Tempted As We Are (Hebrews 4:15)

Kootenai Church

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And if you're in Hebrew still, turn to chapter 4, we'll read together verses 14 through 16.

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Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

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For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

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Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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Let's ask the Lord's blessing before we begin our study. Our Father, it is the earnest desire of all

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Your people that we may hear the voice of our God in the pages of Scripture and that we may respond appropriately to it.

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And we pray that You would send Your Spirit to be our teacher today, that we may learn and discern in Your Word that which is true, help us to appropriate it and to apply it, to be encouraged and edified where necessary, to be equipped and even rebuked where necessary.

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And we pray that You would accomplish all these things in the hearts of Your people and that You would use our time here to sanctify us in the truth, we pray in the name of Christ our

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Lord. Amen. One of the things that Hebrews presents us with is a very high and exalted view of Jesus Christ.

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We call this a high Christology. So we see this even in chapter 1 at the very beginning of the book where he says that Christ is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His nature.

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And all the way through Hebrews we have these glimpses of Christ and these descriptions of Christ that are very high and exalted and very lofty.

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And it is essential that we keep that idea of who Christ is in our minds and in our hearts always so that we may give to Him the love and affection, adoration and worship of which

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He is worthy and to think of Him properly and appropriately as the incarnation of the second person of the triune

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God manifest in the flesh so that we may worship Him and adore Him and obey Him and give Him the proper reverence.

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All of that is necessary. One of the beauties of the book of Hebrews is that not only does it provide for us a very high and exalted

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Christology, a high view of Christ, but at the same time it balances that view with this constant reminder that the one who existed in the form of God did not consider

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His equality with God something to be held on to at all costs, but He willingly emptied Himself of those independent use of His divine attributes and came here and was incarnated amongst us and walked amongst us as a man and that this divine one was united with the human nature in this one person who is the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So we have a high view of Christ as well as on the other side, you wouldn't even call it a balance, but it's the other side of the coin and that is a very graphic and straightforward description of His humanity and all that it meant for the second person of the

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Trinity to be incarnated and to walk among us. So His deity and His humanity presented in Hebrews oftentimes side by side.

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So we see Him in chapter 1 that He is worshipped by the angels and then in chapter 2, He partook of flesh and blood and He tasted death for us.

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In chapter 1, He is the one who sits at the Father's right hand and in chapter 2, He is the one who came here and suffered and died that He might make an atonement for sin.

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And both of these aspects of the person of Christ are necessary for us. And we see this contrast, we see this side by side putting of the high view of Christ as well as His humanity, even in the passage that we've been looking at in chapter 4.

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What we just read there presents two sides of this contrast, these two aspects of Christ's nature,

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His deity as well as His humanity, where we read and we saw last week in chapter 4, verse 14, that He is our great high priest, making

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Him greater and higher than all the Old Testament high priests because He has done something that no Old Testament high priest could ever do.

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Namely, by one sacrifice, as we read in Hebrews chapter 10, He has forever sanctified all those who are in Him.

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He has forever paid that price, so no more sacrifice for sins is necessary. It has all been done in Him.

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Not only that, but He has passed through the heavens, meaning that He has left here, He has ascended to heaven where He has entered into the

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Holy of Holies, beyond the veil as it were, not into a tabernacle or a temple made with hands like the one here on earth, but into the very presence of God where He has sat down at the

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Father's right hand and there He sits. Unlike the Old Testament high priest who had to leave the Holy of Holies once they had accomplished their task,

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He has stepped into the Holy of Holies, into the very presence of the Father, and He has sat down at the Father's right hand, having completed all of that.

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And then we saw that He is called the Son of God. He's the great high priest, He is the one who has passed through the heavens, and He is the

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Son of God. That speaks of His divine nature, His one being in essence with the Father in all things.

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And then we read in verse 15, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

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You see, that's the other side of it. He is the Son of God. He is familiar with our weaknesses.

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See, those two things do not go together very easily in our heads, do they? They seem mutually exclusive. How can

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He be seated at the Father's right hand and be the divine Son, the Son of God, and yet at the same time be familiar with and experience and be sympathetic to our weaknesses?

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So on the one hand, you have a high Christology, the high priest passed through the heavens, seated at the

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Father's right hand, the Son of God. He can sympathize with us because He knows our weaknesses and He has experienced our weaknesses and as such,

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He is a suitable high priest for us. And that contrast is intended to remind us that our Lord, our

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Savior, is not distant and aloof from us. He's not. We ought not to think that He, having gone into heaven, has lost

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His compassion or His ability to sympathize. And see, it's easy for us to think that, okay, the one who was here and He walked among us,

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He's the Son of God, He was sinless, and now He has gone to the Father's right hand and He is seated there in the heavenlies, the one who is the

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Son of God, the great high priest. But I don't live in the heavenlies, I live here. This is different than heaven, right?

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I really need a high priest who can sympathize with me, not one... I don't know what it's like to be seated at the

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Father's right hand. I need one who knows what it is like to fight and resist temptation, to fight the battle against sin.

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I need one who knows what it's like to experience and to know the same weaknesses that I have. I need one who has lived my life, who has walked a mile in my shoes.

