Is Jesus really the Son of God?
Notes
Transcript
In the beginning of the Bible, God created humans.
Humans were supposed to be God’s representatives here on earth, but instead, they fell into the hands of a serpent—what we see today in the world, with all it’s chaos and evil is a result of humans falling under the rule of the serpent.
Thousands of years after the first humans failed, there was a human, Jesus, who was supposed to be God’s perfect representative.
He was, as we read last time, the Son of God.
And now, he faces the enemy.
But this time, the enemy does not appear as a serpent but as the devil.
If you have your Bible, please go with me to Luke 4:1-13.
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate 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 this stone to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”
The devil led him up 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 their 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 led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “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.’”
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.
Pray
We started our reading today by seeing that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit.
Recall what happened last week: The Spirit had anointed Jesus.
Jesus was empowered to do the mission that God had given him.
And part of the plan is that Jesus would go to the wilderness, where he would be tested for forty days by the Devil.
Luke again referenced the Spirit—The double reference of the Spirit in the text emphasizes that this was God’s will.
Jesus was not acting on his own.
Instead, he acted as God’s agent, as God’s representative.
The events that followed were ordained by the Spirit.
Jesus left the Jordan river, and now
God had ordained that Jesus would face this figure, who is the devil.
Jesus was tempted by the devil himself.
The Greek word for Devil is διάβολος.
This word was used to depict a person who engaged in slander.
He focused, and still focuses, on destroying the character of people.
διάβολος could be used to describe any slanderer, but in this case, it appears to be referring to a specific being, who can ask questions, who knows the Word of God, and comes to take hearts so that people may be destroyed.
The Spirit had empowered Jesus to face the devil.
And here we see a big battle.
For forty days, Jesus was tempted by the devil.
How many times do we fall when we are tempted by the Devil for just one minute? For an hour, or a couple of days?
Jesus was tempted for forty days.
And during this time, Jesus was fasting.
He wasn’t eating any food, according to Luke.
Fasting is an interesting practice within the Scriptures and church history.
Church history and modern day practice of fasting has really changed the ways we perceive fasting (I am not talking about physical health type of health fasting.
We typically think of fasting as an instrument, a tool that we can use.
If we fast, we can gain something that would benefit us—the benefits can be spiritual growth, suppression of sins, improved health, and maybe God answering our prayers.
A lot of Christians believe that they haven’t achieved higher levels of spirituality because they do not fast.
This view really came after the Bible was written.
People like Calvin advocated for the instrumental approach for fasting:
Fasting pleases Him up to a point, as long as it is directed to an end beyond itself, namely, to prompt us to abstinence, to subject the lasciviousness of the flesh, to incense us to a desire for prayer, to testify to our repentance, whenever we are moved by the judgement of God.
While God may respect an instrumental approach to fasting, it is impossible to find this idea within the pages of the Bible. It is rarely reflected in ancient Judaism or the rabbis.
Instead of viewing fasting as an instrument, the Bible perceives fasting as a whole-body response of a human being to grievous, severe conditions.
As Scot McKnight, a New Testament professor near Chicago, said,
Fasting means a human being refrains from food or water, or both, for a limited period of time in response to some sacred, grievous moment.
A grievous moment might include a death of a loved one, the threat of war, sin, our neediness, or our fear of God’s judgment.
As a response to these grievous realities, during Bible times, people fasted.
I love how McKnight phrased it:
The focus of the Bible on fasting is not on what we get from fasting or on motivating people to fast in order to acquire something, but instead lands squarely on responding to sacred moments in life.
Fasting makes us feel pain.
It’s not supposed to be enjoyable.
But it helps us feel the effects of death, sin, war, violence, and injustice.
Jesus was fasting during this time.
He wasn’t trying to obtain something, but instead, in response to all the evils of the world, he felt the pains of the world through fasting.
While Jesus fasted, the devil came to challenge him.
The devil did what the serpent did:
In both cases, the enemy challenged the identity of humans.
In Genesis 3, we read a story of a serpent and humans.
The serpent challenged the identity of humans (And he continues to challenge the identity of humans).
He said to the first humans,
“Oh, you will become gods yourselves.”
But according to God himself, humans were already partners with him.
The devil wants to distort what God has called humans to be, what God has called you to be.
And in the passage we read today, he challenged what God had called Jesus to be, who God had anointed and prepared Jesus to be.
Jesus was supposed to be the Son of God who would represent God, who would bring peace and justice.
God had said to Jesus, “You are my Son.”
But the Devil came, and questioned the claim, “If you are the Son of God...”
“Let’s assume, Jesus, that you are the Son of God.”
“Since you are the Son of God, make this stone into bread.”
This would be an appealing temptation since Jesus had fasted.
The issue here is not eating, but listening to the devil and breaking a practice that you had committed to God.
The tension is this (Joel B. Green):
Will Jesus follow the leading of the Spirit and manifest unwavering trust in God to supply his needs; or will he relieve his hunger by exercising his power apart from God?
The devil challenged Jesus to make the stone into bread, to exploit his status as the son of God.
The devil wanted the identity, the title “Son of God” to mean the opposite of faithful obedience and agency on God’s behalf.
There’s also a sense here that the tempter is telling Jesus, “If you want people to follow you, use your wonderful powers to give them material things.”
The devil wanted Jesus’ ministry to be one of material prosperity—one of making stones into bread.
But Jesus knew his Bible.
Therefore, he could fight back against the devil.
Jesus knew that in Deut. 8:3, God had said that humans were not supposed to live from bread alone.
Bread is important but it’s not the sole substance of humans.
Every word of God is essential to human living.
In other words, no one will ever find life in material things.
