Fulfilled: The Chosen King: Temptation 2: Power with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name is Clayton.

I'm the pastor at MetaCurch, and I hope that today's message is inspiring and enlightening and really builds you up wherever you're at in life.

All right, MetaCurch, it's so good to be here with you today.

Wherever you are joining us from, if you're at one of our physical locations in Helotus or at Petrinko, I'm so glad you're here.

If you're with us online, I'm glad that you are tuning in.

If you're new with us, my name's Clayton.

I'm the lead pastor here at MetaCurch.

I'm so glad that you joined us.

We have a great message.

I got two things I gotta get to before I get to my message.

Uh, one of them is like the most fun thing possible.

One of them is not as fun of a conversation, but one we really, really need to have.

I'm gonna I'm gonna get the not so fun out of the way.

You guys know we're pretty deep into a government shutdown right now.

And uh, if you're newer to San Antonio, uh our nickname is Military City USA.

We have a lot of military in our town and in our congregation.

And here in San Antonio, we have a lot of other government organizations.

A large percentage of our congregation works in the government.

Also, we know that there are certain benefits that have either already gone away or they're in danger of going away.

We're a very diverse community here at MetaCurch.

And there are some people in our congregation who do rely right now on some of those benefits.

Here's kind of how it has uh worked for me.

Um, when the government shut down, it was at first a political issue.

And I don't really care which side of the aisle you're sitting on politically, and and you know, you think it's the other people's fault and they think it's your fault, and that's fine.

Pretty soon it became a very practical issue.

Like, what is this going to mean for us?

Where we're at now, in my view, this is now a people issue.

And so we have people who are hurting, we have people who are not getting paychecks, we have people who are very scared.

And the first thing is you just need to know that um on your road today might be someone who has not received a paycheck or is in danger of not receiving a paycheck.

On your road today, might be someone who in this season is relying on some benefits that they might not have access to right now.

And uh, anytime something bad happens and Christians start talking about how they're gonna pray about it, the the new cultural response is oh, the Christians are gonna send their thoughts and prayers.

That'll do some of the thoughts and prayers.

Dude, yes, we are going to approach the throne of the God who spoke our universe into existence, and we're gonna ask him to intercede for us.

I'm not apologizing for praying when things get hard and you shouldn't either.

Now, uh it's it's important for you to understand the dynamic because all of these things have downstream effects.

Uh, what this meant for us in October is that we had for the year 2025, like a very, very low giving month.

So I want to say two things about that.

Number one, if you work in the government and you are not getting a paycheck right now, I want to potentially take some guilt off of you.

It's very clear we give to God out of what we are given.

And if you are not getting a paycheck, you have not been given to give out of, let me remove that guilt from you.

The government will open back up, you will get checks again, and you can start investing again in the kingdom of God.

You should not feel guilty if you're not getting any that you're not giving right now.

Okay?

Let me take some guilt off of you right there.

Now, the second thing I want to say about that is that the same time that we have for the year, like historically low giving, uh, and we are uh a ministry that at this point we're very young, we work on very thin margin.

At the same time, we're already seeing and we're anticipating one of our greatest seasons of need, both because of the shutdown.

So that's the dynamic.

Greater need in the congregation than we typically see, and way less resources coming in than we typically see.

And so I'm gonna address that spiritually in just a moment.

But this is why at the end of every service we say basically the same thing.

It just requires all of us doing our part, giving sacrificially.

So if you do not work in government, you're getting consistent paychecks, and you have never started giving sacrificially to the movement of Jesus, all the excuses are off the table.

It is now your time to shine.

We need you doing your part.

Galatians 6 says, this is what believers do.

We help one another carry each other's burdens.

The end of that verse says, in this way you fulfill the law of Christ.

In other words, if you want to live up to Jesus' expectation for us as the church, you carry one another's burdens.

So a lot of you give, if you're getting paychecks and you're not giving, now is your time because a lot of people they want to give.

Some of our most consistent givers, they don't have paychecks coming in right now.

So does that at least make sense?

Okay, good.

So we're all gonna do our part there.

Now, can I get to the fun part?

God does not bring his children this far to abandon them.

Say amen if you agree with that.

Here's why I'm not losing sleep over a historically bad giving month because God is moving and there's no denying it.

We baptized 144 people last weekend.

I don't have time because I'm preaching too long today.

144 is a very significant number, and it is a biblical number.

And man, let me tell you a few things that happened.

Number one, a bunch of those came out of our Holotus venue, which is brand new.

It just turned a year old.

