Roommates, Bad Dates And Great Mates: Temptation Series

ROOMMATES, BAD DATES & GREAT MATES

Temptation “. . .the fruit looks so fresh and delicious”

I’m glad you have chosen to be with us today, as we continue our series, Roommates, Bad Dates and Great Mates. Go ahead and pull out your message notes. We have had a lot of fun in this series so far. We kicked it off several weeks ago by looking at what the Bible has to say about sex. Two weeks ago we talked about marriage, and last week we talked about dating. Throughout this series, we have said that God created sex and He wants us to enjoy it, but He created sex to be best experienced between one man and one woman, within the context of a life long committed marriage. And today, we are talking about temptation. We are talking about overcoming the things in our life that test us to step outside God’s will and plan for our life in this area of sex. I recently read about a study that they did about the best tasting ice cream. They did a blind taste test. They brought some people together and they got all kinds of vanilla ice cream. They got gourmet ice cream. Homemade ice cream. Brand name ice cream and even the price saver cheapo ice creams and they did the taste test to find out what factor made ice cream taste better. What they determined was that the number one determining factor in the taste of ice cream and what made people like it, it wasn’t the price of it. It didn’t matter if it was gourmet or brand name, and it wasn’t if it was homemade or not. The number one determining factor was the percentage of fat in the ice cream. In other words, the more lard that was in the ice cream, the more people seemed to like it. Now, isn’t that one of the cruel ironies of life. Like the things that seem to be the most tempting, the things that seem to be the most desirable are often the things that in the long run are the worst for us. For instance, why can’t fried chicken, which happens to be my favorite food, be as good for you as an apple. I have never heard a doctor say—a fried chicken leg a day will keep the doctor away. And the reason they say that is because if you had fried chicken every morning for breakfast, it would probably keep the doctor nearby because your cholesterol would shoot up. I don’t know, but I guess I have to settle for apples. But see, this is the thing about temptation and about giving into temptation. It tastes good initially. And it feels good for a moment. But later, when we see that we have been tricked and when we realize what we have given up when we get into that temptation, we regret it. When we give in to temptation, we always regret it because in the long run we always give up something greater for instant gratification right now. But today we are talking about sexual temptation. And it is something that every one of us faces on a daily basis. I have discovered that if someone tells you that they do not struggle with sexual temptation that this person is either lying to you or they are dead. One or the other. But you are not alive and not tempted by sex. So under the right circumstances, anyone can fall into sexual temptation. Look at our next verse. It’s our memory verse for the day and we will actually have Scripture memory cards after the service. This is a great verse for you to take with you, pick up one of those cards and to memorize. Let’s read this verse together. This is what it says. “If you think you are standing strong, be careful, for you too may fall into the same sin. But remember that the temptations that come into your life are no different from what other experience.” See, there are two truths here in this opening verse that we need to pay attention to.

1. We all face the same temptations. Everyone here struggles with the same thing. It’s not just you. We all face temptations.

2. All of us, no matter who we are, no matter how strong we think we are, under the right circumstances, are susceptible to falling to sexual temptation in our life. For some of us, it’s the temptation of sex before we get married. Maybe it’s in a dating relationship. Maybe it’s a one night stand. But for some of us, it’s a temptation to have an affair, and to cheat on a spouse. Maybe our marriage isn’t going so well. Or maybe, someone exciting just came into your life. For some of us, it’s the temptation to have a sexual fantasy life. This usually involves an addiction to pornography, especially internet pornography and it is tied into masturbation. And all of these temptation, to step outside of God’s will, will cause us harm.