Introduction

Back when I was a Junior in high school I took the SAT standardized test and made a 1540. Now, when I told my students this today they were completely shocked because I learned the top score was a 1600. Sadly, I took a 3 part exam, not a 2-part. So, my score was like 50th percentile instead of 99th. I was dead-center, average. You know we spend our entire educational career before college it seems to prepare for this one big standardized test.

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The SAT came out in the 1920’s but these standardized tests weren’t as popular or “almost” mandatory until the “No Child Left Behind” act in 2003. Now, it seems like anyone who wants to be able to get into college is going to take this test. It’s a test that nearly every student has to face. What is the test for? Well, now you know how much you know (or at least how well you can show that knowledge on a test), and now you can prove to a college if you are a worthy candidate. The more prestigious a college the more their degree can be worth. The more prestigious a college, the harder it is to get in, and the higher that score needs to be.

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Cheating, of course, is always a scandal in such testing environments because now the test results are skewed and the whole point of taking such a test is rendered useless. It was not students cheating in recent years that caught a lot of attention, but their parents. A Wall Street Journal headline from 2019 reads, “Federal Prosecutors charged dozens of wealthy parents, including prominent law and business figures, and two Hollywood actresses with using bribes, bogus entrance exam scores, and faked academic achievements to get their children admitted to elite colleges.” Dr. Albert Mohler said about this, “We’re looking here at parents who paid somewhere between $50,000 and $1.2 million to get their privileged children into the most elite colleges and universities in the country. We’re talking about huge prestige. We’re talking about universities like Yale and Stanford, and the University of Southern California. We are talking about an indictment that includes prominent athletic coaches, university administrators, and more than anything else, parents; parents who are at the very center of the story, parents who sought to cheat, to bribe, to pay money, knowing that it would be used to game the system in order to gain admission to a prestigious university for their offspring.”

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Now, as a parents, do we want our children to face adversity? There was a parenting technique known as “helicopter” parenting, in which a parent is constantly hovering over their child watching every move. The above example can be known as “snowplow” parenting in which the parent seeks to remove every obstacle out of their child’s way. Most of us our familiar with the sensational idea that if you help a butterfly out of its chrysalis it will end up dying because it is the struggle it has to endure that strengthens it. This does not mean of course that we should try to cause our children to suffer in every waking moment. But there is wisdom in allowing them to struggle. And there is folly in plowing every problem out of their life. You may have seen that little cartoon of two pannels side by side of parent being upset about their child’s grades. In the 1960’s the parents are yelling at their child wondering why his grades are so bad. In modern day, the parent are yelling at the teacher wondering why his grades are so bad.

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Obviously, these parents who have bribed and connived to get their precious an excellent score on the SAT have done a disservice to society, the educational system, and to their very own child. Think about what that teaches that young person: every time you face a major test in life, mommy and daddy will do everything—even something immoral—to make sure it goes away. So when this student gets in to this prestigious college and has to face tests to say become a lawyer or medical doctor, what will this student be inclined to do on these tests (Or maybe even the parents)? And then when this student is operating on you in the medical field, do you trust those hands? When that person prescribes medicine to you, do you take it? No, and if you knew that this person never passed any tests you would never walk into his office! Why? Because the test proves he is who he says he is.

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This is the same thing we will see in today’s story in

Matthew 4

. John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit, God the Father all testified that Jesus is the Son of God. In fact, the Father said, “You are my Son.” Immediately, in Matt. Mark, and Luke, after the baptism Jesus is driven to the wilderness. Jesus is going to take a test that someone else had to take. You see, after Israel went through the waters of the Nile river they went out into the wilderness. God gave his expectations and in

Ex. 24

, the people of Israel promised to do everything God had commanded. But they failed the test, time and time again. They never kept their word or God’s law. They failed as a son of God. Yet where Israel failed, Jesus prevailed. Look at verse 1

‌Temptation 1 Matt. 4:1-4

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Matthew 4:1–4ESV

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”

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Jesus is led by the Spirit: he is working in obedience to the Father. The purpose is given in v.1 to be “tempted by the devil.”

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The word in Greek for “tempt” is the same word used for “test,” and I along with most commentators would argue that both are implied in v. 1. The difference between “tempt” and “test” is the goal of outcome. A goal for temptation is stumbling. A goal for test is proving and maturing. And so we are going to see that though the devil wants Jesus to stumble, he will come away proven to be who he says he is.

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V.2 I love because it’s easy to read and think, “well, duh.” It states something so obvious. But this obvious fact sheds light into who Jesus is: Jesus is fully human. Jesus experiences the same things we experience. His hunger points back to the Israelites who also hungered in the wilderness. In fact that’s why “forty days” is specifically mentioned: not just to record history, but remind us of Israel’s forty years in the wilderness. Think back to the Exodus story for a moment. God had done the unthinkable to rescue his people from Egyptian slavery and led them into the wilderness. When they faced hunger the question was “will they trust in God or disobey?” The verse that Jesus quotes sheds more light on why God allowed them to get hungry.

Deuteronomy 8:3

“And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

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“Obedience to God takes priority over self-gratification

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—even over essential provision of food.”

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And this is exactly where the devil tempts Jesus. in v. 3 he says, “If you are the Son of God. . .” notice, this title is not doubted, but it is twisted to make a taunt. But I want to take some time to explain what it means to be the “Son of God.” When we think of the title “son” our modern secular minds usually only think of biological processes.

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Psalm 82

references the divine beings—God’s divine council—as “sons of God.” And although this sonship does relate to generation, it is more than that. Their sonship is an exalted status above other beings. God generated all beings, but the angelic beings had the unique status as sons. Therefore, again, the primary purpose of the term sonship is not to merely communicate generation in time, but a special relationship to God.

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Psalm 2:7

“I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.”

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Psalm 2

talks about the Lord and his anointed king. This king he calls his son. This, of course, is a Messianic Psalm referring to Jesus. Sonship is a figure of speech used frequently in the Bible which communicates a unique family rela...