Good evening everyone, it's really good to have you with us this evening. I think there are a few visitors, you are particularly welcome.
As Danny said, we're continuing our series looking at This is Our God, and we're looking at Our Good God this evening.
Some of you may know it, I'm a big fan of the Kindle e-reader. I find it portable, convenient and flexible, and for me that outweighs the benefits of having paper.
A lot of the features of the Kindle try to replicate what you can do on paper, and one of them is the highlighting feature.
So if you're reading a book, you might go through and underline a passage or get your highlight route, so you can be reminded of it when you come back again later.
And you can do the same thing on the Kindle, just highlight the passage, and it will remind you that this is something that's important to you.
What you can also do with the Kindle is see what passages other people have highlighted.
So you can go in and find a list of the most common passages in the Bible or any other book that people have chosen to highlight to be reminded of.
So I thought I'd do that. I did it for the NIV for the edition I've got on my Kindle.
And I thought the top two, the two most popular verses, were quite interesting.
So in second position is Romans 8 and verse 28, which says,
And then in first place, the most popular highlight in the NIV at least, is Jeremiah chapter 29 and verse 11.
And it says,
So my not very scientific analysis suggests that, at least for readers of the NIV, one of the things that they want to be reminded of is the goodness of God.
Two verses that very much bring before us the good plans that God has for his people.
I think that probably is true of most of us as well.
The goodness of God, the fact that God is good, is something that is really important to us and a great encouragement in our lives.
But we have to ask ourselves, what do we mean when we say God is good?
The word good is very common in the English language, and it's used in all sorts of different ways.
So when we say God is good, what exactly do we mean?
Let me put up a quote from the theologian Bruce Milne, a very interesting book on doctrinal theology, Know the Truth.
And he says this,
God's goodness is a perfection which can be classed equally under holiness or love,
and as such underlies the impossibility of separating these two attributes.
Take a second to think about that while I keep talking.
But Bruce Milne is saying that goodness encompasses both God's holiness, which we looked at last week,
and God's love, which we'll be looking at in more detail next week.
And if you want to understand what it means that God is good,
you have to bring these two elements of his character into it.
I think we can maybe say that God's goodness is how his holiness and his love are seen in practice,
how they make a difference in our lives.
Now, if you were here last week, you may remember when Graham talked about God's holiness.
He talked about God as being set apart and perfectly pure.
I think it's probably the second of those that Bruce Milne is thinking of at this point.
The God who is perfectly just, upright, righteous, who can't tolerate sin.
And God's goodness must be based on God's holiness,
on the fact that he can do no wrong and that he can tolerate no wrong.
Now, God's love, I'm sure you'll have an understanding of.
Do come back next week if you have any doubts about it.
But it's these two things, I think, that we have to look at.
One is the God who doesn't do any wrong.
The other is the God who loves us and who demonstrates his care for us.
Let's examine this a bit further, looking at some of the passages and verses that we've looked at already,
maybe one or two others as well.
The verse in Romans chapter 5, Romans chapter 5, verse 7, that says this.
Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person,
though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.
But then verse 8, God commends, demonstrates his love for us in this.
While we were still sinners, Christ dies, died for us.
So I think what this verse is saying, if I've read it right,
is that goodness goes beyond righteousness.
So Paul is saying it's very unlikely to anyone want to die for someone who's just righteous,
who kind of was a holier-than-thou kind of person.
It's more likely, though still unlikely, Paul says, that they might die for a good person.
So goodness, if we take this verse, has the element of righteousness,
but goes beyond that and is reflected in care, in love for others.
If we take the passage that Sabina read to us from the Gospels,
of the rich ruler who came to Jesus and asked about eternal life,
and Jesus says, why do you call me good teacher?
There's no one good except God.
And I think he carries that thought forward into the following verses,
because the ruler is able to say, well, I'm an upright person.
I've obeyed the commands.
Now, undoubtedly, he hadn't completely obeyed the commands,
but perhaps he was an upright person relative to other people.
But what Jesus highlights then is,
yes, you may not be doing much that's actively wrong,
but are you really showing love for God and love for others?
Or actually, is the main thing in your life the riches that you have?
Righteousness must be accompanied by love.
Goodness is holiness alongside love,
when we think about God's goodness.
Or look at the other way around.
Is it enough just to love people?
If I love people, does that make me a good person?
We might in our society say someone's good because they do lots of good works.
But again, love by itself isn't enough.
There's from Jeremiah that we read,
where God is making great promises to his people,
that he has good plans for them,
plans to prosper them in the future.
But if we look at the context of that,
it's in the context of God's judgment,
of God's righteousness.
Because the people are going to be in exile for 70 years,
and then says, God, you will turn to me,
and you will get all the benefits that I have promised.
Or Romans 8, the other verse that we highlighted,
that talks about God works everything for good for those who love him.
The context of that, if we read on a verse or two,
is about people being transformed into the image of Jesus,
of being justified before God.
In other words, alongside the love that is there,
there is also God's justice, God's holiness.
So God's goodness combines both his holiness and his love.
Let me then put up a statement.
I think one of the other who have taken this read
have done something similar.
So here's where we're going this evening,
the things I want to talk about as we think of our good God.
God is good.
This is evident through his actions,
his gifts, and his commands.
And his goodness never changes.
God is good.
God's whole character is good.
It's not that God is good sometimes and not good other times.
God is always good.
And that's the point Jesus is making, I think,
in the passage from Luke,
when he says,
there is no one good except God.
We can all do good things.
We can all show love and concern for others.
And yet by nature we are not good.
By nature we are sinners who have rebelled against God.
And God is the only one who is truly good.
And how do we see this?
We see this, I'm suggesting,
through his actions, his gifts, and his commands.
So what are the actions of God?
Let me just highlight two.
God is our creator.
God made the universe and everything that's in it.
And if we read through Genesis chapter 1,
we find again and again God comes to the end of the day
and he looks at what he's made
and he sees it is good.
Or he sees it is very good.
God has made his creation good.
Now this is, I suppose, another quality of goodness,
the quality of excellence to be able to do things well.
But it is also, I think, when it says what God made is good,
it means that it's more than just functional.
It's not just in this world that we have food to eat.
We have food to eat that, by and large,
we can enjoy and gives us satisfaction.
We can hear.
We can hear music,
as God has created our ears and the world around us
so that we can hear and can enjoy things.
We can see, we can look around us,
and we can see the beauty of nature.
And God's creation is not just functional,
it's beautiful,
it's there for our enjoyment,
and it gives him pleasure too,
the fact that he has made something,
he's made everything,
and it is good.
Psalm 100 verse 3 that we read earlier,
Know that the Lord is God,
it is he who made us,
and we are his,
we are the sheep of his pasture.
Our God is good,
and he has shown it through his creation.
And if we knew nothing else about God,
but what we can see in creation,
then we should still be attracted to him.
Romans chapter 1 and verse 20,
Paul says,
For since the creation of the world,
God's invisible qualities,
his eternal power and divine nature
have been clearly seen,
being understood from what has been made,
so people are without excuse.
In other words,
just looking at creation
should lead us to believe
in a God who is great,
in a God who is good.
But of course,
we can look beyond that
when we think about God's actions.
And we think of God
not just as our creator,
but as our saviour.
And God's greatest action
was in sending his son
into the world
to be the saviour of the world.
He sent the one
who is most precious to him
to live a life of poverty
and to die on the cross
for our sakes.
And that action demonstrates
above everything else
the goodness of our God.
It satisfies his holiness
in that reparation was made for sin,
the punishment that was due for sin
has been taken.
And it demonstrates his love,
the love that was willing to give
the one who was most precious to him
for our sake.
God is good
and his goodness is shown
in his actions.
Then God's goodness is shown
through his gifts.
Now two ways again for that.
God gives us
what we need physically.
I suspect few of any of us
will go away this evening
and won't have a shelter,
a warm bed,
food to eat
and all that we need
for our daily lives.
And much more beyond
a lot that can give us
additional pleasure
that God has given to us.
Our God is a God
who gives and gives
and gives more
than we could ever need.
And he also gives to us spiritually.
He gives us spiritual gifts
that will help us
to be fulfilled in our lives,
will help us to serve others,
to show goodness
to others that God has shown to us
and that will help us
to serve him
as we should.
And these gifts too
are a sign of God's goodness
to us.
He doesn't need us.
He doesn't need us
to exercise the gifts
that he's given us
but he has chosen
to give us these gifts
so that we can glorify him
and so that we can enjoy him
and enjoy being used by him.
So we see God's goodness
in his gifts.
And then also thirdly,
we see God's goodness
in his commands.
Romans 7 verse 12 says,
The law is holy
and the commandment
is holy,
righteous,
and good.
And it may not seem so obvious
that we see God's goodness
through the commands
he's given us.
And yet is it not right
that God has given us
guidelines of how we should
live our lives,
how we are able to please him,
how we are able to get the most
out of being
in this world.
One of the greatest chapters
in the Bible,
as well as being the longest
in the Bible,
is Psalm 119.
And the great theme
of Psalm 119
is that the psalmist
loves God's word.
He loves to go to his Bible,
however much of it he had
in those days,
and to enjoy
what God has said there.
Let me reduce a few verses,
verses 14 to 16.
The psalmist writes,
I rejoice in following
your statutes
as one rejoices
in great riches.
I meditate on your precepts
and consider your ways.
I delight in your decrees.
I will not neglect your word.
I delight in your decrees.
Do we take great delight
in what God has given us
through his word,
the pathway to life
that he sets out before us
as we serve him
and seek to obey
what he has given to us?
God's commands,
along with his actions
and his gifts,
are good
and are beneficial to us.
Our God is good.
The key to that
is that God's goodness
goodness never changes.
It never fails.
And even in the difficult times,
even when life is hard
and we're finding
it's a real struggle,
we can go to God
and we can rejoice
in his goodness to us.
And that's the key difference
between us and God.
We can do an element of good,
not on the level that God can.
We can do an element of good
in our lives.
God constantly does good.
God is good.
And where we are temperamental
and very in the way we live,
God never changes.
Over the last three or four years,
I guess,
many of us have become familiar
with the name Edward Colston.
I think if you lived in Bristol
before that,
you would have been familiar with him,
but not probably elsewhere.
Edward Colston,
for many years,
was considered a great hero
in the city of Bristol.
He was a great philanthropist.
He built schools,
he built hospitals,
he built churches,
he built homes for pure people,
and he was seen as someone
who was good.
And they named streets after him,
they named a concert hall after him,
they put a big statue up
in the middle of the city.
And then it emerged
that Edward Colston
had got his fortune
through the slave trade.
That because he was a slave trader,
he was able to build
by the vast amount of money
and was then able to use it
for good things.
And these days,
he's probably best remembered
because his statue
was thrown into the harbour
at Bristol,
and all the call
and everything named after him
has been renamed.
He was someone
who did good
in some ways,
but also did bad
in other ways.
And in a less extreme way,
I guess we are all
like that.
We have some good things
in our lives,
we have some things
that are virtuous,
we have lots of things too
that we're ashamed of,
and that are certainly
not good.
Our God
is not like
that.
Our God
is perfectly good
all of
the time.
Now I say that
with confidence,
but if you went out
into the street,
there will be a lot of people
who would disagree
with that.
The so-called
new atheists
would tell us
if there's a God,
which they say there isn't,
but if there's a God,
he must be really cruel
and caring
because of all the suffering
in this world,
and indeed
all the suffering
that those who trust in him
suffer alongside
everyone else.
Just because you trust
in God,
you're not exempt
from suffering,
and the atheists
would then say,
well, that proves
there's not a God,
or at least that he
doesn't care for you
if there is.
Now before we dismiss
that out of hand,
let's just take a second
to reflect on the fact
that Christians
do suffer.
In this world,
Jesus says,
you will have trouble,
and that is certainly true.
If I look at this church,
the church post-pandemic
will be in many ways
quite different
from the church
pre-pandemic
because there are
a large number of people
who have been pillars
of the church
for many years
who are now going
through times
of great suffering
and are entable
to be with us.
The names will mean
something to some people
or a lot to some people
or nothing to others,
let me list a few.
The Wilsons,
the McMillans,
the Millers,
the Greys,
the Pontons,
all in their families
and not just one person
generally,
have suffered
and are suffering
a great deal.
Does that then demonstrate
that actually God
isn't good
all the time?
That actually
we shouldn't be saying
God is good
because Christians
can suffer greatly.
Let's move away
from the immediate
local situation
and let me introduce
you to this couple.
Their names are
Joey and Rory
and if you didn't get it
from the name
or the picture
they're an all-American
couple
and very clean cut
they're singers
and came to prominence
in one of these
television music contests
had some success
following that
and went to live
on a farm
and pursue their music
alongside farming
and were all set up
to live happily
ever after.
And then Joey
was diagnosed
with cancer
and it wasn't
either a short
sharp cancer
or a cancer
which got better
over time.
It was a cancer
which lasted
for a couple of years.
She suffered
a great deal
of pain
both from the cancer
itself
and from the chemo.
Here's one thing
that her husband
Rory said
when you see
someone with
so much faith
go through
something so painful
you wish that
somehow God
would exempt them
from so much
heartache
and pain.
Maybe we can identify
with that thought.
Anyway,
after a couple of years
Joey lost her battle
with cancer
and she passed away
leaving her husband
Rory
with a two-year-old
daughter with
Down syndrome
and quite a number
of valid challenges
I won't go into.
One of our closest friends
was a songwriter
and wrote a very
personal
quite sad song
about her suffering
and her death.
And for our purposes
tonight
these are the two
key lines in it.
The song says
I don't believe
that Jesus
that you love so much
would put you
through such pain.
Take a thing
to think about that.
What the song
is saying
is that
Joey
loved the Lord Jesus
but either
he couldn't
or he wouldn't
save her
from the pain.
And so the songwriter
says,
I think he's concluding,
she can't have
a saviour
who is good
all the time
who really
loves her.
Rory recorded
that song
as a direct
with Dolly Parton
but actually
it wasn't
his own sentiment.
He was doing it
recognising
the honest feelings
of a friend
but it wasn't
the way
that he felt.
here's what he said.
Just because
things don't
work out
the way
that you hoped
they would
doesn't mean
that God
isn't still
in charge.
It's still
his plans
and not ours.
So I don't
feel like
my faith
has wavered
at all.
You see
the difference
between these
two viewpoints.
One is looking
at the suffering
of the person
and concluding
from that
there isn't
a God
who cares
and is able
to help.
There isn't
a good God.
The other
is starting
from the point
of view
that there
is a good God.
That we know
God is good
but we don't
always understand
his ways.
And so although
we can't understand
the suffering
that many people
go through
and it's not
for us in this life
to be able
to understand it
yet we can
cling on
to the confidence
that God
is good.
God cares
for us.
The difference
is how we
view things.
Do we start
from the viewpoint
that says
I know God
is good
and we'll come
back to why
in a minute
I know God
is good
therefore there
must be
a reason
for what's
happened.
Or do we start
from the viewpoint
that says
this thing's
happened
it's terrible
that proves
there isn't
a good
God.
So how do
we know
that God
is good?
Well we know
it for the reasons
I said earlier.
We know it
through his creation
we know it
through his
daily provision
for us
and we know
it above all
through the
Lord Jesus.
Our good
God
our saviour
God
Jesus
was willing
to suffer
much more
than we
ever will.
And the
confidence
that we can
have in his
goodness
comes primarily
from our
knowledge of
Jesus
and the
fact that
he went
to the
cross
he took
the punishment
for our
sins
and he
demonstrated
there
in an
absolute
way
the
goodness
of
God.
A couple
of verses
on from the
verse in
Romans that
we quoted
earlier
it says
this
he who
did not
spare his
own
son
but gave
him up
for us
all
how will
he not
also
along with
him
graciously
give us
all things.
So no matter
what the
storms of
life may be
no matter
how much
pain we
may experience
or see
other people
suffering
no matter
how much
we may
pray for
something
and it
seems that
God hasn't
answered our
prayers
certainly not
in the way
that we
expected.
We can
still be
confident
that our
God
is good
and even
in a time
of suffering
we can
experience
his peace
and we can
know that
although we
may have
a thorn
in the
flesh
that we
have to
endure
yet his
grace
is sufficient
for us.
he never
leaves us
he's never
not there
for us
and everything
that happens
ultimately
will fulfill
his good
purposes.
God
is
good
and we
need to
hang on
to that
in every
aspect
of our
lives.
As the
psalmist
said
in what
we read
earlier
the Lord
is good
and his
love
endures
forever.
his
faithfulness
continues
through
all
generations.
Let's
pray together.
Father we
thank you
that you
are a
good
God.
We
thank you
that you
are a
God
who cares
for us
in every
aspect
of our
lives.
And
although we
may not
always
understand
your
ways
we
thank you
that they
are always
good
and they
are always
right.
Thank you
for your
holiness
that you
are so
far above
us
in your
purity
and your
greatness
and your
majesty.
And we
thank you
for your
love
for the
love that
sent Jesus
to be
our
saviour
and to
die
on the
cross
for our
sins.
Help us
to understand
more
of your
goodness.
Help us
to rejoice
in it.
And when
the time
of trial
comes as
it will
for all
of us
help us
nevertheless
to be
able to
continue
to have
confidence
that you
are a
good God
and that
you care
for us
that you
never
change.
Thank you
for your
presence as
we've
looked at
your word
together.
We pray
you'll be
with us
now as
we come
to remember
the Lord
Jesus
together.
We give
you thanks
in his
name.
Amen.