Would you grab a Bible and open to Matthew chapter 4?
Please read and I'll pray for us.
Matthew chapter 4 verses one through 11.
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 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 it is 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.
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 in 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, Be gone, Satan, for it is written, You
shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.
Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were
ministering to him. This is the word of God.
Would you pray with me? Father, we thank you for giving
us Your word and our language and for giving us Your Spirit in
US and around us, that as we read you, Almighty God, the
living God, our Creator, our Redeemer, that You can teach us
through Your Word. That is our request this
morning, Lord. That You would take up Your
Word, that You would bring us instruction as a people, that
You would show us again the glories of our Savior Jesus
Christ, that we might delight ourselves in Him, that we might
know the things freely given to us through Him.
And so would you grant, Lord, that we would all hear a better
sermon that is preached today and that we, we would be the
better for it. And we ask it in Christ's name,
Amen. So we are in the season of Lent.
And traditionally when you come into the season of Lent, you,
you focus as a congregation on the life in the ministry of
Christ, particularly on his sufferings, on the things that
he suffered in order to secure our redemption for us.
And so in the liturgical calendar, this is the reading
that that the divines have assigned to the church, the
temptations of Christ. And So what I, what I want to do
is I want to look with you at the temptations of Christ,
looking at Christ as Christus victor.
This is Jesus in his victory for us.
A lot of times we come to the temptations of Christ and and
think in terms of what are what are the temptations of Christ
teach us about how we should weather temptation, and that's a
great thing. That's a great lens.
This is our example for how to navigate temptation without
failing. But the point here is not how
you can avoid falling. The point is Christ did on your
behalf, that Christ maintained perfect, sinless perfection
despite taking these temptations from our enemy, the devil.
And so I want to look at this text with you.
I'll have some applications in and around and through it as we
work our way. So you're in Matthew chapter 4.
If you look in verse one, I want to the first temptation, if you
were going to summarize it, if I were going to summarize it, I
would summarize it this way. The lie that we're told often is
that God helps those who help themselves, right?
Don't pray for a hole while leaning on a shovel.
And it's true you should not do that.
But the Scriptures teach that God comes to help those who wait
upon the Lord. The first temptation of Christ.
Satan tempts Christ to help himself to the things of God as
opposed to trusting His Father. So let me read the first few
verses and then I want to make a couple of observations here.
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit.
Emphasis on the Word. Then if you write in your Bible,
circle the Word then and draw an arrow just right before to the
verse that happened right before.
Because there's a historic context.
Here we are right after the baptism of Jesus.
Jesus is dripping wet as he goes into the wilderness to be
tempted by the devil. Jesus was led up by the Spirit
into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Did you know that? Did you know that sometimes you
can be led by the Spirit? Christ was led by the Spirit to
be tempted by the devil. Is that, is that something that
the Spirit would do? Yes, it's something that he did.
Verse 2, after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, he was
hungry. It's a great detail that Matthew
gives us to protect us from a very traditional heresy where
you fall into one of two camps. Typically heretics will fall
into one of two camps of making Christ really God but only sort
of man, or making Christ sort of man or really man but only sort
of God. The testimony of Scripture is
that Christ was very God who became very men.
Real God becomes real man. And so it's a warning to us as
we look at the temptations of Christ and say, you know, it was
just his deity that that allowed him to navigate temptation or,
or what? You know, of course, of course
he was able not to turn stones to bread.
He was gone. Matthew tells us that just like
when you go hungry, when you don't eat, you go hungry.
Matthew tells us Christ had been 40 days without eating and he
was hungry. He's a real man, He's hungry.
And verse 3, the tempter came and said to him, if you are the
Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.
But he answered, man shall not live.
It is written man shall not live by bread alone, but by every
word that comes from the mouth of God.
So the historic context here that's very important is we are
post baptism pre inheritance, which is a which is a redo of
the nation of Israel. I asked Trey to read from the
book of Exodus where when Israel went through their that their
baptism through the Red Sea, they would have been dripping
wet, but they walked through on dry ground.
They watch they they see floating in the sea, the
Egyptians, their enemies, their overlords, totally defeated.
And the text says right before Moses sings his song of triumph,
the text says that they that they saw those things and they
believed in the Lord and and they became his.
It's their covenant. It's their baptism.
And then they go after singing, blessed be the name of the Lord,
the, the horse and the rider, he is thrown into the sea three
days later without water. And they're they're grumbling
against the Lord and they're saying, is God with us or not?
