Victory in Jesus

Sermon Transcript

In the first three chapters, Luke lays out the introduction to the rest of the gospel.

Chapter 1 was about the events that happened right before Jesus was born – the angel’s visits to Elizabeth and Mary, the incarnation in Mary’s womb, and the birth of John the Baptist.

Chapter 2 was about Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem and then the two accounts at the temple from when He was 40 days old and then when He was 12 years old.

And chapter 3 was about the ministry of the forerunner – John the Baptist – and then Jesus’s baptism and His genealogy.

Those three chapters cover about 30 years or so of Jesus’s life – but really, He hasn’t been the main character for much of it.

He only speaks once – when His parents were looking for Him – “Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?”

His name only appears 7 times in those 170 verses.

But those introductory chapters now give way to the rest of the book – starting in chapter 4 – which are all about Jesus.

That’s where we find ourselves this morning – Luke chapter 4, verses 1 through 13.

Let’s start by reading the text.

I assume that many of you are already familiar with our passage for this morning, before I even read it – the temptation of Jesus.

But let’s not let our familiarity with the passage breed any complacency or indifference, because this is the word that God has for you this morning.

1 And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, He was hungry. 3 The devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” 4 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” 5 And the devil took Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to Him, “To You I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If You, then, will worship me, it will all be Yours.” 8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written,

“‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
    and Him only shall you serve.’”

9 And he took Him to Jerusalem and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here, 10 for it is written,

“‘He will command His angels concerning you,
    to guard you,’

11 and

“‘On their hands they will bear you up,
    lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.

 

1 – Some theological preliminaries

First, let me briefly address a few theological issues that come up anytime this passage is discussed.

Maybe some of you are wondering, “If Jesus is God, then how can Jesus be tempted?”

We need to remember the hypostatic union – that Jesus, in the miracle of the incarnation, has two natures in His one person – He is both fully, totally God and fully, totally man.

In His divine nature, Jesus cannot be tempted, but in His human nature, Jesus can be truly tempted.

But – with that said – Jesus could not have sinned.

That’s something the theologians call the impeccability of Christ.

Because an act of sin by the one person of Jesus would necessarily involve both natures – including His divine nature, which cannot sin.

And yet at the same time, we don’t want to minimize the temptations, because Jesus really was tempted.

In His incarnation, Jesus voluntarily sets aside the independent use of His divine attributes.

And so Jesus doesn’t just shrug off these temptations because He’s God and God cannot be tempted.

No, these are legitimate, powerful temptations from Satan that assault Him in His humanity – and yet He perfectly resists them all.

 

2 – The purpose of the passage

The second thing I want to say before we get to the text – is that this is one of those texts in which we can easily miss the main point.

When we read this narrative, the tendency we can have is to make this story all about us.

And so what Jesus does here in this narrative just becomes a launching pad for us to think about how we need to fight temptation – how we might fight sin ourselves.

But this passage isn’t about us.

Are there things that we can learn from Jesus’s example as we seek to fight temptations in our own lives?  Absolutely.

Chief among those would be using the word of God – knowing the word of God – memorizing the word of God – so that we might effectively fight against temptation.

To be empowered by the Holy Spirit and to use “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

And also along those lines would be knowing and recognizing our spiritual enemy – “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

Seeing how he tempts Jesus here, and thinking about how we ourselves are tempted – “so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.”

I’m not saying that all of that’s not important.

And I’m also not saying that a preacher shouldn’t refer to this narrative when he’s preaching about the importance of say, knowing the word of God to fight sin.

He should – because this text is an excellent example of that.

But what I am saying, though, is that none of that is the primary reason why Luke gives us this passage in his gospel.

And so while those are all valid applications of the text, if that’s all that we come away with, we’ve entirely missed the point of the passage.

We’ve turned a passage about Jesus entirely into what we need to do.

Here’s another way to think about that – if Luke just wanted to give us a passage whose main point was how we as followers of Christ should fight our temptations, don’t you think it would’ve made more sense for Him to write about temptations that we actually go through? 

The temptations that Luke writes about here that Jesus endures are not anything like our temptations.

If I’m really hungry, and someone tells me to turn a rock into a loaf of bread – that’s not all that tempting – because I can’t do that.

And all the kingdoms of the world?  I don’t really want that.

And don’t even get me started on jumping off the pinnacle of the temple.

You see what I’m saying?  This narrative is about temptations that are unique and specific to Jesus – and His victory over those unique and specific temptations.

Are there overlaps with the temptations that we as believers we deal with?  Oh, for sure.

But the differences are much more striking than the similarities.

The point of this text is not how we might fight sin.

So – if that’s not the point of the passage – then what is?

The point of this passage is to show that Jesus is the true, perfect, obedient Son of God.

In each of the three temptations, the temptation is for Him to go against the will of the Father – and in each of the three temptations, Jesus remains steadfastly aligned to the will of the Father as the obedient Son of God.

And therefore – and this is why Luke gives us this narrative in his gospel – therefore, Jesus, as the true Son of God, is qualified to be our Savior.

And so this passage is not about how we can be like Jesus as much as it’s about how Jesus is altogether unlike us – because He and He alone is the true Son of God.

All three temptations are specific to Jesus as the Son of God, and by overcoming these temptations, Jesus proves Himself to be the perfect Son of God.

Now if you’ve been paying attention from the beginning of the book, you’ll know that Luke’s been building up to this very point through the first three chapters.

Remember in chapter 1, the angel Gabriel appears to Mary – and what does he tell her about Jesus?

“The child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.”

And at the end of chapter 2, Luke records how 12-year-old Jesus declares Himself to be the Son of God.

“Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?”

And then in chapter 3 – it’s God the Father Himself who, at Jesus’s baptism, declares Jesus to be the Son of God.

“You are My beloved Son.”

And then at the very end of chapter 3 – at the very end of the genealogy – look at the very last verse in chapter 3 before our passage.

The genealogy ends with “Adam, the son of God.”

And – remember that there were no chapter breaks in the original – look at how chapter 4 begins – “And Jesus.”

“Adam, the son of God.  And Jesus…”

Adam – the first human – he was “the son of God” in the sense that God created him from the dust of the earth.

But Adam failed in the Garden of Eden when he ate of the tree.

When Satan tempted Adam and Eve, they ate of the one tree from which they were commanded not to eat, and as God said, “in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

And since Adam was our representative, Adam’s sin plunged all of his descendants – all human beings – all of us – into the curse of sin and death.

So that all who are born “in Adam” are born with a sin nature – born as sinners who then choose to sin and thus earn the just punishment for their sin – eternal death in hell.

And so – as Paul says elsewhere – “in Adam, all die.”

But Jesus – “the Son of God” – the Second Adam – has come to undo what the First Adam did.

Now ultimately, He’s going to do that by dying for the sins of His people.

But – and we can’t forget this – He can’t do that unless He first lives a perfect, righteous life.

That is, the substitutionary death of Jesus is not possible without the righteous life of Jesus.

The Second Adam had to be righteous and holy in order to undo what the First Adam did through his unrighteousness and unholiness.

That righteous life of Jesus starts, in this gospel, with His incarnation.

Because Jesus is divinely conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary’s womb.

And so He’s perfect by birth – but He’s also perfect in His life.

And God the Father publicly testifies to that at His baptism, when He declares, “with You I am well pleased.”

“Well pleased” because He is holy and righteous and sinless.

But now here in our passage, the Second Adam is really going to be put to the test with regards to that holiness and righteousness and sinlessness.

 

1 – The Spirit leads (v1)

Luke tells us that Jesus is “full of the Holy Spirit” – something that’s always been true of Jesus in His incarnation but was visibly manifested in His baptism.

But it’s not just that He’s full of the Spirit in a general sense.  Look again at verse 1 – it’s also that He’s specifically led by the Spirit in the wilderness to face these temptations.

And so this isn’t that Jesus wasn’t being careful and let His guard down, and now all of a sudden He’s sneak-attacked by Satan in the wilderness.

No – it’s the Spirit who leads Him into this conflict with Satan.

Going back to something I said earlier – that’s another example of how Jesus’s temptations here are different from ours.

Jesus was led by the Spirit into battle with the evil one.

But Jesus later teaches us to pray the exact opposite for ourselves – “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”

 

2 – Temptation #1 – Going against God’s will by creating bread (v2-4)

And so for forty days, Jesus is in this wilderness – this region between the Jordan River and the populated parts of Judah – just barren and desolate desert for miles and miles.  And during those forty days, Jesus eats nothing – and Luke tells us, “He was hungry.”

As human beings – when we’re physically weak – when we’re hungry and famished – we’re particularly susceptible to sin.

And so Satan tries to capitalize on this particular moment when Jesus is physically weak – on the verge of starving to death – and he makes Jesus a proposal.

Verse 3 – “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”

Now that “If” – as in, “If You are the Son of God” – is probably better translated as “Since.”  Satan doesn’t doubt that Jesus is the Son of God – he knows that very well.

And so this isn’t, “I don’t believe You – prove to me that You’re the Son of God” as much as it is, “Since You are the Son of God – command this stone to become bread.”

But why is this a temptation?  Or – to put it another way – why would this be sin if Jesus did it?

Later on, Jesus takes five loaves of bread and two fish and multiply them to feed the multitudes.

That clearly wasn’t sin – and so the sin isn’t so much Jesus using His miraculous powers to create food.

No – Satan’s temptation – and the potential sin – is to make Jesus distrust the loving provision of His Father.  Satan is trying to pit the Son against the Father – and he’s appealing to Jesus’s hunger and lack as evidence that the Father doesn’t really love Him.

“The Father said He loved You – remember your baptism?  But then why would He let You suffer like this?  He’s forgotten You and forsaken You!”

“You don’t have to go through this – You’re the Son of God!  You don’t need the Father!  Just go ahead, make some bread from these stones!  Aren’t You the one who created these rocks anyway?”

The temptation then was for Jesus to distrust the Father’s loving provision – to use His own powers as the Son of God apart from the Father’s will – to allow His legitimate physical need to make Him go against the Father and do something – in this case, create bread – that was not God’s will for Him.

Faced with that temptation – a real temptation in His humanity – Jesus answers by quoting a portion of Deuteronomy 8:3 – “Man shall not live by bread alone.”

You read the context in Deuteronomy 8 – God’s talking to the Israelites and telling them that the reason He allowed them to be hungry – the reason that He fed them with manna – was so they would trust in Him to provide.

“Man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

Every word from the Lord – specifically for Israel, the word that God had given them to provide for them and supply for them, so that His people would not look to the bread itself, but to the one who can be trusted to provide that bread for His people.

And so Jesus rebuffs the temptation – obedience to God and trust in His will and His provision is more important and more necessary than bread itself.

And so He will not use His divine powers independently of His Father’s will, regardless of how hungry He is.

34 … “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.
John 4:34

And so in the face of this great temptation, Jesus remains steadfastly aligned to the will of the Father as the obedient Son of God.

 

3 – Temptation #2 – Going against God’s will by avoiding the cross (v5-8)

Which brings us to the second temptation – in verses 5 through 8.

If you’re a careful Bible reader, you may have noticed something interesting about the difference between Luke’s account of these three temptations and Matthew’s account in Matthew chapter 4.

Each of them starts with the stone-into-bread temptation, but Luke then goes to the kingdoms of the world second and the jumping off the temple third, while Matthew has those in the opposite order.

It seems that Matthew – because he uses words like “then” – is going in chronological order, while Luke organizes his topically.

Maybe because this ordering more closely parallels the account of Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 3?

Or maybe because this ordering puts Jerusalem and the temple in the last spot – which would be fitting for Luke because of his emphasis on Jerusalem?

We can’t be sure.

But whatever the reason for the difference, in Luke’s second temptation, the devil takes Jesus up and he shows Him all the kingdoms of the world.

And we’re not really given any detail on what exactly it means that he showed all the kingdoms of the world to Jesus “in a moment of time.”

But look at what Satan says.

Verse 6 – “To You I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.”

Satan’s referred to elsewhere as “the ruler of this world” – here, he offers Jesus exactly that – the world.

So again – we need to ask – what’s the nature of the temptation here?

How is this a temptation for Jesus as the Son of God?

What does the Old Testament tell us was promised to the Son of God?  Psalm 2:

7 I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are My Son;
    today I have begotten you.
8 Ask of Me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
    and the ends of the earth your possession.
Psalm 2:7-8

The nations – the ends of the earth – that’s what Jesus came for – that’s what He, as the Son of God, was already promised.

To be given “dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him” – Daniel 7:14.

Essentially, Satan is offering Him what He came for – “You can have it – I’ll give it to You!”

But here’s the twist – “You don’t have to die!  You don’t have to be the Suffering Servant – You don’t have to be the sacrificial Lamb of God!  I’ll give You all this stuff without the cross – if You would just bow down to me!”

Satan didn’t want Jesus to go to the cross – he didn’t want Jesus to accomplish the Father’s will for Him.

Remember when Peter, later on, tells Jesus that He didn’t have to die?

What does Jesus say?  “Get behind Me, Satan!”

Jesus knew exactly where that idea came from – because He already saw Satan play that exact hand at the temptation.

Again, the temptation is for Jesus to go against the Father’s will.

The Father’s will was that the Son should die for His elect – that the Son should take upon Himself all the sins of His people and suffer the wrath that they’ve merited.

Isaiah 53:10 – “It was the will of the Lord to crush Him” – to crush the Suffering Servant, to crush the Son of God.

The temptation offered by Satan was for Jesus to receive the kingdoms He came for apart from the Father’s will.

“You can have your crown, without a cross.”

And – by the way – this is a temptation that He would deal with again, to an even more intensified degree, at Gethsemane.

“Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me.  Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.”

But in Gethsemane – as well as here, in the wilderness – Jesus rejects this temptation – He remains steadfastly aligned to the will of His Father as the obedient Son of God.

And here, He does it once again by quoting Deuteronomy – this time, a summary of Deuteronomy 6:13.

“You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.”

Basically, “My will remains perfectly aligned with My Father’s, and I will only get what I came for by the means that My Father has decreed.”

Which means that He would suffer – that He would go to the cross – He would die – because the Father’s plan was always for the Son of God to endure the cross, despising the shame, and only then receive His kingdom.

26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory?”
Luke 24:26

 

4 – Temptation #3 – Going against God’s will by testing Him (v9-12)

Which brings us now to the third temptation in Luke – in verses 9 through 12.

Satan now brings Jesus to Jerusalem – and they go to the pinnacle of the temple – where exactly that is in terms of the temple structure, we don’t know.

And he says, “Go ahead – jump off!  You’ve been quoting a lot of Bible to me – You trust the Bible – doesn’t Psalm 91 promise that God’s going to send His angels to protect You?”

So again – let’s ask – what is this temptation getting at?  Why would Jesus be tempted to jump off the temple?

This temptation is similar to the first one – notice how in both, Satan appeals to Jesus being the Son of God – “If – or since – You are the Son of God.”

In this temptation, like the first, Satan is calling into question whether God the Father really loves and cares for the Son.

Satan calls on Jesus to make His Father prove His love – prove His care – by jumping off the temple and forcing God to save Him.

Not surprisingly, it doesn’t work.

Jesus recognizes this for exactly what it is – testing God.

And so He quotes Deuteronomy 6:16 – “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

The full verse in Deuteronomy adds, “as you tested Him at Massah” – that’s the story when the Israelites demand water from God, and so Moses strikes the rock.

As that episode vividly demonstrates, to test God is to doubt Him, to say that God is not worthy of your trust – to demand that He prove to you that He can actually be trusted.

Again, this temptation is a temptation for Jesus to go against the will of His Father – by putting His Father to the test.

And again, Jesus remains steadfastly aligned to the will of the Father as the obedient Son of God.

 

5 – Satan leaves (v13)

Which then leads to the end of the narrative – the end of these temptations.

13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.
Luke 4:13

The devil leaves – but we haven’t seen the last of him.  He’ll be back – most prominently in Jesus’s final week.

 

TAKEAWAYS

1 – Jesus is the true Son of God

1A – Better than Adam

Jesus is the true Son of God – doing what Adam could not.

We’ve already seen how Luke ties Jesus to Adam in the genealogy.

But here, in this narrative, the contrast between Adam’s failure and Jesus’s victory is clearly brought to the forefront.

Adam – in the perfection of Eden – when tempted by the devil – he gives in to “the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life.”

But Jesus – in the desolation of the wilderness – when tempted by the devil – triumphs over all of those temptations.

Where the First Adam, as the representative for His progeny, plunges humanity into sin and death, the Second Adam, as the representative for His people, brings righteousness and life.

And so Jesus shows Himself to be the true Son of God in a way that Adam – “the son of God” – was not.

 

1B – Better than Israel

But – in this temptation account – we see one more way in which Jesus shows Himself to be the true Son of God.

Because there’s one other person who’s referred to in the Old Testament as the son of God.

22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is My firstborn son, 23 and I say to you, “Let My son go that he may serve Me”…
Exodus 4:22-23

1 When Israel was a child, I loved him,
    and out of Egypt I called My son.
Hosea 11:1

Israel was also “the son of God.”  But Israel, just like Adam, proved to be a disobedient son.

And what does that have to do with the temptation?  Did you notice where all three of the verses that Jesus quote in this account come from?

The book of Deuteronomy.

Is that because Jesus happened to be studying Deuteronomy that morning in His quiet time, and so it was just fresh on His mind?

No – I don’t think so.

Jesus isn’t just quoting random Old Testament verses, or even random verses from Deuteronomy.

No, all three of His quotes here come from a specific section of Deuteronomy – from Deuteronomy chapters 6 through 8 – which are about Israel’s wilderness wanderings.

Moses is speaking to the nation before they finally enter the Promised Land – and look at how Moses describes the time that Israel spent in the wilderness:

2 And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty 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.
Deuteronomy 8:2

God led Israel in the wilderness to test them.

Sound familiar?  It should.

Did they pass the test?  No.  What’d they do?

They demanded bread from God – every time they became thirsty or hungry.

They worshipped and served other gods – most notably, the golden calf.

And they tested God – over and over again, they tested God.

And so Jesus quotes these passages from Deuteronomy 6 to 8 to show that where Israel, the “son of God” – when tested in the wilderness – failed miserably in those three aspects, Jesus, the true Son of God – when tested in the wilderness – triumphs victorious in those same three aspects.

And so just like Jesus shows that He is the true Son of God in succeeding where Adam failed, so Jesus shows that He is the true Son of God in succeeding where Israel failed.

 

2 – Jesus is victorious

This is a story of victory.

Three times, Satan tempts Jesus with a temptation – attacking and testing Him as the Son of God.

And three times, Jesus is victorious, proving Himself to be the true, perfect, obedient Son of God.

But that victory, brothers and sisters, is also yours and is mine.

When we think of the imputed righteousness of Christ – that Jesus’s perfect record is given to all who would believe – do you realize that these specific victories in this specific narrative – in addition to the rest of His perfectly obedient life – are given to us?

So it’s as if you and I steadfastly remained aligned to the will of Father as the obedient Son of God even in the face of these incredible attacks.

But – as thorough and complete as Jesus’s obedience here was – as great a victory as this temptation narrative is – this isn’t the end of the story.

Because His perfect obedience through these temptations wasn’t enough to save us – He still had to die to pay for the sins of His people.

He had to go to the cross – He had to die in the place of His people – for that was the eternal plan of the Trinity.

And so He was crucified on a Roman cross.

And Jesus – who always remained steadfastly aligned to the will of the Father as the obedient Son of God all the way to His death – would, with His last breath, cry, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit!”

As darkness covered the land, it seems, but for a moment, that Satan had won.

But… death could not keep Him.

“Death is swallowed up in victory” – because Jesus rose again from the dead to reign forevermore.

And so this victory in the wilderness is like a foreshadowing of His ultimate victory – over sin, death, and the devil – through His glorious resurrection.

Jesus triumphs over Satan and so destroys the works of the devil.

And that victory is ours – for those who trust in Him – His victory is our victory.

“Through death He [destroyed] the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”

And so we, His people, are “more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

And so what is this story about?

Takeaway #1 – Jesus is the true Son of God.

Takeaway #2 – Jesus is victorious.

And so the fact that Jesus is the true Son of God isn’t just a theological idea out there – because Jesus’s victory is the difference between eternal death in hell and eternal life in glory for me and you.

***

Let me close with two thoughts.

First, if you are not a Christian – I’m so thankful that you’re here today.  But you need to know that in this conflict – between Jesus and Satan – in which Jesus is victorious – you are not on the side of Jesus.

You are of your father the devil.

You are in the kingdom of darkness, you are following the prince of the power of the air, and you are headed for his destruction.

But the good news of the gospel is that this victorious Jesus died for sinners like you and rose again for your justification – and that you too can be saved.

If you would repent of your sin, and place your trust in Him – in His perfect life and His death for your sin and His glorious resurrection – you too can be saved.

Second, if you are a Christian – in light of everything that Jesus has done for you – winning this victory on your behalf as the perfect, true, obedient Son of God – you must then live for Him.

To pursue holiness and to kill sin and to know the word of God that you might kill sin.

All of those things that I said earlier are not the point of this narrative – I want you to do those things as an application of this narrative.

But even more than that, I want you to look to Him and His victory – both in this temptation and ultimately on the cross and through His resurrection.

Because ultimately our victory is not found in our ability to resist temptation and kill sin and be perfect.

It’s found in what Jesus had to do to rescue us precisely because we’re not perfect.

And so, brothers and sisters, fight for holiness – kill sin – know the word of God.

But don’t look to your ability to fight – look to your great high priest who fought on your behalf and has already won.