February 29, 2004 — First Sunday in Lent
Christ Lutheran Church, Columbia, MD
Pastor Jeff Samelson
Luke 4:1-13
Jesus TURNS Away Temptation
Trust
Use God’s Word
Recognize Temptation
Never
Surrender
(note: An outline for the congregation should be printed in the bulletin, put on screen, etc., with just the first letters of TURNS:
T
U
R
N
S
)
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
He was a good Christian man — a good husband and a good father — or so everyone thought. But that all changed when it came out that he’d been carrying on an affair with a woman from his office. He’d been attracted to her from the first, but figured he and his marriage were strong enough to hold up against the temptation. But when he found out she was attracted to him, suddenly his life, his marriage, his family, and his values didn’t mean what they used to. He gave in. Two years later, having lost just about everything he held dear, he’s wondering why he was so … stupid.
She was a good kid — a college-bound high school senior. Everyone liked her and thought she’d do well in life. And she’d told her parents all the right things, and she meant them — she’d stay away from drugs and alcohol, she’d save sex for marriage, and if she ever found herself at the wrong kind of party, she’d leave. But somehow that night she just couldn’t bring herself to walk out the door. She didn’t want to spoil her friends’ fun. It was late. She was tired. And Ryan, that cute guy from her biology class was there. And when the police woke her up at 5:30 in the morning, passed out in the back seat of Ryan’s car, with no idea how she’d got there and some of her clothes missing, her world just fell apart. It was just one night, and one bad decision, but her life was changed forever.
You were a good person — a Christian man, woman, boy, or girl. You really wanted to live according to God’s will, because you loved Jesus and wanted to thank him for all he had done for you. And you knew exactly what it was you were supposed to do and exactly what you weren’t supposed to do, but when the time came and the temptation presented itself, you chose the sin instead of your Savior. Again and again and again. And every time you look back now you kick yourself for being so weak and so … stupid. You know that Jesus died for your sins and that you are forgiven, but you’d rather not be committing the sins in the first place. You want to stop giving in to temptation.
Well, our Gospel today has a message for everyone who struggles with temptation — for those who lose the big battles and those who lose the little ones, for those who fail frequently and those who … well, that would be all of us, wouldn’t it? Let’s look to Jesus and what happened when he was tempted — Luke 4:1-13:
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, 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.
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.’”
The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 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. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”
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. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus answered, “It says: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time. (NIV)
This is the Gospel of our Lord.
We like the way that ends, don’t we — with the devil leaving? Obviously, there was something not only right but effective about how Jesus handled the devil’s temptations, and we can learn something from this. We can sum up the lesson with a simple statement that says a lot: Jesus TURNS Away Temptation.
T. Jesus T.U.R.N.S. away temptation — the “T” in “TURNS” tells us to trust — to trust in God our Lord at all times and in all things.
Every one of Satan’s temptations here was in essence just an attempt to get Jesus to stop trusting God. With “Tell this stone to become bread”, the devil was trying to get Jesus to basically tell his Father, “It’s obvious you can’t, or won’t take care of me. I need to eat, so I guess I’m going to have to take care of myself.”
“Worship me,” was a bald-faced attempt by the devil to get the recognition and position he so desired, but it was even more a temptation for Jesus to throw away his trust in his Father and their plan of salvation in favor of an “easier” way to win the world.
And “Throw yourself down” was a temptation to abuse his trust in God. It would have been the exact opposite of a “leap of faith” — his jump would have been a challenge or a test of God’s truthfulness.
Now it may seem a little funny to say that Jesus, who is God, was successful in resisting temptation because he trusted God, but still, that’s what happened here. Satan had been trying to tear the Trinity apart by setting the Son’s will against the Father’s, but it didn’t work, because the Son’s will was the same as the Father’s. Jesus was going to complete this difficult fast and then continue on his way to the cross to fulfill his mission. And that’s why Satan was so intent on distracting Jesus from his work — he didn’t want the Son of God to do what he had come to do, which was to save the world from sin, death, and … Satan. But God the Son trusted God the Father. The opportunity was there to sin — to give in to the temptation and give up on his mission — but Jesus would not do that. The salvation of the whole world hung in the balance, and he didn’t let us down.
