Introduction
Back when I was a Junior in high school I took the SAT standardized test and made a 1540. Now, when I told my students this today they were completely shocked because I learned the top score was a 1600. Sadly, I took a 3 part exam, not a 2-part. So, my score was like 50th percentile instead of 99th. I was dead-center, average. You know we spend our entire educational career before college it seems to prepare for this one big standardized test.
The SAT came out in the 1920’s but these standardized tests weren’t as popular or “almost” mandatory until the “No Child Left Behind” act in 2003. Now, it seems like anyone who wants to be able to get into college is going to take this test. It’s a test that nearly every student has to face. What is the test for? Well, now you know how much you know (or at least how well you can show that knowledge on a test), and now you can prove to a college if you are a worthy candidate. The more prestigious a college the more their degree can be worth. The more prestigious a college, the harder it is to get in, and the higher that score needs to be.
Cheating, of course, is always a scandal in such testing environments because now the test results are skewed and the whole point of taking such a test is rendered useless. It was not students cheating in recent years that caught a lot of attention, but their parents. A Wall Street Journal headline from 2019 reads, “Federal Prosecutors charged dozens of wealthy parents, including prominent law and business figures, and two Hollywood actresses with using bribes, bogus entrance exam scores, and faked academic achievements to get their children admitted to elite colleges.” Dr. Albert Mohler said about this, “We’re looking here at parents who paid somewhere between $50,000 and $1.2 million to get their privileged children into the most elite colleges and universities in the country. We’re talking about huge prestige. We’re talking about universities like Yale and Stanford, and the University of Southern California. We are talking about an indictment that includes prominent athletic coaches, university administrators, and more than anything else, parents; parents who are at the very center of the story, parents who sought to cheat, to bribe, to pay money, knowing that it would be used to game the system in order to gain admission to a prestigious university for their offspring.”
Now, as a parents, do we want our children to face adversity? There was a parenting technique known as “helicopter” parenting, in which a parent is constantly hovering over their child watching every move. The above example can be known as “snowplow” parenting in which the parent seeks to remove every obstacle out of their child’s way. Most of us our familiar with the sensational idea that if you help a butterfly out of its chrysalis it will end up dying because it is the struggle it has to endure that strengthens it. This does not mean of course that we should try to cause our children to suffer in every waking moment. But there is wisdom in allowing them to struggle. And there is folly in plowing every problem out of their life. You may have seen that little cartoon of two pannels side by side of parent being upset about their child’s grades. In the 1960’s the parents are yelling at their child wondering why his grades are so bad. In modern day, the parent are yelling at the teacher wondering why his grades are so bad.
Obviously, these parents who have bribed and connived to get their precious an excellent score on the SAT have done a disservice to society, the educational system, and to their very own child. Think about what that teaches that young person: every time you face a major test in life, mommy and daddy will do everything—even something immoral—to make sure it goes away. So when this student gets in to this prestigious college and has to face tests to say become a lawyer or medical doctor, what will this student be inclined to do on these tests (Or maybe even the parents)? And then when this student is operating on you in the medical field, do you trust those hands? When that person prescribes medicine to you, do you take it? No, and if you knew that this person never passed any tests you would never walk into his office! Why? Because the test proves he is who he says he is.
This is the same thing we will see in today’s story in
. John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit, God the Father all testified that Jesus is the Son of God. In fact, the Father said, “You are my Son.” Immediately, in Matt. Mark, and Luke, after the baptism Jesus is driven to the wilderness. Jesus is going to take a test that someone else had to take. You see, after Israel went through the waters of the Nile river they went out into the wilderness. God gave his expectations and in
, the people of Israel promised to do everything God had commanded. But they failed the test, time and time again. They never kept their word or God’s law. They failed as a son of God. Yet where Israel failed, Jesus prevailed. Look at verse 1
Temptation 1 Matt. 4:1-4
Matthew 4:1–4ESV
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
Jesus is led by the Spirit: he is working in obedience to the Father. The purpose is given in v.1 to be “tempted by the devil.”
The word in Greek for “tempt” is the same word used for “test,” and I along with most commentators would argue that both are implied in v. 1. The difference between “tempt” and “test” is the goal of outcome. A goal for temptation is stumbling. A goal for test is proving and maturing. And so we are going to see that though the devil wants Jesus to stumble, he will come away proven to be who he says he is.
V.2 I love because it’s easy to read and think, “well, duh.” It states something so obvious. But this obvious fact sheds light into who Jesus is: Jesus is fully human. Jesus experiences the same things we experience. His hunger points back to the Israelites who also hungered in the wilderness. In fact that’s why “forty days” is specifically mentioned: not just to record history, but remind us of Israel’s forty years in the wilderness. Think back to the Exodus story for a moment. God had done the unthinkable to rescue his people from Egyptian slavery and led them into the wilderness. When they faced hunger the question was “will they trust in God or disobey?” The verse that Jesus quotes sheds more light on why God allowed them to get hungry.
“And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
“Obedience to God takes priority over self-gratification
—even over essential provision of food.”
And this is exactly where the devil tempts Jesus. in v. 3 he says, “If you are the Son of God. . .” notice, this title is not doubted, but it is twisted to make a taunt. But I want to take some time to explain what it means to be the “Son of God.” When we think of the title “son” our modern secular minds usually only think of biological processes.
references the divine beings—God’s divine council—as “sons of God.” And although this sonship does relate to generation, it is more than that. Their sonship is an exalted status above other beings. God generated all beings, but the angelic beings had the unique status as sons. Therefore, again, the primary purpose of the term sonship is not to merely communicate generation in time, but a special relationship to God.
“I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.”
talks about the Lord and his anointed king. This king he calls his son. This, of course, is a Messianic Psalm referring to Jesus. Sonship is a figure of speech used frequently in the Bible which communicates a unique family relationship and individual status. This all may seem like an over-explanation. However, living in a modern secular society that has effectively broken down the family has made more explanation necessary where previous generations could easily take it for granted.
Sonship, as a literal idea, communicates more in the past than it does today. The honor and status one’s father had would be the honor and status a son would inherit. Some of this seems almost common sense. Consider the son of royalty, for example. Not only does that son inherit the individual status of royalty, he also has a unique family status. Where a lot of people may not be able to come in contact with the king due to formalities, the son would have direct access anytime he likes. In fact, in that scenario, the son could better explain who the father is more than most other people. So while modern society has a tendency to reduce sonship to a biological concept, the biblical ideal is much richer—where the father knows his son and the son knows his father.
So when we call Jesus the “Son of God” we are not saying that God created Jesus or that Jesus is somehow inferior to the Father. Rather, we are proclaiming Jesus’s unique relationship to the Father that has always existed, even in eternity past before Jesus came in the flesh. Because Jesus is the Son of God, truly God and truly man, Satan wishes to exploit that power by getting Jesus to disobey the principle taught by
. He wants Jesus to gratify his very own needs rather than obey God. But Jesus nips that in the bud by quoting that very verse.
Obedience to God takes priority over self-gratification.
You may be familiar with this famous story about George Muller who started orphanages in England. It comes to us from Abigail Townsend Luffe. When she was a child, her father assisted Müller, and she spent time at Ashley Down. Early one morning Müller led her into the long dining room set for breakfast but without food, praying, “Dear Father, we thank Thee for what Thou art going to give us to eat.” There was a knock at the door; it was the baker, unable to sleep because he was sure the Lord wanted him to bake bread for Müller. “Children,” Müller said, ”we not only have bread, but fresh bread.” Almost immediately they heard a second knock. It was the milkman; the milk cart had broken down outside the orphanage, and he offered the milk to the children, completing their meal.
But you may wonder, “How can I obey God when I am unsure of his will for my life?” It’s not a question about something hidden in the stars. It’s not as though there’s this secret path God has for you and if you miss one step the rest of your life will never recover. We tend to treat God’s will like that. Think of God’s will as God’s moral will: what actions, attitudes, and behaviors are pleasing to him. I have found it to be true that when I try to obey God in the everyday things, he makes the big picture work out in ways better than I could have imagined. “Israel demanded its bread but died in the wilderness; Jesus denied himself bread, retained his righteousness, and lived by faithful submission to God’s Word”
D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 113.
Temptation 2 Matt. 4:5-7
Matthew 4:5–7ESV
Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”
One commentator remarks about this temptation, “The devil’s suggestion, however, is to test out the literal truth of God’s promise of protection by deliberately creating a situation in which he will be obliged to act to save his Son’s life. In this way “man may become lord of God, and compel him to act through the power of his faith” (Schweizer, 63). It would be “to act as if God is there to serve his Son, rather than the reverse” (Keener, 141”
The correct attitude towards God is obedience not manipulation.
R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publication Co., 2007), 133.
If we force God’s hand to do something just to see if he would do it, what does that show about our view of God? Ultimately, it shows we don’t really believe God. We don’t take him at his word.
Jesus quotes from
to remind us that we are not to put the Lord to the test. We aren’t supposed to deliberately force his hand just to see if he’s going to do what he promised. Why? Is it because God will fail? No. It is because of the immense display of our own unbelief.
Is God the Lord of all the universe or is he merely our good luck charm? In
, the Israelites treated God through the ark of the covenant like a good luck charm. I mean, God promised to fight their battles and always protect them. They wondered why God had defeated them in battle. Then had the idea, “I know, we’ll bring the Ark of the covenant to force his hand in our favor.” But as we know, God is not a God to be trifled with or manipulated. Did God defeat the Philistines? Actually yes, eventually, but not with the help of the Israelite army.
