Sermon Text: Luke 4:1–13
Date: March 9, 2025
Event: The First Sunday in Lent, Year C
Luke 4:1–13 (EHV)
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2where he was tempted by the Devil for forty days. He did not eat anything during those days. When they came to an end, he was hungry. 3The Devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
4Jesus answered him, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’”
5The Devil led him up to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6The Devil told him, “I will give you all this power and the glory of these kingdoms, because it has been entrusted to me, and I can give it to anyone I want. 7So, if you worship me, it will all be yours.”
8Jesus answered him, “It is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”
9The Devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here, 10because it is written:
He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you.
11And,
they will lift you up with their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”
12Jesus answered him, “It says: ‘You shall not test the Lord your God.’”
13When the Devil had finished every temptation, he left him until an opportune time.
Jesus Conquers Satan for You
We all would like someone to stand up for us. If you’re being bullied at school, having a classmate swoop in and tell the bully off is a relief and empowering experience. Similarly, when you're in a meeting at work and receive stern criticism for your presentation, it’s easier to deal with it when others also praise your thoughts and ideas. Holding an unpopular opinion can feel alienating, but having even one other person who agrees with you is a great comfort and encouragement.
There’s an important concept that we need to keep in mind during this Lent season (and, truly, at all times), and that concept you might see in Latin: Christus pro nobis; in English: Christ for us. This biblical principle is that Jesus’ work is ultimately vicarious, substitutionary. Much of what Jesus does is to take our place under the demands of God’s law, to face our enemies, and even to face the punishment for sin (of which he had none, and we have seemingly infinite). So when we see Jesus doing extraordinary things that we could never imagine ourselves doing, we want to keep this “Christ for us” principle in mind. Likely, the point of what Jesus is doing is not showing you how to conduct yourself, but rather doing what you could not do for you.
This “Christ for us” principle is front-and-center in our Gospel for this morning as we meet up with Jesus facing the temptations of the Devil. While we can learn a lot from Jesus’ approach to temptation, the ultimate takeaway we want to have is that he’s doing this for us. His perfection is credited to you, to me. He makes us righteous and perfect as we should have been all along.
As we join the events of our Gospel in progress, Jesus is leaving the Jordan River just after his baptism. This account is literally the first thing he did after the official start of his ministry. Jesus is just getting things rolling, and who is there to meet him and try to derail everything? Satan.
And as true man, Jesus is vulnerable. Not just because he had the potential to sin, which he did, but also because he was in a physically weak state. Jesus was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where he was tempted by the Devil for forty days. He did not eat anything during those days. When they came to an end, he was hungry. You likely know how you feel when you’re hungry. Perhaps you have a headache; perhaps you are quick-tempered; perhaps you make really bad decisions. So, if that’s what you feel like when you miss lunch or perhaps are late to get dinner going, imagine how you’d feel if that stretched out beyond a day! How hungry would you be and how sane would you feel if you hadn’t eaten in 40 hours? Now consider your weakness if you had been fasting for forty days! Luke’s comment on Jesus’ state, “he was hungry,” seems like an almost intentional understatement.
So it’s during this period of fasting that Satan comes to Jesus to tempt him. Satan’s tactics are all over the place because he doesn’t really care how he gets Jesus to sin, he just knows he needs to get Jesus to sin. Just one sin would make Jesus entirely ineligible to be our Savior and ruin God’s entire plan of salvation. So right here at the start of Jesus’ ministry, Satan digs in—and notably, God lets him. Remember that Jesus is in this position because he was led by the Spirit in the wilderness. This whole scene is not Jesus being victimized by Satan; this is part of his work for us; he is there willingly.
The first temptation that Luke records for us seems to hit Jesus at his physical weakness as well as at his ministerial weakness. Satan might have assumed that Jesus, the newly anointed prophet, would be eager to prove his status. So Satan tempts him to prove that he is God’s Son. Such a temptation probably worked well for Satan with many newly-minted leaders in the church over the centuries, to overextend to prove their legitimacy. And pile Jesus’ fasting on top of that! Regardless of whether this particular temptation took place on day 5, 15, or 40 of his time in the wilderness (or repeatedly during these days), Jesus would have been hungry; the stone-into-bread would have been tempting. So, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
We see a pattern in Jesus’ answers to Satan’s temptations. He doesn’t engage Satan in a lengthy dialogue, logically explaining why that action would be bad. Instead, he answers Satan’s temptations directly with God’s Word. In this case, a quote from Deuteronomy chapter 8. In what Jesus quotes, Moses encourages the Israelites to look to God for this sustenance and support as they had during the 40 years wandering in the wilderness, knowing that ultimately it’s not bread that sustains someone, but God’s providence. So, if Jesus needed bread, his heavenly Father would provide. But in this moment, the Father didn’t; Jesus wouldn’t succumb to Satan’s trap.
