Luke 4:Jesus’ Temptation

Gospel of Luke / Luke 4:1–13

Luke 4:1–3 ESV

he was hungry.

This is the hard part about temptation. It doesn’t wait for us to be ready. Jesus was at his worst moment when the devil showed up.

Temptation grabs us and shakes us when we are not ready. We are taken in temptation because it invariably involves something unprepared and impromptu. It takes “us against the grain, at the very moment when it seems we are not up to it.” This is the normative experience of temptation.

You desire in that moment to trust something less than in place of trusting in something truer than

It is trusting something immediate but not necessarily true.

Luke 4:3–13 ESV

The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’ ” And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 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. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written,

“ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God,

and him only shall you serve.’ ”

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, for it is written,

“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,

to guard you,’

and

“ ‘On their hands they will bear you up,

lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ”

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

Christ himself shows us that we can resist temptation

We have to be cured of our need to have things fixed immediately.

This is the cultural moment. We cannot wait or cannot handle not having exactly what we want, so we have begun to think we can “command stones” to become bread. Or acquire power and authority at any cost. We believe that we have the capacity to conjure whatever it is we want.

Temptation cheats us into thinking that this is all there is because it demands that we trust whatever it is we are being tempted by.

The temptation of Jesus by the devil is simply three requests to trust what he is saying

Every time you and I are tempted we are being asked to trust something

But Jesus shows there is more to trust than what is right in front of us

Luke 4:1 ESV

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness

You have to make a choice in who you trust when temptation is at it’s peak. In that moment we can remember that Christ tells us it can be done but more importantly

Christ Himself has done it

Christ endured in the wilderness, rejected the enemy of our souls, and the devil departed Christ until an opportune time. The cross becomes that opportune time. The cross is the second collision of the enemy and the Messiah. Christ descends even farther than temptation in the desert on the cross. Christ has come to us in our weakness, but even more so, He comes to us in our death and dying.

That means every moment of temptation, every point of weakness, every frustration or moment of despair we feel can be first be handled at the cross. The cross, like temptation, like weakness, feels like failure. But what the cross shows us is that death is not the end. We bring our weakness to the God who became weak because in that moment, He was raised from the dead.

Hebrews 4:14–16 ESV

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 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.

Christ interacts with you to solve it. But you need to wait for him.

Jesus encountered temptation and encounters you in your own temptation

Temptation is a time of need. A flimsy shortcut, a good idea gone sour, a desire that rots are the places that we have need. And the God who has descended into all of that meets us there. He shows us how to get through it and is the way through it Himself.