Satan uses your failures to attack your identity. He starts with what you did and tears down who you are. The Holy Spirit starts with your identity, what God has declared you to be, and then calls you to rise above and repair what you did. You wanna know what the difference is in his voice and Satan's? Just look at where they start.
Thanks for joining us today here on the Summit Life podcast with pastor, author, and apologist JD Greer. To learn more about this ministry, visit us anytime at jdigreer.com. Did you know that there are other ways to stay connected with Pastor JD and keep growing in your faith throughout the week? One of the best places to do that is on our YouTube channel. Every week you'll find video versions of these same sermons from Pastor JD, along with other helpful content designed to help keep you rooted in God's Word.
Just open YouTube and search for J.D. Greer. Be sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a new message. Today, we're continuing our brand new teaching series called The Unseen Enemy. Looking at Matthew chapters 3 and 4, Pastor JD explains common snares that Satan uses to attack our identity and how, by being grounded in the truths of scripture, we can avoid becoming entangled in them.
an important message for us all to hear.
So let's join Pastor JD. One of my favorite all-time books is Sun Tzu's Art of War. It is a military classic that is still required reading for certain Marine programs and for the Navy SEALs, for officer training. I'm always too embarrassed to put it on my personal top ten list because it seems so. Unpastoral, so to speak, but it is a series of Principles for leading people and for building movements.
Principle number 18 says: for any hope of success in battle. You have to know your enemy and you've got to know yourself. In fact, let me just quote from the book itself. For if you know the enemy, and you know yourself. You need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
If you know yourself, but not the enemy. Then, for every victory gained, you will suffer a defeat. But if you know neither the enemy nor yourself. You will succumb in every single Battle. I share that because that is what today's message is all about.
about knowing yourself and knowing your enemy and how those two things relate. Last week, we talked about the unseen enemy that the Bible alerts us to, how it shows us that it's all around us. It's unseen, but it's very present. And how our enemy fires flaming darts into our consciousness, and how he seeks to occupy different rooms in the houses of our lives. That was from Luke chapter 11.
Today, I want to build on that and talk about what might be our enemy's most subtle. Most undetected. and yet most effective strategy in destroying us. It is invisible. It is in bed as most of us never recognize what I'm about to talk about as his work.
And that is all by his design. Uh Matthew 3, if you got your Bibles, Matthew chapter 3. The question of identity. Who am I? Is one of the most important questions for this generation.
What makes you you? What gives you worth? What gives you value? Who Or you. I want you to consider these things for just a minute as you're finding Matthew chapter 3.
91% of teenagers in our country, 91%, more than 9 out of 10. report significant psychological symptoms. due to stress and anxiety. Less than one half of high school students, 45%. describe their mental health as very good.
Less than half. In the last 15 years, the percentage of young adult females who say they are persistently sad and hopeless. That number has gone from 10% to 57% in 15 years. Suicide rates of young adults. have increased by 30% in the last decade.
And since 1950, they have quadrupled. And don't think, by the way, that being raised in a Christian home or being middle class or being financially well off automatically fixes everything. In fact, girls that go to private schools are four times more likely to have anxiety disorders than girls in public schools. For boys, it's three times more likely.
Now, there are a lot of factors behind these things. I'm not trying to reduce it down to one cause. But I would say that this is in part, this generational phenomenon is in part because this generation suffers from a massive identity crisis. Identity, how you see yourself, who you really are, why you think you have value. This generation suffers from a massive identity crisis, and that is in part because they have had to deal with forces that no other generation in human history has ever had to deal with.
The ubiquity of things like Instagram and Snapchat and TikTok and Be Real that are there to remind you 24-7 of everything you're missing out on and all the ways that you don't measure up. Forcing you, of course, to compare your life to the filtered, sculpted version of everybody else's life that they project on social media. You're comparing your real life, R-E-A-L life, to everybody else's highlight real, R-E-E-L. I mean, even when you're out of high school and college, I mean, it still affects you. I take my wife out for.
A nice meal on a birthday. Buy her an expensive new pair of shoes and I'm feeling pretty good about that. Until my wife points out that a pastor buddy of mine posted on Instagram that for his wife's birthday, He bought her a pony and took her backpacking across Europe. And suddenly, my dinner and shoes don't seem like they're that awesome anymore. Veronica's super grateful.
I'm just using that as an illustration. Comparing ourselves among ourselves has always been a problem, but now Now it's in your face 24-7.
So again, I'll just say the question of identity is one of the most important questions for this generation. What makes you you? What gives you worth or value? Who are you? The question of identity is the question that is quietly at work in the great temptation recorded in Matthew chapter 3 and 4.
It's the temptation that is behind the other temptations, if you will. The temptation that makes the other so effective. In my ESV study Bible. The editors start the story of the temptation in verse 1 of chapter 4. That's where you'll find the heading, The Temptation of Jesus.
But the story of the temptation actually starts back in verse 13 of chapter 3. You remember, of course, headings were added much, much later by editors to help us find our place when we're reading. Originally, this all flowed as one piece, and this is one of those places where it would help to connect what happens in chapter three to what happens in chapter four.
So let's start in verse 13 of chapter 3, and I'm going to show you how the last five verses of chapter 3 set up the great temptation of chapter 4. Chapter 3, verse 13. Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan River to John to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him. Saying, no, no, no, I need to be baptized by you.
Why would you come to me? You see, John's baptism was called a baptism of repentance. Jesus did not need to repent. And John knows that, so he objects. Jesus, why would you get in the water?
As a show of repentance when you don't have anything to repent of. Jesus answered him, Let it be so for now, though. For thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.
So John consented, and when Jesus was baptized, Immediately, he went up from the water. And behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. There it is, by the way. That's the Father declaring Jesus' identity.
You are my beloved Son, in whom I'm well pleased. That's who you are, that's why you have value. That's what makes you you, Jesus.
Now, watch this, chapter 4, verse 1. Then. Right then. Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And the tempter, verse 3, came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, Then you should command these stones to become loaves of bread, excuse me, if.
If you are the Son of God, is that not exactly what the Father had just said? said about Jesus? You are my beloved son. You see how chapter 4 connects to chapter 3, Satan is challenging Jesus to do something to prove he is what God has just declared him to be. He is attempting to inject doubt into how Jesus believes the Father feels about him.
Satan says to Jesus, if you actually are who God says you are, Jesus. Then you need to prove it by doing this. If you are who you say you are, then this would be true in your life. The same thing is at work in the second temptation, verse 5. Then the devil.
Then the devil took him to the holy city. He set him high up on the pinnacle of the temple, verse 6, and said to him, Again, if you really are the Son of God. Throw yourself down! For it's written, he will command his angels concerning you, lest you dash your foot against a stone. In this one, Satan even twists scripture in his attack on Jesus' identity.
If you really are the Son of God, Jesus, this or that will be true of your life. He wouldn't let you get hurt. You could throw yourself down off of here, right? I mean, that makes sense. And the third temptation, Satan does not repeat the phrase, if you are the Son of God, but this one is all about identity also.
Satan takes Jesus high up on the Temple Mount and he says, Hey, I'll give you all of this and shows him the kingdoms of the world. I'll make all of this yours if you will worship me. He's offering to give Jesus something that God had already promised to give him. Satan is basically saying, you say you're the Son of God. But let's be honest, Jesus.
You don't have all the power and privilege that should go with that title. I can give you that power and privilege right now. It is extremely significant that in the one place in the Gospels, That we see Jesus and Satan do battle directly. The focal point is on Identity. I say that as remarkable because if I were to say to the average movie producer, okay.
The Son of God. who's the ultimate force for good in the universe, and Satan, the chief force for evil, are going to do battle. How would the average movie producer depict that in cinema? Most of them would set up some epic Marvel battle in a city where they're shooting lightning bolts. at each other and hurling buildings at each other.
But here the only time in the Gospels. Jesus and Satan do battle face to face. It's just two guys out in the woods having a conversation about how Jesus sees himself. It's like we saw last week. At the root of so many of Satan's temptations.
It's just a question of who you are and how God feels about you. The rest of the temptations are secondary. Satan was not out in the wilderness showing Jesus pictures of naked women or offering him drugs. Satan starts by making Jesus question who he is and how God feels about him, and you had better believe. That that is exactly where he starts with you.
