"The Crown Through the Cross" Matthew 4:8-11 Sunday Morning Worship Service

You can open your Bibles to Matthew chapter four.

That's the text we'll be in this morning for our third series through the temptations of Christ.

It was around 2,000 years ago, and what I would like to imagine was a clear day where Jesus went for a walk with two of his favorite people, John and James.

And as they were walking together, as I'm sure they did on many occasions, John and James took an opportunity of Peter's absence.

We know Peter wasn't there because otherwise John and James would not have been permitted to speak.

They seized the opportunity and asked Jesus a question.

Jesus, they asked.

Now, if you are a parent, you know the danger of answering a question like that.

The dad who pulls into the driveway and is greeted by a child who says, Dad, promise me you won't get upset.

Or the child who says, Dad, promise me you'll say yes to this question.

Well, that depends a lot, namely on what's the question?

What is it exactly that you want?

Jesus is wise.

Amen?

This is not his first rodeo.

So when James and John ask him that question, he responds, not with a yes or with a no, but interestingly, he responds with, What is it exactly that you want?

Now, with that question, this walk, this conversation got serious real fast.

It changed from being one of many conversations I'm sure Jesus had with his disciples to becoming one of the most important conversations in the Bible.

Do you understand the scene has radically altered?

Now it is Jesus, the sovereign and omnipotent God of the universe, walking with two of his disciples, and he asks, this sovereign God asks two mere mortals, tell me it is what you want most in the world.

They have an opportunity now to speak to Jesus and answer that question.

What is it that they want most in the world?

And let me put that question to you.

If God were to give you the opportunity, if he were to ask you that same question, if he were to ask you, what is it?

You want one request granted?

What is your one request?

What do you want from the Lord more than anything else in the world?

That's the nature of this conversation right here.

Do you see how it got serious real fast?

This is not a typical conversation.

What is it that you want more than anything else?

If you've been a Christian for any number of years, perhaps you have even prayed that.

Perhaps in your prayers you have even addressed God and told the Lord, Lord, there's only one thing I want from you right now.

There's only one thing I need.

Or even grant me this, and I won't ask for anything else.

What is the one thing you would ask for from the Lord?

If you have a sick child, a child the doctors have said there's not hope for, maybe that's what you would pray.

You'd pray, Lord, just grant me the life of my child.

That's all I want.

I'm not gonna ask for anything else, just that.

If you're in a difficult marriage, a troubled marriage, maybe you would pray along those lines.

Lord, just grant me a husband that loves me.

Lord, just grant me a wife that respects me.

That's all I want.

If you're in a difficult job, maybe you pray for a different job for promotion.

If you're having a hard time making ends meet, maybe you pray for a raise, more money.

Oftentimes, our one thing that we want is a response to one need that we think overshadows or eclipses everything else in our life.

And in a sense, it's not really fair to judge that kind of answer, is it?

I mean, we're people, and if somebody were to ask you, what's the one thing you want?

It's our answer would be about the one thing we want.

Maybe you think more critically for a second.

You recognize, okay, it is Jesus who's asking this after all.

Maybe I need a more spiritual answer than a better job or a better life or a better wife.

What's the more spiritual answer?

Lord, I just pray that you would use me to further your glory.

I just pray that you would use me in evangelism this week.

That's all I want, Lord, to be used by you in the world.

That's the one thing I want to be used by you to further advance your glory in the world.

Doesn't that sound more spiritual than solving your greatest problem?

I'll walk you through the thought process behind this conversation because often we are dismissive of what James and his brother said.

Remember what James and John asked for?

They said the one thing they wanted was to be seated with the Lord at his right and at his left when he came into his glory.

And we read that and we respond like Peter would have responded.

Oh, that's so selfish.

Don't those two guys know that that seat is already taken?

How dare they! But the truth is, while it might have a selfish veneer, underneath it, it is a pretty robust declaration of faith, isn't it?

After all, Jesus has been in the ministry for a couple of years now.

This conversation takes place in the way to Jerusalem in the last really month of his life.

He's been met by opposition on all sides.

He's been hounded, he's been rejected, he's been persecuted.

It's not going to get better for him.

He has already, before this march down to Jerusalem, told the disciples that he's going there to die.

That's unambiguous.

He said it over and over and over again.

He's going to Jerusalem where he will die.

And so for James and John to declare that what they want is to be with him in his glory is actually a confession of faith.

They're granting that he has glory and that he's entering into it.

It would remind you maybe of the thief on the cross who prays to the Lord directly to his face and wants rescue and announces that Jesus is suffering unjustly, and Jesus tells him, Today you will be with me in paradise.

And so it's a granting that there is paradise.

There is glory, and Jesus is going there.

That's all good.

It wasn't for the life of a child or help at home.

It was a request about the glory of God.

We'll pull it off the shelf at the end of our time together this morning.

We won't leave James and John on their walk.

We'll come find them again.

Turn your attention down to Matthew chapter 4.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

This is the third of the temptations.

We've been going over these the past few weeks.

To recap, I'll put the same slide we've used the last two weeks on the screen here for the third time.

To recap, each of these temptations is approaching Jesus in a different manner from the devil, appealing to the lust of the flesh or the pride of life or the lust of the eyes.

Each temptation is testing Jesus at a different point.

These aren't haphazard, they're not arbitrary, but the devil has specific in his mind of vulnerabilities that he is exploring, that he is trying to exploit.

The first of the questions was tempting Jesus, where Israel was tempted.

Jesus has just been declared to be the Son of God.

That much is evidence.

The voice of God came at the waters of baptism from heaven and said, Behold, this is my son with whom I am well pleased.

The Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus as a dove.

Everybody heard the voice, everybody saw the Holy Spirit.

There's a triune testimony.

The Father and the Spirit are both authenticating that this is the very Son of God.

You see all three persons of the Trinity in the same place at the same time doing the same thing.

They're all pointing to Jesus and his mission to fulfill all righteousness.

From the waters, the Holy Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by the devil.

We looked at this two weeks ago, what it means that God would drive someone to be tested.

In a sense, this was unique to Jesus.

In another sense, he was being tested exactly like Israel was tempted.

Israel was in the wilderness.

They did not have food.

They were separated from the nations, put out in the wilderness in a high place where they were forced to rely upon the Lord.

Israel did not rely upon the Lord.

They grumbled, they grumbled about the manna, they grumbled about the quail, and so they were not allowed into the promised land.

All of them died out there.

Moses outlived that generation, but he went up onto the mountain and overlooked the promised land and then was told he couldn't go in.

Only Joshua and Caleb lived through the whole thing.

They failed their test.

And so the devil approaches Jesus after he had fasted for 40 days and asks Jesus to turn stones into bread.

This was the test.

Will Jesus fall where Israel fell?

Jesus is tempted where Israel was tempted.

Israel caved and grumbled against God.

Jesus did not grumble against God, but said it's better to live on the Word of God than on bread.

Jesus passed the test.

This establishes that Jesus is the true Israel.

Israel member was sent into the world to keep a people that is distinct for the arrival of the Savior.

They were given a law.

This establishes that Jesus will fulfill the law.

He is the prophet like Moses that Moses pointed to.

He fulfills the law.

He fulfills the prophets.

He brings this era of history to a close in one person.

He is the son of whom it was said, out of Egypt I call my son, that had originally been spoken of Israel, who was called out of Egypt, but now it is fulfilled in Matthew chapter 2 by Christ and verified by Jesus resisting the devil's temptation to sin where Israel sinned.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

So he is indeed the true Israel.

The second temptation, the devil brought him up onto the wing of the temple, the outer wall of the temple that overlooked the valley there, and asked him to throw himself off of the wall of the temple so that the angels would catch him.

You understand that angels are created by God.

They are designed to serve both God and man.

They would summon, of course, immediately to the Son of God if he were in any kind of danger.

And so in the second temptation, Jesus is tempted like Adam was tempted.

Only Adam is tempted in paradise with the belly full, with his wife at his side.

Jesus is tempted out of the wilderness to the temple with his belly empty and in isolation by himself.

Adam gives in to the devil and questions God's words, and Jesus refuses to do that.

Jesus does not fall back on his deity.

We talked about this last week.

He doesn't choose to operate out of his deity to summon the angels and be worshipped and served, but rather he insists on withstanding the devil as a man, resisting him in his humanity, and saying he will not test God.

He will not elevate himself to the level of God and presume upon what God's word says.

Instead, he becomes a servant of God's word.

He places himself under God's word.

He quotes a passage and says, You shall not put the Lord to the test.

He doesn't say, I am the Lord, I made angels, and they will serve me.

No, he says, I'm going to put myself under the word and keep the word perfectly.

In resisting that temptation, he establishes himself as the second Adam.

He is the true and better Adam.

The first Adam brings sin into the world.

The second Adam brings life into the world.

The first Adam, if you're under his authority, you are dead in your sins and trespasses, and you will die.

People want to live forever, and people want to sin.

That's what it means to be under Adam.

You don't want to die.

You want the tree of life.

But you also want the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

You also want to sin.

And when you sin, it produces death.

This is why the scripture in Hebrews 2 says that people are held in slavery to the devil, by the way.

We're enslaved to the devil through the fear of death.

We want to live forever.

We want sin.

We don't recognize that those are conflicting desires, mutually exclusive.

Listen, if you don't want to die, stop sinning.

We don't grant that.

We try to embrace both.

But Jesus comes and he breaks the curse of Adam.

He breaks the power of sin and death by resisting the devil and demonstrating that he is the true and better Adam.

And so now if you're under Jesus, you have life and not death.

Well, the devil does not retreat at this third point.

He doesn't say, oh, he didn't go for the Adam one.

Okay, I'm out.

The devil regroups.

It's been said in nature that a dying animal is the one that lashes out the most severely, the most fiercely.

And so it is here.

This is the devil's last attempt here in this narrative to tempt the Lord, and he saves his most serious and most extreme temptation for last.

Again, verse 8 says, the word again stressing, it's the third in the series here.

The devil took him to a very high mountain.

Notice the trajectory in these temptations.

They started in the Judean wilderness.

Then they went up to Jerusalem, up to the outer wall of the temple, which would be the high point.

If you crest the mountain in Jerusalem, you can see that wall there.

When the temple was built, it's likely you could have even seen this from the Judean wilderness.

He's going up.

And then from that extreme, he goes up even more, up to a high mountain.

So notice the devil is bringing him up, up, up.

But if the devil brings you up, you must know it is only to cast you down.

From the top of the high mountain, the devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

This language is evocative of Deuteronomy.

Both the front and the end of Deuteronomy begin with Moses being begin and end with Moses being brought up unto a high mountain where he can see the nations.

This is where the Israelites' wanderings begin.

Well, the Israelites were in the wilderness.

Moses went up onto Mount Nebah, where he could oversee the Jebusites and the Hittites and the Amalekites and the other nations that were there.

He could see them.

And then at the end of Deuteronomy, Moses is told, You can see him, but you don't get to go in.

And so the devil here brings Jesus to a place that would remind the readers of exactly where Moses went before he died, exactly where Israel went before they fell.

I don't know if it's a literal mountain, or he's just looking at the same mountain where Moses was on, perhaps, and he's looking just over the nations of the Middle East that all those nations, you know, converge right there.

Or maybe it's a, you know, Mount Hebron up in northern Israel where you can see into Europe and into Asia and into Egypt, and so you can see the three continents from there.

Maybe that's what it's a reference to, or maybe it's uh some kind of vision where the devil takes Jesus to a supernatural place where he can see every nation of the world.

That's where I would lean because it says he can see all the kingdoms of the world.

There's not a physical place where that could happen.

And so maybe this is just some kind of vision, but it's up.

And from the vantage point, Jesus sees them all.

And he sees them all in their glory, their languages, their power, their wealth, the arts, the culture, everything that is good about mankind and about the human civilization, all the things people glory in, Jesus can behold them all in an instant.

This is the richest of the devil's temptations.

The first one was food.

The second one was arrogance, you know, hopscotch with angels.

But the third one, the third one's everything.

Everything in the world.

The devil, Jesus says in Luke 10, was at a high place.

And he fell like lightning.

The devil saw the created world.

He saw that it was good.

The devil wanted dominion over the earth.

He wanted to be the God of this world.

He wanted to be over mankind, over Adam and all of the nations that would come from him.

That's what the devil wanted.

So, what the devil is doing here is bringing Jesus to where the devil was when the devil fell himself.

That's why I said this is the most severe temptation, and it was held for last.

It's an interesting question, though.

What is the temptation?

Is the devil writing a check on a bank account that doesn't exist?

You know what I mean by that question?

Are the nations the devils to give?

If you're a realtor and you're negotiating with the devil and he offers this much for the house, you might want to see some kind of proof of funds first before closing that deal.

