God is so Good! The Goodness of God 3 Grace Emmanuel Church 06/25/17 Is God Good? We ve been singing a Chris Tomlin theme song for the last two weeks we ll sing it again today at the end of the sermon. Is that true?! Psalm 33:5.The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. Psalm 52:1..The goodness of God endures continually. Psalm 65:11 You crown the year with your goodness, And Your paths drip with abundance. Psalm 107:9 For He satisfies the longing soul, And fills the hungry soul with goodness. Psalm 107:15 Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men! As I was writing that my wife shows me this Facebook post from friends of ours. (Phil and Carol Mattingly) These grandbabies are our heart and today a piece is missing. (This little nine month old died after an horrible accident) I don't know how there can be any more tears, but they just keep coming. I was reminded of the words to a song at the beginning of this ordeal. "I will trust when I cannot see, when I'm faced with adversity. For I know His will is always best for me, I will trust when I cannot see Yes, my heart is breaking, but I am praying today that baby Kinsler will be able to provide a miracle for another family that is praying for one.thank you, God, for the gift of baby Kinsler and that we could share in his sweet little personality for this long and even though this makes no sense to me humanly, I will, and choose, to trust when I cannot see. How will the Mattingly s square what has happened to their family with David s famous outburst at the end of the 23 rd Psalm? Psalm 23:6 Surely your goodness and unfailing love (HESED) will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever. 1
We were really wrestling with this whole thing this last WED eve Can we look beyond the disasters in our lives and the world around us and still see a God of grace, and mercy, and goodness? (Remember that s how God defined himself to Moses and through Moses to each of us) Exodus 34: And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth. When somebody close to you is suddenly gone or some aspect of your life falls into seeming ruin is it a reflection on the goodness of God or is it a part of living in a sin-saturated, sin-cursed world? Two important theology briefings: 1) The Words translated good in Scripture always carry the idea of action toward another. (morally honorable, intrinsically honest, fair, worthy; upright; goodness expressing itself in deeds.) In order for God to be good there had to be somebody for Him to be good toward. Humanity s creation was set in stone from eternity past we were always the one s God was intending to extend his goodness and his love, and his mercy, and his grace to. Without a special in-his-image creation God would have had no one to use his attributes of personal love and faithfulness and goodness on. You re a big deal to God! (And it goes far, far beyond than that I ll show you in a little bit) ( It s impossible for it not to be so!) We wake up breathing fresh air in comfortable homes. We reach in the refrigerator and eat good food that nourishes our bodies. Many have the privilege of greeting other family members, each day. before they get into their reasonably nice car to go out and accomplish clear daily goals provided for their lives. Yet often we find negative, grumbling thoughts invading our minds about why something in our house is in disrepair or the car is idling rough, at stoplights. It might be good for us to pause and remember 2
That we have millions of Haitian and Domincan, and Cuban, and Jamaican brothers and sisters living a few hundred miles off our coast, this morning, who would feel overwhelmingly blessed if they could move their whole family onto our back porch. Many of them are waking up this morning with a one room house no air conditioning little food no car and they are thanking God for his outpoured goodness into their lives I m just saying! A perspective check can be a good thing! I was thinking yesterday of Jim and I in Africa riding a bus north in Ghana and at the rest stop the men s and women s bathroom s were distinguished by how far each group went back into the brush by the side of the road. Seriously If each of us look at this life as just the first 80 or 90 years (or 52 years or 25 years or 9 months how ever much time God graciously gives each of us ) If each of us look at this life as just the finger-snap beginning of billions of years of eternity spent with God in heaven reigning with him (whatever that means) It brings the hard months, and years, in this short life more clearly into perspective Romans 8:28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God (MSG) We can be so sure that every detail in our living for God is worked out into something good. Including the death of a 9 month old baby? including the horrible divorce you went through?... Including the huge financial stress you are facing?... including the life threatening illness shackling your body? We put this on the screen last week but it needs said again Nobody here is going to believe that God will work all things, every situation that presents itself in your life Nobody is going to believe that God is going to orchestrate every drop of that for your ultimate good unless they first believe that God is, at the core of his being a Good, Good Father! It s the difference between Carol Mattingly saying God I trust you and God where are you How could you be so mean to our family? When I look at all of history all of the Bible s unfolding revelation and then my life in particular from the world view that through all that is unfolding God s infinite goodness is pouring in my 3
