When it comes to gospel preaching and Christianity in general, we speak a lot about the obedience of Jesus. How he was sinless and how he obeyed the Father at all points. How he was tempted in every way as the writer of Hebrews says, yet without sin. Agreeing that he was truly divine, fully God. But that he was truly human, fully man. That he cried, that he got tired as we see in the text, he got hungry. You name the human pangs of life, Jesus knows it and has felt it, including being tempted. He knows the desires that riddle us day in and day out. The ones that we fear for anyone to know about. Like greed, anger, or lust. Or the ones that we consider respectable like gossip, jealousy, and gluttony. Whether it is the internal push of the flesh or the external reeling towards sin of Satan as we see in this passage, temptation comes for us. When we start to debate whether we want what our friend has and we don't, there's temptation creeping at the door. Or when frustration starts to bubble over and we start considering, biting off the head of a friend, a spouse, or a child. Temptation is at the door. Or when the desire for companionship, beauty, and pleasure start to become a siren song towards lust. Temptation is at the door. Or the pressure of wanting to be seen as knowledgeable, rich, or cool. And we are swayed to succumb to pride or lying. Temptation is at the door. These are just some of the temptations that we all know too well. You name it, Jesus has experienced the temptation. Temptation is different from sin. If you turn to the front of your bulletin, there's a definition that's given there by the Puritan author John Owen. Owen says this, a temptation is then in general, anything that for any reason exerts a force or influence to seduce and draw the mind and heart of man, or when, from the obedience which God requires of him to any kind of sin. It is the precursor to the action of sin. It is the luring force or feeling. Jesus knows that feeling, yet without sin. In this passage this morning, we look at the sinlessness of Jesus in greater detail. Seeing that he obeys when tempted, unlike Adam or Israel. And most pertantly, like us, he obeys when tempted. Giving us hope for those who are tempted, and seeing the necessity of Jesus being God's son who obeys. This morning we see that Jesus is God's son who obeys when tempted. That he succeeds against the schemes of Satan, resist temptation, and obeys in our place. And so this will serve as our outline this morning as we look at the schemes of Satan, the three temptations, and the significance of obedience. So let's look at our first point, the schemes of Satan. As Reformed Christians, we can be people that diminish the work of Satan. Not thinking of him much in his activities in the world. It's a category that we agree that Satan exists, but we don't address it any more than that. We often focus on the fact that God is greater than Satan. Saying truths like, he who is in me is greater than he who is in the world. Even when I counsel and I spend time with people talking about sin, I spend a lot of time as a pastor speaking about the flesh, and not so much about Satan. How the flesh will tempt you to sin. But in this passage we are forced to reckon with the existence and activity of Satan. Seeing the chief demon seeking to derail the mission of the Messiah. And just as he is active in derailing the mission of God in this text in Jesus' life, Satan is active in derailing God's mission in our lives and in the world. Matthew tells us that Jesus was led into the wilderness to fast and to pray, to be with God, but also to be tempted by Satan. Before dealing with the schemes of Satan, we have to answer, is God tempting Jesus? We know from James chapter 1 verse 13 that God tempts no one. God is using this circumstance, as I said earlier, to test Jesus. Just as Adam was tested in the garden and Israel was tested in the wilderness, Jesus is being tested here to qualify him and proving him to be God's son. God is seeking to qualify his son, but Satan however is seeking to disqualify Jesus. By using his age old methods, just like in the garden with the first Adam, Satan says here to the last Adam, seeking to cause doubt. If you are the son of God, then prove it. That's what Satan says in verse 3 and in verse 5. It's just another version or form of, did God really say? We must know that the enemy of God is still active today, trying to still cause doubt among God's people, using his flaming darts to cause confusion and distrust of God's word and character. And so this is the first of Satan's schemes that we see in this passage. It is seeking to cause doubt. But he seeks to cause that doubt by using deception also. We see that he seeks to deceive Jesus, just as he did in the past, using God's word incorrectly. This is deception. This scheme is seen in verse 6. Satan tries to misuse the words of Psalm 91, saying, oh, the angels are going to lift you up, so why don't you just jump off this highest point of the temple? This takes place today, church, the weaponizing of God's word, using it out of context for the sake of Satan's agenda. I can give you a list of where this takes place. But I think you know. Where the obedience towards love is taken out of context, where human identity and identity politics starts to go sideways. These are all ways in which the goodness of God's word is being manipulated and moved. This is the deception taking place in our world. All