Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Fight Temptation | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 4.1-13

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10 minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we're learning how to follow Jesus by working our way through the Gospel of Luke. Do you know your own weaknesses? Are you self-aware enough that you can see yourself kind of from the outside how other people see you? So that you're able to identify your strengths, but also your weaknesses in life. The question isn't do you have weaknesses?

Starting point is 00:00:36 The question is, do you know your weaknesses? What about your spiritual weaknesses? Do you know them? Let's do a thought experiment. Let's say five or ten years from now, you find out that you have drifted pretty far away from Jesus. Do you know what it is in your life right now that if left unchecked would lead to a drift from God?

Starting point is 00:01:01 Do you know your spiritual weaknesses, those areas of your life that you're most susceptible to temptation? If you ever played sports, you know that it's pretty common for a coach to hand out a scouting report of the next opponent. And that scouting report would have your opponent's strengths and weaknesses and how your team plans to exploit those weaknesses. But a really good coach doesn't just have a scouting report on the opponent. That coach has a a scouting report on their own team so that they know their team strengths weaknesses and how their opponent will seek to exploit their weaknesses. The Bible says that we have a spiritual opponent who knows our weaknesses and tries to exploit them. So the question again for us is do we know

Starting point is 00:01:51 our spiritual weaknesses? Do we know where we are especially vulnerable to temptation? We're going to look at temptation and how to fight it in the life of Jesus in Luke chapter 4. We're going to learn something from this passage that will help us be prepared to face our spiritual opponents and to be prepared to fight back. We pick it up in Luke chapter 4 verse 1. Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan, was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. Now, first, you can't help but notice that Jesus is full of the Spirit

Starting point is 00:02:34 and led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where he's going to face this temptation. Sometimes I think that we believe when we're in a season of temptation, it is a sign that God is far from us. But that's obviously not true, because here it is God, the Holy Spirit, who leads Jesus into this season. of temptation. Now, when we are led into seasons of temptation, I can't tell you exactly what God is up to.

Starting point is 00:03:03 Maybe it's to humble us. Maybe it's to teach us something. Maybe it's to teach us to rely on him more. I'm not sure. But it gives me great comfort to know that God is in this, that God is with me, even when I'm being tempted. And it's pretty obvious that Luke wants us to see Jesus's story in light of Israel's story. He wants us to see this temptation that Jesus endured in light of the temptation that Israel endured. And we see that because of where it happened. Both temptations, Jesus's and Israel's, happened in the wilderness. And we also see it because Jesus was tempted for 40 days. Israel, you might remember, was tempted for 40 years. I think what Luke wants us to see is that when Israel faced temptation in the wilderness for 40 years, they failed.

Starting point is 00:03:59 But Jesus was faithful. He endured the temptation and never gave in to his spiritual opponent. Jesus never sinned. Now there are three temptations that the devil puts in front of Jesus. The first one is this. He says to him, if you are the son of God, tell this stone to become bread. What's the temptation there? Well, it's the temptation to provide for our own needs.

Starting point is 00:04:25 It's the temptation to say, I'm going to take my life in my own hands. I'm going to take care of myself. I'm going to meet my own needs. After all, Jesus had been fasting for 40 days. He was very hungry, and I'm sure what he wanted more than anything was just to have a decent meal. But listen to how Jesus answers Satan. He says, it is written. Man shall not live on breakfast.

Starting point is 00:04:51 bread alone. What Jesus does is he quotes scripture back to Satan. In other words, Jesus fights Satan's lies by responding with biblical truth. And the biblical truth is this, that he doesn't live by bread alone, but every word that comes from God. What Jesus is saying to Satan is that he has a food that Satan knows nothing about, that it tastes better to obey God than to try to meet his own needs. So Satan comes back with a second temptation. It says that the devil led Jesus up on a high place and showed him all the kingdoms of the world. And Satan gives Jesus this offer. He says to him, look, I will give you authority over all these kingdoms. They all belong to me. and I can give them to you.

Starting point is 00:05:50 I can give them to whoever I want. All you've got to do is worship me, and it will all be yours. It's interesting because what Jesus is being offered here, what he's being tempted with is a shortcut. Jesus knew that if he was faithful to his father, if he obeyed his father's will, that he would have all authority over all things in heaven and on earth. Jesus knew that the way that the father had marked out for him included the cross.

Starting point is 00:06:23 And what Satan is doing is he's saying, look, I'll give you a shortcut. You can have the crown, all the authority over all the kingdoms of this world without the cross. I'll just give them to you now. You just worship me. It's a shortcut we're tempted with all the time, I think, that we want the crown without the cross. But listen to how Jesus responds. He says, it is written. Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

Starting point is 00:06:53 So now two temptations and two responses by Jesus that begin with It Is Written. Jesus is making a habit of quoting scripture, of fighting back against the lies of Satan with biblical truth. And this time, the truth is that he is going to worship God, and God alone. He doesn't want any idols to get in the way of his true worship to the true God. Now that takes us to temptation number three, the last temptation the devil throws at Jesus. The devil leads Jesus to the highest point on the temple, and he says, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here. Now listen, this is Satan. He says, for it is written,

Starting point is 00:07:37 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 the stone. Do you see what Satan did? After Jesus had responded to the first two temptations by saying it is written in quoting scripture, Satan kind of picks up on that and says, oh, I can play that game. I can quote scripture. But of course, what Satan does is he takes scripture out of context and he throws it at Jesus. Now, that should be a warning to all of us, right? That just because someone quotes scripture doesn't mean that we should listen to them. Satan quoted scripture here. Essentially, this temptation is to say, you can live recklessly, you can do whatever you want, and God has said he will save you.

Starting point is 00:08:27 You can test God, and he's promised that he will always come through for you. Listen to Jesus' final answer. It is said, so again you quote scripture, do not put the Lord your God to the test. The last verse in this passage says, When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time. Isn't that true in our life that Satan is always looking for an opportune time? A time in our life when we're tired or frustrated, weak, vulnerable, a time where we have stopped reading our Bible,

Starting point is 00:09:05 maybe haven't been at church much, a time that we are especially susceptible to believe his lies. So let me leave you with a couple of thoughts for your day. One, Jesus quoted scripture. He fought the lie of Satan with biblical truth. I encourage you to think through a few areas of your life where you know that you are most vulnerable and find scripture to memorize. Scripture to have on a note card in your car.

Starting point is 00:09:37 Scripture that you can pull out to fight against the lie of Satan. The second thing I want to leave you with is this. In Hebrews 2, it says that Jesus was tempted in every way and yet was without sin. It tells us that Jesus is a sympathetic high priest. He's not some Savior out there who doesn't understand what we go through. He's a Savior who has walked in our shoes, who's been tempted, who's fought against that temptation, and he knows exactly what we're going through. So we can, draw on him for strength and wisdom. We can lean on him. He knows our situation, and he wants to come to our aid. Find Scripture to help you fight the lies of Satan and lean on your Savior who knows your situation. Thanks for listening.

Starting point is 00:10:34 If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Fight Temptation | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 4.1-13

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.