Ep. 025 The Tempter Body, Mind and Soul

Welcome to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. We are a Bible-Believing Church located in

beautiful British Columbia, Canada. We are proudly part of the Christian Fellowship Ministries

with 3,000 churches around the world. We are a church focused on world evangelism, discipleship

and church planting. Here we will share recent sermons from P.H.S.A. Church and other sermons

from throughout our fellowship. I am Pastor David Bickford and I will be your host for this

podcast. I thank you for listening today and we hope these messages are a blessing to you and

bring you closer to God. Hello and welcome back to the podcast, the P.H.S.A. or Potter's House

Salmon Arm podcast. I am Pastor David Bickford and today's message is entitled,

The Temptor Body, Mind and Soul. We are going to be looking at how we go about being tempted. We

will look at how Jesus tempted and what we can take from the scripture in order to be able to

stand up against the temptation that is ever present in the world that we all deal with

and how to better align ourselves with the way that Christ dealt with temptation.

And so with that I found a pretty interesting illustration. It's about the Union Pacific Railroad

and at one point there was a, you know, a labored trestle bridge being built across a large canyon

in the west. And wanting to test the bridge, the builder loaded a train with enough extra cars

and equipment to double its normal payload. The train then was driven to the middle of a bridge

where it stayed an entire day. One worker asked, are you trying to break the bridge?

No, the builder replied, I am trying to prove that the bridge won't break. In the same way,

the temptations that we see Jesus faced weren't designed to see if he would sin, but rather to

prove he couldn't and that he wouldn't sin, that he wouldn't break down against the temptation.

And also it was an illustration, it was part of his way of showing through example ship how we

should deal with the temptation that we come across in our own lives. So let's look at that,

you know, that portion of scripture, which is, you know, where we're going to pull from. It's

going to be from Luke chapter 4, 1 through 13, the temptations of Jesus. So if you're following

Luke 4 · chapter mention

along in your Bible, it's again, Luke 4, 1 through 13. And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned

from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for 40 days being tempted by the devil

and he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him,

if you are the son of God, command the stone to become bread. And Jesus answered him, it is written,

man shall not live by bread alone. And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of

the world in a moment of time and said to him, to you, I will give this authority and their glory,

for it has been delivered to me and I give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me,

it will all be yours. And Jesus answered him, it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God

and him only shall you serve. And he took him to Jerusalem and set him 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 on their hands they will bear you up,

lest you strike your foot against the stone. And Jesus answered him, it is said, you shall not put

the Lord your God to the test. And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him

until an opportune time. So before we jump in, we're going to think about what's the point of this.

I just want to interject with a little bit of some of my early morning thoughts as I record this,

is that we all battle with temptation in our lives. And I don't want anybody to walk away

from this message feeling like if you've succumbed to the temptations of the world that you were

written off, but rather that this is an example. We look at the entire Bible as a one flowing

story from the beginning to the end with Jesus Christ as our Savior. It's important to understand

that God shows us the way that we can overcome temptation, but there is always room for grace,

as long as we're able to humble ourselves, repent, and come back to Christ. And so that's something

that I really want to emphasize is that if you failed, as we all have failed, and we all fall

short of the glory of God, we are aspiring to the perfection that is Christ, but it's not believable

to ever achieve that perfection on this side of heaven. But it is important to hold that standard

so that we have something that is bigger than ourselves to look towards. And that is the example

that we see with Jesus Christ. If we look at the Old Testament, we see kings that we know to have

been good kings, because we're told in the scripture they were good kings. They followed

the law, and they followed the spirit that God was setting forth for them. There's not a lot

of good kings, but we're told. But even with those good kings, there were failings within their life.

But what always set them apart was their humility and their willingness to turn back to God,

and to humble themselves, and to repent, and to make a declaration that, Lord, I can't do this

without you. And so I want to make sure that there is that empathy put into this message first,

that even though we're going to look at ways of overcoming temptation, we also want to know that

there's always repentance for failing. And there's always going to be a process of restoration. Now,

you might not always be able to be restored back to everything that you might have lost because

of failure. And we see that scripturally as well when we look at the story of Moses and how when

he struck the rock rather than speaking to it, that sin that he had committed prevented him from

being able to enter into the promised land with the rest of Israel. But that didn't take away from

his relationship with God entirely. He was able to still meet with God face to face and be the

representative for God to the people of Israel until his death. But again, just empathetically

want to make sure that we understand that there is always the potential of restoration,

even when we succumb to temptation. But let's go ahead and let's look at what's the point.

We tend to argue with ourselves constantly about what is the point. Why must we struggle? Why must

we face challenges, difficulties, and troubles in our life? It is a common thought throughout all

mankind. And it is something that separates us as sentient beings from other of God's creation.

The animals and plants of flora fauna, they don't trouble themselves with these concerns.

This isn't at the very root of our human existence. This is something that sets us apart

tremendously from anything else that we see in nature. And this is at the very root and is part

of the point. Jesus came to earth fully human and fully God in order to endure the hardships of

humanity without sin and to show us that in him we can not only be redeemed but have an example

of the purpose or the ability or the way to overcome temptation. Not to be weakened by

temptation but be tested and tempered by it over time. So as metallurgy developed, it became

understood that if you add carbon to iron, iron ore, you can make it a stronger metal. And that

is what we know today as steel. Steel is then forged in the fire and tempered in order to be

hardened but still remain flexible enough to bend when needed. And the idea of tempering is that

it's going to be able to flex but then still snap back to its intended shape without any loss of

strength. It's a really interesting thing that we have come to understand that there are different

ways of tempering or annealing steel for different purposes. And the trials we go through as

Christians are for that purpose. Some of us are tempered for strength, hardness, sharpness. Others

are heat treated with flexibility, compassion, and empathy as the goal. We're all part of the

body of Christ and it's still one family knitted together after all. So keep this in mind as we

progress this morning that we are all tempted, we are all challenged, and we are all tested. We are

all also built and designed for a godly purpose. Second Timothy 2, 20 through 21. Now in a great

house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay and some honorable use

and some for dishonorable. Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he

will be a vessel for honorable use set apart as holy useful to the master of the house ready for

every good work. So let's jump in and work through our text. Temptation is not of the Lord. Temptation

has a goal. The goal is to cause sin and condemnation in the person whom it is directed.

That is why Eve was tempted in the garden. Satan tempts us to sin and therefore separate ourselves

from God, whereas God tests us in order to strengthen us and bring us closer to him. So

the first thing we'll look at is physical temptation. The devil made Jesus focus on his physical body.

The goal was to draw Jesus' attention away from God and onto his hunger and as we know he was

fasting prior to this exchange and Jesus would certainly have been very hungry after 40 days

without food. In verse three it says the devil said to him, if you are the son of God command this

stone to become bread and Jesus answered him, it is written man shall not live by bread alone.

This temptation was a material temptation and can be looked at as the lust for material things.

Think of it this way, you could hunger for food, drink, money or the newest toys. The ability to

gain all the stuff you could ever want. All you have to do is kneel to the powers of be. This is

what a lot of our current culture is fighting about. Bend to our worldview and everything will

be yours. How did Jesus deal with this temptation? In Ephesians 6, 16 through 17 it says, in all

circumstances take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish the flaming darts of

the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God.

In Deuteronomy 8, 3 it says, and he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna,

which you did not know nor did your fathers know. And 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. This is something

very hard for us to understand in our day and age. We are supposed to live by every word that comes

from the mouth of the Lord. That means we're supposed to be sustained by his word and through

the word. This is why we fast and why when you fast you're supposed to maintain a happy count.

And it's not like the Sadducees and Pharisees. The verse from Deuteronomy that Jesus cited was to

highlight our dependence on God. Today many of us depend only on ourselves or the government to

provide us what we need to live. We are to be content with what God provides knowing that in

faith he will take care of us just as he does the birds in the field. So an interesting aside here

is that if we're supposed to be sustained by his word and through prayer and if we're a Christian

and we're not praying, if we're not setting time aside for reading the word of God and then

meditating on the word of God through prayer or in our prayer time, then really what are we

depending on? Are we truly depending on God if we neglect his word or if we neglect our time's prayer?

Things to consider. What feels right is not always going to be right according to God.

Again this is one of the reasons why we need to wash ourselves in the word and why we need to

spend time and contemplation in prayer. Feeding your material desires can separate you from

God. It can separate us from God and our dependence on him. So as we strive at shopping and

looking at all the things that we wish to have or going out to eat big and getting fancy dinners and

all of this stuff that in and of themselves are not necessarily wrong, but they can become quite

wrong when they take away from our dependence on God. When they separate us from God, if you are

filling your life with so much activity that you're not spending time in the word and spending time

in prayer, then you're missing the point. We need to have those times in prayer and those times in

the word because that's how we build that dependence upon God. That way when we're presented

with troubles in our life, we're falling back onto the word. We're falling back onto that

relationship with God and that's what a lot of times the right way to do it is to be

in the word and to be in the word and to be in the word. The other thing that the rest of the

world doesn't understand is that it is a real relationship with God. I was speaking with a

friend a few days ago, maybe last week, and we were talking about how the world has this wrong.

They think oftentimes that Christians think that they're better than other people. Oh, well,

they're missing the point. They've almost got the entire idea upside down. It's not that we think

we're better than anybody else. In fact, if you're truly saved, if you're truly a convert to Christ,

it's the knowledge that you are not better. It's the knowledge that you're a fallen sinful creature

that drives you to cling to the word of God, that drives you to cling to Christ in prayer

and in that quiet time of meditation. Really, when the world is thinking, oh,

you think you're better than me, it's like, no, I've just admitted that I'm not.

It's a huge revelation that I don't want to gloss over. The reason why we depend on God is the

recognition that we're fallen and we need him. The last thing to consider in this section is that the

pleasure that comes from giving into temptation is always short-lived. A short-lived dopamine or

serotonin hit, when you are constantly searching your next hit, whether it comes from buying stuff

or whether it comes from even addicts who abuse drugs understand this, is that it's short-lived

and you always have to go back for more. The next time the hits get, the usage is going to have to

be more. You see this in purchasing stuff. It's just a funny thing. Another friend sent me

some pictures of a boat and I was like, oh, did you buy it? Because he had a placard with the boat's

information, but I couldn't quite see the boat's information. He was laughing. He said, no, man,

that boat is worth more than my house. But people who fall into this idea of I need to get the next

big thing, they'll do that. They'll start buying stuff and putting themselves in a precarious

situation because they need the next best thing. This came about in our family just recently

because we got a notification from Telus, our cell phone provider, and it was like, hey, we'll

give you a deal if you go on payments for the iPhone 15. We started thinking about it. We're

like, well, it might not be a bad idea and maybe it isn't in your situation, but we started thinking

about, well, if we put the money away that this is going to cost us because my phone is working

quite fine, we can just buy the phone outright down the line and then we're not stuck with this

additional payment. The joy that you're going to get from getting that new phone right now

is going to be short-lived, but then when you're looking at your phone bill being

quite a bit more every month, you're going to have this negative effect.

After giving in to the temptation, oh, just get the quick thing real fast. Whereas if you're

prudent and you saved for it, then you'd probably be able to get it even cheaper,

get a refurbished one that comes direct from Apple so it's just as good but way cheaper

than what you would have been paying for if you went on payments, which is typically true.

The next thing we're going to look at is we're going to look at the matter of the mind. The next

the matter of the mind. So the next attempt of temptation that Jesus came about was a battle

for the mind. He says that I can give you the world and all the authority. All you have to do

is bow to me. That's an attractive thing. We get this in our own lives. This is a song that we hear

today with leaders from every corner of the earth. I am your guy. I am your girl. I can get you what

you want. Fame, money, power, prestige, authority. All that is required is that you acknowledge me

as your overseer. Here is the passage from Luke again in verse five. And the devil took him up

and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said to him, to you I will give

all authority and their glory for it has been delivered to me and I give it to whom I will.

If you then will worship me, it will all be yours. And Jesus answered him, it is written,

you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. I find it interesting that this

is the same message that is used throughout history by petty and tin pot dictators throughout

history. Nebuchadnezzar, Caesar, Kim Jong-un all demanded their vassals to bow down to them as

gods. Nero persecuted the Christians heavily because they would not partake in this kind of

worship. We know that in the end time the devil will bestow power to the Antichrist too in Revelation

13 too. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear and its mouth was

like a lion's mouth and to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority.

But we also know that this is short-lived authority and that one that only leads to destruction.

And Deuteronomy 6, 13, 14, it is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his

name you shall swear. You should not go after other gods, the gods of people who are around you.

As we look at society today, we see people in the political realm trying to aspire to power to grab

things and they think that they're powerful. But then you look above that local power source,

so I live in Canada, and so you look above the PMO's office, the Prime Minister's office,

who governs Canada. And Canada being, you know, it's an important country in the world stage but

it's still a small country in a lot of ways. We have a lot of land mass but, you know, we're a

small country. We have about 40 million people. Whereas the United States, you know, where I was

born in the United States, they have again, they have way more people but it's like 350 roughly.

I use very approximate numbers because we don't really have any idea.

But even with the power and the prestige and the might of the United States military and the

government, the President holds very limited power on the entire world stage because then you go

over to Europe and you've got the European Union nations. You've got above that, you've got the

WHO, World Health Organization, and you've got all these different entities, you know, banking

industries like the World Economic Forum that control lots of power behind the scenes. And

within that realm, you have, you know, some rich folks who donate to all these political parties

within these different countries. So it's always about bowing to power. Our local politicians

bow to power of the politicians above them that bow to power to politicians above them and

eventually, you know, they're all bowing to some power that's not even, you know, that's not a man.

We have to understand that as Christians, the power that we're, the only power that we're

bowing to is God and, you know, in Him Christ our Savior.

It's an important thing to understand. So when Jesus, you know, tells him that it's written,

you shall worship the Lord your God and Him only you shall serve, that's the core tenant of

Christianity is that when you give your life over to Him, He is your King, He's your Lord,

He's your Savior, and the rest of your life is supposed to be designed about, say, the Lord,

the rest of your life is supposed to be designed about saying, okay, well, I'll support causes,

political or secular, but it better be in line with what my King wants.

Right? So that's what Jesus is telling, you know, the devil is that we serve the Lord.

We serve the Lord our God, that's it. And so we use the scripture we use like Deuteronomy,

you know, to basically fall back on in these weak times and say, no, no, I don't go after other

gods. It's like in verse 14, I don't go after other gods, the gods of people who are around you.

No, I, it is the Lord that I fear, and it is Him that I serve, and it is only by His name that I

will swear. So the last point is the pride of life. In chapter four of Matthew, you can see another

account of this story, but I like that Luke, you know, that in Luke, the second and third temptations

are switched in placement. And the reason I prefer Luke's order is simple. The first

temptation temptations or the first two temptations were a struggle of power by Satan. He was

attempting to persuade Jesus, but provoking him to use his power, flaunting his own power, command

these rocks into bread, I can give you all authority. The third temptation is slightly

different. It's now that the devil strives to manipulate the word of God and twist it in order

to get Jesus to falter. How often does this happen to us? How often will someone try to persuade us

to give into material lust? And when that works, they might say, I have the authority to do it.

It's okay. I give you permission to do this or that. I can, you know, I can have experience,

you know, I can honestly say that I've experienced both these things in my life. Long ago, when I was

in the military, it's always getting longer and longer every time I talk about the military. I'm

like the college athlete that only talks about the heyday when they were throwing the game-winning

touchdown or shooting, you know, the game-winning, you know, shots and basketball. So a long time

ago when I was in the military, it was very common to have guys try to do this. And I think it's

important to take this away from the internet or whatever. And then it's not a good idea to

do this again and get me to drink or try and get me to swear. Because when you actually are a

convert to Christ—and I emphasize that again, convert, because our fellowship is made up of

converts—you know, we might not even grow as fast as other churches at times because we're

not out seeking to, you know, just fill our churches with people who have other churches. If

you know, praise God to you for that and that you would be an active member of

the church that you're in. But we strive to find people who are not

saved and bring them the gospel message because we want to build our

churches on converts. So as a convert in the military, I got in

the military, I wasn't saved for like the first year I was there, I was living

like the normal life that all young Marines do, which means lots of drinking,

lots of violence, lots of debauchery, and I was ruining myself. So anyway, I

get powerfully saved and I'm a convert to Christ and so in the

military they constantly try to get you to drink or try to get you to swear.

Now, if that didn't work, they would sometimes use their authority to demand

that I swear or drink and I really mean that. They'd be like, you have to do this

and I can't do this. You know, so these are the trials that you go through, but

after all, they would use like mockery, they would use guilt, they'd

say you're not one of us if you don't drink, if you don't party, or if you don't

go after women, you're not one of us. So I can honestly say that I've had

guys who outranked me try to order me to break faith and partake in whatever

they were doing. So let's look at the last temptation, our story. In verse 9,

he says that, and he took him to Jerusalem and said him 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 on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot

against the stone. And Jesus answered him and said, it is said, you shall not put

the Lord your God to the test, and when the devil had ended every temptation, he

departed for him until an opportune time. The devil this time attempts to use

scripture to get his way. No surprise here, right? The devil quotes Psalms 91,

Psalms 91:11–12

verses 11 through 12, for he will command his angels concerning you to

guard you in all your ways, and on the other hand, they will bear you up lest

you strike your foot against the stone. This is something that's important for

all Christians to remember, both old and new, the Bible, or the devil knows the

Bible better than you do. This is why we pray, read, and stay within the body of

Christ. This is why we are careful at discerning what is right and wrong

according to the Word of God. This is why we have brothers and sisters in the

faith, and this is why we have leadership like a pastor and other leaders in our

fellowship. The devil in the world will try to use snippets from the Bible to

twist your understanding in order to get you to stumble and fall, to get you to

question and challenge the Bible until you separate yourself entirely.

Going back to my story about the military, is that you know that when

they're telling you, hey you gotta you gotta do what we want in order to be

part of the group, some of those people, oddly enough, would be people who were

raised in a Christian home, and they would start using scripture like the

common, oh Jesus turned water into wine, and all this kind of stuff. Or you know

the funniest marijuana jokes or pot jokes is, you know, if God

didn't want us to smoke, he wouldn't have made it, you know, wouldn't have let it

grow, or all these kind of silly things they try to throw your way. But

neglecting the other parts of scripture where it tells us to remain

sober, especially as we're in the end times, we're called to be sober. But if

you're a new convert, you don't know a lot of this stuff. So

sometimes people get tripped up as a new convert because they'll come across

someone who says, well I'm a Christian too. They never told you about Christ

until after you converted, but now all of a sudden they're Christian and they

know the Bible better than you do, so they'll use the Bible to confuse you

into sinning. Now that's basically what the devil was doing. He's like, oh I

know the Bible and I know you'll be perfectly fine doing this thing. So you

have to have that personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You have to have that,

you know, prayer time and that word time built into your life. Because how did

Jesus deal with this temptation? Well we go back to Deuteronomy, you know, in

chapter 6 verse 16, you shall not put the Lord your God to test as you

tested him and Messap.

So when the devil tried and failed to use the word of God to get Jesus to fall,

he fled the scene. This is true also in our lives. When others try to use the

Bible to get under our skin, it's important to know, you know, the Bible

enough to shut it down. You have to be able to stand, well you know what, I get

that this is working for you to try to say that that's okay, but the Bible I

read tells me to be vigilant, to be sober-minded, to not get too much

wine, to not give in to wine or to give in to beer. It talks about, you

know, focusing like a watchman so that you can be there as a blessing to others.

So when someone's questioning you're saying, oh well you can do these things,

how is that blessing to me for you to try to tempt me? The word of God

calls us to edify the brothers and sisters in Christ, not to try to bring

them down to whatever level that somebody else is living at and not to

test our God.

So here's an example that I used to have to, you know, deal with all the time,

right, and I've already said this, but it's about like the, you know, Jesus into

wine and it's so funny when people use it because it's like a mic drop.

They think, oh I've got you in a corner with this one, but they neglect to

understand that in Galatians 5 19 through 21 the acts of the sinful nature

obvious, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you as I did before that those who

live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. Ephesians, you know, 5 18

says do not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery. So the

verse that's right before that section is saying don't get drunk because it

leads to debauchery and that's exactly the example I had with my life.

So if someone's saying, oh Jesus turned water and wine, so go ahead and drink.

Well who here ever actually sees people who are drinking without getting

intoxicated? Now there might be people who can control themselves and I'm not

going to, you know, throw stones here, but for me I know that this is not, that

we're called to be sober because these steps lead to drunkenness, orgies, and

the like and that if you start living that way you're not going to inherit the

kingdom of God. So why would I even start? So the issue that we come to is

authority. Who are you going to give authority to in your life? Are we going

to give authority to the people that are trying to get us to fall? We're called to

give Jesus and through him God all the authority in our lives. That is what

Jesus was saying, do not test the Lord. God has all authority and we are not

meant to test his authority simply because someone other than God came by

and challenged us to do it. So in closing, let's look at five takeaways or lessons

for today. No one is exempt from temptation. God does not tempt us, but he

will allow us to be tested. You know, I like to think of hiking. If you only train

on the flattest easiest terrain you will never gain strength. Think of testing as

strength training and temptation as the voice that tells you it is too hard and

just to quit. This is a powerful statement when you think about it

because I live in a pretty hilly area where I hike today. Salmon Arm has lots

of available hills to climb and then when you go down and you're even in like

a work event you're having to climb upstairs or something like that I find

it like pretty amazing to be able to like just bounce up the stairs almost

and see other people who are relatively in shape. You know, struggle they're like

oh I hate stairs. I love stairs but it's because I live to go up and down

the mountains. Another thing to take away is temptation is not the same as

sin. We all face temptation but that is not the sin. Once you accept the

temptation and hold it to your heart and act upon it then the action is that

action is where the sin is committed. Now that can even be in your mind meaning

if you're tempted and you start fixating on the temptation and you

start reliving it in your head and not taking it into a not judging it and

casting it out. We know that because you know Jesus tells us that if you

even think of adultery with a woman or if think of you know committing

adultery with a woman that is like the sin of adultery and the idea there is

that you're not only thinking of it it's not a passing thought it's like a

captive thought you've taken it you're holding on to it. So we have to be

careful with that so that we're not making excuses for ourselves. I

heard someone actually that politically is very very

very smart and he comes from a Jewish background. He made the

statement about certain things about pornography and it was

like that's okay rather than living it out. But we know from

Jesus that if you're living it out in your mind over and over again that's

just as bad as the sin of doing for your soul. The next

takeaway is respond to the temptation with God's Word. Use the Word to repel

temptation but when that's not enough flee temptation like the story of Joseph

the Potiphar's wife. So when Potiphar's wife was pulling on Joseph's cloak to

get him to you know commit adultery he fled even though he ended up being

punished by the earthly powers. He was able to maintain his

cleanliness in the sight of God because he fled from that temptation. And resist

the devil in the power of the Spirit. So this is where we go back into what I've

been hitting on for the whole message for the most part is pray

and read the Word and then remain in fellowship with your brothers and

sisters in Christ. And this is also a lesson for us for those of us that are

in ministry or those of us that are locked into a church. If you see one of

your brothers and sisters in Christ who stops like they used to fellowship with

you all the time but then they start like waning away reach out follow up

see if there's something going on maybe they've you know maybe everything's okay

but maybe not maybe they've fallen to some temptation and they're

under condemnation in their minds and work with them to try to reclaim them

back to the kingdom in the sense that don't let people just walk away

from the Lord be there for them and remind them about redemption and

restoration and grace. And then the last takeaway is pursue the will of God with

all your heart mind and soul pursue God pursue them with your thoughts your

words your actions. This is a good idea like you know with discipleship and it

tags along with what I'm saying with fellowship with the point before if

someone starts falling away from God work with them see if there's a way you

can help them to grow in their faith take it you know take it upon yourself

to work with new converts what are you going through man how's it going today

how can you know how can I help maybe we should we go to coffee we'll just talk

these are all things that we want to do as we grow in our own you know

ministry because we're all called to be ministers of Christ we're all called to

be priests of you know the you know of Jesus Christ's gospel message these are

all you know very very easy things to understand but we have to remember that

you we have to purpose it in our mind we have to purpose it in our life we have

to put every all this stuff first and not allow temptations to derail us but

when temptations do really derail us we have to remember that there's grace to

cover that sin and with that if I could have every head bowed every eye closed

obviously for driving keep your hands on the wheel I know it's it's a silly joke

I say every every week but I want to give an invitation here we're all

tempted we all fall we're all if Bible tells us that we all fall short of the

glory of the Lord but it's never too late and if this message has impacted

you in any way and you feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit dealing

with your own sin and you know that you haven't given your life to Jesus Christ

and but you want to you can do that you can signify that with an uplift hand

wherever you are I can't see it but God sees it and if you mean it and he

recognizes that and if you if you did raise your hand I just want to repeat

after me dear Lord God I know that I'm a sinner but I know that you sent your son

Jesus Christ and that he died for my sins I repent of my sins and I accept

him as my Lord my Savior in Jesus name I pray amen that simple prayer is just the

it's the you humbling yourself before the power of the Lord giving your life

over to him accepting him as your Lord and Savior accepting him into your heart

and now you are you are you by grace you saved you've received salvation by Jesus

Christ through grace and so with that now you know next steps of course is

start start reading the Word of God start in the New Testament where Jesus

was here the words of Jesus read them for yourself you can download any app on

your phone get a good Bible translation whether it's King James or NIV or ESV

there's lots of good translations out there

start reading it and washing yourself in the Word of God and then of course find

a church to lock into find a Bible believing church and become a member of

that church and you start building your life around this this this life-saving

you know grace that you just received if you can't find a church if you don't you

know you if you live in Samanar reach out we meet every Sunday at 1030 we have

Bible studies on Wednesdays we have outreach and different things on the you

know Saturdays and throughout the week but if you don't live you know nearby

reach out to me anyway we got over 3,500 churches worldwide and I'd be happy to

help you find a church and then at the end for everybody listening I just I

just really thank you for you know taking the time out of your day to listen

and I I really pray that you would you know subscribe to this podcast it really

helps us I pray that you like it if if it touched you in any way that also helps

you could leave a review and then ultimately I want you to share it you

know the cry of my heart is for for the the gospel to get out to everybody

everybody in salmon arm where I'm located at I pray that they actually hear

you know the undiluted gospel of Jesus Christ but beyond salmon arm I have you

know I pray for you know all of British Columbia all of Canada all of North

America and the whole world to be touched by the gospel of Jesus Christ you

know I have a vision of someday having this church be able to send missionaries

out to other countries to other places in the world so that we can continue to

have the gospel message being preached everywhere have other churches from this

work to be sent out in other parts of Canada to have you know have them sent

into even into the States you know where I come from originally we have lots of

churches but I do know that there are lots of communities that need more

churches you might not think that if you're you're new to Christ you might

think there's churches everywhere but how many times have you actually heard

the gospel message

how many times has someone actually come to you on the street and actually told

you about Jesus Christ because that's what we're trying to do is we want

converts to Christ we want people to come into relationship with Jesus

Christ so if you can you know subscribe like and share that really helps us get

this message out and I want to thank you again for listening and I can't wait for

you to come back next time God bless

thank you for listening to the PHA Potter's house salmon arm podcast be

sure to follow us on Instagram at Potter's house underscore salmon arm to

keep up to date on what we are doing join the conversation and discover how

Jesus Christ can revolutionize your life