Temptation | Book of James | Shan Moyers

I'm excited that you're here.

And I want to get to James chapter one.

We've been in a series that's called Faith at Works.

And we've been asking this question throughout the series that it is simple.

It's just, what does your faith do?

Like when you step back and you think about it, what does your faith actually do?

If your faith doesn't do anything, like if it doesn't do anything, what good is it?

If your faith doesn't like actually help you with anything in your life, like why does it actually matter?

That's the question we've been asking.

Interesting.

Start with a confession today.

When I was 16 years old, I failed my driver's test.

16 years old, walked in the door.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

I walked in the DMV, I sat down, and I thought, how hard could it be?

Right?

Sat down in front of the computer.

I was going to take the test, and I thought, well, there's a brake pedal, there's a gas pedal, there's a steering wheel, like, not too hard.

Just go the speed limit.

Stop at the stop signs.

Should be pretty simple.

Found out taking the test that there's a whole lot of information you need to know to actually pass a driver's test.

I failed the written part of the test.

Then they took me and they put me in a car and I took the behind the wheel portion of the test.

So I'm in a car and I'm I'll be honest, I had failed the written part of the test, so I was a little bit shaken up.

Like I saw the look on my parents' face when I failed the test, a little disappointment.

And uh I sat on the car.

The person who got in, who was my instructor, was not exactly the warmest person.

I'm sure they had had quite the wild ride, you know, of teaching people to drive, that kind of thing.

But I took off and I was doing great.

I was killing it.

I mean, even they had this portion of the test where you had to pull up next to the curb and you had to back up like 30 feet, nailed it.

Like, did great.

You know, stopped at the stoplights, turned on the blinkers, did all that.

There was only one little thing.

I I kind of rolled through a right turn on a stop sign, which is an automatic fail.

Like you can get everything else right, but you roll through a stop sign, that is a pretty big deal.

So I failed not just the written portion of the test, I failed both portions of the test.

Now, doesn't matter what kind of test it is in life, right?

Doesn't matter what kind of test it is in life, everybody wants to pass the test, right?

Here's the problem.

Not everybody prepares to pass the test.

I did not fail my driver's test because I was a bad driver.

I failed my driver's test because I was not prepared.

James chapter one, I want you to get there.

We've been in this series that's called Faith That Works, and we've been asking a question.

Here's the question: What is your faith supposed to do?

Think about that for a second.

That's a really important question.

Like, why in the world are you sitting here if your faith does not do anything for you?

Was it matter?

Like, well, why is it actually valuable unless it does something in your life?

Last week, Rachel, she preached, she jumped in and she talked about how faith prepares us for testing.

Like it prepares us to pass the test.

James talks about, James chapter one is all about testing.

He says, there is an external test that happens in our life, and that happens with circumstances.

We would call them trials.

James chapter 1, verse 12 says this blessed is the one who perseveres under what?

James 1:12

Yeah, I think I think probably our other campuses watching, and they were they were good, but you guys are still asleep.

So uh blessed is the one who perseveres under trials.

External testing due to your circumstances, it creates hard times.

Blessed the one who perseveres under trials, because having stood the test, there it is, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life the Lord has promised to those who love them.

Love him.

There is an external testing that happens with trials.

We've all been through it.

And what Rachel talked about is how our faith helps us persevere, helps us grow, and even helps us find joy in the midst of testing, external tests.

But here's the thing James goes on and he talks about how there's another kind of testing.

Like it's not just the external test, circumstances, trials.

He talks about an internal testing that comes from a different source.

James chapter 1, verse 13.

James 1:13

Here's what it says says, when tempted.

So we just went from trials to now internal struggles, internal testing of temptation.

When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me.

For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.

Here's what's really interesting.

James uses in James chapter 1, verse 2, he says, Count it all joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.

James 1:2

Then in verse 13, he says, When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me.

Did you know that those two are the same word?

James uses the same Greek word, Greek root word for testing in two different ways: trials and temptation, which means the same test can actually be a trial that grows you, or it can be a temptation that harms you.

Think of it this way: a layoff.

Some of you have been there, some of you might be there right now.

A trial, like of a layoff, can actually be a trial that grows you, pushes you closer to God in prayer, develops perseverance as you begin to pray and you ask God and then you work to find a God provides in the midst of that.

God does miracles in the midst of that, it can actually grow you, or it can become a temptation for you to numb out.

Or maybe lash out and get angry and lash out at God or lash out at those people around you because of stress of how am I gonna provide and what am I gonna do?

Or just kind of check out.

The same trial, same test can be a trial or it can be a temptation.

Loneliness.

Loneliness can be a trial that drives you to God, drives you to prayer, drives you to God's people.

To reconnect with church, to get back in a small group, to find good people, godly people to connect with and develop relationships with and create connection, or it can be a temptation that drives you to look for intimacy in all the wrong places, in places that can't actually provide it in our life.

We've all been there.

And here's what James says.

He's really clear.

He says, God allows both.

We need to understand this.

God allows both trials in our life and temptations in our life to grow and to mature us.

But here's what James says: God will never create temptation.

He will allow, but he will never create temptation.

He will never put bait in front of you in your life and bait you to sin because sin causes separation from God and it causes separation from other people.

So where's temptation come from?

Like if we were just to step back and ask the question, where does it actually come from?

And what we have a tendency to do is we want to blame something on the outside.

What's the old saying?

Devil made me do it.

Right?

Ephesians chapter 6, verse 11 says, put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

Ephesians 6:11

What's that mean?

Schemes means strategy.

So there is a portion of this where Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus, and he's saying, Look, you gotta look out because you have an enemy, and that enemy has a tailor-made plan to prey on your desires to create temptation for you to sin.

Like, do you realize that?

Do you realize that we're all susceptible to something?

And the devil has a strategy and plan to make you mess up and to create sin.

But here's what James does.

James, very interesting.

He says, You can't blame the devil.

He says you can't blame the devil.

In verse 14 and 15, he says, but each person is tempted, tested, each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire.

Say that again.

Dragged by by dragged away by whose desire?

By their own evil desire and enticed.

Then after desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin.

And sin when it is full grown, gives birth to death.

James just says, hey.

Verse 13, he says, can't blame God.

Verse 14, he says, can't blame the devil.

He says the only person that you can blame is yourself.

Like the problem is not out there.

And that's actually good news because if the problem was actually out there, you couldn't do anything about it.

What James is saying is the problem is right here, which is good news because if the problem is here, God can meet you here, and there is something that you can do about the temptations that lead to sin, your desires in your life that lead you towards sin.

And what's awesome is James actually takes a moment and he says, Let me help you, help you out with this.

Let me show you what your faith can do, how it can help you, not just against the test of trials, but actually against the test of temptations.

But before it helps you, here's what you got to understand.

You got to understand the anatomy of sin.

And he breaks it down for us.

And he says, Sin is not a one-time thing.

It's not just something that happens in one instance, it is a process.

Like there is an anatomy of this thing that it grows.

And here's what he says: He says, it starts with desire, and desire opens the door to deception.

And deception opens the door to disobedience.

And disobedience opens the door to what?

Guys, death.

That's a strong word.

That is a strong word.

And I want us to break this down because if you're gonna withstand temptation, if you're gonna try to stay away from sin that's trying to create disconnection between you and God and between you and other people and cause pain and harm in your life, you gotta understand it.

So it begins with desire.

James says each one of us is dragged away by their own evil desire.

Understand something.

Desire in itself is not wrong.

Who gave you your desires?

God did.

God gave you the desire for nourishment.

God gave you the desire for shelter.

God gave you the desire for connection.

He gave you the desire for sexuality.

He gave you all of these desires.

And in and of themselves, they are God-given, which means they're good.

Here's the problem.

The problem with our desires is not that they're our the problem with a God-given desire is when you try to fulfill that desire outside of the will of God.

Like, think about it.

You have the desire to eat.

Man, eating's normal.

Think about your best, your favorite restaurant, your favorite snacks, all that stuff.

Eating's normal.

Gluttony is sin that leads to things, difficulty.

If you just step back and you look at relationships and connection, like we all have the desire for achievement.

We all have the desire for, I mean, you could just go down the line, sexuality.

Man, God created sexuality as a desire.

He created sex as a desire.

Within the context of marriage, he says, Man, it is beautiful, it is wonderful.

It is created for a husband and a wife to come together to connect.

And it says there's so much connection, they become one.

There's just a beauty to that.

He says, inside the context of marriage, it's good, it's wonderful.

Outside the context of marriage, which God created, it's sin.

And it leads to difficulty.

It leads to, outside of the context that God created, it leads to difficulty and harm and pain.

Our desires are not wrong.

The problem is when our desires become our masters and not our servants.

It begins with desire.

Desire opens a door to deception.

James says each one is dragged away by their own evil desires and enticed.

That word enticed is a really interesting word there.

It's actually a fishing term.

I don't know how many fishermen we've got in the room or watching online or in our campuses, but uh fishing, if you think it's the idea of a lure.

It's kind of like baiting a hook or a lure.

And and uh I remember when I was when I was in high school, I found out just how dangerous a fishing hook could actually be.

I'm sure you got some stories too.

I was on the Deschutes River in Oregon, beautiful area.

It was kind of a wildlife area, natural habitat.

Um I would go with a guy named Chad Hewitt and his family every summer.

We would raft down, they had a drift boat, we would go about 70 miles down.

This particular incident happened when we were about 20 miles in.

There were no access roads.

We were just kind of in and we would raft a certain amount every day, and then we would camp, and it was so much fun.

And Chad's family was like professional fishermen type people.

Chad is now, he owns two lodges that are fishing lodges.

I mean, that's this guy.

I mean, he's amazing at it.

We were in high school and uh they were big fly fishermen.

And if you if you've been around fly fishing, if somebody, if you're a fly fisherman or if you've watched someone who really knows what they're doing, guys, it's like a work of art.

I mean, it's amazing.

Chad, Chad would get out there and fish.

It's just fun to watch.

I was the novice, you know, if the fish weren't biting, I was downriver throwing rocks.

You know, that was me.

But Chad was good at this.

And we were one day we're on the Deschutes River.

It was the river was really wide at the time.

He was trying to get his line out across the river to this one ripple area, seen some fish in there, and he's like, I'm trying to get there.

And so he was up on top of this rock, there's no trees, and he had his, he had stripped out his line, he's got his rod, and he's just whipping that thing back and forth, and he's just he's threading line out there, and that thing is getting, I mean, it's like he is like whipping that line out here and then bringing it back, and it's way back here.

And one time when he brought it back and is just getting ready to cast it out, it catches of like a tall blade of grass, changes the trajectory of that hook as it comes through, and he's got his finger out, and as it came through, the weight of that line took that hook and it went right into his finger, went all the way to the bone and turned.

I mean, the yelp out of this guy drops his.

I run over there, he's holding his hand, I look at it, and I'm like, oh no.

Which it would have been painful, but it wouldn't have been as bad if we were actually obeying the law.

It was a natural wildlife area.

They had these beautiful big steel heads in this river, and uh it was it was basically it was catch and release, and you had to depress the barbs.

We wanted to catch one of those big old steel fish, so we didn't depress the barbs.

You know, every hook has a point, but it's got a barb that keeps it from coming out of the fish's mouth, and to keep it from damaging the fish and catch and release, you take the pliers, press down the barb.

We didn't do it.

That thing went all the way in and it was stuck, it was buried.

We run back to camp, we go to Chad's dad, we go to Ron, and we're like, Ron, look.

Ron looks at it and realizes we got two options.

He says, Guys, we got two options.

We we either pack up camp, we wrap the 50 miles down, and we get Chad out of here to a hospital.

Chad looks at him and he says, No way, what's the other option?

He's like, Well, the other option is pretty painful.

And he tells Chad, and Chad's like, do it.

So we held his hand down, put a towel in his mouth.

Ron grabbed the pliers, walks over, and he says, I'm gonna count to three.

But guys, nobody ever counts to three.

I mean, we're holding it down.

I am Chad, Chad's uncle, we're holding it down, and he says, one, and he rips that thing out.

Yeah.

You you can imagine it, you almost feel it in you right now.

I mean, it the scream that came out of him, the damage that was left, the pain.

Guys, that's the way deception is with temptation.

I mean, think about it, no lure ever shows the hook.

It disguises the hook.

Like a fish doesn't look at a lure and go, that's gonna really hurt.

He looks at it, it's like, well, that's lunch.

And it's the same with temptation.

No temptation ever shows itself as temptation, it's deception.

It shows itself as pleasure, it shows itself as connection, it shows itself as achievement or relief or rest or whatever it might be, or love.

And underneath that, the deception is what we don't see is it disguises the consequences and the pain of sin.

You see, desire leads to deception, and deception leads to disobedience.

You see, what happens is James goes on and he talks about just this idea of how there is something that is birthed in.

Like there is something that's actually birthed in when we make a decision to actually sin, it is a decision of our will.

Like desire isn't wrong.

Again, our desires are not wrong.

It's the actual choice that's wrong.

Desire gives birth to deception, deception gives birth to disobedience.

You see, disobedience is a choice of our will.

And following Jesus, understand this.

Following Jesus is a choice of our will, not of our feelings.

Like you get this, there are days in life in our relationship with God where we just don't feel like doing the right thing.

And sometimes that's little things, like just being, you know, uh showing initiative and getting out there and doing things we're supposed to.

Sometimes it's like actually doing the right thing and not the wrong thing.

There are days where we actually feel like doing the wrong thing.

Man, your relationship with God, maturity in your relationship with God is choosing to do the right thing even when we feel like doing the wrong thing.

You see, desire, our desires are natural.

Satan puts temptation in front of us and disguises it.

And when we take the bait, it leads to disobedience.

And when disobedience happens, meaning we willfully choose to sin, it opens the door to what James defines as death.

We could say pain.

We could say just difficulty.

James says that sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death.

He switches the analogies.

He switches from fishing to this analogy of birth.

And he says, when you choose, when you choose to do wrong, when you choose to sin, something is birthed inside of you.

And when something is birthed, when there is a birth, it grows.

It grows in our life.

And then when we choose it and we continually choose it, what it does is it automatically brings pain.

Think about it.

A glance becomes a habit, a habit becomes a secret, a secret becomes an affair or an addiction, and something, some relationship somewhere is harmed.

I was in my late 20s.

I had moved with my wife, and we had we moved back to Missouri.

We had our oldest daughter and just the one child at the time.

And I was in the middle of youth ministry, just working like crazy, and we had all kinds of events, and and I had one particular week and a half where there was just a ton going on, and my wife was like, you know what, you got so much going.

I'm gonna fly back and I'm gonna see family and take the grandkid back, and everybody can see her.

And I said, Babe, just do it.

I'll be so busy anyways.

Why don't you just do that?

It'll be great.

And so Jen flew out, got through all my events, had a few days left before she came back.

I sat down one night late.

It was late at night.

I was sat down and I was at our computer, and there was an email that had come in, and it seemed a little weird.

I did it's a little suspicious, something, but I clicked on a link.

When I clicked on the link, it took me to some things that I shouldn't look at.

Now that in and of itself is not sin.

Like I could step back and I could call my wife immediately and say, Babe, man, I don't know what happened.

I just want you to know, and I just I just want you to know, and man, I got rid of that email and did not sin happens when desire is conceived.

And then when there's disobedience, and the sin was that I clicked and I clicked again, and then I clicked again and I clicked again, and then I thought, this is what am I doing?

Cleared my history, got done with that, and then the next night came back and clicked again and clicked again and clicked again.

And then felt terrible about it.

And then prayed about it, you know, like we do, and asked forgiveness, and then cleared my history, and then hoped when my wife came home that she wouldn't ask about it.

And she didn't.

She got home from that trip, she didn't ask, and a week went by, uh, two weeks went by, three weeks went by, and then I thought, okay, okay, I'll never do that again.

But okay.

A month and a half later, we're back out in Oregon.

Family had flown us out, wanted to see the grandkid again.

Holidays were coming, we're getting a little bit of vacation time with family.

We're at a beach cabin, having a blast, walk into the room, and my wife is getting ready, and she just looks at me, she goes, I this is probably nothing, but I just need to ask you a question.

She said, When when when I was gone, and as soon as she said, When I was gone, my stomach just dropped.

And she said, Did you did you happen to look at anything that you're not supposed to when I was gone?

And in that moment, you have the temptation to either say no, I said, Yes, I did.

And guys, it is true what James says desire gives way to.

Deception.

And when you take the bait, deception gives way to disobedience.

And disobedience leads the way, opens the door to pain and hardship and difficulty.

He says, death.

Now that did not kill my marriage, but it definitely harmed a relationship.

It harmed connection.

It harmed trust.

It harmed intimacy.

Let me just ask you this.

And I just, wherever you're sitting, I just want to encourage you to be honest with yourself.

Man, what sin?

Like what temptation, what what temptation that could lead to sin that would harm a relationship in your life or harm you, what sin are you entertaining right now?

Seriously, what sin are you entertaining?

Some of you would say, man, it's a secret sin.

Some of you would say, Yeah, it was a secret sin.

It's not so secret anymore.

And when that happens, you know what I'm talking about.

You know the pain and you know the difficulty that is there.

And I'm just telling you, what happens is when you get involved in sin, now every one of us is gonna sin.

And thank God that God is a God of graciousness and love.

Like He is a forgiving God.

You remember when the prodigal son came home, he didn't just say, Man, you've been messing up again.

When the prodigal son came home, it says the father ran to him with his arms wrapped open, wrapped him up, forgave him, and threw a party for him.

That's what God wants to do for you.

But here's the thing: when you are involved in habitual sin, when you are entertaining habitual temptation that leads to sin, what it does, it disconnects you from a father that's waiting like this.

He's not gone anywhere.

We are the ones who go away.

We are the ones who step back.

And God's just saying, Would you come home?

And 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13, is so encouraging.

1 Corinthians 10:13

If you are there, know this.

It says, No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind, meaning what you're going through, somebody else sitting next to you in this room is probably going through too.

Like every single one of us are susceptible to sin and we mess up.

If David, a man after God's own heart, could be susceptible to horrible sins, abusing his power as a king, murdering a friend.

If David would have looked at the consequences of those sins, he probably never would have committed in the first place.

And I'm telling you, if I had to look at the consequences of what that did in my relationship with my wife at that moment, never would have gone there.

He goes on and he says, and God is faithful, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, meaning he will give you an exit ramp.

But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so you can endure it.

So what do we do?

Like, what do you and I do, no matter what the temptation?

We know that the devil's got a plan for each and every one of us.

It could be around the area of sex, it could be around the area of gossip, it could be greed, it could be whatever it might be.

What do you do?

I'm gonna give you just a couple ideas that I think will help and bring us back, bring us back closer in our relationship with God, maybe even repair some things with some other people.

But the first thing is we've got to just get this mindset in our mind to understand that sin kills.

Like it's like you and I've got to understand that.

We've got to get really, because I think, I think in our Western culture, what we've done is we've just kind of made sin this little thing over here, and we've just been like, it's not that big a deal.

We don't even talk about it hardly anymore.

Man, sin kills.

Romans 6.23 says the wages of sin is what?

Death.

We got to start asking ourselves, looking past the temptation and going, man, what is the devil trying to steal from me?

What is he trying to kill in me?

What's he trying to kill in my relationships, in my family, my parenting, my reputation, my finances, my spirituality?

The wages of sin is death.

Now, under that idea, I think we've got to get that in our minds.

But the other thing that we've got to do, I think we've got to name the lure.

Like if you were to name the lure, if if Satan has a tailor-fit strategy for you and you don't name the disguise, name the bait, name the lure that's in the water of your life, you're gonna keep reaching out for it.

So what is it?

Like, what is it for you?

What is the lure in your life?

You name it.

And what happens is when you name it, it starts to lose a little bit of its power.

And what you begin to do is be able to see it in the water.

And after we name it, what we do is we name the lie.

You name the lure and you name the lie because every lure has a lie attached to it.

And it's lie is like, man, you deserve this, or nobody's gonna know, or it's not gonna cost you.

And guys, that's the biggest deception of all, because sin always costs you.

Man, the devil never gives you anything.

What the devil does is he makes you pay, and he makes you pay with interest.

Like what we do is we name the lie, and and and what we do is we replace it with the truth.

Do you know that's what Jesus did?

Jesus, when he was led out by the Spirit into the wilderness to pray and to fast and prepare for ministry, the devil's like, this thing's getting started.

I better go provide some temptation and try to knock him off, try to take care of him.

And so what he does is he shows up and he tempts Jesus three times with huge temptations.

And what does Jesus do every single time?

He says the same words, same three words.

You know what they were?

It is written.

You know what he did?

He named the lie.

He named the lie.

He even said the devil, do not tempt the Lord your God.

Don't tempt.

And then he came around, he says, It is written, and then he quoted a scripture.

You know what you probably need to do?

Name the lure in your life, name the lie it's trying to tell you, and replace it with truth.

Like, meaning, get a scripture.

What does God actually say?

Some of you might want to put Romans 6.23, for the wages of sin is death in your phone.

Like if you're tempted late at night to be on a screen looking at some things you shouldn't look at, man, 9 p.m., put a reminder in your phone.

The wages of sin is death.

It's trying to steal from you.

Some of you need to find a passage of scripture that brings truth in your life for whatever it might be.

Mine's John 10, 10.

The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come to give you life that you might have that life abundantly.

Thief's trying to steal from my marriage.

He's trying to steal from my parenting.

He's trying to steal from my reputation, trying to steal from this place.

Man, God's coming to give me life, and I got to believe in the goodness of God for those things.

Man, for you, it might be 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 18, flee sexual immorality.

1 Corinthians 6:18

All other sins a man commits are outside of his body.

But when a man sins sexually, it sins against his own body.

Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?

Like you don't own your body.

He goes on, Paul says, Man, your body's not yours, it's his.

Therefore, honor God with your body.

Ephesians 4.29, do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only that which is useful for lifting others up, that it might benefit those who listen.

Man, get a scripture.

And then third, tell somebody.

Because here's the thing the lure works best in the dark.

Lure works best in the dark.

And what the Satan does in the dark is he just overwhelms you with shame.

When we sin, man, the shame that we feel because of that.

And what shame will keep you from doing is shame will make you feel like if I tell anybody, man, what are they gonna think?

What are they gonna say about me?

What are they gonna what shame does is it isolates you, isolates you so the devil can continue to tempt you and continue to mess you up and take from you and take from you.

And when you tell somebody, here's what happens: when you bring the sin into the light, it starts to lose a little bit of its power.

And the devil starts to lose a little bit of space.

That temptation to lose a little space in your life, the Holy Spirit gets a little more space in your heart.

And every time you say a no and you tell your accountability people, whether it's a friend or a group or a pastor or whoever that might be, every time you say a no and you come back to them and say, How are you doing?

You say, I said no, man, that no gets a little bit stronger.

And what we've got to do, and I'm telling you, church, I'm telling you, I think that we have entertained sin, even smaller sins of just not small sins, but less visible sins of pride and greed and slander, of saying things about instead of talking to people, we talk about people.

And here's what I think that's done.

It just moves us a little bit farther and a little bit farther from the heart of God.

And God is saying, Would you just return to me?

And the way we return is we repent.

I think there needs to be more repentance.

You look throughout scripture when you see God as a move of God's spirit in people's lives or in churches or in locations or areas or regions, it was because a church or a group of people decided to repent of sin and return to God.

And God has always said, I'm just standing here waiting.

Acts chapter 3, verse 19 says, Repent then and turn to God so that times are refreshing, so your sins may be wiped out, and that times of refreshing might come from the Lord.

Acts 3:19

Guys, we we step back and I think a lot of times we go, yo man, the fear of consequences of our sin, we hope that that will keep us from our sins.

Guys, fear of anything is not a great motivator.

You want to know how you really fight against temptation?

You fight against temptation by remembering the goodness of God.

Remembering how good that God has actually been to you.

James says, do not be deceived, dear brothers and sisters.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

He goes on to verse 18, and he says, He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be the kind of first fruits of all he created.

Do you catch that in verse 15?

It says, it says in verse 15 that desire gives birth to sin and sin gives birth to death.

That is exactly what Satan wants to do to you.

What does God want to do to you?

The goodness of God wants to bring rebirth into your life.

And the next time you run into the temptation, what we need to do is get our eyes up off the bait and start looking to God and remember the goodness of God, that what God has beyond this thing for you is so much better.

Like literally for me, think about the goodness of God in my life, the goodness of my wife, Jen.

And how beautiful and loving and forgiving and gracious and kind and what an incredible leader.

And what a my daughter Grace, my daughter Maddie, my son Jake, my son Luke, the opportunity that I have to humbly serve all of you and just be on this journey with you.

God has been good to me.

He's been good to you.

And I would never knowingly want to hurt those that I love.

And so what we do is we step back and we look at the goodness of God and say, God, would you remind us this week to be repentant of sin?

Repentance is not about judgment, it's not about God's anger toward you.

Repentance is about that prodigal son story where we return to relationship and God welcomes us home.

And repentance should be something that we daily do.

When you start daily naming the lure and naming the lie and asking forgiveness of sins and saying, God, point out sins I don't even understand in my life.

And would you create in me a pure heart that follows you?

That's where we start becoming the men that God's called us to be.

That's where we start coming, becoming the women that God has called us to be.

Not perfect people, but people who are searching after a perfect God who is forgiving to us.

Here's how I want to close our service today.

I just want to take a few minutes.

And I want to ask every person right here in this room, in every room, all of our campuses, everybody online, I just want to ask you to close your eyes and to bow your heads.

And I just want to give you a moment because here's what I know.

Man, I've been praying all weekend about this.

And I know that there are some of you sitting there today saying, I am in the middle of some sin.

Some of you would say it's sin, it's not huge sin.

Man, all sin is sin.

Some of you would say, I'm I'm in some secret sin.

Some of you would say, Man, that secret secret is not a secret anymore.

It's not so secret sin.

The goodness of God says that Romans 6.23 is not just the first part of that verse for the wages of sin is death.

It says, But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

What I want to do is to give you just a few moments.

And I want to lead you through some prayers.

And just want to encourage you to take some time with God.

I want to encourage you right now, just take 10 seconds wherever you are, and just get all the distractions out of your mind.

If I got in, just you and God.

What is it?

You know what it is.

Don't pretend it isn't there.

Just tell God, like take away the power of that thing by telling God and just admitting God, this is a temptation that I deal with.

He already knows he's not shocked.

Just take 20 seconds and name it before him and repent of it.

Is there a secret sin?

Is there a not so secret sin?

Is there something that you know is growing in your life?

Confess it before God, before Jesus, who went to the cross to die for it, and ask him to cleanse you of all unrighteousness, to forgive your sin and purify your heart.

Right now, do the same.

Just bring your shame before God and ask God to create a pure heart in you, to take away your shame, to renew your spirit, and to make his desires your desires.

Come back to confess our sins, to relieve our heart of that, and and God forgives continually.

But the once and for all payment for our sin happened at the cross.

And the Bible says, scripture says that if you have not placed your faith in Jesus, if you have not asked for forgiveness of your sin and for him to be the leader of your life, you have no assurance of salvation, forgiveness of sin, or eternity with God or the blessing of his spirit.

And so for some of you, you've never made that decision, I would encourage you right now, I won't tell you what to pray, but all you need to do is confess Jesus is your savior.

You just pray something like, Jesus, I need you.

I believe you're God's risen Son, and I need you as my Savior.

Forgive my sin.

I accept your gift of salvation and your Holy Spirit.

Scripture says that when a person, anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

And you see in Scripture that when someone called on the name of the Lord, they were then baptized as a picture of the death, the burial, and the resurrection.

You can be confident if you have placed your faith in Jesus that you are saved.

But God also commands you to follow him in his death, his burial and resurrection.

And I would encourage you to schedule your baptism and partaking that.

Take a moment and pray that prayer.

Father, we just come before you right now and we are thankful for your grace.

God, I thank you that we are not defined by our temptations.

We're not defined by our sins or the sins we keep going back to.

Father, I thank you that we are defined by who you say we are, that we are called, that we are loved, that we are forgiven, that we are redeemed, we are chosen by you to be your messengers to the world.

And Father, I pray that we will get our eyes off of the bait this week, that we will see it for what it is, and we will avoid the pain for us and for others and for you.

And then, Father, I pray that we will get our eyes on you, that there would be a daily repentance that happens, a daily reconnecting and relationship.

And Father, I pray that you would awaken the hearts of our people, you would awaken the hearts of our fathers and our mothers and our grandparents and our kids and teenagers and young adults.

I pray you would awaken the hearts of this valley, that we would see our sin, we would return to you, and that you would give an outflow of your spirit of peace and goodness and grace and calling.

That we would help others begin to see the forgiveness that they can have, the release of shame that they can have, and the goodness of God in their life.

Holy Spirit, cleanse us and renew us and send us.

Jesus, we thank you for your gift of forgiveness and salvation.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.