Lent 1
Luke 4:1-13
When I was about 10 years old, my favorite cartoon was G. I. Joe – A Real American hero. I looked forward to watching G. I. Joe every day after school. This was a show where the good guys, the G. I. Joe team would fight against the bad guys, the forces of evil Cobra Commander. And though the odds always seemed stacked against Joe, he always found a way to beat Cobra Commander. At the end of every Joe episode, they would always have something like a public service announcement…a way that kids could be good like G. I. Joe was good. For instance, they might show a scenario where a child is tempted with drugs, and right as he is wavering and thinking about giving in to the drugs, a member of the G. I. Joe force comes out of nowhere and tells the kids about the dangers of illegal drugs. And after the anti-drug speech from the G. I. Joe character, the child would say, “Gosh, Sgt. Flint, I didn’t realize how dangerous drugs could be…but now I know!” And at that point the G. I. Joe character would always say in a heroic voice, “and knowing is half the battle.”
It’s a lot easier preparing for an attack if you know what’s coming. This morning, Jesus does battle with a snake, not the evil Cobra Commander from G. I. Joe, but the ancient serpent, the devil. And as we see how Satan attacked Jesus, we will get a good idea about how he attacks us…and how he can be defeated in the same way that Jesus beat him. Knowing is half the battle, so 1. Know how Satan will attack you, and 2. Know how Jesus will defend you.
Part I
Don’t look now, but George Foreman might stop selling his George Foreman grills and come out of retirement for one more fight, at the age of 55. I guess for 20 million dollars, there would be a lot of 55-year-olds willing to jump into a boxing ring. The devil had a lot to gain by jumping into a ring with Jesus for the biggest boxing match the world has ever seen. And we see here that Satan is a dirty, cheating, player.
Look at his first jab at Jesus. Here our Savior was starved. He had gone 40 days without food. Now I’m not a big eater, but if I skip breakfast and then lunch, well, you’d better not get in my way when supper rolls around. Jesus had gone over a month without eating. Our reading says how the Holy Spirit led Jesus out into the desert where there was no food. It kind of reminds you of the Israelites being led out into the desert by God. 2,000,000 people, and God provided food for them. God had wanted the Israelites to trust that he would provide for them, and God the Father wanted Jesus to trust that even though he was going to be in the desert for 40 days without food, God would take care of his Son.
And this temptation seems so innocent. “Tell this stone to become bread!” The devil almost acts like Jesus’ buddy, Jesus’ caregiver here. He says, “oh, you poor thing, Jesus. Did your Daddy lead you out into this desert with no food? Well, good thing you can take care of yourself. Good thing you can make this stone turn into bread…that is, if you ARE God.” At first, this suggestion doesn’t seem to be a huge sin. I mean, how is Jesus turning a stone into bread much different than his miraculous feeding of the 5,000 a little later on? In both cases, he would make food for someone who was hungry.
What this sin boiled down to was really a lack of trust on the part of Jesus. The devil wanted Jesus to say, “you know devil, you’re right! I’ve been waiting over a month for my Father to take care of me, and look where that has gotten me! Starved and weak! This is ridiculous. It’s time for me to take care of myself, so…Zap! Stone, become bread, and it’s chow time! See how much better it is when I don’t have to rely on my Father for everything?”
The devil is good at setting this trap for you as well. Americans have one of the greatest work ethics of anyone in the world, at least based on how many hours per week we work. How many times does it get to the end of the year, and you have a bunch of vacation days that you were too busy to take, and so you lose them? How many times has it happened that the time came for you to go home to your family, but there was just too much to do, and so you put in a few more hours at work? Has it happened that Monday-Friday wasn’t enough time, and so you had to run into work on Saturday and Sunday? It would not have been a sin in and of itself for Jesus to turn stone into bread. And it is not a sin in and of itself to work many hours…but it IS a sin not to rely on God for every good thing in your life. It IS a sin for you to suppose that God can’t take care of you unless you work yourself like a dog week in and week out. Knowing is half the battle when fighting the devil, and so know that he is always trying to get you to think that it’s up to you to be successful in this world, even if it means sacrificing time for God and family.
Satan reached into his bag of tricks and pulled out a doozy. Somehow in one instant, he showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. He used a bold-faced lie, it’s almost comical, when the devil said that he owned all the world, and he could give the world to anyone he wanted. “So Jesus, why would you go through all that rejection? You don’t have to be arrested! You don’t have to be mocked! You don’t have to suffer the beatings of the rod and the crucifixion. Jesus, I’m here to help! I’ve got a way that’s much easier than your Father’s. Just bow down to me, and it’s all yours.”
Look back on your life, and you’ll see that the devil has been successful in persuading you to take the easy way out. “Don’t struggle against that sin. It’s ok it give in…you’re forgiven anyway…so go ahead. Have the best of both worlds: have the fun of a sinner, and have the forgiveness of a believer!” Satan tries to turn the struggle against sin into a surrender to sin. Why struggle if you are forgiven already? But he doesn’t tell you about the guilt you will carry with you after you succumb to his temptation. Satan wants you to view the forgiveness that Jesus won for you as a license God has given you to sin. But he won’t tell you how unchristian you are going to feel after committing that sinful act. Knowing is half the battle, so know that Satan attacks you by encouraging you to take short cuts in your Christian life. He’ll say, “go ahead, visit that web site, no one will see you. Go ahead, have another drink, you deserve some relaxation time. Go ahead, cut down that person behind their back. It’s so exhilarating pointing out other people’s faults, and doesn’t it make you feel like you are better than they?” Satan had to offer Jesus the whole world to try to get Christ to sin. He doesn’t need to offer you nearly that much before you get lax and take the easy way, give up the struggle, and give in to sin.