Parents? That's where he starts with your kids. Those are the first fiery darts he hurls into their consciousness. Let me break down his attack on our identity into four. basic categories.
I'm going to call these Satan's four snares. Most of them you can see right here in this story. Number one, we'll call it the snare of circumstances. That's the very first thing Satan puts out there in front of Jesus. The subtext behind a couple of these temptations is what I pointed out.
Jesus, if God really loved you. This or that would be happening in your life if God really loved you. You could throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple and he'd protect you. If God really loved you, Jesus, you'd be able to make these stones into bread. Satan wants to take the focus off of what God just declared Jesus to be in his baptism and put it onto what is going on in Jesus' life.
That is what he does with you. If God really loves you, why? Why would he let that happen? It's Joseph, betrayed by his brothers, falsely accused, sitting in prison, when Satan whispers, Does this feel like love, Joseph? Like God is for you.
It's Eve in the Garden of Eden when Satan whispers to her, Why would God tell you not to eat from this tree? He's obviously trying to hold back something from you, something good. It's David on the run from Saul hiding in caves when Satan whispers, Are you really a man after God's own heart? Really? Then why are you out here in the wilderness while that villain Saul sits comfortably on the throne?
It is Jesus' disciples wondering why, if he really is the Messiah. Roman soldiers still abuse and oppress God's people with impunity. Why would God's Messiah not immediately take care of that? Y'all, one of the most consistent things you will find in your Bible is God's children wondering why, if he loves them, things are the way they are. It is the faithful, believing wife.
Taking the pregnancy tests again. and having it come up negative again. It's the aging single Christian who has done her best to do things God's way, but she is still not married. It's the faithful man who has led his marriage the right way. And yet his wife cheated on him and left him.
And Satan in that moment whispers: if you really were a son or daughter of God, and if God really cared about you, he wouldn't let that happen. How did Jesus respond to this? You shall not tempt the Lord your God. In other words, you don't bring God's character into question by creating tests for him that require him to prove himself beyond what he already has done. Has he not died on the cross?
Has he not risen from the dead on our behalf? God's word is true and his character is unchanging, even when I don't understand all that he's doing. You're going to have a choice in your life. And maybe you're in the middle of one right now. As to whether you're going to determine God's character by what's going on around you.
Or by what he declares about himself in his word and reveals about himself at the cross.
Some of you may know Mike Calhoun, Mike and Betsy Calhoun at our our church. Mike runs our internship and apprentice program here at the Summit Church. He's in his 70s now. I don't know if you know this, but Mike was very influential in my life back when I was a college student. He was one of the directors at Word of Life Bible Institute, the first college that I went to.
In his office. In his office, you'll find a picture of Mike with his arms around a beautiful college-aged. Girl. It's his daughter Misty, who was who was very tragically killed in a car wreck when she was only 24. I knew Misty.
Mike said, when that happened, It was like this dark cloud descended over his and Betsy, his wife's life. A pain and a desolation and confusion. that very few of us can really understand. I'm doing things the way that I thought I was supposed to be doing them. We're doing What you called us to do.
Mike said one night as he walked alone, everything in him in turmoil, questioning everything. He just resolved. He said, with the help of the Holy Spirit, through his tears. He said, and I quote, everything in my world has fallen apart. But everything I know about God is still true.
I may not understand anything. Of the how and the why, but Jesus has not changed. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The promises are all true, the tomb is still empty, and God is still on the throne. Don't tempt me.
The Lord your God. God is who he is. His word stands secure, and his promise never fails. But this is the first and maybe most consistent thing that Satan throws at you. It is the snare of circumstances.
If God loved you, this or that would be different. Let's go to number two, the snare of comparison. Satan urges Jesus. He says, hey, you're the son of God. You say you are.
Are you worthy of that title? Because you turn these stones into bread? Does the world acknowledge you as worthy? God's word on your identity, Jesus, it's not enough. You also need to prove it with.
secondary affirmations. This is one of Satan's biggest traps for us. He will quietly attempt you to try to establish your worth, your value by what you can do and specifically how you measure up against others. Are you as smart as he is? Are you as pretty as she is?
