Faith Over Flesh | Part 3

Introduction

We are wrapping up our series, Faith Over Flesh tonight.

My goal whenever I was preparing where we were going to go coming to of the Holy Spirit series was to face the fact that the enemy is coming for you and I.

We know that the enemy has an agenda counter to what God wants to do. That same enemy is going to do anything and everything in his power to stop you from living by God’s will.

Body

The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy (JOHN 10:10). Not one or the other, but he wants to accomplish, complete all three.

Satan tries to accomplish those three things by: lust, greed, pornography, gossip, sexual immorality, lying, stealing, bullying, the list is endless.

Genesis 3:1 NIV

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

Satan is crafty. That word crafty used in Genesis 3 means ‘shrewd’ or ‘sensible’. If you insert those two word meanings into Genesis 3 it would read:

“Now the serpent was more evil, able to be seen or noticed through the senses, than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made…”

Temptation will always pulls on one or more than one of our senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch.

When you feel that initial temptation setting on, I can almost guarantee that it’s being put before you through the senses.

Matthew 6:22–23 NIV

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

I would say that out of all of the senses, sight is the one where temptation begins.

If we look back at to…

Genesis 3:6 NIV

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

This is the first time that there is sin in the Bible. Before this moment in time, Adam and Eve’s only responsibility/role was to be gardeners.

Like I don’t know about you, but I think that I could have done that for the rest of my life. Hangout with God in the garden, in perfection picking a few apples here and there. Maybe feed some animals or something.

Sounds easy, right? No sin, just God and you big chilling, but that was not the case.

I believe that God didn’t create sin, but I do believe that He allowed the serpent [Satan] to temp Eve who then tempted Adam, so that we would have the choice to choose God.

Think about it…

Is love not a choice?

[CAPTURE ANNSLEY AGAINST HER WILL]

That wouldn’t be true love. She would be ‘loving’ me, but it would only be out of fear of what I would do if she wasn’t loving me.

How many times do we live like that with God?

We say that we ‘love’ Him with our mouths and we may do things that please Him, all the while doing these things out of fear dying only to spend eternity apart from Him.

That’s not the type of loving relationship that God has called us into.

Choosing our faith over our flesh is birthed out of the overflow of what God has done in our life.

If He gets our fully surrendered heart, He will get our life.

“Religion tells us to obey a system with outward actions, but the motivation is really fear. But faith, starts on the inside and works its way out.” - Lee M. Cummings

Choosing our faith over our flesh comes from the overflow of our heart. Living in the “I do _____ because I’m supposed to” will always lead you to dissatisfaction on the inside.

The enemy wants you to think that life will be better living by YOUR desires rather than by GOD’S desires.

Jesus is our pattern in choosing our faith over our flesh. He lived a perfect life of obedience unto the Father through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

Closing

As we wrap up tonight and this series, my prayer is that you would make it a daily habit to choose God’s way over your own way.

Be real with your self and ask yourself, does my life align with what I profess. Am I living for my faith or am I only giving God lip service.

Prayer