Introduction

The Scripture text this morning is Matthew 4:1-4:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." But he answered, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

If I were to ask you, "What are you hungry for?" each of you would give me different answers. You might name some foods that you're hungry for right now. You're looking to satisfy your physical appetite. But you might say, "I hunger for relationships. I hunger for people in my life. I'm lonely." Or you might say, "I hunger for work. It's been a long time since I've worked, and I just want a job. The word hunger means something that we really long for. Where do you turn to satisfy that hunger? If you have hunger pains, you go to the fridge or you make yourself a sandwich or you go get something to eat. We also have appetites. Physical appetites are natural. Some of these appetites are good and God-given—the appetite for rest or even the appetite for relationships, or the appetite for marriage. Those are all good desires.

But there are certain appetites—one appetite, one hunger in particular—that we should satisfy above all other appetites: a spiritual hunger. The only one who can satisfy that spiritual hunger is God. I think of Psalm 63, where David says, "O God, you are my God. Earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you." He goes on to say,

My flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food.

David takes the language of hunger and thirst and applies it to God. I seek and long for God as if I were in a desert where there is no water. Just as water would quench my thirst, I want God to satisfy me.

My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

We're going to work our way through Matthew 4:1-4, the first temptation of Christ in the wilderness. The primary goal that I have is to paint such a beautiful and lofty and exalted picture of who God is for us in Jesus Christ that you long for him and that you begin to understand that compared to Christ there is nothing in this world that satisfies.

My second goal is the flipside of that first goal. When Satan tempts us to be satisfied in things other than Christ, I want us to learn how to fight against his lies and false promises, so that we won't be tempted. We have to begin in the beginning. First, I'm going to take you through some Old Testament passages so you have the context to understand Matthew 4. Satan wants to deceive you to think that God is holding something back from you, that God is not good and that he doesn't provide for you.

Adam and Eve's test—disobedience

From the foundation of creation, God has established a picture of his love for his people. Genesis 1 and 2 show that we were created to live in our Father's house where he would care for us and provide for our every need. The Garden of Eden was the place of God's presence. It was what we would call a temple or a sanctuary, the place where God dwelt. He created man to live there with him. God created man in his image, indicating that man would be a king. He would represent God's rule, his care, his dominion, and his sovereignty over the creation. And he also was created in God's likeness, meaning that he was God's son. From the very beginning, we see God establishing a picture of God the sovereign ruler giving his son authority over creation in order that the son would care for it, in order that he would have children who would also reflect glory as image bearers and spread the glory of God over all the earth. Man would live with God, and God would provide for man's every need.

Think about what it was like to live with God and to see a fruit from a tree and to take and eat it. God told Adam, "You can eat from any tree in the Garden. Anything you see here is yours." God planted the Garden, and he placed man in the Garden. God is the Father of the house. He is the King, and to his son, who is also king with his wife and with his family, God says, "You live in my house, and I'll take care of everything. I'll care for you."

And God placed a test in there. God said, "Adam, you can have anything anywhere in this Garden except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam, will you listen to me? Will you obey me? Will you come to me and trust me to tell you what is right and wrong? Will you obey my voice?"

In Genesis 3 the serpent tempts Adam and Eve with the question, Is God really going to provide for you? Is God's provision good enough? The devil questions God's provision: God is holding something back from you, and you have to grab it for yourself.

Similarly, we are tempted to question God's provision. We're not in the Garden where we can pick from any fruit tree. But let me ask you, Is God faithful or is he unfaithful? We're tempted to question God's provision when we're tempted toward ungratefulness, when we're tempted to take for granted what the Father has provided for us. I know that there are people struggling in poverty. But we are all alive, breathing, have the capacity to listen. Life is a blessing that we take for granted. We tend to be ungrateful for the life God has given us. Most of us eat at least three meals a day. Most of us have clothes. Most of us don't have to wear one outfit every day, seven days a week, and then wash it at the end of the week. We have so many clothes we have a hard time figuring out what to wear. Yet we're tempted toward ungratefulness because we think God has been stingy. We say, "God, your provision is not sufficient." Or we just simply take it for granted. "God owes me," we say.

We're also tempted toward impatience when it comes to God's provision. Are you praying for a job? Are you praying for some extra income? Are you praying for God's provision to put food on the table? We're easily tempted to question God's timing, because his timing is not our timing. You might be tempted to say, "God, where are you? You're supposed to provide for me. And I need it now, God. Where are you?"

Perhaps we question God's provision when we're tempted toward covetousness. We have a car. We have a house. We have clothes. We have food. But look at their house. Look at their car. Look at their food. Imagine you're in a park with your family, and you are grilling hot dogs and hamburgers and another guy is grilling a T-bone steak. Suddenly my hot dog doesn't look so hot. We begin to envy other stuff or we envy someone else's spouse or we envy someone else's job or we envy someone else's name or we envy someone else's security. This leads us to bitterness toward our heavenly Father for not providing and jealousy toward others for what the Father has provided them.

We might be tempted by materialism, storing up treasure here on earth. We see little kids do this. It's motivated by a fear. We think, I have this, but if I don't hang onto it I'll lose it. So we horde and we begin to store stuff. This leads us toward pride in the Father's provision and obsession with retaining our possessions.

This originated in the Garden with the devil's question: Are you sure God's going to provide for you? Did he really say bad things will happen if you eat the fruit of this tree? Adam and God were living together, and Adam had absolutely anything he could desire, and he traded all of that for a piece of fruit. And we're tempted to do the same thing, to throw away everything that God has for us by listening to the devil and being satisfied in other things.

When we question God's provision we turn elsewhere for provision, often to ourselves. Our own desires and appetites are the fertile ground for Satan's temptations. Not that desires are necessarily bad, but Satan uses them to take advantage of us. God promises to satisfy our desires, but Satan makes a contrary promise, a false promise, to satisfy our desires. So whether you have a good desire, perhaps a natural desire, Satan will say, "You can do this. You don't have to wait around. You can take it for yourself. The world owes it to you. You paid taxes for so many years. Just take it." We might be tempted for a relationship. Satan will come in with another promise and get you to take that relationship, whether it's through deceitfulness or through slander or through whatever means he can use. Or you desire a job, and Satan says, "You deserve that job. Maybe you don't have the experience, but you can beef up your résumé. You can take that job if it won't be given to you." That's how Satan works. He takes our desires and promises to satisfy them with false promises.

Adam and Eve failed the test. They disobeyed God's word, and traded it all for a piece of fruit. God judged Adam and from that moment on Adam would be removed from the Garden. It would be hard for him to provide for himself and his family. In fact, Genesis 3:17 tells us, "And to Adam God said, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, "You shall not eat of it," cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field.'" He traded it in for a piece of fruit. Now it's going to be really hard for him to sustain himself from the produce of the land.

Man was corrupted because of Adam's sin, and we are all born in Adam and have the same deficiencies. Our appetites are corrupted. Our desires are perverted. We swing from natural desires to sinful satisfaction, and we pervert and distort God's provision, whether we horde it or try to satisfy our desires or become gluttons. We say, "God, we're not going to take your provisions." Through asceticism we deny God's provision. Or we take God's provision with ungrateful hearts. We're not thankful, God owes us. We don't consider what God has given us, and we abuse it and we trash it. We don't care for it. We're poor stewards of God's provision.

Thankfully, in Genesis 3 God promised this was not the end. The serpent had not won. God would send his Son. Genesis 3:15 says God will send a child. "A child from the woman will crush the serpent's head." The genealogies are included in the Old Testament because it is trying to identify that seed. The Old Testament is trying to help us understand who that child will be. As we see in Genesis 12 and 15 and 17, it will be a child through Abraham's offspring, particularly Isaac, and then Jacob, and then Israel. The son will come from Abraham, and he will crush the serpent's head.

Israel's test—disobedience

Through Abraham, God raised Israel so the world might know of the Father's love and care for his people. Through the promises God makes to Abraham, God is trying to bring his people back to his house, where he would care for and provide for his people. They were to glorify God and represent God's rule on the earth, just as the first Adam. Like Adam, Israel was in the image and likeness of God. They were God's treasured possession. And God says in Exodus 19, "If you keep my voice, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be to me a treasured possession, a royal priesthood, a holy nation." Just like Adam, God raises Israel as his son in order to be a priestly, kingly nation that would represent God's rule over the earth.

As the world looked at how Israel lived and represented God on the earth. The nations were to look upon Israel and say, "Yahweh is God. The God of the Israelites is the God of all creation. He is the only one true God." As they watched how God the Father, who was king, cared for his people, Israel, the nations would say, "The God of the Israelites is God. He is the Lord."

God promised to rescue his people. He came to Moses in Exodus 3 and he said, "Go and rescue my people." And he said, "I want you to lead them to a land flowing with milk and honey." None of this is accidental. Again, it's all about God working to bring his people back to his house where he's going to care for them. But again, the people rebelled against God. In Exodus 16, God's people are leaving the land of Egypt. They're wandering in the wilderness, and they begin to complain and question God's provision. As with Adam, this was a test. Will they trust God to be their Father and provider? But instead they complained: "Why are we out here? Are we out here so that you could kill us?" They begin to grumble and complain and look back to Egypt and say, "I wish we were back there." They were willing to throw away the promise of God's presence for cucumbers. They say, "We miss the cucumbers we had in Egypt. We miss the bread we ate in Egypt." Can you imagine the irrationality of it all? They were delivered from slavery and hardship but now they have a few hunger pains and they're questioning God's provision.

Since Israel did not obey God's word, we're told in Numbers that they sent ten spies into the Promised Land, and when the ten spies came back, they reported that the produce of this land was amazing. But the current inhabitants were really big. Eight of the spies conspired to give a false, bad report, while Joshua and Caleb said, "No. Obey God's voice. Keep God's word. God told us he would give us this land. And if God said it, he will deliver." The eight spies convinced God's people to say, "We can't take it." So God sequestered them in the wilderness for forty years. The spies were in the land forty days, and for each day the spies were in the land, they had to suffer for a year.

But still, hope was not lost. In Deuteronomy a new generation of Israelites arose. God is preparing the young people that were spared to enter the Promised Land. In Deuteronomy 6-8 Moses is preparing God's people to enter the land that God promised where he would live with them and care for them and provide for their every need. But as we know, in Deuteronomy 31 God tells Moses these people don't get it. They're going to go in the land and turn away from him to other gods. Even before they touch foot in the land, God knows they're going to disobey his word. But even their hope is not lost.

Even after Israel disobeyed and God exiled them from the land for their disobedience, hope is not lost. God promised that through the seed of the woman someone would come and crush the serpent's head, and we see that seed would come through Abraham, through Isaac, through Jacob, through Israel, and through David specifically. It will be a son of David. In the new covenant language of Ezekiel 36, God is going to do something about this disobedient people. Beginning in Ezekiel 36:22 God speaks of the fact that he's going to exile his son Israel because of their disobedience. But he's going to bring them back. It says:

Therefore say to the house of Israel, "Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I'm about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them." And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declared the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

God's going to take care of the disobedience problem. They are exiled because they disobeyed God's word. But God promises he's going to bring about a new covenant where he's going to remove their rock-like hearts. In their place he's going to put hearts that are flesh, hearts that beat for God. That is the circumcision of the heart. He's also going to put his Spirit on them. He is going to cause them to obey. He's going to cause them to walk in his ways. This is good news. God, who demands obedience, is going to empower obedience. The God who makes demands of his people is going to ensure by his grace and power through a new heart and his Holy Spirit that God's people will follow him and obey.

Verse 28 and following say [notice the language of restoration]:

You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. [Now notice the restoration of sustenance here.] I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. It is not for your sake that I will act, declared the Lord GOD; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. Thus says the Lord GOD: On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be rebuilt. And the land that was desolate shall be tilled, instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who passed by. And they will say, "This land that as desolate has become like the Garden of Eden, and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited." Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I am the LORD; I have rebuilt the ruined places and replanted that which was desolate. I am the LORD; I have spoken, I will do it.

Jesus' test—perfect obedience

The hope of God's people is that he will restore them through a new covenant. And in Matthew 4, Jesus identifies himself with Israel. In Matthew 3:17 the Father says of Jesus, "This is my beloved Son." Adam was God's son. Israel was God's son. But Matthew 1 tells us Jesus is the son of both Abraham and David. He is the one to whom the Old Testament genealogies pointed. Perhaps he is our hope. Perhaps he will be the faithful, obedient son who will represent God's rule over the earth. He is identified in verse 17 of chapter 3 as the beloved Son, with whom the Father is pleased. Matthew 4 is the test. Was Jesus led by the Spirit?

There are stunning parallels between Matthew 4 and Deuteronomy 8. Jesus identifies himself with God's people in order to save them from their sins. He is the beloved Son promised in Genesis 3:15, who will ultimately crush the serpent and deliver God's people from slavery. Deuteronomy 8:2 says,

And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, that you did not know. The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember the whole law that the LORD your God has led you these forty years.

Jesus is fasting in the wilderness for forty days, one day for each of the years that Israel was wandering in the wilderness. Jesus is led into the wilderness by the Spirit. In the midst of this hunger we see the test. Where will Jesus turn? Will he respond like Adam who threw everything away for a piece of fruit? Will he respond like Israel who threw everything away for cucumbers and leeks and bread and a pot of meat? The temptation before Jesus is to throw everything away for a piece of bread.

Why do you think Jesus came? How do you think Jesus saves?

If we're going to understand Matthew 4, we need to look at Hebrews 2. Here, the writer of Hebrews is arguing for the humanity of Jesus Christ and for why Jesus had to come and take on flesh and bones. It says in verse 14 of Hebrews 2, "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, [Jesus] likewise partook of the same things …" So there's a connection between our humanity and Jesus coming as a baby and growing in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man to live on this earth as a human being, as flesh and blood. Jesus had to take on humanity in order to save us. Adam was tempted and he failed; Israel was tempted and it failed. Jesus, the true representative, the image of the invisible God, is also tempted, and this is the test: Before he begins his public ministry, he must be tested as to whether or not he will be the faithful, obedient son, whether he will obey God's voice and keep God's covenant.

"He himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil." Jesus is the one who comes to crush the serpent's head. But he has to do it in his humanity by facing death, by facing sin, by facing temptation and the wages of sin. Verse 15 says, "… and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps …" There are no redeemed angels. There are only angels and fallen angels. There's only redemption for humanity. Therefore, Hebrews says, that "it's not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people." Jesus had to be tempted like us in every respect. He had to face the devil in every respect.

Verse 18 says, "… because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted." Jesus had to go to the cross and bear the penalty for God's wrath as a man; so that God's wrath is poured out upon Jesus.

When the tempter comes in Matthew 4 and says to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to be loaves of bread." He's essentially saying to Jesus, "You have divine power to turn these stones to bread. Go ahead and do it. Satisfy your hunger." And Jesus says, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Salvation hinges right here. Jesus did not persevere through temptation by simply calling on his divine powers. Jesus faced temptation in his humanity filled with the Holy Spirit of God. And that gives us the hope, the knowledge, and the understanding that we too as human beings with new hearts filled with God's Spirit can face the enemy and triumph over temptation.

Jesus is fully God and fully man. Jesus did not divest himself of divine attributes while he was on the earth. In fact, this verse helps us to see that he had full access to all the attributes of the Godhead. But it was the Father's will that Jesus not use those attributes in certain occasions. It was the Father's will that Jesus come in flesh and bones and face temptation and live in obedience as a man and then receive the penalty of sin as a man in order that he might save mankind.

Jesus is saying to Satan, "To obey is better than food. To obey is better than a piece of fruit. To obey is better than cucumbers." Jesus submits himself to the Father's will in order to save humanity. And he perseveres. He begins to crush the serpent little by little until the final defeat on the cross.

The Scriptures have some scary language: "If you obey me then you will be blessed," It's scary because we cannot obey in our own strength and power. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus, the beloved Son, obeyed the Father so that you and I, who are disobedient, might not be cast out but might be gathered to the Father so that we can dwell in his presence under his rule and his care where he will provide for our every need.

Maybe you think, God would never want anything to do with me. You don't know what I've done. I've been so disobedient. I've taken God's Word and I've trashed it. The good news is that Jesus Christ is the obedient one and he has obeyed on our behalf. That doesn't mean that I can now live like the world. What that means is that through Jesus we now have a new heart and we have God's Spirit and we are empowered to obey. But when we disobey we receive forgiveness. Jesus obeyed the Father and fulfilled the Father's will, and he received the penalty for disobedience in himself so that you and I who are disobedient might have the hope of eternal life.

This is Jesus for you. This is God the Father, who's given his beloved Son, for you. He said, "You cannot obey, so I will send my Son, and through my obedient Son who took the penalty for disobedience, you who are rebels can have life." Our hearts should be telling us, "I long for Jesus, and I long to obey out of love. Father, I long to live in your presence available to me now through your Son Jesus Christ, who obeyed you in every way that I haven't." Jesus, who's at the right hand of the Father, has given us his Spirit. Because he was tempted in every way that we are tempted, he is sympathetic and understands. There is no temptation that you face that is not common to humanity. This should humble us, and it should move us. It should cause us to fall flat on our face and worship God.

How do we fight sin and temptation? How do we fight Satan? Go back to that picture and believe the promises of God. Go back to God's Word and believe what God said: he alone satisfies. With faith in Christ and in the Father's provision and in the power of the Spirit dwelling in us, we're able to fight Satan's temptation to satisfy our own appetites.

Two weapons for your tests

Gratitude. One of the great weapons to fight against sin and Satan and the temptation to question God's provision is thanksgiving, a grateful heart. If you're a parent, I know there are times you've been frustrated when you gave your child a present. You probably thought a lot about it and picked the present, and the child opened the package and said, "This is not what I wanted." They were ungrateful. You brought your child an amazing gift and they said, "That's not what I want" or "That's not the right color." We tend to be ungrateful. We must fight by faith in God's provision.

I left the house this morning in Alexander's car. It's a 2000 Lincoln Town Car, and it's fun every time you get in it because you have to find the gears. You think, Where's reverse today? I couldn't find it this morning. Thankfully our house has a slope driveway, so I could just let the car roll back. I could find drive this morning; I just couldn't find reverse. And in my frustration I was tempted to be ungrateful. But I thought about this sermon: Okay, Juan. You have a car that can take you to church. You don't have to walk there. You don't have to get on a bike. You have a car. This is how we fight ungratefulness. We fight by unmasking the lies, removing them, and finding the truth of God's faithful provision in his Word. Your gift may not be the color you want. It may not be the size you want. It may not be the model you want. But God promises to provide for our every need. In our culture we even have a lot of wants that are satisfied.

It's helpful to take account of God's blessings. With grateful hearts we can demolish covetousness. By faith, we believe the truth about God's promise to provide for us. In Matthew 6 we're invited to depend upon God daily for our sustenance. Jesus teaches us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." Sometimes we're ungrateful because we don't have this week's or this month's bread. God says, "Ask me for today's bread. Don't worry about tomorrow. Just ask me for today's bread." We have to reorient our thinking. We're reminded of the Father's goodness toward us in Matthew 6: we're not to be anxious about anything. If God cares for the birds of the air, he cares for us. Therefore we're not to be anxious. We're to look forward to the day that we will enter our Father's presence, live in his house under his rule and his care, and he'll provide for everything that we need.

Generosity. Not only do we need grateful hearts to battle covetousness, we also need giving hearts to demolish materialism and greed. How does that giving heart come about? It comes from believing the truth of who God is and what he's provided for us. It comes with the truth that God is taking us to a place where he will always provide for our every need. Like Adam in the Garden, we'll pick fruit from any tree. We'll live in God's presence, and God will provide for us. We long for that day. We can let go of the things on this earth pretty easily. We develop giving hearts with the proper eternal perspective.

God sometimes provides for the physical needs of people through his people. This is what we see in the New Testament. If we see a brother or a sister in need, we're to provide. We're to care for one another in particular ways. God provides for our families through us. We're not supposed to sit and let everyone take care of us. Paul says if you don't work you don't eat. But some people have needs and can't work, so God cares for them in different ways.

Did you know that you can provide for people by having them over to your house and providing a fellowship meal? By doing this you can get to know one another. There's sacrifice and celebration in those meals.

I know there's a great concern among churches and younger people to feed the homeless and to eradicate poverty. Those are good desires. But do not be deceived, the greatest need this world has is not physical hunger. The greatest need this world has is spiritual hunger. Jesus says in John 6, "I am the bread of life." Beloved, if you satisfy people with bread and with cucumbers and with pots of meat and you never offer the hope of Jesus Christ, they will die with filled bellies. Our mission is to relieve spiritual famine through gospel conversations, through evangelism, through missions, through speaking the gospel of Jesus Christ to other people.

Conclusion

Our Father tests us in order to shape our hearts for the place of his presence and his provision. The Lord's Supper is a picture of a longing that we have: one day we will be around the table of the King. Just as Adam was living in God's house and God was caring for him, through Jesus Christ we will be in his presence, around God's table, and we will be dining with our Lord.

What are you hungry for? Where are you looking for satisfaction? Where are your appetites focused? Are they focused in heaven? Maybe we should fast from the physical appetites of this world to be satisfied with Christ, to develop an appetite for God and his Word, to focus on God's will. Maybe we should pause and let God expose our appetites. By allowing us to hunger now, the Father is refocusing our appetites and affections on his presence and provision.

Even in the face of famine, Jesus knows that to obey is better than food. Thankfully, Jesus did not throw everything away for a piece of bread. Because of Jesus' obedience, you, who are disobedient, have hope of forgiveness of sin and a place at the table of the King.

If you don't know Christ, I plead with you to turn away from the things of this world and find hope and satisfaction in Christ alone.

Juan Sanchez is the Preaching Pastor for High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas.