Lent 2006: “Between You and God: The Inner Journey”
Cynthia O’Brien
First Sunday in Lent
"The Temptation of Jesus"
March 5, 2006
Psalm 25
Of David.
PS 25:1 To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul;
PS 25:2 in you I trust, O my God.
Do not let me be put to shame,
nor let my enemies triumph over me.
PS 25:3 No one whose hope is in you
will ever be put to shame,
but they will be put to shame
who are treacherous without excuse.
PS 25:4 Show me your ways, O LORD,
teach me your paths;
PS 25:5 guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long.
Matthew 4:1-11
MT 4:1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
Jesus answered, "It is written: `Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' "
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written:
" `He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' "
Jesus answered him, "It is also written: `Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' "
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."
Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: `Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.' "
Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
We are all subject to temptation. But temptation is not the same for each of us. One person may be tempted by chocolate. Another person is not interested in chocolate, but is tempted to gossip behind other people’s backs. One person is tempted by sexual relationships, another will easily overspend on a credit card.
When I was at USC I worked for a year in the USC bookstore. I hardly ever took home a paycheck, because I felt I just had to buy all these books! Buying books was a huge temptation. Finally I got smart and quit the bookstore and took a job in the USC restaurant. Plenty of people would not have been tempted to buy books, but I was, and I had to deal with it.
Notice that none of these temptations is necessarily a sin. Books and chocolate aren’t inherently bad. Sex isn’t inherently evil. Just talking about another person isn’t bad in itself. But too much chocolate is a problem. Books can be used for evil purposes. Conversation and sex can destroy people if not done rightly. The enemy twists these good things for evil, and tries to get you to do it wrong.
Being tempted is not a sin. Giving in to it, is.
Let’s look at the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness and find the ultimate model of resisting temptation.
[Many thoughts from the NIV Application Commentary on Matthew
by Michael J. Wilkins]
MT 4:1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit
The Spirit will give power to Jesus to withstand the temptation.
into the desert to be tempted by the devil.
This is the first time we encounter the devil. The Greek term diabolos means accuser. This is The devil, the enemy of God. This is not just a battle in the desert, but a clash of kingdoms.
2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him
when he was weak and hungry, and gave him three attractive suggestions, or temptations, to try to derail Jesus from the ministry Jesus was about to begin.
The first temptation is to misuse the power God gives you.
and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
The devil is saying, “Since you have the power and you are hungry, do it!” Seems like a perfectly reasonable idea. But the devil is not trying to encourage Jesus for good. He’s trying to get Jesus to go contrary to the Father’s will.
Temptation is one of the ways that the devil tries to get a person to go contrary to God’s will. A temptation is not necessarily trying to get you to do something that is inherently sinful. It’s not wrong to turn stones into bread, which we find out later Jesus would certainly have been able to do since he miraculously multiplied loaves and fishes.
But the Father’s will at this time was for Jesus to fast, and then to have the experience of living a truly human life.
Have you ever been tempted to turn stones into bread? Did you ever get the idea, and wonder where it came from, that you should use your power at a time and place that it wasn’t appropriate?
You’re the biggest kid in your class. You stand taller and weigh more than everybody else. Out on the playground, you don’t like the way someone talked to you, so you push them around just to show them who’s boss. You say, “Hey, they deserved it,” but you really shouldn’t have done it. You had power and you used it wrongly.
Or you are a grandparent, and every time you visit your son and daughter-in-law, you give them a lecture from your own experience on how they ought to be raising your grandchildren differently. Your daughter in law listens politely, because you’re an “honored citizen,” but she’s feeling abused. You’ve misused the power God gave you.
There may be a time for a big kid to use your strength, and there may be a time for a grandparent to share your wisdom, but in God’s time. Jesus had power, but he refused to use it when it wasn’t God’s time.
How did Jesus resist this temptation? He quoted a passages from Deuteronomy, in which Moses reminded the people that God had led them in the desert to humble them and to test them. One of the tests was through hunger and God’s miraculous provision of manna. The lesson was:
`Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'
In other words, we have to trust God to care for us. And since Jesus was in the desert at God’s leading, he wasn’t going to undermine God’s plan for him. He showed that he had personal trust in God’s leading. He doesn’t need to turn stones into bread in order to confirm that he is the Son of God or to supply his own food.
