Untitled Sermon (85)

Triumphing Over Temptation

The boasting of what he has and does (“the pride of life”).

This is what causes us to try to impress people.

Some become workaholics, ignoring family and God as they try to impress people with promotions, possessions, and prominence.

Sherlock Holmes Most of us aren’t really workaholics. Think about it: Have you ever heard of a Thank-God-It’s-Monday Club?

Most Christians believe it is a sign of humility and godliness to suffer silently and to repress their anger when they are hurt or offended.

Repressing your anger or frustration is unwise.

Every repressed emotion gets expressed somewhere.

Some people will eat too much; others may turn to alcohol or drugs; still others may shop or become workaholics in order to work through the frustration of not confronting.

The moment an individual can accept and forgive himself, even a little, is the moment in which he becomes to some degree lovable.

It is an obsession with status and image.

Pride also includes doing things to draw attention to our faith or spiritual activities.

Jesus rejected two powerful temptations by quoting the Bible.

So, the Evil One says, “You believe the Bible; well, let’s see.”

He takes Jesus to the highest point of the temple (Mt 4:5), which was probably the eastern side overlooking the Kidron Valley.

This was the tallest point in the area dropping more than 400 feet (or forty stories) to the floor of the Kidron Valley.

Satan then says to Jesus, “You say you believe the Bible? Prove it! Jump!”, and quotes from Psalm 91:11–12 (Mt 4:6).

What does that reference say God will command His angels to do to protect His children?

Satan quotes this out of context to make it sound like God promises to protect anyone, even those who intentionally defy the laws of nature.

However, that verse only promises protection to those who find themselves in danger because they are doing God’s will.

It doesn’t apply to those who create the crisis.

It is a sin to set up circumstances to test God.

Therefore, quoting Deuteronomy 6:16, what does Jesus say in Matthew 4:7?

Several years ago, the news carried a story of two snake-handling pastors.

To show their faith in God’s Word, they quoted to their congregation the words of Jesus: “They will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all” (Mk 16:18).

Then, they let poisonous snakes bite them, and a few hours later they died.

Why?

Because they were guilty of giving in to the third category of temptation: the boasting of what he has and does, which includes one’s faith.

There are no new temptations because they all fall into one of these three categories.

That’s why 1 Corinthians 10:13a makes what declaration?

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

An attack on our relationship with God: worldliness [2:15–17]

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

The problem of worldliness (15)

Do not love the world: John has told us that if we walk in sin’s darkness and claim to be in fellowship with God, we are lying (

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

Now John points out a specific area of sin that especially threatens our fellowship with God: worldliness, to love the world.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

Do not love the world or the things in the world: The world, in the sense John means it here, is not the global earth.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

Nor is it the mass of humanity, which God Himself loves (

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

Instead it is the community of sinful humanity that is united in rebellion against God.

One of the first examples of this idea of the world in the Bible helps us to understand this point.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

Genesis 11

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

At the tower of Babel, there was an anti-God leader of humanity (whose name was Nimrod).

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

There was organized rebellion against God (in disobeying the command to disperse over the whole earth).

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

There was direct distrust of God’s word and promise (in building what was probably a water-safe tower to protect against a future flood from heaven).

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

The whole story of the tower of Babel also shows us another fundamental fact about the world system.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

The world’s progress, technology, government, and organization can make man better off, but not better.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

Because we like being better off, it is easy to fall in love with the world.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

Finally, the story of the tower of Babel shows us that the world system—as impressive and winning as it appears to be—will never win out over God.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

The Lord defeated the rebellion at the tower of Babel easily.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

The world system will never win out over God.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

Do not love the world: That is, we are not to love either the world’s system or its way of doing things.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

There is a secular, anti-God or ignoring-God way of doing things that characterizes human society, and it is easy to love the world in this sense.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

Notice what the world wants from us: love.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

This love is expressed in time, attention, and expense.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

We are encouraged and persuaded to give our time, attention, and money to the things of this world instead of the things of God.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

If you love the world, there are rewards to be gained.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

You may find a place of prestige, of status, of honor, of comfort.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

The world system knows how to reward its lovers.

At the same time, even at their best the rewards that come from this world last only as long as we live.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

The problem is that though we gain prestige, status, honor, and comfort of this world, we lose the prestige, status, honor, and comfort of heaven.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

Or the things in the world: This isn’t so much a warning against a love for the beauty of the world God created (though we must always love the Creator instead of the creation).

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

Instead, it is more of a warning against loving the material things which characterize the world system.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

The world buys our love with the great things it has to give us.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

Cars, homes, gadgets, and the status that goes with all of them, can really make our hearts at home in the world.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him: Simply, love for the world is incompatible with love for the Father.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

Therefore if one claims to love God and yet loves the world, there is something wrong with his claim to love God.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

Through the centuries, Christians have dealt with the magnetic pull of the world in different ways.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

At one time it was thought that if you were a really committed Christian and really wanted to love God instead of the world, you would leave human society and live as a monk or a nun out in a desolate monastery.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

This approach, and other approaches that seek to take us out of the world, have two problems.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

The first problem is that we bring the world with us into our monastery.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

The other problem is that Jesus intended us to be in the world but not of the world.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

We see this in His prayer for us in

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

The character of the world (16)

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

For all that is in the world: The character of the world expresses itself through the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

These lusts seek to draw our own flesh away into sin and worldliness.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

The idea behind the pride of life is someone who lives for superiority over others, mostly by impressing others through outward appearances—even if by deception.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

To get an idea of how the world works, think of the advertising commercials you most commonly remember.

1 John C. An Attack on Our Relationship with God: Worldliness (2:15–17)

They probably make a powerful appeal to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or to the pride of life.

Many successful ads appeal to all three.