Temptation Pt 3
By Chap Bettis

In the recent movie Finding Nemo, three sharks meet together regularly to proclaim that Fish are our friends. However, on bring a friend night, when one of the fish accidentally bleeds. The chief shark is overcome by temptation and suddenly begins pursuing the very friends he brought to the meeting.

Can you relate? At one time, do you have noble, God pleasing desires? And then a minute later, out of the blue, you have turned into a different person?

This morning we are going to talk about three truths and nine strategies that can help you overcome temptation.

So far we have seen that the word used for trial and temptation is the same.

· From that we understand that in every trial is a temptation to sin. And in every temptation is a trial or suffering to ourselves.

· In addition we have seen that temptations can come from legitimate desires that we seek to gain illegitimately, or they can come from wrong desires all together.

· Temptation is a battle for our mind. And specifically a battle for what will make us happy. John Piper says that sin (lust for example) "gets its power by persuading me to believe that I will be more happy if I follow it. The power of all temptation is the prospect that it will make me happier."

· We can think of it this way. Given a choice between two doors, one labeled “God’s Perfect Will for Your Life” and one labeled “Your Every Dream Fulfilled”, which would we choose? Everyday, in small ways, we face that choice.

1 Corinthians 10:12-14, Three truths to overcome temptation.

God is faithful

· Very interesting and strange to include in a verse on temptation.

· It is in temptation that I feel the absence of God. It is in temptation that I feel let down by God. Where is he in all this?

· But everything we are about to says depends on God’s faithfulness.

To be faithful is to be

· reliable, dependable, “continued steadfast adherence to a person friend of object to which one is bound by oath, duty or obligation.

· We speak of a faithful husband, wife, faithful friend, faithful worker.

o Someone who sticks with us through thick and thin.

o Someone who is true to his commitment even when it hurts.

· God has bound himself to us in covenant to be our father, savior, friend, brother, helper.

o The most faithful father is a dull picture of God constant love and attention toward us.

o The most faithful husband is a dull picture of God’s steadfastness to us.

o The most faithful friend is a dull picture of God’s dependableness to us.

o Surprisingly, this part of God’s nature is important in facing temptation.

Why is that faithfulness important?

You can overcome that temptation. You can handle it.

· He will not let you be tempted (tried) beyond what you can bear. NIV

· He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. ESV

· God’s faithfulness comes out in this way. He will never let you be pushed past your limits. He will never let any temptation, any trial come into you life that is beyond your ability.

· We can never say, “The devil made me do it.”

o “You made me do it.”

o “I just could not take it anymore.”

o “I can’t take it anymore.”

o The truth is we choose to sin. Each and every time we sin, we choose to sin. Others may provoke us, our circumstances may seem overwhelming but if we sin, we choose to sin.

· But let’s state this is the positive, you can handle whatever comes your way.

o Every circumstance that comes your way has come across God’s desk. Every circumstance in your life is under God’s control.

o You do have a breaking point. You do have a point where you cannot handle things anymore. With a rope it is called tensile strength. The point at which the rope breaks. And God may allow more and more weight put onto that rope but he will never allow the devil to put on the weight where you break.

You will always have a door of escape.

· God’s faith fullness comes out in this way: He will provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. NIV

· With the temptation, he will provide a way of escape so that you may be able to endure it. ESV

· You always have a way out to resist temptation.

o When God allows a trial or temptation to come your way, he always, always, always provides a way for you to handle it. You can think of it like the epoxy glue containers. The containers hold two substances that when squeezed out are mixed together. Similarly, when God squeeze out a temptation, he also squeezes out a way to handle it.

o You can expect to make real progress on sin habits.

o The more we take the door of escape the easier it will become.

o Scripture says that we are overcomers in Christ

§ Rom 8:37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors (hyperconquerors) through him who loved us.

§ We have overcome the evil one and the world (1 John)

Therefore use your emergency exit. (v.14)

Since God always provides a way out, use it. Here Paul tells them to flee. Part of any good building design is creating enough fire exits and directions to those exit. In other words having a fire escape plan. People in RI have become much more aware of having a personal escape plan after the Station nightclub disaster.

Similarly, we need a temptation plan. We need to know where the emergency exits are located. What do those doors of escape look like? I have come up with 9.

· By putting these together as needed we can come up with a temptation plan.

· A temptation plan is a plan that is put into action when facing a certain temptation.

· You say to yourself when I feel tempted to think or do ____________ instead I will think or do __________ .

1. Keep watch and pray.

· Keep watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. (Mt 26:41). The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

· Here is a command for Jesus friends, and us, to pray against entering into a known coming temptation. Jesus commands the same thing of us when he says that we are to pray like this: Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.

