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

1:17Jesus is categorically different. Categorically different. And see, freedom is not the ability to do what you want. That is a misconception and a very Wrong conception of freedom. Freedom is the ability to live the way God wants you to live. That's what it is. The ability to live the way God wants you to live. And Jesus is that perfect embodiment of true freedom. He's not shackled by the flesh. He's not shackled by the things that tempt us. And that's what we have laid out before us in Luke chapter 4.

2:04Let me read these verses to you. We're reading 1 through 14. 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. And Jesus answered him, It is written, man shall not live on bread alone. 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 give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if you worship before me, it shall all be yours. Jesus answered him, It is written, you shall worship the Lord Jesus. God and serve him only. And he led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you and all their hand, on their hands, they will bear you up, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. And Jesus answered and said to him, It is said, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. When the devil had finished every temptation, he left him until an opportune time. Well, to follow Christ is to love what Christ loved, to esteem the things that he esteemed, to desire the things that he desired. That is what following Christ is about. It is also to hate that which he hated, to despise what he despised, and to turn away from the things that he turned away from. That's, in essence, what being a follower of Christ is about. To love what he loved, to hate what he hated, to esteem what he esteemed, to despise what he despised, to desire what he desired, and to turn away from that which he didn't.

4:21And Luke shows us three things that Jesus despised, and he shows us three things that Jesus loved in these three temptations. That are before us today. The temptations of Jesus. We're just going to start walking through it, and I expect we'll only get to the first today. So we'll work our way through verse 4, Lord willing. I want you to see that the stage is set for the temptation, or how the stage is set for the temptation. Look at 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. Notice that Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit. He had just returned from the Jordan. And if you turn back a page, you'll see what the last event that took place while he was at the Jordan was his baptism. In chapter 3 and verse 21, we just read that. Now, when all the people were baptized, Jesus was also baptized while he was praying. While he was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came out of heaven. You are my beloved Son, in whom in you I am well pleased. So you have this, that's the last event, last part of the narrative before this temptation takes place. Here is God opening up the heavens and saying, You are my beloved Son, in you I am well pleased.

6:01And then, if you look at what the next thing that Luke does is he lays out that genealogy of Mary, leaning all the way back to the son of Adam, the Son of God. And here he is, and that's going to be the point of contention right here. If you are the Son of God, God has just opened up and has declared, This is my beloved Son. In you I am well pleased. Holy Spirit anointing him for his mission, for his task, for the road ahead, and this voice. And this is the point at which the devil is going to tempt him. If you are the Son of God, you remember in Job, you remember the first chapter of Job?

6:48You remember Job was, God started the whole episode there by saying, Have you considered my servant Job? Wow. Have you considered him? And Satan's like, you know what? You put your hand against, let me at him. Let me at Job, and he will curse you to your face. Well, now here's God saying, here's the father saying, this is my son. Again, that boasting, or if that, that's that, it's not just a boast, it's a statement of truth. Here is my son, in whom I am well pleased. So it's certainly to be expected that Satan. And says, let me, Adam. Let me, Adam.

7:35You are my beloved Son. In you, I am well pleased. I remember the first time I came across these words, or one of the first times I came across these words as a new believer, and the light bulb went on. I understood something here about Christ that shook my world. You see, at this point, Jesus has not performed a single miracle. He has not raised the dead. He has not walked on the water. He has not fed the 5,000. He has not turned away from the false religions and he hadn't given in. He hadn't even been tempted. He hadn't died for the world's sin. None of that had taken place. And yet, here is the Father saying, I am well pleased in this one right here. You see, the whole summation of Christ, all that that took place afterwards was just an outgrowth of what was in his heart. He was pleasing to the Father before all of these things. You see, Christianity is first and foremost about being, about being pleasing to the Father. That's what drove him, and that's what should drive us. And everything else in life is just a reflection of that. But the reality was already. Here.

9:02And that's what we need God to do in us because many of us don't want to please God. And that's the subtle and definitive truth about many of us, many of us who profess to be believers, and many of us who don't have any relationship with God. You boil it down to the fundamental element. Do you really want to please the Father? That was at the heart of who Jesus was. So Satan says, Let me Adam. Let me Adam. And God says, sure. But first, notice what. He was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness.

9:45You see, this anointed of the Lord is on the offensive. He's led by the Spirit to confront the devil. He goes out there. And it's like, but the Father says, okay, but first, the Holy Spirit is going to lead him to a 40-day fast. He is going to be severely famished. He is going to be physically weakened. And he's going to be alone. Let's raise the bar. Let's take this down. Yeah, before you're Adam, let me do a few things. Let me weaken him. So he was anointed by the Spirit. He was full of the Spirit. And he was led by the Spirit. Why?

