[0:00] Please join me back in Luke chapter number 4. You know, many of the songs that we sung today, such a beautiful job just in that last song and the new singing as a congregation, we rejoice in the mystery of God.
[0:11] We sung about the mystery of the cross that we can't comprehend. We talked about beholding a God that we can't comprehend. And we talked about a life where we have nothing, which sounds sad, but we have Him.
[0:23] We have so much mystery. Our faith is based in that. There's things we don't know. The young man right before the service told me how he shared his testimony of coming to Christ last week with a high school class.
[0:34] He knows that he's following Jesus. He knows that he said yes to Jesus. There's a lot of things he doesn't know, but he knows who he's following. You know, Satan wants to take us and he wants to put us out of our mystery.
[0:46] He doesn't want to put us out of our misery. He wants to take us out of our mystery. There's a great mystery about knowing God. There's one that we can't study our way out of. If you think you know so much about God that you lost your wonder and your mystery, then you have not studied appropriately.
[1:01] One of the great things we get to do as a parent is when a kid asks you a question, and they say, hey, Dad, what was before God? And you get to say, I don't know. And isn't that awesome?
[1:13] Or they ask you another question about God, and you get to say, I don't know. And you just say, welcome into the mystery. Welcome to the something that is bigger than all of us. Welcome into knowing God that is greater than any of our minds can comprehend.
[1:27] There's a great mystery, and Satan wants to take that away from us. He wants to remove that mystery from us in life. So in the book of Luke, we look at three different temptations. Matthew says that he puts them in order.
[1:39] Luke doesn't say that he puts them in chronological order. But Luke puts them in a different order than Matthew. And in this order, we saw the lust of the flesh. 1 John 2.16, the lust of the flesh, which was the stones being turned into bread.
[1:53] Now we look at the lust of the eyes, where Satan takes Jesus up to a high place. They look so the kingdoms of the world. And then the last one is the pride of life, the tell him to jump from the pinnacle of the temple.
[2:04] The three different types of temptation that we would look at. So we firstly look at what is it that Jesus really wanted? What would be his greatest desire? What would be your greatest point of temptation?
[2:15] I meant to ask you, bridge builders, today to find what it might have been for you. I know for me in sixth grade, it would have been ordering a pair of Nike shoes from a magazine that all my friends carried around in East Bay Magazine, where you would order your tennis shoes from.
[2:29] I wanted to get my shoes from a magazine. Aunt Wilder's here today. He knows what I'm talking about. And so that would have been, if you would have said, what would be the great temptation for Trent as a sixth grader, if you would have given me opportunity to get those shoes, I probably would have done some pretty criminal stuff to get those, all right?
[2:46] It was what I really wanted. What you desire says so much about you. We have different temptations in here. There's a great desire. Some of us would have some that are the same. What is it, the greatest, that would be put in front of Jesus?
[2:57] What would be his greatest desire? Because Satan knows Old Testament theology. Satan knows the Word. Satan is paying attention. When we read through the Bible and we believe that God is only a God of one nation and one people and we don't know that he has a heart for all nations, Satan doesn't do that.
[3:14] He knows what the desire of Jesus would be. Verse 5, Show unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. Satan knew the target audience. The desire of Jesus was the worship and the service of all the kingdoms of the world.
[3:31] Missions is about God's desire for all nations. I could show you hundreds of passages today, but I just want to look at a few of them. Genesis 12, 3, I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curses thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
[3:46] Exodus 9, 16, And in the very deed for this cause I have raised thee up, for I show thee my power and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth. Joshua 4, 24, That all the people of the earth may know the hand of the Lord that is mighty, that he might fear the Lord your God forever.
[4:02] Psalm 22, 27, And the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. John 17, 23, I in them and thou in me that thou may be perfect, and one that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, and thou hast loved me.
[4:19] These are the words of Jesus in his prayer, is that the world would know that he has been sent, and that they are loved. Romans 14, 11, For as it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, Every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
[4:35] Satan knew that it was the desire of Jesus to have every kingdom of this world to worship and to glorify him. And we should know that as well. It's all throughout Scripture. It's what he wants.
[4:46] We shouldn't be surprised that in the New Testament, when he dies, that there's going to be a church that's made up of people of Jews and Gentiles. It's clear all through the Scripture. And so Satan says, I know what you want, Jesus.
