James chapter one and verse 12. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempted he any man. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

Amen. May the Lord bless to us this short reading from his word. It is a precious passage of scripture. that opens to sinners like you and me the genuine prospect of someday receiving the crown of life from the hand of God.

Think on that. Think on that. Someday, brothers and sisters, you and I will receive from God the crown of life. And that's what James is writing about here. Let it be known by you, child of God, that if you are tested and tried, if you are buffeted and bruised, if you are shunned and shaken, In this world, as a believer, for the sake of Christ, you will shortly, very shortly, receive a crown of glory, receive a crown of righteousness, receive the crown of life.

You will receive it from God himself. as a good and faithful servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I can say this with confidence because every true believer is tried and every believer possesses everlasting life.

James tells us, He's talking about believers. He's talking about his children and his people. He's talking about you and me who have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are blessed

Now I don't wish to appear mercenary or transactional about what I am about to say regarding this new life in Christ. All that we have from Christ is of grace. And yet, I can't think of another reason for James to connect the promise of receiving the crown of life to the trials that we endure except to garner our attention and to quicken our pulse with excitement. and cause us to think about the great experiences laid up for us in heaven.

And to think about that, especially as we trudge this weary pathway of our earthly pilgrimage. James is drawing these thoughts together of the crown of life that we will receive together with the trials and troubles and tribulations that we endure in order to comfort us in this life with those things which the Lord has laid up in store for us. He's directing us to think on these things when we feel the weight of our trials in this life.

If the apostle, in doing so, if the apostle gives the church a little sugar plum to encourage and energise us on our way to heaven, We ought to receive it gladly. And I think that's exactly what James is doing here.

We who suffer hardship and frustration and loss and distress and anxiety and opposition and pain, we can take James's gift and we can suck upon it. We suck on it to sweeten our time of trouble.

Blessed, says James, blessed is the man, says James, and the Holy Spirit. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

The crown of life spoken of here by James is that glorious eternal life laid up for God's people in the presence of their Lord and Saviour. It is the let not your heart be troubled. In my Father's house are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told you. Let not that your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me.

These, James is simply repeating what the Lord has said to him. He is drawing these themes, these thoughts, these connections between that which is laid up in store for us and the progression of our time here upon earth. The life promised to God's people upon their completion of their earthly life and the temporary trials in this present world is what James is meaning when he speaks about this crown of life. And I would have thought that every person would be interested in hearing what James has to say about this crown of life. and surely every believer must be. Surely those who know something about tears and trials in this world ought to be curious about the way James links enduring temptation to possessing the crown of life.

The apostle is encouraging us to look forward to the time when we'll exchange our divers temptations for the gift of God in Jesus Christ. Rich, full, free, satisfying, everlasting life. Together with the gathered Church of the Firstborn. to the spirits of just men made perfect, in the company of the holy angels and the presence of our wonderful Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Heaven is not a pipe dream. It isn't a vague, shaky hope. It's a real place where Christ dwells. and soon his church will inhabit and possess it. It's our promised land, our new Jerusalem, a better country, a better country than this, a heavenly country, a city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God. It's a country with a city with many mansions. Think on that and let the prospect of your imminent arrival in Beulah for the marriage feast of the Lamb dull your trouble in this world and lighten your step on that pilgrim way.

James. gives us a striking contrast in this passage, these few verses. He speaks of the blessedness that leads to life and the waywardness that leads to death. Now he seems to be speaking about a single man. He says, blessed is the man that endureth temptation. And then he says, let no man say when he is tempted. However, as I mentioned yesterday in my little note to you, we may think of this man as every believer. because we all are tried by affliction and tested by hardship. We all are called to endure temptation and therefore we all are blessed. We are all that blessed man.

How shall we react? How do we react to the afflictions that we have to bear, to the testing that comes into our lives, to the trials and the troubles that beset us, the Monday morning problems or the challenges of our family, the difficulties of our relationships, the weariness of our aches and pains in this body? How do we react to the trials and the troubles that we face?

In our trials, we all are tempted to sin by the lust of the flesh. Which sin? But for God's grace, James tells us, when it is finished bringeth forth death. So what James is doing here is he is teaching us how to think about our trials. Now we've already established the important fact that James is speaking to believers in this epistle. He addresses his readers as brethren. He speaks of your faith. Only true believers have the faith of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, true believers must, day by day, sometimes hour by hour and minute by minute, battle with sin. And true believers must engage the old man in a fight to the death. Anyone who imagines that once you get saved, your troubles are over, well, they don't know what they're talking about. In some respects, in many respects, our troubles have only just begun. Trials persist, temptation to sin never goes away. And consequently, there is much in this epistle calculated to rebuke and to correct us, as well as to embolden and strengthen the Lord's people to withstand sin.

Now I mentioned the old man there, and that is going to predominate in the rest of our thoughts together today. Because every born again believer has two distinct natures. There is the new man of the Spirit, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, Paul tells us in Ephesians, there is the new man of the Spirit which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, and there is the old man of the flesh, the residual body of fleshy desires the Lord has seen fit to leave in us while we are in this world. And every believer houses a fleshy nature and a spiritual nature which are like a company of two armies constantly at war. And this explains a lot concerning the difficulties and feelings that we all have as those who seek to honour the Lord and yet constantly struggle to do so. It explains the speckled and spotted testimonies of all the characters in Scripture, perhaps with the exception of one or two. It explains the ups and the downs, the highs and the lows of the heroes and heroines of the faith.

Your struggle Brother and sister, your struggle is not unique. It is the way the Lord ordained it should be. Consider David for a moment. David, the King of Israel. We've been thinking about his life in recent months. When we look at his life, we shake our heads And we think, how can one whose sword so high fall so low? And yet out of this, the Lord brings good for his church. It's another wonder of his sovereign power and matchless grace. or as another hero of scripture might say, Joseph, he told his brothers, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good.

Actually, Joseph is one of those few characters where really it's difficult to find anything bad recorded about him. The same might also be said for Daniel. So anybody who can think of anyone else is maybe Stephen in the New Testament as well. There's not much said to overshadow their testimonies in scripture, but they are the exceptions.

When trials and temptations are encountered, our new man and the old man react differently to the same stimuli. The new man cries for help to the Lord and he tries to employ the trial to honour the Lord Let me say that again. When trials and temptations are encountered, the new man and the old man react differently to the same trial, to the same temptation. So what are we saying? We're saying that each of us have this new man, this old man, and they are contending one with the other. in the experiences of life, the trials and temptations that we encounter. What do we discover but that the new man and the old man react differently to the same temptation, to the same trial? The new man cries to the Lord for help. And he tries to employ the trial to honour the Lord in some way.

The old man, on the other hand, he exploits the trial. He exploits the temptation to indulge the lust of the flesh. He uses it as an opportunity to gratify base instincts. The new man learns patience and dependence and trust and meekness from the testing of faith. while the old man uncovers deep-rooted passions. He stirs up lust to incite sin by which to attack the new man and by which to disrupt the work of Christ in our lives. That's the battle. And I'm pretty sure that most of you who are listening to me today know what I'm talking about. If you don't, and you're a believer, It's coming.

This can make our Christian life seem very confusing. We know what is right, but we are drawn to what is wrong. The Apostle Paul knew that struggle. He wrote in Romans 7, the good that I would, I do not, but the evil, which I would not, that I do. And this is the experience of all God's children.

Even our best times, our finest efforts are tainted by the flesh and spoiled by the ulterior motives that compromise our good works. It seems as if we can't win. Failure is coupled with regret and success is joined with pride. And that is why a gospel preacher must continue to insist upon a believer's necessary and consistent recourse to Christ for all our righteousness.

It is Christ in you that is the hope of glory. This crown of life that James is speaking about is our hope of glory and it is Christ in us. It is not our enduring, it is not our abilities, it is not our strength because every one of these qualities in the new man is equally contended against by the old man. Don't imagine that you can sanctify yourself by your good works. ever. Those who think that they can improve their righteous standing with God by their works and their good deeds, well, they simply reveal that they don't really know themselves or their sin.

Our experiences are sent by God for the express purpose of drawing us individually closer to the Lord Jesus. David, we've already spoken about him. David writes in Psalm 55, and this is why David is such a key character in our understanding of the way in which these things work. David writes in Psalm 55, verse 22, cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Or we could say, he shall never suffer the righteous to be lost.

So what? What is he saying? The righteous have got burdens. The righteous are a burdened people. They're a tried and tested people. They are conflicted. They feel these temptations in their lives. They are confronted with the experiences of life. And David says, cast thy burden upon the Lord. It is what he did. And he shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.

So when James says, blessed is the man, which is, I pointed this out yesterday as well, it's a beatitude. Blessed is the man. James learned that pattern of speaking from listening to the Lord Jesus. And when he says, blessed is the man, he is speaking of the blessed state of those who possess the new man.

We are blessed because, as Christ said, we hunger and thirst after righteousness. Because we've known our own weakness and poverty. and because we long for the peace of Christ and the suppression of the fight with the old man. We're blessed because we have the Holy Spirit in us and our spirit is united to Christ. We're blessed because our sins are forgiven, because our heart is renewed, and our ambitions are set on higher things. This is the blessedness of the state in which we are in.

And there's more. The blessed of God understand their dependence on the strength of Christ. so as to endure with profit the trials and afflictions that the Lord sends upon us. Understanding that these trials are graciously designed to sieve the dross from our lives and test our faith. Bring us to a greater dependence upon our Saviour. Being blessed of God enables believers to stand in the evil day. Even when we lose individual battles. Even when we feel as though our soul has been taken captive by Satan. We don't become more holy because we are holy in Christ. but we do become stronger in grace because of these trials. We do become wiser in spirit because of these temptations and more aware of our total dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the fiery furnace of adversity, all who are blessed of the Lord first suffer and then surmount the refiner's flame. And to these dear souls belongs the crown of life and victory and the prize of the overcomer.

