I
hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving this past week. I hope all of you had a chance to stop and
think about the ways that God has blessed you.
I know that as Amy and I sat with our families and talked about all that
has happened over the past few years on both sides of our family, we all
realized that we have been very fortunate to be where we are. Sure, we’ve had our times of struggle. With my family, we lost our matriarch. We’ve seen the joy of an engagement turn into
the mess of a broken engagement and the perceived embarrassment of a marriage
falling apart ending before even getting started. We’ve also seen some estrangement from other
members of our family. As for Amy’s
family, we’ve seen the further decline of her grandfather’s health, her
grandmother’s health suffer as a result of that, and an uncle struggle through
a season of hardship I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
Several others have found great difficulty in dealing with their situations
in life as well. However, despite the
numerous reasons that we may be able to think of to be disheartened at our
situations, we all know that we are joyous and thankful to be right where we
are. It may not be where we want to be,
but it most definitely isn’t where we could be (and it’s nowhere near where we
deserve to be).
You
see, we often forget about what we actually deserve. We think in terms of something be fair or
unfair, but little thought is really ever given to what is actually deserved. In all honesty, our concept of something being
fair has morphed into everyone being given the same exact thing without
variation and that being readjusted along the way. Fair would be God putting every single one of
us in the exact same starting point and giving all of us the exact same thing
throughout the duration of our lives. According
to many, fair is when one person tends to show more success or promise in one
area, they have to loss some of that so that they aren’t above another
person. Fair would be all of us having
the exact same talents and abilities and setting things up so that the only
reason for our situations being different from someone else’s would be the
amount of effort given. However, there
are still those who would claim that it’s unfair for some to have the gift of
motivation and other to not have it.
But, that’s not the way that we start off, and I for one am
thankful. I’m thankful that I was born
into a two-parent, Christian household.
I’m thankful that my family doesn’t have some type of
genetic-predisposition to some crippling condition. I’m thankful that God let me find my bride at
a young age instead of later in life.
I’m thankful that I have three kids who were absolutely perfect at the
time of their birth. I’m thankful
because I know where the source of all of that is found. I know that, just as James wrote in our text
for today, “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from
the Father.” And I know that
those gifts have been given to me not because of anything special about myself,
but because of the love of God in heaven.
Remember, fair is all of us standing condemned and separated completely
from God. However, He gave us the
ultimate perfect gift in Jesus; the gift that healed the gap between God and
His people. Jesus is the only reason why
any of us aren’t condemned for being the wretched sinners that we are.
Now,
this text that we’re looking at today is part of a much larger text about our
faith being tested and encouragement for one who is in the midst of a
particular trial or hardship. It’s a
larger text about being both rooted in and built upon Christ (Colossians
2:7). Notice those two words, rooted
refers to something like a plant or a tree; built upon has something to do with
construction. Some we are to anchor
ourselves in Christ like roots, and then we are to build ourselves upon the
foundation that is Christ. If we are
rooted in and built upon Christ, then the storms of life and the winds of
temptation won’t blow us down and cause our lives to fall into utter
chaos. The larger text where these
verses that we’re looking at today are found even says that we are to test God
in faith so that we will strengthen our own relationships with and confidence
in Him. However, largely due to a
planned series through James in the near future, I’m not going to go into the
entirety of this chunk of text, but focus upon these few verses (and primarily
verse 17).
During
my training for both a career in education and pastoral ministry, I have studied
the fields of psychology and sociology.
I’ve learned a bit about what we think, why we think that way, and how
certain things tend to cause changes within the way we think. One of the more puzzling phenomena (on the
surface at least) is the psychological effect of the holiday season. Look, I love Christmas. I love gathering together with my family,
seeing the looks on my kids’ faces Christmas morning, and especially the season
of worship that comes with Christmas.
However, Christmas, psychologically speaking, is considered to be the
most depressing day of the year, and that just doesn’t seem right does it? However, when you really begin to think about
it, it starts to make a little bit of sense.
You see, mixed in with all the joy of Christmas is all of the sadness of
years gone by. For those who are without
a family to gather with, that point is magnified on Christmas. For those who have recently lost loved ones,
Christmas reminds them of what they’ve lost.
I know that several of you have either recently gone through this or
will this coming year. As I said
earlier, my family will have Christmas for the first time since the passing of
my grandmother and I’m sure that there will be a tear or two shed at some point
during the day. So, although we are
grateful for the holiday season, there tends to be other factors at play as
well.
As
I said a second ago, we have a tendency to focus upon the negative instead of
the positive. What one person views as a
motivational thought, another views as a depressing insurmountable image. Now, I’ve been convinced for years that
Christians are just happier people.
We’re happier because, as I stated earlier, our roots aren’t in earthly
things and our lives aren’t built upon fleshly desires. I think that we Christians are able to see
the bigger picture sometimes and not focus upon the minutia that many people
fix their eyes upon. Even the best of
earthly things still are not what we are to build our lives upon. Families are great, but we can all think of
times where at least one member of our family let us down. Friends are great, but we can all agree that
building our lives simply upon our relationship with other folks is a good way
to ensure an unstable foundation. The
only thing worthy and strong enough for us to build our lives upon is Christ
because he is the only one who at some point won’t falter. God is the only one who doesn’t have anything
less than perfection found anywhere within him.
Remember, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from
the Father.”
I’m
going to say something that may confuse some of you this morning: God doesn’t cause bad things to happen in
your life. God doesn’t cause you to lose
your job. He doesn’t cause you get
sick. He doesn’t cause fires to burn
down houses and winds to blow us away.
He allows those things, but He doesn’t cause them. On a more personal level, God doesn’t cause
you to seek after something immoral. He
doesn’t cause you have that addiction.
He doesn’t cause you to lean towards sinful actions. I’ll be perfectly honest with you and say that
folks who excuse away their behaviors by saying that God just made them that
way don’t really know God. You see, God
wouldn’t (and didn’t) create us to sin.
When we were first created in the Garden, we were perfect. It was our own pursuance of selfish desires
that caused sin to enter into our hearts.
It’s that same pursuit of selfish and sinful desires cause us to fall
into temptation today. God doesn’t tempt
us; we tempt ourselves away from God.
Saying that God would create us to sin is to say that there is sin found
within God, and that just isn’t true.
Now,
I could go off on a tangent about this subject and spend much more time than
any of you want to today talking about it, but I want to turn the focus back
not upon what we can and do give, but on what God can and does give. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is
from above, coming down from the Father.” There is nothing that God gives us that isn’t
perfect, even when we don’t understand the gift or situation. Even when we don’t understand why God is
calling us to do something or why He’s allowing us to go through a particular
trial, there is a perfection to be found in that gift. For Christmas this year, I bought both of my
both lifetime hunting and fishing licenses.
Now, neither one of them are going to understand what that gift means
when they open them. However, just
because you don’t understand the meaning of a gift, an experience, or a season,
doesn’t mean that it isn’t exactly what you need. Sometimes it takes a little difficulty for us
to listen. Sometimes God has to let us
walk through those rough waters so that we focus ourselves back on Him instead
of something else. But that’s the thing
isn’t it, we end up in the rough waters because we’ve focused upon earthly
things. Debt issues usually come because
we’ve overextended ourselves seeking happiness in earthly possessions. Depression after breakups comes as a result
of our attaching ourselves more another person than to God. So you see, the hardships that we faces many
times are a direct result of our own sinful thoughts and desires of putting
something in the place of God in our lives.
However,
despite this sin, despite our wandering from God, despite our continuous
straying from His will for us, He loves us.
He loves us so much that he sent his one and only begotten Son to die
upon the cross for us. As I said
earlier, Jesus is the ultimate good and perfect gift. He is the gift of the Father to His
children. He is the gift that we in no
way are worthy of or could have gotten for ourselves. Only God could have given us such a perfect
gift. Only Jesus could have lived a life
that was completely in line with the will of the Father. Only Jesus could so willingly climb upon the
cross and bear the sins of all mankind.
Only Jesus could mend the separation that existed between God and fallen
mankind. Only Jesus could pay the price
that was owed to satisfy the wrath of God, a wrath that was incurred because of
our sinfulness. Only Jesus could make
salvation a possibility for people like you and me. And it’s Jesus that we celebrate at
Christmas. It’s Jesus that is the true
gift of Christmas. Sure, the presents,
family, vacation, and all the other things are nice, but they are absolutely
nothing compared to the true gift of Christmas.
They’re nothing compared to the good and perfect gift that is our Savior
Jesus Christ. For it is in the gift of
Jesus that we find everything good in the life.
Those other things are wonderful, but we don’t build (or shouldn’t
build) our lives upon them. Jesus, the
true gift of Christmas, is the only thing stable enough to build our lives
upon. Remember what we said earlier;
that lives built upon all these other things were sure to crumble at some
point.
I
want all of y’all to do me a favor this Christmas season. I know this is going to sound strange, but
just try it out if you would. As you go
through you holiday preparations thank God for the gift of His Son. Thank God when you’re buying gifts for the
ultimate gift. Thank God during your
decorating that you are decorated in the righteousness of Christ instead of the
falleness that we deserve. Thank God
when you’re sending out those Christmas cards that He has called out to you and
that you have heard His call to turn to Him in faith. Thank God when you’re running to the grocery
store or cooking for folks that one day we will dwell in a room that has many
rooms and tables with a feast laid out upon them. In other words, thank God every step of the
way this Christmas for the gift of Jesus Christ. Thank Him because apart from Jesus Christ all
we have are fleeting and momentary gifts, but in Jesus we have every good and
perfect gift. Glory be to God; in the
name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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