Overcoming Temptation

Well today we're going to continue on in our study in the book of james we are yes you guessed it still in james chapter one i think we'll be in james chapter one until jesus comes back so go ahead and buckle up it has been fun we're moving slow and i even got some questions between service like hey why are we moving so slow there's so much good stuff in the next paragraph yes and there's also so much good stuff in this paragraph and what we're doing with james you may have heard this phrase before you use the bible to interpret the bible and james gives us a wonderful opportunity to do that sometimes i think of the bible as if you're mining for rubies and sometimes we find as we mine rubies and find these beautiful things and we mine them and examine them

And we find rubies and we find rubies and we find rubies and we find rubies and sometimes we just find more and more beautiful things behind it to keep on digging deeper and deeper and deeper into so we're not moving slow because we're lazy we're not moving slow because we're just trying to make stuff up the goal really is let's mine everything we can out of each passage so we can more fully surrender and submit our life to christ so that is our goal in preaching i hope that on some level matches your goal of why we're even here that we would love to be not just hearers of god's word which we'll get to in a couple weeks in the book of james but also doers of god's word amen so today we continue on in james chapter one so far we've been talking

Our defender the only way we're going to defend ourselves against the schemes of the devil the only way will effectively overcome the temptation in our life it must begin there our one defense our righteousness oh Lord I need you friends I'm not sure where you're at in your faith this morning maybe today is the day the Lord is calling you unto himself we would love to pray with you we'd love to talk with you what it means to confess Christ as Lord we'd love to talk about what it means to follow Jesus we'd love to talk about what it means to walk by the spirit so that you can overcome the temptation in your life as well we've got a team of people down front they'd love to have

That conversation with you they'd love to have that conversation with you they'd also like to have a conversation with you to have that conversation with you they'd also like to have a conversation with you they'd also love to pray for you whatever trial going on maybe it's a trial out there maybe it's a a trial in here they'd love to minister to you through prayer for the rest of us don't forget service isn't over till you love somebody so love somebody well in here and then go out there into the world and live on mission for the glory of Christ and Christ alone we love you God bless you we'll see you next week bye -bye

A lot about trials trials of various kinds that we saw in verse chap or chapter one verse two when the james brother of jesus said consider it joy when you enter into the kingdom of god and when you enter into the kingdom of god and into the kingdom of god and when you enter into the kingdom of god and you're not going to be a sinner you're going to be a sinner so we're going to talk about some of the trials not going to be a sinner you're going to be a sinner so we're going to talk about some of the trials of various kinds and he's talked about some of the various trials these people may have been experiencing in verse 1 he talked about this dispersion this diaspora this intense persecution that happened in jewish christianity early on after the ascension of christ

And he talks about that as being a trial this church was facing we saw a couple weeks ago the trial of finances not just the trial of poverty but also the trial of wealth how god allows hard things and also even times good things ultimately to test us to put our faith to the test to allow us to go through trials for the purpose of endurance for the purpose of growing in our character and the purpose for becoming the people that god's called us to be and what we find in life oftentimes the greatest classroom for learning in our life typically is pain you go through hard things you learn you grow and then you encounter more trials you go through hard things you learn you grow this is pattern we see throughout our whole life so james says consider it joy why not because

Trials are fun consider it joy because we know that god is working that god is in control even in the midst of our sorrows even in the midst of our pain god is working that's why we can consider it joy so far the trials he's been talking about primarily are external things that are going on around us that kind of happen in our life or happen directly to us where he's going to turn today in james chapter 1 verses 12 through 15 is no longer the trial of what's going on externally but the trial of what's going on internally mainly our own sinful evil desires how god is even working and growing and allowing us to be shaped and molded through the things that we

Are and so this is not unprecedented this passage really is would be a struggling part Mhm.

12 through 15 if you're not there you can turn there and if you don't have a bible there should be a bible and seat back in front of you if you're brand new to the bible and you're asking all sorts of questions who's james what are we doing? asking the right questions James is the He frame of jesus and he wrote a letter to this church church is going through tough times just like many of you are probably going through tough times and we believe the Word of God is available for you program Today just is the day that the Lord had it written to his people. If you are brand new to the Bible, I'd encourage you to grab a Bible from a seat back.

