What kind of gift giver are you? Do you spend a lot of time and put a lot of thought into searching for just the right gift for someone?
Or maybe you're someone who has a collection of all-purpose gifts you keep on hand that you can give any time. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg talks to us about the greatest gift giver of all time. Our Scripture reading this morning comes from the New Testament, from the letter of James, James chapter 1, and we'll read from verse 1. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations, consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.
Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault and that will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord.
He's a double-minded man, unstable in all he does. The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position, but the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant, its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed.
In the same way, the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business. Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he's dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created. Thanks be to God for his word. We began our service by reading in unison from the 145th Psalm, part of which read as follows, The LORD is good to all, he has compassion on all he has made.
One generation will command your works to another. They will celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness. Now we take this morning as our text the seventeenth and eighteenth verse of James chapter 1. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
So both of these passages, one from the Old and one from the New Testament, affirm the vital truth of the goodness of God. The children that are here this morning may be tested when they get home—they should be—for anything that they may have learned as a result of having been here for this service. And when your grandmother or your Uncle Bill asks you, and, What did we learn this morning? you will be able to tell them, We learned about the goodness of God.
Or, if you like, We learned that God is good. I want to say that immediately, because some of you as adults need that little prompter yourself, and your wife may test you when you get back. I'm sure mine probably will. What was the sermon about this morning?
she may ask. And what the Bible affirms is that God is spontaneously good. Spontaneously good. And he overflows with generosity. And that overflowing generosity is a disposition unlike anything we as human beings know. Because it is a disposition to give to others without any mercenary motive—to give without the prospect of a return. It is a generosity that is not limited by what the recipients of that generosity deserve. And indeed, it is a generosity which consistently goes beyond what the recipients deserve. Now, James is a perfect one to be affirming this truth, because after all, he would have heard of Jesus' words to the people who were listening to him on that one occasion when he turns to them and he says, If you, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him?
And the argument, you see, is one of degrees. If you, even though you are as you are, understand the nature of generosity, then how much more will God the Father give good gifts to those who ask him? Now, during the past few days, many of us have enjoyed the generous expressions of hospitality that have been provided for us. And we have perhaps said out loud, or at least thought in our minds or observed as someone else made the observation in a question, as they looked perhaps at a very generous display of food and a wonderful prospect of a meal that was before us, somebody may well have said, And who do we have to thank for all of this?
It's almost an inevitable question, isn't it? Look at all of this amazing provision, who do we have to thank for all of this? And while the immediate answer may well be, Well, we have Mrs. X to thank or our grandmother or our aunt or our relative to thank, while that may be the immediate truth, ultimately, we have God to thank. Now, this is a vital truth that needs to be laid to our hearts. You will notice that James here warns his readers against thinking incorrectly about God. Don't be deceived, he says in verse 16. Do not be deceived. There's a warning there. It is possible for you to be thrown off course.
It is possible for you to think wrongly. One of the questions is, Where does this fulcrum point? If the phraseology of verse 16 is a fulcrum, is it referencing what he has just said about the nature of temptation which precedes it, or is it referencing what he says about the goodness of God which follows it? The NIV translators have tipped their hat in the latter direction, putting it at the beginning of a new paragraph there in the sixteenth verse. If you have a different translation, it may actually be following directly on from verse 15. For myself, given that that is the case, it would seem to my own simple mind that the warning, Do not be deceived, is a warning which points both back to what he has just said and forward to what he is now saying. All that we know of God, he says, establishes the fact that he is never the source of evil, which looks back the way to verse 15 and 14 and beyond, but he is always the source of everything good.
Which brings us to verses 17 and 18. Now in these two verses, which we're going to look at just briefly, James invites his readers to consider this truth, first of all, comprehensively, and then specifically. Comprehensively, specifically. That's the outline of our study.
First of all, looked at comprehensively. Every good and perfect gift is from above. Friday marked the beginning of the retail frenzy which leads up to Christmas. This is something that America has managed to champion and offer to the world. If you went on the BBC at all during the weekend, you'll have noticed that our cousins over there, tongue in cheek, had another good laugh at us all over here as a result of the great stumbling and bumbling that took place in the early hours of Friday morning as people careened into malls all across the nation, desperately keen to get whatever discount there possibly was.
And with a measure of disdain, they pointed out that these Americans, they said—and so us—are so crazy that even a couple of people got trampled in the crush. Well, of course, where are they dashing in there just to get the perfect gift for Uncle Freddy? Or where are they dashing in there because they can't resist a bargain? I don't know. But the retail frenzy has begun.
It's beginning to look a lot like. And off we've gone. And in those mad malaise of shoppers, you would have found people talking to one another, asking the requisite questions about the purchasing of gifts—four essential questions that are asked about the purchase of any gift.
There are probably more, but these are the best I can do for now. Is it a sensible gift? Is it a sincere gift? Is it a sufficient gift? Is it a suitable gift? Because the fact of the matter is, in our ability to give, we are not the ones who are providing good and perfect gifts, certainly never perfect and not always good.
And the reason is that we're flawed. So, you will find yourself very quickly on the receiving end of a dialogue, either with your roommate, if you're a couple of students living together, and you decided to go halfers on a gift for somebody, and back comes your friend who bought the t-shirt from Gap, and he or she takes it out and says, Do you think that he'll like this? And you said, Well, there's no way that that will fit him. And then he said, But I didn't know that he was XXL. And then you said, Well, that is a completely unsuitable gift.
If he was a little person, it would be fine, but he's a big person. Or, I can't believe that you bought Jeremy a chainsaw. Why would you buy a chainsaw for a fourteen-year-old boy? You are ridiculous.
Oh, says the husband, my dad got me a chainsaw when I was a boy, to which the wife replies, Yes, son, look at your fingers. This is a completely unsuitable gift. Or, what's wrong with just one teacup? It's a start, isn't it? Well, it may be a start, but it is completely insufficient. I'm not giving just one teacup. You can give one teacup if you like.
But that is an insufficient gift. And then finally, of course, the great nadir, the great end of it all. Oh, you choose something. Who cares? Then you know it's Christmas Eve. We finally reach the apex of our ability to show people our love and affection for them.
Just get something, they'll take it back in the sales in any case. Who even cares? Now, I mention that not for the light moment of humorous relief it provides, but because it is in direct contrast to the nature, character, and giving of God. You'll notice that his giving is entirely appropriate. He gives sensibly, sincerely, suitably, always, and all the time. The word that is translated perfect here in our verse, you will find also in verse 4, not translated as perfect but translated as mature. The sense in verse 17 is of that which reaches its mark or meets its objective. And what James is offering to his readers is this, an understanding of the fact that our need is the objective, and God's gift appropriately, sensibly, suitably, consistently meets its mark.
And the reason that this is so is because of the source of the gift itself. He is the Father of heavenly lights. He created the universe.
He created the stars and set them in their place. And he doesn't change. He's not fickle. He doesn't ebb and flow.
He's not reacting somehow or another to our diffidence or our unattractiveness in any way. No, he is spontaneous in his generosity. He is overflowing in his goodness, even in the dark days and even in the difficult days. If we will wait long enough, yes, sometimes, even until eternity, we will affirm then the absolute goodness of God. Says A. W. Pink, God cannot change for the better, for he is already perfect, and being perfect, he cannot change for the worse. The hymn writer puts it, We blossom and flourish as leaves on a tree, and wither and perish, but not changeth thee. Now, you see, the Father is even in contrast to his creation. Jesus contrasts a heavenly Father with an earthly Father. James contrasts the Creator with creation itself.
Everything that God has made, including the heavenly lights mentioned here, everything is subject to change. But God, he says, is unchanging in his character. That's verse 13. And he's unchanging in his gifts.
That's here in verse 17. In other words, there is no inconsistency in him at all. When we go to God as Father, we will never find him to be these four things. And this is not—these are not points that I'm going to work out.
These are four things if you want to write them down. We will never find him to be unaware. We cannot take God by surprise. He is omniscient. We will never find him to be unable. We will never find him unavailable.
And we will never find him unwilling. Now, we cannot say that always of our earthly Fathers, no matter how good a job they're doing. Loved ones, we need to routinely step back from it all and ask the question from Thanksgiving dinner, And who do I have to thank for all of this? The psalmist says, You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. What do atheists do at Thanksgiving? Atheism is folly. That's not to say that atheists aren't intelligent people. Because the folly of which the psalmist speaks when he says, The fool is dead in his heart, there is no God, is not the folly of an intellectual deficiency, but it is the folly of a moral perversity. But who do you thank?
Yourself? No, the psalmist is very clear there in Psalm 145. God is the Creator. God is the preserver of life. And therefore, he is the one we thank for everything. Every plate of turkey with stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet corn, sweet potato, cranberry, peas. The whole deal.
We thank God. Did you remember to? Did I? You see, we live in the barcode era, where Walmart and Target and great grocery stores are run by computer technology. If you live in a more rural community, and some of you do, where you actually plant potatoes and bring them up, where you see the produce come, or whether you fish and catch fish, you have an awareness of the fact that doesn't come by way of the barcode.
Because when we stand there, we recognize that every time that product is scanned, it is sending information all over creation, generating the restocking of shelves that we will never see with a product that one day will once again go in our basket. And it is possible for us in our pride and in our ingenuity, simply to say, you know, in the immediacy of things, we're brilliant. We are so terrific to think I did all that.
And may I say, not in a shy way. Oh, no. Every plate of turkey. Every glorious symphony. Every tuneful melody.
That's as a result of God's common grace. Maybe McCartney will one day discover God's special grace in Jesus. But for now, I hope somewhere along the journey of his life, he says, you know, I don't know where half of these tunes came from.
Of course, some of them are stolen. I was with Keith Getty a few weeks ago at Legacy Village, and it plays music to soften you up. I love it. And the music was playing, and I said to him, I said, here, youngster, because he's only about 30, I think, 29 or 30. I said, hey, there's a tune from the sixties. And he said, what's that?
And he was playing the song, and I'll never fall in love again. See? So I'm so good, I said, hey, you know, that was the so-and-so in the sixties. He said, no, no. I said, yes, it was.
How would you know? You were in a tub. I said, you were being walked around in a pail. No, he says, that is Rachmaninoff's second whatever. Well, I said, may it really? He said, yes. So he hauls me into Joseph somebody's bookshop, takes me up the stairs, gets Rachmaninoff's second thing, rips the cover off, it takes me down the stairs, sits me in the car, plugs it in, goes to the second movement. And what happened? I said, they ripped it off.
They stole the whole thing. Yes, he said, Philistine, if you had a modicum of a sensible background, you would know these things. But what united us was the fact of God's common grace expressed in a really good melody. Every good book, every glimpse of sunshine, every good night's sleep, every breath of life, every safe and happy landing, every friend's embrace, everything that sustains and enriches life is a divine gift. All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness. You're listening to Truth for Life and that is Alistair Begg with a message he's titled, The Goodness of God.
We'll hear the conclusion tomorrow. Well here we are midway through the month of November and the end of the year is not too far off and maybe you've started to think about year-end giving plans. If that's the case, would you consider keeping Truth for Life in mind? All of the teaching you hear on this program is made possible by your giving. Truth for Life is 100% listener funded.
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Of course if you'd prefer, you can mail your donation to Truth for Life at post office box 398000 Cleveland, Ohio 44139. And when you make a donation today, we want to say thank you by inviting you to request a book called Promises Made, Promises Kept. This is a family devotional for Christmas. As you and your family read through this book together, you'll enjoy seven daily readings that show us God's promise of a savior found in the Old Testament and then seven more stories in the New Testament that reveal how God fulfilled his promises in Jesus. You can start a new family tradition by reading Promises Made, Promises Kept together every Christmas. The devotional is yours when you request it as you donate to Truth for Life at truthforlife.org slash donate. Thanks for joining us today. Tomorrow we'll explore the ultimate good and perfect gift from God. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.
