Temptation of Jesus

NOTE: Unfortunately, we had audio issues with recording this sermon.

Transcript

Let us turn to the book of Luke, chapter four, appropriate of Jesus. So when you've got Luke four, let's all stand.

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This is the word of God. After his baptism, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, turned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days. He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, if you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.

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Jesus answered him, it is written, not live by bread alone. Then the devil laid all the kingdoms of the world, and the devil said to him, to you I will give their glory and all this authority, for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours. Jesus answered him.

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Then the devil took him to Jerusalem and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying 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 protect you.

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You up so that you will not dash your foot against a stone. Jesus answered him. It is said, do not put the Lord your God to the test. When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. Let us pray.

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Lord, we thank you for your word. I pray now that as we dive into your word, Holy Spirit, would you speak to our hearts, embed your word deep in our hearts that we may not sin against you. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen. You may be seated. So temptation, as you've probably found out in your life, it's going to happen.

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You know, everybody is plagued. Now, we're not going to exhaustively cover this. I mean, you could spend literally months on this passage really dissecting everything. So we don't have that kind of time today, and I don't have that kind of knowledge to take you through it. But we are going to talk a little bit about temptation.

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And rest assured, it's happening to all of us now. In my own life, I think of two different times that I was tempted to do things. And one, some of you know this story when I was a kid, you know, you know, my dad's a pastor, and we were at church one day and I saw this lady highlighting in her Bible with this awesome highlighter thing, and I had a Bible and I was like, that's a great idea. I started reading my Bible more. And so each week he would always pick us up from school and we'd have to go to the Gospel Lighthouse, because, you know, him being a pastor, we would always had to get church supplies.

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So we go to the Gospel Lighthouse. I go in there, and there's a whole display right there. And I'm like, oh, my goodness, this is it. And so I asked papa, let me get one of these highlighters so I can highlight my. He just keeps on.

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That's the dumbest answer I've ever heard in my life, dude. And, like, we'll just take the thing. It's for a good cause. You're highlighting your Bible. So what do I do?

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Take that bad boy and put it in my pocket. The car. Well, we're in the back seat. My and I are back there driving home, or pops driving home, and he sees it in my pocket, and.

Actually, I'm truthful. I don't fall to temptation. And ultimately he actually punished me because of the truth. And so, you know, you think about temptation and we're all faced with these things. You can probably think back on your childhood, even adult life, where there's been probably some significant moments that you've noticed that, yeah, I'm with temptation and I failed or I was met with the temptation.

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And that time I succeeded. And let's start going into a little bit of this because our passage today, man can be very helpful as we navigate temptation said to happen.

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So we're going to really go over three parts today. We're going to talk about Jesus temptation, talk about our temptation, and then the ways that can help us overcome temptation. So let's really look at here on Jesus temptation. There's a few things that stand out. I don't know when we read things stood out to you, but always when I'm reading God's word, there's certain things that just flash in my mind.

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And so let's go over a few of those. Number one, he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.

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And that's interesting because Jesus had just been baptized. And the Spirit then leads him into the wilderness to be tested. And while he's there, he doesn't.

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And 40 days is another one of those that jumps out. You remember like it rained with Noah 40 days. How many days was up the mountain?

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So very significant number. And at the end of those 40 days, he's fasted. This whole time he was human. So he's very hungry. And actually Luke mentions that, doesn't he remember Luke's a physician, so he's probably like man, he's really hungry.

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He's famished. And that's when comes on him, is at the end of that testing period when he is weak physically. And then there's three temptations. Stone to bread, authority over all nations, and then promises or provisions. And we'll get into a little bit more of those later.

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Now, if you notice one, Jesus counters Satan with scripture. Now, like asterisk that in your Bible because that's helpful for us. And we'll talk a little bit about that. We need to know scripture. There's each time with scripture, and then it says that Satan left him until another opportune time, which like, oh boy, you're never going to be without temptation until you die.

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Okay? So we might as well prepare for it. Now. Some of the other things that I think is considering Jesus, could he have actually sinned? Have you Ever thought about this question is here's, here's God being tempted.

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Could he have actually sinned? So I did a little research on this part, and it's very interesting. There's a few things to remember, though. One, Jesus has two natures. You and I only have one.

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We all share in human nature. It's given to us by God, and so we're all human nature. Now, Jesus, who is God the Son, the Son, second Person of the Trinity, has his divine nature, which has always been, will be in the form of Jesus, conceived imaginary. And so God the Son is the only person to ever have two natures. That does distinguish him a little bit.

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His.

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His divine nature could not have. When you combine those together, he sanctifies the human nature, which is what Adam should have been if Adam did not sin. Now, you can get into the weeds on that, and we're not this morning. But he did have a little bit of an advantage in that sense because he is God. Okay?

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Now the other thing is that he didn't start out with a fallen nature either. Now, if you remember Adam. So we all get our human nature from Adam, and because of sin, we are born in sin. Remember, if you last week's reading was the psalm of response was Psalm 51. And so Psalm 51 tell us David talking, behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.

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So we all have a to sin because of Adam. Let's take Jesus. Jesus does not come after the line of Adam because he's born of a virgin. And that's why that is insanely important. He does not have a bend towards sin because he takes his human nature.

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Now, if you want to think about it, he takes human nature as it was given to Adam before he failed. All right? So if you think about it, he does not have a bend. Okay?

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Talk about sinned. There's two things that sort of help. And you don't find these helpful, just disregard this. But one is that you look at your own life and we at Wesleyans believe that we do not have to sin. Okay?

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You can live and not sin because Jesus comes from all unrighteousness. Now, do we sin? Unfortunately, yes. So what we end up saying is our sin is inevitable but not necessary. You sort of see that.

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I'll say it again. Our sin is inevitable. It's probably going to happen, but it's actually not necessary. Now, if you take the reverse of that and consider Jesus righteousness, you can say the same thing. Jesus righteousness is inevitable.

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He's not going to sin, but it's not necessary. Meaning that his technically human nature could have. But it's not going to happen. Okay, now the other thing in time, the other that I thought was helpful is to consider like precious metals, gold. To prove that gold is pure, what do you do?

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You fire that bad boy up, right? Because we all have learned that when you, when you put fire to gold, the impurities will rise to the top, right? And then you scrape those off and you keep doing that process until the gold is pure. So if someone has pure gold though, and you heal, nothing happens because that gold is pure. But to prove that it actually is pure, it has to go through the fire.

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So think about Jesus then. So really to prove to us he is sinless, he has to go through the fire as well. Temptation and testing, just as we do now that one really helped me out a lot too when I was reading that. And it sort of helps to explain like sin well, that he actually can do it. He is the only one that can.

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That's why we put our faith, trust in Him. Now the other thing about temptation is you think about it when you're tempted a lot of times and then all of a sudden you fail. And we do that and we maybe go longer, you resist longer until you fail. Looking at Jesus life, he never failed. And so who can tell more about the power of temptation?

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The one who gives in or the one who bears the full brunt and never gives in? Then while we can look to Jesus as the one who's gone before us because he never failed in temptation. So Hebrews chapter 4 15, you'll probably remember this one, Hebrews 4. Do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Man, that is just beautiful too.

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It's why we can put our faith and our hope. Alright, so looking at Jesus temptation, now let's sort of look at our own temptations.

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Tempted, also tested now of being tempted and tested. And I think it's helpful to begin to go over this because we're tested as well. And it says that God tempts no man. Okay, but then you Genesis 22, that God tested Abraham. Right?

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So what is the difference here? Well, but he does not tempt you. And some of the differences here are subtle, but I think they're. Now let's look at the purpose of both of these. The purpose of temptation is for you to fail and sin and that to separate you from God.

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You know, there's a display of all I'm going to steal, and stealing will kill me and separate me from God. Whereas testing, on the other hand, strengthens and on God. I think of our own life. When God called Cass and I to foster and adopt, that was a test. I mean, that was a big one.

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To leave our life of, you know, relative ease and go into the world of fostering. That's notation to sin. That is a test that God says, come with me, trust me. And so there is a difference there between testation and our intended outcome for testing is to trust him. That's what think of Abraham again in Genesis 22.

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He tests him, says, go sacrifice Isaac, your son. Okay, it's not a temptation, temptation, it is a test. And whereas when Satan comes to us and says, I want you to lie to get ahead at work and get that position, he's trying to kill us. So there is a between the two. Now we are called to resist temptation.

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10, 13, if you got it in your Bible. If you don't, I think we'll put it up on the screen here. And this is super important. No temptation has overtaken you, but what is common to man. God is faithful.

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He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation also provide the weight of escape that you may be able to endure it. Man, that's good. You may want to star that bad boy. That verse has always helped me in my life, is that God is not going to allow something to happen to me because he does allow temptation, allow me to be tempted above what I'm capable of withstanding.

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But he is going to help provide a way of escape. And when you look back on your own life, sort of all those instances where the temptation, you look back and think, I see the way out. I didn't choose the way out, but I see it. And I think that's helpful as we go forward. We know that we're going to be tempted.

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Look for the way of escape. God will show it to you, but we have to be diligent to find it and choose it. Okay, Like First Corinthians, because that's going to be for us now. So again, temptation and testing. We're called to resist temptation, but we are called to endure testing.

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Romans 5 will tell us that. Let's see. I don't have that one up here. Sorry. Let me look that one up.

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So Romans 5, and this is verses 3. I'm just going to read this all to us, guys.

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This is verse three, not Only that. But we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into hearts who has been given to us. So the purpose of temptation is to make us like Christ, is to make us like Jesus. The other thing to consider about temptation, being tempted is actually not sin either.

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Because sometimes, you know, when I was younger, I always would sort of confuse that. I would think, you know, well, God itself is not sin. And how is because tempted, and we know that he did not sin. So when the thought comes in your mind to cheat or to lie or to have a lingering look, whatever it may be, that initial thought is actually not sin. It's what you do with it that then becomes sin.

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So let's turn over to James, and James helps us out with this a lot. James, chapter 1, verse 13. Let no one say, when he's tempted, I'm being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil. And he himself, no one but has conceived, gives birth to sin.

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And sin, when it's fully grown, brings forth death. Death. So we sort of see the anatomy of temptation. It comes to us because of our own sort of sinful desires we talked about. We have that bend towards sin anyways because of Adam.

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And so the desires inside of us long for something, and then temptation comes. So take Jesus for instance, when he is hungry, that desire to eat, there's a right place to eat and a right time to eat. And sometimes there is not. And so then once the temptation is presented, that's when the dilemma happens and we have a choice to make at that time. And that's when God will show us the way out.

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But we get to choose. All right, it's a little bit about ours. And so now let's talk a little bit now about practical ways to overcome temptation. We'll look back at our scriptures here. You know, it says that Jesus was led by the spirit.

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So number one, we need to be led by God's Spirit. Romans 8, chapter, verse 13 and 14. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death, the deeds of the body will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

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In Galatians say something similar. This is 5, 16. But I'll say, walk in the Spirit and you will the desires of the flesh. We just talked about those desires. And so walking in the spirit now, interestingly, did lead Jesus into the wilderness.

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So he's going to test you. He's going to test you. There's going to be times in your life where he's going to take you through the fire for it. Let's not be surprised. These things happen to us because he already tells us it's going to happen.

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And the Spirit will lead us there. Temptation will probably come on the testing ground as well. So let's be prepared for that now. And then two, so we're going to be led by the Spirit is God's word. As we said earlier, when Jesus is confronted by Satan, each and every time he mentions God's word, which is very interesting, he actually quotes from Deuteronomy on.

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So the interesting one because just trying to get Jesus to eat food, right? So here's some stones, you're God, just turn them into bread and eat. You're going to be heading out of the wilderness.

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Why just eat?

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The temptation was to use his God quality to satisfy nature. Jesus quotes from chapter eight and says, hey, man does not live by bread alone. Now that Deuteronomy 8 is where Moses is telling the children of Israel in the desert and says, hey, the manna will help sustain you. But man does not live by bread alone, but by all that proceed from God. It's a good word for us as well.

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And so Jesus uses scripture there. The next one, the all authority. He shows them all the kingdoms of the world. And does anybody remember the kingdoms of the world during the first century? I was asking Lucy this last night.

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Obviously it's Rome.

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The Parthians are a little bit of the Roman on into China. You have the Han dynasty, if y'all remember your world history. Any world history gurus out there? Nobody? Wow.

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Yeah, yeah. You're learning world history. Remember these things because they do creep up in the Bible and they do sometimes to be able to ground the Bible actually in world history. And so interesting kings of the world. So we can actually study these kingdoms.

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All these kingdoms have been given to me and I give it to whoever I will. I'll give you that authority. Now when I look at this jump to the end of the Gospel readings on the Great Commission and what does Jesus actually say to him? He's already died. He's been raised from the dead.

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And he tells his disciples, he says, all authority has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples. I think Satan had a little clue that this was going to happen and was saying, hey, you don't have to go to the cross to get all authority. You don't have to go through suffering to do it, you can live the life of ease. I can give you all the authority.

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Now Pilate can your feet instead of crucifying you. Very interesting. This is Negative Deuteronomy 6:13. It is the Lord your God, you shall fear him, you shall serve, and by his name you shall swear. So then to the pinnacle of the temple.

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Okay, well, here, 91, that your angels have charge over you and they won't let you hit your foot on the stone. We actually read, that was our psalm response this morning. You know, Psalm 91. And so then Satan brings out his own scripture on Jesus says, hey, you say that the angels you. Let's test that, see if God's promises are true.

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Very interesting. And so Jesus again hits him, this time with Deuteronomy 6:16. You shall not put the Lord your God to the test as you tested him at Massa. And he's referring to when Israelites tested God to provide water for them in the desert. And so Jesus again counters with scripture here.

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And he says, you know what I believe? Not going to test it and deliberately do something justice. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm resist that temptation.

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So instead of testing God, we trust him. Now, I think that's very interesting on that last one, because Satan will twist scripture as well. Remember that he is the great deceiver. They also will call him the angel of light. And so you will see that he will twist things, but it just, it won't line up.

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And that's why it's very important for us to know the Bible. And as I noticed, as Western church, we don't like to read. And I never really like to read. I don't really like to memorize things. But it's imperative for us as Christians to learn God's word.

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Because if Jesus the word used his word defeat Satan, gosh, man, we need it all the more. Okay, so we need to. Because here's things himself. But he chose not to. He actually used what he had already said in Deuteronomy to do that.

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Well, what us Wesleyans call the means of grace, means of grace is just a way that God can minister to you. And some of those things are like we do every the first Sunday of each month, let's take communion. Is a means of grace. Also a means of grace. And these things we need to always be doing constantly so that we can help or so that he can help us overcome temptation.

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Especially prayer. Especially prayer. Because the next time that really the early church will say that Satan had that opportune time, was in the garden of Gethsemane, was probably that other time. And what is Jesus doing there other than praying? He's sweating blood.

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So scripture reading, communion, baptism, church fellowship, all those are very helpful means of grace to overcome temptation. And then the other thing that I really want to ability. And if there's someone in your life that asks you about your sin, man, that's really important. That really helps us try not to sin. If I know that my brother is going to be asking me, hey, where did you fail this past month, man, I really want to tell him, you know, like, hey, here, here, here, here, here, that the church has always said we do need to do this, especially John Wesley, and we're Wesleyan accountability.

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Have someone in your life that asks you say, hey, where have you failed? Where have you succeeded? Where have you served God? What can I pray about? That challenge is number one.

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We don't do that a lot. We don't like people asking. We're very private when it comes to our sins. And I think that's a problem. I think that's a big problem.

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So consider life that you can say, hey, you know what? I probably need to form an accountability group with them so that we can strengthen our faith together. So think about an accountability partner 2 or that you gather together and really lay out, because it really does help with this whole temptation thing. You're less likely to fail if you know someone's going to be asking. All right, so in conclusion, if we look sort of holistically here, temptations are going to happen.

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So we might as well plan on it. Be prepared. Temptation itself is not sin. It's what you do with it. All right?

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Also, God is going to test you. Now, that's not temptation. Challenge your walk. And so be prepared for that as well. You will go through the valley as we say, temptation.

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We need to know God's word big time. We got to know God's word, number one. We got to be led by the Spirit, got to walk with the Spirit, trust the means of grace, prayer, communion, baptism, church fellowship, and then accountability. Consider an accountability partner to help because that can be very, very beneficial in your life. I've known that to be true in my own life when I've had those good times of accountability closer to God.

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So consider those things this morning. Let me pray for us.

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Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for sharing this passage of your own life with us of where you endured the fire and you didn't fail. As Adam failed, you rose to.

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And now we can put our trust in you, Lord, that when we are led by the same spirit that led you into the wilderness.

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And so I pray that you would do that in each one of our hearts this morning. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.