- Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on March 17, 2024.
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Audio Transcript
Foreign.
Take your Bibles today and turn to Luke chapter four. We’re looking at verses one through 14, Jesus example, in temptation. And instead of spending just one week on this, going to kind of divide it up. And today we’re just looking at the humanity of Jesus. And it’s so important that we understand that Jesus was 100% God and he was 100% humanity, because it affects so many things in our life.
And the very fact that we’re able to have salvation through his death on the cross, that’s what we’ll be looking at today. Let’s begin reading in Luke 4. 1. Then Jesus left the Jordan full of the Holy Spirit and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over, he was hungry.
The devil said to him, if you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. But Jesus answered him, it is written, man must not live on bread alone. So he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to him, I will give you their splendor and all this authority because it has been given over to me and I can give it to anyone I want. If you then will worship me, all will be yours.
And Jesus answered him. It is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him only. So he took him to Jerusalem, had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written, he will give his angels orders concerning you to protect you, and they will support you with their hands so that you will not strike your foot against the stone. And Jesus answered him.
It is said, do not test the Lord your God. After the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time. May we pray once more. Heavenly Father, as we look at your word, increase our appreciation for it that it tells us how to have eternal life, but it also instructs us how to live out that eternal life now in this world. We thank you for giving it to us.
Help us to appreciate it, but also help us to understand it. Let your spirit work in our hearts to point out the truths today that you would want us to hear individually. In Jesus name we pray. Amen in understanding Jesus humanity. What I want us to look at in the text today, the first thing is that he lived like us.
He lived like us. Let’s go back to verse one. Then Jesus left the Jordan, and he was full of the Holy Spirit. And he was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by the devil. Why did the Son of God become God in the flesh?
He is 100% God, and he is 100% man. And it is very important that you understand that when he came in the flesh, he wasn’t 50% God, and he wasn’t 50% man. If he was only 50% God, then he would have been less than completely God. And if he was only 50% man, he would have been less than completely human. He.
He would have been some hybrid of some other species. 50% God and 50% man. It would be like taking a cow and a horse and breeding them together. If that were possible, that’s not possible, right, Sam? Okay.
But he would have been something completely different. He wouldn’t have been a man, and he wouldn’t have been God. Just like whatever that creature would be, it wouldn’t be a horse and it wouldn’t be a cow. Jesus had to be 100% God and 100% man.
It is extremely important, it is completely necessary, that Jesus had a body and lived a life just like us. And we’re going to look at some reasons for that today. The first reason why Jesus had to have a body and be a hundred percent man, as he needed to understand us. And in coming to live in a body, God in the flesh, he accepted the limitations of humanity. He was still completely God.
He could have done anything he wanted, but he limited himself as he lived on Earth. It’d be like, how many of you carry all of your money around in your purse or your pocket? Does anybody do that? Where do you leave it? You know, under your mattress at home, or you put it in the bank.
You leave it with your parents. That would be a great thing to do, right, Kirk?
He’s the only one not laughing.
That’s how Jesus was. He had the capability to do all these things, but he only was using what he needed so that he could really, truly live like us, so that he could understand us. And we see this in the text because as a man, it tells us two things. He is full of the Holy Spirit, and he is led by the Spirit. Now, eternity past, present, future, just eternity.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are ever, always together. But Jesus, when he came, behaved like we’re supposed to behave. And he allowed the Holy Spirit to fill his body on a daily basis. But he also was asking the Spirit daily, where do you want me to go? How am I supposed to be led?
So as A man, he depended on the Holy Spirit to fill him. And as a man he depended on the Holy Spirit to lead him. In other words, he didn’t get his day by day direction, just from his own mind and his own will and his own emotions and his own desires. He was ever seeking the Father, asking him, what do you want me to say? And what do you want me to do?
And he set that example for us. Because similarly, we are supposed to seek the filling of the Spirit every day. Spirit, fill me. We’re supposed to seek God’s guidance and where we’re supposed to go with the direction of our life, we’re supposed to seek Him. How am I supposed to talk to people?
What am I supposed to do? Because if we don’t depend on God for direction, we have to be reminded of Proverbs 14:12, where it says, there is a way that seems right to a man if he’s depending on himself, but not on God. But it goes on to say, but that way that seems right to man is going to lead to the way of death or destruction. And in our fallen world, it is our natural inclination for every single person to go against the way of God. And that will ultimately lead to death, spiritual death, and separation from God the Father for eternity.
