Acts of Goodness

The Apostle John records a lot of the instructions that Jesus gave the disciples the night before He was crucified. In fact, when we observe the Passover during the spring at the time what Jesus did, we always go through parts of John 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17, because He gave them all these instructions that night. There's one passage I want to look at here to begin the sermon today. Let's go to John 15. John 15. We have been going through a series of sermons on the fruits of the Spirit. And I've mentioned over and over again each time that these fruits are absolutely necessary. You know, the reason we obey God's law, the reason we do what He says, the reason we're here on the Sabbath, is that for these fruits to be produced in us, we are here to have these fruits produced in us.

So these aren't an option. These fruits aren't, well, it's nice. As long as I somehow keep the Ten Commandments, the fruits are some optional thing that happens in my life. No, these are going to be the product of our relationship with God. These are absolutely necessary, and the goal of our development is Christians. And here we see, as we've gone through these different analogies, especially in the New Testament, about bearing fruit. Here in chapter 15, verse 1, Jesus says, I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser. Now, this is real important what he's going to go through here. We see once again, as we've seen in some of his other stories that Jesus taught, some of his parables, that God, the Father, is the vine dresser, the owner of the field. He's the one that's overseeing the production of fruit. And here we have Jesus himself saying, I am the vine. Now, he's using an analogy of grapes. I grew up in a hole where we always had a grape harbor, but they never took care of it. And sometimes you'd go out and there'd be really good grapes. And some years you'd go out and the grapes were so sour you couldn't eat them. And other times you'd go out and there'd be no grapes at all. You couldn't even find any. Because, well, we really never took care of it. We didn't trim it. We didn't fertilize it. We just had grapes out there. So they were almost wild grapes. And when there was a good year, we'd make some jelly and have fun with it. But sometimes we'd go years without grapes. The branches would come off the vine, and then you'd find the fruit come off those branches. So if you've ever had grapes or grown grapes or seen grapes, you'll know exactly what he's talking about here. He says in verse 2, every branch in me, this is very important, Jesus says, in me, that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. Now remember we went through one of the parables where he says, you know, this tree, he was talking about a fig tree, doesn't bear fruit, chop it down. He says here that if we're connected to the vine and we must be connected to the vine, all the nutrients, all the components that create fruit have to come through the vine.

They come through the vine into the branch. I mean, how many of you have had a cluster of grapes? You have the branch and all the grapes are attached to this cluster. That branch and that fruit, you take it off of there, it dies. It has to be attached to the vine. Jesus says, he's the vine. Now this is real important because God's Spirit, remember we're going through the fruits of God's Spirit. We've talked about how these fruits must come from God in us and our interaction with God. And we've talked about how every one of these fruits, as we've gone through a number already, every one of these fruits are aspects of God's character.

Well, we have to understand here, Jesus' part in this. The Holy Spirit comes through Christ into us so that He can live His life in us. The whole purpose of this Christian life is that we become literal sons and daughters of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. He lives His life in us. We reflect Him. That means the Holy Spirit comes through Him. It has something very solid that God's Spirit works into us with and that is, here is the life of Christ that's supposed to be developed in us. If we're cut off from that, our lives are meaningless. He says, literally, it's thrown away. What's interesting, He says, but if you do bear fruit, He will prune you. In other words, the more fruit we bear, the more fruit God wants to bear, pruning is actually, for the tree, a little bit stressful. For the vine or for the branch, pruning is stressful. Now, how many times have you looked at a, you know, my wife will say that. She'll look out at a tree or a bush in the yard and it's not getting enough water. She'll say, oh, that bush is stressed.

And if you've ever over pruned a bush and you go out and it looks like it's dying, oh, it's a stressed bush. Pruning is stressful. But God says, for us to bear fruit, when we do bear fruit, He still prunes. He works with us, trims the branch, does things with the branch. So God, as we bear fruit, works in our lives more and more to bear more fruit.

There's never a point where God says, oh, that's enough fruit. So we're continually have to grow. We're continually have to have God pruning us. Verse 3 says, He says to the disciples, you are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Verse 4, this is a sermon in itself. I'm only going to touch on this because it would take a whole sermon to explain and go through this.

He says, abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. The word abide means live. You abide in a house. You go say, this is my house. I live in it. You open the door, you go inside of it. For God to complete His work in us, Christ has to live inside us. You have to understand, He comes into your mind. When you receive God's Spirit, the Spirit of God comes into your mind. Christ lives in here. And we live in Him. That's a whole...to understand what that means is huge.

Like I said, that's a whole sermon. He lives in us. We live in Him. It's not just a matter of, here's a few commandments, obey them and you're okay. God is living in us and we are living in God.

It's a relationship He's describing here. A relationship at the very core of who we are. Christ goes on in verse 5, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I am Him bears much fruit.

For without me, you can't do nothing. You and I cannot bear the fruits of God's Spirit without God in us. It's like when we went through self-control. Remember I talked about how there are people that have remarkable ability just through willpower to have self-control. So they may stop smoking or they may, you know, be able to push away that second piece of pie every dime or they may be able to get up every morning at the exact same time.

And we admire them for that self-control. Spiritual self-control, the ability to control ourselves spiritually, resists Satan's pull. That can only come from God developing that in us. You and I can't do that ourselves. And Jesus wants us to understand here, you and I can't bear this fruit without Him living His life in us. It is not possible. It is not possible. So we can come to church, we can keep the letter of the law, we can do all kinds of things and still not have God's Spirit developing this fruit in our lives.

He says in verse 6, if anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the lake of fire, and they are burned. That's the eternal pronouncement of judgment. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.

And listen to verse 8, by this My Father is glorified. On the earth today, how is God glorified? Because He's not interacting with the world. I mean, this world is Satan's the God of this world, according to the Scripture. God is waiting to send Jesus Christ. I mean, God interacts with the world to keep it from destroying itself. But basically mankind here is just going our own way, following Satan.

So how is God glorified? By this My Father is glorified that you, us, the people of God, bear much fruit, so you will be My disciples. The only way we are disciples of Jesus Christ is because we bear much fruit. And this is what glorifies God. You know, sort of what was mentioned in the Sermonette.

Our impact on other people should be because we're glorifying God. What people should see in us is, you've got help because, you know, something is changing you.

We actually see God, or other people can see God in our lives. They may not know what it is, but they see it. They see it in our honesty, in our kindness, in actually the fruits of the Holy Spirit because all of these fruits become actions. They all become something people can see.

So far we've discussed self-control, meekness, and faithfulness.

Today we talk about the fruit of goodness. And okay, we're going to talk about how to be good.

The Greek word here that's translated goodness is a very interesting word. It literally means active goodness. In other words, it is good in action.

But it's not used that often in the New Testament. There are other words for goodness. There's other words translated good or goodness in the New Testament. But this one has to do with not only being actively good, so it's good that can be seen, it's good that's active, but it also means to stand up against what is the opposite of good. So in this act of goodness, you stand up against evil. You think about it, how can you be actively good and accept evil?

Which, by the way, though, as we're going to show, is a problem with sort of where Christianity is going today, the idea that you can be actively good but not stand up against evil because you don't want to offend anybody, because you don't want to judge anybody. So how am I actively good and I stand against evil? What does that mean? How does that play out? How does that work into life in a practical sense? Well, let's look at another place where this particular Greek word is used, and when we see this, it'll become quite clear. Let's go to Ephesians 5. We have to read sort of a long passage here, but I want to make sure we get the context of where Paul says this, because, you know, Paul wrote Galatians. So here he's using the same word, and let's look how he uses it here. We'll start in Ephesians 5 and verse 1.

Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. So the purpose of our Christian life is to be imitators of God. Walk like God, talk like God, be like God, think like God, act like God. Well, how in the world do you do that? Now, you've heard me read this scripture, this verse before, because every time I read this verse, I end up with, how do we do that? God's all-powerful. I have allergies to molds.

God is everywhere at the same time. God knows all things. I can't even remember people's names, or what I had for breakfast yesterday.

Right? How in the world am I supposed to be like God? But to be His children as dear children, we have to imitate Him. Verse 2, "...and walk in love as Christ also has loved us, and given Himself for us, and offering it a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma." Okay. Christ gives us the example. We can look at Jesus in the flesh and say, ah, there is God in the flesh. That is how this works.

That is how I'm supposed to act. That is how I'm supposed to think. That is what I'm supposed to do. So I'm an imitator of God in the flesh, and Jesus shows me how to do that. Now, we're all very... Jesus did it perfectly. We all struggle. But at least we have the model to follow. At least we know what it's supposed to look like. And with God's Spirit and God's help, we begin to respond to that. We begin to follow Jesus Christ. He is the vine. God's Spirit is coming through Him, into us, and we are now imitating Him. Verse 3. Now, remember, Paul is talking to the church in Ephesus. This isn't to the world. And he makes a real strong series of statements here. But fornication, sexual sins, and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you as it is fitting for saints. Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know... Boy, this is a real strong statement. For this you know that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Now, once again, saints can commit those sins, but they ask forgiveness, they repent, they are forgiven, and they go on growing in obedience and growing in the fruits of God's Spirit. But he's talking about people who are just practicing these things. They continue to practice these sins, and he says, when we practice those sins, they're our lifestyle, we refuse to give them up, you cannot be in the kingdom of God. In fact, he goes on, verse 6, let Noah deceive you with empty words, for because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore, do not be partakers with them. So here we start with the imitators of God. Follow Jesus Christ. Don't be like the world in all these different ways and all these different sins. In fact, don't even be partakers with them. Don't do this with them. Don't associate with them.

Verse 8, for you were once darkness. It's very interesting here. He doesn't say, you were once in darkness. He says, you were darkness.

He says, remember when you were dark, your life was dark, your mind was darkness.

You lived in it and you were darkness. But now you are light in the Lord. So walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is all goodness, righteousness, and truth, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. So it's very interesting here. He talks about fruit of the Spirit and the word goodness here is the exact same Greek word he uses in Galatians 5.

So the fruit of the Spirit is this act of goodness, righteousness, and truth, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. So we know what goodness and truth and righteousness is. How do we know what it is? Because we're finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. We don't get to make up a definition of goodness. We don't get to make up a definition of righteousness or a definition of truth. These things God makes up. We have to seek and find what is acceptable to the Lord. This helps us understand. Once again, we're back to who is the vine, who is the vine dresser, unless we're attached to the vine, being worked with by the vine dresser. It doesn't happen. But he finishes this thought in verse 11. He says, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. Now we really start to understand this idea of act of goodness, actively seeking the will or what is acceptable to God. So I am now doing goodness. I'm doing good things. My life is centered on doing the good things and actively exposing what is unfruitful, what are unfruitful things? Evil. Unrighteousness. It would be nice if we could live our lives, or basically all the Christian life is, is sort of doing some good things and hiding out. But you know, when you are actively good, you can't hide. You ever notice that?

When you're actively good, you can't hide it. When you're actively honest, when you actively don't fool around on your wife or your husband. Right? People notice that. Right, because so many other people do it. When you actively don't go out with your friends on, you know, Saturday night and get drunk. There's something a little different about you. Or party.

When you got up this morning, you came to Sabbath services in what, 15 degrees? Well, it was afternoon, so it was at least 19 for most of you.

People thought, some people probably thought you were nuts. Why don't you just stay home, read your Bible or something if you're that religious, but why would you get up in this kind of weather and drive to go to a church service? I mean, to be okay if it was five miles down the road, but you know, you drove 45 minutes to get here. What kind of crazy person drives 45 minutes to go to church anyway? You pass 15 churches to get there. Right?

You can't hide it when you're actively doing good. Which means that sooner or later, you're going to have to confront evil.

Active goodness in the sense of what this word means, in fact, one Greek lexicon said that it has to do with the zeal to be able to rebuke and correct wrong. It's not just, I'm doing well, I'm doing good here, but it is the zeal to actively correct or rebuke wrong.

Now, we say, oh, okay, but understand how much that goes against the society you and I live in.

Especially if you're someone here that's been over the last 25 years, even in the Christian world. I was reading some articles today, or this week, I mean, about this subject. I was talking about how in so many Christian churches, they don't want to say anything is wrong because they don't want to offend anybody.

And so how so many churches will not say, no one will get up from the pulpit and say that abortion is murder, or that homosexuality is against God and homosexual marriage is an abomination to God. In fact, both in the United States, as happened at least in one major church, and in three churches in Europe, three major huge Catholic cathedrals, in the Mass, they're now quoting the Koran in their services because they don't want to offend Muslims. See, we don't want to offend anybody. Why? Because Jesus said, judge not lest you be judged. The foundation of a new Christianity, and I say a new Christianity because this isn't what the Protestant world believed 20 years ago. It is not what the Catholic church believed 50 years ago. And I'm not saying they were right to what they believed. I'm just saying it's a new idea that we can't really judge whether something is right or wrong because Jesus said, don't judge. And you know, I've had conversations, especially with younger people, dozens of them over the last few years, and where the thing comes up, but Jesus said, don't judge. So how can we make this strong a stance against this? I mean, I have two friends that are not married, but they're living together, and they've had a baby. And how can we say that's wrong because they love each other? The definition of all goodness is love, which is a vague term, and you cannot judge. You can't judge somebody other's actions.

We can't judge whether something's right or wrong.

So what did Jesus mean? Because Jesus did say, judge not lest you be judged. He did say it. So what did He mean? Because active goodness needs to stand up against wrong. But how can I stand up against wrong if I'm not supposed to judge? How can I do that? You know what I mean? There's a dilemma. Well, let's look at what Jesus said. Let's go to Matthew 7.

Matthew 7 is not in a vacuum. Matthew 7 is part of the Sermon on the Mount. To really understand Matthew 7, you have to read Matthew 5, 6, and 7. So if you really want to study this, go read all the Matthew 5, 6, and 7, the whole thing. When you do, you will see exactly what Christ is talking about. And He's not saying what people think He's saying or say He's saying. Now, we'll look at the context of what He says in this, and then we even look at a little bit farther in the same sermon here, what He said. So verse 1 says, Judge not that you be not judged. Now, that is a good statement. He made the statement.

And it's obvious what He's saying here. When you pass judgments, you're going to be judged. So does that mean I can never say something's wrong? Whatever you want to do is fine.

Well, you know, the argument gets really interesting. So you're saying it's okay for someone to steal? Well, no. It's okay for someone to kill, murder. Well, no. How do you know? How do you know? You have to judge that person.

