Life of Jesus | Luke 4

Intro

Hey Y’all, how we doing? Are y’all ready for the break next week?

Context

So question for you?

Have you ever wondered what temptation looks like? Have you ever wondered how temptation looks? Is temptation even real? Is there a devil on your shoulder trying to get you to do the wrong thing? How does scripture teach about temptation?

That is where we are going to be tonight.

Sometimes in movies or tv shows, if temptation is a thing, or a moral dilemma comes up sometimes they show the devil on the shoulder thing, or and angel on one side and a devil on the other.

But is that really how it work? That really makes it seem like the devil lives inside of you. Which we don’t believe. So how does it work?

One of my favorite authors wrote a book that deals with temptation but he wrote it as a series of letters written from the perspective of the demons, from one tempter to another younger tempter on how to temp humans. Now there is heavy symbolism and you have to read it with that in mind, but the book is really insightful.

One of the things he says is

“It’s funny how mortals always picture us [demon tempters] as putting things into their minds; in reality our [the demons] best work is done by keeping things out.”

Anyways, I thought this was interesting and really goes into the passage that we are going to be in tonight. Looking at the temptation of Jesus of Jesus.

So tonight we are going to be in Luke 4, we are going though the life and ministry of Jesus, to see who Jesus was and is presently.

So if you have a bible go ahead and turn over to Luke 4, does anyone need a bible? If you do throw a hand up and we will get one to you. Anyone need one? Okay cool,

So Luke 4, let me give you some context to whats going on.

So last week we were looking at the baptism of Jesus, that John the baptist was paving the way. We also talked about how God had not said anything to his people in a long while, and now the God is about to start talking to them, but more than just talking, He is walking amongst them. So Jesus was baptised, and the Holy Spirit fell on Him.

then we skipped a passage, which is the end of chapter three, 3:23-38 it deals with Jesus’s genealogy, I’m not going to preach from there but that passage is put in the middle of this story we are about to look at to reinforce the fact that Jesus is the Son of God, this is one way Luke says that Jesus is God.

And so this brings us back to the very end of the scene we looked at last week with Jesus’s baptism. Luke 4 Picks up with Jesus walking out of the Jordan. So if you haven’t gotten there yet, turn over to Luke 4 verse 1-13.

We are going to read this whole conversation and then break it up. but before we do that, let’s pray for our time in the word tonight.

pray

Okay, let’s read this whole passage Luke 4:1-13

Luke 4:1–13 ESV

1 And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” 4 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’ ” 5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ ” 9 And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ 11 and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ” 12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” 13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

Spiritual Warfare is Real

Okay so what is going? What do we see here? What I’m seeing is a conversation between Jesus and Satan.

Like we said this picks up right after the baptism scene, Jesus comes out of the Jordan then goes in to the wilderness where he is tempted for 40 days.

but the first thing I want you to notice is, verse 1 jesus is Full of the Holy Spirit, and Led by the Holy Spirit. We see Jesus being led by the spirit in to the wilderness.

Which rang some bells in my head from our Galatians study, what does being led by the spirit do? It produces fruit, it produces the fruits of the spirit.

But Jesus is being led by the spirit, and Jesus went in to the wilderness, still being lead by the spirit.

And what happens? for 40 Days the devil tempts him. So the first thing that I want you see here is that Spiritual Warfare is real, if you are writing things down write that down, spiritual warfare is real. Satan is real. The Enemy is real and the enemy is bold. Jesus is literally God in the flesh, Satan knows who God is, Satan was created by God, Satan still thinks he can tempt Jesus, God in flesh.

So i’ve always wondered this about Superhero movies, like you know like let’s say Batman or like Spiderman, they drop down in front of a group of bad guys, and the first bad guy is like I got this, you steps punches or tries to hit him with something, what ever bad guys try to do, and Batman just ruins him, Some kind of jujitsu throws the guy through a wall or Spiderman like kicks him up to the ceiling and puts webs on him. First guy gets his day wrecked, that guy gets a pass, it makes sense for him to try and fight Batman of Spiderman, he didn’t know, he was trying to be a good bad guy employee, boss said no distractions, i got this. First guy gets a pass on this. But… what has confused me is the second guy who tries to fight Batman or says “I’ll squash the spider” like bro, you’re not, he just kicked a man through a wall, that guy is probably dead, you are like 40 with back problems. And he steps to him batman and what happens? He also gets a hole kicked through his chest.

