Tempted: Deliver Us

We’re wrapping up our series on temptation today. Over the last couple of weeks we’ve looked at what scripture teaches us about temptation. The first week, we saw from James chapter 1 that temptation is really a result of our own desires or passions.  James 1:14 says, “Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away.” I shared with you that same verse from The Message, it says that we can only blame “the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust.”  We talked about the way to control these passions is to make sure that Jesus is Lord of your life. Then our desire is only God’s will.

Last week we looked at the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. I said that the temptation Jesus faced there is the same temptation we face; to put our trust somewhere other than God – to let something else sit on that throne. Temptation is often a matter of trust. I trust in stuff, in money, in what I can see and feel. I trust me. Instead of trusting God’s will, trusting the way of Jesus. So instead of Jesus sitting on the throne of our heart, money is there or people or our stuff or ourselves.

Today, I’ve titled the sermon “Deliver Us”. That title probably sounds familiar to you. It’s from the Lord’s Prayer. When pray that prayer, we pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

I ran across a video this week that I want to share with you.

I love that. But not just because it’s funny. Look at their slogan,

“Once you shake ‘em you can’t shake ‘em.” Now that says a lot about temptation. Temptation is hard enough to resist, but once you give in it becomes that much harder. I saw an article from a couple of years ago on Psychology Today’s website. In that article, Dr. Rebecca Gladding says that when we give in to temptation we teach our brain that this is an important action and should be repeated, so the brain starts sending cravings. She uses the specific example of chocolate. She wrote, “As time goes on, my brain begins making eating chocolate a priority and I find that I am craving it day and night.” Once you shake it, you just can’t shake it.

We talked before about our desires leading to temptation and temptation leading to sin. Paul liked to talk about being a slave to sin. Dr. Gladding seems to be pointing to just such a thing. We give in to temptation which leads to sin and we start to crave it. We can’t live without it. We become a slave to sin. Once you shake it, you just can’t shake it. Once you start, you just can’t stop. Which brings us back to “deliver us from evil”.

Resisting temptation is not our natural human response. And once we’ve given in, it’s just that much easier to do it again and that much harder to resist. So we pray. As Jesus taught us to pray, “Deliver us.”

In the garden of Gethsemane, just before Jesus was arrested, he told his disciples to “pray so you won’t give in to temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” As we saw last week, this is something Jesus knew from experience. Jesus also knew that temptation would come.

In a letter to the church at Corinth, Paul told them that temptation is inevitable. He wrote this:  “¹³ The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”

There are a couple of really important things this passage tells us about temptation. 1) We’re going to be tempted. There is not any notion here that we will not be tempted. 2) We can resist temptation! “You will not be tempted more than you can stand.” But we are human, we are flawed. 3) God will deliver us. God will show us a way out.

A couple of weeks ago I introduced the 5Rs of resisting temptation. Adam Hamilton, who is the pastor of Church of the Resurrection (a United Methodist church in KC), came up with these a few years ago. He used them again in a sermon a couple of months ago. I think they offer some wonderful advice for resisting temptation.

I gave you the first one a couple of weeks ago, but I’ll cover it again. These are things to do when you feel tempted.

1)    REMEMBER Who You Are – You are a child of God, a follower of Jesus Christ, a leader in the church, a leader in the community. You may be someone’s husband or wife, someone’s mother or father. Is the thing you are struggling with consistent with who you are?

2)    RECOGNIZE the consequences of your actions. Maybe you could ask yourself: will I feel better or worse after doing this? Will I be proud or ashamed? Will I be more free or will I be enslaved by doing this? Who will be hurt by my actions? If the thing becomes known, what will happen to the people who trusted me? What will they think of me?

3)    REDEDICATE yourself to God. In prayer ask for God’s strength. Maybe a really simple, easy to remember prayer like: “Lead me not into temptation, deliver me from evil!” It’s also a chance to remind yourself who is on the throne of your life.

I shared this tweet with you a couple of weeks ago:  “Temptation is coming today...and every day. The question is whether Christ is on the throne of your heart now? Will He be your Lord today?” Is Jesus on the throne of your heart? Or as I asked it last week: Do you trust in Jesus? 

4)    REVEAL your struggle to a trusted friend. Part of the power of temptation comes from its secretiveness. When you tell the secret to someone holding you accountable, it loses some of its power. This is why James tells us in 5:16, “Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you might be healed.” Maybe it’s not the healthiest or most effective motivator, but it also adds some guilt to the situation, and guilt is a great deterrent. If eating donuts is a sin…well we’re all in trouble… But just as an example… If eating donuts is a sin I struggle with and I tell Bill, and I know Bill isn’t going to judge me but will help me be accountable – he’s going to ask me if I’ve been eating donuts – those donuts lose a little of their power over me.

5)    REMOVE yourself from the situation. When Jesus speaks about sin in the Sermon on the Mount he tells us that if our eye causes us to sin, we’re to pluck it out, or if our hand causes us to sin, we’re to cut it off. He is using hyperbole but he’s seeking to make this same point—remove yourself from the situation. We saw this in the video of the “Marshmallow Test” two weeks ago. Those 4-5 year-old kids who really did not want to eat the marshmallow would just ignore it. Pretend it’s not there. Pretending won’t always help, but leaving a situation will. Keeping yourself out of tempting situations will. Back to our donut example, I should never go near the donut table. If I walk in and see donuts I should probably leave.

So those are the 5 Rs of resisting temptation, but what if we don’t resist? Because, let’s face it, we’re not always going to resist. I don’t mean that to be taken as a defeatist attitude. It’s just the truth. Sometimes we will try to resist and fail, sometimes we just fail. Luckily it’s not the end of the road.

There’s another part of the Lord’s Prayer I want to remind you of: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Forgive our missteps, our stumbles, our failings, our sins. We are reminded of this throughout the New Testament. 1 John 1:9 tells us if we confess our sins, God will forgive us and cleanse our wickedness. Colossians 1:13-14 says this  “For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.”

Now, that’s not a “get out of jail free” card. It doesn’t mean I can walk in and say to myself, “I can eat all of the donuts I want now, because I can just ask God to forgive me!” That attitude embraces sin. There’s no repentance there, confessing our sins means we repent. To repent means to turn the other way. I read Colossians 1:13-14, but look what leads up to that scripture about forgiveness: 

¹⁰ Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.

¹¹ We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, ¹² always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light.

We are called to live in the light, to live in a way that honors God – that pleases God. That doesn’t mean we won’t mess it up. It means we’ve got to try. It means we’ve got to do everything we can to resist temptation. Thank God, we have a savior who delivers us from temptation!

There are three things I want to stress as we talk about being “delivered from evil”.

Two of them come from the passage in Galatians that was read earlier. First, it says we should nail our desires and passions to the cross. In other words, we are to die to our old sinful self. Paul says we should live by the Spirit. As we live by the Spirit, we are renewed. We are changed into a new creation. As we trust and follow Jesus, through prayer, reading scripture, growing closer to God, the Holy Spirit works to change us. Sin loses its grip. Our desires and passions lessen, and God’s will becomes our desire.

Paul gives us another tip for how we are delivered from temptation. In verse 2 of chapter 6, Paul says we should share each other’s burdens. I love verse 3. “If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.” Help one another! This goes back to our 4^th R – reveal your struggle. Be ready to help others and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

The third thing to remember about being delivered is that through the life, death, and resurrection we are delivered. We are delivered not just from temptation, but from the penalty of sin. Because of Jesus sin no longer binds those who believe, who call on him as their savior.

We are delivered in those 3 ways. Jesus delivers us from the penalty of sin. The Holy Spirit working in us delivers us from the power of sin so that it no longer holds us captive. And lastly, God works through each one of us to help one another, to love one another, to share our burdens.