Turn to James 1, and I would like to begin reading in verse 13.
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.
So James starts off in this verse by saying, “Let no one say…” There’s something he doesn’t want you thinking, saying, feeling. “Himself tempts no one, but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.”
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Now, brethren, let’s just let’s pray before we dive into this. Father, we’re thinking right now about how you’ve given to us financially. Lord, I pray that you would give us now just the ability to comprehend wonderful things out of your word and to hear. Give us ears to hear what the Spirit has to say to the churches. Lord, we ask it in Christ’s name. Amen.
Now smooth flow, well-developed thought. No, not with James. Not not. I like the way my mind operates. James. James seems disconnected to me. Verse 17 seems disconnected. “Every good gift, every perfect gift.” You see what he was just talking about? He was saying, “Don’t, don’t. When you’re tempted, don’t be saying that is God. That tempted me.” And then he comes over to say, “Every good gift, every perfect gift is from above.” Almost seems like disjointed. He’s jumping over to something else.
Verse 18, “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth…” I mean, if I’m honest, I find it difficult to find continuity. Now you might just say, “Well, he’s a random thoughts. He’s over here, he’s over here, he’s over there.” And perhaps, perhaps, maybe there’s more continuity here than first meets the eye. Perhaps, perhaps it goes like this.
I mean, one thought that occurred to me is how all of this fits together is, is the fact that, well, maybe verse 13 stresses what God is not the author of, while verse 17 stresses what God is the author of. And then you go to verse 18, he’s the source of everything good. And so he he hones in on everything good. He takes us to the greatest good in verse 18.
I mean, if you’re working backwards through this, you might say the source of man’s greatest good is the source of everything good (verse 17). And he can never be the source of evil (verse 13). Perhaps that’s how it fits together.
But I’ll tell you this. You can tell something in all of this. James is concerned with how we think about the Lord. That ought to jump out at you. He wants us to stop blaming God and start thanking God.
And I see blame in verse 13, don’t you? God’s response, “Hey, don’t say this.” I mean, some people do say it. And you know what? We say it more than we think. “Hey, look at the situation. God’s created me the way I am. God’s responsible for this. He made… Didn’t he make all these laws?”
I said it last time. “Didn’t he put that tree in the middle of the garden? Well, if God doesn’t want Adam and Eve to fall, why put that tree there? Why give us the laws that he gives us if he doesn’t want us to fall into the… I mean, he’s given us laws that are impossible to keep, and the circumstance is… I mean, God’s put me in the circle if he didn’t like me tempted. Can’t God prevent me from being tempted? Aren’t I supposed to pray? ‘Lead me not into temptation.’ Obviously God can not lead me into temptation. So if I get led into temptation, isn’t that him? Isn’t that his fault?”
And see, verse 16 checks us. “Don’t be deceived.” He is not the author of those things. In fact, don’t be deceived (verse 17), he’s not like that. You know what he’s like. You know what he’s like. He’s like the God that takes us from 1500 in the whole to 51 in the positive, with all our bills paid.
He is a giving God. And you see, the idea back in verse 13 is he’s a taking God. “Now. He just he does this. He takes away my joy and he takes away my freedom and he takes away…” He’s just a taker.
“Every good gift, every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
Brethren, do you know what? I really think it takes being thrown into hell for men to really recognize how much God gives them. I just sat at my desk and I’m thinking, “What is God given me?” I looked over and I saw a pair of scissors. Do you care about having a pair of scissors? You can give you scissors. You can cut paper straight.
I’m sitting there. And you know what? When I walk out in the woods, when I go to Brackenridge, or I go over to Cibolo Creek or, whatever it is, anytime I see a Cardinal, I just think of Christ blood shed for me. I’m sitting there in my office, and a cardinal flies right in the tree outside.
Can you imagine how you will never hear a bird sing? You’ll never awake from a restful night. You’ll never taste food. Not even a drop of water. You’ll never see colors. You’ll never run. You’ll never feel the embrace of somebody else. Putting on a warm sweater in the cold. Or finding shade under a tree in the heat. You’ll never walk through the grass. You’ll never come home from a day’s work or having been on a trip for God gives us transportation. God gives us fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and friends and never.
I mean, he’s he gives us everything. He gives us fingers. Do you ever just sit and think about your fingers? Or do you ever just sit and think about your eyes? That you have eyes? That God actually made marriage. He made he made the differences of the sexes and what that means to us. You never just stop and look around. I mean, he’s given us the ability to think so we can make a speaker so that when I speak, it’s amplified.
I mean, it’s like we have so much, we have so much. We haven’t. I mean, in the past we had men’s bathrooms, but they’re not as nice as the ones now. Going back there before was like, you didn’t know where you were going.
He gives us so much. I mean, even the people with the least. You look around and there’s, there’s colors and we, we have animals and there’s just… do you recognize if all of a sudden all of it was taken away? Is it…
We have so much we just take it for granted our wretched state. Naturally. You know what Romans one says? “Although they knew God, what?” They didn’t honor him as God, and they didn’t… what? They didn’t thank him. That’s man. Thankless.
You just try to cross God out suppressed God, thankless. And see, the thing is, we just were thankless. And if we do entertain that, there’s a God. Well, why did God let the Twin Towers fall down? Why God see the tsunami? And why this and that? You see, it’s God’s a taker. He takes life. He he makes our lives miserable. Man has this tendency to look at God like that. It’s like Satan coming along and saying, you know, God just doesn’t want you to have that fruit over there. He’s he’s depriving you. He’s robbing you. That’s how man tends to think it’s like God’s just to take her. Oh, yeah. Yeah. God has given us so much. Amen. And evil doesn’t come from God. He’s good. What this is saying is good comes from God. Every perfect gift. I mean, you think about perfect, it means the ultimate that which cannot be bettered. And obviously in verse 18 he gets to it. But you see the picture here. Do you know when it calls him the father of lights? This is not just simply saying that, God, this is talking about the heavenly lights, like the sun and the moon and the stars. This isn’t just saying that God created those things when it talks about him. No variation. The old Puritan Thomas Manton said that variation is an astronomical term. That idea of shadow, which you have to recognize is this when the sun is at noonday, straight overhead, there’s no shadow I know underneath you, but there’s on the sundial. There’s no shadow you cast no shadow. You see, the idea here is that God comes down with those rays and he sprays this goodness down from his being in giving, giving, giving. You see the sun. The sun sets, the sun rises. The sun can be eclipsed. The sun doesn’t always strike the Earth at the same angle. But God, his light strikes at the same angle to where there’s no shadow. He is a giver. Parents instill that in your children. If you need anything, you go to him. He’s the giver. He’s the source. He’s the help. There’s no shadow at all this. This is talking to us about our divine Son. Him giving, giving, giving, giving. So thankless we are. And brethren, how many times have we asked for water? And he’s given us wine? I’m. Isaiah says, arise, shine, for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. That’s the idea. So you’re so prone to have hard thoughts of God. And James wants to take us right out of that, brethren, our safety lies in God’s unchanging giving ness. That’s what we have here. What wretchedness, brethren! I mean, what jumps out at me is what wretched wretchedness that we even have to be told. This, but we do. Why, you know what? We’re complainers by nature. Aren’t you? Brethren, we complain about so many things. We’re unhappy. Now. You just imagine how jealousy and envy fits into all this. When God gives so much and gives so much, and yet discontent. And then verse 18, like I said, God’s most perfect gift in James estimation, out of all the good that God sprays down into these beams, James singles out one thing above all else. And what is it? You see it there. This is really where I want to focus my attention right now of his own will. He gave us something. He brought us forth. Young’s literal translation reads this way he did beget us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. Now listen, that the new English translation, I just throw it. I don’t usually use this, but I just thought it gives good expression here. By his sovereign plan, he gave us birth through the message of truth. I like that brought forth was brought forth mean. What does beget mean? It’s delivery of that with which somebody is pregnant. Its birth. But obviously this is not physical birth being talked about here. What makes it obvious in the first verse? Well, not just the first fruits aspect, but the word of truth. This birth happens by God’s word. This happens by the God, the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. That’s how Ephesians talks. That’s what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about good news. We’re talking about the we’re talking about the best news and what happens. This birth comes as a result of being exposed to this word of truth. It’s you remember how Peter says it. How’s Peter? Say it. He basically says the same truth. Anybody remember? I’ll help you. You’ve been born again. How? Not one way. Not of charity. Yeah, not. Not of perishable, but of what? Imperishable. Which is what I. Yeah, he calls it. They’re the living and abiding word of God. If we’re brethren, you recognize what we’re talking about here. What is this gift? This gift is a birth. This gift is a spiritual birth. We’re not just talking about some mere spiritual improvement here, or getting religion or some kind of little moral upgrade, or, you know, how you people make New Year’s resolutions. It’s trying to get their act together. It’s nothing like that. Nothing like that at all. This is nothing less than a full blown miracle that God does by his will. That’s what we’re being. Paul talks about it like this. At one time you were darkness. Now you are light in the Lord. How do you come? Light? But he, the father of lights, he has a will. He wills to shine that light on us. What’s the result? You get brought forth through the birth canal of his word into the glorious light. And, brethren, if you remain the same, you recognize, brethren, if you remain the same, how can it be said that you’ve been brought forth? How can it be said that there’s a new birth? A baby is delivered from the womb, the darkness of the womb of mama comes out into the light. Isn’t that what Scripture says? At one time you were darkness. Now you’re light in the Lord, out of darkness into his marvelous light. That’s the way Scripture speaks. Now, brethren, we have to really grasp this. Notice what it says. It’s God’s decision of his own will. He brought us forth by the word of truth. God is not forced to do this. He consults with nobody. God’s will is the reason behind why anybody is ever born again. What motivates God? You know what Moses said to Israel? You remember what he said. He said, you know what, guys? You really need to understand. You know why God said his love upon you? Because God set his love upon you. He said he’s not. Because you were greater in number than anybody else. You weren’t more impressive. You didn’t have mighty your armies. You were more handsome. You weren’t more beautiful. You weren’t more righteous. He says. He just lays it down to this. He said you were the fewest. It’s because the Lord loves you. That’s the conclusion. Or you come over to the Psalm. It says it in Psalm 1918. He rescued me. Why? David says, because he delighted in me. But you notice he doesn’t say, well, because I was handsome. I was young and ruddy and handsome. And so he delighted in me. He was the least. When Samuel was sizing up all the sons of Jesse, he didn’t start by saying, you know, he thought, it’s got to be this guy in the well, this is okay. So this guy. You know what Scripture says God loves because he chooses to love. God delights because he chooses to light. When it’s all said and done, brethren, that’s the Supreme cause. Don’t we read that one day? Jesus? He looked up to his father. You remember that Matthew 11 after that whole incident where he’s basically cursing, causing in Capernaum in Bethesda? And he just says, father, I thank you. You’ve hidden these things from the wise and the prudent. He says, you’ve revealed these things to babes. Do you remember what he says next? Such was your gracious will. It’s his will. Why does one guy see and one guy doesn’t see in the end, what does it come down to? God’s will. That’s what James is expressing. Brethren, this gives us one of the purest and most beautiful pictures of the freeness of God’s love. So if I’m saved, brethren, who gets the credit? Wait, didn’t I receive Christ? Didn’t I believe? Doesn’t John 112 say that to as many as. Received him believed in his name. He gave the right to become so. It wasn’t it me? Didn’t I do that? Didn’t I receive him? Didn’t I believe? Doesn’t it say I did? Yes. So am I. Am I the initiator? Am I the ultimate cause I know a lot of people read verse 12 and they don’t read verse 13. You ever notice that when he’s 13, say, well, it says something like this. Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, in other words, of the will of God. You believe you received because it was the will of who? Not man. It’s a sovereign thing, brethren. So the question of the hour is this. When we read of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth. Let me ask you this. Who’s the US? Brethren, statements like this ought to make us step back and ask, What is Christianity? What is the church? How did we get here? Brethren, any idea Christianity is mainly the result of something that I do, or that you do is always completely, utterly, hopelessly wrong. The true church is not a result of our efforts, ultimately. I mean, we need to put away any thinking that the Christian church is initially that it’s ultimately the result of our action, our decisions, or the brethren, or we got to put away the idea that Christianity is some sort of duty. And I know there’s some of you that come here. You feel like I got to go there. It’s like, you gotta keep doing this. Why? It’s it’s a duty to come here each week. Just kind of hoping the service won’t be too long. Brethren, true Christianity is always the activity of God carrying out his will. We need to stop and ask sometimes how did the church ever come into being? And you know what? What I recognize is this when you have James and this guy was a leader at Jerusalem, and he’s speaking to the scattered tribes likely scattered through the persecution that came about from Stephen, likely people that were scattered from Jerusalem who he had previously pastored. Let me ask you something. Where did those people come from? A lot of them. You know what a lot of the people that he’s writing to undoubtedly were converted at Pentecost. There were 3000. You get why? I mean, this is close proximity to that. James was there early. You get these people. The reason I’m bringing this up is because Pentecost resonates with