Why Can't I Just Stop?

Welcome to the Islands Christian Church podcast.

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Thanks for joining us. All right, so we are in a James

series. I don't have a Mother's Day

message. And so if that's what you're

expecting, sorry, but we're in a we're in a, we're in a series on

the book of James and we've got to keep marching.

Otherwise we'll be doing this for about four years.

And so today we are going to be in James chapter 1 verses 12

James 1:12–18

through 18. If you want to go there and hold

that if your Bibles and your phones, that'd be great.

We're going to walk through that text.

But I'm going to ask you a question as we get started.

Have you ever tried to stop eating sugar?

Who's who's ever said I'm going to stop eating sugar?

All right. Yeah, yeah, I get it.

Have you ever tried to stop eating junk food in general?

Right. Just.

I'm going to stop eating junk food.

Yep. Yep.

You know what? It goes really, really well.

As long as you're not awake. Have you noticed that?

As long as you're not awake, man, you dominate it.

It's great. Seriously.

You can resist the temptation to eat sugar and junk food until

you are tired, hungry or stressed, right?

And when you get tired, hungry or stressed, if you guys notice

the the colors of like of packages like Oreos, imagine the

Oreo package right now for me, do you guys see that blue and

white, right? Then the Bisco red.

Do you guys see that? Is it amazing how you do you all

who craves Oreos in a glass of milk right now?

Like double stuff for me, please, right.

Like I, you know, I when you're tired, you're hungry, you're

stressed, you it doesn't matter. You just go after the chips.

You tear them open before you know what you've eaten the whole

bag and you think to yourself, I am a horrible person, right?

Or you like the the ice cream is in the freezer calling your name

and you can't say no to it. The the fact of the matter is,

as we all understand the idea of temptation when it comes to

trying to eat healthy. We just understand it

instinctively. And today we're looking at what

James says about temptation in his letter to some Christians

who are facing difficult circumstances.

Now, last week what we discussed was trials.

And what we said last week was that trials have the capacity or

the ability to grow you in your faith that they have the ability

to make you complete was the language we used.

And we said last week that what that basically, basically means

is integrated. That when we walk through

difficult trials and difficult seasons, that God can use those

to grow our faith and to integrate our faith and to make

us into a whole person. But we also said that how you

respond to those trials make all the difference.

In other words, if you respond to those trials by looking for

God's wisdom, which is what we said, seeking God's wisdom and

what God says it, that by seeking God's wisdom and

aligning your life with God's wisdom and his ways, that's how

you experience growth in trials. In other words, trials are not

necessarily automatic growth producers.

How you respond to them is the key because the flip side of

trials is this. If you don't respond looking for

wisdom, the flip side of trials is that they have the potential

to create an occasion for temptation.

So a trial that God intends to grow your faith can be flipped

over because you don't look for God's wisdom, you don't look for

submission to God, and it can become an occasion for

temptation. You see, trials do not leave you

neutral. They either they either push you

toward trusting God or they create conditions where you are

tempted to trust something other than God.

So let's jump into the text and I'll show you what I mean.

James chapter 1 verses 12 through 18.

James 1:12–18

Little bit of a read here, but I think you guys have it.

You ready. Blessed is the one who

perseveres under trial, because having stood the test, that

person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised

to those who love him. When tempted, no one should say

God is tempting me, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor

does he tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when

they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.

Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin,

when it is full grown, gives birth to death.

Don't be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the

Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like

shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth

through the word of truth that we might be the kind of first

fruits of all He created. Now, if you're a note taker and

you like to write things down, here's the big idea this

morning. Temptation is the battle over

what you trust to satisfy your heart.

Temptation is the battle over what you trust to satisfy your

heart. Super simple, that's what it is.

It's the battle over what you trust to satisfy your heart.

There are three ideas we're going to unpack from this text.

I like to tell you this because if you know these three things,

you know where the message is going and you know how close we

are to being done. Amen.

All right, so first of all, you need to know what it is, how it

works, and why we must resist it.

So what is temptation, how it works, and why we must resist

temptation. So first of all, what is

temptation? Now, temptation is different

from a trial. Trials are part of the natural

occurrences of life. They're part of the broken world

we live in. They often times come to us from

outside of ourselves. God uses and allows and actually

is sometimes the cause of the trials in our lives.

In other words, God intentionally causes trials in

our lives. But this is different from

temptation. Here's a working definition of

temptation. For us, temptation is the

opportunity to trust something other than God to satisfy your

heart. Temptation is the opportunity to

trust something other than God to satisfy your heart.

Now, what we tend to think is temptation is the opportunity to

do something evil, to do something bad.

But that's not necessarily the case.

Temptation isn't always an opportunity to do something evil

or do something bad like we think of morally bad.

Temptation is simply an opportunity to trust something

other than God to satisfy your heart.

That means temptation is really about desires.

It's about desire and desires are not bad.

We all have desires. We were born with desires.

They're, they're, they're born, they're, they're inside of us to

have desire. And, and it's easy to think,

well, if I have desire for something, I'm automatically

bad. But that's not the case.

Desire itself is not bad. What happens is when we start to

pursue anything other than God to satisfy our desires, that's

when things go bad. So think about it this way.

When you take something that's maybe good and you turn it into

a thing that's ultimate for you. Like you think this is what

matters more than anything else to me.

Like maybe your career or the company you lead, right?

And you think I, this is what matters more than anything else.

And you take this, this harmless thing, this even good thing, and

you turn it into an ultimate thing.

This is where destruction comes into us.

This is how temptation works. So temptation is about desire,

and desire is not necessarily bad desire.

We're born to desire things. So here's another truth about

temptation as we talk about what is temptation?

Temptation itself is not sin. It is not sin to be tempted.

That's important to know. Jesus himself was tempted.

Hebrews 415 says that Jesus was tempted in all the ways that we

are, and yet he was without sin. So we cannot say to be tempted

is equal to sin because Jesus himself was tempted and he was

without sin. Now I know, I get it.

Sometimes we feel like there's this war inside of us.

There's this thing that we're constantly tempted by.

There's this thing that comes at us over and over and over and

over again, and we might be prone to think because we can't

overcome that desire and we're constantly tempted by that thing

to satisfy those desires with something other than God.

Like we, we think that that's always coming at us.

We might think that that we're just terrible and that we're

sinful, but temptation and being tempted is not sin.

So in addition to temptation not being sin, there's also

something about about temptation that we need to say.

Temptation is universal. It's universal.

Paul says in First Corinthians 10/31 that temptation is common

to man. In other words, everybody

experiences but but everybody experiences temptation.

But temptation is also personal. It's personal.

So it's universal, but it's personal.

And this leads us to our next idea.

All right, So what is temptation?

Secondly, how does temptation work?

How does temptation work? So if temptation is personal,

what do you mean, Stephen? How does it work?

Well, according to James, the text, he says that temptation

originates from inside of us. Temptation originates from

inside of me. And then he makes it clear God

does not tempt you. God cannot, cannot be tempted

and does not tempt us. God is not setting a trap for

you. Like in other words, when you

have a desire that you're prone to, to, to meet that desire with

something other than God, that is not God setting a trap for

you. So temptation comes from inside

of us. What does that mean?

Temptation comes from our bent nature, our crooked nature, our

bent nature. All of human beings are fallen.

There's the the fallen reality of creation and we're all part

of creation and we are broken and we are bent in that.

What James is saying, he actually uses the word evil.

He says we are tempted by our own evil desires.

And what that what he's trying to say is that we are all prone

to corruption, that all of us have desires that can be and

often are corrupted. Did you guys know this?

Have you ever heard somebody say, hey, just follow your

heart? Have you ever heard this advice

before? Follow your heart.

Now as a Christian, you immediately say, I can't do

that. The prophet Jeremiah said the

heart above all things is deceitful.

Who can understand it? So just memorize that.

And so when some well meaning friend says, hey, you should

just follow your heart, you just reply by going, I really can't

do that. The heart above all things is

deceitful is what the Bible says.

And this is hard for us to believe because we are living in

a culture, a current kind of cultural malou that says no one.

You can't trust anyone more than yourself.

You are the best expert for your own life.

You are the best guide for your own future.

Trust you and trust no one else. But the Bible says that's bad

advice. Your own heart, your own heart

will deceive you and lead you astray.

And so because humanity is fallen, we are all bit and that

bit nature affects us. This is why temptation comes

from inside of us. So how does temptation work?

First of all, it comes from inside of us, comes from inside

of you, inside of me. Now, James uses the imagery of a

lure here, a lure. For context, we could think of a

fishing lure. When you fish and you use

artificial bait, your goal is to entice the fish to bite the

hook. James says that there is

something inside of each of us that entices us to, to have our

desire met by something other than God.

That it, that we are, we are LED astray by our own desires, by

our own enticement in, in, in, in deception.

The the, the fishing language, the lure language is so good

because great fishermen are good at creating deception.

They're really good at it. And I've, I've done a couple few

different types of fishing. I've done some deep, you know,

ocean fishing once, once out in the Gulf.

And that to me didn't feel very sportsmanlike.

We chum the water. If you're one of these guys,

please don't take offense at this.

I don't mean to offend you, but it didn't seem very sports.

And like we chum the water and then we threw some squid down on

a hook to the very bottom of this really long, you know,

really deep place. And and then a fish bit it and

we run. We fished, we brought it in.

I mean, it was like, I mean, we tricked.

I mean, I guess it was deception there, but it didn't feel all

that. It didn't feel all that like

sportsman to me. But then I've been fly fishing

in the mountains for trout, for like for bows and for Brooke and

brown. And now that they tell you what

color clothes to wear, right? Make sure you wear earth colors

because the fish can see you, right?

And as you're fishing, how you lay, how the line hits the

water, how the fly hits the water, if, if the line hits the

water too heavy, if the fly hits the water, it makes too much of

A splash, forget it. The fish is like, you're an

idiot. Nobody, nobody believes that's

real, that that fly has to lay perfectly on the water.

And, and what a guy told me once, he said, he said, the

better fisherman you become, the better at mending the line and,

and creating deception for the fish, the bigger fish you'll

catch. And he said the reason that is,

is because the young fish, they're idiots.

They fall for anything. They're just stupid, like, oh,

look, there's a, there's a, there's a bug and I'll eat it.

The old fish. They can tell the difference,

right? And, and good fly fishermen in

the mountains and in, out in Colorado, these good fly, they

have become masters at deception.

And what we tend to think is that someone else is trying to

deceive us, right when it comes to temptation.

But what James says and what the Bible teaches is that it's not

someone else is trying to deceive us, It's us deceiving

us. It's US lying to us.

It's we we are lured away by our own evil desires.

Now, earlier I said that temptation is universal.

But I also said that temptation is personal because each of us

are different. Each of us have different

desires. So what tempts one person will

not tempt another. But we are all susceptible to

temptation in different ways. So think about it like this way,

what will catch 1 fish won't catch another fish.

There's a specific lure, a specific artificial bait for a

specific fish. And you, you, you are prone to

some desires and not prone to others.

This is why we have to have grace for one another.

So when you hear about someone who's made a mistake, who's

given into temptation and messed up things in their life, never

look down on that person for their failures.

Never look down on them for giving into the temptation

because just just because it's not a deception you would have

fallen for doesn't mean that there's not a deception out

there that you would fall for. This is really important that we

don't look down our nose at those who fail and fall prey to

temptation because it's just a matter of time before a custom

built temptation is coming for us.

So temptation is deception that happens inside of us based on

the unique desires we have, and we are lured into trying to meet

those desires with something other than God.

That's just a summary. And this is where James says sin

comes into the process. And the word sin always makes us

feel funny. That's in verse 15, makes us

feel weird to hear the word sin. And we're like, ah, you know.

But remember, the word sin is just a Greek word that means to

miss the mark. It's an archer's term.

It just means you're not perfect.

It means you don't pull the bow and hit the target every single

time. And matter of fact, at our

church, we don't even allow perfect people.

So if you're not perfect, then we're we all agree that we have

sin in our lives, that we all miss the mark.

This is what James is saying. James is saying that we take an

action. So we have a desire.

We have this desire that we want to have met something inside of

us, and then we take an action to meet that desire.

But the action we're taking does not include submission to God,

surrender to God, or trusting God.

When we do that, when we say I have this desire and I want to

meet this desire, but it's not going to include submission to

God or surrender to God, that action I take is called sin.

Super simple. It's called sin.

It's me saying God, I have this itch that I need to scratch and

I'm not going to look for you to do it.

I'm not going to ask you to help me with this.

I'm going to ignore you in that moment.

We commit sin. We commit sin because we believe

lies. We commit sin because we believe

lies, not because we're terrible, no good, bad people.

And this is kind of what you're kind of used to hearing.

You're a Sinner because you're a terrible, no good, bad person.

I mean, I'm a terrible, no good, bad person, but I'm not going to

speak for you. All right?

We, we commit sin because we believe lies.

Every time we choose sin, we are believing something that is not

true about God. Every time we commit sin, we're

believing something that is not true about God.

Lies like this. I will never be happy unless

this desire is met. I will never be happy unless

this desire is met. Now that's a lie.

That's a lie about God because you're saying there's something

I need other than God to give my life fulfillment.

I will never be happy unless this desire is met.

Here's another lie. God is not coming through for me

in this situation. God is not coming through for me

in this situation. That's a lie, and when you

believe that lie, you're going to be tempted to meet your

desire through something other than God, outside of surrender

to God. Here's another one.

I have to take matters into my own hands.

I got to control this. I got to figure this out.

That's a lie that will lead you to meet your desire that you

have through something other than God.

So very simply, we choose sin because we believe a lie, and

that choice impacts our lives very negatively.

Which leads us to our final idea this morning, why you and I must

resist temptation. James says that temptation is

incremental. Incremental.

It moves slow. In other words, you never hear a

story about a godly person was living a godly life who out of

nowhere did a terrible ungodly thing.

Like you hear that story, but when you look into the story,

what you realize is that there was a lot of moving towards

ungodly stuff along the way, over months and years of their

lives, right? Temptation is incremental.

We may think it's not incremental, but it's

incremental. This is what James is saying.

Temptation slowly convinces us of lives, lies and lead, leads

us more and more into deception about God and about our lives.

Temptation drives us away from God in the life he offers.

Look at verse 15. What does he say in the end of

verse 15? He says and sin when it is full

grown gives birth to death. Do you see that language full

grown and sin when it is full grown?

If something becomes full grown, what was it?

What was it in the process of doing?

It was in the process of growing on its way to becoming full

grown. So this is the language James is

saying he's going, hey, temptation is incremental.

It starts out with small compromises, small ways of of

meeting your desires through something other than God, of not

trusting God and trusting yourself more.

And slowly over time, this temptation gets full grown into

sin, a complete rejection and trust of God.

And what James is saying is that your temptation to trust

something other than God is leading somewhere.

It has a destination. In other words, you're going to

arrive at a location one day. And often times you're going to

say, especially if you're a young person, you're going to

say, how did I get here? How did I end up here?

And James will say you are always headed there.

This was the road you were always on.

Don't be surprised that you arrived at this destination.

And what is that destination? James says That destination is

death. Death.

Here's if you take notes, here's 4DS that maybe help you remember

this, How temptation works and why we should resist it.

Temptation starts with a desire. I have something I have a desire

for. Then it moves to a deception.

You have a desire, then you're deceived.

A deception. And then there's a decision.

A decision to trust something other than God.

Who's been there? A decision to trust something

other than God. And then the 4th D, there's

death. Those are the 4DS of temptation.

There's desire, there's deception.

There's decision, there's death. Now, what exactly James means by

death is argued about among Christians, but I think we can

all agree that it doesn't sound good, Amen.

It doesn't sound good. I think James would say it's the

opposite of the life found in Jesus, that Jesus came to give

you life and life to the full, the abundant life.

That's what he offers us. And what James says is that you,

as you reject the sustenance and the supply of God to meet your

desires, as you say, no, I've got to meet my own desires.

I've got to find something other than God to meet my desires.

As you do that more and more incrementally, it leads to this

thing called death. I think of an idea with death.

I think of a parched soul. Have you ever lived your life,

if you're an older person maybe where you had a season of a

parched soul or an unmoored life out to sea?

And what happens is, is people begin to think, well, God's not

coming through for me. They believe the laws about God.

They believe the laws about about who God is.

And they start to think, well, I've got to meet my own desires.

And they give into temptation. They make the decision to reject

God and meet their own desires. And what they think at first is

they're happy. They think this is working.

I didn't need God after all. And it seems as if their plan

has worked. But what James is saying is that

eventually they will realize that their rejection of trusting

God was always leading them to a desert of misery of their own

choosing, and they don't know it until they're there in the dry

sand. Resisting temptation to satisfy

the desires we have with something other than God is

critical for you to experience the abundant life that Christ

gives you. So we know what temptation is.

We know how it works. We know why we must resist it.

But James offers one final piece of encouragement today.

He says to us in verse 16, do not be deceived, my dear

brothers and sisters, can you hear his yearning for you?

Do not believe the lies that your own heart tells you, the

deception of the own lure in your own heart.

Instead, believe the truth about who God is and who God says you

are. First of all, he says God is a

gift giver. He does not change.

He's not like the shifting shadows.

He can be trusted with all of your desires because God himself

dives deep into your heart and He shows you what you truly

need. And then once He shows you what

you truly need, he offers it to you on a platter and he says

this is what you need and I'm giving it to you.

He's a gift giver. Our God's a gift giver.

And then James tells us to remember who we are.

You are one He chose. Isn't that beautiful?

You are one He chose, the text says He chose to give you birth.

You know what birth is. Birth is life contrasted with

death. The temptation leads to death.

But God chose to give you birth, to give you life through His

Word. That's the gospel.

Through his promise of the gospel, God through his Son

Jesus Christ, gave you life. And what is life that's

connected to Him? That's relationship with your

heavenly Father. And here's the here's the

beautiful truth about Jesus. Jesus too, resisted temptation.

He refused to believe the lie, and he trusted his Father's

nature. And he trusted his Father's

nature all the way to the cross. I dare say none of us have

trusted God so deeply as to be hung naked on a cross before a

crowd of people, but Jesus did. He trusted his Father's nature

all the way to the cross where he would die to give to God his

greatest desire. And what was God's greatest

desire to have for himself a people you.

And this is what James says in verse 18 in his last encouraging

words of this section. He says that we might be a kind

of firstfruits of all he created.

I wish you would go home and just read that section and sit

with it and meditate on it, that you would be a kind of first

fruits of all he created. You are the first harvest.

Now. This is what this means.

You are the first, That's what a first fruit is.

The first fruit is the the first harvest, the first picking and

it's offered to God as a blessing.

You as a believer in Jesus Christ are a first fruit.

A first fruit of what? What's the harvest that's

coming? You are a first fruit of a new

creation, a new heaven, and a new earth that's coming.

What James is saying is that when we trust Jesus Christ that

you are the evidence to all of the universe and to all of the

creation order that there's a new day coming, that there's a

new world coming, that there's new trees and new oceans, that

there's a new land and new mountains, everything's going to

be made new. You are the first fruits of

that. What you, what you are

announcing to all of creation is this.

God is faithful. He will keep His promise.

He will make all the world new because He's made me new.

You can rest assured ocean and trees and valleys and meadows.

You can rest assured. You will be made new one day

because I am the first fruits of that new creation.

I am the evidence that God will keep His promise and ultimately

my friend, what is His promise? What is his promise?

His promise is that in Christ He will fulfill your deepest

desires, the desires that sit below your desires, the desires

that feed the desires, the true longing you have.

He will meet in Christ the longing for wholeness, peace,

home, safety, safety, that all of these things will be put to

right, and that one day all that you long for will be met in the

Son Jesus. So in the meantime, let us

resist the lies when the pool comes, when the lie whispers,

when something else looks like it would satisfy you.

Let us not be deceived by ourselves, My brothers and

sisters. Let's trust that the God who

saved us also will satisfy us in Christ our Savior.

Will you stand with me? I'm going to pray over us.

If you'd like to talk with someone, stick around.

I'll be upfront. I'll be around.

Sometimes it's helpful if you are in the midst of a battle

with temptation, to just tell someone I'm dealing with

something I'm tempted to trust, something other than God for my

desires to be met. I just want to tell you, and

this is my promise to you, if you come and tell me anything, I

don't care how shocking you might think it is, I've probably

heard it before. And I will respond to you with

two words. Me too, me too.

And then we'll pray together. That is the beginning of freedom

from the deception. Say it out loud.

Let's pray together. Father, thank you for this day.

Thank you for the scriptures. Thank you for James.

So practical, so helpful, so good.

Thank you that he came around to believe in that his brother was

the Son of God. Sure, that was a tough day for

him. We're grateful, though, that

we've that these words have been protected for us thousands of

years. Here we are.

Let us put them to practice. Let us let us be honest about

ourselves and our own bent hearts.

And Lord, if those of us who need to say it out loud, give us

the courage to do it soon. We love you.

We thank you for Christ. His name we pray.

Amen. If you enjoyed this episode,

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Have a great week.