Christ Church at Grove Farm

Rev. Craig Gyergyo: You may be seated. It is good to be in the house of the Lord. Good morning, everyone. Man, look at all this Glover clan. It is good to see you. Have you ever said, "I just couldn't resist?" Maybe it was something you said while laughing. "Man, I just couldn't resist." Or maybe it was something you said with regret. "Man, I just couldn't resist." Maybe it was something you said in shame.

Growing up, my mom used to make the most fabulous homemade warm donuts. They were so good. In fact, the aroma when she would make them would penetrate the whole house. I mean, I would wake up as a kid and I would go, "It's donut day." Run down the stairs and there they would be before me: cinnamon and sugar, powdered sugar. She'd make the special glaze that you'd put on them, even some chocolate ones. And I'm telling you, they would just melt in your mouth with each and every bite, especially when they were warm ones.

And here's the deal: I could not control myself. I would eat one after another because I just couldn't resist. And every morning after eating those donuts, my belly would ache for days, it felt like. And I would always be telling myself, "Why did you do this to yourself?" I remember at 16 eating six of them at a time. And I'd ask myself, "Can't you stop?" Donuts are funny, but temptations aren't.

Temptations when it comes to rage and anger, drunkenness and drinking, worry and control, lust and adultery, stress, pornography. We all feel the pull towards these temptations. and sometimes in the Christian life, in the Christian walk, we can live defeated by them. We can live defeated by these temptations that pull us away from God and they pull us into sin.

And I'm really excited today and as we start this series as we head to the cross on Easter, we're starting a new series about coming alive. And my friends, Jesus came that we may have life, that you might have life. And not just an ordinary kind of life, but a life that's amazing. Life to the fullness is what the scripture says. Not a life with cycles of regret, not of hidden shame, not of private defeat.

Before the resurrection happens comes the wilderness. Before Easter comes temptation. And here's what I want to do. I want to ring the bell tonight, grab your attention with this truth: that if Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, Luke Chapter 4, as we're going to focus on, if Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, you will be too. That there's no one above temptation. Everyone will be tempted. 1 Corinthians 10:12 says, "So if you think you're standing firm, be careful that you do not fall."

In other words, there's a danger of going, "Oh, I know there's temptation, but that's not for me." Or maybe you might just hear a message like this about temptation and go, "Well, that's good for somebody else." This is a clear warning: Be careful. Be careful that you do not fall. And then we see in 1 Peter 5:8, it talks about our enemy, the devil, that he's like a roaring lion. He's out there to come, he's coming after you, my friends. Jesus describes him: the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. There's a target on your back.

Now, I think sometimes we live like there's a lion behind the glass. Let me explain that. The Grunwald family, we love the zoos. We love going to the zoo. We take our kids to the zoo all the time. We love the zoos. In fact, we're kind of the family that we'll travel to go to other zoos. I've got a video real quick of my kids about two years ago at the zoo. Take a look. There's my two daughters in front of a beast, the lion. Now, in this video, we can all admit they're safe. They're okay playing with the lion.

They're not in danger in this video, are they? But could you imagine that in a moment later an announcement came over the loudspeaker? "All participants of the zoo, we want to let you know, excuse me, everyone, alert, the lion has escaped. Please safely make your way out of the zoo." Could you imagine that announcement was made? All of a sudden, it is a different environment. We're looking for exits, we're grabbing our kids, we're running out of the zoo, aren't we?

Could you imagine this morning if I told you there was a lion in the parking lot? How different your exit would be. "Where's that sucker at?" Everything changes with an announcement. Everything changes with a new awareness that our enemy is after us. In Luke Chapter 4, when we see the temptations of Jesus, the glass is pulled away and our adversary, the devil, arises and shows himself. It is the battle of all battles between Jesus, good, versus Satan and evil. If you have your Bibles, turn there with me, we'll read right through Luke Chapter 4.

