[0:00] with me the Luke chapter number four. Thank you, David, Katie, and Charlotte. You can say it as well with your soul in here today. Would you say amen with me? And it certainly can be. And if it's not, we would love to help you before you leave today, because between the garden of Eden, when man failed, and today there was a Jesus, that Jesus went to the wilderness and he overcame all temptation of the perfect life that he died in our place. And that's worthy of celebrating today and continuing our time. And Mark Twain wrote a letter one time and he said, I wanted to write a short letter, but I didn't have time. So I wrote a long letter. All right. And so I'm not going to write a long letter today. Brother Chuck asked me, he said, it looks like you brought your lunch.
[0:41] It's going to be a long sermon today. Okay. I didn't bring my lunch today, but it most certainly would be a long letter or it'd be a long sermon today, but we're only going to get to verse number four and the first temptation of Christ today. And we won't get all the way to verse number 14.
[0:56] Pastor has been gone a couple of weeks. So he's going to come back and he's going to say, where'd you get to? And we'll say basically where you left off. All right. We haven't been very far. And I would say you should recover anything to have covered because there's so much here.
[1:08] There's so much chicken still on the bone, right? There's a basket full of wings still available for us here. Those are things that mean a lot to me. All right. And so there's so much here and we're going to look at some of the day and I pray that it finds a place of it in your, in your heart. I said between the garden and now there's this wilderness because Romans 8 36 tells us that we were once a sheep who were head to the slaughter, but now we can say we're more than conquerors through Christ Jesus. And how is that possible? It's because Jesus came and lived the perfect life as a man and he died for us. And so that's great news today. As a preacher, I should be more than a motivational preacher, but I most certainly shouldn't be less than a motivational preacher, a motivational speaker, meaning there's great motivation in our lives today. I pray that when we end, that some of you will find victory in your lives from something that's been holding you back. I pray that all of us would leave here rejoicing, knowing that God, our father is our provider and we can trust him no matter how heavy the temptation is. We saw last week, there's a strong parallel between the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, where there's absolutely nothing, just the desert wilderness and in the garden of Eden where everything was available.
[2:19] And in those circumstances, the first man failed, but the second Adam, he overcomes all temptation there. And so we saw a strong parallel. We also saw that in the chapter number three, a genealogy that was given there, obviously not just to fill space, not just because we need genealogy scattered throughout the Bible to see if we're really serious about our Bible reading, but because it had a purpose.
[2:40] And at the end of it, it said that he was the son of man or the son of Adam, because he was saying that he came completely as human, took on a robe of flesh so that he could live a perfect life and die in our place. And so sometimes we see that we are right where the Lord wants us to be. He was led into the wilderness, but a trial and a temptation and a testing still comes our way. In many ways, reading a passage like this and other passages of the Bible are like getting to watch game tape. If you played football or another sport, you would watch another team. You would see that the plays that they're going to make, and you could study it. In many ways, we get to watch a game tape.
[3:19] We get to see what it was that Satan did when he had an opportunity to bring a temptation to Christ here. And we know that he does these same things today. So we'll be in Luke four, and also we'll end our time in Deuteronomy chapter number eight, because that is where Jesus responds from. So here's our main thought. The first temptation, it questions God's provision and care. Verse three, And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.
[3:49] This story is not about bread. All right? There's bread in the story, most certainly. And I brought my own bread here today, and it smells pretty good. And I will not try to eat that. That would be a bad choice. I'm going to try to eat this whole loaf of bread while I preach today. It's going to be a miracle.
[4:04] No, I brought this bread here, and none of you, as I carry this bread throughout the morning, ask me for a slice of this bread. It smells wonderful, and there is a temptation to eat it when you're hungry. But there's so much more going on here than bread. Jennifer, the boy for the middle school she works for this week, they're collecting food. And the food is going to be given the kids. They're in a time of crisis. Maybe they're in a defects office. They're in another place, and they're just out of their comfort zone. They're in a tough situation in life. And her kids have been collecting food that they will give it to them. And so basically what Jennifer asked me to do was to give a video that would say, when food is more than food. Meaning that when macaroni and cheese is more than macaroni and cheese because it's something that would bring comfort to the kids. Here in this story, bread is most certainly more than bread.
