Introduction
Let me begin with a discipleship question: will we trust and obey Jesus in the real decisions of everyday life? Christ forms us through truth received, repentance practiced, and obedience lived out.
Main Points
Grace and Justification
we're going to do something really for the second week in a row that is one of the benefits of going through the word as it comes unfolded through scripture oftentimes the word does not say things that you want to hear i was at a i was at a workshop the other day and the pastor said how many of you like to be lied to and of course no one raises their hand he's like we all like to be lied to that's how advertising works as you get uh you get this idea that's presented to you and you're like yeah that sounds great and although it really doesn't offer what it says it will you're like here's my money i love it and sometimes our church experience we just want to be patted on the shoulder and sent on our way so that we can live the life that we want to live and it's tempting to read the bible or to choose a church or to listen to sermons wanting to be lied to and so it's my job going through the word to go through the tough stuff last week we went through something that's sometimes uncomfortable you know those topics where you're like this is the week i invited a friend why is he covering money last week we looked at the call of james to be glorying in the humiliation for the rich and the exaltation for the poor and we got through it to god's glory and our good we understand that we hold everything loosely in the kingdom and this week again we'll have one of those topics where it's like oh shoot i brought a friend today but i'm glad you're here if you're the friend that came this is a great message we just have to get through a couple of the parts that might sting before you get to the blessing and so today we're going to talk about sin welcome to church let's talk about sin and temptation and to do that just it really provides us a good recap of what we've been talking about because the first the first wave of the book of james is saying to the churches scattered abroad in other words i know life is has been not what you expected you've been uh you've been uprooted and you've been planted somewhere that was not your home it's a new place and if you are scattered abroad count it all joy as you go through various trials and that word trials we've really been studying in the way that life sometimes comes at the believer because we're going towards god and the fallen world goes against him and by the nature of things on opposite courses there's sometimes collision and that happens in our life we call that trial when the fallen world that we live in surrounded by fallen people create a circumstance in our life that doesn't feel joyful james says don't worry because you're going towards god and your joy is rooted in him in the presence of god is the fullness of joy and in his sovereignty in the end as he says anyone who endures temptation there will be a crown of life so take heart or be joyful because your circumstances that are pointing out the fallen world and the nature of the trials that come are not defining you so we counted all joy now we come to a second half of the way that sometimes we have to endure trials which is not trials from without going against the grain of the world but actually trials that come from our own inward temptation so read along with me with all of that in your mind starting in verse 12 of james chapter one blessed is the man who endures temptation for when he has been approved he will receive the crown of life which the lord has promised to those who love him we actually ended with that verse last week to give us this promise that our joy is covered in the sovereignty or in the big picture of god as we endure the trials of the fallen world we live in as we navigate through the pandemics of life and the chaos of the world in the end you make it all the way through and god meets you with the crown of eternal life and then james will go on to say but transitioning towards trials of the worlds towards temptations of our own life let no one say when he is tempted i am tempted by god for god cannot be tempted by evil nor does he himself tempt anyone but each one when he is tempted when he is drawn away by his own evil own desires and enticed then when desire has conceived it gives birth to sin and sin when it is full grown brings forth death don't be deceived my beloved my beloved brethren every good and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that he might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures we recapped the first three sermons we gave in the book of james really under the title of strategy for trials you could almost say this is strategy for temptation which means all of us should be listening well you came to church you volunteered your time you should be listening anyway but the reality is that we're all going to be tempted and what james is giving us is really in the verses that we read this morning an outline for how that temptation comes into our life where it takes us and then what we do about it so that will be a simple way that we're going to re-examine what we just read temptation leading to sin leading our lives away from god creating trials temptation so where does it come from good to know the of your problems so that you can get to the get to the root of the problem and then not only where does it come from but where does it lead you so that when we face the temptations of our life we have an understanding of what's really at stake as we go through the trial so where does it come from where does it lead you and then what do we do about it that is essentially what we've just read out loud as james has laid before us a strategy for the temptations of your life where does it come from well before we get to the answer of scripture as oftentimes is the case we get where it doesn't come from and that's why he says in verse 13 let no one went say when he is tempted i am being tempted by god now this is a something that james is warning us against we're saying don't do this an anti-command because that seems to be the nature of our sin it seems to be that when we go through trials of the world going against the grain of culture or the world that we live in or when we go through the trials created through sin in our life often times the reaction is to look for the of the problem by looking outward i is it too early for christmas i asked that question a couple weeks ago and it was like a mixed bag but i think costco's got the trees coming out so let's just do the christmas analogy here i have a two-year-old which means i read the same book over and over and over and over again and the book of the week last week happened to be the grinch who stole christmas so hopefully it's not too early to draw a lesson from this book but in the very beginning of the book they've laid out the problem which is that he hates the christmas season but don't ask the reason because no one knows why and then they give a couple of things that it might be what are they it might be that his head is screwed on too tight it's the way he was made someone made him to be this way and it's problem with his head or it may be that his shoes are too tight it's like there's something externally that's just pressing on his life which makes him hate the who's down in whoville and i won't tell you how the story ends there's probably more points i'll draw from that as the season goes on but this is the initial idea of what is wrong with me and allow this uncomfortable topic of sin to already violate some of the worldview that's probably represented in a crowd this size which is to really understand the problems i have with my life my anger my difficulty with human relationships my laziness my overworking what i need to do is go talk to my therapist and then cut like an onion through the layers of my life all the way down to my childhood so i can figure out which teacher or pastor or parent gave me all this bad direction and when i find that then i can kind of unravel that and get back to who i really am that is part of the blame that james is saying beware of saying you know it's really it's god's fault because he put me in this circumstance with these people or you can you know go through the outbursts of sin in your life and try to justify it by saying just had a really bad week my job is super stressful and the co-workers i have are all idiots and i have to deal with them and my shoes are on too tight so that's the problem and we see this which is why it comes up in scripture as an anti-command to not do this at the very beginning of the of sin into the story of god remember the story of creation is god creating all things good and then explaining to us his plan for redemption because the good went bad how did the good go bad it was in the garden where there was one command that god had do not eat of this fruit when you do you die which is a preview to where this takes us and when god approached adam as he has fallen and says did you do it what does he say he says it was the woman that you gave me it's the vertical and the horizontal the blame right there god you made her i was taking a nap i woke up with a wife and she tempted me and as i'm studying this and judging adam for his horrible blame i realized that last week i started i shared a story of my own tumble or my own fall my own garden experience and then i realized as the story continues there's more to share to confess my own sin because if you were here last week you remember me saying my wife called me said did you do something you need to tell me about and i'm like oh this sounds like a moment of humility i'm going to have to say no to that and then she says did you eat the candy that i bought she bought a big bag of candy she might pass it out to the neighbor kids some point during the during the month i'm not sure but i had to say yeah i did i did eat it and you know why i ate it which is something i didn't share last week i said because you bought it you brought it into the house and you put it in plain sight what did you expect me to do you know i'm a sugar addict i ate it because you bought it i'm tempted because you are putting things in my life to tempt me the story actually continues because later in the week i found a purse that uh one of my daughters had filled up in her own sneaky and sinful filling up of candy it was like overflowing and i found it and she was so guilt-ridden she's like couldn't even look at me because she had done what i did and i'm like why did you do this and she said cause you opened it and i'm like but your mom bought it and god gave me her so really it's god and this is something that every single one of us will be uh pulled into because the best way the way that we navigate the failures of our life is to really look outward and here's where james makes us all a little uncomfortable because what does he say he says let no one say it's of god because god cannot be tempted beside theological point temptation draws on your lack it offers you something that you desire that you think you need and what does god not have lack he needs nothing he desires nothing he is whole and he is complete and he is drawing us into a whole and a complete reflection of him which means god can't be tempted because he is perfectly whole and then it says but each one is tempted when he is drawn by his own desires the beginning of sin in your life is temptation it's not a sin to be tempted jesus himself was tempted but temptation draws off something inside of you that can be pulled from god's good design into sin's destructive path it's always playing on something inside of us so allow me to continue the to offend the friend that you brought to church this morning your sin is your fault the things that you have done in your life and now pay the consequences of because it has separated you from god's perfect will and put you towards your own will which does lead away from god's goodness there are all sorts of nuances to this there are people that will let you down there is a fallen world that you must live in but when the bible presents with us the enemies that exist against our relationship with god it says the world the flesh the body that we live in and the devil and the overwhelming majority of the teaching of christian discipline has to deal with the flesh in fact in this classic example of how to deal with temptation that leads to sin notice the name that's not given the satan the devil the tempter is not part of the cycle of sin that james is offering because he is saying it is in fact your own desire which aligns with jesus when he says that from the heart flows all sorts of evil and wickedness from our own heart every single one of us can find in our lives something that has the capacity for god's goodness and also has the capacity to draw us towards evil and as a side note before we look at where sin leads us just to remind all of us i mean we just listened to an invitation to the conversation with lgbtq we have in all of the ways that we preach we'll cover different topics of the bible that will be examples of sin from fornication adultery anger bitterness greed and really the picture that james is about to use is to say that when your desires lure you it's like a hook in the water and in some ways think of it this way the desires that you have in your heart can be presented to you as bait on a hook and all of our bait looks slightly different you will be tempted in ways that your neighbor will not be tempted your bait will look different than your friends and your wives and your churchgoer and the person that you're watching fall and what we're not supposed to do is to say what an idiot that fell for that bait because if i was that fish i would have kept on swimming yeah until you get to your bait every person has something inside their heart that can be used against them and just so you don't think that this sermon is something that you can listen to master and get on to the next lesson next week your bait will change throughout your life you may overcome the desire for more money in your life that turns into pushing away relationship because you need to use people to make more and it might turn into your lack of the desire to have community in your life where you're serving one another and loving one another and as you mature in christ you're also maturing away from sin and towards new areas of maturation so let us all just take a deep breath and realize that this message is for all of us and at times it will change for how it's applied so the word says james says the morning's sermon says check your heart your sin lives in your heart and now we have to ask the question why does this matter i've got desires i'm playing with them i'm figuring out which ones work and which ones don't as james will point out it matters because sin temptation leading to sin has a path or a cycle just as we started this morning by reading verse 12 blessed is the man who endures temptation your life in christ has an end destination jesus says there are two paths one leads to life and as we follow christ and the good works that he prepared beforehand for us to walk in we walk towards the crown of life jesus also says there is a broad path that leads to destruction and one of the reasons that sin is sometimes not the best topic on a sunday morning for people to come and be encouraged by the word is because it's going to give a warning that a lot of us don't want to hear which is this as we live our lives and our desire comes into that temptation that as james will say is enticed or when we bite the bait here's where it leads us in verse 14. but each one is tempted when he's drawn away by his own desire and enticed then when desire has conceived it gives birth to sin and sin when it's full grown brings forth death jesus says i'm the good shepherd i have come to give life the reward the crown of life and life more abundant meaning life now for all areas of your life more life more joy more love jesus comes to be that shepherd for your life but he says the thief comes to kill and to steal and to destroy the thief that he is describing could very easily be the sin that draws you away that's the fishing illustration the lure goes into the water the fish was on his way towards something and now he gets drawn into the boat away from the water towards the death of his life this is what sin does to anyone who goes through the cycle of sin from temptation to sin it's conceived and then he gives birth and then it dies and this is now the portion of the word where when you meditate on it and you really try to understand what is being said think about verse 15. it's a very difficult illustration james has been full of illustrations so far we've had the illustration of the double-minded man is like a wave and you're tossed to and fro by the wind you'll get nothing from the lord he's given us the illustration of fishing he now gives us the illustration of conception he says that when it is conceived in verse 15 it gives birth to sin so adults in the room this is the picture of what happens sperm and egg come together there is now a conception there's now something that is going to grow and mature and turn into something and this is the nature of sin because there's nothing more joyful in your life as you go through the all the milestones of life one of the most joyful experiences is the moment of conception when you find out she's with child there's a great joy there's a great longing and a great waiting and when that child is in the womb it's like great anticipation jesus compares childbirth to the joy that exists after suffering when we talk about endurance in the book of james jesus will take the picture of endurance approaching the cross and say you moms know what it's like to endure remember the labor pains how bad it hurt but for the child that would come on the other side the joy outweighs the pain it was true of my wife's experience our first child she endured all of the pain and then held the child in her arms and says let's do all of that again what's happening now is the exact inverse think of the great joy of childbirth and for this moment in scripture it is so real that it will land on some hearts to remind of great pain because james is saying this is what sin is it's presenting to you the joy of a child the desire desires a good thing your desires are trying to point out to you things that are good you desire food you desire sex you desire a good life all of those desires are trying to find the best version of those things and james says think about sin like this it's coming to you in a desire it looks good and then it's looking like it's almost the joy of childbirth it's presenting to you a package that's so exciting and yet what comes out it's full grown imagine the child full grown in the womb conception nine months later a stillborn birth you go you take something that was going to promise you great joy and now we're talking about the greatest pain that some people ever experienced in their life they were expecting life and they received death and this is the warning for believers against the temptation to sin it comes to you to reach a desire that god put in you that could have been good and says what if you do it this way and at first it may seem good it may seem exciting and it may seem fun but its end it takes you to death there is a story i should actually say there are all sorts of stories throughout scripture that allows us to see this cycle played out in people that god uses i think one of the reasons for that we that we read about so many people that are used by god that actually go through the cycle of sin is so that we would be pointed to the final question of this hour which is what do we do about it and there's really only one answer there's not a life that there's not a number of lives that you can study that make it through unscathed in fact the bible says all sin and fall short of the glory of god and have to deal with the reality of the cycle of sin and death except for one and we get reminders of that all through scripture god used this person and they fell and they sinned and they are a picture of god's glory and man's brokenness and one of the most famous examples specifically for the cycle of sin presented in james is the life of david is a man that was after god's own heart used in great ways to glorify god and to step out in faith for god and to be used by god to do god's work and he reminds all of us that the cycle of sin will take everyone out who goes down the road and so we get the picture in second samuel chapter 11. i won't go through the story verse by verse but i can give you the to the story and i can tell you some of the effects of the story and then we can try to find something in his story that would be a caution to us when we ask the question where is this taking us it says in second samuel chapter 11 verse 2 it happened one evening that david arose from his bed and he walked around the roof of the king's house and many of you know where this story leads but we pause there because there's already some indications it says that david woke up in the evening this is a picture often times of how the word will use the night to point us towards sin and the day is pointing us towards righteousness says this happens at night time and david is restless he's not at peace in his heart there's something that's causing him to wake up many people will point out that david is not with his men fighting in the lord's army he's at home idle doesn't know what to do so he's up in the middle of the night and now he starts walking around and notice the setting notice the scene it says that he's on the roof which again might be it might just be an added detail because this is a historical account and it might be a reminder for us as we'll get reminders all through the book of the james that we are called to the lowly seat and we've got a king on top of a palace on top of the roof looking down and the word gives us this great warning that where there's much elevation there will be a mighty fall and that's exactly what we see in the life of david it says and from the roof he saw a woman bathing and the woman was very beautiful there are some desires in david's heart that exists in most hearts here this morning the beauty of a woman and he gazes upon her and now he has a capacity for evil that will take him down a path of destruction one of the ways that we can answer where this leads you is sin will lead you to more sin begets sin that's one of the dangers of this cycle is that it gives you a real life experience of the unraveling nature of disobeying god i say a real life example because the world we live in is a theological example of what happens when you disobey god our world is unraveling it will continue to unravel until god puts a line in the sand once and for all and returns to his kingdom to set all things to right but you get a picture of that in your own life where sin enters more sin enters and so david's first idea is to bring bathsheba's wife or her husband home his name was uriah he's out in the battle he tries to bring him home so that there's a way to maybe cover this up and as soon as he found out that bathsheba was with child he needed it to look like it was uriah's child so he gives him some of that king's wine some of the good drink says why don't you go be with your wife before you go back out to war and in one of the most gut-wrenching parts of the story uriah says who am i to sleep in the comfort of my house and be with my wife when men are out fighting for the king what a moment of honor that he
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.