Attributes of God Pt7

So, just so everybody understands, there's one or two more topics to talk about as far as the attributes of God, and then we're going to move into some other thoughts about Christ, but before that I plan on covering miracles for one class too.

So anyway, as we move through all these attributes of God, and I don't know, last week we were a little light, and so I thought we had a real good conversation, and I kind of,

I left it on the recording because I thought it was a good discussion that maybe would cause other people to think about some things that we talked about.

Anyway, this morning I really want to focus in on the goodness of God, because the goodness of God is an attribute of God, and that we ought to consider that as a very specific attribute or characteristics of our

God. So I'll start by, I want to read two quotes, one's from Arthur Pink, and just short little paragraphs about the goodness of God, and then one by Sproul, and then we'll look at some scriptures, and I put some scriptures on the board in case you want to, but he says this, in talking about the goodness of God, this is what

Arthur Pink says, 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.

He is infinitely good. The creature's good is but a drop, but in God there is an infinite ocean of gathering together of good.

He is eternally and immutably good, for he cannot be less good than he is, and there can be no addition made to him, or no subtraction from him.

And he's quoting from Thomas Manton, which is a very good writer.

So when you think about that, and we begin to think about the goodness of God, it's not that God does good, although he does do good, right?

It's that God is good, and there's a great difference between someone who acts out and does good things versus someone who's, if you will, by essence is good.

Let me just read a quick quote from Sproul concerning the goodness of God.

So he says this, So closely linked is goodness to God that even pagan philosophers such as Plato equated ultimate goodness, the highest good, with God himself.

God's goodness refers both to his character and his behavior, which is what we just said, right?

God does good because God is good, and his actions proceed from and flow out of his being.

He acts according to what he is. Just as a corrupt tree cannot bear incorrupt fruit, neither can an incorrupt

God produce corrupt fruit. And again, you know, when you read things like that, and you think about what's really being said in that, it's really,

I think there's a lot of people who confuse that, just like people will basically, if you ask the general population whether man is basically good or evil, what do you think their response is going to be?

Good. I mean, very few people are going to say that man, if you looked at the essence of his being, is evil.

But does not the Bible say that? Does not the Bible say that the thoughts of man's hearts are only, what?

Evil continuously. And that when we think about good, it's only, men only do good things because of the reality that God is good.

And God grants the grace to allow people to do things almost against their basic nature.

Because again, if, let's just think of it this way, if you removed all grace, would you have a good society or an evil society?

Right? Just like it was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, just like it was where men just acted out in ways of great debauchery and perversion.

And as we look at society, and isn't that interesting, and then we'll get into the scriptures a little bit, but if you think about it, how society today, they keep wanting us to think that all man needs is a little bit of help, whether that would be education or income or a bunch of other things.

And that if we could just get him over that hurdle of being deficient in certain areas, that everything will clean itself up.

And again, if you look at it from a biblical standpoint, the message of the

Bible is really kind of opposite to that. It's man left alone apart from God does what?

He corrupts. He goes further down. He doesn't go up. And that's why, in my mind, that's why evolution is such a, to me, such a troubling thought because it, evolution basically teaches in all ways, both physically and even in many evolutionist mind, even from a maturity standpoint, that man goes from nothing to something.

And yet, if you look at it again, man left alone, he doesn't grow in grace.

He actually grows corrupt. And so let's look at some scriptures. So again, basically basic scriptures, but nevertheless, it's always good to look at them because to me, you can never get enough of something that's good.

So let's go to James and I'm just going to run through these and see if we can think about some of these things.

And again, in chapter one of James, look what it says in, well, let's start at verse 16.

So he's warning, right? He says, do not be deceived, my beloved brethren, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, comes down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning and of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures, but every good gift.

And I was thinking about this one and we're driving, you know, what

Paul says, he says, what do you have that you what? That you haven't received, right?

What do you have that you haven't received? And even in that sense, the ability for a man to love his wife, the ability for a man to love his kids, the ability for a man or woman to be a positive, uh, influence in society.

That's all something that has been given. That's not in, it's not just flows out of the heart of man because, um, remember what it says in Jeremiah, what the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who could know it.

So I wonder at times, like we use that scripture many times when it comes to giving, where it says every, uh, what do you have that you haven't received?

And then if you received it, then why do you glory in it as if you hadn't received it, right?

That's what it says. And so people will use that and say, well, since God gave you money, you should be joyful about giving a portion of it back to the

Lord. And that's true. But if, if we think about what is being said in James, every good and perfect, uh, every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above because with God, there is no variables.

God never does anything bad. How many of us can make that claim?

How many of us can say, um, in truth that we've lived a good life?

Is that possible to say that? Not in totality. Not, not in totality.

I mean, if, if here's the issue, right? If we use men as our comparison, then we can, many people can say that, right?

I've lived a good life, but you cannot use it in comparison to God because God is the of everything that is good and everything that will ever be good.

And apart from that, um, there's no way for a man to be able to claim goodness.

I was thinking of that scripture, um, in there, you guys help me in there, a scripture that I think it's in the

Psalms that it says, my goodness extends not to you.

Does anybody remember that scripture? My goodness extends not to, and I think in the

King James says, my goodness extends not to the, but the point is that there is nothing that we could do even in that way in which

God could, would look down upon us and say, well, uh, you're good.

Now he might say that in a way, uh, cause he does say that about certain people in the that they were, they were a righteous servant, that they were a faithful servant and things like that.

But it's all really, it's all of grace anyway. Right? And so when you think about it, it's because God is the ocean of goodness and that God continually is good and will always be good and could do nothing else but be good.

How do you think people would define good in our day? It depends where you live, right?

If you're living in a third world country and you don't see what we see in the

United States, then their goodness might, is going to completely be completely different than what we think here is goodness.

Cause we may attribute goodness to financial types of things and they may not have the financial things and goodness to them might be,

Hey man, we got food on our table today, just today and water. So it's like relative. Are you saying it's relative compared to certain aspects,

Mario? Yeah, kind of going along with that. You know, God's goodness to, you know, at least in our, in our culture, will you like more materialistic?

Like, Oh, you know, I got a nice house, you know, my family's good, you know,

I got, you know, I live in a nice neighborhood. I got this, you know, that 401k, like that's simply how we would find goodness in an

American culture. You know, like, um, like, you know, in the abundance of things we possess, right.

And, and remember what Jesus said, he says, your life doesn't consist in the abundance of things you possess.

And yet I would agree with both of you that what you're saying that it is a relative thing, but that's the distinction.

God is good, only good and what? Always good.

Right. So when you think about that, um, it's interesting how people will, again, relative in a, in a subjective way or in a, in a way that, um, that society might think that they are, uh, in a good position or people are good.

And he's good even to the ungodly. Yeah. I'm going to look at that. Yeah, absolutely.

You can just look at him with a knife, sir. That's the perfect example. Yeah. God was good to him and, you know, living in America where we don't really have too much cannibalism,

I guess, I guess we could say we live in a good place compared to, uh, somebody wanting to eat your neighbor or something like that.

The fact that I was a dame, like, I mean, we realized, like I was reading Ezekiel, not so long ago.

I remember just thinking like, oh yeah, I just got it. Not only was it a dame, God actually commanded him to eat.

God actually commanded them to eat their own. Oh yeah. I understand what you're saying.

Yeah. It was a judgment of God upon them. Yeah. But, but still it's relative and it's, it, again, as long as the comparison is this way and not that way, because as soon as you go that way, you're done.

And I think in this country, we identify good with what is right. What is right.

Right. And that may get debatable. Yeah. That's what, how we define, that's a good person.

You're right, brother. That's a great guy. You know, you did a good thing. Yeah. You know, we identify it with what's right.

Not what's true, but what's right in the eyes of that. Human perspective. Yeah. The day of the judges.

Yeah. Every man did what was right in his own eyes. Yeah. And so again, I think of it, well,

I don't know if this is the greatest example, but you know, our society at one point frowned on adultery, right?

Does our society frown on adultery in the same way? No, it's normal.

Not only is it normal, it's acceptable. And still, to your point, we'll say, this is a good guy, or this is a great guy, or this is a great woman.

And yet they're so far away from the goodness that God sets out in his word.

But again, it all depends on where you're at. You see people glorify it all the time.

Yeah, I mean, so let's look at the one in Luke's gospel. Because again, this one is really pretty clear.

And this is, you know, the rich young ruler. But nevertheless, again, as we think about these things.

So here's this rich young ruler, and he comes to Christ. And now a certain ruler, verse 18,

Luke 18, now a certain ruler asked him, saying, good teacher, what shall

I do to inherit eternal life? The answer is startling, right? Jesus said to him, why do you call me good?

No one is good, but one, and that is God. Again, just like we think about everything, all the attributes of God, whether it be power, or wisdom, or grace, or mercy, all of that flows from God down, and man is the recipient, isn't he?

He receives of God's goodness, just as he receives of God's wisdom, because a man apart from God would have no wisdom, would he?

