The Wilderness Day 5

We talk about why spiritual battles can leave us wounded and why pretending we are fine only pushes us into isolation. We look at how Jesus receives ministry after the wilderness and take one practical step to stop bleeding out in the dark. 

• Matthew 4:11 and the overlooked detail of angels ministering to Jesus 
• why spiritual battles take a toll even when you “win” 
• how pride drives us to hide pain and put on a smile at church 
• the wounded animal instinct and how we copy it through isolation 
• God’s design for community and the “not good” of being alone 
• the high dive story and the need for both a push and a bandage 
• a simple action step to reach out for prayer or offer encouragement 

Reach out to one person today. 

Transcript

Final Day Welcome And Theme

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Hey, what's going on? It's Pastor Josh, and welcome to day five, our final day this week of the wilderness devotional. And today we're going to get into how we bleed out in the dark. See, at the end of Jesus' temptation, and this was we didn't get this far, but at the end of his temptation in the wilderness, there's a verse in Matthew 4, verse 11 that says this, and we usually skip right over it. Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. Even Jesus, even Jesus, after doing battle with the enemy, received ministry and support. He doesn't just dust himself off and walk away like nothing happened. This isn't the movies where that big explosion happens and he's just looking so incredibly cool as he's walking off and everything's blowing up behind him. The spiritual battle that Jesus did took a toll. But unfortunately, when we take a hit in a spiritual battle, we tend to do the exact opposite. We try to hide, we try to act tough, we put on a smile, and we pretend everything is fine. This is why every single Sunday, as people are walking in and you go, Hey, how are you doing? We know the right answer is to say, Oh, we're doing good, because we're so afraid to let people know we ain't. See, and it goes back to our challenge today, and that's this if you've ever hunted, you know that when an animal takes a bad hit in the woods, you could double-lung it, but it doesn't drop. It doesn't stay out in the open. It's instinct, it's going to run into the thickest, nastiest, darkest brush it can find so it can lay down and suffer in isolation. We do the same thing. When the devil hits us hard, our pride tells us to isolate. We pull back from the church, we stop talking with friends, and we try to fight the battle entirely on our own, in our head, and what we don't realize is what we just did is we went into the dark to bleed out by ourselves. But God didn't design us for isolation. In fact, the first time we hear God say something is not good, he's not even talking about a sin, he's talking about himself. He looks at creation, he sees man sitting there by himself, and the first time we see in scripture that God says it is not good, it is not good for man to be alone. So he makes a helper fit for him. We need others. I don't care how strong you think you are, I don't care how well you think you got it, we need others. The illustration I gave on Sunday was this think about being the kid on the high dive. Maybe it was you, maybe you were standing at the edge or you're kind of peeking over and you realize how high it is, and you get scared, and that fear paralyzes you. But I told you, if you have a good friend, that friend's sitting right behind you, and that friend's looking at you, and that friend pushes you off the high dive. And when you hit the water, provided you didn't land belly first, you realize there was nothing for you to be afraid of. And in fact, you realize it was exactly what you needed. You needed that friend there to just give you that gentle nudge to get going. See, we need people to push us and we need people to bandage us up. Our action step today is just that. Reach out to one person. I gave our congregation this step on Sunday, so hopefully you've done it by now. But if not, you still got some time, reach out to one person today. If you're currently in the wilderness, if you're currently the one standing there, send a text or make a phone call and ask someone for prayer. Ask them to talk to you. Drag them into your situation. And if you're someone who is sitting there going, hey, I just came back out of the wilderness, reach out to someone and encourage them. Be that ministering angel to them today. They need to hear that they're not doing this alone. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed. Remember, if it hit you hard, share with a friend. We can't wait to see you this Sunday as we start digging into the temptations of Jesus. So we love you, we thank you, and we can't do this without you.