Sermon in Rockford 18.08.2013

Verse 17 to verse 25, in Jesus' name. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, these men shall be blessed in his deed. Amen.

We have been listening to the word during this weekend as so many times before in our lives. God only knows how many sermons each of us has heard. Now this portion of James speaks first of the gifts of God. I guess during this weekend we also have heard and spoken about God's gifts. And I think we can say that what we look for, that we will find. If we start looking after the things that we see as God's gifts, we will find them.

It would be interesting sometime to sit together and start making a list of God's gifts. It would be a long list. We would find things that would refresh our hearts and bring our spirits up. Let it be a learning experience for all of us, I would guess.

We oftentimes, as we have heard during this weekend, take God's gifts for granted. Many of his gifts go by without our noticing it much at all. One of God's gifts is his protection. I recall one small example. We went, I was in Finland, when we had big family at home, we went to the craft sales or sales in Olu R.Y. and we bought lots of food and whatnot. All kinds of stuff. We made a big bill. And we had to have money that time.

And we left from there, started driving home. And I'd say maybe a quarter of a mile from the church. It was very close that I crashed my car. Maybe I wouldn't have had or possibly we wouldn't have had any hurt for us people, but the car would have been totaled. And when the situation went by, I said to my wife who was sitting next to me, "Oh wow, God paid back pretty quick. We didn't drive a mile when God had paid back everything that we used for the sale."

We don't see what we are protected from oftentimes. How do we know? Because it never materializes. God keeps many things away and the reason why he does it is that he loves us.

I read the other day about Daniel from the book of Daniel and the newest finished translation uses a very interesting word. I didn't compare how did it say in English or any other translation. I was reading the newest translation and it warmed my heart when it said about Daniel, "You whom God loves." It said in the Bible, God loves you. The angel spoke to Daniel that you are loved by God. God loves us.

We doubt it or forget it or just don't think about that. And one reason I guess is because the enemy of the souls is tempting us all the time and accusing us. One of the many words that describes the enemy of the souls is accuser. It accuses us of many things and for sure there is basis for that. We are sinners but it also accuses us in a very unfair way and as John writes about us that we have an advocate before God in the judgment day.

Advocate I think it means that lawyer who speaks on our behalf. So when we have accuser, the enemy of the souls accuses us, speaks against us. Also we have an advocate from God, Jesus Christ, who speaks on our behalf.

And now James wants us to realize about the gifts that the gifts which are good and even perfect they come from above down from the Father of lights meaning God. So if God gives us gifts they are good and they are even perfect.

What are God's gifts? We have heard about that during the weekend how God's gifts can even be trials. And I recall how, and we talked about that, how the most beautiful songs of praise in the Bible are connected with the deepest trials that had taken place and God has freed the believers of those trials and after that trial, heavy trial, they sang the most beautiful songs of praise even so much that the Bible uses the song of praise of Moses as the song that we sing in heaven that we join into the praises of Moses in heaven.

And you do remember when Moses sang that praise he was on the other shore at the Red Sea when the enemy had been drowned. So the gifts that God give are perfect no matter if we understand them or not.

And I thought about this how we struggle with this and I thought about the mindset of a teenager that they, I think they're pretty honest and sincere in their thinking that their parents are dumb, they don't understand. They seriously think that way. They're not angry always, sometimes they are, I guess a little bit, but they just think that their parents don't understand them.

And I do remember thinking that way and why do they think that way? Because they don't know what's behind the thought process of their parents. They have not burned their fingers yet. They don't know what lies behind some things where some things can go.

And of course I guess we as parents are sometimes, you could possibly even say too worried but sometimes we are worried for a reason because we know what can happen and the youth don't know. They just see the opportunity, they just see the golden plan and nothing can go wrong for a young one.

So they think that their parents are dumb, they don't understand them. But I have the same problem with God. I oftentimes fail to understand the wisdom in God's doings. I struggle because I don't understand. I don't see behind the corner. I don't even know that there is a corner in my life and I don't know what's ahead and God knows it. He prepares me for that. He teaches me. I sometimes call it pastor training.

And I remember how one brother said so interestingly, elderly speaker brother, some of you know him, he said to me that God sometimes allows in the speaker's family or life things that they don't deserve but God wants to teach them that they can serve and help others.

And there sure are experiences in our lives which cannot be learned from any books. We just have to go through it. Isn't that true that when we have gone through it we know what it is like?

But it takes lots of faith from a young one to believe that my parents know what they're talking about although to me it seems very different. It seems to me like a golden opportunity and I don't understand why my parents are not so excited about that, they are even worried.

And now for myself I hope that I could learn to trust God with all my heart, that I could put my life into his hands without any conditions. I could just lean on his decision whatever it is, believing not knowing but believing that if God decides that way it's good for me just like a teenager happily can trust their parents that, "Okay, you know better than I do."

May we put our lives in God's hands in the same way that you know better than I do. God's gifts are perfect and they come from the Father of light. Interesting way of saying it. God is the Father of light. There's much light within God.

When God approached Saul of Tarsus it happened in the middle of the day, bright sunlight and Saul said later that I saw another light brighter than the sun. Can you imagine that there can be something which is brighter than the sunlight? God's light is much brighter than the sunlight.

God has put the sun shining. God has created the sun and so that's what God is. And with him there is no variableness meaning he doesn't change. He is the same as he was yesterday and will be forever.

This world in its foolishness, things that because life has changed, because man has learned new tricks, because man has been so smart that we know how to send a text message to somebody's right pocket 3000 kilometers from here, that God must change. God will not change. God is the same. There is no variableness and it's good for us because God has promised that the ones who have chosen I will not send them away. No one will take them away from my hand.

There is only one power that can separate us from God and that is sin. Sin separates man from God, nothing else.

And then James speaks about the word of truth. God begat, meaning gave us life with the word of truth. God's word is the truth. God's word, what we study here, the book that I have in front of me is the truth, God's word.

It is man's word for sure. Men have written it. It has come for the first time through the hand of man. That's true. It's man's word but it's also God's word. They are inseparable, they're indivisible, they are intertwined.

But how is it God's word? It's all God's word in man's word. How is it possible? This is, I think, something that the world struggles so much nowadays. They lack one fundamental part of understanding or I wouldn't say understanding but believing it. They lack the faith unto God's Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of God made God's word possible and so when we read God's word we have to read it as the Holy Word. We have to look at it from below humbly asking God to explain it to us through His Spirit and it is the truth.

I know that there are lots of people in this world and the waves are rising where people more and more put God's word under the question and also our doctrine is put under question. There are many, many questions made, one being very close to our reason: how is it possible that just so few will be saved? How is it possible?

Well, I don't know but that's how it is. It doesn't change it. If I think it's too little, who am I to teach God? God can do with the salvation what He wants to. He will save whoever He wants to save as He says in His Word which is the truth.

And if it is so, it is so. Who am I? I don't dare to change it because I want to believe as the Bible teaches. That's my foundation.

And it's so interesting how the Word of God supports us. We are not, dear brothers and sisters, we are not to believe against the Bible.

And the second thing I encourage you youth also to read the Bible. I honestly say unto you, give some time to that, read it. You are in the age where you learn it now. When I'm coming to the Teflon stage, nothing sticks. It doesn't help if I read it.

But read it when you're young. You will learn it, you'll remember it and it supports you. It's your best support. Read it with prayer that God would give you tools to battle against the enemy with that.

God begat us, gave us life with the word of truth.

And then the last message for us is to be the doers of the word. We have been listening to the word now during the weekend and I know it's been a gorgeous weekend. Lots of people have done many other things than sat listening to the word of God.

May God bless our weekend which we have been sitting listening to his word. May God bless it in such a way that this word which we have learned and heard would, what, this is like a seed that has been sown into the ground of our heart, that it would germinate and start growing.

And that's what James says here: be ye doers of the word and not only hearers because if we are only hearers we end up deceiving our own selves. We end up lying to ourselves.

And he gives us a picture of a man who went and looked at his image in the mirror. Have you ever been surprised when you looked at the mirror you realized that something was wrong? Your hair is going every which way or you had soiled your face somewhere or something that you were surprised when you looked to the mirror.

That's a picture that he wants to show unto us that now this man went and looked at his face from the mirror and he saw there something that needed his action. He saw it from the mirror.

God's word is compared to the mirror. It's a very bright clear mirror. When we are in front of the word of God we are looking at our souls from the mirror and sometimes we see something that needs our action.

And now James says be a wise listener. This man looked at his face and he went his way and straightway, meaning immediately, forgot what manner of man he was.

