Temptation

Pray

[pic of Adam and Eve]

I want to start today with our Old Testament reading. I want to for a couple of reasons. The first is that it is always best to start at the beginning. Context matters. Situations always have a Genesis - a starting point - and to ignore that and just jump into the middle leads us to continue bad habits and not solve the problem.

So we start there, in the beginning, where sin started. And when we look at that critically, to me, a couple things become really clear.

First off - God put humans into the garden, into paradise. And doing so, He offered them all they needed. All He asked of them is for them to till - or take care of - the garden, and to not eat of this one tree.

Now they had plenty of food. They had plenty of variety. They could eat anything else they could find, apart from the fruit of that tree.

Now let’s take just one second to address one way in which we dismiss the connection between them and us, and limit this text’s reach into our lives. Understand that the literalness of this situation is less important than the figurative applications for us. That isn’t to say it didn’t literally happen - not at all - but it is to say that when we limit this text to only a literal story, we limit God’s reach through it into our lives.

You see, God places us in paradise too! Although at times it may not feel like it. But being able to feel His presence and interact with Him surely must be what the garden was like. He asks us to care for creation - everything around us and in all forms and fashion. He provides for us what we need - both in food and in circumstance and Spirit. And all He asks of us is obedience.

Don’t do that thing that I don’t want you to do. Don’t eat that fruit.

[adamandeve]

And just like Adam and Eve, that is where we sometimes fall short. And the fact that we fall short, it turns out, is less important than the reason we fall short.

And that is where I want to set up shop. You see, when we just allow this text to exist literally, we tend to place the blame on the snake, or sometimes on Eve. Which for the life of me I will never understand.

What is interesting, though, is that when we blame the snake, we do so in a figurative fashion - associating (correctly mind you) the snake with Satan.

Still we sometimes fail to see the figurative applications for us.

But church, the devil didn’t make them do it. The devil doesn’t make you do it. There is no scapegoat for our sin. The final decision for any sin we undertake is on us!

And it was for them too. Ultimately, all God asked of them, as He does of us, is obedience. To be content with all those things He has given us. Content enough to not want those other things more than what God wants for us.

[Ilovemesomeme]

But like us, Adam and Eve wanted what they wanted more than what God wanted for them. They found the situation they were in - God’s provision and plan - to be less desirable than what they wanted.

That is why the figurative impact is so important. You see, when you see this story as both literal and figurative, you are able to see the meaning. And that meaning is that temptation comes down to loving ourselves more than we love God.

Adam and Eve loved themselves so much that anyone - or anything - that endorsed their love of self becomes the reason to disobey God.

And we do that too. We find reasons to justify our love of self. We find reasons to not clothe the needy, to not feed the destitute, to not provide for those who most need God’s love and physical care. And like our ancestors here in this text, we then hide behind whatever thing convinced us to be disobedient.

We love us some us. Narcissism. Selfishness. That spirit is the one that drives us away from God. That leads us to give into temptation. I am not saying that Satan isn’t real, church, but I think that we need to look inside of us before we look outside! We blame the snake, when it was our love of self that made us listen to temptation. Our love of what we want that leads us to give into those desires. Our plans. Our desires. Our comforts. That is what leads us to stray from being content with God to wanting those things that we never needed to begin with.

And we hide behind ambition. We hide behind social identity. We hide behind culture. But what it really is, is our love of what we want and our unwillingness to allow God to be in total control of us.

1 Peter 5:6–7 ESV

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

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It turns out, though, that our love of self that we hide behind is the very thing that keeps us from getting what God wants for us. Not that we could ever be sinless, understand, but it is so much easier to see the path when you are close to it! If you can stay close, at least, you can follow in the right direction. Sure the path is difficult, but at least you know you are going the right way.

When we love ourselves too much, though, we act as if we know the path. Like we have all the knowledge of good and evil. Like we will get there if we just keep bulldozing our way.

All the while having completely lost sight of the path.

If we could just humble ourselves, church, we could find the way. [read]

[jesustempted]

That is the example of Christ. You see, Jesus, having fasted for 40 days - this is the reason behind Lent by the way - Jesus was taken into the wilderness to be tempted.

And here again, context is everything. And accordingly, our idea of Christ is everything. You see, it is awfully easy to write off these temptations if you view Christ as more God than man. That is a form of what is called Docetism - this belief that Christ was fully divine but appearing to suffer, and to be tempted, and to have the afflictions of life.

But that heretical view aside, we are left with Christ as being fully man. He is still fully divine, mind you, but for all physical nature, He is man. So the hunger from 40 days of fasting is still there. The fatigue from 40 days of fasting is still there. The desire to not have to suffer and die are both still there. The understanding that it would be so much easier to just rule over everything by force is still there!

Temptation, for Christ, is just as real as it is for us.

That snake is still there. That voice calling out to love oneself more than God. That desire to be obedient to what we think we need, or what we think we want, or what we think is the right thing to do, that is still there!

But bigger than that, for Christ, more audible, more present in his mind, is the voice of God offered by God’s word.

[resistingtemptation]

You see, when we acknowledge that this isn’t a fully divine being refusing temptation, we acknowledge that we can resist temptation too. Not that we always will, we don’t have the benefit of being both fully man and fully God. But put in perspective, Jesus shows us the way here. He shows us that it will never be by sheer force of will that we overcome our love of self. It won’t be through persistence. It won’t be through excuses, or justification. No, we will only overcome our love of self - and through that the temptation to be disobedient to God - through the power of God that lives in us through Christ, and through His word.

That is why studying the Bible is so important. But we can’t study it through the lens of self! Too often we use it only when we need it. When life hits us hard. And when we do that, we look for things that are applicable to our situation. We proof text. We pick out phrases and ideas that help us, and not those that challenge us.

We love ourselves through God’s word, instead of loving God enough to obediently look to Him, even when life is good!

We are like Adam and Eve in the garden. We heard what God said. We understand what He wants. But we take the first chance we get to follow temptation. That is how we are wired. That is what original sin is all about.

Ephesians 4:22–24 ESV

to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

But, church, Christ did away with all of that. Understand our reliance on self died with Jesus on that cross! Our need to give in to our love for ourselves is as empty as that tomb! Sure there will always be temptation! Those snakes will surround us everyday. The voice of preference, or desire, or wants, will always seek to deafen us to God’s voice! But our choice to listen to them is ours alone! And if we can just die to self, to preference, to wants, to desires, and instead live for Christ - live for His Spirit, His word, His very life to run through us - we could move beyond our love of self and move toward obedience! We could overcome a great many of those temptations that draw us away from God.

That is our old self after all. One that is corrupted with lies and deceit. With love of self. But it is also one that dies when we overcome our love of self, and start to love God more than anything. And through that love, church, we will find our true purpose.

[man and wife]

I feel sure I have told this story before, but it is fitting for the take away from this sermon. You see, I think we all know THAT we should love God that way, and through that love find the strength to be obedient, but I also think that we don’t always know HOW to love God that way.

And for that, I turn to this simple story. One that offers plenty of figurative room for us.

There was once this man who wanted to kill his wife. I mean, he hated her. He couldn’t look at her. Everything she said got on his nerves. Everything she did made him mad. It seemed like life was so much more difficult and worse with her in it.

So he was going to kill her. He decided that it was far easier to do that than to keep trying to live with her. To keep adjusting his life to all the habits and tendencies that made him mad.

So, this man goes to his dad, hoping to find a way to kill her that would not lead to his arrest! After all, he wanted to get away with it, you know. So he asks his dad how to do it. And his dad, having lived long enough to understand the real problem, told him this. He told him that no matter what, he had to be sure to not get caught. And the only way to do that, was to convince her, and everyone else in their circle of friends, that he really loved her.

So every day, for 6 weeks, the man was told to find something positive about her. To find a reason to spend time with her. To just convince her and others that he loved her. And then, after the 6 weeks was up, the father would slip some poison to the wife, and the son would get away with it all.

The man didn’t like the idea, but he knew his father was right, so he did it. For 6 weeks he found reasons to love her. Her smile. Those long stories that she told every day. The way she cooked. Her driving. Her snoring. And not only did he tell her, to told everyone else!

After the 6 weeks were up the son realized that the time had come for his dad to poison his wife. So he called him up, in a panic, and when he got him on the phone he begged him to call it all off!

The father asked him why. Why would he know want to stop this plan that was already in motion, after all, he had a perfect alibi!

Because I love her, the son told him. I realized the more time I spent with her, the more reasons I found to enjoy her, the more I loved her.

John 15:4 ESV

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.

Church, if you want to overcome temptation, if you want to live the life that God wants you to live, find a reason to love Him. Find a reason to spend time with Him. Don’t use Him as a cosmic vending machine for your wants - only praying in ways to ask Him for what you want to do or for your preferred outcome. Spend time in His word finding reasons to be content with whatever He is, and what He wants for you.

Just 6 weeks, church. That is what Lent is. Six weeks where you can get to know your God. Temptations will come. You won’t always want to pray, or to read, or to think about Him. But those six weeks might just move you from loving yourself, your desire, your ways, and thereby putting to death God’s wants - to loving God with all your heart. Then you will live not by bread, not by power, not by testing God - but by the very word of God that will be alive in you.

communion