All right, let me ask you a question. If the team that you’re rooting for-- if they knew the other team’s plays, in other words all this week they knew exactly what play the other team was going to run every time. It was all scripted out right there for you. Do you think that your team would have a chance to win if they went into the game knowing every play the other team was going to run? And what if it was only three plays? What if the other team only had three plays and you knew when they were going to run one of those three plays? Do you think your team, even the Jets and even Chicago, might have a chance to win? You know who I’m rooting for already, right? All right. I’m praying for a Green Bay-Pittsburgh Super Bowl, all right? So for the rest of you, I’m sorry. That’s who I’m praying for. All right. So if your team does know those three plays, chances are you would be well prepared to win the game.
In Scripture our enemy, the one who wants to steal, kill, and destroy from us really only has three plays in his playbook. And he has been running them perfectly, executing them very well now for thousands of years. And he’s not had to really add anything to his arsenal of plays because the three that I’m about to describe work so well.
Now one of my most prized possessions that I have in my office and I was showing it off this week is that I have a signed book, a signed copy of John Wooden’s last book before he passed away and it says, “To Brady from John Wooden.” And somebody knew that I was a big basketball fan and I’m an admirer of John Wooden. They got the book; they knew him and got the book signed for me. And I was showing people my John Wooden-signed autographed book this week. I was bragging on it.
But John Wooden and guys like John Wooden and Vince Lombardi if you know anything about sports, and I’m not trying to overwhelm you with sports analogies this morning, but these guys what made them brilliant coaches is not because they were extravagant in the way they coached. In fact, they were brilliant because they simplified the game of football and the game of basketball. John Wooden almost never looked at the opponent’s game film. He never scouted another team. He would just tell his team we’re going to do the fundamentals, everybody that played UCLA, and they won like nine national championships. But everybody that played UCLA knew exactly what they were going to do, but they couldn’t stop them because UCLA they fundamentally just did it better than everybody else. They rebounded, played defense, and shot the basketball better than everybody else. It didn’t matter what you did against them, they were successful.
Well I’m not comparing Vince Lombardi and John Wooden to a Satan. But our enemy only has three plays and we know what they are, yet we still find ourselves being overwhelmed by them. So let’s pick it up here. Let’s find out what these three things are.
In Genesis chapter 3, Genesis chapter 3, Adam and Eve have been formed. They’re now set in the Garden of Eden. God has given Adam and Eve tremendous authority. He says now not only name the animals but rule and multiply the land in which I’ve given you. You can eat anything in the garden you want except from this tree. You cannot eat the fruit from this tree. Yet the serpent, the cunning crafty serpent, comes to Eve and to Adam and says, “Listen. You know why God doesn’t want you to have that forbidden fruit? You know why he doesn’t want you to have this because if you were to eat of that fruit, you would become like God.” He begins to whisper these subtle lies to them. And Adam and Eve, they commit the original sin because they believed a lie.
Now I want you to write this down if you’re taking notes this morning. All of us have sinned. All of us are sinners. All of us have fallen short of the glory of God, the Scripture says. All of us will probably commit sins before the Christ returns. All sin is caused though by us believing a subtle lie, a lie. We believe it and we act upon what we hear and what we believe, what we see and what we believe. That’s how we act upon it and that’s how sin comes into all of our lives.
So in Genesis chapter 3, I want you to notice the three things that is pointed out here. Verse 6 — “When the woman saw the fruit...” Notice that the eyes work here, “...when the woman saw the fruit of the tree was good for food.” So the first thing she noticed with her eyes was that fruit was tempting. The fruit was good for food and pleasing to the eye. Notice that the first two are what? Things that she is seeing. She saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom. “And she took some and ate it. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it.” So the three things here—notice the three things—the tree was good for food, it was pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom.
