God is good! We all say it. We all believe it. But just how is God good, and how should we react when it doesn’t feel like He is good? Join us as we study this perfection of God!
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The Goodness Of God
One day, a young man of influence and wealth came to Jesus and said, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus’ response is interesting. “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.” According to Jesus Christ, God is the only one who is good. Goodness is one of God’s attributes; it defines him; it comprises His essential nature. God at His core is good.
Psalm 119:68 says, “You are good and do good.”
James 1:17 says, “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”
God is good to all of His creatures. Psalm 145:9 says, “The Lord is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works.” Jesus taught us in Luke 6:35, “Luke 6:35, “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.” How is God good to ungrateful and evil men? He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
Yet, it is also true that God is especially good to His children. Psalm 23:6 says, “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” The word “follow” actually means “pursue” or “chase down.” God’s goodness chases after the Christian and overtakes him all the days of his life!
Psalm 84:11 says, “No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.” Again, this promise is for the child of God – the one who walks uprightly.
Again Psalm 73:1 says, “Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart!”
Yes, God is good to all of His creatures, but He is especially good to His children. We could put it like this: “God gives some good things to all people; but all good things to some people.”
In our time in the Word together, I want you to be filled with gratitude and joy as you consider the goodness of God! We will consider four areas in which God is good to us.
1. His Provision
Psalm 68:10 says, “Your creatures settled in it; You provided in Your goodness for the poor, O God.”
Acts 14:16-17, “In the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways; and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”
These passages explicitly state that God provides for us because of His goodness. He provides air for us to breathe, water to drink, food to satisfy our hunger, clothes to cover our bodies, and a home to shelter us from the elements. And, of course, He provides so much more than that, because He is good and He is generous.
Think of the food that God has provided you over your lifetime. I did some calculating and discovered that God has provided about 67,000 meals for me in my lifetime! That is about 89,000 pounds of food, or about 44 tons!
The Lord has provided over 11,000 gallons of water for me during my lifetime. Every day you and I breathe in about 2,000 gallons of air. That’s about the size of an average swimming pool.
Just think of it. God has provided your food and water and air and clothes and shelter for your entire life. Don’t take those blessings for granted. They are an evidence of His goodness to you!
And He is not providing those needs just for you, but for all people. If we took into account the 8 billion people on the planet we discover that every day God is providing about 4 billion gallons of water, and about 25 billion pounds of food to the earth’s inhabitants every single day! And the next day, He does it all over again, and the next, and the next!
And those basic needs just scratch the surface, don’t they? He has provided you all the jobs you have ever had so that you could earn enough money to pay for the things you need. He has provided you with a family. He has provided your church family. He has provided you with talents, and gifts and abilities.
During my life there have been times when I have had very little, and times when I have had an abundance. However, there has never been a time when I lacked my basic needs. I have always had food and water, and clothes and a home. God has always provided for me, and usually much more than I needed. This teaches me about God’s goodness.
My friends, do you see God’s goodness in His provision?
2. His Protection
The Bible teaches that God’s goodness is seen in His protection of us.
Exodus 18:9, “Jethro rejoiced over all the goodness which the Lord had done to Israel, in delivering them from the hand of the Egyptians.”
Nahum 1:7, “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows those who take refuge in Him.”
My friends, think over your life and remember all the times the Lord protected you from physical harm. The Bible says that angels are ministering spirits sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation. How many times has the Lord sent an angel to render service to you?
When I was a young boy, my Mom had somehow got this boat for all of us kids for Christmas. I remember taking the boat out on Lake Comanche. It had a little motor that we used to tool around the lake. So, my friend and I, who were all of 10 years old, were way out in the middle of this gigantic lake when we discovered that the boat was filling up with water. There was some kind of a leak in this boat! When that happened, we started freaking out! We were yelling and screaming at the top of our lungs for someone to come and help us. Finally, someone in another boat heard us and came over and towed us to land. But we were just sure we were going to sink to the bottom of the lake and drown. And maybe we would have if the Lord had not protected us.
Another event comes to mind because it happened so recently. I was up on a 2 story roof last October applying a bleach solution to a customer’s roof to kill all the moss and lichen. As I was walking on the roof my foot stepped onto a portion of the roof that had bleach on it, and before I knew it I had slipped and fallen on my butt, and I went shooting down the roof and right off the edge. I ended up falling about 20 feet, and landed on my feet. Fortunately, instead of falling on concrete, I landed on a wood deck, which helped considerably to cushion my fall. If I had fallen on my back or on my head, I could have been paralyzed or killed. But the Lord protected me. He is so good!
I’m sure, if we all shared our stories, we could tell of how God protected us through car accidents, and diseases, and natural disasters. Every time you experience God’s protection in your life, you need to stop and thank Him for His goodness!
3. His Patience
Romans 2:4 says, “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?”
Here we are told that God’s goodness is linked with His forbearance and longsuffering. In other words, because God is good, He suffers with us long, and puts up with us. He doesn’t immediately execute His justice, but waits patiently and gives us more opportunities to repent. And as we consider how good God is to be so patient with us, it should lead us to repentance. How sad that it usually doesn’t!
My friends, there are millions of people around the world who curse God and would spit in His face if they had a chance. But God is patient with them. There are multitudes who go on living for themselves, indulging themselves in sinful pleasures, but God is patient with them. There are millions who turn a deaf ear to the gospel, ignore the warnings and the pleadings of God’s Word, but God is patient with them.
If God were not patient, the instant we sinned, He would surely have cast us straight into Hell. But He is slow to anger, and abounding in goodness toward us.
And not only is God patient toward sinners who are neglecting the gospel. He is also patient with Christians who are not obeying His Word. How often we come to God and say, “Here I am Lord, with the same problem I had before, and I’m no better than I was the last time I came to You!” Does God cast us out of His kingdom? Does He take away our status as His children? Does He divorce us or kick us out of His family? No! He is patient and forbearing toward us, day after day, month after month, year after year.
How many years did you go on living in sin before you obeyed the gospel? How patient God was. How long have you struggled with the same sin issue? How patient God is with us! Have you ever seen that God is patient because He is good? That’s the gospel truth.
4. His Purification
Ps. 25:7, “Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your lovingkindness remember me, for your goodness’ sake, O Lord.” It is because of God’s goodness that He does not remember the sins of our youth. Forgiveness comes to us because of God’s goodness.
Ps. 25:8, “Good and upright is the Lord; therefore He instructs sinners in the way.” Not only does God forgive all of our sins and refuse to remember them, but then He instructs us in the way. He continues to teach us and train us, that we might avoid sin and grow in godliness.
Turn to Romans 8, and let’s look at verses 28 and 29. “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” Now we all know that verse don’t we? God is sovereign and He is causing all things to work together for good. But just what is that “good” that Paul is talking about? He tells us in the next verse. “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren…” There it is! The good that God is causing all things to work together for, is that we become conformed to the image of His Son. This passage is speaking about our spiritual transformation, our sanctification, our purification. God is good and He does good. He does good by conforming us to the image of His Son.
Wouldn’t the Christian life be miserable, if we knew the Lord had saved us but there was no hope that we would ever overcome sin and become more like Jesus? When the Lord saved us, He put a desire for holiness and Christlikeness in our lives. He put a hatred of sin, and a desire to be free of it within our hearts. God is good to fulfill every desire for goodness. 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, so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Conclusion
The Bible teaches that God is Good! So, how should this truth impact our lives? What do we do with it? How do we apply it?
1. Trust God When Things Don’t Look Good.
It’s really easy to say “God is good!” when you get the pay raise, or are able to buy the new home, or your cancer goes into remission, or your friend comes to Christ.
But what about when you lose your job, or foreclose on your home, or your cancer does not get better, or your friend rejects Christ, or you lose a loved one, or you are treated like vermin in a concentration camp? Is God only good when good things are happening to us? When bad things happen to us, does that mean God has now gone from Good to Bad? Has His character changed, all of a sudden? No, a thousand times No! God is immutable in His perfections. God is unchangeably good. Therefore, we must confess that whether things are going good or bad for us, God is good. That’s why that popular slogan “God is good, all the time!” is so true.
But how can God be good, if He allows pain, suffering, and even death to come upon us? I don’t think anyone has the whole answer to this question, but let me give you something to think about. Have you ever seen a tapestry? It is a work of art, made from thread or yarn. On one side, you see a beautiful picture. But on the opposite side, all you see is a jumble of loose threads or yarn. The top of the tapestry shows order, design, and beauty. The bottom of the tapestry reveals chaos and confusion and ugliness.
Often as we go through this life, all we can see is the bottom of the tapestry. It doesn’t make sense. It looks chaotic, confusing, and ugly. Why? I think it is because we are looking at it from the wrong perspective. If we were to turn the tapestry over and look at it from the other side, we would see a beautiful and inspiring work of art.
As bad things happen in our lives, we can do one of two things. We can look at those bad, hurtful, miserable situations from our own perspective. Or, we can flip it over, and try to see it from God’s perspective. If we will look at our pain and suffering from God’s perspective, it will make all the difference in the world.
God is still good when bad things are happening in our lives. The problem is usually ours. We don’t have the ability to see those situations from His perspective. He is using that pain and suffering to draw us closer to Himself, to turn loose of the petty things of this world, to strengthen our faith, and develop proven character and endurance. We focus on the pain. God focuses on what that painful situation is going to result in.
When you are suffering, God is still good. He has 10,000 beautiful and good things He is doing in the midst of your pain. Therefore, I exhort you to trust Him when things don’t look good. Trust that He is wise. Trust that He knows what He is doing. Trust that He has a good plan even as you walk through this dark night, and that you will emerge one day into His joyful sunshine.
2. Proclaim God’s Goodness to Others
Ps. 145:7, “They shall eagerly utter the memory of Your abundant goodness and will shout joyfully of Your righteousness.”
This is a good exhortation for us, brothers and sisters, as we gather here on Sunday mornings with the saints. Eagerly utter the memory of God’s abundant goodness. We should be eager to come together on Sundays. Why? So that we can utter the memory of God’s abundant goodness.
Brothers and sisters, you should thank God that you have the opportunity in this church to actually participate and minister to others. That is rarely the case in most churches. Before you gather with the saints, spend some time reflecting on God’s abundant goodness. How has He blessed you, taught you, sanctified you, inspired you, and enriched your life? Then, determine that you will utter the memory of God’s goodness to the church. Every Sunday we have a sharing time, where we encourage everyone to exhort and encourage one another with what God is teaching you, or what God has done for you. Take advantage of that time. Come prepared to share with and edify one another.
3. Praise God for His Goodness
Ps. 106:1, “Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His lovingkindness is everlasting.”
What is our responsibility in the face of God’s goodness? Give thanks to the Lord! Ps. 100:4-5, “Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations.”
Brothers and sisters, praise and thanksgiving should flow from our hearts out of our mouths, when we meditate on God’s goodness toward us. Since God is good all the time, there should be no difficulty in seeing His goodness, and then responding with praise.
Let’s go to the Lord with praise in our hearts.
The way I would like to conclude our time in the Word this morning is for all of you to utter a memory of God’s abundant goodness. How has God been good to you? Share just one way that God has been good to you, so the rest of us can give Him thanks and praise.
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