Year 1, Day 213: Luke 4

Temptation During Weakness

I just realized something.  When it comes to Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, I usually think of the three temptations as “example stories” of Satan’s temptation over the whole 40 days.  But that isn’t at all how Luke presents the story.  Luke 4:2-3 specifically says, “When they ended, Jesus was hungry.  The Devil said to Him …”  These three temptations are the capstone of the temptation experience, not simply examples of what happened during the 40 days. 

I don’t know that theologically it makes a big amount of difference other than understanding that these three examples are “outside of the 40 days” so to speak because Luke says the 40 days of temptation had ended.  Oh, how much Jesus must have gone through if according to Luke these experiences are after the temptation period was over!  But it is safe to say that these temptations would have certainly been enhanced by the 40 days of fasting that came earlier.  Jesus would have been spiritually strong but physically weak at this time.

Hunger

The Devil comes to Jesus to satisfy His hunger, and Jesus rebukes the Devil with Scripture.  “Man does not live by bread (earthly sustenance) alone.”  [Deuteronomy 8:3]  Jesus reminds Satan than an existence without reliance upon God’s provision is no existence of which we should want to be a part.  Sure, we may get sucked into living for the world from time to time.  That’s what sin is all about.  We all have an appetite for something: food, alcohol, drugs, sex, money, cars, buildings, land, pets, etc.  We all have something we like to have more and more.

But Jesus’ point is that while there might be an earthly appeal to that lifestyle, it is no lifestyle that we really should desire from a spiritual perspective.  Man does not truly live when God is not a part of our daily sustenance.  {Yeah, I said it.  Daily sustenance.  Not weekly.  Not sporadic feedings.  Daily sustenance.  I need food every day.  I need God every day even more than I need food.}

Power

Satan comes to Jesus and offers Him power.  Jesus rebukes the Devil with scripture again.  Jesus paraphrases Deuteronomy 6:13 and says “Serve only God.”  We want to be in control.  The world wants us to serve it.  Satan uses the world so that through serving the world we are actually serving him.  Jesus makes a clear point.  Serve God and you don’t serve the world.  Don’t serve the world and you aren’t serving Satan.  Whether we want to be in control or not, the only path to righteousness is giving up control and serving God.

What Jesus is really talking about here is ambition.  Ambition is what we want to pursue in order to feel successful.  Now don’t get me wrong.  There’s nothing wrong with wanting to do your best.  There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be successful.  But we should want to do what God wants us to do, not what we want to do.  Just like we need food to live, we need to be successful.  But we need to be careful at what we pursue.

Validation

Satan has now had enough, so this time Satan brings scripture to Jesus.  Satan quotes Psalm 91:11-12.  Anyone think they know God’s Word better than Satan?  I doubt it.  Satan is the master deceiver.  In order to deceive someone, you have to be better at the disguise than the other person is better at perception.  I doubt any of us actually know what God’s Word says – and the power contained within it – better than Satan.  The difference is that God’s people use it to seek truth whereas Satan seeks to twist it.  And Jesus knows it.

Jesus knows that the context of Psalm 91 is not about forcing God’s hand or intentionally making God protect Jesus.  Psalm 91 is about assurance that so long as we put God’s ways first that God will watch out for us.  If Jesus would have listen to Satan’s interpretation of scripture, then Jesus would no longer be thinking about God’s ways but rather His own ways.  Furthermore, think about all the approval that would come from the crowd at the Temple if they saw God’s angels saving Jesus and softly bringing Him to the earth unscathed.  Think of how many people would have immediately saw Jesus as the Messiah had Jesus just listened to Satan.

This shows that Satan’s quote of scripture is correct, but his application is twisted.  Thus, Jesus replies correctly with his own application of scripture from Deuteronomy 6:16 “Do not put the Lord Your God to the test.”

I love the fact that Jesus uses quotes from Deuteronomy all through this story.  Jesus lifts up the lessons Moses taught to the wicked generation.  It’s almost like Jesus is saying, “You were able to grab that whole generation with your lies, but you cannot have me and you cannot have those who follow in my footsteps.”  Jesus is telling Satan that the approval that comes through lies is nothing compared to the approval that comes with doing God’s will.

It again gives us a great parallel back to Joshua as he leads the new generation forward into the Promised Land.  Jesus takes what the wicked generation could not grasp and uses it to resist the Devil.  There is a lesson in there.  Don’t miss it.  Follow Jesus into the spirituality that can be found in Him.  Don’t stay in the spiritual wilderness any longer than you may already have.  If you want approval, seek it from God and those who are in Him.

Jesus in Nazareth

The passage about Jesus in His hometown can be confusing at first pass.  Luke 4:22 seems to give the impression that they were pleased with Jesus since they spoke well of Him.  But what is really going on here is that they are amazed that some poor uneducated carpenter can speak about the law.  They don’t see Him as the Son of God even when they are marveling at Him.  They see Him as the little boy that they knew who grew up to be just like his father Joseph – a carpenter.  Carpenters don’t normally speak from the scrolls and pontificate upon scripture.  When they are speaking well of Him, it is as though they are saying, “Pretty good, for a carpenter.”

Ha!  They miss the point and Jesus knows it.  Jesus rebukes them for only seeing in Jesus what they know and not being willing to see in Jesus what God wants them to know.  Then they are filled with wrath and anger. 

It’s funny how people respond to being rebuked.  Even though Jesus is right, they get angry.  It hurts when people expose the truth in us when we have so delicately buried it underneath our lies.  It hurts, and we typically lash out.  I’m not excusing the people of Nazareth, merely commenting that it is human nature. 

We are no different.  That’s why the process of repentance is so hard and painful.  First we must dig up the lies, admit the buried truth, and then change.  It is so much easier to stand firm over the lies and react in anger.  But alas, the easy path is often the one that leads to destruction.

Humble Acceptance of Truth

Immediately after this story we get three more stories in this chapter about how people accept Him and how great and wonderful his healing ministry could be.  The contrast could be no greater between these stories and Nazareth.  When we let our lies get in the way of seeing the truth, we lose out on seeing the glory of God.  But when we humble ourselves to accept God’s truth our eyes can be opened to the very glory of God. 

The basic question is simple.  How important are our lies that bury the truth of our sinfulness within us?  How important are the lies that cover over our rebellion against God?  Are they important enough that we miss out on what God wants us to see?

Pray on this, that you and I may not be like Nazareth.  Pray on this, that we might be willing to expose our humanity so that through our brokenness we might see the healing power of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the risen Lord, the one who takes away the sin of the world.  Amen.

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