Passage: Mark 1:12-13
The Big Idea
Right after His baptism, the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan for forty days. There the perfect Servant proved Himself where Israel had failed, and became a High Priest who understands our weakness. Temptation isn’t sin; it reveals what’s already in our hearts. The answer isn’t a strategy or a system. It’s a Person, seated on a throne of grace, ready to give us His Spirit.
The Perfect Servant
Mark presents Jesus as the perfect Servant, the Ox, perfectly willing and able to fulfill all God requires of humanity. Jesus did everything God asked and everything people needed. No one else ever served God perfectly; Jesus lived the servant life every human was meant to live.
And Mark wastes no time answering the obvious question: how could Jesus, as a man, serve God perfectly? The answer is the Holy Spirit. The Father gave the Spirit to the man Christ Jesus as the living resource to accomplish His will.
That happened at the baptism, where Jesus identified with the people who needed help. To save them, He had to become one of them. A servant of God submits to God’s will, and God loves people, no matter how unlovable they are. So anyone who wants to serve God is in the same business.
Now the Spirit drives Jesus into the desert to be tempted by Satan. This completes His full identification with sinners.
Hebrews says we don’t have a High Priest who can’t sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. So let’s come boldly to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need (Hebrews 4:15-16).
- A high priest is a servant of God and of people.
- A good one understands human weakness; he doesn’t just demand perfection we can’t give.
- The best High Priest actually provides grace to forgive our failures, and then equips and empowers us to do God’s will ourselves.
Jesus was God, and became a man, so He could represent God to man and man to God: the perfect Servant.
And we’ll learn that the solution to our temptations isn’t a system or a strategy, but a Person who sits on a throne of grace, waiting to supply everything we need.
Driven Into the Wilderness (Mark 1:12-13)
“Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him.”
“The Spirit drove Him.” The word is strong. It’s the same word Mark uses for casting out demons. It’s a bit like taking a brand-new truck out for a hard test drive. God wanted to show off His perfect Servant, the way things were always supposed to be. So the Spirit drove Jesus into the hardest place imaginable.
“Into the wilderness.” The very place where Israel was tested and failed.
“Forty days.” In Scripture, forty is often a number of testing and proving. It rained forty days and nights in Noah’s flood. Israel wandered forty years. Moses kept sheep in the wilderness for forty years. This was Jesus’ time of testing.
“Tempted by Satan.” Mark doesn’t describe the specific temptations, only their source. That gives the impression that Jesus would continue to be tempted His whole life, all the way to the cross. Satan is set up as the enemy of serving God, the constant pull to serve ourselves instead:
- My dreams. My plans. My world. My comfort. My feelings. Me, me, me.
- That’s the root of Satan’s influence: “Don’t serve God. Rebel against His rule. Serve yourself.” And when you serve yourself, you’re really serving Satan, the first rebel. You unknowingly join his kingdom of darkness.
“With the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him.” The Servant of God had everything in order.
- The wild animals didn’t turn on Him. They were with Him as they were created to be. They saw the perfect image of God and yielded to Him as Lord.
- The angels served Him, showing that all of heaven was on the same page: Jesus is God, worthy to be served, and yet He came to serve.
- Heaven supplied help when the true Servant of God was in need. That’s grace.
What Temptation Really Does
How do we apply Jesus’ temptation to our own lives?
Temptation isn’t a bad thing. It isn’t punishment. It isn’t sin to be tempted.
We don’t really believe that. When was the last time you were tempted toward an affair, violence, a lie, theft or anger? Being tempted isn’t sin, but we often feel ashamed anyway.
Here’s what temptation does:
- Temptation reveals who we really are deep in our hearts.
- Temptation never makes a person fall; it reveals the fallen nature inside.
- Temptation doesn’t cause our sin; it shows that we’re sinners.
- Temptation takes what’s inside and draws it out.
An angry person sometimes says, “Don’t wake up the beast,” as if it’s your fault for making them angry. But the truth is, the beast is alive and well in the heart, and it comes out whenever it gets the chance. Temptation is that chance.
When temptation shows us our sin, we can respond in three ways:
- Denial: “I would never…” No humility. (Think of King Saul, always excusing himself.)
- Despair: “I’ll never change. It’ll always be like this.” No faith.
- Grace: “God will use this temptation to show me who I am inside and how much I need Him. Jesus will be my answer to every temptation.” Humility and faith.
Why Am I Being Tempted?
Temptation forces us to ask: Why am I tempted? If I’m tempted to be angry, or to cheat, or to sin in some other way, why?
- Is it because I don’t like not being in control? So my heart gets angry when something happens outside my control? Gospel response: Jesus is in control. He asks me to trust Him personally. Faith is how we walk in the gospel of grace. The just shall live by faith.
- Is it because I can’t stand people being disappointed in me or looking down on me? So I manipulate or people-please to win approval? Gospel response: Jesus loves me. Whenever I feel unloved, I need to look to His love as the only truly satisfying love, and trust it even when I can’t feel it.
Temptation shows that I already trust in my flesh. It shows that I really do have a sinful flesh I lean on every day.
So How Do I Change?
My heart needs to change. I need a resource that changes the inside of my heart for me, because I can’t change it myself. No amount of work, effort or religion can cut the flesh out of me. (Can’t I just obey some outward rule, cut something off on the outside, and make it all go away?)
The gospel of grace actually does this transformation! Through Ezekiel God promised to give His people a brand-new heart and a new spirit, to remove the heart of stone and replace it with a living heart, and to put His own Spirit inside them so they would walk in His ways (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
Temptation exposes my flesh. I’m tempted to lie because I have flesh that knows how to lie. I’m tempted to anger because my flesh is selfish and violent. I’m tempted to cheat because my flesh is pleasure-seeking, impatient and unloving.
The temptation didn’t make me those things. It just revealed what my flesh really is. I really do have desires to sin, and my flesh is strong.
But in Christ, I also have a new desire not to sin! That’s the solution of the gospel: He changes who I really am.
Paul says if we’ve been raised with Christ, we should seek the things above, where Christ is seated at God’s right hand. Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things, for you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, you’ll appear with Him in glory (Colossians 3:1-4).
Don’t focus on the temptation, or the strategy, or the plan. Don’t live in denial or despair. Focus on Christ! His life is our victory.
He has done things that changed things. The truth is that your rebellious old self was crucified with Jesus. You died. It’s dead. But we still feel its remains in our minds and emotions: our flesh. And the life we now live in this body, we live by faith instead of the flesh. We turn our backs on the flesh and turn toward Jesus.
That’s how we repent, how we turn to God. We don’t repent of having flesh that gets tempted. (God left us our minds and emotions for a reason.) We repent of choosing to walk in the flesh after we’re tempted.
Remember Hebrews: we have a High Priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses, tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. So turn to Jesus! Come boldly to the throne of grace for mercy and grace to help in your time of need.
Jesus sends His Spirit when we boldly turn to Him: real, heart-changing, life-giving, flesh-crucifying, temptation-squashing, victory-giving Spirit!
Temptation is an air-raid siren reminding us that we live only by and through the life of Jesus, the Spirit of Jesus.
Grace Takeaway
Jesus was driven into the wilderness so He could become a High Priest who truly understands you. Temptation doesn’t make you sinful; it reveals the beast that’s already there, so you’ll stop trusting your flesh. Don’t respond with denial or despair. Run boldly to the throne of grace, set your mind on Christ, and receive the Spirit who changes your heart from the inside.
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