Overcoming Temptation | Matthew 4:1-11

• Sermon Transcript

  Okay, so I'm not sure. All right, here's the deal, Marshmallow for you. You can either wait and I'll give you another one if you wait or you can eat it now, when I come back I'll give you another option. But stay in here and stay in the chair till I come back okay? All right I'm gonna go do something and then I'll come back right so it's up to you, you can have it now or you can wait I'll be back, stay in the chair, okay, okay all right, so I'm gonna leave and then I'll come back. Okay. So you can either eat it right now or you can wait either way. Okay. Okay how'd you do? Did you good? You did you want to need it? Give me another one. I can have both that video is proof that temptation starts in early age, amen. An early age. And that video is funny because we can all relate with those facial expressions that they're making. We might not make those. But internally a lot of times we we can relate to that. Temptation starts in early age. And unless you're a redhead, little girl because she didn't she wasn't tempted at all, she just dove right into that marshmallow. And then she. But temptation also started at early time, started in the garden with God telling Adam and Eve that they can eat from any tree except the fruit on that one tree. The good news though, even though that temptation starts early age and is something that we'll never completely get away from, is that through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can overcome temptation. And as we seek to follow Jesus, one of the first things we will need to grapple with something that never goes away and as we continue to follow Him is the temptation to sin. We're in Matthew chapter four. Starting in verse one. Bible says Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting 40 days and 40 Nights He was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, if you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he Jesus answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For his written, He will command his angels, concerning you, and on their hands, they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against the stone. Jesus said to him, again, it is written, You shall 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 glory. And he said to him, all these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, big on Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve. Then the devil left him. In the hold angels came, and we're ministering to him. Father in heaven, we thank You for this passage that shows that Jesus would, and has been tempted in every way that we, yet he remains sinless. While there's sometimes we know that the line between temptation, and victory over sin or temptation and falling into sin is fine. So fathers show us today in this passage, the things in life that we're going to be tempted to sin with and against you, and Lord, how we can overcome those things as we continue to attempt to follow you. As you take us through the journey of being a Christ follower. Lord, I pray that today, your words, that I speak that my words that I speak, reflect your words, that your word, penetrates our hearts, a feeling through spirit and preaching, we ask these things in Jesus name, amen. Where does temptation come from? Where does it originate? Well, the Bible tells us actually, in Ephesians, that there's it comes from three places one of three areas. First is Satan himself. And Satan not being God is not omnipresent. So if Satan is tempting you, he's tempting no one else, but you. He does have a legion of demons who do his work. But Satan can only be in one place at one time. So a lot of times, if you were to say, The devil made me do, it probably wasn't the devil could have been demonic, might have been the devil. Satan certainly is the source. The second one is the world, just the world that Satan has developed that is controlled by him, that that operates under his power, which is a lot of what we live in. And third is our own desires, the flesh, our own sinful desires. Those are the three places by which temptation comes from Ephesians two tells us this, Paul says, and you were dead, in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of the world, there's one, following the prince, there's to have the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in a sense of disobedience. Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, there's three, carrying out the desires of the body in the mind, and we're by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. So we see temptation comes from one of three sources, but today, we're going to show exactly where it came to Jesus from one direct source. That was Satan. And we're going to see the areas in which we are tempted also, to sin against God versus this will be tempted to provide for ourselves, will be tempted to provide for ourselves. You're thinking that sin, and yes, it is, as we're going to see. First one says that Jesus was lit up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Now, shortly after Jesus was baptized, he officially starts his ministry, which is why we're in this new sermon series called Follow me it's very shortly after this temptation, he then goes and calls his disciples and his first act before he ever even went into ministry, in His earthly ministry was that he was tempted by the devil. And the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. And the wilderness was a place that was inhospitable. There's no food, no water, no one could live, no one could survive. Yet Jesus found