Winning Like Jesus, Part 1

God has placed the responsibilities of governing in our hands. What an incredible privilege, stewardship, and responsibility.

Not voting is abdicating your stewardship. I hope you're going to vote, and I hope you're going to pray before you vote, and let God guide you. God bless. God bless. Thank you for taking time for this episode of Leading the Way with pastor and the author of more than 50 books, Dr. Michael Youssef.

Up next, winning like Jesus. Lessons from Jesus when he faced Satan in the wilderness, overcoming temptation at one of the most vulnerable moments in his earthly life. Through this practical study with Dr. Youssef, you'll gain tools to help you recognize and defeat the temptations of today and beyond. The first thing I want to tell you about temptation, of whatever variety it may be, and certainly would vary from one to one, and probably as many variety of it as there are many people. Whatever temptation you face, in whatever variety it may be, it is not wrong to be tempted. Don't feel guilty when you're tempted. In fact, you should worry if you're not tempted. If you're not tempted to sin, there's something wrong with you. Now, you need to expect temptations. Don't be taken by surprise.

I think it was Martin Luther who said, I cannot stop a bird from flying over my head, but I certainly can keep it from nesting in my hair. And that is why you should expect temptation. In fact, the Greek word for temptation, paresmos, can be translated both temptation and test. Why? Because every time we are tempted, we are put to the test.

Hear me out on this one. Temptation is Satan's way of trying to shift your love from the Lord and from his word into the sinful nature. Ever since the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Satan's temptation has been relentless. The secret of winning over temptation is described clearly here in Matthew chapter 4 verses 1 to 11. Here in this passage, you're going to find one of the most unique spiritual battles of all times.

In fact, most unique next to the Garden of Gethsemane on the cross, Jesus with Satan face to face. Remember this, Jesus was all alone in that wilderness. There's not a single disciple or apostle or anybody with him at that time. He was all alone. And so he would say, well how did Matthew know about this?

To record it. He heard it from the lips of Jesus. Jesus is the one who told his disciples and told Matthew what happened in the wilderness. Please listen to what I'm trying to tell you. Those who deny temptation, those who undermine temptation, those who belittle temptation, those who think they are above temptation, those who do not take temptation seriously, I want you please, please sit and take notice of what I'm going to show you from the Word of God.

Here it comes. The first thing. If the Lord of glory was personally tempted, you should not be surprised when you're tempted. If I go for a little while without that miserable conniving rascal tricking me, either tempt me to sin or discourage me or oppose me or whatever he does, I begin to do some soul searching.

And that's the first thing I want you to know. Expect temptation. And temptation comes in a variety of ways. It comes in millions of circumstances. You cannot possibly count the ways.

Why? Because Satan knows each one of us achilles heel. And he literally tailor makes temptation to suit our weaknesses, to fit with our weaknesses.

He comes to us in the area where we find hard to resist. Nonetheless, the threefold confrontations of the Lord Jesus Christ was Satan. Codifies all temptations known to man. They can be codified in these three areas. Pleasure, popularity and power.

From these three categories, there could be dozens of subcategories, dozens of them. But before I get carried away, I need to put this text into its context. This encounter is a very personal encounter between the Lord Jesus Christ and Satan himself took place immediately after the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan. You see, this baptism of Jesus was not the baptism of forgiveness of sins because he was sinless. And when Jesus went to John the Baptist at the River Jordan and he said, go ahead and baptize me.

And John was resisting. And Jesus said, just do it simply because he wants to identify with us. God became man. And so when we are baptized into Christ, we are identifying with Jesus. That's really what the meaning of the word baptism is to identify with literally in its literal sense. But on a deeper level, this time of baptism at the River Jordan, where the Father spoke through the Holy Spirit saying, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. This became Jesus' coronation time.

This is Jesus' commissioning as the Messiah, the anointed one who was prophesied back in Genesis 3, 15. This was the Father's declaration of Jesus' royalty. And his temptation by Satan in the wilderness proved what I'm saying. You say, proved what? Proved that Jesus alone is worthy to receive all the honor and the praise and the power over his kingdom.

He wanted to go for the big kahuna. And that is why every one of us who have placed our faith in Jesus Christ, we become royalty too. We become members of the royal family.

And instead of constantly rebuking people about sin, just remind them who they are. They belong to the royal family. Years ago, my friend John Stott was speaking here and he told a story about how King George, you know, when he had the three boys and they were wild boys, one of them abdicated the throne, and he constantly said to his wild boys, remember who you are. And that is the one thing for every one of us to remember well, remember who you are. You have a royal blood flowing through you. You are a royalty. And just as Jesus has taken power over Satan and defeated him, so can we.

How? Because Jesus' power dwells in us. And his victory over Satan reveals not only that we have the power of Jesus to overcome and be winners over Satan, but also reveals Satan's strategy against God's people. Satan has one strategy and he keeps plowing it over and over and over and over and over again. He may dress it differently, he might get it working with somebody different from the other, but it's the same strategy. He is running wild now.

