All right, good morning, CFC.
We'll be in the book of James, chapter 5, starting in verse 13.
!
So James writes,
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.
Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin.
And sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.
In seventh grade, I remember getting caught cheating on a homework assignment for a science class.
I don't even remember what science we were studying.
It shows you how much I cared about that class.
But we had an assignment where we had to go home and read this chapter
and look for sentences on the page that were on our sheet, you know, and fill in the blank.
Just to prove we had read it.
And I kind of thought, it's kind of a waste of time, you know.
And so I didn't feel like doing it.
And so I thought, you know, in all my seventh grade wisdom, I thought,
Well, I'll just copy my friend Alexander tomorrow.
He's a smart kid.
You know, he's in the orchestra.
Like, he's going places.
I'll just copy him.
He'll have it, because he's a book winner.
And so that's exactly what I did.
And the parapro caught me, and she didn't really like me.
And I was kind of a brat.
This is before I was a believer, by the way.
But Mr. Brown, the actual teacher, he did like me.
I'm not sure why, but he did.
And I knew I could talk my way out of it with him.
So when she caught me, she brought me up, you know, showed my homework assignment, all this kind of stuff.
And I just said, Well, you know, Mr. Brown, you assigned this thing, okay?
You told me to copy from the book.
I see no difference copying from my friend.
What's the issue here?
I had to read the sentences.
They're right here.
And he laughed, looked at the parapro, and said, Well, you know, he's got a point.
And it counted.
So that's how I'm here today.
Past seventh grade.
But, yeah, I essentially turned it on him, though.
I'm giving you the short version.
But when I really was kind of arguing with him, which is more playful, I basically turned it on him.
I said, You know, this is really your fault for giving me such a dumb assignment.
I didn't use that word at the time.
But, you know, I just thought, This is so ridiculous.
This is really your fault.
If you really wanted me to learn something here, do something right, or do something profitable,
you should have assigned a different type of homework.
And so I essentially blamed him for what I had done.
Right?
And I turned it on him.
And obviously, you all know the reality.
What I did that day was wrong.
My actions, my desires, my decisions were deceitful.
They were sinful in that moment.
But it's really telling, though.
I mean, this has been, to put it in the more abstract statement, right,
this has been the pattern of man forever.
We always shift blame throughout all of history.
The rebel left to himself never admits responsibility for rebelling.
And this is as old as the Garden of Eden.
When Adam is approached for his sin, he does not admit his wrongdoing to God.
Rather, he shifts the blame.
But not to Eve.
Specifically, he says in Genesis 3, chapter 3, verse 12,
he says,
The woman whom you gave me, God,
the woman whom you gave to be with me,
is the reason I sinned.
So he's saying, God, this broken vessel that you created did this evil.
With the subtle implication being,
God, you are responsible for what I did.
If you didn't want me to do this,
you shouldn't have given me this woman who made me do these things.
And everything that led to me committing this sin is external to me.
It's all you, not me.
Adam, essentially in that moment, was saying,
God does tempt, and he tempted me.
And of course, that is a blasphemous lie,
but a blasphemous lie that Adam believed nonetheless,
and a lie that all of us prior to Christ believed.
And this pattern didn't stop with Adam and Eve.
It continued all throughout the Bible and all throughout history.
Job chapter 2, verse 9,
Job's wife was ready to curse God and die
as she exhorted her husband to do likewise.
In Ezekiel chapter 18, verses 25 through 26,
the Lord rebukes the whole nation of Israel in the midst of her sin.
And he says of them,
Yet you, Israel, say,
So Israel says to God,
The way of the Lord is not just.
Hear you, Israelites.
God responds,
Hear you, Israelites.
Is my way unjust?
Is it not your ways that are unjust?
If a righteous person turns from their righteousness and commits sins,
they will die for it because of the sin they have committed,
they will die.
And this pattern of shifting blame has always been true of fallen man.
This is why James is addressing the issue in his epistle,
because it's still an issue at his time.
It's still an issue in our time.
And he was clearly concerned that his audience was susceptible to such sin
during a time in which they are being trialed,
which we've talked about in the weeks past.
And so to start this text, James, what does he do?
He starts with a strong affirmation of God's holiness,
that God is without blame.
And that's point number one for this morning.
God is holy.
Point number one, God is holy.
He says in verse 13,
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.
It's a firm affirmation.
Holiness means to be separated from sin
and totally, entirely committed to God.
And that is exactly who God is.
The one who is perfectly committed to himself
and without sin.
Totally separate.
There's no blurring.
There's no lines touching.
Totally, totally separate.
The phrase,
God cannot be tempted with evil,
literally translates from Greek as something like,
God is inexperienced with evil.
He doesn't even experience it.
He's never sinned.
He will not sin.
And he has not sinned.
It is against his nature.
Now recall that James is writing to dispersed Christian Jews
throughout the Greco-Roman world.
These believers were facing hardships,
persecution, and trials of various kinds.
It could be easy for them to face that temptation at such a time,
such a time to blame God.
Well, I'm feeling angry because of my circumstance,
which sovereign God brought on me.
How often do believers question God in the midst of crisis?
How often do we try to shift blame to God in our hearts
when we cannot believe the evil we so quickly run to?
And it seems that James is concerned
that his audience would be tempted to do such a thing.
And so he reminds them of God's holiness to avoid any such foolish thinking.
I think one of the great proofs of God's holiness
and our sinfulness is found in Isaiah chapter 6.
Go ahead and turn with me there.
We're going to be there for just a minute.
So keep your thumb in James.
But Isaiah chapter 6, starting in verse 1.
Isaiah writes, again, chapter 6, verse 1.
He writes,
In the year that King Uzziah died,
I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne,
high and lifted up.
And the train of his robe filled the temple.
Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings.
With two he covered his face,
and with two he covered his feet,
and with two he flew.
And one called to another and said,
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
The whole earth is full of his glory.
And the foundations of the threshold shook
at the voice of him who called,
and the house was filled with smoke.
And Isaiah said,
Woe is me, for I am lost,
for I am a man of unclean lips,
and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips,
for my eyes have seen the King,
the Lord of hosts.
So it's important to understand
when we're looking at this text
what a Hebrew thinks of
when he thinks about knowing something.
I'm talking about epistemology,
if you like big words.
How do you know what you know, right?
To know something was not merely
an abstract intellectual ascent for a Hebrew,
this kind of thing that you just have in the mind,
and now I know it.
Rather, it included the totality of the person
as an embodied creature.
To know something was to understand it
in the mind, in the heart,
in the eyes, and in the body.
This is why Moses often uses euphemisms
like Adam knew his wife Eve,
in the wholeness of his body,
in his person, in his mind,
in his heart.
This is why we are called to love the Lord,
our God,
with all of our heart, mind, soul,
and strength in Deuteronomy 6, 5.
Because we are to love him
in our totality,
or wholeness,
as Jane puts it in chapter 1, verse 4.
So we have Isaiah before the throne of God,
and Isaiah in verse 1 saw God.
Isaiah is beginning to know God as he is,
and this causes Isaiah to cry out,
Woe is me!
And this literally means,
Damn me to hell for all eternity.
And why would he say that?
Because that is the only response one can have
who encounters the Lord in his glory.
Isaiah didn't even see the Lord's face or feet,
only a glimpse,
and yet it was enough.
And the angels sing out,
Holy, holy, holy.
This is a grammatical function.
To write it in this way
takes it to the superlative degree,
meaning God is holy, holier, and holiest.
No one holier.
I can't help but say,
but anytime I hear that,
I hear that in Steve Lawson's voice.
Anybody else?
You know?
This takes it to the superlative degree.
Can't help it.
But by learning how holy God truly is,
Isaiah's only response could have been
to recognize that he himself is unholy.
That Isaiah deserves to be cut off from God,
who is clean and without sin.
Unlike Isaiah, who is dirty and filthy,
a filthy rag at best,
as he puts it later on in his book.
Isaiah did not say to himself,
I have been tempted by God.
He knew better than to say that.
And you can turn back to James with me.
So God is holy.
He is without sin,
totally separate from all evil and wickedness,
which is why it would be so foolish
for James' audience to say to themselves,
we are being tempted by God.
God cannot offer or entice
that which he has never experienced.
Now you all can imagine how James' audience
might have reasoned like Adam.
They might have said,
well, God is sovereign
and he has allowed these difficulties to surround us.
Therefore, he is behind the temptations I face.
He's the cause of it.
It is actually God's fault
that I'm thinking evil in this way.
And this would be wrong for them to do so,
as you have already seen.
But this raises the question,
where does temptation come from?
Who or what tempts us?
Is it Satan?
And this leads me to our second point,
point number two.
Man's nature is sinful.
Point number two.
Man's nature is sinful.
Looking back at verse 14 in James,
James writes,
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.
James seems to be saying
that we are the source of our own temptation.
We are tempted when we are lured
and enticed by our own desire.
What he's saying here
is that we are born with a sin nature.
And this is all throughout the Bible.
David put it this way.
He said in Psalm 51, verse 5,
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
The Apostle Paul said it this way
in Ephesians 2, 3.
He says that mankind is, quote,
by nature, children of wrath,
meaning our very nature is wicked and sinful.
God himself, who is all-knowing,
all-wise, and perfect judge
over the universe,
has said in Genesis 5, 6,
when he looked over the earth,
he said,
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man
was great in the earth
and that he only saw evil continually.
From beginning to end,
mankind is only evil continually.
But just sticking with James' wording to continue,
James says that we have these desires
as your ESV probably translates it
or other translations use that word as well.
The Greek word here is epithumies.
It is the same word that English translations
often translate as lust.
And typically when doing so,
it is because the translators identify the word
as specifically related to some sort of
sexual temptation or desire.
And this is often the case in Paul's writings.
However, it can be applied to anything.
And in its most basic sense,
it really just carries the idea of
a strong desire for anything,
whether that be food, drink, clothes,
or what have you.
In fact, in pre-Koine Greek,
which is the Greek of the Bible,
this word was used to describe
the sudden violence found in nature.
So a hurricane, a flash flood,
a volcano, earthquake,
these kind of things.
This violent, sudden urging,
this movement.
And furthermore, this word epithumies,
this word desires,
it can be understood as a strong,
violent urging that comes from within.
So it's not coming from without,
but from within, right?
Which is why it could be used to describe
an earthquake from within the earth, right?
A hurricane from within the earth
and the sky.
It is this powerful, quick,
seemingly dominating force
that has to be reckoned with.
It cannot be ignored.
So what is James saying?
He's saying that
when we have these sudden urges,
these strong desires,
and when we are enticed
and lured by them,
then at that moment,
we are being tempted.
And we are being tempted
because we are by nature sinners
who desire sin.
And sin occurs in verse 15
after we have gone through the process
of this enticement,
this desire,
and allow ourselves to be lured.
At this point,
we give birth to sin,
which we conceived
when we desired sin.
Just think about the implications
of this truth.
This means that
we are not murderers
the minute we have killed someone.
Rather,
we are murderers
the moment we are angry enough
to desire to murder someone.
We have already conceived murder.
Now murder is going to be born.
This means that
we are not adulterers
the minute we have slept with someone.
Rather,
we are adulterers
the minute we lust after someone.
We have already conceived adultery.
Now adultery is going to be born.
And this should all sound familiar.
It is what Jesus taught
in the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus said,
Matthew 5,
verse 21 through 22,
You have heard that it was said
to those of old,
You shall not murder,
and whoever murders
will be liable to judgment.
But I say to you
that everyone who is angry
with his brother
will be liable to judgment.
Jesus also said
in Matthew 5,
27 through 28,
You have heard that it was said
you shall not commit adultery.
But I say to you
that everyone who looks
at a woman with lustful intent
has already committed adultery
with her in his heart.
Now all of this means
that there is nobody
to point the finger at,
nobody to blame,
except ourselves.
