Godless and Godly Desires and Pleasures

I. Desire is a an Extension of God’s goodness to us

It is good to desire

But desires must submit to God and his commands

II. Sin is not just what we do, but it starts in affecting these God-given desires

Now we are enslaved to adverse desires

Which produces sin, which leads to death

III. The Promise of Christ is that sins are forgiven and we are set free from adverse desires to have godly desire

Tomorrow, we will see how God keeps those fleshly desires in his renewed saint that has renewed desires

So that there will be a battle between the two

And in that victory over that battle comes

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Genesis 3:4–5 ESV

4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

You will not die, but rather a positive will be added to you

You shall know more and be like him (what he fell to)

This promise that sin actually provides freedom and life is the same deception Satan pushes after sin and the death of humanity....it’s the deception that keeps humans hooked

And indeed, something was added to them in this course of action

They could see that they were naked. This new knowledge was driven and enforced by sin

And so, this half truth of knowing more is dominated by sin and is a most terrible enslavement, even as it still promises freedom and happiness and desirability

You shall be like God

Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers

Rather, as God, as Elohim himself, in the particular quality of knowing good and evil. It was a high bait which the tempter offered; and Eve, who at first had answered rightly, and who as yet knew nothing of falsehood, dallied with the temptation, and was lost. But we must not comment too severely upon her conduct. It was no mean desire which led her astray: she longed for more knowledge and greater perfection; she wished even to rise above the level of her nature; but the means she used were in violation of God’s command, and so she fell. And, as usual, the tempter kept the promise to the ear. Eve knew good and evil, but only by feeling evil within herself. It was by moral degradation, and not by intellectual insight, that her ambitious wish was fulfilled.

Man was meant to desire a greater relationship with God and know him more

But Satan twists it to pursue it in a means not ordained by God

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Theme of Psalms is right worship

Connected with that is desire and pleasure

Desire and pleasure can have negative connotation

“A puritan is someone with the ability to know that someone somewhere is having fun”

But this is only so because Satan like the liberals of today takes a word and twists it completely

The novel 1984 became popular again over the past few years because of the different issues going on in our current culture

In the book, the authoritarian government is doing away with standard English called Oldspeak and making a new language called Newspeak. And this new language takes words and makes it fitting for their political agenda

We have seen the leftists do that in our own day, words we know and celebrate are being turn to mean something else like

Justice, inclusiveness, love, gender, and the list goes on

Such a tactic is not new, but is something that Satan has done from the very beginning

(now you might be thinking, are you calling the leftist ideology satanic and the answer is of course I am)

But Satan has been doing this from the very beginning, he rules by lies and he uses desires and pleasures to lure his victims

But we must understand that desires and pleasures was created by God and to be enjoyed by us

God is all powerful and good

He created all things in power, but has done it in a way to be enjoyed (good)

For example, in power he has made it possible for you to get strength and life from eating lunch today

BUT not only this, it is going to taste good! It will be pleasurable. Especially if you eat here…which you should

Let’s run through the creation account real quick

1:3 Light was good

1:10 The dry land and the Sea were good

1:12 The vegetation and fruit produced were good

1:18 The sun to give light to the earth during the day and the moon at night were good

1:21 The creation of fish in the sea was good

1:25 It was good when God created the living creatures on the land to creep around the earth

1:31 God creates man and puts him in this good creation and calls it very good

It reminds me of when I was making a coop for chickens and ducks, and each part of it I created to sustain the life of the flock and it was good for that end

And when I finally got finished and saw the little chickens running around the coop enjoying life, I saw that it was now very good

Thus, God made all things good, and when he places us in his creation to enjoy his good creation this is called very good

Look at what the Scriptures say when God placed Adam in the garden:

Genesis 2:9 ESV

9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

What was around Adam was a manifestation of the goodness of God to man…a whole creation for us to have life in AND enjoy (pleasant to the sight and good for food)! For our desires to be had in the goodness of what God has given and for our desires to be met

So, not only has God created in power, but in goodness. That means he created you with a capacity to desire the goodness and find pleasure in that goodness…in fact doing so is for your good and his glory

Does that mean what God wants you to do is to follow all the desires that are in your heart today?

Go ahead and tell your toddler to do whatever his heart desires and find pleasure...

Why not if God has made us to desire and to find pleasure in meeting that desire in his creation?

