Once upon a time there was a shepherd boy, a young man who liked to wear nice, colourful clothes.  Now this young man, who thought rather highly of himself, was loved by his father, but hated by his brothers.  So one day at the hands of his brothers, he met with a terrible fate- he was sold into slavery.  For a time things looked grim, but then his fortune changed.  He grew up, and with his handsome features and well built frame he was soon noticed by other women.  One day a married woman noticed him, and she tried to seduce him.  “Come to bed with me”, she said.  She even repeated her request, “come to bed with me”.  But her amorous advances were rejected.  The temptation to commit adultery had passed.  The young man, refusing to sin against God, didn’t succumb to the temptation.  His name was Joseph.  You know the story of Joseph well.  You know that all of us, like Joseph, face temptations.  We may not face the temptation to commit adultery, but we do fact other temptations and on a daily basis. In the midst of our temptations, the Gospel reading for today, “The Temptation of Jesus”, calls us to stand firm against the chief tempter- the devil. 

Now standing firm is not something we find easy.  You know the reality of your own life.  You and I know, all to well, that time and time again we yield to all sorts of temptations.  We commit one sin after another.  And like Paul complained about in his letter to the Christians in Rome, even when we don’t want to sin, we find ourselves sinning.  It seems we just can’t help ourselves (Romans 7:15).  Ever since the tragedy of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and that forbidden fruit, you and I can’t help but want to rebel against God.  Time after time we find our sinful nature yielding to all sorts of temptations-to whatever the devil, and the world can throw at us.  Often we know and feel the despair that brings.

And even here today, we’re not safe.  Have you ever stopped to consider that right here, in this very church, St Paul’s, the heart of where our Christian faith is expressed, that temptations can also come to us?  Someone once said that, “Wherever you build a church, the devil builds a chapel nearby”.  Yes the church, and it seems especially in our time, is also the focus for the devil’s attack.  Here the stakes are at there highest, because there are Christians on the menu.  And the devil, as the Apostle Peter reminds us is prowling around, like “a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

It would be naïve of us to think that just because we’re Christians, who come regularly to church, that we have some kind of impenetrable, protective barrier between temptation and us.  The writer C.S Lewis new this well.  Over fifty years ago he wrote a little book entitled The Screwtape Letters.  This book provides some really good insights into how the devil works in the life of a Christian.  The devil, played by a character called Screwtape writes to his nephew called Wormwood.  Screwtape is instructing his young apprentice devil on how to tempt a Christian by appealing to his virtues.  He says to Wormwood, “Catch him at a moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, ‘By Jove! I’m humble”, and almost immediately pride- pride at his own humility will appear”.  Is pride a problem amongst Christians?  Is it a problem for you people here today?  Do you ever regard yourselves as better, and more loved in God’s eyes, than those people who aren’t Christians and who don’t worship? 

The truth is that temptations can come to us at any time and anywhere: in our church life, our jobs, when we’re with our family or with our friends.  Temptations will come, that’s for sure.  And without Jesus in our life, there’s no chance of overcoming them.  So let’s turn to Jesus on this first Sunday in Lent, and learn from him.

The temptation of Jesus in today’s Gospel reading comes immediately after Jesus’ baptism and before his ministry.  Here we see Jesus embarking on a rescue mission.  Here Jesus sets out to rescue each one of us from the power of sin, death and the devil.

