Immanuel Sermon Audio
Luke 4:1-13
In your bulletin there is an outline, you got me? There we go. There's that buzz we love so much. Just a few more weeks and we'll be done with that. There is an outline in your bulletin if you want to follow along there. If you have a Bible take it out and find the Gospel of Luke chapter 4, Luke 4 we're going to look at the first 13 verses in Luke 4 and in my Bible the heading says the temptation of Jesus which really is not a great heading because it implies that this is the one and only time that Jesus was tempted which is not the case but it is a passage that describes Jesus being tempted and we're going to read these verses here in just a minute. You know as I think about baptism on the one hand it's a culmination. It's a combination of visits and prayers and vacation Bible schools and Sunday school lessons and all the things that take place in the life of a church that influenced these folks and it all sort of leads up to and culminates in the celebration of baptism but one of the greatest tragedies in churches today is people who see baptism only as the culmination, only as the end and these are the kind of people I'm talking about maybe their child or their parents or their friend or a co-worker gets baptized and they're excited and they sort of say man we've been praying for this we've been hoping for this this is so exciting. And they just sort of breathe the spiritual sigh of relief as if all this buildup was leading to the baptism and now it's done and there's nothing else to look forward to nothing else to be done and nothing could be further from the truth. It is true that in a sense baptism is a culmination but what a tragedy to see it only as a culmination and to breathe the sort of spiritual sigh of relief when it's done. Listen baptism is really not the end of anything it's really the beginning of everything for a follower of Jesus Christ. And if you think that as a lost person, as an unbelieving person that you face temptation wait till you get baptized. Wait till you become a follower of Jesus Christ and then think about the temptation that's about to come your way. What a tragedy that so many people in our churches get baptized and within a few weeks or maybe a month they're sort of confused and discouraged because they sort of look around and they say okay it's like three weeks later I'm still struggling with the same stuff. I'm still tempted to do the same things. Has anything changed in me or has it not changed in me? And maybe it's shame on us for not warning them and telling them listen this is not the end of your spiritual journey. This is not now you have your free pass to heaven you just sort of hang out till God calls you home. This is the beginning of all of it and the temptation that you're about to face now as a follower of Jesus Christ is far greater than any temptation that you've wrestled with so far. That's how it played out for Jesus. If you just sort of look at the layout of Luke's gospel and it matches the other gospel accounts first Jesus gets baptized then he faces intense satanic demonic temptation in the wilderness. I want you to remember the theme verse of the gospel of Luke. It's Luke 1910 and there it is on the screen it's on the top of your outline each week. The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. That's the theme verse and it fits perfectly with the big idea of our passage this morning and if you fill in the outline here's the big idea up at the top. Jesus had to live a life of perfect and complete obedience in order to seek and save the lost. He had to live a life of perfect and complete obedience in order to be a fit substitute who could one day seek and save the lost by giving his life on the cross. Think with me about this. It was a member of Herod's family who eventually was part and parcel of Jesus being crucified. One of his ancestors also tried to kill Jesus in Bethlehem when he was laying in the manger. Another Herod tried to send out an execution order to kill Jesus. Listen, if all Jesus had to do in this mission to seek and save the lost was die he could have died in Bethlehem. As he lay there in the manger in Bethlehem he was the sinless Son of God. He was God in human flesh laying in that barn. If all we needed was someone to die for us it could have happened right then. We could have saved ourselves for long books, gospels of things that Jesus did and taught and said if all we needed was someone to die for us we do need someone to die for us. That's one of our greatest needs but before he could do that he had to live a life of perfect and complete obedience because not only do we need our sin taken away but we need the gift of righteousness that we have failed to obtain in our lives. And so what Luke is showing us here in the temptation of Jesus is he battles with Satan in the wilderness is that Jesus had to live a life of perfect and complete obedience in order to one day seek and save the lost by giving his life on the cross. If you have your Bible look at the passage Luke chapter four beginning in verse one. The Word of God says this Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days being tempted by the devil and he ate nothing during those days and when they were ended he was hungry. The devil said to him if you are the son of God command this stone to become bread and Jesus answered him it is written man shall not live by bread alone. And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said to him to you I will give all this authority in their glory for it has been delivered to me and I will give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me it will all be yours. And Jesus answered him it is written you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and he said to him if you are the son of God throw yourself down from here for it is written he will command his angels concerning you to guard you and on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against the stone and Jesus answered him it is said you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. And when the devil had ended every temptation he departed from him until an opportune time. Let's pray. Father we are grateful for your word and we believe that it is true and our prayer this morning is simply that we would understand the spiritual battle that all of us are in every day all day as long as we live on this earth. Father that we would understand the forces that are against us that we would understand the kind of obedience that you are calling us to and most importantly Father we pray that we would see Jesus as the one who came to seek and to save the lost who came to obey where we have failed where we have sinned. Father give us eyes to see the truth this morning we pray in Jesus name amen. You got to admit when you read that passage if you listen to the things that Jesus was tempted with it is a little bit strange it is odd temptations it is not a temptation to sleep with another person's wife it is not a temptation to embezzle money it is not a temptation to massacre a group of people it is a temptation to turn a rock into a piece of bread. It is a temptation to worship the devil and it is a temptation to jump off a tall building. It sounds to me on the surface more like two boys out on the playground saying I dare you I dare you to I got a great idea you should do this no I am not going to I dare you to do it no I am not going to I double dog dare you to do it and back and forth they go they seem like trivial things and on the surface they are trivial things which means underneath the surface there is something else going on and so let's think this morning first about what do we learn about temptation we are going to end with what do we learn about Jesus but first what do we learn about temptation number one you need to get this the spirit of God will not keep you from temptation he will not keep you away from temptation it is so clear in this passage look at verse one in Luke chapter four Jesus was full or filled with the Holy Spirit verse one he was led by the spirit he didn't just stumble into this temptation the spirit of God led him directly to it he was filled with the Holy Spirit now if I was just to say to you describe to me a spirit filled spirit led person what comes into your mind maybe you think okay spirit filled spirit led maybe somebody who's bubbly and excited and cheery and they wake up at five in the morning and they got a smile maybe that's your idea of spirit filled or maybe you think about some goofy guy with a crazy haircut up on a platform slapping people on the forehead knocking them down people falling out and shaking and convulsing maybe that's your idea of spirit filled I don't know here's Luke's idea of spirit filled and spirit led a sinless man in the desert facing off against the devil who hadn't eaten for 40 days and Luke in his professional medical diagnosis says what he was hungry duh that's what it looked like to be spirit led and spirit filled for Jesus the spirit of God intentionally led him to this point because he knew go back to the big idea that in order to seek and save the lost he had to earn the righteousness he had to obey completely imperfectly for us and in our place just like one day he would die for us in our place and so the spirit leads him out to this place of temptation people get confused about this kind of thing a lot and there's a verse that a lot of people tried to quote here's the verse it's in first Corinthians 10 no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man God is faithful he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it how does this get translated into our everyday lives it gets translated into the nonsense that well it's a really tough time right now but I know God won't give me more than I can bear baloney have you ever read second Corinthians chapter one Paul says we despaired of life itself God put us in a situation that we absolutely could not handle or deal with and he did it so that we wouldn't rely on ourselves that we might rely on him so Paul's not saying God's not going to give you anything too hard for you to handle he will and he's not saying that the spirit of God is going to sort of put this Christian bubble around you so that you never have to face temptation he won't what Paul says in first Corinthians 10 is no temptation will come your way that no one else has faced before don't ever fall into the trap of saying no one knows what I'm the only one he says you're not the only one the temptation that comes into your life it's common to man other people have faced it he says God will not put you in a situation where you are tempted beyond your ability to obey he says he will not tempt you where you do not have a way of escape and in all of it God will be faithful but he never says that the spirit will keep you from temptation that if you're somehow facing temptation that means you're not a spiritual person he doesn't say God's not going to give you more than you can handle and Luke is telling us very clearly the spirit of God drives Jesus out into the wilderness to face this temptation the spirit will not keep you from temptation number two what do we learn about temptation Satan wants you to question God's love and his goodness he wants you to doubt it he wants you to believe that it's a fantasy he wants you to be skeptical towards the love and the goodness of God in your life verse three he says take this rock and turn it into some misbeards you're obviously hungry you need something to eat here's a rock I know the power you have just make yourself something to eat do it would there have been anything wrong with Jesus taking a rock and turning it into bread later in his life he took water and turned it into wine it was a miracle he used his power to do it later in life he took twice he took a small basket of food and multiplied it for thousands upon thousands of people to eat he performed food miracles why couldn't he perform one now it's the unspoken sort of suggestion in this temptation that's really dangerous I thought you were God's son doesn't the father take care of his son you don't have anything to eat your father wouldn't want you to go without woody he wouldn't want you to suffer are you sure that he loves you and he are you sure that he's really good look the whole thing's in doubt here we can put it to rest take a rock and make it bread and eat Satan wants you to question into doubt God's love and his goodness had that temptation worked before worked in the Eden didn't it he comes and he says in Genesis 3 to Adam and Eve did God really say you can't have whatever you want here did he really does he have the audacity to tell you don't eat from any of these trees really did it work in the wilderness with Israel God brought you out of Egypt to die in the wilderness why if he loved you why wouldn't he at least give you the kind of food you had when you were a slave in Egypt he wouldn't want this for you woody Moses I don't know Moses would he he wants you to question he wants you to doubt does it happen in our lives today I thought about two families this week I'll put their pictures up first picture is the butts family and the daughters there's three daughters that are all about my age I grew up with him in Amarillo and Steve and Mary or the mom and the dad Steve's there in the middle about a month ago Steve the father lost a long and extremely painful battle with cancer not in his 20s not in his 30s but also not an old man and he suffered terribly with this cancer and it was a very hard thing for the family to deal with and this last week the middle daughter who is sort of next to her dad holding the little baby her name's Haley she was diagnosed just about two weeks after her dad died of cancer she is diagnosed with brain cancer and last night had brain surgery to remove about a tennis ball-sized tumor out of her brain now I follow them on Facebook and keep up with what's happening and the updates they post and their faith is very strong but you know the kinds of questions swirling through their mind don't you why would this happen why would God let this happen we just went through what we thought was the hardest thing we've ever and now we have to deal with this I thought about the Lane family LAYN the Lane family were members of our church in Kingfisher and we had been there about a month in Sheena Lane the mama down on the bottom right died after a long painful battle with cancer and at the time all of her kiddos were in high school one of them was in college it was a tragedy it was sad it was sorrowful it was hurtful it was painful they went on their faith was strong they hung in church they they did remarkably well coming through that and about a month ago Joe their dad was diagnosed with cancer and now he's taking chemo and you look at a family like that and I will tell you the Lane family has strong faith but I'm friends with them and I've talked to them and I know the kind of questions swirling through their mind and you know those questions maybe in your life you've been in a similar situation and you know the kinds of questions that start running through your mind and the temptation is always in the midst of suffering in the midst of loss in the midst of hurt in the midst of pain in the midst of confusion to say well I don't know I used to know that he loved me I used to know that he was good in my life but I don't know anymore is he loving is he good is he real and that's what Satan is tempting Jesus to question the love and the goodness of God number three what do we learn about temptation Satan wants you to idolize comfort and fear suffering slapping the forehead for Americans he wants you to worship comfort and he wants you to be terrified of suffering verse five and eight what do you think about this suggestion you picture Jesus the son of God the God man God in human flesh and there he's facing off nose to nose with the devil and Satan says why don't you just bow down and worship me he says to his creator the one who made him you should worship me and you read that and you think why didn't Jesus just laugh at him I mean that's ridiculous Jesus knew full well that he in the beginning had spoken all things Satan included into existence why not just laugh that off that's ridiculous he doesn't laugh it off does he on some level this was a genuine temptation and so you got to make sense of it in your mind you say what is really going on here did Jesus really think about it bowing down to Satan Satan's not dumb and he knew who Jesus was in fact when you read through the gospels the only people consistently who know who Jesus is Satan in the demons the only ones Jesus shows up and they say we know who you are you're the son of God we know who you are you're the Messiah we know who you are so we knew who Jesus was and by this point in Jesus's life I think he was beginning to understand what kind of Messiah Jesus had come to be he was maybe looking for a birth in the capital in Jerusalem at the palace and instead he finds him in a barn in Bethlehem and he's maybe looking for somebody to come with pomp and and armies and instead he sees a guy apprenticing as a carpenter and he sees Jesus come to John the Baptist and here's John the Baptist say this is the lamb of God who has come to take away the sin of the world Satan doesn't know everything but he knows a lot and he's not stupid and I think at this point he had put the pieces together and he's saying the lamb of God lamb of God lamb of God that rings a bell he's the sacrifice that's what he's here to do and so he says to Jesus in effect look I understand what you're here to do it's a noble mission maybe there's another way to do it that you haven't thought of you've come to get the