Worship Night – Theology of Goodness

Introduction:

Tonight as we get one week closer to ending the semester we wanted to take an opportunity to thank God for all that he’s done these past few months. Tonight we’re going to talk about the goodness of God.

If I was going to title this message tonight it would be “a theology of the goodness of God”. And The reason I would title it that way is because we have to understand the depths and gravity of God’s goodness.

Theology is “the study of God”. So when I say a theology of God’s goodness we are studying the goodness of God.

You might be thinking, “why are we spending time talking about something so obvious like how God is good?” And it’s because sometimes things that are supposed to be obvious are things that we tend to forget. And tonight I believe God wants to remind all of us of His incredible goodness that will lead us to a greater appreciation and worship of God.

In todays world, with social media, news, and just the constant division in our country, schools, and maybe even in your family, we need to come back to the power and simplicity of God’s goodness. Because as we are going to see, God’s goodness impacts our lives and affects how we live.

I think we would all agree that God is good. The Bible speaks of the goodness of God constantly through the Bible.

Psalm 145:8-9 says, “The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and great in faithful love. The Lord is good to everyone; his compassion rests on all he has made.”

1 John 4:8 says, The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love”.

Luke 18:19 ““Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked him. “No one is good except God alone.”

Transition to context: Tonight we are going to look at Psalm 1034 because we want to spend time really praising God and worshipping Him tonight for his goodness.

We are going to see the goodness of God in a bunch of different ways from this passage. This passage was written by David (The same David that slayed Goliath).

Main Idea: Tonight we are going to see that the benefits of God, show us the goodness of God.

Let’s read Psalm 103:1-5

Psalm 103:1–5 CSB

My soul, bless the Lord, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. My soul, bless the Lord, and do not forget all his benefits. He forgives all your iniquity; he heals all your diseases. He redeems your life from the Pit; he crowns you with faithful love and compassion. He satisfies you with good things; your youth is renewed like the eagle.

You see students, when you experience a relationship with God through Jesus, you get to experience the benefits of God.

God is a God of goodness.

You get to see that he forgives your iniquity. That means that like guilt or punishment, meaning sin. We are all guilty before God because of the sin in our life.

God is so good and so pure that he cannot sin, he can’t be associated with sin because it is against His very nature! But the good news is, that he forgives your iniquities, he forgives your sin because He loves you!

David says that God actually heals diseases and makes you clean. He can physically heal or he can use medicine to heal you.

I went to the hospital last week to pray with a student whose mom was having cancer surgery, and guess what, they removed it all. There were so many students praying for this woman and God answered those prayers.

I know a family that came to our church almost 2 years ago and they can’t even come to church because their mom has been so sick and close to death, but again, people prayed for her for months and years and God has slowly healed her body! Now she is in a good spot and God has healed her diseases.

Don’t think that God doesn’t heal people anymore, He absolutely heals and answers prayer, maybe we just stop expecting it or asking for it!

God is a God of goodness.

Verse 4 says “He redeems your life from the Pit”. Anyone feeling like they’re in the Pit today?

Anyone struggling with some sin that’s weighing you down? Anyone feeling like the people around you at school have put you in a pit through bullying or calling you names because you are really trying to follow Jesus?

Know this tonight. God doesn’t just rescue you from the Pit, he redeems you. That means He will take whatever you struggle with and can give you victory over that sin and even use it to minister to others in your life.

The definition of redemption is literally, “The act of buying back or rescuing something or someone that was lost, enslaved, or in a state of bondage”.

There might be some of you here tonight who feel lost, or enslaved to sin, my God can redeem that in your life if you will allow Him to.

God is a God of goodness.

How about the satisfaction of the Lord? How many people do you know looking for satisfaction from things that are dark that will never satisfy?

When you have a relationship with Jesus you get to experience satisfaction. You don’t have to look to sin, porn, alchohol, approval of others, a boyfriend or girlfriend, sports, because you get the satisfaction of God, and there’s nothing like that!

God is a God of goodness.

God is a righteous God. He will bring justice for the oppressed. There’s alot of evil in the world, but at some point God is going to ultimately bring justice and punish those who oppress people.

God revealed His way to Moses, and God has revealed His way to us through His Word! You too can live a life led by God if you will commit to follow the Bible.

God is a God of goodness.

The Lord in compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Some of you tonight think you’ve used up all the forgiveness God has to offer. Listen to me students, you cannot do anything so bad where God couldn’t love you. You are made in the image of God and you can experience the love of God because he is ABOUNDING in it! He doesn’t run out of grace and love for you!

God is a God of goodness.

Finally, we see in verses 9-10 that God is gracious and hasn’t dealt with us in the way that we deserve. We all deserve Hell because of our sin, we all deserve to be separated from God forever because of our sin, and that thought should terrify you.

But praise be to God, he has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our iniquities, for as high as the heavens are above the earth, SO GREAT is his faithful love toward those who fear Him.

If you come to Jesus tonight you can be forgiven of your sin, if you’re already a Christian, tonight you get to worship and praise God because He has saved you from your sin! Why?

Because God is a God of goodness.

Illustration: I know many of you are wondering, “how do I experience this goodness in my own life?”. I would compare it to the instagram algorithm.

I deleted instagram about a year ago. It was a personal decision I made because I was struggling with insecurity, comparison, and just wasting time on Instagram so I chose to delete the distraction.

But I got it back last week and last night I was doing what alot of us do, I was watching instagram reels before bed. As I was watching, I started with some funny ones, then I saw a spiritual one from a pastor I like and it was really good so I liked it, and then I saw another spiritual one that I liked, and then after just a few minutes, all that I was seeing were pastors and worship reels and I found myself being encouraged spiritually and I literally almost started singing in my house praising God because I felt so encouraged.

I’m sure you know about Instagrams algorithm. Whatever you interact with is what they put in front of you. If you like pictures and videos with worship and praise and preaching, they will put more of that in front of you. But if you interact with dumb funny reels, inappropriate pictures, or anything else, then it will put that on your feed.

You see where this is going right? If you want to see and experience the goodness of God in your life, you’re going to have to start interacting with a “Godly Algorithm”.

How do you do that? Spend time in personal worship. Download worship music, get a worship playlist that you like and start saturating your mind with it. Spend time reading God’s Word daily. Spend time in prayer with God daily. Have conversations with friends about Jesus daily. Start looking for how God has answered prayers in your life and praise God for that.

When you start doing these things in your life your mind will start acting like Instagrams algorithm and you’ll find yourself experiencing the goodness of God in your own life!

How do I know this? Because I know from the Bible that God has good plans for your life if you are a Christian.

Let me be clear, that doesn’t mean that your life will be easy and that everything will be awesome. But even in the midst of challenges in life, you will be able to see how God is good to you.

Everyone look at me, God has a plan for your life. And if you’re a Christian, the Bible says in Romans 8:28 “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

That means that if you’re a Christian and you have a relationship with Jesus, then God has a good plan for your life. And the more that you surround yourself with the things of God, and with the people of God, you will begin to experience the benefits of God and the goodness of God.

I would be wrong if I didn’t tell you about the best part of God’s goodness. And that is Jesus Christ. That if you would turn away from the darkness and brokenness in your life, and you would put your faith in Jesus Christ, He can save you from your sin and you can not only be saved tonight and for the rest of your physical life on Earth, but God will save you for eternity even after you die.

He is a good God who has a good plan of salvation. Tonight, would you trust in Jesus Christ to save you?

For my Christians in the room, tonight you need to come back to the reality that God has a good plan for your life. Would you be encouraged and trust in God’s plan for your life.

We serve a good God who wants good things for your life. And if you have a relationship with jesus you have full access to God’s goodness in your life. You can experience the benefits of a God who forgives, heals, redeems, crowns, satisfies, renews. A God who is righteous, just, compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love. That is the God who wants to have a relationship with you and wants you to live in the good plans He has for you.

And tonight, we get to continue to worship that God. The God who created everything, a God who is faithful from eternity to eternity, a God who keeps His covenant, and a God who has established His throne, and a God whose Kingdom rules. over. all. That is the God we serve.

Response time: Tonight we are going to respond in worship. We are going to respond with a few different songs as we declare the goodness of God. Some of you tonight you need to receive the goodness of God through salvation, we will have adults standing in this back corner that want to talk with you about that.

Others of you need to understand that God has good things for you and you need to start seeing how God has been good in your life. It’s time to thank God for His goodness. Some of you need to raise your hands and proclaim in a loud voice that God is good. Others of you may need to hit your knees in prayer and thank God for His goodness. finally, some of you tonight need to walk in the good plans that God has for you. He’s got you, don’t worry about tomorrow, trust God and His plan for your life.