Introduction

In this sermon on the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, Revd. Mark Fletcher explores how living by God’s word equips us for life’s trials. Drawing from Luke 4:1-13, he shows how spiritual maturity grows when we learn to worship God alone and keep trusting God in hard times, rooted in the love that comes first.

Maturity. Growing in wisdom and stature means making good, wise choices. Sometimes hard choices under pressure and making good choices means learning to say no. Which is rather out of step with our world where people tend to just do whatever they feel like. But if we are going to grow to be like Jesus, these are essential things to learn.

We are continuing this adventure in Luke’s gospel. And our story this evening doesn’t actually begin with the temptation of Jesus. It starts with one of the loveliest moments in the gospels. And so if you were to look back to chapter three, verse 21, which is referenced at the start of our reading, what’s going on is that all of the people are going out to John the Baptist to be baptised, and Jesus goes too.

And he is baptised by John the Baptist, and as he emerges from the water, the heavens open and the Holy Spirit descends, and the voice of the Father declares You are my son, whom I love. With you I am well pleased. What a moment that is. And note that this is at the start of Jesus’ ministry. He hasn’t done anything yet. And before he has done anything, the Father declares his love for him. And it’s the same for you and I that the moment we become Christians, we know, we experience that overwhelming love and approval of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God says, you are my child whom I love. With you, I am well pleased.

Isn’t that wonderful? The love comes first. It is the foundation of everything else. However, as is often the case after the sunshine, the storm clouds gather and there are these times of trial and testing where the genuineness of our faith is tried. And so after his baptism, Jesus retreats into the wilderness for 40 days of solitude and fasting and prayer and nature and silence and contemplation.

And I would imagine actually that for most of that time, it was a fairly wonderful experience of intimacy with God. But at the end of it, Jesus is tested. Now it’s important to understand this event in the context of the whole of scripture because these temptations that Jesus face in actual fact are common to the Old Testament people of God.

And they are temptations that we all face, and Jesus faces them too. And so what we have are three stories, three trials, three temptations, which are common to all. But what is crucial is Jesus’ response. If you remember nothing else from this evening, remember this, that it’s amazing to see Jesus using scripture.

Jesus’ response to times of trial and testing is to root himself back into the scriptures every single time. And if Jesus needs the Bible, then don’t you think that you do too? And it’s not just Bible verses that each of Jesus’ responses to these temptations is like a key, which opens up a whole Bible story and that those Old Testament Bible stories, which often seem very long and rather difficult actually are there for us.

They are examples for us to inspire and encourage and to guide us. And Jesus uses them, so we should use them too. So the first is not by bread alone. So we think, along with most of our world, that what is essential for life is physical stuff. We think that material sustenance, that wealth and possessions are what makes life sustainable and what makes life worth living, and we are wrong.

They are not. And the danger is that we spend an awful lot of our life learning that lesson and learning our mistake. Because of course, what makes life living is relationships. And first and foremost, our relationship with God. We are not just bodies. We are minds and souls and spirits, and we need those things to be sustained and given life.

We are very good at recognising our physical hunger and we know what to do in order to satisfy that hunger. But I think we are extremely poor at recognising our spiritual hunger and we all too often try and satisfy that with all sorts of things that are not God. So Jesus quotes from a story and it’s a direct quote from Deuteronomy chapter eight, and it’s one of the most famous stories in the Old Testament.

So the Israelites have been rescued from slavery in Egypt. They’ve been led into the desert and on their way to the promised land. But the question, of course, is how are they going survive this long journey through the wilderness? And you know how they’re sustained. They are sustained day by this remarkable, miraculous food from God, which is called manna.

And it’s interesting that they would often look back on that time really fondly that they would say that, though it was actually really hard, we were so dependent on God that it was like being really alive. As Jesus says humanity, human beings do not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Can I suggest it’s not? It’s a good thing. So get a good breakfast. I absolutely recommend that. But the most important meal of the day is actually the word of God. And without that you are failing to nourish your heart and your soul.

You will become spiritually malnourished. An old preacher once said, if I spend the day without rooting myself in God’s word, I know about it. If I spend two days without rooting myself in God’s word, my family will know about it. And if I spend three days not rooting myself in God’s word, everybody will know about it.

Or the old joke, seven days without prayer, makes one weak. But it’s not seven days, is it? I think one day without prayer makes one weak. We take seriously the fact that we don’t live by physical bread alone, that we need to nourish hearts and soul. Life in all its fullness does not come from the accumulation of material things.

Riches is not measured by possessions. Love, joy, and peace are the things that make a life rich. You want to live well, you want to be sustained in the hard times. You want peace in the midst of the storms, joy in the simple things of every day life. You do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

The second temptation. Worship God only. Now that might seem like a really obvious thing to say, but the reality is it’s quite a sort of subtle temptation that sneaks up on us. So the thing that we worship is the thing which we value the most highly, the thing that we put our trust in, that which we work for, that which we serve, that which we make sacrifices for.

And Jesus quotes a story. This is from Deuteronomy six, and it’s a moment at the end of that journey through the wilderness. And they’re on the cusp of the promised land and the warning from God is this. When you get there and when you get all of the things that I promised you, when all of those things have been fulfilled and you’ve been provided for, when you discover that you have land and houses and vines that you did not plant, do not forget who provided them for you.

The challenge as we go on in life, if we start to get a little bit comfortable and we look at all that we have and we start to think that somehow we did this. And little by little we start to put our trust in ourselves or in these things which are not God and do not offer real security and which do not last.

And subtly we start to turn our back on God. Jesus said it is written worship the Lord your God, and serve him only. Everything you have. Your intellect, your gifts, your career, your possessions, your wealth, and your security comes from God and is a gift for you. But never forget that and never forget to be thankful for it. Every day offer thanks, honour God with everything you have.

Beware of that creeping comfort, which becomes complacency. Worship God and serve him only. They’re good, aren’t they these temptations? They’re quite hard hitting and you see that they’re common to all of us. The third. Do not put God to the test. So the final temptation is about how we respond when things get hard, when we find ourselves in tricky situations.

So imagine this. Imagine a relationship where one person is constantly demanding proof and reassurance that they are loved. And every time something goes wrong that they take that as evidence that they aren’t really loved. It would be such a problematic way to conduct a relationship, wouldn’t it?

And yet, very often that is how we relate to God. And every time something goes wrong, we think that this is proof that God doesn’t really love us. We said at the beginning that with God, the love comes first. There is this foundation of grace and forgiveness, and mercy and acceptance, which is the basis of our lives.

But then he expects us to be able to get through the hard times. The trials come. He asks us to fight the good fight of faith. He never promises that life will be easy. He only promises that he will give us what we need to get through the hard times. And Jesus’ response to the third temptation is a quote from a rather less known story.

This is from Exodus 17, and they’re in the middle of the wilderness. Everything’s gone wrong. They haven’t got any water. They’re starting to panic, and they basically forget that God has provided for them all of this way. And they demand that God proves his love for them once again. Maturity of faith is to not be shaken when things seem difficult. To stand firm. To not let these kind of light and momentary troubles shake our confidence in God.

How do you know that God loves you? Remember His goodness to you. Remember the wonder of creation, his countless blessings, his grace and his providence in your life, and ultimately, of course, remember the cross of Christ. God literally gives his life for you. And yet when it gets hard, we all too easily forget that. We need to learn to trust and remember and be strong in the love of God that we know.

So this journey of faith is a journey of growing up, of coming to maturity in Christ. It was never meant to be the easy way. There are trials and temptations along the way, and the Old Testament people of God struggled and failed with all of these things. Even Jesus was tempted by them, and so you will be too.

Growing in faith and wisdom is about choosing to trust God when it’s hard. To root ourselves in his word. To find our strength in him, and to worship God alone in order to face the storms of life. To be there for others and not just for ourselves, and to make those choices that allow us to live well as we were created to be.

Thanks be to God for his love which is the foundation of who we are. Let us live by faith in that love and be able to face all that life has to throw at us and bring us to the end of our days when we find our way back to him, to his promised land. Amen.