[4:55] It represents something. It represents a trusting of God's provision or having an immediate opportunity to satisfy his hunger. So this story is more than bread. Let's look before we get into talking more about the bread and exactly what the temptation is. Let's talk about temptation for a moment.
[5:13] This temptation isn't really about bread. But first we got to ask ourselves, as we did last week, is God leading Jesus in the temptation? And if so, why are we told in Matthew 6, 13 that we should pray that God would not lead us into temptation? And how do we reconcile it with James 1, 13 that says, let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. Reminds you that it said here that the Father, the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. We know that our steps in Proverbs 24, that they, 20, 24, they are led by the Lord. But to be tempted is to be enticed towards evil. And the Father is not tempting Jesus and he will never tempt us because there is nothing in God that is not light. There is no darkness at all. So Jesus is not being tempted by the Father, the sin.
[6:02] Psalm 23, verse 5, you should be familiar with it. It says, thou preparest the table before me in the presence of mine enemy. And in that presence of mine enemy, what follows after us? Surely goodness and mercy.
[6:14] There is a way of escape. All that is needed. So Satan here, he is tempting, but there is a testing that is also taking place. And how is it that Satan is tempting Jesus? How is he tempting him here? It is a temptation that Jesus would question the love and the goodness and the provision of God the Father. That is what it is about. That is why it is more than just about bread. It is about are we going to see God as our provider? The temptation for Jesus is to take in his own hand the provision, what he needs, and not trust God's provision and what he needs.
[6:46] And you can see that 2,000 years later, even though bread is not involved, we're still temptation. We still have the same testing. Will we trust God as our provider? So the Father is proving here, James 1, 4, it says, let patience have a perfect work that may be perfect and entire wanting nothing.
[7:05] And so what is it the Father is proving? He is proving that Jesus always trusted his provision. He's proving that Jesus will not act independently of the Father. As a church, we went through the book of Job, and it pictures this perfectly, right?
[7:18] Satan wanted to go before Job, and he wanted to give him a temptation, the curse God. And in that, God said, my servant Job, he is upright. He will not do that. And so as Satan was tempting Job, God here was demonstrating the integrity of the servant. And so God's testing and Satan's tempting, they may coincide at the same event, but they are radically different. Satan is tempting him, hoping he fails. God is testing him. The Father is testing him, knowing he will prevail, because he only trusts and he only does the Father's will. Paul explains it like this.
[7:54] Paul had this thorn up in his flesh, probably his eyesight, right? And he said that this thing, this messenger of Satan, it's caused me to respond in a way that brings humility. Satan tempts, but in this, we are able to pass the test and to show that we can trust God in our lives. And so the temptation here, it isn't about bread, but it's about identity.
[8:15] Verse 3, it says, and the devil said unto him, if thou be the Son of God. He says that again in verse number 9. He says, brought him to Jerusalem, and he said on him a pinnacle of the temple, and he said unto him, if thou be the Son of God. Two of these three temptations are directly connected to the identity of Jesus. And they start off when they say, if you be the Son of God, if this is true about you, then you should act according to this. And I want to remind you of the scene that we had that pastor preached before we got immediately to this, and it's that baptism.
[8:46] In Matthew 3, it says, Jesus came from Galilee, the Jordan, the John, to be baptized of him. We have a reluctant John the Baptist baptizing Jesus. Why do I say that he's reluctant? When Jesus comes there, he says, God forbid that I would baptize you. You should baptize me. We can see why John the Baptist would be reluctant, right? Behold, this is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the whole world. John being of the line of Aaron, here we have the Messiah, that God the Father spoke, that the anointing was just not the oil placed upon his head that we'd read in the Old Testament, but he was being baptized. This is the Messiah. God the Father will speak from heaven. And so you have a reluctant John the Baptist. And so we wonder, why is it? Why is Jesus being baptized? The pastor told us, obviously, he was not being baptized for remission of his sins.
[9:37] He was not repenting. He had nothing to repent of. Matthew 3, 15 says, and Jesus answering said unto him, suffer to be so, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness, that he suffered him. The purpose in his baptism is that he would fulfill all righteousness. What does that mean?
[9:56] It means that Jesus speaks of the righteousness that he provides to all who come to him to exchange their sins for his righteousness. Jesus was living in our place. 2 Corinthians 5, 21, for he had made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that he might be made the righteousness of God. So here in the water, the Son, Jesus is most definitely identifying with the Father.
[10:18] This is my Son in whom I'm well pleased. We see that he is the Son of God, but we also see that he is the Son of Man. He's identifying with us, that he is going to live that perfect life in our place. And that's something we should be very excited about. Because remember the testing when it first came with Adam and Eve, and they failed the testing, that they weren't going to trust as the provider. They were going to take what they wanted in that time. And then they come and Jesus says, where are you? And they hide themselves in shame. That's not what Jesus does. There Jesus stands, identifying with me and you, identifying with the Father, and he stands there, not ashamed, because he is perfect. And so in one way we have the inauguration of a king, but we also have a declaration of war. Jesus came to destroy the works of Satan. So in his baptism, we see him as the perfect Son of God. We also find him identifying with us as the Son of Man. And he's going to live that out completely without shame, because he is without sin. And it's immediately from this that he will go into the wilderness wondering, and Satan will say, if you are the Son of God, questioning his identity.
[11:27] So this temptation, it isn't about bread, it's about identity. But more specifically, in being about identity, it is about independence. Satan wants the Lord Jesus to act independently of the Father, thus creating this rebellious sonship. Look at the first few words in Jesus' response, his answer.
[11:43] He says, and Jesus answered him and he said, saying, it is written, that man. Even by that point, Satan knows how Jesus is going to respond. So Jesus says, it is written, which is to say, I am going to go to the Word of God. I'm going to identify with my Father. And then he would say, that man, which was to say, I am going to live life in this flesh that I have taken on as a man, and I'm going to overcome all your temptations. Independence looks so attractive to us, to the human race. That's what the testing is. It's not about bread here that is given to him, but it's a temptation to say, do you want to live independent? Do you want to seem self-sufficient?
[12:23] Do you want to act independently of the Father, and where you can make bread and you can do whatever you want because we know that you're able to? Doesn't autonomy and self-independence look so attractive to us today? That's what's sold to us all the time. You know, you can fly to certain countries and you can decide when you're going to die, and you can have assisted death. Why?
[12:44] Because we want to live completely autonomous. Nobody gets to tell us what to do with our lives. Nobody tells us what we're going to do with our death. You know, we're treated as if we're uneducated fools because we believe that God created the earth in six literal days and that we should live our lives in submission to Him because we are seen as less because we say we live dependent upon the God of heaven. Because the world says that you need to live autonomous. You need to live completely free of all those things here. You're allowed to believe in anything you want as long as you don't believe that there is a God in heaven. One of the latest editions of Psychology of the Day, which I'm not a subscriber, as you would probably guess, it says, it turns out that restrictions on our autonomy may lie at the heart of a great deal of our unhappiness. At the heart of our unhappiness is this desire that we need to be completely autonomous. And I want to tell you that the Bible says the complete opposite of that, that happiness is going to be found in a complete dependence upon God. It's looking to Him for my provision. So when temptation comes and I say,
[13:48] I can have that in my own strength. I can have that in my own flesh. And I'm going to say, no, happiness is going to say, I'm going to wait upon the Lord. I might could take stones and I may turn them into bread today, but that's not what God would have for me. And I'm going to live completely dependent upon Him. So the story is not about bread, but it is about this temptation where Satan wants to bring us to a fall by testing us. But Jesus will respond through the Spirit and overcome.
[14:15] This temptation is about bread. It's about identity. Who are you and who gets to determine what is best for you? I say, my heavenly Father gets to decide what's best for me. I get to say that He caused the shots in my life. I get to say that I proudly, unashamedly want to live dependent upon Him for my life. This temptation is about bread. It's not about identity. More specifically, it's about independence.
[14:38] And will you live by every word that is written of God? Or will you live upon the impulses of the moment and always choose bread no matter the consequences? So it's not about bread. It's about a temptation that I'm going to make my own decisions in my life. So today we have the same test, but they are different for us in here. If you're on a keto diet and you haven't had carbs in a while, this might be a great temptation for you, all right? You might be slobbering in your seat.
