Everyday Desire

We're in a message series called "Everyday Sacred." It's based in the New Testament letter of James. Today we're going to be talking about everyday desire. Everyday desire. So let me begin by asking you, what do you desire? Don't answer out loud. But what comes to mind? Good desires? Not so good desires? Probably a mixture of both. And whether good or bad, our desires have incredible power in our lives. Desires can motivate extraordinary accomplishments. And desire can lead to much pain and regret.

And along these lines, I found a great quote in one of the Chronicles of Narnia books. This is from the magician's nephew where Aslan says this. He says, "All get what they want. They do not always like it." And that's profound if you think about it. C.S. Lewis is saying that we are always moving towards what we most desire. To the extent that we have control, we move towards our desire.

It reminds me, when I, we were on a summer vacation years ago in northern Wisconsin. On one day we decided to go for a hike up this river. This river flows into Lake Superior and it's not very deep. So you can wade through much of it or you can jump from rock to rock. But it ends at this waterfall. And I'm with a group, I'm with my father-in-law Steve and our host Walt. We were staying, my family was staying with their family on this beautiful lake home. And Walt had invited a number of people that live around this lake, friends and neighbors.

And about half the group, they decided they weren't going to climb up the falls. They were just going to watch from the shore. And this waterfall, it's about 25 feet high and it's got two distinct parts. The top is like the steep slope of a roof. Water rushes down until about halfway and there's kind of kicks out and then the water just drops, free falls down into this pool. And so we start climbing up the lower half and there's lots of big rocks that we can clamber up as we get to the midway point.

And then we get to the slope section, not as many things to hold but not as steep. And I'm thinking to myself immediately, well, this is not really all that challenging. You know, I would really like a little bit more adventure out of this. And so I decided to just kind of take a few steps into the river and I'm holding onto the bottom. I feel the cold water rushing against me. Now it's a little bit of a challenge. I said, this is nice. I like this.

And so I step a few more feet into the current and I'm feeling the thrill that comes when you're right on the edge. And you're pushing the envelope. And I'm also thinking, you know, look at me. I can climb this the hard way. You know, me so strong. You know, this is right about that moment that I started to slip almost in slow motion, but gradually picking up speed. By the time I get to where Walt is, he reaches in, grabs onto me. But I've got, again, I'm picking up speed. Steve grabs Walt in order to back him up. But by then it's just too much.

I just carry all three of us. We just go off the ramp section flying into the air, having no idea how deep the pool is below us. 12, 13 feet below. I don't know if it's 20 feet deep or two feet deep. If there's jagged rocks, we were about to find out. Plunged in this cold water. People on the sides watching this, they are freaked out. They don't know what's going to happen. Are we going to pop up? Is this going to be a tragedy? Eventually we all pop up. More or less we're okay. Walt would have a sore back for a couple days. I would nurse a very sore ego.

Because I learned two things in that day. And I should have learned the first one sooner because I was in my early 40s. But I learned this. You're never too old to make an idiot out of yourself. Second thing I learned, and this is really the moral of the story, is that when we fall, we take others with us. When we fall spiritually, morally, we take others with us. It doesn't happen in a vacuum. Others will feel the pain right along with us.

And so how do you invest in your success? How do you cooperate with the things that we were just singing about? James says, how do you rein in the destructive desires and unleash the positive, godly, good desires that we have? James has been talking about trials thus far in his letter. And the question is never whether or not we will face trials. That's never the question. The question is, how will our trials leave us? Better or worse.

There's a popular saying in our culture that goes like this, "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." You've heard this before, "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." But to that I want to say, well, maybe. Maybe it will leave you stronger, but maybe it will leave you weaker. Bitter, self-indulgent, cynical. It's not automatic. The only thing that is for sure is that our desires will play a massive role in determining the direction we take in the wake of our trials.

And so in light of this, let's see what Scripture has to say about how to avoid becoming your own worst enemy. We're going to be in James 1:12–18. And I have three applications for you today as we unpack this. Three applications, that means you make it a reality in your life that will really, I think, play a massive difference in the outcome of various trials in life.

And if you recall, in context, James is writing to Christians who have fled Jerusalem because they were being persecuted, but they haven't been able to outrun their hardships. They're dealing with poverty and discrimination, injustice. They are stressed out. They're worried. And they're taking their pain out on each other, kind of eating each other alive.

And so the first thing that James does is he lifts their vision above their current circumstances. And he says this in verse 12, follow along as I read. He said, "God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him." He's saying, "You know, I know it's hard, but God has not forgotten you." In fact, God is going to bring blessing out of those very hardships.

And notice it says, "testing and temptation." And if you're taking notes, you might want to circle both of those words and connect them with a line, because in the original Greek this was written in, there's only one word there. And depending on the context, it can mean either testing or it can mean temptation. And so the dilemma in verse 12 is James looking back to what he's just said, well, then he's talking about being tested, but if he's looking forward to what he's about to say in the next verse, then it's trial.

And so various translations will just land on one word or the other. But the New Living Translation I'm using today, their editors, I think, just decided, well, we don't know, nobody knows, so we're just going to give you both words, both sides of that coin. And I like that because it points to an underlying truth, which is this. So often, trial or temptation comes out of our trials. In other words, trials will come with temptations.

You might even want to write that down in the margins of your notes, because think about it. If you're hungry enough, you will be tempted to steal. If you're lonely enough, you will be tempted to have your emotional needs met in ways you know are wrong. If someone wrongs you, the temptation is to gossip or to retaliate, and on it goes. So don't be surprised when your trials come with temptations.

But James says afterwards, after we endure these things, we will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. In other words, our faith is revealed in the trials and temptations of life. It's when we're squeezed, we find out what's inside of us. And not only that, but someday the blessing will be, we will look back and we will realize that we really did love Jesus after all, that it wasn't just up here, it was in here, that it was real, and it was revealed in those tough times.

That little spark of faith that he placed in your heart at some point in your life, he loved that and he cherished it, and he started to tend it, even when it was kind of smoking and sputtering, and you didn't even know it was there, he kept fanning those flames until it burned with desire for him, and to see him someday.

So when it comes to dealing with this issue of everyday desires, my first application for you is this, start with the ending. Start with the ending. Lift your gaze beyond your immediate circumstances. Imagine the moment that you will be ushered into his presence. That day will come. And in that day, you're going to experience more beauty, more purity, more perfection, more joy and love that we can even begin to imagine.

And Scripture says that there are angelic beings, incredible beings that wow us, and yet they're covering their faces saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, in the midst of that, you are being ushered into God's presence. You are being welcomed in that moment." And think about it. In that moment, that grudge that you're tempted to hold against someone right now is going to look pretty stupid in light of that, won't it?

That clickbait that pops up on your screen going to look so empty, so vain, in light of the love and life and fullness that awaits us. So start with the ending. Allow it to reset your perspective every day. But also, start with the ending in the sense of that evil impulse, that temptation. Ask yourself, "How's that road going to end? How's that road going to end?" All get what they want. They do not all like it.

And that leads into the second application for us today, which is guard your heart. If I could boil this message down to just three words, it would be those, guard your heart. Dads, you want to be the best dad you could ever be, guard your heart. Moms, aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, you want to have an impact. You want to leave a legacy that will be a blessing to the generation that follows you and the generation that follows them. Guard your heart, because that is where the battle is pitched.

And you know what? Sometimes, we like to think that that's not true, and so we will deflect the blame of our desires or our choices onto something else. And so James, anticipating this, he says in verse 13, he says, "And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, 'God is tempting me.' God is never tempted to do wrong, and He never tempts anyone else." And apparently, there's an attitude among His audience, and it's certainly not an attitude that's limited to them.