God has forsaken us. It is, is our redemption?
Is it still binding? Well, Christ goes through the
very same thing. He goes through a baptism.
God speaks over him, you. This is my beloved Son with whom
I am well pleased. And he goes directly from his
baptism, just like Israel, into the wilderness to be tempted.
And when he's hungry, the tempter comes to him.
And it's very interesting. There's a lot of hay made over
the place that Jesus is and I think it's true that he's in a
deserted, forsaken, desolate place and that there's stones
all over that to a hungry men begin to start looking like
loaves of bread. You I don't know if you've ever
done an extended fast where everything turns to food.
I did an extended fast sometime last year and Gracie noticed
that I kept sending her reels of of cooking of people making
delicious food because when I was starving, I wanted to think
I wanted to think about food. So Satan comes and he says turn
these stones to bread. Now, again, it's something that
we need to focus very heavily upon.
If you are the Son of God, if you are the Son of God, this is
the temptation. If you are the Son of God,
command these stones to become loaves of bread.
But the temptation, First off, is to disbelieve the last thing
that we heard God say to Christ, This is my beloved son in whom
I'm well pleased. And Satan comes as he always
does, and says, did God really say?
Did God really say, if you are the Son of God, why don't you do
it this way? So he, The temptation is for
Christ to use his sonship, use his power, use his authority and
his, yeah, his ability to do anything that he wants to do as
Lord of heavens and earth. And instead of serving the
people that Christ that that the father sent him to rescue, that
he would use his power to help himself.
It's been called the masturbatory temptation to just
take care of yourself. Don't wait for the Lord to
provide for you, just do it yourself.
God helps those who help themselves.
Just take care of it. Just take care of it.
But Christ answers, it is written man shall not live by
bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of
God, which shows you it's a it's a, a quotation from Deuteronomy
chapter 8. And I want to read this to you.
It shows you that Jesus knows exactly where he is in the story
of redemption. Don't turn, just listen and and
you'll hear the quotation that Jesus uses to battle Satan.
But I want you to hear it in its context.
This is the Lord speaking to Israel at the end of their
wilderness wanderings. He says the Lord commanded that
I, the whole commandment that I command you today, you shall be
careful to do that. You may live and multiply and go
in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give your
Father's. And so we see this, this
interplay between the grace of God.
God is going to give you the land.
You're not going to earn it. It's going to be grace.
He's going to give it to you. Believe Him.
But this shows us the essence of faith.
We are not saved by works. But what does faith do?
Faith obeys. So keep these commandments that
you can live and multiply and go in and possess the land that the
Lord swore to give your Father's, and you shall
remember. That's the very thing Christ is
doing. You shall remember the whole way
that the Lord your God has LED you these 40 years in the
wilderness, that He might humble you, testing you to know what
was in your heart, whether you would keep His commands or not.
And He humbled you, and He let you hunger, He let you hunger
for a season, and He fed you with manna, which you did not
know, nor did your Father's know that He might make you know that
man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every
word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
Christ knows exactly where He is.
I'm hungry because the Lord has let me go hungry for a season.
He's going to provide for me, but He wants me to know that man
does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes
from the mouth of the Lord. The essence of this temptation
and the answer of Christ show us something profound that Satan is
always trying to get us to look through the lens of our hard
providences at the word of God to verify or to disprove it.
I need to say that to you again because it's important.
Satan is always trying to get us to look through the lens of our
hard providences. Why is this happening to me?
Let me look through my circumstances at the word of God
to see is the word of God true? My circumstances don't vindicate
that. That's what Satan is always
tries to get us to do instead of what God would have us do, which
is to look through the lens of God's Word at our hard
providences that we might know our Father more intimately and
know our dependence upon Him. Don't look at the Word of God
through your hard providences, rather look through the Word of
God at your hard providences and know that you are loved and your
Father has not forsaken you. So do your lack of funds.
Do you look at your lack of funds and see them as proof that
God has not kept His word to hear your prayer and to provide
for you? Or do you look at the promise
that He is sworn? He's taking responsibility for
your provision so that any financial hardship in the long
run is meant to teach you to rely upon Him more.
It's just one of the many hardships that some of us
undergo. The circumstances of Christ in
this text do not dictate to Him what He will and will not
believe about the Father and His Word, and neither should yours
dictate to you what you will believe.
Living on the Word of God means clinging to the light of what
God has said to you when your circumstances seem to darken
that Word. Clinging to the light of what
God has spoken when you're in the dark of circumstances that
want to darken what He has said to you.
