The Honor and Power Test

Well, really glad you're here.

We're going to be uh today wrapping up a series of messages that uh we're calling fighting temptation.

We're talking about the temptation of Jesus.

We're in Matthew chapter four.

Uh before I get into today's um lesson, I what I want to do is actually let you kind of know where we're going.

If you've been around, uh you've probably noticed we've been in the book of Matthew a lot.

Uh we were in a series called The Struggle Is Real, and we were looking in Jesus and the Garden of Gethsemane, which is actually Matthew 26, and that kind of led us up to Easter.

And we talked about Jesus, you know, says, My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death.

Um, he was emotionally overwhelmed.

And so we we looked at that in some different scriptures.

Um, now we've been in the book of Matthew, chapter four, and after this, we're gonna go to Matthew 5, 6, and 7.

If you have your Bibles, if you're there in Matthew 4 and you look at Matthew 5, you'll notice it's called the Sermon on the Mount.

And the Sermon on the Mount is a collection of Jesus' teachings that he did in from city to city uh through the lens of Matthew.

And uh it's talking about things like turning the other cheek and talking about things like the Lord's Prayer, and uh there's a lot of different things that maybe you've heard something about, but um, we're really going to dive deep into it.

I've I've just um thoroughly enjoyed the preparation and the study for this series, and God's been showing me a lot of just really fresh things that I think is going to help all of us.

Um but I think one thing to note here is uh Matthew, uh who wrote the book of Matthew, he was really making sure that these uh Jewish people that are reading this, this uh book of Matthew is written to Jewish Christians who were dealing with intense persecution about 30 to 40 years after Jesus resurrected and ascended.

And times were starting to get really tough, and a lot of them, there was a lot of debate and question.

Of course, they were overwhelmed at the physical persecution and psychological persecution of the Romans, uh, but also they were wondering what was Jesus, what was that all about?

Who was he really?

And so you see Matthew going to great lengths to draw comparison to the promises of the Messiah in the Old Testament and even the history of their ancestors and their nation, and they had this massive uh bunch of stories of just humanity done wrong.

And now here's Jesus, who's sent by God, as humanity done right, and the fulfillment not only of those promises, but what it means to be empowered, what it means to be living a life of purpose, what it means to be have eternal life or a divine life connected to God, and to really set a standard, to give an example, give us something to worship, give us someone to follow.

And so that's what he's doing.

He's in that we've been looking at some of the shorthand that he's speaking with them to connect that dot.

Um, Matthew 4 gives us the temptation in the wilderness, and uh the first week we looked at the appetite test that Jesus had to endure.

It says he went 40 days with no food.

And so, really, what we have here is uh it's a physical appetite that's really opening up a broader conversation about appetites as a whole.

Uh, because we we we can all relate to a physical appetite how hungry we get.

Imagine not eating for 40 days, Jesus is weak and uh physically, and yet the whole lesson, the temptation was about getting control and discipline around your appetites.

Because beyond your physical appetites are your psychological appetites, your appetite for pleasure, your appetites and my appetites for power and acceptance and all these other things.

I mean, you think about what is an appetite, but it's something that just keeps renewing itself and it's never satisfied fully.

You know, think about Thanksgiving, right?

You make this bomb meal and everybody eats it and you eat to the point of misery, and you're just laying there moaning and groaning, and about three hours later you're like, yo, let's fire up some of those leftovers.

I'm hungry again.

Right?

So we understand that about appetites, and so if you don't manage those appetites, those appetites will run your life.

And Jesus knew that that could happen to him and his humanity, and so we see him have a uh fight the temptation of the appetite.

The second was he goes into Jerusalem and he goes to the top of the temple, and we look looked last week at the significance of Jerusalem.

It was an important place to Jesus, it was an important place to Jesus' culture and tribe and his fellow Israelites that um it was a place where they were looking for the Messiah to show up and make a grand entrance and to deliver them from the bondage of the Romans and to finally put them to the top of the social food chain and the global food chain.

And and so, what's the temptation?

The temptation was to stand at the temple, to go to the epicenter of culture, to jump off and to do something bold and to be caught by angels just before he hit the ground to make a grand entrance.

And yet the temptation there was ultimately for Jesus to try to gain the awe of the people that he was ultimately called to disrupt and to challenge.

And the and the devil's trying to get him to crave their approval and to crave their awe.

And when you crave somebody's awe, if you need their approval often, you're not even able to serve them well because you you can't challenge them when they need challenge because you're worried that if this challenge offends them, they may turn on me, and that's where I'm looking to gain my approval.