If I was pulled over for speeding, I know a radically unrealistic scenario.

I should take a more realistic example, but I'm committed now.

I'm pulled over for speeding and the officer walks up to the window and says, I'm gonna write you a ticket.

And I would say, okay.

I'm gonna try to tempt you.

I'm gonna bribe you to get out of this.

I'll make you a deal, officer.

If you let me off with a warning, then you can drive away in your own police car.

It's not really a persuasive temptation, isn't it?

I mean, at the most, it comes across as some kind of veiled threat, so don't try that.

But probably it would come across like you're not mentally stable.

No matter how the situation ends, whether you get a ticket or a warning, the officer's driving away in his own car.

So when the devil says, if you worship me, I'll give you all of these nations, what's he doing?

The Bible is pretty clear to whom the nations belong.

I'll give you, I mean, they can pick a dozen verses, but here's just some from Psalms.

Psalm 46, and I just give you snippets, but I'll read more of the passage.

Psalm 46 says, The nations rage and the kingdoms totter.

Yahweh utters his voice, and the earth.

Do you remember what the earth does?

It melts.

The earth melts.

Yahweh will be exalted among the nations.

So the verse on the screen from Psalm 46 happens after God melts the earth with his voice as the nations are raging, because the nations all belong to him, and they know it.

Psalm 47, the next Psalm, says, God rules the nations, they are subdued under his feet.

Psalm 82, arise, O God, and judge the earth, because you will inherit all the nations.

Psalm 96, say among the nations, Yahweh is God, declare among the nations, Yahweh reigns.

I could go on and on with verses like this.

The nations belong to Yahweh is the point.

In these four verses on your screen, notice they're all generic declarations.

The nations, just generically, all belong to God and his triunity.

All the generic nations belong to just God.

However, there are a couple specific promises about how God is going to exercise his dominion over the nations.

And he does so through his son, Psalm 2.

If you remember how Psalm 2 begins, Psalm 2 is a conversation between Trinitarian persons, the Father and the Son talking to each other, revealed by the Holy Spirit.

So the Father and Son are talking.

The Holy Spirit reveals it to David, who writes it down.

So this is a very unusual psalm.

You don't get a lot of psalms like that between the Godhead talking to each other.

So it's worth tuning into with extra attention about who is saying what and where.

The Father Asks the son, why do the nations rage and why do the people plot vain things?

Why are the nations over trying to overthrowthrow the rule of God?

And the psalm ends with God declaring, ask of me, the Father speaking to the Son, ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance.

And then David closes out the Psalm by saying, Then kiss the Son, lest he be angry.

The nations are going to belong to God.

They belong to Him now, they will belong to Him in the future, and they will be redeemed through the Son.

They're the Son's heritage.

All the Son, Psalm 2, all the Son has to do is ask.

And they're his.

Psalm 22, a very messianic Psalms.

Pastor Steve preached on it a few weeks ago.

Psalm 22 is about the sufferings of Jesus Christ, how he will be crucified, how he will have the crown, how his clothing will be gambled away, how his side will be pierced, how he will be pierced with nails.

It's about the suffering of Jesus Christ, how he thirsts, and this is the humiliation of Christ as he's surrounded, fulfilled in his death.

But the psalm ends, if you remember, Psalm 22, one of the most well-known messianic psalms there are, it ends with this declaration: all the nations will turn to Yahweh.

So after the Son is crucified and seen in his glory in Psalm 22, all the nations will turn to Yahweh, all the families of all the nations will worship Yahweh, the kings of the earth belong to Yahweh, and he rules over all nations.

So the nations belong to God, the nations will be redeemed by the Son.

They rightfully belong to the Son.

So the nations belong to God generically, and in the future they will be given to the Son when He asks for them.

However, at this moment, there is a sense in which the nations belong to the devil.

The devil exerts his influence over the nations.

He exerts his authority over them through his influence by directing the nations to evil and to sin and rebellion.

John 12, John 14, John 16, three times in the Gospel of John, Jesus describes the devil as the ruler of this world.

The devil, in some sense, is ruling this world, and in some sense means he's ruling the world through the influence of sin and lies and deceit and rebellion against the sun.

Paul in Ephesians describes the devil as the prince of the power of this air.

In other words, not just the nations, but the world's systems.

The devil moves among them freely.

In fact, he rules them as their prince.

And then Jesus calls him ruler, Ephesians 2 calls him a prince.

