Sunday 24th March 2013, PM.
You ever wonder how you can overcome temptation in your life? Well tonight we’re going to discover some principles to help us out. I mean, after all, don’t you get fed up of trying to get a victory in an area and then discovery that you fall at the next time it comes around.
Truth: temptations never change. The enemy only has so much in his arsenal. We change, we become stronger In Christ, we become the victors.
We need to realise that every temptation that leads to a sin has a consequence. We cannot avoid that. The idea that if there is ‘no victim there is no crime’ comes out of the drug culture and wants to put selfish needs first, but it is an attitude that will always price victims. You see when we succumb to temptation we always have a victim – us! We are often the perpetrators of our own fate.
Resisting temptation and making choices to avoid it are not just negative choices. They are not just about don’t do this, don’t do that. They are positive choices about what we are choosing to build; character. Character is what we look for in maturing disciples. We need to remember that character is who we are when no one else is looking.
Stop praying “If it’s not your will close the door!” prayers.
1. Who tempts me?
James 1:12-15: Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Ø God does not tempt us! He desires the very best for us and wants to see us become everything we can be. There is no divine purpose in placing temptation in our way so that we might be tricked, rebuked, chastised or rejected.
Ø We do have trials! Trials are different to temptations. Trails are when we are contending for our faith, when others misunderstand us, when we are persecuted. These prove our faith is real (1 Peter 1:7-8 cf. James 1: 2-4).
Temptations prove if our faith is not real if we continually fall! They show that there is no change taking place in our life – but understand this, not everyone changes overnight or instantly when they become a Christian! When we are saved, this is an event! Being transformed into Christ’s likeness is a process.
2. Jesus understands.
God is not asking the impossible for us to overcome temptations. Jesus did it.
Heb. 4:15: For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.
Heb 2: 18: Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
Now, before we leap into the thinking that says He is God, and therefore had an advantage over us, we need to consider the humanity and divinity of Christ, the hypostatic union; this means that Jesus is fully man and fully God, two natures in union in one person (John 1:1, 14). This does not mean that Jesus is 50% man and 50% God, but 100% man and 100% God. Now I don’t expect us to get our heads around this on one sentence, we accept this by faith.
What we need to understand is that Jesus was tempted as a man but chose to do the will of the Father. He was tempted in every way we are yet did not sin! He is the only one perfect, the only one who could be the lamb and pure sacrifice that God demanded (Col.1:19-20).
3. How does temptation work?
Temptation has always worked the same way. The enemy has no new tactics for this. Let’s look at some examples in Scripture:
Temptations generally work in three ways:
I John 2:16-17: For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
Temptation can be described as lust. John tells us that there are three categories of these, which may have sub categories if we think it through, but generally they all come under three headings:
- Lust of the flesh: self-gratification.
It makes me feel good, maybe for a short time, but it’s about my physical gratification. I begin to desire the endorphin release of the short term temptation so that I can feel good about myself.
We see this parallel in the temptation of Eve.
Genesis 3: 6a: When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food…
We see this parallel in the temptation of Jesus:
Mathew 3:3-4: The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” 4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
The lust of the flesh appeal to the physical desires.
- Lust of the eyes: this is the area of imagination.
We see something in the physical and we begin to fixate about it.
Matthew 6:22: “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.
What we end up doing is feeding the mind and imagination with the things we see. We allow a glance to become a whole journey of imagination.
Affairs do not start with ripping clothes off. They start with a glance that we then feed with unholy imagination (not all uses of imagination are unholy) and before we know it we have created a virtual world that where being with person x is better than being with our spouse.
In doing this we are breaking down emotional barriers to the actual follow through of the sin, so should the opportunity arise we end up falling but we have already fallen in our heart.
This temptation is paralleled in Eve’s case too:
Gen 3:6: When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye.
We read this conversation in Genesis 3 quickly, but I believe that it may have taken hours rather than minutes. The enemy will want us to ponder and imagine and feed our minds with unhealthy thoughts.
This temptation is paralleled to in the temptation of Jesus:
Matthew 4:8-9: Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” 10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.
Jesus was shown something that would eventually be His again [it was His before He came as a man] but the eye/imagination part of this was: you can have it but avoid the cross.
Answer: choose to serve God and pay the cost!
- Pride of Life: this is the power based temptation.
It is look at who I am, what I have achieved, how great am I? This temptation if yielded to eliminates people’s desire for a relationship with God. It puts humanity on a par with god-like-ness but actually brings a hollow experience.
This is also mirrored in the temptation of Eve:
Genesis 4:5-6 : “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom…
You’ll be like God, therefore you won’t need God! But that’s a lie. She also thought it would give her wisdom, but it just brought shame and fear (Gen. 4:10).
Yielding to this temptation, the desire for power and a false pride in ourselves and achievements excludes us for God’s blessings. We find all our achievements are actually worth nothing in the long run and the accumulation of things and adulation of peers adds up to nothing.
