At The Movies // Overcoming Temptation // Guest Speaker Pastor Cody

Superman greatest hero.

We can clap for the trailer.

All right, we have Superman, the greatest hero of all time.

With this most famous, probably most well-known hero also comes some well-known villains.

Who can tell me, who can shout it out, who is Superman's greatest villain, greatest foe, most famous villain Anyone?

Lex Luthor, all right, this is Superman's greatest foe, his greatest villain, that's always trying to kill Superman.

He's always trying to hunt him down.

He wants him dead.

And Superman, he also has a great weakness.

You guys know what his weakness is Kryptonite.

Now you guys came ready today.

All right, superman has this great enemy, lex Luthor.

He has this great weakness, kryptonite and his enemies try to use Kryptonite to take him down, because that's the only way to take down Superman.

Did you know this?

You, as a Christ follower, you have a great enemy, and that great enemy knows your great weakness.

That great enemy knows your kryptonite.

This is how the Bible describes your enemy in 1 Peter 5.8.

It says Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, walketh about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

Not give a hard time to not make some trouble with.

No, he says that he wants to devour you First.

John, or John 10.10 says this that he comes to seek, steal, kill and destroy.

This is our enemy's goal with our life.

He wants to kill us, he wants to devour us, he tries to hunt us down and he does this with using our greatest weakness.

He's our enemy, he knows our weakness, he knows what our kryptonite is.

Now I need you guys help this morning.

Okay, there are many temptations, there are many sins that a Christian can struggle with that you and I can fall into.

If we're being honest, here's what I need your help with.

If you would just shout out maybe you don't struggle with these sins, but maybe it's some sins that you know your friends struggle with, right, like you, these aren't your sins, but just some common sins that maybe your friends struggle with.

Would you guys just shout out a couple common things, a couple common sins?

People struggle with Gossip, drugs, a couple more Lust, right, we got all of these sins gossip, drugs, lust, all of these different sins that we all struggle with.

You might be more susceptible to some than others.

We all have these weaknesses that we struggle with in our life.

Satan plays a trick on us.

He wants you to believe that your sin is your kryptonite.

But actually, today we're going to find out.

Sin is not your kryptonite.

Sin is not what Satan wants to use to take you down.

It's not just your sin.

What do I mean by that?

Ephesians, chapter 1, verse 7, says this If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Ephesians 1:7

He says this See, when you sin, jesus still wins.

Satan logically has no goal in just to get you to sin.

Every time you sin, god's grace is sufficient for you.

God's grace covers you.

His goal is not just to get you to sin.

Here's what Satan's goal is in your life.

Here's what the Christian's kryptonite is.

Satan's goal is to get you to hide your sin.

Kryptonite is Satan's goal is to get you to hide your sin.

Your sins have been covered, forgiven.

He wants you to hide your sin.

Hide your sin from the light of God, hide your sin from God's grace, hide your sin from other people and everyone around you.

He wants you to get your hide your sin.

His goal in your kryptonite is not your sin.

It's hiding your sin from him and from others.

He wants you to feel trapped.

He wants you to feel weighed down in the guilt and shame.

He wants to render you useless from moving forward to the kingdom of God because you're like man I'm stuck in this sin.

I'll never get out of this sin.

He wants you to hide that sin away so that no one can know about it.

You try to hide it from God.

You try to hide it from people.

You try to hide it from yourself.

Maybe you get frustrated because you keep falling into the same temptation over and over and over again.

You said you'd never do it again, but you keep falling into it.

You keep repenting.

So eventually you're just like man.

Maybe it's just how I'm meant to live.

Maybe God can't forgive me.

Maybe my sin is too great.

This is the lie.

This is the kryptonite of a Christian that we just hide and we bury our sins.

Maybe you've been there before.

Maybe you're there right now where you feel stuck.

There's just a sin you're living with, can't get rid of it.

You don't know what to do.

Today we're going to unlock the secret of overcoming temptation, of overcoming sin in our life.

We're going to learn about that from 1 John, chapter 1.

1 John 1 · chapter mention

Before we get into 1 John, chapter 1, we're going to look at the context of this book to understand it.

1 John 1 · chapter mention

So a bunch of scholars, a bunch of Bible scholars, got together and they took this book of John and they go hi guys, let's figure out who wrote this book.

So they get together, they look at the book of John and they go.

They come to a surprising conclusion.

They say you know, I think, who wrote this book of John?

It's a guy named John.

All these Bible scholars that got together I think John wrote the book of John.

This is what they did.

So we have 1 John, 2 John, 3 John.

This is the same John that wrote the gospel of John.

They weren't very unique in coming up with Bible names like 1, 2, 3 John, gospel of John.

They just named it after him.

All right, they have this guy named John.

And the context of who John is writing to is he's writing to Christians.

He's writing to those who have already trusted Christ as their Savior.

They have already accepted him as their Savior.

This is who he's writing to.

We're going to read through 1 John.

He's going to teach us how to experience the freedom found in Jesus.

1 John says our eyes what we have observed and touched with our hands concerning the word of life, that life was revealed and we have seen it, and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us.

What we have seen and heard, we also declare to you so that you may also have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, jesus Christ.

We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

So here's what John is doing he's setting up the foundation of why should you listen to me?

Because I'm one of Jesus' disciples.

I've walked with Jesus, I've seen Jesus, I've experienced this for myself.

He's building up credibility for his argument.

Then he tells them this this is a message we have heard from him and declare to you that God is light and there is absolutely no darkness in him.

If we say we have fellowship with him, yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and we're not practicing the truth.

But if we walk in the light, as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

If we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

So he gives a very strict contrast of darkness and light.

Walking in the light of God, walking in darkness.

What does he mean by this?

Well, we learn something from the beginning of this chapter.

We learn an attribute of God.

He describes God as light.

He says God is light and in him there is no darkness.

Well, what is light?

Light is a revealer.

Light is the thing that helps you and I to see right.

Without light, you and I can see nothing.

Light reveals everything, everything.

Have you guys ever tried to walk in darkness?

Maybe you've experienced this before.

You wake up in the middle of the night and you're like I gotta go potty.

Oh, you wake up in the middle of the night.

You're like I gotta go to the bathroom and you kind of like you know your way around the house right, so you can stumble.

You can feel the walls.

You don't want to turn the lights on and wake everyone up and blind yourself.

So you kind of know how to stumble to the bathroom.

You've memorized the route, maybe eight out of ten times, nine out of ten times.

No problem, you can get there.

But someone did some cleaning in the house and they moved the chair over a couple inches to where it normally is.

Or the foot of the bed is like a little crooked and you're walking and you stub your toe on it and then you scream and you end up waking everybody up anyway.

Right, what does light do?

It reveals things that are hidden in the darkness.

It reveals the path.

If that light was on, you would have seen that chair that was moved.

You wouldn't have hit it.

It reveals the path you're supposed to go on.

But light also reveals some not so pleasant things.

I grew up in Hawaii and there, no matter what you do, no matter how good your pest control is, there's always little buggies around.

Right Now I don't know if you've experienced this.

Maybe you walk into a kitchen to grab a little midnight snack at night and you turn the light on and into the darkness, scurries all these little cockroaches and critters.

What does light do?

It reveals the path you're supposed to walk.

It also reveals the gross, the gunk, the cockroaches, the sin in your life.

God's light is a revealer when we're supposed to go and also the sin that we have in our very own lives.

There's a common misinterpretation we make with this verse.

We think that walking in the light means I'm doing everything right.

This is like I'm having a good week, I'm reading my Bible every day, I'm following God, and then walking in the darkness.

It's like I kind of messed up this week.

I sinned, I had a dark week.

You guys ever have a dark week where you just feel like you're messing up over and over again.

See, that's not what this verse is teaching.

This verse is not teaching oh, when I sin, I'm walking in darkness, and then, if I don't sin, I'm walking in the light of God.

No, no, no.

See, walking in the light versus walking in the dark is not about confession.

It's about or sorry, walking in the light is about confession, not perfection.

All right, walking in the light is about confession, not perfection.

It's not about I'm always doing everything right.

When I'm doing everything right, when I'm never sinning, then God loves me and then I'm in the light of God, and when I sin, I mess up.

No, no, no.

That's not what it's about.

Walking in the light of God and when I sin, I mess up.

No, no, no.

That's not what it's about.

Walking in the light of God is about confession, not perfection.

I'm going to illustrate this for us today.

What we do, many of us are used to walking in the dark, walking in the darkness, and this is how it works.

When the lights turn off in our lives, when we don't want to see God's word in our hearts, this is how we walk around.

Now you can look around, you can kind of make people's faces out.

If I had to walk around the stage, I could kind of get there, just like a lot of Christians.

I know I'm supposed to go to church.

I know I'm supposed to read my Bible.

I know I'm supposed to pray.

I can do these things in the darkness, I can get around a little bit.

But walking in the light of God's word is when we allow God to turn that light on a little bit.

We read his word and God's truth is revealed to us.

And now that that light is turned up a little, I can see oh man, I kind of struggle with pride in my life here.

It's taking that sin, it's confessing it to God, and when we do that, god's light in our life gets a little brighter.

Now that that light is brighter, I can see man.

I do struggle with gossip, like I'm kind of realizing as I'm reading the word of God.

This is something I do and I'm saying God, I need to give this to you, I need to confess this to you.

When we confess that sin, god, I need to give this to you, I need to confess this to you.

When we confess that sin, god's light gets brighter in our lives and we start seeing these sin revealed in us.

See, walking in God's light is actually walking in admittance.

It's walking in vulnerability.

It's saying I'm going to let the truth and holiness of God shine on me and show me my Confession.

Is you and I getting in agreement with what God says?

It means God, if you say this is right, then it's right.

If you say this is wrong, then it's wrong.

I'm going to humble myself before you and do what you say.

That's when we can have God's light turned on in our lives.

Thank you, guys.

We can turn those lights back on.

Your kryptonite this morning that we're going to talk about is not your sin.

The Christian's kryptonite is hiding our sin, and John tells us what happens if we live this way, when we live with the lights off.

What's the big deal Like?

You've had this sin for a long time.

You've kind of learned to walk around it, cope around it.

The problem with hiding our sin and living in sin is this is what it does Hiding in sin.

Hiding your sin.

It isolates you.

Hidden sin isolates you.

It isolates your life.

It isolates us in three ways.

Verse 6 says this if we say we have fellowship with him and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and not practicing the truth.

Hidden sin isolates us.

It isolates how From fellowship with God.

Hidden sin isolates us from our fellowship with God.

We cannot go to God directly with a clear conscience and pray to him because we know we have this sin in our life.

How do you know?

Maybe you're struggling with this, maybe you're living in darkness and you didn't even realize it.

Here's a good possible indicator that you have unconfessed sin in your life Is if you really really really struggle with being consistent in reading your Bible and praying every day.

This is a very common one.

We don't realize it.

This is a good sign.

Why?

Because there's something hindering us from having this intimate fellowship with God that we so badly want to have.

Yet I've set some times in my life I'm like I'm gonna do it.

I'm gonna read my Bible every day.

I'm gonna start this devotional plan I'm gonna have every single morning.

I'm gonna wake up at 6 am.

This is gonna be my devotional time.

Maybe you do good for a couple days, maybe you do good for a week, a month, but then you fall off from it.

Hidden sin isolates you from fellowship with God.

It could be that you're struggling to get close with him and do these basic Christian things because there's something in the way, there's a hidden sin there that you might not even realize is affecting your relationship with him.

The second way sin isolates us is that it isolates us from fellowship with each other.

It isolates us from fellowship with other Christians.

This is what it says in verse 8.

It says if we say we have no sin or sorry.

It says in verse 7, if we walk in the light, as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

Hidden sin isolates us from having true Christian community with other believers because we're hiding something.

Every relationship we have, this bleeds into.

Every conversation this has, it bleeds into.

We don't want to talk to someone for too long and get too deep, because we know if they ask the right question or, in our mind, the wrong question, they might get to something that is hidden beneath the surface.

So every day we walk in.

On Sunday how are you doing?

All's good.

How's your week?

All's good.

It's a good weekend to grow through.

If you have a good weekend, it's good.

All of our conversations stay at the surface level and we build up these walls of protection around ourselves because we don't want anyone to know that hidden sin we're dealing with and we live in the shame of that hidden sin.

This is what we think.

We think man, if my wife ever found out, no, she would leave me.

If my husband found out, he would walk out on me.

If my friends found out, they would look at me differently.

If my church found out, they would ostracize me.

There's no way.

So I build up these barriers of protection to hide my sin Instead of allowing God's light in on my sin.

We isolate ourselves.

What happens is we isolate ourselves from God.

We isolate ourselves from fellowship with other Christians because we don't want anyone to know about what is going on inside, and then we isolate us from fellowship with ourselves.

Verse 8 says this if we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

We tell people we're doing all right, we tell people we're doing good, we're reading our Bible, we think we have a relationship with God, we begin to believe the own lies and everything's okay.

This little sin here we kind of just push it to the side.

Other than this sin, everywhere else I'm doing well.

That verse says you're either walking in darkness.

You're either walking in darkness or you're either walking in light.

There is no in-between, where there's a little bit dark here but a little bit of light here.

It's one or the other Hidden sin isolates us from fellowship with God, from fellowship with each other, other Christians.

It isolates us from fellowship within ourselves.

We cannot dig into the depths of our soul and look ourselves in the mirror and be honest with ourselves.

And here's the danger of that isolation.

We described earlier Satan as a roaring lion who wants to devour you.

If you ever watch a lion hunt.

Their goal is to separate you from the pack, to isolate you where you're weak and vulnerable and alone.

Being isolated makes you feel alone in a room crowded with people because you think, what if they found out?

They might love me right now.

But if they found out, there's no way.

And here's the danger of hiding your sin and feeling isolated if you aren't fully known.

If you aren't fully known, you will never feel fully loved.

If you always hide that part of yourself, if you always hide that sin, you will never experience God's full grace on your life because you're hiding it from him.

You will never experience what it's like to have a brother or sister in Christ come alongside you and cry with you and tell you hey, it's going to be okay, we're going to help you through this.

You never know what it's like to look yourself in the mirror and examine yourself and be at peace within your own soul.

Because if you aren't fully known, you can never feel fully loved.

This is the danger of hiding our sin from God, hiding our sin from others.

This is the danger of hiding our sin from God, hiding our sin from others, hiding our sin from even ourselves.

We don't allow God's light to expose our sin, we will struggle to grow spiritually.

The way we receive more light, the way we receive sanctification and take steps in our faith is when we allow God's light to shine on us.

We see that sin, we confess it.

Then we take another step forward and another step forward.

This is how we grow in our relationship with God.

If we can't get over our sin issues, if we're not willing to confess these things, it's going to be really, really difficult for us to grow in our spiritual walks, because spiritual growth happens one step at a time.

So what do we do this morning?

We all have this sin problem.

We all have these issues.

How do I overcome these temptations in my life?

How do I get past these sins?

This is the first thing we have to do.

You have to take inventory of your sin.

Here's what that means.

It means you examine yourself.

It means you examine your life.

It means you take out the Bible and you read it and you say okay, god, where am I falling short of what you say is holy, of what you say is right?

I'm going to take an inventory of the sins in my life.

Maybe there's some in here this morning.

You're like I don't think this sermon is really for me.

Like I'm not really struggling with addiction, I don't have these hidden things, like I'm not on drugs, I'm not addicted to pornography, I don't have this issue with gossip.

I don't really know if this is for me.

I'm going to say something.

Well, I'm not going to say something.

My friend John says something very pointed to you.

Okay, my friend John has a very pointed message to you.

If you're here this morning you're like, nah, I'm doing good, I'm doing all right, I don't really have a sin to confess.

He says this in verse 8, if we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we sit here this morning and we say, no, that's not for me, I'm doing all right, I don't really have sin in my life, remember this John is not writing to lost people.

He's writing to Christians.

He's writing to people who have been saved, justified.

So he's saying.

He's saying, if you can't see sin in your life, then the lights might be a little too dark right now.

It might be time for you to take a step and turn the light up a little bit.

We have to take an inventory of our sin, write it down, be honest with ourselves, be honest with God, and this is what we do.

Number two we confess our sins.

We confess our sins in a couple ways.

We confess it to God.

Verse nine says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And I think this part most of us are pretty good with here, right?

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty good.

Like every five, 10 minutes when I sin and mess up, I'm like God, I'm sorry, I'm just apologizing all day.

Lord, I confess to you, I want to get back with you, god.

Most of us are pretty good with this part of confessing to God on a regular basis.

But God calls us to take another step, further than this.

He doesn't tell us just to confess to him.

Second way we confess is he tells us to confess to another person.

I think this is going to be the difficult part for most of us today.

James 5.16 says this therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be what's that word?

Healed.

Tells us to confess to him.

But he tells us to find a trusted friend, a trusted brother, sister in Christ, someone we can depend on.

And he tells it to tell them so that you may be healed, so that you can pray together in that community.

There's something powerful about confessing your sin to someone and I think this morning there might be someone in here.

You're on board with the take inventory.

You're like I don't even need to take inventory, I can list you 10 sins right now that I struggle with.

I don't even need to do that part and I'm all on board with confessing to God.

That part's good.

I love God, I'll confess to him.

I think this is the step many of us need to take today the step of being willing to be vulnerable enough to confess to another person, to allow them to speak into your life.

Someone you can call when you're struggling.

Someone who's going to call you every single week and say hey, I know you're struggling with this, how have you been doing this week?

And you don't lie to them.

You'd be fully open with them, you'd be fully vulnerable with them and you confess everything to them.

Because sin loses its power when it's brought into the light.

When we bring our sin into the light of God's word, it loses its shame.

We realize, oh, I can be loved even though I mess up.

We walk in the grace of God, we walk in his light.

I think there's a voice in your head, maybe this morning, trying to stop you from telling someone it's saying if you tell them, they will never look at you the same.

If you confess to that person, they will walk away from you.

I'll tell you that's a lie.

We say this all the time that we are better than me.

We were built to walk in community to strengthen each other.

When we are weak, another brother or sister of Christ can be strong and lift us up, and we can lift them up when they are weak.

I believe your next step this morning is to confess to another person that sin you've been dealing with.

Here's the reality.

We have an enemy.

His name is Satan.

The enemy knows your weakness.

That weakness is having that hidden sin in your life.

It's time for you to take that step out into the light.

Confess to a person who's that name in your mind that you can tell today and watch what God can do with your obedience when you bring that sin to him.