It’s no accident, no coincidence, that temptation follows baptism.  John offered a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  Jews were familiar with the forgiveness of sins: they gloried that their God forgave.  They grieved that they continued to sin.  Baptism, together with a profession of faith, is to announce one’s desire and resolve—one’s earnest prayer—to make a decisive break with the ways of this God-neglectful, God-dishonoring world.  Baptism, together with a profession of faith, is saying Amen to God’s call and claim upon us, is saying Amen to God’s consecrating, sanctifying power.  But temptation doesn’t just go away.

Those outside the church aren’t under the same obligation as those inside the church.  We wouldn’t expect nonbelievers or semi-believers or don’t know/don’t cares conscientiously to follow Christ and break away from the broken ways of the unredeemed heart.  That expectation is for those in the church.  Baptism is our formal, our sacramental initiation into the church, our birth into Christ’s life, into this family of faith.

Jesus “was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days” (4:1-2).  To be led, you must allow yourself to be led.  To be led means to trust.  Do we trust God to lead us?  We say “Yes, of course.”  Considering my own walk, I wonder if we aren’t more often in the habit of deciding our own way.  Why let God be your pilot when He can be your co-pilot?  You’re in charge and God, of course, can dive in, if trouble comes up.  Beloved, in this life, a believer will always be in trouble.  God calls one way, but the fun, excitement, and profit seem to be in other directions.  Though those directions go by many names, their essence is one: willful disregard for the Word of God.  We might also call it willful regard for one’s own way: that doesn’t sound so bad.

Forty days may or may not seem very long.  This is forty days away from everything: all material possessions, all creature comforts, not another person for miles around.  Shorn of all the things to which we turn for happiness and pleasure in this life.  Forty days stripped of everything, except God.  The Spirit was leading Jesus.  What is it to be Spirit-led?  Is that like following your intuition, your inner voice?  Beloved, those old cartoons were onto something: oh, there is the little angel voice, calling one way, but there’s also the little devil voice, calling another.  We know the angel voice is right, so we follow the little devil voice.  I’d rather have fun than be right!  I mean, why did God give us this life, if we aren’t supposed to, you know, enjoy it?!  But sin isn’t just dashing off after forbidden fruit.  Sin, at heart, is disregarding God, taking little interest and making little time for Him: other things, better things to do.

To be led by the Spirit is to listen to the Spirit.  It is also to know the Spirit.  God’s Spirit speaks God’s Word.  God’s Spirit speaks nothing contrary to or different from God’s Word.  To be led by the Spirit is to be led by the Word of God.  When we allow God’s Word to guide us, direct us, we are being Spirit led.  The Spirit will lead us through trials but not beyond our ability to endure, so long as we remember Spirit and Word are with us.  Don’t for a moment think this means that, if we really had the Spirit, we’d never fail, never stumble or get hurt.  The Spirit doesn’t just take over, lifting us effortlessly from victory to victory.  The Spirit, calls, counsels, cautions, congratulates and, when our habitual, ingrained disobedience asserts itself once again, the Spirit is also there to console and comfort.  It’s a hard journey.  The trials are real; they take their toll.  Christ keeps insisting the destination will be worth the toil.  We must learn to do without many things, and that we can.  We learn none of those were really necessary.  Abundant, joyful life is not in those things.

Jesus goes in the wilderness “full of the Holy Spirit” (4:1): Spirit-led, Spirit-sustained.  Filled.  We live with willful regard for our way: that’s supposed to be the way to happiness, right(?), and fulfilment.  People go through so much of life feeling a little empty.  What’s missing?  Happiness?  That comes and goes and always has.  Happiness comes and goes like birthdays and Christmases—although those also—sadly!—can be sad days.  Happiness is an emotion, a feeling: these fluctuate, sometimes wildly.  Joy—is that what’s missing?  Is joy just another word for happiness?  We use it that way.  I believe Scripture speaks of joy as something more durable, independent of us.  Joy is a spiritual gift, a confidence, a trust and a hope.  Joy is of the very nature of God.  Joy is the sure knowledge that there is One over all, who loves us and is bringing us, oh yes, by slow and maybe too often painful steps, to Him.  Joy is to be in the presence of the Word, having the Word with you: not necessarily by a verse or three memorized, to trot out when someone says something you don’t like.  Joy is to feed upon the Word, drinking in the Word.  Joy is God’s Word blowing through heart and mind, stirring our souls.  Joy doesn’t depend upon, begin, or end with us.  It’s a gift to be received, or declined.

