Father, we do thank you that, in truth, great is your faithfulness. And we pass our days often only remotely mindful of the fact of your continuing faithfulness in overseeing your creation, in directing the movement of the celestial bodies, causing from our perspective the sun to rise and set, the seasons to pass and cycle in an orderly and an overseen way. Father, your faithfulness, your faithful care, your governance of your creation is everywhere to be seen. And it's certainly true of the lives of your people as well. You don't simply govern this world, but you lead, and you direct, and you oversee our lives, and you bring forth into our lives all that is good and is profitable for our growth as your children. Your hand is always towards our good, and even when sometimes your hand seems to be hurtful or negative in some sense, your heart is always towards us. And as the writer of Hebrews said, all of your discipline, however painful or difficult or trying it may be in the moment, it is your goodness to us. It is your discipline by which you are treating us as sons. It is your discipline by which you are perfecting the life and the likeness of Jesus in us. He, the blessed, beloved son, learned what it was to be a son through the things that he suffered. And so much more, Father, do we need to learn what it means to be receptive, open-handed, dependent, grateful, humble people before you. And so we thank you that your hand is always good towards us. We thank you that your loving kindness never fails, that your mercies are new every morning. And we thank you that by your goodness and your grace, we have been made to share in Christ Jesus to be set into his life, raised up in him, seated in the heavenly places in him, and to be made heirs of all that he has inherited. Father, these things transcend even our ability to begin to get our heads around them. And so I pray that our hearts and our minds are bowed before you even in this time. that we truly see the power and the greatness, but also the condescending mercy of our God, and that our hearts are filled with all devotion, all gratitude, all joy. Give us peace. Give us all hope in believing. Bless us in this time together. Instruct us so that we might be built up in this most holy faith. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Well, as I mentioned last time, I think I do want to camp a little bit more in the Gospels than the last time that when we did this Sacred Space or God With Us series, because I just think it's important to really get a good sense of what the Gospel writers are doing. We certainly, and I know this is speaking in general terms, but we certainly live in a time where A lot of Christians think of the Old Testament as, okay, that was before, that was old history, that was for Israel, that was for the Jews, that's gone. Jesus has come, we're Christians, that's New Testament stuff, and so we have this kind of sharp bifurcation between the Old and the New Testaments. And hopefully at this point we've seen how important, how vital it is to understand the coming of the Messiah, the coming of Jesus as the culmination and the fulfillment of all that God had done throughout the whole of the salvation history. And as I said, when we come to the Gospels, we're not just seeing them filling a bunch of time and space with certain kinds of content waiting for this great thing called the cross to come about. But the Gospel writers recognize that what Jesus did at the cross was actually just the apex of the Messianic work that actually began with Incarnation. And so, in a sense, All of what the Gospel writers are giving to us is the significance, the outworking, the fruitfulness of this thing that we call incarnation. As in the incarnation, we see the God who has shown himself to be faithful. The God who has returned in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The God of Israel who has taken up Israel's life and lawed in himself. And the gospel writers, in their own individual way, are being very careful to build the case for that very truth. So they're not just collecting a bunch of arbitrary healings and sayings and miraculous works or whatever, you know, synagogue activities or temple activities, but what they're doing is building in a very methodical way, in an individual way, per each gospel writer, but building the case for this one as the fulfillment of all the law of the prophets and the writings, the one that God said he would send. So I wanted to read the John the Baptist account again because that is the the foundation for understanding this wilderness episode, setting it in its own proper context. And what we saw, hopefully, from the wilderness, or not from the wilderness episode, but from the baptism episode, is that the significance of Jesus being baptized was Him showing solidarity with Israel. We discussed this thing of, this is to fulfill all righteousness, and that has nothing to do with sin issues or needing forgiveness or any of that, but righteousness as Jesus upholding and fulfilling in himself all that the Father sent him to do. Fulfilling the righteousness of God, the purposes, the intentionality of God. And so in the baptism event we see Jesus identifying himself with Israel, ultimately that he himself would take up Israel's existence, Israel's failure, Israel's lot before God in order to cause Israel to become Israel in and through himself. Israel indeed. And we saw this as one of the primary themes in the Old Testament, Israel's failure to be