And so he passes the test.

And that now we're in the third one, and uh in Matthew 4, verses 8, it says, the next next the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory.

Matthew 4:8

We know here, by the way, that that Jesus uh this is a vision because there is no literal mountain you could stand on and see all the kingdoms of the world.

This is a vision that Jesus is having of going to a high place and even going beyond his own like familiar places he's been, but to see the best that the world has to offer.

By the way, I think it's worth noting that there were three different locations for these temptations because there are some temptations and tests that you can only pass in the wilderness when you're alone, when you're dry.

There are some tests and temptations that only fully click and you fully learn in the temple or the top of the temple, in the in the big city.

There's some lessons you only learn at the top of a high mountain when you're seeing the best the world has to offer.

And so this is what's presented.

Verse 9, he says, I'll give it all to you, he said, if you will kneel down and worship me.

Verse 10, get out of here, Satan, Jesus told him, for the scriptures say you must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.

And then the devil went away and angels came and took care of Jesus.

Um, okay, I I want to introduce something.

If you've been around, I've I've shared some version of this before, but some things are worth repeating.

Number one.

Number two, it will create a foundation for the rest of our conversation.

All right, as human beings, we're born into the world, and we are born with a certain question that we have in our own minds and hearts around our own value, our own valuation, our own validation.

Um, you know, I'm there's like eight billion people out there like, am I important?

Am I valuable?

And so we have these questions and we try to sort of do things to get these questions answered.

And some of it is maybe we go, hey, I want to get good grades, I want to finish at the top of my class, or maybe uh you're athletically inclined, and so you're wanting to uh to win and to gain trophies and to be a winner, because I think if I win enough or I score enough, therefore I will now be able to prove my value, I'll be able to quantify it.

Um sometimes we try to gain value based on being able to please and appease the powerful people around us, whether it's our parents or coaches or teachers or whatever.

Some of it is trying to uh either fit in or stand out among our peers.

If I can fit in with my peers, then maybe that will give me a sense that I'm valuable and accepted and I'm worth it.

Or if I stand out, if I'm able to stand out, therefore I am separating myself in a good way.

I'm I'm at the top of the pyramid.

And so we we all have this going on, and at some point you have to try to figure out how you're gonna fill it.

Until I get this figured out, you and I, okay, we we have a few realities going on.

The first is that we're trying to fill a void.

I'm trying to fill a void.

I'm operating from a question, and I have a void, I have an emptiness, and and I'm I'm hoping that if I do enough, I'll fill that.

Um also I'm trying to prove.

I've got something to prove.

I'm trying to prove the answer to this question.

I'm trying to prove my validation or valuation, and that that's what motivates me, that's what drives me.

I have something to prove.

And then um, and then also I'm doing things for approval.

Right?

So what I do is I'm trying to gain that approval.

So everything's for, to fill, and to prove.

When we look at Matthew 4, we we look at it in light of Matthew 3.

Notice what happens in Matthew 3, verse 17.

Matthew 3:17

It said that a voice from heaven said, and this is God the Father speaking to Jesus the Son, this is my dearly loved Son who brings me great joy.

So what the Father is doing is he is nourishing his son by giving him unconditional love and delighting in his son.

And I'm delighting in you before you scored the points, before you won the game, before you proved anything.

I want to fill you with something unconditional.

I don't want you to crave it from other people because if they give it to you, they can take it away.

If you're looking for them to fill you up, they can also empty you right out.

But I'm gonna give you something no one can take away because they didn't give it to you.

So I'm gonna give you a foundation.

I want you now, instead of living to try to fill something, I want you to operate from a place of fullness.

I'm full.

Um, this is why Jesus compared himself to bread and water.

I'm the bread of life.

I want you to operate from full, I want you to have energy to go into the world and do your work from a put from an energized place of nourishment, not because I'm hungry trying to fill something, trying to earn something.

Okay, so now if I can go from uh uh filling to full, now I can go from trying to prove something to purpose, which is to try to improve something.

All right?

Improve.

I see something in the world.

I'm not doing the work I do because I'm trying to prove something.

I see something in the world that needs to change.

I see a problem that I'm feel called, I'm uniquely designed to go fix.

I'm I'm supposed to get involved in that, I'm supposed to do.

And so it's purpose-driven.

I'm driven to do the purpose that God has.

I have there's something out there that needs improved, and I can't fix it all.

But that right there, I can put my heart into that.

And I'm not doing it because I think that the trophy will fill a gap.

The gap, the gap's already filled, the void is filled.

I'm already nourished, it's already proven.

Now I'm working to improve something.

So now I'm not operating for anything, I'm operating from something.

From okay, this is the grand switch.

And this is ultimately what the father gives the son with this, he doesn't dangle his approval and his love and his delight out as a carrot, that if you work hard enough and you strive hard enough, then I'll love you and you'll bring me and I'll be joyful.

No, you get my delight and my love.

Now that's your foundation.

It's no wonder then, in the various temptations, that we see the devil trying to hack away at this fullness or this rock solid foundation of identity.

Look, look at it.

Matthew 4, 3.

In the wilderness, during that time, the devil came to him and said, If you are the Son of God, what's he trying to do?

He's trying to dislodge his fullness, he's trying to reintroduce the question of his validation and valuation.

He takes a he takes a shot at it.

He takes a shot again in the second temptation.

Matthew 4, 5 and 6, the devil took him to the holy city of Jerusalem, to the highest point of the temple, and he said, If you are the Son of God, jump off.

So two different times, he's just pounding away at this foundation.

He's beating away at his psyche.

He's hoping that if Jesus is physically weak enough in the wilderness, that maybe in that physical weakness, he'll begin to question his fullness.

Maybe if Jesus feels the social pressure of the people in the temple who approved of him when he was 12, if I can get him to crave that again, I can get him to reopen the question.

And if and if the devil can get you to reopen the question of your valuation and validation and can get you from full and from and improving and purpose into trying to fill, improve, and working for, if he can get you back to that place, now he has opened you up to all of the sales pitches that the world has to offer.

And that's what that's what's going on here.

This is the deeper story.

Don't get too caught up in you know the epic nature of this story that you've got Jesus and the devil on a mountain, and they're looking at all the kingdoms.

And if you're not careful, you read this stuff and it feels like, you know, two hobbits standing at Mordor with a ring, getting ready to throw it in and you know, do bad with, do away with evil.

Okay, I'm serious.

Like, like think about this really is a whole different thing.

This is this is true for all of us because all of us have we started here, and if we don't find it here, that void makes us very prone to the best the world has to offer, because the world offers false messiahs and saviors.

And this is what it looks like.

It started when when you were when I was a kid, when you were a kid.

You have that sense of I want to be respected, you have that sense I want to be honored, you have that sense I want to be glorified, you have that sense I want to be great, I want to be valued, I want to be all this, and you have that gnawing inside, and then some human being is presented to you, they show up in your life, and it looks like all of the confidence that you lack and everything that's a void that you have, they don't have that problem.

And they show up with full confidence.

It's like, you know, there's a lot of movies, by the way, that would, like more modern-day type movies, that would sort of embody this.

Like it's um, it's like the movie Wall Street, right?

You got this guy, and he grew up in a kind of a blue-collar town, and he had these grand ambitions, and he, you know, loved his dad, but he didn't want to be kind of have his dad's life, and next thing you know, he goes from the small town to Wall Street, and Gordon Gecko comes walking in, and he's you know, he's Mr.

Fast Talking, man.

He's got he's got class, he's got the suit, okay, the designer suit luxury, he's got the women's attention, he's got the vehicle.

He's when he talks, people listen.

Okay, he's revered, respected.

He's got he's got it all.

He's got it all.

And so now what do you have is you have a God.

Now we wouldn't say we worship another person, but that's sort of the easy seduction.

And the lie is we wouldn't say we bow.

Like it says in Matthew 4, um, it uses two words.

Uh, Pipto is the first one to talk about bow down, which it's a physical, you know, bowing down, getting to a low place, so you're actually looking up right at somebody, but then it also uses the word prosceneo, which is essentially to surrender to a superior.

And what's happening when we see these people who are presented as the best the world has to offer, I'm comparing how I feel about them and how it seems that they feel because they're projecting, they have all the confidence in the world.

I deal with insecurity, look how confident they are.

I don't feel empowered, look how powerful they are.

I don't feel very valuable, or I'm not sure.

I've got a question about my value, and yet everybody is putting value on their life.

So what happens is they're presented to you just like the enemy presents to Jesus.

Hey, try to define and answer this question, not based on what the Father said about you in Matthew 3, but by the best the world has to offer, and it makes us prone.

And here's what's going on in our heads.

