Trinity Baptist Church

The Spirit of God

Led by the Spirit

Luke 4:1-14

 

This is the second message in our new series on the Holy Spirit. Last Sunday we talked about how the Holy Spirit is like the wind, invisible, unpredictable and uncontrollable. He comes and goes as he wishes; no one can control his movements. He alone can give life to the spiritually dead. He alone can bring us the new birth we all need. Without the Holy Spirit, no one will ever come to Christ, and without the Holy Spirit we cannot live the Christian life.

 

This Sunday we take the next step by looking at the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s a huge topic so we will narrow the study down to a single experience from the earthly life of Christ and that is the temptation that occurred immediately after His baptism. 

 

Now before we read the story and glean a few things from it, I want to point out a couple of pieces of very important information.  First, we need to keep in mind the objective of Luke is to present Jesus as the perfect man.  His writing is all about His humanity.  And in that humanity, we find an example for us to follow. 

 

Second, we also need to keep in mind that this event does not stand in isolation.  In fact, to fully understand and appreciate what happened in the wilderness, we need to start before the temptation and continue after the temptation. It is a part of a continuing story that needs to be seen in its entirety.

Third, remember the focus of the story is not the devil.  In fact, I’m going to be brazen enough to suggest the focus is not on Christ either, but rather on the Holy Spirit and the role he played in the life of Christ before, during and after the temptation.

 

Now, you can summarize what happened with five words.  The first one is

 

 

Our story begins with an act of obedience.

 

Luke 3:21-22

 

Matthew 3:13-15 tells us that his baptism was an act of righteousness. He fulfilled the Father’s will by publicly identifying himself with the nation of Israel. By submitting to baptism, even though he had no sins to confess, he took a step of obedience that said to the people, “I am one with you.”  The second word is

 

 

While Jesus was being baptized, two extraordinary things happened. First, the Holy Spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove. Second, the Father spoke from heaven with words of divine approval: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (v. 22). The entire Trinity is revealed at this point: Jesus as the Son of God, the Holy Spirit descending like a dove, and the voice of the Father. What greater assurance could there be that Jesus is truly the Messiah?

 

Third comes

 

Immediately following the story of the baptism, Luke inserts a lengthy genealogy that starts with Jesus and goes back to “Adam, the son of God” (v. 38).

 

Then we come to the story of the temptation

 

Luke 4:1-11

 

So the order in Luke’s gospel looks like this:

 

Baptism

 

Genealogy

 

Temptation

 

So why does Luke insert the genealogy?  I think it is because he wants to demonstrate that where Adam failed in his great test in the Garden of Eden, Jesus will now decisively defeat the devil.

 

The first Adam failed.

 

The second Adam succeeded.

 

That’s the point of the genealogy.  Now that’s not all it tells us, but that is the point.  The one true “Son of God” will now square off against the archenemy of the universe and as the text reveals, it won’t be a fair fight. Jesus utterly defeats the devil at every turn.

 

Next we see

 

 

 

Luke 4:14-15

 

However you wish to explain it, something happened to Jesus in the wilderness. He not only defeated the devil, he returned from his victory in the power of the Spirit.

 

The last word is

 

 

If we were to read verses 18-32 of Luke 4, we would discover that following the temptation, Jesus goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath in his hometown of Nazareth. Standing up, he began to read from Isaiah 61:1, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me”.

 

 After finishing the reading, he makes this unbelievable, yet absolutely true claim in verse 21 that “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” As a result of that, although they loved His preaching at first, the crowd winds up trying to throw Him off a cliff, but He escapes. 

 

He travels to Capernaum, a fishing village on the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee and when the Sabbath rolled around, He spoke to the people and,  “They were amazed at his teaching, because his message had authority”. 

 

So why use the word “freedom” to describe this series of events?  Maybe it would be better to call it boldness or certainty. 

 

I think freedom is the right choice because of how the chapter begins.  Remember, chapter 4, verse 1 tells us that Jesus was “filled with the Spirit” and “led by the Spirit” and I would suggest because He is moving in the power of the Holy Spirit, he is completely free to speak the truth with boldness and without fear of what men might do to him.

 

Think about the order of that sequence for a moment:

 

Obedience … Assurance … Testing … Power … Freedom

 

Luke is telling us these things happened in a certain order because Jesus is modeling for us what it means to live in close connection to God. He obeys and the Spirit descends. The Father speaks profound words of assurance. Immediately he is led into the wilderness. He comes out of that ordeal in the power of the Spirit. His freedom to speak the truth with authority endears him to many people and enrages others. 

 

Now, before we get too far along in this text, I want to deal with a couple of wrong assumptions that come from this passage. 

 

Notice that verse 1 talks about Jesus being led by the Spirit.  The word “led” has the idea of being led by the hand. In Mark’s version a different Greek word is used that means to “drive,” which is why some translations say that the Spirit “drove” Jesus into the wilderness.

 

 

That doesn’t mean that Jesus went unwillingly.  It is just a reminder that this was not a chance meeting between the devil and Jesus.  It was Spirit-initiated.  He was Spirit-filled.  The Spirit led Jesus to the wilderness.  We went with Jesus through the wilderness.  And together they came out of the wilderness. There was never a moment when he left Jesus.

 

And that knowledge lays to rest two wrong assumption. 

 

 

But the text does not read that way. The devil tempted him and Jesus immediately defeated him each time with the Word of God. If you want to read about Jesus being in agony, then move forward three years and visit the Garden of Gethsemane as he contemplated the terrible cost of bearing the wrath of God for the sins of the world. That was true agony.

 

Now don’t misunderstand.  The wilderness was true temptation, but Jesus did not agonize. It was as if he said to the devil, “Hit me with your best shot,” and then, “Is that all you’ve got?” He wasn’t frustrated.  He wasn’t desperate.  He wasn’t frantic.  It wasn’t any more trouble for Jesus to get rid of the devil than it is for a dog to scratch a flea. 

 

 

 

A casual reading of the text might lead you to that conclusion. But the context makes it clear that the Spirit intentionally led Jesus into the wilderness in order to do battle with the devil. Jesus did not shrink from this desert warfare.

 

By the way, I don’t think the devil was too excited about it either.  Do you really think He looks forward to being face to face with the Son of God?  If anyone was intimidated, it was Him, not My Savior!  In fact, I think Jesus is the aggressor in the story.  He goes into the wilderness, flushes out the devil and forces him to fight like a man.   The wilderness temptation is as much about exposing the devil for what he really is and once expose, he is easily defeated by Jesus.   

 

In fact, just compare verse 1 with verse 14.

 

In verse 1 Jesus was “full of the Spirit” when he went into the desert.

 

In verse 14, when Jesus came out of the desert, it is “in the power of the Spirit.”

 

Now I don’t know exactly how to explain it, or even exactly what happened, but something happened to Jesus during those 40 days as a result of his victory over the devil. The Holy Spirit’s power became evident and obvious in his life in a new way.

 

Now slow down and process that for a moment.  Don’t lose sight of the fact that Jesus is fully human.  If Jesus as a man could grow in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man (Luke 2:52), then as a man he could grow in his experience of the Holy Spirit.

And Luke wants us to take note of this differentiation that he makes between how Jesus started and how He finished this experience.  Those words are not by accident.  There is intentionality there. 

 

Jesus went into the desert full of the Spirit and he came out of the desert in the power of the Spirit. Both before and after, he was fully possessed by the Spirit and fully led by the Spirit, but having defeated the devil, the Spirit’s power became very pronounced in his life. It is the difference between truth understood and truth expressed. And as a man, His life had new impact upon the people as they all praised him after his victory over the devil.

 

And that really should not surprise us.  It is not true that when we face temptation successfully, when we refuse to lower our standards, when we say no to sin and yes to righteousness, when we refrain from evil words that we are tempted to say, after we have passed the fiery trial, do we not come out of that experience with new confidence?

 

Years ago I read a little poem that speaks to this point:

 

Here is a fact that should help you fight a bit longer:

 

The things that don’t kill you outright will just make you stronger.

 

Now from that, I want to share a spiritual principle that most people never grasp.  In fact, they will spend the majority of their life avoiding it or ignoring it or refusing to accept it, but here it is. 

 

 

 

Martin Luther once remarked that in making a minister of God, three things are required:

 

Meditation, prayer and temptation

 

By meditation, he was primarily referring to meditation on the Word of God. The second is self-evident. But what does he mean by “temptation?” Does he mean that we should go looking for the devil in order to pick a fight with him? I don’t think that’s what he means at all.  But neither should we run from our spiritual battles.

 

No one can ever grow spiritually without facing strong temptations. I’m using the word “temptation” as synonymous with “trial” because the Greek word can be translated both ways. Temptation to most of us means a solicitation to do evil. But any trial can become a temptation if we give in to our anger, if we lose our temper, if we break our promises, if we compromise our values, if we trade in our integrity, if we hide like cowards instead of standing up for what we believe.

 

In fact, the same event will often be both a temptation and a trial. What God gives to us as a trial or a test, Satan almost always attempts to use as a temptation. The very same event may be both a trial and test to you and also a temptation from Satan. God uses it to accomplish one thing in your life and Satan at the very same time is working through that event to try to accomplish something diametrically opposite.

Very often God allows a trial to come for a positive purpose, but Satan tries to hijack it for his own evil reasons.

 

Notice how it works in the temptation of Jesus. We know that the devil came to Jesus in the wilderness, tempting him to turn away from the path of obedience to his Heavenly Father.

 

But as we’ve already seen, verse 1 tells us that “Jesus was led by the Spirit in the desert.” Who did the leading? The Holy Spirit. Who did the tempting? The devil. Is there a contradiction here? Not at all.

 

Did God know what was going to happen when he sent his Son into the desert? Yes, he did. He intended from the beginning to demonstrate that his Son would not yield to Satan’s blandishments. Was God tempting his own Son? No, he wasn’t. Was God putting his Son in a place where his Son could be tempted by the devil? The answer to that must be, yes.

 

That is an amazing thought. Now stay with me.  Keep your head clear and think carefully and clearly. I do not believe that God ever directly solicits his children to sin. I don’t believe that because the Bible specifically denies it. But it is also true that from time to time God allows his children to go into a place where they will face severe temptations from Satan. Is God responsible for the severe temptation? No, he’s not. He does the leading; Satan does the tempting. From God’s point of view it’s a test. From Satan’s point of view it’s a temptation.

 

 

And if you are a careful Christian, you will see this pattern occurring in every area of life. God sends a trial and Satan turns it into a temptation.

 

Let’s think about illness.  Suppose a child of God contracts a deadly sickness. Could that sickness be a testing from God? Yes, it could. It almost always is a testing from God to purify motives, to cause the child of God to look away from the things of earth to the things of heaven, and to turn the eyes of the child of God back to the Lord. Many good things are accomplished through sickness in the life of the believer.

 

Does Satan work through sickness? Yes, he does. And through that very same sickness Satan will be working to tempt you to despair, to anger, to bitterness, and ultimately to turn away from the Lord. What God intends for your spiritual good is the avenue Satan uses to pull you down.

 

What about circumstances?  Suppose you lose your job. You say, “Could that be from God?” Absolutely!  If you lose your job, could God have a better purpose in mind for you? Yes, and he often does. He may have a better job for you. He may want you in another location.  He certainly wants to build some spiritual character in your life.

 

You may have fallen in love with the things of the world to the point where those good things have become an idol to you. In that case, it is good for you to lose a good job. And during that trial from God, Satan will tempt you to anger, despair and discouragement.

 

 

Or it could be the other way around.  The circumstances aren’t bad; they are good.  Let’s suppose you get a promotion and a nice raise in salary. Now you are better off financially than you’ve ever been. Can a promotion be a trial from God? Absolutely. Prosperity is often a trial or testing from God to see how you will handle his blessings.

