The Text, St. Matthew 4:1-11 (v. 1). 1 Then Jesus was led up into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

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1 Sermon #1,250: St. Matthew 4:1-11 (Historic Gospel) , Lent 1, Bethany-Princeton MN (Hymns: 302, , 559; comm. 252, 249, ) THE CHURCH IS THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE TEMPTED The Text, St. Matthew 4:1-11 (v. 1). 1 Then Jesus was led up into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Lord, this is Your Word and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is truth. We humbly ask You, O Lord, by the mystery of our Savior s fasting and temptation, to endow us with the same mind that was in Him toward all evil and sin; and give us grace to keep our bodies in such holy discipline that our minds may always be ready to resist Satan and obey the promptings of Your Holy Spirit; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, now and forever. Amen. (Collect on the Gospel for Lent 1) Dear fellow redeemed in Christ, who was tempted for you: When we come to the temptation of Christ in the wilderness, to answer the question What does this mean? we should go to Hebrews 2:18, where it says: In that He Himself suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid [help] those who are tempted. What is Jesus temptation in the wilderness about? It s about helping those who are tempted. Jesus went there purposely to be tempted by the devil. That s opposite from us. We fall into temptation; in fact the Bible uses that way of speaking: Watch and pray that you do not fall into temptation (Mt 26:41); and, Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation (1Ti 6:9). This is getting lulled into it. You aren t careful enough. Temptation isn t accidental. Just like the creepy people who are always trying to steal credit information, creating internet viruses, and doing spam phone calls, nothing is an accident. The devil is behind every temptation and he is purposeful. You fall into the traps he sets for you. So notice, Jesus goes to meet the devil. It feels in this story like the devil is doing the trapping. But actually, Jesus went there to trap the devil. The Bible says, The Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil (1 Jn 3:8). The works of the devil start with tempting you to sin, 1

2 making you guilty, and deserving eternal death. Jesus came to destroy that work of the devil, to undo what the devil does to you. So here Jesus does not fall into His time of temptation. He goes into the wilderness in order to be tempted to sin, so that He can defeat it. He goes to meet the devil s temptations. He does this for you. To help you. This really defines what the church is, Jesus church. It is a fellowship. What kind of fellowship? What do we all have in common? We are all tempted. Another thing in common is that everybody has sinned. Nobody defeats all the temptations. Nobody is strong enough to resist sin as we should. Nobody s will is strong enough. Nobody gets through a week without sinning so that they don t need to come to church to be forgiven. For that matter, nobody gets through a day without sinning. So we are the fellowship of the tempted. It s what we all have in common. This really is the essence of the church on earth. The Church is what Christ has created, through His Holy Spirit, so that we all have somewhere to be together, and to come together, so that we who have fallen in our temptations can be helped, to be helped by Him. The only way He can help us really, though, is not by being above us all and taunting us with His holiness and perfection and never having to go through this. The way He helps us is that He came to be one of us. He came to suffer, being tempted, as it says in Hebrews 2:18. That s what this Bible story is showing us. Jesus did not meet the devil as God. He did not even meet the devil as an equal. He was still true God, of course, but He laid aside the full use of His divine power. He chose not to use it. When the devil came to Him, Matthew tells us, Jesus was hungry. This speaks of His needs as a true man. Jesus was suffering. The three temptations we read about weren t the only temptations. Luke tells us Satan had been tempting Jesus throughout the 40 days. Jesus was also tempted to sin throughout His childhood and young manhood. And He would be tempted constantly after this. These three came when Jesus was at His weakest point physically. Again this emphasizes that He faced the devil in His human nature. These were real temptations. Without doing it this way, Jesus wouldn t be able to help us who are tempted. 2

3 The temptations that we read about are temptations that summarize our entire experience. The first one, command that these stones become bread, was the temptation to take care of His extreme hunger, so under this fall all the ways the devil tempts us with physical and material needs self-serving wants and desires. The second one, to throw Yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple, was a temptation to demonstrate His power, so under this comes our desire to be praised, what pride and selfish ambition lead us to do. The third one, that if Jesus fulfilled a condition he would be given all the kingdoms of the world and their [worldly] glory, speaks to our preoccupation with success. If we focus on the what of these temptations we have a long list. They aren t limited to the three temptations Satan did to Jesus. Go through the Ten Commandments; you ll come up with quite a list of temptations to sin. If you go by age group, from toddler to childhood to pre-teen to teen-ager to young adult and on up, there are different temptations for each stage of life. Doesn t it wear you out, like Jesus was worn out? You could say this is the devil s goal. The tempting is really only the first stage of his attack. After he gets you to yield to the temptation, he accuses you. That is what the last book in the Bible calls him, the accuser who accuses them day and night (Rev 12:10). His goal is for you to listen to his accusations, even if they re lies, so you will despair. If you read this gospel lesson carefully, you see that while the devil s goal is to get Jesus to sin, at the same time he is trying to work Jesus toward despair. Jesus had come here straight from His baptism, when He heard God say: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. We heard that last Sunday. The very next words after Jesus baptism are today s verse 1: Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He had the baptism words, the name-of-god words, ringing in His ears: This is My beloved Son. Then the devil put something else into His ears: three times he said, If You are the Son of God 3

4 The devil was attacking a certain part of Jesus flesh. As the Athanasian Creed says, Jesus has a rational soul and human flesh. The devil attacked Jesus human reason, His ability to reason things out. The devil reasoned with Jesus not to believe the spoken Word. What spoken Word? Why, the Word the Father spoke at Jesus baptism. This is happening to Jesus, but reveals what happens to you. In baptism you were named by God as His own child whom He loves. He put His name on you. You go into the world, after baptism, bearing the name of Christ. Having His name signed with the cross on your forehead and breast. This is the sign which Satan s legions fear and angels bow their faces to revere (#194 v. 3). But you don t seem to intimidate the devil much. Temptations come to you. You end up doing the evil you don t want to do. You don t do the good you want to do as God s child. You become unsure that you are God s child. You re weak and wounded. But this is why Jesus went to the wilderness to be tempted. The children sang the words Luther has Jesus say: For thee I strive and wrestle. That s what He was doing. In Hebrews 4 it says: He was tempted in all points as we are, yet [was] without sin. He was able to do what we can t, because He did not have a sinful nature. His will could resist all the devil s temptations. He met every temptation perfectly with the Word of God, each time picking out the perfect It is written. But He did this for you. One thing Jesus was doing, even at this point, was establishing His Church. None of His disciples were there. He was alone. But He is already establishing His Church as the fellowship of the tempted. It begins with Him. He was tempted. He remained without sin. He resisted every temptation, conquered the devil, and replaced the devil s work with His holiness. This holiness and righteousness of His is now the gift that He has to give. Where does He give it? In His Church. How does He give it? By His Spirit and His Word which Jesus used in the wilderness. So now we are all here together, wounded people, wounded by the temptations that we fall into and that we face. It is a wilderness filled with temptations that we live in. But here in the wilderness Jesus has placed His Church, His Church on earth, the church militant that always has to struggle against the devil and fight temptations. 4

5 He has given to His Church on earth the fellowship of the tempted the special authority of His to forgive the sins of all who repent. This is His Word, the Gospel, the word of pardon and forgiveness. If you doubt He forgives you, He says: It is written written in His blood! The Spirit, through the Gospel, creates faith in you through this word so that you trust His certain word of forgiveness that it is true! This crushes the devil, because there go the sins, there goes all evidence against you, there goes everything the devil accuses you of, there goes the despair. In His Church Jesus takes all that away, and in its place gives you His perfect and completely worthy holiness, righteousness and purity. That s not all. In His Church as He pours into you the Holy Spirit and the Gospel, He is strengthening you against temptations. He is arming you with His Word so that with His help you are able to resist the devil and are made a stronger foe of the devil, using the weapons of the Lord which do repel the devil the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. We think we are in this 1-on-1 struggle with the devil and temptations, and how can we do what Jesus did, to meet the temptations so well by using God s Word? Well, the fact is that it is not 1 on 1. Jesus is with you in this fight; but not only that, He has placed you with a gazillion others who are tempted, who are engaged in this with you, and He assembles you together here, around His Word, to be strengthened with His Word together. In that way the devil doesn t stand a chance. We are the fellowship of the tempted but we are also the fellowship of the forgiven. One day we will join those who are enjoying to the full the victory over temptation in heaven the fellowship of those who were tempted but have obtained the victory. Amen! 5