Escaping Temptation
Practical Church (1 Corinthians) • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Announcements
Good morning. Welcome to Southern Hills Baptist Church. Thank you for joining us today.
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If you are a guest with us, know that this is our weekly Family Worship service. Our children will remain with us for the entire service. We do have a nursery available for children under 4 just down the hall if you would like to use it.
Please stand as I read our Call to Worship.
Call To Worship
To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
Behold, as the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maidservant
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
till he has mercy upon us.
Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Our soul has had more than enough
of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud.
Opening Hymn
Scripture & Prayer: Pastor Atreju Romans 8:31-39
Song #1
VBS Presentation
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Beth Lamb gift & volunteer recognition
Offering & Prayer
Song #2 (Mighty Name of Jesus)
Lord’s Supper
Please be seated.
(beat)
Why is the name of Jesus mighty? What about it causes our enemies to tremble and flee?
In the Old Testament, the ancient writers speak of God’s power and might by saying that He has a “strong hand” or “powerful arm.” “In Deuteronomy the outstretched arm of God appears repeatedly as an image of God’s power to redeem Israel from slavery in Egypt.” In this, God uses the might of His outstretched arm to both defend His children and to defeat His enemies.
In the Exodus, the might of God’s outstretched arm is on display as He proves His power over the gods of Egypt. But that might is also inherently tied to the divine name. He tells Moses to respond with His name when questioned by the people—to say “I AM has sent me to you.”
God continues to use this title for Himself. In Exodus 7:5, He tells Moses that “The Egyptians shall know that I am Yahweh, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.”
The close tie between God’s might and His holy name will continue throughout the biblical story. Jeremiah declares “your name is great in might.” The name of Yahweh is encompassing of His full character—His holiness, His loving loyalty, His creativity, His long-suffering, and His might. That is why the Psalmist writes in Psalm 20 that “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”
It is the name of Yahweh that saves us. And He has the power to save us because He is the Almighty Creator God.
Isaiah would go on to prophesy that God would come to us on earth in the form of a man; that a human called Immanuel—God with us—would be born into the world and bear the divine name. This is who Jesus is. He is the promised Messiah; He is God with us; He is the physical image of God. And because this is who He is, His enemies have no choice but to flee—for they have run up against the Almighty God clothed in flesh.
Just as darkness flees from the light, so the enemies of God’s people flee from the name of Jesus.
We’re going to continue our reading about Jesus from the book of John. Today we will continue in chapter 8:
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” So the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.” Jesus answered, “Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.” They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.
So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” So the Jews said, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
At this time, I am going to have our ushers come forward. If you are a follower of Jesus, in that you have accepted Him as Savior, bowed to Him as King, and been baptized in obedience to His commandment, we invite you to participate with us. In just a moment, we will pass the plates. Please take a piece of bread and a cup and hold it until we take together.
Pass
Instruction from Jesus: Read Mark 14:22-25
And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
Prayer of Blessing on bread and cup
Song #3
Pastoral Prayer (short)
Introduction
If you have your bibles this morning, please turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 10.
In last week’s passage, Paul began transitioning from a conversation about the Corinthian’s proper use of Christian freedom to a conversation about idolatry. And many scholars believe that he does this because he is addressing a specific situation within the church in Corinth. It seems that some believers, knowing that they were now free in Christ, have gone back into pagan temples to fellowship with their old friends who still serve false gods.
These “so-called gods” will be the topic of next week’s message—so be sure to join us for that. But today, we will see that Paul broaches the idea of idolatry.
Last week, he began by comparing the Corinthians to the Israelites in the desert. He was trying to get them to understand that just because someone calls themselves by the name of Christ and claims Christian freedom does not make them a true believer loyal to the King. There were many inside of Israel who were unfaithful to God, who used their newfound freedom from slavery for something other than bringing God glory.
And the misuse and abuse of Christian freedom speaks of a failure to understand what loving loyalty is. That we, as Christians, are called not just to agree with the truth, but that the truth must change us. That, belief in Jesus should move us to action—where we take on His desires as we are molded into His image. For when our hearts are regenerated through belief and repentance and allegiance to Jesus, it won’t matter how much freedom we have because—out of our gratefulness—we will be willing to give it all away for the expansion of the gospel and the glory of the One who saved us.
[TITLE SLIDE]
This week, Paul is going to continue with his use of Israel as an example of how not to use Christian freedom. In doing so, he is going to speak of 3 types of sin that we must avoid at all costs as we fight against temptation.
Again, we will be back in chapter 10 this morning. Our focus will be on verses 7-13, but we’ll start at the beginning of the chapter so we can see how Paul continues his argument from last week.
[MAIN PASSAGE SLIDE x5]
For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. (/) Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” (/) We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. (/) Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. (/) No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
Paul starts by discussing the difference between Visible Israel and True Israel, which we discussed last week. But then, in verse 6, he claims that their failures should serve the church as an object lesson—that the believers in Corinth should look out for the pitfalls that Israel fell into and avoid them at all costs.
For those of you—like me—who grew up in the 80’s, you will remember that Generation X was obsessed with quicksand. It seemed like it was a real danger in every movie and cartoon in the 1980’s. And if you ever played Atari, it was likely that you had to swing over quicksand in a game called Pitfall. In that game, quicksand was just as dangerous as boiling tar pits and alligator swamps.
As far as 80’s kids were concerned, quicksand was a very real and present danger. It was a trap that was sure to kill you, unless you had the quick wit of Wesley in The Princess Bride. Us kids needed to watch out for it when we hiked in the forest or explored in the desert, for it was surely waiting around every corner. Little did we know that quicksand is not that common, nor that dangerous. However, it served as a cheap and easy movie gag for the better part of 3 decades.
But, all of that said, if I was walking in the forest and saw someone get swallowed by the ground, chances are that I would rethink the path that I am on.
And that is what Paul is doing here in chapter 10. He’s pointing out areas of quicksand that the Israelites fell into and saying, “don’t walk in these places.”
In doing so, he reveals to them 3 sin issues that put those who claim Christ in positions of very real spiritual danger. So, let us explore these 3 issues before we dig into how to escape them. The first dangerous sin issue is idolatry.
[POINT 1 SLIDE]
Idolatry (v 7)
But, before we discuss idolatry, let us first understand what it is. What is an idol and how does one participate in idolatry?
An idol is not clearly described in the Bible, specifically because the people who were the intended audience of these books and letters all knew exactly what an idol was. Simply put—in the literal sense, an idol is a physical representation of a real spiritual entity. And in the symbolic sense, an idol is anything that draws one’s worship away from the Most High Creator God. This symbolic sense is more meaningful to us here in the West today, as we do not regularly encounter physical idols of spiritual beings.
But for the ancient people, physical idols were everywhere. They were in pagan temples, on most every high place to includes hills and mountains, and even in the homes of pagan people. Most people in the ancient world not only worshipped a single local deity represented by an idol in the temple, but they would also provide worship to other lesser spiritual beings—to include worshipping idols in their homes of their own family god or of their ancestors.
An idolater—then—is someone who participates in such idol worship. Go back with me to verse 7, where Paul refers to idolatry in the wilderness:
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”
Paul calls the reader back to Exodus 32, where Moses goes up Mt Sinai to meet with God and the people demand an idol from Aaron while he was gone. Let us refresh our memory of the account:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE x5]
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” (/) So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. (/) And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” (/) And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. (/) They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ”
So, let us take a moment to process what has happened here and where they went wrong. What is the problem with what they have done and why do they think they need an idol to properly worship God?
First of all, let us remember that they have not yet received the 10 commandments. While we see God giving Moses the commandments 12 chapters earlier, he has not yet come down from the mountain. For 13 chapters, God is giving Moses instructions for the people to follow in providing Him with proper worship. He has prescribed a proper design for worship and His own liturgy—a design and a liturgy that is being violated at the foot of the mountain.
So, the Hebrews had one job while Moses was communing with God on the mountain: they were to wait for him to return with instruction from the Lord God.
Instead, they became impatient and they demanded the ability to worship Yahweh immediately. And they did this in the only way they knew how: through an idol. For hundreds of years, the Israelites dwelt in the land of Egypt. Some of them likely began to honor the Egyptian gods even before their enslavement. But as slaves, they had no choice but to bow and feign worship to the idols representing the gods of Egypt.
In their time in Egypt, there were several prominent bull cults. The Israelites were likely exposed to one of these cults, possibly the bull of Apis, whose temple was in the city of Memphis. The most powerful gods in the Ancient Near East were often pictorialized as bulls because of their raw strength and power. These were usually the “storm gods” who were thought to control the weather and bring fertility to the land each Spring. In Canaan, Ba’al was depicted as a bull.
And the Apis bull of Memphis would be no different. For hundreds of years, the Hebrews would have seen the Egyptians bowing in worship and dancing before these idols. And as slaves, they would have likely been forced to do likewise. So, while the knowledge of the God of Abraham never left the people of Israel, over time their practice of worship has been influenced by their foreign environment.
They now rightly desire to worship Yahweh, but they are adopting pagan rituals in their practice. Instead of waiting on God, they became impulsive—desiring to fulfill their own understanding of right and wrong. It should make us think back to the garden. There—in Eden—God asked Adam and Eve to trust Him and to keep from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He was waiting for them to become spiritually mature enough to eat of it, but instead they saw something they desired and they took it for themselves, not willing to trust God enough to wait on His plan.
And now, the Israelites have just repeated the violation of their first parents. Instead of waiting on God’s instructions and timing, they have made assumptions about what is best for them. And in doing so, they have made themselves idolaters.
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
And Paul warns the Corinthians, “Do not become servants of idols like some of them.”
He goes on to quote Exodus 32:6, which we just read. “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”
The Septuagint says that “the people sat down to eat and to drink and stood up to dance and sing.”
These people are not trying to worship pagan gods. They are trying to commune with and worship Yahweh God. They thought that they were doing the right thing, but they violated God’s natural law by giving worship to a creature instead of their creator.
You see, God is everlasting and eternal, all-present, all-knowing, and all-powerful. He cannot be properly represented by any created thing. And so, idolatry goes beyond the worship of false gods. It speaks of the improper worship of the One True God.
Failure to worship God properly is a violation of His created order and His holiness.
This will become clear to them later when Moses brings the second pair of tablets down from the mountain. The first two commandments of God say this:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE x3]
And God spoke all these words, saying,
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
“You shall have no other gods before me. (/)
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. (/) You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
God gives His loyal love to His people. It is steadfast and cannot be moved from them. And He only asks for that same loyal love in return. And His people express that loyal love to Him through obedience.
Yahweh has prescribed how He desires to be worship. And if we are to be loyal imagers of His, we cannot deviate out of convenience or because of our selfish desires.
For when we do so, we transfer worship from the Almighty Creator God to ourselves.
We begin worshipping the creation rather than the Creator.
Recently, I received a phone call from a man who was concerned about losing his salvation. He felt convicted that there were particular sins that could cause one to lose their status as a adopted son or daughter of God. As we spoke, I tried to help him understand that the Bible is clear that there is only one unforgivable sin: the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Basically, this is simply a refusal to allow the Holy Spirit access to their heart. Every other sin is forgivable. And committing sin after becoming a regenerated son or daughter of God does not affect our status as one saved by grace.
A mentor of mine, Dr. Michael Heiser, put it this way, “that which cannot be won cannot be lost.”
We cannot win our own salvation, therefore it is not ours to lose. As we talked about last week, those who have believed, repented, and followed Jesus can be sure of their salvation by the indwelling Holy Spirit. And His presence is evidenced in our lives by a change in our desire and the spiritual fruit that begins showing up.
But this doesn’t necessarily mean that believers can’t knowingly abandon their allegiance to Christ. Jesus, Paul, and Peter all seem to consider in the New Testament that it may be possible for one to knowingly apostatize from their loving loyalty to God.
You see, ultimately this guys concern was rooted in some biblical truth. Not that salvation can be lost… But there are some categories of sin that are especially dangerous for us because they flirt with disaster and lead our hearts away from devotion to Christ.
And I think this is what Paul is warning the Corinthians about with these three categories of sin. Idolatry can be disastrous, not just because we rob God of His glory, but because our hearts begin to desire something other than Him. Whether we worship a literal idol or we begin to worship ourselves by feeding our own selfish desires, we are directing our hearts away from our Creator.
We were created as imagers of God for the purpose of bringing Him glory by imaging Him on earth. And idolatry derails that project. This is why the leaders of the church in Jerusalem welcome Gentiles into the church without converting to Judaism, but they warn them to “abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.”
Paul is warning the Corinthians not to use their Christian freedom to hang out with people engaged in idolatry. As the saying goes, “a bad apple spoils the whole bunch.”
Idols are especially dangerous because they lead our hearts away from holiness and endanger our relationship with our Holy God. For God will not continue to dwell in the presence of unholiness. Isaiah says that:
Isaiah 59:2 “your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”
And John says that “if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”
Our Holy God and unholy idols don’t mix. For “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”
Idolatry brings us back under the yoke of slavery.
[POINT 2 SLIDE]
Sexual Immorality (v 8)
And sexual immorality is no different. In fact, we could say that sexual sin is the glorification of the self—the feeding of sinful lust. It is a byproduct of turning the self into an idol.
Sexual immorality refuses God’s design for mankind and elevates selfishness. It says to God that “my desires are more important your design.”
And just like idolatry, it draws our hearts away from our Creator.
Paul continues in verse 8:
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.
He calls the minds of the Corinthians back to the wilderness once again—this time to an incident in the land of Moab. The people of Moab were distant cousins of the Israelites, descended from Abraham’s nephew Lot. But they had long since turned their back on the God of Abraham and began worshipping territorial gods.
The writer of Numbers 25 tells us that the women of Moab lured many of the Israelites away from God by their sexual immorality. Their hearts had been drawn away from Yahweh their God because they began worshipping themselves. You see, the pagan gods are alluring because they give us what they want. They feed the sinful desires of our flesh.
That is the root of modern day Satanism—it is the worship of the self. And we see this today everywhere in Western pop-culture. We see it in our music, in our universities, and even in some of our churches. It justifies our sin in the elevation of individual feelings. It calls us to experience the fulfillment of our desires and be our “authentic” selves.
But the problem with that is that we don’t know what true authenticity is.
(beat)
Before we can live authentically as humans, we must first learn what it is to be human in the way the Creator designed us to be.
(beat)
I’ve told this story before, but years ago I was training a young woman in sales. We spent the day seeing many of my customers, so I had a captive audience in the car to discuss spiritual matters. She had grown up in an abusive church, and was later ostracized when her husband left her. And so, in her search to find her “authentic” self, she traveled the world. In India, she found a Yogi who introduced her to a pagan cult.
In her free time, she now taught yoga and shared this cult with others. She served this lesser god in her daily activities. After a full day of conversation, I dropped her off at the hotel. I reminded her that Jesus loves her and that He died so that she could experience freedom.
As she left, I told her that Yahweh God is the Most High Creator God. She responded by saying, “I know. But He doesn’t give me what I want…”
Sexual immorality works this same way. When we feed our lustful desires, we turn our attention away from God and His plan to instead worship the self.
We reach and take the forbidden fruit for ourselves, disobeying our Father.
If you have ever been stuck in sexual sin, you know that lust is never-ending. Our sinful natures are insatiable. They desire more and more. And the more we feed it, the more debased and hungry it becomes. It continues to draw our hearts further and further away from God.
Think about the most depraved people among us. How do you think pedophiles and serial killers became what they are? They made conscious choices over and over to continually feed their sinful desires. And, in doing do, they starved the conscience and any attempt at self-control.
Sexual sin is especially dangerous, for when we give into it, the enemy will try to weaponize our shame to separate us from God. He will remind you that you are not worthy of God’s love. “How could God ever love you after this?” And when we despair, Satan offers us the comfort of our familiarity with sin. And so, we find ourselves in a cycle of sin and shame, afraid of approaching a Holy God or His people to seek help.
But Jesus says, “Come to me and find rest.”
He already paid the penalty from that sin. He waits to cover us with His own holiness so that He can walk is into the throne-room of our Father to be reconciled in relationship. The Holy Spirit comes into our lives and provides us with access to the power to fight this temptation that keeps popping up.
And so, Paul reminds the Corinthians of this story so that they can see that their danger to the soul of the Christian. Sexual immorality will lure our hearts away from God. And failure to bring sexual temptation under control will bring disastrous consequences into our lives.
The Bible gives us many examples of this. One is King Solomon, the wisest man in the Old Testament. In the early years of his reign, Solomon continually fed his lust. He gathered things and people from all over the known world to satisfy his own ego and lustful desires.
He had 1,000 wives and concubines, many of them from far off places. And through chasing after his sexual desires, he began to worship himself in fulfilling his own desires. These women brought their foreign gods with them and, in an effort to please his wives, he honored gods who were not God. And what was the result?
Calamity.
(beat)
The kingdom of Israel began to fall apart. As he grew old and reflected on his experience, this is what he wrote about all that he had learned:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE x6]
I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” (/) I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. (/) I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. (/) I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.
So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. (/) And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. (/) Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
After a lifetime of living in his “authentic” fallen nature, Solomon says that it was all for naught. Everything that he did and all that he experienced were nothing in the grand scheme of things. It was vanity—or a better translation might be vapor.
(beat)
It was here and then gone. There was nothing to hold onto.
And yet, in the continual pursuit of more of this vapor, his eyes and heart were fully lured away from the God of His father David.
There is much more that we could say about this, but we need to move on. Idolatry and sexual immorality are the major concerns that Paul raises for the Corinthians here that endanger their walks with Christ. But then he brings up a third.
[POINT 3 SLIDE]
Ungratefulness (vv 9-10)
The third area of sin to be wary of is ungratefulness. Paul continues in verse 9:
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.
Paul reminds them of the attitude of the Israelites in the desert. God had rescued them from generation of slavery. And through their experience in the wilderness, He was preparing them for the promise of His blessing. They were free, and yet God asked them to wait and to learn self-discipline.
But instead of remaining grateful for freedom and food and water and shelter, they grumbled against the God who saved them.
The Pentateuch records the Israelites grumbling about most everything. They grumbled about the scarcity and taste of water. They grumbled about the lack of variety in their food. They grumbled about the leaders that God appointed them. And they grumbled about the people who lived in the land that God had promised to give them.
(beat)
Have you ever met someone like this? You know, people who seem to have a pretty good life, and yet all they do is complain?
This is who the Israelites were in the desert. They watched God appear to them in a tower of cloud and fire.
They watched Him part the red sea and free them from their captivity.
They watched as He brought forth water from a rock and rained miraculous manna from heaven.
And their go-to response was, “Oh no. Do we have to eat bread again…?”
Numbers 21 says that
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE]
the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.”
God was literally providing sweet bread for them supernaturally on the dew of heaven each and every morning, and all they can think is, “I wish I was back in prison where they served pizza on Fridays.”
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
And so, God let them learn the consequences of ungratefulness by sending fiery serpents among them. These were most likely venomous snakes indigenous to the desert. All of this time, God had provided for them and protected them, and they responded in ungratefulness.
Church, we must learn this lesson that Paul gives to the Corinthians. If you find yourself responding ungratefully to the things that God has given you, it should reveal to you the current state of your heart. Instead of being grateful for your freedom in Christ and for the circumstances that God has allowed you to endure for your own discipline, some of us choose to dwell on the negative.
Stop blaming God for the consequences of your sinful choices!
The venomous snakes in your life are there because of the decisions that you and those around you have made.
But gratefulness for the deliverance afforded you by Jesus is the anti-venom. It removes the pain and bitterness from our lives.
Like sexual immorality, ungratefulness causes us to look inward—to focus on the self. We make an idol of our own desires and feelings. And if we do not course-correct, it will lead our hearts away from God.
