Radical Resilience

It is radical how God became a man and walked a mile in our shoes to demonstrate His willingness to experience our struggles firsthand. Jesus faced temptations that exemplify the challenges we all wrestle with. Fleshly desires, including hunger, the promise of power and splendor, and the offer to bypass the difficult path to salvation through the cross. His radical resilience demonstrates the power of faith.

Matthew 4:1 tells us, “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” The fourth chapter of Luke and the first chapter of Mark also hold similar accounts. The text tells us that Christ went forty days without food (Luke 4:2), and Satan took advantage of His vulnerability at this moment.

Luke states, “He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them He was hungry. The devil said to Him, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.’ Jesus answered, ‘Man does not live on bread alone,’” (Luke 4:2—4).

Then Satan offered to give Him all the kingdoms of the world if He would simply bow down and worship him. The evil one impressed upon Jesus the temptation of achieving glory by circumventing the messy business of the cross and all the suffering associated with it.

Jesus knew full well that He would rise from death after three days and He would be exalted to highest place and that every knee would bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord (Philippians 2:9—11). His response to the devil was, “Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only,” (Luke 4:8).

After that, Satan attempted to convince Jesus to harm Himself to see if God would protect Him, but His answer was “Do not put the Lord your God to the test,” (Luke 4:12). By testing Jesus, the devil was indeed testing God.

JESUS TRULY REPRESENTED HUMANITY

This situation illustrates the divine truth of the gospels. Jesus was both fully God and fully human (Colossians 2:9). Being fully God, Christ’s sacrifice has infinite efficacy to atone for all human sin, and being fully human, Jesus truly represented humanity by experiencing our weaknesses and dying in our place on the cross.

Our Savior does not simply stand on the edge of our troubles and cast us a rope to pull ourselves to safety, rather He plunges Himself into the very midst of our conundrum and accompanies us through the storms of life. What is amazing is that mankind finds itself in a mess that is brought about by our disobedience, but Jesus chose to put Himself in our situation because of His obedience.

Paul writes in Philippians 2:6—8 that Jesus, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!”

In Hebrews 2:17—18 the writer states, “For this reason He had to be made like His brothers in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.”

And the writer adds, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin,” (Hebrews 4:15).

Jesus was a real man who faced real temptations, yet was without sin. In 2 Corinthians 5:21 we read, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” And 1 John 3:5 states, “But you know that He appeared so that He might take away our sins. And in Him is no sin.” Christ is not merely a theoretical answer to man’s immorality, rather He is a tangible remedy to our sinfulness.

Adam, who was created as a sinless man, faced palpable temptation in the garden of Eden and succumbed through disobedience. Jesus through His obedience remained sinless and overcame intense temptation in the desert, thereby demonstrating His inseparability with God the Father. Adam fell in paradise; Jesus triumphed in desolation.

Interestingly, Satan’s tactics are consistent. In the garden he asked Eve, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” (Genesis 3:1). In Luke 4:3 he says to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God…” The devil twists God’s word and invites us to agree with him. When Jesus was baptized, God said, “You are My Son, whom I love; with You I am well pleased,” (Luke 3:22).

JESUS IS LED BY THE SPIRIT

Immediately after His baptism, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Not a celebration of the inauguration of His ministry, but a time of testing to prepare Jesus for what is to come. Here we see the reality that God allows those He loves to experience darkness. And Satan uses this opportunity to question God’s plans and motives.

For all intents and purposes, it appeared as if Jesus had been forsaken by His Father. Did God really mean what He said at the Jordan River? Satan used this situation as an attempt to drive a wedge between Jesus and His Father in heaven and create division withing the godhead. To cause Jesus to satisfy His will and not His Father’s will.

In similar fashion, Jesus struggled in the garden at Gethsemane the night He was betrayed. “Going a little farther, He fell with His face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will,’” (Matthew 26:39).

If we ever feel forsaken by God—helpless in circumstances seemingly beyond our control, we can find solace in the fact that Jesus got there before us. He went without food in the desert for forty days and spent forty nights without a place to lay His head. And this before the cross! Before being scourged! Before being faithful unto death!

He encouraged the disciples in John 16:32—33, “But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave Me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for My Father is with Me. I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

For six weeks Jesus experienced hardship that would make most people want to give up. He is the Savior who understands when no one else understands what we are struggling with. He has been there and he will be there with us when we are faced with temptations that seem unbearable.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” We are called to model the radical resilience of Christ.