Tempted without Sin

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4. I talked to you this morning about, well, one of the things that I talked to you about in the message is the fact that Jesus was tempted in every way that we are, but without sin.

And that’s one of the things that enabled him to be our great high priest is because all these other priests, as I told you this morning, they would go in to offer the sacrifices on man’s behalf, but they’d have to go in and offer sacrifices for their own sins first. I mean, none of them were perfect as priests. None of them were perfect. None of the sacrifices were perfect.

But Jesus came in and we finally had a great high priest who didn’t have to deal with his own sin before he could deal with ours. And so he could just focus on atoning for ours. He’s a perfect priest and he’s a perfect sacrifice.

But he did go through all the temptations that we struggle with, but without sin. Now the Bible records three specific areas where he was tempted. and that shouldn’t lead us to think these were the only temptations he suffered.

Jesus, the Bible says, he was tempted in every manner that we are but without sin. So if you’ve been tempted with it, Jesus was tempted with it too. But what we see in scripture are three temptations that he faced, not the only ones, but three of them that sort of stand in as the examples to represent the entire range of temptation that we can face.

Because sin really falls into three categories according to Scripture. I know we think there’s this long list of do’s and don’ts and all these little things are sin. Sin really falls under three easy-to-remember categories.

And those categories are spelled out for us in 1 John 2. 16 when it says, For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And I believe that these three areas of temptation that are recorded in the Gospels that Jesus went through represent those three areas where we’re tempted.

Okay, your exact temptations may be different from mine. They probably are. And my temptations are going to be different from somebody else’s.

There are some things that I’m tempted by that you may not be. There are some things that you’re tempted by that I’m not. Did I say that the same way twice?

Anyway, you get the idea. We don’t have the exact same temptations, but we’re all tempted by these three areas, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Lust of the flesh is generally those things that your body says, yeah, that’s what you want.

For some people, that’s a sexual temptation. For some people, like me, that’s, you know, I’m not going to sit down and have two pieces of pizza. I’m going to eat the whole thing.

That’s lust of the flesh where the body is saying, no, you want more of that to the point where it becomes sinful. I don’t know where the line, we’re having pizza for dinner tonight, and I don’t know where the line is of how many slices is sinful. I guess it’s probably where if I have one more piece, I’m going to hate myself for it.

But at some point, it becomes gluttony, and it’s a sin. As I said, for some people, that’s sexual temptation. For some people, that’s drugs.

For some people, that’s alcohol. Anything where the body says, where the body craves that and you know that God’s word says that’s not good for you, that would fall under the general heading of lust of the flesh. Then there are sins that are lust of the eyes.

That’s where my eyes see it and my brain says I’ve got to have it. And that’s one we deal with a lot in America where some of our national sins are greed and idolatry. I see that somebody’s got a new truck and man, I wish I had a new truck.

And I don’t know that it’s necessarily sin to light the new truck, but it’s definitely a sin to be jealous over it and to covet over it. And when I wake up in the morning and I think, and my first thought is, how can I get me a new truck? Then we’ve crossed the line.

The love of money is the root of all evil. So the things that we see and we’ve just got to have it. There’s that greed.

There’s that materialism. All of that. That falls under the lust of the eyes.

Anything the eyes look at and say, I’ve got to have it. And then there’s the pride of life. There’s the pride of life that wants to exalt ourselves to a position of power and authority in our own lives.

When I want to take for myself in my own heart and in my own life the position of authority that belongs rightfully to God alone, that’s idolatry. And my pride has led me there. And most of us suffer from pride.

Most of us deal with pride. And for some of us, it’s more of a struggle than others. It seems to be a fairly common sin in my profession that, especially as pastors, we get a big head and we think we’re more important than we really are, and we start to see ourselves as way up here, and we get prideful.

It can happen to anybody, but anybody in any kind of leadership, especially, is prone to that. And where we just, you know, we want attention. We want people to like us.

We want people to hang on our every word. It’s not just pastors, politicians, but we can all. We can all fall into that category.

And so all of sin really falls into one of those three categories. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. And so what we see in Luke chapter 4, when Jesus was tempted, again, as I said, these are not the only temptations that he suffered, but these are three that the writers under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit picked out.

And each of these represent one of those areas of sin because the teaching here is that Jesus was able to conquer all areas of sin. Now, one of the gospel writers said that if somebody sat down to write down everything that Jesus did and taught, if they wanted to write down exhaustively everything that happened during his 30 plus years on earth and especially his three plus years of ministry, that the world itself could not contain all the books that would need to be written. And so the Bible doesn’t take the time to tell us every temptation that he faced.

But it covers it pretty well with these three areas. So we start in verse 1. And it says, Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.

Now when it says he returned from Jordan by the leadership of the Holy Spirit, coming from Jordan, he was coming from his baptism. He’d gone down to the Jordan River to be baptized by John the Baptist. And when that happened, when Jesus came up out of the water, the Bible records that those who were standing around saw the Holy Spirit descend like a dove and light on Jesus. And they heard the voice of the Father saying, this is my beloved Son in whom I’m well pleased.

So that’s important to keep in mind as we come to this first temptation. Then the last thing that had been recorded, the last thing that happened, not so much in the book of Luke, but in the other Gospels, the last thing that had happened, because chapter 3 is a genealogy, But in the other Gospels, the last thing that happened right before this is God just said, this is my son, and they all heard it. So he goes, he’s led by the Spirit from Jordan into the wilderness, and says, being 40 days tempted of the devil, and in those days he did eat nothing, and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.

So he spent 40 days in the wilderness being tempted. And he wasn’t just spending 40 days in the wilderness, he was spending 40 days in the wilderness without food. And this would have led him, could have led him to a weakened, vulnerable position.

I know that, I don’t know if I’ve got some kind of medical condition, but if I go too long without eating or don’t eat enough, I will get sick by the end of the day. I’ve tried fasting. Maybe I need to try harder.

I don’t know. But I end up getting sick. I end up getting headaches, getting nauseous.

And even before that starts, we have a condition that in my family we call hangry. I’ve heard this on Snickers commercials, but we’ve used this word for years. So I think they stole it from us.

Hungry is a combination of hungry and angry. And I’m the poster child for it. Don’t ask me to make any major decisions when I’m hungry because my answer is just going to be burnt down.

I don’t care. When you get into this position where you’re weak, you’re on edge, you know what that feels like. You’re starving and you just feel like nothing’s going right in the world.

He’s gone for 40 days without food. And yes, he’s had the food of communing with God. And he’s had the food of prayer.

but there’s something in the physical body that’s crying out for food. There’s something in the physical body that’s weakened by this. And so it says he was hungry.

The Bible is making an understatement here. He was starving. And the devil said unto him during this time of temptation, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.

And here we go. This is what the devil always does. The last thing that we have recorded in chronological order is that God the Father had said, this is my son.

And the devil comes in and the first thing we have recorded that he said is, if you’re the son of God. So what the devil always does is he comes in and first thing he wants to do is undermine the word of God. It happened in Adam and Eve’s day.

That’s how he tricked Eve, you know, saying, oh, surely God didn’t really say that. And that’s not what God really meant. It happens in our churches today that if the devil wants to undermine our faith, the first thing he attacks is the word of God.

And the first thing the churches surrender on is the authority of the word of God. So he comes in and he says, if you are the son of God. Well, God just said that he was.

But after these days of hunger, he attacks him where he thinks he’s most vulnerable. And he says, if you are God’s son. Basically, here, prove it.

I double-dog dare you to prove it. He says, make these stones into bread. Now, I don’t know that there’s anything particularly sinful about turning stones into bread.

There’s nothing I can recall. Granted, I have not memorized the entire Old Testament law. But I can’t recall anything specifically that would say this would be a sin.

What it makes me, what I imagine is going on here, and study this out for yourself, check for yourself. But I understand this to be he’s undermining or he’s trying to undermine Jesus’ faith in the Father’s provision. And saying, you know, why don’t you just, you’re supposed to be out here fasting, but I know you’re hungry.

So forget about the fast. Forget about that time with the Father. And just, it wouldn’t hurt anything if you made those stones into bread and ate them. You know, just to look at them.

This sounds perfectly reasonable to me. And if I had the power to make stones into bread, I would be even bigger than I am now because I’d be eating bread all the time. stone crown wheat there you go and so it sounds reasonable and here folks is part of the problem with satan too so many of his suggestions sound so reasonable he’s not going to show up in our world in our lives with the the tail and the pitchfork and say I’m the devil and and say you know I want you to go out and murder 60 people he’s not going to he’s not going to come at you head on like that he’s going to come in and he’s going to very subtly try to undermine God’s word.

And he’s going to, he’s going to try to sound so reasonable. Just a little compromise doesn’t hurt. Jesus is too smart for that though.

He’s too smart for that, you know, because he created Satan and he was there when Satan fell. And you know what? He’ll be there long after Satan’s thrown into the lake of fire.

He’s wise to his tricks. And so he answers him not by saying, sure, let’s make some bread here. Let’s open a bakery.

He says, man does not live by bread alone. But more importantly than that, verse 4 tells us, he answered by saying, it is written that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. So we see here that Jesus, do you see how this is a lust of the flesh issue?

He’s starving. Satan says, why don’t you make some bread? Forget what you’re doing with God for a minute, just make some bread.

And of course, the body wants bread. But he overcomes this lust of the flesh. And how he does it, he’s quoting Deuteronomy 8.

3, where it says, and he humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger and fed thee with manna, which thou knowest not, neither did thy fathers know, but that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. So when he says, it’s written, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, he’s quoting scripture. And he’s quoting a scripture where it’s talking about how God provided manna to the Israelites as they wandered for 40 years in the wilderness.

And if the father can take care of the Israelites, those thousands and thousands of Israelites as they’re wandering for 40 years in the wilderness and never let them starve, then certainly the father can take care of the son for 40 days in the wilderness. And so he comes back at him and says, you know, bread is not the most important thing. I live by the word of God.

And God’s put me here, so I live by that. And so he uses this scripture to fortify himself and to rebuke Satan and say, you know, what you say sounds reasonable, but it’s not. Here’s what God’s word says.

So Satan comes back at him a second time. We see in verse 5, it says, And the devil, taking him up into a high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. I can’t imagine what mountain this is.

but he took him up to a mountain where he could see all the kingdoms of the world how glorious they were how amazing they were and the devil said to him verse 6 all this power will I give thee and the glory of them for that is delivered unto me and whom so excuse me whomsoever I will give it if thou therefore wilt worship me all shall be thine so he got he goes up and he shows him all these kingdoms. He shows him all these kingdoms and he says, all the riches, all the glory, all everything you see in front of you, these fertile fields, these beautiful mountains, palaces, all of it, it could be yours if you’ll just worship me. And I’ve always read this and thought, Satan’s an idiot. Okay, can I say that in church?

He’s really not. He’s smarter than we are. That’s why we fall for his lies all the time.

But in this particular instance, I think this is stupid. He’s offering Jesus something that’s not his, but that belongs to Jesus. But what we have here is that Jesus, even though he’s God, he’s taken on a human nature, and he’s subject to all the weaknesses of human nature without the sin nature.

And Satan, Satan doesn’t belong, or Satan, the world doesn’t belong to Satan, but he has some temporary power here. So what he’s doing, he’s basically got, The Bible calls him the prince of the power of the air. The Bible calls him the God of this world, with a small g.

He has some power here. He’s been allowed to run amok for a little bit. What he has basically here is a lease over the property.

And what he’s doing is he’s taking Jesus up to the mountain and showing him the property that he leased and trying to act like he owns it and trying to sell the property to Jesus. You heard about these people that try to sell the Brooklyn Bridge or the Golden Gate Bridge. They don’t really own it, obviously, but they can convince, they try to convince somebody.

I don’t know if that actually happened or if it’s just one of those urban legends. But in the stories, they try to convince people, I own it, I’ll sell it to you, you can have it for a low, low price. That’s what Satan’s trying to do here.

He’s trying to sell something that isn’t really his, and he’s trying to sell it to who it really belongs to. But thinking, maybe Jesus and his weakened state will go along with it. And what Satan’s trying to do here is, in his mind, write what has been wrong all along, because Satan wanted to be God.

He wanted to take God’s position. He wanted God’s glory. He wanted God’s authority.

And now he’s got the Son of God. He’s got God the Son in this human form. And he thinks maybe I could, in his weakness, in this time of temptation, maybe I can convince him to worship me.

And if God worships me, it’ll be like I was never cast out of heaven. And it might have been a tempting offer to Jesus, except he knows what God’s word says. Verse 8 says, And so he comes back and he says, God’s word says, You may think you’ve got some power over the world right now, but God’s word says you should only worship him.

He came back and he quoted God’s word again. Deuteronomy 6. 13, And so with that, he overcame.

the lust of the eyes. He did it again by saying, no, no, no, that looks good and that offer sounds good. All I have to do is bow a little bit and I can have all this, but the lust of the eyes is leading me this direction.

I know what God’s word says. And so he overcame it. And so Satan comes back at him a third time with the pride of life.

Verse 9, and he brought him to Jerusalem and set him on a pinnacle of the temple and said unto him, if thou be the son of God. Here he goes again, Okay? Like Reagan to Carter.

Here you go again. He says, if you be the Son of God. What does that mean?

He knows very well that Jesus is the Son of God, and he’s trying to undermine the authority of God’s word again. If you are the Son of God, if you are the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence. For it is written, he shall give his angels charge over thee.

