Two Choices in our Temptation

Introduction

Sometimes it can be hard to tell if something is real or if its a fraud. Whether it be feelings or a letter in the mail, the line between genuine and fake can be hard to decipher at times… There’s a program that runs on KY3 news at times called “On Your Side” where a reporter attempts to investigate some of these scams and help citizens guard themselves against people attempting to cheat others out of money. Used to these types of scams were easy to tell. They would have an area code from New York City or Miami or Dallas and you’d be told as soon as you picked up the phone that you had won an all expenses paid vacation to Jamaica or something along those lines and while it might sound really cool, you knew that it wasn’t true. Nowadays, though, scammers have wisened up! They have a more believable story. They have a local phone number. They act as though they are trying to help you… but it’s always too good to be true.

Deceit has always been a human problem. We see this all the way back in the Garden of Eden as the serpent deceived Adam and Eve by asking a simple question, “Did God really say?” - we’ll tackle this more tonight as we look at our text, but that seed of deceit has planted its way inside the human heart and it has grown and metastasized in the generations that have followed. We all face various trials and temptations as James 1 shared with us last Sunday night - but who is to blame for that temptation? Many people immediately blame Satan - Satan is attacking me. Maybe they blame another person - maybe a leader - it’s this person who is responsible for my temptation. Some even blame God! God is the one at fault here… People are people and many of our problems are people problems and sometimes people do tempt us to do things that are wrong, this is why the people that you hang around matter. If you hang around negative influences who gossip and speak poison about others, chances are you’ll do the same because they tempt you down that rabbit hole. But people aren’t the biggest temptation we have. That honor doesn’t belong to God either and it doesn’t even belong to Satan - Satan knows how to deceive and lead people astray, certainly, but many give Satan more credit than he actually deserves.

Who deserves the blame? James will make the argument tonight in James 1:12-18 that WE are to blame for our own temptation. That might not sound very positive, but that nugget of truth regarding our sinful nature is the start to understanding the solution to our temptation. Let’s study tonight to see the choices that we have whenever temptation strikes in our lives

James 1:12–18 CSB

12 Blessed is the one who endures trials, because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. 13 No one undergoing a trial should say, “I am being tempted by God,” since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone. 14 But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. 15 Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death. 16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 By his own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Option One: Blame God (13-15)

We opened up our study of James last Sunday night and looked at the reality of our suffering and trials in this life. Every single human goes through trials. We all suffer. These things unite us as human beings and because of this, people have searched or answers and purpose in their suffering for generation after generation. Some believe that there is a way to reach a suffering-free life and achieve true peace with the universe. Others believe that suffering is random and purposeless and that is because our lives are due to luck and chance. We know that both of these options aren’t true. We know that we will suffer in this life and we also know that suffering isn’t random and purposeless. We know that suffering is a direct result of sin as Genesis 3 tells us. We also know that God uses suffering for something good in the life of His people - because of this, we endure through our suffering as verse 12 reminds us. We don’t endure through sufferings with the hope of our endurance saving us (that would be a works based salvation). Instead, we endure through our suffering because God has already saved us. Endurance is a fruit of a saved life.

The first 12 verses of James 1 are easy to talk about in abstract form, but whenever we really dig deep into how they work in our everyday lives, it can get harder to practice what we preach so to speak. Why is this the case? Because we love to blame someone else for our problems. We love to blame someone else for the temptations that we experience. Say that we are in a trial and we give into temptation and we sin, whose fault is that? This is where James hangs out in this passage, at least in part. This is crucial for us to understand in order to see what sin really is and how God provides a way out during these situations. Temptation is actually older than human sin - look with me in Genesis 3 to parse this out

Genesis 3:11–13 CSB

11 Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man replied, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.” 13 So the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

The serpent tempted Adam and Eve with a simple question, “Did God really say?” and God goes to Adam asking what happened… and Adam blames Eve for the temptation. God goes to Eve, asking what happened… and Eve blames the serpent saying that he deceived or tempted her. We pass the buck. It’s never our fault! Think about what Adam said, though… The woman you gave to be with me… who is Adam really blaming here? On the surface it looks like its Eve, but deep down, he’s blaming God, isn’t he? Adam knows that God created everything and he’s saying that the one woman that God happened to make to be with him was tempted and gave into sin… almost as if, if God has just made a different woman for him then this wouldn’t have happened… but God didn’t… therefore this is the result.

We look around our world and we see the same thing happening. We see a rise in all sorts of unBiblical and immoral activities and practices taking place and people will say this, “I was born this way.” What does this mean? It means this, “My sin is not my fault.” This isn’t a new statement, although we’re seeing the destructive fruit of this type of self-centered worldview all around us. Look with me in Isaiah 63:17

Isaiah 63:17 CSB

17 Why, Lord, do you make us stray from your ways? You harden our hearts so we do not fear you. Return, because of your servants, the tribes of your heritage.

What is Isaiah doing here? Blaming God for the sins of the people. This is short-sighted… Why do these people stray from God’s ways? Why do people today blame God for their problems? Because of our fallen sinful nature. So what do we need, as people with sinful natures? We need to remember the truth from God’s Word whenever we undergo trials. We need to remember that yes, God does give trials in this life. Trials are not accidents. They are not random. They are purposeful and we can rejoice in them! But, God does not tempt us in the trial. Because we all go through trials, we all will experience temptations and that’s because of our sin. To say that you never are tempted to sin is to admit that you don’t understand sin or that you’re already reached a perfect glorified state that we won’t reach until we pass from this life into the next.

Instead of blaming God for our temptation, James shares that temptation does not come from God in the first place because God cannot be tempted Himself. So what does God do? We cannot blame God for temptation because He doesn’t tempt - but He DOES test us. There are many examples of this in Scripture, look with me quickly in Genesis 22 for an example of a test

Genesis 22:1–2 CSB

1 After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he answered. 2 “Take your son,” he said, “your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”

“God tested Abraham” - Abraham had waited for over 25 years to have a biological son and God provided as He had promised Him a son… and now God is saying that Abraham must sacrifice his one and only son with Sarah? God tests us and He tests our faith and trust in Him and He strengthens our relationship with Him during these types of tests even when we can’t understand them in the moment. Abraham did what God commanded but He still had faith that God was going to provide as he tells his servants that Isaac will come back down the mountain with him after the sacrifice is made. Abraham either believed that God would provide another sacrifice, or (more than likely) he believed that the same God who brought life from a barren womb would bring Isaac back to life from the dead. There are so many parallels between Isaac and Jesus that we’ll touch on one of these days, but now isn’t the appropriate time. The New Testament shares in multiple places that Abraham believed in God, he succeeded in trusting in God, and this was credited to him as righteousness. God tests His people - He does this often and there’s a purpose for it - but He doesn’t tempt us into sin because God Himself cannot sin.

So if temptation doesn’t come from God - where does it originate? Not the enemy. Not our neighbor… Scripture teaches that it comes from within. Look at James 1:14

James 1:14 CSB

14 But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire.

Church, this is hard to understand and harder to admit to ourselves. We have a fallen, defective, depraved heart that is prone to ignore, reject, and leave God’s Word and the God of the Word. Yes, God is in control. Yes, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away as Job 1:21 shares. Yes, God is in control - read Proverbs 16 as a whole chapter or Matthew 10:29

Matthew 10:29 CSB

29 Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s consent.

But we know that our sin is ours to bear. We don’t sin because God made us. We are living in a world that is living in defiance to God’s Word and the reason why is because we are following our heart

Jeremiah 17:9 CSB

9 The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it?

What is the danger with this? Where our evil desire leads… James uses a child birth picture to talk about the ramifications of our sinful nature. We are deceived by sin because part of ourselves desires that wrong thing and then we follow through with disobedience and eventually that disobedience leads to death. David Platt shares this 4-fold process with sin.

Deception

Desire

Disobedience

Death

Rather than blaming God for what He’s done - we have to look internally at our sinful heart. We deserve this blame because our responsibility is to trust in God but so often we trust in what looks good in our own eyes. Instead of walking by faith, we walk by sight. We do what Paul talks about in Romans 7: we don’t do the things that we should do and to make matters worse we do the things that we shouldn’t do… this isn’t just because of a culture that is growing more and more godless by the day. It isn’t because of what advertisements are on TV. It isn’t because of some sort of persecution we feel like we are facing. Bryan Chapell puts it like this and we do not like these terms, “The reason that we sin is because we love it.” Why do we love sin? Because we have a sinful heart. We believe the lie that says that we are in charge and that we know better than God - this was Adam and Eve’s deception that they bought into. This leads to a sinful desire to eat from the forbidden fruit. This leads to disobedience through action or thought and we know that the wages of sin in Romans 6 is death.

The problem is not with our provider - the problem is the person and that person is us. We cannot blame God for what He’s done - the problem is with us. In our trial, we have to understand that God is at work in this and doing something for our good as Romans 8:28 promises. As we remember that, we remember that He isn’t tempting us to sin. He is teaching us something to help us grow more and more into the image of Jesus Christ. Jesus suffered and we know that we will as well. Rather than blaming God, there is another option available to us in our temptation

Option Two: Trust God (16-18)

Rather than being deceived and thinking that God is the one tempting us, James instructs us with a command to not be deceived and to realize that God instead gives His people good gifts. In fact James shares that God gives His people every good and perfect gift. Sam Alberry shares that we often have 2 temptations as Christians and the first one we’ve already touched on. That is to forget how truly bad we are. We are all sinners who have fallen short of God’s standard and we deserve punishment for that sin. Look at what God’s Word shares regarding this truth

Romans 7:18 CSB

18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it.

That’s strong language there, friends! We forget how serious sin is and we forget the consequences of our sin… but there is another temptation to forget and that is the opposite extreme… We sometimes forget how good our God is. We forget all the ways that God has provided in the past. All the things He is doing for us today. God’s Word reminds us that God created us, is sustaining us with each breath we take, each step we take, and each thought we have, and that God is giving us each gift we receive from here until eternity. God is so good! And God desires what is truly good for His people. He is trustworthy. He is faithful.

Look at what verses 17 and 18 tell us about our God. Not only does He provide us with every good and perfect gift, but that goodness is unchanging unlike our world. That goodness is not based on our performance unlike how our world operates and dispenses blessings. Finally, God’s goodness is eternal. We see that God blesses us with a new birth as John 3 talks about that is not up to our goodness or perfection or knowledge but simply by His own choice so that we would be demonstration of His firstfruits. Think about our life before Christ as verses 14-15 share with us. We have a sinful heart that gives way to sinful action which leads to separation from God, spiritual death. Ephesians 2 shares this truth with us

Ephesians 2:1–3 CSB

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.

This is bad news bears to quote Chris Jones on Wednesday night as he gave his testimony! This is our story… but it’s not where it has to stop. God has given all of us good gifts. God is good. God is dependable. He is gracious. He is merciful. God makes dead people come back to life physically and spiritually speaking.

Ephesians 2:4–5 CSB

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!

This is good news, friends! This is the work of Christ alone. He raises us to life - not because of our church attendance. Not because of our Scripture memorization. Not because of our last name. Not because of our nice works or how much money we’ve donated… This is His work in us and we simply walk in that truth as we walk by faith and not by sight. Whenever temptations come our way, there is a way out. There is a way that honors God. There is a way to glorify Jesus with whatever we say or do or don’t say or don’t do. We can always choose to trust in God in those moments and that might mean that we experience persecution because we go against the grain of our godless culture - we’ll talk more about that next Sunday morning with Hebrews 4:11-13. That will probably happen… but there’s always a path that we can take that honors God. This isn’t to say that God will never give you more than you can handle… that’s garbage and hopeless and leads people astray. There are things that you and I will go through, there are trials to great for us to get through ourselves! But you know what’s good? There’s nothing too hard for your God if you’re a Christian. God will never give Himself too hard for Him to handle. If you’re a Christian and if the Holy Spirit is guiding you in this thing called life, there is always a way to avoid the temptation to give into our sinful desires and walk by faith. This isn’t to say that God only saves us or helps us if we’re perfect - praise the Lord for grace! But whenever the trial arrives, we have to remind ourselves that our God is in control on His throne. He is with us. He is for us as Christians. He desires us to glorify Him. He will guide us not into temptation but in His pathway as Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us. We can always trust in the Lord and in His guidance and in His direction and in His providence.

One pastor shared this years ago, “Habits, like trees, are strengthened by age. A boy may bend an oak when it’s a a year old… but a hundred men cannot uproot it when it has fully grown.” We must determine in our hearts (as Daniel did in Daniel 1:8) to trust in the Lord and start now so that whenever we get older and face more and more trials, it becomes easier to submit to Him instead of jumping to blaming Him.

What does this look like practically speaking? How many of you have heard of the early church leader, Augustine? If you’re a protestant, which we all are at a Baptist church, we love Augustine while the Eastern Orthodox folks loathe Augustine… This man had a testimony!

Augustine lived a James 1:13-15 life for decades. He was a genius but wanted nothing to do with Jesus early on. But his mother, Monica, prayed for his salvation day after day after day - praise the Lord for parents who pray for their children’s salvation and children who pray for their parents’ salvation! Augustine was a teacher in Carthage (North Africa) and Carthage was a place wellknown for its sexual immorality much like Corinth whenever Paul wrote 1 Corinthians. Augustine taught in Carthage for nearly 9 years. One day Augustine sailed from Carthage, in Northern Africa, to Milan across the Mediterranean Sea in order to advance his career as a teacher and speaker. His mother, fearing for his salvation and eternal destination, traveled the Sea and begged him to go to church. Augustine began attending a church in Milan and the pastor there was named Ambrose. Ambrose preached the Gospel week after week, year after year, and after having been in Milan for 3 years, Augustine began to see his bondage to sin and the freedom experienced by those around him. See, Augustine was bound to lust - or so he believed. That was his fleshly temptation. He lived with a woman who was not his wife in Carthage and they had a child together before he came to know Christ. He knew something had to give, though as he came to know Christ as Lord and Savior. Church tradition tells us of the story of Augustine returning home after his conversion and he was walking down the street and his mistress was walking down the opposite side of the street. She saw him and said his name, but Augustine kept on walking. She crossed the street and said his name, but he kept on walking. Finally she ran and caught up with him and said, Augustine it is I! Augustine turned to her and said, “I know, but it is no longer I.”

Temptation literally caught up with him face to face… and Augustine knew that God had given him a new heart to serve Him faithfully and not to indulge in the desires and temptations of the past. This is what Jesus does in our lives as well. He changes us. He gives us a new heart that desires to serve Him faithfully. This doesn’t mean that we receive a get out of temptation free card as Christians… our temptations might just walk to us on the side of the street! But whenever they do, we can trust in God and glorify Him as He provides a way out of that temptation through His Word.

In the week to come, whenever temptation arises… don’t blame God. Don’t blame others. Don’t get mad. Remember if you are a Christian, Christ is with you in that temptation and He provides a way out. Trust in Him. Trust in His goodness. Trust in His mercy. Trust in His faithfulness. Trust in His work of salvation in your life.

1 Corinthians 10:13 CSB

13 No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it.

Don’t give temptation another inch!