The Devil Wants A Reaction

Hi, I'd mentioned earlier this year that felt strongly that the Lord was dealing with me to speak specifically about some things that our culture was bringing our way, how to process what was unfolding with us, specifically concerning AI, artificial intelligence. And today I'm going to start the process of unpacking a few pieces of what I feel like God has laid on my heart. This will not be the sum total of it all because >> >> and being transparent with you, the more I begin to dig into this subject matter and go into the scriptures and was asking God to lead me, the more I realized just how big this topic really is. So today I want you to know I'm going to start it and I'm not going to continue it next week, but as God continues to give me a release to talk about it, I will do so throughout the remainder of the year off and on, but today will be the first installment of that. But I titled today's message the devil wants a reaction. The devil wants a reaction. Have you noticed that? Our enemy, he he's waiting on a reaction. I'm going to James chapter 1. >> >> Since we've been studying so much of that on Wednesday nights, it's amazing how much James just kind of gets down in your spirit. Good old brother James, you got to love him.

If you don't, you need to read the book again. James chapter 1, verse number 19. So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear. Everybody say swift. Slow to speak. Say slow. Slow to wrath, for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Will you help me pray one more time before we dive into this that we can be open to receive what God has for us? Do you believe he has something for you today? Do you believe that? Do you believe it's for you? Not for your neighbor right now, but for you. Do you believe that? Then help me pray. Jesus, Lord, I want to be submitted to you right now. God, I pray that you would give me the wisdom and ability to deliver what you've laid in my heart. I pray that our minds would be open to receive what you have for us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Today I want to preach about something I feel like every person in this room deals with whether you're young or old whether you're spiritually strong or you're struggling in the moment whether you're barely able to get by. I want you to know that there's something in this message for you. Here's the thought. The devil desires to get a reaction from you. Now from the very start of this message today, I want you to know there's a difference between reacting to something and responding to something.

I'm going to say that again. There's a difference between reacting to something and responding to something. A reaction is immediate but a response is formed. A reaction is usually driven by pressure but a response is guided by principles that we placed inside of us. A reaction says I had no choice. The circumstances or the person made me do it but a response says I may not control what happened to me but I am responsible for what comes out of me. Oh my. Oh my. That's good word right there, isn't it? Some of you went ahead and pulled your toes back in. I want to encourage you to push them back out. I'll be lively today. Leave them out there. If we're honest, a lot of us have been living reactionary lives. Reactionary lives. What I want to react to is what people say to me. What people post online, what happens at work, what my spouse may say and have their tone they use it with. We react to our children's behavior. We react to traffic around Murfreesboro. Can I get an amen? To criticism, to silence, and to pressure. We are reactive people. And the enemy plays into that. Some people do not have a personality anymore. They just have a collection of reactions. You ask them how they're doing and often the response is let me check with who has annoyed me last and I'll get back with you.

Do you feel the tension in our world today? Do you feel that everywhere you go? It's like everybody's on a razor's edge. It doesn't take much to knock them off. They're simply grown accustomed to reacting. But, the spirit of God does not simply want to manage your reactions. He wants to form within you a different kind of person that God desires for you and I to become. Amen? Romans 12, Paul talking to the church there in Rome. Who was he talking to? The church when he said this in verse number two, "And be not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God." That word conformed carries with it the idea of being shaped by an external mold, being forced or pressed into something that maybe we didn't really want to go into willingly. Have anybody ever felt like that before that you're having to go with the flow? Or that it was easier to be pressed into a mold. But, Paul is telling the church, "Don't let the world press you into its pattern." Don't let it press you in this pattern. As I've said many times in preaching and teaching here at this church, we cannot simply stay an arm's length away from what the world is doing because the world is constantly drifting further and further away from God.

So, if my only measurement of doing well is keeping an arm's length from the world, I'm falling away myself. I have to not be able to have to be willing to be able to be conformed to God's word and not what the world's trying to do to me. Which means I have to purposely and intentionally make right choices in my life. Sometimes the world conforms us by teaching us how it is we should be thinking. How to desire. How to react. How to be offended. How to crave attention. How to avoid silence. Ultimately, what he's trying to do is the world and the enemy is trying to get you and I to live without discernment in our life. The world does not have to make you deny God if it can keep you distracted so that you can't hear him. And man, our enemy is the expert at that. Keeping us busy, I've said that many times. Keeping us distracted by all this noise and clutter that's constantly bombarding our senses everywhere we go. That's why this message matters so much today because we're living in a time when almost everything around us is engineered to get a reaction out of us. People spend a lot of money and companies trying to get you and I to respond to advertisements and things that stimulate us. The news wants a reaction, social media wants a reaction, advertisement advertisers want a reaction, politics and entertainment and algorithms want a reaction, but God is not trying to make you reactive, he's trying to make you responsive in your life.

The devil works through reaction and there's a difference between what he's trying to do and what God's trying to form in us. Reaction versus response. The devil loves reaction because reaction usually happens before discernment gets involved. I'm going to say that again and if you're a note taker, this is a really good note for you to take. The devil loves reaction because reaction usually happens before discernment gets involved. That's why he likes it. He just wants you to respond. He just wants a reaction. Need immediate quick spot right there. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Constantly coming at us. Reaction is what happens when the flesh gets the microphone before the spirit gets a word in. In our opening scripture, I love what James says there, going back to verse number 19. So then my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. It's like he knew how we were engineered, how we were made. He It's almost like James knew in himself what our default position would be that we would quickly react to something before we thought about what we were doing. Is anybody in here willing to be transparent in the house of God today and say there's been times in your life when you reacted wrong? Yeah. The reality is every hand probably should have went up in this place. I know I've spent a lifetime trying to fix my reactions when I should have been a lot slower to respond.

Amen. Amen. James He deals with this. Our culture says, "Be slow to listen. Be fast to speak. Be instantly offended. And make sure you post about it before you calm down." I said in our ministry development class this morning, I've been off social I've been off of social media this entire year. And I want you to know my life is the better for it. I'm not here to preach against social media. I'm not here to telling you you have to cancel your accounts. But I'm trying to make you aware that something's going on whether you know it or not. And if you're not intentional, you will be manipulated. As the old saying goes, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Social media may be free to you, that's because you're the commodity being sold. Let that sink in for just a second. They spend a lot of time telling advertisers that they can captivate your attention and hold you still so that their advertisement can sink into your mind. You are being sold, ladies and gentlemen. And it's time as people who are trying to follow after we become more aware of how detrimental this process really is to you and I in our walk with God. I want you to notice the order. Swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. That's the opposite of our world. James says, "The wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God." That means there are some things that you can feel strongly and still not be spirit led in it.

Your emotions will try to rule you and we are emotional beings. I'm not saying you need to be emotionless, but you need to be careful that you're not allowing your emotions to drive the reaction. That you have formulated a response by God's word and his command and his desire for your life. That means there are some things that you can feel strongly about, but you need to let God lead you. There are some things that you can say loudly and still not be right. There are some battles that you can win in your flesh and lose in your spirit. The devil wants you to think that because your emotion is real, your reaction is justified, but emotions are real without always being righteous. Anger, fear, jealousy, panic, lust, insecurity, they're all real, but it doesn't mean they need to be ruling your day. The devil loves reaction because reaction bypasses wisdom. I'll say it this way. Some of us have let emotions drive vehicles they were never licensed to operate. They were not meant to rule your every waking moment. But culture and society supports you and says, "If that's how you're feeling, then that's how you ought to be. That's how you ought to live. Those are the decisions you ought to make." Even though they may go contrary to the very word of God. It may not even be a gray area. It may be black and white spelled out in his word, yet your emotion will lead you astray from the word of God.

What are you being dictated by? What is ruling your day? What emotions are you allowing to drive a vehicle they were never licensed to operate? Reaction says the first thing, sends the text, hits send, slams the door, and cuts people off. Reaction says things like, "I'll never trust again. I'm done. Nobody cares. I might as well quit." But response says, "Wait. Let me bring this before God before I take another move." Response says, "I feel something, but I need to discern whether or not my feelings are right and accurate." Response says, "I'm angry, but I will not let it I will not let anger pastor me." Response says, "I'm hurt, but hurt will not become my theology." Response says, "I'm under pressure, but pressure does not get to determine who I become." Our enemy, the devil, wants a reaction because he knows that many of our worst decisions happen in the gap between being stimulated and surrendering. Cuz that's what this is ultimately is about. God's desire for you and I to be surrendered and obedient to his desires and purpose and plan for our life versus the enemy who decides and says, "Hey, that's not for you. Go back to your feelings. Go back to what it is you're caught up in the moment." And the enemy knows if he can catch you between the moment you've been stimulated and before you ever surrender back, he's got you.