so that we could be led astray. And if he can't deceive us, he'll try and distract us. So if you're not tracking right now, the schemes that we've seen is doubt, deception. The third one we are on is distraction. Satan, in his last temptation, seeks to present Jesus with all of the world and its glory. This temptation towards distraction is one that I think we feel the most. It tries to take our gaze off of God and his mission and try to bring our focus towards the world. We are inundated with this scheme every day. I don't have my phone on me, but I was going to hold it up and say, buy this thing. It is the casino in our fingertips. It seeks to suck us in so that we never leave. Or more specifically, sucking us in so that we would leave God. Whether by wealth or by pleasure or by community or by power, this list goes on. Satan will try to distract us from God and lead us astray. The sad truth is that I have seen this too many times, both for the young and the old Christian. The honesty is that I experience this even in my own life, all the time. Satan and his minions do not seek to skip over religious leaders. He attacks them all the more. And so we must be watchful for these schemes. The last method of Satan that is not explicitly in this text, but I think one that should be explained, especially as one that experiences it almost every week. The last of Satan's tactics that are common is discouragement. Satan will seek to discourage, to make you feel like garbage, that you do not fit into God's mission, that you have no worth. He hates us and he hates God and he will do anything for us to lose hope. To lose hope in God and to have discouragement and to lose hope in our world, with those who are in the world and our very lives. Cynicism and self-deprecation are his specialty, making us forget that God is God and he seeks to use those who are weak to shame the strong. For those who are fools to shame the wise. That we believe in a God of miracles that can do far more abundantly than we ask or think. Our God is possible of doing the impossible. And Satan will seek to squash that thought and belief in our hearts at all costs. Satan is out to discourage you, distract you, deceive you and cause doubt among you. We must know that our enemy is real. Much of the time we seek to live in ignorance, as if ignorance is bliss and church that is not true. Forgetting that we have a real enemy who seeks to derail God's mission in and through us is something that we must see. We see it in this text with Jesus. We must see that this takes place in our lives. Unlike Adam and Eve and unlike you and I, Jesus didn't give in to Satan's ploys. He doesn't doubt, he isn't deceived, he isn't distracted from his mission, he isn't discouraged, he succeeds against Satan's schemes. And how does he do this? He does this by trusting God's word instead of Satan's lies. By trusting in God's promises instead of Satan's promises. The sad truth is that many of us succumb to Satan's schemes because we do not know our God and his word well enough. The scripture truth that I often take young men to in counseling them is Psalm 119 verses 9-11. How can a young man keep his way pure by guarding it according to your word? With my whole heart I seek you, let me not wander from your commandments. I have stored up your word in my heart that I may not sin against you. Church, we live in a time and a period where biblical illiteracy is at all times high. At all, or at all time highs. And to not fall to the schemes of Satan. My encouragement to you is to know who our God is. Know his word. Trust in his promises that you would not succumb to these schemes. And so we've seen that Jesus succeeds where Adam and Eve don't and where we cannot. Let us now look specifically at Jesus' obedience in the midst of these temptations by looking at our second point, the three temptations. Throughout our time this morning, I have mentioned that Jesus obeyed where Adam did not, but also where Israel did not obey as God's son. In these three temptations, Satan presents here, they mirror the disobedience of Israel in the wilderness. Making clear where Israel failed, Jesus succeeded. Jesus, though he is not in the wilderness for 40 years like Israel, here he is in the wilderness for 40 days. And the first temptation is to recall our minds to the giving of manna. The first temptation is found in verses three to four. We see that Jesus is hungry and is presented with the temptation of self-indulgence or self-gratification to make loaves of bread out of rocks. And in doing so, in making bread out of rocks, he would have proved to Satan that he was God's son. The sin is not making miraculous food. Jesus does that throughout the gospels. The sin in this text, if Jesus would have succumbed to it, is not trusting God's provision of food, not waiting for God's time. And instead, making a way for self-gratification. In Exodus 16, the people of Israel are grumbling against God for food, and God responds by giving them bread from heaven. Though he provides this to them by raining bread from heaven, it is plain in that text that these people, the Israelites, did not trust that God would provide for them. Jesus' response to Satan is quoting Deuteronomy 8, where Moses retells the story of Exodus 16, the people of the people, that they need to trust God to provide, that they are not to live on bread alone, but every word that comes from the mouth of God, meaning that they can