Order, Words, & Voices
08.20.23, The Source of Good, James 1:16-18
Order
Pre Worship Music
Opening Song Billy/Linda/Segun
Father of Love / Your Lovingkindness
O Give Thanks (Jernigan)
Call to Worship Response/Lord’s Prayer Rick
Reading James 1:16-18 Andrea
Songs Billy/Linda/Segun
Give Thanks
Jesus Lover of My Soul
Message The Source of Good Rick
Music Father of Love Billy/Linda/Segun
Community/Peace Rick
Benediction/Closing Peace Rick
Post Worship Music
Music (slides) – Billy/Linda/Segun
Father of love
Lord of all creation
I will bless Your name
Forever and ever
I will declare
Your grace and Your mercy
And tell of Your unfailing love
Your lovingkindness
Is good to all
Your wings of mercy
Lift me when I fall
Your lovingkindness
Meets my ev’ry need
You cleanse me from unrighteousness
And You give new life to me
O, give thanks to the Lord For He is good!
For His Lovingkindness Is Everlasting,
He’s good! (Repeat)
Let the redeemed of the Lord,
Let them say so! Say so!
Redeemed of the Lord,
Let them say so! Say so!
Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy Say so!
Call to Worship (Slides) – Rick
Leader: Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his steadfast love endures forever.
Response: We give thanks to the God of gods, his steadfast love endures forever.
Leader: Give thanks to the Lord of lords, his steadfast love endures forever; God alone does great wonders.
Response: We give thanks to God who created the heavens, his steadfast love endures forever.
Leader: Give thanks to the lord who spread out the earth above the waters.
Response: We give thanks to him who gave the sun to rule over the day.
Leader: Give thanks to God who created the moon and stars to rule over the night.
Response: We give thanks for the never-ending steadfast love of the Lord.
Leader: Give thanks to the Lord who showers us with his goodness.
Response: We give thanks to the Lord for he is good.
Leader: Give thanks to the Holy one who is good
Response: We give thanks to the one who is our sustainer. His love endures forever
Lord’s Prayer (Slides) ‘Join me in the prayer of Jesus’ – Rick
Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, On Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, while we forgive those who trespass against us. And, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
Reading Andrea
Don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good gift, every perfect gift, comes from above.
These gifts come down from the Father, the creator of the heavenly lights, in whose character there is no change at all.
God chose to give us birth by his true word, and here is the result: we are like the first crop from the harvest of everything he created.
James 1:16-18
Music (Slides) Billy/Linda/Segun
Chorus
Give thanks with a grateful heart
Give thanks to the Holy One
Give thanks because He’s given
Jesus Christ His Son
Verse
And now let the weak say I am strong
Let the poor say I am rich
Because of what the Lord has done for us
Ending
Give thanks
Verse
Jesus lover of my soul
Jesus I will never let You go
You’ve taken me from the miry clay
You’ve set my feet upon the rock
And now I know
Chorus
I love You I need You
Though my world may fall
I’ll never let You go
My Savior my closest Friend
I will worship You until the very end
Message (Slides) ‘The Source of Good’, Rick
The NT book of James can be a handful for the reader. Theologians and Bible teachers have long been frustrated by the writing of James the brother of Jesus finding it busy and maybe even contradictory to the letters written by the apostle Paul. From the beginning in chapter one, James seems to be scattered and confused. In only 26 verses, James covers 8 separate topics, using only 2-3 verses to present his case.
- Let trials and testing make you whole and complete.
- Wisdom and stability
- The upside down perceptive of power and poverty
- The glory or doom of temptation
- Be intentional instead of impulsive
- Don’t just hear but really listen, don’t stop at hearing and listening but be complete by doing
- Do rather than speak
But, right there in the middle, v. 16-18, we see the power of everything that James is attempting to communicate to his audience.
“Don’t be deceived, everything good, everything perfect, comes from God the Father.”
It is a definite statement, an intentionally aggressive order said with words that do not leave us with confusion, ‘Don’t be…’, ‘Everthing that is good…’
And there it is, right in the middle of this opening, an opening that could leave us somewhat confused and dazed by a hyper presentation of 8 topics plowed though in just 26 verses.
It is as if he is saying everything he needs to say and suddenly realizes that no one is going to understand anything if they do not first understand this basic and simple truth, so he pauses just for a moment to make this foundation is set as he says…’Get this straight guys, if you don’t get grasp this you are not going to understand anything else I am saying, heck, you are not going to understand anything else my fellow apostles say to you!’
The last 2 Wednesday nights we have been grappling with Jesus’ brother James, attempting to figure out what type of guy he was. Was he a cranky old man who complained about anything and everything? Was he unable to understand the basic concept of grace and mercy? Did he talk a mile a minute and jump around from subject to subject expecting the listener, the reader, to keep up and recognize every change of subject and every abrupt transition to a new topic?
I think that James was excited to teach Jesus to his fellow Jews, and much like the apostle Paul, was eager for them to not only recognize that Jesus was the Deliverer but to also grasp what it means to live the ‘Jesus’ life.
So he sets the foundation, a foundation upon which he will build his case for living out the ‘Jesus’ life. A foundation that reveals God to us in the everyday moments of our lives and then uses that persistent and constant revelation of the ordinary to build our strength and trust in the God who is the constant in our lives regardless of what our senses tell us.
In comparison to the other instructions about life that James addresses here in chapter 1, this call to recognize God as the giver of good is the most potent and most jarring. James commands, “Do not be deceived.”
James’ command is an order to not stray or wander away from truth, safety, or virtue. It is a confrontation of their current ongoing deviation from the truth. So James commands, “Do not be deceived.” This is that forbids something that is already in progress. Literally, James says, “Stop being deceived.”
This is more than just a call to not blame God for the suffering, it is a call to recognize that everything good originates with and from God. It is the moment of peace in the midst of war, the flower that grows up in the crack of a sidewalk in the despair of poverty, it is a hearty meal in the anguish of hunger, it is the warmth of an embrace after an extended time of isolation. It is the recognition of life in a time consumed by death. It is being noticed when your voice has never been heard. It is rescue, assurance, mercy, kindness, and connection.
We frequently fail to notice God in the midst of the normal. We relegate the works of God to those things that look and feel ‘religious’, and the things that we do not equate to those categories is dismissed as acts of man. This is what James is combating, our failure to recognize that good, all good, is from God. Not just those things that fit into our correct categories but everything, everywhere that is good.
A philosophical argument raises its head every couple of years in regard to. Basically, the argument is center around the question, ‘Can humans do good if they are not led by the Holy Spirit?’ In most of these discussions the problem arises, for those who hold to ‘good only existing through the Holy Spirit’ is that there are numerous examples of good being done by people, or peoples, who do not officially fall within the specified boundaries. The solution is usually given that those individuals are just doing good because it makes them feel ‘good’. It is an argument of selfishness that totally misses the truth of God being the giver of good.
All good, wherever it comes from here on earth, is given by God. God, whose very character is good. “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (1:17)
‘All good,’ is an emphatic statement, it is a statement of force, a classifier that will not change. God is good, God is the giver of good, God will always be, and God always is the giver of all that is good.
Author Lloyd C. Douglas lived in a boarding house during college. A retired music teacher lived on the first row, with whom he had a daily ritual. Douglas would ask, “What’s the good news today?” The old man would take his tuning fork and strike the side of his wheelchair and said, “That’s is Middle C. It was Middle C yesterday, and it will be Middle C a thousand years from now. The soprano upstairs sings off-key, and the piano across the hall is out of tune. But this is Middle C.”
God is good, that does not change. Our circumstances may not reflect that, our situation may appear as the opposite of that, our hope may have evaporated, but, the fact remains, God is good, all the time – all the time, God is good.
‘Good’, the first mention of the concept of ‘good’ was during creation when, at the end of each day God would look over the creative achievement and declare that it was ‘good’. Think of creation, the natural set up of life among the created being, micro organisms to the huge animals – it is an existence that is a struggle. There is birth and there is death, there is peace and their is fear. Soon, with the first actions of humans, this became true for us as well. Good still exists but mercy may be absent, good is present but kindness may not be seen. Good is right.
Following the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Pastor Diane White Community Presbyterian Church in Pinetop, AZ wrote, “Maybe you have heard the phrase, ‘God is good … all the time; and, all the time … God is good!’ I will often start worship services with this phrase. But is God good all the time? Is God good when 19 innocent children are gunned down as they sit in their classroom, when a Peace Officer is simply doing his duty and is killed, or when one hears the dreaded words, “There is nothing more we can do”? This is a question that I have pondered and struggled with, and one that people often ask me.
