Something I dug up that is pretty cool

YOU ARE NOT ALONE: Boxing Match with Sin, Part 1

A husband, a father of three. Respected at home. Respected at church. He lives another life. He has a hunger and a lust for pornography. Deep in the night, he sometimes visits adult bookstores. When his wife and kids are sleeping, he often goes down on the computer and looks at pornography for hours, and masturbates to the crude images of naked women. Or there’s the other guy, entrenched in an affair, neck-high in the choking waters and sinking. The youth, who plays in the worship band, but is sleeping around with his girlfriend. They are all too ashamed, they hate it, but they are unable to stop. You are so alone.

A woman discovers that the stress from family and juggling two-jobs magically disappears if she drinks heavily before bed. She always is afraid the drunkenness won’t wear off by the time her husband gets home. She prays that the tug-of-war with alcohol will end, but it never does. You are so alone.

A businessperson has found that he can cut some corners and scrape some money off the top of several large accounts without anyone noticing—he throws the money into a secret account of his own. He just did it now and then for a meal or two, but not he is dependent on it. He tries not to think about it. It isn’t stealing, he tells himself. He tries not to think about what might happen if he gets caught, but lying awake at night, it always seems to surface. You are so alone.

There’s a couple, well-respected and thought-of at church and in the community. But the truth is there’s a wall between them. They are filled with bitterness and don’t talk, except to argue. The passion, the love has left them. They fear telling anyone. A dirty little secret. You are so alone.

See the guy in the third-to-last row in the back of the church? See the leather-backed and worn Bible in his hands? Where are his eyes? Over the twenty-year-old on the other side of the room, mentally stripping her of her clothes. You are so alone.

The pastor of your hometown church. Honored. Respected. Valued. After all, he’s a Christian leader, he’s got it down, right? Last night he went to get the mail and found his wife’s Victoria Secret rolled up inside. It was dark. He unfolded it and choked down the pictures of young women in underwear. His heart thundered like a race horse, but when all was said and done, his heart felt like a brick in his chest. You are so alone.

Every time someone comes to me and pours themselves out, saying how much they struggle with sin, how they crash and burn every time temptation hits, I feel, in a twisted sense of the word, helpless. They come looking for answers. They come looking for a light (why am I a light? I’m just one of you!). They think that maybe I will give them a dose of Scripture and a hearty prayer and everything will be fine. People think that if you are a Christian leader, then you have the whole story figured out. People think ministers and reverends and pastors and Popes have all the bits and pieces of Jesus in their proper place, concocting a jigsaw puzzle that only ordained followers-of-God can see. They think that we can tell them how to live their lives because we live them. Sin, in their eyes, is just a word for the Christian leader, not a reality. So what do they expect? Let me let you in on a little personal secret, an opinion that I hold that makes a lot of Christian leaders shake: being ordained means nothing. I do not believe you need to go to college to be a real Christian. I don’t think you need to be ordained to lead a flock. Ordainment comes from Jesus when we accept his sacrifice and love. So what do Christian leaders have over the common peoples of the worldly conundrum of life? Nothing. Do you think we sin? We do. Do you think we struggle? We do. Here is the great white elephant of church leadership: Christian men and women who lead Christian men and women struggle with sin and problems and deceits just as much as the one who sits in the back pew every Sunday morning. People come to me, and I know that I can’t give them cut-and-chopped, white-and-black, ‘ordained’ answers. I can only give them encouragement. I can only tell them that they’re not alone.

“No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face.” – 1 Corinthians 10:13a, The Message

You are not alone. We are not alone. Men and women on the brink of tears, some spilling over their emotions, cry out to me and ask for some secret magic wand that will erase the struggle and temptation. I have heard their stories. They parallel yours. And they parallel my own. All of us have cried out to God, “I can’t take it anymore. I am so alone. Every time I fight, I fall. I get back up, I don’t give up, but I lose the next battle, too. I am so alone. I feel so alone.” I struggle with sin as much as all of you. Not everyone struggles with the same sin. For instance, if you ask an average guy what he struggles with most—and if he finds it in his heart to admit it—he will say, “Lust.” Women? “Gossip.” But there are so many other sins that we struggle with daily. Pride. Anger. Gluttony. Greed. Sin is anything that goes in rebellion against God. Sin is the result of a world full of posers and God-haters and God-ignorers. And while we have been placed at the right hand of God through Jesus, sin still creeps up, and we still fight. You fight. I fight. We all fight.
But as alone as we may feel, or as overwhelmingly powerful the temptation seems, don’t be fooled. A great Enemy is out there, and he works to convince you that you’re not alone. Ignore him! Strike his ugly head and his foul words every time they surface. YOU ARE NOT ALONE! What you are dealing with is common to everyone else. Ever heard of accountability groups? Or warrior circles? They are simply men and women on fire for God, who talk about their daily struggles and help each other battle in this never-ending war against sin. In these groups of tightly-knit friends, you discover that the sin you’re dealing with is something your friends deal with, too! The Bible is crystal clear that we are not alone, and that we are to be helping each other out as much as we can. Some of you are convinced that, despite what God says, you are alone; a special case with a special sin that is tougher than what others struggle with. Great excuse, sure. But it doesn’t float.
I stand here before you now. I don’t know what everyone here is silently fighting. But I hope they realize that they are not alone. In the beginning of this message, I told several stories of how one might be falling deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole of sin. Who would expect these things to be said at church? But we can’t hide the fact that sin assaults all followers of Jesus, because the Rulers of sin hate God and want to turn us against God.

“All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed beyond your limit…” – 1 Corinthians 1:13b, The Message

We are not alone. And whatever it is we are dealing with, we can conquer it. Sin will always spring up and always tempt us. So many men fight the battle of lust all their lives. Our Enemies (our sinful selves, the ‘world’, and Satan and his minions) like to throw in nasty little tid-bits at us, and for lust, we get porn and masturbation. Men in here have fought and fallen this week in the battle for lust. They have looked at dirty magazines and bad websites. They have masturbated to lustful fancies. They think, I’m never going to get out of this. I can’t handle it. You CAN handle it! You CAN get out of it! Our Enemies tell us we are not alone, and they also roar in our ears, You cannot win. You CAN! There are so many testimonies of men who have won the battle over porn and masturbation. So many testimonies of women getting over gossip and envy and jealousy. So many testimonies of nail-biting sins thrown out the window because men and women of God didn’t listen to the lies and they had faith and they fought! God will not let us get tempted beyond what we can bear. He will not let a sin into our life that will completely pull us from him no matter what we can do. Can sin pull us away from God? Yes! That’s why it shoots up! But we can fight and refuse to let that happen. Jesus was tempted; but he didn’t lose God in that desert wilderness two thousand years ago! Whatever the sin, know you can fight it, and if you fight it with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul, you will find the sweet taste of victory because sin is doomed and we are not.
Flip to the Old Testament and seek out the book of Job. Most people don’t know it exists. It is about a man who was tempted beyond what he thought he could bear, but yet through all the trials and tribulations held out the end and stayed true to God. I am sure so many people—innumerous!—have been tempted like Job, but his story was deemed important enough to be thrown into the Bible because he fought and over-came. To set the story into motion, Satan is wandering the earth when he comes across Job. Job is the equivalent of an honest man with an honest job who has an honest and passionate heart for God. We have men just like him in this room.
One day long ago, some of God’s angels went to God to report to him; Satan hitched a ride and went along with them. God demanded of him, “What’ve you been doing?” Of course, God knows everything, it’s no secret, but God knows where this is going.
Satan answers, “Oh, not much of anything. Just going here and there, checking things out on earth.”
God says, “Oh, really? Have you noticed my friend Job?” God talks about him as if Job were his only child. God is proud of Job, pleased with Job.
No doubt, this angers Satan, and he vehemently snaps, “You think Job is so cool? I bet I can break him. He only follows you because you pamper him. Let me strip him of all he has, and let’s see where his loyalty lies!”
God takes on the challenge. “All right. Strut your stuff. Do whatever you want to Job, just don’t kill him.” I bet Satan rubbed his hands and glee and tramped off to do what he did best—steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10).
So one night Job prays to God and goes to bed, sleeping next to his wonderful wife, his seven sons and three daughters dropping off to sleep. He doesn’t know it, but Satan is prowling around. We can’t see the spiritual realm, angels and demons and all, so Job probably didn’t see Satan—the Designated Accuser, the Liar—walking up to him. God crossed his arms and watched.
Day breaks. And Satan gets to work.
Job’s job ran along the lines between an animal herder and merchant. He basically raised and sold animals for prophet. Satan strikes. All his animals in the fields were stolen by enemy soldiers, and all the field hands had been murdered.
Job’s grief doesn’t end. He gets word that all his sheep and shepherds had been struck by lightning and killed.
More enemies came down on the land, stole all of Job’s camels and massacred the camel drivers.
Satan doesn’t give up. He has free reign. As long as Satan doesn’t kill Job, he will have no opposition from God. Some of the worst news ever. All his children were killed as a tornado ripped through a house during a party.
Satan converses with God again, but Job hasn’t turned his back on his Creator. Satan tries again, this time sending sores and ulcers and scabs of all sorts all over his body. Job is wracked in pain, agony so terrible that he takes broken pottery and scrapes his skin raw and cuts it open till blood flows.
Wealth ruined. Children murdered. Employees dead. And his health snatched. His wife turned on him. His friends yelled at him. Yet he did not sin—he did not change face with God.
Job knows what temptation is. When problems struck, when trials and tribulations spit him in the face, no doubt he was tempted to turn away from God. Why was God doing this? What is the point of living? Job wanted to curl up and die. Yet, not once did he turn his back on God. Talk about temptation. What are you tempted by? What is the sin that works to pull you from God? Fight it! Resist! Do not give in! Job didn’t give in. There is light at the end of the agony.
God gave Job his wealth back—and doubled it! His family returned to him, loved him, apologized, and celebrated. His health returned, and he felt better than ever. God granted him fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand teams of oxen, one thousand donkeys. He had seven great sons, and three great daughters, as beautiful as they came. His daughters names were Dove, Cinnamon, and Darkeyes. He lived a happy and blessed life, seeing four generations of children and grandchildren stretching through the ages. And then he died—an old man, a full life.
Fight the temptation. You can endure it. You will win if you try with all you have. This is a gift from God. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, and, as we see in Job’s life,

“Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.” – James 1:12, The Message

You are not alone. Will temptation ever go away for good? No. It will haunt us—or, in strange ways, bless us (James 1:2-4)—the rest of our lives. But the sin can. We all—including myself—need to fight, and fight valiantly.

“[God will] always be there to help you come through [temptation].” – 1 Corinthians 10:13c, The Message

We are not alone in the fact that we are tempted. But we are tempted, and whatever kind of temptation it must be, we need to fight. We can overcome. And God always—I harp on it, always!—gives us a way out.

A High School girl who struggles with gossip. When invited to parties, doesn’t go if she knows it will just be gossip (you girls know how it is). God gives her a way out before-hand, and she takes it.

Randy fights the temptation to look at porn when everyone is out of the house. So he goes with his parents when they go somewhere so that he will not cave in to the temptation. God gives him a way out beforehand.

Dale finds himself tempted by his girlfriend, alone at night in her house. He gets out, gets in his car, says good-bye and goes home. Get out of there before temptation strikes!

Uh-oh. The High School girl gets trapped into gossip at the lunch table. She abandons her meal and goes to the bathroom, waiting till lunch is over. She joins her friends as they leave. She ran when the temptation struck.

Uh-oh. Randy’s brother is at a friend’s house, his parents are at work. He is online, and suddenly the temptation crawls over him. He unplugs the computer, goes outside, and goes on a run. The temptation fades.

Uh-oh. Dale and his girlfriend are alone. His car is entrenched in the snow, and he can’t leave. The power is out. Candles are lit. The feelings start to build, and she looks at him with those dove eyes. He gets up and cooks them dinner. They talk until the power comes back on and the porch light illuminates his car, when he can dig it out and drive home.

Don’t jump into a lake if you can’t swim: don’t throw yourself into the arena of temptation. And when you get caught, don’t lazily give in. Run. Do something to get your mind off the temptation. Abandon the scene. Do something else. Pray! Pray! Pray!
Joseph found himself in the eyes of a very powerful and very beautiful woman. He loved God and served him every day and every night. However, this woman was of a different belief; she didn’t care for Joseph’s God, and since she found Joseph very good-looking, she pleaded him, “Have sex with me! Have sex with me!” Joseph refused every time. One day she came at him, tearing at his clothes, screaming, “Sleep with me! Sleep with me!” He tore away, ran so hard, that her claw-like grip tore his clothes off his body. He ran from temptation. Check it out for yourself in Genesis chapter 39.
Listen to God. Don’t listen to the Enemy, who whispers deceits in your ear. He wants you to sin. He tries to turn your world upside-down. He does everything he can to rip you away from our wonderful and amazing and loving God. Don’t listen to him! Pray for the power and will and strength to resist the temptation; you need Jesus to conquer! You are not alone! You must fight—you can win! Run from the temptation! Don’t give in!
You are not alone. I can’t stress this enough. I hope by now that you know it so well you dread me saying it again. But too bad.
You are not alone.
You are not alone.
You are not alone.
Next week we’re gonna attack this temptation thing together, and see the hope that God gives. This is no small thing. Every one of us struggles. And I hope we all fight. The temptation sometimes seems so horribly insane that the last thing on our mind is God. This is a nice little trick Satan pulls. But fight his lies. Fight the temptation. Don’t give into sin.