July 12, 2026 - Victory Strategies: Delight in God | Baptist Bible Church, Sparta, MI

As we begin this morning, I'd like to read for you just a few verses.

I just want you to listen to what each of these verses says.

Romans chapter 13, verse 14.

Romans 13:14

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.

Colossians chapter 3, verse 5.

Colossians 3:5

Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

First Peter chapter 2, verse 11, beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.

1 Peter 2:11

When we talk about spiritual warfare, we've established or I've sought to establish that when we talk about spiritual warfare, what we are saying is that you as a Christian, you as a believer, are called to engage in the fight against sin.

And it is a war.

It's a battle.

Notice the violent language in these verses I read to you.

Kill the flesh.

Kill sin.

Or in the old King James, mortify the flesh and its desires.

But what I want us to notice as we look at another aspect of spiritual warfare this morning, what I want us to notice is that the fight over sin, and each of these verses brings this out, the fight over sin is really waged in the heart.

It's a battle over what you desire.

And each of these verses brings out this idea, this concept that when you're fighting sin, you are meant to get to the root of the battle, which is what you love, where the affections of your heart are shaped.

And it is your call as a believer to get down into the nitty-gritty of your heart and to train your hearts to love God and to not love sin.

And so this morning, as we look at what God's Word has for us, I want to look at this concept from two different angles.

I want to start this morning by looking at how the enemies of the Christian seek to shape your heart toward sin.

How the enemies of the Christian seek to draw your heart towards loving sin, desiring sin.

And then I want to turn our attention as we look at that, or after we look at that, I want to turn our attention to how you can, through the Word of God, train your hearts, shape your hearts, to replace a love for sin with a love for God.

Because that truly is the only way to defeat the desires that we have for sin.

The only way to fight the desire for sin is to replace it with a desire for something that's better.

And I hope that as we look at God's word, we can see that that's true today, and we can see how we can do that.

How we can, because again, remember, we're trying to get really practical now.

How do we actually in the day-to-day fight sin?

By choosing to love and replacing your desire for sin, choosing to fight that and replacing it with a love and desire for God.

So that's where we're going this morning.

Open your Bibles as we begin to the book of James, chapter one.

James chapter one.

Verse thirteen, James one, thirteen.

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.

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

So we notice here the first enemy of the Christian, the flesh.

And what does the flesh do?

The flesh makes sin desirable.

It wants to shape your heart towards sin by corrupting your desires.

The flesh corrupts your desires.

James here tells us that temptation does not come from God, it comes from out of our own desire.

And it's important to notice that desire is not always sinful.

In fact, this same word for desire is used elsewhere in Scripture to refer to a desire for what is good and what is right and what is holy.

In fact, Paul uses the same word in Philippians chapter 1 and verse 23 to describe his desire to be with Christ.

Philippians 1 · chapter mention

So we can have good desire, good, holy, righteous desire, but notice here that the flesh corrupts your desires and produces within you a desire for sin.

And we looked at this passage when we looked at the enemy of the Christian, the flesh as the enemy of the Christian.

You remember these words are fishing terminology words that James is using, lure and entice.

The idea is that the bait is set out and we are drawn to it like a fish to bait.

And I can remember several years ago going out ice fishing, and we went with a group of guys from church and had a nice time.

And the reason I had a nice time was because I was sitting in an ice warm tent and because we had a fish tracker, so I could actually see the little blob, the fish, in the water beneath me.

And so I it was fun.

And it was interesting because you could see your bait on the radar, and then you could see when a little fish was coming along, or hopefully a big fish, and then you could see once you started reeling up the bait, you could actually watch.

If the fish was attracted to it, it would start to follow.

You could see the fish being lured and enticed in real time by the bait.

And James uses this terminology to describe what happens in us.

That there is this, there is sin out there, and we are we are drawn to it.

The flesh produces a desire within you, a desire, a want to sin.

The flesh may corrupt a desire for financial security, good desire, but the flesh may corrupt the desire for financial security and it may turn it into greed and a lack of generosity.

The flesh may corrupt the desire for companionship or sexual intimacy and turn it into adultery or lust or a relationship that's contrary to God's design.

The flesh may corrupt a husband's desire for rest or appreciation after a hard day at work and turn it into irritability towards his family and selfishness.

In each case, the flesh corrupts desire and holds out the bait of sin, saying, if you sin, this desire you have will be satisfied.

This desire you have, it will satisfy it.

How about our second enemy?

The devil.

Turn your Bibles to Genesis chapter three.

Genesis chapter three, look with me in verse four.

But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Notice the devil.

The devil also seeks to make sin desirable by disguising rebellion as gain.

The devil seeks to disguise rebellion as gain.

We notice here that the enemy operates on deceit.

He conceived or he convinced Eve through deceit that rebellion was the pathway to Eve's gain.

That by rising up against the Lord and disobeying his command, rising up against her creator, that there would be some profits, some way in which she would gain.

The lie of the enemy says that you will be happier, you will be safer, you will be respected, you will get what you deserve.

Sin will in some way lead to your profit, to your gain.

How about the world?

First John chapter two.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world.

So we notice here the world also seeks to make sin desirable by providing substitute objects of your affection.

The world seeks to replace your love for God with what is contained in the world.

And notice John states this is an effective way to turn you away from God because you cannot love God and sin.

You cannot love them both.

These are mutually exclusive loves.

And if you remember when we looked at this passage earlier, I compared this to a love for Michigan or a love for Ohio State.

You can't love both.

You're either filled with one or filled with the other.

Sports, entertainment, money, children, relationships, sex, popularity, safety, personal comfort, none of these things we would say are inherently wrong.

But the world seeks to transform them into idols that you will love and cherish more than God.

It wants to take your love for God, it wants to replace it with a love for something else.

It wants to substitute your object of affection.

In each case, notice that this is a battle for the heart.

In each case, the enemy is waging a war for your heart.

It wants you to desire and love sin.

Because if you desire, love, and cherish and long for sin, guess what the enemy has succeeded in doing?

It succeeded in turning you away from God.

And it's succeeded to turn you to then enter into rebellion against your creator.

It's the same playbook going all the way back to the beginning of humanity.

And the enemy continues to run the same play over and over and over again.

If the enemy can get your heart, it has you.

It has you.

So how do we fight?

How do we fight?

We must fight sinful desire with a superior delight in God.

You fight sin with a superior delight in God.

In other words, filling yourself up with a superior delight in God.

This is how we engage in the fight against sin.

So I want us to look in a few places this morning in Scripture where we notice this superior delight in God.

And I hope that as we leave here this morning, that you are convinced in the superior delight and joy of God.

And that is the that is the north star when battling temptation.

That you remember every time temptation comes, that you defeat those lies of the enemy by remembering the simple truth.

God is better.

God is better.

Walking with him in the light, as we looked at in Sunday school this morning, walking with him in the light is better than anything that sin can offer me.

God is better.

He's superior.

Delay in him is better.

And if that can be that North Star, that will enable and it and help you to fight against the temptations of sin that we face each day.

So let's look at a few passages that illuminate this for us.

Psalm sixteen, eleven.

In your presence there is fullness of joy.

At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

This is a verse everyone here should memorize.

This is a wonderful reminder of Scripture.

It's a wonderful reminder of the joy and the delight in the presence of God.

And when the psalmist here writes of the presence of God, this delight and joy in the presence of God.

This isn't something that is hidden from you.

This is not something that is difficult.

This isn't something that you have to practice some kind of mystical practices to enter into the presence of God.

God is with you.

God is with you.

And so the presence of God here is a reference to this walking in fellowship with the Lord.

That you are called to walk in fellowship with the Lord.

And so we looked in 1 John chapter 1 this morning in Sunday school and in the book of 1 John, we recognized or we noticed that those who walk in the light have fellowship with God.

1 John 1 · chapter mention

Those who walk in the darkness do not have fellowship with God.

And there's an important distinction we need to draw here this morning between what we refer to as communion and union.

Communion and union.

Everybody say communion?

Everybody say union.

Right?

These are two theological terms.

And union refers to your joining together with Christ.

That takes place at the moment of salvation.

At the moment of salvation, you are united with Christ.

You are placed into the body of Christ, and you are joined together with Christ from now for all of eternity.

And that's a work of God in your life, that He has joined you in union with Christ.

But communion takes on a different nuance.

It's a slightly different nuance.

Communion with God is the reference to your fellowship with God, your relationship with God, your enjoying God in His presence in a daily basis.

And that fluctuates.

That can change.

And what John tells us in 1 John is that it's dependent upon whether you're walking in the light, purity, holiness, righteousness, or you're walking in darkness, in sin, and in unrepentance.

