Handling Temptation – KCCB
22/07/12
Believe that God has led me to speak on this passage. It is meant as a word of
encouragement – although there is some tough stuff within it…
Read Luke 4: 1-13
Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness
4 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at
the end of them he was hungry.
3 The
devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
4 Jesus
answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’
5 The
devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the
world 6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given
to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 If you worship me, it will all be yours.”
8 Jesus
answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.” 9 The devil
led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the
Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;
11 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’
12 Jesus
answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’
13 When
the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
When was the last time you were tempted – really tempted?
What caused you to be tempted? Was it something new or something habitual?
How did it go – did you succumb?
In Chapter 4 we get a snap shot into the temptation of Jesus and it shows it is not a sin to be
tempted. Jesus himself was tempted and he was perfect – without sin. In fact, this already
deals with one of the lies of the devil who would have us believe that it is a sin to be
tempted – it is not!
We get the perfect example of how sin is to be resisted and the power which will help us
Analogy – some will have heard me use it before – but at work I learnt that we have to hear
something 6 times before we really remember it – so that gives me another few times yet:
temptation is like bait on a hook.
The bait that Satan will put on the hook will be whatever will entice us:
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Food
Sex
Fame
Money
Power
inappropriate relationships
security
comfort
achievement
accolade
success
alcohol
drugs
etc.
His entire goal is to provide us with what ever will get us to bite, take the hook so
that he can real us in toward him and death and away from God.
Sin leads to death, but when we keep sinning it is generally because we are enticed
by the bait and neglect to consider the hook.
Satan is sly. If he came to us and tried to tempt us by saying that he wanted us to
experience divorce or gluttony or obesity or drunkenness or drug addiction or
devastation throughout our family lineage from gossiping or bitterness or meanness
– no one would bite.
So Satan looks to try and bait the hook with what looks attractive to us.
Jesus is tempted continually by the devil for 40 days. Jesus is experiencing exactly what we
experience. He is allowing himself to be able to identify with what we go through. There is
nothing that we can be tempted by that the Devil did not try to tempt Jesus with. Our God
is not a God who stands back and is immune from temptation.
We need to understand that God is not tempted, but Jesus the man (He was and is fully man
and fully God) was tempted. He can be sympathetic – not just empathetic – he experienced
what we experience.
Jesus is without sin – and this is how God sees us – through the cloak of Jesus perfection.
Jesus resisted all temptation so he understands the full weight of temptation.
Remember, Jesus was tempted; He forgives those who have given into temptation and gives
strength when we are being tempted.
Jesus had just come from His baptism, his public ministry is going to start and he goes
straight to the battlefield to do battle with Satan.
40 days symbolises the 40 years spent in the wilderness.
We are all born into a spiritual wilderness, separated from God due to the sin of Adam. We
are separated from God – in the wilderness that Adam was cast into. So Jesus picks up
where Adam left off – in the wilderness. Jesus is going to complete the battle and bring
victory where Adam suffered horrendous defeat. Jesus gets to this position by being Spirit
filled and Spirit lead. And Jesus is going to be tempted for 40 days. We need to be spirit
filled and spirit lead - wherever that may be to – even of that is not where we would chose
– but for the glory of God.
Luke records three temptations but there were many more – it was continual for 40 days
and 40 nights.
Jesus is going to be tempted, like we are tempted by
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pleasure
power
fame
glory
security
comfort
health, wealth and ease.
Satan comes repeatedly for 40 days.
Luke 4: 3-4
Jesus first temptation is to eat – remember he is hungry; he has fasted for 40 days. Can he,
in his divinity turn stone into bread? Of course – he can turn water into wine, so stone into
bread is going to be just as easy. Is it a sin to eat when you are hungry – no.
So what is Satan trying to achieve through this temptation?
1. To get Jesus to obey Satan and not God
2. To meet a physical need other than by God’s provision. Many of our temptations are
for bodily pleasures that are not necessarily evil of themselves – food, alcohol, rest,
intimacy. They can be gifts from God – or lead us into much temptation, worshiping
comfort and pleasure as gods.
3. The real attack though is on Jesus’ identity. If you are the son of God… Satan tempts
this way twice. God has said after Jesus has been baptised – ‘This is my son with
whom I am well pleased’. Satan says ‘If you are the son of God…’ Satan is trying to
get Jesus to doubt his identity and position in God’s family – just as he does with us.
Our lives come out of our identity – how we view ourselves, the identity we give
ourselves determines how we live. If we see ourselves as victims, we live the life of
a victim. “Identity determines biography”. Jesus is the son of God – Satan says, are
you sure? We are adopted into God’s family, we have a new life, we are a new
creation, have a new inheritance, we are filled with the Holy Spirit and Satan says –
are you sure?
e.g.
