Tempted for Our Sakes

[0:00] 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.

[0:12] 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.

[0:23] 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.

[0:42] 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.

[0:53] 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.

[1:08] 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.

[1:22] 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.

[1:38] Starting in verse 1, this is the word of the Lord. Verse 5.

[2:08] Jesus said to him, And again, it is written, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

[2:34] 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.

[2:46] 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.

[3:00] 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.

[3:13] 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.

[3:26] 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.

[3:38] 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.

[3:55] 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.

[4:12] 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.

[4:27] 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.

[4:39] 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.

[4:54] 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.

[5:07] 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.

[5:29] 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.

[5:43] 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.

[6:00] 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.

[6:14] 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?

[6:29] 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.

[6:42] 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?

[6:55] 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.

[7:10] 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.

[7:23] 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.

[7:37] 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.

[7:50] 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.

[8:04] 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.

[8:16] 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.

[8:34] 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.

[8:45] 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.

[8:56] 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.

[9:10] 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.

[9:21] 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.

[9:32] 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.

[9:43] 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.

[9:58] 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.

[10:10] 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.

[10:21] 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.

[10:35] 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?

[10:48] 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.

[11:00] 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.

[11:12] 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.

[11:28] 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.

[11:40] 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.

[11:52] 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.

[12:05] 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.

[12:20] 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.

[12:32] 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.

[12:48] 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.

[13:00] 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.

[13:19] 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.

[13:31] 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.

[13:50] 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.

[14:04] 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.

[14:17] 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.

[14:30] 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.

[14:42] 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.

[14:57] 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.

[15:09] 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.

[15:29] 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.

[15:43] 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.

[15:57] 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.

[16:10] 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.

[16:22] 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.

[16:32] 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.

[16:45] 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.

[17:03] 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.

[17:18] 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.

[17:30] 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.

[17:45] 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.

[17:56] 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.

[18:09] 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.

[18:24] 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.

[18:41] 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.

[18:54] 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.

[19:04] 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.

[19:22] 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.

[19:47] 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.

[20:03] 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.

[20:16] 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.

[20:29] 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.

[20:41] 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.

[20:52] 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?

[21:06] 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.

[21:18] 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.

[21:41] 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.

[21:59] 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.

[22:12] 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.

[22:25] 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.

[22:37] 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.

[22:52] 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?

[23:03] 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.

[23:18] 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.

[23:32] 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.

[23:43] 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.

[23:56] 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.

[24:08] 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.

[24:32] 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.

[24:43] 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.

[25:00] 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.

[25:13] 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.

[25:25] 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.

[25:38] 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.

[25:55] 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.

[26:07] 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.

[26:23] 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?

[26:35] 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?

[26:51] 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.

[27:09] 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.

[27:19] 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.

[27:31] 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.

[27:47] 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.

[28:07] 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.

[28:19] 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.

[28:32] 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.

[28:50] 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.

[29:02] 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.

[29:24] 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.

[29:38] 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.

[29:52] 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.

[30:04] 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.

[30:17] 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.

[30:34] 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.

[30:48] 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.

[31:02] 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.

[31:19] 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.

[31:41] 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.

[31:57] 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.

[32:09] 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.

[32:21] 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.

[32:34] 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.

[32:53] 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.

[33:07] We give you thanks in Christ's name. Amen.