3rd Temptation: Worship who?

After wrestling with two temptations, Jesus faced a third.

Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’

Jesus is again facing a choice between two worlds, the world of the flesh, a life of self-gratification, and the world of the spirit, a life of self-surrender. The question he faces is: "Am I going to live for myself or live for my father God"?

The human race is the product of evolution - "survival of the fittest”. By our DNA nature we are self-centred, and focussed on our own survival. Richard Dawkin titled his famous book, “The Selfish Gene” to highlight the disinterested, single-minded chemical and biological processes that lead to the survival of a species or its extinction. Nature is indeed “red in tooth and claw”.

Like all mammals, human beings need food, drink, shelter and warmth to survive, and they propagate their genes by reproduction. This translates to needing money and a partner of the opposite sex. The use of money as the means of exchange took time to develop but it was well established by Jesus’ day. Much of his teaching would be directed at the hold money and possessions have on people’s lives and he was now wrestling with the same issue. He needed the necessities of life like everyone else but what did that mean in terms of his relationship to God? Perhaps he could see himself carrying on his earthly father’s carpenter business, marrying and having children, or becoming a political zealot, joining with those who wished to kick the Romans out of Israel. If he became a successful businessman or a political leader with men at his command, his name would be well-known, he would have status, be respected, perhaps revered, even worshipped. Did the battle in his mind go something like this:

I know I have extraordinary powers and gifts. Suppose I put myself first, rule my own life and bow the knee to no one. Suppose I put my needs and my desires before everything else, the world will be my oyster and there’s no limit to how high I might rise. 

Then the counter-argument. No! I am His son, I must renounce such thoughts – I thrust them behind me!I will lay my life down before my heavenly father. I will serve him alone. I will live a life of sacrificial love, the life of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Three temptations faced, three overcome

Spirit before flesh: Food for the spirit before bread for the body. Jesus would live day by day, not looking to either the past or the future. Each day he would seek his Father's word, and know that each day his Father would feed his spirit.

Trust Him not test Him: Jesus would not use the scriptures as a testing ground for his Father by invoking them like a book of spells to summon up miracles. He would walk the path of obedience, his Father’s will not his own.

Complete surrender: All his ego, all his ambition, all desire for recognition and status Jesus will put behind him. His life will be laid completely at his Father’s feet in service and worship.

For 40 days Jesus had wrestled with the voice he heard at his baptism - "This is my beloved son in whom I am well-pleased." He wrestled with doubts and questions and overcame them with words from the book of Deuteronomy:

Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from mouth of God.

You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.