A. Are you sure you’re forgiven? Don’t you remember the bad thing(s) you did –
are you really sure God could or has forgiven you of that?
B. Are you sure God loves you? It doesn’t look like God loves you – why would he
let you suffer like this if he loves you?
C. Are you sure that God is your Father - that he adopted you into His family?
Doesn’t seem like your Christian friends are that helpful…
D. Are you sure that you are loved, cleansed, redeemed, adopted etc. If that was
true – wouldn’t your life look a little better than it does right now?
Satan will question our identity as a child of God as Satan questions Jesus’ identity as the
son of God. Don’t let him win…
In Christ we get a new identity and out of that new identity, we get a new biography. If we
forget our identity, let Satan rob us of it, then we lose our biography. Satan is a liar – he is
called the father of all lies and if he can get us to forget our identity he can destroy our lives.
Satan is a liar – and what he says doesn’t need to be true to have devastating consequences
– it just needs to be believed.
Sometimes Satan just starts out with a question… He did to Jesus and he does to us.
Jesus responds by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3 – it is written… Jesus retorts with – the Bible
says…
Therefore, when we are tempted, when Satan comes after us, we need to know our Bible.
That means spending time reading it, studying it and believing it to be true for us. Discuss it
and pray into it. Meditate on it. If we don’t we jeopardise our Spiritual authority. What do
we waste our time with instead of reading the Bible? And when the battle comes what
happens? We can get picked off because we have not been readying ourselves for the battle
that will come! Instead, we’ve watched TV, pursued our hobbies, spent time on the internet
– but that’s not where we need to be. We need to spend time in God’s word. How are you
doing at that?
Some of us have believed two lies:
1. That the stuff on the hook – the bait – sin, is not enjoyable. It is enjoyable – it’s the
consequences that are the problem. The bait will be something that we will trade
our inheritance for as Esau did. We can drop an ‘o’ and good things can become god
things. We cannot get the bait without getting hooked though.
2. The second lie is that once we have been tempted and have resisted it, that Satan
will move on and leave us alone. He won’t – he will try another bait or wait for a
time when we are more hungry – more vulnerable.
Therefore we need to know the times when we are most vulnerable so that we can
be especially on our guard. We can quote a verse, as Jesus does, he doesn’t
necessarily go. He didn’t leave Jesus alone – he just re-baited the hook.
Luke 4: 5-8
Satan next comes at Jesus and preaches prosperity and tries to stop him from worshiping
God and instead worship him.
He still does this. It can be blatantly – TV adverts etc., but generally he knows that
Christians know the score, so he does it subtly through mistruths such as incorrect teaching
such as prosperity teaching
I thought the Father loved you, I though everything belonged to God… You should be eating
good food and enjoying the finest things – living in a big house – if God loves you and really
does own everything.
We can buy the lie – that we deserve the most and the best, not that we should live like
Jesus surely.
It becomes not a financial problem, but a worship problem – do we worship God or money
and what it can provide?
Satan tries to promise Jesus everything without the need for the cross. All Jesus has to do is
worship Satan. He tries the same with us, every time he can get us to sin, it’s like we
worship Satan instead of Jesus. We separate ourselves from God and try to hide from Him.
All of what we do is an act of worship
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what we look at is an act of worship
what we watch is an act of worship
what we say is an act of worship
what we spend money on is an act of worship etc.
Note: Satan doesn’t get Jesus to disown His Father or try to deny His position. He starts by
trying to get Jesus to not only worship His Father alone. We can be like this… We love Jesus
And… and you can fill in the blank.
This temptation is a worship issue. When we give into temptation – what or who do we
move our worship to?
Our goal should not be to eat less bait, or find a way of getting the bait without being
hooked. Our goal has to be how to avoid the bait. We have to repent – i.e. say sorry to God
and try to change our behaviour.
Jesus again quotes scripture to Satan – this time Deuteronomy 6:13.
Does Satan leave Jesus alone now? No, he baits the hook again – different bait…
Luke 4: 9-12
Again an identity issue, IF you are the Son of God…
Satan knows that Jesus has quoted scriptures, but Satan also knows the scriptures. Satan
and his angels read the bible to try and figure out how they are going to trip us up. Satan
has to be familiar with it so that he can feed the lies that are subtle, the mistruths, that we
might get hooked in by. We won’t fall for the obvious ones – so he has to be clever and
considered. Satan quotes – or rather misquotes Psalm 91:11&12 to Jesus.
This is why we have to be so careful. This is why we need to be on our guard and to discern
truth. This is why when scripture is quoted we have to understand the context and other
related passages – that we don’t misunderstand and get led a stray.
Satan is trying to figure out, what can he get these people at KCCB to misunderstand so that
he can lead them astray so that we don’t achieve what God wants for us for this church, for
this town...
Again though, Jesus quotes scripture to Satan from Deuteronomy – chapter 6, verse 16 this
time.
Jesus says to Satan, you have quoted the verse but misapplied it. It is not test God and
make Him prove to you who He is. It is, if you lovingly serve Him, he will provide for you all
you need.
We need to watch out for false teachers and false prophets. We do this by reading,
meditating on, discussing the bible with Christians. By checking out what we hear.
Jesus is exhausted – he is vulnerable, he is alone (remember period of solitude to be with
God are good – isolation where Satan can pick us off are bad). This, when we are alone,
perhaps feeling sorry for ourselves in some way, is exactly when we are most likely to get
caught by temptation and to give into sin.
When we are alone, we think no-one is there, but God is there. When there is no human
accountability, we put ourselves in a vulnerable position. Human accountability means
sharing with other Christians who we trust what the bait is that can hook us – and to
welcome being asked how we are going on – whether we have been hooked lately. We
need Christian friendships and we need to be in community groups. That way we can be
pre-emptive rather than reactive. This is when temptation is most tempting.
Satan does ultimately leave Jesus – and he leaves us for a time – but he will be back at an
opportune time – just as he said to Jesus he would be to him.
Whatever our temptation is – Jesus has been tempted that way.
Some of us are in a period of temptation – maybe sometimes winning and sometimes not.
Others are in a time between temptations – but Satan will be back so this is a time to get
ready for the next battle.
Don’t believe the lies of Satan – God’s truth will set you – yes you – free!
10 temptation truths:
1. Satan is a real enemy – not the cartoon character, he is sly, and he lies he is into
advertising and marketing.
2. Satan will pick his moment – physical conditions make us more susceptible to give
into temptation – when we are hungry, tired, stressed or anxious – and Satan will
wait for those moments.
3. Jesus Christ is our victorious warrior king. Our hope is Christ in us – this is how we
can be a winner. We can’t be a winner in our own strength. We can’t change
ourselves by ourselves; God changes us – through His Holy Spirit and our submission.
Jesus has not finished with us, He has not given up on us and He has not condemned
us. Jesus victory is our victory. His righteousness is our righteousness.
4. The Holy Spirit is our power – Jesus we filled with and lead by the Holy Spirit. We
can have and do have the same power of the Holy Spirit. We need to be filled with
God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit redeems us, transforms us and gives us new
power.
5. The bible is our counter-punch. Jesus knew scripture and could quote it back to
Satan. We need to as well. We need to immerse ourselves in scripture. If we only
read our bibles once a week we put ourselves in danger.
6. Christ is our identity. It is not what has been done to us, or what we have done, but
what Christ has done for us that matters. We have the family identity – we are
adopted children of God. In the eyes of God we are clean. We don’t need to be
bound by guilt.
7. Escape is always possible. We can think that the bait has been there so long that we
cannot escape it – but through the power of the Holy Spirit we can. We also need to
make sure we don’t keep going near to the bait – it’s going to make it much harder
to avoid. We always have two choices – take the bait and the hook or swim in the
opposite direction.
1 Corinthians 10: 13-14 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to
mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can
bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can
endure it. Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.
We always have a choice – even if it seems very difficult. God always provides a way
out – ask the Holy Spirit to show you the way out – for the future, but also when
considering the past.
8. Satan eventually gives up. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you.
9. When we give in to temptation – repent and do it quickly.
10. There are multiple battles – if we lose one dust yourself down and get prepared to
win the next, when we win one we need to be ready for the next one.
'Believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts. Don't doubt your beliefs and believe your
doubts.' Nicky Gumbel. Don’t allow Satan to try and get you to do otherwise…
Ministry
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God wants to restore our identity – have you allowed Satan to steal your identity?
Have you believed his lies that you are anything less than a fully adopted, fully
chosen child of His whom He loves unconditionally – regardless of what you have
done? God wants to restore your identity today – we would love to pray for you.
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Are you struggling with temptation? Is there a bait that gets you – we would love to
pray for you, that through God’s Holy Spirit you would have the victory to swim the
other way.
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Do you need to repent?
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Do you need to re-commit to spending time with God and to read your bible more?
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We’d love to pray with you this morning to ask that we would be in a position of
strength when temptation comes, particularly now through the holiday season as we
can be separated from one another – and easier to be picked off.