Shortcut to Disaster, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. All that man did wrong, Jesus is going to do right. He's going to reverse it so that when it comes time to die, He can bear our condemnation. And see what that does, listen, what that does is it assures to me my place with the Father. And it gives me therefore the strength to overcome the temptations of Satan. Welcome to another week of trusted biblical teaching here on Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer.

And as always, I'm your host Molly Vidovich. Let's face it, whether we're aware of it or not, we all face temptations on a daily basis. The temptation to lie, to cheat, or to look at something we shouldn't, and even to be prideful about overcoming temptation.

The list goes on and on. So how do we get the power to overcome and to keep resisting the constant enticement? Well, that's our subject today in a teaching series called The Whole Story. And Pastor J.D. titled today's message Shortcut to Disaster. This is the second half of a sermon we started last week.

So if you need to catch up on anything, you can always do that at jdgreer.com. But right now let's dive right in. Matthew 4. I'm going to walk you through this passage and then I'm going to show you the three specific temptations that Satan threw at Jesus and why they're especially pertinent to certain ones of us in here. Chapter 4 verse 1. Then Jesus, then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil and after fasting 40 days and 40 nights he was hungry.

Verse 3. The tempter came and said to him, If you're the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Temptation number one is to prioritize the gifts of God over God himself. God created bread. Bread's a good thing. But it was simply not God's will for Jesus at this time because God had led Jesus, the Spirit had led Jesus into the wilderness to fast. He quotes a verse from the book of Deuteronomy. Man shall not live by bread alone but by the word of God. In other words, there's something more important to me than even bread and that is fellowship with God. If I have to choose between bread and God then I'll take God because God's word is more sustaining to my soul even than physical bread. Temptation number one is to prioritize the gifts of God. A good thing over God himself to turn a good thing into an ultimate thing to do a God thing and replace God with it.

So the first temptation is to replace the giver with a gift. Verse five. We heard the second one. Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple. Verse six and said to him, If you're the Son of God, throw yourself down. As it's written, he will command his angels concerning you. That's a verse from the Psalms.

Oh, and there's one more. And on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against the stone. That's a verse from another Psalm. Verse seven. Jesus said to him, I'll see your two scriptures and I'll raise you one, but I'll interpret it correctly. You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

All right, what's going on here? I think the key word here is the word test. Satan is tempting Jesus to test God for God to prove that God will take care of him. And what does Jesus respond with?

Why would I need God to prove what he has already declared? Temptation number two is to interpret God through your circumstances rather than his word. When life goes good, we think, oh, we must have the pleasure of God. But when life goes bad, we think, well, God must be angry at me if he exists at all. And so you find yourself looking at heaven saying, God, you said you loved me.

And this? Or we start saying, God, what have I done wrong? God, why are you punishing me? Sometimes I'm not even sure you exist as if you're paying him back through your disbelief. Y'all look at Jesus. He's the beloved son. He is completely pleasing to God. He is completely in step with the spirit. He is exactly where he is supposed to be, yet he is not shielded from pain.

He is in a desert. Are you going to interpret God through your circumstances or are you going to see your circumstances through the promise of God's word? Let's look at the third temptation. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these will I give to you if you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, be gone, Satan, for it's written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. Temptation number three is to pursue a good thing in the wrong way.

The kingdoms of the world are exactly what Jesus had come for. Satan is offering him a chance to have it through a shortcut, to avoid the pain of the cross and the plan of God, to walk on a path parallel to the plan of God, but not in the plan of God. This is the temptation to compromise. You really, really, really want to get here. And here is a good place, but God doesn't seem to be getting you here fast enough.

Your wife or your husband tells you you're working too much and your family's suffering and their kids need their dad or their mom. And you're like, yeah, yeah, I understand, but I really need us to get there. There's such a good place. And once we're there, there, things will be so much easier. And it's not like when I get there, I'm going to be an atheist. I can readopt all my values and I can get my priorities back in line.

