Luke 4:5-8 – Jesus: The True Israel (Part 2)

Introduction

Imagine with me that outside is a Bugatti Chiron Super Sport that could be yours, not to own, but to drive in and enjoy. All you have to do is walk outside and climb in. But instead, someone comes up to you and offers you a Yugo GV matchbox car that you can hold in your hand and have full control and ownership of. I think we would be crazy to take the second option.

Yet, we do this when we serve and worship ourselves, others, or things instead of the true and living God. In fact, not only do we lose the delight that we could have, but we lose our purpose as human beings and become like those things.

Listen to Psalm 115:4 and 8, “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. …Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.”

In Luke 4:5-8 we are going to see a life lived to its fullness, as we see Jesus, as the true Israel, empowered by the Spirit, refusing to exchange the glory and majesty of God for a lie and instead putting God’s purpose for him first.

Background

To catch you up to where we are in Luke if you have missed any sermons, Jesus, the Christ, was born, grew up, and after being anointed by God and declared to be the perfect son of God, he is in the middle of completing one final test, being tempted by Satan, before he begins his ministry. Jesus has already been tempted once in 4:1-4 to provide for himself, but Jesus, as the true Israel, empowered by the Spirit, trusted in God’s provision for him. And now, today’s text, Luke 4:5-8, we have the second temptation. 

Exposition

I mentioned last week that these three temptations correspond to three sins found in Psalm 106, which describes Israel’s sin against God. Last week, we saw that Israel sinned with “wanton craving” or “exceeding desire,” found in vv. 14-16 of this Psalm, but Jesus didn’t. Empowered by the Spirit, Jesus trusted God to provide for him all life’s needs, even when things didn’t look or feel good. This week, we see the second sin of Israel found in Psalm 106:19-23, which is forgetting God and worshipping idols, essentially, not seeing God as the supreme good to submit to, serve, and delight in.

Both Psalm 106 in the OT and Romans 1 in the NT show that this idolatrous exchange is an exchange of the glory and majesty of God, which is theirs to delight in and align with, for images that represent created things. When people do this, they violate their purpose in life and live in opposition to their very purpose, becoming empty and fit for nothing but judgment.

You see, God alone is the fountain and source of all life. He defines who we are, what we should do, and what our purpose is. When we reject God defining us and ordering our lives, as in our illustration, we trade the Bugatti Chiron for a Yugo GV matchbox car that we can control. We violate the very created order and turn our purpose and the reality of the universe upside-down and live a life of trifles.

This exchange is what Satan did before the world was created. Satan didn’t like God as the fountain and source of all and the purpose for being, so he rebelled against God. He exchanged the reality of being a very important angelic being, worshiping and serving God for eternity, for his own rule and control. Satan is the first one who chose the Yugo GV over the Bugatti Chiron. He decided to order his life how he wanted to get what he wanted. 

After creation, as Genesis 1-2 shows us, God made humanity male and female. Our purpose in this world was to live as images of God, enjoying his gifts, multiplying, subduing, and having dominion over the earth under God’s rule. We were to continue to show how very good God’s world was and how amazing he is.

Satan tempted Adam and Eve in the garden to rebel against God’s ordering of the universe by determining right and wrong for themselves. They bought Satan’s desire to throw off God’s rule and be as gods themselves, deciding right and wrong for themselves. They decided to order their life how they wanted to get what they wanted.

Just like Satan and Adam and Eve, in Exodus 32:1-15, Israel forgot God and made a golden calf that God explicitly forbade. God was not moving in the time frame they wanted (Moses was too long on the mountain), so they crafted a god that would go before them and fight for them to give them the land of Canaan. In other words, they forgot that God was the one who promised them the land, and he alone was powerful enough to give them the land. They would worship this false god and seek this god’s power to give them God's promise without submitting to God’s plan and timing. The Israelites were supposed to worship God alone and live for his kingdom, not theirs. Yet they decided to order their life how they wanted to get what they wanted.

And this is the very temptation that Satan, the slander, is trying to put before Jesus. Essentially, he is saying, “Jesus, all you have to do is order your life the way you want, by not putting God first and his plans for you, and you can have whatever you want. I’ll even help you get it as long as you give me what I want, worship.”

Let’s look at this text in three points. First, Jesus, as the true Israel, is tempted to order his life improperly. Second, Jesus, as the true Israel, orders his life properly under God. Third, we, in Christ, can order our lives properly with God as ultimate.

Point 1: Jesus, as the true Israel, is tempted to order his life improperly, which would avoid the cross and destroy our redemption.

Listen to verses 5-7, “And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, ‘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.’”

In verse 5, we see Satan taking Jesus up, probably to a very high mountain, and showing him the kingdoms of the world at a glance (probably looking at all the major cities of the known world).

Then, in verse 6, Satan declares to Jesus that the authority and the glory of all of these earthly kingdoms is his, and he has power over them. Wait a minute!?! How can Satan say this? Why doesn’t Jesus argue with him that he and his Father are the ones who are really in charge of the world?

2 Corinthians 4:3-4 says that “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” And 1 John 5:19 says, “We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” And Ephesians 2:2-3, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

You see, Satan as the god of this world, the one who holds the whole world under its power, and the prince of the power of the air, means that Satan influences the hearts, minds, and views of the majority of people in this world. He influences the world’s philosophies, education, and commerce. False ideas, thoughts, and religions in this world are under his control and have his lies and deceptions as their source.

And so, as he offers Jesus, in verse 7, authority over them and their glory, and that he can give them to Jesus if he wants. All Jesus has to do is worship him. If Jesus does this, the Devil is saying that he will bend the world through his influence and power to give Jesus authority over them and also their glory. In other words, Jesus can get control over the minds and thoughts of people without the cross by simply putting himself under Satan. Jesus, like Satan, could rule a world of slaves for his glory.

Satan is putting himself in the position of God, saying that he is the owner of the world and has a right to give it to whomever he wants, therefore, Jesus should bow down to him. Satan wanted a Satanic kingdom. If Jesus would only worship him, then Satan’s grip would forever be upon the earth; every man, woman, and child would be under his kingdom. There would be no rescue, no salvation, only death. Satan would have his kingdom, and every person would be under his control. Humanity would always be alienated from God, under the same wrath and curse that he was. The only cost for him would be that Jesus would get the authority and glory over it instead of him directly. Yet, because Jesus would be under his authority, he would still ultimately be the ruler.

There is a sense here that the Devil is telling Jesus that the way for him to get the promise of the nations that his Father made to him is to worship (prosxunew) him. The idea of worship here is that Jesus would prostrate himself before Satan and kiss his feet or the hem of his garment. This is the opposite of what Jesus came to do. Jesus would stomp on Satan's head with his heel, though his heel would be bruised. Satan is telling Jesus to express an attitude or gesture of complete dependence on or submission to himself, the slanderer.

In other words, Satan is reversing the actual ordering of life. He tells Jesus that he has the power to give Jesus the world. If Jesus wants the world to submit to him, to kiss the feet of the Son, he will have to kiss the feet of Satan.

Satan is offering Jesus a Yugo GV matchbox car. Jesus can avoid the cross, the will of his Father, and have control over something that isn’t the real thing. The Father promised Jesus the Bugatti Chiron, to sit at his right hand and co-rule with him over a people who willingly serve and worship him, not people who do so because their minds and hearts are blinded, bullied, and darkened.

And so, we see that Satan tempted Jesus, the true Israel, to order his life improperly to avoid the cross and destroy our redemption.

Point 2: Jesus, as the true Israel maintains the true ordering of life by God to submit to embrace God’s plan of the cross and our ultimate redemption.

Look at our last verse, 8. It says, “And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ ””

Jesus sees God as the Lord and the only one worthy of worship and service. So, he cites Deuteronomy 6:13, saying that God alone is the only one worthy of worship. God is the absolute authority for humanity. It is God alone who gets to determine the way life is ordered, what we are supposed to do and be, and what our purpose is.

When Jesus grounds this in Deuteronomy 6, he is grounding it in a rich passage that holds God out as the one and only true God who fulfills his promises, and requires of us a whole-life submission. Having self or any other thing above God will go against God’s jealousy for his people. God is in our midst and will be angered if we order our lives after something else.

