Identity Matters
Preached by Jason Abbott
October 30, 2016
We live in a time when matters of personal identity are considered supreme, where the ability to choose your own identity is considered an inalienable right. Most prominently we see this in matters surrounding questions of sex and gender; however, it’s even bled into matters surrounding the fluidity of our racial identity1 or even the fluidity of our health identity.2My purpose for bringing this up is not to engage in a biblical discussion concerning matters of identity, though such a discussion could certainly be fruitful. Rather, I bring them up in order that we might note what’s driving all these matters of identity—all these trans-identity issues. I want us to notice who is being served in each of these cases. When Bruce became Caitlyn, it was for the service of self—the individual desire was the highest good. When a white woman from Montana began to identify as a black woman from Washington, it was for the service of self. In every case, one’s identity is changed to serve one’s personal desires.What, however, does any of this have to do with these temptations of Jesus as they’re recorded for us in Luke? What in the world does changing one’s identity in order to serve one’s desires have to do with this passage? Well, a lot actually because we’re about to see that the eternal Son of God identified as what he wasn’t in order to serve others—not to serve himself.Let’s read the passage then pray for God to be our teacher.
Luke 4:1-13
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.
Leading up to this text, Luke has wanted us to notice that Jesus identifies with us—with humankind. So last week Benjamin pointed out that Jesus’ baptism wasn’t a baptism of repentance, since he didn’t have any sins for which to repent. Rather, it was a baptism of identification with the sinful people he’d come to save. In his baptism, Jesus was saying, “I identify with you; I’m human like you.”Then following his baptism, Luke gives us Jesus’ genealogy. This genealogy (without a doubt) is intended to mainly stress Jesus’ humanity and not his divinity. As one scholar notes, “. . . the genealogy . . . shows him [Jesus] to be a real man . . . That it goes back to Adam brings out his kinship…with the whole human race.”3 Thus, in the lead up to today’s passage, Luke has stressed that Jesus has identified with us. He’s become a real human being.This point is important as we engage with today’s passage. Because here, Jesus’ identity is being tested; his humanity is being tempted. Three times we see it in these verses. Yet the eternal Son of God, as he identifies with you and me, defeats the Tempter to serve his Father and to serve us. He says, (1st) I trust God with my pleasure; (2nd) with my power; and (3rd) with my purpose.
1. I trust God with my pleasure (vv. 3-4).
The Tempter comes at Jesus after forty days of fasting. So Jesus is hungry. This seems like low-hanging fruit to the devil. “Let’s hit him where it hurts most!” he thinks. Look at how he approaches Jesus:
If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread (v. 3).
There’s something so very provocative in the devil’s challenge of Jesus here. What he asks him to prove, in a way, is that he’s truly divine, that he’s truly God. Yet we’ve just established how Luke’s been emphasizing that Jesus is identifying with us, with humanity, in this passage.So, what the Tempter’s trying to do here is play the God-man’s divine nature against his human nature. He’s, in effect, saying, “Human limitations and rules don’t apply to you. If you’re hungry and your God then eat! Feed your pleasures!” But, Jesus is identifying with us in order to glorify God the Father and to save us. Keeping this in mind, look at how he responds:
It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone.” (v. 4).
I love that Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8 here. When I imagine this exchange, I hear Jesus place his full emphasis on “Man” as he’s responding to the Tempter—“Man shall not live by bread alone . . .” In short, Jesus stresses his identity with us when he answers the devil.Also, what Jesus doesn’t say is important. The full Deuteronomy quote is—“Man shall not live by bread alone, but . . . by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:4). Matthew records that Jesus quotes the whole verse, but Luke abbreviates it. Nevertheless, the Tempter knows what comes next, and he hates it!Friends, in this encounter, Jesus is saying there’s something more important than human pleasure. He’s saying there’s something more imperative than eating when you’re hungry. In short, Jesus shows us that unless we first seek our pleasure in God and his ways, then we’ll never find true pleasure, true satisfaction in life. He says, in essence, “I trust God with my pleasure. I trust his ways to satisfy me.” This is profound faith demonstrated. And, when Jesus lives it out in this passage, he’s not only doing it to save us—to live the life we failed to live—but to show us. Jesus is our example here. Remember that he has identified with us.If he’s a real man, if he has truly identified with us then we can’t just dismiss what he’s doing here as beyond us. In other words, if Jesus is actually our example, and the Bible tells us that he is (cf. John 13:15; 1 John 2:6), then we too can say no to the temptation of sinful pleasures by the power of the Holy Spirit.I heard John Piper once say that his mother gave him a Bible and had written in it: “This book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book.”4 Praise God for godly mothers! She was so right, because God’s word is the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17).Friends, Jesus is full of the Spirit and led by the Spirit here, but so are you—if you’re a follower of Jesus. And you’ve got ready access to spiritual ammunition in Scripture, so start making war on the sinful pleasures by which you’re tempted. You are not helpless in Christ!
