in Jesus' inauguration of ministry on earth.
As he begins, Matthew records his birth, his heritage,
and it goes on to his baptism,
which was the first thing he did in his public ministry.
And the second thing he did was his fasting and temptation.
If you remember Matthew chapter 3,
we have Jesus recorded being baptized by John the Baptist,
and he says this kind of mysterious thing.
When John asks and objects to baptizing Jesus,
Jesus responds to him that this is done to fulfill all righteousness.
And there's some mystery in those words,
but part of what Jesus' meaning there
was that he had to be baptized as our representative,
as the first fruits of the Christian church.
He was baptized to fulfill all righteousness.
And then we have Jesus following his baptism to the wilderness,
to the wilderness and temptation.
And we can also say that Jesus suffered temptation.
He went into the wilderness, the place of testing,
to fulfill all righteousness.
He did that for our sakes, like the Catechism teaches us.
Jesus not only died for our sakes, he lived for our sakes,
and he suffered temptation all for our sake.
So when you ask the question, which is a natural one to ask,
why did Jesus have to be tempted?
The scripture here gives us an answer,
that Jesus was tempted to redeem Israel's failure
when Israel was tested in the wilderness,
that he might come through untouched by temptation.
To be our savior, Jesus had to succeed where Israel had failed.
And that's what's recorded in Matthew chapter 4.
And I'm going to read verses 1 through 11.
If you follow along in your Bibles, I'll read it from the ESV,
which is the translation that's in your worship guides.
Starting in verse 1, this is the word of the Lord.
Verse 5.
Jesus said to him,
And again, it is written,
You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.
And again the devil took him to a very high mountain
and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory.
And he said to him,
All of these I give to you,
if you will fall down and worship me.
Then Jesus said to him,
Be gone, Satan, for it is written,
You shall worship the Lord your God,
and him only shall you serve.
Then the devil left him,
and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
May the Lord add his blessing to the reading
and the careful hearing of his word.
So as we begin,
in verse 1,
this episode of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness,
the passage starts with this.
Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted by the devil.
And the key words there,
by the Spirit into the wilderness,
tell us what is happening.
The wilderness in biblical language had a symbol to it.
It recalled what Israel endured
after their redemption from Egypt.
And the wilderness was a place of testing.
The wilderness in biblical imagery is a place of testing.
And that's what's happening to Jesus.
He's enduring testing to prove his obedience
in the way that Israel was tested in the wilderness.
And it's where Israel failed in the wilderness.
If you remember the story of,
we'll call it the second most spectacular redemption in history,
which is the redemption of Egypt
or the redemption of Israel from slavery.
And you remember from the story of Exodus,
the ten plagues that culminated
in the death of the firstborn sons of Egypt,
which caused Pharaoh to finally let the Israelites go.
All the people witnessed that,
the death of the firstborn sons
and the Israelites themselves being protected
from that curse.
Then as they left
and the Israelites were followed by Pharaoh's armies,
the Lord parted the Red Sea before them,
showing by a magnificent hand and an outstretched arm,
the scripture says,
how he would deliver them.
And then after the Red Sea,
they journeyed in the wilderness,
guided by a pillar of cloud by night,
by day and a pillar of fire by night.
While they journeyed,
their clothes didn't fade,
their shoes didn't wear out.
When they were hungry,
God gave them bread from heaven to eat.
When they were thirsty,
he gave them water out of a dry rock.
God gave Israel every gift and grace imaginable
to sustain them
through their period of testing in the wilderness.
And what did they do?
How did Israel respond
when they were tested in the wilderness,
though God sustained them with his gifts?
Israel responded by testing God,
by rejecting God,
by forgetting him.
After all these things were witnessed by the Israelites
and the Lord led them to Mount Sinai,
they started to worship idols.
They had forgotten God already.
Because the Israelites,
the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
share the same nature that we do,
the nature that accepts gifts,
that enjoys gifts,
but spurns and forgets the giver.
That's our nature.
That's what failed in the wilderness.
Because we have a nature like the Israelites,
where we will accept gifts,
but we will spurn the giver.
There's something we could call,
that I've coined,
the Christmas afternoon syndrome.
Parents have seen it.
Kids, you probably remember it.
You especially remember the anticipation
of Christmas morning.
Months, maybe you're already thinking
about your list right now.
Months before Christmas,
you're preparing your list,
and the anticipation builds to that morning
when you receive your gifts,
and you open them,
and it's just what you wanted, hopefully.
And you're grateful,
and you're happy,
and you hug your parents,
and you thank them.
And then something happens.
Hours later,
Christmas afternoon strikes.
And kids, if you don't remember saying this,
your parents might.
What do you do, kids,
when Christmas afternoon comes around?
Some of you might have said something like this
at least one year.
You say,
I'm bored.
So what happened?
What happened between Christmas morning
and Christmas afternoon?
That joy and that celebration
turned to boredom and frustration.
Maybe your parents at that signal said,
well, it's time to write thank you cards.
It's time to write thank you cards
to your relatives,
and to you that was just insult to injury.
Oh, I've got to write thank you cards now,
and it just made it worse, right?
Well, what was happening?
What was happening to that joy that you had
as you received your gifts,
but then you're forced to remember the giver?
You had to write thank you cards
because your parents are trying to teach you
about thankfulness,
and they're trying to give you the lessons
that only come with time
where when a person is thankful
and you grow in maturity,
you enjoy the gifts that remind you of the giver.
You enjoy little knickknacks
that kids find boring
because they remind you of the person
that gave them to you.
That comes with maturity.
Israel was not mature.
Israel was like you kids sometimes
on Christmas afternoon.
When you want the gifts,
but you would rather not remember the giver.
That's our nature.
That's what failed in the wilderness.
That's what Jesus came to redeem,
to recapitulate,
and that's my theology word for today.
That's the only theology word
we'll have to remember,
a recapitulation,
which means to come under another head.
Before we go into that,
we're going to talk about
what the Lord says
about Israel's testing in the wilderness
that he explains from Joshua 5.
This is Joshua 5, verse 6,
where the Lord describes
the response of the people of Israel.
For the people of Israel
walked 40 years in the wilderness
until all the nation,
the men of war who came out of Egypt,
perished because they did not obey
the voice of the Lord.
The Lord swore to them
that he would not let them see the land
that the Lord had sworn to their fathers
to give to us,
a land flowing with milk and honey.
Because of the Israelites' failure
to remember God,
they didn't enter the promised land.
The consequences were severe.
Even though they enjoyed the gifts,
they loved them for their own sake.
And they received condemnation
for failing the test in the wilderness.
And we share that condemnation
when we are in Israel,
when we share the nature of Adam.
So again, you ask,
why did Jesus have to enter the wilderness?
Why did he have to be tempted?
The answer is in that theological word,
recapitulation.
And it just, it's easy to define.
It comes from a Latin word
that we know well,
from a capital, right?
A capital is the head.
So your capital city
is the capital of a state.
When you're in battle,
if the capital falls,
the nation falls.
The capital is a representation of the whole.
So recapitulation means
to put under a new head,
to recapital.
What Jesus did in entering the wilderness
was recapitulate
the wandering of Israel,
the testing of Israel.
Where Israel failed,
under their head, Adam,
Jesus would restore.
He would redeem
because He would become the new head.
He would do the same thing
that Israel did.
He was tested in the wilderness,
but He would be shown approved.
He would recapitulate.
We see it when we look through Isaiah.
Some of you remember a few years ago
when we studied Isaiah in Sunday school.
When you look at starting in Isaiah 42 and 43,
when the word describes the servant of the Lord,
there are these places
where Isaiah describes the servant of the Lord
and it's clearly Israel.
And then He changes voice
where that servant of the Lord
is this Holy One who is to come,
this Holy One who they're anticipating.
And you see it especially in Isaiah chapter 50.
So if you want to follow me there
in Isaiah chapter 50,
I'll read verse 1
and then we'll continue on a little bit
in that chapter.
Verse 1 in Isaiah 50 starts,
Behold, for your iniquities you were sold
and for your transgressions
your mother was sent away.
So there's the servant of the Lord, Israel,
who is rebellious.
Who is sold for their transgressions.
But it continues in verse 5
where the Lord God has opened my ear
and I was not rebellious.
I turned not backward.
I gave my back to those who strike
and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard.
I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.
So here the servant of the Lord is not Israel
but the one who is to come.
The same servant recapitulated,
the one who would not turn back,
the one who is not rebellious.
And it reflects what we're taught in the catechism.
That what did Christ do
to be humiliated in this life?
It was conflicting with the indignities of the world.
That those who struck his cheeks
and pulled out his beard
and he hid not his face from disgrace and spitting,
the indignities of the world he suffered.
And he also suffered temptation
as the servant that Isaiah spoke about.
So Christ recapitulated the temptation
in the wilderness for us.
Why?
Because of what Paul says in Romans 8, 4.
In order that the righteous requirement of the law
might be fulfilled in us
for us who now walk according to the spirit
and not according to the flesh.
Christ went into the wilderness,
the place of testing,
to redeem the failure of our nature,
the nature that we inherited with Adam.
So let's go on to verse 2.
Verse 2 begins to describe the conditions
that were set in Jesus' temptation.
It says,
after fasting 40 days and 40 nights,
he was hungry.
Now there's probably not many of us,
if any of us,
who have endured a 40-day fast.
A 40-day fast is humanly possible,
but it brings you basically
to the brink of physical starvation.
That's where Jesus was.
The limit of human weakness.
There isn't much longer you can go
without food and water after 40 days.
Jesus was at the limit of his human weakness.
And in the limit of that weakness,
he remained obedient.
That's what made it a test.
That's what made this temptation a testing.
And the word that you have translated
in your Bibles that's maybe translated temptation,
it also has the sense of testing.
And that's an important sense
because that's really what's happening here
in this passage.
Jesus himself not being tempted,
Jesus was being tested
to be proven as the one who would obey,
who would obey in the wilderness.
It's because Jesus was not tempted
in the same way that we are,
namely tempted with sin,
that he can be our savior.
So that's important.
Though Satan brought temptation,
Jesus himself was not tempted
because he has no sinful desires.
If you want proof of that,
you look at James chapter one.
James chapter one in verse 13
says,
let no one say when he is tempted,
I am being tempted by God.
For why?
For God cannot be tempted with evil.
Remember Jesus being fully man and fully God
cannot be tempted by evil.
Jesus was never tempted
by what Satan offered him.
And James continues,
and God himself tempts no one,
but each person is tempted
when he is lured and enticed
by his own desire.
Jesus was not lured and enticed
by sinful desire.
Jesus' desires were the desires
we had in the flesh.
Jesus was hungry.
He desired food.
That was the temptation
that Satan offered.
But Satan offered it
in a way that would not glorify God,
in a way that Jesus would violate
his covenant with his father.
And that was no temptation
for the Holy One of God.
The Catechism reading,
when it answers,
how did Christ humble himself
in his life,
says it was by conflicting
with the indignities of this world
and the temptations of Satan.
He conflicted with it.
He was not vulnerable to it.
Christ proved his righteous life
by conflicting with temptations,
by conflicting with indignities,
not being vulnerable to them,
having no sinful desire.
What Matthew's showing us here
in verse two,
this is the bottom line.
He's showing us how Jesus
underwent temptation
at the very limit
of human weakness.
He was as weak
as any human could be,
yet he still trusted God.
The first temptation starts
in verse three.
If you'll read with me
in Matthew chapter four,
verse three and four,
the tempter came and said to him,
if you are the son of God,
command these stones
to become loaves of bread.
But he answered him,
it is written,
man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word
that comes from the mouth of God.
So in the first temptation,
Satan suggests to Jesus
that he should break his fast.
Simple as that.
Just break your fast.
Use your power
to break your fast.
So what's wrong with that?
After all,
if you look at the gospel of John,
chapter five,
Jesus would use divine power
to provide bread,
to provide bread for his followers.
It wasn't against Jesus' conscience
to use divine power
in order to save people,
in order to provide for them.
And why not himself also?
So he would eventually
break his fast anyway.
Why not now?
Why not at Satan's suggestion?
But here, though,
Jesus is in the wilderness
to do what?
To prove his humility,
to be humbled,
to prove that his humble trust
in his Father
is greater than the greatest desire
one can have,
to avoid death by starvation.
Jesus is in the wilderness
to prove his humble trust
in his Father.
This is how Adam and Eve fell.
Remember, Adam and Eve
weren't hungry
when they ate the forbidden fruit.
They weren't at the limit
of human weakness.
Adam and Eve fell in this way
because they believed God
was holding something good
back from them.
They believed this fruit,
as Satan suggested,
was a good thing for them
and God didn't want them
to have it.
That God was holding
something good
back from them.
They didn't trust God.
Jesus,
even at the limit
of weakness,
trusted God.
It's the same thing
with Israel.
Israel,
though they were in the desert,
they were in the wilderness,
they were provided for by God
with food,
with water.
But they grumbled.
They grumbled against him
because they didn't trust him.
Even as they had
the quail and the manna
that God fed them with,
they forgot him.
And they said,
after their stomachs
were empty again,
they said,
Moses,
you brought us out here
in the middle of the desert
to die.
It would be better
to go back into slavery.
They had forgotten
the grace
that they were given.
They had forgotten
the giver
who had the power
to continue to feed them,
to continue to supply them.
So Jesus' reply
to Satan's suggestion
comes from Deuteronomy 8.3.
The previous verse
that Jesus quoted
starts,
And he humbled you,
and he let you hunger,
and he fed you with manna,
which you did not know,
nor did your fathers know,
that he might make you know
that man does not live
by bread alone,
but man lives
by every word
that comes from
the mouth of the Lord.
The Lord let Jesus,
as he let Israel,
hunger.
Why?
So that he could teach them
that they can still
depend on him.
They can depend on him
and their weakness.
So what the Israelites
did not learn,
Jesus knew.
The humility.
He knew the humility
that teaches you
that hunger
or no hunger,
the Lord will sustain him.
Jesus wasn't tempted
by Satan
because he trusted
his father's purpose
for his suffering.
In this case,
he trusted his father's purpose
even in his desperate hunger.
humility and obedience
before temptation.
That was Jesus' response.
And it was rewarded
if you look forward
to verse 11
when God sent his angels
to minister to him.
It's a reasonable inference
to say,
how did the angels minister?
Well, they ministered with food.
They broke his fast.
God had in mind
all the time
to provide for Jesus,
to break his fast,
to relieve his suffering.
But God did it.
And Jesus waited
for God to do it.
So for Christians
who have said,
it's hard to trust God
to provide
when you have a need
that you don't see him supplying.
It is a hard question.
It's a natural question
because it is hard
to trust God to provide
when you don't see him supplying.
Christians should look
no further than this episode
because the father
had it in mind
to provide for Jesus
when he was at his limit.
You haven't reached your limit.
There isn't a point
where Jesus,
your Lord,
will let you go beyond
your human limits
before he provides for you.
Humble trust in the father
suggests
that we can trust him
even when we are weak,
even when we don't see
his provision.
And Jesus didn't.
Jesus was there
without food,
without water,
yet trusting in his father.
Even in your most desperate need,
the scripture says,
you do not live
by bread alone,
but by every word
that proceeds
from the mouth of God.
And that's not just poetry.
That's the promise
that God will provide.
That's the promise
that God will provide
when you're hungry,
when you're thirsty,
when you're desperate
because he knows your limits.
He knows your limits
better than you do.
So the first temptation,
the first temptation,
we could say,
Satan tempts Jesus
with the desire of the flesh.
If you go to the second temptation,
you could say,
Satan tempts Jesus
with the desire of his spirit,
with his very trust in God.
Satan wonders,
could even his trust in God
be exploited
if he trusts him so much
that he would ignore his hunger.
So that's what continues
in verse five.
Then the devil took him
to the holy city
and set him on the pinnacle
of the temple
and he said to him,
if you are the son of God,
throw yourself down
for it is written,
he will command his angels
concerning you
and on their hands
they will bear you up
lest you strike your foot
against a stone.
Jesus said to him,
again, it is written,
you shall not put the Lord,
your God to the test.
So Satan tempts Jesus
not just with the desires
of the flesh
but with the desires
of his own spirit
that trusted God
and he uses scripture
and it's important to note
that Satan isn't taking
scripture out of context here.
He's using Psalm 91.
This was not out of context.
This was a real promise
to Christ,
namely that God
would protect him.
God would not allow
his holy one's foot
to strike a stone.
In context,
it begins in verse nine
from Psalm 91.
Because you have made
the Lord your dwelling place,
the Most High
who is my refuge,
no evil shall be allowed
to befall you
or no plague
come near your tent.
For he will command
his angels concerning you
to guard you
in all your ways.
On their hands
they will bear you up
lest you strike your foot
against a stone.
So Satan quotes
the scripture rightly.
He doesn't always do that
but in this case he does.
He quoted it rightly.
It was not out of context.
That promise was
first and foremost
for Christ.
God's holy one.
But again,
humble obedience
to the Father says
Jesus did not put
his Father to the test.
So what is then
the right way
to respond
when Satan tempts you
with the very word of God?
With your very trust in God?
There are two ways.
There's the way
that Jesus responded
with humility.
There's an alternate way.
And you could call it
the Christian bookstore response.
And as I say it,
some of you know
what I'm talking about.
The Christian bookstore response
where you go into
a Christian bookstore
and if you haven't been
on your guard
as you walk into
the Christian bookstore,
I will suggest to you
you need to be more discerning
than when you walk
into a secular bookstore
when you look
at the books on the shelves
in your Christian bookstore
because in the secular bookstore
they're not promising you
to enrich your faith,
to claim the promises of God.
The Christian bookstore is.
So you have to be careful.
You have to be wary
what you select
because there are publishers
who have made a lot of money
in recent decades
on Psalm 91.
On Psalm 91
because they claim
that you,
to receive God's blessing,
have to show boldness of faith.
Your faith has to be bold
so that you can receive
God's blessing.
The Christian bookstore response
says you will trample
on the line and the adder
as the psalm promises
if you just have bold faith.
It's a health and wealth message
that says if you step out
in boldness,
if you make the leap,
God will move your mountain.
He will surely protect you.
Not that there isn't a place
for boldness
in the Christian life.
There is.
But that's not what
the Lord prizes
and that's not what Jesus does
as he follows his Father.
It isn't boldness
for boldness' sake.
It's patience
and humble obedience.
The error that the health
and wealth message
that you'll find
in the Christian bookstore makes
is that it puts your acts of faith
as the condition,
the first condition
for God to be faithful to you.
It puts your acts of faith
as the condition
for God to be faithful to you.
The Christian bookstore response
when it quotes Psalm 91
says,
do you want to receive
God's blessing?
If you were at the pinnacle
of the temple
and Satan tempts you,
do you want to receive
God's blessing?
Jump.
That's exactly not
what Jesus does,
is it?
He doesn't jump.
He doesn't make
a bold declaration
of his faith
in order to receive
God's protection.
Jesus' response
is from Deuteronomy 6,
verse 16.
You shall not put
the Lord your God
to the test.
God didn't require
of Jesus
spectacular demonstrations
of faith
in order to be approved
by him,
in order to pass the test.
And God doesn't require
of you
spectacular demonstrations
of faith
to receive his blessing,
to be approved by him.
You're not saved
by the strength
of your belief.
You're saved
by the strength
of God's faithfulness.
His faithfulness,
his strength,
is what sustains you.
You just need
to be humble
and patiently
await
for his power
to be made known in you.
There is a place
for boldness
with discernment,
but patience
and obedience
that lets God
provide
is prized higher.
That's what passed
the test
for Jesus.
Patience
and humble obedience
that trusts
in God's providence.
Jesus didn't ask God
to prove himself
faithful to him.
Jesus just trusted him.
The third temptation
then starts
in verse 8
where Satan
gaining nothing
so far,
gaining nothing
as he tries
to tempt Jesus
with the desires
of the flesh
and then he tries
to test Jesus
with even his trust
in God.
Satan doubles down
now.
He's not being subtle.
He's now just
demanding worship.
Verse 8 he begins,
Again,
the devil took him
to a very high mountain
and showed him
all the kingdoms
of the world
in their glory.
And he said to him,
All these I will give you
if you will fall down
and worship me.
All the kingdoms
of the world
is what Satan promises.
And if you look
at what Jesus did,
what he came to do
on earth,
Jesus came for all
the kingdoms of the world.
Jesus came for that
very thing,
to gather from all
the nations his elect
from every kingdom
on earth.
Jesus wanted
all the kingdoms
of the world.
Satan was offering
it to him.
And Satan's offer
was in all vain.
The scripture even
tells us in Ephesians 2
that Satan does have
these kingdoms
in a sense.
He is the prince
over the power
of the air.
That's what Ephesians
2 says.
Not that Satan owns
them in an ultimate sense,
but Satan's power
is over them.
Satan had that power
to hand over
to Jesus
the kingdoms
of the world
by passing the cross.
So was Jesus
vulnerable to this?
Did Jesus want
all the kingdoms
of the world?
Yes.
Was he tempted
to worship Satan
in order to achieve it?
No.
Not if he was
the one who was
very God,
the Son of God,
the perfect holy God
and perfect righteous man.
This was not
a temptation for Christ.
That is why
he's our Savior
because he is faithful
and he's holy.
He has the power
of God
that sustains
human nature
when it's tempted.
Jesus' response
starts in verse 10.
Then, Jesus said to him,
Be gone, Satan,
for it is written,
You shall worship
the Lord your God
and him only
you shall serve.
Then, verse 11,
the devil left him
and behold,
angels came
and were ministering
to him.
So in this last
couplet of verses,
Matthew,
the author of Scripture
here,
shows us kind of
the twist in the plot.
At the words,
Be gone,
what happens?
Satan just leaves.
At the words,
Be gone,
he's gone.
So what does it tell you
when you see
the end of the story
and it becomes apparent
that Christ had the power
to dismiss Satan
at any point,
any point in his temptation?
Christ had sovereign control
over Satan
the whole time.
I think it was R.C. Sproul
who said,
Satan is God's Satan.
Satan is never
out of control.
Satan is always
within the domain
and the command
of God
because God
is sovereign
over everything.
And Christ himself
as the Son of God
was sovereign
over Satan
the whole time.
All of these temptations
then,
Christ endured
willingly
and Christ endured
purposefully.
This was not a threat
that Satan brought
to Jesus unawares.
This was what Jesus did,
being led by the Spirit
in order to be tested.
Not that he would be tempted,
but that he would be proven,
proven righteous.
They were not threats
to his holiness.
Satan,
in his devices,
in his temptations,
Satan as always
was aiding God's purpose
as he acted.
Because these temptations
were God's very purpose
to vindicate his Son.
And because
the temptation
in the wilderness
was a recapitulation
of Israel's failure,
this proof of obedience
was Jesus' very opportunity
to prove your faithfulness,
to enable your faithfulness,
to vindicate you
as the one
who would be in Christ,
who would stand
under Christ
as your head.
It was the opportunity
for the Lord
to vindicate his Son
and for Christ
to vindicate us
from the accusations
of the devil.
And his victory
over temptation
did something else.
Because the Son of God
was tempted
in his utter weakness
in his most desperate state,
God has sympathy
with your every weakness.
This is what we read earlier
with our catechism,
Hebrews chapter 4,
verses 15 to 16.
The word says,
For we 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.
Let us then
with confidence
draw near
to the throne of grace,
that we may receive mercy
and find grace
in time of need.
Jesus took the experience
of the temptation
in the wilderness,
and when he died
and when he ascended,
he carried it up with him.
Where?
To the right hand of God,
to the Father,
where he intercedes for you.
He became your advocate,
your intercessor,
as he is at the right hand
of the Father
interceding for you.
The hymn
that we'll sing later
puts it this way.
When we sing
before the throne
of God above,
the second verse says,
When Satan tempts me
to despair
and tells me
of the guilt within,
upward I look
and see him there
who made an end
to all my sin.
That's where we look
when we're tempted.
That's where the Christian
finds support
when he is tempted
because we have
not just the Holy Spirit,
but we have Christ himself
pleading with us
before the Father,
Christ who sympathizes
with our weaknesses.
And you,
who are left
with your mortal bodies
here on earth,
are weak in the face of sin
because your heart
remains with you.
Jesus had no sinful desire,
but that doesn't mean
he didn't know weakness.
He knew weakness,
and he knew it
better than you do.
And furthermore,
he knows you.
He knows what you go through.
He knows how you're tempted
because he was tempted himself.
He knows your weaknesses,
and he sympathizes with them
because weakness was his also.
He knows weakness
better than you do.
He was at his very limit
when he trusted
his Father to provide.
And God will not allow you
beyond your limits
because he has in mind
to provide.
He has in mind
to sustain his saints
with his Spirit,
with all the physical needs
that you require,
and with the spiritual needs
that he supplies daily
with the Holy Spirit.
The sympathy of your Lord
comes about
because he endured
every weakness of yours
and more,
yet was without sin.
We call this divine sympathy,
the sympathy that resides
at the right hand of God.
And this sympathy isn't the,
oh, I feel so sorry for you,
sympathy.
That's not what
the author of Hebrews means
when it talks about sympathy.
It means sympathy
that has power for you,
sympathy that intercedes for you
because in heaven
you have Christ interceding for you
before the Father.
On earth you have
the Holy Spirit interceding for you
in your heart,
offering up prayers
that are worthy to God,
prayers that will be answered.
And it's for that reason
that you can have confidence
to receive God's help
in your time of need
because now
you can pray in Jesus' name.
And when you pray
in Jesus' name,
it's not required
that you have the words
to explain
what it is
that you're going through,
the temptation
that you're suffering,
the needs that you have.
You don't have to have
the words to explain it
because he knows,
because he sympathizes,
because he has the words
that can be expressed
with groanings
too deep for words
what it is
that you need.
And he brings it
before the Father
where his prayers
are always answered.
He knows
there will be occasions
when you give in
to temptation
where Christ didn't,
but at the same time,
Christ and the Father
do not look upon you
as one who fell
into temptation.
The Father looks upon you
as the one
who endured temptation
as Christ did
because you're in Christ.
because Christ is your head
and he was victorious
over temptation.
No fall of yours
into temptation
can change the Father's
attitude toward you
because as Romans told us,
the righteous requirement
of the law
has been fulfilled.
There's nothing else
that remains to be fulfilled.
Because of Christ,
the Father looks upon you
always as he does Christ
as one who will endure
to the end.
Thanks be to God.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you
for the word
you spoke to us today.
We thank you
for the assurance
that though we suffer temptation
and fall into temptation
that your son
suffered everything
yet was without sin
so that we
can have confidence
through him
to come before you
to receive grace
in our time of need.
May this knowledge
make us that much more eager
to repent
knowing our sympathetic
advocate before you.
We praise you
for the power you showed
in weakness
that as it proved Christ
as the perfect Savior,
it will also make us
perfect as well.
We give you thanks
in Christ's name.
Amen.