Power and Temptation | Trinity Talks | Life Group Live

Hello and welcome to Linda and to Martin and to Bruce and we are going to be having our first

and hopefully first of many Life Group Live sessions here in between our two services.

I just wanted to say thank you for joining me today. Now for those of you who don't know what

a Life Group is, maybe you've never heard of our Life Groups, our Life Groups are small groups

that we have here in the church where groups of people meet regularly outside of our Sunday

mornings to discuss and to really to go through the scripture and to go through sermons and to do

life together. Now we were just chatting before we got on the camera and Linda was letting me know

what Life Groups stand for, L-I-F-E. Linda can you remind us what a Life Group stands for? Okay,

it's learning, insight, fellowship and encouragement. I think it's a great definition of what a small

group is. Like it really summarizes what Life Groups are all about. So the three of you are all in the

same small group together. Now I did my research and you are in the Froum small group or Life Group

and there are 12 members I believe at least according to our online records. Probably.

Around that? It changes. It changes like who's coming in and out. Okay and I was just wondering

if I could ask you a few questions about what your Life Group is kind of like. If you give us a little

insight into that Life Group and then once we talk a little bit about your Froum group then I was

hoping we could go through the scripture and some of the sermon questions that we have here at Trinity

as well. Okay so I'm going to start with Martin. Martin can you just let me know when does your

small group meet and where? Sure, as you mentioned it's the Froums are our leaders and they open

their house to us every Thursday night and we do that year round with the exception perhaps for the

couple of summer months and when somebody can't attend we open up a Zoom link and occasionally

Steve and Carol are not around so somebody else will host and they'll come in by Zoom. Oh that's

great so you're flexible. Very flexible. Very flexible but you stay to the consistency of it.

Now when you meet Linda what does sort of an average group session look like when you're

together? How do you structure it? Well it starts out with like because everybody's arriving at

slightly different times even though we have a start time it's a chance for us to grab a coffee

or tea or cold drink cookie or brownie or something along those lines and greet each other,

catch up a little bit then we sit down we open with prayer we go through the sermon questions

and it's not often we get through all of the sermon questions. Sometimes a sermon question

actually triggers a good discussion. We have some lively discussions and sometimes we get

distracted and we can get a little bit off tangent and if we go too far off we're drawn back in but

and then we close in prayer and we have prayer requests so people within the group if they have

things on their mind or people that they're concerned about we open it up for requests

and then we have an open prayer and anybody that feels like praying can pray to the topics

if you're uncomfortable praying out loud or aren't called to pray that night there's no pressure.

It's very very casual and friendly and open. I love it. I love it. All right now Bruce I think

you may have been one of the newer members in the small group or in this life group. I was wondering

if you could just tell us and tell everyone who's out there listening what sort of inspired and

motivated you to join a life group at Trinity? Well we had always been a member of a small group

at our former church and we had led for small groups in the past so it was really critical for

us we felt to become members of a life group at Trinity and honestly we chose the fruims. We

didn't know anybody really. We'd just come to the church and we chose the fruims because they had a

dog and that was the thing. It was like it was like well we can go to this life group because

they like dogs and that was the main emphasis so and we've been going there ever since and it's

great. I love it. Yeah we have great friends now. All right now I've got one more question and feel

free everyone here can answer. How have you noticed yourself or the group as a whole change or evolve

or grow since you've been together as a life group? Have you noticed any changes? I think we

we do have new members joining us on a fairly consistent basis and we also have members that

have either moved away or transitioned into other areas so we've lost members. So it's always

interesting to connect with new people and make new friendships and be able to support each other.

So you're meeting new people and you're learning about other people? That translates into the

services here as well when we're coming in for coffee hour and things we've got people

recognize and new friends we can talk to there as well. So it's a great way for you to make

connections. Absolutely. Yeah and as a couple that was new to the church it was a way to get connected

in a very quick way that was comfortable because you're in somebody's home. You're just sitting

around chatting and it was just a great way to get connected. So you really were doing life together?

Yes. Yes. Well thanks and I like that you alluded to using the sermon questions and some of our life

groups here at Trinity do use the sermon questions which are questions that we create based on the

sermons from the previous Sunday and they help us to dive deeper more deeply into the weekly message

and to really evaluate how that scripture can impact us in our daily lives. Now today in our

service we were continuing our sermon series on the live in the dream. We were looking through the

story of Joseph in Genesis 39 when Joseph was sold into slavery and he goes to Potiphar's house

and he rises in the ranks pretty quickly and we hear that the Lord was with him and that he was

prosperous and what he did but then along comes who? No Potiphar's wife. Potiphar's wife and she

is attempts to seduce him and she wants to tempt him to go to bed with her and he refuses and then

we see the a little bit of a downfall of Joseph. He has tea falls, she accuses him of taking advantage

of her and he is sent to prison. So things were looking really good for Joseph and now they're

not looking so great and so I was thinking we could just start by talking about some of the

questions. Now if you are at home and you've never seen our sermon questions you can actually find

these sermon questions online on our website. They are on the website under Sundays at Trinity

and if you go to services and sermon questions you'll find the most up-to-date sermon questions

there as well as sermon questions from previous sermons. So I think the first question is all

about distractions and Rob mentioned that we live in a culture of distractions. Do you guys agree?

Yeah yes I would agree. Absolutely. What do you think are some little things that distract you

or people you know on a daily basis? My phone. My phone I was going to say the same thing.

I was actually listening to a sermon on my drive-in today from another church but talking about that

dopamine hit that we get. So it's such a distraction those for our phones that we can even become

addicted to them. So it's a physical impulse and distraction that we get. Anything else come to mind?

Just everyday life. You know you've made plans in the morning of what you're going to do and

then something comes up and it could be a phone call somebody calls and says hey can you help out

with this or can we meet for coffee or I just need a chance to chat or as sometimes as with Martin he

likes to play Pokemon Go and get some exercise and yeah so just little things. Yeah little things

that sort of derail us from the purpose that we may have had for that day like creep in.

I find it interesting that it's usually the things that really don't matter that distract us

from the things that actually matter which I don't know why that works but it it seems to be the

case. So doing the things that you really don't need to do distracts you from those things that

are you should be looking at you should be doing. I was thinking that it's like easier sometimes to do

that little thing. Yeah. To do something on your phone to play a game to especially now that we're

retired we got lots of time. You don't have to work. So you see that there has been. Instead of doing the work around the

house that I need to. Yeah hey you don't have to be retired. I have three children young children at

home and it can be distracting to steal away with my cell phone into doing some some quiet time

but then it can get out of control a little day. So Rob named two big distractions that can derail

our dreams and those are the allure of power and the temptation of pleasure. So like let's look at

the first one. Where have you witnessed or seen the abuse of power and maybe not in a specific example

we can keep it general but where have we seen maybe in life abuse of power? Well I think Rob

alluded to it. I think we see it every day in the news with the politicians and even past politicians

that we had admired. We're finding out now after the fact that you know people are digging up dirt

and finding out about their temptations and their distractions and so I think that's the big one.

Probably because it's so visible too. Yeah it's in the news and their public figures and yeah.

Politicians. Yep I'd agree with that. And in the workplace.

Yeah. The people sometimes people get in a position of power they get in charge.

They're the managers or the other leaders in a company and they take advantage of that and they

they can force people or coerce people and doing things they don't really want to do. Right.

There's a saying that says power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely and I think you see that

in in the political arena you see it almost everywhere. Yeah so we're talking about power

and corruption and now let's talk a little bit more about that sexual temptation that sometimes

comes into play or many times comes into play when you're in a position of power. Where have

we seen and we can again keep it general where sexual temptation can lead to someone's downfall?

And once again you see it in the political arena you see it in celebrity. You see it in in all a

lot of places where you find that power corrupts you find that if it may not happen all the time

but the same temptations of with respect to sexuality will creep in and it goes back to

it goes back to maybe that whole thing of their their make strange excuse upon bed fellows.

So yes. We also see it in schools and you know between teachers and students sometimes. Yeah.

Or in other places where there's somebody and doctors and their patients and things like that.

Unfortunately in churches. Right and in churches too. Yeah but. I was avoiding that.

Yeah we'll keep it. Yeah the celebrities and the political figures the the people in public

you hear more about that but it's happening all around us. I mean I would imagine that if you

were to take a poll of even the people within this church a lot of them would have been victims or

tempted or you know and it's important hopefully the church helps us deal with it.

Yeah but it is it's a very real situation that we see almost everywhere where there's positions of

power and trust that we have. Yeah well not only and and even amongst some of our friends we know

I know people who have strayed in their marriage and are no longer married to that person as a

result. Right and then that's that's a downfall so the relationship is broken. Right. What were some

of the factors we're just going to go to the scripture and I think Rob alluded to some of

these in his sermon that made the sexual advantage advances of Potiphar's wife challenging and

tempting for Joseph. So why would he have been challenged by this situation? I think there's a

few challenges here. I have no idea what she looked like but I'm assuming that she must have been

reasonably attractive if she expected that she could just wiggle her little finger and and get

whoever she wanted in in her bedroom. So I mean there's that. She was also confident. Yeah she

was in she was in position of power. She was his boss's wife so I mean and as it turned out he was

right that she then put in a bad word against him when she didn't get what she wanted. So yeah.

Do you think Joseph being single and lonely away from his family do you think that would have

contributed to some of the challenges there? See I'm gonna I'm gonna be the the opposite because as

Rob preached this morning I thought to myself yeah Joseph was probably tempted but he didn't

seem to be as tempted. I think the real the person who is really tempted was Potiphar's wife

and she was the one who was not able to control that temptation and I think I think Rob laid it

out very well the the way Joseph was able to withstand the temptation but then what Rob focused

on Joseph but which he should have but I think it's a great illustration of the difference where

I think we're supposed to follow Joseph's lead and learn from Potiphar's wife.

I like that yeah. Because Potiphar's wife really didn't have power. She had power through association.

It's like Kate Middleton was at a public school and one of the five-year-olds said to her

who are you which it's hard to believe he didn't know who she was but her answer was I'm William's

wife and her identity was tied to him and that's really what we see with Potiphar's wife is that

her power was because she was Potiphar's wife and yet she abused what power she had

and that was that's what I really took away from it so I think I think Joseph did a stellar job.

Yes I think Rob too did mention the fact that even though the response as it's reported in the Bible

was pretty quick you know no you know I'm not going to do that he might have been tempted because

she may have been able to be a positive influence for him if if she was on his side and he may have

had more power or been able to get more done or you know she was able to do that and so I think

that's what I think but I think on reflection as you know God that's not the way God would work.

Joseph stayed faithful to God. He stayed faithful to God even when for all intents and purposes he

knew the consequences he probably knew her character and knew that she could maybe do

something not so good. And Rob's point of the fact that he had determined what was right beforehand

was not something he had to decide in the spur of the moment great great point. Yeah yeah yeah.

If you if you if you know God and and you know know what his dreams are for you then it's a lot

easier to turn from things that that aren't in line with that. I'm not saying that it's it's easy

all the time but it is easier if you have that that goal or that focus in mind and you know that

God is on your side. Yeah now let's just pretend for a minute that Joseph is modern day and that

he is living in the 2000s with us. How do you think our current culture would view Joseph and his

response to Potiphar's wife in our current culture of sexuality that we live in? Rob said that too.

Feels good do it. Feels good do it. I find there are still lots of people though who are not

promiscuous or or of that mindset. I think there are a lot of people nowadays who are

I think there's a move back to staying true to yourself and and staying true to your vows if

you have vows and you know in your marriage and things like that. It's like you know I think back

in the 60s for instance I think it was a lot wilder yeah but it's the way the pendulum swings

and I think it's it makes me think a little bit of the recent Me Too movement that came out a

couple years ago. Some of this abuse of power came to light. Yes and and then now if people are

wanting to abuse that power I think they have to understand that there are consequences. I don't

know that there was consequences in the past so though I agree with Martin in that in the 60s and

up until the maybe even up until the Me Too movement the consequences weren't as severe

but now there are consequences so I think you're going to see a change hopefully. Yeah hopefully.

Yeah and then let's just before we wrap this up we're thinking about Jesus's life and Jesus's

death. What can we learn about how we can handle we ourselves can handle handle worldly pleasure

and worldly power. So what do you think Jesus may have taught us or is teaching us about how we can

handle the power that we have? Does anything come to mind? Prayer. Every time he was tempted he prayed

three times he was tempted. He prayed. One thing that I love is that he always used scripture

to defend against Satan so he used God's power in God's words and he said those words out loud.

I think by you know with prayer and asking God for help that I mean that's going to help you

withstand a lot of things. Yeah. In the Beatitudes all the characteristics that he mentions

really are almost counter what you think of when you think of somebody who's powerful.

And I think I think we can learn a lot from that. He he stresses humility. I think we need to stress

humility more in society. Looking out for the other people that are not looking out for yourself.

Right. You're focused on that. Well you're self-centered you're looking at pleasure.

You're going to chase that pleasure. Well thank you very much guys for joining us today. You're welcome.

Thank you. It was a great way to spend the time between the two services. I was actually thinking

about bringing out a plate of cookies to tempt you all while we were doing this interview.

But I didn't think that would work so well with a microphone so I decided not to try to tempt you.

But I think we have just a moment or two left of coffee hour before we start thinking about our

second service. Hopefully we can get some more life groups to join us for our life group live talks.

And if this has encouraged you out there to join a life group as our Froom group has mentioned

sometimes they need online. We do have an online group starting up soon within the coming months.

So if you're interested in joining a life group please feel free to contact us at Trinity and we

would love to get you plugged into that. And if you are joining us for the 1115 service please

stay tuned and we'll see you in just a few minutes.