trust God to provide for them. The second temptation recalls to us water from the rock in Exodus 17. In the second temptation, we can read this in verses 5-7. Jesus here is presented with the temptation of self-protection. Though this is not exactly what Israel experienced in Exodus 17, Jesus' response of not putting God to the test is to call our minds back to Exodus 17. In Exodus 17, the people are grumbling against God, saying that they have no water, and that God has brought them into the wilderness so that they would die. The people of God forgot God's character. They were testing God for him to act for their good. But Jesus knows his father's character. And in him not jumping from the highest point of the temple, and seeking to force the father to protect him by sending angels, he is proving that he is not putting God to the test. He is trusting the father. The third temptation is to call our minds to the golden calf. The last temptation is found in verses 8-10. We see Satan present Jesus with the temptation of self-exaltation, showing him power and glory, and all that he has to do is commit idolatry. And Jesus does not succumb to this temptation. He quotes Deuteronomy 6.13. That man should worship God and serve him alone. Each of these temptations of self-gratification, self-protection, self-exaltation are the roots of sin. John in 1 John 2 calls these the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life. Within these categories we can place all of our different sin and temptation. We like Israel can fall prey to these temptations at all times. We look to what will satisfy us apart from God. We often look and operate out of a sense of fear of protecting ourselves. And we often look to glory apart from God. Think to yourselves where these temptations for self-indulgence, self-protection, and self-exaltation exist in your lives. Where they maybe even lead you to idolatry, where you think that you can get something that's going to satisfy you, that's going to protect you, or is going to bring you power and fame all apart from Christ. Maybe you're not bowing to Satan in your shower, but you are bowing to your job, to your school, to your marriage, to your friend. These are not bad things, they just can't be the ultimate thing. They might give you a sense of pleasure, they might reveal to you the goodness of God in some respect. But true pleasure, true safety, true glory can only be found in God and God alone. In this we see that Jesus is not like Israel. He is not like us. He is holy. He is God's son who obeys when tempted. The one who trusts and obeys. The question that I haven't answered this morning is why does Jesus need to obey? Why is that significant? Each week at some point I'll talk about the sinlessness of Jesus, but why is that necessary? This leads us to our last point, the significance of obedience. Jesus in this passage shows us that he is obedient, that he doesn't succumb to Satan's luring. Instead he persists in obeying the Father, that he is going to pursue God's mission, that he would pursue until death. But why? In the garden God made a covenant with Adam. We call this the covenant of works. That if Adam obeyed, he would have known eternal life. But we know the story all too well that Adam did not obey. And the consequence of him not keeping God's word obediently was disobedience and death. Jesus as the last Adam comes to obey and fulfill this covenant. We see throughout this narrative that Jesus obeys where others have failed. For this covenant to be fulfilled, there needed to be a man who would perfectly obey all of God's commands. Jesus' active obedience throughout all of his life, as it's highlighted here in the temptation of Satan, shows us how he is the king that fulfills the covenant's requirements for us. Where like Adam and Israel failed and fell short and disobeyed. And where often we fall short and succumb to Satan's siren songs. We see Jesus didn't. We like Adam and Israel need someone to fulfill the law and obey God fully because we naturally cannot. If Jesus did not perfectly obey, his death has no satisfaction of God's requirements. Would we still stuck in our sin? The service has no use or purpose. But we know that he was sinless. We see this in this passage that he fulfilled and satisfied God's law perfectly. It's imaged here that Jesus triumphs over Satan. And so in his death and resurrection, he mediates his grace to us for all who believe in him. Despite our sin and our disobedience towards God, God sought to save his people to fulfill his mission of having a people for himself. Satan here tried to derail that to have the Messiah fall so that the rest of the world would have no hope. But Satan didn't win. The Christian hope is one that doesn't put dependence on us. It is solely on Christ alone. Apart from Christ, we have no hope. And this teaches us, this text teaches us. It's not by trying harder or even knowing the Bible better that we are to have salvation. It is by seeing our Savior. Those things are good. I do not discredit what I said earlier that you should know your Bible better. But our only hope for those who are tempted is to look to the one who did not fall to temptation. The one who triumphed over temptation, the one who triumphed over sin and Satan. It is by believing in him that we too would triumph. If you want to know obedience, if you want to know triumph, look to Christ, the one who obeyed so that we too can obey. Let us pray.