What kind of recognition is he getting? How much money does she make? I mean, you graduated from the college about the same time. How do you compare? How does your career compare to hers?
How are her kids doing? How's your family look compared to? Yeah, I feel pretty good about my family. I look at yours, and then all of a sudden, it's like, how does my family compare? What's going on?
My second year of seminary. I was genuinely discouraged. Because it seemed like all my friends were getting these big jobs. One of my good friends had just been hired on staff at a megachurch. Big church, nice salary, lots of benefits.
Two of my other friends were booked out at least a year. Preaching at all these student ministries.
Meanwhile, I'm in seminary working two jobs. One was food service, and the other was construction. I've been trying to get out on the speaking circuit. In fact, I made up these little business cards that advertised me as a speaker. It would come to your youth group or your FCA or your rest home.
That is not a joke. You didn't have to pay me. I even had a variation of the business card. I had two versions of it that called me a motivational speaker.
So I'd be eligible to speak at your Rotary Club. During that time, I applied to go on staff at a couple of churches, and I got turned down by both of them. You see, for some of my friends, everything seemed to be going awesome, but My career was going nowhere and I felt. worthless. The snare of comparison Comparison is dumb for a disciple of Jesus for a couple of reasons.
One's really practical. First, God is everybody on different development timetables. You get that right. His timing and yours are just never the same. I always tell high school and middle school students that some of them are like the poplar tree.
You ever plant a poplar? Grows like a weed the moment that it's planted. Others are like the bamboo tree, which shows no growth for five years. But in that fifth year, it shoots up 90 feet. For adults, that's also true.
There are people like Billy Graham who start huge immediately. There are others who, like Tim Keller, nobody hears about until they're in their late 50s, and then they make their biggest impact. God used Gideon in the Bible immediately, but he sent Moses into the wilderness for 40 years after calling him. He sent David into the pasture for seven years, and Paul into the desert for 17 years. In the business world.
I mean, Harlan Sanders didn't start Kentucky Fried Chicken until he was 65. And that was after getting fired from about a dozen of his previous jobs. Winston Churchill won his first election at age 62. He had lost every single election up until that point. He was 71 when he led England into World War II.
Now, my point in telling you that is not: hold on, you'll be famous and you'll save England from the Nazis one day, or that you're going to start a successful but mediocre chicken chain.
Okay? No, my point in telling you that is God is writing a unique story in you. Don't compare it with anybody else's. Ephesians 2.10 says part of the package of you getting saved. Is that God has preordained good works that you should walk in them?
Which means he has works specifically preordained for you that he's already determined. You don't even really get to decide what they are. Your job is not to go out and manufacture them. Your job is only to discover them and then be faithful to them. I am so thankful for example.
For Mrs. Thomas. Who in her 70s taught my junior church when I was in elementary school and birthed in me a love for the Bible? Or Barry Griffith, a middle-aged lawyer who started to teach my seventh-grade Sunday school class each week and who taught me to take eternity seriously. God has preordained certain good works just for you, and you got to find them and you got to do them because you're the only one who can, and somebody else's spiritual future may depend on it.
Which leads me to the second reason comparison for a believer is dumb. You are specifically designed for his purpose. Psalm 139 says that you are fearfully and wonderfully made for that purpose. Fearfully and wonderfully means reverently. David is saying, You are so perfectly designed for God's purpose.
that it creates a sense of awe and wonder when you look at it. When it's all said and done, I'm not compared to anybody else. I'm only compared against what God allotted to me. In Jesus' parable, the talents, the servant who multiplied his two talents into four. Got the same commendation as the one who multiplied his five talents into ten.
They both heard the exact same phrase: well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things. I'll now make you ruler over many things. Man, I can promise you, I can promise you, friend, that in that final moment. When you hear well done, good and faithful servant, and then you're rewarded with your eternal responsibilities.
That's going to matter to you far more than the size of your little talent allotment on earth. Satan's third snare. Is closely related to the snare of comparison. It's number three, the snare of competition. The scenario of competition, you only feel good about yourself when you win.
