During this season of Lent we are going to walk through the Gospel of Luke and look at different encounters that people had with Jesus. The way that Jesus interacts with people tells us a lot about God and what our relationship with God should look like. Some encounters might really hit home for us as we see ourselves in the story, and some might challenge us to dig deeper or step out in new directions in our faith. It’s my hope we will work to see ourselves in these encounters and then find ourselves walking more faithfully with Jesus by the time we get to Easter.
Tonight we are going to start by looking at the first encounter Jesus has after His baptism. It is an appropriate encounter for tonight because it happened during the 40 days Jesus went into the wilderness to fast and pray. It was those 40 days that helped us set aside 40 days as the season of Lent. During his 40 days, Jesus fully surrendered to God and turned away from all sin and self and that is exactly what we are called to do during our Lenten journey. The encounter Jesus has is unusual because it is His encounter with Satan. Luke 4:1-13
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.””
The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”
The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
From this encounter we see 3 things Satan tries to do to Jesus and if he tries these things with Jesus, he will definitely try them with us. The first thing Satan tries to do is deceive Jesus. Jesus is in the wilderness to fast and pray. He is there to commit Himself fully to God’s will and rely completely on God’s strength and power. After a few days, Satan knows Jesus is hungry so he showed Jesus all the stones and said, turn them to bread Jesus and you can eat.
The deception here is that Satan is telling Jesus that He doesn’t need to depend on God. Satan is saying, You have the power to turn stones to bread, so you can meet all your own needs and trust in your own strength. Do things your own way. You don’t need God.
Satan loves to deceive us into thinking that we also don’t need God and that we can trust in our own strength, our own wisdom, and our own goodness. In so many ways the world has bought into this way of thinking and it’s easy for us to buy into it as well. We tell ourselves that we don’t need God to live a good life and that we can do things on our own. Yes, we can do things on our own, but we were never meant to live without God. We were created to be in a relationship with God and so it is only in Christ that we have the fullness of life. Alone we are dust - but with Christ we have all the fullness of life in this world and in the kingdom of God. Don’t be deceived, we can’t live on bread alone, we need the grace and mercy and love of God.
The second thing Satan tries to do is dominate Jesus. I will give you all the world if you will just worship me. Let me control you, let me dominate you, and you will have everything you will ever want or desire. Satan would love to dominate our lives as well and he often promises us all kinds of things if we will just give in to him. Satan says to us, you don’t need to work hard to get ahead, cut some corners, cheat and steal a little along the way, you’ll be fine. Satan says, you want to feel good now, just go ahead and do it, there won’t be any consequences. Satan would love to dominate us and yet he can’t unless we allow him to. It’s important to remember that Satan has no power over us except the power we give him, but once we give him a foothold, he can step in and dominate our entire lives.
The third thing Satan does is try to distort the truth. Jesus has been using scripture to resist Satan, so now Satan tries to use that same scripture to get Jesus to do things his way. Satan quotes Psalm 91:11-12 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
While the passage makes clear that God will guard His chosen one, there is nothing about testing that promise. Jesus even knows that there will be pain and suffering coming that God will not protect Him from because He knows that the cross is part of God’s divine plan. Satan is distorting the truth here and Satan loves to distort God’s truth in our lives as well.
It’s Satan who says, yes, God loves everyone but He can’t love you. After all, look at all you have done. Or else he says, God’s love is unconditional so just keep on sinning because it doesn’t matter. Satan is a master at distorting God’s truth by clouding God's word. Satan distorts God’s truth by filling our hearts and minds with doubt and fear and confusion.
In this encounter with Jesus, we see Satan working to deceive, dominate, and distort things so that Jesus will turn from God.
Jesus' response, however, is to stand strong and we can learn how to stand strong in our own faith. If we want to commit ourselves to God at the beginning of this Lenten season, here are three things we can do that Jesus did in His encounter with Satan. We can resist, we can respond with God’s word, and we can rely on God’s strength and not our own.
Resist. We first have to be willing to resist Satan and self and sin. James 4:7-8. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you.
Resistance is repentance, it is a turning away from sin and self and turning back to God. The season of Lent is to be a time of reflection where we confess not only the ways we have allowed Satan to deceive us, distract us, and get a foothold in our lives, but also a time for us to confess that we might be trying too hard to do things on our own. Either way, it is time for us to turn and trust God.
For some of us, the first step in resisting Satan, sin, and self, might be to ask God for the desire to resist. Let’s be honest, a lot of times we don’t want to change, we don’t want to resist temptation or deny ourselves what we want. Sometimes the hardest prayer to pray is, God help me want what You want. Help me want to repent. Help me want to resist. If that is where you are tonight, pray that prayer.
Respond with scripture. Jesus was not alone when He encountered Satan, He had with Him the word of God. Ephesians 6 tells us that scripture is the sword of the Spirit. It is a weapon and it can be used to defeat Satan. Use God’s word during this season of Lent to help you both resist Satan and draw near to God.
God’s word not only speaks truth to us but it reminds us of who we are in a relationship with, God. We are His children. We are forgiven. We are loved unconditionally and redeemed through the grace and love of Jesus Christ, but we are also given power to become more like Jesus. We are not helpless in our fight of faith because the one who resisted temptation and defeated Satan is with us. And we have one of the greatest resources ever given, the word of God.
I want to invite you to read the gospel of Luke during this season of Lent. One chapter a day will get you through the book before Holy Week. Read all the encounters Jesus has in the book and learn from them how to stand strong in faith and grow closer to God.
Rely on God’s strength. On our own we can’t stand strong. On our own we will fail and give in. Peter thought he could stand on his own when Jesus talked about being arrested. Without thinking, Peter said, I’ll stand with you Jesus. I’ll die with you Jesus. But just a few hours later he was denying that he even knew Jesus. On our own, we will fail. In our own strength we will give in to temptation. So stand firm in God’s strength and draw upon God’s power.
One way we rely on God’s strength is through prayer. We need to ask God to help us. We need to ask God to strengthen us. We need to remember that we are dust and therefore we need God’s grace and power to help us stand strong. We need to pray and then we need to remember who we are IN CHRIST. In Christ, we are God’s children. In Christ, we are more than conquerors. In Christ, we can do all things. In Christ, we have the strength to become more like Jesus. While we are dust, in Christ we become children of God.
The encounter Jesus has with Satan is important for us to understand because Satan still works to attack us. Satan works to deceive us, to dominate us, and distort our thinking and our living. He is out to destroy us, but Jesus has come to give us life, and we can experience the fullness of this life if we will resist Satan, respond with God’s word, and moment by moment rely on God’s strength. This is what the 40 days of Jesus in the wilderness was all about, and this is what the season of Lent is all about. Self-denial, spiritual growth, and finding our strength and power in Christ alone.
