His Goodness, Part 1

Turn with me in your Bible if you would to Mark chapter 10. You just look at two verses as we begin our time together, Mark chapter 10 verses 17 and 18.

It says, And he was setting out on a journey. A man ran up to him and knelt before him and began asking him, Good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, his final journey, to celebrate the Passover. And he encounters a very well-to-do man, a man who was young, who was rich. Rich, who was powerful, all the things that most of us would probably die just to have. But this man, amidst all the things that he had, realized that there was an emptiness. In his soul.

And so he comes to Christ and he asks him a question. And it leads us to a fascinating discussion about the character of our God. He calls him good teacher. Now that's very interesting because the Jewish people believed that there were only two things that were good: God and His Word. And yet, this man would come running up to Jesus Christ the Messiah, and he would call him a good teacher. Now, he did not understand the implications of his statements. And so Christ would respond in this way. And Jesus said to him, verse number 18, why do you call me good?

No one is good except God alone. Jesus says in essence either I am really not good or I am God You have to make a decision.

If you call me good, that means you're calling me God because only God is good. The Jewish people knew that. Or you will say that I'm really no good at all. I'm just like everybody else. And this man never came to confess Christ as his Lord and Savior. The reason the reason is this. He did not understand the goodness of God. The Bible says in Hebrews 11, verse number 6: He who comes to God must believe that he is.

He is what? He is everything that the word says he is. And if you don't understand the goodness of God, because it's the goodness of God that leads you to repentance, then you're not going to inherit eternal life. And this man, although he had everything earth could give him, would not recognize the fact that God is good. I wonder this evening if you understand that. God is good and is the only one who can be called. Good. How many times someone asks you, How are you doing? What do you say? Oh, I'm doing good.

Really? In the biblical sense of the word? I don't think so. How are you really doing? Because only God is good, and He is the only one who can be called good. The Bible says there is none good, none.

So, tonight, we want to explore the essence of our God by looking at this specific attribute. His goodness. There are five main areas we want to cover. The first is this: the constitution of his goodness.

What does it mean that God is good? Turn with me to Psalm 119, verse number 68. Reads as follows. Thou art good and doest good. Teach me thy statutes. Thou art good and doest good. If you want to understand the goodness of God, you got to understand, first of all, that thou art good.

God is good. Simple as that. Throughout biblical history, we find different people in the scriptures who speak of the goodness of God. It was King Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles 30, verses 18 and 19. When he prayed for the nation of Israel, he said this, or the for his people, he said, May the good Lord pardon everyone who prepares his heart to seek God, the Lord God of our fathers. He recognized the goodness of God. It was the priests and Levites who offered praise and thanksgiving to the Lord in Ezra chapter 3, verse number 11, who said this: He is good, for his loving kind is upon Israel forever.

And Ezra. 7 Verse number 9: Ezra successfully journeyed from Babylon to Jerusalem and claimed this: it was because of the good hand. of his God. And in Nah 1, 7, the prophet said, The Lord is good. And in John chapter 10, verse number 14, Christ characterized him as the good shepherd. Charles Hodge, in his comment in system theology, says this about the goodness of God. Goodness in the scriptural sense of the term includes benevolence, love, mercy, and grace. By benevolence is meant the disposition to promote happiness.

All sensitive creatures are its objects. Love includes complacency, desire, and delight, and has rational beings for its objects. Mercy is kindness exercised toward the miserable and includes pity, compassion, forbearance, and gentleness. Grace is love exercised toward the unworthy. All these elements of goodness exist in God without measure and without end. In Him, they are infinite, eternal, and immutable. It was Thomas Manton who said this about the goodness of God: He is originally good, good of Himself, which nothing else is.

For all Creatures are good only by participation and communication from God. He is essentially good. Not only good, but goodness itself. The creature's good is a super-added quality in God, it is his essence. His essence. He is infinitely good. The creature's good is but a drop. But in God there is an infinite ocean or gathering together of good. He is eternally and immutably good, for he cannot be less good. Than he is, as there can be no addition made to him, so no subtraction from him. God can't be any better than He is because He can't be any worse than He is because God is eternally good and because we've already looked at the eternality of God and the immutability of God that God God never changes, we realize that God is always good.

It's part of his character. There's never a time that God is not good. Think about that for a moment. If God by nature is good, there's never a time God is not good. Please understand that. Because next week we're going to talk about the wrath of God. And if God is wrath, there is never a time that his wrath is not being exercised. Th about it. More about that next week. But this week, it's his goodness. He's always good. Why? Because it's innate to his being. God is. Good. Number two, and does good.

If God is good, He can only do good. God never does anything bad. If something bad happens, it's not from God because God is good. That makes sense, right? Because God is good, He'll never do anything bad. You must understand that. I'm not so sure we quite come to grips with that. But we have to understand that God is good, and so therefore he automatically does good. James 1:17 says that every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from the Father. Of lights, with whom there is no shifting shadow, with whom there is no variable turning.

There is no change in God. Every good gift comes from Him. Psalm 84:11: No good thing will the Lord withhold from those who walk uprightly. God wants to give good things to His people. In fact, God lives to give goodness to people. Look over with me in Luke chapter 6 for a moment. Luke chapter 6, verse number 35. It says, 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. Now think about that for a moment. We don't like that. You ever seen somebody who's evil and unkind and they experience the goodness of God? That kind of rubs us the wrong way, doesn't it? God needs to get them. God needs to deal with them. God needs to wipe them off the face of the earth. They're scum. They're evil. Let's get rid of them. God, do your thing. And yet, God keeps, the rain falls on the just and the unjust, the Bible says.

God just keeps bestowing goodness. On people. And he expects us to do good to people who are our enemies, just as he him is grateful and kind, or kind to people who are ungrateful and evil toward him. Amazing. But our God is good. And because He is good, He always does good, even to evil people. We'll learn more about that in a moment. It says in Psalm 145, verse number 9: The Lord is good to all, and his mercies are over all his works. So the Bible tells you that God's good to everybody. Nobody, ready for this, that God is not good to.

Now, there are times in your life you're going to think that God's not being very good to you. That's not true. God is always good. To you. And the unbeliever, the evil man, the wicked man, God is good to him as well. It's his nature to be benevolent. It's in his nature to be kind. It's in his nature to be generous. He wants us to have what we need and makes sure it is available to us. It was King As in Psalm 73 who began by saying, Only God is good to Israel. Only God is good to Israel. Nobody else is.

But God is. Let's move on to point number two: the expression of his goodness. God is good. God does good. Psalm:. Memorize it, embed it on your forehead, carve it. To your wrists. God is good and does good. Psalm 119:6. Now, let's look at the expression of his goodness.

And it's expressed in a numerous amount of ways, but I just want to cover three of them with you this evening. Number one, in creation.

Creation. Turn back with me to Genesis chapter 1. And you'll notice that on seven separate occasions in verse number 1, it says, and God said, it was good.

He looked at it and said, Man, this is good. This is really good, man. This is really good. I mean, he would sit back and look at what he did and say, man, that's good.

That's good. In fact, after he made man in verse number 31, he said, It's very good. Very good. Now, follow this through with me. Because when you get to chapter 2, verse number 18, then the Lord God said, Is what? Not good. So now, for the very first time, God sees something and says, There's something not good here.

Now, because God is good. God's going to make sure that what is not good here is going to be taken care of because He's going to show His benevolence. And the good thing that he is not seen, or what makes him say that the statement's not, or that things aren't good, is that there's not a suitable helper for Adam. Adam's alone. Adam's isolated. This isn't a good thing. So how did God make sure that everything was good for Adam? What did he do? He gave him a wife. Right? He gave me a wife. And the Bible says in Proverbs chapter 18: he who finds a wife finds a what?

A good thing. Now, my wife quotes that to me all the time. Every time we have an argument. She says, honey, don't forget, I'm the good thing. I'm the good thing. God gave me to you because I'm the good thing. God is good and I'm the good thing. So you treat me good because I am Good thing, and that's what the Bible says.

He who finds a wife finds a good thing. Why? Wasn good for Adam to be alone. God saw it wasn't good, so let's make everything good. Let's give him a good thing, and so he gave him a woman. Now, some of you are saying, Well, I'm not sure God's so good to me with the woman I got, but that would be a violation of scripture because the Bible says he.

Finds a wife. He doesn't say he who finds a certain kind of wife. He says he who finds a wife finds a good thing. Hey, fellas, look, most of you are lucky even to be married. So don't think that you're so good. It's the woman who is. Is the good thing that God gives. So, in the expression of God's goodness, you see it in creation as He created the things of the world and as He created even human beings, specifically the woman for man, because He was alive. So God said, That's not good. Let's give him a good thing.

And so he gave him woman. If you read over in Psalm 33, verse number 5, it says, The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. That's good, isn't it? The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. Now, the Lord could have created the earth any way he wanted to, he could have made It's flat, could have made it brown all over the place, you know. But God's a God of variety, so He made, you know, for people like us who like warm weather, you know, we live where it's warm, and people who like cold weather live where it's cold, you know, and people who like r Those God-forsaken places, but that's where they live.

See? But God, you know, God is good, and as you look at the earth, you're able to understand the goodness of God because God is so good that there are certain people who like to live certain places, and God is a God of benevolence, and He makes.

That those climates fit those people. God's a good God. It says in Acts:. When Paul was preaching to those in Lystra, he said this: that God did good and gave you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with good and gladness. Now he's preaching to Unbelievers. Paul's preaching to unbelievers in Lyst. Remember the scene they saw him doing miracles and they wanted to worship Paul as a god and he began to tear his robe, saying, Man, you can't do that. And he preached to them about the Lord God and all that He.

Had done, and he preached to these pagan people, and he told them that God did good. He did good by giving you rain, he did good by satisfying your hearts with goodness and gladness. Because God is good. He's even good to wicked people. And then over to 1 Timothy 4, verse number 4, it says, For everything created by God is good. Think about that for a moment. Everything created by God is good. God doesn't create anything bad. He can't because he's good. It would be contrary to his nature to create something bad, something evil.

Because God is good. So we see it in creation. Number two, we see it in his character. Turn back with me to Exodus chapter 33. Exodus chapter 33. Moses, in verse number 18, asked to see the glory of God. He said, I pray thee, show me thy glory. And he said, I myself will make all my goodness, God says, pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you.

And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show compassion Compassion on whom I will show compassion. God says, I'm going to let all my goodness pass before you.

You want to see me, Moses? If you want to see me, if you want to know me, you must understand my goodness because God is good. When you go down to verse number five, six, and seven of chapter 34, it says this: verse number 5 and the Lord descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the Lord. Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, comp and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in. Loving kind and truth, who keeps loving kind for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin.

That's our God. God is good. He said, Let me have all my goodness pass before you. And as he passed before him, he was able to understand the compassion of God, the kindness of God, the truth of God. It was Richard Strauss in his book, The Joy of Knowing God, who said this. We readily conceived the relationship between goodness and some of God's other attributes. For example, when his goodness gives of itself uncond and sacrificially, it is love. When it shows favor to the guilty and undeserving, it is grace.

When it reaches out to relieve the miserable and distressed, it is mercy. When it shows patience toward those who deserve punishment, it is long-suffering. When it reveals to us the way things are, it is truth. When it bears the offense of our sin and absolves us of our guilt, It is forgiveness when the Bible says that God is good, it is referring to all these qualities and more.

God is good, it's expressed in His character. It's expressed in creation. And thirdly, it's expressed in his crucifixion over in Isaiah chapter 53.

Turn there with me if you would. Isaiah 53, verse number 5 and verse number 6. It says, But he was pierced through. For our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening of our well-being fell upon him, and by his scourging we are healed. All of us, like sheep, have. Gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. Of all the ways that God expresses his goodness, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ our Lord demonstrates the goodness of God more so than anything else.

Because he took upon him our sin. 2 Corinthians 5:2. He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 1 Peter 3 says that he bore our sins in his body on the tree. It says over in Romans chapter 5, verse number 8, that God demonstrated his love for us, and that while we are at sinners, Christ died for us. That's the full expression of his goodness. Galatians 3, verse number 13 says that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.

The Lord God is so good that he separated him. from God the Father to take upon the sins of the world that somehow we might have commun and fellowship with God the Father. That is a good God. Who does good. Point number three: the objection to his goodness.

We've seen the constitution of his goodness, the expression of his goodness. Now, the objection to his goodness. There's going to be some people who object to the fact that God is good. And maybe those are some of you this evening. There are a lot of people who don't think that God is good. Not everybody agrees with the Bible says.

In Genesis chapter 3, when Satan met Eve, what happened? He came and he. Appealed to Eve to get her to doubt God, to doubt that God was good. And Eve said, We can eat of any tree we want except that certain tree. And Satan said, Well, God just doesn't want you to be like him, Eve. God's holding back on you. God's not that good. And that lie has permeated society ever since. Somehow we think that God's holding back on me, that God's not giving out all of his benevolence to me because my marriage is not like somebody else's.

Says, marriage, God is just not very good to me. He could have given me a better good thing than he did, but he gave me a bad good thing. So God's holding back on me. There's others who say, you know, because of the catastrophes in my life, The difficulties in my life, the hardship of my life, God can ease up a little bit on me, and God can be a little bit gooder, that's a word we can use tonight, on me. How come God is not gooder to me? I know that's not a real proper word, but you understand the point.

But that's not you. We don't doubt the goodness of God. We don't object to the fact that God's not good. We all believe that God is so good, man, He never do anything bad to us. I wish we could all really believe that, but we don't. There's an objection to his goodness. Here's the question. The question is: this: How can a good God allow evil to exist in the world? If God is good, then why do bad things happen to, quote, good people? If God is good, then why is my life so miserable? If God is good, why is my physical ailment not removed?

You ever ask that question? Whenever you ask those questions, You begin to object to what the Bible says about the goodness of God.

Let me, just as a side note, say this. That I really believe we asked the wrong question. You know, we asked the question and we want to know how can God permit pain and suffering and poverty and hunger and strife and prejudice and. Crime and violence and war and bloodshed and catastrophe. Either God's not good or God's not powerful to overcome evil. That must be the natural conclusion. But I want to suggest to you we ask the wrong question. The question is not, how can a good God allow such evil things?

The question is this: why are things as good as they really are Are that's the right question. Why are things as good as they really are? You see, we look at it from the wrong perspective.

Why are we not destroyed the moment we sin? Why? Because God is good. That's why. Our depravity is demonstrated in our asking the wrong question. Because God is so good, His wrath, His judgment is being restrained, is being he back. God is good.