Matthew 4.1-11
There are times when God tests us.
Listen to audio of sermon here
Notice how Jesus in Matthew 4 is ‘Led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil’. It is the Devil who does the tempting, but it is the Spirit who leads Jesus into the place where he will be tempted.
We are tested not because God wants to crush us, but because we are his beloved children, and he wants us to grow.
As the writer to the Hebrew’s says, “Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline?” Hebrews 12:7
Even Jesus, we are told, ‘learnt obedience through what he suffered’ (Hebrews 5:8)
I’d like to look at three stories of testing in the Bible
First, there is the testing of Adam and Eve
Adam was a son of God. In Luke, we are given a list of Jesus’ ancestors. It begins with Joseph and Heli and it ends by speaking of Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God.
And he was tested by God.
God places his son and daughter in the garden of Eden. He says that they can eat of any tree in the garden. But there is a test. He places in the garden the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and he tells them that they are not to eat of it.
That is so God! He gives them over 3 trillion trees and he tells them that they can eat of everyone; of those 3 trillion, there is only one that he tells them not to eat from!
God wants us to respond to his love with our free love. We are not super computers, advanced AI, programmed with a base logic from which we cannot deviate. He gives us something that is deeper than logic. He gives us genuine choice.
And Adam and Eve (and by the way, this is not just their story. This is the story of humanity, this is our story), they are tempted by the devil in the shape of the serpent:
They see that the tree was good for food. It looked amazing. The first way that the devil tempts us is not through pride or sex, but food. Isn’t it interesting that the first of Jesus’ temptations is to do with food: turning stones into bread?
Perhaps there really is something to be said for giving up chocolate during Lent!
And we are told that the fruit was: ‘a delight to the eyes’. They wanted it. Not just to wonder at it, to praise God for creating such beauty, but to possess it for themselves.
And – and I think that this is the critical point – the devil told Eve that if she ate of the fruit, she would be ‘like God, knowing good and evil’. So they desired it, because it would make them wise, because it would make them like God. Rather than living as sons and daughters of God, in a relationship of love and trust with God, they chose to try to become like God, rivals to God.
Adam and Eve failed, and in them we see how we fail, but it is not the end
And the second story is the testing of the people of Israel in the wilderness, in those 40 years that they journeyed from Egypt to the promised land
God calls the people of Israel ‘his firstborn son’. (Exodus 4.22)
In his love, he hears their cry for mercy and brings them out of Egypt, where they were slaves, and gives them the promise of a land.
But in order to travel from Egypt to the promised land, they need to go through the wilderness for 40 years. And the wilderness was a time of testing.
There is a remarkable passage in Deuteronomy 8
Moses speaks to them: “Remember the long way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” Deuteronomy 8:2-3
That is strange. God makes them hungry and then feeds them.
Why not skip the hungry bit, and just provide dinner for them?!
But if God had just provided food for them, then they would have forgotten him.
It was because they were hungry that they turned to him.
It was because they were hungry that they realised that life is not just about bread, about the physical, but that we live in complete dependence on the word of God.
It was because they were hungry, when they were fed they realised that everything that they had was not theirs by right, or theirs because they had earned it, but was gift from God.
It was because they were hungry and then were fed, they realised that they were dependent on God and could trust in God.
The problem is that many of them did not. They saw the provision of God, and yet they still chose to reject God. They want to go back to Egypt, they create idols of silver and say that these are their gods, they complain about God, they say that God intends them harm and not good.
Although God calls them his sons and daughters, they do not wish to live as his sons and daughters. They set up rivals to God.
And as we read through the rest of the Old Testament we learn that the majority reject God – they fail the test. But it was not the end. There are a few, a faithful few who do put their trust in God.
Today we read about the testing of Jesus
Jesus has just been baptised. That is important. A voice from heaven has come and said, ‘This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased’. (Matthew 3.17)
And like that other ‘son of God’, the people of Israel, all those years earlier, Jesus was led out into the wilderness. Notice that the Israelites were in the wilderness for 40 years. Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days. That is significant.
And he was tested.
Jesus knew who he was;
He knew what he had come to do – to bring in the kingdom of God;
He knew how he was called to do it: to preach the kingdom, to do kingdom business and to die on the cross.
But now, in the wilderness, like the people of Israel of old, he is given a choice: to obey God and his word, to do things God’s way, or to reject God and do things his own way.
He was made hungry and tempted to turn stones into bread.
But he refused.
He had come to be a servant of others, not to use his power for himself:
It is interesting that Jesus refused to feed himself, and yet fed people who were hungry.
Jesus refused to save himself on the cross [later in Matthew, his accusers jeer at him when he is on the cross: ‘If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross’ (Matthew 27.40). It is the same temptation as we see here], but he saved others by dying on the cross
Jesus refused to turn stones into bread but gave himself as bread to be eaten.
And Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8 and says that one must live by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
He was tempted to throw himself off the pinnacle of the temple.
It would make a wonderful spectacle. People would flock to him; he would be a celebrity.
But he refused. He knows that he must do things God’s way, and not his way.
There were times when he did dramatic stuff: calming storms, raising people from the dead, and rising from the dead. Interestingly, they did not convince everyone.
But the event that draws people to Jesus is not his miracles but his love: his obedient, chosen, death on the cross for us.
And Jesus is tempted to use his authority and his power to seize the kingdoms of the world.
It would mean that he could claim his kingdom without the cross. But it would mean not doing it God’s way, but doing it satan’s way. No doubt raising an army and conquering his enemies. But Jesus refuses. He could have done it, but by doing it he will turn people into a slave people, he will strip us of dignity. We will do the right thing but only because we have no choice. And it would mean that he would break the Father – Son relationship and set himself up as a rival God.
And so Jesus says that he will worship only God, and he will do things God’s way – even if it means going to the cross
And there is the testing that we face.
I’m speaking specifically to those who would call themselves Christians, who have turned to Jesus, acknowledged him as their Lord and ruler.
We too are sons and daughters of God. John writes, that whoever has received Christ has been given the right to become a son or daughter of God. (John 1.12)
And when the testing comes:
Will we reject God, as Adam and Eve rejected him?
Will we reject God, as the majority of the people of Israel rejected him?
Or will we, with Jesus, be faithful to him?
When the testing comes – and it will come - will we finally stand firm in our identity as sons and daughters of God
1. Will we use our gifts and our power for ourselves or for others?
We will be tempted to use the gifts that God gives us for ourselves: satisfying our own cravings and desires; exploiting any position of power that we have: using it in a way that does not honor God, that abuses other people and strips them of freedom and dignity; using them to get financial or material or sexual advantage for ourselves.
Or we can live as children of God, using the gifts that God has given us for God and his Kingdom, in the service of others.
2. Or will we be tempted to sit in judgment on God and not let Him sit in judgment on us?
It is interesting that the temptation is for Jesus to stand on the top of the temple and throw himself off: to try and force God’s hand.
But the temple was not the place to be stood on. The temple was the place that people were meant to be inside – worshiping God. Not setting the agenda for God, but allowing God to set the agenda for them.
Someone said to me that they had a crisis of faith. They have been praying about the present situation, for peace, for the last year, and nothing seems to have happened. In fact, it just gets worse, and there seems no way out. And so, they said, they were tempted to give up on God.
Of course, we would love to see the miraculous answer, God overruling in a dramatic way – and who knows, it might happen in that way. But God’s children are called to let God be God, to let God do things His way, and when he doesn’t give us what we think is right, or what we want, to persevere, despite the hardships, despite the suffering of others and ourselves, and the seeming silence of God to our prayer, to be faithful, to love and serve, and to weep for those who suffer and to pray for peace and work for peace.
We are not to be standing on top of the temple making judgements over God, presuming to force the hand of God, but to be on our knees in the temple before God.
3. Or will we be tempted to go the way of power, of compulsion, of seizing the Kingdom for God?
Never think that you can seize the kingdom of God by power
Never think that you can bring in the kingdom of God by getting powerful or wealthy people on your side.
When people have tried to conquer in the name of Jesus, it has always worked out disastrously.
Even today, 900 years later, we live with the tragic consequences of the crusades
What perverted logic made us think that we could bring in the kingdom by military conquest in the sign of the cross?
The way of the children of God is the way of the cross, the way of self-denial, of silence before our persecutors, of the willingness to die for our enemies.
If you are a Christian, a follower of the Lord Jesus, then the Spirit will lead you into ‘the wilderness’, into the place of testing.
At times it will be very hard. Like Adam and Eve your desires will tempt you to do what you know is wrong, even to set yourself up as a rival to God.
Like the people of Israel you will be tempted to think that God does not exist, or that he means you harm and not good, and you will be tempted to give up on him or to go back to your old life
And like Jesus you will be tempted to avoid walking the way of the cross
But do not despair when you are tempted or tested
We are children of God.
We are not on our own. Jesus has been there. He knows and he has conquered. And He is with us.
And we are told that: ‘God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.’ (1 Corinthians 10.13)
The most radiant, God-reflecting Christians who I know are the people who have been through the fire of testing and temptation. They have failed and repented. They have failed again and repented again many times. But despite their failures, they have stood firm in their faith in Jesus. They have kept going back to Jesus. And in the end, they have walked through the fire with Jesus, and they have become fire for Jesus.
