Jesus & The Wild Animals | Mark 1:12-13 | Pastor Daniel Batarseh (Gospel of Mark Series)

Do you have the word of God in your hands this afternoon? If you do, meet me in the gospel according to Mark in chapter one, beginning in verse 12. I was so eager this morning to behold the glory of Jesus with you. And we will do it now as we read these two verses, which will be our focus today as a family. In Mark one twelve, we read in the word, The spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan.

And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him. Lord, we ask you from the bottom of our hearts, do a miracle in our hearts. Help us see Christ. Help us see the wisdom that he has for us. Help us see the glory that he alone possesses.

Lord, please bring us into a new revelation. A revelation that is not added to this truth, but a revelation that is hidden because of our flesh. Lord, open the eyes of our hearts so that we can see a facet of the beauty of the son of God. We plead with you, Lord. In Jesus name.

Amen. Generally speaking, when one seeks to endeavor to explore the the famous forty day temptation of the Lord Jesus, Mark's account is usually not the primary reference for discussion. And perhaps for the apparent reason that it is summarized in but two verses. His report is much briefer than that of Matthew and Luke. When you go to Matthew and Luke, you see a much more elaborate understanding of what took place, at least a a snippet of what happened during that forty day test that the Lord Jesus endured and succeeded in.

Now what's amazing is that as Mark summarizes it, there are still so many similarities that all three of them share. And those similarities are things that the believer who who loves the word of God, who studies the word of God, are familiar with almost by heart. We all know that the Holy Spirit, in all accounts, is the agent that leads Christ to be tempted by the devil. We all know that it was a forty day trial. And we also know that as Jesus comes into this, he leaves to begin his public ministry.

And so what we see here is, though it may seem like it is totally in line with the other accounts, there are still differences. Yes. Even in these two verses, there are things for us to be able to look at and say, what is what is the Lord saying through Mark's narrative that he that he might not be saying as much in Matthew or in Luke? And that should excite us because there is no random detail in the word of God. And that is certainly true with this.

So as we come to endeavor to understand this familiar event in the temptation of Jesus with a prayerful ambition, we will trust and see that as we understand this, we will have a fresh love for him, a fresh adoration for the master. And so we come to verse 12 and and notice this. The spirit immediately drove him out. This was right after the coronation of Jesus by physical manifestation of the Holy Spirit and by an audible affirmation from the father in the heavens. But from that to this, we hardly take a breath before the the scene quickly shifts.

It it just happens at such a rate in which we're almost like, where are we here? What just happened? And that is on purpose, obviously. Matthew and Luke are chronologically consistent with Mark, with this temptation account. In that, it happened after Jesus was baptized by John.

That is the same. That is something that they all share. But Mark has a different way of saying it than Matthew and Luke. Notice the language. The spirit immediately drove him out.

You know what Matthew would say? You know what Luke would say? That the spirit led Jesus out. That is not the same. When you come to that word drove in the original, it is a very forceful one.

It is the actual word that is used in describing the deliverance that Jesus would bring upon those who are in bondage to demons. When he would cast those demons out, when he would drive them out, it's the very same word. It is very forceful. It's it's almost violent. And yet, the spirit of God wants to tell us that the spirit drove drove the Lord Jesus into the wilderness.

Now, to understand that meaning, and then to see how it's used elsewhere, only to interpret that Jesus was perhaps hesitant or reluctant or not willing to go. And so the Holy Spirit almost takes over and drags him into the temptation would be false, would be a misunderstanding. What we are learning here about Jesus is the first thing in consideration of what we're studying. Number one, the submission of the Lord Jesus to the spirit. All this is really trying to say is that the influence of the Holy Spirit was so great over the life of the Lord.

It was so powerful. It was all consuming, and the Lord Jesus willfully and joyfully submitted to the leadership of the spirit. This one short word is a massive statement into what? The great humility of our savior. He relinquished any control in his life.

In his humanity, he surrendered any kind of authority in the sense that he wanted to submit to God. And so the spirit in seeing that humility, in hearing that prayer does what? He occupies the driver's seat of Jesus's life, so to speak. And what is so powerful about that, I've often say it said that, and I'll say it again. That to be full of the holy spirit is not so much about us having more of him.

So as believers, we're not saying holy spirit, I want more of you when we say I wanna be filled with the holy spirit. What's actually happening is he's having more of us. To be full of the holy spirit is not about us having more of him, and it's about him having more of us. And that makes total sense when you compare the activity of the spirit here in Jesus' life and the experience that Jesus had in the same scene told elsewhere with the spirit. Because you know what Luke adds to this?

And this is what makes what makes studying the word of God so exciting. What makes this so amazing is that Luke tells us in chapter four in verse one. It's not too far. He's a neighbor, so you can turn there in your Bibles to see it for yourself. Look what Luke says in chapter four verse one.

And Jesus, full full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness. So so Luke says Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit. Mark says that he was driven out by the spirit. And when you bring these verses together, you you come to a conclusion. And it is this, that the result of being full of the Holy Spirit is that we come under the reign of the Holy Spirit.

And it's impossible to claim my brother in whom I love, my sister in whom I love. To claim that we are filled with the Holy Spirit if there is no tangible evidence of his leadership in our lives. And that is the great blessing that awaits us as we obey the command in the word of God that says, seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit. There is much to be known in that experience, an experience that is available to all of us. Yes.

We are all sealed to the Holy Spirit, but it would be a false statement to say that we are all equally filled with the Holy Spirit. In other words, we all have the Holy Spirit by faith, but the Holy Spirit having all of us in the same way is not true. Though it is the standard, it is not the experience, unfortunately, of the collective body. The Holy Spirit here as he fills a vessel, you know what we get? We we we inherit his prompting.

We we know something of his persuasion. We know a protection. And we know of power over the flesh. When we say that the Holy Spirit is driving Jesus out, and when we say that when we are filled with the Holy Spirit that we know his influence, it's not like we become lifeless puppets and we move and we speak unconsciously. What happens is there's an enablement.

An enablement from the born again heart's desire that wants to walk in the ways of the Lord, and the Holy Spirit says, I'm gonna lift you up now. I'm gonna take you there. I'm gonna make it possible. And then what we experience there is that he begins to drive every part of our lives into the purposes of God for us. And so that looks like my thoughts being influenced by the spirit.

My tongue being driven in a certain way. My reactions being overcome by the spirit's influence and not my flesh. The flesh doesn't have the driver's seat anymore. The spirit does. And and that's why I know you love to fill your cup of coffee every morning to get you going, but do you daily ask him, fill me with the Holy Spirit.

Fill me with the Holy Spirit. I don't wanna leave this room empty. Again, that imagery helps, but we would get the wrong idea to say that I'm 30% filled with the spirit and my brother over there is 70% filled. That is not the case. The case is this, the Holy Spirit having us, controlling us, influencing us.

And it is a real thing. It is observable. It is tangible. You can almost step outside of yourself and say, there is no way that if it wasn't for the spirit that I would have responded in the way that I responded to that. This is what Christ purchased for you and I.

And Jesus is in humanity and his humanity here is is exemplifying that. And as exciting as that sounds, we also have to be realistic. You and I can't move forward from verse 12 without seeing the the reality, the realistic reality of what a life filled with the Holy Spirit looks like, what it means to be led by the Holy Spirit. We see the submission of Jesus to the spirit. And if we don't understand what that entails, then many of us are setting ourselves up for great disappointment and grief in the Christian experience.

What do I mean by that? When Jesus, according to Luke, was full of the Holy Spirit, and according to Mark, when he was driven by the Holy Spirit, here's our understanding. Majority at least, when I'm when I'm seeking for this spirit led life, when I'm seeking to be full, what we imagine is we are going to just progress from one blissful experience to the next. Along the lines of what Jesus knew at his baptism, oh, open heavens and manifestations, supernatural manifestations, great sensations of the father's affirmation and affection for us. And God is willing to do that.

And there are times where we are caught up with him in a very special way if he chooses to manifest himself in such a way. But what happened when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus? He was driven out into the where? Wilderness. That's where the Holy Spirit took him.

That is the direction of the Holy Spirit in Jesus' life before his public ministry. And the wilderness was nothing like what Jesus experienced at his baptism. Someone observed wisely when he said that a life of obedience will remove all unnecessary trials and tribulations in life. The sorrow that your sin and my sin and disobedience will bring. Walking in the path of obedience eliminates the unnecessary trials in life.

Yet let me say this, at the same time, we have to know that a life of obedience, of being led by the spirit assures us appointments with necessary trials and tests in life. And and I and I know a lot of people who don't understand that. The spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness left to ourselves. We would not dare to step foot into such an environment or such a season. What was in the wilderness?

A unique test for our Lord? Yes. But let's be specific. There was solitude. There was barrenness.

It was difficult terrain. It lacked provision. It lacked the care of other humans, other people. There were real dangers there. There were there was hostility.

There was threats. At the baptism, the the voice of the father was booming loud, and in the wilderness what was amplified? The voice of Satan. And this is where the spirit was leading Jesus? This is where God wanted him to go.

And will we dare to believe any differently for our own lives? Do not be surprised that in your pursuit of being a vessel for the spirit of God, that you find yourself in long periods of pressure that will test your trust in God and how you really rely on his word. But for what reason? I mean, if this is if this is what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, I don't know. I think I'm not interested.

Who wants to go in a wilderness with the devil? Who wants to go and be tested? But that's what the flesh says. Be comforted to know that our God is not sadistic. You know what that means?

That he takes pleasure in pain and torturing us. He doesn't toy with your life. He's not reckless with your future. He's not uncalculated. He's perfectly and righteously intentional.

With every single step that you take, He is orchestrating it, and you will know a journey and a security in that journey when you live a life led by the Holy Spirit, which brings me to the second observation. The first one was the submission of Jesus to the spirit, which is awesome. But consider with me the security in the spirit's leading. Look at Mark again in in verse 12 and verse 13. Jesus completed this mission without abandoning his post, without evacuating prematurely.

And what's so fascinating is when you go to Matthew and Luke, you see this drawn out encounter with Satan. Right? We are all familiar with that, the back and forth that goes on that battle between the devil and our Lord. But when you come to this, it it almost skips all of that. It's almost as though Mark just wants us to see who and what happened to Jesus right before the temptation and and what happened right after.

It he just wants to just kinda skip over it very quickly. And that's not because he doesn't think it's important, but even in the brevity of it, it it speaks of what he wants us to see. And and what you and I are left with as we come to these two verses is this simple thought. Jesus succeeded. He succeeded in his suffering that he experienced in this wilderness.

He completed it. He passed. And that is so crucial to understand. Because we would come to this and we would ask ourselves what we asked with the baptism. But why?

Why did the spirit have to drive Jesus out? Why did he have to be tempted for forty days? What was it that that because Matthew says he went in there to be tempted by the devil for that purpose. And again, we might scratch our heads and wonder what is the purpose behind this? Was it to make manifest the purity of Christ?

You better believe it. Was it to showcase his power over the devil, over all temptation? Absolutely. But there's more. If Jesus identified with you and I as sinners in his baptism, then surely Jesus identifies with our temptations in the wilderness.

He identifies with our temptations in this heightened extreme face off with the tempter himself. And that is something so crucial because you see as Jesus walked in solitude in that wilderness, in that lifeless desert, something was gained. Something happened in his humanity. That is why the scriptures unashamedly tells us about Jesus in regards to his temptation, and how it translate to how you and I relate to him. Hebrews two eighteen.

For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Now we know, and this is important, that there is nothing in Jesus that would cause him to be tempted. That's you and I because we inherited something from Adam, that corruption. But that does not negate or diminish the intensity of the temptation though it was outside of him. How can Jesus suffer with a sinless nature when it comes to temptation?

The same way you and I when we are walking in the spirit, when we're walking in holiness, when we are when we are in fellowship with the Lord, do you not suffer in the presence of evil? Does it not ache your heart? Does it not tear you apart in the soul? When you go out with your family to some sports game or whatever it is and you hear people blaspheming the name of Jesus, does it not send a shiver down your spine when you see all the wickedness that is being propagated to our children, does it not do something to you? How much more the one who is without sin?

How much more the holy one who suffered when tempted. And what I wanna say in light of this is that the Lord did not come into this world merely to be our substitute for sin. That is the climax. That is the mission. Yes.

But not merely to be our substitute for sin. He also became our sympathizer in temptation. Sympathizer in temptation. He suffered, and in his suffering, there was something of a sympathy. The temptations here during those forty days ensures us that we can approach a God who's experienced and overcame what what may seem to overwhelm us in the moment.

This will mean a lot to those who know the great war for holiness and Christ likeness. You know what this means? The Lord, the king of glory, the resurrected one, he feels for you and me. He feels for you and me. His heart is connected to us.

He can relate because there is a shared experience. And I I don't know if we understand the the depth of that implication, but I hope I hope you get an idea of it because I'm sure you, yes, you, at one point in your life in dire need of help, felt this natural pull to go to those who you know have shared your suffering. You you feel as though you can go to them, go to her because you heard you need to speak to to missus so and so or brother so and so because they went through something very similar and they came through. And so you find yourself coming to those people and unloading your heart, unbearing your heart more naturally because you realize that their counsel will be cushioned with a grace and with a patience and with surgical advice because they've been through it. They know.

They they felt the fire themselves. And so that that's what that's why you go to them, and and you're a little bit more hesitant to go to somebody who might not have that experience because there's a concern that they might not know what to say to you or at worse, be even indifferent to your suffering because they can't understand why this is so crushing to you. There's almost like this glass window between you and them, and and there's no touch there. There's no heart to heart there. And here's what we know.

The Lord Jesus himself can help us because he can relate to us in all things because he was he was tempted in all ways. What that means is I can come limping into the presence of Jesus Christ. I can come broken, smashed, shattered, barely able to keep myself up, and I can communicate though in reverence, yes, but also freely in my suffering because I have an awareness that he patiently hears me because he endured all things. So I'm not I'm not I'm not speaking to a a God that looks and he's so distant, this distant deity that says, okay, come on, let's go here. But one who actually inhabits the brokenness of his people.

And he sits close. And he not only gives me his listening ear, he then now provides the precise wisdom and counsel and power so that I can overcome it like he did. He's so attractive. He's so wonderful. And and the spirit as glorious as our truth is not the main point of what I'm trying to communicate because what I want to say is that it was the spirit who led Christ to suffer in this way.

And in doing so, he could be a sympathizer with us. And and that is just one aspect to why he was tempted. And what does that mean for us? Surely, the spirit, as he leads us, as he guides us, what what may be unpleasant, what may be a season with with wild and strange people. You know what I'm talking about?

No? Just do ministry a little longer. Serve God a little bit longer. And sometimes even leading us into, while we're obeying, threats and slander and and all these strange things that are not warranted, that don't don't make sense. And am I here because of disobedience?

Be careful. Jesus was perfect, and the spirit perfectly led him into such a thing. A wilderness with wild animals and a vicious devil. For what? For the same aim with the master.

So that in coming out of it, you would inherit something sweet, and that you would gain something sacred in such a way that others will be blessed by it. The spirit, that's the security in his leadership. I have no reason to be afraid. It it doesn't make sense. Jesus just obeyed Jesus just finished humbling himself in the presence of a crowd before God.

And he was showered with the spirit, and he was given affirmation, and immediately you're brought into such a thing. Do you believe for a moment that a spirit led life is void of temptation? Is void of challenge? Is is void of danger? And and hostility and problems.

Not the unnecessary ones, but necessary ones. And that is what we see with Jesus here and that should encourage us as we seek to live in obedience to him. I can trust his leadership no matter what is around me or who is around me. The security in the spirit's leadership, but may I also add the standard of service to God. The submission of Jesus to the spirit makes you want to worship him.

