Matthew 4:1-11

Have you ever had that experience when you make a conscious choice to follow God’s leading and then when you did that thing, life got rough?  I think that's a very common human experience.  In fact, Jesus went through some very intense adversity and testing right after he was baptized.  We don't need to be afraid of the wilderness experience.  Keep going with Jesus... it's worth it!

Transcript

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Have you ever had that experience where you make a conscious choice to follow God's leading? And then when you did that thing, life got rough. For example, you decide to get baptized, or you decide to serve at your church in a particular ministry, or you sign up to go on a missions trip, or you decide that you're going to be more disciplined and diligent in your quiet times with Jesus. You're going to become more regular. And instead of life kind of ironing itself out, it actually gets a little more tumultuous. It gets more difficult and complicated. In fact, it might even just get flat out hard. I really do think that that's a pretty common experience when we're looking to follow Jesus with all that we are. And today we're looking at Matthew chapter four, verses one through eleven. If you have a copy of God's word close, please go ahead and open that up and invite you to follow along. By the way, if you don't, if you're driving around right now, just go ahead and listen and take this in. That is awesome. By the way, happy Tuesday. I'm so glad that you're here. Let's take a moment and pray. Jesus, thank you for today. We know that it is a gift from you. Thank you that you are with us, Lord, that you promise your presence no matter what we go through, even those challenging times that we don't fully understand. God, we're here to meet with you. Would you please meet with us? Amen. Matthew chapter four, starting at verse one. Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread. Jesus answered, It is written, Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. If you are the Son of God, he said, throw yourself down, for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. Jesus answered him, It is also written, Do not put the Lord your God to the test. Again the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. All this I will give you, he said, if you will bow down and worship me. Jesus said to him, Away from me, Satan, for it is written, Worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. Let's take a few moments here to understand this and kind of dive in a little bit more to observe the text. I have kind of three big ideas I wanted to bring to our attention here together. The first is that when we look at the context of what's happened in Jesus' life, he he has just been baptized. And we don't know if there was any kind of a time gap in between those two events or not, but in each of the three synoptic gospels, so Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they kind of have a similar view of Jesus' life. He's been baptized, and the next event that happens is that he is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted, or you could translate that word there to be tested. And I just was thinking about how, you know, the just a contrast of all of that. He's baptized, and and his baptism is fairly dramatic. There's a voice from heaven, there is the spirit that appears like a dove and and lands on him, comes down to him. It's quite a momentous occasion, and and Jesus has done, you know, this good thing, and and and then he's let out to be tested. So two very, very different events in the context of his life, you know, going out and fasting for 40 days right after having been baptized by John the Baptist. The second thing I notice is that Satan, when he goes out to test him, he doesn't go out immediately. He waits until the end of Jesus' fast. It's pretty clear about it. It says in verse 2, after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. And then the tempter comes to him and they engage in the dialogue there, in the contest, so to speak, that we just read about. So he waits until Jesus is physically depleted, right? And then he comes out to do that thing. And I notice here that Jesus has done everything right, at least from what we can understand. He's been obedient to the Father in baptism. He's let the Spirit of God lead him. He's fasted and He's prayed, and that's when the test came. And the test really comes in these three parts, and you heard them. Many of you have read these, read these verses before and you're familiar with them, but I like to just remind myself and remind us kind of what these tests entail. So I I feel like he gets his body tested, like his desire for food, and and certainly there's more to it than that. It's just like, hey, if you're really this guy, then you know, command these stones to turn into bread. So there's a testing of power there as well. But but I'm sure, right, at the end of 40 days, you're you're pretty hungry. I've never fasted that long, but whenever I fasted, I've definitely been ready for food at the end of that time. So he tests his body, he tests his identity in that second test there. If you are the son of God, right? That's a really, really clear statement. And he leads them up there to the highest point of the temple. If you are the son of God, then throw yourself down, right? Let let God save you. There, the angels will come and they'll they'll protect you. And and then finally, I believe he tests his fidelity or his faithfulness. So he tests his body, his identity, his fidelity. And in testing his fidelity, it's also his desire for power, right? Are you willing to trade this? Are you willing to worship me instead of God? Are you willing to switch allegiances? And if you do, then I'll give you all of this. And it's a deceptive trade. Jesus recognizes it and responds in a really cool way. Speaking of which, that's kind of the last thing I really wanted to make sure we noticed about the story itself is that Jesus responds by quoting Scripture. In fact, he quotes from basically one book each time from Deuteronomy. The first one is Deuteronomy 8, verse 3. The second one is Deuteronomy 6, verse 16, and the third