[15:08] You know, bread doesn't seem like when I hear people say, I'm going on an all-meat diet, I'm like, that sounds great. I would love to eat steak all the time. Well, that's good for a couple days until you see a box of donuts, right? And then you're like, I just want bread, all right? I'm tired of eating steak. We need that in our lives. And so the temptation here for bread may be different for us in life, but we all have it. And Satan wants to confuse us. Satan wants to confuse us in our desires. It's our nature, our fallen nature to blame somebody. Adam blames Eve. Eve blames the serpent.
[15:40] And James warns us and says that we're going to blame God. That when we fall in the temptation, that we're going to blame God. It sounds crazy, doesn't it? But we do it, don't we? We blame God when we fall into it. And what is one of the ways that we blame God when we fall into temptation?
[15:54] We blame Him because of the desires that we have been given from Him. Temptation, it always starts out with a desire. Satan goes to Eve, a craving, and he gets her to bring that along, the envy in her imagination, and then she acts upon it. Genesis 25, 34 tells another story of two brothers.
[16:13] And a brother comes out from hunting all day and hadn't killed anything. And he comes to his brother and his brother says, hey, you see this bowl of soup that I have here? You look at it, it seems good to the touch, right? It seems that it would be good for your stomach. It would fill you. Do you want this bowl of soup? And in that moment, he makes a decision that he will have it. He imagines what it would be like. We must recognize that every man, when he is tempted, he has drawn away with his own lust, and he is enticed. And that's Satan's plan all the time. He wants to put something in front of you.
[16:45] He wants you to envy it. He wants you to imagine how it will solve your problems. And then as you're entertaining it, you begin to forget about the future and all the consequences. This one man said about the serpent, and he puts it so well. I love this. I want to read it to get it correct. It says, for the serpent is a mobile digestive tract that swallows its prey whole. In this sense, the serpent stands for pure appetite. It is just the serpent that's going around and just eating and digesting. It represents the appetite. That's all that a serpent is. Scripture warns us against the way of an appetite, the way of consuming oneself to death. Philippians 3, 19, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is their shame, who mine earthly things. That we have this appetite that is insatiable in this world, and it will only be satisfied when we take what God has for us. But when you don't trust the provision of the Lord, and you go after the things of this world to satisfy you, it's never going to be enough. That home you move into, the first thing you're going to do is get on the internet and look for a bigger one. The job that you have will never do that.
[17:53] None of the things that you have in life will ever satisfy you, because you were not created to be satisfied by this world. But you have a desire, and we go after these things, and we don't trust God. So when the serpent attacked Eve, he did so by appealing to desires that God had created within her. She takes the fruit, and she looks at it, and she sees that it's good. God created her with the desire to look upon beauty and to recognize it, and say, this looks good. She had been given an appetite for food. God created them so that they would eat. He could have done it many different ways.
[18:22] I'm thankful that God gave us a desire to eat and to eat food. You know, sometimes when you're sick, and you just eat food, but it's not enjoyable to you, and you really feel like you're missing out. You ever been like that before? You didn't enjoy food, but you knew you were eating a good meal, and you felt like you were missing out? I'm glad He made us in this way. But she had a desire to be like her Creator. She was made in the image of God.
[18:44] Proverbs 8 we looked at the other day. It said God made this world in His wisdom. She desired to be like her Creator. These were all naturally given desires that she had, but Satan wants her to meet them in the wrong way. And that's the same thing He does to Jesus. He comes, and He suggests something practical. He says, you see those stones there? You could turn those into bread. You have an appetite that's given to you because you are living as you are human here. You have this appetite.
[19:12] He felt hunger just like any of us would have felt those things. He appeals to imagination. What if you were to just turn those into it? And that's Satan's plan all the time. If we're looking at game tape, that's how he does it so many times in our lives that we have this desire.
[19:29] Oftentimes, somebody will say something like, I just want to be real with you, man, here for a second, okay? I just want to be real with you. Anybody ever tell you that? They say, I just want to be real with you. Nobody says that, okay? Well, people want to be real with me. They may say I want to be real with you, but people want to be real with me all the time. And so when people say, man, I just want to be real with you for a moment, what they talk about typically is they talk about how they have fallen into some temptation, how they're doing something that is sinful. People want to test this all the time. They want to tell you how they've fallen into some kind of sin, and they want to see what kind of response that you have. See, Jesus has, He desired bread just like any human would.
