The Son of Man // A Time to Pause: Dealing with Temptation [Luke 4:1-13] (Dan Pettersen)

Any Father we come before you and again we thank you for this

time. We thank you for our chance to

give you the praise and worship you deserve.

We also come before you and we thank you for the offerings that

have been made. We thank you that you are the

one who gives all to us, the one who is the great provider.

And we just pray these offerings that are given will be used for

your glory. May they be used to honour you.

Give wisdom to those that distribute them Lord, and we

bring them to you as part of our worship.

Well, we thank you for our children.

What a blessing they are to us as a church.

You know the congregation, we just pray for them now as they

head out to Sunday school and team class.

Lord, we just pray that their hearts will be open to the word.

Lord, we just pray that each 1 and in time will come to know

you as their own personal Lord and Saviour.

We thank you for our Sunday School teachers.

We thank you for the blessing that they are to us and to our

children. We thank you for the willingness

to share your word or we pray the words that you've laid on

their hearts will sink deep into the children's hearts or in

Father, we thank you for daring as he's prepared this message.

As we continue our our walk through book of Luke, we'll just

pray that you will give him clarity of thought in mind as he

brings this message to us. We pray for our own hearts that

they will be open to hearing the word and not just hearing that

Lord, we pray that we will let it affect us and change us and

grow closer to you. So we commit Dan into your hand

now and we just thank you for this time.

We share in Jesus name, Amen. Good morning.

Hey, we're gonna start this morning with a video clip.

Alright, That is hilarious. That was, I just cut that down

to a highlight reel. If you go to YouTube and look up

marshmallow test, you can watch the whole thing.

It it is hilarious. But a couple of things about it

that you you might not know. It's actually a very, very old

clip. Most of those kids are sort of

middle-aged now, but what's interesting is that they

followed them through their lives.

And there is a very, very strong correlation between whether they

were able to with stand that temptation with the young and

how well they did through life and sort of the different

outcomes through their life, you know, which is interesting.

The other thing though, there's kind of a caveat in there.

Some of the kids knew the teacher that was was saying it.

If you wait, I'll give you a second marshmallow.

And they had a sort of a, a good sense of trust in that teacher.

Some of the kids did not know. And that also had a huge bearing

on whether they were able to wait, right?

If they trusted the teacher, they knew the teacher, then the

teacher said, I'll come back with the second one.

And they believe that was the case, then they were more likely

to be able to resist the temptation.

So we continue our series this morning through the book of

Luke. This one's called a time to

pause dealing with temptation. That'll make sense as we go.

Now we're going to be in Luke chapter 4 where that takes

Luke 4 · chapter mention

place. But we're also going to spend a

lot of time in Deuteronomy. So if you also want to put a

finger in Deuteronomy 8 or a bookmark or something, and we'll

flip backwards and forwards quickly between them a lot

during the service. We got a lot of cool stuff to

look at. So I'm going to do that quite

fast. When it comes to temptation,

there's a couple of things about it.

They're very similar to what we saw in this marshmallow video,

right? When it comes to temptation,

there's always more at stake than what we think.

And even with the marshmallow test, right, it was just about

marshmallows, right? But it did, it was kind of a

foreshadowing of how things were to go for them through their

life. And the second thing is our

ability to resist temptation is strongly linked to our trust in

God. When we're in the middle of

temptation, if we could pause and we could kind of bring those

two things together right into focus, maybe we could gain some

traction when it comes to dealing with temptation.

If we can go, I'm facing this temptation, am I going to trust

God? We can connect those two things.

It it makes a difference to us. Now, maybe you can't see a link

between your particular temptation and your confidence

in God, but we're going to develop that more as we go this

morning. So I'm going to be in Luke

Luke 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4 verse #1 and it says this says and Jesus full of the

Holy Spirit, right? Is that that phrase again that

we've seen throughout Luke right under the influence of the Holy

Spirit 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. Now just just a quick point.

Remember you know Andy took us through this last week Jesus

baptism, right Remember he comes up out of the water Spirit of

God descends on him like a dove and this big booming voice from

heaven says this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

So this is like God giving him some applause, right well done,

well done. This is my beloved son whom I am

well pleased. Then he's straight from there.

