Highlands Fellowship Experiencing Life with Jesus: Unyielding Resistance Transcript
0:01 Well, hey everybody, and welcome to Highlands Fellowship. It's so good to have each and every one of you from all of our campuses and venues, and we're just so excited that we get to worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ together today. And of course, we get to be together as brothers and sisters in Christ and welcome those from the community who may not yet have made a decision to follow after Christ. But I want you to know that if you're here and you're searching about what God has for you and you're wanting to know the meaning of life and the purpose of life, I want you to know that you are welcome, and we wanna help you get to the place where you're following after Christ and experiencing life with Jesus.
0:34 Today, we're actually in week 3 of this series that we're calling Experiencing Life with Jesus. And throughout this series, what we've been doing is we've been looking at what it actually means to live life with Him. Not just believe in Jesus, not just come to church, but to actually walk with Him in, in every part of life. And so we've already talked about, you know, total dependence upon God and what that means to recognize that, that we need God and that we can't live this life in our own strength. Last week, we talked about an unwavering faith, you know, learning to trust Jesus even when life doesn't make sense and even we find ourselves in the middle of the storms of life. And I do wanna encourage you, as you came in, you may have received one of these cards. You may have received one over the past couple weeks, but if you have not, go ahead and get one on your way out today. But what we have for you are some ways to take next steps. They're little bite-sized chunks that really help you to take next steps as you follow after Jesus Christ. They're, they're actionable things, things that will help you grow, help you develop, and if you do them daily, I really do believe that you will create habits in your life that will allow you to experience life with Jesus that much better. And so it also has our memory verse from last week on it, which is Hebrews chapter 11, verse one.
1:51 It says, "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." And so I would encourage you to hide God's Word in your heart. We'll talk about that in just a minute too. But hide God's Word in your heart so that you don't sin against Him, and also continue to take these action steps that will draw you closer to Jesus and allow you to experience His life with Him, on a everyday basis.
2:16 And today what we're gonna talk about is something else that, I find to be a very real part of experiencing life with Jesus, and that is an unyielding resistance to the enemy that we have in our lives, because spiritual warfare is very, very real as we live out our lives as followers of Jesus Christ. Because if you're gonna follow Jesus, then you need to understand that there is more happening than what's just going on around us that we can see. There are things that are unseen. There's an enemy who is real. There's an enemy who's active. There an enemy-- There's an enemy that does not want you to experience life with Jesus, the life that He actually came to give you. Because Jesus said in John chapter 10, verse 10, "The thief comes to steal, to kill, and destroy, but I have come that you may have life, and life to the full." That is what Jesus wants for you. But we also have an enemy who wants to steal, kill, and destroy. So experiencing life with Jesus doesn't mean that we ignore the reality of spiritual warfare. It means that we learn how to recognize it, how to respond to it, and how to stand firm when the enemy comes against us, and I think that's why Peter gives us a very direct warning.
3:31 So let's look at what he says in first Peter chapter 5, verse 8. He says, "Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." So I want you to notice how Peter begins, "Be alert and of sober mind." In other words, wake up, right? Pay attention. Stay aware. Peter is telling us that we cannot afford to live our lives asleep as we follow after Christ, asleep spiritually. we need to understand that there is an enemy who is watching, who is looking, for opportunities, who's looking for our vulnerabilities, who's looking for places where, where he can get a foothold in our lives. Peter says, "Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." And I, and I love the imagery that Peter gives us here because, because if you've ever watched, a nature documentary, you know, you, you've probably seen a lion hunt, right? and we tend to think, about lions that they are these powerful, aggressive animals, and they are. They are. But one of the things that makes them so effective is their patience.
4:48 They watch. They wait. They observe. They look for opportunity, right? A, a lion doesn't have to chase every animal it sees, but it waits for the right moment. It watches for weakness. It looks for an animal who may be separated from the herd, one that may not be paying attention, one that is vulnerable, and that's the picture that Peter gives us of our enemy. You know, he's prowling. He's looking. He's watching for the opportunities, and he's looking for places where we are most vulnerable in our lives. And Peter says, "Be alert and be of sober mind." Why? Because you have an enemy who is looking for someone to devour, and that someone is you. And so here's what I want us to understand today. Experiencing life with Jesus requires us to know how to resist the enemy. James actually gives us a very simple and very direct command when it comes to how we are to respond to the enemy.
5:49 It's James chapter 4, verse 7. It says this: "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Now, I love that because James doesn't just tell us to, to resist the devil. No, he tells us how to resist him. "Submit yourselves, then, to God." Resist the devil. In other words, our resistance to the enemy begins with our surrender to God. We don't resist the enemy in our own strength. We don't resist temptation because, because we're strong enough on our own, right? We resist because we have first submitted ourselves to God. Our strength comes only from Him. and James says something else that I think is so important for us to remember. He says, "Resist the devil," and what? "And he will flee from you." Like, that means that we don't have to, to simply give in to temptation when it comes. We, we don't have to believe every lie that the enemy tells us. we don't have to surrender every time we're tempted. But through the power of God, we can resist. Following Jesus doesn't mean that temptation disappears. It doesn't mean spiritual battles disappear.
7:07 It doesn't mean the enemy suddenly leaves you alone, right? in fact, Scripture teaches us that we should expect troubles, and we should expect challenges in our lives. and, and here's the good news. We don't have to face them alone. We have Jesus, right? We have the Holy Spirit. We have the Word of God. We have people, the people of God all around us. So today, we're gonna be talking about unyielding resistance, what it looks like to actually, actually recognize the enemy's strategies, to understand where we're vulnerable, and to learn how to stand firm when temptation comes. Because if we're going to experience life with Jesus, then we need to know not only how to follow after Jesus, but also how to stand with Him when the enemy comes against us.
7:58 So if you have your Bible or a Bible app, go ahead and open those up to the Gospel of Luke chapter 4. That's in the New Testament. and so let's look at God's Word and as it shows us this example of Jesus and how He dealt with temptation. So just before the passage that we're going to read, John the Baptist had been preparing the way for Jesus. He had been telling everyone about this coming Savior, and then Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River, and His ministry begins at 30 years old. That's how old Jesus is when His ministry begins after He was baptized, and that's where we pick up the story. All right, so Luke 4:1-13 says this: Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread." Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man shall not live on bread alone.'" The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor. It has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.
9:15 If you worship me, it will all be yours." Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.'" The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down from here. For it is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered, "It is said: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
9:54 And as we look at this story with Jesus, we, we see the tactics and the schemes of our enemy, and it, and it really reveals to us the 3 strategies that our enemy uses. And so what I wanna do is I wanna walk you through them.
10:08 So the first one that our enemy is going to use is to distort the truth of God's Word. Our enemy is going to distort the truth of God's Word, and that's what we rely on. But he's so good at taking God's Word and twisting it and making us think that we're living in a biblical manner when we're really not. I mean, he, he does this to Jesus. He says, "Jesus, isn't it written?" You know? "Doesn't the Bible say this, Jesus?" And he just slowly, he, like, tweaks it, and he turns it a bit. Yeah, I, I think when it comes to the devil, our enemy, we often forget this truth, that the devil is a Bible scholar. Now, when I say that, you might be taken back a little bit, right? Like, "Well, what'd you say?" he knows the Bible. He really does. In fact, he knows it inside and out, and the whole purpose of him knowing the Bible is so that he can distort the Bible so that, so that you can be convinced how to live in a way that is not pleasing to God, but you think it might be. And how many times have we fallen into the trap where, where we have conformed the Bible to our lives and what we want and what we desire rather than conforming to the Bible and what it says?
11:32 and the reason for that is because the enemy has distorted the Word. So the first thing that, first thing that he's gonna do is he's gonna distort the Word of God, the Bible, that we rely on.
11:43 The second thing that he's gonna do is he's going to, he's gonna target your vulnerabilities. All right? He's going to attack your weaknesses. He's like that lion. You know, he's down in the grass, you know, and he's, he's just waiting, and he's studying you. He's looking for your vulnerabilities. He's looking for areas where you are prone to wander away from God. And when he finds them, oh, he, he will exploit them, I'll tell you that. He will attack you right there. and, and we all have these weak spots in our lives. And when you think about our vulnerabilities, you, you can kind of categorize them in, in 3 areas, and here are 3 just common vulnerabilities that we have. The first one is this, pleasure. All right? Pleasure. We like pleasure in life, things like food, things like entertainment, sex. And, and, and the, the devil will dangle those pleasures right in front of us to get us to wander away from God. The second one is, is position. And don't we love just getting that promotion, like being elevated or being honored? You know, we'll, we'll climb the corporate ladder, and we'll be willing to do whatever it takes to get that next position, to cut the corners, to, to really lose our integrity at times because we're so focused on the power that the position can give us.
13:04 And then the third thing is possessions. You know, if, if we could just have that big house or that nice car or the clothes or, or whatever it happens to be. The devil convinces us that you can have all of that stuff. You've just got to do certain things. And those are vulnerabilities. Those are weak points where, where he presses into our lives to get us to wander away from God. And so he, he's going to distort the truth of God's Word. He's going to target your vulnerabilities. And then the third one is this. He is going to pull us into isolation.
13:41 All right? He's gonna pull you into isolation. and maybe this is one that we need to lean into a little bit today because probably many of us, we already feel isolated. You know, we talk about it a lot with all the advances of technology and with the rise of AI and, like, we are having less and less human interaction, and we're replacing it with something that's fake. and we can feel it in our souls, can't we? And one of the greatest tactics that the enemy uses on us is he wants to pull us into isolation. I mean, think for just a minute about the story of Jesus being tempted. When does the enemy come and attack him? When does he come and tempt Jesus? Well, it's when he's by himself, right? The disciples aren't with him. His family's not with him. Jesus is in the wilderness all alone, and that's when the enemy comes. That's when he comes for, for you and for me as well, is when we're bored, when we're alone. And listen, boredom and isolation are the enemy's playground, and we feel this, don't we? We're isolated. And the reason why the enemy isolates you is because he wants you to think that you are the only person that is dealing with the struggle that you're going through.
15:00 That's what he wants. He isolates you, and he gets you to the place where you start to think, "You know, I'm the only one who's struggling with this. I'm the only one who sins in this way. I'm the only one who's struggling with anxiety, who, whose marriage is falling apart." He convinces you that you're the only one whose kids are absolute terrors, right? Like, "Look, everybody else's kids, they, they behave. You're the only parent who can't control their kids." Like, he convinces you that you're the only one who struggles with addiction, even thoughts of depression. He isolates you. And what he does is he gets you to think that you're the only person struggling in that battle. And here's the reason why he isolates us and convinces us that we're all alone. It's because when we're alone, we begin to feel like nobody else understands and nobody cares about us, and he keeps us right in the middle of the struggle. Because if you feel alone- And you don't reach out for help, and you don't reach out for relationship, a godly relationship, and you don't reach out for counseling, the enemy has you trapped in the middle of your struggle.
16:15 And the truth is, the enemy is real. He's alive, and he is coming after each and every one of us, and he's going to try to distort the truth of God's Word, he's going to try to, to target your vulnerabilities, and he's going to try to pull you into isolation. And maybe right now you feel like the devil is pressing in on pressing in on your fears. He's pressing in on your anxieties. He's pressing in on the fact that you're overwhelmed, and right now, you feel like you are losing the battle. You feel like you're overwhelmed, and you just can't win because there's so much going on. And what I love about the story where we talk about Jesus's example, here's what it reveals to us.
17:03 It reveals to us that it is possible to resist temptation. Like, it is possible. And as we look at Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, and as we look at His life, He sets an example, and He shows us exactly how we can overcome the battle, how we can win the battle, and how exciting and hopeful is that for us who follow Jesus Christ. Like, He reminds us that, that even though we might, we might feel like we're losing right now, it is possible to win. not only is it possible, but God is fighting for you to win this battle. That's what you have to understand. In fact, look at what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 13. Says this: "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind." Other people are going through the same thing, and listen to this: God is faithful. And maybe that's something that we need to hear again. God is faithful. And can I tell you today that God is faithful in the midst of everything that's going on in your life and everything that's going on in the world right now? Like, He's faithful in the midst of your struggle.
18:18 This is a message of hope. God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, and here's the hope for all of us, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. You see, no matter what you're dealing with right now, no matter what your battle is or your struggle is, the good news is today there is hope that God gives you a way out. He gives you a way out, and you can win. Like, you can win the battle. So let's get a little bit personal, and I know it can be hard to do this for many, many reasons. But, but I wanna ask you a question, okay? And I just want you to focus in on your life, all right? I want you to zoom in on your heart and what you're struggling
19:07 So here's the question that I wanna ask you. What is getting in the way of your ability to resist sin? What is getting in the way of your ability to resist sin? What excuses are you living with in your daily life that you have accepted to embrace sin rather than God's calling for your life? So let's be real, okay? What excuse am I using to justify the sin that I have accepted over and over and over again in my life? Like, what are they? What is it that just gets in the way and keeps you from, from following after God's plan for your life? what are you justifying in your life? maybe it's a sin struggle that you've had for years and years and years and years, and you've just said to God, "God, I'm gonna overcome this. I'm gonna win this battle." But you still find yourself falling into the same cycle of sin. Like, what's getting in the way of you saying no to the enemy and saying yes to what Jesus has for you and what He desires? You see, the, the question that we really want to get to today is how do we win this battle?
20:27 Like, how do we win? How do we, how do we resist temptation? How, in the midst of my fear and in the midst of my anxiety and stress and worry, how do I win this battle?
20:39 And I wanna give you one really big thing, and then I wanna give you 3 things that you really need to win and to have an unyielding resistance when it comes to temptation in your life.
20:49 So the first thing that we all have to know is this: you are not strong enough on your own. You're not. And I know that's not very encouraging. You know, it's, it's never fun to be told, "Hey, you're, you're not enough," or, "You're not strong enough," or, "You're not wise enough." But I'd be lying to you if I told you that you were. And maybe today, the, the reason why you've struggled with sin for so long is because you've been trying to fight this all by yourself. You've tried to overcome that addiction. You've tried to overcome that respon- or, you know, response. you, you've tried to, to do those things in your own power and your own strength, and you've lost, and you've lost, and you've lost again because you're fighting alone. And I just want you to know the truth, that, that if you choose to try to beat our enemy all by yourself in your own strength, you will consistently lose. And one of the things I want you to know about today is we have a wonderful ministry at our church, and it happens at the Bristol campus every Tuesday evening. Starts at 6:00 with a meal, and at 6:30 has a message, and then there's groups to follow, but it's called Celebrate Recovery, and it's where people find freedom from their hurts, their habits, and their hangups.
22:15 And if you are struggling and you feel like you are all alone, I promise this is a place for you, and it's a place where you can truly find freedom, and you will find it through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But I encourage you, take that step. Keep moving in the direction that God has for you. But, but I want you to know that, that you need 3 things to win, all right? And the first one is this. I'm a simple guy, so I like to keep things simple. The first one is you need God's help.
22:44 You need God's help. To fight these battles, we've got to have the Lord in our life. Now, look at Jesus here. Jesus is led into the wilderness, and notice there, there's no human interaction with Jesus. His disciples are not there. He didn't have any humans with Him. But notice that He's still not alone. Look at what Luke 4:1 says. It says, "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness." You see, when Jesus faced temptation, He wasn't alone. He was full of the Holy Spirit. God was fighting with Him and for Him. Now, if Jesus needed the Holy Spirit, how much more do we need Him? the truth is, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ today and He is your Savior and He is your Lord, He's the leader of your life, here's the great news for you. You don't have to fight alone. Like, when you make that conscious choice to believe in what Jesus accomplished for you on the cross to forgive you of your sins, and that death conquered your sin, and His resurrection gave you victory over your sin, what happens in that moment when, when you confess with your mouth and you believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and you surrender your life over to Him?
24:05 A miracle happens in that moment. When you say yes to Jesus, God actually comes in and indwells Himself. He dwells in your heart. He lives within you. Like, the Holy Spirit comes as your advocate and your guide, and, and one of His main responsibilities is actually to help you in the midst of, of temptation, to help you defeat the tactics and the schemes of the enemy. And I, I told you earlier, every time you're tempted, the Bible says that you will have a way out. Scripture says that God will provide a way out, and He uses the Holy Spirit to help with that. Because I know that every time in my life when I get ready to do something stupid, I get ready to sin, there's this still, small voice that whispers in my, in my head and in my heart, "Tim, don't do that." Because when we have God's help and we listen to that voice that reminds us of where He wants us to go and not go as well, when we choose to listen to the Spirit of God, we will resist temptation that comes from our enemy. We need God's help.
25:18 And the second thing that you need is you need to know God's Word. We've gotta know God's Word. We need to know our Bibles. Like, there's a major difference between reading your Bible and knowing your Bible. Look at what the scripture says in Psalm 119:11. I, I love this verse. It says, "I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." We talked about it a little bit earlier, and this is, this is beautiful imagery here. When you hide God's Word in your heart, what it means is that it, it goes from just reading a book, it goes from, from the pages of scripture, and it actually transfers from the book into your heart. And the way that that happens is when you study it, you know it, you memorize it. You know, I heard somebody say one time that the study of God's Word is actually one of the greatest forms of worship. I think that's pretty powerful. and when that happens, Scripture says, "I've hidden your Word in my heart, that I might not sin against you." That I would be able to overcome the temptations of the enemy. But, but I get it. You know, there are times when, when the Bible can be hard to understand.
