• We can’t address agency without holiness first, which we talked about last week
• The result of agency is not real love without a foundation of holiness in the work and worker
• Genesis 3:1-7
• The Serpent asked, Did God really say you can’t do something?
• We tend to focus what they could or couldn’t do, but let’s focus on the inference of really
• There’s an implied exasperation like they thought, does God really think He can demand this?
• Satan thought God was insolent and arrogant and brought Man into this attitude
• Matthew 4:1-13, we see Jesus handling this same challenge from Satan a bit differently
• Satan is not really talking about bread, protection, or dominion–but about Jesus’ agency
• Jesus responds with a quote from Deuteronomy, teaching people to live within God’s purpose
• This proposed miracle of bread seems harmless but it subverts God’s design for Jesus’ authority
• Satan then asks Jesus to worship him, because Satan would allow him all that power and more
• Jesus finally quotes Deuteronomy 6, which declares that God is the only one who is God
• Jesus declares his allegiance and backs it by God’s design
• So Satan changes his tactic, by using the Scriptures and calling into question God’s allegiance to Jesus. Satan says, prove it if you think you have this relationship with God
• Satan tries to undermine Jesus’ understanding of his relationship with God
• Jesus responds, “You must not test the Lord your God”
• This references Exodus 17:1-7
• They were testing the Lord by basically saying, Is the Lord here with us or not?
• Jesus’ responses were all tied together, about the desert, hunger and thirst
• In their hunger and thirst, the people were prone to turning on God
• Jesus is saying that when we test God because we’re hungry, it’s from a lack of faith that God is with us. It’s not about hunger at all–but whether God is “really” on our side
• Satan wants Jesus to misuse his power, and baits him with seemingly benign challenges
• Jesus is the new Adam partially because he understood what Adam didn’t, in a similar situation
• Adam and Eve wanted to have the power of God–that power of choice and definition
• But that power is utterly destructive without the rest of God’s character and attributes
• God wanted to keep that power from us not out of fear–but out of love for us
• The question is, “to whom are we loyal?” Adam’s answer was Eve–”the woman you gave me”
• Jesus’ answer is God in all fullness
• Jesus did not need to prove himself to Satan, because he was secure in his relationship with God and in his understanding. 
• Satan returned again in Matthew 16:21-23 via the Pride of Life
• Jesus’ response to Satan was “get away from me Satan, you are a dangerous trap to me”
• Peter was speaking from a human point of view, not God’s 
• Satan will celebrate our power, and exhorts us to use it
• When Eve was convinced, she was taken by the lie and wanted the power beyond what was given and good for her–for herself. It was not just an issue of simple boundaries and taste
• Jesus returns us to proper form and corrected the example of our forefathers
• Philippians 2:6, Jesus had authority before coming, but gave it up
• After his incarnation–he was given authority because of his obedience and submission
• It was not gained by divine privilege 
• Satan wanted to hurt God because he was jealous. He wanted to corrupt God’s son
• Satan wanted to corrupt Jesus’ power–but despite this Jesus was obedience
• And Jesus’ obedience was learned in his life and submission and trials
• Satan didn’t understand that Jesus sonship was not because of his ontology, but because of his obedience to his Father in Heaven
• Jesus then because the source of salvation for all those who OBEY him
• Jesus states after Peter’s temptation of him–that if you want to follow Christ you must give up your own way and walk his path with your own cross
• “And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?”
• Christians are sons and daughters by adoption–we need to know what it means to bear that title, and also what it does not mean
• It doesn’t mean we have the freedom to define our own paths, or to have power to satiate our own flesh and pride and feelings and rights
• Discussion of our own agency must begin here by giving it up. This is the clever wisdom of God
• The one type of Christian that’s growing is Pentecostals, who focus on the power of God

• But Jesus’ followers were neither conservative, nor charismatic
• They were set apart and followed the narrow path which denied their power and submitted to God’s power to the lessening of their own 
• Matthew 3:1-10,  John the Baptist was the greatest prophet
• He was peculiar, modestly lived modestly (to put it lightly), and condemned vast crowds
• Why was he greater than even Moses and Elijah? This is the crazy man in the wilderness
• But John had the honor of baptising the Son of God
• He lived in the wilderness–which is a place of confusion and where sin was allowed to flourish
• John stood as a fixture in the wilderness against confusion–to deliver clarity to those coming out of the civil city and into the wilderness. And he shouted for repentance
• Here the Holy Spirit fell upon Jesus, despite the wilderness and even using it
• John flourished in the wilderness, denounced the corrupt leadership at the Temple as a brood of serpents. Incredibly dangerous and rooted in sin. The brood is the family of the Serpent
• John 8:44, Matthew 23:13
• John is brash, even hostile.
• Steven is purported as the first martyr, but it’s really John as he wouldn’t back down
• It’s not the power John possessed, but what he did in obedience unto his death
• John 3:23-30, he knew 2 simple truths–that his power came from God alone and that his power’s purpose was to decrease to the glory of God
• This understanding and obedience made him arguably the most powerful figure in that time
• Too many believers believe that our power is an extension of God’s. John believed different
• Though we can be this extension, we can’t be it freely
• We only have agency within God’s will
• We are not equal partners in God’s glory. He doesn’t even need us. He wants us graciously 
• His love makes us part of His eternal and glorious design–if we stay with Him in obedience
• The price of God’s power is your own power
• When we’re conforming to God’s own extension–that extension is not us. It’s Jesus Christ, who is all authority and power and glory
• People who prophecy their own will and desire will be left behind on their own pathsJeremiah 23:33-40
• When we’re told we can ask for anything, it’s really anything that Jesus would want
• We are not David defeating Goliath. Jesus is David defeating Goliath
• It was Jesus who smote the prophets of Baal, and the one who parted the sea
• Every winning battle was the Lord going ahead of the people
• If you don’t get this, you’re betraying God 
• As we wield God’s power properly, it diminishes us. This is the real nature of power
• Jesus knew John was great because John knew that he was not
• When we’re faced with God’s will and we choose what to do with it–that’s what determines our power. Not our own agency. Consider David’s response to his child dying. 2 Sam 12
• Do we think that God not accepting our requests and demands is because we’re doing it wrong? Or is it because we don’t have authority here?
• The Satan narrative is that true power is knowledge. But what good is this non-useful power?
• The perfect Adam and Eve could never handle knowing right from wrong without God’s shield
• We could never possess His power without His grace
• Christians are different–we submit to God’s power and trust in His love and grace, even to our own diminishment unto the glory of God
• “Not my will but your will be done”. Jesus states it simply
• Zechariah 10:12, By My powers I will make people strong. And by My authority they will go wherever they wish. I the LORD have spoken.”

QUESTIONS

• AS A CHILD OF GOD HOW HAVE YOU BEEN TEMPTED TO MISUSE GOD’S POWER IN YOUR LIFE?
• ARE YOU TEMPTED TO DECLARE THINGS WITHOUT GOD’S HOLINESS?
• BY WHOSE POWER DO YOU ACTUALLY LIVE YOUR DAY-TO-DAY? WHEN YOU TALK ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS, FOOD, WORK, ETC?