But here we find Jesus setting an example for us. We don’t follow our own will and way. We’re supposed to seek the Holy Spirit to give us direction. Let’s look at some verses that just back this up. Let’s go to John 12:49, 50 if you have your Bibles, it’s great to turn there, but it’ll be on the screen also for you.
Jesus said, I have not spoken on my own. The Father himself who sent me, has given me a command to say everything I’ve said. I know that his command is eternal life. So the things that I speak, I speak just as the Father has. What are the two words there told me he’s lived his life the way we’re supposed to.
He was God, but he limited himself. And day by day he said, father, what do you want me to to say? John 5:19 we read. Jesus replied, truly I tell you, the Son is not able to do anything on his own. So not only did he ask God, what am I supposed to say?
But he asked God, what am I supposed to do? He said, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does these things.
Let’s go Back to Luke 4.
He lived like us. Not only did he ask the Spirit to fill him. Not only did he let the Spirit lead him, but we find out here that he was tempted by the devil. Let’s read the verses again. Jesus left the Jordan full of the Holy Spirit and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by the devil.
He ate nothing during those days. And when they were over, after 40 days of not eating, it’s almost funny. Luke tells us, as if we have to know he was what? He was hungry. But Luke is pointing out to us, by the direction of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus didn’t supernaturally fast for 40 days so that he wasn’t hungry.
He could have done that as God. He could have had the angels bringing him nourishment during those 40 days, but he didn’t. Luke is pointing out he experienced the same human desires and needs that all of us experience. He lived like us, so he can understand us as a man. He truly experienced temptation.
And he also experienced human desires and human needs just like us. We must not underestimate or discount his humanity. I think it’s easy for us not to underestimate the fact that He’s God, but don’t underestimate how much he was like us. I’ve just made a list up here, just to think through. Jesus experienced hunger.
He experienced pain. He had disappointment in his life. Times of sadness, times of loss, isolation, ridicule, hatred, prejudice, betrayal. All these things that we don’t like to experience that are hard and difficult. Jesus experienced them too, so he knows what you feel like when you go through those things.
Now, I’ve started a list of good things, and I put parents at the top. I’m hoping that parents were a good thing for all of you. But he had good things in his life, too. Parents, siblings, relatives, friendship, love. He experienced laughter and the holidays that the Jews celebrated.
Times of worship, learning, growth, development, play, fun trips, birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, and yes, even work. All of these things were good because Jesus was experiencing humanity in every way, like we do. Also, we’re going to go over to the Book of Hebrews now in chapter four. We’re going to spend some time here in Hebrews because we get some more explanation of what all this means. Why is this so important to us?
And what we want to see here is that Jesus is able to sympathize with us. Able to. And Jesus was tempted, not in some ways, but in every way, just like we are. It tells us that we have a great high priest, and it should say, jesus, the Son of God. Is now our great high priest, a better high priest than all of the priests that had come before him.
And the reason is, it says, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sit, sympathize with our weaknesses. If you leave out the unable there, he’s emphasizing the fact we do have someone that does sympathize with not some of our weaknesses, not 50%, not 10, not even 90, but with all of our weaknesses. Because he has been tempted not in some ways, but what in every way, as we are yet without sin. Jesus sympathizes with us. Jesus understands us.
That’s one reason why he had to have a body. In verse 16, we read, Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need. Why was it important that Jesus had a body? What we’re seeing here is that Jesus is our high priest. And because of what he has done for us, we can approach the throne of God in a very different way than they did in the Old Testament.
In the Old Testament, in the tabernacle, in the temple, in the holy of holies, there was the ark of the covenant. And God’s presence resided there in a special way. He was still everywhere. But he wanted to be there in a special way to demonstrate to people, I want to be here, close to you, with a special relationship. But there was one priest, the high priest, one time a year that could go into that holy place to take an offering.
They couldn’t go in there just any day. It had to be at Passover. And when they went in, if there was any unconfessed sin in their life, it meant that they were going to be struck dead. Now, you have to realize the priest probably spent a long time examining his life before he went into the holy of holies. Imagine if you went into work every day and you knew that your boss was either going to kill you or let you live.
