As I was preparing this blog, I read a story about a young boy. His mother made a special dessert for a party the family was giving. She told her son not to eat the desert because it was for dinner later. When he was discovered, he explained that his teeth accidentally got caught in the desert while he was smelling it! [1]

Human beings are pretty much alike. We get similar kinds of trouble. The story of the little boy and the dessert is cute. The trouble we adults get into is not so cute. In fact, the results of our falling into temptation can be devastating for ourselves and everyone around us.

Not long ago, someone sent me a prayer request that was almost identical to a prayer request many years ago. Some years ago, a Houston magazine ran a story about a young executive. She was pretty, bright, and professional. She worked long hours. Naturally, there was a lot of tension. She began to drink to unwind. Over the course of time, the drinking got worse. Her marriage ended. Her drinking got worse. Her job performance suffered. Her drinking got worse. She lost her job, and her new job was not nearly so good as her last job. Her drinking got worse. She drifted from job to job and relationship to relationship. One day, she hit someone and killed them driving while intoxicated. She was indicted for manslaughter, convicted, and a promising career was over.

This blog is about temptation and how a serious Christian lifestyle can protect us from temptation and its results. We should pray, “Deliver us from evil;” however, we should also live in such a way that we are likely to be delivered. Too many of us are like the young Augustine who is said to have prayed that God would deliver him from temptation, but not yet.” [2] We want to see Heaven if there is one, but we don’t want to give up our secret sins. We want to be seen as Christians by our friends and family, bet we don’t want to take the steps that will truly change us deep in our hearts.

Life After Baptism

In Luke chapter 3 Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River. When Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit came upon him like a dove and a voice from heaven verified that he was God’s Son, with whom God was well pleased (Luke 3:21-22). Then, immediately, the Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness for a time of tempting (4:1). Our text today is from Luke, chapter 4, and I will begin reading with the first verse:

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.” The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.” The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written: “He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time. Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him (Luke 4: 1-15).

The Temptations of Life

All of us some of the time (and some of us a lot of the time!) face temptations. These temptations can be great, like the story with which I began, or small. They can have significant impact on our lives or the impact can be pretty insignificant. However, the impact is never without its dangers: The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is the story of temptation, self-centered action, and consequences. It’s also a story that illustrates how serious consequences can be from seemingly small actions.

Hopefully, today’s story is one with which we can relate. We are tempted, and Jesus was tempted. Unfortunately, this is also a story we can avoid applying to our lives. When we read of Jesus’ temptations, we can mistakenly believe that these temptations were for Jesus alone, and we will never be faced with anything like them because we are not the Christ, the Son of God. We could not be more wrong.

There are three temptations set out it the story of Jesus’ temptation:

1. The temptation to turn rocks into bread;
2. The temptation to worship the devil to receive the kingdoms in the world; and
3. The temptation to cast himself off the top of the Temple, and allow angels to catch him as he fell.

Although these three temptations may seem far from us, they involve three kinds of temptation we all fall into. I would describe them like this:

1. The temptation to live solely on the basis of our physical and emotional needs;
2. The temptation to worship success or accomplishment; and
3. The temptation to put God to the test.

You may think you don’t do these things; however, in one way or another, we all do.

Jesus was human just like we are. After 40 days of fasting, he was hungry. It would’ve been easy to see this first temptation as harmless—kind of like Samantha in Bewitched. [3] If you remember the show, then you remember that Samantha was forever swearing that she would never use her magical powers again, only to do so whenever she got herself in trouble. When faced with temptation, we can be like Samantha. We say we will never do it again, but we can’t resist the temptation to take a shortcut. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts in the life of a discipleship.

This temptation is about more than bread. It’s about our human tendency to do almost anything, moral or immoral, to meet our physical and emotional needs. Psychologists who have studied human behavior have seen that our fundamental drives are so powerful that they can cause us to do things we believe immoral or which we otherwise would never do.

Bread can be more than just physical bread. It can be our normal desire for friendship, for marriage, for intimacy, for relaxation, for a sense of well-being. There is nothing wrong with any of these things except when we ignore the spiritual and moral side of our character in seeking to fulfill our natural desire.

The second temptation is the temptation to make an idol of success, power, or money. Once again there’s nothing wrong with success, power, or money; however, we are often tempted to corners just to get ahead. We say to ourselves, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” We have a natural tendency to make an idol of success and slowly but surely fall to the temptations we face. Those of us who are naturally competitive or desire success are especially vulnerable to this temptation.

Finally, there is the temptation to throw ourselves off the temple walls to see if God will save us. This is one many people may at first denied applies to them. However,  we’ve all known people who disregarded common sense, saying, “I’m just trusting God.”  Often, these are spiritual people who want to be seen as spiritual and in contact with God in a special way.

Whenever we take a dangerous or foolish  course of action—a course we know is not advisable—and then say to ourselves, “I’ll just trust God,” we are putting God to the test. If my doctor tells me that I have diabetes and I should not eat sugar or drink again, and I ignore him, I am throwing myself off the temple walls. If you sit down and think about it, there are many ways we put God to the test.

A Temptation Killing Lifestyle

The best place to begin in thinking about how we, like Jesus, can resist the temptations of our culture and live balanced, wise lives is to  remember and understand this story. When Jesus was confronted by the devil, He was in the wilderness fasting and praying, driven there by the Holy Spirit. In other words, Jesus was in a time of deep fellowship with God. If we are to avoid temptation we also need  to be in a deep, constant fellowship with God.

The first  habit of the balanced life we can develop is the habit of prayer, even the habit of prayer combined with fasting. We can begin and end our days in prayer. We can pray regularly during the day. We can take special times to pray. Prayer is always the first and best line of defense against temptation.

The second thing we can do to protect ourselves against temptation is to read and memorize Holy Scripture. Three times the devil tempted Jesus, and three times he responded by quoting from the Old Testament. When tempted to turn stones into bread, he remembered that human beings do not live by bread alone (Deut. 8:3). When tempted to worship the devil and receive all the kingdoms of the world, he remembered that we are commanded to worship God alone (Deut. 6:13). When tempted to perform a miraculous sign and have angels rescue him, he remembered that we are not to test God (Deut. 6:16). Jesus was saturated in Scripture. He had memorized it, and even more importantly, he had lived it until it had become a part of his whole being. [4]

Third thing we can do is center our days and weeks in worship. Scripture assures us that Jesus was in the habit of worship. He worshiped in the Temple in Jerusalem (Luke 2:41-52; Matthew, 21:12; Luke 21:37; John 2:13-22). He worshiped in the synagogue of his hometown (Luke 4:16). In Acts, we are told that the early disciples continued the practice of worship in the temple, in synagogues, and in homes. [5] The apostle Paul was accustomed to worshiping in local synagogues. [6] Public, communal worship is a time of fellowship, of song, of learning, of prayer, and of strengthening so that we can meet the pressures of life. We should not develop the habit of skipping church and find other times to worship in our homes and in special times of retreat.

A Way of Life that Ends in Eternal Life

 I almost entitled this blog “Sacramental Living.” Our text today begins just after Jesus institutes the first sacrament, baptism. In baptism, we remember the mystery of the new life we have in Christ and the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit we receive because of our faith in Christ. Our lives should be a constant act of worship, not just on Sunday morning, but every day (Romans 12:1-4).

This Sunday in our church, we  celebrated the Lord’s Supper. Jesus instituted a second mystery by which we celebrate his continuing presence with us by the power of the Holy Spirit. In a way, the Christian life should be lived from mystery (Baptism) to mystery (the Lord’s Supper), to mystery (eternal life)

As we gather around the Lord’s Table to have our faith fed, as we pray together, as we sing together, as we hear the word together, and as we share our lives together, we are gathered into the mystery of God. This mystery feeds our faith and endows us with the courage and fortitude to continue to walk the way of Jesus. It is a way that does not end with a tomb, but in the glorious light of eternal life.

When Dietrich Bonhoeffer faced the gallows, he said to those who would kill him, “This is the end–for me, the beginning of life.” [7] The way of resisting temptation is not always easy; however, it is the way to life.

Amen

Copyright 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Jerry Shirley, The Gospel of Jesus: Swordfight in the Desert (Grace Baptist Church, March 2006). I have changed the story, but the inspiration for the story was this sermon.

[2] Lex Loizides, “Augustine’s wayward prayer!” at www.lexloiz.wordpress.com (October 15, 2008). The actual quote from the Confessions is “Make me chaste but not yet.” Augustine led a promiscuous,pagan life before his conversion. He had a mistress by whom he had a child. His mistress became a Christian before his conversion. The Son died at the age of sixteen after himself being converted.

[3] Bewitched, created by Sol Saks, starring Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York and Dick Sargent, and Agnes Morehead (1964-1972). More recently, a movie was made from the television show. Nora Epron, et all, wr, Bewitched dir. Nora Ephron, starring, Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell, Shirley McLaine (2005).

[4] In the book, Path of Life: The Way of Light and Love (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014) and in a book on discipleship I am writing, I emphasize the notion of tacit understanding and indwelling practical knowledge in daily life, in the search for wisdom and in the life of a disciple. I am, of course, indebted to Michael Polanyi for this concept, which he outlines in many of his works. See for example, Tacit Understanding (Glouchester, MA: Peter Smith, 1983). The life of a disciple is one of constantly indwelling the story of Christ until one  becomes like Jesus.

[5] See, Acts 2:45; 2:46; 3:1; 3:11; 5:12; 5:42; 6:9; 6:42; 9:20; 9:11; 9:36-4; 10:1-8; 12:12; 13:14-15; 14:1; 17:1; 17:10; 18:4; 18:19; 18:26; 19:8; 20:17.

[6] Id.

[7] History.Com, April 8, 1945:www.history.com/this-day-in-history/defiant-theologian-dietrich-bonhoeffer-is-hanged (Downloaded October 29, 2015). One might see in Bonhoeffer’s resistance to Hitler and refusal to stay in the United States near the beginning of World War II and teach at Union Theological Seminary in New York a resistance to temptation that ended in a kind of sacramental life lived in service to his fellow Germans. For Bonhoeffer, the temptation was to put his safety and career above what God called him to do.