But I want to return to this truth, born from biblical example and from personal experience of the Christians battle in their life. The fact that the Christian's life is a battle. Because James is warning us here of the workings of the old man who seeks at Satan's instigation to overwhelm the child of God.

But let us note this. There is a great difference now on the battlefield. Where once Satan dominated our lives as unbelievers and held us in relative contentment, now Christ is on the throne and Satan is displaced. He knows that he has lost this war. but he is eager to fight a rear guard action and employ a scorched earth policy if he can. He won't go down without a fight. He claims rights to our fallen flesh with its passions as his right to use against our spirit.

And the old man He meets with the self-same adversities of flesh as does the new man, but with a completely different attitude and aim. What the Lord employs to do us good, and to deepen our faith, deepen the faith of the new man, because the old man has no faith. But what the Lord employs to deepen the faith of the new man, the old man uses to entice lust and provoke sin. The same trial produces conflicting effects in the soul of the Lord's people. It's both an occasion for good and an opportunity for evil. And the further we go in the Christian life, the more we feel the conflict.

Now the faithful apostle here has another warning for us as well. He is displaying, James is displaying the same care for believers' souls as did Paul when he wrote to the Romans about justification. I wonder if you remember, Paul knew that when he explained the gospel of free grace, someone was bound to reply that we should continue in sin that grace may abound. If it's true that the more we sin, the more grace abounds, then let's all just sin as much as we like, and then there will be more and more grace in the world.

Well, Paul knew the falsity of that argument, and he warned against it. The perverter of truth always takes what is good, what is holy, and misconstrues it to justify its own wickedness. And James understood this as well. James understood it as well as Paul did.

Knowing therefore the duplicity of the old man, James anticipates and condemns the argument that if trials, what he has previously called these divers temptations, if these divers temptations emanate from God for the strengthening of our faith, then God must be held accountable if those trials produce evil. That's the argument of sin and James roundly denies and condemns it. God, he says, can neither be tempted nor does he tempt any man to sin. Certainly our Lord tests the faith of the new man to strengthen it, but if the old man hijacks the trial to provoke to lust and finds occasion for evil by it, it is that man who must be blamed. It is, what is it James says, his own lust that entices, conceives and brings forth sin. Now, I appreciate there's an element of complexity in what I'm saying here today. And I hope that you're following the lines that I'm trying to establish. I thought I would try to find an example from the word of God to explain what I'm saying. And to find this example, I've gone back to David again and to his adultery with Bathsheba.

We read in 2 Samuel 11, verse two, this verse. And it came to pass in an evening tide, in an evening tide, that David arose from off his bed and walked upon the roof of the king's house. And from the roof he saw a woman washing herself. And the woman was very beautiful to look at, or to look upon.

Now, stop right there. It was in God's providence that David could not sleep. I don't know whether it was something he'd eaten. I don't know whether it was something he was worried about. I don't know what he was doing on the roof there at that time. I don't know why he was raised from his sleep. But it was in God's providence that David couldn't sleep and that he was walking on his roof that night. It was ordained of God that woman Bathsheba should wash herself at this precise time. And let us not forget that ultimately, out of this illicit liaison, of David and Bathsheba, the Lord caused Solomon to be born and established the lineage out of which the Lord Jesus Christ would be born.

This is the temptation. This whole episode could have provided David with an occasion to honour the Lord. but instead the lust of the flesh prevailed and David yielded to temptation. The new man and the old man laboured together, fought together and the lust of the flesh prevailed and David yielded to temptation. He was drawn away of his own lust, he was enticed And when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Well, that was true in this case. The firstborn child of this relationship died.

But in truth, it's the sin of the sinner that is really in view, because the wages of sin is death. and how perverse is the old man and how effective his plots and his schemes. Those who think that they can please God with their own good works and their righteousnesses by withstanding temptation. That's a form of legalism. It's trying to please God by personal obedience and it can only ever produce self-righteousness and pride and hypocrisy. That's what happened with David.

Where would we be if the Lord did not strengthen us in the new man? How could we stand if he did not defend us against Satan and his wiles and teach us by his apostles to properly understand his gospel? How helpless we would be if the Lord left us alone for a moment. How hopeless if Jesus did not take our sin, even as believers, and answer in the court of heaven for every fall into temptation that we make just as David did.

There is in every believer that part of our nature that is unrenewed, which will and must go on sinning and contending against the new creation. And it is God's grace alone that protects and Christ alone who delivers us from the wiles of the devil and the hostility of the old man by causing our faith to grow and by increasing our wisdom in spiritual things.

If the Lord strengthens our new man to withstand the devil, then let us give him thanks for without him we can do nothing. And if The Lord permits our old man to strike a blow against us. It is our own lust that entices, conceives, and brings forth sin. The Lord is never chargeable with sin.

Nevertheless, let us remember, as his blessed people, there is forgiveness with God, and cleansing for the believer in the blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ. And we as his people can daily and hourly take our sins to Jesus and he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

May the Lord bless these thoughts to us today. Amen.