Goodness

Thank you very much, Mrs. Call. I think the best thing I can say about that is I wish I could sound that nice when I'm preaching. It occurred to me, you know how you wish you'd thought of something earlier when I was talking about Dr. Warden, my beard. I should have commented, my future mother-in-law said something very similar the first time she ever saw me, and I know she loves me, so... Of course, you know, communication, it's one of those tricky things, getting the right message across. There's an old cliché or quote that says the difference between the United States and Britain is that it's divided only by a common language, which is meant to be a somewhat amusing contradiction that comes from the fact that, although we speak English on both sides of the Atlantic, we still say some things rather differently.

Perhaps it's most evident in our cars. If we're running low on fuel in the United Kingdom, someone stops to get some petrol. While they're there, they might lift the bonnet to check their oil. You've got to know the difference between the bonnet and the boot, which is where you keep your spare tire, which you spell with a Y. They don't look any different on the car, but...

Now, the first year I served at summer camp in the United Kingdom, I remember getting a surprise and a lesson on how things are said differently. It was during the set-up period when we were working very hard, and it was morning tea break. Part of the surprise was just that we had such a thing as tea break. But as I was sitting there at the table, one of the blokes at the table next to me, that's the way they say guy, opened up a jar of orange jelly, which some people call marmalade, and spread it on some bread.

And his mate, that is his friend next to him, asked, Is it nice? I looked over because that kind of surprised me. He said, Oh yes, it's quite nice. Did the jelly pay him a compliment or do a favor for him? Shouldn't they have been discussing if it was good? Well, of course, that's exactly what they were doing.

I learned over in Britain that whereas we refer to nice typically as how people treat each other, they commonly use the word to describe the tastiness of food. Well, I can't complain about that because we don't use the word tasty very often. Although I was really surprised Connor used it in a sentence sometime this last week. But I don't say my sandwich is tasty. I say, it's good. Nothing wrong with that, but the word good is a pretty overworked word in the English language, at least in America.

I use my Webster's universe...yeah, let me say that again. Webster's new universal unabridged dictionary. I like to read the full title to explain why it weighs 35 pounds. It lists 50 different definitions for the word good. It only has 14 for nice. So you'd think good could afford to give up some of the slack and let nice take it on. Now, you might wonder if I've got something any better for you than an unimaginative grammar lesson today. Actually, I'm trying to make it a somewhat imaginative grammar lesson.

I started into it today thinking, you know, I've been trying over my course of time here to have sermons covering all of the different fruits of the Spirit as listed in Galatians 5, 22, and 23. And as I was looking for a sermon topic, I said, I haven't visited that in a while. Let's go look and see what I've covered. Well, I learned that I don't need to give a sermon on niceness, because it's not on the list. But goodness is. I don't think I've ever spoken on that. Matter of fact, I couldn't remember ever hearing anybody speak on just goodness.

I wasn't sure. I haven't been around as long as some of you, but this morning, actually, Mr. Grounds told me he's never heard a sermon on the subject before. And I thought, well, why not? Goodness, that's a pretty basic concept that matters to all of us.

Then again, how much can you say about it? I could say, be good. Have goodness. Is that it? Can I give an entire sermon on goodness? Well, if you'll stay with me, I'm going to try. Referring back to my big fat dictionary, it defines goodness as the state or quality of being good. That's not all that useful. But having goodness then means to be good. And by way of a sermon, I should say, we should be good. And I even found an excellent scripture to fit the topic. If you'll turn to Amos 5, Amos 5 and verse 14. You get to the minor prophets, Hosea, Joel, and then Amos. I think Amos, like the word nice, is a little underworked in our vocabulary. Amos 5 and verse 14.

I'm going to warn you also, actually, I have quite a few scriptures today, so you might want to loosen up those fingers. Here he says, Still falling a little short, though. Well, come to think of it, it might be taking a little too much for granted to think that if I just say good or goodness, that we all have the same idea of what it means. And as I said, my dictionary has a lot to say about it.

Let me share just some of those definitions. The first definition that my Webster's had for good was morally excellent. Now, that sounds like what we're talking about as Christians. All the way down to the 40th definition, it said, That also, I'm pretty sure, fits with what we want. There were some others that didn't seem quite as religious. The second definition was Yeah, I can see how we use that. If someone's pouring you some coffee and they reach the point where you say, that's good, meaning it's satisfactory in quantity.

Or, many of us have been in a position where you're trying to guide someone into a parking spot and say, over, over, over, that's good, but that's different than moral virtue. I could go on. Number four was well behaved. Number five was kind or beneficial. The 15th, I found especially interesting, and I'll tell you why in a moment. The 15th definition was agreeable, pleasant, genial. One reason I thought that was so interesting is, while that was the 15th definition for good, that same definition was the first definition for nice.