This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.
If you are the Son of God, it's always this way.
The second temptation of Christ is a temptation to test the
theory. Let's test the theory.
Do you believe in the Lord or not?
Let's test it. Let's put it to the test.
Watch this verse 5. Then the devil took Christ to
the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple.
Let me just exhort you to take this at face value.
Don't try. And was this a in the next
temptation where he takes him up on a high mountain?
Is this a vision? Is this something that's going
on? Is he asleep?
Just take it at face value and see what this text would
indicate, that the devil took Christ to the holy city and set
him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him again, if
you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.
For it is 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.
And Jesus said to him again, it is written, you shall not put
the Lord your God to the test. So the devil takes Christ and
sets him on the temple, take it at face value.
And he says, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.
So if we want to see the nature of this temptation, we need to
see the Incarnate Christ standing on the temple, looking
down on the people of Israel, scurrying around under foot, and
remember our context that Christ has been declared to be the
king. God the Father has said this is
my son, and he's looking down on his people, Israel walking
around underneath that have no idea who he is.
They don't know him. He's got to wait.
He's got to wait for the Father to reveal him to Israel.
And so the temptation is Israel largely doesn't know who you
are. God has said who you are.
So if this is true, throw yourself down.
Throw yourself down and you will force your heavenly Father's
hand to rescue you in the sight of all Israel.
It wouldn't that be a spectacle, Geronimo?
And the Father sweeps in, and now we all know this is the
Messiah. What you're doing is you're
forcing God's hand to identify Christ to Israel right now.
That's the temptation. And I want you to note the
strategy, knowing Christ had stood firm on the Word of God.
And by the way, the context, when Jesus says man shall not
live by bread alone, but by every word, what is the word
that he heard? This is my son.
And Satan says, if you are the Son of God, Christ is clinging
to what the Father had just said about him.
And Satan knowing that his second strategy is to tempt
Christ to do what ought not to be done in order to put God's
Word to the immediate test, Throw yourself down, for it is
written. So Satan in this context, by the
way, is quoting from Psalm 91, which is a messianic Psalm about
the Father's protection of the Messiah.
So we would ask, is it an accurate quotation of Scripture?
Do these things apply to Christ? Absolutely.
It's accurate quotation of Scripture.
Is it applicable to Christ? Yes.
Is it a promise that Christ can claim and he can own right then
and there? Yes, it is.
It's an accurate quotation of Scripture applied to an
inappropriate applied in an inappropriate way in order to
justify a disobedience. So faith we were we were driving
through Smithville last night. Do you guys remember what that
sign said? Something about faith receives
doubt does without something like that.
It was like a pithy Christian turn of phrase that like, man,
if you're doubting, that's the only reason you could possibly
not have what God has promised to you.
And so there's this, there's this temptation to force God's
hand. Let's see whether or not the
Lord is among us. By the way, when Christ says
again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the
test. He's quoting from Exodus 17
verses one through 7 where they come to a place where there's
where there's they don't have any water.
And so they're grumbling against the Lord And they they say, I
want to read this to you because I'm going to I'm going to
butcher it if I try and remember, this is Exodus 17.
Listen to listen to what Israel says.
And this is the this is the, the the context of when Christ
quotes so the Lord said to Moses, pass on before the people
taking with you some of the elders of Israel, taking your
hand to staff which you struck the Nile and go, Behold, I will
stand before you there at the rock at Horeb and you shall
strike the rock. Book of Corinthians says the
rock was Christ and it was following them.
You shall strike the rock, and the water shall come out of it,
and the people will drink. Moses did so in the sight of the
elders in Israel, and he called the name of that place Masah in
Meribah. Because of the quarreling of the
people, and because, listen to these words, they tested the
Lord by saying, Is the Lord among us or not?
Putting the Lord to the test is not the same thing as taking Him
at His word and waiting for Him, right?
Trust the Lord and wait, not trust the Lord and try and put
Him to the test. So, so they're without water and
they go to Moses and they say if the Lord gives us water right
now, we'll believe. So let the Lord demonstrate
whether or not He's with us. Putting the Lord to the test is
an attempt to force God into a place where He will either keep
His word to you right now, or else you will no longer believe
in His Word. OK, so think about this for a
moment. We could do it right here that
Jesus said, whatever you ask in my name, the Father will will do
for you. And so let's just let's let's
postulate a theory that why don't I just pray that someone
would levitate into the ceiling. And if God does it, we'll all
believe that he's with us. But if he doesn't, we'll all go
home and know that this whole thing is a sham that's putting
the Lord to the test. That, by the way, is the logic
of the name it and claim it crowd that the only reason you
would ever pray for something and not receive it is because
you don't have faith. Even though Christ taught us
that faith the size of a mustard seed is able to move mountains.
