We're going to backtrack a little bit and discuss
a couple of topical things over the next few weeks before we
plow through Genesis 2. And I have this stool behind
me in case my foot starts hurting. In the scripture there in Genesis
1 we see the beginning of that which was not. We see the very
reality of out of nothing came everything and that we see that
before there was, there was always God. God himself in himself and
of himself is and always will be and has been content with
himself. And that might be a little, what?
What are you trying to say? In other words, God needs nothing.
He is complete. He is self loved and that love
that he has for himself is sufficient for his own purposes. There are
a lot of things that we can go through the scripture and God's
people throughout history have made it a mission to as they
learn something new they want to explore it and they want to
invest in it and they want to express it and to share it and
that is a good thing. And as God's people we have the
liberty Let me say that again. As God's people, we have the
liberty to be able to discuss that which we see or consider
in scripture without fear, without condemnation, and without frustration. And so we need to keep that in
mind. Because God has revealed to us Himself in everything that
is written in this word. And only that which is written
in this scripture, only that which is written here, is truth. It is not our inferences, or
our ideas, or our logical conclusions. As a matter of fact, God frustrates
logical conclusions. Because for Jesus Christ to be
completely, fully, truly God eternal and also completely,
truly, fully human. It's a frustration of logic.
Because the two cannot exist. You cannot have Elohim and humanity
in the same thing, but yet He is in the same person, Jesus
the Christ. And that is why it is important
for us to be submissive to the scripture, to be patient, and
to expect God alone to show and to teach. It is not for us to
correct God, but it is for God to correct us. We don't get to
say, this is who God is, except that God says, this is who I
am. And I guarantee you if we all,
if I went down the rabbit trail of things that I have heard and
thought and been exposed to over my lifetime, And I said, oh,
raise your hand if you've ever heard this. We'd have hands going
up and down all over the place. And how many of you have ever
believed this? We've had hands going up and
down all over the place. And there's some of the things
that I would say, how many of you think this now? And some
of us would have hands going up and down all over the place.
And the question is, how do you know what you know concerning
the truth of who Christ is, of who God is, if it's not from
the word? Can you prove to the person sitting
next to you, from the scripture in its context, what you say
you know about Christ, this very moment? Can you go to a passage
of scripture, if I say God is good, if I say God is good, and
that's true, as a matter of fact, I will say this, and that's what
we're gonna talk about tonight, or this morning, it's a late day,
that's what we're gonna talk about this morning, is that the
goodness of God is that Real attribute from which all things
flow. All, let me tell you something,
all things flow. God's goodness is from which
His righteousness comes. His justice, His wrath, His love,
His hate, His goodness. God is holy. And see, a lot of
people think holy means good. That's not what it means. Holy
means different. Holy means set apart. Holy means to be separate. Be holy, be separate, be as I
am, God says, for I am holy. But out of that holiness, out
of that separation, why is God separate? Because He is good
in all ways at all times. God's goodness is what makes
Him God, and vice versa. because he's God he's good now
it's become cliche in our world it's become cliche as I've said
many times over is people I say but God is good all the time
and all the time God is good and it's just a it's almost like
a farce right it's like in high school when
you know we were national champions in basketball And I can't remember
what the slogan was. Oh, I know what the slogan was.
We ain't no joke, which said we were a joke. Our English teachers
were upset about it, but hey, what do you say? We're national
champions. We'll say what we want to say.
That's how it worked. And we could have little things,
and we could yell little things in pep rally, and the entire
student body would yell out the response. And I think that's
where we are in our culture today. I think that we're yelling out
a pep rally response to what we hear. If God is good, we just
yell out the pep rally response in our minds. We yell out the
pep rally response because culturally speaking, it's really cool to
agree on godly things. Yet, if we're not agreeing in
the context of scripture, we don't know what we're talking
about. If we can't go to the Psalms and see, just like this
morning as I read Psalm 33, if we can't go to the Psalms and
see that God's steadfast love endures forever, then we don't
know that God's love endures forever. We may know it in our
brains. We may know that it is true,
but do we really know it? We need to learn. We need to
learn, we need to learn the word. How do you learn the word? You
read it. You read it over and over again. That's how you know
a song. That's how you know a book. That's how you can quote movie
lines. I can quote movie lines from 35 years ago. Verbatim. And I can correct the knuckleheads
who think they know the lines and they try them and they go,
no, that's not right. You got the inflection wrong. You got
the pronunciation wrong. You got the slang wrong. It's
not in, it's at. I mean, you know, we're particular
about these things which we love. Let us be as particular about
the scripture, not in a suspicious way, not in a paranoid way. That
is not of the Lord, but in a way that is resolving to make sure
that we always tell the truth concerning who God is and always
tell the truth concerning what God has said, because when we
take it lightly, we can lead a lot of people down to the pep
rally mode. of just repeating the actions and repeating the
language that they know nothing of. And beloved, if we're just
repeating that which we know nothing of, how can we test it?