That is why I encourage you that if you haven’t joined our Bible reading plan, do so.
Or join one on your own.
But the devil fights, and we need to respond with the word of God.
His words are a feast to our souls.
And they are tools to fight the enemy.
Jesus, the Son of God—God in the flesh, used the words of God to fight off the devil.
Then, the devil attacked him again.
This time the devil led him up to a high place.
In an instant, the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world.
Earlier in Luke, the kingdoms appeared to under the Roman emperor, but now they appear to be ruled by the devil.
A lot of the activity from human and systemic agents oppose God’s plan and God’s people, and therefore are manifestations of diabolic rule.
The devil said that if Jesus would worship him, the devil would give him all these kingdoms, just as the devil had received them.
This is a pretty crazy offer.
“Just worship me, and I’ll give you all these kingdoms,” said the devil.
Would you accept this claim?
I know so many people are power hungry, especially politicians.
But here we have Jesus, who is the Son of God, who has the kingdom of God, who will one day have all the nations bow down to him.
What the devil offered Jesus was a shabby substitute for the divine sonship that Jesus had by birth.
In response to the devil’s offer,
Jesus quoted Scripture.
He quoted from Deut. 6:13 to state, “Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.”
And what’s amazing is that when the tensions were high, Jesus didn’t just quote the Scriptures, but he put what he quoted into practice.
Jesus could’ve bowed down, but no, he knew what the Bible said and he practiced it.
He knew that we are only to worship God.
There are so many opportunities for us to worship other things to gain apparent power.
Worship greed, and cheat people off, to gain wealth.
Worship self to get temporary euphoria, happiness.
But Jesus, and us as his followers, know that we worship only God, even if the devil is offering everything the world has to offer.—We worship God alone.
Many of us have witnessed in the last couple of days of what happens when people worship someone who is not the true god...
They put all of their hopes on that person—they kinda deify the person.
And if things don’t go as planned, if a certain person doesn’t end up in office, then, they go chaotic, because they put their hope in a person.
We would do well, if we followed the model of Jesus by not putting our hopes on a person or an idea, (this even occurs in the church when people put their hopes on a pastor], we would do well to follow Jesus’ example—We shall only worship God.
Back to the story,
The devil responded to Jesus,
Okay, if you won’t worship me because you will only worship your God, let’s see how great your God really is.
Let’s assume that you are the Son of God, and supposedly, according to the words of God, if you throw yourself, he will protect you.
The devil did something that Jesus had been doing.
The devil quoted the Bible.
He quoted from Ps. 91:11-12
For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
So, the devil quoted this verse to tell Jesus to check if this is true—test God—let’s see if he will really save you.
But here is something I found pretty interesting in a book that I read recently.
The author, Dan Kimball, a pastor in the bay area, he said,
Never read a Bible verse.
Woah, but you have told us to read the Bible, Daniel.
Yes, but when you want to understand the Bible, you don’t want to just read one Bible verse.
Another author, Greg Koukl, said,
Never read a Bible verse. That’s right, never read a Bible verse. Instead, always read a paragraph at least.
The point is that we should never read a Bible verse in isolation from the context.
Otherwise, we might fall for the devil’s ploys.
The devil knows the word of God, and he also knows how to distort it in such a way that what he says makes sense.
If we just looked at the verse the devil quoted, we could say, “Okay, that makes sense.
God’s going to protect me, so if I jump off, I’ll be okay.”
But, never read a Bible verse in isolation.
The verse the devil quoted is connected to this Bible.
And It’s connected to other verses.
Another verse, as Jesus shows us, is Deuteronomy 6:16. It says, that we shouldn’t test God.
Jesus didn’t deny the validity of what the devil quoted. But, he rejected how the devil used the scripture outside of its context.
And therefore, Jesus didn’t jump off to test God.
It’s interesting how the Devil only tempts you. He doesn’t force you to perform the wrong act. Only you can do the wrong act yourself.
Jesus, was led by the Spirit of God, to face the devil.
And he was able to face him.
According to similar scenes in Jewish texts, when the devil leaves, it was a sign that the devil had conceded.
Jesus had defeated the devil.
He was the first human who held to the words of God, instead of falling under the craftiness of the devil.
Humans were supposed to do this since the beginning, but they all failed.
They didn’t hold what God had said.
They let what the devil had said to dictate their lives.
But Jesus, he demonstrated that what God had declared at his baptism was true.
Jesus is truly the Son of God.
Here is a short clip that talks about tests and could help us as we learn about Jesus and how we navigate our daily lives.
It looks at tests throughout the Bible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR4AT0LMJ5c&t=4s
As we start the year, I want to remind you that you will be tested.
You will have the choice to do right or do wrong.
You have the choice to eat from the tree of life or from the tree that leads to destruction.
As a royal king, God has given you a test to see if you can do what he has entrusted you to do (and he has entrusted you to do something big).
Everyday, you are tested.
Jesus was rigorously tested for forty days.
And he demonstrated that he was worthy of being called the Son of God.
But we, on the other hand, fail regularly.
We show that we cannot do what God has called us to do—to bring peace to this world by partnering with him.
The rebel—the enemy regularly traps us.
However, God continues to give us tests.
God continues to give us opportunities to show our faithfulness to him.
We can’t do it by ourselves because of our sinful tendencies.
But we have to rely on the Son of God, the one who passed the test—the one who relied on God.
He passed the test for us. He is our representatives.
Know that God is with you. And he sees you.
And we are here to help you partner with Jesus.
See Jesus as the one who has defeated the devil.
Embrace Jesus as your master and as your helper.
And face everyday with the power that comes with Jesus.
Start today by declaring that Jesus is the Son of God who has defeated the devil.