Satan moves on to a different tactic in the second recorded temptation. He lays out all the glory of all the kingdoms of the world. “I will give you all this power and the glory of these kingdoms,” Satan promises through lying teeth. What might have been Satan’s thought here? Again, he may be following his playbook for what might trip-up the average new prophet of God. “Wouldn’t it be better for your message and ministry to be well-known, Jesus? Wouldn’t the glory and splendor of all the world’s kingdoms be a good place to start? Wouldn’t it be good to have a global audience right from the get-go instead of fighting tooth-and-nail for every convert in backwater Judea and Galilee?” But, what’s the trade for such a head start to one’s ministry? “If you worship me, it will all be yours.”
In some ways, this temptation is more about Satan than Jesus. This is what he has always wanted. He wanted glory and recognition. He wanted to be over and above all. He wanted the glory due only to God. That was the reason for his original rebellion. If he could get the Son of God to worship him in this moment, he would have won his heart’s desire. But Jesus quickly throws a restatement of the First Commandment back at him from Deuteronomy 6, “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.” As far as our Gospel goes, strike two.
Finally, Satan goes for the big guns. Jesus has shown a reliance on God’s Word, so Satan co-opts it. He quotes God’s promise to be with and protect his people from Psalm 91. “If this is true,” Satan reasons with Jesus, “throw yourself off the top of the temple and let God protect you. Surely you, mighty Son of God, of all people, would be in the arms of these powerful servants!” One wonders if Satan is still salty about God’s orders to the angelic host to serve and protect mankind, orders that would have applied to Satan before his rebellion against God.
But Jesus knows that this is not the purpose of that promise. God is not saying, “Get yourself in as much trouble as possible! I’ve got you!” Instead, God’s promise in Psalm 91 is that as we go about our lives, God will be our guardian and protector. He is our shelter and protects our tents (Psalm 91:9-10). And that is made clear as Jesus quotes God’s direction through Moses, again in Deuteronomy 6, not to put God to the test.
What are we to make of this whole scene? Let us not forget the “Christ for us” principle! Here Jesus is not saying, “Look how easy it is to fight temptation! I did it on over a month’s worth of hungry days!” No, this is Jesus fighting this spiritual battle for us. He is standing up to Satan and swatting down his temptations in our place.
We need only examine the temptations and find modern equivalents for us. Have we ever valued the things of this world more than we trusted God? Have we ever made an idol out of luxury and physical security, valuing them above all things? “Tell these stones to become bread”—regardless of what God has promised?
Or what about acceptance from the world? How likely are we to jettison our faith and dedication to God if it means a welcome or even praise from those in the world? Do we seek to blend in with our friends, even doing things we know are wrong, so that we’re not kicked out of the group or thought of as weird? Do we succumb to the temptation to fit in with the crowd at work, the bar, or our other relationships so that we fade into the background or foreground? “I will give you all this power and the glory of these kingdoms … if you worship me, it will all be yours”—while you at the same time stomp all over your faith in Jesus, or at least keep it as hidden as possible, like a plant tucked away in a basement?
Do we ever distort God’s promises of protection? Do we assume that he’ll save us from any and every trouble in the way we want—and then get angry when he doesn’t? If I face the consequences for my own sin and carelessness, do I shake the fist at God rather than turning the reflection inward on my choices and priorities? Do I create promises that God has never made and assume he’ll do my will, rather than the other way around? “Throw yourself down from here”—not in faith, but in spite, daring God to save you!
To one degree or another, we are all guilty of all of these lines of thought and action. It might not play out in precisely the way we just mentioned in your life, but somewhere inside all of us is the drive to do exactly what Satan tried to get Jesus to do. And this underscores the truth that the writer to the Hebrews shared in our Second Reading this morning. Truly, we have a high priest who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus doesn’t just know this temptation, he shut it down and defeated it. He defeated it for you.
We know where Lent is taking us. Before we turn around twice we’ll be in Holy Week. We’ll be sitting here in church on a dark Friday night, hearing the agonizing screams of the Son of God abandoned by his heavenly Father. But again, that will be for us. It will be for us because we have sinned so often under temptation, when even once was too much. In that moment on the cross, the only person who was ever without sin will suffer as if he was the only person who ever had sinned, bearing the full brunt of hell as the payment for your sins and mine. Christ for us.
So, we can take some practical pointers from this scene between Satan and Jesus. When we are facing temptation to do what we know is wrong—what God clearly says is wrong—quote God’s Word at Satan. Jesus isn’t just making declarations of truth as God; he’s quoting the Scriptures, which we also have to fend off our adversary. You have the same tool, the same sword of the Holy Spirit, at your disposal. Use it and, as James says, “Submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).
But this is not just a how-to guide for fighting temptation. It’s not even primarily such a guide. No, this is primarily Jesus defeating temptation for you and me. Jesus’ perfect life is credited to your account and my account so that, in his forgiving sacrifice and perfect crediting of his life for ours, we are the perfect people that God demands we be. In “Christ for us,” we are victorious because he was victorious in our stead, partly here in the wilderness, and ultimately at the cross.
Jesus has conquered Satan for you! Thanks be to God! Amen.