We have to test it according to the scriptures. We have to
test it according to the context. You know, there are no contradictions
in this scripture. None. There are no theological
and didactic teaching. There are no teaching contradictions
in the scripture. There are none. Now, I've seen
higher critics. I've seen people write volumes
on it. And I find it a really weird and strange effort. Well, they said three and they
said two. Said before the dawn, they said at dawn. Andrew came
before Peter. Peter came before Andrew. You
know, I saw we had a little conversation Wednesday night about Q. If you
don't know who Q is, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. This is
what we do, isn't it? It's what we do in our humanity.
It's what we do when we get a piece of information that's simplistically
taught by the Spirit of God, by His grace alone, and we receive
it through the Scripture. We want to piece it out. We want
to unpack it more. And we think that that intellectual
pursuit is spirituality. It's not. It's humanism. Do you think Moses had an idea
about DNA? Do you think he had any understanding
about proteins? Do you think God is revealing
anything about proteins in his holy writ? No, not at all. Carbon either. When I was growing up, carbon
was that thing that went between the pages so that you could keep
a copy. That's why it's called a carbon copy. Most people are
going, what? The Word of God teaches us a
lot of things about God. And one of the things that we
need to really make sure we don't miss, and I've said it already,
but I want you to see that this is exegetical. It's out of the
text. It's exposing what the Bible
is actually teaching, that God, in all His ways, is good. And Genesis chapter one teaches
us that. And Genesis chapter 1 teaches us that God alone has
the power to make all things good. And therefore Jesus, who is Messiah,
the same word as Christ, the Holy Anointed One come from God,
In John 3, when Nicodemus says, we know you are the one come
from God. We know you are Meshach. We know
you are Messiah. We know you are the Christ. For
no one can do that which you do except God be with him. He confessed that Jesus was the
Christ. He knew it. 1000% assurance he knew that
he was the fulfillment of the prophecy of the coming one. But
yet he didn't know Christ. The data of doctrine will not
save you. Only God can save you. The understanding
of things will not save you. Only the Spirit of God can save
you by grace. Christ has the power to make
all things good. In Genesis 1, we saw the creation of the world,
the creation of the universe, the creation of land, the creation
of the sky, creation of every living place, every place where
living creatures can exist. And then we saw God create living
creatures in each spot for his purposes. And what did he call
it every single day? What did he call these things?
He called them by their names, sky and dirt, okay? That's heavens and earth, sky
and dirt. This is the created, the physical essence of the atmosphere
and the ground. And the waters, once they were separated, there's
this creation of waters. Before that, it was the abyss,
it was the nothing. There was nothing there, and
then God created the waters. Why? Because the purpose of that,
as we've seen, is that God is the only one who can take nothing
and make everything. And what was creation's role
in the whole of this? Nothing. Because it was nothing. It did not exist. It wasn't laying
somewhere in a subatomic particle to be exposed by the power and
the control of God who had harnessed this stuff. It is that God was
and then he created all that there is. God called this light. God called this night. God called
this day. God called this heavens. God
called this earth. God called this land. He called
this seas. He called these creatures. He
called this beasts. He called these plants, trees,
all sorts of things. But every single time he also
called it good. And it was good. Now we have
an ongoing battle in my home. I mean, it's been going on for
at least a year and a half, two years. Maybe COVID instigated
it or not, but there's nothing that goes on in my house that's
not competitive. I don't know why. And I've lost
my competitiveness. I guess when I tore my shoulder
up a couple of years ago, I just decided to quit trying to run
and be fast and be quick. But I'm fully aware and conscious
of time. Almost constantly. Constantly. Pretty much like on a stopwatch,
I can tell you how many minutes have gone by. It's this weird
thing. So I've always made it a point
to know how quickly or what's the most efficient way. Not obsessive,
but just an efficient way. If I do this, if I lay this here,
if I put this here, then it's a lot more efficient. If I drive
and traveling, oh my goodness. My family doesn't let me talk
when we're going on trips. They just don't even talk. They
eat MREs a couple of days ahead of time, so they don't have to
go to the bathrooms. And, I mean, you know, because they don't
stop. You don't stop. There's a certain
amount of time. But competition. I mean, hey,
do you have the answer to this? Robin will come in and say, hey,
guess what I learned? Bet you I don't know this. And she's
got a lot of interesting Facts and data and, I mean, discoveries. We're always discovering something
new. But it's now plagued down into, you know what, I bet I
can finish this chess move quicker than you could. I bet I can get
my shoes on faster than you could. I don't know where that came
from. And as the kids get older, it's not as bad, but Abigail
has it really bad. Draw a picture. Out of all the
pictures that have ever been drawn in the world, Dad, where
does mine place? It's at the top. No, choose. Is it the highest? Of all the
pictures you've drawn, this is the best one you've ever... Dad,
you're not answering my question. You know. Cousins come over,
draw pictures. Which one's better? You lose.
I mean, you know, this happened last night. I mean, it was just
like, what in the world? We're not in competition. But
we have this innate desire for everything we do to be good.
We wanted to be good. I mean, I went to music school,
performance, and jazz, saxophone, and voice, and other things.
And I've never met anybody. You went to music school. I've
never met anybody enter music school. And you know what? I
stink at music. I just think I'd enjoy this. Well, guess what?
When you stand in front of the faculty, and you perform your
piece, and then they hand you the sight reading stuff, and
you sound like a cat on the tin roof being scratched, yanked
off by its tail, they go, thank you, but no thanks. You're not
what? Good enough. to participate. And everybody in music school
thought they were good. And they were good, but they
weren't all as good as the others. That's why you had first chair,
and second chair, and third chair. And that really just determined,
am I in the practice room nine hours a day or three hours a
day? That's all it meant. Nine hours a day, how do you
do that? You get in at midnight, you stay till four in the morning.
That's what happens. so you can get that extra time.
You bathe in the sink, and you go to class at 7 a.m. Everybody wants to be good. Everybody
wants to be part of creation. Everybody wants to see, oh, God
created this. He saw that it was good. He saw
that it was good. He saw that it was good. You've got to understand
something. Our human minds want to say, I'm part of creation,
so therefore I'm good. What does Jesus say to the rich
young ruler in that? Brother brought it up this morning, Mark
10. What does the rich young ruler say to Jesus? He says to
Jesus, what does he say? First, he goes up to Jesus, he
calls him master, teacher. He bows down before him and puts
his face on his knees. That's what a bow looked like.
This man His face was on his own knees. And says, what must
I do, good teacher, in order to inherit eternal life? And
Jesus retorts this way. Why do you call me good? No one
is good but God. And there's a lot of implications
we can do with that. We're not gonna go there today, but there's a lot of implications
there. We even, if we don't see ourselves as good, we ascribe
goodness to other things, don't we? It's like the word love,
right? We love pizza, we love nice weather,
we love winter, we love summer. Whatever it is, our prerogative,
I do not love summer, except in San Francisco. I love summer
in San Francisco, it's pretty chilly. Get to wear jeans and
a jacket and a hat, earmuffs after dark. We love, we love,
we love. We love our children, we love
our dogs, we love our fish, we love our cars, we love each other,
we love the Lord, he loves us. Hallelujah, everything is just
one big lovey-dovey time. We do the same thing with good.
How you doing? I'm good. Was that pizza good? That pizza was
good. I love it. It's good. I don't particularly
care for that type of meat. It's not good for me. It's still
a good pizza. In comparison of all the pizzas in the world,
this is the best one. My daughter must have made it. So we ascribe goodness to things
that aren't good. And then we misinterpret the
idea of who is good and what is good. If Jesus says that only
God is good, then why in the world do we consider things good
that aren't God? Well, the Bible says in Genesis
1 that he saw that it was good. He made it and he looked down
there and said, wow, it's good. Let's talk about some of that.
The title of the sermon today is Christ has the power to make
all things good. And I'm going to focus on the
goodness of God in a way that you've probably not ever thought
about it from the context of Genesis chapter 1. And I don't
have to go through and read all these things. I mean, you can
see them. He created these things. He saw that it was good. He saw
that it was good. He saw that it was good. And then when he gets to humanity,
he says what? It's very good. And we'll talk
about that next week. and we talk about the image of
God. We're gonna briefly touch it today, and then we're gonna
talk about it next week in detail. See, Jesus in the Gospels healed
people. Jesus in the Gospels fed people.
Jesus in the Gospel performed miracles in front of people.
Jesus in the Gospels, in the Gospel accounts, well, in his
ministry, but in the Gospels, it records all of these things
that Jesus has done. And so we can even say, okay,
God is good, And only God is good and then God does good. Jesus does good things. Jesus
fed people. good things. They were hungry,
He gave them something to eat. As a matter of fact, Jesus even
commands all His people, all the church, all the elect, all
the believers, He commands us all to do what? To do good to
other people, to do well in serving them, to love them by laying
down our lives and what we have for the sake of their needs,
even when they hate us. Is that not what Christ did for
us? His people, while we were what? Listen to the language
of Paul. While we were still enemies, Christ died for us. While we were dead in our sins
and trespasses, He laid down His life for us. Effectually. And affectionately. Jesus did all these things. And
why did Jesus do all these miracles? Well, it proved he was God. It
proved he is the creator of all things because only God can give
blind men sight. Only God can make legs grow.
Only God can take a born paralytic and give them the ability to
walk. Only God can take water and turn it into the finest wine
that the world has ever seen. Only God can raise a man rotting
in a grave to life, only God can lay down his own life and
take it up again. And the scriptures teach us that everything, if
everything Jesus taught and if every miracle he ever did was
written down, what does it say? There's not enough paper in the
world. So the small, tiny, little, microscopic picture of the ministry
of Jesus Christ doesn't even scratch the surface of what he
did teach and what he did accomplish and the people that he did interact
with. But yet everything that we need
to know and everything that he ever taught is completely preserved
in the scriptures. He didn't leave stuff out. But
he taught to so many more people. He did miracles in front of and
for so many other people. And beloved, we have to understand
this is the nature of Jesus Christ, the God-man. Jesus Christ, the
eternal Son of God, who became flesh and dwelt among us, tabernacled
with us in John 1. Lived among his own creation
as if he were himself a created thing. He wasn't. He's the creator of all things.
