The Church of Eleven22 - Week 2: Temptation: Life or Death

Episode Date: June 18, 2023

Following Jesus is so much more than right or wrong; it is life or death.

Amen, amen, amen. If you have your Bibles, you can grab them and turn to the New Testament book of James. We're going to be in chapter one, and we're going to pick up in verse 12. If we haven't met, my name's Ryan. I'm one of the pastors here, and every so often I get the opportunity to teach the Bible when Pastor Jobies away, and so I'm excited to do that. To all the dads here, happy Father's Day. I hope it's a good one.

I'm a dad, and so I'm happy about that. I hope you are, too. As a Father's Day gift, I just want you to know that our text today talks about temptation and sin, so you're welcome. And so that's what you get. That's what you get. We're going to pick up in, we're in week two of a teaching series through James. James is a letter that was authored to Christians in the early church, and James is the half-brother of Jesus. And early on in Jesus' ministry, James was not so, he wasn't a big fan. He didn't buy into Jesus' claims to be God at first, but then he saw Jesus die on a Roman cross, and three days later he was resurrected from the dead,

And post the resurrection, James believed that when Jesus said, I am God, that he proved it to be true through the resurrection. And it changed everything. And so James became a follower in the way of Jesus and became a significant leader in the early church, even all the way unto his death. And so one of the key themes in the book of James is that faith in Jesus Christ produces faithfulness to Jesus Christ. That faith in Jesus Christ produces in our lives faithfulness to Jesus Christ. When we study the New Testament, we see clearly that faith in Jesus, salvation is a free gift. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8 says, we are saved by grace through faith. It is not of works.

It is a gift so that no one can boast, which means nobody gets to take credit for people surrendering their lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and for the forgiveness of sins except for God himself. He's the only one who gets the credit for that. That for us who believe in Jesus, it is a free gift. and we receive that gift by grace through faith. But it's the gift that keeps on giving. It goes to work in our lives, and it begins to produce what the Bible calls fruit, and the fruit that grows in our life is faithfulness to Jesus.

And so the key theme in James is that faith, which is a gift, grows faithfulness in the life of the believer. And so we pick up in verse 12, and James says this. He says, 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. James says right out of the gate, he says, Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial.

What we're going to see is that there's two things that challenge faithfulness in the life of the believer. One is trials that come our way, and whenever trials come our way, close on the hills of those trials will be temptation. James says, Blessed is the man who faces trial and stays steadfast in the faith. When we study history and we see men and women who challenge, they are challenged by great adversity

and they remain faithful, we admire people who stay faithful. We think about Old Testament heroes like Job, who loses everything and stays faithful to God. We think about Joseph who is betrayed, who is imprisoned, who is wrongfully accused, and throughout all of the trials, he stays faithful to God and God blesses him. We think about women like Esther who risk everything for the sake of God. God's people and for obedience and faithfulness to God and God blesses it. We think about Ruth, who when you study the Old Testament book of Ruth, it seems that all of redemptive history comes down to a single thread of one woman's decisions, and she stays faithful to God, and God blesses her. We look in more modern times, we look at people like Corey Ten Boom,

who's a teenage girl when the Nazis invade her home country of Holland, and they begin to arrest, persecute, and kill Jews. Her and her family, faithfully devoted unto God, begin to help Jews go free and they begin to hide them. They're arrested. They're put into a Nazi concentration camp, but the entire time, she stays faithful unto God, and God blessed her. We think about men like Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela, who stood on Christian ethic,

who stood on convictions from the Word of God, faithful throughout the course of their lives, through imprisonment and persecution and great adversity. They stand, even to the cost of their own life. They stand firm, and God blesses it. when we see men and women of faithfulness, we admire that. We admire that in the church. But in the New Testament, it doesn't say that it's just something that's going to be admired.

