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If I were the devil, if I were the prince of darkness, I'd want to engulf the whole world in darkness. And I'd have a third of its real estate and four fifths of its population, but I wouldn't be happy until I have seized the ripest apple on the tree. Thee. So I set about however necessary to take over The United States.
I'd subvert the churches first. I'd begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve. Do as you please.
To the young, I would whisper that the bible is a myth. I would convince them that man created god instead of the other way around. I would confide that what's bad is good and what's good is square. And the old I would teach to pray after me, our father, which art in Washington.
And then I'd get organized. I'd educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull and uninteresting. I'd threaten TV with dirtier movies and vice versa. I'd peddle narcotics to whom I could. I'd sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction.
I'd tranquilize the rest with pills. If I were the devil, I'd soon have families at war with themselves, churches at war with themselves, and nations at war with themselves until each in its turn was consumed. And with promises of higher ratings, I'd have mesmerizing media fanning the flames.
If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellects, but neglect to discipline emotions. Just let those run wild. Until before you knew it, you'd have to have drug sniffing dogs and metal detectors at every schoolhouse door. Within a decade, I'd have prisons overflowing.
I'd have judges promoting pornography. Soon, I could evict God from the courthouse, then from the schoolhouse, and then from the houses of congress. And in his own churches, I would substitute psychology for religion and deify science.
I would lure priests and pastors into misusing boys and girls and church money. If I were the devil, I'd make the symbol of Easter an egg and the symbol of Christmas a bottle. If I were the devil, I'd take from those who have and give to those who wanted until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious.
And what'll you bet? I couldn't get whole states to promote gambling as the way to get rich. I would caution against extremes in hard work, in patriotism, in moral conduct. I would convince the young that marriage is old fashioned, that swinging is more fun, that what you see on TV is the way to be.
And thus, I could undress you in public, and I could lure you into bed with diseases for which there is no cure. In other words, if I were the devil, I'd just keep right on doing what he's doing.
Wow. That's
Does that not seem to freakishly describe our culture right now? Do you guys know who said that? Paul Harvey. He said it when I was negative five years old. That was from 1965 when most of the stuff he said wasn't actually happening yet to the extent of which what he was talking about.
How could he be so crazily accurate in what he thinks the devil's gonna do? Well, if you know Paul Harvey, you know that he came from five generations of Baptist pastors,
and he knew the word, and he knew what we're talking about in this series. He knew the devil's playbook. Hence, his last line. I just keep doing what he's been doing. That's what he's been doing, and that's what we've been talking about, that we live in a world that there is an enemy to God that makes us his enemy,
and really he wants to be God, he wants God's job, and he tries to destroy us in order to get what he wants. And as we opened up last week with Pat talking about what is the devil's playbook, in principle we've talked about these three things. To isolate, to insulate, to annihilate.
Instigate, not insulate, isolate, instigate, annihilate. And what that means is
he waits till we're alone. Not necessarily makes us get alone, but waits till you're alone. And you could be alone in a crowd. It's like you're alone in your pain. You're alone in your struggle. You're alone in your thoughts. You're alone in how you're trying to figure out and think about who God is. And when you're alone, you're open to suggestion.
He then instigates.
And what we're gonna see today is how does he instigate? What does he do? And we're gonna see that he twists truth. He twists it enough to get us off off balance. And the weird thing is we always when we talk about the devil, everyone says, oh, the devil made me do it or the devil did this. The devil didn't make you do anything and rarely does the devil ever actually touch you.
He gets you to hang yourself. That's the instigation. And once he gets you to do that, bam, you're annihilated. And we're going to see today how do you do that, how does he instigate, what does that even look like? What does it look like? And what we're gonna see in Luke chapter four, we're gonna turn there in a minute,
is that this plan, this playbook is always the same, he just changes it for every generation. It's interesting, there was a guy that there was a song that got put out in 2002 when Rock Point started and it came out and in England it hit the top of the charts
because it had a dance kind of beat, it was really popular in the dance clubs, and it just shot to the top of the charts. And so the person who sang it got a number one hit. The crazy thing is the person who sang it that got number one hit has been dead for twenty five years. His name was Elvis Presley.
He got another number one hit after he'd already been dead because someone took his song A Little Less Conversation, it's been used a lot, it's like a little less conversation, a little more action.
