We’ve been studying the Book of Proverbs, and Proverbs is all about wisdom. One of the things you learn when you gain some wisdom is sometimes things are not exactly as they appear. It can appear one way, but then there’s more to it. One of the things I like to do personally through exercise is cycling, biking, be out on the road. Probably the main reason is though, because the really cool outfits you get to wear when you do that kind of thing, you know, they look ridiculous and feel ridiculous. I don’t know, you thought of it, but the crazy part is some of that clothing is really expensive. It’s surprising for such a little fabric how much money you can spend. So one day I was on social media and the ad popped up for one of the brands of clothing that is considered one of the best, and it was a deal I had never seen before, and it was too good to be true. I forgot to jump on there and order this while I can, and I’m trying to order it now clicking buy because I’ve filled my cart full of super dirt cheap stuff. And then it hit me. If something’s too good to be true, it is. And I’m immediately canceling my credit card because I got taken. This was not legit. It wasn’t the real company. It wasn’t the real site. It was a scam. Things are not always as they appear. Hopefully as we gain wisdom, we become more aware of that. The same is true spiritually. And we’re going to see in Proverbs chapter five today. Chapter five lands in a string of problems. Chapter one through chapter nine where you see these repetitions of the statement my son, my son, my son, my son. It’s a series of instructions from a father to his son and to his children in general, sons and daughters, but in particular in that culture to the son, the leader of the home, the one who’s going to pass everything on to. Listen carefully. I have some wisdom to give to you. And in chapter five, he introduces a section that is especially keyed in to being aware that not everything is as it seems, especially when it comes to sexual temptation. We’ll see in chapter five that the seductress presents herself in a way that makes it seem too good to be true. She makes promises that seem too good to be true. But not everything is as it seems. What we’re going to see in chapter five. He is going to expose the emptiness of her promises. He’s going to reveal the hidden costs, because how it seems is one way, but there is a hidden cost. Then he’s going to show him a better way. So we’re going to look at Proverbs chapter five. If you want to turn there. Proverbs chapter five. Proverbs is near the middle of the Bible. If you have a church, Bible it’s on page 497. We have Bibles in the lobby for you. Would love for you to grab and read from and keep. You can follow along as I read them. Just read the first two verses to set the stage here for the father’s instruction to his Son. Proverbs chapter five, verse one. My son, be attentive to my wisdom. Incline your ear to my understanding that you may keep discretion, So before he gets into the warning section, he starts by just reminding him of the importance of listening to knowledge of God. He uses some of the same language we saw in chapter four three, and to be attentive, pay attention. Incline your ears. Lean in to listen for wisdom, for what I’m about to share with you. Be eager for knowledge and wisdom. Don’t just take it because I have to be hungry for wisdom. Then he does not just remind him that wisdom is important. He’s going to do something here that he hasn’t really clearly done yet, which is to tell him part of the purpose of this isn’t just about himself. He says, be attentive to wisdom, that you may keep discretion and your lips, may guard knowledge. You don’t just seek wisdom only for yourself, but also for the sake of others. What he’s referencing here in this verse, this is a hint at a verse in Malachi. So if you want to flip over there real quick, Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament. If you get to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and you see that flip back to Malachi chapter two, Malachi has a lot of themes in it that set up the New Testament. One of them is this warning section in Malachi chapter two, where he is rebuking the priests who hadn’t done what they were supposed to do. So if you look at Malachi chapter two in verse seven, the lips of a priest should guard knowledge– that’s that same language here in Proverbs five, the lips of the priest should guard knowledge. That’s the role of the priest, the pastor, the Bible teacher to care for knowledge, to communicate in a way that values and honors knowledge. I’m not that teaching for myself, but also for the good of the whole church. That is a weight of responsibility we should carry careful. And so he’s saying to the son, part of your role you seek wisdom not just for yourself, but you’re carrying something, a responsibility for others in your life as well. The way you act, the way you speak, the way you live doesn’t just affect you, it affects everyone around. And of course, in Malachi, that’s the call to the priest to guard your knowledge. People should seek instruction from his mouth. He is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. But you have turned aside from the way. It’s a rebuke to those who have neglected their role. Let’s go back to Proverbs the father saying to the son, don’t end up like that. Care for knowledge, keep wisdom, seek discretion. Use it. It is not just about you, it’s about others who are around him. Now here is where he enters into warning him about the empty promises of the seductress, and he does it by comparing his lips to her lips. Your lips are for guarding knowledge, but notice how she uses her lips – look at verse three. The lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil. But in the end she is bitter as wormwood. Her lips. His lips are meant to guard knowledge, give life, and pour out to others. Hers are meant to seduce, to mislead, to misdirect. And of course this applies to applies to female and males who are seeking to mislead others in this arena. The interesting thing of the imagery here is the use of the word honey. You know, honey is a nice food to have. We probably don’t use it as much as they would have in this culture, because you you can’t just go out at this time and buy a bag of sugar at Kroger. If you want something sweet, it’s going to be fruit or dried fruit or honey. There’s a cost to gathering honey. It’s not easy. You know, we have people who do that for us. We don’t have to risk getting stung by bees, but not an easy thing. And honey is so delightful when you have had nothing sweet. The taste of honey on the top. In fact, one of my favorite snacks is just a spoonful of peanut butter with honey dripped on top. I could eat that. I think probably endlessly. The problem with honey, though, is it doesn’t really have depth of nutrients. It has great taste, but it’s not going to sustain you if that’s all you eat. You won’t be around very long. It has an emptiness to it, an empty promise. The taste is great, but ultimately it’s not going to satisfy. In fact, here that is her temptation to taste the honey. It is good. It is good for you. It will bring satisfaction and joy. But no, no, in fact, look at the warning. Her lips drip honey, speech smoother than the oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two edged sword. You know, part of the important thing to do in life when you are considering anything is to consider how it might turn out down the road. So many things seem great on the surface, so many things seem so pleasant and enjoyable and even fun. And I mean, that’s part of the great allure of sin is that it is actually can be quite fun. But that’s not the whole story. You have to consider what the end may be. The book of Ecclesiastes is famous for this. If you flip over just a few pages to Ecclesiastes chapter seven, Solomon would have experienced the great depth of pleasure in life. And Solomon in fact, the screen, the page number will be on the screen, was just Ecclesiastes is the next book past Proverbs. Solomon would have experienced this. He would have known. And in chapter seven, verse eight he says, better is the end of a thing, than its beginning. Better’s the end than its beginning, meaning we all have started into things and they seemed great and didn’t finish well. Some of our marathoners understand that dynamic. Many start out vigorously in the race, maybe sprint out ahead of you, and then you run right past them about the halfway mark, and maybe they don’t even make it to the end. The end of a matter is better than the beginning. Consider where things are headed when you enter into them, and when you hear the tempting of the seductress, consider where this will end up. Get the whole picture. Don’t just buy into her empty promises because the end is not sweet, honey. It’s bitterness. It’s wormwood. You don’t even have to know what kind of plant that is to know. I don’t want any part of that just based on the name. Here’s what it is. Here’s how you can relate it in our culture, it’s not honey, it’s antifreeze. Antifreeze. I’ve not tasted it, but I’ve heard it’s sweet to the taste. That’s why animals sometimes will be tempted. If you have an old car like I may have had at times that leaks some radiator fluid here and there, they will lick it up. But it is poison. It is sweet to the taste but it’s poison. It tastes great at the start and it’s poison. And where it ends up is verse five and six. Her empty promises ultimately lead, in Proverbs five, her feet go down to death. Her steps follow the path to Sheol. She does not ponder the path of life. Her ways wander and she doesn’t even know it. The path she’s on, it does have an end and it’s death. Don’t be naive if you are entering down that road, recognize, acknowledge where that’s headed. It’s death. The appearances are great. Things are not always as they appear. The path is death. Don’t go down that path. Here is the warning. The father here with his son is exposing her empty promises. She’s making great claims. But it’s not the path you want to go down. It’s not going to end well. Consider the end of a thing, not just in the beginning. Don’t be deceived by appearances. Now, he’s not just exposing her empty promises. Here are the claims she makes that are great. But he’s also going to end this next group of verses. Point out something else. Not only are the claims not what they appear to be, but there are hidden costs that she’s not telling you about. You– that’s how they get you, right? With the hidden fees. Anytime you sign up for something, it’s just a dollar. Sign up and that’ll be $100 next month. But it’s just a dollar. That’s all. Those hidden fees, those hidden costs, they don’t tell you about it on the front end. They want to trick you into it, and then they’ll tell you about those later. There are hidden costs to going down this path, and he’s going to warn the son of them her. Look at verse seven. Now son listen to me and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way far from her, and do not go near to the door of her house. The warning here, first of all, is create great distance between yourself and this temptation. Don’t even get close. Stay far away. Don’t come up to the edge and say, I don’t know how that happened, how I got tempted. Well, you walked right up to her door. What do you expect? Stay away from the door. Stay off the street. Stay off the town. Keep great distance between you and the temptation. And look here how he continues to encourage him. Because what he points out here in this next group of verses, verse 9 to 14 are these hidden costs. If you go down this path, there are costs that you’re not considering now, but you need to be aware. And he gives us a list here of 4 or 5 different costs to consider. Look at verse nine. Here’s what will happen. You go into her house, you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless. Don’t be naive. You’re giving up your honor. You think it won’t matter. You think you’re having a great time. But there are those who are observing it, seeing it, and there is a cost to your honor, to your respect, to your integrity that you aren’t considering right now. So there’s the loss of honor. Look at verse ten. Let strangers take the fill of your strength. There is a loss of youthful vigor. And here’s what I mean by that. There’s only so many years of young, youthful energy you have. They seem endless when you’re young. Some of us know they’re not as endless as we thought they might be. And if you give that strength to the forbidden seductress whose path is empty. And though it seems great in the moment, if you give those years of strength to her, you won’t have to give them to the things that last, to the things that really matter long term. Invest those years now in the things that will matter a long term. Those will be taken. Those will be stolen, your strength will be stolen. Another warning, another hidden cost. Your labors go to the house of the foreigner. The things you’ve worked so hard for, the money you have earned. It’s going out the door to others. And this one’s a little obscure. Because maybe you’re not just giving your money to her. Maybe you’re not just spending money freely. But that’s often what goes hand in hand with pursuing the life of sin. Add another layer, there is a greater cost to society with promiscuity. It’s weird that our world doesn’t really want to acknowledge that, consider that. But the cost to society from those who have lived loosely in their morals, for those from those who have ended up families decimated, split apart, children out of wedlock, children without fathers in homes, the cost to society is incalculable. It’s enormous. You just look at the statistics. It’s crazy. Crime rates go up in homes without a father. Education rates go down, income rates go down, longevity goes down. There is a huge cost, not just to myself, but to all of society. And that’s not to shame anyone who is in that situation. God works through that. God redeems that. But that’s still not his best plan for humanity. Don’t be naive to that. Don’t ignore the hidden cost of the temporary pleasure. Verse 14. He gives another one. Out of the brink of utter ruin, and the assembled congregation meeting, he has gathered before a group of people. The setting here is almost judicial and overwhelming shame. There are often times our poor choices will lead to a public element and a level of shaming among those we want respect and honor from. I think the hardest one to read on this list though is verses 11 through 13. He says, at the end of your life you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed, and you say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors. What do you hear with him? Reflecting here is the voice of regret. He gives to the end of his life, and he sees, I should have listened. I ignored the wisdom of those who have gone before me and look at where I am now. It is too late, and maybe it’s not entirely too late. Maybe this is a young son still who can change his path. But that’s not where you want to end up. And we all have regrets. If you don’t want to keep going down the path, that’s going to lead to the huge regrets. I remember hearing John Piper talk about a moment that he experienced. He was well-known pastor and pastor of the Church of Minnesota, now leads a whole ministry called Desiring God. An excellent, amazing Bible teacher, very passionate man, and his father was an evangelist. And he would travel sometimes with his father. And they were doing a revival at church. And God was moving. He was stirring in people’s lives. And John Piper, as a young man remembers, there was a man down on the front row of the church, and he was kneeled in his chair, and he was beating his chest and all he could hear the man say over and over again, an older man, all he could hear and say through tears, through grief, was I’ve wasted it. I’ve wasted my life. Wasted. John Piper said when I heard that man. When I saw the emotion, when I saw the regret, I said, I never want to end up there. God, would you protect me? I never want to be in that situation. I don’t want to be at the place where at the end of my life I feel this deep regret because I’ve wasted it. God, I don’t want to waste my life. I don’t want to waste mine, and you’re here because you don’t want to waste yours either. And we can’t change what’s happened in the past. I’m not here to shame you or heap guilt on you for what’s happened in the past. But let’s move forward in excitement and joy and delight in watching him work in powerful ways in our lives and the lives of our community. Let’s don’t settle for these empty pursuits that have hidden costs. They’re going to take us down a path of death. And what I love about what the dad does here shows great wisdom, because we can tell people what to do or not do all day long. The church has often been known for that. Thanks for my list of things to avoid. Thanks for all the things I’m doing wrong. I appreciate you pointing that out. That gets wearisome, and tiresome, especially from a father to a son. What he does next I’m exposed to the reality of the seductress. I’ve shown you there is a cost. Don’t be naive. There is a cost to your decision. But then lastly, he points him to a better way. It’s not just don’t do that. Let me point you to a better way. Look at this next group of verses. Look at verse 15. Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own wells. Should your springs be scattered abroad? Streams of water in the streets. Let them be for yourself alone, not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely dear, graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight. Be intoxicated always in her love. Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman, and embrace the bosom of an adulterous. Okay, this section here. Let me just say, if you’re going to study it in Hebrew, have a fan blowing on you nearby the entire time. It is, we could use the word racy even. I think it, elements within here, which means God is not ashamed of sexual intimacy. He wants us to delight in it in the right context. He he knows it is good. He created it for us. And what the father is pointing the son here to is this phrase. You’ve heard it before. Sometimes the best defense is what? A good offense. What that means, and I would put it in sports terms, but I’m terrible at sports. Let me talk about chess. When I taught my kids about playing chess, sometimes when someone puts you in a tight spot, they come after your important piece. Let’s say the bishop, they’ve got you cornered, and you want to retreat. Sometimes the best thing to do is to go on the offense attack one of their pieces, make them go on the defense. Sometimes the best defense is not just to pull back hover in the corner. Go on the offense. What he’s saying here is don’t just only avoid the seductress. Pursue your love. Pursue the wife of your youth. The wording there means the one you chose when you were young. And look, this is important. Let me let me emphasize this for the young men and women in the room. Remember your covenant. Remember that when you were on the altar together, you said, I choose you before God and others. I’m choosing you because there will come a day or someone comes along who comes, who seems more attractive to you. It will happen. Remember your covenant. I’ve already chosen my soulmate, already chosen them. Pursue them. Go after them. Don’t be lured into the temptation of the thing that in the moment seems better. Remember your covenant and again, not shaming, not heaping guilt on anyone who’s gone down that path and gone the wrong direction. I know it happens. I’m not naive to that. And yet we would all say, man, follow God’s plan, it’s the best way to go. Not always in our control either. I get that. But if you’re young, if you’re hearing this, keep to that covenant commitment before God, keep pursuing one another. Keep loving one another way because, well, because that’s where you’re going to find the greatest tool. In fact, the word we use here, I love this word. Look at verse 19, be intoxicated always in her love. Yes, this is a Baptist church. Yes, I read the word intoxicated. It seems weird. Let me explain a little bit. In fact, Tim Keller talks also about this word can also means something along the lines of lose yourself, lose yourself in her love. Be completely filled up in her love. Be so filled with her love that no other seemingly wonderful thing comes by and you see it for what it is. You see the emptiness of it. Look at this quote from Tim Keller and put it on the screen. This is helpful way to consider this true intimacy depends not on fleeting chemistry, but on long term, committed faithfulness to helping the other person be all they should be before you. Which would you rather have? The momentary, fleeting seeming joy, seeming delight? Or the long term, deep, faithful commitment where the other person is living their life and a big part of their life is doing all they can to love and serve you, doing all they can to help you experience life to its fullest. They’re making you a better person, not tearing your down, not just using you for their temporary pleasures. You see the gigantic difference between the two and this intoxication. One of the beauties of poetry, by the way, is when they use a word one way and then use it another to show you the contrast. Because in the next verse the exact same word. Be always intoxicated with her love. Verse 19. Why should you be intoxicated with a forbidden woman? Don’t lose yourself in something that will lead to your end. Lose yourself in the joy the wife of your youth. Follow God’s plan and happily do your greatest joy. I want to give a couple of, I think, practical applications related to this passage. I think there’s some things that we need to implement in our lives to help protect us, because whether