But today we're going to talk
about the goodness of God continuing. We saw in the creation account
in chapter 1 of Genesis that God said, then God did, and then
God declared this good. We learned that the goodness
of God is really the centerpiece of what He is and who He is. Now see, when we think about
this, we think about it in a humanistic way. We think about it from an
earthly perspective. And we can do that when we're
talking about the God-man. We're talking about the incarnate
Christ in His ministry. And you'll hear some more about
that in the weeks to come. But when we talk about God, we
need to avoid, and it's a very difficult task. It's actually
something that we have to do, you know, purposefully. We have to intend to not think
about God as we think about people. Because God, in His love and
goodness and wrath and hatred and justice and all these things,
it is not as though we could find the best person that we
could ever imagine and know that God is and does things a lot
better than that person. We need to recognize that God,
by the title, by the word God, means the highest of all. That's
what the word means. That's why there are in every
generation, in every civilization, in every idea and occupation,
all sorts of ideas of what a God is and who a God is. That's why
to some people nature is God because it's the highest of all
things. That's why to others humanity is God because humanity
is the highest of all things. But the word God means the highest
of all things. And so by the word in and of
itself, the idea of God means that there can be nothing equal
to him nor can or it or you know whatever or her depending on
who you're talking to and that nothing can share in that highness
and nothing can be above that because anything that would share
in that would equally be God and then anything that would
be above that then would make that thing that was God not God
and the thing that's higher than that God does that make sense so We need to realize that when
we think about the goodness of God, it is not like the goodness
of grandpa. It's not like the goodness of a benevolent person.
It's not like the goodness. As a matter of fact, the goodness
of God in and of itself is not necessarily, well, no, it's not.
It is not a feeling that God has. God doesn't have feelings
in his person as God. Jesus Christ in his incarnation
had feelings as a human being. But those feelings were subject
to His righteousness, therefore never led to sin and selfishness,
but always were good. But in the creation account,
we're not looking at the incarnate Christ yet. We will, chapter
2, and we will certainly show the parallels and show the point
of which Moses finally wrote this down after centuries and
centuries of verbal sharing. But God in His goodness is not
something He feels. God in His goodness is something
that He is. And then goodness is seen and
revealed in all that He does. Because, see, let's put it to
a test. If James Tippins decided that because of some specific
thing that had happened to some of you, let's just say that we
had a little what not stand in the back selling for missions,
selling some knick-knacks for missions, and I just felt like,
or we found out that, hey, you know what, only 10% of the profits
were going to the missions and, you know, the person in charge
of that drove up in a new Lambo today. And James Tippins came
in here and tipped up over the tables and threw all the chairs
out in the yard and kicked over all the microphones and says,
don't make the Lord's house a den of thieves. Would James Tippins
be in sin? The answer is absolutely, 100%
of the time, at any way, yes. Matter of fact, I was in sin
long before I kicked the first chair. I was in sin when I felt
enraged in my spirit. Because I am not God. My wrath
and anger is not good. Some people say, well, no, if
we're angry about the things that God is angry about, then
that's good. But what does the Bible say to do if our spirit
is angered at the things that God is angered about? Shut our
mouths and sit still, for He is God. You see that? That's
the thing. But no, no, no, we gotta say
something. We gotta get in there. This is not good. So James can
never do good to be compared to who God is and God's good.
So that everything God does is good. So when Jesus rebuked the
Pharisees, it was good. When God created the world, it
was good because God did it. So everything God does, everything
God says, everything God reveals, everything God is, is good. His
wrath is good. His hate is good. Can you imagine
good hate? See, this is something that we
need to really think about. Because as we get into chapter two next
week, we're going to be talking about the image of God. We're
going to have to really understand the call of the believer to love
evil people. And so when we think about God's
goodness and God's love, it is in two ways. God is good and
is love in all his ways. But then all that God does is
good. All that God does is love. All
that God does is just. All that God does is righteousness.
And so God reveals these things to us through the scripture,
and only through that revelation are we able to pick up the pieces
and go, okay, this is what God has said concerning himself.
So therefore, we won't add to that pile, we'll just settle
our souls on what God's word says. So God, in his goodness,
is the point of his being. And when we see God so-called
killing the world in anger, he is good. When we see God hating
Cain, he is good. When we see God hating Esau,
he is good. When we see God blessing the
house of Egypt for millennia, that Joseph may be the one who
co-regents for the sake of God's chosen nation, God is good. But what do we do as humans?