I used to be an Elvis impersonator. No. Thank you. Thank you very much. But anyways, that's not my point. My point is is is is they took that song, same words, same singer, and then they changed the beat around it and add more of that techno at the time, it was popular,
and added the wah wah wah wah wah and and all that kind of stuff, and it became a super popular in the dance club because it was fun to dance to.
And there's people dancing that had no idea that it was sung by they had no idea who Elvis Presley was, believe it or not. And they're just dancing to this song and they got hit. That's the devil's playbook. He takes the same old song, but he adds the modern contemporary beat, the thing that moves us,
and then he gets us dancing to it. That's what he's trying to do. But we've got to understand that we don't need to we've got to listen to those lyrics
because the lyrics are a twist of the truth. He will twist it just enough. We saw that last week with Adam and Eve. He took actual some truth and told Adam and Eve that you know what, what did God say? Not to eat this fruit, not to touch this. He gave them a boundary And he says, because we'll die. And he goes, you won't die
but you'll be like God knowing good from evil. If you think about what he just said there, that's not all wrong. He twisted it enough though. You see when they said you're not gonna die, he knew they thought they would just stop existing.
He knows you're not gonna die right away. The process of physical death will begin, but really what's gonna die right away is your relationship with God.
He also said you'll be like God knowing good from evil. He's actually accurate. They did know good from evil like God. But they looked at it and said we want the wisdom. They fell for the lie that it was the wisdom. They literally thought we'll be like God.
The way they were like God, no good from evil, was now they immediately had the shame and the guilt of having broken a relationship with God and done evil. So he took some true words and put just that right, and
he got them to dance to the tune. So what do we need to do? We need to get to the words. So what we're going to see in today's big idea is when the devil twists the word, we trust the word.
When the devil twists the word, he will take the word of God and he will twist it, he will take an idea and twist it. We have to trust the word of God. And what we're gonna see in this moment is in Luke chapter four, he tries to bring his playbook up against Jesus himself.
And there's three different twists he throws at Jesus, three. And you're gonna see the first twist was the one Adam and Eve fell for. We didn't even get past the first one. And Jesus actually defeats him in this moment,
but how he does it is he goes out in the desert, he doesn't eat for forty days, he's isolated, he's alone, he's hungry. The Holy Spirit led him there by the way. But what you're gonna see is he didn't do it as God.
What he does is an example of what we can do. Now theologically speaking, what's happening here is Adam and Eve, they fell. The first Adam failed in the garden. A beautiful garden. You're not hungry. Everything's great,
and you fell for this twist. Jesus shows up. He's the last Adam. He's the Adam that came to show the right way in a wilderness. And I've been to the wilderness where it is desolate sand dunes where he hasn't eaten anything for forty days. He has all the worst circumstances, and he wins.
And it's not because he was God necessarily. What he did, how he does it is exactly what we should do. What Adam and Eve should have done is it's it's when the twist comes, you have to trust the word of God. And what Jesus does here is he trusts the holy spirit and the word of God.
The word of God empowered by the spirit of God. A matter of fact, he's humble enough that when he quotes scripture back, he doesn't even say, as I've always said. He says the word of God, the word of the father that says. So he's showing us what we can do. We can do this. We just gotta trust.
So let's look at it. Let's look at these three twists and then what's the truth we can learn from each of them. So in chapter four verse one, the first four verses, I'm gonna read them here. Then Jesus full of the holy spirit returned from Jordan River. He was led by the spirit into the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hangry. No, hungry.
I told you guys a story a few weeks ago, I didn't eat for forty hours and I thought if somebody makes me mad, I'm going to prison. I couldn't imagine forty days. He goes, then the devil said, he waited till he's hungry. He waited. Then the devil said to him,
if you're the son of God, if you're the Messiah, if you really are God, tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.
Tell this stone to become a loaf of bread. Jesus responds, nope. The scripture say people do not live by bread alone. So what's going on? That seems kinda simple. But it is simple, but it's actually got a deeper it's a simple play, but it's got a lot of deeper significance in what he's doing. Basically, Jesus is hungry, and he goes, if you really are, son, you have the power of God,
why are you letting yourself be hungry? He's submitting to the father. He's listening to the spirit. But he's like, why are you letting this happen? You have the power. You could turn that rock into Chick fil A even though it's Sunday. You can do it.
You you can. You can have that chicken y goodness with extra whatever that sauce is they make. Sauce. Chick fil Pretty simple answer. Thank you.
Stuff like this is why I always teach longer at this service. I'm just telling you. I get loopy, you egg me on, you guys got all your coffee, you're ready to go, you didn't wake up till 10:30, that's why you're late.
Anyways, back to the story. He could have done that.
And then Jesus, no, the word of God says, you don't live on bread alone. What's that passage about? He says, you don't live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from your mouth. You live on the word of God. You live in a relationship with God. So what's bread? You know, he's not just talking about food. In this culture bread was life. Bread was, that's why today in our culture we often talk about we gotta go make some bread. You like bread is another word for money.
And so it's really talking about the resources to live on. And what he's saying is life is so much more than just the resources. And you're not supposed to just live on that alone. So what's the real temptation? Why would he want him to do that? Well what he's trying to do is go around the plan of God.
Go around the will of the father. Go around what God says, because you know what, you don't have to be hungry. It's the same line in the other. God's holding out on you. You could be happier, you could be better off if you just do it yourself. That's twist number one. Do it yourself.
And so a lot of us as even if we're followers of Christ, we think I need this in life. I want this out of my job. Want this. So God's word says, hey, trust me this way with your money. Trust me this way with your time. Trust me this way with your relationships. And you're like, well, I I that sounds scary. That's not gonna work. I need to do this with it because I gotta do it myself to get what I really want. And if you look at what God's asking you, well if God asked me, I might feel hungry. I might feel deprived. I might feel like I'm alone. I might feel this way. So I'm not gonna trust the word of God. I'm gonna do it myself.
I'm gonna go around God. I'm just gonna skip out and do it myself. Well what's the problem with that? Well here's the deal. Here's the problem. If you seek only bread in life, you will miss the bread of life. If you're only seeking bread in life, if you're only seeking,
if your whole focus on this world, even as a follower of Christ, is to get the resources you think you need or want for this world and this life, you're gonna miss out on the bread of life, who is Jesus. You're gonna miss out on the relationship, you're gonna miss out on his will, you're just gonna miss it.
And what I mean by that, as Christians sometimes we come here and we do, we come to church, we do this thing, but you're trying to do it for God's love.
In other words, I'm gonna prove myself to God. I'm gonna be a better person. I'm gonna be good. And then in the back of your mind, have this trap that we're trapped by that says here's the lie is that my relationship with God is this contractual thing. That when I do that, I get this.
And when I do that, then I get blessed. So I follow God for the sake of getting the favor, so then I can really ask for what I really want, which almost entirely involves blessing, because we say God wants me to be blessed, but we define blessing as all the good things I want.
You realize that's the heart of this thing called the prosperity gospel.
I don't if you've heard people preach it, it sounds, it's a lot of good truth, they'll save Jesus, they'll quote verses, and they'll basically say, you know what, you need to name it and claim it, You need to have faith, and God wants you to be blessed, and God does want us to be blessed. The problem is they redefine blessed as in the here and now. It's the bread in life. It's the happy life. It's it's it's your best life now. It's with all the resources, and if you trust God enough, you'll be good and you'll get all this stuff. And that's a life in the pit of hell. You know why? This is how he annihilates you. When you buy into that, there's one of two responses. Either you're gonna do all the things to run after God so you get blessed and then you actually do. Say your job goes well. Say you get the the the affluence. Say you get the good stuff. You know what, that's gonna make you prideful. You're gonna say I got it because I'm better than you.
And then if you don't get it, even though you're being faithful, you're gonna feel like what's going on, what's wrong, and you know what the answer in the prosperity gospel is? You haven't been good enough, you're doing it wrong. The whole goal of that is to do it yourself,
and what you're doing is jumping through hoops because you think then God owes you this contractual blessing. Why do you think prosperity gospels why do you there's there's Instagram things called preachers with sneakers where they show these guys and they found out a lot of these guys are wearing like $2,000
shoes, dollars 3,000 shoes, and yeah, we should know, I don't wanna dress like a slob, but the reality is why do you think they have to dress that way? Because their model says if God loves you and you have really done the right thing, you will be successful. So if I don't look successful upfront,
how can I be preaching that? Now not a lot of us are falling for that, but we do fall for the do it myself, because some of us that are new, we do fall for the thing that you've turned your faith into, you have to make yourself better. You have to carry that weight. That's not what the Gospel is.
Here's where the words got twisted, the words of Elvis, the devil says a little less conversation, a little more action. Stop talking to God, stop having that conversation, stop listening to him, just go do it yourself. What the word what it should be is a lot more conversation that leads to healthy action.
