bible

The Word of God and Temptation

/ Neal Embry / Leave a comment

Today I’m continuing the blog series on temptation and the tools God has given us to fight it.  Last week, we examined the cross and how what Jesus has done for us on Calvary impacts our fight against sin.

This week, we’re looking at the Word of God and how the Scriptures help us fight our sin and grow in obedience to Jesus Christ.

Back in the 1990s, there was a popular bracelet/saying/shirt that read, “WWJD?”  The abbreviation stood for, “What Would Jesus Do?”  The idea behind the movement/apparel was to make Christians think about, in every situation, what Jesus would do?

I’m usually not a big fan of trendy Christian things, seeing as how all that’s produced over the years is some really cheesy music, really cheesy (and not necessarily biblical) sayings, and a slightly blasphemous “Jesus is my homeboy” t-shirt, but that saying isn’t too far off.  While the Bible, and the Christian life, finds its emphasis and foundation on what Christ has done for us, we certainly, in working out our salvation, want to do what Jesus would do so that we look more like Him and bring Him glory.

In fighting temptation, if we are to do what Jesus would do, we absolutely MUST know the Word of God.  If you are not consistently in God’s Word, you will never grow as a Christian.  I preach to myself, as much as anyone else, because this year has not been the most shining example of Bible study for me.  We have to understand just how crucial it is to be in God’s Word, and specifically in fighting temptation.  Jesus sets the example for us in this area in Matthew 4, as He battles the temptation of the devil.

Satan’s first temptation was to try and make Jesus use His authority and power as the Son of God for selfish needs.  Whenever we see Jesus using His authority and power as God (healing, miracles, etc.), it is always within the context of His ministry  to reveal Himself as the promised Messiah and Lord, and it is always done according to the Father’s will.  Jesus never uses His divine power to meet needs like food, drink or housing.  He never just plays around with His power, a la Jim Carrey in “Bruce Almighty.”  He knows that the Father will provide for Him, which is why He is able to tell us to not be anxious but trust the Father in the Sermon on the Mount.  And He knows that the Word of God says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” in Deuteronomy 8:3.  Jesus is able to use the truth of God’s Word to fight back against the temptation to meet His own needs in a sinful way when the Father has told Him to trust Him.

Satan then tempts Jesus to test God’s love and care for Him by telling Jesus to throw Himself off the temple.  Satan himself uses Scripture to try and trick Jesus, saying that the Bible says “He will command his angels concerning you,”  and that “On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.”  Here is another reason we must know God’s Word for ourselves–If we don’t, we can be sure that our enemy will use our lack of knowledge of God’s Word to our destruction by twisting His Word and making us believe it says something it doesn’t, doesn’t say something it does, making us believe that we are doing God’s will when we are not.  Jesus sniffs out Satan’s plan and uses another Scripture to rebuke the devil: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”  Jesus again knows what God’s Word says and combats lies with the truth.

Lastly, Satan tempts Jesus with the kingdom He is promised if He falls down and worships him.  We need to understand what’s happening here:  The devil knows that Jesus will reign as King for eternity.  He (and Jesus) also knows that in order for that to happen, though, Jesus must go to the cross.  And the devil knows that at the cross, his accusations against God’s elect will fall short, for our sins were paid for, and he knows that because Jesus reigns, he does not.  He knows that if he can get Jesus to skip the cross and all the suffering Christ endures for our salvation and His kingdom, he has defeated God.  In this moment of temptation, all of eternity is at stake.  This is a battle for the future of the entire universe.

And our King wins.  How does He win?  By knowing the Word of God.  Jesus Christ overcame the devil’s temptations, continued His life of perfect obedience to God, securing our righteousness, suffered the cross in obedience to God, securing our forgiveness, and rose again from the grave, securing His reign in our lives and in this world and the world to come, all due, in large part, because He knew and trusted God’s Word.  In the moment of temptation, Jesus yells, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”  Jesus knew that God was God, that Satan was not, and that no matter what happens, He refuses to worship another God.

Hopefully in looking at Christ’s example, we now understand how vital, how crucial, it is that we know God’s Word if we are to work out our salvation in obedience to God and fighting back against Satan and our old sinful flesh.

So what specifically do we look for and utilize in God’s Word in “fighting the good fight of faith?” (1 Tim. 6:12)

First, we look for and trust in God’s promises.  Sin tries to make us believe false promises like: “Looking at that picture won’t kill you.”  “Go on and be angry–you have the right to be angry.”  “No one will know that you do (fill in the blank).”  “God doesn’t: care about you, love you, satisfy you.”  The list goes on and on.  We must know that these are false promises, and we must fight them with the promises in God’s Word.

One of my favorites is Psalm 37:4–“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”  The idea behind this verse is that if you delight in God, He will give you Himself, because He gives you the desires (Him) of your heart! 

Another one that has been of great use lately is Romans 8:6–“For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”  Couple this with verse 13: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.”  So, according to this promise, if we set our minds and walk (behave) according to our (sinful) flesh, we die.  But if we set our minds and walk (behave) according to the Spirit, we will have life and peace, we will live.  That is, we will have the joy of knowing we are living life the way God intended, we are honoring Him, and it is a sign that we possess eternal life.  We have peace with God through Christ, as Romans 5:1 makes clear, but we have more and more peace as we walk by the Spirit.

Secondly, we allow God’s Word to shape our view of truth.  Just as we fight sin’s false promises, we fight lies and deceit with knowing God’s truth.  In the Garden of Eden, Adam believed a lie instead of believing God (“In the day that you eat of it (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) you shall surely die.”)  If we are to be renewed in God’s image, we need to encounter God in His Word and grow in our knowledge, faith and obedience to His truth. 

We have our minds, our beliefs, our worldviews, what we believe is true (and not true) changed as we know God’s Word.  So as our sinful flesh or Satan tries to deceive us and make us believe and act according to falsehood, we are now able, in knowing God’s Word, to fight back with the truth, because we know the truth.  But if we don’t know the truth, we cannot live by it.  So we must know the truth. 

Satan may lie to us to make us think that we can now use our freedom in Christ to do whatever we want.  But the New Testament is clear that we belong to Jesus:
“You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body”  (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
“Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God” (1 Pet. 2:16). 
“For you were called to freedom, brothers.  Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Gal. 5:13).

The truth of God’s Word is that those who are free from guilt and shame, from the wrath of God, through the blood of Jesus Christ, now belong to God.  We know this truth, we love this truth, and we live out this truth.

Brothers and sisters, join me in knowing God’s promises, knowing His truth, and using this great weapon God has given us to fight against sin and be obedient to the Lord who has saved us by His obedience for His glory.  And let us remember when we do fail, which we will, more than we care to admit, to trust the promise found in 1 John 1:9–“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  When we fail to obey God as we should, we remember our salvation, humbly repent, acknowledging our sin before God and agreeing with Him about it, and trusting Him to forgive us of our sins and to change us by His grace, by His Spirit, and we get up and pursue Jesus, confident that we are forgiven by grace and that Jesus will finish what He started (Phil. 1:6).

May we trust your promises, Father.  May we know your truth and live in it.  May we never forget that we are righteous before you through faith, and may we continue to learn to live out the salvation we have in your Son.  May you give us strength, faith and grace for the battles that lie ahead.  May you be glorified in our gospel-believing, grace-driven and faith-driven efforts to be more like Jesus and honor your great name.  Amen.

God bless,
Neal E.

Next week, we examine the role of the Holy Spirit in fighting temptation.  As always, if you have any comments, questions, concerns, etc., feel free to leave them here or email me at nembry@charter.net.  You can also find me on Twitter at @NealEmbry. 

What Is A Christian?

/ Neal Embry / Leave a comment

Many people identify as a Christian, but how many people understand what that means?  Do I understand what that means?  What does it mean, biblically, to be a Christian?  This is by no means a comprehensive list, as the implications of being a Christian impact every area of life, but it is meant to give a basic overview of primary, essential truths to being a Christian.

1) Christians are sinners (Rom. 3:23)–There are two kinds of people: Jesus and sinners. Jesus, fully God and fully man, never sinned.  Everyone else that has ever lived is a sinner and deserves the wrath of God.  Christians are no different.  Even after we enter into a relationship with Christ as Savior and Lord, we still sin, and will continue to battle a sinful nature until we die or the Lord returns.

2) Christians know that God is God, and they are not (Psalm 51)–The life of a Christian is a life marked by confession of sin to God and a recognition that the only right way to live is to follow God (repentance).  By the grace of God, we see that there is no God but God, that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that the only acceptable response to Christ’s resurrection is surrender to Him as Lord.  Our desire is to honor God because He is our God and we want the world to know what a great God He is.

3) Christians know they need a Savior, and they know the Savior’s name (1 John 1:9, John 3:16, Romans 7:24-25)–As made obvious in the first two points, God is God, we are not, we sin against Him, and we deserve His wrath.  So if we are to be right with God, we need a Savior, not a better performance.  We need the perfect righteousness of another, and we need our sin wiped away.  Thanks be to God, Jesus Christ did both of those things, and we set our hopes and our confidence for being accepted before God completely on what Jesus has done for us.  Instead of trying to stand before God on our own, we trust Jesus to stand in our place.

4) Christians are submitted to the Lordship of Christ (Romans 10:9)–Biblical salvation is not just being forgiven and then living the same life. Biblical salvation, made evident in Romans 10:9, means turning away from sinning against God to confess that Jesus is Lord and that you trust what He has done to save you, and that you want to follow Him in a new life, submitting every nook and cranny to His power and authority.

The issue of so-called “Lordship salvation” comes into play, here.  Some believe that they can have Jesus as Savior and not Lord.  That’s heresy.  When you’ve sinned against a holy God and incurred His wrath, you don’t get to negotiate the terms of your redemption.  2 Corinthians 5 deals with the idea of reconciliation to God.  If sin has separated us from right relationship with God, salvation brings us back into right relationship with God.  We absolutely must have the finished work of Christ, for without it, there is no forgiveness of the sins we’ve committed, are committing and will commit, and we must have His righteousness, because we are not perfect on our own.  But we must absolutely have Christ as Lord, as well.  If you claim to be in right relationship with God, but He’s not God (and you are!)–you’re not in right relationship with God.  If I claimed to be in right relationship with my parents, but instead of me listening to them and honoring them, I set the rules for them and told them what to do, and raised them, I’m obviously lying.  Right relationship with God means, as point two explained, letting God be God.  Submitting to the Lordship of Christ, repenting of sin, is not some pre-conversion work that earns God’s favor, but rather an act of our hearts, minds and mouths that confesses that we know that He’s God, we want Him to be our God, and that we want to come back into a right relationship with Him and follow Him.  It’s turning the car around, not putting a hand or a middle finger up to God and saying, “Whatever.”

5) Christians are submitted to the Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16-17)–This will be the downfall of the church, if we are not careful.  Submitting to Christ as Lord means submitting to His Word.  John 1:1 makes it abundantly clear that God is behind every word of Scripture.  So reading, rightly interpreting and rightly applying the Word of God is necessary, each and every day, in the Christian’s life.  And if we despise the Word of God, we despise the God of the Word.  Now, right interpretation is vital.  Otherwise, we start applying commands meant for ancient Israel or the first-century church to our churches and lives today.  Please don’t go home and sacrifice your farm animals.  It’s not necessary.  We have to do proper exegesis, understanding the biblical context and culture, what applies to us today, what doesn’t, etc.  But right interpretation has been done, and will continue to be done, by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.  You don’t have to go to seminary to rightly interpret God’s Word.  You do have to be a Christian, filled with the Spirit, submitted to God’s authority, trusting the Son’s salvation, and willing to do what the Word says.  I urge Christians to invest in study bibles, commentaries, Logos (if you can afford it) software that gives thousands of commentaries, word studies, etc., and, more than these things, prayer and the local church–sometimes we learn better together than we do individually.

6) Christians are committed to the local church and missions (Matt. 28:20, Acts 1:8)–We are saved individually, and Jesus is changing us.  But we are not the only ones.  When we come into the family of God, we get Christian brothers and sisters to help us continue to trust Christ and follow Him.  As we do that, God commands us, and gives us the great joy and privilege, to invite others along in our journey, to share our faith and make sure everyone around us knows who Christ is, who we are, what He’s done, and how we rightly respond to Him.  We rejoice when our earthly families grow; we should rejoice all the more when our spiritual families grow, because it means God is moving, people are getting saved, and the church and the kingdom are advancing.

7) Christians love as God loves (1 John 4:7-12)–The most important words of this point are “as God loves.”  There’s a lot of confusion as to how God loves.  The emergent, seeker-sensitive, (dare I say it) liberal (not politically) church believes that God’s love does not care about sin, does not judge others and does not call them to repentance–it’s just focused on loving people (whatever that means).  But love was shown when Christ DIED on the cross for our sins.  If Christ died, sin must be a big deal.  If sin wasn’t a big deal, then why in the world did Jesus have to give up His life for it?  If sin is just a little mistake, then why does the Bible talk so much about it?  Why did prophets command Israel to repent and return to the Lord over and over and over and over?

God is a holy God, and in order to maintain that, He must punish sin.  So the cross is necessary for God to maintain and glorify His holiness.  And this is God’s love expressed, for if He is not holy, He is not God, and if He is not God, then why should we bother with Him, for what can He offer us that no one else can?

What’s so glorious about the cross?  God made a way to show His holiness, His hatred of my sin, and His wrath toward sinners, while simultaneously telling sinners that He loves them, and has made a way to forgive them and be their God once again.  At the cross, God’s love and justice meet. At the cross, God shows His love by maintaining His holiness while inviting us into a relationship with Him, which is infinitely greater than our sin.  He calls us to repent because He wants what’s best for us–Him.

God’s love does not condone our sin. Instead, God’s love tells me that my sin is worse than I can ever imagine, but the price for it has already been paid, and that now I’m invited to return to God and find the greatest joy imaginable in knowing Him.

The love that we show sinners is one that preaches the holiness of God and the seriousness of sin.  You don’t love someone if you don’t tell them that hell is real.  You don’t love someone if you don’t tell them of their deadly condition.  But we cannot stop there, or we become Westboro Baptist Church.  We must tell them of how God, rich in mercy, sent His Son Jesus to take away our sin, to be our Savior.  We must tell them that following God and finding joy in all that He is and becoming like Him is better than sin.  We preach repentance not as an unpleasant act we must do to “get God,” but as a gateway to joy, for it is in confessing our sin and humbling ourselves before God that we find grace and hope for a new life.

I hope this has been helpful.  Please comment, share, etc.  What, if any, other points would you add to this?  I welcome discussion.

Lord, may we never forget that we are sinners and that you are God.  May we continue confessing our sin, trusting in your grace as our Savior and Lord to pardon us and to change us.  May we love as you love, God.

God bless,

Neal E.