Galatians 5
This is the Apostle Paul, he
says in Galatians 5.16, but I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will
not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the
flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit
are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each
other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit,
you are not under the law. Then verse 22, the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. And for our consideration
tonight, goodness, and faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Against these, there is no such law. And those who belong to
Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. And live by the Spirit, let us
also walk by the Spirit. Let us not also become conceited,
provoking one another, envying one another. Let’s pray together. Lord, bless your word to our
minds and our hearts tonight. And we pray especially that the
fruit of goodness would appear in our lives and also appear
before all men so that the name of our Heavenly Father might
be praised. And this we ask in Jesus’ name, amen. All right,
if I were to ask you to fill in the blank, who personifies
evil, who would you say? What’s that, Satan? Some of you probably say Hillary.
Some of you would say Donald Trump. Hillary, yeah, some of
you might say it’s the Tar Heels, some would say it’s the Blue
Devils. If you were to maybe list a criminal out in the world,
maybe others would list something from the Bible. Do you know who
personifies evil the most in the Bible? In the Old Testament,
it’s King Amalek of the Amalekites. Remember how wicked they were
to Israel. God put them to death for how they treated. In our
modern era, we might put the face of evil on somebody like
Saddam Hussein or some wicked tyrant in human history. But
ultimately, you’re right, it’s Satan. It’s the Antichrist. It’s
those against Christ. Now, how would you, or who would
you fill in the blank for if you were to personify goodness?
We’re not Catholic, but the Catholic Church just sainted somebody.
Mother Teresa, she’s a picture of goodness in many ways. Who
else? I mean, our fellow North Carolinian from up there in Black
Mountain, Billy Graham. Yeah, you couldn’t go wrong.
Yeah, that’s right. But his name’s there. You could probably speak of your
aunt or your grandmother or your mother or somebody. Who might somebody famous be?
Mother Teresa’s famous. Mary Okay, we go downhill from
there But how about pretend goodness? I don’t fill in this blank because
this wouldn’t be very nice But pretend goodness, that’s why
we read Ananias and Sapphira, but but who is insincere? But with pretend I was just meaning
not in the room I don’t name anybody here But pretend goodness
is insincere. It’s hypocrisy. It’s two-faced,
we say, right? We wear the mask. It’s somebody who’s play acting.
There’s temporary beauty and goodness. Think of the white
witch from Narnia. She’s a wicked woman, isn’t she?
Beautiful in appearance, but she’ll kill you. That’s the way
that works. Think about Ananias and Sapphira.
What was it that Ananias and Sapphira really did? Yeah, they sold some land for
a million dollars. They gave the church $250,000 and said,
look how great we are. And what was the problem? Yeah,
they said we gave it all. And they even worked it out behind
the closed doors of their house. But God found them out, did he
not? Yeah, he’s who we see as a personification
of great goodness, genuine goodness, right? But you got this Ananias
and Sapphira problem. You know, we want to pretend
to be good, don’t we? We used to have a guy in our
first church who could place a $50 bill appropriately, and
he could get anything he wanted in the church. I mean, he could
get anything he wanted. And everybody thought he was
so wonderful. I won’t mention his name because somebody will
listen to this thing on the internet and pick it up and I’ll be in
court for libel or something like that. But man, with $50,
he could stir the church up. He could stir the pot up. And
you couldn’t say a word against him. But within 30 minutes or
so, back when cell phones were new, he could get the church
stirred up. Oh, he was a saint in many people’s eyes, and it
was difficult to say otherwise. But what is true goodness? What
is real goodness? What is goodness that comes from
the Holy Spirit? Well, first thing is it’s an
attribute of God. What do we say about God? God
is good. And so if we’re to display the attribute of goodness, we
first must recognize that it’s an attribute of God. Now, some
of the attributes of God are what we call communicable attributes.
You’ve heard that word with diseases, right? You know, communicable
disease means you can get it. But what would an incommunicable
attribute of God be? When you can’t get like, yeah,
like perfection. or being infinite, or being perfectly
holy. Those are things we can’t get.
But can we be good like God in some ways? Yeah, we sure can.
Maybe not to the level He is, but it’s an attribute of God,
and we’re to be God-like to others. Just think of a couple passages
in the Bible. Psalm 100, verse 5. Think of Psalm 100. Worship the Lord’s song, come
before Him, enter His gates for Thanksgiving. And then what does
it say in verse 5? Know that the Lord he is good. His mercies are forever sure. How about Genesis 1 and 2? God’s
making day and night, stars and moons, animals, plants, water,
fishes, birds. He’s making all these things.
He’s taking what is formless and void and forming it and filling
it. And what does he say at the end
of every day? It is good, it is good, it is good. He’s placing
his benediction on it. And what does he say after he
makes man? Behold, it is very good. And so man gets God’s highest
benediction. So we see God making a good earth,
a good blessing creation. What about in Numbers chapter
six? This is kind of an end of the church service thing. It
goes all the way back to Numbers. God says to Aaron, you and your
sons are to bless the people in this way. The Lord bless you.
keep you, Lord make his face shine upon you, be gracious to
you, Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
So our God is a good God. He’s a God who gives good to
us. He is a God who blesses. So you come to the Gospels and
you get this Pharisee who comes to Jesus and he says what? Good teacher. What does Jesus
do? I thought he said, thanks a lot
for the accolades. No, he says, why do you call
me good? And then what does he say? Only God is good. And so it’s
something to remember. Human beings by nature are not
good. We daily break God’s law in thought and word and deed.