And, looking at those together, surprisingly, and maybe disappointingly, in none of the definitions did the dictionary say anything about taste, for either good or nice. Although, I would say, maybe if you consider a food to be agreeable or pleasant, you've got good reason to say it's either good or nice and mean the same thing. Well, of course, we don't have to worry about that right now.

We're looking at goodness as a fruit of the Spirit. Webster's aside, we need to be concerned with what the Bible says, how it uses and defines the Word. Let's start by verifying something I think we all know in Psalm 100. Psalm 100 and verse 5, I'm going to say I don't need to read the whole Psalm, I don't even need to read the whole verse. It says very succinctly.

Psalm 100. And in verse 5 says, the Lord or the Eternal is good. As I said, I'll leave it there. God is good! That's a basic fact. Let's go back a few pages to Psalm number 25, the 25th Psalm in verse 8. We could expand that a little more, even though, as I said, God is good, sums it up.

Psalm 25 and verse 8 says, good and upright is the Eternal, and therefore He teaches sinners the way. Now, Webster's didn't refer to God any more than it did to taste in all those definitions. But it did say that goodness is a moral excellence and virtue.

And since we think of morality and virtue as being tied to what God is, actually determined by what God is, well, it should be no surprise to us to come down to the fact that God is good. And then I found a surprise. If you go over a few pages to Psalm 34, Psalm 34 and verse 8, King David made a connection for me that Webster failed to do. And I'm surprised because I'm sure Noah Webster read the Bible. In Psalm 34 and verse 8 it says, O taste, and see that the Lord is good. See? Ha! Taste and goodness are related.

I'm pausing. In the morning they actually laughed at that. Now, I'm going to leave it. I'm not going to... I decided I wasn't going to look up whatever Hebrew word that was translated as taste.

But I did look up the Hebrew for good. It's tob, if I'm pronouncing it properly. Transliterated it would be tob. According to my lexicon it means good in the widest sense possible. It's just good. And variations of the word can be used as adjectives or verbs, including the word goodness, which remember we started because I wanted to examine the fruit of the spirit of goodness.

And this might be an aside, but that made me think of a use of that word that I'm not sure that I'm in favor of. I've seen in some commercials where they start using goodness instead of the actual noun or substance they want to talk about. For instance, if it's a commercial for a candy bar, they might say, it's full of chocolaty goodness.

I'm saying, okay, is it full of chocolate or goodness that tastes like chocolate? You might not care about that. Or in some cases someone says, come here, give me a hug. Get in on some of the snuggly goodness. And as I said, that bothers me, or maybe it's just I'm annoyed that I didn't think of it first. But I found there's some similar things in the Bible. In Psalm 107 and verse 9, speaking of God, it says, He satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness.

So once again, if you're hungry, goodness is what you want. And really, there should be no doubt for us what the source is of goodness. I'm going to go towards the front of the Bible in Exodus chapter 33. Exodus 33 and verse 19. It's part of the story where, of course, Moses had been up on Mount Sinai, God giving him the Ten Commandments, and then all the other statutes and judgments and instructions, how to build the tabernacle.

And Moses, by this time, he talked to God in a burning bush. He'd seen the pillar of cloud and fire, a lot of things. Finally, Moses said, I'd like to see you. Let me look at you. And God had to tell him, no, you can't look at me in my glory and live. No man can do that. But I think they were getting to be pretty good friends by then.

So God says, I'll let you see me from behind. And the way he expresses it here in verse 19, he said, I'll make all my goodness to pass before you, and I'll proclaim the name of the eternal. Once again, we see God is good.

He has goodness. In a sense, goodness is what God consists of. So that shouldn't be a surprise then, when I go to the very front of the Bible, in Genesis 1, verse 31, I felt like I couldn't give the sermon without reading this. Of course, at the end of what we call the creation week, of renewing the face of the planet, putting life on it, making man in his own image, when he's ready to create the Sabbath, and in verse 31 it says, God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good.

So what about us? Are we good? Well, I can say at the point that God said of everything he'd made, it was very good. He had already created Adam and Eve in his form and in his likeness. So they must have been part of that everything that was good. But then again, some of you might already be thinking of a certain thing that Christ said once. It's in Matthew 19. I've read this passage a number of times lately for various reasons, not for this particular one. It's in Matthew 19 and verse 16, coming back once again to the case of what we know was a wealthy young man coming to Christ, wanting to know how to have eternal life.

So here we are in Matthew 19 and verse 16. It says, Behold, one came and said to him, Good teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? And Jesus said to him, What do you call me good for? Why do you call me good? No one is good but one. That's God. But then he goes on to say, But if you want to have life, keep the commandments. What this seems to be saying is that not only is God good, it seems that it's saying only God is good.

And that looked a lot better on paper as a good play on words. As I said, not only is God good, but is this saying only God is good? So no person can be good? No, there are some scriptures that seem to say otherwise from Jesus himself while we're here in Matthew, over in chapter 12.

Matthew 12 and verse 35, here he says, A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things. But an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil things. Jesus doesn't follow up by saying, But then again, there's no good men, so forget all about that. No. Over in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5.

Now these are a couple of generalized statements. He's not listing a particular person that he says is good. But this seems to be telling us that perhaps there is a chance for us. Matthew 5 and verse 45, So you may be sons of your Father in heaven, for he makes his Son rise on the evil and on the good, and of course the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

So the Son's coming up on the evil and the good. Are some people good? Maybe there's a continuum between evil and good. If you're not all the way at evil, the further you get from it, you're more good. That might fit somewhat with what we see in Acts chapter 11. As I said, there's a particular person that we can see in Scripture is defined as good. Acts 11 and verse 24. Here, speaking of Barnabas, although it doesn't name him here, his name appears earlier, but it says, He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And the implication is because of that, a great many people were added to the Lord.

Now, I don't want us to think, well, is the Bible contradicting itself? Some people would put these together and say, see, you can't trust the Bible. It's not inspired. It's a bunch of myth and legends put together. Well, that's not what it's saying. We should see one section as supplementing and complementing the other. No human being can be good in the way that God is good, but in contrast to evil, a person can be good. And especially, I think it's instructive here to see Barnabas was a good man. It says he was full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. I'd like to say, to the degree that he was filled with the Holy Spirit and faith, was the degree to which he was good. I'm trying to make myself speak slowly because I've got words with a lot of syllables. Our goal is to discuss goodness as a fruit of the Spirit.

And I think we can make the case from what we read here that being filled with the Holy Spirit has the result of causing a person to be good, to have goodness. That is, to the degree we're filled with Spirit, we could be called good. Or, if I were writing a commercial, I might say we're full of all that spiritual goodness. I want to make a turn from this exploration of just meanings and definitions and scriptures.

To examine some of this continuum, and I think we'll be aided partly by the transition I just made in the scriptures. Early on, I was looking almost exclusively in the Old Testament, but we've moved into the New Testament. And in doing so, we switched from translating from Hebrew words to translating from Greek.

In the Greek, I found a subtle distinction that I think could help us to understand how there could possibly be degrees of goodness. I've gotten a bit used to discovering whenever I'm doing a word study that Greek almost always is a little bit more complex, or has a more sophisticated way of conveying meaning through words.

Now, many of us have heard probably many times how in Greek there were three different words to convey the meaning that we use the one word, love, for. In Greek, they have Eros, Philadelphia, Agape. Many of us have heard that a number of times. Well, I discovered in the Bible there were three different Greek words translated as good.

Now, I'm not going to go into great detail in discussing the meaning of all of them, partly because I'm not a Greek scholar. I'm a historian by training. I don't want to confuse myself or you. But I did discover one subtle distinction that really stood out to me, and I want to explore that a little bit. I think it's worth sharing what I learned there. Let me give you the three words first. And the first one I won't discuss a lot because, well, the first one is eudokia. In English, it would be spelled E-U-D-O-K-I-A. And if you're interested in looking it up later, the Strong's number was 2-1-0-7. It's often translated as good. That's eudokia. And its meaning is pleasing, delightful, or satisfactory.