So that He may, what? In the purpose of the world's
existence, be the Lamb of God to take away the sins of all
of His people throughout the entire world. We've learned already, and this
is something that I want you to ascribe to God's goodness,
is that God, out of nothing, made something. And that out
of chaos, He made order. and that out of order he made
life. And out of life he purposed redemption
and out of redemption he gave very certain promises. And that's
sort of a recap of what we've learned in the last three weeks.
God's promises are as powerful and authoritative as His decrees,
because that's what they are. God said, let there be light,
and then there was light. It existed because God said that
it would, and it became. God said it was good, and that's
why it's good. Not because of itself. So then when God makes his promises,
he does not suggest or promise something and then wait on something
else on the outside to fulfill his promises. God is not waiting
for man, for humanity to do something or to respond or to approach
him or to approach his parameters. He didn't create the land and
the sky and say, okay, there are the building blocks of life,
get to it. He didn't put Adam in the garden
and say, make yourself a wife. God does not wait upon another
in order for something to be. Listen to this church. He says
it and it is. He says it and he does it. He
decrees it, therefore it shall come to pass. Sound familiar,
Isaiah? God speaking. If God says it,
it shall come to pass. You know, I really have a problem.
It's not just not understanding the goodness of God. It's not
understanding the sovereignty of God. So I'll infiltrate that idea into this
message today. God's goodness is the quintessential
centerpiece of his essence. Let me say that again. God's
goodness is the quintessential centerpiece of his essence. Everything
flows from that. Everything. Everything's attached to that.
Why? Because God in everything that
he is, is God. Everything that is God is God.
Everything that is in God is God. God's goodness is attached
to everything he is. Therefore, it's attached to everything
he does. Now see, the world likes that
message. Because the world then leaves scripture with that knowledge
and goes, yes, God is good all the time and all the time. God
is good. God is good in the morning. God is good in the evening. God
is good in the midday afternoon. God is good. Because look here,
there's a new pair of shoes. Look here at this new job. Look
here at this health report. Well, is God good in the bad
times? Is God good in the destruction? Teach a seven-year-old about
how God's goodness, I've been talking to my seven-year-old
a lot in the last eight or nine days about the goodness of God,
and most importantly, his sovereignty. And it's blowing her mind. She
came up to me the day before yesterday, she said, Daddy, how
is it when a baby dies good? See, we've got a grandchild now,
so. There's this new baby in the family. And of course, everybody's
always thinking about stuff like that. How is it good? So what did I
do? I taught her what the scripture
says, and then I reminded her about the life of Joseph. See,
the life of Joseph, I can't wait to teach that sometime next year,
you know? The life of Joseph is a really good picture about
God's all-the-time goodness. He's always good. And people who have not been
granted the change of mind which is saving faith, to know Him,
to understand Him and to be at peace with who He is as He's
revealed Himself to us. They don't get this. They think
that it's maniacal. Why in the world? But see, they
don't understand God's goodness is at the centerpiece of who
He is. And so when things happen, he
is sovereign over them. God isn't permitting the creature
to establish bad. God has decreed the bad to take
place for his purposes. And one real thing, you know,
we could go to Job, but I decided that Joseph was a more benign
story than Job at bedtime. It's always bedtime. Daddy, I
want to hear about the Bible, you know. An hour ago, you didn't. Joseph was hated by his family. Joseph was ordained and called
of God to be a ruler over all people. And the method and the progress
and the procedure, or whatever you want to call it, of how God
ordained and decreed that is that through hatred, murder,
lies, selling into slavery, lying to the father about his death,
I mean, how many years did they live under that lie and they
were fine with it? The story's not about how wicked
the men are, his brothers are, the story is how good God is. And the scriptures say there,
God says in his word, what men intended for evil, I use for
good. In Romans chapter 8, when we
see that nothing can separate us from the love of God which
is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing. God Himself cannot separate
us from His love because His love is eternal. His love flows
from His goodness toward His people in the giving of His Son
so that His righteousness, His justice, His wrath is satisfied. You understand that these are
inseparable realities of who God is. They're all together
the same at all times and always because God is unchanging. He does not operate in any specific
time frame of human existence in any different way for any
different motive. He is always moving straight
toward the sense of showing His glory and the redemption of His
people and His righteousness is established in the sacrifice
of Jesus Christ for His people and those people will come to
know, acknowledge, and understand His love for them. And that's
why it's called the good report, the good news. It's a good news
story. The gospel should never be bad
news. It's a good news story. So when
do we see this? It is good and God saw that it
was good and God saw that it was good. We need to see that
God has revealed Himself in several ways here, but two specific ways
I want us to understand. God proves two specific things
that I want to focus on today in the creation, in the revelation
of Scripture. One is that He is able. And two, He alone is able. I want you to hear those two
things again. God is able. Now, back in the
late 80s or early 90s or sometime, I remember there was a Christian
song out, God is able. And it just, I don't know, this
music was terrible. You remember that? It was, looking
back on it, this is terrible stuff. And the music was terrible. I mean, just from it, it was
not good. We put that on competition, it'd get a C. But God is able. Nobody disagrees
that God is able to do all things. But he goes beyond that and reveals
that only he is able. Only God is able to create. Only
God is able to make all things good. Only God is able to do
what God is doing. He doesn't need us. Now, for the philosophers in
the room who care, you know, secondary causes. Okay, God is
the decreer of these things. I, the Lord God, do what I want. I do whatever pleases me. I mean,
here's a paraphrase of God revealing himself to the world, and specifically
to his people. I can cause a bird to fly from
Maine to Oregon. You ever think about that? that
birds fly from Maine to Florida, that creatures crawl around the
ground thousands of miles and relocate. I can cause a man to come from
over here to go over there. Many times in our lives, people
say, what are you doing? Why are you going there? What
is there? I don't know. I don't know what's
there, but it's OK. We have to go. How do you know?
I'm not going to think about that. I just know. Now, that
could be insanity or it could be divine intervention either
way, whether it be through the straitjacket or the minivan. It's the will of the Lord. I'm
going to be where God wants me to be. You can call that fatalism, you
can call that determinism, I call it sovereignty. I call it part
of the goodness of God. So that in the midst of all suffering,
teach your children that the suffering is not what God allows,
the suffering is what God has decreed to use to strengthen
our faith, to give us reasons for worship, to understand that
He is powerful in all of these things. As a matter of fact,
do you know the gospel in and of itself comes with the greatest
suffering in the world? The very fact that Jesus Christ,
the eternal God, who became a man, suffered the escape of glory. That's not like a new universal
ride, doesn't it? Escape from glory. Can you imagine? It'd be very tough to figure
that one out. And then to be hated, to be in
obscurity. How does the God of all glory
become obscure? You see him in the temple at
a festival at 12 and you don't see him again until he's 30.
And when you do, he starts out with conflict. And he's hated,
and he's homeless, and he's hungry. He's heartbroken. The H. Alliteration just comes too easy. And then he dies. at the hands
of evil men and wicked men who cannot see him for who he is,
because God the Father has ordained before the creation of time that
the reason the world exists is that because only out of chaos
can there come life. Only by death can something be
rectified. For the remission of sin only
comes through the shedding of blood. So God in all of his goodness
killed his own son. The creation of the world. So when Jesus heals the blind
in his ministry, it is only God who can give sight. When Jesus
does anything, it is only God. Just like it is only God who
can give eternal life. And you realize eternal life
is not your fate. Eternal life is the one who is
faithful. Jesus is the Christ. Therefore,
when a person comes to rest in the promise of God in Christ,
it is God who has given that person that resting faith, that
repentance, so that he or she may know what previously was
not known. God does not give details and
data and then say, oh, there it is, take it or leave it. This
isn't an option. Would you like first class? Would
you like to upgrade? Would you like an early flight?
Would you like a layover? Would you like a straight thing? It's
gonna be $5,000 either way. What option do you want? No,
there's no options. The gospel is not this presentation
by which men are given, through which men are given opportunity
for salvation. The gospel is a proclamation
and a declaration of a finished salvation. That's the whole point
of Sabbath rest we talked about last Sunday. It's a finished
work. Created the world and he's done
and it's over and everybody gets to behold the goodness of God
and they rest in it. They don't have to work anymore.
Retirement is not what you think it is. It's still work. Office time? Doctor's office.
I mean, you're going to the office either way. It doesn't matter. God doesn't give details and
data and then wait upon man. He makes the man know Him. And then the man continually
learns and grows in the knowledge of grace. The goodness of God. Let's talk about four ways in
which the goodness of God is revealed in Genesis 1. First,
the goodness of God is revealed in creation. This is obvious,
right? And why? I'm going to go ahead
and give you the punchline. Why does He call it good? Because
He made it. Because what God does is good. The thing in and
of itself is not good. Why? Oh, where do you get that?
Well, listen, man, when we get over to, ladies and gentlemen,
men and women, I don't know why I said man. Let me tell you right
now. The reason, when we get over
to Genesis 4 and we start seeing Cain and Abel, we've already
preached that. We've preached that in Hebrews, we've preached that in John,
we've preached that in 1 John rather. We've already touched
on that, but the reason Cain and all of his glorious, worshipful,
amazing offerings were rejected is because God hated Cain. I want you to think about that
for a second. He favored Abel. I've got to be careful with that
word though, right? Favored. Because it has a theological
connotation. And sometimes we use words, or I use words, without
really thinking about them until somebody says, well, what do
you mean by that? And then I think about them. And then I think about them too much,
and I obsess over them. Then I rewrite the dictionary, and
then I rewrite my language. And then I practice in front
of the mirror, losing that term. And then I'm scared of the term.
And that's ridiculous. Just explain and become more
precise. We shouldn't have to live like
that. That's not gospel freedom. That's
punishment. So God is in creation showing
that no matter who makes something, only God can, but let's just
suppose as Cain made an offering unto the Lord, it was completely
and perfectly in line with anything that anybody else could present,
but it was not accepted because Cain was not accepted. So the only reason Abel's offering
was good is because God called Abel good and so therefore everything
that Abel offered was good because God called it good. Now you see
where we're going? The plants and the moon and the
stars, as much as it shows the glory of God's divine power,
it's not good except that he called it good. And he created
it, therefore it is good. He created it. So it's important
to know this before we get to the Imagio Dei. What's the image
of God? Man, the philosophers have filled
the fodder of our brains with all sorts of technical things.
I think it's enough for a child who could read and sit down and
listen to a story to understand and receive in resting faith
about what it means to make man in our image, as God says. So
hopefully, as we're done in the next few weeks with this, we'll
all have a better grasp, a simpler grasp, and a resting grasp of
what this is actually teaching. So God's goodness is revealed
in creation because He is good to create that which is good,
and He called it good because He created it. So if He created
it and then did not call it good, He would not be good. And so in creation God reveals
how he can make all things and he alone is able to make all
things and not only that he's able to make all things perfect,
complete, good, glorious, revealing himself in every single detail. That's the first way. The second
way is God showing his goodness in redemption which is the purpose
of creation. Not only that redemption may
come to pass in time, but that it shows, even in the creation
of the world, His redemptive power. The purpose of creation is to
show that God alone can make all things good. He will do this. Now see, this is a promise that
we've seen. I'm throwing that word out there. This is a promise
that we've seen already in the Scripture. But this is why, this is one
of the reasons, one of the main rivers that flow through the
assembly of the saints is that we understand God's promises
are good. God's promises are certain. And
God's promises to his people are eternal life. God's promises
to those who are not his people is eternal death. It's a promise,
it's a guarantee. It's a done deal, it's a finished
work, it's a finished decree, it is already done. That's fatalistic. That's determinism. That's sovereignty.
That's good. Because all that God does is
good. We love the term righteousness. And righteousness is really the
package. It's the tag, the bow, the paper,
the box, and the contents of the box that has everything to
do with the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's about righteousness. How
is a human being made righteous before the Lord? Not how can you be righteous?
What can you do to become righteous? How much obedience is required
to become righteous? What response do you have to
become righteous? Versus righteousness. If we are not righteous, that
means if we are not good and only God is good, then we will
stand in judgment. So with the creative power of
God in creation and creates everything according to his purpose and
to his after the counsel of His own will, and He says that it
is good because He has created it in that way. It is good. The only way that we can have
hope for eternal life is to know that God has created us, and
in His creation, and in His purposes, and in His promises, He has created
us in Christ. and He has called us good. So
the righteousness that is ours is not our own righteousness,
it is gifted to us to our credit. It is to our account. We are
spiritually, morally, and goodly bankrupt. We are bankrupt in
the context of goodness. And though we may mimic goodness,
we may mimic righteousness, we may act in righteous ways, it
is yet but nothing but the duty of man. to do that which is required. And yet even when we do that
which is required, guess what happens? We still are dead! Because the law was given that
we may die, as you'll see next week. In Genesis 2. But the promise of God is eternal
life in Christ Jesus. Imagine Paul, a doctor of theology,
his entire life memorizing, memorizing the Pentateuch, memorizing Moses,
applying Moses, teaching Moses, living Moses, organizing Moses,
administrating Moses, all these things, and then pursuing with
zeal the anti-Moses Christians. And then one day Jesus goes,
wake up. See me. And he sees him. And all of that comes to supernatural
knowledge to Paul. Of the awareness of everything
that he thought all of a sudden. And some of us are in that same
boat, right? We had all manner of Christological ideas, and
theological ideas, and religious ideas, and superstitions, and
Baptist ideas, and Methodist ideas, and Armenian ideas, and
Calvinist ideas, and all sorts of stuff. And then on one day,
God the Son opens our eyes. And we go, this is trash. And some of us don't have that
testimony at all. Because we never learn that stuff. Our children
won't grow up in that culture. But no matter what, whatever
our thoughts on righteousness were, the new birth changes them. And we realize that God alone
is good. And if God doesn't credit us with his own goodness, If
he doesn't make us in his own image of goodness, of righteousness,
of separateness, holiness, we are condemned. So God's goodness is revealed
in redemption. God can make all things good.
He will set all things right. And the miracles of Jesus in
his ministry proved that he could. Look at the temporary... I mean,
you think about... I mean, John 11 is one of my
favorite places that reveal the glory of God in such a perfect
way that Lazarus dies. And I get my theology from the
Lord and from His Word, but I believe that death is a conscious reality. I believe that Paul understood
that by the Spirit of God and he says that when I leave this
body I'm with my Lord. In what sense? In the relationship
of righteousness. I don't think we're going to
be playing chess or having picture contests or anything. I think
we're just going to be in the presence of the Lord. We don't
know anything above that or beyond that and then that's enough.
And Jesus also says that to the thief on the cross that he regenerates
by the Spirit that very moment. When just a few, just a little
while, I don't want to say a few minutes or an hour, A little
while after mocking him and cursing him, this thief says, remember
me when you take your throne. And Jesus says to him, today,
you will be with me in glory. Okay? So the revelation of what Christ
has done, even in creation, Christ is the creator of the world.
We see that in Hebrews chapter 1, we see that in Colossians
chapter 1, we see that, we've gone there. The goodness of God is revealed
in redemption. Jesus' miracles reveal that though these temporary
pictures, oh this is where I was going, Lazarus dies. So this is the point of all this.
Lazarus dies and is with God. And then God calls him back to
his body. And then the powers that be of
man-centered glory, man-centered religion, man-centered history,
they want to kill him. Kill him and kill the very one
that rose him from the dead, that resurrected him. Now look
at that. That's a temporary... Where's
Lazarus now? With Christ. Because he eventually died again.
