Morning, Church family. Happy Lord's Day. Hebrews chapter 4, verses 14 to 16, it goes, "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. 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.

Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in a time of need." Amen. And with that, we will begin our service. And all of you. And all of you is more than enough for all of me for every thirst and every need.

You satisfy me with your love. And all I have in you is more than enough. You are my supply. You are my supply, my breath of life. Still more awesome than I know. You are my reward, worth living for. Still more awesome than I know. All of you is more than enough for all of me for every thirst and every need.

You satisfy me with your love. And all I have in you is more than enough. You are my sacrifice. You are my sacrifice, my greatest prize. Still more awesome than I know. You're my coming king. You are everything. Still more awesome than I know. All of you is more than enough for all of me for every thirst and every need.

You satisfy me with your love. And all I have in you is more than enough. More than all I want. More than all I need. You are more than enough for me. More than all I know. More than all I can say. You are more than enough. All of you is more than enough for all of me for every thirst and every need.

You satisfy me with your love. And all I have in you is more than enough. All right, good morning. Welcome to Berean Community Church. We have a few announcements before we get started. We have an announcement from our sisters, so Grace is going to come and give the announcements first.

Hello, my name is Grace. On behalf of the Women's Ministry, I'm making an announcement for tea time. It's going to happen in January 28th. It's a little bit away from now, so early announcement. But it's a one-day event where if you sign up, you will be placed into smaller groups.

It's a mixed affinity groups. And at these designated homes, you will be sharing a time of intentional fellowship over some tea and snacks. And this is open to all women in college, BAM, and Family Ministry. So please sign up when you can. Thank you. All right, so the event is happening at the end of January, so they'll give you more announcements as we get closer to the date.

Holiday outreach opportunities, we've given that announcement before, but as you exit, there is a table set up there, so if you haven't signed up and you're planning to, please visit that table after service. Family Ministry Christmas lunches. I know it's only a couple of weeks away, but Family Ministry is hosting a Christmas luncheon, and they're just going to break you up just kind of like what we did in Thanksgiving lunch, dinner.

And so if you're planning to participate in that, if you sign up, they'll place you in groups, and then after the service, second service, you'll be going out and grabbing lunch together with that group. So the sign-ups will be taking place on that. And then at the end of the year, on the 31st, which is a Saturday, there is a ping pong tournament going on right before we have our New Year's Eve service.

So it just happens to be on Saturday this time of the year, or this time around. So 530, they're welcoming all levels to come and participate in the ping pong tournament. The tournament fee is $5. So if you're planning to sign up, there will be sign-ups on the website, our app.

And so please sign up for that. And one last announcement. Next Sunday, we're having our communion service, and we are going to go back to our traditional way that we're doing. And so we're going to have you come up in the front. And I know some of you may still be a little bit nervous, if you are.

We are going to be taking precautions, wearing gloves and all of that, but we do want to go back to our traditional way of doing communion. And we'll explain why we feel the need to go back to that next Sunday. But we wanted to give you a heads up.

Just be prepared for both services. We will be having communion service. After our second set of worship, our brother Benson Juan is going to come, give his testimony, and be baptized this morning. And then, again, if you are visiting us, and you have a physical offering that you want to give, there's a box over there to the left.

And for the rest of you, we'll give you a minute to give it electronically. All right, let's pray. Gracious Father, we thank you and praise you for your goodness over our lives. We thank you that you've given us time, Lord God, to gather together with family, friends, and church to be able to reflect upon your goodness and to be thankful, Lord God, for the gift of salvation and the hope that we have in Christ.

I pray, Father God, that that attitude of gratitude would be a constant in our hearts, that we would truly enter your court, Lord God, with praise and thanksgiving. We ask this morning that you would bless our offering. May it be given to you cheerfully. May it be multiplied for your use and for your kingdom.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let us all rise as we sing these praises. All right, thank you for that encouraging testimony. If you guys can turn your Bibles with me to Luke chapter 4. We'll be jumping back into the Gospel of Luke. Even though we will be in the text all the way up to verse 13, our focus this morning is going to be on the first two verses.

Gospel of Luke chapter 4, verses 1 and 2. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come to seek your guidance. Lord, we want to hear from you. I pray that you will protect this pulpit. I pray, Father God, that you would anoint this time, that your word would go forth, that it would land on fertile soil, that it may bear fruit thirty, sixty, a hundredfold.

Lord, whatever it is that we have brought into this room, we know, Father God, that our answer is you and you alone. So we pray that your Holy Spirit would guide us, lead us, convict us, and sanctify us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. If you can post up the picture, the first slide.

Okay, so if you look at the slide, and then if you go to the second picture. Okay, all right. Some of you guys may remember, I put this up on my Facebook wall, and I got almost 200 likes. Okay, so a lot of you enjoyed this picture, and some of you have asked me, "Did I take this picture?" Of course I did not, right?

I just put it up there because I saw it online somewhere, and it's like, "I want it on my wall." You know, and, you know, like, I want to be able to see it when I scroll through, you know, like, they have the memories in Facebook, and then that time of the year, like, it'll pop up and say, "Hey, you took these pictures.

This is what was on your wall on this day." And so next year around that time, I'm hoping that this picture will pop back up and say, "Oh, that's a nice picture," right? But some of you guys were asking me, even on the thread, it's like, "Is this you?" Right?

Because I don't have the best reputation of taking good pictures. All right, so some of you guys who know me, you know, like, I'm not really into pictures. I don't actually own a camera other than my phone, and I have an iPhone, and I don't think iPhone is capable of taking pictures like that.

Maybe Samsung, but iPhone does not. Right. So, you know, I didn't answer the question, you know, but the question was, "Is this real or is it not real?" Of course it's real. It's just I didn't take it, right? Somebody else took it, right? The reason why I share this with you is, obviously, even something like that online right now, we have a hard time distinguishing what to believe and not to believe that's coming online.

Right? I'm not just talking about pictures. I'm talking about technology where you can take a face of a celebrity and just pop it on somebody else, and it looks so real that you can't tell. Right? And so, like, what is real, what's not real, right, unless they tell you, and even the articles, even things that you are reading, and sad to say, even the news today.

Like, what is real, what's not? What's actually going on in the world, and unless we're careful and we're shrewd about what it is that we are observing and what's going to come in, that you can easily be deceived because it's so easy to deceive in the culture that we're in.

Now, as difficult as it is to distinguish what's real and not real online, I believe that you and I are living in a period of age where this has bled into the church to be able to discern what is real and what is not, how much of our faith is cultural, that the boundaries have been set before us because I just happen to be born in a Christian home, and my community happens to be church, and so I'm just kind of going along with what was passed down to me, and so my children will do the same, my grandchildren will do the same, and so we have a country filled with people who claim to be Christians, but we know that a large portion of that is not real.

But how do we distinguish what is real and not real? See, during the time of Christ, they had the same problem, even though they don't have the same technology that we had, because the Jews were so eagerly waiting for the Messiah to be the answer for every problem that they had, their economic problem, their health problem, their political problem, and so everything was going to be answered when the Messiah came.

So during that period, there were rumors, one after another, coming and saying that they are the Messiah, that they are the Messiah. So Luke has been presenting evidence that Jesus was not some strange guy coming out of nowhere and saying that he's the Messiah, he's just the latest one who's saying that.

How do we know? If he's the Messiah, and he genuinely was crucified on the cross and resurrected to take away our sins, other people have made claims that they're the Messiah. So how do you know he's the one? And so Luke has been systematically, from chapter one, bringing evidence after evidence after evidence of Jesus' identity.

So before we were even introduced to Jesus and what he says and what he does, Luke has been, for the last three chapters, giving proof after proof after proof. He's been laying out Jesus' credential, his miraculous birth, angel coming and saying, "This is the Son of God who's going to take away the sins of the world." Zacharias and Elizabeth, in the way that their son was going to be born, and they gave testimony about the consolation of Israel was going to come.

John the Baptist comes, and he says, "The one who's coming after me is greater than me. I baptize you with water, he's going to be baptizing you with the Holy Spirit." And then Jesus gets baptized, and the heavens open up, God himself says, "You are my Son in whom I am well pleased." And the Holy Spirit comes and lands upon him in the form of a dove, testifying to who Jesus is, and chapter three ends with Jesus' genealogy, giving his credential, that his birth was a direct fulfillment of the promise that God made.

So everything that Luke has been doing is laying out his credential to separate him from all the other people who are also saying that they are also the Messiah. And as I mentioned to you, I was out in Korea because of the dire need of spiritual revival out in Korea.

Korea was a place that experienced tremendous revival at one point in Korean history. In fact, if you study revivals in modern history in the last four or five hundred years, Korean revival, the Pyongyang revival, that took place in Korea, is probably one of the top revivals that you'll see.

Miraculously, a country who absolutely did not have Christ, within a short period of time, experienced revival, and in one generation went from almost no Christians to 33% declaring that they were Christians. But sadly, as quickly as that revival came, the M and the Z generation, that's what they call the millennial and the Z generation, went from 33% to less than 3% in one generation.

