Him Only: Luke 4:1-15 | Victory in the Wilderness, Hope for Us

Have you ever felt the weight of temptation pressing in? In Luke 4, we witness the moment when Jesus, led by the Spirit, faces the full force of the enemy’s temptations. Yet, where Adam failed and Israel fell short, Jesus stands firm. His victory in the wilderness isn’t just a personal triumph—it’s our hope, our assurance, and the foundation of our salvation.

In this sermon, we explore how Jesus fulfills all righteousness, resisting temptation not only for His own sake but on behalf of His people. As the Second Adam, He secures the victory that Adam and all of humanity could not. Through His obedience, we are given the power to stand firm in faith, trusting in His finished work.

📖 Sermon Points:

📌Jesus is tempted to use His power to fulfill physical needs (Luke 4:1-4)

📌Satan offers Jesus worldly power apart from God's plan (Luke 4:5-8)

📌Jesus is challenged to test God's faithfulness (Luke 4:9-13)

✨ No temptation is greater than Christ’s victory! May we trust in His perfect righteousness and stand firm in faith.

Transcript:

As I have gotten older, there is something about big sporting events that baffles me more than anything in the world of entertainment and sports. And that is the hours, upon hours, upon hours, of pregame shows before the big game. How in the world did they have that much to talk about? First off, it's just a game. While it's important, it's fun, at the end of the day, it doesn't radically affect our lives all that much. Secondly, all of the speculation, even if it is educated, even if it is, well, researched, all of that speculation can go out of the window right away as the game starts.

What if a coach decides to employ a completely different formation to try to negate a particular skill of an opponent? What if it's something they've never done before? Then all the speculation out the window. What if the star player steps onto the court or onto the field and is injured within the first few minutes? And on top of both of those things that have me baffled, there's the fact that Most of this information, most of the stuff they're talking about, is available to us on demand in our present day. Why do we need eight-hour pregame shows when we have YouTube?

We can go and watch highlights from every team that is in the game. We could even pay for a subscription fee to most sports things and watch every game from multiple camera angles in our day. But yet somebody must be watching all these pregame shows or they wouldn't be on TV, right? There's not only just the pregame shows on the network that covers it. In some cases, like the Super Bowl, even the networks that don't air the event have pregame shows. People obviously watch. It's obviously a big part of the story of the event that's coming up.

Well, regardless of what I think about them, regardless of what you think about them, no matter how it all plays out before, everything changes at the tip off. Everything changes at the kickoff, right? Because the game is actually starting. When that starts, all the expectations, all the prognostication goes out the door. The teams on the field have to deliver, don't they? Now, while I don't wanna make too much of a comparison between the story of Jesus that we've seen so far, and a pre-game show for a big sporting event, you can't help but sort of see the connection here.

We've seen a whole lot of pre-game for the ministry of Jesus so far in the book of Luke. We've had it clearly spelled out for us in great detail, who he is, because he's the one who is going to fulfill the prophetic promise of the one who will come, the Messiah, who's gonna crush the head of the serpent. And we've seen this in the messages that have been delivered to his mother, but also in the messages delivered to the shepherds by the angels. And we've also seen that Jesus is identified by the people coming to his dedication at the temple.

Even they can tell you who he is. And then Jesus himself shows us his wisdom and knowledge as a young man at 12 when he goes to Jerusalem and is in the area around the temple with the religious leaders. And then we saw his identity clearly spelled out for us in the baptism of Jesus. This is the beloved son, right? And then, if that wasn't enough of a pregame, we then saw last week these genealogies going from Jesus back to Adam, letting us know that this is the one, from generation to generation, this is the one who's been promised.

And all of this is the most important news in history, that the Messiah has come. But if Jesus doesn't deliver on what is promised, then all the stuff we read about in Luke 1 through 3 doesn't matter at all, does it? Jesus can have all this stuff going for him, but if he fails to keep all righteousness on behalf of his people, game over. Not only does he lose, but we lose as the ones he is representing. As our covenant head, Adam failed in the garden, and all those who came after him were plunged into sin.

