New Adam

Good morning. To paraphrase a quote by A.W. Tozer, we too often act as if this world is a playground when it's really a battlefield. Something for us to really consider this morning as we look at this battle, Jesus and Satan, and the ongoing battle we're being invited into as his believers. We're in the Gospel of Luke. We have just returned back to Luke. Last week we looked at the forerunner, John the Baptist, and his message that he baptized with a repentance for forgiveness. And we ended there with the baptism of Jesus with a grand exclamation from the Father. You are my beloved Son. The theme was repentance. How we need to turn away from our sin. How we need to be washed from our sin. How we need to be forgiven for our sin and turn to God. Last week we meditated upon one of the enemies we have and that is sin. Well this week we're gonna meditate upon another enemy, Satan. That's why the world's a battleground. Satan is at war with God and he has chosen to attack God's image bearers in that Or we're gonna be thinking about Satan this morning, and well, we usually think about spiritual warfare, folks who make all of Christian life spiritual warfare, or people who don't think about it at all. What do you think about it? Well, it's real. The Bible begins with it. The Bible ends with it. Here we see Jesus fighting for us. There is a reality to angels and demons. If we just go back to what we looked at in Genesis, we did a short theological series because I wanted to set up some important themes. And if you weren't with us, Genesis 3.15, that's a passage worth highlighting, underlying, if you're writing your Bible. That's the first promise of the gospel. We call it the Proto-Evangelium. God promises Satan, a child of Eve will be born Yes, you'll strike the foot of that child, but you will be crushed. As I think about Satan, he's a created being. God and Satan, the battle's not yin and yang. It's creator-creature. There's no competition, there's no question who the victor is. God is greater. Now we also have to realize that when it comes to Satan and man, there's no question who's greater. Satan, the hierarchy of being, God, angels, and man. The devil, apart from the story we just heard read, had a perfect track record. He was batting 1,000 when it comes to tempting man. He's never lost, up until Jesus Christ. Satan is greater than us, but he who is the creator, the son of God, he has come down to defeat him. As we think about who Satan is, he's the adversary. He's against us. He's the accuser, and the power of his accusation is he doesn't have to make up sins to accuse us with. He's a liar, he's a tempter. Today we're looking at the one who does overcome him, Jesus Christ. I wanna look at this text a little differently. I think I say that like every week. We're gonna take a high view picture, like a 30,000 foot, and then drop back down. I want to introduce what's going on in the bigger picture, a lot of the themes we actually just sung about. Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus, the incarnate one. Jesus, the new Adam. Jesus, the victor, the champion. I want to think about some of these bigger themes, and then drop down and look at the text in light of them. So if you're taking notes, there's gonna be three things we learn about Jesus that are important for us to see to appreciate this text. One, he's the son of God. Two, he's the victor or champion. Three, he's the model. and we have to think about them in that order. He is the son of God, that's who Jesus is. He's the victor, that's what he did, and now for us, he's a model. If we mix any of those up, we've got a distorted gospel. If you just go straight to model, we become moralist, and that's not gonna help you win the battle. Jesus has overcome sin. Sorry, Jesus, the son of God, was victorious over Satan so that we can overcome him today. I'll read that again. That's your one-sentence summary. Jesus, the Son of God, was victorious over Satan so we can overcome him today. These texts are typically together. We looked at the baptism last week. I'm gonna come back there because the Father says Jesus is my Son, whom I am well-pleased, and Mark and Matthew connect directly the beginning of Jesus' ministry with the baptism, the identity of who Jesus is, the Son of God, and then the temptation. The unique thing about Luke is this genealogy, which I didn't make our scripture to read, because it's a lot of complicated names, and we wanna make sure we're reading things well, and we're not sure we know how to pronounce most of these names. The genealogy here for Luke has a specific purpose. This is an unusual place to land a genealogy. It's written as an unusual genealogy. So let's look at what we've seen. The baptism of Christ, the Holy Spirit has come upon him in the form of a dove. The Father has declared, you're my son, I'm well pleased. Then we see this grand