Chapter 3 of Luke is a background for what we want to look at tonight. Let me begin reading at verse 21. When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, You are my son whom I love. With you I am well pleased. Now Jesus himself was about 30 years old when he began his ministry. He was a son, so it was thought of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Mathad, and on and on it goes until you get to the end, and it says the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. And then chapter 4, verse 1. Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. And the devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. And Jesus answered, It is written, Man does not live on bread alone. And 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, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will be yours. And 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. And Jesus answered, it says, 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. It's at that point that I want to stop reading God's Word. Well, children, I suppose you know that Jesus died for you, huh? That doesn't come as a surprise, but if you can read tonight and if you look at the bulletin, you've probably noticed that the title of this sermon is that Jesus was tempted for you. And we're going to talk about that tonight, and I hope that I will be clear enough so that you will know what it means that Jesus was tempted for you. But in case you don't, or in case I don't speak clearly enough, then you can ask your mom or your dad later on tonight, and I hope that they will be able to tell you what it means that Jesus not only died for you, but that Jesus also was tempted for you. Now, this story of Jesus' temptation is one that we can certainly identify with. Because, after all, we also experience temptations, do we not? We experience temptations from the devil, and God himself tests us. Now, their purposes are not the same. The devil's purpose is to make us ashamed. The devil's purpose is to hurt God. The devil's purpose is to cause us to doubt. God's purpose is not to cause us to doubt. God's purpose is always a good purpose. God tests us, perhaps, so that we will be able to declare to everyone that we love him, not because of good things that he gives us, not because of health and wealth, but simply because we love him, because of what he has done for us. God sometimes tests us to show us what's in our heart, to humble us, to show us perhaps that there's a sin hiding in our heart that we have been unaware of or that we have been putting aside. And he tests us so that we will finally acknowledge that that is in there and we will go on our knees and ask for forgiveness. Sometimes God tests us children as our teachers test us in school so that he may give us another assignment. Sometimes in school we are given a test before we can go to the next unit or to the next class or to the next school even. And so sometimes God tests us before he gives us another assignment. And so in some ways we can identify with Jesus, can we not? And so it would be very tempting this evening to have a title for this sermon, Something like temptations and how to avoid them. But if that would be our focus tonight, we would miss really the big point. Because the focus is not on how we are to avoid temptations in this passage. Jesus isn't simply showing us what a good example would be and how to avoid temptations. But Jesus is being tempted for us. He is being tempted as our covenant representative, as the head of his people. You notice that Luke, in chapter 3, concluded that part of his message by reminding us that Jesus was the son of Adam, the son of God. Why does he do that? Why does he give us Jesus' family tree? For a number of reasons, I would suggest to you. First of all, he gives us Jesus' family tree because the Messiah couldn't just be anybody. The Messiah had to be the son of David. The Messiah had to be the son of Abraham because God had made promises to Abraham and to David that the Messiah would come from their loins, from their family, from their children. To Abraham, he said, you'll have a seed that will be a blessing to the whole world, To David, he said, you will have a seed that will reign on your throne forever. And so the Messiah had to come from Abraham and David. But Luke does not stop with Abraham as Matthew did when Matthew gave Jesus genealogy. Luke goes all the way back to Adam. And why does Luke go all the way back to Adam? Well, for a number of reasons I would suggest to you. First of all, because Adam too was promised the seed. When Adam and Eve sinned, God came to Adam and Eve, and he talked about this seed that would crush the serpent's head. And so Jesus had to be also the son of that Adam, obviously. And of course that's why, children, in the Bible you have all of these genealogies in the Old Testament. You know, so-and-so was the father of so-and-so, the father of so-and-so, and on and on it went because throughout the whole Old Testament God is showing that the promise that he made is going to be fulfilled. When we look at those genealogies, we can trace the promises of God until we get to Jesus. And that's why in the New Testament there are no genealogies because the fulfillment has come. Jesus has come. The Messiah has come. All those promises of God are now fulfilled. And so Luke, of course, goes to, when he does Jesus' genealogy, he goes all the way to Adam. But there's another reason why Luke goes back to Adam. Because Adam is a very special person. Adam is a covenant representative. Adam is the covenant representative. Adam was the head of the human race. He is the first one to live. And you cannot help, and anyhow, as our covenant representative, what happened to Adam, what happened to his children. And you cannot help but think about that when you look at this passage. Because when Luke gives us this incident of Jesus, he reminds us of Jesus' family tree. And the last thing he reminds us of is that Jesus is the son of Adam. And like Adam, he is the son of God. Like Adam, God said about Jesus, this is my son in whom I am well pleased. Like Adam, Jesus is also tempted immediately. And like Adam, Jesus' temptation will have far-reaching consequences. Because as I said, Adam is a covenant representative. What Adam does will affect all of his children. You boys and girls know about that. Adam is like an airplane pilot. Wherever the pilot takes the airplane, that's where the rest of the people go. And that's what happened with Adam. What Adam would do, how he lived, would affect all of the rest of his children. He was tempted with that tree for all of us in that sense. And, of course, the tragic thing is that Adam failed in that temptation. In spite of the fact that he had everything, he was made in the very image of God, he had a wonderful helpmate. There was only one thing that he could not do, and that was eat of the tree. And there was nothing magical about that tree. It was simply there so that Adam could show that he loved God by obeying him. And he had every advantage. He was created in true righteousness, knowledge, and holiness, we confess. And horror of horrors, he rebels against God, the God who had given him everything. And he rebels against God, and as a consequence of his rebellion, all of his children become rebellions. So that three chapters after Adam's rebellion, God could look at his children and say, they are only evil all the time. That was a tragedy of Adam's great, great rebellion. And because of that rebellion, of course, sin and death follows. Every grave that is dug, every parent that is laid to rest, Every child that is ripped from its mother's arms, every suicide bomber is the consequence of Adam's sin. And my friends, when you read these things in the paper, when you go through the obituaries, when you go through the children's ward in the hospital, you sometimes want to shake your fist and say, Adam, what have you done? And yet every time we sin, We are just like Adam, and we say, Adam, we're for you. Eve, go, girl. That's just what we would do. And that was the tragedy of Adam's rebellion. But God had another promise, that another Adam would come, another covenant representative who would be tempted for us and whose life would have an even greater impact than the life of Adam. And, of course, that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what this is about. The test that Jesus is going through is a unique test. He is being tested as our covenant representative. And what he will do, the consequences of his temptation will have profound results throughout the world. Eternal results. And so that's the question as we come to chapter 4 of Luke. Will Jesus obey God or will he be like that first Adam? Will he withstand the temptation? He has no helpmate. He has no tree for shade. He has no tree for food. He has absolutely nothing. and the tempter is waiting for him. I don't know what the angels knew about all of this, whether they understood it all. I sometimes wonder whether they held their breath as they saw Jesus going into the wilderness to be tempted, whether they held their breath because they knew that as in the first Adam all died, So in this Adam, all could be made alive. I wonder if they held their breath when those battle lines were drawn. God had said about this Jesus, This is my son. In him I am well pleased. And the devil said, I heard that before. I heard it before. And I will make mincemeat of him just as I did that first Adam. So that's the situation that we are finding here. that Jesus is being tempted as our representative, as that second Adam. The temptation that the devil presents to Jesus is very subtle. And, of course, you would expect that, wouldn't you, children, because the devil is very clever. He doesn't always come right out with what he really means. And so this temptation of the devil is very, very clever. He comes to Jesus after Jesus has been without food for 40 days. And it says that Jesus was hungry. End of verse 2. What an understatement. Jesus was hungry. Jesus was famished. Jesus must have been hallucinating about food. Jesus must have been weak because of the lack of food. He wasn't just hungry, he was famished. And in this situation, the devil comes to him with a very subtle suggestion. The devil says to him, if you are the Son of God, turn this stone into bread. Now, the devil isn't wondering, isn't asking Jesus whether or not he really is the Son of God. It may sound like that when you read this first. He is not asking Jesus to prove to him that he is the Son of God. That's not the point that the devil is making. The devil is assuming that Jesus is the Son of God. He is accepting that. That's how that if is used. If, and you are, it would be just like this, children. If you heard one of your Christian friends swearing, you might say to that child, you might say, if you are a Christian, you shouldn't talk like that. If you heard me swearing, you might say, If you're a minister, you shouldn't talk like that. And, of course, the idea is, if you are a minister, and you are, you shouldn't talk like that. And that's how the devil comes to Jesus. He says, if you are the Son of God, and you are, why don't you turn that stone into bread, after all? Why are you depriving yourself of food? If you are the Son of God, aren't the cattle on a thousand hills yours? isn't every tree in the orchard yours? Isn't every bakery in Palestine yours? What are you waiting for? Why don't you turn that stone into bread? You have the right to do that. You have the power to do that. I say it's a subtle temptation because, of course, the devil isn't asking Jesus to steal. He's not asking Jesus to bow down before him at this point. He's not asking Jesus to do anything that seems illegal to us. he's just talking about Jesus' rights about Jesus' rights and we know about rights we love to talk about rights that's all we hear on the radio is whose rights are being violated and why we have a right to be sinful and all of this so that's what he's talking to Jesus about rights what the devil is forgetting is something even more important than rights and that is duty obedience so that's what this temptation is about it is about rights over obedience Jesus apparently has been is being tested like Adam was tested like Israel was tested in the wilderness Jesus apparently is being tested in that same way he is being commanded not to eat he could not take his lunch along with him into the wilderness God had commanded him to go into the wilderness without preparing a lunch without taking his backpack and God was telling Jesus I'll take care of you you do what I say and now to exercise his authority to turn stones into bread would be usurping God's command it may have been his right to do that but his duty was to be obedient to God. That's what God was asking him, obedience. And the fact that this is true, I think, is obvious from his answer. In chapter 4, verse 4, Jesus said, It is written, man does not live by bread alone. Now, that's a very famous quotation, and Jesus doesn't have to go on to explain the rest of it, because the devil knows the Bible, and he knows that well enough what the rest of that verse is. It's just like if I would say, you know, a penny saved, you'd say, yeah, a penny saved is a penny earned. You know how the rest of that goes. So Jesus quotes this very famous text. It comes from Deuteronomy chapter 8 and it is a text that has connection with obedience. Let me just read that passage for you a moment. In Deuteronomy 8, where this text comes from, Moses says this, Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert to test whether you would keep His commands. There you go. That's what it's about. The Lord led them into the wilderness to test whether they would keep His commands, whether they would obey. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Man does not live by bread alone. There is something more than survival. There is something more than food. And that is the word of God, obedience to that word of God. Jesus, in a sense, is saying to the devil, Sure, I have the right to make stones into bread. I have the right for nourishment. I have the right to be worn, but there is something that stands above rights, and that is the right to be obedient, the right to do what God calls me to do. And therefore, I will not make those stones into bread. Instead, indeed, I will obey my heavenly Father. And you see, when we look at this obedience of Jesus, we see that obedience is the badge of godliness. Obedience is the badge of godliness. We like to talk about rights. God wants us to talk about obedience. Whenever the Word of God confronts us, or at least maybe not whenever, but very often when the Word of God confronts us to do something that we do not want to do, we talk about rights. Our parents say to us, we don't want you to play with those kids anymore. They are not the right kind of kids. And you say, I have the right to have friends. when my marriage turns sour and it takes a lot of work to keep it together I say to myself I have the right to be happy when I read something in the bulletin that they need some help here or there in the church I begin to think I have the right for some time off I have the right to do these things and that's what the devil wants us to think about but God wants us to think about obedience and duties That is the hallmark, that is the badge of the child of God. Obedience is the visible evidence of being part of God's kingdom. Boys and girls, when you see obedience on the outside, then you know there is faith and love on the inside. As I said, we talk about rights, but God wants us to talk about duties. The devil said, what's really important is that you believe. God says, what's really important is that you obey. Because when you obey, I know you believe. Faith without works is dead. We praise God as we think about that, that Jesus wasn't fooled. He wasn't tricked into this temptation. But he placed duty above his rights and love of God above love of self. That's our Savior who was tempted for us. So if that first temptation now had to do with obedience, we're just going to look at that last temptation a minute, and that has to do with faith. Faith versus sight, I would suggest to you. You notice how the devil changes tactics here. First he wants Jesus to ignore God's word, and now he quotes from God's word. Of course, the devil knows the Bible, boys and girls, but the devil loves to misquote the Bible to make you think it says something that it doesn't say. So the devil comes to Jesus, and he takes him now to the highest point on the temple wall. And he says to Jesus, so you believe, huh? You follow God's word. You quote God's word. You love God's word. You have faith in its promises. And you believe that God will give what he has promised, that he will give you the nations for your inheritance. You believe that's all yours. You really trust God's word. And if you really trust God's word and God's promises, I've got a promise for you. I've got something for you to put in your promise book. It's a wonderful promise. It's a promise even that is applied to the Messiah by the rabbis. It comes from Psalm 91. It says, He will give His angels charge over you. He will command His angels concerning you to guard you carefully, and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. What a promise that is. Do you really trust God? Do you believe that God is going to give you the nations for your inheritance if only you go through this time of trial and trouble and tribulation and death? Don't you think you ought to first see if God can be trusted? Should you first see if that word of God is true? Why wait until you've gone through all that suffering only to find out that God's promises are not right, are not true? So in a sense, this temptation of Jesus is to put out the fleece to see whether God can be trusted or not. And I don't know if you have ever had that temptation that you've gone through trouble after trouble, trial after trial, setback after setback, and finally you say, you know, Lord, I'm willing to go through all of this, but I've got to know. I've got to know. Are you really with me? Are your promises really true? Will you never leave me or forsake me? I've got to know that. Give me a sign. Give me some evidence of that. Jump, Jesus, jump! It almost seems like the godly thing to do. It almost seems as if Jesus is afraid to jump, that maybe God's promises aren't true. But for Jesus to test God, to ask for a sign when God had already given him the promise, would have been absolute doubt. It would have been distrust of God who made those promises. It would have been a horrendous sin for him not to trust God and to test God. And so Jesus quotes once again from Deuteronomy, and this time I think it's from around the 6th chapter. He says, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. If you want to know how serious Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy, but Deuteronomy is talking about what happened in Exodus chapter 17. In Exodus chapter 17, the people of Israel are in the wilderness and they are complaining. They are wondering if God led them there to die. In spite of everything that they have seen, in spite of the fact that they saw the firstborn of Pharaoh killed, They saw the Red Sea open. They saw Israel walk through on dry ground and they saw the waves come back and kill the rest of the Egyptians. In spite of all of that, they still wondered about God's promise. And it was a horrendous thing, a horrendous sin to question God's promise. It was so terrible that 350 years later, David was still referring to that great sin of distrust of God, of testing God. In Psalm 95, you can find verse 8, it says, Do not harden yourselves, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massa in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did. They tested and tried God, even though they saw all the miracles of God before them. and that's why it is an awful thing when we do not trust God's word and we need signs to prove that God is genuine in his promise God has we are blessed beyond that which Israel had Israel had the firstborn of Egypt they had the Red Sea they had manna from heaven but we have the cross and we have the open grave an adulterous nation an adulterous people seek signs Jesus you have the open grave you have the evidence of God's love in that he if he spared not his own son is there anything anything good that he would withhold from us jump Jesus test God what a wonderful thing that Jesus didn't jump that he didn't have to tests God, that God had said, I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and Jesus believed it and did not need proof. Praise the Lord. You are my son, God says. Jesus shows you why God was so pleased with this son, this Adam. You think about the wonderful outcome of this. Now, Luke doesn't tell us that, and that's why I put a note by that last point there, a glorious outcome for Jesus from Matthew chapter 4, verse 11. What Jesus refused to do when it came to making stones into bread and forcing God to bring angels to take care of him, God provided for Jesus. In Matthew chapter 4, verse 11, we are told that angels came and ministered to him. What a beautiful thing when you see it. Jesus didn't need proof. And God blessed his faith by giving him the very thing that the devil wanted him to doubt, the ministry of angels. And I don't know for us whether God will minister to us with angels when we trust him too in times of difficulty. But he will minister to us when we trust and obey in his own way and in his own time. And then we talk about the glorious result of this temptation, not only for Jesus, but for us. and the best application, the best commentary I can make on the triumph of Jesus, and that's found in Romans chapter 5, verse 19. In Romans chapter 5, verse 19, we are reminded that Jesus is tempted for us. He is not just tempted as our example, but he is tempted for us. It says in Romans 5, verse 19, Just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience, not death here, but so through the obedience of the one man shall the many be made righteous. What a tragedy when we think about what happened with that first Adam. The first Adam brought sin, death, and damnation, and we cry, Adam, what have you done? But now we look at this second Adam, this Lord Jesus Christ, and we sing now, what have you done? What have you done for us? You have become our righteousness, not just forgiveness. It isn't just that we are forgiven in Jesus Christ, but we are made righteous in Him, Because he fulfilled all the things of the law for us. What a blessing that is. If you are in Christ, it doesn't make any difference that Adam ate from the tree. If you understand what I'm saying. If you are in Christ, it doesn't make any difference how many trees you have eaten. If you are in Christ, you are righteous. Not just forgiven, but righteous. The first Adam disobeyed, but my Adam did not eat. He did not disobey. He lived his life perfectly, and as a result of his obedience, there is not curse but blessing. There is not being pushed out of paradise but being brought into paradise. There is not crying but there is laughter. There is not despair but there is hope. That's the blessing. of those who are in Christ Jesus. And the question maybe comes to somebody here tonight, how do I change my genealogy from that of the wicked Adam and become part of the family of the righteous Jesus? And then there are six steps for that. And you ought to write this down. You ought to, if you don't have a pencil, you ought to remember it. There are six steps to get from the old Adam to the new. The first step is to say, thank you, Father. The second step is to say, thank you, Jesus. The third step is to say, thank you, God. The fourth step, well, you get the idea, don't you? There is nothing that we do. Jesus has done it all. He has done it all. He has earned salvation. It is a gift from God to us. And we simply say, thank you, God. Thank you, Jesus, for your righteousness, for being tempted for me, for living for me, and for dying for me. Amen. Heavenly Father, what joy there is when we receive the work of Jesus Christ, our Adam, and all of his righteousness becomes ours merely by grace as a gift. We praise you, Lord, that we lack absolutely nothing and there is absolutely nothing that we must do to win your favor because our Lord Jesus won it for us. And so help us, Lord, to count our blessings each day when we awake and each night when we go to bed. The blessings that we have in Christ our Lord. Amen. Thank you.