· A door of escape from temptation is constant, vigilant watchfulness and prayer the Lord might protect us from those situations, thoughts, sins that are known to be weakness of ours.

2. Verbalize Specific Scripture.

· We are to take up the Sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. If we are to fight tempting thoughts then we should fight those thoughts with specific scriptures. The Lord Jesus fought off the temptations with specific verses. He heard the tempting thought or voice and he responded with the corresponding Scripture.

· What specific sinful or tempting thought are we having? Bring it out into the light. Find a corresponding scripture. Do not fight the devil empty-handed. Take every thought you have captive and make it obedient to Christ.

3. Walk by the Spirit.

· “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Romans 8:13

· “But I say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” Galatians 5:16

· We will not be able to fight sin apart from crying out to the Spirit to help us rise above the specific temptation. Romans 7 is about the wretchedness of the battle within us. Romans 8 is about the victory that is ours by the Spirit.

4. Cut off your right hand.

· “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut if off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. (Matt 5:29-30)

o Make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. (Rom 13:14)

· In other words, get rid of anything that causes you to sin. Make no provision for the flesh.

o If you cant control your TV watching, get rid of it.

o If you cant say no to ice cream, don’t buy it. We can feed temptation and we can starve it.

o There are things that are not sinful in and of themselves that we may need to do away with for a season just to get control of ourselves.

5. Flee.

· Flee from idolatry (Cor 10:14)

o Flee immorality (1 Cor 6:18)

o Flee from the love of money (1 Timothy 6:11).

o Flee from youthful lusts (2 Tim 2:22).

· The simplest way to deal with temptation is to flee. Flee the area. Flee to the Lord.

o Like the man who went to the doctor saying that he had broken his arm in three places. The doctor’s response? Stay out of those places.

6. Pursue righteousness 2 Tim 2:22.

· Most of the time the Bible presents a negative, you will see the word but and then it will present the positive. Don’t be anxious but present your requests to God with thanksgiving.

· The easiest way to overcome a negative is to pursue a positive. Selfish with your money? Start giving it away. Trying to control your tongue. Pursue becoming interested in the other person and drawing them out.

7. Along with those who call on God out of a pure heart. 2 Tim 2:22

· David had Jonathan, Daniel had Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, Barnabas and Paul had each other. Jesus took his Peter James and John to the Garden.

· The Methodist church grew because individuals were committed to gathering weekly to ask

o What temptations did you face? How did you handle them?

o The deepest fellowship can occur at that point when two people are on the same side of a struggle.

o Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. Deitrich Bonhoeffer

· Do you have godly friends that you have regular spiritual conversation with?

8. Resist the devil.

· You and I face very real demonic opposition. While we are to flee from sin, we are not to flee from the devil. We are to resist demonic opposition calling on the name of Jesus Christ.

· Our demonic opposition can only hurt us if we let him. We have authority over demonic beings in the name of Jesus Christ and can command them to leave us alone, just as Jesus did.

· When we took in Jack, our dog, each child had to learn to exercise authority over him.

9. Worship the Lord

· Psalm 73 record Asaph’s temptation to envy the wicked and to think that he has vainly kept my heart cleans. But then he enters the sanctuary and sets his heart on God.

· Worship beautifully lifts our mind and our emotions together.

· As he heaved two heavy bags of garbage into the back of a sanitation truck, Andrew Macchio greeted residents emerging from their Upper East Side apartments with a chorus of his favorite tunes -- his operatic voice resounding up and down East 65th Street. For Macchio, hauling trash is the required part of his job as a city sanitation worker; singing is the joyful part of his daily work routine. "Rainy days are tough," he said, interrupting a verse of "Amazing Grace" one recent drizzly morning. "Wintertime is tough, too, but I absolutely love to sing. "When I do, I get a great sense of accomplishment. My job is not glamorous. If I'm not singing, I'm thinking about what I have to do," he said.

Do you have a temptation plan? Do you know where the God-given emergency exits are? Are you using them?

According to the story, Hamelin was overrun with rats in every home, shop and street. An odd looking stranger entered the town and promised to rid the town of rats for 100 guilders. He kept his end of the bargain using a small flute. But the town refused to pay.

Without a word, the piper left the mayor’s office and took out his flute and began playing a different song. Instantly, the children of Hamelin came tumbling out of the houses, schools and shops. To the horror of the town folks, the Pied Piper led the children out of the city and into the mountain never to be seen again.

Each day you hear the tempting music of the pied piper. Each day you are surrounded by people who are following the pied piper’s tempting music. What will you do? Will you resist?

God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear but when you are tempted he will provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

If you have any questions, comments or observations, please call Chapman Bettis at 401 727-2367 or John Riley at 401-453-5550 or email at johnr@cornerstoneri.com