Why Should You Care About God’s Goodness? (AM Sermon Notes)
VBS Family Day Sunday
GIST: God is good. We desperately need His goodness. AND because of His goodness, He made that possible.
SCRIPTURE: James 1:13-18
Welcome to VBS Family Day! I love it. I love Vacation Bible School. I love seeing the excitement on these kid’s faces. I love watching them learn about Jesus in interactive and hands-on ways. And, I love having an opportunity to then share a little bit of that with all the families involved on these Sundays. If you’re a regular on Sunday mornings, we’re going to do something which seems to only happen on Family Day☺️. We’re taking a Sunday off of our regular study. Instead of moving on in the book of Psalms, today we’re going to look at the memory verse the kids have been learning this weekend. We’ll be looking at a few verses above to give it some context, as well. But to open, let’s just read James 1:16-17.
“16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17 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.”
All weekend, we’ve been talking about God’s goodness. Some of us love this topic because we know what it is to experience God’s goodness even when everything else in the world is crumbling. For others, this topic doesn’t have the same appeal. You’ve seen heartbreak and tragedy and don’t see how God could possibly be good in all of this. Or, you simply don’t see what God’s goodness has to do with your day-to-day life anyway. I want to be brief this morning because I know there are many distractions pulling for our attention. However, the three quick points I want to make today as we walk through this passage our literally the most important truths we can ever come to know. Here’s our gist: God is good. We desperately need His goodness. AND because of His goodness, He made that possible.
Let’s break that down! First→
I. GOD IS GOOD (16-17)
This passage opens by telling us essentially→
Don’t Miss This! “16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.” Like I said a second ago, this can be easy to miss. It’s easy to look at the world and either assume God isn’t good, or that goodness comes from ourselves or natural chance, not God. But the truth is→
Every Blessing Is From God. “17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,” Any good that happens in your life is an expression of God’s grace. This world is tainted by sin. We’re going to talk about this more in a second, but for now I just want to get this across: it’s easy to complain. It’s easy to look at life and think it’s just a serious of unfair and devastating events. Maybe you wouldn’t want to sound pessimistic and put it that way, but when we talk, we tend to spend much more time dwelling on the negatives than looking for positives. BUT, if we pay attention, we see that even in the hardest times, there are still blessings every single day. Friends, family, good weather. Smiles still cross our faces in this broken world, and that is because God is being gracious to us→
Because He Is The Source Of All Goodness. The verse says goodness is “coming down from the Father of lights”. There are two thoughts being communicated here. First, He is the creator God, so He literally made all the lights in the sky. He created the entire universe! But more than that, light and darkness is being used symbolically here in these next few statements. He is the source of light as in goodness and purity and righteousness. All that is good comes from God. Morality isn’t the result of random chance, but the reason people all around the world can agree that there are certain things that are good and certain things that are bad is because they were created by the same God who places this upon their hearts!
And He Never Changes! I love this last part here, “with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” This good God is the same as He has always been. Sometimes when we grow up in church, we read about all that God has done with His people in the past, and we’re amazed, but we think that’s just a thing of the past. He did that, but He’s not moving like that anymore. He won’t do that in my life. Yet, the same God who rescued Daniel from the lions’ den, and saved Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace, and protected Noah and his family during the world-wide flood is still moving in our lives today. The same Jesus who came healing the sick, casting out demons, and changing the world by offering salvation is still alive today. He still loves you just as much as He did when He took on Hell in your place. Your circumstances might change, but God never does! You might feel powerless today, or hurt, or confused. But Jesus hasn’t changed. He’s still all-powerful and all-loving, and He still wants to call you His child.
So, why does this matter? Because→
II. WE DESPERATELY NEED HIS GOODNESS (13-15)
We all know that we need help. If we’re honest, we know that we’re not truly good at heart, that this sin that taints the world is a very real and present part of our lives as well. The verses above the one’s we’ve read outline just how serious this condition is. Look at verses 13-15. “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. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” There’s a lot in this, but let me just make two observations here this morning. First→
Our Hearts Are Sinful & Sin Leads To Hell. Sin doesn’t come from someplace outside of you. We’re tempted to do things only because deep down we want to. It’s easy to blame our shortcomings on circumstances or our environment or whatever. However, at the core, the only reason we sin is because we’re sinners. And this sin leads to death, not just physical death though. This reference to spiritual death is talking about Hell—the eternal punishment we choose when we reject God’s grace and try to just keep following our own ways. The problem is→
We Can’t Make Ourselves Good Enough! Think about it like this. The standard of good is God. Can you even meet your own standard of goodness? All the things you know you should be doing, do you do them? All the things that drive you crazy when you see other people doing them, are you able to stop yourself doing those same things? I know I don’t. And I know you don’t either. We’re trapped by our own sinful desires, and there is nothing we can do to save ourselves no matter how hard we try. I know that seems depressing, but we were never meant to do this on our own. We’re drowning in the middle of the ocean, and we need someone to rescue us.
That’s the severity of our situation. We need the goodness of God because we’re not good. That’s what makes His love so amazing. He didn’t wait until we were good enough, but while we were still sinners, He came and He died and He rose again to make a way for us to be with Him forever. The Bible tells us if we believe in Him and give Him control we experience grace—goodness we don’t deserve— as He saves us and takes us, those who have been running from Him, and calls us His children. See, it’s precisely because of His goodness that→
III. HE MADE THAT POSSIBLE (18)
Look at verse 18, which was actually part of the kid’s memory verse this week. “18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.” Let me just run through three quick observations here, as well. First→
He Chose To Do This! “Of His own will” means because He wanted to do it! He didn’t have to save us. He wasn’t obligated to pour out His grace. He didn’t need us in Heaven to make Himself complete. He did that because of His unmerited, unfailing love! What exactly is He doing?
He’s Giving Us Life Through His Word! The Word of Truth is the Scriptures, the Bible. Here, we see the Gospel, the good news, through which He gives us life! I’ve probably said this a million times already this morning, but I don’t want you to miss this. The Gospel is this: God is holy and loving. We are sinners heading to Hell as we follow our own desires. Jesus chose to come and live the perfect life you could not, and die the death you deserved, taking Hell upon Himself and rising again, so that anyone who calls upon His name, knowing He is God and knowing they need His goodness and desiring to be His, will be saved! That’s amazing grace. Through His sacrifice→
We Can Be His! Firstfruits refer to precious offerings or sacrifices made to God. We can be offered up to Him, and when we are, we become His, and He takes us in, again, as His precious children. We are forgiven and covered in His righteousness, His goodness.
TAKEAWAYS
I promised brevity, so let’s just recap here.
1. God is good.
2. We desperately need His goodness.
3. And, precisely because of His goodness, He made that possible!
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