Welcome to this message from the teaching ministry of University Presbyterian Church in Orlando, Florida under the leadership of senior pastor Mike Osborne. Alright, we're going to continue our sermon series entitled The Passion. We've been talking about some of the things that took place in Jesus' earthly life in ministry in the last days that he was alive. So if you had turned with me in your Bibles to Matthew, chapter 26, we're going to look through verses 36 to 46. If you're using one of the Bibles that we provide under the chair, I believe it's on page 985. Matthew 26, 36 through 46. This is God's holy and inspired word. Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to them, sit here while I go over there and pray. He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him. And he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me. Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, my father, if it is possible, may this cut be taken from me, yet not as I will. But as you will, then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. Couldn't you men keep watch with me for one hour? He asked Peter. Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away a second time and prayed, my father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done. When he came back again, he again found them sleeping because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time saying the same thing. Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, the son of man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go. Here comes my betrayer. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time to be in your word. We pray now that you would magnify the glory of our Lord Jesus. We long to see him in this text and that he would shine. We pray, Lord, that you would use this time to empower us to run with the gospel to our neighbors and to the nations. And it is in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.
It was my birthday the other day, some of you know that. Thanks for all the Facebook messages, woot, woot. I got to go out to dinner with my wife and some good friends on Friday and one of those friends whom you know but I won't tell you who he is. He was telling me that he was a little nervous about the restaurant that we picked because he had been there a few times in the past. And the first time he went, he looked at the menu, saw something he thought would be good, ordered it and when it came as he began to eat it, he immediately regretted that decision tremendously. Apparently it was not good and so then he went back several months later back to the same restaurant but he said that he could not remember what he had ordered. So he is looking at the menu and he is thinking, oh please. And so he orders something that looks pretty good and sure enough the waiter brought it out and sat it in front of him. You have got to be kidding me. He did it again, it was the same thing. So now it is the third time and I am saying, do you know do you remember what it was and he said no. So he is sitting there hoping that this works out. I am sitting there hoping that it doesn't because I thought it would be really funny and he would have to forgive me. It turned out it did work out whatever was brought to him was fantastic and he didn't have to go through that again. He didn't have to say that phrase, I can't believe I did that again. Which in regard to ordering a dish at a restaurant that is not so good, you can handle that phrase. But you and I both know that there are times in our lives where we say that and we are devastated as it rolls off our lips. I can't believe I did that again. You and I know that guilt that rushes in that shame that we feel and it is absolutely debilitating I cannot believe I did that again. And the matter the fact of the matter is that is a result of being tempted and giving in. We give in to temptation, we are going to feel that guilt, we are going to feel that shame every single time. So we are talking about Jesus in the Garden of Givesemini this morning as we continue this series. And the word Givesemini means oil press. It was the machine a large stone wheel that would roll over olives to crush the olives and therefore they would be able to extract the oil. But I want Givesemini to also mean something else for us as we move forward because Givesemini not only means oil press but it also means good news for people facing temptation. Which by the way is every one of us. We all face temptation and we are all going to give in at times. So we need good news and that is what we are going to see this morning. Good news for people facing temptation. We are going to do this in three ways. I want to look at Jesus tremendous fight. Then we will talk about his tremendous faithfulness and then his tremendous freedom. How is that for more eliteration? So we are going to talk about each of these things. So if you still have your Bible open and great, please open it back up. We are going to walk right through and look at this. For example, let's talk about Jesus tremendous fight and looking at verses 37 and 38. This is a very interesting thing for us to see considering who we know Jesus to be. In verse 37, it says that Jesus began to feel sorrowful and troubled. And then he says to his disciples, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. What an incredible statement. He is saying that what is on my heart right now, what I am thinking about right now is so bad, I feel like I could die from the thought of it. So Jesus had finished the last supper with his disciples and then he had prayed the prayer from John 17 which Mike preached about last week. And then they took a little journey and they went to this place called Gethsemane. He left eight of his disciples at the gate and then he brought three of them in Peter and then the sons of Zebede who are James and John. And then Jesus went over a little bit more to pray. He only went about a stone-throw-away Luke says in his gospel. So he's still basically with Peter James and John. But that's what he says to them. He tells them that his soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. In Luke's gospel in chapter 22 verse 44, Luke uses the word agony. He says that Jesus was in agony, that he was agonizing this struggle that he was in involved basically his whole body and his whole soul. The word that Luke used agony is the same Greek word that people would use at that time frame to refer to the striving and the struggling of the original Olympians. Particularly the wrestlers who would basically, every single muscle in their body is actively pushing and pulling as hard as possible as they grapple and struggle with their opponent. And so this picture that we see here, this sorrow and this trouble in Jesus' heart, this is as intense as it gets. I mean Jesus is really, really wrestling. He is really in a fight here. And what is he afraid of? What is he fighting with? What is this that is causing all this fear, this trepidation, this sorrow? Well, he tells us in his prayer, look at verse 39, he refers to this cup. That's what's on his mind, the cup. Now, what he's referring to here is the fact that the cup in the Old Testament was always a metaphor for the wrath of God. It was a picture of God's wrath, his punishment of sinners for their sin. It comes out like it's being poured out from him onto them. And it always carried with it very powerful and graphic imagery. For example, let me read to you from Isaiah 51, verse 17, Isaiah says, wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem. You who have drunk from the hand of the Lord, the cup of his wrath. You who have drunk to the drags, the bowl, the cup of staggering. Psalm 11, verse 6 says, let him reign cold on the wicked, fire and sulfur, and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup. There it is, again, this judgment of the Almighty and holy God upon sinners is poured out like it's coming from a cup. Ezekiel 23, 33 and 34 says, refers to the cup of horror and desolation. You shall drink it, he says, and drain it out and gnaw at its shards and tear at your breasts. There's this imagery of God's wrath being so gruesome that just the idea of a little bit of it going down into you and you'll start ripping at your chest to get it out. This is what is on the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ because he knew that the wrath that anybody had ever experienced up to this point was still very subdued. Compared with what he was about to go through. Maybe some people in times past had experienced drops of God's wrath, but Jesus was about to consume the entire glass. That's what he had been sent to do. That's what he was supposed to do. And so he is feeling this tremendous sorrow. It's overwhelmed. Just the thought of it is about to kill him. You have to keep in mind the dynamics of the physical realities pointing to the spiritual realities that we're not able to see. We all know that the crucifixion that he experienced, the pain and suffering of being whipped and having a crown of horns and having nails driven into his hand. That was absolutely horrific. The thought of that would make any of us sick. But still, that was a picture of the spiritual reality which was far worse. The wrath of God being poured out upon Christ on the cross is beyond anything we could ever, ever imagine. It's almost futile to make a comparison. I'll try, but it's going to fail miserably. But the difference between the physical suffering he experienced at the hands of men which was horrible compared to the spiritual suffering he experienced from God's wrath. Maybe it's like this. Many of us have had the profound misfortune, and I'm not saying this to be funny, of hammering and missing and hitting your thumb. And many of us have had it where you really come down and you really hit your thumb. And it is like the worst possible pain you are writhing around in pain and all it is is your thumb that's being hurt. If that's the physical pain Jesus went through, the spiritual pain is a hammer coming down on every cell of your body repeatedly for who knows how long. It is so far beyond our comprehension, the pain and suffering that he was to go through spiritually. One theologian said that his wounds on from men on the cross and the torture, that was like a mosquito bite compared to the suffering that he was going to experience at the hands of Almighty God. So Jesus is in the fight of his life. He is absolutely overwhelmed just the thought of what he's facing is about to kill him. So the first thing we got to see here is that if Jesus has a view of the wrath of God that brings him to his knees, we ought to have a view of God's wrath that brings us to our knees too. We can't forget that. Jesus feared the wrath of God and we should do that. So critical that we understand that to be the case, that we understand that God's wrath for the sins of mankind will come again. And those of us who are not in Christ will feel it. And it is absolutely the worst possible thing we can imagine times a billion. It's very sobering. And what it's supposed to do is drive us to a savior when we realize that is the case and that is what will happen. What we long for is a savior. I want to weigh out. I want to be saved from that. And that's why we need to talk about Jesus' tremendous faithfulness because we know the story. Jesus went to the cross and he did save us from that. So let's look at this. Let's see how actually difficult it was in this moment. Let's talk about Jesus' tremendous faithfulness by looking at verse 39. Here's his prayer. This is shocking. Jesus says to the Father, if it be possible, may this cut be taken from me. In other words, may I not have to go through this? Yep, not as I will, but as you will. So in reality, his fight, his wrestling match is against temptation. Jesus is feeling extreme temptation to back out. He even says that his will, his desire is to not go through the wrath of God. But thankfully, he said not my will, but your will be done to the Father. And so we know that he proceeded, but that's his in-gift ceremony. He's in the oil press. And he's imagining the oil press of God's wrath that is going to absolutely destroy him. And he's saying if there's another way, let's do that. It gets worse. I mean, we can't even imagine you and I can't even imagine what it would be like to be facing that one in one bit. We can't even come close, but it actually gets worse because as he's in this wrestling match, this fight to remain faithful to go ahead and go through with it, he's struggling as much as he's ever struggled in his entire life. It's absolutely brutal. The thought of it's almost killing him. He's wrestling with being faithful to God and to the disciples. And when he looks over at the disciples whom he'd asked to stay awake and to watch and to pray, look at verse 40, they fell asleep on him. I mean, I can't even imagine that. You're going through this intense struggle. It's taking everything you've got. You've asked these guys to come with you and just stay awake. That's all I need from you. And I'm wrestling and I'm wrestling. I'm being tempted. Jesus is just going through this horrible thing. And then he looks over at the people that he's supposed to be saving and they're sleeping. They couldn't even stay awake for an hour. And so he comes over and he says that you guys got to be kidding me. You couldn't even stay awake for one hour. Watch and pray so you do not fall into temptation. I mean, imagine that he's already struggling so much. And he looks over at the people that he's trying to save and they've given up on him. They're totally unfaithful to him. I don't know. I mean, I would have you and I, every single one of us would have been forget it. See you out of here. Someone else can have to do this. There's no way any of us would have ever even thought of continuing in the face of wrath. And then seeing that these guys couldn't even stay awake for an hour. How did he do it? Seriously? How did he possibly proceed to the cross? But he did. Even though in his greatest time in need, these guys fell asleep, even though he's facing the scariest thing that's beyond any of our wildest imaginations, but he knew exactly what he was facing. He proceeds to the cross. We know that because we know the rest of the gospel story, but we also see it right here in the text, and his prayer changes. And then his attitude toward the disciples and their sleeping changes too. Let's look at the prayer. Look at the difference between the prayer in verse 39. And the prayer that he prays again in verse 42. They're very similar, but there's a difference. Look, in 39, this is before he saw the disciples had gone to sleep on him. He says, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me? Then he has a little dust up with the disciples tells him to stay awake, goes back and his prayer is a little different. If this cup cannot be taken away, unless I drink it, your will be done. And you can almost insert the words from them in verse 42 and read it this way. If this cannot, if this cup cannot be taken away from them, unless I drink it, may your will be done. So Jesus is reconciling here with the fact that if somebody is going to experience the wrath of God and say, either going to be him or it's going to be them. God's wrath will be satisfied. So it's either going to be satisfied by the people who deserve it, the disciples, you and me, or it's going to be satisfied by one who is able and willing to absorb it in himself and withstand it in our place. And praise God Almighty. That is what Jesus went on to do. We know that to be true. And that is the best news we could possibly imagine. Here's what's so shocking. It's so this full circle of creation is coming here because everything you ever experienced that's bad is a result of sin. Sin entered the world. Think about this because Adam was in a garden was tempted and failed. And now what we're seeing, probably the most important moment in history because without it, the cross wouldn't have happened. Jesus, the second Adam is in a garden being tempted and he succeeds. He wins. He wins the battle with temptation. And we see that because somewhere between rebuking them and going back to his knees and prayer, he changes his prayer and he says, clearly, this cannot pass from them unless I take it. So I'm going to take it. And then the other thing we see is how he changes his attitude towards them in verse 43 and 43. He comes back again finds them sleeping again. This time he doesn't say wake up. What's wrong with you guys? He looks at them sleeping. He knows that sin has destroyed their ability to be faithful to him. So he's going to go destroy their sin and be faithful to them. And he lets them sleep. And when he comes back the third time and says, are you guys still sleeping? He's not angry. He's just waking him up because Judas is getting close. So his prayer changes and his attitude towards them changes. We witness in this text one of the most important moments in history, Jesus's triumph over temptation. And think about this. What this screams at you and me who are following Christ is that Jesus faithfulness to us is not dependent on our faithfulness to him. Praise God Almighty. Jesus faithfulness to you and me is not dependent on our faithfulness to him. We are just like the disciples. We can fall asleep. We're going to mess up. We're going to make mistakes. And as we make mistakes in the same way that Jesus looked at them with compassion and chose to die for them anyway, even though they would not live for him or die for him, he goes forward anyway. He looks at us, you and I, the ones who continue to fail. We continue to give him to temptation too. And he saves us. His faithfulness to us is not dependent on our faithfulness to him. So that is his tremendous faithfulness. So those of you who continue to feel that guilt and shame, you got to realize that it's gone. And so let's realize that. Let's look at this tremendous freedom. We've talked about his tremendous fight, the tremendous faithfulness. And now let's talk about Jesus, tremendous freedom. Look at 41 again, 41. Jesus says to them, watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. That is so critical to understanding what Jesus is doing for us because the reality is regarding temptation. Jesus offers us, gives us, has secured for us two profound freedoms. Okay. So number one, he has set us free from our guilt. Part of how Jesus overcame his temptation to back out, was to look at the disciples and realize they are sitting ducks when it comes to temptation. They're absolutely helpless. Sin has completely demolished their ability to be faithful to him, to be faithful to anybody. And so he proceeds. And in doing so, he pays the debt. He pays the debt for everyone who believes in him that has ever failed in the face of temptation. So therefore, just like they failed, they were tempted to fall asleep, they fell asleep, you and I are tempted all the time. And we fail. We feel that wrestling match sometimes. And we still give in sometimes. And then we feel that guilt and we feel that shame. And this text is saying let go of the guilt. It's gone. Jesus took him took it with him to the cross and God poured out all that wrath on that guilt, none that shame on our Savior. It's gone. It's not with you anymore. You don't have to carry it anymore. Some of you feel horrible because recently you've given it a temptation. And right now you need to take a deep breath and let it out and let it be gone. Because of Christ, he paid your debt. So God says to you, not guilty. It's almost too hard to believe, but it is the gospel. And see the reality is all sin is giving into temptation. You've never sinned without being tempted first. Don't always feel it. But you've never sinned. I promise you without being tempted first. So when Jesus died on the cross, received the wrath of God. He was paying the debt for our failures to fight temptation. So we are free. Galatians 3, 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. It's such good news. God is not holding your sins against you because he held them against Christ. However, and that is enough reason for us to praise Jesus for the rest of eternity as we will. But it's not the only form of freedom that he gave us. He also gave us freedom from the power that temptation has. Jesus did not want us to simply have our guilt removed but then continue to get beat up and bang around by the same sins over and over and over. So he is giving us power to fight against temptation and to overcome. I want to show you something from the Westminster larger catechism. And it's from question 39. It's an old English. So do a little translation on the fly in your brain. I'll try to help if I can. But the question is why is it requisite that the mediator should be man? What it's saying is why was it necessary that Jesus should be man? We know that God or Jesus is fully God and fully man. The scriptures make that clear. And in this text, we're really seeing Jesus as humanity. And so in answer to this question, why was it absolutely critical that Jesus was a man? Here's the answer. It was requisite that the mediator should be man that he might advance our nature. Perform obedience to the law, suffer and make intercession for us in our nature. Have a fellow feeling of our infirmities that we might receive the adoption of sons and have comfort and access with boldness to the throne of grace. Now all of those things are absolutely amazing. But that first line that he might advance our nature. So amazing. Because what is wrong with our nature, our nature is that we are totally unable to fight against temptation. We are sitting ducks when it comes to temptation. And so Jesus is advancing our nature through what he has done in his life, death, burial and resurrection, giving us abilities to overcome temptation that we maybe didn't even realize that we have. Now, some of you may have been watching as a guy named Felix Baumgartner got ready to break a record in October. And it was pretty awesome. Felix Baumgartner is a skydiver. And most people when they go skydiving, they jump from about three quarters of a mile off of the face of the earth, which most of us just said never for me. Thank you. And but here's the thing. He decided to smash the record for the highest freefall skydiving jump. And then you still have a parachute opening. But he goes not three quarters of a mile, but 24 miles up in the atmosphere. It's like 168,000 feet. And then he jumps out free falls for over four minutes before his parachute opens. And he hits the ground like he was hopping off the swing at a playground. It's unbelievable. And what he did is he show that human beings are capable of going up that high in the atmosphere and surviving that long of a fall and moving that fast. He broke the sound barrier. First person ever to break the sound barrier without propulsion. Okay. So awesome. Anyway, he sort of he shows. He shows. Look what human beings can do. Jesus was not showing us what we can do. He was showing us what we can't do. We cannot fight temptation. And therefore he is showing us how he will empower us to fight the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. So he had to do something about that weak flesh. And what he did is upon dying and rising from the grave is he gave us his holy spirit. We know this from Acts 1 verse 8. Jesus promises disciples that when the Holy Spirit comes, they will receive power. And then there'll be his witnesses across the entire world. But that power is not just about fulfilling the mission. It's also about fighting temptation. We need that power because our flesh is weak. And so it's so critical that we see that Jesus sets us free not only from the penalty that we deserve to pay for our sin, but he also gives us power so we can fight against these temptations. We don't have to let these temptations continually continually beat us up and cause us to sin and bring us into that guilt and shame that we feel and we so here's the greatest example. I love this. Peter himself is such a phenomenal example. I want you to think about Peter. I want you to realize this. At the last supper, you know this story in chapter 26 of Matthew, verse 35, he says something to Jesus. That sounds pretty bold. Jesus says, they're going to come after me and all you guys are going to run away and desert me and Peter says, Oh, no, not me, Jesus. He says, and I quote, even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you. That's what he said. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Just a couple hours later, he's supposed to be awake and he falls asleep in a couple hours after that. He is supposed to be, he's not supposed to be denying the fact that he knows Jesus. He should be shouting that he knows Jesus, who Jesus is from the mountaintops, but people come up up to him one after another. Aren't you with Jesus? No, I don't know the man. One time and no offense to little girls, but one was a little girl and came up and said, don't you know who Jesus is? And he's afraid of her. He's like, I don't, I don't know the man. So he's absolutely, he's willing. He said he wanted to, but he was weak. He could not do it. And then the result of him giving into that temptation to protect himself and disown his savior caused him Matthew 2675, Peter wept bitterly. He was going through what you and I go through when we do something we know we should have done when we give into temptation and we're saying I can't believe I did that again and we're weeping. Peter was going through the same thing. And then what's so powerful about this is it wasn't but days later, Jesus rises from the grave triumphantly proving that God had accepted his payment for our sin. He gives them the Holy Spirit. They're filled with the Holy Spirit in the early part of the book of Acts. And then you see Peter standing up Peter, people pleasing Wimpy little Peter who can't even say to a girl, a little girl that he knows who Jesus is. He is, he's now preaching these sermons that are absolutely powerful and Christ exalting. Let me read you one line that he preaches probably to a lot of the same people that were asking him if he knew who Jesus was and he was saying, no, no, I don't know him. Now with the Holy Spirit within him, he's not giving into the temptation to back down. He's not giving into the temptation to run away. He's preaching let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Now he's both willing and he's able the Holy Spirit has given him the power that he needs not only to faithfully proclaim the gospel and demonstrate the gospel but to fight against those temptations to run that were always causing him to wind up weeping bitterly. Listen, here's the good news for people facing temptation. Jesus has paid your debt for when you failed and he's also given you his spirit, his Holy Spirit to empower you to fight against the temptation so you don't continue to get beat up over and over over by the same sins. Our weak flesh is still weak but empowered by the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ. He advanced, he advanced our nature. He made us capable of withstanding this temptation through the Holy Spirit and a couple of other things too. I want to leave you with some three, three points of practical application. It's very simple. They're right here in the text. When we are facing temptation, here's what we need to do. In addition to remembering that even if we fail, God loves us unendingly because Christ has paid our debt. You also see this when you're facing temptation, we've got to be praying. We've got to be on our face praying to the Father. That's exactly what Jesus did. Jesus went extremely honest to the Father saying, I am scared. I don't know if I want to do this. He brought his prayer in verse 39, 42 and 44. He brought that temptation to the Father. So bring your temptation to the Father. Second, involve Christian friends. Jesus could have gone off by himself but he brings at least three people with him. Peter, James and John, if Jesus brings friends when he goes to battle with temptation, we better do it too. One of my favorite things about being a pastor is when people have been experiencing the same sin over and over and over and they've really been getting beat up and it's damaging their relationship with God. It's damaging their relationship with others. They finally get to their wit send. A lot of times they go and they seek out a pastor and so I get to start talking to them and I teach them the same things I'm teaching you. And what's amazing is I have seen so many times as people get friends involved in the battle, they begin to see victory because the friends are praying for them and the friends are with them and the friends are fighting along with them because they're good friends who also have the Holy Spirit who aren't going to fall asleep on them. They're going to be there watching and praying with them and it's powerful and then you hear people show up and you say you know that that thing I was wrestling with hasn't happened in a month hasn't happened in a year and you see on their face the glory of Jesus Christ in the way that he empowered them to fight against this thing that had been beating them up for so long it's my it's one of my favorite things about being a pastor but we can all see it and we can all experience it on both sides. We can all help each other who are in need and we can also get help stop fighting your temptations on your own whether it's people in your life group whether it's people in your midweek Bible study whether it's people in your Sunday school class whether you want to come talk to me or Mike or anybody else in leadership here. Don't do it alone Jesus didn't why should you third your flesh is still weak our nature is only advanced because we are possessors of the Holy Spirit when we battle temptation a we remember that even if we fail we're forgiven because Jesus succeeded against temptation in our place but number two we realize that we have power God shows his great love not only by forgiving us because when we lose but by empowering us to win listen to this the spirit of the one who overcame the greatest temptation ever known lives within you and he is willing and able to give you power power to fight to win. The greatest video I've ever seen on the internet not too long ago went viral you might have seen it. This setting is a mall and in the mall there is a pretty big escalator that's one of those escalators that kind of comes down in the middle of the room and it's you know in a giant hallway you know surrounded with stores and all that good stuff. So this young kid it's hard to tell it's from mall surveillance camera footage so it's not super clear but you can see what happens. This little five or six year old kid walks up and he's staring at that escalator for a second and he's tempted to do something completely foolish and he does it. He goes up to it and he starts climbing up the outside and he's hanging on to the railing which is moving and pretty soon he realizes he's too far to jump and he can't go back down because the railing is moving up and he is ascending higher and higher in the sky higher and higher above the ground and pretty soon the escalators coming to an end. There's going to be a wall in this little five or six year old kid his feet drop and now he's dangling hanging on with his his the last little bit of strength that he has and pretty soon of course what happens is fingers like oh and he begins to fall. But by the grace of God somebody had seen it happening and they ran across and right when he got there they caught the little kid and their arms and they're holding him for a second and then you're just like oh I mean it's like the most relieving thing to see that somebody saved this kid. And then they set them down and I don't know what they said you can't hear it probably like don't do that or something like that and then the little kid runs away and the stranger kind of you know walks off and stuff like that but that's what happens that's who Jesus is. Jesus sees you and me giving into temptation and doing these stupid stupid things and he knows that there was we're going to come to the end and we're going to fall and instead of letting us hit the ground he swoops in and he grabs us and he saves us from that so that he takes the fall so that he goes through what we ought to go through. But the difference is he doesn't just set us down and say don't do that again. He says I forgive you and I want to give you power so that you don't get yourself in these situations as much. I want to give you my Holy Spirit. I want you to begin to win. I want you to experience what it's like to face temptation and win in other words he's saying I want you to be like me. Because I faced the greatest temptation ever and I won that's what he's saying to us that's what he's saying to you so what are you facing what is the sin that keeps coming back. Name it and then pray get some friends involved trust in the Holy Spirit and win and praise God who forgives us when we fail but also gives us power to succeed for the glory of Christ his son. Let's pray father forgive us for for our failings we thank you so much that Jesus has caught us in his arms and he has empowered us. We will still fail while we're here on this planet and so we thank you for the truth of our justification in Christ the truth that we are not cursed because Jesus became a curse for us. And give us your spirit help us to believe that we have the Holy Spirit so that we can fight against temptation particularly the temptation to deny you let us run run run to our neighbors into the nations with this gospel that more people would be caught by Jesus and empowered to obey and empowered to join the mission of making disciples of all nations for it is in Jesus mighty name that we pray.
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