Keep Us from Temptation

Keep Us from Temptation

“You can’t stop birds from flying overhead, but you can keep them from making a nest in your hair.”

Just yesterday morning, I counted 19 magpies between the parsonage and the church. I thought I was in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Most of the time I don’t mind magpies. They do their thing; I do mine. But, as I sat down at my desk to get some work done, I kept hearing a noise: “Bang! Bang! Bang!” The magpies kept flying into the windows.

At first I thought I could just wait them out. They would figure it out eventually, right? Wrong. Maybe it was the repeated concussive force on their tiny bird skulls, or their pea-sized brains to begin with, but it just kept happening. “Bang! Bang! Bang!” What would you do in a situation like that?

I just opened the front door. As soon as they saw me outside they flew away, never to bang their silly bird heads on the glass again – at least, not yesterday. This morning they were back out there. If I had to guess, I would assume they’ll be out there again tomorrow.

Temptations are kind of like those magpies. There are so many of them, and they are everywhere. Just about at any moment of your life you could look out the window and count 1 or 2 or 19 of them. You might successfully scare them off one day, but they’ll be back the next, and the day after that, and the day after that.

“You can’t stop birds from flying overhead, but you can keep them from making a nest in your hair.”

The Sixth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer is all about temptation: “And lead us not into temptation.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, temptation is a major theme in the Bible. God has a lot to say about temptation – what it is, what it looks like, how he dealt with it and how we should.

Let’s start at the beginning: What is temptation? Our catechism proposes this definition:

Temptation – any situation in which someone may be led into sin, false belief or despair.

There are a lot of situations that could lead someone into sin, false belief or despair. We don’t have time today to identify each and every situation, but we do have time to identify temptation’s origin. In other words, where does temptation come from? The Bible has some answers:

The great dragon was hurled down – that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.[1]

According to Revelation, where does temptation come from? The devil. In fact, you could say that temptation is the devil’s main occupation. He spends all his time trying to lead you astray, trying to lead you to sin or to some false belief or even to despair.

Are any of you boxing fans? Even if you’re not, do you know what a “1-2 punch” is? It’s a combination of punches. That first punch is not meant to be the knockout blow. It’s just setting you up so that the second punch is even more devastating, catches you off guard, at a place and time where and when you are most vulnerable.

The devil has a devastating 1-2 punch, and I think a great example of it is the very first sin we read about in the whole Bible. You might remember this from Genesis 3:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”[2]

Long before he ever points out the forbidden fruit, what is the devil tempting Eve to do? He is tempting her to doubt God, and specifically, to doubt that a certain action would be sinful.

Eve, to her credit, gives a great answer:

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”[3]

So far, so good. But the devil’s not done:

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

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.[4]

What did the devil convince Eve to think about the fruit that God had forbidden them to eat? He convinced her – and Adam, who was with her – that eating it wouldn’t be so bad. In fact, eating it would actually be really good.

The first part of the devil’s devastating 1-2 punch is to convince us that sin isn’t so bad, or convincing us that doing something that God forbids would actually be good for me. The first part of the devil’s devasting 1-2 punch is to convince us that sin is no big deal. Then he throws the haymaker:

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”[5]

In the moment of temptation, the devil convinced Adam and Eve that their sin would be no big deal. How did he make them feel about their sin after they committed it? They felt horrible about it – so much so that they tried to cover themselves with leaves and hide from their God.

First, the devil convinces us that sin is no big deal. Then, once we’ve committed that sin, he convinces us that it was such a big deal and that God will be so mad at us for doing it that he’ll never love us again. Temptation is the devil’s way to drive a wedge between us and our God, and sadly, all too often, he succeeds.

Which of the devil’s lies do you believe? Which sinful desires drag you away and entice you to sin? It’s different for each of us. It’s different within each of us at different times of our lives. When we’re quite young – between the crib and college – what is a common temptation? Disobedience and disrespect.

How about when we’re a little older – between puberty and parenthood? What is a common temptation at that time of life? The lusts of the flesh – adultery, overindulgence.

What about when we’re in the middle of our lives, busy with careers or children? What is a common temptation then? Security, stability, safety.

Or what about when we’re mature – when the kids are moved out of the house or after we’ve retired? What is a common temptation then? Pride and despair, which are really just two sides of the same coin.

Temptations are like magpies - there are so many of them, and they are everywhere. Just about at any moment of your life you could count 1 or 2 or 19 of them. You might successfully scare them off one day, but they’ll be back the next, and the day after that, and the day after that.

