Building the House of God - Overcoming Sin in Trials — Phil Beach Jr.

OK, Father, we thank you for your word this morning. We love your word. We honor your word. We long to go to your word and be taught by your Holy Spirit. And to be changed. Into the very image and likeness of our wonderful Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Father, I pray that today you'll give us years to hear. That you'll let this word, this living word. Be a turning point in many of our lives. And let it. Be. That which begins to change the course of our life that enables us to more perfectly.

Walk. In accordance to your heart and will. Speak to our heart, Lord. Give us courage. Give us humility to speak to our heart. Help us, Lord, not to be right in our own eyes. And miss the truth that you would want to bring to us, we look to you.

For the enabling to receive your word today, we pray in the mighty name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen and amen. We're going to go to James and we're going to look for a brief time. At the closing remarks in the book of James, chapter one.

Trials as Opportunities for Spiritual Growth

And then we want to begin to look at an issue that's very near and dear to God's heart today, and it has to do with the building of the house of God, too, but we'll get to that momentarily first, turn your Bibles to James, chapter one, as you know, we've been going through verse by verse, James, chapter one.

And we have been learning. That James, chapter one, talks to us about the reality of going through trials and tests and difficulties in our life, every single one of us are currently subject to some kind of a trial, some kind of a test, some kind of a difficulty in our life today.

And James addresses all of the issues that we need to be aware of while going through trials and tests. We've learned about joy in the midst of trials. We've learned about patience and God building character in the midst of trials.

We've learned about wisdom in the midst of trials. We've learned that wisdom is a key component in going through trials, but we will not receive wisdom if we don't ask for it. We've got to pray that God delivers us from our own understanding when we're going through trials.

It's so easy. As we mentioned earlier, to have the knee jerk reaction in a trial and we can miss what God is trying to teach us. The knee jerk reaction is simply approach your trial in your own flesh, with your own worldly wisdom, with your own worldly understanding, which is connected to the abominable.

Mindset of how is this affecting me? How's this cramping my style? If you look at life that way, you'll miss God. You'll miss the opportunity to grow in the character and nature of Christ. This is what we're going to get to after we get done with this section.

The ultimate. Picture of the work of God in our life that fashions us to be a living stone in his house. And so we learned not only about wisdom, but we learned about faith. It is so. Listen, there is a battle that goes on in your life over faith when you're in a trial.

Faith to continue to believe God. Faith to continue to trust God. Faith to believe that God loves you. Listen, faith to believe that it's better to pray that God give you a pure heart than to give way to bitterness.

How many have found it's very easy in the midst of a trial, in the midst of the fiery furnace to give way to the temptation to get bitter, angry, resentful? It's easy to lose your faith. And just give up on God.

Give up on the word and just say, forget about everything. It's not worth it. Now, you might not have experienced that, but you will someday. Then we learned about the lowering and the raising up in the midst of trial.

Trials have a way of revealing everything in us that exalts itself above the knowledge of God. Every thought, every word, every deed, every dream, every goal that is springing out of selfish ambition.

Wanting to exalt ourself, a fiery trial will reveal the state of our heart and God gives us an opportunity to be lowered, to be humbled. We learned that trials reduce everyone to ground zero, the cross.

There's no big eyes and little use when we go through trials. There's no superstars in trials. We all become dependent children upon our heavenly father. Isn't that wonderful that God reduces us to where we realize how much we need him?

And then we learned the blessed. Condition of enduring trials, staying under the pain, the difficulty of the trial, drawing from the grace and sufficiency that comes from God and not taking things into our own hands.

If you remember last time we got together, we learned how oftentimes God will test us in a trial. To see whether or not we will wait for his provision or whether we'll take things into our own hands. And we learned that the generation that we live in today is miserably failing this test right now.

They're failing it. Single people are in a great trial now because they want to get married, and so they're tempted to commit fornication. But the Bible says blessed is the man that endures, that stays under.

You look around and you see your peers, they have nice things, but God hasn't given you the wherewithal to get nice things. And so you're automatically in a trial. What are you going to do? Are you going to be content with what you have or are you going to look around and see what everyone else has and buck up against the trial you're in?

Buck up against the provision that God has given you and try and take things into your own hands and go into debt. No, blessed is the man that endures. Blessed is the man that stays under the pain of being perceived by others is not prospering.

Don't have the nicest clothes, don't have the nicest car, don't have the nicest lawn equipment. That's a personal testimony. What are you doing in the trial that you're in? That brings us to verse number 13.

Temptation Comes from Our Own Desires

Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts 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 brings forth sin and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.

Do not air my beloved brothers, sisters. Here now we see. Sin in the midst of being tested. One sure thing that will happen in our life when we are subject to a trial or a test is we're going to discover in the midst of that trial that we're going to be tempted to sin against God when we are tempted to sin against God in the midst of a trying situation.

We mustn't say that God is tempting us. God is not the author of sin, nor does he tempt us to sin. Now, the Bible does say that God tested Abraham. The Bible does say that God, by the Holy Spirit, led Jesus into the wilderness there to be tempted of the devil.

And so we learned that God does allow us to be tried, but he doesn't tempt us to sin. And it's very important that we understand this so that while in the midst of a trial, we don't blame God for our sin, we don't blame God for our fall.

We don't blame God if being tested and tried, we fail him. But rather. We recognize that our father in heaven allowed us to be tested, knowing we would be tempted by our own sin, knowing we would be tempted by our own depravity, but never intended for that sin and that temptation to destroy us.

But rather, through it, we gain a little more understanding of how weak we are, a little more understanding of how without his grace and without his Holy Spirit and without his word, we are so prone to fall.

We're so prone to go our own way. Just let God entrust you with just a little bit of a test and see what happens inside. Just be sure it a little bit of money and see what happens. What if God, what if God allows you to go through a trying time with a physical ailment, some kind of a sickness?

What if he allows it? What will happen in your heart? What will happen in my heart? That's why God lets us go through these things. And so it is important for us to let God listen, please listen carefully, let God search your heart when you are in the midst of a test, when you are in the midst of a trial and distinguish between things that differ.

It frightens me when I do not see a freedom within Christians nowadays to be able to say clearly, God has allowed me to go through this trial and I am sinning or I have sinned. This is what James is saying.

Separate the two. Every good and perfect gift comes down from above. Everything that is good and perfect comes down from God. But our depravity and our sin is exposed when we are trusted with a trial.

And as the church, we've got to be able to distinguish between these things. Have the freedom, have the freedom to be able to say, speak into each other's lives, husbands and wives speaking to each other's wives, parents and children.

I'm going through a test and I'm being tempted to sin in the midst of this test, like Mike's transparency. God trusted him with a test, didn't he? How many of you believe that God is sitting on the heaven as eternal king?

How many believe that God is in control of what's happening in the world? How many believe that he's the sovereign God, that he rules and reigns over the affairs of his people? Absolutely. And so when something comes to one of his children, it goes through him, he allows it.

What's happening in your life? Right now, what's happening in your heart right now, as a result of what's going as a result of what you're going through, do not air beloved brethren. Do not air every good and perfect gift comes down from above.

If you're going through a hard time and you start getting bitter, you make sure that you acknowledge that this bitterness is not coming from God. It's coming from your own heart. I have seen many Christians over the years.

Who had a sweetness about him until God let them go through a real big test and slowly the sweetness began to dim. And the presence of unforgiveness, bitterness, becoming cynical and critical and hard and calloused began to be preeminent in their life.

And rather than recognizing that part of the wisdom of God in letting them go through the deep trial was to reveal to them the depravity of their heart so as to bring them to a place where they could confess it to God, acknowledge it before God, cry out for mercy and cry out for grace and cry out, Oh, Lord, change me, change me, Lord.

Thank you, Lord, that you entrusted me with this trial. And now I can see now I can see, Lord, my heart is truly corrupt, just like your word says. But I thank you that we're sin abounds. Much more does the grace of God abound.

I thank you, Lord. Listen, if we don't get this issue clear, we are going to be overcome by evil in the midst of a trial. And like Mike said, when we're dealing with people, whether it's employees, employers, family members, relatives, husband, wife, children, parent relationships, there's always going to be friction.

There's always going to be problems if we're in it for the long haul with one another. Now, some Christians never, ever commit to a long haul friendship or relationship with people. The moment something happens that they don't like, they're pretty much out of your life.

Such people are spiritual infants, mere children, mere babes, and they refuse to submit to father's plan to grow them up. Father's plan to grow us up is to speak to us in the midst of being misunderstood in the midst of a trial.

And say, hold steady, go humble yourself, go seek the person out, et cetera, et cetera. But if you've been entrusted with a difficult situation with a relationship and you are not distinguishing in the midst of it, the fact that God has allowed this to happen, but I have been exposed.

Sin has come out in my life as a result, and I need to get that straight. I need to confess it. I need to go and ask forgiveness, whatever it is that God might be asking you to do. If you don't sort these things out, that trial will corrupt your testimony.

Do not err, my beloved brother. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the father of lights in whom there is no variable in this, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will, begot us with the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits.

This is so rich. God's word. So rich, so wealthy. Let me I just want to make this comment. Let me ask you a question. What's going on in the inside of your heart right now? Have you seen some sin surfacing in your life because of what you've been going through?

What are you doing with it? God is faithful. What does the scripture say? He will not allow us to be tested above that which we are able, but will, with the temptation, make a way of escape that you may be able to endure it.

That does not mean that God will not let us be tried to the point where we're tempted to sin. That doesn't mean that what it means that is this, that God is faithful and no matter what happens to us and no matter what surfaces in our life as a result of what we're going through, God is faithful and he himself will be our provision.

That will enable us to endure what we go through. He is our provision. He said, Lo, I'm with you all the way, even to the end of the age. I am with you. God is with you. Turn to the Lord in the midst of what you're going through.

Turn to the Lord and let him search your heart. Let him cleanse you and purify you from sin. Second Corinthians, listen to the word of God here. Second Corinthians chapter seven. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, verse number one, the promises being that God will receive us as his as our father and he will accept us as sons and daughters.

Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. You see that word, let us cleanse. That means to make clean from all filth, to make clean from all dirt.

Confession, Holiness, and a Pure Heart

Brothers and sisters, God has to put into our hearts the desire, the intense desire to fully take advantage of every trial and test that he allows us to go through in so much that we are longing for him in the midst of what we're going through in order to cleanse us from the sin, to cleanse us from the filth that comes out of us when we go through a fiery furnace.

Let me tell you something. When someone betrays you, do you know what comes out of you and me? Hatred, the temptation to want to seek vengeance. Do you want to bless the one who betrays you? When the Holy Spirit gets a hold of us, the most important thing in our life as the church of Jesus Christ is that we would live and walk before God and before one another with a clean and pure heart.

Listen, if your heart condition is not the most important thing to you today, then you are in the process of backsliding. You're in the process of backsliding. I'm in the process of backsliding. If the condition of my heart before God is not the most important thing to me right now, the slightest bit of grumbling, the slightest bit of complaint, the slightest bit of envy, jealousy is grounds to cry out to God for further cleansing from the filthiness of flesh and spirit that we that we might be made complete in holiness.

You know what holiness means, right? Holiness means to be separate for God, to be separated for God. So to grow in holiness means that more and more and more through the grace of God and the spirit of God and the word of God, we are growing in the image and likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Cleansing ourselves from the filth of spirit and flesh from the dirt that comes out. First Corinthians chapter 10. Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant how that all fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea.

A little history lesson of what Israel went through in the wilderness. First Corinthians chapter 10. And we're all baptized to Moses and in the cloud and in the sea and did eat all the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink.

For they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them. And that rock was Christ. Now, listen, that's in Numbers chapter 20. But now listen to what the Holy Spirit is trying to tell Paul here. And this is a sign.

This is evidence. Paul was truly a servant of the Lord. He was truly one sent by God. And as one truly sent by God, he was concerned about the heart condition of the Corinthians. Anyone who truly has an encounter with God and the Holy Spirit and the word of God, you will become concerned about your heart condition.

You will not take lightly the things that go on inside. Listen, we live in a society that is so preoccupied with outward cosmetics. It makes the Lord sick. The Lord doesn't value. He doesn't place value on the size of our home.

How much it costs. What kind of car we drive or the kind of clothes we have. Listen, God does not place value on those things. They're going to perish with the world. God doesn't place value on how important you are perceived to be by people.

Idolatry and the Heart's Treasures

God, why do we place value on those things then? Why do they mean something to us? They shouldn't. They shouldn't. And our father in heaven wants to teach us. He says to us in his word, don't you know that wherever your heart is, there is your treasure?

The word treasure there means the thing that we value, the thing that is costly to us. Where's your heart at? What is your heart? What are your heart's desires on? What are your heart's affections on?

What do you want most in life? Or rather, can I word it another way? If you were asked to say, Jesus, I'll give you anything. Is there something that you would say except this? What if Jesus came into the room now and took this microphone and looked at us all and said, give me everything?

Could we say that or would we say, Lord, I'll give you everything. But recently I heard a young man testify that he was under the influence of the true move of the Holy Spirit. He was in the midst of a meeting where God was moving and he realized that God put his finger on an idol in his life.

You know what the idol was? Music, Christian music, not rock music, Christian music. And the Holy Spirit began to deal with him. And he realized that when he heard the Lord say, give me everything, he was able to give him everything.

But there was a reluctancy to give him the music. He wanted the music. He needed that music. And he realized that music meant more to him than the Lord. And so after a dealing with God in tears, he finally offered that music to the Lord.

And then the Lord said, now the guitar, now the guitar that you idolize. Oh, Lord, it was a beautiful electric guitar. Oh, together with this young man, there is another man saying at the same time, God dealt with me about sports.

I was obsessed with sports. I was I wanted I was so into sports. When God said, give me everything, I could I could pretty much say, Lord, I'll give you everything, but don't touch my love for sports.

And this young man wrestled with God as God began to say to him. Sports mean too much to you. And so this young man had to give he had to sell his electric guitar and the Lord took it away for many, many years.

And now just recently, the Lord told him he could pick it back up again. But now he's picking it up with a different attitude. It's in the right place. Heart condition. See, here's how you know the Lord's in your life working.

Here's how you know the Holy Ghost is moving when you get together with two, three, four or five brothers, sisters. I don't care where you are, whether you gather in a home, whether you gather in a place like this, whether you're in your car.

Here's how you know the Lord is there. And you'll find this to be consistently true from Genesis to Revelation. And when it's not true, then we're not really hearing from God. From Genesis to Revelation, it is a consistent testimony that whenever a man had a dealing with God, whenever a man, a woman, a boy or a girl was confronted with the almighty God, their heart was exposed.

Their heart was laid bare before God. The first interaction that God had with Adam was what? Adam, what's going on? What happened? What's going on on the inside of your heart? Adam, you said who told you you were naked?

Adam, what's going on inside? Verse five, First Corinthians, Chapter 10. But with many of them, God was not well pleased. That they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now watch what it says. Verse six.

Now, these things were our examples to the intent. We should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. We should not lust after evil things. The word lust means simply to strongly desire. We should not desire evil things.

Now, listen, beloved, please, please listen to the word of God. To lust after an evil thing does not necessarily mean that you desire that which is sinful. To lust after an evil thing could mean that you simply want something too much and it becomes evil.

You want something too much and it becomes evil. Is it wrong for a husband to want his wife to love and honor him? Of course not. But if he wants that too much, it becomes evil. If he wants it so much that he can't live without it, it's become evil.

I remember hearing the testimony of a young man who talked about the dealing of God in his life. He liked chocolate, but he liked it too much. And one day the Lord began to talk to him and said, what's this issue about chocolate?

I like it, Lord. No, you don't like it. You love it. Well, you love it. It's an idol in your life. Is it wrong to like chocolate? Of course not. If it was, we'd all be in big trouble. But I'm telling you right now, by the word of God, that if you want chocolate too much, it's an idol in your life.

If you want anything too much, it's an idol in your life. Say, well, how am I supposed to know if I want something too much? Ask God, ask God or ask God how you're reacting in a trial. I'll tell you what a big idol is in the church today.

They're lost to want approval from our friends, from our brothers and sisters. That's a lust. We'll go through great measures to get people's approval, and if we don't get it, we get angry or we do something silly just to try and get their approval.

The dealings of God in our heart. This is what James is all about. Verse seven, neither be idolaters, as some of them were, as it is written. The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. So the Holy Spirit called eating, drinking and playing idolatry.

Why? Because they wanted to eat and drink and play more than they wanted God regularly as a father. I am asked by God to reveal the idols in my children's heart. It's a hard position, but I love my children too much to do what most parents do.

Ah, why mess with it? Why start a fight? Just let them go. And they'll have their heart set on doing something. And the Holy Spirit will tell me, tell him, no, you can't do it. And all breaks out. Why?

They want it too much. See, when you want something so bad that when you can't get it, instead of submitting and humbling yourself and saying, Father, I give this to you, I do want it. But Lord, it's not worth losing my victory over.

I'll give it to you because I don't need it. I want it, but I don't need it. I only need you, God. If you can't do that with everything you want, then it's an idol in your life. It's too big. It's bigger than God.

Sexual Purity and Marriage

When I first got saved 23, four years ago, there was a an older girl, an older girl. She was in her twenties. She led me to the Lord. I was young, 17, naive. And she often talked to me about her marriage, but being 17, I was clueless about what a good marriage was.

I mean, you know, at 17 years old, how are you supposed to understand the problems that married couples go through? You can't. So she would tell me about how her and her husband weren't talking. And then then she would go on to say that they're in separate bedrooms at night and she'd go on and on.

And I wondered what is wrong? You know, you want something that's lawful. It's OK. But if you want it too much, it's not OK. She was desperately wanting her husband to affectionately embrace her and tell her, I love you.

He was denying her lawful things that a husband and a wife ought to be experiencing. And so what does she do? Seventeen year old young man hadn't been saved three, four months. And essentially, she asks me if I would give her what her husband was denying her.

Was it OK for her to want these things worked out in her marriage? Of course it was. God put it within the heart of a woman, within the heart of a young woman. That's why fathers, you need to be dealing with your children.

You need to be dealing with them when they're young and watch them as they grow and meet them when you see their awakening to sexual desire. Meet them when you see them awake. Don't let the world teach them what it means to be a man.

Don't let the world teach your young girls what it means to be a girl. It's within the heart of every young girl, and it's a normal, lawful desire to give herself to a man. That's what God put. The exception is when God selects someone and says, I want you for myself.

I'm going to give you grace. And somehow by God's grace, the need is is is quenched or God's power holds that need back. And they're able to stay pure and single. But that's exception. Hear the voice of God's word this morning.

Every man, every man needs to deal with his sons and every woman, every every man needs to deal with his daughters and tell them it's normal to want to want to to to to to imagine one day being able to give yourself over to your husband.

And that's what God put within the heart of a woman. But it's only to be done in the confines of marriage. It's only to be done in the marriage bed, in the marriage institution. And so we have to train our children for that.

It's listen, it's normal for a 15 year old girl to want to be loved, but it's not good if they want it so bad. If they want it so bad that they're going to look to find it outside of marriage, it's normal for a young man to find himself attracted to young women as they come into their teenage years.

It's normal, it's normal, it's normal for a young man to begin to imagine someday being able to love a woman and honor a woman and and care for a woman and embrace a woman and be able to say, by God's grace, I'm going to care for you, sweetheart.

And we're gonna we're gonna get into God's word together. God puts it within the heart of a man to lead, not to rule, but to lead by example. That's normal. But all young men have to be told that while that's normal, if you want that too much, you're going to get yourself in trouble with relationships.

You're going to. And so this young lady had a need. She was being denied and there was no one speaking into her life. There was no, they weren't really connected to any believers. They weren't being taught the word of God.

Matter of fact, her husband was out chasing demons. He was winning Hackett's town to Jesus when his family was on the verge of destruction. And I was a young man. I couldn't really deal with it. But I'll tell you what I did do.

I had enough Bible in me to know what Joseph did. When the similar situation happened and by the grace of God, I was able to escape the snare of this situation that God only knows how it would have affected me.

But that's an illustration of something that someone wanted. She was being denied. And rather than enduring under the temptation, rather than realizing that she was in a test, but God was revealing sin in her life.

This test was causing sin to come out rather than saying, God, I'm sinning against you. She followed her impulse and asked for something. That was unlawful. What are you doing? What's going on in your heart?

They say, neither let us commit fornication as some of them committed. Do you think you think the wilderness was a big trial? It was a test, wasn't it? God took them out of Egypt and put them in a test.

It was a cooker. What's going on in the test? Hearts being revealed. They don't commit fornication. Listen, these are things that are going to come out in your heart. When you're in a test, you're going to find that you're going to lust after evil things.

When you're in a test, you're going to find the temptation of idolatry in your life. When you're in a test, you're going to have relational tests and marriage. Listen, all marriage couples will have relational tests someday.

And if you don't handle that test properly, you're going to be tempted to fulfill your physical needs in a wrong way. And I tell you, by the spirit of God, every single one of us better make sure that we beg God to work deeply in our heart because the spirit of promiscuity, the spirit of fornication is seducing the world.

And it wants to seduce the church. If you can't handle having an Internet computer in your house, you had better give it away. Don't even sell it. Give it away. Better to lose the Internet than to lose your soul and fall into the addiction that comes.

Parents, make sure that you use wisdom with your children. You better sit your children down and tell them that pornography and looking at dirty pictures is wrong in the eyes of God and that God has something far better for you than these things.

You better watch the movies and the television. Ninety nine percent of it is unprofitable. It stirs up the designers within us. Let me tell you something. Sex appeal is a wonderful thing in the confines of marriage, but it's a horrible thing when it's displayed before the world.

God doesn't want us to display our sex appeal before anyone else but those that God has ordained, and that is a husband should be that before his wife and a wife should be that before her husband. Now, these issues have to be dealt with because this, unfortunately, is where we're at as the church.

We're not in the heavenlies seeking those things which are above, longing to know what the father's heart is, longing to give ourselves over. We're down. We're still wrestling with these things. I know that we live in a culture that has gone crazy with these things, and that's why we need special grace and special prayer and special love one with another.

We need to encourage one another. I'm not preaching legalism. I'm not preaching to create a system of rules and laws. This is not legalism. This is grace. The grace of God appears to us and teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lust.

The grace of God teaches us these things. We need to pray. God, help us. God, help us. Every parent, if you're not experiencing the grace of God again, this isn't a call to self-effort, but it's a call to touch the heart of God.

You should be the greatest intercessor for your children. The world knows. Are you weeping for your children? Are you interceding for them? Listen, plants left to themselves do what? They die, Michael.

And every child that God's entrusted to us is a fresh, green, innocent little plant. And unless by the grace of God, Paul said, the love of God compels me. He wasn't. Listen, Paul didn't live his sacrificial life as a man under the law, realizing that if he didn't keep the commandments, God was going to throw him in hell.

He was out of that realm. He'd come to grace. He'd come to freedom. He'd come to the free gift. And he was so filled with love. He was compelled to lay his life down. When you touch the love of God, you will lay your life down for your brother, your sister, your husband, your wife, your children.

Teaching Children to Pursue God

Parents, listen to the spirit of God. Listen to the word of God. Speak into the lives of your children. Let them see tears roll down your eyes. If you can't cry before your children, you're too hard in your heart.

And don't think kids grow up through osmosis. We're in a battle. We're in a war. And our children are living in a perverse generation. And I weep and cry and fear for our children and for the generation that's coming up.

We need to pray that God lays hold of them. That's what it's going to take. A sovereign move of God to lay hold of our children. So fornication, let us not tempt Christ as some of them also and were destroyed.