The third weapon Satan tried to use against Jesus was a reckless trust in his Father. Jesus had told the devil that the Father was going to provide everything for him, and so Satan quotes our Psalm for today, Psalm 91, and basically says, “Jesus, you say you trust your Father…well, let him prove it! Throw yourself off the Temple building and see if God really is going to protect you!”
While God promises that he is going to keep us protected, no where in the Bible does it say that we can recklessly expose ourselves to danger and expect the Lord to bail us out of trouble. The same temptation to test God comes along at least 2 or 3 times a week in the mail, where I will get a letter that reads something like, “Dear Mr. Schmidt, Because of your excellent credit history, we want to send you a new Mastercard with a spending limit of $30,000. So go ahead: take that vacation you’ve always wanted to go on. Go ahead: buy that new furniture that you’ve had your eye on for a while.” Money is far too easy to borrow these days, and it opens the door to being tempted to test God by living beyond our means. Do we ever jump off a financial temple and expect the Lord to catch us at the bottom? Or look at other things: tobacco, alcohol, and even food are all gifts that the Lord wants us to use in a responsible way, but if we test the Lord by abusing these gifts, is he going to magically keep us in great health?
Knowing is half the battle, so know how the devil is going to tempt you to test God. He’s good at doing that in this way. “Since I’ve been a Christian my whole life, and since I went to Christian schools when I was young, I can afford not to be regular in church. Since God promises to protect my faith, studying the Word doesn’t need to be a central part of my lifestyle.”
Part II
If you were to get into the ring even with a 55-year-old George Foreman, chances are he would beat the tar out of you. But if you were armed with a Tommy Gun, ol’ George wouldn’t stand a chance against you. Alone, we don’t stand a chance against the devil, but God has given you a weapon to fight against these wily satanic attacks. But it isn’t a machinegun, it’s something far more powerful: the Word of God, which is sometimes called the Sword of the Spirit. Since knowing is half the battle, pay close attention to how Jesus wields this weapon to victory over Satan.
“Man does not live on bread alone,” Jesus said to the devil. In another Gospel account of this he adds, “but on every Word that comes from the mouth of God.” In other words, Jesus is saying that in order to beat the devil, we need to hold on to and trust the Words that come from the mouth of God.
When I pick up my 14-month-old daughter and I’m carrying her around the house, she doesn’t ever grab onto me as though she is worried that I’m going to drop her. That’s a good picture of the trust that the Lord wants us to have in him. He’s never going to let you down, he’s never going to drop you. Jesus knew that although the Father hadn’t fed him in 40 days, he didn’t need to go and take matters into his own hands. God was looking out for him, and for you as well. Sometimes the Lord is going to push you to the brink, and at that time, he wants you to sit back like Jesus and say, “Ok Father, you have promised to take care of me…and I’m going to hold you to your loving promises. I’m going to trust you.” To defeat the devil, you need to have a firm trust in God.
And remember how Satan tried to convince Jesus to take the easy way out? No cross, no suffering, just bow down to the devil and it could all be his (not really of course). We are prepared to do battle with the devil when we realize that the Christian life isn’t supposed to be an easy road. There is no quick fix. In lent, we learn how much Jesus struggled to win the forgiveness for our sins. And for we his followers, we are prepared to beat the devil when we come to expect a difficult life. Often you see the commercials for a particular piece of exercise equipment, that promises in just a short workout 3 times a week, you can have that perfect body you always dreamed about. I’m sorry, but the athletes that they show on those exercise machines, with ripped, muscular bodies, don’t work out only 3 times a week for a few minutes. It takes a lot more effort. Since knowing is half the battle, know that there is no short-cut, no quick fix in your spiritual life. Getting to heaven: that’s easy! Jesus won our place in heaven and freely gives it to you. Striving to live a holy life here on earth: that takes work.
The third weapon that Jesus used to slay the diabolical beast was a thorough knowledge of the Word of God. The devil had craftily misquoted Scripture to Jesus, but Christ knew the Bible well enough to counter these attacks too.
Knowing is half the battle: how well do you know your Bible? Unless you have that weapon, it’s going to be difficult for you to stand when the devil comes attacking you. You are here in church, and that’s a good start. Study the Word at home. Study it with your family. Study it with other Christians. One thing that our reading mentions in the first verse is that Jesus was “led by the Spirit” and “full of the Spirit.” Those things can be said of you as well, that when you dive into the Bible, you will be both led by the Holy Spirit and full of the Holy Spirit, ready to resist whatever attacks Satan throws your way.
Conclusion
He was unsuccessful trying to get Jesus to sin…but he didn’t stop. The last verse of our text says that the devil left him until an opportune time. We see him attacking Jesus later, not in a frontal assault like this, but by sneak attacks. He tried to get Jesus to want to take the easy road after the Feeding of the 5,000, when the crowd wanted to make him king. He tried to get Jesus to take the easy road when Peter took him aside and said that he shouldn’t go to Jerusalem if it meant his suffering and death.
Satan tries all sorts of tactics against you: frontal attacks, sneak attacks, encirclements. But you have a real hero, Jesus. Jesus Christ has already beaten the devil, and he has transferred his perfect obedience to you. Now you are prepared to fight yourself. Take the weapon God gives you. Take the Word, know the Word, because knowing is half the battle. Amen.
sdg