After Jesus had fasted for forty days and forty nights, in a barren, inhospitable desert, the devil appears.  The temptation of Jesus begins.  In the first temptation, the devil instructs Jesus to turn stones into bread.  “If you are the Son of God” (4:3), “turn these stones into bread”, says the devil.  We know about this temptation, don’t we?  Isn’t it true that we live our lives as though our security and comfort and peace depended on the things of this world rather than our trust in God who promises to provide everything we need?  Jesus experienced this temptation just as we do.  And how did he respond? Jesus responded with words from Scripture.  “One does not live on bread alone” (4:4)- Deuteronomy 8:3.  In the second temptation, the devil leads Jesus to a high place and offers him authority over all the kingdoms of the world, if only Jesus is prepared to bow down and worship him.  Not the irony of this temptation.  “All the kingdoms of the world” (4:5) are not the devils to give away.  How often aren’t we tempted in this sense?  Luther reminds us that, “Anything you trust in and set your heart on is really your god”.  We make gods of lots of things in this world, and so fail to worship and serve God only.  So how does Jesus respond to this temptation?  For the second time, Jesus again responds with words from Scripture.  “Worship the Lord your God and serve him only” (4:8)- Deuteronomy 6:13.  In the third and final temptation, the devil instructs Jesus to jump from the highest point of the temple, and in trying to make the temptation more attractive, he even quotes Scripture.  The devil tries to get Jesus to test God.  And we too experience this temptation.  I can be tempted to call on God to fulfil my own desires, even if they are selfish.  And how easy it is to use scripture to justify one’s position or to prove a point! Jesus once again responds to this temptation with words from Scripture.  “Do not put the Lord your God to the test” (4:12)- Deuteronomy 6:16.  There’s a common thread here, isn’t there?  Jesus knows his Bible!

In all three of the temptations that Jesus faces there’s a common theme to his responses.  “It is written” or “It says”, declares Jesus.  With the Word of God, Jesus silences the devil.  The message is clear.  If you are to fight your temptations, you must listen to the Word of God.  His Word is a powerful weapon against the devil.  It’s powerful because it’s the truth, and the devil, “the father of all lies”, as he’s referred to in John’s Gospel, cannot handle the truth (John 8:44).

The account of Jesus’ temptation in the Gospels is one of the well-known stories in the bible, but what does it have to say to you and me today?  On hearing this story about Jesus, and in the midst of our temptations, it would be inviting for us to perhaps say, “Well yes, but…Jesus is the Son of God, he should be able to overcome temptations.  I haven’t got his power.  I can never, on my own stand firm against the devil”.  If you think this way, you’re right, you can’t.  It is only in Jesus that each one of us has someone who can stand firm against the devil for us.

The writer to the Hebrews reminds us, “Because he himself suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (2:18).  Jesus felt the burden of his temptations.  As a human (yet also God), his temptations were very real.  So Jesus understands your temptations, and the despair that you might feel when tempted.  He understands what it feels like to experience suffering.  He understands your human weaknesses in the face of temptation.  And in the desert, Jesus shows us the way out.  Rather than yield to the temptations of the devil, Jesus overcame them with God’s Word and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Luther in his famous Reformation hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is our God” refers to the devil with the line, “One little word can fell him”.  That one little word of five letters is Jesus.  Since Jesus overcame the devil, we can, in Jesus, overcome the temptations we experience daily.  In Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit we can live a new life, not free from temptations, but a new life lived in the assurance that even when we fall into temptation we remain united with Jesus (Titus 3:5-8; Romans 6:4).  In Jesus we’re able to accept and live by the words of Jesus to Peter in the garden of Gethsemane when he says, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” (Matthew 26:41).  In Jesus, we have the confidence to ask God for help- knowing that he’s promised to hear us (Luke 11:9), and to deliver us from temptation.

To be sure, our temptations will remain.  The devil, like he did with Jesus, will always look for opportunities to tempt us, and from time to time we’ll continue to fall.  An old father of the church once said, “You cannot prevent the birds from flying in the air over your head, but you can certainly prevent them from building a nest in your hair”.  God does not take away our temptations, but in Christ and by the power of his Holy Spirit working in us and for us, our temptations can be overcome.

In closing, as we think about the temptation of Jesus, the suffering of Jesus this Lenten season, let’s remind ourselves what it means in the Lord’s Prayer when we pray, “And lead us not into temptation”.  The small catechism explains, say it with me if you know it, “God tempts no one.  We pray in this prayer that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world and our sinful nature may not deceive us or lead us into false belief, despair, and other great and shameful sins.  Although we are attacked by these things, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory”.  In Jesus and by his Word, we do!  Amen.