May 4, 2003

Service Theme – "Our God is Love"

Galatians 5:16-26

Temptation and Love

1. Introduction

1. Illustration – Scott Wenig tells this story: In New York City, there are eight million cats and eleven million dogs. New York City is basically just concrete and steel, so when you have a pet in New York City and it dies, you can't just go out in the back yard and bury it. The city authorities decided that for $50 they would dispose of your deceased pet for you. One lady was enterprising. She thought, I can render a service to people in the city and save them money. She placed an ad in the newspaper that said, "When your pet dies, I will come and take care of the carcass for you for $25." This lady would go to the local Salvation Army and buy an old suitcase for two dollars. Then when someone would call about his or her pet, she would go to the home and put the deceased pet in the suitcase. She would then take a ride on the subway, where there are thieves. She would set the suitcase down, and she would act like she wasn't watching. A thief would come by and steal her suitcase. She'd look up and say, "Wait. Stop. Thief." My guess is the people who stole those suitcases got a real surprise when they got home. A lot of us are like those New York thieves. We're chasing after happiness, and we grab what we think will give us happiness; however, when we get it, it doesn't quite deliver. That story rings very true for us.
2. Context – James 1:13-15 says, When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; ¹⁴ but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. ¹⁵ Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Today we’re starting a new series on temptation and the fruit of the Spirit. Each week we’ll look at the cycle of sin outlined in this James passage by Bill Perkins, and how we can avoid seeking counterfeit fruit. So let’s first read Galatians 5:16-26 and see the contrast between counterfeit and true spiritual fruit.

1. Scripture Passage

1. Galatians 5:16-26 (from the New Living) - So I advise you to live according to your new life in the Holy Spirit. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. [17] The old sinful nature loves to do evil, which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict. [18] But when you are directed by the Holy Spirit, you are no longer subject to the law. [19] When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your lives will produce these evil results: sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, [20] idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, divisions, the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group, [21] envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other kinds of sin. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. [22] But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, and self-control. Here there is no conflict with the law. [24] Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. [25] If we are living now by the Holy Spirit, let us follow the Holy Spirit's leading in every part of our lives. [26] Let us not become conceited, or irritate one another, or be jealous of one another.
2. Notice that the nasty stuff in this passage - the sexual immorality, idolatry, outbursts of anger, lust, self-centeredness, and all the rest – isn’t stuff that we’d just walk out the door of this church and jump into. But somehow we find ourselves in trouble almost before we realize what’s going on. What started out as a thought becomes an incredibly depressing sin, and we don’t know what to do. So what do we do about it? First, let’s recognize what real, true spiritual love is, then we’ll see how counterfeit love fits into the cycle of sin.
3. I’ve mentioned this before, but when love is used in context of either the fruit of the spirit or of Jesus or of believers relating to each other, the word agape’ is always used. Agape’ isn’t mushy, touchy-feely sympathetic love. Agape’ isn’t sexual love. Agape’ isn’t love that is self-serving. Agape’ isn’t friendship love. Agape’ is self-sacrificing love, love that requires action, love that costs us. But that’s the kind of love that Jesus has for us and that He demonstrated when He died on the cross. And that’s the kind of love that Paul’s talking about when he includes it in his list of the fruit of the Spirit. Or, as the New Living puts it, the kind of fruit the Holy Spirit produces in our lives when we are under His control.

1. The Cycle of Sin

1. If self-sacrificing love is a part of the fruit of the Spirit, and if we want that fruit because we love and follow and serve Jesus, how do we get sidetracked? How do we get so far off course? How do we get so far into the wrong kinds of love? Part of the answer is the war that is fought within us between the Holy Spirit and the sinful nature. God can win that one, but it takes our cooperation. Which brings us to the other part – recognizing how the devil gets us off track and separated from sin by perverting our God-given desires and enticing us to follow them.
2. Preoccupation/Enticement – this is the first step. We see or hear or read something that gets us thinking. This is where we’re lured into thinking about sin just like a big bass is drawn to his destruction by the lure dangling from the fishing line. God knows that pure agape’ love is what we were created to give and receive, and He knows that this is what we truly want and need. But Satan dangles the lure of unChristlike love in front of us. Maybe we meet someone of the opposite sex and say, "A friendship with them, even a close one, isn’t going to hurt anything." Maybe we see something on TV that makes our current relationships seem dull and boring, and we begin to think about that show and dwell on it. Maybe we see a questionable photo on a magazine cover and think, "One little look isn’t going to hurt." Maybe we grew up in a home where love wasn’t shown much, and we feel like we have the right to fill that need for love no matter what. Maybe our spouse doesn’t give us the love we feel we deserve. Whatever the false love we see or hear or feel, we begin to dwell on it. We become preoccupied with it. And suddenly what seemed totally out of the question, an impossibility, becomes very real and inviting. Our self-centered preoccupation with medicating our hurt with false love is just about to get us into serious trouble. You see, if we don’t stop the temptation in this phase, we’re dead meat – we will sin. So we’ve got to stop it here and now.
3. I was watching a show the other night where they were talking about a young man who had been brutally murdered. Come to find out it was the man’s closest friends. You see, Bob had a history of being cruel and inflicting pain on others, and those friends were often the recipients. The group of friends also had violent histories. They gathered together and began talking about how they were going to stop Bob from hurting them again. One thing led to another, and before they knew it, as one of them testified, they went from talking about how to scare Bob into talking about how to kill him. And they hatched a scheme, made the right preparations, and killed him brutally and mercilessly. What had seemed like an impossibility for young people who had been raised in good, middle-class homes became a reality. That’s the danger of preoccupation or allowing in your mind to become enticed by the possibility of sinning. False love ain’t God’s love by a long shot! But if we allow ourselves to become preoccupied, this is what comes next.
4. Ritualization/Conception – If we’ve allowed the possibility of filling our need for love through sin to take root, the next action will be ritualizing, which is where the actual sin is conceived. We set ourselves up with rituals which aren’t actually sin, but which will lead to sin. Let’s say there is a co-worker you are attracted to, and your spouse hasn’t been giving you what you need by your estimation. But you can’t just proposition that person – that would be blatantly wrong sin. But taking them out to lunch isn’t necessarily sin, and mentioning how unhappy you are in your relationships isn’t really that bad, but if you keep taking them out to lunch and keep running down those who love you, sin will happen. The lunch and the complaining are a ritual that will lead to sin. Kind of like approaching sin through the back door. It’s not blatant, so it’s not sin – at least that’s what we think. Or maybe you are intrigued by an ad on TV for a show that's a bit racy. But turning to that channel would be sin, so you decide to just channel surf with the remote to see what’s on. That is a ritual that will just about guarantee you will wind up on that channel. Or maybe reading certain kinds of books gives you a thrill that is missing from your current relationships, but you know they are just a means of fulfilling your need for love. So just looking over the books on the shelf can’t hurt anything – except that doing so is a ritual that will end up with you picking up those books you shouldn’t be reading. Rituals are our means of justifying sin, even if we don’t realize they are. Rituals conceive sin in our heart because they bring it to life within us. Whether or not we’ll admit it, we’ve already sinned in our hearts by acting on those temptations for false love. All that’s left is acting out.
5. Acting Out/Birth – this stage is where we do the act that is blatant sin. Our lunches with a member of the opposite sex and complaining about our spouse wind up in a motel room or the back seat of the car. The channel surfing ends up in watching pornography and lusting after those involved. The "romantic" book gets read, and we judge our spouse and treat them poorly because they don’t measure up to those totally unrealistic standards. The Bible tells us that sin is death. So when we act out, a part of us dies spiritually. When we act out, we’re trying desperately to medicate a hurting in our hearts that we won’t allow God to heal. Why? Sin is so much more alluring. As Bill Perkins puts it in his book When Good Men Are Tempted, Satan adds a supernatural charm to sin to give it a luster we’re greedy for. But no matter how it looks, sin kills.
6. Shame/Death – this is where we realize that we have sinned, that we’ve just killed something good spiritually inside of us. So we have to face the pain of shame. There are only two ways of dealing with shame: bringing it before the cross of Jesus by confessing our sin and asking for forgiveness and turning our backs on that sin; or to medicate the pain of the sin even further by sinning again. Our lives become a vicious cycle of sin that we feel helpless to get out of. And by ourselves we are helpless to get out of it. But there is help and hope.
7. Illustration -

1. Help and Hope

1. God has graciously given us an out to defeat sin in our lives. It’s called the power of the Holy Spirit. We can start defeating it the second we begin to be tempted, and that’s good because the enticement stage is the only place we can defeat sin. Here is what we must do.
2. First, we must pray a prayer thanking Jesus for the victory He is giving us. Doesn’t that sound a little bit backwards though? Shouldn’t we actually be winning before we pray that? There is a simple biblical truth at work here: Jesus died and rose again to break the power of sin and Satan over our lives. Let me say it again: Jesus died and rose again to break the power of sin and Satan over our lives. Jesus already won the victory. All we have to do is appropriate its power. We begin by praying a prayer like this, as Perkins suggests: "Thank you, Lord, for saving me from that. Right now I’m looking to Jesus and trusting Him to live His life through me. I’m now trusting Him to use His Word to purify my mind."
3. That prayer brings us to the second thing we must do, even as we’re praying that prayer: focus our minds on what we should focus on, not what we shouldn’t. The more we focus on not thinking about temptation, the more we’ll think about it. So we have to focus on thinking about something else: God’s Word. In Psalm 119:11 the author writes, I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. A powerful key to defeating sin is memorizing Scripture so that the Holy Spirit can bring it right to mind when we need it the most. I know that some of you are thinking what I used to think: "I can’t memorize Scripture! I have a mind like a Teflon-coated steel sieve!" You know what? Scripture memory is hard work, but I’ve found I can do it if I work hard at it. You can, too. So what Scripture do we use to fight the temptation to indulge in counterfeit love? How about 1 Corinthians 13:4-7? Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Memorize this passage and you will have a powerful tool to help overcome temptation to indulge in counterfeit love. And you will give the Spirit a powerful tool to build true spiritual love into your heart and life. We’ve got to pray, thanking Jesus for the victory He died to give us. We’ve got to memorize Scripture, giving us the very tool Jesus used to defeat Satan when He was tempted in the wilderness. But there’s one more thing.
4. Anybody remember what I said I hated in my message two weeks ago? Accountability. As those of us who meet every Wednesday morning have discovered, when you have to look other Christians in the eye and tell them the truth, it really helps keep you from giving in to temptation. Romans 14:12 says, So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. That should be enough to keep us on the straight and narrow, but in reality we need help that has flesh and bones in our lives on a consistent basis. Paul, in Ephesians 6:21-22, kept himself accountable to that church: Tychicus, the dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will tell you everything, so that you also may know how I am and what I am doing. ²² I am sending him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage you. He sent a friend on a very long journey to keep the church informed about what he was up to. We must hold each other accountable in true spiritual love if we want to defeat temptation.
5. You see, the sin cycle is powerfully addictive and tough to break. The only way to break this cycle is through prayer, the Word and accountability. Prayer alone isn’t enough. God’s Word alone isn’t enough. Accountability alone isn’t enough. Sadly, each one of these by themselves can be perverted. There must be a balance if we want to give the Holy Spirit the freedom to grow the fruit of agape’ love in our hearts and lives. With God’s help, we can break that cycle of sin. We can leave counterfeit love behind. We can learn to love with God’s love. And that is good news!

1. Conclusion

1. Please bow your heads and close your eyes. Where are you at in the cycle of sin? Have you been effectively defeating it at the first stage, not allowing yourself to become preoccupied with temptation, praying and focusing on God’s Word in your heart and making yourself accountable to fellow Christians? Or has the sin cycle been getting the best of you? If you are struggling with sin, remember what 1 John 1:9 says: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Right now we’re going spend a few minutes checking our own hearts and allowing God the Holy Spirit to show us any areas where we’re struggling with sin. (PLAY TRACK FIVE OF BEYOND BELIEF)
2. What has God been saying to your heart? If you want to begin the process of defeating the cycle of sin in your heart and life, now’s the time to start. First, you must have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, otherwise the Holy Spirit has no power in your heart. If you don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and you want to start one right now, pray right now and repeat after me: "Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner and need Your forgiveness. I believe that You died for my sins. I want to turn from my sins. I now invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as Lord and Savior. Amen." If you prayed that prayer, we welcome you into the Kingdom of God. And be sure to tell somebody about it before you leave today. Now, with heads still bowed and eyes still closed, if you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and you want to begin to appropriate His power to break the cycle of counterfeit love or any other sin in your heart and life, pray right now and repeat after me. "Thank you, Lord, for saving me from that. Right now I’m looking to Jesus and trusting Him to live His life through me. I’m now trusting Him to use His Word to purify my mind. Amen." If you prayed that prayer, I challenge you to do two things. First, start working on memorizing 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 today, not tomorrow, not sometime this week, but today. Second, find someone who will lovingly but not permissively hold you accountable, and find them today. Confess your counterfeit love and the rituals you practice. Then meet with them weekly if at all possible, confess to each other, strengthen and encourage each other. But get started today, or sin will win! Let’s all pray together.