Quote: Freddie Mercury, “Success has brought me world idolisation and millions of pounds. But it has prevented me from having the one thing we all need, a loving, on-going relationship. Love is Russian roulette for me.”
This temptation is alos paralleled in the temptation of Jesus:
Matthew 4: 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” 7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Answer: Jesus was secure in who He is, He did not need to prove this. Testing God here meant doubting who God said Jesus was! We need to be secure in our new identity in Christ to not worry about the enemy’s schemes.
Now you will have seen all these temptations have an element of doubting God mixed in with them, did God really say, if you are who you say you are, God is keeping something from you, life would be better if you did this, et al.
When doubt comes knocking, doubt your doubts!
Let’s have a video break before I come and share how to beat temptation.
4. So how do we beat temptation?
We need to defend the areas of our physical desires, imagination, our pride.
vPhysical Desire (the flesh):
The brain becomes hardwired for this as it creates pathways and patterns of behaviour that we succumb too, but it’s the craving for the rush that’s the issue. Sy Rogers teaches a lot about this stuff and I’d recommend you go and seek out some of his teaching. But what we have to do is create new pathways. New rewards, new ‘rushes’ that are wholesome.
It will be no secret to many of you that I like food. I mean, I love it. For whatever reason comfort eating became habit and so now I fight the physiology of my body that craves an endorphin rush. But with eating properly and exercise I'm gradually losing the weight and creating new neuron pathways. Now I am not there yet and do fail if I allow myself to get ravenously hungry. The other day I was in St.Arbucks with Gareth and Phil and was queuing up and all I wanted was blueberry muffin, a skinny one too! This thing was calling my name! I looked at it and realised I was peckish so reached out and took a fruit salad instead. I felt good about myself all day!
We need to be able to steward our bodies and fleshly desires for God.
How?
Prayer!
Mark 14: 38 Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Jesus said these words to peter when he fell asleep when he should be praying for Jesus. But note this: pray so you do not fall into temptation.
Spending time with God is a great way to avoid temptation. Now we can’t actually pray every single second of the day, but the more we immerse ourselves in our relationship with Him the less likely we are to go astray!
Push through the Pain!
Proverbs 6:6: Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!
Proverbs: 13:4: A sluggard’s appetite is never filled, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied
Proverbs: 21:25-26: The craving of a sluggard will be the death of him, because his hands refuse to work. All day long he craves for more, but the righteous give without sparing.
We think of sluggard as just lazy. But there is more to this word than meets the eye. The root Hebrew word (‘âtsêl) means to lean idly. It’s a picture of someone whose dependence has become something they lean on rather than God. This leaning always has to do with avoidance – avoidance of pain or any cost.
But these flesh desire will never be satisfied! We have to push through the pain to lean on God!
So for whatever reason I am prone to comfort eating! This has led to illness and lack of fitness.
But because I want to lean on God more than anything else I am going to gym and eating right. Do I like the gym? No! But I am pushing though my pain!
vThe eyes/Imagination
This area of temptation is not just about sexual stuff, but it’s common. We can apply the following principles to all visual temptations.
Here’s something I did years ago, before I was married in fact, I decided not to look at women I met as objects of desire!
Job did the same:
Job 31:1: I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman.
When we first courting and then as newlyweds, but rarely now, Barbie used to say to me, “Did you see that girl, she was stunning!” I was never sure if this were a test for me! But my answers was always, “What woman.”
I had become so focussed on who I wanted to be as a man (a God pleaser) and a husband (faithful) and a father (a role model) that my covenant with my eyes meant I just did not look.
But when the glance happened (I’m not perfect) I would immediately take hold of that thought and eject.
How?
Take no prisoners:
2 Corinthians 10: 5: We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
How do we take thoughts captive? Well don’t dwell on them! If I say to you now, “Don’t think of pink elephants,” most of you will now be thinking of pink elephants.
We don’t take a thought captive by batting it around the brain. We decide we don’t want to entertain the thought.
So we could pray this: Lord I thank you for creating such a lovely woman, but she is not mine, she is yours, I give her back to you in Jesus name. Amen.
Part two of this is to
Think right:
Philippians 4:8: Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
If we do we will be protecting our mind from virtual imagining that is harmful to us (1 Peter 1:13 – NKJV).
The problem is if we live with lustful eyes we have surrendered before we arrive! Have a plan for before it arises. A fence at the top of the cliff is better than an ambulance at the bottom.
vPrideful living:
There is an often quoted verse, that is actually half quoted:
James 4: 7b: Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Do you ever find yourself doing something you don’t want to do but end up doing it anyway? “But Keith, I’s struggling in this area, I’m resisting the devil.”
Do you know what: some Christians are so busy ‘resisting the devil’ that they look constantly constipated!
How do we resist the devil? The preceding verse tells us how:
6: But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
‘God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble.’
