Dealing with Temptation

Transcript (Auto-generated)

Thanks Lyndal. Good morning everyone. Can you hear me? I'm wearing my McDonald's would you like fries with that microphone this morning? Good to be here I hope you're glad to be here and people online as well. My name is Ian Kerr I'm a Baptist pastor currently serving as a director of alongside ministry so most of my work is with pastors through mentoring and supervision and training and crisis care and so on and Margaret and I have been part of this church family since the beginning of 2021 and we really appreciate the teaching and the care that we've received here it's been great. Those who know me will know that one of my hobbies is collecting signs of photographs of unusual signs. I've got a few here for you this morning. The first one when I say the first one not working. Oh well there you go. It's a dog run. So imagine you've got a great day in. Come on over we're going for a walk. That's it back on the car. The next one it's a restaurant absolutely no food or beverages allowed in the restaurant. Can't just just see the waiter excuse me sir yes you were the fork. I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave. I just saw you chewing that's not what we do here. The third one please keep chair on position and keep table cleaned after dying. Last Sunday Pastor David talked about two disciple words and he spoke from Romans 12 which talks about renewing the being transformed by the renewing of our minds and what I'm seeking to talk about today seeks to build on that by looking at one aspect of the Christian knife that every Christian struggles with. So let me begin by looking first at a passage from Hebrews 12. Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us and the writer of this verse we don't know who wrote the book of Hebrews but he's talking about running the race running the Christian race the race marked out for us and the writer warns us that as we won this race we must throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. A little while ago I received a phone call from a young man fairly recently married I actually was another person I took his conducted his wedding he's having some problems in his marriage and as we talked it became obvious that the problem was a sin problem. In fact he'd become caught up in pornography and it was affecting his marriage and it was very likely causing his depression. When I say caught up I mean caught up he was entangled in it. He didn't set out to do that but somehow it happened. Why is it that we allow ourselves to be entangled in sin? Well according to my reading of Scripture there's two main reasons one we can do something about and the other one we can't do anything about. The first is found in Romans 7 Paul writes I know that nothing good lives in me that is in my sinful nature for I have the desire to do what is good but I cannot carry it out for what I do is not the good I want to do no the evil I do not want to do this I keep on doing. So the first reason that we get entangled in sin is because we have a sinful nature a natural bias to go in the wrong direction to do the wrong thing. Before we became a Christian we had a sinful nature and the sad news is that after we become a Christian we still have a sinful nature we have a natural tendency to go the wrong way to do the wrong thing. Anyone here ever played lawn bowls? Well done all the young people but if you ever played lawn bowls you'll know that the ball has a natural bias if you if you're not careful the bias will take it in a curve not in a straight line it's got a natural bias to go off track and that's what it's like for us we have a bias towards sin a natural tendency to go in the wrong direction and I wish that wasn't true but the Bible makes it clear that it is true and unfortunately we will have a sinful nature up until we are in heaven. There's nothing we can do about it but our sinful nature isn't the only reason that we get entangled in sin there's another reason we haven't got to read very far into the Bible before we come across it we're reading there in Genesis chapter 3 now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made he said to the woman did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden the woman said to the serpent we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden but God did say you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden and you must not touch it or you will die you will not certainly die the serpent said to the woman for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil 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 she took some and ate it she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it then the eyes of both of them were open and they realized they were naked so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings from themselves so the second reason that we get entangled in sin is pretty obvious isn't it it's because of temptation now the bad news about our sinful nature is that we're stuck with it until we get to heaven but the good news about temptation is we can actually do something about it the Bible gives us lots of good information about how to go about doing that and this passage we're looking at is a good place to start and the scene is the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve lived there it's perfect there's no death there's no crying there's no pain there's no decay it's a perfect place to live and they've got a lot of freedom they can roam around this beautiful garden they can eat from any fruit of the tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil now in this story Satan appears in the form of a serpent or a snake note what the serpent says did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden note how he's trying to sow seeds of doubt in Eve's mind about what is the right and wrong thing to do did God really say does it really matter if we go over the speed limit every now and then does it really matter if we eat the wrong kind of food that we shouldn't be eating see how temptation works Satan sows seeds of doubt about what is the right thing to do so how does Eve respond first of all she does fairly well the woman said to the serpent we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden but God did say you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden you must not touch it or you will die basically Eve gets it right some people say that she added to scripture but basically she got it right she had a fairly good understanding of what God allowed them to do and what he said they couldn't do she understands God's word she can quote it so far so good but Satan doesn't give up you will not surely die the serpent said to the woman for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil his first statement is a direct lie you will not surely die Satan is a blatant liar in fact Jesus said he was the father of lies we see it there in John 8 you belong to your father the devil and you want to carry out your father's desire he was a murderer from the beginning not holding to the truth for there is no truth in him when he lies he speaks his native language for he is a liar and the father of lies and Satan's blatant lies can be a real trap heroin won't hurt you you won't catch AIDS Satan's lies can be a real trap but his half truths are even more deadly we see that in verse 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing good and evil that's a half truth isn't it if Adam and Eve did eat the forbidden fruit their eyes will be open and they will know good and evil at first glance it sounds like a pretty good reason to eat the fruit but see what happens when we look closer Satan is saying eat the fruit and your eyes will be opened and like God you'll know good and evil and the implication is that this is a good thing but the reality is at this point in their life they knew only good and it would been better if they had remained blissfully ignorant they didn't need to have their eyes opened to see evil it would have been much better if they never did see how subtle Satan's half truths are think about this if you just see a little bit of pornography you will be able to understand the problem that pornography brings it's half truth isn't it if you did see a little bit of pornography you would have a better understanding of the problem and that sounds like a good thing but the reality is that a person doesn't have to have any experience of pornography to know that it's destructive there's a lot of research around that shows that pornography when people get entangled in it has a negative outcome it causes harm just like I did to this young man that I spoke to some time ago and statements like this are a half truth and listening to a half truth which may sound good when you first hear it will in fact lead to harm not to good the lots of half truth is around out there you don't need to go to church to be a Christian half truth a couple of drinks aren't going to hurt you too much study isn't good for you if you live with your girlfriend or boyfriend before marriage you will find out if you are compatible if you eat all of the nil slices on the table at morning tea it will be saving other Christians from obesity I'm out there serving the Lord no worries these all sound pretty good don't they until we examine them carefully and we find out that what they are saying or promising is not as true as it first appears so we should be very wary of Satan's lies and very aware particularly of his half truths but that's not the only thing we can learn from this passage let's see what happens next 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 she took some and ate it she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he he ate it and most people when they read this passage they think that the next thing that Eve did was to eat the forbidden fruit but there is something else that she did before that can you see it the clue is in the beginning of verse 6 when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye how did she know that the fruit look very attractive very palatable she went to the tree she went to the tree had she stayed away from the tree the temptation to eat the fruit wouldn't have been all that hard to handle if you can't reach it you can't eat it that is the central message that I want to bring to you this morning if you can't reach it you can't eat it it's that simple so Eve's first big mistake apart from having a discussion with Satan was to go to the tree you see there's a big connection between temptation and the situations in which we put ourselves supposing you are attempted to eat too many vanilla slices and I'm speaking from personal experience here what is the worst place you could go the bakery imagine I'm driving up my my car up the Bruce Highway and I'm tempted to eat a vanilla slice the temptation isn't very hard to handle because I don't have a vanilla slice but supposing I drive to Murrayfield shopping center and I go into one of the bakeries and I look in the glass cabinet and I see a tray of delicious vanilla slices and I've got some money in my wallet now it's going to be very hard not to buy one and eat it suppose you have a problem with using your credit card and by a problem I mean that you're tempted to buy things that you can't really afford imagine that you're sitting in your dinghy and you're fishing off the beach at Redcliffe and you're 500 meters from the shore and the fish are biting and all of a sudden you have a temptation to go and buy an 85 inch color LCD TV with your credit card because you don't really have that kind of money in the bank how hard is it to resist the temptation not very hard I don't fish but I imagine that there are very few LCDs available for sale 500 meters off the coast certainly no F facilities but imagine you've caught enough fish and you've gone home and had a shower you have to do that because fishermen smell and you now have arrived at Harvey Normans and you walk in and there's these rows of beautiful CT TVs and there's a salesman there who's explaining all the wonderful qualities of them and they're on sale and if you don't buy today the price is going to go up how hard is it to deal with the temptation now much more difficult isn't it see how it works the decision not to drive to the bakery is much harder to make than is this is the decision not to buy a villa slice when you're in the bakery the decision not to turn on your computer is much easier to make than it is to turn off your computer and go to bed at a reasonable hour when you're in the middle of an exciting addictive game the decision not to take your credit card with you when you go shopping is much easier to make than it is to resist buying something that you can't really afford so some way one way to deal with temptation is to plan ahead so that we don't put ourselves in situations where temptation will be more difficult to deal with and sometimes the process of planning ahead will mean taking some fairly drastic steps that's particularly in the case of addictive behavior I'm not an accountant or a financial advisor but when I was serving as a pastor in a local church I often came across people who got themselves into deep financial problems through the misuse of credit cards a little while ago I received a phone call from a previous church member and this person's sister had a real problem with credit cards in her life her marriage had just broken up they sold the family home she had the the money and in all likelihood she would blow that money through credit card spending and from my experience most people in this situation have tried on several occasions to control their credit card spending but somehow they can't just get on top of it and the reason is because it's an addiction and addictions are very difficult to deal with in fact the only way these people can begin to deal with their problem is to get rid of their credit cards and then start paying down their debt it's only when the source of temptation is taken away that they can begin to deal with the problem and credit card spending is of course not only the addiction that people have to deal with I have a Christian friend who became entangled in gambling and the only way that he could deal with that addiction was to voluntarily have himself excluded from the casino it was only when he took away the source of the temptation that is able to get his life back on track and his marriage back on track the only way that we can eat the forbidden fruit is to go to the forbidden tree if you can't reach it you can't eat it and sometimes we need to take drastic steps to make sure that we stay away from the tree in the case of the young man I was talking to about internet pornography he do well to put some measures in place to make it difficult for him to access access porn things like a password protected safe search on Google allowing a trusted person to manage that password making sure the screen of the computer is always available for other people to see out in the open these days it's very difficult to completely protect ourselves from immorality on the internet but there are many precautions we can take to minimize the risk of having to deal with that temptation it's all about assessing the risk then taking steps to make sure that what we're not exposed to a situation that will provide new temptation or make an existing temptation more difficult to deal with that makes sense unfortunately Adam and Eve didn't follow this advice we know from the passage in Genesis 3 that Eve did eat the forbidden fruit and her husband Adam did likewise what happened then let's read on then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden but the Lord God called to the man where are you he answered I heard you in the garden I was afraid because I was naked so I hid and he said who told you that you were naked have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from the man said the woman you put here for me she gave some me some fruit from the tree and I ate it then the Lord God said to the woman what is it that you have done the woman said the servant deceived me and I ate see how God confronts Adam with his sin verse 11 have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from obviously he has God knows that how does Adam respond when he's caught out verse 12 the woman you put here with me she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it feel the brunt the blame game starts the woman you put here she gave me some Adam is making out that God is partly to blame because he's the one who put even the garden in the first place it's not my fault God's fault but not is it only God who gets the blame even gets the blame also she gave me some of the fruit from the tree and I ate it this woman that God's given me she caused this temptation note that Eve is also gets caught up in the blame game she says in verse 13 the serpent deceived me and I ate it it wasn't my fault it was the serpent's fault Adam blamed Eve Eve blamed the snake and the snake didn't have a leg to stand on when I give into temptation there is only one person who is at fault and that is me I can never say that someone else made me do it I can never say the devil made me do it because my sin is the result of my wrong choices when we become a Christian God's Holy Spirit comes to live in us and he gives us the power to live God's way that means that whenever I face temptation I don't have to give into it because God always provides a way out it's there in 1 Corinthians 10 no temptation has seized you except what is common to man 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 stand up under it we don't have to fall into temptation but the reality is we do we do fail whether we've been a Christian for 50 years or five minutes so what do we do then the answer is very clear and one John 1 if we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness when we fail the place to start is not to blame others or to try and justify our actions the place to start is with almost confession to God when we blow it and we do blow it we need to come to God and say Lord I'm sorry for what I've done please forgive me and please help me to never make this mistake again when we do that we know that God does forgive us and he does accept us and he cleanses us because the God that we worship is a God of grace a God of who sent his son to take the punishment for our sins past present and future the God we worship is a God of fresh starts the God who forgives us and says go and sin no more isn't it fantastic to have a God like that I don't know about you but I find it very difficult to live the kind of life that God wants me to live I wish I didn't have a sinful nature but I do I know I'm stuck with that till I get to heaven I wish that Satan didn't exist and I wish that he didn't tempt me but in the real world in which we live temptation is going to keep coming our way Satan is going to keep probing at our weaknesses I'm sad about those things but I'm very glad that the God that we worship is a holy God he never says sin doesn't matter he sent his son Jesus to deal with the problem of sin I'm very glad that God understands Jesus understands what you and I go through because the Bible says in Hebrews for that he was tempted in every way yet was without sin so in Hebrews 4 15 and I'm very glad that Jesus sent his Holy Spirit to live in us to give us the power to overcome temptation so that we might live a life that is pleasing to God and I'm very pleased very glad that when we reach heaven temptation and sin will no longer be a problem because we will spend eternity with a perfect God in a perfect place are you looking forward to that I know I am but as we run towards that goal let us stay away from those trees that bring us down and let us keep before us the words of Hebrew 12 let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us let's come before the Lord in prayer father we want to tell you this morning that we love you and we want to serve you but we recognize that we're not perfect we know that we have a sinful nature and we know that we give into temptation thank you Lord for sending your Holy Spirit to live in us so that we might have the power to overcome every temptation that comes our way help us we pray to deal with temptation with your wisdom and in your strength give us the courage we pray to get rid of those things that Satan uses to bring us down help us Lord to be holy just as you are holy for we long to be the people you've called us to be and we long to do the things that you've called us to do continue to teach us about these things we pray for we ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ amen