About This Guide: This weekly groups guide, “The Bread of Life,” is designed as a companion to our Lent 2022 teaching series, fostering discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting. Join a group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
Rhythms of Resistance: How Jesus faced temptation
Teaching Text: Matthew 4:1-11
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. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Temptation
Presence
Take a moment of silence and think about these questions:
Take 2 minutes of silence
Notice your body, all the aches, and pains
Notice your emotions, what rises to the surface?
Notice your mind - what thoughts keep coming to you in the silence? (It might help to have a pen and paper ready to write them down so you don’t feel the urge to be distracted by them during the time)
Meditate on these words of God: ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”
How hungry would you say out of 10 are you for the words of God? In other words - How aware of your need for God’s words are you?
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
The fall - as it is known - was when sin entered the created world.
Relationships affected in the fall: God - Self - Others - World
When you go back into that story you can see the categories of desire that were sparked up in the temptation.
Eve saw the fruit was: good for food, pleasing to the eye, desirable to make one wise
Whatever Jesus is doing - it is connected to primary threads of the whole story God is telling the world.
But it also connects to our everyday experience: we all know something of temptation in everyday life
the longing to get back at someone who has hurt us
the urge to use someone else’s body or image of their body to meet our sexual desires without a care for their soul or their true life
the lens where see our world through where our own comfort or entertainment is in the center place of the story
the sinking into nurturing and following our fears. fueling them to the point we go utterly inside ourselves
the thought to give up on the commitments and promises we have made
the seemingly simple invitation that I deserve this night of indulgence and we use food or drink or a Netflix binge to turn the volume down on what we are feeling
using the power we have in the world to put someone else down or hold them back or lift ourselves up at their expense
the meticulous care for a grudge where we are determined to not let someone live down a mistake or forgive them
using all of our money on ourselves
protecting ourselves from caring about our neighbors with a very reasonable list of excuses
how about trying everything we can in our own strength before we pray
The temptation to sin in what we do in what we leave undone, refuse to do or leave incomplete
the temptation to be our own gods
seeking to meet the deep and true needs of our life out or own or the world’s resources without God.
How will Jesus get the deep needs of his life met? Look at The Three Temptations Jesus faces.
A Question of Provision
The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
It plays on appetite, those real needs of your body that you cannot ignore. It challenges who you are are and who you are going to be. Will I have what I need? Will I have enough? Will I have what I want?
Jesus responds by speaking God’s Word to the temptation and the tempter.He speaks from Deuteronomy 8:3 - the time when Israel was in the wilderness too.
A Question of Protection
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
Protection, ambition, recognition - will God make sure what is supposed to happen in my life actually happens? Will what I capable of be seen? Will I reach my full potential ?
A Question of Power
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
But this temptation comes right out and says all of this comes down to worship. What has your heart? What has your devotion? What are you bowing down to?
provision, protection, power
appetite, ambition, approval
How will the deep and true needs of our life be met? If it is through Sin or an Idol or a Counterfeit God: works along similar/familiar patterns. At first - Asking very little. Promising Everything. Then gradually giving less and less and costing more and more. Until eventually the idol or false god or addition asks for everything and gives nothing.
If you look to God for the answer? God works differently. He first gives us life and redemption. Then he tells us upfront we have to surrender our whole life and hold nothing back in response to His love. Then he puts his life in us.
Jesus has been through our temptations. He showed us how to...
Hold to your true identity and story
Stop and recognize temptation - take thoughts captive, what’s being offered here, play the tape forward
Know and trust God’s word and promises - 2 Peter 1
Ask for help - in prayer and friendship
What idols have your deepest attention, affection, allegiance?
What can you not say “no” to without much anguish and fallout?
If we get right what we worship, all other things fall into proper order.
Love
Read these notes and discuss the questions below:
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke. Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-- when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness [1] will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.” (Isaiah 58)
The heart of fasting as a follower of Jesus is to give up something good to seek something greater, God and God’s Kingdom. Though it is certainly a good idea, when we give up something that is already damaging or sinful, that is not exactly fasting. That is repentance.
Every Wednesday during Lent we are inviting us to fast together as a church.
from sunrise to sundown on Wednesday or skip lunch
give during fasting times
The biblical record of fasting primarily involves willingly giving up food for a period of time as a response to a grievous sacred moment in life. This could be anything from a death, sin, fear, threat, need, sickness, period of preparation, or time of seasonal renewal such as Lent. We respond to these moments with fasting.
So lets Fast on Wed. When we fast we pray with our body.
We say and we demonstrate that we are hungry for God. We fast as an expression of love.
Pray for one another in the group.
