We
are continuing our series through the epistle of James. During the last couple
of weeks, we looked at verses 1-11. Today we’ll look at the next several
verses, but here is last week’s text for context:
“But
the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; and
the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering
grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with a
scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the
beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his
pursuits will fade away. Blessed is a man who perseveres
under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown
of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”
As
I just said, we’ve already spent time examining the first verses of this
epistle, so we won’t now review them other than to pause a moment for this
reminder:
The
Holy Spirit inspired James to write down for not only his readers suffering
various trials which were causing some to consider walking away from Christ,
but the Spirit of God moved on James to write this message also for his readers
in the 21st century – for you and for me. And because this epistle
is intended also for us today, we must pay close attention to its commandments.
There is a fundamental difference between ‘professing’ Christian faith and ‘possessing’
Christian faith. That difference is evidenced by our OBEDIENCE to God’s word.
So,
to today’s text, starting with verse 13: Let no one say when he is tempted,
“I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and
He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried
away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it
gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth
death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.” (13-16)
It
is certainly true that the devil tempts us to sin. Case in point – the Garden
of Eden where he enticed Eve to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit. And we
mustn’t overlook Matthew 4 and Luke 4 which speak of Satan’s temptation of
Jesus in the wilderness.
But
Scripture also makes it clear, the Serpent doesn’t need to expend much effort
to get us to do wrong. Jesus made it pretty evident in His comments to His
disciples: “The things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart,
and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts,
murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. These
are the things which defile the man.” (Matthew 15:18-20)
James
picks up on this point again, later in his epistle: (James 4:1-2) “What is
the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source
your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not
have; so, you commit murder. You are envious and cannot
obtain; so, you fight and quarrel.”
So,
to be clear – the origin of personal sin is within our heart. God does not
tempt us to sin. He is Holiness itself. He cannot be tempted to sin and neither
does He seduce anyone to sin. But, as we have just seen, “each person is
tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.” James uses
pregnancy as a picture of the process: “When lust has conceived, it gives
birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.”
Now
look at that next verse. It is as if James places a punctuation mark after what
he’s just written: “Do not be deceived my beloved brethren.” Do not be
deceived about the process of sin’s birth and how it matures into our death. The
adage attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson surely rings true to everyone who’s
lived as long as we in this sanctuary have lived: “Sow a thought and you
reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a
character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”
Please.
Do not be deceived about these infallible spiritual truths. There is a reason
God tells us from Genesis through Revelation how to deal with temptations to
sin. He tells us to run – not walk – run to the nearest exit. Joseph and
Potipher’s wife is only one of hundreds of examples. “Flee from youthful
lusts,” Paul commanded Timothy, “and pursue righteousness, faith,
love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure
heart.” (2 Timothy 2:22)
Writing
to the Christians at Rome, Paul commanded, (Romans 6:12) “Do not let
sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not
go on presenting the members of your body to
sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present
yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments
of righteousness to God.” Romans 6:12-13
You might be familiar
with the story of the Two Wolves. I’ve told it before, but it’s worth repeating:
An elderly Cherokee sat by a fire with his grandson. He said to him, “A battle
between two wolves is raging inside of me. One wolf is evil, full of
anger, lies, envy, jealousy, greed, arrogance, guilt, and resentment. The other
wolf is good. It has joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy,
generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.”
The
grandfather was silent for a moment and then continued: “The same fight is
going on inside you—and inside every other person, too.” The grandson
thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf
wins?” The Grandfather replied simply, “The one you feed.”
Christian, which wolf
are we feeding? Which did we feed yesterday? Which will we feed tomorrow?
Do
we want to avoid temptation to sin? Here is a newsflash: We CANNOT avoid
temptations to sin. The enticements surround us wherever to go. But we CAN overcome
temptations to sin, although, as we all know, ‘overcoming’ is not easy. It’s
often difficult – however, the overcoming DOES get easier with persistent
practice. Listen, God is telling the truth when He promises to ALWAYS provide
us the means to escape temptations to sin – if we WANT to escape. (See 1
Corinthians 10:13)
Do
we want to be successful in overcoming temptation to sin? Follow Scripture’s
guidance: “Present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to
God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do
not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by
the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God
is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:1-2
Present
your bodies to God every morning when you get out of bed. Pray something along
these lines: “Keep me, Lord, in the center of Your will. Let me not wander
from Your commandments.” And at
bedtime, “Search me, Lord. See if there is any wicked way in me, let me know
if there is anything in my life for which I need repentance.”
Present
your bodies. Be renewed in your mind. “How can a young man [or an old
person] keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word
. . . Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against
You.” Psalm 119:9, 11
Now
let’s try to make some application of these principles: Christian, if you have
a problem with sexual lust then the wisest thing to do is avoid places, media,
and online encounters that will get you into trouble with God. I’ve been a
Christian for 54 years this December, and because I know I have a problem with
lust, I haven’t been to a pool or a beach in more than half a century.
If
a Christian has a history of alcoholism, then the wisest thing to do is never
bring alcohol into their home. If they have a narcotics addiction, I give the
same counsel. And if they’ve been prescribed narcotics for pain, they ought to
tell their doctor about their addiction who then might be able to prescribe an
alternative pain reliever. If not, the physician will prescribe only the fewest
amount of pills that they’d expect to be necessary to relieve the pain. And I
could cite other temptations to sin and how to avoid them, but you get the
idea.
Let’s
go back now to the text in James and move down a bit to verses 22-25: “But
prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude
themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is
like a man who looks at his natural face in a
mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he
has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks
intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by
it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man
will be blessed in what he does.”
Be
doers of the word, and not merely hearers. Otherwise, we deceive our own
selves.
Author
and evangelist Joe Stowell tells a story in Decision Magazine of a friend who
was living in an adulterous affair and was planning to divorce his wife.
Stowell and several others confronted him, seeking to restore him to the Lord
and to his marriage. And they said to him, “If you continue in this affair,
please don’t tell anyone that you are a follower of Jesus because that would
bring shame to His Name.” But the man responded, “Oh, but I am a follower of
Jesus.” Stowell adds, “That was a delusional response.” (Decision Magazine, May
2025).
Yes,
of course, the adulterer is self-deluded to think he can live in sin and escape
God’s eternal judgment. And so are we to think we can willfully and with
impunity live in ongoing rebellion against God’s commandments and escape His
judgment.
The
person who has truly received God’s Word will humbly turn from sin and put obedience
to the Word into practice. That explains why James immediately goes on in
verses 23–25 to compare the Word to a mirror.
Mirrors
in the ancient world were generally made of polished bronze or copper which,
unlike modern mirrors, produced dim and distorted reflections. A person couldn’t
simply glance at their mirror to see what they looked like. They needed to look
intently and carefully at their image. That’s why James speaks of looking
‘intently’ at the mirror of God’s word which reveals our flaws and our dirty
faces.
If
we see our flaws, but walk away without doing anything to fix them, we’ve
proven that our Christian faith is really a puff of air. We’ve CHOSEN to forget
what we looks like to God. Our failure is not due to ignorance, but to willful
rebellion – which inevitably results in self-delusion.
Like
the adulterer Joe Stowell wrote about, knowledge of the Bible without corresponding
obedience to God’s word will likely produce a false sense of spiritual
security. The Lord Jesus warned of that danger often enough that we should not
make the same fatal mistake ourselves: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord,
Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father
who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day,
‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out
demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will
declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice
lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:21-23)
James
then contrasts the one who looks intently but does nothing with the one who
looks intently and DOES what is necessary. But one who looks intently at the
perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having
become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will
be blessed in what he does.”
Contrary
to what so many people convince themselves to be true, God’s laws are NOT meant
to be punitively restrictive. He gave us His laws to bring us FREEDOM – freedom
to BE whom God created us and designed us to be; Freedom from bondage to sin’s
reign and control of our life and its inevitable heartbreak and tears and loss;
Freedom to obey God because we have learned to delight to do so.
No
wonder the psalmist wrote, as we studied a few weeks ago: “The law of
the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of
the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of
the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of
the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.” (Psalm
19:7-8)
THAT
is real freedom, and not the false ‘liberty’ that Satan promises if we reject
God’s word. We only need to remember what he told Eve – and I paraphrase: “God
has given you the law about the tree in the middle of the Garden to restrict
your freedom. Obviously, He doesn’t have your best interests at heart.”
We
know how Eve’s and Adam’s distrust of God turned out. But listen now to the one
the Bible calls the ‘Last Adam’ (1 Corinthians 15:45) - John 8:31–32 - “If
you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.”
I
was recently asked if I follow Jesus because I want eternal life. I paused only
a moment before responding because I’d been thinking about that question for a
while. And so, I told him, for me, salvation is not only about eternal
life – although I very much long to live forever with my God. But my salvation
is also about living a life free from the self-destructive pathway I’d been on
through my early adult years. For me, salvation is ALSO about being set free
from the prison Satan had me in.
The “Law of liberty” does not mean freedom from
God’s commands. It means we are free to obey His commands – and we do so
because we actually delight to do them. As the psalmist exclaimed: I delight
to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart.” (Psalm 40:8)
Truth
be told, the person whose eyes God has opened cannot read the entire 119th
psalm and not come away with a deep sense of the superabundant value and worth
of His word. And that would be a good prayer, wouldn’t it? “Open the eyes of my
heart, Lord, that I might behold wonderful things out of Your law.”
Already
in this short chapter the Holy Spirit speaks to us about several important elements
of faith that are true in the life of a Christian, not the least of which is perseverance
in various trials, including temptations to sin. He also speaks about persevering
in DOING God’s commandments and not merely hearing them.
We
make rules for children to protect them from harm and to mature them into responsible
adults. Similarly, God gives us rules to protect us and mature us into a people
who are free to BE whom God designed us to be; Free from bondage to sin’s reign
and control of our life; Free to obey God because we have learned to delight in
obedience.
“It
was for freedom that Christ set us free,” Scripture tells us: “Therefore, keep
standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”
(Galatians 5:1)
“Seek
the Lord while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
And let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him,
And to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” (Isaiah 55:6-7)
And
all God’s people say, “Amen.”
We’ll
continue our study through the epistle of James next time.
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