As we continue looking at Matthew’s gospel for this series of sermons, let’s turn to the end of chapter three where we find Jesus baptized by John. I’ll make a few comments by way of application, and then we will move into the first verse of chapter four.
Here is Matthew 3:13-4:8 – “Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John, to be baptized by him. But John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?” But Jesus answering said to him, “Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he *permitted Him. After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”
And now the first verse of chapter four: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”
I want us to notice what is a critically important point encapsulated in these few verses. The Father told the world that He was well-pleased with Jesus. Nothing about His Son dissatisfied Him. They still maintained an intimate relationship. And so, the average person on the street would probably think life would be easy for the Lord Jesus from that point. But we know it was not. And because life was NOT easy for the beloved Son of God, we should know that the disciple is not above his master. If life was NOT easy for the beloved Son of God, we must not expect life to be easy for us.
Now, don’t lose me yet. There is GOOD NEWS to all this. Please stay with me.
Before we move on with this point about Jesus in the wilderness, I want us to think of some others with whom God was well-pleased, and yet for whom life was not at all a proverbial bed of roses. Job is one example. Here is verse eight of chapter one: 8 The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” (Job 1:8)
And we know what happened next. God gave Satan permission to severely attack Job – even though God Himself called him a blameless and upright man.
Zachariah and Elizabeth – parents of John the Baptist -- are another example. Here is Luke’s report of how God viewed the husband and wife: 6 They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. 7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both advanced in years.
To be barren in their culture was synonymous – or so people thought – with God's disfavor. That’s why Elizabeth, after God miraculously visited her for pregnancy, said God had taken “away my disgrace . . . .” (Luke 1:25)
Okay, back to Jesus in the wilderness. Please remember, in the original manuscript, Matthew did not separate his text into chapters and verses. None of the writers of either the Old or the New Testament did that. Each verse flowed freely into the next, from the first word to the last sentence. It wasn’t until the 13th century AD that scholars began to introduce verse and chapter divisions.
So, IMMEDIATELY after the Father said He was well-pleased with Jesus, the Holy Spirit led Him into the wilderness. Mark tells us that the Holy Spirit ‘impelled’ Jesus into the wilderness.
The wilderness – Throughout Scripture and Jewish tradition, the wilderness is synonymous with a somber, lonely place. It is an uninhabited wasteland. A dangerous place. A place of wild beasts and even demons.
It is HERE, into the wilderness, that God the Holy Spirit impelled God the Son. That’s important to remember because hardships and heartaches and loneliness are not necessarily the result of our sin as some – including the devil – would have us believe.
Sometimes God sends us to the wilderness, not for discipline over some sin, but because our Father in heaven has some greater purpose, some greater plan for us that can only be accomplished in the wilderness. In other words, if not for the storms, we wouldn’t know that God is our shelter or our strength.
Again, and please let us ALL hear this: One purpose of the wilderness is often so we learn closer obedience to God. Here is how the writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews explains it: “Although He [Jesus] was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation.” (Hebrews 5:8-9)
What does that mean when it says Jesus learned obedience by the things He suffered? Remember, Jesus was not only fully God, but He was also at the same time fully human – as human as you and I.
Jesus the second Person of the Trinity did not need to learn obedience. He was and is, Almighty God. BUT – Jesus the man did need to learn it – just as every other human needs to learn obedience to God. Don’t ask me to explain that any further. For 2000 years, scholars far more learned than I have grappled with conundrum of Jesus’ deity and concurrent humanity, and I am certainly not going to solve the mystery here.
But the important point to all this is that God KNOWS from PERSONAL EXPERIENCE what it’s like to suffer physically and emotionally, because in His humanity He suffered physically and emotionally. He knows the sadness that grips the heart after the death of a loved one – for example, His father Joseph, His cousin, John the Baptist, His friend Lazarus – at whose tomb Jesus wept.
God knows from personal experience what it is like to be hungry and thirsty. He knows how a cold night rain feels against the skin. He knows from experience what it’s like to be lonely and forsaken by friends – even to feel forsaken by God. Remember His cry from the cross: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.”
Jesus suffered the various and varied tests and heartaches
as we all suffer. And so, we cannot say, in the middle of our own wilderness,
"God doesn't understand."
Yes. He does. Intimately, He understand. And He walks with us every step -- step by step.
How did His suffering teach Him obedience? Perhaps we can answer that question – and I admit to you that I am speculating here. I admit that I do not fully understand the answer to my own question. But I think we might answer that question of how Jesus’ suffering taught Him obedience – we can try to answer that question by looking at our own lives.
How have our past and present sufferings led us to deeper obedience to the Father? At each juncture, at each test, we faced a choice: we could have told God we’ve had enough of His treatment and walked away from Him. Or, at each test we could have cried out to God that we don’t understand what He is doing, and that we don’t like what He is doing – but nonetheless, we would continue to follow Him and serve Him and obey Him.
Did we not reason with words like these, or something similar: “Where can I go? You alone have the words of eternal life. You alone cause all things to work together for good to those who love You and are called according to Your purpose.”
Isn’t it your ongoing obedience despite your heartaches – isn’t it evidence of your ongoing obedience that you still attend Bible studies and Sunday messages? Isn’t it why you still pray and read your Bibles? It’s all because you have learned an enduring obedience and perseverance from and through your suffering.
Listen to how the psalmist linked suffering and obedience: Psalm 119:67 “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word.” Psalm 119:71-72 “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes. The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.” Psalm 119:75 “I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.”
Listen, please. The wilderness does not necessarily mean discipline for sin. If you or I ever wonder about any wilderness in which we might find ourselves, we only have to ask the Holy Spirit to show us if we have sin in our lives for which we must repent and from which we must turn.
But often is the case, our specific wilderness is designed by God to grow our maturity and our perseverance and – yes, AND our fruitfulness for God.
Which brings me to the second point I want to make about the text we’re looking at.
Please, we must get this: Jesus was never alone during those 40 days and nights in that wilderness. Never.
Luke tells us: Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days.
Did you catch that? The Holy Spirit was with Jesus in that wilderness. So, do we dare to think He is not also with us in ours? Of course, He is. He is our loving, compassionate, merciful, protective Abba – the intimate Aramaic term used by children for their ‘Daddy.’
Of course, our Abba Father leads us all the way through our desert and right into the Savior’s embrace.
This point cannot be overemphasized. The enemy of our souls wants us to think God has forsaken us, that He has turned from us. That God set us in the center of our nightmares and disappeared to another side of the universe.
Not only is that a demonic lie, but it should also not surprise us to hear it in our thoughts. Remember what Jesus said of Satan, “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44)
And so, the apostle Peter reminds us
today: “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the
devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist
him, firm in your faith.” (1 Peter 5:8-9)
Back to the wilderness – we need to hear this again and again: We are never alone. Never. Not in an ICU room. Not when we lose a spouse, or a child, or a grandchild. Not when the doctor tells us there’s no hope for recovery. We are not alone when we look at our wheelchair, or walker, and remember the years when we were vigorous and strong and independent. We are not alone when we look at our rapidly dwindling savings. We’re not alone when no one calls us anymore, when people we love forget our birthday, or anniversary, or some other special day in the calendar.
Life’s tests WILL continue until the day we die. Why is that? Is God trying to trip us up? To get us to fall and fail and lay in the dirt for the rest of our lives? Of course not. That is not what a loving Father does to His children for whom He delivered up His own Son to death as the divine and eternal substitute to pay the penalty of death that WE should have paid for our sins.
May God help us to always remember these two promises: We are not alone in our spiritual battles; AND God will never permit us to be tested above our limit of strength and endurance. You’ll find that promise in 1 Corinthians 10:13.
Here is how God puts it to us through the writer to the Hebrews: “Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:24-25)
Our prayer list should be book-length, filled with names of people we know personally, and the names of people we know about, that their faith in their ongoing wilderness not be shaken but strengthened.
Notice what the Lord Jesus said to Peter: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. (Luke 22:31-32)
There are typical symptoms of failing faith. They go something like this: Step one: The battles have left us bleeding and bruised – and confused. Why is this happening to me? We still pray, but our prayers are now lackluster. We no longer pray with confidence that God hears us or will intervene for us.
Without divine intervention through the words of a friend, a pastor, or as the Holy Spirit leads us through the Scriptures, step one leads to step two. We stop praying as often as we used to. Perhaps we stop altogether. And without divine intervention, step two leads almost inevitably to step three:
When our prayer life stutters to a stop, we then stop reading the Scriptures. And when all those previous steps take root, step four eventually occurs: We turn away from God.
Oh, how easy it is for us, if we are not alert to the dangers and the symptoms, how easy it is for any of us to head down that road. That’s why it is so necessary that we ask God for ourselves – and for others – perhaps especially the ones who seem to have their spiritual act all together – that we ask God the Holy Spirit to break that downward momentum and that the Lord Jesus pray for our faith, that it might not fail.
The Father was well-pleased with His Son, Jesus. And the next thing we know, the beloved Son is embroiled in the wilderness trials. Plural.
But Jesus was NEVER alone in those trials.
And neither are you alone in yours. And so, hear the words of Jesus as I close this message: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
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