Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren.

The Warning

While writing to give comfort during trials, James writes a strict warning. God does test us, but He cannot tempt us. He is too holy to be tempted and too loving to tempt others.

Here are some example scenarios:

1.  Exams in School: It is not wrong to pass an exam, this is a good thing. It is wrong to cheat to pass the exam. Doing a bad thing to accomplish a good thing is still a bad thing. God cannot tempt, while He does test.

2. A friend asked me to pray with him regarding his sin. He knew he had sinned, and shouldn’t have. He’s willing to admit it to God and ask forgiveness. After, he says, “You know…I guess if we never sin we might forget how gracious God is.” I quickly reminded him that God doesn’t lead us to sin to help us remember how much we need him. My friend was trying to confuse or justify his temptation to sin within with a test to prove without. Therefore, James writes the warning here to fend off those who might try to apply his point earlier in the chapter with their own inner conflict with sin.

How then do we:

Count temptation “without”…. all joy while still…

Handling temptation “within”…. without sin?

Consider God’s Judgment

James is writing to God’s scattered people, not His sheltered people. “God does not want us to yield to temptation, yet neither can He spare us the experience of temptation.”

So first, to handle temptation: Consider God’s Judgement. We think of sin as one act, God sees it as a process. Adam committed one act of sin. Yet, that act brought: sin, death, and judgment on all of us.

Here in James, we get this process of sin in 4 stages:

Desire. The word lust means any kind of desire, and not necessarily sexual passions. The normal desires of life were given to us by God and, of themselves, aren’t sinful. Without these desires, we couldn’t function. Unless we felt hunger and thirst, we wouldn’t eat and drink, and we would die. Without fatigue, we would never rest and would eventually wear out. It’s when we want to satisfy these desires in ways outside God’s will that we get in trouble. Eating is normal; gluttony is a sin. Sleep is normal; laziness is a sin. Some try to be “spiritual” by denying these normal desires or seeking to suppress them. This only makes them less than human. The secret is in constant control. These desires must be our servants, not masters.

Deception. No temptation appears as a temptation; it always seems more alluring than it really is. James used two illustrations from the world of sports to prove his point. Drawn away carries with it the idea of the baiting of a trap. Enticed…“to bait a hook.” The hunter and the fisherman have to use bait to attract and catch their prey. No animal is deliberately going to step into a trap and no fish will knowingly bite at a hook. The idea is to hide the trap and the hook. Temptation always carries with it some bait that appeals to our natural desires. The bait hides the fact that yielding will bring sorrow and punishment. “The bait keeps us from seeing the consequences of sin.” When Jesus was tempted by Satan, He dealt with the temptation on the basis of the Word of God. Three times He said, “It is written.” When you know the Bible, you can detect the bait and deal with it decisively. This is what it means to walk by faith and not by sight.

Disobedience. Disobedience moves from desire/deception to will. We lust…desire. We are deceived…baited. James changes the picture from hunting and fishing to the birth of a baby: Desire conceives a method for taking the bait. The will acts; and the result is a sin. The baby is born, and just wait until it matures! Lust=Sin=Death. All of this from simple disobedience. But notice, not just one act…a process.

Death. Disobedience gives birth to death, not life.  It may take years for the sin to mature, but when it does, the result will be death. If we will only believe God’s Word and see this final tragedy, it will encourage us not to yield to temptation. So James gives us four stages of God’s judgment. When faced with temptation, take your eyes off the bait and look ahead to see the consequences of sin: the judgment of God.

“For the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23)

Pastor Chance Strickland

Harpeth Baptist Church
Kingston Springs, TN

http://www.harpethbaptist.org

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

Blessed

True happiness comes from going through the trial, not avoiding it or getting out of it. Blessed means happy. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.

Endureth

Going through the trial will be painful. But the end will be victorious. According to 1 Peter 1:6-8, “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:”

Those who tried “passed the test.” Once the enduring is over and the test is passed through the wisdom of God, faith will be seen as genuine. Any believer having been tried and tested but having endured will cry “BLESSED”!