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What I don't need is somebody who is completely aloof and detached from my struggles, and my trials, and my temptations, and the war against sin, and life, and the vicissitudes of life in a sinful, fallen, and crushed world.

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I need somebody who's experienced it, who knows it, who can represent me and sympathize with me. That's the

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Lord Jesus Christ. He's not aloof, though He is passed through the heavens. He is the Son of God.

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He is seated at the Father's right hand. He's not distant and aloof. He knows exactly what our trials and our temptations are, and because of that,

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He is suited to be our intercessor and our representative before the Father. You see, if Jesus were not able to sympathize with our weaknesses, if He did not know what it was like to live here, then

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He would be lesser than the Old Testament high priests, at least in that regard. Because if you were a

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Jew, you could go to Jerusalem, and you could see the high priest performing his sacrifices for you, and doing his functions in the temple, and maybe on the

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Day of Atonement, he comes out, and you would see, oh, there is a man who puts on his pants one leg at a time, or his robe one arm at a time, or however they would dress in those days.

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Here was a man who knows what it's like to be like me. Here's a man who has to go home to his wife, and she probably nags him like mine does me.

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Now, I'm speaking just in generally like all of us, not specifically me, but you would be able to sympathize with this.

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Here's a man who goes home, and his children are disobedient, just like my children are disobedient. He knows what it means to be like me because he is like me, and he has shared my weaknesses.

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And so I can go to that high priest, I can say, man, I know you know what I'm going through because I know that you see in me a mirror of you because you have the same weaknesses that I do.

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And because he can sympathize, because he can empathize with it, because he knows it, and he has experienced those weaknesses, he could deal gently with me.

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In fact, this is the very argument that is made in chapter 5. Look at verses 1 and 2 where he is describing here the old priest taken from among men.

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Chapter 5, verse 1, for every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God. In order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins, he can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided since he himself also is beset with weaknesses.

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And because of it, he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins as for the people, so also for himself.

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Now, that's describing not Christ, but the Old Testament high priest. And because he was beset with weaknesses, he is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and misguided because he knows what the weaknesses are.

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He shares them. Well, if Christ was distant and aloof and he didn't know what it meant to live in a sinful world and to deal with the weaknesses that you and I face each and every day, he would be distant and aloof, and an

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Old Testament priest would be better than him. But we don't have such a Savior. We don't have one who cannot sympathize with us.

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We have one who can sympathize with our weaknesses because he was, in all points, tempted as we are. So he is equal to, at least, the

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Old Testament priests in that regard, but he is greater than them in that he is without sin. Now, what old priest could you say that about?

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What Old Testament priest could you ever say, yeah, he was tempted, he experienced weakness, but he never failed, he never sinned, he battled temptation at every turn, and he was successful, he lived victorious under every trial and tribulation that ever came upon his path, he has done it completely, he has been completely obedient.

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You could not say that of any Old Testament priest. So he is at least equal to all of the Old Testament priests in that he can sympathize with us.

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He's not lacking in that capacity at all because he has experienced those trials, tribulations, and weaknesses, and he is greater than all the

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Old Testament priests in that he did so, and he never sinned, and no Old Testament priest could ever say that. That is why it says in chapter 5 verses 1 through 3 that he had to offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as for the sins of the people, whereas Christ only offered a sacrifice for our sins.

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He had no need to offer any sacrifice for his own because he was without sin. I want you to notice before we dive into the details of verse 15 that it is a positive statement made with a double negative.

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Do you notice that? We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses. That means that we do have a high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses.

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And the fact that he states it as a double negative is an indication, some have observed, that he is probably dealing with some objection that somebody in his audience would have raised, or at least he is anticipating a possible objection, that objection being the very thing that I mentioned earlier, that if having affirmed that he is the son of God seated at the father's right hand who has passed into the heavens and that he is sinless, he is the divine one, the natural objection would be, then what does he know about what

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I'm going through? That would be the natural objection. And the author seems to anticipate that by saying in a double negative fashion, we do not have one who cannot sympathize with us because somebody might suggest that this one who has passed through the heavens and seated at the father's right hand cannot sympathize with us.

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He doesn't know what it's like to be amongst us. And the author is saying, no, he does, because we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses.

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Now, there are three things affirmed here of the Lord Jesus Christ, or three things described here. First, his sympathy, second, his temptation, and then third, his sinlessness.

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His sympathy, his temptation, and his sinlessness. And that's going to be our outline as we work our way through verse 15.

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So we looked at verse 14 last week, verse 15 again, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin.

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The reality of his sympathy, then his temptation, and then his sinlessness. And we'll look at each of those three.

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First of all, his sympathy. We have one, or we do not have one who cannot, but we have one who can sympathize with all of our weaknesses.

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And that describes one who knows our sufferings, he feels our sufferings, he can sympathize or have feeling for us with what we are going through because he has gone through the similar or the same things that we have because he has faced our weaknesses.

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The life of the Lord Jesus Christ when he was here on earth was marked by compassion. And you read through the Gospels and you see this on almost every page.

