I’d like to conduct a little thought experiment with you, if I may. Imagine that you are a noble living in ancient or medieval times. You have some land, you have some soldiers, and there are farmers who work the land and produce various crops and livestock. There are also artisans living on your property who produce things like woolen sweaters, wine, candles, and other products from what the farmers grow and produce.
But you have a dilemma, because the few soldiers that you have are not enough to protect you or the people on your land from the large armies that surround you, and you have no place where you can sell your goods beyond the borders of your own property.
And so, what you would do if you were in that situation in that time is you would form a covenant—an agreement—with a king. You would pledge your loyalty to the king, and you would pledge your soldiers to fight in the king’s army and for the king’s cause.
And the king would, in turn, make promises to you. The king would promise that he would protect you if anyone were ever to attack you; he would come to your aid and rescue you and your people. And the king would also give you the right to conduct commerce throughout his entire kingdom.
Now, I’m not asking you to think through this thought experiment with me because of some Game of Thrones fantasy, or because I recently watched a Hallmark Christmas movie that involved a castle. I’m asking you to consider this thought experiment because this is actually the dilemma that every human being needs to deal with at some point in their lifetime. You see God has given to every one of us sovereignty over a two-foot circle around our feet.
But that sovereignty comes with a dilemma. Our power and our resources are not enough to protect us against all of the big problems in life. And even though human beings have been able to do great and wonderful things with the gifts and abilities God has given to them, none of us has the ability to make a lasting impact on the world with what we have. So, we all need to link our lives and our loyalty with a king of some kind whom we believe will protect us and enable us to flourish.
Some will choose a philosophy or a belief system. It may even choose a belief system where there is no God—but that’s still a belief system. Others may choose a religion of some kind. But most often, what we human beings tend to do—even those of us who call ourselves Christians—is pledge our primary allegiance to ourselves as the monarch of our lives.
And that’s tragic, because all human-centered approaches are doomed to fail. No human being has what it takes to overcome the really big issues of life—things like sin or guilt or brokenness or disease or death.
But what if God has something better for us? What if God wants to give us a King who has proven his ability to protect us and help us flourish? What would that look like? Well, as we think about that question, what we’re going to do is look at Matthew 4:1-25.
If you have a Bible or a Bible app nearby, feel free to turn there now.
The Temptation of Jesus (Mt. 4:1-11)
As we open up Matthew chapter four, the first thing we see is the temptation of Jesus. Keep in mind this happened right after Jesus’ baptism. The chapter opens up in this way: Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. (Matthew 4:1)
Now there’s something important that I want you to note here, and that it was God’s will for Jesus to be led into the wilderness and be tempted to sin by the devil. Why would God will such a thing?
God’s people in ancient times had a covenant with God. In that covenant, God had a part that he promised to play, and God’s people had a part that they promised to play. Throughout the time of their relationship with God, God’s people, the Israelites, were constantly failing to keep the promises made they made in the covenant.
Not only that, God was testing the Israelites. In Deuteronomy 8:2, we read: Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.
There’s an important distinction between testing on the one hand and tempting to sin on the other. For example, teachers often test their students, but they’re not tempting their students to sin. Testing reveals what’s inside you and it prepares you for a future role. When I go to the gym, every time it’s a test. Am I going to do the workout routine that I’ve committed myself to do? The purpose of testing is trying to strengthen you, not lure you into sin.
God was testing his people to see what was inside them and to strengthen them for a future role. And each time, the Israelites not only failed the test, and they also sinned.
And so God’s will was for Jesus to be tempted to sin by the devil so that he, once again, he could relive another part of the life of God’s people in times past, but succeed in being faithful where they had been faithless. In that way, Jesus would fulfill that original covenant for you and I and everyone else who looks to Him in faith.
Last week we saw how Jesus relived the life of ancient Israel by coming in weakness to stand with humanity in our weakness, and yet in that human weakness, Jesus fulfilled all righteousness and was the perfect Son of God, so that we could all Be daughters and sons of God through Him.
Here in Matthew 4, Jesus’ fasting for 40 days in the wilderness corresponds to Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness. And now he would be tempted by the devil to sin in the same way that the Israelites did to prove that he, Jesus, could faithfully protect us in our times of temptation.
There were three temptations which the Israelites, Jesus and we face. The first temptation is to use our power to go against God and His ways and serve ourselves. In Exodus 16, we see that the Israelites, during their time in the wilderness, became and they began to grumble. In verse 3, we read, “The Israelites said to them, [that is Moses and Aaron,] “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt. There we sat around pots of meat. We ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” (Exodus 16:3)
And a few verses later, Moses makes the point to the Israelites that they’re not grumbling against him and Aaron, they’re grumbling against God.
Do we grumble against God? I know I do sometimes.
But here’s what happened when Jesus faced this very same temptation. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.
