A Faith that Endures Well in Temptation

So I'm excited to be back in James tonight we are Learning that the book of James has been called a manual for Christian living And we want you to be in your manual We are actually in the wisdom literature of the Bible. We are in James and Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes is a little bit longer of a book than James So you are actually blessed To be able to read James several times throughout the summer So we are very very excited for this and we pray that the Lord will be doing something special in us so what I want to do is I want to open up God's Word to James and chapter 1 and we will just read verses 13 and Through through 15 and I will make reference actually to the entire Chapter from 13 all the way through 27, but we will read messages.

We will read verses as we get to them So let's read God's Word Let no one say James 1 verse 13 Let no one say when he is tempted that I am being tempted by God For God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one 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 Verse 16 do not be deceived my beloved brothers every good and perfect gift is From above coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow Due to change Let me pray for us and then we will get started Father we love you.

We thank you for your good and faithfulness to us Great is your faithfulness as we just saying there is no shadow of turning in you our Lord We want to thank you for The manual of Christian living the wisdom of your word and God it is up to you to Form this work of faith in us You perfect what you complete? Lord it is us to read the manual to believe the manual to put the manual into practice in our life We pray for a working faith We pray for a faith that could endure well Would you bless us in this in your name we pray amen Last week we began our series.

We trust you're taking notes a series title a faith that works well We saw last week that a faith that works well has to endure well Specifically we looked at enduring Trials and if this is your first time with us in this series if you missed last week's I wanted to go ahead and give you a chance to get caught up. So we're gonna recap I want to take you through some things I covered last Week if you are going to have a faith that works If you're gonna endure trial well You're gonna have to trust the heart of God If you're not in a trial you're either just leaving one or you're going into another one And we have a tendency as Christians to grumble and to complain and we're gonna look at the root cause for some of that grumbling and complaining, but if You were going to endure well.

You're gonna have to trust the loving heart of God and I'll say Tonight if I will give you this recap and just a new outline Six requirements of enduring well, so if you weren't here last week this requires six things first We trust the loving heart of God I covered Lamentations 333 This is a great promise Lamentations 333 says this He does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of man Do you know when you're going through a trial God is not afflicting you from his heart?

Now I don't know about you, but that's encouraging to me you go through it's something difficult whether it's a family crisis or when you're going through Occupational struggle something that maybe it's a conflict at someone at work Where you're not sure? If God's ever going to bring you that good job that you love Do you know that God is bringing you through this season and He's not afflicting you from his heart.

I don't know about you, but it took me a long time to realize that only what is absolutely necessary is coming into your life and your perspective is First base where we have to cover and I think this is why James begins To a people who are scattered from their hometown. They're scattered from their nation in some cases they're dispersed throughout all of the known world and the first thing he writes to them is Considerate pure joy. This is a commandment not from James the Lord's half-brother. It's a commandment from God We have to trust that God is not a malicious bully Trying to take that which is precious from you.

He is not trying to take that which is of comfort that even which is refreshing from you If we're going to endure well We must pray in faith This comes from James chapter 1 verse 5 and we covered this Last week, but I felt we were a little rushed and going through the background and just thought this was a good place to pick up You know, you're gonna have to pray well to endure well. This requires faith. I Came across this my morning devotion with Charles Spurgeon.

He says this Remember how cold your prayers can be Remember how infrequent your prayers can be in Spied of the fact that you have stopped praying as you once did Even though you have neglected the mercy seat God has not vacated it. I covered Exodus we studied the mercy seat was actually the cover of the Ark. It was pure gold The Ark itself was built out of acacia wood But it was covered with gold the mercy seat itself was gold-plated we had angelic figures or cherubim facing each other And it was said that in the Old Testament behind the curtain the Holy of Holies God's Spirit dwelt there It was representative of heaven.

Do you know God has not left the mercy seat Jesus is our high priest He is there when we pray in faith And if your prayer life becomes cold and you neglect going to the mercy seat If you have neglected the mercy seat God has not vacated it we think sometimes When we're in the midst of the trial, hey God, where are you? He's not left It might be us who have diverted our attention off of the narrow way Perhaps our eyes are fixed on The vanity of vanities that we see in the world but God in His greatness remains and we are going to have to pray in faith. We're gonna endure well.

We have to pray well We clarify this in verse 6 to endure well we must pray without doubting And that might sign sound a bit redundant to pray in faith and to pray without doubting But I directed you to brother Chris's series and I wanted to quote our pastor There are characteristics of a doubter He goes through this in great detail in the James series on our website But I wanted to run this by you very quickly.

The doubter is immature The doubter is bankrupt because he receives nothing The doubter is double-minded The doubter is unstable The doubter the doubter is prayerless and The doubter is faithless See we can fall into grumbling We can fall into complaining. I Told you last week that I can find myself in trial over many years.

I Actually can confess this to the Lord and share this with brother Chris I felt that I had gotten into a rut in my prayer life of just complaining bringing my Problems to the Lord as if he wasn't walking with me through them I Was complaining to God and listing the laundry list of things that I didn't like about Facets of my life as if the Lord Was not carrying me through that as if the Lord had not Even designed the trial for my Perfection That's the purpose of a trial right that you would be perfect and complete lacking nothing The phrase that you might be perfect is repeated in James upwards of 25 times He's not talking about so that you would be sinless the perfection he's talking about is That you would be complete that your faith would not lack something that you would have a mature faith If we're going to endure well We must grow in humility verses 9 through 11 of James 1 and I will quote this let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation and the rich in his humiliation Because like a flower of the grass he will pass away You know pride stunts your growth spiritually When you believe that you're entitled that's actually the source of the complaining and grumbling in our life We believe that we are entitled to something better than what the Lord has allowed us to go through specifically in relationships to our kids Don't we demand that our kids respect us?

Yes Don't we deserve our kids to respect us? Yes But when we think that we are entitled to a more obedient child than we actually have We could get arrogant. I don't deserve this. I didn't raise you that way. I don't deserve to be treated this way The entitlements that we find in our own hearts come out of pride and it stunts our growth We must be careful that we not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to James was the half-brother of Jesus. He does not introduce himself in this book as James The half-brother of Jesus the Messiah He says James a slave as we covered last week.

We will never endure trial well If we don't grow in humility if we don't have the attitude of a due-loss slave We must even learn to boast in our trial Paul even says this that he boasted in his chains in the Pauline prison epistles he talks about learning contentment and boasting in his trial If we're going to endure well we must keep a heavenly Mindedness Heavenly mindedness in James 1 verse 12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial For when he has stood the test He will receive the crown of life Scripture tells us that the Lord has a crown in store for all who long for his return if you if you long for Jesus if you long for the sweetness of fellowship with the Lord in heaven a crown awaits you You endure trial by keeping your eyes fixed on heaven Right we lift our eyes To the hill from whence our help comes from and that mountain is that of the Lord's? throne We will never endure well without a heavenly mindset And we will never endure well unless we hold a hopeful love of Jesus James 1 verse 12 God has promised to those who love him we look forward to the crown That he has promised those who love him Well I'd like to transition now from trials to enduring I Like how brother Chris emphasizes a title sometimes He will even change the title So after he preaches the whole message he'll put a new tile high title And I don't quite have that gift But I would say if I was going to change the title at this point in the message I would change it to a victorious faith a victorious faith Because in verse 14 verse 13 excuse me James transitions from trials to temptations And this is where our message begins tonight enduring well temptation Let me read verse 13 again.

Let no one say when he is tempted I am being tempted by God for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself temps no one So if we're going to understand the difference between trials and temptations Because there is a pretty quick transition from trials in verse Verses 1 to 12 to temptations in verse 13 when does a trial become a temptation?

When Job lost all ten of his children When he lost all of his fields all of his vineyards all of his camels All of his oxen all of his cattle When his house was burned down killing his children when marauders when Bandits took everything he had all of his wealth At what point do we say that's a trial and another point do we say that's a temptation Scripture commands us in verse 13 never to say God is tempting us What about Adam God took the tree the knowledge of good and evil implanted it right in the center He showed Adam he showed Eve this tree told him not to eat of the fruit at what point does a Challenge a trial become a temptation.

It's actually what we're going to look at tonight So when talking about trials, we actually talk about temptations as well trials and temptations are two sides of one coin and The line at which something becomes a temptation for you might be different at which a difficult Circumstance is a temptation for me and we're going to look at why that's the case I Want I want us to see temptations plan verse 14 through 16 Temptations plan But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by what his own desire Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed By his own desire.

I want you to see that trials are from above God sends you challenging circumstances For your good always God can never intention and plan something for your evil God cannot even fathom that you would sin does he know that you're going to sin. Yes Is that the purpose at which he has brought the trial in your life? Absolutely. No Never and to accuse him of that is the greatest of evil Verse 14 tells us Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Can we hear Adam saying? To the Lord but the woman you gave me gave me the fruit to eat Isn't it our first?

Temptation to say God the woman you gave me So God brings illness in your life or God brings unemployment in your life or God brings hardship even relational difficulties in your family and we say Lord these kids you gave me are acting a fool in my house I Raised my voice and I lost it and I was ungodly in anger because of these children you gave me each Person is tempted When he is lured and enticed by what? His own desires It's kind of in my Holy Ghost imagination. I want to hear the Lord respond to Adam the way I would be tempted to respond to Adam. Excuse me Hold up Hold up Listen who told you that when you ate the fruit?

You would die Was that was that the wife I gave you which you said whoa man, right? That was That was Adam's literal response when he met her the first time. I Will call her woman. It was whoa man. He was amazed and now all of a sudden He's disobeyed and he has turned the blame not just to his wife But to the Lord this woman you gave me Lord I know I lost my temper with my kids But these children you gave me aren't respecting me the way I deserve Each person is tempted when he or she is lured by what his own desires Want you to see that trials are from above Temptations are from within Temptations are from within But what about this?

What about the devil made me do it? The devil made me do it Lord I Like how KP you Hanan said it years ago we give Satan far too much credit Jeff Noblet also has said something similar. He said, you know, our fallen nature is Sufficient our human depravity is enough If Satan never walked up to Eve She had no sin nature But she very well could have exercised her will and in time could have chosen to disobey the Lord we in our fallen nature are Sinful enough We are in Adam.

We are sinful enough without Satan's help Now we have the world we have the flesh and we have the devil and all three of those work against us constantly Christian maturity is the process in which we are familiar with the process and We're understand we understand the temptations that maybe tripped us up when we were young Christians Temptations are from within So that's temptations plan.

I want you to see temptations purpose Let me read in verse 15 Then desire when it has conceived Gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death What we see here is a building Much like the building of faith God produces faith within us Do you know that the purpose of Temptation is inherently different than the purpose of trial God intentions difficulty hardship illness even weakness God intentions this for our good Satan has no positive End result for anything he wants in your life What did Joseph tell his brothers?

He said you intended this purpose For my ill God intended this for my good more specifically for the betterment of Israel God purposes difficulty and trial always for your blessing and for the blessing of the church The process of maturity means we learn to submit to the Lord in the moment we are in that trial I Like this from Matthew Henry afflictions are sent to draw out our graces Not our corruption This is the purpose What is temptations purpose? well temptations are purposed to bring out the worst in you and God can never want that God can never want you to reveal your sin.

God can't ever want you to sin You know the original language for temptation speaks to that of bait or a snare designed to catch prey The purpose is inherently evil God has no part of this Do you actually think when God put that tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden? Can could we even conceive of a creator? Holy loving God saying you know what these kids they're gonna disobey me and I'm gonna bring death to them and I will even have to Create a place called hell and I will get to punish them forever Can you imagine a loving God even conceiving of that? No God created?

Adam so that he would tend the garden so that he would see God's glory and God's goodness He walked with Adam in the cool of the day God created Adam for fellowship to see God's glories to see God's wonder and to accuse God of some evil motive Comes straight from the pit of hell It is actually the root of our grumbling and our complaining believing that the Lord would be a trickster Did God know Adam would sin yes This is the mystery that we grapple with Can God be Sovereign over sin without being the source of sin.

Yes God can even use someone's evil Perpetrated in your life That he would never plan that he would never design that he would never desire he can use What Satan intends for evil he uses it for good You will hear brother Chris and I say the cross was never God's plan be and At the same time we say God would never plan sin he would never desire sin for you he would never desire death for you and When you're in the midst of the trial, this is important because you can't ever let yourself For a second believe that God desires Anything other than your best? otherwise We would have to throw out limitations 3 33 That the Lord does not inflict man from the heart But this is what Satan baits us and tempts us and this is what he desires he wants you to think that the Lord is a Trickster that he is a hookster that he is somehow possessing evil motives trials Bring out the best in us temptations are purposed to bring out the worst in us Trials occur for our good Temptation for our harm, you know Satan can't ever plan something for your good He can't even desire something for your good That's the difference When we see that God is sovereign we think of Judas Judas Iscariot betrayed our Lord For 30 pieces of silver that was the going rate of a slave Was that planned before the foundations of the earth Yes, Judas is called the son of perdition listen to what Jesus says when he Addresses this Luke 17 1 And he said to his disciples Temptations to sin are sure to come But woe to the one through whom They come Can God be sovereign over Judas's Sin yes, is he the source of that sin?

No James tell it tells us that it was Judas is Judas Iscariot's own sinful wicked desires that changed trial into temptation Temptations purpose Sin entices The Greek is something Akin to being wheeled or being beguiled by enticements and allurements The Lord would never stoop to using allurements tricks or bait This drawing away isn't accidental it's purposeful. It's cunning It's deceitful. It uses flattery.

It is the work of a deceiver God is immutable God cannot change We change Let's see temptation and preservation Temptation and preservation verse 16 do not be deceived my beloved brothers Every good Gift and every perfect gift is from above. This is a warning don't take the bait God is not tempting you you will be tempted in your trial to forsake joy You will be tempted in your trial to forsake your prayer closet.

You will be tempted to forsake the mercy seat You will be tempted To quit Thanksgiving To being grateful for everything that God's done you will be tempted to forsake praise simply giving praise for him in His awesomeness in his splendor in his glory to get your eyes off of his greatness and on to your circumstances If I could tell you how many times I felt like Peter Getting so zealous to obey God jumping out of that boat Even boastful nobody else jumping out this boat Lord I'm coming to you.

I'm jumping out on this boat and the next thing I'm seeing my circumstances I'm seeing waves of trial I'm seeing the storm of Difficulty in my life and as soon as my eyes drop down, and I'm no longer fixed on Jesus I'm tempted and I sink real quick, but praise the Lord That we serve a God of preservation We believe in the preservation of the saints that the Lord is preserving us the Lord preserves our faith But we are commanded not to be deceived Do you know God preserves our faith into Christian maturity we call this progressive sanctification Victorious faith knows four things for certain Victorious faith knows four things For certain number one it knows God It knows God's motivation would never be to be a trickster God's motivation is to make you perfect You're in this trial because there is something in your life that is incomplete God brings a necessary circumstance into your life to build something into you that is not there What is the purpose that you would be perfect and complete not lacking anything you lack something?

Pride would tell you something different, but you lack something and God is bringing a trial so that you would be more perfect more Christ like more glorifying to him And it is only for your good It is the heart of a loving God that we learned about last week, and we can't ever leave this Victorious faith that would endure well must know God Secondly victorious faith knows God's motive is pure I Know God's not tempting me because he is not ever Tempted now what does that mean for years? I've read this verse Stored it sort of hit the brakes God cannot be tempted. What does that mean?

You know that God would never Tempt you to evil because he is not corruptible He is in corruptible there is no propensity within God to sin Scripture says that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert he was led into the desert after 40 days and Scripture says that he was led there to be tempted did God tempt Jesus no because God cannot be tempted nor does he tempt He was led there for a trial And we know that Jesus had fleshly desires. He was hungry He was thirsty and there was a part of him that would even desire all the kingdoms of the world Why else would Satan throw that at him?

Meaning he was human just as we are Now he was not Any less God in the moment that he was tempted But he fulfilled that to say that the scripture verse is true He was tempted in every way as we are yet without sin Victorious faith knows God victorious faith knows God's motives are pure and Victorious faith knows himself If we can look back at verse 14 each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires You can't ever forget your failures No, God forgives them and he cast them as far as the east is from the west But we can't ever forget what the Lord saved us from amen We can't ever forget How even after we came to know the Lord?

How we tripped up? How we stumbled we can't ever get away from that we have to know Where our weaknesses are if you're a person who struggles in the area of interpersonal Relations perhaps you struggle some with the fear of man. You know you care what people think about you Perhaps you you really crave the approval of others well, you know this is Going to be bait that Satan dangles in front of you from time to time Because you're gonna have to love truth at some point and you're going to have to speak truth at the expense of the opinions of others When you see your weaknesses your difficulties your struggles Rest assured that the bait will probably Be hanging there at some time in the future.

You know that the Lord is not dangling that bait it's your sinful desires that become temptations and victorious faith knows his sin Each man is tempted when he is lured in a tice by his own desire. I Want you to see this in verse 14 then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown Gives birth or brings forth death in verse the end of verse 15 You know sin draws sin lures sin captures sin conceives and sin kills That's right out of the scriptures. I'll say it again.

I Also got this from Matthew Henry, but it's right out of the scripture sin draws Sin lures sin captures Then sin conceives and sin kills Barclay says that every man is a walking civil war that every person Has a conflict within us You know the Hebrews refer to this battle And Barclay again says two words in Hebrew reference this yester-hatab which is they refer to as the good tendency and yester-hara the evil tendency We know that Jesus would come and say and and Old Testament prophets would say There is nothing good in me and no one is good.

No, not one but the yester Her has stopped and the yester-hara Speak to the best of ourselves and the worst of ourselves and we feel them conflicting all the time We must know that this conception brings forth death It is our first tendency to blame others for our sin as we see in Adam and here in James 14 We're even tempted to say that God is behind all of this Finally tonight Temptation and production well, I want to Draw your attention to verses 17 to 27 and I want to encourage you to spend the latter part of the week Camped out in these verses. I Want to give you some things for you to go look at?

If we're going to see godly character Produced in our lives We need to open up the manual James chapter 1 verses 17 to 27 We need to spend some time here And when you see in verse 15 where Desire is conceived. It gives birth to sin and sin brings forth death. I Got the image of a building Do you know I in terms of production?

I think of God building faith You are the household of faith Maturity is like production God is producing this building and if Christian maturity is a work of production Then temptation is a work of destruction You know Satan could have never built the earth He could have never designed the Garden of Eden All he does is try to corrupt the perfect gift that God's already built and If we look at grace like Brookhaven the Lord is building a household of faith Ecla sia called out once people who've been called out of the world the Lord is knitting us together He's building us and Satan is not going to produce that he's going to try to come He can't do a work of production.

He will try to do a work of Destruction he'll sow seeds of division It happened here James talks quite a lot throughout the book about Those who are rich as opposed to those who are poor there was favoritism in this church Now the letter was a circular letter. It was sent to churches all throughout the known world But he knew we are people What are things that divide us wealth and? poverty Haves and have nots He knew human nature and he knew that these struggles were actually going on in real time We covered this last week.

They had persecution from without and they had division from within and He talked so much about Kindness he's actually kindness to the poor Some refer to this as the Amos of the New Testament But if we look at production versus destruction I Want you to see a few things and I'm giving you these and then we'll close God produces good gifts in us verse 17 The word produces good gifts in us 17 be Christian maturity is The fruit of the word working in us verse 17 be And specifically what does the what does the word produce in a local church? and So we see the work of production and the work of destruction righteousness in verse 20 verses anger God produces righteousness, but the anger of sinful man produces destruction In verse 21 At Grace Life Brookhaven are we gonna see meekness?

Or are we gonna see filthiness? That's what we see in verse 21 Are we gonna see righteousness and meekness or anger and filthiness? Are we gonna see obeying the word in verse 22? Are we gonna see hearing only? Are we gonna see pure religion? The work of faith production or we're gonna see empty religion in verse 27 So as you study James this week, I want to challenge you to look at production versus destruction production of spiritual maturity and growth in the body of Christ in a local believers local church or That which Satan is attempting to tear down verses 1 through 12 we see How we respond in trial In verse 13 through 27 we see this work of production and destruction Satan wants to come and destroy the beautiful work of glory Look what Satan did to Adam and Eve Look what he is doing in our midst if you just turn on the news We see destruction We see destruction and violence We see wars rumors of wars We see unrest And we see evil running rampant God is not tempted He is incorruptible and He is not dangling Good things in front of you Saying look what I'm giving everyone else and look what I'm not giving you he only allows that which is essential and necessary for your Production and spiritual maturity.

He is producing and building a household of faith and you are a vital piece of it And when you take your eyes off of Jesus in the midst of a trial and you start to sink its prayerlessness its pride its grumbling and complaining If we're honest we would say this has happened in my life and I've Gritted my teeth and said why God as If I deserved anything different He could have thrown me in hell and been perfectly right for it He was totally just but in his mercy. He called me out of the world He gave me his son in salvation. He gave me his spirit. He gave me gifts.

He gave me spiritual life he's given me a Wonderful church body and I'm talking about even my wonderful family and the blessings of you know, I got it I got two great jobs I have home. I love I have a beautiful wife. I have beautiful kids and God would never Afflict me from the heart and he would never afflict you from the heart But yet why in our flesh do we we find ourselves? clenching our teeth gnashing our teeth at him bawling our fist at him and saying why me God this is unfair we cry foul like a referee in a football match We want to take out the yellow flag and throw it and say God right there foul look what they did to me When God is giving us an opportunity for growth Instead of taking out our yellow flag and throwing it where we Were injured or we were? sinned against What if we asked God what am I lacking?

How am I incomplete Or you're trying to make me perfect not sinless but mature and complete Not lacking anything and that is a beautiful motive Just like you would want the best for your kids and you see something that needs to be changed in them and you're addressing it Very patiently very lovingly how much more patient is the Lord I?

Want to pray for the fellowship at Grace Lightbrook haven And I want to pray that we would be a very meek people That we would be humble in trial that we would be gracious to others when they sin against us and Especially how we treat one another here that there would be no division If someone will come up to you and say well did you hear what so-and-so in you know in the church said we would say Well, let's go talk to them about it Let's go pray with them about it that we would be really really quick to stamp out the vision