God is > Your Temptation

WELCOME
Pastor Chris Paavola:
Thank you so much, Mr. Grant great to be with you guys this morning. Good morning. And yeah, the stage is a little bit of a mess in a good way. We have a couple hundred kids coming here this week for our vacation Bible school and we love it, man. Thank you to all the volunteers who made a mess of things up here and just the decorations out there, the volunteers who purchased, if you purchased the materials, if you help decorate all week, they’re about 80% done now, and then the rest of it will be done this afternoon. And then again, thank you to the volunteers who are making this week happen. Just by giving of your week and hanging out with some little friends, it’s just going to be an awesome time and you are changing their lives and just making an eternal difference. So thank you guys, and especially those of you who are the brainchild behind all this design. It means a lot. And I asked you to move the chairs and you did, so I have a place to stand, so thank you, Katie. I appreciate that.

BUD LIGHT GIRL
Right out of college, I got a job as a youth director at a church in Austin, Texas, and I got an apartment on the north side of town, and like you do when you have an apartment, you get to know your neighbors above you, below you around you and stuff, and you say hi in the hallways of the parking lot, stuff like that. And there’s a single girl who lived below me and she was a Bud Light girl. I don’t mean that she drank Bud Light, I mean that she sold Bud Light. She would go to her job was to go to concerts, events and nightclubs and wear a dress that had the Bud Light label on it, right? It was about as big as a Bud Light label too.
That was her job. And she would go to these events wearing this dress with the other Bud Light girls and make men thirsty. And one night late at night, I get a knock on my door and it’s this girl, and I wake up, I’m half asleep, and I answer the door and there she is in uniform. And she told me that she had had a rough night at wherever she was and she needed someone to talk to. All the ladies are like, right? And I was like, sure, come on in. And so I let her into my house. I was half asleep, I wasn’t even thinking. I let her in and she starts spilling the details and I am distracted by other details that are spilling out of her dress. And so I grab my hoodie that is laying on a bed next to me.
I grabbed my hoodie or on the couch next to me and I grab it and I hand it to her and I said, why don’t you put this on and out of muscle memory? She starts putting it on, but she realized what I had just asked her to do, and she got extremely upset, like How dare I? And the evening was going the opposite direction than she intended. She’s now putting on clothes. And she got upset with me and she decided she left and she slammed the door. And as she walked away, I thought, she still has my hoodie.

STORY CONTINUES
I went to bed and I woke up the next morning and I kid you not, I thought of the story we just heard from Grant, the story of Joseph with Potiphar’s wife. And then I thought of what happens to Joseph next? And here’s how the story continues.

3 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”

16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”

19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. 20 Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.

Genesis 39

“She kept his cloaked beside her until his master came home. And then she told him this story that Hebrew slave you bought us, came to me to make sport of me. But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out the house. When his master heard the story, his wife told him saying, this is how your slave treated me. He burned with anger. Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. And I thought, man, Joseph didn’t get a chance to tell his side of the story.”
I should get ahead of this. There’s incriminating evidence about me now out there. So I went, because remember, I’m working at a church at this time. So I went to work the next day and I went up to my pastor and I told him what happened and how this girl still had my hoodie. And instead of telling me good job or add a boy or self-control, good job, he looks at me and says, you shouldn’t have put yourself in a compromising situation. I was like, he’s right. I shouldn’t have let her in the house in the first place. And all the ladies in the room are like, but I shouldn’t have done it. It was a moment of indiscretion. I’m half asleep and I shouldn’t have put myself in that compromising situation. And I remember thinking after he said that, that temptation and life, you can’t just coast your way into the life you want for yourself.
That temptation is going to come and you need a plan and to be prepared ahead of time.

JOSEPH IN PRISON
And that’s what we’re going to be talking about today as we look at the life of this man named Joseph, 2000 years before Jesus. And we’re going to journey along with him throughout this series greater than and discover as he does a life greater than we know with a God who’s greater than we know. And today we see this greater than principle played out in this temptation and this story with Potiphar’s wife. And as we read this story, it’s relatable. We kind of relate to Joseph and this temptation, this thing, trying to make us compromise. And that’s universal. That’s what makes the story so relatable. It’s a universal, every one of us, even if you wouldn’t consider yourself a religious person, maybe you’ve never been to church before and somebody invited you and we’re glad you’re here, or you’re watching online and you’re checking us out. Even if you wouldn’t call yourself a religious person per se, temptation is pretty universal. We want to lose weights, but we’re tempted by the delicious leftover birthday cake.
We want to get control of our finances, but we’re tempted by the deals that we see on Amazon or what’s the Chinese company? Well, she said loudly and proudly. She’s like, that’s mine right there. Yeah. Or it could be trivial, stuff like that or stuff that’s much more painful. It could be alcohol, it could be drugs, it could be pornography, whatever your temptation is that we need a plan for that. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today is quite frankly, what I think is maybe a secret or for lack of a better term or just a principle that we tend to forget in our fight and struggle against temptation. And it’s illustrated for us in the story of Joseph. Now, if you we’re here last week, or as you heard in the reading a little bit earlier, Joseph is this brilliant young managerial minds 2000 years before Jesus and his brothers sell him into slavery, and he’s purchased by this high ranking captain official in the Egyptian army named Potiphar.
He begins to serve in his house, and then this bud Light girl starts coming onto him and he has this temptation. We won’t go through the whole reading, but there’s just a few verses that we need to read to pull these principles out. Starting in verse eight:

