Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2005 : July 31, 2005

Theme: The Fruit of the Spirit -- Goodness

Church year occasion: Pentecost 11

I'm always amazed at how beautiful spring is. It's after winter has beaten us down with all its drabness and storms. At that point, God gives us spring to lighten our spirits, to let us see new birth and rebirth, to let us see life and beauty. It's especially evident in blossoming trees and bushes, like crabapple trees. They have beautiful blooms all over, showing the abundant life that's there. But eventually it becomes summer, and the trees and shrubs don't flower anymore. They live through the hot summer sun until the fall when they will lose their leaves and go back into hibernation until the next spring.

A Christian's goodness is like a tree in flower in the spring. Just like a blossoming tree, a Christian's goodness is obvious, seen by all, a breath of fresh air in a sin-sick world. Sometimes a Christian's goodness is even breath-taking because that goodness is so beautiful and self-sacrificing.

So what do people see when they look at you? Do they see a flowering tree in spring where your Christian goodness is obvious and plain for anyone and everyone to see? Or do they see a tree in summer, that really takes a lot to notice the goodness that's there? Or do they see a tree in the fall, where the goodness is starting to look fall by the wayside? Or do they see a tree in winter, where it's hard for anyone to see any goodness or Christian life in you at all? If it's not obvious that you are a Christian by the good things you do and say, then you are not being and doing what God wants you to be and do. You are to be the salt of the earth. You are to be the light of the world.

I recently heard an interesting story about a high school near Baltimore. A few years ago, the principal pulled 507 kids out of class for a surprise assembly. The surprise was that the school honored them for not ever causing trouble. They had good attendance records, hadn't been sent to the office, were never tardy, and were passing all their classes. Basically, they were good kids. Their reward? Local businesses donated everything from free cheeseburgers or haircuts to free Internet access –- all for being good kids.

I've always wondered if giving out traffic tickets for speeders is the best way to keep people from speeding. How about at random pulling over people who are obeying the speed limit and giving them $100 because of their goodness? Wouldn't that be great if a person was rewarded for being good?

God thinks that concept is a great idea. If we can be good enough, God will reward us with eternal life. The problem is that he also will punish those who aren't good enough in his eyes with eternal death. So who is good enough? What constitutes being "good" according to God's definition? Although we'd like to think that some people in this world are good people, maybe including us, the Bible says this: "There is no one who does good -- not even one." (Romans 3).

But then how can the Apostle Paul tell us in Galatians 6:10: "Let us do good to all people"? That seeming contradiction is what we need to look into today as we pick up and examine the Fruit of the Spirit called goodness.

In one of the readings earlier in the service we heard about the man who came up to Jesus and asked, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" The man thought that he had done so many good things and broken no commandments that he would have no problem getting into heaven. Imagine his shock when Jesus answered, "No one is good...except God alone." By saying this, Jesus was not implying that he himself wasn't God, nor that he wasn't good. He was simply telling this man point blank that there is no one who always does good and never sins, and that this man wasn't getting into heaven no matter how good he was -- or thought he was.

The fact of the matter is this: only what measures up to God's will can be honestly classified as good. Even though the rich man thought he was good, even good enough to earn God's favor and eternal life, Jesus has a lesson for him to learn -- a lesson we all need to learn if we don't know it already. And to teach us the lesson Jesus said this: "You know the commandments: do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and your mother." In other words, if we want to see what goodness is in God's eyes, we need to see our lives compared to God's will for our lives, which is summarized in the Ten Commandments.

Anne Frank's diary has as its most famous entry July 15, 1944 –- "In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart." Apparently not all people are, as Anne and her family would find out soon. Her father Otto was the only family member to survive the Nazi death camps. Then we might try to qualify goodness. I might not be perfect, but I'm certainly better than some Nazi who tortured and gassed people who couldn't protect themselves. The Bible disagrees. It says all are dead in sin and can't please God in any way, shape or form. That's because God's definition of "being good" is "being perfect." That's exactly what he meant when he created the world and said that is was "very good"; that means that it was absolutely perfect. And that is the same absolute perfection that he expects of you and me and every single human being. "Good" in the world's eyes isn't good enough. "Good" in God's eyes is all that counts.

