Getting The Victory Over Temptation
The King and His Kingdom
OKAY – I want to start off today by reading a passage from the book of Deuteronomy.
Anyone know...
• What the name means? Second law
• What section of the Bible it is found in? Pentateuch
(5 books)
In this book the new generation (those under the age of 18 who left Egypt) are reminded by Moses... and of how God had been with them during the 40 years of wilderness wandering and they are reminded of God’s law.
NOW – this book also serve as Moses farewell address to God’s people, as he will not be entering the promise land with them.
And because he is not going to be with them there are many things he wants them to be aware of.
When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you.
When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army. He shall say:
“Hear, Israel: Today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not panic or be terrified by them. For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.” - Deuteronomy 20:1-4
Prayer
OKAY – this morning we are going to conclude our deep dive into the greatest prayer ever prayed...
A prayer that Jesus-followers have been praying all around the globe for 2000 years.
A prayer when righty understood and daily prayed has the power to change hearts, homes, churches, communities, countries, the world.
AND MGCC – when I said that we were doing a deep dive into this prayer. I was not kidding. In fact today is our 12th week in this dive.
AND LISTEN – every conversation we have on Sunday is...
• available to watch on: Facebook and YouTube, and
• available to listen to on our: website, Spotify, Apple Podcast, and TuneIn.
AND MGCC – what we have learned in our deep dive is that...
Our
calls us into community, into relationship.
Understand, it is not just about ‘me and mine’ it is about us and our.’ It’s not just our personal relationship with Jesus it is also about our corporate relationship.
Father
invites us into intimacy with the Maker of Heaven and earth. Yes God is the Sovereign King of the universe who: breathes out stars, holds oceans in the palm of His hands and stretches out the heavens like a curtain...
BUT - He is also Father. (1 John 3:1)
Who art in the heavens
reminds us that Our Father is great, Our Father is near and that there is ‘always’ more going on than our eyes can see.
Hallowed be Your Name
calls us (me/you) to live lives that are different and distinct from the world around us... lives that passionately pursue a personal-practical-progressive holiness...
bringing honor and glory to God’s name by the way that we live out our lives.
Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven...
reminds us that we are part of a kingdom, that we are a people, called and empowered to show this world a different and better way to live...
AS WE – help restore ‘garden image and intimacy’ throughout this broken world, one life at a time, Bringing...
• Hope to the hopeless, Freedom to the captive
• Food to the hungry, Drink to the thirsty
• Belonging to the lonely, Purpose to the drifting
• Salvation to the lost
Give us this day out daily bread
transforms us from:
• fear to confidence – grumbling to gratitude
• selfishness to selflessness – troubled to trusting
• greed to contentment – merely living to life...
Reminding us that our greatest need this day and every day is to depend on and connect with our Father who art in the heavens, and with Jesus the bread of life!
AND...
forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Reminds us of the sheer power and beauty of God’s forgiveness of us and the absolute necessity that we do the same.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
Reminds us that we are in war and that we will daily have to fight the battle with temptation and doing evil things.
QUESTION
• Why, is life so hard, so difficult?
• Why, is it at times such a struggle?
• Why do our best efforts seem to never go unopposed.
BECAUSE – like the Israelites in Dt 20, who were trying to enter their land of promise, we have a powerful and unrelenting enemy who has declared war on us.
On more time...
As John Eldredge writes in his book ‘Waking The Dead’
By all means, God intends life for you. But right now that life is opposed. It doesn’t just roll in on a tray. There is a thief. He comes to steal and kill and destroy. In other words… yes, the offer is life, but you’re going to have to fight for it because there’s an enemy in your life with a different agenda.
AGAIN MGCC – here’s the deal...
IF YOU – want to experience the abundant life that God has for you, you will need to fight for it, and listen in order to fight to win, you must know 3 things, you must
• Your Enemy
• Your Responsibility, and
• Your God
I. Know Your Enemy
a) Know who he is
• He is extremely powerful... (his craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal.
• He is a thief who comes into your life to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10)
• He is a roaring lion looking for an opportunity to devour you (1 Peter 5:8)
• He is an angry dragon who has declared war on you, because you want to follow Jesus
b) Know his target
Which is your heart, because as God breathed in Proverbs 4:23... ‘everything’ flows out of your heart, so you need to guard it well
c) Know his goal
Your destruction and spiritual death.
Separation from God... both now and forever
d) Know his method/battle strategy
Which is temptation...
Luring you into his light with deception, tempting to do evil things that you should not be doing, and tempting you to not do the good things that you should be doing.
YES – brothers and sisters you need to know your enemy.
NOW – if you are a sports fan you know that today is championship Sunday.
AND – I guarantee that these 4 teams are studying their enemy.. watching film..etc).
By all means they want to win the game.
But listen victory will not come rolling in on a tray
They will have to fight for it
Because on the other sideline stands their opponent
Who has their own agenda for victory.
II. Know Your Responsibility
It’s you responsibility to…
a) Pursue authentic joy
"Failure to attain a deeply satisfying life always has the effect of making sinful actions seem good."
– Dallas Willard
b) Starve Temptation and not feed it (Romans 6:13)
B/S – we have to stop playing around with things that frequently lead us into temptation and sin.
c) Use the right resistance
Remind Yourself Of The Final Pain That Will Soon Replace The Passing Pleasure
Sin always takes you further than you want to go and keeps you longer than you want to stay.
d) It’s you responsibility to… Put On The ‘Full’ Armor Of God
The Belt Of Truth
Understand the belt of truth is your personal integrity and honesty…
• Are you an honest person
• Can people (do people) trust what you say?
• Are you the same person in the dark as you are in the light?
The Breastplate of Righteousness
Positional: the righteousness that we have because as a Jesus-follower we have been baptized into Christ.