8 Joseph refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife.
​​​​​​​​​Genesis 39

“Joseph refused with me in charge. He told her, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house. Everything he owns, he has entrusted my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife.” I’m having a hard time seeing through the pine trees. Sorry. When we read that, it looks like Joseph is just a standup guy and he’s doing this because he has this sense of loyalty to his master, and he’s in a sense treating his master how he wishes others would’ve treated him before they betrayed him.
And he’s just loyal, but there’s a greater framework going on that’s true in effect, but there’s something deeper motivating.

​“How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?”
​​​​​​​​​​​Genesis 39

Joseph, in its next verse, he says, how then could I do? It’s such a wicked thing and sin against God for Joseph, this is not just, he’s not cheating with Potiphar’s wife and giving in into our temptations because of his faithfulness and his loyalty to the master. It’s also because of his faithfulness and loyalty to God. He believes God has a plan for his life. He believes that God has called him to something and promised him something, and he wants it for himself. And it needs to be stated kind of succinctly, but it’s really hard to take hold of God’s plans for your life when you are living in rebellion to his plans for your life. And he knows that, and he feels the sense of obligation.
This is not just saying no to Potiphar’s wife. He’s trying to say yes to God’s plans for who he has designed him to be. And then this doesn’t stop though as we see in the next verse though, she spoke to Joseph and though she spoke to Joseph Day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. I like this little nuance that I think this makes this story even more relatable. That phrase, day after day temptation rarely comes once, and then it’s just like, yeah, never going to bother you again. I’ve talked to people who have quit smoking and then 20 years later, just all of a sudden they’ll have a craving for a cigarette and they’ll be like, where did that come from? Temptation comes day after day. If you talk to someone who’s an Alcoholics Anonymous, even if they’re 10 years sober, they’ll still say, I am an alcoholic.

10 And though she spoke with Joseph, day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.
11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. ​
​​​​​​​​​​​Genesis 39

Because the temptation comes day after day. And one of the mantras of AA is day after day, one day at a time, can’t fight tomorrow’s battles today, one day at a time, they have this understanding that this relentless, tenacious, insistent, and incessant thing that will come after you and every day you need to make a dedication towards that. And here, every day, this woman is coming after Joseph, but then one day he went into the house. So I love that day after day, and then one day, that’s all it takes, right? One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. There’s an acronym that people have come up with for temptation. Halt, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. If you are hungry, angry, lonely, tired, you are susceptible to give in temptation. And here, Joseph is lonely. He’s by himself. He’s in isolation. Isolation or temptation loves isolation. It does. And actually this morning, you’re demonstrating the opposite of isolation. It’s fellowship gathering with others. You are congregate. Scripture calls the devil a roaring lion. He prowls like a roaring lion. And you know this about lions. If you watch the Discovery Channel at all, they don’t attack the herd. They attack the stragglers who are in isolation. Temptation loves when you’re hungry, angry, lonely, tired. And here Joseph is alone.
Again, there’s other opportunities to talk about temptation in the future. We could talk about identifying patterns, we can talk about small wins that are necessary, but here, it’s just super, super obvious.

12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left he lleft his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.
​​​​​​​​​​​Genesis 39

He’s alone. And then the scene unfolds. She caught him by his cloak and said, come to bed with me. But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.

WHAT YOU PURSUE
I love that phrase because it identifies he was pursuing something else. He ran away from the situation.

​​​THE FIRST STEP TO OVEROMING TEMPTATION
​​​IS TO FOCUS ON THE GOOD YOU’RE PURSUING
​ INSTEAD OF THE TEMPTATION YOU’RE TRYING TO RESIST.