Because it's not faith. It's not the quality of the
content of your faith that matters, it's the content of
your faith. It's the God that you're
trusting, not the size of how much you are trusting Him and so
the same logic that says if if you if you ask and you don't
receive, it's only because you doubt it denies one the model of
Christ's prayer who qualified in the garden.
This is what I want. But but your will not mine if it
be your will if it is possible, let this happen.
But I trust you, Lord, to caveat prayers like that is the essence
of faith. This is the logic of name and
then claim it. This is the logic of a lot of
charismatic believers. And listen to me, brothers and
sisters, it's the logic of Satan.
God will demonstrate himself now or we will not believe in him.
Jesus says no. That's putting the Lord to the
test. Jesus will not put his Father in
a situation where God will have to keep His word to Christ now
or Christ will die. I'm not going to throw myself
down so that God will vindicate me and demonstrate that he's
with me. He will not put him to the test
and nor should you. And let me say as a
parenthetical statement here, this is not some people take
this as a temptation to suicide. It's not a temptation to
suicide. It's a temptation to force God
to put him to the test, to force him to act on Christ's behalf.
But let me say, in case you take it that way, you need to beware
anytime you hear a thought, a voice, a desire, an entity
exhorting you to self harm, that is never from the Spirit of God,
never in life would God ever tell you to self harm.
Satan hates God and therefore he hates the image of God, which,
brothers and sisters, is you. Satan hates God, he hates God's
image, he hates you. And if he can deceive and get
you to hurt yourself, it's a great victory for him.
So don't ever deface God's image by harming yourself.
Last temptation is a temptation to speed up the plan.
Look in verse 8 again. The devil took him to a very
high mountain. Just take it at face value.
I don't know what mountain you can stand upon and see all the
kingdoms of the earth in their glory.
I don't know what mountain this is, and I don't think it
matters. Just take it, because it's the
Word of God. Again.
The devil took him to a very high mountain, and he showed
Christ 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, Begone
Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God,
and him only shall you serve. And then the devil left him, and
behold, angels came and we're ministering to him.
I will give it to you if you will worship me, meaning I will
take you where God has promised to take you.
But I will show you an easier and a quicker way.
There's no need to suffer. There's no need for for three
years of, of taking it on the chin from your enemies.
There's no reason for the ignominy of death.
A Roman cross. You just vow right now and I'll
give you it all. I'll give it all to you.
The the offer here is to be king without a cross.
That's the offer. So maybe it's helpful to ponder,
can Satan promise this at this point in historic redempt, in
the history of redemption? I think so.
I think at this point it is his to give and I think he has.
This is the magic sauce of why so many people that don't make
any sense in our world still tend to rise to power
inexplicably and accomplish great things.
Let me ask you something. Do you know who the most evil
person in the history of mankind is most evil?
We might say Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, like we might
say any of those those guys. But if you take their death toll
and add them all up together, there's one person whose life
took more human lives than them combined.
All of them. Do you know her name?
Her name was Margaret Sanger. She was the feminist eugenicist
founder of Planned Parenthood, which is responsible worldwide
for more than a billion human murders.
And this woman, by the way, you should homework assignment go
look up Margaret Sanger. Look up quotes that she wrote,
but really importantly, look up pictures of Margaret Sanger.
This woman was pug ugly. No joke, man.
She was ugly like, like my, my dad would say she's so ugly,
she's ugly, she's bad. And yet this woman, when she
left her husband, seduced wealthy man after wealthy man
after wealthy man who gave her their fortunes to use in her
eugenicist program, eugenics program.
That's she was able to do all of these things.
And we say like, how in the world can that Lady get that
kind of devotion from those guys that they would give their
fortune to her to use at will? This is the reason.
Sell your soul and I'll give you what you want.
I leave it to your judgement. But since Margaret Singer's
life, Molech has been our country's deity of choice,
sacrificing the unborn so that we could have a little more
financial security. And this is the essence of the
temptation to attain what God has promised in a way that he is
not allowed. Attain the promise in a way
that's not permitted. This is the temptation in the
garden. Just take and and and then
you'll be like God. The the whole the whole reason
we were made in the image and likeness of God.
