Over
the last 2 months since Christmas we have looked at some of the milestones of
Jesus’ life......His birth.....His presentation in the
Temple when He realized in some unique way that God was His father.......Then
His Baptism, when He heard the voice of God saying – ‘My Son’, and at the same
time receiving the Holy Spirit.
I would
hope that we’ve all had similar milestones:
We were
certainly all born.
Hopefully,
we've come to the realization that in some special way, God is our Father.
I hope
you’ve had the experience of sensing God saying – You are my child, I’m so
pleased with you.
I hope
you’ve had the experience of being baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Now we
reach another milestone in Jesus' life – this period of Temptation.
Jesus
has realized it’s time to begin His ministry, His campaign to save the world.
Before
you go on a campaign, your mission, you have to choose your methods.
In our
reading today we see Jesus choosing once and for all the method by which He
prepared to win people to God.
It
shows Him rejecting the way of power and glory and accepting the way of
suffering and the cross.
We can
mistakenly think that these verses happened in a few
moments, or an hour or so, but that would be wrong.
We must
realize that Jesus deliberately went to a lonely place and for 40 days,
wrestled with the problem of how He would win people.
And
this was a long battle which didn’t really cease until the cross.
Notice
the story ends with “The devil left him for a while.”
Let's
look at these three temptations:
1.
The first
temptation was to turn stones into bread. The wilderness is not a desert with
sand, it is an arid area with millions of little rocks and stones. Jesus was
fasting, so… He was hungry.
Jesus
had grown up among poor people who were often hungry.
Jesus
had power to change stone into bread, didn’t he?
The
tempter is saying: If you want people to follow you, use your wonderful powers
to provide people with material things, with food, with water, with a
job, with a home. Give them these things, they’ll follow you.
They’ll
love you.
He’s
really saying “bribe people” into following You.
This is
one of two temptations which is a temptation to do good. To get rid of
world hunger is a good thing.
You and
I have probably often wished Jesus had said yes to this temptation. That
we could click our fingers and have a God who provided for our material needs.
But
Jesus answers the devil: there’s more to life than just getting your material
needs. Life isn’t just about food and water, a job, a house.
William
Barclay says, “The task of Christianity is not to produce new conditions. It’s
real task is to produce new people, and then the new condition will follow.”
Jesus
in a sense was saying: I could miraculously produce food for the people who
live on the streets and in the gutters of the world, but I'm rather going to
work at producing people in the world who will go out and give food to the people who live on the streets and in the gutters of the world
2.
The 2nd
temptation has Jesus seeing the whole civilized world and hearing the devil
say, “worship me, and all this will be yours.”
This is
the temptation to compromise.
The
devil is saying: “I’ve got people in my grip. More of them follow me than will
ever follow You. Don’t set your standards so high. Strike a bargain with me.
Just compromise a little with evil and people will follow You. Instead of You Jesus, trying to change the people of the world for the
next few thousand years, just change yourself, it’ll be much easier. You want
to attract people, Jesus, just do things my way.”
It’s so
easy to please people by compromising with the standards of the world, isn’t
it?
And
Jesus answer is “There is only one God and His way.”
3.
The 3rd
temptation is to be a worker of wonders, a miracle man. Throw yourself from
this building and when people see you float, they’ll love it. They’ll say: “He must
be God” .......people just love miracles.
But
Jesus won’t primarily be a miracle worker. This is why He often says to people
He heals, “don’t tell anyone”. He didn’t want people to follow Him for
miracles.
So
Jesus was tempted, you and I are too.
What
can we learn? I think 3 things:
1st;
Notice that all the temptations are aimed at getting Jesus to focus on Himself
and His own desires, instead of on the will of God.
But He
resists taking the easy way out (we should too). He resists placing Himself at
the centre of His world (we should too).
His
focus is God’s will and God’s way (ours should be too).
So:
don’t focus on yourself.
2nd;
Jesus encountered each temptation with a word from Scripture. In faithful
hands, the Bible contains all we need to resist the devil.
Imagine
how pleased the devil is that so few Christians read the Bible.
So:
Read your Bible.
3rd;
we learn that Jesus (in the power of the Spirit) resisted temptation. You and I
can too.
So: Rely on the Holy Spirit to enable you to resist temptation.
