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Who We Are - Sermon, Sunday, September 28th, 2003
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JAMES 1:13-18 as follows —
When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but br ight-shiny Coho salmon, a silver. You survived your childhood, in the stream where you were born. You made it through your teenage months without getting devoured. You lasted long enough to make to salt water, and you've spent your adult life at sea, avoiding predators and fattening up for 18 months.
Now it's time to go home, but you must run the gauntlet. On your return journey to Willow Creek, there will be enemies above, unseen predators sitting in boats and lining the shores. They know you, they've studied your habits, they understand what your natural urges and instincts are. They will use every trick in the book, time-tested techniques, beautifully designed lures, attractive bait, anything to entice you to take one final and fatal bite.
If you rise to the bait, if you fall for the deception, if you snap at that shiny object, you'll get hooked. If you don't quickly spit out the hook, you'll be dragged away, up and up and into the net. And one of those gleeful predators will bonk you on the head and throw you in a box to die.
You are not, of course, a silver salmon swimming in the sea. What you are is a human being and, if you believe in Jesus Christ, also a reborn child of God. You are a saint, a holy person, a new creature, as you swim through your daily life in this world. Yet you remain also a human being, sinful by nature, and you are swimming in a world that is dominated by sin, a world where your worst enemy holds sway.
He's an unseen predator, Satan, the devil, the one called the Tempter. He goes fishing for God's children every day. Last week we listened to James tell us about the trials or tests that God's people will most certainly face in life. Now he goes on to tell us about temptations to sin, about the lures that will be dangled in front of our faces each day. Through his holy writer, the God of all grace warns us:
DON'T GET HOOKED BY TEMPTATION
A Coho salmon heading for Willow Creek has to get past a lot of hooks, but that fish has a better chance of avoiding temptation than you and I do. You know you're going to be enticed to sin, every day. Some days are worse, and some temptations are stronger than others, some more obvious than others. But not a day goes by without some kind of bait, some lure, being dangled in front of your face. And many of those lures are awfully tricky, because the bait is one of God's gifts.
The bait often is something good that God has given for our use. But the Tempter takes a hook and hides it in the bait. The temptation is to misuse or abuse God's gift. It might be his gift of wealth in which Satan hides the hook — the temptation to desire money, love money, or depend on money too much. It might be God's gift of sex, in which Satan hides the hook — the temptation to use this precious gift in ways that violate God's purpose and design. The gift might be wine, a blessing, Scripture says — but it can hide a razor-sharp hook. It could be any of God's gifts — time, recreation, the Internet or the great outdoors, power, popularity, success.
Now, because the Tempter often hides his hooks in God's gifts, we just might face another temptation — to blame God when we're tempted, to somehow shift the responsibility to him. Adam did it: "The woman YOU put here caused all this!" People do it today, for example, the homosexual who says: "God made me this way; why should I change, why should I not just enjoy it?" Have you or I ever thought, "Didn't God give this to me for me to enjoy?" or, "Didn't God put me into this situation?" or "Doesn't God want me to be happy?"
The first thing James does is flatly rule out any blaming of God: "When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone." When I am tempted, and especially when I've taken the bait, I would dearly like to think that I am not entirely to blame. I might even try to shift some of the blame to God. But you see, we just can't do that!
No, James bids us recognize not only where all the blame rests, but more so where the greatest danger lies: right here, inside me and you! God tempts no one, he states, "but each one is tempted by his own desire, being dragged away and lured." The bait is dangled, the lure is presented — yes, that comes from the outside. But the desire to grab the lure, to lunge for the bait, the urge to bite — that comes from the inside.
How terrible it is when the desire takes the bait. When the desire has acted out the sin, you've been hooked. And then, as James writes, "when the desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and the sin, having been completed, gives birth to death." As surely as that silver is hooked, dragged into the boat, conked on the head and dies, so surely this process leads to death. Desire seizes on the temptation and acts out the sin and ultimately it all leads to death. To spiritual death — separation from God. If, that is, if nothing interrupts the process!
But wait a minute, those fish don't always end up in the boat, do they? Sometimes they just don't bite at all! That'd be the best thing for us to do when tempted! Don't rise to the bait, don't fall for the lure, just swim away. If we recognize the danger not only of the baited hook but of the desires inside us that want to take the bait, won't we be more alert? Won't we be more careful? More self-disciplined? More determined to avoid every temptation we possibly can? And we can take steps to avoid many temptations!
James has more than just a warning for us. He also has a very comforting reminder, and in that reminder is more motivation for us to swim the other way. "Don't be deceived, my beloved brothers!" Don't be fooled into thinking you can blame God for temptations. He already said that God tempts no one; to that he adds: "All giving that is good and every complete gift is from above." Whenever God gives, it's good, and whatever he gives is the perfect gift. This Giver is the Father of the heavenly lights, the Creator — changeless in his goodness. How could anything bad come from him?
And of course he is more than Father of creation; he's also your Father in a very special sense. "He chose to give us birth through the word of truth." Now James uses a Greek word that used before. He said that sin gives birth to death. Now he says that God has given us birth into life. Because he chose to do so, God caused us to be reborn spiritually, made spiritually alive.
That happened when the Holy Spirit brought you to faith in your Savior, and he did it through the Gospel, the word of truth. God made you alive, God made you his child and an heir of heaven. Your rebirth rests, you know, on your redemption. It rests on the fact that Jesus redeemed you from your sins by his dying on the cross. Through faith in him, you came to life and became, as our text says, "a kind of firstfruits of all God created." The firstfruits of the harvest — that was the part that was set apart for God because it belonged to him.
That's what we are, in Christ! Redeemed, reborn, recreated, set apart as God's children, new creatures indeed. And as such, we respond to temptation by not responding to it. Appreciating what this Father has done for us, what he has made of us, we want to refuse the bait. And we can! "Resist the devil," James says later, "and he will flee from you." Instead of lunging for the lure and then blaming God, we do our level best to swim the other way — to avoid getting hooked by any temptation.
But what if we're surprised? What if, in a moment of weakness or because we've let our guard down, the lure flashes in front of us and we snap at it and get hooked? All is not lost, unless we choose to continue in that sin. How awful it will be for me if I choose to bite that hook every time it's offered to me, if I choose sin over obedience! Don't tell yourself you can continue in a sin and stay alive, spiritually, that you can clamp your jaws down on that bait and hang on to it ... and survive!
There is a way to interrupt the process, to get free. We can spit out the hook before it's too late. That's called living in repentance. It's the practice of acknowledging my guilt, accepting the blame for my sin, and spitting that sin out. Living in repentance means confessing my sins and believing that Jesus paid for them. It means appreciating the forgiveness his death earned for me. And it means, then, doing whatever it takes to make sure I don't get hooked again. Understand the danger, dear friends, not only in the temptation itself but also in the inner desires that want to take the bait. Appreciate what your Father has done for you and made of you through Jesus, and don't get hooked by temptation!