Fruit of the Spirit | Goodness
Fruit of the Spirit • Sermon • Submitted
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· 99 viewsGoodness is doing what is right, while loving others.
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Main Point: Doing what is right and loving others for the Glory of God
Main Point: Doing what is right and loving others for the Glory of God
Christmas:
- It is amazing how the promise of a pile of gifts can cause children to behave.
Main Point: Goodness is doing what is right, while loving others.
Main Point: Goodness is doing what is right, while loving others.
- During the month of December, in different places around the world children all of a sudden begin to listen to their parents, stop fighting with their siblings
Today, we are continuing our series on the Fruit of the Spirit
Our new fruit today is Goodness
For the longest time, Goodness was very difficult for me to wrap my head around.
Why? Well, What did we talk about last Sunday?........ Kindness
Kindness was
When I began studying, I wanted to make sure I had a good understanding of Goodness
So like many preachers, I looked in several dictionaries
When I looked I kept finding a word in common
You know how sometimes dictionaries will give you another word to help explain the word being defined
Who can guess what word kept showing up when was looking at Goodness?
KINDNESS!
I was like, “Dang it, Am I going to preach the sermon that John taught”
But Then I kept thinking, Why would Paul put goodness and kindness in the same verse if he was talking about parts of the Fruit of the Spirit?
As I dug deeper into this word Goodness I realized that there is a difference
Although Goodness has a lot to do with Kindness there is something there that we cannot miss
Goodness is this....
Goodness: Doing what is right and loving others for the Glory of God
Goodness: Doing what is right and loving others for the Glory of God
Transition:
Transition:
There are similarities when it comes to Kindness and goodness, but there is something different that we need to understand.
There is also a great danger that we need to be aware of and to watch for in our lives
I have three points for you today
These three points are g
Doing what is right
Loving others
The Self-Righteous Side-Effect
1.) Goodness: Doing what is right
1.) Goodness: Doing what is right
Christmas:
It is amazing how the promise of a pile of gifts can cause children to behave. During the month of December, in different places around the world children all of a sudden begin to listen to their parents, stop fighting with their siblings
The biggest difference between between goodness and kindness is this idea of Moral Excellence
Moral Excellence or Doing what is right
Basically it means to do good things
As believers in Jesus Christ our lives have been transformed
Our hearts have transformed
Our desires have been changed from wanting to obey sin
To wanting to obey Jesus Christ
This means that we live by the commandments the God has set up for us
God is the ultimate example of goodness
4 How blessed is the one whom You choose and bring near to You To dwell in Your courts. We will be satisfied with the goodness of Your house, Your holy temple. 5 By awesome deeds You answer us in righteousness, O God of our salvation, You who are the trust of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest sea;
68 You are good and do good; Teach me Your statutes.
God is the standard of Goodness
He is perfectly holy, righteous, and just
We say that part of Goodness is Moral Excellence
Well, God himself defines what is moral and what is not
It is all based on his character, Who he is
When we say The Fruit of the Spirit, We are talking about qualities that God, the Holy Spirit has
And one of the great promises that we are given as Christians is the God, The Holy Spirit lives within us
So we get these qualities
One of them being Goodness
The bible tells us that, for us who have been saved, God has created us to do good things
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Here are some questions for you guys
Are you walking in the good deeds that you were created for?
Are you seeking what is good?
Are you the one to comes to someones aid when they are wronged
Someone being made fun of
Someone being bullied
Someone being Gossiped about
Some of you may ask, how do I know what I should seeking?
Does evil make you
8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Transition:
Transition:
The first part of Goodness is this idea of Moral Excellence
We know that God is the prime example of goodness, in that he defines what is right and what is wrong
We also know that God allows us to be Good through the holy spirit living in us
The next part of Goodness is just as important as the first part we talked about
Goodness is not all about being “Morally Righteous” but it also involves how we interact with others
2.) Goodness: Loving others
2.) Goodness: Loving others
- I have been blessed with some pretty awesome friends in my life
- There is one person that sticks out in my mind when I think about “Loving others”
- This person is Ryne Tokunaga
- From the beginning of our friendship Tok has always been this ball of energy and excitement (As you all know)
- As our friendship developed and we got to know each other more and more, I found out something.
- Tok LOVES People
- Tok is always looking out for the interest of others and how he can serve them
- When Tok found out I would joining Jr High he drove all the way from Corona, at night, to encourage me
- Just last night Tok sent me a super encouraging text message
- Tok Loves people, and he is great at demonstrating how we as Christians are to be loving others
What does Goodness have to do with Loving others?
While studying Goodness I found a common theme in the definitions
John MacArthur defines it like this:
“Moral and spiritual excellence manifested in active kindness” (MacArthur, 2006)
Another Commentator says this:
“It conveys the idea of benevolence and generosity toward someone else, a going the second mile when such magnanimity is not required.” (George, T, 1994)
It conveys the idea of benevolence and generosity toward someone else, a going the second mile when such magnanimity is not required.