And here, Jesus is going to be tempted three times. In fact, you could probably categorize all temptation in these three. All the temptations we face similar to what Jesus will face right here. The first temptation is the lust of the flesh. It reads, "Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan, was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them, he was hungry."

Now, I would say that's the understatement of all understatements in the Bible. 40 days without eating, real hungry. At this point, Jesus isn't just mildly uncomfortable. He is physically depleted. You could say that he is weak, emaciated. In fact, what I learned is that when your hunger returns with this kind of fast, when the hunger returns at this point, it's literally like you are in the stage of starvation. You are dying.

Now notice how strategic the devil is, how Satan is. He doesn't start with the kingdoms here. He starts with his appetite. He says, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." Now I always wondered, why bread and not a bone-in ribeye? Why bread? Because bread, in fact, was actually a staple of life in those days. It was an essential element to the societies, what they ate. And in fact, Jesus, born in Bethlehem, Bethlehem means house of bread.

So you can imagine Jesus had very vast memories of eating bread. He would come home from work and on the stove would be this fresh-baked bread. He would remember breaking the bread and the yeast and the smell of the bread. This wasn't an abstract temptation, this was a physical one. This was deeply human. Satan went after his weakness. Now, if you remember the nation of Israel in the wilderness, you would remember that they were wandering for 40 years.

And in 40 years there, Jesus, God Himself, was providing the manna from heaven, bread. And we find that the nation of Israel was complaining and whining. They wanted to go back to Exodus, they wanted to go back to slavery, they built idols, they constantly failed the test. See, where Israel failed, Jesus is now standing firm. Jesus is reliving Israel's test. And my friends, he's passing it. He's showing us a better way.

Now let's talk about the lust of the flesh because it's not sinful for us to eat. It wouldn't have been sinful for Jesus to eat if it was the Father's will. It's not sinful for us to have a desire for intimacy or a desire for relief or to enjoy the provisions of God. The temptation here isn't necessarily about the bread, but rather about independence: to step outside of God's will, to satisfy a legitimate desire in an illegitimate way.

Temptation says to our flesh, "Meet your needs now. Don't wait." It says, "Relieve yourself of this discomfort with such and such." The temptation of the flesh says, "You deserve this. You work hard. You deserve this. Take it." Modern examples we're all dealing with is how to handle our sexual desires, how do we handle stress? "I work hard." It all kind of sounds reasonable, the desires of the flesh. It feels necessary and often we justify it. This is the lust of the flesh.

The second temptation that Jesus faces is the lust of the eyes. Continue reading with me here in Luke 4. It says, "The devil then led him up to a high place and he begins to show him all the kingdoms of the world." A different strategy, a different approach Satan uses here. Notice the strategy: Satan shows him this now. Temptation enters through the sight. He doesn't just hand Jesus the kingdoms, he displays them.

The lust of the eyes is deeply connected to the commandment in Exodus not to covet. Remember we're commanded, "You shall not covet your neighbor's house or wife or anything someone else has." Coveting is different than appreciation. We can appreciate people's stuff, but it's different when it goes, "I see it, now I want it." It breeds discontent, and that discontent is fueled by comparison with what that other person has.

Now let's go back to the Garden of Eden. Do you remember Eve? Remember that she saw the fruit? She saw that it was good for food. She saw that it was pleasing to her eye and she saw that it was desirable. So she saw, she wanted, and she took. This is the lust of the eye. And the eyes are often the gateway to our heart. You notice this? Someone gets a new truck, maybe a neighbor of yours, and all of a sudden you're discontented with what you have.

You see a new neighborhood being popped up and you go, "Man, I wonder what it would be like to live there." And all of a sudden you're discontented with your own house. The eyes are the gateway to the heart. It says, "Look what you could have. Look what they have. Why not you?" This is the lust of the eyes. We live in the most visually saturated society ever. We can scroll through our Instagram and our Facebook and we're constantly comparing ourselves to what other people have.

We consume images daily and it fuels this coveting in our hearts, a desire for more or for what others have. Now, it's not because seeing is sinful. It's because constant comparison breeds discontent. The lust of the eyes is not just about possessions. It's about a dissatisfaction with what God has given you. We deal with this, don't we?

The third temptation Jesus faces is the illusion of control, or the pride of life is another way to describe it. Here's the third temptation: "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you.'" Now, a better translation is, "Since you are the Son of God, throw yourself down." This temptation's different. It's not about hunger or possessions, but it's about trying to control your life.

Satan is essentially saying to Jesus, "Force your Father's hand. Play God. Make him prove himself. Take control here, Jesus, of the narrative." This is simply pride. The pride of life says, "I will live how I want to live. I decide what's best for my life. I'm in control. I determine what's right. I don't need to submit to anyone." It's self-governance, self-rule. Literally, it's like playing God.

Eve fell for this, Genesis 3. The serpent tells Eve, "If you take of this fruit, you will be like God." And that's the hook with the pride of life. It's not the fruit, it's autonomy, authority. Be God. Now, we may not proclaim to be God, we may not make claim to be divine, but sometimes we live as though it is so. As though we are ultimate.

And this sounds like, "I know what the Bible says, but I'd rather do my own thing. That may have been true for them way back then, but that's not true for me." It looks like this: "No one's going to tell me how to live my life," or, "I will define my own truth." The pride of life resists authority. It resists Him as King and as Lord. It doesn't want bread, it doesn't want kingdoms. It wants the throne of your heart and of your life.

Here's how we can categorize all these temptations because we all face them and deal with them. The flesh says, "satisfy me." The eyes say, "give me." And the pride of life says, "I rule." That's every temptation in three sentences, my friends. And these are the temptations you and I face in the wilderness on a daily basis: when we wake, when we sleep, throughout our lives. So how do we resist them? Isn't that what we really want to know?

How do we live a victorious life? How do we really resist? How do we not give in to going that path and that way? Well, we're going to spend the rest of our time focused on that very thing. Alright? How do we resist temptation? Alright, let's go. First, anchor yourself in Truth. All three temptations that Jesus faces, Jesus roots himself in the Word of God. If you have your Bibles, notice this: every time Satan tempts, Jesus answers, "It is written."

It's not some logical step. It's not a personal strength. It's not emotional, not opinion. It's the Word. The Word for Jesus is a weapon. He is grounded in it and he answers, "It is written." There's a great quote I heard this week. It says the three most important words Jesus spoke was, "It is finished." Remember that upon the cross? His work, it is finished. But for the believer, the three most powerful words you can speak: "It is written."

The cross secures our salvation, but the Word strengthens your resistance. Jesus treats scripture like a weapon: not a decoration, not background noise, not inspirational quotes or just a book to read. No, it is a weapon. So when Satan tempts him to turn the stones into bread, Jesus is actually quoting Deuteronomy: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."

Notice the imagery: food, substance, daily intake. Now I know some of us are on maybe strict diets and you know how many calories you consume a day. I know some of us lift weights and so we know how much protein we need each day. We may track our macros, but what is your daily intake of the Word? What are you feeding your soul on a daily basis? Because the temptation is the strongest, hear me, the temptation is the strongest when you're spiritually malnourished, when you're walking empty.

I love the Psalmist puts it this way: "I have hidden your word in my heart. I've hidden your word in my heart that I might not do what? Sin against God." That it's internalized, that it's memorized, that it's stored. It is hidden in his heart that he might not sin. Jesus didn't scroll for verses in the wilderness, he already had it stored up. Resistance in the moment is determined by preparation before the moment occurs.

Get this: if you notice in scripture it says that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit when he entered the wilderness. Full. He didn't go in empty. He didn't go in dry. He didn't go in spiritually depleted. This is why as a church we're on you about reading your Life Focused New Testament, of creating space in your daily walk that you're consuming the Word, that you're in it. And it's not just about completing the task, but it's about opportunities to hear from God, hear His word specifically spoken to you and what you need.

Consume it. You need it. Why? It's preparation, it's strengthening, it's filling you with the Holy Spirit. You need moments with Jesus each and every day because the wilderness moments, my friends, will come. Notice verses 9 and 10 if you have your Bibles. Don't miss this: in one of the temptations, Satan actually quotes scripture. "Are you telling me, Craig, that Satan knows scripture?" Yes, he does.

Now, that might surprise you. He does. Do you? Satan tries to misuse it and tempt Jesus into disobedience of God's will by using scripture. My friends, you better know it. You better consume it. Knowing a verse isn't the same as knowing the Word. There's a difference. When temptation speaks, Truth needs to speak louder. When temptation comes and my flesh wants to fall, Truth, we need it.

Secondly, have positional awareness. Know the Truth and have positional awareness. Now, you may be wondering what in the world is that? Yeah, I'll explain. So I don't know if you can see this on this stage, there is a big yellow line. I'm going to use this as an illustration to help us communicate an important point. The yellow line represents temptation. We all have a yellow line. You may not be able to see the yellow line, but it's here. Just like I might not be able to see your yellow line and your temptations, they exist.

On this side of the line is sin and disobedience. This side of the line is righteous living, holiness, and pursuing God. So when I came to know Christ as a teenager, I found myself, I was originally in this line. I had a girlfriend and we lived in this line over here: disobedience to God and sexual immorality. But then Christ did something in my heart. He did something: he changed me and molded me and did something in me where I wanted to live over here.

But I didn't have positional awareness. In our relationship, we lived right here all the time, on the line. We'd often find ourselves stepping over into sin because we lived right here. We didn't have the wisdom from the Word. We didn't have the wisdom to not live here. We'd often find ourselves alone, making out, stepping over. And over here became this cycle because I felt the weight of my sin and I felt the shame and the disconnect from God and it became this cycle of shame and disobedience and conviction of the Holy Spirit.

And I would repent and I would get back over here, but because we lived right here, it became this cycle back and forth, back and forth. Maybe some of you know it. Positional awareness. A great biblical example of this, if you think of the great David in the Old Testament: David and Goliath, he had great victories in the Lord. He led the nation of Israel. He was known of this great man after God's heart. He wrote most of the Psalms. He was a great worship leader, great king.

But there's a part in 1 Samuel where it talks about his position. It says that when the kings often went off to war, David stayed behind. He stayed behind and he found himself on the line. He found himself on the rooftop where he started to browse and he saw Bathsheba. And from there he inquired about her, and then there eventually he steps over into sin and pays the price significantly.

David's failure was that he lived on the line in that moment. He wasn't supposed to be on this line. He was supposed to be on the battle line leading his troops. David didn't have positional awareness in that moment. He was living on the line. Now, the line is interesting to me. I'm learning new things about it. I heard this statistic this week that 85% of affairs begin in the workplace. I never thought of a workplace as the environment for an affair, but clearly it is.

So having deep relationships with your coworkers of the opposite sex might just be on the line. Business trips on the line. It's an opportunity for sin. You know who else is on the line? Our students. Did you know experts say that pornography addiction begins at ages 10 to 14? So if your kid has unfiltered internet access, if your kid has ability to scroll on tablets and phones, my friend, they're living on the line. Positional awareness.

This works out very practical, too. Did you know you have a greater chance of becoming an alcoholic if you live closer to a bar? There's practical understanding: living on the line. Now wisdom and where the Bible would say, "Why live here? Why not live further away?" The Bible calls this boundaries. Now, some of us may think that sounds like religiosity, a whole bunch of moral things. No, no, no. It's wisdom.

It's wisdom to say, "Listen, I'm not going to put myself in that position because I know myself. I know I will fail if I live there for too long. I will step across that line every time." Wisdom says, "No, no, I don't want to live there. I'm going to create some boundaries." Pastor John's a great example of this. When I got here 19 years ago, I heard Pastor John doesn't do the internet and he doesn't do emails.

And I thought, man, that seems outdated and old-fashioned. How can you really exist? Now 19 years later, I'm like, man, that kind of sounds great. You know how much time I spend deleting emails? And how much garbage we see through Facebook and the internet and all that? I kind of like that. But it's wisdom, though, isn't it? It's wisdom because he's saying, "Listen, I'm going to protect my integrity. I'm going to protect myself so never I have to step close to the line and step over."

There's some wisdom in that. And I think there's also wisdom in understanding that we all have the power and the ability to make bad choices. We all are capable of destroying our lives. So why put ourselves right there? Positional awareness. We need it. Know the truth that gives us wisdom, have some positional awareness, create some boundaries.

And thirdly, we all need this: more likely to say this, we need someone to walk with us. It's knowing that we don't need to walk alone, nor should we. We live in a society that elevates American individualism. We're taught, somehow ingrained in us, to be self-sufficient, to say, "I don't need anyone," to believe that my faith is personal, it's just to be kept in. We believe we got this as believers, but American individualism is not biblical Christianity.

Christian maturity is not solo spirituality. From Genesis forward, it says man is not good for them to be alone. We're not designed to follow Jesus in isolation. Brothers, can I have your attention for a moment because I want to let you know as brothers, you, there's a target on your back. As the leader of your family, God has a purpose and a plan for your life. And there seems to be a strategic attack on the men.

The key denominator amongst most of the moral failures of men: those brothers have been walking alone. And brothers, when you walk alone, you're weak. There are many statistics out there saying men have the hardest time making friends. Brother, you're not called to walk alone. You and I need other brothers to stand with us.

Now, I got my brother Josh with me. Josh, come on up. Josh works for FedEx. He's one of those guys who deliver your packages to your house, all your Amazon orders. So this dude's a strong, physically beast of a man. But he's also not just physically fit, he's spiritually fit as well. Two years ago, God intervened in this brother, the Lord set him down, that's the words he likes to use.

And he wakes up every morning, five or five-thirty, and spends 45 minutes to an hour in the Word. Yeah, brother, that's how you do it. That's encouraging to us. Be encouraged, what a great example. And so I like having this brother on stage. I like having him in my men's group and doing life with him. He's an encouragement to me. And listen, when we have someone with us, we feel stronger.

In fact, the very fact as I'm preaching this message, I feel stronger with you in my court, man. He's up here with me, I'm not alone. And the key is as brothers, we're to lock arms. Lock arms. Now, a little bit more about Josh. Josh has the great gift of discernment. I call it the BS meter. He'll be able to tell you, he'll be able to see through, "Hey, how you doing?" and I give him the generic answer of, "I'm good." He's like, "Really, man? Give me the stuff."

We need that in our lives. We need people to ask us the hard question, to really do life together with because if Jesus was tempted, I'm going to be tempted. If Jesus was tempted, you'll be tempted. And so we need a brother to link arms with. And think about this for a moment. Just physically, I'm kind of strong, but together we're stronger. I don't want to be in a bar fight, not that I'm in them, alone.

I want someone with me. Not just one, maybe two, maybe three. I need someone in the court with me. And who's to say that we're strong enough to do this alone? We need brothers because temptation will come. Temptation's coming, Ryan. Come on out, Ryan. What kind of temptation we got today? Donuts. Not any kind of donut: Dunkin' Donuts. Why? Because everybody loves Dunkin'.

And here's how it works. At least it seems to me and maybe for you, we talk about strategic attacks, what the enemy does is donuts appear when I'm weak. Maybe you've had a bad week like work, you're stressed out. And because work is so busy, I'm not spending time in the Word. Or maybe my kid is sick. That's my household. Got little ones and so we're not, I'm not getting enough sleep like I used to.

Maybe this week or maybe for the coming months me and my wife have been in a fight. Brothers, let's be real with each other, there's none of that going on, what I want to be going on, you know what I mean? So I'm weak. All this is happening. This is the enemy's at work. All it happens at the same time and in my flesh, I want that. Doesn't that look good? Twelve beautiful donuts. Don't they look good?