I know I told you before, but this just comes down to something that was so bizarre, a conversation I had years ago with a Baptist lay minister where he said, Why do you try to keep the Ten Commandments? Well, thou shalt not kill is a good thing. He said, Well, Jesus just said the love. I said, Well, how can you murder your neighbor if you love them? He said, Easy. Lots of people love their wives or their husbands, but in a fit of anger, they kill them. God understands, because as long as you have love in your heart, I mean, what you do is bad, but God doesn't judge you for it.

He had taken this argument to his father's extent that you can't judge anybody over anything.

You can't judge it is wrong? Well, it's wrong. I said, You're making a judgment. Where do you get your judgment from?

Which is what Jesus says in the next statement. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. With what measure you use, we measured back to you. Two things here. What standards are you using? Your own standards or God's standards?

If we go around judging everybody by our own standards, God says, Be careful, because God may judge you by those same standards. Also, we have to realize there's a difference between judging whether something is right or wrong by God's standards and passing sentence on someone.

You know, you and I have no right to pass eternal sentence. We can't say, Oh, that person's going to like a fire. We don't have that right. That's a scary thing. You know, judge not let you be judged. I don't want to go around saying, Well, that person's going to like a fire. God says, Oh, I'm going to give you the judgment you gave that person. So passing sentence, especially eternal sentence, you and I have no right to pass eternal sentence. But as we're going to see, Jesus said we occasionally have to give a temporary sentence, a judgment. So we have to be able to judge. He says, So what standards do you judge? Now the next, how He uses this, He uses a parable now to prove His point. Let's look at what the parable says. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? The hyperbole here is amazing. And I said, Oh, I've got a splitter in my eye. You say, Here, let me help you get it out. But you have a two by four coming out of yours. So you whack them upside the head, knock them down. You help them up and say, Here, let me look. You whack them again and knock them down. He said, No, no, just leave my eye alone. You're going to kill me with that big plank coming out of your eye. He uses this hyperbole to create a hilarious vision in our mind, a picture in our mind of what's going on here.

He says, Or how could you say to your brother, Let me remove the speck from your eye and look a plank is in your eye, hypocrite. Don't judge anybody and everything's okay. That's not what he says. First, remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. The plank is real. The speck is real. You're making a judgment here. But he says, Before you judge anybody about anything, judge yourself by the standards of God. So before you pass judgment, you have to look at yourself first. This is real important. You must judge yourself first.

Because his point is you may find you have a bigger problem than your brother has.

He said, Okay, well, I see that. So I'll only use God's standards to judge myself. I'm not going to judge anybody else. The next statement made by Jesus is one of the most judgmental statements in the entire Bible. It's hard to find an Old Testament prophet that was as judgmental as verse 6.

And to think about verse 6 is he's telling us to make this judgment.

Do not give, so we, the people of God, do not give what is holy to the dogs. He's not talking about your pet. He's talking about human beings that reject God and hate God, and he's using a derogatory term. Now, I'm not saying you and I should go around calling people dogs. I'm saying Jesus Christ did. I don't have the right to do that. He does. But he's telling us, don't give the holiness of God, the holy things of God, the people who are going to despise it, people who are going to reject it, people who are going to use it in the wrong way. Nor cast your pearls, the things that God had given us to us of value, before swine.

Pigs, lest they travel them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces. He's talking to his people there. He says, be careful how you judge. He says, but don't take the great things of God and just throw them out to whoever. Don't share them with others at times, because they will take God's way, trample on it, and then turn on you. That's a harsh judgment statement, isn't it? You and I are to actually look at people at times and say, it is not for me to give you this. Let's show you how this would play out in everyday life.

There are times when you would not associate with people that you used to associate with, because they will drag you into the lifestyle.

You say, oh yeah, I'll come over. Yes, Saturday would be great. I know you have a party. I know we all used to smoke weed together, but tonight I'll just come over, but I won't smoke.

I'll just be there. Yeah, I know we used to do those things. I knew we should go pick up girls at bars. I'll just go to the bar with you, but I'm not going to pick up a girl.

Are we taking the holiness that God has given us and throwing that out? Throwing it out.

Interesting question, isn't it? What an incredibly judgmental statement. And He says, for us to make that judgment, don't do this.

You know that there are occasionally someone. I don't invite the service.

You say, how could you not do that? Don't we want everybody here? I have sat down with people who just got out of jail, or rape, or murder, or child molesting, and said, until we talk, you can't go.

Now, I don't know. I'm not making a judgment. I've got to find out where that person is. And I think most of you are happy that we do that.

And sometimes you see God working in them, and they come to church. You know, as were some of you, as Paul says.

How could you make that kind of judgment? Because I need to make that kind of judgment. I need to spend time with that person and see where they really are before we invite them here among us. And if they are repentant, then we accept them.

But we better make sure. Yes, that's a judgment. And I do it with lots of prayer and lots of fasting.

So you and I are required to make judgments right and wrong. And occasionally we have to make a judgment. It's determinant whether we even associate with somebody.

You know, I know people say, I was going to have my nephew come over, and he was going to spend the weekend with me. But you know, my nephew comes over, and all he does is bring girls in, sleep with them, and take drugs. Should I have my nephew over? I don't know. Read verse 6. Ah! Should you?

