Lesson #114 The Great Temptation Toward a False Self Luke 4:1-13 says, “Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild. For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by the Devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when the time was up he was hungry. The Devil, playing on his hunger, gave the first test: “Since you’re God’s Son, command this stone to turn into a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy: “It takes more than bread to really live.” For the second test he led him up and spread out all the kingdoms of the earth on display at once. Then the Devil said, “They’re yours in all their splendor to serve your pleasure. I’m in charge of them all and can turn them over to whomever I wish. Worship me and they’re yours, the whole works.” Jesus refused, again backing his refusal with Deuteronomy: “Worship the Lord your God and only the Lord your God. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness.” For the third test the Devil took him to Jerusalem and put him on top of the Temple. He said, “If you are God’s Son, jump. It’s written, isn’t it, that ‘he has placed you in the care of angels to protect you; they will catch you; you won’t so much as stub your toe on a stone’? “Yes,” said Jesus, “and it’s also written, ‘don’t you dare tempt the Lord your God.’” That completed the testing. The Devil retreated temporarily, lying in wait for another opportunity.” Tonight … I want to talk about The Great Temptation Toward a False Self. In this scripture, we see three false identities …. or masks … that Satan offers each one of us. And they also show us the choices we must make to remain faithful to our God-given unique life and identity. If we look at the scriptures before this particular passage, we can see a snapshot of Jesus’ understanding of who He is. Heaven opens … and the Spirit descends like a dove. And the Father speaks audibly: “This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17) Jesus has yet to perform any miracles … or to die on the cross for the sins of humanity. Yet … He receives this incredible affirmation that He is deeply loved by His Father for WHO HE IS! What an amazing picture of how God loves us … for who we are. This love is the foundation of Jesus’ self-understanding and the root source of how He feels about Himself. Living and swimming in the river of God’s deep love for us in Christ is the very heart of true spirituality. Emotional healthy spirituality is anchored in us recognizing and living our identity in Christ. Please hear this … soaking in this love enables us to surrender to God’s will … especially when it seems so against what we see, feel, or think. When we know of God’s love and acceptance … it provides us with a sure foundation for loving and accepting our true selves! God has shaped and crafted each of us with a unique personality … with unique thoughts and dreams, with unique talents and gifts … and desires. He has planted within us these “amazing seeds” of uniqueness … making us who we are … and He deeply loves us … we are His treasures! Let’s take a look at how this passage in Luke reveals the temptation of living a false life. There are three powerful temptations that threaten us. Each one screams, “You are not good enough … you are not lovable … God’s love will never be enough!” TEMPTATION ONE: “I AM WHAT I DO” The devil says to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread”. Remember … Jesus had not begun His ministry. The devil was trying to make Him feel like a loser … that nobody believed in Him. Forty days of fasting … He was hungry … He was exhausted … then enemy whispers “what contribution have you made to the world?” Our culture asks the same question. What have you achieved? How have you demonstrated your usefulness? What do you do? Many of us consider ourselves worthwhile IF we have scored sufficient success in work … or church … or in relationships. When we don’t meet our others or even our own expectations … we try harder … we move faster … or we become depressed or feel ashamed … or even blame everybody else for our failures. The bottom line … our culture tempts us to search for our worth and value in what the world deems successful … and not in God’s inexhaustible love for us! TEMPTATION TWO: I AM WHAT I HAVE Jesus was taken to see all the magnificence and power of the earth. The devil said to Him, “Look around you at what everyone else has. You don’t have anything. How can you think you are somebody? How will you survive? You’re a no-body … You’ve been abandoned!” The devil tried to play on issues of fear and insecurity. His methods have not changed … He still works through fear and insecurity! Our culture measures our success by what we own. Marketers spend over 15 billion dollars every year seducing us to believe we have to have certain clothes, cars, houses, iPods, etc. Our identities depend on it. We measure ourselves through comparisons. Who has the most money? The most beautiful body? The most comfortable life? Who has the higher platform? Our sense of worth becomes tied to what we have … our positions at work … the most talents … the more degrees! God wants us to find our personal worth in Him. We need to define ourselves as “immensely loved by God!” When your identity is rooted in God’s perspective of you … you simply don’t need or care about anyone else’s approval! TEMPTATION THREE: I AM WHAT OTHERS THINK Some of us are addicted to what others think! Approval addiction is rampant in our culture! Satan invited Jesus to throw Himself down from the highest spot of the temple that people might believe in Him. At this point … people didn’t know Jesus … He was basically invisible. Satan taunted Him “How can You think You have any value?” We place a higher premium on what other people think than we realize. All of our insecurities … all of our need for approval … all of our fear of what people might think … comes from a lack of understand who we are. What will I say … or not say in a conversation? What should I wear? What kind of career should I pursue? Should I tell that person what I really think? Ephesians 1:7-12 says, “ Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.” Let’s look at what the Deeply Entrenched False Self looks like. The first example is someone outside the church … most of us will recognize the name. The second one is inside the church … again, many will know the name. The core issues in both lives are not that different. The tragedy is that for the second one … the Christian … following Christ didn’t change the false self. Joe DiMaggio - Most everyone knows Joe DiMaggio … the famous baseball player for the New York Yankees. Stories and legend circulated for decades about Joe. He was known as “the greatest living baseball player” of the twentieth century. An American sports history hero! Crowds erupted into applause at his very entrance into a restaurant. A final jewel was added to his earthly crown when one of the most beautiful women of his day became his wife … Marilyn Monroe. After Joe’s death … a devastating biography of his life was published. Here’s what it said. Joe’s “image management” right up to his dying days at the age of 83, was all a mask. It hid an egocentric … competitive … greedy … selfish man. Anyone who attempted to penetrate that surface was met with silence, or rage. No one knows what kind of negative core beliefs Joe might have carried within himself … his life was both a lie and a tragedy. What’s more tragic is this … so many of the body of Christ also remain trapped within the layers of their false self! Sheila Walsh - Sheila Walsh … Christian singer, writer, and former cohost of the 700 club told her story. When I was in Silverwind … we did some concerts with her. She was very popular in the 80’s and 90’s. She tells her story of how, in 19992, her disconnected spirituality caused her to “hit the wall”. Listen to her words: “One morning, I was sitting on national television with my nice suit and inflatable hairdo … and that night I was in the locked ward of a psychiatric hospital. It was the kindest thing God ever did to me! The first day in the hospital, the psychiatrist asked me, “Who are you?” “I’m the co-host of the 700 Club.” “That’s not what I mean”, he said. “Well, I’m a writer and a singer.” “No, that’s not what I mean. Who are you?” “I don’t have a clue”, I said. And he replied, “Now that’s right and that’s why you’re here.” Sheila continued: I measured myself by what other people thought of me. That was slowly killing me. Before I entered the hospital, some of the 700 Club staff said to me, “Don’t do this. You will never regain any kind of platform. If people knew you were in a mental hospital and on medication, it’s over! I really thought I had lost everything. My house. My salary. My job. Everything! But I found my life. I discovered at the lowest moment of my life that everything that was true about me, God knew. Many of us have fallen into living a false life. The consequences of that life look like this: fear … self-protection … possessiveness … manipulation … self-destructive tendencies … self-promotion … self-indulgence … and the list goes on. Living an authentic … God-given life … involves remaining totally faithful to ourselves. Separating our true selves from the demands and voices around us … and discerning the unique vision, calling, and purpose the Father has given us. It requires listening to God.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 13:18:03 +0000
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