Matthew 4:1-11

[0:00] Thank you.

[0:30] Thank you.

[1:01] I'm like 0 for 5 on getting this thing to work, so this is par for the course. If it worked, I wouldn't feel comfortable up here. So today we're continuing our series in Matthew.

[1:14] We'll be in Matthew 4. So this text deals with the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. So before we get into it, a couple introductory thoughts.

[1:25] Jake, he knows God's word, and he understands that the character and qualities that the Bible affirms in a spouse.

[1:40] Should I wait? All right. So Jake knows. He understands what the Bible encourages him to look for in a spouse, right? But his impatience and desire for companionship overtake his commitments to biblical principle, and he finds himself constantly diving headlong into unhealthy relationships.

[2:02] Julie. Julie. Julie knows her unloving and gracious heart towards Alyssa is displeasing to the Lord, but driven by her dislike for Alyssa, she utilizes God's word to convince herself that since God opposes the proud, then so should she.

[2:18] Carson knows that he is on a short list for promotion at work, and since he is enamored with the increased pay and social standing that would accompany this promotion, he begins to spin every misstep and setback in a language that makes himself, his team, and his boss's boss look more competent in the eyes of the company.

[2:39] He relaxes his moral commitment to honesty for the sake of self-promotion. Unfortunately, we all know this dizzying world of compromise. We, like Jake, Julie, and Carson, have relaxed our moral commitments in order to obtain something that we felt we needed.

[2:56] We have all convinced ourselves that it is okay to hold on to this sinful attitude because of this or that reason. We have all sold out our morals in order to obtain something that in the moment was more desirable to us than God.

[3:09] And we've all hurt people that we care about simply because we could not resist temptation. And we all know deep down inside that this isn't okay.

[3:22] Whether you're here this morning claiming to be a Christian or not, you look at the world around us and you know that there is something broken. But worse yet, there's not simply something broken in this world out there.

[3:33] We know that there's something broken in each of our hearts. So, since we all know the defeat of failing to resist temptation, and we all know the pain that sin brings and the consequences, we also recognize we need help.

[3:51] We need a savior. We need someone to stand in our place. And so, we all have much reason to pay careful attention today to God's word and how he teaches us about Jesus and his ability to resist temptation.

[4:07] So, as we go through this, we recognize that Jesus was a man who came and lived and resisted temptation perfectly. And he did this. And what I hope we see from this text and what I really want us to see is that when Jesus was tempted, he was tempted in every way that was common to us.

[4:29] And that Jesus succeeded where we have failed, where humanity has failed, and that this Jesus then offers us victory through his victory. And it is my hope that at the end of this time, we all gain a bigger appreciation of our savior.

[4:44] And we learn to love him more and value more what he has done for us, how he has stood in our place, how he has made us righteous. And so, we'll dive into the text.

[4:55] I'll read the text, then we'll pray. So, our text is Matthew 4, 1 through 11. I guess you open your Bibles. All right.

[5:07] Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after 40 days and 40 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.

[5:21] But he answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to a holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple.

[5:32] And he said to him, If you are the son of God, then 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 the stone. And Jesus said to him, Again, it is written, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

[5:47] 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 them, All these I will give to you if you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, Be gone, Satan.

[6:00] For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. Then the devil left him and behold, the angels came and were ministering to him. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, as we open this text, Lord, we pray that you would give us clarity to understand your word.

[6:16] Lord, I pray that you would help us to see the elements in this text that communicate to our souls that Jesus is here to stand in our place against temptation. We recognize that we have not lived up to the standard that you've called us to.

[6:28] Lord, we have compromised our morals and we have minimized your glory and we have hurt people around us that you've given us to love. And Lord, these things are not okay.

[6:39] But Lord, you have provided us with the Savior who stood and succeeded where every one of us has failed. And so, Lord, I pray that today we as a church can just come to better understand and grasp the gift that we have in Christ, how he stood on our behalf so that we might stand with him in victory.

[6:58] And so, Lord, just give our hearts eyes to see and eyes to wonder and eyes to praise our Savior. Amen. Okay, so I read this.

[7:17] And while temptation is common to all of us, sorry, I don't know what I'm doing. Pulling it. Pulling it back. How's this? All right.

[7:29] Amateur. So we've all understood that temptation is something that's very real to us, something that meets our experience. We read this text and we kind of understand, we kind of see, it might sound a little foreign to us, right?

[7:46] We read this temptation and you're like, yeah, I understand. I understand temptation. But I read this and I don't understand that, right? So what elements in this make this a little bit difficult for us to kind of grasp? Well, first off, Jesus is tempted to turn stones into bread.

[8:02] I don't know about you, but I've never had that temptation. I've never felt the need to try to turn a stone into bread. Nor have I been tempted to jump off a building.

[8:13] Well, at least without a parachute. My wife can attest to this. I fantasize about jumping off many skyscrapers in lots of prominent cities, but that would be with a parachute for the thrill of it, face jumping.

[8:26] This isn't really what's going on here. But we have not been tempted to jump off buildings. And finally, I don't know, it's not really very near to my heart, this temptation to flat out worship the devil, right?

[8:40] And so there's elements in this that make this a little bit hard for us to understand. So it's important for us to ask the question, what is Jesus actually being tempted with and how then does it apply to our lives? So we're going to go through each of these texts and each of these sections and we're going to try to understand.

[8:54] We're going to understand what exactly is Jesus being tempted with and if he's succeeding, how is he then succeeding on our behalf? So we'll look at each of those elements. But before we get there, there's another interesting thing right at the beginning of this, right?

[9:07] So we remember chapter 4 comes after chapter 3. What happened at the end of chapter 3? Well, I guess we can read it. It's right here. So starting in verse 16 of chapter 3.

[9:18] And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water. And behold, the heavens were opened to him and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove coming to rest on him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.

[9:32] Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. So we have here at the end of chapter 3, we have Jesus associating himself with sinners, submitting himself to the baptism of John, and God coming, the Trinity coming to confirm his ministry.

[9:54] We have a voice from heaven says, this is my son in whom I am well pleased. This is my beloved son. This is the son in whom I love, right? And so this text of Jesus being sent into the wilderness comes right after this confirmation of who Jesus is, right?

[10:09] And this is weird to us, right? Because we as fathers or as people probably wouldn't go and say, hey, James, buddy, I love you. Now go into the wilderness, right? And so we have to recognize there's something that's different about this.

[10:22] And what we also see is that the spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness. So we see that this is an intentional act of God to lead Jesus into this time of temptation. So if this is an intentional thing that God is doing, we must ask why.

[10:35] Why might God be sending Jesus at the beginning of his ministry into the wilderness? But before we answer this, we've got to remember some of the identification themes that we see in Matthew.

[10:47] So this is going to get a little bit thick right here, but it's really good stuff, right? So Matthew has been spending a lot of effort in the first four chapters to tell us who this king is. He uses all kinds of language, right?

[10:58] So we see in these descriptions that Jesus is being associated with Israel. We see this in lots of ways. Right off in the genealogy, we see that Jesus is from the line of Abraham, right?

[11:10] Meaning he is the one who will bless the nations of the world. We see that he is in the line of David. Meaning he is the right ruler, the one who will administer God's rule in the world and bring peace to all of the world.

[11:23] In chapter 2, we see that Jesus, like Israel, was sent down into Egypt and called back, right? We see that God identified both Israel and Jesus in this case as his son.

[11:38] And then here in chapter 4, we see that Israel spent 40 years in the wilderness and Jesus is spending 40 days in the wilderness.

[11:49] So we see this, that Jesus is being set up to be the new Israel, the new people of God. And so we see this kind of things that happened to Israel that Jesus is experiencing microcosms of those things.

[12:04] And this is to draw our parallel to show, hey, Jesus is standing in Israel's place. But what else we see is if we look at the imagery of the garden, right, we also see that Jesus is being identified as the new Adam, right?

[12:18] So the imagery here in Matthew 4 is intended to remind us of the garden. In the garden, we see that the first Adam, he was tempted in a garden. This second Adam, this Jesus, this new Adam is being tempted in the desert.

[12:31] The first Adam had plenty and beauty and a companion. He had a wife. This second Adam was in the desert in stark ugliness. He was hungry and he was alone.

[12:41] The first Adam sinned and brought forth our downfall. The second Adam prevailed and brought forth our rescue. So why did Jesus lead or why did the spirit lead Jesus into the wilderness?

[12:54] The imagery is intentional and clear. God sent Jesus into the wilderness to succeed where Israel, the representative people of God, and Adam, the representative of all humanity, had failed.

[13:04] Jesus was sent into the wilderness to be a new and true representative for the human race. This means Jesus was sent here in the wilderness for you. He was sent there for your sake. So the spirit sent him there to prove that he is the true son, that he is indeed the son with whom God is well pleased.

[13:22] And with all his background, we begin to understand all is that's at stake in Jesus' temptation. And Jesus is here to battle temptation for the sake of all humanity.

[13:33] Satan is here to trip Jesus up, leveraging his human weakness to trick him into sin. If Jesus succeeds, all humanity has hope through his victory, and they have hope through his victory because he is their new representative.

[13:48] If Satan succeeds and Jesus falls to temptation, then hope is lost for the redemption of humanity. So here we see these aren't just normal temptations. There's a lot at stake.

[13:58] Jesus is being tempted on behalf of all humanity on behalf of you. So let's get in the first temptation.

[14:09] We'll see more of this theme coming up as we go. So temptation one, the first temptation is to doubt God's provision and God's love in the face of circumstance. So starting in, we'll start again in verse one of chapter four.

[14:25] Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting for 40 days and 40 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.

[14:37] So in the garden, Satan tempts, he traps, he ensnares Adam and Eve. And he does this by saying, by sowing a small seed of doubt.

[14:51] He said, did God really say? And so also here Satan seeks to drip Jesus up with a similar manner saying, if you are the son of God. So this is good for us to note.

[15:01] The devil doesn't often come to us, particularly those who are decently rooted in their faith, and say, hey, here's a big pile of disobedience, go indulge in it. No, he creeps in subtly, seeking to gain foothold into your heart through small compromises.

[15:17] And this is the approach that Satan attempts with Jesus here. He does not tempt him with adultery, tax evasion, or to beat his children. No, he approaches subtly. So subtly that, in fact, at first look, this temptation for Jesus to feed himself seems quite reasonable.

[15:32] After all, Jesus had been in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, and he was hungry. So at this point, you might say, 40 days and 40 nights is a long time.

[15:46] How hungry could Jesus really be if he was kind of on a miraculous fast, right? Well, if we look at fasts within the ancient world, there were certain fasts that would allow water but no food.

[16:05] And then if we look at more recent history inside some prisons in Ireland, there were studies shown on their prisoners that would show that prisoners within this penitentiary could survive 41 to 42 days with no food but having water.

[16:26] And this was kind of the limit that people could last without having irreversible physical damage. And so scholars believe, and I think what is at play here is that Jesus as a man is simply submitting himself to extremely rigorous fasts.

[16:45] That was completely in the realm of the physical. So Jesus here is placing himself into a similar position as Israel. Israel was in the wilderness, and they were hungry. He willingly followed the spirits leading into the desert and intentionally exposing himself to this extreme hunger.

[17:01] So that he could stand firm, trusting God's word in the midst of the physical draw towards physical needs. And it is this place where Jesus is hungry and tired that the devil comes to him saying, If you are the son of God, then certainly you have the right and the ability to make food for yourself.

[17:20] You are a man now, aren't you? You have to take care of your physical body. At first, it doesn't seem like there's anything intrinsically wrong about this request, right?

[17:34] And so today, the devil uses this same kind of temptation to us. He pries on our desires for physical comfort and physical needs and seeps in doubt in our hearts towards the provision of our God.

[17:48] And so, I'm sure it's relatively easy for us to trust God when things are going well, but do you continue to rely on him when things get tough? And all throughout Jesus' ministry, we see later on in Jesus' ministry, throughout his ministry, he's very careful to say that he does and says all that the Lord gives him to say.

[18:05] And this precise obedience is exactly what ensures that Jesus, in a state of humiliation, the taking on of human weakness, says and does exactly what the Lord wills and nothing more.

[18:18] So the temptation here is, will Jesus, as a man, trust his Father's word precisely, or should he take matters into his own hands and meet his own needs? Let's look at Christ's reply.

[18:35] Christ's reply is saying, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. So it's interesting here that Jesus chooses this text, right?

[18:47] He chooses this text because it intentionally focuses our attention on Israel, on a place where Israel had failed. This is a quotation from Deuteronomy 8, and I'll read that here.