The Holy Spirit leads him into the wilderness to be tempted by

the devil. So it's important to understand

that this was not some kind of punishment.

When we're facing presentation. It's not some kind of punishment

from God because that's not what we see there in the pattern here

in Luke. I think it looks as this second

part of that verse. And he ate nothing during those

days when they were ended, He was hungry.

So a month and a half without any food.

And Luke tells us at the end of that he was hungry.

A little bit of an understatement there by by Luke,

I think. But, but in the following

verses, Jesus is going to be tempted in three specific ways

and his confidence in God is going to be tested.

This is a very common story, right?

Very well known story. And if you you grew up in church

or you sometime in Sunday school or something like that, you

probably have heard some of the story before.

But every temptation that we face falls into one of three

categories. It's a 3 categories that we're

going to see here. And as we look at how this

works, hopefully we'll gain some insight into how these things

come about and how to win against the temptation.

As we look at these temptations that Jesus face in the the

desert, you'll probably never be tempted to jump off a building

to get God to catch you. You'll probably never be offered

all of the kingdoms of the world.

You know, it's unlikely. So the specifics of these

temptations are not what's important here, not, you know,

not what's the key here, right? The value of this is that on

three different occasions, Jesus is tempted to do something on

his own rather than trust in God.

So it's more the sort of the categories that are important to

see rather than the specifics of the of the temptation that Jesus

faced here. That'll make sense in a second

as well. Just a quick question, right?

What was at stake when Jesus faced these temptations?

If he gave into temptation and he signed what was at stake?

A lot of things actually. But one of the one of the big

ones is you and I. Because if Jesus sinned, then he

couldn't die in our place because he would have to die to

pay for his own sins. And so there would be no

salvation for us. And so, as we said, there's

always a lot more at stake than we think when we face a

temptation. In effect, when we face

temptation, 3 things are at stake.

Every time you attempted, there are three things at stake #1

your future is at stake again, Yo, it was just marshmallows,

but it actually had a bearing on what happened down the track.

And we'll see that as we go in a minute.

Almost always somebody else's future is at stake as well.

If you're an employee an you attempt a new fall into send

you. If you're an employer and you're

attempted, you fall into send, your employees will be affected.

If you are a husband, you attempted, you've fallen to

send, your wife will be affected.

If your wife, your husband will be affected.

If your parents, you fall into sin, your kids will be affected.

And so it goes on. One of the things at stake when

we attempted is somebody else's future.

The thing is though, you know, sometimes I think we think it's

all about us. But every time we fall into

temptation, there's more at stake than we think.

But also it's worse than that, because giving into temptation

is a sin. Bible makes it very clear that

it's not a sin to be tempted, but giving into temptation is a

sin, right? So every time we sin it, it

affects the kind of relationship that we have with God because

what's at stake is your confidence in God and in God's

presence in your life. God hasn't gone anywhere, but

your trust in him has when you give in to temptation.

So really your faith in the sense of your trust and your

heavenly Father is at stake because every time we face

temptation, every temptation is really a question.

And the question is this, can God be trusted?

Can God be trusted? And we've given, when we're

given to a temptation, we answer that question, No, no, we can't.

And so if you are very young. You have a lot of future at

stake. If you are very old, you have a

lot of legacy at stake. And if you're somewhere in

between, you've got a lot of boats at stake.

Every temptation is about your future to potentially somebody

else's future. Or, you know, maybe your parents

gave into temptation and you paid for it and it wasn't even

your sin or, or your weakness or your addiction or your failure

or whatever that you paid the price every single time you

attempted. Not only is your future and the

future of others at stake, but your confidence in God is at

stake. And so here's kind of a bottom

line this morning, right? Temptation is always a test of

our faith, right? Of our in the sense of our trust

in God, not just our self-control.

Temptation is always a test of your faith, not just yourself

control. So remember that as we go on.

And so when we face the temptation, we really want to

pause and that's why the title that misses this morning pause.

We're in a really want to pause and ask these questions.

Is God big enough to address my whatever it is for you right my

loneliness, whatever the temptation is.

Is God big enough to meet my need for intimacy?

Is God big enough to meet my need for progress and

professional confidence? Is God big enough to drop into

my world and help me provide for my family has got big enough to

do something in my marriage is, you know, can I pause and wait

on God or do I have to continually make things work and

keep things happening? So that's what's at stake every

time we face temptation, because we don't trust God, we don't

obey Him, and eventually we just stop doing anything.

He says You. Know.

Every time you tipped and your confidence in God is tested.

So we want to try and connect these two ideas.

I, I, I'm being tempted, do I trust God?

I need to link this to Ken, God be trusted and bring those two

things together. So let's see how this works.

Luke chapter 4, verse #3. Jesus devil comes to him, Jesus

Luke 4 · chapter mention

in the wilderness after 40 days of of, you know, a month and a

half not eating anything. Devil said to him, if you're the

son of God, command this stone to become bread right now.

This turned water into wine. You know, he could probably do

this. We will.

We wouldn't even blink. It's like, ohh, yeah, that's he,

he's Jesus. That's what he does, right?

But Jesus understands that the issue isn't his hunger or his

self-control, but the issue is, can I trust God?

And we know this because Jesus flashes back to a story from the

history of his people, the Jews when they were wandering in the

wilderness in in the Sinai, if you remember that story right,

Everyday God would come, they would wake up in the morning and

there would be this stuff called manner on the ground was kind of

like honey puffs. And God would provide it

everyday. And if they if they tried to

store it up, it would rot. So they just had to trust that

it would be there everyday. And they were learning that God

could be trusted. So flick back to Jeromy chapter

8 and we'll, we'll have a look at this number 2 and Judah only

82. Moses.

This is at the end of this 40 years in the wilderness and

Moses reflecting back on this and what's happened and he's

giving doing this big long sort of speech to the to the Jewish

people. And he says that Jeromy ate too.

He said, and you shall remember the whole way that your Lord God

has led you these 40 years in the wilderness that he might

humble you, testing you didn't know what was in your heart,

whether you would keep his commandments or not.

And he humbled you and he let you hunger and he fed you with

manna, which you didn't know or your father's didn't know that

he might make. You know that man does not live

by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the

mouth of God. And so if you, if you look at

that whole speech, what, what Moses is saying is, look, God

provided this manner for you, you know, everyday, except, you

know, on the Sabbath, but everyday for 40 years.

He provided this for you so that you would learn to trust him.

And he connected it with his laws and his precepts so that

you would understand, you know, is God's these laws and

precepts? Is God trying to keep me from

getting good stuff? Is God being a killjoy?

Is God, Can I really trust God on this?

This was the whole Adam and Eve thing, wasn't it?

You know, say and said, ohh, you know, God's holding out on you.

That's why he doesn't you need that cause he knows you will be

like him then. And so God was trying to teach

you, look, you can trust God and you know that because he

provides the money everyday, right?

And he connected those those two things together.

And so you know, he doesn't have a hidden agenda.

Guy can be trusted and Moses, look, if you lose sight of that

and you, you, you, you fail to trust him, here's what's gonna

happen, right? Drop down to verse #11 they're

in denomy. He says this.

Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his

commandments in his rules and his statues which I command you

today. Let's when you've eaten and are

full and have built good houses and you live in them.

And when you're here and you're flocks multiply and your silver

and your gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied.

Then your heart be lifted up and you forget the Lord your God who

brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the the out of the

House of slavery. So he says, look, my concern is

that when you get into the promised land and you're doing

well for yourself and you've got plenty of stuff that you're

going to start to think that you're going to fail to remember

that you need to trust God for your needs.

And you're going to start to think I need to I need to do

this. I need to do everything.

Look at look at what it sees in this number 17.

If we drop down to verse 17 kind of sums of stuff he says beware

lest you say in your heart my power and the might of my hand

have gotten me this wealth. You shall remember the Lord your

God, for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth, that he

may confirm his covenant that He swore to your fathers as it is

today. He says, look, don't forget,

yes, it's important to have enough to eat, right?

