Articles

The goodness of God is fundamental to his character.

God reveals the heart of who he is to Moses in Exodus 34. He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. That is, at the core of his being, God is good. This means that everything God does is good, and that everything he says is good.

Now, this can sometimes be hard for us to see and believe. When we see something take place in our lives or in our world, knowing that God is good and sovereign, we can often find ourselves starting to doubt God’s character. Similarly, when we hear something in His Word that rubs us up the wrong way we can find ourselves wondering if God really does have my best interests at heart.

Growth in Christian maturity can be conceived of as a deepening trust that God is good even when some things I see or hear might seem contradictory. This is what the bible means by faith. Trusting and believing that God is good and faithful even when we struggle to see it. It is trusting what we hear from God rather than what we see with our eyes.

Peter puts this beautifully in 1 Peter 1:8. “Though you have not seen [Jesus Christ] you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.”

Trusting God’s goodness in the ups and downs of life can be difficult, and similarly trusting the goodness of God’s Word can be difficult at times.

The wonderful Psalm 119 describes God’s Word in a range of exalted ways. For example, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (v. 103). And yet sometimes we hear God’s Word and we find it difficult. We might find it hard to digest rather than sweet to our mouths.

The expectation of mature Christian faith in reading God’s Word is that it will correct and challenge me. I am not the one who decides which parts I like and approve of, and which parts I will discard. As Paul writes to his protégé Timothy, “all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). We ought to expect God’s Word to contradict me. In that situation faith says, ‘God is good, His Word is good, and so I will trust what he says.’

In our current sermon series we are considering some aspects of biblical teaching that we might find unpalatable. My hope and prayer is that each week we will come to the conclusion that what God’s Word teaches on the topic is not some sort of flaw in God’s Word that we need to work around, but it is in fact a beautiful feature that we can rejoice in. I pray that each week we will grow in our trust in God’s goodness, declaring with greater confidence, “You are good, and what you do is good” (Psalm 119:68).

Paul’s prayer for the healthy and spiritually mature church in Thessalonica is that they nevertheless need the Lord to direct their hearts into God’s love (2 Thess 3:5). This is not something we get straight away or ever completely. We grow in this. We need God to so direct our hearts into a deeper grasp of His love.

Then we might be able to indeed “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8).

The Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness (Exodus 34:6)