This is a sermon I gave at CrossPoint EightTen on September 2nd, 2012, regarding the temptation of Jesus account in Luke 4:1-12.
First and foremost: There is so much more going on in this passage than I touch on here that it pains me to post this. I have trust in the Holy Spirit of God to help us glean truth from this, but this sermon is certainly not the final word on the passage. Dive in for yourself, read the passage in the context of the Luke’s entire narrative as well as its immediate surroundings, discuss with people close to you and in your church (hopefully those are some of the same people), and begin to see for yourselves the tremendous implications of this passage.
A couple other things: The beginning of the sermon is brutal; awful delivery of a joke I had no real grasp of in the first place, and later on I steal a bit from Dallas area pastor, Matt Chandler, so bear with me on that. And thank you, Matt.
What I was hoping for with this message is to talk about Jesus as the most human human. Or the one human who is truly human in all the ways that God has desired and designed us to be human. I wanted to show that through his temptation he identifies with all of us, displaying for us and freeing us to be truly human. Whether I accomplished this or not I will let you decide.
Here’s the potential controversy: I call people to personal responsibility. I have at times, in a manner of words, essentially been accused of moralistic deism. That by our own effort we can earn salvation apart from the grace of God. I do not believe this. But I also do not believe in using the devil, or the story of Adam and Eve and concept of “original sin” as a scapegoat from personal responsibility; from being the image bearers of God. Sometimes life beats the crap out of us. Other times we force life’s hand.
September 2, 2012 from CrossPoint EightTen on Vimeo.
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