James 1:12

The temptation to sin is based on the promise of pleasure or gain. The promise is usually made by Satan to every kind of person at their point of greatest vulnerability. Ironically, a person’s greatest vulnerability can be the area where they feel most strong. But Satan holds out this promise that if you enjoy the pleasures of sin, you’ll be better off than you would be if you pursued the pleasures of God. The pleasures of God are, for the most part, stored up for us in the future. While the pleasures of sin are, for the most part, instant. No waiting required. This appears to give Satan the home-court advantage. But why in James 1:12 does James say there is happiness and blessedness in enduring temptation without yielding in to it?

Let’s look at James 1:12 this morning. There’s a wonderful promise for all who are tempted in this life and that promise makes life more livable, if believed. James 1:12. In honor of God and his word, let’s stand for the reading of this remarkable verse.

“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.” [NKJV]

[Prayer] Blessed are the tempted who endure. It’s interesting that James begins verse 12 with the word blessed—Makarios—happy. Those who endure temptation are happy and blest. Webster defines “tempt” as, “to entice to do wrong by promise of pleasure or gain.” Is it possible to resist sinful pleasure or gain and still be happy? Jesus and the rest of Scripture answers yes.

The word translated temptation is peirasmovn, which can mean an experiment, a trial, or a temptation. If the payoff for yielding to sin is instant pleasure or gain, what is the compensating pleasure of endurance through faith in God? In other words, how can we ultimately demonstrate that it’s better to obey God rather than sin at the moment of temptation?

This is one of the most vital questions of our day in light of the intense assault against purity, chastity, and holiness. The assault comes through our senses, our thoughts, through television, through movies, the Internet, and magazines at the check-out line. It comes from within our hearts and minds as well from outside, sometimes even by accident. But the sinful pleasures of the moment are always purchased with the currency of future peace and happiness. Faith is a free gift, but free faith is costly to possess; and sin exacts an infinite debt on our souls.

If you’ve been a Christian for any time at all you know the world system, the flesh, and the devil continue to exert powerful influence over your life. While our spiritual nature has been redeemed, our physical bodies continue to live in a fallen world and are subject to temptation. As Joseph Stowell says, “We live in a fallen place among a fallen race.” Our enemy the devil uses the world and our flesh as tools to entice us to pursue pleasure or gain outside of God.

It’s the old serpent’s lie from the Garden of Eden. “God’s holding out on you. There’s more pleasure outside of God’s boundaries. Pursue them.” But behind the serpent’s hiss is the deadly venom of sin. It kills joy. It poisons delight. And it breaks intimate fellowship with our heavenly Father and with each other.

James says, “Blessed is the man (or woman) who endures temptation.” There are two inherent truths in this statement. (1) You and I will be tempted as Christians; and (2) we can endure temptation and be approved by God. Most of us would never think of temptation as a blessing, but James points out some valuable spiritual benefits we gain only through temptation. If we are to endure temptation we must have faith that shines brighter than any enticement from the world, the flesh, or the devil. So let’s consider three benefits James says are revealed by temptation.

I.          FIRST, TEMPTATION REVEALS AN ENDURING FAITH.

“Blessed is the man who endures temptation…” In the spiritual life insecurities abound. After all, we’re dealing with intangible things that we can neither see, nor hear, nor feel—at least not physically, not empirically. In 2 Corinthians 4:18, the Apostle Paul writes this enigmatic description of our Christian perspective: “We do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” What a strange thing to say.

He’s talking about faith. Therefore, if faith is not strong, we begin to focus on temporary discouragements to the neglect of eternal realities. Just because something is not visible doesn’t mean it’s not real. Ask those people whose homes were destroyed by straight-line winds a couple of years ago. Since the Christian life deals in spiritual matters where faith sees what eyes cannot, we must have some catalyst in our lives that forces us to have faith in realities we cannot see, or hear, or touch with our senses. That’s where temptation comes in.

Have you noticed how often temptation involves an enticement in the physical realm—a misuse of the senses? The enticement is used to promise immediate pleasure or gain in the physical realm so we won’t build up strength in the spiritual realm of faith. But James is telling us that if we put all of our stock in the unseen promises of faith—believing that He who promised is faithful—we will endure the temptation and our faith will grow stronger. Enduring the temptation is the first step in strengthening our faith. Without temptation, we would never know if we had the reality of faith that’s stronger than our worldly—fleshly enticements.

This is one of the ways we know we’ve been redeemed by God. As we grow in sanctification, we become more like our Savior. Because the faith that justifies is also the faith that sanctifies. They’re two sides of the same coin. They’re inseparable. A justifying faith is always a sanctifying faith. Endured temptation reveals a faith that is genuine in a world that majors on the physical and temporal matters of life.

So God is lovingly warning us about sin. His warning is not rooted in deprivation, but in preservation of His chosen people. Endured temptation keeps the poison out of our spiritual lives and promotes life and joy. Not only does temptation reveal an enduring faith, but…

II.        SECOND, TEMPTATION REVEALS AN APPROVED FAITH.

Following endurance comes approval from God… “for when he has been approved”. You have to really believe what James is saying if you’re going to endure strong temptation. When everything in your senses is warring against the Spirit, the promise of divine approval must be stronger than the present enticement of sin. One of the reasons we often succumb to temptation is that we haven’t put much stock in this divine promise. The promise isn’t as real to us as the physical enticements. If we are to be blessed, that divine promise must become more real to us than anything else in our lives. Living by faith means putting more stock in the promises of God than we put in the physical world around us. Now, that’s easier said than done.

You and I want to be approved by God. I know I do. But I have to admit, I’ve done things in my life that could make God say, “I am ashamed of you”, and you have too. This is where good theology is so important. What is it that pleases God? Sometimes I forget that my standing before God is not based on what I do, but upon what Christ has done on my behalf. And because Christ is my substitute, my standing before God is in Him. Still, our sanctification is the outworking of God’s grace in our lives; because the faith that justifies is the faith that sanctifies. Sanctification is both positional and practical. It involves personal holiness and not just a holy vocabulary. It’s about our walk more than our talk.

When you and I get to heaven we want to hear God say, “Well done thou good and faithful servant.” There’s something in all of us that wants to hear this approval from our Creator. We thrive with approval… and we wither without it. And James is telling us how to get there.

The word for “approved” is the same word used for gold or silver after it’s been tested by fire. The metal is approved only after it has come through the intense fires of testing. The old hymn says:

“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,

My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;

The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design

Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.”

Temptation is like an approving fire for us as Christians. Painful? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely. It is temptation that reveals an enduring faith and an approved faith. But not only this…

III.       THIRD, TEMPTATION REVEALS A REWARDING FAITH.

James says, after we have endured temptation and have been approved by God, we will receive something. What is it? It’s the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. This is a rewarding faith. Faith is believing more in the future reward of God than you believe in the present reward of sin. That’s easy to say, but it’s hard to live when you’ve gone back home and temptation begins to entice. The promise of instant gain and pleasure as enticements to say no to the promise of God are just around the corner. They will whisper (and hiss) and everything we’ve seen this morning in God’s word will be suppressed.

I’ve said before and have experienced in my life that: the immediate is powerful to distract us from the ultimate. We all know it. We all experience it. “For all have sinned and we all fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). But James tells us there is a reward for those who endure temptation. Our reward will be the crown of life which is promised to those who love the Lord. You receive the reward by loving the Lord more than the instant pleasures of sin… by trusting His promise by faith. This raises a question.

What is the crown of life and why should you want it more than the pleasures of sin?

Well, that’s a question Satan hopes we never ask. When we ask this question, we expose the lies of our adversary and the hideousness of sin. Furthermore, we put greater emphasis on the glorious promises of God. So let’s ask the question and let’s answer it with all the compensating satisfactions of almighty God.

To the question: What is the crown of life?—we would answer, the crown of life is the gift of eternal life which Jesus gives to those trust in His atoning sacrifice on Calvary. In the writings of the apostle John, the crown of life doubtless refers to the realization of all the glorious possibilities that come through fellowship with God through His Son. Yet here in James, the crown of life is linked directly to the promise held out to those who resist temptation to sin. We might nuance this “crown of life” by distinguishing the life that overcomes sin (which James is talking about) with the living death of those who habitually yield to sin and all its futile enticements. Such life begins in the present and is fully consummated in glory.

This is the life that we have always wanted to live, but couldn’t because of sin. You and I have never known a day without sin. Since conception, we were indwelt with a sin nature inherited from Adam. But this crown of eternal life from Jesus will be the commencement of life as it was meant to be. James says we stake our claim in this crown of life by enduring temptation.

To the second part of the question: Why should you want this crown more than the pleasures of sin?—we would answer, because the crown is symbolic of something vastly more pleasant and enjoyable than any earthly pleasure, especially sin. Now that’s a bold claim, because the one thing we know empirically on earth is that sin can be very pleasant. If sin wasn’t inviting and alluring to us, we wouldn’t have a problem resisting it. But Scripture holds out the promise of something greater, more pleasing, and more satisfying than sin.

God says, wait for the best. Hold out for the promises of God for those who put their trust in Him. He will withhold no good thing from those who ask. The problem is this: many Christians never hear about the future compensations of God; they don’t hear about the crown of life. They don’t hear about the rewards for those who faithfully resist sin. So they yield to their hunger and they grab at the first available substitute and with every miserable bite, they die. This is why Christians need to be in God’s word every day. We need to become more convinced of the promises of God than we are of the pleasures of sin.

George Muller was right when he said, “We never give anything up for God; we only postpone an instant temporal pleasure for a delayed eternal and vastly greater pleasure in the presence of God.” This means you cannot lose if you serve God. Even if you give Him everything you have, you couldn’t out-give God. We can never out-give God!

James says, “Blessed are the tempted”. Your faith is an enduring, an approved, and a rewarding faith when you resist the immediate lure of sin to embrace the eternal reward of God.

Let’s pray.

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(c) Charles Kevin Grant

2005