He is running wild. He seems to be literally out of his cage and he is holding so many people captive. Some of them believed in Christ in one stage.

Many of them should know better, but they have been taken captive by Satan. But Jesus' victory over Satan demonstrates his kingship. It demonstrates his authority. It demonstrates his power.

It demonstrates his dominion over Satan. And it's not a surprise, therefore, that when Jesus commissioned the disciples at the very end of Matthew's Gospel, we call it the Great Commission, but before he could tell them, go and be my emissaries, he said, all authority was given to me. How many of that authority? All authority is given to me.

Therefore, go. Without that authority, we can do nothing. Without him, we are nothing.

Without him, we can do nothing. Our supreme rulers said to every one of us who have placed our faith in him, I give you my power. I give you my authority. I give you my victory. I give you my word. And Satan's purpose was to defeat this newly anointed king, this newly announced king, but the king clobbered him. Thank God. So can you.

So can you. Do you know that Jesus gives us a condition for being able to have victory over Satan every time? Every time temptation comes, he gave us a condition. And it's found in the Gospel of John, chapter 15. If you abide in where?

Me. And in my word. That is the condition. That's the condition.

Please hear me right on this one. Satan's deepest longing from the very beginning was to unseat God. And when God threw him out of heaven, he ended up in the garden. And there he defeated Adam and Eve.

And he succeeded in getting them thrown out of the garden. And so in Matthew chapter 4, we see how Satan saw his biggest opportunity. If I get him, I can destroy the purpose of God.

If I get him, I'll become the comeback kid. Because he wanted to defeat Jesus himself. But instead, Jesus defeated him. And later on the cross, he defeated him for you and you and you and you and me. Now, before I get to the three categories of temptations, I want you to think about the setting.

Just think about the setting. Matthew 4, just the first two verses. Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He was not surprised by the devil.

He went there to confront him. And after he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he then became hungry. Listen to me. One of the surest things about temptation is it will follow victory. First Corinthians chapter 10 verse 12 says, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. Are you with me? I, beloved, can testify to the truth of this scripture.

I promise you, I can testify. The times are most vulnerable, often the times of great success. At that moment, this miserable enemy of my soul lets me think that I did it. And when you begin to think of yourself as the best thing that ever happened to the world since sliced bread. Now, I don't know why people say that.

I don't even eat bread, but they say it anyway. The moment you are most exhilarated with success, you are the most vulnerable to pride and to failure. Why? Because success makes us feel invincible. Success makes us lower our guards way down. Whether you've got those straight A's, whether you've got that big deal and made an insane amount of money, whatever it is, the success that is your way, whatever success is to you, those of the times to be very careful on your guard.

Because when the temptation hits, you're not prepared. You're on top of the world. Probably Elijah, one of the best examples that I'm trying to say here. Elijah went from the highest heights to the lowest low in a very short period of time. I mean, he went from Mount Carmel where he was the whiz kid to Mount Sinai where he said, take my life, I want to die. God sent fire from heaven, not only lick the sacrifice, but even the wet wood got burnt. Then he answered his prayer supernaturally and rain came when the drought stricken land after three years of drought and less than hours of these dramatic supernatural interventions. He sat in the desert and said to God, okay, it's over, kill me.

But why? He thought he did it. You see, he thought he did it. After being courageous, immovable and strong spokesman for God, he is shaking in his sandals in fear of Jezebel. From the highest heights to the lowest low. Beloved, I've seen politicians through the years who claim to be believers in Christians and once they get into office, few months later, they began to fold like a bad souffle. We are seeing today with our own eyes, I don't have to tell you something that you have to read in history books, we're seeing it with our own eyes. Some who are previously strong dynamic gospel preachers who began to rely on their techniques, they began to rely on their eloquence, they began to rely on their personality, they began to rely upon their charisma who once proclaimed the gospel. Now say, well, you know, let's not judge anybody. We need to love people and make our church very attractive to sinners so they come just as they are and they leave just as they came. We're not like those angry fundamentalist preachers who call sin, sin.

We're positive. Welcome everyone of every lifestyle. Beloved, let me tell you, hear it from my lips, we welcome everybody. We welcome everybody but not at the cost and the account of compromising the truth of the word of God. I can tell you, beloved, this is not love, that's dishonesty. Let me tell you why I believe the government and the courts are going the way they are and then that we're the mess that we're in is because false church leaders got there first and once the Elijah's go from Mount Carmel to Mount Sinai, trouble is on its way. Why?

Because they view their success is of their own making. Look at the thousands of people who are following me. Surely I couldn't possibly be wrong.

I must be wonderful. Oh, be very careful. Be very careful.