It says that it's something that's going to be rewarded. James says, blessed it's the man who remains steadfast, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life. Now, throughout Paul's writings, he talks about five different kinds of crowns that will be rewarded or awarded to believers on the day of judgment. In 2 Corinthians 5, the Apostle Paul says that every believer will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and on that day they will be rewarded for what they have done in the body, whether good or bad. And then he goes on to talk about these five different crowns.

And are these crowns literal crowns that will receive on the day of judgment? I believe so, but I believe they're also symbolic of something greater, which is that faithfulness is rewarded in the kingdom of God. Faithfulness is rewarded in the kingdom of God. The five crowns that Paul talks about quickly, He talks about the crown of righteousness. He talks about this in 2 Timothy chapter 4, and this will be given to believers

who live and pursue holiness and purity and integrity and high character throughout the course of their life. They're given the righteousness of Jesus at their salvation, and they're crowned in righteous because they pursue righteousness with their life. That's crown number one. Number two is the imperishable crown.

We read about this in 1st Corinthians chapter 9, and Paul talks about how he disciplines his mind and his body, and he doesn't run around punching the air like some crazy person, but he tries to keep himself under self-control because he knows he has these desires that would lead him away from God, and so it takes great amount of self-control in order for him to live a holy and righteous life. And so the imperishable crown goes to people

who practice self-control over the course of a life. Now, I don't know if I'm going to get any of these rewards, honestly. I have no idea. That said, when it comes to self-control, I think I probably got some work to do. You know, there's things in my life where subjective to me, I feel like I practice self-control pretty well. But I also know this to be true.

I cannot be trusted when I'm hungry. I just can't. You send me hungry to a grocery store. Sin's going to happen. It's just what's going to happen. I'm going to walk in there. I'm going to walk out with a box of ice cream sandwiches, two bags of Oreos, a foot-long chicken tender sub, a gallon of Mountain Dew, and no self-respect.

Every time. Every time, man, I'm weak in the knees. Look, y'all, you put me in a Chick-fil-A drive-thru? I ain't even got to be hungry. You just ain't even got to be hungry. Every time, every time I get in that drive-thru and look, I'm going to be honest with y'all. Confession time? I have 44,000 Chick-fil-A points on my app.

That's a fact, Jack. You have someone who would say, Pastor, why do you have 44,000? Because I'm trying to win. because I'm trying to win. Every time I'm pulling that drive-thew, I think, you know what, today's the day. I have the best of intentions. I'm going to eat grilled nuggets

and a kale salad. That's what I'm going for. Ice water. I pull up, I roll my window down, some fantastically nice person says, can I take a name for your order? I hide all my 1122 stuff so they can't see it. They scan my app so that I can get the points, right?

And then I've said, And as soon as they say, can I take your order, I think, yes, you can. And I'll have a chicken sandwich with a large french fry and a large Dr. Pepper, right? And then I just look down at the floor because I'm ashamed. I got some work to do when it comes to self-control. But self-control matters. It's not that we're just trying to control ourselves by ourselves, that God has given us the Holy Spirit of God,

and he has given us everything we need for life and godliness. The third crown is the crown of life, and James talks about it here in chapter one. And it's also talked about in Revelation chapter two, Jesus himself says, he who finishes faithfully unto death will receive the crown of life. This is also historically known as the martyr's crown. Throughout the history of the church, there have been millions of men and women who have faced the ultimate test, where they have been put to the question, will you deny your faith in Jesus Christ or will you give up your life? And millions of men and women have stood faithful on their commitment and dedication to Christ all the way into the cost of their life.