Deuteronomy 6:16–17ESV
“You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies and his statutes, which he has commanded you.
puts a contrast between the you shall not in v. 16 and the “you shall” in v. 17. This again shows us that the correct attitude towards God is obedience not manipulation.
Let me give you some quotes from a famous Christian pastor to give you an example of this principle.
“When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance”
“I believe if you keep your faith, you keep your trust, you keep the right attitude, if you’re grateful, you’ll see God open up new doors.”
I want you to know that this is what the prosperity gospel, the health and wealth gospel says. If you do X, God will do Y.
Kate Bowler author of Everything Happens for a Reason, and Other Lies I’ve Loved says, “I would love to report that what I found in the prosperity gospel was something so foreign and terrible to me that I was warned away, but what I discovered was both familiar and painfully sweet: the promise that I could curate my life, minimize my losses, and stand on my successes. And no matter how many times I rolled my eyes at the creeds outrageous certainties, I craved them just the same.” She teaches Christian history at Duke university and I believes gets at the heart of the prosperity gospel which is a manipulation of God.
Do we come to God to submit to his will or to get what we selfishly want? Do we try to change our heart to make what we want what God wants? Or do we try to use God to give us what we want? This is the center of the second temptation which Jesus stands firm against.
Temptation 3 Matt. 4:8-11
The genuine worshipper of the one true God is willing to suffer rather than compromise his worship.
Matthew 4:8–11ESV
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ” Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
What we see in verse 8 is probably a visionary experience. Satan’s final temptation was to take the crown without the cross.
The Gospel of Matthew stresses over and over again that Jesus is the rightful Davidic king and Messiah. But he also stresses the king must suffer. This is why when God proclaims “You are my Son in whom I am well pleased” it is a combination of those two specific passages 1. referring to Davidic king and 2. referring to the suffering servant.
The church has faced this same temptation for generations. “Just say Caesar is Lord and you can go on buying and selling.” “Just say people can marry whomever they want and you can keep your social media account.” “Just pretend with the rest of us that a man can be a woman and you can keep your job.” “Acknowledge that you are racist because of the color of your skin and we will pretend to listen to your other opinions.”
Every agenda out there wants you to bow the knee but one day everyone will bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ.
The genuine worshipper of the one true God is willing to suffer rather than compromise his worship.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “God and the [world’s] goods are incompatible, because the world and its goods make a bid for our hearts, and only when they have won them do they become what they really are. That is how they thrive, and that is why they are incompatible with allegiance to God. Our hearts have room only for one all-embracing devotion, and we can only cleave to one Lord.”
Rod Draher, author of Live Not By Lies says, “Relatively few contemporary Christians are prepared to suffer for the faith, because the therapeutic society that has formed them denies the purpose of suffering in the first place, and the idea of bearing pain for the sake of truth seems ridiculous.”
Conclusion
Jesus was tempted to put his needs over God’s will, he was tempted to manipulate God, he was tempted to avoid suffering. When reading through the temptations causally, these are easy to miss, because they are so subtle. One of the demons in C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters says, “Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one–the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts”
Temptation is oftentimes like a weight places upon our shoulders. We may stand strong at one temptation, but slowly and subtly more weight is added and more weight, and then, eventually we buckle. We have a knack to excuse our sins, to justify ourselves. We are so overcome with wrong attitudes and desires and beliefs that our wrong behaviors are only symptoms of the sin that swirls within!
I’m infected with the same problem. I had sinful attitudes and desires and behaviors this week. I had struggles with sin while writing this sermon. I’ve probably even had mixed motives, sinful thoughts and desires while delivering this sermon. I’m not your savior. I cannot fix anything at Goshen Baptist. I cannot bring revival to your church. But I can point to your savior.
Consider Jesus for a moment. We deal with temptation after temptation, buckle under its weight, then slide into sin. Then it starts all over again. Jesus had temptation after temptation after temptation thrown at him. Even the devil, personally showed up to tempt him! Yet, he never buckled, he never began to shake, he never flinched. That’s our savior! He was tested and proved faithful so we know we can trust him all the more.
Jesus lived the life we could never live and died the death we deserved. He took our punishment. This message doesn’t change. You see this passage is more than just a “how to deal with temptation” (though it is that). It’s about seeing Jesus being proven as the Son of God. And because he is proven, we can trust him.
“Only trust him, only trust him, only trust him now. He will save you, he will save you, he will save you now.”
Take a step back a look for a moment at the three temptations. All three temptations did not involve a wrong view of self. Each one admitted to who Jesus truly was. However, each temptation had a twisted view of God. So, let me ask you, right now, what do you believe about God? Who do you believe God to be?
Does obeying God take priority over meeting your needs?
Do you try to manipulate God to get what you want?
Are you willing to suffer to worship God alone?
Honestly consider. . .
Time of response
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