Opening illustration: She thinks that because she made some bad choices in high school that a few actions make her a bad person. To look at her, she’s an all-American girl. She’s pretty, kind to small animals, lives in a nice home, drives a reliable car, and wears sensible shoes. But she thinks she is a bad person. Ironically, she thinks the world is good. She is on one end of the three types of people in the world: those who think the world is basically good, those who think it is bad, and those who fall somewhere in between. Because she thinks the world is a good place, her self-identity will not allow her to fit into such a good world. And so she smiles, greets people, is very friendly, but she wonders if she can ever be a good person.
Across town there lives an older man who thinks the world is a terrible place. He hates all the violence in the world, even though he watches it on Fox News all day long. He talks about young people in gross stereotypes even though he doesn’t really know any. He’s mean to small animals, lives in a messy home, drives a beat up car, and wears uncomfortable shoes. He sleeps with a .357 under his pillow sure that one day someone will break into his home. He thinks the world doesn’t stand a chance. But he thinks he’s a good person.
Most of us fall somewhere in between; and most of us want to know how to be good. Maybe it is too simplistic, but I have noticed that people who think the world is a bad place often think of themselves as good people. But too often self-proclaimed “goodness” comes across as self-righteousness. And I don’t think God looks at that and calls it good. I have also noticed that some people who think the world is a good place at times have low self-esteem. And I don’t think God looks at self-loathing and calls that good.
But scratch all that. I just want to know what it means to be good. I know that most people say of other people, “He’s a good man” or “She’s a good person.” No preacher slides into the seat behind the pulpit at a funeral and says, “This guy was a real heel.” It’s led many to believe that only good people die. You never read an obituary that announces, “Finally she died. People hated being around her.” So what is it to be good? I know what we say. I know how we use the word “good.” But what does it take for God to look at something and say, “That is good.”
Start at creation and the answer is quite simple: That which God calls “good” is what He makes. If you want to be good, start praying that God will daily shape you in His image. God made the giraffe, the hickory tree, and the Amazon River and said, “That’s good.” But does He look at me like He looked at Adam and say, “Very good”?
Let us look at 1 Peter 3: 8 – 17 and see what God really believes to be good and whether we line up to it.
Introduction: Goodness is the fruit that virtue and the rest of characters combine to produce endearment. It is the character that makes people liked and even lovable by others. It is what is attractive and luring, that catches people’s attention and respect. This is the quintessential element that attracts people to you and finds and keeps friends. It builds marriages and shows God’s love to others around us. It is virtue in action; it is being a role model and putting into practice excellence in all that we do to God and others. Goodness enables us to be liked and enjoyed, even if an enemy comes against us (Proverbs 25: 22). It is the taste of what is to come, the flavor of how we are to be (Psalm 34:8; 119:103). It is our expression of worship and gratitude to Christ played out in our lives, so we can enjoy Him and He can enjoy us, and so that life can be more enjoyable for all.
Defining Goodness
Old Testament: The Hebrew word for good is tayub and has about the same range of meaning as the English and Greek words. Simple concordance work shows this. Various enlightening illustrations will be discussed below, but first a point needs to be made that the original languages do not open up any great insights on this word. The first place in the Old Testament where something is called good is Genesis 1. As God spoke into existence each phase of creation, He saw that it was good. What does this mean? How could it have been bad or evil? I believe the point here involves expected function. God’s creation did what He intended it to do. It accomplished its purpose. It met His expectations. And that is one of the basic ideas of the goodness the Spirit wants to manifest in our lives.
New Testament: The Greek word for goodness in Galatians 5:22 is agathosune. Besides being used in this passage, it occurs about a dozen times in the Greek translation of the Old Testament from around 200 BC, called the Septuagint. There are no references to it in existing secular Greek literature from ancient times. Should we make anything out of this? The biblical writers simply added the Greek equivalent of the “ness” ending to the word good. But the idea of goodness was not new to the culture. We may not use the word teachableness, but that does not mean we do not have the concept in our culture. However, secular Greek writers did not know the depths of God’s definition of moral goodness.
The root adjective of this word, agathos, was used in the Greek culture as our word good is used in the examples given above: for practical goodness in the sense of a good result, a benefit, or what we call a blessing; for moral goodness; and for something pleasing to the gods. There is another word for good, kalos, which some say emphasizes the aesthetic angle; but I have found it to be used interchangeably with agathos in Paul’s passages, and in the Gospels.
1. Who is good?
(a) Is God good?
First, only God is “good.” You know the refrain of Psalm 106, 118 and Psalm 136 ~ “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, His love endures forever.” God is called “good.” Care to ever use that word loosely again? To be “good” as God is good is a gift from Him, an extension of His very being. How can we be good outside a life of prayer, devotion, life among a community of faith, or time in God’s Word?
God is distinctly good. Jesus asks and affirms, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” [Mark 10: 17 – 18] What is Jesus saying about the source of goodness? There is a distinct, unique goodness about God. The goodness of God is total – 100%; not a degree of goodness or the highest grade possible. It is the source of goodness. We regard God as uniquely good not only because of his character, but also because of ours ...
(b) Is man good?
We are discouraged when it comes to our sinful condition. Perhaps this is why we want to resist acknowledging it. The disciples are discouraged when Jesus tells them that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. (Camels are big. And no the eye of needle isn’t a small gate. That explanation comes from a 5th century commentary, not history. Jesus would say today that it is easier to shove a cow through a keyhole.) The point is that on own it is impossible to attain the distinct goodness of God. Romans 7:18-21, I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
Yet, we have potential for good. We have some capacity for good and we cannot deny that since we were created in the image of the good God. Paul very truthfully and accurately described our sinful condition, but he also truthfully and accurately states that we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. – Ephesians 2:10. We believe that enough that we let this word shape our identity (notice the banner). So how do we reconcile this conflict between our sinful nature and the calling of God to do good works? Is it fair of God to expect us to do good works when we are corrupted by the sinful nature? It is if we accept that ...
Sin gets in the way of goodness, God put within us a capacity for goodness. We are created in the image of God, the one who is good. Back to some thoughts from previous weeks, Ephesians 2 talks about how we are created in Christ to do “good works.” God created us to be good. Truly knowing the goodness of God can only be known through the Holy Spirit of God, living in God’s presence. As an act of redemption, God works for “good” with those who love Him, as in Romans 8.
But that still doesn’t tell me how to be good and I really want to know. It’s a good thing that Paul wrote Romans 15, for there we learn what it really means to be “good” in the eyes of God.
We depend on God’s Spirit to cultivate goodness.
2. What is good?
We have confused the goal of goodness. Goodness is so much a virtue as it is a quality of life. We want to live the good life and we want goof things out of life. In our culture goodness is often equated with ~
(a) feeling good ~ There’s a lot of effort put into the goal of feeling good. Even in church people may critique worship or fellowship based on whether or not they feel good. Of course we can do better than this. And sometime we recognize a higher goal for goodness. We strive to
(b) doing good ~ We rightly recognize that there are good works that we ought to do. And this may lead us to organize programs so that more people will do more good works. And yet we are sometimes frustrated when all of our efforts to do good fall short or we find that people lose interest in doing good. It’s at moments like these, if we are attentive, that we recognize that the goal of goodness is
(c) being good ~ People who are striving to be good will do good. And people who are striving to be good do not get distracted trying to simply feel good. In fact, being good may make you feel good – but sometimes being good does not feel good. But if we strive to cultivate goodness, then we know that being good is a higher goal than feeling good. Think of this: If I am feeling good, I am not necessarily becoming more like God, but the more a Strive to be good the more I become like God.
But that is different than the way we usually use the word “good.” We usually think of good as excellence, or good as effective purpose. If someone says they bought a “good” house it usually means that it is not on the verge of collapse. That was a good movie, a good dinner. I had a good time. These are my good pants. You can see that this fruit of the Spirit is different than the way we usually talk about goodness.
How do we know how to be good?
It is difficult for us to talk about being good in a society who does not like to discuss “the common good.” In its place we have substituted that individuals should be free to determine for themselves what is good in any situation. Goodness has become individualized. What is good for you may not be good for me. However, as Christians, we are called to embody goodness together as a community.
It is difficult for us to find models of good. We choose models of goodness that are lacking and unfulfilling. Although I think we all want to be good, we may not know where and how to find “goodness.”
(a) Worldly goodness:
• If a culture practices slavery, does that make slavery good?
• If a culture practices the binding of women’s feet, does that make the practice good?
• If a culture eats pork, twinkies…etc….
• If a culture celebrates Halloween ……
The plan of God, according to the witness of the Bible, is that we be good people.
This is the way that we tend to evaluate evil in human life:
• Attitudes and emotions are not evil if they do not physically harm someone else.
• If your deeds do not immediately, visibly hurt someone else, your deeds should not be called evil.
• If the people involved in an activity are involved by personal choice, it is their business and that should not be called evil.
Why? Because we evaluate good or evil by evaluating the impact that one person has on other persons.
If you made your own list of the ten worst evils, what would be on your list? How many of these things would be on your list?
• Homosexuality
• Adultery
• Prostitution
• Rape
• Murder
• Abortion
• Child abuse
• Child abduction
• Random violence
• Criminal injustice (when innocent people are victimized by deliberate criminal injustice)
(b) Godly goodness:
1 Corinthians 5:9-10, Galatians 5:19-21, and Revelation 21:8 give lists of evils that will prevent a person from inheriting the kingdom of heaven.
• The list in 1 Corinthians 5:10, 11 includes six things, and two of them are verbally abusive and swindling.
• The list in Galatians 5:19-21 includes fifteen things and three of them are greed, swindling, and verbal abuse.
• The list in Revelation 21:8 includes eight things and one of them is lying.
Would your list of the ten worst evils, include verbal abuse, swindling, greed, and lying?
Obvious that we do not define evil as God does - we are certain that there are much worse evils than verbal abuse, swindling, greed, and lying. We do not determine evil as God does because we do not determine good as God does.
This is the difference:
• God is absolute goodness.
• He is pure good.
• There is a total absence of evil in God.
• We have never seen or experienced absolute good.
• If we saw absolute good, I doubt that we would recognize it.
• You and I are so far removed from absolute good that we cannot recognize all the evil in our own lives.
• When God determines good or evil, He compares a person’s heart, mind, and actions to absolute good.
• When you and I determine good or evil, we compare imperfect people to imperfect people.
Will it make you mad if our sovereign God, our father who loves all people completely, saves someone you think should not be saved? Or will you rejoice in the goodness of God, knowing that it is His goodness that makes your salvation possible?
Let’s look at it this way. If we place a scale on the wall behind me, with bad being at the bottom and good being at the top, where would you place yourself? We could place Hitler near the bottom, and Billy Graham closer to the top, right? My guess is all of us place ourselves somewhere between those two. I mean, who doesn’t look good next to Hitler? Where would we place God himself? We would place God in the upper atmosphere. See our goodness when compared to each other can look pretty good, but when compared to God, it is rather insignificant. ONLY GOD IS GOOD.
Illustration: I read a book a couple of years ago called How to Be Good, a novel where Nick Hornby explores the heart of a woman trying to deal with her husband’s sudden spiritual conversion. When she considers going to church to find some answers for herself she describes longing for a safe church. By “safe” she says she wants to find a church that lacks conviction, a mild, doubtfully liberal preacher who would give a sermon about social justice or greed, and then apologize for bringing up the subject of God. When she finally musters up the nerve to get out of bed one Sunday morning and makes her way to this church down the block, she walks in to find a handful of tired people. She thinks, “This may have been God’s house once, but He’s clearly moved.”
She soon discovers through the oddball actions of her husband and their neighbors that being good is about caring for others, people in all of their forms. The book is about more than just acting like a “good person.” It’s about “being good.” It’s not just the actions and greetings of your day-to-day life. It is learning what it means to be good. And I want to be a good person.