 

Prosperity ought to make us more generous toward the needy. Having more ought to open our eyes to those who have less than we do. But that same prosperity often makes us greedy, selfish, and blind to the less fortunate.

 

Those are just a couple of examples of how very practical, everyday experiences that God may intend as a means of building you up can also be used by Satan as a means of temptation to pull you down.

 

I draw two conclusions from that fact.

 

 

They are part of God’s curriculum for you. He puts difficult choices in front of you every day so that by following him and by trusting him in those circumstances you become stronger. Your faith becomes confirmed and you become an example to other people of victory over the world, the flesh and the devil.

 

Listen:  There’s nothing you can do to escape the trials of life—nothing at all. In the School of Grace, God doesn’t offer a “No Trials” degree program. All of us will be tested many times in many ways.

 

 

That which was sent into our life in order to make us stronger is that which actually tears us down and makes us weaker when we respond in the power of the flesh. What God means for good, Satan means for evil. The Christian hangs in the balance between the tests and the trials from the Heavenly Father and the perversions of Satan as he twists that which God gives us and whispers in our ear, “Go ahead. It’ll be all right.”

 

Now, it is my conviction that is exactly the reason the biblical writers did not make a sharp distinction between trials and temptations.  In reality, they are not that far apart. The biblical writers had no problem using the same word to mean trials in one verse and then using the very same word to mean temptations just a few verses later.

 

They understood what we have forgotten. Everything good comes from God, and everything he gives us is ultimately for our good and his glory. He does not sin nor does he solicit us to sin. But hidden inside every trial is the seed of a temptation that Satan uses to harvest a crop of evil in our lives.

 

Now, we can understand how Satan would use temptation and trials in our life, but why did God the Father put Jesus in the position of being tempted by the devil? Wasn’t it just a waste of time? 

 

Think about it this way: 

 

 

 

He was led that he might be tested.

 

He was tested that he might be prepared.

 

He was prepared that he might be empowered.

 

And the same thing happens with us. 

 

From the high point of his baptism, Jesus was led into the desert of temptation. Listen:  God never intends that we stay on the mountaintop of spiritual ecstasy. Mountaintops are exciting places. From the mountaintop, you can see vast distances. On the mountaintop, you can feel the fresh air blowing across your face. On the mountaintop, you have no worries. The mountaintop is a place of joy, fulfillment, certainty, and a place of spiritual refreshment.

 

Sometimes a worship service can be a spiritual mountaintop for us. Often we come to a mountaintop at a camp or a retreat or on a vacation or at a happy moment of victory in our lives.  Thank God for the mountaintops. If we didn’t have them, life would be almost unbearable.

 

But you can’t stay there forever. Sooner or later, you’ve got to go down from the mountaintop into the valley of trouble. That’s where the people are. That’s where life must be lived. That’s where you face your problems and learn to look to God for solutions. That’s where you prove the reality of your faith before a watching world.

 

 

 

You have to go down into the valley because that’s where the desert is. And the desert is where the Holy Spirit will lead you sooner or later. And if you try to stay on the mountaintop of spiritual excitement too long, the Holy Spirit will gently take you by the hand and lead you down into the valley and on into the wilderness of temptation. And if he can’t gently lead you, he’ll get behind you and give you a swift kick, and you’ll slide off that mountaintop and go tumbling down into the valley.

 

If you will be like Christ, just get ready because you’re going to have some wilderness time whether you like it or not. There is no other path to spiritual power.

 

So what do you do when you find yourself in the wilderness? Remember these three truths:

 

 

 

 

When God’s purposes in your life have been accomplished, the Spirit will lead you out of the wilderness, and you will come out stronger in your faith than when you went in.

 

Now think about this and we’ll wrap it up.  If it was necessary for Jesus to go into the wilderness don’t you think it will be necessary for us also?

