11.2.24 am

[0:00] Good morning. A warm welcome to the service this morning. Good to see all of you and those who are visiting especially are welcome. If you're able to stay behind there's tea and there's coffee at the end of the service and it would be good to get the chance to meet with you and enjoy fellowship together. The notices have been on the screen before the service began and I don't think I need to draw attention to anything very much other than to say that there's a session meeting tomorrow at 2 p.m. All the rest of the notices you've read through them and they're as normal week to week. So let's begin this time of worship and let's sing to God's praise. We'll sing from Sing Psalms 27. Sing Psalms 27 and that's from verses 1 to verse 6 of the psalm. The Lord's my saviour and my light who will make me dismayed. The Lord's the stronghold of my life. Why should I be afraid? When evildoers threaten me to take my life away, my adversaries and my foes will stumble in that day. Although an army hems me in, my heart will feel no dread. The war against me should arise.

[1:12] I will lift up my head. One thing I'll plead before the Lord and this I'll seek always, that I may come within God's house and dwell there all my days, that on the beauty of the Lord I constantly may gaze and in his house may seek to know direction in his ways. We'll sing down to the end of verse 6 and that's our prayer that in God's house we'll have that vision, that fresh vision of Jesus. So let's stand to sing to God's praise.

[1:42] Come on. The Lord's my saviour and my light who will make me dismayed. The Lord's the stronghold of my life. Why should I God's love and my life. Why should I be afraid? When evildoers threaten me to take my life away, my adversaries and my foes will stumble in that day. Although an army hands me in, my heart will feel no dread. Though war against me should arise,

[3:12] I will lift up my head. I will lift up my head. I will lift up my head. I will lift up my head. I'll lead before the Lord and this I'll seek always, that I may come within God's and dwell there all my days.

[4:12] may seek to know direction in his ways. For in his dwelling he will keep me safe in troubled days. may seek to know direction in his ways. For in his dwelling he will keep me safe in troubled days. may seek to know direction inNING and on a rock be raised.

[4:58] My head will then be lifted high above my enemies and in his tent I'll sacrifice with shouts of joy and praise.

[5:41] We'll join our hearts together in prayer. Maybe just before we pray as well we can be praying for various things but I had a message from Anthony, Dr Latham just a wee bit earlier this morning Mary Latham Mary Morrison as she is now you know has been struggling for a wee while and she's had chemotherapy for the cancer which has had a good effect in sort of suppressing it to an extent.

[6:12] But the negative effect of that has been there's been quite a lot of side effects and one has been the loss of hearing. So her hearing has been reducing over the last couple of weeks and Anthony was saying it's gone down and down to the point now that she's actually she's profoundly deaf.

[6:28] So she can't hear either either ear. and it's obviously very distressing for Mary and for Connor and for all of the family. She's waiting I think it's six weeks he said to have a consultation with a view to getting some kind of implants that may work or they may not work depending on the kind of damage that the chemotherapy has had.

[6:53] So he would very much appreciate that we pray for for Mary at this time. So let's unite our hearts together in prayer. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father we thank you that we can come to you in prayer and we thank you that we can call you our Father.

[7:17] You're the God of heaven and earth. You're the God who is almighty the God who is all powerful. the God whose ways sometimes are mysterious higher than our ways hard impossible for us to understand and yet you're the God who is loving and who is kind.

[7:38] You're the God who is our our Savior the one who did not leave us in our sin who did not leave us in a state of hopelessness.

[7:50] But Father we thank you that you sent your Son Jesus into this world to give to us hope. We thank you that he is the Prince of Peace.

[8:01] We thank you that in Christ there is salvation there is light there is eternal health. We thank you that in Christ alone our hope is found and we praise you that that hope is a hope which is for time and for eternity.

[8:21] so we pray that each one of us this morning as we join together in the name of Jesus would be able to say that in Christ alone our hope is found.

[8:34] We pray that we would be able to say with the psalmist that the Lord is our Lord the one in whom we have strength the one in whom we have protection.

[8:45] we confess with the psalmist that often we are afraid often times we find that we are anxious in this world often we feel dismayed and cast down and we thank you that we are able in honesty to cry out from our hearts we thank you for these psalms of lament where the psalmist cries out asking how and why expressing the pain that sometimes he experienced in this world and we thank you that you hear such prayers that you meet with us and that you help us in our time of need so we ask Lord that you would help each one of us this day help us not to be afraid help us not to be dismayed we pray that none of us would be hopeless but we ask that we would see

[9:48] Jesus that we would have that fresh vision of God that the psalmist cried out for we pray that as we wait upon you that you would meet with us Lord and that you would renew our strength we thank you that we can call you our father that's the teaching of your son we thank you that it's because of your son that we are able to come to you as children to our father we thank you that Jesus has taken our sin away they are washed away in the blood of Christ and as we come in the name of Jesus and as we come trusting in the finished work of Jesus we thank you that we come as children to our father and so we pray for your help and for your hand to be upon us and for your blessing we pray especially for those who are going through particularly difficult times we see our TV screens and we see much in this world much in far away nations of suffering and turmoil of war of man's inhumanity to man and Lord we thank you that we can cry out and we can ask that you would intervene we pray that you would

[11:10] Lord in these places where there is such acute suffering we read in magazines and hear of reports of brothers and sisters in Christ who are persecuted who have no such luxury of being able to meet in safety as we do this morning those who every time they proclaim the name of Christ every time they gather together behind closed doors are risking life and limb we pray that you would bless them that you would protect them and that you would make us grateful for all the freedom that we have to worship and to proclaim the name of Jesus help us to do that boldly in this dark nation that we find ourselves in now and we pray Lord for those that you have put in authority over us and we ask that you would give them wisdom we pray for a world that is broken in many ways a world that groans under the weight of sin a world that waits for

[12:14] Jesus the redeemer to come come Lord Jesus we pray and we pray for those who are close to us who are struggling we pray for Anthony and for Christian we pray especially for Mary at this time and for our husband Connor we ask Lord that you would that you would meet them that you would be with them Lord Jesus you're the great physician we can think back on times past when we have prayed and we have received answers that have been more than we could ask or imagine and yet we can think also of times when we have prayed and we have had hearts that were sore through difficult seasons but we thank you that you are that you are love that you are loving and we commit Mary to you and Connor we ask Lord that if it's your will that you would heal her that you would bring back the hearing loss that she suffers under just now we pray for those who will treat her medically give them wisdom give them compassion and we pray Lord for more than medical touches also pray for the touch of

[13:28] Jesus upon her at this time we pray that in the storm of this difficult providence that she would know that you are loving and that you are powerful and for all else who struggle and who suffer for those who are sick for those who are housebound for those who wait procedures even this week we bring them to you in prayer for those who are grieving for those who feel cast down for those who battle with depression addiction many of the afflictions in this world we see them in our mind's eye perhaps and we bring them to you in prayer and we pray Lord that you would bless the word that we heard last weekend we thank you for John Lachie and for David Court we pray that this place and our lives would be a house of prayer we pray that we would seek first your kingdom that we wouldn't seek first panelled houses for ourselves that we wouldn't put our own desires first but we ask Lord that we would seek first your kingdom and Lord that you would add and subtract all that is necessary for us to live lives which are pleasing to you so hear our prayers take away our sin lead us and guide us in worship we ask and we ask all this in

[14:54] Jesus name and for his sake amen boys and girls would you like to come forward please how are you all today good good like a new haircut today Cal very smart just a short story today real life story true story I think it goes back not to last week but the week before last and it was Thursday morning and could you remember back to Thursday morning our week last Thursday Wednesday can you remember what you were doing I can't remember the day it was what you were doing it was a different kind of a week what time oh snow there was snow but on this particular day there wasn't snow there wasn't school

[16:00] Christy there was no school that's right there was no school on this day the snow had gone but why were you off school storm storm wasn't it it was pretty windy wasn't it that day well it was in our place yeah well this was the start of the day okay and I was in the study I was just working away as usual and all of a sudden the phone went and I picked up the phone I looked at the phone and it was it was Jillian it was Jillian and Jillian very very rarely is she here she very very rarely phones me and I thought no she's phoning for so I picked up the phone Gordon was away and of course somewhere picked up the phone hello I said and Jillian she said she sounded a bit nervous she said I think I think we've maybe got something that belongs to you and I thought what's she talking about

[17:07] I thought maybe it's maybe it's Shawis the dog because they've got two dogs girl dogs and sometimes Shawis decides that he's feeling like he likes to cross the road and go and go and visit the girls over in the other guard occasionally that happens and so I thought I thought it's Shawis crossed the road it's Shawis there and I just glanced across there was Shawis just lying on the rug quite happy I thought I don't know what she's talking about and I said what is it that you've got she said look out the window and I looked out the window and you know what they had in their garden that belonged to us not our bin our trampoline so our trampoline that had been dug into the ground that had about 40 heavy concrete blocks holding it down in one gust it just was blowing right up into the sky over our garden fence across the main road over

[18:16] Gordon's hedge and I was through his washing line sorry about that Gordon and stuck on the roof on the roof exactly well we were lucky it never blew it all the way across the river so Julian said everything I think is okay here but maybe you should come over and thought maybe I should so Mary and I were running over to try and get hold of this trampoline I got hold of it and the gusts of wind if it had got a proper gust of wind and I was holding on to it I would have been at Scalpy in three minutes but we managed to pull it down and get it on the ground and started trying to take the fabric off it because that was like a parachute and eventually we got the trampoline down and we got it sorted out and then like you said Michael the wind died down and everything was okay but this massive heavy trampoline with a big thing all the way around it as well it would take probably four or five of us to lift it and then all the concrete blocks imagine on top of that and just in one gust it was way over the road like an empty crisp packet and it made me think just about the power of God do you ever think about how powerful

[19:43] God is yeah think about the power of God because who is it that makes the wind blow well God does who is it that's in creation that's behind all of creation who is it that spoke creation into being God so when we look out and we see the sea and all the movement in the sea and when we feel the sea sometimes Donald was in a fishing boat for lots of years and when you're in the massive big sea and you're getting thrown around in this wee boat it helps us to just think about the power of God and when the wind blows we think about the power of God and do you remember that day when the disciples were in a fishing boat they were on the sea of Galilee the first everything was fine and Jesus was very tired so he was sleeping wasn't he in the back of the boat and all of a sudden a storm blew up and the disciples who were fishermen who were well used to the wind and the sea how did they respond do you remember what they said they were terrified weren't they they were saying to

[21:04] Jesus can't you do something don't you care if we drown what did Jesus do he shushed the storm and what happened then everything went calm so what I want you to think about this week boys and girls is just the power of God think about how powerful how big how strong how mighty how powerful God is and then think about how amazing it is that the God who is so powerful how does he use his power towards you and I is he cruel towards us does he like to hurt us or does he want to save us do you think Michael he wants to save us this powerful

[22:09] God he wants to be your friend he wants to be your savior he wants to love you he wants to care for you he wants you to call him father how amazing is that that this powerful God he's our savior he's our friend he's our father and we're trusting in the Lord Jesus remember the apostle Paul he was thinking about that one day and the apostle Paul he often got into a lot of trouble he got into a lot of fights because he kept on preaching the bible when everybody else said you shouldn't and Paul said in Romans 8 he was thinking about all the trouble in this world you know what he said he said if God is for us if God is our friend God is with us he says who can be against us the devil will be against us but what Paul was saying is not even the devil not even death nothing in this world nothing anywhere can overcome us if God is with us so trust in God and think about how powerful and how mighty and how loving he is towards us we pray

[23:32] Lord God we thank you that you are powerful that you are mighty and that you love us and that father you sent your son Jesus into this world to be our friend to be our savior to be the good shepherd and we ask Lord that every one of us would be trusting in you that we would be able to say that you are with us that you are our friend that you are our father that you are our savior and we pray all this in Jesus name amen we're going to sing now and we're going to sing from mission praise 1100 41 which speaks about how powerful and how mighty God is there's a line in this hymn listen for it and it says all creation holds together everything in this world holds together by the power of your voice.

[24:25] So you're the word of God the Father. It's the hymn that we're going to sing. We'll stand to sing in just a moment. We'll stand to sing in just a moment.

[25:00] All creation holds together by the power of your voice. Let the skies declare your glory.

[25:13] Let the land and seas rejoice. You're the author of creation. You're the Lord of every man.

[25:24] And your cry of love rings out across the land. If you left the gaze of angels, if you seek and save the lost, and exchange the joy of heaven for the anguish of a cross.

[25:47] With a prayer you fed the hungry. With a word you still deceive. Yet how silently you suffer that the guilty may go free.

[26:02] You're the author of creation. You're the Lord of every man. And your cry of love rings out across the land.

[26:15] With a shout you rose victorious, resting vainly from the grave, and ascended into heaven, leading captives in your way.

[26:31] Now you stand before the Father, interceding for your own. From each side and tongue and mission.

[26:42] You are leading sinners home. You're the author of creation. You're the Lord of every man.

[26:53] And your cry of love rings out across the land. Amen. Okay, boys and girls, if you head to Sunday school, remember to pray for them as they go.

[27:07] Amen. And if we could turn in our Bibles, please, to Matthew chapter 4.

[27:51] Matthew chapter 4, and we'll read from verses 1 to verse 11. This is the passage that deals with the temptation of Jesus.

[28:09] This is God's word. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry.

[28:24] And the tempter came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

[28:41] Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you.

[28:55] And on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. Jesus said to him, Again, it is written, You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.

[29:10] Again the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.

[29:24] Then Jesus said to him, Be gone, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord, your God, and to him only shall you serve. Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

[29:41] Amen. And may God bless that reading of his word to us. We'll sing again now to God's praise. We'll sing again from Psalm 27.

[29:52] We'll sing verses 7 and 8 of the Psalm. Two stanzas, and we sing in Gaelic. We remain seated to sing in Gaelic. I'll read the verses in English before we sing in Gaelic.

[30:05] O Lord, give ear unto my voice when I do cry to thee. Upon me also mercy have. And do thou answer me? When thou didst say, Seek ye my face, then unto thee reply, Thus did my heart, Above all things, Thy face, Lord, seek, will I.

[30:23] These two verses we sing to God's praise.NINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNINGNING CHOIR SINGS

[31:39] Oh Oh Oh

[32:45] Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh If you could turn back please now in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 4

[33:50] And let's ask for God's help as we come to study these verses Heavenly Father we thank you for this your word We thank you that we haven't been left in the dark But we have the light of your word And we pray that you would shine that light into our lives this day We thank you that as the psalmist spoke about seeking your face We thank you that we can seek you And find you in the pages of Scripture We ask Lord that you would meet with us That as we seek to draw near To you that you would draw near to us And that you would minister to us Speak to our hearts And give us eyes to see Help us to understand Touch our hearts we pray We pray that for the young ones in the Sunday school That they would hear the gospel message and understand it And believe it in their early years In their early years We pray for the wee ones in the cress as well Who haven't yet come to the point of understanding

[34:51] But we pray that they would grow up To recognize that You're the God who loves them We pray that they would grow up Feeling and sensing and knowing That love even as they take time In this place in this In this house And we pray for every other congregation Around us where The Bible is preached Christ crucified is preached We ask Lord that you would be working there As we pray that you would be working here We pray for the congregations That we are connected with For those who are visiting with us And the places of worship That they've left behind for today We ask that you would move In the power of the Holy Spirit there As we pray that you would move Amongst us here And we pray for those who are going out From the congregation here with the gospel We pray for Angus M.

[35:40] As he preaches in Scalpy this morning This morning we ask that you would bless him And speak through him And that you would enable Each of us to hear your voice Wherever the Bible is proclaimed And we pray all this in Jesus name And for his sake, Amen One of the things that we see From time to time If you have Facebook Or various platforms And social media You know, you have these connections So you sign up for an account And you start to have friends That network with you And if you're as old as me And quite a few of you are Then there's connections with friends That you might have been in school with 30, 40 years ago So it's not unusual for me To see things coming up Like an old school photograph From Portree High School

[36:42] And whatever year it was And you see it coming up And it catches your eye Because you recognize the name of the school And then you scan the year And think, was I in the school in that year? And then you scan the class And you, oh that's my class So when you see a picture And it's your school And it's your class Who's the first person you're looking for?

[37:06] Yourself It's just the way we are And sometimes that's the way That we read the Bible We pick up a passage And we're scanning Through the verses We're trying to Get an understanding of the passage But actually what we're looking for In the passage As our first priority Is ourselves It's just got to do with me And as we come to Matthew chapter 4 This is a passage that deals with temptation That's in bold letters At the beginning of the section If you're using the ESV or the NIV Or the NIV It's the temptation Of Jesus And immediately we see the word temptation There's a hook It's got us Because we're all tempted We're tempted to buy

[38:08] These new trainers This is confession time We're tempted to buy That new car Or these new curtains Things that we We definitely don't need Especially when it comes to curtains We're tempted to Have that chocolate bar Even though we've resolved That we're not going to have it Or we're tempted Maybe in a darker time To take that Another drink Or we're tempted To go and visit that Or we're tempted To look at that girl Or text that guy See temptation It's a very real thing And it's a thing that we can all Identify with

[39:09] If we're honest So maybe as we Come to Matthew chapter 4 We're seeing ourselves And maybe we're picking up And we're We're looking for some On how we can resist temptation We're coming to this passage If that's the way At Matthew chapter 4 We're reading it wrong That's not the purpose of this passage And if this is What we're looking to get out of it We're probably See the point Is not that we look at ourselves But it's that we look at Jesus The point of this passage As we approach it here It's not that we get some Handy hints

[40:12] In the battle with temptation The point of the passage Is that we focus On what Christ Has done In the victory Over temptation So there's four points The first thing That we see here Is that Jesus Was led So if you have the verses open Before you You'll find that helpful Verse 1!

[40:46] The first thing By the devil Into the wilderness To be tempted By the devil This is perhaps The first thing To note That indicates That this is This is about Jesus This is particular to Jesus This is not so much About us If we fast forward Just a couple of pages To Matthew chapter 6 Jesus Is teaching his disciples In verse 5 And following Jesus Is teaching his disciples How to pray It's the Lord's prayer We're familiar with it And part of that prayer In relation to temptation Do you remember what it says?

[41:30] Jesus teaches us to pray Lead us not Into temptation But for Jesus here As ministry begins Jesus is led By the spirit Into temptation Jesus here Is not fleeing From the devil Which is what we're well advised We're not strong enough To stand him down In our own strength But Jesus here He is not fleeing From the devil He's going to fight With the devil This is a face off This is a This is a stand off At the beginning Of ministry Goes into the Into the ring With Satan And Jesus will be triumphant He will resist the devil He will be obedient He will be sinless

[42:32] And he will do it for us As our substitute Rewind just a few verses To the baptism of Jesus He stands In the Jordan River Being baptized Without baptism Of repentance John asks the question What are you doing?

[42:50] And Jesus Is explaining I'm doing this for you I'm standing here As substitute And here as Jesus Goes into the wilderness As he's tempted by the devil He's doing it for us Doing it for us As our substitute Thinking through the bigger picture In the Bible Jesus will do What Adam could not do Jesus will do What Israel The children of Israel Could not do Think back to Genesis chapter 3 The first Adam He was tempted The devil comes along The devil speaks to him And the first Adam He listens to the devil And he sins And he falls But Jesus Who Paul In 1 Corinthians 15 Describes as the last Adam He doesn't fall He stands firm

[43:54] He does what Adam Could not and did not do Or think Or think The wilderness years For the children Of Israel For 40 years Remember They are wandering To the wilderness Because of unbelief Because of sin Because of how Ready they were To listen to the devil Because of how ready They were to yield To temptation They're in this desert land They're wandering And now we see Jesus And where is he?

[44:31] He's in the wilderness He's led by the spirit Into the wilderness That same place And how long is he there for?