[18:59] In Deuteronomy 8, Moses is talking to the children of Israel, and he says, And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God led you these 40 years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

[19:13] And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, and that your fathers did not know, that he might make you to know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

[19:25] Your clothing did not wear out, and your foot did not swell these 40 years. Know then in your heart that it is a man who disciplines his son, so the Lord disciplines you. Jesus uses Deuteronomy here to show that he has Israel, that he is intentionally putting Israel on his mind.

[19:46] He is responding to this temptation not simply for his own sake, but for the sake of Israel. He is recounting a place of Israel's failure in the wilderness. God had brought Israel miraculously out of the Egypt.

[20:00] He had provided for them. He had brought them across the Red Sea. He had given them great possessions and wealth, and then they get into the wilderness, and they're hungry, and they start to complain against God. When faced with their physical needs, Israel forgot all the goodness that God had done for them.

[20:15] They forgot all his power. They questioned his character, and they questioned his provision. And so here Jesus is intentionally bringing their scenario to mind and intentionally allowing himself to be hungry, bringing himself into the wilderness so that he might relive their failure and insert his victory.

[20:33] And so Israel, it says clearly, Deuteronomy 8 shows that God had intentionally humbled the children of Israel in the wilderness. He had allowed them to be hungry, and he did this to test them and to teach them.

[20:44] He wanted to test to see what was in their heart, and he wanted to teach them that they don't live by bread alone, but they live by God's provision. He allowed them to be hungry so that he might provide manna so that they might learn that he is the God who provides.

[20:56] In Israel, they failed this test. Even though they had seen God's miraculous work in their lives, they just simply could not trust him. They let their hunger and their need for physical comfort drive them to question the character of their God who had done so much for him.

[21:13] In contrast, Jesus intentionally is faced with human weakness and hunger. And when he is tested, his purity is proven. He proves himself to be the son of God, the true son, by showing that he was firmly committed to trusting his father's provisions.

[21:31] And so instead of taking matters into his own hand, making bread for himself, he responds by saying, man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, saying, I will trust my God to provide.

[21:46] So it's interesting use of words. Man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. What does this mean? Does this mean that Bible study is more important than food? Not exactly.

[21:57] I think what this means in context is if there is ever a contention in your life, in your world, between what is physically drawing and the word of God, the word of God needs to win out every time.

[22:12] Right? Because it is his word that sustains our life. It is his word that provides. And so here Jesus is submitting himself to his father's provision, and he is saying, I will not go out on my own, but I will trust that my God will provide.

[22:28] His word is sufficient. He has told me that he will care for me and take care of me, and I will trust him. And so what we see here is Jesus having victory in this realm of trusting God, of trusting God's word.

[22:44] But in this victory is also wrapped up victories, smaller victories against complaining, right? Because what did Israel do when God didn't provide the way they wanted to? They complained. And what else did, what else is Jesus tempted with here to do things on his own?

[22:57] So how about you? When things get hard, when you're tested, what comes out of you? Do you seek to trust God's word? Or do you quickly make a plan for yourself?

[23:09] Do you make lip service to God's word, but then go off on your own wisdom and strength? And so we, I would contend that oftentimes we fail at this.

[23:24] Oftentimes we do not take God at his word. We do not trust him simply and with faith. Instead, we either complain about him. I mean, I don't know.

[23:36] I know that I am so prone to complain. This guy, I work harder than this guy, yet he gets paid more, right? That guy cut me off.

[23:47] My kids, they just won't listen. I've told him so many times. And my kids, my kids, you know? And we are just prone to complain. We complain because we forget that it is our God who rules this universe.

[23:58] He is in charge of all the small moments of our life. And instead of submitting to his rule and trusting his care, trusting that this inconvenience that just came up in my life is for our good and for his glory, I complain against him.

[24:12] And so we see here that our human tendency is to go out on our own. We see here that our human tendency is to question our Lord. And so we sit with Israel here.

[24:24] We sit with Israel needing our Savior to come in and to stand against temptation in our place. And luckily, we have a Savior who did just that. So in the midst of physical hunger and physical draw and physical need and weakness that any of us have ever experienced, Jesus, who actually, I mean, right, it's different, right?

[24:45] So many things that I complain about, I don't actually have the power to change, right? Jesus had the power to make himself food. And he says, no, I relinquish that. I relinquish that ability because I will trust my Father.

[24:56] And so often we say, forget God. I'll just go and do it on my own. I'll make a plan and I'll try to execute it. And we have casualties along the way. So we had that original illustration of Jake, right?

[25:07] Jake, he knows to seek a wife that is godly, right? But his need, his inability to wait for the Lord causes him to just make unhealthy relationship choices, right?

[25:19] And the baggage builds up over time. And so we know this is a common problem in our culture. And we see that this is something that we need a representative for.

[25:31] So let's jump into the next temptation. Temptation two. This temptation is to twist God's word for personal advantage.

[25:41] So since Satan's first temptation led Jesus to respond with the word of God, Satan now is using that very word to attempt to trip Jesus up. Let's read the context.

[25:55] When we start in verse five. 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.

[26:06] And on their hands, they will bear you up. Lest you strike your foot against the stone. In short, Satan is saying, jump off the temple for it is written. The Bible says God will send his angels to rescue you.

[26:21] But we look at this and we're like, why is this a temptation? What's really going on here? There's got to be more to it than that. Well, there was an ancient Jewish story, a rabbinic tradition that said when the Messiah came, he would stand at top of the temple.

[26:35] And he said, you poor, your salvation draw near us. And then he will leap from the building, authenticating his ministry. Now, Matthew doesn't make any direct allusion to this tradition, this story.

[26:47] And the source documents for that actually come after Christ. So they could have been before, but we don't really know that. But I think this is what's going on. It's not hard for us to understand that Jesus, who is starting his earthly ministry, the temple is always a busy place.

[27:02] Should he jump from the temple and be rescued by a pack of angels at the last minute, it would have to validate his ministry, right? People would see that and people would understand, hey, there's this man coming who has power, who has God on his side, who has angels that bend to his needs.

[27:27] And you know what? And Jesus knew these things too, right? He knew that he was a son of God, and therefore he knew that God wouldn't let his Messiah die in this way. So why not take this opportunity to authenticate himself here?

[27:38] What was wrong with the little show of his power to get his earthly ministry off on the right start? But let's look at Jesus' response. And Jesus said to him, again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

[27:49] So in context here, Jesus is saying, hey, Satan, don't – he's not saying, hey, Satan, don't test me. What he is saying here in context, he's saying, even though I'm the son of God, I must not put God to the test, right?

[28:07] Satan, I am the one being tested here, and that means my responsibility is to not challenge God, my father, but to trust him. And this, again, was exactly the failure of the Israelites in the wilderness.

[28:18] The text that Jesus refers here quotes back to the Exodus, when the people of Israel tested God by challenging his character. Because of their thirst in the wilderness, they accused God of bringing them out into the wilderness to die.

[28:34] And so Jesus' response here, again, reminds us that Jesus is intentionally aligning himself with Israel. He is intentionally putting himself in the place of the people of God so that through – that he might succeed where they had failed.

[28:52] But furthermore, this attack is also against the sanity of faith, is it not? For faith, instead of being something that bows to God's word and seeks his glory and delights in his way, faith is being twisted here and becomes something that could be used for our own agenda.

[29:13] The Israelites wanted God to meet their needs. They wanted to meet it right then in their way. And so they raised a challenge against God, potentially as a means to manipulate God into action. So this temptation, what's really behind this temptation is a temptation to twist God's word and to use it for a means that is contrary to God's will.

[29:31] So Jesus says to Satan, to the devil, it's also written, you shall not put your Lord to the test. And so he's saying whatever this text and psalm is teaching us, it must be compared to what the Lord teaches in other places.

[29:46] And he teaches us not to test him. It teaches us not to manipulate him. So the principle that Jesus is teaching us here is that scripture needs to be compared to scripture, and scripture needs to be interpreted in light of scripture.

[30:04] But please note here that the devil is using scripture to tempt Jesus, and he will use scripture to tempt you. The Bible can be distorted in many ways. We can misquote it, quote it out of context, misapply it, or apply it out of balance.

[30:17] One author puts it, you can talk about being saved by grace until you have so much faith that you have no holiness. Or you can talk about holiness until you have so much legalism that you don't have any grace.

[30:29] And there is no shortage of opportunities for us to manipulate God's word. Some use text and stewardship to justify greed. Others use text on male headship to justify the marginalization of women.

[30:40] And so on and so forth. Do you guys remember Julie for our illustration? Julie, this was her issue as well, right?

[30:52] And it was not that she had suppressed her call to love her Christian sister by using God's word to justify herself, saying, since God opposes the proud, then so should I. She is using God's word to justify her dislike for someone she has called to love.

[31:05] And this can happen to us in personal conflict. We tend to be people, we think we like balance, right? We try to apply God's word in a balanced manner until we become tested, until we become challenged.

[31:19] And then it becomes easy for us to focus on certain aspects of the scripture to validate our own positions. And so I bring this up because I think it's a big temptation in the church.

[31:32] It's a big temptation in my heart. Bible-loving men and women using the word of God to defend their position or attack their opponent, all the while forgetting his or her call to Christian love and unity. And I think this is why conflict in the church can be so detrimental, because we are people that are deeply committed to the understanding and the use of God's word.

[31:52] But we also are people who are fallen, and the devil is seeking to manipulate that very word that God gives us to life to lead us to discord and disunity. And it can be polarizing, and it can be difficult for us to see.

[32:06] It can be difficult for us to understand, because we'll be holding fast to a biblical principle that we think is so important and minimizing or marginalizing other ones that call us to unity and towards love.

[32:17] And I know this tendency in my heart, right? We all are little self-lawyers trying to lawyer up when we get in conflict. And as Christians, unfortunately, we have the resource of God's word, which the devil can use as a resource for discord.

[32:35] And so what do we got to do? First off, we got to cling to Christ, right? Because it is in Christ that we truly have unity. We also recognize our inability. On this side of eternity, we will never be able, we will never have the wisdom to fully understand and apply God's word.

[32:51] But we must seek to have balance. We must seek to apply a balance in a balanced way. We must have people in our lives that can keep us on course. But at the end of the day, we must trust Jesus, because we will never have unity in this church if our unity is not first and foremost founded in the one who has brought us unity, who has reconciled us to the God, and therefore reconciled us to each other.

[33:12] So last temptation. Temptation number three, this temptation is to worship someone or something that is not God.

[33:23] Again, the devil took him to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to them, All these I give to you if you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, Be gone, Satan, for it is written.

[33:34] You shall not worship the Lord your God, and him, 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. This temptation is a little bit easier for us to understand.

[33:48] While it's a little unrelatable because we don't necessarily feel the temptation to worship the devil, it is relatable because it's the classic and it's justified the means. Here we see the devil offering Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worship.

[34:02] And Jesus, as the Messiah, he's destined to rule the world, but his kingdom is not yet, and his kingdom comes by the way of the cross. So here Satan offers Jesus instant gratification and ease of process.

[34:17] He offers him rule without waiting and glory without suffering. And like the previous responses that we see Jesus make, he's not simply answering on his own behalf, but he's resisting temptation on the behalf of Israel, on behalf of all humanity.

[34:32] Jesus tells Satan to be gone, and again he quotes scripture saying, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. This quotation again comes from Deuteronomy. This is Moses encouraging the people to worship the Lord, to not have idols.

[34:48] But from Israel's history, we see that they failed, right? Israel over and over sought after the gods of other nations. They over and over neglected the God who had rescued them and sought to replace him with other things.

[35:01] And likewise, we find ourselves as people. We find ourselves as people so prone to chase after power, influence, money, our families, comfort, right?

[35:14] We exchange a pursuit of God. We put him on the back burner when we really pursue what we truly want. This is the heart of idolatry. This was Israel's problem. Jesus was bringing it to light here.

[35:26] This is our problem. Jesus is bringing it to light here. But he resists the devil. He says, I will not worship you. I will worship the Lord, my God alone.

[35:37] In Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy 6 teaches us what true worship looks like. True worship is loving the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And if we consider this, we recognize that oftentimes we use our hearts and our might and our efforts to worship another God.

[35:56] But praise the Lord we have a Savior who stands in our place. And so let's just say that Jesus did take Satan up on this offer, right?

[36:11] If he took him up on the offer for an easy kingdom, one that came without a cross, we must recognize that it is we who have been redeemed through that cross. So if Jesus here took the easy way out, if he chose the way of glory without pain, if he chose not to obey his Father, he would not have been in a place to redeem us.

[36:35] Because we know that his suffering, as one who stood in our place against temptation, his suffering didn't come on his own behalf, but it came on our behalf. In Matthew 3, at the beginning of the chapter, or Matthew 3, we see Jesus submitting himself to the baptism of John.

[36:50] Though he was a Savior who did not need to repent, he stands in the place of man. And here in chapter 4, we see that he stands in the place of man against temptation. We as men have all fallen to the tricks of the devil.

[37:02] We have all sold out our morals to seek something else. But we have a Savior who has stood firm, who has remained committed, and has obeyed his Father. And we also have a Savior who has sympathized with us in our weakness.

[37:14] So Jesus really became a man. He just was really hungry. Jesus really needed physical food, right? So he condescended to our behalf, and he experienced the things that we have.

[37:25] And so we have not just a Savior who stood in our way, or stood in our place. We also have one who can sympathize with us in our weakness. And this is necessary, isn't it? This is necessary for the whole idea of substitutionary atonement, right?

[37:39] For if we just had some celestial being that did not take on our form, then what would he really be saving us with? If we had a Savior who didn't truly resist temptation, who wasn't tested and proven pure, then his salvation wouldn't simply be for us.

[37:58] It would be for him, right? If he had failed these temptations, he would be unable to save the world. But because he resisted, because he stood.

[38:11] Hebrews 4 teaches us. Hebrews 4, 14 through 16. It says, And so here in Matthew 4, we see that we have an example.

[38:48] We have someone who lived and who resisted the devil. He stayed committed to God's word and trusted God fully. And so it set an example pattern for us to know and resist temptation by trusting God's word.

[39:06] But more than just an example, we also have a Savior, right? We have one who stood in our place, one who stood where we had failed, one who succeeds and provides us victory.

[39:18] But we see also that we have a Savior who sympathizes with us in our weakness. He became man. And as Hebrews 4 talks about, the last verse, it says, Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

[39:35] And so we don't simply have an example. And we have a Savior, but we also have somebody who empowers us, who gives us confidence to approach his throne of grace and find grace to help in time of need.

[39:52] And so we have a Savior who is continuing to reign. We have a Savior who changes our desires, right? And so rather than being somebody who's chasing after relationships to find fullness, God gives us a better joy of a relationship with him.

[40:09] Instead of needing to prove ourselves and prove that we're right, we've been made right by our Savior.

[40:20] And instead of needing to seek other things to satisfy us, to seek promotion, to seek power, to seek glory, we have a God who has brought us into his glory. He's brought us into his family, and he has promised to meet all of our needs.

[40:34] And so we may trust him because he has come, and he is a person, he is alive, and we can trust that he provides us with what we need. He tells us he gives us everything needed for life and godliness.

[40:47] And so as we face temptation this week, I pray that one, or I hope that one, you would be thankful that Jesus has stood in your place. And if you get anything from today, I mean, Jesus is very clear to show that he has stepped in the place of Israel.

[41:02] So it was a little bit in the weeds, but it's neat to see just how intentional he is to show that, hey, through my life, I am living my life for the people of God, right?

[41:14] I am living where they have failed. And I pray that when, or I hope that when temptation comes, you will head to the throne of grace. You will seek your Savior.

[41:24] You will seek the person who is your God who can empower you and give you victory and give you joy that just wipes out the temptation, whatever is being offered to you in that temptation, because we serve a greater God.

[41:38] And so I'll pray. Dearly Father, Lord, we thank you that you stood in our place.

[41:50] Oh, Lord, this text kind of brings us deep into our hearts to recognize our failures, to recognize the ways in which we haven't lived as we should.

[42:05] Outside of your cross, it would stir up guilt in us that we could not stand against. But in light of your cross, we know that you have stood on our behalf. You have taken the guilt that we deserve.

[42:17] You have been victorious over it. You have lived righteously so that we might be accounted as righteous. You have died so that we wouldn't have to.

[42:28] And you have raised, you've been risen from the dead to bring us into your victory and to give us the power to live for you in this world. I pray that we as a church would just tap into the resource that we have in Christ, that we would grow to love him more and rely on him more and praise him more as we see his beauty flushed out in your word.

[42:48] Amen. Amen. Thank you, Jordan. We're going to turn now into a time of communion, the Lord's table, the Lord's supper.

[43:05] And this time is designed for believers in Jesus to recall. and