This temporary stuff, these miracles and things are temporary. Creation
is temporary. The incarnation was temporary. Now it's glorification we look
for. Now it's perfection that we look for. We are called perfect
because we are in Christ perfect. Because Christ is perfect. This
is the goodness of God in creation that is to point to the goodness
of God in redemption. And beloved, we are not good
in and of ourselves. We are not worthy to be called
good. We're not worthy to be loved by God in redemption because
there's nothing in us lovable. And I've made the joke my entire
life, and I've gotten dirty letters from older church members before
because it was sort of crude, but I often made the joke that
the reason that our children are so cute is so we don't kill
them. Child Protective Services. You
got any ugly children? Okay, all your children are safe.
But I mean, think about it. You go to a knuckle sandwich
and he's like, but it's so cute when they disobey. No, it's not. It's wicked. But I mean, imagine if it was
ugly and had a horn growing out of its eye or, you know, every
time it opened its mouth, it, gaseous fumes. Left leg scratched the wood floor
every time it dragged it over with its big claws at the end.
I mean, like, I love this thing, but oh, gosh. Can we build a
pen outside? I mean, you know. We're not lovely. We're not lovable. And the only
reason that we are lovely is because God in His goodness has
decreed, He has said, we are lovely. He has declared us lovely. Why? Because He has given us
before the world began to His Son. Good news. You know why? Because
it gets us all off, we're off the hook. We're off the hook. We're not having to work for
our salvation. We're not having to become the greater man or
the greater woman or the more righteous person. We're not having
to get up every day and wonder if we're pleasing or displeasing
the Lord and hope that He sees our good efforts. I read Romans again this week.
Not a good thing to read in the context of trying to teach Old
Testament narratives, but I mean, when you think of Romans 11,
I mean, look at that. Basically the Lord says, who? Is He repaying you? Is God doing
this because He owes it to you? Have we done something worthy
that God's got to pay us back or give us a bonus? No. God's not repaying anything.
God has established and created everything for His purpose. The goodness of God is revealed
in creation, which in the same way then is revealed in redemption. Which also reveals God's goodness
in the same way because it is in sovereignty. God is alone
the actor in creation. God is alone the actor in salvation.
God alone is the actor of making things good and giving things
life. Therefore, the gospel of free
and sovereign grace is the message of the Bible and those who reject
that message have yet to be born of God. I want you to hear that again.
Those who reject the message of the Gospel according to the
Scripture, according to God's sovereignty, according to the
freeness of grace. They have yet to be born of God
because they don't see, they can't behold, they can't see
the goodness of God in sovereignty. It doesn't mean they're reprobated,
it just means they're unconverted. And when they are converted,
we celebrate. And when they're not converted,
we continue to teach them. We don't have to emphasize the
lostness. Let's proclaim the truth. Tell them. The Bible would say you haven't
come to know the truth. The Bible says you have not been born again.
Now let's look at the truth, but what does the flesh want
to do? Don't let people sideline your
evangelism. Be bold and state the truth and
state that which is true according to scripture and then stay on
that path. Stay on that path. It's okay
to say to someone, that's not what the Bible teaches. And if
that's what you hope in, you haven't been born of God. It's
okay to say that. Or lost, or haven't been saved,
or whatever your vernacular might be. In sovereignty, the goodness
of God is revealed. In creation, the sovereignty of God, the redemption
of God is revealed in creation. The sovereignty of God is revealed
in creation. The sovereignty of God is revealed
in redemption. The goodness of God is revealed in redemption.
The goodness of God is revealed in... You see how this is? So
God, in sovereignty, reveals His goodness. He is fulfilling
all that He has decreed or said. God said, then He did. God said,
then it was. God said, then it became. And
He looked and saw that it was good. Because He did it. He accomplished
it. With no help. With no outside influence. With no substance other than
His own Word. Calling into being that which
is. God is fulfilling all that He
has said that He would do in order to show Himself as Himself. What's another word for that?
To reveal His glory. And this includes the purposes
for which He has planned every second of time. Beloved, the
reason we stay so bogged down in this world as believers is
because we fail to understand God's goodness and His sovereignty.
We hear it, God calls us all things to work together for good
for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
And then Paul explains what that is. That's an eternal love for
knowledge. That's a decree of destiny in
Christ, predestination, election. the effectual call, all the things
that are related to salvation, all in past tense, this that
God has said, it is good enough as done and it is about the eternal
glory that we shall share with the Lord Jesus Christ as His
redeemed, as His body, as His people, as His adopted,
as His beloved, as His cherished children. So in all of that We hear these words and we think,
well, when is God going to bring it out to good and glory? Because I don't know about you,
but I've seen some created things that were pretty ugly. And I've
seen some beautiful people that were pretty ugly. And I've seen
some pretty ugly people that were pretty, pretty pretty. From a human way of speaking
subjectively. My beloved, we're not looking
for things to get better. We're waiting for the day of
perfection. Let me say that two more times. We're not looking
for things to get better. We're waiting for the day of
perfection. We're not looking for things to get better. We're
waiting for the day of perfection. Better is still bad. Better is
a temporary, quote, blessing. that takes our eyes off the glory
of that amazing Lord. Beloved, it happens in a second.
