LIFE IN GOD’S KINGDOM
REQUIRES RESISTANCE
MATTHEW 4:1-11
INTRODUCTION
I have a friend who lives down in Illinois who is the most creative person
I know. He is able to make things out of wood that just amaze me. He made
a set of Smith & Wesson revolvers out of wood that were just like
real. The cylinders turned, the hammers cocked and the triggers made the
hammer fall. He made bullets out of wood that would go in the cylinder.
My admiration for him is greater because when I was younger I tried making
things out of wood and things rarely turned out even close to what I was
trying to do, even after lots of hours spent working.
All of us know people like my friend Mark, people who have abilities
that astound us. It may be the athletic ability of Olympic athletes, the
musical ability of a musician, the self-control we observe in another
parent, or the ability of another student to grasp a concept that remains
a mystery no matter how much time we spend on it. Our level of admiration
for another’s ability is magnified when they are able to accomplish with
excellence and apparent ease things that we have attempted and perhaps
worked at but failed to master.
Today we are going to examine an incident in the life of Jesus that ought
to leave us breathless with admiration. What we are going to observe is
a human being doing something that no other human has ever been able to
accomplish. After reading this story we ought to be more stunned and full
of awe at Jesus than when we’ve witnessed the most spectacular achievement
of any human being. What ought to make this accomplishment of Jesus so
amazing is that all of us have lots of experience at attempting and failing
at what he does with apparent ease.
My greatest fear as I have been preparing to talk about this incident
in the life of Jesus is that I will be unable to convey the wonder of
what Jesus does here. My goal is very simple but profoundly difficult.
I want all of us to be full of admiration and respect and love for Jesus
as we see him do what we fail to do every day of our lives. The difficulty
I face is not only the difficulty of communication, like trying to describe
the wooden guns that my friend made so that you can picture them in your
eye.
The difficulty lies also in you and in me. There are at least three reasons
why most of us find this story so uninspiring and even boring. First,
few of us ever really try to do what Jesus does here and so our failure
is not at all apparent to us and so his success is not impressive. Second,
most of us assume that we succeed at what Jesus illustrates here. We’re
like young boys who come in from playing basketball in the driveway to
watch a professional game and then boast of how we would "school" all
those guys if we were playing. Like boys who are full of themselves because
they made a few baskets against their playmates, we are full of ourselves
because we feel like we’ve avoided one evil or done one good thing. Third,
most of us have a false view of Christ. We think of him as God, which
he is, and so think he has an unfair advantage in overcoming sin. What
we fail to take seriously is that he was fully human and suffered and
was tempted, as a human being.
This story of Jesus’ temptation by Satan is here, first of all, to cause
us to admire and delight in the person of Jesus. Do you want to know if
you are growing as a Christian? Is your delight in and respect for Jesus
growing? The second reason this story of Jesus’ temptation is here is
recorded in Heb. 2: 16-18, page _____. (Read it.) Jesus obeyed God for
our sake. He is sinless and therefore free to die for us. He obeyed the
Father perfectly in place of all those who trust in Him. In other words,
when you believe in Jesus God credits all of the obedience of Jesus to
your account. He treats you as if you had obeyed his law perfectly, because
you have obeyed in Jesus’ perfect obedience. Finally, this story is recorded
so we can see how to overcome sin in our own lives. Jesus gives us an
example of how to face and overcome temptation. Usually, when we hear
this passage taught, the emphasis is going to be on this third point.
We are going to be told how to avoid sin by seeing how Jesus avoided sin.
This is part of Matthew’s intention. However, the main reason this story
and in fact every story is recorded is so that we will be full of admiration
for Jesus. Let’s ask God to help us see and love Him as we reflect on
this amazing accomplishment.
MAIN POINT
You ought to honor Jesus because he resisted all pressure to do wrong
I. He resisted the pressure to meet his own needs rather than wait
for God to provide (vv. 1-4)
In Matthew 3 Jesus has been declared to be the long awaited king and
Savior of the world. Both John the Baptist and God himself have declared
that Jesus is the Savior who has been promised for thousands of years.
