Functional Faith + Temptation | James 1:13-18
What is your biggest temptation? Food, Money, Sex, Laziness? Oscar Wilde said, “I can overcome almost anything but temptation.” The problem with temptations is that they are very tempting. What is a temptation? It is being enticed or allured to distrust God’s goodness, dishonor God’s glory, or disobey God’s design. It is not a sin to be tempted, but all sin comes from temptation. All of us have areas in our lives that are vulnerable. We are all sinners who struggle with sin. My first vehicle was a 1985 Dodge Ram with a 318 engine. I paid $1500 for it. It had its issues, one of which was that it was out of alignment. If I had my hands on the steering wheel, I could keep it on the road straight, but if I took my hands off, it would veer to the left. I like to eat fast food and drive with my knee and you couldn’t do that with this truck, or you would be in a ditch. Even though we are believers, our sinful hearts are like that truck, we are all prone to go off the narrow road and crash in the ditch of evil and sin. Our hearts curve inward and away from God. We run towards evil like a bug to the light or a moth to the flame. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.
The book of James is a practical guide to living with functional faith in a fallen world. Faith for any contingency in life. We do not just need to have faith for eternity but for everyday life. James begins by talking about two things that can cause us to stumble in our faith: trials and temptations. As James moves to temptation, he is not changing topics but switching gears. VS. 12 says that we are blessed and happy when we remain steadfast in trials and tests. Functional faith not only stands when things are bad on the outside of us but also withstands the bad that is on the inside of us. We can trust God in our temptations because He is not the cause of them, but is the only cure for overcoming them.