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Good Morning, Happy Father’s Day, and Happy Juneteenth!
Thank you for the testimony this morning.
We are going to continue today in the book of James.
Our goal in this study is to develop True Faith.
True faith never stops growing.
In fact, it grows in direct proportion to our obedience as we abide in Christ.
As we see God’s activity in our lives, we learn more about who He is, the nature of his character, and fall more in love with Him.
We will see James helping his fellow believers develop true faith as he addresses the difficulties of life and areas of their theology where there is a misunderstanding.
Last week we finished up the first section in James, chapter one and we will cover the second section today.
As you are reading this book, remember that every time James says “Dear Brothers” or anything similar, he is beginning a new section or teaching.
Not unlike our teaching or conversational styles, what he is saying is tied to both what was said before and what he will be saying.
I mention this because there is much debate about whether James' warning is tied to what he previously said or what he is saying in this new section.
I think both are true.
In the last section, James was focused on enduring trials and our maturity as we endure.
Today we will see James focusing on God’s goodness.
His intention is to clear up any misunderstanding about God’s character.
The believer may have a very rudimentary faith in Christ but has adopted falsehoods about the life of faith.
Some among James’s audience had adopted the idea that God is the cause of temptation.
And yet, in no case can a role be assigned to God in relation to evil, temptation, and sin.
Some of James’ audience had adopted the belief that God is the cause of temptation.
He is using these two sections to clear up that misunderstanding.
If the great temptation of the sinner is unbelief, then the great temptation of the believer is misbelief.
Remember that we have seen time and again that the main tool of the enemy is to alter what we believe about God.
In the garden, he said to Eve, “did God really say?”
Look real quick
The enemy will take your fuzzy remembrance of what God has said and mix it in with your logic and convince you that what God has said isn’t true.
He twists and distorts what we believe about God.
One of the things James is addressing in chapter one is misbelief and misunderstanding about where temptation comes from.
In life, we are going to experience both good and hard times.
He wants us to understand the nature and source of both of those experiences.
Look at this with me.
If James is instructing or warning the church about deceit, what is the subject of that deceit?
Last week we talked about temptation and this week we are discussing God’s goodness.
The sixteenth verse of James 1 is tying together these two ideas.
James is saying, don’t be deceived about where good and evil come from.
The main point of these few verses is to make sure that they understand where goodness comes from.
Goodness only comes from God.
Let’s talk about goodness for a moment.
It is difficult for people today to grasp the goodness of God.
There is no other person or thing that can come close to comparing to the goodness that we can experience from God.
It is obvious by the wording of verse 18 that James is speaking to fellow believers because he says that God gave “us” birth by the word.
This is an important distinction.
We will circle back to what he means by “birth” at the end, but there is another issue we need to discuss first.
Look at verse 17 again.
It is difficult for people today to grasp the goodness of God.
I think it is difficult because there is nothing to compare Him to.
Follow me here.
When you compare two things, usually they are similar in scope or value.
If they are disproportionately different, we say there is no comparison.
If, as James says, goodness comes only from God, why do we compare God’s goodness to the things of the world?
Are they similar in any way?
No, obviously not, but the problem is that the world is so disconnected from God that we cannot fathom how far apart they are.
I was talking with someone the other day about the Grand Canyon.
I don’t know if any of you have been before, but it is huge.
Prior to going, I had seen pictures, but they don’t do it justice.
But you know what I didn’t expect?
When we got there and you stand on the rim, it looks huge, but your mind still doesn’t grasp the scale of it.
I believe it was a park ranger that told us this, but I can’t remember.
Someone told me that you can’t really wrap your brain around it until you go down into the canyon.
You know what, they were absolutely right.
It was not until we journeyed into the canyon itself that we could really see how big it was and how small we are.
As powerful as our brains are, there are many things that we just cannot comprehend until we physically experience them.
I believe this is why the world cannot separate its own goodness from God’s.
There is no lack of things to compare God to, but there is nothing that compares to God.
There is no other person or thing in this world that can come close to the goodness that we can experience from God.
What the world would consider “good” it just falls short.
This means that everything with God as its source is good
The gifts of God are good because they never foster evil desire or sin.
The gifts of God are perfect because they are the fulfillment of his will for his people.
What God would define as good and what the world defines as good is nowhere close to the same thing.
I did a little google research to support this idea, and I’ll just say, some of the top responses were just too risque to say at church.
How telling is that?
I looked at USA today, the Washington Post, and several other major news outlets, and their “Top 20,21, or 100 things from 2021” were lackluster, to say the least.
Everything falls short when you are comparing a created thing to its creator.
You could use any single piece of artwork in the world.
Get the best one you can, and it will always pale in comparison to the comprehensive work of the artist.
Spurgeon spoke of it this way...
Good and perfect gifts are flowers too rich and rare to spring up of themselves upon the dunghill of human nature.
Any questions?
Here is the thing, it isn’t just that things pale when compared to God, it also has to do with how quickly what we consider to be “good” changes.
Take a trip down memory lane with me and let’s consider the question, “Are eggs healthy?”
1960 - Start your day with an egg.
1970 - Avoid eggs, they are linked to high blood pressure.
1980 - Avoid eggs, because of salmonella poisoning.
1999 - No link between eggs and cardiovascular disease.
2013 - 1999 study reaffirmed and now everyone is raising chickens.
Do you see what the issue is?
The issue is that what is considered “good” changed over time.
Egg consumption is just one, silly example.
James says that every good and perfect gift comes from where?
Down from the father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
He is making two references here.
Coming down - good and perfect (different words, similar meaning) gifts come from above.
Father of lights/shifting shadows - celestial bodies i.e. sun, moon, stars, etc.
The integrity and consistency of God qualify His gifts as good.
Unlike people, our understanding of science, our opinions, etc, God does not change.
What was good when he created the earth and everything in it, is still good today.
It is good because God created it and called it such.
He even calls his creations good after creating them.
To go back to our example of eggs and how the information about them has changed over time, God nor His view of us has changed.
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