[44:44] 40 days 40 is a number of tests In the bible And although Jesus Is tested And tempted He does not sin He does not doubt his father He does not yield To temptation So what we're to see here Is that Jesus Does perfectly Everything That Adam Could not do Jesus Does perfectly Everything That Israel Could not do And he does it As substitute For them And in their place So this is good news For Adam And this is good news For Israel And this is good news News for us Because we don't need to rewind All the way back to

[45:45] Genesis chapter 3 Or Exodus To think about failure And falling Rewind back to earlier this week In your life Maybe just earlier this morning And you and I were tempted Weren't we?

[46:04] Maybe to doubt God's word Maybe to fear And we shouldn't be fearful Maybe to look in lust Maybe to snatch in greed Maybe to stamp our feet And I want it my way The temptation came We sensed it We recognised it And we fell We failed And we feel that sense of failure We feel that sense of guilt But what we need to see here Is that Jesus did not fail He did not fall He was faithful He was steadfast He was righteous And he did it all for us As our substitute So Jesus was led Into temptation He stands firm

[47:08] In the heat of it all The second thing to note here Is that Jesus was like us Jesus was like us In Hebrews chapter 4 It says For we do not have a high priest Who is unable to sympathise But one who is in every respect The one who in every respect Yet without sin So the writer to the Hebrews Whoever that was I am not sure who it was He makes clear That when it comes to temptation Jesus understands our struggles All of us have our particular temptations And some of us speak to other people about them We talk about how we wrestle with different things And if you are going to share with somebody

[48:10] Your struggle with temptation You tend to go and find somebody who understands So if you are an alcoholic Then the likelihood is You go and speak to other alcoholics Those who understand Those who have got sympathy Those who have kind of insight into the struggle And the writer to the Hebrews Makes clear that Jesus Is able to sympathise with our weaknesses Whatever the temptation is He understands it Verse 2 After fasting 40 days And 40 nights He was hungry And the tempter came And so We'll hit pause just for a moment But just think about that Can you imagine fasting Can you imagine fasting Can you imagine fasting for 40 days And for 40 nights

[49:14] It's almost 6 weeks I was thinking about that earlier this morning That's like not eating anything Over the whole summer holidays Which in my childhood memory For 6 weeks almost For 6 weeks almost 40 days Jesus fasted How weak must Jesus have felt?

[49:41] How jaded was he physically? He is fully man He feels what we feel And some days We are in too much of a rush in the morning So we charge off without breakfast By about 11 o'clock in the morning We are just about fainting with weakness How much was Jesus struggling physically and mentally After 40 days and 40 nights of fasting And it's at that point And strikes And that's a teaching point That's a tactic of Satan That we are to take a note of Satan hits you when you are low When you are down When you are empty Satan never fights fair Whenever you see a boxing match And the guy gets knocked down

[50:44] You are not allowed to take another swipe Until he is back on his feet Even on streets You see a skirmish between some young lads If punches are flying And one of them hits the deck And very often Those around them will say Don't hit him when he is down There is even some kind of honour At street level But Satan will hit you As hard as he can When you are down At your lowest point Some of you know that Have experienced that And that is what Satan does here With Jesus That point of physical weakness And mental weakness And this human experience Satan hits him So what temptation does Satan come with

[51:47] Verse 3 says If you are the son of God It's worth noting just that if Remember just in the last verse Of the previous chapter The father speaks from heaven And says This is my beloved son This is my son And that was a voice from heaven Primarily for Jesus He is about to experience Things that will question He is not going to look like the son of God He isn't going to be treated like the son of God Everything that is experienced It is going to be a challenge to his To his status To the truth of the fact that he is the son of God And so God the father says This is my son And Satan comes along with the temptation

[52:52] And the first thing he says is If You are the son of God If you are going to listen to this voice from heaven If you are going to believe The word of your father If you are the son of God Command these stones to Become loaves of bread Now we might wonder I was thinking this through I was wondering in the first instance What is so wrong with making bread I mean soon Jesus will make Bread for 5,000 So why can't He make a loaf of bread for himself After a 40 day fast What is wrong with that?

[53:39] And the answer He had to be like us He had to be absolutely like us And you and I can't make bread from stone We don't have that supernatural power At our disposal And so Jesus would not make bread From stone Jesus is resisting On behalf of man And so he will not employ The supernatural power of God He will stand against Satan As man And we hear that In his response to Satan Jesus answers It is written Man I am standing here On behalf of man Man Shall not live by bread alone But by every word That comes from the mouth of God So Jesus I will not give in

[54:41] To this temptation Now think about it for a moment What is available to man What is available to you and I When we are tempted There's two things available to us One is the word of God The other thing is the spirit of God The spirit of God And here we see Jesus In the wilderness In the heat of the battle Of temptation He is strengthened by the spirit The spirit who had come upon him In his baptism The spirit who had led him Into the wilderness The spirit is with him Strengthening him And Jesus And Jesus With the word of God And he will respond With the word of God So in every respect Jesus And in this situation

[55:42] He is being tempted As we are He is in the same position as us But Jesus Resists Satan That is the difference Jesus does not yield Jesus does not sin And so Jesus does for us What we cannot do for ourselves He is obedient He is righteous He is perfect He is like us In every way But he does not sin Jesus was like us Was led Into temptation The third thing Of salvation

[56:46] Whenever we look at the life of Jesus We can see that he is a worker He is a worker There is nothing lazy about Jesus There is nothing lazy about Jesus As a carpenter Working with his hands He would have grafted In ministry He labours And Satan As we come to He wants to break He wants to break that rhythm Of labour Jesus has a very clear work That he has come to do He has focused on that work And Satan Is going to approach him In the next temptation Trying to break that focus Trying to break that rhythm Of labour It is a good few years It is a good few years Since I worked in the office But Back to the late 90s Early 2000s I was thinking back To the office And Sometimes at lunchtime People would

[57:47] They would put The card game On their computer screens And you would see them With these cards And going with the mouse And going back and forth Eating their sandwiches Solitaire is on the screen Perfectly fine For the 25 minutes You have got for lunch And that was maybe Half past 12 One o'clock And then you might wander Past that office Two and a half hours later And you can still see Solitaire up on the screen The cards are still flying The rhythm of work That might have been in place At 10 11 o'clock in the morning Is broken For the rest of the day It is Not much work getting done And Satan is trying to break That rhythm of work Of work That work that Jesus came to do Verse 5 Then the devil Took Jesus to the holy city And set him on the pinnacle Of the temple And said to him Again note the if If you are the son of God Throw yourself down

[58:51] For it is written He will command his angels Concerning you And on their hands They will bear you up Lest you strike your foot Against a stone Against a stone So what is the devil saying Well essentially he is saying to Jesus Why not just have Have some fun Play a game Now after all if you are the son of God This is your world If you are the son of God Nothing bad is going to happen to you See you can head up there And you can You can jump The angels will catch you And they would Satan actually is Satan is able to He is quoting In this section Psalm 91 verses 11 and 12 But what Satan is trying to do

[59:54] Is take Jesus off mission Think about it Think back to the newspaper headlines Imagine the drama Imagine the TV cameras Imagine the helicopters Imagine the headlines When somebody goes to the very Highest point of the temple And jumps And then there is an angel rescue Imagine the frenzy of the crowds And that supernatural kind of a scene Imagine how instantly Jesus would become If that were to happen And that is what Satan is trying to engineer And that is what Satan is trying to engineer But the thing is Jesus didn't come to be Jesus didn't come to play

[60:56] In this world that he created He didn't come to be a superhero He came to be the suffering servant That Isaiah spoke of He came to be the savior The one who would be despised and And the way of salvation Was not the way of celebration And celebrity status It was the way of humiliation It was the way of being despised And rejected It was the way of long obedience In the same direction St.

[61:41] Jesus Is the son of God But he has come to act as man For man He has come into the world To assume our weakness And our frailty And our shame And our humiliation He has not come In order to play in the world That he has created But in order to save it At great cost To himself And so Jesus in verse 7 Responds to temptation Number 2 And says to Satan Again You shall not put the Lord To the test So Jesus pushes Satan back How does he push him back?

