Preparing the congregation for Holy Week, the sermon walks through Matthew 3:16-4:11, treating the baptism and the wilderness temptation of Jesus as two linked events that set up his passion and resurrection. The two accounts are joined by a single word: "then." After the heavens open, the Spirit descends like a dove, and the Father's voice declares, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased," the very next line reads, "Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." The sermon insists this connective word matters: glory is immediately followed by trial, and this shatters a common assumption. Many people believe that obedience guarantees a smooth life — if I behave well, avoid open sin, and try to keep God's commands, then blessing and ease will follow, while poverty or family breakdown in others must reflect their own failure or laziness. Christ's life explodes this logic. He alone lived in perfect, one-hundred-percent obedience, fully pleasing to the Father, and yet immediately afterward he is driven into hunger, temptation, rejection, betrayal, agony in Gethsemane, unjust judgment, and death. If anyone deserved an easy, blessed path by merit, it was Jesus — yet "then" he is led to be tested.

From here the sermon addresses the nature of evil itself, contrasting two views that stand against Scripture. Dualism (illustrated by yin-yang symbolism and the old story of the farmer whose fortune keeps flipping between "luck" and "misfortune") teaches that good and evil are equal, eternal, opposing forces. This fails logically — two "almighty" forces cannot both exist, since one must eventually yield to the other — and it offers no hope, since the struggle between good and evil would never resolve. Monism or pantheism, by contrast, claims all reality is ultimately one and undivided in God, so suffering and evil are merely illusions born of limited perception. Scripture rejects both: evil is real, and behind it stands a real devil, described in 1 Peter 5:8 as a roaring lion seeking to devour. Yet the devil is not co-equal with God; he is a created angel who rebelled and fell, and one day Christ will judge him and all who follow him — evil is real but not eternal or ultimate.

The sermon then turns to Satan's central strategy, seen twice in the wilderness: "If you are the Son of God…" This is not mere provocation but an attempt to plant doubt about the Father's love, especially exploiting Jesus's hunger after forty days of fasting. The same tactic appears in Eden, where the serpent twists God's word to Eve and questions God's motives. Every human struggle, the sermon argues, eventually distills into this same question: does God really love and care for me in my suffering? The answer is anchored in the Father's own declaration at the baptism, which fuses two Old Testament threads — Psalm 2's triumphant Messianic king and Isaiah's Suffering Servant (Isaiah 42 onward) who dies for others' sin. These images, never combined in Jewish expectation, meet in Christ: he defeats evil not by annihilating sinners instantly, since evil dwells in every human heart, but by bearing evil in his own body and dying for it. The sermon draws a parallel to Genesis 22, where Abraham is told to offer "your son, your only son, whom you love," and Isaac carries the wood up Moriah as a picture of Christ carrying his cross to Golgotha — except no angel stayed the nails that pierced Jesus's hands and feet.

Finally, the sermon highlights the weapon Jesus wields against every temptation: Scripture itself. Three times he answers with "it is written," quoting Deuteronomy 8, 6:16, and 6:13, and even from the cross he cites Psalm 22. This shows that God's word had saturated not merely his mind but his whole heart, becoming the one offensive weapon in the armor of God amid otherwise defensive pieces. The sermon closes by urging believers to let this same word govern their hearts, especially through fasting and reflection during Holy Week, so they may rest in the same declaration spoken over Christ — "this is my beloved," now extended to all who are in him — and face their own trials assured of the Father's proven, sacrificial love.

Bible Verses Used

• Matthew 3:16-4:11: The primary text — Jesus's baptism and wilderness temptation, read as two linked events preparing him for his passion.

• Psalm 2: Quoted in the Father's words "my beloved Son," identifying Jesus as the triumphant Messianic king who will overthrow evil.

• Isaiah 42 (through 53): The other source of the Father's declaration, presenting Jesus as the Suffering Servant who bears sin rather than instantly destroying it.

• Genesis 3: Paralleled with the temptation narrative — the serpent's strategy of twisting God's word and Adam and Eve's fall mirrors the devil's tactic against Jesus.

• Genesis 22:2: "Take your son, your only son, whom you love" — Isaac carrying the wood up Moriah foreshadows Christ carrying his cross, with no angel staying the nails at Calvary.

• 1 Peter 5:8: Cited to affirm the devil is a real, roaring lion seeking to devour, against views that deny his existence.

• Deuteronomy 8; 6:13; 6:16: The verses Jesus quotes ("it is written") to repel each of the three temptations.

• Psalm 22: Jesus's cry from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me," shown as further evidence Scripture governed his heart even in extreme suffering.

• Ephesians 6: Referenced for the image of the word of God as the sword of the Spirit, the one offensive weapon among the otherwise defensive pieces of armor.

• Colossians 3: Cited for the call to let the word of Christ dwell richly among believers.