When you're not just looking up to someone, but they become, in a sense, your God.

They start ordering your steps.

You start taking their plan.

I want to get there.

And and the reason I want to get there, let's go deeper, because frankly, it's not about them.

It's about what they're offering you.

It's about you.

And what you think is if I can be like them, I'll feel the way I perceive they feel.

So they've projected fullness, confidence, and value.

They've projected, I've proven it, I'm full, and I'm confident.

By the way.

How many case studies do we need of somebody who showed up to you like some kind of superhuman fool?

And they were full, alright.

They were full of something.

How many times does somebody who stands up that people start setting their affection on and that person becomes their end game and that person becomes their trajectory, and only to see how hollow and shallow that person is to watch them crumble like the like like the empty human that they are.

And yet it's presented to us, and if we have a void, the void that the enemy tries to create in Jesus in the first two temptations, if I can take away what the Father did for you in Matthew 3, I can get you operating from a void, I can open you up to a sales pitch.

And and what they're selling you is the feeling that you perceive they have at the top of the mountain.

But here's the second, more seductive one is that it awakens in you a desire for you to have other people look at you the way you look at them and feel about you the way you feel about them.

So, what it is is actually now a desire to be worshipped.

It's so ugly we wouldn't say it.

And it's so easy to deny.

Well, no, I don't want to be worshiped, I just want to be respected.

No, you want Proscaneo and you want Pipto, and you want people looking up to you and thinking that you are virtually the superhuman, magical, powerful, full person that you saw there, which is why the image matters so much.

They've presented you with an image.

I idolize them and they've become an idol.

And so now, even though it's like, well, I don't want to be them, I want to be my version of them.

Yeah, you want to feel the way you think they feel, and you want people to look up at you, not just look up to you, but but but a sense of looking up.

I want them to look at me the way I look at that person.

I want them to feel about me, the way I felt about my idol, about my hero, and it creates a really distorted temptation.

It perverts motives, and this is exactly what the enemy is trying to get.

By the way, when you operate from a place of fullness and you worship God and God alone, you don't want anybody worshiping you.

You don't want to be up on anybody's pedestal, and if people try to put you there, you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not me.

By the way, we see this in the scripture.

It happens multiple times, but I'll give you one.

The Apostle Paul in Acts chapter 14, he is empowered by God.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

He's going to city to city doing miracles, and he goes into one of the cities and he's doing these signs and wonders, and he's just doing amazing work.

And it's Paul and this guy named Barnabas, and people have never seen this kind of stuff.

And exactly what we're talking about, people start to go, these guys are different.

These guys are in a different league.

They're way, and so literally, the people begin to worship them.

They begin to bow to them.

They think Barnabas is um the Greek god Zeus in human form.

They think Paul is the Greek god Hermes because he's the vocal one, he's the speaker.

So they think they are Greek gods, having taken human form and going, and they're bowing to them.

They're trying to put them on a pedestal, and this is their reaction.

In in um the book of Acts, chapter 14, it said then the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard what was happening.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

They were grieved.

They tore their clothes in dismay.

They ran out among the people, shouting, friends, why are you doing this?

We're merely human beings just like you.

We've come to bring you uh the good news that you should turn from these worthless things and turn to The living God that you should stop trying to operate to fill and to prove.

God wants to prove something to you.

And so He's like, it's not about me.

We see it, uh Peter in in Acts chapter 10, okay, when Cornelius and these people, they're bowing to him, he's picking them up.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

Don't bow to me, don't put me up on a pedestal.

I don't want to be, I don't belong up on a pedestal, I'm a person just like you.

And so what does it do?

One of the indications that we have that maybe we've taken the third temptation, the one at the top, is that not only do we want to feel like how we think our heroes feel, but we want people to make us heroes, to idolize us, to look, not just look up at, but look up to in this way that's beyond.

We want that.

When you're worshiping God alone and you're already full, that fills no void for you.

It makes you feel weird.

I don't want that.

Don't put me there.

I don't belong, I know exactly who I am.

I'm a human being.

I don't, I don't, I don't even want that.

Now, what's interesting is Paul in in the book of 1 Corinthians, he he introduces another concept, which I think is worth noting as we as we talk about this this idea, because it's not wrong to have mentors, it's not wrong to look up to people, okay.

But look what Paul says, okay, he denies being anybody's God or being worshipped, but he says in 1 Corinthians 11:1, follow, look at this, follow my example as I follow the example of Christ.