Our greatest enemy,
our greatest opposition
in terms of temptation
is certainly not God,
but neither is it Satan,
the culture,
a political party,
or anyone or anything else.
It is us, ourselves.
We alone bear
the responsibility for our sins
and rightfully so.
Now this is horrifying news.
We are born as sinners.
We desire sin,
which means we cannot desire God
who is entirely separate from sin,
who is the entire opposite of sin.
And this news gets worse
because sin doesn't stop
at being born.
No, when sin is fully grown,
it produces something.
And this leads us
to the final point
for this morning,
point number three.
Sin results in death.
Point number three,
sin results in death.
I'm going to reread verse 14
through the end of our text.
James writes,
But each person is tempted
when he is lured
and enticed
by his own desire.
Then desire,
when it has conceived
its birth to sin,
and sin,
when it is fully grown,
brings forth death.
Now those terms,
lured and enticed,
were predominantly used
as fishing terms
in the Greco-Roman world.
In other words,
James is saying
that we, like fish,
will gladly bite the bait
and be carried off
by our own desires to death.
And that is a perfect picture
of this process.
We see something with our eyes.
We find it attractive in some way.
And then we go after it.
And to be honest,
there is a source of joy,
a source of pleasure
in that moment.
But it is just that
that,
a fleeting moment.
You can imagine
the fish enjoys
eating the worm so much
that the fish doesn't realize
it is hooked right away
until it is too late
and that fish is flailing about
as it dies a miserable death.
James is saying
that this is true of us.
We bite at what we see.
We are slaves to this.
And this is why
we will all die
apart from Christ.
Because our desires
lead only to death,
ruin,
and destruction.
This is what we see
in Genesis chapter 3,
verse 6,
when Eve first sins.
Now this text is
written in what's called
the grammatical
va construction
for Hebrews.
So all you need to remember
with me mentioning this
is that is a cue
to the reader
to read quickly.
Right?
It's a way of saying
read this passage fast.
Because that's how quickly
this passage occurred
in real time.
Right?
That's the idea here.
So reading Genesis 3,
6 quickly,
Moses writes,
So when the woman saw
that the tree was good
for food
and that it was a delight
to the eyes
and that the tree
was to be desired
to make one wise,
she took of its fruit
and ate
and she also gave some
to her husband
who was with her
and he ate.
Right?
Sin,
sin,
moving,
rationalist,
evil,
wicked.
And it happens quick
in a moment,
fleeting moment,
the pleasure of eating
the apple and dead.
just like that.
And we already know
that God's word
of warning
to Adam and Eve
came true that day.
He said to them,
you shall surely die.
And when they ate
of the tree,
they did die.
Romans 6,
23,
for the wages
of sin
is death.
God's reaction
to sin
might seem like
an overreaction
to you at first.
It might seem like
God is making
a big deal
about something
that is small.
We can all see
why murderers
or adulterers
might need to be punished
to some degree.
Right?
But the person
who tells a little white lies,
is he really that bad?
The person who maybe
skimped on taxes
a little unknowingly,
are they really that bad?
The person who jokes
inappropriately now and then,
are they really deserving
of eternal conscious torment?
And don't get me wrong,
I do think some sins
are worse than others,
but at the same time,
I believe Paul,
when he says
the punishment
of every type of sin
is the same,
eternal conscious torment
in hell.
The wages of sin
is death.
But back to the question
I posed,
how is God's reaction
not an overreaction?
And this is where
we have to remember
the creator-creature distinction.
God is the creator
who created us,
the creation.
We exist by his will
and for the purpose
of his will,
which is chiefly
to glorify him.
Sin, then,
is doing the very things
for which we are
not created.
Every time we sin,
we are rejecting
God's rule as creator,
we are rejecting
our rule as creation,
and we are spitting
in his face.
Can you imagine
if a fork in your kitchen
wouldn't let you eat,
but it smacked you
every time you tried
to put something
in your mouth?
I mean,
what would you do
to that fork?
How would you feel?
Who is this little fork
that you bought
and maybe even you created
who thinks he has a right
to reject the purpose
for which it was created?
That fork would become worthless,
only good for burning.
I would be livid.
I would want to destroy
that fork in a heartbeat.
That would be so annoying.
Again,
we are created
to glorify God
by being his image bearers.
In other words,
we are to reflect
his glorious,
perfect image.
This image that has never
experienced evil.
And you're starting to see
how egregious
every sin of ours is.
And you're starting to see
that it's not just our sins
that God hates.
He hates our very sin nature.
Our being,
which is a result
of the fall.
And this is why sin
results in death
and rightfully so.
If we are not living up
to our intended purpose,
then we should not live
because we are worthless
in this state.
God makes this plain
in the Old Testament
and Paul tapes it all together
in Romans 3,
verses 10 through 12.
God says,
of all mankind,
none is righteous,
no, not one,
no one understands,
no one seeks for God,
all have turned aside,
together they have become
worthless,
no one does good,
not even one.
In so many ways,
death is the opposite
of holiness.
That is why it is so offensive
to our holy
and living God
to be with the unholy
and the dead.
That is why in the Old Testament,
man could not approach God
at their own whim
in the holy of holies.
The veil separated
dead men
from the living God.
To truly live
is to obey God
and to not obey God
is to die
because disobedience
is not living.
You want the good life?
And I don't mean that
in a health, wealth,
prosperity sense,
but if you want
the good life,
you have to learn
to obey God
for the joy
that is found in him
only.
Now, believe it or not,
I'm entering
the closing application.
It's kind of a downer note.
But three applications
and then there will be
one just concluding thought
because I do think
this text
sheds light
on the gospel
and should be cause
for us
to have great hope.
But I want to give
the three applications first
because I think
it would be more fitting.
Application number one,
do not play
the victim card
like our culture.
It is hard to go
anywhere in society
without everyone
telling you
that your actions
are the result
of something
external to you.
Oh, you were just
trained to do that
by your bad parents.
That's why you're
the way that you are.
Oh, that's your
classmates' fault
for enticing you.
That's why you did
that stupid thing.
Oh, you lose control
sometimes because
you face systemic issues
that are beyond
your control.
Not your fault.
Oh, that word
is a trigger for me.
That's why I'm angry
and I want to kill you
right now.
Or how about this?
I can't help it.
I was born this way.
And that's the age-old lie
again and again
and again.
But on judgment day,
God will not
allow anyone
to squeeze out
of anything.
He knows the heart
and He will judge
based off the heart.
It cannot play
the victim card.
It loses
every time.
Application two,
and this goes right
along with the first one,
repent.
And this is simple, right?
Simple to understand,
maybe hard to do.
By God's grace,
which He gladly
lavishes on His church,
we are able to repent
of our sins.
We are able to recognize
that we rightly deserve
to be punished,
to die as a result
of our sin,
which we desired.
But we are atoned for
by Christ,
who knew no sin,
that He bore the wrath
of God that we
deserve.
Jesus was not
responsible for our sin,
and yet He took
the consequence
on Himself,
and He died.
He died,
which means we
won't die
in the eternal sense,
because He was raised
on the third day.
And for those of you
who are not in Christ,
I urge you to repent
and believe in Him
as Lord and Savior.
This is your only way
of escape
from the wrath
to come.
But for the rest of us
who are already
in Christ,
I urge you still,
right?
The command to repent
still stands.
Repentance
is obedience.
So if we do not
continually repent
of our sin,
then our disobedience
is compounded.
Right?
As John says,
if we say we have
no sin,
we are liars.
So confess sin,
and we have an advocate
with the Father.
Now,
application number three,
prepare yourselves
for trials
and temptations.
temptations.
The Greek word
for tempted
that we saw
in verse 13,
we have actually
already seen
in the book of James.
In chapter 1,
verse 2,
text I preached
on a couple weeks,
the word appears.
It is perasmos.
It can mean
either temptation
to sin
from,
with,
or without.
And sometimes
it only means
trial or testing.
In chapter 1,
verse 2,
and in Clay's text
from last week,
it clearly means
trial.
In our text today,
it clearly means
to be tempted
to sin.
I mention this
all to say,
we prepare ourselves
for both temptation
and trials
in the same way,
though they are
different things.
We fill our hearts
and minds
with Scripture
to remain hopeful
in the midst
of trials.
And we fill our hearts
and minds
with Scripture
to remain faithful
in the midst
of temptation.
Easy to understand,
hard to do,
but we have
to do it.
So repent,
prepare yourself
for trials
and temptations,
fill your mind,
your heart
with God's word,
so that in the midst
of it,
you'll never be
tempted to question
God's goodness
or his holiness,
and you'll see
in his word
just how good
he is.
Now, as I said,
before we pray,
I want to offer
one more thought.
It is an encouragement
or perhaps better
to think of it
as a devotional
to conclude the sermon.
When I was assigned
a text,
I thought,
man,
this is going
to be a downer.
But it's true
and we have
to reflect on it.
It's important,
right?
All Scripture
is profitable,
so this is good
for us to hear
these hard things.
So you've heard me
talk about
how we are all
sinners by nature,
that God hates
our sin
and our sin nature,
how we are worthless
apart from Christ.
And that is
biblical truth,
but oh so hard
to swallow.
And there is good news,
right?
This is only
one side of the coin,
and the other side
of the coin is this.
God loves us
despite ourselves.
Now you can call
this point four
if you want.
It doesn't necessarily
come out of our text
directly,
but it's biblically
true nonetheless.
Romans 5, 8,
Paul says,
Christ died for us
while we were yet
sinners.
While we were yet
lured and enticed.
While we were yet
sinners,
Christ loved us.
He died for us.
You can read into that
while we were yet
worthless,
evil,
rebellious,
and so on.
You've heard me
reference this verse
many times.
It is a personal
favorite.
I've not had the
chance to unpack it,
and I still won't
today, unfortunately.
But just consider
this.
There's no reason
for God to love us
that is in us.
It's not our hair,
it's not our gender,
it's not our ethnicity,
it's not our intelligence,
it's not our wealth,
or our poverty.
And it's not even
our obedience
that stirs up
God to love us.
So what stirs up
God to love us?
And it's this,
God stirs himself
up to love us,
and that is such
good and freeing
news.
Zephaniah 3,
verse 17,
The Lord your God
is with you.
He is mighty to save.
And notice this,
He will take
great delight
in you.
He will quiet you
with His love.
He will rejoice
over you
with singing.
It's not on account
of us that He loves us,
rather,
it's on account
of Christ in us
that He loves us.
And this is why
His love cannot fail,
because He loves Christ,
and Christ abides
in us who are saved.
Just as you should
not question
God's inability
to tempt us
with sin,
you should not
question God's
unfailing love
for His church,
for Christ's pride.
I didn't plan this,
but it worked out.
Nathan mentioned
Luke 22 this morning.
I was talking about
that word desire earlier,
how it's usually
translated as lust,
but it can be broad.
It's not necessarily
an evil word.
You could use this word
rightly to describe
your desire for God.
And it was a curious thing,
I never knew this,
but that's the word
Jesus used
that's translated
as earnestly desired.
So with that desire
and that extent
to which we seek sin,
Christ desires to partake
of the supper with us,
to be with us.
His love is for real
in that sense.
It's sincere.
It's genuine.
And turn with me,
this is our last text
and I'm not going
to comment on it.
I just want to close out
with reading this.
But turn with me
to 1 John 4, 16.
Again, I just want
to leave us on this note
of this gospel hope
that we have.
John writes,
so we have come
to know
and to believe
the love
that God has for us.
They believe
in his love.
God is love.
And whoever abides
in love
abides in God
and God abides
in him.
by this
is love
perfected with us
so that we may
have confidence
for the day
of judgment.
Because as he is,
so also are we
in this world.
There is no fear
in love,
but perfect love
casts out fear.
For fear
has to do
with punishment.
And whoever fears
has not been
perfected
in love.
We love
because
he first
loved
us.
Let's pray.