[4:58] I know exactly what you want. I'm going to give you what you want. And he's going to try to make an agreement with him. You might have seen this before, the question that says, What would you do if you could go back in time and tell people something, right?
[5:11] You get in a time machine, and you go back in time, and it's always funny, right? Because let's go back 300 years, and you're going to say, Hey, in 300 years we have smartphones. And they're going to say, How does it work?
[5:21] And you're like, I have no idea. All right? And you would be no help to them, right? Because there's so many things we know, but we don't know how it works. If you were to go back in time, if I was there to go back in time, I wouldn't be able to help Einstein or Edison or any of those people.
[5:35] I would just say, We have a lot of really cool stuff, and somebody like you is going to need to invent them because I can't tell you how they work. But I can tell you this for sure. If you let me go to the end of the age and see something, and then let me go back at any time in history, this is the message that I would want to share with the world.
[5:51] Someday, every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess. And that is an absolute truth. Every knee and every tongue will confess of people I know and of people that I don't know.
[6:02] Of people that are hearing the gospel today in churches and people that are down the road from a church that's preaching the gospel and then people that do not have the gospel and their own language in a Bible that are far from the Lord.
[6:13] One day, those people will bow their knee and their tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. And I know this to be sure. And I would want to tell that to everybody. And so missions is about God's desire for all nations.
[6:26] I thought Benjamin and Patricia might be here. You may know them as the smiley couple in our church, okay? But Joseph and Appiah, they're pretty smiley as well. I love seeing people go to the mission field because that's a God-given desire in their heart to do that.
[6:38] But what's more important, it is the desire of our God that all people would know him. That's why missions is so important. And Satan knew that about Jesus. He knew that Jesus wanted all the kingdoms of the world to bow down and to worship him.
[6:51] And it's going to be a wonderful day when all the kingdoms of this world become kingdoms of God. Revelation 7, 15. And the seventh angel sounded and there was great voices in heaven saying, the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever.
[7:09] And that is our eternity and it will be wonderful. In fact, all of history is working towards that. Ephesians 1, 10. That in the dispensation and the fullness of time, he might gather together and want all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, which are on earth, even in him.
[7:24] And all these things are being gathered up. This week we have our camp. We call it a missions camp. We want them to see how the mission connects to their Christian life. How missions and discipleship are one in the same.
[7:37] And something that I'll share with them that I've shared with you many times is this. That I'm thankful that in life I ask the question, what in this world really matters? That's what I was asking at 18 years of age.
[7:48] What in this world really matters? When I heard that the world really matters to God. When I learned what really matters in this world is that God wants to be known and loved by all people, then I knew what the most important thing in my life could be, which was to make him known.
[8:06] And so missions is something that is the desire of God's heart. And that's why Satan said, I want all the kingdoms. That was the temptation there. All the kingdoms of the world would bound. But missions is also about inheritance.
[8:17] So the devil takes him up to a high mountain. He shows him the kingdom of the world. Then in verse 6, this is what Satan, can you imagine the audacity? This is what Satan says to Jesus. He says, I will give it.
[8:28] He says, I'm going to give you something. That's crazy, isn't it? Satan says, I'm going to give this to you here. So we have some drone footage. Greg in New York City, legally, I want to say, okay, he legally flew a drone.
[8:42] He might have done it a few times. Illegally, I wouldn't have been around. But when I was with him, he got permission and he flew a drone. And so there we were with John Canavan in different parts of the city and we were looking around and we would look at all that we could see.
[8:54] And from the street level, we could see a good bit of things. We could see a whole lot of people. But then Greg would get out his drone and we were in this big black suburban that John had rented and we got a drone out.
[9:05] So everybody thought we were some kind of either men in black or FBI. They really didn't know what we were up to. And the drone would go up in the air and we would get to see more and more people. And the higher that it would go and it would be higher than a drone, we'd eventually get to a place and say, man, it'd be so great if in this area right here, these people could have a church and that these people could know about Jesus.
[9:26] But as the drone would get higher, we'd realize, well, this is getting much bigger than one church or two churches or three churches. Well, here, Satan takes Jesus on a high mountain in some manner that we don't know that's not described to us, but he sees all the kingdoms of the world.
[9:41] A lot of you have traveled in here and you've been to a lot of places in the world. But in that moment of time, he got to see all the people. He got to see the people of Honduras. He got to see different people in the world looking out there of Japan or of Bolivia where Andrew Wilder is going to go.
[9:54] And to see them all at one time, he says, you see all these people? I can make them bow, which is what's the best thing a person, a creation can do is to bow to its creator. And so he says that and he shows it to them all at one time.
[10:07] But then he says, I will give it to you as if Satan had the ability to give Jesus this inheritance. Jesus shared the nature with the Father and he delights in what the Father delights in.
[10:19] John 5, 30, I can of mine own self do nothing as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek not my own will but the will of the Father which has sent me. And then it says in Psalm 2, 8, ask of me and I shall give of thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
[10:38] In sharing the nature with the Father, he had a desire for all the nations and in the inheritance being given, the Father would give that to them so that they would have it. In New York, we saw a lot of people that wanted to leave an inheritance for their kids.
[10:53] The original American dream, not the one that we talk about now that's just about consuming all the time, but the one where a person can come here and by playing by the rules and working very hard, they can move themselves and their family to a different status.
[11:06] They can come here with nothing and they can leave an inheritance for their kids. I met a lot of people that wanted to do that. They wanted to go up and if the drone was to go up, they wanted a place on the map they would say, this is my house in the Bronx and now it's going to be my kids' house.
[11:21] I wanted to leave an inheritance to them. Jesus Christ is the Lord of more than New York City, of this entire world and it belongs to them and Satan is offering him what he desires which is the worship of all people but it wasn't Satan that gives.
[11:36] Satan is pretending to be the keeper of the inheritance. He is mimicking this humiliation before exaltation. Jesus knew that before the crown would come the cross, before he'd be glorified he would die upon a cross and so Satan says to him, if thou would worship me, if you would bow down right now, then you would be exalted.
[11:57] Satan is stealing language from God. Daniel 5, 21 at the end of the verse it says, till he knew that the Most High God ruled in the kingdom of men and that he appointed it over to whomsoever he will.
[12:10] God alone can do that and not Satan but Satan is once again stealing language from God and promising something that he cannot deliver. We were in a church I mentioned to you about, Gary, you're going to hear a lot about New York today because I was in New York when I was studying Luke 4 and I don't know how to separate the two so I'm not even going to try.
[12:28] Okay? And so we were in this church and I saw Gary and I told you about him the other day. Gary got saved behind the church in a field. Somebody was having a Jesus party and I don't know if Dan Penrod to hear this but he was having this Jesus party and Gary got saved and a church got built in front of him and he goes out all the time inviting people to the church.
[12:47] And so we're talking to him and John's trying to make small talk and he says, Gary, are you in the bikes? Because Gary had a shirt on with Indian motorcycles, Harley, it had all kinds of motorcycles on it, okay?
[12:59] And so John's making small talk. He's like, hey Gary, are you in the bikes? And he's like, ah, not really. I ride an elliptical sometimes. I try to exercise, you know, and all that and John's like, motorcycles.
[13:11] And he's like, no? And he's like, well, what's about your shirt? And he said, oh, oh, it's just a t-shirt. I don't know anything about motorcycles and I just thought it was great and that was funny but can I tell you something that wasn't funny?
[13:24] We could stand in a church, it'd have beautiful stained glass, it was there, it'd have parking, it'd be beautiful, you could walk in, you could talk to people and say, hey, are you all about Jesus? Is that what you're about here today? They're like, what are you talking about?
[13:36] We're here for something else. We're here for some social problem, we're here for something else because even though they're wearing a t-shirt about motorcycles, they didn't have any love for motorcycles, they didn't have love for the things of the world, of the Lord and that's what Satan does.
[13:52] He loves to borrow from religion, he loves to borrow our language, he loves to borrow a t-shirt and that would say, hey, you must be all about motorcycles because you look like it and they say, no, this is just a t-shirt.
[14:02] Satan loves to borrow the language of the Bible and to use it. He loves it when we look Christian, he loves it when we look religious but we have no love for the atonement of Christ, we have no love for the gospel, we just have a love for everything that is around it and here's Satan pretending to be the keeper of the inheritance and so the devil's words were partly true because the original human rulers, Adam, Eve, they had fallen in the sin and so in 2 Corinthians 4, 4, in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them.
[14:39] The kingdoms of this world are influenced by Satan. 1 John 5, 19, and we know that we are of God and the whole world lieth in wickedness. A couple ways this happens. Satan encourages sin in this world.
[14:51] Ephesians 2, 3 talks about fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind. Revelation 12, 10 talks about him keeping us captive by fear and by being an accuser of the brethren.
[15:02] Satan has an illegitimate reign upon this world and one that it says in Romans chapter number 8 that for we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together, that it waits for the manifestation for the Son of God, that Satan has reign, that he has influence, that he is the God of this world and that's what he was saying.
[15:22] He said, I'll give this up. I'll stop fighting. I'll stop being the adversary. I will just give him to what you're doing here because Satan wants us to be like the prodigal son.
[15:33] He wants all of us to be the prodigal son. He says, God, we're not going to wait for the mystery. We're not going to trust you. We're not going to have faith. Give me my inheritance right now. That's what the prodigal did, right?
[15:44] He knew that the father had something for him but instead of waiting in due season, instead of waiting for the appointed time, instead of waiting upon the Lord for what was to be for him, he wanted to take it by force and that was what happened.
[15:57] So he demands an inheritance. And so here Satan is searching Jesus for any pride, any self-exaltation and he found none. Searching Jesus and saying, I know you want all the kingdoms of the world to worship you.
[16:09] I know that to be true about you but can I find some desire for you to have it separate from the father? See, Satan wasn't just trying to tempt him. He was trying to adopt him.
[16:19] He was trying to bring him in. He was trying to make a partnership and to say that if you'll work with me, I'll give you everything that you could ever imagine and you could have it now without mystery and without waiting and you could have it by your own power and by your own might and you know what he finds in him?
[16:36] And I read this every time we're in this chapter and I will probably next time as well. John 14, 30. Hereafter, I will not talk with much for you for the prince of the world cometh and he has nothing in me.
[16:49] That's what Satan found in Jesus. Zero pride, zero self-exaltation, zero desire to act outside of the Father. He found none of that but he tempted it with him but he searches me and he finds that so often and that's why the temptation, though different for us, there's a category for it.
[17:08] So missions is the desire of the heart of God and we see that. We see that it's also missions is about an inheritance and that's what they're talking about. They're having a missions conference. Satan and Jesus on a high mountain are looking over all the kingdoms of the world and they're talking about why it matters because missions is about worship.
[17:27] For it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve. Jesus knew what was at stake. He's going to quote from Deuteronomy and everyone in temptations instead of giving new revelation which he could do, he quotes something from Old Testament and he says in Deuteronomy 6.13 Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve him and shalt swear by his name you shall not go after other gods of the gods of the people which are round about you.
[17:52] And so he is saying that I should not worship you, I should not serve any other god because worship is about describing value to something. Here they're looking over the kingdoms of the world and worship is at the center of the battle.
[18:07] Satan desires for him or anyone other than Jesus to be worshipped. Anything other than worshipping Jesus is a win for Satan.
[18:18] Anything other than dependence upon the Father would have been a win for Satan on that day. Any other option? To new converts it tells us in 1 Timothy 3.6 Not a novice lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.
[18:34] In Exodus remember God gives them favor they're going to be let go out of Egypt and as they're leaving they are found favor with the Egyptians and what do they give them? They give them earrings and golden jewelry and they have that favor and now they take it and what do they do with it in the next chapter of the story?
[18:51] They take it and they melt it down in their pride and they make it something that they should worship. They ascribe value to it. Anything that can be worshipped Satan wants you to worship it. If you'll worship the golden earring if you'll worship anything other than him if you'll worship your knowledge of God and not God he'll be fine with that.
[19:09] Anything outside of Jesus will be a win for him because what Jesus answers that Satan didn't ask has to do with service. Satan said nothing about service but Jesus said that we should have no other gods before him and we shouldn't serve any other god because we serve whom we worship.
[19:27] Service to the Lord is freedom service to Satan is bondage and we see this and this. So Jesus says I'm not going to bow down I'm not going to worship you and I'm not going to serve you because service and worship are always connected.
[19:42] So if he can get you to worship something other than Jesus today then Monday through Friday he'll get you to serve something other than Jesus today. All he needs is something other than him. You know when you fly on an airplane you've got to have a story about it so you can tell people that you flew on an airplane.
[19:57] It's a status symbol. Alright? I flew on an airplane this week and when I did this person sitting beside me had a book and it was called The Untethered Soul.
[20:08] That normally wouldn't get a I thought it was a weird kind of book but it had this at the top of it it said this read this book slowly and you will get more than a glimpse of eternity.
[20:18] It kind of sounded like a death threat didn't it? It says if you will read this book slowly you will get more than a glimpse of eternity and I'm like what in the world what book can promise you a glimpse of eternity?
[20:30] I'm like I have a book that can do this but I promise you that whatever glimpse of eternity you're going to have will not be that but you know what I read in that? I read a lot of really good things Matt I saw a lot of really good things I saw like those that think that when you go to a funeral as many of us did yesterday for the press then that's a good thing in your life because it slows you down that makes you think about time I saw a lot of really good truths there but you know what I also found it said your inner strength you need to communicate with yourself you need to talk to yourself you don't need to look to anything other than yourself what I found was a Bible that was written about a God that was not the God of heaven but you were the God and so that's what Satan was doing Satan says hey I know if I come of the Halbrook family and I say hey you want to worship Satan alright Paul you want to get a big face tattoo on your face right here and worship Satan I'm a hard pass on that one alright we're not going to do that he could bring other things to you and I'd say no I'm not interested in that I don't want to worship this statue
[21:31] I don't want to worship this but if you bring a person that's 5 foot 10 that looks like me and you put a mirror in front of me and I see myself and you say do you want to worship this person do you want to serve this person do you want to believe in this person do you want to exalt this person I would say yeah I think I could worship that God I have a lot in common with that guy and that's what Satan wants us to do worship ourselves Satan worship is really about worship to yourself if you look at criminal trials when they bring Satan worshipers to trial they always say Satan worship isn't worshiping the devil with a fork Satan worship is just saying worship yourself and do your own thing and that's certainly what Satan would have us to do would be to exalt ourselves to worship ourselves and to serve ourselves and so Satan has this delusion the same strategy with different people because Satan is trying to take away put us out of our mystery he comes to Eve he offers her liberation he comes to the children of Israel and he says and they say give us a God that we can see you know let's not one that moves by cloud that we don't know give us a God that we can touch that is tangible
[22:37] King Saul wanted something so bad that he said he was willing to speak with the dead because he wanted to get rid of the mystery Abraham couldn't handle the mystery because he knew that God had promised a child but he didn't want to wait because he was getting old and it didn't make sense to him so he says I'm going to take matters into my own hand Jacob was a trickster people they begin to despise the mystery despise living the life by faith and that's when Satan comes in and he says let's find what you want but let's find another way that we can go about it and so the devil knows by personal experience that knowledge will puff us up and once he can give us a picture of something he gives us the lust of the eyes that he can incite this pride of life and that we're going to want it and there's just something about humans that causes us to be fascinated with this hidden or secret or cryptic truth that we can get apart from God he says I will walk with you and we say but we want the answers right now Satan wanted to assume the role of the father in his life Satan wants to assume the role of the father in your life he wants you to see him as the provider well let me change that because when I say
[23:44] Satan wants to do that every one of you say hey I'm smart to that let me change this Satan wants you to see yourself as the provider of your needs and to make bread Satan wants you to see yourself as the person that will give you the inheritance of the will of God Satan wants for you to see yourself as the person with your plans and strategies provides protection in your life Satan was trying to tell become the father of Jesus or play the role of the father in all three of these temptations and he offers a shortcut he knows that in the life of Jesus that Jesus knows in his life is going to come the Psalm 22 1 promise which is my God my God why hast thou forsaken me and unlike the Jewish people that we met in New York we saw a picture of one group that they thought the Messiah had already come they had seen him and unlike other Jewish people that didn't recognize Jesus as the Messiah Satan knows that Jesus is the anointed one he knows that he is the Christ he knows that he is going to the cross and so Satan says if you could skip the cross and get to exactly what you want wouldn't you want to do it that's the offer that he has given him you want the kingdoms of the world
