“The Challenges of Faith”

Scripture: Matthew 4:1-11

How is your faith? Are you comfortable in it? Uncomfortable? Do you find that you can easily live out your faith, or does it give you fits at times? Is your faith all that you think it should be, or could it be stronger?

Lots of good questions, you may be thinking! But do you have any good answers?

The truth is that faith is anything BUT easy to define, not to mention the living of it. Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” The very definition is puzzling to many!
And the Lord understands. Over and over, Jesus was chastising his disciples for having so little faith (Matthew 8:23-27, Matthew 14:22-33, Mark 16:14, and others), and yet, the faith of the paralytic’s friends was sufficient to bring, not only forgiveness to his life, but also strength and healing for his limbs (Matthew 9:2), and the faith of the woman with the hemorrhage brought healing to her (Luke 8:40-48), and the faith of the Syrophoenician woman was sufficient to allow healing to work in the life of her daughter (Mark 7:24-30).
Those who were the closest to Jesus seemed to struggle the most in faith, and those who were on the outskirts of society seemed to have such great faith. Challenges to faith abound, and no one is excluded, and no one can explain it! Does God have any idea just how difficult it is to live a faith that is worthy of him? Of course he does!

The account of the 3 temptations is well known, and is intended to serve as a parallel to the conflict that each of us are in right now – it is, quite simply, the battle that rages between the desires that come from the Kingdom of God and those that come from the kingdom of earth. In Matthew 10:34-39, he teaches his disciples that he has come, not to bring peace, but a sword. I don’t believe that he wanted it to come down this way, but he knew without a doubt that faith in him would bring salvation and healing to some, and denial and rejection to others.

Today, we look at the temptations that Jesus experienced toward the end of his 40 days of fasting in the wilderness. But before we begin, I will tell you that I see a lot of symbolism in this passage, and will be presenting my understandings in that context - what I see as the teachings that Jesus is offering. If you disagree with my interpretation, that is OK, and if you would like to discuss this further, I would be more than willing to accommodate you. But this is what I have gained from this event in Jesus’ life.

Read Matthew 4:1-4

Satan has been a tempter extraordinaire throughout time. We see him at work throughout the Old Testament, causing the children of Israel to rebel time and time again. He constantly worked against the faith of the 12. The early church was always under attack, and his power continues to besiege the church of today and beyond. But as much as humanity has struggled with the accuser’s snares, Jesus, in his humanity, was also challenged by the fallen angel.

Jesus had been baptized by John in the Jordan, and had promptly gone out to fast and pray and focus his life completely on the Father’s will. This time was more than just a struggle to last 40 days without food – it was a struggle between his humanness and his Godliness. During these 40 days, his body would, naturally, become weaker, but his spiritual power and Godly strength would grow. Fasting is a time to set our physical needs aside while we focus our life completely on the Lord. And this is exactly what Jesus was doing. And at the end of his physical ordeal, and at the peak of his spiritual strength, the Satan arrives.

As the old saying goes, Jesus’ “belly was rubbing on his backbone”, and the first temptation is meant to challenge his hunger. But remember the first part of the question – “If you are the Son of God ….” Satan knows very well who this is, so his question is not so much a question of Jesus’ divinity, but more likely what does his divinity – his title “Son of God” – actually mean for Jesus. One of the expectations that Israel had of Messiah was that he would provide boundless supplies of the best food. Satan was testing Jesus to see if he might exhibit this particular quality – can you turn the stones of Israel into bread? And for anyone who has been in the Holy Land, you quickly discover that there is no shortage of stones - not anywhere in the entire region! With one word, Jesus could have fed all of the people for the rest of time.
But Messiah isn’t about physical food. Messiah is about the feeding of our souls through the giving and receiving of the word of God. If Jesus had provided the bread, he would have fit very nicely into the messianic expectations that many Jews had, and he could have gained enormous political and secular authority, but he knew that the most important thing that he could bring to the world was the truth of God.
And so, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:1-3, reminding Satan that it is God’s truth, and not the satisfying of our human needs, that will see us through this life and into the next.

Read Matthew 4:5-7

What does the term “the highest point of the temple” mean for us? It doesn’t say the pinnacle, it doesn’t say the roof, it doesn’t say the top of a spire – it says “the highest point of the temple”. It’s a very non-specific term. I don’t think that it refers to a physical place on the temple, but rather to the law. The original purpose of the tabernacle, and later to the temple, was to be a place where the nation could come to meet with God. But by Jesus’ time, holiness in the temple had been replaced, for the most part, with legalism. Legalism had become the highest purpose of the temple. It was all about what you did so that you could be welcomed back into God’s good graces. True faith had taken a holiday for most of the nation.
In Romans 9:30-33, Paul is discussing the difference between the Gentiles and the Jews – that the gentiles, even though they never sought out righteousness, have gained it through faith. But that Israel, who pursued righteousness through their good works, or in other words, the law, have gained nothing. Then he writes “They stumbled over the stumbling stone”.
I believe that Satan is suggesting that Jesus throw himself upon the law of the temple, and that he will never stumble on it, because he will be saved by divine will. And Jesus replies that the angels may very well protect him, but why throw up a challenge to what God has already told us? We’ve been told to keep the commandments that God has given us, not the laws that men have handed down. (Deuteronomy 6:16-19)

Read Matthew 4:8-11

In the third temptation, the Lord is offered authority over the entire earth, and all he has to do is give his allegiance to Satan. He is being asked to reject the relationship that he has with the Light of Glory, and to take up the one that the Darkness of earth proposes. All that he would have to do is to accept the divisiveness, and the pagan worship, and the sinfulness, and the rebellion, and everything else that stands in direct opposition to his mission to the people of earth. Satan doesn’t even say that Jesus would have to worship him exclusively – pluralism would suit him just fine!
And Jesus, in no uncertain terms, tells Satan to take a hike, because there is only one God who is worthy of worship, and that is the Lord God Almighty of Heaven and earth. And because Jesus already has all authority, Satan departs, prepared to take up the conflict at a later day and time. He has been defeated in this battle of wills, but he has yet to admit it – strife and conflict will continue to be his curse on the earth, and will only end on the day that had already been set.

The temptations that Jesus had to endure were no different than the ones we experience on a daily basis.
The gospel of prosperity is still being preached all across this land – that if we see to our earthy riches, that will be the evidence that God is on our side. And many have fallen for that satanic lie throughout the ages, and will continue to do so until the Judgment Day.
Many still believe that the good things that we do will earn us entrance into the Kingdom of God. Just another bold faced lie that continues to emerge from the Darkness, and continues to cause people to stumble and fall flat on their face.
And how many folks continue to strive to gain authority and power for themselves? Whether through political office, or in organizations that we belong to, or in our secular employment, or even by the granting of authority in the church. The truth is that none of these things carry any weight in our relationship with the Lord – only faith in Christ can do that.

Jesus experienced it all, just as he knew that we would. And he resisted them, not by his own spiritual strength, but by the very word of God that has come to each and every one of us.

Feast on the glorious Word of God, not on the meager fare of earth!
Trust that the Word of God is true and that it will never fail you!
Look to the One and Only God, and worship him alone!

Those are the very thoughts that carried Jesus the entire time he spent in the wilderness – first in fasting, and then in temptation, and they are the same thoughts that will carry us into his glorious Kingdom.