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You’re tired.
Not just physically; though yeah, that too.
You’re tired in your bones. In your soul.
Trying to be a steady husband, an intentional dad, a man of God… but deep down, you feel like you’re falling short. Like you’re carrying more than you know how to hold.
Dad Tired is a podcast for men who are ready to stop pretending and start healing.
Not with self-help tips or religious platitudes, but by anchoring their lives in something (and Someone) stronger.
Hosted by Jerrad Lopes, a husband, dad of four, and fellow struggler, this show is a weekly invitation to find rest for your soul, clarity for your calling, and the courage to lead your family well.
Through honest stories, biblical truth, and deep conversations you’ll be reminded:
You’re not alone. You’re not too far gone. And the man you want to be is only found in Jesus.
This isn’t about trying harder.
It’s about coming home.
Alright, we're jumping back into this concept of the wilderness and how do we respond? How do we continue to lead our families? Well? How do we continue to disciple our kids when we're in these seasons that feel. Sticky, like fog, like we're just kind of in a cloud. One of the thoughts that I wanted to, to lobby your way as we begin to talk about wilderness is, is this has a really meditated, um, the way that you handle wilderness seasons will either, uh, really shape you and really thrust you forward in your discipleship process.
Your journey or it'll, it'll cripple you or you'll either take steps forward or you'll find yourself totally crippled. I'm, um, Haley and I, my wife and I, we, we have four biological kids. We adopted two kids out of foster care and we still foster. And so this last week we picked up two more kids, which puts me at eight kids in my house, which I keep saying is officially a rec center.
I live in a rec center. So, um, but the, the, the boys that we picked up and in the past when we, when we foster kids, um, that initial season of entering into care, right? There's, there's a great trial in the family, uh, real tension and frustration and. I love, I love foster care in particular. I love being able to be there for kids on day one of foster care because it's one of the most traumatic days, if not the most traumatic day of their life.
And what happens on that day really matters. And to be able to stand there and the love of Jesus filled with the spirit of God and create, um, a safe space for someone who's really a, a kid in trial is huge. Anyway, all that to say is we, we've got two more boys in the house and as I'm praying for them, I'm praying that they would navigate this season of trial with a humility and a vulnerability and honesty in their soul.
That they, they would open their hearts to, to hear God, the voice of the Spirit as they, you know, come to church with me or someone to youth group, that there would be this receptiveness. Their hearts to, to lean into the spirit in a season of real frustration in trial, like the way that you navigate certain moments in your life, start to determine big parts of your, your, your character, of your spiritual development.
And so all that to say this, that some of you guys feel like you're in wilderness, you feel like you're in this. Trial, this testing moment. And what I wanna say is this, don't sleep through it. Don't go lay down on the couch and eat chips and just try to try to nap until this thing is through. Um, sometimes there's a, there's a solid, solid moment where naps are super helpful.
Um, but for a lot of your life, when you hit these trying moments, you've gotta navigate it in prayer, on your knees, navigate it with a scripture, with a journal, with friends, talking through your. Your feelings and your emotions and so much of the wilderness is kind of taming all of your selfish desires.
Taming all of your life should be this way. Taming all of your I want. I want, I want. And you, you tame it in the place of prayer and devotion and you begin to say to the Lord, my life right now is not wonderful and I'm gonna love you and serve you anyway. And if this never lifts, and if all I know for the rest of my life is this kind of spiritual mud.
I'm gonna love you and serve you anyway because you're wonderful to me. Your grace has been so profoundly beautiful to me. I'm, I'm just not going to allow the muddiness of this season to, in any way minimize the weightiness of my worship. Okay? And that's a lot of what we get to in wilderness is, this is hard and this is messy, but this scenario, this scenario will not.
De detract from my heart of celebration and worship and love for Jesus. And you either learn that lesson in the wilderness, in the really hard place, or you kind of nap through it, stumble through it. Um, and so I would just say, man, learn the lessons. Learn the lessons. So today I, I want to talk about, um, I wanna talk about Jesus's wilderness temptation.
Again with the idea that, um, in the wilderness, the spirit comes to teach, the spirit comes to lead, the spirit comes to inspire, um, for us, but also in the wilderness, the enemy comes to tempt. The enemy's super frustrating because, uh, he just doesn't, um, go easy on you because life's hard right now, like for me.
Dealing with mental health stuff and processing through seasons of depression. I was diagnosed with depression, medicated for depression, really young at 14, maybe 13. Um, and so for me, it's not like the enemy has said to me in my life, Hey man, you struggle with depression. I'm gonna leave you alone. Um, so many times, this is probably a bad example, but do you know how like sometimes you'll run into someone who's got like heavy mental illness?
Or drug addiction, you're going like, I don't know if this is demonic or if this is physiological. I don't know if you're an addict. I don't know what's going on. And a lot of times it's probably all three. Like there's probably an addiction issue, there's probably a physiological issue. There's a, a chemical imbalance, there's a, a medically diagnosed, uh, condition, and then the enemy comes on top of it and plays and messes and, and perverts.
And so. All that to say is just because your life gets hard doesn't mean the enemy's gonna pull back. He's actually going to come forward, okay? When life gets hard and trying, here comes temptation. And so this is really interesting because what we find is after Jesus' baptism, the scripture says the spirit leads him to the wilderness.
Okay? So in the life of Jesus, he's led to the wilderness by the Spirit, not, not. By the enemy or not even, um, out of, out of some desire to be alone. He's led by the spirit to the wilderness and there after fasting for 40 days, right? He's hungry, he's tired, he's alone. And all of his humanity, he's experiencing all the things that we experience in wilderness.
Um, that kind of frustration and feeling it emptiness and, uh, ready to. Sometimes feeling like you're just ready to, to lay down. Um, Jesus experiences in his humanity, all those things. Yet he perseveres he models for us. Like, what does it look like to endure wilderness temptation? Well, and so, um, a lot of Jesus's wilderness temptation has big theological overarching insights.
Um, Augustine said this. When Adam was conquered, you were bound. When Adam conquered, you were freed. The devil conquered the first man. The second man conquered the devil. And so there is a sense in, uh, we've said this already, that the wilderness temptation is the antithesis or the opposite of. The Garden of Eden experience.
Adam and Eve are in fellowship with one another. They're full, they're happy. Their life is joy and peace. They're not in wilderness, they are in paradise. Yet, when Satan comes, they cave to his temptation and sin enters the world leading to death. Now, Jesus conquers Satan in the exact opposite scenario.
He's alone, he's hungry, he's tired, and Satan calms and Jesus conquers, and there are big theological implications to this. Idea of Jesus conquering in the wilderness. And so on one hand we wanna say Jesus's wilderness. Temptation is unique. He is God. He is, um, the final and full conquer and victor of Satan and of temptation on our behalf.
We struggle still. And so it's not like we navigate the wilderness with the same eloquence and beauty and perseverance that Jesus navigates it. You're not gonna be Jesus in the wilderness. You're gonna struggle. We struggle still, but we do in our discipleship process. We are striving, we are leaning into Christ's likeness.
And so we wanna look at how Jesus navigated the wilderness season and then, and then say to the spirit of the Lord, help me to, to grow into Christ's likeness, to learn to navigate in a way that Jesus navigates. And so I wanna walk you through Jesus's wilderness temptation. I'm kind of already teased this out a little bit though, uh, but I wanna walk you through it with, um, Henry Nouns kind of interpretation or.
Meditation of this event and mind. And so I'm gonna talk you through the temptation with, with now, ands teaching in mind. Uh, some of his teaching is a little unique here. I'm not sharing as if it's absolutely law and the perfect way to interpret, but it's really helped me. And so I pray through these ideas from now and often, but especially when I'm struggling.
Um, and lemme say this before we start, Martin Lloyd Jones said this, he said, temptation in and of itself is not sinful. It is yielding to temptation. That is sin. The devil will suggest things to us, but that is not our fault unless we take hold of those suggestions and welcome it. He says in another place, the primary battle takes place in the mind.
Therefore, our defense against temptation must begin with controlling our thoughts and aligning our lives with God's truth. Okay? With that in mind, even looking at Jesus's wilderness temptation, the enemy comes to suggest things, right? Comes to suggest. To, um, kind of lay before us thought patterns that are not in line with God's spirit.
And that's one of the reasons Jared talks about this stuff. One of the reasons we really have to gospel ourselves, we have to keep reminding ourselves of the gospel, that the first thing that the enemy comes and says to Jesus, you remember, he says, if you are. God's son. And so right, right away you recognize that the temptation in the life of Christ has to do with his identity.
And so at the baptism, the, the spirit descends like a dove. The father speaks audibly. This is my beloved son, with whom I'm well pleased. The spirit drives me in the wilderness. And then the enemy says, if you are God's. Siren. And so we have this experience of salvation where we are adopted, grafted into God's family, and it's as if God shouts over our spirit.
You're my beloved. And then in the wilderness, the enemy comes in and says, let's talk about your identity. Are you who you say you are? And so the, the enemy comes and says, if you are God's son, turn these stones into bread. Now he's hungry, obviously he's fasting. Um, the way that noun interprets this temptation is unique.
Um, but noun calls us a temptation to relevance. Okay. So in his line of thought, he's saying this, that the temptation to turn stones into bread is a temptation to become the ultimate meter of everyone's physical needs to walk through every destitute. Poor city with kus of supplies and need. So like anyone who's every hungry or thirsty, or has any physical need, the temptation is for Jesus just to become the ultimate relevant one.
When you need your basic physical needs are acting up, you're feeling tired and hungry, go to Jesus and he'll give you bread. Um. That line of thought is a little bit unique. Augustine thought of this temptation this way, Augustine said, um, for, what was it? To turn stones into bread, but to provide for the flesh, to seek satisfaction from what?
Perishes. But we do not live by bread alone, but by the word of God. It's by clinging to the word, not by being satisfied in the flesh that we truly live. So Augustine says that the temptation is for, for Jesus to find satisfaction in bread or for his. Real desire to be about physical, uh, wants and needs rather than feasting on the spiritual, uh, bread, which is the word of God.
And ultimately, we know John one, Jesus is the word of God. He is, uh, the, the bread of life, kind of John six themes. Um, and so the temptation of relevance, going back to now one's idea, is that Jesus would. Walk through the cities, passing out bread, passing out money, passing out, you know, whatever people need, and become the ultimate fulfiller of physical needs.
When in reality the call of Christ and who Jesus is, is the bread of life, the provider of spiritual life. And it's not like he's coming to. Just fix the problem that we have. World hunger. He is coming to fix a much deeper, uh, uh, a greater epidemic of we have, we have a spiritual hunger for the bread of life.
And he's, he's gonna provide that for us on the cross of Christ. And so the temptation is skip all of that. Jesus skip becoming the bread of life, the manifest word, being the manifest word of God for the nations. Skip all of that and people will love you if you just pass out a lot of bread. And that idea of relevance okay, is an attack of identity.
It is saying you, uh, for us, when it manifests in our life, um, I am. Uniquely, a son of God adopted, grafted into God's spam because of the shed blood of Christ and his declaration of love over me. When I'm at my worst, I start to need to prove to other people that I'm valuable. 'cause if I prove to other people that I'm valuable, then I'll hear them say, you're valuable.
And now I'm looking for affirmation from the response of the crowds and nod from the scriptures and the word of God and not from the spirit of the Lord. And that leads me to this idea of relevance, or for me, it manifests in people pleasing when I am in the wilderness and tired and struggling, I feel like I've got a.
Please everybody. I've gotta become all things to all people so that they'll tell me how valuable I am. I become all things to all people. So they'll tell me how valuable I am, and then I'm, then I'm just kind of, my whole life becomes managing their frustrations and trying to make sure that they stay in a, in a safe place so that they still love me because I need them to love me so that I can feel worthy of something.
And that's an attack on identity. And so I would just say right off the cuff, I pray this. Daily. Maybe I miss it every now and then, but, uh, when I pray, um, I put some of this on, on social media, if you wanna reach out to me, I can, I can point you towards this. When I pray through my patterns every day, my devotional patterns, one of the things I do is I pray for my family that we would wear the full armor of God.
An idea the armor of God is that we would. We would kind of, with the shield of faith, extinguishes all the fiery darts of the enemy. The idea is that, that we don't wrestle with flesh and blood, but we're wrestling with principalities and powers, the enemy coming after us. We put on the armor of God and we resist him.
And then I stumble right into praying through these things that now in, uh, developed all of Jesus' wilderness temptation. So right away I pray, Lord. I resist the temptation to be relevant, to be all things, to all people. To need my approval, uh, to come from the voice of the crowds. I resist that temptation and I settle down into my identity that I am loved because you say so.
And I don't have to be all things to all people. I don't have to run around everyone, try to fix everyone else's problems, try to make them like me. I can just be me. And so the wilderness comes and you start to kind of shake, who am I? Am I valuable? Does my life have meaning? Does anyone care? And the first thing that happens is if you stumble too far, you'll start trying to impress, and not just impress, but meet the needs of everyone so that, so that they need you, so that you feel needed.
And when I feel needed, then I'm valuable. And man, that sucks. So right away. I am a son of God. I don't point people, I don't constantly bring natural bread to satisfy everyone's these. I point them to the bread of life, which is Jesus Christ. As I proclaim the gospel and live my life before, before people in a way that honors God.
This is the temptation of relevance, the next temptation. You remember, the enemy comes to Jesus and takes him to the pinnacle of the temple and says, throw yourself down. He quotes Psalm 91 and says. Angels will catch you, not, not a, not your foot, and then strike a stone. And he says to Jesus, why don't you throw yourself down?
I remember Jesus's, um, response is that we don't test the Lord our God. Um, but but now said this, he called the second temptation, uh, the temptation to be spectacular. Okay? He says, the second temptation to which Jesus was exposed was precisely the temptation to do something spectacular. Something that could win him.
Great applause. Throw yourself from the para put of the temple and let angels catch you and carry you in their arms. But Jesus refused to be a stuntman. He does not come to prove himself. So Jesus' whole ministry, to some extent is wrestling with religious leaders, um, dealing with pharisees and sades and high priest in scribes.
And he's, um, questioned and. They're trying to embarrass him all the time. The idea is that if Jesus would've just went to the top of the temple and thrown himself down and then floated like kind of levitated on the hands of angels, that all the religious leaders, uh, every, everyone that he had to wrestle with, all of his ministry life, they would've all just championed him and celebrated him because he would be spectacular.
Be spectacular. And, um. Luther said this. Luther said, the devil tempts us all with the desire to prove ourselves to perform great feats so that others may speak well of us. But Christ shows that true faith does not seek the approval or a pause of man, but rest quietly in God's will. John Christen, the devil, tried to entice him by saying, throw yourself down.
He sought it to incite him to vain glory. That was a phrase that the early church used a lot, that this temptation was about vain glory. To display his power before others. But Christ sought, sought no such glory. He came to be, uh, he came not to be admired, but to be crucified. And so the idea of wanting to be spectacular again is that the enemy comes in the hardest seasons of your life and says, who are you?
And your life's not really that meaningful or that profound, and no one really cares. And you start to. Fuel your soul. Wanna rise up and be, say, prove yourself. Like I, I am not just like everyone, I'm, I can grind my way. I can discipline my way, I can develop my gifts, hone my skills, earn the money, get the following.
And in all of that, I'll prove to myself and to this satanic whisper that I'm spectacular. I'm spectacular. I actually kind of hate when we teach our kids to like. You can be anything. You wanna set your mind and you can. You can rise to the top. You wanna be the president, be the next president. I hate that because I think it fuels this idea of you wanna be spectacular, be spectacular.
And really like the Christian ethic and our discipleship, what we wanna say to our kids is, Hey man, God has designed you uniquely to fulfill a unique call. You are his workmanship. Let's pray and see God. So what is he calling you to? You're gonna be most fulfilled when you're most in his. Will see that that promotes finding identity in, in the gospel that you're loved and you don't have to earn anything.
You're just trying to kind of seek the spirit for how can you partner with him for the rest of your life. It may be a school teacher, it may be a pastor. It may be a really great mom who rocks or babies and praise over them. But I don't wanna feed the desire for vain glory in my kids. The desire to be spectacular, maybe.
They're, maybe they're a unique person that God designed to be spectacular. Maybe there's the next Billy Graham, but chances are they're not. And chances are, if I put them on the road to try to be the next Billy Graham, the next president, when God designed or crafted them to beat a really great school teacher who disciples and for kids, and putting them on a path of pursuing vain glory, and they're gonna burn out, spin out.
Wind up frustrated and exhausted, and that is actually a, a strategy of hell. So the temptation is throw yourself down and Jesus kind of settles in and says, we don't put the word your God to test. The last, the last temptation you remember was the, the temptation, um, for Jesus to.
Worship, um, Satan alone, bow and worship me, and I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world. So now and cause us the temptation of power. So, okay, so far we have, there's a temptation to turn stone into bread. He calls the temptation of relevance, the temptation to jump down from the temple. Temptation to be spectacular.
The temptation to power is worship me. Satan says, worship me and I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world. This is a petition to gain authority to wanna rise to the top of the pile. I oftentimes will use the imagery of, did you ever play King of the Hill as a kid? And the whole idea of King of the Hill is that you get to the top and then you throw everyone else down, right?
Like you, you, the, the whole thing is once you get to the top of the mountain, you gotta kick, scratch, call all slam, whatever you can do to keep people off your mountain. Um, and that's the temptation of power. I'm gonna get to the top and then I'm gonna do everything I can to belittle, to press to, to keep people below me so that I can have authority.
And the temptation of power, again, is about identity. It's about feeling some way about yourself, needing to feel like you can lay your head down on the pillow and go, I matter. And the gospel says you matter. 'cause the blood of Jesus, 'cause of the adoption that we receive. You matter because you belong to a spiritual community that Ecclesia, we share real, real fellowship with one another.
We matter because we're ambassadors for Christ. You don't matter because you're the CEO of the uh, fortune 500 company. Maybe God's called you to that. And if he has honor it and live well and. And disciple and use it for God's glory. But if he hasn't called you to that, you don't have to do that to be meaningful, right?
You can be totally fulfilled and live a totally meaningful life as you simply put your hands to the pile of the gospel. Every day you rock your babies and sing. Jesus loves me. They sign up. Make sure those kids know that stinking song. And, and you take them to church every week. You show up at work, you work hard with work ethic, showing your coworkers that you work unto Christ.
And when they ask you questions about who you are and what you're up to, you just say, Jesus's blood transformed me. The spirit of God meets with me every day. You can live a profoundly meaningful life without ever having to climb to the top of a ladder and kick everyone else down. And so Jesus says, nah man.
You worship God alone. He kind of conquers that temptation of power. So again, this is what I pray daily. I really do pray every day. Maybe I miss once a month this prayer, but I pray through Ephesians six, the Armor of God, helmet of salvation, the breast plate of righteousness, the sword of the spirit, the shield of faith, belt of truth, the shoes of readiness.
Granted, by gospel of peace that I'd resist the enemy, my family would resist. The enemy. The enemy, his temptations. And then I work through now one's ideas because they've really helped me over the years. Lord, help me to resist the temptation of, of relevance. I don't have to be all things to all people. I don't need people to approve of me.
I don't have to run around trying to meet everybody's needs and fix all of their problems to feel valuable. Um, I'm just gonna walk with the spirit today. I'm gonna do what he asked me to do. Nothing more, nothing less. Not walking ahead or behind walking with the spirit. Two. Lord, would you help me to resist the temptation to be spectacular in my context?
As a local pastor, the temptation is to be the best pastor there ever was. The best preacher there ever was. Try to grow the church so that everyone knows how great I am. I just pray every morning word, crucify, that I don't need to be spectacular. I need to put my hands in the plow and do exactly what God is called me to do.
I don't need to be spectacular so that other people praise me. I have the, the, the affirmation of God that I'm his beloved. Three. I don't need power or don't help me to crucify the desire for power when the enemy comes and says, if you would do A, B, C, or D, then you could really be a person with authority, with power.
Lord, would you help me to crucify that? Crucify ion to relevance? Spectacular to be spectacular, and power as I pray. Ephesians six every day. Now here's my hot take. Okay, this is a theological hot take. You can hate it. I'm not gonna die on this mountain, but I actually believe this. I think this is, you can prove this.
Textually, exegetically. Um, Chris, if you didn't catch Chris's, uh, and Jared, the question and answer, uh, session a couple weeks ago, catch it. But Chris talked about the idea of kenosis or, um, that Jesus in his humanity empties himself of certain divine rights and Chris was. Explaining for us, which is really helpful.
He, the idea in Jesus's incarnation is, is that he is fully God, totally fully God, and totally fully man, but he doesn't access all of the divine attributes every day. So he has access to every divine attribute, but he kind of self restricts. So he has access to omniscient, but he doesn't always live omnisci, right?
He says, not even, I don't even know the day or the hour. He has access, uh, to, uh, omnipresence, but he doesn't live omnipresence. He lives confined to his structure. And so Chris used the image of when you play basketball with your kid, you could dunk on them, you could check them, you could really show all that you could, uh, accomplish.
But when you play basketball with your 3-year-old, you restrict your abilities for the sake of. The, the goal, a large goal. And so to some extent, this is a little theologically nuanced conversation here that I'm stumbling into. Um, but Jesus resist Satan. He conquers Satan and the wilderness temptation not by accessing, um, divine attributes.
He doesn't resist temptation because he's omnipotent. He resists temptation as the second Adam. End resisting temptation as the second Adam. The devil flees from him and so stumble into James. Four, seven. Resist the devil. He will flee from you. And there's some argument that it was from here on the reason the spirit drives Jesus to the wilderness, to fast and pray and then conquer.
Satan is for the rest of his ministry. Demons are gonna flee and run and cry. And yes, they're gonna cry out. We know who you are. You're the son of God. So there is an aspect of revealing his divinity in his ministry of deliverance. But there is another aspect of. And Jesus conquering Satan in the wilderness and then resisting him in the wilderness.
And then for the rest of his ministry, Satan f flees from him. And so you think of the, um, the sons of Skiba who try to cast out demons in the name of Jesus, who Paul preaches and the demons beat them, strip them naked and they run. And the demons say this, you remember Jesus. We know and Paul we know, but we don't know who you are.
How do demons know Paul? And so there's some measure of authority that Paul walked in. And I'm just suggesting this and I'm not trying to right off the cuff. Jesus is God, you, you're not like, you are gonna struggle. You are gonna fail. You are frail and weak. And so there's no way that I'm trying to promote this idea that, um, that we are gonna rise to the same level of authority Jesus had, but I am suggesting this.
As This is James four seven. As you resist Satan in wilderness seasons, you resist the temptation and you grow in confidence. You start praying no, no to to relevance, no, to be spectacular, no to power, yes to the gospel, yes to sonship. As you start to stand in your identity, you'll find the enemy's tactics and schemes weaker.
You'll find them less tempting, and I think that you could even make a case that when you. Begin to excel in this, this level of discipleship and you begin to settle into your identity. You start praying for friends who are struggling. You start kind of putting your hand on the shoulder of a brother who's having stuff going on in his mind you'll find the enemy fleeing, right?
And so again, they say, Paul, we know demons. Paul, we know, but we don't know you there. There is a way to be known in hell than a Raven Hole used to say, and, and that's to resist the enemy and to. Recognize that wilderness temptation, wilderness seasons again, are training ground. They're where we grow, where we learn.
Where we excel and where we resist Satan and see him flee and step into a measure of authority that we once didn't have. And so this matters, man. Buckle up. You're in a hard season. You're wrestling. You don't know how to keep being a great dad while you feel frustrated and tired. How do I disciple when I'm frustrated?
Tired, let the enemy purge you. He's gonna purge to the surface. All the little frustrations, all the little angsty, uh, mindsets. And what you do when they get to the surface is you sift them out, you throw them away, and you say, my life belongs to God. I'm purchased by the blood of Jesus, not proven anything, not trying to earn anything.
I am who I am. I'm designed for a task. I'm gonna fulfill it as I walk with the spirit of the word. You allow the spirit to sift out all of those things. What some of us do in the wilderness is we sleep through it. We get frustrated, we throw a fit, and the spirit's trying to sift all the impurities up to the surface, and we threw our kind of sloppy living.
We allow them to settle back down in our soul. And so this is not just a trying season. It's an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to become more like Jesus and an opportunity to step into. A greater measure of authority as it relates to, to, to spiritual matters. And so, alright, I love y'all. Reach out to me.
Email, social, whatever, if you want some of that devotion pattern, how I pattern my devotion life, I'll send that to you if it's helpful and can't wait to hear from you soon, man. Love you guys so, so much.