May 27, 2001

May 18, 2003

Service Theme – "Our God is Peace"

Galatians 5:16-26

Temptation and Peace

Introduction

Illustration – Oswald Chambers once said, It is the most natural thing in the world to be scared, and the clearest evidence that God's grace is at work in our hearts is when we do not get into panics….The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God you fear everything else (as cited on PreachingToday.com). Power comes from focusing on God, and the lack of focusing on God is what gets us into trouble.
That’s why we’re continuing our series on temptation and the fruit of the Spirit, using the cycle of sin outlined in this James passage by Bill Perkins to see how we can avoid seeking counterfeit peace. We need to understand what true spiritual peace is if we're going to defeat the power of sin in our lives. So let’s first read Galatians 5:16-26 and see the contrast between counterfeit peace and true spiritual peace.

Scripture Passage

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. NEW SLIDE [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. NEW SLIDE [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.

What is real, true spiritual peace? What does that look like? How can we describe it? Does it depend merely on circumstances, or is there something more to it? I did a word study on peace and its Greek root and found some interesting passages.

(NEW SLIDE) Psalm 4:8 says I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety. True spiritual peace comes from God.

Psalm 34:14 says Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. True spiritual peace requires turning from sin and doing God’s will.

(NEW SLIDE) Psalm 119:165 says Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble. True spiritual peace requires that we love and obey God’s commands.

Proverbs 14:30 says A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones. True spiritual peace is life giving.

(NEW SLIDE) Isaiah 26:3 says You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. True spiritual peace depends on focusing our minds on God.

Isaiah 32:17 says The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever. True spiritual peace is the result of righteousness.

(NEW SLIDE) Romans 12:18 says If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. True spiritual peace is a choice.

Romans 14:19 says Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. True spiritual peace requires effort on our part.

(NEW SLIDE) 1 Corinthians 14:33 says For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. True spiritual peace is a character trait of God.

Philippians 4:7 says And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. True spiritual peace protects us from evil influence.

Let me share some definitions of what true spiritual peace is.

(NEW SLIDE) Strong’s Lexicon says peace is "the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly lot, of whatsoever sort that is"

Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament (Logos): "out of danger"; "rest"; "order"; "welfare"

Greek English Lexicon based on Semitic Languages (Logos): "a set of favorable circumstances involving peace and tranquility"; "to be without trouble"; "to have no worries"; "to sit down in one’s heart"

The New Bible Dictionary (Logos): Old Testament word shalom means "completeness," "soundness," "well-being"

Theological Dictionary of the NT: "the absence of hostile feelings": "shalom nowhere denotes specifically an attitude of inward peace. shalom always finds external manifestation, and in its most common use it is a social rather than an individual term"; "well-being as distinct from every form of evil, as in salutations, or in relation to the work of physicians"; "the good that comes from God either in this age or in the age of salvation...Peace in this sense is all that is good. It is the peace of those who love the law"; "a state of reconciliation with God"; "a positive state inseparably connected with joy and faith"

(NEW SLIDE) The bottom line is that true spiritual peace is not me-dependent, it is God-dependent. It comes from following and focusing on and obeying God throughout our daily walk with Him. If we want God’s peace to fill our hearts, obedience and trust are not optional – we must have them. No exceptions. And when we have true spiritual peace, we have become more Christ-like! So how do we fight counterfeit peace? We’ve got to recognize how we are tempted to seek after it.

The Cycle of Sin

(NEW SLIDE) Preoccupation/Enticement – as we’ve seen over the past couple of weeks, this is the only stage where we can stop ourselves from sinning. But our world offers so many ways of finding counterfeit peace. Drugs, alcohol, sex, cars, trucks, career changes, toys, power plays in our relationships – we use all these things to medicate ourselves into false peace. Life is hard and filled with too many uncertainties, so if there is one area we can grab control of, we are tempted to do it. We begin to think about manipulating people to do things our way so we can have peace. We begin to think about using drugs or booze or sex to try to make ourselves feel peaceful. We buy a new truck or a new gun or a new game or anything else we like to try to make ourselves feel peaceful. And we begin to obsess about these things. Then we’re in trouble.

(NEW SLIDE) Ritualization/Conception – we’re hooked here, folks, because we begin setting the sin process in motion. We don’t want to overtly manipulate people – after all, that would be wrong. So we begin to make all other options seem bad, which is our ritual for setting people up to be manipulated. Or we go out just for a drive, and wherever we end up, we end up. We get the latest and best catalogs to look for stuff, or we just happen to go out to the store or showroom. Those are the rituals we use to justify our sin. And when we being ritualizing, we’re dead meat.

(NEW SLIDE) Acting Out/Birth – guess what? The unthinkable is what we wind up doing. We manipulate people and get exactly what we want. We go on our little drive and wind up at the liquor store, or the drug dealer, or the porn shop, or worse. We call the 800 number and order our new toy, and while we’re at the showroom we just happen to buy something. And we’ve just sinned, because we’ve depended on something other than God to meet our needs. We’re dead.

(NEW SLIDE) Shame/Death –we have to face the pain of shame because we’ve just committed spiritual suicide. There are only two ways of dealing with coming back to life and 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. Medicating ourselves only locks us into that vicious cycle of sin that, by ourselves, we are helpless to get out of it. But there is help and hope in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Help and Hope

God has graciously given us a way 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.

(NEW SLIDE) 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 Bill Perkins suggests: "Thank you, Lord, for saving me from this sin that I’ve tried to medicate my pain with (and list it specifically). 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." And we’ve got to make prayer a regular habit in our lives – not a quickie one we toss up as we’re walking out the door, but committed, persistent daily prayer. Claim the victory in prayer and continue in prayer.

(NEW SLIDE) And even as we’re praying that prayer, we’ve got to 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 God’s Word. A powerful key once again 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! You’ve got to be kidding!" 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 joy? (NEW SLIDE) How about John 14:27 from the New Living? "I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give isn’t like the peace the world gives. So don’t be troubled or afraid." Memorize this verse to help you to overcome the temptation to indulge in counterfeit peace. And you’ll be giving the Holy Spirit a powerful tool to build true spiritual peace 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.

(NEW SLIDE) Accountability. 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. We talked about this last week, but we need to bring it up again. Is there anyone in your life who you have given permission to ask you about how you spend your time and your money, and about how your relationships are going? We simply do not have the strength to resist temptation without someone keeping us accountable. Accountability helps keep our hearts and lives centered and focused on God as the true source of our peace. We need accountability if we’re going to break the sin cycle in our hearts and lives.

C. S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, wrote, A car is made to run on petrol [gasoline], and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on himself. He himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing (as cited on PreachingToday.com). We’ve got to defeat the cycle of sin in our lives that keeps us from true spiritual peace. And we’ve got to do it by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion

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.
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 have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and you want to begin to appropriate His power to break the cycle of counterfeit peace 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 John 14:27 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 peace 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!
Now if you’ve committed yourself to defeating the cycle of sin in your life with the help of God, please come forward, take the bread and juice of communion, and kneel at the altars. Spend some time with God in prayer making your commitment, and when the time is right, partake of them. If you’ve made that commitment, come forward now.

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws