Sermon – Thorns of Temptation

February 25, 2007

Thorns of Temptation

This morning is the first Sunday of Lent. We had a wonderful Ash Wednesday service at Disciples Christian Church. So here we are again going into the season of Lent. It’s a time for introspection, self-examination, renewing our commitment to the Lord, even fasting. It turns out that some Catholic guys were trying their dead level best to fast from meat on Fridays. But it turns out that

John Smith was the only Protestant to move into a large Catholic neighborhood. On the first Friday of Lent, John was outside grilling a big juicy steak on his grill.

Meanwhile, all of his neighbors were eating cold tuna fish for supper. This went on each Friday of Lent. On the last Friday of Lent, the neighborhood men got together and decided that something had to be done about John. He was tempting them to eat meat each Friday of Lent, and they couldn’t take it anymore.

They decided to try and convert John to Catholicism. They went over and talked to him. John decided to join all of his neighbors and become a Catholic, which made them all very happy.

They took him to church, and the priest sprinkled some water over him, and said, “You were born a Baptist, you were raised a Baptist, and now you are a Catholic.”

The men were so relieved, now their biggest Lenten temptation was resolved. The next year’s Lenten season rolled around. The first Friday of Lent came, and, just at supper time, when the neighborhood was settling down to their cold tuna fish dinner, the smell of steak cooking on a grill came wafting into their homes. The neighborhood men could not believe their noses! What was going on?!

They called each other up and decided to meet over in John’s yard to see if he had forgotten it was the first Friday of Lent. The group arrived just in time to see John standing over his grill with a small pitcher of water. He was sprinkling some water over his steak on the grill, saying, “You were born a cow, you were raised a cow, and now you are a fish.”

Surrender trumps temptation

Newspapers called it the "Dance of Danger"—bridge construction on top of swaying catwalks and high towers, sometimes hundreds of feet in the air, blown by ill winds. This dance had even yielded a calculated fatality rate: For every one million dollars spent, one life would be lost. That was what officials could expect.

Engineers on the Golden Gate Bridge, however, believed the risks could be lowered. When construction began in 1932, numerous safety measures were put into place and strictly enforced: mandatory use of hard hats, prescription filtered eye glasses, no show-boating (cause for automatic firing), tie-off lines, and an on-site hospital helped to greatly reduce the casualty rate. After nearly four years of construction and $20 million spent, only one worker had died.

The most effective safety device, without question, was as new to bridge building as it was old to the circus: the use of a trapeze net. This large net cost $130,000 and draped sixty feet below the roadbed under construction, extending ten feet to either side. So effective was the safety net that the newspapers began running box scores: "Score on the Gate Bridge Safety Net to Date: 8 Lives Saved!" Those men whose lives had been delivered by the net were said to have joined the "Halfway to Hell Club."

Beyond that, the net had another significant benefit: it freed many of the workers from an often paralyzing sense of fear. And that, many said, helped them work more productively.

In a troubled and frightening world, Scripture tells us of the safety equipment and protections afforded the believer. We have a certain safety net beneath this life's "dance of danger."

What’s your safety net? Do you have one at all or are you like those who build bridges without them? Spiritually we are at as much risk of being destroyed as those who work on bridges without nets. So we better be sure we have a safety net under us while we walk through this life for Christ.

All of us are exposed to physical danger but Lent is a time to examine how we are exposed to spiritual danger. In fact we may have done a “dance of danger” this past year and fallen.

Ted Haggard, former pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs did a dance of danger last year and finally fell. He didn’t have a safety net. Another casualty for Christ. Yet all of us can think our walk with the Lord is fine but fall just as hard, just as quickly. If we don’t stay accountable and if we don’t constantly examine our selves, we are all prone to doing a “dance of danger” and eventually falling to our spiritual demise.

It is imperative that we examine ourselves during Lent and see where spiritually we are exposed to peril and ultimately spiritual destruction. There are three enemies every Christian has: the world, the flesh, the devil. We are constantly under attack from all three. John calls the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life all part of the world system. And that world system assails us every day.

Now, if you think you are immune from these enemies of your soul may I remind you that Adam and Eve were in perfect fellowship with God, they were in the garden and they were attacked by our adversary, Satan, the devil. They had everything they could ever want or need yet still an attack came from Satan. They were co-opted and as a result of their disobedience, they were cast out of the garden and all of us now are fallen creatures. We no longer reflect the image of God perfectly because our wills, our souls, our minds, our hearts, our spirits, our bodies have been corrupted. We are dead in our sins but when Christ comes into our lives we are made new creatures. Yet we still have vestiges of our old selves so we can still be co-opted just as Adam and Eve were.

We are not the only living thing that has been touched by the Fall. Even creation itself has been corrupted. You remember what God said in Genesis 3:15-17 to Adam, because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree that God said not to, the ground would be cursed and produce thorns and thistles. It seems like some of us encounter more thorns than others. Certainly, Paul talked about a thorn in his flesh. That’s how we typically think of thorns – a physical problem of some kind. But I believe there are other thorns, that are more psychological in nature that we all experience because we are on planet earth and Jesus is not yet here. Over these next 40 days, I am going to be preaching about these thorns and how to deal with them. Those thorns are: the thorns of temptation, the thorns of rejection, the thorns of confusion, thorns of conviction, Shannon will speak on thorns of competition, lastly, thorns of expectations and on Easter Sunday, I will talk about how our thorns can become crowns. So I am looking forward to this series and hope we all learn how to deal with these thorns and subsequently, turn them into crowns.

Thorns still exist. We are not living on the new earth. We face them every day and will. The good news is our savior did as well. The Amplified Bible tells us this in Hebrews 4:15 tells us that “we do not have a High Priest who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but one who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning.”

If Jesus was tempted in every way that we are, why do we think we shouldn’t experience temptation? If God’s primary purpose is to make us like his son and his son was tempted and tested, then we will be, too.

Yet Jesus didn’t sin. So how did he do that? Let’s find out together this morning.

Temptation nobody particularly likes it. Whether you are tempted to go to web sites you shouldn’t go to, cheat on your income taxes, get paid for hours you didn’t work, over charge people for services not rendered, temptation affects all of us every day.

This last Friday I got up early. My Australian Shepherd took me out for a drag. We walked around our development and all was right with the world. So after I put him up, I went to the development’s mail boxes to get my mail. When I opened my mail box, there was a piece of paper in there with the word “vacant” on it. Now, we’ve lived there 23 years so I felt it build up inside of me to really blast the post office. But as I thought through things and how I might not capitulate to my natural desire to get really torqued. I went to the post office and asked about my mail. This big old mail guy comes out with all my mail. He said, he couldn’t get it all in our box. I asked him why he didn’t put it in the larger boxes that are there and he told me that he didn’t have any larger boxes available. I told him I understood and that we would check it more often.

But then there were 3 or 4 things that very same morning that all seemed like little tests that I could either be like Christ or not. Now, I could have blamed God for the fact that he didn’t remind me to check my mail more often or that the mail man didn’t bring my mail to my house. But that would be blaming God for the temptation and James tells us we can’t get away with that. In James 1:13 – 15, he tells us, “Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted from God; for God is incapable of being tempted by evil and He himself tempts no one. But every person is tempted when he is drawn away, enticed and baited (like a fish lured away from its retreat) by his own evil desire. Then the evil desire when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully matured, brings forth death.”

James forces us to take responsibility for our being tempted. He says the desire to do evil comes from inside us. It is our own evil desire that both attracts us and drags us away from God’s will. Paul said something similar in Romans 7:18, “For I know nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot perform it. I have the intention and urge to do what is right but no power to carry it out.”

But not being responsible for our sin is an old problem. It started with Adam and Eve. Eve blamed the serpent, the devil. Adam blamed the woman God gave him. Round and round it goes and we blame the way we were raised, our socio-economic status, our job, even God, when we encounter temptations to sin.

Until we see Jesus, we will struggle with sin that lives in us. We all have a part of us that wants to go against everything God wants for us.

17^th Century, theologian, John Owen said this, “However strong a castle may be, if a treacherous party resides inside (ready to betray at the first opportunity possible), the castle cannot be kept safe from the enemy. Traitors occupy our own hearts, ready to side with every temptation and to surrender to them all.”

We may think that we are above certain temptations that they are so little or that we can’t be drawn away or ensnared by certain temptations, that we’ve conquered them but nothing could be further from the truth. No matter how small the temptation, the desire to go against the Lord is always there. “Traitors occupy our own hearts.”

What’s a quick glance at an internet porn site going to hurt? It’s a one time thing. Everybody needs to have a little fun sometime. What’s putting down this as a deduction going to do? The IRS gets plenty of my money already. What looks relatively harmless might wind up killing us.

Steve Irwin, known around the world as the "Crocodile Hunter," was killed on September 4, 2006, while filming wildlife along the Great Barrier Reef. His death serves as a lesson on both the consequences of our actions and the tenuous reality of human life.

Irwin was best known for the wildly popular, wildly dangerous antics on "Crocodile Hunter," his long-running television program. During the 14 years that the documentary was on the air, Irwin survived countless snake bites, being chased up a tree by a deadly komodo dragon, being spat in the face by a red spitting cobra, and being pulled into the water by a massive crocodile. At the time of his death, he was in the Great Barrier Reef to film a documentary on the ocean's deadliest creatures.

Ironically, it was one of the ocean's least harmful creatures that delivered Irwin's fatal blow. Due to poor weather, his team had stopped filming for the "Ocean's Deadliest" series, and so Irwin decided to do some work for a children's show that was to be hosted by his 8-year-old daughter, Bindi.

While swimming with his cameraman, he came across a 5-foot-wide stingray and began to follow along behind it. Stingrays are often called the "pussycats of the sea" because of their docile nature. In fact, they can be hand-fed by tourists on excursions from cruise-liners. Unfortunately, Irwin reportedly got a little too close to the animal, which thrust its poisonous, barbed tail upward in a defensive reflex. The 10-inch, serrated barb went into Irwin's chest and pierced his heart. And that’s where we are most vulnerable in our hearts as well. Jesus tells us to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength. The Proverbs tell us to guard our hearts for out of it are the issues of life. Sin doesn’t usually start with something big. We are simply drawn away, enticed a little bit at a time.

Illustration: man who touched hand of female co-worker and she looked up at him and said, “I’ve been waiting for you to do that for years.” That was on a Saturday. By mid-week, he had moved in with her. It started with an innocuous touch and turned into a full-blown deal. His wife was blown away. He had been drawn away a little bit at a time.

Irwin was only the 17th person in the world known to have been killed by a stingray. If the blow had struck almost anywhere else, he would have survived easily. He was rushed to the nearest island and picked up by a medical helicopter, but he passed away long before reaching the hospital.

Stuff that looks somewhat harmless can kill us if we get too close. Paul tells us to beware because if we think we are standing, we’re real close to falling.

John Owen, the 17^th Century puritan theologian, used a very important word in his statement about traitors of the heart. He used the word surrender. The way to conquer the thorns of temptation is to surrender to God’s word and God’s will. Surrender trumps temptation and we see that in Jesus’ life.

Why do I say surrender trumps temptation? Let’s think about sin for a moment. When Adam and Eve were tempted in the garden, the devil questioned God’s word and will. He said to them, “Has God surely said, that you should not eat from every tree of the garden? And when Eve reiterates that God did say they shouldn’t eat or touch the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Satan again contradicts God’s word. He says, “You shall not surely die.” But where did Eve hear that God said, “don’t eat or touch it.” God didn’t say anything about touching it. Adam may have not trusted her and made God’s restrictions greater than they were. Eve may have seen him as a restrictive God who wouldn’t even let her touch it. When we see God legalistically, we want to rebel. Sin that dwells in us simply wants to go against God, particularly if he doesn’t let us do anything.

Satan goes on and questions God’s goodness to them. He tells them that God wants to keep them from being gods like he. That was all it took for Adam and Eve to give in. The woman then saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food – the lust of the flesh- and that it was delightful to look at – lust of the eyes and would make them wise if they ate of the fruit – the pride of life. Bam!! They didn’t have a chance because they didn’t surrender to God’s Word or God’s will for their lives. God’s word said, “Don’t eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Did God surely say? said Satan. He convinced them that God wasn’t a good God. That he was withholding things from them. That he alone wanted to be God and they couldn’t be. It was the very reality that made Lucifer rebel. He wanted to be god and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t be so he attempts to convince God’s creatures that they can be gods. God’s will was for them to not eat it so they would have unbroken fellowship with him. Satan challenged God’s word and God’s will for them. And they capitulated to that temptation.

They did what they wanted to do. They became their own gods. And that’s what we all do when we sin. We rebel against God’s will and word and become our own gods.

But when we look at Jesus. He is called the second Adam by Paul. Here’s why. In Luke 4:1-13 we see that Jesus was tempted exactly like Adam. The first temptation that Satan came at him with was to turn stones into bread. When this happens is very important. It happens at the end of his forty day fast. The Scripture says that he was very hungry. Satan shows up and says, “If you are the son of God, order these stones to turn into bread.” Satan appealed to his need for physical sustenance. Satan appealed to the lust of the flesh. He tempted him to act independently of his Father. He challenged him and said, If – prove it or since you are the son of God as if it was no big deal. Don’t go hungry anymore. Take care of your self, don’t wait for your heavenly father to provide food for you. Like Adam, Satan tempted Jesus’ flesh to lust after his own needs. After all, Jesus had been in the wilderness for 40 days and hadn’t eaten a thing. Why wouldn’t Jesus meet his own needs?

Next, Satan takes Jesus to a high mountain and offers him all the kingdoms of the world. Jesus had to do one thing -- bow down and worship Satan. Here, Satan appeals to the lust of the eyes. He shows Jesus everything he could have now. It was like a buy now pay later plan. Just sign on the dotted line.

Lastly, Satan takes Jesus to a pinnacle of the temple and tells Jesus once again, If – prove it or since you are the son of God, then it’s no big deal, throw yourself off the temple and God’s angels will come to your aid. Make a scene, then everyone will know you are the Messiah except that’s not the way God’s word said things would happen. Grandstanding wasn’t God’s will for Jesus. Satan appealed to the pride of life. Angels would come and save him and everyone would applaud, everyone would think wow! Satan even used God’s word to try and convince Jesus but it was a wrong application of it. Anyone who is abiding in the shadow of the Almighty as Psalm 91 starts out, isn’t going to be tempting the Lord to rescue him. Jesus knew jumping off the temple mount wasn’t God’s will for him. No, He had to suffer for our sins to be recognized as the Messiah.

In all three of these three temptations, we see that Jesus handled them the same way each time. Jesus knew that surrender trumps temptation. With all three temptations he refers Satan back to God’s word. He quotes from Deuteronomy. But Jesus didn’t simply quote verses to Satan. Jesus was submitted and surrendered to them. He gave up his right to meet his physical needs, to rule the world illegitimately and to create a big scene so everyone would know he was the Messiah. He knew that surrender trumps temptation. He didn’t give in even though he was tested and tempted when he was tired, hungry and lonely. He had been in the wilderness yet resisted. And when he resisted by surrendering, the devil fled. James tells us the same when he says, “Submit your self to God. Resist the devil and he will flee.” Beloved, will you during this Lenten season voluntarily surrender your right to do what you want? Will you ask the Lord to show you where you are selfishly following your own agenda? Will you ask him to show you where you have become your own god?

Jesus was surrendered to his father’s word and will. Are you and I? If we are we will be able to overcome the thorns of temptation. God will always provide a way to escape every temptation. That way is by being surrendered to his will and Word. If we are surrendered, we will have a safety net under us so we can be more productive for him and less apt to be knocked off by the devil. What safety net do you have under you this morning? Are you doing the dance of danger thinking your money, status, intelligence, personality can keep you from falling? May we recognize when we are being tempted from within and without, our only safety net is surrendering to God’s will and Word. May when we feel that pull of our flesh, the world and the devil, surrender. May we this Lent realize that we can overcome the thorns of temptation by surrendering to God’s will and word because surrender trumps temptation.

And all God’s people said, Amen.

Invitation –

Now go and overcome any and all thorns of temptation. Go and remember that surrender trumps temptation. Go in peace, go in love, go to further God’s kingdom. Amen and Amen.