30 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. 31 Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’32 But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”33 Peter answered him, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.” 34 Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.”35 Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” And all the disciples said the same.
Jesus Prays in Gethsemane
36 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.”37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch1 with me.”39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”40 And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour?41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
30 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. 31 Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’32 But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”33 Peter answered him, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.” 34 Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.”35 Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” And all the disciples said the same.
Jesus Prays in Gethsemane
36 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.”37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch1 with me.”39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”40 And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour?41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:
Hey, everybody. We're gonna be in Matthew chapter 26 tonight. So if you wanna go ahead and start finding your way to Matthew 26. We're continuing this study of the lord's prayer. Matthew 26, not the lord's prayer, but that's, that's kinda where we're gonna be basing ourselves tonight as we think through, verse 13 of the lord's prayer in Matthew chapter 6.
Jeffrey Heine:
So, we'll be back and forth a little bit. You got it in your worship guide in case you go a little confused there. But we are gonna be in Matthew 26 verses 30 through 41. Matthew 26 verses 30 through 41. And let us listen carefully.
Jeffrey Heine:
This is God's word. And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them, you will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.
Jeffrey Heine:
And Peter answered him, though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away. And Jesus said to him, truly I tell you, this very night before the rooster crows, you will deny me 3 times. And Peter said to him, even if I must die with you, I will not deny you. And all of the disciples said the same. Verse 36.
Jeffrey Heine:
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray. And taking with him Peter and the 2 sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch with me.
Jeffrey Heine:
And going a little farther, he fell on his face and he prayed saying, My Father, if it be possible that this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.' And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, so could you not watch with me 1 hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Let's pray.
Jeffrey Heine:
God, we ask you. We ask you that by your spirit, you would teach us in this time, that you would meet with us, and, lord, that you would transform us. Whether we know it or not, each one of us in this room, we are desperate to hear from you. And so I pray, Lord, we pray, we ask that by your spirit, you would open our eyes and our hearts and our ears that we might receive you and trust you and obey you. And lord, teach us as you taught your disciples how to pray.
Jeffrey Heine:
As we study these words, our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Jeffrey Heine:
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen. So, I hope that you all had a good spring break. I don't see a lot of airbrush t shirts in here, so maybe not that good.
Jeffrey Heine:
I I love that there there was an era where you could you could impress people and make them jealous of you with an airbrush t shirt. Bygone days. Yeah. But, hopefully, you've had a good week, even if it wasn't spring breaky. A couple of years ago, it was actually about 8 years ago, I went on spring break when I was in seminary to a monastery.
Jeffrey Heine:
Haven't you done that? No? Okay. Only 1. Yep.
Jeffrey Heine:
I I went to a monastery during spring break. You can find out more information at monks.org. That's also not a joke. The monastery in in central Kentucky, you can find them at monks.org. They snagged that one, I'm guessing early nineties.
Jeffrey Heine:
First on the scene. Nobody else wanted it. And and so you I I went to this monastery in central Kentucky, and, and I wanted I wanted to go for years. I was so excited to finally get the opportunity. And I was walking on the grounds, I was walking around, and this monk came up and started talking to me.
Jeffrey Heine:
And we talked for a bit, and, and he told me about this path that I I should walk. That sounds more spiritual than it is. It sounds like like, take this path on your journey. But it wasn't one of those moments. He was really just saying, like, if you're gonna walk the grounds, you should take this path, and you should you should walk back there.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's really beautiful. So I did. I started walking, and the trees and the flowers and everything really beautiful. And And, and as I was walking this path, it started getting a little bit narrow. And then I saw this statue.
Jeffrey Heine:
So out of out of nowhere, I walked up and saw this. And this is a statue by a sculptor. He's actually from, the Boston area. And it was it was done in commemoration of a priest that was actually killed in Alabama. He stepped in front of an African American girl during a protest in 1965, and he was shot and killed instantly.
Jeffrey Heine:
And so these were placed in memory of him. And so as you're walking around through through this, garden area, you stumble upon the 3 disciples sleeping. And it's pretty eerie. They're life size. And so you see it, and and and as I was looking at it, my heart started to race, and I started to get a bit nervous, because I started to realize what must be ahead, a little bit further down the walk.
Jeffrey Heine:
And there was this large statue of Christ praying. It was very startling. I'm in the woods at a monastery by myself, and the the front of the statue there. As he is full of sorrow, crying out to the father. Now I I was familiar with this story.
Jeffrey Heine:
I'd I'd heard it before. Maybe maybe you're familiar with it too. I'm I I was familiar with it enough to not really think about it too much, and that can be the problem sometimes. We get so familiar with it that we don't really think about it. And it wasn't until I saw these sculptures and was really confronted with this this tangible representation in front of me, I thought about these 3 men that were selected out of the 12.
Jeffrey Heine:
These 3 that were were taken further in to pray and watch with Jesus, and he asks them to pray. And he goes off and an hour goes by. And can you imagine being Peter after he has has told you that you're going to deny him? Peter wakes up to the word, so. Take that feeling when you are speeding down the road and you see a cop.
Jeffrey Heine:
You know that that feeling, and you do the quick check of like, okay, how fast even if maybe you're not speeding. Maybe you're one of those wonderful people that just never does that. But you still check to see how fast am I going? Like what's the, what's the speed limit? How fast am I going?
Jeffrey Heine:
You get that pit in your stomach. Imagine waking up to the words, so you couldn't pray for 1 hour? Peter had been so bold, standing before the others and saying, I will not fall away. No matter what comes, not going to fall away. Even if I have to die with you, not going to fall away.
Jeffrey Heine:
And the arrow that pierces the heel of Paul, of of Peter, is sleep. He's sleepy. That's what takes him out. It wasn't some grand sin, and we're gonna see some of those things later on in that story, where he's confronted by people saying really explicitly, you know this man, you're with this man. He he has some more conflict later on where he's going to deny him.
Jeffrey Heine:
But what takes him out right here is that he's tired. And Jesus confronts him, and and he he he kind of there are 3 layers to what he says as he reacts to the failure of Peter. He reacts to him, and he says, so could you not watch with me 1 hour? And then he speaks instruction. He gives direction to him, and he says, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.
Jeffrey Heine:
Jesus knows what's ahead, and he tells them to watch him pray. And then he explains why this failure is happening. He says, the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. You see, this comes to us as well that we must watch and pray, because we are willing, but weak. He doesn't discredit him.
Jeffrey Heine:
He doesn't say, Peter, James, John, dig deeper, you gotta want this. Like, get like, you gotta you gotta want to follow me, you've gotta want this. Like, get the spirit. Get the right spirit. Get the energy.
Jeffrey Heine:
Get the passion. And he says, I know you're willing, but I also know you're weak. And he tells them to watch, and he tells them to pray. This is our condition exemplified so well by Peter, That the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And that's why we pray.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's why we pray this prayer and this line from the Lord's prayer, to lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. That's why we have to pray. That's why we have to watch. And it's a simple prayer. It's a simple statement, but what does it mean?
Jeffrey Heine:
Again, sometimes we can be so familiar with something that we don't really think it through. And so that's what we're going to do tonight. That's what we've been doing since September as we have been once a month looking at the Lord's prayer. And now we come to verse 13. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Jeffrey Heine:
So first, what is temptation? There are lots of different ways that you could approach that, but temptation is any occasion in which we are enticed away from God. Any time, any occasion where we are lured away from God, enticed away from trust and obedience to distrust and disobedience. As we are called away from trusting him. It's any time that that happens.
Jeffrey Heine:
Have you ever done something that beforehand you said, not me, never. I'm never gonna that will never be me. I'm never gonna do that. In fact, I hate that. I hate the people that do those kinds of things.
Jeffrey Heine:
I hate the people that associate with the people that do those kinds of things. I I'm so distant from that. Never me. Have you ever done one of the things where beforehand, you said that? The rest of the sermon is as though your answer is yes.
Jeffrey Heine:
Like a resounding yes that we've we're all gonna say yes. Yeah. We have. We say that's never going to me be me, and then it is. We we wake up like Peter, guilty and ashamed.
Jeffrey Heine:
We wake up that next day, and it hits us. And like Peter, which we didn't read on into this, but he goes to sleep again. And Jesus wakes him up again. And then Peter goes to sleep again, and Jesus wakes him up again. See, often that's how it goes.
Jeffrey Heine:
We wake up. We hear so. We are startled. We we're fully alert. I mean, imagine, Don't you think that when he came by and he was he said, so, you couldn't watch with me 1 hour?
Jeffrey Heine:
That after that, Peter was like, okay. We're gonna dig deep. I'm not going to sleep this time. I'm watching, I'm praying. I'm gonna close my eyes just for a second.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's really late at night, we had a long day. Foot washing, Lord's supper, big deal. We have got a lot to process. Just need to rest a little bit. And Jesus wakes him up again.
Jeffrey Heine:
John Owen, who wrote a number of essays on sin and temptation, talks about how, we often really detest sins that are enticing us. At first, we get very very loud about how much we hate them, and we hate the people that do those things, and we hate everything about it. We're not gonna associate with them. We're not gonna buy things from them. We're not gonna no marketplace interaction.
Jeffrey Heine:
We're just gonna distance, distance, distance. And there's a a term in psychology and analysis, the bigger the front, the bigger the back. We're oftentimes this big front of, I hate it, hate it, hate it. The back is, these are the things that are knocking at my door. It happens a lot.
Jeffrey Heine:
And then we So how does this happen? How do we go from, I hate this. I'm never going to do this. These are the worst things. These are the worst people.
Jeffrey Heine:
Whatever that is, this big response of detesting the sin, how do we end up in those places? How do we end up answering the door when that temptation is knocking? How? One of the things is culture. We domesticate the temptations.
Jeffrey Heine:
We become okay with it, and we let them in. We're we're gonna entertain it or at least listen to it to some degree. I mean, where's James and John in this? I mean, when when Peter woke up and he realized what had just happened, why didn't he say, James, John, accountability partners. Alright, here we go.
Jeffrey Heine:
Anybody closes their eyes, you get punched in the throat. Alright? That's the rule. From now on, close your eyes, punch in the throat. I mean, what what happened there?
Jeffrey Heine:
The buddy system totally fell apart. He said watch and pray. He didn't say just get a really good buddy, just gonna ask you a bunch of questions. No. He said watch and pray.
Jeffrey Heine:
Go to the lord. Seek him, beg him, knock on the door over and over and over again. Seek the father. Watch and pray. See these things, we we get people around us that will deceive us, and then we also deceive ourselves.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's something that we have to be really upfront about as Christians, that we lie to ourselves still. We believe things that are not true, things that are not in line with what God has said, and we repeat them back to ourselves. I remember a time in the early nineties, I had just been to JCPenney's and purchased some wide leg jeans, as we all did. And I remember thinking, there will never be a time when we will go back to those tight jeans of the eighties. There's no way we're going back.
Jeffrey Heine:
Fashion has arrived. Jeans are to be wide leg. They should be big enough like a Jinko jeans, where you can just fit inside. Size 30 leg, size 30 waist. That was my, the measurements at the time.
Jeffrey Heine:
And so they really made those. They're called jinko cannons. If you need to look them up, you can. But we have these we lot we've we think that we've arrived. We sometimes the church does this, we like, through media, Christian movies.
Jeffrey Heine:
So this whole Christian movie, as it's going throughout, people are having a really rough time. But in the end, the infertility is solved. The person gets pregnant. The they didn't have a truck, and they got a brand new truck. That's the end of, Facing the Giants, just in case you hadn't seen it.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's the end of the movie. Spoiler alert, it came out, like, 8 years ago. But we we promote this idea that if you just believe these things, you confess these things, and you go to church, you get really involved, that somehow your life just comes together. And I hope that you have heard from person after person after person who's given testimony in this church, in this church family, in this household of faith, when people come up, we don't script this. Joel never asks them to say this line, but they always say, I don't have it figured out yet.
Jeffrey Heine:
I don't have it all together. There's a reason that refrain happens in all of our testimonies. It's because it's true, and we need to hear one another say these things. We need to hear these things, because we deceive ourselves. We also deceive one another by making certain things acceptable when they are not acceptable.
Jeffrey Heine:
To think through what temptations and sins in your own life and in the people that you live your life with have made acceptable, or at at least not that big of a deal. Because we have those. We have those things, and it's not enough to just get up and try and make each other feel better with little platitudes. We've we've have to we have to dig in here. We we have to be those kinds of friends and family that are willing to talk about these things.
Jeffrey Heine:
We don't have it all together, because we will lie to ourselves that we can handle it, that I'm not as bad as everyone else, that I'm in control. We lie about these things. And then we never dig in far enough to call each other out on it. This allure and fear. Owen talks about this allure that we would be drawn and enticed to these temptations, these sins, that we would start to desire them.
Jeffrey Heine:
And then fear rushes in, and it keeps us there. Allure and fear are things we have to pray against. See the gospel news begins with the reality that we are people walking in darkness. We have to be honest about the weakness of our flesh. And it's because that we don't really do that all that often, that the outside world loves it when a Christian just burns out and fails.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's why they love it. That's why that's why self self righteousness is so absurd, that we would try to build ourselves up on anything but Christ and Christ alone. Because our flesh is weak, and even when we are willing, and he is willing to state that, and say, yes, the spirit is willing, but your flesh is weak. If we don't have a lucid view of who we are, willing but weak, And when we puff ourselves up as these morality champions, and then somebody falls, and everyone points and laughs. We have to watch and pray.
Jeffrey Heine:
We have to live in this reality that our flesh is weak and that we are easily led into temptation. So what do we do? We pray. We pray that we will not be led into temptation, that we would not fall into it. And that temptation is any occasion, anytime we're being called from our trust and obedience to the lord and to doubt and distrust and disobedience.
Jeffrey Heine:
And if we're tempted, who is this tempter? See, temptation bears this intention for sin. It's enticing us to sin, and God does not entice us to sin. We see this in James chapter 1. Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God.
Jeffrey Heine:
For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. See, it's the the evil one, as it's stated here, that that the evil one would tempt us to distrust God. God does not tempt us to trust him. But we do need a clear distinct difference here between a tempting and a testing or a trial. Because God does put us to test.
Jeffrey Heine:
He does give us trials in our lives. A new testament scholar, William Mounts, put it like this. God does not induce anyone to sin. And in fact, we are to admit our dependence on God as we pray for protection from temptation. However trials and suffering will occur, so that our faith can be purified, shown to be true to us and to all, and it enables us to grow into Christian maturity.
Jeffrey Heine:
See, temptation is that call away from God. A trial is an occasion to trust him, to obey him, and sometimes these occasions are the same occasion. It's the same moment in time where we are being called to distrust God, or an occasion to trust him. It's an occasion where we're being faced with something, and that inner dialogue is going, and we have that desire to move towards distrust, to move towards disobedience. And god, by his spirit, is calling us to trust him and to obey him, no matter what might come.
Jeffrey Heine:
These can happen together. And the prayer isn't don't let us be tempted, but keep us from entering into temptation. So what does that mean? What does it mean to enter into temptation? John Owen put it like this.
Jeffrey Heine:
While temptation knocks at the door, we are at liberty. But when any temptation comes in and parlays with the heart, reasons with the mind, entices and allures the affections, be it long or a short time, we are entering into temptation. When you're reasoning through why it's okay for you to do whatever that thing is, you've entered into temptation. When you are wrestling with it, when you are entangled in it, that's temptation that you have entered into. But the prayer doesn't stop there, does it?
Jeffrey Heine:
Not just lead us not into temptation. Really, that whole line is explained by the next line, but deliver us from evil. See, temptation teaches us. It shows us. It actually shows us a lot about ourselves.
Jeffrey Heine:
If you think through your temptations, it says a lot about you. It says a lot about what God is doing in your life. What the spirit is transforming and showing you in your own sinfulness. And I would also wager to say that for most of us, the temptations that that we are mostly most entangled in are things we don't even see. We don't even know it yet.
Jeffrey Heine:
And the spirit by through the word of God, and the spirit also by using the household of faith, they tell us these things. They tell us these sins and these things that we are entangled in. But temptation teaches us that we are weak, and temptation also teaches us that we need a deliverer. We need a deliverer. Deliver us from evil.
Jeffrey Heine:
See, that's the second part of this gospel news. Yes. We live in the reality that we are weak, That we are in darkness. We are tempted. And we live in this reality that there is evil.
Jeffrey Heine:
Jesus is acknowledging that, as he's teaching us how to pray, he's teaching us that there is a reality of evil. But he's also teaching us that he is victorious over evil. That he is that deliverer. Deliver us from evil. This plays out in our lives in 3 layers that I'd like for us to look at as we are wrapping up here.
Jeffrey Heine:
1st, that we are delivered. We are delivered. We see this, Paul talks about it to the Romans in Romans chapter 6. But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves to sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. So first off, we are delivered.
Jeffrey Heine:
Sin is no longer our master. We no longer answer to sin as master. Now we can still answer to the master sin. We can still go back to those chains that have been been broken off from us. The the gel cells that have been busted wide open, where the lock is broken.
Jeffrey Heine:
We can go back to those places, and we can answer our old master, but he is not our master. We have been set free from sin. We are delivered. Secondly, though, we are being delivered. First Corinthians chapter 10, no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.
Jeffrey Heine:
God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. He provides. He is providing for us by his spirit, This ability to endure temptation, to not fall into it, to not enter into temptation, to not let the temptation in the door, to whisper in our ears, to allure our affections. We can endure it.
Jeffrey Heine:
We have been delivered. We are being delivered. He is with us. And then we will be delivered. Hebrews chapter 2 verses 14 and 15 say this, Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself, Jesus, likewise, partook of the same things.
Jeffrey Heine:
That through death, he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. That is the direction that we are being led, not into sin, not to enter into temptation, but we are being led to God. That we are delivered, we are being delivered, and that he will deliver us. He will deliver us from death. He will deliver us from the grave.
Jeffrey Heine:
Christ is our deliverer. And how how does this happen? How is he our deliverer? We are delivered because he was delivered into the hands of sinful men. We are delivered because he was delivered into the hands of sinful men.
Jeffrey Heine:
If you have a Bible, open it up with me to, Luke 24. Luke chapter 24 verses 1 through 5 1 through 7. 1 through 7, Luke 24. Beginning with verse 1 here. This is we I know that we're we're, 4 weeks into Lent, so this is a bit of a spoiler alert for, for Easter Sunday, but but here we are.
Jeffrey Heine:
Okay? It's Sunday, so we gotta talk about this. Alright, so verse 1. But on the 1st day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb.
Jeffrey Heine:
But when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And while they were perplexed about this, behold, 2 men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee, that the son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and on the 3rd day, rise.
Jeffrey Heine:
This is how we are delivered. We are delivered. He fulfills this prayer, This prayer that he teaches us to pray. He fulfills this. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Jeffrey Heine:
We are delivered because he was delivered into the hands of sinful men. This is how. Our deliverer was delivered. This is how it happens. There's no other way, because it's not just this grand adventure of us just trying to hold fast this line of not sinning.
Jeffrey Heine:
No, we need a rescuer. And as we looked at last week in Daniel chapter 3, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego say these words, our god is able to deliver us. Do you believe that? Because if if we just get halfway through this, if we just get through, I I see that I'm weak and that I'm sinful. If we see that, and then we get to the point where we are willing to acknowledge that we are, are needing to fight temptation, we need to fight sin.
Jeffrey Heine:
We need to slay sin. As we as we So then we get to this point, if we don't get to the fact that there is a deliverer who delivers us from the evil one, and from all evil and death and sin, if we don't get there, then you're just going to get exhausted trying to hold that line. A deliverer. We are delivered. We are being delivered, and we will be delivered because he was delivered into the hands of sinful men.
Jeffrey Heine:
So he teaches us to pray, to watch, and to pray, to be alert, and to pray. I've brought this up before, but we will consult friends and family and blogs. We will, we will Google it far faster than we will pray about it. I know that's true for me. We will we will look for answers.
Jeffrey Heine:
We will search for help. We will go to different places far far far faster than we go to the Lord in prayer. I know that's true for me, and it's probably true for you. And he teaches us. He calls for us.
Jeffrey Heine:
Watch and pray that you will not enter into temptation. And even in that, in the midst of all of it, let me say this as we close. If you are in temptation, if you are entangled, entwined, if you see no way out, if the sin keeps coming up over and over and over again, is not you working harder or holding fast? It's not you rescuing yourself. It is only when you go to the deliverer will you be delivered.
Jeffrey Heine:
You'll never do it. You'll you'll never get yourself out. You'll never extract yourself. You won't have some good friends in there that can help pull you out as much as they probably want to pull you out, and have maybe even threatened to pull you out. We need a deliverer, and he is able to deliver us.
Jeffrey Heine:
Let's go to him in prayer. Jesus, thank you for teaching us how to pray, and thank you spirit for interpreting our prayers on our behalf when we when we just groan. Perhaps there are people deep in temptation and sin in this room, and and all they can do is groan. So spirit, we rely on you. We ask that you help us to know and believe the freedom that we have because of Jesus, that that we would know and believe that we've been set free from sin and and have become slaves of righteousness.
Jeffrey Heine:
Help those of us who are deep in temptation to know that you always provide a way of escape, that we might endure temptations and trials. Help us to know that we are not alone, because you yourself, you suffered, and you have been tempted, and you are able to help those who are being tempted. And help us to look forward beyond our temptations, beyond our sin, beyond our sorrow to our great deliverance and our king, our deliverer, who is victorious. And we thank you for your word tonight, and we pray these things in the name of Christ, our lord. Amen.