Where we begin to develop this narrative that goes like this, it's like, where is God in my suffering? Why isn't He doing anything about it? He could solve this problem, He could take away my pain, but He's left me in the lurch. And so can anyone blame me if I need to blow off some steam every once in a while? I mean, can I be blamed, but sometimes I just got to do what I really want to do? Because where's God? And on and on and on it goes.

And not to minimize this, but whether it's our lack, I mean, our family of origin, or its losses or griefs, if it's lack of opportunity, those are all difficult things. But listen, if you allow yourself to adopt a victim mentality, you'll be able to rationalize just about anything, including blaming your behavior on God.

In fact, I'll give you a classic example. René mentioned Adam and Eve last week in his message. Think about this. Let's take you back to that for a moment. Here they are. They are living, we call this paradise. They're living in paradise, okay? That's their address. And God says, "I made this all for you, all the food you'll ever need. Just enjoy. Make babies. Just have fun. I did all this for you. Just stay away from that one tree. That's not what you need right now."

And so after they disobey that, do you remember what Adam says to God? I mean, this is amazing, but in chapter 3, he says, "The woman you put here, you put her with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and yeah, after all I ate it." As if, "Hey, I was doing great, God, minding my own business, but then you put her here and it just all went downhill." So since you put her here, it kind of makes it your fault.

And I imagine if I was God in that moment, we'd be moving on to Adam version 2.0 real quick. Really? You know? And for the record, there actually is an Adam 2.0. His name is Jesus. You can read about him in Romans. But God does all of that, His mercy, His grace, because He is good, always good.

And there may be times in your life that God tests you, in fact, He will test you, to mature you, to reveal and affirm your faith. That He'll never tempt you. The issue of temptation actually lies with us, according to verse 14, where it says, "Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away." And later, James is going to briefly mention the devil, but what he's talking about here is the enemy that lies within each of us.

And he says that these desires, they can entice us, drag us away. Those are hunting and fishing terms. And, you know, a little bit about this, or maybe a lot, but, you know, fishing, it's about the art of deception. You use the right bait or the right lure, or hunters, predators, they know how to draw out their quarry. And one very practical way to guard your heart is to simply be aware of the kind of bait that lures you. We're all a little bit different here.

And sometimes we can adopt this sense of moral superiority, because we see someone doing something, and we go, "Oh, that's terrible. That's so disgusting. Why do they do that? Well, it has no appeal to you, because that's not your bait." But don't be mistaken. You have your bait, and I have mine. There is something in each of us that waits for just the right moment.

I'll never forget, on another Wisconsin holiday, we went to this wild animal park, and I was there, my wife, our kids, and my mother-in-law, Margie. And it's kind of interesting, because you walk into this park, and there's all these deer just roaming around. Deer are kind of dangerous, aren't they? Well, if you run them over, they can be dangerous. But these deer, they were kind of freaking me out, because I think they started with like one pair, and then they had like lots and lots and lots of baby deer, but they were all a little bit too related, if you know what I mean.

And so, seriously, the eyes are like, "Bruh." You know, not symmetrical at all, or like a bump on their head, or extra pair of antlers. And it's like Frankenstein deer, but they left us alone. One of the best parts of the exhibit, they have this big enclosure with this steel fence, and they have two massive Bengal tigers, six, seven hundred pounds each. And we go up to that, and they're just lounging on the – just basking in the morning sun. And it's completely disinterested in us.

Like, we could care less of these people on the other side of this fence. And my mother in La Margie, she gets kind of bored after a minute or two, and so she turns around, she's just walking down the path like this, and she doesn't get more than ten feet. One of those tigers springs into action, charges – he covers 50, 60 feet in the blink of an eye, and I could not believe how fast that tiger moves, and it just goes, "Boom! Two giant paws hit this fence." We're like two feet on the other side, it's like, "Wahh-wahh-wahh," like that.

Meanwhile, Margie, she's just skipping down the path, like totally oblivious that this massive tiger wants to make her his lunch. A couple things going through my mind in that moment. "No, that's not what you're thinking I'm thinking." I love my mother in La Margie. For the record, I was very grateful for the strength of that enclosure. But I also remember thinking this, "Ahh-hah-hah." That's why they say, "Never turn your back on a tiger." Well, there's a tiger lurking inside your heart, so guard it. Guard your heart, especially when you're tired, you're discouraged, you feel sorry for yourself.

There can be a wave of lust or anger or something else that just sweeps down on you. So we ought to keep that in mind and be humble about our own weaknesses. Guard your heart, because this is not real popular in our day and age, but according to Scripture, your heart cannot be always trusted. In fact, it really can't be trusted too much at all. That's where we need the Lord.

And then in verse 15, James changes the analogy, he moves away a little bit from this predator-prey type of thing or how desires can entice and hook us, and he moves to an analogy of conception and birth, because what starts very small over the course of time will grow and become progressively bigger, right? He says, "These desires give birth to sinful actions, and when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to what? Death." If you tolerate that sin long enough, it will grow to the point that it produces death. Death of a relationship, a marriage, a ministry, a career, death of trust, of innocence.

And that's why Proverbs 4:23 says, "Above all else," what? "Guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." Do you believe that? "Everything you do flows from what you desire most." And one last thought along these lines before moving on to our final section here. "Guarding your heart has more to do than just being aware of the consequences of sin." If that's the only thing that ever motivates me, then I'm really just a moral pragmatist, right? I just look down the road and go, "I don't want to go down that road, so I'll just go the other way." And that's good, that's all you had, but sometimes that's not enough.

Because what if you get to the point, "You don't care anymore," or "You have nothing to lose." Then what? I mean, there's got to be something deeper that my obedience is rooted in than just pragmatism, where I become like Job when he famously said, "Though he slay me, yet I will hope in him." He said that he had nothing, and yet his desire remained for the Lord. Now who says that? I'll tell you who says that. It's anyone who is counting on the Lord to be everything the Bible says he is, counting on the fact that God is good and loving and gracious and merciful and faithful and holy and beautiful and all-powerful, in other words, no matter what my circumstances, my trials, my temptations, I can always count on God's character. Always. Amen.

Because here's the thing, you can know where this is going to end. You can kind of break down the whole process where I got a desire and I just see myself and I disobey and it results in destruction or death. You can know all that and just blow right through it because ultimately that's what you desire. Or if you have confidence in God, you have confidence in his goodness, he becomes your desire. He turns your desires towards himself. And that's just the beauty of his way in our lives. So count on that.

And now look at these last verses because it's really a reinforcement of who God is and what he does. 16–18 it says, "So don't be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we out of all creation became his prized possession." Wow. That's our Father.

You know ultimately, would you agree, ultimately we're all counting on someone or something. We're all counting on something. Some of us decide the only person we can really count on is ourselves. And so we live with this idea, man, whatever there is for me in life, I got to go out there, I got to grab it. And James says, "Don't be misled. Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father." Which means that there is no goodness, there is no good thing apart from God's goodness and God's gifts. He is the source of it all.

And others of us, we might adopt an attitude or a fixation that if I just had that relationship, if he or she, if they loved me the way I desired them, then life would be awesome, life would work, I would be so full of joy. And you know what? If you get that wish fulfilled, you will crush that person under the weight of those expectations. Because those shoes are too big for any human being. The only person who can give us ultimate joy and fulfillment and satisfaction is the God who created the universe, the stars and the galaxies and above all those things he says, "You are my prized possession." Wow, do you believe that today? I hope so. I hope so.

Because you know, we've been talking about our desires, but these last two, three verses here have reminded us, we're God's desire. You are God's desire. And you might be thinking, "Well, I guess God's obligated to love me, I don't know if he really likes me." Hey, listen, I got news for you. God delights in you. He delights in you.