10:32Why did God do all this? Well, he was preparing him for his mission. And look at verse 18 of chapter 4. This is after he goes into the synagogue there and is rejected. In verse 18, he says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. That's why he was anointed to go, to do these things, to proclaim these things, and to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. You know what? He wasn't going to die in the wilderness. God had anointed him for a purpose, and Jesus knew that. He was in the wilderness for 40 days. This is the Judean, barren countryside, probably northwest of the Dead Sea. And notice, he was led by the Spirit, but he was being tempted by the devil, an ongoing being tempted. And certainly the culminating temptations came after the fast was complete. May have been tempted throughout that time, but certainly the culminating temptations, what we recorded here, happened after the fast. So the Spirit. The Spirit of God set Jesus on a collision course with the devil. That's the nature of light. It dispels the darkness, it goes after it.

12:17So, Luke lays out here three temptations and three refusals. And over the next couple of weeks, I want you to see these three things that Jesus refused so that you will do the same, so that you will be of a character and nature and follower and growing more and more like Christ. To see what he refused, so that you will love what he loved. So, the first thing I want you to see is that Jesus said no to fleshly desire. Jesus said no to fleshly desire.

12:56So, look at the setting again. For 40 days, he ate nothing during those days. And when they had ended, he became hungry. You know what happens when you go 40 days without food? You get hungry. It'll do it. Okay? I've never done that. I've only made it a couple of days, and I got very hungry, and some things started looking good that I would never eat. Think about the first Adam. The first Adam. Think about what was going on in that temptation with the first. Here comes Satan. He's already taken out the innocent man in the garden. He's batten a thousand, took him out. But think about the difference between these two temptations, between the first Adam and the second Adam, Jesus.

13:53Adam, at least the first one, there's nothing in the text that indicates that he was hungry. He is basically satisfied. He wasn't hungry. He came to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, probably full. He wasn't famished. And even if he was hungry, he had multiple opportunity to eat all kinds of things because the Lord had told him, you can eat anything you want. Just don't eat this one tree. So he had plenty of opportunity. So the first Adam was satisfied. The second Adam was hungry. The first Adam had multiple opportunities for food. The second Adam didn't have any. And the first Adam was in paradise. And the second Adam was in this wilderness. And God's like, okay, now bring on your temptation. Bring on your temptation. And this level of hunger is the strongest desire of the flesh. When the flesh goes into starvation mode, it is. It will do what it needs to do to survive.

15:04The drawings of the flesh, this is a legitimate need, if you will, of the flesh. You've got to eat. And when the body starts to die, everything starts looking good. I did a little bit of research, and I am profoundly surprised at what people will eat. Shoe leather even starts looking pretty good. And if you spend any time in the Old Testament or just any time, understand how even cannibalism comes about, people will go to desperate measures to feed this kind of fleshly desire. So here's Jesus with that. He was weakened physically, he was alone, and the only means to fight temptation was his spiritual fortitude. That was it.

15:56Now let's look at the temptation. Verse 3. And the devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. If you are the Son of God, or you could even translate it since you are the Son of God, but there's a challenge here. It's like, let me take you on here. If you are the Son of God, I want to challenge this relationship. Are you really the Son of God? Then you will do something.

16:30You will prove it to me. Prove it to me. Here's Satan trying to take the leadership role here. If you are the Son of God, then do what I say, which is categorically kind of bad by definition, because if you are the Son of God, you need to do what the Father says, by definition. But here it comes: if you are the Son of God, do what I say. Prove it to me, as if the devil was the one to be pleased. Satisfy me by proving yourself to me. Yield to my instructions, Son of God. Well, bottom line is, Jesus knew who he was, and the devil knew who he was. It's not so much a temptation questioning who he is. There's not an innocent question here about who he is. They know who he is. Both know who Jesus is. But the temptation was an attempt to sever the relationship between the Father and the Son. That's the temptation here. He's trying to get Jesus to do something that would provoke something that would offend the Father. Get Jesus to provoke, to do something that would provoke or offend the Father.

17:43And notice that the first temptation is an appeal to the appetite of the flesh, the needs of the flesh. Much like Adam. Very first, very similar temptation, only different situation, but very much an appeal. To his fleshly nature. Except, in many ways, Jesus' temptation was far more profound, far more powerful. Let's just look at verse 3. Tell this stone to become bread. This. So he's probably, it's like a demonstrative pronouns. Probably pick one up. Here, turn this stone, or pointing out, turn this stone into bread. If you are the Son of God, you obviously have the power to do this. So do it.

