Matthew 4:4 “Jesus answered, ‘It is written: Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Our life is informed by the way Jesus dealt with the temptations. He met temptation with God’s word. In this example, and the next two temptations the devil throws at him, he always has a Bible passage in response. Here’s what God’s Word can do:

God’s word guides. It immediately points us in the right direction. Maybe you’ve known people who have are always trotting out little phrases that keep them on the straight path. Have you seen the Disney movie Finding Nemo? There is a little support group for sharks in the movie, a kind of 12-step program for recovering “fish addicts.” To keep themselves in recovery they keep repeating the phrase “Fish are friends, not food.” It’s not the whole solution to temptation, as the sharks in the movie also find, but at least it’s a start.

For temptations, you don’t have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible. Having a few Bible passages up your sleeve to recite to yourself at a tempting time may be all you need to get you going. There’s a reason that God summarized his will in just 10 commandments, and that he expressed them in memorable phrases of four to ten words.

With us, though not for Jesus, God’s word also convicts. It exposes the places where our hearts are in the wrong place. It gives us the kind of insight to our own souls that leads us to repent. And with the confession of our sin, God is turning our hearts to far more powerful sources of help.

 Look again at the words that Jesus quoted. “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Would you call that a commandment, or a rule? Isn’t it more of a promise? Moses originally spoke these words to the nation of Israel to explain why God let them get hungry on their journey to the promised land, and then fed them every day with manna from heaven. About themselves, God was teaching them humility. You can’t get by all alone.

About himself, God was teaching them that his promises, springing from his grace and love, are what really keep us alive. God always keeps his word. If he says that he is going to feed us, then he is going to feed us. If he promises that he will never leave us or forsake us, then he is always with us. If he professes his love and mercy for us, then he loves us and takes pity on us without fail.

You see, Jesus wasn’t being driven by God’s demands for obedience when he resisted Satan’s temptation. He was living in God’s promise. He was depending on his Father, because he trusted him. Even more than Jesus wants his example to show us what to do, he wants it to show us who to trust, where to turn for real help.

For us, Jesus’ very presence here on this day was God keeping a promise. God’s Son was hungry, weak, alone, at every disadvantage. But in the face of temptation he doesn’t flinch. He crushes it, and the tempter, with an unwavering trust in God’s Word. He sends the devil fleeing until they meet again at Jesus’ cross, where with his own death Jesus delivers the death blow. He is our hero, our champion, fighting and winning the battle that we could not win.

More than that, he is our substitute whose victory over temptation God counts as our victory, just as his sacrifice at the cross God counts as payment for our debt of sin. Based on our Savior’s victory here, and our Savior’s sacrifice to come, we find the trust to live “on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”