James 118 and, brethren, acts two. Think about it. Turn their turn to acts two. We’re talking about something that is so important. This has to do with where Christianity comes from, where the church comes from. How does it, how does it? How does the church even survive to this day? How is it that that these, these Galilean fishermen came down from an upper room and and somehow this thing has survived at this very hour? I mean, acts two, brethren, this is something so entirely different from what so often passes for Christianity in the minds of most people, regarding the nature and the life of the church, what do you have in acts two? I’ll tell you what you have. You have these guys, and all of a sudden they come down from this upper room and they’ve had tongues, fire experience, and they come out on the streets and they begin to proclaim the mighty works of God. And they’re doing it in tongues. And you got these people from all over the world, and they’re hearing this in their own tongues and and they think that they’re drunk. And so what happens? Peter? Peter, a Galilean fisherman who who wasn’t so impressive not long before this, denying the Lord is there. There he is, in all of his weakness and all of his whatever. And he’s he’s out there and he begins to speak, and he begins to tell them about Joel and that this is a fulfillment of the prophecy. He talks to them about this prophet, and then he goes on, he talks about another prophet. He calls David a prophet there. And he quotes he quotes David from Psalm 16, and then he quotes again from what? Psalm 110. It’s so we he’s dealing with the the outpouring of the spirit. He’s dealing with Psalm 16, the resurrection. He’s dealing with Psalm 110, the fact that he ascended, he seated at the right hand of the majesty on high. This is what’s happening. But, brethren, so often people are ignorant. They’re ignorant about what Christianity is. You get people that, well, they live in this sinful life and suddenly, I don’t know, something happens. They get their conscience bothering them, they recognize enough of the truth and they start coming to the church. They start coming. They feel like it’s a duty they got to. They got to work this thing out. People ignorant, they constructing their own ideas in their head. They face, face death. They realize something about hell. They’re misery. They’re disturbed by the thoughts of what might happen. And they try to smooth over the conscience and the brush away the fears with a a little bit of church going. But, brethren, in the end, is this biblical Christianity? Is this what we find, or is it more like James 118 and what happened in acts chapter two? See what I see when I look at James 118 is I see that worked out. This is very concise form, but when you go to the day of Pentecost, it’s like this is where it all happens. This is where it all started, brethren. What happened? Those who received his word were baptized and they were added that day. About 3000 souls. What does it mean to become a Christian? Do you know it means to be added? What does it mean to be added? It means if you’re added to something, it means before you were outside that something, now you got added to their number and to what the ranks of who? Well, in acts 247 it says the Lord added to their number day by day those who are being saved. You see that. Have you wrestled with this question? is very emphatic about these people. These people are the first fruits of the Lord. These are the ones dedicated to him. These are the ones set aside. You remember what the first fruit was? It’s that it’s the best. It’s the first. It’s that what you bring. And it’s dedicated to the Lord. The owner no longer has any rights to it. It’s totally his. What does it mean to become totally Christ? To be dedicated, to be a first fruits? Like I say, this is emphatic. Do you recognize what he’s saying? The only ones that are the first fruits, the only ones are those who, by God’s will, have been begotten by the word of truth. They’re the only ones. And you see this worked out here. What’s it mean to become a Christian? Brethren, we have to wrestle with these things. What happened to them? Because the reality is same thing better happened to us. Has it happened to us? I mean, I know this what happened that day? The Lord did it. Why? Because it says the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. Well, that that connects perfectly with James, doesn’t it? Of his own will. He begot us. And here it says he’s the one doing it. He’s the one adding these people. And James says, God’s brings us forth by the word of truth. Now, if we go to acts two, any sign of that? I mean, like I said, get simple Galilean preacher by the name Peter, and he’s saying something, cites the prophets eight. Psalm 16, cites Psalm 110, and you recognize what happens as he’s speaking. There’s a crowd of people much like you. You’re listening. This is, isn’t it just the craziest thing that God designed it, that a guy would stand up and talk and you actually come here each week and you sit there and listen? The same kind of thing happened that day. A guy is talking, people are sitting there listening. Why are they listening? Because the guy’s saying something. Is it worth hearing? Well, I don’t know. That all depends on what the guy says. And what’s he saying? Well, he starts saying, hey, you know what you’re seeing right now? This is a bunch of drunken Galileans. This is what Joel talked about. He starts talking. There’s your word of truth. The prophet said this. The prophets prophesied this. This isn’t catching God by surprise. This is exactly what God said was going to happen. And he starts, you know what he does? He starts bringing out facts. He starts hitting the people right between the eyes. Remember, word of truth, word of truth. You know, brethren, the Bible is an honest book. You got you get truth in here. This is the truth, the supreme truth. And he’s hitting them right between the eyes with it. And he says, in the end, you guys, you need to face this. The solid facts of this book, this is history, folks. Where did the church come from? I that’s it. Those people in Jerusalem were suddenly confronted. They’re confronted by what? What could they say? What could they possibly do? Something astounding began to happen there. The crowd was confronted. You know what began to happen? The phenomenon of James 118. Peter didn’t stand there and debate limited atonement with these guys. He didn’t say, well, you know, you guys all need to go up to that upper room and have a tongues of fire experience like we all had. It’s none of that. He quoted the prophet Joel. He quoted another prophet, he expounded Scripture as a certain fact of history. You know what he said in acts 222, men of Israel hear these words Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God, with mighty works and wonders and signs, that God did through him in your midst. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by objective facts. You know what Peter did? He worked out his argument. He laid it out. Doesn’t matter your background, your sins, you’ve committed, your ethnicity, personality, psychological makeup. You know what he did? He hit these people right between the eyes. Whether they were tall or short, whether the young or old. He hit them between the eyes with these facts. The word of truth. Jesus of Nazareth. You want truth? Jesus of Nazareth is a historical figure. He’s real. And there he is. He came. He did certain things. He announced himself to be somebody. Somebody says, hey, why should I believe such things? On what grounds? Truth, brethren. Truth. It is important you know what? We are so deceived. We come into this world and the the, the deceiver of the whole world. We’re under his power. We walk through this life, we’re deceived. We think things are the way they are, and they’re not that way. That’s how these people were. What do you think it means to repent? It means to rethink. It means change your mind. Something kind of happened. You come face to face with this word of truth, and you’ve got minds that have been deceived by sin and the devil, and this world’s outlook on things, and suddenly you’re confronted by it. Truth. You ever been hit by truth to where it rocked you? It thrilled you. It threw you off balance. Some of these people are like brothers. What do we do? Like we’re in trouble here. You suddenly get hit by the truth and you recognize this isn’t this. This isn’t a circus. And I’m headed to what? Some ethereal delight in the end. And everything’s going to be good. I just hope it all works out. And hopefully I’ve been good enough. And suddenly they’re hit by it. The realities are quite different than you thought. And suddenly what? There’s life. So how did all this happen? There were the confronted by this. They begin this. They begin to think God said, I am. God has revealed certain things about his son Jesus. I mean, in this book it’s taken up with what his life, this is where Peter was. He talks about Jesus. Jesus Christ is the fact he’s the center. He’s the primary truth. And in the midst of all of this, they’re confronted by this Jesus. You ever been confronted him by Christ through the word of truth, to where suddenly God caused you to spring forth into life suddenly your eyes are opened. Suddenly you see things entirely different. They line up with truth, brethren, that’s our task. Hold forth this word of truth. Why did God send his son? You know, the vast majority of people don’t know we were down on the street Saturday. Here’s a young couple walk over to them and start talking about. They have no idea, no idea what it takes to get to heaven. No idea how good you’ve got to be. No idea whether they have been or not. Listen. You live, you walk, you talk. In the midst of this world, the truths expressed in the gospel happened in your world. They happen here. This has to do with you. This can’t be avoided by just talking about science or medical advances or anything like that. Brethren, do you recognize there’s none righteous, not a single one. We’re coming face to face with death. And after that, the judgment. There is really a God. There’s a heaven and hell. You can’t avoid these things. Everybody’s got to face the fact of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it doesn’t matter who you are, brethren, this is the kind of thing James is hitting us with this reality. People really do get born again. One of the things that blew me away when I first got saved is I. I couldn’t believe it. I walked through this world for 25 years of my life as a nominal Catholic, never recognizing that there were actually people in this world that were born again. I couldn’t believe it. What? I’ve been just living my life and all the wild and all the fun and living like there’s no death and there’s no there’s no God to give an account to in the end. And just suddenly, seriously, there are people who were spiritually alive walking around me, and I didn’t I didn’t even understand it. Brethren, you have to ask yourself this. If I come face to face with the word of truth, and he who said, I am the way and the truth had been, I so confronted by this, that in my confrontation with it something akin to a second birth has taken place, something so radical, so life changing. Has that happen? Is this what James is saying of his own will? He begot us and it’s always through the word. There it is, brethren. The thing is what you have to recognize. Like when I was lost, like most Catholics, superstitious, I had this over on my dresser. Not this one. I but I had a Bible on my dresser thinking that somehow it would ward off evil. I never read it. I just like it. Kind of emanated a an evil reject or or like if you put it under your pillow somehow it was lit and it was magical. Brethren, that’s not what’s being talked about here. The word is not a good luck charm. You recognize what’s going to happen, you’ve got to read it or hear it preached. You’ve got to be confronted by it. You’ve got to think up. You’ve got to begin to ask questions about it. Rethink, repent, change it. People don’t want to think, give me the bottle. Give me the drug. Give me the thing. It’s too painful to think people are desperate all the time to evade the facts. What is the spirit? Move us to think about, brethren. Those people in Jerusalem were made to think about what they were hit between the eyes of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that they had been rejecting him. Yes, they killed him, but you would have to. Don’t make them more guilty than you. You’ve been rejecting them just like they have. If you’re sitting here lost. Yeah, right. That’s I mean, that’s what they were hit by. They were given these objective historical facts about this person and what happened. They were cut to the heart. How’d that happen? Well, we can see this was more than just their own involvement and their own decisions and their own actions. God was at work. Something was happening inside them. Something was happening to them. Brethren, have you ever been cut to the heart by the message of truth? Now I recognize somebody like Timothy grew up under a godly grandmother and got, you know, the children coming up like that. They may not experience that kind of thing. But these are these are primarily adults sitting here for them. This is the mark of the true message in the true church, the true people of God. I’m shaken, I think, in my thinking, Jesus Christ, all of a sudden is taking a position in my mind that he never took before. I saw him as unimportant and low and died suddenly. He’s the chief position. Suddenly, first thing we have to face, brethren, in this word of truth, is the person of Christ. His life, his death, his resurrection. The spirit opens my eyes to the relevance of Christ and the relevance of Christ to me. Suddenly this all matters. What he did, how he lived, what he did on that cross. It matters to me. I come to recognize I’m involved in this. This has to do with with. Brethren, we recognize that Christ is at the very center of all of God’s plan and all of his perfect purposes here. And I’ve been rejecting him. Yet you’re waking to this brethren that think. And what happens is they’re thinking that leads to conviction. And you know what you start telling you? I’m not a good person. I’m not what I thought I was. There’s fear. There’s concern. Brothers, what are we supposed to do? That’s what they begin asking. Like we’re. We’re afraid. We’re convicted. We need help. We’re in trouble. Have you opened the word of truth? And I listen, don’t downplay this. Of his own will. He began us through the word of truth. Something akin to that needs to be a reality in your life, or you’re not one of the first fruits. This is what happened on that day of Pentecost. Men and women never face the facts of the word of truth. Most people, they will not take the time. They will not go here. They continue lost in darkness and misery of sin, all the while not begotten, not brought forth, not knowing where they’re going, not understanding, not understanding life, not ready to die. Always afraid. Truth. Oh, God has given us a source of truth. Peter’s sermon alone can’t account for what happened on that day. How did it happen? How do you become cut to the heart? This occurs as Joel is opened up and Psalm 16 is opened up, and he’s telling him, that’s not David. David’s body’s right over here. It’s corrupting in the grave. This one talking about him. And God seated him at his right hand. There it is. Psalm 110. Brethren, I’ll tell you in the end this is what accounts for the church. This is why she exists to this day. God’s in it. God does it. God energizes his power. He breathes life into her. Let’s see the only explanation. Something is happening by his will to us. It happens to us. Have you ever been aware of that? Hey, listen, so often people get this idea that they need to become religious. Oh, this is some big fearful thing and prison is before them. Or there’s a war and they’re in the foxhole or, you know, you got different things. Christianity is often something people take up, like a hobby. That’s not what we’re talking about here. What we’re talking about is something God does by his own will to us. Have you ever been aware that God has been doing something to you from outside of you, by a power greater than you? That’s what we’re talking about here. This is Christianity. It is a supernatural thing, is a miraculous thing. That’s what we’re faced with, happens by his will. Christianity happens to me. I remember that I’m going along. And brethren, when it started happening to me, I actually said at one point, God, leave me alone. Let me go back and enjoy my sin the way I did before something was happening to me. And at first I wanted to try to escape it. It wasn’t. I wasn’t feeling good under that. He was stripping away all the self-righteousness in it. It was hurt, it hurt, it was uncomfortable. And finally you get to the place, what do I do? Lord, help me. And brethren, the thing is, though many things are commanded to us, we are taught we are commanded to strive to enter and we are commanded to repent. We’re commanded to believe. We’re commanded to do all sorts of things. But, brethren, in the end, it’s the power of God coming upon you and changing you. You have to have an encounter with the word of truth and the Christ in that word. And God meets you there. And that’s what happens. Why God sent his son to die, why God preserve it all in a book for me to read. This is have anything to do with me. I mean, you got to get to the place where it’s like you’re confronted by this. This word of truth isn’t about any old truth. It doesn’t teach us about calculus. This is the truth, the supreme truth of all of history. Why Jesus Christ? And you know, I’m talking to the young couple and I’m and Saturday and it’s like, no, it doesn’t, it doesn’t even compute. And that’s how I was for 25 years, just walking through my life. If you were to come, it was like, I wouldn’t have wanted to talk to you out there on that sidewalk because I had an agenda. It was some kind of pleasure, some kind of I’m going to go get drunk or do something. Don’t talk to me. I don’t want to know about this. When what happens? God comes in and he makes it all come alive to me. When a man becomes a Christian, he just suddenly conscious. He’s being dealt with from outside. God’s doing something. There’s no oftentimes we can’t explain exactly what’s happening or why it’s happening, but but we know it’s happening. It’s this is the reality, folks. And so we need to put these questions to ourselves. Have you faced God’s Word and been concerned, been jolted? Have you read Scripture and come to realize things about yourself that you never realized before? If your eyes been open? Jesus is not what you thought. Jesus. Not so unimportant as you thought. God’s not some pushover, but holy, holy, holy, like we saying is that a have you been confronted by him? How much have you really thought about him? Who is this? We begin to think. Think, brethren. Yeah. The world has this idea that Christians are idiots and don’t think they’re the great thinkers, the free thinkers. Brethren, that’s not what our Bibles tell us. Our tell us that if anybody has thought it’s Christians, they’re thinking and their rethinking and their mind. Something is happening in the mind. Brethren, the issue is this if you ever read God’s Word and had it really grip you, you may say, oh, I read my Bible, but that’s not what I’m asking you. Have you been moved by it? Have you been thrilled by it? Has it radically changed? Your thinking? Has got done something? Has it caused it? I mean, have you come and you’ve been confronted by this book where you suddenly, why am I going to die? What is life all about? Who is this Jesus? Why did he come? Why did he die? Do you have an encounter with a living God in the truth? That something like that, you begin to feel things and ask questions that you never asked before? Judgment. What is that all about? Why have I been so careless? You recognize that this crowd, they were the same people that were crying out for him to be crucified. Not too long before this, and now all of a sudden they’re saying to these Galilean fishermen, not quite the people you get. There were no Gamaliel, not quite the people you go to to ask for help. And yet they’re just cut to the heart. God is doing something. They it’s like it doesn’t matter that it’s Peter or Thomas or any of these other guys. What matters is they’ve been hit by this truth of who Christ is. It’s knocked them over, they’re cut to the heart, and now they’re looking for help. Brethren, this is what God does in the midst of all of it. And so this is the essence of Christianity, brethren. It’s not you and I just dragging ourselves into the service and doing everything and trying to make something happen and feeling nothing. And God’s not here, and God’s no, there’s no reality. And God some abstraction far out there and far, brethren, that’s not true Christianity. We don’t want that. We don’t want what men can do. We want what God can do. We want God to put together a group of people that are brought under this conviction and see Christ now all together, lovely and and all. He’s there. Everything in there. Desire is for him and their life is for him and all on the altar. How does that happen? Because you’re born again. Because you’ve been birthed this way. Everything changes everything. Radical brethren, what do I do? Do I do I go and say, well, you know what? It’s by his