Christ Faces Temptation for Us (Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent: March 9, 2025)

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The text that serves as the foundation for our sermon for today is our Gospel reading especially these words of Luke, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil” (Luke 4:1-2).

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.

I remember as a kid, and this is probably a thought that is not unique to me, thinking as I read the Bible, as I read about all of the demon possessions, as I read about all of the Satan’s attacks in the Holy Scripture, “Oh, Satan's not that active anymore.” Oh, the naivety of youth. And certainly while in our Western culture we may not see nearly as many demon possessions as we do in the Bible, although to be certain those still happen today both here and especially in developing countries. Satan is still very active in our world. Satan is still very much prowling around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, as Saint Peter writes. And it shouldn't surprise us. Because Satan, one of God's creatures. tried tempting the son of God. If he has the gumption, try to tempt the Son of God. who knew no sin, then we should be certain that Satan is going to try to tempt us. But through our readings for today and especially in our Gospel reading, we see the victory over the temptations that we have. For today in our readings, we learn that Christ has won the victory over Satan, including over his temptations for us, and thus in His victory has given us that victory.

Let us pray. Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, Your Son, after being baptized by your servant John in the river Jordan, was driven into the wilderness and there was tempted to deny You, to fall into sin. Yet, through remaining faithful to Your word, He overcame that temptation. In the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts, be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer, that we may always have the sure and certain comfort that through Your word, You give us the ability to overcome this temptation as well. This through Your Son's name we pray. Amen.

So why does our world tend to think of Satan not being that active anymore? Well, to figure that out... about 250 years or so to the enlightenment, when people started thinking that God was not as active in our society as He is. We started getting more scientific advances. People started learning more about, what causes the weather, what causes germs, what causes disease? We started learning more about our bodies, the way the world works. We started learning more about the stars and the heavens. And because of that, mankind started thinking less about Satan and more about the natural causes of things. You go back to Luther, you go back to any of our church fathers, and they very much believe that anything bad that happens to us is an attack from Satan, trying to get us to deny our faith, to fall away from the faith. And yet, because of modern science (and I'm not saying that modern science is wrong. Modern science has taught us a lot of good things), we no longer see things as being a tax-free thing. think of it as being, oh, this is natural.

However, these attacks that come, whether it is illness, whether it is loss of house or home, whether it is loss even of life, these are Satan's present-day attacks against us. We sang it in our hymn for today. “Take they our lives, goods, fame, child, and wife”. Who's the ‘they’ there? You gotta go back to the beginning of the third stanza. “Though devils all the world should fill, all eager to devour us”. The ‘they’ are devils, Satan's minions at work. Satan is still working in our world. In our Western world because he has better tools, a lot of times it's not with demon possession or anything like that. A lot of times it's more like the temptations that Jesus faced. Jesus faced three temptations and these are, in summary, the temptations that we all face.

First, what does Satan tempt Jesus with? He says, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3). Satisfying Jesus's belly, satisfying Jesus's hunger. This is the most base and primal of all temptations, because mankind has to be physically safe in order for them to focus on anything else. If you are focused on satisfying hunger or thirst, if you are focused on satisfying shelter, whatever it may be, any of those good first article gifts that God gives us—clothing, shoes, food, drink, household, wife, children, land—if that is what we are focused on satisfying, you have to because those lay at the basis of our needs. And so Satan works to tempt us first there. “He,. I can take care of your physical needs better than God. Command the stone to become bread.” Could Jesus have commanded that stone to become bread? Sure, absolutely. He's God. He can do anything. But that's not the point. Jesus could have done that in any time in the wilderness, those forty days and forty nights of fasting, eating nothing. But instead, He remains faithful to God. When those temptations to satisfy our bodily needs arise, how quick are we to give to that temptation, to obtain what is a good gift from God through means that, yeah, may not be so good. Satan’s temptations don't end there.

Next, the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. It's funny here, Satan is showing his limited power. Satan shows him all of the kingdom of the world in a moment of time. He didn't show him America. Satan had no power to see forward to America to 2020, to see the United States. He didn't show him ancient Egypt. He had no power to show him the kingdoms of the past. No, Satan only was able to show Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in a single moment of time, the ones that existed in that moment of time. And it says, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours” (Luke 4:6). The second temptation that is common to man is that for power, for glory, and that we will do anything in our power, anything in our ability to get more. We see this with athletes all the time. Good athletes get hurt, end up losing whether they win or not, because they cheat. They take steroids, they take shortcuts to try to win, and thus they end up losing. Their fame, their glory gets taken away. When Satan makes a temptation to try to get us to give in, to try to get us to gain fame and glory, it never lasts. It's always just for a moment of time.

The third attack of Satan gets to the very core. Satan takes Jesus up to the pinnacle of the temple, and says, “Jump. Throw yourself down. God will catch ya.” The third temptation of Satan goes back to what Satan did in the garden, creating doubt in God and His goodness.  We like to put God to the test. And it makes sense. Because can we see God? I don't see God physically here. We can't physically see out. And so we are often tempted to put to the Lord our God the test. And when God doesn't do exactly what we want him to do, well then, what's our response? “Oh, God must not be real. Okay, I might have to live my life how I want then.” You have a loved one who is battling cancer. “Dear God, if you're real, heal this person of their cancer.” And that person dies. Maybe you're living in a broken marriage. “Dear God, if you are real, heal my marriage.” And you end up in divorce. Whatever it is, Satan thinking loves tempting us to get us to think if God doesn't do what we want, then God must not care.

And yet, through Jesus's temptation, not only do we see the temptations that are common to man, but we see the victory that is ours and how we can remain faithful. Because Jesus is our victory. Jesus is the One who faced the temptations of Satan and won, so that then Satan departed from him “until the opportune time” (Luke 4:13). So that Satan departed from Him until Satan could try again to defeat Christ. And Satan most certainly would try again to defeat Christ. As there on that Good Friday, Satan threw every single thing he had at Christ. He had him arrested. He had him falsely tried. He had him beaten. He had him nailed to a cross. Satan killed God. There on the cross Satan seemed to have his final victory. Then was the opportune time. Christ said, “It is finished” with His dying breath, “At last”, Satan thought, “Now I have won”. And yet very quickly Satan learned that in that moment of time was not his victory, but his defeat. For in that moment of time when Christ said, “It is finished”, Satan was bound. The chains were tied. Satan's defeat was sealed. For there on the cross, Christ won the victory over temptation. Christ won the victory over Satan for you and for me. There in that moment of time, Christ bearing your sins, bearing my sins, bearing the sins of the entire world won the final defeat of Satan.

Now Satan is but a chain. He has limited authority. Yes, he prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. But his bark is worse than his bite. If you've got a vicious dog on a chain and you're one foot outside of the length of that chain, does that vicious dog have any power over you? Can that vicious dog do any harm to you whatsoever? No! So likewise with Satan. When we stay out of his domain, he can bark all he wants, but he can't hurt us. And this is where temptation comes in. Because what does Satan want us to do? He wants us to take that step, step into his domain, because then he can devour us.

And so when the temptations come, what do we do? We do exactly as Christ did. It is written. It is written. It is written. We don't rely on our own strengths. We don't rely on our own abilities. We don't rely on our own capabilities to defeat Satan. We rely on God. Satan comes and he tempts us with food, tempts us with power, he tempts us with testing God. “Nah, Satan, I'm good. It's written that you're defeated. It is written that you have been defeated by Jesus and his death on the cross. You have no power over me.” That is our victory over temptation. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame’” (Romans 10:9-11). That's our victory. That is your victory. So when Satan comes and attacks, don't rely on your own strength. Rely on God and His Word! Now in order to do that, what does that mean? It means you have to know God and His Word. How do you know God's Word? Well, it begins right here. God's Word read and proclaim. It begins in our homes studying God's Word each and every day. Further, we have Bible classes so that we can come and more intimately know God and His Word. These are how we know God's Word. And then, knowing God's word, does that mean that we will always perfectly do what we're supposed to? Oh if it were that easy. And that's why God calls us back here each and every Sunday to receive that forgiveness of sins that is ours first given us from the baptismal font, that in ours every time we confess our sins, that is ours every time we partake of His Sacrament, His very body and blood that was shed on the cross, given us in the bread and the wine. Here we have a refuge. Here is our sanctuary from Satan's temptation. Do we get to stay here? No. God sends us out. He sends us back into the wilderness so that we can continue to be witnesses to him. So that we can continue sharing with others the hope that is ours. And then guess what? As we get beaten down, broken down, as we fall into temptation, God calls us right back the following week to receive the consolation once again.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, you will face temptations. Satan is still at work in our world today. Take courage! Christ has already won the victory for you. Therefore continue to hear God's word read and proclaimed. Continue to confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord for the glory of the Father. Continue to receive His gifts, strengthening you in the faith. Until at last, Christ takes you from this valley of temptation, takes you home to paradise with himself. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.