These men made a mistake. If you look at your face from the mirror and you see something that should be fixed, if you turn away from the mirror, that the matter doesn't go away or if you get so mad to the mirror that you take the mirror and turn it upside down, it doesn't go away.

These men turned away and forgot. That kind of listening does not help us. God does not want us to be that kind of listeners.

What it might mean, it might mean that somebody under the word of God realized that something in my life is not right. Let me take one example: somebody thought that the music which is in my smartphone is not right, is not good. I have downloaded stuff that hurts my faith, bothers my conscience.

What does it mean to be a doer of the word? It means that you delete it, you put it away. Is this law? No, it is not law. I know that this kind of advice is being said somewhere as law, they were preaching law. It's not law.

If we get rid of those idols that travel with us. We remember how Jacob returned from Laban and Rachel, his wife, had stolen the idols from Laban's house. I don't know what they were at that time but I do recall one time at home years ago, we're still in Finland, I felt like Jacob.

I saw my home books and CDs that were not right and we had to take the matter and I said to my children that I want to get rid of these. I don't want to have idols in my home. These are idols. These are matters from this world and they don't belong to a believing home.

And we agreed that we want to get rid of those and I encourage if there is somebody who thinks now that yes, I have idols in my smartphone or wherever, CDs in the car, whatever they are, they can be whatever, I encourage you to get rid of them with the power of God as long as you can.

Don't wait, don't wait until tomorrow. Be a doer of the word. Why? Because these men straightway forget it what manner of man he was. It happens so quick.

The enemy is busy saying that, "Oh yeah, maybe you have to take, yeah, just take care of that but not now, later." And the plan for the enemy of the souls is that if you don't take care of that now, maybe you'll forget it and it just settles down and you can continue the same way as you did before.

I think this is what it is to be a doer of the word.

So why should we do that? It says in the last verse, "But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed."

So if this is law, this is the law, this is the perfect law of liberty. It's not the law that judges us, it liberates us and it carries God's blessing. This man shall be blessed in his deeds.

We heard Friday about Joseph how God blessed him. He was a believing youth. He was 17 when he was sold by his brethren to Egypt and he believed, he wanted to believe.

We also heard here mention about Daniel. He was about the same age when he was taken as a captive to Babylon and he wanted to believe like a believer. He was willing to accept the, or how should I say, when he was tempted with the food and drinks of the king, he with the power of God, he fought against it and he overcame it, the trial, the temptation.

So this being a doer of the word brings a blessing.

So we say that we cannot earn our salvation and that is true but we have power. We have been given power enough to turn away from God. That's what we can do. No one can force someone to believe. If somebody doesn't want to believe, no one can force them. This is volunteer.

We have strength enough to turn away from God but we have not enough power to turn towards God. That's God's doing. God calls, invites, sanctifies to the Holy Spirit, forgives but we can turn away.

And I just, that's what I would wish to leave unto us into our hearts, that may God help us to be the doers of the word, to get rid of that that hurts us and makes us fall into sin. Don't leave that. It's like a life flying to the world.

God sure advises and encourages if there is something for someone like God, I would say chose this text for me. If there is something for someone be obedient. Don't think that, "Yeah, maybe tomorrow." Do it today, do it before you go to bed and may God help you to do it and God will bless you.

Being obedient, it pays to be obedient. It pays to fear God. Fear of God is wisdom. The Bible even says it's a beginning of wisdom to fear God and it's not negative to fear God. It's very positive.

God will bless those who fear him. May God give us strength to continue in this narrow way of life where we have to give up things that this world would give us that God will bless us in our doing.

Dear brothers and sisters, uplift your hearts and believe sins forgiven in Jesus name, the precious blood. May the power of the gospel give us strength to continue and to put away those things that are not good for our faith in Jesus name. Amen.

Arkadaşlar, at the end I want to thank the brothers who came to serve us and your families who traveled with us. Have a safe trip back home and please take our greetings with you to your home congregations.

And thanks to those countless pairs of hands who have served during the weekend, especially thanks to the youth who have both served here and so beautifully come time and time again to be served by God's word. May God bless that seed that has been sown into our hearts. Amen.

Let us join into the Lord's benediction. The Lord bless us and keep us. The Lord make His face shine upon us and be gracious unto us. The Lord lift up His countenance upon us and give us peace. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.