Temptations appear in seasons. How does Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness help us better understand how we prepare for those seasons?
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
The preacher uses the image of a fire that seems to be going strong, so you stop tending it—and it dies out. When have you experienced this pattern in your own spiritual life? What was happening when you let your guard down?
Luke 4:13 says the devil departed from Jesus “until an opportune time.” What circumstances tend to create an opportune time for temptation in your life—seasons of success, seasons of weariness, seasons of confidence in your own strength?
Peter confidently told Jesus he would never fail him—then denied him hours later. How does his story challenge the idea that our own strength or confidence is a reliable defense against temptation?
Jesus faced temptation not just in the wilderness but throughout his entire ministry, right up to the cross. What does it mean for your faith that temptation isn’t something you “graduate” out of, but something that recurs in different forms throughout life?
Instead of trying to strengthen ourselves against temptation, the sermon points us toward depending on God through His Word, prayer, and Spirit. How does that reframe what it means to be “prepared” for temptation?
Jesus told Peter, “When you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” How might God use your own experience of failure, restoration, or resisting temptation to encourage someone else in their struggle?
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
Well, good evening and welcome to Steadfast. I’m so glad to be with you tonight as we wrap up our series The Temptations. As we think about this closing message about the temptations that Jesus faced in the wilderness, we’re going to be looking at what it means to have gotten through a season of temptation and how we prepare for temptation when it comes again. So as we do that, let’s go ahead and come before our God in prayer and ask for His guidance.
Let’s pray. Father, thank you for your goodness and your love. Thank you for being with us as we do face temptation, for rescuing us from those seasons of temptation, and for preparing us and strengthening us that we can face the ones to come through the power of your Spirit and through your grace. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen. Let’s go ahead and turn to Luke chapter 4. We’re jumping over; we’ve been in Matthew, and we’re going to jump over to Luke’s account of the temptations tonight because he gives us a detail, a little extra information as the temptation period of Jesus’s early ministry wraps up. Luke writes, “And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.”
When we think about the temptation of Jesus, we can come to the end of it and think, “Ah, Jesus has defeated the devil, it’s over.” But Luke, as he wrote his gospel, wanted us to be thinking in terms of the fact that Jesus’s ministry was going to be rife with temptation, that Jesus was really experiencing a life like we do. And here’s the simple truth that I think we all know: we’re going to face temptation throughout life. There’s not going to be just one season where there’s temptation and we get through that and everything is great and easy. Sometimes I think we forget that. We face a season that feels like a trial, it feels like a temptation, and we get through it and we think, “I made it, everything’s good,” and that’s just setting us up for failure in the future. It wasn’t over for Jesus at this point in his life, just as it isn’t over for us at any point in our life. It’s not past.
Maybe a temptation has passed. This period of temptation for Jesus had come to an end. But temptation in general is a part of the experience in this fallen world. And key to that is what it says here, that Satan waits for the opportune time, that he’s watching for those moments. Yes, we come out of a time where we’re depending on God and we’re strong against temptation, and Satan may back off. But then he’s waiting for us to start resting on our own laurels again, to start thinking that, “Wow, that time in the past when I was facing temptation, wasn’t I great at handling it?” And then he comes swooping in and catches us.
As I was thinking about temptation this week, I was outside and I could smell someone’s fire burning, and that’s one of the best things I think about the beginning of autumn—when you walk outside and you smell that wonderful wood-burning fireplace smell. It’s so much fun if you have a wood-burning fireplace, or you go someplace that has one, and you put the logs in, and you get that fire roaring, and you hear the crackling, and you can be a little closer to it if it’s really cold, back away a little if it gets a little hot. But you can just enjoy the ambiance of it and the satisfying feeling of getting a fire going.
But if you’re like me, it doesn’t always just go. Actually, most of the time it doesn’t just go. I put the logs in, I put some paper in, maybe some kindling, and I think everything looks perfect. This is the most beautiful fire ever. Maybe you have one of those little fire starter cubes you can get, and you put that in there, and you light it, and it goes roaring, and it looks so great. And then the fire starter cube burns up, and it just dies out. And you put another fire starter cube in, you position the logs a little better, you find a really nice dry log, and it just roars again, and maybe this time it’s really genuinely going.
I think that can be almost the most dangerous point in a successful fire-building experience. Because it’s in that moment that the temptation is, “I’m going to grab a nice book, and I’m going to sit here, I’m going to read it, I’m not going to mess with this thing, it is going.” And you start to read, or you go eat dinner, or you’re doing something else, you’re not paying complete attention to the fire, you’re just enjoying it, and the next thing you know, there aren’t any flames. There’s just this little crackling, and you almost have to start over.