Conformity into the image of God is our intended purpose.
We grasped at it early in a way that was not allowed Jesus.
One of my favorite quotes about the temptations of Christ.
Brace yourselves. Jesus will not receive as a gift
what he is about to win in open warfare.
Satan says, hey, just worship me and I'll give it to you.
And Jesus says no thanks because I'm about to bind you and take
everything you have. I'm about to whip you right now.
Jesus came to crush the devil, not to receive anything as a
gift from his hand. OK, So what?
How do these things apply to us? Well, first of all, that we
should understand that Jesus is that great.
Jesus is that great. Think about this.
Christ is the new, the second, the better.
Adam. Adam was a perfect man with a
full belly who had a million yeses and one no perfect man
never sinned. He's he's sufficient to have
stood yet free to fall. He's never sinned.
He's got a full belly. He's got a naked wife.
It's like it's the greatest, you know, context of any man ever.
A million yeses. You may freely eat of all the
trees in the garden, just not this one, because if you eat it,
you're going to die. A million yeses, one no perfect
man full belly and he yes, the no Christ, on the other hand,
was a perfect man dying of hunger.
Hadn't eaten for 40 days. Christ as a perfect man in a
fallen world has a million no's and one terribly difficult Yes,
there are. How many ways could you sin
sitting and listening to a sermon at church?
Infinite ways. There's a million ways for us as
fallen individuals in a fallen world to just come up short.
Christ, a perfect man, dying of hunger, a million ways to fail,
one thin perfect line of obedience that he must walk in
thought, word and deed every moment of his life in real
humanity. And he did it.
Adam sinned. Christ did not.
Christ is that great. Just marvel at your Savior,
brothers and sisters. He did what no man could
possibly do. And let me warn you about
something here. Do not make the mistake of
thinking that Christ maintains sinless perfection because His
divinity kept him anchored to obedience.
That's true. His divinity kept him anchored
to obedience. But that's not the way in which
he maintained sinless perfection, and that's not how
the Scriptures talk. So let me give you a metaphor.
Imagine that someone in our church wanted to break the world
record for bench press. The world record right now for
bench press. Think about this now, all of you
guys, what do you bench? What did you bench?
What's the most you've ever benched?
I would love to hear that number.
By the way, I'm pretty sure it's Clayton has the world record in
our church. I don't know the world record,
standing world record right now. So says the Googles is 1400 and
1 lbs by a guy named Jimmy Cold 1400 and 1 lbs which no three of
us could squat, right? I mean, that's just a ridiculous
amount of weight. But think about it's the bench
press, right? It's over your chest.
So if your shoulders break or your arms collapse, you're going
to die. And so someone in our church
wants to break this record. So he works and he lifts and he
strives and he takes steroids, probably.
He does all of these things to get within striking distance.
But while he's training, postulate this, while he's
training, he has a bad day where his PEC cramps and the weight
almost falls and kills him, right?
And so now all of his friends say, listen, we want you to try
for this record, but we're not going to let you do it on your
own. So what we're going to do is the
day you go for the record, we're going to have two guys on either
side ready to catch the way. We're going to have a guy over
you, and we're going to have a guy straddling you so that if
you fail, we'll catch you. It won't kill you.
It won't crush you, right? Are you following this?
And so day of he comes, he lays down on the bench and this man
under his own strength, he lifts 1500 lbs off of the rack, lowers
it down, touches its chest and presses it to the full and re
racks it. He did it.
He just broke the record. Do we have a right to come in
and say the only way that you broke it is because you had all
these spotters? Or would he say that the
spotters had nothing to do with the fact that I actually lived
it? Yes, I had spotters.
Yes, I was not going to die. They would have caught it had it
collapsed, but that had nothing to do with it.
The same way Christ, who is divine, cannot sin.
His divinity, His divine nature, anchors Him to to the perfection
of obedience. But He would tell us that had
nothing to do with how I did not sin.
His sinless perfection was maintained in real humanity by
depending on the Holy Spirit who He pours out upon you and upon
me. Jesus maintained sinless
perfection in real humanity. So if we told Christ, well, the
only way that you were able to withstand all of this temptation
is because you were gone, he would say, oh, I am gone.
That had nothing to do with it. Jesus wins this fight with with
Satan fair and square as a real man and glory to his name.
Just think about that. That's marvelous.
Secondly, Jesus is that powerful.
I love this. Right at the beginning of the
text, the Spirit has come and is remaining upon Christ, has
anointed him for the Kingdom, and it leads him out to be
tempted in the wilderness. And we say, what, what's what's
going on there? Like why would the Spirit do
that? And then at the end of the text,
there's this really weird exchange in verse 10 where where
Jesus says begun Satan. And then in verse 11, the devil
left him, which shows us that at any moment Jesus can say take a
hike and he has to take a hike. As Woodhouse would say, cheese
it, Satan and Satan cheesed it like you can't be here anymore,
OK, I can't be here anymore. This is our sovereign Christ
begone Satan and the devil left him.
He's powerful enough to banish him at any and all times.
And yet Christ in infinite wisdom let's him take his best
shot. Why would he do that?
Why does he do that? Well, because if you really want
to break a person in hand to hand combat, you let them throw
their best punch. You take it on the chin and then
you whisper in their ear. If I wanted to kiss, I would
have called your mother. Like Christ allows Satan to do
his worst, right? And then he takes the worst that
Satan can do, and he founds your salvation and mine upon it.
What's the worst thing that Satan could possibly do when God
becomes a man, when life himself comes into human existence?
What's the worst that could be imagined?
That Satan would kill God And God in his infinite wisdom takes
the death of Christ and he makes it the foundation of our
salvation. And the death of Christ is the
one who destroyed is the is the very thing that destroyed the
devil. So the devil takes all the leash
that Christ gives him and he uses it to hang himself and by
hanging himself save the world. It's just marvelous.
It's marvelous. The power of Christ Jesus was
victorious as man for men and we are to imitate.
Are we to imitate Christ here? So ask that question, is this,
is this something we're to imitate?
And the answer is yes, fight the devil's lies by faith in the
word of God, just like Christ did.
Anytime somebody says, well, I know what the word of God says,
but just know you're talking to some manifestation of Satan,
right? I look, I know what the Bible
teaches about sexual ethics, but I'm sorry, that won't fly,
right? I know what the Word of God
teaches about about biblical hierarchy and about men leading
in a church. I know when Paul says, you know,
I don't allow a woman to preach or exercise authority over a
man. I know that the Bible says that.
But what it actually means is no, no, no, stop.
That's Satan's lie all the time. Did God really say if you are
the Son of God? So should we fight the devil's
lies in the same way, imitating Christ?
Yes, of course we should, but that's not the point of the
text. Imitation of Christ is not the
point. The point is that just as we all
suffered the consequences of our Father Adam's disobedience
because all of us were in Adam, so we will all enjoy the result
of Christ's obedience because we are all in Christ.
That's the point, that Christ did not turn stones into bread
to serve himself. Rather, Christ gave Himself as
bread for all who are in Him. He did not worship the devil to
obtain the kingdoms of the world in all their glory.
Instead He destroyed the devil by dying and rising so that the
government would rest upon his shoulders, and the increase of
his Kingdom and of peace there would be no end.
Christ didn't receive a thing from Satan.
He bound him, and he took everything from him in open
warfare. So that as it was written, ask
of me, saith the Lord, and I will make the nation's your
heritage, the ends of the earth, your possession.
Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, and Christ in Christ.
Unthinkably we have been seated with Him upon His throne.
He did not eat so that He could feed us forever on Himself.
This bread is His body which is broken for you.
This cup is His blood poured out for the forgiveness of sin.
He won the victory and now He invites you to come and to taste
it with Him. So come, beloved church, and
welcome to Jesus Christ, who is your life.
Let me pray for us. Lord Jesus, we thank you for
being the victor. We thank you for sharing flesh
and blood like the children of man, so that by death you would
destroy the one who had the power of death, that is the
devil, and deliver those who through fear of death were
subject to lifelong slavery. You did both of those things in
your death, in your resurrection and and in your ascension.
And so we thank you that we wage war against a defeated foe in
the name of the victorious Lord of glory.
Father, we ask as we, as we respond, Lord, to your summons
to the table of Christ, where we will take with undeserving hands
the bread of life, where we will take with undeserving hands the
cup of salvation that is the body and blood of Christ.
God, that we would not look to our own merits, but to the
merits of the one who won the victory.
Christ is the victor, that so may we come in his name.
And we pray, Holy Spirit, that you would come, that you would
minister to US men, women, and children, baptized into the
triune name of God. That you would take what is
Christ and you would disclose it to us, apply it to us, renew it
to us. God, we thank you by your mercy
and by your grace. Sinners like us are supposed to
come to the table where we will find welcome.
Would you draw near to us? We ask it in the name of Christ,
Amen.