Knowing God - God is Good

God is the standard for all that is good, therefore we look to Him for our good and seek to emulate His goodness.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:17

This morning we're gonna have uh a binder under the aisles on my left, your right. If you wouldn't mind just filling that out briefly, it only takes a moment and then passing it on down the aisle. That just gives us a way to um contact people and let them know about something, the things that we're doing, like starting point um this Sunday. Uh so this Sunday today, we are doing a thing called Starting Point, which is for anybody who is new or newish around our church family. And if you want to hang around after service today, uh, what we're gonna do is we're gonna have lunch together and then go through just some of the basics of what it means to be a part of this church family and hopefully answer some of your questions. So that's gonna be over in Portable Building number two after the service, and it'll be from kind of after the service till two o'clock. That's kind of the window that we're shooting for. So if you want to come and join us and you haven't signed up, that's okay. Just come along, we'd love to have you there. Um, some of you have already kind of let us know that you're coming, that's great. But yeah, if you want to just come along and join us, we'd love to have you there directly after service in Portable Building number two. Uh, the other thing that I just wanted to make you guys aware of as we get ready to get started is that uh this coming Saturday is our ladies' Thanksmas brunch, okay? We called it Thanksmas Brunch because it's between Thanksgiving and Christmas, okay? You get that? And we have a lot to be thankful for. So I've got a wonderful team of ladies that have been helping kind of figure that out and get us organized for that. But really want to encourage any of you ladies to come along, 10 o'clock this coming Saturday. And if you'd like to help out and participate by uh helping out with that, there's actually some shine sign-up sheets in the back of the room at the tables for people to help out while bringing something to share food-wise, or you can help with setup or tear down, okay? So those are a few things just to kind of make you guys aware of. Cool? Good. Okay, put you to sleep already. That's great. Um let's uh let's pray again. And really, just what we're gonna do is ask God to speak. Lord, we've already prayed this, but we're praying it again. God, we don't want to go through the motions of just gathering together today. But Lord, our hearts and our desire is to hear from you, to know that you're real, and to know even that this attribute that we're gonna talk about today about you is not just some theoretical thing, but it actually is a reality that can ground us, especially in difficult times. And so, God, we pray that you would help us to have an openness to you. Thank you, God. Amen. We live in a world that is flooded with relative thinking. You see, the world's a place where absolute truth statements are frowned upon and everything is open to opinion. And what that means is that our culture typically cringes whenever somebody stands up and says things with a certain amount of certainty or authority. That's just the culture, the world we live in. People are kind of like, can you do that? Should you do that? So many would consider the conversation that we're gonna have today, where we're gonna talk about God and the absoluteness and the reality of God, and we're gonna talk about this word good, and talk about certainty of what is good and what good isn't, that would consider a conversation like that to be us venturing into murky waters. I don't know if you guys have ever had an experience of being in murky waters, but it's an interesting one. I uh had just moved from Australia to Houston, and I had a friend who said, Let's go surfing. I said, Okay. And so I went with him down to Galveston on the back end of a storm to surf some very small waves. And so we went out, and I remember paddling out that day to surf with him. And if you're not familiar with surfing, you paddle out to where the waves are breaking, and then you sit and wait, and so you put the board, the surfboard, between your legs, and you kind of sit on it, and the surfboard is typically, I don't know if you've seen this before, I've got to educate you guys, right? You're Texans. Um, so you the the people not trying to be mean. Um so the board typically sits a few inches under the surface of the water while you sit there and you wait for the waves. Well, to my shock and horror that day, I remember looking down and realizing that I couldn't even see the shadow of the board underneath me. Like, usually, when you're sitting out there, you can see every detail of the board. You can see if there's something that needs fixing or if you can move some wax around. Like, I couldn't see anything. The waters were so stirred up and so murky, it was hard to see and perceive what was real. And I say that story to you this morning. I tell you that story because I believe that our world, with its relative thinking, with everything being so subjective, it's hard to see what is real, to perceive what is true. As I think about that this morning, I'm reminded of 1 Corinthians 3. You don't need to turn there with me, I'll read it for you. In verse 18, it says this if anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, he must become foolish so that he can become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. What this scripture is saying is that what is perceived as wise is actually foolish, and what is foolish is actually wise. That everything kind of gets turned around in the murky waters of our world and our culture. It's interesting that it says, thinks he is wise in this age. And I think we are still in an age where it's hard to perceive the wisdom of God. So with that in mind, I want to ask you to do three things as we approach this attribute of God this morning. The first thing is I want you to look at this attribute with humility. I'm asking you to come with humility to God and to his word today, and not to just race on into this not thinking that we can figure this out by ourselves. It's said here in this text that I read that we need God to give us wisdom. And that requires us to come with humility. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. So let's be humble. Second thing I'd encourage you to do is to be open to truth. Again, our world is so vague on what is true and what's not true. But I want to say to you today, there are things that are true. There are things that we can depend on and lay our lives on. And so, would you have an openness to truth, especially about God and about a relation, his relation to this word good that we're going to be talking about today? The third thing I'd ask you to do is to come with an understanding that God's attributes are in perfect unity. I say this because I think many of us probably wouldn't want to admit this, but we tend to like to highlight certain attributes of God's character. There's certain characteristics of God that we're like, oh, I like that one, and other ones that we're like, yeah, I don't really like that one. And so we kind of like to focus and highlight certain things, and that's not how we should look at God's attributes. Just because we like the fact that God is merciful or don't like the fact that God is a just God. Like, sometimes we can kind of pick and choose the ones that we like, and that's not at all how we should think about God's character. We have to see God's character is more like an orchestra playing together and making this beautiful sound all together in perfect unity. It isn't some solo instrument where we just focus in on one attribute, and that's the only thing that we hear all the time. We're meant to hear it all together.

unknown 7:57

A.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

W. Tozer in his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, which I will have several references from today, says this to have a correct understanding of the attributes, it is necessary that we see them all as one. We can think of them separately, but they cannot be separated. And so that's what I'm asking you to do, is we can look at this attribute separately, remembering that it falls into all the other things that we've talked about in this Knowing God series so far. So today we're going to examine the truth, and the truth is that God is good. Now I make that statement realizing that across this room, there are probably questions firing off in different ones of you in your minds already. Asking questions like, okay, well, what is good? How do we define what is good? Who defines what is good and how can I know that God is good? You make this statement, Harley, but what does that actually mean? And I want to suggest to you that those questions aren't actually bad questions. I want for us to dig into those things. Let's not shy away from those things. There was a Roman governor at the time of Jesus named Pilate, and he's famous or infamous for being the man in charge who sanctioned the crucifixion of Jesus. But there's something else that he's famous for, and it's in particular a line that he stated at that whole instance, okay? So if you go to John 18, what you'll read about is Jesus interacting with Pilate. And as Jesus is explaining to him what truth is, Pilate responds to him, and the famous line is, What is truth? And he's not saying, hey, Jesus, could you please tell me what truth is? I want to know what it is, right? That's not his approach. What he's saying is, no, isn't truth just this relative fluid thing? Little did Pilate know that he'd fit him very well in our Western society. He could have been a good Austenite, right? He's saying, what is truth? And his question is similar to the one that we're starting by asking this morning, which is, what is good? You know, is there good? What do we know about what is good? And if we went to a Merriam-Webster dictionary today and said, okay, we're going to look up the definition of good, what you would find is a convoluted definition. There's line after line after line trying to define what good is. You see, good is this junk drawer of a word that we use to describe things that we approve or find favorable. And so I can make a really, really important statement like God is good. That's a very important, weighty statement. And yet at the same time, we cheapen the word by saying things like, well, that food smells really good, or your haircut doesn't look good. Like we use this word in all these different instances, right? And when we throw it around so much, it means that it gets watered down. So when we say that God is good, what do we mean by that? Who gets to determine if something is good or something is not good? How is it defined? And by whom is it defined? As we think about that, I think that really is the question behind the question. Who gets to decide? Who's the authority on good? What we'll see is that there's two prevailing thoughts in the world around us about the authority on good. The first thought is that we, the individual, gets to decide what is good. That we are the authority on good. So you hear people make statements like, well, whatever's good for you, man, that's great. Good for you. Go chase your dreams. You know, you know what I'm talking about? Like, people are the authority on good. Every individual. Like we talk in American about in America about rugged individualism, right? And so we all have this right to determine good for ourselves. The second prevailing thought that we'll find throughout culture is that the higher power, whatever the higher power is to which we ascribe, that's what determines what is good or what is not good. So if you're a Buddhist, you know, what whatever that religion tells you is good or not good is what determines it. Or if you're a Hindu or if you're a Jew or a Christian, you know, that's how it works. So to oversimplify what I'm saying here is it's a typical case of man versus God. Is God the authority on what is good or is it man? And so as we look at that, I'd like to put to you that it's actually arrogant for any person to think that they have a right to determine what is good and what is evil. Why would I say that? Well, God's word makes it really, really clear that we don't have that right and that we're not good at it, and that God actually is. And so your first fill in the blank this morning is this God is the only one who is truly good and has the authority to determine what is good. God is the only one who is truly good and has the authority to determine what is good. Now I don't want to just make a statement like that without showing you that in God's word. So let's turn together. I would ask you to turn with me to Genesis chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1, the very first page of the Bible. What's cool is we don't have to go very far to find that God is the authority on good. And so if you read through Genesis 1, what you'll find is this interesting story, this account of this God who is good creating what is good and then approving of what is good. That's all happening in this first chapter. And what we see is if we were to read through this particular whole chapter, is that as God is going about his creation and observing it, he then looks at it and says that it is good. Now, what's interesting is in this first portion, this first chapter, which kind of stands separate from the next two chapters, God makes this statement about things being good how many times? Seven times. The number, the symbolic number in God's word of perfection, that's how many times he says everything is good. And as he comes to the last time that he he is looking and observing good, well, we'll read it together. He says something different. He says in verse 31, God saw all that he had made, and at this point it includes mankind, man and woman. Verse 31, God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. So here we see in the first chapter that God is the authority on good. Now, what I want to ask you to do is to actually compare that, just flip over a page maybe, to Genesis chapter 3. What do we see in Genesis chapter 3? Well, we see man and woman, they're in the garden, and this serpent comes to them, this tempter, this person who is a deceiver, he comes to them and starts to talk to them and plant lies in their minds and their hearts about God and really about the goodness of God. And he tempts them to eat of the tree of the knowledge of what? Good and evil. And read about what it says in verse 6 to me. It says there, then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. They're both just as guilty as each other. As one, they came together and they decided God is not the authority on this. We get to determine what is good. We see this fruit and we think it's good. Guys, do you realize that this moment was the instigation of all types of sin? This is the beginning of all corruption. All the pain that we experience, all the brokenness that we see in the world came from this moment where Adam and Eve, as representatives of all humanity, said, God, we reject your authority on good, and we're going to determine this for ourselves. Adam and Eve chose to reject God as the authority, and ever since that moment, mankind has been wrestling with God to be the authority on good. We all wrestle with God on that authority. There are moments in our lives where we want to determine what is good and reject God's opinion and what he has to say. And what we see when we compare Genesis 1 with Genesis 3 is what? That mankind stinks at being the authority on good. We really do. So we said earlier that God is the only truly good one in our universe, and what that means is that God is the standard for all that is good. What do I mean when I say that? Well, I mean that he is well, think about this. A standard is a base for measurement. So we have different standards. We have standards like time, and we have things like the atomic clock. You can go to the atomic clock and set your watch to that standard, and it's accurate, it's good, it's true, it's right. We have standards for measurement. We know that a meter or a foot is a certain amount of distance. That has a it has a standard. Back in the day, they used to actually make sticks that were the standard. You could come and put your measuring stick against the standard to measure it. So when we say that God is the standard for all that is good, we say that he himself is the very essence of good and that he is the thing that we can measure all good by. Why do we say that? Well, we know that God is good because it said over and over and over again in the scriptures. It says in Luke 18, verse 19, Jesus is speaking, by the way, at this point, and he says, No one is good but one. God. Psalm 119, 68. You are good and you do what is good. Teach me your statues. We saw that in the Genesis account, right? Not only is God the essence of good, he does what is good. You are good and you do what is good. If you go to Psalms 106 and 107, they both start with the exact same phrase. And it says, Give thanks to the Lord, for he is what? Good. He is good, his faithful love endures forever. And so I could give you verse after verse after verse today that talks about the fact that God is good. Now let's compare this again with us and what the Bible tells us about us and our goodness. I want to ask you to turn to Romans chapter 3 with me. Romans chapter 3, and we're gonna go to verse 9 to start with. And what you'll find in Romans chapter 3, verse 9, is a quotation of several Old Testament scriptures. It's a quotation of Psalm 14, Psalm 53, and Ecclesiastes 7. And this is what it says. What then? Are we any better? Not at all. For we have previously charged that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, as it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, all alike have become useless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one. This is a sweeping indictment on humanity. What it is saying very emphatically, very clearly, and very authoritatively is that we are all evil, that we are all bent towards being bad, the opposite of good. And what I want to just encourage you to do this morning is to own that in yourself. Would we be honest enough this morning in this room, right across this room, for all of us to say, yeah, that's true, I'm not good. There are times in my life where I've thought things, said things, or done things that are not good. Like I think that's true of all humanity. I don't think this is just some idea or notion. That's true. And so I'm gonna ask you to be honest and to own that. And as we think about that, we're like, okay, yeah, that's true. I'm not good, but let's go back to thinking about God. Because as much as I've stood up here and I've read you some texts that say, yeah, God is good, some of us struggle, myself included, to believe that that's true. How can we know that God is good? You see, this is especially true when we're going through hardship. It may seem that suffering, pain, brokenness, and the like give us sufficient grounds to doubt the goodness of God. As I say this, I look across this room and I know different instances of hardship right now. And so I go into this part of the message with two things, and I ask you to go with these two things with me. The first is this that we absolutely have to be sensitive to the struggle. As we talk about how can there be a good God and the stuff that we're facing, we absolutely need to be sensitive to the struggle, and at the same time, we need to carry into this conversation the acknowledgement that we have to be careful to honor God. We need to be careful not to put ourselves in the judgment seat above God, over God. Again, we've already figured out that God is the authority on good and that we aren't. And that's a struggle at times. I don't know if you've read through the book of Job in the Old Testament, but it's rough. It's rough because what you see there is this man who, for all intents and purposes, is a pretty good guy. I doubt he's perfect, but he's a very good guy. And all of a sudden, his possessions, he's a wealthy man, his possessions are taken from him. But also at the same time, his Kids, seven of them, are killed in an instant, tragically, together. And not only that, he loses his health. He has sores all over his body. And so we find Job sitting literally in the dust with these sores all over his body, and his friends come to him to come and to counsel him, to encourage him. But what they actually end up doing is indicting him and saying, Job, what have you done? Obviously you've done something evil because God has to be punishing you. If something bad's going on in your life, surely that's because you did something bad. They don't understand God and his ways. And Job says, No, I'm innocent. I promise I'm innocent. I've been trying to honor God. I promise. I wish that God could answer for me because, man, I am an innocent man before you. And the story goes on and on as they kind of go back and forth. Job says, No, I really promise I'm innocent. And finally, in Job 38, God answers, and I'm going to read you his response. God answers Job. Job 38. And it's probably not the response that we'd be expecting. As he comes to Job in verse 4, what he says to Job, and this is the start of it, he says, Where were you when I established the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. And then he goes on from there and starts to describe his power, his supremacy, his might, his perspective to see all of time and to hold all of power. And he says to Job, Where were you, Job? I think most of us would expect God to come to Job and actually say, Hey, there, there, Job. I'm sorry. I was just testing you. I promise it's going to get better. But that's not at all what he says. He comes to him and says, Job, you don't see the same way that I see. It actually reminds me a lot of what we read in Isaiah 55. I don't know if you're familiar with that passage. Let me read it for us. Isaiah 55, verse 9. This is the Lord's declaration. For as heaven is higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. What God comes and says to Job is, Job, you don't see things the same way as me. And the point that I want to say with sensitivity and also being careful to honor God is this we trust in God's goodness and not what we perceive as good based on our circumstances. We absolutely must trust in God's goodness and not what we perceive as good based on our circumstances. That is really hard. But it's really true. Well, it ends in Genesis 50. The story of Joseph. And what we see in the story of Joseph is interesting because there's this young guy, Joseph, and his brothers hate him. And what they do is they decide to kill him