God is Good

Introduce self...

Pray...

Heavenly father,

I praise you that you are great. I praise you that you were before all things and that by you all things hold together.

Thank you for coming down from heaven in likeness of sinful men, to make a way for rebels like me to return to you.

I confess that I fall short of your righteous standard of thought and life, I trust your steadfast love and mercy.

Grant me words to speak today; my lips belong to you.

I ask that you would glorify yourself and make your own name great in all the earth.

For those listening this morning, I pray that the Holy Spirit would speak.

I pray that each person here would hear and learn from you through my words.

I pray that we would be a congregation that is thoughtful and reflective when you speak, God.

I pray for renewal for myself and for this congregation.

Renewal to remember and embrace the truth about who you are - to be refreshed by the truth of your gospel.

I pray for equipping for myself and for this congregation.

I pray for practical equipping in the fight of faith - for sanctification - that you would continue to close the gap between what we say we believe, (what we know to be true), and how we actually live our lives.

And finally I pray for salvation.

I pray that the hearts of those here this morning that don’t know you would be softened.

I pray that repentance would be granted.

I pray that lost souls would be united to you.

All these things I pray in Jesus name,

Amen

Introduce series:

For advent this year, I am going to preach through 4 simple truths...

On the surface, these truth’s seem to be little more than platitudes, but through careful examination I hope to scratch the surface and demonstrate their rich depth.

Last week we talked about

God is GREAT - so we don’t have to be in control

Psalm 19:1 ESV

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

1 Peter 5:6–7 ESV

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Underlying assumptions for this series:

Every sin is a result of believing a lie

Repenting of sin is not merely changing behavior (although it includes that)

The solution to sin is not “trying harder”

Sin is idolatry. Wrong belief about God

We must believe what is true about God, and what is true about us in light of the gospel

These 4 simple truths address a great deal of false belief in our life.

Belief is root. Behavior is fruit.

The Bible is clear: Our behavior and even in large part our emotions are the direct result of our beliefs...the deep-rooted beliefs of our hearts.

What you deeply hold to be true will flow out of you as be behaviors and emotions.

Real faith is head, heart, and hands.

Few Christians would read the 4 G’s and have any issue with them intellectually…

But those things which we believe in our head,

Must transfer to our heart,

And must flow out of our hands...

Last week we started with 1 Timothy 6:12 and I want to start there again this week...

1 Timothy 6:12 (ESV)

Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called...

Paul says that faith is something we must fight for...

Paul says that eternal life is something we can “take hold of...”

At Abide Church, we believe that fighting the good fight of faith is a COMMUNITY PROJECT.

Community Project

What do I mean by that?

Fighting for your faith is NOT something you can do by yourself...

Community is not something that only new Christians need...

WE ALL NEED COMMUNITY. (Turn to your neighbor, remind them, “You need community!”)

Many of us prickle at the idea of community...

Community is actually kind of anti-American in some ways.

We live in a culture that highly prizes individual freedoms and individual rights and individual fulfillment.

You can be and do anything you want, and anyone who tells you otherwise is your enemy. SOUND FAMILIAR?

Compare that to what Paul teaches concerning the church:

Ephesians 4:15–16 ESV

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

We are called to speak the truth to each other, in part, because we are being bombarded by lies all the time.

WHAT LIES? WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

Our consumeristic culture teaches us that if we had a little more money, we could have a little more stuff, we could have a little more control...

God is great, so I don’t have to be in control...

Our consumeristic culture teaches us that if we had a little more money, we could have a little more stuff, we could have a little more happiness…

That neighborhood you have to drive through to get to your house on the way home from work… and the thought that if only you had a nicer house you’d truly be happy....

That friend you have on instagram who has taken yet another trip… If only YOU could take a vacation like that… then you’d finally be able to settle down...

The actor on TV or the magazine cover at the grocery store who’s body is a 10. If only you had a body like that, then you could be popular, rich, famous, finally happy...

Nearly every large company in nearly every major industry is not simply competing for your money… They are competing for your worship.

What do I mean by worship? At least in part, worship means these 2 things...

[[SLIDE]]

Wholehearted devotion.

The belief that something will ultimately satisfy.

(your deepest longings)

Take a minute and think about it:

Video games, they are not designed to be fun, something you can play for an hour and be done… They are SPECIFICALLY designed to addict you to playing them. They are designed to addict you to their reward systems and progressions so that you keep coming back for more and more and more. We must be so careful… This applies to Playstation, XBox, PC, Mobile… Nearly all modern game developers have this in mind...

Think about fast food… McDonald’s SPECIFICALLY engineers their fries to have the scientifically proven optimal amount of grease and salt...

You’d have to be living under a rock to not know everything that has recently come out on social media… whether it’s Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, whatever. All these tech companies are intentionally and specifically designing their apps to TRAP you into compulsive use. They use Big Data and complex computer algorithms to predict what content will keep you glued to your screen on their app for the maximum amount of time.

Even malls and shopping centers design their experiences to be enticing and quite literally draw you into worship… although they wouldn’t use that term.