son, servant, disciple, witness on behalf of God's purposes in the world. That need for Israel to be Israel, God would resolve that by himself coming into the world, taking up Israel's existence. And so Jesus' ministration, his life, his vocation, his understanding was all centered around that. that in everything he did he would relive Israel's life in himself, but in a triumphal way, so that through him Israel could be reconstituted and then could fulfill its own election on behalf of the world. And the baptism episode speaks to that. As we saw, all four of the Gospel writers record John the Baptist's ministry and Jesus' interaction with John, Jesus' own baptism. The three synoptic Gospels, then Matthew, Mark, and Luke, then have Jesus immediately going out into the wilderness. He is baptized at the Jordan. The Spirit descends on him. The Father makes his affirmation of the Son. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. Immediately, Jesus goes up from the Jordan out into the wilderness. I believe the wilderness of modern-day Jordan is east. of the Jordan River. There was a Judean wilderness on this side of the Jordan, but in keeping with the symbolism of this, as we're going to see, I believe he went out to the east, into the wilderness to that direction. But when you look at the proximity of these two episodes, the wilderness ordeal and Jesus' baptism, the proximity that the synoptic writers attach to them, as well as the central role of the Spirit in those two episodes, it should be obvious to us that those two episodes have to be interpreted together. They're not separate things. Okay, Jesus was baptized, That's behind us, now we move on to the next thing that he does, because again, the gospel writers have to fill up a bunch of pages before they can get to the cross. These things are very tightly woven together, and they're building their case for, again, the messianic person and the messianic work. So these two things have to be interpreted together. Matthew and Mark say that the spirit who came upon Jesus drove him, or led him in a compelling way, compelled him into the wilderness from his baptism. That was the first work of the Spirit having fallen upon him in that way at his baptism. He drove him into the wilderness, and in Luke's account, Luke indicates that the Spirit led him throughout that 40 days in the wilderness. So the Spirit pushed him out into that ordeal, and then the Spirit was the caregiver, the leader, the overseer of that ordeal. The one who anointed and empowered Jesus. Remember, even the title Mashiach, Messiah, means anointed one. So he's anointed with the Spirit, affirmed to be Yahweh's Mashiach, and that Spirit who anointed and empowered him for his messianic mission directed him in executing And the starting point of that was his ordeal in the hostile wilderness. So the two episodes have to be interpreted together. And because, again, with the centrality of the spirit in this and the connection of the spirits falling on him and the father's affirmation of him as his beloved son, That tells us that the wilderness episode also has to be understood in terms of Jesus' status as God's true Israel. Him taking up Israel's life and Lot and himself. And if that's the case, then that tells us, or at least should suggest to us, that we should be thinking of his wilderness ordeal as a repeating of Israel's wilderness ordeal. His 40 days in the wilderness is a kind of repeating of, a replication, a recapitulation of Israel's 40 years in the wilderness. And that's exactly what we're going to see as we look through this. When we look at the specific aspects, the specific details of these three core tests that the gospel writers record for us, we do see that this is an echo of Israel's own testing. This is a repeating of Israel's testing, of course, with the intent that where Israel failed, Jesus the Messiah, the new Israel, will succeed. And at the center of this repeating of a testing is this idea of sonship. Israel's time in the wilderness was the result of its own formal embrace by God, its own formal entrance into this relationship of sonship. God had made a covenant with Abraham and Abraham's descendants, that he would be the God of Abraham and his family. They would be his people. Israel had gone up into Egypt. They had spent that time, those centuries in Egypt. They'd forgotten the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God sends Moses to them with the announcement, what? Israel is my son, my only begotten, my uniquely begotten son. Tell Pharaoh, let my son go. bring my son out that he might worship me." Israel was son of God. and God brought them out of Egypt. Three months later, they arrived at Sinai, and what we call the Law of Moses, the Sinai Covenant, was God formally, covenantally ratifying that relationship with the Abrahamic family, which at that point had grown to a massive nation. He was ratifying that Abrahamic relationship with the Abrahamic nation, the nation of Israel. That sonship relationship then being established, they went out into the wilderness making their way toward Canaan. where the son would dwell with the father in Yahweh's sanctuary land. That's the basic story. And Israel's wilderness testing sat right in the middle of that. Sinai was God saying, you are my son. This is my covenant. Fulfill your sonship on behalf of the nations. I'll be a father to you. You are my sons and daughters. Now he leads them out into the wilderness, into a hostile and trying circumstance, but on