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Good morning. How are doing today? Anyone excited for youth takeover this weekend? Come on. I've been so pumped for a while because I was excited for you to see what I get to see on a weekly basis.
You serving in so many different areas, using their gifts to glorify God from worship to production to guest services. Come on, can we thank God for what he's doing in the lives of our youth? And I get to chase those knuckleheads around. Quick introduction,
for those who don't know me, my name is Jeff Reinhart. I'm the high school pastor here on staff. I brought a picture of my family with me. That is my wife, Paige. As you can tell, I clearly married up. That's my daughter, Blakely. She's two years old. I always tell people she has executive leadership skills.
She's really good at telling people what to do. And that's my daughter, Avery Ruth, and she is the happiest, joyful baby you will ever meet. But would you join me for prayer? Then we're gonna jump right into the message.
God, thank you for for who you are. God, thank you that you speak to us in a real tangible way. God, I ask that during this time, it it would be your holy spirit speaking through me directly
to to everyone here. God, we ask that whatever we walked in here with today that we would leave because of who you are. We love you. We praise you. And everyone said, amen.
Have you ever made a bad decision in a moment of weakness before? Like, you were you were desperate, and you did something that you probably shouldn't have done. That ever happened to you before? Let me just show you a quick picture, and I'm gonna explain what's happening. So
before I married my wife, she was my girlfriend. Right? And she got invited by her mom, my mother-in-law, on a trip, a medical mission trip to Nigeria. And so she signs up for the trip. She's really excited. And the trip was about to be about two weeks, and then they invited me.
Now, I'd love to tell you that I signed up for the trip because I love Jesus and I wanted to use my gifts. But the truth was I actually just wanted to spend more time with Paige and get some quality time on this trip. And so we go on this trip to Nigeria and
we're serving in this medical clinic and things are just going well and we're just seeing God move lives changed by the gospel. Things are just going well. And we're traveling from one place in the country back to our home base where we were gonna fly out the next day. And so we're at the airport over lunchtime,
and the whole plan was to land at home base and eat back at the hotel. But I was so hungry. I was starving. And so I I started scanning around the airport to see what was available. And I I kid you not, there was like a light beaming down from heaven on this meat pie stand.
And it was in this glass case, there's heat lamps, and I'm just looking at the meat pies, and I just can't take my eyes off them. And so my I tell the team, hey, I'm thinking about grabbing one of those meat pies. And my mother-in-law, who's been traveling for several years,
she she knows what to eat and what not to eat. She goes, I'm telling you, it's not a good idea. I go, okay. Then I keep looking over at it,
and it looks so appetizing. I just I needed to have it. It looks so good. I was so hungry. I'm starving. I just needed the meat pie. So I went over there. I bought the meat pie. I took a big bite out of the meat pie, and it was cold inside, which should have been my sign to throw it away and move on. But I powered
through that sucker. I took that thing down like there's no tomorrow. Well, we fly back to home base and the whole time my stomach's just feeling so uneasy. Like, I'm just not feeling great. And so the afternoon goes by, we go out to dinner with
the team, and at dinner, everyone's eating their meal, and I couldn't touch it because my stomach was just feeling uneasy. Finally, it got to the point where my stomach blew up, y'all. Like, I had never experienced pain like that in my stomach before.
I was struggling to the point where I told our team, I said, guys, I've gotta go back to the hotel right now. They're like, right now? Right now. So in a dead sprint, I run back to the hotel. I run up the stairs into my hotel room, into the bathroom. I'll spare you the details,
but I'll tell you this much. It was coming out both ends. I was miserable. Miserable for the rest of the night. At one point in the night, was on all fours, and I was desperately praying, and I might have prayed the prayer, Jesus, take the wheel. It
was awful. The next day before we fly out, I am so sick that we got to the point where my girlfriend at the time had to put an IV in my arm in the hotel room. We got the picture. That's how bad it got. And then I had to go fly all the way back to The US in that condition.
I learned a very valuable lesson that trip. When our appetites are out of control, we tend to make some really bad decisions. Here's the big idea I wanna give you today.
Never trade what you want most for what you want now. What what I wanted most was to impress my girlfriend and her mom, but I settled for the meat pie what I wanted now. What we've gotta remember is that we're in a real fight against a real enemy. And in Jesus' words, the enemy has come to kill, steal, and destroy
from your life. His whole goal in life is to manipulate things around you to get you to settle for less than God's best for your life. Let me ask you this. What area of your life are you tempted to settle for less?
If we're being honest, all of us have come into this room with struggles. All of us have things that we're wrestling through. Maybe for you, it's alcohol, or anger, or pride, or greed, or lust, or lying. The list goes on. All of us have struggles where the enemy tries to bait us
to to settle for less than God's best for our life. And what you and I need to do is we need to learn how to fight off the enemy's temptation in our life. What's so cool in our scripture today is we're gonna learn how Jesus modeled this for us. And as a reminder, Jesus is fully God, and he's also
fully man when he was here, which means that he went through the same things that you and I go through. Jesus was hungry and lonely at times, and he was weak at moments in his life, and he was even tempted by the enemy, just like you and I are. And what's crazy is Jesus,
being a man on this earth but also being God, he could have tapped tapped into that God power. He he could have just puffed up his chest, used his God power, and sent the enemy away scared. But instead, he endures
testing and temptation from the enemy, and I believe it's to show you and I how we can overcome temptation from the enemy in our lives. As Bill talked about last week, we're picking up in the story right after Jesus' baptism. Jesus had this beautiful moment
where he was obedient to the father. He didn't need to be baptized, but he did it anyways, again, to model the way forward for us. But it's this spectacular moment where all three members of the triune God are represented. God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all in this moment together.
And a voice comes down from heaven, from God the Father, and declaring his approval over Jesus saying, this is my dearly loved son who brings me great joy. And this was before he did anything, before he started his public ministry.
But what we're gonna learn is Jesus being fully in the presence of God was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the enemy. If Jesus was tempted in this life, you and I for sure are gonna be tested. Our faith is gonna be tested. And what the testing reveals is what's on the inside of us.
Do we truly trust God, or are we gonna settle for less and take the bait that the enemy gives us? And so Jesus has the ultimate test of temptation against the devil him self, where the devil's gonna try to get him to settle for less and take what Jesus wants now as opposed to what he wants most.
But what's so crazy is this scenario actually comes up before. In Genesis three, Adam and Eve are living in this utopian garden. They're living fully in the presence of God without sin. And God asked them to to not eat from one tree.
One tree. He stacked the odds in their favor. He he said, you can eat from any tree except for one. And, of course, here comes the enemy on the scene disguised as a serpent.
And he comes on the scene, and he twists God's words to get Adam and Eve to doubt God and take the bait. And as you and I learn, Adam and Eve eventually fail that testing and take a bite of the fruit, and that allowed sin and brokenness and death to enter into our world. But Jesus, he's known as the second Adam.
He has come to redeem the mistakes that man made and and restore that right relationship with God again. Where Adam has failed, Jesus is gonna succeed on our behalf when facing temptation.
And the coolest thing is he gives us the blueprint, the model of how to overcome that same temptation in our lives. If have your Bibles, could you turn with me to Matthew
four:one? Matthew four:one is where we're picking up.
It says this, Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. For forty days and forty nights, he fasted and became very hungry. You think? Did you catch that? Forty days and forty nights? I couldn't even make it forty minutes in the airport.
Jesus is out here for forty days and forty nights. Of course he's hungry, right? Like, that that reveals right there Jesus' humanity. Could you imagine how hungry you would be at that point? And this is this is showing Jesus we he's weak. He's alone, and he's hungry.
And of course, the enemy is gonna come on the scene in this moment. What that teaches you and I is that when we're at our weakest point, the devil loves to attack. The enemy loves to attack us when we're at our weakest point. Do you know your weakest point? Do you know when you're most exhausted
or or when when what frustrates you or when you feel overwhelmed? It's in those moments that we need to learn to prepare ourselves against the enemy. I know for me, our youth meet on Sunday nights. From after I get done on Sunday night through Monday, that's my weakest point. That's when I feel most tempted and challenged
by the enemy in my life. And so knowing that, come on, I need to prepare before I receive that attack from the enemy. And so this is what we're gonna learn from Jesus. Don't wait until you're in a battle to get ready for one. Notice that in those forty days, Jesus was fasting,
he was living spirit led, and he was living obedient to his father before the enemy even came on the scene.
