into the wilderness.
And it is interesting why.
The spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Jesus followed knowing that he was going to be tempted.
The Spirit did not tempt Jesus but it was Satan.
There are two common beliefs that people have.
One that God tempts us and The devil acts independently of God.
The devil
The New American Commentary: Matthew 3. Jesus Alone: The Messiah’s Temptation (4:1–11)
In the New Testament, God is always so dissociated from evil that he is never directly responsible for tempting humans (Jas 1:13). Yet the devil is never portrayed as an enemy equal with but opposite to God; he always remains bound by what God permits.
So Jesus is being led away by the spirit to be tempted, not by the spirit but by the tempter- the devil.
Here is what his response was— He is going to fast for 40 days and 40 nights.
Fasting is this spiritual discipline where we deny ourselves something like food in order to draw near to God.
So when you get hungry or durning a time where you would normally eat food, what you do instead is devote that time to prayer, worship, and reading God’s word, and even just meditating on God and listening to Him.
This is what Jesus was doing.
He was drawing near to God because he knew what was coming— he knew temptation was coming and he fasted to draw near to God.
Jesus not only speaks about fasting but he is also seen doing it often.
You can imagine that if you were too fast for 40 days and nights, are you going to be filled up with the spirit yes, but these bodies also need to have food to sustain.
That is why fasting is only for a period of time.
So that you don’t go from fasting too starvation.
The points that are going to be made tonight is what we are tempted by.
We are tempted by human comforts
We are tempted by testing God
We are tempted by power.
So lets look at the first one.
We are tempted by human comforts
We are tempted by human comforts
And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,
“ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
Matthew 4:
Explain:
The tempter Satan comes up and says hey Jesus, I know you are hungry!
See those stones over there, you can turn those into bread just like that.
You are the son the of God, you created the world, this is cake work for you.
Note that Satan uses similar words that God used from Jesus’ baptism, he calls him son of God.
If you are the Son of God tell these stones fo become bread.
Why stones?
If you recall there was a stone that gave water.
Water sprang from this rock for the Israelites. Exodus 17:1-7
and then look at what Jesus said in Matthew 3
Look at what Jesus said just a chapter before.
And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.
Matthew
So God can make stones can provide water or they can become children of Abraham— Then surely the Son of God can make bread from these stones.
Here is Jesus’ response.
Jesus using scripture to counter satan.
He is actually quoting:
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.
If you can remember that the Isrealites wondered in the desert for 40 years.
How long has Jesus been in the wilderness?
40 days.
And he is fasting and he has a chance to get food by using his Godly powers to change stones into bread and he resorts back to this passage in .
Which is talking about Manna— bread.
The Israelites needed food and they could not do it on their own— so who provided the physical needs of these people?
God did.
In this instance the text he cites originally underscored God’s provision of manna as an alternative to the Israelites’ reliance on their own abilities to feed themselves.
Could Jesus have turned these stones into bread—you bet he could have, but he would not be tempted to do it.
The principle applies equally well to Jesus’ situation and to any other context in which people are tempted to give physical needs priority over spiritual needs.
Illustrate
I recall in high school having a spiritual high if you will from a camp called snowbird, it was in NC.
It was huge week that changed me in many ways.
I was so on fire for the Lord.
I made a vow to go back home and tell everyone I knew about Jesus and that He had a huge plan for their life.
I was going to read my devotions and I was going to pray other times than just meals.
I got back and for a day i lived up to what I said.
But then here came the temptations again.
My lustful eyes gripped me, I was convinced that I was suppose to share Jesus with this girl but in reality that is not what happened.
I ended up
As my motives were not pure and we never talked about Jesus, instead we kissed and I am thankful that is all the further that went.
Yet that derailed my spiritual high— because I gave into temptation.
You may be thinking good job dude— wrong— there was nothing good about that.
She was not my girlfriend nor did she become my girlfriend, I played her which is not how we are to treat women, I was a jerk.
Ladies don’t let that happen to you— guys don’t be like that.
Apply
There are times where we have deny our physical desires in order to put our trust in God.
Make no mistake that Jesus was tempted after a spiritual high.
We are always more tempted or pursued by the evil one when we have a time of spiritual growth.
Think back to camp experiences you have and how you may have had a spiritual high to only have it come crashing down days after.
Jesus fasted because he knew he was going to be tempted.
He was preparing.
We don’t prepare to be tempted.
We all know that we will face temptations daily yet, when we do get tempted— we go oh geez, I didn’t think i would be tempted today— that came out of nowhere— yeah no duh!
Yet when we draw near to the Lord when we get tempted it is easier to fight that temptation.
When we draw from God’s word we can fight the temptation better.
Don’t be surprised that you are tempted, know that it is going to happen and determine who you are going to counter it.
Here is another way we get tempted.
We are tempted to test God
We are tempted to test God
Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “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.’ ”
Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”
Matthew 4:
Explain:
Then Jesus was taken to this high point above the temple.
It is called the pinnacle of the temple.
Here is a picture of that:
{PICTURE}
And satan wants Jesus to throw himself off the his pinnacle and have the angles come and him.
and satan actually uses scripture to tell Jesus, see it will be okay to do this.
This passage comes from
For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.
Ps
Satan wants Jesus to test God by seeing if God will preserve his life.
Satan knows Jesus has the power to do it and he is using this passage to justify Jesus throwing himself off the temple.
