INTO THE WILDERNESS: Following Jesus Can Lead Us to Unexpected Places
Pastor Steven Osborne
Transcribed by PulpitAI (with edits)
Have you ever committed to following God, expecting blessings, only to find life gets harder instead of easier? Just kind of wrestle with that one for a second. We will get back to that question again at the end of my message. I was pondering that question and just thinking about how easy it would be to preach the gospel if we were able to just preach and say, “Give your life to Jesus, it’s gonna be amazing! No issues afterwards,” right? But that is not always the case, and you will see that again in the life of Jesus this morning.
Defining Moments
Before we look at this passage, I want to just talk about defining moments.
I’ve shared with you before, if you’ve been at Salem for a long time, one of those spiritual defining moments in my life was in Bible school, when I was dealing with my identity in Christ, I was dealing with challenges about my calling into ministry, and I was dealing with some sin in my life. And one of those mornings the professor called me out, and he prayed over me in front of a big class of 100+ students. And it was an intimidating moment, and I thought the Lord was gonna really reveal all my sin that morning in front of the class, and the Lord was gonna say, “Oh, Steven, you have too many issues. The Lord can’t use you.” Right? “Pack up your bags and go and work somewhere else. Go and work in the mines in South Africa.” But that morning, as the professor was praying over me, the Lord did a profound work and ministry in my life. That was the morning where I experienced the love of God for the first time in such a real way, and it was the morning that the Lord really set me free of many things in my life.
And I was thinking about that this week in preparing for this, that in that moment, standing in front of my whole class, just the professor and myself and him praying over me, that for most students looking at that situation would say, “Well, that’s kind of a cool moment. That’s just the professor praying over Steven. He really needs that.” Right? Type of deal. But most of them had no idea of the defining moment that had in my life.
And even when we look at some of these stories—and the story that we’re gonna look at this morning in the life of Jesus being in the wilderness, being tempted by Satan—a lot of times we have a limited view, and we just think of all of the Sunday school stories that we have heard and the images that we have seen, but we might miss the defining moment that is right in front of us. And over the next several weeks, I want to help you to see this very important defining moment and the impact of this story. And so don’t miss it. So kind of remove maybe some of those Sunday School lessons that is coming to mind as we read this passage.
The Baptism of Jesus
So if you have your Bible with you—and I have it on the screen here as well—we’re actually gonna start in Matthew chapter 3, starting in verse 13.
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.
During Ash Wednesday, I preached and kind of gave you a little bit of a background on John the Baptist, how God called him. It was actually prophesied about his ministry 700 years earlier in the book of Isaiah. And so John’s calling and whole purpose was to preach and to prepare a way for the Messiah.
And so here we see John the Baptist is preaching, and he’s preparing the way, and now suddenly you have Jesus that is showing up, and he’s asking John to baptize him. And you can understand maybe the conflict that he’s experiencing in that moment.
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
So let’s just kind of pause there before we go on to chapter 4 and just kind of see this moment and the powerful moment of this baptism.
This is Jesus now. He’s just about being launched into full-time public ministry, and he’s getting baptized. I’m not sure how many people were there in that moment, but a couple of things that we see.
First of all, we see that heaven opened up. Now, I remember aspects of my baptism. I can’t remember that heaven opened up. I was definitely not that special. But there is quite some significance to that in a sense of what is being communicated to us about the Trinity, what is being communicated to us about the relationship and communication between Jesus and the Father. And so this is just a sweet moment. This is an amazing moment. This is a sacred moment.
I was kind of wondering about that day in that picture of—if we were able to witness that, and just think about all the people that were there. What did that look like? Heaven opening up, and then you have the dove, the Holy Spirit, and then you have a voice from heaven, a voice from heaven that said, “This is my Son, whom I love, and with him I am well pleased.” This is a good season. This is a good day in the life of Jesus. He didn’t mess up. God isn’t mad.
Led By the Spirit
All right, so what happens next? Matthew 4, verse 1 and 2.
Then Jesus…
So Jesus just got baptized.
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
No kidding, right? It’s like, it was Venessa’s turn last night for date night, and boy, she did a great job. She treated us for a nice dinner—steak, cheesecake, the works. That was last night, and I’m already ready for lunch, right? And so forty days, no food!
But let’s start in the beginning.
… Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness…
Now, the Greek word here for “led”—I’m not gonna try and pronounce it. I’m gonna butcher that one. But I want you to see kind of the meaning behind it. It is “a deliberate, intentional movement initiated by God himself.” So Jesus was baptized, right? And immediately the Spirit of God is guiding him to the Holiday Inn. Into a megachurch. No. The Spirit of God is guiding him into the wilderness. God’s got a plan. God is not mad, God is not angry, but there’s something that needs to happen in the life of Jesus in the wilderness.
The Judean Desert
Now this morning, as we think about just this word “wilderness,” there might be several pictures that come to mind for you. I think for us, at least in Minnesota, maybe we think about the Boundary Waters. You know, you can already imagine a couple of guys fishing. They’re on their little canoe. And so maybe for us, we think, “Oh, this is wilderness.” But to understand this passage this morning and a lot of the Old Testament, we have to have a biblical understanding of the wilderness.
And so when we look at the Judean desert where this whole scene is playing out, I want to place you this morning just for a minute or two in the Judean desert. And this is very accurate. I’ve had the opportunity to kind of overlook some of this, and it is fascinating to just kind of imagine yourself in the desert and what ministry looked like for Jesus. So just kind of relax and just kind of put yourself in the Judean desert this morning.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I most definitely don’t want to hang out there for forty days. I’m not sure that I even want to hang out there for a weekend. What about forty years? And so now we put ourselves in the wilderness, in the life of Jesus, and he’s hanging out there by himself for forty days.
Now, to give you a little bit even more context about wilderness, Dr. Jack Beck, he describes the seven qualities, similarities, of the biblical wilderness. Now just kind of think through—I said there’s several different wildernesses, deserts in Israel, and here’s some of those similarities.
It is vast and it is rugged.
It has precious little water. It has water, but it has precious little water.
It is a land without grain. Now just think again about how important this was to that time. When you think about grain, I mean, that was their staple food.
Limited permanent settlement.
A place with very few travelers.
A land without borders. Because nobody wants to be there.
A land that lacks everything. It’s a joyful place, right?
So here’s some similarities. So just kind of to get a sense and it feel, it’s like, this is not the place that you want to hang out in the natural.
Tempted
Now, Jesus ends up in the wilderness, and we read that he is being tempted. Now, the Greek word here, peirazo, is interesting, because this is gonna help us, again, to just kind of to understand the rest of this sermon series. So it’s kind of an important word for us.
When we think about being tempted, there’s two aspects to it. One is, a lot of times when we think about it, we think about evil, to be tempted to do evil. That’s one aspect of this word. But there’s another aspect. It is to be tested to reveal the truth. So in other words, what is being communicated to us is this, is to say, when you go to school, when you’re in college, and you now have to write a test or an exam, you’re writing the test or the exam to show what knowledge you already have, what is inside of you. Right? And so when we look at this Greek word about what is happening in the life of Jesus, we can assume that it’s not this first one, but it is about revealing the truth of what is happening in Jesus. And I think this is very true for a lot of us too when we go through the wilderness.
Now, let me help this to kind of explain this to you. When we go back to that passage in Matthew chapter 4, it says that the heaven opened up and God declared that “this is my Son.” What do we read there? What do we understand? We understand that God is revealing the identity of Jesus. And now he’s going into the wilderness, and when he’s going through these temptation moments with the enemy, guess what? He’s being tested on his identity, on “Who are you really? Are you truly the son of God?” Right? And so you will see that over the next several weeks. But there’s something being tested in Jesus.
And we actually see through this temptation, through the different things that Jesus is experiencing in this moment, it helps him to identify with the things that you and I go through. Just look at Hebrews 4:15. You know this passage well.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.
This part relates to what Jesus experienced in the wilderness. And to say everything that Jesus—the temptations and the things that Jesus went through—he did not sin. He did not fall for the tricks of the enemy, right? But through all of that temptation, he was able to relate with the things that you and I go through and the things that the world is throwing at us.
The Meaning of the Wilderness
Now, when we think about the wilderness—and this is maybe the two pieces that we might miss. This is kind of that deeper meaning when we think about the story, because this story has layers to it. There’s many layers to the meaning of this story and this event in the life of Jesus. And even when you maybe read through the next passage in Deuteronomy, you’re gonna be able to click about some of these layers.
Now, Jesus is in the wilderness, and so this morning then we have to ask ourselves, what is the meaning of the wilderness experience? Why did God send Jesus into the wilderness? And then even the more personal question this morning for us is, why do we have to go through the wilderness? Well, Deuteronomy 8 helps us to understand the meaning behind the wilderness.
Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, …
Here it is. Here’s the answer. What is supposed to happen in the wilderness?
… to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone…
And you’ll see this in the coming week, but here’s kind of a connection piece for us with the passage about Jesus.
… to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.
Now let’s go back to the story of Moses and him leading out the Israelites out of Egypt, because I want to show you the parallel. So just think about the story of the Israelites. First of all, they came out of Egypt, and then they went through the water, and then they went into the wilderness. Okay, think about the story of Jesus. Came out of Egypt, went through the water, not forty years, but forty days in the wilderness. Do you think there’s a lesson for us? I believe so. And I believe part of the message that Jesus is communicating to us, and what God is showing us through this, is to say that Jesus is gonna be successful in this area where the Israelites failed—that he’s perfect.
Now just go back to the desert and to the Israelites, because I don’t think we can completely relate here. They were slaves in Egypt, and I’m sure that was brutal, and I’m sure that was really hard, and then God calls them out into the wilderness (you have that picture). Something that was probably only supposed to be months or a year ended up being forty years. Now, forty years in the wilderness is brutal. No warm shower. The same meal every day. “What’s on the menu?” “Manna.” It’s cold, and then it’s hot, and then there’s some more walking to do, for forty years. No wonder that they were complaining. No wonder they were saying, “Can we just go back to Egypt?” Because at least in Egypt, you had the Nile River. It’s quite an exciting place. You had food. You at least had some greenery.
One thing that is always very evident in my life when I travel to Israel, I’m always excited to be back in Minnesota, especially when you’re kind of flying over Minnesota and you just see all of those green trees. Because you get so tired, and it’s like, you know, the longest I’ve been there is like 10–11 days. And I’m just tired. It’s like, “Man, I need some green trees. Give me a little bit of Minnesota.”
And to live into that desert for forty years, and that’s all you see—no wonder they’re like, “Lord, we want to go back. We’re willing to go back to Egypt. Yes, we were slaves, but in a sense, it was better.”
But there were some important lessons for them in the desert. First of all, it says to humble them. To teach them. What is God trying to teach them? One of the main lessons that God is trying to teach them is this, to say, “Will you trust me in this wilderness when there’s nothing?” Where are you gonna find your water today?”
“Well, Lord, there’s really nothing here in front of us, so I guess we got to trust you.”
What are you gonna eat when you walk in that desert? Believe me, there’s no banana trees. There’s nothing. And so you have only one option for survival, and that is to trust God. And when you and I go through the wilderness, one of the big lessons that God wants to teach us when we walk through the wilderness is to really trust him. He wants to reveal to us to say he is worthy to be trusted. And sometimes he’s got to take us out of every comfortable thing that we know, because when we’re comfortable, when we have a full bank account, when we have a house, when we have a car, when we have warm water, all of those things, why trust God? And how will you be tested to know that you actually have hope in God when you’ve not been in the wilderness? And so God is removing all of them out of Egypt to say, “You are now in a place where you have to absolutely trust me—not just with your mouth, but with all of your life as well.” And this is a good thing.
And so I have to say that this was really a swing for me this week in my mind as I’m thinking through these stories, because I hate the wilderness. I don’t want to go through the wilderness. It’s not fun.
I’m trying to think of the pastor’s name now. I can’t think of his name. John Bevere. Pastor John Bevere makes this important statement, and I agree with him. He says, “When we’re in the wilderness, we cannot shorten the experience, but we can extend the experience.” Okay? And so, God has a plan for us to walk through the wilderness. There’s some things he wants us to learn. There’s some things that he wants to develop in our lives. He wants to mature us. And we have to walk through it. And we shouldn’t try and shorten that. A lot of times we do try and shorten that. It’s like, “Lord, this is not a fun place.”
And God is saying, “Hey, walk through.”
But guess what? We can’t shorten that, but we can extend it. And we saw that in the life of the Jewish people. Something that was supposed to be a month or a year ended up being 40 years so that they would actually learn a lesson. And that lesson was to trust God.
And so what do we do, how are we gonna behave, when we are in the desert? What’s our attitude gonna be? And a lot of times we curse and we yell and we cry and we have a wrong perspective when we’re in the desert, and we think, “Oh Lord, what did I do wrong?” Well, Jesus didn’t do anything wrong. This was intentional by the Spirit of God to do a work in the life of Jesus. And so this morning, if you’re going through the wilderness, just maybe you shouldn’t be complaining and crying and asking, “God, what did I do wrong?” There’s a place for that too. But just maybe this is intentional by the Holy Spirit to teach you something.
So number one, Jesus is showing us that he is gonna fulfill and be successful in the areas where the Jewish people failed.
Number two. Just think about Genesis and with Adam and Eve and kind of some of those similar words in the way that Satan tempted Jesus. We hear those words again in Adam and Eve. And it’s the same Greek word here. And so in the areas where Adam and Eve failed, Jesus is also showing us here that he’s better and he’s gonna succeed in that moment in the wilderness.
So this morning, can you see that it’s a little bit bigger than just the Sunday school story that we’re used to?
God leads us to unexpected places to strengthen our trust and to grow our faith.
Jesus Alone with Satan
I want to end—we’re running out of time here. I saw this from Tim Mackey. This was kind of interesting. We see that Jesus is being tempted by Satan. Now, there’s a lot of art throughout the ages that kind of gives us an image of that moment. Well, one thing we do know is that Jesus was by himself in the wilderness with Satan, right? Wasn’t public. The disciples weren’t there. So at some point, Jesus was sharing this event, this moment, with his disciples, and they obviously shared that with the rest of the Jewish nation, and obviously now we read about it. But nobody else was present.
And throughout the ages people painted this moment. This picture is one of the earlier images. And so what I want you to focus on is kind of the way that they portray Satan. Now who told them that this is the image of Satan? Right? But there’s a lot of things that played into the creation of Satan in the way that they were painting it, some things that played into their culture.
But then it’s fascinating to kind of watch that and to see how that develops throughout the ages, and now it looks a little bit more human. And then there’s some changes again, and maybe the image and way that we would see Satan. And then you have another image, kind of as this fallen angel. It is interesting, when we think about fallen angels, or just angels in general, that nowhere in Scripture do we see a picture like this. Nowhere in Scripture does that give us an image of Satan like this man made with wings. I mean, just go and read Revelation. We get a whole ‘nother picture of angels.
So somehow—we don’t know what Jesus experienced and what he saw and how Satan showed up in that moment. We just don’t know. But what we do know—and this is kind of a key piece for us this morning—is that Jesus was dealing with this spiritual force. Jesus was dealing with the enemy. Jesus was dealing with Satan in that moment. Can you imagine the spiritual battle, the spiritual battle moment? I mean, I wonder, if we were in the wilderness, if you could sense, it’s like, “Man, this is a moment,” and the weight, and even in a sense of Satan trying to deceive Jesus, testing his identity, Jesus being weak, hungry, and Satan says, “Well, here’s some bread. Just eat this bread.”
And then I’m gonna leave you there for next week.
Trust God
What I want you to take away this morning, just as introduction to this passage, is: we all go through a wilderness season. And yes, in that wilderness season, a lot of times it is hard. In the wilderness season, it might feel scary. In the wilderness season, it might feel alone. Just in a practical way, just put yourself in the life of Jesus—or not even just in the life of Jesus, but put yourself in the wilderness, forty days. And it’s already scary in the day, but what does that look like even at night? No flashlight. No iPhone. Just you and the sounds of the wilderness.
And that can be true for us spiritually sometimes when we go through those moments in the wilderness. We might not hear God’s voice. We might feel far away. And so my encouragement to you just this morning is to say, trust God. Look at what he’s trying to teach you. Really trust him. Because he wants to reveal to you and to me that he is worthy to be trusted. Sometimes we try and make a way. (Thank you.) Right? We sometimes think, oh, we got to make a way instead of trusting God. What is God teaching us this morning?