In fact, let me just give you a little picture of that. Here's a little video that's been going around. Check this out. Did you understand it though? No. Okay. Come on, got you. Oh, no. Not this one. This is the grand finale of this. Okay, that's the last one. Yeah, that's the last one. You ain't got to wonder. I was wondering. I don't know what they're going to do next season because they did some stuff this time. Something that I wonder about. Exactly what I was thinking. You're not bad at it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't bring that in. You know what I'm saying? Don't do the same stuff. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's like that. Yeah. You're something right now. Yeah. Like go somewhere else with that, but don't break it. You know what I'm saying? We called sweat over here. Yeah. That's what I said. And they was like, "Ahh." You know what I'm saying? I was like, "What in the world?" Don't do it here. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that is strange. Really? I thought the same thing. We think a lot of like, huh? That's all right. Oh, that's crazy. All right. All right. Right.

Isn't that awesome? Remember that next time you go to pray, right? It's probably a little bit how it works. You might be thinking, well, first of all, I mean, my goodness. If a human father could delight in his child like that, how much more our Heavenly Father who created us and delights in us and says, "Of everything I created, you are my prized possession." Wow.

You might be thinking, some of you might be thinking, well, you know, I'm no innocent kid. God still love me. You have no idea, Mark, what I've done. Well, you have no idea what I've done. One of my theological heroes, a guy named Richard Sibs, says this, "Jesus died not because we were lovely, but in order to make us lovely." That's the beauty of the gospel. That's the word of truth, as James describes it, so that out of all creation, God could delight in us and love us and call us his children.

And today, do you believe this? Are you counting on God to do for you what you cannot do for yourself? And if that's the case, I want to close in prayer, but I want to pray for a specific group of us here today. Let's just not play church, okay? Because for some of us here in the last couple minutes, you've thought about maybe mistakes of your past and maybe there's some, you know, collateral damage, but you've seen God's faithfulness, you've seen his forgiveness, his grace, and you're just full of gratitude because of that, because you've seen God even redeem some of the ugly moments of your life.

But there's others of us here. What you've been thinking about is not something in the past. You're thinking about a mistake that you're about to make because there's something in your life that has been pulling on you and you've been moving into it a little bit. It feels good. It gives you a buzz or it numbs the pain. And every time you go there, it draws you a little bit deeper. And if you stay there, it will sweep you away. And not just you. Not just you.

So if not for yourself, if not for your own sake, for those who are dear to you, would you be willing today by faith to say, "Lord, would you take my hand? Jesus, will you pull me back? Will you open my eyes? Will you change my heart? Will you do for me what I cannot do for myself?" If that's your desire, then I want to pray for you especially. So would you bow your heads and close your eyes? And as we do so, again, let's just not play church here. This is real. God is in our midst. Lives may be at stake. Futures.

And so if you feel you're just on the edge of that swift current, as a show of faith, would you just raise your hand as if to say, "Jesus, would you grab onto me? Would you, with your strong arms, would you pull me back?" Just put your hand up to cement that in your mind as a show of faith. It's not so important that I see it, which is, God bless you, but He sees it. He sees it. And so you may put that hand down as I pray.

"Lord Jesus, we thank You for Your goodness and Your grace. We thank You that You are here. Lord, I pray especially for those who have just put up their hands. I pray, Lord, that You would meet them in this moment, that they would sense the power of Your Holy Spirit in their lives, the power of Your Word, giving clarity to their thoughts and their vision and their perspective. And Lord, would You pull them back? Would You rescue them? Would You change their mind? Help them to see that situation, that decision, for what it really is. It's bait. And Lord, save them from consequences that could be quite bitter.

Lord, for all of us, for Your church represented here today, Lord, may You strengthen our hearts, may You fill them with passion and desire for You. Lord, may You raise up Your people so that we would be a shining light on a hill, testifying to the magnificence of Your grace, Your sanctifying grace, Your lives and our community in our world. We pray all these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, Lord and Savior and all God's people said, Amen, Amen.