The book of James can be found on page 1 ,100. No, it's not. It's 1 ,999. That is the page. No, it's not. It's page 1 ,200 minus one, 1 ,199. That's how I figured that out. I should have just earlier in my head said page 1 ,199, but I had this equation. 1 ,200 minus one is, don't worry about it. Grab a Bible, read it, believe it, do what it says. I promise it'll change your life forever.

James chapter 1, beginning in verse 12. I'd like to read through verse 15 and then go to the Lord once more in prayer. James writes this. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial. For when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he's tempted, I'm being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted. He is not tempted He is not tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when it's fully grown, brings forth death.

Let's pray. God, well, it's my voice that's been heard. We recognize this morning it's your word that's been spoken. And God, today we choose to trust your word. It is the authority for our life. God, I pray even now as we study these few short verses that you would allow your word to be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

God, I pray that we can find a pure life by walking according to what your word says. Holy Spirit, I pray today that you would, by your power, open our eyes to see this text clearly, to see God clearly. Would you open our ears that we would hear God's word, speaking to us? Would you open our minds that we might be able to understand what these words say? Would you open our hearts that we would respond in love? And God, would you open our mouths that we'd go out into the world to live on mission, to preach the good news, the message of who Christ is and what he's done for us? God, everything we do, everything we say, everything we sing, everything we study today, we ask that you'd use it for your glory as you also use it for our good.

Father, we love you. We submit to you. We love you in all things. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Amen. Well, verse 12 kind of serves as this transitional statement for us where it goes back to what we've studied so far, but then also kind of trampolines us to what's next, if we can say that. And then what we see in 13, 14, 15, we're gonna have three truths about temptation. What temptation is, where it comes from, how do we deal with it, and then towards the end, we can turn our attention towards what might it look like for us to overcome the temptation that exists in our life. Verse 12 begins like this. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial.

We've been talking about these external trials. I love that James says, consider it joy when you encounter trials of various kinds. Trials are not a one -size -fits -all. Each of us, you've heard the joke before, we're either coming out of a trial, we're going into a trial, or we're currently in a trial. There's all sorts of things, there's all sorts of things in life that fit this category of trial. Some kind of pain, some type of turmoil, some kind of sickness, some type of sorrow, whatever it might be, God has allowed those things in our life for the purpose of endurance that shapes character. He uses the word steadfast. The testing of your faith would produce steadfastness in verse three, and we've talked about how this steadfast word means endurance.

You can tell by looking at me, I am not an endurance kind of athlete. I like to lift something heavy like twice and be done for the day. That sounds fun, but running miles and miles and miles and miles and miles on end, that sounds terrible. But you train for that kind of thing and you build up this thing that's called endurance. One of the reasons God allows pain in our life so we can learn how to navigate more and more and more pain. Why? Because pain, oftentimes, equals growth. And God loves us right where we're at, but you've heard the saying, he loves us too much to keep us there. So he will grow us.

He will shape us. He will help us become the people he wants us to be, and he utilizes pain to do that. But pain is not fun. I know my tendency when I'm finding myself in a trial, when I'm finding myself in some type of difficulty, my tendency is to just get delivered and be out of it. Just be done. If you're going through something hard, you're walking through the valley of the shadow of death, even though we know Christ is with us and we'll fear no evil because his rod and his staff comforts us. All of that can be true, but when we find ourself in a valley, when I find myself in a valley, my preference is just out of the valley.

Deliverance, I wanna be done with it. I wanna move on to something else. It's not fun, I don't like it. Or another tendency is just distraction. We find ourselves in a valley, what can we kind of introduce into our life to just distract us from the reality that's going on in us and around us? And God says that's not a good solution either. The only solution to trial is endurance. Let it have its full effect so that we can become the people God's called us to be, so that we can learn the lesson that God is teaching through the classroom of pain. And James says there's tremendous blessing that comes from remaining steadfast under God, for we are His children, our family and our families.

But the first thing to do. God says we must be clear -minded. We must be clear -minded about our faith.

He says that it's a good thing to have the right words. He says that we that it's a good thing to have the right words. He says that we must be clear -minded about what we believe in. We must know what we believe in. And that's what we need to learn. need to learn. other kinds of rewards these things we receive from the Lord based upon how we live our life now there's an interesting phrase here and maybe your Bible reads a bit different you might be reading like an NASB translation or a different translation this verse probably says blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial for when he has been approved interesting term when he has been approved it's actually an old -school financial term when I say old -school I mean as old as old -school as you can get like in the original Greek it's a

Financial term and it's this word dokimaze which is fun to say but what it means I think is even more fun it's this financial term that essentially means it's legit it's legit it's not fake it's not fraud it's not phony it's not some forgery it's legit there was this group of bankers that actually came to be known as the documents if you wanted real legit money you would go to the documents these guys would go to the documents and they would these would go to the documents and they would these guys would they would not Forge in a bad way but you got to remember money comes from like forged coins and everything else back in the day you couldn't just scan your phone and Apple pay and do everything you had to use real money shocker right who would do such a thing but

That's what would happen so you'd have these guys who would Forge they would create the finances of the day they would take precious metals melt them down and you'd end up with coins all of these coins were meant to have ridges on them so you could see they were legit think of the different kind of coins that we have in kind of American USD a quarter has ridges right so think of a quarter having ridges if a quarter was shaved down it'd have none of these ridges what you'd have back in the day of these guys who would they'd Forge money and then they would shave around the edge and keep that for themselves and they'd create more money even though what they were creating essentially was typically a fraud

So people would go to the documents because if you wanted real legit money fake phony thing you would go to this group of guys and those were the group of guys who became known as the documents the legit ones there's something that goes on in our life when we stay true to who we are when we stand the test all of these trials all these different things that we endure it's kind of like we become the documents we become the legit ones we become the ones who have been approved we become the ones who have stood the test of time that's what he calls us to when he says there are rewards for living that kind of life

You encounter trials externally and you're faithful to God there's reward where he turns next is although you might encounter external trials there's also some trials you encounter internally and there's reward for standing the test of time through those as well he goes external to internal circumstances now to evil desires the things that are tempting to us first thing we see true about temptation we see in verse 13 that temptation is inevitably

Temptation is inevitable I wish it wasn't I wish it was this kind of thing you could kind of Dodge dip dive duck just avoid it completely uh but you can't I don't know about you but when I came to Christ at the ripe young age of 5 I still don't remember anything when I was young when I was six years old I went to church I don't remember when I was young when I was six years old I went to church I remember remember, like, I love Jesus now, and I still want to do dumb things. And maybe that's been your experience as well. You've given your life to Christ, but there's still something real inside of you that desires things that you know God would not have you do.

Temptation is inevitable, just like trials. Verse 2 of chapter 1, count it all joy, my brothers, when? It'd be great if we could go through life and avoid every single trial possible. And oftentimes we try to, but even then we still end up with some type of difficulty.

So it is the same with temptation. He says this in verse 13, let no one say when he is tempted. When? Why? Because it is inevitable. Let 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. Let no one say when he's tempted. Three things I want to hit real quick. I am being tempted by God. Why? Because God does not tempt people with evil.

God would not tempt us with evil. Think of the garden, Garden of Eden. God creates everything. Who shows up? Who's the tempter?

Satan. The devil himself. He is the tempter. 1 Thessalonians chapter 3, Paul talking to a church. He essentially says, hey, I was afraid that the tempter showed up and led you astray. It's not God. It's not God who tempts people. It's the devil who tempts people. Jesus in John chapter 10, he says, hey, I have come that you would have life and life to the full. But you know what the devil has come for? He's come to steal. He's come to kill. And he's come to destroy.

Sometimes we look at our life and we kind of shake a fist at God and we blame God for the things going on around us. Sometimes we even shake a fist at God and blame him for the things going on, within us. You're the one who made me this way.

Why did you create me like this? Temptation is inevitable, but we must remember it's not God who tempts anyone. It's the devil who tempts us. He himself tempts no one. For God himself cannot be tempted with evil, which is interesting. Because if you've read through the Bible, there might be some stories in your head popping up predominantly about Jesus, God the Son, and his story of Matthew chapter 4, the Holy Spirit of God leading Jesus out into the wilderness for the purpose of what? Temptation. For him to be tempted, for him to be tried. This is one of those times we look at the Bible, we use the Bible to interpret the Bible. So James chapter 1, it says that God cannot be tempted, but Matthew chapter 4 says Jesus, who is God, was led out into the wilderness to be tempted.

You could look at Hebrews chapter 2 and Hebrews chapter 4, where it talks about us having this great high priest who is made just like us, who has been tempted as every way as we are, yet he's still completely without sin. So how do we deal with two passages, three passages really, that look like they kind of contradict one another? I think first we have to remember who Jesus is. Philippians chapter 2, Jesus, who was God, did not account equality with God, a thing to be grasped. So he emptied himself and took on what? He took on flesh.

John chapter 1, says Jesus is God, but you also see that Jesus took on flesh. So as Jesus walked among us here on earth, he was two things, fully God, fully man. Not 50 -50, not either or, fully both. Fully God, fully divine, fully human simultaneously. So God and his divinity, according to James chapter 1, it's impossible for God to sin. It's impossible for God to even be tempted. So yeah, we can say it's impossible, but it's impossible for God to even be tempted. So yeah, we can say it's impossible, for God to be tempted. But God and his humanity, according to Hebrews chapter 2 and Hebrews chapter 4, in a very real sense, Jesus was tempted.

He was tempted. But if we read through the rest of Matthew chapter 4, which we might get into a little bit next week, how does Jesus respond to temptation? It is written, he uses God's word. It is written, he uses God's word. It is written, he uses God's word. So yes, Jesus was tempted, but he overcame temptation, so that we might be able to as well. Let no one say when he's tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. It's Satan who tempts us. It's Satan who wants us to fall. It's Satan who cries out of the evil desires of our heart to get us to do the things that we know the Lord would have us not.

Beginning in verse 14, we see a second truth about temptation. Temptation originates from our own desires. Temptation originates from our own desires. But each person is tempted when he's lured and enticed by his own desire. Now, you can think of temptation as all the things out there that are tempting to you, but if it's not really what your heart wants in and of itself, it poses no risk of temptation whatsoever. Okay, after church today, we could have a 10 -foot long table full of carrots and broccoli, and I promise you, no ounce of my entire being is going to want to get down with some carrots and broccoli. I don't want that. I don't desire that.

Not tempting at all. If that's you, cool. But a table full of donuts, table full of candy, I got a sweet tooth, and I got a meat tooth. Bunch of steaks after church, yeah, I want that.

There's all sorts of things in the world that are shiny and awesome, and they want people's attention, but if it's not what your heart desires, then it's not actually real temptation. Here's the thing, though. We have a tempter who knows the desires of our heart. There's a tempter who's been studying humanity for thousands and thousands of years. He knows how people tick more than we know how people tick. He knows what you want more than you know what you want, and he will use it to make you happy. He knows what you want more than you know what you want, and he will use it to make you happy. Why? knows what you want more than you know what you want, and he will use it to make you happy.

Why? Because he's come to steal. He's come to kill, and he's come to destroy. And he has found the best way to kill, steal, destroy is to appeal to your own sinful, evil desires. We're not totally foreign to this. We use things like this oftentimes to get what we want. Some people are really manipulative, so they will manipulate your desires to get something out of you. It's the same game the devil's playing. It's the same game that we play. It's the same game that we play. It's the same game that we play. It's the same game that we play. It's the same game that we play. There's the same game that we play. It's the same game that we play.