The New American Commentary: Matthew 3. Jesus Alone: The Messiah’s Temptation (4:1–11)
There God promises all who “dwell in the shelter of the Most High” (Ps 91:1) safeguarding and protection. The devil’s mistake is to confuse the psalmist’s stumbling so as to fall with Jesus’ deliberately jumping off.
Jesus responds with Scripture saying Do not test the Lord your God.
The New American Commentary: Matthew 3. Jesus Alone: The Messiah’s Temptation (4:1–11)
We must not test God’s faithfulness to his word by manufacturing situations in which we try to force him to act in certain ways.
Jesus again is referring back to Deut.
Do not test the Lord— Israel rebelled against the Lord- they even wanted Moses to strike a rock to give them water so God would be tested to give it to them.
Illustrate
Have you ever found yourself with a cup of water or something and say God if you just knock over this water I will believe in you.
We have probably all been tempted to test God.
Or at least make a deal with him.
God if you do this, then I will do this.
We test God to show himself to us so that we may believe, we say God if you are real then you will save me.
Apply
By Satan saying if you test God— you know he will send angels down to save you Jesus.
We have this longing to want to be sure right.
We want to be sure that God is real— Jesus did not need this reassurance.
He knew that God was real as he was in the flesh— He is God
He is the son of God
We are not, so we struggle with believing what we can’t see.
Yet Jesus says blessed are those who believe without seeing.
In , it talks how God has reveled himself to us in nature and can God show up and knock over your cup of water, he sure can yet he chooses not too.
Jesus was alive in the flesh— fully God and fully man yet people still turned and walked away.
Seeing does not mean that we will believe.
In our brains we may say it would help— but by history we know that it doesn’t matter.
We know the dangers of smoking yet people do it anyway.
We know the dangers of speeding yet we speed.
Knowledge of something doesn’t mean it changes us either.
It is common to want to be right about what you believe.
That is why we must dive in and search for answer to our faith, making our faith our own.
Last way satan tempts is by promising power
We are tempted by power
We are tempted by power
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,
“ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God
and him only shall you serve.’ ”
Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
Explain:
Satan takes him to a high mountain and says everything, it can all be yours.
I will give it all over to you.
All Jesus had to do was worship the devil.
Here is the ironic part, Jesus was going to receive this glory anyway after death and the resurrection, but the devil is trying to seduce him with a shortcut.
He is saying, look Jesus death is coming and that cross is going to be grizzly, it is going to be unbearable, I am giving you away out.
Just worship me, and all these kingdoms you are going to have after you die, you could have right now.
I am offering you a short cut.
He says here is power, authority and wealth and you don’t have to go to the cross to get it.
Jesus rejects the offer
By saying one get away from me and then quoting:
It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear.
Only God is worthy to worship, not you satan, get away from me.
Once satan leaves- angels come and serve him.
Now Jesus is ready for his public ministry.
Jesus experienced temptation more strongly than anyone else because he never gave in and sinned.
The temptation always remained before him.
Could Jesus have sinned or was it impossible for him to sin is an argument for another day.
But I will say this:
I believe that Jesus could have sinned— yet he was able to wit stand sin.
Illustrate
Let’s think about this.
Let’s say I challenged you to see how long you could hold your body weight by hanging from a bar- let see if anyone can last for 30 min
Some of you give up pretty quickly after a couple seconds because it hurts.
Some give up because their grip slips.
Others stay strong
They sweat it out
They adjust
They hurt but they tell themselves to keep going.
10 minutes have passed and every single muscle in your arms is screaming to let go.
Your fingers hurt- you don’t know how much longer you can last.
yet you keep pushing on.
you keep fighting
20 min and your heart is racing.
The pain is only becoming more and more unbearable
you start to feel your grip slipping just slightly
25 min
you see the finish line
there is one way you are going to give up now- you made it this far— it hurts but the end is in sight
finally the horn blows and you let go tired you drop to the ground
arms are jello
you withstood the full weight of the challenge.
you can tell other how to do it, you can give them advice why?
Because you succeed in it, you didn’t quit
You did’t fail
You experienced the whole weight of the challenge
Now the ones who check out early know what just a few minutes feel like.
They can’t give advice to someone- they can say it hurt, they can say it was hard— yet they have no plan on how to complete the challenge.
Apply
Jesus not only was tempted but he never gave in--
He never let go of the bar
He was the only to never ever sin
In this room we all know avoiding temptation is hard and it is painful yet JESUS CAN GIVE YOU THE ADVICE TO WITH STAND IT!
HE WITHSTOOD IT ALL
THEN HE HUNG ON THE CROSS AS A PERFECT SACRIFICE TO COVER UP ALL THE TIMES WE FAIL
Jesus knows exactly what you are going through, because he was tempted and he expereiced the full weight of sin
The New American Commentary: Matthew 3. Jesus Alone: The Messiah’s Temptation (4:1–11)
Satan regularly tempts Christians in the same way—with the success syndrome, empire building, or alleged guarantees of health and wealth. But the devil’s price is damning. He requires nothing short of selling one’s soul in worshiping him, which leads inexorably to eternal judgment.
So we see that we are tempted these different ways.
But how do we resist it?
3 ways to resist temptation:
We battle temptation by using God’s word
We battle temptation by remaining strong
We battle temptation with a community
And above all else cling to Jesus!
Lets pray