James 1:12-18 Trials, Temptation, Truth

You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Good morning,

Recast. Hi, I'm Rob Knold, and I'll be preaching this morning.

Hope you guys are enjoying your weekend. Certainly beautiful weather, sunshine, and just a great weekend to be outside doing yard work, planting flowers.

Who has their flowers in so far? Who has got their flowers in? Some. We don't. I should keep my hand down.

Which of you? So yeah, it's a good weekend. Don is absent this weekend.

He's actually at a pastor's conference in Moody, at Moody in Chicago, and so he's asked me to preach in his absence.

Again, I'm Rob Knold. I'm a former elder here, and it's just really a privilege to preach this morning.

I wanted to talk about the name of our church, Recast, for just a minute as we introduce the sermon.

Recast is an acronym. Some of you guys may know the acronym. It stands for something. It stands for replicating, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth.

I just wanted to focus on a couple of those letters this morning as we get ready to, as we just prepare our hearts for worship and as we'll be walking into the sermon a little bit later this morning.

First of all, the C stands for community, community. And that's our desire here at Recast.

We want believers to be connected in true community with each other.

And community is really important, especially if you're going through hard times. Have you ever experienced trials, maybe some difficulties in life?

Community is really important, and I'm not talking about just casual friends, but true friendships, deep friendships, friendships where that relationship can sustain you through difficulty and hardship.

Hebrews 10, 24, and 25 says, let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another in all the more as we see the day approaching.

So it's just really important, I think, that we have good friendships. And I just encourage you to connect with each other.

Think of ways you can connect with other believers here. Maybe invite somebody over to eat barbecue or maybe join a ministry.

Working and serving together is a great way to connect with other believers. Community groups is also something

I would highlight. And the other letter I want to cover as we introduce the sermon today is the letter

T. And T stands for truth in our acronym, and it's also part of the sermon today.

Here at Recast, we believe God's Word is truth, and that's why we preach

God's Word. We're not caught up in human opinions and philosophies and all kinds of other things.

We want to stick to God's Word because God's Word is truth. And not just that, but it has the power to change our lives.

God's Word is very, very powerful. So this morning, I will be preaching from God's Word, and that's where I'm going to find my source for truth.

And that's what I'm excited to share this morning is God's Word. So we're going to be preaching from the book of James.

And you might be wondering, well, who wrote James? Well, maybe it's a better question is which

James wrote the book, right? Because James obviously wrote the book. I don't know how many of you guys like to watch basketball?

Anybody? A couple, yeah. NBA? NBA basketball? Yeah, maybe. Well, LeBron James is also known as King James, but he is not the author of this book.

So just wanted to clarify that up front if you're confused about that. The James that wrote this book is actually some folks have debated it.

Scholars have debated this. But most scholars have settled on the fact that Jesus' brother James is the author of the book we're reading today.

Jesus' brother James. And it's kind of interesting to think about James, the brother of Christ.

So he was Jesus' younger brother. And can you imagine growing up as the younger brother of Jesus?

What would that have been like? Can you imagine the comparisons that he had to deal with? Why can't you just be like your big brother

Jesus? He's perfect. That's a tough, tough comparison. And so I'm not sure what exactly it was like to grow up as the younger brother

James in that family. But Scripture tells us something interesting.

It says that during Jesus' ministry, his brothers actually did not believe in Jesus. They did not believe he was the

Messiah, that he was God. And yet, Scripture also tells us that later on,

Jesus, after he was risen from the dead, he appeared to a number of people.

But it says specifically he appeared to James. He appeared to this brother as the risen

Savior. Can you imagine that? What would that have done to you, to see your older brother die and then come to life again and to see him?

That's pretty crazy. So later on, we find out that in the New Testament, James not only is a believer, but he's actually the leader of the church in Jerusalem.

He is in charge of that church and leading it faithfully. And later is martyred for his faith.

So he is a devout follower of Christ, his own brother. So at this point,

I'd like to turn to James, James 1. And we're going to read the passage together. It's a short passage,

James 1, verses 12 to 18. And if you don't have a copy of God's Word, I'd encourage you to just raise your hand.

We'd love to give you a copy of God's Word. And this is a gift to you, by the way. We want to encourage everyone to read

God's Word. And I'm encouraging you to read along today. So please open up your Bible, turn to James 1, and we're going to be in verses 12 to 18.

And I'll read aloud, and you can follow along. Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial, because having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the

Lord has promised to those who love Him. When tempted, no one should say,

God is tempting me, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone.

But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.

Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death.

Don't be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the

Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the

Word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all He created.

Let's pray now as we prepare to worship. Heavenly Father, I thank

You for this morning. I just thank You, God, for the good gifts You've given us. Lord, beautiful weather, health to come and join this assembly and worship together.

Voices, minds, just all the physical things You've given us, Lord, but also the spiritual blessings that You give us through Christ.

I just thank You for that. Lord, we need You here this morning.

Lord, we ask that You would come and join us as we worship You. Hear our praise, God, and be glorified in our midst.

And Father, we pray that You would just speak to our hearts through both the worship, the songs, the lyrics, through my message,

God, through the words in Scripture. Lord, would You just speak to our hearts today? We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. You may be seated. Thanks, Dave and the band. Appreciate your leadership and worship this morning.

It's great to worship together as part of the community, just lifting our voices.

It's great to worship alone. It's great to worship God all the time, but together, especially with other believers, it's just an encouragement.

You know, as we dig into the James, I just personally love this book. And I've got to be honest,

I kind of preach from books and from passages that I love. For me, that whole book of James is that passage.

There's something about James. He writes in a way that just kind of punches you in the face. I don't know if you've noticed that.

He's very provocative. He's very direct. He has just such strong statements. And I think as I've read the book and studied the book in the past,

I've just been convicted by it. And when God starts to convict your heart, you start to see things in a new light.

There's change in your life. It just gets you excited. So I'm excited to share some of that with you this morning.

James is the book that was actually quoted in some of the songs this morning. I was listening to the worship and it just struck me.

The song that says, the flower quickly faded, vapor in the wind. Those are quotes from different passages in the book of James, just beautiful pictures and analogies.

A lot of people have compared the book of James with the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament. It's a wisdom book. It's that type of literature.

And it's also a letter, but it contains a lot of that wisdom in it. So this morning as we dig in, as you know, we're looking at verses 12 to 18.

I've previously preached on verses 1 to 11, and I'll touch back on parts of that as I go through this.

But we're going to be focused on verses 12 to 18 today. And the three -part sermon is the sermon title.

It's not complicated. And amazingly enough, the three parts all start with the letter T. So I was excited about how that worked out.

Is there applause going on here? Thanks, Dave. So the first part of the outline this morning is trials, verse 12.

And we're going to dig into this theme of trials. It's really continuing a theme of persevering through trials.

The second point in the outline is verses 13 to 15, and that's temptation. We're going to talk about temptation.

We're going to talk about where it comes from, where it doesn't come from. And really, we're going to talk about where that leads.

And I think you'll also be impacted by that. And then third, truth. Truth.

Verses 16 to 18 starts off with, don't be deceived. You know, we're talking about what is the truth here.

And the truth is God is good. God is good. And we're going to talk about some great news that we have in verses 16 to 18 that comes from truth.

So let's dig in together. We're starting in verse 12. And it starts off by just simply saying, blessed is the one who perseveres through trials.

Blessed is the one who perseveres through trials. And it continues this theme of persevering. If you look back up at chapter 1, verses 3 to 5, you may remember, it says there, consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

And then perseverance must finish its work so you can be mature and complete. Basically, so you can grow up in the faith.

And here's the bottom line I just want to get to. Perseverance develops maturity.

And perseverance is not easy. Perseverance is not easy. You know,

I wish it was for myself. Selfishly, I wish I could. I just wish it was easier.

It is the hard path in life, persevering through trial. You know, the easy way when you're going through trials is to quit, to complain, to give up.

That's the easier path, isn't it? But the only way to grow up is, and by the way, trials don't guarantee growth.

You have to persevere through the trial, right? You have to persevere through for the growth to happen. And that's the ticket.

That's the way to grow in the Christian faith, by going through those tough things. Are you going through trials this morning?

You know, I could ask for a show of hands. I don't think I will. I think we all go through trials.

The more I go through life, the more I realize, none of us escapes trials and difficulties and hardship.

And some of us are going through really tough stuff, very difficult things in life, and no one can escape it.

You can't escape trials. They come. And I think the thing that really is pointed out by trials is the answer to this question.

Is your faith real? Is your faith real? You know,

I think it's easy to trust God when things are going well. It's really easy. And then when bad things come, suddenly we start to question

God. We start to question His character, don't we? Do we really believe

He's good? Do we really believe He loves us? It can be more and more difficult to trust in the goodness of God.

But verse 12 goes on to say, Because having stood the test... So I want to talk about that word test for just a moment.

The word test here means to be proven genuine. In the Old Testament times, they had coins, and those coins needed to be evaluated whether they're genuine, the genuine article.

For example, is that a true silver coin? And so this word test, dokimos, was used to evaluate that.

Is this really the genuine article? And it's the same way. Trials come along and test our faith, and they prove us genuine.

And that's really the good news. I want to encourage you this morning. Don't waver. Don't give up.

As you're going through difficulties in life right now, I would just encourage you to persevere. This testing of your faith actually proves you are truly a

Christian, truly a believer. So are you going through it right now? Don't give up.

Don't give up. Persevere through and stand firm. There's good news in verse 12.

James here says that the person who perseveres through trial will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love

Him. This is the good news. You know, and crown can mean a variety of things in Scripture, and yet in this passage, it's talking about the crown of life given to those who persevere through trial.

I believe it's similar to the wreath that a runner of a race, whoever wins that race would get as they complete their race.

It's the crown of life, the victor's crown. And this is eternal life. This is the good news that we all share today.

And that good news of eternal life really starts the moment you believe. There is joy in faith in Christ, even in the midst of trial.

And if you think about it, we think of eternal life as, you know, after I die someday I'm going to be in heaven and it's far away.

But eternal life really starts right now, right now in the middle of trials, in the middle of difficulties.

We get the abundant blessings that God has for us, an incredible inheritance.

So others may say, and may be looking at your life, and they may say as you're going through trials and difficulties, why do they sacrifice and endure?

Why do they suffer so much? Why not just give up, give in a little bit? You know, why not indulge a little?

That's a temptation perhaps. But we've fixed our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

We stay focused on Him. We don't focus on the stuff around us. And we know that He has a reward for us.

That's the crown of life. That's what we're staying focused on. His reward is worth so much more than all the junk around us.

Do you remember Jesus' Sermon on the Mount? Jesus mentioned something very, very similar to what

James is saying here. Jesus said, do not lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal.

Rather, store up for yourselves, I meant to say on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal.

Rather, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. And Jesus concludes that with, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

And that's exactly what James is saying here as well. Who gets the crown of life?

Go back to that verse, verse 12, and read the end of it. It says, those who love

Him, those who love Him. So I think this is something that I kind of discovered as I was studying this verse and I grabbed a hold of.

The ones who persevere through trial at the beginning of that verse, it goes on to say, inherit this crown of life, and it finishes with those who love

Him. So the people who love Christ, who treasure Him, as Jesus talked about, who put their treasure in heaven, who desire

God and who want God more than anything, those are the ones who are persevering through trial.

Do you see that connection there? So I want to really challenge us on where our heart's at.

What do you desire? What do you want more than anything? Is it set on Christ?

Is He the one you really love? Or are you trading the God of the universe for cheap, junky substitutes in this world?

Pleasure, money, fame, comfort, whatever it is that you think maybe will make you happy right now,

God is the only one. He is the real deal. So don't trade

Him for junky substitutes. You know, God created everything and He knows what you need.

So the question is, are you going to pursue and cultivate your desire for God? And it's easy to say that, you know, yeah,

I want to desire God, I want to love God, I want to know God. But how do you do that? There's practical steps we have to do.

We have to actively do things. Quiet time is a great example. Carving out time to just spend with God, talking to Him in prayer, reading

His Word, praising Him, praising Him in the morning, praising

Him at night, praising Him in between, just worshiping God. That's a great way to cultivate your love for God.

Make Him your treasure. Love God first and foremost. And by loving

God and by directing your desire and affection toward God, it's going to help you in persevering through those trials that we're talking about in verse 12.

So I want to move on now to verse 13. James uses the same word for trial here, but it's now interpreted as temptation.

And when I first started studying this, I was kind of interested in that fact. We saw the word trial used back in verses 3 to 5 and 12, and now the same word is translated as temptation.

So the question I have for you is, does God allow trials into our life?

And the answer is yes. Yes, He does. Clearly, He allows trials to help us mature and grow up in the faith.

We've read about that and we know that. But what about when things go wrong? What about when things go wrong?

What if you give in to temptation? Then is God at fault? Well, God allowed this into my life and I messed up, so therefore it's

God's fault. I'll blame Him. Is that right? Clearly no. James is very emphatic.

No, you should not say God is tempting you. So there's a very clear clarification here.

It says we learn something here about what it says about God.

And I think, by the way, just a side note, I think it's very important that we pay attention. When we see something about God in Scripture, Scripture is our source and our reference for learning about God.

So let's pay attention to that. It's talking about God's character and who He is. God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does

He tempt anyone. God is perfect. He's holy. He's just. There's nothing evil in God.

And isn't it just like us to blame someone else for our problems? The whole blaming thing and trying to blame

God. So it reminds me of Adam and Eve in the garden. We saw God confronts them about sin and eating the fruit.

And what does Adam say? This woman you gave me. So he's like blaming her and blaming

God all at the same time. And then what does Eve say? The serpent. So there's just this blame shifting.

And I think that's very common in our humanity, in our fallen nature to blame. But we should not blame

God for temptation. Rather, how does temptation work?

So we get a little education in how this whole temptation thing goes down. Where does it come from?

It says each of us is dragged away and enticed by our own evil desires. Have you ever experienced that?

Have you? I know I have. I don't need any help sinning. I'm quite capable all on my own to tempt myself.

I have desires in my own heart that I know are wrong and they just well up sometimes. And I think of the example of a little kid.

They look so innocent and then they sort of grow up and suddenly there's fits and there's all kinds of selfishness coming out.

And you're like, where did this come from? What? This beautiful little child. I never taught him to throw pots and pans across the room here.

What's going on? And the reality is there's a selfishness. There's a sinfulness that wells up inside of us and it's the sinful nature we've inherited.

And so I think that's pretty clear. We're all born with it. Another passage that I thought was really interesting to think about as it relates to where does sin come from is

Jesus when he's answering the question to the Pharisees of eating unclean things.

And Jesus clarifies and says, no, no, no, you're not made unclean by stuff you eat that goes into your mouth. No, you're made unclean by the stuff that comes out of your own heart.

What's coming out of you is what makes you unclean. We're already unclean. As the Bible clearly says, we've all sinned.

We all fall short of the glory of God. So, believers,

Christians, when you've put your faith and trust in Christ, how do we then combat sin in our life?

I want to just encourage us to think about the progression of sin that we see in this passage and think about the early stage, the desire stage.

And I believe, I just want to share with you that I believe that that's the point in our lives where we should combat sin.

I think that's the critical time. Before sin happens, and especially before a pattern of sin is established, but back at the desire stage,

I think we need to address that in our own hearts. So I'd encourage you this morning to evaluate your own heart.

What do you truly desire? What do you desire? Is your heart set on God?

Is your heart set on what He wants for your life, His kingdom, His purposes, His agenda, what

He's doing in the world? And the promptings the Holy Spirit gives you, are your desires along those lines?

And I know, I just want to admit that right now, this is a constant battle. And I know that in my own heart, there's a constant battle, right?

I do. I want to please God. I want to follow God. But I get my eyes off of God so quickly, so easily.

So it's a moment -by -moment battle that we need to face. So I just want to encourage you this morning to continue to turn back to God.

Continue to turn back to God and set your eyes on Him as many times as it takes. You know, make it your life goal to know

God, to pursue God, to love God. It is a lifelong process of sanctification.

I want to move on now and talk about what happens then. After desire conceives, it gives birth to sin.

Sin actually is, there's a line between temptation and sin.

And it's when we give into our desires and our thoughts, whatever thoughts or actions or deeds, whatever we do, prompted by those desires, that then is sin.

It's when we indulge our appetite for sinful things, whatever's contrary to God's will.

It's interesting, later on in this passage, we talk about God being the giver of every good gift, and we're going to dig into that.

But it's interesting, God gives so many good things in life, and yet we twist those things and use them and turn them into evil purposes.

I just almost, when you step back and think about it, it's almost comical if it wasn't so sad.

We take, you know, we take good things. Let's take food, for example. Food is good.

God gave us food, and we need it to sustain ourselves, but somehow we find ways to just overindulge and do things in excess and abuse it and just, and become gluttons.

How about sex? God gave sex, it's a beautiful gift, and yet why do we use it in a way contrary to God's will and engage in sex outside of marriage?

How about medicine? There's all kinds of herbs and remedies and things that very smart scientists have discovered over the ages, and these can be good things, but somehow we take those and misuse them and abuse drugs and use them to get high and to do all kinds of wrong things.

It's just interesting to me how sin just is all around us, and it's always taking what

God had created and twisting it. Sin literally means missing the mark. It's falling short of God's perfect holy standard, and sin takes a wide variety of forms.

You can see the seven things on the slide there. There's the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament that clearly outlines right and wrong, and then there's

New Testament is full of examples of sin. I don't think that you need to be taught too much about this, but I will read one list from Galatians 5.

In Galatians 5, it talks about living by the Spirit and living by the flesh, and there's contrast that Paul gives us in Galatians.

I think a lot of us are familiar with the fruits of the Spirit. Everybody heard of the fruits of the Spirit? That's great. That's what we should be doing.

The Spirit should be causing those things to flow out of us, but the opposite list, the acts of the sinful nature, what happens in our flesh is a terrible list, and I don't hear this one quoted too often in Sunday schools, but I'm going to list this right now for us.

There's very clearly wrong things. It says sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like.

I don't think that there's very much debate on those things. We should know those are wrong, and yet I will also admit that sometimes there's gray areas in life, and maybe you're, as a believer, you're literally, there are areas in life that's hard to decide, and you need to figure out, should

I do this or that? And there are true gray areas. I would just encourage you to ask for wisdom. James encourages us to ask for wisdom, and I would say the same to you, to you this morning.

Please ask God for wisdom in those gray areas. But I think most of the time we know what's right and wrong.

The hard part is what to do when we feel that conviction of sin.

We've sinned and committed sin, and we're caught in it, and the Spirit convicts us. Now what are you going to do?

Are you going to respond and pray and repent and turn from it, or are you going to continue in that sin?

You know, I pray that you turn from sin, because it is critical that we root out sin as early as possible and don't establish these pathways, these patterns of sin in our lives, these ruts that get established.

You know, it's terrible to sin, and God doesn't make light of sin, and I'm not going to make light of sin this morning, but we've all sinned, okay?

We have all sinned, and we all fall short, and the question is, when you have sinned, what are you then going to do,

Christian? What are you going to do? Think of the example of Jesus.

Do you remember when the woman was caught in adultery, and they brought her to Jesus, and they tried to catch

Jesus, right? What is he going to do? Is he going to have her stoned, or is he going to set her free? We got him now, and what does

Jesus do? He says, whoever has not sinned cast the first stone, and so eventually everyone disperses, and then he says to the woman, where are your accusers?

And they've all gone, and he tells her, go and sin no more.

Do you remember that phrase, go and sin no more? He's not saying, it's okay, just keep sinning. He says, go and sin no more.

God's desire for us is not to continue in sin. So I'm going to continue on now in verse 15 and talk about really the sad part about sin, the sad part about sin.

Verse 15 shows that downward path. Our sinful desires lead to sin, and sin may seem okay for a while.

You may get away with it. You may think, you know what, no one needs to know about this. You hide it in your life.

You have a secret sin that's going on, but I got to tell you this morning, if that's the case for you, and maybe just between you and God, and no one else here knows, but that sin is going to mess you up.

It will. Sin is dangerous. Sin is powerful. Scripture tells us right here that it eventually is going to kill us.

Sin is not something to be trifled with. Sin grows up. Sin grows up in this passage and eventually kills us.

And that's where I'm talking about this pattern of sin in your life. Do not allow sin to continue to grow up in your life.

Don't play with sin. Don't give in to the desires you know are wrong.

The price is so severe. It's a lot worse than you think.

I thought of Proverbs 5 to 7. There's a passage there that talks about the danger of sexual sin, to be quite honest.

That's really the focus of that three chapters. And I'll highlight, especially chapter 7 in Proverbs, where it describes a young man.

It describes a young man. He's looking out the window. He's looking out the window at the wrong time, in the wrong part of town.

And he sees a woman and he's enticed. And then just all of a sudden he just goes and commits sin, little knowing that it's going to cost him his life.

Sin is so messed up. It will mess you up. And I just want to emphasize that this morning.

Don't play around with sin. I'm going to say it this way.

Sin is stupid. Sin is stupid. A pastor once told me that.

Sorry, I wrote it down. It's a great quote, I think. Sin is stupid. It really is.

When you stop and think about it, when you really think about the consequences, where is this leading? Where is it going?

It may seem fun for a while. It may seem exciting for a while. But sin is literally stupid.

And I apologize if I'm offending some of you with my strong language there. Think about it for a second.

Adultery. When someone engages in adultery and they break their marriage vows and they go down that path and they destroy the beautiful thing that God had created in their life with their marriage and their kids.

Think about the long -term effects of that adultery on divorce and broken relationships and injured children and generational impacts of that.

I know that's a painful thing for many. Because the same thing about pornography.

You know, some people think, well, that's a harmless thing to do. What's wrong with that? Well, I would just have to tell you this morning that pursuing pleasure through images and fantasies and pretending it won't hurt anyone is just foolishness.

There's a whole industry that's using and abusing women for people's pleasure.

And then what are you doing to your mind? You're corrupting your mind. You're filling it with images. You're changing and distorting your own desires.

Changing what God had intended, sex, or something good, and just distorting it and changing it into something to satisfy your own fleshly desires.

How about another example? Stealing. Lying. It's the same thing.

You're forfeiting your honor and your integrity, and you're taking something that's not yours, and you think you're going to get away with it.

Life is good. Life's okay. No one has to know. I'll sneak around. But do you know the cost?

You know, it's not just the cost of getting caught. It's the cost of that lifelong pattern. What are you establishing in your life?

A life of deception. Think about the long -term consequences of those bad patterns.

And think about this, your own conscience and your conscience before God. I guarantee you down the road you will be haunted by the dumb sin that you engaged in.

So turn your back on it and don't be fooled. You know, and that's what verse 16 says. Read verse 16, the first part of it.

Don't be deceived. Don't be deceived. The great deceiver,

Satan, is all about deception. That's what spiritual warfare is all about.

It's about deceiving this world and just leading us astray. That's Satan's basic objective.

I think he's doing a pretty good job right now. I have to be honest with you. If you just look at our culture right now, movies,

TV shows, it seems like we glorify sin. We glorify sin, and we should not do that.

We need to not follow the temptation and the alluring path of sin. And as a movie quotes, don't follow the lights.

And that's actually a movie I kind of like, but do not follow the lights. Don't follow that path of worldly temptation into sin.

So verse 17, let me get back to the text here. Every good and perfect gift, every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the

Father of heavenly lights. He wants us to know, he's really saying, don't be deceived.

Everything good is coming from God. Because I think we can fall into temptation or we can be deceived into thinking good things come from other sources.

So first of all, I want to say Satan did not create anything good. He twists what

God created into evil things. But I think there's all kinds of deceptions in our society, and I want to touch on a topic this morning that may be controversial, but I still want to go there.

For example, evolution. Evolution, this humanistic thinking that God wasn't involved at all in creation and everything's just evolved over the years, billions of years.

It denies that God created everything. It denies the goodness that comes from God.

I believe it undermines this very passage. So whatever your beliefs are about evolution,

I just got to be completely honest here, evolution does not answer anything about where matter comes from.

It has all kinds of historical things about how things may have evolved, but it does not ever come close to answering where did all this come from.

And I want to tell you, believers, God created everything, and everything good comes from His hand.

Everything good. And we are the beneficiaries, and we need to make sure that we're giving Him the thanks and the credit.

Whenever we see anything, we should just be filled with thanksgiving to God as we look around us.

The other thing it says here is God is not changing like shifting shadows. God is a rock.

He is stable. He can be counted on. Everything else revolves around God.

Everything else is unstable. God is the only thing. He alone is stable. And I want to ask you this morning, are you looking around and struggling with the instability in your life?

What are you going to trust in these days? Things seem pretty unstable. The economy doesn't seem too certain.

Your job, are you trusting in your job? People have lost their jobs. How about your finances, all the savings that you've invested?

That can go in a hurry. Your kid's future, are you trusting in that? How about just our country's future?

No, don't trust in those things. You can't trust those things. They will not last.

Ultimately, God is the only thing that will last. He is the only thing worthy of our trust. Now, moving on to verse 18.

Verse 18 starts out with, He chose. It starts with God choosing us.

He chose. It all starts there. And it says, He chose to give us birth, to give us birth.

What is He talking about here? It's a very similar passage in John 3, where Nicodemus comes to Jesus and says, how can

I be saved? And Jesus says, you have to be born a second time. And he's like, how can I go back into my mom's womb a second time?

Makes no sense. And Jesus is like, no, no, no. It's a spiritual birth, spiritual rebirth.

And this is that second birth that we're talking about, new life in Christ. When we believe in Christ, when we put our faith and trust in Christ, we become a new creation, it says in 2

Corinthians. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come.

We become new. And how do we get this new birth? Through the word of truth, through the word of truth.

We started off the message talking about the letter T in recast, how the letter

T stands for truth. And it's through God's word revealed to us, and then

God working in our lives through his word, that we become believers in God and through Jesus Christ and what he's done.

Praise God for his truth. And what is the result of God choosing to give us new birth through the word?

The result is we become a kind of first fruits of all he created. We become a new creation, as I mentioned, but we're part of a new world someday.

And I'm talking about end times and in Revelation and when all things are made new.

The beautiful thing is we are the first fruits of that. God has already redeemed us and saved us.

And he's going to eventually usher in a whole new kingdom. He's going to change the world and restore it as we learn about in Revelation.

And we have a glorious hope and a future. But the crazy thing is this whole idea of first fruits, it's like we are

God's inheritance. God actually wants us in our restored state.

We are like a gift back to God. It's just crazy. Why would God want us, the sinful sinners that we are?

And yet he does. He desires us and we become a kind of first fruits that are given back to God.

So in conclusion, James gives us a really stark contrast in this passage.

And I just want to kind of wrap up by talking about this contrast. We see that you can persevere through trials and this leads to what?

Maturity and life. Praise God. But we contrast that with this bad pattern, right?

The sinful desires, if we're given a temptation, leads to sin and death.

So I'm just going to say that again. The contrast is perseverance through trials leads to maturity and life, and the wrong path is sinful desires leads to sin and ultimately death.

I don't think there could be any more opposite extremes. Huge, huge opposite extremes.

What do you choose? Are you going to choose life or death? It seems like an obvious answer and I know you guys all know the right answer, so we choose life.

But man, that is not an easy path. It's the path of persevering through trials.

It's the narrow way that is described in Scripture. Carrying your cross and following Christ's example.

The path is going to be very, very difficult. The other way, going down the path of sin, is easy.

And the Bible describes that as the broad is the path that leads to destruction. Following that's easy.

Sin is tempting and you can give in to temptation and engage in sin and you're going to probably have a lot of friends along that path.

But the end of that path is death. So maybe you're wondering, what about grace?

What about grace? Can't I do whatever I want and God's going to forgive me, right?

Maybe you've been thinking about that this morning. Yes, God forgives sin. There is no salvation except by God's grace through Jesus and His death on the cross.

Absolutely. But don't be deceived. Sin leads to death.

God does not want you to continue in sin. He saved you from sin. Why would you continue in it?

So you need to run away from it. Flee temptation. And again, as I mentioned earlier,

I think the best time to flee that temptation is at the desire stage, before you even sin. Don't mess around with those wrong desires.

Shift those desires over and focus yourself on God and what He wants. Set your affections on Christ.

Feed on His Word and learn to love what God loves. One final question for you this morning as we're closing.

Do you question the goodness of God this morning? Do you question the goodness of God? I'm sure all of us have at some point in our lives.

Maybe you're going through it right now and I don't want to trivialize it. I think in the middle of difficulty and pain, it is very tempting to question

God. Why are you allowing this in my life, God? What possible good could come out of this?

Yet God is good. He is the ultimate definition of good.

And as this passage says, everything good comes from His hand. So we need to thank

Him for the good gifts in life. God is good and even when

He allows trials in your life, He's doing it as an opportunity to test your faith and to show your faith as pure and genuine.

So as we prepare for communion today, I want to just remind us that Jesus died for our sins.

He died for us 2 ,000 years ago. He died so we could live. He took our sin so that we could be sinless in God's eyes.

And that's why we take communion every week. We take it to remember what Christ did.

We don't ever want to forget that. It's always central. We take the cracker to remember

His body broken for us. He sacrificed Himself on the cross and His body was broken.

We take the juice as a reminder of the blood that He shed for our sins. He truly is a good

God if He did that for you and me, isn't He? To die in our place even when we were still sinners.

You know, we have absolutely nothing to bring. And that's what this table really is. It's a reminder that we have nothing to bring.

We just humbly come to the table and remember the sacrifice Christ made for us so that we can be saved.

So this morning, if you have a relationship with Christ, I just want to invite you to partake of these elements with us.

This is a very important reminder of what God has done for us. There's four tables set up in the corners and in a minute

Dave's going to come and lead us in a song and we will be all taking communion. And I just encourage you to take the elements.

You can take them there or back to your seat and take them at your own pace and just reflect on what God has done for you. Rejoice in it.

Thank God for what He's done for you. Let's pray now. Heavenly Father, I do thank

You for what You've done. God, You are good. You are good.

We have nothing to bring. Father, we need

You just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from the unrighteousness in our hearts.

And God, we humbly just admit that we need You. And God, we've talked a lot about trials and temptations and sin and all those negative things,

God. But I pray for Your Spirit in our life to turn from those things,

God. Would You just strengthen us? God, I thank You for the forgiveness that's available in Christ. No matter how many times we sin,

You do forgive us. And I thank You for that, God. But help us not to indulge in sin. Lord, I pray for each person here.

Lord, as we come to the communion table, help us to reflect on the amazing thing You've done for us. Help us to turn from sin in our lives and live for You, God.