Okay. And you would kind of walk in happy, go lucky, wouldn’t you? No, you would be in trepidation. Am I going to make it through this first meeting or not? The priest had to go in with that fear in their life all the time, once a year.
But because of what Jesus did for us, now we can go into the throne of God with boldness. It says, because it’s a throne of grace where God wants to give to us and we’re going to receive mercy there, which means that he’s not going to punish us for our sins. And the great Thing is there that he’s also going to give us help whenever we need something. So now we know that we can go to God in prayer at any time. We can know that he’s going to accept us.
He’s going to want to give us things, he’s going to want to offer us mercy, and he wants to help us. It’s part of why Jesus came to earth, so that he could have a body to provide this for us. And because he had a body, we come to the next thing. He not only lived like us, but in order to provide this type of entrance into the presence of God, he died like us. Hebrews 2, we read, but we do see Jesus, meaning He was really there with them.
He was made lower than the angels just for a short time, so that by God’s grace He might taste death for everyone. And then he was crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death once again. It’s extremely important. It is completely necessary for Jesus to have taken on flesh and become a human and have a body. He lived like us so he could understand us.
And now we see that he also died like us so that he could die for us. Would you say that with me? He died like us so that he could die for us? You know, as a spirit being, he couldn’t have been put to death. I mean, you can’t stab a spirit.
You can’t hang a spirit on the cross. Jesus had to have a body so that he could suffer through death. Verse 10 says, for in bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was entirely appropriate that God, for whom and through Whom all things exist, should make the pioneer of their salvation. That pioneer, being Jesus Christ, perfect through sufferings. Now you’re going to say Jesus was made perfect.
Well, wasn’t He God? Wasn’t he perfect? Wasn’t he sinless? That’s not what it’s talking about here. What it’s saying is that he was made complete.
That’s the idea of being perfect. It means that he was made complete in every, every way, like us. Now, his life was shortened by death, but still he experienced conception. He experienced infancy. He experienced childhood.
He experienced adolescence. He experienced puberty. He experienced being adult. He lived through all of these things because he was made complete. That’s what it means by perfection.
It’d be like a parent telling their young child, go up and make your bed. And then the parent walks up to examine. And they’re not looking for perfection. They’re looking for what completeness. Was the sheet pulled up?
Was the bed spread? Is the pillow in the right place? It doesn’t have to be perfect, but the perfect thing was just for it to be complete. Jesus completed the task of a human life. Conception, birth, growth, all the trials and joys of life.
And then he experienced death so that he could have a perfect or complete life, so he would understand us, and so he could die for us. Verse 14. Now, since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared in these. He had flesh and blood so that through his death he might destroy the one holding the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death. So they keep emphasizing here, the writers, led by the Holy Spirit, that Jesus was a man with flesh and blood.
Because there were heresies or false teachings going around. Some said, well, there was a man on earth and the Spirit of God came upon him. And then the Spirit of God left. It wasn’t this complete mingling of the two. Or they say that Jesus wasn’t a real person.
He was just a phantom. And he looked like a person and it looked like he died. But there was no way that God could have done that. The gospel writers keep telling us over and over. And Paul is telling us he had actual blood and flesh.
John said that they saw him, they touched him, they heard him. It tells us here now that he died like us so that he could defeat Satan, the devil, so that we don’t have to be slaves to Satan anymore. That’s what I have underlined up there. He came in the flesh and had a body so that through his death, he might destroy the one holding the power of death, that is the devil. And then it’s not underlined, but the second part is.
And then to free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death. When Adam and Eve made the destructive choice to obey Satan, they handed their right of authority over the world to Satan and gave him control. And he’s made it into the evil place that we experience today. And realize it or not, none of us are ever free. We don’t own ourselves.
Most people live life in an illusion, thinking they can do whatever they want. They belong to themselves. But scripturally, the truth is they either belong to Satan or they belong to God. The default setting in our life is to belong to Satan. There has to be some point that we consciously turn from doing things our way and we turn to doing things God’s way.
It’s called repentance. When we say, I no longer going to live in sin, I’m not going to trust what I’m doing. I’m going to not think that giving things or doing things bring me salvation. That’s the way that man says we get saved. But instead we turn to God and we say, God, I’m a sinner.
Jesus died on the cross and he had a real body so that I could be saved. And there’s nothing I can give, there’s nothing I can do, there’s nothing I can say. Having the right pedigree, having great parents or great grandparents doesn’t help us to walk in God’s path. Path. But when we choose Jesus Christ as our savior, because of his death here, Satan’s no longer in control.