7a Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
How do we deal with pride of Life:
Humility
I realise that I need God. That all my achievement are nothing compared to His love for me. I realise that all my achievements are to be laid at His feet as an offering, not to big me up or to make me appear better than the next guy.
If we choose humility towards God we will not be humiliated by our pride!
Proximity
James 4:8 says to come near to God and He will come near to you. I like the idea of being close to God. I like the fact that He promises to meet me dependant upon my hunger for Him. I choose Him over my selfish pride He chooses me! He comes close.
The closer we get to Him to more humbled we are, so His grace and love overwhelms the soul!
Wrapping It Up:
Don’t mistake your trial for a temptation, but don’t mistake your temptation for a trial!
Make yourself hard to reach for the enemy. Stick close to God. Walk humbly with Him. Don’t allow stuff to fester in your mid, eject it. Think right. Push through the pain of being a sluggard in an area. Allow His Spirit to help you.
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Extras for the blog:
I will have run way out of time for the sermon, but thought I would add these thoughts for you in cyberspace who have read this far:
Firstly: Temptation doesn’t come like a steam train, chuffing along, whistle blowing, announcing its arrival. It comes subtly.
In Song of Songs (the erotic love poem that Solomon wrote that some say is an allegory of the relationship between Jesus and the church because we get embarrassed that something so ‘spicy’ could be in the Bible) we have the young virgin being wooed by her would be lover.
She described her temptations as ‘little foxes - Songs 2:15.
In his online commentary John Shultz write this about this verse, and I use it here in its entirety:
2: 15 doesn’t seem to fit into the idyll: “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.” The verse poses a problem for the interpreters. It is not obvious who is speaking; some think the girl, others the boy, and other again the bystanders. There seems to be the possibility of a word-play in Hebrew. The word for “foxes” which is “su`al” in Hebrew comes from a root s’l which also means “hollow” or “deep place”, and the verbal root hbl can mean either “ruin, destroy,” or “be pregnant, in travail” or “pledge.” This variety of possible interpretations has opened vistas of different opinions. Some believe that Solomon addresses a hunting party here, others see a plea by the girl for sexual relations and others the opposite. One commentator believes that the girl may be singing a ditty here.
The phrase “ruin the vineyards” has an obvious negative connotation and as such it should be accepted. If correct, this would be the second reference to the presence of undesirable tendencies in the poem. The first being: “Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires,” in 1:7 and parallel verses. If the vineyard is a poetical image of virginity and not a place, the thrust of the two warnings could be the same, that is: not to let desire go without restrain because it would ruin the perfection the poem wants to depict. And since the first plea came from the girl, this one, probably, is uttered by her also. The vineyard can be ruined by little foxes. It doesn’t take big beasts to ruin perfect conditions.
What we learn from the above observation is that we can give ourselves to temptation cheaply and be ‘ruined.’ It seems to me that one of the areas we struggle with is finding the right life partner. It can be tempting to give ourselves away in a rush of passion and not wait for Mrs or Mrs Right. Can I encourage you to decide today that you will not give yourself to the lust of the eyes, that the passion you have needs to be held for the one who actually puts a ring on your finger.
The second thing I want to say is, don’t be arrogant about temptation. Don’t think it will never happen to you, whatever the ‘it’ is of your life.
1Cor. 10:12-13: So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
So maybe not everything I have preached or said in this sermon-blog applies to you right now. Maybe some of it never will. But some things will! Don’t think, “That’ll never happen to me!” As soon as you start thinking this way you’re ripe for the temptation to succeed.
Over the years I have lost count of people who sit in floods of tears in my office and say either, “I never thought this would happen to me,” or, “How did I get here?”
No one is immune to temptation. I am not perfect (as you can tell form the above message), but there are certain things I deliberately guard against. Why? Because I know they are areas of weakness in me. You will have some too. Just remember that His grace is made perfect in your weakness (2 Cor. 12:9) but that is not an excuse for arrogance in an area.
There is a story of a man who was looking for w chauffeur for his new Silver Ghost Rolls Royce. Three drivers were shortlisted and he had each take him on a route that included a winding road over a mountain pass with a sheer drop to the one side.
The first driver took the millionaire up through the mounting but drove quite fast, and got quite close to the edge to show off his skills.
The second driver figured he’d have to do better be a bit more daring, and so drove even faster, revving the engine hard and drove so close to the edge that the wheels on that side were partially over the edge pushing small stones down the cliff face.
The third driver did it differently. He drove carefully. He stayed as far away from the cliff face as he could. He didn’t over rev the engine and took a bit longer than the other two chauffeurs.
When the other two scoffed at his efforts he said, “You forgot that the most precious cargo was sitting on the back seat.”
Who got the job?
Can I suggest your most precious cargo is your character and reputation. Come back from the edge and allow God’s grace to bring healing and restoration for your heart and soul.
Commit to your Godly transformation more than the temptation.
Build character – one decision at a time. Character is who you are when no one else is looking.
Bless you!
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