But more important than that is understanding who gave it to

you, right? Where it came from, that God

gave it to you, right? So flip back to Luke, keep your

finger in Jeromy, because we'll come back here.

But flick back to Luke, Luke chapter 4, and so sentences

Luke 4 · chapter mention

look, turn these stones into bread.

And Jesus answered him, It is written.

What he's saying is that God's already spoken about this.

Similar things happened before, right?

And God spoke to us about how how, how this works through

Moses. And here's what he says.

It is written man shall not live by bread alone.

Jesus just referencing that passage that back there in in

Germany, you saying look, the real issue isn't my physical

need. The real issue is am I going to

trust God? Am I going to trust God?

This is a moral and an ethical issue, not a physical one.

Now we break and we bend God's rules because we don't believe

that that's the case. But every time you attempted,

your confidence in God is at stake, not just yourself

control. We see that again with the next

one. Just before we get to the next

one, just kind of explain this a little bit.

If you are a particularly goal oriented, future oriented person

or you're that kind of type A personality really driven to

achieve, then you could be set up easily for a very specific

and subtle kind of temptation. And the reason is this, right?

Because you are so focused on that thing that you were born

for, right? That you have studied for that

you have been educated for that you've tried to expand your

skill set in and, and, and maybe it's even a thing that God has

called you too, right? And this is a thing that you've

prayed for and you know, this is what God wants you to do.

And you become so focused, become so focused on achieving

that goal that at some point, and this will happen, if it

hasn't already happened at some point in your life, you're going

to have an opportunity to take a giant step, step forward towards

that goal. However, to take that step is

going to require you to have to compromise.

Just kind of put your ethics aside for a minute.

Put your values, just check your values at the door for a minute.

Put aside everything that you know that God teaches you is

right and good. Just put that aside.

And here's the trick, right? Here's the trick.

Not forever, just for a minute, just temporarily, just for a

moment, right? And we think, yeah, but you

understand, right? In the culture that I live in,

in the, in the industry that I work in, right?

In the world I live in, the only way to get where I need to be,

you know, I I need to play by their rules.

But here's the thing. Right in the moment of that

decision, you're gonna discover 2 incredibly important things.

And the moment there, the decision you're.

Gonna discover who you are? And really, you're going to

discover whose you are, right? Listen to how this temptation

goes down, right? Luke chapter 4, verse #5 And the

Luke 4 · chapter mention

devil took him up, and showed him all the kingdoms of the

world in a moment of time, And he said to him to you, or give

all authority and their glory. For it has been delivered to me,

and I'll give it to whom I will. If you will then worship me,

it'll all be yours. Why I I will give you control

over everything you see if you just submit to my authority.

No, we're not talking about forever.

Jeez. We're just talking about just

for a moment. We're in the desert.

No one else is gonna see this. You know, just for a SEC now the

question is, why don't you think about you trying to put

yourself, you know, in this place and think, why was this

such a great temptation? Why was this a big temptation?

So we gotta do a bit of a theological sidebar here, right?

We'll just do this very quickly, right.

But when when God created Adam and Eve, right at the creation,

he gave them authority over everything, right?

They're good old fashioned word dominion, right?

Over everything. He gave them authority.

You're in charge. Go and name all the animals.

You're in charge. When sudden Cayman tempted and

right, the the serpent said, look, you can't trust God.

He's holding out on you. He just knows you'll be like

him. That's why he doesn't want you

to eat this fruit. And they went, you know what?

Yeah, we're going to trust, we're going to trust this the

serpent, right? And so they went with him, and

so they shifted allegiances. Guess what went with them?

Their authority, right? So say has this authority.

A lot of the Bible, and particularly as we get into the

New Testament, starts to point to this idea that when Jesus

died on the cross and rose again, but he died to pay the

sin debt that mankind owned. Ohh.

The big goal of that was to gain back that authority that was

lost, which is why you see all these verses all the time like

the Great Commission right It starts off Jesus says all

something has been given to me in heaven and earth.

Anyone know what it is all authority.

Yeah all authority in heaven and earth being given to me.