Oh, Satan has taken another tactic here. He’s quoting the scripture. Folks, not everybody who quotes scripture is telling you God’s truth.

It depends on how it’s used. That’s why I encourage you all the time to go check out what I’m telling you. Check it against God’s word.

He says, cast thyself down from hence, for it is written, he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. And so Satan was quoting here from Psalm 91 verses 11 and 12, for he shall give up, shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways, they shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. And what he’s done here is he has taken a verse out of scripture and he has taken it out of context and misapplied it.

You’ve got to be careful because you can’t just take scriptures and pull them out and make them say whatever you want them to say. That’s really easy to do. It’s really dangerous too.

The context of what he’s doing, what that verse is, he’s talking about those who were serving God as priests and prophets as memory recalls. Those who were serving God as priests and prophets and saying if in the course of your ministry you come into some dicey situation, he said God is going to take care of you. That’s what he’s doing.

He’s saying God was going to take care of those who were serving him. Now it didn’t always mean that things were going to turn out physically the way they wanted to, but what he’s basically doing in the book of Psalms is telling those who were serving him, I’ve got this. These things are never out of my control.

I’ve got this. And Satan is twisting it around to say, if you really are God’s son, then you can do this. You can deliberately put yourself in a dicey situation because God’s not going to let anything happen to you.

It’s like what happens with Matthew 16. I’m sorry, Mark 16. I understand that there are churches in the mountains in places in this country where they say you’re not saved unless you can pick up snakes and handle them, dance around with them.

I don’t know exactly what they do, but they quote Matthew 16 and say that you should be able to pick up snakes. You should be able to drink poisonous things. Funny, very few people don’t try to ingest strychnine or anything.

They just go with the snake thing. If that’s part of the plan of salvation, I’m out, okay? Matthew chapter 16 does say that God’s people would be able to take up poisonous snakes and not be hurt.

He wasn’t talking about for all time, okay? That did happen with the Apostle Paul on the island of Malta at the end of the book of Acts. He was bitten by a snake while he was in the process of telling the people of Malta about Jesus.

He survived, and it gave him an open door to share the gospel. It was not for all time, people die in these snake handling churches all the time people die just out and about who are Christians just out and about getting bitten by snakes it happens it was not for all time it was for those disciples and it was not a commandment go out and pick up snakes it was saying just like this as you’re in the process of going out and doing my work and spreading my word you’re going to come up people are going to try to poison you you’re going to come up against poisonous snakes all these things and I’ve got this. It’s where God’s saying I’ve got this and people want to twist it into so you must do this.

You understand that is not the same thing. That’s what Satan’s doing to Jesus. God in Psalm 91 says I’ve got this and Satan said so you should be able to do this.

We can’t take scripture out of context or it’ll lead us down some really bad roads and when we try to make it say what we want to. I’ve heard a joke. I’m assuming it’s not a true story but I’ve heard it for years that a man just sort of haphazardly, to study his Bible, he would just sort of haphazardly open his Bible in some random place and he’d just start reading wherever his finger landed.

And that’s how he did his devotionals for the day. And he took it as whatever he landed on, that must be God’s will for his life that day. And so as the story goes, he flips through his Bible, sticks his finger on a verse, and the first one he comes to says Judas went out and hanged himself.

And he said, well, that doesn’t sound right. So he flipped through his Bible again and touched a verse, and it says, go and do thou likewise. Well, that really doesn’t sound right.

That can’t be it. So he flips through his Bible again and comes to the verse that says, what thou doest do quickly. Okay?

I know I’m 99% sure that’s not a true story. But I think it illustrates an important point. It’s very dangerous to take Scripture out of context and say, well, this is what I have to do.

You’ve got to look at what God actually meant and what he was saying in the broader context. And so Jesus knew enough to do that. And so where Satan’s trying to misquote scripture, Jesus correctly quotes scripture right back at him.

In Deuteronomy 6. 16, it says, Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God as ye tempted him in Massa. God doesn’t want people saying, oh yeah, if you’re really God, you’ll do this, and putting him on the spot like that, because that indicates a lack of faith.

So Jesus answered in verse 12, it is said, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And so he overcame this sin of the pride of life. And it says in verse 13, when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.

So Satan got tired after the 40 days and left him alone for a while. I think that’s telling for us as well, that Satan will, you know, you resist Satan, you come back at him with the word of God. Eventually he’s going to get tired and he’s going to go away for a while.

Just don’t think because everything’s been quiet for a while that Satan’s forgotten about you. I firmly believe that if you’re doing something for God, Satan is going to attack you. So Jesus overcame these three areas.

And the most important thing for us to look at tonight is, just in the next couple of minutes, is how he overcame these things. And there are two major things that this passage tells us that he used to overcome them. First of all, he overcame sin.

He overcame the sin through the Holy Spirit. It says right there in verse 1, first thing, Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost. He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. He was filled with the Spirit.

He went out there with his, he went out fueled up. You know, if I’m going to head out on a long road trip, I don’t leave with a half a tank of gas. I just don’t.

Most of you probably don’t either. You fill up. And he knew he was going off to the wilderness.

He knew that it was going to be a long, arduous time. And so he was filled up with the Holy Ghost when he left. Now, you and I as believers, we’re indwelled by the Holy Spirit of God.

He lives inside of us. But sometimes we push the Holy Spirit aside. We push him down.

We kind of cram him into this little corner of our being instead of letting him overflow everywhere. And we do that when we feed the flesh, when we give in to temptation, when we give in to sin. Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit.

And we can be filled with the Holy Spirit too. A lot of that has to do with feeding the Spirit. A lot of that has to do with walking in the Spirit and inviting Him to take control.

So Jesus went out to the wilderness. The Spirit was in control. So He overcame through the Holy Spirit.

That’s vital for us. You cannot stand against temptation on your own. I remember a lot of years being in the youth ministry and then later on working with the youth ministry after I was older.

And I think a lot of kids have been done a lot of disservice over the decades by being taught how to stand against temptation. the Bible really doesn’t teach us to stand against temptation it teaches us to throw up this barrier of the word of God and then get out of there teaches us to flee from temptation because we’re not strong enough to stand on our own Satan will continue to hammer us down until we break so he overcame by the Holy Spirit and he overcame by the word of God we need the Holy Spirit because again we are not strong enough to stand on our own for us to withstand temptation at all we need the Holy Spirit but we need the word of God because that gets in our minds and it changes the way we think. It changes the way we think.

It changes the way we respond to sin. And Jesus responded every time. All three times he responded with the word of God.

It wasn’t, well, Satan, I feel like this would be a bad idea. Oh, Satan, you know, that just feels wrong. This is what God’s word says.

And I’m telling you, if you will study God’s word and you will hide it in your heart, this isn’t my opinion. and this is what the Bible says. I believe it was King David said, Thy word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against God.

The more we hide God’s word in our heart, the more we have in our arsenal to resist, to throw up the, and I’m not talking about standing there and resisting. I’m talking about throwing up that roadblock that gives us the time to get away. The more we have in our scripture arsenal, the better chance we have of escape.

There’s a verse in Romans that said, sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. And I memorized that one sort of by accident in high school. And now a lot of times when I’m tempted to do or say something I’m not supposed to, and you know, sometimes there’s that temptation, you just feel like you can’t resist it.

That verse pops into my head and says, sin shall not have dominion over you. And I think, wait a minute, I don’t have to do what sin tells me to do. Satan doesn’t call the shots here.

And if I’m willing to listen to that, it gives me time to escape. sometimes I have trouble controlling my mouth none of y’all have that trouble do you especially especially being in ministry I need to control my mouth especially being somebody who’s in ministry and involved in politics I need to know sometimes when to keep my mouth shut and yet sometimes somebody’s wrong and they just need to know and I just want and there’s this sinful attitude that wells up that I kind of a pride of life thing where I’m right and you’re wrong and you need to sit down and shut up. And then I’m reminded of the scripture that says, as much as lies within you, live at peace with all men.

And you know, that verse always pops into my mind at just the time that I want to let somebody have it. And I think, but Lord, they’re wrong. And I want to tell them, and it would feel so good.

And that verse just hammers me again. And when I listen, that gives me time to step away long enough to cool off and control my tongue and not give into that temptation. You see, there are scriptures all over the place, and sometimes it’s not even the scripture you think that would pop into your head when you need it, but you know what?

The more scriptures you’ve studied and you’ve understood and you’ve taken to heart, the more of those lamps you have for your feet and lights you have for your path that you can hide in your heart and not sin against God. The more things that we have in our arsenal, the better chance we have thrown something up of God’s word as this shield, as this sword of the spirit to give us time. to escape.

And that’s what Jesus did. He didn’t escape by his own wisdom. Although, I mean, he’s God.

He’s got plenty of wisdom. But as an example to us, it wasn’t, well, this is my opinion. This is my thought.

This is my feeling. No, he always came back to this is what God said. And if we want to overcome temptation, that’s where we have to come back to as well.

Here’s what God says.

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