Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

What are some of the biggest temptations that you think people face in our world?

Study from a few years ago shared the following findings:

Worrying about everything - 60%

Procrastination - 60%

Eat too much - 55%

Spend too much time on Social Media - 44%

Lazy - 41%

Spend more money than one can afford - 35%

Gossip - 26%

Jealousy - 24%

This can be specific to yourself or generalized for our culture, why do we give into temptation as often as we do?

This same study asked people to list the main reason they succumb to temptation and here were the top 4 results:

I’m not sure - 50%

To escape my normal life - 20%

To feel less lonely - 8%

To satisfy the expectations of others - 7%

Temptation is a real thing and it is a real problem in our world.

We all face it and we all struggle with different types of temptation.

Last week we looked at the opening 11 verses in James and were encouraged to rejoice in times of trials because we know that God works in our trials to produce something good.

Today’s lesson will dive into those trials a little deeper and look at the different options that we have in those hard moments.

We can give into temptation or we can trust in God.

The problem that we often have whenever we fall short is that we are tempted to blame others for our issues.

Could someone read Genesis 3:12-13 to see this truth?

Adam and Eve sinned against God in the Garden and ate of the forbidden fruit and what was their natural response?

To blame someone for their mistake.

Adam blames Eve and Eve blames the serpent.

Who are some people that we like to blame today for our sins and mistakes?

Satan

Enemy

Person in leadership

God?

James will instruct us today how this is foolish by looking into the origin and anatomy of sin as well as the faithfulness of our God.

Could someone start us off this morning by reading James 1:12-15?

Last week we looked at rejoicing during our trials because God is accomplishing something in them even when we can’t fully see what He’s doing.

James 1:12 shares with us the conclusion of persevering through trials: We receive the crown of life.

Is James making the argument here that only the perfect Christians receive this crown?

Look at the end of verse 12. Who has God promised this crown to?

Those who love Him.

The standard is perfection but Christ has accomplished that standard for His people.

Can you imagine the burden of having to always maintain your own salvation / assurance by your perfection and whenever you messed up there was no grace?

Where’s the hope there!?

A better way of understanding this reward situation is not that our perfection saves us… only Jesus’ work can do that… but that instead our perseverance under trials and trust in Jesus along the way enables us to receive God’s spiritual blessing.

We don’t endure in order to be saved… We endure because we are saved.

As we endure, God rewards that faithfulness but that reward rarely is an earthly reward - it’s not the happy, healthy, and wealthy reward many look for… Instead it’s Revelation 2:10

As we understand this, we can rejoice in our trials because we know that God is accomplishing something in us today and as we stand firm in Him, we know that He see’s that.

Who is Responsible?

As we go through our trial, we know that God is in control and doing something and that we can have joy in it… but we also have a temptation to think God, in our trial, is tempting us to sin.

We’re going to look at this more in depth this morning in Hebrews 3:7-19, but we see in the Bible that God does test us.

Could someone read Genesis 22:1-2?

Now, God tested Abraham and God tests us today as well!

In the middle of this test there would have been a temptation to not do what God commanded.

And here is the problem that we have with this idea at times.

God tests us but we feel tempted to sin at times in the test.

What are some temptations that you’ve experienced in the trials you’ve faced in your life?

Not trusting in God to provide in a health or financial situation

Questioning God’s love because of the loss of a loved one

Thinking that God is not just because we’re suffering

What does James 1:13 tell us about these trials?

Who is responsible for our temptation, us our God?

Clearly us because God is not tempted by evil and He cannot tempt anyone to do evil because He by definition is good!

We are responsible for our temptations and this is because of our fallen, sinful nature.

Look at verse 14 - we are tempted by our own evil desires.

We can’t blame God, we can’t even blame the Devil or our enemy… the responsibility for our sin lies with ourselves.

We can’t pass the buck.

Why do you think this is so hard for us to fully understand?

Why do we not like accepting responsibility for our sinfulness?

God’s plan is perfect even if we don’t fully understand it or agree with it - think of a test that God has either given you or someone in the Bible that were ultimately for good!

Joseph in Egypt - Genesis 50:20

God provided something good to come out of this test!

This is true throughout His Word.

So often, though, we miss this because of our sinfulness.

David Platt shares that sin has a 4 fold process:

Deception

Desire

Disobedience

Death

We’ll talk about this more this morning in Hebrews, but sin leads to unbelief and this means a simple failure to believe in God and His promises.

If you look at James 1:14-15, how do you see this process play out?

Where do we have to stop this process at the first place?

We have to stop sin in our hearts and run away from it!

Sin starts with a distorted thought process and whenever we give into that distortion, we will be destroyed.

Ultimately, sin wants us to be our own Lord but this view leads to our death.

We must be born again or else we will die whenever sin fully metastasizes and gives way to physical and spiritual death

Jared Wilson, “Born once, die twice.

Born twice, die once.”

We’re all sinners and we all give into temptation - if we’re not born again we’ll die physically and be separated from God for all eternity… But, if we are saved by grace through faith in Christ then we’ll only face a physical death because we’ll be united with our God forever.

We don’t have to fear the grave as a Christian because Jesus has conquered sin and death once and for all in our place!

Many people talk about sin as if it just happened.

“I fell into sin” meaning that they didn’t plan on doing something crazy or wrong but it just happened.

How does this passage of Scripture fight against this idea?

Is sin sudden like tripping on the stairs or is it like a progressive road that gradually leads us away from God’s design?

Again, David Platt’s example of sin being a process is helpful as we combat it.

We can starve it out before it leads to eternal consequences

Illustration of a road.

Some pastors have talked about our desire to sin and give into temptation as a road.

God has put us on the road and there are things that he sends our way, but He also provides an off-ramp like we have along the interstate that we can get off before we give into the temptation.

Think of a car accident coming up ahead on the interstate and your GPS tells you that there is a faster route ahead if you take the exit and go on a detour so that you avoid the traffic up ahead.

That’s what God does so often in our lives - there’s a trial and there’s temptation lurking up ahead and trying to get our eyes off of God’s plan.

Ultimately, God provides another way - He always provides a way for us to trust in Him and avoid the consequences of our temptation, but often we ignore that way out and we give into the temptation and often we blame God for our sinfulness