Tonight, I invite you to turn with me to James 1, as we read together the first 18 verses with our focus on verses 17 and 18, James chapter 1, and we read this in connection with Lord's Day 46. If you would then also turn in the back of this altar hymnal to page 59. Page 59. Last week we began the Catechism's consideration of the Lord's Prayer. And tonight we consider the address that our Lord teaches us. Lord's Day 46. Questions and Answers 120 and 121 as we give expression to what we believe. Question 120, why did Christ command us to call God our Father? At the very beginning of our prayer, Christ wants to kindle in us what is basic to our prayer, the childlike awe and trust that God through Christ has become our Father. Our fathers do not refuse us the things of this life. God our Father will even less refuse to give us what we ask in faith. Why the words, who art in heaven? These words teach us not to think of God's heavenly majesty as something earthly and to expect everything for body and soul from His almighty power. James 1, beginning at verse 1, giving our attention to God's holy and errant inspired word. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations, greetings. 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 it 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 is 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 is 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. May God add His blessing to the reading, preaching, and hearing of His word tonight. Beloved, in the Lord Jesus Christ, last week in our introduction to the consideration of prayer, as we considered God's gift of prayer, we said at the very end, we said that when we truly understand whose presence that we come into in prayer, and that He accepts and that He hears us, when we truly understand that the problem then will not be finding time to pray, but the problem in essence will be getting up off our knees and leaving His presence, we ought not want to. Prayer, we said, is communication. It is conversation with God. And we also said that every relationship requires and depends on communication and conversation. We have been graciously brought into a saving relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We communicate with. We speak to God through prayer in response to His Word to us. Yet then, what kind of relationship do we as believers have with this God specifically? How would you describe it? Well, our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us that in prayer's proper address. Our Father, who art in heaven. You see, how we address those with a specific position or office or authority is important in our earthly relationships. We all know there's a certain protocol, there's a certain etiquette, to how others, especially in certain positions, are to be addressed. But it's even more important how we address God. The believer's relationship with God is acknowledged not only in the act of prayer. In other words, when we pray, that act of prayer all by itself is an acknowledgement of that relationship, that we have a relationship with this God. But you see, the manner in which we address Him reveals the kind of relationship that it is. And our Lord teaches us in prayer's proper address, He teaches first of all, that proper address first of all, confesses the divinity of God. And secondly, it celebrates the fatherhood of God. The divinity of God and the fatherhood of God. Now these are two details that I believe that James highlights in this text for his listeners, the Christians then, but also Christians now. you and me. Yet he does so in a particular context. It is believed that James wrote this letter to Christians scattered. He says those who are scattered, but scattered those who are being persecuted following the death of Stephen. And they were experiencing hard times and poverty and trials, and they were facing temptations. They were tempted to sin. And of course, they were considering all of these hardships as some sort of evil. and they were tempted then to accuse God of tempting them. They were tempted then to blame God. And James says, don't be deceived. And the idea there of deceived is don't wander off from what you know to be true. Don't be led in a wrong direction. Because as James in essence reminds them, Satan tempts. Indeed, God may test us, but Satan tempts us. He tempts through the sinful desires of our own hearts. Temptation is an enticement to sin. And Satan tempts us for our own hurt, for our own destruction. That's his goal, to destroy us. But you know, James says, you know that no matter what the situation you and I might face in this life, God is always and only for the good of His people. As He reminds them, without saying the words, He really reminds them that God is our Father who art in heaven. And again, that address, first of all, confesses the divinity of God. Now that may seem redundant because God, by His very nature, we know, is divine. Yet our Lord would have us remember, at the very beginning of our prayer, that there is only one true God. and to address that one and only true God. And His divinity, as James helps us to see, or helps us to remember, includes His work of creation. We often take that for granted. We know that God created the heavens and the earth. We confess that so easily that He created all things, even us. And James points to God's work of creation as he draws his hearer's attention to the heavenly lights. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights. It's kind of interesting. Why would He have us think of the heavenly lights? Really, He wants us to think of the Father of those heavenly lights. But those heavenly lights, we know, include the sun that shines bright in the daytime. It includes the moon, which reflects the sun to give lesser light at night. It includes stars of which the Bible says God put in their orbits, in their courses. And He calls them all by name. And all of this because of His fatherhood. He is the Father of the heavenly lights. Those heavenly lights, you see, as great and as powerful and as bright as the sun and the moon and the stars are as we know, especially in our day, and as they seem to us. God is far greater. He is far brighter. He is far more powerful. And He has established His throne far above even these heavenly lights that are so far above us. He rules over all that He has made. And James, in essence, reminds his troubled listeners and all believers who face trials and temptations, he is reminding them, first of all here, of the greatness and the majesty of God who is in heaven and He is there not loafing around. He is not being lazy. He is not uncaring. But He is busy and He is active on behalf of His creation. And especially His people as He pours out His good and perfect gifts. And James points out that He is active and busy on behalf of especially His people. It's realized in His character. He is the supreme light. He is the Father of the heavenly lights. Those heavenly lights, again, as brilliant, as bright, that they may seem, really they reflect Him. They represent His light. In 1 John 1, verse 5, John says, God is light. In Him there is no darkness at all. He is the supreme light, beloved. That points to God's brilliance, His purity, His majesty, perfection, holiness, and truth. And James, in essence, says to these people, He says, think this through. You say God is tempting you. You say that God is enticing you to sin. But that very claim does not fit with God's character. He is light. He is purity. He is truth. And His character is also unchangeable. James says, who does not change like shifting shadows. We know all about shadows. Shadows change, especially throughout the day. Shadows change shapes and sizes and direction depending on the direction of the light and the object that make the shadows. And even those heavenly lights, the sun and the moon and the stars can be hidden. They can be shadowed from our eyes by clouds or by an eclipse. But everything about God is constant. Everything about Him is changeless. Nothing can block His light. Nothing can stand in His way. Nothing can change Him. His is all power and all knowledge and all glory and all purity and all holiness. He cannot and He will not ever become less than He is. And that is comforting to you and me because we change our minds so easily. We change our minds at a whim, at a moment's notice, but not God. He is completely changeless, beloved. And that means also that His Word will not change. He says, call upon Me in the day of trouble. I will answer you. That will not change. He says, cast your burden upon Me because I care for you. That won't change. He says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Praise God. That will not change. He says, no one will be able to snatch you out of My hand. That will not change. In verse 12, James says, 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. That will not change. God will never, ever go back on His promises. And, beloved, that is comforting because of His goodness. Again, the text says, Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights. A good gift comes from a good source. God's goodness is one, along with His unchangeableness, is one of His attributes, one of His characteristics. His goodness points to His kindness. It points to an absence of evil. Now, more literally, we ought to read these words, every good act of giving and every perfect gift. James is really highlighting both the act of giving and the gift that is given. And he would have the people he's writing to, he would have us understand that God's giving itself is motivated by His goodness. It's motivated by God's kindness, His purity, His righteousness. It is all beneficial. It is all for our good. That's why God cannot tempt us. And His gifts themselves are good. They are perfect. They are good and perfect in their intention. They are good and perfect in their design, in their motive, in their benefit. And God's gifts will accomplish His purpose. As Paul says in Romans 8.28, In all things, God works for the good of those who love Him. Now, beloved, we know that man may very well distort God's good gifts. Man may very well and often does use them sinfully and lie and distort the truth of God's saving gifts. But the simple truth is God's giving and His gifts are good in their nature. They are good in their purpose. They are good for you and for me. Now again, for James' original audience, this seemed like a contradiction. God is all-powerful. He is changeless. Nothing happens by chance apart from His will. And therefore, trials and difficulties, and in their mind, temptation to sin, indeed, is all a part of His will, and it's not good. And certainly, it must be God. Yet, James reminds them, it is Satan who tempts. Through hardships and persecution, Satan tempts God's people to sin. Satan tempts God's people to curse God and die. Satan tempts God's people to not believe in God, to not trust in Him, because these hard circumstances certainly prove that God is a liar. Certainly they prove that God is uncaring, Satan would have us believe. But James would say, don't you dare believe it. Because even trials that we face in life, the tests that God sends us are used by God for our good. Satan tempts in order to destroy. God tests for the good of His people. And God will not lead us through these trials to a place that He Himself hates. He will not lead us into sin. He will not use these things to drive us from Him. But our God sends His people adversities to drive His people to Him, to rely on Him because He is also our loving Father. Prayer's proper address in the second place celebrates the fatherhood of God. Now James doesn't talk about the fatherhood of God in relation to His people specifically. He calls Him the Father of the heavenly lights, but he implies the fatherhood, that He is the Father of His people when he says in verse 18, He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all He created. He chose to give us birth. Now question 120 asks again, Why did Christ command us to call God our Father? At the very beginning of our prayer, Christ wants to kindle in us what is basic to our prayer, the childlike awe and trust that God through Christ has become our Father. Notice, Christ wants to kindle us. He has to kindle it by His Holy Spirit, and He kindles what is basic to prayer, what is basic to that relationship that you and I have with our Father in Heaven. That childlike awe and trust. Because the one and only sovereign God of all that is of whom we are to be in awe, He is our Father whom we can trust. And notice as James says, He is our Father by His choice. He chose to give us birth. Now that's a fascinating, wonderful, comforting sentence. God chose. It didn't depend on you. It didn't depend on me. It didn't depend on anything else. But God chose. And this is talking about His free, sovereign, creative will and decision and decree of God without any influences by, without any suggestions from anyone or anything else, God was not moved by anything outside of Himself except for His good pleasure, which is to be comforting for you and me again because God is changeless. If it depends on Him, and it does, He is changeless. And He remains our Father. And not only did God not have to do this, but He chose to do it. In His goodness, He chose to bring us into a saving relationship with Himself as His children. To bring us into that intimate relationship. The comfort of a parent-child relationship. Where the child expects and the parent gives protection and care and love and provision. Even though our earthly parent-child relationships are not always all they should be. Sometimes they are filled with distress. Yet I do believe that every child at some point in their young life, they have that childlike awe and trust for their parents. And how much more so can we have it, are we to have it, for our God who has called us to be His children, who has given us birth, chosen to give birth. You see, the good and the perfect gifts of God include His creation. Those gifts include the giving of His only begotten Son, the giving of His Holy Spirit, the giving of all spiritual and material gifts which include regeneration, new birth to eternal life. That new birth that James talks about is specific proof of God's goodness. Every good and perfect gift. And then James goes right on to say one of the best is the gift of new birth. And you see, our God gave it. It was not just a good try on His part. But it is effective. It is accomplished. He actually brings His children to faith in Him and He gives them that good gift of His inheritance to those whom He has adopted. Paul says in Romans 8, beginning at verse 15, For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you receive the spirit of sonship and by him we cry Abba Father the spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children now if we are children then we are heirs heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory what a golden passage on our sonship and the work of the Holy Spirit in helping us to understand and know that we are sons of God. But a beautiful passage in which Paul reminds us of the assurance of our sonship. He uses that word sonship for a particular reason. It's very significant, you see. In the Roman world, families adopted sons. If they didn't have a male child, they adopted sons in order to pass on the inheritance. The inheritance could not be passed on to daughters. It was passed on to sons. And so Paul uses that word sonship, which for Paul, of course, includes all believers, men, women, and children, but he uses that word to point to the giving of that inheritance. We have been adopted, we have been brought into sonship with God to receive the inheritance that God has for us, that Christ has earned for us. And we are able to cry out to Him, Abba! Daddy! And this is significant also because Paul is not talking there about the cry of the holiest among us. One who has achieved a certain maturity, spiritual maturity. One who has a gentle spirit of assurance. And is therefore then with confidence to sit back and say, Abba, Father. That's not what Paul is talking about when he talks about cry. The word cry is talking about a cry for help. It's talking about a baby's cry when a young child is running on the concrete and falls and cries out, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. And the point for you and me is that when we are at our lowest, even when we feel the furthest from God, we can cry out to Him, Father. We can cry out to Him, Father, with the assurance that He will not change His mind about who we are to Him. He will not turn His back on us because we are His children and He is our Father. And He has given us new birth, James says, through His Word, the Word of Truth. The Catechism says God, through Christ, has become our Father. That word of truth is talking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of course. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says, For in Christ Jesus I became your Father through the Gospel. Paul became a spiritual father to them of sorts. But it was in Christ Jesus through the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 17, Paul says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. He has chosen to give us birth through the Word of Truth, through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. While we were lost in sin, beloved, God determined by His free choice not to let us perish in sin. But He chose to bring us forth as new creatures. He chose for us to become His children by means of His saving word and work. And again, in essence, James is saying here, God will not change His mind about this. He will not give you and me up. And that's why we can be confident that our God will not tempt us to sin. And that is because His fatherhood is for our care. That we might be a kind of firstfruits of all He created. And when we hear that word firstfruits, no doubt many, if not most of us, think of the Old Testament. We think of the firstborn son or the firstborn of the animals or the first portion of the harvest. And that firstborn or that first portion was that portion that was dedicated, set apart for Him. We are the firstborn believers. One and all are the firstborn. Firstfruits of all that He created. Those who are dedicated. Those who are set apart for Him. Those who are prized and loved by Him. Those who are in the very moment that they are given that new birth, they are His children. They are His heirs. They are saints. They are those to whom His goodness flows. The Belgic Confession in Article 1 describes God as the overflowing source of all good. Answer 120 again says, Our fathers do not refuse us the things of this life. God our Father will even less refuse to give us what we ask in faith. Jesus said as much, didn't He? How about you? Even though you are evil, you know how to give good gifts. How much more your Father who is in heaven? And notice, too, the catechism reminds us that God's goodness is to be expected. Answer 121 says that we are to expect everything for body and soul from His almighty power. Beloved, God wants His children to expect His goodness. We are to expect it. We are to look for it. It's for our good. God's good gifts are without number. We cannot begin to count them. We cannot begin to recite all of them. He has given us the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ and He will continue to pour out all we need to bring it to completion. He gives to His people the gifts to fight temptation, to deliver us from evil, to convict us of our sin, to humble us toward confession and repentance, to restore us when we have turned away. He gives us His gift of assurance of forgiveness. He also gives gifts for us to live godly in Jesus Christ. He gives us the gifts that we need to please Him. He gives us His good gifts to face trials with joy. He gives us gifts for steadfastness in the faith. All that we need for our lives, physical and spiritual, He gives to serve that relationship that He has brought us into with Himself. Again, that's James' message to those who wanted to say, God is tempting me. James' message is this is the God we serve. A father who loves his children with an unfailing and unchanging and an everlasting love and he will not jeopardize, he will not harm that relationship, but he will always bless it even if it stings us for a time. Beloved, this is the God we serve. This is the one to whom we come in prayer. The unbeliever has no one to love him, to care for him, or to preserve him. But his children, for Jesus' sake, those who humbly forsake themselves and look only to the Lord Jesus Christ for their salvation, they have a Heavenly Father, one who loves them, who cares for them, and preserves them, who will fulfill his saving purpose for you and for me, our Father, who art in heaven. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father, who art in heaven, indeed, hallowed be your name. We praise you, our Heavenly Father, indeed, for your love for us, for bringing us into your family, for giving to your people a place in your family as your adopted children, a place that will never be lost, that will never be stolen, a place from which we will never be taken away. Satan himself cannot kidnap your people away from you. And Father, we praise you for your changelessness, for your majesty, for your goodness poured out to your people. We thank you for the comfort that we have that you remain the same yesterday, today, and forever. And therefore, we too can take You at Your Word, and we are to take You at Your Word, and continue to pour out upon us, Father, Your good gifts for our lives, all that we need. Even those things that may not seem so pleasant at the time, but yet that You use to work for our good, Father, continue to pour them out upon us and help us to be gracious receivers of all that You send upon us for Your sake. Hear us, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.