All right, well, let's turn back to James 1. Pick up our reading from where we left off last week. We might go ahead and back up to verse 12. Our thought and focus last week, of course, was on blessing and trial. We want to move on and cover today, if it would be the Lord's will and He would help us to do so, verses 13 through 18. We pray that God would be with us as we do so. Read with me. James chapter one will begin with verse twelve. 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. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 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 first fruits of his creatures. Like to talk to you today, if there'd be a title for the message, and there's a number of different things I'd like to present to you for your consideration, but it would simply be from from trials to temptation. from trials to temptation. James moving here from the trials that he's been referring to, the things that just attend our life, the difficulties, the struggle that it is to live here in a world of fallenness. And he's told us to count those trials joy. He's told us why we ought to do so, because they encourage us and they sharpen our faith and our trust in God. It's difficult to see that in the midst of the trial. And we remember again what James said, that when you have endured, when that has been completed, we will receive a crown of life that will not fade away. But in the midst of those trials, it can be difficult, of course, to remain faithful and steadfast. But that is the challenge that James gave us when he told us to do so. And today, now, he turns and he moves toward a very particular kind of trial, one that you have faced undoubtedly countless times in your life. And we remember again that James is writing to believers in Christ, followers of the Lord Jesus, people who had openly committed themselves to being a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, And we remember again that that would often put your life at risk. If it didn't put your life at risk, it certainly put your livelihood at risk, your social standing at risk, your family relationships at risk. It was not an easy thing in the first century to claim to be a follower of a man who in the eyes of most was a criminal who was crucified on a cross in Jerusalem. But that is what people did, and you face trials of it. And then, in the midst of all of that, if it wasn't enough to face those kinds of trials, there's the very real trial of temptations. Temptations toward sin. And that's what James is going to speak to us about. It's what I would like, for a little time today, to present to you, as the Lord would help. James begins in verse 13 and he tells us that we ought not to say that when we're tempted that God is the one doing the tempting. So temptations do not come from God. But before we go into that very deeply, I feel it necessary to start at a starting point just ahead of this. And that starting point is an understanding of why and what is the reason that sin is such a dangerous thing. I would suspect that you, everyone that is here, we would all agree, I think, that sin is a dangerous thing. That it is perhaps, and I think arguably it is, the most dangerous thing that we face. In these days, though, it seems far too long ago that it was a given that sin was to be avoided, that it was seen for the danger that it represents to us. Seems to be far too in the distant past that there was a respect for the damage and the havoc and the brokenness and the darkness that sin brings to the world around us. Seems like that's in the distant past when TV was in black and white, ironically. It seems like that is far in our rear view mirror. But that realization, and that realization yet today to understand the danger of sin, brought with it a desire to avoid it. To avoid it really almost at all costs. To have a respect and a reverence for the fire that is sin. with the power to consume our lives and to consume everything around us. That realization of the danger of sin encouraged in us or encouraged in men and women. And again, I don't want to paint a rosy picture. I know men have always been men and women have always been women. And we've been fallen since our first parents in the garden. I understand that. But at least from a public perspective and an outward reality, that realization that sin was so dangerous, to the one that understood it, it encouraged in them a desire to discipline themselves toward godliness. To realize how much danger and damage that sin represents. But today, and I know this is easy to say, it's easy as a preacher to get on a soapbox, but I think it's still true. Today, sin is laughed at more than it is feared. It's passed off as nothing more than what it actually is. It's shrugged off as an inevitable and thus almost inconsequential thing. But even more than this today is that has continued to evolve and change. Sin has not become something to just be laughed at and seen as inconsequential. It is now moved on and it is to be celebrated. A lot of sin today is celebrated. It's vaunted. It's advertised. It's encouraged. You're called backward, old-fashioned, a curmudgeon, somebody who doesn't like to have fun if you have a respect for the danger that sin represents. A great deal, I think, of the sin that was once reserved for dark places is now in the broad daylight. I think that's how it works. I think historically we can see that as well, that sin at one point when it is respected for what it is and understood to be avoided, it is kept for the places in darkness and yet after a while and over time as the desensitization of our spirits to sin continues to progress, sin that was once reserved for dark places is now broadcast on radio and TV and the internet and it is celebrated. And I think that's where we are today. And that's why I felt it necessary to begin here. Why is this so important to avoid sin at all? When the ravages of sin, even sometimes in our life, do present themselves in our life, we attempt to alleviate the symptoms rather than the disease. We take drugs, prescribed or otherwise. to try to deaden our hearts, to soothe our intellects, our minds, to deaden the pain caused by sin. We flock to other people who will speak words that seem to soothe our guilty conscience, but who will never encourage us to confront the truth, the reality of the cause, the disease that is causing all of our troubles. We'll listen to people to soothe our guilt rather than find forgiveness. Rather than look for true healing in repentance upon our knees before God and before others when necessary, we look for those who will soothe those guilty consciences with some kind of salve that will deaden the pain. But the problem is that also deadens the love and deadens the good that we can feel as well. And so we walk through life as zombies. deadened to the hurt of the sin of our life, but also deadened to the love and the joy that God desires to bring into them. Sin is something that ought to be pushed back and resisted. And James is going to tell us to do that. But I need and sadly, perhaps it is to say it's needed today to start with. Why is this important? Because we're so deadened to the dangers of sin. James wasn't. He understood what it did, and he's going to talk even more about this in a later chapter. But instead of dealing with sin, even when it does, when the ramifications of sin present themselves in our lives, maybe it's a loss of a job, maybe it's loss of finances, whatever that it might be, we begin to blame others. We begin to look for culprits, for scapegoats to blame. We blame others around us somehow for forcing us into sin. Friends that require us to behave in sinful ways if we desire to remain their friend. Well, this is their fault. I want to be friendly. A great deal of sin in our life, I think, comes down to this. We even can, as Christian people, as believers, we can convince ourselves and say to ourselves, oh, we must remain friendly with this person in order that I might be an influence on them. This in spite of the obvious fact, and the ironic fact, by the way, that it is they who are influencing us towards sin and not us influencing them toward God. You do not bring people closer to God by sinning with them. You don't. You give them excuse. You hurt and you damage their spirits. But we might even reason at times like this, well, I'll go along with them in this small sin so that I can be here to encourage them toward God, to seek Him. A boss, a coworker, Maybe they require you to deport yourself in a manner that is simply unbecoming of a Christian. The social or political pressure that we feel today, again, not to just tolerate sin, but to accept and celebrate it, to endorse it. I've got to go along. I've got to go along with this. We blame the driver who cuts us off in the morning for the anger and frustration that lingers with us throughout the rest of the day, long after he's gone on about his day, and so have you. We look for others. We begin to throw people in front of us and our guilt before God. The dangers of sin are real. But why, ultimately, is sin such a dangerous thing? not merely because of the damage it can bring your life, as real as that is, as damaging as that can be. Do you want to know what the biggest danger of sin is? Do you want to know why it's such a big deal? Do you want to know why God makes such a big deal out of it in his word? Because sin is the obstacle between you and him. It's the obstacle between you and fellowship with him. who, by the way, this fellowship with this God who gave you your life, who called you forth from nothing and instilled in you life that only He could instill. And so I think we can say that sin is an obstacle between you and the life you're meant to have. And I want to pause for just a brief moment and make sure that you understand that I understand that sin is going to ever be present with us. Paul talked about that. And if it was anyone who's reached a pinnacle of spiritual maturity that I would long to reach, it was Paul. And yet even he said sin besets him easily. The sin that easily besets us. So don't misunderstand or walk out that door here after a while and think that I have encouraged you and that if there's ever sin in your life, that you have failed. In truth, I guess it's true to say that, but at the same time, this is an ongoing struggle that we will have until we let this life go and this body of sin pays the penalty. And yet in the midst of all of that, again, though it is going to always be a reality, Do not let that be an excuse to have your fellowship with God harmed by sin that ought to be, can be avoided. It is the greatest obstacle between you and your happiness. Sin. Not money. Money's not the obstacle between you and your happiness. Your job's not the obstacle between you and your happiness, your contentment, your peace. It's not the relationship you hope to have. It's not the country in which you live, as poorly as this one's being run presently. It's not my greatest obstacle between me and God. This nation can make whatever law it wants to make. If it ever makes, like it has in other Western countries even, it illegal to present the Word of God and to proclaim it. It's not this country that will stand between me and God. It will be me and my sin. my lack of faith, my lack of trust. It's not the health concerns that I have physically that we worry about so often and often with great need and with great reason. But that's not the greatest obstacle to your happiness. The greatest obstacle between you and your happiness is the same obstacle between you and God. That, of course, is sin. Sin in all kinds of varieties. But again, listen today, I'm not here. I don't want to just beat you over the head with a club and tell you to stop sinning. Such a thing would be silly. It's not why I'm here. I, of course, want to encourage you to confront and face sin in your life because God does, because the word of God has presented it to us. You can't read the Bible without coming across again and again the idea of sin, and it's separating us from God, which is the complete opposite of God's plan for us as His creation. But I'm not here to simply beat you over the head until I change behavior. I can't do that, even if I wanted to, I don't think successfully over a very long period of time, because eventually you're going to push back against that, and so would I. But I want to encourage you to confront the sin in your life. We'll talk more about this later, but I want to call out the deception of sin and perhaps help you see, as God, I think, helps all to see who desire to, how sin has been deceiving them all the while. And I want to do all this because I want you to find fellowship with God. I want you to know God. I want you to cultivate an ever deeper and growing relationship with him. And I think God wants us all to do that. And in order to do that, we're going to have to confront this thing called sin. I pray today that I point you to the one who loved you enough to die on the cross of Calvary, Jesus Christ. And he did so because of sin. Again, it isn't merely behavior that we're looking at. It's not the behavior of sin that I want to exhort you to change. It is your heart toward God that I think the Scripture and the Holy Spirit and God, of course, wants you to understand. What we find when we do move toward God is that sin and God do not dwell together, which means that the closer I get to one, If God and sin do not dwell together, then it stands to reason, does it not, that the closer I get to one, the further away I'm going to get from the other. The closer I get to God, the more protected, the more distant I will be from sin. Now don't misunderstand, that span of time can be a moment. when we traverse all the way back over to sin. But the closer I get to one in any one moment is going to be the further away from the other that I must be. I want you to understand that refusing to become a servant of God like James addressed himself and said that he was, to refuse to say, I am a servant, a doulos, again, a slave even of God, to push away against that, to refuse to become a servant of God, It only makes you a servant of sin. But you're a servant either way. Your choice is which master are you going to follow? Which one are you going to be bound by? Bound by what you choose in life for you or bound by what God who gave you life desires? So it is with these thoughts in mind that I want to consider what we began with. An eye towards avoiding sin and an understanding here from the get-go that temptation to sin is not from God. Let no one say, James says, let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God. The scriptures teach, we acknowledge, that God is the three omnis. He is omnipotent, all-powerful. He is omnipresent. He's everywhere at all times. And He is omniscient. He knows everything. We acknowledge that. The Scriptures teach it. And because of that, though, we can find ourselves wrestling, when we find ourselves wrestling with temptation, we can sometimes blame God. Can we? I mean, after all, the reasoning goes, if we understand that He has the power to prevent temptation, the presence to see that it is going on, and the awareness and the understanding of it in our lives, the natural progression of our thoughts can be, though it's misguided, the natural progression of our thoughts, and a question can arise in our mind, if God is indeed all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present, why has He allowed this temptation in my life? Why? Why would God allow that? If God could have prevented my being tempted to sin, and it is so dangerous, and something that I ought to avoid at all costs, and God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, why didn't He take care of this before it was ever presented to me? And all this is doing All this is doing is moving the responsibility from us to God. It's taking it out of our hands and putting it into God's, but it is not God that is to be blamed. Understand that today. It's not God that's to be blamed. Temptation to evil. God does test us. That's clear. He tested Abraham. Literally says that when he began that trial with asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. We know that he didn't have to go through with it. God does test us. He does not tempt us to sin. That is not in his nature. It is true, though, that God allows temptation. He allows it. Rather than being the one who brings it, it is God, actually, ironically, in some sense, is the one who prevents it from being greater than we can handle. We blame God for the temptation that we face, all the while, at times, missing the temptation, indeed, that He is saving us from. In Corinthians, The first letter of Corinthians 10, verse 13, Paul writes, no temptation, he agrees with James, and James agrees with Paul, no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. Listen, if it were not for the restraining hand of God, if it were not for the restraining hand of God, sin would bring all of us, you and me, to ruin. It would. It would bring us ruin now, and it would bring us ruin in eternity. I don't know that we appreciate the truth of that the way that we need to. God's restraining hand on sin is the only reason the sun is shining today. It's the only reason that we are not now tearing ourselves limb from limb. I know that that will sound very foreign in the ears of most who think quite a lot of ourselves as human beings, but I will tell you this, take away our electricity, take away our plenty of food, take away our cars, take away our comforts, take away our air conditioning, take away all those creature comforts that we enjoy, take them away and you'll see very soon what humanity is like when sin is not restrained. We will tear ourselves apart. I don't know that we appreciate the restraining hand of God on sin like we ought to, and it sheds light on our situation when we are tempted to sin, to blame God for it, when He all the while is holding the restraining hand against the worst of it. We give ourselves a tremendous amount of credit for our strength when we stand the test, even. Maybe we do. We give ourselves a tremendous amount of credit. I didn't give in to that temptation, only then to give in to the temptation of pride. We sometimes forget that it's God who's kept the test within our abilities to confront. But He has. He hasn't withdrawn the ability to sin He won't, and we'll talk more about that here very briefly. But sometimes as well, we give ourselves a lot of credit for our happiness and our success when it is God who has given us every ability that we have and who has kept the all-consuming fires of unrestrained sin at bay. An analogy formed in my mind as I thought about this and studied this passage, it's like a man who built a grand house on a large allotment. Spared no expense. All the materials in this house were the best that money could buy from any location in the world. The architecture was as beautiful as any building that has ever been built, any home that has ever been constructed. It was strong. It was sturdy. In his mind, it was the grandest house that he could ever have built. as you walked in, you know, whatever vision in your mind of this beautiful house might be as you walk in the grand staircase that spirals up to the upper levels, this house that just is jaw-droppingly beautiful. When we forget that God is the one who is restraining sin in our lives, and we look at our lives and they're going really well, and we take all the credit we can for it, and we see our lives in such a good way, The house, again, that we live in, it's supplied with every creature comfort we could imagine having. Again, the grounds are beautiful with flowers and gardens and fruit trees as far as the eye could see. I mean, this is impressive stuff, this house that I envision in my mind that this man has built. And as I look at the man in my mind, he's become very impressed with himself to have built such a beautiful home. Look at all that I have, he might say. And by the way, others who see it might even be envious of him. He's built this house that everyone would love to be in, but no one sees the encircling fire that threatens the whole thing. And in the analogy here, sin is that threatening fire. And God is the one, He's the firefighters on that edge that is keeping that fire at bay. Miles away from the calm beauty of the house, there is a restraining hand against sin that prevents that house from being completely consumed. This is what God does when he restrains sin. Even when our life is beautiful and perhaps most especially when it is and it is at ease and we have all these wonderful things in our life, if left to itself, if left without the restraining hand of God, it would be consumed with sin and consumed by it. And so too would our lives be. You ever heard the phrase, I'm not going to be too judgmental because were it not for the grace of God, thereto go I? This is what it is. It's the restraining hand of God on sin. Now, occasionally there's going to be a flare up right at home. God's going to allow that. He's going to allow that in our life. God's grace acts as a kind of universal restraint upon sin and its utter completion. One day, He's going to come and put out the fires of sin and create a new world for us that are His followers to live in. And fire is going to be reserved for the judgment place called hell, where it will consume for the unending age of eternity. But today, God holds it at bay. And He holds it at bay in your life, too. You just probably don't see it. No, I don't. Like I need to and should and hope to think about and consider as I move forward. God's grace acting as that universal barricade, that firewall, as we might say, against sin. If this were not true, if God didn't do that, again, there'd be nothing standing in the way between us destroying ourselves and one another. I think we know that academically. I think we would have to admit to that if we're going to answer the question biblically to say, yes, sin will destroy everything. I think we know that academically by what the Bible teaches, but I think as well that we understand that, do we not, experientially? We've experienced it in our life, to a degree. When have you fallen to the greatest temptations in your life? When have you found yourself playing with the largest fires of sin that could easily flare up and consume every good thing in your life? When was that? I would wager it was when you were perhaps the greatest distance from God that you've been in a while. That distance between you and God where sin and the fires of sin are at their greatest risk as you go to visit Yellowstone or you go to visit anywhere, there's those, they're everywhere, right? The risk of fire. And there's different levels And the further from God you get, the closer to sin you're going to be, the closer to the fires of destruction that you're going to be. And as you get further distanced from God in your life, your temptation towards sin is increased. And again, maybe that distance between you and God developed slowly over a period of time. Maybe it didn't happen all at once. You just kind of slowed your pace in the Christian race. You just kind of let up a little bit. You didn't keep up the pace to stay near to God. Maybe you fell further back from God. You stopped reading His Word daily. You stopped praying. You stopped being around His people. And slowly, but inevitably, you drift back. I remember in some races that I've run, and at the beginning of longer races, they usually have pacers and they say, this is how fast this group plans to run this race. This is the minute per mile that they want to run. And then there's different paces. And so you set up in the pace that say, boy, I really hope to run this pace. And then as you get into it, you know, the first third, you're doing fine. I think I'm going to be all right. furthest distance I've ever run is the half marathon, 13 miles by about mile six, seven or eight. That pace group just gets maybe 10 feet in front of you. I'm still there and it's 30 feet. and it's 50, and then they turn a corner, and you can't even see them, or a hill, and they go out of sight. Maybe that's God with you. You just let up. You didn't keep up the pace. I'm gonna tell you if that's the case, you're in danger, terrible, terrible danger, and I want you to see that. I want you to understand that. I want you to know that, because it's real. Maybe that distance, again, it just slipped in over time. Now you find yourself, you can't even see him off in the distance. You're at danger, and I want to make you aware of that. It's also, though, possible that rather than gradually slipping and slowing your pace, you just stopped running altogether. You just got tired. Something came up. some terrible challenge and trial or some unbelievable worldly opportunity. And you stopped running, just suddenly stopped. And that distance between you and God takes shape quickly. One of those two things happened, or something in between. But there are a great many implications that come from the idea that God does not tempt us to evil while still allowing temptation in our life. He keeps the consuming fires at bay, but He allows the small fire to flare up in our life to remind us of the dangers of sin that is to be avoided. To remind us of the consuming fire that one day His withstraining hand will lift It will be pulled back. And He will come and judge that sin eternally. Today, He's holding it back, giving you and I an opportunity to come to Him and to believe Him, to follow Him, to know Him. And I just want to remind you again how quickly all that we have in this life can be taken and taken by sin. not to just scare you into some kind of Christian way of living, but to spur you toward God and His presence and His holiness and His righteousness and His love. Think about it. Why does God do this? You might still be asking. I haven't really answered the question. Why would God allow these temptations in our life if they're so dangerous? Well, think about it. Think about it deeply. If God prevented all temptation in your life, would he not also prevent all ability to love him, to honor him, and to obey him? Can he take the ability to sin away from you and not at the same time take from you your ability to love him? That's what he wants from you. Remember some months ago now, I believe the Lord had a sermon for us, what does God want from us? And what does God want for us? What he wants from us is our heart, our love. If God took away all ability to attempt to sin, he would at the same time take away your ability to love him. To one who is not a believer, who does not love God, who does not desire to follow God, This idea presents no problem at all. They don't understand it. They still stumble at the question. Why didn't God just take away my ability to sin? Because He wants you to love Him more than He wants to take away your ability to sin. And He wants to love you in a way that is mutual and combined together. God doesn't want your obedience if He forces it from you. He doesn't. He does that at times in his own divine providential way and for his own providential reasons, but between you and him, he doesn't want to force your obedience. He doesn't want your praise if he is compelling you without your control or ability to praise him. It's not how he's made you. God doesn't want your love if he has to scare you into loving him. Such a love is not a love at all. It's self-preservation. God doesn't want people following him out of self-preservation. He wants them following him out of self-abandonment. You, God, you, Lord, first and always. I trust you with my life and all that is around me. God doesn't force you. He is not a fickle God. He's not so desperate and needy for your and my obedience, praise, and love that He will force you to obey Him, praise Him, and love Him. What a small, pitiful God, small letter G, that would be. One who acted that way, who would do such a thing. What would we say about a man who forces others to obey him out of fear only? Out of some desire that people follow him and force them to love him and force him to honor him. I think we would say about him, he's missed the mark. It's like any leader that you've ever been with at work, at school, on a sports team. whatever role it might be, someone who is leading you, when they love you and they desire you to succeed and to prosper, you willingly follow them. You willingly desire to do what they ask you to do, because you trust them. We'd say about a man that acted that way, though, that we described earlier, is one who's missed the mark. And we have to remember that we have been made in the image of God. So it seems reasonable for me to conclude that God would not do these things either. It's not how He desires relationships to go. In essence, I think what God would do if He took away these temptations, He would take away from you your humanity. And He won't do that. He will not take away from you your humanity, nor will He take away from Himself His divinity. He is God. To list all that He has done to ensure our eternal happiness would take far longer than we have. We are God's unique creation as human beings, given the choice to follow Him or reject Him. Given the choice to follow Him, to love Him, to obey Him, to honor Him, to praise Him, or to reject Him. The choice to enlist ourselves as His servant, or the choice to enlist ourselves as the servant of others or ourselves. But whichever one you do, it is your doing. And so we can't blame God, and we're right back to the passage. Don't say when you're tempted to evil that God is tempting you to evil. He's not. He's allowing it, and He allows it for a very good reason. So far from these thoughts making God less, I think, and some might see it that way, I see them as making Him more. Now, let's quickly go through the rest of these. I won't take much more of your time. I wanted to focus on that thought, those thoughts, the danger of sin, the reason that we deal with temptation. That's what I hope you take away, and perhaps you can take away a very scattered list of some other things here in the rest of these passages. So if the temptations we are faced with are not directly from God, then where do they come from? That's an important follow-up question. If it's not God, where do they come from? Have you ever been just going along about your day and some sin just pops into your head, some temptation? Out of nowhere, it seems. Where did it come from? The answer's difficult to accept, but the scriptures tell us where it comes from. Verse 14 tells us, each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. The King James in the American Standard Version, instead of lured, it has drawn away. The New American Standard has carried away. And in the Greek, there is this sense almost of being dragged away, being pulled away. And so sin or temptation, not sin, temptation. And let me say this. Temptation is not sin. Being tempted is not sin. Having thoughts in your head that are a temptation that has not been submitted to, not only in body, but in mind and heart, is not sin. These things come from us, as we're gonna find out here, when we are lured from our own desires. And the King James and others, it's lust. Our own desires, our own lust, when we are dragged away by them. Where does temptation come from? I bet in most Sunday schools across the land, if you were to ask the question without all this background yet, where does temptation come from? What would the answer be? Satan. No. No, it doesn't. It comes from within you and me. Our own hearts that are fallen. Our own carnal heart Satan is not the author of temptation. He leverages it and I will not say, I mean, we have the example in the New Testament where Jesus goes into the wilderness and he is tempted by Satan. We have to be careful here in our understanding of what James is saying. It's when we're lured away and Satan knows when our eye has been caught by sin. And he will be there suddenly to dangle that bait in front of us. Satan's not the author, by the way, or the creator of anything. Satan merely works with material that's already present. He's never invented anything out of nothing. He can't create anything. That includes your sin and mine. It's his deepest desire for you to give way to your desires, but he cannot force you to. He cannot force you to sin anymore than God will force you to obey. Satan will not force you to sin any more than God will force you to obey. This thing that we are, this human being, is blessed and only blessed with the ability to make this choice. And this process, as we read in verse 14 and 15, as that sin entices us, we're lured, we're enticed by our own desire, then when we don't put that fire out, when it begins to flare up, when that sin is considered and coddled and left there to abide, It's not gonna just stay there as a desire. It's going to give birth. And what is birthed from temptation that is submitted to is sin. Not temptation. It's when temptation meets submission that sin takes place and sin is birthed in our life. And sin begins, I love the picture here, It's born in its sin and then it becomes fully grown. When it becomes fully grown, what does it do? It brings death. That's what it does. That's all that it does. But like anything else in the world, there is a period of time where sin goes from conception to birth to fully grown. And I want to say this to you, you may be able to play with sin while it is newborn in your life. Just a small thing, you might think. I can control it. It's like a baby when they're born. And I mean, they can cry and they can make your life difficult at times, but you can control them. You're in the one that's in the driver's seat. And you can play with that sin that's just been birthed in your life. It's just newborn. And maybe you can play with it for quite a while as it grows. And as it grows, and as it grows, and then like a parent who finds themselves looking up at their child when they've outgrown them, sin has now grown full and it brings death. Put it out before it's even conceived. Take it away, turn away from it, James is telling us. If it's born and it's gonna grow, it's not gonna stay the same. And again, one day it will grow to the point that it's no longer a joy, that it maybe brought you temporarily in your life, but it's an ever-present burden in your life and it brings with it certain death. Death of our lives, certainly, but also death of a job, of our health, of relationships. And know this, anywhere that sin is allowed to go, from conception to birth to fully grown, death is always going to follow in its wake. Separation and destruction. So, if you're presently being tempted, see God. Now, turn from it. That's your moment to seek Him. And just a word of warning to all of us, I feel I need to share, if you're presently enjoying the birth of a new sin in your life, and it's bringing you some kind of worldly satisfaction, but in your heart, your conscience is convicting you, because you say, this is wrong. Know that every day that that sin grows, it will grow and grow and grow, and one day it will grow so big that it will control you. and it will bring death to you and the things in the world around you." Now, briefly again, why would anybody do this if this is the case? If we know this to be true, why would anyone ever sin? 16 through 18, we get the answer. Do not be deceived. King James says, do not err. The ASV and the NASB, they all use this word deceit, and I think that is the more exact Greek Don't be deceived. The deception of sin. Why would anybody do this? Well, because we're deceived. Why would anybody sin? We're deceived from the very first sin ever committed. Deception is the doorway that allows it into our minds and hearts of even being considered at all. When deceived, you believe something that is untrue. You maybe don't even know it at the time. Maybe you've, again, grown distant from God, and your Christian conscience is a little hardened. You don't know you're believing the wrong thing, but you are. You think dishonesty will quicken your path to success at work, and after all, everybody lies a little bit to get ahead, so I'll do the same. You think, so many in the world today do, so many think sex is free and brings no lingering consequences. Boy, it does, outside of marriage. You think hurting others in order to advance yourself will somehow help you. There is no salesman quite as accomplished as Satan when it comes to prettying up sin. He could sell ice to an Eskimo. He can take the most worthless, vile product and make it look as though it will solve every problem in your life. The antidote to that deception is verse 17. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. The antidote to temptation And the antidote to the deception of sin is knowing, believing, and remembering that all good things, and if you're taking notes or in your Bible itself, underline all good things come from God. All of them. And when sin presents itself as bringing you something good, you will be armed and equipped with, no, this is not possible. It's not possible that this sin is good, because God brings all good things, and God doesn't even tempt with sin. He doesn't tempt you toward evil. James just told us that. The good promised by sin is a deception, and it has to be again, because all good things come from God. God has nothing to do with it. This defense remains today and forever because the second half of verse 17 shows us that in contrast to sin, which is always shifting, always changing, always promising one thing and then shifting it to something else, this is not how God is. He will not change. There's no shadow cast by His turning. So many ways that men have interpreted the Greek, the beautiful words that James wrote. He will not change. And I want to finish with this, His intention for us. If there's any other encouragement that I can give to you today to try to resist temptation, God, listen to what God's desire is for you. In verse 18, of His own will, He brought us forth by the word of truth. Why? that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creation, or of His creatures. I want you to let that sink in, that statement, as we begin to close today. Let that statement sink in. He wants you to be a kind of first fruits of His creatures. God wants us to become something like the first fruits of His harvest. The best, the choice, the first. He wants us because He knows that's what's best for us. It brings Him glory. And whatever brings Him glory is good for all of creation. And all good gifts come from Him. And He blesses us with this goal in mind to become something like. That's what James uses. A kind of first fruits. It's the first to come in from the harvest. It is what God intended for us to be. The opportunity in this is enough, I think, to stagger the mind and arrest the heart's attention. To be able to become something like a first fruit of God's creatures. Can you think of anything else that you would want to be? I hope not. And you'll never be what God wants you to be while you entertain sin in your life. And that's going to be a continual struggle that you face while you're here. Again, I understand that, and I know that. I'm not preaching today some holiness that we can obtain where we are no longer touched by the flames of sin. It just won't happen here. I know that. But it is a struggle that we are to maintain in our life. And we have, as our pattern, Christ, His intense belief and desire to always be with the Father. The bottom line. And I think maybe this is something that would help you. I know it's helped me in the past when it comes to temptation. The bottom line is that you can desire to not sin all you want. And I think any sane person does. Respecting its danger. but the only, the only way you will ever overcome sin in your life. Maybe there's a sin that came into your mind as I've asked some questions and as we've looked at this passage and you say, I have allowed that to be born into my life. That temptation has now become sin. But maybe it's just newborn and it's early. And before too much devastation can take place, you hear this message from God, I pray. And he says to get rid of it and to remove it from your life. And you say, I want to get rid of it. I want to get rid of this sin. Why can't I? The biggest struggle you have resisting temptation is that you'll only be able to resist it. You'll only be able to overcome sin in your life when your desire for God and Christ overcomes your desire for the sin. You see, you have to replace it. something is in your life that you desire and that you want, and you simply think that you can take that desire and pull it out of your heart, what you're gonna find is that heart is now empty, and it is a vacuum, and it is gonna suck in the first thing that comes along the way. And so you've got to take the sin out, but you've got to bring God in. You've got to pray and read His Word and be with His people. You'll never overcome sin until you have as your choice desire, God. Too many strategies of dealing with sin is merely the attempt to remove the sin only, but you will have to replace that space in your heart with something else or the sin is going to come right back in. It may be a day, it may be a week, it may be a year, but it'll come back. If not, if your heart is not full of a love for God, it'll wiggle its way back into your life. You'll be right back where you started if you try to merely remove the sin without replacing it with a love for Christ and a love for the lost world. So do you see the issue of dealing with temptation and sin? What do you love more? What do you love more, your sin or your Savior? When we remember the greatest commandment that we've been given, we realize why sin is such a problem. We understand why it's a problem. Because the greatest commandment I've ever been given is to love God with all my heart. And sin is the exact opposite of loving God. And sin will bring destruction. So today, when faced with temptation, you have a choice to make. Make it in full light of what James has told us and warned us about and encouraged us toward. Become a servant of God in that moment. Because the only other path out of that temptation is to become a servant of sin. Which brings death and not life. Burden and not peace. Heartbreak and not joy. Devastation and not life. I pray that the word of God has penetrated our hearts, that it would accomplish what he would have it to accomplish. I apologize for keeping you a little long today, but that's our thought. We pray that God would be with his word.