Goodness Series

FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT: SON-RIPENED FRUIT- GOODNESS (GENEROSITY)

Ephesians 5: 1-14

Today I want to talk with you about another fruit of the spirit --Goodness:

Did you know that there is more then one way to honk a horn.

Two weeks ago after the sermon a man said to me that his

Most difficult time with patience was in his car.

He just looses it.

I thought about that and wondered

Is it really a problem with impatience or

is it that we have a problem with our inherent goodness?

Are we self centered people who believe our rights and feelings

are more important than the person in the other car?

1. The first way to honk a horn is the Christian way.

Beep beep. Watch out.

You honk to calls attention to the situation.

2. The non-Christian way calls attention to the situation

and also calls attention to what the honker feels about the situation.

Coming home from Texas a few weeks ago.

I turned into a intersection on a green light only to discover that

I hadn’t quite given the oncoming driver the room he thought he should have.

He gave me a honk, and then he honked to give me a piece of his mind.

I never knew a car could talk,

But did you know your horn has a whole vocabulary?

A horn can say a lot!

This morning I would have loved to have given each of you a horn.

So that you could just go ahead and honk the way your feeling.

Or the way you felt trying to get everyone up and ready for church.

That would be an experience.

1. Some of you would give the happy honk

Hi There.

Hell-low

2. Some of you would give the “hold it horn.”

No no

Nooooo

3. Some of you would give a bad week “shove it horn”.

Bam bam bam bam (Both fist on the horn)

4. Some of you give that look of death—the idiot horn.

Yoooou iddddittttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

That’s when the blue smoke come out of the tail pipe.

(Turn to look from one side to the other.)

That was the honk I got from the man I turned in front of.

I felt bad for about a block.

I’m not so pure in my honk either.

As I was going down the interstate.

I came up on a little white hair senior citizen who was following behind a semi.

I followed for 10 miles and then decided to pass her and the semi.

Just when I went around her she decided to pass the semi as well.

She didn’t’ signal,

Just turned right into me.

I had to take the skirt of the road.

I have to admit it does feel good to honk.

I saw a Bumper sticker the other day that said:

“Honk away your ulcer”.

I misread it. It said: “Honk away, its your ulcer!

The Greek word goodness: is agathosune

It Combines- being good and doing good.

It is the character or quality of sound goodness.

When we say someone is really good and sound.

It doesn’t mean someone is a goody goody.

Or a goody two shoes.

a sickly sanctimonious, hypocritical type of goodness

But sound goodness means the merchandise is quality.

You can stand on its reputation.

Like the shoe repair man does a sound job repairing our shoes.

It not their cleverness, but the quality of character that is dependable, and honest and true.

This is the fruit of the spirit that all people can see and value in others.

We’re not born with it.

When the rich young ruler came to Jesus and said “Good master what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said: Why do you call me good? No one is good—except God alone.”

Ever since sin came into the world

Our chance at goodness went out of the world.

Only God is good.

Yet, how many times when I am meeting with a family

To plan a funeral

I asked them about the faith of the deceased.

They always say: Well he wasn’t much for the church, or religion

But he was good man.

Friend our goodness won’t get us one toe into the kingdom of God.

Isaiah 64:6 “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags: we all shrivel up like a leaf and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”

Psalms 14: 1 “… there is no one who does good.”

GOODNESS-As the fruit of the spirit means to be God-like.

25 time in the Bible Goodness is used to describe the moral or ethical character of GOD..

God is good because he is

pure, holy, forgiving, loving, and giving.

So therefore, if we’re good people,