The Proving Ground: Wilderness Match

Luke 4:1 – 15 

 

Growing up, if someone would have told me how FFA would have taken me to places in our country that I used to only dream of seeing I would have called them a liar. Turns out, however, I would’ve been quite wrong. Dairy cattle judging in FFA, and then college, was only the beginning of me being able to see a fair amount of this country.

 

This continued in my career in the dairy industry. First with a college internship in the Texas panhandle, and then working in the industry, God has blessed the small town farm boy with opportunities to drive across the majority of the western United States, as well as to see bits of the Midwest and the northeast.

 

On one such road trip I was on Hwy 58 heading east on my way to Barstow and then out of California. Just after passing Mojave I noticed a sign on the highway that said, “Hyundai Motor Group California Proving Ground.” On another work trip, in the same area but heading north on Hwy 14 just north of Mojave I passed another sign that was for the Honda Proving Center of California.

 

These are two facilities in the Mojave Desert where these car makers test their vehicles in extreme conditions. They have tracks, oval speed tracks (the Honda one features a 7.5 mile banked oval capable of speeds over 200 mph), winding road courses, and special surfaces designed to mimic U.S. highways. It is on these courses that car designers are put to the test to see if what they’ve built can be proven to succeed and last.

 

Deserts make ideal locations for proving and testing cars. They provide extreme weather conditions, extreme heat and extreme cold, they provide isolation from civilization, and they provide seclusion from prying eyes. But deserts aren’t just for proving and testing cars. Whether literally or figuratively, they are places that serve well for proving and testing believers, and their faithfulness.

 

Today’s Scripture takes place in the Judean wilderness, or desert, where Jesus went to be tested and proven after His baptism. Let’s read God’s Word together, Luke 4:1 – 15.

My baptism was nothing like Jesus’ baptism. My wife and boys and I were baptized at Hilmar First Baptist, in a climate controlled sanctuary on a summer day where the only threat to discomfort was Jeff’s empty promise of their being ice in the tub. Shortly after our baptism, Pastor Rodney and Teri took us out to lunch at Chili’s where Julie and I asked them, what’s next, what else is there because we want to go deeper in our faith.

 

While I’m sure that desire and obedience has pleased God, we did not get the same response that Jesus did after His baptism that I preached on last week. When Jesus was baptized and was praying after coming up out of the water, the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended on Him and God spoke from heaven in His own voice, affirming Jesus as His beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased.

 

Those two results of Jesus’ baptism, heavenly affirmation of Jesus’ divine Sonship, being the Son of God, and revealing the fullness of the Holy Spirit in Christ, are key to understanding our passage today.

 

After submitting Himself to John’s baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, a baptism Jesus had no personal need for but fulfilled all righteousness because He was being obedient to God the Father, He went came back from the Jordan River and went out into the Judean wilderness.

 

Now, the Judean wilderness is no walk in the park. While it once was so full of life that Lot in Genesis 13 chose to settle in the Jordan Valley, which the Judean wilderness is a part of, yet after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah that whole place became desolate and empty. Not a pleasant place.

 

Now, instead of going and grabbing lunch with John after His baptism, Jesus full of the Holy Spirit is led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, not where’d I’d choose to go. Notice here that Jesus is not filled by the Spirit, but full of the Spirit.

 

The Bible says that many of its hero’s, prophets, and people in the act of serving God are filled with the Spirit, that is the external power of the Holy Spirit fills them for the mission God has for them. But Jesus, He isn’t momentarily filled with the Spirit, but He is in His nature, in His very being the bearer of the Spirit.

He is full of the Spirit because as God the Son, He is in perfect harmony with the Father and the Holy Spirit. And this Son of God, this second Adam is led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Notice the double mention of the Spirit to show us that Jesus is in perfect obedience, that He is in a perfect walk with the Father.

 

And even though He is perfect, even though He is sinless, and even though He is completely in the will of God, it is the Spirit that leads Him into the place where He is going to be tested by the Spirit and at the same time tempted by the Devil.

 

Now you can waste a lot of time in your life trying to figure out where your troubles come from. You might ask yourself is this a test from God, is this a temptation from the Devil, is God leading me into this wilderness to prove my faith and grow stronger, or is this something the Devil is doing to me so that I stumble and fail?

 

The reality is that the same thing in your life can be used by both. Look at what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:7, “Therefore, in order to keep from being conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.”

 

So, who gave Paul that thorn in his flesh? Well God did, and yet that thorn is a messenger of Satan! Even when the Spirit leads you into a place of testing, to make you stronger, to make you lean on God more, Satan uses that same event to try to break you, to make you weaker, to make you lean on yourself and give up on God.

