Matthew 4:1-11 Facing Temptation

Intro:

Tis the season of temptation

Think about it for just a second

You will inundated with sweets and foods you don’t eat any other time of the year

There is another temptation you might not recognize

We saw this with our kids on black friday

They were bugging me to take them out shopping

I told them I would take them as long as I could sit in the car and drink my coffee

As soon as I said yes they started plotting out their strategy for going to as many places as possible before dad ran out of coffee

We also noticed something strange

They weren’t just planning on buying gifts

They were focusing more on themselves than buying gifts for others

That’s one of the temptations of Christmas

There are so many deals you start buying for yourself

You justify it that it’s your Christmas gift

Pretty soon you’ve bought more for yourself than all the others combined

Temptations will come at you from every angle

They are subtle and its easy to justify doing them

Today, we are going to see Jesus face temptation

He needed to be tempted to show that he was fully man and to solidify he was king

No one can lead without being tested

Jesus faced temptation similar to what Adam and Eve did in the Garden but he passed

Read Matthew 4:1-4

Transition:

Since the Fall in the Garden of Eden, temptation has been a constant, unrelenting part of human life

No person has ever found a place or a circumstance that can make him safe from temptation.

In Matthew 4:1–11 one of the most monumental and mysterious spiritual battles of all time is recounted—the personal confrontation between Jesus Christ and Satan.

Here He reveals the victory secret, as it were, of His momentous struggle with Satan.

The encounter occurred immediately after Jesus’ baptism

His baptism in the Jordan declared His royalty; His testing in the wilderness demonstrated it.

Here Jesus proved He was worthy to receive and to reign over the kingdom His Father would give Him.

He shows that, even in the extreme of temptation, He consistently lived in perfect harmony with the divine plan.

We are given clear and applicable insights into Satan’s strategy against God and His people and also into Christ’s way of victory over the tempter

Matthew’s purpose was to demonstrate the pattern found in Jesus’ human victory over sin, a pattern that He longs to share with all who belong to Him

You can face temptation and be victorious

I. Led by the Spirit vs. 1-2

When facing temptation it is important to be led by the Spirit

As soon as Jesus comes out of the water of his baptism he goes into the wilderness

The Holy Spirit led him there

He will fast for 40 days and then face the tempter, who we know as the devil

If you are going to face temptation you will need to be led and empowered by the Spirit

All of history has shown that without it, man is weak

1 Corinthians 10:12

Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

Into the Wilderness

He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness

The wilderness of Judea is a hot, barren, and desolate area that extends west from the Dead Sea almost to Jerusalem, and is some thirty-five miles long and fifteen miles wide

He will be in the wilderness 40 days which is an allusion to the 40 years Israel spent

To be Tempted

Jesus is led into the wilderness for the sole purpose to be tempted by the tempter, the Devil

One of Satan’s most common scriptural names is the devil, from diabolos, which means accuser or slanderer.

Among the many other names given him are:

the ruler of this world ,

the prince of the power of the air

the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4),

the serpent of old and the deceiver of the whole world (Rev. 12:9),

Many people, including some professing Christians, do not believe in a personal devil.

But Satan has never made himself more personally manifest than he did to Jesus in the wilderness.

Having been cast out of heaven by the Lord, Satan’s full fury has ever since been turned against God and His work

The devil’s single purpose is to frustrate the plan of God and to usurp the place of God.

He therefore continually attacks Christ and all who belong to Him. He also pursues every effort to keep others from coming to Christ.

Fasted 40 days

Once Jesus goes into the wilderness he doesn’t eat for forty days and nights

Satan comes to him when he is at his weakest

He was hungry and without energy

While most people can’t relate to fasting 40 days you can relate to being tempted when hungry

Ever gone grocery shopping when you’re hungry?

You get home and your spouse asks you what you were thinking

You’re thinking in your mind “You should see all the wrappers of stuff I ate on the way home.”

The point here is that temptation often comes when we are at our weakest

And that means more than just being low

Temptation often trips people up after one of their highest moments

Let’s look at the three temptations Jesus faces

Each designed to weaken and destroy the Messiah in an important area of His mission.

The temptations became progressively worse.

II. 1st Temptation: Indulge Yourself vs. 3-4

Temptations will target your selfishness

His first word to Jesus was, If you are the Son of God

Satan was hoping to persuade Jesus to demonstrate His power to verify that it was real.

That would mean violating God’s plan that He set that power aside in humiliation and use it only when the Father willed.

Satan wanted Jesus to disobey God

Attacks at Weakest Point

The first temptation is a direct hit against his hunger

This was a temptation to use God’s gifts for selfish purposes.

Satan suggested that Jesus use His miraculous powers to provide food for Himself.

Jesus wasn’t in control while on earth

He was at the complete mercy of the Lord

He was also able to sympathize with our weaknesses

Hebrews 4:15

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Turn Stones into Bread

We might say that Jesus was being tested through His strengths, through His gifts.

Would He allow His strengths to become traps?

Jesus’ Defense: Live by the Word

Jesus quotes Deut 8:3 in response to the Devil’s temptation

Deuteronomy 8:3

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.

When Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 8:3, Jesus shows that every word that proceeds from the mouth of God should be more precious to us than food itself.

Hunger represents human wants

It wasn’t a matter of refusing supernatural help; it was a matter of submitting to His Father’s timing and will in all things.

By relying on the power and truth of God’s Word, Jesus was willing to fight this battle as a man; He could have easily rebuked Satan into another galaxy, but resisted him in a way that we can imitate and identify with.

We effectively resist temptation in the same way Jesus did: by countering Satan’s seductive lies by shining the light of God’s truth upon them.

If we are ignorant of God’s truth, we are poorly armed in the fight against temptation.

III. 2nd Temptation: An Appeal To Pride vs. 5-7

Temptation will try to get you to test God

Satan tempted Jesus to “force” the Father into a supernatural event.

Satan appealed to the desire within every man to sense approval from God and to have that approval publicly demonstrated.

At the Pinnacle

The pinnacle of the temple arose some 200 feet from the floor of the Kidron Valley.

Devil Quotes Scripture

The devil can use this phrase also.

We can trust that the devil has memorized the Bible himself, and is an expert at quoting it out of its context to confuse and defeat those he tempts.

Here the devil quoted Psalm 91:11-12, and took it out of its context

Psalm 91:11–12

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.

Jesus’ Defense: Do not Test God

Jesus replied with Scripture, but applied correctly.

He knew that attempting to force or manipulate God the Father into such a demonstration would tempt God, which the Scriptures strictly forbid.

Deuteronomy 6:16

“You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.

This warns us against demanding something spectacular from God to prove His love or concern for us.

He has already given the ultimate demonstration of His love for us at the cross (Romans 5:8), and He can do nothing more “spectacular” than that.

IV. 3rd Temptation: Power & Control vs. 8-11

Temptation will appeal to your desire for control and power

This vision invited Jesus to take a shortcut around the cross.

Jesus came to win all the kingdoms of the world and their glory back from Satan’s domain, and Satan offers them to Jesus, if He will only fall down and worship him.

Taken to the Top of the World

Offers Kingdoms in Exchange for Worship

Satan has authority over this world and its governments.

The temptation could not have been real unless there is some real sense that Satan does “possess” all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

Jesus’s Defense: Worship & Serve God only

Deuteronomy 6:13

It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear.