Two Kingdoms (Mark 1:12-15)

But anyway, we're gonna be in the Gospel of Mark this morning in chapter one.

If you don't have a Bible, you'll need one, or if you don't have an app on your phone, we're gonna be in the CSB this morning.

So if you would like a Bible, just raise your hand, and our ushers would love to bring one to you.

And if you don't have a Bible, you can keep that Bible.

That's a gift to you.

It's actually a really nice CSB leather touch Bible.

But anyway, just raise your hand and they would love to bring one to you.

And while you're doing that, we're gonna uh do a couple announcements.

Uh the first one is if you want to stay up to date on what's going on here at the church uh and you would like to know what's coming next and all that kind of stuff, we have an email that goes out once a week.

It has all of our announcements, uh, has the scriptures that we're gonna be covering on Sunday, and Carrie is taking care of that, and she's there in the back.

So look back there, wave your hand, Carrie.

She has a sign-up sheet.

So if you'd like to get on that list, uh just go back there after service and sign your name up and we'll shoot you.

We won't spam you, I promise.

We'll just shoot you one email a week unless there's an emergency, there may be two, but that's it.

And then as far as Good Friday goes, that's coming up this Friday.

And since we don't really have a space and a meeting space uh to meet, what we're gonna be doing is we're gonna be doing Good Friday in our homes, in home groups.

And there's two of the home groups that are gonna be participating in this.

The first one uh is the Friday night group, and the second one is the Sunday night group.

But the Sunday night group is going to be meeting on Friday because it's Good Friday and Sunday's Easter.

So there's gonna be two home groups that you can go to to participate in our Good Friday service.

And basically, what it's gonna be, it's gonna be some scripture reading.

Uh, we're gonna take communion together, and then we're gonna have a potluck afterwards.

So, Ben, who's in the back there, he's coordinating all of our home groups.

So if you have any information, or maybe you haven't been to one of our home groups yet and you would like more information, you'd like directions and all that kind of stuff, you can talk with Ben after the service and he would love uh to direct you.

But it will be a potluck, so bring something to share for everybody.

And then that comes to Easter.

We're gonna be meeting not here next week, we're gonna be down at Paloma Park, just down the road here, and we're gonna be meeting there at 10 a.m.

So note two things different service time, it's gonna be 10 a.m.

And the second thing is that it's gonna be at Paloma Park.

Now that is a uh city venue, and so they've asked us to follow their mask guidelines while we're there, and we don't really have an option, that's just what we need to do as a church, and the their policy is masked on pretty much uh the whole time.

So just be prepared for that.

But I was thinking about it this week because I was thinking that's kind of a bummer and it's gonna be hot and we're gonna have to be setting up.

I was thinking about the apostle Paul, and that guy gave up probably more of his rights, uh maybe aside from Jesus, than anybody else for the sake of the gospel.

This is our opportunity to go into the community and to bring the gospel.

There's gonna be people walking around that didn't even know they're coming to a church service that are gonna be hearing the gospel.

Uh, so we're gonna be out there next week.

Please join us and please invite whoever you'd like.

We haven't done a ton of advertising as far as inviting people in yet because we kind of wanted to work things out these first two weeks.

But Easter is really the first service where we really wanted to just invite your friends and your neighbors and your co-workers and people you go to school with uh and all those people and invite them in uh to join us next Sunday, 10 a.m.

Paloma Park.

Now, this morning is Palm Sunday, so this is the first day of what a lot of people refer to as Holy Week.

We're not gonna have our typical Palm Sunday service here as far as the scriptures that we're going through.

I didn't want to introduce Mark last week and then get away from it for two weeks.

But what I do want to do is recognize that this is Palm Sunday.

This is when Jesus had his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

And I want us to make sure that we during this week don't just let it pass by.

This is the week that Jesus gave his all for us.

And so I want to make sure that we're reflecting on it and that we're thinking about it.

If you've been a Christian for a long time, uh, I know for myself as well, sometimes we can kind of get calloused to the things that Jesus did for us and forget how amazing it is that the God of this universe stepped down onto this earth in the form of a man to take our place and to die the death that we deserve.

So, what I did is I made up uh some handouts.

I have them right back here.

You can grab them from me uh after service.

And it's just reflection readings uh for each day of Holy Week, including today.

So come get it.

It's a little half sheet you can stick in your Bible.

And I just encourage you to go through those readings and reflect upon them during the week.

So come see me afterwards and I would love to hand them to you.

So, like I said, we're gonna be in the Gospel of Mark chapter one.

If you have a handout Bible, that's page 901 that you can turn to.

But first, I want to recap what we covered last week.

So last week we saw the long-anticipated John the Baptist is on the scene, and he's baptizing people into the baptism of repentance.

Then we saw Jesus get baptized by John, the heavens opened up, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove, and the Father spoke, and he told Jesus, his son, that he was well pleased with him.

And then we spoke about each one of us having that same ability for God to be pleased with us through the work of Jesus Christ and not through our own works.

But this morning we're gonna be going to see Jesus be led out into the wilderness.

We're gonna see him facing temptation, like real gnarly temptation, and then we're gonna see a little bit of the beginning of his ministry in Galilee.

So let's stand for the reading of God's word.

We're gonna be going through Mark chapter 1, verses 12 through 15.

Mark 1:12–15

It says, Immediately the Spirit drove him into the wilderness.

He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan.

He was with the wild animals, and the angels were serving him.

After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God.

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.

Repent and believe the good news.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for your word.

I thank you for all the things that you want to teach each one of us here today.

I pray that we would have soft hearts and open ears and eyes and an open mind to the things that you want to speak to us, the things that you want to change in us, the things that you want to mold and shape in us.

Lord, help me to rightly divide your word here today, and that we would just have a growing passion and desire and appetite for your word, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

So as I mentioned last week, the whole purpose, yeah, you can be seated, sorry.

The whole purpose of what we're doing here, why we're opening the Bible, first it's for self-application.

It's for us to look at this and say, okay, God, what do you want to do in my heart?

How do you want to change me?

And then second, it's so that we can go through and have a better understanding of God's word so that we can go on and then train and teach and disciple others as well.

So that's why we're doing what we're doing.

But I want you to notice the first word in verse 12 that we just saw is immediately.

And remember, last week we talked about seeing this word a lot, 41 times to be exact in the book of Mark.

We talked about this being a fast-paced gospel where things move really quickly.

And therefore, we need to borrow from other gospels at different points to kind of fill in some of the blanks.

So we're actually going to be turning to Luke chapter 4.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

So keep your finger right where it is in the Bible or a bookmark, but turn just to the right in your Bible.

It's the next book over.

It's going to be Luke chapter 4, and that's what we're going to be covering to kind of fill in some of the gaps of the temptation of Jesus Christ.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

So Luke chapter 4, and I'm just going to read to you verses four verses 1 through 13.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

Says, Then Jesus left the Jordan full of the Holy Spirit.

Remember that, that's key, full of the Holy Spirit.

And was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, to be tempted by the devil.

He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over he was hungry.

The devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.

But Jesus answered him, It is written, man must not live on bread alone.

So he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

The devil said to him, I will give you their splendor and all this authority, because it has been given over to me, and I can give it to any one I want.

If you then will worship me, all will be yours.

And Jesus answered him, It is written, Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

So he took him to Jerusalem, had him stand 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 give his angels orders concerning you, to protect you, and they will support you with their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against the stone.

And Jesus answered him, It is said, Do not test the Lord your God.

After the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time.

So here is Jay here is Jesus facing temptation.

And we have the privilege of seeing how he dealt with it perfectly.

And it's going to give us insight into how we can defeat temptation as well.

And I think it's important that we recognize from the gin from the get-go that temptation is not a sin in and of itself.

Temptation is the battle of being presented with the opportunity to sin and then us deciding what we're going to do with it.

I heard somebody put it this way before.

They said, the mind is the doorkeeper.

You can't control who knocks, but you can control who you let in.

And that's what we're talking about right here with temptation.

And we'll see it that Jesus handles this perfectly, as I was saying, through the power of the Holy Spirit and through Scripture.

So let's look at verse one.

Then Jesus left the Jordan full of what?

The Holy Spirit.

So right off the bat, there's a few things that I want us to notice.

Jesus depended upon the Holy Spirit, just like we should.

The Holy Spirit is our helper, Scripture tells us.

He is our counselor.

Jesus actually said before his ascension, after his resurrection, that it would be good that he should go so that the Holy Spirit could then come.

And I've heard people say before, you know, I wish Jesus was still on earth.

Wouldn't that be awesome if we could just sit down with him and have that conversation with him?

But I always tell those people, could you imagine the line that you would have to wait in if Jesus was still on earth?

Especially with the internet and social media.

I'm sure they would have, you know, the Jesus Tracker 2000 or whatever on the internet.

Somebody's live tweeting his every move and just huge crowds and lines and lines of people that are lined up just to have a conversation with them or just to take a selfie with them or something like that.

Could you imagine what that would be like today?

You see, Jesus is fully man and he's fully God.

He was only in one place at a time while he was here on earth.

But through the Holy Spirit, which we have access to today, we have 24-hour daily access to him whenever we want.

He's always up for a conversation, he's always up for a counseling session, and we now have that access like no one in history prior to Jesus did have.

And here we see Jesus allowing the Holy Spirit to lead him.

Like I said before, if Jesus needed the leading of the Holy Spirit, how much more do we need the leading of the Holy Spirit?

And where did the Holy Spirit lead Jesus?

It says it right here in our text this morning.

He led him into the wilderness.

And I want you to take note of that.

Because I think we so often think, well, if the Holy Spirit's leading us, then it's gonna be all sunshine and roses, right?

If he's leading us, then it's it's gonna be easy, it's gonna be awesome, and if it's not, then I must have done something wrong.

But Jesus, being filled with the Spirit, was led into a very hard place under very difficult circumstances.

But that should really be expected.

In John 16, 33, Jesus tells his disciples, You will have suffering in this world.

He just plain out tells them, You will have suffering in this world.

It's not all sunshine and roses, but God has given us the Holy Spirit to help us walk through those times, just like we're gonna see Jesus do right here today.

Then at the end of verse 2, what does it say?

It says that Jesus was hungry.

This is one more proof that he is fully man, that he is flesh and blood, that he's not just some visible spirit floating around that people can actually see.

He had flesh and bone and blood pumping through his veins, and it says he was hungry.

And Jesus had other appetites as well, just like we do.

But when he was tempted, he never gave in to those appetites.

And Jesus had full control of all of his appetites, and as we're gonna see, uh especially food, if he's going 40 days without eating.

But before we get into the three temptations that we're gonna see uh here this morning that Jesus went through, I want to read us a verse that's gonna really help us understand what's going on and kind of give us some context of the trials that Jesus is gonna go through.

And it's 1 John chapter 2, verses 15 through 17.

1 John 2:15–17

I'm just gonna read that to you.

It says, Do not love the world or the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For everything in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one's possessions is not from the Father, but is from the world.

And the world with its lust is passing away.

But the one who does the will of God remains forever.

And we're gonna see there's the three things that we just saw there.

We're gonna see Jesus tempted in each one of those the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one's possessions.

And pride in one's possessions is a hard one to translate.

And some of your translations are gonna say different things, but really the definition of this is life, or that by which life is sustained.

So having pride in those things.

So let's take a look at verse 3, and we're gonna see the first temptation that Jesus goes through.

It says the devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.

So the first temptation we're gonna see, we're gonna see Jesus tempted in the lust of the flesh.

And you don't have to raise your hand, but who here has fasted?

Just think about that for a second.

The whole purpose of fasting is teaching your spirit to say no to your flesh, right?

It's also about the hunger pains, too, because that's a great reminder when you get hungry, oh yeah, I'm supposed to be praying today, or oh, usually this is when I eat my lunch.

Instead, I'm gonna be praying instead of eating my lunch today.

But it really is teaching your spirit to say no to your flesh.

It's a way of sacrificing something that we love in food for something that we love more, which is God.

But the whole thing comes down to denying our flesh.

And here's Jesus fasting for a really long time.

40 days.

That's about as far as they say you can go before death, you're on death's doorstep.

And I want you to notice what does the devil tempt Jesus with when he's in this weakened state and his appetite's going and he's really hungry?

What does he tempt him with?

Carbs, right?

He tempts them with bread.

And the devil is so good at tempting us where we are the weakest.

Jesus is hungry, bread.

For us, maybe when we're feeling lonely, maybe it's overeating, or maybe it's porn, or watching or reading something that we shouldn't be.

Or maybe when you're feeling sad, he's gonna tempt you with an opportunity to be angry or to harbor bitterness in some way.

The point is the devil's no fool.

He'll tempt us specifically where we're the weakest at the moment.

So let's take a look at Jesus' response to this temptation.

Verse 4.

It says, But Jesus answered him, it is written, man must not live on bread alone.

And some translations add in, but by every word of God.

Basically, yeah, bread's important, but that's not what sustains our spiritual life.

That's good for the physical diet, but not for the spiritual diet.

Note how Jesus reacts to this temptation with scripture.

Jesus has been consuming a spiritual diet of God's word and is ready with the answer in Scripture when he's tempted.

And I encourage you as well.

Our best defense against the devil, against temptation, is knowing God's word.

And what does Jesus do?

He quotes Deuteronomy 8.3.

Now, if you're memorizing Deuteronomy, you have a healthy spiritual diet.

Because that's usually like the least highlighted book in everybody's Bible, really.

That's the one I was like, oh man, I just want to get through this and get to Joshua or something like that.

But we see that he references Deuteronomy right here in God's Word.

We see references throughout Scripture as well of people hungering and thirsting or being encouraged to hunger and thirst for God's word.

It's what we're holding in our hands right now, God's word that has everything that we need for life and for godliness.

Now I have to be honest, there are times when I don't feel hungry for God's word, or I don't feel like I have an appetite for it, where I'd rather sleep in that morning or maybe look at my phone or get distracted by something else.

But I've realized the word of God is nourishment, not to our flesh, but to our soul.

You know, my discipler in college used to say, You have two dogs that live inside of you.

Have you guys heard this before?

Anybody heard this analogy?

Yeah, there's a few of you out there.

There's two dogs that live inside of you.

One's name is flesh and the other one's name is spirit.

And he'd look at you and he'd say, Which one of those dogs is gonna grow bigger?

The one that you feed the most.

If you feed the flesh, there's gonna be less room for the spirit.

And if you feed the spirit, there's gonna be less room for the flesh.

And that's the truth.

We need to feed our spirit with God's word.

That's our spiritual diet that we need to take in regularly, just like we do physical food.

So feed your spirit with God's word.

And if you're thinking, I don't really have any appetite for God's word, or you know, I sit down and my mind wanders, and it's hard to understand sometimes, and it's hard to make it a priority or whatever it might be.

If that's you, but you desire to have that spiritual appetite for God's word, I have a question for you.

How do you grow your appetite for food?

Think about that for a second.

How do you grow your appetite for food?

You eat more, right?

You stretch your stomach out and you eat more, and then your body says, Hey, you know what?

I need more of this.

You know, I want more of this.

I might not need it, but I want more of this.

So, how do you grow your appetite for God's word?

You eat more and you stretch your appetite.

And that's not a joke.

In times of not desiring to sit down and have time in the word, and I'm speaking from experience, we need to read more.

We need to stretch our appetite for God's word.

We need to be a consumer of God's word just like Jesus, and it's gonna help us in these times of temptation just like we see here with Jesus.

So let's move on to the second temptation.

Look at verse 5 with me.

So he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

The devil said to him, I will give you their splendor and all this authority, because it has been given over to me, and I can give it to anyone I want.

If you then will worship me, all will be yours.

So, first off, we see the devil showed him, right?

He's appealing to the eyes.

Remember, we had the lust of the flesh, and now we're looking at the lusts of the eyes.

Look at what Satan is doing here.

Look at all the amazing things, Jesus.

Why shouldn't this all be yours?

Just worship me.

And the devil's gonna do the same thing to us, telling us that, you know, you really deserve this.

And shouldn't you have these things?

Shouldn't you really have whatever you want?

It's your life.

Life, you're not really gonna hurt anybody, right?

Well, don't believe that lie because the enemy's gonna whisper that to us all the time.

All of God's laws are in place to prevent us from hurting ourselves.

Whenever the enemy tempts us to do something that's against Scripture, God's laws, remember, his commandments, the things that he tells us, are to prevent us from hurting ourselves.

A lot of people see rules in the Bible and they see laws and they think of God as this huge cosmic killjoy that doesn't want anybody to have fun, right?

All these rules and regulations, man, I can't believe all that God's commanding.

Not realizing that God is a loving father that in a spiritual way is really telling us, hey, don't run out in the street.

Like that's gonna hurt you.

I know what's best right now.

Just don't do those things.

And we need to realize that when God tells us no, it's for our own protection.

And here's the devil with Jesus.

Look at all of this, it could all be yours.

Take a shortcut, Jesus.

It's not gonna hurt anyone, just take the easy way out, Jesus.

And I say shortcut because Jesus knows that all of this is gonna be his anyway.

We see that in Revelation 21.

So, what the enemy is trying to do is offer Jesus an easier way.

Just worship me, and this will all be yours.

And then you won't have to die the brutal death on the cross.

You can see how this would be appealing to Jesus, right?

The easy way out, the shortcut.

It's like cheating on a test.

It's like copying homework, it's like sex before marriage or outside of marriage.

It's a shortcut to what God has really intended for each one of us.

It's like gambling, a shortcut to not having to work for our money.

But do you know what would have happened if Jesus accepted this shortcut right here?

We'd still be trying to earn our way to salvation.

Because Jesus would have received the kingdoms of this earth, but he wouldn't have died in our place on the cross.

If Jesus accepted this shortcut, we wouldn't be celebrating Easter at the end of this week coming up.

And I'm so glad that Jesus didn't take the shortcut.

Amen?

Yeah.

Before we move on, I think it's important to note something here that will come into play in verses 14 and 15 when we turn back to Mark to finish off our service.

The enemy offers Jesus the kingdoms of this world.

And Jesus never disputes this, that they belong to him.

And I say that because we're not living in God's kingdom while we're on this earth.

We're actually in the devil's territory.

And that's why we should never get too comfortable here.

This is not our home.

And until Jesus comes back and puts everyone in their place, this is not his kingdom.

We're still waiting for that day.

We're looking forward to that day.

We're praying for that day when it is, where Jesus rules and reigns over everything.

And then I want us to note too that when Jesus prays, it's his famous exemplary prayer, he says, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

It's proof that God's kingdom is not established on this earth yet, like it is in heaven.

This is the devil's kingdom, and that is why he can offer it to Jesus, why he has authority over it and says, I can give it to anybody that I want.

And we'll talk about this a little bit more in depth, as I said, when we get back to Mark.

But let's look at verse 8, where we're going to see Jesus as he sees through this scheme of the devil and how he responds.

Verse 8.

And Jesus answered him.

It is written, Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

So again, he uses Scripture to combat the lies of the enemy.

And again, he reaches back into Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 13, which just goes to show us that we need to study the word, that we need to feed our soul, that we need to stretch our appetite, and the Holy Spirit is going to bring those things to our recollection when we need them the most.

Deuteronomy 6:13

Now let's look at the third and final temptation here in verse 9.

It says, So he took him to Jerusalem, had him stand 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 give his angels orders concerning you to protect you, and they will support you with their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against the stone.

Now what do we see?

We see Satan quoting scripture.

What in the heck do we do with that, right?

Well, Satan's been around since creation.

And he not only knows the Bible, he witnessed it happening.

So I hate to admit this, but he knows the Bible better than anybody sitting on this lawn.

Better than you and I combined.

He witnessed it taking place.

Which is why we need to know the Bible ourselves.

Here we see him taking this verse completely out of context and twisting it to say exactly what he wants.

And he's really good at that, at twisting, isn't he?

Well, didn't God say, or what about this, or doesn't it, isn't it written?

And what he's doing is he's quoting Psalm 91,11, which is about God's protection among our enemies.

And Satan is just twisting that to say whatever he wants it to say.

And what he's doing is he's appealing to Jesus' pride here.

He's appealing to the pride that we all struggle with.

And you know, it's almost an instinct within us to prove people wrong, isn't it?

There's just something that we love about proving people wrong that's just kind of built into us.

Think about a dare.

I dare you to, you know, and then fill in the blank.

And there's something inside of us that says, Well, I have to prove them wrong.

You know, they don't know me.

I'm crazy like that.

You know, I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna do whatever they said, I'm gonna prove them wrong.

And then we do something stupid to prove them wrong, right?

There's something in our pride that just wants to prove people wrong and prove that we can when people think that we can't.

And this is what the enemy's trying to do and appeal to within Jesus here.

You can almost read into it, you know, if you really are the Son of God in some sinister voice, then I dare you to jump.

All that to say is that the devil's trying to appeal to Jesus' pride.

But, verse 12, look at it with me.

And Jesus answered him, it is said, Do not test the Lord your God.

So Jesus sees right through this scheme again and gives him scripture that is in context.

You know, I heard somebody say that if you torture a scripture long enough, you can get it to say anything you want.

And that's why context is so important.

Which is why we should know the word and why we should know all of it.

Read through your Bibles, familiarize yourself with it, so that you can never be fooled by the enemy's twisting.

Verse 13.

It says, After the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time.

There's a verse, and I bet you over half of you have it memorized.

Resist the devil and what?

And he will flee, right?

And we see exactly that happens right here.

Jesus resists the devil in verse 13, and he flees from him.

So my question is what can we learn from these three temptations that we see Jesus face with?

The enemy waits for the opportun the opportune time when we're at our weakest point and when we're in our most vulnerable state.

We know Jesus was hungry.

You can imagine that he was tired too.

Have you ever been camping?

When you come back, you're not usually more refreshed than when you left, right?

He's been camping with no food for 40 days.

You can imagine the physical state and the exhaustion that he must be experiencing at this time.

We know that he was hungry.

We know that he had been fasting for 40 days.

He's physically weak.

And here comes the enemy.

And you better believe that he's gonna do the same thing to us as well.

It was like Jesus wanted to experience the deepest, darkest temptations while being in the weakest physical condition that he could be in.

That way we could never say to him, Oh, Jesus, you just don't understand.

You don't know, Jesus, what I'm going through.

Because he'll just look at you and say, Oh, yes, I do.

I've been there before, I've walked through that.

I've been tempted in my weakest state, and I know exactly what you're going through.

And that leads us to something that I want to talk about regarding Jesus and temptation.

I think we often think about Jesus as not really being tempted because he is fully God.

But I want us to consider that he was also fully human.

So the question that's been debated throughout ages by people much smarter than me is was it possible for Jesus to sin?

I want you to think about that for a second.

It's kind of it'll kind of twist your brain into knots, but think about that for a second.

Was Jesus able to sin if he wanted to?

The debate's not whether he did, but whether he could.

Did he have the capacity to sin if he wanted to?

Because he was still fully a perfect God.

I'm gonna reach into Hebrews chapter 4, verse 14, and I'm gonna read this to you.

Hebrews 4:14

It'll shed a little bit of light onto this question.

It says, so then, since we have a great high priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe.

This high priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.

So he faced the same testings or temptations, and he went through these just like we did, as a man with flesh and bone.

But he was fully God, and God cannot sin because he's perfect, right?

So, what do we make of this?

And I know this is getting heady, and you know, it's stuff that can keep you up at night, but this is my opinion.

And like I said, smarter people have disagreed.

I believe that Jesus chose while on earth to never draw from his godly power to face temptation.

He chose to never draw from his godly power to face his everyday hardships in life.

He only used the same resources that we have today to face temptation and to live his everyday life.

He used, what do we see here?

He used the power of the Holy Spirit and he used the word of God to face this world, to face the enemy's kingdom.

This should be a huge encouragement to us that we have the same resources that Jesus did to face the temptations just like Jesus did.

He can be the sympathetic high priest that we see in Hebrews because he has been in our shoes.

He's faced the same temptations, and because of that, he has compassion on us because he knows exactly what we're going through.

I find great encouragement in knowing that Jesus can relate.

We have an advocate in Jesus Christ that is rooting for us and has compassion on us, and he knows how hard it is, the things that we're going through in our daily life.

And I think the biggest takeaway from this passage here in Luke is Jesus drew on the Holy Spirit and the Word of God and the devil fled.

So I want to encourage all of us to do the exact same thing.

Now, we're gonna turn back to the book of Mark, chapter one, and we're gonna pick up in verse 14.

We'll be done shortly here.

Verse 14.

Says, after John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.

The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near.

Repent and believe the good news.

So after John was arrested, let's just start there.

This is a very short teaser to a long explanation of what's coming in chapter six.

So we'll cover that uh here in a little bit as we go through the book of Mark.

But just to kind of give you an idea of what happened there, Mark tells us that John the Baptist is arrested because he calls out Herod, because Herod had married his own brother's wife.

I know that's all kinds of weird and crazy, you know, right in there.

But John calls him out and Herod says, You're arrested, and he throws him in prison.

Now, there's a time gap that we see between John the Baptist getting arrested and Jesus starting his ministry in Galilee, which that time gap is filled in in the Gospel of John.

But Mark puts John's arrest and Jesus going to Galilee, if you'll notice, in the same exact sentence.

And my question is, why?

That's a that's a really quick transition.

Well, look at verses 14 and 15 again.

It says, after John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God.

Now, this is my theory, and only that my theory, that Mark wants to show us where Jesus' priorities were.

I think he may be helping us draw the conclusion that Jesus doesn't form a protest or start a petition against the injustice that's that's done to John.

He doesn't start a riot and try to overthrow Herod and free John.

No, Jesus sees injustice, he sees a broken world, he sees the kingdom of Satan acting like the kingdom of Satan.

And what does he do?

He gives people the good news, and he gives them hope by preaching of a better kingdom, a perfect kingdom that's to come.

As we mentioned earlier, Jesus told us, You will have suffering in this world.

And then he told his disciples, be courageous, I have conquered the world.

He doesn't get all riled up when things go wrong.

At least he doesn't get riled up when things go wrong in Satan's kingdom.

He expects those things, and he tells his disciples to expect those things as well.

But what does he do?

And what is the good news for the specifically for these people in Galilee?

That he's here.

The time and the anticipation from the prophets of old to the coming Messiah is fulfilled, and Jesus is standing right in front of them now.

The kingdom of God is near.

Nothing, I want you to notice as we go through the whole book of Mark, nothing was able to take Jesus' eyes off of the purpose of God sending him to preach the good news of the kingdom of God.

Now we're going to hear Jesus talk a lot about the kingdom of God as we go through Mark.

So I think it's important that we define what that means right here in verse 15, as it's the first time that it's mentioned in this book.

And I think the simplest definition is that the kingdom of God is where God is king.

Does that make sense?

As we saw in the temptations, the kingdom of God is not on this earth.

But Jesus just said in this verse that it's near.

Or some translations are going to say the kingdom of God is at hand.

Verse 15 says that the time is fulfilled.

It's present, it's now.

Now decide if you want to be a part of God's kingdom or not.

What Jesus desires for each one of us is that the kingdom of God would live inside of each one of us.

That Jesus being God would rule and reign inside of each one of us.

Right now, the only chance we have of experiencing the kingdom of God on earth is by asking Jesus Christ to reign inside of each one of us.

Then we can have a peace of the kingdom with us all the time while we live in a kingdom that's not ours, that's of the enemy.

Jesus wants to rule and reign in our hearts.

And the kingdom of God, like we said, is where God is king.

So let's make Jesus our king over each one of our lives.

So Jesus says, the time is fulfilled.

And then he says, the kingdom of God has come near.

And then he says, repent and believe it.

Repent.

Turn from your sin and rebellion.

Like we mentioned last week, repentance means you were heading in one direction and realized that was the wrong direction.

And then you turn from that and you started heading in the right direction.

Jesus is telling them that there is another option to what you've been up to.

If you've had your fill of this world and you're ready for something else, there is another option.

Repent.

The time is fulfilled.

It's now.

What are you waiting for?

Repent and turn to God and to his kingdom.

And for some of you here today, you might be saying the same thing.

God might be trying to say the same thing to you, I should say.

The time is now.

There's another way.

Repent and join the kingdom of God.

And for the Christ followers that are out there here today, I think the question is: what will we choose to do with the time that we have while we're living in a kingdom that is not our home?

And may I suggest that we do exactly what Jesus did.

That's usually a good idea, don't you think?

To tell others of the good news and to give them hope of a better kingdom to come.

May I suggest that we do just exactly that.

To give people the hope that we can be a part of that kingdom and we can experience a part of that kingdom right now here in our hearts.