And that’s why we now trust him. Because not only did Jesus win a victory over the devil in the wilderness, but he also won for us the ultimate victory over sin, death, and the devil on the cross. Every sin of every man, woman, and child was paid for when he gave his life and poured out his blood on the cross, and with his resurrection on Easter Sunday he gave a guarantee of eternal life to everyone who puts his trust in him. Victory is ours in Jesus Christ, and with all our guilt gone and the fear of death destroyed, all the devil ‘s deadly weapons have been taken from him. The only power he has over us is the power we give him when we give in to his temptations.
Which is why we gladly put our trust in Jesus for all things and at all times — we don’t ever want to give the devil a foothold, and we simply don’t want to sin. We know what happens when we trust ourselves to always do the right thing — we don’t. We can’t. We fail. But when we trust in Christ and his victory, we find forgiveness for every temptation we give in to and every sin we embrace, and we also find in him the strength and wisdom to do what we cannot do on our own. Trust the Lord when you’re tempted!
Now there’s one more thing worth noting here while we’re talking about trust: Jesus never used his divine power to put an end to these temptations — he responded as any human believer could respond, with the Word and Worship of God. There’s a lesson here for those who get hung up on the idea of spiritual power and think that if they can just tap into the power of Pentecost, Satan will be out of their lives forever and the Christian life will be a breeze. But not only is that not how Christ told us to fight the devil, it’s not even how he himself fought him. Instead, Jesus makes it clear that we don’t need to have any “special powers” in order to resist and rebuke Satan — as Martin Luther said in our hymn today, “one little word can fell him”, and that word is the Word of God.
U. Which brings us to the “U” of “TURNS” — use God’s Word to turn away temptation. It’s a simple truth, but all-important. The Scriptures are our special weapon for skewering Satan, and the gospel we find there strengthens us against all our enemies.
Look how Jesus used the Bible here — and note how the devil was silenced each time. He had no “comeback” — he had to start over and try a new temptation.
The Word of God is an effective weapon, and we are encouraged to use it just as Jesus did here. The Apostle Paul, at the end of the book of Ephesians, tells us to “take [our] stand against the devil’s schemes” (Ephesians 6:11), and, as our weapon, use “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:17).
But we should note how Satan tries to turn this weapon against us — here he even tries to use Scripture to tempt Jesus. The devil’s “For it is written” rings hollow when we hear it here, but it’s not always so easy for us to recognize and rebuke his misuse of God’s Word. False doctrine serves Satan well. Just think of all the times that you’ve heard someone pitting “God is love” or “Love your neighbor” against God’s commands and condemnations of sin, as though one canceled out the other.
And this just underscores for us our need and desire to know God’s Word. If we don’t know it, we’ll have a hard time knowing when the devil’s abusing it to tempt us away from Jesus — that’s why the Scripture-twisting Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses find some of their best prospects among ill-informed and immature Christians. If your study of the Bible ended with your confirmation, or if it’s limited to occasional contact on Sunday mornings, well, your sword needs sharpening. You simply won’t be well prepared to fight off temptation.
And you’ll be weak, too. God has given us the means of grace, the gospel in his Word and in the Sacraments, to nourish and nurture our faith. Staying away from them is starving your soul, so Christians want nothing more than to fill up, often and regularly, to keep up their strength and keep temptation at bay. The means of grace are your strongest asset against the attacks of your enemies.
R. But when are you being attacked? It’s not always clear, and that’s why the “R” of TURNing away temptation is to recognize it for what it is and when it comes.
Now obviously, few Christians are going to be taken in by the devil if he comes to us and says, “Hey — why don’t you turn your back on your Savior and break a commandment, or ten?” Temptations so direct are pretty easily rejected because it’s so clear what they are and what giving in to them will mean. And Satan was smart enough not to try that kind of frontal assault on Jesus, either.
Although some might say that Satan was stupid even to try tempting him — if anyone should have understood at that point that Jesus could have crushed him in a moment, he should have. And yes, evil is irrational — but we should never make the mistake of thinking that “stupid” temptations are not real temptations. There was no doubt who was going to win in the contest between Jesus and the devil, but the temptations Jesus faced were serious, and could neither be minimized nor ignored.
But Christians sometimes get blindsided by such “stupid” temptations because they don’t take them seriously enough. You think, “Oh, I’ll never have to worry about that!” and the next thing you know you’ve fallen into sin. A businessman prides himself on his ethics and honesty — and doesn’t see that the “special financial plan” he’s just bought into is against the law. A woman says, “I love my husband, and would never do anything to hurt my family,” so she sees no danger in those long, intimate talks, and walks, and lunches with the man she calls “just a friend” — and next thing she knows her marriage is broken. A teenager says, “I would never do drugs,” but finds that peer pressure is stronger than his promises to his parents. We need to recognize even “stupid” temptations for what they are.
And don’t ever sell Satan short — he is often quite shrewd and cunning with his temptations. Consider his temptation to Jesus to turn stones into bread — he recognizes what powerful forces the body’s needs and appetites can be, and he doesn’t hesitate to use and twist them.
So we need to watch out, and realize that perfectly natural things like hunger, thirst, sexual desire, emotion, stress, and fatigue can easily be used to turn us from righteousness to sin. Sometimes there is a force or an urge in our lives that seems undeniably strong, and Satan wants us to think we have no choice but to give in to it — to steal because we’re hungry, to hurt because we’re hurting, even just to be irresponsible because we’re tired.
Satan messes with our minds, too, so recognize it when he does. Look at the two temptations here that start off, “If you are the Son of God” — does what follows have any real connection to Jesus’ divinity? Why would being the true Son of God mean that he has to give in to his hunger and make stones into bread? Why would it mean that he should jump off the roof of the temple?
But Satan tries the same nonsense with us — he cleverly connects things that have no connection and separates things that shouldn’t be separated. The temptations don’t really even make sense, but still we fall for them, because we’re not prepared for them, or just because our sinful natures get the best of us and we want to fall for them. Maybe some of these are familiar to you:
“Well, if you really love him, then you’ll sleep with him.”
“You’ve been working so hard — if anybody’s allowed to go out and get drunk tonight, it’s you.”
“If you’re really a follower of Jesus, then how could you be so unloving as to call homosexuals sinners just because they’re different? Doesn’t Jesus love them, too?”
“You really need to get out and get some fresh air and exercise, you have responsibilities, and you’re usually so busy — God will understand if you don’t make it to church.”
Do you recognize these temptations for what they are when they come? The fact that we too often give in to these and other temptations reminds us again of our need for the gospel — for the forgiveness that we find there, and for the strength and wisdom it gives us to recognize and stand firm against the devil’s attacks.
N.S. But there is one more message we need to take away as we consider how Jesus TURNS away temptation. The “NS”: Never surrender.
We mentioned earlier how we like to see that the devil left Jesus at the end of our text. But we can’t forget what it says right after that: “until an opportune time”. Satan wasn’t giving up — he was going to keep on tempting, testing, and trying Jesus. The constant barrage of temptations reached its peak in the Garden of Gethsemane and even as Jesus hangs on the cross, we hear Satan’s voice again in the mockers’ words, “If you are the Christ of God, come down from the cross and save yourself.” But even then, in the midst of his greatest pain and suffering, Jesus would not give in. There was too much at stake, and our final victory was at hand.
Satan has no intention of ending his attacks on us, either, and he’ll keep it up until the end. He wants us to give in to temptation, so he can steal us away from our Savior and enslave us again to sin.
And that’s why we are so thankful that Jesus already won the victory for us. The battles may go on, but the outcome of the war is already decided: Jesus won, Satan lost. And since everything Jesus did he did in our place, we can also say: We won, Satan lost.
And with the victory already won, surrender would be quite silly, wouldn’t it? Sure, there will still be struggles with Satan, big and small — some we will win, with God’s help, and others we will lose, on our own — but the fact that temptations continue doesn’t mean the victory is in doubt. It just means that we need to look more and more to Christ — the One who beat the devil in the wilderness and defeated him on the cross, once and for all, for us.
So, as Jesus turns away temptation, so do we. We trust him when it comes, we use his Word to fight it, we recognize it for what it is, and we never surrender. That’s how we handle the struggle with sin. Turn away from temptation, and turn to Christ. Trust in him, and you will never be put to shame. Amen.
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ will make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.
