This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to our third day of looking through Matthew chapters 3 and
4. The last couple days we looked at John the Baptist and the way being prepared
for Jesus. And now as we turn to chapter 4, we're going to see that temptation
was part of the story of Jesus' life.

Temptation was part of the story of Jesus' life and it will be part of the story
of your life. We want our story to be marked by our great accomplishments, but
the truth is, much of the story of your life is going to be marked by how you
respond to the temptations that you face. I know a lot of people with a lot of
great accomplishments who fell to some certain temptation and people do not
remember the accomplishments.

They remember how they responded to the temptation. I know some other people who
had very little accomplishments according to what this world would say were
accomplishments, but they said yes to God in the midst of some great
temptations. Temptations to deny Him, temptations to hate others, and the story
of their life is marked by their yes to God.

Jesus teaches us how to face temptation. In Matthew chapter 4 verse 1, "Then
Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After
fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry, and the tempter came to Him
and said, 'If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.

'" Now first, before we look at what we have to look at concerning what Jesus
teaches us, I want you to notice those simple words, "He was hungry. " He was
hungry. Jesus is 100% God, but He's also 100% man on this earth.

He is fully man and fully God. So don't write off the fact that He said no to
these temptations. He said no to these temptations being fully man.

Who is Jesus? Fully man and fully God. Jesus was tired, fully man, yet He called
the weary to Him for rest, fully God.

He was hungry, fully man, yet He is the bread of life, fully God. He was
thirsty, fully man, yet He is the water of life, fully God. He was in agony, yet
He heals all manner of diseases.

He grew older, yet He never changes. He was tempted, yet He did not sin. He's
fully man and fully God.

So let's talk about the truth about temptation. And when we talk about
temptation, I come to you as an expert in being tempted. Because the truth of
the matter is, I am tempted every day of my life.

Truth of the matter is, you as a follower of Jesus are tempted every day of your
life. So as fellow experts in being tempted, let's look at some clear direction
in how to overcome temptation from the only one who's a complete success in
that. There's only one person who ever walked this earth who is a complete
success in overcoming temptation.

Never sinned. That's Jesus. So as you hear this story of what happened with
Jesus in temptation, you begin to see what it means for my life.

These next few days, we're going to talk about four things together that it
means. First thing that teaches us that it's not a sin to be tempted. Jesus was
tempted, but He never sinned.

So it's not a sin to be tempted. And if you allow Satan to overwhelm you with
the fact that you're tempted, "What an evil, awful person I am," then the next
step in that is, "Well, I may as well go ahead and commit the sin because I
already feel bad about myself. " The truth of the matter is, the fact that you
are tempted says nothing about the good and evil in your life.

It says something about the evil in Satan and who he is. I want you to notice as
we talk about temptation here when it happened. In the first verse of chapter 4,
"Then the Spirit led Jesus into the desert to be tempted.

" So what happened before? Why does He say then? You've got to go back and
understand what happened just immediately before to understand this phrase.

And remember, we just talked about it in Matthew chapter 3. At the end, Jesus
was baptized. He comes up out of the water.

He sees the Spirit of God descending. The Father says, "This is My Son. I am
well pleased with Him.

" He has a spiritual high in His life. So this is very important. You've got to
notice the timing of temptation.

After every mountaintop, there's a valley. After every spiritual high, there's a
spiritual low. This is going to happen in your life again and again and again.

You can count on it. After a time of success with God, you're going to have a
time of tempting with the devil. After a time of feeling really good about God,
right after that you're going to be tempted.

Just be ready for it and realize the temptation doesn't say you're evil. It's
the temptation that's evil. Every one of us faces temptation.

Second truth about temptation that we learn from what happened to Jesus is that
you should take temptation personally. Take it personally. Sometimes we don't
call for help in the midst of the temptation because we don't realize what's
really happening.

What's really happening is Satan, the evil one, is trying to ruin your life. I'm
not saying that Satan personally tempts you every time you're tempted. He can't
be everywhere at once.

He's not all powerful. But I am saying that Satan's behind the temptation,
whether it comes through the channel of him doing it or some demon doing it or
just the way of the world doing it, which is how it usually works. Just how
everybody else is thinking around us, the selfish way of this world.

Satan's not all powerful. The truth of the matter is God regulates the severity
of the temptation in our lives. Someone's pictured it this way.

It's like Satan is a lion. He's pictured that way in the Bible, but he's tied to
a leash, and this leash, this chain is tied to a stake that's in the ground. So
he can only go in a circle a certain distance.

And a Christian can, if he wants, if she wants, we can walk into that circle and
allow that temptation to start to eat us up. He can growl at us all he wants. He
can tempt us all he wants.

But I choose whether I'm going to walk into the circle or not, walk into the
temptation or not. How does Satan wage this war against us? This personal war?

What are the shots that are being fired at us? Well, the Bible says he's the
instigator of sin and betrayal in John 13. He tempts the righteous here in
Matthew 4.

He inflicts suffering on the innocent, Job 2. He sows discord in Matthew 13. He
removes the good seed of the gospel.

He blinds the eyes of unbelievers. He prowls about. He devours like a roaring
lion in 1 Peter 5, 8.

So that's why James 4, 7 says resist the devil and he will flee from you. When
you take temptation personally, here is the single word of advice from God's
Word that's going to change the way that you handle temptation to bring real
victory in your life. Remember this simple key in calling for help.

You resist the tempter and not the temptation. You resist the tempter, Satan,
and not the temptation. The truth is the Bible nowhere says to resist the
temptation because God knows us.

The more I resist something, the more it persists in my life. The more you
resist the temptation, the stronger it's going to be. You know how this is.

There's a plate of cookies in front of you and you say, "I'm not going to eat
those cookies. I'm not going to eat those cookies. " The more you say it, the
more you've got to reach out and get just one.

Just get one. When it comes to temptation, you don't resist the temptation. No,
you resist the tempter.

You take it personally. You resist Satan, who has made it his purpose to warp
and twist God's creation, including you. What I'm saying is, in a sense, you
recheck the return address on all your heart's invitations.

You get all these invitations set into your heart each day. Why don't you do
this? This would be a good idea.

Why don't you try this? Well, check the return address. Where is it coming from?

When you remember that it's coming from Satan, then you can resist the evil one.
Then you can take it personally. Then you have the power of God to resist that
temptation.

Now, you can't resist Satan on your own power. You know that. It's only through
the Spirit.

It's only through God's strength. Now, as we talk about temptation, we all face
it every day. So I know, every one of us, we're facing some temptation right
now.

One of the places to begin is by talking to God honestly about it. Let's take a
minute to do that. And in prayer, it's just you and God.

He already knows what you're facing. He's not going to be surprised. Why don't
you just take a minute to say to Him, Father, here's the temptation I'm facing
right now.

It might have to do with your relationships. It might have to do with business.
It might have to do with money.

It might have to do with honesty. It might have to do with something I haven't
even mentioned, but you know what it is. Father, here's the temptation I'm
facing right now.

And instead of resisting that temptation, I'm going to resist the evil one. Turn
from the temptation and turn to you. You're the only one that I can trust.

You're the only one that can bring me life. Thank you. Thank you for this
example of Jesus that reminds me that it's not a sin to be tempted.

Thank you for this example of Jesus that reminds me that Satan, the evil one, is
trying to ruin my life. And thank you for this example of Jesus that tells me
that you have a different plan, a different purpose. In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen. Well tomorrow we're going to learn some more from Jesus about how you and
I can face temptation.