And so what the psalmist here is saying is that when you walk in the light, when you are walking in fellowship, you are in the presence of God.

And when you are walking in the presence of God and you're walking before God and with God, what does he say in verse 11?

In your presence there is a modicum little bit of joy that really isn't as good as my sin.

Fullness.

Everybody say fullness of joy.

Fullness meaning you lack for nothing.

There isn't anything missing.

It's every conceivable aspect of joy is when you walk with God.

Woo! Do you want that joy this morning?

Don't you want that?

Sin says, it's over here.

You can have it over here.

I'll give you what you want.

Just rebel.

Just turn away from God.

Just disobey him in this little way.

And God says, I have everything.

I have everything for you.

At God's right hand are just a tiny little bit of pleasure.

You're on to the game now.

Pleasure's what?

Forevermore.

Is it ever gonna run out?

Sometimes we get this conception of being with God forever in heaven.

We think, man, am I gonna get bored in heaven?

Just sitting on a cloud singing the same old hymn all you know all throughout all of eternity?

No, pleasure, never-ending, everlasting pleasure at the right hand of God.

Does that sound like a good God?

Does that sound like a God you want to walk with and be with and enjoy forever?

Oh man, he's a good God.

There's delight and joy in him.

If you want to fight the pleasures of sin, if you're seeking to make war, as 1 Peter tells us, if you're making war with the passions and desires of sin, you need to go to war remembering and fighting those desires by saying, There's a higher joy, there's a better joy out there.

And I want the higher joy, I want the better joy, I want the more satisfying joy than the fake joy that sin is trying to get to get me with and offer.

Joy in the presence of God.

How about Psalm nineteen?

Let's just go over a couple of Psalms.

Psalm nineteen.

Look with me in verse seven.

Psalm nineteen, verse seven: the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.

The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.

The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.

The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover, by them is your servant warned.

In keeping them is great rewards.

Notice here the joy, the delight.

What is the delight?

The delight is in the goodness of God's commands.

The delight here in Psalm 19, David is delighting in and reflecting on the commands of God.

It's interesting.

David does not view God's commands here as burdensome restrictions.

Don't we think of God's commands in that light sometimes?

Can't do this, can't do that.

Rules, rules, rules.

The Bible's just a big list of rules that's keeping me away from things that make me happy.

It's the lie of the enemy.

It's the lie of the enemy.

Some of you are looking at me like you've never felt that.

I feel It sometimes it feels that way.

You can admit it.

Does anybody here wrestle with sin?

Come on, people.

I'm not alone, am I?

Man, sometimes it feels like the commands of God are hard.

And when that is happening, guess what's happening?

The war.

It's the war in my heart raging.

And in those times, guess what?

I need to do.

I need to remind myself, God, your commands are good.

They're good.

Your commands are good.

And so because they good, because you are a good God, and because your commands flow out of the goodness of your character and nature, therefore I want your commands.

I desire your commands.

I long for your rules and regulations and stipulations and the commands of your word because they will do what?

What does David say?

He says, in keeping them, there is verse 11, what?

Great reward.

There's great reward in submitting myself and yielding myself to the commands of Scripture.

We have to fight to remind ourselves of this.

We have to fight sin by remembering God's commands are good.

I love them.

I love his commands.

I want to obey.

This is something we try to teach our kids.

We try to teach them with our commands, our rules.

I would say that for Liz and I, we like to parent our sons with a little bit of risk.

We like them to feel and experience risk.

I think it's good for them to learn how to risk things.

What's too far, what's not too far.

But we do have rules that regulate risk.

One of those rules is you can't play with lighters.

No playing with lighters.

And one of my sons is a pyrotechnic.

Loves the flame.

He's drawn to it, I won't say.

Grandma.

And he loves to start fires and play with fires, and so we've got rules.

We've tried to hide the lighters.

He finds them.

We got to discipline him.

There was one time he found one of those lighters and he went out into the woods behind our house.

And he made a plan.

We found this out later.

He made a plan.

He was going to start a fire and he got a big bag of marshmallows.

He's going to roast the marshmallows.

Now he never started the fire, but mysteriously the bag of marshmallows was gone.

But uh we found that out later, and so we had to remind him of the rule.

Don't play with lighters.

Don't play with lighters in the woods.

I told this particular son that if he started a wildfire, Smoky, the bear would find him and would eat him.

And he believed me a while ago, and I think he doesn't believe me anymore.

Why do we have the rule?

Is the rule because I'm a cruel parent who despises my kids and wants to deprive them of joy and happiness?

Is that where the rule flows out of?

Now, from my son's perspective, he probably there are times where he feels that.

He thinks that.

Dad is withholding joy from me.

He's withholding something from me that will bring me happiness.

And so, because of that, I hate his rule.

I hate it.

I don't want to obey.

And so I'm gonna try to disobey, and I'm gonna sneak around the rule, and I'm gonna try to disobey him so that I can have that happiness.

But what my son has fundamentally misunderstood is the character of his father.

He's fundamentally, he's believed the lie, he's believed the lie that his father somehow, in some way, does not love him, and therefore is withholding something good from him, which is a lie.

And in order to fight the lie, what he needs to do is remind himself of the goodness of his father.

And to remind himself that the goodness of his father is the basis upon which the commands of the father flow.

And guess what?

I'm not really talking about me and my son this morning.

Remind yourself of the commands of God.

Remind yourself that those commands are good.

Delight yourself in the purity and the holiness and the righteousness of God because you know that He is a good God.

And his commands flow out of that goodness, which means that there is great profit and reward in obeying God's commands.

We're talking about motivation here, aren't we?

Don't get into your mind this is some kind of legalistic form of Christianity.

Do the rules, do the rules, do the rules.

This isn't legalism, people.

We're not talking about earning your way to heaven.

We're talking about delighting in the goodness of God this morning.

And how do you fight sin?

What does God want?

He wants you to delight in him, to enjoy him.

And so delight in his commands.

These commands are not meant to rob us of joy.

They are meant to guard us, to guide us, and to lead us into the fullness of life that God has designed for you.

Let's go back to James.

We'll end here.

So we already looked at verses 13 through 15 where James gives the warning: don't be lured and enticed into sin.

Guard your heart from the temptations of sin.

And then he goes into verse 16.

So I want us to look at verses 16 and 17.

He says, Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

So we noticed here the warning, James says, Don't be deceived.

Don't be deceived.

Flowing from God does not come the temptation to sin.

Instead, he says, flowing from God comes what?

Good gifts.

Good gifts.

God is the source of every good and perfect gift.

He uses these two words here, referencing, first of all, that God's gifts are good gifts.

God never gives something that is evil, that is wicked, that is meant to hurt me, harm me, or destroy me.

God never gives those things.

His gifts are perfect, meaning that the gifts you have are exactly what you are meant to have.

Now don't turn and look to your neighbor this morning and say, I wish I had their gifts.

Because God, James says, the gifts that God gives you are perfect.

They're exactly designed and suited for you to perfectly satisfy you.

Everything, every good thing you have is exactly what God has designed to give you.

We read in our Bible meditation this morning in Psalm 84, God withholds what?

No good thing.

Meaning you're not missing anything this morning.

How often do we live our lives with the phrase, if only I had, blank, then I'd be happy.

How often do we do we long for and wish for things that God hasn't given us?

And we use that, we twist that into something that turns into, well, God must not be that good to me.

He's not that good.

James says, what?

You have been given every good and perfect gift.

I think the context here is interesting.

Why does James put together verses 13 through 15 the temptation to sin?

Why does he put that together with verses 16 and 17?

The giving of good gifts.

Why does he do that?

Why does he put these two concepts together?

I need, I think to illustrate this, I need somebody.

One volunteer.

Okay, Grandma.

Great.

Okay, grandma.

You need to tell me what is your favorite of all time, your favorite meal.

Your favorite meal of all time?

Uh cheese buttons.

Cheese buttons.

Uh grandma's classic German dish, the cheese button.

Okay.

Now, since nobody here has any idea what that is, I want you.

What's the second one?

Filet mignon.

Oh, filet mignon.

Everybody knows that one.

Okay.

Put in your mind your favorite meal, okay, as you follow along with this illustration.

Now I want you to imagine, Grandma, that you have been given for dinner a massive plate of cheese buttons and steak.

And it's been a it's a big pile of it.

So much that you could engorge yourself and there'd be tons left over.

And imagine you sit down for this meal, and now you've got your favorite meal in your head, and imagine you have sit down and you are enjoying the delicacies of your favorite meal, and you're eating and you're eating and you're eating.

And you eat to the point where you are so filled up, you are so stuffed, you can't even move.

It's like sometimes when you do that and you like move and there's pain.

Imagine you've done that because you have been given the full meal.

Okay?

Now, grandma, second question.

What is your least favorite vegetable?

The vegetable that you despise with the passion of a thousand sons.

Least favorite vegetable.

Brussels sprouts.

Brussels sprouts.

Alright, now you have to imagine in your own minds your least favorite vegetable, the vegetable you hate with the passion of a thousand sons.

And imagine after you have eaten the full meal, you've eaten everything you possibly can fit inside of yourself, and then you've had a scoop of ice cream on top of that, and you have no more room left in your stomach.

Now imagine someone came out and they had a big bowl of raw, uncooked, with some dirt still on them, Brussels sprouts.

And they said, partake, have as many as you'd like.

How many would you probably eat?

None.

None.

Because you are so full and you've already eaten so much of what's good.

Maybe if you like had didn't eat anything, and this was like you're on week three of starvation, maybe you would like touch your tongue to a Brussels sprout.

Maybe.

But you have you have eaten so much of your favorite meal, now the Brussels sprouts come out.

Okay.

This is what I think James is doing here.

I think James's point is that when you satisfy yourself in the good gifts of God, when you so delight yourself in the goodness of God and his good gifts, like a feast.

It's why the psalmist says what?

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

It's an invitation for you to partake in the goodness of God.

When you partake in God's goodness, when you delight and satisfy yourself in God's goodness, and you delight and delight and delight, and all of a sudden sin comes along and says, Hey, wouldn't you want some of me?

Don't you want some of what I have to offer?

If you have so satiated yourself in the goodness of God, guess how much room will be left in your heart to desire the temptations of sin.

None! None! Why?

Because you have so satisfied yourself in the goodness of God.

Delight yourself in God.

I think this is James's point here.

Don't be deceived.

Sin has nothing for you but death.

Delight yourself in God's good gifts, enjoy his good gifts.

And the grip of sin will loosen.

There'll be no more room left to desire it.

It's how you fight.

It's how you fight.

Fight sin.

Please fight it.

It's good for you to fight sin.

But fight it the right way.

And I hope that's what we're doing this uh series is helping us to understand how to fight sin the right way.

The way that actually works, we notice here the way to fight sin is to delight in God.

So here's a few take-home challenges for you.

Delight in the goodness of God's gifts there.

It's the final blank.

Delight in the goodness of God's gifts.

Just a few take-home challenges for you.

What God calls sin is sin, what God calls wrong is wrong.

Do you believe God this morning?

Do you believe them?

If God says it's sin, if God says it's wrong, it is.

There's no debating it.

Some of us need to reconcile with that fact this morning.

There's no sugarcoating or justifying or excusing sin.

Secondly, God's grace is not a license to sin or to not care about his holiness.

His grace is what enables holiness and godliness.

So, what sins are you actively engaged in fighting today?

God's grace doesn't mean I can now just live in sin.

If you believe that you fundamentally have misunderstood the purpose of God's grace.

God's grace enables you to then enjoy and delight in God's presence by putting away sin.

So are you engaged in fighting sin today?

What sins are you identifying in your own heart to say these are things I am trying to fight against?

These are areas of my heart that I need to bring out of the darkness and bring into the light.

And number three, what's your motivation?

Is your motivation for fighting sin legalistic law-keeping?

You're trying to earn your righteousness before God this morning?

Trying to make God happy?

You are called to fight sin and kill the flesh by training your heart to delight in and savor God more than sin.

This is how the Bible prescribes it.

This is how the Bible teaches us.

Fight sin by delighting in God.

Replace the desire for something lesser with a desire for something greater.

Any questions?

Good.

All right.

Let's pray, and then we're dismissed.

Father, thanks for today.

Thanks for the opportunity to be here this morning to spend time together worshiping you and taking time to opening up your word and reflecting on the truths that it contains.

We recognize this morning the battle plan, the strategy of our enemies, and ultimately it's a battle for the hearts.

Our enemies desire for us to and seek to turn us away from you.

They want us to walk in rebellion, and they do so by making sin seem and feel and look desirable, something good.

Help us this morning to combat those lies and those temptations with the truths of your word, that you are better.

And the way that we fight these temptations is to replace them with a delight in you, a better delight, a better desire, a better joy that's found in you, walking with you, walking in your presence, walking in your righteousness.

So help us to satiate ourselves in you and in your goodness, and as we do so, to mortify the flesh with its desires that wage war against us.

We thank you that by your enabling grace we can do these things.

It's in Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.