Love Never Puts God to the Test, Part 1 | How to Fight Temptation

Luke 4:9-13

Luke 4 verses 9 to 13, “ And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the Temple and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, “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.’” Jesus answered him, ‘It is said, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”’  When the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.”

By the virtue the two natures one divine, one human joined together, mysteriously in this one person, Jesus is proving to be the impeccable man. That is, a man who does not sin, will not sin, because of his divine nature, not able to sin. When tested throughout his life and ministry, he did not sin. Instead, when he was tested, he stood firm in perfect righteousness. God didn’t send Jesus to take on human flesh merely to undergo contests with the devil, like we’re seeing here. This is not some kind of mano-a-mano thing between God and Satan as if the two are pitted in this cosmic battle of equal forces, pulling at one another like some kind of a oriental yin and yang kind of a thing. That’s not happening at all.

This isn’t just about a cosmic war with Satan, even though that is what resulted from the Fall, the purpose of Jesus’ sojourn here on earth is this purpose, to save sinners, to save sinners, like you and me; that’s why Jesus, like God the Son, took on human flesh; that’s why he pursued us here to fulfill this covenant of redemption; that’s why Jesus went through these forty days in the wilderness; that’s why the Spirit led him there to be tested, to be tempted by the devil, as it says in Hebrews 2:17 and 18, this is for our sakes. This is for us that he did this.

Hebrews 2, “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” Propitiation is a big word there that means satisfy the wrath of God, for us. He had to be made like us in every respect, so that he could be a merciful and faithful high priest, to be our perfect sacrifice, to satisfy God’s wrath. For because he himself has suffered when tempted.

Yes, he suffered, he’s able to help those who are being tempted. That’s us. He did this for us. It says at the end of that fourth chapter in Hebrews that Jesus can help us in every kind of temptation, because he was tempted in every respect, it says, and yet he never sinned. He was without sin. And that sinless Savior is our sinless, faithful, merciful, High Priest. He identifies with us in every way and yet he didn’t fall like we fell. He stands above us, able to lift us up, when we’re tempted to fall. And that’s what we see here in Luke’s fourth chapter. This is Jesus standing firm through every kind of test.

 All three of these temptations, that the devil leveled against Jesus. They’re tried and trued weapons of the enemy and he has used them throughout history to such devastating effect on all of humanity and even, or maybe we could say even especially upon God’s people. He has tried to thwart the purposes of God, to sanctify us in our lives. He’s tried to do that over and over again based on thousands and thousands of years of observing human behavior, by studying human nature. The devil has come to this moment. He’s designed these unique temptations to ensnare our Lord. It didn’t work.

First temptation was to doubt God’s provision. The devil enticed Jesus in verses 1 to 4 to take matters into his own hands, and rather than wait on God’s timing, rather than wait for God to provide his food at the proper time, the devil invited Jesus to satisfy his hunger, in the moment of his own choosing.

Jesus answered the devil, and he used a Scripture that affirms his absolute confidence and trust in God. “Man shall not live by bread alone.” That doesn’t mean he’s going to live by some mystical food, that doesn’t exist and just satisfies his soul. No, he lives by bread, but bread is only the means of our provision. The source of our provision is what Jesus was affirming. That our provision the very source is the faithful character of God. And so Jesus is willing here to just trust God, to wait, wait on his timing, wait on his plan.

 Second temptation, that’s about taking a shortcut to the reward. The devil tries to induce and entice Jesus with the authority of all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory. For the devil, as he’s considering about what might tempt Jesus, he’s thinking about these things through his own sinful mind, right? He’s considering what might be tempting to Jesus by what is tempting to him. He thought all earthly authority was pretty enticing. After all, that’s what he wanted power, authority, glory for himself.

For Jesus, though, that offer didn’t entice him to some kind of reward. Authority didn’t represent reward. Earthly authority meant responsibility, it meant sacrifice, it meant giving himself to others. Jesus already possessed his reward. His treasure was God and God alone. How do you tempt somebody who’s satisfied in God and God alone? Jesus answered from Deuteronomy 6:13, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.” An expression of commitment to God as his treasure. At the same time, it became an indictment of the devil, an indictment at that kind of thinking.

The devil, who hated God and served himself, he was indicted because he served and worshiped something else. He worshiped and served himself. So the devil found it impossible to tempt the Lord with any lesser reward. Jesus was absolutely satisfied, fully content with the greatest treasure of all, the worship of God. He didn’t waiver for a moment. All of his hope is in God, he is satisfied in God alone and he remained loyal to God alone.

So the devil here he constructs a third temptation, and he kind of puts it together on the fly. He takes everything he knows, his experience with sinful humanity, and he takes what he’s learned from Jesus, as well, and how Jesus responds and he believes that he can craft a temptation to get Jesus to presume upon God. He had heard Jesus’ responses, all started with this declaration, what was it? “It is written,” right? So he heard that. So he tried his own hand at interpreting the Bible. The devil interprets Scripture. He pitched a unique temptation at Jesus. He used Scripture to defend it.

The devil here as we see, were gonna see in this third temptation, he grants Jesus, his relationship with God, since you are the Son of God. He grants his trust in the revealed Word, even using the revealed Word for himself. He tries to use those commitments though, his relationship with God, his trust and reliance on the Word of God, he tries to use those commitments against Jesus.

 Take a look at verses 9 to 12, “And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the Temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘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.’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is said, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”’” And that’s it, silenced him.

This temptation from the devil, is a solicitation to commit the very worst kind of presumption. Though we’re tempted with presuming upon God all the time, only Jesus was in a position, in a role, only he had the nature, the character, only he had this place as the Messiah to be put into a position, to put God to the test in this manner, in this way. This is unique to him.

What the devil proposed is an absolute affront to the goodness and grace of God. He’s taken here a beautiful promise in Psalm 91 and he’s using it to tie God’s hands, to force his will. Before we go any further, let’s be clear here about the meaning of presumption. What does it mean to presume? There are several definitions in the dictionary entry of the verb, to presume, and I’ll give you just a few of them so you get the sense here. To presume is to take something for granted, okay? To presume is to take it for granted, it’s to undertake some kind of an action with an unwarranted boldness.

I like that phrase unwarranted boldness, that’s presumption. To presume is to act or proceed with unwarranted or even impertinent boldness, to take liberties that you’re not authorized to take. There are synonyms for the word presumption words like audacity, effrontery, even arrogance, that’s presumption.

Sometimes presumption can involve a, a foolish decision. Sometimes presumption can involve a, a brash, reckless course of action, and then, by the way, praying that God will uphold you as you live foolishly and dangerously, as you live unwisely asking God while you’re cramming down those donuts to take away the calories, make them just not exist; don’t have to exercise.

Sometimes sinful presumption involves going too far. You’ve been given an inch and you try to take what a mile, right? Our kids do this all the time, the little presumers. But you hear this when someone has a flippant attitude even about continuing in sin. Hey Jesus died for all of my sins, so I’ll just ask forgiveness in the morning. Do you ever hear that? That’s what simple sinful presumption looks like. It’s a simple-minded foolishness that’s too lazy to study God’s ways and to see how God would have them live.

Presumption is a reckless boldness, too proud and self-confident to live within biblical parameters and biblical restraints. Sinful presumption is an arrogant flippancy. It’s an indifference to God’s holiness and being oblivious to this attitude, a Christian attitude of meekness. No concern for righteousness, no practical, daily, diligent pursuit of holiness and repentance, and yet expecting that God should bless us. Those are attitudes of sinful presumption.

Presumption is the foolish attitude of seeing what you can get away with. Especially in light of the fact that God is kind and gentle, especially in light of the fact that he is merciful and forgiving. It’s taking advantage of his good character and assuming that because you’ve prayed the prayer, he is bound by his promise to forgive, and he’ll allow you to get away with whatever you want, that’s presumption. I’m not going to have you turn there just now, but write down Psalm 78.

Psalm 78, then go read it. This is the record of Israel’s sinful presumption against the grace of God and I’ll tell you, folks, if you read that psalm and you kind of put yourself in Israel’s camp, you can see yourself committing the very same sins. Israel committed all those sins of presumption against God’s grace when they were in, let’s face it, they were without water. How many of you have ever wandered a desert and you’ve run out of water? That’s hard, you start to feel pretty desperate after a while. Most of us don’t sin in the same way, we actually sin with a lot less provocation.

We sin in presumption in air-conditioned rooms with a water faucet behind us and we drink down water and we wish it were flavored. The air conditioning is on and we complain because it’s too cold, so we complain, we grumble. Have you ever heard that saying, as a rule, man is a fool; when it’s hot, he wants it cool; when it’s cool, he wants it hot; always wanting what is not? Boy, that’s us!

