Matthew 4:1-11

Intro

Whenever we look at this passage, which details Jesus temptation in the wilderness, there is one thing that consistently intrigues me: the number forty. To be precise: the forty days that that Jesus spent out in the wilderness prior to the beginning of his public ministry. The interesting thing is, this is nowhere near the first time that this particular digit shows up. In fact, this number shows up in the Old Testament on six occasions. We hear about it in regards to Noah and the number of days that the flood took place, how many days the Israelites spied on the land of Canaan, how many days Goliath came out and mocked the Iraelites before David stepped up to the task, the number of years that David reigned as king, and then the number of days Jonah declared Ninevah had to repent before they would be overthrown by God.

However, it tends to be the sixth such Old Testament example that catches our attention the most. Do any of you remember which instance of forty I have left out? If you were thinking of the forty years that the Israelites spent out in the wilderness, then you right where I was. The reason it draws the most attention, especially considering the passage we’re reading, is not only because of the number forty, but also because of the reference to the wilderness. These similarities invariably cause us to link the forty years of the Israelites and the forty days of Jesus together. In doing so, in looking at them in conjunction with each other, we are able to recognize that following the will of God is not an easy task. Both the Israelites and Jesus were called to do so, and yet only one of these two was able to ultimately succeed.

With that thought in our minds, I invite you to consider the following: what areas of temptation lean upon you? Are you able to hold them at bay? If the answer to that question is no, what do we do to make ourselves right, both with the Lord and with ourselves? The scripture reads this way.

Matthew 4:1-11

4 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3 The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." 4 But he answered, "It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ "

5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’" 7 Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’"

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9 and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." 10 Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’"

11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

"Yes You Can (Keep Going)!"

The example that I am about to give is a tough one for me to use (and the reasons for that will be quite obvious once I get into it), but I think that it needs to be utilized.

So there was this football game that was held last Sunday. Maybe some of you heard about it: Super Bowl 42? Had this team from New England called the Patriots (apparently they hadn’t lost all year long?) against some team that says they’re from New York called the Giants? Anyone? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Anyway the game was fantastic. The score was close throughout; there were lots of big defensive hits and enough offensive fireworks to keep you interested. What I (and I know football fans all around the country) found extremely compelling was how hard both teams fought, right down to the end.

For those of you who may have missed it the Giants were winning 10-7 in the fourth quarter when the Patriots moved down the field in an extremely calm and orderly fashion and scored a touchdown to go ahead 14-10 with two minutes and 42 seconds left to go in the game. The images on the screen showed Patriots players hugging one another with such intensity that someone who just stuck their head in the living room might have thought the game was over.

But it wasn’t. The Giants were going to get the ball again. I can only imagine how the Giants players must have thought at that point: only a few minutes left, facing the undefeated Patriots, and needing to move the ball 83 yards. No small task if looked at individually, but when put together, most people (and I would imagine more than a few people who were standing on that field), had to be thinking, "It’s done. It’s over. What’s the point in even running these plays? Nothing that we’re doing is going to change the outcome."

But then the plays began to be run and over the course of the next two minutes the Giants showed that if you work hard, never give up, and keep playing as you have been taught, good things will emerge. For those of you who have been under a rock somewhere, the Giants ultimately scored the game-winning touchdown, but they had to fight through the temptation to just roll over and pretend that there was nothing that they could do. In that drive, they, and all of their fans, realized yes, they could keep going, keep forging ahead even though conventional wisdom said otherwise.

As we look at the comparison of the Israelites to Jesus in their particular times in the wilderness, we are able to see just how true this assertion of fighting through the temptation and understanding that you can keep going, really is.

The people who we have come to know as the Israelites have had God working with them for a long time. God called for Abraham and Sarah to pick up and move from Haran (in modern day Turkey), to begin the connection with the land of Canaan. This communal history of being connected so closely with God was carried down through Isaac, Jacob, and then to Joseph (whose presence ultimately brought the Israelites to Egypt for the next 400 years).

This connection between humanity and the Almighty reached a new point of intimacy, however, through Moses. With God guiding Moses, Moses was able to lead the Israelites out of bondage and slavery in Egypt with the assurance that God would care for them for the rest of their lives. What needs to be remembered is that this intimate connection was not just God to the Israelites, but also the Israelites toward God.

We can hear this explicitly in Exodus 19 as God said, "if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation."

The peoples’ response? "Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do." The Israelites agreed to this close relationship and soon there after, the Ten Commandments were handed down as a baseline way to live with each other.

The people were told the way that they needed to live, and yet, as the generations began to pass it became more and more obvious that the people were not holding up there end of the bargain. If you have your doubts, just start reading through the Old Testament and it doesn’t take long to find another example of how far off the path the Israelites could get. Just think about how, while Moses was still up on the mountain receiving the law, they went about creating a golden calf to worship because conventional wisdom said that Moses wasn’t coming back, that God had left them, and that they had better start trying to make amends with the God’s of the Egyptians.

Even from the beginning of the agreement, the Israelites were already getting it wrong. They were not following through on the promises that they had made to God and found themselves continually being lured away by all sorts of temptations. The generations that followed those who wandered for forty years in the wilderness were also tempted: by political power, by physical longings, and by the peer pressure of their geographical neighbors and the gods that they worshiped. And time after time after time they succumb to those temptations.

