JAMES (PART 3 - TEMPTING FAITH)storage.cloversites.com/canyonlakecommunitychurch... · Temptation...

I’LL SHOW YOU (PART 3 - TEMPTING FAITH) VISIBLE FAITH IN THE BOOK OF JAMES

•My dad had a pierced ear. Not because he was hip. Because he took me fishing.•Fishing with worms for catfish •Trolling

People experienced at fishing purchase lures in specific colors, sizes, and shapes, each designed to catch distinct fish in distinct waters. Lures can be very precise because they’re affected by water temperature, sunlight, and the clarity of the water. The

Copyright © 2013 Thor Ramsey www.canyonlakechurch.org

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conditions have to be right to make a lure tempting to a fish.

Something similar happens when temptations lure us. Unique life conditions make some sins m o r e t e m p t i n g t h a n o t h e r s . S o m e temptations are magnified when life is easy, some when life is hard. Some temptations are more enticing when you are by yourself, some when you are with particular circles of friends.

“The bait on the fisherman’s hook entices the fish; and once hooked, the fish is dragged away.”

Today, we’re going do an in-depth analysis of temptation.

James 1:13-1513 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. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

The anatomy of the Christian life: You are tempted by your own desires. Now, what brings about your desires?

1. Your thoughts can tempt you. Your mind tempts you because your thoughts regulate your feelings.

2. Your eyes tempt you. When you see something you naturally think of that thing and when thinking of that thing you naturally feel something about what you see. So, your eyes can tempt you, because you think about what you see.

3. Thus, you are tempted by your eyes, by your mind and by your emotions (desires), sometimes simultaneously. And all these things would be placed in the realm that the Bible calls “your flesh.”

4. These are temptations of the flesh. We are also tempted by the world, meaning the values of the world, not material things which in and of themselves are neutral. The pride of life, the desire for money, the desire for power, the desire for pleasure, the desire for glory. Things that are not evil in and of themselves, but in the system of the world they become idols that we center our lives upon.




5. Now, temptation is not a sin. But temptations lure us. They entice us. Temptation is the sales pitch. Sin is the purchase. As soon as you latch onto that desire, as soon as you engage it you have sinned. Temptation is a set of keys. Sin is starting the car. An analogy that would bring the Amish delight.

6. Now this internal latching onto the desire and running with it is sin, which can lead to external actions that can do great damage to people’s lives, including ours. It brings forth death. Spiritual death. When the presence of God’s Spirit withdraws from us, this grieving of the Spirit is a type of spiritual death. Continuing in sin and fighting against the guilt it brings can lead to the death to our conscience. There have been internal sins of lust that have led to external affairs that have brought death to families. “Sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

Christian maturity doesn’t mean you become less tempted as your grow in Christ. Christian maturity has to do with resisting temptations more frequently as you grow.

And this is the problem of the unconverted person, if you don’t know Christ as Lord and Savior. All you have to fight any temptation with is your own power and your own ego. This is what the Bible calls your natural self. The only thing that restrains your natural self is fear or threats. You only avoid certain sins because you fear the outcome.

The problem is this, if it’s only your natural self, your own power and your own ego: the law (the Word of God) comes to you from the outside yourself and it’s contrary to your inner desires. In other words, it goes against your nature, your natural inclinations. It forbids things that you love and commands things that you hate. Here’s how the Bible explains it:

Romans 8:77 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.

Let’s look at the role of God’s law in the life of the Christian. Promise, Law and Faith embody the three Covenants: the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant.

The Promise is the covenant made with Abraham that every nation on the face of the earth would be blessed because of someone




from his family line and this covenant came first. The Promise is immutable, unconditional and certain of fulfillment. The Promise is not dependent in any way upon man’s performance (Law), but is dependent completely upon God fulfilling it.

The second covenant was the Mosaic Covenant and in it God gave the laws, including the 10 commandments. These external laws reveal to us our deep need for a Savior. They show us the state of our heart, that we do not delight in the will of God, but in our own will.

T h e L a w w a s g i v e n t o “ i n c r e a s e transgression.” In other words, the Law shuts us up because it proves to us we are sinners. It reveals to us our desperate need. You could actually gain life by the Law if you could keep it. But, indeed, you cannot. The Law brings death. This is why we cannot obey the Law of God, because we are dead spiritually. This spiritual death inside of us actually makes our minds opposed to God’s Law. Again, it forbids things that you love and commands things that you hate.

Thankfully, the Bible teaches that Christ makes us new kinds of people. Literally,

becoming a “new person.” You now have a spiritual self. The Apostle Paul explains it like this:

Galatians 2:2020 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Your natural self has been crucified. This is past tense. This happened when Christ was crucified. This is why Paul can still refer to himself with the personal pronoun I. Because it is a new I. It is now Christ in him. It is the new creation, this new spiritual self. Christ lives in him. You have now been set free from the curse of the law. What is the curse of the law? You can’t keep it.

Galatians 3:10“Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”

And because you can’t keep the law it condemns you. You can’t get spiritual life from the law. But we’ve been saved from the curse of the law by Christ.

Galatians 3:1313 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—




So, if you’ve been born again, Christ lives in you and has taken the penalty of your lawbreaking. James is dealing with the aftereffects of your new spiritual self, of who you are now because Christ lives in you by the good and perfect gift of the Holy Spirit who empowers you, who has brought you life. God is not the author of temptation, or of anything evil. He is the One who gives good gifts. This is why James writes:

James 1:16-1716 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17 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.

Once you’ve been born again, you’ve been born again. There is no changing this, because God’s love is steadfast, unwavering, there is no variation in His love or in His plan. It was God’s plan that you should be born again and there is no changing that. If you’re here today and you’re not a Christian but it’s God’s plan that you will be born again, protest all you want, you’re going to be born again.

James 1:1818 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

By the word of truth, by the gospel, in other words, the Father of his will brought us forth by the gospel. Who brought us forth? The Father, as Jesus said,

John 6:4444 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

The Father brought you forth by the word of truth, the gospel.

I love what Spurgeon says about the gospel: “The Scripture says, ‘Many shall come.’ The devils says, ‘They shall not come;’ but they shall come. You yourselves say, ‘We won’t come;’ God says, ‘You shall come.’ Herein rests the power of the gospel. It does not ask your consent; but it gets it. It knocks the enmity out of your heart.” How does it knock the enmity our of your heart, silence your protests, overcome your objections, alter your inability to love God, transform your unwillingness to willingness? God changes your nature. You become a new creation. And because you’re a new creation, your spiritual self has the law of God written upon your heart, which leads to a completely different life, a life marked by the fruit of the Spirit.




James 1:19-21

Hearing and Doing the Word

19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

That is salvation by faith alone. What is able to save your souls? Your good deeds? No. The implanted word, the word of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, James makes the point that we are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.

James 1:22-2522 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

The more a Christian denies a clear a teaching concerning God’s Word the more doubt that Christian casts upon the reality of their salvation.

The more a professing Christian denies what is clearly taught in God’s Word, the more likely they are self-deceived.

James 1:23-2523 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he

looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

Third, we have the New Covenant where God does in Christ what the law could not. He has written the law upon our hearts. Christians are now under this New Covenant, so we are not concerned with keeping holy days, offering blood sacrifices or distinguishing between clean and unclean foods, because He has written the law upon our heart by His Spirit and thus we fulfill the law by walking in the law of love which fulfills every command. This is the progressive change that the Holy Spirit is working out in our lives.

The great heresy of evangelicalism is that you can be forgiven for your sins without being freed from your sins. The first mark of being a Christian is that you actually begin to do what the Word says you should do because it’s no longer just this ancient book. It’s the very Word of God to you. You believe it’s His Word, so you do what it says because for the first time in your life you can. You’ve been redeemed from the curse of the law in three ways.




1. In the past the Word of God said, “Do this,” but you could not. You were cursed. The law only condemned you. Now, you are forgiven forever from that curse. “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

2. You are now forever free from trying to obtain life by the law. You are forever free from trying to obtain God’s favor by the law. The law says, “Do this and you will live.” So, if you could perfectly obey the law, you could live. But you cannot. But now, Jesus has lived the perfect life that you could not and His life has been credited to you as if you lived a perfect life. The Father loves us the same way He loves His Son. We are loved with a love that we cannot even comprehend. The Bible says His love “surpasses knowledge.” (Eph. 3:19) You now live under the perpetual blessing of God.

3. God has changed your very nature. You are no longer cursed to find the law only a source of guilt and shame. The law no longer contradicts your true nature and desires. The law has been written on our hearts by God’s Spirit in

us. The you now is the new you, the new spiritual self, Christ in you. The life that you now live you live by faith that your new spiritual self will dominate in your thinking and in your decision making because Christ lives in you. Glory to God, now you can hear and do the word of God because your nature is no longer opposed to it.




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