Luke 4:1-13
March 9, 2025
Every day we face temptations and sometimes we give into temptations if we consider them to be small or painless. Your alarm goes off in the morning and you know you should get up and exercise, but you’re tempted to stay in bed because it’s warm and you’re tired. So, you roll over, reset your alarm, and sleep for another 30 minutes, missing your workout. Or maybe you’re at a party with friends and you know you should not have a piece of cake, but it looks so good, so tempting. As a result, you eat that piece of cake and rationalize your decision by convincing yourself that you will start your new diet next week.
Other temptations may be a lot more serious, but usually we don’t give in to them if they are illegal or if they could hurt people. For example, you walk through a store and you see something you would like to buy, but you don’t have enough money. So maybe the thought of stealing it pops into your mind, but you don’t because you know if you give into that temptation you could be arrested. Or maybe you are in a difficult situation at work and the easiest way out of it would be to lie. However, you resist that temptation because you know that if you get caught lying you could lose your job or others could suffer.
In our Gospel lesson for today Jesus is tempted by Satan and you would think that being God in the flesh, while also being fully human, it would have been easy for Jesus to resist Satan’s temptations – just as it is relatively easy for us to resist those temptations that are illegal or immoral. But the temptations Jesus faced were not designed so much to get Jesus to do something wrong, as they were attempts to get Jesus to lose sight of who He was and to abandon the mission that His Heavenly Father had given Him. So what is involved in Jesus’ temptations from Satan is something far deeper and more dangerous than disobeying the 10 Commandments.
Our text this morning takes place out in the wilderness soon after Jesus was baptized. Jesus had not eaten in 40 days and Satan says to Him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” With that word, “If,” Satan is suggesting that there may be some doubt about who Jesus is. In effect, he asks, “Would God really allow His own Son to starve out here? Do you really think people will believe you are God’s Son, based on your background? If you want people to believe in you, then show off your power and you’ll be their hero.” That doesn’t sound so bad, does it? It sounds like a harmless temptation, like eating an extra piece of cake. No one is going to get hurt, right? Again, Satan is not so much trying to persuade Jesus to do something wrong as he is trying to get Jesus to question who He is. It’s important for us to understand that Satan is not the red horned devil with a pitch fork that we often see depicted, instead he is the more subtle voice of reason, of rational thinking in Jesus’ life and ours.
What is at stake here is a matter of identity. Who is Jesus and who are we? Knowing our identity, who we are and whose we are, is essential in our lives as God’s children, because Satan’s primary task is not so much getting us to do something wrong, but to cause us to lose track of who we are as God’s children. And Satan’s ways of trying to convince us that we do not deserve to be part of God’s family are often subtle and clever.
Consider this trick question: “If you are a child of God, then why don’t you feel more like one?” Now that’s a terrible question, because sometimes we don’t feel much like a beloved child of God. The implication is that if you don’t feel like one, then maybe you’re not one. Or consider this temptation: “If you are a child of God, then why don’t you act like one?” I know there are times when you and I don’t act like children of God. Why do we do the things we sometimes do? If I’m a Christian, why don’t I seem to be getting better? Satan is thrilled when we begin to ask these questions of ourselves.
So what do we do then when we are tempted with these questions of doubt? Well, what did Jesus do when He faced temptation? He went back to the Scriptures that He learned as a child. He went back to the stories which had been told to him as He grew up. He remembered the things His Heavenly Father had done for Him and had told Him.
Our Old Testament lesson from Deuteronomy emphasizes that the Hebrew people in those days understood who they were as they continually reminded themselves that God had chosen them. It began with Abraham, a wandering Aramean, about 1800 years before Jesus. God promised that Abraham and his descendants would become a great nation and that the rest of the world would be blessed through them. Later God delivered these people out of slavery and brought them to the land He had promised to them. But once these people settled in the land, they turned away from God. So God drove them out of the land, but eventually God brought them back. What the people learned was even though they had been faithless, God had remained faithful.
What does this history have to do with us? Everything. Our identity as children of God rests on the fact that God made us and claimed us as His children. Jesus said in the Gospel of John, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.” Nowhere is it written in the Bible that our acceptance by Jesus is dependent upon how we feel or upon anything we’ve done. Our life as Christians does not depend upon how certain we are that we are Christians. Beginning with Baptism, which is something Jesus does for us, not something we do for Him – Jesus claimed us (and today we saw Calena claimed by Jesus as His child).
Our second lesson for today from Romans says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Everyone? Yes, everyone is invited and if you believe that then you are a Christian. You may not always be faithful, you may not always feel like a Christian or act like one, but you are a child of God because Jesus chose you and enabled you to acknowledge His claim on your life. In fact, that is probably one of the most important things we can do for our
children – keep reminding them who they are and whose they are. They belong to Jesus, because He chose them, and He chose you and me. And he says that you and I, as His dearly loved children, are worth dying for so that we might live with Him forever.
In His second temptation, Satan tells Jesus to worship him. The implication is, “Jesus, why suffer the rejection of people? Why go through the agony of betrayal, denial, and desertion by your closest friends? Why endure the suffering of the cross? You need to look out for yourself. Just worship me, everyone will understand, it makes sense. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” But Jesus came to show God’s love in a unique and sacrificial way. He came to give His life and to demonstrate that God’s love and forgiveness is for everyone. Every day we are tempted to abandon our calling, to take the easy way out, and to live primarily for ourselves. It’s interesting to note that the great trials of our lives, our great crises, are not our greatest danger of turning away from God, because chances are those are the things that will often drive us back to God for the security of His power and love. Instead, our greatest threat or temptation from Satan is to live our lives where we are so busy that we don’t have time for God, our faith gets pushed aside, and we forget who we are and what God has called us to do in this world.
Out in the wilderness, Jesus had nothing to rely on to overcome temptation except the old familiar words of Scripture: “One does not live by bread alone…Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only…Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” He knew that God was with Him, so He didn’t take any shortcuts, He gave Himself to obeying what He knew and believed about God.
The same is true for us. Often in the midst of temptation, the only thing which enables us to resist Satan is our faith in Jesus and His promises. But when we look to people or things other than Jesus to overcome temptation, I believe God’s question to us in those moments is: “Am I not enough for you?” As God’s children, He will never leave us, so I cannot imagine anything more strengthening and encouraging as we face the temptations and trials of this life.