And many more will throughout the course of history. in the world, one out of every eight believers, lives in a place where they are at risk of imprisonment, persecution, and even death because of their faith in Jesus Christ. People who stand against the ultimate test of faith and they stand firm on the Word of God, the Bible says they will receive the crown of life. The fourth crown is the crown of rejoicing. This is found in 1st Thessalonian chapter 2. Paul talks about a reward that will be given to people who were instrumental in helping other people come to know Christ. And I believe that if Judgment Day were tomorrow, that there would be a long line of 1122

or standing in line that would receive this reward. I don't know much, but I know a few weeks ago, I stood in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and I watched 1,126 people make a public profession of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Now, we celebrate that. Heaven says that when, I mean, the Bible says that when heaven sees one sinner come to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ that all of heaven rejoices. I cannot imagine there's a people on the planet that have more to rejoice over in the kingdom than the Church of 1122 because of the salvation that God's brought in this house.

And I believe he's just getting started. So the crown of rejoicing. We rejoice when sinners come home to the Father. And the fifth crown in 1 Peter chapter 5 is the crown of glory. And this will be rewarded given to faithful shepherds, ministers, people who minister faithfully in the local church over the course of their life. This is Sunday school teachers and kids ministry workers and small group leaders and deacons and elders and people who commit their time and their talent and their treasure to advancing the kingdom of God through the local church that that faithfulness will be rewarded. Now, is the point of faithfulness being rewarded in the kingdom?

Is the point is just that it gets rewarded? No, it's got a higher point, as does everything in the kingdom. And so what will we do with these crowns? Well, I think Revelation chapter 4 gives us a picture of what the purpose of crowns are in the kingdom. And so I'm going to pick up in verse 9. We see this image of the manifest kingdom, the throne room of God, where Jesus sits. I'm going to pick up in verse 9. It says, whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him, that is Jesus,

who is seated on the throne and who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders fall down before him. The 24 elders represent the people of God, the church, people who have placed their faith in Jesus. The 24 elders fall down before Jesus who was seated on the throne, and they worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created. What's the point of the crowns?

Well, let me ask you this. What is the pinnacle of happy for the believer in Jesus? what is the ultimate in happy for the believer? Well, it's that Christ be glorified. It's that Christ be glorified. That is the ultimate happy, and God knows that him being glorified is so married to our being satisfied in him

that he has created a way that where we are faithful unto him because of the faith that he's given to us, he rewards that faithfulness, he puts things in our hands, and then we joyfully bring those things back to him for his glory's sake. and in so doing, that is where joy and happiness is found. It's a beautiful exchange of grace. What we know is that faithfulness matters.

Everything we do in this life will either bring regret or reward eternally. The point is not who gets what, but that we're giving everything, we are given everything we need for life and godliness, and we have an opportunity in this life to leverage it all for the sake of the glory of Jesus Christ. But what stands in the way of a life lived faithfully? What makes it so challenging? Well, James is going to unpack that for us, and the answer is sin. Sin is what makes it challenging.

There is something at work in this world, and there's something at work inside of us that is prone to wander. Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Verse 13, James says, let no one say when he is tempted that I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. Now, I think James is echoing back to the Garden of Eden here. When Adam and Eve first sin against God, when they choose their way over God's way, when they rebel and resist God's direction and they think they can do better on their own, when they first sin against God, ultimately God shows up and says, what have you done?

And Adam looks at God, and in my mind, he points at him and says, God, you're the one that gave me this woman. He blames God. He says, you're the one that gave me this woman, and she is the one that deceived and tempted me. And Eve's like, hold on, man, it's not on me. It's on the snake, on the deceiver, on the serpent. He tricked me. One of the things that we see whenever sin entered in the world right on its hills was the abdication of responsibility for it. When sin entered into the world, one of the things we see very quickly was the abdication of responsibility for it.

It's blame shifting, its excuse making. Have you ever had a conversation with someone who clearly did wrong? By human standards, much less by God's high and holy standards. Just by human standards, they clearly did wrong, and instead of accepting responsibility, they're giving you all their reasons. One of the things is true about temptation is that temptation increases as responsibility decreases.

