Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Every year, the first Sunday in Lent begins with the temptation or testing of Jesus by Satan in the wilderness.

The three synoptic gospels all have versions of this encounter.

Matthew and Luke’s versions are longer and more detailed than Mark’s, but it is present in all.

Why would we begin the Lenten season with the same story every year?

We have just come out of the season of Epiphany where we learned the ways in which the Word made flesh of Advent and Christmas reveals himself to the world as God incarnate in real and tangible ways.

Epiphany begins with baptism of Jesus where he is identified as the Messiah and the Son of God, and it ends with the Transfiguration of Jesus where Jesus then sets his eyes toward Jerusalem and the cross and the same voice declaring familiar words from his baptism.

Lent is the season of repentance and preparation for the greatest Epiphany of Christ - the resurrection.

Over the next six weeks, we will spend time with Jesus and his disciples as they make their way to Jerusalem.

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday and the call to remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

It is a reminder that in a world that tries to hold on to this life with everything it has that we are nothing more than dust.

All the stuff we accumulate in life is stuff that will fade away.

It is a reminder that we must hold on to that which is eternal and lasting - namely Jesus Christ.

So, when we get to the first Sunday of Lent, we read the story of Jesus’ temptation and think that it is just another depressing story.

We want to go ahead and get on with Easter because it is exciting and joyful.

Ashes, sin, temptation - those are things that we just want to forget about.

Resurrection is where it’s at!

But that’s not real life, is it?

Temptation and testing happen every day.

We all have moments when we have to reassess where we are and what we are doing because we realize we are not headed in the right direction.

The Holy Spirit prompts us to do something different.

Sometimes that means going into the wilderness and tangling with evil within and without.

It means that we have look deep within ourselves and see the stain of sin that lingers because we want to hold on to some parts of our old life because it makes us comfortable.

But in the end, it just withers us away.

Confronting the reality of our situation is what this first Sunday is all about.

It is in the confronting of the temptation that we learn how transformation can really take place in us so that the image of Christ will shine brightly within us.

1.

We are transformed in temptation by obedience to God’s word.

(vs.

3-4)

Jesus is sent out into the wilderness by the prompting of the Holy Spirit as a way to prepare him for the ministry that is ahead.

It is also a call back to the time of the Israelite’s wilderness wanderings for forty years.

The first temptation or test is one of hunger.

Matthew and Luke are clear that these tests come at the end of the Jesus’ time in the wilderness.

Mark is a little less clear.

This particular test reminds us of the Israelites first entering the wilderness and wanting the delicacies of Egypt.

Jesus rejects the attitude of Israel.

He responds with a quotation from Deuteronomy 8:3

The wilderness wanderings required the Israelites to be humble and obedient.

The same is true of Jesus.

Where the Israelites failed, Jesus succeeded.

The Israelites did not trust God.

Jesus did.

He knew that provision would be given to him in God’s time and by God’s initiative.

He chose obedience over the quick relief of hunger pangs.

Do we ever long for something more?

Do we think back to times gone by and want them to return?

I recently read an article that said that COVID-19 has re-framed our minds to long for nostalgia like never before, and my generation, Gen X, is the generation that has been effected most by this longing for different times.

The Israelites lived in the past.

Jesus looked to the future.

Knowing that his obedience and humility meant something more than just him not doing what he had the power to do and turn stones into bread.

Instead of displaying the kind of power that he could have, he chose humble obedience as the way because he knew that his obedience would bring us salvation.

2. We are transformed in temptation by the proper worship of God.

(vs.

5-8)

The second temptation that was faced by Jesus began with Satan showing him a bird’s-eye view of all the kingdoms of the world.

There is not a place on earth that can do that so we must believe that it was a vision or a rhetorical phrase.

The point is that Satan is tempting Jesus to be ruler of the nations without having to go through the suffering of the cross.

Satan claims that he is the one who has the power to hand over all the world to Jesus.

However, just as in the Garden, Satan twists God’s word to try to lead astray in Luke 4:6

Jesus knows the devil’s schemes and retorts back by quoting from 1 Samuel 7:3 and Deuteronomy 6:13 when he says,

This rebuttal from Jesus comes at a point in Deuteronomy where Israel has repeated failed to worship God properly.

The generation that came before had worshiped the golden calf at Sinai and this generation that is about to enter the promise land will have to face the temptation to worship the Canaanite gods.

Jesus’ words come just after Moses shares the Shema, which is repeated several times a day by Jews -

This temptation strikes at the heart of the loyalty of Jesus to the Father.

We must look at the promise that is given about Jesus in Psalm 2:8

This psalm is a messianic psalm that points to the rule of the Messiah over all the world.

Because Jesus is divine and the Son of God he is already entitled to rule and reign over all things.

All authority and power is his.

What the devil is offering him by worshiping him is inferior to what Jesus already possesses.

We must know that when we worship anything other than the Lord we are displacing him with something that is inferior.

When we spend more time focusing on the things of the world than we do in worship, we are staying where we are.

There is no transformation that can take place.

We cannot truly be who God has called us to be as his people.

We are still dead in our sin.

We can be tempted to worship other things and gain prestige in this world.

But that temptation must drive us to the worship of the one true God who is over and above all things.

We must take seriously what Moses says to the Israelites that we must worship the Lord alone and only him.

For he is worthy to be worshiped and praised.

3. We are transformed in temptation through our faith in God.

(vs.

8-13)

In the final temptation, Satan takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem.

There was a rabbinic tradition at the time of Jesus that the Messiah would reveal himself on the roof of the temple.

Again, he tries to twist scripture by quoting from

In doing so, he is trying to goad Jesus into proving that God will protect him by jumping from the top of the temple.

It is a way of trying to sow doubt in Jesus’ mind to see if God will truly protect him.

But Jesus replies again from Deuteronomy:

It combats the temptation, but also shows how Israel once again failed God when they tested him at Massah when they had no water to drink in Exodus 17:1-7.

The temptation is to prove the truth of God’s promise by putting him to the test.

However, a person of God does not need to put God to the test because he has faith that God will act.

By giving into this temptation, Jesus would have shown a lack of faith in God’s promises.

We, as God’s people, have been promised much by God.

It is tempting for us to test God when things do not go the way we wish.

We can try to bargain with God in such ways as the people did in Massah in Exodus 17:3

We can have this same kind of attitude in our hearts.

But we must remember what Paul tells us in Romans 10:17

We must lean on Christ in those moments of temptation to blame God and to test him.

We must have faith that whatever is happening that God will see us through it and give us the strength to endure.

It can be easy for us to be as the Israelites were.

But when we give into this kind of temptation, it will lead us further from God and his promises for us.

Paul tells us in Romans 12:2

Testing in our lives will lead us to know what God’s will is for us.

But in order for that to happen our minds must be transformed from the ways of the world to the ways of God.