A lot more conversation leads to healthy action. Can dance to that. See how it's different? It's so close but it's a subtle twist. If you dance to that wrong tune, you're going to dance yourself to destruction. So how do I do that? What's the trust in this moment?
Simple, seek relationship before resource. Seek relationship before resource. Jesus said it in Matthew six thirty three when he says seek ye first all the stuff you want,
plead with God, do good things so you think he'll give it to you and then if you're good enough you'll finally get all those things you sought that you needed. I just did the devil's playbook, that wasn't even a subtle twist, I flat out changed it. It says seek ye first what? The kingdom of God and his righteousness.
What that means is seek the relationship with him. The kingdom of God, the gospel is about seek to embrace his love for you. Seek to embrace the fact that we do wanna do it ourselves. We are like a bunch of two year olds. We always wanna do things ourselves,
even the good stuff. We try to do the good stuff ourselves which usually leads us to the bad stuff and we don't wanna trust God but we're in this thinking, I wanna do it but I want you to give me what I want and we seek it and that's called sin.
Going around God is sin, not trusting him. And we need to own that. We need to own that. I don't come to church to be a better person. Because if I think it's I'm making myself a better person, that's why we get so judgmental and wheel it down on everybody that's not as good as us, because you're good and they're bad. Guess what, we're all bad, but Jesus can make us whole.
And you gotta embrace that. And then when you realize Jesus loved us enough to die for us to make that possible, now when I embrace that love, I'm gonna choose to follow him from his love.
And so I need to seek the relationship before the resource. He said seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteous, and then he says, and all these things will be added unto you. What did he mean by that? They were arguing about like they were worried. He goes, don't be like everyone else in the world. They're worried about the bread. They're worried about where they're gonna live. They're worried about the materialistic things. They're worried about the life. He goes, don't worry about that.
Trust me with all of that and embrace my love. And then you know what he says? Then all these things will be added unto you. If you redefine added unto you, you think he said greeds and wants. No. What he's saying is you will have everything you need to live the life I've called you to. That's what it's saying.
But the devil gets that twist and we always go back to I wanna be blessed. Now God often does give us the great material blessings. He doesn't say that they're bad. That's why I said seek relationship before resource. Because if you make it about the resource, you're gonna miss out on the relationship. Does that make sense?
That's twist and trust number one. So that doesn't work because Jesus' response is,
not in my house. So what happens next? Verse five, then the devil took him up and revealed to him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And get this, this is weird, the power that he had. I will give you the glory of these kingdoms and the authority over them, the devil said,
because they're mine to give to anyone I please. I will give it all to you if you worship me. And you notice he claims that he could actually twist and get all the kingdoms of the world to bow down and call Jesus king. And when he's twisting, he goes, I know you came to be the king of kings.
But he's not making and so he's like, I can give you that. I can give you the kingdoms. And you know, did you realize Jesus didn't correct him on that? He didn't say, scripture says, no you can't. Instead Jesus replies, you must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.
So what's he trying to do here? He says just worship me and I'll give you the kingdoms. What does that have to do with Jesus? What is he trying to do? Well Jesus, he knows that the son of God, he came to be this king. And so what he's offering him is hey, I can make you king without the cross.
You can be king without the cross. Here's the twist he was offering. Twist number two, take the easy way out.
Take the easy way out. Even, he'll twist even that God given role, the way you're spelled like he knows Jesus came to be king and he is king. So he goes alright, I'll give you, you'll be king. I can get everyone to call
you king. I just want you to worship me, which reveals his real plan. I wanna be God. He wants to be God. He's mimicking God. He's like, I'll make you a king. But the problem is my way is the easy way because my way avoids the cross. Now what happens to us if Jesus takes the crown without the cross?
Hopeless. See he's trying to dismantle God's plan. Hopeless. And you can't take the crown without the cross,
that's the twist that he's trying to get Jesus to do. He's trying to make him not go to cross, he's trying to get him to worship him, and Jesus who is God says you worship the Lord alone. What he's talking about is I'm submitting to the will of the Father.
Because if you think about how the Trinity, the triunity of God three in one works, the Father thought it, the Son bought it, and the spirit brought it. That's how the gospel works. So he wanted to go, I don't want you to do this. I want you to look to me. Here's the problem with if Jesus had taken that deal.
He could've made him king, but you know what it'd been like? I'll make you the captain of the boat. The boat's named the Titanic. It's leaving out of Southampton, and it'll be in New York about five days later. And you can be the captain of the Titanic and you'll love that job for the first three days.
And then you're not gonna be a captain of anything anymore because it's gonna sink. And you're gonna go down with the ship.
You see the crown he does offer is yes, he could control, manipulate and get people to call him king. But that's more of like a political leader. You can be the political leader. That's why we should never look to politics to save us. Because he goes what you'll do will be very temporary.
He says I'll make you this political leader so you won't actually be the savior, so it'll be a short lived tenure. I'll give you a crown, but you know the crown you're gonna get? It's one of those Burger King crowns, one of those paper ones. The first time water hits it, it's done.
So what does that mean for us? It's the same thing. The twist is look for the easy way to follow God, look for the cost free Christianity. Look look look for the the easy way out. Look for the simplest way. How do I experience God's love and invest the least?
How how do I do that? I'm always looking for the what's the fastest way to get what I really want? Whether I'm trusting God or not, I look for that easy way out. I want the crown without the cross. So what's the answer? Well Jesus in Luke nine says this. He says, count the cost
and then look for the cheapest, quickest way to get it. No. He says, count the cost and then take up pick up your cross and follow me. So Jesus is the only one that could die on the cross to save us, but he goes if we follow him, become like him, there are moments that if we are gonna trust him, if we gonna trust the word,
you know when it's the word, when the devil twists the word, we trust the word. If you're gonna really trust the word, that means the whole last series we preached. There's gonna be moments that to follow him means you're gonna have to do something that seems like the opposite of what you think. You're gonna have to trust him with something in a moment that you feel like, but if I trust you this way, then I have nothing.
Yeah. You're gonna have There's moments where you're gonna struggle even for the right thing. You have to choose to pick up the cross.
See grace is free and easy and God gives it to us. We are 100% saved by grace. But it wasn't cheap. And what it bought us is not to have a cheap faith. It bought us the right to follow Jesus on mission and take that cross, but the lie of the devil is that's not how it works.
You got to look, you want the crown, don't you want the crown? And here's the thing, if I pick up my crown before I pick up the cross, I will lose that crown eventually and I will never have found the cross.
But the Bible says really clearly when I take up the cross and follow him, he says the cross comes first,
but if I am faithful and I trust him, he invites me into what he's doing. The Holy Spirit empowers me, I get to be a part of what's going on, I get to see what real life is and eternal life is, and I get the joy of that, and then when it's all said and done and this world ends, I get to hear Jesus say, well done good and faithful servant,
now enjoy my rest, And it says at that moment guess what he's gonna put on our heads, a crown, an everlasting crown that we get to share in the glory and the righteousness of our Savior. Crown first, you end up with neither. And that's what we do, so what does that mean for us? How many of us are crown first Christians?
Because when you wear a crown you act like a king right? How many of us, a crown first Christian is when you just show up at church and it's all about how are you gonna get served. It's like amuse me. Come in with your Burger King kind. I want it my way, I am the Burger King. He goes, give me something cool and refreshing.
Amuse me with the fiddle.
And then some people get mad at that so they attack, oh, modern music. We have a coffee shop. We're terrible. We're Satan. No. It's not about the drink and it's not about the music.
It's about your attitude in your heart. It's about why. Those things are good things. Those things come after. Seek ye first and I'll add that you can have those things. The problem is when you come here and it's only about those things.
When you show up and say, I came here to be served. When you jump through churches, because well, weren't serving me well enough, I'm gonna get a new people. My vassal lords were not bringing me enough in taxation. I need to find a new church. Bow down before me.
Jesus says, I didn't come to be served, I came to serve. How many of you come here to serve? Or how many of you come here to be served? If you keep coming here to just be served, you have bought into a lie that is not gonna take your faith anywhere, and you're gonna miss out on what real blessing is.
You're gonna miss out on what it really is to know the love of Christ, to experience him.
You know what, right now we have a living example of Christians showing us the way of what it really means to embrace our faith. There are tons of Christians in Afghanistan right now that are not fleeing, they're gonna live their faith and they're being given an offer, deny Christ or die. And guess what they're doing,
they're dying.
If you won't deny Christ to even live, how many of us in this room, this is a question I have to look at myself in the mirror, how many of us will deny Christ just for my lifestyle? I'm telling you, if you're denying Christ to protect your lifestyle, there is no way you will adhere to Christ if it's gonna cost you your life.
Where are you really living?
Because the devil doesn't care if you come to church, he just wants you to grab your Burger King crown because Burger King crowns don't take you anywhere and Burger King crowns tells the whole world, why would I do that? Why would I follow that? Their life is just like me only they're angrier. We don't really know the love.
Don't fall for that twist. Pick up your cross, don't put on the crown, that's the answer. Jesus puts on the crown, cross comes first, crown comes second.
So what's the third twist when these two don't work? So then verse nine, then the devil took him to Jerusalem
to the highest point of the temple and said, if you're the son of God jump off. Like what's he doing? Is he like, man I'm so frustrated with Jesus I can't win, maybe I can get him to kill himself. No. Not not. Look he actually believes in God.
Satan believes in God. He even believes in the power of God. Because what he's telling him is you know that if you're the son of God, you won't die if you do that. You know why he knows that? He's like, alright, you keep quoting scripture. I keep twisting some thoughts about scripture, but you keep going to scripture, I can do that. So he quotes one of the Psalms right here. He literally quotes scripture.
And he says this, for scripture says, now he does it. He does it. He's alright. You wanna play that? I'll play the game. For the bible says, he will order his angels to protect and guard you and they will hold you up in their hands so you won't even hurt your foot on a stone.
And so what he's saying is, I know the prophecy. I know what that is. It's a prophetic utterance that the son of man, the savior's gonna come, and you will not die until you give up your life. No one killed Jesus. He gave up his life.
And he knew. He would not be harmed. He couldn't be there's passage in scripture like there's a miracle that you didn't even realize. There's one where they wanted to arrest him, they're mad, they wanted to kill him, and it says all of a sudden he walked out amongst them and they said where did Jesus go? In a crowd he just wandered off, and that was actually miraculous. He's like it's not time to die, I'm out of here. They were like what just happened? They woke up and they're like, where'd he go? He's already gone. He went down the road. You know why? Because he was bold, because he knew no one's killing me, I'm not dying until I get on that cross.
And I say it is finished. That's when I die.
So he's trying to use that against. He says, so you know what you could do? You can get up on the temple. I've up there. They get the mount, you get the wall, you get the highest point, you jump, there's a valley down below, it's a pretty big fall. It's also in a prominent place, you can see it from everywhere. You know what he's really trying to tell him to do? He's like, you know I got an idea. If you really are the son of God, you know how you ought to get people to follow you?
Is you need some big dramatic thing out in public right there that's something they would understand. Just go up there and do a swan dive and then people will see that you don't die. Show people that. Show them that. That'll prove to them. And here's what Jesus says.
Jesus responded, the scriptures also say, see that's the key to when you twist scripture. You take one verse, you kinda rip it out of context, he goes, well let's look at some of the other verses. And he says scriptures also say you must not test the Lord your God.
Here's where he's being home, he's saying the father had a plan and you're saying just be stupid because I know I can't die until I do this. He's like you don't test God. I don't need that plan. First of all he knew that people won't listen to you just because you do that. What is the
twist here? What is he trying to tempt us with? This third one is simply this, believe it when I see it.
Believe it when you see it. See how simple these are? As a matter of fact, look at how these often work together. Sometimes you have a believe it when you see it attitude, when you're not seeing it you're like well I'm gonna do it myself and if I had to do it myself I'm not strong enough so I look for the easiest way.
And we get all twisted in all three of these plays.
That's why he's saying believe when I see it, he's like hey you know what, if you do this people will believe you because they'll see you do this great thing. You realize in scripture Jesus already said that isn't gonna work. There's stories, there's a story about a rich man and Lazarus where
the rich man did not follow God, didn't trust God, Lazarus was poor and faithful, they die, and then this symbolic story is like the rich man sees Lazarus in heaven and he's kinda suffering in hell, and he goes hey can you just give me a drop of water? He goes no, can't come over, there's a divide. He goes well can you at least send Lazarus back to warn, send him back as like the ghost of Christmas past to my brothers because they're living just like me, and tell him to warn? He goes no, I won't because that won't work anyways. And you know what his answer is?
He says, he tells them, he goes because they have the prophets and Moses, which was the old testament, the time new testament had been written, they have the word of God. And if they won't listen to that, they won't even move by somebody rising from the dead.
What did he say? Someone rising from the dead. Jesus rose from the dead. That's the most amazing, greatest miracle of all times, and people still don't wanna believe it. The greatest sign ever, and people don't wanna believe it. But what he said, he goes, if the word of God doesn't change you, nothing else is going to.