Jesus answered, It is written, Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:3-4)
Just days earlier, the bread that came from the mouth of God for Jesus was the words from heaven that said when he was baptized, “This is My beloved Son, whom I love.” And Jesus was fed by that word.
The second temptation which the Israelites, us and Jesus all face is to doubt and thereby test God’s power to protect and provide. In Exodus 17, the Israelites were still in the wilderness, but this time the issue was a lack of water. They quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?” (Exodus 17:2)
Do we doubt God’s power to protect and provide for us and thereby test him. I know I do.
But Jesus, when faced with this very same temptation, did not. The devil took Jesus to the highest point of the Temple. “If you are the Son of God,” the devil said, “throw yourself down.
For it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus answered him, “It is also written, do not put the Lord your God to the test.” (Matthew 4:6-7)
And then there’s the third temptation. Again, the Israelites and us and Jesus faced this very same temptation, and which is to turn away from wholehearted worship and service to God, the Father. In Exodus 32:1 we read, When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”
Do we sometimes turn to other gods, especially when the one true God seems to be operating on a different timeline than what we want him to use? I do that.
But when Jesus was faced with this very same temptation, he did not. The devil knew that Jesus and, in fact, all humanity will worship some thing or someone. And what the devil wanted to do was direct Jesus away from worshiping his father.
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.
“All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan, for it is written, Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.”
Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. (Matthew 4:8-11)
Note that up to this point, Jesus faced all these temptations as a human being, all by himself, and it was only after he was victorious over them all that angels came to help him.
Dear friend, Jesus’ victory over temptation is our victory. Jesus proved his power to defeat the devil and his temptations by fulfilling ancient Israel’s role in their relationship with God. Jesus was a true and faithful son of God, so that with him as our King, we can be forgiven for all of our sins and failures, including all those times when we have given in to temptation.
And we can live in Jesus’ faithfulness as God’s beloved children.
The Ministry of Jesus
Continuing in Matthew 4, we come to the ministry of Jesus, and Jesus does some very special things as he begins to serve people. First, Jesus brought light to dark places. After completing his time of temptation in the desert, he immediately went up into the north to the area around Galilee, an area called Zebulun and Naphtali. This was an area that was absolutely ravaged by Assyrian raiders in the eighth century and several other raiders came in afterwards and terrorized the people. This was a group of people who had suffered. This was a group of people who were looked down on and considered less than wholesome and pure by the the wealthy and the religious folk.
And yet Jesus came to them and brought the light of Christ. Matthew tells us, “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people living in darkness, have seen a great light; on those living in the shadow of the living in the land of the shadow of death, A light has dawned.” (Matthew 4:15-16)
The second thing that we notice in Jesus’ ministry is that he called ordinary people to greater life and purpose with him. He found some ordinary fishermen doing what fishermen do, which is fish. “Come follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” (Matthew 4:19)
And the third thing we notice in Jesus’ ministry is that Jesus proclaimed the good news of God’s kingdom and demonstrated its presence. In Matthew 4:23, we read, “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness among the people.”
Jesus not only taught that the kingdom of heaven was near, he showed people that the kingdom of heaven was like by healing people. Those healings were a foretaste of what the kingdom of heaven will be like when it comes in its fullness at the end of time.
What does all this mean for us now?
I think we can say it means three things.
First, we surrender. We recognize the futility of all human centered, human powered approaches to life, and stop participating in those approaches.
Second, we accept that Jesus is the King who came in our human weakness and won victory over the devil and all his temptations with his faithfulness.
Third, we trust in Jesus’ power to protect us, to provide for us and to heal us and all creation.
In Genesis 15, God instructs Abraham to gather a bunch of animals and cut them in half and separate them to make a pathway in between. Scholars recognize that this is an example of a king-noble (or lord-vassal) covenant ceremony. Normally, in those ceremonies, the noble or vassal would walk in between the severed animals as a way of saying, “If I ever break my end of the covenant, may it be to me, as has happened to these animals.” In other words, the consequences of breaking those covenant promises will fall on the subordinate one.
But in the agreement between Abraham and God, Abraham doesn’t pass in between the severed animals. It’s God who passes in between severed animals in the form of a smoking pot and a flaming torch. By his actions, God is saying to Abraham, “I will keep my side of the covenant, and if you, Abraham, or any of your descendants ever break any of the promises on your side of the covenant agreement we’re making, let the consequences fall on me.” God’s people did break their side of the covenant, and God chose to let the consequences fall on God the Son, Jesus Christ. God is kept his side of the covenant and the human side of the covenant too.
Jesus not only fulfilled the old covenant God made with Abraham and his descendants. He also gave us a new covenant of grace, and that covenant of grace was applied to you personally in your baptism.
So the encouragement that I wish to leave with you today as is to live in the baptismal grace God has given to you. And we see that grace described for us in Titus, chapter three, where we read, But when the kindness and love of God, our Savior, appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.
He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus, Christ, our Savior, so that having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs, having the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7) Amen.
Farewell to Shadowlands 