When God created humankind it was not with the thought that one day we would needlessly murder each other, or with the intention that humankind would destroy one another through thoughtless words and deeds, or with the intention that a disease would take our lives. God created humankind to have harmony with each other, with nature and with the God of gods. But, as we all know from the creation story, peace and harmony reigned until a fallen angel named Lucifer came on to the scene, breaking the peace and harmony that ruled the land. [Still we find] in scripture over and over is the fact that God is a loving God, a God who cares for you, a God who is ever present and a God who weeps alongside of you. We experience illness, accidents, and death simply because we are not puppets and we live in a fallen, messed-up world. God reaches down to us when our hearts are breaking, when the world seems to be falling apart God brings us a sense of peace and comfort. God is good in that God does not and will not abandon us in the darkest of times. God is good because nothing we can ever do will separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, God is good because God is sovereign. God is good … all the time; and, all the time … God is good!” (White Mountain Independent, June 21, 2022)
‘One response to the pastor’s writing was ‘Your all knowing God would have known this since the shooter was born. Why did your God allow this shooter to grow up and become a mass murderer?’
This was an authentic and genuine response, ‘Why?’ This is a human response, this is an honest response. Why, if God is good, why is evil permitted to persist?’
The easy answer is free choice, free will. This, however, can create more concern than comfort and peace, as well as more questions about God. This, very real and human question, which is why James interrupted himself with these three verses. He was writing to Jewish believers, folks who were facing famine, poverty, and persecution from the established religious institution, many of which were still living with the impact of the exile of their ancestors, many of which were still part of the scattered peoples of the diaspora. Many faced very real heartaches and difficulties. James was reinforcing what they knew but could not see, what they had been assured but did not feel. James was reinforcing the unchanging fact that God is Good even though it does not feel that way.
Consider this, as James is addressing sin, temptation, arrogance, impulsiveness, trials, difficulties, persecution, famine, and poverty – in the midst of these he stops long enough to set the stage to paint an accurate image of God – God is Good. It is the most important thing James wants to heard by this religious Jewish, Jesus believing, audience. God is Good. Without this truth, Jame’s readers cannot, we cannot, understand anything else truth reveals.
Pastor H.B. Charles Jr. says, “Herein is wise counsel for how to respond to tests, trials, and temptations: Look up! Don’t judge God by what you see around you. Look up! Your outlook is determined by your up-look.”
William Tyndale said, “God’s goodness is the root of all goodness; and our goodness, if we have any, springs out of his goodness.”
What if the church, in America, in our world, were to just catch on that his God was/is good? To grasp the truth that God’s gifts are good? That God’s creation and created are good? How would that change our perspective of those that we do not agree with, those we are uncomfortable with, those we do not understand? Would we continue to pull aways from these that God created or would we recognize that they too are God’s good and perfect gift? Would we have to be comfortable, would we have to understand, would we have agree with them to embrace them or would we continue to judge, to condemn, to mistreat, to hate, to reject? Would we recognize that they are the creation and gift of our God who is always good? How would that change our perspective of taking care of God’s gift of the earth that God created? How would that impact how we perceive the world around us? What if we fully understood that God’s gift of our life is good, how would that change our trust in God?
God is Good.
Music (Slides) Billy/Linda/Segun
Verse
Jesus lover of my soul
Jesus I will never let You go
You’ve taken me from the miry clay
You’ve set my feet upon the rock
And now I know
Chorus
I love You I need You
Though my world may fall
I’ll never let You go
My Savior my closest Friend
I will worship You until the very end
Community (Slides) Rick
- Next Sunday, Guest Preacher – Dianne McNary, CBF Global Mission, previously, with her husband Shane, as field personal in Slovakia
- Summer Bible Study – James, Wednesday Nights @ 6:30pm for 4 weeks. August 9-30. This week – James 3:1-12; 4:11-12; 5:12
- Fall Message Series beginning September 10 – TBA
- Next Book Discussion Luncheon, ‘Making Sense of the Bible’, Some Books available in entry was -$15, or link on web page will take you to Amazon order page, luncheon will take place in October (date – TBA)
Benediction (Slides) Rick
As we leave this place we walk in a world that is not perfect but nonetheless a world that God has proclaimed is good. We continue because the breath of God still inflates our lungs and because God’s life sustaining gift continues to course through our veins.
Regardless of our gender, or any other label we wear, we are all called to live lives that preach and pastor the good news of Jesus to all of creation. A call to allow Jesus to be seen in every situation every time. To forgive others and to forgive ourselves. To love God and to love others as we also love ourselves.
May we continually choose to grow in our own understanding of the resurrection hope which carries us in peace while giving us the mercy, compassion, and grace to live confidently in God who loves us and calls us to life.
Closing Peace Rick
Leader: May the Peace and Hope of the Lord go with you.
Response: And also with you.
Leader: Go in the Peace and Hope of the Lord.
Order, Words, & Voices 