Maintaining Balance

Maintaining Balance

Scripture: Matthew 4:1-11; Philippians 4:11-13

The title of my message this morning is “Maintaining Balance.” Recently I completed a series titled the “Four Seasons of Life.” In that series I explained that we go through seasons as we shift closer to or away from Christ. Our seasons are defined by how warm or cold our love is toward Christ and doing His will and then how warm or cold we are to others. In part four of that series I talked about people who live close to the Equator and how that should represent the Christian life. A person who lives closer to the Equator does not experience four seasons as we do here in the Northern Hemisphere. They experience variations of the same season versus having different seasons like winter and summer. I used that analogy to explain that the Christian life should be more like the lives of someone living near the Equator who has seasonal variations. In other words, a Christian’s love for Christ and others should always range between warm and hot and should not reach the state of being absolutely cold – in a perfect world. The message that I was attempting to relay was that we should always maintain a sense of balance in our spiritual walk which impacts everything else in our natural life.

So let’s talk a little about what it means to be in balance. Remember the example I used in the “Four Seasons of Life” series about the old scales in the doctor’s office where the nurse had to make the scale pointer balance within the space in order to determine your weight? Well, when I think of balance, I think of opposites. Having two ends of a spectrum and finding that middle point. Have you ever heard the saying “opposites attract”? It is believed that your “opposite” brings you back to the middle. Again, if you think about a scale that is balanced, whatever you add to one side must also be added to the “opposite” side in order for the scale to remain balanced. It’s the same as when you eat something that’s very sweet followed by a craving for something salty? Your taste buds are trying to get back into balance. When you’re cold and take a nice warm shower, the shower puts your body’s temperature back into balance. Balance is necessary to keep us from living in extremes.

Webster’s dictionary defines balance as, “A bodily or mental stability; a weight, value, etc. that counteracts another; equality, to bring into proportion.” When you’re balanced, you are not swayed to the right or the left. You are walking a straight path. Balance is acquired and maintained based on the choices we make. Our daily choices demonstrate our understanding of who we are in Christ and our position as children of God. Acquiring and maintaining balance not only require that we know who we are and whose we are, but also an understanding of what we have in our possession – what we have been given. When we understand this, our choices change.

Let me give you an example that we will look at from two angles. First, consider someone who knows how to fight. This person knows that he can fight, yet he keeps it under control. If someone tries to bully him, the knowledge of knowing that he can take the person out is more powerful than actually doing it. The power does not come from taking action but in walking away. Now consider the bully. Most bullies are physically bigger, but are sometimes afraid to fight. They get their bluff in because they know if push comes to shove, they may not be the best fighter, so this way they never have to find out. The bully’s power comes not from his being able to hurt someone, but the “perception” that he could hurt someone. The person who knows how to fight makes a choice based on reality, however, the bully influences choices based on perception.

This morning we are going to read the story of Jesus’s temptation by Satan in Matthew chapter four. This story shows us three areas where we must be in balance based on the reality of who we are in Jesus Christ. Turn with me to Matthew 4:1-11. Before we read this Scripture, I want you to understand this key point which, hopefully, will make this scripture more personal for you. When Jesus was in heaven, Satan knew Him. Jesus was there when Satan was kicked out of heaven. So Satan knew of the eternal existence of Jesus. Now when Jesus came to the earth to save mankind, Satan again knew that He was coming. However, because Jesus walked this earth as a man, Satan believed that he could persuade Him to turn His back on God because He was now on earth and subject to the same things we are. What Satan failed to realize is that Jesus knew Who He was and Who He belonged to.