Our God is Good (Part 2)

And then, you also can look at the goodness of God in the sense God’s benevolence, that is that God is kind, and the goodness of God can be viewed in that way. And we looked at Genesis chapter one, chapters one and two, and we saw all the things that God made, they were good, they lacked nothing, and then we saw Isaiah, I’m sorry, Psalm 145 verses verses nine, fifteen, and sixteen, one hundred forty seven, Acts 14, Job 38, we saw all of these things, these verses that describe how that God is good, and especially we can see the goodness of god and we’ll see that more today.

We can see the goodness of god in the things that god created and the fact that they exist and that is a mark of god’s goodness, a mark of god’s kindness to us. But we also, as we finished up last week, we also saw that God’s goodness, we we looked at something that, is not God’s goodness. In other words, what God’s goodness is not. Because we talked about some people describe God as all good, and certainly all goodness comes from God.

Right? Is that true? Does any goodness exist outside of God? No, it all comes from him. Just like holiness, just like righteousness, all comes from god. It’s we we would say in the theological world, it it’s communicated to us from god, right? And goodness is no exception. Goodness, the goodness of god, the reason why mankind has any goodness is because of god’s goodness but we should not misunderstand god’s goodness.

God’s goodness does not mean that he will never do things that are not good to human beings, to his creatures. Indeed, he does, because God is not only good, God is also just. God is also righteous. And when you have God who is righteous and you have mankind who is sinful, God’s righteousness demands that He judge and that He punish as the case might be. And so that would not be viewed as benevolent, that would be viewed as bad from our perspective.

And so, see that God, you know, some people do have this view of God. They view that, they view God as someone who is only ever nice. That’s basically God is nice. But God is not just nice, that’s not the right way to say it. God is good and he is holy. Okay. So let’s kinda turn the page and go to another, I wanna look at a, really a comparison.

As we look at the Lord’s goodness and we see various verses dealing with it, there literally, there are so many verses in scripture on the goodness of God, over 700 verses that say the word goodness, and they’re just, there’s so many that it’s hard to know which ones to look at and what each one teaches and shows us, but I wanna put the goodness of God, if if you will kinda in your mind, I wanna put it in in a chart, or or as a in a table, where you have the goodness of God on one side and you have the holiness, or you might say the righteousness of God, or the omnipotence of God, we might say the other attributes of God that we’ve studied, because we’ve studied God’s holiness, we’ve studied God’s omnipotence, and and other attributes of God, And I want to compare them to goodness because they’re not the same, they’re different. And so that’s what I want to do today because it shows us and I hope that by the time we finish with our lesson today that have a renewed gratitude to god. You in other words, you would be prompted in your heart to stop and say, lord, I’m glad that you’re righteous and I rejoice that you are holy and I’m I’m I’m glad that you’re omnipotent, but there would be a special, a special reaction, if you will, to God’s goodness knowing those things. So that’s that’s what I wanna show you this morning. Let’s pray together, and then we will, we’ll look into the scripture. We’re gonna be starting in Micah.

Micah chapter seven. Our father, we we come to you now in the name of the lord Jesus Christ. We pray and, we thank you for his goodness to us. We thank you for Lord, that you’re a God who is wonderful. You’re a great God. And, Lord, we stand in awe of all of your attributes. Lord, pray for your people. As we look at these things, let not these truths be just, words on paper.

But I pray that these things would truly affect us. That your, the truth of who you are and the reality of who you are would would have an effect upon our the way we view you, Lord, but also our own character as we study these things. Lord, we thank you that you’re a benevolent. You are the benevolent God, and that your heart is kind. And so, Lord, help us to see that as we look in your word. Guide us in our study. Help our hearts to be open. I pray that you would take away any and every distraction from us, that might be just things at home, things in the family, things, Lord, just anything at all that would seek to distract us from your word. I pray that you would you would rebuke those things. And if there be any satanic effort to turn our attention from your word, Lord, pray that you would rebuke him also.

Lord, we just need your help, and as we study your word in Jesus name, amen. Now, as I as I said, you have god’s holiness. We we’ve already studied god’s righteousness which we haven’t but we probably will in the future and also god’s power and these things are all essential attributes of God. Somebody tell me just as review, what is an essential attribute of God?