Let's go on just a little bit more in the same sermon on the Mount. Let's skip down to verse 15. Okay. Judge not lest you be judged. That means everything. Never judge anything. Well, then verse 15, what we're going to read here makes no sense. Beware of false prophets. How can I beware? I can't judge anything. Oh, ideas are equal. I believe what I believe. You believe they're all equal. They can't be. All things can't be equal.

And some things have to be right, and some things have to be wrong.

Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. This is Jesus, the servant on the Mount. Okay. How do we judge this? Okay. Well, okay. How do I know that there's a false prophet or false teacher who is a ravenous wolf? How am I supposed to know that? You will know them, verse 16, by their fruits. Oh, no, that's a judgment. I have to make a judgment. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Now remember, all of us, as we strive to obey God, sometimes bear bad fruit. This isn't talking about your occasional bad fruit. As you really study the fruits of God's Spirit, and I know I do, every time I prepare one of these sermons, I feel sort of bad. No, I feel bad. I don't feel sort of bad. I feel bad, because I say, oh my, there's times in my life I do not bear this fruit. This is the fourth fruit we've gone through, and I have to confess to all of you, I've looked at all of them, and I have failed at all of them, time to time. It's not comfortable. And that's the problem with pruning and having manure dumped on you.

This is what happens. But he's talking about here who someone whose fruit is not any good fruit. But that means we have to make a judgment statement. And this is in the same context. I mean, this was all said together. Verse 15 was said just minutes after he said verse 1. Verse 19, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits, you will know them.

So we are to make judgments, but we have to be real careful. Because a lot of times what happens is we judge people for motivations that really aren't their motivations. We judge people by our motivations. That's where our biggest problem is. Or we judge people. We just have this overly judgmental approach to life. So we're just picking at everybody. We already went through meekness. Next time we're going to go through a fruit of God's Spirit that actually softens this fruit. All these fruit fit together. Here we're talking about active goodness that stands up against evil. When we get to the next fruit, it's okay, let's soften that some. How do you stand up against evil?

We have to judge others not by personal standards but by God's standards. And you know, sometimes God's standards is a bit vague. No, uncertain things. Some things are real clear. Some things are deliberately because we're supposed to make decisions with these guidelines. Other times, boom, it is real clear. Do not do this. It's clear.

But we can't judge each other always on our own standards. We judge each other by God's standards.

And we must always judge ourselves before judging others. And you know when you do that, a lot of times you come to the conclusion that your neighbor's fault is really small enough. Why even deal with it? Because mine's big enough, I better deal with my plank. Deal with my plank first. My neighbor will work it out.

And then remember, you and I cannot pass eternal judgment. We're not allowed to do that.

Okay, let's break this down even more. Then what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through two examples of—I mean extreme examples, if you will—but of this act of goodness standing against evil and how it works and what it produces. Because one thing we know about active goodness is what it produces. It will produce goodness. So even when active goodness stands against evil, it will produce some kind of goodness in it. I say some kind of goodness. When you stand—when you do active goodness and you stand against evil, sometimes you die. There's all kinds of prophets who did that. But in the end, goodness still comes from it because of what God does. But let's look at one other place that—break this down a little more in Romans 12. Because we have to—this is this act of goodness standing against evil. We still have to walk a fine line here. Because if we're not careful, we'll do this. Now, in Romans 12 here, the same Greek word is not used, but it's the same concept. Romans 12. And let's start in verse 17. Paul writes, Repay no one evil for evil. Here's the thing. Active goodness, if we're not careful—and we'll tell you why in a minute when we get to one of the examples—what we do is we justify evil because they did evil. I can justify my reaction because of your action. So you did something wrong, I can now respond in a way that's just as evil as what you did.

And Paul says, no, no, no, no, you can't do that. You can't repay evil with evil. So there's a time to make a stand. There's a time to say something. There's a time to do something, but you can't respond to evil with evil. He says, have regard for good things in the sight of all men. And if it is possible, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Now, he says, it's not always possible to live peaceably with some people. But you have to do your part. As much as it depends on you, you do it. So I'm going to have to say, wait a minute, you treated me badly, and I must try to make peace. And he says, yes. Can I go tell them what they did was wrong? Well, yeah, there's a time to do that. But are you going to try to go hurt them because they hurt you? Think about that. Well, then, isn't that repaying evil for evil?

You hurt me, so I'm going to come hurt you, and I'm at the right because you hurt me first. When we deal with evil and our goodness standing against evil, this act of goodness, you've got to remember something. If it's personal, you have to deal with the personal issues also.

In other words, I can make a stand against abortion. It's abhorrent. It's the murder of children. And beg people to repent. And watch them repent, and God forgive them, and their lives are healed.

It's not personal to me, right? Now, you come up and call my children names, it gets personal. And all of a sudden, I'm not reacting with act of goodness. I'm reacting with what? Being back evil with evil. So we have to understand when it's personal, when someone has done something to you personally and they were wrong, we have to work through the emotional part of it, too. Look what it says here. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath. Give up the anger, then work on it. For it is written, vengeance is mine, and repace is the Lord. It quotes from the Old Testament. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in doing so, you will eat coals on fire on his head. Wait a minute. Active goodness means I feed my enemy? Yeah.

I'm actively doing good even in the face of someone misusing me. Active goodness. That doesn't mean you don't stand against the evil. This doesn't mean, say, well, we can't judge anything. So next service, I'm going to read from Hindu scriptures and the Hindu and the Koran. And, you know, we're just not going to have any doctors in this church through the Bible. We're just going to believe all things that we can get good from everybody. I don't believe that. I don't believe that. I don't believe that. That's not what he's talking about here.

What he's talking about is, on the personal level, don't repay evil with evil, but try to be peaceful. Try to act to deal with it by acting in a good way. Verse 21 says, this is what happens for us. This is the benefit. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

So we have to be real careful on the emotional level here in this act of goodness that we stand against evil, but we don't become evil ourselves.

Now, let's look at two rather extreme examples. And I picked these extreme examples in the scripture to show you how active goodness standing against evil, what it can look like in its extreme. But then we have to analyze this. We have to analyze this to say, how would I deal with this? How does God want me to deal with this? The first one is an example by Jesus himself, the one that we're supposed to imitate. Let's go to Matthew 21. Matthew 21.

And verse 12.

Now, set the stage here. People came from all over the world to the temple, you know, Herod's temple. He had remodeled Zerubbabel's temple because Solomon's temple had been destroyed. Zerubbabel built a temple hundreds of years later. Herod remodeled it.

People came from all over the world. Jews came from all over the world to bring sacrifices. You know, if you lived in Damascus, you couldn't bring a goat with you or a sheep with you. You had to buy one when you got there. Well, out in front of the temple was a huge market.

And people would come, and there's flocks of animals. There's, you know, internal doves, because doves were sacrificed as the smallest thing you could bring as far as an animal sacrifice. And there's all these animals there, and there's everybody making a buck. People are getting rich off of this because where would you, where could you buy a sheep? Where could you buy a dove? Except the cup there, and there they were.

And Jesus walks up to that. Here, in order to get to God to pray, in order to bring a sacrifice, you have to get gouged. So verse 12, He's not doing evil here. I remember reading one time, someone said that they didn't believe this was true because the Jesus they do would never commit this act of violence.

And understand, it is an act of violence. I mean, here's a group of men who are making fortunes off of selling animals for sacrifices. And it's just not like two of them. It's a whole marketplace. He didn't come in and say, come on, guys, I want you to leave.

It says He grabbed the tables and threw them over. At another place, it says He actually created a whip and whipped the animals. He caused a stampede. He drove them out of the temple.

Here's an act of violence. Now, I'm not saying you and I should go do that at that level. I'm saying, though, what we see is this act of goodness. This is either goodness or it's evil, which is it? It's either active evil or active good? If it's active goodness, then we're seeing Jesus Christ do good by what? Standing up against an evil that was absolutely abhorrent to Him. Now, you and I don't have the authority to go around whipping animals and overturning tables and those kinds of things. He did. He had the authority to do that. It's the attitude I want you to see. This is abhorrent to God. It is abhorrent to me, and I'm going to tell you.

What's interesting is the result. The result is what? He turned to His disciples and said, Strap on the swords. We're going to hunt these men down and kill them. No, it's not. The result is fascinating. Verse 14. Then the blind and the lame came to Him at the temple, and He healed them. He drove out. All these people were making money. Then all these people came who could not afford a sacrifice, and He healed them. People who were blind, people who walked in all crippled up, they were being healed. He was preaching to them. He was giving them the Word of God. He brought hope and comfort and goodness into these people's lives.

His active, active standing up against evil brought goodness into the lives of others. It did not produce His followers becoming zealots and going around and killing people. That's not what happened.

But there is a time to make a stand, and it's easy for us not to.

It's easy for us not to. You pick your time when you do... You know, there's times where Jesus did make a stand. There are times it says He walked through the crowd and walked away.

He knew when to make a stand and when not to make a stand. This all has to do with active goodness.

He lived goodness, and there were times you stood up and said, this is abhorrent to God. The second, the last point I want to talk about here, is a second example that is another extreme example. And unless we study it, we can misunderstand what's happening here. Numbers 25. It's another scripture that people will come and say, I don't understand this. Why could God allow this? Why did God do this?

It has to do with judging God's judgment. Okay? Carrying out God's judgment, doing active goodness in the face of evil. Now, as we go through this, you and I don't have the authority to do certain things here. It's the teaching and example of there's a time when we must do something similar. Okay? So as we go through this, you'll see what I mean. I'm not saying you and I should do exactly what is said here, because we don't have the authority to do that. You'll see where this man got his authority. Verse 1, now Israel remained in the Casea Grove, and the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab. What had happened here, we've told this story before, is how Balaam convinced the Moabites, why fight the Israelites? God is going to be on their side. So the best thing to do is go seduce them. So they did. Thousands and thousands of Moabites come over the hill. They think, oh, they're coming to attack. No, they show up with a bottle of wine on one hand and a pretty girl on the other and say, hey, she wants to meet you. And they throw a giant party. And let's face it, they tell them, look, Baal, we don't want you to give up the worship of Yahweh. They couldn't. You know why they couldn't? In the middle of the encampment of Israel was the tabernacle. And the priest sacrificed every day. And every Sabbath the trumpets blew, and you couldn't do no work. And the pillar of fire and smoke was still there. They couldn't give up the worship of God. They just decided that two gods were better than one. I mean, Bales a whole lot more fun. Our God won't even let us have sex until we're married. He won't let us get drunk. He doesn't let us party all night. Bales a whole lot more fun. Besides, they have little idols. It's pretty cool. It makes you feel really sort of neat, you know? These special secret ceremonies they do, and they have these idols. All we have is priests that throw animals onto big altars, and we don't even get to see God. In fact, we don't even get to see the Ark of the Covenant except when it was brought out and carried around and it was stuck back in that little room back there. We don't get to see that. Man, they're just so much more fun here. Verse 2. And you know, harlotry here is not only, you know, worshiping idols, sometimes that's called harlotry. It is literally just this sexual freedom, as we'll see, that they were having. They invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ain't a bow down to their gods. So Israel was joined to Baal of Peor, and the anger of the Lord was aroused against them. God's right there. This is open rebellion, openly rebellious against God in His way. Notice verse 4. Here is God's judgment on this. Now, first of all, He'd given them the law. They all knew this was wrong.

They all knew this was wrong. They had been given the Ten Commandments. He says, "...And the Lord said to Moses, Take all the leaders of the people, and hang the offenders before the Lord, out in the sun, that the fairest anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel." What God did was He started to kill the people who were doing these things, and they still wouldn't stop. And people just started dying. And they still wouldn't stop. It's Woodstock times 100. This is a great party.

Now, a lot of the Israelites were not easy to take the leaders and kill them. Hang them so everybody can see it. And notice what happens. Verse 5 says, "...So Moses said to the judges of Israel, Let every one of you kill his men who are joined to Baal the arse." He calls in the elders and the leaders, and He says, Go kill the leaders who are doing this. Because He tells them, Go kill all the leaders who are doing this. He calls in the leaders who aren't doing it. He says, You're going to have to kill these guys. God says, God has passed a judgment. He gave us the law. He gave us the standards. And now He's given us the judgment. And you and I must go carry this out. Verse 6, "...And indeed one of the children of Israel came and presented to his brother, an obedient woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping at the door of the tabernacle of meeting." Now think about this.

Think about this. This man comes in and he has a obedient woman with him. Okay? And they...

He brings them in. He says He parades them. He brings them right in front of Moses and everyone. What he's saying is, you can't judge me. Who are you to judge me?

And I want to have this woman. And if you read later in the story, he... his father is one of the leaders of the tribe of Simeon. And she is the daughter of one of the kings of Midian. So you have a man who is prominently known throughout all of Israel. And a woman, who is one of the great princesses of Midian, he parades her through right in front of Moses. There's people weeping at the tabernacle. There's probably thousands of people gathered there begging, God, please save those who have sinned. There's probably... there's people who have sinned. It's said, God, please forgive me because people who have been in this party are dying. I don't want to be... I don't want you to kill me. So please, you know, forgive me. Forgive my children. Forgive my brother. Forgive whoever participated in this. They're begging. They're weeping. They're crying. And right in front of... in front of all this, this man parades this woman through and basically says, who are you to judge me? You have no right to judge me.

Judge not lest you be judged. Oh, God, it already passed a judgment.

The next... the next person, Phidias, we talked about Phidias at the Nixon Bible study this week because Phidias was the high priest at the time of the beginning of the book of Judges. Now, when Phidias, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose from among the congregation, took a javelin in his hand, and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through the man of Israel and the woman through her body. So the plague was stopped among the children of Israel, and those who died in the plague were 24,000. How cruel could God be? He killed 24,000 people. He was right there. The pillar of fire was there. The pillar of smoke was there. The tabernacle was there. Moses was there. The Ark of the Covenant with the dead commandments was there. And there are thousands and thousands of people saying, you can't judge me. I'll dare you. And God killed them. Understand, this is active goodness on the side of God. God is actively good here. I will not, he says, live with open, evil rebellion. I will accept it.

This is active goodness. See, this sounds strange in the world that we live in today. Active goodness? This is cruelty. No, it's not. We have to see this through God's standards, or we'll be able to allow anything. There'll be nothing evil. Absolutely nothing that we could call evil unless we accept God's standards. Phineas takes a javelin and kills both these people. You think, well, God's now going to punish Phineas. Notice what it says in verse 10.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Phineas, the son of Eliezer, the son of Ere the priest, has turned back my wrath from the children of Israel because he was zealous with my zeal among them. He said he saw my standard, he saw my judgment, and he carried it out. So that I did not consume the children of Israel and my zeal. Therefore, say, behold, I give to him my covenant of peace, and it shall be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of an everlasting priesthood because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the children of Israel. Phineas here participated in active goodness. He stood against evil in the most extreme way. Now having said that, understand, you and I have no authority from God. You have to look at that situation. God's there. He tells Moses to kill these people, and he prays this woman in front of everybody, and they are begging for mercy. They're begging God for forgiveness. And he says, you can't judge me. And Phineas says, oh, yes, God can. And Phineas kills him and kills the woman too. You and I will never face that situation.

You and I are not supposed to take javelins and run people through, okay? We're not supposed to do that. I want to make that absolutely clear. But what about this? Spiritually, there's a time to stand up and say, what you're doing is wrong.

By our example, and occasionally by our words, there's times we have to say that. By God's standards, what you're doing is wrong. And God will deal with you.

Now, let's be careful, because we can also get what I call the Phineas complex. We run around with our spiritual javelins just waiting to find somebody doing something wrong, so I can spear them, okay? There is no case. There is nothing in the Bible that ever says that Phineas picked up a javelin again for the rest of his life. Phineas wasn't then, you know, the person who out his way, and Phineas became the man God used to spear everybody that was against him.

In fact, you know how Phineas spent the rest of his life? We know because he became the high priest. Making atonement for God's mercy on the people.

Phineas spent the rest of his life doing sacrifices, going before God as the high priest on the day of atonement and saying, please forgive these your people for their sins.

His job was to seek God's mercy.

So, act of goodness doesn't mean you become the sheriff. That has to clean up everybody's lives. In fact, let's get the pike out of ours first. But, act of goodness does mean there won't be times where you will face situations where we must make a stand. We must say, no, I will not partake of that with you. No, I will not condone that. No, I'm sorry. You can't come into my house or I can't go with you or I can't do that. No, I will not because it is wrong. And there may come a time with someone in the church that you have to stand and say, oh, you need to talk because I've seen you do something wrong.

Active goodness requires that we stand up against evil.

Here we have these extreme cases with Jesus and Phineas, but we see that it was good. Both of these things were good. You and I will not be required to clear out the temple and you and I will not be required to hunt down people in javelins. But you and I may be required with words to make us stand. Maybe it work. Maybe when they ask you to do something that you know is wrong.

No, I cannot do that. It is dishonest.

They say, well, it costs you your job. I cannot do it.

Okay, well, then what's your problem? God says, and a person called me one time, a business owner, and said, this person says they have to keep the Sabbath. They work for you. And I said, well, they do believe the Sabbath. Can't you give them a special dispensation?

Obviously a Catholic. You know, because and tell them they don't have to keep their Sabbath. I said, but it's not their Sabbath. I said, you're going to have to understand something about this person to make your decision. They believe this is God's Sabbath. So you're asking them to go against your conscience. Do you want an employee that goes against their conscience?

Not the best employee I have. What can I do? Oh, simple. I'll send you a letter that says that this person attends a church that keeps the Sabbath Sabbath. Because they said, well, what if other employees say that they want to take sanity off? How do I stop them? Tell them easy. They have to show a letter from an ordained minister that says that this person attends a church that keeps the Sabbath. He said, well, nobody can do that. And I said, well, I can't for this person. He says, good, I can keep them now. And they didn't get fired.

Active good. The person was doing active goodness. They were willing to stand and say, no, I will not. Sometimes it's not attacking the other person. It's not bringing out what the other person is doing. It's simply stating what you will do. Active goodness. This is what I will do. Or I cannot do this. Why? Because I must actively do good.

This is why when we look at these fruits of the Spirit, they all work together. And why we understand that the fruits of the Spirit are God's character. God is actively good. Because God is actively good, He's always evolved in your life. And when you bear fruit, He's glorified. So guess what He does? He prunes you a little more so you bear more fruit. He's always evolved. This is why God will correct us. Active goodness. Oh, that's not exactly right. Let me correct you. And think about how He does it in mercy all the time. God's real gentle with us. He's always being gentle with us. Why wouldn't He say, oh, I love these kids. I don't want to offend them. God is never afraid about offending us. God is only concerned with goodness. God is only concerned with goodness. So God is actively involved in correcting us. And in the world, He says, please repent. If you do not, there will come a time when you approach me in rebellious evil when I send my son back, and I will fight you.

He's not afraid of those judgments against rebellious evil. Remember, you and I are to pass out sentences. We're simply to make stands. We are to make stands.

So we've looked at active goodness, but before you go off with your javelins, wait till next week. Because when we get into the next fruit of the Spirit, it literally is a fruit that softens this one. They have to go together. They have to go together. So we talked about active goodness this time. Next time, we're going to get into the concept of the fruit of the Spirit as kindness.