Well, that's not fair. Of course it's not fair. What
would be fair is if God went, and destroyed us all. As a matter
of fact, fairness has nothing to do with it. God is not subject
to fairness. God is good because he's God. But yet, even though we know
that, even though we hear these things, beloved, it's so hard
because we all went to middle school. We all homeschooled in
middle school or whatever it is we did. We all went through
the season where we learned other cultures. We all went through
the season, I pray that you did, where you learned about mythology,
where you learned about comparative religions, where you learned
about the ideology of human beings who can always have a new idea
concerning deity and righteousness and all these things. And we've
learned that Zeus gets upset, sends a lightning bolt. The lightning
bolt causes a rat to fall into a stew. The stew kills the guy
and the guy becomes a demigod. I mean, just silly stuff. Like
this cause and effect thing that's out of control, this chaotic
idealism that, you know, these powerful things are just humans
with great abilities. And none of us believe that,
but we do subject the God of the Bible to that thinking indirectly,
inadvertently, subconsciously. We do. We do. I mean, none of
us should have a picture of Jesus in our head physically, but we
do. And for a lot of us who grew
up in the 70s and 80s, the picture is this blonde-haired, blue-eyed,
pale guy that looks like he needs to get out of Woodstock. That's
what we think. Or maybe we watched Ben-Hur.
Or maybe we watched The Ten Commandments with, not Ben-Hur, that's the
same actor. Maybe we watched, I'm sorry, maybe we think Charleston
Heston is what Moses looked like. Maybe we think that, you know,
we have this idea that this great-grandfather of ours is how God is, this decrepit
old wise man with a big long white beard and no hair. I mean,
don't we? And I see generations of millennials
now when they talk about, and I ask the question sometimes
when I'm in this conversation, when you think of God, who do
you think? And some of them, they tell me the guy that played on
Bruce Almighty. I can't remember his name, the movie where This
man plays God. They look at an actor. Some people
say, Jim Caviezel's what I think about when I see Jesus in my
head. That's great. It's just what we need. But we all have a picture in
our head. The question is, as to what the word of God teaches
us, is it erasing those pictures? And is it placing a proper image,
not an idol, but the proper revelation Because you know what an image
is? It means idol, a replica, a lookalike, not the real thing. So when God says, let us make
man in our image, He's like, let us show ourselves in this,
but it's not ourselves. Same word for image and idol.
When the idols of Isaiah are supposed to be destroyed and
the image of God in creation, the exact same word in the Bible,
all languages, the exact same word. It's the word idol. Let's
make men in our likeness. That's the point. So we're going
to start to see that we need to just take a deep breath and
we need to inhale the revelation of God through the scripture
and understand that as we look at creation there are a lot of
things. We had some interesting conversations
Wednesday night that there are some things that God has allowed
us to understand intricately in our world. There are some
things in our world that we know because of scientific advancements
and just incredibly I don't know, from the Renaissance on. I mean,
we have a lot of thinking people in the world that are always
looking for a smaller piece of life, that are always trying
to examine the processes of the cosmos, and yet they're always
left wanting. They're never satisfied. There's
never been a scientist in the world who's got it from the table
and go, I found it. Man, I'm so glad I can retire now. They
die at the desk looking for the next thing. looking for the next
answer, looking for the next particle, because no matter how
small we can make the universe in our grasp, it is never answered
as to why and how. And the Word of God answers that.
So the Word of God is not supposed to make us enjoy the pursuit
of scientific discovery, but scientific discovery is supposed
to make us go, look what else God has shown us about himself,
and we're still in awe. It's not why Genesis was written.
Moses had no idea about subatomic particles. He had no idea about
proteins. He had no idea about dietary
things. He had no idea about kinesiology
or physiological construction of the body. He had no idea about
different blood types or any of that stuff and that wasn't
why God gave him Genesis 1. God gave him Genesis 1 so that
we could see and behold the reality of God sovereignly creating the
intricacy of all the infinite cosmos and creating a people
that he would call his own through the death of his son Jesus Christ
and that is good. And that is why the world exists. And we talked last week about
the goodness of God that we see not only in creation but also
in the ministry of Jesus where he washed the feet of sinners,
he fed sinners, he fed reprobate people, he loved on them and
prayed for them and wept over them. But we don't need to mistake
these things and slide them all into this tiny little box and
press it and say, no, this is how God is and this is what God
does. Let the word of God reveal to you who God is and what God
does. We learned over the last five
weeks that God, in Genesis 1, created out of nothing, everything. Out of nothing. And the explanation
there is poetic, and the illustration there is dynamic. It's just amazing,
it's powerful. That God, out of nothing, created
everything, and that in that everything, without God continuing
to create and order it, it was chaotic. It was chaotic. If God had not
separated the light from the darkness, if God had not separated
the waters, if God had not separated the land, if God had not separated
the species, if God had not separated humanity, it would just be this
wild panentheistic animal kingdom that we would just sit back and
watch. See, that's what some mindsets say. Panentheism is
a mystical philosophy. It's a religion. that basically
says that there is this creator, cosmic deity, God, highest of
all things, and he sort of went poof and spun it all into being,
and he's just watching it like a pinball machine to see where
it's going to fall. And every now and then he'll flick the
flipper. That's not how it is. God ordered
the world. He ordered the world. And the
scripture teaches that God decreed it, and said it, and did it,
and is doing it still, that Jesus Christ, by the word of His power,
upholds the cosmos, upholds the order of the world, upholds all
created things, which is everything. Everything. So out of this chaos,
God created order. Out of this order, God created
life. And out of this life, God purposed
and finished redemption. And then out of redemption, and
out of the promise of redemption God created the word and put
time together and here we are living in the day where we can
look at the promises of God and know that we have eternal life
because he promised it and we see that he's powerful to do
it and we see that it has been fulfilled and completed in Christ
Jesus. There are two things we learned
about the revelation of God in the creation. One is that God
is able, and the second thing is that God alone is able. God
is able to create and to complete, and only God is able to create
and to complete. We discussed the idea that only
Jesus could give eyes to the blind. Only Jesus could make
limbs grow. Only Jesus could command a corpse
to come back to life and be restored. And that the person receiving
this created work and the object being created had no part in
it whatsoever. There was no part in anything
in creation. There wasn't this beginning substance
that God started with. There was nothing. Then He created
all things out of nothing. And then we see that the scripture
shows us not just in the creation account, but the creation account
is the bedrock, it is the foundation of the gospel. And that no man
can come to believe and rest in the finished work of Christ
for his salvation, except that God the Spirit make him a new
creation and satisfy, or finish, satisfactorily finish the work
of regeneration. This is, you must be born again,
you must be recreated, you must be made new. And beloved, people
throughout the centuries have been saying, oh, God is sovereign
in creation. God is sovereign in salvation.
God is sovereign in regeneration. He's making us all new. And then
they make their newness in the mirror of their life, the purpose
of living. And they make that newness the
anchor in which their soul rests. Let me give an example of what
I'm talking about. There are well-meaning people in the world
who have the right language, who use the right words when
it comes to the gospel of free and sovereign grace, but yet
they will sit there and they will tell others that you know
that you know that you know that you have eternal life because
of what God is doing to transform your life into His image. And that is a lie. That is a lie. The creation wasn't
beheld by God and God went, well look at all that, this is good
stuff and I made it. No, He said look at what I made,
therefore it's good. God is not making His people
good. Christ declares us good. Christ's goodness is credited
to us. Just like the goodness of God
creating the world, God's goodness was credited to His creation.
It's imputation. It's imputation. In the same
way is true when the gospel is made alive in our hearts, the
imputation of that knowledge, the imputation of righteousness,
the imputation of goodness. We are not good, beloved. God
is good. This is the part two of last
week's sermon series. God, in all of His goodness,
is the only one that is good. I made four specific points about
the goodness of God revealed. And the first one I said last
week is that God, the goodness of God is revealed in creation
as we've reviewed this morning. He makes things and those things
are good and perfect and glorious and complete because He made
them for the purpose. Now I want to challenge you on
this. God says to the prophets that he causes calamity, he creates
evil for the day of trouble. Is evil good? In and of itself, in its essence,
that seems like a conflict, doesn't it? And I've seen people run
this in a comical way, yep, evil's good, okay. Evil is good in that
it exists for the purposes of God. ultimately to destruction. Well, it was evil that those
people arrested Jesus and lied about Jesus and killed Jesus. Yes, but God said it was good. It pleased the Lord to crush
Him. You see how much we have to change the way we think about
God and His goodness? When James would say, all things
from above, all good gifts are from the Lord. In the context
of what? What does James start his letter
out? Rejoice when you face various types of trials. That your suffering
may produce what? Steadfastness, perseverance,
rejoicing. Peter says the same thing in
Peter 1, chapter 1. Rejoice. Rejoice, the occasion
of the command of rejoicing in the goodness of God is always
in the midst of the broken, chaotic darkness of this world. Anybody,
everybody's unbelievers, atheists and Satanists are rejoicing when
things are going our way. It's a given because we mistake
rejoicing with enjoyment and happiness. God is good and He reveals His
goodness in His creation. He made it because He made it. It was good. So when Christ redeems
a people, His death is good. His murder was good. His suffering
was good. And I'll have to say this. Hear
what I'm saying, not what I'm not saying. The implications
of what could be are hypothetical. It's not what's being taught
here. and to implicate what's not being taught is to assume,
and to assume is to bear false witness, and to bear false witness
is wicked. Does that make sense? And if you're like, what are
you talking about? Don't worry about it. Everybody else does. If the shoe fits,
that's what my grandmother used to say. God, the goodness of God is revealed
in creation. The goodness of God, we said last week, is revealed
in redemption. That God is good in the redemption of his people,
just like God is good in the destruction of the wicked. He's good. Just like a judge
is good when he executes a sentence on someone who's guilty. He would
not be good if he goes, yeah, I know you're guilty, but man,
you just, those shoes, man, you just got me. I like those shoes.
You're free to go. That's not good. God is good
and His goodness is revealed in this purpose of creation to
show that God alone can make all things good and all things
good creatively, supernaturally, divinely, He will do this for
His people. the goodness of God. We talked
last week also that the goodness of God is revealed in His sovereignty.
God is fulfilling all that He has decreed and said that He
would do to show Himself as Himself. That's glory. To see God's glory
is to see Him as He is. The fullness of all that He is.
If we could put that in terms, and I've said this years ago,
if we put this in terms of our human relationships, if someone
sees you in all your glory, they'll see you in your birthday suit.
You hide nothing. It's how you come in the world,
it's how you go out the world. God's goodness is seen in His
sovereignty. His purposes will stand. He will
create the world and in the world and out of the world He will
create His people and out of the world He will save His people.
Then he will destroy the temporary reality of the world that he
created as an instrument, as the land, as the landing pad
of redemption. And then he will create a new
world eternally for his purposes with his people. So the Bible
says. You create a new world. Infinitely
glorious. So in the sovereignty, we see
two different ways in which God's sovereignty is played out in
creation and out throughout the whole scripture. There are many
ways, but two specific ways that we learn as we glean from Genesis
chapter one, and one is in Providence, that God is using all things
for his purposes. Good, bad, the ugly, and the
indifferent, all things. God put the serpent in the garden,
as you'll see, and God called Satan to go and to deceive. Well,
that's just absurd. Folks, the Bible reveals this
to us. We have the oldest written letter of the Bible is what?
It's the book of Job. It's the oldest letter in the
Bible. Job was before the creation of
the world? Yes, Job's letter predates Moses writing about
the creation of the world. So if I write a letter today
about my birth, that letter is post my birth. even though my birth is before
the letter. See what I'm saying? Moses wasn't around during the
creation of the world. He wrote it down in his lifetime.
The world had been here a while. So Job is the oldest written
letter of the Bible. And the Bible starts out talking
about the fall of Satan, the fall of Lucifer, the angel of
light, the glorious, most glorious, most beautiful, most magnificent
angel in the heavenly realm. Because he was so beautiful.
Why was he beautiful? Because God made him that way.
Why did God create Lucifer? So that Lucifer would reveal
the reality of what creatures in creation can do when they
look at themselves. And instead of looking at God
and saying, thank you, God, for I see your glory, Lucifer looked
in the mirror and looked at God and went, it's not too far off
here. And in his heart, he said, I should be standing next to
God, in his heart. That's what the scripture says.
So God threw him out with a multitude of the heavenly host, with a
majority. And out of that, he threw them
out of his presence. But yet in the book of Job, it
reminds us that now the enemy in the spiritual sense, Lucifer,
we call the devil, the deceiver, Satan, the adversary, the evil
one, He poses as an angel of light. He poses as a messenger
of righteousness. He poses as one who declares
the truth of God's word. That's the work of the enemy. And so in that dialogue with
God and the enemy, with Lucifer, God says, what are you doing? Here's a paraphrase. And he says,
I'm seeking to see who I might destroy. And God says, why don't
you go get Job? And Lucifer says, because you
won't allow me to. I can't touch him. And God says,
go touch him. He'll still praise me. How did
God know that? Because he's sovereign. He's sovereign. In his providence,
he purposed everything for his glory. Blessed be the name of
the Lord. When do we say that in our spirit?
When we get good news. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Praise God! When was that written in scripture?
When Job was suffering in his flesh, suffering in his mind,
suffering financially, lost his entire business, everything.
His friends had left him. His wife was scorning him. It
couldn't get any worse. And then this messenger comes
and says, Master, your house has fallen and the roof has fallen
in and killed all of your children and their families. And Job says, Blessed be the
name of the Lord. The Lord gave and the Lord took. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
So next time we bless the name of the Lord, let's remember the
context from which that sprouts. What we would see is chaotic,
demonic, garbage. Why is my life so upside down?
Beloved, God is sovereign in His providence and He's sovereign
in His provision. There is nothing that we are
experiencing as the elect of God that is not in the goodness
of God's purposes for us. And Paul makes it very clear
in Romans chapter 8 when he says this, For God causes all things
to work together for good for those who love Him and are called
according to His purpose. And in provision, and I closed
last week out talking about provision in Genesis 22 where Abraham is
taking Isaac to be sacrificed. And Paul writes in Hebrews that
Abraham was so willing to sacrifice his son, he got up early the
next day and set the wheels in motion. We're going to go to
a sacrifice, the Lord going to build an altar up here on this
mountain. where the Lord has told me to go, and I'm going
to bring a sacrifice to the Lord. Here's my servants, here's all
the stuff we need for it. But there was one thing missing
from the preparation, and that was the animal to kill and to
slaughter and to bleed out and pour before the Lord and burn. And several times Isaac asked
the question, Father, where's the sacrifice? And Abraham answers him each
time and says, son, God will provide for himself a sacrifice. And Paul writes to the Hebrews
and said that Abraham was given such a faith to understand and
believe the promises of God that even though he knew he was going
to kill his son, he had no hesitation and no doubt in it because he
knew that God was able to raise him from the dead. Why would
he even think that? Did God ever tell him that? No,
God said, I want your son and I want him now. I want you to
go kill him. But why would he infer such weirdness
about being raised from the dead? Because God, years before he
was ever conceived, promised that through his son, he would
be the father of many nations. So if God's gonna kill my son,
who I waited 13 years to even see, now he's a young boy, and
now he's gonna kill him, then I guess he's just going to raise
him from the dead. That was his conclusion. What kind of faith
is that? That's a God-given faith. That's
an affirmation of what God does in the hearts of his people when
presented with the gospel. You ever counsel someone with
the gospel and it doesn't help them? And they're laboring over how
they can work and find righteousness and work and please the Lord
and work. And we share with them the gospel of grace, free and
sovereign. And they say, well, I understand.
It's just that there's got to be more. That person hasn't been
born of God. Because they can't see the gospel.
They can't see that the true good news is that we rest in
the Sabbath who is Jesus Christ our righteousness. That God has
done everything. He alone can do everything for
the salvation of His people. And there is no one for whom
Christ died that will ever be lost. They will have eternal
life. And God's goodness is seen in
this sovereignty. And ultimately, I've already
said it, and this is a review, but God's goodness is seen in the finality
of these things. The finality of creation. He's
finished with it. The finality of redemption. Jesus
said it is finished. The finality of glory. It will
be done. So if God always proves Himself
powerful and able and willing, and all these other words that
we like to come up with, why is it that it's so difficult?
Because we are fleshly things. We are broken and sinful, depraved
things. And that's why it is not about
we getting our minds settled on the issue. That's why it's
so easy for so many people to really make a hobby out of theological
study, because the theological study continues to keep their
mind focused on the attributes of doctrine rather than Christ. And it has no good benefit for
the body of Christ from a shepherding point of view. You need to hear
the goodness of God in redemption and sovereignty and provision
and providence and the finality of God's goodness and power in
redemption. That it is a finished work, beloved.
Don't worry. Rest. Faith is rest. It's not knowledge. The way we
think it is. Knowing the one true God is knowing
he's finished the work. He is the Sabbath. We sang it
this morning. In three syllables, Sabaoth. He's the Lord of the Sabbath.
He is our rest. All this comes down to the interesting
idea that we see here in Genesis 1 where God said, how many times
do you see that? In the beginning God created,
and God said, and God said, and God said, and God said, and God
said, and God said, and God is saying, and God said, and God
said, and God said, and God said over and over again. What are these things supposed
to help us understand? That whatever God says is, I want you to hear that again.
Whatever God says is, we call them in our nice little packages,
the decrees of God. That which God has declared.
I do declare, y'all ever heard anybody say that? Not much anymore. Maybe in some old movies. or
that old Sugar Baker show from the 80s and 90s from Atlanta. You know, I do declare. I mean,
you hear that. I do declare. What are you about to declare?
What are you about to say? God declares. God decrees. And the decrees of God are ultimately
to be understood as this. This is God's desire, will. And
he does these things out of the counsel of his own will, and
he needs no other. He needs no other influence.
