“Stuff We All Get”
Here are free resources to help your ministry and café classroom studies.
Syllabi, sample sermons (PDF and Audio), book reviews, etc.
You can navigate to the audio volt found at http://www.hbconmain.com/sermons/ or you can try the text manuscripts (under construction).
Here is one to whet your appetite…
On Luke 11:4, preached at Hillcrest Baptist Church, on 4 December 2011.
LIVING IN A MINEFIELD:
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION
[O] I read a great online news article this week on how rats can save human lives by clearing landmines in Mozambique. When I first read it I thought, ‘What a great idea, send the rats into the minefield so they blow up instead of humans.’ But as it turns out the rats are trained to sniff out where the landmines are so that human can disarm the mine. Well, that works too, I guess.
These, so called, ‘hero-rats’ are lighter than dogs, so they don’t detonate the mine, and they’re also cheaper to feed. What a brilliant idea. But what was really fun, was the online comments.
>Renee, Portland commented: “I love that a) rats are getting the positive publicity they deserve and b) the land mines are being cleared.”
>Gregg, LA: “To me, these are the top echelon of rats … Unlike all the “testing” rodents that are never let out of their cages and are poked and injected with irritants to see how much they can tolerate before they die, these guys get to go out and play…in the minefields.”
>Louis Lamontagne Laupen, Switzerland: “Very important work. People in Africa suffer enough as it is.”
>Kat Jewell, Grand Rapids: “I am a huge rat lover. …Is it really fair to them that they have to pay for our mess ups? Now I don’t know how many rats get hurt on site but I’m guessing that at least one rat has been “blown up.” Rats can feel. …I’m not a total expert on rats but I have 8 rats of my own right now,… don’t you think these rats would like a better life? It really depends on where you got these rats…. If they’re meant to be pets, I don’t think this is right, but if you got them from a place for “Food” for snakes, I agree that these rats have a better life… but how do these rats end up when they get too old..
Did you know that I too had a rat. He lived in my roof ceiling for a while. I used to hear him scurrying around looking for food. I felt bad for the little guy, so I went to the hardware store and asked if they had anything for the rat in my ceiling. Sure enough they gave me a box of little pellets. The guy said, “Just toss the whole box up there and that will do the trick.” Strangely I never the scurrying sounds again. Anyway… my point is simply this: everyone understands it takes specialized guidance to get through a minefield. You and I live in a minefield of temptation, but the Lord provides the guidance we need to survive.
Turn toLuke 11.
Context: We’ve been taking a leisurely hike through the Lord’s prayer, stopping at every turn to take in the view.
We learned to approach God as our Dad.
We learned that the motive of every prayer is for God’s name to be hallowed.
We learned to pray for the advancement of the already & not yet aspects of God’s kingdom.
We learned that we can give God glory by asking for our physical needs.
Last time we looked at why believers who are already forgiven positionally, still need to daily ask for forgiveness relationally.
When Jesus washed the disciples’ feet he taught that positional forgiveness is like being fully clean from a bath, but throughout the day you need Jesus to continually wash your dusty feet to keep the sense of closeness relationally. Now we turn to the final phrase…
1 Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” 2 And he said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. 3 Give us each day our daily bread, 4 and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.”
3 HEART ATTITUDES TO SURVIVE LIFE IN A MINEFIELD OF TEMPTATION
1. DISCERN THE NEED FOR GOD’S LEADING
2. DISPLAY YOUR ALLEGIANCE TO GOD’S WILL
3. DEVELOP YOUR TRUST IN GOD’S HELP
4…And lead us not into temptation
You and I live in a minefield of temptation.
Your flesh is a sin magnet. (Rom 7).
Satan and his demos set traps and bury mine’s of temptation all over your life.
1 Pet 5: 8Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
You must discern the need for God’s leading…
2 Cor 2: 11so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.
Of this verse… Watson says: [The godly] have good foresight. … The wicked swallow temptation like pills, …But the godly foresee a temptation and will not come near. They see a snake under the grass; they know Satan’s kindness is craftiness. He does what Jepthah’s daughter did: he brings out the tambourine and dances before men with a temptation and then brings them very low (Jd 11:35). GMP pg. 199
Friends, temptation is a pernicious, and sneaky thing. It is a poison that laces much of our lives.
Even God’s gifts like money, sex, food, and fun, Satan booby-traps with temptation to sin.
[_] In WW2 when the Nazi’s cleared out a ghetto they would often leave explosive booby-traps in the furniture, piano’s, and canned food. If any Jews hid, they would eventually come out of hiding, sit on a couch, pick up a can of beans, or open a cupboard, and BOOM!
In the ghetto’s everything was a potential trap.
APP: In life, every song on the radio, every movie you slide into your DVD player, every lecture you sit through at University, every advertisement, may be rigged with a landmine.
Anything you touch or look at or listen to may be harmless, but it may contain hidden in it a temptation for evil.
You watch a movie… and half way through, the actress suddenly takes off her top.
You see an ad for a Porsche and you face a temptation to covet what you can’t afford.
You chat to someone about investments, and you are tempted to be greedy.
You offer a lift to a co-worker and they gossip about your boss.
To avoid gossip it you turn up the volume of the radio, and it’s Gareth Cliff spouting some snooty, sarcastic opinion about government, and you are tempted to agree with him instead of praying for you leaders, so you change station, and the song is a about sex and you are tempted to view God’s sacred gift to covenanted marriage partners as a cheap and casual, so you simply plug your ears, and then there is a traffic jam and you are tempted to be impatient, and then a taxi gets on the road’s shoulder and you are tempted to get angry.
Aaargh! Lord, lead me not into temptation!
Now you can see why you need God’s help!
1. DISCERN THE NEED FOR GOD’S LEADING
2. DISPLAY ALLEGIANCE TO GOD’S WILL
4…And lead us not into temptation
Isn’t this prayer a little redundant? I mean, if I never pray that, what would happen? Would God ever lead me into temptation? No.
So why pray that?
Bear in mind that everything in the Lord’s prayer is for what God has already promised…
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done.
Give us each day our needed bread.
Forgive us our sins.
Lead us not into temptation.
From this we learn that prayer is not to align God’s actions with our will, it’s to align our actions with his will.
Prayer is aligning yourself with God’s revealed will.
[_] It’s like in 1995 Rugby World Cup when Francois Pienaar, the Sprignbok rugby captain, was interviewed after the Boks won the tournament, the commentator said, “Francois, we had 65000 South Africans here today, tremendous support.” To which Pienaar replied, “David, we didn’t have 60,000 fans behind us today; we had 43 million South Africans.”
That gives me chills. I was one of those 43 mill, and so were you. But did we break a sweat (except for getting all the jumping up-and-down)? Did we practice for a year? Did we charge into Jomo Lomo? No, the team did all the work, yet we were part of it.
We were aligned with that victory from start to finish. So we shared in the triumph.
If you didn’t support the Boks, they would still have won. The difference is that you would have missed out, not them.
APP: So when you pray Lead me not into temptation, what you are doing is aligning your will with God’s will. God will never lead you into temptation, but you are telling him, “I don’t want to fall into temptation. I am on your side of this war against sin, self, and Satan.”
1. DISCERN YOUR NEED FOR GOD’S LEADING
2. DISPLAY YOUR ALLEGIANCE TO GOD’S WILL
3. DEVELOP YOUR TRUST IN GOD’S HELP
4…And lead us not into temptation
We pray this b/c we trust that God has the power and inclination to help us avoid sin.
Sometimes you may feel like God is not listening to this prayer. Why doesn’t God just remove the temptation?
I counseled gay friend once who said “I prayed for God to remove the temptation, but he didn’t. If God doesn’t want me to sin in this way, then why does he allow this temptation?”
