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Sep 30, 2018

Love through the Temptation

Speaker: Brian Land

Series: James

Category: Grace Brevard

Keywords: grace, temptation, belief, gifts, trust

Order of Worship

Prelude: John Foreman - White As Snow

Call To Worship: Hebrews 12:1-2, 4;15-16 & 12:28 ESV

Reading: 1 John 1:5-7,9 ESV

Songs:

  • Come Ye Sinners
  • Cornerstone
  • Lift Your Head Weary Sinner
  • Sovereign Grace O'er Sin Abounding (communion)
  • O Love that Will Not Let Me Go

Gratitude Reading & Prayer - John 10:7-11 & Desires  (adapted from The Valley of Vision)

LEADER: 7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

ALL: 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

LEADER:  O Father, Our Creator and source of all that is good and true.

ALL:  We confess that we have desired things which depreciate Your gifts and mercies to us.

LEADER:  Let Your Spirit teach us to pray and produce in us wise desires that we may ask wise things. Spiritual welfare our chief solicitude.

ALL:  May we seek your kingdom first and its righteousness; finding happiness in Your favor through the gift of the gospel.

Sermon Title: Love Through the Temptation

Central Text: James 1:13-18 ESV

13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. 16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

Response: Communion 

Benediction: Jude 24-25 ESV

Related Scriptures:

  • Proverbs 14:12
  • Psalm 7:14
  • Psalm 51:1-12
  • John 1:4-5
  • Matthew 4:1-11
  • Luke 11:5-13

Media:

9.30.18 Album

Discussion Questions & Applications:

  1. What comes to mind when you think about temptations?
  2. Where does temptation come from (there’s several answers to this)?
  3. Why are temptations tempting?
  4. What does temptation produce?
    1. Go through that progression in verse 15 and explain each.
    2. Make it practical...list a temptation and how it “progresses”
  5. What is the “gift” temptation gives?
  6. Whereas temptation leads to sin which leads to death…
    1. Explain God’s gift progression. (compare to John 10:10)
  7. Is this larger passage more about the “gift” or the “giver”?
    1. Explain the character of each “gift giver” and how the true nature of the gift reveals the character of the giver.
  8. In Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness (John 4:1-11) the Spirit led him there, but it was the devil the tempted him...and each temptation was rooted in questioning Jesus’ Sonship.
  9. How are our temptations really about our belief about God and ourselves (our Sonship)?
    1. Our broken will leads to....? (v. 14)
    2. God’s perfect will leads us to...? (v. 18)
  10. We constantly fail when we are tempted, but Jesus never did. Not once. Because of this he inherits the “gift of death” we deserve, allowing us to hold onto these words
    1. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” - 1 John 1:9
    2. Spend some time in Thanksgiving and Confession.

Quotes: 

  • “Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile--Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples, and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anything like it. Research is in progress. - The Screwtape Letters (C.S. Lewis)
  • "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what it’s monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.” - The Picture of Dorian Gray 
  • “These violent delights have violent ends. And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
    Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey. Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
    And in the taste confounds the appetite.” - Shakespeare (Romeo & Juliet)
  • For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.” - C.S. Lewis
  • “If you only obey God’s word when it seems reasonable or profitable to you – well, that isn’t really obedience at all. Obedience means you cede someone an authority over you that is there even when you don’t agree with him. God’s law is for times of temptation, when ‘body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour.” - Timothy J. Keller
  • “The only way to break the hold of a beautiful object on the soul is to show it an object even more beautiful.” - Thomas Chalmers

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