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James 1:17–18 Pastor Justin Peters December 29, 2024 https://laurelbiblechurch.net/
So as we've been going through James chapter 1, it has been primarily dealing with trials, suffering, and temptation. And in our last time together, my last time that I preached, we looked at the previous three verses and we saw how we are enticed by our own lust and driven away from God through the enticement of our sin and that is a responsibility that we and we alone bear.
And this morning we're going to focus on verses 17 through 18. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.
In the exercise of His will, He brought us forth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures. Verses 17 through 18 serve as a capstone of sorts to this unit that deals with trials, temptations, and our responses to them.
The emphasis of this section is on the goodness of God. The goodness of God. First in a general way in verse 17 and then verse 18 in a very specific way, in an individual manner, we will see that God is solely responsible for our regeneration.
And don't miss the contrast. We are solely responsible for being dragged down by our own lusts and greed into sin. We see that in verses 13 and 14. God is solely responsible for our redemption. So let us go to the text.
Verse 17. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. This first phrase, every good thing given and every perfect gift, in the Greek, in the original language, has a bit of a cadence and a rhythm to it which would have served to implant this phrase into the minds of His readers.
It's kind of a theological earworm, if you will. It would have stuck with them, and undoubtedly that was the effect of this rhythm and cadence that this phrase has. And this first phrase, every good thing given, denotes the act of giving itself and also the nature of the one who does the giving, specifically the goodness of God.
Now we hear all the time that God is good. Even warm, fuzzy preachers will say that, that God is good. We hear this a lot. But don't let that seemingly simple truth escape you. It is actually a very profound truth.
You see, only God is good. Remember in Mark chapter 10, the rich young ruler ran up to Jesus, knelt down before Him, and he said, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus replied to him, He said, Why do you call me good?
No one is good except whom?
God.
Now Jesus was not correcting him. Please understand, Jesus was leading him. Jesus was not calling into question His own goodness, saying that only God is good and I'm not, so why do you call me that? No, Jesus was leading him.
He was basically saying to this rich young ruler, as we refer to Him, You call me good, but why? Do you understand the implication of what you're saying when you say that? That I am good because I am God.
Jesus was leading him because only God is good. God's goodness, His character, is that of absolute and total moral perfection. He is not only good, He is perfectly good. Now the goodness of God is one of God's most misunderstood attributes.
Almost everyone has this kind of general knowledge that God is good in some kind of ephemeral sense. And a lot of people, the vast majority of people, when you ask them, One day when you die, where will you go?
Most people will say, Well, I think I'm going to go to heaven. Well, why do you think that? Well, because I'm a good person and God is good. Yeah, I may have done a few things wrong, but God is a good God, and so He's going to let me into heaven.
But that is a profound misunderstanding of the goodness of God. You see, the goodness of God is actually one of His more terrifying attributes. It is comforting to us as believers, but for the unbelievers it should terrify them.
Because, you see, God is good, intrinsically good, perfectly good by His character and His nature. And God is the ultimate good judge. And just like any good judge, God must punish sin. If He did not punish sin, then He would not be good.
If we saw a judge who let a murderer or a rapist go scot-free, would we say, Now that's a good judge? No, of course not. That would be a horrible judge, right? A good judge must punish crime. God is the ultimate good judge, and because He is good, He must punish sin.
We have all undoubtedly in the last several weeks probably recoiled as we have seen Joe Biden pardon some horrific people. Even people who have done unspeakable things to children, Joe Biden has pardoned them.
Is that good? No. That's horrific. If Joe Biden had any sense of goodness, he would leave those people under the sentences that they had, not commute them or even pardon them. A good judge must punish crime.
God is the ultimate good judge, and because He is good, dear ones, He must punish sin. And so what a lot of people are counting on getting them off the hook one day, the goodness of God will be actually the very thing that condemns them.
God is good, but He is wholly good. Every good thing given reflects the goodness of God. And then James says,. And every perfect gift. So not only is the giver good, but that which he gives is also good.