when they're out tending their father's sheep. But then they change their minds. They're like, no, let's sell him into slavery. So they sell their brother into slavery. If you want to talk about a hard moment in your life, that's pretty difficult. So he's sold into slavery. He goes down to Egypt, a long way from his homeland. And as he's in Egypt, he kind of starts to work as a slave for this guy, and then he gets thrown in prison for something he didn't do. So if you want to talk about one of those bad to work worse stories, it's from a pit to being a slave to being in prison. And this didn't happen quickly. This was over years of his life. Like this consumed a lot of his life. And so I want you to picture with me. There were definitely, for sure, moments in Joseph's life where he was sitting in that dark prison cell, wondering, God, how can you be good? Look at my situation. I've tried to honor you. All of a sudden, Joseph is raised to being second in command over all of Egypt. And as he's put in that position of authority, he organizes the country to save all these people from starvation. Not just the people of Egypt, but the people from the surrounding nations. God uses him powerfully, and through that, he's reunited with his family. He brings his family to Egypt. He saves his brothers. He saves his dad. But what's interesting is that in Genesis 50, the story takes a turn because his brothers, well, his dad passes away, and his brothers all of a sudden get worried. They're like, okay, Joseph's going to repay us now. Dad's gone. We're in for it. And it's really, really interesting to read what Joseph says. Joseph says in verse 19 of chapter 50 of Genesis, don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? He gets the perspective. You planned evil against me. God planned it for good to bring about the present result, the survival of many people. And then he goes on and comforts them and encourages them with different words. What we see in the story of Joseph, where Joseph is obviously gifted perspective, which, by the way, we don't always have the perspective of why God has allowed certain things to happen. Joseph's case we do. But what we see there with the gift of perspective is that God used horrible suffering to bring about good. Again, those years in prison, those years of being a slave were not easy. And yet God was at work for good amongst all of it. What it should be reminding you of, if you're familiar with the Bible, is Romans 8.28. Turn there with me. What does Romans 8.28 remind us of? Beautiful, beautiful promise. If you're a Christian, this should be one of your favorites. It says, we know. Not we think, or it might be true, we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, those who are called according to your purpose. As I read that, if you're a believer, if you're a Christian in this room today, what that means is that God is at work even in the hardest of moments in our lives. Because God is good and He's working for our good. He's the authority on good. If you're not a believer, if you're not a Christian, see the hope that a Christian has. It's beautiful. You're missing out. J.I. Packer, when he's talking about this particular verse, says this. This is beautiful. I love how he puts this and challenging. Paul states it as a fact. In every good work, sorry, in everything, God works for good with those who love him. And who are you to suppose that you'll be the first person to find God wavering and failing to keep his word? Do you see how you dishonor God by such fears? Every time I read that, I'm like, whoo. It's good, it's true. I doubt God's goodness at times, and I'm sure you do too. Who am I to doubt him when he says that that's who he is? Thankfully, there's more that we can look at than just these couple of stories in the Old Testament talking about God's goodness in the midst of suffering. We actually have a couple of related attributes to this one that we've talked about. We've talked about God's goodness, but we've talked also in previous weeks about God's goodness, sorry, about God's graciousness and God being merciful. And what I've put to you is that those two things are actually intimately related. In some like theology books, they actually talk about the goodness of God and two attributes being kind of paired off of that, merciful and gracious. And so what I put to you today is that God being merciful and gracious are kind of like twin streams flowing out of the same water source, which is God's goodness. And if we were to trace back either of those streams, which we did in the last few weeks, as we talked about God being merciful and gracious, what we found at the very essence of those attributes, at the very source of those attributes was the cross. We found Jesus' sacrifice. And what we find at the very core of this attribute today is no different. We find ourselves at the cross. The cross is all the proof that we need to know that God is good. And so today, if you're sitting in a difficult moment, maybe your circumstances are screaming in your face that God is not good. I want to encourage you to look to the cross and know that you know that you know that God is good. Let's go back to Romans chapter 3. Just flip back a couple of pages. Romans 3 contains just, well, all of Romans is very rich. But listen to verse 23 with me. This is probably one you're familiar with. It says, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Typically we'll read that and be like, yep, we're all evil. But what it's really saying is, yeah, there is no one who is good. What it said earlier in Romans 3 that we read. Like there is nobody who is good, but it doesn't stop there. Listen to what it says in the very next verse. It's kind of, it uses some very churchy words, but I'll try and articulate what they mean to you. It says, for all have seen and fall short of the glory of God, verse 24, they are justified. They are made right with God freely by not themselves, but by his grace, through the redemption, the saving that is in Christ Jesus. So what's this verse saying? What it's saying to us is yes, we are all bad. We are not good, and yet through Jesus, who is good, he has in his goodness given us the ability to be right with him. And so I just want to encourage you guys today that we have the ultimate expression of God's goodness in Jesus. In Jesus, we see the fullness of God's goodness. So to this point, we've talked about several things. We've talked about what is good. We've talked about God being the authority on what is good. We've talked about how we are not good. And we've come to this point where we've said the cross is the ultimate pinnacle of God's goodness. But it's not enough for us to just talk about these things and then to send you on your way, pray together and say, okay, have a good week. Because we've got to ask the question of if these things are true, which they are, what does it actually mean for our lives? How do we respond? What are the implications? And so let's ask that together. If God is good, how do we respond? And there's two primary thoughts that I want you to reflect on. The first is this if God is good, we need to rest in his goodness. We need to rest in his goodness. What does that actually mean? Well, it actually means several things. Firstly, that we need to rest in his salvation. Some of you in this room, I would imagine, are not Christians. Or you don't know where you stand with God. And what I'm saying to you today is that being right with God is not about you performing. It's not about you doing a certain amount of things to earn God's approval or his favor so that he will let you into heaven. The Bible repeatedly tells us that that is not the good news. That isn't good news because you can never do enough. The real good news is that God, at great expense to himself, sent his son Jesus to come and to die for us, like we were just talking about. And so, for some of you who don't know where you stand with Christ, today could be the moment for you to be in a right relationship with him. And so I just want to encourage you, if that's the place that you're in, you're not sure of where you stand with God today, reach out to his goodness and become his child. What does that look like? It means you just releasing your life and saying, I need Jesus. And we can talk to you about what that means later on. We can pray with you. Please don't just sit there. Come and find one of us and tell us, hey, I need God, I need his goodness in my life. And we'll talk you through what that means. We need to rest in his salvation. And that's a good reminder for those of you who do believe. There is nothing you do to earn your salvation. It's already paid for. We sing that song, Jesus Paid It All. That's what it's singing about, right? Second part of this that I want to highlight to you is that resting in God's goodness means we need to stop looking elsewhere for good. Tim Chester in his book, You Can Change, says, God is good, so we don't need to look elsewhere. Now it sounds like a very simple, small statement, but think about what that means. The implications of that are huge. God is good, so we don't need to look elsewhere. And what I want to challenge all of us with, and especially my heart as well, is that often we look to other things to satisfy and fulfill us, and yet God is the giver of all that is good, and we need to see that ultimately everything stems back to Him. So I cannot look to my marriage to be what satisfies and fulfill me. I can't look to my kids or my work or my hobbies or my friendships or whatever it may be. None of those things will ultimately in themselves satisfy and fulfill me. But God, in his goodness, gives me those things, and he is the one who satisfies and fulfills me. God is the only true source of good, and we need to quit looking elsewhere for good. Jesus talked about this in Matthew. I'm going to read for you, Matthew 6. And verse 31. It says this, so, this is Jesus' words. Don't worry, saying, What will we eat? Or what will we drink, or what will we wear? For the idolaters eagerly seek all of these things. And your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. What a beautiful promise. God provides everything we need as we seek first Him. And what I see in this text is that all these goods that we look for and we pursue as ends to themselves will actually be provided for us by the one who is good, God. So we need to quit looking elsewhere. We can with God's help release worry and anxiety about these things. And that kind of leads us to the third part of this. Resting in his goodness also means that we cling to him in hardship. We've talked about hard times. More than any other time in our lives when we need to rest in God's goodness is when we're faced with adversity. Hard situations, pain, death, loss, brokenness. Tim Keller in his very good book, The Reason for God, has a whole chapter that addresses this how can God be good when there's all the suffering in the world that we struggle with. It's worth a read. But one part of that chapter he says this though Christianity does not provide the reason for each experience of pain, it provides deep resources for actually facing suffering with hope and courage rather than bitterness and despair. I want to encourage you that with that today. That we can and we should, especially in hard moments, cling to Jesus in the midst of difficulty. God may not provide for us the why. But he does provide for us the who. And the who is himself. We can trust in his goodness. So are you resting in God's goodness today? That'll kind of be what we reflect on here in a moment as we respond. But I want to read for you Psalm 73 that kind of captures the heart and the posture that we're to have. Psalm 73, 28 says this, but as for me, God's presence is my good. I have made the Lord God my refuge so I can tell about all you do. That's the posture we're to have. As for me, I'm going to look to God. He's going to be my refuge. He is my good. His presence is my good. And it'll tell, and what that leads to is me telling others about all that you do. And that kind of leads to our second response. We've said, if God is good, what does it mean? We rest in his goodness. But the second thing is we pass on his goodness to those that he places around us. God's goodness is actually a communicable attribute. That's a fancy word for saying it's something that we have in common with God. Therefore, we should seek to emulate God in this regard. Again, a bit of a fancy word, but one that really captures what we're saying here. We imitate, we mimic God's goodness. As we receive and soak in God's goodness, we're to give that to the people that God places around us. And that isn't something that we do in our own power. It's actually an outworking of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Why would I say that? Galatians 5. Read it with me. It'll be on the screen. Galatians 5, 22 says, this is what the fruit of the Spirit are. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and what's right there in the middle. Goodness. Right? Goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. It continues on the list. Goodness is one of the fruit of the Spirit. And so if you're a believer, if you're a Christian, goodness can and should be flowing out of your life. It goes on to articulate what this may look like just a few verses later in Galatians 6, verse 10. Therefore, as we Christians have opportunity, we must work for the good of all, especially those who belong to the household of faith. There's no escaping the fact that if you have received the fullness and the goodness of God, that we are called to pass that on. I think one of the ways that we can kind of picture this, it may be a bit of an obscure illustration, but we are like sponges that soak in the goodness of God. And as people brush up against us in our lives, they should be getting wet with the goodness of God. As we receive and soak in the goodness of God, it's so rich, it's so overflowing. People around us, our coworkers, our neighbors, our friends, our wife, our husband, our kids, whoever it is, they should be getting wet with the goodness of God from our lives. It should be overflowing to them. As we've considered these things, I want to ask you to go back to the story we were talking about earlier of me sitting out there that day on that surfboard in Galveston. Now, what was interesting is I was sitting on that surfboard. I couldn't see it at all under the water. But what I could do was I could reach my hand down into that murky water and I could feel it. It was hard, it was concrete, it was there, it was present. And my hope for you guys is that today has been a moment for us to reach down, maybe amongst the murky waters of our culture that says, well, what is good? Or maybe amongst the murky waters of just hard situations in our lives, to reach down and to feel and to see in a concrete way that God is good. But the other interesting thing from that moment that I want to encourage you with is to think about that, yes, that surfboard was there. It was underneath me, it was physical, and it was holding, holding me, but it was holding me afloat. And much in the same way, even though we can't see it sometimes, God's goodness is what's holding us afloat. And so I don't know where you're at, but like I said, I know enough stories of some of you across this room to know that some of you just need to hear that today. You may not be able to see it, you may not even be able to touch and feel it today, but I want you to know that you know that God's goodness is what's holding us afloat. I want to close by reading you a final quote from Toza. And what he says about God's goodness is this with the goodness of God to desire our highest welfare, the wisdom of God to plan it, and the power of God to achieve it. What do we lack? Surely we are the most favored of all creatures. Let's pray. God, thank you. That we are favored. Thank you for your goodness. Thank you that your goodness is expressed to us in many, many ways, but most poignantly in Jesus. God, I pray that you would help us to look to your goodness today and to know that you are good beyond a shadow of a doubt. God, I pray, especially for those of us in this room who don't know you and don't know that you are good. I pray that you would bring about change, that people for the first time would cry out and know that there is a God that who is good, and that they would rely on him, that there would be salvation amongst us today. God, I also want to specifically pray for those who are in the midst of circumstances and situations that are screaming at them that you are not good. And God, I pray that you would show us as a church how to come around these people, to love them, to point them towards you, to be your hands, to be your feet to them. God, I pray that as a church we would be reminded that you are absolutely good, that you are keeping us afloat. I pray that you would just help us to not believe these things in theory, but we would believe these things in our hearts and in practice. So we just say these things, God, acknowledging our need this morning. Thank you. Amen.