“Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.” Remember that quote Sam gave us last week by John Maxwell? It’s true. Think about that for a second. Where you chose to live. Who you chose to marry. If you go to school or don’t go to school. If you decide to love your wife or ignore your wife. If you save money or spend money. Your life choices, over time, make you. Life is a series of choices.
Actually, you know this don’t you? It’s hard wired into you. In raising your kids, you want them to make great choices. You want them to have good friends. You want them to do their homework and do well in school. You want them to do well in sports or in music. Why? Because you know, in the school age years, right choices lead to a better life. And poor choices in school age years leads to a harder life. Life is a series of choices.
It’s true spiritually too. The choices you make to follow Jesus will determine your heart condition. Choices about your behaviors, your thoughts, and your attitudes. Choices about forgiving or holding onto a grudge. And, as Sam pointed out last week, choices can bring tension. It’s a tension between living the way we want and living the way God wants us to live.
Let’s read the scripture for today.
14 Do everything without complaining and arguing, 15 so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. 16 Hold firmly to the word of life. NLT Philippians 2:14-16
How are we supposed to live in a dark world? Paul would say, we need to make choices. Make the choice to live clean, innocent lives as children of God. Sam said last week, it’s called holiness. Living in a way that brings honor to God.
Remember he shared the two extremes? One extreme is we cringe when we talk about holiness. If that is the case, you might have been raised in a guilt heavy religious setting. You were told about all the rules you had to live up to but nothing about grace. It probably left you feeling guilty and feeling like you will never add up.
The other extreme is all about grace but with no accountability. If that is the case, you are so glad to hear about God’s love and acceptance, but it is hard for you to understand accountability and that God isn’t soft. Even worse, you may believe grace is God’s permission slip to keep living in sin.
Both extremes lead to a misunderstanding of what holiness is all about. The verse he used last week was awesome.
The law code itself is God’s good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel. MSG Romans 7:12
Think about that for a second. Have you ever wondered why our leaders in this world avoid common sense decisions? Could it be that they are avoiding God? God’s good and common sense? Have you ever wondered why our culture makes the dumbest decisions? Could it be that as sensitive and smart as they think they are, they are rejecting God’s common sense on how to live well?
Today I want to talk about another choice we need to make based on scripture. We see it in verse 16. Hold firmly to the word of life. One of the choices we must make to live in a dark world is to hold firmly to the word of life. What does that mean? To explain, I want to take you to the desert when Jesus fasted for forty days and nights.
1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” 4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” NIV Matthew 4:1-4
What was happening in this moment? It’s kinda hard to read four verses and understand all that is happening in this moment. You and I know, the human body requires food and water to live. Most people can’t miss lunch without feeling dizzy by dinner. It’s hard to fully understand what it means when we read Jesus fasted for 40 days. To help us understand, we know people who have gone on hunger strikes have died after 40 days. This tells us Jesus pushed His body to the very limit. And in this moment, as Jesus is craving survival, Satan shows up and tempts Jesus.
Satan basically says, “Satisfy your desire to eat food. You know you are close to dying. You know you are craving food. All you need to do is command the rocks to be bread and eat. The solution to your pain is easy. You don’t have to wait on God to end this fast, you can take care of it now.” That would have been an intense temptation to Jesus.
Satan knew, if he could get Jesus to satisfy His hunger in that moment, His body would feel strong again and Jesus wouldn’t need to depend on God to live. Jesus wouldn’t need to wait on God.
Jesus says the most amazing thing. He is about to die from a lack of food and says,
‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’
What in the world does that mean?
Jesus was saying, I live because God sustains me, not because of bread. I want to pursue God’s voice, God’s life-giving spirit more than to fulfill what my body wants. I want God more than what my body wants. I want God more than my feelings are telling me. I want God more than satisfying my physical desire for food. Again, I live because God sustains me, not because of bread.
Here is my big point today. Please think about this with me. One of the challenges Christians in North America face: we have learned how to live without God. Why? Because we have become so comfortable.
We have learned to live day to day by satisfying our physical cravings. As we move from day to day feeding our physical cravings, we have enough strength to make it to the next day. Because we have enough strength, we don’t really see our need to pursue God in any real way. Because we don’t pursue God, we struggle to experience God feeding our souls. The result is, many Christians exist in this world, attending church – maybe, going from one craving to another while at the same time, our souls are dry, empty, and almost dead inside.
As a proof of what I am saying, we struggle to understand what Jesus meant. It’s confusing. Jesus said,
‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’
We hear that, scratch our heads, and walk into another day. We have bills to pay. Kids to get to sports fields. And lawns to mow.
What does it mean to feed our physical cravings to get by day by day? Well, what do you turn to day to day to get by? Let’s talk about this for second. Every day you walk into, chances are, you are going to walk through challenges. You will have do deal with a teacher or a boss and maybe a spouse. You will have to deal with people and problems. You will have to deal with homework and deadlines. And at the end of the day, chances are, you will be tired, stressed, maybe hurt, and feel defeated. What do you turn to that will help you get to tomorrow?
Some turn to obvious things like alcohol abuse, pornography, drugs. Some check out and veg. Some work hard, so hard it damages relationships to make more money. Some don’t know how to deal with life stress so they become more and more angry, mean, divisive. Some try to control their lives and others. Some become more and more jealous or greedy. Some just have awful attitudes they refuse to change. Some have awful thoughts they loop in. These are all ways, and there are more, we deal with the stress of life. These are the physical cravings we can turn to day to day.
Jesus said, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’
That means, I don’t want to turn to my cravings to sustain me. I want to turn to God. I want God to sustain me.