All right fast forward, the children of Israel now are called out of Egypt. They’re led into the desert, and for 40 years they failed miserably. I’m just going to sum up a big chunk of the Bible there for you. They were called out of Egypt, and we talked about last week they were led through the Red Sea into the wilderness and there they roamed about for 40 years on a trip that should have taken about three weeks. Failed miserably. And I’m going to show you in just a moment in Scripture that these three temptations that tripped up Adam and Eve were the same temptations that tripped up the children of Israel as they were wandering through the desert. I’m going to tell you what these three things are.
First, John tells us exactly what these three temptations, these three plays that the enemy calls against our lives are. First, John chapter 2:15 — “Do not love the world or the things in the world.” By the way, we could camp out there for about six months on that one passage, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him.” Wow! Is that convicting to you when you read that passage? You know we can be—I’m fascinated by things. I am. I’m fascinated by technology. I’m fascinated by things around us. And I just want to make sure we guard our hearts that we don’t fall in love with it. Being fascinated, being curious about things, discovering new things is not the problem that he’s describing here. It’s when our heart turns away from God and our heart begins to worship the things that are around us; the stuff, the things that are around us. Let’s keep reading here, okay.
Verse 16 says — “For all that is in the world—now here’s the three things—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” All right. Now I’m reading out the new King James Version. If you’re reading with me, out the NIV it says something different. But the new King James Version is a literal translation. The NIV is not. So sometimes we need to read other translations especially literal translations in order to catch the real meaning of the Greek words that are listed here. He says, “The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” The three things that tripped up Eve in the garden, Adam and Eve in the garden, the same three sins that tripped up the children of Israel as they were walking through the wilderness are the same three things that Jesus is about to be tempted with in his 40 days of temptation. So let’s pick it up now.
In Luke chapter 4, “Jesus instead of being launched into the public ministry now is brought into the wilderness by himself for 40 days of testing.” And notice this, the children of Israel wandered through the wilderness for how long? 40 years. Jesus, the new Adam, was sent by God from heaven to be the new Adam-- to be the redeemer of all that had been lost in the garden, all that had been given up in the wilderness experience. Now Jesus is here to redeem it. And so for 40 days he’s about to be confronted by the enemy of our souls, the enemy of Adam and Eve, the enemy of the children of Israel, Jesus is walking into the desert by himself. Now I want to pause here just for a second to point something out because I think it’s super important.
A lot of you maybe many of you have a desire for public influence or public ministry. Can I tell you that nothing will ever be substantial and public that’s not first won in private? Our private battles have to first be won before God will ever launch you into a public battle, public ministry. If that’s the desire of your heart, and by the way, I hope all of you have a public ministry because the public needs ministry. We’re all called the public ministry, right? Some of us may preach and teach on a stage. Some of us may do other things. But we’re all called into the public into the domain in which we live to do ministry, right? The first wrestling matches that has to happen are not the battles that we see at our community, though. The greatest battles that we first have to win are not the ones that we see in politics or in government or whatever we think is the problem out there. The first real battles that have to be won in all of our hearts are the wrestling matches of our soul, the private battles of our mind and heart.
Alright here we go, verse 1 — “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit.” Now notice that that is the most important thing that I want you to take away this morning, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan where he had just been baptized by John the Baptist and was led by the Spirit in the desert.” Now notice here I want to point something out. I think this is going to mess some of your hair up, all right? This is going to mess with your theology and I want to do that a little bit, okay. Jesus does not tempt us with sin. The Scriptures are very clear about that. Jesus is not the tempter. He does not tempt us with sin. He does not present sin to us as a temptation. He does not. But Jesus will test us.
He does not tempt us, but he will test us. Everything that he deposits in our heart will be tested by fire to see if it’s real or not. And those things that are shaft, those things that are useless, those things that are not productive, it says will be burned up. But those things that God places in our heart will go through a refiner’s fire to be tested by God so that we can be confident in them. You understand this that the testing that we walk through is not for God to somehow evaluate us. It’s for us to evaluate what God has put in our lives. That was really good. I need to write that down. Remind me to write that down because it’s not down. Let me say it one more time. That was a big, big thing I just said.
