Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Matthew 4:1-11
Pastor: Pastor Berg
Sermon Date:  February 26, 2023

Far too often, professional athletes will describe their sports in terms of a war or a battle. Let’s be honest, they are just games. It’s over the top considering what war truly is. However, it’s not over the top to describe our lives in war terms. The Bible does this. Ever since the beginning, the world has been a battleground. Once Satan lost his place in heaven, he’s been determined to take as many people to hell  with him as he can. And he started immediately. He waged war on Adam and Eve right from the beginning. And as we saw in our first reading this morning, he won a decisive victory in the Garden of Eden. He used cunning, created doubt, and finally launched a full-out, frontal assault on the very Word of God. Adam and Eve didn’t use the weapons at their disposal. They left themselves unprotected. They lost the battle. As a result, they brought condemnation on the whole world. Death now reigned instead of life. 

All was lost! Everything that God had created for Adam and Eve was now tainted with sin. The fellowship he intended between himself and man, between man and man, between nature and man was gone. One critical clash had seemingly won the war. But not so fast, my friends! God promised the war wasn’t over! He would send a second Adam to crush the head, to win the ultimate, final victory over Satan, This victory would restore life and destroy death. 

But Satan wasn’t about to go quietly. From the moment he was born, he sought to destroy Jesus, the second Adam. What we have before us today is like a Wild West scene; a stand-off in the middle of the deserted street, just Jesus and Satan in the desert. For 40 days, Satan tempted Jesus. God has chosen to record and preserve three of those temptations. For the most part, Satan used the same strategy on Jesus as he did with Adam and Eve. He used cunning, tried to create doubt, and finally, launched a full-out frontal attack on the very Word of God. Adam and Eve lost miserably in their battle. How would Jesus fare?

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. After he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.” Perhaps we are tempted to believe that Jesus had an easy time fending off the devil’s temptations. After all, he’s God. Yet, we would be mistaken to think that this was easy for Jesus. The writer to the Hebrews tells us:“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin.” No, it was not easy for jesus. He wasn’t making use of his heavenly power and glory at this time. He was fully human and he was hungry when Satan came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.” 

The first shot fired by Satan attacked Jesus physically. It was a seemingly innocent statement. It’s not that Jesus couldn’t do the miracle. He certainly could. He changed water into wine, so why not stones into bread. He was hungry, he was starving. Why not use one of the weapons at his disposal and limit the suffering. Who among us wouldn’t like to limit our suffering? Was it really God’s will that he suffer like this? Why would Jesus trust the Father when the plan God placed before him caused so much pain and suffering?

You can see the power of that temptation, can’t you? It’s very easy to convince ourselves that something sinful is God-pleasing, especially when it seemingly removes suffering or sadness. “God wants me to be happy,” we tell ourselves. God doesn’t want me to struggle or suffer here, so he can’t be upset if I do this, even though he says not to. Do you see the subtle strike of Satan? He preys on our weaknesses,  on the difficulties in our lives. He takes something potentially good–there was nothing wrong with bread–and turns it into disaster. I’m sure we can all think of a time where we’ve listened to the subtle suggestions of Satan and lost our battle with temptation. 

But not Jesus. No, Jesus, our Champion, would not be persuaded. He remembered words God had spoken to the children of Israel after they had wandered in the wilderness. They too were in the desert. They too were hungry. But did that for a reason. He wanted them to realize that they would survive if they simply trusted in his Word and his promises. And then he gave them manna, bread from heaven. Jesus had gone without food for forty days, yet he was alive. Clearly this was a miracle of God. God wanted him to live. God wanted his complete trust. And Jesus gave it and he parried Satan’s strike by quoting Scripture: “But Jesus answered, “It is written: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.” Round one of the war in the wasteland goes to Jesus. But Satan wasn’t done.

“Then the Devil took him into the holy city. He placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, and he said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: He will command his angels concerning you. And they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”” Satan takes Jesus up to a dizzying height. At the pinnacle of the temple, it is estimated to be some 450 feet to the bottom of the Kidron Valley. Quoting from Psalm 91, Satan poses the question, “Will God really protect you? He says he will. Prove it.”