That's why you cannot allow your reactions to rule the day. You got to have been mature enough in your walk with God to know that there's some things I need to go ahead and have formed in my life. I got to go ahead and have some things predetermined what my response will be when I'm faced with this situation, this will be my response regardless of how I feel. If you don't think that you have to do homework in living for God, you're fooling yourself. If you think that you can just come in here from Sunday to Sunday and go through a great worship service and I still feel God Pastor Kevin. I'm glad you do. I'm thankful for that. But you feeling God by itself will not change you. At some point you need to do some homework on your own to settle some things inside your life. At some point you should be maturing in your walk with God. It's very frustrating to watch people who have been a part of a church for a period of years, yet they seem to be no more spiritually deep deeper than they were when they first encountered God. This is not about having a one-time experience with God. It's not about one-time altar experience. It's not about just feeling him when I walk into the sanctuary, but it's about living a dedicated life every DAY WHETHER I FEEL HIM OR NOT.

To understand and know that he is my God and his desire is that he is Lord of my life. Every piece and part of my life is not for me to determine, but me to bring myself into alignment with his purpose and his plan and his word. I need to make sure that I have responses that are formed because I'm going to face circumstances and situations that are going to catch me off guard. They're going to take my breath away. They're going to come out of nowhere and I got to have something already determined that I'm going to do REGARDLESS OF HOW I FEEL IN THE MOMENT BECAUSE MY FEELINGS will mislead me and they'll take me off course. You all for the most part in this room are mature enough to know that's what happens in life. Statistically, whether or not you like statistics or not, statistically, every 10 years you're going to face a life crisis. Just wait for it. If it's been more than 10 years, look out. Good news for you. You're due. But what is your response going to be? Are you merely going to react? Are you going to have a response ready for you? We live in this technologically advanced environment that is all built around reaction. You can be disciplined by an environment, and you can be formed by what you repeatedly give your attention to. And this is where you and I need to be honest about the world that we're living in today.

An algorithm has one job, to learn what captures your attention and put more of it in front of you. There's nothing new under the sun, right? Solomon said that. Methods may change, but the enemy hasn't changed his plan of attack since the garden. It's been the same since day one. It's to try to convince you something that's not there is really there. That you're missing out on something. That if God really loved you, he would be fully forthcoming with you. That he should not withhold any information from you. He's really good at his job. Bishop and I were talking in my office with Pastor Stevens earlier today, and I said, "You know what? It's pretty amazing that he was able to take through his words, and we were not given privy to that conversation, but somehow he was sharp enough. He was slick enough. He was cunning enough, Sister Freeman, to convince a third of the angels to leave the heavenly realm and get kicked out. The place you and I are trying to go to, he convinced them there was something better than that, and it was a lie. It wasn't the truth. So, don't you think he's not good at his job? He's a really good devil. He's really good at it. I'm not praising him. I'm just stating a fact. He's really good, but my God is better. But only if I take and become obedient to the word that he gave me to live by.

He's given you and I everything that we need to live an overcoming life. I'm going to say that again. He's given you and I everything we need to live an overcoming life. The question is not as whether or not we're going to form our responses ahead of time. Too many of us wait to learn how to bail the bucket until we're already sinking. Right. Too many of us are going to wait to learn how to put the oxygen mask on and evaluate where the closest exit is once we hear the pilot come on the radio and say, "Hey guys, we're going down." Pastor Kevin, I think you're oversimplifying it. No, I'm not oversimplifying it. I'm just stating a fact. God has given you and I everything we need to formulate a response right here. It's up to you and I to be obedient and dig it out on our own. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling is what his word says. An algorithm is has one job. It watches what you pause on, what you click, and what you watch twice, what you hover over, what you get angry at, and what you laugh at, and it serves you more of the same. The feed does not ask what kind of person you're trying to become. Did you catch that? It's not asking you what kind of person you're trying to become.

It's paying attention to your reactions for what it's laying in front of you. Its job is to hold your attention. It's not worried about your prayer life or your marriage or your purity or your peace or your children or your calling or your giftings that God's given you. And if outrage holds your attention, you're going to get more outrage. If lust holds your attention, it will feed you lust. If fear holds your attention, it'll feed you fear. If comparison holds your attention, it's going to feed you comparison. If foolishness holds your attention, you're going to get a bunch of foolishness. It's not neutral. Ladies and gentlemen, in its formation, slow, invisible, and cumulative, it's taking place right in front of you. It doesn't know your inner thoughts, just like the enemy has no way of reading your mind, but he's really good about watching what you react to when he places certain things in front of you. And because of that, he determines what things he can lure you away with because you're reactionary once you do it instead of having a formulated response that when this happens, I'll back away. And there's so many things in our world today they're dangling in front of our eyes. And it's always paying attention to you. Over time, it begins forming you in a certain kind of person. Listen to me. This is what it's doing in our world today.

Whether you believe it or not, whether you think so or not, you are being altered by artificial intelligence. Everyone sitting in this room. If you're not bracing yourself for it, you're being altered. I promise you, you're being altered by it. Over time, it begins to form you into a certain kind of person, a person who cannot sit still. Let me preach to you. Please don't turn me off. A person who cannot be in silence. That's our culture today. There's always noise. We become uncomfortable with silence. A person who reaches for stimulation at the first hint of boredom, who checks their phone without even knowing why they open their phone. How many of you would admit to being that way? I'll say myself, I got my hand in the air. The moment I would find myself with 5 minutes undedicated, all of a sudden it's forming you. It's shaping you. It's looking for a reaction it can get out of you. A person that scrolls not because they're interested, but because they're restless. A person who confuses constant input with actual life. It's not life. This is life. You seeing what other people are doing, that's not life. That's not li- it's not life. It's robbing you of your life. We used to say things like "I need to get alone with my thoughts." But I dare say the vast majority of us in this room would sooner fight a bear in the church parking lot as to be alone with yourself for 15 minutes.

Why is that? Why is it we can't be the quiet? Here's the danger. Listen to me. If you're a note-taker, here's a note. Listen to me. This is important. If you cannot sit still with your own soul, you will struggle to hear his voice. Because his spirit is not always loud. Sometimes he whispers. And the only way that you can hear it is you have to steal yourself in a quiet place alone so that he can talk to you. Elijah, after all the miracles that he had seen performed, after all of being used by God in so many mighty ways, it says this in 1 Kings 19. Then he said, "Go out and stand in the mountain before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore in the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind was the earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake was the fire, but the Lord was not on the fire not in the fire. But after the fire, a still small voice. Let me just Let me get real with you right now. Let me ask you a question. Let me ask you something that I really want you to I really want you to focus on. Listen to me. When is the last time you heard his voice?

Not not not felt his presence, okay? Not not felt his presence. We feel his presence all the time. I'm so thankful for that. That's not what I'm talking about. There's something more than feeling his presence. When's the last time you heard his voice? When's the time that you removed the distractions, that you got serious with God to the point that you could hear him speaking. And I'm not saying audible. All right, I've told this many times in church. There's only been two times in my life that I feel like God spoke audibly to me. Nobody else was there but me, so I can't confirm it, but to me it was audible. And it was one word both times. I'll be honest with you, it messed with me. And it kind of got I got scared, Brother Brooks, if I'm being honest with you. But there's been plenty of times he still speaks to me. I know how he speaks to me. So, I'm asking you again because this is a sticking point in this message. When's the last time that you've heard him speak to you? If the answer to that question is it's been a long time, or the question is maybe I don't know, Pastor, I don't know if he's ever spoke to me, then I'm going to tell you right now, you need to be serious about finding some quiet time in your life.

Cuz here's what I know to be truth, he's always trying to speak to you. But he's not going to fight his way into your life. His desire is to be invited. So, are you inviting him? Does he have permission to speak to you? Or have you so cluttered your life with so many unimportant things that he can't find space to be? Is there any more important appointment you could have than to put a place that only belongs to him in your schedule? Maybe that's why you have not been able to get to where you know you need to be. Some of you are struggling, and you've even talked to me about these situations. Say, "Pastor, I feel like it's been a while." May I ask you the question, does he have a standing appointment with you? Does he? Is there a dedicated time? Well, I've done that, Pastor and here's the deal, but did you keep it? Or is this only when it's convenient for you? When's the last time you carved out a section of time, a block of time, and you just said, "God, regardless of what comes away, this belongs to you." And I'm going to keep this appointment, God, until I hear from you. I'm going to keep the appointment until I hear from you. I'm going to keep the Is it important enough to you? Cuz I'm talking about being able to form responses in your life.

And we got a we got a culture and a society that is being driven by algorithms to capture your attention and to keep you occupied with meaningless stuff that doesn't have any purpose or point. I'm not saying you can't have a moment or two where you just unplug and be entertained, but is that the sole sum total of what you do with your spare time? No wonder we're anxious. No wonder we're depressed. No wonder we're suffering and lonely because the enemy has learned how to subtly come into your life and capture your attention and to keep you from really living the life that God wants you to live, which is connected with each other. You cannot connect with EACH OTHER THROUGH FACEBOOK, THROUGH INSTAGRAM, through TikTok. That's not a connection. A connection is face-to-face. It's you and I communing and talking, not posting and reacting and giving a thumbs up or smiley FACE. THAT'S NOT A CONNECTION. That's luring you into a false sense of relationship. And it ends up playing over into how you view God. I just need you to know that God's not looking at your feet going, "Thumbs up." But I promise if you'll make space, he will walk down into the mess of your life. And he will meet you in the muck and the mire, and he will pull you out of that situation. That's why the psalmist says, David said, don't hide your face from me.

I use the I talk about my wife all the time because it's the closest thing in relationship I got. It's the one I love the most in this world. And I I'm thankful that we able we text throughout the day all the time and sometimes we have goofy texts, sometimes we have things that I did wrong and I'm apologizing for. And I'm thankful for FaceTime. And there's been times we've been separated and I've been literally on the other side of the globe as far away as I could possibly be from you physically. And I'm glad I could see her face, but there's nothing like when I see her face to face. Something about that connection there that just is different. We If you have a loved one in your life, you have a spouse, you're like, you know, the same with our kids. Like I love my daughters, they're here. Something about making a face-to-face connection with them is just different. The psalmist understood this and said, God, I'm not perfect and there's things I mess up, but even in the middle of me messing up and making mistakes and all the iniquity and sin and the disappointments I have, Lord, don't hide your face from me. I can't bear that. Don't take that away, Lord. If I go through that, I got to learn some hard lessons, but whatever you do, don't take your face from me.

And the enemy's robbing you of a face-to-face conversation and filling it with meaningless stuff that will never accomplish anything in your life outside of wasting your most precious commodity, which is time. It's the only thing you don't get any more of. So, how are you spending it? Cuz the enemy is looking for a reaction because as long as he keeps getting a reaction, you keep wasting the time. What we need is to lean in and allow God's spirit to form our responses. So, I want to talk to you for just the next few minutes about what it actually means to live a life led by his spirit. Galatians 5, Paul writing here says, "I say then, walk in the spirit." Everybody say walk. "And you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. Anybody ever feel that way?" Here's what I Here's what I really do believe. I feel like for the vast majority of us, we're we really are good people. We don't intend to do bad things. We don't set out to be disappointments or failures. We don't We want to be good. We want to We want to honor God with our lives. We want to Paul's addressing this issue here.

He's talking to the church at Galatia and he says, "Look, you got to walk in the spirit." Cuz if you walk in the spirit, you won't do You won't fulfill the desires of the flesh cuz if you're not actively doing that, your default method is to be led by your flesh. I love how he didn't say visit the spirit. He didn't say feel it occasionally. He said, "Walk in the spirit." Walking speaks of rhythm, practice, a daily movement. Being spirit-led is not just having a spiritual moment at church. It's learning to move through life with an interior that's sensitive to God. Being led by a spirit is not a mood. It's not goosebumps. It's not emotions during worship. It's something that is cultivated down inside of you that God can guide your life every day. It's learning to lean into what God's trying to say to you so that you have a response formed before you react. You cannot be led by the voice that you've never learned to hear and if you cannot hear the voice that you have never learned to practice sitting with. That's why prayer matters, ladies and gentlemen. You have to have a prayer life. Prayer is not just asking God for things but prayer is where the soul gets retrained. Prayer slows you down long enough to stop being ruled by the loudest thing in the room. Prayer brings you reaction in the presence of God until it becomes a response.

Again, I go back to what the psalmist said. Let go back to the Psalm of David that he said in Psalms 139:23, he says, "Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties and see if there's any wicked way in me and lead me in that way everlasting." He didn't say, "Lord, fix my circumstances." Look at this. He didn't say, "Fix my problems." He's saying, "Lord, search the interior of my life. Search my motives and my anxieties and my assumptions and my reactions." Because sometimes the problem is not just what's happened to me. Sometimes the problem is what happened in me when it happened to me. We can We say I say this so many times to my daughters. You cannot control other people. You can't. It's an impossibility, but you can control you if you have determined what your response is going to be. You can control you. You can. It's not an impossibility. Matter of fact, I feel like it is our responsibility to form my response. Two people can look at the same action have two different inner places. One person can speak the truth from love and another person can speak the truth from pride. Pastor, I was just telling the truth. I mean, they're just ugly. That may be true. But it says speak the truth in love. A person can correct from a burden, another can correct from an irritation.

One person can be quiet from wisdom, another person can be quiet from resentment. Listen to me. It's all about whether I'm going to react or respond. One person can serve from joy, another person can serve from a need to be noticed. A need for affirmation. God's not just watching what comes out of your hand, he's watching what comes out of your heart. Proverbs 25 and 28, whosoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down without walls. A city without walls is vulnerable. Anything can get in and anything can get out. There's no defense, there's no boundary, there's no order that is there, and that's what the wise man was trying to tell us. That's what an ungoverned spirit looks like. Every offense gets in. Man, we are living in an offended world. And please listen to my heart right now. Like I come to you very humble in the Holy Ghost and say there is a movement inside the church of offense. There's There is a movement right now of church hurt. You know what? There's Walmart hurt. I get hurt going to Kroger now when I see the price of Coke. Everywhere there are people, there's the potential for hurt. But it's become this identity of being hurt. And I say this respectfully because there's some things that have happened that have been They were bad situations. They were mishandled and mistreated and there needs to be things done to make sure they it happen again.

There needs to be apologies made and I've had to make apologies in my ministry. There's been things I didn't handle in the best way and I try my best when I know that I've made a mistake to go to that person and correct it and ask for forgiveness and ask God to forgive me to make sure I handle things rightly because we are all people working towards God every day. But listen to me, there's a movement going on and there's a algorithm that's being fed because when you have been hurt and you've been offended, you look back for hurts and offenses and all of a sudden you found validation and even encouragement to continue down the road and the path of being identified by the hurt and the pain and the enemy just keeps feeding you little nuggets and pieces at a time so that you're no longer a child of God. You're an offended hurt person. Before you know it, because you're not forming a response out of the word of God, you're basing everything off of your emotions and your feelings and what has happened to you, you're simply reactive. It's a dangerous place to be because it ends up spilling into every area of your life and it will dominate your life. It won't just stay in the one area. I promise you it spreads into every area of your life until you find yourself being a very miserable unhappy person and to the point to where you end up blaming God for your circumstances.

I've seen it. I've seen people walk away because a person hurt them. They ended up walking away from God. An ungoverned spirit looks like every offense gets in, every fear gets in, every temptation gets in, every suggestion gets in, every mood gets out, every anger gets out, every impulse gets out. But when God's spirit begins forming you, he rebuilds walls. Not walls of isolation, but walls that know how to discern. Not walls that keep people from loving you, but walls that keeps the enemy from ruling over you. Jesus shows us the difference in the wilderness. You guys okay? Okay. I need just a few more minutes. Are you okay? I knew this was going to be a deep word today. Everybody with me? Look at Matthew chapter 4. Then Jesus was led by the spirit. How was he How was he out to the wilderness? What took him to the wilderness? What took him there? Okay, so he's being spirit-led. Listen, man. I'm speaking to somebody like I feel God so strong right now. Listen to me, you have been hurt and have dealt with something. The spirit led him to the wilderness. Jesus was not led there by confusion. He was not led there by ambition. He was not led there by pressure. He was led by the spirit. Being led by the spirit did not mean he had the opportunity to never face temptation.

Because sometimes being spirit-led does not keep you from the wilderness. It teaches you how to walk through it. Verse number two, and when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, afterward he was hungry. The funniest verse in the entire Bible. How would you not be hungry if you hadn't ate 40 days? I haven't ate in 4 hours. I'm starving right now. Now when the tempter came, he said, "If you are the son of God, you command these stones to become bread." Notice the timing. The devil came when he was hungry. Look Look Look, the enemy loves to attack an appetite. God created us with appetites. They're God-given. Every appetite is meant to be contained inside appropriate boundaries, but they're God-given because in the appropriate places it's okay to give in to the appetite. He loves to come when there's a legitimate need and offer an illegitimate way to meet it. Hunger was not a sin, and the need was not wrong. The temptation is was to react to your hunger, to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way. That's how temptation works. The devil wants to collapse the space between impulse and action. He wants hunger to immediately become behavior. He wants anger to immediately become speech and attraction to become compromise and fear to become control and security to become proving yourself and pain to become bitterness. But Jesus didn't take the bait.

He said in verse number four, "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Jesus response was something that was formed in him. He already had the word in him. Do you see that? He didn't just react. He responded because the word had been formed in him and he didn't just go looking for a verse. He brought it forward. Some people want victory in the wilderness without formation in the secret place. But the wilderness does not build your foundation, ladies and gentlemen. It reveals it. Pressure reveals what has been formed. Temptation reveals what has been stored. I'm going to say that again because it's a powerful truth. If you're taking notes, pressure reveals what has been formed. Temptation reveals what has been stored. Jesus answered, "It is written." Not I feel, not I deserve, not I'm hungry, not I need to prove myself. He said, "It is written. God has already settled this. So, my opinion or my feelings don't matter." Then the devil tempts him again verse five, "Then the devil took him up to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, 'If you're the son of God, throw yourself down for it is written.' Oh, oh, the enemy says, 'Oh, we're going to quote scripture? I'll quote scripture. I know scripture, too.' It is written for he shall give his angels charge over you.

Now, the enemy begins to attack his identity. But it had already been settled in the previous chapter, chapter three, verse number 17. And suddenly a voice from heaven saying, "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." His identity was already settled, ladies and gentlemen. Your identity has been settled in the word of God, but do you know it? Do you know it? That you're a child of God. That you've been redeemed by the precious blood of Calvary. That you are not your own, but you were purchased with a price. Do you know that? Do you live that way that you are an ambassador, a representative of his kingdom? That he is desiring to be Lord of your life because that has to be settled. Because if that is settled, there's temptations that come your way and you say, "I cannot do that because I'm a child of God." That's not you being haughty. That's not you being self-righteous. That's a truth. That's a true statement that I don't have to give in to temptation. You know, I'm not going to be lorded away by your subtleties and by your algorithms. I know who I am and I know whose I am. For Jesus entered in the wilderness, his identity was settled there. The temptation was for him to react from insecurity. To have to prove. You don't have to prove to the enemy anything.

Jesus did not jump. Some of us learn need to learn that because the enemy's always trying to get you to jump. Listen to me. I'm going to give you a couple more truths here. Not every opportunity is God. Not every open door is from him. You got to learn to discern these things. Not every challenge deserves a demonstration and not every critic deserves an answer. You don't have to respond. Well, Pastor, you don't understand. They called me out on my social media page and all seven of my followers are going to be upset. You don't have to respond. Let your life be your testimony. Let the Lord defend you. Let him defend you. I guarantee you cannot get a better defense than God Almighty. And he will defend you. The devil tempts him a third time, verse number eight. Again, the devil takes him to an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, "All these things I would give you if you will fall down and worship me." This is the shortcut temptation. Get the kingdom without the cross. Get the authority without the suffering and the glory without the obedience. The devil loves shortcuts because shortcuts usually bypass formation. But Jesus responded again and said, "Away from me." Verse number 10, "For it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve." Jesus did not react to hunger, he did not react to insecurity, he did not react to ambition.

