God said and God saw | Where did good come from?

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Welcome.

You know, um Dave introduced me, and it's true I am an author and I am a speaker.

Um I don't always get as much credit for my art, um, but I do dabble uh in art as well.

And so if it's okay with you, I thought I would bring some conceptual art uh into our message this morning.

Um and we're gonna do something a little bit different as well.

Um because we're actually going to be auctioning this art off um live this morning, and um, all proceeds will go to a pastor friend of mine who recently lost his car.

I'm gonna start the bidding low, uh just to heat things up on the floor, and because I know this isn't Sullibee's, you know, we don't have a lot of fine art here often.

So um, do I hear two million anywhere?

Two to no.

Okay, so you guys, this isn't this isn't just a banana and duct tape.

This is actually really important art.

I okay, I you probab I know there were a few things going on in 2020, and in the midst of that sea of headlines when we were all scrambling to find toilet paper, you might have missed that Maurizio Catalan sold this piece of art, or one that looked remarkably like it, at auction at Sotheby's for$120,000.

Actually, he sold two for$120,000, and then a third for a undisclosed amount was acquired by the Guggenheim Museum.

Because this is art.

And if you missed it, just recently in November of 2024, the second of those three pieces was resold for$6.2 million.

So now are you seeing how two is a real bargain?

See me after.

All right, here's the deal.

I who we let define art matters and is up for some debate, and we can argue whether or not this is art.

But the stakes are a lot higher for who we let define what good is, for who we let say what is good, and one of the foundations that we're gonna see in Genesis chapter one is that in the story of creation, as we're told, throughout the rhythm of the days, this phrase is repeated over and over again.

God saw what he made, and God said that it was good.

We see there's um in this rhythm and in this cadence, we see that God has both the authority and the character to define good.

And that is the foundation of his creation, is that he created the boundaries around good, and that he created good for humanity, and that he designed humanity for his good.

But when we start letting other people define what that is, or when we attempt to define it for ourselves, things can get messy real quickly.

We see this pattern again, this word pattern in Genesis 3.6.

But this time, Eve has decided to take things into her own hands.

Genesis 3.6 says that when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took and she ate it.

And she also gave some to her husband who ate it with her.

And this is the story of the fall of humanity, when all of creation began to crumble, and God had to launch his new mission to put it back together again and set it right.

I remember reading this story to my daughter when she was young out of a children's story Bible.

And she said, Mom, if I was there, I would have told Eve not to eat it.

As you read this story in detail, it's hard not to like shake your fist in the air and be like, don't do it.

What are you doing?

You live in literally the Garden of Eden.

Like, God has created this incredible good for you.

He just gave it to you.

You're in it, you're in it.

You're taking walks with God in the evening.

You have all of the creatures, all of the food, all of the peace, all of the good.

It's all here.

But as much as we might raise our fist and just think how crazy Eve must have been.

Every time we see through the Bible that humans are given the choice of doing things the way that God says they should be done.

Door A, wide open, God's good, freely available.

And given the choice between door B, tight shut.

Don't peek behind it.

But there's really good things back there.

You actually can do it your own way, whatever way you want.

You don't have to do it God's way.

There are things that He is holding out on you.

There are things that He like the good stuff that He doesn't want you to have is over here.

And we might think Eve is crazy, but I think if we're real honest with ourselves, we've walked through door B a hundred times.

And the narrative here is trying to show us how foolish it is to choose outside of God's good.

Because God's good has boundaries around it for a reason.

They're not to keep us out, they're to invite us in.

They're the boundaries of wisdom that carve out this beautiful good that God has designed for us to enjoy.

In Proverbs, when wisdom is personified, and um there's there's a beautiful section in there, and wisdom says, I was with God at the creation of the earth, at the laying of the foundations, I was hovering over the waters, calling us back to this story in Genesis 1, where the Spirit of God is hovering over the deep.

And God's goodness is infused with wisdom.

And when we choose God's good, we are choosing the way of wisdom.

It's right there for us.

Now we are reading these words here in 2025.

But the first people who read Genesis chapter one were the Israelites in the desert, right about to enter the promised land with Joshua.

Most people think that Moses probably with some help put together these first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, and that those were the first five books to exist.

And Israel, the first, this first pages in our Bible were the first pages that they read or read, had read over them as well.

And this foundation was really important to them.

Just the way that it's important to us, but they were getting ready to go into the promised land.

And promised land on initial branding sort of sounds like Garden of Eden, like paradise.

But in this case, they were gonna have years of really hard battles, of really difficult decisions, of really tough times ahead of them.

And when we look at the very beginning of this, as they're ready to enter this new season of promise as a people, in Joshua 1, 7 through 9, Joshua says to the people, be strong and very courageous.