We'll be in such a much better financial position and life will be stable and I'll be able to give more money. And so I'm going to have to shortcut right now my morality or my responsibilities to my family or my involvement in the local church just a little bit, but it's going to get me there faster. And there is a good place. When you say that you are in the grip of Satan himself. Let me tell you where this lie starts. This lie starts in that moment when you're frustrated with life and you find yourself looking up at the ceiling as you're trying to go to sleep. And you think the problem is your circumstance.

Problem is who you're married to, or the problem is the job that you have and the amount of money that you're making. And you think, well, if I could just get this other thing, this other level, then I'd be happy. But Jesus said, that's not the issue. The issue is not that I don't have the kingdoms of the world.

The issue is not that I don't have bread. You see, if you really want to have joy, you need to be able to look up at a dark ceiling in bed at night and know that you're exactly where God wants you to be, doing exactly what God wants you to do, and that you are in fellowship with a father. That is the only way to have true peace.

You need to be able to be in true peace. Jesus wanted fellowship with the father more than he wanted anything. He wanted fellowship with the father more than he wanted to achieve his goals and his dreams. He wanted it even more than he wanted bread. And because of that, he could resist Satan. He could keep his integrity because fellowship with the father was his highest ambition. It was his choice portion. It was his living bread. And because of that, he had all the things in his life in the right order. He wanted his goals and his dreams and he wanted his bread. But if he had those in the will of God, he'd take the will of God every single time. And that was the test. What do you choose if you got to choose between the two?

C.S. Lewis had a way of expressing this, and I've shared it with you before, but I think it was a mere Christianity. He said, you know, in life you're going to find first things and second things. First things are God and his will, seeking God. Second things is everything else. And second things are not bad things, it's good things. Good things like family and good things like career and job and all the friends. All this is over here, second things.

He said, here's the way it works. If you put first things first, put God first, then God will also add to your life an abundance of second things. But if you put second things first, not only will you lose first things, your relationship with God, eventually, he says, you'll lose all the second things.

If for no other reason than that you lose your ability to enjoy them. Let me say that again, because that can be a little confusing. In life, there are first things and second things. If you put first things first, God will throw second things in free. But if you put second things first, not only will you lose the first things, you'll also lose the second things.

Does that make more sense? All right, Matthew 6, 33, if you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all these things will be added to you. He says, you've got to prioritize the giver over the gift. Then the devil left him. And behold, angels came and were ministering them.

I get the image here of angels coming in like they're X-wing fighters and Darth Vader, like Satan, spinning off into the universe, like in Star Wars 1. But Satan is coming back, just like Vader did, both to Jesus and to you. And these three temptations are the core of his strategy, to prioritize something good more than you do God, to evaluate how God feels about you by your circumstances, and to go around God to get something good. So let me spend our last few moments explaining how the way that Jesus overcame these temptations will give you the ability to overcome yours. And contrary to popular belief, it is not simply that you learn scripture and quote it back to Satan, as important as that is. That's what people always think about this passage. Know the Bible, and that's important, but there's something more here. You see, Jesus in this chapter is becoming more than just our model. He is our model, but he's becoming more than just our model. He is going to do something that is going to enable us to overcome temptation when we go through it.

All right, let me explain what that is. At the baptism, Jesus began his ministry of substitution, because it was a baptism of repentance, and Jesus did not need to repent of his sins. He didn't have any, so he was being baptized in repentance for our sin. And at that moment, Jesus began to live the life that we were supposed to live so that he could die the death that we were condemned to die. So the first thing he does after the baptism, as he is now living a life of substitution, is he goes into the wilderness where he is going to reenact the temptation of mankind so that he can reverse the fall.

You see, think about it. Man, the first temptation, Adam and Eve, had been in a perfect environment, the Garden of Eden, and Satan had come to him and said essentially these three things. Hey, you need to prioritize the gift over the giver. You need the tree of knowledge more than you need God.

