Unlimited Grace

Bryan Chapell: God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also provide a way of escape so that you can stand up under it. Lord, I can't help it. I can't resist. I can't fight. God says, no, listen. My Word told you something different. Believe the Word written. You can stand up under it, relying upon the truth of God, the power of the Spirit. We have to believe that that new creation that God has made us to be is real.

Guest (Male): So glad you joined us for today's Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. In today's lesson, Pastor Bryan continues his message from Matthew 4, in which Satan tempts Jesus in the wilderness.

Jesus' resistance of Satan is not only a lesson to us, but also fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy of God's provision of a perfect and unblemished sacrifice. You can find this lesson and many others when you visit UnlimitedGrace.com. While you're there, look for Pastor Bryan's book, *Unlimited Grace*.

Dr. Chapell reminds us of the power and mercy of God's grace that motivates and inspires us to serve our Heavenly Father. Let's hear now from Dr. Bryan Chapell as he shares the second half of the lesson, The Temptations of the King.

Bryan Chapell: In some of the recent commemorations for 9/11, I read a commentary by the Christian commentator Jim Denison. He told the account of Christina Stanton, a young woman in New York City who watched the first plane go into the Twin Towers from her balcony apartment. As she was standing on her balcony, the next plane went by within 500 feet of her, the exhaust knocking her down, the sound temporarily making her deaf.

And then the building. As the buildings began to fall, she and her husband ran to the ground floor to try to escape the destruction that was so close. But as they were running through the streets as oxygen is being taken out of the air by the debris falling from the sky, they both began to fall to the ground. She said to her husband, "Are we going to die?" His response was to begin reciting the Lord's Prayer. "Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name."

She was honest about what he was doing when she wrote about it later. Before 9/11, I would call myself somebody who went to church on Sundays but really hadn't internalized the Bible, internalized who Jesus said He was, who I am in Him. When the attacks happened, I learned I don't have control over God. The Bible was not saying you just say the right words and God will do what you want. You work hard and God will give you prospering like you never knew.

That's what I believed, that the Bible was something like a rabbit's foot. You just rub it like Satan wants you to and get what you want, like you would do an idol or a genie in a bottle. That's not God. She said, "I finally began to understand that what Christians do is submit every day to the power of the Holy Spirit. Instead of trying to get God to do my will, to seek God's glory over my own and living for heaven on earth."

Which is actually what her husband was praying. Lord, do your will on earth as it is in heaven. That's what the Lord's Prayer was, that I would be submitting my will to the Lord, not getting God to dance to my tune. That would be an idol. That is not God. Such a prayer, if that's all we're doing, reciting the Lord's Prayer like an incantation, reading the Bible to get enough brownie points with God that He'll do what we want.

Such a prayer is not magic. It's not a superstitious chant to get God to perform our will for our desires as any good idol should. Ultimately, she wrote, "I recognize prayer as placing God on the throne of my heart and seeking His will for my life." Such a different perspective. It's what Jesus was willing to say when He would say, "My bread is to do the will of Him who sent Me. My heart wants to honor My Father. I'm not putting Him on a leash."

I set My face like a flint to Jerusalem to fulfill His will knowing the cross awaits Me there because it's His will ultimately that He is being called to glorify. Because Jesus is not making physical satisfaction or spiritual substitution His God, Satan tries one more approach. If it's not the physical things, if it's not spiritual things that can tempt you, what's left? You yourself. I'll tempt you with you.

Verses 8 and 9: "The devil took him to a very high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And Satan said to Jesus, 'All these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me.'" It's a repetition of the very first temptation in the garden where Satan said to Adam and Eve, "You can eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God doesn't want you to because then you will be like God."

Now Satan says to Jesus, "If you'll worship me, you can have all the kingdoms of the world and all glory. You'll be like God the Father. You'll have it all. You'll be who you want to be." And Jesus resists that temptation as well, recognizing He is to be obedient to the Father. It is not His job to take the place of the Father, to not make Himself the center of His purpose, even the center of His life.

All of us at times get to the point we want God to do what we want for just our little corner of the world. God, I'm not asking for empires. I'm not asking for glory. I'm not asking for millions. Listen, would you just give me control over this little aspect of my job, this contract that I want, this relationship that I want, this thing that I want for my child? I just want control over this little space.

And we are to be reminded in the words of Abraham Kuyper, there is not one square inch of the world over which Jesus does not stand and say, "This is mine." Not one square inch of my life or your life as we are saying, "God, I'm not the one in control. You are." And we are designed to live lives of satisfaction, of wonder, of glory, of goodness, knowing that we release control to Him, not take control to ourselves.

It's hard to recognize what we're actually being called to think and believe at times. Paul Tripp, the Christian author and writer, wrote a poem recently to God. And this is what it said: "God, I was not designed to be on my own, to author my own story, to compose my own rules, to live with me in the center. I was not designed to look for life outside of you, to love people, places, and things more than you."

"I was not designed to rely on my own wisdom, to trust my imagination, to rely on my thoughts, to ignore your revelation. I was not designed to follow the path of my craving, to be enslaved by my desires, to be ruled by my passions more than I am by you. I was not designed to put created things in your place. I was designed to know that it is good to be with God."

"I was designed to make you my sole refuge, to rest in the goodness of your heart's intent, to praise you for the eternal rescue you promised in Jesus. I was designed to rely on you to hold me through every trial, beyond every tragedy, through every temptation. And no matter my victory or my failure, I was designed to remember that you will never leave me nor forsake me."

"I was designed to rise to fight again in the knowledge that you loved me enough to send Jesus for me so that you will forgive me and be my refuge and strength yet again." Wow, what a design. Should you trust the design? I mean, you see Jesus resisting the sin, the temptation in order to teach us a good and safe place to go. But do we follow against the temptations He resisted?

We're meant to because the temptations are not just proving that He is pure as a pure sacrifice. They are proving that He is the Son that God sent for us at great sacrifice to Himself. Did you catch it? It happens over and over again in the passage. Verse 1: "Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted." Verse 2: "After fasting 40 days and 40 nights." Now when you hear wilderness and the number 40, what comes to mind?

You remember the people of Israel? Their wandering in the wilderness for how long? 40 years. And here is Jesus, the Son of God. And we should be remembering that when Moses went to Pharaoh, he did not say, as Charlton Heston says in the movie, "Let my people go." What did Moses actually say? He said to Pharaoh, "God says let my son go." Here are the people, representative of the children of God.

So that Moses, let my son go, God says. Pharaoh will not do it, but ultimately when there's deliverance by God, they wander to idolatry and wander 40 years in the wilderness. There was another time when another Son was called to faithfulness. Remember, after Adam sinned, that first son of God, there was Noah, as God wiped the earth clean by the flood where it rained 40 days and 40 nights.

And then Noah failed also. Now here comes another Son in the wilderness to be tested 40 days and 40 nights. And He is proving to be a faithful Son. Because we have to recognize what God is ultimately doing is fulfilling the promise to Abraham made so long ago. Remember Abraham, thinking he was going to honor God, took his son Isaac up onto the mountaintop to sacrifice him? He raised the knife and God said, "Don't plunge the knife. I will provide the sacrifice rather than the son that you love."

And here He is. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, the one that He love, so that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life. Here He is, the Son who is being offered in sacrifice as God had promised so long ago. He would provide that Son. And now that one is coming not just to prove that He is the right sacrifice, to prove the heart of God the Father for us.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. Would you say that you're burdened by some chains of addiction, some patterns of sin or habits of apathy? Would you like to be set free from that and enjoy joy, peace, true satisfaction? The good news is it's possible. Pastor Bryan says so in his book, his powerful book titled *Unlimited Grace*.

Based on Pastor Bryan's decades of teaching the good news of Christ and His amazing grace, this book *Unlimited Grace* will take you on a personal journey to discover how grace not only frees you from the guilt and shame of a sinful life, but also provides the daily fuel you need for joy, which is your strength as a Christian. Request your copy of *Unlimited Grace* when you go online to UnlimitedGrace.com. The web address again: UnlimitedGrace.com.

And now more from Bryan Chapell on today's Unlimited Grace.

Bryan Chapell: Some of you have children or grandchildren, nieces or nephews who have gone from this church to be on the mission field. It's an amazing thought that something like 80% of the missionaries that we support are people right out of this church. But it's painful to send them. For those who go into missions or ministry, to know that they may spend most of their lives distant or never making the income of their peers.

And those of you who are parents or grandparents, there's a pain in your heart as you recognize this is a sacrifice of your own children for the sake of the lost. And in that sense, you have just the barest of feelings of what God the Father is doing when He provides His eternal, perfect Son for fallen, sinful, wandering humanity. He doesn't just prove that Jesus is the perfect sacrifice. He proves how big is His own heart.

And that is made ultimately clear when we understand the rescue that is being provided by this perfect sacrifice and provided Son. What is God ultimately doing? He is showing us how we might experience His love in our lives. The Spirit's rescue is on display as well in two ways. The Spirit's rescue is made clear in what rescues Jesus over and over again from the temptation. Every time Satan tempts Jesus, Jesus responds with words from where?

Where do the words Jesus responds with come from? From the Bible. He responds with scripture, as if to say the power of the Spirit is in the written Word of God. He who spoke this world into being also wrote our scriptures as holy men of God, says the Bible, were carried along by the Holy Spirit. They would write what we needed to resist temptation. And so this Word is written for us.

And over and over again, we recognize there is strength in knowing what the Word says as Jesus was using it to fend off the temptations of Satan. Thy Word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against thee. If I know the Word, it has power for me, even when I'm facing temptation, when I recognize this is so hard, God, I'm not sure that I can resist. We remember, "But He that is in you is greater than he that is in the world."

That's what the Word says. Satan sits right there on my shoulder and says, "You can't help it. You can't be fixed. There's no hope for you." And we have to say, "That is a lie. Greater is He that's in me than he that's in the world. I'm crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me."

He died on the cross, but He is alive and He lives in me. The resurrection power, the Holy Spirit is in me that I might walk with the Lord. Are there temptations? Of course there are. But the Bible says there is no temptation taken you but such as is common. And God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also provide a way of escape so that you can stand up under it.

Lord, I can't help it. I can't resist. I can't fight. God says, no, listen. My Word told you something different. Believe the Word written. You can stand up under it, relying upon the truth of God, the power of the Spirit. We have to believe that that new creation that God has made us to be is real. And so when the temptation comes, I do not let Satan deceive me by saying, "You can't be helped. You can't be stopped."

I say, "No, change is real. Change is possible because the power of God exists in me through the risen work of Jesus Christ as He has sent His Spirit into my heart." I believe it. And when that Word is written not only for us but is the sword wielded by us, then you begin to recognize what power it has. Do you recognize that's what the Bible says, that this sword of the Spirit is the Word of God?

So that when we or our children are facing temptation or trial, if that Word is deep in them, they actually have spiritual resources to fend off the temptations of Satan just as Jesus did. And it's part of the beauty and blessing of the gospel as it's not just the Word written, it's the Word we're able to wield in time of temptation to say, "Satan, you're a liar and I will not follow your path, but rather what God has designed for me."

It has such power. We just need to remember it. A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to speak at a pastor's conference in Texas. And I was the second speaker on the platform and as a consequence, I regretted being asked to come. You know if you're in the entertainment industry, I hear that you never want to follow an act that features children or animals. You know what the preacher's version of that is? You never want to follow a preacher who can quote scripture better than you can.

So the preacher who was ahead of me was there at the invitation of Samaritan's Purse. You know the ones who have the shoeboxes that we distribute every Christmas? We fill up with toys, but also a gospel presentation for children across the world. So here was this pastor from this little bitty Texas church that had maybe a couple of dozen people. And Samaritan's Purse had him represent them. I thought, well, that's kind of sweet that they would take a pastor from an obscure little church and he would represent this huge gospel outreach effort.

And then the pastor began to talk. Now he was from South Texas and that meant it took about three minutes for him to say his name. And I thought, boy, this is not going to be hard to follow. And then he said in his little church of 25 or so people that five years ago they began to pray that the Lord would allow them to give the Christmas shoeboxes in ministry to 500 children. Wow.

He said there's been some blessing in our church since. He said, "Now we're 50t people." Wow, 100% growth from 25 to 50. But then he said, "And this year what we will do is the 50 of us will distribute 11,000 shoeboxes." I thought, how did that happen? And then virtually everything he said from that point forward was scripture that he had memorized to give him encouragement and strength and zeal to his people for the gospel.

I think that's how that happened. The Word of God ministered to the purposes of God and gave God's people the power of God. When we are facing temptation, it is our calling, it is our privilege. I mean the things that are said here are so beautiful when Christ is responding with the Word of God. What happens as a result? Verse 11: "Then the devil left him." I mean just those simple words: the devil left him.

It's the promise of Jesus' brother in the book of James. "Resist the devil and he will flee from you." The devil doesn't want people who resist him with the Word of God. He wants an easier mark than that. So he'll go elsewhere. If we resist, the devil will flee. And something else happens. The end of verse 11: "Angels came and were ministering to Jesus." As He is using the Word of God to fend off the temptations of Satan, not only did Satan leave, but the angels come and begin to minister to Jesus.

And we think, man, I'd like that spa treatment. Angels to come and minister. It really is the red carpet treatment if you think about it. Because what they are doing as they are now strengthening the Lamb of God is they are preparing Him for the red carpet that will lead to the cross. He is being prepared for the greatest work of His life and our need, the sacrifice of His life for my sin and your sin.

It is ultimately our red carpet treatment that is being prepared. As what God is doing is saying, "I have prepared the Lamb for you. And as you put your faith in Him, not your works, not your goodness, but Him paying the price for your sin, made perfect in righteousness by resisting the temptation that you have not, then you know that when you are struggling, you can go to Him and say, 'God, forgive me.'"

And be assured that the one who took the sin of the world upon Himself will take your sin too, that you might rise with strength and encouragement knowing He's for me. He's for me. And He paid the price that I would not have to. When I know that, when I know that the red carpet of my own walk is taking me to the cross where I lay my sin and my guilt, the temptations that I fall into beneath the cross of Jesus, they are taken from me, put on Him, and I rise in the joy of the Lord that is my strength.

Praise God for the temptations you face, knowing He faced them too. We have a perfect high priest who is in all manner tempted like we are, so that He is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. And in time of need, we go to Him, lay the sin at His feet, and rise in the forgiveness that is our joy and our strength.

Guest (Male): That's Pastor Bryan Chapell and you've been listening to Unlimited Grace. If you've missed anything that you'd like to hear once again, just visit UnlimitedGrace.com. While you're there, also be sure to request a copy of the book from Dr. Bryan called *Unlimited Grace*. We'll send you a copy right away as our way of saying thank you for your most generous financial support. Please be sure to join us next time as once again we endeavor to put Christ at the center of our efforts so that lives might be transformed by His unlimited grace. This ministry is brought to you by Unlimited Grace Media and continues to be made possible with your generous financial support.