Dakota Community Church
February 25, 2007
The Ongoing Temptation
Of Christ
Introduction:
Read Matthew 4:1-11
The kind of Jesus you follow says a lot about your beliefs concerning Christianity.
Do you serve a happy face Jesus, or have you met the Jesus of the Bible? I am just saying that Jesus was fully engaged emotionally in all that it means to live on a fallen planet.
Matthew 4:2
After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
John 4:6
Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well.
Luke 12:50
But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed!
Mark 3:5
He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts…
Mark 9:19
"O unbelieving generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?
John 2:15
…He made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area…
Luke 22:44
And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
Matthew 26:37
He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled.
Everything is not a-ok all the time. Jesus suffered and when you follow Him you will experience suffering from time to time as well. Some people will reject you because you identify with Jesus. The enemy will target you because you identify with Jesus. The Spirit will lead you to do some things that you do not want to do.
Matthew 4:1
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.
The Spirit of God will lead you to places and circumstances that are difficult. Difficult, even painful circumstance do not mean a missing of the call.
Just because the marriage is tough doesn’t mean you married the wrong guy!
Just because you are having a tough time financially doesn’t mean you took the wrong job or that God is uncaring.
Paul says in one place that a great window of opportunity has opened for him to minister in Asia and that there are many who are opposing him. Look what he says to the church in Philippi:
Philippians 4:12
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.
When the Spirit leads the enemy usually shows up to run interference.
How many have found it difficult already to stick to your lent commitments?
The temptation is:
1. To doubt who God says we are.
What happened just before the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to fast and pray?
The baptism and the declaration from heaven that, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
What does the tempter open with?
Matthew 4:2-3
After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
He goes right to the heart of who he is, and he’ll do it to you too.
The devil tells him that being hungry, experiencing lack, is incompatible with him being the son of God.
Has the enemy ever tempted you to doubt that you are who God says you are?
I said last week that I have been struggling since coming out here with a sense of worthlessness.
Listen, our identity does not come from what we do; it does not come from our work in the church or outside of it – those things flow from who we are – and who we are is who God has made us to be.
1 Corinthians 6:11
But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
The temptation is:
2. To doubt the heart of God.
Wrapped up in this same temptation is the temptation to doubt the goodness of Gods heart towards us. Can we really trust the heart of God?
If God is really good, if God is really a loving Father, how can this negative circumstance persist? It must all be a lie.
Suffering must mean that God isn’t good. It is easy to believe in a good God when times are good, but does God change if the circumstances change?
Can God bring peace and fulfillment to those who live in third world conditions?
Is the abundant life reserved for those who live in first world economies?
Romans 8:35-38
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Does negative life experience mean that God does not love us? That is the temptation.
We think the enemy is all about tempting us to commit some sin, to visit a bad web site, to eat or drink the wrong thing, those are the simple flesh level things he trots out - but the big guns are these issues that Jesus faced in the wilderness and that we all still continue to face.
The temptation is:
3. To try to make God prove it.
After Jesus defeats him on the first issue of bread from stones he tries to get him to make God prove it.
Matthew 4:5-6
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
Make God prove that He is good, that he is a healer, provider, protector…
Why doesn’t Jesus jump? We are not to put God to a test. – Jesus said so!
We want to do this one all the time because it doesn’t seem that bad to us. Why shouldn’t God prove it? Why not just remove all doubt by coming through right now on my terms?
Then I am God and He is serving me. Have you ever done this? Given God ultimatums or time lines? If I haven’t met the love my life by Christmas 2008 – You’re not really God.
Silly isn’t it, but why then do I keep running into people who are doing some variation of it?
The temptation is:
4. To sell out for an easier plan.
When all else fails he presents a plan “B”
Matthew 4:8-9
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."
When the Spirit’s leading results in difficult places or times or circumstances, we are too often ready to jump ship and take up another course of action at the drop of a hat.
I am reminded of the scene in the movie “Kingdom of Heaven” where the Christians are about to surrender Jerusalem to the Muslims and the bishop blurts out, “Convert to Islam, we can repent later” Orlando Blooms character turns to him and says, “You’ve taught me a lot about religion your eminence” – How sad but true that many of us have been like the bishop.
Conclusion:
Where do you find yourself in the ongoing temptation of Christ?
Like Jesus you can hold up the sword of the spirit which is the word of God and experience victory.
James 4:7
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you.
Hear it Preached: www.dakotacommunitychurch.ca and click "Listen".
PowerPoint available (Free of charge) on request dcormie@mts.net
Portions of this message built on a message by Rob Bell entitled “Lent II -030506” available here:
http://www.marshill.org/teaching/index.php
