This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. Let's open our Bibles back to the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 4. Luke, Chapter 4, we'll be reading from 1 to 13. One more time. This is the reading of God's Word. And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, if you are the son of God, command this stone to become bread. And Jesus answered him, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone. And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said to him, to you I will give all this authority and their glory for it has been delivered to me and I give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours. And Jesus answered him, it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you. And on their hands, they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against the stone. And Jesus answered him, it is said, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. It's the reading of God's word. Let's open in prayer. Father, help us now. Help us to see how you would have us fight our temptations to sin. Truly, we need your help and we need it every single day, every single hour. We pray now that you would give us sharp minds and open hearts. May there be no distraction and no encumbrance that keeps us from what you want us to have in your word. We pray for the mighty help of the Holy Spirit. We ask this in Jesus's name, amen. So I called this sermon, The Everyday War Against Temptation. The Everyday War Against Temptation. Jesus, in this passage, flawlessly accomplished something that we fail at every single day. Every day we are tempted, and every single day we give in to our temptations. And with a track record like that, we struggle to believe things like 1 Corinthians 10, 13, that no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. And God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. Our track record doesn't gel that well with that truth. The Bible says we can escape temptation, but it doesn't always feel that way. It doesn't. Sometimes, and this is a lie that we believe, but sometimes it just feels like sin is inevitable. Let's just get it over with. But that's not true. We learned in this morning sermon about all that this passage meant, and it means so much more than just our daily walk, doesn't it? Jesus, the temptation in the wilderness, it means so much more than just how it relates to us. But that doesn't mean we're not going to look at it and see, well, what can I learn from this? Every day I'm in this battle, how can I learn from Jesus who perfectly conquered this battle? How can I learn from how my Savior battled temptation? I tell you, there's few things that are more practical than a sermon on how you're going to face temptation. You're facing it now. You're especially going to face it when you leave here. You're going to face it tomorrow. You're going to face it for the week. How are we going to battle temptation? What can we learn from this passage? Now, let's start. Let's start by laying a foundation. What makes victory over temptation even possible? What makes it possible? Well, victory is only possible if, this is a big if, if it stands on Christ's victory. Do you hear that? Our victory is only possible if it stands on Christ's victory. You remember, I mean, what we know about who we were before Christ. Before Christ, we were dead in our sins and transgressions. Before Christ, we were slaves of unrighteousness. There was no hope for victory before Christ. Any victory, any single true victory in the Christian life is entirely dependent on what Christ has done. Now, what that looks like in your daily Christian life is that your battles against temptation are going to succeed or fail as a direct result of your dependence upon Christ and His work on your behalf. You follow that? Day-to-day living, you will fail or succeed depending on to what extent you are depending on Christ and what He has done for you. Again, does it get more practical? It doesn't get any more practical than this. Now, what about people who seem to defeat their sins without depending on Christ? What about those folks, right? They seem to have gotten better. How does that relate to what we're saying here? I'm going to say this without apology. It's not a victory. Any victory or so-called victory that is not dependent upon Christ and his work is not a victory. It is an illusion. See, if this is you, and if you find, hey, I've really kicked some bad habits in my life, I've really moved some vices out of my life, you haven't actually defeated sin. You've just moved it to another part of your life. That is what happens when we fight without Christ. See, real examples. When we seemingly defeat something and then we grow proud about it, we haven't won. When we seem to make great strides in godliness, but are actually more distant from God because of those great strides, where's the victory in that? When you go and you start to covet instead of steal, when you grow to start lusting so that you're no longer unfaithful, there is no victory there. There is no victory in that kind of victory. true victory over sin and temptation, it must glorify God. And we can't glorify God if we're ignoring what Jesus did. Again, does that make sense? We cannot glorify God if the whole time we're waging that war against our sin, we're doing it while neglecting the chief thing that God has done in Jesus Christ for us. Right? It's just not possible. The Christian fight against sin It begins with Christ, it ends with Christ. And that's the way it has to be. In Christ alone, there is hope. In Christ alone, God is pleased. So we learned from Jesus's temptation, what was his weapon of choice? There you go, God's word, right? The weapon of choice, God's word. Every temptation of Satan met its defeat by the Word of God. Jesus wielded that living and active sword like a master. We talk about that the Word of God is sufficient. Man, did Jesus prove it was sufficient. When he took down the champion of the kingdom of darkness with the Word of God, yeah, you can bet we can believe that the Word of God is sufficient now. It was sufficient for the greatest battle of all of redemptive history. You better believe it's sufficient for your daily struggles. It is, brothers and sisters, it is. If we really mean it, when we say that we want to grow in godliness, if you really sincerely mean it, that you want to kill your pet sins, and we have to use the weapon that has been proven to work. Simple ideas, but living them out, we're not always so consistent, are we? We have to use the weapon that's been proven to work. Now, big problem comes up when you find how many of us don't know how to use the weapon that God provides. We have no idea what a sword even looks like, right? Much less could we wield it in the battle. We own Bibles, maybe you bring them to church, but we wield them like amateurs. We're amateur swordsmen in a battle that's not for amateurs, against an enemy that is not an amateur. We go around like amateurs, swinging them here and there. We find we end up hurting ourselves. hurting others, just like you would expect. If someone picked up a sword for the first time and just starts swinging like crazy, what's going to happen? Are they going to turn the tide of the battle? No, they're probably just going to hurt someone they shouldn't have. Sometimes we just never wield the sword. Our Bibles sit unused, like rusting swords in the closet. And then the battle comes. And then the battle comes and it is no surprise what happens. We are not ready. We did not defend our brother and sister. It's no surprise that when amateur swordsmen get into the battle, not a whole lot of good happens. I think I've used this illustration with you before, but it seems like the right illustration. When do soldiers learn how to use their weapons? Is it before they're deployed or is it after? It's before, right? That's like an obvious answer. You train a soldier with their weapon before they go because an untrained soldier is really no good at all and actually worse than no good at all. They're really just going to hurt their side by being the untrained soldier in the mix. We're in a similar situation. Brothers and sisters, what good will we be if we don't know how to use the word of God? The answer is no good. The answer is we may in fact hurt ourselves and hurt others by how little we know how to use the word of God. What good are we when our brother or our sister comes up to us with some problem and we have no idea how to help them? So in our ignorance, what do we say? Do we say nothing? Do we say, no, I'm not really qualified. You should talk to someone who knows their Bible. No, probably what we do is we just give them worldly wisdom instead of God's word. What good are we to our brothers and sisters in that situation? What good are we to ourselves when our dark hours come upon us? And we have no conviction, we have no encouragement from the Word because we have no idea how the Word even relates to what we are going through. We're no good to ourselves at all. Every single day, we are in these battles. And there is only one way to glorify God in these situations. And that is to make use of the mighty word of God. See, we're Christians and we're Christians with a lot of us with some good church history behind us. And so we know, we know that somehow the word speaks to us. Somehow it relates to our situation. The problem is we don't always know how. You want to connect the dots. It's not like you're trying to be some rebel. God, I don't want your wisdom. But the problem is we have no idea how God's word connects to what I'm experiencing tonight, tomorrow, across the week. The solution is that, you've heard this before, we need to be students of the word. And don't be students like those days back in school when you really didn't care and all you had to do was cram for the answers so that you could regurgitate them and then go and forget them an hour later. Be students like you're learning survival skills and you're about to be sent out into the wilderness. Be students knowing that your life is on the line and the life of those you love and care for is on the line. Get good at using the weapon that Jesus himself depended on. And so let's look at those temptations. Let's look at those temptations that Jesus went through and see if we can't glean some further wisdom. Verse three was the one where Satan tempts Jesus to turn stones into bread. He took Jesus's need, and it was a need, remember, he took his need to eat and he pitted it against remaining faithful to God the Father. Jesus's hunger, it was real. It was objective. Jesus truly needed to eat. You know, in that way, the temptation might not have felt very significant. It might've made actually a whole lot of sense. You know, we talk about not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, sort of like, don't get rid of a good idea just because it comes from a bad source. You could see justifying this. Jesus is really hungry. Jesus needs to eat soon. Jesus can create food, solve the whole problem. There's actually a completely sensible set of logic going on here in this temptation. Moreover, creating food might actually help him to wage the battle that he's there to wage, right? I'm facing this fierce foe. Wouldn't I do a better job if I wasn't fainting because I'm so hungry, right? You could see how he would justify it. Couldn't you imagine you in the situation thinking, well, I guess that's not a bad idea. Let me stop and have a bite real quick, and then we'll get back to our fight. I could see going right down this temptation, the path of this temptation. But Jesus knew, Jesus knew that the so-called solution would come at the cost of abusing his power, obeying the devil, and dishonoring his father. And when Jesus had to choose, between his physical needs and his spiritual needs, Jesus chose the spiritual. Remember, we paused on that in the morning. In the face of the most essential kind of need possible, food for a weak and hungry man, and obeying and honoring his father, Jesus chose obeying and honoring his father. That is a principle that will reshape our lives, I'm sure of it. One of the biggest reasons that we don't live as we know we ought to live is that we have convinced ourselves that daily needs somehow prevent us from obeying God. Our daily needs somehow prevent us from living out our duties to God. So, I mean, we say things like, I can't go to