Temptation is sort of like that. There are times where we’re very aware that we need to be tending to the fire of our lives, the fire of our faithfulness, that we’re taking care of these things, we’re focusing on God, we’re doing everything we’re supposed to be doing. But then it seems to be rolling along, and it’s not in those times, I think, that we’re most at risk—where we know that the fire starter is sort of at that crucial moment and we’re stoking the flames and we’re trying to get everything positioned. The dangerous moment is when we think everything’s just burning like crazy and it’s just going great. We start to not pay attention. We start to let our guard down. We start to, instead of paying attention to God’s Word that’s stoking that fire in us, we get busy with other things because we think everything is okay.
And that’s not realistic going into life, because those temptations are going to come time and again. We see that in Jesus’s ministry. At the end of it, at the Last Supper, Jesus actually refers back to the whole span of temptations and trials in his ministry. Luke writes in chapter 22, Jesus says to the disciples, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”
Jesus didn’t just have trials in this beginning part of life or of his ministry. He experienced trials again and again, temptations again and again, opportunities to flee the pain and the agony of what he was going to face for us. I can’t even begin to imagine. I know in my own life I want to avoid pain, and there’s the temptation when something’s going to be difficult or challenging to want to flee it. But how much more for Jesus, who was going to go to the cross for us?
Peter, for example, again and again was used unwittingly, perhaps even in ways that would cause Jesus potentially to feel that temptation. And yet what are we told? Jesus faced temptation and yet was without sin. Temptation comes sneaking in, like my cat has come sneaking in here. Let’s see, he doesn’t want to come on camera, but he comes sneaking in, and he goes through, and then all of a sudden things are falling over. And that’s what temptation does to us. Everything seems to be going smoothly, and then it’s not.
For example, in one of the high points of the Gospels, Jesus asks the disciples, “Do you know who I am?” And Peter makes this incredible pronouncement, “You are the Son of the Living God.” He recognizes that he’s the Messiah, that he is the Christ, that he is God incarnate. Peter makes this incredible profession, but then what does he do next? He tries to talk Jesus out of going to the cross, and Jesus has to say these words, “Get behind me, Satan.” Not because he suddenly hated Peter, not because he didn’t care about Peter, but rather he recognizes that Satan was speaking through Peter here. Satan is using Peter’s devotion for his friend and teacher Jesus, his Savior ultimately, to cause Peter to give Jesus that temptation again to run away from the pain that he was about to face.
Or think about Judas again at the Last Supper. Jesus recognizes that Satan is entering into Judas, and what would be the temptation? To somehow short-circuit what was about to come. The road to the cross. He could say, “Hey guys, that man there is going to betray me. Will you stop him? Go tie him up. Go do something worse with him.” Again, in our human mind, not what Jesus would do. Or even, “Let’s tell Judas we’re going one place and then we’ll go someplace else so Judas cannot betray me.” These were the sorts of temptations Jesus would have faced because he knew very clearly where he was going.
Perhaps most so we find while he’s on the cross. Take a look at Matthew chapter 27. The people were mocking Jesus and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!” Can you imagine in that moment, Jesus hears those words? He heard those words from Satan at the beginning of his ministry: “If you really are the Son of God, if you are the Son of God, turn those rocks into bread. If you are the Son of God, show God’s care for you by jumping off this ledge at the temple.” And here, again, I believe Satan speaking through someone, Jesus hears those words, “If you are really the Son of God, save yourself! Get off that cross. Don’t go through with this. You don’t need to if what you’ve been saying is true.” Talk about a temptation on multiple levels. One, to end the pain, to end the suffering and the agony that he was going through for us. And also, the temptation to ego, to want to say, “You doubt that I’m the Son of God? Here, I’ll prove it to you.” But that’s not what Jesus does. He resists temptation because he constantly looks to his Father, and he constantly stays on the mission that his Father sent him to do.
These things that we’ve been talking about the last few weeks, we’re going to face those things in our lives too. And I think sometimes we come up with a very unrealistic picture of the Christian life. We think it’s going to be easy and smooth. We hear people say that even, “If you just have enough faith, everything’s going to be easy. Everything’s going to be successful. Everything’s going to be pleasant.” And then it isn’t, and we’re facing temptation. And we go year after year in the Christian life, and we think, “Well, shouldn’t it be getting easier now? Shouldn’t I be able to resist temptation better now? Why am I still feeling so weak?”
What we need to know is that Jesus never fell to temptation. He went through life without sin. He still faced temptation throughout his life. There wasn’t just a momentary conquest over temptation and sin. No, he did it actively every single day as he followed the Father. Peter in 1 Peter writes this about the Christian life: “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”
Likewise, Jesus says to his disciples and to us in John 16, “I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace; in the world you will have tribulation. But take heart, I have overcome the world.” When he told his disciples that he’d overcome the world, he was referring to the very thing he was about to do. He was going to go to the cross. The work was already done. It was already set. He was not going to back down. He had overcome every power that opposes God.
How did he do it? He looked to his Father. That’s what we need to do. We need to look to our Heavenly Father. We need not only to face the fact that temptation is going to come every day, we need to face God every day. And as we do, we’re reminded that he is with us. We see that in the story of Jesus’ temptation. What do we find right after that period? The angels come down and minister to him. Why? Because God the Father loves the Son, but God loves us too, and he does the same thing for us.
We actually see in Mark a little bit fuller picture of the Father’s care for the Son as well. In Mark we learn that the angels were ministering to Jesus all the way through the temptations, not in an active sense where they’re taking away the pain of being out in the wilderness or the agony of being hungry or any of that stuff, but they were with him. God’s presence, the Father’s presence, was with the Son. And we might say, well, but we’re talking about God the Father and God the Son. We’re talking about God. But why does that happen? That’s because God is with us too in the same way. He’s with us when we’re in our wilderness periods. And he has plans for us even when we forget that.
Let’s turn back to Luke chapter 22. Jesus is reflecting as he’s talking at the Last Supper, reflecting on what’s to come because he’s God. He already knows what’s to come. He says that this is going to be true of Peter. He says, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”
There again we see Satan actively going after Jesus. Different battle, but still part of the same war. And in that, Jesus knows that Satan is going to take hold of Peter himself, one of the inner circle, one of his most trusted disciples. And of course Peter is going to deny Jesus. But when we turn to the Father and we look to Him, we know that even when we fall away, even when like Peter we are unfaithful, what do we know? That our great High Priest, that Jesus himself, is interceding for us. That when we turn again, when the Spirit turns us around, and again we’re proclaiming who Jesus is, that he’s going to have a job for us to encourage those around us. He calls Peter to that, but we’re all called to do that.
What did Peter need to do? He needed to be prepared, even in this moment, even as he was about to fail, to be prepared for what came afterwards. Being prepared is so important. That’s why we go to God’s Word every single day, why we come to it, and we allow the Spirit to prepare us through it.
I couldn’t help but, as I was going through preparing for this, find my mind thinking of my grandpa who died nineteen years ago today. And one of the things that made—besides the anniversary date—that made me keep thinking about him today is how he was always prepared for everything. I wish I had a picture of him with his little amazing, mysterious lunchbox. Because we could go on a trip, and whatever you start to panic and realize you’d forgotten, whatever you needed in some unexpected moment, he’d open his little lunchbox, and he always had the right thing with him. It didn’t matter if he had tape or a clip or a tool or whatever it could possibly be, whatever you could imagine, always seemed like he was prepared and had that thing for me at just the right time.
Why did he do that? He did that because he loved me, he loved the rest of my family, and he was constantly preparing so that he could help us. That when we felt, when we had a moment that we needed help, he was ready to spring into action and to help us. How much more is our Heavenly Father preparing for us?
When we look at Jesus’ temptation all the way through to the crucifixion, what do we see? We see God preparing for us. When we read His Word, we see God preparing for us. What’s our lunchbox in life? It’s God’s Word and His Spirit who is with us. We may not see a physical lunchbox there filled with wonderful things to help us in a crisis, but what we do know is that God is with us.
You see, the key to temptation and to facing it, and once we go through a season of temptation, to being ready for the next season of temptation, isn’t to keep bolstering ourselves and thinking, “Wow, I am so strong now, I can face temptation,” because then we’re going to be in for a really bad surprise. It’s not about strengthening ourselves in that way, it’s about recognizing the one who is strong enough to face that temptation for us.
When I’d run into a situation on a trip and my grandpa would pull open that lunchbox, it wasn’t about me being prepared enough; it was about him being prepared enough. I could have never dreamt about bringing some of the things he’d have there for me. And God does that for you and everything you face in life. God does that for me.
But here’s the question for us to consider tonight: Where am I missing depending on the one who prepares me for the storms? Because we know those storms of temptation are going to come and hit us, and yet we look away, and yet we feel strong, just like Peter felt strong in that moment. He said, “Lord, I’m never going to fail you. I’m going to go to the death for you.” Hours later, he was denying Jesus to save his own life.
And we go through those experiences, those moments where we feel like we’re so strong against sin, and then we fall to the very sin we feel strong against. Or we start, just as we’ve talked about in the past few weeks, those times that we rationalize away, and we go from being really strong to thinking, “I can get away with a little and a little more and a little more,” and suddenly we’re falling to temptation. Or we’ve been resisting for so long and we’ve been doing so well, so to speak, and then Satan comes roaring in and says, “You think you’re so strong? Let me teach you a lesson.”
