INTO THE WILDERNESS: Half-Truths
Pastor Steven Osborne
Transcribed by PulpitAI (with edits)
Like I said, we are wrapping up our sermon series today of looking at Jesus in the wilderness. Next week Nick will be sharing (hopefully that will be better than his announcement videos), and then we have the breakfast. And so it’s actually kind of getting into a real exciting time. I love Holy Week. It is a great week, and as we celebrate Easter and Good Friday, and so I want to encourage you to really be fully engaged in the next several weeks. And please pray for Easter as well.
Illustration of Temptation
Well, we’re busy looking at temptation, and I witness a major temptation every day in my house. All right? And so here it is. This is Abby, our golden doodle. And yes, she is cute, and I am always looking for an opportunity to show her off, but she does have a temptation. So that’s her mat, and before she can get her meal, she is supposed to go and sit on her mat and then wait for us to kind of fill her bowl with food. Now, she gets really excited, right? And so she’s supposed to sit and wait. But as soon as I take her bowl, she’ll get up, and then I have to yell at her and say, “Go and sit and wait.” And then she will go and sit for a minute and just kind of check, am I really filling her bowl? And then again, then the temptation is there, and she’ll get up, and she’ll trip all around me in the kitchen. It’s like, “Really, really, how long are you gonna take? Just give me food.” And I get it, right, because I’m like that as well. I mean, with Venessa sometimes, just put a piece of steak there and it’s like, “Oh, honey, can we eat? Can we eat? Can we eat?” Right? And so I bought a clicker actually this week. And so we’re just training her, it’s like, “Hey, you got to wait. You’ve got to overcome this temptation.” And she’s doing well and doing much better, but it is a training process for her, and we kind of just have to be consistent in making sure that she is behaving and sitting before we give her her food.
Jesus’ Example
And today, as we look again at the life of Jesus, we want to learn, because we all deal with temptation, right? It’s out there every day. As long as we walk this earth, we will deal with temptation. Temptation in itself is not evil, right, and it’s not all bad. There can be some good stuff that can come out of that. And so it is there, but how do we make sure that we follow the example that we see in the life of Jesus?
And actually, when we look at Hebrews chapter 12—you can turn with me if you have your Bible here or follow the sermon notes on the app. I’ll read for us. Hebrews chapter 12 says:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Then:
Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
And so this morning, what we want to do as we wrap up this series is to say, let us consider. Let’s keep our eyes on Jesus so that we don’t lose heart, that we don’t grow weary, because you and I will go through challenges. You and I will experience temptation. You and I will experience spiritual attacks, right? And what do we do in those moments? Well, we have to observe the life of Jesus. Jesus gives us a wonderful example to overcome, right, and to succeed when some of these things come on our path as well.
Now, 1 John 2:16 I think is important for us this morning. It says:
For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.
And when we look at these things like the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, right, the pride of life—these are things that you and I get to experience in our own life as well. I mean, some of you just look at me right now, it’s like, “No, we’ve never experienced this.” You guys are so holy. Okay, but for normal people, not perfect people, some of these things are in front of us all of the time, and we see that Satan places these same temptations in the life of Jesus.
So let’s look at our passage. Matthew chapter 4. Please turn with me to Matthew chapter 4. Grab your Bible. If you don’t have one here, you can use your phone, or there should be a Bible in front of you, maybe in the seat in front of you. Matthew 4.
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted 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.
And then let’s just read the shorter version in Mark chapter 1, verse 11 as well.
And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.
May God continue to bless His Word this morning.
From the Mountaintop to the Wilderness
From the mountaintop to the wilderness. I was kind of pondering that a little bit this week. It is amazing how quickly seasons can change. And a lot of times we don’t get a heads-up on those changes, right? I wish we would get maybe a text, like how you would sometimes get that Amber alert text, right? “Beep, beep, beep, beep.” And it was funny, the other day I was in a restaurant sitting with people, and suddenly everyone’s phones went off, right? And it was like, “Whoa,” it was like, “Is this the end of the world?” And so there was this alert that came through. And it’d be so nice to get an Amber Alert and to say, “Oh, be careful! Change in seasons. Satan just might show up.” But for most of us, that is not the case. You can be on a mountaintop one moment and just the next moment you might find yourself in the wilderness. And a lot of times we’re not prepared, right? It’s not always easy to go from mountaintop, being baptized—Jesus was just baptized, heavens opened up, and then the Spirit of God was leading him into the wilderness, right? And it says that he was hungry, and then Satan showed up in some of those moments.
But this is the reality for all of us. I mean, we all go through wilderness moments, and we will be tested. We will experience temptation. And I think (or I know) that testing is good for us. It is good for us. We don’t want to go through it. None of us want to go through that process, but it is good for us because we discover what is actually inside of us. We discover what we actually believe about God. We discover if we actually believe his Word. If you don’t get to experience the testing and if you don’t get to experience the wilderness, how will you know that this is alive and real in your life? Because a lot of times these things and your faith will only come out when you’re facing hardships, when Satan is standing in front of you, when temptation is standing in front of you. It will be those moments where God’s Word, if God’s Word is inside of you, where that will come out. And you will say, “Oh man, I am filled with the Holy Spirit. I have nothing to fear. I can overcome. God is with me.” Right? “I don’t have to allow this thing to take me into darkness, and I don’t have to be overcome by the enemy.” Amen?
The Battle Continues
Something that we have to be aware of this morning is this: Because you win one battle doesn’t mean it is over. When we look at this passage—and again, I’ll just read verse 5 and 6—last week we spent some time on the first temptation, and somewhere in this season while Jesus is in the wilderness—we don’t know, is this day two? Is this day six? Exactly how long did it take for Jesus after the temptation with the bread and the stones? Somehow they now end up in Jerusalem. They’re at the temple. And it says:
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.’”
The battle will not end just because you got baptized. The battle will not end because you had a nice prayer this morning. There is a huge target on your life. There is a huge target on your family. There will be always a huge target on this church, which is all of us, right? There is a real battle going on. And throughout our journey, and as long as we walk this earth, Satan will throw many things at you, and it is for that reason that you and I need to stay sharp, that we need to stay awake, and that we need to stay aware. There’s not one moment where we can say, “Oh, I have arrived, and now Satan doesn’t have any temptation on me. I will not fall.” It is exactly those moments that we might be at risk.
It was interesting, in one article—I don’t know. I didn’t follow up on this. I just thought it was interesting, so I don’t know how accurate this is. But according to a study in this article that I was reading, they showed that pastors that take Mondays off has a higher chance of having moral failure than pastors that takes Fridays off. I’m like, “Praise the Lord. Thank you, Lord, for Fridays.” And so kind of the argument and some of the conversation in this article is about, you know, most pastors, a lot of times—you might not know this, but a lot of times pastors go home and they feel like, “That sermon, I totally bombed in that sermon,” right? And so you’re a lot of times discouraged, you’re tired, and then Mondays you’re all by yourself, and you have the day off, and suddenly the voice of the enemy is right there, and so you just might be open. And believe me, it happens on Fridays too. You don’t have to wait for Mondays. And guess what? It’s there on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, and Saturdays. There’s always that little voice, always something trying to trip us up and to bring discouragement.
And so we cannot relax. We cannot not be in God’s Word and think that we have arrived. It is really staying sharp. It is reading God’s Word. It is praying, standing in the gap, interceding for your kids, interceding for your church, interceding for your pastors, right? Because we just don’t know all the things that is going on in the spiritual realm.
The Devil Knows the Bible
Number two this morning, and you know this, but maybe if you don’t know this, the devil knows the Bible too. Satan knows Scripture. Guess what? He probably knows it way better than us. He knows Scripture, and he knows how to twist Scripture. And it is interesting, here you have this moment, and he’s putting Jesus on this highest point of the temple, and now he is quoting Scripture. I mean, this sounds really good. It says:
If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
and you make the Most High your dwelling,
no harm will overtake you,
no disaster will come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
And again, so you see this interaction. We talked about this a little last week, where Satan is again repeating. He says, “If you are the Son of God,” right? “If you are the Son of God, you know what? You can jump. He’s got you. Here’s scripture to prove that. You don’t have to be fearful. God will take care of you.”
And If Jesus did not have the awareness and the discernment of what was really going on and the temptation that was in front of him, he could have easily said, “Yeah, you know, you’re right. Here it is. Here’s the promise right here. And I am the Son of God. He will protect me.” But again, this looks good, but it was twisted, because this is not the context of Psalms 91. And so here is Jesus’ response in Deuteronomy 6:16.
Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah.
And so the context of that passage is, “Hey, as you go through life, the Lord will protect you.” God wants to protect us, but you can’t just go and put yourself in dumb situations and say, “Oh, I’m just gonna jump now and test God and say, ‘Oh, send your angels, Lord.’” Right? And so that’s a little bit of the context of that passage. But just in what we see, it looks good.
And guess what? I want you to know that Satan is a liar. He is the accuser of the brethren. And so we really need discernment in those moments when he’s showing up and when he is quoting Scripture, that we don’t fall into a trap.
Half-Truths
Half-truths are some of the most dangerous lies out there, right? Because again, it can sound so good. I’ve got some silly illustrations for you. Maybe you can relate.
“God helps those who help themselves.” It sounds so good, right? Well, actually, God helps the helpless. If we could help ourselves, we wouldn’t need grace, and we wouldn’t need a savior.
“Follow your heart.” Scripture says your heart is deceitful.
I like this one. I wish this was in the Bible. “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” That’s your mom talking, not Jesus.
“We’re all God’s children.” We’re all God’s creation, but only those who receive Christ are called children of God (John chapter 1, verse 12).
“Money is the root of all evil.” Well, it’s actually the love of money. That’s the problem, right? 1 Timothy.
And again, a lot of these things can sound good, but it’s half a truth. And guess what? It can really impact us, and it can cause a lot of damage when we don’t use it in full context.
Important Lessons from Jesus
Two lessons for us this morning just as we look at the life of Jesus.
Jesus had God’s Word in his heart and mind. Right? So there was something inside of him. God’s word was inside of him, and so it was there when he needed that. And so this morning, as you face the enemy, as you go through the wilderness, don’t think you can do this in your own power and your own wisdom, because you will fall short, and Satan will deceive you. And so what we need is the Word of God to be in our lives. And I think we can all agree that, man, we can all do better. None of us have arrived. None of us got this all memorized, right? But we want to get to that place. We want to be more intentional, that our heart and our mind is full of God’s Word, so that when those moments come, that we can stand on God’s Word, that we’re not shaken in the wilderness moments. Because guess what? The wilderness moment is coming for you at some point.
How to spot a half-truth: Is it actually in Scripture, or is it just on Pinterest on a nice cup? Well how will you know? If you don’t know God’s Word, how will you know? It might sound good. Does it match the heart of Scripture, or is it twisted out of context?
And then here is kind of the last lesson and kind of important thing for us this morning: Jesus rejected temptation quickly. Just listen again. Jesus rejected temptation quickly. Here’s the warning for us this morning. Here’s the warning for my own life this morning. Do not play with temptation. Do not allow that seed to grow in your heart and in your mind. So many times we will play with the enemy and we will play with temptation, and it’s probably not gonna end well. And so we want to be fully aware in the same way with Jesus. Jesus just quoted scripture. He resisted the devil. And then at least in this passage, that was it. And there’s great wisdom in this for us. It’s like, hey, we don’t have to throw a show. We don’t have to dance on our heads when it comes to Satan. All we need to do is we need to respond with God’s Word. Guess what? God’s Word is enough. It’s enough. It is powerful. It is from God himself. And so when we have God’s word inside of us, when we’re dealing with stuff, when Satan is showing up at our doorsteps and in our families, right, it is to have faith, to pray, and then to share Scripture, to stand on God’s Word. When we look at the life of Jesus, that’s all that Jesus did. If he’s our example, then why do we need to do anything else? But all I say is, don’t play with temptation. Reject it quickly. When there’s something that’s showing up, don’t open up that door. Don’t dwell on stuff. Don’t create that open door when it comes to different things. You know, I’m not even gonna mention all those things, but we all know, when it comes to addictions and different things, none of us just wake up in the morning and say, “Oh, I’m gonna get addicted to this,” or, “I’m gonna get into this affair,” “I’m gonna do that.” Right? a lot of times it is a seed, a thought, something that Satan is throwing at us, and then kind of dwelling on that, and then that is growing in our lives until it gives birth when we read James. And so reject it quickly. Pay attention. Listen to the Holy Spirit in those moments when you feel and discern something is going on. Pay attention, and look at Scripture for guidance in that moment.
Trust the Father
Satan wanted Jesus to take matters into his own hands rather than to trust the Father. When you and I are in the wilderness, it is uncomfortable. It is not always an exciting place, and we want to get out, and sometimes we can get anxious, we can get nervous, and we want to take things in our own hands rather than to trust Jesus. And a big part of this whole experience, when it comes to the life of Jesus, it was preparing him, it was testing him, right, but it was also a big learning moment to say, “I am gonna trust the Father. He’s gonna provide for me. He’s gonna make a way out for me, even in the midst of the wilderness.” And that’s great news for us today.
I love how both those passages in Matthew and in Mark ends, where it says that the angels attends to him. Jesus could have taken a shortcut in that moment and said, “Oh, I’m gonna turn the stones into bread. I’m gonna jump. I’m gonna submit to Satan and to his kingdom and to bow down to him.” But he trusts God. And in that moment, the angels ministers to him. He doesn’t give up. And that needs to be true for us as well.
Closing Thoughts
I want to close us this morning with several thoughts here, and I want you to just kind of close your eyes and just listen. Jesus didn’t fall for the trap. He didn’t let pride push him to test God or to prove anything. He stood on truth. And when the enemy left, the angels came and cared for him. That’s what I want us to hold on to this morning. When you and I trust God in the quiet, he will show up in the aftermath. You don’t have to perform for his presence. Just rest in who he says you are. So maybe you’ve been wrestling with half-truths. Maybe you felt pressure to prove yourself. But this morning, I want to remind you, you are already loved, already seen, and already covered. Let’s walk in that truth together.