Crown of Life

We need to be careful not to confuse what is being said here. “…when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life…” This text does lean the same direction as Matthew 24:13 “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” However, neither verse nor James himself, are meaning that the way to be saved is to persevere to the end. The ones who persevere are the same ones who are saved. This does not suggest that our perseverance secures our salvation.

Scripture everywhere teaches precisely the opposite: God, as part of His saving work, secures our perseverance. True believers “are protected by the power of God through faith for … salvation” According to 1 Peter 1:5 “Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” The guarantee of our perseverance is built into the New Covenant promise. Jeremiah 32:40 states “And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.” Those who do fall away from Christ give conclusive proof that they were never truly believers to begin with. According to 1 John 2:19 “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” But, the text clearly says that those who endure temptation when they are tried shall receive the Crown of Life.

The Crown of Life or “the crown which is life” was the wreath put on the victor’s head after ancient Greek athletic events. It denotes the believer’s ultimate reward, eternal life, which God has promised to him and will grant in full at death or at Christ’s coming. The Sinner is not saved by enduring trials; the Believer is rewarded for enduring trials.

Love

Love is the spiritual motivation behind every instruction so far in this chapter. Why do we have a joyful attitude as we face trials? Because we love God, and He loves us, and He will not harm us. Why do we have an understanding mind? Because He loves us and has shared His truth with us, and we love Him in return. Why do we have a surrendered will? Because we love Him. Where there is love, there is surrender and obedience. Why do we have a believing heart? Because love and faith go together. When you love someone, you trust him, and you do not hesitate to ask him for help. Love is the spiritual force behind the instruction James gives us. If we love God, we will have no problem. Love  keeps us faithful to the Lord.

The double-minded person (James 1:8) is like an unfaithful husband or wife: He wants to love both God and the world. James admonished, James 4:8, “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.” The Greek word translated purify literally means “make chaste.” The picture is that of an unfaithful lover. The Christian who loves God, and who knows that God loves him, will not fall apart when God permits trials to come. He is secure in God’s love. He is not double-minded, trying to love both God and the world. Lot was double-minded; when trials came, he failed miserably. Abraham was the friend of God; he loved God and trusted Him. When trials came, Abraham triumphed and matured in the faith.

This is a promise from Jesus Christ.

Pastor Chance Strickland

Harpeth Baptist Church
Kingston Springs, TN

http://www.harpethbaptist.org

But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.

The Rich

James now moves on t0 write regarding the rich in the church.

“Rejoice”

James is writing to the rich and poor of how to stay encouraged during what could be a tough time. He writes to “the rich” because there are Wealthy Christians. Many would take teaching about the Rich in the Gospels and make Christianity out to be a “poor man’s only” club. Christianity is not a religion demanding poverty and James clearly sees room for both in the church. There are preachers out there today, mainstream, who would push all Christians to give away their wealth and purposely live in or at the poverty line.

Wealth cannot help with a spiritual test.

We cannot buy our way into heaven. Christianity brings to the rich a new sense of self-abasement. Riches while useful, can bring a false sense of security. They make you feel safe. They make you feel as though you have the resources to cope with anything. They give the false-security of being financially stable enough to buy oneself into or out of any situation.

James gives a great illustration of this:  “as the flower of the grass he shall pass away” “For the sun is no sooner risen….but it withereth the grass” In the desert places of Palestine if there is a shower of rain, the thin green shoots of grass will sprout. But, one day’s burning sun will make them vanish. It came straight from the deserts. It burst on Palestine like a blast of hot air when opening an oven. In an hour it could wipe out all vegetation.

So also shall the rich man fade in his ways. James writes these descriptive ills to show how a life dependent upon riches can fail. True wisdom is to put trust in things that cannot fail. The rich, to James, should rejoice in this new humility of their “dependence” upon something, God.

Pastor Chance Strickland

Harpeth Baptist Church
Kingston Springs, TN

http://www.harpethbaptist.org

Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:

The Poor

James is writing in verse 9 to the poor in the church. His instruction is simply, “Rejoice.” James writes to rejoice—when exalted: This would be referring back to the “divers temptations” and the “trying of your faith”. While “exalted” doesn’t really suit this line of thought, it is believed that James is leaning this way as the context of the passage lends to it. The idea is that for the poor, even a trial gives a sense of worth. The other line of thought would be the literal “exalted”. This would leave the only application as something heavenly or in eternity.