The testing from God is not so that God can evaluate us. He already knows us. He knows us better than we know ourselves. The testing of God is so that we can be confident in what God has placed inside of us. It is for our benefit that we are tested by God so that we can say—listen. We’ve been tested here, right? You know what? We could tell you the by-product of the testing New Life Church has gone through. I am more confident now in the truths of Scripture than I’ve ever been in my life. I am more confident in the friendships and the covenant relationships I have with you than ever before in my life because we have gone through testing together. It was for our benefit that we walk through the testing. Are you getting that this morning? All right. Let’s keep reading now, okay.
It says verse 2 — “Where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil.” A lot of people believed that Jesus fasted for 39-1/2 days and all these temptations happened in a matter of few hours. No, it says for 40 days he was tempted everyday. Now that’s important for us to catch this morning because all of us sitting in this room this morning are tempted everyday. Aren’t we? There may be a few angelic beings amongst us, but for the most part, the rest of us are flesh and blood. He says he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days. And at the end of them, this is the most—to me this is the most obvious Scripture in the Bible. He did not eat anything for 40 days and then Luke has the audacity to point out to us that he was hungry. That was revelation to me this week as I studied that. Wow!
And so the devil said to him, “If you are the son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” Have you ever been on a fast? How many of you have ever fasted food, like not eating food for two or three days or longer? Here’s the problem. We used to do this fast a lot. And there’s always somebody in the office who pops microwave popcorn at two in the afternoon when you haven’t eaten all day. That person-- if you are that person, may God convict your soul. Do not pop popcorn when somebody is trying to fast. All right. My man does not live on popcorn alone or bread alone.
Verse 5 — “The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world...”—notice he say all the kingdoms of the world he showed him— “...and he said to him I’ll give you all their authority and splendor for it’s been given to me.” Notice that Satan—he was right, by the way. He was not lying. He had control of the kingdoms of the earth because of the sin of Adam. He was telling the truth. He actually had spiritual authority to say that and he was speaking honestly. I have control of the kingdoms of the earth. However, he also knew why Jesus was there. Take it back. He says, “And I can give it to anyone I want to.” Oh really?
Verse 7 — “So if you worship me, it will all be yours. Jesus answered it is written. Worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Then the devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. If you are the son of God he said, throw yourself down from here for it is written he’ll command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully. They will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against the stone. And Jesus answered. It says do not put the Lord your God to the test. When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.” That is huge.
So we read this and some of you read this hundred of times. I’m pointing out something to you. He says he left him alone at that point until there was a more opportune time to tempt him again. Let me ask you a question. If there were opportune times to test Jesus, is it possible that there might be some opportune times to test us? Are you aware—this is the big question—are you aware when you are the most vulnerable? Good Lord! You all are quiet. I’m asking you a question. Come over here. You all look a lot more spiritual. Is there an awareness that you have in your daily walk, an awareness maybe—are you aware of your physical body? Are you aware of when your mind is tired? Are you aware of whatever thing might happen, trauma, may come in to your life? Are you aware of when you are the most vulnerable to temptation? Do you even know when you are the most vulnerable?
Let me tell you when I’m the most—this is going to shock you, but I will tell you when I’m the most vulnerable. I know this. Can I tell you when I’m the most vulnerable? Sunday afternoon. Sunday night. Monday morning. You know why? Because I am giving out everything in my tank today. I don’t plan to leave here with much left in my tank. I’m going to give you everything I have that I have prayed, I have studied. I’ve been with God this week. And I plan to give you the whole bale of hay today. Not much left in the tank after I walk out of this building. And most people think, “Well the pastor after he preaches a couple of times he must just be floating on the clouds when he gets back to the house.”
Well I’m tired. I’m exhausted. I’m tired. I don’t really have any capacity to meet with anybody else. I don’t have any capacity to really have anymore conversations. I enjoy being here. I enjoy the conversation. But there comes a point in my body, in my mind, where I’m done. My tanks are empty. They’re done. That’s when I am aware of the fact that I can now be tempted differently than Sunday morning because I am ready on Sunday morning. I mean I am on Sunday morning. When I get up, I’m praying. I’m focused. I know God is with us. I feel God’s presence. I’m dangerous Sunday morning. I’m endangered on Sunday afternoon. All of you need to be aware of how your body is wired. When are you the most vulnerable? After you’ve worked all week? Maybe on Friday evening after you’ve done all you can through that week to make your business go? This is why this is such an important story to us as Christ’s followers.
Now by the way, Jesus if you noticed that Jesus combated, came back to Satan’s temptations with three Scriptures. All three of those Scriptures are from Deuteronomy. Of all the Scriptures that Jesus could have used to combat the temptations that he was facing, he chose three Scriptures from Deuteronomy and they did that for a reason. He was there to redeem the mistakes not only of the Garden of Eden. He was there to redeem the mistakes of the children of Israel as they wandered through the desert. And Deuteronomy tells that story.
And by the way, all three temptations that the enemy brought to Jesus that day were shortcuts. I’m going to show this to you in just a minute. Temptations are simply Satan saying to us, “Hey, you have a real need, a legitimate need in your life,” but he’s offering us illegitimate ways to meet legitimate needs. You can write that down. If you just let that fly over your head today, you’re going to miss out on something that’s huge. Temptations are simply Satan offering you illegitimate ways to meet legitimate needs. I’m going to show this to you. Let’s walk into the Scripture here, okay.
So the first thing that Jesus was tempted with was the lust of the flesh. Look at what Eve and forward back to Genesis, Genesis chapter 3. Eve says the fruit is good for food. It satisfies a legitimate need. Some of you may be hungry right now. Your stomach may be growling now. You may actually feel the—by the way, most of us have never experienced real hunger, by the way. Very few of us in this room have ever experienced real hunger. We think it’s hunger. We tell our kids this whole time. “Dad, I’m hungry.” “No, you’re not hungry.” You’re not hungry. Hunger is something that’s painful. And very few of us ever go very long without feeding ourselves, right?
So Eve says the fruit is good for food. And then the Satan comes to Jesus and said turn the stones to bread. Jesus, why don’t you meet a legitimate need right now? Aren’t you hungry, Jesus? Eve, aren’t you hungry? Hey, Eve, aren’t you hungry? Look at that. Jesus, aren't you hungry? You’ve gone 40 days without food. Wouldn’t you just turn that stone into a big old bag of microwave popcorn?
And you now what happened out in the desert. The children of Israel are wandering around and they’re complaining. You brought us out here from Egypt to let us starve to death in a desert? So one morning they wake up and they come out of their tents and there were frosted flakes all over the ground. And they were good, had the sugar on them and everything. They went out there and just ate all that. Well after about three or four weeks of that they said, “Oh, you bring us out here and all you’re going to give us now is frosted flakes on the ground every morning. How about a little meat every once in a while?” A quail then appeared. There’s all the quail they can eat and they still complained, because it was never enough.
Listen, your flesh will always demand more from you than you can give it. Scripture says that our flesh has an insatiable appetite. It is never satisfied, this appetite that you got to control this. And it’s a legitimate need. I know what it feels like to want to eat and the smell of bread. Another thing, don’t ever drive by a Panera Bread when you’re trying to fast; Panera Bread, huh. Illegitimate ways to meet legitimate needs; shortcuts, shortcuts. Lust of the flesh.
And by the way, we can always justify our actions, right, because it’s a legitimate need. I mean, I meet with people all the time whose lives have been wrecked by poor sexual choices. And what they’re wrestling with is, I am a sexual being. I have sexual needs. I have sexual desires. And there was an opportunity to meet a legitimate need. However, it was an illegitimate way to meet a legitimate need.