He responded from the word, from his identity, and through worship. That's how you get your response. It's just what Jesus did. You go to his word and who you are according to him and you worship him and I promise you can stand and have a response for everything that comes your way. That's the pattern. The devil wants reaction, but the spirit wants to form the response is inside of you. As I get ready to bring this to a close, musicians are going to come. This is you and I becoming different kind of people than the culture tries to force us to be. Here's the reality. Artificial intelligence is not going away. This is not a time for you and I to build a compound. God help us. I love you, but I don't want to live with y'all. It's not time for us to bury our heads in the sand. You can use it as long as you know how to have discernment in your life. The algorithm itself is not bad. It's looking for you to respond. It's looking for you to react. But instead of you learning how to react, you need to have a response formed that when it does this, I know I back away. I'm not going to allow it to take me down there. I'm not going to take the bait. I'm not going to bite the hook. I'm not going to allow myself to be so worked up over something that really doesn't matter at the end of the day.

And let's be honest, every one of us in this room at one way or another over the last couple of years have found ourselves being a little bit hotter under the collar by something we seen that was fed to us by something that does not really know us. When the King of kings and Lord of lords says, "I love you. I died for you. There's going to be things that come your way. Things that are going to try to rob you of the peace that I give. It's going to try to take your identity from you and cause you to be confused about your feelings. But I've settled some things for you if you'll learn to get to a quiet place where I can talk to you, I'll tell you what it is you need to know." In these final days, God is calling you and I to become different kind of people. Not people who live afraid of technology. Not people who pretend the world's not changing. Not people who think holiness means hiding from every tool and every advancement and every new challenge. But people who can learn to live in this world without being conformed to it. I'm in this world, but I'm not of this world. This >> >> This is not my home. As the old song says, "I'm just a passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.

My hope's not here. It's not. My hope's not in the United States of America. It's not. It's not in our government. Not in our president. Please. Please. No. My hope is in Jesus Christ. The one who has proven he loves me. >> >> God is looking for a people who can say, "I'm not going to react from my wound. I'm going to respond from his spirit." It doesn't happen accidentally. It happens when we return to scripture. So, here's the question today. Here's where if you're at CenterPoint, pastor always asks you questions. So, here's your questions. Really, this is my last 2-minute push and we're going to end. Be honest with yourself. Listen to these questions. What has been forming you? What's been forming you? What has been shaping your reactions? What has been training your attention? What has been teaching you how to respond? Because formation happens whether you choose it or not. I'm going to make this altar call very personal today. Maybe you'd say, "Pastor Kevin, I've been living reactionary. I react to my fear. I react to my anger, my hurts, and my insecurities." Pastor Kevin, I need that spirit to guide me. I want you to know this altar is for you. It's for you. Maybe you'd say, "I've allowed the noise of this world to shape my inner life and my attention is always scattered and my prayer life is shallow and quiet feels uncomfortable.

I don't know that I have any spiritual depth in my life." This altar is for you. Maybe you'd say, "I've been making decisions from the surface and I've been following suggestions and my impulses and my appetites and my emotions, but I need to be led by his spirit again. At one time I walked close to God, but it's been a long time since I've heard his voice." This altar is for you. I want to know who's ready to let his spirit form the kind of person that we can become in an age that's always trying to form us into a mold we were never meant to fit into. Who's ready to say, "God, I don't want to be conformed. I want to be transformed." Who's ready to pray like the psalmist who said, "Search me, oh God, and know me. Know my ways. Know my anxieties. Know fears, know my failures. God, know me from the inside out. If that's your prayer, this altar is for you. I want you to come. As I pray, I want you to come. Come with your family, come as a young person, come as a parent, come as a leader, come as someone who's tired of being shook around by every failure, every fear, every offense, every headline, every notification, every appetite, and every mood. Come and ask God for something deeper. Cuz the world and the enemy is looking for a reaction.

But God is here today to form a response. Will you close your eyes with me? Oh God, I've delivered my heart today to your church. I'm so thankful, Lord God, for the scripture that you've given us that we can see the truth that lies therein. I pray today, Lord, we would be honest with ourself. That we would evaluate what it is we've allowed to form our reactions and opinions. God, if it's not you, I pray, Lord, we find a place to make a change today. We live in a world that >> >> is constantly trying to capture our attention and keep so much noise going on that we can't hear your voice, but today in this place, I feel like there's an opportunity for us to change that. So God, do what you do right now. Draw men. Draw women to a place where you can reveal all that you have for them. In Jesus' name. This altar is open. I invite you to come. >>