Three Temptations of Christ, Again (Matthew 22:34-40)

Class Outline:

Thursday October 16, 2025

 

Intro: As there were three temptations in the wilderness, there are three questions meant for testing and trapping our Lord.

 

Jesus will center life in God when He answers this third question: the purpose of living is the adoration of God and the cherishing of human beings. Loving God comes first and from this comes the true love of humanity; pleasant and unpleasant.

 

The evil gather together.

 

MAT 22:34

But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together.

 

MAT 22:15

Then the Pharisees went and plotted together how they might trap Him in what He said

 

Evil people gather with evil people to plot against the truth.

 

PSA 2:2-4

The kings of the earth take their stand

And the rulers take counsel together

Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,

3 "Let us tear their fetters apart

And cast away their cords from us!"

4 He who sits in the heavens laughs,

The Lord scoffs at them.

 

The solution to their counsels against you is to love God and so love them. God will fight for you if you keep trusting Him.

 

1PE 1:6-7

In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, 7 so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; [do not fear them].

 

Love for God leaves the battle to Him.

 

The trap

 

It is again based on a limited option. Hypocritical, proud people do not want to hear truth, they want to limit responses to their own narrative in which they already have the answers and responses determined. They seek to control.

 

If Jesus lifts one commandment above another, He will be exposed as a liberal, favoring one part of the law above another. The whole law is from God and so all is great and necessary.

 

The Bible teaches us that if you break one part of the Law then you break the whole Law.

 

What kind of commandment is greatest?

 

The answer:

 

Jesus is unique in combining these two laws as first and second and making them the pegs that the whole law hangs upon. 

 

The responsibility of mankind hangs upon the word, “love.”

 

Looking upward towards God and horizontal towards mankind - love is the commandment that is the support for all the others.

 

“Love the Lord, your God.” Your God meaning that He is your own. You are responsible to Him, and at the same time, He is not a distant tyrant, but your very Father.

 

The phrase “your God” has the gospel in it. Without the cross of Christ, no one could say it with any confidence.

 

And, by adding and combining the love of our neighbor as ourselves, we have an outlet for our love of God, an expression of it.

 

3 Alls

 

The fulness of our love for God is in all our heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

 

All your heart, soul, and mind comprise an emphasis on your entire center, not just feeling, but thinking, will, intellect, conscience.

 

The three “alls” color in the entire inner self and outer self. If it only fills a part of us, we will not walk according to His life.

 

That is not to say that we are always perfectly loving. His own gift of love for us has given us forgiveness. This is what we are and what we must be and we must not settle for anything less.

 

The first is first but the second must be with it.

 

The will of God is that you love Him and love your neighbor.

Some humanists put all their love into humanity and fail to love God. That will lead to shallow love and failure. Some love God and fail to love people. They are not different than the first, since they don’t love God, only think they do.

 

People can claim to love the poor, or the children until they are in the midst of their obnoxious representatives. It is easy to say you love someone who is far out of reach.

 

The people that are in your life every day are your objects for love. Love God first through faith in the cross of Jesus Christ. You were not called to minister to someone else’s neighbors or someone else’s kids or family, but your own. God put them there just for you.

 

Temptation

 

A final word on temptation. We must always be alert.

 

Temptation came upon Christ in His temple that He cleansed and made into His own sovereign area. Yet even there, His enemies found a way to tempt Him. There is only one safe place in this world (this fallen world) and that is the will of God.

 

Temptation will come for you in your car, in your home, at work, at your kid’s soccer game, anywhere, anytime.

 

Our loving Lord is our example. What does He think and do? He does not allow Himself only the options that His enemy serves to Him. He thinks with God and we, because of Him, can all think with God by the filling of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.