Principles of Temptation
James 1:12-15 “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. 15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death”
ii. There is a quote that says, “Lead me not into temptation, I can find the way myself.”
iii. Look at James 1:12- “Blessed is a man who perseveres under temptation; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him”
1. Greek word (peirasmon): “to try or test one's faith, virtue, character, by enticement to sin”
2. While we look at the word temptation and shudder…we should look at the positive words of this verse: Blessed! Perseveres! Approved! Receive a Crown of Life!
3. We will learn how God uses Temptation to lead us to a crown of life!
What is Temptation?
Temptation is an urge to violate a boundary in your life
i. Temptation itself is not sin.
ii. It is the process of allurement or enticement to do something you know you should not do.
iii. James 1:14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.”
This passage tells us just how temptation occurs.
i. Temptation is the allurement toward sin. It is the bait.
ii. The words “carried away and enticed” are hunting and fishing metaphors.
iii. As game is lured forth – drawn away from its cover, so we are lured from the safety of self-restraint.
iv. Temptation is the bait Satan uses to entice (deleozo) us – in fact this was the Greek word for bait – and its root is dolos which means to deceive or use guile.
1. It’s suggestive of a fish – swimming on a straight course – and then drawn off toward something that appears attractive, only to discover that the bait has a deadly hook in it.
2. What do we do when we want to catch a fish or a fox? We use a bait that will appeal to a basic need or desire within the creature ---something attractive and appealing, something appetizing, something deceptive – which appears to bring satisfaction, but really brings bondage and death.
3. And so it is with temptation.
a. It is always attractive, appealing, promising gratification … always appearing to bring satisfaction.
b. But it’s only an appearance, an illusion … the promise never materializes, the satisfaction never lasts.
v. The second element is where the enticement comes from. You will notice that it says “by his own lust.”
1. This means that the source of temptation is not outside ourselves, but from within ourselves.
You may recall our definition of sin…”when we settle for less than God’s best for ourselves.”
i. At the root of all sin is who is in charge…who is the authority in your life?
ii. If you are living like you are the final authority or you have the final say…then the bible says you are “living in sin,” because you are living like you are your own god.
1. This person is one we would call a non-Christian, because they reject the authority of Jesus Christ in their lives.
2. The believe that in some way, they have what it takes, apart from God, to have a meaningful life, here and in eternity.
iii. For a Christian, God is the final authority in their life.
1. For a Christian, sin consists of individual acts and decisions where we choose less than God’s best for our lives.
2. In fact, most of our choices that violate and reject God’s love and His best for us come about as a result of us taking a shortcut.
a. We decide to meet our own needs.
b. We don’t want to wait until we are married to be intimate.
c. We don’t want to wait until we have the money or let God provide…so we buy it on credit.
d. We take the shortcut to meeting a need that God, in His love in for us, has a perfect way to meet.
iv. Temptation consists of looking for shortcuts to meet our needs…and sin consists of taking the shortcuts.
1. Temptation is really a battle of loves –what do we love the most?
a. Christ – or our own desires … Jesus or self … that, which pleases God or that which appeals to our lower nature?
b. It seems to be an easy choice, but rationalization complicates it.
c. The choice is never clear-cut, because we can always think of reasons to act contrary to the right choice.
2. Franklin Joes said, “What make resisting temptation difficult for most people is that they don’t want to discourage it completely.”
3. I recently read about a fellow working at a retail store that was having repeated problems with a mouse. The only food products in the store were all types of snacks: candy bars, potato chips, etc. The only item that the mouse would eat would be Nestle Crunch Bars. Each morning they would find one Crunch Bar partially consumed. They set a mousetrap and baited it with the Nestle Crunch Bar, then turned off the lights of the store and closed and locked the front door, but did not leave. Within three or four minutes they heard the snap of the mousetrap. The mouse was defeated by its number one love in life.
Why does God allow Temptation?
It develops character (or destroys it) depending upon how we deal with it.
i. Explain the power of wind on plants -
1. Just as roots and plants grow stronger in a plant…(hardening off plants) in a wind (mine almost died when I put them out and a wind-storm kicked up before they hardened off), every time you stand up against temptation, the character of Christ is more deeply produced in you.