allegiance of all the nations I understand that maybe there's a shortcut maybe there's a way that you can accomplish what you came to accomplish without dying on the cross you don't need to go to the cross you just need to take one knee it's easy no suffering in it there's no blood in it there's no nails in it there's no pain in it there's no humiliation in it one little knee and all of what you have come to get to purchase is yours what he's saying is you need to put your comfort in God's place you need to be more concerned with your comfort than anything else and you need to be terrified of suffering take a shortcut he wants him to idolize comfort and fear suffering have we fallen for that in the united states a little from birth to death from school to work from our families to our possessions to our bank accounts to just about anything else in life in this culture we are bombarded with the idea that you should be comfortable and we don't want you to suffer and we spend a lot of money and a lot of resources and a lot of time trying to fix that problem and Satan wants you to idolize comfort into fear suffering number four thinking about temptation Satan wants you to live for your glory in your name wants you to live for your glory in your name verse nine to twelve this temptation is kind of tricky i remember as a kid reading this and i just couldn't make sense of it you talk about the ultimate double dog dare this just seems pointless he says let's go to the temple will get up on top you jump down he quotes a few bible verses and he says the angels will come and they'll catch you nothing will happen bad let's do it and i am my mind trying to piece this together i say isn't jesus a little more mature than a dare wouldn't he just laugh it off and say that's stupid i don't have time for that i have a mission to accomplish i'm not going to take your dare or your challenge i don't care if you call me chicken if you call me coward you just expect him to laugh it off but think about it he says let's go to the temple there's always lots of folks at the temple and he says you go to the temple to the place where there's lots of people lots of people who are looking for the messiah and you get up on top and you just take a flying leap and the angels will swoop in and they'll pick you up it'll be amazing everyone will see it they'll know who you are it'll be the fulfillment of bible prophecy right there for everyone to see they will see with their own eyes who you are look you're out here in the desert the son of god and human flesh no one knows who you are or where you're at if you would just listen to me look i have a plan we go to the temple you jump off everyone sees it you are an instant hero you're a national phenomenon you need to live for your glory and your name now i'll be honest with you i've never been tempted to jump off the top of the sanctuary however kori tells me that there was a time in this church where there were easter pageants and kori tells me there's a trap door up in the ceiling here somewhere and jesus and the easter pageants used to rise up through the trap door and kori has tempted me to repel out of the trap door as a sermon entrance instead of walking the steps he says look if jesus can go up you can come down we rig it up the last song ends there you go right there right in place it would be awesome and i thought about it for about one second jesus's temptation is different is not just a double dog dare saying this would be really awesome it's satan saying you need to live for your glory and for your name everyone needs to know who you are it's all about you in the united states have we fallen for that one maybe more than we'd like to admit do we care about cars and clothing and possessions and jobs because we know other people are looking at us probably more than we'd like to admit do we want a certain kind of family or a certain kind of marriage or a certain kind of home life or certain kind of grandkids because we know everybody's looking at us probably more than we'd like to admit at the end of the day what motivates you is that god's glory or is it your glory jesus faced that temptation here's one last lesson number five thinking about temptation the word of god will empower you to resist temptation verse four verse eight verse twelve jesus is tempted and he counters each time with a quotation from the old testament this is tricky because i'm telling you that the word of god will empower you and i don't know how to spell empower apparently but you get the idea it will empower you to resist temptation it will give you the strength the conviction the courage to obey satan knows that and he wants to use god's word against you he wants to make god's word the very thing that you question and you doubt and the very thing that you're not quite sure of and it started all the way back in in the garden right the serpent comes and he says did god really say and then he misquotes god did he really say this and eve has to think and she says well uh no he didn't say that he said this but the seed was planted question it doubt it be a skeptic do not trust and do not plant your feet on the authority of god's word take that one step further with me before we move on from this point the word of god will empower you to obey it will give you the strength in the spiritual direction to obey satan wants you to doubt it he wants you to question it he does not want you to believe it one more step if you don't know it you're dead in the water you don't stand a chance he's got you right where he wants you say well it's a big book there's lots there's 66 books in one book some of it's really boring up if you don't know it you're dead Jesus quoted from some of the quote unquote boring parts when he resisted this temptation it wasn't boring to him if you don't know it you're dead in the water do you really know it or are you the the lady or the guy who says well it's