Every good gift, every physical gift, gifts of life, gifts of food, enjoying a nice delicious meal or seeing a sunset or taking a walk in the woods, having health, having shelter over our heads, enjoying friendship.
These are all good physical gifts that God gives not only to the saved, but actually also to the unsaved as well. These are what we sometimes refer to as common graces. Even lost people can enjoy a good meal or a walk in the woods or a sunset, at least to some extent.
They can't appreciate it like we do, of course. But God gives these things to the saved and to the unsaved, common graces. Physical gifts from God are good. And not only the physical gifts, but the spiritual gifts.
And God gives not only good physical gifts, but He gives every spiritual blessing to us. Every perfect gift in a spiritual sense. Every perfect gift. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3 says this, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
Every spiritual blessing. Sometimes you may hear Charismatics ask you this question. They'll say, oh brother, oh sister, have you got the second blessing? Meaning have you gotten the baptism in the Holy Ghost where you supposedly are supposed to speak in tongues?
That's not the right understanding of that. But have you got the second blessing? Well yeah, because Ephesians 1 verse 3 says that I've been given every spiritual blessing. So yeah, I guess I've got the second blessing and the third and the fourth and the twelfth and the 576th blessing.
Every spiritual blessing has been given to us in the riches of Christ Jesus our Lord. God is the ultimate good gift giver. And He has given us every physical blessing and every spiritual blessing in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And these gifts, James says, come down from the Father of lights. They come down. This verb in the Greek, it is the present active indicative. Now I know that just warms your heart and blesses your soul.
But what that means is that these good gifts that come down from God come down continually. Every good gift originates in heaven, is designed in heaven, and then continually descends in an unbroken and unceasing stream from heaven.
God is not only good, He is continually good. And He is constantly showering down upon us every good and perfect gift. Every second of every day, God is showering down upon us His good gifts as an expression of His character and His nature.
There is never a time when God is not giving us good gifts. And these good gifts come down from the Father of lights. The Father of lights. The only place in the scripture where you will find this phrase or this moniker for God, the Father of lights, is only here in James chapter 1.
In the Father of lights, these lights undoubtedly refer to the celestial bodies. The sun, the moon, the stars, and the planets. Psalm 19 says, Now if you were to go outside on a clear night and just look up in the sky, from what I have said, or research, they say that on a clear night, the human eye can see between 1 ,500 and 2 ,000 stars just with the naked eye, depending on how dark it is, you know, the stage of the moon, and how good your eyesight is, I suppose.
So with our naked eyes, about 1 ,500 to 2 ,000 stars. God is the Father of these lights. But what the biblical writers could not have known is that the stars that we see with our naked eyes on a clear night is a tiny, tiny fraction of what is truly out there.
You see, the biblical writers didn't know that in addition to these 1 ,500 to 2 ,000 stars, there are over 100 billion stars just in our own galaxy. How many galaxies are there? We've counted about two trillion, and we're just getting started.
We have no idea how many galaxies there are. We have no idea how many stars there are. As best we can tell from what we've been able to count so far, there are about 200 billion trillion stars in what we have observed in the universe thus far.
One trillion multiplied 200 billion times. Gives a little bit of a new meaning to the Father of lights, doesn't it? Father in scripture often denotes God as the creator. Job 38, 28, does rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew? And so James uses this reference to creation to affirm God's power not only to create but also to sustain his own creation. Psalm 8, verses 4 through 6, the psalmist writes,.
When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have established, what is man that you remember him and the son of man that you care for him? Imagine David looking up at the stars on a clear night, and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he writes this text.
He marvels at the beauty of the skies, the stars that he can see, and then he says, What is man that you remember him and the son of man that you care for him, this great God? And David had no idea what truly lies out there in the enormity of our universe.
Indeed, what is man? What is man that God remembers us? This good God, this good giver of perfect gifts remembers us. And then James says,. With whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. Literally in the Greek, this phrase says,.
Variation due to a shadow of turning. Variation due to a shadow of turning. That's not really phraseology with which we are familiar. It doesn't exactly kind of roll off the tongue. But these two Greek words, variation and turning, they often refer to astronomical phenomenon.
In the reference just before, the Father of Lights undoubtedly makes certain that this is exactly what James had in mind. The variation of the lights, the orderly movement of the moon, the planets, and the stars, they move, but they move in an orderly fashion.
It is not random. And James says, No shadow of turning, no shadow due to change. As the earth and the moon and the stars move in their appointed orbits, we can see the interplay of light and shadows. We can see solar and lunar eclipses.
We can see the moon in its various stages, a full moon, a new moon, a quarter moon, half moon. We see this interplay of light and shadows on the heavenly bodies. I've even looked through a telescope once in Colorado.
A friend of mine has a really big, big expensive kind of telescope. He's an astrophysicist. And I could see Jupiter. We zoomed in on Jupiter. You could see the red spot, and I could actually see some of Jupiter's moons.
One of them was moving across the face of Jupiter as it faced us. And I could see the shadow of this moon on the surface of Jupiter. And it slowly would move across the surface of that giant gas planet.
But with God, you see, there is no shadow of turning at all. In other words, there is no darkness in God, and there is no change with God. There is no change. We constantly change. We change all the time.
Our likes change as we grow up. Our preferences change. Our tastes change. We change all the time. Physically, we change. I am not physically exactly the same as I was this morning when I got up. Right now, I am a little bit different physically than I was when I got up this morning.
I ate breakfast, and I drank some V8 energy drink. And I am a little bit heavier now than I was when I first got up this morning. I have had skin cells to divide and slough off, and I have probably lost some hairs.
I am a little bit different than I was even when I got up this morning. Not so with God. God never changes. He is immutable. One of God's incommunicable attributes. In other words, this is one of God's attributes that He alone possesses.
Malachi 3, verse 6, I, the Lord, do not change. God not only will not change, but He cannot change. God cannot change. There is no variation or shadow of turning with God. There is nothing that can be added to God so that He becomes better.
There is nothing that can be taken away from God so that He somehow becomes worse. He does not change. He is omniscient. And so there can be no new information brought to His attention. God has no plan B.
What God decrees stands. God has no mood swings. He doesn't wake up on the wrong side of the bed, as it were, in the mornings. He has no mood swings. He does not change. Nothing affects Him. Now, as we think of the immutability of God, that He does not change, I want to address quickly a couple of areas in which there is confusion dealing with the unchangeableness of God.
One is with the incarnation, Christology. Hebrews 13, verse 8, referring to Jesus, says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And some people say, well, how can that be since Jesus took on a human body?
God the Son has always existed from eternity past, always. He was not only not created, He is indeed the creator. All things were made through Him and by Him and for Him. Jesus is the creator. And so how can we say that Jesus did not change when He became a man in Bethlehem?
It seems like a change. It was not a change, though. You see, Jesus in His deific nature, in His godhood, has never changed. But when Jesus came to this earth, He took upon Himself a robe of human flesh.
He added to Himself a human nature. And so Jesus, in His incarnation, is the God-man, truly God, truly man, one person with two distinct natures. So His deific nature did not change. He simply took upon His deific nature a human nature.
One person, two natures. And those natures did not intermingle. So His deific nature never changed. The other area of confusion deals with the charismatic movement. In charismatics, we'll also go to Hebrews 13 .8.
Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And they will say, well, Jesus healed people in the New Testament. He gave the power to the apostles to heal people in the New Testament. And people in the New Testament had the gift of healing.
And so we should still have the gift of healing in the church today because He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Well, that's making a logical fallacy. Jesus does not change. His character and His nature does not change.
But the way in which God interacts with His people certainly has changed over the centuries, has it not? There are a lot of things that God did in the Old Testament that He is not doing today. God parted the Red Sea.
Have you ever seen a sea part? No. God made a bush light up on fire and yet was not consumed. Have you ever seen that? You may have seen a bush on fire, but it was consumed. God made an axe head float.
Have you ever seen a floating axe head? God made a donkey talk. Have you ever seen a talking donkey? I certainly hope not. So God does not change, but the way in which He interacts with His creation certainly has changed.
And so to use the logic of charismatics, then we might also ask the question, well, if Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever, and God does not change, then why aren't we still sacrificing animals today?
People in the Old Testament sacrificed animals by the millions. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever, so should we still be doing it today? No, of course not.
Why?
Because the way in which God has interacted with us, His creation, has changed. And God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be the once-for-all sacrifice, putting away to that which went before. So in His character, in His nature, Jesus does not change.
And the unchangeableness of Christ should give comfort to us as believers, and it should terrify those who are lost. We as believers are comforted by the unchanging provision, the unchanging love and mercy of God.
We are comforted by the fact that His eye is on the sparrow, and so it is certainly on us. The immutability of God is a comfort to us as believers. However, if you are outside of Christ, the unchangeableness of God should terrify you.
Lost people should be terrified that the same fiery wrath which consumed the prophets of Baal, the same wrath that slew Nadab and Abihu, the same wrath of God that rained down fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and the same wrath of God that flooded the earth and killed every person on the planet except for eight people, that same wrath burns against them and their sins.
God does not forget the sins of the wicked. He is unchanging. His memory is not short. My friend, if you are outside of Christ this morning, that sin that you may have committed 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 80, and if you live to be old enough, maybe even 90 years ago, that sin that you committed even 90 years ago is just as fresh on God's mind right now as if you had committed it 90 seconds ago.
Time does not diminish His anger. There are no statutes of limitations on sin. His wrath will be poured out for every sin that has ever been committed against Him. Psalm chapter 7, verses 11 through 12 says this, God is a righteous judge and a God who has indignation every day.
If a man does not repent, he will sharpen his sword. He has bent his bow and made it ready. Think of that imagery for a moment. If a man does not repent, if you do not repent before God, the wrath of God's bow is bent back and made ready.
That is a terrifying image, is it not? Rick Warren, the man who many have called America's pastor, sadly, once said, and I quote, he said this to lost people, by the way, God is not angry with you. If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.
What a horrible thing to say to lost people. Dear friends, if you have not repented of your sin, God does not have you on His refrigerator. He has you in His crosshairs. God is unchanging. His memory does not fade.
And the contrast between being and becoming, the contrast between being as God is and becoming as we do is the contrast between the Creator and us, His created. God is simply being. He has always been, is now, and He always will be.
You see, God is being, but we are becoming. We are constantly changing. And as Christians, we should be changing in the sense that we should be growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God is being. We are becoming. The great preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon said this, and I quote, God writes with a pen that never blots, speaks with a tongue that never slips, and acts with a hand that never fails.
Dear friends, knowing these things about God, why would anything evil have an attraction for us as believers? God is so good, and His good gifts constantly flow down to us. Why, when we should be laying up incorruptible treasures in heaven, why would we ever be swayed by the cubic zirconia and the costumed jewelry and junk of this world?
God is so magnificent. Why would we be swayed by something that is evil? He is so good, so kind, so gentle, so patient, so faithful to us, so unchangeable. Why would we be swayed by the things of this world?
Verse 18, James says, In the exercise of His will, He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures. The immutability of God, in contrast with the mutability, the changing of everything else, sets the stage for what James now deals with here in verse 18, specifically the authorship of our regeneration, the new birth.
And this touches on one of the great debates within Christianity. Who exactly is responsible for the new birth? Us or God? Created or creator? And this is oversimplified, but for our purposes here, basically there are two different camps, two different schools of thought.
One is Arminianism. That is a school of thought named after a guy named Jacob Arminius. So you have, if you hear that term, Arminians or Arminianism, that's one school of camp. The other school of camp is a school of thought is referred to as Calvinism, named after John Calvin.
Now, John Calvin himself would not have called himself a Calvinist. He didn't even like that term, but it's a term that kind of stuck, and so we got to deal with it. So Arminianism or Calvinism. Now, where do these two camps agree?