declaration that Jesus goes all the way back to Adam. Then the temptation, the same spirit that ascended upon him as a dove has now filled him, is leading him, empowering him. And notice the devil's challenge in verse three and nine. If you are the son of God. Really a better way of reading that is since you are the son of God. Jesus' identity as the son of God is central to what we see here in baptism, genealogy, temptation. Well, the genealogy. Let's look at this for a moment. Why the genealogy? Well, Luke is one of the more clear Gospels. He has the most to say about Jesus' own incarnation. When the angel speaks to Mary, the Son of the Most High is going to be in her womb. You're going to give birth to God. The angels proclaim this truth of the incarnation, which is God taking on flesh, and it's not just any flesh. It's not generic flesh. It's flesh that goes all the way back to Adam. Jesus is like all of us in a way that he can save us all. There's a way in which the promise is traced back to David, Judah, Abraham, Noah. The important high points of God's promises are listed here and are involved. And then it goes back all the way to Adam, who is waiting for the serpent crusher. Jesus is presented as the son of God, then listed all the way back to be connected to the son of Adam, I believe to show he is going to be the new Adam, the serpent crusher we've all been waiting on. We need a pause. We want to be honest about some difficulties in a text. There are two different genealogies. Matthew and Luke are not exactly the same, and I want to say it's because they're not trying to do the same thing. Luke begins with Jesus and ends with Adam, which is really unusual. You typically have a genealogy going the opposite direction, like Matthew does, who begins with Abraham, then goes to David, then goes to the exile. And Matthew's very clear, he's counting 14 generations between each one of those important covenant events. Matthew is presenting a theological genealogy. Luke goes backwards and goes all the way back to Adam, and he has 77 names. And between David and Joseph, there are different names. How do we handle this? The first thing I wanna say is, have great confidence that the important names are in there. David, Judah, Abraham, Noah, Adam. Genealogies are written for theological purposes. I think both of these are written for theological purposes. Matthew showing he is connected all the way back to Abraham and he's the promised king of Israel. There's been other ways to think about like, how do we really deal with the different names between Joseph and David? One person, and a common belief, is that Luke traces the line of Mary in Matthew, Joseph. That's possible, but really not probable. Because we see here, he's saying, being the son, as was supposed of Joseph, they think maybe because it's as was supposed of Joseph, it's Mary, but no, the whole point is it was a virgin birth, a virgin conception. I think this is actually Joseph's line, but that's one way folks have tried to get around it. One way is also saying Matthew is a royal line, and Mary, the Lucan, is more of the human line. Maybe. Another way of looking at it is that word for son in Luke is son of, son of, son of, son of. We may actually be skipping some generations, because it really just means descendant of. So a grandfather to a grandson might be listed here, which would explain some of the different names. Because Matthew certainly skips names, Luke might be skipping names. The other one is the Levite marriage, which is a way of the physical versus legal husband or father being named differently. I want to emphasize here that the early church did not have any concerns over these two genealogies. They understood what they were saying and they believed them. And the Jews who were trying to argue against Jesus never used the different genealogies as an argument against him. The Jews recognized both of these genealogies as true. The end emphasis on Adam. Ever since Adam disobeyed God, ever since Adam took the fruit of the tree that God said not to take, We have been waiting for a new Adam. The importance of this genealogy is that Jesus is the Savior for all humanity. Go back to chapter three. That declaration that he quotes from Isaiah 40, look at verse six of chapter three. And all flesh shall see salvation of God. It's for everybody, everyone who is descended from Adam, which is all of us. Jesus has come to be the Savior for all of us. And he's done so by coming to be the new Adam. Now let's look at this title, Son of God, more specifically. In the temptation, this is the trigger, this is the focus of what Satan is wanting to say. If you are the Son of God, since you are the Son of God, the Father has declared, this is the Son of God. The one thing the Father and Satan agree upon is Jesus is the Son of God. He's not a son of God like Adam. Adam is created by God. Jesus is the forever, eternal, perfect Son of the Father. He has always existed. There was a time when Adam did not exist. There has never been a time when Jesus, the Son of God, did not exist. He is pre-existent. Let's not get too hung up on the word son there. Yes, God is the source of Adam, but the relationship of the father and the son is unique and specific to them. Let's just see how that works out. God the father declared Jesus his son in Luke three, but remember what happens in John 5.18 when Jesus calls God his father? How do the religious rulers respond? They pick up stones. They recognize what he's saying because a father and a son, they're like nature. He's actually saying, I'm equal to God in my nature, in my authority, in my being. They say he's blaspheming, which would be true if he were not actually the true son of God. Adam might be called a son of God by a covenant, but Jesus is the son of God by real, absolute, relationship. If you look at this title throughout scripture, it's interesting that angels most likely are using this title. Gabriel tells Mary, you're going to give birth to the Son of the Most High. Right after this, demons are going to declare to Jesus in Luke 4.34 and Luke 4.41, you are the Holy One of God and you are the Son of God. We see this bookend, son of God is important for the baptism and the temptation. The genealogy is stuck in the middle because the son of God had always planned to become like us. This is where I think that phrase image bearer is so important from Genesis one. God had already designed us for his own son to assume our nature. His plan from long ago, His plan before we even sinned, was that He designed us. The image-bearer is a way in which we relate to God uniquely, but it's also a way in which Jesus, when He comes, He's the true image of God. We were already pre-designed to be added to the very Son of God. So here we see the Son of God, He has all authority, He has all power. He's the Son who honors the Father, He's the Son who reflects the Father, and He's the Son who has come down to be like us. Now, with all authority, with all power, with God himself, I wanna think about how that Son of God is our champion. How is it the Son of God is our champion? And there's a couple different ways in which this plays out in the text. Look at Luke 4, 1. In Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness. for 40 days being tempted by the devil, and he ate nothing during those days. When they were ended, he was hungry. What's the significance of the wilderness in 40 days? Most see an allusion back to Israel, and they're wandering in the wilderness for how long? 40 years. Israel is supposed to be the son of God. They're given that title. If you remember in Exodus 4, 22, Moses, what does he say to Pharaoh? What does God say to Moses about Israel, rather? My firstborn son is enslaved in Egypt. That's why the last plague is the firstborn dying. Israel is meant to be the firstborn child of God, which means Israel's supposed to be reflecting God. He's supposed to be a witness to the other nations. for God, but Israel failed. And where they failed, Jesus is coming to succeed. He's going out into the wilderness to be the Israel that the nation failed to be. We see that relationship with God in Israel, even in Deuteronomy 1.31, where God looks back and he says, I carried you like a son. There's actually a bigger picture that's being taken. There's two different humanities now that Jesus has come, because there's two different heads. We can see this in Romans 5, that was gonna be one of the scripture readings, but I wanted to do Psalm 91, and I'll explain why a little bit later. But in Romans 5, it makes it very clear, there's two different heads, legal headship. If you are in Adam, In Adam, we sin. In Adam, we're defeated. In Adam, we die. Legally, Adam represented us in the garden. And everyone who remains in Adam in that covenant relationship, we sin, we're defeated, we die. But if by faith we believe in Jesus, we become his. He is our legal head. He is our representative. And we're declared righteous for victory in life. Now that's gonna rub really odd for many of us because we are so tied to an individualistic society. How dare someone represent me that I didn't even vote for? And even if I did vote for him, I don't like what he does. No, this is God's design. The covenant relationships matter throughout Scripture. We think too individualistically, but here the Bible tells us, you are either united with Adam in sin and death, or you're united with Christ. And if you just wanna see the power of that covenant union, go through a simple passage like Ephesians 1, and highlight all the in Christ, through Christ, from Christ. Your union with Christ is where you get every blessing. United to Adam, by birth and his sin, our sinful works confirm it. United to Jesus, the Son of God, being born again by His Spirit, our faith confirms it. Jesus begins His ministry here by battling Satan. Where everything was first lost, He goes back to that point. He is being led by the Spirit back to the point to free us from the slavery and the death Adam brought upon us. Now here's the difficult thing, too. You're already kind of, no, I don't want that guy as my representative. We all now live in that defeat. If you don't believe in Jesus Christ, you're living in Adam's defeat. Jesus promised the gospel church will prevail against the gates of Hades. Think about that for a moment. The very gates of Satan, the gospel church breaks them down. What do you use gates for? Well, there's a wall, a spiritual wall. And if you're not a believer in Christ, you're behind that wall. You're living within the kingdom of Satan. You're living within the world of Satan under the lust of the flesh and lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Without Christ, you're left there deceived, dead, self-destructive. Here's the good news. Christ, the champion, he has come to win the battle we cannot win. He has come to bring light into that dark place. He has come to bring life to our death. The only way out of that defeat is belief in Jesus Christ, who has come to be the champion, the new Adam. If you're in Christ, you now have a new freedom. This is where the spiritual warfare comes into play. You can be tempted by Satan still. He still whispers temptations. He still tugs at the sinful heart. He still declares accusations to bind you up in guilt. But Christian, this is where we have to see as our champion, we look up to him who declares, you're forgiven. I died for you. You're free. I've risen again to give you new life. Jesus, our champion, here is overcoming Satan so that we can live in that victory. We actually are already celebrating this victory right now today. Today is Sunday. Today is the day Jesus rose from the dead. We, the Christians, the church, we stopped worshiping on Saturday, the Sabbath. We started worshiping a whole nother day. Why? Because the church started celebrating on the day Christ rose. So that every time we gather to sing the song, to read His word, to hear His word, we're coming to remember together the resurrection, the victory Christ has won. You're already living in that by just participating in the service today. Christ the Son of God, He has come uniquely He's become like us. He has won the battle we can't win. And now I wanna think about how he's our model. Again, this is a dangerous starting point, but we have to get there. 1 Peter 2, 21 tells us Christ is our example. Ephesians 5, 1 says, walk in love as Christ loved us. And Jesus himself says, follow me. Yes, we're saved by grace, by faith. And then we wanna follow Jesus. That's part of that repentance we learned last week. We believe in him and then we wanna be like him. He's not a mere moral teacher or example. This is only powerful if we truly see he has defeated Satan, he has died for our sins, he has risen again, and now we have his spirit to actually walk in his steps. When we're faced with temptation, Hebrews 4 is a helpful verse to meditate upon later. If you're wanting a verse to look at, Romans 5, Hebrews 4, around your lunch tables, your dinner tables, look at these passages. Hebrews 4 tells us that Jesus himself was tempted in every way like us. Why? So that he can help us. He's our model in every temptation, and he's also able to help us in every temptation. This is the good news. Now, let's jump into these temptations. Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus, the Son of God victorious. Jesus, the Son of God model. I wanna look at these three temptations. One interesting question that came up in some of the studies about this text this past week. How appealing were these to Jesus? All right, he's hungry, so bread. Worship Satan, son of God. How appealing was that? Like how real did that temptation feel? Throw yourself off a building, Jesus. All right, these are pretty crazy. What was going on? I wanna say very clearly, these are real temptations for Jesus. He is weakened by hunger, but filled with the Spirit. He's being led out to the wilderness to overcome where Israel failed, where Adam failed. Satan is coming after him with the same things he comes after us. I think this is where Hebrews 4 is important. We might look at Jesus and say, these couldn't have been appealing. He resisted so they were not overwhelmingly appealing. But he's also going out to be tempted in the same way we're tempted. He's going out to face what we face and give into. The point isn't that they're appealing for him. The point is that he has victory over them. Some would like to interpret these in light of 1 John 2 that I mentioned earlier. John tells us that the world, which is ruled by Satan, that system of rebellion against God, consists of three things. Lust of the