Jesus - FacingTemptation Part 1

JESUS
FACING TEMPTATION
Part 1

We are at the time of the year when we remember Jesus’ birth.
We remember His birth in a manger in Bethlehem, and Mary and Joseph and their donkey, and the shepherds, and the three kings and the star. But we also need to reflect on the question: why was it necessary for Him to enter into this world, why was it necessary for Him to be born as a human being, live like a human being, and eventually die as a human being on a criminal’s cross?

The answers to those questions are very complex, and theologians have devoted years and centuries to the subject. But one reason for Jesus’ coming to the earth as a human being, temporarily putting His deity on Hold, was to live as a human being. He lived amongst us, the human race, amongst our poverty, amongst our sickness, amongst our troubles, amongst our sin, and exposed to our trials and temptations.

This helps us realize we have a God who understands us fully: He has been a human being and knows the things that we go through, because He has gone through them Himself. One of the things that Jesus went through was being tempted. And He was exposed to temptation from the devil right at the beginning of His earthly ministry.

Last time we focused on his baptism by John the Baptist, “the baptism of repentance and forgiveness of sins”, and after wondering why Jesus asked John to baptize Him we drew the conclusion that Jesus was stepping into the gap and assuming the collective guilt of His people Israel, as the Lord called for in Ezekiel 22:30. After His baptism, Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit into the desert, where for 40 days He was tempted by the devil. During that time He ate nothing, and at the end of them He was hungry.
(quoted from Luke 4:1-2)

Now here are some more puzzling things:
Why did the HS lead Jesus out to the desert, to fast for 40 days and to be tempted by the devil?
In the passage I just quoted it is quite clear that the desert experience was caused or provoked by the HS. It was necessary for Jesus to undergo serious temptation by the devil.

A few weeks ago, here in church, some missionary friends showed us their photographs of the desert. They told us that it was an extremely dry and hot place. We saw the pictures of the sands, the rocks and the scrubby vegetation growing in the crannies left by the rocks. Why would the HS lead Jesus there of all places? What’s going on here? A 40 day fast..... The pastor of the church I used to be a member of went on a 40 day fast. At the end he was weak and haggard. When the 40 days were over, he recovered, but his physique always looked older after that. Did that happen to Jesus? The Bible simply says that at the end of the fast he was hungry. What’s happening here?

What’s happening here is that there are some issues we are not aware of. Jesus had just had a glorious day when God blessed Him and announced Him as His beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased. So now, we think, it is the right time to begin His ministry of ushering in the Kingdom of God. Instead, we meet the devil. Satan is the aggressor, approaching Jesus with vivid, subtle and compelling arguments. From this we learn, disappointingly perhaps, that temptation is normal. Most of us, when we experience torment and temptation, immediately think we have taken a wrong turn and missed God’s will. But temptation is not a sin; it’s what we do with it that counts.

The way that Jesus responded to the temptations that the devil put before Him give us lessons on some of the subtle temptations that the devil puts before us, and how Jesus responded to them. So they give us lessons on how to face temptation. They also reveal a deeper dimension of Jesus’ story, that only surfaces occasionally in the accounts of His life. On the face of it, Jesus spends His days dealing with fractious religious leaders, dense disciples, hungry and sick beggars, Romans Pharisees, family members and friends. But the temptations reveal another level of experience: the conflict between the powers of darkness and the Kingdom of God - Concepts like life versus death, heaven vs. hell, holiness vs. sin, etc.

Through these temptations we can glimpse on how this war is waged. The first thing that draws our attention is that the things that Jesus is tempted with apparently are not the same as the ones that tempt us. When we think of the things that tempt us we think of things such as sex, anxiety and anger, power, satisfaction of appetites, etc. But the temptations that Jesus faced are the kind that affect people who are serious about being disciples, who want to participate in leading the people of God toward salvation and growth within the Kingdom of God.