And so with the kickoff of the public ministry of Jesus, we're gonna find out whether Jesus can deliver on the goods. Is it all just talk? Is it all just speculation? or when the game starts, is Jesus who he is supposed to be? And so we land right now in the official beginning of the ministry of Jesus with his temptation in the wilderness. And so we're gonna break down this passage into the three points as we normally do as we navigate through this passage together this morning. The first thing that we're gonna see is that Jesus is tempted with fulfilling his physical needs by his supernatural power.

Jesus is in the wilderness and fasting, and the devil comes to him with something that would be very appealing to him in his humanity, food. He not only tempts him with food, but with using his power as the son of God to fulfill his own needs. Secondly, we see that the devil tempts Jesus with earthly power and status. We have seen in the early part of Luke that Jesus has come in low estate. He's in the manger. He's not born in a palace. Yes, he's a king, but he's not come to exert his power from a lofty place over others.

Instead, he has come to be a servant. And then finally, We're going to see the devil tempts Jesus with questioning the divine will of God. The temptation is to use his power to test whether the Father will save him. And Jesus does what he does in all of the other temptations, and he resists. all of this by going back to the word of God. And so we land in Luke's telling of this relatively familiar story by looking at our first point in verses one through four. And as we come to this first point, there's some groundwork that I wanna do with this.

I wanna lay some foundations here before we look at all of the individual temptations. So we see here that Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit. He's led out into the wilderness for 40 days. And what's happening here is God is ordaining what is going to come to pass. This story has a design to it. And it's gonna look like other stories that people would know from the Old Testament stories that you and I would know. And if we take a moment, and you and I slow down a minute to think about the failures of the people of God from the Old Testament, you're gonna see how they come back to us here in this story.

And here's some of the failures that would come to mind. And they're gonna have the same vibe Through the Old Testament, and ultimately they're all gonna look back to the big failure in the garden, but here we go. What's this gonna look like? How is this, how is God ordaining that the story be told? Well in the garden, what did Adam have? He had life and death put before him. He could obey God, he could keep the commands of God, and life would have been his reward. all of the people that came after him, he would have life, and all who came after would have this promise of life, eternal life in the garden.

But if he failed, death would come to his offspring. And you and I know how the story goes. Not just because we've read the words in the pages of our Bible, but because we've all felt the sting of the curse. We've all felt it. It isn't just the grieving that we experience in the death of a loved one that helps us to know the sting of the curse. We see it every day. We feel it in the disease that we see. We see it in the bloodshed in the world. We know how that test, how that temptation in the garden went, because we can see that the world is broken.

And it's because our covenant head, Adam, failed to keep the commands of God. Well, in the story of the Old Testament, as it continued from there, the people of God get multiple chances to keep the commands of God, to do what God commands. And we know what happens every last time. They fall flat on their face. God brings them to the promised land. And the idea of the promised land is that he's putting them back in the garden. They're getting another chance. They're getting another test to see if they will expel the serpent instead of falling for his temptations.

That's the flow of the Old Testament. Starts in the garden, but later on, it's the promised land coming back. This is the flow happening in the Old Testament. And every time, they fail to expel the serpent from the garden. Every time. They don't keep the commands of God. They fall into idolatry and unbelief, and they are removed from the land. They're sent into exile. And once you know the flow of this story, you can't help but see it all throughout the Old Testament. And now we're getting a very Old Testament feel here as we look at what's happening to Jesus.

Because as we land in this story of the temptation of Jesus, God is ordaining that Jesus is walking the same path that Adam walked, the same path that Israel walked. Will the Messiah fall to the temptations of the serpent? Or will he be victorious where those who have come before him have failed? That's the big question that this passage wants us to have as it starts out. Whether it is Adam in the garden or Israel in the wilderness, the story has always been one failure after another. And so will this be more of the same?