And this plays out on a couple of different fronts. One is that when we make unwise choices, when we choose to do things that are not honoring to God, when we don't accept responsibility for that, the temptation grows to continue to not accept responsibility. So temptation increases as responsibility. decreases, but it also plays out in the course of your life. I mean, have you ever been through seasons of life where you had a clearly defined goal? I mean, you're on mission, right? You've got

a purpose, whether it's work or raising children, or you've got a goal and you're headed toward that goal. Well, if you want to accomplish that goal, you know what you have to do is you have to build routines and rhythms, and you kind of order your life around the goal that you're trying to get. You have a real sense of responsibility as you head in direction, and that responsibility informs all the decisions that you're making. But then all of a sudden, as life happens through stages, you may find yourself where you're not in such a season of felt responsibility. Maybe your kids grow up.

Maybe things change at work. Maybe you experience a little bit of success and you don't quite feel the pressure that you want, once felt that drives you. And then all of a sudden, that sense of responsibility goes down. In that season of life, we are in prime target for the enemy to tempt us because temptation increases as our sense. of responsibility decreases. And the enemy loves nothing more than people are sitting around with

idle hands. You've ever heard the statement, idle hands or the devil's work? That's not in the Bible, by the way. I think Benjamin Franklin said it once, and I should be careful listening to things that are outside the Bible. I don't think that's necessarily all the way true. It says, idle hands are the devil's playground is what I actually think the quote is. But the more I think about it, especially in modern times, I don't think the challenge for me and I don't think the challenge probably for you is that you don't have anything to do. The challenge is not that we don't have anything to do

is that we don't know what to do with ourselves. And the enemy knows this, and he knows how to get in and to deceive those desires. If you have time on your hands, maybe you're in a season where you're like, I got some time on my hands, and maybe I do have a little bit of idleness in my life or I've lost a sense of responsibility.

I would invite you to jump in here at the church of 1122 and let's make disciples together in Jesus' name. Go to Cue.E.2.com slash 1010 life. there are an unbelievable amount of ways for you to get plugged in and for you to find purpose and meaning and a real sense of responsibilities. You dedicate time, talent, and treasure to the Lord. James continues in verse 14. He says, each person is tempted when he is lorded and enticed by his own desire. Anybody here ever have wayward desires? Anybody here ever have thoughts, ever have feelings, ever see things, ever want things? Anybody here ever have longings or crave?

that don't scream Christ be glorified in me. James says that these desires, what the Bible calls the work of the flesh within us, that these desires, these wayward desires, that the enemy treats them often like fishing. He's using fishing language. He says, we are lured and enticed by these own desires. These wayward desires.

And he says in verse 15, he continues, says, these desires, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is fully grown. brings forth death. When the desire, when it has conceived, conceived with what? Now it's child and family dedication weekend, so I'm gonna stay classy with it, San Diego. But some of y'all have seen movies,

the other rest of you all catch up. Here's what James is saying. He's saying we have these desires within us and that there's temptation out there and there's temptation in here and that temptation is luring those desires away. And it's singing its favorite Marvin Gay song saying, let's say,

Let's get it on. And when desire and temptation get under the sheets together, what is made? Sin babies is what's made. It makes babies. And the baby is called sin, and it leads nowhere good. Desire conceives with temptation and gives birth to sin. I mean, give you an example of how this is played out at a different point in my life. I'm not going to talk dirty to you, if that's what you think.

But I'm 15 years old. Now, before I even get into this, one, if at any point during this story, you just totally give up on me as a human, I get it. I get it. And don't worry, Pastor Jobi will be back next week, and all will be right in the world. And so don't even sweat it. I'm 15 years old. I play on the high school football team. We've made it deep into the playoffs.

It's a big day, a lot of pressure for a 15-year-old, wake up in the morning, pack all my stuff up, head to school, go throughout my school day, excited. over, walk down to my locker. I've got 20 minutes from the time that school ends to the time that I have to be at our first team meeting. Right? And I go to my locker, I open it up, and I realize that I grabbed the wrong jersey. All right, you think what's the big deal? Well, the big deal is that I have to go into my coach's office and I have to tell them that I grab the wrong jersey. Now, I know that we live in a day where kids get awarded participation trophies. My youngest daughter competed in a gymnastics event one time and they had 16 places on the 16th got a medal. I thought what has happened in this world. That is not how I grew up. I grew up with coaches that would get this close to my face.

They would curse the day that I was born while spitting tobacco in my eyes. That is how I grew up, right? And so I didn't really want to go that. I didn't really want to go that way. I didn't want to get yelled at. And so owning this simple mistake just didn't seem like a good option to me. And so I begin to think. I begin to run around my options in my mind, and so I decided, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to lie. I don't even know what lie I'm going to tell yet, but I'm going to lie. And so at this point in time, I'm pretty committed to lying and not telling the truth

and trying to figure my way through it through manipulation and maneuvering. Here's the bottom line. I want to avoid consequences, but is that all? As a grown man, I can look back on the situation that starts silly and get serious, but is that really all that I wanted to do? No. what I actually wanted to do was to avoid the disapproval of people that I respected. Right?

And you have no idea how addicted you are to the approval of man until you're afraid you're not going to have it. So wanting to avoid consequences, it just seemed like a better option to me to lie a little bit than to disappoint a lot. So at this point, I've just started slowly creeping down what's called the unwise road. So I leave my locker and I start heading to where I know my coaches are and I'm going to lie to him and I'm going to hope for the best. Proverbs chapter 2, verse 11 says this, wise choices will watch over you. Understanding will keep you safe. Whenever we check wisdom at the door,

sin is sure to be crouching on the other side. Is there anywhere in your life where you're making room for sin by stepping out on the unwise road? So I'm getting my lie in order and I'm on my way to tell it and right out of the corner of my eye, I see my friend. My friend's 16 years old, he's got a car,

which I at this one time don't have because I'm 15, right? I see him walking toward his car and I think, I got an option. Here's what I'll do is I'm going to jump in my buddy's car. We're going to drive to my house. We're going to get all the stuff that we need. We're going to drive back and I'll be a little late. So I'll just tell a different lie as to why I was late.

I see my friend, I lure him right in. And let's just say he was a sucker. Like I just pulled him right in. Pulled him right in. So I asked my friend for help. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll help you. And as we're walking to his car, he's been 16 for about 10 days at this point. As we'll walk into his car, I start to think, you know what, your help's not going to be good enough for me.

So why don't you just let me drive? Because I need to get more in control of this situation. Sure enough, he throws me the keys. I grabbed the keys. We get into his 1989 Chevy Corsica. Just a sweet machine. We crawl into this Corsica. Now I'm in this tangled game, right?

I've involved others, and I am very literally breaking the law. As I say that out loud, I'm not exactly sure what the statute of limitations is on this deal. but we're going to do our best. We busts out of the parking lot, and sure enough, we're half a mile down the road. I'm now, I'm 10 minutes away from the team meeting, and I live 15 minutes away from the school. So I'm in a bit of a pickle.

We pull up right behind the school bus, right behind the school bus, which is going nine miles an hour, right? And my head is just spinning, and there's two ways to my house from this point. I can stay behind the school bus, which is the normal way, or I can veer off to the right

and take a different way, which normally is longer. if they're one of a school bus. And the reason that it's longer is because it has a dirt road in the middle of it. I lived out in the boonies. And I think in this moment,

my infinite wisdom, you know what? Let me just bust on out the other way. And so I take the dirt road path. Who knows what happens when a car hits a dirt road going pretty fast? It starts to fish tail a little bit. Right?

And at first it starts to fish tail and I don't even worry about it. You know why? Because I think, I got this. I got this. I'm 15. I can handle this. 30 yards later, 30 yards.

The right tire goes off the edge of the road. And I don't hit the brakes. I hit the gas because that's the kind of man I am, right? Just kidding. I'm totally kidding. I'm stupid. That's the kind of person that I am. I hit the gas and the car, no kidding, it comes up.

It goes on its side. It slides across the road, turns over on the roof, and goes down the embankment on the other side. Now I'm in a pickle. We're upside down in this car. the glasses broke out, thank God we're alive. We're cut up, we're bruised up, we crawl out of the car. Back then there were no cell phones.

At this point in time, my poor decisions had almost literally gotten us killed. We didn't have a cell phone. We had to walk like a mile and a half to the next house. And as we're walking, all the instincts for self-preservation are just going wild. Isn't it amazing how strong our instincts are to protect ourselves? At significant cost oftentimes. So all the mechanisms for self-preservation are just going crazy. And so I begin to ask questions like, hey, man, what are we going to say?

What are we going to say? What are we going to say? I'm in real trouble. I broke the law. I've crashed my buddy's car. Nobody even knows that I'm not where I'm supposed to be. So solely in the interest of self-preservation, I look at my friend and make no mistake, my desire was solely and wholly set on me, not getting what I deserved,

which was consequences for bad decisions, and getting what I wanted. wanted, which was out of trouble. Right? And so I look at my buddy in the interest of self-preservation and I ask this question, hey man, what's your dad going to say when you tell him you let me drive your car? Blame. Just trying to move that blame a little bit. What are the police going to do to us? I mean, will insurance even cover this?

My buddy starts to think about it. See, now I'm projecting my fear onto his fears. Who knows that when we make unwise decisions and we commit ourselves to sin, that there's always collateral damage. People, other people, whether it happens quickly or it happens over time, other people always get hurt. So we're walking and my buddy's processing my questions and he says this, he says, hey, do you think we should just tell them that I was driving?

I do. I do think that. I look at him and I say, yeah, I do. And it gets really quiet between us. Is it amazing how quickly shame goes to work? The temporary relief of sin never last long. Whatever desire it satiates for the moment, it just never last long. It cannot satiate us over a long period of time.

So we end up making it to the house down the road. We call everybody we need to. A lot of times elapsed because we're walking and we walk back. And by the time we get back, somebody else has seen the car and they had called the police. And so there's a police car there. That's awesome. Both of our dads are there by the time we get back. And as we're standing there, we don't really see.

say much at first, we just kind of let it play out, hoping that nobody asked too many specific questions, and then the officer asked the question, he says, hey, who was driving the car? And I get real quiet. At this point in time, I can accept responsibility, and I should. I should do the right thing. To him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him, it is sin. I should do the right thing, and I should accept responsibility, and I should say, I'm sorry, but we don't. We lie. We lie to everybody. We walk through it. And I should say, I'm sorry, but we don't. We lie to everybody, we walk through it, we get through that. I actually get home, get my jersey, we get the brakes beat off of us that night,

just absolutely torched. It was a very long day. That said, on one hand, you could look at that story and you could be like, what's the big deal, man? It looks like you got away with it. But the question is, did we? Did we get away with it? James says that sin leads to death.

And sin doesn't just have the power to one day lead to death. It does. It does, certainly, that people who live under, the desire of sin and never repent and trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, that eventually leads to an eternal death. And the reason that people physically die in this world is because sin is in the world. So sin certainly leads to a physical death and can even lead to eternal death for anybody who doesn't place their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord. But it also can lead to a natural death. It can lead to death in real time. I mean, who here knows that

when sin is pursued and committed to, that it can lead to the death of hell. relationships today, not just one day. What died there that day? Trust died. Friendship died. Me and this guy, we were never the same. Honor among friends died. A part of my conscience that was sensitive to doing good.

Numbed or died. If we think we can continue to sin and get away with it, then what's going to stop us the next time we're tempted? Now, what's really wild about the story is what happened 18 years later. 18 years later, I'm preaching a sermon, and I'm telling a part of this story as a part of the sermon, and as I'm saying it out loud, I realize that my father's sitting in the crowd. Happy Father's Day! And I had never told him the truth.

We're talking about an awkward family dinner. I got two Chick-fil-A sandwiches on the way home that night. My dad and I, we sit and we talk about it, and my dad says this to me. He says, at the end of it, he says, hey, I hope you know now, even if you didn't believe it then, that it doesn't matter to me what kind of trouble you find yourself in. I'll always do whatever I can to help you. And I hear his words, and I just want to encourage you, maybe you're here and you've found yourself tangled up with some sin. You know it's not leading anywhere good.

Maybe you just stepped out on the road of unwise decisions. Maybe you're tangled up. And I would just offer this to you that you have a good dad in heaven, God the Father, who loves you and he has done everything that you would ever need in order for you to be free from that sin and he will help you if you will invite him in. He will help you if you will invite him in. Sin, if you believe the Bible, then it's clear that sin is not a problem, sin is the problem. What is sin is a very, very important question because there is a growing tendency even inside the church and among Christians to think or to call sin just an issue or at its most

severe, it's a struggle, but if we don't have a right and concise, biblically hold definition of sin, then how can we ever truly treasure the grace of Jesus Christ that shines bright against the backdrop of depravity? So what if sin is an important question? Sin is a state of being. It's a condition. It is a powerful force that's coated into our DNA. It's alive, it's aggressive, it's deceptive, and it is impossible to cure in and of our own efforts. Thank God for Jesus. It is a deep rejection of God's ultimate good and God's glorious rules. Sin is what comes out of a heart that gives preference to anything over God ever.

Dr. John Piper says this as a definition to sin. He says, sin is the glory of God not honored, the holiness of God, not reverenced, the greatness of God not admired, the power of God not praised, the truth of God not sought, the wisdom of God not esteemed, the beauty of God, not treasured, the goodness of God, not savored, the promises of God not believed, the commandments of God not obeyed, the justice of God not respected, the wrath of God not feared, the grace of God not cherished, the presence of God not prized, and the person of God not loved. And I would add to Dr. Piper's very thorough definition that sin is also the gospel of God not trusted. You say, well, pastor, when you put it like

that, it seems serious, and it is serious. James says it's deathly. serious. Verse 16, James says, do not be deceived, my brothers. The enemy truly comes only to still, kill, and to destroy. And his primary weapon, the primary mechanism that he uses

to steal, to kill, and to destroy to deceive believers. See, here's what the enemy wants. The enemy wants to keep people from placing their faith in Jesus Christ. And so he will tempt, he will steal, he will offer the things of this world to keep people for shrinking their life to Jesus Christ.

When he can't do that, when people surrender their life to faith in Jesus Christ, what the enemy goes to work doing is to trying to keep them from being faithful to Jesus Christ. He begins to tempt them with comfort and with momentary, temporary pleasures and satisfactions. So he's trying to keep us from being faithful to Jesus Christ because he doesn't want Christ to be glorified. He wants us to live numb, boring, purposeless life. That's what he wants. So he's trying to hijack faith and he's trying to hijack faithfulness. And the primary way that he does this is through temptation.

And at the foundation of every temptation is a lie. And the lie is this, that God does not love you and that God doesn't want what's best for you. So you need to go and get it for yourself. That's the foundation of every temptation. But thank God and His infinite mercy and grace that he has not left us to ourselves, but he has come to rescue us. Verse 17, James says, every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights. with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

When sin entered the world, it changes everything. When sin is committed to and it forms a habit in our life, it has the power to change a lot of things. But even all the things that sin has changed in the world, even though sin entered the world and it changed everything, God in his infinite grace and in his infinite mercies came on a rescue mission for us so that he could not just change it back,

but that he could make it better through the victory of Jesus. Jesus Christ. So what sin has stolen Jesus has come to reclaim for himself? Every good and perfect gift, James says, comes down from the Father of Lights. One of the things that separates Christianity from every other world religion is that every other world religion has got man reaching up to God saying, God, I got to do this and I got to pray this and I got to be there this time. I got to do all the right things. And then if I do, then maybe, just maybe, I could be in right standing with you. Christianity is not that at all. Christianity is not that man reaches up to God, but that God. But they, God, through Jesus Christ, has reached down to man.

He has grabbed human hearts, and when Jesus grabs the heart of the human by faith through grace, then the habits of that human begin to follow. Begin to follow. God, every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of Lights. Jesus Christ is the good and perfect gift that has come down. He entered into this dark world and darkness has not overcome it. Instead, he defeated death, he defeated the penalty of sin, he defeated darkness, he defeated He defeated hell, he defeated the enemy, and now all who believe in Jesus Christ

entrust Him as the Lord, they are set free from the condemnation of sin eternally. They are set free from the power of sin today. And they are set free from separation from God and given his eternal life, which starts at the moment of salvation. Verse 18 says, of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be kind of a first fruits of his creatures. If you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ, then God's at work in your life. Not everybody grows at the same speed or in the same measure.

Faithfulness doesn't work its way out in identical ways through every believer's life, but God is at work in our lives. So I would close with this. It's an invitation of three parts. One is that there are people here who have been purchased by Jesus Christ and placed their faith in Him, are walking in a season of freedom. They have been given freedom from the penalty of sin, praise God, from the power of sin, praise God, and they're walking in that freedom.

It's not to say you're perfect. It's not to say you don't struggle at times or you don't have wavered desires, but you're not bound up under the desires of sin. You're walking in freedom. And in a minute, we're going to sing, and I would just invite you to sing like free people. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

and we should celebrate that and rejoice in it. So if you're free, man, let's sing like we're free. There may be some other people that are flirting with sin. Maybe you've stepped down the unwise road. You haven't fully committed over yet. You haven't fully committed to a habit being formed, but you're stepping into direction. You've opened the door through a lack of wisdom,

and you know that sin is crouching on the other side, and I would just invite you today. Man, just stop. Stop. Turn it over to Jesus. Confess the struggle. the tendency, confess the felt temptation, and invite God into that. And then there's other people here that may have fallen in.

The sin is formed a habit. And you know it's not leading anywhere good. Maybe right now it's just a secret, and you're the only one that knows about it as far as you think. But it's formed a habit in your life. Maybe it's got a stronghold over you. And you can feel it choking out fellowship with God, choking out purpose and mission, choking out life abundantly. You can feel it squeezing.

you and it's robbing you of the joy that is yours in Jesus Christ. And I would invite you today to do what Jesus preached over and over and over again, which is to repent. Repent, my favorite definition of repentance is that I refuse to be at peace with the sin that is trying to lead me away from the God that I love. I refuse to be at peace with that struggle. I refuse to be at peace. That thing does not have power over me in Jesus' name. And I'm going to trust him and I'm going to throw myself at his feet. I'm going to do whatever I have to do in order to draw. all near to the God that I love and away from this thing that's trying to kill me. So I'd invite us today to repent, to turn to Jesus and turn away from the things that would lead us away from him.

Let's pray together. Father, we love you. As we respond, we pray that you, Holy Spirit, would do it only you could do, that you would comfort us in areas where we need to be comforted, that you would exalt Christ through us, that you would convict us in areas where we need to be convicted. As you write in your word that sin leads nowhere good. So God, anywhere that there's a strongholder, there's even a temptation where the desire has grown and gotten some steam in our life. Father, we pray that right now we invite you in and your victory over us. I pray for my brothers and sisters as we respond to the good news of the gospel. I pray that you would help us to do so in authenticity, in vulnerability, and true repentance. And God, we would walk worthy of the calling that we've received and that

the faith that you've given us, for each of us would produce faithfulness in our lives. We love you more than anything, and we pray all these things in Jesus' name. Would you stand with me as we respond?