And listen ladies, men, young men, young women, this is huge for our culture right now. We need to talk about sexual issues. And I’m not trying to be inappropriate at all. You know that about me. I’m not trying to be inappropriate. But this is the cry of our culture right now. And they say to us it’s a legitimate need. God made me like this. Therefore, I’ve got to meet these needs. And we look for the shortcut. Waiting until marriage is tough. It’s difficult. It’s a shortcut. It’s a shortcut not to do it. You just give yourself away to anybody who wants to take advantage of you. If you just give your body away is the shortcut. God said, “I have something better for you. I have a more divine purpose for you. And if you’ll just wait, the satisfaction of waiting, the satisfaction of entering into a marriage covenant when the both of you have remained pure and kept your hearts pure, there’s a satisfaction. Don’t take the shortcut.” For a lot us, we took the shortcut. And God is able to redeem shortcuts, by the way. By the way, God is always able, God is brilliant at taking us when we get off the path, getting us right back on the path.
I want to give you hope this morning. I don’t care how many shortcuts you’ve taken. God is able to get you back on the center of his will in the middle of a highway that he had designed for you. Nobody in this room is hopeless. There is no such thing as a hopeless situation in the kingdom of heaven. None.
And then it says there is a lust of the eyes. For Eve when she saw the fruit, not only had the ability to feed something physical in her body, but it was pleasing. It was something she wanted. It says it was pleasing to the eyes of Eve. It was pleasing to her eyes. It was something that she desired to have. To Jesus, Satan came to him and said, “I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the world.”
Now we just talked about this a few weeks ago. Remember what Gabriel said to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Remember the words of Gabriel? Go back and look at it later this afternoon. When the Angel Gabriel came to the Virgin Mary and said, “I’m about to conceive in your womb a child, a son, whose name will be Jesus,” then Gabriel gave her these elaborate promises about what this little boy that was in her womb would accomplish with his life and death and resurrection. And one of the things Gabriel said to Mary is, “he will bring all nations under his authority.” He is going to recover the nations. He’s going to be the ruler of all the nations; his life, his death, his resurrection. So here’s Jesus being offered a shortcut.
I mean Jesus that’s what he was there for to reclaim what Adam had lost, right? So when Satan says, “Hey, these kingdoms belong to me and I can give them to anybody I want. Why don’t you take them?” Jesus was tempted. Well, you know, if I just take them right now then that means I don’t have to go to the cross. It means I don’t have to go through three days. And I don’t have to be resurrected. I can just take them. I can take the shortcut. But that was not God’s plan for Jesus. Jesus was called to be a living breathing example to us. He was called to the cross. His death and his resurrection were important. It’s hugely important for all of us. Instead, Satan was offering him a shortcut.
Notice that Eve was looking at something. And often times we think things that we see come into our eyes and we corrupt our hearts. I completely disagree. It is possible. The Bible says don’t set anything evil before you. It is possible that you can see things that might come into your soul and corrupt you. I understand that is something that happens. But most often, it’s the opposite of what happens. Most often, our heart has already been corrupted and our gaze, the things that we see and the things that we begin to worship from our eyes from the inside out, has already happened in our heart.
When I talked to men and women who have fallen into adulterous affairs, here’s what they’ve said to me. And almost all the time it happens like this. Rarely does it happen the way I’m about to describe it. Some people say, “While I was driving down the street, there was a pretty lady on the sidewalk. Suddenly, I became aware of her and I pursued her, and I wrecked my marriage.” That’s not how it happens. What happens is you get aggravated with your wife or your husband, and the enemy comes to you and says, “You married the wrong person. Another wife would make you a lot happier. You wouldn’t be quite as miserable if you would have picked somebody else.” And you believe it, believe it.
Now your heart has believed something that’s not true. Then guess who you meet one day randomly in the office? A woman who laughs at your jokes, and your wife hasn’t laughed at your jokes in years because it’s really not that funny. But this girl thinks they’re hilarious. What happens is I believed, though, a few days earlier I believed I married the wrong person, that I could be a lot happier with somebody else who would come, that I am a lot funnier than my wife thinks. I’ve talked on this. You can go back in podcast. It’s a big talk. Typically, we worship objects that our heart has already turned toward. Something happens in our heart first and then it comes out of our eyes. It comes back in to our already corrupt heart. Is that making sense to you what I’m saying today? Don’t blame. Don’t blame everything you see on corrupting your heart. No, all of us have to blame our heart for believing what we see. It’s a heart issue with God. And we want it now.