Or is a second Adam? going to succeed where the first Adam has failed. That's the big picture. And so we read that for the 40 days that Jesus is in the wilderness, he's without food, and arguably the most obvious statement in history is made there in verse two. When those 40 days are up, Jesus is hungry. No fooling. You and I get hungry after a few hours. Imagine what he's experiencing. And so the natural temptation that arises here as the devil comes to him is gonna be related to food. And again, your Bible senses should be tingling, right?

If they aren't already, when I point out what is happening here, they will be. What was the temptation of Adam? It was food. The fruit was appealing to the eyes and good for food, we read, as Eve interacts with the serpent, right? And let's think back to the temptation in the wilderness. What were the complaints of the people after they left Egypt? There's food in Egypt, we wanna go back. So this smells like the Old Testament story, doesn't it? The people of Israel, they didn't trust God to give water, they didn't trust God to give food, they thought they would die.

But yet in his mercy, God does provide for them. But again, it is food, it is hunger that is related to the temptations. Will you trust God to provide for you? So the first temptation of Jesus is related to food. The devil tells Jesus that if he is really the son of God, he should command the stones to become bread. But this is not, this is not why God the son came to earth to take on human flesh. It isn't to fulfill his own needs through his miraculous power. Because the devil questions who he is.

If you're really the son of God and you're hungry, do this. That's not why Jesus came. And Jesus replies the way that Adam and Eve and the way that Israel should have responded when they were tempted. Man does not live by bread alone. While hunger is an issue and it's necessary that you and I be taken care of, we're to trust the providence of God, we're to trust his provision for us. And Jesus knows there are greater things at stake here than the hunger that he feels in the moment. He's to trust the providence of God and that this consequence, this all has consequence beyond this moment, beyond this temptation, and beyond these 15 verses that are coming after us and Luke.

And so in the first temptation, we are seeing that Jesus has succeeded where Adam and Israel have failed over and over again. And so now we move on to our second point where the devil tempts Jesus with earthly power. Now of all the temptations, I honestly think this is the one where I struggle, I struggle to understand it the most because what's going on here? What's the devil talking about that he has the authority to do this? He's the devil. Jesus is God. This is all rather confusing to us, right? While we can relate to the desire to have the kingdoms of the world and have the authority to rule over them, that sounds nice to us, right?

Having the world under our thumb so things can be done the way we want them done, the right way. But, but, we can't even imagine that the idea that Jesus would worship the devil, how is this even a temptation? How is this a temptation? But we have to understand what's being offered here. What's being offered is the fast track. Jesus is the resurrected and ascended Lord. We know this, we know that he is the true king of all of creation. But we have to go back, well go forward really in the book of Luke, but we have to think back to the story of the gospel.

How does Jesus arrive as the ascended Lord and King of all creation? Does he do it just because he takes hold of it by his own power? No, it comes through suffering. It comes through the cross. The path that Jesus is on to save a people for his own possession does not come easily. To make a people for himself, there's a price that has to be paid for sin. And that can't come without suffering. And so the lure that is being dangled here in front of Jesus, the temptation, is the easy path to earthly glory and not the path of suffering.

But the question still remains, what does it mean that the devil has the authority to even offer this, right? Now I've labored over this question a lot, and so I've come, I think the best way that I've come to figure out how to understand this is that in a world that is fallen, a world that's full of sin, The devil and sin have power in the world. Sinful hearts do not desire the things of God. Sinful hearts desire the things of the flesh. And even Jesus, Jesus refers to the devil as the ruler of this world.

So is Satan telling the truth that he has full power to give all this stuff to Jesus? No, no. Ultimately, what he's giving is a half-truth, that he has power over the corruption and the bad things that happen in the world, but he doesn't have the power to say that Jesus has authority over these things, but he has power over the hearts and the intentions of men because of their corruption and sin. And so it's a half-truth. because Satan would ultimately answer to the authority and power of God, but he is able to lead the sinful and fallen hearts of men astray, right?

So I guess you could say that, like I said before, that the devil is telling a half-truth, and he's using this to pose as someone who has more power than he actually does. And we've all known someone who poses like they have more power than they actually do, that, hey, I can do this for you. Then you find out, eh, they probably can't. Acting like they're on top when they aren't. And Jesus would know this. But we have to remember what's being offered and the lure of what's being offered. Glory without the cross. Glory without suffering.

Glory without paying the price for my sin and your sin. That's what's being offered. And so we can understand the draw of this and we can take great comfort knowing that Christ, in this temptation, he is choosing the path of suffering. And we see here how Jesus responds. He comes back at the devil with scripture. You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. And all I can say there is mic drop, boom, that's it. That's it. This is the command of God from scripture. And it makes sense. Why would you worship anyone but the ultimate power and the one who made all things?

Not even the ability to rule the world. is better than being a child of the maker of heaven and earth. And Satan isn't gonna come to you with an offer to rule over all the earth. That's not a temptation for you. At least I hope it isn't, because it'd be difficult to resist, right? But there's always going to be temptation in our lives to take the easy path and to seek status over the contentment of being a child of God. We must follow the example of Jesus here and worship and serve God alone. This is a battle that you and I fight every day of our lives, and we're gonna fight it every day of our lives until we are in glory.

This is a struggle, and it usually isn't over the big things. It's not over ruling the world, right? It's the little things. Will we let Jesus be Lord of all, over every area of our life, or are we gonna seek easy answers that satisfy ourself? That's this temptation for us. Will we worship God alone, or are we gonna adore and worship the things of the world that we want, that satisfy our desires? That's the temptation for us. So we're called, like Jesus, to resist these temptations. So may we take up our cross daily. May we kick the temptations to the curb and worship and serve the Lord of heaven and earth alone.

And so Jesus has successfully pushed aside the first two temptations, but we know there's a third one as we look at verses nine through 13. This temptation really asks the important question, of whether Jesus will trust the sovereign plan of God. This is kind of fanciful to imagine here. Jesus at the peak of the temple, throwing himself off, and because he's the Messiah and nothing bad can happen to him, angels will come and swoop him up. I like to imagine it like being at the last second, right? Sort of exciting like in a movie. But who knows when the image we're supposed to have here is.

But the idea is that Jesus is gonna throw himself off the temple and be protected because he's the Messiah. You're not gonna suffer. You're not gonna have something bad happen to you. So what's being tempted here? You probably gathered it from the way I just talked about it. Jesus knows the path of suffering is before him. So what would our natural inclination be? How can the path of suffering be the path to glory? God won't let you be harmed. You're the anointed one. God won't let you suffer. You're the Messiah. Why would the one who's to save a people allow himself to suffer and die?

So let's see, will God really let that happen? Will God keep you from being harmed if you throw yourself from the temple? An important lesson. is seen in this specific temptation here in Luke. Notice, the devil has no problem quoting scripture. None at all. Throughout the book of Luke, we're gonna hear Jesus say, it is written, right? We expect it from Jesus. But we see the exact same language from the devil here. Hey, The Bible says the angels will protect you. You won't even have your foot hit a stone. Jesus, you're not even gonna stub your toe, man.

The angels got your back. Let's see how this works. But the devil is not using scripture correctly. He's pulling a verse here and a verse there, using them for his own twisted purpose. Now you and I have known each other for a while now. and you probably noticed something about me. You'll notice we rarely work with a verse here and a verse there, right? We're usually working in big chunks of text. Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with occasionally or pulling up a verse here and a verse there, I'm not saying that. But if we wanna take care of how we approach scripture, if we wanna see the whole picture, if we wanna understand it in context, We don't wanna do what the devil did here.

Go looking for one thing for us to make our point. Because by looking at bigger chunks of text and working through them, what do we see? We see that we're not gonna make mistakes. We're gonna understand the big picture. We're gonna see how all of scripture ties together. It's been a while, but I know I've made this joke before about this point, so I'll make it again in hopes that maybe you didn't remember it from the first time. But the perfect example of pulling scripture out of context is always this. The Bible says that Judas went and hung himself.