The whole testament, we wanna say, you know what, and here's how we do it. Believe it when I see it, I go, you know what, if God loves me so much, why does he keep having this happen? Or or if God's gonna love me, why can't he just part this guys and fix this problem? Why can't he make my marriage better? Why doesn't he just make this person do this? Why doesn't he just give me the money? If God wants me to trust him with my money, then he needs to make me successful.
And you have the widow's mite story in the bible. If God wants me to serve, then why is my schedule, my life so hectic and you know what, I'll serve when he makes me calm down. I'll give when he gives me more money. I'll love my spouse when he changes them into somebody more lovable.
And he's saying that doesn't work that way. You need the word of God empowered by the spirit of God. And he goes, the song, words he's like, believe it when you see it. God says you'll see it when you believe it.
You'll see it when you believe it. You need to trust him. But the devil wants to dismantle that, he tries to get Jesus to do that, so how do you do that? How do you unpackage that twist? What's the trust in this moment? It's this, don't just believe in God, believe God. You understand the difference?
Don't just believe in God, Satan believes in God, he's having conversations with them. And a lot of us we come here and you're here because you believe in God, but every day when you get up do you really believe God? Do you really believe that he is the way? Because Jesus said this in John fourteen six. He he said,
I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. You realize he didn't say I am I know the way. I understand some truth, I can get you to some form of life. He didn't say that. What did he say? He doesn't give you the life, he is the life. He doesn't show you a way, he is the way. You you have to embrace that. You have to totally
not just believe in God, but believe God. And see the problem is when I just believe in God,
I fall for these other lies. So I'm trying to get something and I'm like, well God, I'll believe it when I see it. Then you're not seeing it. So then you're saying I believe in you, but and I need you to do this and all that. So the problem is many of us get frustrated because you're trying to play this game. I'm doing it myself. I'm working hard. I'm doing all the right things, but you're not giving me the blessing that I want. So I'm gonna go around you and I'm gonna take the easy way out because you know what? I'm frustrated with you because you are in the way. Most of us if we go buy into these lies, you think some problems in your life are Jesus is in your way.
He's like, why doesn't he just give me what I want? And you think he's in your way. But he is the way. Here, we've been serious for too long. I'm gonna show you one of my favorite memes that explains it better than I could. Here's the disciples in the storm on the boat, pardon Jesus but you're in the way.
Because Jesus is like, we gotta get to the other side and you're standing in our way. And Jesus is like, excuse you, I am the way. How
many of you are in a storm right now, you're trying to get to the other side and the way you think you need to get there and why you even need to get there and what's even going on in the storm, you think Jesus is in your way. And Jesus go, I'm not in your way, I am the way. You don't just need to believe in me, you need to believe me. Where
in your life do you say you believe in God but you just refuse to believe God? The devil doesn't care if you believe in God as long as you don't believe God. Don't fall for it. He's not in the way, he is the way,
And we need to embrace that. That's really the heart of this whole message. It kinda comes down to all of this is don't just believe in God but believe God.
Because you know what, here's what's gonna happen. Give you a little tactical approach as to what's gonna happen because because if you look at this, when we're weak, this is a little bit of how this works, these attacks. When you're weak, expect an attack. When you resist, be ready for a different approach.
And when he leaves, count on another attack. Because look what it says here in verse 13, when the devil had finished tempting Jesus, he left him until the next opportunity came. He's still coming to Jesus? So if he's still gonna come to Jesus, do you think he's gonna give up on you after one try? No,
there's more than one game here. Don't be the Phoenix Suns.
Don't forget there's seven games and act like you're champions after three. You've got to finish the series. It's always it's over and over. This is the war we're in. And it's every single day I've to come back, do I believe, do I believe, do I believe, and how does that really work? It works like this, you've got to
you really it's like this.
You ever hear the
story about like Christ needs to be on the throne of your heart, so to speak, you've heard those words? Or the home in your heart, he needs to be the resident in the part of your heart like the king, like he's got to be the one that lives there, you've to move out and let him move in.
But I think what it's saying is we don't want that. We don't want Jesus to take up residence, we just want him to be a neighbor that's really close by that can come in a problem. For example, when I was a kid, my uncle Skip lived just a few houses down
and he was a beast of a guy, I've told stories, mean he was, he didn't even work out, he had forearms that would make a highland gorilla go hey, I don't want any trouble.
I mean this guy was a big and timid but he was a gentle giant and he was a great mechanic and he just knew. And every time we had a problem with something that just seemed overwhelming, my mom would like call your uncle Skip or I'm gonna call my brother.