Full of the Spirit and wielding the Word, make war on sexual temptation. War means—if you can’t be alone with someone, who isn’t your spouse, without temptation then don’t. If you can’t be alone with a television set or a computer without being tempted then don’t.
And now . . . listen to me . . . / Let not your heart turn aside to…[sexual temptation’s] ways; / do not stray into her paths, / for many a victim has she laid low, / and all her slain are a mighty throng (Proverbs 7:24-26).
Led by the Holy Spirit and with biblical ammunition, make war on greed. This means that if you’re feeling low then don’t run down to the outlets for some new fix. If your friend gets a new car or takes a great vacation then don’t begin plotting how you’re going to keep up or get ahead.
You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's (Exodus 20:17).
Friends, if you are going to follow Jesus Christ, then you will be taking part in spiritual warfare; you’re going to be a soldier. So arm yourself with the Word and be led by the Spirit. You’ll be a miserable, impotent soldier if you don’t!Well, we won’t spend quite as much time looking at the next two points because much of what’s already been said applies to them also. Jesus is identifying with us and is still following the Holy Spirit through the next couple of temptations in this text (as well as throughout the remainder of his earthly life). Consequently, when we see Jesus stand faithfully in the midst of the next two temptations here—he’s doing so through the leading of the Spirit and through the power of the Word. So let’s focus more on applying his example to the ways we live in the remainder of our time. What can we learn when Jesus says . . . ?
2. I trust God with my power (vv. 5-8).
The Tempter comes at Jesus a second time:
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” (vv. 5-7).
Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bonds obliterated homerun records during the 1990s. For anyone who had watched baseball in the previous decades, the numbers of homeruns they were hitting and the distances the balls were flying were simply unbelievable! It was like a magic switch had been flipped over night in order to create 3 homerun gods.And, in a sense, it had. They had all flipped or switched from natural ability to performance-enhancing-drug ability. They decided to take a shortcut to power and fame and glory. And this is a lot like what the devil is tempting Jesus to do when he offers him power and fame and glory here. Yet, Jesus quickly responds:
You shall worship the Lord your God, / and him only shall you serve (v. 8).
Friends, we are often tempted to take shortcuts to power in our workplaces and in our social circles. Maybe we’re tempted to take credit for someone’s ideas. Or maybe we’re tempted to build ourselves up at the expense of another’s failures. Or perhaps we’re okay with lying if it makes us look good with the company CEO or even with our friends at church.The example of Jesus here says, “No!” to such temptations. Make war against the temptation to acquire power sinfully!Finally, what can we learn when Jesus says . . . ?
3. I trust God with my purpose (vv. 9-12).
The devil comes at Jesus one more time in this text. Look at what he says:
. . . he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said . . . “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here . . .” (v. 9).
Then the Tempter assures Jesus, by misquoting some Scripture of his own, that God will certainly rescue him. So just jump right off the pinnacle of the temple and make God demonstrate how much he loves you!Once when my wife was about three-years-old, her mom’s best friend came for a visit. While the two women were talking and were catching up, Natalie came into the room, looked at her mother, and asked for a drink saying something like, “Mommy, please give me a drink. Pretty, pretty please.” And her mom said, “No.” But she persisted, “Please, mommy! Pretty, pretty please!” When her mom gave in and went into the kitchen to get her a drink, Natalie turned to her mother’s friend, with a devious smile, and said, “It works every time!”Friends, Jesus has come and identified with us to serve the purposes of God. Consequently, when the devil tells him to throw himself off of the temple’s ledge, he’s tempting Jesus to put aside the Father’s purposes in order to make the Father take up his purposes. Who’s going to determine what’s right and what’s wrong? Who’s going to call the shots? See, the Tempter’s trying to make Jesus stumble upon these questions.As with Adam and Eve, the devil’s really asking Jesus, “Are God’s purposes for you really good? Can you trust him to call the shots?”If you’re like me, then you often find yourself in situations where it’s easy for you to doubt God’s purposes. It can be easy to try and make God serve you rather than to trust the Father’s good and loving plans for you.
When your marriage is hard—is it really best to stay married?
When someone hurts you—is it really best to work toward forgiveness?
When you’re ridiculed for your faith—is it really best to keep sharing it?
When life doesn’t go as you think it should—are God’s ways really best?
But when you’re ready to put God to the test at times like these in your life, when you’re tempted to doubt that the Father’s plans for you are good and loving, please pause and reflect upon this passage in Luke’s gospel for just a moment. Consider what God has revealed about his loving plans for you in Christ.
He put aside divine pleasures so that you might taste them.
He emptied himself of his power so that he might serve you.
He submitted to his Father’s purposes so that he might save you.
He identified with you—he became poor—so that you might identify with him—so that you might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). Amen.
1 See this article about Rachel Dolezal.
2 See this article on those who consider themselves “transabled”—disabled when there is no diagnosable disability.
3 Leon Morris, Luke, 101.
4 See this sermon, How to Kill Sin, Part 1, by John Piper.
