Fulfilled: The Chosen King: Temptation 1: Provision 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.

It's great to be here with you today.

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

I'm the lead pastor at MetaCurch wherever you're joining us from.

If you're at one of our physical locations, Petrenko or Helotus, I'm so glad that you came out today.

If you're with us online, I'm so glad for that ministry so you can join us as well.

Now, I told you uh that this is a very exciting time at MetaCurch.

We are seven days away from baptisms.

As of this morning, we have 88 people signed up to get baptized.

That's worth celebrating.

Last week we were around 70 people, and I said in faith, I believe we're gonna baptize over a hundred, uh, which is something we've never seen in one baptism before.

So we're very excited uh about all that God is doing there.

Um, also, last week I said we've got a big announcement, something that has been in the works really since the beginning of the church, and I'm excited to make that announcement today.

Uh, I gotta give you a little bit of context.

Um, we started planning MetaCurch uh about seven years ago, is September of 2018, when we were first praying, we got Clarity, we got a name, we got together all of our documents so we could be a real organization, have to send out a lot of documents.

Well, to send official documents, you need letterhead.

And to have a letterhead, you need a logo.

And so we were just getting started.

Uh, so I created this logo.

Now you need to know this.

I'm not a graphic designer.

My expertise ended somewhere around like Microsoft Paint, you know?

And I just put together a triangle with a triangle on top of it, and they kind of intersected a little bit.

And uh, you know, over the last seven years, I've had people come up like, Pastor, I figured out what the triangles mean.

The bottom one is the church, and the top one's the Holy Spirit.

It's none of that.

It's just triangles.

Uh, I just needed a letterhead, and I like your thing, so I just go with it.

Um, but I was like, look, here's what'll happen.

We need to get this thing started.

We will hire professionals, like, you know, a creative marketing agency.

They'll take us through a branding process.

We'll have the all the things that we need.

Because branding does matter, and I believe that.

Uh, if you run a restaurant or you sell bicycles and own a bicycle shop, um, branding creates consistency.

So when people see you, see your products, and see your marketing, they know it's you.

And it matters because you want people to ride your bikes or eat at your restaurant.

Well, branding matters for our movement as well, because we're not just trying to get people in a restaurant, we're trying to get people out of hell and into heaven, okay?

So if people see who we are and it correlates to them getting into our seats or screaming with us online, which correlates to them knowing Jesus and living out their purpose, then these small things matter, right?

I was just talking to someone uh that was here last service.

It's like, man, you look at the Old Testament, nothing in the temple was on accident.

It was all intentional, it was all cohesive.

So I was like, we'll get this done, you know, surely in our first year or something.

Then we went out and we started getting prices on going through a branding process.

If you own a business, you know this.

The low end was about$18,000, the high end was about$25,000.

It's a lot of work, it's three to six months process, you get all kinds of stuff done.

And look, we are missionally focused at MetaCurch.

And so it's not that God hasn't provided what we need, it's just I could never pull the trigger when there were other direct missional things to prioritize.

And so, seven years later, my little triangles that I made out of necessity are on like thousands of shirts, uh, like a thousand bumper stickers running around San Antonio of these little triangles that I never thought were anything but a placeholder.

And God has been so good to us.

But in January of this year, we always have a staff theme.

And uh the staff theme this year was integration, and and I gave them a document of what this means.

About half of that document was branding integration, finally getting through a process like this.

And I told them, we still really don't have the funds to prioritize towards that, but if God wants this to happen, it will happen.

About six months ago, I walked off stage and uh a part of our movement, uh, one of our members of our movement named Nicole Edmonds, she came up to me.

Now, she is a professional graphic designer, a professional marketer, and a professional creative.

And she pulled me aside and she said, Your branding, it sucks.

She didn't say that.

Her eyes said that though.

Her words were very kind, but her eyes, I was like, I know, I know, I made it, I know.

And she said, I want to help.

And I was like, I want help, you know, but I know it's very expensive.

She said, You don't understand, I'm a part of this movement, I want to help.

And so she started working on this with us.

Now, uh, she helped found a creative and marketing agency called Parable Creative that is actually out of New York City.

And she just in conversation started telling the team that she was doing this for us, and the team said, We want in, we want to help.

And so they came alongside, and for the last six months, we have been working with like a high-class, incredible creative agency out of New York City of all places that have come alongside of us and helped us get our branding right.

So if you're on social media, you might have seen that we have a new logo.

If you haven't seen it, we will throw it up for you.

Uh, it's brand new, we got new triangles, we have our own fonts, we got a color palette.

It's more than that, though.

I mean, it is an entire guideline, 30-something pages that we can hand to any professional, any graphic designer, and we can start creating consistency so that when people see something, it registers as Metachurch.

And I want you to know some of you have like 45 t-shirts with the old triangles on them.

Man, hold on to some of those because that is evidence that you were here setting the foundation of what Metaturch is becoming.

