Flirting with Darkness
January 20, 2013 Morning Service
Immanuel Baptist Church, Wagoner, OK
Rick Boyne
Message Point: We must be filled by the Holy Spirit in order to thwart temptations and avoid sin.
Focus Passage: James 1:12-16
Supplemental Passage: If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:6-7 NASB)
Introduction: Lays® Potato Chips uses the slogan “You can’t eat just one.” They know a secret: most of us will lose self-control and give in to temptation if they can get us to just eat one. One gives in to two; two in to five; and before you know it, you’ve eaten an entire bag of chips! Sin is like that, too. If the devil can get us to even think about something, he knows we are likely to lose self control and give into the temptation. Then he thinks he’s won. That is why it is important to “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”
I. Thoughts & Temptations
a. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. (James 1:14)
b. we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, (2 Corinthians 10:5 NASB)
c. "Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." (Matthew 26:41 NASB)
II. Action & Sin
a. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; (James 1:15a)
b. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. (Romans 6:12-13 NASB)
III. Consequences & Regret
a. and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. (James 1:15b)
b. and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:8 NASB)
c. "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God." (John 3:19-21 NASB)
Invitation:
