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Apr 05, 2020

Surviving temptation in a time of virus

Surviving temptation in a time of virus

Passage: Luke 4:1-13

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: House Calls

In all his other encounters Jesus comes to offer a form of healing--except this one. In this encounter with the Adversary, Jesus has but one intention: to avoid infection. His encounter in the wilderness then, so to speak, built his immunity for the day he entered Jerusalem.

4.05.20 GMR Online Service from Graceworks Media on Vimeo.

Order of Worship

CALL TO WORSHIP: Ps 86:8-11
OLD TESTAMENT READING: Deuteronomy 6:10-17a
NEW TESTAMENT READING: Luke 19:29-40
CENTRAL TEXT: Luke 4:1-13
MESSAGE: Surviving Temptation in a Time of Virus
BENEDICTION: Revelation 5:11-13

Children's Lesson

Readings & Scripture

CALL TO WORSHIP: Ps 86:8-11

LEADER: There is none like you among the gods, O Lord,
nor are there any works like yours.
ALL: All the nations you have made shall come
and worship before you, O Lord,
and shall glorify your name.
LEADER: For you are great and do wondrous things;
you alone are God.
ALL: Teach me your way, O LORD,
that I may walk in your truth;
unite my heart to fear your name.

OLD TESTAMENT READING: Deuteronomy 6:10-17a
“And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, 12 then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 13 It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. 14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— 15 for the LORD your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the LORD your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.

“You shall not put the LORD your God to the test. . . .

NEW TESTAMENT READING: Luke 19:29-40

Luke 19:29 When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’” 32 So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them. 33 And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 And they said, “The Lord has need of it.” 35 And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. 37 As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, 38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

CENTRAL TEXT: Luke 4:1-13
Luke 4:1 And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” 4 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” 5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 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. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’”
9 And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ 11 and“‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

BENEDICTION: Revelation 5:11-13
LEADER: 11 Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”
ALL: 13 And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”

ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES:

  • Genesis 3:1-15
  • Exodus 17:1-7; 20:3
  • Deuteronomy 6
  • Psalm 119
  • Luke 4:18
  • Luke 12:4-7
  • Luke 22:31-34; 39-46
  • 1 Timothy 6:9
  • Hebrews 2:14-17; 4:15
  • James 1:12-15

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. What were you most tempted with as a child? Why that? When did you know, or were told, it was something to be avoided? How did you wrestle with it?
  2. Read it once through. What is Jesus being tempted with in each case? Read it two more times. Did your sense of what he faced changed any? How are the temptations he faced unlike those we face? How are they similar or overlapping?
  3. Do this little bible study between two passages (because Luke means for us to do so, and centuries of reflection on this passage have done so): find the comparisons and contrasts between the tragedy in the Garden (Genesis 3) and this story of Jesus’s temptations. If the Garden is in the background of our passage, how does that help us see what Luke intended for us to learn?
  4. What is Jesus’s “approach” to facing each temptation? What might we learn about Him from that? What might we learn about an approach to facing temptation?
  5. If you had to guess what Luke means by the Adversary looking to return at “an opportune time, (v. 13)” what time do you think that refers to? When was Jesus most tempted to abandon the word and will of His father?
  6. What particular temptations do these besetting times lay on you? Why those?
  7. What does Jesus’s familiarity with temptation mean for our encounter with it? What does His prevailing over it mean? (cf. Heb 4:15)

QUOTES:

  • . . .they retained the attitudes of sadness and suffering, but they had ceased to feel their sting. . . .without hope they lived for the moment only. Indeed, the here and now had come to mean everything to them. . . .plague had gradually killed off in all of us the faculty not of love only but even of friendship. . . .since love asks something of the future. . .nothing was left but a series of present moments. - Albert Camus, The Plague
  • This was a time when every one’s private safety lay so near them they had no room to pity the distresses of others. … The danger of immediate death to ourselves, took away all bonds of love, all concern for one another. - Daniel DaFoe (cited in David Brooks’ “Pandemics Kill Compassion, too.”)
  • Already before the church cancellations, many Christians were fasting for Lent and taking on new devotions in preparation for Easter, so what is this if not another opportunity to remember the time when Christ was facing temptation and Satan himself, in the desert, away from his own spiritual home? - Casey Cep, “The Gospel in a time of Social Distancing”
  • It is hardly complimentary to God that we should choose Him as an alternative to Hell: yet even this He accepts. The creatures illusion to self-sufficiency must, for the creature's sake, be shattered; and by trouble or fear of trouble on earth, by crude fear of eternal flames, God shatters it 'unmindful of his glory's diminution'. I call this a Divine Humility because it is a poor thing to strike our colors to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to him as a last resort, to offer up 'our own' when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to him, and come to him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had. - C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
  • The Devil chooses to deceive some people in the following way. He will marvelously inflame their brains with the desire to uphold God’s law and destroy sin in everyone else. He will never tempt them with anything that is manifestly evil. He makes them like anxious prelates watching over the lives of Christian people of all ranks, as an abbot does over his monks. They will rebuke everyone for their faults, just as if they had their souls in their care; and it seems to them that they dare not do otherwise for God’s sake. They tell them of the faults they see, claiming to be impelled to do so by the fire of charity and the love of God in their hearts; but in truth they are lying, for it is by the fire of hell surging in their brains and their imaginations.  - The Cloud of Unknowing (14th century), Chapter 55
  • Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ. If we do, we shall then he sharing a life which was begotten, not made, which always has existed and always will exist. Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life we also shall he sons of God. We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us. He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has—by what I call ‘good infection’ C.S. Lewis, from the chapter in Mere Christianity entitled “Good Infection” (which you can listen to here)
  • The worst thing I can do is believe that God’s grace is not enough for me, that my badness renders me unredeemable. Such a belief really does hurt like Hell. There are a lot of things I would not be able to uphold were they the crux of my salvation—like being a kind, moral, generous, selfless, overall “good person” all the time—but, weak as I am, one thing I can do is accept God’s forgiveness and grace. - Sarah Woodward

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