Reality Check: The End of Temptation
James 1:13-18
Connect:
Share how you have seen God in the Highs and Lows of your week.
Discuss how resolutions made last week in “growing more like Jesus” worked themselves out – what God did in and through you (Phil. 2:13) Celebrate and thank God for those together and pray with those who experienced some “Lows” this week, for God’s encouragement for them.
Prayer:
Pray that God would lead your discussion time and bring fresh insight, conviction, and hope through your time together.
Review:
We are launching into a new series on the book of James and how we can be challenged to examine the authenticity of our faith! Our first section looked at God’s presence in our lives in the midst of trials and temptations in James 1:1-12 . This round is James 1:13-18 looking specifically at how “temptation” works in our lives… and what we can do about it!
The Grand Tour of the message: Thinking back on what you heard this Sunday…
o What did you learn about God?
o What did you learn about people?
o What did you learn about yourself?
o What do you want to commit to putting into practice?
Reflect:
Describe a time when a trial made a temptation look more attractive.
Read James 1:13-14
o Have someone briefly tell the story of the “Fall of Man” in the Garden of Eden. How does that story project the idea, “God, this is ultimately Your fault here; we’re just victims.”
o Why is it that “God cannot be tempted by evil”?
o Scott talked about our “shrinking inner resources— what is that, and how does it make us more prone to temptation?
o Read verse 14. How does a daily practice of prayer, conviction, repentance and obedience help us to distinguish between “bait on a fish hook” and God’s provision for our needs?
Read James 1:14-16, 1 Corinthians 10:13
o Scott used these verses to lay out a 5 step process of temptation, and each step presents a choice. What is the choice at each stage and how does Scripture equip us to change the outcome at each stage?
We are lured by the bait
We approach the bait
We take the bait
We get hooked
We get fried
o v15 talks about what sin grows into. What does it mean that desire gives birth to sin, which grows, and “givers birth to death”? What does it mean that “sin grows”— how does that work?
o v16 basically says, “don’t be deceived.” How did the conversation move from ‘enticement and desire’ to ‘deception’?
Read James 1:17-18, Hebrews 4:15
o How do we tell the difference between a good gift of a good father and an enticing gift that will lead to our death? ON the front end, how do you tell the difference?
o Why does it matter that “Everything changes but God” in this conversation about temptation?
Respond:
o Temptations are a constant in life, so let’s close today in prayer that God will awaken our hearts once again to our need for Him— that doing His will is our ‘food’ and abiding in Him daily is our living water! Pray that God will make us hunger and thirst for “…more of [Him]”!
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