Practical: the righteous life we strive to live that gives us confidence in this righteousness we have through Jesus
UNDERSTAND...
The life you live, either fortifies you against satan’s attacks, or it makes it easier, for satan to accuse, attack and defeat you.
The Gospel Of Peace
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. – Romans 1:16
The Gospel’s Power Makes Us Ready for battle, and
The Gospel’s Purpose Makes Us Ready for battle
The Shield Of Faith
Our shield is what we believe, who we believe in and what this belief means to our identity
UNDERSTAND – this shield will protect us against the lies of our enemy.
• his lies to get us to sin, and
• his lies to attack who we are
When the flaming arrows come – our faith speaks,
“I don’t have to listen to you, I won’t listen to you, I can’t listen to you, I am a Christ follower.
I know who I am! I know whose I am!
And I know how I can and must live”
The Helmet Of Salvation
Is our need to remind ourselves daily of the living hope that we have been born into because of Christ.
AND LISTEN – we need this surrounding our minds...
Because often times the individual battles we find ourselves in give the appearance that we’ve already lost, that it’s over… UNDERSTAND...
• Bad things happen to good people.
• Doctors bring back bad reports.
• Children fall away from the Lord
• Loved ones die
• Yes, often times in life we suffer, we hurt, we feel pain and we are disappointed it.
And that is why we must protect our mind with our helmet of salvation... which constantly reminds us that...
One day the trumpet will sound… the sky will crack open and Jesus will return to take us home.
‘One Day’ Cochren and Co.
One day there'll be no more waiting left for our souls
One day there'll be no more children longing for home
One day when the kingdom comes right here where we stand
We will see the promised land
One day there'll be no more lives taken too soon
One day there'll be no more need for a hospital room
One day every tear that falls will be wiped by His hand
We will see the promised land
One day there'll be no more anger left in our eyes
One day the color of our skin won't cause a divide
One day we'll be family standing hand in hand
And we will see the promised land,
One day every knee will bow, every tongue will confess
One day when our tired and weary bones find their rest
One day when the power of evil is brought to an end
We will see the promised land,
we will see the promised land
YES – the end of this story, this battle has already been written… And when all is said and done, we win, and we go
home!
AMEN?!
The Sword Of The Spirit
Take… the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Ephesians 6:17
The Roman Soldier carried a 22” long, doubled edged sword and no soldier felt fully armed without it.
The Christians sword is the Word of God
Checkout this scriptures about our sword;
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. – Hebrews 4:12
All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. – 2 Timothy 3:16,17
B/S... it is your responsibility to take up this sword
It’s you responsibility to...
• Know it
• Read it
• Study it
• Live under and live by it.
AND LISTEN – we are not to ignore it, audit it or edit it.
New FCFH – the Gospel of John in 69 days... it will take us right up to Easter Weekend.
Prayer
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me, that wherever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. – Ephesians 6:18-20
The Christian soldier needs to be plugged into his power source… He needs to be in constant communication with headquarters…
To pray in the spirit is to pray;
- With sincerity
- With all your heart, your soul, mind and strength
- In agreement with the purposes of God
So he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty...” – Zechariah 4:6
III. Know Our God
a) Know that Our God... Is Greater than our enemy
YES – our enemy is too strong for us...
BUT B/S - he is not too strong for God…
YES – on own we are toast, electrocuted, dead, lying on the bottom of his tray.
BUT – with God’s help we can resist and overcome…
You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. – 1 John 4:4
He Controls The Intensity Of Our Temptations
And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. – 1 Cor 10:13
UNDERSTAND – as a Jesus follower there is no temptation that we will ever face that is not first filtered through the loving hands and caring eyes of the Father…
MGCC – our father is faithful and He will not allow our enemy to tempt us beyond our ability to resist.
God Always Provides A Way Out
But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. – 1 Cor 10:13
LISTEN – when temptation comes, we need to look around, because there is always a way out!
WE – might have to run or we may have to fight.
It could just be a big “NO!” OR – the exercise of spirit-led self-control… but there is always a way out…
He Is Holy (never tempts)
When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone…James 1:13
MGCC – our God is holy, He is perfectly sinless
He is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.
Everything in God resists sin.
He is aware of sin but untouched by it.
The angels who are flying around at this very moment are crying out... "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Alight, who was and is and is to come.”
To defeat temptation we must know that God is holy, and that He calls us to be holy.
NOW – the next 3 things that we need to know about God in order for us to win this war...
Are found James chapter 1.
UNDERSTAND – James right after telling us that it is our own evil desire that tempts us to sin...
And that sin when it is full grown leads to death, writes the following...
Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created. - James 1:16-18
b) He is the source of every ‘good’ thing
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,
MGCC – God is the giver of every good thing in our lives.
UNLIKE – our enemy He does not promise us good, and then give us pain and sorrow.
Is there any god in your life... praise Him for it!
AND – if you want good in your life He is the One we need to go to, because...
He has not come to steal, kill and destroy, but to give you life in all of its fullness.
God is good and only wants good for you!
AMEN?!
c) He is steady, sure and unchanging
who does not change like shifting shadows.
MGCC – God is the same yesterday, today and forever!
• His mercy is unchanging
• His grace is unchanging
• His love is unchanging
• His plans, purposes and ways are unchanging
• His goodness and kindness is unchanging
d) His goal for us is new birth and salvation
He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created.
B/S – unlike our enemy God’s goal for us is not death, but new birth.
KNOW... – your enemy, your responsibility, your God.
When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you.
When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army. He shall say:
“Hear, Israel: Today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not panic or be terrified by them. For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.” - Deuteronomy 20:1-4
Our Father in the heavens, hallowed be your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Matthew 6:9-13
What a prayer!!!