We could say Jesus was in the wilderness forty days with nothing.  Luke is saying Jesus is there with everything.  “[F]orty days, being tempted by the devil” (4:2).  Led by the Spirit, filled with the Spirit, being tempted by the devil.  We’ve been there—still there!  Some temptations are obvious, offensive and ugly.  We reject those right away.  We’re not fools, even when we act foolishly.  That’s the great sorrow.  The devil lobs those obvious bombs at us just to amuse himself, but he’s playing a serious game, probing our defenses, looking for the weak place.  We’ve all got one.  Lord willing, we know what it is: it isn’t necessarily pleasure, nothing so reptilian as that.  Maybe it’s pride: our carefully constructed self-image, you know, a good person.  Sure, I do some things that aren’t good, sometimes—not that often, but in my heart . . . .  And there’s that in you that hates what you’re doing to yourself, but that part doesn’t seem to be in charge, just shoved aside.  What we do, as what we have done, shapes us.

The temptations that stick stay sticky, and we begin to adapt to them, accommodate them, make room and plausible excuses; then we turn them into virtues: it helps calm my racked nerves!  It’s who I am, and I’m a good person.  I can’t help myself and don’t have to, because what I’m doing isn’t wrong.  The devil knows who he is dealing with, knows the material with which he is working.  He’s been doing this a long time, and he does it well.  What hope, then!?

We see hope when we see Christ.  But things aren’t looking so hopeful for Christ out there in the wilderness, even with the Spirit.  Luke reminds us that Jesus “ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, he was hungry” (4:2).  Ya think?  Now, maybe you don’t believe it’s humanly possible to go forty days without any sort of food.  I couldn’t imagine—four hours makes me nervous.  Luke doesn’t say Jesus drank no water.  Forty days without water would be lethal.  Forty days without food would be hard, unimaginably.  Oh, we could say that, sustained by the Spirit, Jesus had food people don’t know about, that his food was doing the will of his Father in heaven.  There is that.  There is also faith: God shall supply all our need.

Forty days without even a basic necessity like food sounds brutal.  Why would anyone do that to himself?  Let me put it to you like this: have you ever stepped away from fast food, or soda, or some junky thing for a while, and then later on had it again?  Now, I guess maybe, with that first bite of the Big Mac or swig of Coke, you might say to yourself, Oh, heaven, why did I ever stop having this?  My hunch, though, is that, instead, you’ll think why did I ever think this was good?  It’s when we’ve got clear of the junk that the true food shines.  There’s a spiritual lesson here.  To begin to experience the compelling truth of it, we have to get out into the wilderness with Jesus.  To value the true food rightly, we have to be done with the junk, four days, forty days, four months.  Beloved, let us cherish the hope that the time will come when we just don’t go back, don’t look back.

“And the devil said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread’ (4:3).  How does a stone become bread?  What alchemy is that?  Beloved, desperate, starving people, and even people who don’t know they are desperately hungry, will eat the strangest things.  People are eating something called lab-grown meat, now.  We can convince ourselves that anything is edible, even that which is no true food.  The Tempter is also toying with Jesus’ knowledge of his divinity.  You know, Jesus, just play games with reality because, what’s that, after all, for you?  Make that stone a loaf of bread, this stump into a steak, and that lizard into a candy bar: the golden touch!  There’s no seriousness in life, then, nothing truly consequential.  The Tempter is also playing games with the humanity of Jesus: you don’t really need to suffer or know anything of discomfort, hunger, pain, sacrifice—you shouldn’t have to, being divine and all.  Beloved, even Jesus must discipline his flesh.

“And Jesus answered him, ‘It is written: “Man shall not live on bread alone”’” (4:4).  Our bodies require real food, good food.  Our lives, our existence, is not about food.  Our bodies, our lives, our existence—all this is from God.  Being from God, these also are for God.  We are for God.  We were created for a purpose, and despite all that has happened, despite the impassable gulf humanity has put between itself and God, our original purpose has not changed.  We’re not merely bodies: we are body, mind, heart, and soul—one complete, integrated being, and our true fuel and our true health is God.

But the tempter isn’t done; he never is, in this life.  “And he led him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.  And the devil said to him, ‘I will give you all this domain and its glory, for it has been handed over to me, [Hey, is that true?  And what does that mean?] and I give it to whomever I want.  Therefore if you worship before me, it shall all be yours’” (4-7).  What shall be for the one who worships the Tempter, who serves temptation?  The glory of the earth?  What is that: power, wealth, fame, popularity, influence?  David Lynch and Bob Uecker died, this past week.  Some of you know those names, others of you don’t know who I mean.  At the end of every year, news outlets put out their “Celebrities We’ve Lost this Year” story—the popular, wealthy, famous influencers of decades gone by: those who had known and enjoyed the high life.  It had been a long time since most of them had commanded anybody’s attention or interest.  Dust and ashes.  Worship me, and I will give you dust and ashes.  Obey me, and I will give you kingdoms of dust and ashes.  Not much of a sales pitch, but the Tempter isn’t selling reality; God is reality.  The Tempter is selling fantasy, fiction, fallen hope and the dreams of the damned.  Throw away all that really matters, so I can have this, now?  That’s not just temporary insanity, it’s idiotic stupidity.  We know, because we’ve been there.  We see it all around us, including in some whom we dearly love.

“Jesus replied to him, ‘It is written: “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only”’” (4:8).  Seek ye first . . . and all these things, the true blessings from God’s hand, His heart, shall be added unto you.  God knows our need, our true, deep, abiding need, and He gladly provides for this.  The sorrow comes when we convince ourselves that what God provides won’t really satisfy our truest, deepest need, that what God promises to provide really has nothing at all to do with what we most truly and deeply need.  The sorrow comes when we convince ourselves that we are our truest, deepest need, and begin to serve and worship that angry, hollow, sad little idol.  It’s angry and sad because it’s hollow and can’t fill itself.  But God fills.  He is fullness.

Christians know God loves us and restores us to purpose: to glorify God and enjoy Him, forever.  We glorify and enjoy Him as we serve Him.  Our faithful, Spirit-directed, Spirit-led service is our gift of love to God.  Christians do not ask, let alone demand, that God serve us.  That’s more than ingratitude, it’s abuse, abuse of love.  Well, we’re also all too familiar with that in this life.  It’s when we forget the fallenness all around us, and within, that we get duped, tripped up, and hurt.

The Tempter brings Jesus “into Jerusalem and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here; for it is written: “He will give His angels orders concerning you, to protect you,” and, “On their hands they will lift you up, So that you do not strike your foot against a stone”’” (4:9-11).  The Tempter knows Scripture, too.  The pinnacle of the Temple: remember that the Temple was built on a high place in Jerusalem, Mount Moriah, some 2,500 feet up.  The pinnacle was the deepest plunge from the top of the Temple down into the valley below, a very long fall.  Throw yourself down.  Make God prove His love, to whom?  Do you remember all the signs people—often powerful, well-positioned people—demanded from Jesus?  Jesus knew the One they claimed to know but didn’t.  What the Tempter is really saying is, make God serve you.  But if the Creator is the one who serves the creature, how is He then God?

God loves us.  God does serve us: Christ is the clearest proof of this mysterious, beautiful, blessed truth.  And God is God.  God serves us to save us; He does not save us to serve us.  Christ comes to us to give himself for us so that we might once more belong to God as at first, belong to Him in a relationship of trust, love, obedience, fulfillment, and blessing.  He doesn’t rescue us because He loves us, like Superman rescuing Lois, again.  God rescues us because He is love.  God doesn’t rescue us because we are the most important thing to Him, because He just can’t live without us.  He rescues us because He is most important, and He will make Himself known and glorify His name.  Light will shine.  Love will show.

Love does not make an object, a toy or slave, of the one who loves us.  Currently, our common culture, obsessed with the things of youth, has precious little aptitude for remembering that sacred fact.  The only place this sacred fact is being taught at all is in the churches.  I’m not saying that just because I’m a pastor and minister of the Word.  “And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘It has been stated, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test”’” (4:12).  You shall not think to make God serve you.  You shall not think to force God to show or prove His love for you.  Particularly, you shall not force God to prove He loves you by doing what you want your way.  If you loved me, you’d do what I want.  Not only is such thinking woefully immature, it is also abusive, ugly, undermining the very heart of love.  If you loved me, you’d never cause me to feel sad.  If you loved me, you’d never upset me or tell me things I didn’t want to hear and didn’t want to believe or even think about.  If you loved me, you’d let me live in my world of fantasy and fiction, roaming wherever my fickle feelings forced me. 

And how would we have God respond?