To better understand this, I want to turn to Deuteronomy 8. It’s an amazing chapter in Scripture. And because it’s so clear and relevant to today, I have to read the whole chapter.
1 “Be careful to obey all the commands I am giving you today. Then you will live and multiply, and you will enter and occupy the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors. 2 Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands. 3 Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 For all these forty years your clothes didn’t wear out, and your feet didn’t blister or swell. 5 Think about it: Just as a parent disciplines a child, the Lord your God disciplines you for your own good.
6 “So obey the commands of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and fearing him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land of flowing streams and pools of water, with fountains and springs that gush out in the valleys and hills. 8 It is a land of wheat and barley; of grapevines, fig trees, and pomegranates; of olive oil and honey. 9 It is a land where food is plentiful and nothing is lacking. It is a land where iron is as common as stone, and copper is abundant in the hills. 10 When you have eaten your fill, be sure to praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
11 “But that is the time to be careful! Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and decrees that I am giving you today. 12 For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, 13 and when your flocks and herds have become very large and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else, be careful! 14 Do not become proud at that time and forget the Lord your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. 15 Do not forget that he led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its poisonous snakes and scorpions, where it was so hot and dry. He gave you water from the rock! 16 He fed you with manna in the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors. He did this to humble you and test you for your own good. 17 He did all this so you would never say to yourself, ‘I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy.’ 18 Remember the Lord your God. He is the one who gives you power to be successful, in order to fulfill the covenant he confirmed to your ancestors with an oath.
19 “But I assure you of this: If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods, worshiping and bowing down to them, you will certainly be destroyed. 20 Just as the Lord has destroyed other nations in your path, you also will be destroyed if you refuse to obey the Lord your God. NLT Deuteronomy 8
God freed the Children of Israel from slavery. God allowed them to be humbled in the desert for 40 years. Why? To show them their absolute dependence on God. Did they exist because of something they did? No. Were the freed from slavery because of something they did? No. Were the protected from something they did? No. They learned absolute dependance on God.
Deuteronomy puts it like this.
He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
In the desert, they learned that there is only one source of life, God. They learned it was God who provided for them. Food. Water. Health. They learned it was God who protected them from all the dangers in the desert like poisonous animals, heat. They learned that they were dependent on God. They lived, they existed, because of every word that comes out of His mouth, not on bread alone.
What was the warning God gave? Be careful that when you are doing well, that you don’t forget God and stop following God. Be careful because when you end up in the promised land, you will live in all My good promises. You will be comfortable. And in your comfort, you will still be dependent on me. Be careful not become prideful and conclude,
‘I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy.’
Be careful to always remember, you exist because of every word that comes out of God’s mouth.
One of the challenges Christians in North America face: we have learned how to live without God. Why? Because we are so comfortable. We have learned to live day to day by satisfying our physical cravings. As we move from day to day feeding our physical cravings, we have enough strength to make it to the next day. Because we have enough strength, we don’t really see our need to pursue God in any real way. Because we don’t pursue God, we struggle to experience God feeding our souls. The result is, many Christians exist in this world, attending church – maybe, going from one craving to another while at the same time, our souls are dry, empty, and almost dead inside.
As a proof of what I am saying, we struggle to understand what Jesus meant. It’s confusing. Jesus said,
‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’
We hear that, scratch our heads, and walk into another day. We have bills to pay. Kids to get to sports fields. And lawns to mow.
We can become so prideful, we have concluded, we don’t need God. We are busy building our wealth on our own strength and energy [we think]. We are muscling through life on our own strength. We just struggle to take God seriously. We struggle to pursue Him with passion. We struggle to put God in first place in our lives. We just don’t do it. We go day by day, week by week feeding our physical cravings and most recent feelings we have.
Please hear me when I repeat Jesus’ words.
‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’
You exist because God allows you to exist. Please don’t allow your comfort to turn to pride and conclude, “I don’t need to take God seriously. I will walk through today on my strength and energy.”
Do you see why Paul wrote, to live in this dark world, you will need to hold firmly to the word of life?
The Apostle John wrote about our dark world.
15 Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love these things you show that you do not really love God; 16 for all these worldly things, these evil desires – the craze for sex, the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you, and the pride that comes from wealth and importance – these are not from God. They are from this evil world itself. 17 And this world is fading away, and these evil, forbidden things will go with it, but whoever keeps doing the will of God will live forever. TLB 1 John 2:15-17
3 And how can we be sure that we belong to him? By looking within ourselves: are we really trying to do what he wants us to? 4 Someone may say, “I am a Christian; I am on my way to heaven; I belong to Christ.” But if he doesn’t do what Christ tells him to, he is a liar. 5 But those who do what Christ tells them to will learn to love God more and more. That is the way to know whether or not you are a Christian. 6 Anyone who says he is a Christian should live as Christ did. TLB 1 John 2:4-6
Because we live in this dark world, our culture has taught us how to live without God. What comes naturally to us is to satisfy our physical cravings to give us enough strength to get to the next day. It has left us spiritually empty and alone and luke-warm. In our frustration and misery, we just grope through the darkness to live another day. In our pride and comfort, there is no passion to go after God because we don’t need Him. We aren’t reading our Bible or praying.
Jesus says, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’
How are you living? Are you living on bread? Are you living on every word that comes out of the mouth of God?
To close today, I want to invite you to come to the front of church. If you want to come before God and declare, I want God more than anything else in my life, I want to pray for you. If you want to repent of being luke-warm, I want to pray for you. If you want to confess a sin and come clean before God, I want to pray for you. If you want the Spirit of God to bring your soul to life, I want to pray for you.