[20:02] He lived and He desired whatever we would as humans, but He wasn't given to it. Desiring to eat is human, but eating in excess is gluttony. Desiring to have a relationship with a human, an intimate relationship is by God's design. Having a relationship with somebody outside of marriage is adultery. It means it's human to have desire. It's sinful to act upon those desires in a way that is displeasing to God. And so when we say we're being real, and people like to do that, and they say, man, I'm just going to be real with you, you may be in real, but you're also being real sinful.
[20:37] You may be in real, but you're also somebody who's giving in to the temptation, the God-given desire that you have. You're acting upon a way in which it's not pleasing unto the Lord. And so you're in here today, you don't have to tell me you're being real with me. You don't have any other option. All you can be is real, all right? All we can be is human. You're going to live with desires, God-given desires, and all those times, those desires are going to create times of temptation and testing for you. Where is your bread going to come from? How are you going to satisfy that longing that you have? Are you going to wait upon the Lord and what He has for you? Or are you going to act in the moment to receive it and just take what you want for yourselves? And that's what Satan wants to do. He wants to confuse us here in what we have in this temptation. And so we have different ways that we are tempted, but it all comes down to, will we be trusting in the Lord? One of the ways that he brings confusion is he wants us to forget the final destination of this temptation. We know that it says, when it is finished, it brings forth death. Satan hides the consequences. Command the stone to be made bread. He doesn't say what else would happen, right? He says, in this moment, that stone could be made bread. And Jesus was most certainly able to turn that stone and to make it into bread. He wants us to be short-sighted. He doesn't want us to think about the temptation. One of the reasons that Satan has to love alcohol and has to love the many things in our lives that we would take in that would cause us to be short-sighted and to say, I'm going to live for this moment. I'm not going to think about the consequences of my decision here. Satan wants you to think about the pleasure in the moment and disconnect it from
[22:08] God. When we look at the profile of sin in Romans 1, 28, it says, even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, and a whole pattern of evil begins in this lifestyle when we continue.
[22:19] 132 says, who knowing the judgment of God, the judgment of God that which commits such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Satan wants you to look at sin, but he wants you to have no, he doesn't want you to think about the father. He doesn't want you to think about the consequences. He doesn't want you to think about that fellowship that you get to have with him. He wants you to live in the moment. He wants you to live inside of the impulse and reject God and not think about what's going to happen. Because if he can get you in one of two places where you feel like you're so special that it's okay for you to do this because there's going to be no consequence, or if he can get you to feel so hopeless that you don't have a choice, then you're going to live based upon your impulses and your temptation. One of my favorite pictures of this is the high-speed chase, right? It's the person that's running from the cops, and he thinks he's going to get away with it, though nobody ever gets away with it, right?
[23:11] You're at home eating cereal, and the helicopter's flying over him, and everybody knows where he's at. He's not going to get away from it. But when he's driving, he either has to say, I am special, I'm going to be the one person that seems to get away from it, or it's completely hopeless. But when you're in one of those two places where it's either I'm special, I'll get away with this, or I'm hopeless, it doesn't matter, you're not going to slow down. You're going to continue in your rebellion, and you'll just live for your own comfort. Satan could have said to him, after 40 days, you deserve this. You've suffered long enough. The father fed his grumbling children in Israel. Elijah had food when he needed it. Why doesn't the father take care of you? Why don't you have any food in this? But Jesus didn't just live for comfort. Jesus lived for obedience.
