Seeing The Spirit: Goodness; July 5, 2026

speaker-1: Our first reading today is from the first chapter of Genesis, verses 1 to 5 and 26 to 31. When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness. He called night. And there was evening and there was morning the first day. Then God said, Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all wild animals of the earth, and over every creepy little thing that creeps on the earth. So God created humans in his image. In the image of God he created them, male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. God said, See, have I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit, you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps in the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. And it was so. God saw everything that he had made and indeed it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

speaker-0: Our second reading today is from the book of Matthew, chapter twelve, verses thirty-three through thirty-seven. Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you speak good things when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure. I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter. By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. Holy God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, God, our rock and our redeemer. Amen. Something that I find that Presbyterians don't talk much about are the fruits of the Spirit. My sister-in-law was just asking me what scripture I had to memorize in Sunday school. And as a cradle Presbyterian, I kind of just looked at her and replied, Skylar, I wasn't raised Baptist. She could recite scripture and then could recite all the fruits of the Spirit. And I do think Presbyterians could be better at this for sure, but I will read them for us all now. So Galatians chapter 5, verses 22 through 25 says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus. Have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. So today I want to focus on the fruit of the Spirit, goodness. So what is goodness? In our Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible reading this morning in Genesis, we hear the word good. The original Hebrew word is pronounced Tov, and Tov appears in the Hebrew Bible five hundred and sixty-five times. Tov has a much wider meaning than our English word for good. Tov could mean good, pleasant, agreeable, excellent, happy, ethically right, benefit, welfare, or even happiness. The word good that we just heard in Genesis 1 is the same word that is used when saying that Moses was a good or a fine baby in Exodus. It is the same good that is used in Job for saying that his eyes will never see happiness again. It's the same word as prosperity, on who will bring us prosperity in Psalm 4. It's the same good as Psalm 37, for trust in the Lord and do good. It is the same good used in Jeremiah, saying he defended the cause of the poor and needy, so all went well. This good and goodness is talked about many times, and this shows to us that God is on the side of good and goodness. For God's people. You have probably heard before that God created the world and called it good. God created goodness out of chaos. God created goodness out of nothing. And God created us and the whole world with everything in it and said it was very good. God is on the side of good and goodness. I believe that God is also calling us to be creators of goodness. We have been given a spirit of goodness from God. And have been called to continue to create goodness out of God's goodness within us. I'm also starting to think I should have created a game for everyone on how many times I said good. But our New Testament reading in Matthew shares more about where this goodness comes from and how the spirit of goodness can grow in us. We pick up in Matthew after Jesus has healed two different people earlier in chapter twelve. And then knowing people were questioning his healing on the Sabbath, he journeyed on and entered, ended up entering into another crowd of people, and then healed everyone who was ill in that crowd. Before this section of the story, the religious leaders questioned how he cast out demons. since only the Prince of Demons could do so. He insists that he had the power from the Spirit of God, then kind of educates or schools them on how God's goodness and spirit are stronger than anything else. He tells those who are questioning him that good comes from greater goodness. Good fruit comes from a good tree, and bad fruit comes from a bad tree. You cannot speak good when you are evil, for what is inside of you will come out. For someone who is full of God's goodness will then radiate God's goodness. But if you are filled with negativity and judgment, likely negativity and judgment are going to come out of you. Now there are two different Greek words for good used in this passage. The two words are agathos and kalos. Agathos denotes something that is intrinsically good, and kalos is not only intrinsically good, but also externally attractive and captivating. So when it says that the good person brings good things out of a good treasure, it is using agathos. So it is good in character and in quality. But when it speaks of good trees and good fruit, it is speaking of Of calos good, which is not just internally good, but outwardly good in a captivating way. Meaning when you see this goodness, it inspires more goodness. It is an inward and an outward observable goodness, that which is more beautiful, noble, and also practically beneficial to the community. We are called to bear good fruit, and we're called to embody that goodness in more than just internal ways by thinking good things. We are called not to be outwardly attractive in a physical way as Christians, but to be bearing such good fruit in this world that others want to join us in it, that it's so captivating and alluring they have to come. Therefore, we are not just called to be good and say good things and kind things, only tolerating one another, but we are called to be good trees, producing good fruits, which will bring about more goodness in the world. Yet we live in a world where it can be hard to bear good fruit or to see the good fruit being grown. If you turn on the news or open up your social media, you will see the bad trees and the bad fruit. Sometimes it feels like the bad fruit and the bad trees are spreading more than the good fruit. It is actually scientifically proven that our brains hold on to bad news more than good news. Bad memories more than good memories. Our brains have a built-in In survival instinct to protect us from bad and to learn from past experiences, which is ultimately a good thing. God has made us to be able to take care of ourselves and avoid threats. But sometimes those survival instincts create a negativity bias and anxiety, and we only see the bad and remember the bad. Psychological research shows that bad experiences stick in our long-term memory much more than easily much more easily than good ones. A single critical comment or awkward moment can replay in our mind for days, while numerous compliments are quickly forgotten. While this trait has kept our ancestors alive by making them hyper-aware of danger, today it often just causes unnecessary stress or anxiety. So, how do we look for God's goodness? When we feel like we are often hardwired against it? How do we seek more of God's spirit of good and goodness when we get distracted by the hard things? We are called to look for the spirit of goodness and we are called to cultivate it. Bible commentary writer Charles Cassar says that God's Spirit dwells within us and when allowed produces the very love which has been commanded. It is not a mechanical action, mind you, but one in which the dynamic and direction are God's, so that in reality God makes possible the very life that God demands. God asks us to produce goodness, to seek goodness, to create goodness. And we do not do that on our own. We will find that this goodness cannot be seen, it can't be handled or tasted or even bought. The spirit of goodness is not just pulled up from within ourselves and within our own success, it is solely from Jesus Christ. God has not given us an impossible job to just create our own goodness and good from nothing. God created from nothing in Genesis so that we didn't have to. God first gave us love and goodness, so it doesn't have to come from us. God's good news, the gospel, is this: God has given us the free gift of Jesus Christ, a forever gift of love and mercy and forgiveness and goodness, so that we don't have to muster up goodness and love within us to have it and to spread it to others. While God's grace, which is God's free gift of love and goodness, embraces joy, it must also cope with the world that we live in. Khussar continues that the spirit of goodness must also cope with the ordinary and the ugly, with the arrogant and the ill-tempered. Life in community is never easy, and God's promise here is that the spirit will bring those specific qualities of love which make for well-being and peace. So what if we were so full of God's spirit of goodness that others knew it, could see it, could feel it, could hear it? A few weeks ago in my role as campus minister at TCU with Ukirk TCU, I helped with the TCU Frog Camp for incoming freshmen. It was three packed days of small group meetings, Fort Worth activities like the zoo, line dancing at Billy Bob's and stockyards, carnival games on the TCU campus, and intentional conversations to prepare students for college. Ukirk TCU tends to offer a different Christian community than the usual Bible belt evangelical campus ministry experience at TCU. We focus on God's grace, authentic and genuine community, in reading scripture through a historical and theologically open lens. And we are open to questions when the world is so focused on certainty. So one of the more moving conversations I had during this frog camp was with a girl on our last morning. I was super tired after two long days straight of no breaks from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. And I did not see my small group at breakfast, so decided to sit at a table full of new students to me. I ended up sitting next to this girl who was from Austin, and we bonded over the fact that I lived in Austin for six years and talked about our favorite things to do. Eventually I shared that I was a pastor, and she had already told me that she was not religious, but had grown up religious. Something some of you know about me is that I am not a mourning person. So in my tired state of not having Even one cup of coffee in me, I was in a theological conversation with this girl that I had just met 10 minutes over our fake hotel eggs. She told me that she was afraid of going to a Christian school and not being a Christian. She told me she was already feeling judged for disclosing in her small group that she was not religious at all. I assured her that even though TCU has Christian in the name, that most are not practicing Christians on campus. I assured her that she would have a safe space on campus, that I did not judge her, and that it was my job to love and care for her no matter if she was religious or not. We ended up exchanging numbers and personal Instagram accounts after she shared that she would rather not reach out to me through the UK TCU account. We ended the conversation with her sharing that that was the most meaningful conversation she had all weekend. I knew after that that God had used me and used my role as a campus minister to share God's goodness with her. That was not goodness that was coming from me, because I was exhausted and tired, and frankly, I was ready to go home. But I believe because God promises us that God's spirit of love and goodness will always be with us, that God spread goodness to someone who is afraid of being judged by those who claim to love God. It is important for us in our calling as people of faith to spread God's love and God's goodness and to not just be good Christians and good loving people. We should not just share God's goodness when we are asked to, but we should share it even when we're tired and even when we don't feel like it. So, how do we spread God's goodness and grow good fruits? I think it means to reach out to someone today who needs to hear God's goodness or needs God's goodness. To share how God has been good to you. It means being patient at the grocery store when a person in front of you is struggling with tap to pay or inserting their credit card. It means someone, it means letting someone merge in traffic when they probably should have merged earlier. It means saying, I haven't met you yet. I'm Sarah, to the new person at church or at work. It means reaching out into God's good creation for connection. It means lowering your screen time on your phone and computers and iPads. It means spending more time with your family and friends. It means not turning to AI or Chat GPT to ask a question when you could instead ask it to a friend, a family member, or one of your pastors. It means we seek God's goodness so that we can multiply it. God created the good. God created the world and called it good. And we are called to be creators as well. We can create and multiply God's goodness by writing down our gratitude every day, engaging with Scripture, sharing our faith with our community, practicing forgiveness, and just regularly pausing to look up from our devices and out of our minds and look for God's goodness that is around us in the real world. So let us remember that God's goodness is already here. So let us look for it and multiply it, so that God's goodness can be felt and seen by all. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Galatians 5:22–25