God is Good
8-27-00 Kingman, Az
Thank you for the invitation to share with you. Greetings from the fellowship in Sedona. We live in a strange community, where it is not uncommon to see bumper stickers that say things like, I am Light, or Due to circumstances within our control Armageddon has been cancelled. But the one that really gets me is the one that reads simply, I AM. Thank God, the I AM doesn’t drive a VW van. If the guy driving that van has numbered our days, we’re in trouble. Somehow I don’t think he was the one that hung the stars in space and sustains all things by his word. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad. I want to talk about God who is infinitely above his Creation.
It is important for us to listen to a number of men with the gift of teaching. I believe it is a part of God’s plan for us as God gives each man a unique revelation of Himself. The Holy Spirit has revealed Jesus to John in a way that is a different angle from what I have seen. And each of you, I trust, have a revelation that adds something to this fellowship’s revelation of Jesus. RC Sproul has a wonderful revelation of the Holiness of God, for example. When I listen to him talk on that subject I am always in awe. But other things he speaks on – well lets just say I disagree. What I would like to share with you is the revelation that is dearest to me, the goodness of God.
An Air Force study showed that we forget 95% of what we hear in 72 hours. Right up front, I want to share with you the 5% I would like you to remember, so that Thursday morning you will still be able to remember it. God is good, all the time and all the time God is good. It is sometimes done as like a very short responsive reading. I say God is good, and you respond all the time, then I say And all the time, and you respond, God is good. Practice- and then like we mean it. If we really believe that it will change our lives.
In AW Tozer’s book Knowledge of the Holy he wrote, “The whole outlook of mankind might be changed if we could all believe we dwell under a friendly sky, and that the God of heaven, although exalted in power and majesty, is eager to be friends with us.” Let me say that again but apply it to us personally. Your whole outlook would be changed if you could believed you dwelt under a friendly sky, and that the God of heaven, although exalted in power and majesty, is eager to be your friend.
TB McCully said that the measure of a man’s true character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out. Why is that? Why should we be any different in private than we are in public? If we really believe we serve a good God and that He sees us in everything that we do, and that we are his, why would we be any different? I’m talking about what the Psalmist said were secret sins. Maybe it is in your thought life, maybe your family knows, but the community doesn’t have a clue.
Real character is realizing that you are always in the presence of God and acting accordingly. If you really believe that God is good and only has good things for you then your public and your private life wont be any different. Ps 16:2 I said to the Lord, you are my LORD, apart from You I have no good thing. In Mt 19:17 Jesus said, “God alone is good.” The call of God on our life is for us to forsake our ways and thoughts because they are not good. Isaiah 65:2 (NIV)2 “All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations” But if we forsake our ways then we need to accept his ways for they are only and always good. So as we go through this, I want to expand your understanding of the goodness of God. I want to give you an unchangeable motivating factor for your public and your private life.
Read together Jeremiah 29:11 , Psalm 73 first and last verse, John 10:10, Psalm 16:11.
Sounds like a good God doesn’t it? Jeremiah said God has good things planned for us. Ephesians 2:10 tells us that God has planned for us to do good things, and He provides the gifts and his life within you, to do those good things. God has made a way for you to participate in His goodness. All goodness is of God but He has made a way for you to experience his goodness personally. He has made it possible for you to share in his goodness. If we could grasp the truth of this, that God is good and is directing our lives into good things with good results, it would change our outlook.
God even orchestrates the opportunities for you to use the gifts He has given you. Sometimes we miss them when He brings them into our paths, and we realize we missed them. But then, many times He orchestrates another chance to do that thing He had planned for us. Finally when we step in to that good thing, that He orchestrated, and use the gifts He has given us, and see his life flow through us, we experience a wonderful sense of fulfillment and awe, an overwhelming joy. It was all of Him, yet He lets us be a participant and rewards us eternally for just walking into the plan He laid out in front of us. It seems to me like He is just looking for ways to lay up heavenly rewards for us. I can’t imagine a better God.
How do I know God is so good? I look at Jesus. He said, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father”. When the Pharisees brought the woman taken in adultery to Jesus, what was going on in their minds? Let me speculate a bit. Jesus showed the mercy and love of God. That is why the rabble was so attracted to Him. The Law is clear that adulterers are to be stoned. I imagine they were thinking here was a chance to pit this mercy and goodness Jesus so often displayed against the clear judgement of the Law. Now they could show everyone He was opposed to the Law. Of course Jesus knew their hearts, but the goodness of God extends to them also. As Jesus wrote on the ground I think He was asking the Father, “How do I show them that they also need to repent?” And the Father was faithful to give Him the answer that showed the goodness of God, by exposing their condition.
Then there is the first appearance of Jesus to the group after the resurrection. If it was me that conquered death and held all power, I would probably have said something like, “Thanks a lot guys! I emptied myself for you cowering blockheads. Three years I poured into you guys and showed you I would stand by you, but first sign of serious trouble and you all run and hide. And you Peter, “I wont deny you Master, I will die with you” and the same night your cursing that you never knew me! You’re all fired – I’ll start again on another 12. Isn’t that what you’d of said?
But Jesus says, “Peace – Go baptize and make disciples of all nations.” Everything He came to tell the world He was entrusting to this group of failures. That is the goodness of God! And it is exactly the same with us. He has invested in us, and we fail trying to do it ourselves, but there He is speaking peace and giving us another opportunity. We stand where those disciples stood expecting a rebuke and He just loves us up and tells us to go out and let Him do it in us this time. He still trusts us to be the life He can live through. He still entrusts us to be the Good News bearers.
What kind of news? GOOD NEWS! Because God is good! “All the time” and “All the time” “God is good” Good news, that we are freed from the bondage of sin, made right with the Father. Good news, He is going to share his glory with us. Good news, we are going to rule and reign with Him. Good news, we are going to live eternally in the presence of a good God. Are you sensing just a bit of the wonderful goodness of God toward you? All we can see is just the edge of it – because it is infinite, perfect, and eternal.
Moses wanted to see the glory of God. He had met with God on the mountain, face to face, so to speak. It was time for them to leave Sinai, but Moses wanted to know God was with them. If God wasn’t going Moses didn’t want to go. He desired to gaze upon the glory of God with his eyes. Fascinating reply God gives to Moses. 19 And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD…Ex 33:19 (NIV). God covered Moses in the cleft of the rock and let Moses see just a glimpse, just the backside of the goodness of God. That was enough to make his face glow. If we could see just the backside of God’s goodness our faces would be glowing – radiant with the reflected glory of God. It would motivate our entire life.
If God is so good why does He insist we do things His way? Sin is fun, Scripture acknowledges there is pleasure in sin for a season. But the season ends and then you reap the wages – death. It is the goodness of God that insists we walk with Him and put to death our old nature. Isaiah 48:18 (NIV)18 If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
God is not a cosmic killjoy or just trying to throw his weight around. It is because his thoughts and ways are so much higher, holier than ours. He can see what is good for our lives and what is destructive. He is trying to keep the Destroyer from wreaking havoc in our lives. We do everything we can to justify some thing the Holy Spirit is telling us to walk away from and the goodness of God insists we let it go – quit justifying, forsake it and live.
Look at the story of Creation. At the end of every day God said it was good. He can’t do otherwise because it is his character. Why did God create Eve? Because it wasn’t good for man to be alone, and everything He does is good. God withheld the tree of the knowledge of good and evil not because He was stingy or holding out on them but because He knew it would bring death. Satan tells us the same thing He told them, “God is holding out on you, it isn’t really bad for you.” His lies are to get us to doubt the goodness of God. And when confronted by God, Adam justifies himself by blaming his wife and ultimately God. “The woman you gave me…” Again it was a slap in the face of the goodness of God. It is not my sin it is You, God. Everything good for Adam was in that garden. The goodness of God ejected Adam from that Garden so that He would not take of the tree of life and live forever in that fallen condition. Judgement too, is the goodness of God. You would certainly not call a judge who let the guilty go unpunished, a good judge. All the attributes of God are good, including his justice.
Finally, Ro 8:28 says He works all things together for good, to those who love him and are called according to his purposes. There is evil in this world because of the choices of man and then we suffer because of the sin of others. You have a fallen nature because of Adam. But God is going to take it all and work it all together for good in your life. What a difference this can make when you walk through difficulty and pain, to know that we live in the sight of a good God who has good planned for us. What assurance, what peace, when we cling to this truth! And when our minds do not understand, we can know his thoughts are greater than ours and He never changes. His heart will forever have good things for you. What an attitude changer that should be! What a source of unending joy when we realize this is the awesome God we serve. What is an appropriate response to all that goodness? The goodness of God leads us to repentance. We repent from our thoughts and ways and yield our hearts to his good thoughts and ways. Take time today to get alone with God and thank Him for His goodness. Then consider what it means to forsake your evil thoughts and wicked ways and let his thoughts fill your heart so his good ways can be the way of your life.
If you are struggling with trials and difficulties, consider how God is using them to grow you into his likeness. He loves you too much to leave you where you are. How can you cooperate with Him through this difficult time so He can transform your ways? He is stretching out his hand to you. Will you answer his call and spend some time with Him today? You can be sure, that time will be good for you, for God is good - all the time - and all the time - God is good!
