No One Else To Blame Series

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

› Engagement

The sunset camel rides advertised on TripAdvisor’s Viator website offer a leisurely guided tour through the Moroccan desert, with breathtaking views and stops at a traditional berber house for a snack over mint tea. But in late 2019 a New Jersey woman filed a lawsuit that claimed the serene image was just a mirage. Instead, she claimed she was placed on a pregnant camel that broke away from the tour and tossed her to the ground, resulting in serious injuries. I guess in her mind the website should have included images of people falling off the camels and breaking their arms.

That particular lawsuit is just one example of the fact that we live in a culture where it’s always somebody else’s fault.

› Tension

Unfortunately the church is not immune to that same mindset when it comes to our sin. One of the consequences of sin is that it makes us delusional. It will convince us that it is everyone else’s fault except our own:

• My spouse doesn’t make me happy so I’m going to get a divorce

• Money is tight, so I had to cheat on my income taxes

• It’s not my fault that I lusted. That woman shouldn’t come to work dressed like that.

• Or the one that’s in the news right now. I didn’t know what I was getting into when I took out those student loans, so I shouldn’t have to pay them back now.

But even worse we go one step further and we blame God for our sin. I know right now most of you are probably thinking I’d never do that, but my guess is that you have probably done it without even realizing what you did. And that shouldn’t be a surprise since that is the very first thing that Adam and Eve did when they sinned. Look at Adam’s response to God when he sinned:

Genesis 3:12 (ESV)

12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”

Adam is obviously blaming Eve for his sin, but He is also blaming God, because God is the one who had given him Eve.

Eve doesn’t do much better:

Genesis 3:13 ESV

13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Eve blames the serpent, but in truth she is also blaming God since He is the one who created the serpent and allowed it into the garden.

None of us will probably ever say the words “God caused me to sin.” But there are two things that we say or think that are essentially making that claim:

• The first way we do that is to say something like this: “God created me; He gave me my temperament, knowing I would be weak in resisting this sin; it is not my fault I fell into sin; God is at least partly responsible since He made me this way.”

• Here’s the second way we can essentially blame God for our sin. If, as we saw last week, God is sovereign over every circumstance that comes into our life, then, we reason, when those circumstances cause us to sin, then it must be God’s fault.

› Truth

But, as the passage we’re going to study this morning teaches:

When I yield to temptation, I have no one to blame but myself

Let’s pick up where we left off last week in James 1, beginning in verse 13:

James 1:13–18 ESV

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.

18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

As we pointed out last week, the verb that is translated “tempted” here in this passage is the verbal form of the word that was translated “trials” back in verse 2. We said then that the underlying word carries neither a positive nor negative connotation so we have to look to the context to know how to translate it.