YHWH: Study on the Attributes of God

Transcription

1 YHWH: Study on the Attributes of God Sermon #7: God Is Good Psalm 34 Dr. Matt Cassidy --- May 20, 2018 I took a class in apologetics a number of years ago. Apologetics is the discipline of being able to defend your belief in the existence of God and the claims of Jesus Christ. And in one of the classes, the professor said, Now you re going to hear this a lot: Is there anything God can t do? If God is so strong and powerful, is there anything God can t do? And he said, Just get to the answer quickly and tell them, Yes, there are plenty of things that God can t do. He can t violate logical definitions --- he can t make a round square or a square circle. There are many, many things that God can t do and you should be thankful. God cannot lie. What He says is true, it is always true and has to be true. God cannot break a promise. He swears by His own name and His own integrity and we are part of those covenants that He swore by. We should be grateful that He cannot break those. He cannot change, He cannot grow, He cannot evolve, He cannot learn, because God is complete. There are many things that God cannot do. Listen to this life-changing, declaration of truth: that YHWH God cannot be anything but good. God cannot do anything but out of goodness. That is who He is. That is what He does. It s all for good. YHWH --- His ambitions are always for goodness. Our daily blessings are from a consequence of His goodness. He has created all things because He is good. He saved us because of His goodness. And changing your mind --- that s going to be our theme today. We re in an apologetics class, we re going to change the way we think about God and we are particularly going to change the way we think about God s goodness. Because if we can change our thinking about the goodness of God, it will absolutely change our lives. And here s why --- because we live lives with the distorted view of who YHWH is and what His attributes are. And the primary most common lie that we believe is whether or not God is good. The thing that we assume in every temptation is whether or not God has the best for us. It goes all the way back to the beginning. If you go back to the Garden of Eden, the original temptation is a function of Is God really good? I mean, when you consider the place of that Attributes.7.cassidy 1

2 temptation, the tree of forbidden fruit, they have an entire garden to run and play in. How do they find themselves at that tree with forbidden fruit? And what are they hearing? What are they pondering? Is YHWH good? Is there something that that tree has that would enable me to live a better life, to be a better person? If you take and eat from this you could be like a god. There s the fear of missing out. That s what s happening. They re questioning God s goodness, that He would withhold something that s good, as though He could. And so, they took, they ate, and they died. And so, we go right back to you and me. We re just back in the garden regularly. We falsely assume about whether or not God has the best for us, and so it makes it very difficult for us to give ourselves entirely, surrendered to the Lord, as we were singing, just completely giving ourselves to the Lord. The reason we double clutch, the reason we second think about it, the reason we wonder, Okay, we should be careful before we make that kind of decision is fundamentally because we think we might miss out on something. We might lose something by being nothing but completely surrendered to Him. That s our bent. That s what it means to be bent. And this change of understanding, of thinking about the goodness of God in my life, absolutely changed me. And after acknowledging what we re going to look at today, some of my greatest doubts and temptations became fragile and pathetic. Because in the midst of those temptations, in the midst of those doubts, I would say, sometimes even out loud, Stop it. Shut up. That s a lie. YHWH is good. He can t be anything but good. All His word is good. Then I d just move on the next activity, because of what we ll learn today. So, how about you? Do you understand about what it means that God is good, that God can t be anything but good? He can t act in any other way, He can t have a motive different that goodness. Definition of the Goodness of God Here s Tozer s definition of the goodness of God. He says, The goodness of God is that which resolves --- resolves means requires --- The goodness of God is that which requires Him to be kind --- look at these descriptive words, they re great --- kind and cordial and Attributes.7.cassidy 2

3 benevolent, and full of good will towards men. He is tenderhearted and of quick sympathy. He has an unfailing attitude toward all moral beings and is open and frank and friendly. By His nature He is inclined to bestow blessedness and He takes total pleasure in the happiness of His people. That s a great definition for the goodness of God. And when we look at the goodness of God, it s important to understand that it is not only just an attribute of God, a single attribute of God, but many scholars will tell you --- and I ll show you why in just a minute --- that it s the sum total of all of His attributes. It s a simple description of who God is, that God is good. It is the essence of God. And the reason that we can know the power of His goodness here, the all-inclusive umbrella term of His goodness, is because Moses asks to see God. He says, Show me your glory. And Moses has had a greater relationship with God than anybody in history up to this period of time. No one has had the exposure to YHWH like Moses has. He hears God s voice --- he heard it in the burning bush and is able to tune into that frequency now and hear God s voice regularly. He has seen God s power in the ten plagues. He experienced God s protection at the parting of the Red Sea. And even with all that, it s not enough for Moses. And so, Moses says, I want to know You. I want to see You, I want a personal, intimate relationship with You. And he demands in chapter 33 of Exodus, verse 18; he says, Show me Your glory. Exodus 33:19 And YHWH said, I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, YHWH, in your presence And YHWH responds like this: And YHWH said, I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, YHWH, in your presence All my goodness will pass in front of you. You want to see my glory? I m bringing you all of my goodness. That s the idea of this sum total of all attributes. God seems to be summarizing His attributes with this all my goodness. Generosity And J. I. Packer adds an interesting perspective on this. Let me give you a quote from him on this particular passage. He says, Within the cluster of God s moral perfections there is Attributes.7.cassidy 3

4 one in particular which points us to goodness. It s the quality which God especially singles out from the whole by proclaiming all his goodness to Moses. He spoke of himself as abundant in goodness. And the idea of His goodness is a qualitative and quantitative goodness. J. I. Packer says this: that His goodness is His generosity. God shows us His goodness in His generosity. J. I Packer is basically saying that these two words are synonyms. When you re generous towards a person, you re giving something to someone without any ill motive, not to be paid back, for no other reason because you are good, you are generous. When you give someone something that s in a generous context, it is not because they necessarily deserve it. It s just because of your interest in goodness. When you are generous towards someone, you usually give them more than they could ever expect. That s what it means to be generous. That s what it means to be good. And God is good. So, when Jesus is teaching about the nature of God s goodness, He says, And the Father allows it to rain on the wicked and the righteous, because He s good. He s good all the time. He s good to everyone, all people. He is lavish. YHWH is good means YHWH is extravagant. Biblical Examples of God s Goodness And so, the way that we apply this into our lives is to first see that in the passages of the Bible we need to look for this generosity and goodness as we turn our pages and read about the goodness of God. It s on every page. It s implied or it s explicit. The goodness of God is the foundation that we build the rest of our faith on. And the reason that you need to build on the foundation of the goodness of God is because when you trust God, you re trusting in His goodness. When you doubt God, it s more than likely that you re doubting in His goodness. The goodness of God never varies. It never fluctuates in its intensity. It has to stay at full power. He is always generous, perfectly generous, all the time. There s never been a time in history where He was less good. There will never be a time in history or in the future where He would be more good. He can t be anything but perfectly good all the time. So, let me show you about the goodness of God. Let me give you some examples about how God shows His generosity towards us and how we can experience the goodness of God. Attributes.7.cassidy 4

5 Psalm 34:8 Taste and see that YHWH is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him. As the Psalmist wrote, Taste and see that YHWH is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him. How does God reveal His goodness? How does He show us His generosity? Have you see His work? Have you see what He s done? God s Goodness in Creation Creation is one of the fullest expressions in the extravagance of God. In the creation story in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, there is a repetition, a prominent theme, of goodness. It s defining who God is. It is defining what goodness is. This is what creation looks like. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and void, darkness ruled over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, Let there be light. And God saw that the light was good. There was light, and it was good. And he separated light from darkness. God said, Let the light be called day, and the darkness be called night. And there was evening and there was morning, and it was the first day. And God said, Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear. And God saw that and said, It is good. And then God said, Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to the various kinds of plants, according to the various kinds of vegetation. And it was so. And God saw that and said, It is good. And there was evening and there was morning --- it was the third day. The various kinds of plants did you know that there are 400,000 different kinds of flowers? Do you think we d get by with 200,000 different kinds of flowers? He s generous. He s good. And then God said, Let there be lights in the vaults of the sky to separate the day from the night and let them serve as signs to mark the sacred times, and the days of the year, and it was so. And God saw that and said it was good. And there was evening and there was morning --- the fourth day. Attributes.7.cassidy 5