you’re the young man or the old, the young woman or the old, we all face temptation. It doesn’t go away. Let me give you a few practical points. Number one, speak the truth against empty temptation. Speak the truth to empty temptation. Here’s a great example. Just flip over to the book of Genesis. One of the powerful, powerful examples of this is with Joseph in Genesis 39, Genesis is the first book in the Bible. Look to the end of that near the end, Genesis 39. And if you remember, Joseph had a hard life. There were ups and downs, but he had moments where things were amazing. And in chapter 39, he’s running Potiphar’s house. Potiphar’s given him charge of the whole house. He can do whatever he wants, and Potiphar’s wife now finds Joseph very attractive, and she’s pursuing him. Verse seven. And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes at Joseph and said, lie with me. But he refused and here’s the important part. He spoke it out loud. Sometimes just stating the temptation out loud will create a layer of protection. Don’t continue to foster what she said. That’s interesting. Interesting proposal. Let me contemplate that. No, he speaks against the empty temptation out loud. He refused and said to his master’s wife, behold, because of my master has no concern about anything in the house. He has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God, not just against him. Not just, just against her or even himself, against God. He spoke the emptiness of the temptation out loud, revealed he spoke to it. And there’s great power in that. Don’t just give in to it. Don’t just continue to chew on it. State out loud. All right, number two, second wave of that great promise. The second way to stand up against temptation. Sometimes you’re going to have to make hard decisions about your associations. You’re going to have to make hard decisions about your associations. Heard a stat this week, 75% of affairs begin… where do you think? I heard a lot of mumbling. People don’t want to talk about it apparently. At work. Why do you think that is? Where do you spend the bulk of your time with people? You spend more time with people who you work than you do with anyone else often. That’s where relationship is our formed. That’s that’s where somebody says something that, you know, well, I haven’t had that kind of encouragement. That was nice. That tasted good. Let me go back over to them. Maybe they’ll give me more of that. You know, if you find yourself continually going out of your way to pass that person’s office door, I don’t really have a reason to be there, but let me just somehow I’m walking down there again, or that place on the factory floor or that business place. We had that great interaction. First person at the cashier. If you find yourself doing that and you know what’s going on deep in your heart. Man, tell someone, bring someone in. Hey, look, I see this about now. Here, I want you to keep an eye on me. You’re there too. You work an office down. You’ll know when I’m coming by, but I’m not supposed to be over there. You call me out on it. Bring it out in the open. Sin loves to grow in the dark. Bring it out in the open. What did he say to him earlier? Don’t even go near her door. Stay off the street. You’re going to have to make some hard decisions about your association, especially if it’s progressed far beyond that. I remember I served in ministry with a guy. We both spoke in marriage conferences about how to strengthen your marriage, and he found himself in a place where he had become way too familiar with a lady at work, and he knew things haven’t progressed beyond that, but they’re headed that way, and I don’t know what to do. We work together. She’s not a cube down the hall. We’re right beside each other. Can’t avoid her. So he comes to his wife and says, this is where things are, and I don’t know what to do. And I don’t want to keep going down this path, but that’s where it’s headed. And they prayed about it. They talked about it. She talked with their pastor they met with in front of him. And he ultimately ended up even though he had a really successful career in this company, he ended up deciding to change companies, change jobs because of how much he cared about his family. And that was a hard call. And it was the fact that he was sharing this with me. We asked him, can we video this? We’d love to share this with other people in ministry. And he said, and here he was, this was ten, 15 years later. My kids don’t even know yet. Let me tell them first. They didn’t even know why he made that big career change in the middle of life. The point is, you’re going to have to make sometimes some hard decisions about your associations. Be willing to do that for the greater good. It’s worth it. It really is, as hard as that is. It’s worth it. Number three, pursue the one you have. Go on the offense or the offense, not the defense. I mean, just avoid doing the wrong thing. Let me pursue the one I have, whether that’s your wife or your husband. If you’re not married, it’s your friendships. And pursue those rich friendships around you, the people you can lean on, the people in your church, in your life group, in your community, your family. Don’t just hole up at home trying to figure it all out yourself. Pursue them. And then number four, find freedom through discipline. Find freedom through discipline. I love this quote. It’s a long quote from a commentator named Euler, but he was referencing this passage because the word discipline