Have y’all seen this little thing Ligonier has out now called the
State of Theology? Gotta go find it on their website
and listen to it. They recently did a survey through
Lifeway Resources. They did one in 2016 and they
did one in 2014, but they went on the street and polled 3,000
people about Christianity. And you know what a lot of people
say? I’m a pretty good person. But that’s not what the Bible
says. We used to have a little joke when we were in seminary,
you know, you make little nerdy Bible jokes. You’re a good man
despite what Romans 3 says about you. Romans 3 is that dark chapter,
all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We used
to make that little joke, you’re a good man despite what Romans
3 says about you. Goodness is possible, how? It’s
possible by God at work in you, making you a new creation. If
any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone and
the new has come. How about Ephesians? We have
been recreated in Christ Jesus for his workmanship, and what
have we been created for? Good works. And so God has created
us to do good things. You know, we’re living in an
era, a do-good era. right? You see all these triple
bottom lines that companies have, you know, we want to make money,
but we want to do good, you know, we want to cut down on global
warming, or we want to eradicate poor. Or what happens if you
buy a pair of Tom’s, you know, those little funny canvas shoes,
they give a pair of Tom’s to some poor person across the world.
So we’re living in a do good world. And all that’s well and
good. But you know what the Bible says, only Christians who’ve
been changed by the Holy Spirit can truly do good. Now, we can
do nice benevolent things as non-Christians, but only a Christian
can really do good. So what does it mean? What does
goodness mean? Well, biblically, it simply means faultless, and
it generally has a part attached to it that it’s an outgoing faultlessness. Now, we don’t like those kind
of people. Think back to your high school days. Remember the
popular people? I do. I wasn’t one of them. But we generally don’t like them.
People like them, and they like them for good reasons, because
they’re pretty, they’re handsome, they play football, they’re cheerleaders,
whatever. But they’re just nice people.
Well, it can be the same way in the church, because a person
full of goodness is faultless and outgoing. In the early church,
Barnabas. Barnabas was a good man. He was,
according to Acts chapter, I think five in several other places
it speaks of Barnabas being full of the Spirit and a good man.
But it’s a person with moral and spiritual excellence. They
love the Word, they live the Word. They have good rapport
among men. Often their goodness is seen. And because of that, they’re
often not very well liked at times by others who maybe, what
do you call it, envious of that. And that’s a little of the problem
going on in Galatians. There’s factions, there’s this
party and that party. And the Apostle Paul is saying
the fruit of the evil is jealousy, it’s rivalries, but the fruit
of the spirit is goodness. Now our Westminster Confession
of Faith says a good bit about good works. What did good works
not do? They can’t save you, but they
can prove what? That you are saved. A faith that
is dead will show no fruit, but a fruitful faith will show fruit. So in chapter 16, there’s a whole
chapter on in the confession of faith on good works. And it
says a handful of things. First of all, good works are
good things that God commands in his word. You want to do good
works, do what the Bible says. Help the poor, encourage the
weak, encourage somebody in sin to stop sinning. But we do what’s
commanded in the word. A second aspect of good works
that pops up in our confession of faith is that it is the fruit
of faith. Remember James? I’ll show you
my faith, hell, by my works. Some people get a little confused
by James and say, well, I thought Paul said justification is by
faith alone. And it seems that James is saying
justification is by works. No, he says your works show that
you have justifying faith in your life. But the fruit of faith
is part of good works. And so when we do good works,
it’s a fruit of our faith. It shows we’re thankful to God
for our salvation in Christ. It shows or, I’m sorry, it strengthens
our assurance. When we do good works, we realize
that we’re pleasing God. It edifies others when we do
good works. It edifies and it encourages. It adorns our profession. What does John the Baptist say
when somebody comes up out of the water? Bear fruit in keeping with your
repentance, right? We’re to bear fruit in our lives,
so it adorns our profession. It shuts the mouths of our adversaries. You know, it’s always been said
of Christians, if a Christian lives a faithful, consistent
life, people really can’t say much about us. I mean, they can
say obnoxious, untrue things, but it shuts the mouths of our
adversaries. And finally, it gives glory to God. So good works
are those things commanded in scriptures. It’s the fruit of
faith that has all those benefits we just mentioned. Good works
come by the work of the Holy Spirit in us. If you don’t have
the Holy Spirit in you, meaning not a Christian, you can’t do
good works. I mean, you can do nice things. You can help little
old ladies across the street and pick up people’s trash they
throw down and all that. It’s really a work of the Holy
Spirit in us that allows us to do good works. Here’s something
important. It can never achieve righteousness
for us. We can never pat ourselves on
the back and say, my good works have saved me. Whose good works,
in fact, do save us? The good works of Christ, right?
Now, we are able to do good works, but how does God see them in
his sight? This is a little bit of a trick question. He sees
them two ways. One is they’re so tainted with
sin. What does the scripture say? They’re as filthy rags. Yeah, they’re defiled. They are
tainted with sin. But on the other hand, the Bible
says that God takes our good works and he accepts them, he
uses them, and what even happens when we get to heaven? He rewards
us for our good works, not rewards us with salvation that comes
from Christ. But he will say to us, well done, good and faithful
servant. And so we see that we’re created in Christ Jesus to do
good works. I wanna end by just reminding
you of what Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew. He says this
in chapter five, verse 16. He says, let your light so shine
before men that they may see your good works, and then what? Give praise and glory to your
Father who is in heaven. Here’s a good question to think
of as we end tonight. Do you want to live a good life,
sort of holding all your goodness in for yourself? Or do you want
to end up at the end of your life hearing, well done, good
and faithful servant? Let’s pray together.