Latest / HBCWestminster / 2.23.20 Luke 4:1-13 Pastor Danny Gardner

Transcript

2.23.20 Luke 4:1-13 Pastor Danny Gardner · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  Well, I'm going to read Luke chapter 4. And if you're able to stand in honor of God's word, I would ask you to do that now. Our text this morning, verses 1 to 13. And hear the word of God. And Jesus, full of the Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, if you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread. And Jesus answered him, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone.
• 0:32
  And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said to him, to you I will give all this authority and their glory for it has been delivered to me and I give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours. And Jesus answered him, it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.
• 0:54
  And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you. And on their hands, they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone. And Jesus answered him, it is said, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. When the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. And Lord, I ask that you would prepare us for spiritual war.
• 1:26
  God, we know that our adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, searching, seeking someone to devour, and we do not want to become spiritual casualties. God, we want to win. And so we ask that you would fill us with your spirit and that you would teach us by your spirit and that you would convict us of sin and grant us forgiveness. And we thank you that by the blood of Jesus, we can approach your throne with confidence. And it's in his name we pray. Amen.
• 1:56
  Amen. Thank you. You can be seated. Well, as you know, and as you've probably already seen, this text has always been called and is called in our ESV Bibles, the temptation of Christ or the temptation of Jesus. But honestly, church, I think that gives the devil too much credit. He didn't win after all. The Lord did. And I'm pretty sure that it wasn't even close.
• 2:25
  I'm officially, as of this point forward, changing the title of our passage to The Resistance of Christ. And so if somebody wants to call the translators of the ESV this week and let them know that in all future versions it can be called that, that would be great. The Resistance of Christ. Luke, as we know, began his letter by recalling the eyewitness testimonies of those who had encountered Jesus. From the very beginning in chapter 1 and verse 1, he set out to put together a historical account of the life
• 2:53
  Events, miracles, death, resurrection of Jesus. Using eyewitness testimony. As much as possible, gather together eyewitnesses. But this event is slightly different because no person witnessed it. This information was given to Luke then by direct revelation from the Holy Spirit. By Holy Spirit inspiration. The Holy Spirit told Luke to include it. And when in other passages we have...
• 3:21
  people's testimonies. Last week, we even had the Father's testimony. You're my beloved son. With you, I am well pleased. This morning, we have the Holy Spirit's testimony. Because apart from his revelation, this event would have remained unknown. And so it causes us to ask the question, why of all of the events in Jesus's life, which had no human eyewitness, and there must have been many of them, right? I mean, Luke's gospel is 25 pages long.
• 3:50
  I mean, imagine for those 33, 34, 35 years of the life of Christ, what could have been included and was left out of all of those events, of all of the things that could have been included and was left out. Why did the Holy Spirit deem this event in the life of Christ of such import that he would force Luke to include it? Why is our awareness of this event in the life of Christ so important? The takeaway from this morning, I'll just give it right up front. What matters most in the passage is...
• 4:22
  That where Adam failed, Christ succeeded. Where Adam failed, you're going to notice in the temptation of Jesus, the reflection of, and we'll even talk about, we'll go back to Genesis chapter 3 and look at the reflection of the Garden of Eden and that fateful day where the devil tempted Adam and Eve and they failed. There are reflections of that event. This is, the temptation of Jesus, is the Garden of Eden event in the life of Christ, right? Does that make sense?
• 4:52
  This event is the point in time where Jesus decided whether he would succeed or fail, whether he would become the second Adam ushering in life or just become a repeat of the first Adam. The sin and by extension, the death that the first Adam brought to our race, Christ squashed in the righteousness and life that he ushers in in his victorious.
• 5:23
  temptation. The passage before us now is why the gospel is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe. We know the gospel. And in fact, Sam even read the gospel. For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith. We know that is the gospel. But how does the gospel work? The answer is the resistance, the victory of Christ. The passage
• 5:50
  describes what it means when 1 John 4 says that Christ became the propitiation for our sins. This passage before us now is the reason we have a John 3 16. This is the reason. The passage before us now is the reason that 2 Corinthians 5 21 works. And I'll read that. 2 Corinthians 5 21. Listen to this. For our sake, God made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin. He was victorious over temptation so that in him we might become the righteousness
• 6:20
  In other words, the fact that Christ was victorious, that he resisted temptation, makes the substitutionary atonement effective for the salvation of those who would believe. If Christ had failed, none of us would be here. And so let's look at God's word. We'll pull apart what I believe to be an extremely important event in the life of Christ. Notice first, the Holy Spirit reveals the preparation of our Lord. Look at verses 1 and 2. It says,
• 6:51
  returned from the Jordan and was led by the spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. You'll notice that he prepared. He knew that this spiritual battle, this showdown at the okay corral was coming.
• 7:11
  He knew that this was what his life was leading to, a showdown with the adversary. And so he began to prepare. And notice, he prepared in three ways. It says that he was full of the Spirit, filled with the Spirit, other places in the New Testament. It means completely saturated with the Holy Spirit, like a sponge.
• 7:34
  that is completely soaked through. No matter how many more times you run the sponge across the counter, it cannot pick up any more water. And that's what it was like when Christ was filled or saturated with the Holy Spirit. There was room for nothing else. The Bible and the call of Scripture is that we would be filled with the Spirit so that there is room for nothing else. But I find that I fill my life with everything else and that the Spirit has to...
• 8:05
  Just kind of settle for what's left over. I pursue all kinds of endeavors with my life. I have all kinds of goals. And I wake up every day thinking about all of the things that I could achieve, very rarely offering to the Holy Spirit what is first and best. You can imagine the mutiny we would have at our house if Hallie made a great dinner, served it to everybody but Chase, our nine-year-old, and forced him to eat leftovers instead.
• 8:39
  Right? And on top of that, maybe not even heated up leftovers. Like, there's some leftover lasagna. It's still cold. I guess you can just chew on that for a while. And you can imagine the mutiny we'd have. Why does everybody else get what's good and I get what's leftover? You guys, why does the Holy Spirit deserve any less? I feel like at times I offer him leftovers and I don't even bother heating them up. You can have...
• 9:02
  what I don't have time for anymore. You can have what I don't care about anymore. You can have, Lord, what I'm not even hot about anymore. Scripture says that Jesus, when he was confronted with spiritual war, was filled with the Spirit. Is there any room at all for the Holy Spirit in our lives, or is he settling for leftovers? That's first. Notice also it says,
• 9:25
  That he was not only filled with the Spirit, but verse 1 actually says he was led by the Spirit. Now that's another step altogether. Not only filled, but also led, which meant he was compliant. He was compliant and didn't fear the Spirit's call. He was focused on the Spirit. He was focused on the will of God. He was motivated, in fact, by the Spirit's call. In Galatians chapter 5, we're given a battery of tests.
• 9:54
  to determine if we are indeed walking according to the flesh or being led by the Spirit. Galatians 5 gives us a whole bunch of tests. If you want to know if you're walking according to your flesh or keeping in step with the Spirit, do these things. Verse 16 of Galatians 5 says that if you're walking by the Spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. In other words, if I keep falling into sinful temptation, if I keep indulging in the flesh, Galatians 5 says, then you're not filled with the Spirit.
• 10:20
  Those who walk by the Spirit of God are not gratifying the sinful flesh, right? Verse 16. It continues in verse 22, Galatians 5.22. We all know this one. We're walking according to the Spirit. We will begin to exhibit the fruits of the Spirit, like love and joy and peace, patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness, self-control. We'll begin to look.
• 10:43
  like the Spirit. And if those fruits are being born and are ever increasing, he says, then you're probably walking by the Spirit. But if you're an apple tree with no apples, he says, then what good are we? It doesn't make any sense. Verse 26 of the same passage, Galatians chapter 5, describes walking by the Spirit as being humble and self-sacrificing. And so you can imagine here when it says that he is filled with the Spirit and then led by the Spirit, that Christ would have that same attitude, diligently following the Spirit.
• 11:14
  into the wilderness to be tested without fear. Notice verse two says that he ate nothing for 40 days. And I love how verse two ends. It just says, and when those days were ended, he was hungry. I always think, man, that's like the understatement of the entire New Testament, right? He didn't eat for 40 days. And at the end of it, he was hungry. Well, yeah, I would think that he would be hungry.
• 11:39
  Why would he do this? Why fast for 40 days leading into this? This seems counterintuitive for us. If we knew that we were going to war, if we knew that we were going into battle, in fact, if we knew that we would be tested for a month, a month and a half from now, you're going to be tested. We would probably do the opposite. We'd make sure that we were eating well. We would make sure that we were well rested, right? We would make sure that we were at our physical peak going into that moment. But Jesus does the opposite.
• 12:08
  I think because one of the best ways to learn to depend on the Spirit of God is to control the flesh. At some point in our lives, we must decide to show our bodies who's boss. Do you guys ever spend any time with toddlers? You'll know they have not learned this concept yet. Showing their bodies who's boss. Showing their bodies who's actually in charge. When tiny, tiny, tiny little ones throw a temper tantrum. It's kind of cute.
• 12:40
  But at some point, that stops being cute. Staff lunch this week, we had lunch with Claudia. Claudia Bucher came and Jonathan Bucher came, her 15-month-old or so son. And he sat there. We all went to Torchy's Tacos over there. We're eating together. And Jonathan, he's the cutest little dude in the world. And he's sitting, he's just grabbing pieces of it and just hucking it on the floor. He thought it was hilarious, right? Grabbing it, hucking it on the floor just to see what we would do. And honestly, when you're 15 months old, it is a little bit hilarious. Like, I don't know, look how cute he is.
• 13:10
  If it were a 15-year-old, that's very different, right? I even asked, I asked Claudia, like at some point, he's going to cross over that line where it's okay, and then the next day it's not okay. Like, okay, I am not picking that spoon up again. I'm just not doing it. At some point, you've got to begin to control your own urges, control your own bodies. And one of the best ways to depend upon the Spirit is to show your body who's
• 13:40
  bossed. We must at some point tell our bodies who is in charge. And you can imagine the Lord's physical state at this point, 40 days of fasting. He would have been gaunt and emaciated, maybe even starved. Some of us saw our beloved brother and even son in the church who was a missionary in Peru, Isaiah de Lorenzo, when he came back this past Christmas to celebrate here. He had been fasting for 30 days coming back into his
• 14:10
  a little furlough here, fasting for 30 days. His appearance was alarming. Honestly, we even came aside like, should we be concerned? No, I'm eating again. I was fasting. I was asking the Lord for something. It was purposeful. I'm okay. But we came to him like, man, you don't look good. And now consider the spiritual state of our Lord. Physically emaciated, gaunt, starved, but spiritually as strong as ever. You can imagine him almost thinking at the end of the temptation,
• 14:43
  I thought it was going to be a lot harder. I might have overprepared. I thought this was going to be harder. But I love his attitude going into it was, I'm going to do everything in my power to ensure success, to ensure victory. On March 17th, 2003, our president at the time, George W. Bush, issued a 48-hour evacuation demand to the then president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein.
• 15:11
  48 hours, he said, you have to get out of town. Some of you maybe remember this. When the deadline passed, Hussein had done nothing. The U.S. military launched an air offensive against the nation of Iraq, 2003, specifically targeting over 100 strategic military sites in order to pave the way for the U.S. ground forces to invade. The Air Force began by dropping nearly a quarter of a million pamphlets telling the Iraqi defense forces that if they surrendered, no harm would come to them. And they knew that that would be true.
• 15:42
  Because some of you guys, if you're old enough to remember Operation Desert Storm in the early 90s, just 10 years before this, those guys, those same guys were surrendering by the hundreds of thousands. Do you remember that? And so they'd sent the same thing, same message. If you will surrender, no harm will come to you. But then after the pamphlets had been dropped and over the course of the next 24 hours, 3,000 cruise missiles and smart bombs were launched.
• 16:08
  that were intended to, as one Pentagon official put it, and this is a quote, our intent in this 24 hours is to leave the Iraqi soldiers with bleeding eardrums and mouths full of sand. That offensive has famously been called the shock and awe campaign. Shock and awe. Now, our Air Force, our military, used this tactic because the lives of military men and women are precious. We were not willing to send in the ground forces first. Why? It seems obvious.
• 16:42
  Why wouldn't we do that? Why not send the ground forces first? Because they might get killed. Let's annihilate them first and then send in the good guys. Do you see what I'm saying? Like, no, our sons and daughters are precious to us. We're not going to put them on the front lines. Let's blow everything up first and then send them in. It was this overwhelming military campaign, overwhelming strength, overwhelming force, listen, that would ensure
• 17:10
  An overwhelming success. And why would we treat the spiritual war any different? Why do we flirt with the idea of temptation and flirt with the idea of sin when we have such a wealth of resources at our disposal? When the Spirit of God will give us the power to overcome. When the Word of God will give us ammunition and weaponry to fight off.
• 17:38
  and defend ourselves against the fiery arrows of the evil one. Why would we take any risk at all with our souls? That makes no sense, amen? I would recommend that we launch Operation Shock and Awe, right? That we just have an overwhelming spiritual power going before us to ensure a spiritual victory. That's first. He ate nothing for 40 days. He prepared. He was going into this war. He knew he was going to war.
• 18:09
  And he prepared. But notice second, the Holy Spirit reveals the temptation of our Lord. Look at verse three. You know, I'm going to kind of pull out the temptation first. Then I'm going to pull out his responses last. Okay, so look at verses three and four. The devil said to him, if you are the son of God, command this stone to become bread. That was temptation number one. Notice verse five. The devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said to him.
• 18:37
  To you I will give all this authority in their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I will give it to whom I will. Stop right there for just a second. That's a little bit of an inaccurate statement, okay? The authority was never given, was never given to the enemy. In fact, you hear in Matthew 28 in the Great Commission, Jesus says in verse 18, all authority has been given to me. All authority has been given to me. The devil was offering something that wasn't actually his to give.
• 19:07
  Okay? It would be like, you hear, I used to hear kids pray this occasionally. It's less cute when adults pray it. But kids would pray something like, Lord, if you'll give me a million dollars, I will give the church half. Like they're offering this tremendously generous thing. Like, why wouldn't the Lord go for that? The church is always asking for money anyway. Imagine, I could do all of that stuff, right? If you'll give me a million dollars, I'll give you
• 19:40
  And you can imagine the Lord in heaven saying, why would I do that? Listen, I'm not an investment banker, but I can do basic math. That's a bad investment. Why would I give away a million and only get half in return? It all belongs to me anyway. It doesn't make any sense. Lord, if you will give me this, then I'll give you a little bit back. It's like the devil saying, you know what? Jesus, look at all this stuff.
• 20:04
  It's all yours. Just bow and worship me. It's all yours. It's mine. And I give it to whom I will. And Jesus thinking, no, I remember the day that it was made. I was there. I remember when it was created and I remember whose it is. It's not yours to give. He continues in verse nine, the third temptation. He took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple. That would be the highest point, the corner point and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here for it is written.
• 20:33
  He will command his angels concerning you to guard you and on their hands that will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone. Now Satan himself tempted Christ in three ways. By appealing to his hunger, right? Turn this stone into bread. By appealing to his eyes, I'll give you the kingdoms of the world. By appealing to his pride. You can imagine this last one. Throw yourself down and the Lord will command, God will command angels to come.
• 21:01
  The argument, the enemy's argument was you can command the father to do your bidding. Throw yourself off the temple and God will have to do something. You can command God to do your bidding, his flesh, his eyes, and his pride. What's interesting about the devil's temptation is that it is the exact same approach he used on Adam and Eve in the garden. It's exactly the same, same three points.
• 21:33
  You can picture in your mind's eye that day so long ago, Adam and Eve standing in the garden in perfect harmony with their creator and the world which he had made, and the devil kind of slinking in, right? And that day when the temptation took place, Adam and Eve standing there, the devil giving his argument. You can imagine Eve even thinking something like, well, I am hungry. The fruit looks good to eat. If it's going to make me wise, how could it be bad?
• 22:05
  In fact, Genesis chapter 3 and verse 6. Let me just quote it for you and listen. See if you can pull out those three things. Same things. Genesis 3, 6. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, there's her flesh, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desired to make one wise, there's her pride, she took of its fruit and ate flesh, eyes, and pride. And this same three-pronged approach.
• 22:32
  is the exact same approach that 1 John 2 describes the devil using against us today. It's the same. It hasn't changed. Since the Garden of Eden, the devil has been singing the same song. Listen to 1 John 2, verse 15. Don't love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, listen, here's the three, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life. There they are again, all three.
• 23:02
  Those things are not from the Father, but from the world, and the world is passing away. Flesh, eyes, and pride. The enemy's approach hasn't changed, and this makes him delightfully predictable. Listen, beloved church, I talked to you a month or so ago about the Houston Astros and the Major League Baseball cheating scandal. Do you remember me talking about that?
• 23:28
  that they were stealing signs using video cameras and iPads and then relaying those signs to hitters in the batter's box and all of that. And I put the Astros symbol up there on the screen. Do you remember? But we took the H off and we put an asterisk there instead, right? They cheated. And if anything in the last month, that cheating scandal has not diminished. In fact, it's even gaining more and more and more momentum. It's becoming a bigger and bigger and bigger deal. And fans may ask, why? Why is it such a big deal?
• 23:58
  So they stole a few signs. So a few times they knew what pitches were coming. Listen, if you're a hitter, if you're a hitter, if you're in the batter's box and you're holding the bat, and the guy up there is throwing close to 100 miles an hour, if that ball hit you, it would kill you. And he can also throw sliders and curveballs and change-ups and all of these other pitches, right? It makes it look different every time. Would you want to know what pitch was coming? Yeah.
• 24:26
  If I know what pitch is coming, it gives me an extreme advantage. Does that make sense? Okay, think about the three-pronged approach of the temptation of our adversary. Do you know what pitch is coming? You guys, it's the same. It's been the same for thousands of years. You know what pitch is coming. You are at a distinct advantage. In fact, I would be willing to bet.
• 24:52
  That the temptations that the enemy uses against you haven't changed in decades. I would bet that if you boiled your sin life down, the things that you really struggle with, the things that you fail at the most, if you boiled them down, there would really be two or three things. Probably wouldn't be thousands of things. It'd be two or three things that if you boiled it down, you said, man, the devil gets me on that one every time. Every time it's that one. I can say no to other things. This one is a temptation.
• 25:22
  you know what's coming. I'll excuse the younger folks for just a minute. If you're in high school or down, you can be excused. You haven't lived maybe long enough to notice these patterns in your lives yet, okay? They'll come. You'll notice them at some point. You might still be guessing when you're 16. I don't know what the devil's going to do, okay? That's why the Lord gave you parents. They'll help you with that, all right? But if you're in your 20s and 40s and 60s and...
• 25:52
  Listen, for you guys who are in your 80s, when was the last time, honestly, when was the last time you were surprised spiritually? Surprised by the devil's attack? Surprised by the temptation he would put in front of you? You guys, by the time you're 80, you're like, you haven't changed your tune since I was 21. This has been the same. And brothers and sisters, if we know his strategy,
• 26:22
  then why wouldn't we head him off at the pass? Why wouldn't we just say, you know what? At all costs, I'm going to ensure spiritual victory. I know what he's going to do. Two, three things. I can cut those out of my life. Two, three things. As I consider my own spiritual failures, and honestly, the frustration that I feel because I fail in the same ways again and again and again, when I consider my own spiritual failures, it causes me to think that maybe
• 26:54
  my own spiritual success is not as important to me as I say that it is. Because if I were really serious about my own spiritual success, it would be shock and awe. Jesus said this in Luke chapter 9, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but forfeits his soul?
• 27:16
  What does it profit a man? He says, you chase after all of these other things. You gain the whole world, all of those kingdoms that he offered to the Lord, all of those kingdoms. He gave them all to you. And what profit is it if you forfeit your soul? It's the most important thing about us. Jim Elliott has famously said this, he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. I'll read it again. He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep. That is,
• 27:44
  The earthly treasures, all of that stuff that the earth is about, we can't keep it anyway, right? We'll die, it'll all be gone. He's no fool who gives up what he can't keep anyway to gain that which he can't lose, his soul. Notice last, the Holy Spirit reveals the resistance of our Lord. And although the devil's kind of strategy was three-pronged, a three-pronged attack, you'll notice that there is a one-pronged resistance, and that is the word of God. Look at verse four. Jesus answered him, it is written.
• 28:15
  Man shall not live by bread alone. Skip over. Let's see. Verse 8. And Jesus answered him, It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. And then last in verse 12. And Jesus answered him, It is said, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. Verse 4. Man shall not live by bread alone. He quotes Deuteronomy 8.
• 28:47
  Verse 8, worship the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 6.13. Verse 12, don't put your God to the test. Deuteronomy 6.16. And like a master swordsman, Christ uses the word with precision and effect. And Jesus, full of the Spirit, uses the word of God to accomplish the will of God. And what I love about this text is that you see that the devil's attack on Christ was not an open book test.
• 29:14
  It's not like Jesus was walking around with a copy of God's word. He wasn't walking around with some Torah scroll out in the middle of the wilderness, right? Waiting to be tempted and all. Wait, you know, why don't you turn this stone into a bread? Well, hold on. Let me start flipping through and rolling these things out. Oh, there's a verse that fits. Man shall not live by bread alone. That seems to fit. Looking up his concordance, he wants me to turn it into bread. Maybe I'll look up the word bread and hit it lucky.
• 29:39
  You know, I don't know. It wasn't that way at all. It wasn't an open book test. Jesus only had at his disposal, catch this church, he only had at his disposal what he had memorized and used and meditated on previously. And we know that Jesus, although being fully God, was also fully human. He was restricted and limited the way that we are, which means if he had verses memorized, what had he done? He had memorized them. We kind of laugh at the fact that it says, and after 40 days, he was hungry.
• 30:11
  You want to know why I think that's included? After 40 days, he was hungry. It's to show us and remind us again that Jesus was a man. He was limited the way that we are. If he had gone 40 days without food and wasn't hungry, then we think, well, he had some resources available to him that we don't have. It'd be easy for us to excuse, but he was hungry. He only was nourished in his body by the things he had put in his body. And in the same way,
• 30:43
  He could only recite verses that he had memorized. It's not an open book test. How much, if I can ask, how much of the scriptures are available to you? I mean, really available to you. I don't know how old I was when I first memorized Psalm 119 and verse nine. We've all memorized it at some point. I guarantee if you grew up in the church, then Psalm 119 and verse nine, at some point.
• 31:10
  You memorized. It says, how can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. And then it says, and this is the part everybody knows, I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. We've all memorized it at some point, but how did it take me 30 years to figure out the application to that? I've hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Jesus, God says in his word, you want to know how to have spiritual victory over temptation?
• 31:38
  Hide God's word in your heart. You want to sin less? Memorize more. Memorize more. Meditate more. J.C. Ryle has said it this way, let us learn the immense value of knowledge of the contents of the Bible. Seems obvious. Let's read it and search it and pray over it diligently and perseveringly and unwarily. Let us strive to be so thoroughly acquainted with his pages that his text may abide in our memories, he says. Let us stand at our right hand in the day of need.
• 32:08
  The Bible is indeed a sword, but we must take heed that we know it well if we would use it with full effect. I don't know when it became the assumption, but shame on us. I don't know when it became the assumption that the answer to all of our problems is to read a scant few passages in scripture every day, maybe even half asleep, and expect that the devil will suddenly throw up his hands and surrender. That's not how it works. When I was a kid, I played Pac-Man. One joystick, no buttons.
• 32:38
  Right? It's just directions. Up, down, left, right. That's it. Pac-Man. I eventually, when I was in junior high, graduated to a game called Galaga. One joystick, one button. Move left or right and fire. And that was it. Then, eventually, I graduated to a game, brand new, hot off the press, Super Mario Brothers. One joystick, two buttons. Run fast and jump. You know how many buttons are on an Xbox remote? I was curious about it, so I asked my boys.
• 33:11
  They're all into this game, especially my older two are into this video game called PUBG, Player Unknown Battleground. You run around. It's like the Hunger Games. You run around. You're trying to off other people who live around the world and whatever, get resources and all these other things. You run around. You do all these crazy. I'm watching them play this game. You guys, I was astounded. I was astounded at the ability that their guy, their character had. It was incredible. It wasn't just run and jump. That was me. That was pitfall days.
• 33:41
  Right? Run, jump. Donkey Kong, run, jump. You know, like don't hit the barrels. That means a very simple thing. Those Xbox remotes are incredible and they're manipulating these things all at once in sequence, in harmony. So their guys are running forward, but looking backward. They're chucking stuff forward with the right hand, but they're chucking stuff backward with their left hand. They got smoke grenades and they're switching weapons and they're drinking energy drinks. And I mean, it's the craziest thing. And so I said, you guys, boys, I did. I asked my son, Zach.
• 34:10
  Zach, count the number of buttons. I want to know how many buttons are on an Xbox remote. There are two joysticks, okay? Each thumb. So one controls your guy and the other one controls his head, okay? There's a directional pad up, down, left, right, just like the old school Nintendo. And then there are 18 additional buttons. 18, an R, B, an L, B, a Z, an A, a C, a whatever, all of these things. And you can hit them all. And depending on what combinations and everything else, your guy can do.
• 34:38
  Just this incredibly, incredible ability this character has. I'm watching them do this and I'm astounded. And I thought, how did they get so good at that? They weren't born that way. They weren't born with an Xbox remote. In fact, I kind of rue the day that I brought an Xbox into my house. That's a different sermon, right? Why are they so good at it? Practice, practice. They get to the place, 18 buttons, they can hit them all without looking at it. They've memorized the entire, it's incredible.
• 35:11
  Practice, that's how they did it. Listen to Hebrews chapter five and verse 14. Solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice. It literally says that in there. Hebrews 5.14, by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. And often when we think about our Bibles, we think about reading them occasionally or carrying them in and out of church, sticking them up on our dashboards, forgetting about them, but how much are we?
• 35:43
  practicing the word of God so that when the battle comes, we'll know what to do. The gospel works because of this passage. It's because of this passage. Jesus' victory over temptation. Our Lord had victory over our adversary and he would call us to do the same. And beloved church, make no mistake, we are at war. Our very souls are at stake. I think we would be foolish not to prepare for battle. We've got to be filled with the spirit. We've got to be led by the spirit.
• 36:12
  We have to practice showing our bodies who is boss. At this point in most of our lives, I think we can anticipate the enemy's next move. And that gives us a distinct advantage. Let us resolve to use God's word to its fullest effect by practicing constantly with it and committing it to memory. And let us not become like the foolish man who was willing to gain the whole world, but forfeit his soul. And God, I pray that you would give us strength, strength.
• 36:40
  to act in such a way that we would follow the Lord's example, preparing for battle and achieving victory over the adversary. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen, church. Amen. Let's stand and sing together.