[23:54] We live in a world that programs us to just want to live for our comfort. Every decision we make, we say, what would be the most comfortable thing for me and my family? But the Bible says that we're supposed to take upon a cross, and we live. That the comfortable decision oftentimes is a wrong decision. That when you make a decision in the moment, what is most comfortable? You may be making a decision to deny God's place in your life. And Satan wants to confuse us by hiding that final destination, a temptation, but he also wants to get us to forget who we are. I told you here when he says, are you the son of God? James does it like this. James goes, he says, if you're poor, I want you to rejoice and you're exalted. If you're rich and you're an influencer, I want you to be the rich and that you're made low because of the flower of the grass. Why does James address a rich person and a poor person in this story? Because he's saying, I don't want you to connect your identity to anything outside of the gospel. Because when you connect your identity to the circumstances, then you're not in a place to overcome temptation. If you're rich and you take your power in that, if you find your identity in that, you're set up, you're living in an illusion. If you're poor and you find your identity in that, then you're also set up to live upon your desires. We're not a beast, neither are we a God, but we are the servants of the most high God. So it makes sense that in Proverbs, there'd be a prayer in chapter 30 where it would say, God, two things for my life. Would you make me so rich that, will you not make me so rich that I don't think I need you? And God, would you not make me so poor that I don't think that you're there? It says, God, I don't want to live a life that's not connected to seeing you as my provider. So Satan wants to confuse us by getting us the film that God has given, a God-given desire should be answered somewhere outside of him. He wants to confuse us by hiding the final destination of temptation and only living in the moment. He wants to confuse us in our temptation by us forgetting our identity. And we should respond as Jesus did, which is every word that comes from the Lord. And so we have a parallel of Adam and Eve, but we also have a parallel of the children of Israel. And that's what Deuteronomy chapter number eight happens.
[25:55] It says, and Jesus answered, man shall not live by bread alone. And these are the words that come out of here when they are in the wilderness and they've been led. Deuteronomy 8, 2 and 3, it says, and shall remember all the way which the Lord thy God had led thee to prove thee and to know that thou was in thy heart. Verse three, to humble thee, he suffered thee the hunger. He was telling them, if you get into this place and you eat all these things that are there, you're going to get to a place where you don't remember the provision of the Lord, that you're going to be tested. And when you're tested, you need to look to the Lord. The same story shows up in John chapter number six.
[26:30] And when they're talking about Jesus being the bread of life, and he looks at the disciples and he says, are you guys going to go away as well? And what do they say? Where would we go? You have the words of life. These disciples said that all we want are the words of God in our lives. And so how is Jesus using scripture? He's not using it as some kind of chant or some kind of Hindu prayer. He's not using some magical potion where he just says the words, but he's living according to the will of the father.
[26:56] He's not only saying these words, but he is doing it. He is acting upon it. And every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Satan wants for us to forget that we have a loving father.
[27:07] Exodus 16 verse three, children of Israel did. It says, and the children of Israel said unto them, would the God that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the hand of Egypt, the God that had delivered them, that had been providing for them in the wilderness, wondering, they get to a place and they would say, this God, would he just have us to die? It's better for those people in Egypt.
[27:28] Do they not realize that their corpse are floating in the water, that their life is most certainly not better from the place that they had left? But Satan in the temptation, he gets them to a point where they reimagine that God is not good, that they imagine that the things of this world are greater than the things that God would provide. And that's where he will always start. He says, you don't need to live from the will of the father, but in your own will. And Jesus responds, as we see in Philippians 4, 19, and it's as if he says, my God shall supply all my needs according to his riches and glory. Jesus was physically empty, but full of the spirit.
[28:06] And how often do we experience that in reverse? That we live full all the time, the spiritually empty. I asked Evans, I don't see in him at the end of the day. I was asking, how long have you ever been without a meal? Have you ever won a day? And he said, I don't think I ever have went without a meal. I'm like, you never won a day without a meal? He's like, I don't remember ever missing a meal.
[28:25] Three times a day. He said, I never remember missing a meal. And what a blessing that is. When's the last time you remember missing a meal? We don't miss meals very often, do we?
[28:36] And so Jesus was physically empty, but he was spiritually full. And we live our lives often the other way around so often. We should question our appetites. Matthew 5, 6, blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness. Every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. Jesus had no food in the wilderness, but he was satisfied with the food of doing the Father's will. Jesus is going to die upon the cross. I want to read to you here in closing a few things that were said about how he would die upon the cross. Deuteronomy chapter number 21, verse number 18. It says, if a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and that when they had chastened him, will not hearken unto him, then shall his father and mother lay hold on him and bring him out unto the elders of the city and unto the gate of the palace. And they shall say unto the elders of the city, this is our son, he's stubborn and rebellious and will not obey our voice. He is glutton and a drunkard. And all the men of the city shall stone him with stones, and he die. So shalt thou put evil from among you. And all Israel shall hear and fear. And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, he be put to death, and thou shalt hang him on a tree. Jesus Christ dies upon a tree.
[29:50] He dies as a rebellious son. He is accused of being a glutton and a drunkard in the New Testament. How does the perfect son of God, who after 40 days of fasting, doesn't turn stones into bread and to eat, how does he get accused of being a glutton and a drunkard and hang upon the street as a rebellious son outside of the city? And the answer is, I'm the rebellious son. I have eaten bread that did not belong to me. I have drank when it did not belong to me. That I had the father's provision that I trusted in my own self. And I was a sinner who desired, who deserved to die as a rebellious son.
[30:28] But Jesus didn't. He was not a glutton. He was not a drunkard. He only ate when the father said eat. He only ate what was provided. He only did the father's will. But he took my life and he took your life. And he went out to a cross and he died as that rebellious son that he talks in Deuteronomy about. Jesus said, my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. And so the day we chase after bread instead of trusting after the Lord, can you say that it is your will, is it, it's your desire, it's your appetite more than anything else. This temptation isn't about bread, it's about identity, more specifically about independence. Satan wants to confuse us by hiding the final destination of temptation and causing us to forget who we are. But we should remember everywhere that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord, doth man live. We live by fathering the father and trusting him. So the day you choose the promise of the father's provision, or you have to choose the bread of this world. I love what it says in the account of Matthew chapter number four.
[31:31] It doesn't say it here in Luke, but in Matthew four, it says, then the devil leaveth him and behold, angels came and ministered unto him. I don't know exactly what happened, but you know what I imagine helping brother Jeff? The angels brought bread. They probably brought Cinnabon is what I'm thinking.
[31:47] All right, whatever he needed. And Jesus needed bread that day because it wasn't about bread. It wasn't about Jesus not having bread when he needed bread because he had a desire for bread that was so true of all humans. It's about who was going to meet that desire. And he says, I'm going to wait upon the Lord.
[32:02] The temptation is so strong in your life right now because you don't think that if you don't meet that, if you don't take it, you're not going to get it. If you don't give into that temptation for comfort, you'll never be comforted. If you don't give in that temptation for acceptance and belonging, you'll never have it. Can I tell you that the God of heaven will meet your needs and he will provide.
[32:22] And if you would trust him, you can overcome temptation as we saw Jesus Christ do in our lives. The first temptation, it wasn't about bread, but it's about provision from the father.
[32:35] I want to ask you today, where are you at today? Maybe you're hungry. It's been 40 days and you're about to give into that temptation. Can I tell you, wait upon the Lord because he's going to minister to you. And what God provides is so much greater than the things that this world will give you. Let's pray.
[32:50] With every head bowed and every eye closed, I want to speak to you here for a moment. I want to speak first of all to those in here that do not know Jesus Christ as your savior. You are the one that has eaten of the bread of this world. You are the one that has rejected the ways of God and you deserve to die as a rebellious son outside of the city upon a cross. But he offers you an exchange in your life, his life for your life. And that can happen today. Today, you can put your faith and trust in Jesus. The one that lived the perfect life will take your life and exchange it. If that's a decision you would like to make in here today, would you raise your hand so I can know that?
[33:31] I'd love to talk to you out in the foyer afterwards. But if you're in here today, would you make that decision in here? And would you say that I, is that your story of the day? By your testimony in here, we're in full of brothers and sisters.
[33:43] And we face this temptation so many different ways. My story is different than your story, but our God is always the same. Will you decide that you're going to trust in the provision of the Lord? Will you find a place and you would say, God, I have not seen you as I should, and I'm going to wait upon you. I'm not going to find my provision in anything outside of you.
[34:05] Heavenly Father, we come to hear the day, Lord, as hungry and as needy people, as people that need something, Lord, and we come to you. We hunger righteousness. We hunger to do your will. Father, I pray for my brothers and sisters in this room that have met their needs in ways that do not, are not worthy of you, Lord, that do not respect how good you are as a provider.
[34:30] And what I pray that right now, during this time of invitation, that all of us will come to you to recognize your goodness and how you're the perfect provider and will not look in any other place for your provision.