10 Why Jesus Chose Starvation Over Self-Reliance (Matthew 4:1-4)

Speaker: You're listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. And I'm glad you are. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. We are going to study Matthew chapter 4, verses 1 through 4 today. This is the tenth topic in my series on the Gospel of Matthew. You can find lecture notes with links to everything mentioned in the top and an outline of the main points on the website. You can click on the link below this podcast or go to wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 10. Thanks for joining me today. While we are continuing our series on the Gospel of Matthew, as Matthew tells the story, we have just met Jesus in person. In the first two chapters, we learn of his miraculous birth and how God protected him as an infant and child. In chapter three, we meet John the Baptist, who functions as the herald who announces the coming of the king. And then we finally meet Jesus when, as his first official act, he submits himself to the baptism of John. At his baptism, the heavens opened and the voice of God confirmed that Jesus is the Messiah. He says, My beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. So we have dramatic heavenly confirmation that Jesus is the Messiah. John the Baptist was told he would know for sure who the Messiah is when he saw this sign of the Spirit descending and remaining on the person he baptized, and that's exactly what he sees when he baptizes Jesus. Now how do you follow that? We would expect perhaps that Jesus would rally an army and march into Jerusalem to kick out the Roman overlords and establish his rightful reign. We might expect him to claim the throne of David as is his right amidst the tears and the adoration of the nation. That doesn't happen. Instead, Jesus is led into the wilderness alone to face starvation and temptation. And we're going to look at the first of those temptations today. This is Matthew chapter four, verses one through four. Then Jesus was led 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. Now if you're comparing Matthew's account of the temptation with Luke's account, you'll notice that Luke puts the temptations in a slightly different order, and I don't think that's a problem. Matthew must have gotten this information from Jesus, and I assume Luke got this information from Matthew or one of the other apostles who got it from Jesus. Because Jesus, God, and Satan are the only eyewitnesses to this event. So at some point Jesus must have told Matthew and the apostles this story. As we go through these, you'll see the order doesn't really matter to the point, and I don't think it's a problem that Luke puts them in a different order. Before we look at the first temptation, let's review the circumstances of these three temptations. First, Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit. He is where he is because God told him to go there. And we ought to remember as we study these temptations that this is how Jesus understands his situation. He is where he is at the will of God. He is there because God told him to go there. He is facing starvation, isolation, and temptation because this is what God has asked him to do. Second, we're told that the purpose of God sending Jesus into the wilderness is so that he might be tempted by the devil. Now the devil has a goal of getting Jesus to fall. The Spirit of God has led Jesus into the wilderness so that this temptation might happen, and clearly the devil's goal is evil, but God intends to use the devil's evil goal to accomplish his own grand purposes. Third, this Greek word tempted, it's periodzo in the Greek in 4.1, it can be translated several different ways. The basic meaning is to test. If you want to find out what something is made of, you test it. And the goal of the test is to see how what it is, how it responds. So if you're testing a person with the hope that the person fails the test, then this word is typically translated tempted. But if you're testing a person with the hope that he succeeds, then this word is often translated to try or to test. And in our context, you can see both possible meanings of that word as two different beings have two very different purposes for this test. The devil hopes that Jesus will fail, but God intends for Jesus to succeed. So the devil and God have two very different purposes for this event. And then fourth, who is the devil anyway? In this passage he's referred to three ways. In four one he's called the devil or diabolos in Greek. It comes from the Greek word meaning one who slanders or accuses falsely. In four two he's called the tempter, which is the noun form of the verb periodzo tempt or test, the word we just talked about. And in four ten, Jesus addresses him as Satan, which comes from a Hebrew word which basically means the adversary. His general goal seems to be to destroy God's people and thwart God's plans and purposes. His particular goal here is not explained to us. Matthew doesn't explain what the devil hopes to again by tempting Jesus, but we can guess, especially when we get to the last temptation. We know from scripture that Satan is interested in tempting every human being, and we would expect that Jesus would be no exception. In fact, as the Messiah, we would expect that Jesus would be a particular target for Satan. Satan tries to entice us away from God to our destruction, and if he could destroy the Messiah, that would be a big win for him. If he can entice the Messiah to sin, he would destroy much more than a single human being. He would destroy God's plan for all of mankind. Now that makes this event very significant in salvation history. Satan wants to disqualify Jesus as God's Messiah, and if he succeeds, that would be disastrous. It would have disastrous effects for all of us for eternity. However, God is using this event to accomplish some very good things. While Satan wants to disqualify Jesus, God wants to show that Jesus is in fact qualified to be the Messiah. Testing is something that God does with each of us. He tested Abraham, He tested Israel, He tests us. God's goal is to bring out into the open what kind of people we are. If we are people of faith, then faith is revealed and strengthened through the testing. God knows that Jesus is a person of faith and He wants to demonstrate that for all to see. And God knows that these temptations will show how deeply committed Jesus is to obeying the Father and how appropriate it is that He is the Messiah. These tests will prove that Jesus is worthy to be the Messiah. But I think there's another reason that God has led Jesus into the wilderness to be tested. I think God is deliberately creating a parallel between the nation of Israel and Jesus. God led Israel into the wilderness and God led Jesus into the wilderness. In Exodus, we see times when God deliberately lets Israel go hungry or thirsty in the wilderness, and here he lets Jesus go hungry and thirsty. God tested Israel in the wilderness, and God is testing Jesus in the wilderness. God led Israel through the wilderness for forty years, and God has led Jesus in the wilderness for forty days. In Deuteronomy, Moses is looking back on Israel's years in the wilderness, and by the way, this is the same passage that Jesus will quote from in these temptations. And Moses says this in Deuteronomy eight two, and you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. I think we can extrapolate from how God tested Israel to how he is testing Jesus and conclude that God is doing the same thing with Jesus. God is testing Jesus to see what's in his heart and whether he will keep God's commandments or not. Satan is trying to destroy Jesus, but God is showing us what is in Jesus' heart and how worthy he is to be the Messiah. Jesus seems to see these parallels very clearly. In Deuteronomy, at the end of their 40-year journey, Moses preaches a sermon to the nation, and in that sermon, he reviews the lessons that God was teaching them in the wilderness, lessons which they failed to learn. And what we're going to see is that in each of these three temptations, Jesus quotes from this very sermon by Moses. He quotes the lessons that Israel was supposed to learn in the wilderness. Now he could have quoted any number of Old Testament scriptures in this situation, but he quotes three times from this one sermon which happens to be about the lessons Israel was to learn in the wilderness. And unlike the nation of Israel, Jesus has learned of these lessons well. That suggests to me that he is aware of the parallels between his situation and their situation, and he deliberately quotes the lessons they were supposed to learn from their time in the wilderness to show that. By creating these parallels, God is telling us that Jesus is the hope of Israel. Jesus succeeds in obeying God where Israel failed. Jesus will bring about the salvation of God's people. Moses told the people what it looked like to be faithful to God, and Jesus is now modeling for us what it looks like to be faithful to God. And we can see what we are called to as we face testing in our own lives. With that in mind, then for each temptation, we're going to answer three questions. Why is the choice wrong? Why is the choice attractive to Jesus? And how Jesus responds, which is going to take us to the Old Testament. Let me read the first temptation again. This is Matthew 4, 1 through 3. Then Jesus was led 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're the Son of God, command these stones to become bread. First let me tell you what is not going on here. Satan is not daring Jesus to prove that he's the Messiah. I don't think Satan is asking Jesus to prove that he is in fact the Son of God. Some scholars have suggested this, and it is an interpretive possibility, and at first glance, it does look like Satan is daring Jesus to prove his Messiahship. So he could be saying, if you're the Son of God, I doubt it. I really don't think you are. But if you are, you should be able to do something simple to prove it. I know, let's turn these stones into bread. Go on, prove it. I don't think that's what's going on here. This is more like my friend saying, if you have a food processor, why are you chopping your vegetables by hand? She's not questioning whether or not I have a food processor. She's questioning why I'm not using it. I think Satan here is not questioning whether Jesus is the Son of God. He believes Jesus is the Son of God. He believes that Jesus has the ability to turn the stones into bread. He's tempting Jesus to do it. He's saying, you have the ability to change this situation. Why aren't you doing it? That view that he is tempting Jesus to prove he's the Son of God doesn't answer two questions for me. First, why would Jesus have to go hungry for forty days and forty nights first? Jesus could have been well fed, and that temptation would have been just as compelling. And second, I don't see why Jesus would have been tempted to play that game at all. Why would he even want to prove to Satan that he's the Messiah? I can't imagine why he would care whether or not Satan truly believes he's the Messiah and why he would be even slightly tempted to prove it. So what is the problem here? What is Satan asking him to do and what's wrong with it? Well Satan is asking Jesus to turn stones into bread. Now elsewhere in Scripture we see Jesus bring food out of nowhere, for example, at the feeding of the five thousand where he multiplied the fish and the loaves. So I would conclude that there's nothing inherently wrong with miraculously producing food because Jesus does it later in his ministry. The problem is in these particular circumstances, turning the stones into bread would have showed a lack of trust in God. Satan is tempting Jesus to think that God is not good and therefore Jesus should stop trusting him. Now step back a minute, let's remember the context. Scholars like to debate when Jesus knew that he was the Messiah, and I think we can safely say he knows he's the Messiah at this point. Remember what immediately preceded this event was Jesus' baptism, and when he was baptized a voice came out of heaven saying, This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. And I argued that the term Son of God refers to the Davidic King, and therefore Jesus knows he's the Messiah at this point in his life. Also remember that Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil. It's not random chance that Jesus is out here. This is God's design and God's plan. God took Jesus into the wilderness and then seemingly forgot to feed him. You could look at this situation and say, you know, it's really God's fault that Jesus has been out here so long without food. God confirmed Jesus was the Messiah, God told him to go into the wilderness and presumably stay there, and God forgot to provide the food. Given those circumstances, Satan is trying to shake Jesus' trust in God. Now let me play act a little bit at being Satan and try to expand on what I think is going on in this temptation. I think Satan is saying something like this. Jesus, what are you doing out here without food? Oh wait, wait, don't tell me, let me guess. He brought you out here, didn't he? I knew it. That is just like him. If God would let you of all people go hungry, what kind of a God is he? After all, you're the Son of God, the King, the Messiah. If we can't trust God to look out for his own Messiah, how can we trust him for anything at all? I mean, think about it, Jesus. God just isn't up for the job. You look awfully hungry. You better wake up and smell the roses, kid. Stop waiting for God to provide for you. I mean, after all, isn't forty days long enough? If you keep waiting for God, you're gonna starve first. So do yourself a favor. Do the rest of us a favor. Eat something. Just turn these little stones here into bread. Nothing wrong with that. It would be so easy, it would taste good. And remember, if God would neglect you, his own Messiah, then it's really past time you stop relying on him. You better start looking out for yourself. So Jesus, if you're the Son of God, command these stones to become bread. See what's happening here? Satan is trying to shake Jesus' confidence in God's goodness. And his logic sounds pretty good. His logic is if God is really good, he would feed you. He's not feeding you, so God must not be good. And if God isn't good, then I can't trust him to take care of me, and if I can't trust him to take care of me, then I'd better look out for myself. And therein lies the sin. For Jesus to feed himself by turning the stones into bread would be to cease trusting God to provide and turn to his own resources. The problem with Satan's logic is that first statement. God is good, but he may not feed you. God may not immediately satisfy your needs because he has a bigger agenda for you. The test is are you going to trust him when your circumstances look like he's forgotten or abandoned you? And the choice is wrong because it would be taking matters into his own hands and ceasing to trust God for his needs. And the choice is attractive because Jesus is really hungry and he's in a position where it would be really tempting to think God has stopped taking care of me. Now let's look at how Jesus responds. Matthew 4 4, but he answered, It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. To get the context for the verse Jesus quotes, we need to back up a bit and remind ourselves of the story of Israel's exodus from Egypt. The Israelites were suffering in slavery in Egypt, and God sent Moses to them with a message. And in Exodus 6, 7 through 9, God promises Israel that He will deliver them from their slavery in Egypt. He says he will do it with an outstretched arm, which I understand to mean a