Is God good? Love
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Is God good? Love
We will see today that God’s goodness is most clearly displayed in his love.
Who defines good?
Who defines good?
The individual… Society… laws etc.
Philosophers…
Revolutionaries…
Among people though, we cannot agree on what is good.
God does define ‘good’ for us
God does define ‘good’ for us
But is it a goodness unfamiliar to us… completely other?
Is it the same as what we think? Well we struggle with that… we all define goodness differently.
Unsurprisingly the goodness we know among ourselves is like God’s goodness. After all, we have been created in his image. So the difference is by degrees, many degrees, but still similar.
That’s why when we see God act we sometimes will think to ourselves, “that is good.” Whereas other times we will say, “we are seeing good very differently.”
Examples:
God defending the fatherless, the widow… the vulnerable - that is good.
God wiping out entire cities of people, Sodom & Gomorrah - that is not good.
Setting standards that we don’t like… sexuality, money - that is not good.
Telling us to love one another - that is good - love your enemies - not so much.
While our idea of good doesn’t line up perfectly with God’s, his desire is that in relationship with him we would grow in our goodness. Like a child maturing to adulthood, God longs for us to mature in our understanding and appreciation of his goodness, so that we will grow in ours.
Good? God’s goodness is tied to his glory, revealed to Moses in Exodus 34.
5 Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
The goodness of God is his moral character…
7 Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you, Lord, are good. 8 Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. 9 He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. 10 All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful toward those who keep the demands of his covenant. 11 For the sake of your name, Lord, forgive my iniquity, though it is great.
“Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.”
God’s goodness lead him to have a concern for all people; a concern for their ways; a desire that they would grow, being taught how to best live.
This is not surprising.
Our creator has a desire what is best for us… are we ready - humble enough - to receive the instruction, even in suffering?
His goodness & love; our suffering
His goodness & love; our suffering
A good God will use suffering to change his people, to transform them, to help them grow!
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
His goodness & love; our suffering
His goodness & love; our suffering
God’s goodness, his love, is:
• Like an artist, God is shaping us into what is “glorious.”
• Like a pet owner, God tames us to make us “more lovable.”
“To the puppy the whole [expericence of being trained] would seem, if it were a theologian, to cast grave doubts on the goodness of man: but the full-grown and full-trained dog, larger, healthier, and longer-lived than the wild dog, and admitted, as it were by Grace, to a whole world of affections, loyalties, interests, and comforts entirely beyond it’s animal destiny, would have no such doubt.”
• Like a father, God uses his authority to make his children into the people he wants them to be.
13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; 14 for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. 15 The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; 16 the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. 17 But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children— 18 with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.
1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
5 And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.” 7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?
God uses suffering to refine people
There is a question that remains, though. Why do some suffer more than others? A question that we won’t find an answer to until we are with him in glory.
But we do know that he wants the best for us!
• Like a husband, God wants what’s best for his bride.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Today we celebrate Christ’s resurrection
It seals his victory for us over death and sin
It confirms God’s goodness to his people, providing for them the way, the truth and the life.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
The resurrection gives us hope
for the future
in the coming judgement
31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
God loves us, even in our sinfulness and rebellion, even when we are his enemies, because he desires the best for people.
He loves, not selfishly, like us, for he doesn’t need anything.
One of our motivations to love, is that we might recieve something back, not so with God