The Apostle Paul will later pick up on this and talk about how we should flee from sexual immorality, flee from lust, run away from it, and the genius of Jesus, later on, he’ll talk about seek first the kingdom. And when he teaches us to pray, what does he teach us? Lead me not into temptation. In other words, lead me away from it into something else. Lead me away from this thing. And here he’s running away. I’ve often said that the easiest temptation to fight is the one you don’t even start fighting in the first place, right? It’s the one you don’t even know you have to fight. As I’ve lived my life, the people who seem to have the most resilience and the most self-control are the ones who have to use it the least.
And you look at this, and Joseph is demonstrating a principle for all of us. The secret to overcoming temptation is to focus on the good you’re trying to pursue instead of the temptation you’re trying to resist. The secret to overcoming temptation is to focus on the good you’re trying to pursue instead of the temptation you’re trying to resist, to focus on the thing that you’re chasing after rather than the thing you’re trying to avoid. It is not about stopping doing something, it’s about starting to do something else instead. It’s not about restraint, it’s about pursuit. It’s not passive. It’s about active. It’s not being a victim, it’s being active and an agent of change. That’s the secret. So let’s translate this to your own life.
You’re trying to stop smoking, stop doing drugs, stop drinking. It’s not about doing that thing in so much as it’s about what are you pursuing instead, health, self-mastery, self-control. I’m trying to not look at pornography. Well, what are you trying to pursue? A healthy relationship with my spouse? I’m trying to not overspend on clothes and well, what are you trying to pursue or overeat or overindulge in it in something? What are you trying to pursue? Positive self-image. And it’s about identifying that. And that’s not just my words. I think that in my hunch, in my years of experience of trying to overcome temptation, that would be my words. But when I pulled people in St. Mark this week, I asked them, Hey, how do you overcome temptation? What are your tips? I just wrote a few people and had them write back to me, here’s what they said.
And notice the commonality of it’s what you pursue, not what you’re trying to resist, and how that theme carries out and all of their answers.
Like this person, you said, for myself, I’ve learned the biggest key to overcoming temptation is to look at the bigger picture. Keep what’s important in the forefront of my thoughts. This helps me assess the temptation looking towards Jesus keeps me on the path.
Or this person who said to be set free from habitual sin, I had to come to the end of myself remembering God is not a killjoy for not wanting me to sin, and that sin is actually damaging me. This helps me flee from the temptation and seek him.
Or this person who said, what I’ve learned is that if the spirit of God is leading me to do something, it’s also leading me to not do something else, and that I just need to yield to him. God’s calling me by name, leading me in his way towards a desired destination.
And you see again and again, this idea that overcoming temptation, the secret to overcoming temptation is more about what you’re trying to pursue instead of what you’re trying to resist.

5 QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN TEMPTED
And so the real big question then becomes, what are you trying to pursue? Because if you can’t describe what you’re trying to pursue, then it’s a hard fight. There’s no incentive behind it. So what are you trying to resist? And I think there’s five questions that you can ask if you’ve never gone through an exercise like this. I think this is really helpful. I can’t do this for you, only you can do this for you. I can’t ask these questions, but you can. And I think in answering these questions that we’re going to look at here, that you’ll have the ability to identify what you’re trying to pursue, and just one more tool in your toolbox to overcoming temptation. And the first question is pretty simple.

1) WHAT IS MY TEMPATION?
What’s tempting me? It sounds trivial, it sounds superfluous, but honestly, it’s important. Sometimes you just name it to tame it and just calling it out.
What is tempting you? Disarms it kind of reveals it for how hollow and artificial then and cheap it is. And so if you just name the thing that is tempting you, it throws the cloak off. It makes it less powerful. It’s like you peeked behind the curtain in Wizard of Oz and you’re like, oh, it’s just that guy I, that’s the first question, and it’s an important one, naming what is tempting you and actually articulate it. Say it out loud, this thing, and it disarms it, but there’s more we can do. And that’s the second question. Why does that thing appeal to me?

​​​​​2) WHY DOES THAT APPEAL TO ME
Why is that thing appeal to me? And it’s okay if your surface level with this one, we’ll get to that. It feels good the way I like how it tastes. I like the way it makes me feel now, and that’s okay if it’s trivial.
But there’s a technique developed by Toyota called the Five Ys. It’s a way of troubleshooting the root of a problem. So it’s like, well, why did that happen? Why did that happen? Why did that happen? And eventually you get to the root problem, It’s called the five whys. You can research it later, and we can do that here with temptation. What we’re trying to do is troubleshoot, right? Well, why does that appeal to you to be our third question? Oh, it feels good. I like the way it makes me feel.

​​​​ ​3) WHY DOES THAT APPEAL TO ME?
I like how significant I how I feel afterwards. But why does that appeal to you? Name that. And it might be like, I look at pornography because my wife and I were fighting. Well, why does that appeal to you? Oh, well, it gives me a sense of control. Or I smoke these cigarettes because it helps me numb the anxiety I feel, and it gives me a sense of peace. Keep going with your why’s. You can ask that why as many times as you need to until you really identify the appeal. Then you can identify the fourth question.

4) WHAT DOES THE TEMPTATION PROMISE ME?
Well, what is the temptation promising you? Like I said, a sense of control.
Maybe I overspend and I can’t control my spending because I don’t like the way I feel or I don’t like where I’m at in my life, and it makes me feel more important than I am. And it gives me a sense of worth. So, it promises me control or promises me worth or it promises me numbness. What is the promise of the temptation? And if you can define the promise behind the temptation, then you’re one more step closer to the fifth.

5) WHAT DOES GOD PROMISE ME?
And I think the really powerful question, well, what does God promise me? Instead, what is the temptation? A shadow of what is the temptation, a counterfeit of or an off-brand version or a shortcut towards what I really want? And what God really wants is what we see in the story of Joseph, right? So, what is it for you? What is the temptation promising you? And then what does God promise you? Instead, it might be that I feel insignificant, and this temptation gives me a sense of significance, but God is promising you something greater than a significance where the king of the world dies for you. Try to find something more significant than that, or this thing promises me. I’m tempted to drink this because it numbs the pain and gives me a sense of healing. But God is promising you a healing that’s greater than what is God promising you instead?
These are powerful questions. Now, every week in the series we’ve talked about how Joseph is a picture of Jesus. Last week, it was like remarkable. All the hits in the story were like a foreshadowing of Jesus, like clues of who he would be. And this week is no different. Now, eventually Joseph Sins, eventually Joseph gives in to different temptations in his life. He’s not a perfect man, but Jesus, Jesus never sins You and I will struggle with sin and we will fall, we will stumble, we’ll make mistakes, we’ll give into temptation, but not Jesus. The writer of a book called Hebrews in the end of the New Testament says that Jesus was tempted in every way just as we are. Yet he did not sin.

​​15 ….Jesus has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet he did not sin.
​​​​​​​​​​​Hebrews 4

It’s powerful. Why? Well, because Jesus never sinned. He’s able to be a perfect sacrifice for your sins, for the times that you gave into temptation.
And now God offers you his perfect righteousness and credit. Its to you, it’s beautiful, but there’s more. Jesus is stronger than you are. And this is the part of the conversation, I think up to this point. This is like universal principles that anyone can apply. But I think we’re starting to get into stuff where it’s like if, especially if you’re watching online and you’re just checking out church, it’s like everything on that buffet line has been good. But you might skip this one, and that’s okay, but just hear me out, okay? We’re about to celebrate the Lord’s supper where we believe Jesus’ body and blood is present in the bread and wine of communion. And he instructs us to do this. And one of the things that we say after communion, one, the things the pastors will say is, now, may this true body and blood of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, strengthen and preserve you.
And the one true faith strengthen, we believe in this meal, not only is it taken for the forgiveness of sins, we believe in this meal, that it strengthens you with a strength that is beyond you outside of you. It equips you with a strength that you do not have that is greater than your temptation. It’s the strength of Jesus who is tempted in every way you are. And yet he did not sin. It says, You come to communion today. Notice that you’re physically walking. You are fleeing the life you knew, and I just want you to get the image in your mind as you come down the aisle to receive the Lord’s supper of fleeing that temptation and pursuing Jesus and receiving what he has to offer, the strength that is greater than your own and your fight against temptation.
Because the secret to overcoming temptation is to focus on the good you’re trying to pursue Jesus instead of the temptation you’re trying to resist. Let me pray for you.

PRAYER
Heavenly Father. This is a big topic and touches on some real sensitive parts, frankly, in all of us. And some of us, it’s a temptation that it’s just damaging to our lives. And I pray for every person in the room, every person that hears the sounds of my voice, every person watching online that you would strengthen them, give them a strength that they don’t have a strength from beyond that’s greater than them, a strength from you to overcome their temptation. I pray that you would help them do the hard work of identifying why it’s appealing to them, what it is that’s tempting them, what it’s promising them, and what you promised them instead, help them process that and work through that so they are equipped that this morning can be transformative for them.
And God, thank you for your grace and your forgiveness, and Lord strengthen us in this meal, and we pray now the prayer that your son taught us to pray with special attention on the line about temptation and deliverance. As we pray, our Father, who art in heaven, hall would be thy name, thy kingdom come and thy will be John on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

250622 – Greater Than – Your Temptation (Completed 06/23/25)
Transcript by Rev.com
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