Don't think that you're by yourself and losing sight of the gospel.
It's not like weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks, it's like
seconds. You get up from an incredible time of reading the word and
you might even have some hymns playing in the background. You
might even be singing like JJ's favorite hymn, victory in Jesus,
you might be singing it. Walk outside, step in a plot,
because your neighbor's dog came on your sidewalk. And we lose it over that. We
lose sight of that. Not only do we lose it, but we
lose sight of the gospel. We're not focusing on the goodness.
We're thinking, I just bought these shoes. I can't believe
this. My neighbor is a horrible person. I'm going to kill that
dog. I'm going to build a fence for the dog and my child. God is working every second of
time from the very beginning when he said, let there be light
until the very day when that light is eternally with us and
we with him. God is ordaining every second
for our good. And we look at each other's lives,
we think, oh, that's so good. Oh, I wish my life was like that.
Beloved, no. Everybody that you see and you say, if you were
to talk to them, they'd be looking at somebody else's life. Oh,
I wish my life was like that. That life is so good. My life
is so bad. Beloved, our lives are awesome in Christ. I've stopped saying, oh, I feel
bad. I'm tired. This is going to be
a hard day. I've just tried to change the way I think in that
recently. This is the greatest day that
ever existed. For this is the day created by
God for His purpose and glory in me. Whether I twist my ankle
off, or break my face, or fall down a flight of stairs, or die,
I still win. Always winning, because God is
sovereign. And the fourth and final thing,
well, let me talk about the aspects of God's sovereignty, and I'll
pick up with some of this next week, but there's several aspects
of God's sovereignty. God, of course, has created decrees
and creation. He's also creating His elect
sheep and their knowledge of Him and His power and for His
purpose. And I think this sovereignty,
we need to think about two specific things. We need to think about
providence and we need to think about, in the same way, provision. God shows Himself good in providence
because in providence, that means that He manages time and everything
that happens. Why? For the good of His name,
which is for the beneficiaries of His goodness who are His people. You know the false gospels of
prosperity that want to say, you want to live your best life
now? Then pray for this and do this and do that. It's garbage.
But beloved, sometimes, no not sometimes, every time, a reprobate
person, a person whom God has set aside for destruction, ultimately
in the end, This is the best they'll ever have it. And they mistake the temporality
of good things as real goodness. And a lot of them just give God
credit for it. And they thank Him, but they don't know Him.
But most of the world takes and never thanks Him. So God, what? Turns them over. There's not
a causation there, one to the other, except in one way. God
has decreed them reprobate. God uses all things for His glory,
all things for His purpose, and no man can answer to Him or question
Him. We see that in the writing concerning
Job. And in provision, and these things
go together, but in provision, God has made provision. I think
it's Genesis 22 when Abraham is taking his son to sacrifice
him. It's good stuff, y'all. And many
times during that narrative, the boy says, Father, where is
the sacrifice? Where is the sacrifice? Where is the animal for our offering? And Abraham answers, Son, God
will provide for himself a sacrifice. This is provision of a good God.
toward his people, he has provided a sacrifice for himself. And that is the final thing I
want you to see. And pun intended, the goodness of God is seen in
the finality of redemption. The finality of creation. And
then God finished and created all things and he finished. It
was done and it was all good. And he rested. He was complete. And his work. God has finished
the work of creation. It is lacking nothing and in
that picture salvation is lacking nothing. It is full and it is
finished and that is why the Son of God on the cross made
that His final statement. It is finished. I'm coming home. And then He
died. God will give knowledge of this
truth by the Spirit to His people in Jesus Christ. And only His
people will understand this. Only His people will know this.
Only His people will rest and be satisfied in this truth. They will know Him and understand
what He teaches. And we will be together as a
body in that. The Lord has decreed to save His people. And so it
shall be. And God the Father has satisfied
His justice, satisfied His wrath, satisfied His love, satisfied
His righteousness, which is all bound to His goodness in the
person of Jesus. And because of that, we can celebrate,
we can remember, and we can rejoice. So beloved, be encouraged today
in the gospel of Christ. Father, we are so glad to be
counted in the number of goodness. And I thank you, Father, for
the depth at which your Word just overflows with this truth. Father, You are good in Your
justice. You are good in Your anger. You
are good in Your love. You are good in Your forgiveness.
You are good in Your wrath. You are good in creation. You
are good in redemption. Father, You are good in all ways.
All that You do is good. And it is good. And You are set
apart beyond all things. So everything that we know as
righteousness, we know because we see You say it and we see
You do it. And that is how you have revealed
the fullness of all that you are to us. And the greatest thing
that you have ever shown us about yourself is Jesus Christ face
to face. We get to see the fullness of
your goodness and the salvation of your people. So Lord, as we continue to worship
this morning, as we taste the bread and the vine, let us know
that that is a good taste. And it came at great cost. And
we have a lot of great, perfect, glorious hope ahead of us. In Christ we pray. Amen. Let's take time to take the Lord's
Table in remembrance of this today.