I mean young college and 20 something's—one of the reasons that young college in 20 something are having their finances wrecked right now is because they want their parents’ lifestyle now. I want the house my mom and dad raised me in, I want the car that my parents drive. I want the vacations that my parents took me on. I want it now. And I’m not willing to work 20 years like it took my parents. I’m going to do it in three years. And if it means I’m going to fall into debt, then I’ll fall into debt. And it wrecks you. Because I’ve got to have it now. It’s pleasing to the eye, I want it now. And credit is easy, or it used to be. Credit used to be easy. Anybody can get a loan for anything. And suddenly we look up and we’re bankrupt at 30. When it took our parents 20 and 25 years to accumulate those assets, we want it now. Pleasing to the eye. And here’s the lie that the enemy comes to you and he says, “You deserve it.”
I remember the first little house Pam and I bought, a $42,000 house. It was awful. But it was our house and we loved that little two-bedroom, one-bath house. Her parents and my parents lived in much nicer houses, but it’s just something-- we were so happy to have a little $40,000-house.
Look at Psalms 119; this is David or the Psalm writer of the Psalm 119 verse 36. It says, “Turn my heart.” Notice here he didn’t say turn my eyes. He said turn my heart. The first thing he said was, “Turn my heart toward your statues and not towards selfish gain. Turn my eyes away.” So he mentions the heart first, then the eyes, not the eyes and heart. He said, first of all, start with my heart. Now work on my eyes. Start with my heart. Now work on my eyes. Are you catching this today because I can go on for an hour if you don’t get a little more vocal here, because I don’t think you’re getting it? You’re very quiet. Turn my heart and then work on my eyes. He says, “Turn my eyes away from worthless things. Preserve my life according to your word.” Father, first start with my heart. Help me wrestle this down in my heart. So lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes.
And the third temptation that Jesus faced was the pride of life. Eve said that fruit will give me wisdom. I will be like God. I will be equal to God if I consume this fruit. Satan says to Jesus, “Throw your self down! Let the angels catch you! Show off a little bit!? Come on, Jesus!? Prove to everybody you’re the messiah! Just jump right over here and you know what’s going to happen? Some angels will appear out of nowhere and catch you. And the crowd will be wowed by you! They’re going to like you. They’re going to think you’re cool. They’re going to see you in a different light. They’re not going to call you just a carpenter’s son from Nazareth anymore. Oh no! If the angels appear out of nowhere and caught you as you were falling down the ground, they would suddenly be aware that you’re the messiah. You wouldn’t have to do all this preaching you’re about to have to do. You wouldn’t have to go do all those miracles because it would be obvious to everybody you’re the messiah if angels came out of nowhere and saved you, right?”
Shortcut. It’s a shortcut. All this is, is the enemy is offering are shortcuts. Short circuit. In the desert, the pride the children of Israel wrestled with, they would say to each other, “God, we are the chosen children of God. We are the sons and daughters of Abraham.” In fact, remember John the Baptist in Luke chapter 3? We talked about this two weeks ago when John the Baptist was confronting the people that were coming out to hear him speak. What did he say? Don’t tell me you’re the children of Abraham. If God needs to, he can take these stones and make them children of Abraham. That’s not going to get you to heaven just because you’re the child of Abraham. You have to believe. You have to believe. He was prideful, who I am.
Even sometimes—let me just say this to us as a church, okay. Sometimes saying that we’re New Lifers can take on a little bit of pride. We are a big church and a big family. I like saying I’m a New Lifer, but not because I’m prideful about it. I like it because it identifies me as part of the family here. I’m with you. We’re all families. Just be careful that we don’t say New Lifer in the sense that we’re a little bit better than everybody else. Our building is bigger. Our songs are good. We got a big youth group. We do that big thorn thing better than everybody. Our demons are scarier than your demons.