The Fall and the adverse desire Satan tempted Eve with

Let’s zoom in right at the temptation and fall

Genesis 3:6 ESV

6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

The tree was good! Echoing back to how God made everything good and desirable

It was delightful to the eyes

Desirable to make one wise

(so far desire in God’s world is good, but not here, with temptation from Satan it becomes bad)

This desire is an abuse of something good of itself, in disobedience to God

God has said not to eat of this tree or you’ll die

Satan temps Eve by saying God just doesn’t want you to do it because then your eyes will be opened and you’ll be like God KNOWING good and Evil

So now that desire to be wise is anchored not in a desire from God, but from disobedience to God

And this conterfeit desire by Satan is typical of the desires and pleasures he offers you today…what you have is never enough, you should be disatisifed with that, and desire more

This makes it impossible to find pleasure in the simple things God provides, and makes you lust for more

Look at a young child, his desires are simple and finds pleasure in everything

She and Adam act on this disobedient desire

And their eyes are opened alright…but not quite to the fulfillment of the desire Satan had placed with a lie

Genesis 3:7 ESV

7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

They now know more about evil, but it was not in a way that God knows evil while he is separated from it

They know it as being in it, and now they are overwhelmed with sin to the point of being ashamed

Godly Desire: Desire rooted in obedience to God. And it always delivers what it promises: pleasure and joy

This was the original state of humankind

Godless Desire: Desires rooted in disobedience, promises the same thing but never delivers, but only brings death

humankind has been stuck in this lie as Satan runs this new world order

What is the nature of this Godless desire? You desire SIN now, and SIN desires you

Now that sin has entered, there is a guarantee that your desire will be contrary to godly desire

Genesis 3:16 ESV

16 To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”

Now, being fallen in sin, our natural desires are captive to what is godless

What compounds the issue: Not only do you have a desire for sin, but sin has a desire for you, and it is not for your good

Cain is angry because God liked Abel’s sacrifice but not his

Genesis 4:6–7 ESV

6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”

Sin is crouching—it is sneaky and works by deceit

And to not fall into death, man must rule over it like a king ruling over a bunch of unruly subjects

Therefore, fallen man is captive to godless desire, and godless desire has a constant desire against fallen man—i.e. not for his good

And so God says in this new fallen state man must rule over this natural desire for something that wants to kill you

And a major theme of the rest of the Old Testament is that MAN CANNOT DO IT ON HIS OWN!

And so, you are taught in Scripture that desire is good, pleasure found in fulfilling desire is good

But there is such thing as godless desire that brings death after the work of Satan in the garden

And since we are fallen in Adam, sin has a unsatiable desire to rule over you

And we are fooled into thinking that such a reign of adverse desires met will bring about true pleasure

And no where is this better explained than what Paul teaches in Ephesians 2

Ephesians 2:1–3 ESV

1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Dead in sins

Walking after the cadence of Satan

Which is driven by passions of flesh—desires of the body and mind in this dead state

Our flesh is not just the physical body but the inner workings of our natural state where we desire and take pleasure in sin

And sin desire to rule over us to make us slaves to lead us to death

And this equates to being by nature children of God’s wrath

And so Satan has successfully changed what true desire and pleasure is and mankind is under its deceptive sway

Which is why a thoughtful Christian should rightly question all desires and pleasures inside the heart

There are people listening to me right now who are living in sin because they are following their fleshly desires

You know it is disobedience to what God has commanded in his word but it is too precious to you to give up

You need to wake up now and see that such a mindset is deception and is an indicator that you are no child of God but a child of wrath

You need to repent of such fleshly desires and passions and turn to the God who offers us true pleasures

Your desires need to submit, not to your flesh but to the Spirit

As Satan brought a major revolution in the Garden, so Jesus brought a major revolution of restoration at the cross and tomb

This is what we will address next

The Spirit is the agent that brings new desires in your heart…and by new I mean as it was before

The Spirit is the ONLY agent that brings restored desires to your heart

What Cain did after God told him to rule over the sin that wants control of him shows just how much man fails at this by his own fleshly power

And the rest of the Scriptures show that to rule over sin that is constantly encroaching takes nothing short of a divine miracle…a divine power within....it takes the Spirit

Genesis 2:7 ESV

7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

As God breathed into man to give him physical life

So God must breathe into your souls to give you spiritual life

Ezekiel 37:5–6 ESV

5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

Ezekiel 36:26–28 ESV

26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

With a new heart and new desire we obey God and find pleasure

And the psalms assume that when talking about true worship to our God that is full of pleasure

Psalm 40:8 ESV

8 I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”

Psalm 119:16 ESV

16 I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.

Psalm 119:24 ESV

24 Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors.

Psalm 119:47 ESV

47 for I find my delight in your commandments, which I love.

Psalm 119:92 ESV

92 If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.

These are all new covenant promises

1 John 5:3 ESV

3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

They are not burdensome because of the Spirit that has been given to us to renew our desires

They are burdensome without the Spirit changing us, because we lust so much after sin in our natural state

Matthew 11:28–30 ESV

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Now, I am talking to a room of people who have responded to Jesus’ call here

You have repented of sin and have looked to Jesus Christ and have received the Spirit of promise

What we will look at next week is what happens when the Spirit takes up residence in someone who still has this flesh of sin left over?

Anything less than total war is absolutely unacceptable to Christ

Our God, is a god of War

Our Christ is a King and demands full submission

He comes with a sword coming forth from his mouth to conquer

…and when the desires of our flesh come up against the desires of the Spirit—war within your soul is the only option

Pleasure for the Christian is found in the battle raging for our Lord and the steady progress as the result