Introduction
How often have we heard or used these phrases:
• “It’s the other person’s fault.”
• “I couldn’t help it.”
• “Everybody’s doing it.”
• “It was just a mistake.”
• “Nobody’s perfect.”
• “I didn’t know it was wrong.”
• “The devil made me do it.”
• “I was pressured into it.”
We also tend to make excuses, saying, “if it is so bad, then why do I desire it so much?” We also follow up with “Why is it so good?”
We want to make excuses and allow for temptations to enter. We desire something, and then we work to make that desire good and what is right.
Augustine wrote in his Confessions, “Sin comes when we take a perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and try desperately to fulfill it without God. Not only is it sin, it is a perverse distortion of the image of the Creator in us. All these good things, and all our security, are rightly found only and completely in him.”
That is what we will look at today from James 1:13-18 and look at “The Desires of Our Lives”
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. 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. 16 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. 18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
James 1:13–18 ESV
When we say things like I first mentioned, “the devil made me do it, why is it so bad if I desire it so much, and why is it so good” because we naturally desire many things. We want things and we tend to make them into something more than they are meant to be.
We also, do not want the blame for when it goes bad. We make these excuses because we want to be in the clear. Well, we can be in the clear when we understand what the temptations are and where they come from. We can be in the clear when we recognize what God’s desires are for us.
We can live a faithful life in the Lord when we recognize who He is and what He does for us.
We can grow to faithful and committed followers of Christ through trials and withstanding temptations through His power to do so.
But before we can we need to see where temptation stems from. In verses 13-15 we see that we are…
Tempted by My Own Desire (13-15)
We see here that James uses the same word for temptations as he did for trials. Yet, this is the more narrow meaning of the word. What we see from this wording is that within every trial there is a temptation to evil.
We may become disheartened and decide the trial is too much and look for an easier way out and bam, there is the temptation.
This may be to drink away the struggle, to drug away the struggle, that woman or man may begin to look better and more inviting. Maybe that petty cash that is never locked up is looking easier and easier to get.
No one will know that I have skimmed a little to make it by this month, I will put it back before anyone notices. Only to not do so and to continue to skim here and there.
This is what James is speaking of. The trial is from God but the temptation is from within you. It is not even from the devil, but you.
He says that my desires draw me to bad. Temptations are in me because of my nature. Paul tells us this when he said 1 Cor. 10:13 “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.”
He says God will not let you be tempted beyond what you can handle. God does not tempt you, but allows it, He tests you and tries you but He does not tempt you.
Tempted means “enticed to wickedness.” We could alter verses 13-14 to read as, “Let no one say when he is enticed to wickedness, “I am being enticed to wickedness by God,” for God cannot be enticed to wickedness with evil, and he himself entices to wickedness no one. But each person is enticed to wickedness when he is lured and enticed [drawn out like a fish] by his own desire.”
We are lured by our desires and drawn to wickedness by them.
Look at what the text does not say. It does not say God sets those temptations up. It says we are drawn by our desires.
It says God does not tempt us, we do.
Think about this for a moment. If you had no desire for drinking would a beer be seductive to you? Drugs? Lustful intentions? Money?
No, they would not. Yet, we have desires within us and Satan will use those desires to draw us into that temptation. He does not make us, he just crafts the situation to look more inviting because he knows our natural desires.
God has said of our hearts Gen. 6:5 “5 that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” That Jer. 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
Basically, if we were not evil, we would be free from evil desires and impulses. Yet, we are not we fall and struggle.
But we do not have too. We can rise above the temptations and difficulties. We can because we have Jesus Christ as our savior. We can because we have the Holy Spirit within us.
We can because Christ has promised that the helper, the Holy Spirit, would guide us into all truth (John 16:13). We can rise above temptations through trusting in Jesus to strengthen us through His word.
When we do this we will see that we are not perfect nor can we be perfect. We will realize we are sinful people even though we have been saved by grace through faith. We will then see that it is by faith we can make it through. Not of my will, your will, or anothers will, but by the will of God.
Now, think if you will of people we know who try to control the desires we all have by what is called asceticism. This is the practice of severe self-discipline.
They will not do anything because they believe they will fall into sin. They will be like the desert fathers of the early church.
The desert fathers would go and get into monasteries or caves away from everyone and almost starve themselves. Wear rough clothing that was abrasive to the skin. They would not keep good hygiene. They lived alone and avoided contact with anyone.
One Simeon Stylites sat on a platform on a pillar for 37 years to avoid contact with anything.
We can relate this to those who avoid sleeping enough because they do not want to be called lazy. Those who do not eat enough because they do not want to be called fat. Those who deny themselves any pleasure in this world because they think that will lead to sinful desires.
These people have become less than human because they have taken the life out of life. They do not have the steam to move forward and become sinful because they become bitter and angry.
The desires we have can be turned to good and used for good. We cannot do it by denying ourselves good things. We cannot do it by our strength. But it can be done. It can be done by this little secret that Warren Wiersbe gives, “The secret is in constant control. These desires must be our servants and not our masters; and this we can do through Jesus Christ.” (The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 342.)
We can do it by the power of Jesus Christ. Tests are good temptations are bad. Temptations cause death. Our desires if not controlled by the power of Jesus will bring forth, give birth to sin, and sin when it gets ahold brings forth, gives birth to, death. Our desires can be our downfall. That is what we must remember, they are our desires and our temptations, they are not from God nor will He ever tempt us.
He will not but He does have better for us. We can be…
Blessed by God’s Desire (16-18)
Right here we see James make a concrete statement about what God does do for us.
When he wrote “do not be deceived” it cold just as easily have been stated as “Make no Mistake” my beloved brothers.
Make no mistake God’s desire is for your maturity and growth. He tells us that God’s gifts are always good and that His giving is continuously good and always perfect.
The word good can be stated as beneficial. So, every beneficial gift. That means every test and trial is beneficial to us. That means every test and trial is good. It is because it is perfect. The word perfect here is the same as in verse 4 and it means meeting the highest standard. His gifts are perfect because they meet the highest standard and His beneficial gifts make us to meet the highest standard.
That is what is so amazing about what God desires of and for us. He desires us to be able to discern the bad gifts of the world from the good gifts from Him. He has created all things to be under our dominion.
Remember what God told Adam in the garden? Go forth and multiple and have dominion over the earth. This means we are to be over the world and what it says and tries to offer, rather than let it be over us.
Hence, the text telling us that all the good and perfect gifts come from above from the Father of lights.
This is a reference to God as the creator of the light and everything else. This also points to His never changing aspect.
The world and people will change. The world will be dark on one side and light on the other, God has no variableness, shadows of confusion, He does not change. He has said He is with us, He has said we are His, He has said He came to give life and give life abundantly. He does not give just to take away.
He says His gifts are good/beneficial, and perfect/highest standard, and that is what they are.
The world will give “gifts” that may look good, may feel good, may seem good, but they are not good. They are flawed and will lead us to be flawed.
We can have good through the Lord. We can have abundance through our father.
That is what He desires for us. That is why He has given the best gift of all, salvation through Jesus Christ.
We just saw in verses 13-15 that sin gives birth to death. That is through our will. We desire we then sin we then die. Yet, here we see that by God’s will He brought us forth–caused us to come into being by giving birth. Ths is the new life we are a new creation 2 Cor 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
That is His will. He did this through His word of truth–the gospel of grace through Christ. He gave that amazing gift of Christ nearly 2,000 years ago but the word has been preserved for us up to today. That is a good and perfect gift.
Do not let this word “firstfruits” throw you off. Tony Evans gives a great description of what this means, “The Israelites gave God the firstfruits of their crops, flocks, and herds. They demonstrated how they valued him by giving him the first and best of what they owned. As God’s “firstfruits,” you are of highest value to him. You are a son or daughter of the living God. Don’t succumb to temptation and lower your dignity.” (Tony Evans Study Bible, 1471.)
He did this for us and He sends tests for us to become better and stronger for Him. He never sends temptations but tests. He wants us to grow and mature.
We can grow and mature when we know He is good and only seeks good for us. We can be faithful when we realize that bad situations in life are made to build our faith in Him.
Think of it this way you are in the military. You have made it into the seals, rangers, the elite special forces. You have worked hard to get there and trained hard. You are then swamped with little to no sleep. Little to no food. Made to run many miles carrying heavy gear. Made to swim with that gear. Made to climb ropes high up with that gear. You crawl through mud and under wire and into many other sketchy obstacles with that gear.
You are pushed and prodded and ridiculed and mocked. You are made to do hand to hand combat while you are running on two hours of sleep in a weeks time. You are beat and used and tossed around. Life has become almost like hell. Then it is over. You focused on what was said, you listened, you obeyed, you trusted those above you telling you. You are now an elite forces member.
All those difficulties made you the soldier you are today. That is exactly what God’s beneficial gifts do. They make us better and His best if we will embrace them. We can embrace them because they are from Him. God gives us tests and trials as gifts because He knows they will develop us. We can grow and become strong when we trust Him and seek Him in them.
Conclusion
The cobra lily is a pitcher plant, a kind of plant that lures an unsuspecting insect down into the plant until it falls into a pool of digestive juices. However, the cobra lily is unique. It has a set of leaves that are semi-transparent. When an insect wanders in, it is dazzled by the light show it finds inside. Eventually, it is totally disoriented and slowly crawls forward, down a path with thousands of fine hairs, all pointed toward the “stomach” of the lily. When the insect tries to turn back, it quickly discovers it’s too late. Similarly, Satan masquerades as something he is not, a trustworthy broker of truth. He attempts to undermine our trust in God. If he can get us to give up on that, then our battle is lost. We are lost! (Samra, Jim. James, 1 & 2 Peter, and Jude (Teach the Text Commentary Series) (p. 17). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition).
God does not lay a red velvet cake before you when you are diabetic. He does not put that bottle in front of you when you struggle with alcohol. He does not place you in the area where you know drugs are. He does not make you look at that man or woman. We do all that of our own desire and longing and by the alluring light show from the demonic realm.
What our Lord does is place His desires in us when we have placed our faith in Him. Then our desires will begin to model His. Tests will come that build us up and strengthen us but only when we rely on our unchanging God who has given us these resources during temptation:
• His presence. “He will not leave you nor forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6 NKJV see also Hebrews 13:5).
• His model—Jesus. “For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:17–18 NIV).
• His guidance. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Psalm 119:105 NRSV).
• His mission for our life that keeps us directed. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1 NIV).
• His other people with whom we share encouragement. “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24–25 NIV).
• His forgiveness when we fall and fail. “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 NRSV).
Today you can overcome any temptation that is set before you because of the Spirit of God that dwells in you.
Today you can live a life of victory through the overwhelming presence and power of Jesus Christ in you.
Today you can go out in the world and embrace anything that hits you because you know that through trials and testing good comes.
Today you can live out will of God because He has blessed you with the honor of being of the highest value to Him. He wants you to live for Him and He has given you the way to do this. Trust Him seek Him and rest in Him as your power for life. When you do you will receive the good and perfect gifts from Him because He desires your spiritual growth more than you do.
