The Goodness of God - James 1:12-18

INTRO

You ever heard the parental classic, “I don’t care who started it I’m finishing it.”

Recently I was helping take care of my niece and nephews alongside my son.

We’re playing and the next thing I know an argument had broken out.

In my attempt to untangle the mess I heard about 50 different excuse between the boys about how it wasn’t their fault.

That’s the way it is with kids right?

Every excuse and blame shifting mechanism you can imagine is used.

Now a lot of us who have kids or have spent time caring for kids, we know that this is second nature.

Rarely if ever do you see a kid immediately take on the blame.

The sad reality is most of us don’t grow out of this.

When we find ourselves in a mess we often want to blame shift.

When we sin…we don’t want fault to rest on us.

We are going line by line, verse by verse through the book of James.

Today we find ourselves in James’ ongoing encouragement to believers who are in seemingly impossible situations

They are scattered across the known world facing difficulty and trials and James is calling them to hold on to Christ and see how God is using our trials to build in us steadfast lives.

Today he is going to shift the lens to our tendencies to blame shift.

The fact that we want to point the attention away from ourselves when we fall into sin.

This is really a part three as it were on how we respond to trials.

First we saw the call to have joy to hold an eternal prospective, then we saw the call to pursue wisdom.

Now James is showing us that the same circumstances, the same trials and tests are on one hand, opportunities for us to go forward as we lean into who God is and what he has called us to.

On the other hand we can fall to temptation in those circumstances and go backwards.

James is going to invite us to look to the Lord and see how he calls us to endure, to see how he is using every broken moment in our life to produce good.

The temptation for us will be to look away from the Lord and be overwhelmed by our trials.

Much like James, I want to plead with you...

I want to plead with you to pursue the steadfast life.

I want you to look on the goodness of the Lord and hold fast to him.

That’s our big idea today.

Big Idea: The steadfast life rests in the goodness of God.

With that said let’s go to the text and see first the trial and the temptation

1. The Trial and The Temptation

Look at James 1:12-13

James 1:12–13 (ESV)

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

Now we looked at verse 12 last week.

This verse serves as a hinge between two thoughts.

It closes out one section and opens another one.

James points to the crown of life, which isn’t a royal crown, but a prize that runners would earn as they finish their race.

He is telling us that the way we finish isn't through just muscling through and keeping our chin up, but through having a life that is captivated by Christ.

The crown of life is the Lord’s gift to those who love him.

This is our goal, to have Christ.

The puritan John Owen says it so beautifully:

“Oh to behold the Glory of Christ! Here in would I live, Here in would I die, here on would I dwell in my thoughts and my affections until all things here below become as dead and deformed things, and in no longer, any way, calling out for my affections” _John Owen

It’s Jesus over everything.

We have to start here with the goal of where our trials and testing lead us.

Our movement to the crown is propelled not by how well we endure because of intuition or resilience .

Our movement is expedited, propelled forward by the depth, reality, and pervasiveness of our love for Jesus.

I spent time this week reading the Irish Bible Scholar JA Moyter.

He has been an influence to so many yet when asked about his studies he said, “I’m not really a scholar. I’m just a man who loves the Word of God and his Lord.”

Listen to what he says here on this idea:

“we live by what we love; the shape of our lives is determined by the joys of our hearts.” _J.A. Moyter

That then presents the problem.

We often have disordered loves.

Simply put, we love things more then Jesus.

When trials and testing come the goal is to produce in us a resolve to see the goodness of the Lord.

Tragically though we often shift our gaze from Jesus and look to the difficulty of the trial.

That’s the issue this morning, we take our eyes off of Jesus.

We look at our circumstances and trials how huge and difficult they seem and like Peter we find ourselves sinking.

We look to fleeting things to numb or find comfort in.

We find ourself in patterns of sin.

As we go forward into sin it’s not long before we then raise up our hand in anger at God blaming him for putting us in this mess.

But, Coram Deo, Every circumstance we meet requires a choice.

Will we endure and go on with God?

Or will we listen to the voice which suggests the easy way of disobedience and disloyalty?

Where does that voice come from?

Well James tells us...

James 1:13–14 (ESV)

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

Every trial brings temptation with it.

When we face financial difficulty, we are tempted to distrust God’s provision.

When someone dear to us dies, we are tempted to question God’s love.

When we experience unjust suffering, we are tempted to question God’s justice.

But we must know this: God may test us, but according to verse 13, He does not and cannot and will not tempt us.

We are responsible in temptations.

Understanding who is responsible in temptation requires understanding the origin of sin.

James says clearly in verse 13 that God is perfectly sinless.

Everything in Him resists sin; evil is inherently foreign to Him.

He is aware of it, but He is untainted by it.

Yet we rarely want to take responsibility...

A boxer Ray ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini killed a Korean boxer in a match...

The Boxer said in a press conference, ‘Sometimes I wonder why God does the things He does.’

As though he was clueless as to what could have lead to his opponents downfall.

Here’s another example.

A young woman was dating a man and became pregnant so she wrote a letter to her Christian therapist...

She wrote frustrated demanding to know why God allowed her to fall into sin, why would he allow that to happen to her.

In no way can God be blamed for temptation and sin.

Who is responsible then?

To answer that question, James holds up the mirror and says, “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.” (v. 14).

God is perfectly sinless, but we are utterly sinful.

After telling us God does not tempt us to sin, we might expect James to say Satan drags us away and entices us, but he doesn’t.

Now, that doesn’t mean the enemy isn’t involved in the temptations of this world.

However, the responsibility for temptation and sin lies squarely with us...

Our sinful desires within lead us to give in to temptation.

What does this mean?

We have no one else to blame for our sin.

May God help us understand this in a world where there are efforts at every turn to absolve us from our responsibility for sin.

We want to put the fault on others or blame our upbringing, our friends, our family, our government, our condition, or anything else we can think of.

This doesn’t mean different factors don’t affect us all in different ways, but the teaching of Scripture is clear:

the fault for my sin lies with me.

This idea that we are responsible but don’t want to accept blame is not just a christian idea,

Therapists notice that the reality is no one really wants to take fault.

Here’s what one journal for therapists suggested in regards to blame:

“The reason why people usually blame others is that it's a quick escape from guilt. Blame is an incredibly easy and effortless tactic to use when we feel defensive.”

There is a problem at the core of who you are and who I am:

In the words of Paul in Romans 7:18

Romans 7:18 (ESV)

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

Though God tests us, He is never the one who tempts us.

Again James is showing us that there are two very different ways that we can react to trials.

We can allow God to use them to refine and mature us

or we can allow them to cause bitterness in our hearts toward God as we choose to spiral into sin.

The blaming of God for our sin is not something new.

In fact, the Old Testament is full of times when God's people blame Him.

This is how it all started out in Genesis 3 we find Adam shifting blame.

This woman…who YOU gave me God!

We are not so different from our first parents.

Our first instinct is consistently to find somewhere to shift the blame.

If we can't shift it to a person, we look for a circumstance or situation.

And ultimately the root of all of these accusations is an accusation against God Himself.

Trials and suffering are sure in this life

But we have a choice in how we respond to them.

We can choose to count all of our trials as joy and grow and mature, or we can allow our trials to lead us down the dangerous and deathly path of sin.

James challenges us, pleads with us to choose life.

Though the path of sin brings death, he has already told us that the path of endurance through trials leads us to the crown of life.

He pleads with us to choose life.

So we start here seeing the reality that our trials should lead us to cling to the Lord not to a pattern of sin where we blame shift.

This leads us to our second point looking at how temptation comes.

2. How Temptation Comes.

James 1:14–16 (ESV)

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.

Having looked at the origin of sin, we also need to consider the anatomy of sin.

Sin does not just happen out of the blue.

There is a process behind it, and we might think about this in four steps:

1. Deception.

Genesis 3 presents a perfect example of this process with Adam and Eve.

The heart of sin is unbelief—not believing God.

We don’t believe God when He says something is best for us or another thing is not.

Instead, we question Him.

This is where sin starts, and we see it in the serpent’s question, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden?’ ” (Gen 3:1).

2. Desire.

James says each one is tempted when he is “lured away and enticed by his own evil desires” (v. 14).

The language here carries the idea of baiting a hook.

No fish knowingly bites an empty hook.

The idea is to hide the hook.

Temptation appeals to our desires, attracts us, but hides the fact that it will kill us.

This kind of desire drives men to pornography, women into another man’s arms, employees to dishonesty, and people to a number of other sins.

Sin starts with disordered thought, which leads to disordered desire, and we begin to want that which will destroy us.

When we are enticed and when desire like that is conceived, it gives birth to sin.

3. Disobedience.

We act on our desire.

4. Death.

This is the result of disobedience.

The imagery of death is vivid and terrifying, and we need to see it for the horror it is.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book entitled Temptation, explains how this works:

With irresistible power desire seizes mastery over the flesh. It makes no difference whether it is sexual desire, or ambition, or vanity, or desire for revenge, or love of fame and power, or greed for money. . . Joy in God is extinguished in us and we seek all our joy in the creature.

At this moment God is quite unreal to us, he loses all reality, and only desire for the creature is real. Satan does not here fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God. The lust thus aroused envelops the mind and will of man in deepest darkness. The powers of clear discrimination and of decision are taken from us. The questions present themselves: "Is what the flesh desires really sin in this case?" "Is it really not permitted to me, yes expected of me, now, here, in my particular situation, to appease desire?" It is here that everything within me rises up against the Word of God. _Bonhoeffer

This is why James tells us very clearly don’t be deceived.

We have to be vigilant.

Friend Sin destroys. (be killing sin lest it be killing you)

One tragic part of being a pastor is a front row seat to the deceiving and destructive nature of sin.

The delusion is there and it’s end result is death.

Whatever sin you may be flirting with, whatever deception you are buying, whatever desires you are hoping to fulfill…run away.

They will destroy you.

We have to fight sin by fixing our gaze on Jesus.

After spending time with Mike Stephanides dog Cabo I told Hannah that if we get a dog again we’re gonna pony up and pay to get our dog trained.

This dog is so sweet and obedient.

You ever been around a dog that is so well trained it will wait on it’s treat.

You set the treat on the ground and the dog doesn't gobble it up, it waits.

The treat is placed on the floor near the dog and the master says, “No!” which the dog knows means that he must not touch it.

The dog will usually take his eyes off the food, because the temptation to disobey would be too great, and instead will fix his eyes on the master’s face.

That is the lesson of the dog. Always look to the Master’s face.

Is your gaze set to look to the Lord?

Do you know that he is good?

I mentioned my wife has been getting into birdwatching.

But she has roped our son into her hobby now.

The bird he always points out to me is a woodpecker.

When a woodpecker finds a tree, he begins to drill a hole.

If the wood is too hard or no bugs are found, he simply moves over a bit and starts again.

Over and over he continues, until he meets with success.

Temptation comes for us in much the same way.

Over and over we hear the deceiving voice saying the same lie from the garden, “is God good?”

So we see one temptation enter in on us and then if that’s not successful the enemy will move over a bit and try another.

And so he will continue, over and over again, until he finds a soft spot in us that he can use to his advantage.

Where are you prone to weakness?

Where are you prone to believing God is not good?

What’s the remedy? Look up.

All of this leads us to our last point to see.

3. The Goodness of God

James 1:17–18 (ESV)

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

So, what do we do during trials and temptations, the very time when we are so prone to fix our eyes on our circumstances that we miss what God has in store?

What do we do in the midst of temptations, when we are so prone to be dragged away and enticed by the desires that are at the core of our lives?

We remember that God is faithful for our salvation.

(Couldn’t God do something?! He did…we just have gospel amnesia - he went to the cross of Calvary!)

With God, James tells us in 1:17, “there is no variation or shadow due to change”

In your trials or temptations, don’t believe the lies.

Remember that God is good, so very good.

And He wants what is good for you.

So trust Him in your trials, and turn to Him in your temptations.

The temptation is to believe that God is holding out on us.

We are tempted to believe that there is some satisfaction in the sin that God has forbidden,

or that we will find happiness somewhere other than God's perfect will.

God has given us everything that we need to serve Him, and if He has withheld something from us it is because He knows it is not good for us right now.

God is holding nothing good back from His people.

We must preach this truth to our hearts that Jesus is all we need.

And if Jesus is all we need, we don't need a dream house to be happy.

If Jesus is all we need, we don't need the approval of others to feel worthy.

If Jesus is all we need, we don't need to lose ten pounds or get a new wardrobe to be content.

If Jesus is all we need, we don't need our days to go smoothly because true peace and contentment are found in Him alone.

If Jesus is really all we need, our joy is not dependent on our circumstances but on Him.

And that means that we can find joy and peace in Him right in the midst of the chaos, the stressful, and the mundane.

We can trust that He has given us what is good for us and that where He has us is where He wants us.

Allen Gardiner was a missionary who spread the Gospel to indigenous people in South America.

Despite facing many challenges and opposition, he remained committed to his mission.

His dedication to sharing the love of God with those who have not yet heard the Gospel has inspired many missionaries.

Despite his troubles, he said, "While God gives me strength, failure will not daunt me."

In 1851, at the age of 57, he died of disease and starvation while serving on Picton Island at the southern tip of South America.

When his body was found, his diary lay nearby.

It bore the record of hunger, thirst, wounds, and loneliness.

The last entry in his little book showed the struggle of his shaking hand as he tried to write legibly. It read, "I am overwhelmed with a sense of the goodness of God."

The knowledge that all He does is good frees us to trust Him even when our lives do not make sense or look the way that we thought that they would.

He is the source of everything good (v. 17).

His goodness is unchanging.

God is perpetually, constantly, consistently good.

He never gets in a bad mood.

He never changes for the worse, and He never changes for the better because He is already perfectly and ultimately and wonderfully good in every way, and you can’t get any better than God.

If He could change for the better, that would mean He wasn’t ultimately good in the first place, but He is.

His goodness is undeserved.

Verse 18 says that God chose to give us birth through the “word of truth.”

We’re going to see a lot about works in James, but the foundation is all about grace.

God has given us new life based not on our works but on His grace.

He chose to give us birth!

He chose to take His Word and write it on our hearts, hearts that were sinful to the core.

This is the gospel, the message of Christianity—anything good in you is because of God’s undeserved goodness toward you!

God is the source of every good thing in us.

Were it not for Him, everything in us would be bad.

We need His undeserved goodness to change us from the inside out.

This is what faith relies on at every level.

His goodness is unending.

We are the “firstfruits of His creatures” (v. 18).

The picture of firstfruits carries the idea of a foretaste of that which is to come.

What God has done in our lives to change our hearts by His goodness is only a preview of the day to come when He will make all things new in all creation.

And the work He has done in our new birth will one day lead to a new heaven and a new earth where there will be no more trials and no more temptations.In the meantime, take heart, Christian.

He has saved us from our sin.

And if He has saved us from our sin, then we can know beyond the shadow of a doubt that He will see us through our sorrow.

Contemplate the truth of this gospel,

Think of a God who conquers sin and suffering through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ so that today you and I can consider trials pure joy and face temptations with steadfast confidence.

Reading The Bruised Reed - fighting gospel amnesia, remember who I belong to - where does discouragement come from?! Not the Lord!

“We must know for our comfort that Christ was not anointed to this great work of Mediator for lesser sins only, but for the greatest, if we have but a spark of true faith to lay hold on him. Therefore, if there be any bruised reed, let him not make an exception of himself, when Christ does not make an exception of him. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden' (Matt. 11:28). Why should we not make use of so gracious a disposition? We are only Poor for this reason, that we do not know our riches in Christ. In time of temptation, believe Christ rather than the devil. Believe truth from truth itself. Hearken not to a liar, an enemy and a murderer.” _Richard Sibbes

Application Questions:

Is my heart captivated by Christ? How are my loves disordered?

Where am I prone to blame shift? How have I been tempted to blame God for either his lack of goodness or my sinfulness?

Where am I prone to temptation, how might I set in place boundaries to behold the goodness of God over and above the deceitfulness of sin?

What are the good gifts from God that I am grateful for? How does looking to these things help me to fight temptation?