When you put it that way, it sounds rather hopeless. But God did something about our temptations. He sent his Son to face them too. And where we have failed, Jesus prevailed. In stark contrast to the account of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, we have the account of Jesus in Luke 4:

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered him, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.[6]

The devil came to Jesus at a vulnerable moment in his life and kept throwing temptation after temptation at him. But how did Jesus respond? Flawlessly. He never once gave in. He remained sinless and perfect – and not just here or for this moment, but again and again and again. No matter how many temptations and no matter how many times they flew overhead, he never once allowed them to make a nest in his hair or a home in his heart. Jesus was perfect.

And that’s important for you. This is the way the writer to the Hebrews puts it:

Such a high priest truly meets our need – one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.[7]

What did Jesus’ blamelessness enable him to do for you? It enabled him to offer himself as the sacrifice for our sins.

When Jesus died on a cross, it wasn’t for any crime he had committed, but for every sin you have committed. He suffered the punishment that you deserve for every temptation you give into, and then he gave you the credit for his perfect life, so that now, when God looks at you, he doesn’t see a sinner; he sees the sinlessness of his Son credited to you.

God did something about temptation. He sent his Son to face it and to be victorious over it. He sent Jesus to resist it and to save you from it.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that you will never face temptation in this life. Temptations are like magpies. They’re everywhere, all the time. Even when we scare one away, they come back in full force the next day. But your situation is not hopeless.

“You can’t stop birds from flying overhead, but you can keep them from making a nest in your hair.”

Not only has God given you salvation through his Son’s perfection, but he even gives you promises to help strengthen and protect you from the temptations that you will continue to face day after day.

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.[8]

What promises does God give you about when temptation confronts you? First, you’re not alone. Chances are that there is at least one other person in this room who faces the exact same temptation that you do. Second, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. In other words, God will never put you in a situation where sin is your only option. And this second promise ties in well with the third – God will always give you a way out.

Think back on the temptation of Jesus. What was his way out of every one of the devil’s temptations? It was the Word of God. The Bible cuts through every one of the devil’s lies and empty promises. You have that same Word, and it is your greatest weapon against temptation.

Is the devil trying to sow the seed of doubt in your heart? “Does God love me?” “Will God provide for and protect me?” “Is God holding out on me?” The answer to each of those doubts is in the Bible.

It might be difficult to remember what the Bible has to say in the moment, but how can we help ourselves recite God’s Word the same way Jesus did to the devil? We have to be in God’s Word, whether that means going to church on Sunday morning, reading your personal devotion throughout the week, sitting down to memorize verses and passages of the Bible, or all the above. Your single greatest weapon against temptation is the Word of God. Use it.

But amazingly, as effective as God’s Word is at fighting temptation, it is not the only weapon God gives you. The writer to the Hebrews puts it this way:

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.[9]

What other weapon does God give us to fight temptation? He gives us each other.

Martin Luther once said, “When you are tempted by sadness or despair or some other pang of conscience, then eat, drink, and seek to converse with people.”

That’s true because of what Paul wrote to the Corinthians: No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind.[10] You are not the only person to face whatever temptation overtakes you. There are some who have already faced it and others who are still struggling with it. You can work together to “spur one another on” and to “encourage one another.”

God gives us his Word as the greatest weapon against temptation, but he gives us each other too. God builds in escape hatches to every temptation and will never put you in a situation where sin is your only option.

We won’t win every battle, or fend off every magpie from making a nest in our hair. But the key to victory does not lie in our strength or skill in wielding the weapons God gives us. The victory is ours through Jesus, who faced the same temptations we do but overcame them; who lived a sinless life, but sacrificed himself on a cross for you; whose innocent blood cleanses you of all your sin, and gives you the sure and certain hope of heaven.

That’s what Jesus wants us to remember when he teaches us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” Amen.

[1] Revelation 12:9

[2] Genesis 3:1

[3] Genesis 3:2,3

[4] Genesis 3:4-6

[5] Genesis 3:7-10

[6] Luke 4:1-13

[7] Hebrews 7:26,27

[8] 1 Corinthians 10:13

[9] Hebrews 10:24,25

[10] 1 Corinthians 10:13

St. Pete's on Repeat RSS

May Your Will Be Done

Can you fill in this blank? A picture is worth _a thousand words_. I’m going to show you a series of pictures; I want you to give me one word to describe each:

Happy

Sad

Mad

Pretty easy and pretty obvious, right? There are certain things that don’t take a great detective to figure out.

But can you tell me why the baby is sad? Can you tell whether this man is sincerely angry, or is he just posing for a photo? Can you tell me how happy this woman is, or what she’s happy about? That’s a lot harder, isn’t it?

Some things we can take at face value. Others require explanation, and ideally from the source. The parents of this baby might have a good idea why he’s sad, but this woman is the only one who can tell us why she’s happy or how happy she is.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but even those thousand words aren’t enough to tell the whole story. There’s only one way to know what’s going on in someone’s mind, and that is to ask them. And that’s what makes today’s topic so challenging.