God's already moving and bringing people in the water.

And Helotus, I'm so proud of the work we're doing there.

Let me tell you another uh amazing, amazing metric.

Uh, 144 baptisms, 40 of those were spontaneous.

That's almost one third.

Which means they did not come to service thinking they were getting baptized.

That means they drove home with soggy drawers.

That's what that means, all right?

They just came, the Holy Spirit got a hold of them and they obeyed the Holy Spirit.

40 people, can I tell you something?

It was about four years ago, we did not baptize 40 people in the entire calendar year.

144 in a day, and 40 of those getting in the water just right in service.

Some of those got saved in their seat that day, and 20 minutes later were in the water.

God is moving, and so we can just trust him.

We can trust him, right?

I believe we're just getting started.

Now we got a lot going on, that's a lot to cover.

I'm gonna say a quick prayer.

Believers, I'm gonna ask that you pray with me for those who are being affected by the shutdown.

Uh Jesus, you are the king of all of the kings.

Uh, you actually govern and guide our world, and we trust you.

Uh, we pray for our leaders.

God, we pray that they would put aside selfishness and foolishness, that they would realize that real people are being impacted.

Uh, I don't pretend to know all the political ins and outs, but I know that you hold the world and you sustain it.

I pray for those right now affected by this government shutdown on any side of it.

I pray that they would just lean into you, they would lean into the body of Christ.

And God, that we would all help carry one another's burden, stir our hearts to do so.

We trust you and we lean into you.

We pray in Jesus' name and everyone who agrees, say amen.

Amen.

Uh, we are in the temptations of Jesus.

If you have not been here with us throughout uh this fulfilled series, I'd encourage you to go to youtube.com slash metachurch to get caught up.

We've been doing a lot of important work, going line by line through the gospel of Luke.

We're in this opening series called the Chosen King.

This is all the preparation for Jesus to begin his ministry.

The last thing Jesus goes through before he steps into his ministry is he goes out into the wilderness for 40 days.

He is replaying and redeeming the Exodus story, where they spent 40 years in that same wilderness, and he is tempted by the devil.

There are three temptations.

We're looking at them as three categories, and you can think of these categories as an umbrella that all other temptations fall under.

Does that make sense?

Anything you are tempted by, you could find in one of these three categories that Jesus was tempted in.

In week one, we saw the temptation of provision, where we are tempted to self-reliance to drive a wedge between us and our trust in our Heavenly Father.

Today we are looking at the temptation of power.

Power.

First week was provision.

Now we're looking at power.

Now I want to say something again, because this is so important for how you frame the temptations of Jesus.

Jesus goes into the wilderness, the devil meets him there, it is a cosmic showdown.

This is so important.

Jesus does not primarily rely on his deity.

We know Jesus is God in human flesh.

He does not primarily rely on his deity to defeat the devil's temptation.

In other words, with all the power of heaven inside of him, he could have snapped his finger.

The devil has to run.

Instead, Jesus demonstrated how to stand up under temptation in his humanity.

And what I mean by that is the way Jesus defeats temptation is the same way that is available to us.

Here's what he approached the devil with the Spirit of God inside of him, the Word of God in front of him, and the hope of heaven ahead of him.

And if you are a believer in Jesus, you have the same three things.

The same weapons that Jesus defeated the devil with, you have available to you.

If you're a believer, you have the Holy Spirit inside of you, you have the word of God in front of you, and you have the hope of eternity ahead of you.

And so now it's just details.

Jesus was modeling for us how we can have victory over temptation in our own life.

Now the devil comes, he doesn't point at provision like week one.

Jesus was hungry, he'd been fasting for 40 days.

Now he's pointing at power.

We're gonna break this down later, but I want to give you a category of power that the devil is presenting.

And I want to call it today cheap power.

Cheap power.

Let me show you what I mean in Luke chapter 4, verse 5.

Luke 4:5

Some of you are are in the word, you're taking notes, you're taking it seriously.

Luke 4, verse 5, it says, So the devil took Jesus up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

Luke 4:5

Now, some translations say that the devil took Jesus to a high place, some translate this to say he took him on top of a mountain.

Uh, that could be true.

They may have physically gone to a high ascent.

However, this moment is a visionary experience.

And I want to comment on that because in temptation number one, I told you that some of you give the devil way too much credit.

And we have to stop with that because the devil is not God, the devil is not all-knowing, he cannot read your thoughts, your heart, your intention, he is not omnipresent, he is not all places at all times, he is not all powerful.

However, you also should not sleep on the devil because he is a spiritual being and he does have significant power.

It's important we don't give him too much credit.

Some people blame the devil for everything, and really you just need to get some sleep and have a snack.

You know what I'm saying?

But you cannot sleep on your enemy either.

You have to have an accurate assessment of him.

He is a spiritual being and he gives Jesus this visionary spiritual experience.

And it says, all of the kingdoms of the earth are shown to him in a moment of time.

This is a Greek idiom.

It also is translated in the blink of an eye.

Now, here's what's really interesting: all the kingdoms of the world, grammatically, is not time-bound.

So we don't know this.

But what that could mean is not just the kingdoms that were on earth while Jesus was physically on earth, but that he may have been given a vision of every kingdom and every empire that would ever exist.

Yes, the expanse of the Roman Empire, yes, the power and the governance of the Greeks, yes, the expansion of Genghis Khan, and yes, the technological advancement of the American Empire.

He could have seen all of it.

And you see, what the devil is driving at inside of Jesus is he's targeting his ambition, and he is trying to take God-given ambition and pervert it into selfish ambition.

You see, there's been an overcorrection in the church where I kind of grew up in some environments where if you had any ambition at all, it was seen as sinful.

If you were like ambitious as a young man, they would try to beat that out of you with the Bible itself.

And here's where we start at MetaCurch, God created you on purpose.

Say amen if you agree with that.

God created you with purpose, say amen if you agree with that.

If you don't agree with that, I don't know why you're here because I tell you that every single week.

God put you on earth on purpose and he placed something inside of you.

And because when you put your faith in Jesus, the spirit of the living God who spoke the universe into creation lives inside of you.

I actually believe that Jesus' followers should be the most ambitious people on earth.

There should be no one with bigger dreams than us, there should be no one with bigger aspirations, but it matters what our ambition is aimed at.

And so there is godly ambition and there is worldly ambition.

Godly ambition is ambition for his kingdom.

And there is worldly ambition.

And worldly ambition is ambition for your kingdom.

And let me tell you the differentiating factor that can help you decide which is which really quickly.

Godly ambition is always willing to sacrificially take on suffering right now in order to see your purpose fulfilled in the future.

Worldly ambition is always the temptation to get rid of suffering now so you can be instantly gratified.

And so what happens is God has hardwired ambition into you.

And the actual temptation is the devil trying to come in, reframe, refocus, and pervert your godly ambition for selfish means.

And here's what's really hard.

Most of you have lived long enough to figure this out.

Some of you are young, teenagers, young people in the room.

Uh, you're gonna have to hear this, and over time, you're gonna have to learn this because you may not have lived long enough.

Most people in the room have.

You've lived long enough to try and walk out your selfish ambition, thinking that it will fulfill and satisfy.

And every time you get to the end of those paths, you're emptier than when you began.

That's why a lot of you are here.

That's why a lot of you have finally humbled yourself and surrendered your life to Jesus.

It's why you finally went through the baptismal waters, because you've tried everything the world has to offer, and it just left you empty.

And young people, you're gonna have to figure that out.

Now, I gotta give a shout out because when I was young, this is the lesson that my dad was trying to teach me all of the time.

But there's something about being 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 years old.

Nobody knows more than you.

You know what I'm saying?

At 15, I was the smartest guy who ever walked the earth, right?

You have that young hubris, I think, especially as young men, it's like nobody can tell us anything.

And my dad, he tried to point this out all the time, and I couldn't hear it, but eventually it got into my heart.

And I'll tell you, it was important that my dad said it to me, but it was more important that he modeled it.

He walked it out for me.

Tuesday, he turned 70, shout out, happy birthday to my dad.

Y'all show him some love.

He looks young for 72, bro.

I mean, I'm telling you right now, he's he's been teaching me this and modeling this for me, and Jesus modeled this for us.

And so let's look at what the actual temptation is because he's he's pointing at his ambition, but it's listen, it's not just ambition in general.

What he's doing is he is pointing at Jesus' God-given kingdom ambition, and he is trying to distort it.

I'll show you in verse 6 the devil said to him, All these kingdoms, I will give you their splendor.

All these kingdoms, I'll give you all this authority because it's been given over to me, and I can give it to anyone I want.

Now, maybe that strikes you as odd.

Like, who gave Satan all the authority over all the kingdoms of the world?

Is that even true?

Because we know the devil is the father of all lies.

Maybe he's just making this up.

You might be shocked to find out that it's the word of God that actually calls Satan the prince of this earth.

It's the word of God that actually acknowledges that the devil does, in fact, have a lot of the authority in our current reality right now.

And so you might be like, I can't believe that God would hand over all this authority to the devil.

But it wasn't God, it was us.

Let me take you all the way back to the garden.

God creates the whole world, it's all good, and then he makes humanity, but different.

I will make them in my image, and I will give them what's called dominion, which means the right to rule and reign.

We were given the world to steward, and it was us in our sin and rebellion who handed it over to the devil.

See, this is how the devil gets us.

He doesn't come with like full force lies, because full force lies are kind of easy to spot sometimes.

If someone just hits you with something you know is not true, it's easy to just back off of that.

What's really dangerous is what the devil always does.

He comes with partial truths.

And those partial truths are what engage us, and he doesn't tell us the rest of the story.

And so he comes at Jesus, and here's the thing, you may not know the backstory, but Satan was originally part of the host of heaven.

He worked for God, he rebelled against God, and so he was cast out, and a third of the angels went with him.

Those are the demons, the demonic forces, the enemies of God who are prowling around this world, trying to knock you off of your purpose, trying to get you out of your calling, trying to offer you cheap power so that you will go with him instead of looking to God, who's demanding your worship, your time, energy, attention, and affection.

What this means is that Satan knows that Jesus is in destination.

Satan knows that Jesus will be king.

At the same time, Jesus has been on earth for about 30 years.

He was 30 years old when he started his ministry.

The devil knows how broken the world is, how toxic people can be, how angry, how quick we are to reject truth.

And so, what's the actual temptation?

The devil's like, Jesus, bro, you and I both know you're gonna be king.

Like you're headed to a throne, but let me just tell you what you also know, Jesus.

This is gonna be some hard work.

A lot of suffering is coming your way.

You're just about to start your ministry.

You'll be mocked, you'll be ridiculed, you'll be rejected, you will struggle.

You didn't come up with money, Jesus.

There's no one to fund this ministry.

You probably won't have anywhere to lay your head at night, Jesus.

You're gonna go through all of that struggle, suffering.

Now, Satan doesn't know about the cross.

We know this theologically, but Jesus does.

Jesus knows what his kingdom ambition will cost him.

The devil is telling partial truths.

Life will be hard.

Jesus will live in poverty, he will be mocked, he will be rejected, and not just by outsiders, his own siblings will despise him and think he is crazy.

His closest followers, who he pours into for three years in his moment of most desperate need, will turn their backs and betray him.

Jesus knows that at the end of the line there will be an illegal trial, an illegal sentencing.

He knows that his hands will be bound to a whipping post, a cat of nine-tails will lash across his back and his body 39 times.

Scripture says he will be beaten so much, he'll be disfigured and unrecognizable as a man.

It's only the beginning of his problem.

He knows he'll be stripped naked, humiliated in front of the crowds, he'll be nailed to a Roman cross, he'll be crucified.

And crucifixion is like the fever dream of the Romans trying to come up with the most barbaric and painful way to execute somebody.

I say all of that to tell you that Jesus knows the very, very, very high price of his kingdom ambition.

And more painful than all of it, Jesus knows when he goes to the cross, all of the sins of all time will be placed upon him, and he will be cursed so that we can be seen as innocent.

That's what's ahead of him.

And so the devil hits him with some half-truths.

Hey man, I run all the kingdoms for all time.

The earth, man, the the humans, these dummies, they've given it all to me.

And so I can give it to you.

You can skip all the suffering.

Look, bro, I can give you the throne without the thorns.

I can give you the crown without the cross.

I can help you skip the suffering, and you could be become king right here and right now.

So what will it cost?

Verse 7 tells us.

If you then, here's all you gotta do, Jesus.

It's really simple.

You don't even really have to mean it, you know?

Like in your heart, you could kind of not mean it, but here's what I need you to do.

I'll give all of this, you can skip all the suffering.

I just need you to worship me.

Everything you want, the ambition, the purpose of your life to be king, it can be yours right now.

You see, this is really difficult because um, as believers, we want kind of a third team.

Because we know what it takes to be on God's team.

We have to surrender our life, we have to tear open our hearts, we have to repent of our sin, we have to take it seriously, we've got to deny ourselves, Jesus said.

Take up our cross, suffer sacrificially, and then we can follow him.

That's what it takes to be on team Jesus.

And if we're not on team Jesus, you know what Jesus said?

He said, uh, there's two masters, and you have to pick one.

And you cannot serve the world and serve God.

You have to choose a team, and there is no third team, and we really want a third team because.

There's areas of our life as believers we're not quite ready to surrender.

We're not quite ready to fully worship God with our finances.

We're not ready to fully worship God with our relationships.

We're not willing to fully worship God with our sexual purity.

We're not willing to fully with our habits, fully with our addictions.

We're not ready for some of those things.

But it's like, I mean, I'm not out here worshiping the devil, you know?

I could be out here worshiping the devil.

That'd be terrible.

What's the third team?

You're not following God, so what team are you on?

You're not worshiping God with areas of your life.

So who are you worshiping?

And the uncomfortable truth, I must bring you because I have to submit to this as your pastor.

The uncomfortable truth is every area we're not worshiping God in, we are in fact worshiping the devil.

It's tough.

It's tough.

And here's the temptation.

Temptation number one was provision, self-reliance.

If you can get past self-reliance, God taking care of your needs, then the devil will turn not to your needs, but to your wants.

Power, success, status, wealth, ambition.

And here's what it is on offer.

Let me remind you.

Cheap power.

Now, cheap has two definitions.

You know this.

Cheap means inexpensive, but cheap also means ineffective, fragile, worthless.

And here's the hard truth we all learn at some point.

Definition one often is tied to definition two, right?

You buy a cheap, inexpensive product, you often get a cheap, ineffective product, right?

So I don't know how I got so blessed because the stereotype is, you know, you're gonna get married and then your wife is gonna wanna shop all the time.

You know?

I know that's a stereotype.

I got the opposite problem.

I cannot convince my wife to spend money.

I know there's some jealous men in the room right now.

I can't get my wife to spend money.

And that's amazing, and I am I'm not complaining, okay?

But I've also had to teach her through our marriage sometimes, if you need a vacuum cleaner so that my seasonal allergies don't become year-round allergies, you cannot buy a nine-dollar vacuum cleaner at goodwill.

It's cheap, but it's cheap, so it doesn't suck, it just sucks, right?

Like sometimes those are correlated, maybe not always, but a lot of times.

And so, what is the devil offering?

Cheap power.

It's both definitions.

The reason it's attractive is because it's inexpensive.

We want the success without the sacrifice, we want the platform without the time to build character.

Uh, I first had a vision to plant a church at 19 years old, and every one of you should say one prayer today, thanking God that He did not let me plant a church at 19 years old.

And if you would have asked me, I could have done it at 19.

There was so much God had to work out of me.

There was so much God needed to build into me.

I had not yet developed the character and leadership in order to support a platform and steward it well.

But that's not what we want.

We want to go viral overnight.

We are often praying, and even in our prayers, we are asking God for cheap power.

We're asking God for wealth before we have had enough career experience to build wisdom.

We don't know how to sacrifice, we don't know how to suffer, and there is nothing significant in your life that you will ever attain to that does not require suffering.

And the reality is when you are praying for cheap power, God just, you know, I don't have any relational skills, but I want to be married next month.

God, I, you know, I don't have any boundary setting skills, but I want to be a parent next year.

It's like all these things that we're trying to skip and get shortcuts to, cheap power shortcuts.

If God would give us 75% of the things we would pray for, they would destroy us in six months.

And we hate God saying, no, not yet, you have to wait.

But God, who has all wisdom and who has all authority, sees your life and knows you're not ready.

You're trying to take a shortcut.

I've always been a big fan of Chance the Rapper.

Chance has a line.

He says, Shortcuts, cut short, long runs.

And we're always looking for the shortcut.

And that same temptation that the devil is whispering in Jesus' ear look, bro, it doesn't have to be that hard.

All that suffering, all that waiting, all that tension, all the drama, I could give it to you right now.

It's an expensive, he lowers the cost.

And yet it is cheap.

It costs nothing up front, but it destroys you in six months.

And we do this all of the time.

And the devil leads with partial truths.

Maybe it is true that your marriage is really hard right now.

Maybe it is true there's not much intimacy in your marriage right now.

All of that's true.

Maybe it's true that the girl at work is giving you some eyes every once in a while.

That's true.

The devil tells you, you know what?

If you just went for it one time, you would have a lot of fun.

Even that is probably true.

But it's partial truth.

You know, it's like pain comes and we want peace.

And if no one has told you this, when you have pain in your life, the path to peace requires going through that pain.

Not around it, not ignoring it, not denying it.

And so the devil's like, bro, you don't want to do that.

You don't want to deal with that, you don't want to confront that, you don't want to have conflict, you don't want to have that conversation, you don't want to sit down with your parents and tell them how they hurt you back in the day.

You don't want to look at your spouse and finally forgive them or tell them how they've grieved you.

You don't want to do all of that.

You know what you could do?

You could just drink until you black out.

You know what you could do?

You could just go shoot up or smoke up or light up.

Like you could just go to your addictions.

We don't want to sit in our loneliness until we trust God with it.

And the devil's there going, bro, for$4.99, a girl could talk to you on OnlyFans.

And just for the guys who are doing that, you need to know you're not talking to that girl.

You were talking to a fat loser in his basement.

And you think you're talking to a girl telling you what you want to hear, but you are not.

We think like, how can I lower the cost?

How can I get out of the suffering?

How can I minimize the struggle?

This is the temptation to Jesus, it's a temptation to us every single day.

It's cheap power.

We do this financially.

And I'm not talking about the world out there, all the lost sinners.

I'm talking about us, the church.

This is how we steward our money.

It's like, I want it, I want it right now, I want to drive it right now, I want to wear it right now, I want to live in that neighborhood right now.

And like wisdom tells you, and the word tells you how to get there.

You take time, you work hard, you struggle, you save, you suffer, you invest, you think of the future.

And the devil's going, why?

MasterCard, American Express, Visa Card, Capital One, like I can point you anywhere and get you what you want right now.

Now, like, yeah, I mean, you won't make your payment, and then it'll be 20% interest, and your kid will never go to college, you'll never retire.

We can think about that later.

It's cheap.

I will lower the cost of suffering, and it's cheap.

It'll destroy you in the long run.

And this is the temptation all of the time.

And we're a culture that is averse to suffering.

We are a culture that goes all outside of our way to not struggle.

We are a culture that prioritizes convenience, but true power comes from patience.

True power comes from sacrifice.

And I just wonder if for us who are believers here across our venues, believers watching online right now, if you could inventory your life.

Both services today, I'm like, this is like the longest it's ever been quiet in a metachurch service.

And my guess is all of us are having to sit under the same conviction I've sat under for weeks, trying to think through how to write this sermon.

I'll just I'll speak for myself.

This temptation to achieve power is coming at me every hour of every day.

Parenting is hard.

Now, I'll give you a secret.

Parents, you might want to take notes.

It doesn't have to be hard.

Just don't parent.

Some of y'all are already ahead of me on that.

Your kids run your house, they have no boundaries.

That's way easier.

You know, just abdicate your God-given role and hope that it ends up well at the end.

And yeah, like, you know, your sons will be so addicted to pornography by 25 years old, they'll never have a good intimate life with their future spouse.

And your daughters will find all of their value and worth from social media influencers, and they will never learn to look to their heavenly father, and they'll never have to submit to your boundaries, so they'll never learn to submit to the Lord when they're not under your house.

I mean, all of those things are devastating consequences, but wouldn't it be easier to just let your kids do what they want?

The devil's just going, bro, no other parents do this.

Your kids hate you for this.

The other parents judge you for this.

They think you're like the weird Christians, you know.

I mean, the temptation is just there all of the time.

It's always the shortcut, it's always the instant gratification, it's always the way out.

It's always lowering the threshold.

And Jesus did not hide this from us.

He's like, if you want to follow me, if you want to live like I lived, if you want to have the impact like I had, you have to learn to carry some crosses.

And he says, before you can even consider picking up a cross, you have to learn to deny yourself every day.

What are we denying?

We've learned two things so far in the temptations.

We are denying the constant pull to self-reliance, we are denying the constant pull to cheap power.

The easy way out that doesn't cost us up front, but destroys us down the road.

And so let's look at how Jesus answered this.

In verse 8, Jesus answered him, it is written, Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

Worship is where you give your time, your energy, your attention, and your affection.

And what have we learned today?

You are either worshiping the Lord or you are worshiping the devil.

And it's like, I'm not worshiping the devil, I'm just kind of addicted to TikTok or whatever.

It's like if it's not of the Lord, it's against the Lord.

It's like there's a part of me, it's probably sinful, that wants to give you a third team so you don't have to feel so bad about it.

But I've looked, there's no third team.

It's like you worship false gods, you're worshiping the devil.

You worship the kingdoms of man, you're worshiping the devil.

That's how it goes.

And let's just be really honest.

It's like as we are striving and struggling to follow the Lord, as we're growing in sanctification, it's like there's more and more of our days where we're really intentionally building the kingdom, but then there are moments where we slide back.

Can we be really honest?

