The Goodness of God

Okay, for those of you who said you wanted this, here it is. I'm sorry it's so long, but I hope it encourages you as much as it does me.
GOODNESS: The fruit of the Spirit - (A product of the Spirit’s work, not ours’s)

The Greek word for GOODNESS is agathosune, which means goodness, usefulness, virtue or beneficence. It is more active than kindness. Goodness is goodness when it is directed toward that which does not merit the action. It is the feet of kindness. In the Gal.5 list, kindness is mentioned right before goodness. This is not a coincidence. Goodness is a natural progression of kindness. It is kindness in action.

Pastor James talked a few weeks ago about patience. He said that it is easy to be patient 90% of the time, but that 10%, in which it is very difficult, is when "patience" is REALLY patience. It is the same with goodness. We say we are usually good, because we don’t do bad things, but is that really goodness? The absence of bad is not the definition of goodness. No one can manufacture goodness. It is possible to show niceness to someone who we deem worthy. It is another matter entirely to be good to someone who does not deserve goodness.

But the truth is, none of us deserve goodness. So where does goodness come from? It obviously comes from God.
When I think about goodness, a specific scene from C.S. Lewis’s book, The Lion. The Witch, and The Wardrobe pops into my mind:
“Is-is he a man?” asked Lucy.
“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. Certainly not! I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion-the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? “Course he isn’t safe. But He’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

Goodness is organically God. Apart from Him there is no goodness. Nothing can be added to God to make Him “more” good. Nothing is lacking or defective in God’s “goodness”. It is absolutely perfect and complete goodness.

Thomas Manton writes about the goodness of God, “He is ORIGINALLY good, good of Himself, which nothing else is; for all creatures are good only by participation and communication from God. He is ESSENTIALLY good; not only good, but goodness itself: the creature’s good is a supperadded 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 or gathering together of good. He is ETERNALLY and IMMUTABLY good, for He cannot be less good than He is; as there can be no addition made to Him, so no subtraction from Him.”

If we don’t think God is always good, then we don’t know God well enough. God’s dealings with us are always good. Over the past few years we have had some significant circumstances affect our small group.
The death of a spouse/close friend
The loss of a job
The war with cancer
An addictive sin
The loss of a home
Depression, despair, loneliness,
The loss of ministry
A rebellious child/friend
A broken marriage
The loss of a baby
The injury of a child
In all of this, God’s dealings with us are always good. No exceptions.
All that emanates from God-His decrees, His creation, His laws, His punishments, and His providences-cannot be other than good. I need to let that sink in...

Romans 12:2 – And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that GOOD and acceptable and perfect will of God.
God’s will is good for us and it is good. All of God’s dealings with His creation are good, because He is good.

Now I know I can get a little microscopic, so I needed to step back and look at the big picture. I went back to the beginning to see how the thread of God’s goodness was woven through HIS-story.

Starting in the beginning with creation, everything God made was very good (Gen. 1:31)

After the fiasco with the golden calf:
Moses must have been completely frustrated, angry and hopeless. He could have been on the brink of calling it quits with these people. So he gets alone with God...
And in Exodus 33:19, Moses asks God “Please show me Your glory.” I can understand this cry. After seeing the debauchery of the Israelites defiling his memory of blessed communion with the Sovereign One, Moses wants a pallet-cleansing view of God. He's angry too, so He wants vengeance and justice. Then God said to Moses, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you.” This is amazing! Why did God say He would show Moses all of His goodness?? God could have picked any of his attributes to display to Moses-His justice, His power, His righteousness, His wrath, His holiness-but He chose His goodness! This astounds me. Why? I continued to follow the thread. I didn’t have to go far to find the answer.

Psalm 27:13 tells us that when we know and believe that God is GOOD, that will cause us not to lose heart, no matter what the circumstances are. Moses needed hope to go on. God knew exactly what Moses needed. And He was more than good enough to give it to him.

My friend Lisa was battling cancer and a few of her friends decided to gather some women together to pray for and encourage Lisa; to lift her spirits and renew her strength for the battle. As we all gathered around Lisa, we saw how her character was being refined and beautified in this trial. We began to share. Then Lisa, in her sweet, soft voice said, can I share with you all something that God has shown me in His Word? And she proceeded to read to us passages revealing the goodness of God and the comfort she received from them. I was deeply impacted by Lisa’s testimony of God’s Goodness in her life-regardless of her present circumstance.

Psalms 52:1 – Says that the goodness of God is eternal and limitless
Romans 2:4 – tells us that the goodness of God leads us to repentance. God’s goodness is the light that exposes our sin.

But sometimes, I confess, I am not moved by these lofty intangible Truths. God knows this and He makes His goodness unmistakable and unavoidable. The goodness of God is seen in the variety of natural pleasures, which God has provided for us.
Taste-varied flavors and the ability to enjoy them.
Touch-A plethora of textures and temperatures
Sight – beauty, colors, shades, dimensions, and shapes
Smell – flowers, fresh-cut grass, spring rain, dead leaves
Sounds – awesome and calming sounds of nature, and of course-music!
Psalm 33:5 – truly the earth is full of the goodness of God!

Even after man sinned against the law of His Creator, God did not begin an immediate outpouring of His unmixed wrath and justice. His judgment is poured out MIXED with His goodness. (God causes the sun to shine on the righteous and the unrighteous) His goodness is just and His justice is good. There is a balance in His nature.

The goodness of God appeared most dramatically when He sent His Son “made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” (Gal. 4:4,5).

It’s the Christmas season, and at this time it is fitting to remember the great multitude of the heavenly hosts, praising their Maker and singing, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men” (Luke 2:14).

I learned that the Greek word “grace” conveys the idea of goodness. God did not leave mankind to perish. His goodness provided a just way for man to be saved.

So how do I surrender myself to the Spirit’s cultivation of goodness in my heart? How can I be a yielded soil?
I think Isaiah 1:17 answers this question succinctly. “Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.” What is goodness applied to my life? Isaiah says, seek justice, reprove the oppressor, defend the fatherless and plead for the widow. It is almost identical to James’ words. James 1:27 – Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and keep oneself unspotted from the world. James is saying, hey, you want to know what separates the religious hypocrites from the true worshippers? This is it. You can tell if God is abiding in someone by what comes out of his or her life. Are they good?

We are back full circle. Goodness is active kindness, especially to those not easy to love or not worthy-by our estimation-of anything good. In a world where every action expects an equal or greater reaction, true goodness in unnatural. We don’t usually get anything from this-in this life.

So to wrap it up, these are some things I learned about goodness.
1. It is active kindness
2. It is most “good” when given to those who don’t deserve it.
3. All things in my life (even the things I think are bad) are good because they come directly from God who is entirely and completely good all the time.
4. (Thanks to Pastor Johnson’s sermon) Don’t limit how I “allow” God to show His goodness to me (as in only the comfortable, prosperous things)

C. H. Spurgeon sums it up well. “When others behave badly to us, it should only stir us up the more heartily to give thanks to the Lord, because He is good; and when we ourselves are conscious that we are far from being good, we should only the more reverently bless Him that He IS good. We must never tolerate an instant’s unbelief as to the goodness of the Lord; whatever else may be questioned, this is absolutely certain, that Jehovah is good; His dispensations may vary, but His nature is always the same.”