What I see too many times is people wait until they're in the middle of the battle to try to muster up some faith or spiritual disciplines to fight the enemy. At that point, it's like, man, it's too late. We gotta prepare beforehand so that we're ready to take on the attacks from the enemy before they
come. What we learn from Jesus in this this first part of the scripture is that even though he was physically weak, he was spiritually strong. He was preparing himself spiritually against the attacks of the enemy. What what does your daily rhythm look like growing closer to the Lord? Prayer,
scripture, the spiritual disciplines. It's not enough just to show up here
one day a week for one sermon, one worship set. That's not gonna do it for us throughout our week. We need to be preparing ourselves throughout the week, every single day, waking up and saying, God, I'm trusting you today. I'm following you. I'm gonna stay in your word so I can fight the attacks from the enemy.
Jesus or Jesus experiences his first attack from the enemy right here in in verse three. Look look what it says. It says, during that time, the devil came and said to him, if you are the son of God I wanna pause real quick. The enemy will always try to attack your God given identity. You notice that?
Jesus had just received approval from God the father of who he was,
and that's the first thing that the enemy comes after. And he's gonna do the same for you and I. If you are a child of God, this wouldn't be happening to you. And so we need to we need to be on guard and wash ourselves with the word so that we can we can see ourselves as God sees us,
and we can and we can we can speak those things over us. Man, I'm a child of God in Christ Jesus. I'm holy and blameless in him so that the enemy doesn't attack our mind. So he says, if you are the son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread. But Jesus told him, no.
The scriptures say people do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. I bet that idea from the enemy looked so appetizing to Jesus. He's so hungry. He's got this desire for food, and the enemy goes after that first. But this is what we're gonna learn from Jesus, is that we need to resist
satisfying a right desire in the wrong way. Jesus' desire for food was the right desire. But if he would have obeyed the enemy and brought bread from the stones, he would have ruined God's plan for humanity by disobeying his father. It was the wrong way. It was in the wrong timing. For you and I, we have right desires.
I'll give you one. Our our our our sex drive is a God given right desire, but that's carried out in the wrong way outside the construct of marriage. You and I welcome brokenness and unnecessary pain into our lives. Your drive for success. It's a good drive from the Lord,
but carried out in the wrong way can lead to greed, and it can lead you to compromise your character. The desire to heal from pain in your life, that's a right desire. But carried out in the wrong way can lead you to self medicate with substances or alcohol and invite even more pain into your life.
We need to trust God to satisfy us in the right way and in the right timing and not settle for what we want. Now, here comes the second attack from the enemy.
He says, then the devil took him to the holy city, Jerusalem, to the highest point of the temple, and said, here it is again, if you are the son of God, jump off. For the scriptures say, he will order his angels to protect you, and they will hold you up with their hands so you won't even hurt your foot on a stone.
And Jesus responded, the scriptures also say, you must not test the Lord your God. I wonder if this was the easiest tack for Jesus to overcome. Like, this almost feels a little bit to me like a youth ministry ask.
Like, yo, pastor, can we jump from the second story and have our boys catch us on the first story? It's like, bro, what are you even asking right now? Like, no. That's dumb. Like, I wonder if Jesus is like, I'm not doing that, Satan. That makes literally no sense. Right?
But what we're gonna learn from Jesus in this is that he we gotta never listen to biblical advice that leads you to sin. Did you notice that the enemy used scripture to try to get Jesus to disobey his father? He took he takes Psalm 91 out of context to try to tempt Jesus into doing this magic trick thing
that proves that he's the son of God. And Jesus is like, I'm not falling for that. First of all, you took that verse out of context. I've heard so much advice, bad advice, with a bible verse slapped on it, and people just receive it as gospel. You
and I need to to learn to read scripture in context so we don't twist the word of God and actually do detriment to to to you, but also others in your life. I'll give you an example of this. Philippians four thirteen. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. You heard that verse before?
Notice how no one knows the verses on either side of that verse. But we love Philippians four thirteen. We love to quote that. I I remember growing up at a a Christian school, I remember we were in PE class one time, and we were watching this video, and there were these Christian weightlifters.
And there was one guy on the bench, and he pretended to fail on the bench press set. He's like, ah. He gets off, and he comes over, and he starts talking about about Jesus and all this stuff. And then he quotes Philippians four thirteen. It's like, but you know what? I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. And he gets back on the bench press, slaps a couple more weights on, and in that strength, he just powers out another rep and everyone's cheering. I'm like, what?
I don't think that's the the meaning of that verse. I remember thinking that, like, I don't know if that's really what it's saying, but okay. That was kinda cool. But if I would've followed through on that advice, my five six,
ninety eight pound frame in high school would've gotten crushed if I went with that meaning of scripture. It's not what Paul is talking about, potential for physical strength. It's about contentment, living in any and every circumstance,
and trusting God to get us through, to give us strength. That's the real meaning of the verse. Here's another one. Jeremiah 2nine 11. You heard it before? For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to bless you and give you hope and a future. You you know that verse?
I'm pretty sure that's on every grad card in America. Right? Like, we love that verse. We love to take it as, like, this prosperity thing. Like, God's gonna bless me no matter what. He's gonna give me a hope and a future. Yeah. Yes. But if you read the context,
Jeremiah is actually prepping his people for seven years in captivity. No one ever talks about that. Right? But on the other side of it, God's saying, yes, I am gonna give you a hope and a future, but you're going through the pain first. You and I, we need to do the work of reading scripture
in context so we don't twist the word of God to make it say whatever we want it to say, causing damage to ourselves and those around us. I wonder if there's maybe even a few people in here
who you've believed the wrong meaning of a verse in your life, and you're frustrated with God in here because you felt like he let you down, even though he's saying that's not the meaning of the verse. I wonder if God's speaking you to that to you today saying, hey, you need to start reading
scripture in context and watch what I can do through that. It'll change your heart. It'll change your perspective. But we gotta make sure that we do that work before we lead others astray. Here's the final attack.
It says this. Next, the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. I will give it all to you, he said, if you kneel down and worship me. And Jesus responds, get out of here, Satan, Jesus told him, for scriptures say,
you must worship the Lord your God and serve only him. Then the devil went away and angels came and took care of Jesus. What do we learn from Jesus here? Jesus teaches us not to take the easy way out.
The devil has some sort of power over this broken world. We see that. He was gonna give that to Jesus if Jesus just simply kneeled down and worshiped him. What what was the devil trying to get Jesus to do? He was trying to give him the kingdom without the cross,
without the pain, without the suffering. He was trying to give him the glory, which was Jesus' destiny anyways. But it was the easy route, and if he would have taken that easy route, he would have ruined God's plan to save humanity through him. I'm sure what Jesus wanted wanted now was to not suffer,
to not feel the pain of what he went through on the cross. But but what he wanted most was you, and you are so worth it to Jesus that he turned down what probably would have been the way easier path so that he could go to to the cross and die as a perfect and only sacrifice for your sin and for my sin.
I need you to hear that. Jesus said, you're what I want most. So I'm gonna trust the father and his plan even though it leads to pain, even though it leads to suffering. I mean, I'm on this rescue mission for you. I I don't know what you've walked in here with today,
what you've been struggling with. Or maybe you just feel like you are too far gone for God's love. Be reminded that Jesus came for you. He loves you. He's pursuing you in love, even at your worst moment. He said, I died for you. I laid down my life for you so that you could go free. I could purchase your freedom.