Look to the stories in Scripture and in the lives of your brothers and sisters in the church. Watch as they live lives of gratefulness.
Look to the 90 year old who physically struggles to move, and yet shows up every Sunday with a smile to thank God for allowing them one more day with their family.
Look to the 75 year old widow, who chooses to thank God for the 50 years that they had with their spouse instead of giving into depression and the loneliness of widowhood.
Look to the young grandparents in the room who realize what a blessing grandchildren are as they watch their own children pull their hair out.
Look to the young person whose life you know is in pieces and yet comes to worship God with bright eyes and raised hands.
God desires to shine His face upon you and give you strength and peace.
(beat)
Look to Him and respond in gratefulness.
[POINT 4 SLIDE]
Escape (vv 11-13)
Paul has given three the Corinthians three areas of sin to beware of in their lives. He has used Israel in the wilderness as his object lesson. Christians should avoid all forms of idolatry, sexual immorality, and ungratefulness because they endanger our spiritual lives.
Now Paul will bring the church to application. Let’s finish the passage, starting with verse 11:
[PASSAGE SLIDE x2]
Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. (/) No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
Once again, Paul reminds the Corinthians to learn from Israel’s failures. He also reminds them that they are no different from the Israelites in the desert. They too have a fallen sinful nature. They too will experience the same types of temptation.
And yet, God is faithful. He will keep His covenant and give His loving loyalty to His children for a thousand generations. In other words, forever.
God is the Almighty Provider and Protector. He has a plan for your life. And through your circumstances and your trials and your temptations, God is refining your character. He is shaping you into the image of Jesus and helping you learn what it is to be truly human.
For only then will you be able to live “authentically” in the way that God designed you to live.
We must be patient and wait on God’s plan and His timing, for it is perfect. He can see a thousand years into the future, while we cannot even see five minutes ahead.
How arrogant must we be to think that we can make better decisions for our lives than He can…
(beat)
You’ve heard the saying that “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.”
That is not true.
In fact, God regularly allows you to experience more than you can handle on your own. But not more than you can handle with His Holy Spirit. In every trial, He is trying to teach you to lean on Him; to build your reliance on Him—to learn that He is the Almighty Creator and Sustainer, the God of gods and the Lord of Lords. To learn that He loves you and wants to lead you well.
Temptation will come. You have the choice as to feed it or starve it.
If you feed it, it will get louder; more hungry; more insatiable. It will demand your attention; your allegiance; your heart.
But if you starve it, it will get quieter. It will become easier to deny. It will become easier to give God more of your heart and your attention.
James says to “resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
And the even better news is this: we don’t have to resist in our own power.
We know that we are spiritually weak, but believers are imbued with the power of God Himself. He will “provide the way of escape.” He will help you endure the temptation until it passes.
Peter says it this way, that:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE]
the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,
Follower of Christ, reject idolatry and sexually immorality for they are abominable in the sight of our Holy God. And live every day grateful to the One who paid your sin debt and brought you into freedom and the presence of the God who created you.
He made you for a purpose. Fight for that purpose. Endure temptation. Put sin to death by starving it. And in that way, you will escape it and learn to live a life of holiness unto God.
Lean on the your brothers and sisters in the church. For we don’t fight alone. They body of Christ fights together in the power of the Holy Spirit.
[PREVIEW SLIDE]
Invitation
If you are here this morning and stuck in cycles of sin, know that we have all been there. Some of us continue to struggle with temptation each day. The enemies of God want you to continue in that sin. They want you to elevate yourself and your own desires because they want you separated from God.
But God created you for a purpose. He has a better plan for your life than you have for yourself. Come and see what Jesus has done for you.
If that is you—if you are stuck in your sin and don’t see a way out, Jesus offers you a better way. I want to speak with you this morning. Don’t leave this place thinking that you can solve all of your problems on your own. For in our sinfulness, we are bound to fail. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we can prevail.
CLOSE IN PRAYER
CLOSING HYMN
CONGREGATIONAL BLESSING