And so, Jesus tells Satan that life is to be ordered by worship (prosxuneo) and service (latreuo) to the Lord God. The idea of true and the only valid worship is the prostrating of self before Yahweh Elohim and kissing his feet or the hem of his garment. It is essentially expressing an attitude or gesture of complete dependence on or submission to the Eternal Covenant-Faithful Creator. The idea of service is carrying out our religious duties to our Eternal Covenant-Faithful Creator.

In other words, Jesus says that the second Adam, or true Israel is to completely depend and submit to the Eternal Covenant-Faithful Creator. This One, who is worthy of worship is to direct humanity how to order life. And in the life of a human, they are to fulfill all the religious duties that this eternal, covenant-faithful God has laid out.

Jesus’ purpose was to destroy this kingdom of the Devil and rescue a people who would glorify the Father, Son, and Spirit by worshiping God and God alone. Jesus would destroy the works of the Devil and make a people who would do acts of love and good works out of joy and delight and not out of blindness and deception. Jesus would destroy Satan’s kingdom and build God’s, not for himself alone, but for the glory and honor of the Triune God.

Through Jesus’ submission to God’s will, every tribe, tongue, and nation will one day become a complete people, living with God in his kingdom, perfectly loving, and perfectly obeying, ordering all their lives, all to the praise of God’s glorious grace. All people will one day live as his kingdom people.

You see, Jesus refuses to determine for himself what is right and wrong, but instead aligns himself with God, obeying and worshiping God alone.

He orders his life under God, willingly following God’s plan of the cross, which would ultimately redeem or rescue humanity to be free to willingly live under a loving, gracious Father, instead of under the power hungry slanderer, the devil, who is a liar, thief, and murderer.

And so, we see that Jesus, the true Israel, ordered his life properly by submitting to and embracing God’s plan of the cross and our ultimate redemption.

Point 3: We, in Christ, can order our lives properly with God as ultimate.

In Colossians 3:1-4, Paul says, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” And in Galatians 5:1 says, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

Because Jesus refused to short-circuit God’s plan and purpose for him (and ultimately the world), but rather properly ordered his life to endure the cross for our sake, he has freed us from the bondage of Satan. We are now no longer under the power of Satan, which is why Paul says in Ephesians 2:5-7, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

We have died to being slaves to our flesh and the power of the world. We have been made alive with Christ by the grace of God, because Jesus resisted the Devil and said, “Not my will, but my Father’s be done.” He did not count equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself of his glory, made himself a servant, and submitted to death upon a cross. And now, he has been highly exalted and has been given a name that is above every name, that now, at the name of Jesus every knee will bow in both heaven and earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.

You see, God has done this by his grace by gifting us faith to trust in Jesus’ person and work for our redemption. And when he did this, he regenerated us, making us his workmanship, who are created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared for us beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Because we are in Christ, we can now properly order our lives, walking in the good works that God has prepared for us. We no longer have to take the Yugo GV matchbox car, instead, we can get in the passenger seat of the Bugatti Chiron and enjoy God’s immense gift of love and life to us.

We can listen to his word, obey his commands, and follow the guiding of his Spirit, properly ordering our life according to his will and his desires. We can say, “Your kingdom come and your will be done in my life as it is in heaven.” And we can depend upon him by asking him to give us our daily bread.

Application

What is the application of all this?

We no longer have to live for ourselves. We don’t have to try to determine in our own mind what is right and wrong. We don’t have to live in a way that we worship ourselves by doing things for our little kingdom to come and our little wills to be done. We don’t have to look to the world for our Yugo GV matchbox that we can grasp tightly in our hand, pushing it about wherever we want it to go, controlling everything.

Instead, we can live out the reality that we are not in charge. It is not, as the church I worked with in Parkman, Ohio says, “God’s plan for my life,” but “My life for God’s plan.” It is not, “God’s plan for our church,” but “Our church for God’s plan.” We walk as people who do what God wants us to do, what God tells us to do.

As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”