Main Idea: We overcome days of trouble by resisting the one who desires our destruction.

Today we begin a series of messages during the season of Lent that I’m calling "Days of Passion." When we hear the word "passion" as it refers to Jesus, it is uniquely applied to the last twelve hours of Jesus’ life from his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane to his crucifixion on Golgotha. The word defines and captures the suffering of Jesus during those horrific hours that preceded his death. Yet not all of Jesus "passion" or suffering was contained in those hours alone. They may be the culmination but they were not the beginning. When did the suffering of Jesus begin? When did his days of passion begin? I believe they began when he made the decision weeks before to go to Jerusalem. "When it came close to the time for his Ascension, he gathered up his courage and steeled himself for the journey to Jerusalem." (Luke 9:51, Msg). Jesus knew what lay before him was the final victory of God over sin, death and Satan. Yet he knew that that victory wouldn’t be his unless he endured the days of his passion, his suffering.

Do you have days of passion, days of suffering? Oh, most of the time our pain is more or less uncomfortable rather than excruciating. Yet the truth is we do have our days that can only be described as suffering. Days that define our "passion" come when a job is lost, a divorce is determined, a diagnosis is terminal, a house is destroyed, a reputation is ruined, a life is taken, a decision is made, a heart is broken, a love is rejected, a faith is doubted, a temptation overcomes. Those are our days and they often define our lives. The days of our passion come in the hours of our trouble, crisis, failure and despair.

The days of our passion, our suffering, though, do not stand alone but are taken by the hand and providence of God to create in us the reflection of his Son. "And since we are his children, we will share his treasures—for everything God gives to his Son, Christ, is ours, too. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later." (Rom. 8:17-18, NLT) The days of His passion were for the fulfillment of God’s purposes. The Bible says, "He was willing to die a shameful death on the cross because of the joy he knew would be his afterward. Now he is seated in the place of highest honor beside God's throne in heaven. Think about all he endured when sinful people did such terrible things to him, so that you don't become weary and give up." (Heb. 12:2-3, NLT) So we, as we encounter our days of passion, must stay focused on what is ahead, what lies beyond the days of pain.

You and I would imagine that the suffering that Jesus faced would have been free from any outside interference from Satan. Yet it was not. In fact Satan sought every opportunity to cripple the plan of God by tempting Jesus to turn away from the cross. That began after his baptism when Jesus was tempted for forty days in the wilderness. When Jesus resisted Satan’s temptations at every turn, Luke says that, "The Devil retreated temporarily, lying in wait for another opportunity." (Luke 4:13, Msg) When was the next opportunity? Oh, there were many but I believe none like the experience of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Why do I say that? There’s nothing in the accounts of the Gospels about Jesus having any discussion or debate with Satan. Yet what you do find is that when Jesus gets to the garden with his disciples that before he prays he tells them, "Pray that you will not be overcome by temptation."

(Luke 22:40, NLT) Then, the agony of prayer begins and the struggle to find another way to accomplish God’s purpose yet surrendering to God’s plan. The struggle was so intense that an angel came and strengthened him all the while the sweat poured from him like blood from his skin. Jesus even told them that "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" (Mark 14:38). Then just before Judas and the soldiers arrive he tells them, "Why are you sleeping?" he asked. "Get up and pray. Otherwise temptation will overpower you" (Luke 22:46). Somewhere in all that time Satan found the next opportunity to tempt Jesus to avoid the cross and in turn defeat the purpose of God. Yet he resisted him completely.

How did Jesus resist Satan in his days of trouble? I believe he did so by knowing whom his enemy really was, what his enemy really wanted and where to turn when the temptation to walk away from God’s purpose was the greatest. Jesus overcame the temptation of Satan by resisting the one who desired his destruction. That’s what I want us to see today. Satan wants nothing more than for you and me to allow our days of trouble to destroy us. He wants us to allow trouble to discourage us, defeat us, distract us and ultimately defeat us. And he does it in our most vulnerable and weakest moments. Are we helpless? No! Are we destined to be a victim and victimized by his desires! Absolutely not! How do we win? The answer is we overcome our days of trouble by resisting the one who desires our destruction.

How do we resist Satan in our days of trouble? The scriptures for this morning advise us to "resist" Satan’s attacks and temptations. The word used by both Peter and James is the same and means "to stand against" or "to oppose." It is to exert a force or power against another force or power. I resist the devil when I stand against or oppose his power and his temptation. When am I most vulnerable to his power and temptation? Those involved in a twelve-step program know that the most vulnerable times for a relapse occur when we are hungry, angry, lonely and tired. It is in those times when the struggle to give up is to be met with the word "HALT!" The word ‘HALT" causes us to ask the question: Am I wanting to give up because I am hungry, angry, lonely or tired?

In the same way, Satan comes to us in our days of trouble and wants us to give up being faithful because we have become weakened spiritually, angry about our circumstances, feel alone in our pain and just worn out by our trials. We get hungry. We get angry. We get lonely and we get tired. It is in those moments that we say, "Halt! Stop! I stand against you, Satan, in Jesus’ name! I’ve got enough going on without your lies and deceptions. I don’t know why this has happened to me but I will not give up on God simply because I’m having trouble!"

Where does this resistance begin? It begins when we know who our real enemy is. Jesus wasn’t confused about who his ultimate enemy was. When Jesus first began to predict that God’s purpose for him included his suffering and death, Peter took Jesus off by himself and told him "he should not say things like that" (Mark 8:32). Jesus’ response to Peter was, "Get behind me, Satan…You don’t have in mind the things of God, but the things of men" (Mark 8:33). Was Peter Satan? No! But through Peter’s voice Jesus could hear the temptation of his real enemy! He could hear Satan say, "Did God really say that your death was necessary? Does he really mean for someone like you, the Christ, to be killed? Isn’t there some other way?" He knew the voice of his enemy even though it came through his most trusted follower.

Can you recognize your enemy in your time of trouble! There are three things for us to recognize about our enemy that we can’t forget. One is that he is the ultimate deceiver. Jesus said about the Devil, "He was a murderer from the beginning and has always hated the truth. There is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies." (John 8:44, NLT) John writes in his Revelation that Satan is the deceiver of the world. There is no one who is more capable of bringing you to a place to accept and believe a lie than him. Another is that he is a relentless accuser. John describes Satan as accusing us before God, "day and night."(Rev. 12:11) If we don’t give in to temptation he accuses us so aggressively that it feels like we have. He is also the absolute pretender. Jesus said, "I chose the twelve of you, but one is a devil" (John 6:70). Jesus knew from the beginning of his ministry that one of his most trusted followers wasn’t genuine but counterfeit. If only Jesus could have known what others couldn’t see then how much more can we be fooled to believe what isn’t real?

When you and I are going through days of struggle, pain and suffering Satan will come to us and tempt us to turn away from the purpose of God for our life. His voice may come through a friend, a temptation, a desire, a doubt or a fear. We will even be tempted to blame or accuse God of failing us. Yet who is our true enemy? It is the deceiver, the accuser and the pretender. Unless we recognize the real enemy we will never place our resistance where it is most! Know who the real enemy is!

It is also important to know what our enemy wants. What Satan wants is our total destruction—not our being uncomfortable but our annihilation. It’s not always easy for us to recognize the spiritual battles that are taking place around us. The disciples who accompanied Jesus to the Garden of Gethsemane were within sight and sound of Jesus’ agony but they went to sleep. Jesus woke them up twice but they slept through his spiritual battle! Our spiritual battles are just like that. Stephen Arterburn says, "The only difference between spiritual warfare and actual warfare is the bloodletting. But lives still get destroyed" (Everyman, God’s Man, p. 100).

What does Satan want when he attacks us? Two things: he wants God’s place in our hearts and our destruction in this life. Satan tempted Jesus to surrender God’s place in Jesus’ life. Jesus told him, though, "Worship the Lord your God and serve him only" (Luke 4:8). Satan comes to us and tempts us to surrender our will to him and yield God’s place in our lives. There are other spiritual forces that want you and me to give up following Christ and God’s will for our life and yield to Satan’s desires. Any place that Satan can get an inch he will work tirelessly to take a mile. "When a (person) willingly surrenders strategic ground to his sworn adversary, Satan greedily advances and eventually neutralizes a (person’s) ability to serve in God’s kingdom" (Arterburn, p. 102).

He also wants our complete destruction. Jesus told Peter that Satan had desired to crush him like a grain of wheat exposing only the chaff that could be blown away (Luke 22:31). He would say about Satan’s work, "The thief's purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give life in all its fullness" (John 10:10). Satan’s work against us is to crush us and to destroy us.

Who would think that a flirt could end in an affair? Who would imagine that one look at a website would end in an addiction? Who would believe that a small lie would result in a destroyed reputation? How could you know that a few dollars "borrowed" would end in a lost career? Whatever the area of temptation, once he gets a foothold he will not rest until we are destroyed. It doesn’t matter how long it takes because he has as long as we live! Know what your enemy wants!

Once we identify our enemy and know what he wants then we can stand against him. Yet it is not just our resistance that is needed in our days of trouble. While Peter and James both advise us to "resist" Satan, James takes it one more step. He says, "Submit yourselves, then, to God." In other words, we have not only the need to turn from Satan but we turn to God.

Jesus prayed so intensely in the Garden because he knew doing God’s will hung in the balance! He prayed, "Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will, not mine" (Luke 22:41-42, NLT). The Bible says, "During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission"(Heb. 5:7, NIV). It was because Jesus knew where to turn in his day of trouble that God sustained him through his suffering and death. He could have walked away from it all but he said "no" in order to say "yes."

It is at this point that our greatest struggle comes because it isn’t easy to say "no" and to say "yes." It cost Jesus blood and sweat and tears alone in a garden. It will not cost us any less. Saying "no" isn’t easy because of the deceit and the appeal of the temptation. Saying "yes" isn’t easy because of the struggle within to let go of our security and safety. The pain of saying "no" is overwhelmed by the joy that follows saying "yes!" Satan wants us to believe that we have no place where we can turn. The Bible says, "No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he'll never let you be pushed past your limit; he'll always be there to help you come through it" (I Cor 10:13, Msg.).

It is hard to imagine that someone as much a perfectionist as Martha Stewart could have been so foolish as to allow simple greed to destroy her, yet that is what has happened. As most of you know, Stewart was found guilty on four charges related to her illegal trades on the stock market and will probably serve serious jail time for her crimes. What is so amazing is that the amount of her gain from her illegal dealing was only $45,000. Her worth was over $1 billion, yet because of her greed she couldn’t resist the chance to make a little more. When the authorities confronted her she could have told the truth and most likely been warned and gone back to baking cookies. Instead, she told one lie and another and another until she stands to lose what any of us should value most—our integrity. (Source: Time Magazine, 3/15/2004, p. 60-64). She could have said "no" to the temptation but instead she said "yes" to the greed.

I don’t know what days of trouble you may be facing. What ever it is God has a purpose for you beyond your pain. Satan wants nothing less than to tempt you to give up to defeat and ultimately to destroy you. The only way out is through the trouble. Know who your enemy is! Know what he wants! Yet more than anything else – know where to turn! In his day of greatest trouble Jesus told sleeping disciples, "Pray that you will not fall into temptation." His words to us are the same! We overcome our days of trouble by resisting the one who desires our destruction!

Sunday, March 14, 2004

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org