In the Third Petition, we pray to our Father in heaven, “Thy will be done.” We don’t often talk about someone’s “will” unless we’re referring to that legal document that determines what happens to a person’s stuff after they die. That’s not what we’re talking about here.

God’s will is whatever he in his infinite wisdom wants to do. God’s will is his desire. But how can we possibly know what God wants? We can’t look at his facial expressions, but even if we could, we couldn’t read his mind. As great as prayer is; it’s a one-way street. We can speak to God; we are invited to pour out our hearts to him, but he doesn’t respond in the same way. Prayer is not like a conversation we have with a friend over a cup of coffee. Prayer is a one-way street, from us to him.

And yet, God nevertheless does reveal his will to us. He even speaks to us in ways that we can hear with our own two ears. He speaks to us in his Word, and there he reveals his will. He tells us what he wants.

I want to share just two of the explicit examples we read in the Bible of what God wants.

God our Savior wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.[1]

God wants sinners to be saved.

What else does God want?

It is God’s will that you should be sanctified.[2]

God wants you to be sanctified, which just means that he wants you to live a good and godly life.

Now, these two passages are not a complete, comprehensive list of all the things that God wants, but they are a representative sample. Of all the things God wants, there are 2 that he wants more than anything else, and they both start with the letter S: _salvation_ and _sanctification_. Generally speaking, that’s what God wants – he wants you to be saved, and he wants you to live like you’re saved. That’s what God’s will is.

How does God’s will get done? That’s what we pray for in the Third Petition: Thy will be done. I want to share three examples with you this morning of three different men in the Bible all of whose names start with the letter J, and who all tell us something about how God’s will is done. I’ll tell you about them one word at a time. You chime in when you think know who it is:

Nineveh. Storm. Whale.

It’s Jonah.

Jonah had a problem with the will of God. Unlike the way he deals with us, God spoke directly with Jonah and told him exactly what his will was for Jonah’s life. God wanted Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and to warn the people there of the coming judgment for their sin, with the hope that they would repent and be saved (after all, that’s one of the things we know God wants – salvation).

But Jonah didn’t want what God wanted. The Ninevites were Jonah’s political enemies. They were threatening to attack the Jewish people. Jonah didn’t want to warn them about God’s anger. Jonah wanted God to be mad at them so that they would be destroyed and so that the Jews would be delivered.

So Jonah ran away. He chartered the first boat headed the opposite direction. Tarshish was as far away from Nineveh in the known world as Jonah could have possibly gone.

Jonah defied God’s will, and yet by the end of the story, Jonah still did God’s will. Do you remember how God got Jonah from a boat headed east to Nineveh in the west? He sent a great storm and had Jonah get cast into the sea to be swallowed by a great fish, to be swum back to the shores of Israel and vomited on dry land with the strict command of God:

“Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”[3]

This time, Jonah obeyed and did God’s will.

What do we learn about God’s will from Jonah? God’s will is done whether we want to do it or not. The only difference is what our attitude toward God’s will is.

I think we can all be like Jonah. Jonah didn’t want what God wanted. Jonah tried to resist the will of God. We do the same thing. Can you think of some examples?

It could be as simple as daring to ask God, “Why?” I don’t want to go too deeply into specific examples today, but there’s a danger to asking God the question, “Why?” Sometimes we are truly nothing more than curious, e.g. “I wonder why God made the platypus?” Most of the time, though, I think that the question, “Why?” comes from a place of pride, more like, “What were you thinking God? How could you let this happen?”

Really, in the back of our minds, what we’re thinking is, “I had a better plan, God! Why couldn’t you just do what I wanted?” And it doesn’t really matter what the circumstance is. It could be a death or a tragedy, a loss or pain. There are times when, like Jonah, we don’t want what God wants. We are constantly faced with the temptation to think like Jonah did – that my will, i.e. what I want, is better than God’s will, i.e. what he wants.

Sometimes, in sin, we dare to ask God, “Why?” Sometimes, in sin, we dare to ask ourselves, “Why not?” Why shouldn’t I be happy? Why shouldn’t I enjoy the things God forbids – the substances, the secrets, the shameful things I do when no one’s watching, the things that are no one else’s business? “Why not?”

But that’s the sin of Jonah all over again – thinking that what I want is better than what God wants. I don’t care about God wants; I only care about what I want. Or, if it’s a little less callous than that: I don’t know what God wants; I do know what I want, so I’m not going to bother trying to learn what God wants. I’m just going to make sure my will gets done.

Jonah teaches us two things: God’s will always gets done, and any opposition that I raise to it, is sin. Time for another J:

Dreams. Coat. Egypt. Slave. Prisoner. Famine.

This one is Joseph. Joseph didn’t defy the clear will of God, the way that Jonah did. With Joseph it was more that the will of God was unclear and sometimes in question.  

Joseph was given a dream at a young age – his siblings and even his parents would bow down to him. His brothers thought he was gloating and they hated him for him. They thought about killing him, but elected for the less violent route by merely selling him into slavery. From there he was falsely accused and thrown into prison. Joseph had gone from being the favourite son of his father to a forgotten prisoner mouldering away in a dungeon somewhere far from home.

Joseph must have been so confused. What about that dream God had given him? Wasn’t it God’s will that Joseph rise to such a power that even his family would bow down to him? It didn’t look like that was going to happen from where Joseph was sitting.

But then God used a series of unlikely events to put Joseph into a position to help the Pharaoh of Egypt out of a jam, and in thankfulness Pharaoh plucked Joseph out of prison and made him second in command over the greatest superpower of the day.

God’s will was clear. Joseph would rise to power. But the path from A to B wasn’t a straight line. So, what can we learn about God’s will this time from Joseph? God’s will doesn’t always match our expectation. Or, to put it the way that Isaiah does:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”[4]

I’m sure that, given the choice, Joseph wouldn’t have opted for slavery or prison, but God still used those truly challenging moments in Joseph’s life to put him in a position to save thousands. As the second in command in all of Egypt, Joseph ensured that not only Egypt but all of its neighbours would survive a 7 year famine. I’m sure it’s not what Joseph had in mind, or how he thought he’d get from A to B, but it was God’s will, and God’s will got done.  

And finally, our last J. I’m willing to bet that I don’t have to say a single word for you to guess who this J is. It’s Jesus!

Just like with Joseph, God’s will in Jesus’ life was often paradoxical and unexpected. The Son of God from all eternity was born of a woman in antiquity. The almighty, all-powerful, omnipotent God was at the mercy of earthly rulers. The sinless Son of God was convicted of crimes he did not commit and sentenced to die a criminal’s death. The eternal, immortal, ever-living God was killed to give you eternal, unending life in his name.

That doesn’t make sense to us. You hear statements like that and you ask the questions: How is that possible? Why would God do that?

The snarky answer is, because he wanted to – because that was his will. The better answer is because he loves you, and because you know the two areas of God’s will that are crystal clear in Scripture: _salvation_ and _sanctification_. God wanted you to be saved. That’s why he sent his sinless Son to die on a cross – for your salvation.

Unlike Jonah, Jesus didn’t begrudge his mission. He willingly and wholeheartedly accepted the will of his Father and he humbled himself – not only by becoming a man, and living as the poor son of a carpenter and later on a vagabond preacher. He humbled himself being obedient even to the point of death on a cross, even when he would have loved for there to be a different way to save you.

And this is one of the most amazing stories in the entire Bible. On the night before Jesus died, literally minutes before he was arrested by the Jews, Jesus prayed this:

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”[5]

In those last moments before his death, Jesus prayed for there to be another way to save humanity. He didn’t look forward to what was about to happen to him, and he asked his Father in heaven for a different option.

But how did Jesus end this prayer? “Yet not my will, but yours be done.” Jesus was willing to accept his Father’s will, even when it wasn’t his own, even when it would mean great pain and ultimately an excruciating death, because at the end of the day even if Jesus didn’t know anything else about his Father’s will, he knew the same two things that you and I do. God desires our _salvation_ and _sanctification_. And Jesus did too. Jesus was willing to give up his will out of love for you. Jesus was willing to be condemned, so that you could be forgiven. Jesus was willing to die so that you could live.  

There could be no better comfort than Jesus when we’re confronted with our own Jonah-like opposition to God’s will. Even for our rejection of and rebellion against God’s will in our lives, we have forgiveness in Jesus who kept his Father’s will perfectly.

There could be no better comfort than Jesus. There could be no better example than Jesus. When we pray to our Father in heaven, especially about his will being done, how can we be like Jesus?

We can be humble like him. Submit our will to his. Trust that even when we can’t see how God could get us from A to B, his will will always be done, one way or another.  It may not take the path we think it might or should. It might not be what we wanted, but if it’s God’s will, it is always best. If it is God’s will, it will never jeopardize our salvation or compromise our sanctification.

God wants you to know that you are saved. That’s why he sent and sacrificed his Son. That was his will. Now he wants you live like you’re saved. So, pray like Jesus, “Thy will be done.” Amen.

[1] 1 Timothy 2:3,4

[2] 1 Thessalonians 4:3

[3] Jonah 3:2

[4] Luke 22:42

[5] Luke 22:42

St. Pete's on Repeat RSS