Jan. 7, 2001

Luke 4:1-13

How to Resist Temptation

1. Introduction

1. Illustration – Philip Gunter tells this story: Six green beans sat on his daughter’s plate, untouched. Mike Benson says that sort of thing usually doesn’t bother him, but that night it did. "Eat your green beans," he told the eight-year-old. "Dad, I’m full to the top." "You won’t pop," he responded. "Yes, I will pop!" she said. "Risk it!" he said. "It will be okay." "Dad, I could not eat another bite." Mike knew they were having her favorite dessert, so he asked, "How would you like a double helping of pumpkin pie with two dollops of whipped cream on top?" "That sounds great!" she responded as she pushed her plate back, ready for dessert. "How can you have room for a double helping of pumpkin pie with two dollops of whipped cream, and not have room for six measly green beans?" She stood up from her chair and pointing to one side of her belly said, "This is my vegetable stomach. Over here is my meat stomach. They are both full. Here (pointing to the other side) is my dessert stomach. It is empty. I am ready for dessert!" Gunter comments, What we eat reveals what we hunger for.
2. Context – Today in Luke 4, verses one to thirteen, we are going to see that obedience to God has to override our basic hungers and needs.

1. Scripture Passages

1. Luke 4:1-13 - Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, ² 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 does 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, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. ⁷ So 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 says: ‘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.
2. Often we feel as if we cannot resist temptation in our lives. Or sometimes we feel like all we have to do is rail against the devil and rebuke him until we are blue in the face. But in this passage Jesus shows us some keys to resisting temptation in ways that are pleasing to God.

1. Three areas of attack

1. The first point we need to recognize from the start may seem like a no-brainer, but very often we fail to realize this truth: Satan will always attack us at our points of weakness, not our points of strength.

• The Spirit led out Jesus into the desert, where Luke tells us that for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
• Satan tempted Jesus throughout his time in the desert, but he waited until Jesus was at his weakest point before he attacked.
• Let’s take a look at the three areas in which Jesus was tempted, how He responded, and how we should respond.

1. The first area that the devil tempted Jesus in was physical needs.

• There is nothing sinful about physical needs. It is, as I said last week, sinful to try to meet physical needs in ungodly ways. Satan tried to get Jesus to turn a stone into bread so He could meet His need for food.
• Richard Foster, in Celebration of Discipline, writes this about long-term fasting: Anywhere from twenty-one to forty days or longer, depending on the individual, hunger pains will return. This is the first stage of starvation and signals that the body has used up all its excess reserves and is beginning to draw on living tissue.
• Jesus was in real need of food. His body was beginning to cannibalize itself in order to maintain the life of its vital organs. Why would it have been sinful for Him to turn a rock into bread in order to keep Himself from starving? Simply put, Jesus did not have miraculous power in order to meet His own needs. The power was there to meet the needs of those around Him and to help prove to them that He is the Messiah. Jesus had faith in God to meet His needs.
• How did Jesus respond to the temptation to meet His deep physical need in a sinful way? I’ve often thought it curious that Jesus didn’t just "zap" Satan or order him to leave. Instead, Jesus responded with a Scripture found in Deuteronomy 8:3. The full verse reads, He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Not only did Jesus respond with Scripture, but also He quoted one that proved God’s ability to meet His need of hunger.
• When we are tempted to meet our physical needs in ungodly ways, we need to follow Jesus’ example. We need to use the Word of God to prove to ourselves and our enemy that God will provide ALL of our needs.
• Which brings us to an important point – we can only rely on that we believe. We have to believe that what the Word of God says is absolutely and unequivocally true in order to believe that His Word will give us the answers we so desperately need to life’s problems. If we believe God’s Word, then we can use it to resist temptation.
• Jesus responded to the temptation to meet physical needs in ungodly ways with the Word of God. We have to do the same if we are going to resist this temptation.

1. The second area in which Jesus was tempted was emotional needs.

• All of us have a need to feel significant and worthwhile as individuals. We have the need to feel that we amount to something. Jesus had the same need. So Satan tempted Him by offering Him all the prestige and adoration that come with ruling over the entire world. Satan was offering to make Jesus the king of the physical world. Did he have the authority to make such an offer? Yes, because Jesus did not call him on it. All Jesus had to do was to worship Satan, and all of His emotional needs would be met for His entire physical life. How did Jesus respond?
• Jesus quoted another Scripture from Deuteronomy, this time Deut. 6:13 – Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Notice another important point – Jesus didn’t argue with Satan; He simply quoted the Scripture and let the truth of God’s Word do the work. In quoting this verse, Jesus was making the declaration that God alone was able to meet His emotional needs, and that God alone was the one He would be turning to during His stay on this planet to meet those needs.
• We must follow the example of Jesus when we are tempted to meet our emotional needs in sinful ways. God is the only one who can meet all of our emotional needs. When we are tempted to meet those emotional needs in ungodly ways, we need to use the Word of God to fight the temptation that the devil is placing before us. God’s Word is more powerful than the temptation.

1. The third area in which Satan tempted Jesus was spiritual needs.

• Satan took on Jesus’ identity and faith in God point blank. Satan said, "IF you are who you say you are, then you should have the faith to believe this Scripture." But Satan was also using another ploy – taking Scripture out of context and misapplying it. Jesus had enough of a knowledge and understanding of God’s Word to recognize this ploy.
• Satan quoted Psalm 91:11-12. The context clearly indicates God’s promise to protect those who, as verse nine puts it, make the Most High your dwelling – even the Lord, who is my refuge. But the intent of the passage is clearly not one of going out looking for trouble. We have to remember that God’s principles as laid out in the Bible do not contradict one another. In other words, God will never ask us to do something that contradicts another part of His Word.
• Jesus did not take the bait. Instead, He quoted the correct application of Scripture right back at the devil – Deuteronomy 6:16 – Do not test the Lord your God as you did at Massah. What happened at Massah? The Israelites grumbled and accused God of wanting them dead because there was no water. Moses struck the rock and enough water came out for them. But the water also led the Amalekites to attack them there.
• Trust is a big issue. The Israelites grumbled because they did not trust Moses or God. Satan was attacking Jesus’ belief in God to meet His spiritual needs head on. But Jesus knew who He was and who God was, and used the appropriate Scripture to show Satan that God is God and is sufficient to meet ALL of His needs, physical, emotional, and spiritual.
• We need to follow the example of Jesus. When we are tempted to put God in a position of proving His ability to meet our spiritual needs, we must use God’s Word to resist temptation.

1. Jesus resisted the temptation to meet physical, emotional and spiritual needs in ways displeasing to God. He didn’t rail against the devil or against the unfairness of the situation. He trusted God to meet His needs, and He back up that trust with God’s Word. But verse thirteen is also very significant – When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time. Satan searched hard for chinks in Jesus’ spiritual armor. When he found none, he left. But he left with the intent to return whenever the opportunity presented itself. Just because we are successful in resisting a temptation once does not mean we are finished with it for all time. It just means that we will be hit with it again when we least expect it.
2. Illustration – Kent Edwards writes: The tuna were running for the first time in 47 years, only 30 miles off Cape Cod. And they were biting! Last fall all you needed to catch one was a sharp hook and some bait. And the rewards for doing so were substantial. Rumor had it that Japanese buyers would pay $50,000 for a nice bluefin! That’s why many would-be fishermen ignored Coast Guard warnings and headed out to sea in small boats. But what these new fishermen didn’t realize was the problem is not catching a tuna – the problem comes after they’re caught. On September 23, the Christi Anne, a 19-foot boat, capsized while doing battle with a tuna. That same day the 27-foot boat Basic Instinct suffered the same fate, while Official Business, a 28-footer, was swamped after it hooked onto a 600-pound tuna. The tuna pulled it underwater. These fishermen underestimated the power of the fish they were trying to catch. That is what temptation does to us. It takes us by surprise. It looks manageable on the surface. Only after we hook into it do we discover its strength.

1. Conclusion

1. Jesus understood the power of temptation. Do we? Jesus used the truth of God’s Word to resist great temptation. Do we?
2. There is a tremendous spiritual principle here. Either God’s Word is powerful enough for us to use to deflect temptation, or it isn’t. Jesus proved that it is throughout His own life. How committed are we to resisting temptation in our own lives by the power of the Word?
3. Whenever we rail against Satan, we take our eyes off of God. It’s okay and often good to rebuke the devil, but how do we do it? Do we use God’s Word to do it, and then do we immediately focus our attention on the One Who gives us the power and strength to resist temptation? Jesus needs to be our focus. Not Satan, not the temptation, but Jesus.
4. What has God been saying to you today? Can you hear His voice whispering to you that He alone is enough to meet your physical, emotional and spiritual needs? Have you been trusting Him to meet those needs or have you been giving in to temptation? Where is your trust to meet those needs going to be placed?
5. With every head bowed and eye closed, have you been trusting God to meet your needs and keep you from temptation? If you feel God telling you that this is what you need to do, please come forward now and pray. Come forward as a sign to Him that you are committing yourself to trusting Him to meet your needs and help you resist temptation.
6. Let’s pray.