Disarm the Alarm

Hey everybody. Welcome back. Hey, listen, if you have been missing the wise and wonderful voice of kid Elmer, I wanted to give you an update about what we’re doing with the podcast. First of all kid is away on sabbatical this summer, she has spent some time with family and with Jesus getting poured into after she’s been pouring out for so many years here with us. She’ll be back in the ministry, full time, late summer. So we’re looking forward to seeing her then. And also we’re mixing up stuff with the podcast, we’ve abbreviated the time length and change the format a bit. We’ll be doing some interviews in the coming months. But for now, we’re keeping it pretty simple, just so it’s easily digestible to everybody, listen, so we’d love your feedback, love to hear topics you’d like us to discuss your questions you’ve got in your mind. And always, always, always, we’d welcome your five-star review on podcast platform that you listen to whatever that is. So please let others know about what’s happening here. And your review helps us out with that a lot. And with that in mind, I want to move on to the topic for today. And this really comes out of place, I have actually had a conversation with somebody recently where this just this new picture of some of what happens when we’re tempted was coming to mind for me. And I thought that some of what the Lord is bringing to mind could really be helpful for a lot of you who are wrestling with unwanted sexual behaviors or unwanted behaviors of any kind. In that moment of temptation, the moment when temptation really begins to hound you the moment when temptation kind of walks through the door. For a lot of us what happens in those moments is we find ourselves in a situation where there are these loud alarms going off inside you know and two kinds of alarms. One is is the alarm that’s telling you, hey, hey, opportunity to lost your opportunity to indulge your opportunity to sit here, go go, go, go-go. It’s the it’s the flesh, his way of telling you like go towards that do that. You know, that’s it’s like the loud radar telling you, this is an opportunity for you to indulge and experience the pleasure that you love so much. The other alarm notes going off is almost feels like the opposite direction and saying, you know, Danger, danger, danger, avoid that runaway. And that alarm also is equally as loud for a lot of us, sometimes even more. So it’s you know, the person walks into the room or the thing pops up on our computer screen. And man that alarms just going like you’re in trouble, you’re in trouble, you’re in trouble. I think a lot of us who experienced habitual sin here, both those alarms, sometimes we hear one more loudly than the other. Sometimes it’s the other that we hear more loudly. Sometimes I think we can kind of go back and forth between the two. Well, here’s here’s a couple important things about that alarm. First of all, are those alarms. First of all, our responses to those alarms matter a great deal. And I’m gonna get more to that in a minute. But the other thing we need to know about those alarms is they actually are not competing alarms. They’re not competing. They’re actually coming from the same source. The alarm that’s shouting out, hey, this is an opportunity, you know, go go go indulge, indulge, indulge Quick, quick, quick, you know, don’t miss this opportunity is coming from the same source as the alarm, the shouting out Danger, danger, danger, avoided, avoided, avoided. What do I mean? How can it How can those be from the same source they sound like they’re telling you to do exactly opposite things, while they are telling you to do opposite things except not entirely. Both those alarms are telling you that what you’re experiencing what you’re facing in that moment, that the way to respond to it is in your flesh, respond according to the flesh. The alarm sounds very different, but they’re both coming from the same source. And they’re both telling you respond according to the flesh. Now for a long time for me, when I was a younger Christian, I always kind of no one told me this, but I kind of just automatically interpreted when I’d read passages in Scripture, they would talk about, you know, living according to the flesh and the flesh, as opposed to the spirit, we have to walk by the Spirit, not by the flesh. I didn’t, I don’t think I quite knew what that meant. I would internally interpret that to mean, walking in the Spirit means obeying God, doing what’s right, walking in alignment with God. And there’s truth in that. And then but walking in the flesh is, is to disobey God, it’s to indulge your bodily desires, it’s to it’s to walk apart from God. There’s some truth in that. But really, when Paul’s writing about walking in the flesh, he’s describing, trying to live our lives, disconnected from the life and love of God, disconnected from God Himself. That’s what living according to the flesh is that’s what walking in the flesh is. And there are different ways to walk in the flesh. One way to walk in the flesh is to indulge in whatever sin we feel desire for. The other way to walk in the flesh is to try to be self righteous. self righteous means righteous by ourself. So let me go right to the Scriptures here. I’m going to read from Romans eight, beginning in verse five. Okay, here we go. For those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but set the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set in the flesh is hostile to God, for does not submit to God’s law, indeed, cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. So if you if you read through the grid that I used to that walking in the flashes to sin, walking, the spirit has to obey. It’s an essence. I mean, one way to paraphrase that is, it just doesn’t make sense because he didn’t upstanding, like, those of us who are obeying God can obey God, those of us who aren’t obeying God won’t obey God doesn’t make sense. That’s not what Paul’s saying. Paul is talking about something definitely saying like walking in the flesh or walking in the Spirit. So let’s go back to those two alarms. And maybe especially the alarm that that’s telling you Danger, danger, danger, danger. I think for a lot of us, we’ve trusted that alarm. And I mentioned a friend of mine who was in that situation where somebody walked into the room, and he was feeling a level of temptation, and that alarm is just going off and going crazy for him. And he was really feeling guilty even though he had done nothing wrong. And I just want to encourage you, if that’s if you relate with that, I want to encourage you that that’s a time to not listen to that alarm. And we want to be vigilant, we want to be sober. But we don’t need to be hyper vigilant. And we don’t need to be scrupulous, be vigilant, not hyper vigilant, be sober, but not scrupulous. And the difference between those are, are what you’re gonna need to work out as you grow. And you’ll, you could probably use help along the way and figure out the difference between the two. Because sexual sin is something that we want to be sober to, we want to flee from when necessary. But when the alarms are going off, like that part of what the enemy’s desire is to do and part of your flesh is desire is just to get you distracted from walking in the Spirit walking with God, the flesh wants to do it its own way, whether it’s indulgence or self righteousness. But we really want in those moments to walking in the Spirit. So another picture from Scripture, the story of Jesus, when when the woman is caught in adultery, the religious leaders come and just kind of imagine them for a moment as though this is the way the flesh responds. The flesh catches the woman in the act, and they drag her to Jesus. And we could say a whole lot more about like, Where’s the man? Why didn’t they drag him to, you know, the misogyny of the day, and you know, all that, but, but for our purposes, they drag it, drag it to Jesus, and they’re saying, okay, Law of Moses commands us to stone a woman like this. What do you say? And they’re, I mean, this is like, they’ve dragged her through the street that caught her in the act. I mean, you get the kind of the urgency of their of their requests. This is very serious, like, we need to take care of this right now. That’s kind of what the way our flesh responds to things. But watch what Jesus does. What does he do? He doesn’t match their intensity doesn’t match their urgency. The Scriptures say that he actually he he bends down and he starts to write in the dirt. This is such a crazy scene. I mean, people speculate what he was writing. I’m just kind of astounded by the fact that he’s like, just stopped. You know, like, this is a big deal. This woman’s life is at stake. There’s a marriage at stake. The Law of Moses is at stake, the people of God are at stake. And Jesus stops and he writes something in the dirt. What was he doing? What was he doing? I think he’s modeling for us there in the urgency of the flesh, when the flesh is telling us indulge or or dive into self righteousness, or take care of this in your according to the flesh. I think I think we there we pause. That’s one of the I think the greatest things you can do in that moment. So for my friend is this person walks in the room, and he’s realizing, oh my gosh, this person is a person I’m very tempted to lust after it’s that same type of person I’ve lost so many times, the alarm bells are going off. It’s a moment for you to just take a deep breath. actually take a few deep breaths and as you as you take a deep breath, pray, Jesus, come, Jesus, come, I know that you’re here. Jesus, I know that you’re with me. And you know full well what’s happening in my body right now, you know that this type of person or the situation is one that I fall into many times. Lord, I don’t want to go the way of my flesh. I’ve done that many times, too. I’ve indulged. I’ve tried to work it out through self righteousness, but this time, Lord, I want to connect with you. I want to walk in your spirit. That’s what I want to do. I think part of what Jesus is doing in that moment when he’s quiet and writing in the dirt is he’s, if I could conjecture here, I think he might be just praying, Lord, Father, what should I do? How do want me to respond? This seems like an impossible situation. How would you lead me and he navigates his way through the situation where both the the people leave. The threat is diminished, and the woman is restored and treated with dignity and told not to send any more. She’s not shouted at Jesus doesn’t throw alarms at her, he doesn’t go through the all the things that she did wrong. He simply says, I did not come to condemn you go and sin no more and weep, boy do we need to hear that that’s, that’s the voice of the spirit in those moments when the alarms are going off. So we want to as much as we can, we want to turn the volume down on the fleshly alarms. And we want to tune our ears in to this, the calm still voice of the father is hilarious. As I’m recording, I don’t know if you can hear this, but they’re these this car alarms going off behind me. I’m just gonna keep going. We want to turn the volume down on those alarms. And we want to tune into the voice of the Father. So take some deep breaths. Pray quietly. Seek to treat yourself with kindness in that moment. be completely honest with the Lord. be completely honest with the Lord, Lord, you know the way I’ve done this before. I don’t want to go that way this time. Would you come? And we’re not just asking for answers. And Lord, we are literally asking that moment we are seeking to open ourselves to the power and presence of his spirit. Because as we walk in the Spirit, we won’t gratify the sinful nature. That’s Paul tells us in Galatians. Rather than sisters, I don’t have a 123 step for you about how to walk in the Spirit. I don’t think that’s the way it works. But I do think this slowing ourselves down, taking some deep breaths, and moving to prayer will help. If the temptation and the alarm still continues to resound sound loudly in your ear like this car alarms doing behind me that I’d say it might be reasonable thing to excuse yourself. And with the level of calm and kindness Call, call a brother, call a sister call somebody who’s an ally to you, and ask for them to pray. And of course, of course, of course, if you find yourself if you find that your temptation is just really the alarms are going really really loud and you can’t seem to control yourself. It of course, it can be appropriate to to, to get out of there to excuse yourself, you we want to be sober. We want to be vigilant, we just don’t want to be hyper vigilant, and scrupulous. And so if we’re if we’re in a situation where you just find ourselves sliding that direction, we’re not making wise choices, it is appropriate to put ourselves in a different situation. Paul says in First Corinthians six flees from sexual immorality, Joseph great gave us the great model of fleeing from Potiphar his wife. So there’s a time and place for that I’m not I’m not suggesting there’s not but but we want to try to calm ourselves down and let Christ fill us in that moment. So So what do you say? We pray for us, Jesus? Teach us to walk in your spirit teach us to respond to the alarms in our lives, not by obeying them and by going the way of the flesh either towards self righteousness or self indulgence. Rather, Lord, teach us to walk according to your spirit. Come Lord, the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, I pray, amen.