2 Corinthians 4, verse 4, Paul says that the devil is the God of this world.

2 Corinthians 4:4

So there's a sense in which the devil is worshipped by the world, in which he rules this world.

So he does have the nations.

So he is writing a check on a bank account, the deacon cash.

They are his.

But they will be the sons.

Psalm 2 said, remember, ask me and I'll give the nations to you.

So what exactly is the devil's play here then?

If the nations belong to the Son, why would he need to worship the devil to get them now?

Well, ask yourself, what has to transpire between the now and the time when the Son rules the nations?

Between when Jesus is having this conversation with Satan and when he will exert his authority over the nations.

The New Testament makes this clear in so many different ways.

The answer, briefly, is the cross.

Jesus has to suffer and die before he will ask the Father for the nations.

He didn't come to rule the nations.

He tells the disciples that over and over and over again.

He didn't come to rule the nations, much less Jerusalem.

He didn't come for that reason.

He came to die.

That's what he came to do, to suffer and die.

It's his second coming when he will rule the nations.

It's second coming, the nations will be given to him as his inheritance, for now he came to die.

Luke 24, verse 26, after Jesus is resurrected, he's walking on the road to Emmaus.

Luke 24:26

And we always look at that conversation.

We often focus on different parts of it where Jesus talks about how the Old Testament points to him.

But there's the specific phrase he says to the disciples on the road to Emmaus that's so important.

Luke 24, verse 26, Jesus told those disciples that it was necessary that the Christ should suffer in order to enter his glory, that Jesus had to suffer before he would die.

Luke 24:26

Because remember, those disciples were just stunned that they believed that Jesus was the Savior and then he died.

And Jesus tells them, don't you know it had to happen that way?

The whole testament speaks about it, he tells them.

Acts 3, verse 14, Peter preaching early church.

Acts 3:14

He's preaching to the crowd of Jews gathered there, and he says, Acts 3, verse 18, God foretold by the mouths of all the prophets that his Christ would suffer.

Acts 3:18

It's an inclusive word there.

Peter says, all the prophets say this.

Pick a prophet.

It says the Savior would suffer.

In Acts 17, one of Paul's first sermons, Luke describes the sermon this way.

He says, Paul, Luke gives a summary statement of Paul's sermon, he says, Paul proved from the scriptures that it was necessary for Christ to suffer and rise from the dead.

He proved it from the Bible.

That Jesus had to suffer and die.

At the end of the book of Acts, the last chapter in Acts, Paul is summarizing his ministry, and he says, I've spent my life, quote, testifying both to the small, this is Acts 26, verse 22, both to the small and the great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass.

Acts 26:22

That the Christ must suffer.

So Paul summarizes his ministry saying, Listen, all I've done is told the Jews, the Bible says they're going to, that Jesus is going to suffer.

It's clear, the prophecies of Christ's coming is that he will come to suffer in order to get the nations.

So when we say suffer, what does that look like?

It looks like him being ridiculed, persecuted, sleeping in holes, going hungry, not having friends, being abandoned by the friends that he does have, being rejected by his own family, which happens.

It looks like him going to the Garden of Gethsemane and praying, begging God that sin would not be imputed to him.

Jesus is the holiest person who ever lived, and holy people don't want to sin.

And here, Jesus, who has never sinned, the sins of all who would ever believe are being imputed onto him.

They're being given to him.

He doesn't want that.

He doesn't want sin, but he's receiving sin in the garden.

That's what suffering looks like.

That's the greatest suffering at all, of all.

But from the imputation of sin, he's put on trial, where he is ridiculed and lied about and mocked, and then more trials in the morning where he's spit on and he's whipped and his back is ripped open and the crown of thorns is put on him.

He's paraded around town like some kind of monstrosity.

He's got the ironic sign above him that says this is the king of the Jews, and it's written in all the languages.

So all the languages of the world would know that this is the king of the Jews that were killing.

I mean, it's irony upon irony.

He's on the cross.

And the other thief is saying, if you are the Son of God, get us off of the cross.

And the crowd is making fun of him and doesn't understand what he's saying and think he's thinks he's praying to Elijah and all that.

I mean, that's the suffering he goes through.

His side is pierced open.

He suffocates to death.

He's exposed.

He's naked in front of his mother and his friends.

And his, you know, his friends, of course, recoil in horror and run away.

That's the suffering of Jesus.

And that's what the Bible says has to happen for him to be the redeemer.

If he wants the nations, he's got to go through that.

That's the covenant of redemption.

That's the plan of salvation.

Before the foundation of time, this was the plan.

So now, before all of that suffering, before any of it takes place, before the imputation of sin, before the physical punishment, before the unanswered prayer on the cross, before any of that suffering.

Here he is.

And there's the nations.

And the devil says, I'll give them to you right now.

They can be yours.

No cross.

No suffering.

No sin.

They can be yours.

Do you see why that's a temptation?

In the garden, didn't Jesus say, Let this cup pass from me.

Let it go to somebody else.

Ultimately he submits and says, Not my will but yours.

Is human will brought in line with the divine will?

But it is a temptation and is right before him right now.

Wouldn't the world be better if he would have taken it?

We have different presidents that come and go in our country.

The worst president, your least favorite president, is not as bad as the devil.

Your most favorite president is not as good as Jesus.

Can we agree on those parameters?

Wouldn't the world be a better place if Jesus was ruling it, if the nations fell to him?

That's the temptation.

The trade-off would be that there would be no gospel.

There would be no redemption, no cross, no resurrection, no redemption.

Peter had this conversation with Jesus earlier, remember?

Well, later, but earlier in our timeline.

Peter tells Jesus, You're the Christ.

And Jesus says, You said it well.

And I'm going to Jerusalem to die.

And Peter says, No, I forbid you to go to the cross.

And Jesus tells Peter, get behind me.

Satan, he's heard this conversation before.

Allow me a brief soliloquy here.

A little interlude.

There's no election in our world right now, in our country right now.

There's no election happening right now.

I couldn't have said this a month ago, or you'd have thought I was talking about the last election, or I can't say it next month, or you think I'm talking about the next election.

So this is an election-free, the one moment in our calendar where we have an election-free time.

People often ask me, why does an IBC hand out voter guides?

Why does an IBC advocate for political candidates or tell you all how to vote?

And there's a sense in which the answer to that question is obvious.

Like you guys are pretty well educated, I think, politically.

I don't think any of you are like going to the voting booth in November and like, I just don't know who to pull the trigger.

If only Jesse would have told me who to vote for, then I would have known.

Now I think, you know, when you hear a pastor say something like that, most of you listen to like to see if he agrees with you or not, more than like to actually learn.

So it's sort of a fruitless endeavor anyway.

That being said, why doesn't IBC do those things?

I don't often talk about politics, but I see it kind of leaping out of the page at this juncture here.

You know, I don't want our kids to go to school and learn about transgenderism or critical race theory or that kind of thing.

I wish our government made abortion illegal rather than funding it.

I wish the government kept churches open rather than closing them.

So there's like some basic things I would prefer in our country.

But I do say that it's not the church's job to be echo-belligerent for political goals.

That's not the kingdom that God has given us.

We're not after that kingdom.

I don't like those things, and I hope that people that do those things get voted out of office and people with good morals get voted into office, but it's not the church's job to bring that to pass.

It's the church's job to raise up men and women who go into politics to advocate for loving their neighbor, who go into law enforcement to check crime and to protect the peace, that go into the military to exert good and to put down rebellions and wars in the world and to check evil nations.

So I hope that Christians grow up and go into politics and go into law enforcement and go into the military.

I hope Christians do those things and populate those areas and exert their influence and for the love of neighbor.

All that's love for neighbor love of neighbor.

And I'm so glad Christians do that, and I hope more Christians do that, but it's the church's job to make those kind of people not to advocate or direct certain elections.

And it comes down to a basic math problem.

Here's the math problem for you.

Jesus says that their gospel is narrow, and there are few that find it.

How narrow is narrow?

I don't know, but less than half.

Can we agree that narrow means less than half?

Because if it was over half, it wouldn't be narrow anymore.

It'd be wide.

So less than half.

And we live in a democracy which requires more than half.

More or less.

So it kind of becomes a math problem.

If you believe the road is narrow, it's very difficult to then blame the church and say if only the church would have done X, Y, or Z, then we wouldn't have X, Y, and Z.

I've had people stop me in the hallway and show me on their phones videos of other churches.

Like, hey, here's this church, here's this crazy liberal church in downtown DC, and look at them.

