The Goodness of God

Good morning!

James 1:17

Prayer

Take a minute and think about the best gift you’ve ever been given 

(birthday, anniversary, mother’s day, Christmas — guys don’t forget valentine’s day is less than a month away, this is your warning)

What makes a good gift? Size? No. Money spent? No. (Car for Christmas, funny) The best gifts come from the heart, <<relationship>>

Pocket knife

This was a good gift

like we talked about with the kids, if my mom and dad can give a good gift, how much more can our heavenly father give each and every one of us?

How is that possible? B/c God is good

Through his good gifts his good nature is revealed

James 1:17

To begin, let’s just point out the obvious fact that if God were not real then there would be no objective standard for “good”

Many people over the years have said that ‘the existence of (some bad thing) is proof that God is either not real or if he is then he cannot be good’

But The question that must be answered is ‘where does goodness come from?’

You and I both want good, why? Why does “good” exist?

It’s either because over millions of years human beings evolved with a higher level of transcendence than all the plants and animals

That our desire for good, our feelings of right vs. wrong are just the result of a cosmic accident

OR it’s b/c we were made in the image of a good God

Either goodness is relative and the fact that all humans have an innate concept of good is nothing but luck, or there is an ultimate source of goodness

When you look at the beauty of the world, or gaze in wonder at the stars on a clear, moonless night

When a particular note in a song sends goosebumps down your arm and moves you to tears, or when you see the way that a mother loves her baby, (WHEN I SEE THESE THINGS)

I think the “accident” argument falls flat on it’s face

Goodness comes from something much greater than usJames 1:17

God gives good gifts b/c He is good

His goodness is shown through his good gifts

What is made clear throughout the Bible and explicitly stated here is that God is unchanging

No variation or shadow due to change

God gives and gives and gives but never gives away

God is eternal, God is holy, God is perfect, and God is good

He cannot be anything but good, it would be against his nature

God is good; So why, then, do bad things happen?

Why do storm clouds cover the sunrise, why are relationships cut short by sickness and death?

Well the Bible gives us the answer to this question as well:

Our sin has separated us from God

There’s an objective standard for “good” and I don’t hold up to it,

I have missed the mark of God’s perfection

Sometimes my problems are my own fault

(Get angry)

Sometimes the stuff that goes on in my life has nothing to do with what I’ve done (fracture running through creation)

And even if I started being perfect right now there’s nothing I can do to pay the penalty for my past transgressions

And there’s nothing I can do to fix the universe either

Sin broke it, My sin specifically made me an enemy of God b/c He is good, I am not

But God is a good God, He gives good gifts

While we were enemies with Him God gave us the greatest gift, His only Son sent to die for our sins

To live a perfect life and to take our place on the cross so that we might be brought back to Him

<gospel, restoration - what we see is only a glimmer of what awaits>

The perfect gift from a good and perfect God

James 1:17

God is a good God who gives good gifts

But there is a danger for us if we begin to worship the gift instead of the one who gives it

If we begin to look at the good things that God does and has done and make them the object of our worship then we skew the lens through which God should be viewed

<birthday party: Kids opening presents in a fury and never even pausing>

If the gift is all we care about then when we don’t get what we want we are disappointed (we lose sight of the giver)

When the gifts God gives us become objects of our worship rather than a means by which we worship we are committing idolatry

We think that b/c we didn’t get what we wanted then God must not be who He said He was

This self-centeredness brings us back to where we started, we lose the objective standard of good

Instead of using the gifts that God gave us to love Him and love His people we love the gift and use people, we make up a fake god in our minds

And whereas God is infinite and powerful, the god we create is limited and weak

VIII.James 1:17

God has given us countless wonderful and beautiful gifts

And above all of them He has given us salvation through His Son

Freedom from the penalty of our sins and transgressions

Our relationship with Jesus should spur us to walk in in freedom and to use the gifts that God has given us to worship him

In Matt. 25 Jesus tells his disciples the parable of the talents

A master has 3 servants and gives each of them a monetary gift (talent)

To one he gave 5 talents, to one he gave two, and to one he gave one talent

God does not give each of us the same gift does he?

Some of us are really good at business, some are good speakers, some are good at making friends, and some of us may be really good at making casseroles

We’re each blessed with different gifts

But the master gave talents to 3 of his servants

Two of them leveraged the gifts for growth, and when they were called on they returned the money with interest

But one, the man who was given the single talent, buried it

And when he was called forth by his master he had nothing to show for the talent he was given

Two of the servants were called to enter the joy of their master but the one was cast out of his master’s presence

Let me put it this way: <pocket knife>

My parents gave me this knife as a gift

If I misused it (hurt someone or treated it carelessly) it would be a waste of the gift

But if I never used it and all it did was collect dust on the shelf, I would have wasted the gift as well

The gift was given to use, so use itWhatever it is that God has blessed you with, don’t waste it

It wasn’t meant for you to keep it to yourself

The glory and the goodness of God is revealed to you through his gifts and you should use those as a way to bring more people to him

Leverage those gifts for kingdom growth, to bring glory and honor to the one who gave the gift to you

God has given us His son <invite>

Prayer

Invitation