Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Anatomy of Ruin: The Genesis of Sin and the Sovereignty of Grace (James 1:14–15)

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The Anatomy of Ruin: The Genesis of Sin and the Sovereignty of Grace (James 1:14–15) · Reformed Thinking

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  Hello and welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  It is really good to have you with us today.
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  Yeah, thanks for tuning in. Today we are doing something
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  that might feel a little bit dangerous, I guess you could
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  say. Dangerous is a good word for.
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  It Yeah, because we are taking a pretty big stack of sources for
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  this deep dive. We've got commentaries, we have
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  some Greek lexicon, some old Puritan paperbacks, and we are
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  going to try to perform a surgery on the human heart
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  today. It's a major operation.
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  It really is. Specifically, we are looking at
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  a text that I think you know, makes pretty much everyone
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  squirm in their seat. Oh, without a doubt.
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  It is a text that strips us completely bare.
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  We're looking at the Epistle of James today, specifically
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  chapter 1, verses 14 through 18. And honestly, if you read this
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  passage and you don't feel a little bit exposed, or maybe a
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  lot exposed, you probably aren't reading it closely enough.
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  I think that is a very fair warning to give right upfront.
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  The topic on the table is temptation.
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  But we aren't just talking about, you know, a basic
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  moralism, like, don't do bad things.
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  Right, that would be too simple. We are looking at the actual
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  anatomy of temptation, how it works, where it comes from, and
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  specifically we're going to look at the ancient art of blame
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  shifting. Because let's be honest, we are
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  all professionals at that. We could win gold medals in
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  blame shifting. It is the human default setting.
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  It really is. I mean, think about it.
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  When we mess up, when we sin, what is the very first instinct?
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  It is to look around the room for a defendant who isn't us.
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  Who did this to me? Yes, it's the Adamic reflex.
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  You go right back to the Garden of Eden.
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  It is literally the first recorded conversation after the
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  fall. God confronts Adam, and what
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  does Adam say? He doesn't say.
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  My apologies, Lord, I rebelled. Right, He points at Eve.
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  He says the woman you gave me. And he points at God too, right?
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  That has always stood out to me in that text.
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  The woman you gave me. Precisely.
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  It is a 2 for one deflection. He blames his wife and he subtly
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  blames God. If you had not given me this
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  woman, I would still be walking in integrity.
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  So really, God, this is on you. And then, of course, Eve points
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  at the serpent. It is this universal human
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  tendency to say I am a victim of my circumstances.
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  And the sources we are looking at today point out that we have
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  just updated the vocabulary over the centuries.
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  We don't say the serpent deceived me as much anymore.
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  We have much fancier words for it now.
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  We do. We talk about triggers, we talk
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  about our environment. My workplace is toxic or my
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  childhood was difficult. Or we go straight to biology, my
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  hormones. Or I am just wired this way.
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  Or I have an addictive personality.
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  And I want to be careful right here, because the sources
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  acknowledge that environment and history add real layers to our
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  struggle. Trauma is a real thing.
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  Biology is a real. Thing, right?
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  We aren't dismissing that at all.
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  Not at all. Yeah, but James is going to cut
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  through all of that to get to the core issue.
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  He refuses to let us stop at the environment and just wash our
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  hands. And the scary part, the part the
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  sources really highlight here, is that ultimate blame shifting
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  where we look at God. We might not say it out loud in
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  Sunday school. Oh no, we'd never say it out
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  loud. But we think it.
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  We think God, you are sovereign. You put me in this job with this
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  boss who makes me angry. You gave me this physical drive.
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  You wrote the script. So isn't this kind of your
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  fault? That is the subtle blasphemy
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  that James is attacking. It is the idea that God is the
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  author of our trouble. And the mission of this deep
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  dive and, and really the mission of James in this text is to look
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  at the anatomy of ruin. The anatomy of ruin.
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  I like that phrase. We need to stop making excuses,
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  understand the mechanics of how sin actually works, like
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  biologically almost, and then see the only real solution.
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  Because if we don't understand the mechanics, we're going to
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  keep getting caught in the gears.
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  So let's get right into the text.
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  James one, verse 13. James starts by drawing a really
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  hard line in the sand. He does.
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  He says let no one say when he is tempted.
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  I am being tempted by God. He clears the deck immediately.
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  He says God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts
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  no one. OK, let's unpack this for a
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  second because anyone who reads the Old Testament knows God
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  tests people. Scripture is full of it.
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  Abraham was tested with Isaac on the mountain.
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  Job was tested. Israel was tested in the
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  wilderness for 40 years. So what is the difference here?
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  Is James just playing a word game?
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  No, it is a crucial distinction in intent.
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  Testing is designed to strengthen.
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  Think of a stress test on a bridge.
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  The engineer drives heavily loaded trucks over the bridge,
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  not because he wants the bridge to collapse, but because he
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  wants to prove that it can hold the weight.
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  He wants to validate the structure.
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  Or think of refining gold in a fire.
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  Yes, perfect example. The fire burns off the dross to
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  reveal the pure metal. The intent of the tester is to
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  prove the quality of the faith and to purify it.
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  OK, so that is testing what is tempting.
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  Tempting is a solicitation to evil.
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  The goal of temptation is seduction and ruin.
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  The tempter actually wants the bridge to collapse.
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  He wants the medal to be ruined and discarded.
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  So the intent is destruction. Absolutely.
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  And James is saying do not confuse the two.
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  God will test you. Yes, He will put you in
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  difficult situations to grow your sanctification, but He is
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  never trying to trip you up. He is never sitting back hoping
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  you fail. He is not soliciting you to sin.
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  So if. The call isn't coming from
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  heaven. Where is it coming from?
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  Because it feels external most of the time.
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  It feels like the world is throwing things at us.
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  That is the uncomfortable truth James drops in verse 14.
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  He says each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by
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  his own desire. The call is coming from inside
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  the house. That is the phrase that jumped
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  out at me from the notes, the calls coming from inside the
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  house, it sounds like a horror movie trope.
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  It is haunting, and it should be.
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  But hold on, I want to push back on this a little bit because we
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  hear so much today in secular psychology about conditioning.
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  The idea is that we are basically born as blank slates.
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  We are neutral and then bad things happen to us or we are
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  conditioned badly by our parents or society and that is why we do
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  bad things. If I yell at my kids, it's
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  because my dad yelled at me, but James seems to be rejecting that
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  entirely. He is rejecting it explicitly.
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  This is where we get at the doctrine of total depravity.
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  Now that is a scary term for some people.
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  It sounds like we are saying humans are as bad as they could
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  possibly be. Like everyone is secretly a
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  serial killer. Which obviously isn't true.
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  Right, that isn't what it means. So what does total depravity
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  actually mean in this context? It means every part of us is
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  affected by the fall. Our mind, our will, our
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  emotions. We are not neutral observers in
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  the world. We are not blank slates.
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  The problem isn't primarily the bait in front of us.
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  It is our appetite. Give me an example of that,
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  because I think we often feel like the bait is so strong we
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  just have no choice. We feel like helpless victims of
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  the shiny object. Well, the source material uses a
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  really great analogy here. Imagine two men walking down the
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  street. They both see the exact same
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  pile of money sitting unattended on a table.
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  Or better yet, they both hear the exact same piece of juicy
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  gossip about a rival at work. OK, so the external input is
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  identical for both men. Identical One man walks past the
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  money and is completely indifferent.
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  He hears the gossip and shuts it down, says I don't want to hear
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  that. The other man sees the money and
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  his pulse rises. He starts calculating how to
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  take it without being seen. He hears the gossip and it
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  tastes like sugar to him. He leans in and wants more.
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  Same stimulus, completely different reaction.
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  Spot on. The external circumstance that
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  the money, the gossip is exactly the same so you cannot blame the
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  circumstance. You can't say the money made me
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  steal. The money is just paper sitting
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  on a table. The gossip is just sound waves
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  hitting an eardrum. The difference is the heart,
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  the. Difference is, what is already
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  inside temptation only gains traction because it collaborates
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  with something that is already living in the heart.
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  It finds a landing strip. It finds an active ally.
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  The Greek word James uses here is epithemia.
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  It is often translated in our English Bibles as desire or
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  lust, but it really means an over desire, a disordered
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  desire. An overdesire.
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  I like that clarification. And this is the theological
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  insight that changes everything for how we live.
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  If you think you are a neutral party just being assaulted by
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  the world, you will just try to run away or change your scenery
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  constantly. You will think if I just move to
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  a different city or get a different job with a different
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  boss, I won't struggle with this anger anymore.
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  But you take yourself with you. You take the traitor with you.
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  You have a traitor inside the castle gates who is actively
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  trying to open the door to the enemy outside.
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  So your strategy has to change completely.
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  That really shifts the focus from look at what the world is
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  doing to me to look at what I actually want.
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  It forces you to take responsibility.
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  It does. You cannot repent of what you
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  refuse to own. As long as it is my boss's
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  fault, or my spouse's fault, or the economy's fault, I am just a
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  victim. I can't repent of being a
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  victim. But if it is my desire, my
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  disordered affection, then I can bring that to the cross.
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  So let's look at how this internal traitor works.
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  James uses some very specific imagery here in verse 14.
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  Lured and enticed, the sources point out.
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  These aren't just random poetic words James picked out of a hat.
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  Now, these are highly technical terms.
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  We're going deep into the language here, but it is worth
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  it. The Greek words are echo,
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  camanos, and deliazomenos. Delizomenos that sounds I don't
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  know. Painful, It is visceral.
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  These are hunting and fishing terms from the 1st century
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  Excel. Camanos needs to be dragged away
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  or drawn out like an animal being flushed out of its safe
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  hiding place, and deli ozzo menos needs to be baited or
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  enticed into a trap. So we are talking about a
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  literal hook. We are talking about a hook, and
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  I want you to think about the basic mechanics of bait.
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  A fisherman doesn't just throw a bare, rusty metal hook into the
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  water. No fish is going to bite that.
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  That fish isn't stupid. Right, you have to hide the
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  hook. You hide the hook inside
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  something that looks like food, something that looks like life
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  and nourishment. And that is exactly what
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  temptation does. It never walks up to you with a
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  warning sign that says hello. I am here to ruin your marriage,
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  destroy your reputation, and make you hate yourself.
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  Right, I am here to make you miserable for the next 10 years
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  of your life. It never says that.
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  It says I am relief. It says I am pleasure, I am
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  justice, I am comfort. I am what you deserve after a
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  hard day. It promises something
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  fundamentally good. That is terrifying because it
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  means we are actively being hunted.
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  We're being hunted by our own affections.
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  The bait works because it matches the appetite perfectly.
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  If you aren't hungry for what the bait offers, you won't bite
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  the hook. The notes brought up a modern
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  example that I think everyone listening can relate to right
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  now, the smartphone. Oh, absolutely, Yeah.
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  This is perhaps the most efficient baiting machine ever
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  invented in human history. The text describes the social
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  media algorithm as a digitally engineered Dilli Zhu, a
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  digitally engineered bait. It is a perfect illustration of
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  what James is talking about. Think about it.
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  There are brilliant behavioral psychologists and software
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  engineers in Silicon Valley whose entire job is to figure
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  out what hooks you. Not just what hooks people in
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  general, but what hooks you specifically.
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  The algorithm learns your specific epithymia.
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  It learns your personal over desires.
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  It studies you. It studies you like a hunter
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  studies prey in the woods. Does this person respond to
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  political outrage? OK, feed them endless anger.
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  Does this person respond to vanity?
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  Feed them lifestyle envy. Does this person respond to
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  lust? Feed them images.
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  It is constantly testing the water to see what you will bite
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  at. And when we sit there and
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  scroll, we think we're just bored.
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  We think we are just passing time, but actually we are
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  dragging the lake of our own hearts.
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  And the really scary thing is we think we are the user of the
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  device, but in this metaphor, we are the prey, we are the fish.
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  This goes back to that idea of neutrality you mentioned
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  earlier. There is this view, well whether
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  it's Armenian theology or just modern secular thought, that the
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  human will is this perfectly neutral switch.
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  We can just choose left or right at any given moment.
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  Right. The idea of the libertarian free
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  will that any moment, regardless of my character or my history or
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  my nature, I can just flip a coin and choose good or evil.
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  I can just decide to be perfectly holy today.
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  Gene says no. Our will is bound apart from
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  divine grace. Our will is bound to love the
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  wrong things. Can you explain that Bound will
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  concept a bit more? Because I feel like I make free
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  choices all day long. I chose my brand of coffee this
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  morning. I chose to wear this specific
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  shirt. I wasn't forced.
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  Think of it like a pallet. Imagine you put a plate of
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  rotten meat and a plate of fresh, expensive steak in front
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  of a vulture. Now is a vulture free to choose
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  the steak? I mean physically, yes.
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  There is no cage around the steak.
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  Right, no one is physically forcing its beak into the rot,
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  but what will it choose every single time?
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  The rotten meat, because it's a vulture.
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  It likes the rot. It's in its nature.
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  Precisely, it chooses according to its nature.
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  It is perfectly free to do what it wants, but what it wants is
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  determined by what it is. James is saying that in our
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  natural fallen state, our hearts are exactly like that.
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  We have a taste for the hook. We have a taste for self glory,
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  for lust, for anger, for pride. We are bound by our own corrupt
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  preferences. That makes the expressive
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  individualism of our current culture seem really, really
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  dangerous. We are told constantly, desire
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  is identity. If you want it, that is who you
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  truly are, and to deny that desire is to repress your
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  authentic self. Follow your heart.
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  It is the undisputed creed of our age.
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  And James says no, your heart is a hunting ground.
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  If you blindly follow your heart, you are walking straight
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  into a trap. Desire is a potential traitor
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  that must be interrogated, not obeyed blindly.
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  You have to look at the desire and ask is there a hook hidden
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  inside that worm? That is a great way to put it.
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  You have to interrogate the desire.
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  So we have the lure, we have the bait, but James doesn't stop at
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  fishing in verse 15, he shifts his metaphors completely.
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  And honestly, it gets even darker.
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  It does. He moves from hunting and
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  fishing out in the wild to obstetrics to pregnancy and
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  birth. Verse 15 says Then desire, when
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  it has conceived, gives birth to sin.
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  The word there is conceived. James is describing a very
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  biological, intimate process. You have the union of two
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  things. You have the desire, the
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  appetite, the feeling, and you have the will.
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  When the will embraces the desire, you have conception.
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  The source notes call this a frightening intimacy, and I
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  completely see why. It makes sin sound not like an
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  accident, like oops I slipped, but like a child we are actively
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  birthing. That is the whole point.
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  Sin is never truly an accident. We like to say we fell into sin,
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  like you tripped over a crack in the sidewalk.
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  I don't know what happened. I just fell.
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  James says. No, you conceived it.
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  You nurtured it. You invited it in.
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  You were intimate with it. Wait, this brings up a really
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  important distinction that we need to clarify because we know
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  Jesus was tempted. Yes, Hebrews 415 is very clear
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  on that. He was tempted in every way, as
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  we are, yet without sin. So feeling the temptation isn't
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  the sin itself. That is a vital pastoral
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  distinction to make. I talk to people all the time
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  who feel incredible crushing guilt just because a bad thought
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  popped into their head or because they saw something and
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  felt a momentary involuntary pull.
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  They feel dirty just for having the thought cross their mind,
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  right? But James is saying the bait
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  dangling in the water is not sin.
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  Yet temptation felt is not sin. Jesus felt the pressure of
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  temptation. The sin is the conception.
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  The inception is when you bite. It is the turn.
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  It is when the heart moves from acknowledging that is appealing
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  to saying I need that. You know when you open the door
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  of your mind and invite the thought in for coffee, you start
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  to replay the fantasy. You start to nurse the grudge.
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  You start planning the theft or the lie.
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  It's the nursery of sin. Yes, the physical act hasn't
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  happened yet. Nobody has seen you do anything
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  wrong. You haven't yelled at your boss
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  yet. You haven't committed adultery
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  physically, but in the womb of the heart.
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  The child has been conceived. You are pregnant with the sin.
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  This is where the notes highlight a pretty major
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  theological controversy, and I want to dig into this because it
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  sounds super technical, but it actually effects how we deal
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  with shame on a daily basis. There is a difference here
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  between the Roman Catholic view of this process and the Reformed
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  view. There is, and it is not just
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  academic splitting hairs. It drastically matters for how
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  we fight our daily battles. The traditional Roman Catholic
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  view deals with a concept called concupiscence, which is that
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  internal pull or inclination towards sin.
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  They would say that the inward motion, that initial spark of
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  desire, isn't truly sin until you consciously consent to it
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  with your will. Until you say yes.
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  It is just Tinder, it is not fire.
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  So in that view, the flash of desire is essentially neutral.
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  Essentially, yes. As long as you don't act on it
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  or willfully entertain it, you haven't sinned but.
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  The Reformed view following the Westminster Confession says
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  something different. Right.
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  The Reformed view takes a much harder, closer look at the law
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  of God. The law says you shall love the
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  Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
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  So any disorder in the heart, even an involuntary flash of
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  lust or anger or greed, is a deviation from that standard of
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  perfect love. It reveals a deep corruption in
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  our nature. So we say the internal
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  corruption itself is truly sinful.
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  That sounds incredibly crushing, though.
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  If even the involuntary flash of a thought is considered sin,
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  isn't that just hopeless? It sounds crushing if you're
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  trying to save yourself. If you were trying to be
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  righteous by your own track record, it is completely
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  devastating. But here is why the Reform view
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  is actually much more comforting in practice.
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  Because if the flash is sin, then I realize I need a Savior
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  who died from my flashes, not just my external actions.
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  It drives me to realize that Christ's blood covers my broken
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  nature, not just my bad behavior.
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  It means I don't have to play legalistic games and say, oh,
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  that wasn't really a sin because I didn't dwell on it for more
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  than three seconds. I can say, yes, even that
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  fleeting thought was broken and Christ died for it.
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  It allows for a much deeper repentance and a much deeper
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  rest in Christ's finished work. But that makes perfect sense.
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  It stops us from trying to manage our sin and forces us to
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  just confess it. And practically speaking, it
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  means we fight the battle much earlier.
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  If you think the battle only starts when you are about to do
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  the physical act, you have already lost.
• 18:26
  If you wait until the external act to fight, the baby is
• 18:29
  already born. The reformed view says the
• 18:31
  battle is at the level of the desire itself.
• 18:33
  We need to be repenting of a want to, not just to have done.
• 18:37
  So we have conception, but as any parent knows, conception
• 18:40
  isn't the end of the process, it is just the start.
• 18:42
  The child grows. Verse 15 continues, it says, and
• 18:46
  sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.
• 18:49
  The Greek word there is apicalisthesia.
• 18:51
  It means brought to completion or fully mature.
• 18:54
  Sin grows up. It does.
• 18:56
  Sin is not static, and this challenge is how we usually
• 19:00
  treat our little sins. We think we can keep sin as a
• 19:03
  pet. A little pet sin.
• 19:04
  Like I can keep this little bit of gossip or this little bit of
• 19:07
  fantasy in a cage in the corner of my life.
• 19:10
  Yeah, it's just a spicy house cat, right?
• 19:12
  I can handle it, I will feed it once in a while, but it won't
• 19:15
  hurt anyone. We really think we can
• 19:17
  domesticate it, but James says you are nursing a murderer.
• 19:22
  That little compromise, that pet is growing up and as it matures,
• 19:26
  it gets stronger, it starts to demand more food.
• 19:29
  It gets hungry. It does.
• 19:30
  It starts to justify itself. You start telling yourself I
• 19:32
  deserve this. It's not that bad.
• 19:34
  It starts to harden the conscience.
• 19:35
  You stop feeling bad about it, and eventually you start
• 19:38
  scheduling it. You budget.
• 19:39
  For it you budget for it, that sounds like financial planning.
• 19:42
  Think about it. A gambling addiction literally
• 19:45
  budgets money for sin. But even emotional sins work
• 19:49
  this way. We budget time for our
• 19:51
  resentment, we say. I'm going to sit here and Stew
• 19:54
  about this insult for an hour, or I'm going to check that
• 19:57
  Instagram rofile tonight when everyone else is asleep.
• 20:01
  That is a maturing sin. It is literally taking up space
• 20:04
  in your calendar. And the inevitable outcome of
• 20:07
  this maturation, according to James, is death.
• 20:09
  Brings forth death. It is a final delivery in this
• 20:12
  obstetrics metaphor. Now we need to define death here
• 20:15
  because obviously people sin every day and they don't
• 20:17
  instantly drop dead. I yelled at someone in traffic
• 20:19
  yesterday and I'm still sitting here.
• 20:21
  True, although historically and theologically, physical death is
• 20:25
  the ultimate consequence of the fall, Romans 623 says the wages
• 20:29
  of sin is death. But James is talking about a
• 20:32
  trajectory here. There are layers to this.
• 20:34
  There is spiritual death. Which looks like what
• 20:36
  practically. Separation from fellowship with
• 20:38
  God. When you are nurturing a pet
• 20:40
  sin, your prayer life dies. Have you ever noticed that you
• 20:43
  cannot pray effectively when you are actively hiding a pet sin?
• 20:47
  It feels like the sky is made of brass.
• 20:49
  Exactly. Your joy dies, your bold witness
• 20:52
  to others dies. You become a hollow shell.
• 20:54
  It kills the relationship dynamic with the Lord.
• 20:57
  It kills peace. It kills unity in a marriage.
• 21:00
  It kills trust between friends. And ultimately, if this
• 21:03
  trajectory is never checked by grace, if there is never any
• 21:06
  repentance, it leads to the second death, eternal death,
• 21:10
  hell. That is the end of the road for
• 21:13
  fully mature sin. It is a sobering reality to
• 21:16
  face. The source material puts it this
• 21:18
  way. Sin promises life.
• 21:20
  You will not surely die, but it always pays out.
• 21:23
  Death. It is the classic bait and
• 21:25
  switch. The bait says life.
• 21:27
  The hook brings death. And the pastoral warning here
• 21:29
  isn't just for unbelievers outside the church.
• 21:32
  It is for believers, too. Absolutely.
• 21:34
  Even for the believer who is completely justified, who is
• 21:37
  safe in Christ eternally, sin brings death into their temporal
• 21:41
  day-to-day experience. It brings God's fatherly
• 21:43
  discipline. It brings misery.
• 21:45
  As the Puritans used to say, sin and sorrow are married.
• 21:48
  You cannot have one without the other eventually showing up.
• 21:50
  So we have this dark downward spiral.
• 21:53
  Desire leads to conception. Conception leads to the birth of
• 21:57
  sin. Sin leads to maturity.
• 21:59
  Maturity leads to death. It is a biological chain of
• 22:02
  ruin. It is a genealogy of death.
• 22:04
  But then, right in the middle of this horror show, James pivots.
• 22:08
  Verse 16 says do not be deceived my beloved brothers.
• 22:11
  He hits the brakes hard. Do not be deceived and notice
• 22:15
  the pastoral affection there, my beloved brothers.
• 22:18
  He's not screaming at them in anger.
• 22:20
  He is pleading with them out of love.
• 22:22
  He says don't fall for the lie. And the lie isn't just about how
• 22:25
  sin works, it is about who God is.
• 22:28
  This goes right back to the blame shifting we started with.
• 22:31
  The devil wants us to think God is holding out on us.
• 22:33
  Right. God is stingy.
• 22:35
  God is the actual author of my trouble.
• 22:37
  God is keeping the good stuff from me, which is why I have to
• 22:40
  sin to get it. So James counters that lie with
• 22:42
  a beautiful description of God in verse 17.
• 22:45
  He writes every good gift, and every perfect gift is from
• 22:47
  above, coming down from the Father of lights.
• 22:50
  Father of lights. It's an astronomical term.
• 22:53
  It refers to the celestial bodies, the sun, the moon and
• 22:57
  the stars. God is the creator of all the
• 22:59
  lights in the sky. But then James adds very
• 23:01
  specific scientific distinction, he says, with whom there is no
• 23:04
  variation or shadow due to change.
• 23:07
  Shadow due to change. What does that mean in the
• 23:10
  original great context? It refers to the parallax, or
• 23:13
  the shifting of shadows. Think about the sun for a
• 23:15
  second. It gives incredible light,
• 23:17
  right? But it also creates shadows.
• 23:20
  As it moves across the sky during the day, the shadows
• 23:22
  shift and stretch. It rises and sets.
• 23:25
  It disappears completely at night.
• 23:27
  The moon waxes and wanes. The stars turn in their courses.
• 23:31
  The entire visible universe is in a state of constant flux.
• 23:33
  It's inconsistent. But James says God is the father
• 23:36
  of lights who never flickers. He has no dark side.
• 23:39
  He never goes into eclipse. He is pure, unadulterated,
• 23:43
  consistent goodness. So the logical argument James is
• 23:45
  building here is if God is the source of pure unshifting light,
• 23:49
  he logically cannot be the source of the solicitation to
• 23:52
  evil. Precisely.
• 23:54
  Darkness cannot come from a source of pure light.
• 23:57
  Evil temptation cannot come from the source of all good.
• 24:00
  If you have a good gift in your life, it came from him.
• 24:03
  If you have a temptation to evil, it absolutely did not come
• 24:07
  from him. We must stop blaming Providence
• 24:09
  for our own lusts. That is a rock solid defense of
• 24:13
  God's character. But James doesn't just leave us
• 24:15
  with a defense. He gives us an offense.
• 24:18
  He gives us a counter genealogy to replace the genealogy of
• 24:21
  death. Yes, this is the beautiful
• 24:23
  symmetry of the passage. We just walk through the
• 24:25
  miserable genealogy of death, desire to sin to death.
• 24:29
  Now in verse 18, James gives us the genealogy of life.
• 24:32
  Verse 18 says, Of his own will he brought us forth by the word
• 24:35
  of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His
• 24:38
  creatures. He brought us forth.
• 24:40
  That is the exact same birth language, the same obstetrics
• 24:43
  metaphor He used for sin. But notice the change in the
• 24:46
  subject. In the first chain we birthed
• 24:48
  sin. In this chain, God births us.
• 24:51
  This is a huge theological point.
• 24:53
  The notes mentioned monarchism here.
• 24:54
  Can we define that for the listener who might not have a
• 24:56
  seminary degree? Sure.
• 24:58
  Monarchism comes from 2 Greek words, mono meaning 1 and ergon
• 25:02
  meaning work. It means salvation is a one
• 25:05
  party work. It is God's work alone.
• 25:08
  Notice the specific phrase James uses of his own will.
• 25:12
  Contrast that with verse 14. Verse 14.
• 25:14
  It was his own desire that dragged the human to death.
• 25:17
  Our will bound by sin, birth death here.
• 25:21
  God's will, sovereign and gracious, births life.
• 25:24
  We didn't ask to be born physically.
• 25:26
  You didn't choose your birthday or your parents.
• 25:28
  And strictly speaking, we didn't ask to be born spiritually.
• 25:31
  It was entirely His initiative. That flies in the face of how we
• 25:34
  usually think about religion, doesn't it?
• 25:35
  We usually think I found God. Right, I decided to give God a
• 25:39
  try, James says no, you were dead.
• 25:41
  You were busy birthing death. God of his own will stepped in
• 25:44
  and gave you life. It grounds our salvation
• 25:46
  entirely in His grace, not our performance or our Clover
• 25:49
  choices. And the instrument he uses to do
• 25:51
  this is interesting. The text says by the word of
• 25:54
  truth. Contrast that with the bait from
• 25:56
  the fishing metaphor. The bait is a lie.
• 25:59
  Deception uses lies to hook us. God uses truth to free us.
• 26:04
  He uses the gospel. He uses the written word and the
• 26:06
  preached word. This is why we say the ordinary
• 26:09
  means of grace, reading Scripture, hearing, preaching,
• 26:11
  taking the sacraments are so vital.
• 26:14
  They are the lifeline. They are the actual instrument
• 26:17
  God uses for this new. Birth and the result of this new
• 26:20
  birth. We are a kind of firstfruits.
• 26:22
  Firstfruits. That is a rich agricultural term
• 26:25
  from the Old Testament. When an Israelite farmer had a
• 26:27
  harvest, the very first portion, the first bundle of weed, the
• 26:31
  first lambs born to the flock, belonged exclusively to God.
• 26:35
  You didn't keep it for yourself. It was holy.
• 26:37
  It was set apart. And it was a guarantee that the
• 26:39
  rest of the harvest was coming later.
• 26:41
  Yes, exactly. So James is saying 2 massive
• 26:43
  things about us here. First, we are God's special
• 26:45
  possession, we are holy to Him. And 2nd, we are the beginning,
• 26:49
  the guarantee of His new creation.
• 26:51
  This is a total identity shift. A massive shift, James is saying
• 26:56
  to the believer. You used to be defined by the
• 26:59
  desire that hunts you, you will prey.
• 27:01
  But now, because of this new birth, you are first fruits.
• 27:05
  You are God's special set apart possession.
• 27:08
  This changes how we fight temptation, doesn't it?
• 27:10
  Completely. We are no longer fighting to
• 27:12
  become accepted by God. We're fighting because we are
• 27:15
  accepted by God. We aren't fighting to survive
• 27:17
  the hunt, We are fighting to be who we actually are in Christ.
• 27:21
  The battle against sin is fighting to live up to our new
• 27:25
  genealogy. So let's get practical as we
• 27:27
  move toward the end. Here we have the theology, we
• 27:30
  have the anatomy of ruin and the anatomy of grace.