Do any of such temptations have anything to do with you or me? So long as I am content to go about my own business (not God’s) untroubled by glory, these temptations will never come my way. However, when I take up Jesus’ mission, I put myself in range of satanic bombshells, no matter how focused I am on my ministry. The world has never known a more focused person than Jesus.

People have often wondered how Jesus got this consciousness. Did He know He was God right from when He was a little boy? When and how did He discover He was Israel’s Messiah?
We don’t know the answers to these questions. We know without a doubt that Jesus knew His mission at the time of His baptism. In Genesis it tells us that the serpent (the devil) was more crafty than any of the animals the Lord God had made. Satan’s temptations were extraordinarily shrewd. He designed them, not to keep Jesus from success at His God-given mission , but to make sure Jesus succeeded in the wrong way. And this has been Satan’s strategy ever since, whenever God’s people have begun to take their mission seriously.
Satan would like us to work at maximum effectiveness at a goal ten degrees off target.

Read Luke 4: 3-13.
Satan approached Jesus with 3 helpful suggestions. ....and they all began with the dangerous word If:
If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.
If you worship me, all this will be yours
If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here

The phrase “if you are the Son of God” can be taken as a way to goad Jesus. “If you are the Son of God, act like it. Do miracles. Demonstrate your power. Take risks. What - are you afraid to assert yourself?” In fact, Satan was reminding Jesus of His privileges. But notice the focus: Satan encourages Jesus to think about Himself; to assert Himself. The focus is on Me.

The second temptation is the same. If you worship me, says Satan, it will all be yours. Not God’s. Satan asks Jesus to think about the legacy He can create for Himself. How Jesus responds to this focus on “Me” is very interesting:
He doesn’t argue with Satan.
He doesn’t rise up and assert Himself as God’s Son in whom He is well pleased. Instead He takes Himself out of the discussion.
He deflects Satan’s focus on “Me” by quoting Scripture.

In fact, the 3 passages He quotes are all from the book of Deuteronomy. They are words spoken by God to Moses just before Israel was due to enter the Promised Land. Jesus had evidently studied, meditated and memorized the specific Scripture to meet the situation He was going to face. When the temptation came, He drew on that Scripture.

If anyone could have argued Satan down, it was Jesus. He could have humiliated Satan, exposing his lies through brilliant analysis. He could have demonstated His godly power, ordering Satan to cringe before Him. Instead, Jesus said almost nothing. Confronted with temptation, He did not try to speak for Himself. He let Scripture speak for Him.

This tells us something important about meeting temptation. The response must be formed long before the moment. Jesus’ close involvement with Scripture, along with His close relationship with His Heavenly Father, formed the basis for His choices. He did not grasp the air looking for help when the pressure was on. He drew on what He already had. Jesus was a man formed by Scripture. And anyone who wants to follow Jesus must do the same. So the first lesson we learn from Jesus from this episode is this:

Know Scripture.
Don’t think you are smart enough to argue and fight your way through temptation by yourself.
Know the Bible; let it saturate your mind.
Think it through carefully, and God’s Word will argue for you.
That is the path Jesus followed and it will work for you.

It works for me. Sometimes I am amazed how the HS brings to mind. Scripture for me at the right time. Sometimes even Scripture I didn’t know that I knew! Knowing Scripture is conventional Christian advice. But is it conventional Christian practice?

Jesus attended God’s word. He worked to burn Scripture into His mind. He thought about Deuteronomy so much that He could quote it to counter Satan’s helpful suggestions. God’s Word was His food and drink, his source of sustenance.

Let’s make this Christmas a time when we purpose to get into the Word of God in a deeper fashion. As we saw, it is the Word of God, together with the power of the HS, that will see us though as we face temptation. Satan will put before us temptations that look good. He will offer us practical solutions that will make our objectives look achievable and good. Through the Word we will gain a better understanding of some of the temptations we face and the HS will quicken Scripture to us as we face the daily struggles.