No temptation has overtaken you

But blame can be a way of escape.

You hear me preaching to you.

Today, because blame will get you out of having to

take responsibility. The only problem is it gives the keys

to your freedom to whoever you blame for the situation.

And now you're enslaved too the very thing that you

were trying to escape from. Now you're enslaved to bitterness

because you escape through blame.

I could do this all day long.

I could talk about how when you feel trapped in something,

it's important what you trust in because whatever you trust

becomes your master.

What are you escaping to? What are you escaping from?

And have you escape to something that has now started

to enslave you. Cynicism is an escape because it hurts

to have hope. It opens the door to disappointment. So

you just be life to the punch. You just expect

the worst. That way you're not surprised and you put

your faith in reverse and call it realism. So what's

really sad about coming through the red sea is that

after all the miracles that God does for you, and

after the way that He saves you, and after the

way that He becomes personal in your life. The Bible

says that even after they went through the Red Sea

passed under the cloud through Moses. After he references this

Exodus motif that is so prevalent in the Jewish scriptures,

he says in verse five, nevertheless, God was not pleased

with most of them, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

And that's where the battle is in the wilderness.

In Jesus went through the wilderness, and what you do

in the wilderness determines whether you stay enslaved or move

forward into freedom. We don't just pass through the wilderness

once in our lives. The wilderness is not something you

did eighteen years ago. The wilderness isn't just when you

lost your first job. The wilderness can happen several times

any given week. I asked my friend before I came out,

how was your week?

And I said, I take it back.

I hate that question because you could ask me that

hour by hour and get a different answer. There are

some weeks I have where Monday is milk and honey,

and Tuesday is Canaanites, Hittites, jebuzdes perizites, termites, cellulites.

And when they went to the wilderness, they were overthrown.

They grumble. They wanted out, you know where they wanted

to go each at least we could eat in Egypt.

Never mind, you forgot about the fact that they gave

you mud without straw, trying to get you to make

bricks without giving you materials. Never mind that the devil

has constantly been trying to keep you all your life

in a state of feeling like you're not enough. You

just want to go back to the world, because at

least it works for a little while. So we escape.

We want to build a tunnel back to Egypt, and

then the tunnel becomes a trap, and they died in

the wilderness. They died in the place where there was

no water. They died in the place where there was

no worship. They died in the place where there was

no perspective. It's interesting, then, that the Bible says that

Jesus is a great high priest and that he is

able to be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.

In fact, it says that he was tempted in every

way like we are.

Now. I read that and started to argue with the Bible.

Jesus didn't have kids, he wasn't tempted in every way

as I am. He didn't ever want to choke the

very life that he produced. Jesus didn't have Amazon Prime.

But yet it says that he faced every temptation, because

there's really only three. I know we make it complicated,

but the Bible condenses it and says that any temptation

you're facing today, not just the external ones, the internal ones.

The same Bible that gives commands about sexuality gives commands

about worry. So don't think the temptation is only for

one person. It said, in every temptation, Jesus faced it.

Yet he was without sin. He was he was perfect

in the ways that we will never be. And guess

where he went to prove his perfection. Let me show

you this. In Matthew chapter four, give me the verse,

it says that Jesus was led up by the spirit

into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Why

would God remember the lord's prayer? My father worn't having

hellpy the name Kniclon will be down.

And lead us not into And the spirit.

Led Jesus to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

So Jesus is driven is the more accurate word than

lead sounds nice, driven is more accurate.

He had to go to the wilderness.

Why why did Jesus have to come incarnate the word

made flesh. Why did Jesus have to take on the

form of human weakness and go to the wilderness. It

says that they were overthrown in the wilderness when Jesus

came on the scene. The true Israel, the true expression

of God, the second atom. When Jesus came the man

who is fully man and fully God, Jesus, who is

the express image of the radiance of God, Jesus by whom,

for whom through whom all things were created that were created.

Jesus came to the wilderness. Watch this for a rematch.

See in your flesh, in your power, in your strength,

in your mind, in your human ingenuity, you are no

match for the devil in the wilderness. Jesus showed up

in the wilderness because of unfinished business on behalf of

anyone who would believe on his name and call on

him in.

The day of trouble.

So Jesus, after fasting for forty days and forty nights,

had to pay a visit to the devil in the wilderness.

Jesus came from heaven, which was Christine, to the earth

to visit your enemy and pay a visit to what

is tormenting you, to let the enemy know that he

might be bigger than you, but you've got a big

brother and a high priest who knows your weakness. And

he went to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

So now this is going to be interesting, because how

do you tempt the son of God. Maybe if you

can get him to question his identity and the devil

hits him with three temptations. Remember there's only three. They're

all three listed in one John two point fifteen.

Spoiler alert. The devil is not creative.

There's only three things he can tempt you with to

try to get you to be something that you're not.

There's only three things he can tempt you with. It's

the lust of the flesh. That's what I feel like

doing the email I feel like sending. The lust of

the eyes is what my senses tell me, living by senses,

living by surface appearances. And then there's the pride of life.

That's what I think I know, That's what I tell

myself that I know when I start being like Adam

and Eve in the garden. Their sin wasn't eating an apple.

Their sin will that they thought they were like God,

knowing the difference between good and evil. That's what the

sin was in the garden, and that's what it is today.

It's the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes,

the pride of life. If you're sixteen, if you're sixty one,

it's the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes.

The pride of life. I told God, I can't push

this to the whole church.

This is the youth sermon, he said, tell them just

like they told them, some of them. If they would

have heard this sermon when they were sixteen, they wouldn't

be struggling with what they're struggling.

With at sixty one. But you're hearing it now. You're

hearing it now.

So so the lust of the flesh he catches Jesus hungry.

He's been fast than forty days, forty nights, and he's hungry.

He's hungry. The devil always knows when you're hungry. And

if you only come to church every five weeks when

it's convenient, you are going to be too hungry to

be strong.

Against the tim of the enemy.

I got six claps, and one is my mom.

But it's true all the same.

You're too hungry. You eat junk when you're hungry. You're susceptible.

When you're hungry. You try to turn stones into bread.

When you're hungry, you try to eat stuff that won't satisfy.

You try to live up of people's compliments when only

God's validation is able to sustain you. That's the lust

of the flesh. It's the pride of life. He said, Okay,

if you won't turn the stones into bread, then throw

yourself off this cliff.

Watch this. Prove it.

Prove you're the child of God. Prove you're a real man.

Prove your intelligence, prove your worth. Just keep earning and

earning and chasing and chasing, and never stop to ask why,

and never stop to be generous. Just keep proving it.

Just keep going out there confident, and never really admit

your need to anyone so that they can see the

real you and give the water to your soul.

That you need to make it. Just prove it. It's

a prival life. And then there's the lust of the eyes.

You know. He took him up on a high mountain,

showed him all the kingdoms of the world. By the way,

Jesus didn't leave the wilderness and go to another place,

because the temptation is always on the movie screen in

your mind. And he showed him something that looked like

an opportunity. But Jesus knew that he came for the cross.

The devil said, if you bow down and worship me,

I'll give you all this, and you don't even have

to go to the cross. Just like God will offer

a way of escape, so will the enemy. But when

the way of escape becomes just another set of chains,

Jesus set away from me, Satan, for it is written,

you shall worship the Lord God only, and him only

will you serve Jesus in the wilderness forty days, forty nights.

Why forty that's the exact number of years that the

nation of Israel has been in the wilderness. Jesus said,

I'm going to do in forty days what you couldn't

do in forty years. And no temptation come on by,

be lovers, No temptation has overtaken you. The same grace

that enabled Jesus, the same spirit that enabled Jesus to

endure the cross and despise the same and sit down

at the right hand of God.

This spirit lives in you. Hey, thank you for watching.

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Thanks again for watching.