flesh, many would tie that to the desire for bread. Lust of the eyes, I've shown you the kingdoms. And then the pride of life, throw yourself down. Could fit, but I don't know if 1 John 2 is written as the rubric for the temptations. I'm gonna look at it with these three titles. The first temptation is self-interest. Self-interest, using my strength for my purpose with little regard for God. Self-interest. The second is idolatry. Worshiping the wrong God in the wrong way for the wrong purpose. Idolatry, worshiping the wrong God in the wrong way for the wrong purpose. And then the final is the sin of presumption. It's a false faith. expecting God to bless me when I do things my way. Self-interest, idolatry, presumption. It's helpful to remember here two things about temptation. C.S. Lewis comments that he was the most tempted, and he used the analogy of a weightlifter. Who feels the weight? The person who throws the weight up quickly and then drops it, or the person who holds the weight up and stays underneath it? St. Louis' point is that Jesus is constantly under the outside pressure of temptation. He is the most tempted human being because he's constantly holding up and resisting the pressure of temptation from outside. And we have to say also that he is tempted in a different way because James tells us we're tempted with our own hearts. Jesus doesn't have a deceptive, sinful, luring heart. But he's really tempted from the pressure outside. We give in and now we have a sinful heart. So we just wanna hold those two things together as we think about this. First, the sin of self-interest. The temptation of self-interest that Jesus overcomes. This is verses three and four. The devil said to him, if you are the son of God, since you are the son of God, command this stone to become bread. And Jesus answered him, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone. Now, again, looking at the context, he's not eating for 40 days. He's a human. This is Jesus fully functioning as the new Adam. His humanity is on full display and his deity. But here as a human, this is tempting. We could actually see how this would be enticing. And notice how Satan wants to first go for a basic desire, a good thing. He says, make bread. There's nothing wrong with bread. Jesus is probably gonna eat bread afterwards. Bread and food is good for our energy, our strength, it's God's design. Here, what seems to be wrong with making bread is the very fact that the Holy Spirit had led him out too fast. Bread itself is not sinful, but Jesus was led to not eat. In the same way, Adam and Eve, they were told not to eat of one tree in the garden. Was there anything wrong with the fruit of that tree? No, it looked good, tasted good. What made it wrong? God said it's out of bounds. Here, Satan is tempting Jesus to do what God has said is out of bounds. And I think there's another way of looking at it, especially with Jesus' response, it is written, man shall not live on bread alone. There's another source of sustenance. There's another source of authority. It's not just my gut, it's not just my desire, the word of God must guide me. He quotes the word of God to declare he needs to depend upon the word of God. I think the other side of this is, the temptation is, Jesus, you have the power, you're the son of God. Use that power for your own self-interest. Use that power to end this suffering. Use your power to go against God's will. Remember, Jesus is the son of God, and he said, I did not come to be served, but to serve. Jesus is the true steward. He uses all of his power for the goodness of us. Here, Satan wants him to turn inward. No man does not live on bread alone. but upon the very word of God. But think about this temptation for us. Notice how Jesus, in every way, redirects, as he typically does in most accusations or temptations. When Satan tempts us with, don't you need bread? I says, take that. Say you're hungry. Satan says, take bread the wrong way. Go steal, take it. If what we do at that moment is focus in on our hunger, if what we do in that moment is focus in on the need for bread, the desire for bread, the hunger, the starving, this is what's gonna happen. We're gonna all of a sudden justify taking bread. When Satan puts his finger on our desires, no matter what they are, and if we follow his line, if we follow his finger, if we let him direct our attention, we're gonna turn inward. and we're so focused on what we think we're lacking, we're not going to look up to God. Here as Christians, as believers, when we feel Satan starting to put his finger in, to say take and eat, we look up. We look up to see who Jesus is. We look up to see the great power of Jesus. We look down to his word. As Jesus quotes Scripture and says, this is what we live upon, that's what we need to do. I ask Christian, how much are we truly delighting and feeding upon the Word of God? We read earlier, 2 Peter, how much are we paying attention? It promises, it will be well if you pay attention. Are we seeking boundaries from God's Word? Are we seeking direction from God's Word? Can we let the psalmist declare that we rejoice in its statutes, in its direction? Are we hungry for the strength and wisdom that only comes from above? There's something else here that's interesting about suffering. Jesus could have immediately ended his suffering. I think too many of us think we should have some immediate ending to any suffering. I see this especially as a concern with our physical health, as if we have a right to physical health. We believe we have this right to have perfect health and we need to, I'm not saying let's not go to a doctor, I'm not saying let's refuse modern medicine, but there's a way in which we'll go to any extent with the expectation that we deserve and ought to have perfect health. Sometimes it's looking up to God and saying, God, is this suffering good for me? God, is this suffering something you're gonna use in my life? God, is this suffering something that I should pursue sanctification with? This immediate desire for release can be dangerous. The second temptation, idolatry. Again, here it's starting to feel like, all right, how is this appealing? What is the appeal here? And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And he said to him, to you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours. And Jesus answers him, it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve. Satan's making a big promise here. Look at all the kingdoms. What this looks like, I'm not sure. He's taken up into a way in a moment where he sees all the kingdoms. And he says, if you bow down, that's the condition, I'll give you all of this. Now, one level we have to ask, does Satan really have the authority and the power he says he has? Well, he's the father of lies. He's probably embellishing. But at the same time, there's a sense in which the nation's rage against God's anointed, There's a sense in which Satan does have a control as the ruler of the world, the rebellion against God, but in no way does he have the kind of authority to say, here are the kingdoms. I think he's embellishing, I think he's lying. Pretty safe bet. But notice the condition, bow down and worship me. Is it likely, is there any chance the Son of God is going to be confused here in his hunger and bow down to Satan? I think it's safe to say that this is stupid. Satan is, he knows the Bible better than we do, Satan is powerful, wise, mighty, But this seems stupid. Now kids, we tell you not to use that word and don't use that word because you don't know yet what is truly stupid. But there are things that are stupid and let me be very clear, sin is stupid. Sin makes you stupid. It's a downward spiral. Here, I think Satan, at his end with who this champion is, he's never been defeated before. All of a sudden, Jesus resists. He swings from the fences. Bow down and worship me. Now, what's the temptation? You will have all the kingdoms. There's a reality to where that's actually maybe tempting. What did Jesus come to do? To inherit the kingdoms. To be the head of a new human race. But how? By purchasing us with his own blood. Satan is saying, I got a shortcut for you. You can have it all without suffering. You can have all the things God the Father's promised you without a cross. I will give you the glory. If you worship me, it'll be easy. It'll be quick. Let's do it right now. Oh, how we so quickly succumb to an idolatry when we get a shortcut. Jesus responds, no, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only. No, there's no shortcuts. Sin is not justified with a shortcut. The ultimate goal is to worship the Lord your God alone. Sinful shortcuts do not get you to the right destination because the right destination is to love the Lord your God with all your heart. This is idolatry because he's asking to worship the wrong God in the wrong way for the wrong reason. Let's see what this might look like. Students, welcome back. A temptation might be to cheat on your assignments. It's exactly what, this is very similar to what's going on here. Let's not do it the right way. Let's not be honest. It's just one commandment, thou shalt not lie. Cheating also is usually stealing. But it's simply saying, I'm going to worship my grades, my reputation, my long-term desires. I'm not going to worship the Lord and honor Him with this assignment. When we cheat, we're taking this kind of idolatrous shortcut. Well, we can actually do this when we sin, when we lie instead of tell the truth, when we steal instead of work, when we look at pornography rather than persevere in purity, when we choose grumbling rather than pray, when we prefer anger over kindness, when we fail to reconcile because we want to hold on to that grudge, when we want discipleship without real discipline. We want a shortcut. We want some kind of end. We want to worship, we want to succeed, but we don't wanna worship the right God in the right way. As much as Jesus had to suffer to win our salvation, we cannot be so allergic to suffering because that is how God sanctifies us. We're worshiping. It's very important here, the passage Jesus quotes, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. If you want to think about your idolatry, we're all idolaters, let me just be very clear. Some of us have repented of more idolatry than others. We're designed for worship, we're constantly worshiping. But are we always worshiping the one true God? And the great way to ask that question is, where's your service? Look at that word serve. It's parallel with worship. Are we worshiping God, but pretending to worship God, but really serving everything else? Where's our time, our energy? Here the idolatry is tied to you can have the kingdom without the suffering. Satan wants to tell us the same lie. The third temptation, the presumptuous sin, presumption. This was tricky, but I think it's actually very helpful for us. Presumption, this is verses nine to 12. And Satan took him to Jerusalem and sat on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, since you're the son of God, throw yourself down from here. All right, that doesn't sound too appealing. But notice what's really interesting. Satan quotes scripture. Right, after Jesus quoted scripture twice, now Satan is gonna quote scripture, and he's quoting from Psalm 91, which we had read earlier. Let me make sure I have that. I'll turn to it. 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, I believe here it's a presumptuous sin. He's presuming upon the grace of God, because what Satan is doing is misquoting here. He's only half-quoting. And what he's saying is, do something your own way, because God promised you're so special, he will send his angels to help you. In many ways, this is promising something like the last temptation. Think about this, he's in the middle of Jerusalem at the temple. People are there. What would happen if Jesus throws himself off and angels grab him and pick him back up? People are gonna start worshiping him. Jesus would be exalted. Something we see throughout the scripture, the gospels. He constantly is putting off anyone knowing who he is and saying who he is. Because his exaltation had to be on the cross. This again is a cheap way of getting to the end result outside of God's will. This is close to full idolatry. I think here there's an idea there's the right God because he's quoting God's word, but it's the wrong way. Throw yourself down. Here's what God has said about you. Prove it. Make a spectacle. If you turn in your bulletin or turn to Psalm 91, let's look at this passage. Verse 11, if you throw yourself down, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. That little phrase is important. It's not saying do something ridiculous and God will send his angels. It's saying if you're following him, if you're walking in his ways, if you're actually honoring him, as he will say later in the psalm, God will send his angels concerning you. And then verse 12, on their hands he will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. Here the temptation is do something your way and expect God to bless it. That's a sin of presumption. Do your own thing but then take a promise of God completely out of context and then probably complain that God didn't fulfill it. Let's look at verse 13 real quick. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot. What does that sound like? Genesis 3.15, right? Satan left that part out. He's left out this significant declaration that sounds so similar to God's word to Satan, an anointed one who'll crush your head. Kind of wonder if Jesus smirked. You know what's next in that verse. Satan's temptation. Do not fully follow God in obedience, but expect him to fulfill every promise. I want to be clear, your life should be fully built upon promises of God that you're expecting him to keep as you're walking in faithfulness. Walking in obedience. Loving the Lord your God is how we, in Romans 8, 28, know that all things will work out for the good. But if we're gonna live in sin, if we're gonna keep presuming upon God's grace and being disobedient, claiming the promises is like this. Doing something ridiculous, expecting God to still bless us, putting God to the test. There is something interesting about this passage, though. In Matthew 26, Peter comes out with a sword, the fishermen trying to fight off the Roman guards. Remember what Jesus says? Don't you know that if I wanted to ask my father for 12 legions of angels, he would send them right now? This passage is true. Jesus could have ended everything by sending down 12 legions of angels that would have wiped out all of humanity. It would have been just. But