will. I guess I can do nothing. So I guess that’s what I’ll do. I just do nothing. I need to be saved. I’m a sinner. Yeah. I born in sin under the wrath of God. There’s no hope in humanity. Only hopes confound is in God and He. This is by his will. So I guess if God’s going to do it, he’s going to have to do it. And there’s just really nothing I can do. Brethren, the Scripture never comes to such conclusions. Jesus never told anybody to do that. And these guys, when they said, what must we do? They didn’t say that either. Do nothing, brethren. What I would tell you to do is back up a verse in James and go to verse 17 and say, If God is this father of lights, and he is so giving, then I’m going to him. I need some things and I’m going to him. And if it says that he births people through the word of truth, what would be the next obvious conclusion? Do nothing. I mean, if God is setting himself forth, is so giving, I’m going to start talking to him and I’m going to give him no rest till I get everything from he’s so giving. That’s how he’s setting himself. I’m going to go to the giving God. See if you have this mindset. God is just a taker. God really doesn’t want to save me. God is hesitant. God just makes it hard. I’ve I’ve cried out to him before and I got no response. You start. That’s all a lie. I said exactly what the devil wanted Eve to thank all the lies. You know what the truth is? He is a giver and a giver and a giver. So go to him to get. And the place you want to go to him is you’re talking to him. Just keep your face in here. Because if you’re begotten by the word of truth, by thinking, by contemplating what’s really here, go to the Gospels. Go where Christ is revealed. Go look at the day of Pentecost. Go there. If God is a freely giving is verse 17. In John and James one claims that motivates me to just want to cry out to him. This is what James wants us to think. God’s not holding out on us. God’s not the author of bad and the author of sin. God is the author of good and perfect things, and he is so giving. And what I find, brethren, is that when God sent His Son into this world, search those gospels. Any time people came to him asking for something that wasn’t sin, he gave it. Yes, there was a guy that he wanted the brother to split the money with him. Jesus is going to have any part of that kind of covetousness. But brethren, people that went to him, even when they didn’t get saved in the end, because how many lepers were there? There were ten lepers. Only one came back. Jesus gave and gave and gave, and the father gives and gives. And this is Christianity. It’s a message you need to be saved. And that God has provided a means whereby that can happen. Supernatural, miraculous. I’m not telling you to be good. That’s not the message here. There’s no use telling folks to get religious or to try harder. Brethren, we need to be delivered from death and darkness and damnation, and thank God he delivers. He is. He doesn’t just give us trees to shade our yard brethren. He gives eternal life. He gives his son. He gives the spirit. He gives himself. Oh, brethren, this is it. If you control your religion. that’s proof it’s not biblical Christianity. And the question is, do you know this living God? Have you heard his voice? Have you felt that touch of God upon your soul after being in this book? That’s the question. Are you aware you’ve been dealt with by God? If all you have is what you do, what you think, brethren, you’re not a Christian. That’s that’s the reality that you get from James 118. It’s always the hand of God working through the Word of God first. For brethren, you need to recognize if this has happened to you. You are a first fruit. That means it is that fruit that that farmer brought before he did anything with the rest. It’s the first. It’s the best. And God has claim to it. It’s dedicated to him. You’re no longer your own. If God has done this to you, he owns it all. But obviously the Scripture puts an emphasis on if you’ve been bought by the blood of Christ that puts you in this very elite group and you’re his no longer living for yourself. Your first fruit. And so I would just say this May God give us grace at Grace Community Church to have all of us living lives of first fruit. You know what that would look like if we’re all just dedicated, no longer living to self, Holy to the Lord. Father, I pray that these realities yes, we want the real thing. We want the book of acts. Lord, do we want the reality? We want you to do what we can’t do. And Lord, we know you have a will, and we see it expressed here. And we know that in the midst of seeing your will all expressed, we see what a giving God you are. And it makes me want to be bold to ask you for so much more, and you’re so willing to give exceedingly abundantly beyond what we ask or think. And so, Lord, I pray that these brethren would feel great liberty in their soul to ask you for all sorts of things. They would feel great liberty in their soul, and just a desire to be here. When this church gathers to pray, to lift up voices to the God who has a will and does all these glorious things and miraculous things, it actually adds 3000 to the church in a single day. Oh Lord, there’s nothing impossible for you. And our eyes are open to see the impossible things that you’ll do with us and through us in the days ahead. We ask for it in the name of the living Christ. Amen.