2. Describe the story of the Biosphere and the acacia trees that drooped and broke.
3. This phenomena describes the necessity for resistance in our lives.
a. There are a host of examples.
b. Your muscles only grow as strong as the resistance they face. An astronaut on the International Space Station will barely be able to stand up when he returns to earth because of the lack of gravitational resistance.
c. If you cut away the cocoon for an emerging butterfly instead of allowing it to fight and work at freeing itself, then the butterfly will never be able to fly. Its wings will be too fragile and undeveloped because there was a shortcut to its development.
ii. Perhaps you have never noticed that the more a piece of metal is worked, the more it is worth. In our passage, it talks about the testing of a person through temptation, to find them “approved.”
1. This is a process of working the metal of one’s life.
2. A bar of iron is worth $2.50; when it is beaten into a horseshoe, it is worth $5.00. If you make it into a package of sewing needles, it is worth $175; If you make it into springs for watches, it is worth $125,000. What a massive trial the metal has to go through, and the more it is worked and tested and manipulated, passed through heat, beaten, pounded and polished…the more it is worth
iii. As we grow in spiritual maturity, temptations can be either stepping stones or stumbling blocks in our lives.
1. It isn’t just a choice to do the wrong thing, it is also a choice to do the right thing.
2. Temptation presents us with a choice.
3. God develops the fruit of the Spirit in your life by allowing you to experience temptations and opportunities to express the opposite quality of that fruit.
a. For example: God teaches us to love by putting unlovable people in our path. (You get to choose to love them or not to love them)
b. He teaches us joy in the midst of sorrow.
c. Peace during chaos, patience during times of trial.
d. Integrity is built by overcoming temptations to be dishonest.
e. Endurance grows as we choose to resist the desire to “give up.”
4. All of these things are part of the principle of resistance.
5. As one writer says, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
It reveals our hearts to US.
i. Israel in the desert during the Exodus…they thought they were pretty good stuff. They kept telling Moses and God that they would follow Him. So God let them get hungry and thirsty. Very basic temptations…and what did they do? They grumbled and complained and showed that their words (of consecration) were hollow and shallow.
ii. I cannot tell you how many Christians who have told me, “I love God so much.” I generally say to them, “I am so glad!” but deep inside, I want to say, “have you had your heart revealed to you lately…you might be surprised at what you might love more than God.”
iii. God does not test us to make us sin, but He allows us to experience temptation so that our heart might be made known to us.
When everything is going well in your life, you really don’t know how much you need Jesus. You don’t realize just how vulnerable and weak you really are.
i. Is a person a thief before they have ever stolen something?
ii. Quite possibly, if they have been looking at the item and deciding how and when to steal it. The act of contemplation is the act of “toying with temptation.”
1. Once you toy with it you have “entertained the thought.”
2. The action reveals the heart.
3. How we react to temptation will reveal what we are like inside.
Temptations keep us dependent upon God
i. I think of Simon Peter telling Jesus that he would never leave Jesus, but that he would always be at his side. Jesus tells him that he is going to be “shaken” by Satan. And sure enough, when the rubber hits the road and he comes face to face with the temptation, he cuts and runs.
1. He had his heart revealed to himself.
2. The good thing about this was that it produced a broken man…which is the only kind of person God uses.
3. If you think you got it together…God really can’t use you with His power, because you will be working in your own power.
a. As long as you are pushing the car, God isn’t going to start it.
4. He will wait until you get tired and give up.
Dealing with Temptation.
Steps from Temptation to Sin
i. I found a writer that described what happened to Eve in the garden when she was tempted: She Listened, She was Lured, She was Lied to, She Looked, She Lusted, and She Lost the battle.
1. Temptation follows a predictable course. But it must be dealt with long before it reaches our heart.
ii. Another word list that describes Temptation’s path is: Desire, Doubt, Deception, Disobedience, Death (as a result of sin)
Strategies for overcoming temptation.
i. You will not overcome temptation by throwing stones at pillars in Saudi Arabia. You won’t disarm the power of lust and the temptation to it by requiring every woman you know to wear a burqa, so her skin is completely concealed. Temptation comes from within and is attached to your heart.
ii. Use the power of focus:
1. Did you ever watch a television commercial on food and find yourself getting a snack?
2. The more you think about something, the power you give it over you.
3. We move toward whatever we focus on.
a. Drivers ed tells people not to look at the lights of oncoming cars, because you will drive toward them.
b. Ski instructors tell you to look a few yards ahead, where you want to go, and your skis will follow your eyes.
c. That is why saying, “I must stop smoking” or “I must stop eating” is a lost strategy. It keeps you focused upon what you don’t want.
4. Because temptation begins by capturing our attention and arousing our emotions, we must work at the core level…where the thought originates and what desire it activates in us.
5. Ignoring a temptation is the best tool for overcoming temptation.
a. Turn off the tv, walk away from gossip.
b. If you don’t’ want to be stung, don’t go near the bees.
c. Do whatever you have to get your attention on something else.
6. Hebrews 3:1 tells us to “Fix our eyes upon Jesus.”
a. That means, fix your focus upon Jesus.
b. Proverbs 4:23 tells us to “be careful how you think, your life is shaped by your thoughts.”
c. If you are tempted to gossip or to speak badly about another person…change the subject!
i. Talk about Jesus instead of the person you are tempted to talk about.
iii. Consider yourself dead.
1. I believe that this is part of why we are reminded of our position in Christ… “You have been crucified with Christ, you no longer live but Christ lives in you.”
a. Temptation’s power is defeated because we no longer live.
b. Can you tempt a dead man?
c. “Consider yourself dead to sin,” the bible says.
d. We don’t focus upon the performance issue of not sinning but instead, focus upon Christ.
e. If we are preoccupied with “not doing something” then we are performance oriented.
i. Our position with Christ is not determined by performance.
ii. It is determined by what Christ did, not by what you and I do.
f. Our practice is determined by our position; that is, what God says about us.
2. In “Band of Brothers” a cowardly soldier is told by another, “you will never be an effective soldier until you realize you are already dead.”
a. That is what Jesus says to us. We are dead to this world and its life. We will not be effective as Christians if we are clinging to something here. Until we live like dead people to this world and its desires, we will succumb to temptation.
iv. Use your sword.
1. The Word of God is a two edged sword. It is part of our armor as Christians.
a. So when Temptation comes and tries to lure us to act in a way that is contrary to God’s way, we should first remind ourselves of what God says about us.
i. Hebrews 4:15 “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.”
b. Jesus quoted scripture every time he was tempted.
i. He didn’t even engage the devil in conversation. Don’t argue with Satan. You will lose.
ii. Jesus simply spoke said what God said.
iii. But if you don’t have bible memorized it is like an empty gun, or a gun without bullets
c. Resist the devil and he will flee from you, (James 4:7) (you resist with the truth)
2. It seems that for the 3rd week now, as we have been talking about transformation, we come back to the battle for our mind.
a. Over and over again, we find that the battle for our practice and our actions occurs in our thoughts.
b. 2 Cor 10:5, “We take every thought captive and bring it into obedience to Christ.”
c. The word of God is alive and active, sharper than a two edged sword. It is your tool to overcoming temptation.
v. Recognize the patterns of Temptation.
1. If you know there is a pothole in a road, and you know you cannot drive down the road without hitting it, why do you keep taking that same road?
a. If you know your arena’s of weakness…just as an alcoholic knows he can never touch another drink…you stay out of bars!
b. If you become aware of when you are most vulnerable…tired, lonely, bored, stressed, after a spiritual high or low…identify these situations and make changes in your life so that you can avoid that road.
vi. Develop accountability.
1. You were not designed to live the Christian life alone.
a. Find at least one other Christian you can trust and confide in.
b. Make a covenant to meet and discuss your lives frankly and openly.
c. Some sin is to big, or too ingrained, or too habitual to deal with on your own.
2. The bible says, “Confess your sins to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”
a. Many of us wont do that because we don’t want to appear weak.
b. Some of us are afraid that if we admit sin in our lives that we will be kicked out of a church.
i. The bible only prescribes that kind of action for someone who refuses to deal with sin in their life.
ii. It never condemns people for their struggles or for their attempts to right with God.
iii. If a person makes a mistake, or makes a series of mistakes, or falls into a pattern of sin, we need to restore them to Christ.
iv. Shooting our wounded will never make the army of Christ strong.
3. Accountability explains the power of light in disarming the power of temptation in our lives.
a. If you want to overcome sin and temptation.
i. Don’t repress it, confess it.
ii. Don’t conceal it, reveal it.
iii. Hiding it only intensifies it.
b. Light is painful at first when you have been in darkness very long. It is frightening to be exposed to light. John 3:19-21 says, “"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."
i. If you hide it, it will control you. If you expose it, you conquer it.
ii. Every AA member will tell you this!