Like Satan is the second guy in this situation. Like Satan knows who Jesus is, he knows that Jesus is God. has all the power of God. but that should tell you how bold the enemy is, how bold satan is.

The thing is though, we aren’t God. Satan tempts God, how much more could he tempt you.

But think about this, if you are in Christ, you have the Holy Spirit. If you are being lead by the Spirit, then the spirit is with you even in the wilderness.

So what does this tell us? it tells us that Spiritual Warfare is real, and you are going to face attacks from the enemy. The enemy is real and wants to destroy you. The enemy will use suffering to ruin you. Will use the wilderness to pull you towards sin. If Jesus faced temptation, then you will also face temptation.

and so we need to understand that. as we walk with Christ we are going to face temptation to step off the path Jesus is walking.

This also tells us that being led by the spirit will lead us to uncomfortable places. The wilderness is a place in the old testament where the People of God were tested, shaped and formed, the people of God experienced God in the wilderness. They experienced growing pains in the wilderness.

Temptation never comes from God

So let’s keep going, cause this line of thought if we are not careful can lead us to think somethings about God that are not true. V. 2 says, he was tempted by the devil. This is should tell us that temptation never comes from God. the devil is the one who has to tempt, the enemy is the one who tempts. The Enemy is the one who corrupts. temptation never comes from God, so if you are writing things down, write that down. Temptation never comes from God.

The Enemy needs to tempt to pull you away from God, where if you are following Christ you are following goodness, you are following perfection. If you are following Christ you can’t help but follow Him closer. God doesn’t have to compel you with outside compulsion, God doesn’t need to make you follow him. If God made us love him it would not be love but forced devotion.

The Enemy is the one who needs tempt you. That is what has been going on since the beginning. Since the Garden.

Temptation tells you to rely on yourself more than God.

Look at verse 3, lets read the rest of this conversation between Christ and Satan. Luke 4:3-13

Luke 4:3–13 ESV

3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” 4 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’ ” 5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ ” 9 And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ 11 and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ” 12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” 13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

So look at the progression of this conversation. Satan is at first trying to get Jesus to perform a miracle. Turn the stones in to bread.

Then Satan makes a jump and shows Jesus all the powers and kingdoms of the world. and offers them to Jesus. He says these are mine, but i’ll give them to you if you worship me.

And this is interesting. When I first read this I was struck a little bit by it. Has the world been given over to Satan? and I thought for a moment, and yeah scripture speaks to this, Ephesians 2 says satan is the prince of the power of the air. Satan has his grasp around the kingdoms of the world. And this tells us something. Jesus obviously doesn’t take him up on this but this tells us something about this world and what Jesus is here for.

If we read the whole of Scripture when we get to Revelation we see that Christ has come to make all things new, restoring, conquering Satan, defeating sin, death, restoring this world. Jesus is saying to Satan this world is going to pass away, you may be the one who has a grasp on this right now, but only because we are going to come and take this away from you, we are going to come and make all things new.

When that doesn’t work Satan moves to get Jesus to test God. To test the father. Throw yourself from up here and see if God will do what he says he will do.

But we see a theme here in Satan’s temptations.

so question, have you ever seen a tv commercial for a Mexican Restaurant? Like have you ever seen Agave or El Som have a commercial on TV? No. They don’t have to advertise, they do what they do and for the most part it is irresistible to us. We just show up, you’re just like I gotta have have some cheesy rice and tacos. Or what ever it is you get, you just gotta have it. They don’t have marketing campaigns, they don’t have a commercial on WMAZ and if you ever do see a commercial for a Mexican restaurant, that is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, I a’nit going there. You know who does advertise? McDonalds. McDonalds has a ton of commercials, and in all of the commercials they aren’t trying to sell you burgers and fries, they are trying to sell you happiness. they are trying to sell you joy. They are trying to sell you a view of your life that is totally fulfilled.

Watch a commercial, all of the people in the commercial are happy, they’re eating it at their 100k a year corporate job, there is a McDonalds cup on someone’s Pelaton. Everyone is sitting around the table enjoying their lives and McDonalds is apart of that.

But then you go to McDonalds, you drive up, you get in the drive through, you order the Big Mac with Fries, you get pull up to the window, get your bag, you get home. you open the box your Big Mac came in, and it does not look like the pictures. It’s probably squished, like the guy who made it somehow couldn’t get it in the box, there is just ketchup and special sauce everywhere, from the moment you opened it, giant mess. You eat it, it just tastes like a burnt frozen meat patty. It’s awful, all those commercials of happy people.

This is how temptation works. it doesn’t match the marketing material, it doesn’t live up to the hype. This is what the enemy is doing, the enemy is marketing to you a bill of goods that can never live up to what is promised. The enemy is pulling your gaze of Jesus to yourself.

Satan is not trying to merely make you indulge in a vice, Satan is trying to do something way worse. He is trying to pull your focus off of God.

Temptation is not just about choosing a certain vice; Temptation pulls your eyes of God and on to yourself, for yourself to say I can do this my own way, I know the way to happiness better than God. The temptation then becomes not to a certain vice but to take God off of the throne and put yourself there.

Temptation tells you to rely on yourself instead of God. if you’re writing things down, write that down, Temptation tells you to rely on yourself instead of God.

What do we do about it?

So this begs the question, what do we do about it? how do we fight temptation? How do we fight the Enemy?

Our example and our hope is in Christ. Look at how Christ fought these temptations, it wan’t through sheer force of will, it was through something far more powerful.

Look at what jesus says, when Satan tells him to turn stones in to bread, he responds, it is written, “man cannot live on bread alone.”

When Satan tells Jesus he will give him all the kingdoms if he would only bend the knee and worship Satan jesus responds, “it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”

When Satan tells Jesus to test the Lord, jesus says, “it is said, you shall not put the lord your God to the test.”

Are you seeing a theme? If anyone could have just faced temptation with pure will Jesus probably could, but that is not how jesus did it, Jesus quoted Scripture. For every temptation Jesus gave scripture right back.

Jesus gave the word of God right back.

So what do we do about this? How do we fight temptation? Through the power of the word of God. If we are followers of Christ we need to know what the word of God says, Jesus is not just a concept, Jesus is a personal God with words he has spoken to us, we need to know them, this is how you fight temptation. Lord we need your word. It is written is how we fight against temptation. How we war against the power of the Enemy, not by any words we can think of but by the word of God.

We need to know scripture, we need to internalize scripture but even more so, we need to understand scripture. Because if we look at this exchange between Jesus and Satan, jesus isn’t the only one who quotes scripture. Satan quotes scripture, but satan can only twist scripture. We have to internalize and understand scripture, so that when we see it twisted we can say, this is not what that means. This is why i try to give you context, you have to keep the text in context. You need to know why the text is saying what it is saying.

I think i’ve told you this before, but do you know how the FBI fights counterfeit money? What they do is not go and study all the different ways to create fake money, what they do is they take their agents to the treasury for about two weeks where all they do is handle the real thing. The just put their hands on money on different real bills. The have it in their hands, feeling and becoming familiar with how real money feels. And even we can tell that money has a different feel to it. But they do this, so that when the agent touches a fake bill he knows right off the bat, it’s fake, it doesn’t feel like money, it feels off.

That is how we need to be with scripture, we nee do know what the real thing is so that when we see scripture twisted and taken out of context or things that just aren’t scripture we instantly know, this doesn’t feel right. We need to know scripture and understand scripture. Scripture if life sustaining, scripture is how we fight against temptation.

P2 Christ

So, why does this matter? What is the point of all of this? Why are we talking about this?

Because following Christ is going to bring attacks from the enemy. If Jesus was tempted you better believe that you will be too. you need to be ready, when you leave this student group you need to know what scripture says because the enemy will throw everything he has at you, you need to know what you believe and why. We have to cling to the word of God.

If you are a follower of Christ, this text is telling us that Satan is real and that we are going to face temptation, this text is also calling us to know scripture, to fully rely on Christ. To not take our eyes off of christ. This text is calling you to see and know christ deeper.

If you are not a follower of Christ, this text is calling you to see that the world is going to pass away, the only hope there is in this world is in Christ. We are all broken, Christ has come and made a way for forgiveness of sin, for us to have a relationship with God. This text is calling you to ask yourself who is king of your life? Who is the on e calling the shots? Are you on the throne or is Christ on the throne? This text is calling you to see christ as lord.

If you have any questions about what it means to be a follower of Christ please talk to me, talk to one of the adults, talk to a friend, talk to someone. Eternity is to long to not know where you stand with God. Come see Christ as Lord, come see Christ as King.

Y’all pray with me.