Play

Matthew 3:13 – 4:11 - Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. ¹⁴ But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" ¹⁵ Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented. ¹⁶ As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. ¹⁷ And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. ² After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. ³ The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." ⁴ Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" ⁵ Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. ⁶ "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: "'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" ⁷ Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" ⁸ Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ⁹ "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me." ¹⁰ Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'" ¹¹ Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

We’re going through a series this summer called “Meeting Jesus”, where I am looking at a different interaction with Jesus every week, in the hopes that we might learn what it means to be in relationship with Jesus. This year, we are also spending the last Sunday of every month focusing on the Scripture memory verse for that month. This month’s focus was on the humanity of Jesus and his help in temptation, and the memory verse is Hebrews 4:15 - For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-- yet was without sin.

Jesus was fully God and fully man. Although he was the eternal Word of God (John 1), the Son of God, he became human, born of a virgin. As a man, he had a human body, growing weary, tired, and hungry. He had a human mind, and human emotions. Remember Philippians 2:5-7:

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: ⁶ Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, ⁷ but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”

Our memory verse teaches us that because Jesus was human, one of the benefits is that He can help us in our weakness and temptation.

We are all faced with temptations of different kinds in this life. Temptation is the desire to do something wrong, something bad for us, something that would lead us away from God. We may be tempted to curse someone out, to sexual temptation, to buying things we don’t need, to alcohol and drugs, to lying, to cheating, to betraying someone, to envying what someone else has. What are the things that tempt you the most?