• 27:33
  But the listener is driving in their car right now, maybe
• 27:35
  heading into a stressful meeting or going home to a really
• 27:37
  difficult family situation. They are going to face
• 27:40
  temptation today. Guaranteed the world hasn't
• 27:42
  stopped being broken just because we sat here and talked
• 27:44
  about James. So how do we actually apply
• 27:47
  this? The sources talk about the art
• 27:48
  of mortification, killing, sin. Mortification.
• 27:52
  It sounds medieval, but it just means putting to death.
• 27:55
  Colossians 35 says put to death. Therefore what is earthly in
• 27:58
  you? And the key strategic
• 28:01
  application we can pull from James is this fight at the right
• 28:05
  stage. Don't wait for the birth.
• 28:07
  Don't wait for the birth. Most of us wait until the sin is
• 28:10
  fully grown. We wait until we are actually in
• 28:12
  the hotel room. We wait until we are screaming
• 28:14
  at our spouse. We wait until the credit card is
• 28:17
  out on the table. That is way too late.
• 28:19
  You are trying to fight a full grown armed warrior.
• 28:22
  The fight has to happen at stage 1.
• 28:24
  The lure. What is that early defense look
• 28:27
  like? It looks like situational
• 28:28
  alertness. You have to know your own
• 28:30
  patterns of weakness. There's a great acronym the
• 28:32
  sources mentioned from counseling circles HLLTHALT.
• 28:36
  Hungry, Angry. Lonely.
• 28:37
  Tired. When you are any of those four
• 28:40
  things, your natural defenses are down.
• 28:43
  The bait in the water looks much shinier.
• 28:45
  If you are lonely, the bait of illicit intimacy looks
• 28:48
  incredibly appealing. If you are angry, the bait of
• 28:51
  revenge looks sweet. So stage 1 defense is just
• 28:55
  knowing yourself, being able to say, I am really tired right
• 28:59
  now, so I need to be extra careful with my words.
• 29:01
  And the notes also mention holy speed.
• 29:03
  Holy speed. Think of Joseph in the Old
• 29:06
  Testament with Potiphar's wife. When she tempted him, he didn't
• 29:10
  stand there and debate the theology of adultery with her.
• 29:13
  He didn't say, let's sit down and discuss the covenantal
• 29:15
  implications of this action. He ran.
• 29:17
  He left his coat behind and he's put it away.
• 29:19
  Sometimes you just have to physically remove yourself from
• 29:22
  the vicinity of the lure. Yes, put the phone in the other
• 29:24
  room. Walk away from the water cooler
• 29:26
  gossip circle. Turn off the computer monitor.
• 29:29
  If you were standing there debating with the temptation you
• 29:31
  are already losing. You don't debate a hook, you
• 29:34
  swim away from it as fast as you can.
• 29:36
  OK, so that is stage one, but let's say we missed that window.
• 29:40
  The thought gets in. We are at stage 2 conception.
• 29:44
  The desire is sitting in the living room of our mind.
• 29:46
  It's getting comfortable on the couch.
• 29:48
  What do we do then? You have to.
• 29:49
  Abort the conception immediately.
• 29:52
  And you do that by dragging the thought into the light.
• 29:55
  Sin thrives and grows in the dark.
• 29:58
  It needs absolute secrecy to conceive and mature.
• 30:00
  So you expose it. You expose it, you confess it
• 30:03
  immediately to God. You say, Lord, I am thinking
• 30:05
  about this right now. I really want this.
• 30:07
  Help me. But also call a trusted friend.
• 30:10
  And here's the real trick. Call the friend before you fall.
• 30:13
  That is the hard part. We usually call for cleanup.
• 30:16
  We call for a funeral director. I messed up.
• 30:18
  Please help me fix the mess. We need to call for a paramedic
• 30:21
  instead. Text a brother or sister and say
• 30:24
  I am struggling right now. I am scaring right at the bait.
• 30:27
  That simple act of bringing it into the light often breaks the
• 30:30
  power of the deception completely, because the lie
• 30:33
  assumes you were alone in the dark.
• 30:35
  Once you bring someone else's light into the room, the lie
• 30:38
  loses its grip. The sources also talk about
• 30:41
  replacing the void because if we just say no to sin, we leave a
• 30:45
  vacuum in our hearts. Right.
• 30:46
  You cannot just white knuckle your way to holiness.
• 30:49
  I won't do it. I won't do it.
• 30:50
  I won't do it. That lasts about 5 minutes.
• 30:53
  You need what the great Scottish minister Thomas Chalmers called
• 30:56
  the expulsive power of a new affection.
• 31:00
  You have to reorder your loves. You have to love something more
• 31:03
  than the bait. Exactly.
• 31:04
  The bait promises a certain kind of pleasure.
• 31:08
  You have to actively remind your heart that God promises much
• 31:11
  better pleasure. Psalm 16 says at your right hand
• 31:14
  are pleasures forevermore. You have to feed the new nature.
• 31:18
  You have to immerse yourself in the word of truth that James
• 31:20
  talked about. If you are constantly filling
• 31:23
  your mind with the world's garbage, don't be surprised when
• 31:25
  garbage comes out in your desires.
• 31:27
  But if you fill it with the word, that is what will shape
• 31:30
  your affections. And there are tangible,
• 31:32
  practical steps mentioned in the notes to digital boundaries.
• 31:36
  Financial transparency. Yes, putting actual fences up.
• 31:40
  If your smartphone is the primary lure for you, get a
• 31:43
  strong filter. Give the password to your spouse
• 31:45
  or a friend. If money is the lure, give
• 31:48
  someone else access to review your accounts.
• 31:51
  If a relationship is toxic and constantly pulls you down, end
• 31:55
  it. Jesus said if your right eye
• 31:57
  causes you to sin, pluck it out. That is radical language.
• 32:01
  He didn't mean physically mutilate yourself, but He meant
• 32:05
  do whatever it takes, no matter how painful, to remove the bait
• 32:09
  from your life. And finally, we have to ground
• 32:11
  all of this in gospel hope because we are going to fail
• 32:14
  sometimes. We are going to get hooked.
• 32:16
  We will, as long as we're in these bodies, we will struggle.
• 32:18
  And that is exactly where we have to remember the two chains
• 32:20
  we looked at. We look at our own chain desire
• 32:23
  to sin to death, and we realize what profound sound relief that
• 32:27
  Christ stepped right into that chain.
• 32:28
  He broke the sequence. He did.
• 32:30
  He took a fully grown death that we birthed.
• 32:32
  He went to the cross and he absorbed the death that my
• 32:35
  specific sin produced. He took the hook.
• 32:37
  He took the hook so we could get off the line.
• 32:40
  Beautifully put. He took the hook, and because he
• 32:43
  took the death, he can legally and righteously offer us his
• 32:47
  life. So when we fight our temptations
• 32:49
  tomorrow, we aren't fighting to get God to love us.
• 32:52
  We are fighting because He already loves us.
• 32:54
  We are fighting as His first fruits.
• 32:56
  And the sources mentioned communion, the Lord's Supper, as
• 32:59
  a major connection point here. It is the visible word.
• 33:02
  When we take the bread and the cup, we are visibly proclaiming
• 33:06
  the Lord's death. We are saying I deserve the
• 33:08
  death at the end of James 115. But Christ took it.
• 33:12
  It is a regular reminder that the penalty is fully paid, which
• 33:15
  frees us to fight the lingering presence of sin without the
• 33:18
  crushing weight of condemnation. That is such a crucial balance
• 33:21
  to strike. We fight with absolutely
• 33:23
  everything we have, but we rest entirely in what he has already
• 33:26
  done. That is the great Reformed
• 33:27
  paradox of the Christian life. We work out our salvation with
• 33:31
  fear and trembling, precisely because it is God who works in
• 33:34
  US. So as we wrap up this deep dive
• 33:37
  today, let's summarize the two genealogies we have seen in
• 33:40
  James. It is really a tale of two
• 33:42
  fathers. It is you have the fatherhood of
• 33:44
  your own lusts. Each one is tempted by his own
• 33:46
  desire. That desire conceives sin.
• 33:49
  That sin grows up. That maturity brings death.
• 33:51
  That is the anatomy of ruin. And then we have the counter
• 33:54
  chain. The Father of Lights, The God
• 33:57
  who does not shift or cast shadows of his own sovereign
• 34:00
  will. He brings us forth.
• 34:02
  He uses the word of truth. He makes us his first fruits.
• 34:06
  That is the anatomy of grace. And the call to action for all
• 34:09
  of us is to identify exactly where we are in that process.
• 34:12
  Stop looking for a devil behind every single Bush.
• 34:14
  Look in the mirror, own the desire, and then look
• 34:17
  immediately to Christ. Kill the sin while it is young
• 34:20
  or it will absolutely kill you when it grows up.
• 34:22
  It reminds me of that old saying pastors always use sin will take
• 34:26
  you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to
• 34:28
  stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.
• 34:30
  Amen. It is a cliche for a reason,
• 34:33
  because it is true. I want to leave our listeners
• 34:35
  with one final thought to Mull over.
• 34:37
  We talked about God being the Father of lights with no
• 34:40
  shifting shadow, and we talked about us being first fruits, His
• 34:43
  new creation. If God is pure, you're
• 34:46
  unshifting light, and we are His children.
• 34:50
  Perhaps the dark shadows in our lives are simply where we are
• 34:53
  standing in the way of His light.
• 34:55
  What shadow are you casting right now?
• 34:57
  What secret thing, what pet sin are you keeping that is blocking
• 35:00
  the light of the Father from hitting your own heart?
• 35:03
  That is the question we all need to ask.
• 35:04
  What are you standing in front of?
• 35:06
  Something heavy to think about this week.
• 35:08
  Thank you for joining us on Reformed Thinking.
• 35:11
  We hope this deep dive helps you spot the hook before you take
• 35:14
  the bite. Grace and peace to you all.
• 35:16
  See you next time.