their way, to Canaan, and it's the way that they respond to that test of sonship that produces 40 years for them. It was 40 years because of failure. Failure is what caused that to happen. But the wilderness testing sits right in the center of that, and so my point in emphasizing that is that this was, again, a test of sonship. a test of sonship. And the wilderness wasn't Israel's first test or its first failure. We saw that as soon as they came out of Egypt, between the Red Sea and arriving at Sinai, there were five distinct tests of their faithfulness involving hunger, involving thirst, involving other challenges. Would they trust their covenant father? Would they believe him? Would they trust him? And they failed. And when they came to Sinai and Moses gave them the covenant and he sprinkled the people with the blood of the ratifying sacrifice and said, this is the blood of the covenant. And they said, all that the Lord has required, we will surely do. And Moses goes up on the mountain to receive the rest of the prescriptions of the covenant. And immediately they make the gold calf. Well, God, through Moses' mediation, recovered that covenant relationship before they left Sinai. So effectively, when they went out from Sinai into the wilderness to continue their path towards Canaan, they were a clean slate. The people's relationship with God had been restored. But immediately, that renewed commitment fell short, and the people began again to rebel against the Lord. And you see this. Two books of the Pentateuch, the five books of the Pentateuch, two books, Numbers and Deuteronomy, deal with that wilderness time. And it's a woeful tale of failure, right? It reaches its climax when God tells Moses, pick one man from each of the twelve tribes of Israel and send them into the land to spy it out. And those 12 spies go to the land, and when they come back, they say, the Lord was right. It's a profuse land. It is an Edenic land. It's flowing with milk and honey. They come back carrying the big cluster of grapes, right? It's a land of wealth and cities and wells and abundance. But there are some pretty intimidating people there The nations there are strong, and their fighters are big and tough. And so the people immediately start fearing, and they're saying, oh, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? This is going to be terrible. And Joshua and Caleb, who were two of the spies, were encouraging them, no, the Lord has given you this land. Believe him. Trust him. He's covenanted this to you. Oh, what are we going to do? We'll never be able to pull this off. We're going to die. Why did God bring us out here to die? Our little children are going to be slaughtered. This is going to be terrible for them. And this was the turning point in Israel's history. This is where the 40 years comes from. God says, because you have disbelieved me, all of the generation, the adult generation that came out of Egypt, They're all going to perish outside of the land. Only Joshua and Caleb will survive to go into the land. They were the two faithful spies who believed the Lord. And God says, and these children of yours that you feel are going to be a prey for these mighty people who inhabit the land of Canaan, they're going to go in and take the land. What you're going to see is not them being slaughtered by the people of Canaan. What you're going to see is them suffering in the wilderness because of you. And then you're going to die, and you're not going to live to see them go in and take the land, as I promised. So this is Numbers 13 and 14. That's the turning point. And it takes that 40-year period, essentially, for all of that generation to die off. They will not go in and take the land until all of that generation have perished. That's how Israel passed or addressed its test of its sonship. Would it trust the Lord? Would it not? So the Israelite people had historically, beyond that, viewed the Exodus as the great redemptive event that gave birth to the nation. The Exodus event, remember, was this thing that they kept waiting for God to arise and do again. We've seen that through our study of the Old Testament, a second exodus, a new redemption. Yahweh would again arise and he would do another great redemptive work. And the nation was born, in a sense, as covenant son through that exodus event. But in the same way, the wilderness episodes symbolized their failure as covenant son. It became a symbol for their unfaithfulness throughout their generations. even after that unfaithfulness kind of reached its climax with the destruction of both of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. So if Jesus then were to fulfill his own election and his calling as true Israel, he would need to relive Israel's testing of its sonship and he would have to triumph where they had failed. If he were to be true Israel, he would have to go through Israel's own experience, but in a way where he would triumph where they had failed. And that's the lens through which we have to understand the wilderness episode. So like I said, all three of the synoptic writers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, record the wilderness testing, but only Matthew and Luke give any details. Mark just mentions that it happened, and then he moves on. So both Matthew and Luke record the same three tests. They have them in a different order. And this is just a passing comment, but only Jesus was out there in the wilderness. So he must have passed along this experience to his disciples