I'll take the penalty of your sin upon myself, and I'm gonna die, and I'm gonna raise to life to give you life. That's our hope and our freedom in Jesus because he didn't give in to the enemy. That's our destiny. Jesus overcame that temptation from the enemy for you and for me. So Jesus overcomes this this temptation,
this hardship, this attack from the enemy. But did you notice what happened right after? After he says, get out of here, Satan. Angels came and took care of Jesus. This is a beautiful picture of community, that when we're at our weakest point, God sends people into our life to care for us, to encourage us, to support us,
to to come around us and and give us encouragement so that we can keep going. We can keep fighting the battles in our life. Let me ask this. Who do you have in your circle? Who's pointing you to who you are in Christ? Because we can't do this life on our own. We
need to rely on God, but we need to rely on the people that he sends into our life. You can't do it on your own. You can't fight alone. You need people in your life that are pointing you to who you are in Christ. If you don't have that, start today. It's time to open up.
It's it's time to to to reveal the real self that that you are on the inside and the things that you're struggling with so others can come around you and care for you and encourage you and pray for you. Oh, I love that picture. Angels took took care of Jesus in this moment. But Jesus overcomes
temptation in his life. And, again, he teaches us how to overcome the temptation in our lives. There's a couple of of takeaways that I want you to get that we learn from Jesus. The first thing when you're facing temptation is you need to fight with scripture. You notice that every one of Jesus' responses, scripture in context
applied the right way. Here's the difference. You might be like, yeah, but the enemy also quoted scripture too. You're correct. The difference is the enemy took scripture out of context.
Jesus applied it in context, and he actually obeyed the word of God. He was actually obedient to the father. And you and I, we need to read scripture in context, understand the real meaning, and then we need to apply it to our lives. It's not enough just to to memorize scripture.
Come on. We need to live it out. We need to practice obeying God in our daily lives, and that's how we fight off the temptation from the enemy. I love what scripture says about the word of God in Ephesians. It says that that that the word of God is the sword of the spirit.
Oh, I like that. In Ephesians, it talks about putting on the full armor of God so that we can withstand the attacks from the enemy. And it goes on to name a bunch of things that we need to put on as defense. But the one offensive
weapon that we are given is the word of God. It's the sword of the spirit. I don't know about you, but a sword kinda just sounds gangster, right? Like to fight off the enemy, dang, like, that sounds awesome. But here's the thing with a weapon. You actually have to use it. You gotta use it.
And so we've been given this spiritual weapon for our spiritual battles, but we need to get it within us. We need to get the word of God in our soul so that when the attack from the enemy comes, we can command the enemy to leave and speak to the lies with God's truth in our lives. Too many of us in here,
you're just allowing the lies of the enemy to wash through your brain over and over without a fight. And we need to be like TSA with those thoughts. You know what I'm talking about? Yo. They don't let anything through security anymore. We need to do that with our thoughts.
There's a negative thought that starts coming to our brain. It's not from the Lord. We need to say, nope. Stop. Get out of here right now in the name of Jesus, and start speaking to our insecurities and our weaknesses and our temptations with the word of God. It's a sword. We've got to use it.
Here's the second thing that we learn from Jesus. Keep on fighting. He kept on fighting the enemy. He didn't give up even in his weakest moment. He continued to persevere and endure even when the enemy was bringing everything against him. This is such a cool picture.
You and I, even when we feel like we're in the weakest moment, even when we feel like we've blown it, get back up. Get back up. You're still loved. You're still chosen. You're still a child of God. Get back up. Keep fighting. One of the ways that the enemy kept fighting is that he relied fully on the Holy Spirit,
the Holy Spirit's power. Too many of us are in the same cycles of sin because we're trying to do it out of our own strength, out of our own power. We're trying to fight off the attacks on the enemy by just trying harder, and that's not what it's about. It's it's about surrendering
to to to God and allowing his spirit to to join us to fight the enemy. I don't know if if you've ever had one of those weeks where you're just trying to figure it out on your own, trying to clean up that that area of your life on your own. Some weeks you feel like you're killing it. Like, man,
I'm killing this Christian walk game. I'm I'm doing great this week. And then the very next week, you you you keep messing up and you keep making mistakes, and you go from one end of, man, I'm the greatest there ever is. At two, I'm the worst.
I'm the worst. God could God can he can't love me being like this, struggling like this. That might be a sign that you're trying to do it out of your own strength. God's saying, you need to rely on me. You gotta rely on my power. You can't do this on your own because we're weak. We do fall fall on our face. We do fail.
But God is there to pick us back up with his grace and encourage us and keep keep us fighting the attacks from the enemy in our lives. I wanna show you a verse. If you have your bibles, turn to Hebrews four fifteen and sixteen. I love this verse talking about Jesus. It says this, this high priest of ours understands
our weaknesses. For he faced all the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. Jesus is the difference maker. Where we failed, he succeeded. He overcame on our behalf. So as a result, it says, let us come to let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace
to help us when we need it the most. Do you need grace today? Do you need His mercy in this moment? I do. Guys, we gotta admit that we're weak. We gotta admit that we're help. I hate asking for help. I hate feeling weak.
The reality is, in this life, I can't do it on my own. I can't overcome the temptation from the enemy on my own. I need his grace and his mercy to cover me. You might be like, okay, buddy, but you don't know what I'm going through. And you're right. I gotta take my own advice. I experienced
this grace and this mercy in my weakest moment. Before I was getting hired on here at Rock Point, my dad, five years ago, had a stroke that affected his right side and his motor skills. And we were walking this journey with him, and we saw God just begin to help
him recover and start to heal his body in different ways, and we were just so encouraged and we were excited for what God was continuing to do. But as I I was getting hired on here at Rock Point, my dad had another stroke that affected his other side of his body that eventually led to his passing. And I was so frustrated,
and I was so angry with God, and I was I I wanted to give up. That's what I wanted now. I wanted to give up. I didn't wanna step into what God was asking me to do. And I remember sitting, trying to have a quiet time, but I was just angrily praying at God.
I was frustrated with him. I didn't wanna read my Bible. I didn't wanna do any of it. I I for sure didn't wanna step in to this calling here at Rock Point. But in those moments of pain and anger, I felt the nearness from the Lord that I've never felt before. I felt his peace
wash over me in those moments when I wanted to give up, when I felt like I couldn't go on. I felt his power and his strength and his grace encouraging me to keep going, to keep fighting no matter what.
I kept coming back to the word even when I didn't feel like it and let that truth wash over me. And y'all, I'm so glad that I didn't give up when I wanted to and that God sent people to encourage me on this journey because I would have missed out on all the incredible things that God's doing in the lives of our youth at this church. I wouldn't have been able to support them and to walk alongside them the way that I have these last few years. I'm telling you, what's it for you?
What's the area of your life where you wanna give up and you wanna give in to the schemes of the enemy? I'm telling you right now, don't give up. Keep trusting him. Keep coming back to his grace because he's gonna sustain you against the attacks of the enemy. He's gonna he's gonna continue to encourage you to step into all that he has for you, and it's beautiful.
Don't give up. Don't give up. I know you're weak. I know you feel like giving up. Maybe you're in here and you're like, man, I just feel like God has given up on me. He hasn't. He loves you still. No matter what you've done, no matter what your past looks like, you're a child of God. You're blameless. You're holy.
You're a royal priesthood. You're a masterpiece in Christ Jesus. That's who you are. Don't let the enemy lie to you. Don't let him discourage you because that's how he he defeats us. Keep coming back to who you are in God and his power in your life, in your weakest areas. Invite him in today. Say, God, I need you.
I'm weak. I can't do this on my own anymore. I need you to come through for me and watch what he does in your life. Oh, it's so good. He wants to work in your life in ways that you never thought he could. Would you trust him today? Would you trust him today?
Would you join me in prayer? And as I pray, I want you to just ask the Holy Spirit to to fill that space where you feel the weakest. God, thank you for who you are. Thank you that you never give up on us. God, that that that even in our worst moments, in the places we feel inadequate, God, you love us, you care for us.
So much so that you laid down your life for us so that we could have hope and freedom in you. And so, God, when we're tempted to give in and give up, would you give us your power to keep fighting against the attacks from the enemy. Jesus, we need you.
We ask that you would do what only you could do in our life. And everyone said, amen. Amen. Thanks for joining us online this weekend let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the we are Rock Point app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.