Sunday message · 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting series
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Message Summary
In the final message of the 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting series, Pastor Phillip Santillan turns to Matthew 4:1–11 to ask what comes after prayer and fasting. Whether meaningful or hard, the three weeks were never meant to be a spiritual event to check off. The church fasted because its vision, that each person could name one person to disciple by year’s end, will take a move of God, and Jesus’ wilderness fast shows what that dependence looks like.
The Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness on purpose, and Phil jokes that Matthew’s note of his hunger after forty days may be one of the Bible’s biggest understatements. The passage is not mainly a spiritual warfare manual. Drawing on D.A. Carson, R.T. France and a Bible Project video on the wilderness, Phil shows this is Jesus’ first triumph as the obedient Son of God, succeeding where Israel failed in the wilderness.
The first temptation, to turn stones into bread, tests identity and trust: prove you are the Son of God and provide for yourself. Jesus answers from Deuteronomy 8:3 that we live not on bread alone but on every word from God’s mouth. Fasting, Phil says, reveals what we think we cannot live without, and we can have full hands but a starving soul. So what comes after prayer and fasting is a person learning to live on God’s Word.
At the temple, the devil quotes a psalm himself, a reminder that Scripture is no incantation; it must be used in submission to God. Jesus refuses to test God, exposing the urge to treat him like a cosmic vending machine that owes us for our prayers and good works, which Phil calls “control dressed up like faith.” Real trust obeys even when we cannot control the outcome. On the mountain, the devil offers a shortcut: power without sacrifice, the crown without the cross. The real battle is over what we worship. Jesus will not bow to a counterfeit king for a temporary kingdom, and the angels who serve him show that obedience may be costly but is never empty.
Three temptations, three answers: “It is written.” So stay in the Word, since those who abide in Jesus’ word will know the truth that sets them free (John 8). Phil adds that Jesus is the Savior before he is the example. He obeyed in our place and calls us to follow from grace, so obedience is the fruit of salvation, not the entry fee. And as Jesus began preaching after the wilderness, private preparation leads to public proclamation.
Phil closes with practical steps: read Scripture ten minutes a day, starting in Matthew and asking what it shows about Jesus and what it calls us to trust or obey; gather with God’s people in a small group; and name one person to pray for and disciple, ready to share our hope in Jesus. He leaves three questions: what is your plan for the Word, who are your people, and who is your one? He ends praying for courage to obey.