[62:32] Using the same weapons that we have With the word of God Jesus is committed To trusting his father Jesus is committed to To laboring for our salvation Not loitering around And playing So praise him for that I think that's the best application I can draw from that For who he is And what he did for us And as we see The labour of Jesus The commitment of Jesus The obedience of Jesus The perseverance of Jesus The perseverance of Jesus Be inspired to be like him No sitting about No video games For hour after hour

[63:35] No series of Netflix box sets on repeat Labour for Jesus Labour for Jesus Labour for Jesus For Jesus To see how he worked for us It's worked for his glory To be inspired to be up and doing for Jesus Let's remember that what we do For the Lord There's days There's days that we're going to need to Be inspired by the The work of Jesus The perseverance of Jesus There's days when you and I are going to feel like giving up There's days when we're just going to feel like staying in our bed And spiritually speaking Look to the Saviour Who laboured for our salvation Final point Jesus he

[64:37] He was a labourer in the work of our salvation He was like us in every way Yet he did not sin He was led into temptation He was obedient for us as our substitute And the final thing here Is Jesus looked to the cross Verse 8 and 9 Again the devil took him up to a very high mountain And showed him all the kingdoms of the world And he said to him All these I will give you If you will fall down and worship me So this is the final temptation As Matthew orders it And again we might look at this temptation This probably wouldn't grip us You know there are some temptations That we find really hard to resist There are some temptations that really take hold of us You know if I was tempted to accept a new Volkswagen Golf GTI If I was tempted with a lifetime pass for the deed of strainers

[65:40] That might not appeal to you I would find that really hard though to resist But when Satan offers all the kingdoms of the world To us it seems like a strange temptation Why would you want it?

[65:56] We wouldn't want it You know we couldn't cope with it But for Jesus Remember that's why he came into this world Jesus can see the grip That Satan has on the world And Jesus came to break that grip But Jesus knows that the The curse of sin And the power of Satan Can only be broken by going to the cross He would have to take that curse He would have to break Satan At Calvary And Satan here in this temptation He's saying to Jesus You don't have to go that route Just worship me I'll give you everything you want All the kingdoms of this world I'll give them to you Just worship me Worship me

[66:58] The way the verb works It's something more literal Just worship me Just as once Just as once Bow down and worship me And there'll be no cross No cost This is the pain free option To get what you came for That's what Satan is saying And it's all lies You can't offer it You can't offer it And Jesus Sees right through it And yet It wouldn't stop Satan From trying Think about Mark chapter 8 Just after Peter Has his eyes open To recognize that Jesus Is the Christ He's saying to You don't have to go the way of the cross Remember what Peter is told by Jesus Jesus says to Peter Get behind me Satan I know your plan

[68:01] Jesus at this point And Jesus consistently All the way through He looked to He focused on He would not be taken Off the road of the cross He went in the way of suffering for us To pay the price To pay the price for our sin To secure our salvation If we believe in him So Jesus says to Satan Be gone For it's written You shall worship the Lord your God And him only will you serve Then the devil left him And behold angels came And were ministering to him Now was the time for the angels Not the top of A jump from the temple The angels would come But in God's time Not as part of some stunt

[69:02] The angels came And were ministering to him The devil left him And with that the temptation was over And the work of saving us From our sin Would continue Man of sorrows What a name For the Son of God who came Ruined sinners That's us Hallelujah What a Saviour Bearing shame And scoffing rude In my place Condemned he stood Sealed my pardon With his blood The cross What a Saviour Is he your Saviour?

[70:01] To conclude From that hymn Mission Praise 458 Man of Sorrows What a Saviour For the Son of God who came To reclaim Alleluia For the Son of God who came For the Son of God who came For the Son of God who came Ruined sinners to reclaim Alleluia, what a Savior.

[70:52] In each shaman's scoffing room, In my place drawn and he stood, Sealed my pardon with his blood.

[71:11] Alleluia, what a Savior. Guilty, violent, helplessly, Spotless from all God's feet, Full atonement can it be.

[71:37] Alleluia, what a Savior. Lifted up was he to die, In his finished was his cry, How in heaven exalted high, Alleluia, what a Savior.

[72:11] When he comes, our glorious day, All his ransomed home to pay, Then I knew this song will sing, Alleluia, what a Savior.

[72:41] Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, The love of God the Father, And the fellowship of God the Holy Spirit, Be with us all, now and forevermore. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you.