And you know what? God's not really that good to you. You should doubt God, because I don't think he's got your best interest in heart. And there's something else that's more important to you than fellowship with God.

This is a better way. And the first man and woman in a perfect environment, they believe Satan's lies, they prioritize the gift over the giver, they doubted the goodness of God, and they compromise God's laws in pursuit of a good thing. Now you've got Jesus, who is the second Adam, by contrast, who rejects Satan's lies, but he's not in the Garden of Eden where all his needs are being met.

He's in the wilderness. He's in the opposite of the Garden of Eden where he is hungry, yet still he prioritizes fellowship with the Father above all and refuses to believe the lies of Satan. All that man did wrong, Jesus is going to do right.

He's going to reverse it, so that when it comes time to die, he can bear our condemnation, because a perfect life that ends under the condemnation of death can free those under the condemnation of death and restore us to everlasting life, so that those of us who are in Christ can say there is no condemnation that belongs to me, because he lived that life, and it was put on his head, and none of it is applies to me anymore, because he was perfect, and he substituted. And see what that does, listen, what that does is it assures to me my place with the Father, and it gives me therefore the strength to overcome the temptations of Satan, because I know that that all the things I'm assured of his love, and I'm assured of my position before him, and even more than that, he unites himself to me by his spirit, which means that the same one who overcame these temptations for me, can now overcome them through me. So he's not merely my model, he's actually walking through the temptations and being victorious over them, so that his perfect record can be credited to me, and so that his resurrection power can live through me. You see, many people interpret the big point in this passage as just meaning that the way we overcome Satan is by no one more scripture than Satan does. Listen, Satan always knows more verses than you.

He's had several thousand years to memorize all of them. No, no, no, there's something specific about the Word of God that Jesus recalls each time, and that is his identity in the Father's eyes. You see, Satan begins every temptation if you are the Son of God. Everything Jesus quotes ultimately goes back to the security to the security that he possesses and who he is in God's eyes. Satan's primary work is to try to get Jesus to doubt the goodness of God and to lose touch with the Father's identity that the Father has declared over him, because once he does that, he knows that Jesus would be vulnerable to every other temptation he would throw at him.

That's your main temptation. It's the root of all temptations, is to establish your identity on something other than God's declaration over you in Christ, to take your eyes off of the Gospel and to think that God's evaluation of you is based on how you live, based on your performance, so that it's up one day when you're good and it's down one day when you're bad, or to base your understanding of God's love on the circumstances you're in, rather than what he demonstrated for you at the cross. But see, the Gospel is that Jesus, who is God's own Son, came to earth to substitute himself for you, which secures your place before the Father. I've often told you that I am as sure of my sonship with God, that he would never leave or forsake me. I am as sure of going to heaven when I die, as if Jesus himself, as if I were Jesus himself.

And that's not because I'm awesome. It's because no longer is my position before the Father or my inheritance in heaven based on how I live. It's based on how he lived and the fact that he substituted himself for me. And see, because of that, I got a position before the Father because he went through this temptation victoriously and then died for me, who didn't go through it victoriously.

My position is secure. It also assures me of God's steadfast love for me, because I'm like, if he would go through all this for me, can't I trust he'll be the constant, present Father in my life? That belief is what shatters the power of Satan. Martin Luther, who I talked about last week, who had some interesting ways to counteract El Diablo, Martin Luther talked about this.

In fact, in a song we still sing today, The Prince of Darkness Grimm. We tremble not for him. One little word will fail him. Not just an avalanche of scripture, one word. And what word was Luther talking about? He was talking about the word of the gospel. He was saying what shatters Satan's power is the declaration, is the declaration of what God has made me in Christ. It means that yes, I am a sinner. And yes, I have messed up, but this is what God has declared about me. This is as far as God has removed my sin from me.