3. How can we pursue to cultivate the Fruit of the Spirit ~ Goodness?
Confession of sin and weakness: 1 John 1: 9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
This is difficult, but so very important. Until we name the sin that prevents us from cultivating goodness, we will never mature. Ignoring the sin and weakness in our life keeps us from growing in God’s Spirit. We have tamed goodness, but we have also tamed sin. We dismiss the poisonous nature of sin by saying things like “Well everyone sins.” True, but that is why it is so bad. We shouldn’t dismiss sin, but name it. And naming it doesn’t make it worse; it actually opens us up to healing from a source outside ourselves.
Attention to God’s Word: That source from outside is God’s word. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 - All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. In preaching, reading, and study the word of God is more than just information. It is a truth from outside us that has the power to transform. Preaching is worship because we attend to what God is saying to us. You and I. I hope that in the sermon you hear what God is saying to you so that you will respond. I don’t preach to say what I want, my hope and prayer is that you will hear what God wants you to hear from his word. And that you will respond through confession and repentance. Why? So you can be good. So that you will be equipped for good works.
Imitation of mature disciples: We need role models. Paul was bold enough o tell the Corinthian disciples to imitate him because he was imitating Christ. When Paul’s disciple, Titus was trying to build up the church on Crete he had his work cut out for him. Crete was a cesspool of morals. Paul advised Titus to build up mature leaders, men and women, who could model the goodness of the Christian life. Imitation is important to our life together. I call upon the older men and women of this church, the mature disciples, to model goodness and the other fruit of the spirit. Be willing to let younger disciples learn from you. Direct them to Christ through your life. Spend time with them. You say, “But I am not perfect.” Great! Show them how to confess their sins and attend to God’s word. I call upon younger disciples to ask the mature disciples to teach you. Tell them you need their wisdom and time. Invite them to become your mentors.
The fruit of the Spirit must continually be cultivated. We do not produce them once for all time. We need to sow to the Spirit continually so goodness will be expressed in our lives instead of the old selfish qualities. If I meditate on envy, jealousy, lusts, worries, or fears I am going to reap from them some very selfish evil fruit in my behavior and relationships. I may explode all over someone and cause great harm rather than good. But when I sow to the Spirit by meditating on God’s qualities through the Word, I will bear good fruit of kind, generous, beneficial acts toward others. I will help others experience God’s forgiving, restoring love in Christ through faith. I will also live a morally pure life according to God’s holiness. Bearing goodness means God can depend on me to be honest, repent of my sins, and turn away from evil. We need to continually seek to express this goodness in our responses and actions toward others.
Illustration: There is the story of a young lady who was a bright student. Unfortunately, she did not have assurance. Her name was Marian. She was working her way through college by cleaning the dorm rooms of her fellow students. She was often annoyed by their in ability to say “thank you” or “please”. One day she got so disgusted and disillusioned that she was ready to quit. She went to see her professor Robert Coles. At the time she was full of “anxiety and anger.” She said, “I’ve been taking all of these philosophy courses and we talk about what’s true, what’s important, what’s good. Well, how do you teach people to be good?” “The answer to that question, according to the Bible, is not education but conversion. No one can truly learn to be good, for only God is perfectly good. The light of true goodness dawns in the heart only when God shines there.”
Conclusion: Why are we to be good? Because God is good to us (Psalm 86:5; 145:4-13)! Because God has defeated evil, so why would any rational person seek failure unless they are deluded as Satan is (Matt. 5:43-48; 25:41; John 12:31; 16:9-11; Col. 2:15; Rev. 20:1-3)! Because we are to serve a God of love and in so doing we are to love (1 Pet. 2:1-3; 1 John 4:7-21)! Goodness is the application of love, whereas pride is the love, the only love we have and use and it is for only ourselves (Proverbs 16:18; 29:23)! Being good will help us to be patient, kind, understanding and forgiving to others. It will be the fruit that helps us build each other up, build His Church, reach His community and restore relationships and seek the best in all we do. It is excellence in action! It is what builds great societies and its absence causes those same societies to collapse in debauchery!
Remember; the fruits and character cost dearly, they are not cheap by and from the One who bought them for us, for our betterment and for His glory. We must not take for granted what Cost Him so much! Do not go for cheap worldly imitations.
