The Emulation Factor Series

--1 Cor. 10:13 – “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man.”

C. Rita May Brown: “Lead me not into temptation. I can find it myself.”

1. I’m a casual fisherman. I just go by the bait store, pick up some thing that is still semi-alive, and

sometimes I catch fish and sometimes I don’t. I enjoy it but it’s not a consuming passion in my life.

Compare that to the avid fishermen. They study the seasons, the spawning seasons, the culinary

delights of each different species, whether they strike at a still bait or moving bait, what artificial bait

works best for what species, whether they’re top feeders or bottom feeders, whether they’re shallow

water fish or deep water fish.

2. Satan uses only artificial bait – but it shines and glitters and attracts our attention like nothing else.

3. Tom Ellsworth: “If Satan worked at temptation like I work at fishing, you’d have nothing to worry

about. But I want you to know that he is an avid fisherman for your soul.”

4. Here’s the point. Temptation always tests whether you love God more than the temptation.

a. When you’re tempted by money, you have to evaluate: Do I love God most or do I love money most

in my life?

b. When I’m tempted by a wrong relationship, you have to evaluate: Do I love that person or do I love

God more in my life?

c. When you’re tempted by comfort, you have to evaluate: Do I love comfort more than I love

Christ?

d. Obedience, choosing to say, “yes” to God, is a matter of love.

--The Bible tells us that Jesus said, “If you love Me, obey My commands”.

**God uses trouble to teach us to trust

**God uses temptation to teach us to obey .

III. GOD USES TRESPASSES TO TEACH US TO FORGIVE

A. What is a trespass?

--If trials are situations designed by God to draw us closer to Him and temptations are situations

designed by the devil to draw us away from God, then trespasses are situations designed by other

people designed to hurt us.

1. There are people in life who want to hurt you intentionally, and that’s why the Bible says in the

Lord’s Prayer that we’re to pray, “Lord, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have

trespassed against us.”

2. It’s one thing to handle trouble and it’s another thing to handle temptation.

--But the most difficult tool of all that God uses in our lives to make us like Christ is this one.

a. Bearing the hurt of other people without retaliation is, without a doubt, the most important and the

most difficult step in becoming like Jesus Christ.

b. Why?

--Because it often involves being misunderstood, being criticized, being judged, and being hurt

verbally, emotionally, or physically.

c. These things are not good things. These are evil things, and God is not the author of evil.

1). God does not cause these things.

--God hates sin.

2). But He didn’t even protect His own Son from these things.

a). Jesus was misunderstood and hurt and judged and abused.

b). What makes you think you’re going to be let off the hook?

3. You see, on the cross Jesus Christ not only carried our sins, He also endured enormous abuse