You're the kind of person who always has to win. in order for you to feel good about yourself. As in, if you lose, you're not just frustrated at the loss because you could have done better, but you. I mean you fume about it for the rest of the day. It's not the weeks.
You feel humiliated. And then you start to think mean, hateful thoughts about the person who beat you. Run in scenarios where they get humiliated and really get put in their place.
Now, y'all, let me be clear, okay, just so you don't misinterpret or over-interpret what I'm saying. Competition can be good. They can bring out the best in us. But when competition is used, listen, to create or maintain a self-image, it becomes deadly. And it brings out the worst in you.
One of my favorite all-time movies 1979 movie called Chariots of Fire Story of two guys in Scotland in the 1920s who were both incredible runners. Both would end up running for Great Britain in the 1924 Olympics. One Eric Little Runs for the glory of God, very committed to a believer, would end up as a missionary in China. But for him, his running is nothing but joy. The other Harold Abrams runs out of a need to prove himself.
At one point in the movie, he says to his girlfriend right before one of his qualifying races, he's like, In one hour's time, I'm going to be out there again. I'm going to raise my eyes and look down that corridor, four feet wide. With 10 lonely seconds to justify my existence. That is how many people function in competition. They can't stand to lose because their self-worth is on the line in every competition.
I got 10 lonely seconds, I got 60 lonely minutes. to prove my worth. I've got a career. To prove my worth, it's almost like think about it as if you were a swimmer about to swim. And at the finish line, is a banner that says acceptance.
And so you jump off that platform and you're thrashing with all your might to the water because, unless you get to that banner first, you feel like you will not be accepted, you will not have worth. For many of us, competition brings out the worst in us. It makes us anxious, hateful, bitter, jealous, most of all, exhausted. And that is because competition. For us is tied to our self-image.
The snare of competition. Here's Satan's fourth snare. The snare of condemnation. That's where Satan uses Your personal failures and shortcomings to tear you down.
Now, obviously, Jesus had no failures or shortcomings.
So Satan's got nothing to work with there, but. He's still urging Jesus to base his identity on what he has or has not accomplished. Rather than on what God says about him. And when Satan does that with you or me, the first thing he'll highlight is your shortcomings and your failures. He will say, forget about what the father said about you at your baptism.
No, no, no, look at all the things you've messed up. If you really were a son or daughter of God, it wouldn't be like that. You're never going to amount to anything. You'll never be a good spouse because you're damaged goods. You'll never have friends.
I mean, look at all those damaged relationships. You're a train wreck.
Somebody with sinful weaknesses like yours will never make For a Christian God sees through you the only way, no way possible he counts you as a Christian. We talked about this last week, but Satan loves to make you feel bad about your sin. He loves to make you feel bad about your sin. We know that because he is called the accuser of the brethren. Brethren means Christians.
That's us. Through his accusation, he makes genuine Christians feel like they are not really Christians at all. Which means he's always there to remind you how you've messed up and where you do not measure up. He is always saying, prove yourself, prove yourself. God won't love you until you prove you are worthy of love.
And it's like I said last week: the things that he often accuses you of, the facts he brings to the case, they're often true. They're usually true. And that's what makes his lies so deceptive. The sins and the weaknesses that he identifies are real. Where the lie comes in.
Is that he gets you to base your identity, he gets you to base how God feels about you on those failures rather than on what God has declared over you in the gospel. You see, it's like I said last week, but the Holy Spirit and the demonic will point out your sin to you. The difference is that demons use what you did to make you question the love and the acceptance of God. The Holy Spirit uses the assurance of the love of God to redeem and rebuild what you did. If I write this down, if you take a note, Satan starts with what you did.
and tears down who you are. The Holy Spirit starts with who you are in Christ and then repairs what you did. Satan uses your failures to attack your identity. He starts with what you did and tears down who you are. The Holy Spirit starts with your identity.
what God has declared you to be. Who he has redeemed you and recreated you to be, and then calls you to rise above and repair what you did. You want to know what the difference is in his voice and Satan's? Just look at where they start. I've told this story before.
But it seems to fit. appropriately here were my older girls, both in college now, when they were about seven and five. Karis, who is my oldest, had this deal where she didn't always like to try new things. Especially if she thought they were scary. And so.
I was always honored about it. Hey, you gotta be willing to try new stuff. North Carolina State Fair was coming to town and we were all Me and the two girls, we were driving somewhere and they're in the back seat, and we're all talking about it and what we're gonna do. And I mentioned some of these rides. And in the rearview mirror, immediately I saw her expression change.
And she said, Daddy, I don't want to ride. Any fast rides? I'm scared. And I said, Karis, you're going to have to learn to try new things. You can't always be so afraid.
And I'll never forget this. She looked down. In her car seat, she looked down and she said, I know daddy.
Sometimes I think I'm just a big scaredy cat. And I said, that's right, Karis. You are a big scaredy cat sometimes and you need to change. If you're going to succeed in life. It's not my finest parenting moment, okay?
I freely acknowledge that.
Well, just right when I said that. And I'll never forget this moment either. I catch my younger daughter, Allie. She's five at the time. I catch her expression in the back mirror, the rearview mirror.
Right, she's not even looking at me. She's just looking at Kara so earnestly. And she says, oh no, Karis. You are not a scaredy cat. You're my big sister and you can do anything.
And I thought, great, my daughter is the voice of the Holy Spirit, and I am the voice of Satan. You see, when you mess up, God. His first affirmation is, I love you. I've never stopped loving you. You're my beloved son.
I can give you the power to do that. The Holy Spirit came upon you when I declared your identity, and he's going to give you the power to do anything. You're my child. Satan has one primary goal for you: he wants you to remove your eyes off of what God has declared over you, and then to rebuild your identity on your circumstances, or how you compare to others, or how well you think you've lived. And once you succumb to that temptation, friend, he's got you.
That's the root of so many temptations. By contrast, you see, God grants our identity to us in the gospel, in the baptism, so to speak, as a gift. Y'all think about it. God declared Jesus' identity over him in Matthew 3 before the temptation ever started. Before Jesus had been tested, he'd already declared the winner, before he'd done anything.
That declaration was the strength by which Jesus overcame Satan's temptation. It was not the declaration for having done it. Because Jesus knew that God was his father, because he knew that God was with him and for him and in him and intimately close to him, he had the power to resist Satan in the wilderness. Same thing is true for you. Knowing your identity before the Father is what gives you the power to overcome.
Any sin. Then let's go back to our little swimming platform. Only now imagine that the word acceptance is not on the banner waiting at the end. It's what's written on the little platform you're jumping off of. That platform says acceptance, and you swim not from the desire to prove you're a beloved son, but from the assurance that you already are one.
You see, awareness of God's acceptance, awareness of your identity is what gives you the ability to live the Christian life. The only ones who get better in the Christian life, ironically, are those who know that their acceptance is not based on them getting better. One of the best examples of this I love to use is John chapter 8. Woman caught in the very act of adultery. Shame!
and failure and she's drug in before this Ad hoc council, and you know the story of the Pharisees are like this woman was caught committing adultery. The law says she'd be stoned. What do you say, Jesus? Jesus kneels down, starts drawing the dirt, says, Let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone. They all stare at each other awkwardly, drop the rocks and go home.
And then it's just Jesus and her. And Jesus says, Woman, where are your accusers? And she says, There are none, Lord. And then he says, And what I've always told you is. What's scandalous about this?
of the order that he put the two phrases in. He says to her, Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. And what's strange About that, I would almost always, and so would you, put the phrases in the other order. I would say, if you go and sin no more, lady, if you go and sin no more, then Jesus won't condemn you.
But Jesus put acceptance before change. Because he knew she would never have the ability to break the cycle of sin until she had the assurance of a stronger and better love that she had found in the Father. In fact, write this down. If you just take a note: God's acceptance is the power that liberates you from sin, it is not the reward for you having liberated yourself. You gain the power to begin the Christian life from the assurance that it's already finished.
My do in the Christian life starts from the finish line of his done. I've explained this before to you. They just be really personal with it.
So many of my own sins have come from the root. of not really believing what God has declared over me in the gospel. I've told this story before, but it was like 10 years ago here at the church. I asked Veronica, my wife, one night as we were lying in bed. to help me identify what sins I most struggle with to see if we could discern a pattern in them.