himself there nonetheless. Now, it's important to note that this temptation is not coming from God. It's coming from Satan tells us that God cannot tempt you to sin. God will not tempt you to sin, his desire is for you never dissent. However, when there is temptation, it's an opportunity to rely on God. Look at James one to count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete. lacking in nothing see trials that Jesus allows us to go into temptations, he allows us to go into tests he allows us to go into when we have victory over them, it produces our character, even even our failings. As we repent from those sins, it produces our character and our characters to be made more and more like Jesus. See in the wilderness, God has to provide for you. You can't provide for yourself. It's nothing to hunt. It's nothing to drink. Very few of us will find ourselves in a physical wilderness. But all of us will go through stages of life. When we find ourselves in a spiritual wilderness, a spiritual dryness. And you can't get yourself out of that either. All by yourself. You must count on God to lead you out. And when it's his time to do so when you rely on Him, He will first to tells us that before Jesus was ever tempted, what did he do? He he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights he prepared himself and then one of the most underestimated understated versus an all scripture it says he was hungry. After not eating for 40 days and 40 nights, he knew that that temptation was coming. So how did you prepare? He relied on God to to provide for him while he was faster. See when you fast and this and this part is through food, which is what they did in the biblical days, which we can do today. You're saying, God, you're in control here, protect me, and do your will through me. See, when you're supposed to eat what he did instead of was he prayed. That's the purpose of fasting replacing something good, like eating food with relying on God. Part of fasting is simply doing that. It's simply communing with God, it's a time of fault. It's a time of prayer, where we let God provide for us. Now, in biblical times, fasting was quite literally a break from food, which is why breakfast is our break from our fast of the night before we break our fast we wake up. But with fasting, by denying food, one draws closer to Christ. And their time of suffering. If you've ever been really hungry, and can't eat, you know what I'm talking about when I call it suffering. We call we have a word for it. It's called hangry. You're hungry, and you're angry, and you suffer, right? And so we draw closer to Christ, at least we should, instead of going 80 miles an hour down the street trying to get food because we're so hungry. But it's still certainly something a pleasure of life that we should fast for. But a biblical world eating was a tremendous pleasure. We have so many other pleasures now that we also could fast forward from and when I think of while we certainly could fast from food and we certainly could have better diets in America at least. There's so many other things that we could fast for fast from in order to prepare ourselves for temptations. And one of the things I see most people struggle with and why they fall into temptations. It's this little thing that we all love called social media. You know, 70% of adults. And 80% of teenagers. Use social media. We all use it I use it. Most of you use it. 70% of adults 80% teenagers. I think that's a little low. I think people probably don't want reporting accurate, reporting low. But of those 70 to 80% of people. The average person spends a About two and a half hours a day on social media. And again, if you're self reporting, that's probably low, it's probably higher than that. Because if you're given an option, you're probably going to underestimate how long you're on these things. Two and a half hours a day, at least, of mindless scrolling, mindless liking, mindless, double tapping. And that's two and a half hours of doing something that 20 years ago, you would have done something complete, you would have filled it with doing something else. It might have been watching TV, it might have been just surfing the internet, what's what we used to call it, it might be reading a book might be doing manual labor, I don't know. But it's two and a half hours of time that you can't get back in it's two and a half hours of rewiring the way your brain works. There have been studies about this, it actually does rewire your brain. And what makes us so addicting much like playing the slot machine, which I've never done before. But it's this idea of a future reward, every time you sign in, and you get a little notification. And you click that notification to see what it is or you get a little like, and you check that like to see what it is you literally get a hit of dopamine into your head. It's a sense of gratification. It's a feel good hormone. Every time you see that click every time you see that, that being it gets a small little pleasurable hit. And problem is, the more we get those hits. The more we feel good, the more we need to feel good. This is why it's an addiction. And when we don't get those dopamine hits, we crash and we feel depressed. This is why some people say it's more addicting than drugs and alcohol. So if we're going to prepare ourselves, for temptation to provide for ourselves, there's a lot of things in this world we can fast from to prepare ourselves. Don't discount the way Satan the world in your own desires will tempt you with the cheap pleasure hits of things like social media, because what we're doing is we're trying to provide for ourselves some level of pleasure. But like all sin, what feels good in the moment. It goes bad later on, the hens come home to roost. Verse three says the tinter said to him, if you're the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. See, Satan is a tempter. That's what he does. He tempts it's all he does. In the first place is Satan tempts us is our level of basic needs. And here with Jesus, it was hunger. it tempts Jesus to provide his own meal. Now, to do this, would be to give glory to Jesus when it wasn't his time to do that. He could have done it, but that's not why he was in the wilderness. So he answers in verse four, it's written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. So how does Jesus after preparing himself for 40 days and fasting from pleasures of life? How does he prepare himself to this temptation? He quotes the Word of God. He says, Man does not live by bread. He lives by the bread of God, the Word of God. We can overcome temptation to provide for ourselves by going into God's word. But if we're not prepared, when that temptation comes, we might not even be thinking about going into God's word. But Jesus was prepared and that's where he went. How do you find yourselves? Trying to provide for yourself? How do you find how are you trying to provide for yourself? You might be thinking, What are you talking about here? One of the ways that Satan tempts us, to provide for ourselves is convincing us that everything we own is ours. He tries to convince us that our house is ours, that our vehicle is ours, that our assets are ours, that our wealth is ours, that our money is ours, that our family is ours, that our children are ours that all these things are yours, so hold them tight. They're the most important thing in your life. They are yours and that is a lie. Everything in your life is given to you by God. God owns it all. He owns your children. He owns your family. He owns everything. He owns the cattle on 1000 house. It's all his yes We work. Yes, we spend money. Yes, we buy, but only because God allows us. God has given us the intellect. He's given us the work ethic, work ethic, He's given us the resources. He's given us the opportunities to give to have all of his blessings, but they're all his. But Satan would have you to believe that it's all you. Which is why when things don't go right in our lives, we get angry, and who do we blame? We blame God, who may not say it out loud. We take it out on our spouse, we take out on our children, on our employees, and in co workers. We're mad with the Lord. Because we bought the lie that we own our lives. This is why tithing is so important. When we give 10% to the Lord, what we're saying is, God, this is yours. I'm just going to give you a measly 10%. Amazing, I'm gonna keep the 90. And I'm going to thank you for providing for me. And I this is a way that I can show you that you can do what it is that you want to do with this. Thank you for giving me the 90, I'm giving you the 10. Or perhaps we're trying to provide for ourselves, just fun. And pleasure, we just do this right, like whether it be social media, whether it be travel, sports, activities, we love all these things. We try to provide for ourselves. And we try to provide experiences for our families and things like this. We just go from one activity to the next. So we don't ever have to slow down and stop in process about what's going on in our life and process our priorities. We stay busy and busy and busy. Because if we stop, we know we're not going to like what we see in the mirror. Because we know that God is ultimately the one that's providing for us. How are you trying to provide for yourself. We can overcome this temptation, by recognizing that we're not really doing it in the first place. That everything God's given us is from Him, He has even given us our life. If it wasn't for God, we wouldn't be here. We will not be here to enjoy the blessings of life and the pleasures of life. We owe him our life. We owe him everything. So in the future, ask the spirit to show you. Where are you trying to provide for yourself and say, Lord, how do I need to take what you've given me and be a good steward for it for me, for my family, for my church for you for people, and he will show you where to do that. Secondly, we'll be tempted to glorify ourselves, to glorify ourselves. Verse five, the devil took him to the holy city, set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, if you're the Son of God, though you're yourself down. For it's written, He will command his angels concerning you. And on their hands, they will bear you up. Lest you strike your foot against a stone says Jesus would not forsake God's provision for his life. Satan tried to tempt him to glorify himself. Now Satan knew that Jesus could survive a fall, because He was God, he will be able to heal himself and glorify himself. But in this temptation, Satan, twist scripture to make it mean what it really doesn't mean. It was not the Father's plan for Jesus to perform that miracle, yet the time for Jesus to be glorified would come. But for now, Jesus would be acting out of the will of God. If you were to display his glory, Satan was trying to put discord between the Father and the Son as if that were possible. And so he responses this temptation yet again, with a proper interpretation of Scripture. He said, again, it's written, You shall not put the Lord God to the test. God had a plan for Jesus and now is not the time to force that plan. He would be glorified. But not yet. Likewise, Satan tempts us to glorify ourselves. he tempts us with our name, our status, our prestige. People make hundreds of 1000s of dollars, millions of dollars with their own personal brand of who they are social media influencers make money just by being who they are, and showing people their daily life activities, they have no job, because that's their job. And I would think eventually, that gets really depressing. Because it's all about them. Even in church, we attempt to glorify ourselves through positions or attendance or things like that. And everything we do in our lives, even in the church is to point people to Jesus. And if we're not doing an activity for that reason, we need to rethink why we do it. How do we overcome this temptation, we ask the Holy Spirit just show us where are you prone to glorify yourself, and ask him, to empower you to work through that. And finally, number three, we will be tempted to worship ourselves. For say, again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and there's glory. He said to him, all these, I will give you, if you'll fall down and worship me, Satan promised to give Jesus all that he could see, even though it was already his. But that wasn't his mission. His mission at that point, was to save people into serve. That's why he came, was it his, it wasn't ready for him to do that he hadn't done his mission yet. So verse 10, he just said to him big on Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve. Jesus says, begone. We must choose to worship God, over any promise that Satan gives us over any promise the world shows us is what we really need, if any promise of our own desires telling us that this will make us fulfilled. Because we're simply worshipping ourselves. Anytime we're tempted to send it anyway. We're worshiping ourselves, because we're putting our desire for sin, our desire for the marshmallow, we're putting that over everything. And in turn, we're worshipping ourselves. We must prepare ourselves to, to be able to overcome these things. And we're constantly doing things for our own benefit. We're making ourselves the God of our lives. And our answer should be this Satan, be gone. And then it tells us in verse 11, the good news about overcoming temptation, that then the devil left him, and behold, angels came, and we're ministering to him. The great thing about having a victory over temptation is that the devil leaves Amen. It goes away. It goes away. You know, this children, for whatever reason, they trusted that woman, when she said, if I come back, I'll give you another marshmallow. They trusted her. One didn't, but one just decided to take it. But they said, if they come back, I'll get this one. And I'll get another one. They they trusted this woman, that she would do what he said. And how much better is our God that we can trust. See, overcoming temptation. The reward is far better than the temptation, amen. The reward. On the other side of the temptation is far more fulfilling, is far better than what we see in front of our eyes. That's the good news. That we can overcome it. But we must be prepared. We must be regularly praying. We must be regularly studying our Bible. We must be fasting from things in our life that take our heart, we must have time of solitude. I have a wife for children and inside dog and outside cat, I gotta fight for solitude. But I gotta have it. It seems selfish, but you have to be alone, to grow closer to Christ, on some level, so then you can serve your God and serve your family and serve your church. You have to be prepared. Jesus spent 40 days in the desert by himself to prepare for the three year Minister he had that would change the world. And he was prepared. We have to prepare ourselves when that marshmallows thrown in front of you. If you're not prepared beforehand, you're going to eat it. Poor little redhead girl wasn't prepared. That thing was in her mouth before the woman ever left. But if you're prepared, even if you squirm, even if you do all this kind of crazy things like those kids did. Bible promises us that the devil will flee, you know, we're still going to sin, we're still going to succumb to temptation. But the goal is that the longer we walk with Christ, the less that happens, the more victories we have, the fewer losses. And we have to be prepared. In order to do that. The good news is, God has given you everything you need to prepare. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for being such a gracious God and loving God. And as we close our time together today, we can read this, this passage today. We could just feel like, we'll never get it right. And well, some, some levels. That might be true that we may never be perfect here on Earth. We can trust you. That if that if we follow you if we trust you. If we do just a few disciplines in life, spiritually, praying, fasting and reading your Bible, our Bibles and meditating on your word that our hearts will change. And Father, when our hearts are changed, is when we're prepared to face the temptations of the world. Willpower won't always do it. But a heart power will. So Lord, I thank you for giving us that power through Jesus spirit, which resides in us believers. If there's one here today that has never placed their faith in you today, they would do that. For those of us in here that are falling you as believers, or let us be encouraged today. That just like Jesus overcame temptation from the devil himself. We can overcome the temptations the world throws at us. Lord, we pray that you would empower us to do so. We ask these things in Jesus name, Amen.