Look: “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come.’” (Luke 17:1)
Because of our sinful nature, the fallen world, and the incessant meddling of the devil, temptations are inevitable in our lives.
Jesus knew all about this. The great gamble of the Incarnation--God the Son coming into the world as a human being--is that, during His time on earth, Jesus was constantly subjected to the temptation to sin.
Yet, in order to be the effective sacrifice for our sin, Jesus had to be a new human (Paul calls Jesus “the new Adam”), a sinless member of the human race Whose unjustified execution opens salvation to the rest of us by God’s the power of God’s grace to create within us faith in Jesus. Jesus, the Bible says, “has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) “...at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” (Romans 5:6) I’m grateful that Jesus resisted temptation and won life with God for all who trust in Him.
In Luke, the conqueror of sin over us, warns His disciples--including modern day disciples, those who confess Jesus as Lord--not to put the eternal lives of others at risk by conduct or words that tempt them to sin. Jesus goes on to day in Luke 17:2-3: “It would be better for [disciples who cause others to stumble into sin] to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So [disciples,] watch yourselves.”
Listen: There are so many ways we can be the serpent to others, luring people into sin, even when that’s not what we think we’re doing.
In the New Testament, Paul tells Christians not to eat food offered to idols in the presence of those who are weaker in the faith. It wasn’t, he said, that Christians weren’t allowed to eat such food; all food is clean to the Christian. But those weak in the faith, Paul asserted, might derive the wrong impression from seeing mature Christians eating food offered to idols and be tempted into believing that a Christian could also worship false deities. But there’s only one God, the One definitively revealed to us in Christ.
In my own life, there are people with whom I won’t have a glass of wine because I suspect or know that they have issues with alcohol. I refuse to be an instrument of their temptation even though drinking an occasional glass of wine isn’t forbidden by God.
On the other hand, I must confess that I have sometimes caused people to sin. This has happened when I’ve said things I shouldn’t have or when I’ve become obsessed with my own grievances or desires. When we engage in this kind of behavior, we in effect, give permission to those who witness it to cave into temptation and sin too.
I ran across this quote from Martin Luther the other day: “Christ desires nothing more of us than that we speak of Him.” When we, in loving and appropriate ways, commend Christ to others, there’s no opportunity for me to become the instrument of temptation and sin in others’ lives. When we speak of Christ, it’s gratitude for grace, the peace of knowing Christ, and the call to others to experience saving faith in Christ that comes through.
Respond: Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask You to forgive me the obsession with self, the grievances, and the selfish desires that lead me away from Your will and have caused me to unwittingly tempt others to sin.
Give me Holy Spirit-saturated wits, Lord!
Today, speak of Christ to others through me. Make me an instrument of Your grace and the faith to which You call all of us and not an instrument of temptation or sin.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen
[The illustrated quote from Martin Luther was published this past week by the Institute of Lutheran Theology.]
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church.]
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