6 In the observable universe, by we little humans, there are, it says --- scientists will tell you --- that there are possibly as many as 10 billion different galaxies. Now you probably don t know that the average galaxy has 100 billion stars. So, the math goes that there are --- in the observable universe --- one billion trillion stars. There are a billion trillion stars. Do you know why? Because YHWH is generous. It is in His goodness that He puts these into the night sky. It is His extravagance on display. He s not even showing off yet. And then God created the creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning and that was the fifth day. them. Do you know how many kinds of fish and fowl there are? Scientist say there a lot of And God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And then He said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they might rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, and over all the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. The only thing that was not good in the first two chapters of the Bible was that man was not alone. It is not good for man to be alone. And YHWH said, We need to fix that. And so, He did. The summary of the story goes like this. And God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, and that was the sixth day. God s goodness is displayed in creation. His generosity is overflowing in what we see and taste and smell and touch. And when we enjoy creation, when we find ourselves celebrating in all of its beauty, what we re celebrating is the goodness of God. When we watch sunrises or sunsets or a lightning storm over the city, we are worshiping God s goodness when we re doing that. God gave us so much more than we ever needed to survive. Everything we experience is an expression of the goodness of God --- every job we ve had, every relationship we enjoy, every Attributes.7.cassidy 6

7 tree, every flower, some cats --- they re expressions of the goodness of God. Every corner of your life, every experience that you might have, is a blessing from God. And the point is to be grateful. You cannot be happy without being grateful. You can t. And watch this --- it works both ways. If you re grateful, it s impossible to be unhappy. If you re happy, you re grateful. You can t be happy and ungrateful. Gratitude is the natural response to the goodness of God in what we see and touch and smell and taste. God s Goodness in Relationship But I want to bring the goodness of God into a personal part of our lives. I want us to experience the goodness of God the way the Bible describes it, in a relational way. Because if we could see the goodness of God this way, we could meditate on the personal part of the goodness of God. This is the part that will change our lives. So, if you ll just enjoy this for a second, I want you to imagine who you would consider the greatest hero in human history. Who would that person be that is the most to be admired? It could be somebody in science, somebody who s a genius like Beethoven or Isaac Newton. It could be a former president like George Washington. It could be a hero like Esther or Joan of Arc. By the way, I know it s church, but we re going to put Jesus over here for this --- we want the second most admirable person, whatever --- give me somebody like Shakespeare. So, here s the point. Who s that person in your imagination? You get a letter --- a handwritten letter in the mail --- and that person has asked you to a long dinner and you could spend the evening with that person. Now let s just pretend that after this extended exposure to this hero, the greatest person that s ever existed in life in your imagination, and at the end of that meal, the person says, You know, I have really enjoyed our time together. And I was wondering if you would consider being my friend. Would you be my friend? Now if it were me, I d probably start with, Uh I m not worthy to be called your friend. I don t want to do that title. Honestly, I ve been nervous through this whole meal. I haven t eaten or slept since I got the invitation. You are very good to ask, but And the hero would say, Yeah, I am good to ask. I want you to be my friend. Not that I need you to be my friend, but I want you to be my friend because of the goodness in my heart. I want you to be my friend because I m generous with friendships. I like to have a lot of friends. Attributes.7.cassidy 7

8 And you d say, Yeah. Okay, that would be great. You are generous with your friends. And I would really like to be your friend. It s going to be kind of weird at first because I ve never had a friend like you, and I m grateful for that. If all of that happened, would you be careless? Would you take that friendship for granted? Would you even keep that friendship quiet? Oh, no, you would not. You would make sure that everybody knows that you are personal friends with this person as much as they would tolerate it. What you got there? A ham sandwich? That reminds me of the time that Ludwig and I were having lunch together did you know Ludwig van Beethoven likes ham? I do, because we re friends. Here look at this he s on the front of my cell phone favorites section. He s above my wife and my mother. There he is right there. He s teaching me sign language if you look real close. Yeah that s us hanging out. Here s another picture of us at the piano together. He s very kind. He s very good. He lets me play the piano with him because he wants to be my friend. You get it? YHWH has asked to be our friend, and He does that out of His goodness, for no other reason than He s generous; because He s extravagant with the word friend. And He brings that to us, the great I AM, YHWH, God Almighty, and He says: Let s be friends. And this is how it changes your life. If you let that friendship change your identity, then your life will be changed. That God wants to be our friend, that s how He expressed his goodness relationally. He comes after us and says what people in relationships say: Could you talk to me? Would you listen to me? Can we converse? Can we commune with each other? That would be great if we could just spend time together talking and listening and communing. And He does that. The church word for talk to me is prayer. And when Jesus is teaching the greatest sermon ever spoken in Matthew (I think it s chapter 7), Jesus says this: Hey, listen, listen. Ask, seek, knock. Talk to me! is what He s saying. Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Everybody that asks, they receive; everybody that seeks finds; everybody that knocks, those doors are swung open. Just talk to me. He says this about the goodness of God: Look, you guys, if your son asks for a loaf of bread, would you give him a rock? No. If he asks for a fish, would you give him a snake? No, you wouldn t. And then He says: And then you, even though you re evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more would your good and generous Father give you all Attributes.7.cassidy 8

9 good things? See the theme? It s the goodness of God. You can t think good and God the Father is good-er than you. So, talk to Him. YHWH is saying, Let s have a relationship. Ask, seek, knock! I m generous with My time! He says, Listen to me, that s what happens in relationships. We re talking and we re listening. He wants us to listen to Him, because He wants us to know Him, He wants us to know His heart and His soul, and so He s written us a book, a letter, to each and every one of us so that we might experience that. It s the Bible. Yes, you know. But we don t read it that way, like it s a relational book. Many of you probably know the books God Calling and Jesus Calling. They re extremely popular, best sellers, and I think the reason is because of the genius of these two books. They take passages out of the Bible and then they write them like they re written from Jesus calling, YHWH calling --- they re written to the person. And so, people just read through these books and they say, This is like God s talking to me. Yes, it is! Because He is! Because He s relationally generous. He s good. He is a good, good Father that wants to talk to us. He wants us to listen to Him. He wants us to enjoy time together. Sociologists would tell you that one of the more bonding social events that humans can experience is having a meal together, dining together. And so even in the imaginary story, a couple of movements back here, I said, Hey, you could go to have a dinner with this hero of yours. I didn t say, You could have a stiff meeting in a cold office without windows. I said, No, it s going to be a long dinner. Because we know that s a thing that causes us to bond with one another. God wants to have dinner with you. It s called communion. And while there are multiple meanings and purposes layered deep in the communion meal, the Lord s table, could we just stop and make it as simple as possible? It s a dinner with God. And not just any dinner. The Passover meal is the single most important meal in the Jewish experience. It is saved for only family and tender friends. And you have them over and Jesus did that. It was a Passover meal --- He changed the meaning and made it the Lord s table. He brought in the new covenant with it, all that. But listen, it s dinner with the King. And it s a mystical, mysterious event that we experience even in the current expression of that. Jesus requires us to have a regular communion. You know why? Because He is relationally good. He says, You guys need to do this as much as possible. Some churches make it every week. Some churches make it once a year during that Attributes.7.cassidy 9

10 one Passover meal. And some once a month whatever it might be. But look, what s the message? God Almighty says, Let s have dinner together. You know why? Because He s good. He doesn t need to have dinner with us. He s generous. He just does it because that s His nature. How Are We to Respond to God s Goodness? Even the salvation experience is based on the goodness of God --- a king who will spend whatever it takes to rescue those who have been trapped by the demons in the world. So how do you respond to the generous goodness of God? Well, what you believe about God is the most important thing about you. How do you respond to that? Well, you believe what is true. You change the way you think not what you want about God, what you hope about Him being good --- it s not about hope, it s not about emotionally desiring --- this is fact, that God is good and He can be no other way. Repent of Your Unbelief and Ingratitude And so, the first response that I was thinking of --- you repent. You repent of all the unbelief and you repent of all the ingratitude. It says in Romans that it s the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. Isn t that a great sentence? It s the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. And we should repent for not believing and trusting in the goodness of God. It s easy to believe that we might be left out of something. We are sons of Adam and we are daughters of Eve. And we doubt in God s goodness and we have contempt and are ungrateful for His provisions. But that needs to stop. Here s a great quote from I don t even know who Years of rebellion against God have bred in us a fear that cannot be overcome in a day. Good, let s spend the rest of our lives working on this. We must be dedicated to identify what exactly we are accusing YHWH of when we have our doubts. Are we accusing Him of being stingy? Of being cruel? Being unkind? In our thoughts we need to stop and say, What am I accusing YHWH of here? Of withholding something from me? For being stingy? And then we stop and we think and we say, Attributes.7.cassidy 10

11 He can t even be stingy. God couldn t even want to be stingy. He doesn t know how to be unkind. This is the round square thing. And so, when we find ourselves doubting that, we need to stop and repent and say, Lord, I am assuming the very worst of who You could not be, instead of imagining the greatest of who You could be. And we start with repentance. I am believing and trusting in the wrong things, these lies about God. He has to be good. He is generous. Rest in His Goodness When You Encounter Adversity The second one is that we need to rest in times of adversity and times of temptation. Because when we re gazing at that forbidden fruit, when we find ourselves contemplating, Oh, no, God is withholding something good from us, we need to stop and do this. We need to stop and ask the question, Could God be anything but good? No. Is that thing that s forbidden, that forbidden fruit, that thing that God is saying, Don t go there, is it even possible that it could be good for us? It can t be. There s this one sentence that has changed my entire life. And it was during a dark time. I was reading and wrestling with the goodness of God and even how could bad things happen to good people. There were a lot of layers and many angles of things that were happening in my life. Now interestingly, just to for some reason, I don t like myself I was memorizing this particular sentence in Romans 8. I m going through this, I m trying to figure out if God is good and the problem with evil, I m just dutifully memorizing this passage, and then, [explosion sound] I realize the passage I was memorizing was answering the questions that I was asking. He who did not spare His own Son, but gave him up for us, how would He not also with him freely give us all things? Romans 8:32. He who did not spare His own son... YHWH has already given me the most precious possession. How would He not also with him freely give us all things that I would need, all things that would be good? That sentence changed my life. I realized that He s already proved that He can t be stingy. He s already shown that He s generous. How could He not also with Jesus now decide to just freely give to us? He can t hold back His Son, why would He hold back some trinket? And that sentence shows that it is logical to give this King your entire life as a logical expression of worship, becoming a living sacrifice. Because it makes sense for who God is and who He s not, who He is and who He cannot be. Attributes.7.cassidy 11

12 So, you repent and then you rest --- you don t have to put up a fight anymore during these difficult times. You just resolve. Risk Stepping Out in Faith Like Never Before And then the last one is --- I want you to think about doing this --- risk in a way that you re entering a place of fear that you ve never gone to before, knowing the goodness of God, being confident and trusting in the goodness of God. Go someplace that you don t like going, take those next little bitty steps, and say this sentence, say these verses back and forth. Psalm 84:11 For YHWH God is a sun and shield; YHWH gives grace and glory; no good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly. For YHWH is the sun and the shield. YHWH gives grace and glory. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk in integrity. No good thing does YHWH withhold from those who walk in integrity. He s the sun --- that is power, that is life and energy, that is life itself. He s the shield. He s your protection. And no good thing --- here s the promise --- no good thing will He withhold. And so, risk, live all the way for the glory of God because He s a good, good Father. In your sexual life, live that expression of what it means to live uprightly in your sexual life, because you re not going to miss out on anything. Live with integrity in your financial life. Nothing good will be withheld from you. Live uprightly in your relationships. There s nothing to lose. Live uprightly in your spiritual life. There s really no such thing as sacrifice in obedience. You always get a return on that investment. And it s a thousandfold. You know why? Because God is generous. No, no, no He s extravagant. He is good. God is good all the time. All the time God is good. To know God is to trust God. To trust God is to trust God in His goodness. It s to trust in His generosity. It s to trust in His extravagance. It s to trust in His nature. It is to know what He is and what He cannot be. And when that happens in a soul s life, that person is overcome with peace and joy. God is good all the time. All the time God is good. Attributes.7.cassidy 12

13 Let s pray: Lord, YHWH God, do good in Your good pleasure with us. Act towards us, not as we deserve, but as You come to see what we would need and what would be good for us, being the God that You are. We should have nothing to fear, only a joy in life, even in sorrow and suffering. We know that even those things will be worked out together for the good since we love You and were called to that purpose. Lord, let us be a church that celebrates Your goodness and that brags about how You are our great hero. You are a good, good Father. As You call us deeper still, we will not doubt Your goodness. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Attributes.7.cassidy 13