They do have some areas of agreement. They both agree, for example, on the deity of Christ, the sinless life of Christ, death on the cross and bodily resurrection. They diverge, however, from that point forward.
And the Arminian camp believes that man's will is completely free to choose or not choose Christ, and God does not put his anthropomorphic thumb on the scale, if you will, to influence us one way or the other.
Our wills are completely free, and we can either choose Christ or not choose Christ. In other words, it's up to us. Calvinism, however, is that school of camp, school of theology, that believes that our salvation has been secured from eternity past.
You see, we as Christians were always sheep. We have always been sheep. We were just lost sheep until the good shepherd called us to himself. So we, in the Calvinistic frame of thought, we do not come to Christ on our own.
We do not choose Christ. No, because our will is in bondage to sin. Rather, Christ must choose us. He chooses us. He summons us to himself. He makes us alive. And it is into the Calvinistic ring that I and Rob throw our hats.
Now, a lot of people say, well, Calvinists are arrogant. It's a very arrogant thing to say that God chooses you and not others. No, dear ones, not at all. You see, in the Arminian camp, Arminians have to come to this truth.
They have to say, well, the reason, if you're an Arminian, well, the reason I'm saved and that wino out there under the bridge is not is because I'm smarter. I had the good sense to choose Christ, and he didn't.
I'm smarter than you are. I'm wiser than you are because I chose on my own free will to come to Christ, and you did not. So it is we who are really smarter than others, we who are more clever, and I would submit to you that it is that position that is the arrogant position.
But in the Calvinistic camp, we understand that salvation is of God, from God, initiated by God, wrought by God, and maintained by God. Notice what James says. In the exercise of whose will?
His will.
In the exercise of his will, the will of the Father of lights, it is the exercise of his will that he chooses us. It is emphatic. In fact, this phrase, in the exercise of his will, he, there's an extra pronoun in the Greek.
It would be like it's emphatic. In other words, it would be something like this. Well, who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?
Justin, he did it.
It's not just Justin did it. You see the emphasis with the extra pronoun?
James is being emphatic here. In the exercise of his will, he brought us forth. You see, dear friends, salvation, this is God's doing. This is not a decision that we make on our own. Our salvation is a direct result of God's good purpose in his eternal decree.
No one influenced him to act on our behalf. And don't miss the contrast here. Look with me in verses 14 and 15. I preached on these verses the last time. James says, but each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by whose lust?
His own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin. When sin is fully matured, it brings forth death. Don't miss the contrast. Man's desire brings forth what?
Death.
God's desire brings forth eternal life. This word for bring forth, apacheo, it's the same word in verse 18 as in verse 15. Man's desire brings forth death. God's desire, God's will brings forth salvation and life.
Think of a few biblical examples with me for a moment. Remember when early in Jesus' ministry in Matthew chapter 4, Jesus was walking along and he saw Simon and Andrew, remember that? And he said, come follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
What were they doing at the time? They were fishermen. They were casting their nets into the sea. And this rando guy walks up and he looks at him and he says, come follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
And they drop what they're doing and they follow Christ. Who does that? I mean, if you were working on something at your job and your livelihood and some rando guy walks up to you and says, come follow me, would you drop what you're doing and just go follow some guy you've never met before?
Who does that? This is sovereign grace. Remember Saul in Acts chapter 9, Saul of Tarsus, Pharisee of Pharisees, was still breathing threats against Christians, having them arrested, bound men and women alike, overseeing their execution if not taking part in them himself.
And then one day he's walking along the road to Damascus and a light out of nowhere shone and it knocked him to the ground and he heard this voice, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting.
Me?
And then Jesus goes on to say, Saul is a chosen instrument of mine. Don't miss that. He is a chosen instrument of mine. I will show him how much he must suffer for my namesake. How's that for an invitation to come to Christ?
