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Howdy. Well, I got to give you all props.

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Alright, you got through daylight savings, you've dealt with the beginning of spring break,

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and you have suffered through the tree pollen with me.

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We got, we're here, so yes, we managed to find our way to church today.

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So, God bless you all. And I gotta tell you all, do you know what a cult classic movie is?

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Alright, cult classic, right? Oh, Pulp Fiction, okay, fair enough, absolutely, absolutely.

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There are a few that I don't know that I'm allowed to actually say in church, but a cult classic is typically a movie

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where it's not really a big mainstream movie that everybody knows of, but it has a really strong following.

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Like, the people who love it really love it, okay?

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And one of the ones back in 1999 was Office Space.

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How many of you watched Office Space?

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Yeah, okay, good, good, okay, a few, alright, awesome, awesome, very good, alright.

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The rest of you, I don't know if I can say you should watch it, but it is hilarious if you do decide to watch it.

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But with it though, is there was always this one character that I always felt so bad for Milton.

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Yes, Milton, and he was, people were always walking all over him.

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There was always people just ignoring him or pushing him aside.

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And the one thing that kept breaking his heart was that he never got a piece of cake at the office parties.

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And he would always say, last time I didn't receive a piece.

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And so they're, you know, like passing along the cake from one person next, you get when you pass it to the next person.

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And the idea is that eventually everyone has gotten a piece of cake and you get to eat it, except he kept passing them along

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and then they were running out, so they stopped giving them.

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And so he's standing there, he's looking around, and he's just like, why didn't I get any piece of cake?

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And that was heartbreaking to me because cake is just one of the best things that exists.

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It's like, whenever I am at a wedding, the first thing is on my mind.

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I mean, yeah, okay, husband and wife, you all are very cute, I'm very happy for you, go blah, blah, blah, be happy.

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What's the cake, alright?

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It's like, I hope that you got something good, right?

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And in my mind, I think you'd see there's usually two different kinds, okay?

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You've got the really good one, okay?

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It's maybe like it's a vanilla cake with a buttercream frosting and a raspberry ribbon in the middle, okay?

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And then you've got the spice cake and you're like, come on, who came up with spice cake?

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Who puts that at a wedding?

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That's just mean, I mean, come on, alright?

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Now, I did go to one recently, okay, and they had this amazing carrot cake.

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Oh my goodness, it was delicious, alright.

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And with that is that, honestly, as soon as I saw somebody walking out with a piece of cake on a plate,

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I was in the middle of a conversation, I'm like, I gotta go.

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And I just want, I beeline right over there because in my mind, I'm like, I need a piece of the best cake that they have.

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And then when I realized that they had cut the other cake and I'm like, ooh, I need a piece of that too.

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It was also carrot cake, but it's okay.

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I had two pieces of cake and life was good.

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Alright, so now that you understand where my priorities are when I'm at a wedding,

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so yeah, looking forward to my next invite.

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But what we realized though is that in my mind, I was so desperate to go get the cake

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because I was afraid that there wouldn't be enough.

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In my mind is this idea of if I can get my hands on it and make sure that I can have it,

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then I feel safe, I feel secure, it is mine.

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And that was one of the things that oftentimes we can be so afraid that there's not enough of something

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that we're not willing to give up what we may already have right in front of us.

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We know that if we were to let it go, there might be something better, but it's right there in front of us already.

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We call this a scarcity mentality.

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It's the idea that you're afraid that there won't be enough.

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And so you're going to latch on to whatever you have or what you can receive in front of you

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because you're terrified of letting it go.

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And this idea plays into what we learned about the first fruits, the first fruits of the Lord.

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See, you need to keep in mind what had happened that was leading up to this.

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There had been 40 years, 40 years of wandering through the wilderness.

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Every day they would go and gather up these flakes on the ground called manna

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and they were able to make just enough food for that day.

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They could not make any extra food except for the Sabbath and even that was only for two days.

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There was no saving it. There was no what you're going to get next.

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You eat what is right there in front of you for 40 years.

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And after that they finally are going to come into the promised land

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where they can grow crops and raise livestock and things will be good.

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But how did they know that they would still be given what they needed each and every day?

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See, that's one of the things is that they were no longer going to need to be afraid of going hungry.

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So whatever they had in front of them was not the only thing that they were going to receive.

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So imagine you've been working hard.

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You've been tilling the ground. You've been raising the animals.

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You've been taking care of everything and you finally have the first fruits that are going to come there.

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The first animals, the first crops, the first graves, the first whatever you may have

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and what is the first thing you'd want to do?

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Do not tell me that I'm the only person on Thanksgiving who is with their plate

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eating some of that turkey before you even get to the sweet potato casserole.

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Come on. You're like, it's right there.

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I just go and munch on that and then your grandma slaps your hand and it's like, you wait for the prayer.

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You're like, yes, ma'am. Okay. Yes, ma'am.

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And the thing is because it's right there, but instead of trying to consume it,

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you're going to give it back to God.