Some kind of root cause in my vertical relationship with God that caused horizontal. Problems, you know, cause horizontal sin.
So I had a pad. And I said, okay, what sins do you think I struggle the most with? For the record, that was a mistake. She started to rattle them off like they were some kind of list she'd memorized and been cultivating for years. I remember one we talked about was anger.
I'm not like a fly off the handle or raging temper guy, but. I get really frustrated and angry, and we discerned it was in two situations. One is when I get disrespected. I get put down, get made to look foolish. The other is if I.
If I lose an argument, I get really frustrated. I will stew on it for the rest of the day. I will rerun that argument in my mind until I win it. You like that? Right, you're always like, oh, and then I would have said, made of said, but then I said, boom, and then came over, right?
Yo, I have lost lots of arguments in my life. I have never lost a rerun, not one time. I always win the rerun.
So why does losing an argument bother me so much?
Well, that's because I've built my identity on I'm being right. I'm being smart. I feel like people value me and they respect me if I'm smart and I'm right. And if I'm losing arguments or I'm getting disrespected, that challenges. The very soul of my identity.
I need the validation of others to have a sense of worth and identity. Um identity uh lying lying that was another one. We determine I lie in two in two situations. I will. be tempted to lie.
And we'll do it sometimes. One is I always want to Maximize my accomplishments. and minimize my failures. Why do I do that?
Well, see, I need you to admire me for my success because your affirmation is my identity. Same thing as at work when I worry. I worry about not succeeding. It's what's at work in my jealousy. I get jealous of people who are more successful than me, doing better than me.
I fantasize about their downfall. Why? Because they're getting the tension that I feel like I need to have value. You see a pattern in all this? You're like, bro, you're one sick dude.
Are you sure? You should be a pastor? Look, you're the same way. I just got the courage to stand up here and be honest about it. Of course, I'm probably hoping you'll admire me for my courage and my honesty.
Yeah, yeah. Keeps spiraling all the way down. Bottom line is, I'm trying to become something in your eyes that God has already made me in Christ. I crave your affirmation because I'm not confident in his. Ever since middle school, I've built my identity in the approval of others.
And that has led me to all kinds of insecurities and sins. Proverbs 29:25, a verse I wish I memorized in middle school. It's the fear of man is a snare. All those sins that I mentioned to you are snares, jealousy, anxiety, fear. Snares could also include eating disorders, depression, medicating through pornography, or illicit sexual relationships, suicidal thoughts.
Many of those problems grow out of, in part, a fear of man. Or an attempt to build your identity on what man thinks about you rather than on what God thinks about you. That's where Satan starts and the only thing that frees you from those snares is the assurance of how the Father feels about you the assurance that he says to you you are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased You're like, okay, Pastor, but that's the problem. Why would God ever feel that way about me? I mean, sure, I get it.
That's how we felt about Jesus. Maybe that's how he feels about you. But there's no way he looks at me and says, You're my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased. I mean, look at my life. I'm the opposite of well, pleasing.
I've messed up so much. That's a great question. Y'all remember what was happening in Matthew 3 when Jesus first. Heard the declaration from the Father. What was happening?
It's John's baptism, which I pointed out was called a baptism of Repentance. In other words, people were being baptized as a show of repentance from their sins. And I asked you this question when we read the passage: if it was a baptism of repentance, why was Jesus participating? What did he need to repent of? He'd never sinned.
If he'd never sinned, why would he need to go through a baptism of repentance? John the Baptist asked him that very question. Means you're asking the right question. And Jesus is the answer. What was it?
Remember? to fulfill all righteousness. Whose righteousness? I mean, he was already fully righteous.
So there's no nothing in his righteousness to fulfill. No, he was being baptized to fulfill my righteousness. And yours. He was repenting in my place. He was going to live the life I was supposed to live so that he would then die the death that I was condemned to die.
I want you to imagine Jesus in that crowd walking forward to be baptized one day. It's almost as if you and I are in that crowd. And as he's walking through there, he's, imagine everybody's got a name tag. And as he's walking down the water, he's just taking people's name tags and he's putting on the name tag JD and he's putting on your name. And when he stands in the middle of that water and he gets baptized in repentance, he's not repenting for his sin, he's repenting for mine.
