Luke 4:1-13 Sermon for Feb. 8, 2026

Good evening! So, here we are opening the fourth chapter of Luke and our primary thing that we are going to work through is when Jesus was tempted by the devil himself. Whenever we read a passage of Scripture, we really need to know what happened before. That’s important. What happened before is what we worked through last week and that’s the baptism of our Lord and our Lord’s genealogy. And a primary take-away from it has to do with the identity of Jesus. Who is Jesus? Well, He is, of course, the Promised Messiah. He is the Son of God. He is God incarnate. God with us. When Jesus was baptized, we read that the Father proclaimed, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased.” In short, what’s really at stake here is the identity of Jesus. And now we are reading about the temptation of Jesus where the devil challenges Jesus’ identity. So, if you haven’t already, let’s make your way to the fourth chapter and let’s work our way through this familiar passage piece by piece. ‘Then Jesus left the Jordan, full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over, he was hungry.’ (1-2) Let’s stop right there. First, we see the immediate transition from Jesus’ baptism into the wilderness to be tempted. The first thing we need to understand is that Jesus was led into the wilderness. This was intentional. Jesus didn’t just get baptized, went off to the next thing on his daily agenda and received a surprise attack from the Devil. The Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. We need to continuously remember that Jesus came on a mission to save you and this temptation that he is going to face is a necessary component of that mission. Jesus came to live a sinless life. He came to be handed over to the authorities. He came to be mocked. He came to die. He came to resurrect from the dead. He came to do for you what was necessary to reconcile you to a holy God. He came to do for you what you couldn’t do yourself. We need to remember that always as we read through the story of Jesus. Now, for forty days, Jesus was in the wilderness and it says that He ate nothing. When those forty days were over, He was hungry. During those forty days, He was tempted by the devil. A couple of words about this: Sometimes it’s asked if Jesus could really be tempted since He was God and God cannot sin. To answer this, allow me to appeal to Scripture as Jesus does to the devil and then I’ll share with you a thought from C.S. Lewis. Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.” 1 Peter 2:22 says, “He did not commit sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” 1 John 3:5 says, “You know that he was revealed so that he might take away sins, and there is no sin in him.” Right there, we see from Scripture, that Jesus has been tempted in every way as we are. So, yes, He truly was tempted in every way that you and I are. But, we might protest and say: Yeah, but could He truly have wrestled with temptation being the Son of God if, again, God cannot commit sin. Listen, again, Jesus was tempted in every way as we are. And I’ll argue, He probably faced the intensity of temptation more than most of us. What do I mean by that? Well, C.S. Lewis once wrote in Mere Christianity, “A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know ho strong it is…A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later.” This is going to sound hard, but it needs to be said. We need to be careful in assuming that those around us who don’t easily give into temptation actually don’t experience true temptation. On desiringgod.org, John Piper said, “Don’t you ever think that because you have lived a life of sin that you know more about temptation than the godly person who has walked that razor’s edge of the straight and narrow, gritting his teeth in the power of the Holy Spirit and saying, ‘No, no, no, no,’ and fighting his way through every day with righteousness, and laying his head down, and feeling the full force of evil upon him day after day after day, and triumphing over it in God.” So, in other words, you who live a life of sin say you’ve wrestled with temptation for 5 minutes and then gave in. No, that’s not wrestling. That’s giving in. Our Lord wrestled with it. Many people pursuing righteousness and holiness wrestle with it. You want to know what it is to wrestle with temptation? It’s hanging in there with a tough marriage and resisting the temptation to bail. It’s resisting the temptation to do something immoral, not just for a few minutes or hours even. But for days, weeks, months, and years…all in the power of the Holy Spirit! That’s wrestling. And our Lord Jesus wrestled. He was tempted in every way imaginable and that’s been the case His ENTIRE earthly presence by the way. Have we forgotten that Jesus was, yes fully God, but also yes, fully human! Ok, here’s another thing I want to mention here and it’s the fact that the Devil tempted Jesus. The Devil is real. But the Devil isn’t everywhere. To ascribe to the devil the same attributes as we ascribe to God (omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient) is straight up heresy. Here, the Devil really showed up in time and space and tempted Jesus for forty days while He was hungry. I mention this because we need to have a word about our sin and our temptation. James 1:13-14 says, “No one undergoing a trial should say, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire.” First, God does not tempt. Second, stop blaming the devil, for the devil cannot be everywhere at everytime. He isn’t God. Third, you don’t need the devil for it is the evil desire that’s in you that’ll work on its own. When we sin, we need to be man enough to say, “I’m responsible for sinning and for giving in.” Don’t blame the devil. Don’t blame circumstances. Don’t blame location. Don’t blame people. Don’t blame how we grew up. We blame ourselves. We repent. Let’s continue: ‘The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.’ But Jesus answered him, ‘It is written: Man must not live on bread alone.’ (3-4) Again, Satan goes right after Jesus’ identity by saying, “If you are the Son of God.” Now, Satan knows who Jesus is. He’s just being wicked and sly. As we encounter the three ways in which the devil tempts Satan, we are immediately brought back to Adam and Eve where both were tempted by the serpent. The theme in Luke is this idea that Jesus would be the second Adam. Adam and Eve were tempted and gave in. They failed. Jesus would be brought through the ringer with Satan and Jesus would succeed where Adam failed. When the devil tries to get Jesus to just turn this stone into bread (since Jesus was very hungry), Jesus responded with the authority of Scripture. Could Jesus have easily turned those stones into bread? Yes. His divine nature would allow Him to do so, but in appealing to His human nature and being tempted while hungry, He chose not to. And in choosing not to, he appeals to the Word of God. It’s “Thus sayeth the Lord.” And to be honest, many Christians and churches can learn a lot from this today. Our pulpits are being filled with individuals who simply won’t appeal to Scripture. Churches everywhere are tempted to cave in to culture, bend the knee to society for fear of losing money and members, and they twist Scripture to suit those knees and what’s ironic is that the only ones who twist Scripture is Satan himself as we will find out in this very next verse! What we should be doing is saying, “This is what the Lord has said.” When culture demands an answer to “Is abortion wrong?” We respond by saying, “Yes, because the Word of God says so.” If culture demands an answer to “Is marriage really only between a man and a woman?”, we respond by saying, “Yes, because the Word of God says so.” We need to get back to this and stop making this concept a gray area. Where the Lord has spoken, it’s clear and simple. When the devil tempts Jesus, Jesus responds with Scripture. Not an opinion. Not an article from the newspaper. Not a response from a Christian artist at the Grammy’s. Scripture alone. Let’s continue: “So he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. The devil said to him, ‘I will give you their splendor and all authority, because it has been given over to me, and I can give it to anyone I want. If you, then, will worship me, all will be yours. And Jesus answered him, ‘It is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’ So he took him to Jerusalem, had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written: He will give his angels orders concerning you, to protect you, and they will support you with their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ (5-11) So, what we have here is the Devil doing to Scripture what many Christians and churches are doing to Scripture. Did the Devil quote Scripture as it is written? Yes, he did. In fact, he’s quoting Psalm 91:11 12. So, what is the issue? The issue is bad hermeneutics! I mean, for starters, we can all agree that the Devil here knew exactly what he was doing, but there is an important lesson for us here. It’s this: R. C. Sproul says, “The first rule of hermeneutics is the Scripture interprets Scripture, which means we are not to set one portion of Scripture against another. Satan ignored that.” Hermeneutics is the art of interpreting Scripture. And what we have today is many Christians and churches preaching portions of Scripture that has absolutely nothing to do with what they are preaching on or talking about! And one of the reasons for this is that most Christians simply do not know their Bibles. They don’t read it entirely. They read what they want to read and that’s dangerous. Any one of us can take a verse or passage to suit whatever we want it to. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you”- this is the Lord’s declaration- “plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Yes, He has plans for you. Yes, life can very much NOT go the way you want it to. And when it doesn’t go the way we want it to, we get mad at God saying, “We’ve plastered this verse on our cars and YOU betrayed us!” Um, no. YOU betrayed Scripture. We need to get back to reading Scripture in its context and proper form. We need to get back to biblical literacy. Let’s finish up the passage we are in. “And Jesus answered him, ‘It is said: Do not test the Lord your God.’ After the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time. (12-13) So, after the devil tempts Jesus with provision, power, and protection and Jesus doesn’t cave in, he departs. I’m going to wrap up with something for you to take away when you’re facing temptation. First, do not play with it. If you think you are strong enough to will yourself to defeat temptation, you are foolish. Second, run to Jesus. You can quote Scripture but I’m also telling you to run to Jesus. You need to remember that temptation isn’t sin. It’s giving in to it that is sin. Third, the victory of Jesus in the desert becomes ours, and so we are no longer slaves to sin, unable to resist temptation. A commentator wrote, “We fight against the allures of sin by going to Jesus in faith and prayer, knowing that the One who fought the tempter on our behalf is with us to help us in our time of need.”