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He sees somebody who was demon -possessed and he has compassion on them and delivers them from the demon. He sees somebody who was ill or sick or depressed or oppressed and he delivers them from that illness or that sickness or that disease.

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And he went about the countryside healing all who came to him because, as one of the Gospels says, he was crushed for the people because he felt for them.

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He had a heart for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And so his compassion is what marked him in all that he did.

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Everything he did was compassionate. Even his confrontation with the Pharisees and refuting their error and demonstrating their blasphemy and their idolatry was a compassionate thing for him to do even toward them.

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He is marked by compassion. You and I ought not to think that just because he has gone to heaven that he left his compassion here.

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Instead, we ought to realize that the one who sits at the Father's right hand is compassionate and still sympathetic.

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And all of the analogies for our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and Scripture, all of them indicate or have some connection to this idea of compassion.

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We are his brothers by adoption into the family of God. We are fellow heirs with him. We are children of his

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Father. We are his body. We are his bride. We are his sheep. We are his church.

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We are his people. Remember what Jesus said to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus? Saul, Saul, why are you what?

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Persecuting my people? Persecuting me. That's sympathy. That's compassion. We ought not to think that just because he's gone to heaven that he has somehow left all of that compassion.

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Our Lord, our high priest, even right now, seated in the heavens, knows exactly what it is that we go through.

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He has not left that compassion behind. He knows it because he knows our weaknesses.

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He may be tempted to think, well, then why doesn't he intervene? If he knows what I'm going through, then why doesn't he stop it?

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If he knows what it means for me to suffer like this, to deal with like this, I'm dealing with X, Y, and Z, or I'm struggling with X, Y, and Z, I'm tempted by X, Y, and Z, why doesn't he lift that burden and take it from me?

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If he knows what it is that I'm dealing with, then surely he knows that the best thing for me is for me to not have to deal with it, right?

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Or is it the best thing for you to not have to deal with it? Maybe he knows that the best thing for you is that you would have to deal with it.

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I can have compassion for my children when they say, look, I don't like to do school. I don't like to do chores.

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I don't like to have to work. I don't like to get up early on a Saturday morning. I can sympathize with your weaknesses and sympathize with those struggles.

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Now, I'm not gonna do anything to alleviate them because the best thing for you and for me and for the rest of the family and all of human society is that you learn how to get up early on a

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Saturday morning and do your chores and to do so without grumbling. So even though I can sympathize with your struggles,

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I'm not going to alleviate them or remove them from you because that might not be the best thing for you and it might not be the best thing for me.

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Our Lord knows what it is like to struggle with what we struggle with. That doesn't mean that he is necessarily going to remove the burden or to remove the struggle or the challenge or the fight from us because it might be that the very best,

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I shouldn't say it might be, it is the very best thing that he handled and deal with us exactly as he does. But we can take comfort in this that he knows exactly what we're going through and he gives us grace to help in time of need.

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He can sympathize with our weaknesses and the word weaknesses there is a word that describes limitations or inabilities, frailties, feebleness.

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Don't think that it is described sin, it's not describing sin. He doesn't sympathize with our sinfulness, he sympathizes with our weaknesses because he has experienced the weaknesses and not the sins.

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This word for weakness is not a moral word, it is entirely a physical word. It doesn't describe a moral sin.

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Sometimes we refer to our sins as weaknesses. Well, my weakness is pornography. Well, my weakness is adultery.

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Well, my weakness is pride. My weakness is lying. My weakness is stealing. My weakness is laziness. Those aren't weaknesses, those are sins.

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We don't do ourselves any favor when we refer to them as weaknesses instead of calling them what they are, which is sin, iniquity, idolatry, transgression.

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We need to remember that there's a difference between weaknesses and sins. Those aren't weaknesses, those are sins. Now, to give you an illustration of the difference and the significant difference between this, a few weeks back

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I had a shoulder surgery and a bunch of stuff repaired in there, and it hurt. And long story short, they were hoping to reattach a bicep, but I lost a bicep.

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So now in my right arm, I have a weakness that I didn't have before. So now I'm weaker in my right arm than I am in my left arm.

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I have a weakness. Okay, so let me give you three sentences. My weakness is pornography. My weakness is lying and gossip.

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My weakness is my right arm. Do you see that there is a difference between the way I use that word weakness in those three sentences, right?

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You should notice the difference between that. Those are not weaknesses, those are iniquities. My right arm is a weakness.

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When we call our sin a weakness, we use language that suggests this. It's always going to be with me, and you just kind of have to deal with it.

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Every once in a while, I need to move something or lift something or do something, then I notice the weakness. And there's really nothing

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I can do about that weakness. It's just going to manifest itself, and it is what it is. That's the language that weakness communicates.

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We're not called to go to war against our weaknesses, but we are called to go to war against our sins. So we don't call weakness a sin.

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So don't think that when it says that, sorry, we don't call sins our weaknesses. When it says that he can sympathize with our weakness, it is not using a moral term.

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It is using a physical term that was used in Scripture three different ways. Two of these, we can say that the

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Lord Jesus Christ experienced, one of them not. It is used to describe diseases, illnesses, and ailments.

