436: Dealing with Temptation and Desire | Dave Sloop

Introduction

Last week, we looked at James chapter one, and today we pick up in verse 13. But I want to tell you what James was writing last week. We learned some things. We learned, number one, that God is sovereign even in our suffering. We know that God is sovereign, and He's good. And we also know that bad things happen. So when bad things happen, we can know that in some sense they have passed through the hands of a God who is kind and gracious and good.

By the way, I just want to say that the fact that God is sovereign over our suffering does not mean that He delights in our suffering. He's not sadistic. It grieves Him when we suffer. In fact, some of you may be in the midst of suffering, and it might even be that you are suffering because of someone else's sin. And God never desires that anybody sin.

And so how do we square those two realities? This is a tricky and sensitive subject. Maybe God would give you grace to say along with Joseph, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. That somehow, in God's sovereignty, man's evil intention, sometimes, He has good plans for it. We would apply that same logic to the cross of Jesus Christ, who did not primarily die just because of a corrupt political system, but because God sovereignly ordained His sacrifice so that we might be brought to life.

This is tricky. But often, we struggle. There's brokenness. There's pain because we live in a broken world. And in these moments when we are experiencing pain, every single one of us has the opportunity to remember that we have a God who is good and loving even though I am suffering and in pain. And James is teaching us how to suffer well. He says, you can even get to the point where you count it all joy because three things are true.

First, our suffering is not wasted. It produces something. James is going to tell us that what our suffering produces is a person and a character that is perfect. And I don't mean perfect in the sense that we are sinless, morally perfect, but perfect in the sense that we are complete. He says complete, lacking nothing, which is what we all want. We all want to be someone who doesn't need anything else because it means we are fully satisfied.

And James teaches us that our suffering can purchase for us something that a million dollars cannot—wholeness, completeness. God is doing something to us in the midst of the furnace of suffering.

Secondly, we learn that suffering, one of the benefits of suffering, is it drives us into the presence of God. He says, if any of you lacks, ask God who gives generously to all. You're invited to come boldly to the throne of His grace in the midst of your pain and suffering because He sees you, and He's sovereign, and He can meet you right in the middle of your pain just like He met Mary outside the tomb of Lazarus, and He wept with her.

A sovereign God who could have stopped Lazarus' death. Somehow, it is not inconsistent in His mind to meet her in the middle of her pain. God will meet you there. You have access to Him.

And third, our suffering reminds us of something. It reminds us that we are in the world, and in this world, we will have trouble, but we are not of this world. We are passing through. That our suffering reminds us that we're made for a world we're heading to, where there will be no pain, tears, death, disease, or dying—where every sad thing will come untrue. We'll be face to face with the one who made us, in whose presence there is fullness of joy.

So James says, yeah. This is not some trite thing that we Christians throw out there. It's the truth. You can count it joy no matter what suffering you are enduring, and you can know that He's good.

Dealing with Temptation

Now, in verse 13, James is going to tell us there is not a guarantee that this will be the outcome of our trials. He's going to tell us that trials can actually lead to something else if we're not careful. Let's look at verse 13 to see what he says:

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.

James teaches us today that God does have a desire and a goal for your suffering, for your trials, but something else might happen in the midst of them. It is possible for a trial to turn into a temptation.

Let me ask you as a question: Is it possible for my suffering to lead to sin? If I'm struggling financially, is it possible for me to be tempted to cheat on my taxes to save some money? If I am lonely and desperate for God to give me a spouse, is it possible to be tempted to take a shortcut to gratify a deep desire for sexual fulfillment outside of God's proper and ordained means? Is it possible?

You see, trials can lead to temptation, and suffering can lead to sin. James is going to tell us that it's not a guarantee that we're going to suffer well. It is possible to not suffer well.

What is the difference between a trial and a temptation? The interesting thing in the Greek is that they are the same word. It’s a Greek word that depending on the context, can mean either trial or temptation. It’s a homonym.

We have these in English too. For example, if I were to tell you, I killed the bat with my bat, it's the same word. It’s spelled exactly the same, but you understand the first bat means the animal, and the second bat means the object. Or if I say, I park at the park, you understand. It’s the same word. It’s spelled the same, but they have different meanings depending on the context.

James will tell you that your situation can become one of two things: either a good trial from God or a temptation not from God.

Let's define these quickly: A trial is a circumstance that makes life more difficult or painful. We've all had those.

A temptation, on the other hand, is an impulse to believe the lie that someone or something can satisfy a need or desire better than God can.

James makes it clear that God will deal with one of these, but not the other.

He says, don't say when you're experiencing temptation, God is tempting me, because God cannot be tempted by evil. He's untemptible.

You know what it means to be untemptible? I dare you to try to tempt me with beets. I am untemptible when it comes to beets. I have no taste for them. I don't have to exercise self-discipline to resist them because I think they're gross.

This is the idea James is explaining: God is untemptible, and therefore, He doesn't tempt anyone with evil.

Here is the tension James is dealing with: if God is sovereign over my suffering, does it follow then that He is responsible for my sinful choices?

If Paul were writing this, he might say, what shall we say then? If God is sovereign over my suffering, is He responsible for my sin?

The answer: by no means. That is precisely what James says here. God is sovereign. He is in control, but He is not responsible for our sinful choices.

In verses 14 and 15, he first explains the origin of sin, then the inevitable outcome.

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

Where does sin come from? From my own desire. God might allow a trial, He might put Adam and Eve in a garden with a tree, but it does not follow that it's God's fault that Eve saw the tree, and saw that it was pleasing to the eye and good for fruit and gaining wisdom.

The tree, the trial, God allowed it. He put it there. But the temptation came from inside Eve. And that is the truth about sin in your life and mine.

Jesus said in Matthew 7:

It is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean. It's what comes out of a man. For every kind of evil comes out of the heart.

That's where sin originates. Not with God, but in us. Paul says it this way: I find this law at work when I want to do good. Evil is right there with me. Or Jeremiah 17:9:

The heart is deceitful above all things.

What does that mean? It means your heart lies to you. You ever give someone the advice, follow your heart? Bad advice. Can I tell you another way? You lie to yourself. That's what sin is—it's where sin originates.

James wants us to understand that this is the root. That's where it starts. And so, don't say, God is tempting me, that He created this circumstance that caused me to sin. No. It's in you, in me.

But secondly, notice the outcome of sin:

Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

Do you hear that language? Do you catch a sense of the picture he's painting? Notice that sin there—that there's a progression to sin. It's gradual, sequential, and inevitable. He says desire conceives and gives birth to sin.

Desire itself is not sin. In your anger, do not sin. Desire doesn't have to turn into sin. It turns into sin when something is conceived. It goes from desire to dreaming, to devising, to planning—thinking, how can I, through some other means than God, get that desire satisfied or that need met?

And once desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. Sin grows, and when it's fully grown, it gives birth to death.

It's evocative irony that James uses here—to give birth to death. It’s upside down and backwards. You're not supposed to give birth to something that isn’t alive with a beating heart.

When there is conception, necessarily, there is anticipation. For example, when you find out you're pregnant, there's anticipation of joy. But I want to share a personal story.

My niece Anna would have been 20 next month. I remember when my little sister called to tell me that the heart had stopped beating at eight and a half months. I shared this story because I know for some of you, this is more tender than it is for me because you've walked these shoes.

I was just the brother. I got in the car and drove to Lexington, and we waited outside the hospital for what was supposed to be a joyous celebration of life. Kristen, you'll remember this. A nurse came up assuming we were all there, huge smile, and she asked if it was a boy or a girl. We didn't know what to say. My mom finally spoke, and she said, it's a girl, but we lost her.

This verse took on a different meaning because it's like birth is supposed to bring life, but my baby sister gave birth to a beautiful child whose heart wasn't beating. That’s not how it’s supposed to be.

This is a powerful illustration of what sin is and what it does. It promises something but doesn’t deliver. It promises you something but instead gives you the opposite—pain, disappointment, heartbreak, death.

And the crazy thing is, it’s inevitable. It always happens every time you reach for it. The direction of sin is always death. Every time.

James then says, after that, in verse 16:

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.

In other words, don’t take the bait.

There is a way to stop this ruthless cycle in your life. I wonder, for how many of us, are you all too familiar with this cycle of desire turning into dreaming, turning into doing, which gives birth to death? Why do we keep doing this?

James says, don’t be deceived. You know that trying to satisfy this desire with lust and pornography isn’t going to lead to joy. Many of us here know where that leads every single time, and yet, we reach. Fill in your particular sin.

But the cycle remains the same.

That is the origin of sin and the outcome of sin: deception. Deception is when you believe the lie that this time, this will fulfill me. No, it won't.

And do you know we can stop this cycle? Here's how: You stop the cycle. If you begin the cycle with lying to yourself, you break the cycle by telling yourself the truth. That’s what not being deceived means. It’s seeing your sin for what it is, and seeing yourself for what you are.

When people come to me with a struggle or addiction, I often share Romans 6:11, which I mentioned last week too:

Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Anytime you're tempted, at the moment of desire—that's where you have to catch sin if you want to kill it. Because once it’s conceived, the process has started and will end in sin, which leads to death.

You catch it at desire. You strangle it by telling yourself the truth.

Some of us might think, really? Does that work? Just tell yourself the truth? Yes.

But it’s not just some mind-over-matter trick. It works because if you're in Christ, you are a new creation. You have a new nature, a new heart. It’s natural for you to love God.

And when you tell yourself the truth, it transforms you.

Don't be deceived, but also don't be deceived by who you think God is.

And that’s what the next verse is about. James says, don’t be deceived. Pay attention to what I just said, but also don’t be deceived about who God is.

He says:

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.

James tells us something about God—about His nature and His desires.

He means that sometimes we receive gifts in life that are obviously good, like our children. Other times, we receive what I would call perfecting gifts—hard things. They’re still good because they come from Him. And everything that happens to me is for my good and for His glory if I trust Him in the fire of trials.

He says, every good and every perfect gift comes from God, who is the father of lights. He does not change like the shifting shadows.

Let me tell you what I think James means here: He's the father of the heavenly lights—the sun, moon, stars. They are the most constant thing in creation. The same constellations are still there after thousands of years because they are fixed.

But what does move? The Earth. Even though those heavenly lights are constant, they cast shadows.

And what James is saying is that God is more constant than the most constant thing in creation. He does not change. He never changes.

The Origin of Our Salvation

Finally, verse 18 says:

Of His own will, He brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures.

I want to point out a connection here—something I’ve never seen before until this week, studying this passage.

Look at verse 14 and 15. When James talks about desires conceiving and giving birth, it correlates with his statement that He brought us forth.

Desires, which lead to sin and death, are contrasted with God's desire—His will—to bring us forth.

What does this mean? It means that the origin of your salvation is God's desire. Just as sin is rooted in your own desire, salvation is rooted in God's desire. It’s all His work—His grace, His initiative.

This is what grace is: we don’t contribute; we don’t cooperate; it’s His work from start to finish.

As we were praying earlier, Brian read a psalm:

Salvation belongs to our God.

It’s His work. It's not ours.

Ephesians 2:4-5 says:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

The agent of new birth is the gospel—the word of truth, the Logos. The same word that in the beginning was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

What is the gospel? It is the Son of God nailed to a cross for us.

And here’s what James is doing: your desire, which conceives and gives birth to sin and death, is contrasted with God's desire—His will—to put His Son to death to give birth to you.

The best way to kill your sin? Fix your gaze upon the One who killed His Son to save you.

Thomas Chalmers in the 1600s preached a sermon called "The Expulsive Power of a New Affection." His point was that the best way to stop sinning is to love something more than your sin.

We need to put forth effort, cooperate with the new nature, love Christ more. And when you love Christ enough, it changes you from the inside out.

The deep desire and hope that I pray for you even now is that this transformation is happening in your heart.

Conclusion

Would you pray with me?

Father, we thank You for the reality of Your good news, Your gospel. It changes us. The origin of my sin is in my heart, but the origin of my salvation is in Yours. Thank You for bringing me to life.

If you're here today and you're carrying something you need to bring before You, we have people in the back who would love to pray with you. If you want some time alone at the rails to deal with God, they are open to you.

But for the rest of us, let's stand and worship the King.