Read Psalm 78 and see, if that’s not true of you and I. The devil had strong precedent for the power of this temptation. He knew Israel’s history, and he knew Jesus is the representative as the Messiah of Israel. And so he hoped to crafted a temptation here that would get Jesus to act, in the very same way that his countrymen had always acted, presuming on God, putting God to the test, taking his grace for granted, living however they wanted, and hoping that the results would turn out to their benefit and their favor.

The devil hopes to get Jesus to test God’s grace, test his kindness, test the truthfulness of his Word, to test the faithfulness of God’s character, to test the reliability of this promise in Psalm 91. All that is the essence of what’s at stake here. The devil is in for a hard sell, with Jesus. He really does face an impossible task to get the sinless Son of God to sin. Jesus had excelled in all things, as we see. He proved his devotion to God, he’s wholly devoted to God, wholly devoted to his holiness, wholly devoted to his glory, and that’s proven in all these tests.

By passing the first test, Jesus demonstrated that he had put all his faith in God. By standing firm through the second test, we can see he also put all his hope in God, and here in the third test, we’re going to see that Jesus loved the Lord his God fully, completely. He loved the Lord his God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength. We see that because love never puts God to the test.

Hear those three virtues in what I’ve just said faith, hope and love. It’s that triad of Christian virtues. They’re the virtues that we pursue as Christians, that we’re growing in day by day as Christians. And they’re all found here in Christ first as the author and perfecter of our faith. We see these virtues of faith and hope and love lived out practically, but in ways that you and I will never experience. We see these virtues faith, hope and love, here in pristine perfection and beauty, in Jesus Christ. We need to keep ourselves in mind and how we have failed or how we tend to fail in this, but we also need to very quickly, on the heels of that, keep our Savior in mind.

Because if we only keep ourselves in mind, you know what, we’re headed for absolute despair. If we keep him in mind, we’re headed for joy, we’re headed for the joy of worship. If we don’t see how we have sinned in this regard, we won’t see and appreciate how Jesus did not sin in this regard.

I mean, how many times have we put God to the test? In what ways have we tested him? How have we lived foolishly and recklessly and flippantly? How have we sinned, knowing it’s sinful, but then also knowing that we will land safely on the grace of God? How many times have we used the forgiveness of God as our license to sin? How many times have we used the kindness of God as justification or even a subtle justification for, a lack of diligence, anything in our life, a lack of discipline?

How many times have we used it for our warrant for doing whatever we want, because we know God forgives? But as we think about that, as that thought humbles us, and it really should humble us, it prepares us to see the perfection of Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ never tested God, never presumed on his grace. Every promise was for Jesus a motivation and a command to excel still more.

He never failed in his love toward God, he was perfect in it. And listen, beloved, this is the hope of the Gospel. If you and I are found in him, we have a new nature. We’re absolutely forgiven of all that sinful presumption, and all that stuff. It’s gone. We have a new nature now, one that has no desire whatsoever to presume upon God, one that has no desire whatsoever to sin against his love, to sin against his kindness and his grace. We have a new nature that motivates us to pursue holiness in the fear of God. And that, beloved, gives us confident hope, unshakable joy, as we see him perfect even where we are not.

look ahead at the next couple of verses in Luke 4, Luke 4 verses 14 to 15, not only did he fail to tempt and test Jesus, get him to fall, but Jesus, verse 14, “returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee report went out about him throughout all the surrounding country and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.” He’s launched into ministry in a commitment to holiness, having passed every test.

The devil would have us believe that his power is unstoppable, his enticements are irresistible, falling to his temptations are inevitable. When we’re freed from the penalty and the power of sin, entering into temptation, falling into temptation, you know what, beloved? For us, nothing is inevitable, nothing. The resistance of Jesus Christ has proven this, and his power sustains us. Jesus found the power to overcome every temptation, all temptation. You say, but I’m not Jesus. I’m prone to weakness and failure, quite right, so look to Jesus, he’ll rescue you. Be diligent, constant in his Word, trust him in every moment, he will deliver. He has the will and desire to do so. The devil will flee and you will go forward in power of holiness.

Let’s pray. Father, we plead upon you for your grace in every moment of trial, temptation, testing and need. And we know based on this record that you will provide it. You’ll provide us with all the power we need to stand firm if we’ll just call upon you. Help us never to try to fight temptation, to try to fight anything in our lives in our own power, in our strength, with our own foolish judgment. Let us live in a way all through the day that is pursuing your wisdom, meditating on your Word, getting close to the heart of every passage of Scripture so we can understand you, know your character, know your ways, love you more deeply, more fully, more contentedly.