for them to be aware of it. This had to become a part of Israel's, certainly his disciples' understanding of him and his messianic work and his own ordeal, and it became a part of the tradition of the early church, too, and its understanding of Jesus as the Messiah and the messianic work. We don't know exactly how he passed this along, but nobody else was out there with him. So Matthew and Luke record these same three core events. This doesn't mean that this was the full scope of the testing, but these three things in a very condensed and concentrated way get at this thing of him undergoing Israel's testing. And that will become obvious as we move through it. So we'd want to say Jesus was left alone until the very end and then the devil came and started going after him or whatever. The whole time was his ordeal of testing. But these are three things that really punctuate what it was about and how Jesus dealt with it. So they both record all three of these, Matthew and Luke, but they differ in the order. But they also have Jesus responding to these three temptations. Both Matthew and Luke record Jesus giving the same response. And as we'll see, he responds from Deuteronomy. He responds based on, again, Israel's own assessment, Moses' assessment of Israel. So the first test is what I want to consider today, and I've just titled this Sonship and Submissive Trust. This is the test of sonship with respect to trust, submissive trust. It's interesting that they connect all three of these tests with the very end of the 40 days. They pile all of this as coming at the end, and they certainly attach this first test to the end of the 40 days. Jesus did not eat anything for 40 days and at the end, he was hungry. I mean, you read that and it's like, duh, the guy's starving to death, right? Do you think he would be hungry? The NES says he became hungry, but it really just says he hungered. After 40 days without eating, he hungered. Well, that seems like a huge understatement, right? Why would it even be put in that sort of a way? He was obviously at the point of starvation and Matthew and Luke would have understood that. And I can't say exactly why they would express it in that way, but I think that the context, at least this is a reasonable explanation, I think that the writers wanted to emphasize not the issue, what we would tend to think of. How do you go for 40 days in the wilderness and not eat? You would be dead. You'd be in a coma. Let me Google and see how long you can go without eating. How did he manage to do that? How would this have worked? You know, we're concerned with those questions, but the gospel writers are concerned not with those questions, but with the fact that Jesus was bound over to his father's care. He was fully entrusting himself to his father. The hunger issue is not the big issue with that. And we see that in that his imminent starvation was the point or the occasion of the test, but it wasn't really the issue in the test. His hunger isn't really the issue. It's just the occasion for the test. So they don't make a big deal about the fact that he was on the verge of starvation. They simply say he was hungry. And it was at that point that the tempter brought forth this first challenge to him. The actual temptation was pressing him to stumble in regard to his identity and his mission, and we'll see that. When you just read it at face value, Satan was simply saying to him, look, if you're the son of God, and this in Greek is what's called a first-class condition. Conditional statements are if-then, if-then, and there are four types in Greek, but this type is essentially the if part of it is assumed to be true. If you are the son of God and the speaker or the writer is assuming that to be the case, So the Satan here is assuming that to be the case. He's not saying, you say that. He's saying, you are the son of God. If you're the son of God, then command these stones to turn into bread. It's a very straightforward temptation in that sense. But this wasn't a crass attempt to provoke Jesus to pride of power. Come on, stretch your stuff. Do us a magic trick. Show that you can turn this stone into bread. It was a very subtle assault on his sonship and his faithfulness to it. Satan directed his ploy at Jesus' divine identity as Son of God. In other words, he's saying, as Son of God, you have the power to transform a stone into bread. But the actual target that he was going for was his human sonship. Why? Because Jesus is being tested as the true Israel, not the divine son, the true Israel. The purpose for the testing, the wilderness ordeal, was for Jesus to prove out his identity and calling as God's new Israel. And so taking up divine prerogative would render him unfaithful and disobedient to that mission. It was as the human son that he was being tested. That's why the Spirit came upon him. The Spirit is driving him. The Spirit is leading him. The Spirit is caring for him. Turning a stone into bread would be failing his sonship just as Israel had as human son. So first of all, drawing on divine power would break his solidarity with Israel that he demonstrated at his baptism. Israel was son of God who was to live in ultimate, absolute, unquestioning, trusting dependence on the Father. And he would be failing at that point. But on the other side of that, seeking self-remedy in his need seeking to redress his own hunger on his own part, not trusting his father's care and provision would demonstrate solidarity with unfaithful Israel and would