The second temptation is about trying to manipulate God into proving God loves you.
MT 4:5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.
probably the southeast corner of the temple area, which was 450 feet nigh over the Kidron Valley. The devil again says “If you are the Son of God” but this time the devil quotes from Psalm 91:11-12
" `He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' "
This is also something Jesus would be able to do. Later in chapter 26, just before his arrest, he said that if he wanted, he could call on his Father to rescue him by sending angels. The devil is trying to manipulate Jesus while he is twisting the scripture. Psalm 91 does not say that God will protect us from every harmful situation. So Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 4:7:
`Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' "
If Jesus intentionally put himself in harm’s way, Jesus would be inappropriately testing his Father’s love, trying to manipulate his Father into sending a rescuing force of angels. True faith does not make those kinds of demands.
Have you ever been tempted to throw yourself off a roof to see if God would save you? Well, if you think about it, you might have had this temptation… that is, to manipulate God into proving God cares for you.
Oh, Father, we pray, if you really loved me, you would do this for me.
Or, your agnostic friend says, “Gee, you say your God loves you but look how screwed up your life is.” It makes you want to say, “No, God still loves me, let me think of how to prove it to you.”
True faith does not try to manipulate God to show God’s love.
The third temptation is cheating and idolatry.
MT 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."
This last temptation is the hardest. All those kingdoms – that’s why Jesus came, to gather all the nations into the kingdom of God. But before Jesus sits on the royal throne, he must hang on the cross. So the devil offers a shortcut. Jesus can bypass the suffering of the cross. But that would mean giving up the will of his Father in heaven to worship the devil on earth.
Think of what Jesus could have … and not have to suffer for it.
Have you ever been tempted by the promise of getting everything you want, and just having to make one “little” accommodation?
Get it all, and you won’t have to suffer for it. All you have to do is worship me.
There is an epidemic of cheating in schools. The “bad” kids are cheating, so the “good” kids feel that they have to cheat to stay ahead. Everybody wants a short cut. Not everybody, but a lot of people. Somehow they feel the world owes them, so they give up their integrity and their work ethic, two critical aspects of their character, key components of their eternal soul.
But Jesus will not fall for this one, and he answers stronger than ever; in fact, he issues his first command over the devil:
"Away from me, Satan!
Then Jesus quotes Deuteronomy for the third time.
`Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.' "
You have to be clear in your own mind about who’s in charge of this world and whether you are going to worship him or somebody else.
MT 4:11 Then the devil left him,
As powerful as the Devil may be, as weak as Jesus must have been after the fasting, Jesus got rid of him with just a word. The hymn we sang last week, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, speaks of the Prince of Darkness, and says, “For lo, his doom is sure, one little word shall fell him.” Jesus stood fixed on his Father’s will. He stood on the truth of Scripture.
and angels came and attended him.
Temptations are real. The fact that you are a church-going, God-pursuing Christian doesn’t mean that you won’t continue to be tempted. This sanctuary doesn’t protect you from being tempted. Remember even Jesus was tempted. It’s not a sin to be tempted.
Jesus has given us an example. These temptations in the desert were unique to Jesus’ mission, but they give us an example of how we can resist temptation. He resisted the maximum that the demonic world could throw at him. His prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane show just how agonizing his temptation was, but he never gave in.
God has promised us that we can overcome temptation. Paul says in 1 Corinthians: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”
You CAN stand up under it. You don’t have to give in. Just remember Jesus.
When you are tempted to use your power inappropriately, remember why God gave it to you.
When you are tempted to try to get God to prove his love for you, remember that God is love and that we are not to put God to the test.
When you are tempted to sell out in order to use a shortcut, remember that Jesus could have avoided the cross, but didn’t, out of love for you. Hold on to your character and your integrity and your work ethic. You can do it.
Let us pray.
Lord, we know that Jesus faced every temptation that we did, and that he did not sin. We thank you for his example. Help us on our journey to be strong to resist the devil, so that he will flee from us. Amen.
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