We lived in a society that is constantly judged and driven by results. There are no better illustrations than in the sporting world where winning means you can keep your job and losing means you are out of the job. None so vivid than the recent sacking of England’s football manager to the dismay of many football fans who will not get to see many of their stars in Euro 2008. Here is what he said at the press conference. I believed I was up to the job when I took it and I still believe it now. But obviously, you are judged by results. “I said right at the start I would live and die by results and results haven’t gone my way. In that sense we have failed”. End quote. There is no second chance when you fail and you fail a nation that expects so much, you are bound to be accountable. I guess it goes right to the very core of our own society in Malaysia. You must win and win it all with distinctions. It is not enough to get 5 A’s for UPSR you are expected to get 7, or else you are not normal. You get 5 B’s you are a failure and we saw how a girl took her own life because that was what she got and she saw that she was not good enough. In the sport’s world, in the education world, it is even worse I guess in the competitive world of business.
They teach us how to follow your dreams and never to give up and how to move mountains and conquer your fears and how to reach for the skies. We lived in such a world today. That failure is really not an option. The world’s blueprint for victory is about winning at all cost, and if you like, at other people’s expense. It is about hunting and beating down your adversaries and competitors mercilessly into submission and hit them down so low, so that only you can go up. Victory is all about conquering your adversaries; it is everything to do with winning; it is everything to do with results. In our world, no one wants to be in second place because to be second is as good as being called a loser. We work night and day so that we can be victorious, so that we avoid be called a failure because it is a shameful thing to be called a failure.
After determining how the world view winning and success; we need to establish some biblical principal of the meaning of being victorious, of what it means to be happy, and to be blessed and to lived triumphant Christian lives. Here in Matthew 4 when Jesus was led into the desert to be tempted, we can find some blueprint of victorious Christian living. I trust we can go slowly into it so as not to miss anything from this sacred teaching. Matthew 4 reads: 1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.
Notice in v1, “then” Jesus was led up by the spirit. The word “then” tells us the exact time of his temptation which follows on after chapter 3. We all know it chapter 3 is about John the Baptist introducing and baptising our Lord Jesus Christ and in V16:When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. 17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
After the declaration that he is the son of God, the next news we hear of him is he is led to be tempted. So the word “then” is to let us know (the reader) that he is prepared & able to grapple this important test to come b’cos God has declared him to be ready which comes to our first point.
No 1: Spiritual victory requires us to be ready.
Are we ready? Are we prepared to be called? Are we ready to be declared as his candidate for service now – To do whatever he bids you to do now? You see this is where we can claim spiritual victory upon spiritual victories. Paul tells Timothy in his last letter to be ready. 2 Tim 4: 1 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: 2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Here was the apostle Paul who was preparing for his execution at anytime and he was more concerned for his beloved spiritual son Timothy – he was concerned whether he was ready. 1 Peter 1:13: Therefore, prepare your minds for action; or in the older versions “gird up the loins of your mind”. Peter said it again in chapter 3: 15 –But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear. I say it again B&S. Spiritual victory requires readiness on our part. A lot of times we are caught in a lot of other external things or got ourselves entangle carnally which takes our attention away from the Lord. We cannot be drawing near to God when we are drawing near to the world at the same time. James 4:8- “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you”. We need to go back and ask ourselves. Am I ready? Am I prepared to be declared by him? Spiritual Victory requires us to be ready.
No 2 – Spiritual Victory is often achieved through testing.
This is the experience of any believer who wants to walk in obedience to him. Anyone who wants to walk a righteous life will be tested. You cannot experience real victory at least in the full sense when there is no real testing because God sees you as someone who is not ready to be able to stand against it. Notice again in V1 – Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit. Our Lord Jesus Christ, no matter how privilege and noble was his position, with divine favour upon him by the father and declared publicly by the father in chapter 3, you noticed was not exempted from being tested. After great honours was bestowed it would be appropriate that blessings will flow but here it was not the case. And neither the same for us. Just when we thought we have won some small battle over a sin or an obstacle; and we feel that God is pleased with us; we may be led next to the wilderness for the real test. Just when we feel that we are closely in communion with God at the heights of our devotion; we must also expect to be set upon by Satan. Just when we think we are enriched by him; and we are fed and eaten of the spiritual food and are content; that is the moment we must double up in our guard because we may be led next to the real battleground. How often even in my own life, after a wonderful camp of teaching & rejuvenation when I though I learned much, the real test awaits me in the office or at home. There are Christian leaders in high profile churches who can teach, preach and lead thousands upon thousands, in one single moment of greatness when they think that God is so please with his ministry, have fallen as fast as they rise in one single moment of weakness, …. and they usually don’t fall alone, hundreds have fallen away because they are disillusioned. That is what Satan wants at the end of the day. He wants to shipwreck your faith and my faith completely.
No 3 – Spiritual Victory is often reaped in the wilderness.
It is coincidence that the scriptures had so many events that took place in the wilderness. Right throughout the old testaments to the new testaments, many beautiful lessons were learned and recorded for us, some of them borne out of an enduring love for God and some as we know came from the punishment of God. Moses fled from pharaoh and dwell in the desert for 40 yearsbefore he saw the burning bush. It must be those years in solitude in the wilderness that God began to teach Moses about abiding in Him and about humility and about service and about enduring faith. Moses spent another 40 years guiding the nation of Israel and I believe he would not survive it had he not spend those important quiet moments in the wilderness with his God. Moses witness the presence of God in the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of cloud by day; that itself is a spiritual experience that Moses will never forget; not forgetting witnessing the power of God in the splitting of the sea, the provision of God in the daily manna, and the moment during one of the lowest point of his life he wanted to see God and God granted him a view of his back. Moses has plenty of wonderful victories reaped in the wilderness. You can go back and write all of them down – Abraham has to wait till he was 99 years before God gave Isaac to him, Jacob ran away from Esau into the desert and it took many long years for God to mould him into a spiritual giant; he even wrestled with God, Joseph was sold in the desert and I believe it was those isolated moments alone in the well that God was revealing himself to him; when he was sold away to traders to Potiphar and then later on to be abandon unjustly in the dark prison cell when it seemed the whole world has forgotten about him that God ministered to him that he discovered God’s providence, Elijah, Elisha, David ran from King Saul and hid in the desert caves for years and we have the psalms; we can discover that through pain and through the hurts, and through the disappointments and through distress and frustrations, sufferings and agonies flow the abiding and enduring love of God that brings comfort, peace and joy. You can literary say that out from the dryness of the wilderness experience came flowing out the precious milk and honey. We find the Lord himself often withdraw into the wilderness, to commune with his father and reflect and to find the time to be alone with his father before the day is up – why? Because he knew how important it is to speak first to his own father in private before he minister to the public. The old saying is true – those who minister in public are deemed unfit if they have not begun conversing with God first in their private moments. Spiritual victory is often reaped in the wilderness. I pray that from there you will be able to find the abiding presence of God and be able to hear him speaking to us in those quiet moments. Our greatest concern today in our generation is the inability to sit down quietly even for 30 minutes. Our quiet moments it seemed had been invaded by noises from every corner of the world. We lived in a noisy culture with everything thrown at us from the media 24 hours a day. The TV is 24hrs, the music, the radio, the computers, the ads, driving, dining, shopping and even in our sleeping, we must have some noise. I knew some who studies for exam with their radio ON and the TV ON. What our generation dreaded most is silence. We have lost the ability to know how to be in solitude even for a moment. How can we ever know the abiding presence of God, let alone listen to him when we do not know anymore how to be in solitude with him in our efforts to know him. Paul says in Col 3: 1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. How are we going to set our minds on him when we are not able to be in solitude. The price of modern living is depriving us from getting there. Hebrews 12:1 – Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith or “Fixing our eyes of Jesus” in some of your translations– how are we going to fix our eyes of Jesus when we do not spend our moments of solitude with him. Solitude is a friend to those whose minds are set on him. Spiritual victory is reaped in the wilderness.
No 4 Spiritual victory is God-led, not self-led.
Notice again in V1 – Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He was directed to the combat zone. He did not wilfully thrust himself upon it. We need to identify the difference because sometimes we draw the fire upon ourselves. We tempt the devil to tempt us. It is like telling the devil “I am coming, watch out” and we presume upon our own strength. If we do that we provoke God to leave us to face something which we are not prepared to face. It is like saying : I like to be involve in the ministry among drug addicts when you yourself had just been restored from drug addiction. Yes, I like to be involve in the ministry among prostitutes when you know that you are not strong in the area of lust and immorality. I like to be in the children’s ministry but you have not been able to handle your own. I like to be involve in the senior citizen’s group and you have never ever cared for your own aged parents. This is what I mean when I say we draw fire upon ourselves. It has to be God-led and not self-led; it has to be led by the spirit and not led by feelings or emotions. Spiritual victory is God-led and the sooner we understand this the better. No 5 – and I would like to end with this note even though the list can go on. God’s truth is flowing endlessly I can assure you with given time.
No 5 – Spiritual victory is about attaining completely God’s trust.
Notice in V2 – And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Jesus was hungry after fasting for 40 days. You know something as basic as human hunger can be manipulated by the devil as easily as he can manipulate human comfort, or human relationships or ego or any form of external felt needs. These things as we lived longer on earth can easily explode out of a mere conversation or human experience. I have seen how churches split over issues like what colours to paint the church. I have seen human relationships falter in the kitchen over what food to serve at meetings. The worse I have ever come across was a church member who left for another church because his favourite seat on Sunday was taken by visitor who didn’t know of course that that was his favourite seat. Felt needs like hunger or thirst are explosive in nature and in our kind of impatient world today this is very prevalent and something as basic as hunger even for 5 minutes can turn ugly. That’s how fast a person can react. When the church ends later by 10 minutes some of us are looking at our watches, the air conditioning in the church is not cold enough, we start to look at our deacons; or the food was slow in coming…etc. The devil was watching the Lord Jesus at his most vulnerable position – he was hungry. Remember in chapter 3, the LJC was declared to be the son of God, and now in chapter 4 he attacks that claim. . Remember people that whenever felt needs are not met, it breaks the complete trust we have in God. The aim of Satan in using felt needs as you can see it every time it happens to you and me is to doubt the goodness of God ( Satan wants to make Jesus doubt the father’s goodness) Today felt needs or external needs or poverty are tools for the devil to tempt people into disbelief and discontentment. When we suffer ill health, the devil comes along and whisper words of doubts into our ears that God isn’t that good after all. I wish we have more time or another week to do the temptation of Jesus in the next couple of verses which is so enriching and so inspiring but time has gone. I trust that short time together this morning will help us see spiritual victory in a different light. Spiritual victory requires us to be ready; it is achieve through testing; it is often reaped in the wilderness, it is God-led and not self-led and finally it is all about attaining completely God’s trust.
Let us pray !
THE END
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