When You Are Tempted and Tested… (James 1:12-18)                                        2009.07.05        Pastor Richard Yu

In this passage James gives us three principles that deal with some of the fundamental issues involving trails and temptations in life; and if fully integrated into our mindset they’ll totally change us and help us greatly in how we respond to trials and temptations.

I. When you face trials and temptations remember God’s purpose (vv. 12, 2-4).

James says that the man who perseveres under trials is blessed because there is this ultimate goal – this crown of life which God will in due course give him. That is God’s purpose for all His people. James has already said something similar in verses 2-4: trials and testing develops perseverance in us, which will ultimately make us mature and complete.

        Almost all body building equipment in the gym operates on the principles of resistance – when your body pulls, pushes, lifts, against various levels of resistance set on the exercise machines, your muscle is built up. In the same way, trials of many kinds produce strength in your faith and make you more mature and complete. Pressures and trials, although unpleasant, are nevertheless teaching you something of perseverance, if you keep persevering you ultimately develop the kind of character that demonstrates maturity. And you really cannot become mature in your faith without having to face some of these trails. Therefore when you are tempted and tested, remember the purpose God has for you – to give you the crown of life; that is: life in all its fullness, life in its perfection, life in its resurrection splendor, life as it must be in the presence of God forever.

II. When you face trials and temptations do not doubt God’s motive (vv. 13-15). In temptation, you are tempted to do something bad. But a trail in itself is not a temptation to do something bad; it’s some kind of pressure that has come upon you. Verse 13 is better understood if paraphrased like this: “If you are tempted by such trials, do not say ‘God is tempting me.’”

In life experience, the same events that offer opportunity to go forward could also be the temptations to go backward. The same trail that might become the opportunity to persevere and press on and go on to maturity can also become occasions to nurture bitterness and resentment and self-pity and even blaspheme of God because we have to face these miserable things.

        How can you possibly imagine that God is interested in tempting us to sin? He Himself cannot be tempted by sin. He has absolutely no interest in sin. Temptation, after all, is an impulse to sin.  And since God is not susceptible to such impulse, why should we think that God is interested at all even for a moment to induce us to sin. God’s motive is always for our good. The true source for temptation is found in verses 14 & 15. Here is a word picture of fishing – the fish is lured away by the bait in front of it. You’re enticed and dragged away by something that is within you. Don’t fool yourself where temptations come from. They come from your own evil desires.

III. When you face trials and temptations affirm God’s goodness (vv. 16-18). God has no dark side, He doesn’t shift. He Himself is only light. As 1 John puts it, “In Him is light, there’s no darkness at all.” He is good, He is only good, He cannot be other than good. The same God who is never less than sovereign over all creation is at the same time never less than good in all circumstances.

Our danger is that when we face trials and temptations we begin to fall into a mood of self-pity and want to lash out against God; and by lashing out against God we in fact are charging that God is not good, not fair, not just, or not loving. What James is stressing is that when you feel you are abandoned, do not forget God’s goodness, furthermore you need to affirm God’s goodness in your heart.

            The ultimate proof that God is good is that He chose to give us new birth through the word of truth – the gospel of Jesus Christ, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of all He created. All the trials and temptations we face now, as undesirable as they are, will fade into nothing when we look at them in terms of eternity. If you want to see the ultimate demonstration of God’s goodness, then you return to the gospel; and that takes you back to the cross. It takes you back o all that He has done in Christ – bearing our sin in His own body on the tree; and the working out of this new life enabled by the Spirit is already visible in the context of the church, here and now.