in there somewhere i think it's in proverb somewhere the bible says i think the bible says somewhere that god won't give you more than you can't handle right didn't that in there somewhere i think it's in there somewhere do you know what's in there do you read it do you study it do you meditate on it do you memorize it is it part of your life it will give you the power to resist temptation but saden wants to use it against you he wants you to doubt he wants you to question if you don't know it you're a sitting duck one less thought is this he stepped back from one one through five say okay one is true two is true three is true four these are true things one through five they're all good they're all helpful they're all useful let's talk reality okay drop your church guard and your desire to look super spiritual and let's just be honest you and i are going to leave this building today we're going to go to lunch maybe you're going to go home and take a nap maybe you'll watch a little preseason football this afternoon you're going to go to work tomorrow maybe you go to school tomorrow sooner rather than later we're going to blow it i mean i just gave you five really great points about temptation and i'm just telling you we're going to leave this place and we're going to mess it up we're not going to do it and what i'm saying to you is you don't really need a self-help list a 12-step program for how to be a better person six people who got up in that baptistry this morning i never said to them are you going to try your hardest not to screw up i never said to them do you promise you're going to be better the rest of your life than you were this first part of your life we're expecting major moral improvements out of you buddy what i said is do you confess that you have blown it do you believe that Jesus died for you and are you putting your faith in Jesus let's end with Jesus what does this passage teach us about Jesus one simple idea as the god man who perfectly and completely obeyed god's law Jesus was able to die in the place of sinners he perfectly and he completely obeyed and he was able when the time was right to die in the place of sinners already mentioned verse two he was fasting in the wilderness for 40 days he ate nothing dr. Luke gives his diagnosis he says he was hungry he was hungry because he wasn't superman he wasn't god pretending to be man he was god who was really man to god man and he's starving to death out in the wilderness and he faces this temptation he meets it head on he's come to do battle with the serpent and this is what we read in Hebrews 14 a description of what happened in the wilderness we do not have a high priest Jesus who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin tempted in every respect just like we are if you faced a temptation so did Jesus the only difference is he never gave in in his thoughts in his words in his actions he never crossed the line that he wasn't supposed to cross he never missed the mark in the target that he was shooting for he always obeyed perfectly and when the time was right he was a fit sacrifice he had obeyed god's law perfectly he had no sin to die for he died for your sin and for my sin and when we put our faith in him he not only takes our sin but he gives us the righteousness that he earned that's what Luke's talking about this is not just sort of introduction preamble preliminary matters in the life of Jesus this is the passage that reminds us that Jesus was able to be our Savior because he first obeyed for us before he died for us he obeyed for us look with the book of Hebrews says in chapter two says because he himself has suffered when tempted he is able to help those who are being tempted is he going to help you yes is he going to be with you absolutely will he give you strength in situations when you need it he most certainly will but he didn't just come to lay out some lessons about temptation so that we could pull ourselves up by our spiritual bootstraps and say okay we're going to be really holy now that we've heard this sermon we're not I hope that it gives you some tools to battle temptation but I hope ultimately what you rely on is not a bullet list on a sermon outline but it's the sinless son of god who was tempted in every way just as you are yet he is without sin and he was able to lay down his life for years on the cross and he's able to give you the righteousness that you need before god and he is able as Hebrews 218 says to help you and to strengthen you and to empower you when you're tempted I'm going to ask you to bow and I want to pray for you this morning as we think about temptation and as we think most importantly about Jesus father we love you the Bible says that you have provided everything we need for life and godliness through Jesus. Father we are grateful for his death on the cross for the fact that he took your wrath that should have fallen on us he took the punishment he paid the price to redeem us but father we are also grateful that Jesus lived a life of perfect obedience that made him a fit sacrifice a fit substitute father he earned in his obedience the righteousness that we need to stand before you. Father we do thank you for the lessons about temptation and as we see Jesus obey where we sin we have insight into where we go wrong where our thoughts go wrong where our heart leads us astray and we do pray that you would help us to battle temptation we pray that the one who faced every temptation that we faced and never sinned would strengthen us and empower us that we would know your word that we would rest on your love and your goodness that we would refuse to believe the lies of the enemy. Father we want to take a moment as your people to worship we want to sing to you we want to give you praise and glory for who you are and for all that you've done on our behalf. Father be honored as we worship together we ask it in the name of Jesus our Savior amen.