It's what we call substitution. Jesus became my sin. The gospel is that God made him who knew no sin at all. To become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. He took my place, He took my sin.
He went through the baptism of repentance, then died under sin's judgment, so that I could be called a beloved Son of God, and so could you. And when I put my faith in Jesus, that means that my sin became his and his perfect record became mine. We often compare it here to what happens when you get married. July 28th, 2000, the year 2000, Veronica and I. Stood at an altar and said, I do to each other.
And in that moment, everything that was hers became mine. And all that was mine became hers.
Now, if you know her at all, you know I clearly got the better end of that deal, except for her. for one thing. I was already working. I had a fairly nice car. That's an extra income.
Had a decent savings account built up. She had just graduated from college, so she had school debt and she had a car. without air conditioning. And so, on the day we got married and that car became mine, I started to drive it. My nice car became hers.
But of course I did it joyfully. Because I was so in love with her. See, same thing is true when you take Jesus as your Savior. All that was yours became His, the sin, the shame, the condemnation. What was his became yours, his righteousness, his glory, his spotless record.
And if you've received Jesus, that means when God sees you, he sees the perfect life of Jesus. All that was his became yours. And so he says to you, You are my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased, because Jesus deserves that. And you get it in his place. And see, when you believe that, then his power, the Holy Spirit, like Jesus got at the baptism, his power to overcome any temptation, that begins to flow inside you and the demons have to flee.
So what's your identity? What's your identity if you're a believer? If you're a believer here this morning, you can say, I'm not how I compare to others. I'm not the summation of my talents. I'm not my past.
I'm not my mistakes. I'm not my accomplishments. I'm not my potential. I'm not the number of Facebook friends or TikTok followers that I have. I am not where I got into school.
I'm not what my parents, my friends, or my ex-spouse thinks about me. I'm not how much money I make. I am not my sins, my failures, or my shame. I am who the Father says I am. I'm a son or daughter of the king in whom the father is well pleased.
I'm loved. I'm loved, I'm loved so much that the Son of God came for me and gave his life for me. And thou sees me only through the eyes of grace. He literally could not love me any more than he does right now. I am complete in Christ.
I no longer have to prove I'm somebody when I'm already somebody to him. And that means I have purpose. I'm forgiven. I'm restored. I'm redeemed.
I'm made alive. I'm a new creation. I'm co-heir with Christ, seated in the heavenly places. I am filled with his spirit, commissioned by that spirit, appointed to walk in blessing and to be a blessing to others. He is for me, not against me.
I am who he says I am. He loves me. He stands behind me. My do in the Christian life starts from the finished line of his done. My Savior has now promised to use me for good.
He's got a purpose and a plan for me. Psychologists say that your identity is what the most important person in your life thinks about you. Who is that person? You see, for Jesus, that person was the father. And that's what gave him this power for you when you make it the Father.
It'll give you the same kind of power. Thanks for joining us today and don't miss the next message in our series on the unseen enemy.
So JD, as you know, we strive to make every dollar given to Summit Life make an eternal difference. Can you help us understand what kind of impact does a gift to summit life really make? Yeah, Molly, I don't think this is an overstatement. Every time you give, you're helping change lives. That's right.
I mean, think about somebody hearing a gospel-centered message on their commute to work. Maybe somebody's unable to get to church for medical reasons or whatever reason they're traveling. We hear stories that move us to tears sometimes of people that at just the right moment, God's word intersects their lives.
Well, see, it's your generosity that makes that happen. If you're interested in learning more about that, becoming a gospel partner, or just supporting the ministry and partnering with us, Through your prayer and through your generosity, you can go to jdgreer.com and find out more. As a ministry, our mission is simple. To take people deeper into the gospel and to advance the gospel wider into the world. Will you join with us in this endeavor?
whether through persistent prayer or a single financial gift, Your support makes an eternal impact. Visit giddygreer.com today to learn how you can partner with us. See you next time for Summit Life. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries. Yeah.
