All right, OK, good morning and welcome back.
And if you're watching online this morning, grateful that you
were here with us, whether it's live with us at 11:18 on Sunday
morning or sometime in the near future, grateful that you are
here. All right, if you have your
Bibles, please take them and turn to Psalm chapter 34.
And I think they we ran out of notes again.
And so they are being printed and you can have them in a
moment. And when Brad heads back in, all
right, if you're watching online, also want to let you
know that you are invited to come be with us in person at 115
E Main St. and we would love to see you sometime soon.
Our services are at 9:00 and 10:30 on Sunday mornings.
All right, so notes again, you can grab those on the back
table. And I'm going to start with
Psalm chapter 34. And we will be reading from
verse 8. The Psalmist writes, oh, taste
and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes
refuge in him. Taste and see that the Lord is
good. This morning I want to talk to
you about the goodness of God and why it is so important.
The goodness of God and why it's so important.
Let me pray for us, God, on this beautiful sunny day.
We've chosen to be here and worship together to honor you
and to exalt you again in fellowship and in song and in
giving. And now our heart is to honor
you with attention to your Word and openness and heart and mind
to grow in our understanding about Your goodness and why a
belief in Your goodness is so vital and so important in the
life of a follower of Jesus. So show us, stretch our thinking
and reveal yourself to us. We pray in Jesus name.
And everyone said, hey man. Now, some of you might have
grown up in a tradition of Christianity or maybe you're new
to Christianity, but I must sadly say that many traditions
with this in Christianity do not paint God as good.
Some paint God in this way where where he's painted is like this
ogre of sorts and a throne in heaven with maybe a big staff or
something and he's watching for opportunities to smash you like
an Ant, right? Or maybe you came from a a
tradition where where the wrath of God, and certainly God has
wrath. And we'll even show you some
occasions today in the context of the goodness of God where he
also has wrath and judgment. But if you were from a tradition
of Christianity where they painted God is just this
constant figure, God who is has wrath and anger and rage, then
you will have missed who God is. And it's so foundational to our
faith to get this simple truth. God is good.
Because if you get your head around it and you lean into it
well, then it will shape the way that you follow and chase and
pursue Jesus and the way that you love him and serve him.
If you serve him as a result of the goodness of God, then it
will look differently than you serving God out of fear or
anxiety or the likes. So this morning, my hope is to
increase within you a great understanding and appreciation
and an awe for the goodness of God.
And what I want to show you is that the theme of the goodness
of God is throughout Scripture, OK?
It's a tapestry that's weaved from Genesis all the way to the
end, the goodness of God. You're going to see how often
it's mentioned, OK? Now, when you think about the
attributes of the characteristics of God, maybe
you think about things like the holiness of God.
And certainly the holiness of God is so important when we
think about God. And what's interesting about the
holiness of God is that in Isaiah and in Revelation, when
God is, when there's this vision of heaven and the heavenly
creatures that are around the throne of God.
Isaiah and John in Revelation, they say that the heavenly
creatures are crying continually around the throne.
Holy, holy, holy. This is where the hymn comes
from, right? Holy, holy, holy Lord God
Almighty. It's not just holy, it's the
Lord God Almighty. It's holy, holy, holy.
Why? The songwriter of the hymn is
leaning into Isaiah and John's revelation of what the heavenly
creatures are calling God. And if it, if they're
continually saying holy, then wouldn't it sound like
continually saying holy, holy, holy, right?
You're continually saying it. But John and Isaiah want you to
know that God is not just holy, but he's holy, holy, holy.
So holiness certainly an attribute of God.
God is all powerful. There's nothing that he cannot
accomplish or do. God is loving and God is
omnipresent, meaning he's everywhere.
We just finished the series on the Holy Spirit and we learned
that yes, the Spirit, the presence of God is everywhere.
And then additionally, God chooses to reveal himself in
these unique ways. He manifests his presence at
particular places and people and things sometimes, right?
And he certainly did that in the Old Testament.
You saw him manifesting his presence in in the in the tent
and then in the Tabernacle and then in the temple and in his
people in the New Testament. Now we now the Holy Spirit, we
are the temple that the Holy Spirit abides in.
So thinking about attributes of God, He's omnipresent, he's
everywhere and then he chooses to manifest himself in certain
moments and then God is all knowing.
So a knowledge of these attributes of God, yes, we
should know these, but I will tell you that the goodness of
God is one of the most mentioned attributes in all Scripture.
It's a reoccurring theme. It becomes over and over and
over again. And depending on what
translation you have, I'm teaching this morning out of the
English standard version. But depending on whether you
have New Living Translation or King James or NIV, just in the
Psalms alone, the goodness of God is mentioned 63 times.
And depending on your translation, the goodness of God
is mentioned hundreds of times in Scripture.
And sometimes it's called kindness.
There are other words that that mean likely the same much as
goodness, but I want you to know that the theme of the goodness
of God is there from the beginning in Genesis.
We'll get there in a minute and goes all the way through the New
Testament over and over again. Now, I love that the psalmist
that we read at the beginning, Psalm 34, verse 8, he says this.
He doesn't just say taste and see that the Lord is good.
He says, oh, there's that. OH, oh, taste and see that the
Lord is good. It reminds me, we have some
friends in town from the Grand Rapids area and they were in the
first service with Jace. And yesterday we drove from our
home, which is about 1/2 hour. So we drove over to Petoskey to
Happy Tacos. Anybody been to Happy Tacos in
Petoskey? Happy Tacos man way.
Even if you've been doing Happy Tacos?
OK, a couple of you. It's amazing.
I love happy tacos. I mean, we got tacos in Gaylord.
We have Taco Bell and every so often, if I'm in a hurry, Taco
Bell suffices, right? But I've never said about taste.
I've never said about Taco Bell. It's like, oh, taste and see
about Taco Bell. But when it comes to happy
tacos, we took our friends here yesterday and especially Jay,
she was like, oh, taste and see how good these tacos are, right?
So when the song is and Jason loves to sell, like if you know,
if she has a movie she likes or product that she likes or food,
that's like she's going to tell you about it and she wants to
convert you. And this is true of her faith in
Jesus, right? So we converted some people
yesterday to happy tacos, OK? And they taste and they saw,
they taste it and they saw that they're good.
So the psalmist, that's what he's saying he's it's an
invitation. Taste and see.
Lean in and be open to how good God is.
That's his cry. So a belief in the goodness of
God is arguably the most important belief that you can
have about God because you won't even come, Let's say you come
into salvation with him, but you're not unaware of his
goodness and you see him. You can be saved.
You can, but, but if you missed his goodness, then you will.
You can live a pretty pathetic Christian life.
You can exist, but as far as living in victory and relate in
beautiful relationship with God, you can miss it without an
awareness of God's goodness. So it's important.
Now I want to show you that the original sin, the original lie
of Satan is the lie, or at least the questioning of God's
goodness. We can go to Genesis chapter 3
in your notes or on the screens or in your Bible, your device,
wherever you want to read from. And I want you to see this.
This is the story of Adam and Eve in the garden.
Remember, in Genesis 1, God creates the heavens and the
earth, and it's good, but man's really good.
And then he creates Eve and they're in the garden.
They have a relationship with God in Eden.
OK? So watch what happens.
You know the story, you've read it in your children's Bible,
maybe growing up or in last year's Genesis, starting in
verse 1, chapter 3. Now the serpent was more crafty
than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had
made. And he said to the woman, Did
God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?
And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit
of the trees in the garden. But God said, You shall not eat
of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden,
neither shall you touch it, lest you die.
Now God had their best interest in mind.
He is a good father. And yet the serpent leads Eve to
questioning God's intent and his goodness.
Did God really say is gotten in a way he's saying, is God really
good? Or maybe God's trying to hold
something back from you. Maybe there's more to it than
the God is letting be known. He was protecting them.
God was. But watch what the serpent does
in verse 4. But the serpent said to the
woman, you will not surely die. He's questioning the honesty of
God, the goodness of God. In verse 5, he says, for God
knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and
you'll be like God, knowing good and evil.
And that was a problem with the tree they were going to eat
from. It was going to twist them up
because they'd only known good. But now they're going to know
the knowledge of good and evil. And the disobedience of God
comes as a result of Satan the serpent tricking Eve into
questioning is God really good? Is he truthful?
Was he restricting them? Was he not generous?
Was he withholding? No, God was trying to protect
them. So the story goes in verse 6.
So when the woman saw that the tree was good, now watch this,
she questions the goodness of God, but she calls the tree good
God. She's not sure he's good
anymore. The tree though, she sees as
good, good for food. And it was a delight to the eyes
and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise.
So she took of its fruit and she ate, and she also gave some to
her husband who was with her, and he ate.
So the original sin in this occasion, it might not be that
she ate from the tree. I mean, it's a disobedience, but
what led to the disobedience of eating from this tree?
That goddess said not to eat of the sin initially was missing
the goodness of God, questioning God's motives, God's intentions,
God's heart as a father. This is how Satan tricks Eve.
So what I want to say to you is that the early in Scripture,
right there in Genesis 3, the original way that the enemy
trips us up is by throwing smoke into a belief in the goodness of
God. And when we don't walk in
genuine awe, the goodness of God, we fail to trust, we fail
to serve, we fail to worship and obey and follow.
And This is why throughout the Bible, the goodness of God is
such a dominant theme. It's there over and over and
over again. I'll show you some of them.
I don't have time this morning to show you all of them, but I
just want to show you some of them so that you get, yes, it is
there throughout Scripture. It's a major theme that the
Bible wants us to get. Now Jesus talks about this
serpent, the enemy, the thief in John chapter 10 verse 10.
And he says this, the thief comes only to steal and kill and
destroy. And he says I came that you may
have life and have it abundantly.
And this is what the serpent, the Satan did in Genesis chapter
3. He stole away the relationship
that Adam and Eve had with God. They used to walk with him in
the garden in the cool of the day because of their sin that as
a result of them questioning the goodness of God, he's stolen
from them. So Jesus is saying, listen, I've
come not to steal from you, but that you might have life.
And this occasion, the Greek word for life here is Zoe, and
that's become a popular girl's name.
And what does Zoe mean? Well, it's a Greek word for
life. And this occasion it's not just
talking about like a biological life, like breathing.
No, on this occasion it's like God, like life, purpose and
meaning. This is the life that Jesus
wants us to have, not just again living, but having a richness of
life that comes from being in Christ.
Jesus says that's what I came to give you, but the enemy has come
to steal it away. So the first time that the enemy
steals from us again is in Genesis chapter 3, and he steals
away Adam and Eve's relationship with God.
Now when I doubt God's goodness, often what it looks like is that
I need to be in control. I need to be the Lord of my
life. And when you become a Christian,
you surrender your life to Jesus being your king and your Lord.
But when you question and you're not confident, sure of the
goodness of God, then it can lead to a time in your life
where you will miss out on this Zoe type of life that God wants
you to have. Now let me show you another
occasion where the goodness of God is referenced.
And this is an Exodus chapter 33.
And this is when Moses and the children of Israel have been
wandering for these 40 years and the wilderness.
And finally God says to them, OK, it's time for you to get up
and move. It's time for you to go on,
right? So they're going to pack up the
tent that God abides in. And God's like, OK, it's time.
I want you to move on. Now watch what happens in verse
15. And he said to him, this is
Moses speaking to God. And he said, if your presence
will not go with me, do not bring us up from here, which is
a wonderful prayer. God, if you don't go with me, I
just want to stay where I am. For how shall it be known that I
found favor in your sight, I and your people?
Is it not in your going with us so that we are distinct, I and
your people from every other people on the face of the earth?
So this is Moses's request of God.
God, if we move from here, we want you to go with us and watch
how God responds to his request. It's going to get around to the
goodness of God. And verse 17 and the Lord said
to Moses, this very thing that you've spoken, I will do.
He'd spoken. God, go with us.
God says, I will. For you have found favor in my
sight, and I know you by name. And Moses said, watch, this is
so profound to me. Moses said, please show me your
glory. Please show me your glory and
watch how God answers. And he said, meaning God, I will
make all my goodness pass before you.
Moses says, show me your glory. And God says, I'll show you my
goodness because my goodness is my glory.
God's goodness equals his glory. And God says, and we'll proclaim
before you my name, the Lord, and I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show
mercy. God answers when he says, show
me your glory. God says, I'll show you my
goodness. God doesn't say His Holiness.
He doesn't stray his strength. He doesn't say his glory or his
might, but his goodness. He's going to put it on parade
for Moses to experience. God's glory is his goodness.
So watch what happens. This is so beautiful.
Verse 21 And the Lord said, behold, there was a place by me
where you shall stand on the rock.
So God's presence is there, the Holy Spirit.
And God says there's a place in the rock.
I'm going to put you there. It's going to be called a cleft.
And then he says, And while my glory passes by, I will put you
in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand
until I've passed by. And then I will take away my
hand and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen,
because if he sees the face of God, it will overwhelm him.
It'll be too much. So God's like I'm going to cover
your face in the cleft of the rock and you ask for glory, but
I'm going to show you my goodness.
And my goodness means while I'm coming away from you so I don't
overwhelm you, I will show you my back.
He says So out of his goodness. He protects Moses when he
reveals his goodness. King David also promoted a
belief in the goodness of God over and over and over again.
And I love this recent resurgence in the telling of
David's story. Like on Amazon, I know they have
a series about David and the David movie that Angel Studios
put out. We had a night here to watch it
at the church. And it's so I think these are
wonderful, the retelling of his story.
So, so David's become a popular figure again.
And in Psalm 23, he mentions the goodness of God.
And maybe you know this song because it's David's most famous
Psalm, but he, it's the Lord is my shepherd, right?
So he's painting God as a shepherd.
And watch what he says in verse 5.
He says it's only 6 verses. This is a great song to
memorize. He says, you prepare a table
before me in the presence of my enemies, and you anoint my head
with oil, and my cup overflows. And then David says, surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and
I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.
Watch this. David is saying, God, your,
your, your goodness is going to follow me.
It's going to chase after me. And David had spent years
running from King Saul who was trying to kill him.
So David was used to like something following him, chasing
him, but in this occasion, King Saul again wanted to take him
out. And so David is using the same
language like God chases after me with his goodness and it will
follow me all the days of my life.
I think this is a worthy Psalm to memorize again.
And when you get to that part, we say, and surely goodness will
follow me. Remind yourself in the 23rd
Psalm about the goodness of God that David references.
It's an easy one to memorize. Another one of David's
confessions about the goodness of God is in Psalm 27, starting
in verse one. Now verse 1 is going to start
the setup for the whole Psalm. I'm not going to read the whole
Psalm to you for time, but I'm going to read verse 1 and 13.
But the setup for this Psalm is David referencing the fact again
that he's been running for his life.
So in verse one it says the Lord is my light and my salvation.
Whom shall I fear? The Lord is a stronghold of my
life. Of whom shall I be afraid?
He had enemies, the Philistines and King Saul and the
Amalekites. I mean, he had enemies.
But in this occasion he's saying God is my stronghold, He's my
salvation. OK, so watch when you get to the
1st 13. This is what he says.
I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the
land of the living. He's he's an enemy territory,
often running, hiding for his life.
And in this occasion he's just makes his confession.
I believe I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord and the
land of the living. These are wonderful confessions
for you to make. Maybe there's a time in your
life where you feel defeated, you feel anxious, you feel like
enemies and adversaries are around you.
Well, you can confess like David, you can remind your heart
about the goodness of God that is found in the land of the
living, even in the midst of difficulty.
Now there's another Psalm. This is Psalm 73, verse one and
two. And this is a Psalm of ASAP, one
of the other familiar songwriters in the Psalms.
And here's what he says. Now watch, this is really
wonderful what he's saying here, verse 1.
He says truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in
heart. But watch what he confesses
here, he says, But As for like he's saying, God is good, but
it's for me. My feet had almost stumbled, my
steps had nearly slipped, for I was envious of the arrogant when
I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
Watch here. He's saying God is good to
Israel. But I took my focus off of it
and I grew anxious when I saw that the wicked were perishing,
not perishing. They were prospering.
The wicked were prospering. That's funny that I'd say
perishing. There's another song where it
says when the righteous prosper, the city rejoices.
When the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy.
Ever forget what Solomon is? But I used to play get family
games and when I would win in the family games, like I was
beating like in Settlers of Catan or something, I used to
sing this to a particular relative.
I'll be like when the righteous prosper, the city rejoices.
When the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy.
You'd have to been there to see how funny it was.
But so no, ASAP was not saying he's not saying that the the
wicked were perishing. No, on this occasion he's saying
the wicked were prospering and he takes his eyes off of the
goodness of God. And his focus becomes the
prosperity of the wicked. Now, I must say that this is
easy to do now in the era of social media, right?
I mean, you can go online and just see wickedness and evil and
the arrogant painting themselves as so prosperous.
And of course they put it through filters and, and you
know, it's staged a lot of times, but it'd be easy to see
the wickedness in the world and to take your eyes off the
goodness of God. And that's what Asaph is saying.
He's like God is good to Israel. But it's for me, my feet almost
stumbled when I took my focus off the goodness of God and put
it on the prosperity of the wicked.
So my encouragement to you is make sure that you keep your
focus on the goodness of God. Another case in where the
goodness of God shows up in Scripture is in Lamentations.
And my guess is that maybe you've never read Lamentations
before. It's an obscure book in the Old
Testament written by, we believe, the prophet Jeremiah.
And it's written it's, it's a long lament.
And what is a lament? A lament is like a sad song.
It's a song of sorrow. And what is Jeremiah's sorrowful
for? He's sorrowful about the
destruction of Jerusalem. And you might remember in the
era of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, that the
Syrians had first come in and conquered the northern Kingdom.
And then 70 years later, some years later, the Babylonians
came and conquered the southern Kingdom.
OK. And they're going to go into
captivity. And it's a time when Jerusalem
is just destroyed and people are starving.
And why are they in this place? Because they've been disobedient
to God. God had warned them over and
over and over again through the prophets, but they disregarded
God's warnings. And now they're in a situation
where there's this devastation around them.
So watch even in the midst of great punishment and
devastation, watch what Jeremiah says.
And this is in the middle. And maybe you know this passage,
but you didn't realize that this is where it lands.
Maybe you didn't know it was in Lamentations.
He says, remember, he's speaking to God.
Remember my flex affliction and my wanderings, the Wormwood in
the gall, My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down
within me. But this I I call to mind and
therefore I have hope. Now this is a chapter 3.
So up to this point, he's just expressing sorrow and heartache
and he's like, go read lamentations.
It's like it really paints a picture of utter destruction and
horror. OK, so in the midst of this
horror and destruction, he says, but this I call to mind in verse
22, The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never come to an end, but they are new every
morning. Great is your faithfulness.
The Lord is my portion, says my soul.
Therefore I will hope in him. And here's where he gets to the
goodness of God. He says the Lord is good to
those who wait for him. The soul seeks him, the soul who
seeks him. It is good that one should wait
quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
In the midst of great horror and destruction, He's reminding his
heart that God is good, and He's particularly good to those who
wait on him and pray and follow after him, believing.
I believe in the goodness of God.
So it's wonderful to see that even in Lamentations when God
has allowed such destruction, that Jeremiah is reminding
himself of the goodness of God in spite of the situation that
he finds himself in. Now an additional time where
there's judgment and God is referenced as being good as a
Nahum. And again, Nahum is an obscure
Old Testament prophet that's much later in the Old Testament.
And you'll find that the in the Old Testament, like Jeremiah,
Isaiah and Jeremiah, their prophecies and books of prophecy
are much longer and more content.
So they're they're kind of the beginning of the prophetic
books. And then those who have smaller
books, will they come later? OK, so Nahum his, his book is
quite short. And who is name writing to?
Well, he tells you who's writing to and Nahum 11, and he says
this is an Oracle concerning Nineveh, the book of the vision
of Nahum and Alkash. What was Nineveh?
Nineveh was the city that God told Jonah to go to, to preach
that they should repent, right? And if you remember the story,
I've been to the place in Israel where Jonah would have left
from. There's like a fish statue maybe
6 or 8 feet tall there that you can stand next to.
And it's what they think at the port that he would have ran from
God. So remember, God says go to
Nineveh. He goes the opposite way.
And what happens? God, he gets swallowed up by
fish and the fish takes him to Nineveh and spits him out.
OK, this is in the Bible. I love it.
And remember Jonah, Why? Why doesn't he want to go to
Nineveh? He's mad at God.
And why is he mad at God? He's mad at God because he says
to God, God, if I go to Nineveh, I'll preach and they'll just
repent and you'll forgive them, right?
Isn't that crazy? You know, And so I know that
some parents are naming their kids Jonah.
I have friends. Your friends are naming their
kids Jonah. I'm like Jonah.
I don't know, man. He wasn't a hero because he
disobeys God. He goes the opposite way.
And then when he gets there, he's mad at God.
And then so watch this. Then when when Jonah, he
preaches and they repent like the king and everybody and
Nineveh, they repent. And so then what happens?
He goes up and he pouts like under this tree, he and that's
how the book of Jonah ends. He's mad at God because God
forgave the Ninevites. OK, That's the story of Jonah.
OK, So watch this 100 years later, Nahum now is writing to
the Ninevites. And in those hundred years, in
the century now that Ninevites have become very wicked and evil
again, and God is gracious, He's given them time to turn to him
again and they don't. So Nahum prophecies this in
verse. Well, he's going to prophecy the
destruction, but watch what he says about God to the Ninevites,
verse 7. He says the Lord is good, a
stronghold in the day of trouble.
He knows those who take refuge in him.
But with an overflowing flood, flood, he will make a complete
end of the adversaries and will pursue his enemies Into
Darkness. So name is saying that God will
and his goodness, because he's good, He will chase after his
adversaries. He will chase after the wicked
and the evil. And he's going to do that in the
city of Nineveh 100 years after Jonah has preached.
Repent so even Nahum obscure Old Testament prophet writing to the
invites. He talks about the goodness of
God. Now Jesus talks about the
goodness of God and he he does it in a very interesting way.
You remember last week. If you missed the message, you
can go get it online at YouTube or wherever you podcast last
week in response to President Trump's AI photo of himself
where he was in the white outfit and with the red sash and some
people thought he was trying to appear as Jesus and he said he
was trying to appear as a physician.
I don't know which it is, but anyways, I from that freak the
message on how we should view self.
How should I view? What should I think about
myself? OK, and you can get mad at
President Trump for it. And what was interesting is both
sides were upset about this, the left and the right.
Rare is it that the left and right are both upset about the
same thing, but they were in this occasion.
OK. So I don't want to talk at
length about that. That wasn't the point, but I
wanted to talk about how how I should view myself.
OK, so so go get that message. But in in the midst of that
message, I also brought up the fact that some of the media was
saying Jesus never claimed to be God.
He never claimed to be God. And I'm like, that's not true.
He claimed to be God over and over and over and over again,
right? And this is one of those
occasions. OK, so Jesus did not shy away
from calling him God. Watch how he does it on this
occasion. It goes to the context of God
being good. Mark 10 verse 17.
And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt
before him and asked him, Good teacher, what must I do to
inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, Why do
you call me good? No one is good except God alone.
So in this moment, Jesus is implying once again that he's
God and that he is good. So when the young rich ruler
says a good teacher, he's like, you can only, I mean, who do you
call good? God's the only one you call
good. And in this occasion, he's
referencing his own goodness and that he is God.
And sadly, the young rich ruler does not follow Jesus because
Jesus says to him, OK, if you want to follow me, sell
everything you have and give it away, and then come follow me.
And he's not able to do that because he loves his things more
than he loves the goodness of the teacher, the good teachers,
he calls them. OK, Now Jesus also talks about
the goodness of God in his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew
Chapter 7. OK, so in this occasion I'm
going to give you again the context of it because again, a
lot of times you'll memorize the verse and you won't forget
what's around it. OK, so Jesus is going to talk
about the goodness of God the Father, but watch what it's
around. Verse 7 it says ask and it will
be given to you and seek and you will find and knock and it will
be open to you for everyone who asks receives and the one who
seeks finds and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
Or which one of you, if his son ask him for bread, we'll give
him a stone. Or if he asked for a fish, we'll
give him a serpent. And remember, who was it that
tripped up Eve in the garden? Well, it was the serpent and
Jesus is referencing the serpent and he's saying, OK, if you ask
the Father for bread, he's not going to give you a stone.
And so that belief that tripped up Eve in the garden that that
that the serpent skewed the goodness of God.
On this occasion, Jesus is reminding them to believe that
God is good. When you ask for bread, he
doesn't give you a stone. You ask for a fish, he doesn't
give you a serpent. And he says this.
And when he says this, I don't think it's a slam.
I think that Jesus sometimes use comedy in a way.
He says if you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to
your children. And when he's saying this, I
don't think he's like you're evil.
I don't think he's like slamming them.
I think it's kind of a tongue in cheek thing like you people who
are evil, you know how to give good gifts to your children.
How much more will your father who is in heaven give good
things to those who ask him? Jesus is painting God is good
and not only is he good, but he gives good things.
And it's in a sermon on the mount connected next to asking
and receiving and knocking in the door being opened.
And when you ask God for something, he doesn't give you
evil in return. No, he's good and he gives good
gifts. This is how Jesus paints him.
And finally James, towards the end of your Bible, James, the
pastor at the church in Jerusalem, we think the brother
of Jesus, the half brother, he says this and James one verses
16 through 17 similar, he's echoing what Jesus said.
Do not be deceived by the serpent, by the liar, by the
thief. My beloved brothers, every good
gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the
Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to
change. It's society that God blesses
his children and again, not with an easy life, not with lack of
no suffering, no, it's that in the midst of our devastations,
our difficulties, our sorrows, God's goodness can show up in
those moments and give good gifts even there.
And when you carry a revelation of the goodness of God, you'll
be able to trust and love God even when you don't understand
his ways. And I'm, I mean, I must admit,
man, this is this has been a challenge for in my life.
There moments where I'm like Jesus, I don't understand.
I remember my late 20s and early 30s, I was praying for something
and a lot of sorrow wrapped around this prayer that we had.
And there were times where I would pray, Jesus, this would be
so easy for you. This would be nothing for you.
Nothing. It was so easy and I didn't
understand his timing. I didn't understand his ways at
the time, but I've grown to understand them more so when
you. I love the saying, when you
can't trust the hand of God, trust the heart of God.
When you don't see how God is working, just trust the goodness
and the heart of God, even when you get news you weren't hoping
for. Recently I got news about my
shoulder that was not what I was hoping for.
I prayed for something else and the news I wanted is not the
news I got. So I'm navigating through that.
God, I believe in your goodness in the midst of it, so reveal it
to me. Know that the thief who comes to
steal and destroy is telling the same lie that he told in Eden.
Maybe God is not as good as you thought and you have to fight
against that. I love what AW Tozer says.
He says what comes into our minds, but when we think about
God is the most important thing about us.
Tozer was a pastor in the Chicago area in like the 50s and
60s and wrote some wonderful books, The Pursuit of God.
And he says this in The Knowledge of the Holy.
He writes this your view and what you think about God is so
important to who you become. And when you have a revelation
and a knowledge and an appreciation of God's goodness,
then it will shape who you are. And then CS Lewis, of course, if
you know the Narnia stories, I love that the Aslan the Lion
character, when they're searching for the lion, the
question is asked, is he safe? And the answer is, he isn't
safe, but he's good, which is so wonderful, right?
And as Lewis is trying to in that way, kind of paint a
picture of who Jesus is, if you're looking for safe and
mamby pamby, whatever boring, then you're not going to find it
in God or find it in Christ. Is he safe?
No, but he's good, and an awareness and appreciation of
his goodness will shape the way that you live.
Let me close with this. This is Psalm 119, the longest
Psalm in the Bible, and it says profound things about the
goodness of God. The psalmist writes, You've
dealt well with your servant, O Lord, according to your word,
teach me good judgment and knowledge.
I believe in your commandments. Before I was afflicted, I want
to stray, but now I keep your word.
You are good and you do good. Teach me your statutes.
This would be a wonderful prayer.
Take your notes home. Then maybe this week you want to
just maybe once or twice a day, maybe take the notes out and
read through these scriptures and even the simple confession.
God, you are good and you do good.
Just you can confess that over and over and in prayer.
God, you are good and you do good.
Help me to see it when it's hard to see it.
Show it to me God. It will shape and change the way
that you chase after God. So application, let me just wind
down with this. I want to encourage you to
confess in prayers and songs the goodness of God and I love that
we sing here. The all want to see all my life
you have been faithful and all my life you have been so so
good. With every breath that I am
able, I will sing of the goodness of God.
We need more songs about the goodness of God.
We need more prayers to talk about the goodness of God
because we leak and we forget. And singing about it, praying
about it, reading about it helps.
And then my expectation is to you is be aware of the ploy of
the enemy to tear down your belief in the goodness of God.
The lie that he gave to Eve and Eden, He still wants to give to
you. Be aware of it when it comes.
And then I encourage you to be intentional in the midst of
seasons great and seasons difficult to again declare.
Speak it out, believe it. The goodness of God is never
ending. Let me pray for us.
God, I thank you for your goodness.
And I pray there's a church that we would be a church that sings
about, praise about, speaks about, teaches about.
We want to teach our children about your goodness God and it
is a theme that is throughout scripture, not just one or two
occasions, but it is you've gone to great lengths and inspiring
this the writers of the Bible through your Holy Spirit to put
this theme in there over and over again.
So help us have great appreciation and revelation
about it and help us shape the way that we follow and love you
in Jesus name and everyone said Amen.
Before we leave, I just want to take a brief moment and give you
an opportunity. If you're here this morning and
you've never surrendered your life to Jesus, you've never said
Jesus, I want to follow you. I want you to be the Lord of my
life. That's that's the point at which
you become a Christian. You don't have to understand all
the doctrines and all of the creeds, although they're
valuable. And eventually we do want you to
grow in those. But but initially it's just a
surrendering of your life to the Lordship of Christ.
The Bible says if you believe in your heart and confess with your
mouth that Jesus is Lord, then you shall be saved.
And so that's the point of salvation.
Jesus said in John three that you must be born again, like you
were born initially in water from your mother's womb.
And now Jesus says you're born of the Spirit.
And when you're born again, we believe that you become
spiritually alive through the through Jesus and the sacrifice
that he made for us. So I want to pray and if you're
new and you want to become a Christian or maybe you've been
away from the Lord for many years and you want to just re
establish your relationship with the Lord, then you can echo this
prayer with me and you can pray like this.
Heavenly Father, I come to you in Jesus name and Jesus I invite
you to become the Lord of my life.
I believe in my heart and I confess with my mouth that you
are Lord and I need your forgiveness.
So I turn for my own sinful ways and I turn towards you and I say
come and be the Lord of my life and forgive me and renew me.
I want to be born again, born of the Spirit in you.
Now I say teach me your ways, you are good and you do good
things. So help me follow after you well
and grow in an understanding of your principles and your heart
for us and your truths. So come and be the Lord of my
life. I surrender myself to you in
Jesus name. And everyone said Amen.
If you pray to receive Christ, I'd love to hear from you.
You can e-mail me at kurt@nlifechurch.org or tell a
friend that you made this decision.
And then I have a Bible for you and I have a little white book
that it's talks about your new life in Christ.
You can find me after service or e-mail me and I'll make sure
that I get those too. And we as a church want to
encourage you and your pursuit of Jesus.
So keep coming back and we encourage you to get involved in
small groups and other areas and see what unfolds for you.
All right, let's all stand together.
And before you go, I do want to say a blessing over you.
So if you will prepare your heart to receive this blessing
now before you go. And now may the Lord bless you
and keep you, and may he make his face to shine upon you.
And may the joy of the Lord that is unspeakable and full of
glory, may it abound to you. And may the peace of God that
passes all understanding, may it surprise you in the midst of all
of the challenges that life brings.
And then may the mercies of the Lord, in other words, the
forgiveness of God, that's new every morning.
May it be especially new to you and your mornings to come.
And now may the Lord Jesus Christ guard your heart and your
mind. You are salt and your light.
Go now and be salt and light unto the world.
You are blessed. We'll see you again soon.