He needs no other substance. He needs no other persons. He
needs no other thing. He needs no permission. He needs
no court. He needs no fairness. God decrees,
I am the Lord. There is no other. I will do
what I wish. See, we've seen that in antiquity.
We've seen that in history with kings, monarchs, queens, tyrants. And it's powerful, isn't it?
Mobsters. If that had been a career choice,
I could have thought about it as a kid. Mobster, that's pretty
neat. You raise your hand, and people stand up. You lower your
hand, and people sit down. You point this way, they go that
way. You do like this, and you do like that, and they fall off
a bridge just because you tell them they have to. That's not
God's decrees. God's not maniacal. He's good. He's good. And God has decreed,
and He's decreed a lot. Now I'm gonna give you a quick
idea of what God has decreed in the creation of humanity. God has decreed in the creation
of humanity as we see in chapter one, let us make man. And he said it was good. And
he's going to zoom in in chapter 2, the next part of chapter 2, in verse 5 of chapter 2, he's
going to zoom in and show you details of the creation of man,
humanity. But when the scripture says,
let us make man in our own image, God is saying, let us make man
in our own image. And then he says, and let them,
he decrees, he declares, let them have dominion over the fish,
dominion over the sea, dominion over the birds, dominion over
the sky. That's why we've learned to fly.
That's why billionaires can spend our money to fly to space and
fall back down. So they can beat their friends. It's really cool. I'm not gonna
lie. And if it was like 100 bucks, I'd probably go. Have dominion
over the heavens, over the sky, over the livestock, over the
earth, and everything that creeps and crawls upon it. Let us make
man in our image and let. So God decreed that he would
create this type of creature that would bear his likeness
in what? Whatever degree he decided. What
degree does he teach? In his rule, in the picture of
his rule over life and creation and in this picture of revelation
and glory. We'll talk about that all next
week in more detail. But God decreed in His goodness
to make humanity in His image and that is the one part of it.
The other part of that is that God's goodness is seen in the
countenance. Or if I can say this, in the
idol of the nature that's found in humanity. The nature of God
was not found in humanity. The goodness of God was not found
in Adam and Eve. But it looked like it. How do
we know it wasn't the goodness of God? Because first option
they got, they took. They're not God. Remember what
we talked about when we started our sermon? Anything that's next
to him and equal in essence of goodness or above him, that would
be God or there would be two gods or more gods. Man is not
God. Creation is good because, as
we've said, God said it was good. It was not because of the character
of what was in creation. And this is true for humanity.
Humanity was called good and then God says, as we'll see,
it was not good that the man be alone. Why? Because the man
needs What? Help. He cannot exist without
another. He cannot procreate without another.
He cannot subdue the earth without another. He cannot rule without
another. Humanity, the elect of God, cannot live without their
bridegroom. And that strange thing about
this picture is that the image of Christ as the bridegroom and
the church as the bride, Adam was the one in need, not the
woman. Character of the one who made
is what is good. So that when God says my image
is in this creation, it is because I have displayed my goodness. The law was written because God
said and it was written, therefore it is. And it displays his goodness. And in the display of God's goodness,
if we compare it to that which God says is good, that which
God says displays His goodness is not necessarily able to be
good. Righteousness and goodness flows
from the creative power of God then. And God alone brings righteousness. God alone declares goodness. God alone is good and righteous. And those who suggest otherwise
are not from God. Beloved, we have to listen with
critical ears, not suspicious ears, not fearful ears, but critical
ears. I dreamt this morning. I had
a weird dream this morning. You know, typically when people
are in my dreams, they're people that I know. And there's always
this oddball that I've never seen in my dream. But this morning,
there were 40 to 50 people in the room because I was in a Bible
study in this decrepit old building somewhere. And there was a group
of men sitting in the back and they were hodgepodge of characters.
It was the craziest thing in my life. I just woke up going,
this is so odd, I won't forget it. And the whole time I'm teaching,
they're talking, not loudly, but not softly, amongst themselves,
and they're tearing out pages in their Bible, and they're looking,
and they're handing, and I don't know why they just couldn't say,
turn here. One of them said, here, look at this, and he'd hand it to
somebody else, and I'm trying to teach. And they're judging
everything that's being said. And I thought, oh, maybe they're
Bereans. So after service, I go to talk to them, and then I wake
up. But I think, I was gonna ask them if they were Bereans. But there's a difference of being
a Berean and judging what I say by what the Bible teaches in
the context in which I teach it, and holistically and synergistically
in that it all works together to reveal God in this way. Versus
being critical by trying to find the mistakes. Trying to find
the error. Because that's not good. That's what the spirit of the
Israelites in the Exodus, God delivers them out of captivity,
out of slavery, out of bondage. And they go, we were better off
back there. Because God's provision of manna,
God's provision of the twister of fire and smoke, God's provision
of miracles and power wasn't sufficient for their Fragile
little souls. Because they would rather be
comfortably enslaved than tragically free. Now I don't
know about you. I don't want to live in the woods
and eat bugs. But if the option is go to prison or eat bugs,
buddy, give me the plate. The option to be in a concentration
camp or live in a swamp, ride an alligator to work, get me
a leash. But that's all what? That's very hypothetical. What
would we be? We would be just like the rest
of the Israelites if God did not grant us great faith. To
hear the gospel and to see God's work, that He has declared it,
He has promised it. Therefore, we can rest in it.
