H.A.L.T | Ben Young

0:00All right, if you ever wonder who are the chosen ones, look around you. It's spring break, thunder storm, time change, and you're here. Yes. It's you. You know, I'm amazed that the reality TV show genre has stood the test of time. I thought that would be a fad to a come and go, but no reality TV is here to stay. At the early stages of this fun journey we're on called reality TV, there was a show I remember, I don't think ever saw it, but I like the title. It was called Temptation Island. Do you remember Temptation Island? You had four, yes, with some hands here, four unmarried couples, secluded, isolated on a tropical island,

1:07and they were split up as a couple for two weeks and surrounded by singles, were to co-mingle with them, and their sole purpose was to get them to have an affair. Yeah, is that, that's just crazy, right? I mean, Temptation Island. So here's the deal. Today, where you and I live, we don't need to go to Temptation Island. We don't need to go to Epstein's Island. We don't need to go to Gilligan's Island. Every Temptation we've ever thought about dreamed about is in your back pocket or your purse right now. You're just a click, a swipe, a change of channel away from any Temptation that could come your way. Who needs an island? Temptation.

2:09Caving into Temptation's common. Oscar Wilde, the great British playwright, said this. He said, I can resist everything except Temptation. And he's got a point. You can write the narrative of humankind through the lens of caving in to Temptation. Caving into Temptation is the story of humankind. If you go back to our original dysfunctional family, not an island, but in the garden, you find Adam and Eve. They had it made in the shade, but what did they do? They felt pray to Temptation. They reached out for the forbidden fruit. They bit the poisonous apple, and we've all been reaching out in caving into Temptation ever since the dawn of time. Caving in since we've walked out of the cave as cavemen and cavewomen.

3:11That's been our story in so many ways. Now we know that in the garden, there was a snake that symbolizes evil. It symbolizes satanic attacks and spiritual warfare. We're going to talk about that next Sunday, but for today, we're going to talk about Temptation. How do you know if you're here? One of the elect, as we talked about, one of the chosen few that are here on the spring break Sunday when it's raining and the time has changed. How do you know if you're struggling or dealing with Temptation? There are two easy tests. First of all, take your finger out and place it on your wrists. If you've got a pulse, you are being tempted. Put your finger under your nose. If you feel air coming in and out, or if you're a mouth breather and you know who you are, you are dealing with Temptation. We all are.

4:12So what does God have to say to us? Because he's not surprised when you're tempted, when I'm tempted. He's not surprised when we cave into Temptation. He's not surprised when we're caught in Temptation so much that we can't get out of it. Romans 7, I read that somewhere, the things I want to do, I don't do, the things I don't want to do, I end up doing and on and on. What does he say to us? If you're struggling or a friend of yours, I've got a friend and we'll talk to you about paths or a friend of yours is struggling. Look at Matthew 6 verses 9 following, this is our prayer, given to us by Christ. He said, this is how you should pray. Our Father, our Father, our Father in heaven, how it would be your name, holy is your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven and Houston as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, daily we need to go to God, daily I need God, daily I need to pray, daily I need His word in my heart, mind and soul.

5:23For 12, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors or maybe your translation says trespasses. And then here's our passage for today, next Sunday. Lead us not to temptation but deliver us from the evil one. Lead us not into temptation. Does God lead us into temptation? Is that what we're praying? No, no, no, no. We're praying this. We're praying God steer me away from getting off course. God deliver me, help me to see the traps that are set for me on Monday and Tuesday that could cause me to make a horrific mistake. Don't put me, Lord, into this vulnerable place or help me to see these vulnerable places where I could send against myself, my family and my kids. Lead us, guide me, protect me as I go out into this crazy wild world of temptation.

6:31This is a great preventive maintenance prayer. God, I want to do your will, your way. I want to see heaven come to earth and my life, my family, my business, my school, and as I'm going out, there's an enemy out there that's tempting me, and there's also another enemy, my greatest enemy, me. How do I deal with the temptations that assail me? There are three C's to deal with temptation that we'll look at in just a few minutes. But right now, let's think about this prayer again, our Father. The entire Lord's prayer, remember hinges on those two words, our Father, our Father, your Father knows, God the Father knows you.

7:31He sees you, God knows when you've been tempted, God knows when you've caved in to temptation, and God provides a way out. That we'll look at in a few minutes. But while we're talking about temptation, let's go a little bit deeper if we can and talk about the why and the when. Why are we tempted? And what are the warning signs or lights that we can look out for that make us so vulnerable to caving into temptation? Well, for the last several decades, a lot of therapists like to use the Halt, H-A-L-T, Halt, Acrostic. And when you catch yourself with any one of these four characteristics, you need to Halt to quote a OG rapper of Yesteryear,

8:37check yourself before you wreck yourself, Halt. What's Yashan for? Hungry. When you're hungry, you're vulnerable to mess up. You're vulnerable like Adam and Eve to reach out for that forbidden fruit if you're hungry, literally and metaphorically. A, angry, when you're angry, when you're mad, when you're bitter, when you're harboring unforgiveness that we talked about last week, when you're angry, you're vulnerable to temptation. That's the A, the L, lonely, when you're lonely, when you're doom scrolling, when you're by yourself, when you feel isolated and alone and misunderstood, even in a crowd, you are walking on thin ice. The tea is tired.

9:39When you're tired because you're not getting enough sleep, when you're tired because you've been working eight days a week, and you're emotionally exhausted and the gauges of your emotional life is on empty or it's flashing red, watch out. Halt, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Makes you feel helpless, powerless, hopeless. So you reach out for bag of chips, you reach out to drink, drugs, porn, gamble, game, doom scroll, shop, you reach out when you're tempted to do blank. Those are the overt ones, right? The overt ones. Then also when we're tempted, there are the covert things we reach out for. We worry. We can't go to sleep at night because we're worried or we're stressed out.

10:41And we let the worry and the stress build or we gossip and we pass that on to someone else or we lie or we future trip or we simply give up. I'm tired of life. I'm tired of the struggle. I'm tired of the bills. I'm tired of the grind. I'm tired of the problems. I'm tired of battling the temptation. The thing I want to do. I don't do the thing. I don't want to do. I end up doing who's going to rescue me, who's going to help me. I just want to stop. Stop the world. I want to get off. Stop. I just don't want to deal with temptations anymore. And you crash out. You do destructive things that can damage yourself or others. You flirt with disaster. We all do it. Strike that wooden match.

11:48It's primarily a guy thing. But how far can that flame burn down that stick before it burns my thumb or finger? How far can I go? And we flirt with danger. Temptation. Back in the 70s growing up at our house in the summers, we had a bug problem, a mosquito problem. And let me say this parenthetically as it is claimed, forgive me today for talking about things we can't relate with. So we had a mosquito problem at our house. And some genius, I would love to meet this person. They're going to have to be in heaven. And then we put a cage around that purple neon light at a tray at the bottom of this neon light and then some brilliant marketing creative team.

13:00We came up with a name, probably the same people that named Prayer Wheel, came up with a name, Bugzapper. Bugzapper. And growing up in the Carolina's, my brother Ed and I didn't have a lot of entertainment. That's an understatement. So we would go and watch and see those bugs, especially those pesky, demonic mosquitoes get drawn into the purple light mesmerizing zap. You could hear a boom, little tiny bit of smoke would go up. Bugzapper. Now, we live in a time when life is so cray, cray, crazy that we have to have things called life coaches.

14:01What if we could all become mosquito coaches? Wouldn't that be great? You could be a coach to mosquitoes. You could go in the backyard there and you could post yourself, I don't know, about five or six feet away from the bugzapper that mysterious purple light and you could coach mosquitoes. You see one flying around and it's about three feet away from the bugzapper and you go, hey buddy, I'm your mosquito coach, don't get any closer. Don't worry, I've got this, I can handle it, I can resist and you go, alright, then it gets a little closer, it's almost at the cage. You're like mosquito, don't do it, don't get any closer. You listen, trust me, you don't want to go in there.

15:04It's dangerous, the consequences can be devastating, don't go in there mosquito and the mosquito goes, don't worry about me. I got this, I got this, I won the matchstick contest when I was in high school burning it down to my, listen, I got it. Then finally, the mosquito gets inside of the cage, it's like a half an inch away from the purple light that's mesmerizing it and you're like mosquito, don't go in there, look at the bottom of the tray, it's your mom, your dad, your best friend. And the mosquito goes, don't worry, I've got, zap. And to quote that great British theologian Freddie Mercury, another one bites the dust. A bug's life, a mosquito's life, but you know what, we're all like that misguided, overconfident mosquito.

16:27We closely overestimate our ability to resist temptation and we get zapped. We all have a purple light, over cover, a purple light that draws us in and we get hungry, angry, lonely, or tired and we feel hopeless and helpless and powerless, then we can cave into temptation and get zapped. We've all been zapped, trapped and zapped. It could be a children's book if you're taking notes. Here's what I see time and time again in God's work.

17:27If you've been zapped, if you feel caught or trapped, God meets us where we are at the bottom of the tray to take us to revive us and to take us where we need to be. So if you feel like you've been mesmerized one, two many times, one, two hundred, two thousand, twenty thousand and you say, I can't get out, I can't get out of this temptation. Listen, yes you can with humility and God's strength, He will meet you where you are to take you where you need to be. He met Peter where he was in his failure, failing, cussing that he knew Christ during crunch time. He met him there at breakfast in the resurrection and said, Peter, I love you feed mushy. He didn't tell him everything was going to happen, he met Peter where he was. The woman at the well who had lived like hell, he met her where she was, gave her water.

18:35God meets us where we are to take us where we need to be. So don't listen to those voices of hopelessness and despair because there are way, way, way too many people in that book. There are way, way too many people in this community right here that can tell you, hey, I've been zapped but I've been set free and this is how I did it. So quickly, let's look at the three C's that will help us deal with temptation. First Corinthians 10, 13, it's right in front of you on the slide for taking notes, write that passage down. Listen, no temptation has overtaken you except what is common, common, common, common to mankind. It's common, it's common, everybody has temptation, everybody has a purple light. It's your purple light, it's common. And God is faithful, he is faithful, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.

19:38But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out, a way out so you can endure it. God gives us a way out, three C's. Number one, call out to Christ. Call out to Christ, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, help me in this moment. And probably he's going to say, run away, flee, get out of this situation. Or he's going to give you the power of the strength to endure. Hebrews 4, 15, another great passage on temptation. We do not have a high priest, that's Christ, who is unable to feel sympathy for our weaknesses. To put that in a positive way, God through Christ understands sympathizes with your attraction and my attraction to the purple light. He sympathizes. But we have one who has been tempted in every way, just like us, yet he did not sin.

20:41So let us approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive a punishment and a beat over the head with a baseball bat. No, not even the message says that. It says, so we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. We're in the bottom of life, we're in the bottom of the tray, we call out to God in Christ, forgive me, cleanse me, empower me, pick me up and put me on that right path. You and I are going to struggle and fight temptation until we're pushing daisies. But God, by His strength, through His Son Christ, sympathizes with us, empathizes with us to help us deal with whatever that temptation is common to us. That's the first C. The second C is this, confess to someone your purple light.

21:42Find someone you know, find someone you trust and say, hey, this is my purple light. This is what's been zapping me. This is what's drawing me in. I need help confess it to another human being who knows you and you can trust. Call it to Christ, confess to someone what your purple light. Third C, connect with community. I've been pastoring for over three decades. I've seen young people, men and women set free from all kind of temptations. And I don't think I've seen one or met one person that's been set free and followed these three Cs who did it by themselves, who did it by themselves isolated. I did this just me and Jesus, right? No. Christ provided His church, His community for us. We are the body of Christ, the hands and feet of Christ. We need each other. I need you. You need me. We need each other.

22:50So the idea that I'm going to figure this out by myself, the idea that I can navigate life by myself, the idea that I can follow Christ at school, at work, at home, by myself, no way. We need the encouragement of each other. That's why at the end of the service, we invite people. Hey, come on down. Come join if God leads you to join this church. And once you join our church, hey, come on over. Be a part of my Bible study group. Be a part of my small group. Get into one of our support groups because we believe and we know in the power of community to help us overcome whatever we're dealing with, struggling with and to live a life of peace and joy, to live a life where we're seeking to follow God's will, God's way, and every aspect of our life. You need community. I need community to make it to overcome, to encourage, to empathize, to sympathize, to help.

23:58Fellow mosquitoes, fellow mosquito coaches, we need them. Life. Life is not meant to be lived on an island. So when you sense that hunger, that anger, loneliness, attack, halt, halt, and know that there's help. There's help. Call it to Christ. Confess to someone you know and connect in the power of community. God is a good God. God is a good father. He has your best interest in mine.