Jesus' words in Matthew 26 also declare, but the word of God must be fulfilled. I must go to a cross to purchase people for myself. How do we fall into these presumptuous sins? We pretend we can be faithful Christians without regular presence among God's people. We think we can grow in godliness without intentional obedience. We pretend prayer is something optional that we'll one day do without actually saying, no, today I need to start learning how to practice. We think the work of the church is for someone else. We presume that God is gonna continue to bless us and help us grow in discipleship without actually committing to the work. It's presuming God's grace. Let's go back to the model. Jesus is Son of God. He is the victor. He's the model for us. How do we fight temptation? How do we practically today fight temptation? First, by looking at Him as the true victor. When we are tempted, the first thing we should do is look up to Christ, who is at the right hand of the Father. He is proven, He is the Son of God, with the resurrection. We look up. We know He has conquered Satan, sin, and death. We look up to have assurance that our sins are forgiven, the accusations do not stick. We look up to see He's risen, that we are no longer slaves to sin. Look up. Have a posture of prayer towards Christ and God. The second, consider Him as a model. Let's go back here, look at verse one. Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit and led by the Spirit, and we end there with the power of the Spirit. Notice what Jesus doesn't say when tempted. God's Spirit is telling me. He never says that. What does he say? God's Word. God's Word. God's Word. I say this because I hear this dangerous spirituality. where we tend to want to put the Spirit in the place of God's Word. Well, we want to tend to put what we think God's Spirit is saying. Notice Jesus, who is the most fully aligned with the Spirit, who's the most full of the Spirit, who's fully led by the Spirit. He himself sends the Spirit to us. He doesn't say to us as a model, search into your heart and see what kind of desire you have and apply that to the Spirit. No, the safe, clear way. Use the Word of God. The beauty of this, the Holy Spirit, as we looked at earlier, the Holy Spirit has produced these words. The danger is that we separate the Holy Spirit from the Word of God. The Spirit produced the words we need to live in the victory. Let me give some examples. you go to break up with a girl, don't say the Spirit's leading me. That's what I'm getting at. Silly spiritualization of your own decision. Own it. We blame the Spirit for things that we do. That could be close to the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is active. The Holy Spirit illuminates our hearts so we can know His Word. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin so we look up to Christ for forgiveness. The Holy Spirit does lead us and guide us. But you be careful. You're trying to over-spiritualize our own desires. The way to do this, the way to know the true will of God, the way to know what the Holy Spirit is saying is by knowing what He has actually written for all Christians at all times, the Word of God. Finally, as we look at the end of this temptation, verse 13, and when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. The next time we really see something like this happening is Peter telling Jesus, don't die on a cross. And Jesus saying, Satan, get behind me. This is the beginning of the end for Satan. This is a precursor for the real victory. The real victory is when Christ dies. His heel is bruised, and then he rises again and crushes Satan, sin, and death forever. Satan is still looking for opportune times, but he is defeated. Then notice verse 14, and Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report of him went out through all the surrounding country, and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. That's response. You only glorify God. You only worship God. Here, the Son of God who is the victor, the Son of God who is our model, the Son of God who is risen, we get to sing His song and rejoice greatly in Him. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you, Lord, for your kindness, that you have loved us. You've not left us alone, defeated. We thank you, Lord, that we can know your Son, who has become like us, to help us in every temptation. We thank you, Lord, for your Spirit that applies the very life of Christ resurrected, that applies the very adoption of Christ into your family, so we can call you Father. Thank you that you've not left us alone. Forgive us for how you've given us so much, and we've ignored your word. We've ignored your power. We've chosen sin. Thank you, Lord, for the gospel that says we can turn away from our sin and turn to you. May we do so first by glorifying Christ, the Lamb who died for our sins. In his name we pray, amen.