Anybody remember? Essential, what is it? Right. Right, right, anybody wanna add to that? An essential attribute of God. Right. Can’t be different, right. Exactly, so an essential attribute is just kind of a mix of those things and an essential attribute is an attribute of God that if you removed it, he no longer he no longer is god. It it’s a part of his definition and so, and it’s kind of like it’s kind of like if you had a dog and you you changed everything about the dog, it would no longer be a dog. It might be a, you know, it might be a whale or it might be a giraffe but it’s not a dog. A dog has a has a few essential attributes, right? Well, in the same way, just like humans do, the God of heaven who is of course unique, not to be compared with any creature, but God has essential attributes, and some of those are God’s holiness and his righteousness and his power, his omnipotence.

And these are all required for God to be God. It’s a part of the definition of who He is, as we’ve already seen. They’re essential to His very nature. And without any one of them, and there are others as well. We talked about the omnipotence of God, the self existence of God, the eternality of God. All of these things are essential and if you take any one of them away, he is no longer God. He is something that man has created but he is not God.

And yet, here’s what I want you to think with me because it we’re we’re we’re getting to a verse in just a minute but I I wanna I want you to think with the in the logic.

God can be righteous. God can be holy and God can be powerful, omnipotent, almighty and still not be benevolent and still not be good. Now think about that. God can be holy and not be kind. God can be righteous and not be good like is in benevolent. God can be powerful and not be gracious. Right? You think about an earthly king, right? And I know we don’t live in the days of of you know you know, sovereign monarchs and things like that like like it used to be. But you think about an earthly king who in that nation would hold the greatest amount of power. He’s a sovereign. He wields absolute power and he does as he wills. So that’s power, right? That’s power.

At his whim, the King David of old or King Solomon or whatever king you wanna look at, that king holds absolute power. So he has power now in the human realm. He has power, but that doesn’t mean he’s kind because they’re different. They’re two different things.

In God’s holiness, you know, remember, God can be holy but not be benevolent. God can be, as I said, powerful but not be kind. God can be righteous and not be good in the sense of of gracious. And think about this, if god god and his holiness, we already talked about holiness most recently. In god’s holiness, he can keep sinful man at a distance. Remember that’s the idea of holiness, something that’s set aparts, that’s that’s not common. So God can keep sinful man like like to like he said to Moses, stay back Moses. He can keep man at a distance and not allow or desire man to come near him and still be holy. Right? God can say, I’m holy, you stay away.

Full stop. He could do that and he in other words, he could maintain his holiness without any goodness at all. And in and in god’s righteousness, god can simply because he is righteous, because he is just, god can judge and act according to righteousness without any regard for the person, for the outcome of the person he judged. In other words, you you and I are, we’re people who are sinners. We we are people who violate and transgress God’s law. We’re not we’re not good moral people. We’re not ethical people. We are we’re corrupted people, right? Is that not is that true? That’s that’s definitely the case.

But what if God had without any goodness dealt with us only in righteousness? What would that look like? And I know, exactly. I know we might think of, well, well, that wouldn’t be right. If God was mean, that wouldn’t be right. I wanna tell you something. That might be an American thought, but that is not a biblical thought. We think that it is morally righteous to be good and kind, but they’re actually two different things, especially as it relates to God. Alright, so if God gave us pure righteousness, without any goodness involved, without any graciousness, without any kindness, which is what we’re talking about, if God gave pure righteousness to us, there is no man’s, there is no man living who could stand before god. He would just judge us without any regard to what our the outcome or or the effect on us. He would just judge us out of hand. He would be, listen, he, if he did that, he would be righteous, right, without goodness.

And if he did that, that would not be wrong, that would be right. Yeah, Dev? Exactly. Mhmm. Right. Yep, we’re getting there. Now, think about though how that truth, think about justice, righteousness, how that affects that attribute of God, how that could reflect on us. Is it good? Is it proper for a person to be someone who’s all judgment, who’s all Or should there also be goodness?

I mean, do any of you wanna be around somebody that’s just like, judge, judge, judge all the time? And judgment is good. God judges, judgment is not evil. I know Matthew seven and it’s the most the most abused verse in the Bible, but that’s the what that’s speaking of is unrighteous judgment, hypocritical judgment. When you’re doing the thing the thing that you’re judging another for doing, but I’m not talking about it. I’m talking about how many of you would like like to be around another person who’s just always negative on every negative things they see, you know, always coming down hard on everything they see. Okay, I don’t like that.