We’re no longer slaves to Satan, but now we are slaves to Jesus Christ. And it is in that slavery to Jesus Christ that we have true freedom to live our lives. The children have flesh and blood in common. Jesus also shared in these so that through his death he might destroy the one holding the power of death, the devil, and to free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death. Verse 17 goes on.
Therefore he had to be like his brothers and sisters, not in some ways, not in a 50% fashion, but in every way, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in matters pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people. So again, the Book of Hebrews keeps referring to that Jesus is now this perfect high priest, that all the priests in the Old Testament were just a picture or a representation of what needed to come. And the job of a priest was to be a mediator. The priest was a mediator between people to God. So the priest would receive the animal sacrifices, offer it on the altar, and then take that blood to the mercy seat or to the tabernacle so that he could represent God to the people.
Whereas a prophet on the other side is a mediator who God speaks to people through them. Jesus did both of those things. But here in Hebrews, it’s pointed out he’s this priest that represents us before God. And what he did in particular, he made atonement for the sins of the people. And again we go back to the Old Testament.
Once a year, the priest at Passover there was an animal sacrifice and blood was taken in and it was sprinkled in the holy holies across the mercy seat, under which was the law of God. The word atonement means to cover there. Because what it was representing is that when Jesus shed his blood for us on the cross, we’re in essence sprinkled with his blood. And we’re covered. So that now when God looks at us, he doesn’t see the sin.
What he sees is what’s covered it. The blood of Jesus Christ. We can think of this when we say love covers a multitude of sins or offenses. If you love someone dearly and they do something little to hurt your feelings, you just say, eh, doesn’t matter, I love them and you just pass over it. That’s what God does with every one of our sins.
If we placed our faith in Jesus Christ because they’re covered, he looks over them. Jesus made atonement for our sins.
Verse 18. For since He Himself has suffered again, it’s emphasizing he had a real body and he lived like us. When he was tempted, he was tempted like us. And then it says, he is able to help those now who are tempted. What we’re seeing here is now that Jesus lived like us, Jesus died like us, but he also lives again like we can live.
And it’s all in those two words there. He is able. It doesn’t say he was able in the past. It doesn’t say that he will be able in the future. He is able right now because he lives.
He rose from the dead. And because he is able to do that now, he’s able to help those of us who are tempted. Jesus did not remain dead. He was not under the control of Satan after death. He rose victorious from the grave and he lives again.
And he became the first to live a resurrected, eternal life. And his resurrection for us is he is the proof that we will do the same if we accept God’s gift of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone. And because Jesus is alive today, he is able to help us when we are tempted. We don’t have to face Satan alone.
John 14, 18, 19. Jesus makes this promise. He says, I will not leave you as orphans. I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me because I live.
Because Jesus rose from the dead, the promise is, you will live too. Romans 4:25. He was delivered up for our trespasses, and he was raised for our justification. We talked about atonement. That’s where the blood made the covering.
So God doesn’t see our sin anymore. But now we’re talking about something else that Jesus did for us. He justified us. That means that he not only covers our sin, but he removes the guilt of our sin. We could define justification as saying it means just as if I’d never sinned, just as if I’d never sinned.
So that when God looks at us, our sins in his mind are as far as the east is from the West. He doesn’t see any sin in our life. Because Jesus Christ’s blood not only made atonement, but but it removed the guilt. And when we’re justified, it means that we can have a right relationship with God. Everything is right between us so that we can walk with him, that we can have a relationship with him, so we can walk into his presence to receive grace and mercy and help, just as Adam and Eve did in the perfect world that he had created before they disobeyed and followed Satan.
Romans 6, 8, 11.
If we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. And because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again, death no longer rules over him. For the death he died. He died to sin once for all time. But the life he lives, he lives to God.
So you too, consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. We see two things here. We see hope and we see a charge. It’s not like charging your phone, okay? This is a charge.
This is what you’re supposed to go out and do. Our hope is that we can believe with certainty that we will also live with Him. There is no doubt in our mind that we’re going to spend eternity with the Lord. And it all goes back to he had to have a body so he could live like us, so that he could die like us, so that he could be raised from the dead, so that we can have certainty that the same thing happens to us. We have this hope.
But then Paul tells us we also have this charge. Therefore, you too should consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. We need to recognize daily the victory that we have over Satan. And we need to live our lives accordingly. Consider yourselves dead to sin.
I don’t have to sin anymore. And I’m not going to, because I’m going to seek the Spirit to fill me daily. I’m going to ask God to tell me how to speak. And I’m going to ask God to tell me what it is I am supposed to do. We have a hope.
We have eternal life, a future. And now we have a charge to live for Jesus and not for sin. First Peter 1, 3, 4, again emphasizing the great benefit that we have because Jesus lives again like us. Because of his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you. If I were to circle two words there, the first one be hope.
Again, that’s what we’re saying. We have this hope of what is coming, but not only are we going to have eternal life in heaven with God, but He’s going to go way beyond that. And he has an inheritance that he’s going to give us. A great vast of something beyond the wealth, the way we would determine it in this world. But it’s an inheritance that will belong to us, that will never perish, it will never be defiled, it’ll never get rusty, it’ll never corrupt, it will never fade.
All because Jesus lived and died and rose in the body that he took on. Colossians 3, verses 3 through 4. For you died, your life is hidden with Christ and God. And when Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
You have to see here that we only have this hope if our hope is in Christ.
We only have this hope if Jesus Christ is our life. That means that if we’re depending on something that we’ve done to save ourself or something we’ve said we don’t have this hope. Our complete hope has to be in Jesus Christ, what He did for us on the cross. First Corinthians 15, 21, 22. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also came through a man.
For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be. It’s with certainty made alive. It’s all throughout the New Testament because Jesus died, was buried, and he rose from the dead. We have this hope of eternal life. It’s out there.
God has provided it for us. But it doesn’t come on every single person. Not everyone is going to heaven. There has to be a property response to God at some point in your life. And we see that in John 11, 25, 27, just the backstory here.
Jesus friend Lazarus had died. And he had been in the tomb for four days.
And it tells us that many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, his sisters, to comfort them about their brother. And as soon as Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary remained seated in the house. And Martha said to Jesus, lord, if you had just been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.
And she said, yet even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. And Jesus Said, you, brother will rise again.
Martha said, well, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection someday. She was looking to the future, but Jesus said to her in verse 25, I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. That’s the offer there.
Jesus said, if you believe in me, you will have eternal life. There are a lot of people, they’ve heard this message and they’ve been deceived by Satan, thinking, well, if I’ve heard that message, I’ve just been saved all of my life. That’s not what scripture says. Scripture says there must be a time that you repent and place your faith in Jesus Christ and turn to him. So there has to be this proper response.
There’s always this invitation to respond to the truth. And that’s what Jesus does here. He gives an invitation to Martha. He tells her the truth. I am the life.
You need to believe in me, and you’ll never die. Do you believe this? And she responded. She said, yes, Lord. Lord, I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God who comes into the world.
There’s a lot packed in there. She believed that he was the Lord God Almighty. She believed that he was the Messiah, meaning that he was the sent one that came to save the world from their sins and to restore everything to the right relation that God wants with his creation. He was and is the Son of God. And.
And she believed that he had come in the world to do that. And when she did that, she was responding properly, placing her faith in Jesus Christ so that she can now have the hope of a resurrection that we’ve been talking about today. We need to understand, appreciate Jesus humanity and know that it is completely essential and important that he came and lived in a body among us to live like us, to die like us, to rise again like we will one day, so he could completely be the Savior for us that we need. May we pray?
Heavenly Father, we thank you for what Jesus did for us, that we might have eternal life. And Father, I just pray that there’s anyone here today that maybe they’ve heard this message over and over and they’ve been led to believe that they’re a Christian, but they’ve never responded to you, Father, that they would pray today. Yes, you are the Christ. I have a sin problem I need you to solve. I believe that you died, you were buried, you rose from the dead, and I want you to take control of my life today.
Father, if there are any among us that they would just pray that in their hearts and then be willing to share. As scripture says, they confess that to someone else that you are now their Lord and Savior. Father work in our midst to bring any to a proper response that maybe understand, but they’ve never really done that. We thank you for your body and for your blood that we celebrate in the Lord’s Supper. We thank you for the resurrection that we’re going to celebrate as we move after this to a time of baptism in the other room.
In Jesus name, with great thankfulness in our hearts we pray.