Sunday, November 13, 2011 - Straighten Up and Fly Right
Here’s an issue we could bring up and force people to break into small groups and talk about that would cause many to
just walk out and others to never come back – What areas do you struggle with temptation?
Truthfully, a Sunday morning service like this is not the place at all to open up about those things. BUT, there IS a
place to do that – one on one or in a small group. Turn to James 4:16. READ. The place to talk about these deep
and dark issues is with brothers or sisters you can trust and who love you and who will pray for you fervently and
intensely. Sunday morning church is not a safe place for something like that – BUT who wants to spill your guts about
your temptations this morning?
No – I’m just kidding. Temptation is difficult. Overcoming temptation is especially difficult. I would guess that if you’
re like me, some of the worst defeats in your life are related to giving in to temptation. You may feel totally worthless.
Your inability to resist temptation may color your view of yourself (I am a loser – I am a failure – I am a screwup).
Your inability to resist temptation may even color your view of God (He might be there, but in THAT area, He has
ignored me or rejected me or FAILED me).
If we are going to straighten up and fly right – as we are looking a 1 Corinthians – we need to see temptation accurately
and we need to see how to deal with it effectively. We may have been seeking to deal with temptation in ways that will
never work. I think God has some great stuff for us this morning in that regard. Before we go to 1 Corinthians 10, let’s
turn our attention to our Teacher and ask for His help. PRAY
Last Sunday Jason shared a great message with us on our part in passing on faith to future generations. Unfortunately,
the message did not get recorded, but the text is posted on the church’s website. I encourage you to read it and
respond as God leads you. One of the things Jason mentioned was how the things we have experienced and seen God
do in our lives need to be shared with our children and grandchildren – that’s the only way they will ever know how
God worked in and through and around us.
In fact, we will see really clearly here in a minute that THAT was the reason we have all the Old Testament stories – so
that we can be familiar with and respond rightly to God’s work in the past. We need to go to the Old Testament first
today and look at some things that happened. You may be familiar with some of these things and others you may have
not heard. But there is a direct connection to us and dealing with temptation in all of these accounts.
Parents and grandparents – wouldn’t it be valuable to you to know that stuff you shared with your children and
grandchildren helped them reject temptation? One of the most ridiculous things I hear from parents whose children are
struggling with areas of life is that the parents who smoked pot or had pre-marital sex or other sinful or dangerous
activities have no right to say anything to their children because they did those things. So, the pain and destruction you
have experienced and maybe continue to experience in your life is something you think your kids OUGHT to go
through? I don’t get it.
God gives us examples and warnings in the Old Testament – and we’ll see shortly in 1 Corinthians, that these things are
recorded to help us resist and reject temptation and to live godly lives. In Exodus 13, we jump in to the story of the
children of Israel – likely in the millions of people – escaping from Egypt. Look what God does to lead them. Exodus
13:20-22. READ. This was not merely a cloud formation that kind of went in front of the millions of people – this
cloud and at night, this fire, was literally a demonstration of the true God to help His people know where to go and
when.
In Exodus 14, we see the actual escape of the Israelites from Egypt – an escape that only God could have made
happen. Let’s look. Exodus 14:15-31. READ. Here are millions of people – men, women and children, plus their
animals and belongings – and a cloud shows them where to go during the daylight, a pillar of fire shows them where to
go during the night and as they stand at the edge of the Red Sea, facing certain death from the pursuing Egyptians, God
opens the sea, and they escape without even getting their feet muddy. Miraculous, right?
Question for you – you’re leading a group of millions out into the desert east of Egypt – how can you feed that many
people? Moses had no idea. But God did. Exodus 16:6-8,13-18. READ. And, by the way, you’re taking over a
million people into the desert – I hope they all brought their water bottles. Look at Exodus 17:1-7. READ.
Miraculous escape from a harsh enemy, guidance by cloud and fire, food from nothing, water out of a rock – would
those things make an impression on you? I think they would on me.
But as we read Exodus and farther on in the Old Testament, we see the Israelites constantly ignoring these miraculous
events and complaining and requesting to go back to Egypt. And we even see them turning directly against the Lord –
choosing things that He says they should not do. Now turn to 1 Corinthians 10:1-5. READ.
If you remember a couple of weeks ago, Paul encouraged us to run the course of our lives in such a way that we might
win the race – have godly and eternal impact on the circumstances He puts us in. One thing that keeps us from being
effective for God is being distracted by temptation. Go back to Hebrews 12:1. READ. If we’re seeking to run the
race to win, giving in to temptation is like running with our shorts around our ankles. We get tangled up in them – lay
aside the sin and the things that entangle us.
These people who came out of Egypt and saw these amazing things from God, gave in to the temptation of thinking that
something else would fulfill them and meet their needs and desires. Consequently, only 2 of them who came out of
Egypt entered the Promised Land – Joshua and Caleb. Not even Moses was allowed to step into the Land because he
gave in to temptation, not doing precisely what God told him to do, but thinking he understood it better himself. In 1
Corinthians 10, Paul brings these things up to help us deal well with temptation.
In fact, read on – 1 Corinthians 10:6-10. READ. These accounts in the Old Testament are useful to us now because
we can see what happens if we give in to temptation and don’t believe God. We are not to desire evil like they did.
We are not to be idolators – worshiping things other than God Himself – like they were. We are not to commit sexual
immorality like some of them did – the result of their sexual immorality was that 23,000 of them died in one day and a
total of 24,000 altogether (Numbers 25:1-18). Don’t give in to temptation.
Paul continues to bring up situations the children of Israel went through as they wandered in the desert for 40 years and
complained and resisted and gave in to temptation over and over. This journey from Egypt to Israel is a trip of no more
than 250 miles as the crow flies – like from here to North Platte. The stubbornness, arrogance and rejection of God
and God’s man Moses kept these millions of people wandering around in the desert until all but two of them died and a
new generation went into the Promised Land. In your further study notes, you can look at what happened with snakes
and the destroyer, mentioned in verses 9 and 10.
Look at the end of this paragraph – 1 Corinthians 10:11-13. READ.
For the second time in this section, Paul says that the things that happened to the Israelites as they left Egypt happened
as examples for us – and also warnings. We can and should learn from what we see in them. And look again at verse
12. “Whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall.” Listen to the Message – “Don’t be so naïve and self-
confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence,
it’s useless. Cultivate GOD-confidence.”
If you think you can handle temptation on your own – getting as close as you can to sin, but thinking you can hold
yourself back from actually sinning – God says you need to think again. We need to be reminded often of how far and
how hard people before us have fallen. Do you think you’re any different from them or stronger than them or better
than them? May I remind us that the people Paul brings up actually saw God literally do miraculous things?
The truth is, we DO think we are different and stronger and better than them. But the rest of the truth is we’re NOT.
Whoever thinks he stands – stands firm and strong in the face of temptation – must be careful not to fall. And this all
brings us to verse 13. This was literally one of the first Bible verses I read as a new believer. And it was a comfort to
me – even in my limited understanding of it back then. And the longer I know the Lord Jesus, the more of a comfort it
has become – and I am so excited to share some of the insights I’ve seen this week as I’ve studied it.
Paul has just laid out several circumstances that we can see in the Old Testament that God has given us to remind us of
how weak and frail we are in the face of temptation. And then the words, “No temptation has overtaken you except
what is common to humanity.” The first thing I want us to notice here is that nowhere in verse 13 is the Lord Jesus
specifically given as an example. I would expect that we might see some words like Hebrews 4:15. Turn there and
READ that.
That is still true and applicable – other verses in Hebrews are given in your further study notes that help us to see the
great advantage we have since Jesus resisted sin. But here, God doesn’t bring that in.
The temptations we deal with are “common to humanity.” Others have faced those temptations and we can either give
in like some have or we can resist like others. In fact, one of the great advantages of the family of God – the Church -
is that we can interact with people close to us who have experienced things we are experiencing and they can help us.
We were talking about that at Celebrate Recovery the other night – we are not meant to deal with temptation alone.
Truthfully, mankind was not created to deal with temptation AT ALL. There is temptation in our existence because of
sin – because we have the knowledge of good and evil. God did not desire that for us. But since mankind allowed sin
in the picture, we do have to deal with it. But it goes on in verse 13 – “God is faithful and He will not allow you to be
tempted beyond what you are able…” So even though God never wanted the knowledge of good and evil to be part
of mankind’s existence, since it is, HE now uses it to show HIS goodness to us.
Think about the words there – God is faithful. God is faithful to Himself, to His purposes, to His desires and plans for
us. God is faithful to US, His children. And since God is faithful, He will not ALLOW us to be tempted beyond what
we are able to handle. Another way to say that is that God WILL allow us to be tempted up TO what we are able to
handle. Pay close attention to the words “allow” and “able.”
In the midst of temptation, have you ever considered the truth we see here – God will not ALLOW me to be tempted
beyond what I can handle. This temptation does not come FROM God – but since sin is part of our existence, God
ALLOWS it. WHY? Because He is faithful and He plans to use our victory over temptation to show His power in us
and to us.
Do you view temptation as a way that God is allowing you to show your devotion to Him? We know that temptation
was never God’s perfect design – it is the result of sin in mankind – but God now allows temptation to make our
relationship with Him stronger. Yes, I said STRONGER. You might think that’s a weird way of looking at it – but
think about it, do you think God wants us to FAIL in temptation? Not at all.
If God allows something, isn’t it probably to produce HIS good and glory and goodness for us, too? If I respond to
temptation from that perspective, how differently might I react to it? And what if I didn’t “react” at all – what if I was
prepared for it and had determined beforehand my response for God’s glory? Turn to Ephesians 5:15-17. READ.
Pay careful attention to how you walk through life – be wise – make the most of the time you have been given. 1
Corinthians 9:24 – run in a way that you may win.
I have a feeling that most of us consider ourselves to be hard-wired to fail in temptation. God expects that we will fail
and He somehow gets a kick out of putting us in situations where we will fail, so that He can flick our ears or smack us
on the back of the head. That is so far from the truth. Our God has no interest in us failing. He wants us to look like
Jesus – to live like Jesus lived. We talk about it over and over – trust God and do what He says, Proverbs 3:5,6 – trust
in the Lord and don’t lean on our own understanding, be fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.
We do have a perfect example of resisting temptation in the Lord Jesus (Hebrews 4:15). But we also have this promise
in 1 Corinthians 10:13 that God is faithful and allows temptation to show His faithfulness to us – even providing the way
of escape FROM the temptation as we experience it. He allows the temptations to prove to us and to others that He is
powerful. Do we acknowledge Him in all our ways so that our paths are straight as He directs them? Or do we need
to straighten up and fly right – looking at temptation as God looks at it?
Think through the areas of your life that you struggle and give in to temptation. Are you acting like many others before
you and thinking you can’t resist? If that’s your response to temptation, you’re ignoring who God is and perhaps even
calling Him a liar. He will not ALLOW you to be tempted beyond what you are able to handle, but He WILL with the
temptation provide a way of escape, so that you ARE able to bear it. Turn to Matthew 16:24-27. READ.
As you face temptation, are you denying yourself and trusting God? Or are you seeking to keep all the stuff that brings
fleshly pleasure and denying God? What He promises as the result of denying ourselves and trusting Him is life to the
fullest. Straighten up and fly right – trust God and do what He says when you’re facing temptation. Escape it and
defeat it.