I could go on and on...

All these industries, as well as the individual companies that make up these industries are trying to convince you that if you come to their temple and worship their gods, you will find the happiness you so desperately desire.

The world is lying to you all the time… Your own heart is lying to you all the time...

This is why I said the fight of faith is a community project. We need each other to speak the truth! To combat these lies!

REFER BACK TO EPHESIANS

Ephesians 4:15–16 ESV

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Well people don’t pursue me.

People don’t invite me over.

No one disciples me...

You MUST FIGHT. And be the person for someone else that you want to see for yourself...

The 4 simple truths that we are talking about this Advent season are as follows:

[[SLIDE]]

God is GREAT - so we don’t have to be in control

God is GOOD - so we don’t have to look elsewhere

God is GLORIOUS - so we don’t have to fear others

God is GRACIOUS - so we don’t have to prove ourselves

Truly and deeply believing these simple truths will take us so far in our fight for faith...

I love that we don’t need to be theologians to fight the fight of faith...

Just believing these 4 truths about God will take you farther than we can imagine.

God is GOOD - so we don’t have to look elsewhere

What do I mean, “so we don’t have to look elsewhere?”

We don’t have to look to video games

We don’t have to look to fast food

We don’t have to look to social media

We don’t have to look to shopping

We don’t have to look to sin to be satisfied:

Such as a sinful relationship

Such as addictive substances

Such as greed and ill-gotten gain

Neither do we need to look to good things to be satisfied:

Family

Learning

Ministry

Hard work

Psalm 34:8 ESV

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

I like this verse because it’s an invitation to partake in the goodness of God.

God’s goodness exists whether we partake or not...

God invites us to “taste and see!”

Psalm 100:4–5 ESV

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

There it is...

THE LORD IS GOOD

The problem is that we try to satisfy our soul with things that will never satisfy us...

You might say,

“Well I’m hungry for what is good, I want to be satisfied so badly...”

This is what C.S. Lewis had to say on that subject...

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Psalm 107:8–9 ESV

Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.

Here’s the lie the world is trying to sell you: Ready?

The lie...

Someone or something other than God satisfies.

“If I just had _______, then I’d be satisfied.”

“I need ________, or I won’t be happy.”

I will never stop preaching Genesis 3, so you better get used to it!

Genesis 3:6 ESV

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

This was the first sin!

God was with Adam and Eve and it was good.

They enjoyed all good things as gifts from God.

They were forbidden one thing;

The lie was that the one thing, the fruit, would satisfy them in a way that God was not.

It was a lie; it brought death.

What is the fruit of believing the lie that something other than God is good and can satisfy your deepest desires?

You will pursue pleasure endlessly and never find it:

Places you might look:

Romantic relationships

Sex

Money

Possessions

Fame

Food

Leisure

Alchohol

Drive for accomplishment

Whatever we set our heart on to make us happy...

When these things fail us, it invariably leads to:

Sorrow

Despair

Shame

Boredom

Indifference

Laziness

Emptiness

Hopelessness in the face of suffering

Look at this quote by John Piper from his book, A Hunger for God

“The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night.”

- John Piper, A Hunger for God

This ought to scare us because it ought to remind us that it’s not the big sins and the big idols that keep us away from God.

We can’t keep the little sins in our pockets thinking it’s not a big deal...

“Nibbling at the table of the world dulls our appetite for heaven (GOD)”

This may be the answer to the question in your head:

“Why am I not satisfied in God?”

“Why don’t I think God is good?”

“Why do I look to things other than God for my happiness?”

The old testament prophet Jeremiah said this on behalf of God:

Jeremiah 2:13 NIV84

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

When we find ourselves worshiping idols, that is, believe something other than God is good and will satisfy our deepest longings, Tim Keller suggests there are only

Four Options:

(1) You can blame the things that are disappointing you and try to move on to better things.

(more idolatry and spiritual addiction)

(2) You can blame yourself.

and beat yourself up...

“Everyone else is happy, I’m a failure, there must be something wrong with me.” (Self-loathing and shame)

(3) You can blame the world.

“I’m done with _________!” (Turning hard, cynical and empty)

(4) You can reorient the entire focus of your life toward God.

[[SLIDE]]

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

What is the fruit of believing God is good?

Joy

Contentment

Steadfastness (don’t go chasing other things)

Ability to suffer well

Confidence

Ability to say “no” to sin and the fleeting pleasures of sin

A hunger to pursue God, reading, listening, seeking God’s word...

How about this for fruit though...

[[SLIDE]]

If we truly fight to believe God is good, we gain the ability to truly enjoy other good things.

This is the great irony.

If you pursue goodness from things other than God, you don’t enjoy those things and you don’t enjoy God.

If you pursue goodness that can only come from God, you enjoy God AND you enjoy his good things.

James 1:17 ESV

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

1 Timothy 4:4 ESV

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,

God is GOOD - so we don’t have to look elsewhere

It is not the pastors’ job alone to speak these truths to you.

It is all of our jobs to speak these truths to one another.

Jesus is the head, we are the body.

We are to build each other up