There's actually two terms he lists here, lured and enticed. Each of us is tempted when we are lured and enticed. Two awesome terms here. One, a hunting term, which is great, and then second, a fishing term. How many of you are outdoors people? Fishers, hunters? That's great. If you're adamantly opposed to that, I suggest you just take a nap for a little bit, and then wake up when I snap my fingers. Two terms he uses here, lured and enticed. The term lured literally means to draw away for the purpose of destruction. To draw away for the purpose of destruction. About 15 years ago, my good friend Doug Farrington, who's an elder here, invited me on a deer hunting trip.

I got lost, almost died. Greatest experience of my life. Doug's a hero. He saved me. It was wonderful. A couple years later, he took me on my first ever elk hunt. And if you have been elk hunting, it's like the most crazy experience ever. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. And Doug explained to me, you know, we can talk to these things. And I was like, Doug's crazy. Doug's crazy. What do you mean you can talk to elk? That can't be real. And he says, no, let me show you what I'm talking about. There's this certain season of the year you can hunt elk. I promise this means something more than just Thomas talking about elk hunting.

It will connect at some point. There's a season during elk hunting called the rut. It's essentially mating season. And the male elk, the bull elk, are pretty distracted because they only have one thing on their mind. Breeding. That's what they want. Their goal is to breed as many cows as possible. So you can kind of get in a bull elk's head and start speaking their language for the purpose of drawing them out, utilizing their own desires. There's a handful of ways you can talk to them. There's these things called calls. You can use a diaphragm call, which goes in your mouth, an external call, a bugle tube, all sorts of wonderful, wonderful, awesome things to talk to these creatures.

It's quite fun. One of the things you can do is something bull elk want to do is they want to protect. They want to protect. So you can do this like sad little calf call where it sounds like a calf is getting beat up by something and a bull might come to try to give aid to this hurting calf. You're drawing an elk out using his own desire. You're drawing an elk out using his own You're drawing an elk out using his own desires, his desire for protection. Or you can make yourself sound like what they call a hot cow,

Hot cow, which is a lady elk who is, she's ready. And you can speak that language and these bull elk hear it and they're like, oh yeah. Oh yeah. And they let their guard down and they come after

You. They think it's what they actually desire. There's another way you can talk to them. You can locate them through this thing called a bugle, which essentially you're just saying, Hey, I'm over here. And then the other bulls say, Hey, I'm over here. And you go back and forth. You can find out where they're at and then you can turn it up a notch and you can say, Hey, I'm over here, but I'm coming over there and I'm going to fight.

And that guy will respond. Yeah. You want some? Yeah, I do. And you go back and forth and believe it or not, these things feel like so challenged and ready to fight that you're using their own desires against them for the purpose of killing.

That's the goal. And when we look at our tempter, when we look at this deceiver who wants to steal to kill and destroy, oftentimes he'll speak the language that you and I want to hear so that we move towards this thing that we don't even know it's destruction.

We think it's something harmless. We think it's something that might feel good. We are lured away. There's a second term. He says enticed, which literally means to catch with bait, to catch with bait. When you go fishing, that's what you do. You bait a hook to disguise the hook.

The devil does the same thing with us. He says things. He speaks things. He puts things in front of us. He comes like, yeah, that's the thing I really, really want. But it's just destruction.

Each of us are lured and enticed by our own sinful desires. There's a third thing. When this continues on, we see temptation can lead to death. Verse 15, then desire when it is conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it's fully grown brings forth death. There's a second image he gives, the image of conception and childbirth conception

All the way through childbirth. Eventually, desire gives way to like dwelling on it. You really start thinking about it. Is that really what I want? You know, maybe did God really say that's a good question? Did Ford say we can't eat from the tree?

Adam. Look, the food looks good. We begin to think about it, We begin to dwell on it, we began to question things.

These distractions, deceptions, we begin to desire them, We begin to dwell on them. And before long it just becomes just rejection. And at that point, This desire on them. And before And it gives way to disobedience. We actually do the thing that's wrong. And then here he says, eventually, that sin, that disobedience, when it's fully grown, it brings forth death.

Unchecked, unrepentant sin leads to death. Now, it could lead to physical death. There are certain sins you can commit against your own body where you can catch diseases and eventually die. There are different kinds of addictions that become just, that destroy your life so much to the point where death just becomes the end result. There's physical death. We know there's spiritual death. That's what the scriptures teach. The wages of sin is death. But there's also this third kind of death, just this death -like experience where things around us begin to die. Maybe not physically, maybe not spiritually, but certainly relationally.

You know, you can only lie to someone for so long before that relationship begins to die.

Now, you can only have this cycle of do something, I'm sorry, do something, I'm sorry, do something, I'm sorry, where you lose people's trust and eventually that relationship begins to die.

Or you're living this double -minded life where everything is great on Sunday and hunky -dory, happy, happy, happy. I love Jesus. Don't we all? But then on the inside, you're just secretly dying. You're literally struggling with something in the dark and you're living in this experience that you just know is not what the Lord would have for you.

Now, if an elk knew, hey, come over here and you're going to die, wouldn't do it. If you knew, hey, go hang out with that girl from the office afterwards and I promise you'll lose your family, you'd be like, nope. But the devil's smarter than that. It begins with deception. Did God really say?

And then it goes towards desire. Think of 2 Samuel chapter 11, the story of David and Bathsheba. It starts innocently. David is going for a walk on his roof. Maybe there's a beautiful sunset. Who doesn't love a beautiful sunset? And he looks over and catches a glimpse of a beautiful woman bathing. He has an opportunity. He has a decision to make in that moment. Do I shield my eyes? Do I guard my eyes? Do I guard myself from things that are impure?

Or do I allow this desire to give way to really begin to dwell and think about it? And we know the story. That's what he does. He goes to someone and says, who is that? And their response is, yo, that's Bathsheba, Uriah's wife, probably shouldn't go there. No, bring her to me.

We see infidelity happen. She gets pregnant. And to cover up his own tracks, which is often what we try to do, cover it up, blame other people, what happens? He ultimately has Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, killed in war. The wages of sin is death, temptation when it gives way to disobedience. And when disobedience is unrepented of, the consequence is death.

In a very real sense, it could be physical death. It could be physical death. We know it causes spiritual death apart from Christ, but at the same time, it's just the natural consequence for our own stupid actions. Death. You know, what's encouraging about Romans 6 verse 23, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. We're reminded that the wages of sin is death. That's why in the Garden of Eden, something died to cover the sin, the nakedness, the shame of Adam and Eve. That's why through our sins. Someone had to come and live a perfect life for us, to make a perfect sacrifice, to be the atonement for our sins, for Jesus' blood to be the covering of our sin.

The wages of our sin was his death. But the gift of God is Christ Jesus our Lord. Jesus became sin, even though he knew no sin, that in Christ we could become the righteousness of God. So while temptation is very real and very alive with each and every one of us, there's victory. There's victory for those who claim the blood of Jesus, amen?

There's victory for those who want to walk in hope, for those who want to walk in faith, for those who really want to endure the trials, the trials out there, but also the trials that are in here. The things that tempt us out there, but also the things that tempt us in here.

We can overcome temptation. The scriptures teach that temptation. Temptation is inevitable. I think we need to have our guard up to be aware of the devil's schemes. If we're going to overcome temptation, we've got to take our eyes off the floor and lift them up. Eyes on Christ and eyes out there, just aware of what's going on around us.

The scriptures teach in 1 Peter 5 that our adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, a hungry lion looking for people to devour. He's looking for people's lives to destroy. And how does he do that? He uses what you want against you. Are we aware of it? Are we aware of him? Temptation is inevitable. Temptation originates from our own desires. Galatians chapter 5 talks about walking by the spirit. Walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of your flesh. This isn't just about white knuckling it and doing it the best you possibly can and fighting back so you don't sin. The secret sauce really is surrender. Render your life to Christ, be filled with the spirit and allow God to work in your life by the power of his Holy Spirit.

Walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Friends, would that be true of us? Would we fix our eyes on Christ? Would we turn to Christ and live? Be filled with his spirit so that we can live the life he's called us to live.

Temptation is inevitable. Temptation originates from our own desire and temptation can lead to death. I'm thankful. One of my favorite verses in the Bible, 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 13 says, no temptation has seized you except that what is common to man. Here's what this means. There's no temptation the devil will throw at you that you can't say no to.

The devil made me do it. No one can make you do anything. There's no temptation that has seized you except that what is common to man and God is faithful. He will always provide a way of escape. Amen. And so you find yourselves in a relationship, in a place you shouldn't be, about to do a thing that you've sworn you'd never do again. You still have a way out.

Man, you've disclosed some stuff to your spouse. This is what I've been struggling with and I'm really trying to fight it. I'm really trying to fight it, but when you feel in that moment, like I just have to give in, you don't have to give in. There's a way out.

The Holy Spirit lives inside of you. There's always a way out. You walk into the mall. You just struggle so much. much with greed, like you don't have to buy something. You don't have to give in to that feeling. You don't have to give in to that desire. You're hanging out with the ladies after work or your friends at school, and then, did you hear about so -and -so? Did you hear about so -and -so? Did you hear about so -and -so? You don't have to contribute.

There's always a way out. No temptation has seized you except that what is common to man, and God is faithful. He will always provide a way of escape for us. The devil can't make us do anything. Because of who Christ is and what he's done, we are more than conquerors through Christ. Amen? And we're going to take communion this morning and just remember who Christ is and what he's done, and remember that, you know what? The wages of sin is death, and that Jesus paid the penalty, that Jesus paid the wage, that Jesus paid it all, that Jesus came and lived a perfect life that you and I can't and don't live, that he died death in our place, that he didn't stay dead,

But he rose from the dead, defeating death, that you and I could live with him forever now, abundantly now. He came that we could have life to the full right here, right now. Victory over sin. And he came when we placed our faith in him that we could have victory over death even later. Abundant life now, eternal life later. That's what we celebrate when we take communion. As a church, you should have received a communion cup on your way in. If you didn't, you can slip your hand up, and our communion team will gladly assist in getting you a communion cup. There's no shame in forgetting I forgot first hour and had to raise my own hand to get a communion cup this morning.

Can we do this? Can we just quiet our hearts for a second? Just bow our heads, close our eyes.

Make me a vessel. Make me an offering. Make me whatever you want me to be.

And would you go before the Lord and just pray those same things again this morning? God, would you make me a vessel, your vessel?

Would you make me your offering? Would you make me whatever you want me to be?

Maybe there's something going on in your life even this morning. Maybe there's some temptation, some kind of sin that's been going on, the desires of your own heart. Maybe it's that thing the devil's been calling out to you, trying to lead you astray. This morning, would you come before the Lord? And ask him for more boldness, more courage, more confidence.

For some of you, would you ask the Lord for the confidence to repent, to

Confess? God, make us your vessel. Make us your offering. Lord, would you make us whatever it is you want us to be?

On the night Jesus was betrayed, he enjoyed a meal with his disciples in an upper room. And during the meal, he took a piece of bread and he broke it. And he said, this is my body, which has been broken for you. Friends, we do this in remembrance of Christ.

In the same way, he took a cup. And he said, this cup represents my blood. It's a new covenant. It's poured out for you. Friends, we do this in remembrance of Christ.

Jesus, those words continue just to ring in my ears. God, would you help me be your vessel? Would I lay my life down to be your offering? Because you sent your son who offered his life for us.

God, as we press in and seek Jesus, as we keep our eyes fixed on him, as we seek to align our life more closely to your word, as we seek to walk by your spirit, God, I pray that you would continue to use the trials and the tests in our life to make us whatever it is you want us to be.

God, would you use our lives for your glory? God, we turn our hearts now again towards worship, responding and just crying out, God, we need you. We need you every hour, every minute, every day, God. need you God we love you we thank you we praise you it's in Christ's name we pray amen my one defense my righteousness oh God how I need you friends there is no amount of good you can do in this life to earn God's favor there's no amount of good that we can do to somehow be acceptable in God's sight it's his righteousness alone that makes us acceptable it's his work of Jesus his son Jesus who took a cross for us who died for us it's his righteousness alone that makes us righteous it's him is