26:33 I get that. And if you're having a hard time trying to figure out things that are in God's Word, here's what I want you to do. I just want you to ask. Ask your campus pastor. Ask him. just put those questions out there. Somebody who you trust that follows after Jesus. And they may not know all the answers, but I guarantee we'll help you find them, and we'll look at them together, because we want to disciple you and answer those questions that you might have so that you go from just reading the Bible to actually knowing it. And when you know it, and when you hide it in your heart, you memorize it so that you won't sin against God, that changes things in your life. So, so we need God's help. We need to know God's Word. And the third thing is this: you need accountability.
27:27 We all need accountability. We need people in our lives who are going to hold us accountable to how God desires for us to live. We need people in our lives who are going to ask us some really hard questions, some awkward questions, questions that you don't really wanna wanna answer all the time, but will push you to following after Jesus. Like, you need people in your life who will pray for you and tell you the truth, people who will notice when you pull away, people who will help you get back up when you fall. You see, we need people in our lives to hold us accountable. And this is why small groups are so important to me, and it's why they're so important to our church. Like, we want you in a biblical community with people who will surround you with love, the love of Christ, and will push you to walk and to look more like Jesus as you follow after Him, people who will encourage and challenge you to grow in your relationship with Jesus and who will care for you, and you for them. So here's what I would like to challenge you to do. It's not too late to get in a small group right now. Like, we're going into our third week of, of 8 weeks. So here, jump in. Now's the time, and see what God does.
28:43 Make it a priority in your life and give it the best possible chance You can't fight alone, because if you fight alone, you're gonna lose. You need God's help. You need to know God's Word, and you need accountability. Because listen, our, our unyielding resistance gets stronger when we stop fighting alone. Life with Jesus isn't just learning how to follow Him when things are easy, but it's learning how to stand with Him when the battle rages and the temptations comes. And that's unyielding resistance, and that's experiencing life with Jesus.
29:29 Would you pray with me today? God, we thank You so much for the opportunity and, and the privilege of coming and sharing the good news of the gospel, Your gospel, the good news of Your Son, Jesus Christ, how it changes our hearts and how it changes our lives. Help us not to take these moments for granted and to understand that there's something special here. Because anybody who's lived this life long enough understands that there is a battle that is taking place, and it's for each and every person's soul. And the enemy comes to steal, to kill, and destroy. But God, You have come to give us life, and life to the full. I pray that you would work in our hearts and in our lives in a way that, that we don't even understand. Give us a thirst and a hunger for your Word. Give us a desire to follow after you with everything in us, and give us the strength and the courage to resist the devil and the temptations that he puts in our lives.
30:51 And God, as we, as we try to resist, help us to understand that when we get into your Word and we, we hear from you what you've put in, in the Bible, it will allow us to understand a little bit more about what you want us to do and not to do. We'll get to know you more and your character, and as we get to know your character, I believe it changes how we live our lives because we truly experience life with Jesus. And if there's somebody here today who has never experienced life with you, who wants to give their heart and life over to you, I want you to truly consider making that choice today, where you would say, "You know what? I've tried it on my own. I've tried to resist the enemy. I've tried to do better. I've tried not to sin, but these things keep coming up in my life, and I just over and over and over again, and really what I need is I need God's help, and I don't have it." So today, you can have it. You can give your heart and life over to Jesus, and so you start by admitting that you do sin. Say, "God, I'm a sinner, and I fall short of your glorious standard each and every day. But I believe in my heart that you sent your Son, Jesus, to this earth to live a perfect life so that he could be the only one who could be the sacrifice for my sin and the sin of the world.
32:15 And I believe that as he was resurrected, he conquered death, hell, the grave, and sin, and I can be forgiven because of the sacrifice that he was, and today I give my heart and life over to Jesus Christ." If you've made that decision, welcome to the family of God. We want to walk with you every step of the way. We were never designed to walk in this alone, and when we try to fight our battles all by ourselves, we lose. But when we have people around us, the people of God around us who are keeping us accountable and challenging us and encouraging us and picking us up when we fall and dusting us off and get back in the game, there's something powerful about that. And so God, thank you for sending your Holy Spirit to dwell within us as your followers, to guide us, to fight for us, and to continue to keep us on the right path. God, we love you, and we are so thankful for you, and it's in the name of Jesus that we pray, and everybody said, "Amen."