James 1:12-15 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
INTRODUCTION
Growing up, I went through the Ida Public Schools system. I had Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Weins, and Mr. Dick as principles in elementary, middle, and high school. I also had dozens of teachers. Under their leadership, I went to school for nine months of the year, six hours a day, and five days a week, over the course of thirteen years. If my math is correct, that’s 2,300 days or 14,000 hours or (most appropriately for how it felt) 840,000 minutes of time I spent in a classroom. Aside from gym (on the non-square-dancing days), I have only two distinct memories of looking forward to going to class. For a bit of time each day, over the course of a week in elementary school, we took part in “mini society.” Each student had to create a business and open it up on the last day for our classmates and parents (I printed banners on a dot-matrix printer). That was fun. And for a few days in physics, we worked to create self-propelled cars made of paper, drinking straws, paperclips, and rubber bands. I genuinely looked forward to that as well. There were probably a few other times I’m just not remembering, but being generous that means I made my way through all those years of school, enjoying (maybe) a few hundred of the 840,000 minutes I was there. I had a distant, vague sense that it was right, but I was only there because my parents made me go. As you can imagine, that made learning pretty difficult and my attitude in school pretty bad.
Unfortunately, for many, including myself at times, that is a lot like our approach to dealing with sin. We’re Christians, so we know we should care, and we kind of do, so we make an effort at times to stop sinning, but if we’re honest, all too often our days are marked by doing the things we want and feeling resentment toward anything (parents, friends, conscience, preaching, Bible reading) that gets in our way. Occasionally, we experience some measure of gladness in fighting back sin, but overall, it’s an act of discipline, not delight.
But Grace, for those of you who long to long for the righteousness, for those of you who are tired of trying to muscle your way out of sin, and for those of you who genuinely want to follow Jesus even though your flesh so often pulls so hard in the other direction, this is one of the most significant passages in the NT. In it, James gives Christians two of the most effective weapons available in the fight against sin. The first is one we’ve already seen in a different form—the sanctifying power of a superior affection. The second is new in James—a description of the life-cycle of sin. My aim in the end is to help you cry out “What gifts of grace!” as you make war on your sin.
THE SANCTIFYING POWER OF A SUPERIOR AFFECTION (12)
One of the most significant principles of the Christian’s war on sin and life in Christ is the sanctifying power of a superior affection. As I just mentioned, James has already introduced this principle. In commanding his readers to count their trials as joy (1:2-4), James gave the reason why—because it is through the pain of trial that God often gives His greatest gifts. Trials are hard, James understood, that’s what makes them trials, but the cost they extract doesn’t compare to the reward they bring when we endure them in faith. To believe that is to be able to not merely endure trials, but count them as all joy.
In this passage, James applies the same principle to our fight against sin. The point is that God hasn’t called us to fight sin by just trying harder. We’re not meant to kill sin by self-sacrificing the good things we want for the lesser, but nobler things God wants. The sanctifying power of a superior affection highlights the fact that everything God commands is immeasurably greater and more satisfying than anything else we might want. Sin has blinded us to the goodness of God’s commands, but God is in the business of giving sight to the blind. We are meant to fight sin, then, by Spirit-empowered trust in God that the things He’s called us to are the only path to the satisfaction we’re seeking in sin.
Again, we get another version of that principle in the beginning of our passage for this morning.
12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
The key terms in this passage (steadfast, trial, and test) are all found in vs.2-4 as well. The parallel is unmistakable. In the opening passage, the trials and tests were general—any trials a “brother” might endure. But verses 13-15 make it clear that the trial and test James has in mind here involves the temptation of sin. How do God’s people stand up against sin’s unending assault? And, conversely, how do God’s people walk in righteousness? In our passage we see that both (sin and righteousness) make promises. We’re continually forced to choose between them. How will we decide?
One significant part of the answer is that we keep in mind what sin really offers in comparison to what righteousness offers. In other words, once again, James is trying to help us by giving us a proper appraisal of the worth of sin and righteousness.
Have you ever seen the movie, “A Christmas Story”? It’s the story of a young midwestern boy’s view of life around Christmas time in the 1940s. It has nothing to do with Christ, but it does a remarkable job of capturing the secular “Christmas spirit” common to so many in American culture. One particular storyline has always stuck with me. The main character, Ralphie, and his brother listen to the weekly “Little Orphan Annie” radio program. I’m not going to get all of the details right, but the gist of it is that the program’s main sponsor, Ovaltine (chocolate milk mix), had a secret message that required a special ring to decode. To get the ring, Ralphie needed to send in a certain number of Ovaltine receipts. Ralphie’s eagerness to get the ring and discover the message is almost palpable. This part of the movie is so well done, you find yourself eager to know the secret message and help rescue Orphan Annie along with Ralphie. In the end, the message is a profoundly disappointing, “Drink More Ovaltine”.
To cut through the lies of the world, our flesh, and the devil, in simplest terms, James tells us that whatever pleasures sin promises, its final end is death (more on that when we get to v.15), while whatever sacrifices righteousness requires, its final end is the crown of life! I’ll share a bit about the crown of life in a minute, but the main point for us to see here is that to know the true payout of sin (at best, temporary happiness ending in death) and the true payout of righteousness (the crown of life through trials) is to be faced with the easiest choice in the world. This is the sanctifying power of a superior affection. The only way the choice is hard is when we have a wrong evaluation of their worth—which is exactly what all of have apart from Christ and we only gradually get away from in Christ.
Again, the thing we cannot miss from the opening line in our passage is that the reward of righteousness (“remaining steadfast under trial”) is so much greater than anything and everything sin can offer that if we really understood that, we’d never choose sin. And rightly wielded, that is an unbelievably powerful tool for killing sin.
To help you to appreciate what we’re really talking about here, and to make sure you don’t think I’m overselling the value of the crown of life, it’s good to ask what exactly is the crown of life?
A crown is an “emblem of majesty” (Manton. James, 50). It belongs only to true sons and daughters of the only True King. And like a wedding ring, the circular shape of a crown points to permeance. For earthly rulers, it is a declaration of the desire for a permeant kingdom, but for Christ and His followers, it is a fitting symbol for a truly permanent reign. Combined, it is clear that a crown signifies victory. Whether given to a king who has conquered or a victorious athlete, crowns do not go to those who have lost.
The crown mentioned by James is a specific crown. It is a “crown of life”. Elsewhere in the NT it is referred to as “the crown of righteousness” (2 Timothy 4:8) and the “unfading crown of glory” (1 Peter 5:4). In remaining faithful to death, Jesus was given a crown of thorns before rising to the right hand of the Father to rule in power forever. James’s main point here is that God has promised that everyone who loves and trusts Him enough to share Jesus’ crown of thorns in this life, will share His crown of life, righteousness, and glory forever in the next!
The end of faithfulness through temptation to sin is everlasting life, while the end of giving in to sin is death (15).
Do you want to kill your sin? Or, do you at least want to want to kill your sin? One of the two inestimably powerful weapons James gives Christians for this battle is a specific promise of the superiority of God’s reward—over everything else—for all who endure trials, tests, and temptations, in faith and love—the everlasting crown of life.
So what do you do when you’re going about life, sin presents itself, and you’re tempted to choose it instead of the righteousness God requires? The first thing you do, according to this passage, is remember the crown of life. Draw to mind the Bible’s promise and description of it for those who remain steadfast under trial. Pray and ask God to help you believe God’s Word and not the desires of your flesh. Pray and ask God to help you see your options as they truly are (life in faithfulness or death in rebellion). Gather your fellow fighters to pray with you, remind you of truth, and pick you up when you fall. And then walk by faith in the strength God provides and in the knowledge that every trial in life produces greater holiness and every trial that leads to death bestows the crown of life.
That’s a remarkably powerful weapon. It’s what ultimately kills sin. Believing that fully is what will preserve us in righteousness forever in heaven. But as helpful and significant as that weapon is, James gives us another. Let’s consider and learn to wield the second weapon as well.
THE SANCTIFYING POWER OF UNDERSTANDING SIN’S LIFE-CYCLE (13-15)
This second weapon is a different kind of weapon. The first—the sanctifying power of a superior affection—is like being given the clearest possible description of the glory of victory and the agony of defeat along with the promise that as long as we keep fighting, we will share in certain victory. The second—understanding sin’s life-cycle—is like being given the enemy’s playbook. While the first is more powerful, both are significant.
What, then, is the enemy’s playbook? 13-15 let’s us in on a good deal of it. There are five specific things we need to notice: 1) God never tempts His people to sin, 2) Sin tempts us to sin, 3) Sin comes from unchecked desire, 4) Unchecked sin matures, and 5) Mature sin kills.
God Does Not Tempt (13)
The first thing to see is that when you feel pulled toward sin, it is never God who is doing the pulling. James taught (as we just saw) that the trials his readers were enduring were a tool of God’s for their sanctification. They might have wondered, then, if the trial of their temptation to sin was another of God’s instruments.
13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.
James emphatically rejects that idea. Evil has no appeal to God and so He does not present it as a temptation to His people. Whenever you are tempted to give into sin, fight it by remembering that it is NOT from God.
Sin Tempts (14)
If not from God, then where does temptation come from? In short, James tells us that temptation to specific sins comes when our old, sinful nature wells up and tempts us to return to it.
14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
The picture James is painting here is that as you go through life, you will occasionally encounter something in the world (a person or advertisement or object or whatever) or some memory from your past. You might have walked past that thing dozens of times with no issues, or not thought about the thing for weeks, but this time something is different. There is a pull that wasn’t there before.
James uses two important words to describe the pull. He speaks of desires within us luring and enticing us to sin. Both carry the idea of baiting. Just as a fisherman attempts to use the most effective bait possible to trick (lure) and attract (entice) a fish, so too do the remnants of our sinful nature do that to us at times.
Grace, this means that—and please hear this—no one can force you to sin. Your neighbors, you parents, your siblings, your spouse, your friends, your pastor, the person on the internet, and even Satan himself can act in evil, sinful ways toward you. They can act in ways that are intended to get you do something sinful and evil. But they cannot cause you to sin. In fact, James helps us to see that in the deepest sense, they cannot even truly tempt you to sin. All they can do is hold sin out in front of you and make it look as appealing as possible. Whatever real temptation you experience, however, comes not from without, but from within. “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.” That’s the essence of the lingering effects of the sinful nature we all possess in Adam.
I’ve said this before, but it’s important for you to understand that this is why we will be able to walk in complete righteousness in heaven, not because everything that we were tempted toward will be gone, but because our desire for that thing will be completely removed.
So, the temptations we face come not from God, and not even from God’s enemies, but from the luring and enticing work of the sinful desires that often lay dormant inside us, but occasionally wake up.
Sin Comes from Unchecked Desire (15a)
Those things are helpful to know about sin’s tactics, but there’s more, though. As you all know, mere temptation isn’t the end of our sinful desires.
Grace, we ought not put ourselves in places or around people where we know we’re likely to be tempted by our desires (Psalm 1:1). To do so is to have sinned by giving in to an earlier temptation. But here’s the thing: When we don’t intentionally put ourselves in sin’s way, but temptation still finds us, which it will in this life, the temptation itself is not sin. What we do next determines whether or not we will sin.
15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin…
James tells us that it is only when we allow that desire to go unchecked that it is able to give birth. The mere temptation is not sin. That often comes out of nowhere. It is the giving in to the temptation that is sin for us. It is allowing that desire to take another step. It is a second look, or the click of a mouse, or the careless word we utter, not the initial thought of doing so. When the desire is allowed to have its way, that is sin.
Desire and consent are sin’s parents. You need both to make a sin baby. There is great help in your fight to kill sin in the knowledge that sin cannot be born in you if you do not allow your consent to come together with your temptation.
It is good to know that God doesn’t tempt us to sin. It is also good to know that temptation comes from within. Knowing those things are tactically helpful, but here’s where the real battle begins.
Your husband fails to meet your expectations and you feel the temptation to be disrespectful rise up from your old nature. Now make war! Don’t consent, ladies. Even if your husband is wrong, and even if his wrong hurts and introduces you to temptation, don’t allow desire and consent to conceive sin in you. Turn your temptation back to God and ask Him to strengthen you to obey. You are commanded to respect even when your husband isn’t being particularly respectable. The gospel sends you on a rescue mission, not a vengeance or justice mission. Remember God’s promises to all who endure in faith—the crown of life—and to all who abandon the faith—death.
You found out your friend is talking about you behind your back. You feel the temptation to let her have it or gossip about her as well. Make war! Don’t consent to your sinful desires. Remember God’s promises.
Having committed to starting each day with prayer and time in your Bible, you notice your phone and with it, the temptation to check the score or your schedule or your messages or whatever. Make war! Don’t consent and sin will be aborted.
Unchecked Sin Matures (15b)
But that’s not it either. If you fail to make war on your sin before it is born, it does not go away. It grows and grows into greater and greater sin. Sin must be killed or it will mature. It will continue to get more severe and consuming.
15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown…
Again, sin will not just fade away and it will not just get weaker. Unaccosted, sin will become a fiercer and fiercer enemy. It will become more and more vicious. It will become more and more dangerous. One of the most powerful examples of this I’ve ever come across was in an article published in CT many years ago. It was called “The Anatomy of Lust”. It chronicled one man’s journey from a genuinely qualified elder in his church, to a man broken and beaten by sexual sin that was nourished and matured for years. The power of the article is not in its description of the particular sin the man struggled with, but in its description of exactly what James is talking about—how all sin matures when left to its devices. (I have copies of you’d like to read it to help you make war on your maturing sin.) James’s description of sin’s life-cycle is a call to war and a powerful tool to do so.
Mature Sin Kills (15c)
There’s one more aspect of sin’s life-cycle that James reveals to help us kill it. If you don’t make war once temptation shows up, you’ll need to make war once sin is born. If you don’t make war once sin is born, you’ll need to make war against a more mature and formidable foe as it grows. And if you don’t make war as it fully grows, it will kill you!
15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
Our passage opened with the promise that all who persevere in faith through the trials and tests of temptation will receive the crown of life. Here James shows us the other end—the fate of all who are faithless in the face of trials and tests tied to temptation. Grace, this simple passage in James is the basis for puritan, John Owen’s famous line, “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.”
If you are not a Christian, you are already dead in your sin. But if you are calling on the name of Jesus make war on sin for it has already made war on you.
So how does all of this work in light of the gospel? Aren’t we dead to sin? If so, how can it entice us? And isn’t our salvation secured? If so, how can sin still kill us?
When Jesus died on the cross, He secured sin’s death. When we place our faith in Jesus, sin’s mastery over us is severed. We no longer must sin. But the final death of sin in us does not happen until we die or Jesus returns. This means that Christians will still struggle with temptation and sin. For those who make war on it, God has promised us victory and reward. But for those who refuse to make war, but allow sin to mature and fester, they will die, proving that their faith was never genuine.
How does knowing these things about sin and its life-cycle help us to kill sin and walk in righteousness? James shines a light on where sin comes from, how it grows, and what it can do. Armed with that knowledge, the promises of God, and the indwelling Spirit of God, we have all we need to cut sin down before it kills us.
CONCLUSION
You can stop committing a particular sin for a time with mere self-control. But you can only put sin to death by gaining a greater desire for something greater. That’s James’s first weapon. Who has tasted steak and still longs for hotdogs? Who has seen the ocean and still longs for the rain puddle in your driveway? Who has seen the Rockies and still longs for the dirt hill out back? And who has tasted the glories of God and still longs for sin’s lies?
James’s second weapon is in teaching us about sin’s life-cycle. In so doing, he helps us to identify temptation and sin early on, that we might make war on it, as it has already made war on us.
Significantly, all of this is good for non-Christians to hear, but won’t be of much help. They are means of sanctification, not salvation. Before either of these will help with sin you must repent and believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and receive Him as Lord. James was writing here to Holy Spirit-filled Christians who were fighting in their forgiveness, not to help non-Christians know how to be forgiven. To seek to apply these words of James as a non-Christian is futile. You must first turn to Jesus in faith.
Grace, remember that simply hearing this will not help, by God’s grace we must be doers also. We must use these weapons to make war, and we must do so in the knowledge that Jesus has already secured our victory!