one is Deuteronomy 6, 13. And I was thinking about that, like just Jesus' ability to respond with those scriptures. Why was that? And I was thinking, you know, well, it could have been because of his divine nature. And when we think about Jesus, we we often contemplate those two aspects, that he was fully God and fully man, that he is fully God and fully man. So is he tapping into his divinity, so to speak, and the fact that the spirit was upon him? Like there could have been genuinely like just a divine thing where where the, you know, because of who he is, right, that that he's able to access those scriptures and respond. But my belief is is a little bit different than that. It's more likely, at least to me, that he was able to respond so decisively because he had studied, he had immersed himself in scripture, so that even after 40 days without food, those responses were right there for him. He didn't have to stop and think and you know, look up this or that, whatever. He just had spent enough time in the scriptures that that he was able to respond with truth and and to respond with truth that was handled well. You may also have noticed that Satan uses scripture in that second test. He he references something from the Psalms there and to test Jesus. But but Jesus is ready for it. And and I don't want to make too much out of Jesus quoting Deuteronomy other than to say that that he was going back to that that first covenant, to that foundational text for the people of Israel, and he uses that to come back at at Satan. That's just my take on what's happening there, that Jesus was somebody who did take that time, and you know, over the course of his lifetime, he was soaking up the scriptures as as a man, as a as a human person. Let's reflect a little bit now for us. And I I want to be careful and say that this isn't always the way that things happen, but it seems like when we make that choice to follow Jesus, the thing we talked about at the beginning, baptism, prayer, fasting, devoting ourselves to ministry or being obedient to God in some other way, whatever that might be, that's when we get hit with adversity. And again, I'm not trying to say that every time we try to obey the Lord, then we're gonna get hit. That's it's too simplistic for me. But it does seem like that happens, and we should be prepared for that. And in the context of what we've just read, I want us to take our cue from Jesus, and I know that I need to continue prioritizing the scriptures in my own life. You know, in the first two weeks of this podcast, we read Psalm 1 and Joshua 1 verses 7 through 9. Psalm 1 was the very first episode for this fledgling beginning podcast, and Joshua 1, 7 through 9 was at the end of the second week. By the way, you can you can go back and listen to those if you'd like, but you can also just like read those texts and look there. And and both of them emphasize this idea of meditating and reflecting and studying the word of God. And in Joshua, it really says, you know, be careful to meditate and then obey it. Like don't just soak it up, but do it, be responsive to it. And so that's true, I believe, for us as well here today, that that when we prioritize the scriptures in our lives, and we can do that through a whole bunch of different ways, but when we prioritize the scriptures, when we we make them something that is as regular as eating, as regular as as every other routine that we have, when we just say, you know what, this matters. I I believe that that is good for us, that it's healthy for us. So why do we meditate on the word? Well, it could be simply just for that healthy thing that I just mentioned, but for myself, it's it's for my own heart. You know, I've walked with Jesus for a long time, decades, but there are a lot of times when when I'm reading the scriptures, and I have read them before many times, but I'm reading them and I'm like, oh, Jesus, you're using that in my heart right now. You're using that to recalibrate me. You're pointing out something new, and maybe it's something new in my life, or just something new about you, something I hadn't noticed before. And so I just do it, you know, for my own benefit, for my own enrichment, so that I become healthier, that I become stronger in who he desires for me to be. And whatever it is that that I'm doing with my life, you know, outside of that, I'm going to let the word of God inform that and penetrate me and change me. So that's that's a really essential reason. The second uh reason for me is so that we can recognize garbage for what it is when it gets thrown our way. Kind of what happens here with Jesus. He he recognizes the nonsense that Satan's tossing at him. He's just like, no, this is dumb. Like, why are you saying this to me? And and he comes back with scripture, with truth, and he can rest in that. And I desire that for myself, to be able to just discern, right? To be able to discern truth from deception, to be able to discern things that are life-giving versus things that are harmful for for my own life, for my own heart, to be able to recognize it. And if I spend that time in truth, then the lies, the deception, the garbage, all of that becomes much, much clearer. I'm gonna leave you with a prompt here, an action step before we move on. I don't always do that, but I think this is meant to be encouraging to you. So this is this is the deal. This is what I want you to do. I want you to keep at it. Keep coming back to your quiet times and back to the word. Satan, it will tell you that you're not disciplined enough, or that it doesn't matter, or that you'll never change anyway. But remember, it's his nature to deceive. So keep at it, keep coming back. If you miss a day, if you miss a week, keep coming back. Don't give up, don't be discouraged. Keep listening to the Spirit, keep listening to Jesus, and in him we'll find not only that rest for our souls, but the strength to do the things that God calls us to do. Let's go ahead and pray. Jesus, thank you for all that you are and all that you have done. We praise you and we desire to follow you. God, show us what it looks like to be strengthened in your word and to be able to recognize these deceptions when they come our way. We love you. Amen.