It’s a good question.
Have you ever wondered why God doesn’t just remove all temptation from us?
What about when God told Abraham to kill Isaac?
What about the time God let Paul be harassed by a ‘messenger from Satan’?
What about in Matt 4: 1Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Wow. Is God out to get us? Is he laying traps for us to sin, and we need to ask him nicely to stop? Is that why we need to pray lead us not into temptation, b/c in fact God sometimes does lead us right into temptation?
Turn toJames 1.
This is something you need to have emblazoned on your mind. You cannot understand the holiness of God and the heinousness of sin if you don’t get this verse.
James 1: 13Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
So class, does God ever lead you into temptation? No.
You can never say like Adam, “The woman you gave me gave me the fruit to eat.”
You imply that it is God’s fault that you sin.
No one can make you sin. Not even God!
If God made you sin, he would be the author of evil, and he would cease to be God!
God cannot sin, he is not tempted to sin, and he himself tempts no one.
Turn to1 Cor 10.
Temptations will come, due to our sin-nature, and due to Satan. We have temptations that come from within and without.
Jesus’ flesh did not contribute to his temptation, but Satan did.
And it is never God who leads us into this, but he is there to leads us out of the temptation.
He leads us through the minefield.
1 Cor 10: 13No 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.
There is never a situation in life that you cannot honor God, or resist temptation to sin.
There is never a scenario where you need to choose between ‘the lesser of 2 evils.’
…but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
This is what you are praying for when you say lead me not into temptation.
You are praying when the temptation comes, for the escape route, through the minefield.
In fact the word, Temptation means test.
πειράζω peirázō; experience, trial. To try, to prove in either a good or bad sense, tempt, test by soliciting to sin.
It’s the same word used in James 1:2Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet various trials [πειρασμός] 3 for you know that the testing [dokimozo] of your faith produces steadfastness.
Temptations actually bring God glory when they are resisted by God’s grace.
[_] Though the SA DMV sets up tests to be very difficult to pass, if you eventually manage to pass the K-53 test, everyone knows you can drive. You can parallel park on an incline while checking your blindspot every 8 seconds.
So a trial can be set up by God to prove your faith or improve your faith.
When the Spirit led Jesus to be tested by the devil,
the devil intended the test to be an enticement to disobey God, but God used it as an opportunity to put Jesus’ divinity and holiness on display.
Turn toHeb 4.
It is very important to realize that a test or temptation is not sin in itself, it is merely an opportunity to sin.
If you see a billboard of a scantily clad lady you have not sinned yet. If you let your heart latch onto ungodly desires, then you have sinned. Let me prove that to you…
Heb 4:15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Jesus was tempted in every respect, or every category of sin that we are tempted, yet without sin.
A footnote: could Jesus have sinned?
No. Jesus is God. God cannot sin. So in his 100% divinity Jesus could not have sinned when Satan tempted him…BUT…in his 100% humanity, he did experienced the full temptation.
IOW, he could not have sinned, but it sure felt like he could have. This is called the Impeccability of Christ.
[_] Impeccability can be described like this. You know how woodpeckers chip away at a tree pecking out tiny fragments of wood until there is a hole.
Satan pecks at our resolve day after day until he gets through our defenses and we sin.
The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
But with Jesus, Satan could peck all day long and not make a dent, b/c Jesus in his divinity was like a steel pole.
The pecking may still have scratched and nicked and hurt, but it would never peck a hole in the armor of Christ’s righteousness.
When a woodpecker cannot peck a hole in metal, we call that metal…impeccable.
With that let’s recap:
1. DISCERN YOUR NEED FOR GOD’S LEADING
2. DISPLAY YOUR ALLEGIANCE TO GOD’S WILL
3. DEVELOP YOUR TRUST IN GOD’S HELP
LET’S PRAY…
[Fin]
