Luke 4:1-13 If (Temptation in the Desert) How do you picture this scene? Jesus, out in the desert; it is hot and dry and he s hungry. And the devil is there. Do you have the devil in your mind s eye? Do you see horns and tail and that evil scowl? Or is he handsome and smooth and urbane, like Charles Boyer- he was cast as the devil in a movie at least once. Jesus and the devil, in one of the most remarkable confrontations in all the Bible. We may not think so at first- we already know how it will turn out, and we have all the confidence in the world in Jesus: Son of God, he can do miracles, he always has an answer for every question and every situation. But in the temptation story we mustn t think of Heroic Jesus, standing tall and proud and strong, but rather sunburnt, tired, starving, and barely able to say no to the temptations. We should consider the temptations in the same way we understand his fear and anxiety at Gethsemane the night before the crucifixion, and his suffering on the cross. Here in the wilderness, God s plan will come to nothing if Jesus fails; the hopes of humanity and all creation rest upon the parched whisper of Jesus, It is written. When he had no strength to fall back on, he still could recall the words of scripture that kept the Son of God sinless amongst temptations.
We need to know that the temptations were real. Jesus was a real man. And the tempter attacks him as a real man who feels pain and ambition and even doubt, so the temptations came with seeming solutions to his need for food and his desire for certainty and success, and his longing to please God. But the tempter knows who this One is, and we, too, have already read in the gospel that Jesus is the Son of God, and the temptations grow more difficult along that line, If you are the Son of God, he says, and Jesus is forced to acknowledge what kind of Messiah he will be. If he gives in at any point, he still would become the greatest political leader in history; or he will become the greatest religious teacher the world has ever known; he will do so much good, and heal so many, and feed so many, and govern the world with justice, but he will not be God s Messiah, and he will not die as humanity s Savior and be raised as its Lord. That is where the temptation is most powerful- Jesus knows what he can do, he knows his power, and the good he can do, but he would never be the Suffering Servant who could say with a blameless heart, You shall worship the Lord God, and serve only him. If he will only make a tiny change of focus. If you are the Son of God, do this. But to prove he is God s Son he must act in a manner that proves he is not. So he does not respond self-righteously, or with anger, does not even trust his own
words to answer. And we too, realize he is God s Son who trusts in the Word of God as his strength. That little word if. Seemingly a favorite word of the tempter. A conditional word- if you really are the Holy One, this is what you will do ; it is a word of supposition, and the devil reiterates, if you are God s Son, then take control over the nations of the world, give God a holy world that you rule over. If is a word to begin an argument. If is a challenge- come on! If you are the Son of God, then act like the Sovereign Ruler of the world: why should you go hungry, or anyone else? why do you need to suffer, or anyone else? It is so subtle. That is why we probably shouldn t think of horns and tail, or a sophisticated evil prince, but rather Jesus own desire to please God and do the perfect will of God. His temptations are far beyond ours (He is the Son of God, after all.), and yet they are exactly the same. Do our temptations come with horns and red, leering eyes? No, they seem reasonable. We think, if I do this, it s alright, God made us to enjoy life, this can t hurt anyone, it is just a way to give meaning to my life, and it will please and comfort me, and so, make me better able to help others and serve God with joy. We can talk ourselves into anything.
I hope you will forgive a personal allusion. One of my greatest temptations is this idea that I need to say something important. I suppose it is a challenge I issue to myself; it is proof that I am what I say I am; it justifies me as a minister- in other words, it is the all the definitions of the word if. If I am a good preacher, then I will be able to communicate the deep meaning of the gospel. But behind it is the temptation to try to impress. To be able to use big words and explain profound concepts, so that you may think this preacher has got it together, and you ll like him and want to hear more. I think it is a temptation common to all preachers, and believe me, I am always conscious of it. This is the preacher s version of the third temptation from our passage, to stand at the highest place in the church so that everyone can hear and see, and then try to do or say something extraordinary. I have seen ministers yield to this temptation, and I guess you have, too. I just hope you don t see it from me very often. How many times I have read an essay or a sermon and said, Why can t I write or preach like that! But there is only one Martin Luther, only one Dietrich Bonhoeffer, only one John Stott, only one Oswald Chambers, and I am not any one of those. But that s ok, it isn t my job to be one of the great ones, but just to be humble. In fact, I should model my attitude- believe it or not- upon Jesus in this
way: that even he didn t strive to be great when the challenge came, throw yourself down if you re the Son of God to prove his greatness, but merely quoted the greatest of all the Israelites, Moses, You shall not tempt the Lord God. In this he is our example: when the trial comes, to be content to trust in God s Word, and not give in to the temptation to try to be something more, or try to win as though the temptation is a contest. We live in a competitive society. There is always a challenge we are trying to overcome, we like to test our strength and abilities, and our heroes are professional athletes and warriors and successful businessmen and women. But our passage shows us the Son of God who is not great, not heroic- not here; he doesn t answer a single one of these taunts of the devil. He doesn t display any power at all, but rather retreats behind these quotations of scripture. He doesn t debate, doesn t try to prove he is the Son of God by showing he is capable of these deeds. What he does exhibit is absolute trust in God- believing that if he is hungry, God will provide; that if his life on earth accomplishes good, it will come out of the grace of God and in God s time, and not from his own grasping for power. In this he is our example. For it is the same I think for all of us- these temptations, with slight variations. We want our needs met; we want to impress; we d like
some control over our lives. But we cannot be God s men or God s women on our own terms, but on God s terms, in the way God has called us to be his children, following to the places he leads, and in the manner he has made us: to be humble, to be giving, to be patient, to be brothers and sisters and servants of one another. Yesterday, five of us attended the Area Leadership Event in Ft. Worth. There were classes we audited, and in one of those I listened to a young minister tell us he would spend about 30 minutes telling his story and then describe and discuss the worship at his church. But the 30 minutes became 55 minutes. Now, I am 25 years older than he, but if I couldn t tell my life story in 12 or 15 minutes, I would just give up. It evidently was important for us to know that he felt like he had never fit in, that he always had questions. But I could never figure out why he thought he was special just because he has questions about his faith. Don t we all! Perhaps it isn t fair of me to say this about him, but it seemed that he should be fighting that third temptation a little harder. Our little word if is a questioning word. It is the word the devil tempted Jesus with; it may be the question Jesus asked himself, If I am the Son of God, why don t I turn these stones to bread? It may be the questions we ask, If God is
a loving God, then why? If I am saved, then why do I feel? In this little word, if, is so much bewilderment and uncertainty and struggle. For all the great quantity of questions, there aren t a whole lot of answers. But our lives can take a hopeful shape, and turn in a positive direction, if we can simply answer, as Jesus did, Worship the Lord God, and serve only him. It doesn t mean that we stop asking the questions, that we abandon the quest to try to understand, but that we turn from ourselves and turn in trust to God only, and believe that we are truly God s children when we live not by bread alone, but by every word that comes from God.