striking display of power. You will see his arm at work. From that time on he says, I will be your God and you will be my people. They will know that God is the one who delivered them from bondage, and he will give them the land that he promised to Abraham, and they will possess it. But Israel doesn't listen, they're too despondent. Still, God delivers them from slavery through a series of ten plagues, including the Passover, and Pharaoh finally agrees to release them, and Moses leads the people out of Egypt and up to the shore of the Red Sea. But then Pharaoh regrets his release and he pursues them anyway. And let me just read Exodus fourteen, ten through thirteen. The Israelites are at the shore of the Red Sea, the Egyptian army is bearing down on them, and we read this. So the sons of Israel cried out to the Lord. Then they said to Moses, Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us in this way, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians, for it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness. But Moses said to the people, Do not fear, stand by and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will accomplish for you today, for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. So the people as a whole don't trust the Lord, and they don't trust Moses, despite having seen the plagues, despite the Passover, they look at their present situation and they go, You know what? God has stopped taking care of us. They're camping by the sea in the wilderness, the Egyptian army is fast approaching, and their circumstances don't look very good. So they turn to Moses and they say, We were stupid to believe the Lord, we were crazy to follow Moses, and now we're gonna die out here in the wilderness. But God parts the Red Sea, allowing the Israelites to cross over on dry ground. Then the waters close over the Egyptian army when they try to follow them and washes them away. And chapter 14 concludes with this 1431. And this is the first time we have a clear declaration that they believe in the Lord and in his representative Moses. God has parted the sea, the Israelites walked over on dry ground, but when the Egyptians tried to cross over the sea closed up and swallowed them. God has dramatically displayed his saving power, and the people are impressed, but this newfound trust does not last. Let's skip ahead to Exodus chapter sixteen and we find this account. This is sixteen verses one through three. Then they sent out from Elam and all the congregation of the sons of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elam and Sinai on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt. The whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The sons of Israel said to them, Would that we had died by the Lord's hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger? So here we see once again, the people have lost confidence in Moses, they've lost confidence in the Lord. This is the wilderness. There's no food, there's no meat, there's no grain to bake bread, and they conclude that the Lord has brought them out here to starve to death. So they complain, hey Moses, why didn't the Lord just kill us in Egypt? It would have been a lot easier, we wouldn't have had to march all this way, and at least our stomachs would have been full when he killed us. In response, God sends them manna from heaven, and we read about that in Exodus sixteen, four and five. This flaky stuff would fall in the morning. They could gather it and eat it and make bread with it. And let me just read Exodus sixteen four. Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I will rain bread down from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day that I may test them whether or not they will walk in my instruction. So as the story turns out, God gives them this manna for the full forty years they end up being in the wilderness. He stops it on the day they go into the promised land. God specifically tells them why he's giving them this manna, he says that I may test them whether or not they will walk in my instructions. And then in Exodus sixteen twelve he says, I have heard the grumblings of the sons of Israel, speak to them saying, At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God. They thought they were doomed to starve to death. They thought they were crazy to follow the Lord because he led them to this place with no food, but then the Lord provided food for them so that they would know that He is their God. He is in control, He is taking care of them. God does not want the people to ever forget that He provided for them, so they kept a jar full of manna in the Holy of Holies before the Ark of the Covenant, in part so that they could see and remember. The mana was a powerful display that God is caring for them and that God is providing for them when all hope seems lost, and God didn't ever want them to forget that He provided for them. So God takes them to Mount Sinai where he gives them the law, but time after time they refuse to trust him. Finally they get to the promised land and they say, Let's kill Moses and go back to Egypt. So God condemns that generation to wander in the wilderness for forty years. When that generation is gone, with a couple of exceptions, God then takes them into the promised land. The book of Deuteronomy covers the time when the forty years has ended. Once again the nation of Israel is standing at the border of the promised land, and this time they're going to enter it. And Moses is preaching a final sermon to them, and in this sermon he reminds them of the lessons they were supposed to learn in the wilderness, so that when they go into the land they will choose to trust the Lord. Essentially, this whole sermon is saying, Remember the lessons you learned in the wilderness, because when you go into the land you're going to need them. Jesus quotes from this sermon three times. In the first temptation he quotes from Deuteronomy eight, which starts like this, this is eight one. 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. The issue they are facing is whether or not they're going to continue to trust the Lord. If they continue trusting him, they will live and multiply and possess the land. If they reject his commandments, they will fail to find life in the land and they will be exiled, and that is of course what eventually happened. It's important to understand what he means by live here. Remember from Exodus God promised that he would rescue them from slavery and establish them in the promised land, but he promised them blessing and prosperity. He promised they would be free from their enemies, and he made a covenant with them. If they would trust him, he would give them this blessing of peace and prosperity in the land. Now for us Christians today this is often confusing because the New Testament repeatedly urges us not to set our hopes and dreams on this world. We are urged not to cling to the blessings of this earthly life, but to consider ourselves aliens and strangers in this land, people who are just passing through it on our way to our real heavenly home. We are not promised to prosper in this life the way Israel was. We are promised eternal life and we are to set our hearts and hopes on life in the kingdom of heaven. But Israel has a different situation. At this point in history, God wants to prove his faithfulness to his people in a tangible, temporal way in their daily lives, and Israel would experience earthly tangible blessings if they continued to trust God. Their choice was keep his commandments, follow him and trust him, and live or not. And if they do follow and trust him, they will live in peace and prosperity and thrive. If they fail to trust him, they will not have this kind of life. Deuteronomy eight two says, You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. This is the issue that they faced throughout the wilderness. He humbled them, he put them in difficult circumstances, and in those circumstances he tested them to reveal what was in their hearts, who they were, who they were trusting in, what they were counting on. The test would make that obvious. Would they obey him? Would they reject him? Would they believe his promises or would they doubt him and turn away? And they will face the same issue when they go into the land. And now we get to the verse that Jesus quotes, this is Deuteronomy eight three. He humbled you and let you be hungry, and 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. Moses is looking specifically at the manna, and I would argue that the word live here in eight three is used the same way as it was in eight one, as in live and prosper. It's not just that you will keep breathing, but you will have this kind of blessed, peaceful, prosperous life that results from following God. And he's saying, Man does not survive and prosper by bread alone. Man thrives and prospers by everything that perceives out of the mouth of the Lord. We thrive and prosper by trusting in the word of the Lord. Moses reminds them that God put them in difficult circumstances. He put them in the wilderness where there was no food. He put them in the wilderness where there was no water. He did that on purpose. What was revealed in those circumstances? At the time they held the opinion that man lives by bread alone. The only way to survive and prosper is to make sure that you have enough bread and water and your food pantry is full. Remember, they complained to Moses, you have brought us out here in the wilderness to kill us with hunger. We were fools to believe you. We had food in Egypt. We can only survive and prosper when we have bread on our table. Moses, you and your God have forgotten that we need to eat. Our table's empty. The fact that you led us to this place with no food proves that we should never have followed you in the first place because really we only survive by bread. And how does God respond? He feeds them with something they could never have anticipated in their wildest dreams. They knew nothing of manna before that moment. It literally fell out of the blue sky. God rains food down on them. Bread appears on the ground. They didn't die, they lived, and they lived in spite of the fact that God led them to a place where there was no food. God showed them in a powerful way that He could provide for them even in a place where there was no bread. God gave them this physical object lesson. They weren't wrong to follow Him just because they were in a place with no food, because God can provide no matter what. So what determines whether they will live and prosper? Their lives do not depend on whether there's bread around and grain to sow in the fields. Their lives depend on the word of the Lord. God was teaching them this lesson by letting them go hungry and then unexpectedly giving them this manna. He's saying you think that you're going to survive because you have the ability to plant some grain, grow it, and make some bread. What you don't get is that you only have that ability because of God. Everything that comes from the mouth of God is what gives life. Everything God commands, everything God decrees, everything God promises, that is what will sustain you and prosper you. If God says follow me into the wilderness, then that's where you should go, even if there's no bread, because God is the source of life. Faithless thinking says, don't follow God if He leads you into the wilderness, there's no bread there and you'll die. But faithful thinking says follow God even if he leads you into the wilderness, a place with no bread, because God is the only source of life and God keeps his promises. Human beings do not prosper merely by ensuring that we have enough food to eat. Human beings prosper by relying on God and trusting in his promises. Okay, let's go back to Matthew now. What would it mean for Jesus to turn the stones into the bread? He would be showing the same lack of trust that Israel showed in the wilderness. He knows he's in the wilderness because this is where God wants him to be. God has led him there. He is hungry by the will of God. To turn the stones into bread is to refuse the path that God has taken him down. This is just like Israel saying, There's no bread here, let's go back to Egypt. We don't prosper merely by ensuring we have enough food to eat. We prosper by trusting in God and relying on his promises. The fact that there is no food is not the most important fact. If God wants me to be here, then this is the best place for me to be even if I'm starving. Let me pretend to expand on what Jesus might have thought. I think he's saying something like this So I'm hungry. Hunger is only for this world. You don't live by bread alone. Bread may keep the body alive longer, but it doesn't fulfill the deepest longings of my heart. I find physical life through eating bread, but I find eternal life through trusting God. God gives life with a capital L, eternal life to those who remain faithful and follow his instructions. It would be foolish of me to satisfy my hunger now. My hunger is not that important in the bigger picture. Hunger can only satisfy my temporal existence, but God sustains my soul, and I cannot obtain a place in God's kingdom any other way than trusting him. To seek bread and preserve my physical existence would be to forfeit eternity. The way to gain life, true life is not to seek bread made of wheat, but to seek whatever bread God grants in His grace. He knows my needs, He knows what's important. He has promised to fulfill the deepest longings of my heart, He has promised to fulfill my real need, life, holiness, and righteousness. I can do without bread, but I could never do without real life from God. So Jesus had a choice. He could follow God and possibly starve to death, or he could turn his back on God and provide for himself. And he did the wise thing. He chose the option that would guarantee eternal life, obeying the one who grants life. Now I think God had at least three purposes in this temptation. First, God is highlighting Jesus' role as the true Israel. Jesus is succeeding where Israel failed. The sons of Abraham were meant to bless the world as they found blessing for themselves, but they failed in that mission. And now Jesus, the true son of Abraham, will bless the world and realize the hopes of Israel because he is succeeding where they failed. Second, God wants to establish that Jesus is in fact worthy to be the Messiah. Jesus understands that trusting God is more important than creating bread. Through his obedience and understanding, he shows himself worthy to be the Messiah. He doesn't start his ministry by demanding that we worship him as king. Instead, he follows God into the wilderness where he might starve to death, in part because he understands that obeying and trusting God is central to everything he's called to do. And it is the central issue for us are we trusting God or not? Finally, Jesus is modeling for us what faithfulness and trials looks like. The most fundamental issue in this temptation is where do we find life? All of us want to thrive and find peace and security and prosperity and live long and peaceful lives. The Bible doesn't condemn that desire. Rather, the Bible says there is something more to be found. The gospel promises us real, true, eternal life. God has reached out to us to solve the problem of sin and death and futility and corruption so that we can truly thrive and have exactly the kind of life our hearts desire. Wanting that kind of life is the ultimate desire of our hearts. The question we all face is where do we find it? And Jesus is teaching us we don't find it by taking matters into our own hands. We think we know better than God. We tell ourselves that we live by bread alone. We tell ourselves that any path that does not involve giving us all the bread we want right now is the wrong path. And we think any path that doesn't give us fame, fortune, worldly security, money, health, happiness, marriage, romance, whatever, we think that's the wrong path. And we demand that God show us that He's taking care of us by giving us all those tangible things that we want. But the truth is God knows more about finding life than we do. We do not prosper merely by ensuring we have enough food to eat. We prosper by relying on the promises, plans, and purposes of God, even if we starve to death. Israel faced this question in the wilderness and they failed the test and they died there. Jesus faced this question in the wilderness and he passed. True, he was not thriving at the moment of the temptation, he was suffering, he was starving, but he trusted God and stayed where God wanted him to be, and he ultimately found life. Now I think in this life, God often takes us through a metaphorical wilderness. We have the promise of life, but our present experience may be lacking, and we may be very far from thriving. But what we have to remember is God is good and he may not feed you. We all have needs and we all want them met now on our terms, and that means we face a choice. Does thriving come from following God or from having everything that I think I want in my hands right now? Who am I gonna turn to to get all those needs met? God takes us through experiences where we don't have access to whatever it is we think we need to thrive. It might be food, it might be money, health, romance, beauty, friendships, community, career success, the perfect family, whatever it is we think we need to thrive. And in the midst of that lack, we are urged to remember where true life can be found. God is very willing to sacrifice our present comfort in order to increase our faith, because having faith is where we will ultimately find life. Now, I should add that God does not always leave us with this lack. He sometimes drops manna right out of the sky, just like he did for Israel in the wilderness. His purpose in giving them the manna was to remind them, look, I am taking care of you. Trust me, I know what I'm doing. And God often comes through for us in just such miraculous or unexpected ways that remind us that He is good and gracious, He is the source of life, He is worthy to be trusted, and yes, He's taking care of us. God is good, and sometimes He may not feed you. God is good and He always has our best interest in mind. We don't want to trade eternity for bread now. Nothing we think we want now can even slightly compare to the inheritance that God has in store for us. If we could just catch a glimpse, just get a taste of the life that God is offering us in the kingdom of heaven, how truly wonderful His blessings are, we would gladly do without our bread now. God's blessing, the life He offers, is worth everything that we suffer now. The temptation is to be overwhelmed with the physical need now. We're hungry either metaphorically or literally, and we get so wrapped up in the here and now and the thing that we want that we think if I just had that, I'd be happy that we unwittingly trade eternity for it. So don't trade eternity for a loaf of bread. The blessings we have come from God, not from taking matters into our own hands. We think we have a hand in all the good things we have. We think I earned that, I made it, I worked for it, I deserved the best, I worked hard for it. But the fact of the matter is we don't deserve the blessings God gives us, and not only that, we didn't earn them, God gave them to us. That's the lesson from the Exodus account. God did this so you would know that He is taking care of you. He took Israel into a place where there was no bread, and then he dropped manna right out of the sky to teach them, I'm here, I'm taking care of you. But we drop God out of the picture entirely. We think I earned it, I made it, I did it all. It was my hard work and education that gave me all this. But the truth is all the good things we have come from God. And trying to get them apart from God will fail. There's no other way to satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts than by trusting God. The way to obtain true life is to trust God, and what we think we need to fulfill us now won't fulfill us in the long run. There's only one way to satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts, and that is through trusting God. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word. My mission is to explain not only what a passage means, but how we figure it out. Your podcast feed may only show the last 20 or so episodes, but all the episodes and all the series are archived on wednesdayintheword.com. There are no ads and no spams on the website, only podcasts and Bible study resources, and it's all free and designed to help you improve your skills and understanding. If you want to thank me, please join the mailing list, subscribe to the podcast, leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen to the podcast, and most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coast. You can find his music on heartfeltmusic.org. Thanks for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I hope I'll see you next week at Wednesday and morning.