In Romans 11, we hear Paul quoting. He says, and in this way all
Israel will be saved, as it is written, the deliverer will come
from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob, and this will be
my covenant with them when I take away their sins. As regards the
gospel, they are enemies, Paul says, for your sake, talking
about Israel. But as regards election, they are beloved for
the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts of the calling
of God are irrevocable. The decrees of God, the promises
of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time
disobedient to God, that means you did not believe, but now
have received mercy because of their disobedience because they
didn't believe, so they too have now been disobedient in order
that by mercy shown to you they may also now receive mercy. If
God can be merciful to the elect of the Gentiles, He can be merciful
to the elect amongst the Israelites. Why? Because that's what He says
He is. That's what He says He'll do. But He's not going to be
merciful to everybody. He doesn't owe it to anybody.
He's not trying to establish a relationship with all humanity. He already has a relationship
with His elect people before the foundation of the world,
which is why He said, let there be light, and there was light,
and the light was good. For God has consigned all to
disobedience, that he may have mercy on all, all those who now
receive mercy. And then there's a doxology in
Romans 11.33, where I'm reading right now, it says, Oh, the depth
of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. See, that's
what I, it just sort of flows through my brain as I talk about
this text. Let's talk about these things. Oh, the depth and the
riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable
are your judgments, God? How unsearchable are your judgments
and how inscrutable are your ways? Wow! You know what that tells me? Stop trying to figure it out.
Take what God has shown and sit in it. Rest in it. Be still in
it. Know Him. He is the God of rest. The God of grace and mercy is
the God of rest. The God of wrath and vengeance
is the God of fire. There is no rest. There is no
hope except for you be and belong to Christ. Be found in and belong
to Christ. For who has known the mind of
the Lord or who has been his counselor? or who has given a
gift to him that he might be repaid. For from him and through him
and to him are all things to him be the glory forever so it
is. Amen. So now we see the nature of man.
Man is nothing but that which is created that God owes nothing
to that has done nothing for God. God did not create man and
go, wow, this is great, I really like that. Now I've created things.
I've written music before that at the end of it I'm going, I'm
so glad I made this. Then the song became the idol. Or a story became the idol. Now
some of my children, when they get to a level in their artistry
and they draw and they go, man, that's my magnum opus right there. That's my greatest one, my biggest
thing. And we're always trying to do more. God doesn't look
at His creation and go, wow, look how awesome this is. God
knows how awesome He is and therefore all that He makes is good. And
what makes it good is that He created it for His purposes.
The nature of man. Beloved, we are... I mean, it cannot be contested
that man is sinful. It cannot be contested that children
are sinful. It cannot be contested. Infants are sinful. By nature. And what ultimately happens is
that men think of themselves too highly. When we see ourselves
as the elect sometimes we go, I'm so glad that Lord that you
gave me faith. And I'm not mocking being grateful
and thankful because that's what Romans 1 says the reprobate don't
do. Sometimes we thank God for our
faith. Because faith is the operation
of our hope. Faith is the object of our hope. Beloved, this might be a little
play on words, but ask yourself this. Is it your faith that saves
you? Or is it God's work that saves
you? Grace. What saves you? Christ saves you. Faith rests
in Him. That's what the Spirit does.
It doesn't give you understanding of certain things and then you
come to a conclusion of your own free will or that God even
gives you a conclusionary idea. Well, you know what? I resolve.
How many people resolve things that they're absolutely certain
of every day of their lives only to change their mind or change
their heart sometime in the future? Till death do you part. Not. It's not going to happen. We're fallen people. It's impossible.
And those marriages that stay together from high school to
90, praise the Lord for it. Praise the Lord for His mercy
on those that don't. You'll always be my child. I'll
always love you. You'll always have a place here.
And then they say the wrong thing when they're 25. And you're like,
don't you never come back to my house. You see what I'm saying?