direction causing every one of my own stumbles and every sinful action of others toward me and everything I experience as part of living in a sin-cursed world God s inexhaustible goodness is going to turn every single situation to my all-important eternal good. (The good that will last for billions of years) We need to interpret life s circumstances by what we know to be true about God rather than determining what is true about God by looking at life s circumstances! (A proper theology found in the Word of God will set a straight course not just for these eighty years but for the billions of years in eternity to follow.) (A distorted theology will leave you wondering why God seems to love other people more than he loves you and why you seem to be God s punching bag.) God uses the sinful things in this world to shape you never to hurt you working every single thing we experience for our good. ( I didn t say that He did!) When we shift to the New Testament this whole topic explodes into something even bigger We spent a lot of time on this Wed so we won spend much more today but From the moment the angel Gabriel announces good news that will bring great joy to all people. to the 127 times the words Good News (Gospel) are attached to this opening up of God s salvation to all people it is clear that the goodness of God has reached a new level! Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free! - Jesus 2 Timothy 1:10 And now he (God) has made all of this plain to us by the appearing of Christ Jesus, our Savior. He broke the power of death and illuminated the way to life and immortality through the Good News. (εὐαγγέλιον euaggelion) But I m not going to center, today on salvation.. the forgiveness and cleansing from sin that God accomplished by incarnating Jesus onto this earth and allowing him to pay our sin penalty dying the death we all should have had to die. 4
If there ever was a topic that shows us the outpoured goodness of God that should be it! We are all deserving of eternal punishment for our many sins Instead of giving us what we deserved. God not only extended us his goodness by offering us forgiveness He, himself came to this earth to make possible the impossible! That is the universal definition of a Good, Good, Good Father!!! Yes? But that is not where this subject ends not by a long shot! There is a not-so-subtle shift that takes place in the Bible as the Testaments change and it means everything to your daily lives in 2017. Let me show you five verses and you pick out the contrast that comes about after the death and resurrection of Jesus. This first one comes from Matthew 19 before the death of Jesus Matthew 19:16-17 Someone came to Jesus with this question: Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? 17 Why ask me about what is good? Jesus replied. There is only One who is good. 1) God is the source of goodness, all goodness is found in him! 2) We can t do some good deed to be saved, Jesus did it all! 3) Humans don t have any innate goodness in themselves Compare that to verses (dozens of them) that come after Jesus death and resurrection: 3 John 1:11 Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God. Romans 14:17 For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 2 Thessalonians 1:11 To this end also we pray for you always, that our God will count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power, Romans 15:14 I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another. 5
What just happened there. do you see that? No where in the Old Testament did I find any mention of human heart goodness. The Old Testament is a full-court-press to convince pagan people that there is a huge difference between a block of carved stone and the Creator of the universe who just can t stop pouring himself out on his children because it is his unchanging nature to do so!... It s the story of how Israel s spiritual leaders tried to build an accurate theology of God s goodness into his Children and how when they lost sight of his goodness they ran away from him re-embracing the foolishness of paganism. The Good News of the New Testament changes all that!. Instead of following the idea of God instead of having one s many sin s covered only to be repeated over and over again God is bringing His Good News to the Planet. That s not some poetic cute little phrase. It is the starting point between people learning about God s goodness vs. experiencing his goodness on the inside! If you are saved If you have had your sins forgiven and received God s forgiveness and cleansing if because of Jesus resurrection from the dead you have been promised eternal life instead of blinking off into oblivion when you die or worse yet, if your believe the 11 times Jesus himself said it there is a place of eternal punishment for those who reject God s outpoured goodness! If deserved punishment is your past.and forgiveness and eternal life are your present and future. You have already received a bucket of goodness the size of the Pacific Ocean poured into your soul. (Can anybody say praise God for the outpoured Goodness of God s redemption?) 1) Seriously here If you have had your sins forgiven and your washing machine breaks down tomorrow on a scale of 1-10 how good is God? 2) If you are living with sins forgiven and cleansed and you are looking forward to an eternity in heaven with your loving Heavenly Father and you develop a disease which will probably end in your death On a scale of 1-10 how good is God? 3) If you are redeemed and your family are redeemed and you are going to spend all of eternity in heaven together living in the New 6
Jerusalem described in Rev 21-22 If your 9 month old baby goes to heaven early on a scale of 1-10 how good is God? (tougher!) You that have lost children in this room are saying Chess, it s not that easy! I know I know but We need to interpret life s circumstances by what we know to be true about God rather than determining what is true about God by looking at life s circumstances! But we still haven t reached the full depths of what the post-resurrection verses we looked at say about us and God s goodness. The verses we looked at (plus a whole lot more I haven t shown you yet) say that not only is God s goodness going to change our sinful hearts. God s goodness is going to set up residence inside of us! God s goodness is going to flow in and then out through us. We as redeemed saints are going to be the first people the Bible uses the word good to describe. We already know that God is the source of all goodness so it s not going to be our goodness it s going to be God s goodness in us and out through us! Romans 14:17 For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (δικαιοσύνη- dikaiosyne: righteousness, doing what s right, right actions toward others) And right there is the key that unlocks this whole new truth. What s new in the theology of the NT. Well, actually, a whole lot is new The incarnate Jesus is new, his death and resurrection are new. Everything we ve said about him forgiving and cleansing our sins is new the promise of eternal life in the presence of our Savior is new But the icing on top the newness cake is that when Jesus leaves the earth to go and prepare a place for us He promises (and then delivers on that promise) that his Holy Spirit will come and infill each believer sanctifying transforming them from the inside out. Instead of the NT Christian laboriously trying to follow God the way the OT God followers laboriously did Jesus promises that the infilling Holy Spirit will bring the presence and the power of God right to the depths of our souls! He will begin to transform out the old sinful us and increasingly replace it with a whole 7
new righteous us. He will begin to build his character traits into us until they increasingly become our character traits. And guess which character trait is right there in the list with all the rest? Good guess!! Galatians 5:22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, NLT But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, faithfulness, NIV Notice all of these are part of who God is. they are now going to become a part of who we are including the fruit of goodness. Ephesians 5:8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), 10 finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. (ἀγαθωσύνη- agathosyne; goodness, good things) Now if we are going to start to grow the character traits of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Clearly if I m going to grow the fruit of love that s not designed to keep me out of hell. I m not growing in love as fire insurance against eternal punishment. If I m absorbing God s love as a part of my character isn t God s love in me supposed to have the same audience as God s love in God? The same is true for faithfulness, or mercy, or long-suffering-ness, or goodness! If I m growing the fruit of longsuffering (which is what God said was true about himself clear back in Exodus 34) Who am I supposed to be long-suffering to? The same people God is longsuffering to! Let s look at goodness again 1) The words translated good in Scripture always carry the idea of action toward another. (morally honorable, intrinsically honest, fair, worthy; upright; goodness expressing itself in deeds.) In order for God to be good through us there had to be somebody for us to be good toward. This gives, (for me), a whole new layer of meaning to Romans 8:28: 8
It isn t just saying that when your car breaks down God is going to use your disaster to somehow, sometime or another bring some kind of good out of it all. This is saying that God is going to use the challenges you face, in life, to build His Goodness into you! And because we are the extended human arms of God on this earth Your terrible time of testing, rightly viewed and rightly processed, can bring about in your character a transformation that will allow the new you to go on and transform, perhaps, hundreds of additional lives that you could not have touched had not you gone through the events through which God built good His Goodness into your life!!! (Do you think I am stretching this too far?) Building his divine goodness into your soul through the infilling presence of the Holy Spirit is supremely important to God: (It s imperative for him to be able to use your life) Hebrews 13:20 Now may the God of peace who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood 21 may he equip you with all you need for doing his will. May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to him. Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. I told the story of Corrie Ten Boom, and her sister Betsie, in a concentration camp 9
It was in a church in Munich that I saw him a balding, heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives. It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land When we confess our sins, I said, God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their coats, in silence left the room. And that s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next I pictured a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights; the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor; the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath her skin Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: A fine message, Fräulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea! And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women? But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. I was face-to-face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze. You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk, he was saying, I was a guard there. But since that time, he went on, I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein, again the hand came out will you forgive me? And I stood there I whose sins had, again and again, been forgiven could not forgive. Betsie had died in that place could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking? 10
It seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do. If you do not forgive men their trespasses, Jesus said, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses. And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. Forgiveness is an act of the will, I thought and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. Help! I prayed silently. And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. I forgive you, brother! I cried. With all my heart! For a long moment we grasped each other s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God s love so intensely, as I did then Hebrews 13:21 May God equip you with all you need for doing his will. May He produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to Him. He s a Good, Good Father and he longs to reproduce his goodness in you! 11