Sermon Cloud

Intro/Open: We have an adversary that prowls around like a roaring lion and seeks the destruction of our souls. He has as his ambition the ruin of every child of Adam, and particularly every Christian. And he driven by an intense hatred of the glory of God. 

He is a master at plying his trade of deception and his chief tool in his box is temptation. By this diabolical device he brought about the fall of our first parents and the ruin of countless billions of souls made to bear the image of God. 

No one in this room can stand before this enemy. You are not strong enough, smart enough, clever enough, or morally clear enough to stand before him - on your own. And, if you think you are: take heed, you have already fallen. If our first parents who had no natural sinful bent of heart and mind fell, how much more those who have only ever known life with a corrupt heart and fallen mind? 

No, only One man as ever stood on His own and defeated this ancient foe and that is the sinless and eternal Son of God, the God-Man Jesus Christ; and He did so on our behalf. In every area of life where we have failed, the spotless Lamb of God has prevailed and won the victory over sin, Satan, and death for all who belong to Him. (“Hallelujah what a Savior”). 

Jesus Christ proves Himself to be the sinless Savior who can be the acceptable sacrifice on behalf of His people. 

3 Proofs that Jesus Christ is a Perfect Savior that we can Trust, Worship, and Serve with all our heart. 

(1) Person of Christ

     (a) Perfect Representative of Man

     (b) Fully God/Fully Man

(2) Preparation of Christ

(3) Perfection of Christ

READ: Matthew 4:1-11. 

(I) THE PERSON OF CHRIST: 

        (A) Perfect Representative of Man

(1) He completely yielded His life to the will of God.

“He was led … by the Holy Spirit” -

We are immediately connected with the previous scene of the baptism in (3:16-17). Note the parallels (Spirit/Son of God). 

Note that it is God the Holy Spirit that led Him there; it was not accident; it was not the wrong place at the wrong time; it was not the Devil sneaking around a corner waiting for his opportunity. Holy, perfect, infinite, wise, God led Him to the wilderness specifically for the purpose of being tempted by the Devil

The verb for “was led” is passive, which is significant; it marks the complete yielded life of Christ to the Spirit and the purpose of God. 

(a) Same yielded attitude seen in setting His face toward Jerusalem and the cross (Lk. 9; John 12:27 “Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.’’); 

(b) When standing and walking toward Judas His betrayer (Matt. 26:45-46 “Then He came to the disciples and said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!’”. 

(c) Certainly in all of these things Jesus had the power to escape them: He could have called angels to fight, He could have come down off the cross, but He did not because the attitude of His life was, “not as I will, but as You will” (Matt. 26:39).

God knew the difficulty that lay ahead. And the Father loves the Son with an infinite, eternal, and perfect love. But He also knew this was necessary in His mission as the Messiah. 

Reminder: God is sovereign: The trials and testing of our faith are brought by Him and fit perfectly within His plan to conform us to Christ. 

“The divine Spirit has to do with our darker experiences as well as with our bright, joyous ones. He is with the sons of God in their conflicts with doubt not less than in their moments of nobel impulse and heroic resolve. The same Spirit who brought Jesus from Nazareth to the Jordan afterward let Him to the scene of trial.” 

Are you in a trial, or are you being tempted now? Know that God is absolutely sovereign over it. 

Here it is the Spirit who takes Him out to face the Devil. As an obedient Son, He willingly followed. 

(2) He Obeyed where Man failed.

“Led into the wilderness” - This is the upper, or higher places, away from the people and the crowds; and where Mark adds, “The wild beasts are.” 

Why the wilderness? Why couldn’t He have just moved on from the baptism and lived a sinless life? Because He was the representative of His people and this is precisely the place where His people Israel, who should have obeyed, but failed miserably. A Perfect Representative needed to succeed where those He represents failed. 

(A) You remember the story … God delivers His people from the bondage of Egypt, displaying His power and glory, that He alone is God, that He is faithful to His promises, and that He will fight on behalf of His people. (Ex. 9:14, 16 “For this time I will send all My plagues on you and your servants and your people, so that you many know that there is no one like Me in all the earth … for this reason I have allowed you to remain, in order to show you My power and in order to proclaim My name through all the earth”). 

In one of the most dramatic accounts in all of the OT God brings His people to the edge of the Red Sea. Water in front of them; Pharaoh and his army behind them. God supernaturally divides the waters and  possibly 2 million Israelites pass through the sea on dry land. When Pharaoh attempts to do the same, the walls of water give way and his entire army is drowned. 

“Thus I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will chase after them; and I will be honored through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.’” (14:4). 

(B) From there God led them through the wilderness & continually provided test for them: 

Ex. 16:4 “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out an gather a days portion ever day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction.’”

20:20 “Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid ; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin.’”

Deut. 8:2 God reveals that He did that to “to humble [them], testing [them], to know what was in [their] heart, whether [they] would keep His commandments or not.” 

They failed the test; they failed to trust God, because, as the writer of Hebrews says, what they saw and heard  “was not united with faith” - and so God judged that generation and sentenced them to 40 years of aimlessly wandering in the same wilderness. 