We're not even seven years old.

We're about to baptize a hundred people in a week.

God is just getting started.

You were here on the ground floor of that, and I think that means something that you were here and you were a part of that.

Now, we want to get you guys right, okay?

Because a lot of you are riding around with what are now officially old triangles.

And so when you get out to your car under your windshield, you're gonna have some new triangles to put on your car, yes?

Um, and you will also have how to remove a bumper sticker so you don't mess up your cars.

Uh so that'll be on your car.

Now, if you didn't drive today, we will have more of these in the future, so don't trip out uh about that.

We gave you a one-sheet just so you can kind of understand some of the vision behind the new branding and all that God is doing there.

And uh, we want to get your swag right.

So we're gonna be selling this hat, new fonts, new colors, new triangles, metachurch.tv slash shop, or you can hit the QR code.

Um, this is gonna be a pre-order, it'll be open for about 10 days.

I need you to know any apparel or anything like this, um, it goes to help fund our movement.

So, specifically with this hat, any profit will go into a designated account that is gonna help meta youth get to camp next year.

It's incredibly expensive by the time you buy the buses and everything like that.

So, support the movement, update your swag, get some new branding on.

We'll have t-shirts and stuff like that later.

Um, but would you guys please help me think and honor Parable Creative?

Britney is here, Nicole is a part of this movement.

Please show them some love for what they've done for us.

Now, God just works all things together, and um this does actually correlate with where we are at in the text today.

Because we're gonna be looking at the temptations of Jesus, and one of the things we're looking at is self-reliance versus God reliance.

And for a long time, I was relying on myself, I was relying on our team, I was relying on our budget to try to get this process done.

And sometimes you just have to hit your knees and pray and ask God to move, and God will do it in his timing, amen.

Amen.

So we are in this section of Luke, we've called it the chosen king.

It's basically Luke chapter one uh to the beginning of chapter four.

And this is all pre-ministry.

So this is the preparation for Jesus to start his ministry and ultimately to change the world.

And we've gone really slow because that's how the Holy Spirit's led us to go.

But also, it's important that we get very granular in understanding how Jesus prepared for his purpose because you have a purpose as well.

And God created you on purpose, it's not an accident that you're here, and God created you with purpose, you have a job to do in building the kingdom of God.

God created you on purpose and with purpose, Jesus is prepping for his purpose.

Jesus is prepping for his ministry.

It's important we pay attention because you have a ministry as well.

And too many Christians go, Yeah, I have a ministry, it's called Metachurch, and the pastors do the work of the ministry.

It's like, you know what Ephesians says my job is to prepare you, the saints, to do the work of ministry.

You have a ministry because only you live in your specific context, in your social circle.

You have a ministry in your family, in your place of work, in your social circle, in your job, in your gym, in your grocery store, everywhere that you go.

I I had a volunteer tell me today, uh, they just switched careers, they are now teaching Pilates.

She said, at the end of every single class, I say, I just want to remind you, you were created on purpose and with purpose.

And just ending like that, she said she has already gotten to invite a handful of people to show up to one of our locations and come.

Because she understands I'm teaching Pilates, but I have a ministry here, right?

You have a ministry in your life, and Jesus is preparing for this.

And so let me remind you some context.

If you haven't been here, you can catch up on the whole book of Luke, uh, youtube.com slash metachurch.

Some important context is Jesus has been baptized and led out into the wilderness.

What he's doing, he's replaying and redeeming the Exodus story from the Old Testament.

So let me remind you the parallels.

The Israelites went through the waters of the Red Sea.

Jesus goes through the waters of baptism.

The Israelites are led out into the wilderness ultimately for 40 years.

Jesus immediately is led out into the wilderness for 40 days.

Both Jesus and the Israelites ultimately come under the temptation of hunger.

All of these parallels are playing out.

We're gonna look at the temptations of Jesus and we're gonna look at them one at a time.

We're gonna continue to go slow because here's what happened.

Jesus got baptized when he came out of the water, the Father tore open heaven so he could speak down affirmation to the Son.

The Spirit of God descends.

You have the entire Godhead in one picture: Father, Son, Holy Spirit bringing affirmation to the ministry of Christ, and his ministry is about to begin.

And so when Jesus gets baptized, all of heaven rejoices.

When you get baptized next Sunday, all of heaven rejoices.

That's a good thing.

Here's what else happens: Jesus gets baptized, comes out of the water, and all of the ops start paying attention.

We are spiritual beings, we live in a spiritual reality, and these spiritual enemies of God, when Jesus comes out of that water, are put on alert.

And so Jesus goes out following the spirit in the wilderness, and right behind him are all the demons from hell and the devil himself.

And what is true for Jesus is true for us.

When you really start stepping into your purpose, really start taking your faith seriously, really try to discover your calling.

When you start actually showing up for your family, you don't start start, you stop overworking, and you start actually building into your children.