church. I'm busy on Sundays. We say things like, I can't stay at church. I've got errands to run. I can't serve my brother or my sister because I have my own life I need to take care of. I can't spend time in the word and prayer because my life is too busy. I can't do what the word says because that's just not practical. I can't obey God because the consequences in my daily life would just be too severe. Excuses, excuses, excuses. Somehow we think that life prevents us from obeying God. You know, you could tackle various spiritual issues there with those kinds of answers. All kinds of different issues might come up. Accommodating the world, a lack of godly priorities and understanding, just outright disobedience. But one fundamental problem runs through all these things, and it is a lack of faith. It is a lack of trust in who God is. Let me flesh that out. I mean, it's saying, I don't trust God to provide for my needs. If I don't do this, no one is going to do this. God's not gonna put the food on my table. I need to do this or else this need will be unmet and I will be neglected. Does that reasoning speak to any of your hearts? But what's the word say? The word says that God knows what we need. He knows our needs better than we do. Jesus taught. that since God knows our needs and since God cares for his children, then we can be freed up to just focus on seeking his righteousness and his kingdom. Because we can trust God, we can choose his calling over even our most basic needs. That was the example that Jesus modeled for us. We find in those low moments of faith as well that we don't believe God when He tells us that what we need most of all is Him. You're like, that's a really nice sentiment, but I don't buy it. At least my actions say that, if never my words. Remember, Jesus is essentially choosing starvation in order to remain faithful to God. This is as real as it gets. There is no better picture of placing our needs in their right order. Jesus shows that even our most vital physical need is actually less important than our spiritual needs. And I know you, you have hearts like mine. That's why I know part of you is like, amen. Yeah, I don't buy that. I don't know. You're going too far there. What Jesus reminded us of in that temptation is that we don't need bread nearly as much as we need the words of God. Like I said, a principle that will transform our lives if we believe it. When we are tempted to elevate our needs over obedience to God, We need to know, and we need to believe, and we need to be convinced of this, that there is no need higher than obedience to God. Do you believe that? There is no need higher than obedience to God. When we're tempted to choose the world's idea of life, remember that the one who possesses the words of life is better. And that's what you need. You look at verse seven. Satan also tempted Jesus to just rank idolatry. That's what it was. He proposed that Jesus bow down to Satan. And if we remember, Jesus's response, it wasn't like fancy. It was just a core truth that God alone is to be worshiped and served. Remember, God alone is God. It's a simple statement, but your everyday life, your practical everyday battles with temptation are driven by how much you understand and believe that God alone is to be worshiped and served. Idolatry really is the fundamental sin. Whenever we sin, at some point we have dethroned God. At some point we've done it, in part or in whole, but we've done it. When we are sinning, God has ceased to be as holy as he really is, at least to us. When we sin, God has ceased to be as powerful as he really is. When we sin, God has ceased to be as beautiful as he really is. When we sin, God has ceased to be as precious as he really is. See, I know you. Again, I'm talking to the choir. I'm talking to those who have a lot of this background in place. You know that there are idols out there. You know that there are idols that creep into our hearts and that derail us from following God. But I want to ask you something really pointedly. Have you taken the time to search out your idols? Have you taken the time and done the hard work and the prayer and the consultation with brothers and sisters if you need it, to really put your finger on what are your idols. You see, knowing just generically that you have idols, that's actually not really an accomplishment at all. It's like the fire department knowing that there is a fire somewhere, they just don't know where it is. What good is that going to do them? What good is that going to do anyone? You, every single one of you, you need to identify your idols before you're going to get very far at all at dethroning them. What are your idols? You're not thinking about your brother or sister right now. What are your idols? A brother in my old church, he's a elder there and he's a biblical counselor, and I was reading something he wrote and he just gave such a helpful definition, I just figured I'd quote him. His name's Tom Maxim. I got it through IBCD, what we've been doing in Sunday school. The idols of our heart are the motivations behind sinful behavior. The idols of our heart are the motivations behind our sinful behavior. They are what we love, trust, serve, depend on, delight in, or fear more than God. One more time. The idols of our heart are the motivations behind sinful behavior. They are what we love, trust, serve, depend on, delight in, or fear more than God. Now there's some stuff to unpack there, isn't there? Put that microscope on your heart. Take a look at yourself. Think about this. What do you love more than God? What do you trust more than God? What do you serve more than God? What do you depend on more than God? What do you delight in more than God? What do you fear more than God? I hope there are some ideas in your head. I hope some things just jumped right out at you. Write that down or just make a point to really remember it. These idols need to be in our crosshairs. What do you put in the place of God? Now, practically, just give you some examples. This is how you unpack this, right? You take your specific sins, and you don't get obsessed with just the specific sin, it's still sin, still needs to be repented of, still needs to be, you still need to transform in that regard, but trace that sin back. Why? That's a very important question. Not just what sin did you commit, why? Why did you commit that sin? So some examples, selfishness. Why is someone selfish? Well, the selfish person, they're self-consumed. Their needs are preeminent, their desires are most important. If they're faced with the choice between their desires and the desires of others, you know they're gonna choose their own. They're gonna choose satisfying their own desires. But selfishness only shows itself, you know, in our attitudes and in our actions, it only shows itself because we have taken God's spot on the throne. We, you, me, we have taken God's spot on the throne in our heart, in our life. That's the only way you can get there. See, God says that his glory is preeminent. He says that we should treat other people's needs as more important than our own. The selfish person doesn't heed what God says. The selfish person only wants what he or she wants. And only someone who has made themselves into a false God would dare act so contrary to God's will. In the case of selfishness, You are the false idol. Take worry. Worry is something a lot of us struggle with. Why do we worry? You know, the worrier fears a thousand different possibilities. And the worrier finds that they are happiest when every detail is under their control. That is when a worrier is as close to happy as they get. Well, the worrier worships control. You go back to those questions, what do they depend on more than God? They depend on controlling everything more than God. What does God say? God says he is in control. He says that he cares perfectly for every detail of his creation down to the hairs on our head. He says he knows what we need. He says he will take care of us in the best possible way. The worrier responds, that's not good enough. The worrier responds, that is not good enough. The worrier doesn't want promises and the worrier doesn't want sovereign love. The worrier wants safeguards and non-existent risk. And the worrier is never going to find peace on the road they are traveling. Maybe this speaks to you. The circumstances will always be outside your control. And maybe ironically, but maybe totally fit, the control you exercise is going to be oppressive to the ones you care most about. The only peace that you can find is to dethrone the idol of control from your heart and start trusting the one who is good, who does good, and is truly in control. See, those are only a couple idols. I bet you it would take us weeks and weeks to talk about the idols just represented in this room, but I'm hoping that you're beginning to see something of a pattern. When you are looking for your idols, I'm hoping to sort of teach the folks the fish kind of thing, because this is the work we got to do. When you are looking for your idols, look at your sin, and ask yourself why you are sinning that way. Lock yourself in a room if you have to, with the phone outside the door, and wrestle with that question of why. Why are you sinning in that way? You ask yourself questions like, is God calling the shots still? Or is something else? Do you have an accurate understanding of who God is? Or are you just, are you serving some distorted idol that just happens to look a lot like God? What lie have you believed and now begun to live out? Where have you stopped believing what God says? Where have you started elevating people's opinions so that they are higher than God's will? Ask yourself these fundamental questions because this sin is a failure of fundamentals. When Jesus faced this temptation, he cut right through Satan's eyes and he got to the heart of the matter. Our lives, Our hearts, our actions, our thoughts must be ruled by God alone. And you're going to find it's easier said than done. Now, as I talk about this, I just knowingly have just scraped the tip of the iceberg. There's so much we could do a year long series I have no doubt on talking about temptation and talking about idolatry and all these things, but we don't have time for that now. But this is the nutshell that you take with you as you go into battle. Because again, you are in this battle now and you're certainly going to step into the thick of it as you leave the church. There is no such thing as victory that is not dependent on Christ and his gospel. Believe that. There is no such thing as a victory that is not dependent on Christ and his gospel. And so if that's the case, what do we do? We cling, we cling to Christ and we strive to connect his gospel to every single corner of our souls. And there is no such thing as victory without the weapon God provides. And that's the word of God. So what do we do in response? We cling to the word of God. This is just an everyday kind of assignment that's incumbent upon us. Look for how the word relates to your life. Not because you're the center of the world, not because the Bible's about you, but make sure you are truly receiving the word and letting it apply itself to your life. Look for how the word of God applies to your life. Pursue a living and active relationship with God's living and active word. Like I said, there is No topic more practical than what you're going to do in this battle. Every day you fight this battle against temptation. Even now you fight. So fight the battle with the weapon God supplied and fight the battle in the wake of the one who fought and won on your behalf. Let's pray. Father, we confess that we are amateurs with your Word. And we're amateurs in part because we don't believe you sometimes. We don't believe your Word is as useful as you say it is. We don't believe it's as necessary. Oh, Father, help our unbelief. Help us to trust you. Help us to stand in the work of Jesus Christ and the victory of Jesus Christ. Help us to depend on the word like we saw Jesus depended on the word. And we pray by the power of your Holy Spirit that we would see the victories when the temptations come calling. Even today, may we see the fruit of having trusted you And as a result, having not succumbed to the temptations we all face. Father, we ask this for your glory and we ask it for our good. We ask it in the name of our precious Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.