33% of people in Korea at one point said that they were Christians, identified with Christianity, went to church, has gone down from one generation to less than 3%. You know, Korea is very concerned about the rise of cults. For whatever the reason, some of the most famous and world-affecting cults have come out of Korea.

The Moonies, Shincheonji, there's another one that's probably not as popular, but heavily popular in Korea called the Providence Movement, or Jesus the Morning Star Movement, or Odaeyang Movement, and if you go on, look for cults in Korea, I mean there's list after list after list after list. I think part of the reason why is because there's a dire need.

I think people in Korea know that the future is not bright. It has the highest suicide rate in the developed country, and it's been so for the last three to four years. Highest suicide rate. They have the lowest birth rate in the world, .8. .8 per family, which means many young couples are choosing not to have children at all, and at this rate, the population is actually in a sharp decline, faster decline than any other country in the world.

And there's a reason for that, because at the surface of all this K-pop and K-drama and all this going on, behind the scene, there's a sense of darkness. There's a sense of despair. And so a lot of cults are coming in and filling in that gap. And what I realized was that there's been so many harmful effects of these cults that the Korean government is very weary of any new churches being planted.

And so if you don't come under one of the five organized, acknowledged systems that they've already ordained, they consider you like a cult. So you're doing fine until your group is maybe 30 or 40, but as soon as it gets above 50 and beyond, and you start to get the attention of the government, they begin to treat you like a cult.

You can't get visas. They don't acknowledge you. It's very difficult to do anything. And so out of fear, they're putting strict restrictions. But here's the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that the general population who aren't Christians, they don't distinguish between the cults and the Christians because they don't know any better.

Even though the government will acknowledge some of the denominations, the rest of the country, they don't distinguish between the Moonies and the Shincheonji and the Christians because they don't know any better. So while you say Jesus is God, they say that guy's a God. Who's to say what? So there's this weird environment in Korea where the younger generation is not slowly, rapidly moving away.

And that's one of the main reasons why we decided to go and spend some time maybe possibly. There's a way for us to begin to do work there. I mean, one of the main reasons why we went into India is because when I first visited, realized the heaviest concentration of unreached people group were in India.

The heaviest concentration of poverty was in India. The heaviest concentration of illiteracy was also in India. The heaviest concentration of sex trafficking was also in India. And so because of the dire need, we thought, well, it'd be a great place for us to come and do the work if God opens the door.

Where there's something happening in South Korea that is in need of great attention. But obviously this morning, I'm not here to rally you for the ministry out in Korea. I believe that that same darkness exists here. Maybe in a different form, maybe in a way that we may not recognize.

But we have a difficult time distinguishing what is true and what is not true. Because we live in a post-Christian culture, and as long as you conform to the cultural Christianity, we feel safe. But the problem is, is the Jesus that we know, the Jesus of the Bible, or is that some perverted version of him that our culture has embraced?

And because so many of us have embraced it, it doesn't seem dangerous. We're just doing what everybody else is doing. We're just worshipping what everybody else is worshipping. We're living the way everybody else is living, and never really questioning, is this true or is it not? Well, the reason why I bring all this up is because Luke has been presenting Jesus as the authentic Savior, authentic God.

And so, in every way, in the first three chapters, he's been presenting God with all the different testimonies. But the section that we're looking at here, before Jesus actually enters into ministry, it says that Jesus is tempted for the purpose of proving him, so that you and I would recognize that he is who he says he is, and he did what he said he came to do.

So there's three things. Just in these two verses, it's sort of an introduction to the rest of it, because I don't believe we're going to be able to fully understand what happens in the rest of this section until we see, ask, and answer some of the questions that come up in the first two verses.

First question we have to ask is, why was Jesus tempted in the first place? What was the reason? Number one, Jesus' temptation was to prove his credential for his ministry. Before he comes on the scene, we need to recognize that he is who he says he is. In verse one, it says, "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, "returned from the Jordan "and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness." Do you see the double emphasis here of the Holy Spirit?

I'm not going to get into this this morning, because I talked about this several weeks ago, that the ministry of the Holy Spirit was not just an addendum. Jesus was doing something, and the Holy Spirit was helping him do that. It says, "From the get-go, it was the Holy Spirit.

"It was the Holy Spirit that was moving, "and people who are moving according to the Holy Spirit." If you look at this text, it says, "He was filled with the Holy Spirit, "and who's the one who led him to be tempted?" It says, "The Holy Spirit." So everything that happens here is the Holy Spirit moving him toward that direction.

In fact, our text says he was led by the Holy Spirit. In Mark 1.12, it says, "Immediately the Spirit impelled him "to go out into the wilderness." Impelled. The word impelled here in the Greek literally means to be driven, to be cast, to throw out. In fact, a stronger understanding of it is almost to be forced.

He wasn't-- Jesus didn't say, "Oh, I'm going to go take some time off "and be with my Lord," and the Holy Spirit just kind of went with him. He says, "No, from the get-go, the Holy Spirit filled him. "The Holy Spirit impelled him to go." So this temptation was not a side project.

He wasn't just out in the wilderness and fasting for 40 days, and the devil saw him and said, "Let me go and take this opportunity "to try to tempt him." It says, "The agent of his temptation, "that it was initiated by the Holy Spirit." Holy Spirit compelled-- not that Jesus was resisting, not that he had to be forced, but the language is that this was ordained.

He had to be tempted. Now, why was this temptation? Necessary, right? Well, if you remember, Jesus says in the Lord's Prayer, one of the key qualities of our prayer, he says, "Lead us not into," what? "Temptation." He says to pray so that you are not led into temptation, but here it says the Holy Spirit led Jesus into temptation.

In fact, in the book of James, it says, "When you are tempted, let no one say that God is tempting." God does not tempt anyone, nor can he be tempted. And yet here it says that Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit to be tempted. So there's something going on here that we need to ask and answer before we understand the rest of it.

Because if we don't understand the rest of it, the way that we're going to understand this, Jesus set us an example for us to conquer our sins, right? Which is not wrong, but that's not the main point. The main point of this text is in, here's how Jesus conquered sin.

He used the Bible, so you use the Bible. So he was able to refute Satan, so you can refute Satan. Now, in and of itself, it's not wrong, right? But that was never the main point of Jesus' temptation. He was compelled and driven to be tempted. So the question was, why?

Even as he tells us not to be led into temptation, yet Jesus himself was led by the Holy Spirit. The only one that was actually led into temptation. Now, it's pretty clear, right, if you read it systematically, why this is happening. Because if you remember, at the end of chapter 3, Jesus' genealogy goes way up to who?

To Adam. And it ends with Adam. The last thing that we are to remember, even though it's been weeks ago, is that his genealogy goes all the way to Adam. And there's a purpose for that. Luke the physician was not just writing random facts. He was trying to present a story.

And so, the reason why he leaves it off with Adam and introduces Jesus is because Adam, when he was tempted, what happened? Curse came into mankind. Jesus is introduced, and he is tempted, and the curse is reversed. So as Adam was tempted in the Garden of Eden, and then was thrown out to the wilderness, Jesus is in the wilderness, and in his temptation, he's trying to bring us back into the garden.

So it's not by accident that Luke is putting this in order. In fact, Apostle Paul makes this very clear in 1 Corinthians 15, 22, "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive." Again, in Romans 5, 14, "Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses." So that genealogy that we saw in chapter 3 was the reign of death in mankind.

And now Christ is introduced, and that reign of death is going to be reversed for those who receive Christ and to have life. 1 Corinthians 15, 45, "So also it is written, 'The first man, Adam, became a living soul; the last Adam," referring to Christ, "became a life-giving spirit.'" So first and foremost, why was he being tested?

He was being tested because the whole reason why he came was to seek and save the lost. Jesus is the perfect example, because he's the perfect human being who never sinned. So everything that he did serves as an example for us to follow, but that is not the main reason why he came.

If all we see Jesus as the perfect man, who gave a perfect example for us to have a perfect life, you missed the whole point of Christianity. The whole point of Christianity was Christ, who in every way was tempted without sin. He who knew no sin became sin so that you and I can become the righteousness of Christ, righteousness of God.

So the purpose of his temptation is to prove that he was perfect sacrifice for our sins. In fact, if you remember anything about the Old Testament, the whole Old Testament is laid out, especially Leviticus. It's laid out for us to remind us over and over and over again that a sinful man cannot approach a holy God.

And I mention this over and over again. When you read the book of Leviticus, Leviticus is not a welcoming book. Leviticus is not warm and fuzzy. There's a reason why Leviticus typically is avoided. Because Leviticus is not John 3.16, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." Leviticus is a setup for that.

But the whole book of Leviticus basically says, "You will die if you do this. You will die if you don't do this. You will die if you touch this. You will die if you go here. I have anointed this tribe to do this and that tribe to do that, and if any other tribes come in and give the sacrifice that was not warranted, you will die." Repeatedly, over and over again, we are told, "You are unclean.

You are unclean. You are unclean." And even if you gave an animal sacrifice with any kind of defect, it would be rejected. And even if the animal was perfect, if sinful hands touched that before the sacrifice, it would become defective. So if there is any one point that was pounded into the Israelites, it's that God is holy, and you and I are sinful, and there is a huge chasm between this holy God and sinful man.

So Christ's temptation is to provide a credential for Jesus to be the perfect sacrifice. If he failed in any of his sacrifices, any of his temptations, he would have been disqualified before his ministry ever began. He would have been a good leader. He could have been the Messiah. He could have had political power.

He could have performed miracles. He could have overthrown, maybe, he was organized enough, and trained the soldiers, and overthrew the Roman government. He could have been a great leader, but he would not have been our Savior. That's why the Holy Spirit had to lead him to validify his credential to be our sacrifice.

Tempted in every way, yet sinless, without defect. His temptation, number two, was thorough. One was to prove him. Second, it was thorough. The reason why I say that is because oftentimes when we think of how Jesus was a sympathetic high priest, usually the pushback, subtle pushback that I get from people is, "Well, Jesus is not a woman, so he doesn't really understand me." Right?

So he doesn't really know. Jesus never got married, so he doesn't know what it's like to be married to a contentious wife. He doesn't know. He's never been married to a husband who's just not leading well, so Jesus doesn't know. He's never raised kids who are rebellious, so he doesn't know.

He's never grown old, so he's never experienced midlife crisis. He doesn't know. In fact, majority of the things that you and I suffer on a day-to-day basis, you can't really find it. There are some things, "Oh, Jesus was the oldest brother, so he knows what that's like." Maybe his father died early, so he knows what that's like.

So we can pick and choose, but if you look at this carefully, look at the language. Luke chapter 4, 2 says, "For 40 days being tempted by the devil." Now, verse 3 and on to verse 13 record the three temptations that are highlighted for us, but the text clearly says he was tempted the whole time.

Mark chapter 4, 1, "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." The whole purpose why he was led was not simply he can have time with God. He said it was for the purpose of being tempted. So he was tempted through the whole 40 days.

Mark chapter 1, 13, "And he was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan." So for 40 days, the whole time he was there. So the three temptations that we're going to get to next week or the week after was basically the final exam. But he was taking the exam the whole time.

Many of you, if you're taking the bar or taking the medical exam, that's not your only test. The only reason why you even qualify to take that test is because you passed many other tests up to that point. It just happens to be your final accumulation of those tests.

So the three tests that we're going to be looking at that typically we focus on usually is the final exam. What the text says, "For 40 days he was being tested." Now, why is this important and why is this relevant to that question of, "He can't relate to me because he wasn't old, he wasn't a female, he wasn't a father, he was never married.

How do we reconcile that?" The number 40 is very significant in the Bible. The Bible doesn't throw out anything just randomly. The number 40 is very significant in the Bible, and it is related to judgment and curse. It says--these are the things that the Bible mentions about 40. Forty years of wandering in the desert before they go to the Promised Land.

Why did they wander for 40 years? Because of unbelief. Because of God's punishment against Israel. Forty lashes. It says in Deuteronomy 25 in the Old Testament law, if an individual was guilty of some crime against another brother, that he would be given 40 lashes as maximum, representing the curse upon that man.

In Leviticus 12, 1-4, when a woman gives birth to a child, she is declared unclean for 40 days. And again, you know, it may be offensive to some of you when you don't understand the context of that, but the reason why that was given was because a sinful woman was giving birth to a sinful being, and so in order to teach that sin is multiplying, that she had to be declared unclean for 40 days.

Forty days, in Genesis 7, verse 4 and 12, the flood lasted. So when the judgment came upon mankind to wipe them out, with the exception of Noah's family, the flood came and destroyed them for 40 days. Ezekiel 4, verse 6, when God tells him to represent the sins of Israel, to lay on the left and lay on the right, he says he was to do this for 40 days, to represent their sins.

Moses fasted for 40 days, and he's up in the mountain for 40 days, in order to receive the new covenant, the law of God, that he was going to present to the nation of Israel. The Bible clearly says that the law brought curse to mankind. So the number 40 in the Bible represents God's judgment and curse, and this is significant because chapter 3 ends with Adam and how he brought curse to mankind.

Jesus is in the state of the curse of mankind for 40 days being tested in every way, yet without sin. He may not have experienced fatherhood. He may not have experienced what it means to be a female. He may not have experienced old age, but there is no man who was tested and tempted like Jesus directly by Satan for 40 days.

It just doesn't describe for us. It doesn't describe in detail exactly what it was, but during those 40 days, some people may say, "Well, it's only 40 days. I mean, everyone here has lived longer than that." John MacArthur, I think, says this well, and it helped me to understand this aspect.

He says, "Jesus experienced testing and temptation more than any other human being because he never failed." And what he meant by that was every temptation that you and I feel and wrestle with, it gets intense until the moment we fail. And that's why Jesus says to pray to not to be led into temptation because our God knows that if we are led into temptation at some point, everybody has a cracking point, at some point we will crack.

And at the moment of compromise, we are no longer struggling with temptation. We're struggling with guilt. But it's no longer temptation you feel. Jesus never cracked. He never gave in. So the struggle with temptation was always real to the very end because he never sinned. In Hebrews 4.15, it says, "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things." In summary, your translation is, "In every way as we are yet without sin." In fact, his experience with sin and curse was much deeper than what you and I normally experience.

In fact, it says in 2 Corinthians 5.21, "He made him who knew no sin," what? "To be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God." You notice here, he doesn't say, "He who knew no sin experienced sin on our behalf." He says, "No, to be sin." His experience with sin was so intimate that he says he became sin for us.

In fact, in Galatians 3.13, it says, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having," what? "Become a curse for us." He didn't just experience the curse. He embraced it so fully, the Bible describes him being sin and being a curse on our behalf. So those 40 days and every single second that he lived on this earth, he experienced this curse to the fullest that you and I would never experience.

We typically think that he experienced it upon the cross. Yes, he did. The penalty of sin, he absorbed upon the cross on our behalf. But every single second that he took on human form, he experienced this curse and his sin on our behalf. Jesus' temptation was thorough, far beyond what you and I could ever possibly imagine.

Third question that we ask is, "How can Jesus even be tempted? Isn't he God?" I mean, if you do inductive Bible study through this, and you ask a lot of questions, one of the first questions you should be asking is, "Is Satan dumb?" I mean, think about that. He's approaching the Son of God.

Remember Satan's interaction with God in the Old Testament? In particular, remember the book of Job? God is on his throne, and Satan is roaming around the earth, and he allows Satan to come into his presence. And the only reason why he's even able to do what he did to Job was because God allowed it.

He needed permission. Jesus says, at the end of his ministry, "Satan has asked permission to sift you like wheat." He has to ask God permission. Now remember, Jesus is the second person of the Trinity. And he takes him up and he says, "If you bow down to me and worship me, I will give you this." Is he dumb?

That's just like if I was standing in front of a world-renowned chef and said, "If you would just honor me, I will make you some ramen." Right? And then actually expecting you to be tempted. Like, "Hmm, ramen. Maybe." Jesus, Scripture says, all things were created by him and for him, and all of that, even that, was being sustained by him.

Why did Satan think? Is he dumb? I mean, clearly the Bible doesn't present him that way to us, and he's way smarter than us. In fact, the Bible warns us about taking the power of Satan lightly. And yet, he comes to Jesus and says, "I will give you all of this if you would bow down to me." In Philippians 2, 5-8, it says, "Have this attitude in yourselves, which also is in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant and being made in the likeness of men." I know this is a text that we often use to talk about church unity, about being humble, about considering other people better than ourselves.

But if you dig into the meaning behind this, what does it mean for the God of the universe to empty himself? We know Christmas is coming, and we think about the incarnation, we think about what he has done, and years and years and years, I'm pretty sure you've heard story after story, and exposition after exposition about the incarnation of Christ every Christmas.

But I don't think it really affects the way that it should. I don't think we really understand the depth of what it took for him to be incarnated, to take on human form. That Satan, who is in rebellion against God, saw Jesus in his humble state, and for the first time in his existence, he saw hope for himself.

He didn't see God. He saw a humble servant. He was so veiled in his glory that he actually thought that he was going to tempt Jesus with his own creation in his rebellion. He was so humbled. He was so humiliated that the one who was in rebellion against him came to tempt him.

So the fact that this is even happening is because he emptied himself. Do you see how ridiculous it is for pride and Christianity to exist? A man who was walking with cries headed toward the cross, to be humiliated, and to be thinking, "Am I going to sit on the left or to the right?" How offensive that is!

We worship a God who gave everything. In James 1.13, it says, "Let no one say that when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone." Did Satan not know this text? Did he not know that God cannot be tempted?

Of course he knew. But Jesus' deity was this veiled. He did not see his deity. He saw a humble man, taking up the form of a servant. I don't know about you, but that fact alone, his incarnation, what it took for him to just walk among us, doesn't that automatically humble you?

Doesn't that automatically see any kind of pride in us? How ugly that must seem, especially in the context of worshiping this God? Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. And he repeatedly says, "If you want to live, you have to die." How much of our struggle, how much of our anxiousness, how much of our anger, how much of our bitterness, comes from when our desire to have a better life is thwarted somehow?

Even in the way that we pursue righteousness, how much of our frustration comes because we're not getting what we want? How ridiculous and hypocritical that is, that any sinner in the presence of this God can allow pride to exist. Our God humbled himself, became nothing, was tempted by his own creation.

Why did he do that? Why did he allow himself, why did the Holy Spirit lead him to do that? Yes, it is an example. Yes, these are tools that will help us in our temptation, but it's ultimately to prove that he is worthy to be our sacrifice. He was a perfect lamb without blemish.

Let me finish the sermon the way I started. I had an opportunity to visit Itaewon, and I shared that with you, what happened in Seoul. Itaewon in Korea is an area that previously was known as a U.S. military base, and so there's a lot of foreigners who live in that area.

If you want to get, a long time ago, now you can get it everywhere, a long time ago if you wanted American food, go to American supermarkets, you have to go to that area. Since then, the military base moved somewhere else, and so for a period, Itaewon was starting to die, and in recent years, there was a resurgence, and the reason why there was a resurgence was as these shops, these international shops started disappearing, nightclubs started coming in.

And so all these shops, and those of you guys who know Korea, Itaewon was known, if you want to go get fake stuff, that's where you go, right? That's where everybody knew, right? At least I've been told, right? That's where you go, so every one of these shops, as they disappeared, the nightclubs started coming in.

So because of what happened, there's about 150 young people who are in their late teens and early 20s were there in the clubs, and they came out through the alley at night, and many of them got crushed standing up. It wasn't even that they fell to the ground, obviously anybody who fell to the ground couldn't get up and they were crushed, but many of them died standing up because the pressure was so strong.

That's how crowded it was. So I wanted to go and visit just to see that area, so I went, I had some time and took the subway by myself, and I could tell as soon as I got off the subway, I could tell the subway exit because there's an eerie silence.

Anybody who's visited Itaewon before this incident, you know how busy that area is, but as soon as I got off the subway, there's this dead silence. As soon as I went up to see where it was, it was right outside the subway exit. Thousands of flowers and notes of encouragement and aching and crying, like splattered everywhere.

There's police officers just everywhere so that people don't get out of control for crowd control, and just that eerie silence, right? Obviously, 150 young people died there just a few weeks ago. So I go and I'm walking around, and there's a couple things that I noticed. One is the heavy Buddhist presence.

Everywhere I went, I saw Buddhist monks walking around burning incense, and everywhere I went, there was an altar that was set up saying, "We're praying for you," or "We're pleading on your behalf." So I had some time, so I was walking around, and I saw the notes that were on the wall, and thousands of notes, primarily secular, atheistic, Buddhist notes.

Every once in a while, you'll see a Christian presence there. I thought that was kind of strange because even though the younger generation has been lost under 3%, the rest of the population is 33%. I said, "Where is their presence here?" So I asked one of the missionaries and the people who were there, "What's going on?

It's weird that we don't see a lot of Christian presence there." And he said that not all, but some. Some of the mega church pastors who were influential came out and spoke very publicly against what happened, saying that this was a judgment from God, that because Korea is becoming more and more secular, that this was evidence of judgment.

These young kids should not have been out there that night. And so where are the parents? How come they didn't restrict them? What are they doing late at night in that place? And so these 150 lives that was lost is God's judgment and was calling for repentance. Now, could that be true?

Maybe. But what a way to be a witness to a hurting world. If our indignation for the sins of the world stops with judgment, you don't understand the gospel. Because if God did that to us when we were lost, and yes, every pain that you and I experience is a result of our own sins and the sins of mankind.

If God looked at us and said, "Of course you're going to get judged, because you didn't act right, because you embraced your sins, you shouldn't have been there." If God did that, you and I would not be here. Jesus would not have been tested. He would not have suffered.

He would not have been humiliated. It's because He saw our problem and He drew near to us. And He had mercy on us. And He cried out on our behalf. The answer to Itaewon. All the politicians are getting together, pointing fingers at each other. It's because of them. It's because of the liberals.

Local officials are saying that they should have never converted into a nightclub. It was overly crowded. There should have been some more residents. Younger people are blaming the old people, saying that you guys didn't care about us, and that's why we're distraught and the country is turning the way it is.

Older people are pointing fingers at the younger people. It's because you guys don't respect us. And so everybody is pointing fingers, that the answer is, if you change, if you do something different, we're going to fight so that you can change. But the only answer to man's sin is Christ crucified.

And the moment that you and I think otherwise, we have joined the crowd of the world. 1 Corinthians 1, 18-19, "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.'" Every time something tragic happens, everybody is so clever.

Everybody has answers. It's because of them. If we change them, if we change this, if we had a better economy, if we had better family structure, if we did this and that, if that was the case, Christ didn't have to come. He could have just given us an instruction of books and telling, "This is what you should do.

Be better. Be better." He came because we could not. 1 Corinthians 1, 21-23, "For since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message, 'Preach to save those who believe.'" So foolish. You have people dying, suffering, sex trafficking, destroyed families, pain, isolation, loneliness, economic struggles, and all you're going to do is preach the gospel?

That's all you're going to do? The world is about to fall apart? We're about to enter World War III and all you're going to do is preach the gospel? The answer is a resounding yes. It may be foolishness to the world, but it is the power of God for those who are being saved.

For indeed, Jews ask for science. Greeks search for wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified. To Jews, a stumbling block, and to Gentiles, foolishness. But to those who are being saved, the power of God. Let's never let anything in our generation, next generation, no circumstance, no pressure, no persecution, ever thwart us from preaching the gospel in season and out of season.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray for wisdom. We pray for conviction. We pray, Father God, as we meditate upon the sacrifice and the humiliation of Christ, that we would also take up our cross and follow him to a path of humbling, of emptying, and sometimes even suffering. That when the time of his glory comes, that we will also be glorified in him.

Help us, Lord God, especially now, as the world is suffering. As so many, Lord God, are putting up a front, Lord, and yet inwardly in such pain. That more and more of the world, Lord God, experiences the depth of this curse. Help us, Lord God, instead of simply pointing fingers, but to have compassion, as you had compassion on us.

I pray that your word that you've implanted in us will bear fruit wherever you send us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let's all stand up for the closing praise. How great the chasm that lay between us. How high the mountain I could not climb. In desperation I turned to heaven and spoke your name into the night.

Then through the darkness your loving kindness tore through the shadows of my soul. The work is finished, the end is written. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Who could imagine so great a mercy? What heart could fathom such boundless grace? The God of ages stepped down from glory to wear my sin and better my shame.

The cross has spoken, I am forgiven. The King of kings calls me his own. Beautiful Savior, I'm yours forever. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Praise the one who set me free. Hallelujah, death has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name.

Jesus Christ, my living hope. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Praise the one who set me free. Hallelujah, death has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Then came, then came the morning that sealed the promise. Your buried body began to breathe.

Out of the silence, the roaring lion declared the grave has no claim on me. Then came, then came the morning that sealed the promise. Your buried body began to breathe. Out of the silence, the roaring lion declared the grave has no claim on me. Jesus Christ, my living hope.

Hallelujah, hallelujah. Praise the one who set me free. Hallelujah, death has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Hallelujah, praise the one who set me free. Hallelujah, death has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain.

There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Jesus Christ, my living hope. God, you are my living hope. Let's pray. Lord, we pray for revival. Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit, Lord, would empower your people. That our speech, our life, our work, our families, our leisure may all be used for your glory.

Lord, the world is dark and it is getting darker. Help us, Lord God, to not to fall into despair with the rest of the world. And as you warned us that because of increase in wickedness, that love of many will grow cold. Help us, Lord God, not to allow our hearts to drift, to harden, but to see the world, Lord God, through your eyes.

As you had compassion on the multitude. As you pleaded with your disciples, Lord, we beseech you to send more workers into the harvest. Raise men and women, Lord God, who will take up their cross to proclaim your truth. To be able to say with a clear conscience, here I am, Lord, send me.

Bring revival. Help us to pray, to fast, to seek you with all our heart. That we may bear much fruit according to your purpose and will. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, blameless with great joy.

To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen. God sent his Son, then called him Jesus. He came to earth, heal and forgive. He lived and died to buy my pardon. An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives.

Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Because I know he holds the future. And life is worth the living just because he lives. Amen. Oh, you think so much, Dave? Yeah, I do.