However, in the very way his arrival is announced we see that he is not
the kind of Savior that the Jewish people expected or wanted. In the closing
verses of chapter 3 we were shown a Savior who doesn’t come in on a war
horse and throw out all the evil people in the world but one who comes
as a suffering servant. Yet, he is full of the Holy Spirit, declared to
be the Son of God and pleasing to God. In the first chapter the angel
told Joseph to name the baby Jesus because he would save his people from
their sins. Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, goes into the desert for
the purpose of waging war against the one who promotes sin and leads the
whole world away from God.
Two things to notice in vv. 1 & 2. First, this is a real confrontation.
Satan is a real person. He is not a symbol of evil. He is a very powerful
being who hates God, God’s ways and God’s people. His intention is to
destroy the work of God, to mock God’s power and holiness and to lead
people away from absolute love for and trust in God. We don’t know what
form this encounter took. Did Satan show up in a physical body and confront
Jesus face to face and physically take Jesus to the top of the temple
and to the top of an actual mountain? Or, did the confrontation take place
in a vision? We simply are not told how it happened, only that it happened.
Second, we get a glimpse here into the mystery of how God sovereignly
rules over every event that happens in the world and yet is not the author
of evil in the world. The Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the desert for
the purpose of being tested by the devil who is called "the tempter".
"Test" and "Tempt" are the same word in the Greek. It is God’s will that
Jesus be tempted by the devil. However, he does not tempt Jesus, Satan
does. Satan is out to destroy God’s work of saving people through Jesus.
God is out to save his people through Jesus’ overcoming of sin.
We are told that after Jesus had gone without food for 40 days he was
hungry. There existed in Jesus an intense physical longing for food. His
body craved food. The craving was not sin, but merely the physiological
response of his body to not eating for 40 days. Now, while Jesus is in
this condition of hunger, the tempter comes to him and says, "If you are
the Son of God, turn these stones into bread." Satan is not suggesting
that Jesus might not be the Son of God. He is saying, "Since you are God’s
son, just like John the Baptist said and the voice from heaven declared,
then use your divine power to satisfy your hunger." Here’s where we confront
our difficulty in relating to the temptation of Jesus. How is this a temptation
and how is it like any temptation I encounter?
To understand how this is like our temptations we have to consider how
Jesus responded to Satan. He quotes a verse out of the OT book of Deuteronomy
where Moses is retelling an incident that happened just after Israel came
out of Egypt. 45 days after the whole nation of Israel has escaped from
Egypt, they run out of food. Over one million people are out in the desert
of modern Saudi Arabia. They have no food, they are hungry. They complain
to Moses and say to him, "Did you bring us out into this desert to kill
us, our children and our cattle by starvation? They are so upset they
begin talking about killing Moses. In the midst of their hunger and fear
of starvation they say, "Is God among us or not?" Moses goes to God and
asks God to help them. At this point God promises to send manna every
morning to feed the people. This is how they live for 40 years in the
desert. The manna shows up every morning, just like God promises.
What Satan is doing here is trying to get Jesus to question God’s love
for him and doubt God’s ability to provide for him. He’s saying, "If you
are God’s son it’s certainly not right for you to suffer this kind of
hunger. Where is this God who is supposedly your Father? He surely doesn’t
want you to suffer like this. He’s given you this power, go ahead and
use it to end this suffering." For Jesus to give in would be for him to
do exactly what the Israelites did in the desert. He would be declaring
it unjust and unloving that God has brought him into the desert and caused
him to suffer this hunger. He would be declaring that he is far more able
to supply his own needs than God is able to supply his needs. He is more
powerful and wiser than his Father.
We in the U.S. rarely experience the kind of physical hunger Jesus has,
but we have all sorts of legitimate desires that Satan uses to tempt us
to question God’s love and doubt his ability to provide. We are overcome
with a sense of isolation and loneliness. If God loved me he would give
me a spouse, a friend, a husband who paid attention to me, a wife who
cared about how I felt. Since he has not ended my suffering in loneliness
I will go find a spouse, who cares about his/her character. I will do
whatever I have to do to find some people who will welcome me, even if
it means getting drunk. I will make my spouse feel guilty so he/she will
love me better. I’ll take drugs to cover up the pain. I’ll divorce my
spouse so I won’t feel so lonely. I’ll buy a new car to cover up the pain.
