Tov

Intro / God is Tov

We have been on a series called “words” and this is where we are looking at some key words in the Biblical text that help us understand what God is up to.

So in this series we have looked at the word for God’s spirit, his Ruakh, we have looked at the word for sin Khata and last week we had Jeremiah teach us about Shalom which is peace

These three words help us understand so much about God

About how He breathes life into us, that God’s personal presence his spirit is with us...

about how sin actually makes us less than human and hurts our relationship with God and others

And Peace or Shalom where its not just the absence of conflict but it is living in right relationship with God and when that happens everything works together rightly in the way that was intended. Shalom actually restores us from our sin...

This morning we are looking at the word “Tov” Its the word for “Good” in Hebrew

Tov is both a simple utility word and a deep expression about God’s character...

Its a simple utility word in that in the bible you might see that it might be written that someone lived to a good old age so in that case it doesn't mean very much just that the person Got old

But most of the time the word Tov is communicating something rich and deep about who God is....

But if you have ever read the first pages of the bible it is a word that you see littered over all of it...

And to paraphrase Jeremiah from last week, who paraphrased me the week before...

“It all goes back to genesis”

So I am going to run through Genesis 1 with us really fast

Genesis 1:4 (NIV)

God saw that the light was good (Tov)

Genesis 1:10 (NIV)

God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good (Tov)

Genesis 1:12 (NIV)

The land produced vegetation: ... And God saw that it was good (Tov)

Genesis 1:16–18 (NIV)

God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars...And God saw that it was good. (Tov)

Genesis 1:21 (NIV)

So God created the great creatures of the sea... And God saw that it was good.(Tov)

Genesis 1:25 (NIV)

God made the wild animals ... And God saw that it was good. (Tov)

Do you get it? Creation is Good

The created order is Good

God made the water the sky and the animals and it is all good

And then God made humans in his own image and when he was done he said

Genesis 1:31 (NIV)

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. (Tov)

A good God can not help but to make a good creation

Its who he is! Everyone who is an artist puts all of their heart into their creation…Their creation reflects them

There is a reason why when you go to Yosemite or Zion or the Grand Canyon…that you look up at the canyon walls and go WOW…and your just amazed at the sheer size and beauty

There is a reason why the Psalmist look up to creation and says

Psalm 19:1 NIV

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Why? Because a Good God can not help but to make a good creation

It is what God does through speaking...

God makes Good things because he is Good!

Because God put his goodness in all of the created order and the heavens can’t help but declare God’s Goodness and his glory

Camp Awesome

And you know what is cool. This week at camp Awesome we have been talking about outer space...

What is really cool about God’s creation being good is that almost universally when Astronauts go up into space they look down and have something called the Overview Effect

They are the only ones who have ever seen earth from the perspective of space.

There is an actual cognitive shift in the minds of astronauts about the earth

I have this book called “The Home Planet” and its just filled with quotes from astronauts and cosmonauts

One of my favorites is by an American Physicist and Astronaut who was aboard the space shuttle

"Looking outward to the blackness of space, sprinkled with the glory of a universe of lights, I saw majesty—but no welcome. Below was a welcoming planet. There, contained in the thin, moving, incredibly fragile shell of the biosphere is everything that is dear to you, all the human drama and comedy. That's where life is; that's were all the good stuff is."

- Loren Acton, Physicist and Space Shuttle Astronaut

This Astronaut looked down at earth and saw what God saw.. that it was Good...

It reveals God’s good character

That it bears the mark of God’s goodness

I love to watch Antiques Roadshow and all the time the appraisers are looking for tiny marks that indicate the maker and it never ceases to amaze me that we live in a word that is just full of the marks of our maker and people still don’t recognize God as the maker of it all.

From the air we breathe to the DNA that is in our bodies all to the fact that God stamped us with his own good character…We have the mark of our maker which is Goodness

When you get to the Psalms one of the things that you will hear over and over again is about the character of God

I am going to give you three verses out of the psalms but I could give you hundreds

God’s is Good in his Core

Psalm 25:8 (NIV)

Good (Tov) and upright is the Lord;

therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.

because God is Good, he instructs us in the way of his goodness…This is what the Bible is…this is what the sermon on the mount is…the 10 commandments....God instructing us in the ways of his tov

Why? Because we are people who are infected with sin and need God’s Tov to make us whole again

Psalm 86:5 (NIV)

You, Lord, are forgiving and good (Tov),

abounding in love to all who call to you.

We know that God is Tov because not only is he forgiving but he is abounding in love to all who call on Him

Psalm 100:5 (NIV)

For the Lord is good (Tov) and his love endures forever;

his faithfulness continues through all generations.

When I was in Israel my tour guid forced us all to sing Psalm 100 in Hebrew for like 2 weeks every day...

So we know that God is Tov because we can look back at the faithfulness of God through the generations…We are not the first people to follow God…

We follow the same God that William Tyndale followed when he was burned at the stake for translating the Bible to english,

we follow the same God that Martin Luther followed when he nailed his 95 Tretus to the door at Wittenberg,

we follow the same God that Polycarp followed when he was burned at the stake for following Jesus and we follow the same God who the apostle Paul followed

God’s Goodness....as expressed through his forgiveness is expressed through the generations

Over and over again in the psalms

Whenever you see the same phrase over and over again in one chapter of the Bible there is a bigger purpose at play.