[24:52] I can give you the kingdoms of the world and we must trust in God's timing humble yourself therefore in the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you and do time God revealed the mystery of Christ step by step concealing the fullness of revelation until the appointed time Revelation 16 speaks of the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began verse 26 but now was made manifest by the scripts for the prophets according to the commandment of everlasting God made known to all nations for the obedience of the faith Jesus trusted in the father and it is timing and he said it's not yet the time it's not in that he trusted in the in the unknown in faith moving forward Satan wants to convince you that your inability to see what God's doing on the other side of the mountain means that he's holding something back from you Eve really a good God would want you to not have all that's in this garden really God's really good but he holds something back from you I mean do you really want to trust and wait upon God don't you want to take matters into your own hand
[25:56] I know you're waiting on an answer from God but wouldn't it just be better if you just said I'll provide my own protection I'll be my own provision I'll be my own man I'll be a self-made man wouldn't that be much better we can't trust him many of us know what it's like in life when God takes the map out of your hand when you say I have a perfect plan when you say I know that I'm going to have two children and then you're 10 years in the marriage and you haven't had children or that you're going to live in this place and you're going to have that job and you lose that job or that this you're going to live near your parents and then your parents pass away and that you have your whole life laid out in front of you and God reaches over and he takes the map out of your hand and he says I will take that and you say but I want the map and he says but you have me but you say I want the map and then you sound like Dora the Explorer right and you're talking about a map the place you want to go the map's the one you need to know Stephen knows what I'm talking about and so you say you want the map and you want the map and Jesus and God says to you you don't need a map and you have me Corrie ten Boom says this never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God you don't need that embrace the mystery love it say I want to live according to God's will
[27:03] I'm going to trust him for my provision I'm going to do what he tells me to do I'm going to do the simple act of obedience even though I don't know what's going to happen in the next chapter in my life I can trust God don't believe the delusion don't worship yourself don't worship your own plans and so we see the determination of our king here and you got to ask the question why would Satan be willing to negotiate away his entire empire for 30 seconds of adoration I mean what he gained that day when Adam and Eve fell even though it's only temporal there in this world he gained a reign of influence in this world that we see and he has it and we saw that they changed their allegiance from the father of lights into the father of lies the whole world lies in darkness he's the prince of power of the air why would he do this we know that Jesus is greater it says in 1 John 3 the purpose of the son of God was manifested he might destroy the works of the devil we know that in Mark 3 27 when they're accusing Jesus of using the power of Satan and he says no man can enter into a strong man's house and spoil his goods except they first bind the strong man and then will spoil his house but he was saying that this is a strong man in this world but I'm the stronger man
[28:12] Jesus is a stronger man in the story an important aspect of the great commission in Matthew 28 18 it says and Jesus came and spake unto them saying that all power is given unto me and that power there is authority all authority is given to them we're talking about the authority that is given that Satan in his delusion is saying I will give you the authority that is here Satan says I'll give up all that is here and so why would he do that why would Satan say hey I'll stop fighting you on every turn I'll stop being the adversary I'll stop trying to influence these people I'll stop harming this world and I will back off Jesus is the king the Jewish people had tried to make him the earthly king in John 6 15 when Jesus therefore perceived that he would come and take him by force to make him king he departed again unto a mountain himself and then in John 8 they asked him they said are you a king and he says Jesus answered and said my kingdom is not of this world if my kingdom were of this world then would my servants fight that I would not be delivered to the Jews but now is my kingdom not from hence
[29:18] Jesus is most certainly king it's kind of neat we saw a parallel in this passage to Genesis in the garden right he's in the wilderness in the barrenness opposed to the garden we also saw the wilderness wandering and we saw the parallel in this passage but in Deuteronomy there's this explanation and God says let me tell you what you should look for in a king and they were looking for an earthly king that would never meet it but here are some of the things to look for in a king his first qualification that he had to be of the house of Israel he couldn't be a foreigner Deuteronomy 17 Jesus came and he became man right he came to be king and he became as man he was chosen divinely in Israel you couldn't be king just because you wanted to be king you had to be chosen by God here's Jesus born of man John the Baptist says he has chosen that he is the son of God he meets all the qualifications it says that they can't multiply horses they can't have desire for wealth Jesus has no place to lay his head and the fourth requirement was that they would write out the scriptures a copy of the law because they had to know the word with them and wherever that they had to have their own written copy of the word and here we have Jesus meeting all the qualifications of the king he came to be born of man he was divinely chosen by the father and the word of God is written on his heart on every term he has it so he has every right to be king so the next question