Along with doing what is right, our goodness needs to be focused towards others above the norm
10 So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.
The goodness that comes from us is to be directed towards other people, and its degree should be greater than expected
This is the part of goodness that shares qualities with kindness
“Going the second mile” to serve someone and show them love
Lets look at that Ephesians passage again:
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
We have good works prepared for us
What are these good works?
How do we know what they are?
Look at who you are and what you have
Look at who you are and what you have
Practical Goodness
It is using what God has given you, and where he has placed you, to serve others and bring him glory:
You guys are all students:
Doing good looks like going to school, working your hardest, and when people see it, to Glorify God
Along the way, doing good would be, helping students who are struggling in classes
Helping the teacher when other students are being disrespectful
Being friends with the new kid because they don’t have any friends (even here)
You guys are all children (You have parents)
Doing good looks like obeying your parents when they tell you to do things
Even doing things before they ask you
Going above and beyond, doing things you know will help them
Staff:
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
We have good works prepared for us
What are these good works?
How do we know what they are?
First:
Look at who you are and what you have
Who you are
Transition:
Transition:
Goodness: Doing what is right, loving others, and glorifying God
We have seen what goodness looks like in our lives, and how we can show goodness to others
There is a big danger when it comes to "doing good”
I want to make sure we understand what this danger is and how can we avoid it
3.) Goodness: The Self-Righteous Side-effect
3.) Goodness: The Self-Righteous Side-effect
ESV They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of your righteousness. The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.
- I want to tell you guys a story about a man named Sam
- Sam was a stinky man
- Once upon a time there was a guy named
- This problem
- Sam thought that he was perfect
- Sam did not see a single thing wrong with his life
- But Sam would always stop and notice the bad things that other people did and judge them for it, even though he does those same things
- When people tried to talk to him about the bad things he was doing, we would refuse to see it
- Sam also did not see a need to shower
- “I don’t know what you’re talking about” Sam would say
- One day, there was a fire in Sam’s Neighborhood
- He thought that all he needed to do was to spray himself every morning with Axe body spray
- Sam woke up, smelt the fire and said, “OH Dang, there is a fire I need to help put it out”
- Everyday he would wake up, spray himself and go about his day
- Sam grabbed the water hose and ran to his neighbors house and began spraying the fire
- Because of this people would straight up avoid this guy
- People would go up to him and tell him… “Sam, you stink… Take a shower”
- As he was spraying, a small fire started on his bathrobe
- Sam would always respond, “nah, I’m good, Thanks for the advice though”
- As he moved onto the next house his neighbor said, “Hey sam, you’re on fire”
- Sam would respond, “Yeah, no, i’m good”
- Sam would see commercials about cool new showers, and new soaps, but he would always think to himself, “I’m not dirty, I don’t need those things”
- Every house Sam would try to help put out
- Sam went his entire life not ever showering
- Sam began his life looking like Trev
- Sam ended his life looking like me
- The end
Thats a pretty nasty story
But here is the sad truth
A lot of you guys are like sam
Not that you don’t shower (well some of you guys really don’t shower as much as you should)
But, you guys think that you are “good” when you’re really not
There students in here who will go to church all their lives, and hear the story about Jesus Christ
But when they are presented with the Gospel, they will think to themselves, “I’m good, I believe in Jesus, I go to church, I’m definitely going to heaven when I die”
When in reality they have never given their lives to Christ
You see,
The danger of doing good deeds is that you can get caught up in the good deeds
And when you think about your salvation, it is grounded in those “good deeds”
You become convinced that you are going to heaven because of those “good things” that you are doing
How do you know if you are self righteous?
If every time you listen to a sermon and you think “I don’t need to listen to this”
If when one of us, or even Christ mueller is preaching, and you think I’m already doing good in this area, I don’t have to pay attention
another way?
If you were to die right now, and stand before God, if He was to ask you “Why should I let you into heaven?” what would you say? What would be the response you would give him?
A self righteous person would say
“Because I went to church all my life”
“Because I memorized these bible verses”
“Because I was a good person”
The Christian would answer “Only because Jesus Died on the cross for my sins”
The Bible tells us that there is no one who does good ()
There is none who seek after God
They have all gone astray
Here is another question?
Can a non-believer do “good things”?
Can a non-believer donate to charity?
Can a non-believer give to the homeless?
Can a non-believer sacrifice their lives for someone else?
So what is the difference between good deeds done by a non-believer and a true Christian
Read this Verse Matthew 5:16:
(NASB95)
16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
This is the key
This is the difference
This is the question you need to be asking yourself when you show “goodness” to others
“Am I doing these things so that God would be Glorified?”
The non-believer will have a bunch of reasons to do “good deeds”
But only true believers will have this as their main focus
“Am I doing these things so that I would honor God, or people watching would praise God?”
Here are some questions for you:
Why do you do the things you do?
Why do you do “good things”?
Why do you treat others well?
Why do you obey your parents?
Goodness: Doing what is right and loving others for the Glory of God
Goodness: Doing what is right and loving others for the Glory of God
Are you making a habit of obeying God’s commands?
Are you displaying goodness to others?
Are you doing this all for the Glory of God?
Sources Cited
George, T. (1994). Galatians (Vol. 30, p. 403). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2006). The MacArthur study Bible: New American Standard Bible. (). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers.