Who Knows Jesus and Does It Matter?
Luke 4: 1-13
4:1 Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
4:2 being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.
4:3 And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread."
4:4 But Jesus answered him, saying, "It is written, ’Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ "
4:5 Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
4:6 And the devil said to Him, "All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.
4:7 "Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours."
4:8 And Jesus answered and said to him, "Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ’You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ "
4:9 Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here.
4:10 "For it is written:
’He shall give His angels charge over you,
To keep you,’
4:11 “and,
‘In their hands they shall bear you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
4:12 And Jesus answered and said to him, “It has been said, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God.’ ”
4:13 Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.” (NKJV)
Introduction
Before I ask “Do you know Jesus?” let me ask this question:
Does Anyone Know Who Jesus Is?
If anyone knows who Osama Bin Laden is, if any one knew who Hitler was or if anyone knew who Stalin was, it was their enemies. Jesus knew who the devil was and the devil surely knew who He was.
In ‘The Message Bible,’ the devil says: “Since you are the Son of God.”
It is always important to bring to mind (to remember is a poor word for this process) that Jesus Christ is God.
In all decisions about our lives, whether we see or hear or read or that we are thinking about, we must bring to mind that Jesus is God.
If you ever want to find out what a teacher believes about Jesus, ask them who they think Jesus is.
If their answer is anything less than that Jesus Christ is God the Son, they are not teaching the truth. The church has taught this from the beginning because it is the teaching of Scripture.
“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.”
That is part of the Nicene Creed dated from the 4th Century after Christ. (381AD)
In 553AD, after its present formulation, it included certain things that excluded a person from being a church member. Among other things it said:
“If anyone does not confess that our Lord Jesus Christ who was crucified in the flesh is true God and the Lord of Glory and one of the Holy Trinity; let him be anathema.”
(http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/documents/nicene.html)
Definition of anathema: 1. a thing set up or laid by in order to be kept. Specifically, an offering resulting from a vow, which after being consecrated to a god was hung upon the walls or columns of the temple, or put in some other conspicuous place.
2. a thing devoted to God without hope of being redeemed, and if an animal, to be slain; therefore a person or thing doomed to destruction.
3. a curse.
4. a man accursed, devoted to the direst of woes. (http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=331&version=kjv)
“Somebody or something that is greatly disliked or detested and is therefore shunned.” (Encarta Dictionary in Word 2003)
“If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”(anathema) (Gal 1:9)
Of course that is only part of the story. There is a big difference between preaching about Jesus and knowing Jesus!
John Wesley says he went to America and preached to the indigenous Indians but was unsure that he trusted Christ himself!
So that is why the Creed tells us it is those who confess that Jesus is the true God are those who are saved.
Do You Know Jesus?
Back to our text. Now the devil knew who Jesus was, otherwise he would not have approached Him to tempt Him.
If you want to know something, it is best to investigate it, to test it to see if it is true.
We should always question what we are told.
Let’s not be like the old couple on FAIR GO, who allowed some men to take $5000 from them and then not paint their roof!
Let it never be said that we who teach from the Bible and you who believe it, simply accept it without question.
It is still commonly believed that Christians go to church and leave their brains on the back seat of the car.
On the contrary, we are encouraged to think:
For example: “Choose this day whom you will serve,” said Joshua to all the people. (Josh 24:15) You have to think about it, don’t you?
“Come let us reason together,” says the Lord in Isaiah. (Isa 1:18)
“Call to me and I will answer you,” says God in Jeremiah. (Jer 33:3)
“Test all things; hold fast what is good.” Paul told the Thessalonians (1THES 5:21)
If we are to be spiritual, Eastern philosophy and teaching encourages us to empty our minds so as to find peace, whereas Jesus gives us something to think upon and to decide about Him.
He gives us His word.
The Apostle Paul in Romans says:
10:8 “But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith which we preach):
10:9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
10:10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
10:11 For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’
10:12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him.
10:13 For ‘whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.’ ”
That is the key to it. Knowing Jesus is believing in Him, trusting in Him, resting in Him for your today and all your tomorrows.
A Miracle for Himself
Now, the devil places before Jesus the option to create a miracle for Himself. To use His undoubted power to get a way out of the predicament of His hunger (v.2) The Message (Bible) says: “when the time was up he was hungry. (3) The Devil, playing on his hunger, gave the first test: ‘Since you’re God’s Son, command this stone to become bread.’ ”
So what was it to be? What was the option for Jesus?
Could He in fact create bread out of stone?
Could the Jesus you believe in turn dry stones into edible nourishing bread?
Some Bible commentators do not believe in miracles. Well, miracles done by angels or Mary at Lourdes may be ok, but miracles by Jesus? Psaw! I don’t think so! (say the critics.)
The devil knew very well that Jesus could change stones into bread, or the temptation would have been an empty one, a useless, powerless question.
Jesus could have done the selfish thing, the thing He had not been commanded to do, but He chose to resist the devil using the word of God:
“It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ ” (4)
The devil knows a lot more that we do. The devil knows how to tell lies and to get people to believe them. He knows how to say anything and we will believe it; so long as it is not the word of God!
C.K. Chesterton said “When men cease to believe in God they do not believe in nothing; they believe in anything.”
The modern illness is not only unbelief but that once belief in God is gone, once the horse has bolted, people will believe in almost anything…hence the rise in mediums and spiritists and false religions all over the world!
Spiritists teach Spiritualism: The belief that the dead communicate with the living.
“When men cease to believe in God, they do not believe in nothing; they believe in. anything!” (C. K. Chesterton)
And so Jesus answered the three temptations with God’s written word each time.
It is significant that the devil could not compete with that and left Jesus alone as the victorious Saviour.
A Luge Ride is Like Life
While we were away last weekend, we went on the luge at the top of the gondola ride in Queenstown. You go up on the gondola to the hill above Queenstown. The restaurant and café has a luge track running around it.
For those who have not seen it or been on one, the luge is a small cart which is very low to the ground. It reminds me of a go-cart without an engine.
You sit on this cart to go down a steep slope.
We, all four of us, listened very carefully to our young instructor. We had to, because our lives depended on it! (Not really, it was all very safe.)
He told us to take hold of the handlebars in front of us.
Then he gave us three main instructions:
1. If you let go, he said, your luge will stop suddenly: Don’t let go!
2. If you pull on the handle bars, you go forward and gravity takes you forward. You will be able to steer by turning the handlebars to the left or right.
3. If you pull back hard, you brake and can come to a controlled stop.
You need to keep tension on the handle bars all the way down the track.
So what you do is sit on this thing, which was about as big as a café food tray for me to get on, and you trust that what you have been told is safe, and that if you do what you have been told, you will get down the concrete slope through all the twists, turns, corners and bumps to a safe end.
Life’s like that!
Do you trust what Jesus is telling you in His word?
What are you doing with your life’s journey?
And anyway where will it end?
Will it be a good end or bad?
Life is for living with its tensions and troubles. We live trusting God to see to our needs as we focus on keeping our lives pure before Him and serving others.
I think living the Christian life is like a luge ride, you have to stay on to get the benefits.
Don’t let go, hold on in there. Stay on for the ride!
Keep pulling on the handlebars and ride with the tension on.
That way, you get to go along, and under God’s guidance, you can steer your way through all the turns, twists, corners, bumps and hills to the controlled end, and all to God’s glory.
Will you stay on to ride with Jesus? Amen.