Earthly exaltation would surely lead to pride.

However, while poor, notice James still writes “brother”.  This brings home the sense of True Value this text shows. Christianity brings to the poor a new sense of value. They are lifted out of the value-less-ness in which they live into a new sense of worth and importance.

They learn that they matter in the church. In the early church, there were no class distinctions. It was not uncommon for a church to contain both the master and the servant in the same congregation. Also, it has also been noted that at times, the “Pastor” or the one who would share the letter and conduct the service would be the servant. While the very same servant’s master would be nothing more within the church than a faithful member. In the church the social distinctions that divide the world are unimportant.

No one is more important than any other.

They learn that they matter in the world. We believe that each Christian, no matter who…has a task God wants them to do. As long as God leaves us in the world…we have a purpose. No one is useless; everyone is of use to God. Even someone confined to their home can still send up powerful and useful prayers. They learn that they matter to God. “Call no man worthless for whom Christ died.” Everyone is dear to God.

Pastor Chance Strickland

Harpeth Baptist Church
Kingston Springs, TN

http://www.harpethbaptist.org

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

What is Wisdom?

“For James, the Christian teacher/leader with the Jewish background, wisdom is a practical thing. Wisdom is not philosophic speculation and intellectual knowledge.” For James, wisdom is wisdom for life….the Christian life. Some definitions/explanations of wisdom:

• Knowledge of things human and divine.
• The supreme and divine quality of the soul whereby man knows and practices righteousness.
• That endowment of the heart and mind which is needed for the right conduct of life.
• Knowledge of the deep things of God.
• The understanding and practical skill that was necessary to live life to God’s glory.
• Wisdom is practical.  It is such knowledge turned into action in all the decisions and the personal relationships of everyday life.
• The ability to judge fairly and to understand and make wise use of facts.

As Christians, we view wisdom much like the Hebrews. Wisdom for them was an attribute of God shared with men. In that respect, wisdom is defined in Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; And lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, And he shall direct thy paths. Wisdom is usually best defined in how it is used rather than what it is. This leads to the next question:

What area is there a lack?

“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God…” A question to ask in interpreting this verse is, “Is James moving on here to something else, or is he filling in the gaps of what he just wrote? The safe answer is to assume James is writing in a continuance of vv.2-4.  This would also be the specific use of wisdom. The easy/popular/desired answer would be that James is speaking generally:

• I like to use verse 5 in my daily prayers and ask God for Spiritual Wisdom, Physical Wisdom (health), and Financial Wisdom.
• This is the general use.
• While okay, this is not necessarily what James is writing.
• Why does that matter?  We like to hold God to things sometimes that the Bible doesn’t say or claim to do. The Bible says God would give wisdom liberally. Dear God, give me the wisdom of the secrets of the universe…
  

How should we ask?

We should ask without a doubt. Ask in faith. Nothing Wavering. If asking with doubts, don’t expect anything from God. One asking with doubts is double minded. Dipsuchos means “a man with two souls, two minds, inside him.” One mind believes the other doubts. Almost as if there is an internal civil war of trust vs. distrust.

Pastor Chance Strickland

Harpeth Baptist Church
Kingston Springs, TN

http://www.harpethbaptist.org

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

Completely Rewarded

James continues from “Count it all joy” with “Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.” Brethren, you can be joyous going into a trial when you know this beforehand… “Trying of your faith..” – dokimion. This is the same word for sterling coinage. Sterling coinage = genuine money and unalloyed. This trying of our faith is to: 

• Purge us of all impurity
• Burn out the dross of cursed human character
• Leave us cleansed and purified.
• Give unswerving constancy

This “trying” worketh “patience” – hupomone. Patience is our word here, and trials definitely do work our patience and eventually increase it. But “trying” truly does more. Hupomone is not simply patience or the ability to bear things. It is the ability to turn them into greatness and glory. If my entire life I thought all I could do is bear, I would be a pretty depressed Christian. Sure we have to bear some things, but we are not told to face these times depressed.