You see how that can start, though, in our hearts. So from now on if you say I’m a New Lifer, I want you to say it with this idea that I’m just part of this big old messy family that meets on Sunday and does things around the city and hangs out together in groups. That’s fine with me. But if you say New Lifer and I catch any wind of that other stuff, first of all, the Holy Spirit is going to come to you before I will. And I don’t want it in my heart. I don’t want it in there.
I want to make sure that we have the right-- this pride of life because the pride of life says I have all that I need. I have all that I need pretty much. God I needed you a lot when I was younger. God I was so desperate for you and hungry for you. But now, I’ve got all this church thing figured out. I’ve got the Bible figured out. I’ve got my theology all in this little sweet little box now. I know who you are, God. Now you can go work on somebody else because I’m already there. Have you ever wrestled with that thought? Nobody’s going to admit it. I know that. You’re all going, “Oh, of course not!”
Here is the choices that we have this morning in all three of these cases. And I want you to think about this. This is the big take away that I want you to think through and talk about as a family today. And all of us go back and forth between the two pendulums in what I’m about to explain, okay. All of us have been over here, I think. And all of us have been over here.
The first side of it over here is the insistence on my independence. I am insistent on my independence from God. That’s where we all started. God, I can do this by myself. I don’t need God. I don’t need a savior. I have the mental, physical, emotional capacity to walk through life without any help from God. That’s where we all started, right? Can we all admit that that’s where we all started, right? Can somebody raise their hand without a church mask on, please? Take the church mask off. Did we all not start out as rebellious know-it-all's? Yes! And it was an insistence, “I can do this without God.” And something happens in our heart, we get wrecked by the Holy Spirit.
And then we end up, hopefully, over here where there’s an absolute insistence on full dependence on God. I can’t do anything unless God is with me. I am in hands of God. All of my life is wrapped up by the things of God. I want to be his agent for change on the earth. I want to be a worshiper in my heart. I am insistent on my dependence on God fully, completely, without any compromise. And then here what will happen for the next 40 years. Back and forth. I can do it without him. I can’t do anything without him. I can do everything without him. I can’t do nothing without him. That’s where we are today.
And you’re somewhere in between. Maybe you’ve camped out over here and this is where you’re going to say. I want to camp out right here, way over here, and I want to put down a house. I don’t want to put down a tent. I want to put down a house and live there. I don’t want anything temporary about my existence in this place. But I know this about my own heart and about my own mind. You know this about your heart and about your mind. The temptation is to come back and forth, back and forth. Maybe you live over here longer now than you used to, but the enemy is looking for an opportune time when you have said in your mind, “I can do this without God”, and that’s when you’re vulnerable.
Can I tell you when you’re in the opportune time? That’s it. That’s it. It’s up to you this morning to decide where you are. Do you have an absolute insistence on your independence from God or do you have an absolute insistence on your dependence on God? And if you’re living over here, these temptations, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, I don’t care how many times the enemy runs those plays against me. I don’t care how many times he throws the same old lies out at me. It doesn’t matter. Just fall off me. Fall off of me. But when you camp out over here when you begin to do it on your own, live life thinking you can do it by yourself-- that’s when you’re very vulnerable.
So as your pastor this morning, I’m just trying to help you take a step toward over here and saying, “God, today I am completely dependent upon you and I am insisting on my complete dependence on you.” So I want to read this. As we close this, I want to read one more Scripture in the simple Scripture we just read a minute ago, Luke 4. I want to point this out to you one more time because this is our prayer at the end of the talk today.