When I read that, I said, ah, that's that definition that's the same for good as it is for nice. And it's not always good, and Scripture can be used for some of those other words. So as I said, I'm not going to discuss that one very much, but the next one is interesting. The Greek word kalos. K-A-L-O-S. Now for this one, I made a couple props. I'm not real elaborate with my props, but I want to make a reference sometimes to some of these words. So kalos, that's the Strong's number 25-70. It means good or virtuous. But there's a subtle contrast between kalos and the word I'm about to introduce. Because kalos often refers to appearance. Or we could say apparent goodness. That means goodness you can observe. Now I want to emphasize this doesn't mean false goodness. It doesn't mean it looks good, but really it's not. It doesn't mean that at all. It's still, it is good, but it's goodness that can be observed. As opposed to the next Greek word, which is agathos. I'm not sure if it's agathos or agathos, but it's A-G-A-T-H-O-S. That's Strong's number 18. I'm so used to them being four-digit numbers. 18, I thought, wow, this must be a real basic one because it's near the top of the list. Then it occurred to me, Frank, it starts with the letter A. It's just early alphabetically. But when contrasted with kalos, agathos means, rather than virtuous appearance, it means intrinsic goodness. That means goodness that is very nature that's not necessarily perceived visually. And I'm going to discuss how we get into that. So while kalos is not bad, and we could literally say, hey, not bad, which is sometimes the way we say good, I want to focus on the way the Greek word agathos is used in Scripture and its derivatives. Part of the reason I want to focus on that is one of its derivatives is agathosune. It's agathos with U-N-E at the end. That's the word translated in English as goodness. As in Galatians 5, 22, and 23, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, gentleness, kindness, goodness. That goodness is agathosune. And agathos is the word Jesus used in Matthew 5, 17 when he said, there is no one good, agathos, but one, that's God. But he also used that same word in the other Scriptures that I used to show when I said, God makes the sunrise on the good, the agathos, as well as the evil. A good man brings good things out of the good treasure of his heart. All of those were agathos. And when Acts 11, 24 said that Barnabas was a good man, it was saying he was an agathos man. I'm glad we used good. One syllable is much easier. Although I've learned after half a day of saying agathos, it starts getting a little easier.

Jesus knew and he fully understood both of these words. He did use them both. And I want to show that he understood that subtle contrast in the way he used them in a section of the Sermon on the Mount. If you'll turn with me to Matthew 7, beginning in verse 15. Part of the reason I made these signs is I wanted to show at times which one of the words he was using. It's mostly agathos. We'll start with him not using either word. The introductory scripture to this... Well, I'm not sure if I'd call it a parable. It's part of the Sermon. But in verse 15 of Matthew 7, he says, Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. Okay, that's trying to look good, but not doing a very good job of it. He says, You'll know them by their fruits. Okay, remember, we're getting back to taste here. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree, agathos, bears good calos fruit. But a bad tree bears bad fruit. And I apologize, I didn't look up the Greek for bad, but I'm pretty sure it means bad. Not good. So every good tree brings good fruit. This is saying that a tree that is intrinsically good will bear good-looking fruit. And the fact that it's good-looking indicates that it probably smells good and tastes good as well. Considering in verse 18, a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad fruit can't bear good fruit. Bad tree can't bear good-looking fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit, and interesting, he used the other word. Every tree that doesn't bear agathos fruit is cut down and cast into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits you'll know them. So a bad tree can't even produce good-looking fruit. Once again, those wolves might put on sheep's clothing, but it's a cheap, bad suit. I'm not sure if that's a good way to put it, but they try to make themselves look good. They can't do it. We need to be those good trees. Intrinsically good. And in doing so, we'll not only produce fruit that's good-looking, but that is good intrinsically. That's another way to say it is, it's good through and through. As I said, that fruit's liable to look good and smell good, taste good, or just be good.

And as I said, for some reason, taste keeps coming up in the sermon. And if we were in Britain, I'd be saying, nice. Actually, I wonder, because they'd be using the same translation. Now, at the risk, I know I've already had a lot of scriptures, and we've been told sometimes, you don't want to just give a concordant sermon. And what I'm about to do now might make this go over the edge as far as a concordant sermon, but I want to read several scriptures in the New Testament that use agathos for good. And I'm going to go through quite a few of them. You might, if you're taking notes, you might want to jot them down, or you might want to turn, but I'm not going to exculpate any of them. I just want to want you to see if you notice a pattern. It's pretty evident to me, because I recognize it. I'm going to start in Acts 9 and verse 36. As I said, in each one of these, the word for good is from agathos. So Acts 9 and verse 36. Actually, this might be why I went after my car and got these. Yeah, breaking into the middle of the scripture, it's talking about Dorcas, also known as Tabitha. This woman was full of good works and charitable deeds. Over in Romans 2 and verse 10. Glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Romans 8.28, commonly a memory scripture. Romans 8.28. We know that all things work together for good to those who love God and who are called according to His purpose. A few pages over in chapter 13. Romans 13 and verse 3. Rulers aren't a terror to good works but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good and you'll have praise from the same. 2 Corinthians 9 and verse 8.

God is able to make all grace abound toward you that you also, having all sufficiency and all things, may have an abundance for every good work. Galatians 6 and verse 10. Galatians 6.10, when I was a college student, we had an organization called Outreach and this scripture was our motto and our sort of guiding mission statement. Galatians 6.10 says, Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. Ephesians 2 and verse 10. Ephesians 2.10, we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Ephesians 4.28, let him who stole steal no longer, but let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give to him who is in need. Ephesians 6.8, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he'll receive the same from the Lord, whether a slave or free.

Philippians 1.6, Being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. Colossians 1 and verse 10. Colossians 1.10, that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God.

2 Thessalonians 2.17, Come for your hearts and establish you in every good word and work. Colossians 2.17, wait a minute, 2 Thessalonians 2.17, now 1 Timothy 2 and verse 10. 1 Timothy 2.10, but which is proper for women, professing godliness with good works? 2 Timothy 2.21, If anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he'll be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.

2 Timothy 3.17, That the man of God, so it's not just women, may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. 3 Timothy 3.1, Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work. Hebrews 13 and verse 21, take heart, we're running out of New Testament. Hebrews 13.21, Make you complete in every good work, to do his will, to do his will working in you what is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.

Amen. 1 Peter 3.16, 1 Peter 3.16, Having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, who revile your good conduct, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. 3 John 11, Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God. He who does evil is not seen God. That was a lot. Did you notice the pattern there? What I see is the word good, agathos, over and over and over and over, is put with either the word works or the word do.

Or we can make it a real easy sentence and say, do good works. Now, you might say, well, come on, of course, Frank! Everyone knows we're supposed to do good works. Well, I want to emphasize that while the fruit of the Spirit is goodness, it's easy to read that and say, oh, I need to have goodness. That relates to a state of being, you know, like being pure or having a good appearance. But the meaning, the use of the word, seems to say that in order to be good, a person needs to do good.

Action is required. Let me draw a comparison from a line in a movie. This one's Not Dead Poets or Braveheart. But another movie that I've enjoyed watching, it's one of those I saw, you know, it's one of those when I happened to see it on TV, it's real tempting to watch. I'm thinking of Forrest Gump. Most of you have probably seen Forrest Gump. There are two famous phrases that came out of that movie. I'll use both of them.

The first one, remember, Forrest Gump was, you know, it was known that he didn't have a real high IQ, and people would ask him, what are you, stupid or something? I'd say, my mom always said that stupid is a stupid does. Stupid is a stupid does. Could we say that good is as good does? I think that fits with the 200 scriptures I just read. Good is as good does. We are good to the degree that we do good.

To the degree that God's Spirit lives and works within us will have the fruit of goodness, that of doing good. I like to say that phrase over and over. It reminds me of my prior employer. Before I was hired by the church to serve in the field ministry, I worked for the Ohio Humanities Council in Columbus, and we supported basically educational programs, largely by giving grants. I couldn't count how many times I've been in meetings where we're discussing, should we give money here, should we spend money there, and how does this fit our mission, how well will it be used?

And a number of times the executive director, my boss, would boil it all down and say, well, our overall mission is to do good. And sometimes he'd say it almost off the cuff, well, of course we're supposed to do good. And he'd sometimes say, but we want to do it in this way. But it always made me really, I really enjoyed hearing that I worked for an organization whose mission was to do good.

If that could even remotely be true about some nonprofit corporation, how much about us? As Christians. Part of our mission, at least, is to do good, to work good. I don't mean that as in, I should have said, work well, I mean to work, to accomplish good.

A fruit of God's spirit in us will be that we accomplish good things. And I believe that to the degree we do good, we are becoming more like God. Because we saw earlier, God is good.

Now, before I go too far past my reference to Forrest Gump, remember, stupid is as stupid does, let's call to mind that other phrase. I don't think this one was as popular, although I think I saw it on t-shirts here and there. And I'm not sure, I'm trying to remember where it came up in the movie, but he was known for saying, life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you'll get. I just can't do that as well as Tom Hanks, but...

Now, you might say, how does that relate to good?

Well, I've been reaching to keep in mind that good can relate to taste.

And chocolate tastes good.

So maybe we could say that good tastes good.

What? I was looking to see that look on your face, and what is he talking about? Let me spin this out in a way that I think we can relate those two concepts of goodness.

Doing good, and being intrinsically good. Above and beyond the appearance of good.

Now, I kind of laughed a little. Remember earlier I had us turn to Psalms 34, verse 8, where David wrote, Oh, taste and see that the eternal is good.

Now, I still wonder, as I said, I purposely didn't look up the Hebrew word, because it's still amusing, and I go, okay, taste, to see that... Now, you can't put God in your mouth and taste Him.

But, I thought, when you do taste something, what do you do? You put it in your mouth, and in a sense you're getting very intimate with whatever that is you put in your mouth. It's some substance, and God created taste. He made it so we can taste things. And He made it as a chemical reaction.

On a molecular level, to some degree, the substance that you taste will become somewhat liquefied, and the taste buds on our tongue are made to interact with those chemicals.

And so, whatever being tasted, if there's a favorable reaction, we deem it to taste good, or nice, if we're British. If the chemical reaction, if they react negatively, or a way that's unpleasant, then we say, well, it doesn't taste nice.

So we don't usually think of it this way, but what I'm saying is our perception of taste is based on what the food does. Now, it's on a very small, as I said, it's on a molecular level, and what it does on a molecular level is based on its intrinsic nature. It's based on what it is.

So do you see how that analogizes to a Christian being good, or having goodness?

Or, in a sense, to a Christian tasting good, according to what he or she does, on an intimate level, on a molecular level?

Through most of this, I've been thinking in terms of overt action. Doing things that are good, like visiting the widows and the orphans in their affliction. James says that that's true religion. Absolutely it is. I don't want to discount that a bit.

But I want to add that if a person is agathosune, agathos, then intrinsic goodness will come out in all sorts of actions, big or small.

Actions that even include our thoughts, to the degree that we're controlling our thoughts, the goodness will be, as I said, on the little actions, on a molecular level.

That goodness can't be faked. And it can't be hidden.

As I said, you can't fake it, but you can't cover it up. Just like sugar, sucrose, it's sweet because of its molecular makeup.

And you can't stop it from being sweet. You can mix it with other things. Mix it with a little flour, some sugar, butter, eggs, a dash of vanilla, baking soda.

All that stuff becomes sweet. And also becomes cookies.

That's one of the reasons we love cookies. I left out the chocolate chips.

What I'm saying is a Christian who has God's spirit in him over time becomes good.

His intrinsic chemical makeup comes to include goodness, just like sugar's makeup includes sweetness.

It just is that. And a Christian, as he becomes good, does what he is.

Now, Jesus didn't make an analogy with taste or sugar like I just did, but we read in Matthew 7 that a good tree bears good fruit.

And it can't bear bad fruit because it just is what it is.

Now, we've probably all thought that about some people we knew. Even now, as I say, you might be thinking to someone, you think, oh yeah, that's a good person. They just always seem to do good.

I'd like to turn to an example of that in Scripture that I think sort of illustrates and helps it to come out.

It's in 2 Samuel 18. 2 Samuel 18. I'm going to begin in verse 19.

I'm breaking in well into a very big story that we've actually visited earlier. It's part of that whole story of Absalom. Long after he killed his brother Amnon, even after he had this falling out with his father, was banished, came back, Dad wouldn't talk to him, then finally they established contact, but by now Absalom has decided to steal the hearts of the kingdom.

And he successfully does so. So much so that David and those few people close to him have to flee for their lives.

But God intends that to happen. He intends for David to survive, raises an army, and all this is going to happen before the Scripture I want to read.

The armies fight, and I'm pretty sure God makes sure that Absalom dies in the battle.

And David's commander of the army, Joab, now needs to send news back to David to let him know what has happened.

That's where we'll pick up in Samuel 18 and verse 19.

Because Joab is there, and he's got some trained men who are messengers.

Back then they didn't have text or email or even telephone or radio, of course.

They needed news. They had to have somebody who was a trained long-distance runner.

Horses were rare in Israel at that time, and they, here's the news, run 40 miles away and give them the news.

And these guys are ready and waiting. They've been training.

So in verse 19, then, Ahimeaz, the son of Zadok, said, Let me run now and take the news to the king, how the eternal has avenged him of his enemies.

Joab said something interesting, and he said, You shall not take news this day.

You'll take news another day, but today you shall take no news.

Why? Because the king's son is dead.

That seems odd, because apparently he has two messengers there, and he turns to the next one, who, for some reason we don't know his name, we just know he's a Kushite.

Joab said to the Kushite, Go tell the king what you've seen.

So the Kushite bowed himself and took off running.

So you can't take the news because this king's son died. You take the news.

Well, Ahimeaz was just dying to... I still question this, and one of the things I'm not going to get into is why he wanted to go.

But I can relate even on a physical level. You all know I'm a runner. I haven't done any long races lately, but when you're training and running a lot every day, if you miss a few days, your body is telling you, I want to run.

I'm just... I'm so used to it. He comes across sort of like this.

Ahimeaz, the son of Zadok, said to Joab, Whatever happens, please let me also run after the Kushite.

And Joab said, Well, why will you run, my son, since you have no news ready?

Well, whatever happens, he said, please let me run.

So he said to him, run. And Ahimeaz ran by the way of the plane and outran the Kushite.

And that's another thing I'm not sure if he took a shortcut or if he used just better condition and outran him.

But now we shift the scene to there in the city, and King David will see us sitting by the gate.