There are pastors up there telling them all to vote for the Democrats and handing out voter guides and handing out ballots even, and they'll they all vote this week and they'll come back next week and vote again.

IBC should do that so that they're getting it from the other side.

Follow that logic?

Like those people are doing that, so we should do it so that the right view is put out the way.

But the problem is not the wrong or right view, the problem is the method thinking that that's what the church exists for.

There is something called Christian nationalism, which requires a definition, because in our world people say Christian nationalism just to, you know, you don't believe babies should be murdered.

Oh, you're a Christian nationalist, you're evil.

But by Christian nationalist, I mean the idea the church should, or Jesus should rule the nations through the church or the church's influence now.

Specifically this nation, that Jesus should be ruling this nation through the church now.

That's Christian nationalism.

And I think that's dangerous because you get sucked into that and you get sucked away from what the church is supposed to be doing, which is advancing the gospel in the world.

Again, I I wish our government was more moral.

I wish kids could go to school without having evil things shoved down their throats, and so I hope those people do get voted out that do that.

But it's not the church's job to advocate for that.

And let me phrase it this way Christian nationalism often presents the kingdoms of the earth without the cross.

Would you want to win an election without the gospel going forward?

If you had that trade-off, I know it's not a trade-off, vote.

But if you were given the trade-off, that's where Jesus is here.

It's the trade-off.

He can rule the nations or he can go to the cross.

It's an either or for him right now.

So I want you to know now that there's no election, whenever somebody tells me, hey, we should be more involved in elections, what their words are saying is we should be more involved in elections.

I want you to know what I hear.

So right now you'll know what I'm hearing when people say that.

What I hear in my ears is I am bored of the gospel and want to branch out into something different.

That's what I hear.

I know that's not the words you say, but that's what I hear in my head.

Jesus was offered the nations without the cross.

The church exists to drive people to the cross.

And yes, we make mature followers of Jesus Christ that will advocate for love of neighbor and go into the world and law enforcement and military and politics and do good things for common grace.

And I wish more people did that.

I really do.

And they should be extolled and honored, honored whom honor is due.

The Bible makes that clear.

But back in Matthew 4, do you get the temptation to go after the nations without the gospel?

End soliloquy.

One of the saddest scenes in the Old Testament is when Moses was brought up to the mountain, looked at the nations, and then God said, You can look, but you're not gonna go in.

Moses writes to the Israelites and tells them, this is Deuteronomy chapter 6, that the Shema, one of the most, easily the most memorized portion of scripture in the Old Testament, Shema Israel, Adaniel Chenu, Adani Chad, Hero Israel, the Lord Yahweh, the Lord is one.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

When you enter the lands, this is after the Shema, when you enter the land, you'll have crops and rivers, and you'll have fat animals, and you'll be fat.

And in Deuteronomy 6, fat was a compliment.

And when you are there and your bellies are full and your barns are full.

That's Deuteronomy 6, verse 13.

Deuteronomy 6:13

That's the verse that Jesus responds to this temptation with.

The devil tells him, you can have the nations, and you won't have to have sin and you won't have to have suffering.

And Jesus says, you shall worship Yahweh and worship him alone.

I'm not going to worship the devil.

I'm only going to worship and serve Jesus.

A whole sermon could be preached just in verse 10 there about what it means to worship God only.

Worship your affections and your heart, your motivations, your thought process.

Everything in your life is lived in the service of God and him only.

You can't serve both God and money, Jesus is going to say in a few chapters.

You can't serve two masters.

You'll love one and you'll hate the other.

You try to serve God and this world, you'll end up hating God and loving this world.

That's how it always plays out.

And so Jesus is at a crossroads here where he could have the world without the cross, and he says, I'm only going to take the world through the cross.

I won't go another way.

I have to go through the cross.

When he withstands the temptation, verse 11, the devil left him.

And angels came and served him.

The angels were there all along.

He was hungry.

He could have thrown himself off the temple.

Now he's got the nations.

The angels would have gone no matter what Jesus did.

He wanted food, they would have brought him food.

He wanted to be caught, they would have caught him.

He wanted to rule the nations with Jesus, they would have ruled him with Jesus.

I mean, they were there the whole time.

And now they come.

When the devil goes, they come and they bring him breakfast.

Notice to wrap up these three temptations, how all three demonstrate were resisted by Jesus differently.

He used scripture in all of them, of course, but his point in resisting them is different in all three.

He overcame the first one by example.

He quotes scripture.

He is an example of how to live and how to deal with temptation to rely on the word of God rather than our flesh.

So he succeeded where Israel failed.

The second temptation he became by merit.

He overcame by merit.

In other words, he deserved to stand in the place of Adam by withstanding the devil.

He proved that he had the capacity to be the true and better Adam, the second Adam.

And the third temptation, he proves that he is the Son of God.

He proves that the nations do belong to him.

He will rule the nations because he is the Son of God.

So he fulfills the third one by office.

So by example, he stands in our place, by merit he stands in our place, and by the office of being the eternal son of God, he stands in our place.

Of course, you understand that to be a mediator, you have to be acceptable to both parties.

You have to be truly God and truly man to be mediator between God and man.

And Jesus, of course, is both of those things as the temptation reveals.

The second temptation reveals he's purely and truly man.

The third temptation reveals he's purely and truly God.

He withstands these temptations and the nations will belong to him.

So we left James and John on the shelf.

Let's go back to them.

Jesus says, What's the one thing you want?

And they say, We want to see you in your glory.

We want a front row seat to your glory.

You can spin it negatively and say we want to sit closer than Peter, but okay.

But give him every benefit of the doubt.

We want a front row seat to your glory.

That's the one thing we want.

So you can spin it as a horribly selfish request, but there is a way to perceive that request and see the faith that is in it.

We want to see you in your glory.

They had already been on the Mount of Transfiguration, where Moses was and Elijah was two other guys who were taken up the high mountains and didn't get to enter the promised land.

Remember, Moses didn't, Elijah went back up on the mountain and quit.

Jesus brings them back up on the mountain and brings Peter and John and Andrew.

And they say, We don't want to let go.

We want to see you in your glory, Jesus.

Do you remember how Jesus responded to that question?

Oh man.

Can you drink the cup that I'm going to drink?

Can you suffer like I'm going to suffer?

Can you be baptized with the baptism I'm about to have?

Not the baptism with water, that happened.

The baptism of fire, the baptism of sin, the baptism of judgment.

Can you go through the crucible?

Can you go into the furnace?

Can you be burned like I'm about to be burned?

That's the question for you.

They wanted a front row seat of glory, and Jesus says, Can you handle all of the suffering that would come?

Do you think Jesus was talking about something different or was he talking about the same thing?

It's the same thing.

You want to see God in his glory?

There's no glory without suffering.

There's no resurrection without the cross.

There's no eternal life without death.

This world is passing away.

You want to go to heaven when you die, you've got to die.

You want to grow in godliness, you've got to suffer.

You've got to say no to things.

You pray that you would grow in godliness.

You're praying that you would suffer so it starts to back things.

You pray your kids would grow up and have, you know, have a godly, fruitful life for the glory of God.

You're praying that they would learn to suffer for Jesus.

So they say, we want to see your glory.

And Jesus says, You're going to suffer incredibly.

That's him saying yes.

Yes, you'll see him in his glory.

You'll first have to suffer.

And Peter, remember?

Well, what do I get?

And Jesus says, if you leave, Peter, if you leave houses and lands, you'll get 10,000 times more.

But what comes first?

You gotta leave.

You can't get the reward unless you make the sacrifice.

You don't win the game unless you train.

You don't get the reward unless you put in the work.

You don't get the promotion unless you labor.

You don't get the resurrection unless you die.

Lord, we're thankful for the cross and your words that whoever wants to seek after you must deny themselves and pick up their cross and follow you.

What a command.

You didn't command something you yourself weren't willing to do.

We see you here on the front lines, the beginning of your ministry, Matthew 4, day one after your baptism, day 41 after the Spirit drove you into the wilderness.

And there you were, picking up your cross, denying yourself to follow the plan of salvation.

Lord, help us likewise deny the lust of the flesh, deny the pride of life, deny the boast of the eyes.

Even when we fail to withstand temptation, which we of course will, we know that you have withstood it in our place.

And so we fall back to you.

You're our fallback position.

We retreat to you because you have defeated the devil in our place.

So that when he accuses us, we stand condemned, of course.

But we don't stand under his authority, we're under yours.

You broke the power of Adam, you broke the power of sin, and here you broke the power of death by going to the cross and not letting the devil turn you away.

We're thankful for the gospel.

It's in your son's name we pray.

Amen.

And now for parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to iBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.