1 Corinthians 11:1

So Paul was completely unwilling to be idolized or put on a pedestal, but what he did was he accepted the responsibility of being an example.

And I think that's healthy.

To say, hey, I want my life essentially to uphold a standard.

I want my life to be an example.

Principles need a personality.

I need to know what a great husband looks like, I need to know what a great wife looks like.

I need to know what it looks like to be a selfless leader.

I need to know what it looks like to be a healthy human.

Like, it's not enough we just bullet point this thing out.

It does need a human that I look to as an example, but look what Paul says.

He said, follow my example as I follow the example of Christ.

In other words, when you look up to me, if you look ahead of me and don't see Jesus, unfollow.

Quit following me.

I'm only worth following if I'm following.

I'm only worth following if up ahead of me is Jesus.

And so it's the difference between wanting to be an example of following Christ and bringing people along versus actually having them honoring you and glorifying you and bowing down to you and respecting you and revering you and feeling about you the way you felt about your idols.

It's the two totally different things.

So when you're in a place operating from fullness and worshiping God and God alone, you don't even want that.

And so if you find yourself wrestling with that, that's that you're you're fighting temptation number three.

Um let's stay here for just a second.

Um, and I want to put two verses next to each other.

Well, let me sorry, let me back up.

Philippians 2, 5 through 11.

I want you to think of the temptation.

Okay, Jesus is is on this mountain, he has a vision of all the best the world has to offer, all the power power positions and the systems and the structures, and what it's like to be at the top of all of that.

And look think about that and what's being presented to him by the devil, and look at that next to Philippians 2, 5 through 11.

It says, You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.

Okay?

What's the devil trying to do to Jesus in Matthew 4?

He's trying to get him to cling or grasp for, to try to fill something.

And so he said, Jesus didn't, although he was God, he didn't consider equality with God something to white knuckle and cling to.

Instead, he gave up his divine privileges.

What's the devil trying to get him to do?

To grab for the power position.

It said, actually, he was willing to give it up.

It said he took a humble position of a slave, was born as a human being, and when he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on the cross.

Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus, every knee would bow, every Pipto and Proscineo, everybody would ultimately honor him.

Why?

Because he didn't grasp for it to dominate, he accepted his mission and his purpose and walked in the obedience of the Father.

And therefore, he already had the approval of the Father, he already had the love and the delight of the Father, but what he had done through his decision making, ultimately then he was honored by the Father.

God said, Because you didn't take the temptation and start allowing your motives to be distorted in due time, he trusted instead of having the immediate gratification that the devil was offering him, he said, I will allow God to elevate me and honor in due time.

It said, and therefore in due time, God honored him and elevated him.

Um let's think about this real quick.

And I don't want to get too cute with the language glory and honor and what's the difference and whatever.

They're virtually the same thing.

But if you put those two texts next to one another, Matthew 4 8, it says that the devil showed him the kingdoms of the world and their glory and offered it to him.

And then Philippians 2 9, it says that God elevated him to the place of highest honor.

We have the devil trying to get Jesus to glorify himself, and we get we see God ultimately glorifying Jesus and honoring him.

Glory, honor, reverence, respect.

Okay, I don't want to get too cute with the terms, but I want us to think about what does this look like honoring, what does honor look like in a healthy way?

Um Romans 12 verse 10 says we should take delight in honoring each other.

Romans 12:10

And here's where I think even in churches, even among believers, where this gets distorted, is often people who, even though they know the gospel, even though they know Matthew 3, even though they know that the unconditional love of the Father, the delight of the Father, they're still operating from a void.

And so they're looking for even the honor of their brothers and sisters in Christ or the church or or whatever, other believers, they're looking for that honor to fill a void and to prove something to them, to answer the question that's been reopened.

They've allowed the enemy to hack away at their identity and to hack away at the promise that God's given them and to try to uproot the Matthew 3 moment that you have the love and the delight of your Father.

And so we start looking for it to be to be filled from each other.

And I think I think that's I don't think that's right.

I think what's right is when I operate from a place of fullness and I already know what the Father said about me and believes about me, and that's what I think and believe about myself.

So when you honor me or I honor you, it feels good to know that what God sees and what God showed me and I now see, you see also.

So we're in alignment.

When I honor you, it's a good feeling because it's a connection among brothers and sisters, but it's not filling a void.

And I think even Christians, Christian leaders, people like here's a red flag.

The red flag is this when you are in despair because you're not being honored enough.

Not being honored is a real trigger.