This word is important not just because it is used a-lot but because it reveals that God is Tov

God is Good and he has woven his goodness into the fabric of his creation

Commentators go as far as saying that the repeated usage of the word Good here is a reminder that God is the Good judge of the universe that because God is Good only he can distinguish between what is morally Good and evil

But there is a problem with Good.....It has been re-defined

Ra has been redefined as Tov

Genesis 3:6 (NIV)

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good (Tov) for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

See in this moment right here there is a fundamental shift in all of humanity,

Before God defined what was good

Now the humans define what is good in their own eyes, and all through the bible you will see that humans who are sinful decide what is ra (evil) and (Tov) in their own eyes

The first sin can be seen as humans defining what is good on their own terms

See Adam and Eve thought that what they were doing was good when it was really evil

Just as God unleaded his goodness on all of creation, Human kind unleashed this sin or Ra on all of creation...

What we talked about a few weeks ago is that sin deceives us into thinking that what we are doing is actually good when it is not!

Its because they decided to define what is Good in their own terms

Don’t we do this all the time?

The prophet Isaiah warns us against this:

Isaiah 5:20 (NIV)

Woe to those who call evil (Ra) good (Tov)

and good (Tov) evil (Ra),

who put darkness for light

and light for darkness,

who put bitter for sweet

and sweet for bitter.

This is what our culture does so often…even in this room it is what we are all guilty of taking the bad that we do and defining it at good!

we have forgotten that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are not our ways...

We have made idols out of our own opinions, idols out of our thoughts....and we call them Good...

But Jesus reminds us that no one is Good except for God…Everyone has

so why do we keep doing it!

I think Genesis 3 gives us some hints

And after genesis 3 there is another word that will show up along side of good and that is “Ra”

After Genesis 3 the Biblical text reveals that life has become a battle between Good and evil

Tov and Ra show up next to each other multiple times in the rest of Genesis

In fact after Genesis 1-3, over and over again the humans are almost always choosing Ra…or evil

God lays this choice out to Cain and able

Genesis 4:7 NIV

If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

If you do what is right (YaTav) A word with Tov in it…You’ll be accepted but if you choose the Ra then sin will devour you

By the time that we get to Genesis 6 we see that the evil is so bad in Humans that God sends a flood and wipes the earth out and then makes a new creation

But that didn't solve the problem of the human condition

When you read just Genesis you get the idea that the whole of humanity is just infected with evil.

But at the End of Genesis there is this story of this guy named Joseph…A ton of evil is done to Joseph…He is sold by his brothers into slavery, he gets unjustly accused of a crime and thrown in prison for 7 years but then when he fully submits to God…God uses him to actually save all of Israel...

So one day he has this encounter with his brothers who did all kinds of evil to him

And when he reveals who he is…His brothers are scared because they know how much RA or evil they did

And then Joseph says this

Genesis 50:20 (NIV)

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good (Tov) to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

This is God’s Character.

This is actually a summary of the entire story of Genesis and the entire story of God and ultimately its the story of the cross....

See Joseph absorbs the evil of his brothers and turns it around for their benefit

He takes the Ra and turns it into Good.

Does that sound like Good Friday and easter at all to you?

On the cross, Jesus absorbs the Evil (Ra) of the world and offers his Goodness (Tov) to all who choose Him

This is what Jesus on the cross accomplishes...

He takes our own ra and he takes it onto his body and gives us his Tov...

His goodness and righteousness

See Jesus on the cross absorbs the sin of the world and replaces it with Tov

Because of Jesus’ death on the cross he makes us into new creations into what we were intended to be…

Through his forgiveness Jesus makes it possible for us to live a good life

We know that through the cross God’s new life is available to us and the Apostle Paul describes it this way

Galatians 5:22 NIV

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

One of the reasons that I came to christ is because I realized at one point in my life that I wasn't good...

That I was bad

and that I desired Goodness but I kept on going after that which was wrong

So if your here today and your in that same boat...

God created you and he is Good

He created you for goodness but you know the story...

Our own Ra or evil messed that up

But on the cross Jesus took what we intended for evil and he took it on himself and he flipped it around for His and our good...

So that you can be made new!

God Created you for Good! and maybe you are here this morning and you are hearing this message and you are ready for goodness in your life...

That sin you are holding onto will never get you there

Your own attempt at goodness will never get you there

Only Jesus on the cross has the ability to take the Ra that is so prevalent in us and replace it with his Tov

God Created this earth as Good…He created humans as Good…and even though that was corrupted with sin…The redemptive potential of the goodness of God is huge.

It’s our Job to be agents of Tov on this earth

God gave us this world and if you have said yes to Jesus then the prayer of God’s people should be replace my own goodness with yours oh God.

Rid me of the Ra or the evil that is so prevalent in me!