David is sitting by the two gates. The watchman went up on the roof over the gate to the wall, and he lifted his eyes, and he looked.

And there's a man running alone, across the field. There's somebody running. It's not an army, it's not a troop, it's a man.

So he cried out to the king, and the king said, Well, if he's alone, there's news in his mouth.

And he came rapidly and drew near. And the watchman saw another man running.

And the watchman called to the gatekeeper and said, There's another man running alone.

The king said, Well, he also brings news.

Now, the watchman is probably someone who's done this before. As I said, the messengers are trained, the watchers must also be trained, and they probably work together quite a bit.

And at this point, the watchman says, I think the running of the first is like the running of a hime as the son of Zadok.

Here we're going to get to the whole crux of why I wanted to read this.

And the king said, He's a good man, and he comes with good news.

He's a good man, he comes with good news. David automatically knew there's going to be good news, because he's a good man. That's what he does.

And of course, a hime as came, and he called out and said to the king, All is well.

He bowed down with his face to the earth before the king.

Blessed be the Lord your God, who has delivered up the men, who raised their hand against my Lord the king.

King David said, Is the young man Absalom safe?

What did a hime as say? Now, we could question, did he know?

But what he says is, When Joab sent the king's servant, and me your servant, and I saw great tumult, I didn't know what it was about.

King said, Turn aside, stand here. So he stood still, and then the other messenger, the Kushite, came.

The Kushite said, There is good news, my Lord the king, for the eternal has avenged you this day, of all those who rose against you.

King said, Is the young man Absalom safe?

Which is an amazing thought. After Absalom tried to dethrone him and kill him, David still loves his son. He wants him to be well. I guess that's a natural reaction. A parent loves their child.

But the Kushite answered, May the enemies of my Lord the king, and all who rise against you to do harm, be like that young man.

That was a very wordy way of saying, He's dead.

And the king was deeply moved. He went up to his chamber over the gate and wept.

And of course, he carried on, Oh, my son, my son, Absalom, my son.

And knowing that reaction, now we can think back. Why did Joab say to the one man, You can't bring news because the king's son is dead.

Because he was a good man. He carried good news.

I wonder, did he know Absalom was dead, but he just couldn't say it?

He couldn't convey that kind of news.

The Kushite was able to do it.

But it tells us, it reminds us, good is as good does.

The good man would bring good news. And as I said, that's evidently exactly why Joab chose one man and not the other.

And Himez was a good man, he would bring good news.

Now, as I said, that might seem puzzling to us because we don't use messengers.

And it would never have occurred to me to not have separate messengers for good or bad news.

And I don't know if they were designated that way or if just Joab knew this guy, he just can't deliver bad news.

But, as...

Well, I want to convey something that might sound just as bizarre to many of us, but there was a time in American history when certain representatives for a job were chosen based on that character of whether they were good or bad men.

What's going to seem most bizarre is I'm talking about politics.

There was a time... Well, let me back it up.

Since about the 1830s and 1840s in America, we have tended to vote for people or not vote for them based on their stance on certain policies.

What will you do if you're in office? If you'll do the things that I want done, then I'll vote for you.

And if you'll be opposed to the things I want done, I won't vote for you.

But it wasn't always like that. Starting in the late 1700s and the very... the first couple decades of the 1800s, voters did not primarily consider policy.

They considered character.

And what I mean is they might ask, do I believe James Madison is a good man?

And if I believe he's a good man, he'll do good things in office, so I'll vote for him.

Just like, you know, if I put sugar in my tea, it'll make the tea taste sweet.

Regardless of any other question.

Voters trusted those that they believed were good men to devise good policies, whether or not they even knew what the policy options were.

Because they believed that simple idiom, good is as good does.

Now, that might seem distant and vague and still a little hard to believe. We're talking about politicians.

But I've seen an equivalent in our summer camp program.

And I guess winter camp as well, but I first heard about it in summer camp.

Years before I ever dreamed that I might one day be a camp director, I was listening to some of the audio training for a summer camp, and this was actually a recording that Matt Fentchel had done when he was directing the camp in Oregon.

And he said something that stuck with me.

He said, I don't choose staff members for what they can do. I choose staff members for who they are.

In other words, he was saying a good man or woman will do good things.

And I've tried to follow that principle.

And when people apply for camp and choosing an activity staff member, I consider only secondarily how well can they play volleyball, or how well can they teach dance steps.

Those are important, but those are always secondary. First, I consider, does this person have good character?

Does it have good character? Because that's what summer camp is all about.

When I'm evaluating counselors, I don't consider how well can they follow a schedule.