And this is what God has determined to make me. And that shatters Satan's power in a way that Satan won't even touch it. Did you know, I've told you this before, did you know that both Satan and the Holy Spirit will convict you of your sin? And you got to learn to distinguish between the two of them because they got very different agendas, but both of them will point out your sin.

Here's how you know the difference. Satan will start with what you did and he will tear down who you are. He will say, you did this, therefore you're a bad person and God doesn't really care about you and you got no future.

So he uses your actions to tear down your identity. The Holy Spirit, when he convicts you of sin, always does it in a different way. He starts with what God has declared over you in Christ and then begins to rebuild what you did. He begins to say, yes, you are a sinner and yes, you have done some bad things, but if any man is in Christ, he's a new creation. Behold all things, old things are passed away.

Behold, all things are becoming new. And that includes these things that you did. So I'm going to, from your identity in Christ, I'm going to declare my love and my steadfast acceptance of you.

And I'm going to help you rebuild what you did. You can tell the difference between the voice of Satan and the voice of the Holy Spirit based solely on where they start. Does it start with God's word and what he's declared over you?

Or does it start with your actions and tear down your identity? I think I've told you, I saw this painfully reenacted one time in the life of my kids. Several years ago, my oldest daughter was six. My second daughter was four. And so we're driving somewhere and it's just me and the two of them in the back seat. And I am looking in the rear view mirror and we were talking about something.

I think it was the fair was coming to town or something. And my oldest daughter is always been a little timid to try new things. You know, I couldn't roller coasters, parachuting. I just can't get her to try anything. And so, but seriously, she has like had this kind of, she's always waited to see her younger sister and try it. And so I, I'm talking to her and I'm talking about the fair and I see, I start talking about some of the rides at the fair and I see it in her eyes, this fear, like, and she kind of drops her head down.

She says, I don't want to the fair. And I said, I said, listen, sweetheart, you're gonna have to try new things if you go anywhere in life. I know some of you were judging me as a parent, but you know what?

My identity is in Christ, so I don't care what you think. You're gonna have to try some new things if you're going to do anything in life. And she says, but daddy, it scares me. And I said, I said, yes, it's scared. Lots of things scare lots of us, but until you learn to face your fears, you're just not, you got to do this. And she drops her head and she's, I just see her in the rearview, I look in the rearview mirror and she says, I know daddy, sometimes I feel like I'm just such a big scaredy cat.

And I said, that's exactly right. And if you are going to be a scaredy cat and you don't stop being a scaredy cat, you're not going to go anywhere in life. It wasn't my finest parenting moment.

I was frustrated though. I mean, it was, and so my, um, four year old at the same time, as I say that I catch her in the rearview mirror, looking at her older sister. And as soon as I said that, she goes, Oh no, she says, Karis, you are not a scaredy cat.

You're my big sister. And you're brave. And I was like, Oh, I was like, my daughter or my four year old is the voice of the Holy Spirit. And I am the voice of Satan because Satan starts with what you did and he tears down who you are.

Holy Spirit starts with what God has declared over you. And he begins to rebuild what you have done. Luther would say, Satan, when he speaks to you, doesn't always speak lies. In fact, his better weapon is truth because he points out true things. The accuser of the brethren, he says, it's not that he's telling lies. It's just that he is not telling you the gospel because Satan speaks truth. But Jesus speaks a louder word. And Jesus says, yes, though your sins are as scarlet, I'll make him as white as snow.

Though your life is filled with corruption, I will make all things new. And so the word that shatters the power of Satan in life is the declaration of what God has given you in Christ to believe it. It's why when Paul talks about doing battle with the enemy, he says, put on the helmet of salvation, right?

It means learn to think the gospel because the way that you'll withstand the fiery darts of the enemy is by the shield of faith and the gospel and by thinking in the ways that the gospel teaches you to think. Several years ago, I shared with you a prayer that I wrote, a prayer that I wrote, initially I wrote it for myself. Eventually I ended up sharing it with you, but I just call the gospel prayer. Eventually I would turn this into a book that became the book gospel, but it was a prayer that I prayed almost every day to put the helmet of salvation on my head.