They're not honoring me.

I'm always feeling disrespected.

I'm always feeling dishonored.

I see all the areas where I've been honorable and nobody honors me.

And you're a little jealous when they honor somebody else.

Man, they always honor this person.

Well, they always honor that when's mine honor.

Nobody's gonna honor me.

Look, honor at some point is all three of us getting on the same page of what the father already said about you, you already know about you, and I'm just I'm just reminding you.

And it's good to do because sometimes you're in Matthew 4 and dogmad if the devil hasn't been hacking away at Matthew 3.

He's been hacking away at my identity.

He's trying to get me back to a place where I'm trying to fill a void.

I've been there, I know better.

I know better, but sometimes I'm hungry in the wilderness, and sometimes I'm feeling the heat of the people in the temple, and sometimes I need to be reminded of who I am.

It's not that I didn't know, but when you honor me or I honor you, I'm not telling you anything you don't know about yourself.

I'm not answering any question.

We're just getting into alignment of the work that's already been done and recalibrating.

It's not filling the thirsting of your soul, it's us just telling the truth.

And so what we see of the enemy is he's trying to get Jesus to question.

He's trying to get Jesus to reopen the question that God answered in Matthew 3 to get him back to a void, trying to fill, trying to prove, working for instead of from.

And what does Jesus do?

He says, Get behind me, Satan.

And then what does he do?

He quotes Deuteronomy 6.

And this is what uh, you know, this is a something you don't want to forget about the temptation is Jesus keeps going back to Deuteronomy.

So, again, what's going on here?

Matthew is telling these people what Jesus told him, right?

Matthew wasn't there, nobody was there.

Every everybody who's ever told the story of the temptation of Jesus could have only gotten it from Jesus because he was the only one there, there was no eyewitness.

And so Jesus is telling this story, and he and Jesus keeps going back to Deuteronomy 6 and Deuteronomy 8.

What's Deuteronomy?

Deuteronomy is a series of speeches that Moses gives to the children of Israel after 40 years of mistakes, 40 years of failure, 40 years of lostness and wandering and confusion and dysfunction in the wilderness, and a new generation and a new possibility, a harbinger of new life and new things to come is about to enter the promised land.

And Moses says, Before I die and before we cross the gate into the promised land, we're gonna go painstakingly through every failure of the last 40 years, so we absorb every single lesson, every temptation that your forefathers fell into, I want you to see so that you can learn so that you don't repeat.

And Matthew presents Jesus as the fulfillment of overcoming that temptation, of fighting and winning.

And what does Jesus do?

He goes back to Deuteronomy 6 and he references hey, have no, you know, don't bow to anyone, don't worship anyone except God.

And it's a warning in Deuteronomy 6 that Moses gives the people don't start falling in love with the gods of the surrounding nations.

You're gonna start having people influencing you.

You're gonna start learning about their gods.

And whatever you do, don't be seduced by those gods.

When you feel like you have a void or you're hungry, or you're feeling rejected, or you're feeling weak, and you're feeling low, don't buy the lie of the idol.

So this is where this is what Jesus comes back to.

This is what he grounds himself in.

And today I just want to take a moment and pray with you.

I think it's timely.

I think for some of us, probably freakishly timely, the way that often when we're dealing from a void, even though we may know better, I know what Matthew 3 says, and yet something about the wilderness, something about the temptation takes you to a place where sometimes you start to reopen a question that you already knew.

And today I encourage you to fight the good fight.

Fight the temptation, stand up to the enemy, resist.

Resist.

Stand on God's word.

No, I know who I am.

And I may be facing rejection, but I know that I have the honor of God.

And if I've got to go, you know, and take on the cross, and I gotta go have people stabbing me in the back and people close to me turning on me, and people doubting me that should have believed in me.

I mean, Jesus' own brothers, the Bible says, didn't believe in him.

Jesus' own family didn't believe in him.

Jesus' best friends weren't sure who he was and turned on him and weren't there for him, and even one of them betrayed him.

So, so whatever you're going through, don't let the chaos and the intensity and the emotions and the valley and the wilderness cause you to bow your knee to a false Messiah that promises you that you'll be just as confident as me.

No, get thee behind me, Satan.

I'll bow only to the Lord my God.

I don't need anybody bowing to me.

I don't want anybody worshiping me.

I'm not trying to be anybody's idol.

I worship him and allow God to refill you today so you operate from fullness.

Go ahead and stand on your feet.

I want to pray for you.