There's even categories of our life where it's like, man, in my relationships, and my finances, and this, I'm really, really serving the Lord, I'm worshiping God with that, and there's a few things I'm still holding on to.

And here's what you need to know: Jesus Christ has grace enough to cover it.

And he loves you enough to meet you there, but he loves you enough that he does not want to leave you there.

And he's gonna call you and he's gonna convict you and he's gonna put you under the word, he's gonna put you under sound preaching, he's gonna put you in a life team, he's gonna get you in community, and he's going to work until more and more and more of your life is fueled by godly ambition, submitted to him, surrendered to him, and worshiping him with all that you are and all that you have.

Say amen if you're trying to get there.

Amen.

Jesus is quoting scripture, and we're gonna see this.

All three temptations come from the same Old Testament book.

It's called the book of Deuteronomy.

I'm gonna give you a couple minutes on Deuteronomy because it's important.

This is the fifth book of the Bible.

Those five books are called the Pinateuch.

They were written by Moses.

This fifth book, let me show you the parallel.

Jesus is quoting this on day 40 in the wilderness.

Deuteronomy is written in year 40 in the same wilderness.

Jesus is about to step into his purpose, his ministry.

The Israelites are about to step into the promised land, which is their purpose.

Deuteronomy is written by Moses, he's preparing the people for how not just to enter the land, but how to prosper in the land.

And Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 13.

Deuteronomy 6:13

It says this, Fear the Lord your God, worship him, and take your oaths in his name.

Here's the problem: they're going into the land, but they will be surrounded by pagan nations who worship false gods.

And there is a true split between how the pagan nations live and how God expects Israel to live.

While in the wilderness, God gave them the law, the Jewish law, 613 statutes, commands, rules, and regulations that are incredibly strict and incredibly stringent.

And what that means is following the law costs you.

Following the law required sacrifice.

And God gave the law as a tutor, the New Testament tells us, teaching his people how to live lives willingly sacrificing, willingly suffering in order to prosper eternally.

Here's the real problem.

God also knew those pagan nations, they had their own false gods.

Those false gods did not require sacrifice of you.

They did not require suffering.

As a matter of fact, the false gods mirrored the desires of the people.

The false gods were there to show you pathways to instant gratification at the lowest cost possible.

The same temptation that the devil gave Jesus in the wilderness, the same temptation we are hit with every single day.

Lower the cost, instant gratification.

And so Moses is preparing them because the battle is going to be godly ambition versus worldly ambition.

Our same battle we are in right now.

Here's how he prepares them.

He gets them ready to lean on and worship God and God alone.

Here's how this passage ends in verse 17.

Moses writes, carefully observe the commands of the Lord your God, the decrees and statues he's commanded you.

Do what is right and good in the Lord's sight so that you may prosper, and so that you may enter and possess the land the Lord your your God swore to your ancestors by driving out all your enemies before you, as the Lord has said.

Can I tell you some of y'all's assignment today, believers, is you gotta identify your enemies that are driving you to worshiping the false gods of our culture, and you have to drive them out of your life.

Some of you, the influencers who have fake, phony, filtered lives on social media, they are convincing you and filling you with worldly ambition, and you need to unfollow immediately.

Some of you, I don't care if you're 14 or 74, some of you do not yet have the spiritual maturity to manage your own self on social media.

You just need to be rid of it altogether, at least for a while, until God reframes this worldly ambition back to the proper kingdom ambition that He created you with.

Some of you, you need a new friend circle.

Some of you, you need help.

You have an addiction, and you have not been humble enough to say it out loud or go to a meeting.

It is time to drive out the enemies that are pushing you away from God, convincing you to take the path of cheap power.

God did not give them the law, God does not give us this expectation to carry our own cross, to like squash your fun, to kill your vibe.

He is not maniacal, he doesn't want to just see you suffer.

God created this world.

And because he created it, he knows how it functions.

He desires what is best for you, and he created you with a purpose, a godly ambition, and he wants to see you live it out.

He knows that nothing great is built without suffering, and he demonstrated his willingness to do it when he came to our earth as Jesus Christ and suffered more than any of us ever will suffer.

Here's the real issue: it's not just ambition, it's ambition plus impatience that leads us to temptation.

God has placed something on your life and you know it, you feel it, you sense it, and you're tired of waiting.

And maybe God is not done preparing you.

I wanted to plant a church at 19.

Thank God I didn't.

I wasn't ready.

I wanted the church to grow in 2021.

I wasn't ready.

We're seeing spiritual breakthrough now because he has been incubating us, incubating all of us as founders of this movement, incubating myself, the staff, growing us, getting some stuff out of us, getting some stuff into us.

We have to be able to trust him in his timing.

The devil was right.

Jesus was created on earth through Mary.

Jesus is eternal, he's the God who always was.

He came to earth to eventually be king.

He was right about that.

And I thought about this hypothetical, and you gotta give me a little bit of grace here.

This is how you end up on someone's YouTube video being called a heretic, so give me a little bit of grace.

It's a hypothetical, it never could have happened.

But what if Jesus had bowed?

Hypothetical never could have happened, but it might be helpful.

What if?

The same way I give in to cheap power all the time, what if he would have given in?

Maybe the devil was lying and he wouldn't have given him anything.

Maybe he wasn't.

Maybe the devil installs Jesus as the king of the world.

What then?

If Jesus took the shortcut, he would be the king, he would have the throne, and he would rule over a broken, sinful world that he no longer had the ability to redeem.

In other words, he would get his ambition and he would forfeit the ability to live out his purpose.

Jesus, of course, stood up under the temptation and showed us in turn how we can do the same.

It's very interesting in many, many places in the New Testament, it writes about Jesus as the highly exalted king of all kings.

And every time it acknowledges that he became that king through his suffering.

I want you to look at what the author of Hebrews wrote, Hebrews chapter 2, verse 9.

Hebrews 2:9

It says, But we see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a short time, so that by God's grace he might taste death for everyone.

We see Jesus crowned with glory and honor.

Here's the key word, because.

Not in spite of, because he suffered death.

If you were to die tonight, you have no idea what comes on the other side of this life.

You need to know this: that Jesus went through the hardship of life, the hardship of suffering, the hardship of the cat of nine-tails, the hardship of the cross, and he did it for you.

All of us are estranged from our Heavenly Father because of our sin.

And something or someone had to pay the price of that sin forever, and Jesus came.

And he stuck with the plan and he lived a perfect life in the middle of our brokenness and temptation.

And he went to a cross that had your name on it, and had my name on it, and he exchanged his life for yours.

He walked out of a grave three days later to prove to you that he, in fact, can offer you life after death.

Believers, here's what you need to know.

The world tells you that true power is found in self-satisfying.

If I can satisfy myself as quickly as possible with the lowest possible cost, then that's true power.

If I can get there quicker than everyone, if I can get the biggest platform, if I can get the most wealth, if I can get the most status, however fast I can get it in at the lowest cost.

But Jesus shows us that true power is not in self-satisfying, it's in self-sacrificing.

Jesus shows us the way up is down.

The way to exaltation is through humility.

The way to status is through service.

He inverts our understanding and shows us what is true and real and will satisfy you at the deepest part of who you are.

Believers, could you take inventory of your life?

And could you see where the temptations are coming at you for cheap power in your relationships, in your finances, in your career, in your habits, in every area and every aspect of your life?

As we close, uh let's pray together, let's bow our heads, close our eyes across our venues.

If you are already a believer in Jesus, I just want this to sit on you for a minute.

I don't think I'm reading this wrong.

It's like I could sense the conviction across our venues in real time.

This is such a pervasive temptation in our culture, and it's so powerful because it doesn't hit you with lies, it hits you with partial truths.

What we must do is surrender, trust, and worship God and God alone.

And that will bring us clarity and bring us back to the godly ambition we were built for.

If you're here at one of our venues or you're with us online and you do not have a relationship with Jesus, you do not know whether or not you are headed to eternal life with God, I want to give you an opportunity to get that right today.

Time is of the essence.

We are not promised tomorrow.

And so if you're at one of our venues, you've never had a moment in time where you have consciously decided to put your hope in Jesus.

What I want to do is ask you if you're ready to make that decision right now, with everyone's eyes closed, to just simply raise your hand right where you're sitting.

This momentary act of courage, raising your hand, it's a symbolic gesture that says, today I choose to put my faith in Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

For those who raised a hand, we can say with confidence out of God's word that God sees, he accepts your faith, he forgives all of your sins, and he has now brought you into an eternal relationship with himself.

And what I want to do is help you acknowledge this moment through a very simple prayer.

If you raise your hand, I want you to pray this with me.

I'm gonna ask all the believers to pray this with us as well.

Let's pray like this.

Jesus, today I choose to put my faith in you.

I believe you are God that you died for my sins and rose from the grave.

I thank you for loving me and forgiving my sins.

So glad you joined us for today's message.

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