James chapter 1 and specifically we're looking today at verses 16 through 18 as we continue in our study of the book of James. You know as Christians we have a relationship with God and we accept the fact that God is good. We believe that. We believe that strongly. There's no way at least theologically or intellectually that you could ever say that God is not good. It's just a reality. The Bible is clear about it. Many of our experiences show us that. You cannot deny that if you are a believer of the Word of God. But sometimes, deep down in our heart of hearts, we become suspicious as to whether God is really good or not. This is especially true when life becomes really difficult. When trials and difficult circumstances come into our lives, it's easy for us to begin to doubt God's goodness. when a bridge collapses and we see people killed. We wonder, is God really good? He is sovereign, is he not? Don't we teach that as well? Don't we teach that God is sovereign? And if he is sovereign, that means he could have stopped that from happening. Why wouldn't he? Why didn't he? That and countless other trials and tragedy happen in our world. Countless difficulties and circumstances come into our own lives all the time. How can we look at some of the things we deal with and realize that God is in absolute control and say, He is very good, He is always good? Well, James deals with this issue in our text today, and we saw in verses 13 through 15 last week the negative side. And what did we learn there? Well, we learned there that God cannot be tempted, and God does not tempt anyone to do evil. God is absolutely removed from evil, and he would never do anything to solicit anyone to evil. That's not what he does. So let's not be deceived as he says in verse 16. Notice what it says there. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Do not be deceived about that. Do not think that God tempts you to do evil. Do not think that there's any kind of evil in God at all. And what is the point? We can trust God. That's the idea. You can trust God with your life. You can trust God with everything. He will never ever solicit anyone to do evil, and even further, as 1 Corinthians 10.13 says, He will never allow us to be tempted beyond our ability to endure and overcome the temptation. He will always provide a way for us to escape. so that we can be victorious. So, let's never be deceived about that, but also, there is the positive side, and James doesn't want us to be deceived about that either. No, he wants us to get it right. He wants us to understand God. He wants us to have a proper attitude about God, and far from blaming God, or accusing God, or complaining about God, we can trust him completely. Our text tells us a number of things to show us that we can trust God. Let me give you the first one here is God is good and he is the giver of all good things. God is good and he is the giver of all good things, verse 17, first part of that verse. Every good and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights. And so as we think about what that says there, I want to break that down into four different aspects and just very briefly consider each one of them. So the main heading here, God is good and the giver of all things that are good, and so as we break this down, first thing I want you to understand very clearly, God is good. God is goodness personified. All good originates with Him. We know that God is perfect, and one of the fruits of the Spirit is goodness. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. One of the fruits of the Spirit is goodness. God is perfect in all of those. God is good. So we understand that he is perfectly good. Psalm 145.9 says, the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. He is perfectly good. Let me give you a second little aspect of that. Not only is God is good, but he gives good gifts continually. That is what coming down means. It is a present active participle, and it means that good gifts keep on coming from God. We are always receiving good things from God. Everything, let me give you a third thing then, everything God gives is good. God's gifts are good and perfect. Everything he gives is good. That is all he gives, are good and perfect gifts. And God's gifts are absolutely for the recipient of their benefits, and there is nothing lacking in them, okay? There's nothing lacking in the gifts that God gives. They are perfect. And let me give you another aspect here. Even that which does not appear good is good and perfect. That may be confusing, but it's true. We trust God for that. Even that which does not appear good is good and perfect. There are times, even in our lives as Christians, even as God's beloved children, and if we are his beloved children, then he truly loves us. with a great affection. But there are times in our lives as Christians, even as his beloved children, that our hopes are dashed and our very worst fears are realized. And it may seem to us that what God is bringing at this time is not for good, right? I'm tempted to think that. This is not good. You know, when we lose a loved one, When someone develops a terminal illness, when our children are rebellious, when we lose that important job, on and on and on you could go with all kinds of things like that. And we look at those things and say, no, this is not good. But we can trust that God will bring good out of that which does not seem very good at the time. And we can know that he is in absolute control of all that's happening. And we must understand that God will judge our need by His perfect criteria, not ours. Not ours. Our criteria is very flawed. Our criteria is very selfish. You know, oftentimes we want what we want, we want comfort, we want happiness, we want all the things that we think we should get. That is our criteria. That's not God's criteria. His criteria is perfect and full of perfect wisdom. And he will lavish us upon us with the best gifts. Sometimes we may not think they're the best gifts. but we trust that they are because they're coming from God. One of the very simple illustrations I like to use when I think of this, and this is just a simple thing. You take your little child to the doctor, and of course children are afraid of those white coats when they get there, and you have them lay down and you let the doctor give them a shot, and it hurts. They start crying and that child wonders. Why would you do this to me if you love me? Okay parent, why do you do that to them if you love them? Why would you put them through that pain if you care for them? Why would you make them endure that? Why would you? Submit them to something that's going to make them cry and going to make them feel sad well I don't need to answer that question for you. You know why you do that, because that shot is good for them. That's just a very simple illustration to talk about the way God deals with us. And just like in that situation with the child, that child doesn't understand. Mom, Dad, why would you make me get this shot? Right? They don't understand. I'd just as soon do without this. You do it to them because you know it's good. And so God does the same thing to us. Sometimes things happen in our lives that hurt very deeply, but God knows what he's doing. He has always met our needs, and he always will meet our needs. Sometimes he does this overwhelmingly. Sometimes we seem to be swimming in blessings. At other times, he will merely meet the need for the next moment. God will not give us what we need for a year from now, but he will always give us that which we need for today. That's what's important. You know, we want the security of knowing how things are gonna be next month or a year from now. Well, God doesn't give you that, but he will give you what you need for the day, for today, that's it. His grace is for today, not for tomorrow. When tomorrow comes, he will give you grace for that day, but today it's just for now. And so we always need to remember that. Grace for the present day. And I can trust him for this. I'm not gonna say, okay God, I'm trusting you, therefore nothing bad is ever gonna happen. Everything's gonna be good. No, God doesn't promise that. But he promises that whatever happens to you, even if you might say this is bad, he does it for good. And I can trust him for this. And if we belong to him, he is our loving Heavenly Father. Matthew 7, 11, just a neat verse. It says that even we who are evil know how to give good gifts to our children. That's what Jesus says there, even you who are evil. What does he mean by that? We are depraved sinners, all of us are. And we have a certain amount of wisdom, but we don't have full wisdom. We make mistakes, even as parents. You know, you made mistakes with your children. You can acknowledge that, that's okay. You're in the same boat with every other parent that's ever lived, right? And Jesus says, you don't have that wisdom. Your mind is clouded by sin and sinfulness, and yet though you are, in relation to God who is perfectly holy, you are evil, you know how to give good gifts to your children. Well, how much more then will God who is holy Give us all good things. He who is holy and he who has perfect wisdom and he who knows exactly what you need, how much more will he give you what you need? Well, of course he will. God keeps on giving and there will be nothing lacking. Even an unbeliever, even a person who is an unbeliever receives marvelous gifts from God. Look at all that God has given, just the average person on the street. He's given you all the beauties of creation to behold. He's given you eyes and ears to see and to hear. He has given health and energy and parents and friends and education. And on and on and on we could go, good foods to eat. You could just go on and on with the things that God has blessed us with. He is the giver of all good gifts. So we can trust God because he is good and he is the giver of all good gifts. Let me give you another thing. We can trust God because he has the power to give us all things. Look at the second part of verse 17 here. Coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Every good and perfect gift comes down from whom? It says here, the father of lights. What does he mean by that, the father of lights? It's simply a Jewish expression referring to God as the creator. That's what it is. He made all the lights in the heavens. He made the sun that brilliantly lights up our world and gives us daytime. It has a marvelous light-giving ability, the sun does. And it was created by God for that purpose. But the sun also gives energy and warmth to us. I was just reading a thing yesterday about how much we need the sunshine. It's good to get out in the sun. But it is, it gives us warmth and it gives us energy. He also created the nighttime lights. The moon which gives light in the sky at night and also all the stars. God gave us all of that. The little pinpoints of light that are scattered across the sky. Can't see a whole lot of them here because we're so clouded by all the other stuff around and lights and everything, but there are some places you can go where you can see the beautiful night sky. We only call them pinpoints, though. We think of pinpoints of light. You look up there, and you see this little pinpoint of light. Why is it a pinpoint to us? Because of our perspective. Some of them are so much larger than our sun that it's unfathomable. Some of those stars are. I mean, Can't even begin to describe how big they are Some of the points of light we see are actually more than one star But there are they are a cluster of stars some even a whole galaxy You look out there and you see a pinpoint of light in reality. That is a whole galaxy with millions of stars And the reason they look so small is because they are so far away When you look up into the sky on a clear night, the farthest point of light you can see, this staggers the mind to me, the farthest point of light you can see is estimated to be about 10 billion light years away. Can you imagine that? What does it mean, 10 billion light years? What is that? Well, means if you could travel at the speed of light, How fast is that? 186,000 miles per second. Gather that in for a second, 186,000 miles per second. If you could travel that fast and you did that for 10 billion years, you would finally arrive at that place where you see that light, that galaxy. I don't know about you, but when I think of that kind of stuff, I start feeling really insignificant. You know? We have a big God. We have a wonderful God. We have an overwhelming God. I mean, these kinds of distances are so staggering that we can't even put them in our mind. But this is what God has made. This is what is there. And a lot of times, just kind of as an aside, people ask the question, do you believe there's other life out there? Do you believe there are other planets where people are living? My answer to that is no, I really don't. I think God created this whole universe and focused it on this earth. And everything, not to say that there isn't some kind of light, but there are not other civilizations, other human beings, this is it. You say, well, there's got to be more with all of those planets and stars and galaxies and everything out there. No, there doesn't have to be. It is simply a display of God and his glory. I love the song, what a mighty God we serve. What a mighty God we serve. Angels bow before him, heaven and earth adore him. What a mighty God we serve. This God is constantly lavishing us with his wonderful gifts. He gives us health. He meets our needs physically. He is constantly showering us with grace upon grace. He is an omnipotent God, which means he's all powerful. There is nothing he cannot do. And his desire to shower us with his gifts is there and no one can stop him. There's nothing anybody can do to stop him. He has the power to pull it all off. Now again, don't get this idea, well if God is that powerful and God wants to shower me with good gifts, why do I seem to have so much trouble? Well, that's a whole nother subject. We live in a fallen world, but like I said, think of the shot illustration. You do things in your kids' lives that are painful for them because you know it's good for them. God does the same thing for his children, except he does it with perfect wisdom and perfect control. So we can trust God because he is good. We can trust him because he is the giver of all good gifts. He has the power. to do anything he wants to do, and let me give you another thing. We can trust God because he does not change. Look at verse 17 again, and notice what it says. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Everything else changes, but God does not. Malachi 3.6 says, I am the Lord and I do not change. James has just talked about God being the father of lights, and as the earth moves around the sun and the moon moves around the earth, everything changes. Everything changes. There is day, and then there is night. The sun is here, and then it's there. You know, a person sitting under a shade tree, and he's getting shade from that tree. Well, if he sits there long enough, he'll have to move, because the shade has moved, right? Because of the movement of everything, the moon has different levels of brightness. It's a full moon, and then it's a half moon, and then it's a quarter moon. Sometimes it hangs so low in the sky that you feel like you can reach out and touch it. The weather is cold and then it's hot. It rains and then it is dry. The point of all this is that in all kinds of ways, we experience many, many changes in our world. We experience many, many changes even in our own lives. We go from youth to old age. We're constantly learning and discovering and reevaluating, and we change a great deal along the way, and of course, we know we change physically. But it's not so with God. He never changes. God cannot change for the worst because he's absolutely holy. He can't become worse than he is because he's absolutely holy. He cannot change for the better because he's already perfect. He does not grow in knowledge that would cause him to reevaluate things because he already has perfect knowledge. He never learns anything. There's nothing for him to learn. He already knows it all. Right? That's his omniscience. He knows everything. There's nothing for him to learn. We used to make fun and call people who, you know, there are certain people that just, they talk like they know everything there is to know, and we would call them know-it-alls. Well, in the most literal sense, God is a know-it-all. Knows everything. He knows everything in the past perfectly. Everything present, everything that will happen in the future, even things that will not happen but could happen, God knows all of that. There are no surprises with him. There isn't anything that sneaks up on him. He's absolutely in control of everything. And because he never changes, we can trust him to be the same with us all the time. All the time. He is a sure foundation. He is a solid rock that we can count on. He never changes. He never will be part of soliciting us to do evil. He will never stop lavishing us with his good and perfect gifts. And so all we need to do is hallow his name, do his will, be conformed to the image of his son, and persevere. and he will freely give us so many things. He is a loving, benevolent, gift-giving God. And we can trust him to treat us perfectly, and that's not ever gonna change. As an illustration of what God is willing to do for his children, James recounts here that he's already given us the best gift of all, The most wonderful gift of all look at verse 18 of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth That we should be a kind of first fruits Of his creatures. What does he mean by that of God's own will? He brought us to life in a spiritual sense Okay, that's what he's talking about here He brought us to life in a spiritual sense. We have been born again. God willed it to happen, and because it was his will, he brought it to pass, and God always accomplishes his will. Our salvation was ordained and accomplished by God from start to finish. It's all by God's gift. Jesus said to his disciples, you have not chosen me but I have chosen you. We are saved only because God, for his own good pleasure, marked us out in eternity past and brought us into a relationship with him and saved us, and then he accomplished in each of us what he willed to do. It was his will. Even our very faith, you say, well, I'm saved when I put my faith and trust in Him. Right, but even our very faith is a gift of God. It's exactly what Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 says. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. If I had anything to do with my salvation, then I could boast about it, but I didn't. You know, God did it all. He gets the glory. And someone will say, well, wait a minute now. I did choose Jesus. I did choose him. I made a conscious decision to receive him. I chose him to be my savior, and my answer to that is yes, you did. Yes, you did. but you only chose him because he had first chosen you. He brought you to life from your spiritual deadness and gave you the desire and the ability to trust him. It was from his hand. In other words, you were spiritually dead. You were a spiritual corpse before God came and did a work in you, and if he had not done that work in you, then you would in no way have the ability to believe and trust him. How marvelous is all of that? I mean, it's just amazing. It's all a gift of God that he's given us. There's not anything worthy in me that God would choose me to be saved. God didn't go around and say, well, that person's good and that person's bad, so I'm gonna choose this one. None of that. Wasn't any merit in me, there wasn't anything I did to be made his child. You say, well, why were you made his child? I have no idea. It was for his good pleasure, that's it. I'm no better than anyone else at all. Why did God choose me? I have no idea, but he did. He did it by his own good pleasure and for his own glory. How did he bring us to him then? He brought us to him by the word of truth. God is always bringing about a person's new birth through the hearing and responding to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And that is the means by which we come to Christ. Sometimes it happens through a sermon. People hear a sermon and their hearts are open to the fact that they are lost without Christ and they need him as their Savior. Sometimes it happens through a friend or a tract or a booklet or a radio station. Maybe even a single word. I have a really good friend, a brother in Christ, and I asked him one time, when did you come to Christ? And he said, I was in college. He said, I was actually driving along, listening to the radio. And a preacher was on there to share the gospel, and it just really resonated with me. He said, I received Christ right then. But however it happened, the Word has power to convict and bring people to Christ. And it was through the wielding of the Word that God birthed us, but it was His doing. And because of that, we were born again, and we became His children. And what are we as His children? Well, notice what it says here. We are firstfruits. In the Old Testament, the first fruits were that which was designated as holy, that which belonged to God. The firstborn of man and cattle was to be set apart unto the Lord. The first of the produce from the vineyard and the orchard were the Lord's. All the rest a man could keep for his own purposes, but the firstfruits were the Lord's. In the New Testament, Christians are called firstfruits. God has chosen us to be holy. He has redeemed us, and he has set us apart to be his special people. He has bestowed his special love on us, and one day God will redeem his whole creation. He will create a new heaven and a new earth, and we are the first installment of God's universal plan for redemption. We are God's special chosen race, the first fruits of all of his creation. When we consider what God has already given us, We have every reason to trust him fully. We have no reason to accuse him or to blame him or to complain against him. He does not ever do evil in our lives, nor does he solicit anyone to evil. No, he wouldn't do that. But he is the giver of every good and perfect gift. So, where does that leave us? Well, let me tell you, trust that God has your very best interests in mind. You're his child, he has your very best interests in mind all the time. He is in absolute control of all of his universe. He's bringing his will to pass in the lives of all people for his own glory. And for those of us who are his, we can trust in and be certain that everything he does in our lives has a good purpose. It has a good purpose. I don't have to understand it all the times, but I can accept that as from God's hand. When you're tempted to sin or when you're tempted to accuse God, meditate on his goodness and know that he is good. Remember and see and be reminded of all the things that he has done and all the things that he's continuing to do in your life. God's gifts are always much better than Satan's bargains. You know, we're tempted to sin, we're tempted to be drawn away from what God wants to do things that are sinful, but God's gifts are always better than Satan's bargains. Sometimes Satan dangles a carrot before us and it looks so good, and maybe it is good for a very short while, but it always ends up tasting very bitter. Not so with God. So, when you are in need, When you are in need, you have something, you say, this is a need I have, ask the Lord to fill that need, and then trust him and wait upon him. He is the giver of all good gifts, and he wants to lavish those gifts on all of his children. Trust. that he has done that in your life and he will continue to do that. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word today. We pray for your blessing. I pray, Father, that we would trust that you are good, that everything you do in our lives is for a good purpose, that if you allow bad to come, it's because in your perfect wisdom, it is what is right for us at that time. And I pray, Father, that we would trust you that far and know that you are doing all that you do for your glory and even for our good, and may we rest in you. It's a pretty wonderful thing, Father, to think that my life is in your hands. And even though I can't just say, well, everything is going to be good from here on out, I can never say that, I know that everything is going to be from your perfectly wise hand. And that's something I can rest in, Father. That's something I can be pleased with. Thank you for that. I pray that we would all have that kind of trust. And I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.