We are told to face them in joy!  How?

By foreseeing that these times will become something of glory for God. During the times of the martyrs, one thing always bothered the heathen who did not understand their faith. They didn’t die crying, they died singing! On one occasion, a martyr was smiling while burning in the flames.  When asked what he had to smile about he said, “I saw the glory of God, and was glad!”

Count it all joy…knowing this!

In the end, the Complete Reward is this:
It makes us perfect: Finished toward a given end for a given purpose. When patience has had its perfect work, we are ready for whatever God desired to use us for before the trial. As you enter each trial, know that how you handle it is either, fitting or unfitting for the work God has planned.

It makes us entire: Entire or Complete, finished. The word James uses here is the same use of sacrificial animals once inspected and prepared and ready to enter the ceremony. Also, in the same connotation, the priest after being cleansed and dressed is “entire”. The two have no blemish and anything that would cause God to turn away the offering. The trying of our faith, once complete, leaves us without the weaknesses and imperfections of our character God couldn’t use. It enables us to conquer old sins. To gain new virtues.

It leaves us wanting nothing: Deficient in nothing. Living day by day victoriously. Completely rewarded after facing a trial with Joy.

Pastor Chance Strickland

Harpeth Baptist Church
Kingston Springs, TN

http://www.harpethbaptist.org

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

Joyously Tested 

James never suggested that Christianity would be an easy feat. He writes and warns them that they would fall into “divers temptations”. Diver’s Temptations – peirasmos. Not temptation in our English sense of the word. Rather a trial or testing directed towards an end. The end being that the one tested emerges stronger. Coaches test players in practice which allows performance in games. The point or process of “divers temptations” would be to strengthen and purify and prove the Christian. The queen of Sheba came to test (peirazein / peirasmos) the wisdom of Solomon. God tested Abraham when demanding Isaac as sacrifice. God gave Israel their land, but left the inhabitants there for them to drive out…to be tested. James writes to those who have been persecuted and forced, by God, from their natural homelands and gives them the proper attitude while in such times.

Count it all joy!

Know in advance that these times will come and expect them. Having expected them, grin your way right through them. There will be the test of:

• Sorrows & Disappointments seeking to dwindle faith.
• Seductions seeking to lure us from right.
• Danger, Sacrifice, the Unpopular.

These are not sent to make us fall, but to make us soar. These are not sent to defeat us, but for us to defeat them. They are not to make us weaker, rather stronger. Seeing the end result, we are to get excited when the trial comes. Knowing it was sent to help, not hurt.

Pastor Chance Strickland

Harpeth Baptist Church
Kingston Springs, TN

http://www.harpethbaptist.org

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

Obedience

To call yourself another’s servant shows obedience. A servant knows no law better than the word of his master. As a saved child of God, we know no law better than the WORD of God, nor should we desire any. A servant has no rights of his own. When we accepted salvation, Jesus became Lord. We have no rights…I don’t want any! A servant is bound to unquestioning obedience to his master. We aren’t to question God’s will. We aren’t to question God’s Word.

Humility

To call yourself another’s servant shows humility. James writing here is thinking of his duty, not privilege. Of his obligations, not his rights. James, in humility has lost himself in the service of God. James, has denied self and said NO…to be able to forevermore say YES to God.

We too, as servants, should walk in such humility.

Loyalty

To call yourself another’s servant shows loyalty. In loyalty to God, James takes no interest in his own. James, the servant, is totally pledged to God. What he does, he does for God.

We too, as servants, should be as loyal.

Pride

To call yourself another’s servant shows a certain pride. It is one thing to be a forced servant, but to serve by choice means you take pride in the person, passion, and product you serve.

James took great pride in being able to be considered a servant of God.

Conclusion

The only greatness to which the Christian can ever aspire is the greatness of being the servant of God. What are you aspiring to? Obedience, Loyalty, Humility? Are you striving to be Servant…or something more? If you life was surveyed could you be considered servant?

Pastor Chance Strickland

Harpeth Baptist Church
Kingston Springs, TN

http://www.harpethbaptist.org