And this is what begins to happen as I start seeing those donuts and I start thinking about them. Wouldn't it be good? There's twelve of them. What if I just took one? What if I just took a little bite? What would that taste like? Kind of melt in my mouth. The sugar kicks in. How good it would be to just have a donut. Oh man, don't they look good? You're doing it right now with me, aren't you? Aren't you imagining what that donut would taste like?

That's the flesh and it wants to pull me. I want that. But I got a brother who's standing with me. I got a brother who's with me in the fight. I got a brother who's praying for me. I got a brother asking those hard questions, and I'm stronger for it. Now, listen, this does not mean that he controls me because the flesh is weak. We know this. And sometimes we live on the line. We know we can be rebellious at times and I might just step over and take a bite.

But here's the interesting part about this: it's not in secret. Because he can see it. He can challenge me. He can convict me. He can call me out when I need to be. If I stayed here and he wasn't there, the secrecy of the sin could continue to grow and grow and grow and I would just become donut lover, right? But we need brothers. You need it, I need it. And it'd be foolish to think you could do life alone. Can we thank it up for these two guys? Appreciate you.

Now, some of us would read Luke Chapter 4 and maybe say, "Look, I see the three temptations of Jesus. It seems as though he did it alone. I mean, Jesus did it alone." And I would say to you, "He's Jesus." and how silly of that to think that way, right? Like he faced the temptations alone. But if you look at his ministry, he never built a ministry of isolation. He sends out the disciples two by two. He has the twelve disciples.

He has three that he's really close with. Apostle Paul, he never traveled alone. Why? Because when you're alone, you're weak. If you're serious about resisting temptation, you must be serious about finding authentic, life-changing relationships. You want to resist, you need someone in your court. Fourth, when it comes to temptation, I like this one: run. If you're a runner, enjoy this point.

Paul writes, 1 Corinthians 6:18, "Flee sexual immorality." Now, the better word or could be more correctly translated this way: run from it. Don't try to manage your sin or negotiate with it or measure it. Listen, flee. Get out of there. Run. If you think of Joseph in the Old Testament, this was a good-looking dude. Potiphar's wife, if you remember, had a thing for him. The Bible says that she approached him many times trying to get him to sleep with her.

And the brother had great wonderful wisdom, because what he had to do was run. He knew the temptation was strong. He had to leave the house, he had to run, he had to flee. Now, here's what's cool: there is a promise for all of us in our temptations. It's incredible hope for us. Listen to 1 Corinthians 10:13. It says, "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to man," which means you're not alone.

You're not dealing with something no one else is dealing with. That's often the enemy in your head saying this is all you. No, no, no, you're just like all of us. There is common temptation, we all are facing the same things. And it says this: "God is faithful." In other words, you don't have to rely on your strength, you rely on Him. Your confidence isn't going to be in your willpower, but rather in His character. And you can trust it. He is faithful.

The verse goes on, "He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear." Praise the Lord. "But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out. A way out so that you can endure it." Listen to what that verse says: there's an exit sign for you. There's a door. There's a way to leave. The question is, will you take it? That when the yellow line presents itself, will you walk away?

And it may feel intense, the pressure to stay there, the desire may be powerful, but there's always the next right step. Brothers and sisters, run. Step out of it. Get out of there. Run. Now fifth, how do we resist temptation? The fifth point is this: learn to hate sin and love the Father. Do I really hate sin? I ask myself this question. Do I really hate my sin? And I would say there are moments when I do and there are moments when I treat it like a dessert.

Ryan, do you have one of those donuts? Now, we didn't plan this, but I find it interesting as I make this point: there is a heart-shaped donut. Do I hate my sin or do I love it? Listen, it looks good. Look at that chocolate on there. On the inside, some of you like the cream-filled, maybe this is your thing. It looks good, it even smells good. Doesn't it smell good? It promises some kind of satisfaction. All sins do that.