18:33You are hungry. You have the power. Very simple. You are hungry. You have the power. Turn this stone into bread. Satisfy the cravings of your fleshly desire. Let it drive your actions. You have the power, so use the power that you have to satisfy your fleshly craving. And you can almost, there's a bit of a mocking going on here. Look at you, Son of God. You're the Son of God. You're hungry. This is absolutely no place for somebody who is the Son of God to be in. Look at you. You're hungry. You're famished. And by the way, this is very legitimate. You need food.

19:27So go get some food. Don't wait for the Father to feed you. Feed yourself now. Act independently of the Father. That's the temptation. And you and I are going to hear that, face that temptation day in, day out in our daily lives. Act independently of the Father. Think independently of the Father. And it'll happen in a whole myriad of situations. Take matters into your own hands and serve your fleshly appetite. And this was, as I said, a very much more extreme temptation than it would be for us. He was famished, and he felt, no doubt, in his flesh, that his life was sinking fast, but he also knew he had the power to speak bread into existence. See, you and I, we don't have that power, right? He did, and he knew it. He could have suspended the natural order of things for a moment, just for a moment, to satisfy his needs. Just suspend the natural order. Use your power, create this bread, make this bread, take it in.

20:59Except he. Not to do the will of his flesh, but to do the will of his Father. And this was all part of the temptation. The Spirit of God had led him here. The Spirit of God had led him to this point. And he wasn't going to serve his flesh because he is the Son of God. And that's who we follow. Now, think for a moment. Think about the implications if Jesus had given in. Think about how this would have changed his relationship to us.

21:35We really wouldn't have been able to relate to him very well, would we? He would not have been tempted at all points like us, right? We can't turn stones into bread to satisfy our hunger. We have to wait upon God. We have to wait upon God's provision in God's timing. That's the call to us. So if he had suspended the natural order of things, it would be very difficult for us to relate to him, right? I mean, could he really, without hypocrisy, tell us to take up our cross and do the Father's will if he himself was not willing to do that in his flesh?

22:20He would not have been tempted at all points like us. Had he given in, he would not be the Son of Man. Because we don't have that ability, right? So he totally would not have been able to relate to us as a faithful and high priest who has suffered at all points like us. But there's also, think about the implications, the relation to the world, if he had operated out of his fleshly instinct. I mean, what kind of world would this be? What kind of world would this be if Jesus is the kind of person whose ultimate guiding principle was his flesh rather than the will of the Father?

23:11Sure, at this moment, legitimate need, yes. But maybe in time, if the flesh is the operating principle, what kind of a world would this be? Even legitimate needs are not to trump the will of the Father. And think about that. Here's the Son of God anointed with power from on high, absolute power. And if that absolute power had been set on course to satisfy the appetites of the flesh, that would be a very scary prospect. Absolute power controlled by the fleshly appetites. Appetite.

24:02Well, this is exactly what the first Adam did. And he was wrong. And now we have a world that is shaped by the competing fleshly desires of man. You see, think about this operating. I see it, I want it, it makes sense to me, therefore I will use my power to get it. That's the operating principle of the world today. And there's competing desires. This is where wars and conflicts you want, you can't have, so you go and get. And the only limiting factor is that we are limited in our capacity to sin because of our finiteness, because of our weakness. And this is why God said it's not good for man to reach forth and take from the tree of life and live forever in his fallen state.

25:04Death is a good thing in a fallen world because it limits the capacity to which man can give expression to his sin and to his fleshly appetite. And this is exactly what we need to repent of. So much of our lives is shaped by giving in to this temptation. I see, I want, I'll get. I'll go after it. I'll figure out a way. And the heart can be extremely deceptive. And even we can take legitimate needs and we can go after them in such a manner that trumps the will of the Father. But if we're going to be at all like Christ, we're going to have to learn to be led by the Father's will and not let the desires of the flesh drive us or be our ultimate principle. We need to stop acting or thinking independently of the Father's will.

26:13So there's the implication of what would happen to us. There's the implication of what the world would be like if Jesus had given in. But also think about what the relationship with the Father would have been like. What is the precise temptation going on here? Jesus is not, make sure you understand that he is not tempted to some perverted self-gratification here. Not at all. What he is being tempted to do is to act independently from God. That's the temptation. And that's death.

26:54To act independently from God is to distrust him, to sin. And it would have rendered Jesus incapable of being a perfect sacrifice. And if you think about it, if Jesus would act independently from the Father at this juncture, what would have become of the cross? If he would not follow God's will at the point of near death, he certainly wouldn't have followed the will of the Father through death as he did on the cross. So we've looked at the setting of the temptation. We've looked at the temptation itself. Now I want you to see Jesus' refusal. Jesus' refusal. Look at verse 4. And Jesus answered him: It is written, man shall not live on bread alone.

27:50Short and simple. What Jesus did is he recalled an incident in Israel's history that is recorded both in Exodus 16 and then again in Deuteronomy 8. I'll read to you a portion. You don't need to turn there. But in Exodus 16 and 1, shortly after Pharaoh's army was destroyed, you remember that? That great, incredible Exodus. He brought this superpower of the earth to its knees, and then he destroyed that superpower's army in the Red Sea. And then shortly after this, in 16, 1, we read these words. Then they set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the sons of Israel came to the wilderness of Zin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the 15th day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt. So, very quickly afterwards, the whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The sons of Israel said to them, Would that we had died by the Lord's hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

29:16So, in other words, okay, Lord, you just brought us out here to kill us. After all that stuff in Egypt, you brought us, you really don't have a purpose for us, you just brought us out here to kill us. Think about the craziness of that thought. But that is where they were. Verse 4 says, Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them whether or not they will walk in my instruction. So they're supposed to go out and gather just enough for that day, and then the day before the Sabbath, they were to get twice as much. Very simple instruction. The Lord said, Here, I'm going to test you in this. Here's a very Simple instruction. You go, you do this.

30:07You need to learn to follow me. So I'm giving you a test. Verse 20 of Exodus 16, but they did not listen to Moses, and they left part of it until morning. So they got more than they should, and it bred worms and became foul, and Moses became angry with them. But what God was teaching them was: look, your success in the land is going to be dependent upon your obedience to simply obey me. That's the message that He's instilling here in Israel's history. You've got to learn this. You're not going to go into the land and occupy the land if you don't learn simple obedience to my commands.

30:54And Scripture makes it clear as you walk through that, through the Old Testament, that without a new heart, such obedience is impossible. That's the need for being born from above, the giving of a new heart, because the bottom line is, you and I here, apart from God's grace in our natural estate, we don't simply want to obey God. That's our problem, and that's what we need to repent from, turn away from, and learn to trust and believe.

31:30Simple obedience. Your success and that which God has for you is going to be dependent upon your ability to simply obey His word. At the point of salvation, you must repent and believe. At the point of salvation, simple obedience. He has made provision for your sin, but you're going to have to turn to that by the grace that He gives. You are to turn and act upon it. But then He goes on, He picks up Deuteronomy 8. If you, this event that happened in Exodus 16, then as they're on, as Israel is on the plains of Moab, about to go into the land, just before entering the land, in Deuteronomy 8, Moses says this in verse 1: All the commandments that I am commanding you today, you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers.

32:43You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these 40 years, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandment or not. He humbled you and let you be hungry. And fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.

33:16In other words, what Israel had to learn here in Deuteronomy 8 is life is more than bread. Life is a lot more than just bread. You can have bread and you can die of a whole lot of it. Even your physical existence needs more than just food. But man lives. What is needed is union with God. And by quoting this verse, man does not live by bread alone, Jesus made it clear that the flesh is not the highest principle for life.

33:55What seems good is not the highest principle. The dictates of your flesh is not your guiding light. And it's not the supreme standard in your life. And you need to turn away from that. Don't let your flesh drive you. That's the kind of gospel and message that the false teachers will teach you. Your flesh is the guiding principle, and that's why it's So appealing. Christ is radically different. The governing principle is the will of the Father.

34:40The devil had said, If you are the Son of God. However, it was just at that point he was the Son of God. In fact, he was the perfect Son of God, and that's why he wouldn't use His power independently of the Father. He said, I can only do what I see the Father doing. He wasn't going to use His power in a fleshly, self-serving way. And neither should we. Whatever power, whatever limited power that God has given you, you're not to use it to serve your fleshly interests.

35:20So Jesus had submitted to the Spirit's leading to fast, to go into the wilderness, and to accomplish anything and everything else that God wanted him to do. Jesus knew he wasn't going to die in the wilderness. Man shall not live by bread alone. It's interesting to notice the parallels. Israel was 40 years in the wilderness, Jesus 40 days. God led Israel into the wilderness. The Spirit of God led Jesus into the wilderness. God humbled Israel and tested them to demonstrate what was in their hearts. And God humbled and tested the Son of God in order that we might know what was in his heart.

36:00It's very important to understand that God does not tempt anyone to sin. That's what Satan does. In fact, James 1:13 says this: Let no one say, When he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone. So, if anybody ever asks you, Can God do everything? No, he can't. He can't tempt anyone to sin. It's not in him to do it. But God does test his people, he does test the hearts of men. And the lesson that Israel had to learn was that God's word was trustworthy for their existence.

36:42If God didn't want them to live, they would have died. That's why we exist. We don't live by bread alone, we have our existence because God says we have our existence. And Jesus trusted the Father's will when he was near death. He also trusted the Father's will through death on the cross. I love the simplicity of Jesus' answer, verse 4. It is written, man shall not live by bread alone. It was short, it was to the point. It was authoritative, and it settled the matter, and it ended the discussion.

37:37And the devil just moves on, right? It's kind of like Jesus, there in his weakened state, just reaches back, pulls out the sword of truth, and just silences the argument. It's like the devil is like, okay, let's move on to the next one then. I mean, it was that authoritative, that definitive. Such is the Word of God. Let the Word of God be that operating principle in our life, and let it silence everything that stands contrary or would tempt you to act independently of God. That is death. That is the way of death.

38:27Well, it's important that we remember that you and I have our existence because God says we have our existence. None of us are going to fall to the ground apart at being the will of the Father. And you are far more important than any beast of the field. He has his eyes upon you. He knows you. He knows your state. We live not because we're superior gatherers. Live because God says we live. And he can support his people by extraordinary ways if he chooses.

39:10So Jesus didn't complain, but he embraced the Father's will, and so should we. Our ability to do what God calls us to do involves simple trust, simple trust in the Father's will. That is our way of life. That is what following Christ is about, and becoming more and more daily trusting the Father's judgment and his will. Jesus didn't seek to take matters into his own hands, and neither should we. You know what happens when you give in to the flesh?

39:54When you give in to the temptations of the flesh, you confess by your actions that you really don't need to trust the Father to meet your needs. But let us not go that way in life. Let us not take matters into our own hands. Let us not use whatever powers we have, whatever limited they may be. Let's not use them to satisfy the desires of our flesh. The highest principle for us now and always is to be God's Word, no matter how legitimate. Our needs are. They are to never trump the revealed will of God.

40:39Jesus later would teach us this principle. Matthew 6:25, he says, For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life as to what you will eat or what you will drink, nor for your body as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you, by being worried, can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow. They do not toil, nor do they spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today, and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Do not worry then, saying what we will eat or what we will drink, or what we will wear for clothing. For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. You see, we need a lot. More than just physical sustenance for life.

42:03We need union with God. So, brothers and sisters, do not compromise over the needs or desires of your body. There's one thing that the Father showed us, or the one thing that the Son showed us, is that the Father's will can be trusted. Jesus was dedicated to the Father's mission, so should we. He was dedicated to His mission, not His own purposes, not His own desires. And this is the call of the Christian life: God's work, God's way, in God's timing, and for God's glory.

42:56What did Jesus love? What does Luke tell us here? He loved the Father's will. What did He despise? Any notion of distrusting it. He loved the Father's will, and He despised even a hint of distrusting it. Well, He said no to fleshly desire. If we're going to follow Christ, we're going to learn this principle. That's where the Spirit of God is going to take us: to say no to fleshly desire, put it in its right place.

43:32In service to the revealed will of the Father. That's the proper place. Not all desires of the flesh are inherently evil. Many of them are good and they're put there, but they're never to trump the revealed will of God. Hebrews 4:15 says, For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, since this is our high priest, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need. We have a high priest. He's been tempted. He knows the desires of the flesh in a more graphic and intense way than you and I will probably ever, ever experience. He knows our weakness, and he still says to you, come.

44:39He knows your sin, and he still says to you, come. The Spirit anointed him to proclaim what? The day of the Lord's favor. This is the favorable year. He has taken into account your sin, and he says, come. Let us draw near so that you will receive. Grace and mercy and help. And he knows what you need. And that's why he says, Come. Come. Let us draw near with confidence, knowing he's there to help. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we turn to you for your grace and for your mercy. Lord, if we even now cataloged all of our shortcomings and all of our sins that are present here among us today, Father, it would be enormous.

45:35And yet, Father, we can draw near to you as individuals and as a body. And I ask you for your help. You've told us to come. We can ask you for your help, your grace, your favor, your mercy. You see all, you understand all, you understand our frame. And Father, we thank you for such a high priest. We thank you that you have told us these things for the purpose of us drawing near to you. So, Father, help us this morning.

46:13Give us the heart. Do whatever needs to be done so that we will see and understand this truth, your love for us, and come to you. In Jesus' name.