Be very careful. The difference between Elijah and Jesus is that Jesus submitted to the Father his whole desire to obey the Father. His whole ministry was categorized by obedience to the Father. His food, he said, is doing the will of my Father. The moment we got the business for ourselves, do our thing, be very careful.

Be very careful. Jesus, after 30 years of waiting in obscurity, as soon as he is publicly commissioned by the Father of the River Jordan, the devil goes after him. By the way, Satan has many names in the Bible. Most common is the term devil or diabolos, means the accuser, the slanderer. He's also known as the ruler of this world system, the prince of the power of the air, the god of this world system, the serpent of old, the deceiver of the whole world.

He's also called Abaddon and Apollyon, which means the destroyer. Listen, he is destroying nations, he is destroying whole communities, he is destroying societies, he is destroying families, and we are seeing it with our own eyes, the destroyer is at work. And we need to learn how to stand together, united under the banner of Jesus, who defeated him, so that we defeat him too.

And here he is called the tempter, the tempter. One of the saddest things to me personally, is some evangelical preachers who once preached the word of God, now they deny a personal Satan. And Satan loves it, he loves it. In this section of the scripture, just think with me for a minute, in this section of the scripture, you cannot say you believe the Bible as the word of God and don't believe there's a personal Satan. Right here in this passage, he is more personal in the wilderness than anywhere else. And the so-called professing Christians who doubt Jesus' own account of his confrontation with Satan is a tragic, please listen to me, Satan is the only power, evil power in the world. And he has one overriding purpose for his existence and that is to frustrate the plan of God and usurp the place of God.

Write it down. He has one overriding purpose. Frustrate the plan of God and the people of God and usurp the power and the place of God. And he does it using politicians and judges and yes church leaders. The two times the Supreme Court of the United States of America allowed Satan to usurp God's power, usurp God's authority in America, is when they decided when life begins and when they decided what marriage is because when that happens, a nation begins its decline and that's something that makes you weep because Satan tempted them and they fell for it to usurp God's authority. But here's something I want to leave you with.

I want you to remember this. I have been there to the wilderness where Jesus was and it is the most desolate thing you've ever seen. It's right there west of the Dead Sea.

It's barren, it's hot, it's detestable. I mean Jesus could not have been more isolated. If I have a word in your ear, let me plead with you, do not isolate yourself from your family, do not isolate yourself from good and godly friends. The first Adam lost to Satan in a perfect place but the last Adam defeated Satan in the worst of places. The first Adam was well fed, the last Adam was starving to death, the first Adam was in an ideal place, the last Adam was in a dreadful place and beloved, this is a proof that moral failure has nothing to do with the environment, has nothing to do with your upbringing, has nothing to do with your education, has nothing to do with your circumstances but it has everything to do with the way you choose to respond to temptation.

Here's what I said in the beginning. Don't be surprised by temptation. In fact, you should be on guard of the temptation.

Prepare for it. Jesus was not surprised by Satan's temptation. In fact, he went to the wilderness knowing that he's going to be tempted by Satan. In the next several messages, I'll be covering these three categories of temptations from which every temptation known to man arise but for now, let me leave you with this thought. Satan exploits our weaknesses. He exploits our unpreparedness and that is why Jesus said in Mark 14, 38, listen carefully, keep watching and praying that you might not enter into temptation. Keep watching and praying lest you enter into temptation. I have seen it. People who are on top of the world and they would not take heed, they would not listen to warnings.

I've seen them falling apart in my office. Victory over any temptation comes as a result of always being prepared, always on your guard. It comes from constantly and completely being dependent on the word of God, dependent on the Lord's power and strength. Several years ago, I'm going to leave you with this. I heard a saying that goes something like this. A person traveling into the tiger's territory will not be attacked if he sees the tiger first before he sees him. Why? Because the tiger always attacks from behind in order to surprise its victim. Now what is the best defense? Face the tiger. Face the tiger. Say it with me. Face the tiger.

Face the tiger before it attacks. Thank you for joining Dr. Michael Youssef for Leading the Way. Now before we go much further, I want to invite you to speak with a Leading the Way pastor or a counselor.

They're ready to tackle any life or spiritual question that you may have, and it's easy to start the conversation. Just fill out a short contact form at ltw.org slash Jesus. Dr. Youssef is the author of more than 50 books, and his most recent is a powerful, life-changing devotional book, My Refuge, My Strength. It's a nice hardback that'll guide you through 60 days of devotional content, and it's guaranteed to draw you closer to Jesus. The days in which we live are uncertain, to say the least, and you'll draw strength to tackle whatever challenges are ahead as you dig deeper and you root into God's word. So learn more about My Refuge, My Strength when you call and speak to a ministry representative at 866-626-4356. It would also make a great holiday gift. You can also visit us at ltw.org to check out the content, see how Dr. Youssef offers hope in this powerful book, My Refuge, My Strength at ltw.org. This program is brought to you by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef.