Sunday Recap: "Him and I" Part 2
Resource: Discipleship Director Phil Schmitt
Topic: Becoming Spiritually Healthy - Reading God's Word Daily
My mom started meeting with a nutritionist and if you know my mom, you know she's been on this health journey for years. She’s trying to get healthy and be healthy. Trying to live the best life that she can especially since I started having kids. She’s wanting to be around for as long as possible to experience and watch and do life with family. So through the nutritionist, she started learning about what is proper nutrition, what should we be eating, how we should be eating. For this past year I've been able to watch my mom make these changes and be very intentional with what it is that she is consuming and after 12 months I can say that my mom's down about 40 pounds just simply by changing what it is that she's consuming and she's off four out of five of the medications that she was taking and I mean, if that's not inspirational. It’s been awesome to watch firsthand.
So I asked my mom “how can I start doing this for myself” and it truly came down to what we consume. What we consume matters. The same goes for our relationship with God. It is so important to consume God’s word and why that relates to my mom’s story is because what we consume and put in our bodies affects how we think, how we feel, how we interact with people, our relationships. Most importantly, it effects how we respond to situations. This week, week 2 of Him and I: we are going to learn how we can have a healthy relationship with God and how we can be spiritually healthy.
To start, if you’re going to write anything down today, write down this:
God’s word is essential to life because God’s word is life!
We are more than physical; we are spiritual beings as well. We know this because Genesis says that God created all of life with His word. Without God's word there is no life. Look at Genesis and look at their creation account. God SPOKE and it was with God’s word that all of life was created. We can see more in John 1, in the beginning was the word the Word was God and the Word was with God.
We need to feed ourselves the proper soul food, proper nutrition, and that is scripture.
Scripture time!
Today we are looking in Matthew 4. As we read scripture, we like to use the soap method. So, we start with scripture, we have observation, then application and lastly, prayer. Let’s dive in.
"Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted[a] by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
"He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”
Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”
Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Let’s break it down by looking at the three temptations Satan attacks with and then we will look at Jesus response to them.
Tempt 1
[4:3] Then the tempter approached him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Satan waits for Jesus to be in a vulnerable place physically
Why would it have been wrong for Jesus to turn the stones into bread: Dependence on God vs providing for our selves through our own strength/abilities
Heart posture - Satan wants to distract us from what matters most: The health of our Spirit or condition of our heart
Satan waits till we are physically weak… Our fall into temptation is not a result of our weakness physically but of our weakness spiritually
HALT - Hungry, Angry, Lazy, Tired: When we are most vulnerable to temptation. Its when we are physically weak we need to be spiritual strong
Tempt 2
[5] Then the devil took him to the holy city,had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: He will give his angels orders concerning you, and they will support you with their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”
Satan quotes scripture to Jesus.
Bad theology hurts people - Prosperity gospel, health and wellness gospel. Both sound great, sounds like a really good and loving God right? But not true.
It is important to know what is true and good and right because we will never be let down by God- even when life is bad, God is faithful
God promises all things will work out for the good of those that love him according to his will, not that all things will be good (Romans 8:28)
Tempt 3
[8-9] Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. And he said to him, “I will give you all these things if you will fall down and worship me.”
Satan promises Jesus the world
Satan has no authority to make this promise and no ability to deliver on it.
Satan is the father of lies, and we should not believe what he offers
Jesus’s Response to Temptation: GOD'S WORD
Focus on first response
Man must not live on bread alone, but on the word of God! No matter what it is that that Satan is tempting us with or that we're being tempted with in this world, the only way to stand up to it and not fall into that temptation is to stand on God's word.
Man must not live on things in this world or live for this world. We must live for God and on God’s word to sustain us
Practically speaking now, we see there are two aspects as to how Jesus was able to respond to Satan’s temptations.
He was walking with the Spirit Jesus was walking with the spirit 40 days/nights, praying, resting in God’s strength, not his own
He was filled with God’s word If we want to live and to respond to life’s temptations this way, we need to be walking with the Spirit, we need to be prayed up, and we need to be in God’s word daily learning it understanding it and abiding by it
In verse 1 in chapter 4 it says that “Jesus was led by the spirit” as Greg preached last week, we need to be in constant prayer with God. We need to be in prayer with the Spirit. As Jesus was walking, he was there with a purpose. He was there because God wanted him to be there this was a god-ordained moment in time and history of Jesus to be tempted.
Back to the story of Mom and Me… It took twelve months for me to start… it wasn’t until I started for myself that it started to impact and change my life…
You can come to church once a week, you can read devotionals, you can listen to podcasts/ sermons… but until you start reading the Bible for yourself DAILY…
You will not experience the full power of God,
You will not have a deep relationship with God,
You will not be able to resist the temptations of this world
WHY? You can’t eat one healthy meal a week and expect to get healthy. You can’t expect to watch someone else eat healthy and listen to someone else eat healthy for 12 months and expect to start losing weight yourself
YOU NEED TO BE IN THE BIBLE FOR YOURSELF
There are many temptations of the world and when we over-consume one that is not the word of God, that is when we will not be able to have a deep and intimate relationship with him. I know it is hard to resist consuming unhealthy things considering the world is always trying to sell us fast food, alcohol, sex, drugs, etc. But when we give in to it, we are not able to withstand the temptations of this world. It is when we are so saturated with God’s word that we will no longer be looking to and longing for the world to satisfy us with its unhealthy options.
We can see just how saturated Jesus was with God’s word and in prayer with God that when Satan came to tempt him and test him, what came out was God’s word naturally and it was there that he had the strength to be able to withstand all that Satan was testing him with. You can do that too but listening to me preach all day isn’t going to do anything for you. You have to get into God’s word yourself in order to be able to experience the power of God and experience the goodness of God. Be filled with his strength and hope and that joy and peace… because why?
God’s word is essential to life, because God’s word is life
SO TO RECAP:
Genesis: God created all of life with his word. Without God’s word there is no life
Being in God’s word doesn’t just make us better at life, it literally gives us life
John 1: in beginning was the word…
Later in John 1 we see that Jesus is the WORD
In John 6 Jesus says he is the bread of life and all those that come to him will never be hungry
I’m no math guy but if I remember the transitive property correctly, if the WORD is JESUS and JESUS is the BREAD OF LIFE than that means the WORD IS THE BREAD OF LIFE.
Look at what Jesus says to Satan that first time!
"Man must not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." We must not live on physical bread alone but we must live on every word that comes from the mouth of God because that word is the bread of live that gives life and sustains life.
As I leave here today heading up McKnight and up 19 to get to Cranberry, I will pass 1001 fast food places. It would be so easy to stop, pay a couple bucks, satisfy that hunger… It’ll be good for about 15 minutes, but I will feel lifeless the rest of the day. This world gives us these fast food options when you’re hungry angry lazy tired, anxious stressed sad. You feel abandoned, by God or by family, betrayed at work, overwhelmed in parenting, you marriage seems to be falling apart, you name it… fast food options to help you cope: instagram Netflix, porn, video games, alcohol drugs, you name it. Those things might feel good for a minute but those things make a promise they have no authority to make and no ability to keep.
These things destroy life… but God’s word creates life
SO this morning, I said there are two things that Jesus models for us in this story and that we need to pursue ourselves in order to be spiritually healthy:
Walking with the Spirit: If you don't have a relationship with Him, now is the time. Repent and believe, put your trust and faith in Jesus.
Then if you are a believer, be prayed up and get into God’s word daily.
We pray that you are encouraged to get healthy and intentionally spend time in God's word daily. Through God's word, we can develop our relationship with Jesus into one that is intimate and strong which will pour out and strengthen the relationships around us. Not only that, we will be better prepared to stand firm against the temptations of the world.
If you are someone who needs accountability or a more routine plan, we would love for you to join us in our Bible Reading Plan. It’s a chapter a day and is a 3-year plan. We are in year 2 but it is never too late to join. Spending time in the Word is crucial and this is a great way to start.
Lastly, our multiply huddles are where we go deep into God's word and we wrestle with theological topics, ask questions, pray together and grow closer to the heart of God by getting to the heart of His word. If you are not in a huddle, we encourage you to dive into one to experience encouragement, accountability, and lots of (much needed) fellowship. If you have more questions, whether about this message or Jesus, OR if you feel you are ready to take the leap and receive salvation through faith, then reach out to us via the contact form or at info@truenorthpgh.org. We believe that every person will experience tremendous life change once they feel and experience the amazing love of Christ.
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