 

An important part of your Christian walk is being aware that in any trial, the testing of your faith will be used by God, who ordained it, but Satan will try to use it as well to draw you from God. Jesus was led by the Spirit into the Judean wilderness with His eyes wide open to prove Himself in the first big test of His ministry as the Messiah. You too must enter your trials with your eyes wide open to the reality that Satan will tempt you to turn from God.

 

I sometimes surprise my wife, and there was this one instance a number of years ago when I chimed in on a conversation about horse racing and she was caught off guard. You see, my life was dominated by cows, family, Giants baseball, and 49er football, so for me to have anything to say about horse racing was shocking.

Similarly, I’ve never had much to say about MMA fighting because I’ve never been interested in it. But sometimes, an athlete is so exceptional in any arena that they make headlines everywhere. About a decade ago, Ronda Rousey was one of those athletes. She began her career in judo at the age of 11, and she became the firs woman to win an Olympic medal in judo when she won the bronze medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

 

Then in 2012, she entered the world of MMA fighting and UFC, and she would just decimate her opponents. She had a signature move, and armbar, where she would get them down on the mat and pin their arm back so far that they would have to tap out or they would hear the sickening sound of their elbow snapping.

 

She was fast too, often beating her opponents within the first minute of the fight, in seconds. From the moment she entered UFC, she went on a 2 and a half year win streak. She seemed invincible, she seemed completely invulnerable and unbeatable. She began her career going 12 – 0, until November of 2015 when she faced Holly Holm and in 48 seconds Ronda Rousey was knocked out cold by a kick to the head.

 

She was hit so hard that she was sent to the hospital and she couldn’t fight for a whole year. But the damage was done, the cloak of invincibility was taken off, and when she attempted a comeback, she faced Amanda Nunes in her first fight back and lost again. She was indeed proven to be beatable.

 

It’s like the 2007 Patriots who achieved the only 16 – 0 undefeated regular season in NFL history, making it to the Super Bowl at 18 – 0. That was Tom Brady’s record setting 50 TD season, and with Randy Moss catching 23 of them, they set the single season scoring record at 589 points.

 

The 2007 Patriots are widely considered one of the greatest teams in NFL history, they seemed totally unbeatable all season long, just to take their only loss that season in the Super Bowl to Eli Manning and the NY Giants 17 -14. They too had the cloak of invincibility ripped off of them.

 

When you approach this passage of Scripture, you have to understand, that up to this point in human history, in salvation history, Satan has had a winning streak that spanned thousands of years.

His winning streak reached all the way back to garden of Eden, when he tempted Eve and Adam, and Adam fell. He failed the test, and sin entered into the world and became a part of human nature. And since that time there hadn’t been a human being born that could resist his temptation. Every person born into the human race was sinful by nature and by choice and Satan had the cloak of invincibility around him.

 

Adam had a unique relation of sonship to God in that he was directly created by God, not born of a woman. But Jesus has an even greater unique relationship to God as the virgin-born divine Son of the Most High (1:35). Adam had a unique relation to humanity as the first man from which all of us come from, but Jesus has an even greater unique relation to a new humanity which He causes to be born again and redeems.

 

And Jesus, about whom Luke makes a big deal about Him being the Son of God is going to be tested as the Son of God. Jesus, who is the new Adam, faces off with the Devil in the wilderness, and He does what the first Adam couldn’t do. He wins. He roundhouse kicks the Devil in the head and rips the cloak of invisibility off of Him.

 

You see, Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days, and during those 40 days the Bible tells us that He was tempted by the devil. Not just the three that Scripture gives us at the end, but during all 40 days He fought off the Devil’s temptations. From childhood to adulthood Jesus faced temptations, and won.

 

And Jesus’ temptations are not unlike our own because as the Bible says in Hebrews 4:14 – 15, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

 

And here He does it hungry. He fought off temptation and ate nothing while doing so! I get baptized and soon after I go to Chili’s; Jesus gets baptized and immediately He goes off to the wilderness to fight the Devil and He doesn’t eat. We are not the same, and that’s a good thing.

 

And because Jesus is who He is, the three temptations the Bible records are unique to Him. You see, Satan is a smart opponent, He knows where to hit people, he knows which buttons are most likely to work.

            So, how does he do it, what button does he try to push to tempt Jesus Christ? By tempting Jesus to question who He is. Fresh off His baptism where God Himself declared Jesus to be His Son, Satan says to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” Jesus certainly could.

 

We know that Jesus has command of the created world because the Bible tells all things were created through Him, John 1. Jesus miraculously multiplied bread and fish to feed thousands and He walked on water and commanded the wind and the waves to be still. He didn’t have to suffer hunger, but He did. He could have turned that stone into bread but He didn’t.

 

Instead, He answers Satan, He lands a punch when He says, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” He cites Deuteronomy 8:3, “And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers knows, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

 

We can live with food for a time, Jesus did for 40 days, and we may not make it that long, but we certainly can survive without food for a while. But to try to survive without God is futile. What is needed to live is the eternal Word of God, and it is precisely with the Word of God that Jesus resists Satan’s temptation.

 

So the devil tries again, takes Jesus up and in a moment of time shows him all the kingdoms of the world, and offers them to Jesus if only Jesus will worship Satan. Again, Jesus answers, “It is written,” and he quotes Deuteronomy 6:13, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’”

 

Jesus lands a second punch with Scripture, and so the devil figures he’d try to beat Jesus with His own tactics. Satan takes him up to the highest point of the temple, the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem, and again says to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

 

Now the devil has Jesus cornered, he used Scripture against Him.

Yes, Satan knows Scripture, he just cited Psalm 91! We sometimes fall into the trap thinking that the enemy doesn’t know God or His Word. Oh but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Many unbeliever’s know Scripture, and the devil knows God’s Word inside and out, he probably knows it better than most believers.

 

The difference is that He has no love for God or His Word, He is not a child of God, He does not have the Holy Spirit. So, while Satan is capable of quoting Scripture, his interpretation of it is all wrong, as we see here. We know it’s wrong, because Jesus answers back refuting Satan with a correct use and interpretation of Scripture.

 

For the third time Jesus answers by quoting Deuteronomy, this time 6:16, when He says to the devil, “It is said [written], “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Jesus lands another hit with God’s Word. And when the devil had ended his temptation of Jesus, he left Him… until an opportune time.

 

Satan’s attack approach was to question Jesus’ relationship to the Father, was to get Jesus to look at who He really is, God the Son, and to ask Himself why am I suffering in the wilderness, I’m the Son of God. Satan knew that if he could get Jesus to use His divine power for His own purpose, rather than the Father’s, that he would succeed in causing the Christ to fall.

 

What Satan offered Jesus was a shortcut to glory. He offered Jesus what Jesus already had, Lordship over the world, only Satan’s offer was a lie. His claim that the world was his to give was in error, because even Satan is under the sovereignty of God! All that the devil can ever offer anyone is an illusion, and what he tried to offer Jesus was the illusion that he could take hold of what was rightfully His without going to the cross.

 

Satan knew that if he could just get Jesus to not go to the cross, that he would win. He knew the button to push, and he failed. He failed because Jesus fought back with the weapon of choice, the only weapon to fight off the devil, the holy Word of God.

 

Jesus broke the serpent’s winning streak during those 40 days in the wilderness, and in doing so he ripped off Satan’s cloak of invincibility and in proving Himself, He proved that the devil could indeed be beat.

 

And in the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned to Galilee, and went to work. Having proven Himself in the wilderness He was ready to begin His ministry, His mission on earth, to seek and save the lost.

 

Because Christ triumphed over temptation and Satan, you can trust in Him to help you overcome your own battles with sin and temptation.

 

“It is written…” I love that response that Jesus gives Satan every time. IT IS WRITTEN. God’s Holy Word is how Jesus teaches us to do battle with the devil, and to win. “The Bible says” should be a regular part of your vocabulary in your daily battles with sin and temptation.  

 

When you find yourself in your own wilderness, fighting temptation, and sin, you are not alone. You have the same Spirit in you that is in Jesus, and you can cast aside the sin that so easily entangles. You have all that you need, revealed in God’s Word. That revelation is Christ.

 

Going back to Paul’s thorn in his flesh, he adds in 2 Corinthians 12:8 – 9, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

 

Jesus is enough, Heb. 4:16. Jesus defeated Satan, you don’t have to do it on your own, you’re not expected to do it on your own, you cannot do it on your own. You need Jesus, who secured the victory over Satan once and for all on the cross, in order to resist him now so that he will flee from you.

 

Do this by immersing yourself in God’s Word daily. You cannot say, “The Bible says” if you don’t read it to know what it says.

 

Be intentional about growing your relationship with God. The only way to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ is to spend time with Him. The only way to become more in-tune with the Spirit of God is to spend intentional time with Him. Jesus didn’t just know Scripture, He knew the author because He was the Word of God.

 

And lastly, don’t fear the wilderness, there are no shortcuts. Don’t fight the growth and sanctification God is working in you. Embrace the growth that comes through trials because Jesus already won. Let’s pray.