Jesus shows us how to overcome temptation, how to know His Heart (a battered reed He will not break off), How He is our “Good Samaritan” & More! From: The Real Jesus Will Surprise You Series Pt2

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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Hello and welcome to Journey Into Trust. Day by day, my name is Dawn Hill, and this is the place where you can come and find encouragement and more of the word of Go poured into your life. I'm doing a series on how Jesus will surprise you, and today the biblical principle I want to share to start out with is from Philippians 1:9–11. It says, "And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more, in real knowledge and in all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness, which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."

I hope you caught that last part. I think it's so important to realize that it's the fruit of righteousness which comes from Jesus Christ that, when we're in Him, then His fruit, the fruit of righteousness, comes through our life.

We're going to look at some passages where Jesus met with different people, and I chose these passages because God has been laying, His Mercy on my heart very strongly, and He also really kept bringing me back to the Temptations of Jesus and how He responded to those temptations and the nature of those temptations. So we'll start there.

 I also chose these passages because I wanted to not only show you how Jesus acted, maybe in some surprising ways, but I wanted to share how Jesus surprised me in these passages, in really personal ways, and how He met me with several of these verses, in several of these passages, over the years. I hope you'll stay with me through the whole video. At the very end, I'm going to share a piece from my book called Every Sorrow. We'll get to that in a few minutes, but let's just start out first with the temptation of Jesus from Matthew 4. So this is 1–4. I'm going to read 1 through 4 to begin with, and then,  we'll just kind of take it one step at a time.

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came to Him, saying, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread." But He, Jesus, answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.'"

So that's the first temptation, and we might think it's more about hunger and bread, but as I thought about what Satan was really asking Jesus to do, He was tempting Him and trying to draw Him into self-sufficiency, basically, to use His power for His own good and not rely on God, not look to God for His sustenance, but to make His own way. And I think that is something in America we do a lot, and probably all over the world. We are seeking our own fulfillment, our own needs, and we're tempted sometimes to try to just meet those in our own flesh, in our own strength. And I know that it's really important to work, and it's important to,  be compensated for that work and to be responsible and care for your family, all of that. But it's really important to always remember that it's God who is our supplier and our provider. He's the one from whom everything comes, and to look to Him and to ask Him for our needs.

I think Jesus was just halting that temptation to use His power in a self-reliant kind of way, instead of looking to His Father. And so He makes it really clear: "Hey, it's not about daily bread. It's not about how hungry I am. It's not about me taking this moment to,  meet my own needs. It's about me waiting on the Lord, and what the most important thing is, is the word of God—that we shall really live on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." We are to rely on Jesus and on God’s Word to win over Satan’s temptations.

Scripture says, “Then the devil took Him to the holy city, and He had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple and said to Him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, 'He will give His angels charge concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'"

So Satan here is tempting Jesus testing him to jump off this high pinnacle just so He can prove He's God's Son and that God would save Him and send His angels. Satan often misquotes Scripture, so here he's misquoting Scripture in this passage and taking those Scriptures and misapplying them. And Jesus knows what He's doing, and His answer is, “On the other hand, it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'"

I think this is an important passage again for us to think about, because we might not—Satan might not be tempting us in that type of way, to jump and see if God catches us, but he tempts us in a lot of ways to be foolish, to, to do foolish things, and to tempt God in that way, as if there won't be consequences for our foolishness. So I think going back to books like Proverbs, reading books like James, really seeking God for wisdom and avoiding the pitfalls that Scripture tells us to avoid is so important. If we are going to disobey God and be foolish, it's just about like jumping off a, a tower or a pinnacle. We know the consequences of sin are going to hurt us, so God is giving us all these instructions to help us not go down that path that leads to death, but instead choose the path that leads to life.

The last part of this is, it says, again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, "All these things I will give you if you fall down and worship me."

That’s an obvious temptation, right? To, to give in to idols, idolatry, to shortcut God's plans, to try to make the glory all about us, to try to shortcut His process for us and jump ahead of Him.  Jesus is the Son of God, and He knew that God had sent Him to bring the kingdom of God on Earth and to save mankind, save souls, if we would come to Him. Satan is trying to just cut the legs out of everything Jesus had come to do and undermine everything God's plan had for Jesus to do. So Jesus answers and says, "Be gone, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.'"

Then the devil left Him. Scripture says, “Behold, angels came and began to minister to Him.” God the Father, of course, saw His Son. He saw His Son's needs, and He was right there to send His angels to minister to Jesus. And Jesus stood up and withheld this test. After 40 days in the desert, in the wilderness without eating. He fasted for all those days, and He was weak, but He still had the word of God hidden in His heart, and He resisted all Satan's temptations. He didn't give in to any of them. I think we can learn so much from that, so I hope you'll think on that.

God has also been pressing on my heart His mercy, just to remember His mercy. He kept bringing to mind from Lamentations, that His mercies are new every morning. They're inexhaustible. And sometimes when we hear what people are doing and different things are happening in people's lives, or maybe they do it to us, sometimes it's hard for us to be merciful. But God just kept reminding me of His patience, His mercy toward me, and how every morning He just pours out new mercies. I hope that encourages you.

The next passage that I wanted to, to look at is in, Matthew 12. We're going to go there. Matthew 12:11–12, first of all. This is when Jesus is teaching about how the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath. The Pharisees were always trying to trap Him, and He challenges the Pharisees and says, "What man shall there be among you who shall have one sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable then is a man than a sheep? So, then, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."

And He then heals a man on the Sabbath right in front of them. So this is God showing His mercy and challenging conventions that were trying to say, you know,  the law about the Sabbath is so important, that means you can't do anything, work, and they were trying to say doing a miracle to help somebody would be work. And Jesus is saying, "No, no, you're misunderstanding the whole point of the Sabbath."

But then it goes on to say that He told everyone,  to not, not tell anybody about this miracle. And it says in 18–21, this is a quote from Isaiah, it says, "That in order that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, 'Behold, My servant whom I have chosen, My beloved in whom My soul is well pleased. I will put My Spirit on Him, and He shall proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. A battered reed He will not break off, and a smoldering wick He will not put out, until He leads justice to victory. And in His name, the Gentiles will hope.'"

This is a passage that also is in Isaiah, because it's quoted from there, and it's something that the Lord really just, one of those special words He gave me a long time ago when I was so struggling so much with different sins, and I was just weak and weary, and,  yeah, He just reminded me that this is His nature, that a battered reed He will not break off, and a smoldering wick He would not put out. And I had read or heard in some sermon way back that,  shepherds and different people would have, in the Middle East, would have taken reeds near a river, and they could kind of make them into little flutes or whistles, but if they would break, they would, like, kind of keep working with it and, and using it.

It’s kind of a picture here that Jesus is saying, you know, even if a reed gets bent and battered, He's not going to just throw it away. (Even when we His people get broken and battered, He still cherishes us and works with us!) And that was just medicine to my heart, that He loves me, and He is willing to work with me, and He wasn't just going to toss me out because I was this,  battered reed or I was this smoldering wick. He wasn't going to just put me out and extinguish me. He, He relights the fire, right? And He cleans the candle or the, the wick.  so it's just the mercy of God, and I, I wanted to share that.

One other thing that I wanted to share was in Luke 10:30–37. This is the parable that Jesus spoke about the Good Samaritan, and, this one also was a way that Jesus surprised me when I really, really needed Him. So I had been a missionary in Japan for two years quite a long time ago, right after college, and,  Japan is, I love the Japanese people, but Japan is a culture where work is almost everything. They work so hard; they work all the time. It seemed to me like the national slogan was "Gambatte Kudasai," which means "Hang in there, fight, fight, fight. Don't give up." And that's how they would encourage each other all the time when they'd have finals, and they'd have this test and that thing to do, and so much work, so much pressure.

For me, being in Japan for those two years as a missionary, in my kind of type A personality, I fell right into just trying to do everything I could all the time and really not resting enough, not taking care of myself enough, not relaxing sometimes, or just being able to say, "No, I've done enough. I need to stop." By the time I was done with my two years in Japan, I was exhausted—totally burnt out, completely—still loving God very much, but just physically, emotionally, and mentally very broken, very exhausted. And I came home that way.

But God, in His mercy, brought me a sweet, sweet Christian sister who was older than me. Her name is Barb Kimball. She's gone to be with the Lord now, but God used her so much in my life to minister to me. We would meet once a week for several hours at a time after I got home, and she prayed intercessory prayers for me and spoke into my life. God used her so much to help restore me.

He also used this passage to show Himself to me. Jesus was being challenged by a lawyer about what the greatest commandment was, and He told them, "You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength; love your neighbor as yourself."
And then the lawyer was challenged with, "Well, who's my neighbor?"

In response, Jesus told this story.
“A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers. And they stripped him, and beat him, and went off, leaving him half dead. And by chance a certain priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise, a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 
But a certain Samaritan was on a journey. Came upon him, and when he saw him, he felt compassion and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. And he put him on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And on the next day, he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, 'Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you.'
Which of these do you think proved to be the neighbor to the man who fell into the robber's hands?"

Jesus challenges us to go and do the same.

When I read this passage at that time in my life when I was so broken, just really, really stripped, and exhausted from ministry burn out. He just showed me that He was going to be that Good Samaritan for me, that He would be that One who was not going to give up on me. He wasn't going to pass over onto the other side. He was going to come, and with the wine and the oil, He was going to mend my wounds.

As the wine cleanses and the oil heals, softens, and helps bring that healing, Jesus was going to carry me as long as I needed, pay whatever I needed. He was going to take care of me. And, He did. He restored me. It took a while, but He restored my soul. He restored me and taught me many things.

The last passage I'd like to share is also personal. This is from John 9:11. This is the story of the man born blind and the healing of the man born blind.

My son was sick for many, many, many years, and, my daughter also had chronic illness.  During those years, it was so difficult. People would pray and pray for him and us, and we prayed and prayed, and God had His own timing. But He used this passage to comfort my heart when I was feeling like maybe some people were wondering what was wrong with our family. Why would our kids be so sick? Was it our fault somehow?

And the Lord met me in this passage and just reminded me it wasn't our fault. He was going to do something great through it all and to trust Him.

The beginning of chapter 9 says this:
And as Jesus passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?"
Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned nor his parents, but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of Him who sent Me, as long as it is called day. Night is coming when no man can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
When He had said this, He spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and applied the clay to the man's eyes and said to him, "Go wash in the pool of Siloam," which is translated "sent." And so he went away and washed and came back seeing.

This passage, as you can tell, it just felt like it was just for me. The Lord was just reminding me it was neither my son nor my daughter whose sin had caused this awful ongoing sickness, which turned out to be because of Lyme disease and mold,  and then many other things that come in because Lyme and mold love to just open the door to everything else.

God was just showing me it wasn't our fault, but God would use it, and He has, and He is. He has healed my son, He's healed my daughter, they are doing fantastic, and they are glorifying God.
And it just blesses me the way that God showed me this when we were in the thick of it. It helped me to hold on to Him and not worry if other people were perhaps having those thoughts, or in times when the help that we needed or wanted wasn’t there. It was okay; He was going to take care of us.

To close, I want to read a piece from my book,  Journey Into Trust.
It's a poetic devotional, connecting God's Word to everyday life. It's on Amazon if you do the whole title, or if you go to my website, www.thehopefulbuttercup.com, you can just click right there, and there are several different formats. I would love it if you'd support my ministry by buying my book and then sharing it with others.

I've had a lot of people just share with me that God is using it in their life. So I pray that He might use it in your life too.

The poem is called Every Sorrow, and it's under the heading, called Sorrow Redeemed.

Every Sorrow

He redeems every sorrow

          holds my hand through it all

                        has purposes I may never see

                             I choose to trust in Him anyway

          My body is not my own

                I have been bought with a price

to surrender is the conduit

                   of His joy-filled strength

                 I must let go before I can fall

                      into His everlasting arms

  too often I seek respite

                rather than my Redeemer

                          yet again and again

                                             He forgives me.

The twins – Sorrow and Suffering—

           have helped open my eyes to truly see

                  there is no one like Him,

                               my Shepherd King, in all the earth.

     Just like Much Afraid’s twin companions

                came to adorn her with Joy and Peace,

              may we, too, see sorrow turned inside out! 

May the rushing streams of His love

    flow through us to this broken world,

        and may we find those places

            that once pumped grief,

               now flowing with the healing waters

                      from His throne.

The note is that the illusions in this piece are to Hannah Hurnard's classic Hind’s Feet on High Places. They reference her protagonist, Much Afraid, and the traveling companions the great Shepherd gave her: sorrow and suffering.

I wrote this piece when I was struggling with recovering from cancer, but it's true of my whole adult life, where there's been a lot of sorrow and suffering.

But I've seen God turn it around. He's turned it inside out. He's used it in my life to work in me and to help me know Him in ways I would never know Him if He didn't allow me to go through those valleys.

I hope and pray that you will find that to be true too as you go through the valleys and you seek Him, that you'll find that He is there. He's never left your side, and He'll reveal Himself to you, especially through His Word.

Spend time worshiping Him, being in His presence, praying, and just listening to Him.

I pray that all of this will encourage you today and that you too will be surprised by Jesus in many ways, and He will bless your life as you surrender to Him.

So, until next time, thanks so much for watching. Bye-bye.