We can make all sorts of resolves, decrees, promises. They'll be broken just like that.
But we don't intend to. God's promises can't be broken.
God's purposes can't be thwarted. God's power cannot be stopped.
God's salvation is done. We think too highly of ourselves.
Humanity does. Even so, we often think higher
in our humility as we pant after God's grace, as if our piety
and our panting can control the wrath of God. This is when I
read the Puritans, I get nauseated sometimes. It's like they spend
all this life, their entire life, trying to prove some piety to
the Lord when the Lord has declared them righteous. Serve your people
and stop hiding in the closets of study. Gotta have some balance in this
stuff. Men think that their thinking
is great. Sometimes they think too highly
of their own thinking. In the state of mind to find themselves
justified before God because of their knowledge. I personally believe that we
live in a day, for those of you who understand what I'm about
to say, where most professing believers are nothing more than
neo-gnostics, which Christ is against, Paul is against, James
is against. Sometimes men think their service
and their works and their obedience and their zeal counts before
the jury of the divine, but yet What happens? There is no trial.
We're not going to get a chance to explain ourselves. There's
no court for the judgment that has been made. The guilty is
the verdict and no amount of well-meaning or well-doing will
suffice before the Lord. We are either declared by His
power righteous because of Jesus Christ's righteousness credited
to us or we are guilty. And that is all of grace. It
is all of mercy, it is all of kindness, it is all of love,
it is all of God doing what He does in time for His people. For His people. And the saint,
beloved, we as the saints ought to be thankful and out of that
gratitude we ought to give our lives for one another till death
do us part. There's a big tale in the lives
of many people as to their first response in the context of the
assembly when it comes to the preaching of the New Testament
letters. And you can sort of sense where
people are in their spiritual maturity. Beloved, there's one
thing that somebody who really gets the gospel will understand
and they will understand that they have a they have a an obligation
to the people of God's of God's church some obligations exercise
themselves small some are invisible some people are cleaning floors
and wiping toilets and cleaning houses and washing cars and some
people are praying in their bedrooms Some people are donating money
to help with bills and finances and other people are fixing houses
and carports. Some people are feeding and some
people are helping grow a garden. Some people are just slipping
a couple of groceries at the doorstep. There's an obligation that we
have for one another. Why? Because that's what God has created
His church for. to do what Christ has done to
serve His people in the giving of His life, we too, in like
manner, not perfectly, not righteously, not in any divine way, we are
to emulate Him. We are to walk in His way. Why? Because that's what we've
been created to do. We've been created to walk in
good works. and service to the Lord, which
means service to the least of these. Beloved, we have a pandemic,
an epidemic rather, of high and mighty in the ministry. And the
greatest gift that God has ever given me in my entire life in
the context of my ministry has been humbling me over and over
and over again. You know the primary way he does
that? To show me my self-righteous anger. That stews in the pot of my soul. That I think is not even on the
burner, but it's broiling. And all it takes is just one
person to break the patina of the surface of that thing. And
you won't see it, but it's there. It doesn't have to be. Acting
it out is much worse, but not acting it out is no less evil. God has put us together for that
purpose, beloved, and He's powerful to do it. He's promised it. He said it.
We are His people. We are the people of His own
possession. We are His body. We are the body
of Christ. We are His glory. We will reveal
who He is because He has revealed who He
is to us. And in that sureness, in that surety, in that certainty,
we have absolute hope beyond all things. So let us pray about
how we live together. to the praise of His glorious
grace. Isn't that what all the New Testament teaches? Praise
God for His grace. So that's why I have to impose
that upon an Old Testament theological thing, because that is why we
come together each week, that we may be mindful of one another.
And it's not easy, it's not perfect, but it is purposeful. And God
has made all provision. His divine power is everything
we need for life and for God in us. Let's pray. We love you,
Father, because you have loved us. We love you because you do
love us. For if you had not loved us, we would never love you.
For we would never be shown the truth of who you are to us. Father, our relationship with
You, how we stand in relation to goodness, Lord, is not because
we are good, it's because You are good and You have called
us good because the good Son has died in our place and the
good Son's righteousness has been given to us. So it is nothing of us. It is
not our will, it is not our motives, it is not our zeal, it is not
our Work, it is only you. You alone have saved us through
Jesus Christ. So, Father, help us to see that.
More every day. Help us to be reminded. Cause
us to pick up your word, Lord. Bring people to mind that we
may pray for one another. Father, draw us to the assembly
so that we may be able to serve one another. Father, we thank
you for your gift of life. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.