The Fruit of the Spirit: Goodness
The Fruit of the Spirit • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction
Introduction
The Holy Spirit has been given to us to help guide us and direct us in our Christian lives. In Galatians 5:22-23, there are nine attributes that are listed as the Fruit of the Spirit. They are divided into three subsets. The first three, love, joy and peace are characteristics that enhance the relationship with God. The second subset, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness are characteristics that deal with the believer’s relationship with other believers. The third subset, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are the Holy Spirit given characteristics that the believer needs to help him or her look inward.
All of these attributes are designed by God, instilled by the blood of Jesus, and are empowered within us by the Holy Spirit. Each one is given in a way that we might use them to glorify God. Look at this list again:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
As we continue our study, we are looking at the second attribute in the second subset, goodness. We will see goodness explained, goodness experienced, goodness exercised, and goodness exalted.
Goodness Explained
Goodness Explained
The thing that comes to my mind in looking at goodness is how is it different from the preceding attribute of kindness. As you may remember, kindness is being courteous. Kindness might be how you treat someone else. Goodness, on the other hand, could be seen as an act in addition to being kind or as the result of being kind. I think it is necessary to remember that all these attributes begin with love. Goodness is love in action.
It can be best described as uprightness of heart and life. The Greek word, agathosyne, may mean generosity in this context. It is the same word used in Matthew 20:15 that is translated generous.
Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
Goodness is a readiness to good as we have the opportunities even when those opportunities are not deserved. The Bible has several verses that use goodness as a description.
I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another.
(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)
We are to sow goodness where others sow evil. Theologian Warren Wiersbe wrote, “Human nature can never do this on its own- only the Holy Spirit can.”
We also see as goodness is explained there are declarations throughout scripture about the goodness of God. It is available to us and gives us confidence.
I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
As God’s people we can celebrate God’s goodness.
They will celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness.
Another declaration that comes from scripture is that we are called by God’s own glory and goodness.
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
We can see that while goodness is explained, it can also be experienced.
Goodness Experienced
Goodness Experienced
As we experience goodness, we can realize how we are connected to God. Nahum 1:7 shows we are connected through care.
The Lord is good,
a refuge in times of trouble.
He cares for those who trust in him,
We also see another connection. Psalm 86:17 tells us that God’s goodness connects us in help.
Give me a sign of your goodness,
that my enemies may see it and be put to shame,
for you, O Lord, have helped me and comforted me.
We also see that we can experience goodness by understanding that we are created in Christ.
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
This is a verse we will need to highlight on several points. As the design of God, we are created in Christ to do goodness. This goodness was prepared for us in advance by the design of God. That might sound redundant, but it shows the full circle of the goodness of God and how can experience it. We are connected, we are created and in doing so, we become complete.
You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.
As we become complete with goodness, we see from the familiar 23rd Psalm that it follows us.
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
Goodness will help us be complete by giving us satisfaction.
Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for men,
for he satisfies the thirsty
and fills the hungry with good things.
Did you catch that last phrase? God fills the hungry with good things. Have you ever tried to eat anything that was bad? Your whole body will reject it and it does not satisfy. But on the satisfaction of being filled with something good.
God is completing us with His goodness. We learn, as I have shown you from these verses, that God is good and from His word it also tells us that goodness is to be shared back to God.
Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor.
Have you received instruction from God’s word? Share it back to Him!
This is one way we can see goodness exercised. There are other ways as well. We are called to advance the Kingdom by doing goodness.
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
When we do good, according to these words of Jesus, we are to do so without expecting anything in return. How many times have you found yourself doing good in hopes of getting something back? Many in our world have that philosophy. They say, “I am going to heaven because I am a good person and I do good things.” I want to give you just a friendly reminder that while doing good things is what we are called to do, it is not how we can enter into heaven.
We need to have the attitude of doing good and expecting absolutely nothing in return. It is with this mindset, we can promote the goodness of our God and not our own selfish gain. This will help advance the kingdom more than anything. Think about it. Those times you have experienced goodness exercised or carried out by the people of God are best remembered when it was done selflessly.
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
These things envy, selfish ambition, disorder and evil practice are not about advancing the kingdom of God. In fact, they are quite the opposite so we should make sure we do not practice such things.
We need to exercise goodness by acting it out. One way we can act it out is by being intentional and making goodness part of our spiritual habits.
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.
This list is very similar to the attributes listed in the Fruit of the Spirit. Goodness is listed with the bookends of faith and knowledge. Goodness becomes an action when we take what we have experienced in faith and then add to it the knowledge we have gained. Peter gives us an emphasis to “make every effort” in doing this. We must exercise goodness by acting it out with intention of this bearing fruit.
And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.
Do you bear fruit in every good work you do?
Again, let’s make something clear.
We are saved by grace, not by works.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
Remember what we have already discussed from Ephesians 2:10. We are saved by grace but we should respond by doing good works.
Charles Spurgeon wrote: “We should go from strength to strength in holiness: we should do more, and do better. What are you doing for Jesus? Do twice as much. If you are spreading abroad the knowledge of His name, work with both hands, If you are living uprightly, seek to put away any relics of sin that abide in your character, that you may glorify the name of God to the utmost.”
In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
All of this exercising of goodness is to be approached with an attitude of Christlikeness.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
What is your attitude when you are doing goodness? How you explain, experience, and exercise goodness should all lead to goodness exalted.
Goodness Exalted
Goodness Exalted
You and I exist to glorify God.
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
What we do comes back to how we exalt God. If we do not glorify God we are glorifying something else. To give glory means to worship. So in essence, what we glorify, we worship.
The very first commandment of the Ten Commandments is
“You shall have no other gods before me.
Our goodness that we do should be done so that there is no other god before Him. There is no self. There is no “what’s in it for me.” There is no “what can I gain from doing this.”
Our goodness should overflow from our worship. We can explain it. We can experience it. We can exercise it. But unless we are doing goodness to exalt the name of the Lord, we are doing it all in vain.
Come on church. Let’s make the goodness we do glorify the Lord.
It is time to take this attribute to a whole new level. Our world needs to experience it and we are called to make it happen.