Even when we resist temptation successfully, temptation’s around the corner. Satan’s waiting in that moment for that opportune time so they can sweep in. But here’s the truth that we find throughout the Gospels and throughout the Bible: Satan is powerful. We should never miss how powerful he and his forces are, but he’s not the co-equal of God.
You see, when Satan was tempting Jesus, he was attacking his human nature as much as he could, and he failed. But what he underestimated is that God Himself is not to be tripped. God Himself is not going to somehow forget to prepare. God will defeat Satan. He has defeated Satan ultimately already, and in life as we continue to face those challenges, God will continue to defeat him. Satan may not understand that. He may not believe that, but he loses to God every time.
That’s what we need to know. We shouldn’t just be laissez-faire and think that temptation isn’t going to strike us hard and knock us down, but we shouldn’t also then buy into some kind of fear that somehow Satan is going to outsmart God in our lives. What do we do? We turn to the one who has that lunchbox. We turn to that one who is constantly stoking the fires of faith in us and not letting them burn out. We turn to His Word. We turn to Him in prayer, and when we do, what do we find? That just as the Son went through those temptations and understands what we’re going through now and yet did not fall, that God will continually strengthen us more and more as He moves us to the day when someday in His presence we are perfect and we no longer face temptation.
That’s the truth that we find in this passage. God defeats all temptation—the temptations you and I face—and so whatever it is that we’re diverting or thinking that somehow our eyes to something else or we’re thinking we need to be strong in our own right today, let’s place that before our God. What place am I failing to do that right now? Because He is the ultimate lunchbox, the one that always has just what we need, the one who offers us the protection and the restoration that we always need.
Let’s come before Him now in prayer. Father, thank you for your goodness and your love that you sent your Son to prepare the way for us. Our hearts are so often troubled, troubled by our own failures, troubled by the things we’re resisting, troubled by a world that often feels in chaos, and yet we know that you tell us again not to let our hearts be troubled because you are with us. You’ve conquered Satan and sin and death. Lord, tonight whether for the first time or the thousandth time, would you remind us of that and turn us towards you because only when we’re looking towards you that we are strong. Would you give us the strength to resist the temptations that we have in our lives? And just as Peter was called to encourage others when he turned back from temptation, would you use us to encourage others in their struggles? And we might speak of the only one who gives us strength. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
I hope this series has been an encouragement to you. It’s certainly been a blessing to share it with you. And if you have any comments or questions about temptation or anything else, I’d love to hear from you. Leave it in the comments or shoot me an email. It would be great to hear from you and I’d love to pray with you about that.
Now, we’re in a very chaotic time. There are many things that are tempting for us to fall into because we’re in the middle of a season where we are constantly bombarded by people telling us that the world is falling apart unless the election goes a certain way. So we’re going to begin a brand new series and in it we’re going to be thinking about how our hearts constantly seek after other nations. And by other nations we can think of anything else in the world—other literal nations, other people.
And if you think about campaign promises and what we are bombarded with by the news and by people on social media and in our daily lives at work and possibly at home, what do we hear? “Well, if this doesn’t work out this way, everything’s going to fall apart. We need this policy or we need this person so everything will hold together and everything will be okay and that we’ll have a country like all other nations, that it’s going just the way that we think we want it.”
We’re going to turn to the first king of Israel, King Saul, and look at his story. Because you see, Israel wanted a king like any other nation. They missed the ultimate king, the king who ultimately loves them and is faithful to them. And we do the same thing again and again and again. We’re going to think about what the true king does for us and what all those kings, all those promises we hear about in the world, beckon us to that fall short.
I think it’s a really important thing for us to do in this next month. We have a month out before the election and we’re going to be bombarded a lot. So let’s turn to God’s Word starting next week and be encouraged by the true king that we wouldn’t fall to just seeking after what other nations or other people have. We turn to our God. I hope you’ll join me for that. I hope you’ll share it with other people through social media and beyond. Lots of people need that encouragement right now.
Once again, if there’s any way I can pray for you this week, feel free to leave it in the comments or shoot me an email. Thank you again for joining me tonight. I look forward to seeing you again next week.
Oh, and one more thing. Let me mention one more thing before we go. Don’t forget Faithtoberfest, like I almost did. Faithtoberfest is coming up on October 16th. It’s going to be an amazing time. It’s going to be a joyful celebration of our God’s faithfulness. I hope to see you there October 16th at 7 p.m. More details will be on the Little Hills website and Facebook page. It’s going to be great. Don’t miss it.
I hope you have a wonderful and blessed week. I can’t wait to see you for a brand new series next week. Thank you again for joining me.