itself be disobedience. Do you see that? Stepping forward with divine prerogative would be disobedience because he'd be breaking that solidarity with Israel. He is to relive Israel's life with God. but also seeking to redress his own need would be showing solidarity with Israel in the wrong way. He'd be showing his solidarity with Israel in its unfaithfulness, in which case either way he would be failing his testing. That was Israel's pattern throughout its history. and certainly during the wilderness episode. Every circumstance of lack or threat during those years in the wilderness, the response of Israel was to bemoan their lot, to complain, to whine, to grumble, and even to wail that their end was at hand. Oh, we're going to die. We're going to die. Why did you bring us out here to die? Why did you do this to us, Moses? At one point, Moses was like, any more of this and they're going to stone me. And he said, God, I can't handle this people myself. They're too much for me. I can't bear this on my own. They're just a bunch of moaning, grumbling, unhappy, miserable, complaining, fearful, unfaithful children. They accused their God of capriciousness and lack of concern, and they sought to remove themselves from him and to remedy their plight themselves. This was Israel's history with God, and certainly in a concentrated way in the wilderness. So this deception then, this temptation at the hands of the Satan, has echoes of that Edenic seduction. And not surprisingly, I think, because it presses against this fundamental human obligation that's required of man as divine image bearer, faithfulness as son. Jesus is being tested as true Israel, but Israel was to be God's image son. Israel was to be true man, the beginning of God's restoration of the human race. And what that looks like, Israel was to be a family of human beings defined by unfailing love, devoted trust, confident dependence, and humble gratitude. And they failed in every respect. So Jesus is reliving that ordeal. How did he respond? We know how they responded in their testing. How did he respond? Well, he responded by citing from Deuteronomy. And you see both the responses the same in Matthew and Luke. Matthew's account is fuller, he has a larger piece of that statement, but the response is, it is written, man does not live by bread alone. And in Matthew, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh, out of the mouth of the Lord. So a lot of times people, and I've seen this in commentaries or in preaching anyway, teaching, that the issue here, how did Jesus answer temptation? He quoted scripture back to the devil. That's the way that you rebuff the devil. You just quote scripture back to him because he can't stand scripture. Well, we're going to see next time the Satan can stand scripture. He'll use scripture. But it's this idea, okay, the way to answer is just throw scripture back at him because he can't bear that. It's like, you know, a garlic with a vampire. He'll run away if you throw scripture at him. So the point then is often taken, when you're confronted with testing or temptation, what you do is you go to the scripture and you find a verse or a section that you can claim and quote that and throw that back against this temptation or, you know, this adversity coming against you. But that misses the point of, again, what's happening here. It's far more subtle than that. Let's read this first section of Deuteronomy 8. Remember what's happening in Deuteronomy. It's the very end of the Pentateuch. Israel is already now right on the eastern side of the Jordan River. The 40 years are done. They're sitting on the eastern side of the Jordan River waiting to cross into the land. Deuteronomy is the Greek rendering of a Greek title for this Hebrew book, second law or second giving of the law, Deuteronomos. But what's happening is Moses is rehearsing with the children of Israel their history with God. What he's done, how they got to this point, what's about to happen, the significance of their going into the land, what they're going to encounter, what they need to do, what they need to guard against, what they're going to face, warning them about blessings and cursings and breaking the covenant, and what lies ahead for them in the future if they're unfaithful. So it's a book of remembrance. It's Moses' final series of sermons or messages to the people. And this is a part of that rehearsing of their history. Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 1. All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your forefathers. You shall remember all the way which Yahweh your God has led you in the wilderness these 40 years. And he led you in that way that he would humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And by keeping his commandments, it means holding fast to his covenant, holding fast to your obligation of sonship. He did this to humble you, to test you so that you would know. He knows what's in your heart, but that you would know. And he humbled you, and he let you be hungry, and he fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord." Not just his verbal words, but everything that he ordains and decrees and provides and supplies. Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these 40 years. Thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you, training you as a father disciplines his son. This is about sonship, right? Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God. You shall keep his covenant to walk in his ways, to fear him, fear to, be conscious of him, to trust him, to believe him, to yield to him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks, of water, of fountains and springs flowing forth in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey." And you can go on and read. And he says, when you come in and you enter that land and you have all that you need and your lives are easy and you're living in cities you didn't build and drinking from wells you didn't dig and and reaping food from fields that you didn't cultivate. Then be careful lest your heart wanders away from me and you say look at all the good things I have and all that's come to me and you forget the Lord your God. But this is what Jesus is citing from. That's the reason I wanted to read this. He's not just finding a proof text that happens to mention bread because Satan tempted him with bread, and he's throwing scripture back at him. And I know I'm being a little bit facetious here, but we tend to want to do that, right? We tend to want to think, okay, that's what's happening here. Jesus is drawing from a very important aspect of Israel's failure, even as Moses is calling them to account and pointing back to what God was trying to do with them and how they failed the test of their sonship. And that's how Jesus is answering this same sort of thing that's coming to him from the adversary, from the Satan. So God had used Israel's physical needs and deprivation as a teaching tool. Not just that they would learn like a little child to delay physical gratification, their self-gratification, but that they would learn what it was to be true sons, the very essence of which is genuine, loving, trust, and humble dependence, believing and submitting to the Father's words, the Father's will, the Father's provision, regardless of their perceptions, their judgments, and their experiences. So this wasn't plucking a proof text, but meeting Satan's challenge with the truth of his identity and calling and his resolve to be Israel indeed, to fulfill his sonship. So Satan's temptation then was directed at Jesus' sonship as he embodied Israel to fulfill its election and vocation in obedience to the Father. And Jesus answered that temptation as the faithful son that Israel had failed to be. That's the summary understanding of what's happening here. So his wilderness ordeal then is repeating what Israel had undergone centuries earlier. As I said, when God redeemed the children of Israel, he brought them to Sinai. He affirmed the covenant relationship. You are my son. Walk before me. Keep my covenant. He renewed the covenant. He led them out into the wilderness. And there they experienced every kind of physical challenge. We can't minimize what it was like to wander in the wilderness. It was a very hostile environment, and there wasn't food to eat, and there wasn't water to drink. And it would be easy to understand why they would say, we're going to starve out here. There's nothing to eat. It's a howling wilderness. There's no water out here. We're going to die of thirst." And God let them get thirsty, and he let them get hungry to see if they would trust him. Because this isn't just about, is God sovereign? Does he have power? Can he make things happen? Can he cause water to come out of a rock? It's He has made an oath to you to bring you and give you this land to establish you in relationship with himself so that you can be the light of the nations. The whole of the creation's destiny depends on the relationship, Israel, that I, Yahweh, have established with you. That's what they were supposed to believe. Not just that he could make some quail fly into the camp, right? It's a much bigger issue. God's integrity as God, his whole purpose for his creation was bound up in him giving them food and drink and carrying them through the wilderness. Would they trust him? Or would they only focus on the immediate details and their immediate need? Oh, I'm hungry. Where's the food? Oh, I'm thirsty. Where's the drink? Jesus was able to keep this in the big perspective of the mission for which the Father sent him. He was dying of starvation, and yet his hunger wasn't the issue. He would trust his father. So Israel had all of these challenges, but alongside those challenges, which were very real and compelling, was Yahweh's covenant pledge to carry them through to their inheritance, supported by the presence and the power of his spirit. You read this in Isaiah. You read this also in Haggai, that God's spirit went up in their midst. The Spirit was with them. Yahweh was with them. And they were aware of that in the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire, right? He was leading them. In all their difficulties, they had that promise. They had the promise of the covenant, and they had his presence. Well, through all of that, they failed. But Jesus, the well-pleasing Son, was determined to triumph through his trial. He would entrust himself without reserve to the Father. fully confident that he would prove faithful to his love and his purposes in and through him. The father would provide for the son not simply because he's Jesus. He's the son of God. God will take care of him. But because the whole destiny of the creation that was bound up in Israel is now bound up in this one Israelite. Jesus said the father will be faithful to his purposes for the world and I'm at the center of that. He will care for me. He will deliver me through." So Jesus understood and insisted that the adversary understand that he was Yahweh's