I'll show you how much you must suffer. And Saul was converted. Did Saul say a sinner's prayer? Did it take 15 stanzas of just as I am and dimmed lights and repetitive music and just the right atmosphere to get Saul to come to Christ?
No.
Jesus is a sovereign Savior. Jesus literally knocked him to the ground and saved him. And then a few chapters later in Acts chapter 16, by this time Saul, now known by his Greek name, Paul. Saul didn't change his name by the way.
Paul is just the Greek pronunciation of Saul. He didn't really change his name. But Paul, the apostle Paul is preaching the gospel and he runs into a woman named Lydia in Acts chapter 16. And the text says that God opened Lydia's heart to the things that Paul was saying.
Did Lydia open her own heart?
Why not? Because she couldn't. Her heart was a heart of stone. God opened her heart to receive the things that Paul was saying. And with the conversion of Lydia, the gospel literally jumped a continent into the continent of Europe and began to spread.
John chapter 1 verses 12 through 13, John is speaking of the children of God and he says, children of God are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. As Christians, you and I were born again, not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, not of our will, but of the will of God.
God is a sovereign savior. I've heard so many people say, oh, well, Calvinism, the doctrine of election, it kills evangelism. No, no, no, it does not. It does not kill evangelism. Rightly understood, the doctrine of God's sovereignty and salvation infuses our evangelism with confidence, with fervor, with enthusiasm.
Because I know as an evangelist, it's not my job to save anybody. I'm just the delivery boy. It's God's job to save. And when you look at church history, the greatest evangelists that have ever lived, I think of Charles Spurgeon, I think of George Whitfield, I think of Jonathan Edwards, these men were devoted Calvinists.
Tell me again how Calvinism kills evangelism?
Really?
Not at all. Here's what is arrogant, dear ones. Not those who believe in God's sovereign salvation. Here's what is arrogant. To be in a place where you say, yes, I understand that Jesus took the mockings.
He took the scourging. He took the pulling of his beard. He took the nails. He took the crown of thorns. And he even took the wrath of God. But Jesus, I helped. I helped you. I chose you, Jesus, of my own free will.
I deserve some credit in this new birth thing too, Jesus. Dear friends, I would submit to you that it is that that is the arrogant position. Dear ones, it has been said that the only thing that you and I contribute to our salvation is the sin that made it necessary in the first place.
Rightly understood, Calvinism, the doctrine of God's sovereignty in salvation, is the most humbling doctrine that there is because it strips from us everything that we think we may have contributed. It strips it away from us.
All the glory, all the credit is stripped from us and it is given to the only one to whom it belongs, God. God must do it because we cannot. The rhetorical question is asked in Jeremiah 13, can the Ethiopian change his skin or can the leopard change his spots?
Of course, the answer is no. The Ethiopian cannot change his skin. The leopard cannot change his spots. But God can. And then James says, he brought us forth by the word of truth. The word of truth. What is this word of truth?
The word of truth is quite simply the gospel. Colossians 1, verse 5, Paul reminds his readers that, quote, the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel.
This phrase, the word of truth, occurs here and three other times in the New Testament, so a total of four, and in all four cases, the word of truth refers to salvation, the gospel. The gospel is the instrument through which God brings the dead to life, through which he calls his lost sheep to himself.
Paul says in Romans 1, 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also to the Greek. What is the power of God? The gospel is.
That is the power of God. The power of God is not found in seeker-sensitive church services. You see these churches that are market-driven, seeker-friendly, you've heard that term, and their churches look like, quite honestly, a three-ring circus, and they have all the lights and the fog machines, and they've got the monstrously enormous Christmas pageants and Santas flying around everywhere and all this kind of nonsense, and they think, oh, that'll win the lost.
No, it won't.
Only the gospel will win the lost. What is the power of God? The gospel is the power of God, not a production, not signs and wonders, the gospel. If you dilute the gospel, you dim the light by which men must be saved.
And then James says, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among his creatures. First fruits was an agricultural term. It referred to the first and usually the best part of the harvest. The first fruits were usually a pretty good indication of what the rest of the harvest would look like.
And if you recall from our first sermon and the introductory sermon, and it's okay if you don't, it's been a long time, James is the first book of the New Testament to be written, the earliest book in the New Testament, written about 50 AD.
And so James readers would have been some of the very earliest Christians. These early believers were the first fruits or the earnest, if you will, of all those who would be brought to saving faith through the word of truth, the gospel.
These were the first believers. You might recall in John 17, as Jesus is praying what we refer to as the high priestly prayer, it's the longest recorded prayer that we have of Christ that he prayed shortly before his crucifixion.
In John 17, Jesus said this, I do not ask on behalf of these alone, referring to his disciples. I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for all those who will also believe through their word. And dear ones, you and I are included in that.
All of those who would believe in the years coming up, in almost 2 ,000 years since then, who will believe through their word, through their testimony, the testimony of the gospel, we are included in that.
This is the divine purpose of salvation. Ultimately, so God, Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, can call his lost sheep to himself in that in so doing, our salvation would result to the praise of the glory of his grace.
A phrase repeated four times in Ephesians chapter one. God saves us, and yes, we are the beneficiaries of his saving work. The wrath of God has been removed, the penalty of our sins has been removed, and we benefit from that eternally.
But ultimately, our salvation, the purpose of it, is to the praise of the glory of his grace. So as I conclude, dear ones, to whom would you rather entrust your eternal destiny? To yourself? When the Bible says that apart from Christ, you and I are dead in our trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2.
When the Bible says that you and I, apart from Christ, are evil from our mother's womb, Psalm chapter 51. When the Bible says that our hearts are deceitfully wicked above all things, Jeremiah chapter 17.
When the Bible says that apart from Christ, we love the darkness and we hate the light, John chapter 3. When the Bible says that apart from Christ, we suppress the truth and unrighteousness, it's not that we don't know the truth, it's that we suppress it.
And when the Bible says that apart from Christ, there is none who seeks after God, Romans chapter 3. That paints a pretty bleak picture, does it not? Apart from Christ, you and I are dead in trespasses and sins.
We are evil from our mother's womb. Our hearts are deceitful above all things, desperately wicked. We love the darkness. We hate the light. We suppress the truth. We are not seeking after God. And to top it all off, the cherry on top, Romans chapter 5, says we are God's enemies.
I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound very hopeful. I don't want to trust my salvation to myself when I am in that place. Or, would you rather trust your eternal destiny to a God who is all-knowing, who is all-loving, who is all-merciful, who is all-holy, who is all-just and righteous?
Dear ones, it is with Him that I want to trust my salvation, not myself. Maybe this morning you are carrying the burden of unforgiven sin. Maybe you're here this morning and you have committed some heinous sin that is eating away at your conscience.
You don't know that you've been forgiven. I want to implore you to come to Christ. God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to this earth to make a way for you to be forgiven. Jesus came to this earth, truly God, truly man.
And Jesus willingly gave His life on the cross. His life was not taken, He gave it. And on the cross, the sins of His people were imputed to Him, were counted to Him. And God treated His own Son as though He were a sinner, even though He was not.
But He took upon Himself the due penalty of our sin. And the full, undiluted fury of the wrath of God was poured out on His Son. And Christ held that wrath back like a giant dam holding back a lake of wrath.
And Christ drank in every last drop of God's wrath on our behalf. Died on the cross three days later, bodily raised from the dead, proving Himself to be who He said He was, God in human flesh. And if you will come to Christ empty-handed, trusting not in yourself, but trusting in Him, seeking not only a Savior from hell, but seeking a Savior from sin itself, He will save you.
You will find Christ to be a kind, merciful, forgiving, loving Savior. Come to Him. Jesus says, the one who comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out. He will save you. He'll take out that heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh with new desires, new affections.
And the fear that you have of death, the burden that you feel of your sin, that will all be removed, taken away. And if you come to Christ, there will now therefore be no condemnation for you at all. Romans 8 -1, no condemnation.
He will make you alive. And Christ is our reward.
