Goodness Comes Only From God

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.

James James 1:16

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.

James James 1:16

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

Genesis 3:1–5 CSB

1 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’ ” 4 “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

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.

James 1:16–18 CSB

16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 By his own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

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.

James 1:17 CSB

17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

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.

James James 1:17

This means that everything with God as its source is good

James James 1:17

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...

The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. LVII “A Kind of Firstfruits” (No. 3,275)

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.

He loved us when we were created.

He loved us when we rebelled.

He loved us when we realized our situation.

He loves us right now.

He will love us for all eternity.

You will never have to wonder if there is some new research about God that is going to change your standing with Him.

God does not change.

What He said at the beginning is still true today.

He created you and you are good.

Even though we rebelled against Him, He still loves us.

And not out of obligation, but by choice.

Look at verse 18 again.

James 1:18 CSB

18 By his own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Today of all days, we cannot ignore the reality that so many have not experienced the kind of love and goodness that James describes here.

The unfortunate reality is that what we understand of God, as our father, is filtered through our own experience with our earthly fathers.

So many people, and perhaps some that are here today, did not have a father that could be described as good.

When we talk about God being a good father, it is hard for them to imagine that to be true.

I have several people in my life who either never knew their father or their father choose to walk out of their lives.

Therefore celebrating father’s day or considering God to be a good father is difficult, to say the least.

It is my hope and my prayer that today and this week, God would help all of us redefine our understanding of fatherhood.

This is yet another reason that it is so important that we remember and proclaim the glory of God.

We need to tell the world that not only is God a good father, but He CHOOSES you and me.

By His own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth.

God’s word gave us life and redemption.

There are two things that I want us to see in this last part of verse eighteen.

First, let’s talk about birth by the word.

Word, as it is found herein greek is logos.

We’ve discussed this morning that God created us and called us good.

John testifies to this at the very beginning of his gospel.

John 1:1–5 CSB

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.

Remember, James said that Jesus has given us birth by the word.

James 1:18 CSB

18 By his own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

He is referring to two different birth events.

Natural birth and supernatural birth.

We were first born by God speaking us into existence and born a second time by the Spirit.

Look at John 3 where Jesus talks about this with Nicodemus.

John 3:3–20 CSB

3 Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 “How can anyone be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again. 8 The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” 9 “How can these things be?” asked Nicodemus. 10 “Are you a teacher of Israel and don’t know these things?” Jesus replied. 11 “Truly I tell you, we speak what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you do not accept our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. 19 This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed.

This is the good and perfect gift that James is referring to.

Jesus, who is the word of truth, gave us second birth.

He redeemed us by the sacrifice of His own life so that we might be born again.

NT365 Book Study: Letter of James Given Birth through the Word of Truth

Salvation is never given apart from our hearing and believing the word of truth. That word of truth is implanted within us, as he’s going to say a little bit later in this passage. It’s a sovereign act of God, but it is the word of truth.

James James 1:18

The decision90 of God to birth believers through his Word is not the same as his general working within creation. God performs a special kind of work in the life of human beings according to his divine plan.91 Believers have faith because God gave them spiritual birth (cf. John 1:13; Phil 1:29).

God does something different when He created humans.

He made us different from all the other animals.

We are conscious and have free will.

No other creation is like us.

So God makes us special in that way and then he does additional special work in our lives to make a way for us to come back to him after we rebelled.

The second thing I want us to see is that after God does that special work in our lives, it changes our eternal status.

James describes this as “firstfruit”.

He doesn’t just make us “okay” with God.

This isn’t like when you had a fight with your friend and even though you both apologized, you aren’t quite okay yet.

Jesus has made you set apart as holy.

This is what James is talking about when he says that Jesus gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of firstfruit of his creatures.

Firstfruits - The first and best part of the harvest of crops or processed produce, animals, and firstborn sons.

Exodus 34:22 CSB

22 “Observe the Festival of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Festival of Ingathering at the turn of the agricultural year.

The “firstfruits” were the very first and best part of any harvest.

When God was establishing Israel as a nation, he commanded them to gather the “firstfruits” of every harvest and dedicate it to the Lord.

In other words, it was “set aside as holy”.

James is bringing that imagery back to mind and telling the church that God didn’t just redeem you, he set you aside as holy.

You are his own possession.

Of all of God’s creation, the redeemed are set aside Holy because of what Jesus has done.

So, don’t be deceived, my dear brothers.

No matter what you may have been told, God is good, He gives good gifts, and you are His holy nation.

In a world that has much to offer and much to distract us with, we need the constant reminder that goodness comes from God.

As we face the trials of life, as we are struggling with temptation, we need to be reminded that God’s desire for us is goodness.

Sometimes that goodness comes in the form of a trial so that we can learn and grow.

But we can be assured that temptation does not come from God, goodness does.

Pray

Announcements:

Thank you to those that participated in our Juneteenth celebration!

If you didn’t see my Facebook post last night, we are taking up a special offering today in honor of Father’s Day. It will support making Portraits and video bios for The Louisiana Heart Gallery. There are many little boys and girls who are waiting for their forever fathers, mothers, and homes. Our support will help them tell their story and find the goodness that comes from the father. - Pray for them.

Any other announcements?

Offering