Where they failed the Messiah would need to prove His obedience on their behalf. So, the God brought Him “into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil”

“by the Devil” - literally means “slanderer.” Interestingly, Paul uses the term three times in reference to “malicious gossip” (1 Tim. 3:11; 2 Tim. 3:3; Titus 2:3).

He is variously referred to as “Satan” “the Devil” “adversary” “the deceiver” “the dragon” “the serpent” “god of this world” “prince of the power of the air” “spirit now at work in the sons of disobedience” “roaring lion” “evil one” 

There was no doubt that the Jews clearly understood the existence and reality of the Devil. Scripture from Gen. 3 to Rev. sets forth the reality of Satan. 

Who is he? What do we know about him?

(1) He was created by God - specifically He was spoken into existence by the Son of God Himself (Col. 1:16); 

(2) Originally perfect but then sinned. 

(3) He is a personal being; that it is to say he is not simply an evil force, or principle. He has personality, intellect, power, emotions, and goals. 

(4) He is also finite and can only be in one place at a time. He is not omniscient, nor omnipresent. 

(5) He hates God and those who love God.  

He is fully under God’s power. He is the servant of God - old reformer “The Devil is God’s Devil”; that is, he does only that which God permits and directs for His own glory. 

Which means we are not to fear him. We are not to be ignorant of him, or his schemes, but we are not to be unduly preoccupied, but rather to put on the armor of God, pursue righteousness, as James says, “Resist the Devil and he will flee from you.” 

Remember: The emphasis of Matthew 4 is not on Satan, but the Perfection and glory of Jesus Christ. 

God’s glory among men is most gloriously displayed in His salvation of sinners, therefore, Satan’s concentrated effort is to destroy the work of Christ. Here by attacking Christ Himself. 

The passive form of “to be tempted” is significant; as He yielded Himself to the leading of the Holy Spirit, now He is yielding Himself to the onslaught of the Devil.  

The term is variously translated:

Trial (James 1:3) 

Test (John 6:6) (“Philip”). 

Tempt (James 1:13-15),” the precise meaning is determined by context. 

James 1:13 “God is not tempted with evil, neither does He tempt any man”

Note: It was the Spirit who led Him up, but it was the Devil that tempted Him. 

When God sends trials to His children, His purpose is to test and so prove and strengthen their faith. Satan, on the other hand, comes in order to destroy and elicit to sin, it then becomes a temptation. 

God is proving Christ’s perfection; Satan is seeking to destroy it.  

You know, nobody has every passed the test perfectly. 

Gen 3:1-6 - He tested man in the Garden - 

God gave them one command: “Do not eat …”  

Test: will you obey My word simply because it is My Word? Adam, at that moment, had a choice to make: yield to God in complete submission to His will, or yield to his flesh. Adam yielded to temptation. 

Gen. 9:21 - Noah was the most righteous man on the planet - yet “he drank of the wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent” - 

Gen. 22:1-19 - He tested Abraham. (Rom. 4:1ff; Heb. 11:17-19). 

Command: Take Isaac, your beloved son, the son of promise, and kill him as a sacrifice to Me. 

Test: Will you love Me more than your son? Will you trust Me more than your own reasoning? 

Abraham passed the test and therefore is the father of our faith, however, Abraham had already failed many other test - He failed to trust God regarding Sarah on at least two occasions. So, though Abraham is a model for us, he is also  proven to be a sinner who needs grace and forgiveness.  

Job 1-2 - Satan wanted to tempt Job to blaspheme God; God let him, but as a test to prove Job’s faith. Satan was given permission to test him (though notice that God set limits). 

Test: Will you trust and serve God despite extreme difficulties you don’t understand? 

Job initially responded well and ultimately repented toward God. However, Job also sinned and needed to be rebuked, instructed, and forgiven by God.  

Adam failed, Noah failed, Job failed, Abraham failed, Israel failed, David failed, the most righteous within Israel failed, they all needed a Savior for “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” One needed to come who would not fail. 

Think of your own life: every temptation you have yielded to; every lustful though, act of anger, jealousy, covetousness, greed, idolatry; every temptation to not trust God or submit to Him that has come your way and which you have failed. And you will at once come to grips with the deeps of the depravity of your heart and natural guilt within. *Jesus Christ never failed (Perfect Representative & Perfect Savior). 

*Second point about the Person of Christ: 

  (B) As the God-MAN, He Fully Experienced the Weaknesses of Humanity 

 (1) Fully God & Fully Man

In Theology this is known as the Hypostatic Union; simply stated that in the one Person of Jesus Christ there resided two distinct, undiluted, and unconfused natures. One fully God and the other fully Man. 

When Jesus became incarnate He took on flesh, but never for a moment relinquished His full Deity (Phil. 2:5 “existed in the form of God, but emptied Himself, taking on the form of a servant being made in the likeness of men”). He did not give up Deity, but added humanity. 

(1) While a fetus in the womb of Mary and while an infant in the stable He was also upholding the world by the “word of His power” in undiluted omnipotence.

(2) While “growing in wisdom” He knew all things with perfect omniscience. 

(3) While living in the small village of Nazareth He was omnipresent -  filling all of the universe and heaven in perfect fellowship with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. 

*He never, at any moment ceased to be fully, wholly, completely, and unremittingly God very God. 

Yet, He was fully Man - He was as human as you and me, yet without sin -  and experienced the weaknesses of humanity [weaknesses by virtue of our humanity NOT our fallenness, for He was without a sin nature].

(1) Physically: 

(a) “grew in stature” and experienced physical weaknesses. 

(b) When He was tired (not some “Jesus tired”) He was tired as any man experiences fatigue. When He was hungry, He experienced hunger as any man experiences hunger. When said I thirst, He was thirsty. 

(2) Emotionally: He experienced an intensity of emotion on the highest possible level of humanity. 

(a) Agony - “His sweat became like drops of blood” (Luke 22:44)

(b) Prayed “loud crying and tears” (Heb. 5:7)

(c) Anger (Mk. 3:5); Love (John 13:1)

(3) Spiritually: He matured “grew in wisdom” (Lk. 3), needed encouragement from His friends (Matt. 26:36-38). 

*Means this: in His humanity He felt the weight of temptation. Not from some inner evil inclination, but because from a humanly weakened state He was presented with an opportunity to sin. 

This is significant to understand because it relates to His ability to be a Perfect Savior for man and because it relates to His ability to fully sympathize with our weaknesses. 

Q: Could Jesus have sinned? Was it possible for Him to distrust God and succumb to the temptation, sin, and disqualify Himself as the Messiah? 

No. Jesus could not have sinned. This is known as the impeccability of Christ, which simply means that it was impossible for Jesus to have sinned; because while like Adam in His sinless humanity - but Adam, though sinless was able to sin. On the other hand, He was unlike Adam in that His sinless humanity resided with Perfect Deity in the one Person of Jesus Christ, thus He was not able to sin. 

If Jesus could have sinned then it means that God could sin; that the eternal Godhead could cease to exist; that it would have been possible for Jesus Himself to be in need of a Savior. 

Q: OK, then that begs another question: If He could not sin, how could He have felt the weight of temptation? How can the writer of Hebrews say that “He was tempted in all things as we are …?”

(2) Though God He resisted temptation as Man

Here is where we get down to it and what we need to understand as we go through the account: Though Jesus could not have sinned by virtue of His divine nature, yet He resisted sin as fully Man. In other words, His Deity in no way mitigated, or lessened the force of the temptation, which Jesus resisted in His humanity. He did, as One who possessed the Holy Spirit (like every Christian) have the aide of the Holy Spirit, yet at no point did His deity remove the sting of temptation. 

Notice the human struggle and the human means of fighting the temptation: 

He was hungry, He responded with what was written, and He needed to be strengthened at the end. In no way does the narrative indicated that Jesus simply sat back and relaxed in His Deity and said, “No worries, I’m God, I can’t sin.”

But rather, we see a man brought near death through lack of food, exhausted from the intensity of the struggle, and relying wholly and completely on the authority and sufficiency of the Word of God to defeat the Devil.

Some have suggested: The fact that Jesus could not sin (impeccable) because of His divine nature does not mean that He was always fully conscious of this fact.

This is possible, but either way it doesn’t change the fact that He resisted by  relying only on the power of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, and prayer. 

“Never once, as we observe him struggle with temptation, do we see him deriving comfort from the fact of his own impeccability. All that we see is his having recourse to the very same weapons as are available to ourselves; the company of his fellow-believers (Mk. 14:33), the word of God (Mt. 4:4) and prayer (Mk. 14:35)” (Macleod).

In answer to the question, it needs to be said: not only was the temptation real, but He experienced it to a degree of intensity you and I will never know.it is because Jesus did not sin.  

1 Cor. 10:13 uses the same form of this verb and saying “God will not allow you to be tempted [better: “tested”] beyond what you are able” - you and I have a breaking point. In the case of Jesus Christ, God-Man, has no sin of His own and therefore is able to be tempted to the furtherest degree. With all of God’s children He has to somehow limit the amount of temptation He allows them to endure; with Christ there was no limitation, but He was tempted to the utmost. In this way He is the perfect and acceptable sacrifice and representative for His people, as well as a sympathetic High Priest. 

So What? What does that have to do with me today? 

(1) Means we have a Perfect Savior. Where you and I have failed, He did not fail. He was perfectly obedient on our behalf. When you are convicted of your sin and your failure, when you have succumbed to temptation and are filled with guilt within; you can look to a Perfect Savior who was perfectly obedient on your behalf. 

“When Satan tempts me to despair, and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see Him there who made an end to all my sin; because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free; for God the just is satisfied, to look on Him and pardon me”

(2) Means we have a sympathetic High Priest; one who knows are weaknesses, who has overcome, and beckons us to come to Him, to the throne of grace to find help in time of need!

*Can you say this? If you are in Christ yes, much comfort is intended and available to you by looking at the crucified and risen Savior.