[30:42] I would just ask is why don't you just destroy Satan like that I mean there is no contrast in ability Satan only has what is allowed of him why wasn't it be destroyed Satan why would he have this and the answer is found in verse number 8 Jesus says get thee behind me Satan what does Satan mean Satan means adversary and what is an adversary of Satan is an adversary of the purposes of God Satan is an adversary of God's people that's you where is it that God's purpose and God's love for people come together most clearly and climatically it's on the cross right Satan is the adversary and he says get thee behind me Satan he doesn't destroy Satan that day but when does he say this again get thee behind me Satan he says it to who he says it to Peter and that sounds like a strong word because Jesus is talking about dying and Peter says you don't need to die which sounds pretty you know good you know that's kind of what I would hope you would say to me if I'm like hey I'm gonna go die today and you're like hey don't die today alright it sounded like a friendly thing but Jesus turns and looks at Peter and he says the same thing that he says to Satan here he says get thee behind thee
[31:55] Satan because we were talking about the cross he allows Satan to still exist and to continue because Satan is the adversary and Satan is gonna continue the work and they're gonna come together upon the cross what if Jesus what if Jesus at that time would have said that okay Satan I'll allow all the kingdoms of the world let's stop you're no longer the adversary there's no more person peddling drugs on the corner there's no more slavery there's no more disease there's no more anything we have Christian values we have family values everything we would want would happen everything that you could ever imagine Satan would be so happy that that happened and why would it be so happy because the gospel is at stake there'd be no atonement for our sins Satan is very happy to have you have family values as long as your family is all you value he's very happy for you to talk about Christian values and encourage other people to have Christian values as long as you never talk to them about the atonement for their sins that are found in Jesus
[32:57] Satan says I'm gonna let go I have no problem letting go and have all the kingdoms of the world as long as I can get you to bow to me and to serve me then you'll never go to the cross because the only thing that he fears is Jesus Christ and his death upon the cross and so we listen on the cross in Luke 12 or John chapter number 12 it says the people therefore that stood by and heard it said that it thundered and others said and an angel spake to him Jesus answered and said this voice came not because of me but for your sakes now is the judgment of this world now shall the prince of the world be cast out Satan wanted anything to happen but the cross he was this temptation would have cost us the atonement this temptation it was all about the gospel thankfully when we read this we knew how the story ended but if you read up to this point and you didn't know how it ended you should break out in a sweat because Jesus was headed to the cross that's why when Peter says you don't need to go to the cross he says what you're saying is devilish what you're saying is evil because I have to die for the sins of this world it isn't just enough for everybody to bow their knee to me
[34:03] I must die for the sins of these people that will bow their knee to me and so we have this self exaltation would be devil worship Paul asked this same question in 1 Corinthians 1 13 he says is Christ divided was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized in the name of Paul he says I didn't die for you I didn't I was crucified for you don't be worshipping me I'm not the savior I'm not the messiah I can't atone for your sins and so it ought to be the creed of every Christian that Galatians 6 14 that we would worship we would rejoice in nothing save the cross it doesn't mean that we don't disciple and talk about many different things but what's at the center of everything is the cross of Christ is that he would die in our place and so I think about this self exaltation and I think about some of the places that I try to hide from the mystery of God and I try to make it so I don't need his protection and so the great allure of wealth is that in looking upon a large reserve in our savings account we believe that we've removed the mystery of the future but this is only an illusion by the devil to try to get you to live independently of God you know we must live out of the hand of God there's not enough money and enough banks in this world to protect you in this world it's all gone some of the wealthiest people in this world died spending every dollar they had trying to protect themselves you can't but it's a lie to yourselves if you say
[35:28] I can't trust God for the future I don't need it so I need to make sure I make something for myself I need to insure myself right if you're wealthy enough you don't need health insurance because you are an insurance to yourself in this world you can't have that there's nothing that you can make for yourself exaltation you've got to live dependent upon the Father as your provider and not exalt yourselves and the same thing that Jesus had available are the same things available to us self exaltation is devil worship exalting ourselves is devil worship and what do we see Jesus using here the word of God the word of God will fight against self exaltation what do we have here a dependence upon the Holy Spirit the looking upon the Holy Spirit and then a commitment to God's plan after looking at all the world in a way that would just be incredible I mean more than a drone over New York City Jesus goes to just another small town he doesn't go to the center of the empire he doesn't go to take over he just follows God's plan to the next place and just a commitment to God and simple obedience so I'm going to ask you a series of questions if you're an unbeliever in here today and you're sitting here and maybe you have a long list of things that you have done that you believe that have made you righteous through your own efforts then I want you to know that that is the most and the worst type of self-exaltation and you need to repent of it at no point in your life does Jesus look down upon you and say that you have made yourself good enough you must come to him and say I can't exalt myself
[37:00] I need to depend upon the Father I need the death of Jesus in my place you need to accept him today you need to repent not only of your bad works but repent of your good works you need to ask forgiveness of where you have done wrong but you also need to ask forgiveness of where you've done right and you believe that you earned something and merited something with him you cannot exalt yourself to a place in heaven and you need to turn from that self-exaltation but believer God has a mission for us we know his plan and Satan will be glad for you to be involved in any endeavor except what God has called us to do which is to tell people about the finished work of Christ could it be any more plain Satan says of all the kingdoms of the world I'm willing to step back you can have this church you can have this you can have all these things that you want but the one thing that I must stop is Jesus Christ and him being crucified and so Satan will allow us to be in so many things and so much promotion in this world but he does not want us to talk about the finished work of Christ our self-promotion in this world is just as good as Satan worship as far as Satan is concerned every one of you in here you just cringe about the idea of Satan worship don't you but every one of us in here if we would come humbly and say man
[38:15] I have looked upon a God that looks more like me than it does the Jesus of the Bible and we're involved in self-worship and self-exaltation and so Satan offers you glory in the here and now don't take up your cross let that be for other people let that be for less talented people why don't you keep promoting yourself in this world and that will be enough I'd ask you if you're a believer in here today to repent of that say I don't want to promote myself I don't want to be a self-made man I want to be fully dependent upon the Father I want to live in the mystery I don't want to take what I can have in here and now and the things that I don't know I'm just going to trust in my obedience if I'm Abraham and he says I'm going to have children I'm 100 years old I'm not going to make another plan I'm just going to trust on God whatever God has given you in your life you can trust Him you don't have to take matters into your own hand don't exalt yourself but humble yourself and be dependent upon the Father let's pray together Heavenly Father we come to you Lord and Lord I ask you to help my brothers and sisters in Christ to recognize in their lives the areas in which they have become promoters of selves they have been people that have exalted themselves
[39:25] Lord that they have become somebody that have seen themselves as the provider as the protector as somebody that has replaced you in their lives Father search my heart in these areas Lord that I'm very much capable of self-promotion and self-exaltation Lord as my brothers and sisters in Christ will pray and as they will search their heart there in their seats or here at an altar Lord I pray right now for the work of the Holy Spirit and anybody in here that does not yet believe with every head bowed and every eye closed can I speak to you in here for a moment I don't know your story I don't know if you've ever humbled yourself and came to a place and you recognized that Jesus is king and you are not and that you need to come to him today and you need to admit that you need him to provide righteousness for you that in of yourself you are not able to do that if that's your story in here today I would ask of you to get up to find a place here at the altar to speak to God and to speak and tell him that you repent of those good works and that you turn to him and him alone as your king with every head bowed and you begin to pray
[40:42] I pray that you'll turn yourself from self-promotion self-exaltation and live a life that is totally dependent upon the Father Father I ask that you'll be with us now Lord as we speak with you Lord we will be honest we'll be transparent Lord with you Lord there's many things that are wanting to rush into the minds of the people in this room there's plans through the week there's plans for this afternoon but I pray right now for a hedge of protection around their minds as they will speak with you and they will become honest then once you're done praying there would you stand and singấu