You start loving your wife well, you start respecting your husband well, you quit leaning on your addictions, you humble yourself, you ask for help, you go to a meeting, you throw away your dime bag, you throw a eight-ball, you throw away your weed pin, you get off of OnlyFans, you unsubscribe, you start showing up, you prioritize Sunday service, you get generous with your finances.

When you take it seriously, all of heaven rejoices, and the ops pay attention.

And the spiritual opposition is real.

And I have never lied to you.

On the other side of baptism, sometimes the temptations increase and life gets more difficult.

And so here's what is so beautiful.

Paul tells us in Philippians 2 that Jesus, who was God, who is God, came down to earth, humbled himself, and emptied himself, and became the template for how we should live.

And so the devil comes out to the wilderness, and this is a cosmic, supernatural showdown: the Prince of Heaven versus the Prince of Darkness.

Jesus has not taught a sermon yet, he has not healed yet, he's not raised the dead yet, he's not opened the eyes of the blind, he has not cast out a demon, he has not died or resurrected yet.

And Satan shows up to try and smother his ministry while it is still in the cradle.

He wants to stop the movement of Jesus before it ever gets started.

And Jesus is 100% God and he's 100% human.

And so when the devil shows up, you need to know this.

Jesus could have acted out of his deity, and out of his deity, the devil would have had to flee because the devil cannot stand in the presence of the Almighty God.

But what he did, he did for you and for me.

Instead, Jesus stood in his humanity and he defeated the devil in a way that is available to every single one of us.

On the other side of calling, comes opposition.

And Jesus, three temptations in a row, Jesus allows himself to be tempted.

He is God, he doesn't have to do this.

He allows himself to be tempted in order to teach us how to overcome temptation as well.

I want to read it to you in context.

We're in Luke chapter 4, starting in verse 1.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

It says, Then Jesus left the Jordan full of the Holy Spirit and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by the devil.

He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over, he was hungry.

And the devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.

But Jesus answered him, It is written, Man must not live on bread alone.

We're gonna take our time, we're gonna look at all three temptations one week at a time, and each temptation is pointing at a broader category that the devil uses to tempt us.

The first category is provision.

Provision.

This is a temptation of provision.

Do you feel provided for right now in your life?

This is not a hypothetical question.

You don't have to answer out loud, but I'm asking you, do you feel provided for?

If you feel provided for, then you are living with contentment.

Are you content?

Or do you struggle with discontent?

Do you feel provided for?

Is your life marked by peace, or is it marked by anxiety and complaint?

Do you believe you will be provided for in your future?

What are the future worries that you believe you have to take care of in your own strength or by your own might, or that you have no idea how they will get fulfilled, and so it fills you with dread, it fills you with worry, it fills you with anxiety.

This is a temptation of provision.

And at the bottom line, the question is: do we trust God to provide?

What does it look like to be provided for?

This isn't spiritual, this is psychological.

Um, a ways back there was a famous psychologist named Abraham Maslow, and he gave us what is called Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Many of you have seen this.

I've brought this out in sermons before.

The way it starts is at the bottom of the pyramid, you have the most fundamental needs.

He calls these physiological needs.

These are things like air and water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, and reproduction.

These are the things, if you do not have them for long enough, you die.

These are not wants, these are not aspirations.

You have to have these things.

Now I know some of you you're lost, so I'm gonna bring you back in.

You're like reproduction.

I'm gonna die without sex.

I don't understand exactly.

Like, no, you won't, but if everyone decides not to, then the whole human race dies, okay?

Like we're well below replacement rate already, which means as a society, we are dying.

We're a few generations away if you fast-forward things.

All of these things matter.

You either have air, water, food, or you do not.

As you move up, you have safety needs, things like security, resources, health.

You move up, you have even higher psychological things like friendship, a sense of connection.

You move up, you have like self-esteem.

This is respect, status, recognition, strength.

At the very top, Maslow calls this self-actualization.

We are believers in Christ.

We are not pursuing ourselves, we are pursuing the kingdom of God.

This is kingdom of God actualization for us.

What this means, move out of psychological into the spiritual.

What this means is that we know Jesus, we surrender to him, and then we live out our God-given purpose.

Amen?

And I'm gonna try it again, amen.

If we don't believe that, we shouldn't be here.

That's our whole, that is the movement of Jesus, that's why we're on earth, okay?

So we look at this, and here's what's hard.

Abraham Maslow says, if you have this, then you have provision.

The problem is only the foundation is objective.

You either have food or you do not, and if you do not for long enough, you die.

You have water or you do not.

If you do not have clean water for long enough, you die.

Those are objective.

Now, even in the objective, we still must ask the question who do we trust to provide for our needs?

But those are objective, they're easier to measure.

All four other parts are subjective.

Let me walk you through some of them.

Personal security.

The opposite of security is insecurity, and insecurity is not based on reality, it is based on your perspective.

There are multi-multi-millionaires and even billionaires who have a poverty perspective.

They have generational wealth, their great-great, great, great, great-great-grandchildren will still be living off of their money, and they wake up every day insecure, thinking that's the day they'll end up in the poorhouse.

Personal security has nothing to do with reality or how much you have, it has to do with your perspective.

Resources.

How do you know if you have enough resources, adequate resources?

Probably part of it is how you were raised, how your parents handle things.

Part of it is how much time you spend comparing yourself to the influencers on your Instagram feed.

Part of it is just your own insecurities about what you have and what you do not have and what you believe the world owes you.

Some of you are convinced that you are as poor as it gets because you have a household income of only 45,000 and you have a car that's seven years old, you have no idea at$45,000 a year, you are in the top two percent of wealth on planet Earth right now.

It's not about reality, it's about your perspective.

We move up to love and belonging.

What does a sense of connection mean?

How do you measure it?

What does friendship look like?

How do you know you have enough?

If you have a deep insecurity in your perspective, you will never have enough.

We move up, things like respect.

If you have a hole in your heart, if something is missing in your soul, people can lavish respect on you and you will go to bed every night believing you are being disrespected.

What does status look like?

My guess for most of us is we measure our status in comparison to the standards that the world has set for us.

And Jesus came and he said, All the institutions of the world and all the standards of the world and all the kingdoms of the world, I am turning them upside down.

Here's my guess: most of us do not measure status the way Jesus did, where he said, I tell you that the first shall be last, and the very last shall be first.

We like that verse, but we do not have a perspective where that actually makes its way into our everyday life.

And so it's not about what has actually been provided for us, it is about our perspective on our provision.

And so when we have this subjective world, the question is what are we looking to for provision?

What is our faith in and provision?

It's very interesting.

Jesus came, he was fully human, he'd been fasting for 40 days, he was starving, and the devil points right at a source of provision.

In verse 3, the devil said to him, If you're the son of God, tell this stone to become bread.

Now, this is a problem because Jesus was led by the Spirit in the wilderness and was led by the Spirit to fast, and his fast is not over.

And the devil shows up and is like, Yo, you're God, you got the power of God inside of you, miracle working power.

Like here's a stone, make some sourdough, bro.

Like, you can do whatever.

If Jesus uh was from San Antonio, he would have been like chips and salsa right there, bro.

You gotta he comes at provision, but this is so important.

If we don't understand this, we cannot understand how Jesus overcame this temptation.

He came at provision.

Jesus is starving, but the devil who is wise and is cunning, who is a strategist.

Notice the devil did not point at his hunger.

The devil did not show up like 40 days, bro.

Your father must hate you, bro.

40 day fast, that's crazy.

I can't go 40 minutes without eating you.

40 days, Jesus, you must be hungry, bro.

And you got that power, and here's some snows, you do what you want, turn it into bread.

He doesn't come at his hunger, he comes at his perspective.

Look at it in verse 3.

The devil didn't say to him, I bet you're hungry.

The devil said, If you're really the son of God, if you really have this power, what is he actually tempting Jesus to?

Jesus is in the wilderness in order to model for us full reliance on the Father, and the devil is tempting him to self-reliance.

You'll notice something as we go through the rest of the book of Luke that Jesus does a lot of miracles, which is accessing the deity that he has available to him.

He even does miracles that somewhat correspond to this temptation.

He takes a few loaves and a few fish, he feeds 20,000 people with it.

He could have done this in the wilderness, but every time Jesus uses his power, it is always for the benefit of others, it is never for the benefit of himself, and more importantly, it is never ever in disobedience to God.

He's not done fasting, he's not done demonstrating full reliance, and he's tempted into self reliance.

And this is not a new strategy for the devil.

The very first temptation, all the way back in Genesis, back in the Of Eden.

The devil comes to Adam and Eve, and what he tries to change is their perspective.

God is holding out on you.

God has something for you, He's not giving you.

Maybe God isn't as good as you thought he was.

Maybe God isn't as generous as you believed him to be.

Maybe there is something more, and if God can't get it for you, maybe you can get it for yourself.

The temptation for Adam and Eve who fully relied on God.

God said, I will give you everything that you need.

All you have to do is trust me and obey one rule.

And they decided to move into prideful self-reliance.

If God won't give this to me, I will go get it for myself.

Please listen to me.

We are not just Westerners which have a problem with provision and a problem with affluence.

We are Americans.

And the American ethos is uniquely self-reliant.

The American ethos is everything we get, we earn.

There are no free rides, and if something is offered for free, it is a trap that should be rejected.

We pull ourselves up with our own bootstraps.

We go out and get it.

That is the American way.

And look, there are some good lessons there.

I want my kids to be resilient.

I want my boys to know how to work hard.

But as believers and as spiritual beings, we must surrender our desire for self-reliance and trust that it is God and God alone who provides for every one of our needs.

I'm glad you clap for that.

I'm letting you know it's hard.

I'm letting you know we like it in theory, but we struggle with it in practice.

As much as we confess to trusting God for our present and our future, our everyday activities are often relying on ourselves.

Do you believe that God will provide?

If so, are you living with the contentment that follows?

Do you have the peace that follows?

Or are you plagued, like almost all Westerners, with discontentment?

Are you plagued with anxiety anxiety about the future?

Do you trust that God will actually work for good in the most difficult places in your life?

Here's what you need to know: provision is always attached to perspective.

Provision is always attached to perspective.

It isn't actually about the tangible reality of your life.

It is your perspective and what you believe about how you will be provided for.

Relying fully on God does not mean, like some people take it, that we just sit on the couch and go, yo, God will provide, you know.

Don't need to go to work today, God's just gonna ching and make it happen.

Don't need to go out and like try to find a godly woman.

If I'm supposed to be married, God will just bring her and put her on my lap, you know.

It's like, no, like fully relying on God means fully relying on the spirit of God, which means always following his promptings, and probably means that you will actually work harder in building the kingdom of God, not that you will always sit still.

What we tend to do is we look to our own strength and our own gifting, our own ideas, and more even than our own ideas, we look to the standards and ideas of the culture to try and provide for what we need.

Provision is always attached to perspective.

So let me ask about your perspective.

How do you see yourself and what do you believe about yourself?

How do you view the world and what do you believe about the world?

How do you see others and what do you believe about them?

The devil takes the same approach with us.

He aims at our perspective in order to try and drive a wedge between us and our Father.

This is what he did to Adam and Eve.

He got them to question whether or not God would really provide everything that they need.

And if he can get that foothold, if he can drive that wedge, then he can lead you to self-reliance.

Self-reliance leads to temptation, and temptation leads us to sin.

And you're already being tempted, and you're already giving in at some level because we're broken humans in a broken world.

But as you are stepping into your calling in Medichur, I just believe this.

There are four years in our history where in the entire year we did not baptize a hundred people.

We baptized 78 six months ago, we'll baptize a hundred in one in one day next week.

We are stepping into our purpose and stepping into our calling, and the opposition takes notice.

And so if we walk into that opposition and we do not know how to fully rely on God to provide what we need, then we will struggle to find victory in that temptation the way that Jesus modeled it for us.

Here's how Jesus actually responds.

In verse 4, Jesus answered him, it is written, man must not live on bread alone.

Jesus is God, he could have accessed his deity, he could have called down thunder and lightning, fire from heaven.

But instead he stood and he defeated that temptation with the very thing that is accessible to all of us, full reliance on God and the words of God speaking truth to lies.

You have this.

You have the very words of God that Jesus defeated the devil with, and yet we do not access it.

We lean on our own understanding, we fight temptation with our own strength, we go at it with our own ideas that are informed not by the kingdom but by the culture, and we wonder why we struggle so much with temptation.

We are in a tough marriage, and we think if I read one more book and there are good books you should read.

If you're married, there are good books that you should read.

If I go to one more conference, there are good conferences and you should go to them.

But if you think that anything of this world is the actual answer to getting you out of a difficult marriage or difficult parenting or a difficult spot in your career or an addiction that is plaguing you, if you think that you will come out of that without intervention from the God of the universe who loves you, who died for you, who gave you his spirit, who gave you his word, who gave you everything that you need and everything Jesus needed to defeat the devil, but we're going to do it by ourselves.

I'm a Westerner, I'm an American, I'll come after the devil with my six shooter and my boots on.

You're going to lose, bro.

What you need is to rely on God, humble yourself, hit your knees, and trust that God will win the victory for you.

We are discontent.

We want a bigger house, we want nicer brands, we want a nicer car, we want a bigger raise, we want more status, more love, more respect, better kids, a healthier marriage.

Those are all just hunger.

They're symptoms.

You're like, you're hungry for more.

Discontent.

Behind that hunger is a broken perspective, a lack of trust that God will provide.

And here's what's hard God does not always provide on our timelines.

It's kind of a silly example, but I think it actually matters to the text.

I wanted new branding, new logos, new fonts, new colors seven years ago.

And you know what I did?

I tried to make it happen.

I met with them, I got the quotes, and I would negotiate.

And I'm usually pretty good at negotiation.

I read books on negotiation, you know, and I'd be like, Yeah, but here's the deal.

Have you thought about this?

And they'd be like, We have thought about that, 25,000.

Well, what if we did this?

They're like, Yeah, it's gonna cost 25,000.

Well, how about this?

You wanna go to heaven when you die?

They're like, Yes, I do, 25,000.

You know, nothing would work.

And in January, I was like, Look, we need this.

I think it's really important.

I don't know how we're gonna get it, but we're just gonna pray and see what happens.

And then God just opens the door in his timing, and he's been so good to us all along.

And now here we are.

This is how things happen.

God puts it together for us.

I'm seeing this all the time, like everything's lining up.

I did not plan this.

Where we would be in Luke, bro, I thought we'd be in like chapter eight by now.

Can I be honest?

We're struggling to get through the beginning of chapter four.

We planned baptism service like eight or nine months ago.

We put that date on the calendar.

And then the Holy Spirit organized our journey through Luke, where we're coming up to baptisms, looking at the baptism and preparation of Jesus and how he defeats temptation on the other side.

For six and a half years, I planned the series here at Metachurch.

Now the Holy Spirit is planning the series, and it's just better, bro.

It's just better.

And so you have hard places in your life, and it's not all material, some of it is emotional, mental, social, psychological.

You have hard places in your mind, you have a lot of anxiety about the future.

And the question is, who do you trust to provide?

Because a lot of time, man, God doesn't answer exactly how we want on our exact timeline, and so we go, I guess I'll do it myself.

I guess I'll make the money myself.

I guess I'll fix the marriage myself.

And then when inevitably you can't do it by yourself, it's like then I'll just check out of the marriage.

No intimacy, I'll just watch pornography.

No intimacy, I'll just start this little emotional thing over here.

No, no hope, I'll just file for divorce.

We want this.

We we want to come in and fix our marriage and help our kids and build our careers.

And every time there is that hunger for something more, every time there's that discontent, there is a decision to make.

And either you will surrender and humble yourself, cast your anxieties on him and trust that he will provide, or you will choose self-reliance.

And the devil will see that and drive a wedge between you and your father.

And self-reliance leads to temptation, and that temptation leads to sin.

And when Jesus quotes the Old Testament and says, Man must not live by bread alone, he's doing more than we think he is, and it's worth exploring.

He's quoting all the way back in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy.

This is the fifth book of our Bible.

It's part of what's called the Pinateuch.

That's just the first five books.

We believe Moses wrote all of these books.

Uh, the first four is the story of Israel becoming a nation and wandering through the wilderness.

Then you have Leviticus, which gives us the Jewish law.

You have Numbers, which divides up the land, and then you have Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy is actually a speech that Moses gives to Israel.

You see, Moses has taken them to the edge of the promised land, but because of his own sin, he will not enter.

They're gonna go under new leadership.

Joshua's gonna bring them in.

This is Moses' last time to address the nation he has led for 40 years.

And so he stands up, and what he does is he recounts their entire journey, but as he recounts the journey, he stops and gives commentary so they understand why they went through what they went through.

In Deuteronomy 8, they have come through the Red Sea, he's retelling this.

They have come through the Red Sea, they are in the wilderness, and just like Jesus, they are now hungry.

But the Israelites did not rely on their father.

They had no idea that God was getting ready to miraculously rain bread from heaven.

They lost faith in their father, they became self-reliant.

And when we become self-reliant, we become stupid.

They have great ideas like, hey, you know the nation that kept us in slavery for 400 years and would follow us around and crack us with the whip and make us do manual labor and then feed us porridge to make us strong enough to build their pyramids?

We should go back there.

I'm like a little bit hangry, so we should go back to Egypt.

And we look at that like, bro, what?

How could anybody be that stupid?

And you give us like three weeks of God not answering our prayers, and we go right back to our addiction.

You give us a month of God not giving us the financial success that we wanted, and we go right back to self-reliance, and we go right back to old patterns, and we go right back to anger.

We have to be really, really careful pointing fingers at what seems like the stupid mistakes of the people in scripture because scripture is always holding up a mirror to our own habits and proclivities.

Let me read you verse three again.

Here's how it starts Moses tells them, He humbled you by letting you go hungry.

He humbled you by letting you go hungry.

This is a forced fast because of disobedience.

He humbled you by letting you go hungry, and he gave you manna, which you and your ancestors had not even known.

You didn't even know about this.

You didn't know this was an option that God would just miraculously provide bread from heaven.

He humbled you.

This is a really, really tough lesson, but we must learn it as followers of Jesus.

There are really only two options.

You will either humble yourself, or you will be humbled.

That's worth writing down.

You will either humble yourself or you will be humbled.

Those are the two paths.

And what's interesting is the two paths were lived out by Israel and by Jesus.

One went into the wilderness, refused to humble themselves, refused to surrender, and refused to rely on God.

And they were humbled by their hunger.

And when God has to humble you, the Proverbs say that pride always precedes a fall.

Pride always leads not to true humility, to humiliation.

You will either humble yourself like Jesus did, Jesus, who did not consider equality with God as something to be leveraged against us, but humbled himself, emptied himself, obeyed perfectly.

He went out.

He could have made bread out of stones, he could have made bread out of dirt, he could have made bread out of a tree, he could have made philemignon, he could have made anything he wanted, and instead he obeyed.

He just relied on his father.

There were times in Jesus' ministry, like in John chapter 4, when they've been walking all day long, and the disciples are so hungry, and they come, they say, Jesus, you haven't eaten anything all day.

John 4 · chapter mention

And Jesus says, I have bread you know nothing about.

He says, My food is to do the will of the one who sent me.

Full reliance on God.

See, scripture teaches us that those who humble themselves will be exalted at the proper time, and those who exalt themselves, they will get humbled.

And I promise you, you don't want to get humbled by God.

And he will do it.

Like a good parent will humble their children who are living in disobedience.

Our good God will humble you.

And it doesn't have to be that way.

You can follow Jesus, you can humble yourself.

It goes on to say, He humbled you by letting you go hungry, he gave you manna to eat, which you did not know about, so that you might learn.

Here's why it happened that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

When Jesus quotes this, he's actually telling the devil, I'm not the old Israel, I'm not the old Moses.

Something new has come.

I know they fell in temptation, but I will stand strong.

I am reliant on something that is bigger than you, that is bigger than the universe, and my God, Scripture says, will provide for all of my needs according to his goodness and mercy.

And we claim that as believers, and we sing that as believers, but then as modern Western Christians, we go and we live and we rely on ourselves.

And maybe the only thing in your life keeping you from experiencing the fullness of the Spirit of God in you is a spirit of self-reliance.

Maybe you have been let down by so many people so many times that you're like, if I'm gonna do it, I gotta do it.

Maybe things have seemed too good to be true, and you've gone down that path, and it has been too good to be true.

And one of the real obstacles to the gospel in America is that there are many people, especially men, who cannot stand the idea of getting something that they did not work for, and the gospel is something explicitly you cannot work for.

You cannot earn your way to heaven, you cannot work your way into perfection, you cannot deal with your own sin.

You must humble yourself, you must surrender, and you must cling to the one who came, Jesus, and did what you could not do.

And there are too many American men who say, I am not going to surrender myself to another man to do the work for me.

That's not how my dad raised me, that's not how his dad raised him, that's not what I believe in as a philosophy for life.

And so you will stand in your pride and you will carry it all the way to damnation.

We must humble ourselves or we will get humbled.

And you go, man, there are people who hate God and they spit in his face and they end up famous and popular and rich.

Life is short.

And if somehow you avoid being humbled by God in this life, you have missed the opportunity of a lifetime to get it right before it's too late.

And those who are to be pitied are those who go their whole life evading the humiliation that God is trying to bring, the consequence that God is trying to bring, because they don't get it until it's too late.

And you are here under the sound of my voice, and one of our venues are online, and it is not too late for you.

You have a choice self-reliance or total dependence upon God.

Every one of us has that choice to make.

We can humble ourselves or we can be humbled.

I need you to know this.

We live in a spiritual reality, and a lot of us don't know how to think about that because we haven't thought a lot about it.

There is only one true God.

He is omniscient, which means he knows all things.

He knows your heart, he knows your thoughts, he knows your intentions, he knows your will, he knows the hidden things, he knows all of it.

And there's only one.

There is a whole host of spiritual beings, heaven's hosts, the angels and the messengers and the watchers who are providing and protecting and working for God and working on your behalf.

But they are not God.

They cannot read your mind, they do not know your thoughts.

There's a whole opposition in the spiritual realm to God.

They are not God, they cannot read your mind, they do not know your thoughts.

And so I need you to hear this, and I pray it will hit you like it hit me.

Anytime you are complaining, the devil is listening.

He cannot read your mind, he cannot read your heart, he does not know your intentions.

Anytime you are complaining, the devil is listening.

Which means our discontent, it's so interesting.

There has never been a more blessed, provided for, affluent generation than us, and there has never been a generation that complains as much as us.

Social media is like 85% complaining.

It's like 85% discontentment, 85% comparison.

That's all we're doing, is comparing to others and then shouting out our discontent, shouting out our complaints.

And when you, child of God, are complaining, the devil is listening.

And what you are doing is you are handing him the battle plans to attack your life.

It's the first temptation in scripture.

It is the first temptation of Jesus.

It's how the devil got Adam, it's how he came after Jesus, the second Adam.

If I can get you discontent, I can drive a wedge between you and your father, I can make you self-reliant.

If you are self-reliant, you will go into temptation, and that temptation will lead to sin.

We are complaining and we are handing over the battle plans, and we wonder why we keep losing.

We are complaining about our marriage, we are complaining about our families, we are complaining about our parents, we are complaining about our jobs, and the devil doesn't know until you tell him.

Jesus does not give the devil any ammunition in any of the temptations.

He doesn't say, honestly, bro, I am kind of hungry, but I'm gonna keep relying on God.

He just quotes truth to lies.

I'm not telling you there is not a place to take your discontentment, but it is not to your little gossip circle, it is certainly not to social media, it is not to unbelievers, it is it is not to just complain for complaining's sake.

You take it first and foremost to your heavenly father who has proven his love for you and who has told you, I know you can't handle all the things on earth, so cast all of your cares and anxieties on me and trust me with them.

You take it to good, godly, mature Christians, but you do not complain to hand the devil your battle plan.

You complain to make your own.

You come into your spouse who you both love the Lord and you're having trouble with something, but you come in and you go, Man, this is what I'm feeling, and I feel like I'm getting anxious, and I feel like I'm discontent, and you talk about it, you speak truth to it, and what we do is we get discontent, and it drives us to self-reliance.

And when we get discontent as believers, we should be driven to our knees.

Quit giving the devil the battle plan to sabotage your life when you are complaining, the devil is listening, and it is time for the people of God to take back our power.

And it is so interesting because everything Jesus taught the way up is down, and the way to unlock your true power is to quit relying on your power.

Your power will be found and exercised in complete reliance and dependence on your heavenly father.

This is why we're fasting, if you don't know this.

Uh this Friday at 7 p.m., uh, I want everyone at our Petrenko location, I want the whole church here.

We are going to worship, we're gonna pray, we're gonna repent, we're gonna take communion, and at 7 p.m.

Friday, when this event starts, we are going to start a fast for 24 hours.

Water-only fast.

Now, if you're pregnant, if you're diabetic, if you have health concerns, anything like that, um be wise, fast how you can, strip things down how you can.

We are intentionally practicing full dependence on God.

When you fast, every hunger pain pushes you to prayer.

It's a trigger.

That hunger pain pushes you to sit and listen to the Holy Spirit, maybe for the first time in your life.

Every time your stomach kind of starts rumbling a little bit, you pray for those getting baptized on Sunday.

If you're like me, you drink way too much caffeine, you will have a headache at some point in this 24 hours.

That headache puts you on your knees, not to complain about a headache, but to seek the God of the universe who wants to use your life in unimaginable ways.

I want the whole church here Friday night at 7.

Like, I mean, unless you are like giving birth that night at seven, and honestly, even then, hold it in.

You know what I'm saying?

Every once in a while I say something and I get home, and Katie's like, nah, dog, that's never again.

Um I want you here, 7 p.m.

Friday.

I want the whole church here.

This is this is significant.

I started last week with an apology, and I'm gonna end this week with an apology.

Um, God has allowed me to be the leader of this movement, and I have not had us fasting as a church for seven years, and that is my fault.

And what we're gonna do is we're just gonna rely on the Lord, and I'm asking you to listen to the Lord and take your faith seriously, and I want you to know I'm doing the same.

And there are changes we are going to make because God is going to ask us to make them, and one of those is to start fasting regularly as a church.

Fasting matters.

Let me give you a closing big idea.

Sin is an attempt to find provision apart from God, and it always leaves us empty.

Here's why we fast.

Fasting is emptying yourself for God, and somehow it leaves you fulfilled.

We are practicing what Jesus modeled, full dependence on our Father.

And when temptation comes, we do not fight it by our own strength, our own skill, our own righteousness.

We lean on the righteousness of Christ and the provision of our heavenly Father, and we can have victory over temptation.

For some of you, you don't know God, which means all you have to provide for is yourself, those around you, the world.

You have to worry about the future because you do not have a God in your life who is already in the future fighting battles for you, but you can.

And Jesus came and he lived out his life, and he did what you could not.

He lived a perfect life.

Because of his perfect life, he became the perfect sacrifice.

He covered all of the sins of the world forever, and all you have to do to access that is put your faith in him.

And as we close, I want to give you an opportunity to do that.

Across our venues, if you'd bow your head and close your eyes.

For those who are believers, uh, it's just an easy question.

Do you feel provided for?

Are you content?

Is your life marked by peace?

Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness?

Or do you hunger for more, more of this world?

Are you discontent?

Provision is always a perspective issue, and so where is your perspective of?

And what would it look like to humble yourself and fully trust your Heavenly Father?

For those who have never had a moment in time where you have humbled yourself and put your faith in Jesus as your only hope, your only hope for this life and your only hope for the next life, I want to give you a chance to get that right today.

All Jesus asks for is your faith, convinced in your mind, convicted in your heart that Jesus is what he says he is, and he's done what he says that he's done.

And so, with everyone's eyes closed across our venue, if that's you, you've never made a decision to follow Jesus, I want to give you a chance to do that right now.

In a moment of courage, I want to ask you, right where you're sitting, right now, to just simply raise your hand where I can see it.

By raising your hand, it is a symbolic gesture that says, Today I choose to put my faith in Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

For those who raised a hand, um, you just exercised faith that God saw and accepted.

All of your sins have been forgiven, and we can say with confidence out of his word that you now have eternal life, and no one and nothing can take that away from you.

And what I want to do is very simply help you acknowledge this moment.

If you raised a hand at one of our venues, I want to ask you to pray this with me out loud, and I'm gonna ask all believers to pray it out loud 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.

I'm so glad you joined us for today's message.

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