James: The Trap Behind The Bait

Transcript:

The following transcript was completed using AI software. Please note that there may be mistakes.

But hey, you know, like it's a beautiful day, you know, it is always a beautiful day to worship the Lord, right? Because he is worthy of it, right? He is worthy of our praise. He is worthy of our worship. And today's title, you know, it's the trap behind the bait.

Yeah, it is a bait title, I know. But, you know, it's part of what we're learning through the book of James. And we're going to be reading James chapter one, verses 13 through 18.

If you guys are able to please stand up in reverence to the word of God. And we're going to read the whole passage and then just hold on to that, you know, like right there in your Bible, because we're going to be coming back as we break it down. And it says like this.

No one undergoing a trial shall say, I am being tempted by God, since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn't tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin.

And when sin is fully grown, it 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 lights, who does not change like shifting shadows by his own choice. He gave us birth by the word of truth so that we will be a kind of firstfruits by his creatures.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for this time. And as we are on this time, Lord, we just ask you to help us to be focused on you, Lord, on your word. Let this word, Lord, fall into a photograph, Lord, just so we can listen to this word, but like actually act upon it.

Help us to not just be listeners, but doers of your word, Lord. And prepare our hearts, prepare our minds to receive this word, and just so it can accomplish what it has been sent to. Holy Spirit, I just ask you to be here with us.

I just ask you to direct this preaching, this message, because this preaching comes from you. I just want myself to the side and hide me behind the cross and take control of all of this. In the name of Jesus, we pray.

Amen. Amen. You guys might be seated.

So temptation, yeah, I didn't forget. Temptation never looks dangerous at first, right? So we're transitioning from trials and tribulation now to a different theme. Bryson had mentioned before that James is very similar in a way to the book of Proverbs, where we go from one theme to another.

So temptation here never looks dangerous at first. It never shows you the consequences. It never advertises the damage that it will create or that it will cause in the future.

But it always shows up looking appealing, reasonable, or even good. It's going to look like something good for you. And that's what makes it so powerful, in a way, when we are tempted by something.

It's like fishing. That's the reason why. The trap behind the bait.

Why is it like fishing? You might ask. Thanks for asking that. So the fish, when someone's fishing, the fish doesn't see the hook behind it.

It only sees the bait. And by the time that it realizes what's really there, what's really happening, it's already trapped. It's already too late.

And that's how seeing works. And just hold that thought, because we're going to come back to this analogy. But that's just kind of how temptation works, in a way.

So up to this point, as we were saying in James chapter 1, we have been talking about trials, tribulations, like this kind of stuff. And we might wonder, how is this connected? How is it that trials are connected to temptation? Well, I will say they're very, very connected. Why is that? Well, because when we're going through a trial, when we're going through difficult times, we are very tempted to start questioning God.

Kind of like what Pastor Bryson was mentioning during the prayer time. We ask ourselves, why does God allow this? Why me, Lord, out of everybody? Why do you allow this to happen? And then you're going to start hearing voices in your head, which is the devil, just telling you, oh, maybe God doesn't love you after all. Why is he allowing this to happen to you? Or you might start questioning, well, is he really all-powerful? Is he really all-knowing? Is he even listening to your prayer? And you start questioning those kinds of questions, and you start entertaining that part.

And then sometimes it ends up in something really, really, really bad. So this is the reason why James, it's warning us on the temptations after talking about tribulations, talking about the trials, talking about going through difficult times. So trials are external pressures.

So difficult circumstances, suffering, challenges that test our faith, something that we cannot control, some things that are outside of ourselves, some things that we cannot control. And just as Pastor Bryson has said it before, his ex-pastors, his ex-pastor used to say, you're either in a tribulation, or going through a tribulation, or in a trial, or about to be in a trial, or used to be in a trial. So in the same way, we all are going to be tempted.

But now in this verse 13, we're going to see they shift to something different, which is temptation. And temptation, contrary to trials, is something internal. It's something that happens within.

And when we're under pressure, there's a natural instinct that arises in us to blame, that it is to blame something else. It is to blame other people. It is to blame our circumstances, the government, or just anything else, the devil, or even God himself.

Some people start to question God himself. And if we're honest, you know, sometimes even ourselves, you know, as Christians, we tend to blame God. So James, he asked this question, like where does sin actually come from? Which takes us to the first point, that is that God is not the source of temptation.

He is not the source of temptation, you know, just like some people think. So James begins with clarity. It no one undergoing a trial shall say, I am being tempted by God, since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn't tempt anyone.

So the first thing, you know, as we were saying, everybody's going to be tempted. Even Jesus himself, the Bible says that he was tempted in every way, but with no sin. So temptation on and of itself, it's not a sin.

You know, when you are tempted, that is not a sin. But the way that you handle that, you know, if it's mishandled, if it's, you know, like if you channel it in a wrong way, then it can turn into sin, right? So and then he draws a line that we cannot blur here and says that God is not influenced by evil, that he is not attracted to evil, and that he does not lead people into evil. It's like literally the opposite, you know, of his nature.

He is not evil, and he's not tempted by evil, and he will never tempt anyone into doing evil things. And you might say, well, this is pretty obvious, pretty self explanatory, but I will tell you, so I work in construction, you know, very blue collar job, you know, this kind of stuff. And usually I'm just by myself, and maybe Jared has yelled, you know, they might recognize this too.

When you're working on those kinds, you know, like the job sites, when I'm with different people, usually, I mean, the conversations that they have, they're not like the best kind of conversations that usually, you know, not the most spiritual conversations. And then if there's like a pre-woman passing by, you know, you will hear some people be like, oh, please God, don't tempt me because I'm weak, you know. And sometimes I've been correcting people like, well, that isn't God, you know, that's tempting you.

It's your own desire, it's your own flesh, it's your own sinful nature. So don't say that God is tempting you into doing something evil because he is not the one tempting you to, you know, lust into looking at that. And so that happens, right? So temptation does not originate in God.

And this is where we struggle because when life gets hard, we start to shift responsibility. You know, we don't want to take responsibility over actions. We don't want to take responsibility or what we do, what we think, but we start to blame other people.

We start to blame, again, even God himself. You know, that's where we start saying things like, God put me in this situation. God knows how hard this is, or God, even some people, you know, they will justify themselves, even Christians, and be like, oh, you know what? God made me this way.

He decided me to be like this. So, you know, if he wants me to be like this, then I'm going to be like this, you know, and that they use it as a justification. And then also, you know, just questioning himself, just questioning God, why did you allow me to go through this? If you know that I'm going to suffer, if you know that I'm going to be weak on this, why are you allowing this to happen to me? But James is saying here, like very clearly, please don't go there because God is not the source of your temptation.

He is not the source of your temptation. So, spiritual maturity, though, begins when we stop asking ourselves, who can I blame, or how can I blame, you know, like other people, the government, God, the devil, whatever. But instead, you know, we should ask ourselves, what is happening inside of me? Why am I being tempted of this? Why am I so tempted to do this or to do that? Because if we misunderstand God's character, again, you know, we're going to misdiagnose our problem, and then we're going to misdiagnose the problem and we'll never deal with it correctly, you know, instead of looking inside, instead of looking inwards, instead of looking at your own position, you know, at your own sinful nature, you know, you're always going to be blaming others.

Oh, you know, it's because of my parents, you know, my parents, they expect me too much, or maybe they didn't expect me a lot, you know, like they should have, you know, and I mean, you hear like grown men say this all the time, and just like, dude, like you're 35 years old, you got two kids, like, you know, you got to take responsibility of your own actions, right? You got to start doing your own life, you know, like making better decisions, you know, that kind of stuff, and, you know, just kind of go back inside and look at yourself and be like, this is my problem, you know, this is something that I got to work on, and if you don't, because we all sin though, you know, we're all sinners, and if you don't see like any problems in your life, if you're just like, you know what, like if for you it's very easy, you know, to see other people's sins and you even can characterize other people, you know, by their sins, and you'd be like, I'm good, you know, like honestly, I look at myself and everything's good, I'm going to tell you, you know, self-righteousness, just ask God, you know, to show you that, right? And just like David, you know, in the book of Psalms, God helped me to see, you know, like examine my heart and let me see, you know, what the problem is with myself, and so we can repent and be right with God. So God is not the source of the temptation. And then you go on in verses 14 to 15, James now shifts the focus inward because temptation says that it starts within and works like a trap.

It says like this, but each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. So the first thing that we see right here, that it says his own evil desire. So there are two kinds of desire, you know, there are evil desires, and there's also like good kind of desires, like, because we can desire to have a good relationship with God, we can desire God, and obviously that is good.

You know, you can desire your spouse, and that is great, you know, like God wants you to desire your spouse, right? But the problem is when you start desiring, I don't know, somebody else's wife or somebody else's spouse, you know, or somebody else that is not within your marriage, right? That is an evil desire. So here, you know, it's talking about the evil desire, and that's very uncomfortable, if we're honest, because it means that the problem isn't just around us, but rather it's within us, right? It's within our flesh, it's within our sinful nature. So, and then James goes on saying on the next verse, it says, then after desire has conceived, it gets birth to sin, and when sin is fully ground, it gets birth to death.

So sin, we can see right here, that sin isn't just something that happens. It's not just something, you know, that just like, it just appeared out of nowhere, but it's actually a process. So nobody, you know, like a good moral person, you know, like a good Christian isn't just going to wake up one morning and be like, oh, you know what, I'm just going to be unfaithful to my wife or to my husband, you know, I'm just going to evade taxes, you know, or I'm just going to go and gossip about people, but it's actually a process that has been going on.

You know, it was tempted by something, it was tempted either by the devil or by his or her own sinful desires, right? And then, you know, eventually it turned into the sin. So sin is separation. We'll see that first, it was the desire, and then conception, you know, like that desire, you know, they entertain that thought, it was conceived, and then it turned into the sin itself, and then that sin grows, because, you know, when you are living a sinful life, when you are living in sin, you want more and more and more of that, you know, sin is never satisfied, you will want more.

Let's say, for example, you know, like morally speaking, there are a lot of articles that show that people that are addicted to pornography, like they're always looking for more and more and more, and that's how they end up, you know, I'm not even going to say the word, right, but, you know, like looking at stuff that it's like horrendous, you know, all of that. So why is that? Because sin, you know, it's never satisfied, and then eventually that leads to death, spiritual death, you know, and we find ourselves even as Christians, you know, like being so far away from God, you know, to the point where we don't even feel His presence, we don't even hear from God, you know, or we, yeah, we just get to a point where even though you're still a Christian, you have lost that relationship with Him, right, so you're not living that joy that He has promised us, and that we can live among every single circumstance, in the midst of every single trail, as we have said before. Again, this isn't something easy to digest, right, but it is the reality, and that's what I love about James, that he's very straightforward, you know, he's not going around it, he's not sugarcoating anything, but it is the truth, it is the truth, and it is the love of God telling us that.

So sin is not random, it doesn't just appear suddenly, but it develops, it grows, and it progresses, right, and then eventually it turns into something that we probably never would have wanted, and this is where that fishing illustration that I was saying at the beginning, I mentioned at the beginning, it helps, that temptation is like a hook covered with some bait, right, the bait is what attracts you, so it's going to look good, it's going to look amazing, you know, it's going to look appealing to you, even reasonable, as I was saying, you know, you're going to try to justify yourself, be like, oh, it was because this, this, and that, it's going to look appealing to you, but the hook is what destroys you, so I don't know, have you guys ever been fishing?

Yeah, okay, Jared and Bryson, let me tell you, oh, you too, okay, you guys are deceivers, okay, straight up, yeah, because you guys deceived that fish, right, that poor fish, you know, it was like, oh, you know, it's like, it looks like a good and juicy, warm, you know, whatever you were using, and then, you know, it was just a trap for the fish, well, in the same sense, you know, sometimes the devil comes with that hook, right, you know, with that fishing rod, and it looks good, you know, it looks appealing, it looks tasty, and then when you don't even know it, you know, you're trapped in that hook, and so the fish is a force, it's in drown, but it is deceived, you know, either by the devil, or by his own desire to eat that worm, in the same sense, you know, we as humans, and that's the key, that it looks good, until it's too late, and then when we realize it, you know, that, well, it's late, we're really trapped in there, so temptation doesn't create desire, no, but it exposes it, it exposes your heart, that's why when, you know, what pulls you might not pull someone else, you know, or like, what tempts you might not tempt other person, or other people, or vice versa, right, you will be like, oh, I don't get it, why is it that that person did this and that, you know, like, I couldn't even conceive it, well, yeah, because your heart might be different, but you might be tempted by something else, that that person wouldn't be tempted, right, and that's the reason why, like, we shouldn't look at other people, you know, we shouldn't look at other people's hands, like, actually look inward, and see what is it that you have to work in yourself, you know, what is it that we have to repent of, and if we only fight seen at the action stage, you know, when it's already happening, well, we're kind of late already, you know, like, this should have been addressed, or deal with it, you know, at the desire stage, but I mean, there's always still hope, you know, in Jesus Christ, you know, or Savior, or Lord and Savior, because He didn't use that for past sins, you know, but for our future sins as well, in our present sins, but we always have to repent, and come back to Him, you know, come back to the truth of the world, because what we entertain internally, would eventually express itself externally, right, as I was saying, you know, it's temptation, and then you start entertaining the thought, you start, you know, like, yeah, just thinking about it, you start to be like, oh, you know, like, it looks good, nothing's gonna happen, it's gonna be good, nobody's gonna know about it, and then eventually, you know, you're just trapped there, so in that moment is when we are deceived, but then deception distorts what we think is good, James, verses 16 and 17, it says, don't be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters, it's a pretty straightforward warning, right, do not be deceived, again, why is that?

Because temptation is deceitful, the devil is deceitful, our own hearts, the Bible says, right, that it is deceitful, because, I mean, we have, again, a sinful nature, that it, like, it always wants, you know, what the flesh wants, and it's always a fight with our spirit, our spirit is looking for God, right, our spirit wants to have a relationship with God, but then that sinful nature, you know, it's always, there's always a battle, you know, between the bad and the good, and some people might think, though, as Christians, you know, well, maybe I'm not even saved, because, you know, like, always, I'm always struggling with this, if anything, though, I will say, you know, I could argue that that is a reason, or, I mean, that is a proof that you are saved, why is that?

Because people who aren't saved, they are enslaved to sin, though, it is impossible for them to stop sinning, and some of them will be like, oh, you know, like, I don't even care, everybody does it, you know, it's normal, it's our society nowadays, but when someone is transformed, you know, when someone has been born again, the Bible says that we have the mind of Christ, and we see it as it is, you know, and even though you might be still, again, falling again and again on the same sin, but you feel convicted by the Holy Spirit, and there is a battle inside, right, so now we can say no to sin, and, I mean, sometimes we still decide to go there, right, but we have the option to say no, you don't have to do it, and with the power of the Holy Spirit, though, that's the power that's working within you, the same power that rose Jesus from the dead, the same power that parted the Red Sea, though, is the same power that's living inside of you, that's dwelling, indwelling, it doesn't come and go, it's always there, God, the Holy Spirit Himself is the one bringing you back to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, so do not be deceived, my dear brothers or sisters, why is that? Again, because temptation lies, it tells you this will satisfy you, this will fix things, this will make your life better, you're gonna be happy or happier, you know, everything's gonna be good, you know, and it's gonna look good, and maybe it will feel good for a little while, to be honest, because that's the reason why people sin, right, because it feels good at the moment, but it doesn't show you what's behind it, it doesn't show you the trap behind it, it doesn't show you the hook behind it, and it never shows you where it leads, and then James gives us the contrast, he says, every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of light, who does not change, like shifting shadows, so right here, it's very clear now, sin deceives, but God gives, sin promises, but God provides, sin changes the story, but God does no change, and that's what's really amazing, though, at least in my perception, that's what's really amazing about being a Christian, that God doesn't just tell you to renounce to all of these things, it's not that he doesn't want you to have fun, it's not that he just wants you to go against yourself, but you're denying something to receive something way better, you're saying not to sin, but you're saying yes to God, you're saying not to life, but you're saying, I mean, you're saying not to that, but you're saying yes to life, it's kind of like if you're switching from the losing team now to the winning team, it's something, you know, that God, you know what God tells you to renounce to, you know, or to deny, it's not because, you know, again, he doesn't want you to have fun, but all the opposite, because he knows that that's gonna harm you, he knows that eventually that's gonna kill you, and he wants to give you life, he wants to give you purpose, he wants to give you life, and you're gonna be resurrected to life and death to sin, I don't know about you guys, but at least to me, that's the greatest news ever, that's amazing, you know, just to know that God, the creator of everything, that he wants what's best for me, so every temptation is a battle of belief, will I trust what looks good right now, or what God says that is truly good, or do I think that I know more about God, I mean, about life or everything than God, not at all, right, like we cannot compare to him, this is not just about behavior, it is about trust, so, you know, we could ask ourself, do I believe that God is actually good, do you truly believe it though, because if I don't trust his goodness, I will eventually chase something else that looks better, you know, and that happens, that happens, you know, that has happened, it doesn't just happen with newcomers, it has happened with pastors, you know, with people that have been Christians for many, many years, you know, where something just happens, and they're like, oh, you know, they just fell into sin, and usually they say, oh, it just happened, it doesn't just happen, it is a process, it is a process, and we have to be aware of that, and that's the reason why James, you know, has been very clear about it, and God offers a better birth and a better future, James ends up with one of the most beautiful contrasts in the passage, he says like this, by his own choice, God himself, you know, by his choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we could be a kind of first fruit of his creatures, just look at this contrast, sin gives birth to death, but God gives birth to life, it is a huge contrast though, sin produces destruction, but God produces new creation, how does God do it? It says by the word of truth, so God doesn't trap you, God transforms you, he gives you a new identity, he gives you a new beginning, he gives you another direction, so just let me tell you, you are not stuck in the cycle of sin, there is another path, there is another source, and there is another birth, and it begins, I'm sorry, when we trust the truth of God more than the lies of temptation, more than the lies of the devil, more than the lies of your own evil desire, no, trust God, believe God, the path of sin begins with desire, and it works through deception, and sadly, it ends in death, and the path of God, it's all the opposite, it is rooted in truth, it is grounded in his goodness though, and it leads to life, so I just want to challenge you though, let me ask you just something like very honestly, and you don't have to answer me on, I mean obviously, right, but you know, just in your own heart, what is pulling at your heart right now though, what bait keeps showing up in your life because sin always looks good at the beginning again, but it always hides the hook, it always hides the trap, it always hides the death, and God doesn't bait you, but he blesses you, so temptations begin with us and lead to death, but God is the unchanging source of light and truth, so I would like to invite you though, don't just resist the hook, like actually start questioning the bait, and trust God, believe God, because he wants what's best for you though, and that's the best advice that I would like to give you, you know, just trust God, and question that bait, don't fall into temptation, you will be tempted, yes, especially when you're going to trials, especially when you're struggling with something, you might start to question yourself, to question your faith, to question God, but trust God, you know, trust the process, you know, just like they say, so let's stand up and then end up with a word of prayer.