Tree of Life 6

Last week, we looked at Jesus’ birth and ended with His Baptism, the starting point for His public ministry. This week we will look at Jesus’ teaching ministry. But first, we begin with an important test.

Jesus’ Temptation in the Wilderness

After Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit drove Him into the wilderness where He fasted forty days and nights. All that time He was tempted by Satan. In reality, our entire human race was getting a “do-over” of that first temptation where Adam and Eve failed—and every temptation that has struck you and me, temptations we frequently follow, disobeying God and deserving His eternal punishment. If Jesus wins, we all benefit; if He fails, we are forever lost.

At the end of those forty days, Jesus felt His great hunger.

The devil tempted Jesus in these ways:

Satan came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” (Matthew 4:3)

It sounded reasonable. How can Jesus save the world if He dies of hunger first?

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 4:4)

Jesus knew Satan was tempting Him to distrust His Father. Jesus knew His Father and trusted Him to feed Him when the time was right.

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.’” (Matthew 4:5–6)

Jesus had declared His trust in His Father. So, Satan replied, “Prove it.” This was a brilliant temptation. In fact, if Jesus didn’t jump, it would look like He didn’t trust His Father.

Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” (Matthew 4:7)

Jesus used the Bible masterfully. He didn’t need to prove the faith and trust in His heart—His Father knew, and that was all that mattered.

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.” (Matthew 4:8–9)

This was the most similar to the temptation to Eve. Do as I say, trust me, and I will give you power and wealth untold. But Jesus saw through this temptation too.

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” (Matthew 4:10–11).

When our first parents, Adam and Eve, gave in to Satan’s temptation and ate the forbidden fruit, they shattered creation, and our whole human family fell from God’s grace, losing the image of God with which we were created. But in Christ, we received a new chance as St. Paul declared in our Romans passage.

Romans 5:15 NIV84

But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!

Jesus held firm and obedient to His Father through every single one of Satan’s temptations over that stretch of forty days. His perfect obedience gave us a new beginning.

Jesus’ Ministry in Galilee

Afterward, Jesus gathered some disciples and returned to Galilee, the northern region of Israel, and began His public ministry.

Jesus’ disciples were an important part of His ministry. He had hundreds of followers, but He specifically chose and called Twelve. These would be eyewitnesses of His teachings and His mighty miracles, also His death and resurrection. He would fill them with the Holy Spirit, and they would be His witnesses. Their teachings and writings would be the foundation for Jesus’ New Testament Church, and they would write and oversee the writing of the New Testament. This is why we confess that we believe in “one holy Christian and Apostolic Church.”

Matthew 9:35-36 “Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing very sickness and every disease among the people. But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.”

Jesus went from village to village throughout Galilee teaching and performing miracles. Jesus’ teaching started the same as John the Baptist’s teaching: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Both taught people to recognize their sins and repent of them—that is, to regret the times they broke God’s Laws and seek to change their lives in obedience to God. He assured them of God’s mercy and grace and promised them forgiveness for all their sins.

Jesus’ pattern was to teach in synagogues on the Sabbath Day, Saturday, and then spend the rest of the week teaching in the city squares and visiting people’s homes when they invited Him. When He was in Jerusalem for the required Festivals, He taught in the temple courts. Jesus’ teachings focused on God’s tremendous grace and love for all sinners and His full and free forgiveness, which requires nothing from us.

The parables were some of His greatest teaching tools. He told lively, memorable stories of everyday people, places, and events—

a farmer scattering seed,

a shepherd and his sheep,

a man with his two sons,

a king inviting his subjects to be guests at his son’s wedding banquet.

But these stories taught heavenly truths to His followers, truths which often turned the people’s thinking and expectations upside down. He would speak of lowly and despised people receiving God’s grace while wealthy, well-respected, and prominent Jewish leaders were sent away empty-handed by God because they were confident in their own works.

Jesus worked great miracles which showed God’s Kingdom and that the Messiah had come among them. His healing miracles showed His concern for our physical well-being and foreshadowed the perfect, eternal healing He will bring when He returns on the Last Day to restore creation. He restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, mobility to paralytics, and He cured palsied limbs. He cleansed lepers, as in this account from Mark’s Gospel:

Mark 1:40-42 “Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.” As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed.”

During His ministry, Jesus drove out demons—who are the fallen angels who rebelled against God and lost their home in heaven with Satan. Ever since Satan’s intrusion in the Garden of Eden, they have been seeking to destroy God’s creation and turn people from faith. This includes possessing people. Jesus often encountered the demon-possessed, sometimes in strange places. One met Him in a synagogue, another in a graveyard, still another at the foot of the mountain on which Jesus had just been transfigured.

And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. (Mark 9:25–27)

Jesus drove these demons out of people with a word, a command; and since He was their Creator and Lord, they had no choice but to obey Him. This foreshadows Judgment Day when He will drive the fallen angels from His creation and punish them in hell for all eternity.

Jesus also worked great miracles to demonstrate His authority over creation and His power to completely restore it on the Last Day. He stilled strong storms and waves with a command:

And when He got into the boat, His disciples followed Him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but He was asleep. And they went and woke Him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And He said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then He rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey Him?” (Matthew 8:23–27)

Jesus even demonstrated His power over death during His ministry. Three times the Gospels record Jesus raising people from the dead. The third involved a family who was close to Him:

Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” . . . So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that You sent Me.” When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go” (John 11:38–39, 41–44).

These miracles of raising the dead demonstrated Jesus’ power over death, not to mention His own resurrection on the third day after His crucifixion and death.

Though great crowds gathered around Him, Jesus faced increasing opposition and persecution from Jewish leaders who falsely taught the way to God’s presence was obedience to the customs and rules developed by the Jewish rabbis or teachers. Jesus exposed their self-righteous hypocrisy and condemned their useless teachings.

But probably the thing that angered them the most was the way Jesus would perform His miracles on the Sabbath Day when their traditions insisted on Jews abstaining from any form of work. Jesus taught that the Sabbath was a day for God to work giving people rest from their sins and teaching them about His great love and mercy. Since Jesus is the Son of God, it is fitting for the Son of God to provide these divine miracles on the Sabbath Day.

As Jesus’ ministry continued, the opposition from the Jewish religious leaders intensified, setting Him on a collision course when they came together at the great spring Passover festival in Jerusalem. That will be our topic next week. But know this, dear friends: God has given you rest from your sins and victory from your temptations, all because of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.