We have overwhelming sexual desire that Satan uses to cause us to question
God’s love and ability to provide. We have affairs, we get involved in
pornography, we flirt with and seduce other singles, we manipulate our
spouses, we do all manner of things to eliminate the suffering of having
unmet sexual desires. So much of the sin we engage in is the result of
not being satisfied with the way in which God is providing for us. We
constantly call into question his love for us and his ability to provide
by complaining and by taking matters into our own hands rather than waiting
for God to provide.
Jesus is confronted with the same thing we are confronted with all the
time, a legitimate need that is currently unmet. Rather than succumbing
to doubt in God’s love and faithfulness and so taking matters into his
own hands, Jesus says, "Look, God has promised his love to me and that
he will provide for me. My current lack of food, this intense hunger that
I am suffering does not mean he does not love me nor that he is not taking
care of me. More necessary to my happiness than the provision of food
are God and his ways. What I must have to be happy is God and his will.
I believe the promise, ‘Blessed are all who wait for Him’"
Are you not impressed with how confident Jesus is of His Father’s love
and power in spite of such severe suffering? Are you not glad that God
counts you as having the same faith as Jesus, if you are currently trusting
in Jesus? Do you not want God to give you the same ability to trust his
love and wait for his provision?
You ought to honor Jesus because he resisted all pressure to do wrong
- He resisted the pressure to meet his own needs rather than wait
for God to provide
- And…
II. He resisted the pressure to defend himself rather than wait for
God to defend him (vv. 5-7)
The second temptation is a dare. Satan takes Jesus to the top of the
temple in Jerusalem and challenges him by telling him to throw himself
off the temple because God has promised that he will not let any harm
come to him. He will send his angels to take care of him. In essence,
what Satan is saying is this, "God has spoken from heaven and declared
you are God’s son, you believe this to be true and you have just told
me that you live by God’s word. Your complete confidence is in God and
in his promises to provide for you. So prove it. Put up or shut up. Prove
that you really do trust God by throwing yourself off this 450 foot cliff
to the rocks below. Here’s a verse for you even. In Psalm 91, God says
he’ll provide for you, so prove that you aren’t a hypocrite, all talk
and no action. Throw yourself down." Satan is trying to provoke Jesus
into defending himself. He wants Jesus to defend his own integrity, his
own character, rather than trust God to defend him. This is a foreshadowing
of an even greater challenge that is thrown in Jesus’ face while he is
hanging on the cross. The Jewish religious leaders taunt Jesus by saying,
"He saved others, let’s see if he can save himself. If you are the Son
of God, come down from that cross." Can you hear the voice of Satan through
these human instruments taunting the Son of God, challenging him to defend
himself rather than trust God to defend him?
Satan is accusing him of being a fraud, a hypocrite, how will he respond?
He says, " I don’t have to do such a rash and foolish thing to prove to
you or anyone else that I’m trusting God. It is wrong to put God to the
test. You are not only asking me to defend myself but to misuse God’s
word. I will do neither. God is more than able to prove who I am and he
will do so in His time. I will wait for that time. He is my refuge and
my defense, he is the only one I am concerned with pleasing. I don’t need
your approval or any other creatures approval to be content."
How much strife is there in our marriages, our homes, our schools, our
government, our workplaces, our soccer fields, our basketball courts because
we are unable to trust God to defend us when we are attacked? Husbands,
when your wife tells you that she feels like you are ignoring her and
not spending enough time with her, how do you respond? Do you seek to
understand what kinds of things she wants from you and then seek to supply
those things or do you get angry and defensive and give her a list of
ways you are loving her or perhaps give her a list of ways she is failing
you? When your boss criticizes you do you seeth with resentment or despair
in hopelessness or do you seek to understand the complaint and to comply,
gladly, with her requests? Do you respond this way because you know that
God will defend you? Do you respond this way because you are more concerned
with God’s approval than with man’s?
Most of our fighting comes from an unwillingness to do what Jesus did
here, to trust God to defend us rather than taking on the responsibility
to defend ourselves. We fail to do what Peter says Jesus did, "When they
hurled …
Consider David’s success…
Consider my failure…(Behavior at Bethany basketball game)
Look at how often you fail to do what Jesus did. Is he not impressive
to you? Is he not worthy of your worship and trust? Do you not love him
for doing for you what you persistently fail to do for yourself? Do you
not yearn to live like him, trusting God to defend you rather than fighting
with everyone who attacks you?
You ought to honor Jesus because he resisted all pressure to do wrong
- He resisted the pressure to meet his own needs rather than wait
for God to provide
- He resisted the pressure to defend himself rather than wait for
God to defend him
- And…
III. He resisted the pressure to do a good thing the easy way rather
than do a good thing God’s way (vv. 8-11)
The third temptation is so audacious, so obviously evil, it’s hard to
understand how it could even be a temptation to Jesus. Satan takes Jesus
on a high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the world and their
glory and tells him, he can rule over all of them if he will do this one
simple thing, bow down and worship Satan.
The temptation here is twofold. First, Satan is offering Jesus control
over the nations of the world. He is offering Jesus the opportunity to
set up God’s kingdom right now. No more waiting around while evil runs
rampant and His Father is treated with contempt. Satan is offering Jesus
the opportunity to do what Jesus really wants to do, eliminate evil in
the world and set up God’s rule on the earth. Second, he is offering Jesus
the position that is rightfully his. "You don’t have to wait around for
God’s timing or to suffer the indignity of being treated like a mere mortal.
You can have what is rightfully yours right now." The only thing Jesus
would have to do to obtain all this good is to kneel before Satan and
acknowledge his power and right to hand these things over to Jesus. Jesus
can have what is rightfully his without going through all the pain and
disgrace and suffering that God’s way entails.
Satan is appealing to Jesus as a master salesman to a consumer. He is
asking Jesus to do a cost/benefit analysis of the situation. You can have
all this right now with just this simple little gesture to my authority.
Or you can suffer through the indignity of being treated like a nobody
and being tortured and waiting around for God to act and to get what?
You’re not even sure what you’ll get. This is a deal you don’t want to
pass up, buy now because tomorrow will be too late. This is limited time
offer and it’s being made to a limited number of people.
Here we have Jesus resisting on our behalf every brand of get-rich-quick,
you can have it all right now, do good with no cost and get to heaven
with no suffering. There are a number of secular brands available. Gambling
presents one of the more crass forms of this temptation. But there are
many more. For example there is the promise of the American dream, a nice
house, two cars, yearly vacations, good looking kids who do well in school.
The cost, a young husband and wife work 40 – 60 hours a week, leave the
kids in daycare and in their free time take care of the house, the cars
and the vacation home, neglecting God and their children.
The religious versions are as numerous. The TV preacher hawking a life
of wealth and health if you’ll just believe in a Jesus who wants you to
have an abundant life. If you just worship a Jesus who never wants you
to suffer but only wants to bless you. In other words, you can have it
all if you’ll bow down and worship a false god. The promise of Hinduism
that you can build up enough good karma so that you’ll come back in your
next life a royal prince, all you have to do is worship a false god. The
promise of all manner of religious hucksters and new age psychics that
you will be free from sin and suffering and live a happy life here if
you’ll just bow down and worship the god who sends no suffering and cures
every ill and keeps you from all sin and who is a false god. There is
no road to heaven without suffering and if you are being promised one,
then you can be sure you are being asked to bow down and worship a false
god.
Jesus responds to this temptation with great force and no hesitation.
He will not admire and delight in and give honor to anyone but his Father.
There is no benefit worth the evil of giving honor to a creature that
is to be reserved for God alone. Here is a thought so abhorrent to Jesus
that he cannot tolerate it for even a moment. No matter how good it would
be to eliminate evil and establish God’s kingdom right now without going
through the suffering, he will not bow down.
Jesus is going to be admirable to us to the degree that we desire to
be free from sin. If you have little desire to be free from sin then his
resistance of every temptation will not be impressive. If however you
yearn to be free from sin, then his resistance to every temptation will
be the cause of great admiration and love because he did it for you.
You ought to honor Jesus because he resisted all pressure to do wrong
- He resisted the pressure to meet his own needs rather than wait
for God to provide
- He resisted the pressure to defend himself rather than trust God
to defend Him
- He resisted the pressure to do a good thing the easy way rather
than do a good thing God’s way
© Copyright 2000 John Swanson.
You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material
in any format provided that:
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If you would like to post this material to the web or if your intended
use is other than outlined above, please contact River Hills Community
Church, 2843 West Court Street, Janesville, WI 53545. (608) 758-0943.
mail@riverhillsonline.org
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