image, Son, and truth. He would live in single-minded devotion and trusting dependence on the Father. He would be well-content with every provision that comes from the Father's hand. he would find all sufficiency in it. Go back again now and read Psalm 63 and David's words in the light of this, and you see the echoes of that. But I guess where I want to close today and even kind of put in your minds as we go through these next two pieces of this temptation episode, this wilderness testing, is what are the implications of this for us? If we are Christians, we are sharers in the life of that one who has triumphed. His triumph is our triumph. His inheritance is our inheritance. His spirit is our spirit. If we are taken up in his life, we are grafted into God's purposes for the cosmos as much as he was. So why do we fret and moan and grumble Why are we fearful? Why are we focused on minute little details of life that seem to be difficult or insufferable? Where's God? He's left me. He doesn't care. What's he doing? How could I go through this? If we step back from the circumstances of life and put ourselves back in the context dying and having been raised up and seated in the heavenly places in the Messiah, that we are the fullness of him who fills all in all, then why are we like Israel? What is it to bear Christ's fragrance? What is it to be testifiers of him? It's to meet life in the same way that he did. And there are going to be difficulties in life. There is going to be suffering in life. There is going to be hardship in life. There is going to be injustice and unfairness. There are going to be things that can concern us and worry us. But we can take Deuteronomy 8 and say, the Father is disciplining us. This is what the author of Hebrews is doing, right? God is treating you as sons. He's disciplining you. He's growing you up. We think God loves us and is a faithful father when he lets us sail through life on a silk pillow. but he didn't let Jesus soar through life on a silk pillow, right? He learned sonship through the things that he suffered. That's the human ordeal, that's the human vocation, and it has nothing to do with whether you sin or not. Jesus was the spotless, blameless son, but he learned sonship through the things he suffered. And so now we can receive from God's hands with joy, with patience, even with praise and celebration, when it hurts, when it's not easy, when it doesn't seem fair, when we don't understand. That's what we have to take away from these temptations. And not just in a Jesus was faithful, you be faithful. Not in that kind of a simplistic way, but in recognizing that that destiny towards which God was disciplining him, we are gathered up into it. We are sharers in him. how we ought to be faithful. Well, let me close in prayer and then we'll finish up with this second song. Father, I pray for each one of us. Each one of us personally, individually, our lives are different. Our ordeals are different. Our challenges are different. Our weaknesses. our failures, our doubts and fears, our struggles. In all these ways, Father, our lives are unique and yet our lives are all the same in that as your children, this is the path of perfecting your life in us. This is the path of sonship. And I pray that you would give to each of us the wisdom and the discipline of mind and heart that when everything around us and everything perhaps even in our own personal circumstance and maybe even in our own hearts and minds, when everything is spinning out of control or appears to be spinning out of control, that we will have the presence of mind. the discipline and maturity of heart and mind to step back and to view the ordeals of life through the lens of the wise and good and loving, perfect work of a heavenly father. And to see in the things that we're suffering, your faithfulness to us, that you are allowing us to share in the sufferings of Jesus himself. that his glory would also be ours. Paul said that. If we suffer with him, then we will also be glorified with him. Not as a test such that if we submit ourselves, put our neck in the yoke, then one day you'll let us be glorified, but this is the path of glory. If we will be joined to him and have our destiny in his glory, then we must also walk the path that he walked. Not because we have to, but because we are sharers in Him. And all of His life becomes our life. His sufferings are our sufferings. Our sufferings are His sufferings. And His glory is our glory. And so we live in light of the truth that Christ is our life. And when He is manifest in the world, then we will be manifest also in that same glory, which even now is ours. as raised up in him, seated in the heavenly places in him, given every spiritual blessing that is in him, all that pertains to life and godliness. But as sharing in his glory, we also share in his sufferings as a son, the sufferings of life in a broken world, the sufferings of difficulty. And so, Father, help us to have joyful and eager hearts. to embrace what comes from your hand as the delightful, eager, humble, receptive hearts of children who take from the Father with joy, with hope, with confidence. Bless each one of us in these things. Give us meditative, contemplative minds. I pray that we will all think on these things deeply. and that we will all plead with you and find in you resource for the challenges of life and to find truly all joy, peace, and hope in believing. We ask these things of you with the confidence that is ours in Christ our Lord. Amen.