Let’s Make a Deal
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Matthew 3:13-4:11
The New Testament in a Year sermon series
Rev. Brian North, Westminster Presbyterian, Chehalis, WA
September 11th, 2011
This morning we embark on a year-long journey, going through a series of sermons that will span the entire New Testament. And going along with this, I’m encouraging and challenging all of us to read the entire NT over the course of the next year, reading 5 chapters a week – one chapter each weekday. How many of you know – and be honest, there’s no judging going on here – how many of you know that you’ve read the entire New Testament – whether in a formal reading plan or you just know you’ve read all 27 books over the course of your lifetime? Ok…so, here is an opportunity to join with your friends here at WPC and read and study the whole NT together for the first time, or again. Besides the sermons, there are men’s and women’s Bible studies going along with this, the staff is following along in our weekly Bible study…so we’re all in this together, and I hope you’ll join in if you didn’t this past week. Now, this last week we read the first five chapters of Matthew, and this morning’s message comes from those five chapters, which will be the pattern we follow throughout the year.
And today we’re going to focus on the baptism and the temptation of Jesus. In these 16 verses that span parts of chapters 3 and 4, we see Jesus affirmed by his Heavenly Father and tempted by the devil. He goes from one extreme to the other, and then back again. And there’s something here for us to learn and apply to our lives.
So open your Bibles (pew Bibles, p. 3 of the NT) and follow long as we dive into God’s Word to you and me today. We’ll take this in two readings, beginning with the baptism of Jesus, and then get to the temptation verses a few minutes later…
Matthew 3:13-17
Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.’ Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’
Stop after verse 17. Now, a lot of people make a big deal over the fact that Jesus was baptized. Why? Because John the Baptist was preaching a message of repentance – that’s what the first couple verses of Matthew 3 say – and the baptisms he did were tied to repenting, and getting right with God. In fact, in verse 11 he says to the crowd that’s gathered around him, “I baptize you with water for repentance.”
And then along comes Jesus, who the Scriptures say lived without sin, and he says to John, “Hey, I need to be baptized.” Now it hasn’t taken 2,000 years of studying this to figure out that this seems a little out of whack. In fact, John recognized it right there standing waist-deep in the water. He says, “I think you’re mixed up, Jesus. You should be baptizing me.” It’s like the great cellist Yo-Yo Ma coming to one of us and asking for cello lessons. Or like Sounders asking my son’s soccer team (which I’m coaching) for tips on how to play the game. It’s backwards.
But Jesus says that they should do this “to fulfill all righteousness”…in other words, because it’s right. It’s a sign of his right relationship with his Heavenly Father – a sign of obedience, and a sign of faithfulness, no matter what the cost. It also shows that Jesus doesn’t ask us to do anything he hasn’t done himself, and so sets an example for us to follow. That’s why it was the righteous thing for him to do.
And you know, for those of us who follow Jesus, we do things simply because they’re the right – and righteous – thing to do. Not because we say they’re right and righteous, but because God says so. And as a step of obedience and faithfulness we do them, even if they seem backwards or out of step.
For instance, I think about the folks who recently went on the Portland mission trip. They took time out of their schedules to go down there for a couple of days to serve the homeless community: Handed out meals and blankets, washed people’s feet, cleaned their finger nails, gave haircuts, and so forth. That has a bit of a backwards feel to it. It’s not the natural thing to do. But that’s exactly what God’s Word tells us to do. And so, to do what God says is “righteous” – the right thing to do – they did it.
So Jesus is baptized, and in the process has this fantastic spiritual experience with the spirit of God descending on him, and God’s voice from heaven declaring that Jesus is his son and he’s well-pleased with him. You know, a lot of people have wondered if everyone saw and heard this, or just Jesus. I don’t know. I’m not sure we’ll ever know this side of heaven. I do know that this must have been a very spiritually moving experience for Jesus. With the descent of the sprit and the voice from heaven, God is giving confirmation that Jesus is his son. It would have been a very assuring and reassuring event for Jesus. And he would need all the assurance he can get to sustain him through what happens next.
Matthew 4:1-11
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written,
“One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” ’
Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,
“He will command his angels concerning you”,
and “On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.” ’
Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” ’
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
“Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.” ’
Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
Immediately, Jesus has his relationship with his Heavenly Father tested. Good thing he got assured of his Heavenly Father’s blessing, because he’s going to need it all.
Now, over the last 2,000 years, lot of people have taken each of the temptations individually and talked about what they represented – as though each temptation is radically different from the others. And there’s nothing wrong with that. For instance, let’s look at the first one, because I think this is the one that most of us can probably resonate with the most, because we all hunger for food. Not many of us are going to hurtle ourselves from the top of a building to see if God’s angels catch us. And not many of us think that if we make a deal with the devil that we might become ruler of the entire world. Probably most of us wouldn’t even want to do that. But food! Now that’s something we all crave.
Now, Jesus had just been fasting for forty days. And, just in case we weren’t sure how Jesus felt after 40 days without food, Matthew lets us know, “he was hungry.” Matthew’s insight is stunning, isn’t it? My almost two year-old son, Elliott, could probably tell you that after 40 minutes, let alone 40 days, people are hungry. But the temptation here is not so much to turn the rocks into bread; rather, the temptation is to not be hungry for his Heavenly Father.
A couple weeks ago I came across an article on fasting that I think helps us to understand this. Here’s a little of what the author wrote, “When I am lonely, I ultimately want God. When I am sad, only God can bring true joy. When I am afraid, it points me to the promises of God. When I feel rejected, unwanted, unloved, alone, in all these needs, God alone will bring true and lasting peace.
But, when I’m hungry, I want a cheeseburger and some fries.
Physical desires seemingly terminate on physical things. And that’s the beauty of fasting. God commands us to fast, not so He can prove He is as good as a cheeseburger by making our hunger go away. God commands us to fast so we learn to feel hungry and trust Him in the midst of that gnawing sense of need.1
And so the temptation here is really to get filled up on something so that his hunger for his Heavenly Father diminishes. We might understand this better if we allow this to teach us about more than just food. Many pastors will tell you that ministering in very wealthy communities is just as hard, or harder, than ministering in communities where materialism and wealth are scarce. Why? Because the wealthy are filled up. There’s no hunger for God. Who needs God when you’ve seemingly got everything? And that’s exactly the temptation that’s being put before Jesus here: to be filled up, and not hunger for his Heavenly Father. And maybe we’ve fallen to that temptation. Do you hunger for God – to know him and trust him more? Or are our lives so filled up with other stuff that the hunger for God barely registers? Maybe going on some kind of 40 day fast would be good, to jump-start our hunger for God.
And then the second and third temptations have specific meanings perhaps as well that Jesus faced and so do we – to be flashy – all style and no substance; to test God, to doubt God, to stray from the purpose God created him for, and so forth. And those are all true and helpful ways to interpret the temptations.
But I want to suggest to you that there’s a common base…a common root to all three of these temptations. And it is: Do you believe God, or not? You see, the question isn’t “Do you believe in God?” in the way we speak of believing in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. Lots of people believe “in God;” that is, they believe that God exists. Even the devil does; he acknowledges that God exists even in this conversation with Jesus. So believing in God is nothing to hang our hats on. The real question to answer is “do we believe God?” That’s at the root of all three temptations.
And it’s the same for us. Because if you believe 100% that God loves you, forgives you, is in relationship with you, calls you to minister in His name, that He raised Jesus from the dead, promises eternity for those who trust Jesus…all of that…If we really believe that, then the temptations of the devil don’t hold a candle to God’s promises. There’s no way anyone would play “Let’s Make a Deal” with the devil, just as Jesus didn’t here.
And what gets us through those temptations? One is Scripture. Jesus quotes three verses from Deuteronomy. In doing so: Jesus shows us how useful it is to have Scripture hidden away in our hearts. We talked about that quite extensively a few weeks ago, so I won’t go any further. But suffice it to say, knowing our Bibles, and hiding God’s word in our hearts, is very useful. The second thing that gets us through the temptations we face is: Our experience of God. Remember what happened right before this? Jesus was baptized, he saw the spirit descend upon him, and he heard the voice of his heavenly Father from heaven pronounce his good pleasure in His Son. Recalling that experience, knowing that God is faithful, would be a huge boost in resisting the devil.
And I bet if we went around the room we could each share times and ways in which God has shown himself to be faithful; ways that can only be explained by the power of God working in your life, or someone else’s life. I know a person who came to me several years ago and told me that in her apartment strange things were happening. Stuff was moving. Things weren’t where she left them. She heard voices. Things were working one minute, and then not working the next. Doors closed on their own. She had this overwhelming sense of heaviness in her place, had nightmares, and just some really odd, strange, stuff happening…and she wondered if there might be some spiritual connection to it all. So I asked her, “Do you have in your place any objects of worship from other religions?” She said, “Well, yes.” I suggested to her that she ought to get rid of those things, and also ask God to cleanse her own life, get right with him, and ask him to cleanse her apartment from any ungodly spiritual stuff that was still hanging around. She took it to heart and dove in head-first to the task – though it seemed a little odd to her, like John baptizing Jesus. But, she got back to reading her Bible. She got right with God – not perfect just like none of us are perfect, but on the right track, putting her trust in Jesus. She got rid of the un-Biblical idols in her place – which was step and a sign of her trust in Jesus. And you know what? All the weird, creepy stuff that had been happening, the heavy feeling of the place, the nightmares…it all stopped immediately, and hasn’t come back. For her, that was kind of like Jesus’ experience at the baptism.
And so when future temptations come – in addition to the exhortations of the Bible – she can stand upon the promises that she’s experienced in her life where God has been faithful. Maybe you’ve had an experience like that that could only be explained as the hand of God pouring grace out upon you. Or, maybe you haven’t had an experience like she or Jesus had. That’s ok. We can recount our experience with God, and recount how others have experienced God and allow that to speak into our lives as well. For instance, the testimony of the gospels about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the rest of the New Testament that testifies to God’s presence in this world and in our lives is a great place to start. So Scripture and God’s work in our lives and the world encourage us when we are tempted to make a deal with the devil.
So let’s wrap this up. I don’t know in what ways you’re being tempted, but: Don’t let the devil sway you from believing God and trusting Him. Remember the ways in which God has made himself known in your life, in the lives of others. And then step out in belief that God will be faithful to whatever He is calling you to do. Even if it feels a little odd – like John baptizing Jesus, like embarking on a year-long sermon series, like reading the NT in a year, ministering to homeless people, teaching a children’s church class, singing in the choir, playing with the worship band, praying every day…maybe for some of you this morning just the idea of stepping foot in a church seems odd and backwards…whatever it may be – God will be faithful. He is trustworthy. He has proven himself to be, and he will prove himself yet again. And God will use those experiences to carry you past the temptations in life. You can believe your Heavenly Father, just as Jesus did, and He will do amazing things in your life, and in the life to come. That’s the deal he offers to you and me. And that’s a deal worth making. Let’s Pray…Amen.