I've won it back and therefore it starts delegating his

authority right now to to his truly through the Great

Commission. Satan stands that they with

Jesus and Luke chapter 4 and he says I want you to see it.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

I want you to feel it. I want you to to kind of bask in

the potential power and glory that you could have and.

You could have it now. No cross, no blood and gore, no

floggings and crowns of thorns and had a 9000, all that

horrible stuff. Think about your poor mother

who's going to have to watch her son be tortured to death on a

cross. Think of how that that will make

you feel. I can give you that now without

you having to go through all of that.

It was a very real temptation, right?

It was a big part of the reason that he came, and it was God's

will and it was God's destiny for his life.

Now, this is going to happen to you, and this is going to happen

to me again. At some point, it's going to

happen that you're gonna be locked and loaded on that very

thing that maybe, you know, God put you here for.

And you'll be tempted to take your eye off what you value and

temporarily get under someone else's authority or potentially

gain a lot of authority. And the illusion is there's just

for a moment, look, I'm just gonna put this aside just now

and I'm just, once I get through this thing, this firewall,

whatever it is, then when I get on the other side of it, I'm

going to pick the stuff back up again and I'll just carry on,

right? And we'll be fine.

That's what we think. But what we find is when we get

to the other side of that moment, when you get what you

win, after, you know, you close the deal, you get the girl, you

know what, whatever it is, the moment you get to the other side

of it and you get the, then there's this kind of sense of,

but I'm not sure that I can trust that God's on my side

anymore. And the next time a similar

temptation comes your way, I'm gonna think, yeah, I need to act

in a similar way as I did before, because I don't know

that God can be trusted in these matters.

Like we said, right? Temptation is not just a test of

your self-control, it's a test of your trust in God and for the

people who who here, who who really like to love to take

things forward, just just really goal oriented, just those kind

of people, right? The issue is, it's not the deal,

it's not the scholarship, it's not the competition, it's not

the game, the team, whatever the issue is, do I trust God?

Do I trust God? So Jesus did what he did.

Every time he was tempted, He goes to the Scripture to where

his people were tempted the same way.

And so before they entered the promised land again, Moses in

the book of Deuteronomy is, is reflecting back on their time in

the, in the 40 years. And he's giving them, you know,

he's praying for them and giving them advice.

And he says, whoa, whoa. Right before you enter the

promised land, before you, you, you start building cities and

homes and houses and you state your own economy before God

makes you great in the eyes of other people.

I want you to remember who got you here.

I want you to remember who got you here because you'll never

accomplish the will of God by abandoning the principles of God

and you'll never maintain the blessings of God by abandoning

the values of God. And sort of a key point that

he's making. We're gonna be in judo only

Chapter 6. If you wanna flick back there.

So let's have a look at it right?

Jeromy chapter 6 verse #10 Here's what he says.

This is Moses reflection on these things he says.

And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he

swore to your fathers, to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob to

give you, with great and good cities that you didn't build,

and houses full of all good things that you didn't feel, and

systems that you didn't dig, and vineyards and olive trees that

you didn't plant. And when you eat and are full,

then take care lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of

the land of Egypt, out of the House of slavery.

What does that mean for us? It means when you're tempted to

abandon God and you think I need to do this thing just to get

further along to get towards the goal.

Stop, right? Pause, pause and think.

Who got you this far? Who gave you this ability to to

get where you've got right? Who got you through their last

exam? Who provided when you were in

crisis last time? So why would you abandon him?

Now? Look at drop down verse 13.

Look. At what he says.

It's the Lord your God. You shall fear Him, you shall

serve, and by his name. You shall swear.

So this is the verse that Jesus basically sort of paraphrases in

Luke chapter 4. He kind of puts his own spin on

Luke 4 · chapter mention

it. So let's go back to Luke chapter

Luke 4 · chapter mention

4. Who's number 8?

Saints showed him all the kingdoms of the earth and said.

I'll give you authority over those.

And Jesus answered him, said it is written, you should worship

the Lord your God in him only. Show you serve.

You know what Jesus wanted more than all the kingdoms of the

earth? Unbroken fellowship with the

Father. You already got it in the end.

Ohh, he got both, yeah. You know you and I get when we

want the kingdoms of the earth, and we're willing to sacrifice

unbroken fellowship with the Father in order to get them

neither. We don't get either, but in that

moment, right when you can feel it and you can see it and you

think, but if I don't, it won't. And if I don't, he won't and and

all of that. And it seems like this is the

only way forward. Who is it or what is it that you

want so bad? And it may not even be a bad

thing that you want. You know, it may not even be a

simple thing that you want, but what is it that you want so

badly that you're ready to trade what's important in order to get

it? And that thing is going to be

different for each of us. But what is it for you?

Because the other thing here is if you bow and break and you in

this moment, right you, you miss the opportunity of knowing what

God would have done in this situation.

Don't trade what's important for what's immediate, because if you

do, you'll never know in what way God might have shown up on

your behalf. And the next time it comes

around, you'll be in even more tempted to compromise for

whatever the next step is that you think you need.

Your God can be trusted. You know.

That was great part of Andy's message last week.

He's the God who wants to intersect in the details of your

life, because in that moment you discover who you are, and in

that moment you discover whose you are and who he is, right?

The God who is faithful. So big question, right?

What is that you want so badly you'd be willing to compromise?

But instead, would you be willing to trust your Heavenly

Father in and through those details?

Okay, so last one, right? Satan tries a different tack.

Chapter 4 verse #9 says, And He took him to Jerusalem and he set

him on the pinnacle of the temple and he said to him, if

you're the son of God, throw yourself down from here.

Now this is where Satan gets pretty slick, right?

The devil gets pretty slick here because previous two right sides

come to him and see the devils come and said do this and Jesus

is gone. No, he's just quoted a an Old

Testament passage. God's already spoken about this

right. So no, I'm not going to do it.

Any quotes Scripture to him. And so he says again, we'll do

this. No, Scripture says this right.

So this time say that says do this and he quoted Scripture

right. He grows Scripture.

He says even the son of God. It's very yourself down from

here because this number 10 for it was written, he will command

his angels concerning you to guard you and on their hands,

they will bear you up. At least you strike your foot

against a stone, right? Couple of quotes from the Old

Testament there from the Bible. He says, look, do this because

Bible says this. What's going on here?

Satan is subtly suggesting that it's going to be a very

difficult for Jesus to convince people that he is the Messiah,

right? In the previous 50 years before

this, there's been several people had risen up claiming to

be the Messiah, the the the promised one of of God.

And so say, instead of saying this is going to be really hard

for you to to prove to people that you're the Messiah.

So they're up on the pinnacle of the temple.

The temple was the largest stone structure in the world at that

time. It's about 13 storeys tall,

which is about the same height as the tallest building in town.

So next time you little town have a look that's about the

temple, right? So the standing on there and

says, here's what you need to do, right?

Throw yourself off, right? So all these people down below,

right in the courtyard and whatever they be looking at,

they look this dude right on the top of the table.

What's going on there? And then it's like, wow, man,

he's, he's jumped off and you'll be falling down.

But God will be forced to intervene because Scripture

clearly says that he's not going to allow you to get busted up

here. And so God's going to have to,

to do this. So why don't you right, just

come up with this great plan, pull the trigger on it, and then

waiting for God to come and bail you out.

And because He has to, right? He's on a bound by Scripture to

do so. Now, you may not realise this,

but we do this all the time. We do this all the time.

It's the temptation to take a bunch of ideas and launch a plan

and then say, well, God, you're going to help me, are you?

After all, you know you're going to bless me, right?

Because you're a good God. It's the temptation to presume

and assume on God. It's kind of like a bunch of

teenagers, right? Getting in a car and one of them

saying, hey, saying to the driver, just drive as crazy as

you want. My dad is a lawyer.

He'll get us off. That's kind of what what what

this is like. It's like not studying for a

test, but then thinking God is forced to make you pass or just

being reckless with money and then think that God has forced

to to act on your behalf. Now, in the church world, we

often cover this up with some clever technology, our

technology terminology. We cover this up with some

clever terminology and it goes like this.

We're just going to step out in faith and trust God.

