The Temptations of Jesus - A Portrait of True Freedom Part 2 - Luke 4:1-14

1:02And that's what we looked at last time. And then this time, the Spirit of God will lead you to say no to fleshly glory, evident in the three temptations, each one. And we'll work through. So first of all, we've looked at the first one. And let me just read that to you. Verse 1. This is by way of review. Jesus said no to fleshly desire. Chapter 4. Verse 1, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, he became hungry. And the devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. That is, use your power to serve the fleshly appetite that you have, fleshly being a legitimate appetite, but an appetite of his flesh nonetheless. And Jesus answered him, It is written, man shall not live on bread alone. And what Jesus did is he made it clear that fleshly desire is not the highest principle for life.

2:17Your fleshly desire is not the highest principle. Even legitimate desires of the flesh are not to trump the voice of God. And he quoted Deuteronomy 8:3, Man shall not live on bread alone. Quoted scripture. And his answer was quick, it was authoritative, it was to the point, and it ended the discussion. And so the devil didn't even stick around for round two. He said, okay, let's go on to another temptation. You see, Jesus was not about to take matters into his own hands. He knew that man needs a whole lot more than bread to truly live. You and I need a lot more than physical sustenance to truly live. We need union with God. And breaking union with God, even for legitimate needs, is not what Christ would do, not for his people.

3:10And Jesus showed us that union with God is necessary, and that the Father can be trusted to meet our physical needs. There he is in the wilderness, after a fast of 40 days, and he says no to his fleshly desire. You see, Jesus loved the Father's will. That's what he loved. And he despised any notion of distrusting him. He loved and trusted the Father's will, and he despised any notion of distrusting him. So Jesus said no to fleshly desire. That's what we covered last time. This time, I want to look at the second thing Jesus said no to. Jesus said no to fleshly glory. He said no to fleshly glory. Let's read the text there in verse 5. And he led him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to him, I will give you all this domain and its glory, for it has been handed over to me, and I will give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if you worship before me, it shall all be yours. And Jesus answered, Him, it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

4:31So that's our text this morning. Verses 5 through 8, the second temptation of Christ. I just want to walk through it. Let's just walk through it line by line. First, notice the setting for the temptation where he's hungry, he's in the barren wilderness, and he is alone. And verse 5, and he, the devil, led him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. So, somehow, some way, Jesus was led to a vantage point where he could see all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. Literally, the word is a prick of time, and just a flash. He was able to see all of this. So, in some sort of satanic rapture or diabolical vision, somehow, some way, the devil brought before Jesus' eyes the power and the glory of all the kingdoms of the world. And it's on this high vantage point. Matthew says it's a mountain.

5:41It's on this vantage point where he could see all these things. But the panoramic splendor of the nations in view, it's there where Satan launches his second temptation. It's important to relate this to the context. In the context of nothing, Jesus is offered everything. And if you'll remember the first Adam, very different, right? He was in the context of everything and was basically offered nothing, very little. So you have a very different picture of the nature of this temptation. Jesus is in the wilderness, barren, hungry, alone, and it's in that context he is offered everything.

6:27So that's the setting for the temptation. Let's look at the temptation now, and it comes to us in three statements. It unfolds in three statements. Let's look at the first statement, verse 6. And the devil said to him, I will give you all this domain and its glory. The ESV says, all this authority and its glory, this domain, this dominion, this authority. The word you is put in the emphatic position. So that's at the first of the sentence in the Greek. To you. That's the idea. To you, all this authority. To you, all this domain and all this glory. To you.

7:14I'll give it to you. That sounds kind of like a cheap sales job, right? To you. For you? I remember on our honeymoon, we honeymooned down in the Virgin Islands. We went to St. John. John, that was our destination. We stopped at St. Thomas, and you know, we're practically broke, and I'd never even heard about timeshares or anything like that. And we just happened to, I don't know, somebody somehow found out that we were there, and they came and gave us one of these timeshare pitches. I had no idea what we were getting into, but all I knew is that they would give us free breakfast and a $50 gift certificate to this little shop area. So, for us, wow, can't beat that. So, here we are. We sit through this three-hour talk or whatever about it. I'm like, man, so that's what they do. I felt sorry for the guy. I'm like, if you want to give it to us, I'm not going to buy a timeshare, but sure. So, anyway, we got this $50 gift certificate. So, we go into this little shop. I'm thinking, how are we going to spend it here? Get something memorable. So, he had this gold bracelet, and there's this character of a salesman there. And I'm telling him, let's get something. So, he pulls out this bracelet. He's dangling in his hand and gold. And I said, How much did you sell that to me for? And he knew I had a certificate. And he's like, For you?

8:54For you? I will give you a special deal because you are such a Swell guy. I mean, this isn't what he says, but this is what was coming through. To you, you are such a swell guy, and for you and you only am I'm going to give this deal. This gold can be yours. And he, of course, he wanted my certificate, and we took it. Okay. So throughout our marriage, we've kind of carried that with us. For you? I'm going to. Well, that's the idea here. Here is Satan in this some sort of satanic rapture, evil, diabolical thing, laying out the glory of the nations, and he's saying, to you, right here, it's all here. Just sign on the dotted line. That's the temptation. All this can be yours. I will give it to you. And you think about what's before Jesus's eyes: the authority and the glory of the nations. All their golden sparkle at the pinnacle of their existence. The Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Grecians. Remember Solomon's glory, how it was described. The glory, all this, the glory of the vast Roman Empire that would have been in Jesus' day. All this, and all the empires of all the continents of all times, I will give to you.

10:27I will give this authority. This glory to you. But you've got to remember, as Jesus did, there's always a dark side to the glory that's under Satan's dominion. Statement number one: to you, all this authority and glory I will give. Look at the second statement: For it, that is all this domain and glory, for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. For it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Now, there's two questions and one observation that arise from this text, or naturally just jump out. First question is: Does the devil really have this kind of authority? Does he really have this authority?

11:26Well, in Jesus' own words, three times in John chapter 12, 14, and 16, Satan is referred to as the ruler of this world. Paul in Ephesians 2 refers to him as the prince and the power of the air. 2 Corinthians 4, Paul refers to him as the God of this world. And John in 1 John 5, 19 says, the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. So it's clear from Scripture that the devil is. Devil does have authority. He does have a domain. He does have sovereignty. However, it is also clear from other scripture that his authority is limited. It has boundaries. Isaiah 45, 5 says, I am the Lord, and there is no other. Besides me, there is no God.

12:23I, the one, forming light and creating the darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity. I, the Lord, who does these things. Isaiah 45, 22, turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is no other, and I have sworn by myself, the word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to me every knee will bow and every tongue swear allegiance. So Satan's power is limited, obviously. And then throughout the Gospels, it's clear that his power is limited. And just by looking at the demons' fear of Jesus and his expulsion of the demons, it's clear that Satan's power is limited.

13:14So it's clear that he has authority, but that this authority is limited in space and time. However, God, on the contrary, his power is unlimited and it is enduring. So, the authority of the devil is real, but it's limited. And it's also important to keep in mind that in John 8:44, Jesus says he's a liar. In fact, there is no truth in him, for he is a liar and the father of lies. It's all back to the question: did the devil truly have the authority to make this offer? Was it a real offer? I think it's difficult to say.

14:00But that's not the point of the text. The temptation was real. The temptation is what's it. The temptation is real. You can debate all day whether we think his offer was that Satan had the ability to make such an offer, but the temptation was real. That is unmistakable. Jesus could have been enthroned over the kingdoms of the earth by simply bowing the knee to the devil instead of the father. And what this would have looked like is Jesus exercising his power for his own fleshly glory.

14:40You see, the devil was tempting Jesus to use his power to rule the nations independent of the father's will and independent of the father's means and methods. It's like Satan is saying, Worship me. Forget the cross. Look, just subdue them. You can do that. You know. That walking on the water deal? Do that. You'll get a lot of interest. Oh, and then, and then that creating the bread out of do that. You'll get a lot of followers on that alone. Oh, and then you know that little gig where you silenced the storm? Do that.

15:15And then whoever doesn't, just crush him, subdue him. Use your power like that. Seize control without the cross. Go my way. So, what Jesus was being tempted to do was use his power to feed a fleshly desire for glory. The first temptation was for Jesus to use his power to feed his fleshly appetite. Give in to the cravings of your flesh. The second was for him to use his power to feed a fleshly desire for glory.

15:53So, whatever authority the devil has, if you look back at the text, there's another question, a second question that comes out of this. Who gave the devil such authority anyway? Look at, for it has been handed over to me, verse 6. Who handed it over to him? Let's think back to the beginning pages of the Bible for a moment. Adam was given dominion on the earth. God had given dominion on the earth to who? To Adam. God did not give dominion over the earth. Earth to Satan. He gave it to man. So there's man, the image of God, innocent, having been given dominion. So then the question becomes: what is the inward principle going to be that governs the man? Because whatever the inward principle is that governs the man will be the principle that dominates the earth. So whoever controls the man, or whoever controls the one dominating the earth, that principle becomes the dominating factor. And so when Adam listened to the voice of the devil and he chose to let his fleshly desire and his reason trump God's word, he gave his dominion over to that fleshly desire. It's no longer what God said, so it will be his flesh that drove things. That inward principle is, well, it looks good to me, it smells good to me, it's good for wisdom, and I am perfectly wise enough to judge between the two.

17:40It's good to me, regardless of what God says, I'm going to go this way. And that's what Adam did. And so it was the inward principle that drove the man, was his fleshly desire and his convoluted reason that justified. His pursuit of his fleshly desire. And it was in this way that Satan usurped dominion. Adam gave his dominion over to Satan. And as long as you live by your fleshly desires, you are bound to God's adversary.

18:23You are under his authority. And that's the question you have to ask yourself today: what is the inward principle that drives you? Is it God and His Word? Or is it what seems good, what your flesh desires, and your convoluted reason that justifies you pursuing it independent of God? You see, unregenerate man prefers the voice of the devil. You have no appetite for the truth. And so he prefers the voice of false religion or the voice that comes through godless philosophies because it allows him to pursue his fleshly appetite. And if you don't know Christ, that's you, because you are bound to the principle of the flesh. And unless a work of grace takes place, that is where you will stay. And even your religion will become nothing more than a fleshly pursuit.

19:30So, back to question two: who gave such authority to the devil? In the pages of Scripture, it's evident that it's Adam. But there's one observation to look here. Look at this last statement: and I give it to whomever I wish, verse 6. You see, there are individuals throughout time that Satan has energized for times and places, but ultimately, he wants to give it to one. And I believe that sometime in the future, Satan will energize one who will take him up on this offer. I think there's a lot of people who take him up on his offer, but I think there will be one. He will give it to whomever he wishes, whomever will be that one to gather the nations in opposition to God.

20:34So, statement number one: this temptation, I will give you all this domain and its glory. Statement number two: for it has been handed over to me, and I will give it to whomever I wish. Now, the third statement of this temptation comes in verse 7. Therefore, if you worship before me, it shall all be yours. It's the concluding statement, but it's also a conditional statement. Therefore, if you worship me, Me. All this has been given to me, and I can give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if you will worship me, I will give it to you. It shall be yours. The word for worship literally means to bow down before it. And the idea of what's happening on the inside, it's to worship something is to reverently welcome that, or to worship someone, or to worship God is to reverently welcome him, or to respectfully depend upon.

21:30By very nature, worship means trust and humble obedience. That, by nature, is what is involved in worshiping. You know, worshiping the devil, you get this sense that it's doing a lot of these little whatever, singing, whatever, whatever they do to worship little rituals and stuff like that. And that, sure, yeah, that's in effect an aspect of worshiping the devil. But whenever you give in to the desires of the flesh, that is a statement of worship to the one who is the God of that realm.

22:12If your chief delight is in the flesh, that is a form of worship of the God of this age. And worshiping God, on the contrary, is deferring the flesh and the pursuits of the flesh to the Word of God. That's what we're doing. Worshiping God is. That's what demonstrating an inward reverence for God looks like. That's what welcoming God looks like. Worshiping God is deferring your desires to His on a daily chief delight in God way.

22:54So by bowing before the devil, Jesus would not only be accepting His dominion, but He would also be accepting His usurping means. You see, the devil was a usurper, and that's how He acquired His dominion. He didn't go down the right trails or the right roads. And so Jesus would, by nature, have to become a usurper and break union with God and do His own, seek His own glory, His own way, using His power to do so.

23:29But it was totally against Christ to do that. You know, if I take a moment and just talk about what baptism is, what a word about Jesus' baptism, it was a public statement of Jesus' allegiance to and union with God. That's what baptism is, and that's what was true about Jesus. He was completely aligned with, in union with, the Father. And what the devil sought to get Jesus to do was the opportunity. Opposite. Engage in an act of defection from God. Jesus, having just been baptized, just been anointed by the Spirit, full of the Spirit, and led by the Spirit, there was a union that he would not defect from. But that was what the temptation was: defect from God, go about it your own way. So it's these three statements that sum up this temptation. I will give you all this domain and its glory, for it has been handed over to me, and I will give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if you worship before me, it shall be yours. If we boil this temptation down, it's this: it's for Jesus to seize power by the means of the flesh under a satanic authority rather than the Father's authority. That's the temptation. Seize the power by the flesh under satanic authority rather than the Father's authority. You know, we face this similar temptation all the time, don't we? Yeah, we're not Christ, we're not out there in the wilderness, very different circumstances, but the temptation is very real. We are often tempted to make things happen for ourselves by fleshly methods, don't we? We often go about conquering our little domain.

25:30By our fleshly means, we use our power to get what we want, regardless of what God's Word says. And the question is: are you going to seek advantage in life by your own power, or are you going to rely on God to give it to you? Are you going to follow Him and become like Him? And will you be content with the domain He gives you? That's the question. Whatever station in life, whatever domain He's, is that going to be adequate?

26:11And you can only be brought to a point where you really appreciate and love His domain, His, whatever He gives you, your station in life, you're either going to come to love that, or you're going to come to hate it and seek to go about using your own means to enact something different. And that's sin. Leaving your domain, leaving your station. And for Christ, there couldn't have been a more difficult road ahead. Are you going to seek to be happy on your own means or methods or God's?

26:51Are you going to use your power to build some little fleshly empire of yours? And it's important to. Understand that just like the kingdoms of the earth, all of their glory was only temporal. And Jesus could see right through that. And likewise, all of our little fleshly empires, our little associations, our little everything is going to wither. And if they're built by the flesh, they will be revealed as something very unglorious. So the temptation is fleshly glory. And if you read through the pages of the Gospels, guess what? You see, all over the disciples struggled with this too, right? Luke 22, and there arose a dispute among them as to which one of them was regarded the greatest. You see this all the time, and Jesus steps in. This isn't the way it is going to be with you.

27:56It's a fleshly desire. You know, I think, sadly, most of us, or a lot of us, would probably take the devil up on his offer. And we would figure out a way to justify it. In fact, I think we do so on a regular basis and not for great kingdoms, but for little bitty things. But Jesus showed us that there's a better way to live. And we see this in how he refused this temptation. So let's look at this. This is where it gets good. Verse 8. Jesus answered him, It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Again, it is written. Do not forget what is written. And he reads from Deuteronomy chapter 6.

28:58And I'm going to read to you a little bit of Deuteronomy chapter 6, the first 14 verses. But whenever you come to a text that is referring to, an Old Testament text is being used, go back and understand the context in which that was given. It'll shed a whole lot of light on what's going on. In context of Deuteronomy 6, you remember what's going on? They're out there, the Israelites are on the plains of Moab, out in the wilderness, probably not too far from where Jesus is. They're out there about to enter into the land. And Moses gives them these words.

29:41He says, Now this is the commandment and the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you that you might do them in the land where you're going over to possess it, so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments. Commandments, which I am commanding you all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. In other words, you're going into the land. Here are my statutes. Make sure you listen to the word of God, because if you don't, your days are not going to be prolonged in the land. You know, if Adam didn't retain paradise by not obeying the word of the Lord, don't think that Israel as a nation is going to occupy the promised land unless they obey God. And that's why in verse 3 he says, O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, just as the Lord the God of your fathers has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey. And he goes into that great section, that Shema, that, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all of your might. So he's saying, This is the command, to love him with all of your heart. And this is what it looks like. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently. And he goes on, you shall talk about them when you walk and talk about them. Put them on your doorpost. In verse 10, he says, Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to. Give to you great and splendid cities which you did not build, and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you eat and are satisfied, then watch yourself that you do not forget the Lord who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. So that's the context. Don't forget the Lord. And in verse 13, you shall fear, and this is what Jesus quotes, you shall fear only the Lord your God, and you shall worship him, and swear by his name. You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the people who surround you. For the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God. Otherwise, the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled against you, and he will wipe you off the face of the earth. So he's saying to Israel, look, remember, you're to love him with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your might. And the way you do that, the embodiment of that, or the manifestation of that, is by remembering his words and not bowing to idols. And what he's saying in this passage here, Moses is saying, look, forgetfulness is going to ultimately express itself in idolatry. And if you forget your God, It will be manifested in idolatry. And since God is a jealous God, you will be wiped from the face of the earth. That's the context. Forget God, you break union with God, you go after other gods, you will be wiped.

33:18You will meet God as your adversary. You will not occupy the land. You will not occupy anything that God calls you to do that is noble and honoring in his sight if you continue to forget his ways. And that's what happened with Israel. And when Israel went in to possess the land, after a period of time, they forgot. And when the ten northern tribes fell to the Assyrians, we have this prophetic commentary in 2 Kings 17. Now, this came about because the sons of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and they had feared other gods. They set for themselves sacred pillars and asherim on every high tree, on every high hill, and under every green tree. And there they burned incense on all the high places, as the nations did, which the Lord had carried away into exile before them. And they did evil things, provoking the Lord. They served idols, concerning which the Lord had said to them, You shall. Not do this thing.

34:32And then he says, and they followed vanity and became vain. If you follow emptiness, you will become empty. And then they provoked the Lord, so the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from his sight. So you learn from Israel's history. So coming back to Luke, we got this context. Jesus is saying, I'm not going to respond like Israel did. He said, it is written. Jesus did not forget God. In his humanity, he wasn't about to bend the knee to anyone except for God alone.

35:26And as the Son, he wasn't interested in all this glory. As the Son of God, he wasn't interested in the domain and the realm that Satan has. It's kind of like Jesus did not want to be a king of a vast domain where sin and unrighteous and injustice reigned. I mean, what kind of a kingdom would that be? What kind of king would want that kind of kingdom? You see the temptation going on here and why Jesus refused.

36:00You see, most of the kingdoms that were offered to Jesus were either blatantly pagan, and they may have looked good in the flash of a moment, but a closer look would have revealed a level of sin, injustice, and a hardness. So get this. Now get this. If you haven't gotten anything else, tune in right here. For Jesus, serving God in a wilderness, hungry and in the shadow of the cross, was preferable to all that the devil offered. Think about that. It's like, I would rather be with God in a wilderness, hungry, alone, than to have everything, every choice, morsel, and glory you could give me. And that's the way we should be. It's the way we should want to be. Only a work of grace brings that about, because we can't bring that about.

37:03You see, Jesus didn't want to rule something that didn't come from God, and neither should we. You don't want to rule over something that doesn't come from God. Earthly kingdoms will come with great difficulties. Even our little associations and corporations and all that could be very perplexing and challenging and draining. You don't want A domain that God does not give you. You look at what he gave Adam. Wow. Now that's a domain. Paradise. Pleasant toil. That's what he gives.

37:41Satan gives something slavery. Something I want you to see here, and that is, take a moment just to reflect that there is a beauty in total allegiance. And this is a beauty of the son's loyalty. You see, the son's loyalty. If I had just stopped, if you had to say, take me to one of the most beautiful places in Scripture, I would take you to this place. Outside the cross, this is probably the most beautiful thing that I have ever witnessed in my life. There is no beauty more perfect. There is no love story that's more perfect than this. It's the perfection of trust. It's the perfection of devotion, the perfection of loyalty, the perfection of admiration, the perfection of esteem and love, all here. And you can't really illustrate it without diminishing it. It surpasses the love of a parent to a child. It surpasses the loyalty between husband and wife. It surpasses that of a soldier to his country. This is the love that the Son has to the Father.

38:58Adam gave up union. Get this. Adam gave up union with God in paradise for just a measly bite of food. Jesus would not give up union with God in a barren desert for all the kingdoms of the world. The first Adam had serious love issues. Though he was innocent, he didn't love God with all of his heart. But the second Adam is much better. And he leads the way to salvation. It's the story of salvation: of how people, dark and disgusting, and turned away from God, come to the point of loving their Creator with all of their hearts. And Jesus, the author of salvation, leads us in that.

39:47You see, Jesus loved God more than God's blessing. May we get to that point, right? It's easy to love God's blessing, but do you love the God of the blessing? Jesus did. He preferred union with God in a wilderness. And I just, I love the gospel. I love the gospel. From a human perspective, it starts out faint. You hear, and then that sound grows louder and louder, and you hear of the love that the Father has for you. I remember living at Pat Johnson's house near the railroad tracks, and it sounded like a little, you hear the train coming. First, it'd be a little, and you'd hear Hear it off in the distance, but boy, by the time it got to your house, I mean, wow, the place was shaking. It just was coming in. Such is the gospel truth. I first heard, I caught a glimpse, it caught my ear. And then, in time, and now it's like I cannot go to a single page of scripture without just hearing the love of God just pouring through.

40:51And our response, my response, which starts out as a spark, as it is fed and as it grows, it becomes this white, hot, consuming fire. That's the story of human history. How God reaches out and he takes these unregenerate, lost, and people who are running against him and he changes their hearts. That's the gospel. And you are invited to partake of his grace. And in the midst of all the chaos in the world today, don't miss the real event. The real event is that God is calling people to himself. Light is shining in the hearts of man, and numbers are responding to him in faith. That's what's going on in the world today.

41:48The darkness, as John says, is passing away, and the true light is already shining. There is a beauty in the Son's loyalty. There is also a beauty in the Father's. Loyalty to the Son. The Son's loyalty was met with the Father's loyalty. You are my Son, Psalm 2:7. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance and the very ends of the earth as your possession. You see, there's a better way to live. You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.

42:28Every minute of our day is to be devoted to worshiping and serving our Creator. And that leaves no time to serve the interests of the devil or your fleshly self-promotions. There are three aspects that I want to bring to your attention that one who worships God will embody. A life that worships God, number one, recognizes God's love and his care, and recognizes that he is worthy of our complete devotion and complete love. So it is a recognition that God loves me and He cares for me. That's first. Second, a life that worships God testifies, is a testimony. It testifies that no earthly pursuit, prize, comfort, or relationship, or human accolades are worth giving. Up a relationship with God. That is most important.

43:37It recognizes, it testifies, and a life that worships God declares, it declares that nothing is more precious than experiencing fellowship with God on the road through life that God has lined out for you. That's the joy of living. A declaration. Christ had a very unique road laid out for him. You have a very unique road laid out for you. Well, Jesus said no to fleshly desire, so can we, if we are in him. Jesus said no to fleshly glory, so should we. So can we.

44:18We are becoming like him. That is the work of the Spirit. And where we fail, as Hebrews 4:15 says, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness, but one who has been tempted in all ways as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us draw near to him with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So when we fail, we go to him for grace, for mercy.

44:55See, the way to peace right now with you is through repentance. And confession, not suppression and denial. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, wow, we just thank you for the love that Jesus revealed that he had for you. We thank you that we see this on the pages of Scripture. And we thank you, Father, that we know what your Spirit is doing in our lives, that you are conforming us into His image to say no to fleshly desire, to say no to fleshly glory, and to prefer you above all these things. And, Father, we take comfort that what you have started, you will complete. And, Father, we ask that you would cause us, engage us. Father, that we would hear as you want us to hear. Father, that we would respond as you would want us to respond. Father, we cry out to you. In Jesus' name, amen.