Luke 4:1 — “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit.” And this is my prayer. If I could tell you one motive that I have about leading you because I’m trying to bring all of us into this place where we’re always full of the Holy Spirit, where we’re continually filled with the Holy Spirit; because I know this about people who are continually full of the Holy Spirit. They don’t tend to make bad choices as often. Can they sin? Sure. Will they sin? Sure. But I’m talking about putting yourself in the sweet spot where you live life where God blesses you where there’s something that favors always on your life. It’s people that are aware of whether or not they are full of the Holy Spirit or not, and are welcoming the work of the Holy Spirit into their lives on a daily if not hourly basis saying, “God I need you. I want to be full of the Holy Spirit. I want to be consumed by your Holy Spirit.”
And here’s the promise that Jesus said in John chapter 6, I think it is. He said, “When He the Holy Spirit comes, he will guide you, lead you into all truth.” In other words, it’s possible. I do believe this. Theologically, I think it’s possible for us not to fall into deception, or he wouldn’t have said that. Jesus said the Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth, A~L~L, all truth. And I don’t say it right. I say it like a Texan. All truth, all of it.
So let’s pray at this point. Would you focus on the Lord here as we end this time and just ask God, ask yourself this question this morning. “Am I full of the Holy Spirit today?” Now the Bible says that the Holy Spirit is this gift that Jesus wants to give us. It’s a gift, right? It’s just a gift of the Holy Spirit and it’s from Jesus. It’s not from some charismatic leader or whatever it is. It’s a gift from Jesus to us, the same as salvation is a gift to us from Jesus. The Holy Spirit is a gift from Jesus to our lives.
And maybe your flesh is out of control right now. Maybe you’ve got your eyes fixed on something that you know is just consuming you, this desire to have something. Or maybe here today as we are talking, the Holy Spirit came to you and said, “You know what? You’ve let pride in who you are and pride in your gifts, pride in whatever kind of seep into your heart. Can you just say Lord, I confess? We’re family, right. So if you’re struggling with something just say Father in heaven, I confess.
Remember we talked about beautiful repentance, how repentance literally opens the door for Jesus to come into our mess. That’s all repentance does. It just opens a door for Jesus to come into the messy places of your life that he already sees. He knows about them. It allows him to enter into the mess. So if there is a mess in the room today, and I suspect a crowd this size there might be at least one, maybe two messes going on here. Could you just say Lord I’m messy, I messed up? Just welcome Christ by opening the door and saying, “God, I welcome you into my heart. Let me be a man, a woman full of the Holy Spirit, all of it, overflowing like a stream in the desert. Let me be full of the Holy Spirit.”
Father, we welcome the Holy Spirit into our life today. We welcome the work of the Holy Spirit into our lives. We pray now that you would fill us with the Holy Spirit. And Lord, guide us into all truth. Father, I pray that we would not be led astray by the lust of our flesh, the lust of our eyes Lord, or the pride of life. We submit ourselves completely to you. And today for those who are watching online, for all of us in this room, for those who will listen to this by podcast, where we make the choice today that we’re insistent on being completely dependent on God. There’s an insistence in us to be completely dependent upon God in Jesus name, Amen.
Could you stand this morning? I want those who prayed down front, the altar team, pastors, group leaders who prayed down front, would you come out right now and be ready to pray with people? And if you need prayer for anything, maybe you are wrestling with something in your life and—listen. We’re safe down here. This is a very safe group of people. We are a family who prays together and talks about things. And you can take off your church mask when you come to New Life. You can tell people that it’s okay to not be okay. Don’t stay that way. But it’s okay-- if there's a mess going on, let us pray for you if you’ve never received Jesus, if you’ve never even said yes to Christ and you want to say yes. We want to pray with you about that today, okay.
Guest central is right there. If you’re new and you want to meet some leaders, ask some questions of the great gift, worship, I think we got a worship CD we want to give you over there, we’d love to see you there, okay. And there are some above average coffee I think over there too, so help yourself to that, all right. Let’s pray together. If you need prayer, you can step up right now if you want. You’re not bothering me by walking down for prayer. Let’s pray together. Father, thank you for the Holy Spirit. We welcome it in our lives. Thank you for what you’re doing in Jesus name, amen.
All right. Make sure you meet four or five people before you leave. Have a great Sunday.
