THAT'S GOOD! (part one)
We've heard the saying, "God is good all the time and all the time God is good." What is good? The word can mean many things. It can refer to something that's of high-quality (that's good stuff). It can refer to someone who's virtuous or moral (he's a good person). It can mean something that's a benefit (that was a good thing you did). It can refer to a person's ability at something (she's good at that).
As an adjective alone the Encarta dictionary listed 28 different uses for the word. But in all of this I think the word good can be subjective. What is good to you might not be good to me. So in many ways the word is left open to interpretation and personal preference. So, can it be truly defined? What is the ultimate measuring stick to determine what is good and what isn't? It all starts with God.
1) God is good.
Psalm 100:5, "For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations." When you go through the scriptures, you will see all the ways God is good. In this verse we see that his love endures forever. God's love is the foremost aspect of his goodness. All his goodness stems from his unfailing love.
And God doesn't just love his followers, he loves everyone. John 3:16 says that God so loved the world that he sent Jesus. Therefore, God's goodness doesn't just extend to his children but to all. Psalm 145:8-9, "The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made."
God causes goodness to come to everyone. He gives everyone life and blessings. But even though God's goodness comes to those who don't love him, he will deal with those who don't follow him. Prov. 14:14, "The faithless will be fully repaid for their ways, and the good man rewarded for his." God is good in that he is a just God. He doesn't show favoritism but he rewards those who trust in him.
But even those who trust in him don't always have it good. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, he was falsely accused and thrown into prison, he was forgotten by someone who was supposed to help him, etc. What's so good about that? Not much. But despite all this hardship Joseph maintained his devotion to God.
And God used it to bring about his good purposes. Joseph was made second in command in Egypt and he used the wisdom God gave him to plan for the famine. The famine caused Joseph's brothers to go to Egypt in search for food. When Joseph's brothers recognized him they thought he would have them killed. But Joseph had come to see God's hand in turning harm into good. Gen. 50:20, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."
It would be difficult to have a positive attitude when bad things keep happening. God is good all the time but sometimes it doesn't seem like it. That's because God allows people to make their own choices. But God will use someone's bad choice to bring something good out of it-like he did for Joseph. Rom. 8:28, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
There was a king in Africa who had a close friend from childhood. The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that occurred in his life (positive or negative) and remarking, "This is good!" One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. The friend would load and prepare the guns for the king.
The friend had apparently done something wrong in preparing one of the guns, for after taking the gun from his friend, the king fired it and blew his thumb off. Examining the situation, the friend remarked as usual, "This is good!" To which the king replied, "No, this is not good!" and proceeded to send his friend to jail.
About a year later, the king was hunting in an area that he should have known to stay clear of. Cannibals captured him and took him to their village. They tied his hands, stacked some wood, set up a stake and bound him to the stake. As they came near to set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb. Being superstitious, they never ate anyone who was less than whole. So untying the king, they sent him on his way.
As he returned home, the king was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb and felt remorse for his treatment of his friend. He went immediately to the jail to speak with him. "You were right," he said, "it was good that my thumb was blown off." And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had happened. "And so, I am very sorry for sending you to jail. It was bad for me to do this."
"No," his friend replied, "This is good!" "What do you mean, ’This is good’? How could it be good that I sent my friend to jail for a year?" "If I had not been in jail, I would have been with you when you met the cannibals. And that would not have been good for me!"
Bad things happen to us; unfortunately that's life. But if we love God and trust in him, he will see us through the bad times and cause something good to come from it. Sometimes it's just in our personal growth. We can become stronger through adversity. We can learn a lot through hardships. But we need to realize that anything good comes from God.
James 1:17, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." If it's good it's from God. One thing we see here that's good is that God doesn't change. His love and faithfulness endure forever. We don't have to wonder if God will change his mind or stop loving us or cease to be faithful to us. We can always trust God.
All of his gifts are perfectly good. Creation itself was God's first act of goodness. When you read the creation account in Genesis, you see God creating something and then it finishes with the phrase, "and God saw that it was good". And after he created everything, including Adam and Eve, Genesis 1:31 says, "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day."
So God surveyed all of creation and considered it not only good, but very good. We don't know what the world looked like before the fall but it was perfect. But even still, we can look around at all the beauty of creation and see the wonder of God's abilities. The majestic mountains, the beaches, the surf, the sunsets, the beautiful creatures; all of it is his good creation.
Creation is one display of his goodness but there are others. Every good and perfect gift is from God and the best of those good and perfect gifts was given in the form of Jesus and the gospel. The gospel is the good news. Matt. 4:23 says that Jesus went around preaching the good news of the kingdom. Paul said in Romans 6:23 that the gift of God is eternal life through Christ.
Salvation is the greatest gift but there are so many other good things in our lives. If there is anything good in our lives it's because of God. Psalm 16:2, "I said to the LORD, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.” Take away God and you take away everything that is good. But we have to be convinced of this.
The bible says there is no one righteous, no one who seeks God on his own. We aren't automatically convinced of the overall goodness of God; it's not in our nature to do so. But God shows us his goodness; he causes us to contemplate him and his goodness. And we decide what we're going to do with that. We can dismiss it, we can excuse it or we can entertain it.
For various reasons, some people are convinced of God's goodness more easily while others remain skeptical. But the psalmist invites us to take a taste test. Psalm 34:8, "Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him." When we're not sure about a certain food what do we do? We taste it to see if we like it. When we do like it what do we do? We want more of it. That's what God is inviting us to do.
But some people will not be so enthusiastic about how God tastes. Just like with food. Everyone's taste buds are different. I might love something but you might think it tastes awful. Then there are others who are somewhere in between. Some have to get more used to it and once they do they like it more and more. You've heard people say of certain foods, 'it's an acquired taste'. The food doesn't change from person to person; it just tastes different to everyone.
People can be like that when it comes to God. God gives them a taste of his goodness and right away they love him. Others think he tastes awful and others think he's okay but come to love him over time. But God doesn't change; he just tastes different to everyone for whatever reason. Maybe something happened in their lives that produced an automatic distaste for God. [Shepherd's pie and then contrast that with first experience with Big Mac-one I haven't been willing to try again because of a bad experience but the other I was willing and now like it.]
But for those of us who have tasted and been convinced of the Lord's goodness, we need to do something as a result. 1st Pet. 2:1-3, "Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good."
Now that we have tasted and become convinced of the Lord's goodness, we are called to get rid of the distasteful things and continue to nourish ourselves on the succulent word of God and crave all that is good. God's will is good. Rom. 12:2, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."
Sometimes we struggle with seeing God's will as good, pleasing and perfect. We can think our will is best because it's easier and it pleases the flesh. Doing God's will is not easy or pleasing to our flesh but it will be pleasing to our spirit and pleasing to God.
2) God is good but we are not.
Newsflash: people are not good. Adam and Eve started out good, but that all changed when they ate from that tree. In Genesis 1 we see the overall creation account. In chapter two we see a more defined account, describing how Eve came to be, along with some instructions that were given to Adam about a very important tree.
Gen. 2:16-17, "And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Adam knew only good, he didn't know evil. But as soon as he ate from that tree he knew evil. Not just know what it was, but he experienced it.
Adam and Eve knew what good was and they only did what was good because they didn't know what evil was nor had they experienced it. Intellectually, at this instruction, Adam knew the difference between the two. He knew that not eating from the tree was good but eating of it was bad; it came down to obedience verses disobedience. Obey God=good; disobey God=evil. Adam didn't have to experience evil to intellectually know it was wrong.
However, once he disobeyed he would personally understand it because he would experience the consequences of it-death. Until they disobeyed God and ate from the tree they were innocent of evil. That's how we are supposed to be now what we're born again. Rom. 16:19, "Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil."
Adam and Eve were pure and then they fell. They were innocent of evil but then they came to know evil and its consequences. We are not innocent; we are sinners. But now, as a Christian, we are working on removing ourselves from evil and doing good. We are developing the purity and innocence that Adam and Eve possessed. They were pure and became sinners; we were sinners who are becoming pure.
But it all started with Adam and Eve. Once they sinned the rest of mankind was doomed to failure. Rom. 3:9-12, "What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
Apart from God we are not good. Because we are sinners we have a sinful nature. And nothing good lives in us because of that nature. Paul said in Rom. 7:18-19, "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing."
Our sinful nature doesn't want to do anything godly; anything with godly motives. We might do good things but from what motive? We might do good things but what if it's not reciprocated? Do we change our willingness to do good? We might think we're good but by what standard? How do we measure our own goodness? What comparisons do we make? Do we minimize the bad we do and magnify the good we do-all to make ourselves look good?
The rich young ruler did good things and would've been seen as good. But Jesus had something to say about that. Luke 18:18-23, "A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’”
“All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth."
This young ruler was doing a lot of good things but it wasn't good enough. Jesus said that no one is good except God alone. Does this mean Jesus is not good? No. He is God in the flesh so he is good. Jesus was challenging why he was calling him good. Jesus was combating people's idea of goodness and countered it with the measuring stick of true goodness-God.
Adam and Eve were good until they sinned. God standard of goodness is holiness and perfection. So with that criteria no one can be declared good-unless we are saved by Jesus-the one who is good. There is nothing good unless it is God or comes from God. If we are declared good it is only because of having the Spirit of God within us enabling us to be good.
But unbelievers do good things. Yes, and that ability comes from God-although they don't acknowledge God as the source. Most people who do good things either have an ulterior motive or their motive isn't to please God. And their good deeds are contingent on it producing results-either recognition or goodness being reciprocated. If these don't happen then it alters their willingness to do good to others.
And, even though they do good things that doesn't make them good. Apart from salvation and godliness no one is declared good. Whenever you read about someone in the bible described as being good, you will see it's because he was a follower of God or Jesus and he possessed godly character and qualities.
When speaking about Barnabas, Acts 11:24 says that he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith. Was Barnabas good before he was full of the Holy Spirit and faith? No. Before Christ he was in the same boat everyone else is. No one is good because we are all sinners. But with salvation through Christ, we can be declared good and that is very good.