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Because what does that do?

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It shows number one, you trust that there is more to come.

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You trust that it's not just whatever's right in front of you,

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but rather you trust that God's timing for what he's going to provide will be there.

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And even more than that is that you're willing to wait for what is good

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and you're willing to realize that everything you have belongs to God anyway.

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See, the thing with a scarcity mentality where we think that all that's there is that

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all that we can get is what's in front of us is that can actually lead to laziness.

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Because instead of making the extra effort,

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instead of pushing a bit harder to get what would be better,

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instead you're going to stop at whatever's right in front of you.

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You're going to take whatever comes first.

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You're going to take whatever is the easiest.

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You're going to take whatever you can get at that moment.

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Because here's the thing, are you going to have enough time to go home

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and to cook the meal and prepare it,

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spend time with your family and have the opportunity to pray

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and thank God for everything and then be able to appreciate what's going to nourish your body?

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Or are you just scrambling to grab whatever might be there?

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You're driving down the road, you're heading home,

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you know that you have food that you can cook there, but man, Taco Bell's like right there.

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I mean, come on, they've got those cantina chicken tacos, you know, they're pretty good.

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The soft tacos are a little bit better than the fried ones.

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It's right there.

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But you know that if you wait,

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that what is coming down the road will be better because it's what God has given to you.

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And that's so much of what we end up discovering about why it is that these temptations for Jesus

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were such a big deal because Jesus knew God's plan and timing.

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And this was not that plan and timing.

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See, there are three things that Satan is bringing up.

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And the first one always threw me.

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The first one always threw me.

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What is such a big deal about turning a rock into bread?

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I mean, that sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

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Look, they're rocks.

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Okay, no one's harmed.

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Nothing bad happened.

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It's bread.

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I mean, yes, you've got the carbs and if you're on a gluten free, you got the atkins.

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I get it.

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That's bad.

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But Jesus is not on atkins.

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Okay, carbs didn't exist back then, right?

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So we don't have to worry about it.

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But here's the thing with it, though.

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He's still saying that it's not bread alone, but rather every word that comes from the mouth of God,

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comparing the Luke passage to the Matthew parallel,

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is to realize that Jesus is saying no because he was led into the wilderness for a reason.

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If you notice, Jesus was right by a river.

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He was around all these other people.

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I'm sure they had plenty of food.

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And he was at a time and a place where people were being pointed and saying,

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this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

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And all these things he could have already had, but the Spirit of God led him away.

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The Spirit of God led him away.

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Why would the Spirit of God lead you into the wilderness?

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Because sometimes you need to be away from everyone and everything to be ready for the next stage in your journey.

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Sometimes we need to be away from everyone and everything to actually hear what God is trying to say.

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When was the last time you actually had time away from everyone and everything?

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And for all the families with the little kids, you're like,

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I can't even go to the bathroom by myself, so I don't even know.

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But to realize that the time to step away, because Jesus knows where this path is going to lead,

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and he knows that he needs to be ready for it.

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So to take these 40 days in the wilderness, the parallel from the 40 years of Israel to the 40 days to spend out there,

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is to realize that this is something to teach and to lead and to guide.

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And that if you were to cut it short and just go ahead and get some food now,

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his time of prayer and solitude would be disrupted.

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Because sometimes we're supposed to sacrifice something to fast, to take a time away,

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because it can actually help us with our prayer life and our time with God.

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But it wasn't just that.

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There was also this part where Satan is putting him up on the top of this mountain,

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and saying, I will give you all of these kingdoms, I have the authority to give them to you.

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Isn't it amazing whenever people get this mindset of I'm the person who can give you anything and everything that you want,

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as long as you just follow me?

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I'll get you what you're looking for.

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And we're all just human beings.

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I find it amazing whenever even pastors that I've known are like, don't question me.

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Follow me and everything that I say.

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And I'm kind of like, y'all, I don't always make the best decisions.

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Y'all might sometimes need to question my choices at times.

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So, granted, I can't decide whether to keep a beard or not, so don't even ask me other things.

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But with that is to realize that Jesus knows that the authority doesn't rest with Satan.

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And that as much as this could have been the easy path, it wouldn't have been real,

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and it wouldn't have been right, because the real path was going to have to go to death.

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See, that's the thing is last week when we talked about Moses,

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and to realize that at that moment when he went up the mountain knowing that it was his time to die,

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we know all the dumb things that Israel did.

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He could have totally tried to just go with them and cross over.

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You know what, I'm like right there.

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We can just, let's just go really, really quick.

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But he went up because he knew that his time had come.

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And that's one of the things that we end up seeing is that the easy route does not mean that it's something that we're meant to have.

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And even third, being at the top of the temple, just throw yourself down, the angels will catch you.

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It's like some really crazy stage diving experience or something here.

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Jesus being the rock star that he was, people were not necessarily listening for his guitar solo that day.

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He wasn't Eric.

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But what we end up seeing is that Jesus is not trying to get everyone's attention.

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He knows that the people in Jerusalem are not going to want to listen to them.

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They're looking for a miracle.

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They're looking for something amazing.

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And he's going to be telling them to repent and to turn to follow him.

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This would have been the easy way to get their attention and to get them to follow him.

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But this was not what it was that he was meant for.

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Satan put all three of these things right in his hand.

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He gave them back over to God.

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Because instead of grasping at it, Jesus held off the temptation.

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But how do we do when we are faced with that?

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Be honest.

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Where is it that you feel right now that there is something that you really wish you could try to get to or achieve quickly?

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But you know that there's a longer path in front of you.

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And you just don't want to accept it.

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What is it that you are avoiding right now?

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What are you avoiding in your life that you just don't want to have to put the extra effort to take time away to seek God's will?

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You just want it to be done and finished and obvious.

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But God calls us to lay aside the things that may make us lazy.

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Because what may be right in front of us does not mean that it is what God is calling us to.

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When I told you all what's upon a time, I had been planning to go up this mountain, Akatanango, in Guatemala.

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A friend of mine had said, hey, let's go do this.

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And I'm like, I don't know. This seems kind of intense.

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No, it'll be great. It'll be great.

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We start heading out and at the last minute, my friend ends up ditching me and saying, no, I changed my mind.

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And I'm on the bus heading over to go to this hike in Antigua.

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I don't know anybody. I'm still working on my Spanish.

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Yo quiero aprender español muy bien. Paraná, lo puedo.

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So it's like, okay, I'm getting there. What am I going to do?

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So I'm like, okay, well, you know what?

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Maybe I could just let it go. Okay, my friend's gone. Not a big deal.

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And by the time I got there, all the regular tour groups had already closed for the day.

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And even on top of that, normally the tour takes two days and I was supposed to leave on the second day.

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There is every reason that I should just let this go.

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But there was something in me.

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Just said, you know, Jason, I bet you could do this.

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I bet you could do this.

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And I ended up at the hostel that I was staying at.

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Found a tour guide that was going to do the whole trip in one day.

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Starting at 5am the next morning.

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Six people. I was the slowest out of all of them.

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But getting to the top of the mountain, I wept like a baby.

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Because I realized I could do this. What other things could God put in my life that I could do to?

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The thing is, is that the easy path does not always lead us to hearing God more clearly.

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And to be able to give over to God the things that we want to cling to are,

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what is it, our money, our time, our energy, what it is that we feel that we have and we don't want to let go of.

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But to trust it to give it over to Him.

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Because sometimes the sacrifice may be the very point that we needed to see.

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Because our sacrifices are not the things that somehow give us righteousness or salvation.

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But sometimes the sacrifices we make are meant to be the lessons that we need to learn.

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See, making the better choices, they may be harder for longer, but they're still better.

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There may be the times whenever, some of us, not everybody,

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but some of us have a thing with food where if we see something that's new that we've never had before,

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or it's special that we know we're not going to have it every day, we have to eat it immediately.

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Or even the time whenever a person I really wanted to pursue was right there in front of me,

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and I jumped at the chance for a relationship that ended up blowing up right in my face.

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Or whenever it was known that, yes, I have a job that is safe and secure,

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but if I don't walk away from this now, I will never pursue the thing that I know God wants from me.

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Is that sometimes we have to let go of what's right in front of us so we can pursue what God actually wants for us.

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See, that's the same thing about temptation. Temptation isn't always obvious.

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Temptation isn't always a don't do bad things, only do good things.

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Temptation can oftentimes be, is this really the better thing that I have for you?

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And there are not any easy answers for this. This isn't a checklist for me to tell you.

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If you do all these different things, you're going to always follow the right choice

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and always know exactly what God wants. I can give you good ideas.

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But what I do know is that more than anything is that taking the time with God will always help.

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Yes, it is good to take counsel with other people that you trust and that you know follow after God,

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but without the time directly with God, you're always just filtering it through someone else's opinion.

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And that's part of why we spend this season in fasting.

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To take time away from the things that fill our belly so that our heart and mind can be more filled with God's word.

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Because let's be honest, whenever our belly is too full, how easily do we stay alert and listen to God?

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See, that's the thing about this is that there may be some things that would make you more lazy and more distracted

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because you would get exactly what you want when you wanted it.

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But when we bring God our first fruits, then we're showing him that we trust that he is the one to give us what he wants for us,

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when he wants it for us. Because believe me, I know what it's like to wait.

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And I know what it's like to have something right in front of you that may seem exactly like what you hoped for the whole time.

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But when it isn't in God's timing or in God's way, it doesn't bring you God's blessing.

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So may we be willing to seek what God gives to us.

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Not just trying to grab the first thing that comes along because it's there, but to be willing to say,

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God, I give you what I have and I'm willing to trust you to give you what you want for me.

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May we trust God this morning and always with everything that we have. Amen.