If it didn't have a type of satisfaction we wouldn't give in to it. But the truth is, we don't hate our sin. In fact, often we crave it. We crave this. And that's the problem. The Bible commands us: he doesn't just say resist sin, he says hate it. Hate what this does. Hate that it separates you from God. Hate that it can destroy your marriage and destroy your relationships and hurt your kids. Hate it.

Psalm 97:10 says, "Let those who love the Lord hate what is evil. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good." Romans 12:9. That's not tolerating it, that's not managing my sin, that's not minimizing and saying, "Well, it doesn't really hurt anybody else." Oh no, the call is to hate it, to hate it. Listen, why? Because sin never delivers what it promises. It always over-promises and under-delivers.

And there has to be a shift in our perspective. Yes, this donut looks harmless until you see what it will do over time. And sin looks harmless until you see what it will do to your marriage. With a little flirting, what will happen? What it will do to your children, what it will do to your soul, what it will do to yourself.

And here's the secret. How did Jesus resist the greatest temptations ever? I mean, think about it. He's offered everything that the world could offer. You could have the kingdoms. And in his most physical, weakest moment, of course before the cross and crucifixion, in this weakest point, he could satisfy his starvation. Listen, I you and I are not faced with the same temptation to the level that Jesus was, the greatest temptation. So how did he resist?

Because he didn't treat it as just bread. Bread's good. But rather he resisted, he resisted because the Father was sweeter. See, when Satan offered the kingdoms of the world, he didn't think power was ugly. No, no, he loved the Father more, oh, to please him. When Satan said, "Prove yourself," it wasn't that the lack of the ability, he could have done it, but he trusted the Father's voice. He wanted to walk in obedience.

Jesus hated this. He hated sin because it would separate him from the Father. See, sin distorts, it dishonors the Father that he oh, he loved. Oh, to please the Father. And he would love the Father too much to entertain what would break the fellowship that they had. And that's the difference. You don't defeat sinful desires by white-knuckling it, a list of to-dos. You defeat sin by cultivating a greater, wonderful love for Jesus, for God.

Listen, you always move towards what you love most. You get me? You move to what you love most. And if you love that more than God, you're always going to move there. If you love the donut, you'll circle the bakery. But when I begin to see what it cost, when I begin to see oh, the Father's love, when I begin to love the Father more than the frosting, I don't want to stand by it anymore. I want nothing to do with it.

Because obedience flows from our affections. Resistance flows from our relationship with God. And this is love, my friends: that we walk in obedience to His commands. Brothers and sisters, may you love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with everything you are. May you love him in the morning and love him at night. Would you love his Word? Love being in prayer, communion, talking with him daily.

May you love singing about him and singing to him. May he be your love song. May you love being in his presence and meditating on him. So instead of feeding lust, feed your love for Jesus. Instead of cultivating temptation, cultivate this affection for God. Instead of playing with fire over here on the line, would you draw near to the Father? Let your heart sing a song to Jesus. May your heart belong fully to Him.

Be captivated by Christ. Let Him be first. I love the song we sing: "When I look in his wonderful face, the things of this earth grow strangely dim." My friends, yes, you can resist. You can resist those temptations because Jesus did. Yes, you can say no because he did. Yes, you can turn away from those temptations and those sins because his Word will strengthen you. You can be filled with the Holy Spirit to have power because your Father also promises a way out.

Listen, when your heart is captivated by Christ, by Jesus, you will want to please him. You will want to love him. You will want to obey him and honor him. When you are captivated by Christ, that's the secret. That's how Jesus said no. Let thy will be done. May we love God more. Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you for showing us the way. Thank you for defeating the enemy at his ways. 40 days of temptation. Offered the world, offered everything that would please the flesh or the lust of the eyes or the pride of man, but you said no. Thank you, Jesus. Call us to do the same. May we fall deep in love with you. That yes, our temptations may feel strong at times, but our love for God, our motivator would be you, that that stuff looks awful to us.

Put in us a desire to please you. May we hate sin and love our Savior. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.