Well, of these times was my grandma came over, this is right before she lost her driver's license. We had these patio carports, not an enclosed garage, they have the little wood pole holding up the ends, and she comes driving in and our kitchen is right, and she's driving straight at our kitchen, not going straight in there, I'm like what the spit the juice out, I dove for cover, I'm like incoming friendly fire, and she hit one of those poles,
Moved it about that far. So now the roof's like, then she got out, hi, how are you doing? I'm like, grandma, what are doing? What do you mean? You ran into the pole. She goes, no, I didn't. Look at the car.
And I'm like, don't even know if it's safe. We backed the car off, we're like, what's going on? And so we're like, how are we getting this fixed? And he's like, oh, is there a company? They might need to bring a crane, I don't know, a jack, something to get this thing fixed. And as we're doing it, my mom just called her brother.
And here comes uncle Skip walking down the street with a sledgehammer and a piece of thick rubber padding. And I mean, he looked like Thor, god of thunder. He's got mule in ear with him. And it's like I'm like, bring the lightning. You know? And he comes up. He's like, uh-uh. You little peasants. Like, stand back.
And he comes in and he goes like, oh, what is he gonna do? My dad's, I don't know. Just watch. And and he gets this blow dryer. He sticks it down by the very bottom, leans his shoulders, and he positions himself where he can like push into this thing. And then as he does that, he winds up muleaner,
takes lightning, and goes wham, right in there and at the same time, and I kid you not, he moved that thing right back into place all by himself. Goes boom. And he goes there. And then what he every every time he helped us, he would just start walking home. And he walked back, he goes call me if you need anything else.
Now that's awesome. But that's the twist. That's great to have someone like that that you can call in when there's a problem. But many of us, that's all we think of as Jesus.
We don't want him taking up residence in our house. We want him to be next door. We want him to be over there. Sometimes we want him to be like Wilson in in tool
time, whatever, know, home improvement. We wanna look at him, don't wanna see his whole face, just see enough and go, hey, what's your advice? And then go back into my house and decide if I'm gonna listen to it or not. We want him to be the neighbor that brings the hammer, bring the power, fix this problem that got created, but then go home
and let me close the blinds and go on living the way I wanted to live until the next time something happens. That's what it means to believe God, not just believe in God. It means you have to give up the residency. He's the one because when he's the one, when the devil comes a knocking, he's the one that answers the door.
Martin Luther has a great quote, he said it this way, when he comes knocking at the door of my heart and asks who lives here, the dear Lord Jesus goes to the door and says, Martin Luther used to live here, but he's moved out and now I live here. And I often imagine the next line is, you have anything to say about that?
And Bill's like, and he leaves until he comes back again. The problem is at any given moment, you might move Jesus out and then you're answering the door.
You have a lot more conversation that leads to healthy action.
In other words, one final quote here. Well, it's not a quote statement I made. We defeat the devil's This summarizes everything we just talked about. We defeat the devil's playbook when the word of God is empowered by the spirit of God and what I'm trying to say to close this down is and we are fully surrendered to God.
It's a simple answer to a simple place. And there are so many of us in this room that you're gonna ignore this yet again. You come here because you want him to be a good neighbor, but you're going to go home and close the blinds and continue to live in a world where you believe in God but you refuse to believe God.
And when you do that, you miss out on the real love of God, the real power of His spirit to live out the life He built you for. So go have a lot more conversation and let that lead to spirit empowered action in trusting God's word, amen.
Father God thank you Lord that you love us, thank you that you care for so much that in this story you kept fighting off, you resisted in a way we can resist. And you did that because you were gonna go to the cross. The devil knew what he wanted you to do and you didn't let him.
Thank you for loving us so much, thank you for being submitted to the will of the father, thank you for showing us what submission is, thank you for showing us humility, thank you for showing us where the power that we can have in our life really comes from. In other words, thank you for being the way.
Lord, I pray for everyone online, everyone in this room, and especially myself that we won't just believe in you, we will truly believe you and embrace a relationship with you. Help us to unpackage the twisted thinking that we've fallen for and get to trusting the truth that you are.
And Lord, I do pray specifically on my heart is for those Christians in Afghanistan.
Because Lord it looks like many of them are gonna stand strong and they're gonna die. But as your word says, to live is Christ, to die is gain. And the second they close their eyes on this earth they gotta open their eyes to you.
Waiting. Saying well done. Well done. Lord may we all have that kind of trust in you.
I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus, amen. Wow, I mean every time.
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