The complete 180 of this comes to us in the one who spent forty days in the wilderness. In Jesus, we have the example of someone who was willing to sacrifice his personal well-being and pleasure so that the will of God the Father might be followed through in total obedience. No matter what temptations crossed his path, he would not bend. Jesus was not going to submit to the conventional wisdom that said it was pointless. He knew that with God the Father he could keep going.

And don’t fool yourself into thinking that what Jesus was declining were things that were inconsequential. What the Devil offered the son of God were legitimate ways to test his willingness and ability to avoid falling to temptation.

The first temptation of bread strikes at Jesus in a two-pronged manor. To start with, there is the hunger factor. To fast for any length of time causes any kind of food to look extremely appetizing. (After all, how do you think those people who starve themselves on shows like ‘Survivor’ are able eat almost anything that comes across their path?)

The second way that the bread is a temptation is because the Roman rulers of the day found that a method to keep the masses quiet was to feed them with bread. Essentially, people will follow you if their bellies are full.

Jesus response to Satan of , "One does not live by bread alone, but by every

word that comes from the mouth of God" declares that the word of God is more vital to humanity’s existence, then the food it eats. Jesus is not going to become a Messiah for the physically hungry, but for the spiritually thirsting. In this response Jesus is declaring, "Yes I can keep going."

The second temptation of tossing himself off the pinnacle off the temple in the holy city only to have angels lift him back up is meant to draw the power of God to be on display for all to see. Jesus’ answer of "Do not put the Lord your God to the test" shows that Jesus is not going to simply wow the people into following God because of some divine parlor tricks. He wants people to turn over their lives because of a deep, heartfelt commitment to the truth that God is putting forth through His son and as realized through the movement of the Holy Spirit. Following God is not meant to be contingent upon miracles and Jesus refuses to yield to this temptation. In this response Jesus is declaring, "Yes I can keep going."

The final enticement is frighteningly real. What the devil offers is a release from all of the humiliation and suffering that Jesus is going to face in the next three years, from being rejected in his hometown of Nazareth, to being betrayed by one of those closest to him (his disciple Judas), to being denied freedom because a thug was deemed to be a more beneficial to society then he was, to being beaten, hung, and killed at the hands of the Romans. Jesus would have been able to avoid all that. How many of us would be able to resist such a temptation?

Unfortunately, the answer to that question is none of us could, for the only person who would be able to follow through on their commitment to God’s plan in those sorts of extreme circumstances is Jesus Christ.

The good thing is, and for this we must be eternally grateful, because Jesus was able to resist temptation and say "Yes I can keep going in my commitment to the will of the Father", we do not have to face similar temptations with such incredible stakes on the line.

However, this does not mean that we are off the hook. Just because Jesus was able to face down the devil does not mean that we, as followers of Christ, have our own variations on the theme. Sex, gambling, gluttony, material possessions, vanity, power, money all pull at us in varying degrees. What we must be sure of is that we follow the path that Jesus has trod and not the one that the Israelites created.

The Israelites thought that if they yielded to their temptation that they would be… happy, that they wouldn’t face any sort of want any longer. But what did they realize? That as soon as they yielded to the temptations their lives became all the more unwieldy and so much less satisfying.

Think about your own life. How has falling to temptation worked out for you? Has it granted you the sort of happiness that you thought that it was going to provide? Or did it simply leave you all the more vacuous, longing even more to fill that void in your life? Yielding to temptations will not make happy, it will leave you empty and in an even worse position then where you started in the first place.

As Christians we have said that we are willing to give our lives over to the Almighty so that the kingdom of God might be served. We, much like a certain football team from last week, need to resist temptation and follow through in that commitment and give it nothing less than everything we have. Do not be satisfied with what has been deemed good enough by the world; only be content when the will of God has been followed for when you do that you will begin to understand that the happiness, contentment, and acceptance that you were looking for has been granted to you by the Divine.

I know that there are going to be days when you think, "I can’t go on. I can’t be the sort of person God would have me be." Yes you can! Yes you can keep going because, as we have talked about over the past several weeks, we are not alone as we face those temptations. We may need to set up necessary support structures in order to avoid falling to that temptation, but you (with the help of God) can do it!

Allow this time of Lent, these six weeks prior to Easter to be a time when you concentrate on who you are in relation to God, resisting the various temptations to wander away, and ultimately follow the Almighty, as best you, with the help of the Holy Spirit, can.

There are going to be temptations that we lure us from this path, but if we follow the example that Jesus has set for us and remain true to God the Father, we will become a lot closer to the being the people that God would have us be and be fulfilled in so many needed ways. God is calling for us to follow His son who spent those 40 days out in the wilderness facing the temptations of the devil for our sake. Let’s resist the temptations that are out there. Yes you can keep going. You can do it! You can follow the path of God and be fulfilled in all the ways that you long for.

After Sermon Prayer

O holy God, we know that temptations are around every corner. Whether those lures be carnal, intellectual, or sociological, they bombard us from every angle. However, as we have seen in our scripture this morning, these temptations can be resisted if we put our focus on You. Lord, grant us the strength that we need to persevere through all the temptations that haunt us so that we might be able to follow through as Your son has taught. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.