But the reverse of that, the other extreme is also not a great thing, which is no discernment at all. It’s this everything’s good and fine and so we’re not gonna see evil for what it is. That’s also not good, right? I know I’m mixing my terms out, that’s also not good, but we have a problem with that. Let’s maybe put it like that. But the Lord the Lord is not either extreme as he’s revealed in the Bible.

But he could be all righteous and only righteous without any mixture of goodness and and not be wrong. Nothing’s wrong with that but it would not be good for us. It would not be good for sinful man, that’s for sure and then think about power. Think about power In God’s omnipotence, in God’s power, God could have, know, the primary What’s the primary way we see God’s power in the Old Testament? We see that in There there were just a few things. Remember when we were talking about omnipotence? There were just a few things that were repeated examples of God’s power. Anybody remember what they are?

Anybody take a stab? You’re getting close, but I’ll just go ahead and give it to It is when they went through the Red Sea. Remember that was a repeated example of God’s power, but there’s another one, that’s one of the two, the other one is creation. Creation is a demonstration of God’s power. Alright, so on that note, when you think about God’s creative power, could it be that God had, that God created the world by his great power in such a way that all of his creatures needs are provided for without any added beauty, without any pleasure to them at all.

In other words, without any goodness. Imagine if God created the world and he made plants because they were necessary for life, but the plants had no color. There were not different shades of green, there were not flowers with petals that have color. Imagine if God had done that. Now, those plants, you know, would have been suitable for life, but there would have been no beauty in them. Imagine if God made food without any flavor. Think about the manna even. Think about, you know, just set aside the fact that God providing the manna to the children of Israel was an act of goodness. But just set that aside. Say God said, no, I created these creatures, I have a duty to make sure that they are fed. Know, you just There’s no goodness, it’s just duty, okay? I have a duty. You know, the Bible says that the manna was It it had a had a taste like honey, right? Remember that?

Why? Could not God have just given them manna that tasted like dirt? Like beets? For those people that like beets. Basically like beets. That would that would have been very, that would have that would not have been goodness. I’m telling you that would not have been goodness. I hate beets. I hate beets. One time I tricked Isaiah, we were at Costco and they, Alright, I’ll tell you some people, they needed some new management at the Costco on Woodford Road because we went to the Costco and you know, we I mean, one of the reasons you go to Costco is get the samples, right? And so we went we went to go get the samples at Costco and they were they were giving out samples of beets.

Who does this? I mean, I’m how what what were their sales like? Okay, we have these beets here, here try it and buy the beets. It’s like nobody did that. I bet the sales plummeted from that. It’s disgusting. Oh, yeah, so what happened with Beats is I said, hey Isaiah, I kinda rushed Isaiah as we were going through getting the samples while I think my wife was shopping or whatever. And and so I said, hey, hey, I just I grabbed a sample. I said, let’s just try this. I and I just kinda rushed him through it so he couldn’t like see everything and know it. He he actually did know. He did know. But I was trying to kinda hide it from him. And we both got the beets and I knew I would hate it, but had to do it if I was gonna get him to do it, right? And so we just popped in our mouth and he’s like, he immediately go.

He got it down, but what if the Lord made manna to taste like beets? God could have made, listen, God’s creative power out of duty, he could have created food for mankind that had no taste. Could he not? He could have. He could have created light, he did create light, but he could have created light where there would be no sunset. Right? He didn’t have to create the stars. I don’t know that the stars have any function to humanity, maybe navigation perhaps.

But He could have created without the beauty of those things. So what I’m saying is God could exercise His power without any goodness involved, without any benevolence or graciousness involved. How many of you think a God like that would be would be kinda That’s not You see, it’s harder for us to think about that because that’s not the way we view God. We view the Lord with his attributes together.

We be the Lord with his attributes together. God with all of his essential attributes, but without goodness is really kind of an unpleasant thought for us to consider. If God were an almighty, all wise, all perfectly righteous God, but he was cold, but he was indifferent, but he was distant from his creation. That’s not a it’s kind of right? Right? But God’s not like that, So we can pass that on by. Here’s what Charnock said, of the famous books that sometimes I reference for our series here.

He says, this, talking about the goodness of God, he says that this is the most pleasant perfection of the divine nature. His creating power amazes us. His conducting wisdom astonisheth us. His goodness as furnishing us with all conveniences, here it is, delights us. Delights us. And renders both his amazing power and astonishing wisdom delightful to us. So, we look at god’s power and we’re like, wow.

We look at God’s righteousness and maybe maybe God’s righteousness produces fear. Right? God’s holiness, what happened to Isaiah when he saw God’s holiness in chapter six? It produced it produced all, right? And he fell on his face. But do you know what God’s goodness produces?

In us, delight. That’s different. You know, you can can be in awe of an earthly king because of his power. You can fear a judge because of his justice and not have any delight in that person. But because of God’s goodness, we actually are drawn to him. Our affection is drawn to him as a direct result of his goodness to us. Another, we might say if we summarize it like this, these other attributes that I’ve been talking about deal with god’s nature but god’s goodness deals with his heart.

Now, the truth is goodness of god is in no, is not different than the other attributes of God. It’s a part of his character. You can’t separate the goodness of God, it is who he is. But I just, we did that exercise to separate that a little bit so that we could see kind of isolate the goodness of God and develop an appreciation for it a little bit more.

Look at Micah chapter seven. Micah chapter seven. Micah chapter seven. Micah seven verse number 18, listen to this, Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever because he delighteth in mercy. What is that saying about God? You know what, that’s opening a kind of opening a window to the heart of God. If we can use that term, heart is usually a word reserved for man, but there are times where the scripture describes God’s heart, and now of course, we don’t really know how that works, but God’s emotion, God’s feeling, know, however you wanna put it, but the Bible says that He delights in mercy.

He is holy, He is just, He is powerful, He is righteous, but He delights in mercy. So let me ask you a question. Given a choice, which would God rather exercise?

Mercy. Now I say given a choice, I know I’m using human terminology for a God who is outside of all of that. Know, he’s snickering at me right now that I’m using such small language of him. But when the Lord does, when the Lord chooses, he defers, he defaults to what?

Goodness. Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that amazing? He defaults to goodness. Alright, let that be let that be communicated, as I said before, let it be communicated to us. Should that not be our character?

We should default to goodness. That doesn’t mean we don’t try to be righteous and all of those, we should, all of that. But our default should be goodness, if you wanna put it like that. Well, what God never delighted? Verse 18 says, He delighted in mercy. What if God didn’t delight in mercy? Why does God’s mercy endure forever? You know, all the times you read that and you don’t think anything about it, His mercy endureth forever, His mercy endureth forever, His mercy endureth forever. Why though? Why does it? You know why? Because that is a part of God’s nature.

It is His nature to delight in being kind. That’s amazing. Why does God put away his anger like the verse says, verse 18, he retaineth not his anger forever.

God does not put away his anger because he’s righteous or because he’s holy. In other words, if he was only righteous and holy, he would hold on to the anger forever, but he doesn’t. He puts it away because he’s good. Those attributes, righteousness and holiness, would demand that he keep his anger, but his goodness, and I’m not saying there’s a contradiction, I’m just saying these are both attributes of God, but his goodness is the thing in His character that prompts the Lord to be kind. Alright, look at Nehemiah chapter nine, we’re gonna look through several verses here.

Nehemiah chapter nine. Nehemiah nine verse number 17. But look at verse 16 for the context, the Bible says, But they and our fathers dealt proudly and hardened their necks and hearkened not to Thy commandments, and refused to obey, neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst among them, but hardened their necks and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage. This is talking about the children of Israel in the wilderness there.

But thou art a God ready to pardon. Thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, we saw that just a minute ago, and of great kindness and forsookest them not. What does it mean to be ready? You know, think about it from a human perspective. Should we be people who are ready to come down hard on someone? Should we be people who are ready to judge?

Or should we be people who are ready to know, to be hard? No. The Lord is not, the Lord is ready to pardon. You see that? That’s His inclination. And that should be ours as well. That should be ours as well. Look at Psalm 86, Psalm 86.

Psalm 86 verse number five. Verse five. Look at verse four because you can kinda get the context a little bit. Rejoice the soul of thy servant. So what’s David saying here? This is David. Yep, it’s David. What is David saying here? He says, rejoice the soul of thy servant, which is to say, make me rejoice. Lord, he’s he’s laying it out. Andrew, make me happy, right? Make my soul rejoice. That’s what he says to god in his prayer.

Here’s, now, keep following. For unto thee, oh lord, do I lift up my soul, for thou, lord, art good and ready to forgive, and plentiful in mercy unto all them that call upon thee. So he says, Lord, make me rejoice in you. And it’s like the answer comes and says, I have reason to rejoice because God is kind, because He is good and He is ready to forgive. Remember, you don’t get that so much from God’s power, you get that from God’s goodness.

Power puts you in fear, power gives you fear, right? Gives you all, but it is goodness that gives you joy and delight. All right, look at Psalm 103, Psalm 103.

Psalm 103 verse eight. Psalm 103 verse number eight says this, the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever. Seeing these repeated themes, look if you would forward at the book of Lamentations right after Jeremiah. Lamentations chapter three.

Lamentations three thirty one. Says this, the Lord, for the Lord will not cast off forever, but though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. Look at that, he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. Does he afflict the children of men? Yeah, he does. But He does so when it’s needed, right?

He does so when it’s needed. Now see, here’s the significance of this, if you and I understand that God is good and God is ready to forgive and that God is inclined to be kind and merciful, even when we’re wrong, even when we’re sinful, when we know that, you know what that does? That draws people to Him, sinners now. It draws people to Him. And that’s something I think Adam and Eve didn’t get.

Because they had just really, I mean we don’t know how long they lived before they fell, but what do you see them doing? Out of fear of God’s righteousness, they ran. But it’s the goodness, Romans chapter one says, those of you in the school scripture you all know this, you’ve read it 100 times by now, It is the goodness of God that leads people to repentance. That’s the thing that draws.

That you know, see if we have a deep well founded understanding of who God is and how God is, that will draw us to Him. Even when we’re wrong, even when he is just and we know that. His goodness. And of course, you know James chapter two says this, for he shall have mercy with judgment without mercy that has showed no mercy and mercy rejoiceth against judgment. That’s that that’s what Devin was talking about. Mercy rejoiceth against judgment. They’re kind of at odds.

On the one hand, god wants to show mercy. On the other hand, god is just and given the choice of those two, He prefers mercy. That’s what we’re seeing here. Yes ma’am.

Exactly, a benevolent parent understands, kinda understands this intuitively. Because remember, God as our Father, He’s the pattern. We’re just kind of mimicking what we see in the Lord whether we know it or not. Okay, so as I said, holiness demands distance and reverence. Righteousness demands fear. Power demands honor, but what God’s goodness demands of us is praise, is love, and is affection. And I’m not saying that god’s holiness doesn’t doesn’t call for praise and love and affection. I’m not saying that. It is but it is only, it only calls god’s holiness and god’s righteousness only calls for affection and love so long as we see it in the as a whole with God’s goodness.

Because that makes the goodness even greater, does it not? The fact that God is just and good means that when we see God’s justice and goodness together, it makes his goodness even greater because we know that he is just and if he wanted to, he could just wipe us out and he doesn’t. That makes the goodness even greater, right?

Just three more verses I wanna show you that show this, that we have because of God’s goodness, we have grounds for praise and grounds for love and grounds for adoration of God and all of His attributes, but really the key that turns that lock is understanding God’s goodness. Look at Psalm 13. Psalm 13 verse six Psalm 13 verse six says this, I will sing unto the Lord, why? Because he hath dealt bound to flee, that’s the same idea of goodness, with me.

Notice that the song came out of a recognition of God’s goodness. Look at Psalm 100. Two more places, Psalm 100. Verse number four, enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name. That’s the adoration, the love, the affection I’ve been talking about, the praise. Why? Verse five, for the lord is good.

His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth all generations. That’s the reason we should praise Him. That’s the prompting of praise. Lastly, Psalm 106. Psalm one zero six verse one. Psalm one zero six verse one says, praise ye the Lord, oh give thanks unto the Lord, why? For he is good. I know we read, do we not, we just read these and just, we just read through that. But the ground and the basis for the praise, the thing that prompts the praise is God is good and his mercy endureth forever. And we know that, we know his mercy endures forever because he is inclined to be kind, right? That’s his inclination. That’s what he desires.

That’s what he delights in. And that’s good reason to give praise to God. Any other comment before we close? How many of you are thankful that God is good and kind? Yeah. I’m thankful for that also. Let’s pray together.