Now that's a real thing, right? Without faith, it's impossible

to please him. Anything you do in service to

God, you're gonna have to step out in faith in a, in a certain

way. But what we really mean when we

say that is we've come up with this idea that it's not very

well researched and it defies common sense.

In fact, it defies, just defies wisdom.

In fact, we haven't actually sought any wise counsel on this.

And the 1 old guy that we kind of casually mentioned it to

really raise some eyebrows. So we just didn't mention it

again. But we are going to pull the

trigger on this idea and we're going to step out in faith and

we're going to trust God. And God is going to have to bail

us out because they're verses that say things like, my God

shall supply all your need according to his riches and

glory. And God is faithful and God is

rich in mercy and God is a God of grace.

So we're just going to launch it and then we're going to wait for

God to bail us out. That is not faith, that is

presumption. And then when the miracle

doesn't happen, we blame God. Because here's the thing, right?

God is not your genie. God is not your genie.

He is God. He's not a genie in a lamp.

He is merciful and he's full of grace and all of those things,

but before he's all of those things, he is God.

You don't play him, you don't manipulate him, you don't force

his hand. That's not faith, right?

Faith is not coming up with an idea, pulling the trigger on

that idea, and waiting for God to bless it, right?

That is not faith. Faith is simply responding to

the promises of God. Not our bad ideas.

So that's exactly what this temptation was.

Now listen to what Jesus says. Now Jesus, because he knows his

people's history. He did like he did with the last

temptation, right? He reaches back into the history

of Israel and he remembers this story where they face the same

temptation, right? And so the story here is about

to come to this place in the area of reform and in in the

Sinai, and they run out of water and it's a very rocky desert,

right? It's pretty dangerous.

And there's, there's a lot of them and there's no water.

And so, but then they started to taunt God and they start to

taunt Moses as his representative and saying, is

God trustworthy or not yours representative?

You, you, you need to access Moses.

And so let's just jump into the middle of that story.

Exeter 17 Just really quickly, and then we'll go to Jeromy and

look at Moses reflecting on it later.

But here's what happened at the time.

Exodus 17 Two, therefore the people quarrelled with Moses,

and they said, give us water to drink.

And Moses said to them, Why do you quarrel with me?

Why do you test the Lord? But the people first did there

for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said,

why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us?

And our children, our livestock were first.

Now God was very merciful to them that day, and he and he

provided water for them. And I'll let you read that for

yourself, but drop down to 1st #7 it says, and he, Moses called

the name of the place Massa and Miraba, right?

Which means testing and arguing because of the quarrelling of

the people of Israel and because they tested the Lord by saying,

is the Lord among us or not? If God was here, he did what we

want. Yeah.

So Exodus is the story of what happened to the Jerome is the

speech where Moses is going over those events.

Listen to the way Moses recounts those events in from Exeter 17

in his speech. So Jerome chapter 6 verse 16, he

says you shall not put the Lord your God to the test as you

tested them at Mesa. Yeah, don't do that again.

Don't do the In other words, when you get to the promised

land and you begin to settle in in there, don't talk, taunt God

like you did back back there in the desert and say why I thought

you loved us. You have to act so Jesus is

standing there on the highest point of the temple, 13 storeys

up. Satan's going.

I got a good idea. You jump, God will save you.

It'll be great. Jesus reaches back to the story

in in in Luke chapter 4 verse 12.

Luke 4:12

Jesus answered him either said right, it's written, you shall

not put the Lord your God to the test.

He's quoting Moses here. Jesus reflects on this story and

he says, I know what it is you're asking me to do.

You're asking me to test God. I don't test them.

I don't assume. I don't presume.

I don't manipulate. I'm here to cooperate with my

Heavenly Father. I know what you're up to.

And no, I'm not gonna jump. I'm not gonna try and force his

hand. I'm just not gonna do it.

Now, it's very subtle, right? But if we were to, to condense

this down into one phrase, it would kind of be this.

As Christians, we have been called to cooperate with God,

not manipulate God. The men and women who are the

most disappointed with God are people who who believe in God,

but rather than cooperate with him, they spend all of their

sort of religious and Christian time trying to manipulate God.

That is, they had a plan for God's life and it seemed like

God was cooperating with that plan.

And then God takes a left turn and then they go, well, that's

not the plan. They just couldn't believe that

God would do something like that.

Or circumstances take a right turn and they go, well, I just

can't believe that God would allow something like that to

happen. And the whole Christian

experiences experience has been trying to get God to cooperate

with him. God will always.

God will never, you know, if I will, then he's got to do this.

You know, God of grace. I found this verse in the book

of Ezekiel. I'm not really totally sure what

it means, but I think it means that God has to do what I've

said about to do. So they've never really come to

the the place in their life where where, you know, arms wide

open my deal before your deal. I'm here to cooperate.

But instead, the whole angle has been let's take on Gold.

We're trying to manipulate him. And that when we do that and we

all do that, it just sets us up to face disappointment on the

flipside, right? If you've been around someone

who's just gone through some incredible tragedy and they just

never lose their confidence in God and they trace their their

trust in God. And when you around people like

that, you know, you just feel dwarfed, you know, by their

faith. Think, man, I don't know that I

you don't. And yeah, I don't know.

I'm just thinking one of those right now, right?

Gets you quite emotional when you think about it, when you see

that that kind of faith in God. Where they just can kind of go.

Look, if that's God's choice for me, I don't know what he's

working. I don't know what the plan is,

but I'm just gonna stick with him.

Yeah, that, that's an amazing thing.

And but these are not men and women who got there in a moment.

There were people who lived their lives with no intention of

trying to manipulate God. And so even in the middle of

devastating circumstances, they don't come away disappointed

with God. The other thing with people

trying to manipulate God when we when we do this is it's really

hard to get an answer to this question, right.

It's really hard to get an answer to the question, what's

your will for my life when you don't ask the question because

you want to say, here's my my will for my life.

Please get with the programme. Yeah.

And so you you don't get sort of the guidance from God that you

need, but also right, you're not really aware of the breeze on

the beach until you face into it.

What I mean by that is God speaks loudest to the soul that

is most surrendered to Him. So where are you on this one?

Right? Listen to your prayers.

Your prayers are a key thing here.

What's your response to critical or negative elements?

Listen to the thoughts that come to mind when you attempted to

sin. Are you tempted to make excuses

for your sin? All right, three questions for

this week we conclude. First one, is this where am I

tempted to meet a legitimate need in a way that's not

pleasing to God? Companionship, intimacy,

progress, financial goals, friendship, something to do,

whatever It is because that that particular area of your life is

where God would like to show up in an unmissable and even maybe

tangible way if you would let Him.

What's at stake is my confidence in God's willingness to show up

in my world. Second question, where am I

tempted to try and leverage and use God's power for my own ends?

Where do I presume on God? Don't put God to the test.

God's not your genie. I work for him, not the other

way around. But how much and what areas am I

trying to manipulate God? God, I'm going to do this.

You need to bless it, right? You need to do this.

And thirdly, where am I tempted to take a shortcut and do the

right thing but in the wrong way?

And so you know, my prayer is that we'll always be men and God

are men and women of God who wake up everyday ready to

cooperate and pray like Jesus taught us to pray.

You know thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,

because to be a manipulator rather than a cooperator.

Just as just to set yourself up. For disappointment when God does

what God's gonna do. So what we want to do in the

middle of temptation is just pause, right?

Just pause and go, here's my temptation.

Do I trust God and just try and bring those two things together?

Alright, so that we're able to say, OK, I'm not gonna let this

steal my future. I'm not gonna let this steal my

family and I'm not gonna let this steal my faith, my

confidence in God, because the temptation is to act on my

behalf, right? And therefore say to God, I

don't trust that you will act on my behalf.

Are you willing to pause? Am I willing to pause?

Are we willing to pause? Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for this incredible narration of the

events that happened 2000 years ago with Jesus in the desert.

And we thank you for the things that we can learn.

Lord, please help us to to be able to pause and Tim and times

the temptation. Lord, thank you that you're a

for giving. God, we don't always get this

right and we thank you for your forgiveness, but we also don't

say that lightly. Lord, thank you for the

instruction in your word and the love and the grace that it was

given to us. Thank you in Jesus name.