The Bible also says you go and do likewise. You get the idea. Both of those are words of scripture. but they don't fit together. They're not telling us to do something. They're telling us a story. They're not prescriptive for us to do. To suggest so would very obviously be us twisting the word of God, right? We can see that clearly. And Jesus, of course, Jesus sees through the twisted words of scripture, and he replies with the best answer. When Satan is twisting scripture, he goes back to what? what the true meaning of all of our trusting God is here.

He says we're not to put the Lord our God to the test. That is straightforward, and it's about trusting the sovereign one who made us. We don't test God. Instead, we are to trust his will, trust that it will be done, and we're to trust that he will work all things together for the good of those who love him. And so with another scriptural mic drop from Jesus, we read that the devil departs until an opportune time. While Jesus has prevailed in this temptation, we see that the devil isn't done. The devil isn't stopping. And to return to the big story I spoke about at the beginning of our first point, we have seen here that where Adam, where Eve, and where Israel have failed, Jesus has prevailed.

Jesus is victorious. Where Adam and Eve saw food to be good to their eyes, Jesus has been patient for the provision of God. in the wilderness when he didn't have food, he didn't grumble like the people of Israel. He waited on God. He did not succumb to the desire for the easy, but instead was patient and trusted God. Even though he knew his path was difficult and that he would be forsaken and his own disciples would disown him, he didn't try for glory on his own. Instead he trusted the sovereign plan of Almighty God. where the first Adam failed, the second Adam has prevailed.

Where the people of Israel rebelled, Christ, the true Israel, has been faithful, and he's trusted God, and he's waited on the Lord. And so to return to my pregame illustration from the outset, we've seen here that Jesus actually does live up to the hype. All the expectations, all the analysis of the first three chapters of Luke has proven to be more than just a whole lot of words and a whole lot of hype. But we have to remember, this is not the final victory. Jesus has prevailed, but the difficult path is yet to come. The contest has only begun, and we see as the passage closes, that he is beginning his ministry of teaching in Galilee.

We see that in verses 14 and 15, that people are taking note of this, this one who has come to teach, and they're gonna flock to hear him proclaim the word of the Lord, but the question that you and I are gonna be drawn to as the story continues is do they really know who he is? Do they really know what he's come to do? Will they receive him or will they reject him? Will they obey Him even when His path leads to suffering? And as we finish up today, there are two important applications that I believe we can apply to our lives in this coming week from this passage about the temptation of Jesus.

The first thing is I think that we need to be mindful of the temptations that are out there and around us. While you and I are not going to be tempted to make bread appear out of nowhere when we're hungry, and we won't be offered to rule the world if we worship the devil, what is underneath all of these temptations is similar to temptations that you and I face. Will we do what is easy, or will we do what God has called us to do? Will we consider obedience to God to be of chief importance, or will we put our own success and our own temporary happiness ahead of holiness, that thing that God has called us to?

Will we worship ourselves, will we worship success, or will we worship Him only? I say that we need to be mindful of temptation. Because in our world, many of the things that we sinfully desire are just seen as normal. They're seen as a matter of personal choice. And we need to be aware that these are not just options before us, but temptations to pursue the self instead of pursuing Jesus. So may we be intentionally aware of those things that are before us. Those things that pull us away from following Jesus by faith. And secondly, if we're to identify the temptations and resist the temptations that come to us, we need to know God's word.

As we saw in the final temptation here in Luke, scripture can easily be twisted. And so we need to know scripture. We need to know how to use it. We need to let the holy word of God inform how we think. so that we can see the snares of the devil and the snares that the world places in front of us. And so we need to hear the word, we need to read the word, and we need to apply the word, and we need to trust that the Holy Spirit not only guides us, but that the Holy Spirit is also at work in us to build us up and to give us the strength to resist these temptations and to live in holiness.

So may you and I be empowered. that all strongholds of sin and all the temptation in our lives might be broken so that we might live in holiness because we have gratitude for the saving work that's been done for us by the second Adam who was victorious on behalf of his people. Because the good news is, is that where our first parents fell into sin, and they failed in the garden, Christ has prevailed, and He is our Savior. Amen.