Victory Over Temptation — William Carrol

Praise the Lord. God bless you, my brothers and sisters. Would you pray with me, please? Hallelujah. Father, we thank you so much for your presence in our midst. We thank you that you are a God who cares, that you know our every need, you know our every concern, Lord, and that you can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.

Christ Understands Our Temptations

What a joy it is to know that when we come to you, oh Jesus, we come to one who understands all of our trials and all of our temptations. We come to you, and we know that you were tempted in every manner, just like us, except without sin, and so that you can serve as a faithful high priest.

We come to you, oh God, knowing that we have a man in glory. We thank you for the privilege of worshiping you this afternoon, and we ask that your glory be made manifest clearly to us through your Holy Word, and by your Holy Spirit, in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Amen. The Lord bless you, my brothers and sisters. Would you turn with me in your Bibles, please, to the book of Matthew? The book of Matthew, and we will begin our study in the sixth chapter of the book of Matthew.

The Lord’s Prayer and Victory Over Temptation

Matthew 6, beginning at verse 9. This is that portion of Scripture where Jesus begins to teach his disciples how they ought to address God. And in teaching them how they ought to address God, he is also teaching them how they ought to think about God.

And so one of the awesome things about this particular prayer, that we know as the Lord's Prayer, is that it doesn't simply reveal to us how we ought to pray, but it tells us who we are praying to. It tells us about his nature.

It tells us about his character. It tells us about his designs and about his desires. What I would like to do this afternoon is take into consideration this prayer, but I want to look at it in the context of victory over temptation.

This is the series that we are beginning. I'm doing, as you know, certain series on Friday nights. Usually they last a month. Sometimes there's a bit of overflow, but for the most part, we're trying to do various series throughout the course of a year.

We just finished one series entitled Victory Over Fear, and we are starting this Friday a series entitled Victory Over Temptation. What I'm going to try to do this afternoon is to give you a brief outline of what we are going to be doing over that time frame.

The idea is that in each case of our studies, whether it be victory over deception or victory over fear or victory over despair or victory over temptation or whatever the case might be, what we're doing is we are studying what it means to be victorious in Jesus Christ.

So the emphasis in these teachings are never fear or temptation or despair. The emphases are always going to be the victory of Jesus Christ in that particular setting or in that particular context. So what does Christ's victory look like in times of temptation?

Now, when we look around in our generation, the same way if we looked around in the generation that Jesus walked in, we would find that it appears initially that the deck is stacked in the behalf of all of those things that seem to come against God and against the people of God.

If you look at this prayer that Jesus prays that he teaches us how to pray in its original context, you're going to find that it comes on the heels of a great temptation, even in Christ's own life, that time where the Holy Spirit leads him into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

And if you listen to the words in the Sermon on the Mount, because this particular prayer is basically the central idea in the Sermon on the Mount, you're going to find that that sermon is dealing with how we ought to deal with all of those things in this life that seem to run contrary to the nature and to the character of God.

And as you go on in the study of this particular prayer, you're going to find that one of the most significant statements that are made there is the statement, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

This prayer is prayed in the midst of significant times of temptation. Now, if you look at that word temptation, you realize it can be spoken of in the case of trial, and it can be spoken of in the case of what we understand to be temptation.

We're going to focus on temptation this time. In essence, what I think of when I think of the idea of temptation is an invitation to a lesser life, an invitation to a self-centered life. And when we think of a trial on the one side, we can think of that as sometimes being a positive thing where God brings us into a time of testing or a time of trial, and even if it doesn't feel positive at the time, it's God using it so that we might on some level or another draw closer to Him.

Temptation on the other side is seen as a ploy of the devil, and its intention is to make us less than what God would have us to be, to live a life that is contrary to that which was afforded us on Calvary's tree, that which was bought for us based upon the sacrifice of God in Jesus Christ.

And so when we talk about temptation today, we're going to be talking about it on the negative side, and we're going to see that not only isn't the deck stacked in the favor of the enemy, but it is stacked greatly in our favor.

Temptations Within the Sermon on the Mount

As the Bible begins to open this particular prayer, we remind ourselves that Jesus is in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount, and He's talking about how certain people pray, and about why certain people fast, and about why certain people give, and He's saying that there are, even in the good things in life, there are temptations to do good things for the wrong reasons.

Also, we look around later on in that particular sermon, or we look at some of the passages in that sermon, and we're going to find that there are all kinds of temptations. Temptations to hate, temptations to commit adultery, temptations to steal, temptations to forget one's family, one's elder relatives, and things of that nature, temptations to engage oneself in lives of worry and anxiety, and all kinds of things, and right smack in the midst of that, we hear a particular petition.

Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. What I want to do in the next few minutes is to simply look at the prayer, and to find all of the elements of that prayer that suggest to us that the deck is stacked greatly in our favor, to be able to overcome every kind of temptation that comes to you.

Sometimes we walk from our home to the church, we walk either from the parking lot, or from the train station, or from the bus, or from the cab, or how we walk from our particular place of residence, and we see everything in this society that seems to suggest that the deck is stacked in the favor of the enemy, and that it is the hardest thing in the world for the Christian to get from point A to point B, without coming under not only the influence, but the power of temptation.

But what I want to suggest to you tonight in the name of the Holy Spirit, is that not only are we not to be overwhelmed by those things that tempt us in this generation, but that those things that tempt us in this generation ought to be overwhelmed by everything that Christ is to us, and everything that he bought for us on Calvary's tree.

If you look at this particular prayer, you recognize Jesus begins by saying, in this manner, therefore pray. In other words, what he is saying is, as you engage not only this life, and its vicissitudes, and its ins and outs, not only as you engage one another, not only as you engage your own heart, not only as you engage the enemy of your soul in everyday existence, but more importantly, as you engage God.

As you fix your gaze upon Him, this, he says, is how I want you to think about God. This is how I want you to address Him, because this is who He is. I want you to see God in this prayer, he says. And he begins by saying, our Father, in the midst of trial, in the midst of temptation, in the midst of the invitation of the enemy to a lesser life, we must be reminded of who we are.

A New Origin in Christ

Now, in order for us to know who we are, we have to know who our Father is. The Bible says in the book of John, in the first chapter, that we are a people who were not born of the will of the flesh, or not born of blood, and not born of will of man, but are born of God.

We have a very particular origin, and we become a very particular species of people, because we put our faith in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and receive Him as our Lord and as our Savior. As a result of that, we become a different kind of people.

A people who are now moving in the way of God. A people who are moving according to the Spirit of God. A people who are moved by the things that move God. A people who love the things that God loves. A people whose hearts are given over to the agenda of the Lord.

When we remind ourselves that God is our Father, then all of a sudden, as the song says, the things of the earth grow strangely dim. All of a sudden, those things that would ordinarily have attracted us because of who we were, don't attract us anymore.

But what the enemy would have us to do is to forget our supernatural origin. Have us to think that we must fall where Adam fell. Have us to believe that we have only Adam as our Father. Now, certainly Adam was our original father.

But God is our Father through Jesus Christ. And we no longer live as Adam lived. We no longer believe the lie of the devil. When the devil comes to invite us to a lesser life. Saying that you ought to be surrounded by your own design and by your own desire.

You see, that was the way our original father thought. And that was the way that we thought when we were children of Adam only. But when we put our faith in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we became a new creation.

We became members of the new creation. And Jesus being the last Adam, became our Father. And all of a sudden now, we don't live the way Adam lived anymore. We live the way Christ lived. Because now Christ is living in us by the Holy Spirit.

And so when things come against us to tempt us, we can say, that's not who I am anymore. We're not simply saying, I really wish I wasn't like this. We're not saying, I really wish that I had some defense against this.

I really wish that I could clench my fists and grit my teeth and make things better. When Jesus came, He made us new people. He didn't just forgive us of our sins, He cleansed us so that we were no longer slaves to sin.

That means He doesn't just say to us, it's okay that you committed this thing or that thing, I forgive you. But He made us a different people so that we don't have the desire to commit these things anymore.

And we don't have any need to commit these things anymore. We are no longer bound to sin. And so whenever the temptations try to encroach, we look to Jesus Christ and remind ourselves that we are sons and daughters of the new Adam.

That we no longer have to depend upon ourselves. That we are the sons and daughters of God. And that what God does, that's what we do. How God thinks, that's how we think. What God desires, that's what we desire.

That's what it means to be born again. When we think about what life is, when we think about what defines us as people, what defines us as things like what our devotions are, what are we devoted to, what are our desires, what are our dreams, what's our destiny, where are we going?

All of those things have been changed in one word, even the word Jesus. In that one word, in that one name, when we put our hope in Him and when we put our trust in Him, everything changed. And we walk down the street now and our eyes are fixed upon Jesus.

Everything that we look at, we have to look at through the cross of Christ. And so we see that cross before we see anything else. We see how we were bought with a price and how we are a different kind of people.

We are not just different in degree, as it were. And when we say difference in degree, we can say, well, the difference between being a tree that's this tall and a tree that's that tall. That's just difference in degree.

But when we talk about difference in kind, we're talking about something completely other. So going from being a tree to being a man, that kind of a thing. We are a completely different kind of being.

We are not just different in degree when we become saved. We are not just a little bit different. We don't just kind of want to be different. We have been made different. We have been made the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ.

“Our Father” and the Fellowship of Believers

We are a completely different kind of people. So we said, our father. And I thank God that he said, our father. He could have simply said, my father or your father. But he said, our father. First of all, that bunches us in with him.

Obviously, Jesus has a very unique relationship with the father. But through his sacrifice, he's also drawn us in to a special kind of relationship that he is able to share with us. He has his unique relationship, and he has a relationship that he can share with us, whereby we can, alongside of him, call God our father.

But not only can we call God our father alongside of Jesus, but we can call God our father alongside of one another. One of the enemy's ploys is to cause us to believe that when we go through times of temptation, that we are the only one.

That whatever you're going through, you're going through it all by yourself. That nobody else in this room has any struggle. That you're the only one in this church that's going through a difficult time right now.

The only person in this church that's tempted by this thing or tempted by that thing. But thank God, when we read this prayer, we begin to see that the odds are stacked in our favor. Not only are we a new creation with a new father, but we are also never alone.

We never have to go through our trials alone. The enemy wants to lie to you, and he wants to get you lying to yourself and lying to your neighbor, and trying to make yourself feel like everything is alright, and there's no trial, and there's no temptation.

But the truth of the matter is that we all go through something at some point or another. And we're all tempted by one thing or another. We look at Jesus, our Savior, that one who is able to say, and we find him in that wilderness.

This was a man who had no sin. This was a man who knew where he stood with his father. And yet, this was a man, because he was a man, who was tempted of the enemy. And it wasn't like the enemy said, well Jesus, you've been saved for such and such amount of years, and you've been a member of Times Square Church for such and such amount of time, so I don't think I'm going to tempt you anymore.

But he came to him that much harder. And he came to him and tempted him with things that in his particular case, would have seemed like an appropriate level of temptation, because it was, if you want to glorify God the way you say you do, then why don't you take a shortcut and do it this way.

See, whatever the situation, the enemy is going to come with some kind of temptation, you and I both know that he has plenty of time on his hands, so he doesn't really have to worry about this agenda, or that agenda, or this schedule, or that schedule.

He can sit at your doorstep and tempt you all day long. So don't be offended when temptations come against you. That's just a part of this life. And don't let him lie to you and say, if you were really saved, you wouldn't have to worry about dealing with temptation.

If you were really serious about God, temptations would never come your way. That's a lie from Satan. If temptations came to Jesus, you can bet they're going to come to you, and they're going to come to me.

But we recognize that we have one another. In the same way we can look to Jesus and say, yes, I have a man in heaven, someone who can be touched with the feelings of my infirmities, we can also reach our hands out, one hand toward this side of the aisle, and the other hand toward that side of the aisle, and say, I have a brother and I have a sister in this house.

Not somebody that I have to hide myself from, somebody that I have to look holy to, somebody that I have to portray myself as impervious to difficulty, but somebody that I can go to, and using a certain amount of discretion, you realize you know the busybodies in the house, you don't want to go to them, but every now and again you might go to somebody, and say, you know, I just need you to pray for me.

Sometimes you don't even have to go into any kind of detail. I just need you to pray for me. I'm going through a time of struggle right now. I'm going through a time of temptation right now. The enemy is inviting me to a lesser life.

You know, God has been inviting me to add another hour of prayer to my week, and the enemy has been inviting me to check out this new situation comedy that's going to take up this much more of my time, and so on and so forth.

The enemy is inviting me to a lesser life, but God is calling me to something greater, and I wish you would pray with me, that kind of a thing. Our Father. Our Father who art in heaven. In other words, we have a God who is far above the things of this earth, and the Bible says that we likewise are seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus.

Heavenly Citizenship and Earthly Faithfulness

There is a way to both be as Christ himself is, and as God is, to be both transcendent and to be eminent. In other words, to be above it all without having had this mindset that says, I don't have any place in this world, or any responsibility in this world, or any calling in this world.

There's a way for us to be deeply involved in what's going on in our society, and yet not be engulfed by the society, but to be able to somehow be above those things that pertain to this society, that are contrary to the way of the Lord.

So what we have here is this invitation to be heavenly minded and earthly good. Every now and again you'll hear somebody say, well this person is so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good. But I'm convinced after doing this kind of thing for a little bit of time, that unless you're heavenly minded, you can be no earthly good.

Hallelujah, because the earth will engulf you. And we walk through this world with our eyes on the needs of our society, and our hands reaching out to those who are in need as we heard this afternoon.

And yet we still walk by the grace of God in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, so that the things of the world seem strangely dim. They just don't appeal to us because we walk in heavenly light. And when you walk in the heavens, when you walk along even on this side of eternity, how much more on that side, but even on this side of eternity, when you walk along those streets of gold, which speaks of walking in that path of purity.

And you walk beside that glassy sea, which speaks of the brazen altar and being washed in the blood of the Lamb. And when you walk in the way of the Lord in this society, and you know where you stand, then the things of the earth grow strangely grim.

And all of a sudden you remind yourself, I don't have to do that because I'm not a citizen of this society. And I don't have to be that way because that's not my heritage, that's not my home. I live this way.

God always had a people who were a pilgrim people, who moved according to the will of the Lord, according to the way of the Lord, right through the midst of this society, but they gave glory to God every step of the way because they always had an upward look and they always concerned themselves with a city whose builder and maker was God.

And no matter what the circumstances of the day held before them, they chose to seek God with all of their heart and with all of their might. And as a result, they were able to reach out into their community.

They were able to make a difference in their world. They were able to be sold and they were able to be light because they were a city set upon a hill. They were people that were lifted up in the sight of God.

They were people that were humbled in the sight of the Lord so that they could be in a position to reach the most lowly person. But at the same time, the Bible says, if you humble yourself before the Lord, then He will lift you up.

They were able to walk above the circumstances, able to walk above the situation, able to walk in victory, no matter what the trial, no matter what the situation, because, as I said, the deck is stacked in their favor.

They have a Father who never ever fails them. They have a church that they can look to and people of God that they can depend upon. They were heavenly minded. That means that they could at any time lift up their eyes and behold the glory of God.

As the psalmist said, I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help. They can always lift up their eyes and remind themselves of their citizenship, remind themselves of who they were.

Hallowed Be Thy Name

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Another one of those things that are in our favor in the midst of trial and tribulation is the reality that we serve a holy God. And as surely as the Bible says that the goodness of God leads one to repentance, it also says that the fear of the Lord causes one to turn from sin.

And sometimes we need to hear the loving voice of our tender father saying, You don't want to go there. You want to come here. And every now and again, we need to hear that voice of that one who is hallowed, that one who is holy saying, Don't do that.

Saying, I am your father and I have the right to speak into your life. And I have the right to chasten where I think it's going to be helpful. And whether he chastens through this voice or through that voice, he has the right to speak into your life and say, This is not right.

And if you want to walk with God, and if you want to serve the Lord, and if you want to be a witness in the society, and if you want to be a clear voice in this time, then you must do what's right. And it's a wonderful thing to know that the God that we serve is a holy God.

And to know that the God that we serve hallows his name even in our own heart. The Bible says, Sanctify the Lord in your heart. Remind yourself whenever the times of temptation comes, that there is a holy God who has invested his name in you.

That's what the scripture says, Hallowed be thy name. Somehow or another, God has chosen to intertwine his name in the bundle of love with our own. So that how we live and what we do reflects who he is to this society.

Whether we reflect him honestly or whether we reflect him dishonestly, people are going to look at us to see what God is like. They're going to look at us and they're going to see what is his name. That's basically what they're going to ask.

The same way when Moses was coming down to say, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go as we heard preached so eloquently this morning. The people are going to look back at Moses and they're going to ask a very simple question, What is his name?

Whether it be the people that are being freed or the people that hold them in bondage. Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord that I should worship him? And the people of Israel said, What is his name? Hallowed be thy name.

When we walk in godliness and holiness, not by our own strength, because we're praying to him, Hallowed your name in my heart. We're not saying, You sit back and I'm going to hallow your name in my heart.

No, we say, Hallowed your name in my own heart. As Pastor Carter said this morning, when we go to the Lord and we by way of imperative, In other words, we by way of just literally with a broken hearted demand saying, God, I need you to glorify your name.

That's what Jesus is teaching us to pray like in this particular text. He's teaching us to pray in imperative. God, you must do this. You must do this. You must do this. Because if you don't do this, then I am somehow or another going to bring shame to your name in this generation.

And you chose to bind your name up with mine somehow. You chose to make it so that when I speak this thing or that thing, somebody's going to ask me, What is he like? What is his character like? And if I begin to open up the Bible and say, Well, let me show you in passage this and passage that what he's like.

They're going to say, No, that's not what I'm asking you. They're going to say, I appreciate the fact that you believe the Bible is true. But right now I don't. I need to know that there's some truth in you.

As Pastor Carter always reminds us, sometimes we're the only Bible somebody is going to read. And they look to us and if we live this thing out according to the grace of God, they might become interested in what these pages say.

The Kingdom of God Brings Peace

Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. In other words, your rule and your reign, your sovereignty begin to manifest himself in my life. Oftentimes temptation comes on the heels of apparent chaos. Where there is the temptation to run and to hide and to flee because things just seem to be out of control.

But now we hear a prayer that says, Let your kingdom come. Your rule, your reign, your government. The Bible says that the government will be upon his shoulders and he will be called, among other things, the prince of peace.

And when we allow the reign of God to have his rule in our life, when we allow the kingdom of God to come into our particular situation, then there is with that a peace that passes understanding. And with that peace, there is a defense against the temptation that has as its stronghold chaos.

That says, Don't you want to get some peace? Don't you want to get some ease? Don't you want to get away from the difficulty? Don't you want to get away from the strife? Don't you want to get away from all that?

Why don't I just bring you to this place where you're just kind of serving the Lord? And again, that's an invitation to a lesser life. But when I pray, God, if you don't bring your peace into my life, I'm going under for the third time.

I need you to come and bring your peace. Well, God comes with that peace because he told us to pray that way. So we're not twisting his arm and making him do something he doesn't want to do. He simply wants us to acknowledge how much we need him.

God, let your kingdom come. And when we pray that way, his peace comes. A peace that passes understanding. A godly peace. And then he says, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so, again, another thing that's stacked in our favor is this idea that above all, we want to see God's will in this generation.

We want to see what a world looks like when God's will is preeminent. We want to see what does a world look like when God's people are truly seeking his face and truly allowing him to hallow his name in them and to manifest his character through them.

What does a world like that look like? Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It's not enough for Jesus. And he's making it clear that for him, it's not enough for us to wait till we get to the other side to see God's will done.

To wait till we get to the other side to see his kingdom come. He said, no, pray this way. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so, when the temptation comes to us, there is something that's stacked in our favor and it's an invitation to the greater life.

It's God saying to us, yes, I know the enemy is trying to invite you to a lesser life, but I am going to put this thing in front of you as incentive. What would it be like if today, God was given freedom to be glorified in your life?

Ain't you just a little bit curious? What would it be like if God could use you in the miraculous today? What if it would be like, what if God could use you to share this word today? What would it be like if, as we heard today, somebody could just put their head on your shoulder and weep?

What would it be like if somebody could just come to the church and even if they're going through a time of struggle, you can just grab their hand and just hold on to them and say, God bless you so much.

God love you so much. Without looking at them as scant or askew saying, I hope you ain't one of those kind of Christians that's going to betray me if I try to love you. What would it be like if we just chose one day, one day, if we just chose to love all day long, even at the cost of our own life, if you will, as we heard life defined this morning, our own sense of self, our own sense of perseverance, our own sense of self protection.

And what if we just say, you know, God, I'm going to love somebody today. Because I want to see your will done. You want to know what the will of the Lord is? Sometimes people will say, oh, I just want to find out what God's will is.

I want to find out what God's will is. And they're holding their Bible and they're reading. People are dying all around them, but they just want to find out what God's will is. You know, you see them 20 years later, you know, and they got cobwebs from their arms to their Bible.

You know what I'm saying? Trying to figure out what God's will is. And all they had to do was love somebody. That's what he said. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.

And all this is wrapped up in that. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. So I'm going to speak prophetically to you for one moment. You want to know what God's will is for your life? Love somebody. Love somebody. And take that seriously.

Wake up one morning. It's the hardest thing in the world you're ever going to do. You know, sometimes I think, like, if you think, well, I'm going to wake up this morning and I'm going to do 20 push-ups and I'm going to, you know, get a half hour in the treadmill.

I think sometimes that's hard. But when you say, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to wake up and from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep, I am going to actively find ways to love people.

Sometimes that's the hardest thing in the world to do. So we got to pray, God, your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Because I cannot do this myself. And so the prayer goes on.

Daily Bread and Dependence on God

Give us this day our daily bread. So, see, I'm just going to ask for one day. I'm not going to say, let me do this for the rest of my life. Today. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, Jesus said.

There's enough going on today. You don't have to worry about tomorrow. Today, God, give me the grace to love somebody. Because, see, I need it from you. Give us this day our daily bread. In other words, maybe he's spraying, you know, some of this effect.

Give me the spirit today that I'm going to need to take the bread that you've given me and to give it to the poor. As Pastor Carter said this morning, we just knock on that door, knock on that door. I need bread today because I cannot survive.

I don't have anything to eat and I can't feed anybody who's coming to me. You and I can say that on a spiritual level. Sometimes we can say that even on a monetary level. God wants to provide for us on every level.

He wants to feed us physically. He wants to help us spiritually, psychologically, relationally every day. See, what the devil wants to say is you have to provide your own bread. That's one of the major elements of temptation.

You have to provide your own bread. God is not moving quick enough. God is not providing for you. You better provide for yourself. Or God is not providing for you, so you not only have to provide for yourself, but you have to provide for everybody else of yourself.

So many people have fallen into that, including ministers, and sometimes preaching from the top of their head as opposed to from the bottom of God's heart. And what I hear God saying to us is if you want to overcome temptation, if you want victory, then you have to realize that God's timing is best.