 

 

 

Think of it this way. The wilderness isn’t a fun place to be. You always end up feeling alone and exhausted. You may not fast for 40 days, but you will often come to the end of all human resources. And you will feel like giving in and giving up. You will wonder why God has abandoned you. Nothing will make sense; all will seem confusing. But do not despair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

God never leads us into the wilderness in order to destroy us. He intends the time of testing to make us stronger. Think of what you find in the desert:

 

Victory is here!

 

Holiness is here!

 

Spiritual growth is here!

 

The Holy Spirit is here!

 

Jesus is here!

 

 

As odd as it may seem, when we are most filled with the Holy Spirit, we are most likely to be led into the wilderness. So stand your ground and do not give up. Remember that life is all about God. It’s not about you.

 

The wilderness isn’t about you. It’s all about God.

 

Your temptations are not about you. They’re all about God.

 

Your spiritual journey isn’t about you. It’s all about God.

 

Life isn’t about your dreams, your agenda, your hopes, your ideas, or your plans. Life is all about God’s dreams, God’s agenda, God’s ideas, and God’s plans. It’s his kingdom we’re praying to come, not ours.

 

So stand strong in the moment of temptation, trusting that God will give you what you need when you need it.

 

In 1858 a mighty revival swept across Philadelphia. So vast was the impact that it was called the “Act of God in Philadelphia.” No leader was more prominent in that move of God than a 29-year-old Episcopal minister named Dudley Tyng.

 

For a few years he had served as the rector of the Church of the Epiphany, but a group of disgruntled church members disliked his bold preaching and cast him out. With a few followers he organized the Church of the Covenant. When the revival broke out, Dudley Tyng began a series of noonday talks for men.

 On March 30, 1858, he addressed a group of 5,000 men at the largest public hall in Philadelphia from Exodus 10:11, “Go now ye that are men, and serve the LORD” (KJV).

 

During his talk, he came to a climactic point, raised his right arm and declared, “I would rather have my arm removed at the stump than to fail to declare God’s Word to you.” At the close of his talk, 1,000 men gave their hearts and lives to Jesus Christ.

 

The next week he visited a farm outside the city. Fascinated by a mule-drawn corn thresher, he reached out to pat the mule. As he did so, the sleeve of his jacket got caught in the cogs of the thresher and his arm was badly mangled, severing the artery and doing severe nerve damage.

 

Several days later doctors amputated his arm, but it was too late. Infection set in and he quickly declined. Before he died on April 19, he spoke to a group of family and friends gathered around his bed. Knowing he would soon be in heaven, he exhorted them with these words: “Stand up for Jesus.”  Then he added, “Go back to the church and tell them to always stand up for Jesus.”

 

When those words were repeated at the funeral, they made an enormous impact on George Duffield, a friend of Dudley Tyng, and the pastor of Temple Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. The following Sunday he preached a memorial in honor of his fallen colleague, taking as his text Ephesians 6:14, “Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place.”

At the end of his message, he recited a poem he had written based on Dudley Tyng’s final words. The words were later printed and put to music, eventually becoming one of our best-loved gospel songs. The first verse goes like this:

 

Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross;

 

Lift high His royal banner, it must not suffer loss.

 

From victory unto victory, His army shall He lead,

 

Till every foe is vanquished, and Christ is Lord indeed.

 

But it’s the third verse that needs our attention today and I will daresay now that you know the story, you’ll never sing it the same way again:

 

Stand up, stand up for Jesus, stand in His strength alone;

 

The arm of flesh will fail you—ye dare not trust your own.

 

Put on the gospel armor, each piece put on with prayer;

 

Where duty calls or danger, be never wanting there.

 

My brothers and sisters, the battles we face are not ours. They are the Lord’s. He fought and won the battle with the devil 2,000 years ago.

 

He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.

 

He came out in the power of the Spirit.

 

The same thing will happen to you and me if we will trust in him. Believe that God is at work in your life. Believe that God is at work in your trials. Believe that God is at work in your temptations. Believe that God is at work in your family. Believe that God is at work in your life.

 

Believe and you will see the victory. Stand firm. Stand strong. Fear not. Stand up for Jesus in the power of the Spirit and victory will be yours.

 

Let’s pray.