So, and here's the problem is when we get this, which is really the things of the world, or comparisons, or societies, or cultures, or whatever you want, and it gets distorted so that man no longer realizes that God is the giver of every good and perfect gift.

But that it's all because of what takes place in between, but it's not, and that's why

Jesus said, why do you call me good? Can you imagine what this guy must have thought at this point?

Why do you call me good? There's none good but God, and when Jesus said it, he fully understood what he was saying, because it really is something that is, it makes up God's essence.

Well, none of us can make that claim, or none of us should attempt to make that claim, right? All right, let's look at another one, and I'm just running through some scriptures, and there's so many that we could have looked at, but go to Psalm 25, because this is another one where it proclaims how

God is by nature good and only good. I really want to read it from the beginning.

It's only the first couple of verses. So, to you, O Lord, Psalm 25, to you,

O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in you. Let me not be ashamed. Let not my enemies triumph over me.

Indeed, let no one who waits on you be ashamed. Let those be ashamed who deal treacherously without a cause.

Show me your ways, O Lord. Teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the

God of my salvation. On you I wait all the day. Remember, O Lord, your tender mercies and your loving kindness, for they have been from old.

Do not remember the sins of my youth nor my transgressions. According to your mercy, remember me for your goodness sake,

O Lord. Now, look what it says in verse eight. Good and upright is the Lord. And again, it's not just because of what

God does. It's because of who God is. He is good.

And as we often say, again, he's good, only good, always good.

And so, you think about even what it says in Romans, right?

In Romans eight, all things work together for what? For good. But the problem with us is we try to interpret good, right?

And then because we try to interpret good, then we get distorted in our thinking.

But if you really set your mind to it, one of the great promises that we have as the children of God is that God is always good to us.

Because the goodness really is derived from where? It's from the righteousness of Christ, right?

And so, would any of us say that God wasn't good to his beloved son? And if God is good to his son and we're as with God through Christ, then would it be any different for us?

And I would say, absolutely not. So. I think we also have to understand that he's, like you're saying, his goodness is even through our trials, because it builds us up, builds us character, those kind of things.

Yeah, and again, that's where we get distorted, right? I think many times it's because our definition of good and God's definition of good is really, doesn't always meet, line up together.

They did a, I forget what the name of what, they did a survey of Christians, talking about divorce.

And it was like 58 % of the Christians had gotten a divorce and remarried. And then they asked the question of that percentage, how many thought it was right to live with a person before they married.

And 42 % of the Christians believe it was right to live with a person before they married so that you won't do the wrongness of doing a divorce.

I said, how convoluted is that? How strange is that? Yeah, again, that's what it becomes.

We have a great discussion about situation ethics, right? That it all depends on the situation.

And then not only does it depend on the situation, it depends on the outcome of that situation, right? And so you meet people and even people who proclaim to be

Christians. And I'm not saying all of them that proclaim that are not, but not all of them are.

But yet still the reality is our definition of good is not God's definition of good.

Because the next topic we're going to look at is the holiness of God. And God's goodness is based on his holiness, right?

That's, and just as a point to think about as we get to, if there is one attribute of God, in my understanding, one attribute of God that all the other attributes flow out of, it's this one.

That God is holy. So, Mario. Okay, yeah, and I think kind of along with, like people think goodness means everything goes right in my life.

That's not how we think. That's how we in our mind think. So everything's going good, you know, to take care of, you know, no suffering.

And then we got Job's situation. He was, Job, you know, he suffered greatly.

Absolutely, yeah. And it caused him to even get upset with God for a while. But then he was like, he realized that God was good the whole time.

He was just testing me. You know, it took him, it took 40, it took almost the whole book.

To realize, wait a minute, God was good the whole time. I was just, he was testing me to see if I was going to like, stay loyal to him or reject him.

So can we actually say that? Can we actually say in the midst of trials, in the midst of loss, in the midst of suffering, in the midst of all the things that come against us, even in the thought of what had taken place to Job.

Can we honestly say that as a Christian, that we're founded upon the foundation that no matter what happens,

God is being good to us? In the midst of the trial, probably not, because it's hard.

No, I'm not, I understand that. It is hard. When you, in retrospect, when you look at it at the end of the trial, you learn from that.

Yeah, and then, yes. And if you look at it from the point of, go ahead, bro, I know you were going to say something. Well, in America, trials are a foreign substance.

I mean, you don't think about it at all. Yeah. Or they do, oh God, so why not do that? Or what, you know?

Why? Yeah. Or it's not fair. Right, so I think in America, maybe it's kind of like Ernie was saying earlier, it depends where you're at.

Yeah. You know, I think the people right now in Mozambique and some of those other places where they're being attacked and murdered and things,

I think their idea of what goodness and stuff is, is a little different. And I'm not saying, please don't misunderstand,

I'm not saying everything that happens to us is good, because that's, you can't deal with it that way.

But we hear so much positive, you know, you know, that, hey, you just stay loyal if they be good.

Yeah, right. Brother, you were going to say something? Yeah, I think piggybacking off of everything that's been said,

I think that especially because of the fact that we're in the Western world, we're taught, especially in America, last 50 plus years or so, that what

I feel, what I experience, and what I want trumps everything else. And the

Bible tells the born -again believer that they are to renew the mind.

Why? Because in our thinking, even though we're born -again believers, being in America, we still have that residue where we want to think for ourselves.

We want to feel remote rather than go by what we're trying to establish here, which is that all facts and all truth is derivative.

Yes. We start thinking in that manner, we start to be able to say, God is good. But we can't unless we realize, first and foremost, if truth and everything else is derivative, that means

I have to depend upon God to see what is actually good and what isn't. Yeah, and so what do we, most times we're swayed by experience rather than truth.

Truth is, God is good. That's the truth. And unless we, to your point,

I think what you were saying in part, unless we settle our minds there, it becomes distorted as it flows downhill, especially in the world we live in and in the times we live in, and how people will perceive certain things in certain ways at certain times, and that ultimately, again, the reality is not only does

God do good, but the reason why God does good is because God is good. And so even us, we should be what?

If our enemies are hungry, what are we supposed to do? Feed them, right? If we have an opportunity to do good, we should do it, right?

That's because that reflects the goodness of God, just like the

Good Samaritan. Interesting that we call him the Good Samaritan, right? Because what did he do?

He showed kindness, mercy, and all the other things that were involved in it, and that you and I need to emulate, if you would, the

Lord Jesus Christ. So there's a couple other scriptures to look at. I think we have a couple minutes left.

Go to Psalm 100 since you're in the Psalms anyway. And short psalm, five verses, worth our reading.

Psalm 100. Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands.

Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing.

Know that the Lord, he is God. It is he who has made us and not we ourselves.

We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise.

Be thankful to him and bless his name, for the Lord is good.

His mercy is everlasting. His truth endures in all generations.

I often think of what that, and we're going to talk about this in a couple weeks on Wednesday, I'm going to talk about peace a little bit.

Remember when it says that he will keep them in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on him because he trusts in him?

Well, if you think about it, if we were truly fixed on the fact that God is good, do you not think that would yield peace to us?

Absolutely would. The problem with us is we don't really believe that, and therefore we lose peace, and therefore once we lose peace based on our experience desires, then we lose the fact that God is good.

And if you read a psalm like this, there should not be a single person who comes to worship

God in a corporate way, does not come expecting good things from God who is good.

Mario? Yeah, compared to the rest, compared to the third world, like I heard somebody say this a long time ago, it's actually harder, he was talking about like raising kids, he's saying it's actually harder for someone who had good family, but in a bad environment versus a bad family in a good environment, if you grew up in a bad upbringing, but your environment was good, you could say that's not normal, that's not the way it should be.

Right. If you grew up like what they were saying, a bad environment, but you had a good stable family, it's kind of weird.

So I think that's why we in America, I think that's where we get that entitlement, he was talking about entitlement comes from, because it's like, okay, yeah, my situation sucks, but everybody else is doing fine.

Yeah, and again, it's a comparison between, it's a vertical, well, it's a horizontal comparison, right?

Versus a vertical comparison, because again, once you look up and see not only that God is, but who he is, it changes to what

I think you were saying before, brother, changes your mind. It really does. Sister? And sometimes we don't want

God's goodness. No. Because of what it entails. I remember when Gary was dying in that hospital room, and I got home and I remember starting to pray and thinking about that,

I was like, Lord, I don't want this, please, not at this time, and then praying to the Lord, but that thought was in my head,

God is good, but then my wicked heart is like, but Lord, I don't want this.

And you have to be honest before God because he sees you. Right? And so I was like, Lord, please, I don't want this.

Yeah, and I don't think that's totally illegitimate, right? Because of relationships and because of...

That's how I felt about Jesus, right? Because God, who gave us the ability to love one another, right?

The Lord. So I don't necessarily say that that's a wicked heart, that is a troubled heart, and that's, again, every situation that we go through is not good in that way.

And there should be, because otherwise, then there would be no reason to grieve ever.

And yet the Bible talks about grieving for sure. So I understand all that. I want to get through just a couple more if we have time.

And, you know, we could look at a bunch. In Psalm 119, it says, you are good and you do good.

In Psalm 33, 5, it says, the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. And if you think about what it said in Luke, when the multitude of the angels, remember what they were praising

God? They said, glory to God in the highest and on earth, what? Peace, goodwill towards men.

And so with that, I want to ask us to look at Romans chapter two for a minute, because this is where, this is a mighty statement made in Romans chapter two.

And so certainly we know Romans. And as we get to Romans chapter two, just picking it up from the beginning, because we're only going to read a few verses.

Therefore, you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are, for whatever you judge another, you condemn yourself, for you who judge practice the same things.

But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.

And do you not think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things and do the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?

But look at it in verse four and verse five and verse six. Do you despise the riches of his goodness and his forbearance and his long suffering, not knowing, interesting how this is worded, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance, but in accordance with the hardness of your impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation in the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each man according to his deeds, eternal life to those who by patience continue in doing good, seeking for glory, honor, and immortality.

But those who are self -seeking do not obey the truth, obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath.

But there it is, right? How many times as we see people's lives and God blesses and God is good and God allows them to continue on just as sure as God sends his rain on the just and the unjust.

But we need to realize, and to me it's a scary thought, I should do good,

I should do good to all men, right? Peaceably with all men and especially those in the household of faith.

So I should always seek to do good regardless of how it's received, agree?

But this reality is absolutely startling.

Do you despise the riches of God's goodness? How many people have been blessed upon blessed upon blessed where judgment has been delayed?

Remember, I always think of that in Ecclesiastes where it says, because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, the sons of the hearts of men are fully set to do evil.

And you think about that, it's God's goodness that keeps someone out of eternal punishment.

And you and I all have situations of either people we know or people we've heard of that have been just, if you will, overcome with the goodness of the things of this world and we all know it comes from God.

And yet for all that, all they're doing is heaping up wrath. That's a scary thought.

And should we ever get to the point where we say, I'm not going to do good anymore because I don't want to heap judgment on them?

Just real quick. So yesterday when Mike was preaching, he was preaching the gospel, which is good to all those people that were out there.

And they don't realize that it was good because there was one individual that said, just shut up. Oh, really? No, I was in a truck.

So just shut up. So they didn't understand that they were heaping that wrath on themselves.

I mean, by not even paying attention to what he was talking about, but that was a good thing that he was saying.

Yeah. And somebody actually shouted that. Just shut up. Yeah. Wow. That's amazing. I guess he told me,

Riri. Riri, Papa, did you hear that? He said, shut up to Mr. Mike. Go pop him.

Yeah. Go get him, Papa. Turn that fire to heaven. But if you read, if you really set your mind to what he's saying here in Romans chapter two, it is a, that's why it says the fearful things to fall into the hands of the living

God. And again, we must seek to be

Christ -like in our life. And it might even cause us great sorrow to do what's good, right?

And again, good is not always a positive, is it? Good could very well be a negative. Just because we, and again, the society we live in defines good as adding, right?

Always it's plus. It's never a delta. But at times, good could be a delta, right?

And certainly God does that. So. Yeah, kind of. It's something that Souders mentions a lot.

When Alpha Set Free, you know, he was referring to, no, we're talking about God's goodness. Yeah.

He brings up jail, you know, he says, you know, because a lot of guys there, you know, have served time in jail.

And he just says, that was a good thing, even though it sucked. Yeah. It kept me from, you know, doing things

I couldn't be doing, doing things I couldn't be doing. Right. And sometimes suffering is a great teacher, right?

Just like the prodigal son, right? It was good to have him out there eating with the hogs.

I would prefer to eat a hog rather than eat with the hogs. As a matter of fact, we saw a pig running down the road on 17th this morning.

Katie says, Katie said, you see that pig? I said, you say a bird? You saw a bird? And she said, no, I saw a pig.

It's just a regular pig, right? All right, let me, let me close with this scripture.

I'm sorry. I have one more. I really wanted to look at. Just go to Exodus 34 real quick. And you remember the, this is when

Moses desires God to reveal himself to him. And if you look at Exodus 34, 34, five, it says, then the

Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the

Lord. And, and look what it says now. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the

Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long -suffering and abounding in goodness and truth.

I don't know about you, but I am so thankful that we serve a good God, right? Because if God was like us, and every one of us would have to say, we all have a point of no return, right?

You know how people say you can push me so far, but you can't push me no further. But in that way,

God is always good, but based upon his holy character and not just what we desire.