Now, counselors need to follow a schedule, and I even wrote down, how well can they get the teens to march in straight lines?

Well, that's ridiculous. They haven't done that for 30 years.

When I was a teen at camp, we had to walk in a straight line.

But, you know, what I do when I look at counselors, I consider, is this a person of mature Christian character, or as mature as you can expect for someone in their early 20s, where they usually are?

Spiritually speaking, do they taste good?

And to turn that, I believe God is looking to us that way, to prepare us for jobs in His kingdom.

Now, just think, once Christ returns, He can teach us job duties.

I'm going to make you a king. You're going to be a priest, or whatever.

What do I have to do? I'll teach you.

He can teach us the job duties. He needs us to already taste good.

He needs us to already have that character of goodness.

Once that's in place, learning the duties is easy.

But I want to stop, and here's where I wondered if I should devote a lot more time to what I'm going to say next. I probably should have, because we're going to end up ending early.

But for those of you that came early for a meeting, you probably won't mind that.

Because I want to make the point that in a very important way, we're very different from sugar.

Very different from fruit.

Now, you might look down and say, yeah, I can kind of tell that.

But what I'm getting at is we are thinking beings.

We can take action. We're growing and developing our character. It's not static. It's not decided for us.

Having the fruit of the Spirit is not a passive thing.

We can, we should, and we must exercise the Holy Spirit and develop the fruit.

It's not just happening while we sit passively.

We exercise it and develop that fruit of the Spirit. We don't need to think only of intrinsic goodness being revealed by good activities.

In other words, once we're good, it'll come out in good activities.

I want to think about how it can work the other way.

We can think of good actions contributing to developing intrinsic goodness.

In sports, we talk about muscle memory.

You make yourself do something, and after a while, as a matter of fact, I remember at camp this summer, Matt Fentu was teaching softball, and he was showing, he said, when he was playing baseball, they did a drill of how to take the ball out of the glove.

And I'm probably not doing it right here, but you do it over and over again, it becomes a part of you.

If goodness is as goodness does, let's turn it around.

Can we say, as goodness does, so goodness will be?

We've been looking at it in more of the past events, as goodness is, goodness does.

If you're not as good as you want to be, if you do good, it can help to make you good.

I think that's absolutely true.

We shouldn't just hope that God's Spirit will come out of us in good works, although I think the more God's Spirit is in us, the more that it happened, even if we weren't intending it.

But we should actively seek to harness the power of God's Holy Spirit in us to do good.

And therefore, if you're not as good as you'd like to be, start doing good.

Consider again Galatians 6 and verse 10.

I turned there very quickly earlier, and this is somewhat of a memory scripture.

As we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, especially to the household of faith.

It comes down to let us do good, because we want to be good.

And when it comes down to it, we can come back to that scripture where Christ said, there's none good but the Father.

But that doesn't mean don't start doing good in order to become good, become more good.

Is that more better?

We don't have to sit and wonder and hope that we might taste good.

We can take action to make our taste good.

That came across the way I wanted.

Maybe I should say we can do good to make us taste nice.

I'm still a little short, but I think I've come to the conclusion it is possible to talk for almost an hour on one little simple fruit of the Spirit.

Goodness.

It's sometimes good to remember, though, before I wrap up, that Paul wrote in the singular when he said, the fruit of the Spirit.

The fruit of the Spirit, he didn't say fruits.

You could say the fruit of God's Spirit is a conglomeration of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

I have to write it down when I want to make sure I get them all.

So it's not surprising, though, within this conglomeration, some of them are more interesting to talk about.

How many sermons have you heard on love, and they don't all even say the same thing?

Some are more sophisticated or interesting to talk about.

Some, like goodness, they seem so basic that what else is there to say?

Brethren, be good!

But saying that encompasses a lot.

I want to turn to one last scripture, Ephesians 5 and verse 9.

It sums up the fruit of the Spirit in separate... or it sums up the traits in a different way.

And the Apostle Paul wrote both of these, so it's not that one is contradicting the other.

Remember he said, love, joy, peace, gentleness, kindness, faithfulness, goodness, meekness...

Oh, that's what everyone's looking at.

Too bad you can't get the camera on that, Jim. We've got a toad visiting us for some reason.

Back to Ephesians 5 and verse 9.

Here he says, For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth.

That's just three simple things, and first and foremost is goodness.

The fruit of the Spirit is in goodness, righteousness, and truth.

Like Barnabas, we should be filled with God's Spirit and faith, and thus be good.

But it's not just having the Spirit.

That's good. We want to have the Spirit, but let's come back to it.

Goodness is as goodness does.

So, brethren, let's make ourselves that. Let's do good, and thus let's be good.