Okay, so we're exploring the book of James. Have been for a while now. And tonight we're looking at verses 16, 17, and 18 in James chapter 1. And we're discussing the goodness of God. That's the topic. But let me give you a little history lesson from church history that you all probably know about. Don digs some things up that I've never heard about and does his research, but I think most of us has heard of Corrie ten Boone. Corrie ten Boone. She was a Dutch Christian who hid Jewish people during the occupation of the Nazis in World War II in Holland. And she eventually was discovered, her and her family, and put in a concentration camp. She wrote a book, and the book was, suddenly the title of it escapes me, The Hiding Place, yes. So, several of you, I'm sure, maybe all of us have read that. If you have the time to check out YouTube, go put in Corrie Tin Boone on YouTube. You'll find some really good historical accounts, documentaries of her life. Her and her sister were put in the same prison camp. There's another word for that too. Concentration camp. My mind's working a little slow tonight. So they were in the same concentration camp together. Corey ended up not only writing the book, but traveling around the world, telling people about the goodness of God, the faithfulness of God, and being a witness to Him around the world. I remember seeing her on the Billy Graham Crusades years ago, live on television. So, the Lord used her in a great way. And if it wasn't for the fact that she was in that horrible place and suffered the way she did, she would not have had that witness for Jesus Christ. I think we can all see that. And we can all marvel at that. But Corey's sister, Betsy, did not survive the concentration camp. She basically died of malnutrition, starvation, lack of medical care, whatever it was. So she didn't make it, but she was the one God used to keep Corrie going till she was released and then had that great ministry. In fact, Corrie herself says that there was a time when she was very discouraged. She thought everything around her was dark. There was darkness not only around her, but in her own heart. She said, I remember telling Betsy, this is Corrie's own words, I remember telling Betsy that I thought God had forgotten us. To which Betsy replied, no, Corrie, he has not forgotten us. Remember his word, for as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love for those who fear him. And that's how God used Betsy. But think of the two in contrast here. We can say God was good because Corey survived and carried his message around the world. But most people would wonder, well, what about Betsy? Was God good to Betsy? Now God used Betsy to encourage Cory, but how could we say that God was good to Betsy? She died in that horrible place. So see, we puzzle, and we'll come back to this in a little while, hopefully. If I forget, you can remind me, and I'll try to answer that. But we puzzle over the problems, the difficulties, the suffering we endure, the hardships we go through, the losses we experience. And I think every believer at some point goes through a period of time where they wonder if, we don't wonder is God there, but is God going to be good to us? Is God good? I mean, how can he be good and let me go through this or experience this or suffer in this way? So we have those doubts about the goodness of God that creep in. Now, James knew this. James is writing to the Jewish believers who dispersed throughout the Roman Empire, and they're being persecuted. The first persecution was not Roman persecution. It was the Jewish persecution against Christians. That was the earliest of the persecutions, and it no doubt included their own, you know, their own brothers and sisters, their own nation. And so they were suffering a lot, and James has written to them, and in this epistle, he's already taken up in chapter 1, verses 2 and 4, this whole issue of suffering, trials. And he says, he told us there in his word, count it all joy when you fall into various trials. Why? He goes on to explain, because trials produce patience or force you to persevere in your faith in the midst of trials, and that produces maturity, completeness, growth, Christlikeness. That's in verses two to four in chapter one. Then when we came to chapter one, verse 12, after talking about wisdom and poverty and wealth, he comes back full circle to trials and testing, that first major theme, and he amplifies it. And he tells us some other things about trials. And one of those things is we're going to be rewarded eternally when we persevere through hardship. And now we come to our text for today, verses 16 to 18, after talking about trials in general in verse 12. He talks about temptation in verse 13, which is a trial in and of itself. And we are tempted to turn away from God when we go through these things that we don't understand. Now, when he comes to verse 16, he deals with this question that automatically comes to your minds when you suffer. Is God good? How can He have allowed this? And so on. So, that's where we're at. tonight. Here's the text, verse 16 and following. Do not be deceived my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. We'll come back to this as we move through it. But the question we are entertaining here tonight is how do we know that God is good? What we just read is James' answer to that question. So let's look at it in earnest and answer that question. How do we know that God is good? There's two reasons that James sets forth. And the first one is this. We know God is good because God gives us good gifts. God gives us good gifts. Now, let's go back to our text. Before we do that, what we're gonna see in the text when we go to it here at this point is this. He not only gives us good gifts, but he gives us good gifts all the time. He always gives. God doesn't withhold from us his blessings at all unless we turn away from him and he must discipline us. He is a continual giver of good gifts. And so we see this in verse 17. Verse 16, he's dealing with that whole issue about the fact that sometimes we teeter on the edge of whether or not we're going to determine that maybe God's not good. And he said, don't be deceived, don't think that way. because here's the reality. He says, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. But what I want to draw your attention to is the first description of that gift in the first three words of verse 17, every good gift. And when he uses the word gift here in the early part of verse 12, it is a little different than the way he uses it a little bit later over here. when he mentions perfect gift. But when he uses it the first time, he is describing the act of giving. He uses a particular Greek word, translated gift, which means the act of giving. The moment that it's given, the requirement, the characteristics of a good gift is that it is given. He's referring to God's character as a giver. He is a giver who gives good gifts. And then he says this, a little bit later after, and we'll come back to the white here, but a little bit later in the highlighted section, he says, every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from the father of lights. The father of lights was a Jewish expression that they used rather than saying Elohim or one of God's names. They avoided doing that. And the rabbis would use this designation, Father of Light. In other words, you look up into the sky at night, or even in the daytime, you see the heavenly bodies that God created. He's a creator of the whole universe, is the meaning of the expression. And so that Father, the only Father, the creator, the God that we know and worship, He gives gifts, and those gifts come down from Him. Now, the comes down is present tense, meaning it comes and it comes and it comes and it comes. That's the way the tense of that verb is used in the original. It's saying God is a continual giver of good gifts. He always gives. I've always marveled at the song that we'll soon be singing at Christmastime, The Twelve Days of Christmas. I never particularly liked the song because I didn't understand it. I mean, I just liked it to analyze things. I never really, I think those are some pretty weird gifts when you get right down to it, you know? You think about it. Gifts we would never give anybody. So that's always puzzled me. But it is kind of amazing. How would it be that if you had Christmas 12 days every year? Well, besides at our age, it would just pretty well do us in to do that. The thought's nice that maybe we would get Christmas gifts from people we love every day for 12 days. We would be inundated with gifts. Well, that process of giving over time is exactly what God does, only it's not over 12 days, it's over 365 days. Every good gift continually comes down from the Father of Lights. He is a giver of good gifts. He always gives. He gives continually. What are these gifts? Well, let's talk about some things. How about just natural blessings? He's called the Father of Lights. How about sunlight? We wouldn't be here if the sun didn't shine every day, would we? We wouldn't survive. very important. Plants wouldn't grow. Nothing would survive without sunlight. The Father of Lights provided that great light which he created. So there are natural things in creation. I've never been very good probably because I've never been overly interested in growing things. Every time I've tried to grow anything, it's just been a disaster. I've tried gardening. I've tried just growing tomato plants. It doesn't matter. Whatever it is I try to grow, some of you are probably very adept at that. My family was. My father and mother was. But it just never took with me. But it's still amazing to me how God provides for us through those means. Now, in our modern day age, we just go to the grocery store because somebody else mainly does that for us. But that comes from God, the natural blessings of creation. Then there's answered prayers. Answered prayers are gifts. We don't deserve to have our prayers answered. You can get right down to it. But he's, by his grace, redeemed us and he wants to answer our prayers. He invites us to let our requests be made known to him. And James himself, even later on in this same letter, says that we have not because we ask not. That's how much he wants to answer our prayers. Those are gifts. And then there are people. Think about it. We have gifts we enjoy every day that may be our spouse, our children, our brothers and sisters, our brothers and sisters in the Lord. These people are gifts that God has placed into our life. And then there are just kind interventions that God, you know, God just causes something to fall in place or work out in our life. It's a blessing. a promotion we didn't expect, a job we didn't think we'd ever have, provision of finances when we didn't think we were going to make it. There's all kinds of things, things we don't even think to pray about. Jesus tells us that God knows what we need even before we know, even before we understand it, or even before we ask for it. All these things are blessings. He always gives. But here's the thing, he not only gives all the time, but he always gives perfect gifts. We don't always give perfect gifts, do we? In fact, if there was some sort of a recognition for people that gave lousy gifts, I would probably be included at the top. This goes back to my first Christmas with my lovely wife of 49 years. At that early stage of our relationship when she was expecting something romantic, I gave her a mixer. I might have been a little selfish in giving that, because we were planning on getting married, so I wanted to make sure she, you know, was in the kitchen. So yeah, I'd probably be on the Hall of Fame of bad gift givers, if there is such a thing. But God always gives perfect gifts. You always hear, you know, sometimes you open up a gift, birthday, Christmas, and oh, that's a perfect gift. We might stretch the truth a little bit there, be careful. But sometimes we get a gift that we feel that way. It's a perfect gift. Just what we needed. That's the kind of gift God gives us. The word perfect here means complete. I mean, the gifts he gives is absolutely completely capable of meeting whatever need that he gives it to us to meet. It's a perfect gift. So how do we know that God is good? Reason number one. He gives good gifts. We've given you a whole list of different types of gifts. We can spend a lot of time on that. He gives all the time, never stops. He wants to do this. He performs this in our life. Our problem is we just don't recognize it. We start taking him for granted, right? I'm so glad that he allowed us to see beautiful sunsets, the beautiful colors right before dusk. It always makes me think that of all the great masterpieces that have been painted through history, they can't compare to what God put in the sky for us to watch over and over and over again. He gives good gifts. the perfect gift, the completely able gift, the necessary thing we need, the perfect gift is from above, it's from God. So how do we know God is good? He gives us good gifts, and then secondly, He has given us the ultimate gift, the ultimate gift. You probably know what I'm referring to. He's given us the ultimate gift. He chose to save us. Please don't stumble over the word chose here. I'm not saying he chose who to save. He chose to save those who would believe. That's the way we need to look at this. He chose to save us. So we look at verse 18, of his own will, he brought us forth. That means God chose to do what was necessary that we would have eternal life. Of his own will, he brought us forth, meaning he brought us to himself. in the sense that he provided the basis of our salvation, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit convinced us. We still had to choose, but God did what was necessary when he chose us, and so we would say it this way. He chose to save us, and because he chose to save us, he provided the means by which we are saved. That is the Lord Jesus Christ and his substitutionary death. A lady by the name of Denise Banderman was attending Hannibal LaGrange College in Missouri back in 2002. It was the day of final exams in one particular class. She came in, sat down, she said, everybody in the room was doing last minute cramming. Then the professor entered, and he began to review some of the principles that were going to be on the test. And he mentioned some things that no one seemed to recall him mentioning in class. And when they questioned him, he said, well, it's in your textbook, and you're responsible for all the content on the final exam. So they were pretty bummed out at that point. Shortly after he passed out the test, He gave a test to all the students. The students picked up their pens, they turned the test over, and in Dedeece's own words, she said, I couldn't believe it. To my astonishment, every answer on the test was filled in. My name was even written on the top in red ink. A lot of muttering and stirring and talking under their breath going on. Kind of moved through the classroom as each student turned over their test and found exactly the same thing. All the answers filled in, their name on the test. All the answers were correct. In fact, the professor then said, all the answers on your test are correct. You will receive an A on the final exam. He went on to explain the reason you pass the test is because the creator of the test took it for you. All the work you did in preparation for this test did not help you get the A. That's exactly what God did. He did all the work. Now, the illustration makes a point. In the description here that Denise made, there was nothing that the students did except receive what the professor gave them, right? Well, when it comes to salvation, God has made it possible for every living human being in this world, He's made it possible for every human being from the beginning of creation till this moment in time, He made it possible for every one of us to be saved because He provided the work that could be done, the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We can't do any work. We can't earn our salvation. Now, we do have the condition that he put upon whether or not it's going to be counted to us or given to us. I'm trying to think of the biblical word here, reckoned. It's not it, but anyway, we get the benefits only through faith. By grace are we saved through faith and not of ourselves, not of works. lest every man should boast. But he's made it possible. All we have to do is choose to believe it's possible, to believe that he is who he says he is, and he's done what he's done for us. And through faith, we have the benefit. So, saving us, then, captured in this thought here by his own will brought us forth by the word of truth. There's the condition. Now he doesn't say through faith like you find in Ephesians 2.8. But Paul explains in the book of Romans, I think it's chapter 10, that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So faith is a response to hearing the truth of the gospel. the good news of what Christ has done and believing it. So James is just not going into all the details here. He just says it happened by the word of truth. The gospel message had to come and that's what we believe. That's the point of belief for hopefully when we hear that and we don't reject it. And then he says this in John 3, 16, which is exactly what James is talking about here. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. God chose to love us. God chose to provide for us through his Son. Our response of belief then guarantees the benefit of that we will not perish but have everlasting life. everlasting life. By the way, look at this. God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son. That's the ultimate good gift. The ultimate perfect gift. Number three, or C I should say, under point two, saving us then is the ultimate proof of God's goodness. The ultimate proof of his goodness. What can we say? that could prove it any more than that. So all of us, all the time, we have these proofs that is before us. It's when we allow our minds to wander from the truth, when we allow ourselves to focus on our problems, our trials, our difficulty, our suffering, to the point that we cannot entertain the thought that God is being good to us, that we must be drawn back to the word of God. Remember what Betsy had to say to Corey, God has not forgotten us. Remember his word. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. So was God good to Corey? Yes. She got out of the concentration camp. She wanted him to carry his message around the world. But was God good to Betsy who died in that same concentration camp? What's our perspective? God was good to Betsy too. He's good in a different way.