And it had four phrases in it, but it goes like this, because I'm in Christ, because I'm in Christ, there's nothing I've done that could make you love me more, nothing I have done that makes you love me less. And every morning I tell myself that God's approval of me was not based anymore on how well I lived or the things that I'd done wrong, that his acceptance to me was a gift that he gave me in Christ and my position before him was secure and that released this weight off of me, this performance mentality. The second thing I would tell myself is because I'm in Christ, you're all I need for everlasting joy. I don't need physical bread. I don't need the approval of people.

I don't need success. Those things are nice, but what I really need for everlasting joy is the declaration of the father, that this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. The third thing I tell myself is that because I'm in Christ, as you've been to me, this is how I'm going to be to others. In other words, the way that you've treated me, this is how I want to think about my family.

I want to think about my community is I want to serve them the way that you've served me. So realign my behavior so that it's in line with the gospel. The fourth thing was about faith because I'm in Christ, because I'm in Christ, but as I pray, I'm going to, I'm going to do so according to the compassion you showed at the cross and the power you demonstrated at the resurrection. And that taught me to begin to see the world through Jesus's eyes. What if Jesus really was as compassionate for people as the cross showed that he was?

What if there was so much power available that you measured it by the resurrection? And so I began to dream dreams through that lens, to the gospel lens, rather than the lens of what I thought I could accomplish. That also helped me, by the way, when God didn't answer my prayers the way that I thought he should, which happened a lot, I would say, well, that doesn't make me doubt your compassion or your power because those are settled at the cross. I don't care if you use that prayer, but you ought to use something that puts the helmet of salvation on your head because the way that you shatter the power of Satan is by bold declaration in the gospel, the prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him. One little word will fail him, the word of the gospel. That prayer just described by Pastor J.D. Greer is our challenge to you today to make it part of your daily life.

You're listening to Summit Life and you can find the words to that prayer and the full length message titled Shortcut to Disaster at jdgreer.com. In addition to the daily teaching on this program, we love to provide other helpful resources to go along with our study. Most of the time these are workbooks or Bible studies, but right now we have something a little more unique. So J.D., can you tell us just a little bit about it?

Yeah. In this series of the whole story, we're looking at the Bible as what it really is. 66 books written by different authors, 40 different authors that tell one continuous story, and that is the story of Jesus, the story of the gospel. And so to go along with this series, we've got a new resource simply called the books of the Bible cards. It's a set of cards that will help you as you read the Bible to make connections with the context of the original audience. Each card, there's one for each of the 66 book is going to include a great illustration that just represents the book, give you details about the book, some historical must knows. It'll give you at least three key truths that you can glean from the book to get your mind around it. It'll show you where the book points to Jesus and the good news of the gospel so that you can read it through a gospel lens. I'd love to give you this resource as a reference for any time you're reading through a book of the Bible. It'd be a great stack to keep next to wherever you daily meet with God. You can find out more about those cards and this offer at jdgreer.com. We love making these different resources available because we know they're helping people around the country dive deeper into God's word with the life changing power of the gospel.

And guess what? It's all made possible by listeners like you. Give today and remember to ask for the books of the Bible cards when you call. Our number is 866-335-5220.

That's 866-335-5220. Or you can give online at jdgreer.com. If you'd like to take your support to the next level, you're invited to join our team of gospel partners who commit to regular monthly support. You can automate your gift, which multiplies your impact throughout the year.

And it helps us have the financial stability to plan ahead for new resources and studies. Sign up today at jdgreer.com. Or if it's easier to mail your donation, write to J.D. Greer Ministries, P.O. Box 122-93, Durham, North Carolina, 277-09.

And remember to include a note asking for your set of the books of the Bible cards. I'm Molly Vitevich. I'm so glad that you joined us today, and be sure to come back again Tuesday to hear Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.