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And there's no record in Scripture that Jesus ever had a disease, an ailment, or a sickness in any way. But it is used of other people who had diseases and ailments, this word for weakness is used of them, in that physical sense.

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It is also used of incapacity, limitations, and physical weaknesses, which we know the Lord Jesus did have an experience.

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Not ailments and illnesses and diseases, but physical weaknesses, yes. In John chapter four, he was walking, and at noontime, he became what?

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Wearied and thirsty, and he sat down next to the well. We know that he was tired, he fell asleep in a boat during a storm.

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We know that he spent all night in prayer on one occasion and was exhausted the next day. We know that he would have experienced the blisters, and the thorns, and the thistles of this cursed and fallen creation, not subject to the diseases, and the illnesses, and the physical effects of a cursed body.

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But he did experience physical weaknesses, ailments, sorry, feebleness and frailties, not ailments, feebleness and frailties, and a lack of strength.

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And third, it is used to describe poverty, particularly of the Corinthian churches when it says that you gave out of your strength for their weakness, it's describing their financial poverty, it's described as a weakness, it's the very same word that is used.

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Did Jesus experience and know that weakness? He certainly did. While he was dying on the cross, all of his material possessions were gambled for at the foot of his cross.

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He's not a man who built an empire, or built a kingdom, or acquired an estate that had to be dealt with after he died. He had no place to lay his head, no place to call his home.

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He was that poor. In his poverty, we had become rich. And so, we do know that this word is used to describe the

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Lord Jesus, not in any moral sense. It's not speaking of any inclination towards sin, or an affection towards sin, or any kind of illicit desires in any sense.

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That's not the word that is used. This is physical weaknesses. Now, oftentimes, physical weaknesses become the occasions for our sin, right?

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Sometimes our poverty can become an occasion by which we are anxious, and we lust after other things, or we're greed, or we're covetous, or something like that.

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So, sometimes, what is truly a weakness can become an occasion for our sin. But in the case of the Lord Jesus Christ, his weaknesses were in no way ever an occasion for sin, because even though he experienced those weaknesses, he was without sin, as Hebrews 4 .15

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says. So, he experienced not knowing things, being ignorant of certain things. He experienced what it meant to grow in knowledge and wisdom, to go without, to be tired, exhausted, hungry, thirsty.

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He knew what it meant to put in a full day's work, to experience restless nights, outside elements, hot and cold blisters, physical pain, anguish.

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He felt the sting of other people's sins in betrayal, and gossip, and slander, and unbelief, and hatred. Even his closest family members thought he was demon -possessed, and accused him of being demon -possessed, and losing his mind, and being out of his mind.

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His brothers and sisters mocked him for the claims that he made. In John 7, they taunted him, saying, go on up to the feast and show everybody that you're

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Messiah, if you are. And that kind of unbelief he experienced from other people. So, the God who we worship, who is worshiped by angels, experienced the weaknesses and frailty of humanity, and he knows it full well, his sympathy.

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The second notice is temptation. Now, ultimately, when we think of the temptation of Christ, we think in terms of an incident that is recorded in two places in the

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Gospels, Matthew 4 and Luke 4, of when the Spirit of God led him out into the wilderness, where he didn't eat for 40 days, he became hungry, and then he was tempted at a time of intense physical desire for food, and exhaustion, probably, and weakness, and feebleness.

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And then Satan came and he presented those three temptations. That temptation does not capture all that we mean when we say he was tempted in all things as we are.

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Those three temptations do not capture all that it meant for him to be tempted, nor does that describe the only occasion upon which the

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Lord Jesus was tempted. That incident recorded in those two places tells us something about the wiles of the devil, it tells us something about his efforts in tempting us, and the way in which he tempts us, and how he can abuse

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Scripture to do so. It tells us something about his trickery, it tells us something about how temptation is to be resisted, but it doesn't describe all the temptations that the

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Lord Jesus ever endured. In fact, most of us, when we read of the temptation of Christ in Matthew 4 and Luke 4, we probably think to ourselves, that doesn't sound at all like the way that I'm tempted, right?

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There were three temptations. Turn stones into bread, throw yourself off of this building and see if you can live, and bow down and worship

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Satan, and you will receive all the kingdoms of the earth. Now, does any one of those sound in any way like any temptation you have ever faced?

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I've been hungry before, but I've never once been tempted to turn a stone into bread. I've never once thought to myself, let's just pull over,

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I'll find a rock, I'll turn it into bread, and then we can all eat. I've been tempted to pull over and trade one of my children for a

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Big Mac, but I've never been tempted to turn a rock into a loaf of bread so that I could eat. Neither have

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I ever been tempted to throw myself off of a building. I've been on some pretty high locations, I've been up on roofs, I've been up on buildings,

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I've been up on balconies. Never once has it ever entered to my mind, I should jump off of here and see if I can live through it. I mean, after all, if God knows the day of my death and today is not the day,

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I'll live. However, that might happen, and it might be really interesting to see how it would happen. And so, I could jump down here knowing that if tomorrow is the appointed day that I'm going to die,

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I'm going to live through this. Never once been tempted to do that. And even if the thought had entered into my mind,

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I wouldn't have thought, oh, that's tempting. I would have thought, oh, I'm losing my mind. That's what I would have thought. Neither have

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I ever been tempted to worship Satan and to receive all the kingdoms of the earth. Never once has Satan offered me all the kingdoms of the world.

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He's never even offered me Kootenay, let alone all the kingdoms of the world. So, in what way does all that the

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Lord Jesus endured in Matthew 4 and in Luke chapter 4, what does that have to do with how I am tempted each and every day?

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Because it seems as if those temptations have nothing at all to do with the temptations that I face. The fact is that the

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Lord Jesus Christ in those temptations faced intense temptations that were unique to his messianic calling and his messianic office on that occasion right before he begins his ministry.

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And so, that is a barrage of temptation and a unique example of a barrage of temptations that Satan brought to him in a moment of weakness.

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When we talk about Jesus being tempted in all things as we are, we're talking about the fact that he has faced throughout his entire life a barrage of temptations from the devil just like those, customized for every situation he faced, and he endured all of it and was tempted in all things just as you and I are tempted in all things.

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He can sympathize with us. That example in Matthew chapter 4 is not intended to show you just how aloof he is from your temptations, but to show you how relentless the devil was in his life in tempting him in all ways as you are.

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And yet, he was without sin, and because he was tempted in those ways, it is important he is able to sympathize with us because his mercy depends on his ability to sympathize with us.

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Tempted in all things as we are, and yet, he was without sin. And why was he without sin? Because he could not sin even in his temptation.

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He could not sin. Now, this introduces us to a deep and profound theological discussion that we're going to jump into because I love stuff like that, and I know that you love stuff like that.

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So, here is the deep and profound theological discussion. If it were impossible for Jesus of Nazareth to sin, in what way can we say that his temptation was genuine, right?

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If it were impossible for him to sin, in what way is his temptation a real and genuine temptation?

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It seems as if it were impossible for him to sin, that his temptation couldn't be genuine. And if it was a genuine temptation, then it seems as if it were possible for him to sin.

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And so, if there is this tension, maybe some way we need to compromise one side of the other in order to resolve that seeming tension between these two statements, that it was impossible for him to sin, and yet, it was a real and genuine temptation.

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And there are some people who have believed over the course of Christian history that it was possible for Jesus Christ to sin.

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And this comes down to two words which are not really theological words, but they become theological words when we put them into this discussion about the nature of Christ, and that is the peccability or the impeccability of the person of Christ.

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Peccable means able to sin or inclined to sin, given to sin. Impeccable means that he was unable to sin, not inclined at all to sin.

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And so, I would affirm the impeccability of the Lord Jesus Christ. I -M -P -E -C -C, ability.

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The impeccability of the Lord Jesus Christ and not his peccability or ability to sin. So, when we talk about whether or not it was possible for Jesus to sin, we have to back up one step and say, is there something about the person of Christ that would tell us that it is impossible for him to sin?

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And there most certainly is. I'm going to offer to you a brief argument about why I believe it was impossible for the Lord Jesus Christ to sin.

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Now, notice that the tension between these two statements only exists if we hold both of these two statements. If we say it was impossible for him to sin, it could not have sinned, and that he was genuinely tempted.

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There seems to be tension between those two points. We can resolve the tension if we compromise and say, well, it was possible for him to sin.

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Okay, if it was possible for him to sin, then it was a genuine temptation. Or we can compromise and say, it wasn't really a genuine temptation because it was impossible for him to sin.

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When we speak of whether or not it was possible for Christ to sin, we have to remember who it is that we are talking about.

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We are talking about one who is both God and man. So, we have in the person of Christ two natures, divine and human, united together inseparably in one person, the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So, when we talk about whether or not Jesus Christ was able to sin and capable of sinning, we have to remember that we are talking about a human and divine person, the theanthropic person who is both

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God and man, 100 % God and 100 % man, whether it was possible for him to sin. Now, some people will argue that it was possible for Christ to sin because in his humanity, he could have sinned, but his divine nature was there and kept him, sort of overpowered his humanity and kept him from sinning.

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But they would argue that it would be possible for Jesus of Nazareth to sin, that he was peccable in that sense.

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He could have chosen to sin, but he did not. Now, that in itself is not heresy. That in itself is not heresy.

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It becomes heresy. The minute you take that doctrine and start to take some steps with it and talk about things, then you're very quickly get off into reasoning into heretical issues with that.

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So, though that position is not heresy, even those who believe in the peccability of Jesus, that he could have sinned, do not believe that he did.

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Now, if you believe that he did sin, that's heresy. You can believe that it was capable for him to sin so long as you also affirm that it was impossible for him to sin, and if we had more time, we could talk about why it is that that very quickly becomes heresy.

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So, I would affirm those two things. He was impeccable. He could not sin, and that his temptation was indeed genuine.

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Now, why is it that we would believe that he cannot sin? Because he was divine. There is no way to untie in the person of Christ the human and divine natures, for they exist in one person.

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And because they exist in one person, it would have been impossible for Jesus of Nazareth to sin without that implicating even his divine nature.

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Because the natures are inseparable, it is impossible for him to sin without implicating in that sin, in a moral sense, the divine nature.

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So, in that way, it was impossible. It was also impossible because he is the divine son and he could not fail to do what the

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Father sent him to do, which is what? To live a perfect life and to die on a cross as a sacrifice for sinners. And if he had sinned, that entire mission would have been jeopardized, and God would have failed in his redemptive efforts.

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Since God cannot fail and Christ is the divine son, Jesus Christ could not fail to do what the Father sent him to do, therefore,

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Jesus Christ could not sin. So, those are the issues. Now, we have to answer the question, how is it possible then, if he was unable to sin, that he could experience real and genuine temptation?

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And that's not the only issue. There's another one that is connected to it. If it were impossible for him to sin, how is it that he can be my example in resisting sin?

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See how that's connected? How is it that he can be my example? Because all of us could sort of step back and say, hey, if I had a divine nature,

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I wouldn't have sinned either. If I were half divine or if I had a full divine nature,

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I could resist temptation just like Jesus resisted temptation. But we have to distinguish between these two issues, why did he not sin and why was it impossible for him to sin?

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The answer to those two questions is different. Why was it impossible for him to sin?

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The answer to that is different than the answer to this question, why is it that he did not sin? Why was it impossible for him to sin?

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Because he had a divine nature. That's the answer. Why is it that he did not sin? Because relying upon the indwelling of the

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Holy Spirit, the Word of God, and prayer, he lived completely in obedience to the Father in faithfulness and resisted temptation in every way at every turn to the very end.

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That's why he did not sin. The answer to those two questions is different. Let me give you two illustrations, and for these two illustrations,

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I'm borrowing from the best book that I have read on this subject, which is called The Man -Christ Jesus written by Bruce Ware. Bruce Ware is a good theologian, a solid theologian.

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He wrote a book called The Man -Christ Jesus, a study on the humanity of Jesus. I recommend it highly to you. It's thin, it's short, it's simple, it's very straightforward, and it's excellent.

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Okay, he gives two illustrations in here. I'm going to give you these two illustrations, and I'm going to quote something that he says, and I'll show you the difference between the answer to these two questions, why it was impossible for him to sin, why he could not, and then why he did not.

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Here's the first illustration. Say that you...imagine a swimmer who wants to break the long -distance swimming record.

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Now, currently, that is 139 .8 miles. Let's just stop for a second and think about that.

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139 .8 miles is the world record for longest continuous swim. That's like swimming from here to Spokane and back.

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That's just mind -boggling. He did it in 50 hours and 10 minutes on August 29th through the 31st in 2006 by a man whose name

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I can't pronounce, so I didn't even write it down. I'm not even going to try and give it to you because you'd be like, what was that? And then it was just me jumbling.

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So imagine me speaking in tongues, that's who did it. Okay, so 139 .8

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miles, that's the longest. Imagine that you're going to...let's imagine that Ed's going to do that.

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Let's make it personal. Ed's going to do this. Ed, anybody who can wear shorts through the winter has a metabolism that can swim long distance like that.

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So Ed is setting out to break that long -distance swimming record. Now, Ed realizes that he needs to train for this.

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Ed knows that this is not like swimming across the Rio Grande. This is going to be something much bigger and grander than that. So this is a long -distance swim,

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Ed needs to train for it. So if he goes out every day and he starts swimming three to five miles and then a couple times a month, every few weeks, he does something much more long -distance, 30 to 50 miles.

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But he realizes that when he gets out about 30 miles that he starts to cramp up, he gets exhausted and cold and he starts to think, it might be that I could drown on one of these long -distance attempts.

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So he arranges with some friends to follow along behind him in a boat. And so his friends follow along behind him in a boat far enough away as to not interfere with the swim, far enough away that they don't offer him any help or any guidance to it at all, but that he does this swim.

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Now, on the day it comes for him to break the record, Ed gets in the water and he starts swimming and his friends follow along in the boat just as they have arranged, back far enough that they don't interfere, they don't offer any help, but they're there in case he needs it, okay?

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Is it possible for Ed to drown? In that scenario, it's not possible for Ed to drown. Why? Because the boat is close enough to go in and rescue him if needed and to keep him from drowning.

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So why is it that Ed cannot drown? Because the boat is there. But when Ed gets to the destination and he's broken it and he swam 140 miles instead of 139 .8

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and he's done it in 49 hours instead of 50 hours, when he gets to the destination and he has broken the world record, we ask, how is it that he did it?

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Is the boat the answer to that question? How is it that he did not drown? Because he kept swimming.

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That's the difference. Why is it he could not drown? Because there was a boat 20 feet behind him the whole way. Impossible for him to drown.

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Why is it that he did not drown? Because Ed kept swimming. Let me give you another illustration. Let's imagine that you're going to take a math test and you step into the class on the day of the math exam and the test is there in front of you and you have a teacher who allows you to use a calculator for all of the problems.

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And so it is virtually guaranteed that any student in the class can pass the exam because they have a calculator. But you decide that you're going to keep your calculator in your pocket.

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It's there if you need it, but you're not going to rely upon it. Instead, you're going to do all of the problems longhand on a piece of paper with a pencil.

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Instead, you work out all the answers to that. The calculator is there with you if you need it, but you never pull it out of your pocket. And you get to the end of the exam and sure enough, you pass.

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You pass the exam with 100%. Now, was it possible for you to fail the exam? With the calculator there, it was impossible that you would fail the exam.

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But why is it that you didn't fail the exam? Because you did it yourself. You worked out all the problems yourself without relying upon the calculator.

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Ed didn't rely upon the boat. You didn't rely upon the calculator. Why is it impossible that the

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Lord Jesus could sin? Because he was divine. Why is it that he did not sin? The answer to that question is not related to his divine nature, it's related to his human nature.

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Just as the presence of the boat is irrelevant to the question of why he did not drown, and just as the presence of the calculator is irrelevant to the question of why he passed the test, the presence of the divine nature is irrelevant to the question of how it is that the

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Lord Jesus Christ endured the temptations and remains sinless. The divine nature is there in case he needs it.

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But without relying upon the divine nature at all, the Lord Jesus Christ resisted those temptations and lived a perfect, faithful, obedient life to God in every way.

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Bruce Ware says this, although Christ was fully God, and as fully God, he could not sin, he deliberately did not appeal, as it were, to his divine nature in fighting the temptations that came to him.

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As a human, he not only could be tempted but was tempted in the greatest ways any human has been tempted in all of history, yet for every temptation he faced, he fought and resisted fully and totally apart from any use of or appeal to his intrinsic divine nature.

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Jesus did not sin not because he relied on the supernatural power of his divine nature or because his divine nature empowered his human nature, overpowered his human nature, keeping him from sinning, but because he utilized all the resources given to him in his humanity.

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So the impeccability of Jesus Christ, for that we credit his divine nature, he could not sin, but his sinlessness we credit to his human nature, that he, relying upon all the resources given to him in his pure humanity, the

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Word of God, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and prayer, he resisted and fought temptation all the way to the bitter end, endured it all, and yet he remained sinless.

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That is the majesty of your God. The man Christ Jesus did that. Real temptation in his humanity, he was tempted even,

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I think, beyond us, beyond what we are tempted. Why would I say that? I think he was tempted in a greater degree and to a greater measure and in greater ways than you and I are tempted because Satan knew that in order to derail the plan of God, all he had to do was get

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Jesus to commit one sin. If you think Satan has ever come after you with temptations, trials, and tribulations, you are small potatoes compared to the redemptive plan of God that was at stake for those 33 years while Jesus walked the earth.

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I think it is fair to assume that Satan came after him in ways and in means and in times that you and I cannot even possibly imagine, and threw temptations at him, right and left, in an attempt to derail that.

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And all he had to do was get Jesus to sin one time, and it was game over, he wins, it's done.

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He came after him, tempted him, in all things as we are, yet without sin. Because Satan knew what was at stake, and yet he felt the full weight.

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You try it. And yet he felt the full weight of temptation to the nth and to the last degree.

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Why is that? Because you and I can make temptation cease like that if we just give in.

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He could not, and he did not, and he would not give in, so he drank the bitter cup of temptations and trials to the very last drop each and every time.

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Unwilling to give in to it because his mission and his obedience was at stake, and our salvation was at stake.

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He knew what was at stake, and he resisted all the way to the bitter end. Whenever temptation gets difficult for us, we can make temptation stop just like that by giving in.

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He never did. All the way to the bitter end. You and I have very seldom known what it means to resist to that degree and under that type of temptation and trial, but the

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Lord Jesus did. And yet he was without sin, and this leads us to his sinlessness. That's the third thing. Not only his sympathy and also his temptation, but also his sinlessness.

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He perfectly obeyed, and the credit for this obedience does not go to his divine nature again. The credit for this obedience goes to his humanity.

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In his humanity, he did this. He obeyed the Father, he resisted sin, did only righteousness, and through all the experience of all of those weaknesses, which for us are temptations and opportunities to sin, tempted as we are, beyond what we are, to an extent that you and I are not even familiar with, he resisted all of it, and he obeyed fully.

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Now, that term without sin can be taken two ways, and it doesn't matter how you understand this because both of these are true. It can be taken, first of all, in this way, that Jesus was tempted in every way that we are, yet he wasn't tempted by a sinful nature as we are.

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In other words, his temptations all came from without. For you and I, it is when desire has conceived that it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it's fully grown, brings forth death, right?

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Most of our sins come not from outside of us, not because some spiritual force is tempting us, most of our sins come from right inside of us in the desires that we have and our evil desires.

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And so it might be that the author is here saying he was tempted in every way as we are, yet he did not have the same temptation that we have in the sense that his temptations were internal, coming from within him, but they were external to him.

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He did not have the sinful inclinations that you and I have. Jesus is greater than us in this way, not only this way, but certainly in this way, that he did not have a broken and fallen humanity which was tenuously inclined with love and affection towards sin and darkness.

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He didn't have that. Pure in himself in every way, he was not in any way inclined towards sin.

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He didn't desire it. He didn't love it. He didn't enjoy it. It wasn't appealing to him. He was tempted, but he resisted it, and his temptation did not come from within.

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If Satan did not exist, if Satan had never existed, there would still be enough wickedness and corruption in my heart to damn me for all of eternity, and just the wickedness and corruption in my heart alone would be enough to destroy me.

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My heart would wage war against me and destroy me each and every day. I don't need the devil to tempt me in anything because my heart and my wicked desires and corruptions are sufficient for that task, but Jesus didn't have that.

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So it's possible that that's what he means. He was tempted in every way as we are, yet without the sin inside that tempts us the way that our sin inside of us tempts us, or it might be that he is simply saying that Jesus was tempted in all ways as we are, yet he remained completely sinless even in spite of those temptations.

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In other words, this describes his sinlessness all the way to the very end. However you take that, both of those are true, and both of those could be what the author has in mind there.

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So what difference does this make? Why is this important? Why is it important that we understand that it is his humanity that he resisted and fought sin and won that battle and not in his deity?

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It is important for these reasons. It demonstrates to us that the fight against sin can be won.

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That's important. It demonstrates to us the fight against sin can be won. We can't step back and say, well, of course

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I'm not divine. That's why I sin. No, the temptation of Jesus and his resisting in his humanity with the same resources that you and I have, the word of God, prayer, and the indwelling of the

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Holy Spirit, we have those same resources that he had. Therefore, we can resist sin and we can be victorious.

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Does it mean that we will be perfect? No, but it means we can be victorious. It doesn't mean that we'll be perfect, but it doesn't mean that we can be victorious.

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It shows us that the fight against sin can be won. Second, it shows us the sympathy that Christ does have. Understanding our temptation and our weaknesses, he endured all of it.

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He endured it just like we must our face to endure it. And he is able to sympathize with us and empathize with us because of our weaknesses and he has experienced and he has known it.

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He has known the same weaknesses that are occasions for us to sin. He has experienced the same weaknesses. Third, our sinlessness, or sorry, his sinlessness is necessary for our righteousness and our salvation.

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His sinlessness is necessary for our righteousness and for our salvation. Adam was our representative in the garden.

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He failed. Given everything around him that he had, an Edenic paradise, Adam failed when presented with a piece of fruit to eat off of the tree.

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Jesus in a wilderness was offered far more than Adam was offered, and Jesus succeeded.

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And for 30 years, he resisted far more temptations than Adam ever had to face in the garden, and he succeeded.

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And his obedience and his faithfulness and his righteousness are necessary for my salvation because I need a representative on earth who can do what

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Adam failed to do. Because Adam failed, I am in Adam and I am damned. I need somebody to do what

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Adam could not do and did not do and failed to do, and I need him to do it on my behalf so that his obedience can be credited to me because I, because of my corruptions and my sinfulness,

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I am unable to fully obey. And so in my lost and unredeemed condition, I need somebody who has obeyed on my behalf, somebody whose obedience can be reckoned to me, credited to my account, so that in justification

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God can see me as having done all the good deeds that Christ did, and he can see me as having fulfilled all the righteousness that Christ has, not because I have been righteous but because another has been righteous on my behalf.

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I failed to do all of those things, and I cannot do any of those things. That is why I am a sinner.

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And so I need somebody who is sinless, who had perfect obedience to represent me.

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And it is not the sinlessness of the divine nature that is credited to our account. It is the sinlessness of the humanity of Jesus that is credited to our account.

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That's another reason it's important to keep those two distinguished. We don't credit his sinlessness to his divinity.

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We credit his impeccability to his divinity. We credit his sinlessness to his humanity. I needed a man who was sinless to stand in my stead.

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And my salvation and your salvation is dependent upon his sinlessness and the fact that he was the pure and spotless lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, that it was the pure and spotless and sinless lamb of God who laid down his life to provide an atonement for sinners.

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That is why it is necessary for our righteousness and our salvation. And so we marvel at the Savior, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, that in his humanity, in reliance upon the Holy Spirit, the indwelling of the

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Holy Spirit, the word of God, and prayer, he resisted and fought temptation all the way to the bitter end, drank that bitter cup that was reserved for me, and then drank the cup of God's wrath that was reserved for me, because as the sinless one, he could stand in the stead of sinners.

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And because he is divine, he could stand in the stead of an infinite amount of sinners. And he is able to save to the uttermost all those who come to him by faith.

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This is our Savior. This is our God. This is the man Christ Jesus. This is our high priest.

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And this is what we observe in communion when we celebrate the Lord's table together. We observe one who lived a perfect and sinless life in our stead and died a perfect death in our stead and rose again.

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And we, by virtue of faith in him, we participate in his sinless life, in his death, in his burial, in his resurrection, in his ascension.

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He did all of that on our behalf so that when we are in him by faith, all of his deeds become our deeds.

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That is the glory of justification. That is the glory of the sacrifice that God made for us in the person of Christ.

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So before we partake of the Lord's table together, we will have a time of private prayer, quietness.