Christ Church

The Things of Earth
Lindsey Gardner on November 7, 2024
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Trials and Temptations

Lindsey Gardner on

SERMON TEXT

James 1:12 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. 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. 16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

INTRODUCTION

Many churches struggle to rightly emphasize practical help in living the Christian life and theological depth in understanding the character and works of God. Some churches major on practical help in living the Christian life and minimize theological depth. Other churches major on theological depth and minimize practical, how-to Christian living.

If we were to place James in one of these categories, I suspect we’d put him in the practical category. The book has over 50 imperatives in 108 verses. James is constantly telling us what to do and not do. But one of my aims this morning is to show you how James brings together the practical bent with complex explanations of God and his relation to the world and to us.

 

FROM TRIALS TO TEMPTATIONS

In chapter 1, James teaches that Christians should expect trials and own their pain while counting them all joy (1:2), and that God does his most important work in us through trials. Trials test our faith and produce steadfastness, leading to maturity (1:3-4). God grows us up into full and complete people through various trials, and promises a reward—a crown of life—if we endure through trials (1:12). We believe that God uses trials, even that God ordains trials for good and wise purposes, and promises to compensate us in the next life for the suffering and hardship that we endure in this one. The Westminster Confession testifies to this big God theology:

God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; (Westminster)

“Whatsoever comes to pass.” All things, including trials, hardships, sufferings, are ordained by God for his glory and our joy. But this creates a danger, a potential deception, namely, that if we believe that God ordains trials, we must believe that God tempts us to evil.

This misunderstanding is enhanced by the fact that in Greek, the word for trial and for temptation is the same (1:2, 1:12, 1:13-14). James is telling us that this is not simple. Yes, God sends trials to test our faith and mature us. No, God does not tempt you to do evil. We need new categories; otherwise, we’ll be deceived.

So what are these new categories? I find one key in comparing 1:13 to 1:17. The key for James here is that, while all things are from God, all things are not from God in the same way. We could say it like this: Good things are from God directly. Bad things, hard things, evil things (like trials and temptations) are from him indirectly. Or, God is the source, origin, and author of good things, because he is good; he is not the source, origin, and author of evil things in the same way, because he’s not evil or tempted to evil.

We can grasp this better by thinking about the phrase “Father of lights.” Think with me about sun. Both light and darkness are “from the sun.” But they are not from the sun in the same way. The sun causes light by its presence; light comes from it directly. The sun causes darkness by its absence; darkness comes from it indirectly.

So also with God as the source of good things and hard things. Light and darkness, well-being and calamity (or evil) come from God. God sends both good things, and he sends hardships and trials. But he is not the source of them in the same way. God gives good things directly; he sends trials indirectly. And this is important to James, lest we be deceived, and in our deception, be unable to endure trials faithfully and receive gifts gladly.

 

PRACTICAL HELP IN OUR VISION OF GOD

How does that clarity—that avoidance of deception and error—help us to live? What happens if you flatten out those distinctions or deny one side of the truth? You might deny that God sends trials to produce maturity in us. You might say that he doesn’t have anything to do with hardships, pains, sufferings. And so you face them believing that they are ultimately meaningless, that your pain is pointless, that God is powerless to help you. And so in the midst of trials, you despair.

But let’s say that you believe that God sends trials, but you flatten out that distinction. On the one hand, you’ll try to deceive yourself into thinking that hard, painful things are good in themselves. You think that faithfulness means pretending hard things aren’t hard. Another possibility is that in the trial, you’ll start to blame God. You’ll say, “God has sent this trial to test my faith. Therefore, if I fail, he is to blame.”

Another possibility is that you’ll view God as a cruel sadist, as someone who delights in your pain. And therefore, you won’t run to him in your pain. You won’t rely on his strength and compassion to endure the trial; you’ll try to rely on your own (because that’s all you have) and you won’t make it for long.

But this deception won’t simply affect your experience of hardships. It will affect the good things in your life as well. God is kind and blesses you. But because you believe that he sends trials, you can’t really enjoy the goodness, because you’re terrified that “Behind a smiling providence, he hides a malicious face.” The goodness you have now is just God fattening you for the slaughter. This is what the gods of the ancient religions were like. As one person said, “We are their bubbles. They blow us big before they prick us.”

The result is that your view of God is constantly distorted. In hard times, he is a cruel sadist. In good times, he is a trickster waiting to spring his trap. It’s impossible to live the Christian life under such distortions and deceptions. And so James is adamant that good gifts come down from a loving Father, and there is no shadow of turning with him. He’s not playing a trick on you. Good gifts are from him and designed to lead you back to him, and hard painful things are not from him directly but are instead designed to produce steadfast faith and maturity.

 

PRACTICAL HELP IN RESISTING TEMPTATION AND FIGHTING SIN

So if temptation doesn’t come from God directly, where does it come from? James describes the process of sin and temptation in terms of four stages.

Stage 1: God gives good gifts, which we desire to enjoy. Stage 2: Those desires go astray, and we begin to want things at times or in ways or in degrees that God has forbidden. Desire is now enticing and luring us away from God and toward evil. Stage 3: Desire conceives and gives birth to Sin. We pass from temptation to concrete, deliberate, willful disobedience to God. Stage 4: That willful disobedience grows and becomes stronger until it gives birth to spiritual death. We have hardened our hearts.

Desire and Temptation are not the same. Temptation and sin are not the same. Sin and death are not the same. These distinctions have practical, real-world effects.

Here’s one: this process of temptation and sin shows us the danger of little sins. We want to play with the lures, dabble in fantasies, nurse small grievances. We think, because the sins seem so small in comparison to some, that it’s no big deal. Until it is a big deal.

Here’s another: if we fail to distinguish godly desire for God’s gifts from enticing desire and allurement, then we’ll treat the gifts of God like idol traps. He gives us good things, and we view them with suspicion and hostility because he’s dangling temptations in front of us. Or we feel guilt because we want something other than God.

Here’s another: if we fail to distinguish temptation from deliberate sin, then every experience of temptation brings the full weight of condemnation down on our head. We develop a hypersensitive and false conscience.

Here’s another: if we fail to distinguish deliberate sin from its consequences in spiritual death, then we won’t believe that the gospel is for us. If we knowingly and willfully disobey God, we’ll think that we’ve gone too far, we’ve out-sinned his grace, and we’re doomed. But the reality is that in this life, we’re never doomed. There’s always a way back. The gospel is always good news. You may have been a prodigal. You may have willfully despised your Father and spent the good and perfect inheritance that he gave you on your own sinful pleasures. But it’s never wrong to be the prodigal coming home. You can still come home.

 

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Compassion and Its Counterfeits

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THE TEXT

12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. (Colossians 3:12-14)

6 “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, 8 you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. 9 But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. (Deuteronomy 13:6-9)

INTRODUCTION

These two passages display the complexity of the biblical witness on compassion. In the first, we are to clothe ourselves in compassion (literally: bowels of mercy), which leads us to bear with each other and forgive each other as love binds us all together. Elsewhere Paul “yearns for the Philippians with the affection of Christ” (Phil. 1:8). Affection and sympathy are bonding agents (Phil. 2:1), enabling us to be single-minded and in full accord. The Lord, who is compassionate and merciful, is our ultimate model for compassion, and he has given us the fathers and mothers as images of his compassion (Isa 49:15; 1 Kings 3; Psalm 103).

In the second, we are forbidden to show pity or compassion on those who would entice us to idolatry. Similar commands are given with respect to first degree murder and lying in court (Deuteronomy 7:16, 19:13, and 19:21). In such cases, God is adamant that “your eye shall not pity them.” And again, in doing so, we are to follow God as our model, who executes his judgment without pity or compassion (Jer. 13:14; Lam. 2:17; Ezek. 5:11; 7:4, 9; 8:18).

So how should we make sense of this?

DEFINING COMPASSION AND ITS VICES

The virtue of compassion (or sympathy) is habitual inclination to share the suffering and pain of the hurting which moves us to relieve their suffering and pursue their ultimate good. As Lewis writes, “Pity is meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery.” The biblical imperative is to weep with those who weep, to clothe ourselves with “bowels of mercy,” to relieve suffering because, like Christ, we are “moved with compassion.”

Virtues go wrong through defect or excess; a defect of compassion is apathy, a callous refusal to identify with and share the pain and suffering of others. On the other hand, (untethered) empathy is an excess of compassion, when our identification and sharing of the emotions of others overwhelms our minds and sweeps us off our feet. Empathy loses sight of the ultimate good, both for ourselves and for the hurting.

And this is precisely our challenge. As Chesterton put it, “The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.”

THE PASSION OF PITY

We live in a sentimental age, one that is drowning in a sea of feelings. And thus we are more susceptible to the manipulation of empathy. C.S. Lewis helps us to see ways that empathy or pity goes wrong. In The Great Divorce, Lewis describes the problems with the Passion of Pity. In the final interaction between Sarah Smith and her husband Frank, Sarah describes Frank’s besetting sin, the sin that he must turn away from if he is to be saved.

[Stop] using pity, other people’s pity, in the wrong way. We have all done it a bit on earth, you know. Pity was meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery. But it can be used the wrong way round. It can be used for a kind of blackmailing. Those who choose misery can hold joy up to ransom, by pity.

You see, I know now. Even as a child you did it. Instead of saying you were sorry, you went and sulked in the attic . . . because you knew that sooner or later one of your sisters would say, “I can’t bear to think of him sitting up there alone, crying.” You used their pity to blackmail them, and they gave in in the end. And afterwards, when we were married . . . oh, it doesn’t matter, if only you will stop it. (131–132)

The passion of pity (or the sin of empathy) makes us vulnerable to emotional blackmail.

Emotional blackmail happens when a person equates his or her emotional pain with another person’s failure to love. They aren’t the same. A person may love well and the beloved still feel hurt. They may then use their felt pain to blackmail the lover into admitting guilt he or she does not have. Emotional blackmail says, “If I feel hurt by you, you are guilty.” There is no defense. The hurt person has become God. His emotion has become judge and jury. Truth does not matter. All that matters is the sovereign suffering of the aggrieved. (Piper)

Empathy, because it is myopic, can lead to great cruelty. “Even a good emotion, pity, if not controlled by charity and justice, leads through anger to cruelty. Most atrocities are stimulated by accounts of the enemy’s atrocities; and pity for the oppressed classes, when separated from the moral law as a whole, leads by a very natural process to the unremitting brutalities of a reign of terror” (Lewis). 

THE ANTIDOTE

So how should we live? First, we must repent of the Sulks. We must refuse to wield our afflictions (especially our minor afflictions) as tools of manipulation. It’s easy to magnify our inconveniences in order to elicit sympathy from those who love us, to make martyrs out of ourselves and send our loved ones on a guilt trip. The Sulks are not only a danger for children.

Second, we must refuse to wield the suffering of others in the same manner. Compassion is a great good, a spur to joy to help those who are suffering. But the line between spurring joy to help misery and using the misery of others to steer the merciful is not always easy to see. In their empathetic zeal, advocates can often overthrow other virtues, such as honesty and justice, in their zeal to help the hurting.

Third, we must be aware of the link between feminism and toxic empathy. By God’s design, women are the more empathetic sex. It’s why women are the glue that holds communities together. Crucially, however, what is a blessing in one place is a curse in another. The same impulse that leads a woman to move toward the hurting with comfort becomes a major liability when it comes to guarding the doctrine and worship of the church. Like in Deuteronomy, there are times–usually involving grave error or gross sin–when God forbids empathy and pity. It’s one reason why the empathetic sex is ill-suited to the ministerial office.

Fourth, refuse to concede what cannot be conceded. Don’t embrace the lie. Biblical compassion reserves the right not to blaspheme. This is especially true in an age of gay “weddings” and other celebrations of wickedness. Be willing to be labeled “heartless” as you seek the ultimate good of other people by refusing to join them in the Lie (even under pressure from other soft-hearted Christians). 

Finally, we must labor to be faithfully compassionate, weeping with those who weep, considering both their immediate feelings and their ultimate good. In compassion, we meet people in suffering and say, “This is hard. I know you feel that way. I’m with you in this, and I have hope.”

At the same time, we refuse to be totally immersed in the feelings of another. We refuse to allow other people to steer our emotional vehicles. We resist attempts to subordinate truth to the feelings and sensitivities of the most reactive and immature members of a community. We move deliberately deliberately and intentionally into the pain of others while clinging to Jesus for dear life. 

As Christians, we must have deep feeling for the hurting, the broken, and the suffering. We are, after all, called to clothe ourselves with “bowels of mercies.” But our feelings, and our sharing in the feelings of others, must be tethered to Truth, to Reality, to Christ. God help us. 

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The Deep and Confusing Love of Jesus

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THE TEXT

John 11:1-6
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4 But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Mary and Martha and Lazarus are siblings. Lazarus is ill, the sisters inform Jesus through a messenger, and Jesus makes a decisive declaration: “This illness does not lead to death. This illness is for the glory of God so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
Surprisingly Jesus then waits a few days before informing the disciples that they are going to Judea, to Bethany. The disciples aren’t thrilled about this; the last two times Jesus was in that region, crowds tried to stone him for blasphemy, because he was claiming that he was equal to God (John 5:18). But Jesus insists that they must go, because Lazarus has died and they need to go see him. Reluctantly (and perhaps with some gallows humor), the disciples go with him.
When Jesus nears the town, Martha comes to meet him while Mary remains at the house with the large group of mourners. Martha expresses some hopefulness that God can still hear Jesus’s prayers, and Jesus declares himself to be the resurrection and the life. He then summons Mary to see him and she comes and falls at his feet weeping. Jesus is deeply moved and greatly troubled by this, and he himself weeps, and they all go to the tomb together.
When they arrive at the tomb, Jesus orders the stone to be removed (over Martha’s objections). Jesus then prays out loud and then cries out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” And the dead man lives.

EXPECTATIONS & CONFUSION

The unfolding of the story leads us to identify with the confusion of the disciples and Mary and Martha and the crowds. Because their expectations are not being met. Notice the sources of confusion and disappointment:
1) “Lord, he whom you love is ill” (11:3). What’s implied? “Come heal him! We know you can heal, so come do it.” And yet Jesus delays. It’s confusing.
2) The disciples fear returning to Judea, where the Jews had just threatened to stone him. Why go back now? It’s confusing.
3) Jesus seems to speak in riddles. “Lazarus has fallen asleep but I go to awaken him” (11:11). Is Jesus talking about sleep or death? It’s confusing.
4) Jesus’s emotional responses are puzzling. To his disciples: “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there.” And then, he is deeply moved and troubled in his spirit. He weeps. If he’s glad, why is he weeping? It’s confusing.
5) Jesus’s request is puzzling. “Take away the stone.” He’s dead, Jesus. Why remove the stone now? It’s confusing.
6) There is one central thought hanging over the whole episode.
Martha (11:21): “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Mary (11:32): “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
The mourners finally explicitly raise the question that haunts this whole story (11:37): “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”
I highlight that confusion because it’s where most of us live. Whether it’s illness (cancer, stroke, unexplained sickness, chronic pain), whether it’s the death of someone we love (parent, child, sibling, friend), whether it’s persecution, opposition, or enmity, whether it’s anxiety, doubt, depression—here’s what we know:
1) Jesus is able to fix this.
2) In his compassion, Jesus has fixed these sorts of things for others.
3) Jesus loves me and has compassion for me.
4) And yet, the illness is still here, the death still happened, the persecution has intensified, and the darkness has not lifted.
This is where we live–in the long days between our message to Jesus—“The one whom you love is ill”—and his confusing arrival a week later. And yet John insists from the beginning, “Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus.” So where is the love of Jesus in this story?

THE LOVE OF JESUS WAITS

The love of Jesus waits. The most shocking word in this entire story is two letters long. “So.” Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus. So, when he heard about the illness, he stayed two days longer. Some Bible translators can’t handle that reasoning. They say, “Jesus loved them, and yet, when he heard, he stayed two longer.” But that’s not what John wrote. John said, He loved them, therefore he waited. The love of Jesus waits.

THE LOVE OF JESUS WEEPS

Second, the love of Jesus weeps. When Jesus weeps at the tomb of Lazarus, they say, “See how he loved him!” (11:36). And in this, we see the amazing complex and righteous emotional life of our Lord. On the one hand, he’s glad that he waited. And then, when he gets there, he weeps. More than that, he is deeply moved. He sees the effects of death on those he loves, and he joins them in their grief and their anger.

THE LOVE OF JESUS RAISES THE DEAD

The love of Jesus raises the dead. After he waits, and after he weeps, he tells them to roll away the stone. And then he looks at the tomb and calls out, “Lazarus, come forth!”
And Lazarus comes forth. The church fathers noted how important it was that Jesus said the name Lazarus. Had he not, had he simply said, “Come forth,” all the tombs would have emptied and the general resurrection would have happened right then and there.

THE LOVE OF JESUS DEEPENS OUR FAITH

The love of Jesus deepens our faith. Pay attention to what Martha knows. Martha runs to Jesus with some vague hope that Jesus can do something. “But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” And so Jesus takes her deeper. “Your brother will rise again.” “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” This is a general belief in the future resurrection. And so Jesus takes her deeper. “I am the resurrection and the life.”
This is where Jesus has been taking Martha. “Do you believe this?” With your brother lying in a tomb, knowing that I could have prevented it, Martha, do you believe this? And Martha says, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who is coming into the world.”
And so Jesus stands before us today. We live in those long six days. And on this Lord’s Day, because he loves us, he says to us, “Do you believe this?” When the cancer is still there. When the illness is still unexplained. When the headaches won’t stop. When the pain is still oppressive. When the opposition won’t let up. When the darkness hasn’t lifted. When the doubts still weigh us down. When the body is still in the grave. When Jesus is not yet here. At that moment, he says to us, “Do you believe this?”
Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus. And he loves you. And because he loves you, he may wait. He may take you through unimaginable suffering and loss and pain. And when he does, because he loves you, he will weep with you. And someday, because he loves you, he will raise the dead. He will wipe away every tear. And in the meantime, because he loves you, he deepens your faith.

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