“Did God really say…” Much like with Adam and Eve, Satan now tries to use God’s Word against him, twisting the words out of context, trying to create doubt. How often aren’t we tempted to misapply Scripture, to rip the Words of God out of their context so we can justify our own sin? Satan still creates doubt in our minds about what God’s Word really says. He twists and pulls and questions God’s love for us. “If God really loved you, would he really let you struggle like this? If God really cared for you, like he says, why are you suffering while your neighbor gets off easy?” 

Sounds an awful lot like what the children of Israel were feeling as they wandered in the wilderness. God promised to provide for them. God promised to take care of them, yet they didn’t have any water to drink. Satan worked on them too. They even dared to ask: “Is the Lord among us or not?” Certainly, Jesus was tempted to think the same. For 40 days, he had been slammed by Satan with temptation after temptation. Was God really guarding him and keeping him? Yet again, Jesus, our Champion, would not fall prey to this trap. All he had to do was think back to his earthly life to see God’s protection. He had protected him as an infant as he escaped the clutches of Herod. Looking ahead, God would protect him as he walked through the mob at Nazareth who wanted to kill him. He would not allow Satan to use God’s Word to lead him to test God. He quoted what Moses told Israel when they tested God by complaining about their lack of water. “Jesus said to him, “Again, it is written: You shall not test the Lord your God.” Round two of the war in the wasteland goes to Jesus. So, Satan pulls out all the stops.

“Again the Devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. He said to him, “I will give you all of these things, if you will bow down and worship me.”” After attacking the flanks of Jesus’ defenses, Satan now goes for the heart. How Satan was able to show Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, we don’t know. I like to imagine that Jesus not only saw all of the splendor of all of those kingdoms. I like to imagine that Jesus saw the people. Jesus saw all the people he had come to save. Jesus saw the souls that he was living for, souls that he would die for. And the devil offered him those lost souls. He gave him an exit strategy. This was the easy way out. The war would be over. No bloodshed, no more suffering, no more pain, no death, no hell on the cross–all those people will be yours, Jesus–with one simple act: bow down and worship me.

Think of how tempting that was for Jesus! He knew exactly what was going to happen. He knew why he came. He knew what was in store. This offer from Satan sounded so appealing. It’s like having your cake and eating it too! But like all of Satan’s promises, this promise was an empty one. Sure, Jesus could have avoided the suffering, but then you and I would have been lost forever. And Jesus loved you too much to take the easy way out. He would not lay down his weapons. He would not rest until Satan was destroyed. Jesus loves you so much that he was willing to endure it all, even lay down his life to win the battle, to win back what was lost by the first Adam–eternity with God in heaven. “Then Jesus said to him, “Go away Satan! For it is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.” Round three of the war in the wasteland goes to Jesus. Satan is done–for now.

So what do we want to take away from this account today? Certainly, we can emulate Jesus’ example in how he combatted temptation. We will always want to use the power of God’s Word, the weapon at our disposal, to fight against temptation. But if that’s all we take away from this, we’ve missed the point. As we walk the path to Calvary during this season of Lent, God places this account before us to show us that Jesus fought the battle. As our Champion, Jesus, empowered by his Baptism, stood in our place once again and fought the battle against Satan and won. Every step of the way, as he walked the path to the cross, Jesus defeated every temptation of Satan. He won the victory and then passed on that perfect life to us. That’s why this account is so important for us. It’s because Jesus has already won the war that we can fend off Satan with “one little word,” as Luther wrote. Jesus’ temptation assures us that when we’re tempted, we can overcome because Jesus has already overcome. We can endure because God always keeps his promises.

Do you remember the second temptation, where Satan wanted Jesus to prove his Father’s care for him by sending angels? “Then the Devil left him, and just then angels came and served him.” Lo and behold, God was watching over Jesus with his angels after all! Amen