The security of the spirit's leadership makes you safe. Feel safe knowing that the spirit will will never lead you to something that is without profit even when it comes with great problems. But there is also an example here by Jesus. There is a standard of service to God. What do I mean by that?

When we understand the timing of Jesus' temptation here, it's good to know that it was right before his public ministry. It was right before he would go out into Galilee, and and he would begin preaching and doing great signs and wonders. And when you go to Luke four again, look with me in verse 14 and notice what we are told. And Jesus returned, after the temptation, in the power in the power of the spirit to Galilee. You come back to Mark and what do you read?

We'll read in verse 14. Now after John was arrested in chapter one verse 14, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel. Luke wants to make us know that he came also in power. In power. You know what I find amazing is that the spirit of God that we came upon Jesus didn't make him go into public ministry right away.

And I think this is a great, great reminder for those who are aspiring servants of God. Please pay attention to what I'm about to say because I think I think this is one of the reasons why there is so much powerlessness in Christendom in the West. You may disagree with me, but that's okay. If any aspiring servant of God desires to be effective publicly, is that you? Then know this, he first must know victory over temptation privately.

If any aspiring servant of God wants to be effective for Christ publicly, he first must know triumph and victory over temptation privately. The church cannot expect to make an impact on the world when she is flirting and sleeping with the devil behind the scenes. It's not gonna happen. Jesus came into Galilee with power because he resisted temptation when no one was looking. David killed Goliath, but what was he doing before when no one was looking?

He was killing bears and lions. And we will not see great advancements. We will not know great blessings of the spirit of God as the body of Jesus Christ if we cannot do the first and most important thing and that is say no to unholiness and no to evil when we are when we are not in sight of the world to see. And I make that case from the example of our Lord that there is a correlation, listen, to powerful ministry and private holiness. Consider the example of Jesus.

He came into the wilderness, triumphed over the devil, and then he went out and was able to minister and bless those who are oppressed by the devil. You can imagine how there can be a series of messages just from combining the temptation accounts from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but we will focus on just what is presented before us today. When you come to verse 13 of Mark, what do you see? He was in the wilderness forty days. We know that.

Being tempted by Satan. That seems to be common knowledge. And then we read at the end, and angels were ministering to him. Matthew says the same thing. Mark doesn't.

At the end of the temptation when he did succeed and Satan left him until another opportune time, God sent servants, heavenly beings to come and to minister unto Jesus. Now the nature of the ministry is unknown, but it could very likely be that these angels came seeing their glorious savior wrapped in flesh who also knew the limitations of the flesh. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He was weary.

And it's very likely that just like a weary Elijah in the wilderness of his day, the angels came to feed him and to encourage him with their presence. And that is mentioned so that you and I are reminded of the humanity of Jesus Christ. He didn't bulldoze through the desert necessarily with glory. He went in as a man, depended upon the holy spirit, and he knew how exhausting it was. He knew how draining it was.

And and then I can relate to him in that, and he can relate to me. And so even in my obedience and yours, when we come out and we're exhausted and we he can he understands. He doesn't look and say, come on. What kind of servant are you? Get up.

Nothing of the sort. And so the humanity of Jesus is here highlighted, but there is something that Mark says that Luke does not mention neither does Matthew. It seems to be an insignificant detail. It seems to be unimportant. It seems to just maybe put some color to the scene.

And it is this, and he was with the wild animals. He was with the wild Luke doesn't say that. Matthew doesn't wanna mention it. But Mark wants to let us know that when Jesus went into that desert, he was surrounded by wild animals. Why?

Why does that matter? I think it's much deeper than just knowing another layer to the potential potential danger while he was traveling through that wasteland. When you put the other pieces in these two verses together, perhaps the light bulb will go off. Here it is. Animals, Satan, temptation.

Animals, Satan, temptation. I believe what we're seeing here are the elements that were present in the world described by the word of God before the fall with a much different setting, of course. Right before the encounter between Satan and our first parents, Adam was in a luscious, lively, paradise like garden. Not a wasteland. Not a desert, not where there was danger and death.

And he was also with animals. Not wild beasts, but tamed beasts. Approachable, friendly. Ones that presented no threat of any kind of danger. There was no fear there in relation to these animals.

But even though Adam was in a more favorable and ideal environment, when it came to Satan tempting him in that atmosphere, he failed. He failed. Collaterally, he failed. You and I are still experiencing the consequences of that. But then comes Jesus, who is led by the spirit into the wilderness.

And while traveling, he's surrounded with the looming danger of the threats of animals that are no longer tamed, but are by nature aggressive. And there is a limitation there between how much you can actually relate to these beasts. And there is no garden. There is no glorious rivers, there is no abundance of trees, it's just dust and dirt and death. And it seems as though Mark is trying to communicate this, the conditions that Jesus was in were far less favorable than what Adam was experiencing, but he still was able to triumph over Satan.

He still was able to resist and conquer the lies of the evil one. And the point the point is this, it's not just for a clever connection. Massive implication. Massive implication. And you only really understand it when you understand one of the titles that Jesus was given by the apostle Paul.

And I'll just read it to you, hold it as a reference for another time. In first Corinthians fifteen forty five, listen to how Paul in this in this really in this essay of trying to explain and prove the resurrection. He goes back and forth between Adam and Christ. And he says in first Corinthians fifteen forty five, thus it is written, the first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam, The last Adam.

That's not the last human being who's gonna exist. The last Adam is Christ. The last Adam became a life giving spirit. Jesus is known as the last Adam. What's the connection?

Why is the spirit of God wanting us to relate Adam and Christ? What do they share? I think the main thing that they share is that they had both a representative role in humanity. They both shared a representative role in humanity. Meaning what?

Adam is your father and mine in the flesh. Being the first man created, he the theological term is the federal head of mankind. The federal head of mankind. And because he's the federal head, the decisions that he makes, whatever consequences come about, we share in them. That is why you and I are born into this world with corruption.

That is why your precious little child doesn't need to be taught how to lie, doesn't need to be taught not to bite Johnny. He knows how to bite Johnny. You gotta tell him not to bite Johnny. You gotta tell him to tell the truth. You gotta tell him not to be selfish.

That is all because of our representative in the flesh, Adam. And yet, a man who is outside of the curse, Christ entering into our world, seeking to be a new head, seeking to be a new representative, wants to create a new people who would experience the blessing, not the consequence of his obedience. You and I are suffering of the disobedience because of our first father in Adam, and Jesus comes in untainted by Adam's sin so that he can walk as a representative for humanity. And those who would come to faith in him would be linked to him and then know the blessings that he brings as the one who stands in our place. I hope that makes sense.

God so loved us. Listen. He came into our broken world to rescue us from being in Adam and remaining in Adam and then paying for the consequences of being in Adam by opening a way so that you and I can be in Christ and hide in Christ and be linked to Christ and to experience the glories that Christ made possible for us. So you don't you and I don't share in the consequences of Adam anymore who failed in the garden. You and I enjoy the blessings of the obedience of Jesus, yes, on the cross, but also in the wilderness.

You and I are not gonna pay for failing for failing to resist temptation. You and I inherit Christ's perfection over every kind of temptation that came his way. And that is why Jesus being with the wild animals is so significant because he was reversing the curse that Adam brought into the world that didn't just affect us who were created in the image of God but but affected even the animal kingdom and nature itself. And so he's seeking to heal it, the things that have been fractured because of Adam, and now he comes in and he, right from the beginning, is already sealing. As we read this, he's already sealing the victory by overcoming Satan, and only is going to bring it into full effect at the cross by saying, I overcame what man failed to do.

And the full effect of this reversal is not yet. It's not yet. It's to come and even Isaiah, hundreds of years before Christ, gives us a little glimpse into it. You know the verse, do you not, in Isaiah eleven six? The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together, and a little child shall lead them.

A little child shall lead them. Some would say this is allegorical. Very difficult to make the case. I see a universal redemption in Jesus Christ. That's what it is.

He's not just coming to save us. He's coming to bring a new heavens and a new earth. He's coming to restore everything. Everything that has been tainted by sin, everything that Adam messed up, he's gonna come and clean up and restore and renew so that everywhere you look in that millennial reign and everywhere you look in that eternal age, you will see Christ is a strong savior. He saved, yes, us, but he saved the universe, all things.

And he is giving us a glimpse of that victory as he comes in these two verses to show I overcame what Adam could not overcome even though the surrounding environment was not in my favor. I'm still able to obey the father. And that obedience is transferred to you. I want to end by saying this. Our culture is trying to create all these categories of how humans can identify themselves.

And it's getting weirder by the week. I can't keep up with this stuff. And here's what I want to tell you today. I don't care what PhD says what. I don't care what university teaches what.

I don't care what anybody in the White House has to say. God's house has a word. And this is what I wanna tell you. No matter what humanity creates in terms of categories, no matter how kind of what kind of race ideology and narrative is being presented, the bible draws a simple line of where humanity falls into, and it's your choice. You're either in Adam or you're in Christ.

As one preacher said it, you're either dead in sin or you're dead to sin. That's it. Nothing else. You're either in Adam or you're in Christ. Where are you?

Where are you today? Have you been transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of his light? Have you been driven from conviction into the loving arms of a savior to say, I no longer wanna be under the headship of Adam. I must come and make you my Lord. I wanna be covered by your righteousness.

I wanna be restored. I wanna know this renewal. Save me. Renew me. Have you done that?

I wanna let you know that today it can all change. It can all change by decision of humility to say, I know. I know that Jesus Christ is not my Lord. I know that I have not crowned him my savior. I have not fully understood the legal implications of what he did while walking in this world and dying on that cross.

But now I know. I know what it means for me, and I know that he bids me to come so so that I would know that his obedience is mine by faith. That's what you have to do. That's what you have to understand. Because until then, I don't care what kind of money you have.

I don't care how smart you think you are. I don't care what kind of future you're trying to build for yourself. Satan owns you. Satan owns you. You're a slave to sin.

Aren't you? You can't shake it off. No matter how much you pump into self will and self ambition, you fall. Don't you? It's because you have a merciless master over your life.

That's why. And there is a merciful savior who wants to rescue you and deliver you. And not just be your substitute, listen to this, for your sin, but that as you become the redeemed by faith, he becomes your sympathizer in temptation. So that as you walk in this life and you with a brand new heart filled with the Holy Spirit, desire to live for him and you fall and temptation seems so strong and the tide seems to be pulling you, almost sweeping you off your feet, you come to the master who saved you and say, help me again. And he's there to help you again.

And if you do fall and you come to seek forgiveness, he forgives you. He doesn't kick you out, but he binds up your wounds and he heals you. He restores you and he is for you. This is who I present to you today. The glorious, majestic, infinitely beautiful Jesus Christ of Nazareth who was risen from the dead can be your savior today.

Make him your savior today. There is no other in Jesus name. Let's pray. Father, thank you that Jesus Christ identifies with our temptation. Thank you that we have a high priest who is sympathetic, whose heart feels for us, who knows exactly what to prescribe to us because he has been through it himself.

Lord, we ask that you would receive worship. Worship not just in song, but by your grace. Worship to say no to temptation. That that itself would be worship. As your word says, that our body should be a living sacrifice.

Acceptable worship unto you. Lord, may we see the fight against temptation as an opportunity to exalt Christ in our no, in our rejection, in our triumph by your power. And, Lord, we pray by your mercy that we would be a powerful group of believers because in private, you've helped us overcome sin so that in public there is no there is no authority lost because of hypocrisy. There is no grievance of the Holy Spirit so that he will not work in and through us. Lord, we want all that he has.

We want him to take the driver's seat of Maranatha Bible Church. And, Lord, not just in our our meetings, but in our lives, in our our families, in our relationship with others, Lord, we want your leadership. We thank you for the head of the church, Jesus Christ. We thank you that in him we have life. In him we have reward.

In him we have eternal life. Thank you that you've rescued us from from Adam's race and brought us into the securing provision as a child of God. We worship you. We want to just magnify you for giving us a taste of your glory in these two verses. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Can we stand and worship the Lord?