shows up in this chapter five and watch let’s put this quote on the screen. Look at how he describes this. When we practice self-discipline, sex, food, sleep, exercise, work, play, speech, I added finances. It promotes self-knowledge, self-mastery, and, paradoxically, freedom. Theresa loves hearing the word freedom. Look, living however you want doesn’t lead, that’s not true freedom. That’s actually slavery to your impulses. The addict lives however they want and they’re enslaved. The person who is has financial freedom has made tremendously hard decisions about their finances. They don’t just spend however they want. That’s not true freedom. True freedom comes through discipline, through making hard choices, saying no to something that seems great on the surface but you know has a hidden cost. And look, the same is true spiritually. There’s no shortcuts to growing spiritually. It takes it takes effort. I mean, God may do miraculous things in your lives to move you way forward. And it is that that definitely happens. But for most of us, spiritual growth is a long, plodding effort over time. For my quiet time. Listen, I try to be very disciplined about my morning Bible study time. That is the freshest time when my mind and heart are the most open to hearing from the Lord. For some of you it may be the evening, depending on how you are wired, but the quiet time doesn’t start in the morning. It requires discipline the night before. I’m preparing the environment, I’m setting out the books I want to study. I’m making sure the coffee is ready because you cannot have quiet time without coffee. I’m convinced personally. It’s ready. It’s going to go off. I want to smell it brewing. It’s going to wake me up. I’m going to sleep eager and excited to get up. I’m making sure we go to bed early. I’m making sure I’ve said no to the things that are going to keep me up late. Discipline is required the night before. If I’ve not got enough sleep, I’m going to fall asleep reading the Bible. I just will, no matter how great it is. It takes discipline the night before to experience the fullness of what it means to connect with the Lord early in the morning. Make those hard decisions in your life to experience the most of what he has to offer. And then I would say, also let me just add focus on gratitude. It’s so easy for those who are married. It’s so easy to focus on things that aren’t going right. Isn’t that our natural tendency? Well, this could be better. That meal could have been nicer. You could have done a better job on that project. The car’s falling apart. What? We tend to focus on all of those things. Turn your heart to gratitude. Just for a moment today. Even if things are hard. Give great love and gratitude for the person God has given you in pursuing. Why do we do this? We do this because we don’t [???] Look at how the passage ends. Looks at verse 21 A man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord. He ponders all his past The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for a lack of discipline. Because of his great folly he is led astray– that word astray is the same word as intoxicated. You see that word play. Be intoxicated in love, not in the love of another, but for the one that is yours. And don’t be naive. Verse 21 A man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord, the way we live. It may seem to be in secret. We may think others don’t know, but ultimately the one who matters the most. He knows. He knows. We can’t hide it from him. He is the one, by the way, Jesus is the one who set the model for us. He’s the one who set the model for us to say no to the temporal pleasure for the greater good. Hebrews chapter 12. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross. Here we have the God of the universe, who puts on human flesh and goes through horrific suffering on our behalf. And if he can do that, I can say no to that temporary empty pleasure that seems overwhelming, seems so important in the moment. I look to him, look to his example. He’s the one that’s gone before you. And of course, leading up to this week, this moment of extra emphasis. Take some time this week you just read through the Easter story, read through Philippians where it talks about he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. He made himself Some made a little lower than man. He brought himself down to our level out of love for us. That’s what he did for you. Walk in the joy of that and live it out in your life as well. Now I’m going to pray, but first, just let me encourage you. I’ve got a couple of important announcements to make. You’re going to want to hear them. And they’re not about cinnamon rolls. They’re about things more important than that. I’ve already talked about the cinnamon rolls. I’m going to pray, then I want to mention a couple of quick things. God, thank you for your example of enduring the cross for the joy set before you. Every day you were tempted with empty pleasures, things that seem great on the surface, but they’re too good to be true. Jesus, would you help expose the hidden cost? May we see that in our hearts. May we pursue the greater joy in you, the greater joy in the one you’ve given us. The greater joy in knowing you to the fullest. God help us to walk in that joy and delight this week. And would you give us openings to talk about you with our loved ones, with our family members, with our coworkers? Would you open that door? Thank you for dying on behalf of us. We love you. Amen.