Our God is Good (Part 3)

Anyhow, so but imagine if you know, if we were, if if the Lord was our God, but he was not good, he was unkind, or just you took away the goodness of God, we would be in a very bad way if that were the case, and God would deal with us not according to goodness, but according to justice, and that be very unfortunate for us, of course.

And so, what I wanna look at today is one more aspect while we’re still on the the idea of the theology of god’s goodness that is what god’s goodness is and what it means and and how we find it described to us in scripture. There’s one other aspect I wanna cover before we go into the the the goodness of God as it is related to Jesus Christ. I hope to get there today as well. But let’s go to Luke 27, Luke six verse 27 is where we’ll begin.

And we’re gonna read several verses that that touch on the goodness of God here as well. Let’s pray to begin and then we’ll look at Luke Luke chapter six verse 27. Our father, lord, first of all, we thank you that you are a good god to us. Lord, there there is no other way that you could be. Lord, you are good and we rejoice in the fact that you’re good. Lord, every every good thing we have is a result of your goodness and whether it came to us as they say naturally or whether it came through a special dispensation of your grace like the gospel and things like that, Lord, we we are just marvel in all the expressions of how kind you are to us.

Lord, help us to see these things ever more clearly. And I pray that these truths that we see about you about you and your character would affect us and our character, and that we might be more conformed to the image of Christ. So Lord, help us as we study these things, guide us, open our minds and the eyes of our understanding. We pray in Jesus name, amen.

Luke six verse 27, the Bible says this, but I but I say unto you, which here, love your enemies, do good to them which hate you. Now, we know the lord says, do good to them which hate which hate you. We’ve known that. That that’s one of the that’s one of the clear kind of precepts of the Lord Jesus, do good to them that hate you, but what is the basis of that?

Why and how and upon what ground does God tell us to do good to those that do evil to us, which is what that implies. So remember, you need to remember this, is that from a human perspective, you have God’s precepts and then you have the human precepts. And human precepts are very clear. I don’t care what, I don’t care what people say with their lips and then we would do wise to differentiate what people say from what people do, right? What people say, sometimes they refer to that as the morals versus that’s what they say and the morays or mores are what they actually do, what they practice, alright? We would do wise to differentiate them, otherwise we would become extremely naive.

You see these days in media, in the news, with all the political slash moral because they overlap to a large degree, all the things you see on the news, think about this trial with Lindsey Clancy. I don’t know, does everybody know what I’m talking about when I say that? The trial, this is the lady who murdered her three children and then there was a hung jury in the trial.

I wish I could preach a whole sermon on it, but unless I find some way to preach it from the Bible, I don’t know I will, but this thing with Lindsay Clancy is a good example. Everyone says that they say certain things about the precepts of man, about what they think is moral and what they think is right, and oh, we need to love each other and we need to do right by one another and they say that, but when it comes down to it, they’re not doing that.

And if you do not make that distinction, it’ll make us naive. Because in our world, like in this trial, like the jurors of that trial, this will be my one shot I get to make a comment on it. The jurors in that trial that all voted not guilty except for the one man, they all thought they were doing right. And they went into it and testified that there was an agenda there.

Like before, when it started, there was an agenda and they articulated that. That’s not a hypothesis, it was actually articulated that they had an agenda when they went into it. And so the precepts of man are one thing and then what they do is another and the precepts of man give lip service to the things like, we should do good to those even if they, do unto others as you would have them, they say that but what do we find in practice? We find people doing evil to those that do that do evil to them. That is real life, right?

Whatever they say, that’s real life. That’s what people actually do. The lord says in verse 27, he says that we’re to love our enemies, that is do good to them who do evil to us.

Now, we’re getting to the the basis of that. Verse 28, bless them which curse you and pray for them which despitefully use you and unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other and unto and to him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. Now, people have abused this and have turned this into a a level of passivity that is not supported. This is just referring to when you’re done wrong. So, when you read verse number 29, when they take away the cloak, when they take away the cloak or when they smite you on the cheek, that is just referring to evil done to us. That’s all it say.

And of course, if someone wrongfully took something from you, the answer to that is not to do them harm in return. That’s all the Lord is saying. He’s not saying that there’s never a proper time to bring a lawsuit if a doctor made a mistake on you, as an example, right? Or it’s never if you slipped and fell because of negligence or something like that to bring a lawsuit to cover your medical expenses. That’s not what we’re talking about here.

This is personal wrongs and personal retribution. Verse 30, give to every man that asketh of thee, boy, that could be, what if they ask for drugs? Think about it. Right, but you know what that is? That is, and is where we have to be wise, is cherry picking and taking one verse out of the out of the whole context which which helps us understand how it’s to be understood.

Give unto every man that asketh of thee and causing it to to that to be to stand alone. The moment you do that, you’re you’re you’re off base. You’re going to you’re gonna be led to conclusions that are not actually supported by that verse because here’s the thing, anytime you’re looking at a single verse, you have to remember that the if we might say the boundaries of how that verse is to be understood and used, the boundaries are found in the context, in the verses before it, the verses after it. And that’s what, that’s the safety.

So, if someone asks you to buy them a bottle of liquor, you should not do it. Wow. Alright, should you do it? Mean, no, okay, we’re all on the same page, right? It’s Sunday morning, right? It’s been a long week. Give to every man that asketh of thee and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again. You know what that would mean? What somebody stole your car?

Which is what that’s saying, right? Is it wrong then, I’ll put in that verse, to call the police? What? Here’s the point, it would be wrong and this is what he’s saying. It you know, going to going to the the proper civil authorities which exist for that purpose by god, right? Going to the proper civil authorities is the proper recourse. Going and putting a bomb on that man’s car would not be right.

You with me? That’s what we’re talking about, we’re talking about personal retribution or slashing his tires or whatever. That’s not what we’re talking about here. So we have to be careful. Verse 31, and as you would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. Again, the philosophy of the world is not do unto men as you would have them do unto you. The philosophy of the world, I don’t care what they say, what they do is do unto men as they do unto you.

That’s the philosophy but Jesus says, do unto men as you would have them do unto you. So, that’s a different precept and the lord expects us to follow that. Now, notice on that on that note, I’m just trying to talk to you just just trying to speak freely about the world in which we live, the way people are. People do good to those who do them good. People do evil to those that do them evil. That is the way of this world.

And we all grew up in that world. And the Lord is calling us to something different. Now, that reminds us of a fact which is this, in this world, goodness is not, we might say intrinsic. Goodness is conditional. We do good to people when they do good to us. You know what that is? That’s conditional goodness. The idea that there is intrinsic goodness is not a thing because that doesn’t exist in the world.

There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Romans chapter three says that. You see, goodness in this world is not a part of the character of mankind. It it goodness, if we see goodness and and let’s be honest, do we see goodness in the world? Do we? It’s not a trick question. Do we see goodness? Yeah, we see. We see, we see people do acts of goodness. Okay, y’all thought I was trying to trick you or something. No, we see people do independent acts of goodness.

But individual acts of goodness, here and here’s another philosophy of the world, people think that because I sent money to the United Way, which might by them at least be considered an act of goodness, I think you could argue it’s the very opposite, but anyway, I digress.

I say People think because I sent money to the United Way, I did an act of good, I am therefore good. But that’s not the way it works. That’s not the way it works. You see goodness, God says that goodness in humanity is not a part of our character and we do it either for our selfish benefit or we do it in response to good done to us.

Right? In other words, it’s conditional. It’s not intrinsic. Now, let’s keep reading. Verse 32, for if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? For sinners also love those that love them. You see that condition? You do good to me, you give me $50, I’ll give you $50. You take me out to eat, I take you out to eat. Verse 32 or verse 33, And if ye do good, notice the word good, to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? For sinners also do even the same. It’s interesting that the Lord uses the word sinner.

Sinner. Why do you think he says he uses the word sinner to describe the good that he’s doing? Any theories? Why does he use the word sinner to? Have a knowledge of what is a nice thing to do.

That’s true. And just because they do good in this kind of back and forth, oh you did nice to me, I’m gonna do nice to you back, just because they did good in that conditional way does not mean that they are not a sinner, which refers to guilt and condemnation. So Jesus is reminding us of that fact. Now notice, in verse number verse 34, and if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thank have you? For sinners also lend to sinners and to receive as much as much again.

But love your enemies, the Lord says, and do good and lend, hoping for nothing again and your reward shall be great. And ye shall be, here’s the key, the children of the highest. Now, I wanna clarify.

I don’t think the lord is saying here, if you do good to others and hope for nothing in return, that magically transforms you into a child of god. Here’s here’s why here’s why that’s not true. First of all, we know in the New Testament how a person becomes a child of god and that is by adoption through the gospel and the other thing is we we know we know because we’ve seen it like for instance, we’ve seen the the term child of wrath And and when we read in scripture oftentimes when someone says son of Belial or child of wrath and that relationship we covered in Sunday school before, all that simply means is there’s an association between that thing and that person. It’s it’s not some big theological discussion. It’s just saying, in this case, it’s saying, you should be the children of your father. In other words, you’re doing like your father does.

Now, what does that mean? This is what I’m trying to get here. The long way around. You shall be the children of the highest. Four, this is why we mimic god our father when we do good to those who do not do good to us. For he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Alright, what does that tell you about god’s goodness? God’s goodness is not conditional.

It is intrinsic. What does that mean? That means it is a part of his nature. Why does God do good to those who do evil? To him and to others. Why does God do that? Is that true? It is true. Why does God do that? Because It obviously can’t be because that person is a good person because they’re not. So then why? If if if that person, the object of his goodness, is not good and not worthy of that goodness that God gives to him, there’s only one other reason why he would do it, which is?

Everybody’s whispering, nobody’s quite confident enough to blurt. There you go, that’s it. That’s what everybody was thinking. If the person who receives God’s goodness is not good and so that’s not the reason why God is being good to them, then that means He’s doing it because He is good. Man, I don’t wanna get ahead of myself but that is the very essence, that is the very heartbeat of the Gospel message.

So God does good to people not on condition, but out of the goodness that is in Him. Now, even when they’re unthankful and even when they’re evil. Now, the thing we have to remember is that this is the very thing that god wants us to to show toward others. The lord wants us to to show goodness to others though we are treated wrongly. In other words, be kind to the evil that just like the lord says and when we do that, what we’re doing is we’re taking the pattern of the Lord and we’re following in that pattern. We’re being conformed to the image of God.

Now, some people, there might be an objection at this point which is this, but if God is good to people who are evil and doesn’t kind of, doesn’t lay it out like if you obey and you do right, then I’ll be good to you. The Lord doesn’t do that because He doesn’t. Won’t that encourage disobedience? But we have to remember that question, God is good when we’re not, won’t that encourage us to continue to be bad?

But the problem is is that really the question is irrelevant because whether we’re bad or whether we’re good, God is good. Right? So whether we do right or wrong or whether we sin or not or whether people love God or not, it does not change God’s character. Nothing can change God’s character. So God’s inclination, here’s the beauty of this. This is this is why we should all we should absolutely stand in awe of our great God. Why our Sunday school series is called Our Great God? Because we should stand in awe of a God who no matter what man does, he always is inclined to be kind.

That is amazing. Yeah, Deb. Two:four, For despises out the riches of the goodness of forbearance upon suffering not knowing that the goodness of God lead thee to repentance. Right.

They need repentance, that means they’ve not been good and yet the goodness of God is already present. So, won’t the goodness of God encourage men to be disobedient if He doesn’t make it conditional? And first of all, it’s irrelevant because God is good no matter what. Nothing changes His character. But the second thing is this, and here’s an important thing to note. God’s goodness always precedes man’s action.

It goes before, always. God’s goodness is always prior. It’s the initiator. The god’s goodness doesn’t respond to action by man, but goes before action by man. God doesn’t do good in response, but it is, now here’s the thing, it is man’s, it is man, however, that is to respond to God’s goodness which goes before. So here’s the thing, here’s the way religion, here’s the way the worldly philosophy works.

The worldly philosophy paints God as basically a mean God And we know, and I say mean on purpose, just and holy and righteous does not equal mean. That is not the same as mean. Mean is to be contrasted with good. Right? Okay. The world presents God as They view God’s righteousness and God’s holiness as meanness. And so what they do is they try to remake God into a nice warm teddy bear kind of God who is who is good. But sometimes they do that because they don’t like the God who they think is mean.

And so they create a false God. So this God is mean in their view. He’s a he’s a mean God and he’s just he’s he has his bold of lightning just ready to strike just a moment we disobey. The moment we we we do something outside of his will, he’s just gonna strike us down. And that’s the way the world perceives the Lord. And they do that because they’re sinners and because holiness is revolting to them. That’s really the reason. Righteousness is not something they have a taste for at all.

Okay? So God is this mean God. And so on that basis they say, well this is the way it works then with religion. God says, if you do the things I tell you to do, I’ll do nice things to you. Right, that’s basically how it goes. You obey me, I will bless you. You do this, I’ll be kind to you. What am I describing? Am I describing what we read in Luke six? No.

Luke six describes people who do not do the things God says, who do evil and yet God does good, right? Just a second, almost done. So So that’s the way the world perceives God. That’s way it perceives religion. You do this and God’ll be good to you. What the Bible actually teaches is the reverse. The whole core truth of the Bible and the gospel is that because of God’s nature, he is good and he shows that.

And we wicked evil human beings should look at God’s goodness like, was it? Yeah, like what Devin read. The goodness of God leads us to repentance. That means it was first. So God does good to those who are evil with the expectation that we think, man, I’m not good, but he’s still good. So I need to seek him. Right? That’s the whole purpose. That’s why good precedes.

Alright, go ahead, Den. Yep. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Karma is very, karma in Buddhism and Hinduism is very much you do the good first and you’ll get the good later. In fact, that’s what they say, which is do good, get good. Do merit, get merit. So it always is you first. But the scripture is God is first, God is good. Now here’s the thing, I just wanna tell you something from on personal level.

If we really get a hold of this truth that God’s goodness always precedes us, it will transform the way that you think about and serve and live for God. It really will. It will totally transform the way that you understand your relationship to God. So I’ll just say it, I’ll say it briefly and I can’t do it justice, but we should serve God because He is good and does good to us.

It’s a response. It’s the only logical response. We’re not threatened to obey the Lord. It’s what else can I do with how kind God is? And and if you, I mean, I I can just say that in one one word, but you list out the goodnesses and the kindnesses of God. The top of that list is the Lord Jesus on the cross in our place. But then you can go down the list, all the good things he gives us now, just on and on and on. The Lord wants us to see that and pay attention to that and then say, wow, I don’t know what, I don’t know how I could do anything else with my life but to give it to God and serve God. He is good.

That’s a totally different way to think about your relationship to God, is it not? Yeah. Right. You should try to mimic him. Right. And if he does, if he only gave his goodness to those that obeyed him as an example and he didn’t give it to those who were evil, right, then there would be nothing to draw them to himself. It would just be transactional. Everybody understand what I mean by that? I heard one person, funny thing, have to close, but I heard one person, they said, I really had a hard time understanding the gospel until I realized that it was transactional.

And at the moment, I didn’t really understand what they were saying, but the gospel is not transactional. It is relational. It’s not you put input, God gives you something. God is not a vending machine. And besides that, what kind of vending machine would it be if you got all the good stuff at the beginning and then you gave it the money later, right? Oh, look, it gave me a honey bun. I’ll think I’ll put a 0.25 in.

I saw it. God, listen, the vending machine transactional type of God where God says do this and then he’ll give me good things, is that that is not really in scripture at all. God proceeds, He loads us and then He says, look at what I’ve done, Right? And we say, Lord, what else can I do but live for you and love you and right? So that’s the way we should view it. This is why the Lord’s goodness goes before. Let’s pray together.