Be careful to obey all the law that my servant Moses gave you, which is starting with our Genesis 1.

Do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.

Keep this book of the law always on your lips.

Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.

Then you will be prosperous and successful.

Have I not commanded you?

Be strong and courageous.

Do not be afraid.

Do not be discouraged.

For the Lord God is with you wherever you go.

John Sailhammer is an Old Testament theologian who specializes in the Pentateuch, and he notes how important it was for the this story in Genesis to be on the minds of the people of Israel as they were about to go into some of the most difficult, dark battles that lay ahead of them.

How important it was to know that the God who was going with them was good, that he had created a land that was good, and that he was a promise keeper, and that no matter how many times humanity abandoned him, he never ever abandoned humanity.

And what kind of a truth that that goodness of God, not just the goodness he has for us, but the goodness that he is with us, how important that is for us today and then then to take with us into the dark.

And he was diagnosed not long ago with leukemia.

But just how if if a good God is with us wherever we go, how it can be so dark sometimes where we are.

One of the things that she started doing at the encouragement of another friend of ours was keeping a journal by her bed that she called the Firefly Journal.

Because fireflies are these little sparks of light that dart around in the night.

And so every time that there was some glimpse of light in the dark, she would write it down in this journal.

When a nurse took her own personal break to go to a different floor of the hospital and search out the popsicles that her son liked the best, she'd write it down.

When a doctor found something so obscure that it'd be so easy to overlook, but it saved them months of pursuing the wrong drug.

She wrote it down.

And she experienced the goodness of God, the light of God being with her, a good God being with her, even in the dark.

And so did Joshua.

At the end of his life, things were not perfect, but this is what he had to say in Joshua 23, 14.

It says, Now I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know with all your heart and soul that not one of all of the good promises that the Lord your God gave you has failed.

Every promise has been fulfilled, not one has failed.

And to this day, he has not failed anyone yet.

I know that this is true, but I'll be honest, there are times in my life where I do believe, I truly, truly, truly do believe that God will fulfill his promise to save my soul after I die through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

But gosh, I just wish he would promise me something good.

Like, could I just have a promise like that I'd be married by the time I'm 35?

Could I just have gotten a promise that I'd get pregnant the first time and my baby would be healthy?

Could I just have had a promise that my dream job was going to roar in success and take off?

Could I just have gotten a promise that the person I cared about wasn't going to be gone?

Could I just have gotten a promise?

And there's so much that God hasn't promised me.

And it's hard to hang on to his goodness without that promise.

I trust his promises, but trusting his goodness can be harder.

Here's something weird.

I decided to take a break a while ago.

I've I've published a few books, um, all um in like Christian Bible study and theology, and I was working on my next one, and I I started to get writer's block, and I knew that I just needed to like completely switch it up and just try something new, blank blank page, and just do something super low stakes, super different, and kind of like fill up my creative bucket a little bit before I went back to the project.

So I decided on a whim to write this super silly novel.

And no one will ever read it except for me.

But it was kind of fun to um do some research and look into how to tell a compelling story and how to craft a really great character.

And this is something I came across in like one of the keystone writings on how to craft a great character.

You might recognize it from the books and movies that you've seen.

Um, they say that when you're making a good main character, first of all, they can't be perfect and their life can't be perfect because it's totally unrelatable and everyone will hate them.

So you have to make them flawed.

The other thing is you have to give them something that they really want, that they think if they have will make them happy.

Whether that's getting back together with their ex or winning the hockey state championships or whatever it might be.

There has to be a goal, the primary thing that they really want.

And then as you craft this story and this arc, in the end, as the author, there has to be this beautiful transformation that happens.

And you have to give them something that they actually need.

And whether or not in their happy ending they get what they originally wanted is kind of up for grabs, but you have to give them something that they need that's tied to their brokenness and the transformation that comes out of it.

And it just sort of occurred to me as I was writing note cards for this character that I was creating.

I wonder if God's ever made a post-it note with my name on it.

If he's ever seen the like deep wants and longings of my heart.

But he's seen around those, seen the ways that I was broken and the transformation that I truly needed.

If he saw something that he knew I needed, that would be good for him to give me, that was completely out of my view.

And if maybe where I'm at in my story now isn't actually the end, could it be that the author and perfecter of our faith has an intentional story that he's writing for us?

And can we trust him to be good?

Can we trust him to make a good ending?

Because whatever darkness that we are in right now, whatever circumstances, whatever unmet want that we are holding on to, and feels like we are eating us up inside, there is nothing that we can experience here on earth that makes God's goodness untrue.

That makes the good that he is and the good that he has done and the good that he has designed and the good that he is doing less good.

We can count on God to be good no matter what.

And just like Joshua, knowing that that good God is writing our story, knowing that that good promise keeper is with us even in the dark, should fill us with courage.

Because maybe the question isn't why hasn't God like turned on the lights yet?

Psalm 23 says that um when I walk through the darkest valleys or the shadow of death, you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

And I think when we're when we're in that valley, it can be really tempting to be like, hello, God.

Uh excuse me, what kind of shepherd are you?

How did we end up here?

But maybe the real miracle.

Is that he's with us there?

Is that our good God isn't afraid of the dark and that he will never leave us, no matter where we find ourselves.

If we need proof, that proof is Jesus Christ.

God came himself to the dark in one of the darkest chapters in history.

When it seemed like he had been silent for so long, God showed up in the form of Jesus Christ.

And if we fast forward past Christmas, we get to his baptism, which was the beginning of his ministry.

And again, we see this really fun wink back to Genesis 1.

And just like Proverbs and Wisdom was hovering over the waters of creation, we see the Spirit of God hovering over the waters of Jesus as he's baptized.

And there's this nod to this new creation that's happening.

And as he starts his earthly ministry, page one, immediately, do you know what happens?

He faces temptation.

The same temptation that humanity has faced since Genesis 1.

In Matthew 4, 8 through 10, it says, Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.

After being in the wilderness for 40 days and being exhausted and hungry, and at one of his physically weakest points, the devil found him and tempted him three times.

At this point, he said, All this I will give to you, he said, if you will bow down and worship me.

And Jesus said, Away from me, Satan, for it is written, Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

And we see that God had this good plan for humanity.

It involved Jesus suffering a lot.

It involved him going to the cross.

It involved betrayal.

It involved the full human experience.

And then Satan comes along and he says, hey, you know, that's good.

I get.

I get that you want to ransom humanity.

I get that you want to take back the people in creation from my evil clutches.

You know what?

I'll give them to you.

You don't have to do God's way.

Forget the cross.

That's a really bad idea.

Who came up with that?

No, no, no, no.

You just worship me and I'll give them to you.

Door B.

But Jesus was ready because he knew the truth and he knew how God defined good.

That you should worship God only, that there is one good God who's worthy of our worship.

And he said, I'm choosing that.

Get behind me.

Look, Satan has been tempting people since the first pages of the Bible.

And he had the guts to go up against Jesus himself.

You think after thousands of years and millions of humans later, he's maybe learned a thing or two about human psychology?

You think maybe he could give us some really good excuses, some really great justifications, some really compelling reasons why this is a bad idea and he has a better one?

I mean, if we are not continually looking at Jesus, if we are not continually looking at God's good truth and his word, it's going to be really easy to lose sight of the good that we're invited to, or to misunderstand it as a bad idea.

Jesus turned the whole idea of good on its head in his Sermon on the Mount.

In in Matthew 5, just as part of this long teaching that Jesus gave, he said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And Jesus preached to many, many people who were gathered.

And do you know what all of these people thought?

Finally, finally, we have the Messiah, we have the Savior, we have our good God with us.

He's going to solve all of our problems.

He's going to get rid of these crazy Romans.

He's going to rescue us from this terrible slavery.

And make our lives good again.

And Jesus said, Hey, no matter how hard and how rough your lives feel right now, God's goodness is going to find you right there.

Which sounds like bad news at first.

But if we sit with it, if we live with it, it is the best news of all.

Because there is no circumstance of our life that makes it untrue that our good God is with us.

Christ took that to the extreme when He did, He did follow God's good plan to the cross.

C.

S.

Lewis is one of my favorite authors, and he depicts this scene in one of his fiction novels as evil as this cackling witch who is just laughing maniacally like the best villain laugh ever, as the Son of God is killed.

Because as Jesus' disciples watched, it looked like evil had won.

What further proof could you have other than Jesus being dead?

Being dead in this way.

But that wasn't the end.

And in fact, in the miracle of Jesus' resurrection, somehow that victory over sin, that victory over death became something that we benefit from.

All of the sudden we have Christ in us.

Galatians 2.20 says, I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life that I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Following Jesus doesn't always feel like success, doesn't always feel like winning, doesn't always feel like overflowing abundant blessing.

Sometimes it feels like the cross.

But the promise that we have is that the same way that we might share the cross with Jesus, we also share his resurrection.

We also share that victory and that ultimately good has the ultimate victory every time.

For sure, set in stone.

Evil might have its laugh now, but God's good in the end is recreating the whole earth.

And it will be the only thing left.

And that goodness fills us with hope that cannot be taken away.

And that's why that wisdom, that courage, that hope that we find in God's goodness, that's why it matters that when we look to Genesis 1, when we look to the foundations and the origins of our story of our world, that it is God who has both the authority and the character to define good.

And sometimes now where we are, it's hard to know exactly like the boundaries that are on this good, exactly what this good is and exactly what it looks like.

Because there's a lot of gray areas.

And I'm not going to try to overly define this good for you.

But what I can tell you is that the way that we have freedom in Christ is that we can make our way to that good.

And if we spend time looking at Jesus, the life he lived, the interactions that he had with people, we can see this good in action.

We can start to copy it in our lives.

We can notice the way that he cared for the widows, the poor, the orphans, those who needed justice and advocacy.

We can see the way that Jesus lived a good life and did good around him, and we can do our best to translate that to where we are.

We have some time leading up to Easter.

Sometimes the season is called Lent.

And there are a lot of free Bible reading plans online where you can read through the Gospels in 40 days.

Sometimes I like to give myself 50 days for a 40-day reading plan, but if you wanted to follow the exact season of Lent, it starts the beginning of March this year.

Maybe your next step is just to, like Joshua had the word of God that he was meditating on, like Jesus had it at the tip of his lips.

Maybe there's an invitation for you to just get curious about what God's look good looks like right now in your life.

1 Corinthians 10, 23, it says, I have the right to do anything you say, but not everything is beneficial.

I have the right to do anything, but not everything is constructive.

And the truth is, there are a lot of gray areas in the Bible.

They don't tell us, you know, what boundaries to put on the content we consume, what boundaries to put on our ambition, what boundaries to put around our finances, our screen time.

It doesn't tell us that.

And sometimes it can be frustrating how vague it is, but for the hundreds of years, um, people lived under the law, which was like 600 and something very specific rules, and that was not helpful either.

No one was able to keep all of those.

We now have this new freedom in Christ where, you know, we have the right to do a lot of things, but not all of them are beneficial.

Not all of them are constructive, not all of them are gonna lead us to the wisdom and the courage and the hope that God's good has for our lives.

And I think sometimes the way we think of freedom is that we can do anything that we want.

And that is really dorby.

Why do you have to do it God's way?

I mean, you can do what you want.

That is a 12-year-old's definition of freedom.

I have freedom, I can do anything I want.

Well, 47 hours of Mario Kart later, after three packages of Oreos, like you might not be enjoying your freedom that much.

But have you ever experienced the freedom from addiction?

Have you ever experienced the freedom from generational trauma?

Have you ever experienced the freedom from self-hate?

From downward spirals and hopeless cycles?

That is the freedom that he has for us.

That is the freedom that we're invited to, and we, for better or worse, have the ability to choose it or not.

Psalm 116, 7 says, Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.

I like this verse for a couple of reasons.

And first of all, because it talks about God's goodness as the source of our rest and something that we can rest in.

A rest as this true freedom that this wisdom and courage and hope point us towards.

But even more so, I love that it uses the word return.

Because I know myself, the muscle I most need to work on is the one that turns back to and knows how to return to God's goodness, to the good that He designed for me and the good that He designed me for.

Because I will always be tempted to wonder what's behind the other door, to try to make things happen on my own.

And I need to learn how to return my soul to the rest that his goodness invites me to.

Each of those letters is the first letter of the next word in this verse.

So return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.

Psalm 116, 7.

It's a device that you can use to memorize this verse.

And in fact, we actually have these little temporary tattoos.

So if you want to keep this verse on your lips and meditate on it, like Joshua and Jesus, and to just remember that there is a goodness that your soul can return to this week when you most need it.

We have temporary tattoos outside that you can apply yourself after service.

I know you didn't come to church thinking someone was gonna ask you to get matching tattoos, but here we are.

Just lean in.

And as we close, before we leave, I just want to ask you guys, if you would sit in these questions with me, will you let the God who sees see you?

Will you trust what God says is good?

Psalm 139, 23, and 24 says, Search me, God, and know my anxious heart.

Test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me into the way everlasting.

There's this rich thread that starts in Genesis 1 of God being the God who sees.

And it runs through the story of Scripture.

In fact, the first person to name God, Hagar calls him the one who sees me.

This word for see that's used in the Hebrew, it doesn't just mean to see, it also means to provide.

That God sees us and He gives us what we need.

And yet so often I am afraid to be seen by God.

I have rooms in my internal house that are barred up and have caution tape and barriers in front of them.

Because I don't want him to look in there.

But what if we invited God to see us?

What if we let ourselves be seen by him so that he could give us what we need, so that he could welcome us into the goodness that he has for us.

I'm just gonna take a moment and give us the chance to respond in prayer this morning.

I want you to think if there is an area in your life where maybe you need some courage, some wisdom for a decision, a lot of hope for something that feels hopeless.

And could we make this prayer our own in whatever area of your life that you are feeling separated from the goodness of God?

Would you pray with me, Jesus?

Will you lead me to the good that you have for that?

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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