GOD IS GOOD, ALL THE TIME
--PSALM 23; HEBREWS 12:3-11; JOHN 10:7-18
Gary Younge, a reporter for the British newspaper THE GUARDIAN is covering the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi and Louisiana. In his article for yesterday (Saturday, 03 September 05) he notes that one senator has given “a prediction that the death toll in Louisiana alone could top 10,000 people” [--http://www.guardian.co/uk/Katrina/story/0,16441,1562005,00.html].
The causalities our service men and women continue to suffer each day in Afghanistan and Iraq are beginning to remind us of Walter Cronkite’s nightly reports on the CBS Evening News in 1960s during the War in Viet Nam. As of the end of August we had lost a total of 232 troops in Afghanistan with 696 more wounded. In Iraq we have lost 1,879 troops with 6,770 more wounded [http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html]. In just a few more days we will commemorate the fourth anniversary of the 911 Terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon that changed our world forever.
On July 7, 2005, 56 people were killed when four bombs hit London’s public transport system during the morning rush hour. 56 people were killed that day and 700 injured [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings]. Then as we go back a little over a year ago on March 11, 2004, in Madrid, Spain 191 civilians were killed and over 1,800 injured in the bombing of four commuter trains at the height of the rush hour [http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/ops/Madrid.htm].
With all the evil events in our daily news, I am reminded of the refrain of Barry McGuire’s Number One hit song in 1965 “Eve of Destruction”:
BUT YOU TELL ME
OVER AND OVER AGAIN, MY FRIEND
AH, YOU DON’T BELIEVE
WE’RE ON THE EVE
OF DESTRUCTION
[http://www.letsingit.com/barry-mcguire-eve-of-destruction-s1m881j.html]
It’s no wonder that even Christians are tempted to ask the question, “How can a good God allow such tragedies to happen?
Perhaps you are familiar with the greeting or call to worship whereby the pastor or liturgist declares, “God is good,” and the people, respond, “All the Time.” The pastor affirms, “All the time,” and the congregation declares, “God is good.” Many United Methodists use it frequently as a liturgical response of praise. Maxie Dunnam has served as world editor of THE UPPER ROOM, a founding father of the Walk to Emmaus, senior pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Memphis, President and currently Chancellor of my Alma Mater Asbury Theological Seminary. Many people give him credit for this powerful liturgical act of praise, but it actually originated in Nigeria. His wife had a jail ministry in the 1980s in Memphis, and Maxie preached for her on a regular basis. The inmates there introduced them to this African praise greeting from Nigeria [--Personal e-mail RSVP from Maxie Dunnam, Chancellor of Asbury Theological Seminary to The Rev. R. David Reynolds; Friday, August 26, 2005].
Perhaps the place God has used it most powerfully is in another African Nation Liberia. To the Liberian Christian Community this greeting comes out of times of real distress and turmoil. For over fifteen years Liberia was ravaged with Civil War. They are a people who have experienced violence, hatred, and disconnection first hand. Yet it was through these devastating times that the greeting, “God is good; all the time; all the time; God is God” became real in the life of every Liberian. The United Methodist Church in Liberia is thriving, vibrant, and basking in the glory of Holy Spirit led Revival.
To these triumphant disciples of Jesus, this is not some trite platitude. It explodes from the heart of a people who know what it is like to have their family members tortured and killed and their homes and property destroyed; from men, women, and children who many times could not find food to eat; from Christians who slept in the bush and stayed in displaced centers and refugee camps for months and years without knowing where their relatives, friends, and loved ones were or even if they were still alive; from a people who often became deathly sick without the availability of any medication; yet from a people who by the grace of God got well. “To the Liberian Church this greeting is their way of telling the story of what God has done and continues to do for the people of Liberia” [--e-mail testimony to The Rev. R. David Reynolds from Awah Cole, Administrative Assistant to Bishop John G. Innis of Liberia, Friday, September 02, 2005 3:32 AM].
Surely if Liberian Christians who have suffered so much brutality, malice, hate, and disconnection live in the assurance that “God is good, all the time,” we American Christians can as well. But again it is just our nature to often question, “If God is always good, how can He let such disasters as Hurricane Katrina which is the greatest American disaster since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, happen? How can He allow terrorism to get such a hold on our world? How can I be certain that He indeed is always good?
I know that God is good all the time, because that is His very nature. Jesus assures us in our Gospel Lesson this morning, “I am the Good Shepherd, the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” In praising his Good Shepherd, David testifies:
THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD;
THEREFORE CAN I LACK NOTHING.
Then in closing his Psalm of Praise to his Good Shepherd, he confidently affirms: “Surely goodness and loving mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. . . .” The Biblical words for good or goodness convey the meaning that God is the only Being who is by His very nature, character, and attributes is good. Evil simply is not a part of His nature and character. God can only be good. The Bible says in I John 1:5, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” Darkness in Scripture means sin. There is no darkness or sin in God at all; He is indeed good all the time. He is good, and He can only do what is good.
David’s testimony “Surely goodness . . . shall follow me all the days of my life. . .” is his affirmation that “God is good, all the time.” The word which he uses in Psalm 23 for “goodness” means “God is good, all the time.” It conveys the message that we of “loved by loved by God, and have found favor in His sight.” Never forget that fact as God Himself reassures us in Jeremiah 31:3:
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you.
Many times David repeatedly testifies in various Psalms as he does with such confidence and assurance in Psalm 106:1:
PRAISE THE LORD!
O GIVE THANKS TO THE LORD, FOR HE IS GOOD;
FOR HIS STEADFAST LOVE ENDURES FOREVER.
God is good, all the time, because “His steadfast love endures forever--even
through all the Hurricane Katrinas; even despite all any terrorist attacks
on New York, Washington D. C., Madrid, or London; even in times of sorrow,
sickness, pain, death, or whatever hard time or tragedy may come my way—
God’s steadfast love endures and abides with me forever; He is good to me
all the time.
God, is good, regardless of whether times are good or bad for us as His Disciples, and our Old Testament, New Testament, and Gospel Lessons affirm that beyond any doubt. Many times we American Christians are tempted to praise God when things go our way, but refrain from praise when the going gets tough. I remember when Liz was the Cheerleading Sponsor at Sparta High School. If the football or basketball team had been leading in the game and then began to fall behind, the squad had a sideline cheer that went, “When the going gets tough, the tough, get going.” That’s good advice for us as Christians to keep in mind as well. The Holy Spirit enables us to get tough when times get rough.”
Curly opens one of my favorite Rogers and Hammerstein musicals OKLAHOMA by singing:
Oh, what a beautiful morning,
O what a beautiful day;
I’ve got a beautiful feeling
Everything’s going my way.
You and I know that “everything doesn’t always go our way,” so how can God be good, all the time? That is the wrong question to ask. I am reminded of a Country and Western song first recorded by Lynn Anderson in 1970 and now, just last month (August, 2005) re-released by Martina McBride. The refrain continually reminds us:
I beg your pardon,
I never promised you a rose garden.
Along with the sunshine,
There’s gotta be a little rain sometimes.
Things do not always go our way, but “God is good, all the time,” for our Good Shepherd stands on His never ending promise to us in His closing words in Matthew 28:20, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
As a Disciple of Jesus Christ, however, I have no doubt that even when things are not going my way, “God is good, all the time.” You may be tempted to ask, “Preacher, just how can that be so?” The Psalmist reminds us:
THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH,
I WILL FEAR NO EVIL:
FOR YOU ARE WITH ME.
No matter how difficult the situations may be, whether we face trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, terrorism, war, death, demons, sickness, sorrow, or pain; our Good Shepherd is always with us, for He reaffirms again and again throughout the Old and New Testaments, “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.” Our Good Shepherd is the One who promised Israel in Isaiah 41:10:
SO DO NOT FEAR, FOR I AM WITH YOU;
BE NOT DISMAYED, FOR I AM YOUR GOD.
I WILL STRENGTHEN YOU AND HELP YOU;
I WILL UPHOLD YOU WITH MY RIGHTEOUS RIGHT HAND.
That promise has not changed in more than 2700 years; and it is still true
For you and me today.
God began “calling me to preach” in July of 1962 at age fourteen as the result of my having attended Beulah Youth Institute in Eldorado, Illinois; but I fought the Holy Spirit’s Call for two-and-one half years. Just after my seventeenth birthday at the end of February 1965 I nearly escaped death in an automobile accident. It was at that point in time that I surrendered completely to the Lord’s call on my life.
At first I thought that “God had sent that tragedy in my life” to bring me to my senses, but then the Methodist Men in my home Church presented me with a little book entitled YOUTH SEEKS A MASTER by Louis H. Evans. Within the covers that that little book I read words something to this effect, “So often we blame God when bad things happen to us when in reality it is just human circumstances.”
I have never forgotten those words, and along with them one of my favorite Bible verses that first became meaningful to me during that same difficult time. It is Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
All things that happen to us, much of which is the result of human circumstances, are not good; but because “God is good, all the time,” He uses bad circumstances to work for the good of those who love Him, those who are called according to His purpose.”
This is what He did in my life when a tragic automobile accident almost took my life. That was not good, but God took a bad situation, caused by human circumstances, to bring about good in my life, my surrendering to the Holy Spirit to “preach the Gospel” of Jesus Christ. Through the years since that time, He has proven to me time and again that even those bad circumstances He uses to bring about something good in my life and in my relationship with Him.
You and I will face many trials in our daily lives, but trials build Christian character. What words of encouragement did our New Testament Lesson from Hebrews 12 give us? The writer to the Hebrews calls on us to “Endure trials for the sake of discipline.” He goes on to reassure us that God “disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in His holiness.” He then concludes by saying in verse 11: “Now discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
You see when you and I endure our trials by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us, our Christian character is strengthened to the extent that we can empathize and minister to others who go through similar trials, for we have “walked in their shoes.” We know how they feel. We can be Jesus to them, for we know that Jesus our Good Shepherd has seen us through the times we have walked thorough those valleys, even “The Valley of the Shadow of Death.”
Jesus is always with us, and He is good, all the time. The American Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier expresses it so well in a couple of stanzas from his poem “The Eternal Goodness”:
I see the wrong that round me lies,
I feel the guilt within;
I hear, with groan and travail—cries,
The world confess its sin.
Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit clings;
I know that God is good!”
[--John Greenleaf Whittier, “The Eternal Goodness,” ll 33-41]
Cling to that “one fixed trust” through all the wrong you see, through all the groans and travail—cries. Cling to that “one fixed trust” throughout all the maddening mazes of life, through all the storms, floods, hurricanes, wars, rumors of wars, sorrow, sickness, pain, and death. “Your Good Shepherd is with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you, for “God Is Good . . . .
All the time. . . .”
