What arouses our own selfish desires?

This week, we have been asking and answering the questions “What is temptation?” and “Where does temptation come from?” So far this week, we have discovered that temptation, simply put, is an enticement towards evil. Temptation is an enticement to take a God-given desire beyond its God-given design.

The letters that make up the Bible clearly reveal the reality that everything that was created by God is good when engaged in or used in a way that is according to God’s design. However, what temptation does is take something that God has created to be good and engage in God’s creation in a way that is outside of God’s design.  Temptation entices us to say "I know that Bible says, but". Temptation entices us to say "I know what would Jesus do, but I don't want to do what would Jesus do". Temptation entices us to take a God-given desire beyond God-given design in a way that results in us rebelling against God’s design.

We then began to tackle the second question, which is “Where does temptation come from?” We discover the answer to that question in a section of a letter that is recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible called the book of James. In James 1:13-17, James explained to followers of Jesus throughout history that instead of claiming “I am being tempted by God” the reality is that “each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust”.

And it is here that we see James reveal for us the reality that temptation comes from our selfish desires.

James then painted a word picture to reveal for us the reality that God has not changed and God does not change. Unlike the shadows that are ever changing on earth as a result of the rotation of the sun, moon, and stars, God is constant and never changing. And because God is constant and never changing, God never has been and never will be the source of temptation.

Instead of blaming God for enticing us to evil, we are to recognize that the temptations that entice us toward evil come from our own selfish desires. However, while the temptations that entice us towards evil come from our own selfish desires, as James has pointed out, there are external circumstances or forces that provoke those internal desires. The temptations, the enticement towards evil that we face internally are the result of circumstances that we can experience externally.

And it is in another letter that has been preserved and recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible called the book of 1 John, we see John reveal one external circumstance and force. Let’s look at it together, beginning in 1 John 2:15-16:

Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.

John begins verse 15 by commanding followers of Jesus to not love the world or the things of the world. Now to understand what John is communicating to us in these verses, we first need to understand what John means when he speaks of the world. When John uses the term the world, he is referring to everything in the world system that is hostile to God and that sets itself up in opposition to God and the kingdom of God. In addition, the word love here literally means to have high esteem for or to have high satisfaction so as to desire to take pleasure in someone or something.

John here is revealing for us the reality that the world competes with God for our total devotion and because of this reality we cannot love both. That is why John states that if we love the world, the love of the Father is not in us. John then goes on to point out three differing worldviews that come from the world system that sets themselves in opposition to God and compete for our devotion.

The first worldview John refers to as the lust of the flesh, which refers to a desire to satisfy our selfish and rebellious nature apart from God through pleasure. The second worldview John refers to is the lust of the eyes. The lust of the eyes is the desire to satisfy our selfish and rebellious nature apart from God through possessions. The third worldview that John refers to is the boastful pride of life. The boastful pride of life is the desire to satisfy our selfish and rebellious nature apart from God through a prideful longing to be the center or the star of the story.

John then points out that all of these worldviews find their origin not from our Heavenly Father, but from the world. And it is the world system that is in opposition to God and the kingdom of God that desires to expose the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life that is already within us. These desires are provoked by the world system that sets itself in opposition to God and His kingdom mission, led by the Devil. As a matter of fact, one of the words that is commonly used to describe the Devil is that of the tempter.

And it is the Devil, or Satan, who will attempt to expose our own selfish desires for pleasure, possessions, or prideful position in a way that results in those selfish desires dragging us toward evil and away from God.  And this morning, the Devil does not discriminate. The Devil will attempt to expose anyone at anytime to the selfish desires that dwell within them. No one is off limits.

Not even Jesus, as we discover in a section of an account of Jesus life that is recorded in the New Testament of the Bible called the gospel of Matthew. We see this reality revealed for us beginning in Matthew 4:1:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him,

In the next two weeks, we will examine an encounter that Jesus had with the Devil. We will examine the Devil’s attempts to expose and entice Jesus towards evil and away from God. And it is in this event from history that we will discover the answers to the final two questions in this series, which are “What are the core temptations that we all face?”, and “How do we overcome temptation?”

We will see Jesus respond to temptation in a way that provides us a timeless example to follow when it comes to responding to temptation…