The rich man thought that he had kept God's will enough to have God give him heaven. But then Jesus showed at least one of his failures. "He said, 'Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.' At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth." (Mark 10:21-22) This man had broken the most basic of commandments -- the first. He loved and worshiped his money more than he did his Lord and Savior.

We tend to think we're pretty good too, don't we? Even when we confess our sins at church, we can still think about the co-worker who is a worse sinner than we are. Even when we say that nothing good lives in us, we might think we ought to get a pat on the back when we do something nice for someone, sometimes even going well out of our way to do it, when the Bible says we should be doing that all the time. We could go down the Ten Commandments for each person here today, and it wouldn't take long for us to realize that some of us tend to love our money just as the rich man did. Some of us don't have joy in listening to and reading God's Word. Some of us don't respect and honor our parents or others God has placed over us. Some of us hold grudges against others who have wronged us. Some of us want what God doesn't want to give us, while others of us give little or nothing from what God does give us. So we find ourselves in the same boat as the rich man -- a person who has sinned time after time after time against the holy God. That's exactly what God wanted the rich man to realize when he looked at God's Law -- that he was a sinner. That's what he wants us to see also. No amount of goodness on our part is going to save us. The person who is aware of that is much more open to accepting the real way, God's way, the only, the legitimate way of getting to heaven. We know that way. "Jesus Christ is the atoning sacrifice for our sins -- and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world." Jesus was the God-send who filled in for sinful people with a sinless, perfect life and a death designed to remove God's punishment against every sinful human being. God demands and expects that we are good -- meaning, that we are perfect. But Jesus was good for us with the goodness that God demands. When a person hears and accepts that truth as Gospel truth, then he is saved. Heaven is in his grasp. It's promised by God.

It becomes ours simply by believing in Jesus as our Savior. Then Jesus' goodness is given to us, credited to us, and he gets all of our sins instead. That's why we see Jesus on the cross on Good Friday -- so he could pay for our sins and give us his goodness. And that's why we see him rise three days later -- to prove to us and the world that Christians base their faith on a living and victorious Savior. And everyone who believes in Jesus is now good in the eyes of God, which is the only goodness that counts before God.

Jesus told his disciples, "You are the salt of the earth." Salt was used as a preservative for meats. If salt wasn't added, the meat would rot and stink. If Christians don't mix and mingle with the people of the world and speak out for moral goodness and decency, and against immorality and evil, this old world is going to rot. It's already got an immoral stench to it. A great nation which has celebrated 229 years of God's blessings as a nation is rotting from the inside out. Maybe, just maybe, it's because the Christians in it, the people who are decent and moral and good, are not pushing that goodness far enough or fast enough. Don't let anyone talk you into thinking you are meddling in their business by speaking out for moral goodness and decency, whether that be a son or daughter, brother or sister, friend or enemy. God doesn't call it meddling. He labels it a call to repentance, calling them to turn from their ungodliness, and to turn to God and Christ. That is just as Christian and just as good as showing mercy and kindness and patience. We do this, as the Bible puts it, "in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from a trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will." (2 Timothy 2:25-26)

That person is the one who responds by following his Savior's desire and command to be good and do good, to conform his conduct to God's commands. This means life and conduct which will exemplify the goodness of God, the fruit of the Spirit which preserves and pushes moral and ethical goodness or decency, a hallmark identification of God's people.

The escalating violence and immorality of our society is alarming. So politicians and police are calling for better crime prevention and stiffer penalties for offenders. Those measures may have some value, but they don't get to the underlying source of our problems. The root problem is a calloused, ungodly response to God's ways and Words, his grace and his goodness.

As we look at the problems in our world today, instead of calling for civic action to make the world safer, let's instead pray: Lord, help me to be more thankful for your goodness, especially your goodness in Christ and the cross. make me a good, Christ-like influence on those around me. Then we will hear the words of our Savior some day: "Well done, good and faithful servant. Come and share your Master's happiness." Amen.