God is Actually Good

All right.

Man, a couple quick announcements.

I guess another shout out though, too.

We had a ton of high school students here yesterday.

I'm sure we'll have an update on that in a more specific way next week with probably some video highlights and whatnot.

But we have this event called One Weekend, and 10 different youth groups from around the city were all here together, all of those youth groups combined to be like one church for one weekend, worshiping God together, doing service projects together.

Really cool experience.

And so man, just amazing to have that many people that are part of maybe not his hands, but are part of the kingdom, part of God's church, which is so much bigger than our church.

A super special thing.

And then, real quick, can you just give a shout out to yourselves?

Like everyone just clap because you're here on a Sunday morning on spring forward day, right?

Like that's how you know who the real Christians are.

It's just the ones who show up, you know, the full when it's fall back, anyone can fall back and come to church.

Very few people can spring forward into God's presence.

So well done, guys.

Well done.

Uh, how many of you did not know that it was spring forward until this morning when you when one of your clocks did not match the other?

That was my experience.

I was like, why is that clock wrong?

Oh my gosh, that's why I'm tired.

That's what happened.

It was great.

Um okay, real quick announcement, and then we'll jump into the message.

Uh, Easter is actually coming up pretty quick.

It's less than a month away, and so just want everyone to know what's going on for not just Easter Sunday, but really that whole week, and we'll have more details on this in the weeks to come.

But Easter Sunday, April 5th, we have two gatherings, 9 o'clock and 11 o'clock.

And so uh one service is not enough for us.

We could probably do three, but we'll just pack everybody in and have some fun.

Easter is like Christmas for us.

We only do this at Christmas Eve and at Easter, but we don't have our kids stuff going on on those days because we we really we want with two things.

We want everyone in the room together, everybody sharing together, and even parents with kids, it's really good for your kids to be with you and to have the ability to see you, worship God, and engage with that with you.

Um, so that's that's the main reason.

The other reason is it just keeps me on my toes.

You know, when you fill a whole room full of children, it keeps me on my toes.

It helps challenge me as a speaker and a communicator, lots of distractions, but it's actually, in all seriousness, it's really, really special when we're all together as a church.

Christmas Eve every year is one of the highlights of my year.

And when I get to look out and see all the kids and see them worship with their families, uh, it's it's great.

It's great.

And we'll make sure to make it something that the kids will be good with.

So if you're a parent and you don't normally bring your kids in here, you're like, we're not coming.

No, no, no, come.

It is really special, it's awesome, and we really we plan for that.

So it's gonna be great.

Uh we also have Good Friday.

We have a Good Friday worship service.

We did that for the first time last year, and it was incredible, it was really special.

Um, one honestly, one of the most powerful worship experiences I've ever had.

And so we're doing that again this year on Good Friday.

But really, the entire week, we're gonna have things going on that are all Easter related, helping all of us grow in our understanding of how meaningful not just Easter Sunday is, but everything that led up to it.

Because it is like prophecy being fulfilled.

It is Jesus doing things left and right that are showing us not just what he did, but why he did it.

And so the entire week is a really special week, and we're gonna have classes uh that are gonna help you know what's going on in that whole journey of Jesus' last week in a whole new way.

Uh, we're gonna have something special on that Wednesday night that's Easter related.

So just know that that entire week is going to be a really special week with classes, gatherings, worship gatherings, Easter Sunday.

It's gonna be awesome, and we really can't wait.

So I'm super excited about that.

We'll give you guys more details on that um in the weeks to come.

So, real quick, I'm gonna pray again and then we're gonna jump into what we're talking about today because it's really, really cool.

So, Father, thank you so much for uh this morning.

And thank you, Lord, that all of us have a chance to uh hit the pause button on whatever's going on in our lives.

Um maybe that's just busyness, maybe we're not in the best place uh emotionally or or mentally because we've we've had a rough week and maybe weren't we weren't even our best selves so far this morning.

But just like we sang, no matter where we're at, you are good.

You are good.

Always.

And we can trust you and we can come into your presence and we can just uh bow at your feet, Lord, and surrender ourselves to you and say, Lord, here I am as I am, and whatever that may be, I know that you love me and you want more for me.

And so we're just coming today, Lord, to say that we want to know you better.

We want to walk out of here better than when we walked in.

We want to be closer to you, we want to understand you more clearly, and I just ask that you do that for all of us through your Spirit.

We pray this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.

Well, guys, we are uh we're in a series that we're probably gonna be in for most of the year, to be honest with you, looking at the pace that it's gone so far.

And it's called Getting to Know God.

Which I'm glad we're gonna spend the entire year getting to know God.

I think that that's a worthwhile endeavor.

Jesus once said, What good is it to gain the world if you lose your soul?

The way I like to think about it is that no matter what I want to do this year, I've got a lot of things that I want to accomplish this year.

I've got a really big to-do list in my mind this year.

If I did all of those things but was not closer to God at the end of my year than when I started, it would really be a waste.

Because what good is it to do all the earthly things but not be closer to your Heavenly Father?

That's what matters most.

That's why Jesus said, Don't worry about all the stuff everybody else worries about.

Seek first the kingdom of God, and all those other things will be given to you.

God will actually bless you.

And so we want to spend our year together getting to know God.

And the way that we're doing that this year is by going through the story of a man in the Old Testament named Abram, or Abraham, as his name will be changed to later.

And he is someone that God calls to follow him at a time when people really aren't, at least not formally.

Abram's world is filled with people who are worshiping false gods, pagan gods.

But God calls Abram and He says, Follow me.

And Abram really doesn't know God very well when he answers that call.

But throughout the course of his life, he gets to know God, and bit by bit, God reveals himself to Abram, and much of what he reveals is very surprising to Abram.

Because Abram's conceptions of what a God is are very much shaped by his world, and God is not those things.

Abram gets to know God, and through his story, we get to know God as well.

We get to know his nature and his character, what he cares about, what he values.

And if we can put ourselves in Abram's shoes and not take for granted some of the things that we know about God right now on this side of Jesus, and just think about what it would be like to have this conception of God that Abram must have had because of the way that the world perceived the gods and what it must have been like for Abram to learn about God's true nature and his true person, it would have been a revolution.

In fact, we're gonna see that today.

Last week we looked at a character, a man in the Bible, who I said might be the most mysterious man we have in scripture.

He's a priest named Melchizedek.

He shows up and he's gone, and we went through that last week.

If you weren't here, give it a listen.

You gotta nerd out a little bit because it's a lot of history and details and interesting ideas and concepts about high priests and how all of that worked and the fact that Jesus is our high priest.

He's our high priest.

And again, if that's a concept you've never heard before or thought of, it's it's kind of out there in some ways, depending on especially how you were raised.

Some of us maybe grew up in churches that had priests, a little easier for us.

But man, give that a listen because it's a really cool concept.

Melchizedek might be the most mysterious man in the Bible, but the story we're gonna look at today might be one of the most mysterious moments in the Bible, especially if you don't understand the context.

What we're gonna read right now, when I'm done, most of us are gonna be like, okay, what in the world is that?

But guys, I'm just gonna say on the front end, what God does in this moment with Abram, it is so powerful, it is so beautiful, and it would have been an entire category change in Abram's mind about who God is and what he's all about.

This might be one of the most mysterious and yet the most meaningful moments that we have in all of Scripture, especially if you're you're Abram.

So with that said, we're just gonna read this.

This is the entirety of Genesis chapter 15.

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

Genesis 15, it says, Sometime later, the Lord spoke to Abram in a vision and said to him, Do not be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you and your reward will be great.

But Abram replied, O sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don't even have a son?

Since you've given me no children, Elieazar of Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit all my wealth.

You've given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir.

Then the Lord said to him, No, your servant will not be your heir.

For you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.

Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can.

That's how many descendants you will have.

And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.

Then the Lord told him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as your possession.

But Abram replied, O sovereign Lord, how can I be sure that I will actually possess it?

The Lord told him, Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon.

So Abram presented all these to him and killed them.

Then he cut each animal down the middle and laid the halves side by side.

He did not, however, cut the birds in half.

Some vultures swooped down to eat the carcasses, but Abram chased them away.

As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a terrifying darkness came over him.

Then the Lord said to Abram, You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land.

They will be oppressed as slaves for four hundred years.

But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth.

As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.

After four generations, your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction.

After the sun went down and darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch between the halves of the carcasses.

So the Lord made a covenant with Abram that day and said, I have given this land to your descendants all the way from the border of Egypt to the great Euphrates River, the land now occupied by the Kenites, Kenesites, Cadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephetes, Amorites, Canaanites, Gergishites, and Jebuzites.

Alright, there you have it.

So God says, Abram, I'm gonna bless you.

Abram's like, I don't really know about that, because I don't have a kid yet.

He's like, You will, how can I be sure?

I'm sure all of us can relate to this idea of needing to have assurance about things that you feel like maybe God has promised you or things that God will bless you with.

How can you be sure?

And so God says, here's how you can be sure.

I want you to take all these animals, kill them, cut them in half, lay them with their halves, you know, next to each other.

And Abram's like, got it.

It's weird, right?

That's weird.

And what I would say is it's weird for us.

It's very weird for us, but but it wouldn't have been strange to Abram.

This whole business of getting these animals and killing them and cutting them in half and placing their bodies and their carcasses so that there was some space between them and all this kind of stuff.

That that part of the story, the end of what happens is weird to Abram.

But the beginning of this, this would not have been strange to Abram.

We have to understand that in cultures, certain things are normal if you're in the culture and crazy if you're not.

Like, question, how many of you are dog owners?

Let's raise hands.

I am now a dog owner, by the way.

I've had this reputation over the years as not being a dog person.

It's not the truth.

I grew up with dogs.

We got a dog for our kids at Christmas.

It's their first dog, and they, my daughter literally said last week, this is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life.

Right?

She loves.

Oh my when she got that dog, she lost it.

It was amazing.

So we have this dog now, and his name is Cider, and he's part of our family, and we're doing what everybody else does.

We are treating him like a human being.

Um, because that is what we do when we have dogs, right?

Yesterday we were in downtown Canton because my daughter was uh dancing with her ballet group at this festival in downtown Canton, and it was the first time we've ever taken our dog out to like an event, and man, there were a lot of people doing the exact same thing.

You know, we all have our leashes with our dogs, we have all of our dog stuff, and some people have shirts on their dogs, and their dogs are in outfits, and there was actually this like dog expo that was close by, and these people were telling us about it like you should go there.

They have dog ice cream, they have dog pizza, dog pizza.

Yeah, that's a new category for me.

And so it was just really funny.

I'm watching this, I'm like, man, it is funny how we are with dogs.

Because in other cultures right now, they don't feel like that at all.

Like you can get on an airplane right now and go to certain places in the world, and and dogs are not treated as family, they're treated as pests.

Like, in fact, if someone calls you dog in America, that is a compliment.

Like, I see some of you guys that I know really well, and you are my dogs.

And that's a good thing.

Like, if I if I say to you, what's up, dog, it's like we're close.

It's a sign of closeness, it's a sign of respect.

But if in another culture someone calls you a dog, it's an insult.

In fact, in Jesus' time, it was a major insult.

To call someone a dog was one of the lowest things that you could call someone.

Dogs were not cherished and honored.

I mean, I've I've got a good buddy who paints portraits of dogs.

Because people pay him to paint portraits of dogs, which is nuts.

Except that we're going to pay him to paint a portrait of our dog.

Like that is absolutely happening.

If someone in Jesus' day had shown up to a house and seen a dog with a shirt on and a painting of that dog in the house, and that dog eating whatever dog pizza is, they would have been like, this is the strangest thing I have ever seen.

But to us, it's like, yeah, they're they're part of our family.

It's a cultural thing.

We have a lot of examples of that in the Bible.

Moments that we read and we go, that is the strangest thing in the world.

But it actually would have been totally normal to the people.

Great example of that.

In Exodus, Moses goes up to this mountain to meet with God.

It's where he gets the Ten Commandments.

And while he's gone, the people of Israel, who are at the base of the mountain, they kind of freak out and they take all this gold that they have and they melt it down and they build a golden calf, an idol, and they worship it, pretending that it's God.

It's a really strange story.

Exodus chapter 32, it says, When the people saw how long it was taking Moses to come back down the mountain, just think about that.

Exodus 32 · chapter mention

Moses goes up to the mountain to meet with God.

They're like, Man, it has taken a while.

And this is what happens.

They gathered around Aaron.

Come on, they said, Make us some gods who can lead us.

We don't know what happened to this fellow Moses who brought us here from the land of Egypt.

So Aaron said, Take the gold rings from the ears of your wives and sons and daughters and bring them here to me.

And all the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron.

And Aaron took the gold, melted it down, molded it into the shape of a calf.

And when the people saw it, they exclaimed, O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

And then Moses comes back down, and he's like a father who walks into the house at the absolute wrong time and loses his mind.

And I can relate to that.

And we look at that story and we're like, what in the world is happening?

It's so strange.

But to the people of Israel, they grew up in Egypt.

Their entire context for faith and worship was watching the Egyptians build statues of their gods and worship the statues.

Moses sort of served as a visible representation of God for them, so much so that God has to do some things in Moses' life to be very, very, very careful.

In fact, tradition holds when Moses died, we have this in scripture, God buried his body in a secret location.

And the tradition in the Jewish people is that that is because the people of Israel would have worshipped Moses' body.

Because they associated him so much with God.

These people had grown up in a place where there's no concept of an invisible God.

God is a statue, God is a thing, there's always a thing to worship.

And now they're out of Egypt and they don't have a thing to worship.

And Moses, at least he's visible and tangible, and now he's gone and they don't know what to do.

They're like, we need a thing to worship.

Like if we would have shown up and seen them bowing down in front of a golden cow statue, we'd be like, You guys are nuts.

But if they would come here on a Sunday morning and see us all singing with our hands up to an invisible God, they would have been like, What is going on?

There's moments in scripture that seem crazy to us, but would have been incredibly normal to the people.

And that's what's going on here with Abram.

When God tells Abram, you know, think about this.

So here's the basic gist of what's happening.

God tells Abram something, Abram questions God.

God reassures him, Abram questions further.

Any of you who have authority, whether you're a parent or a boss, you know that dynamic probably where like you tell someone something and they ask you a question, you humor them, you're like, okay, yep, let me just reassure you of that, then they ask you again, and there's that moment where you're like, look, do what I say.

Right?

We all have those moments.

Like, I don't want to answer this question again.

And so, you know, Abram's kind of pushing it, probably from his perspective, like, hey God, I don't want to make you mad, but just are you sure?

And God says, Here's what I want you to do.

Here's how you can be sure.

Go bring me these animals, kill them, cut them in half.

And this would have been extremely familiar to Abram, not mysterious at all.

Basically, this is like, from Abram's perspective, an intimidation tactic.

This is God about to assert his authority by doing something to put Abram in his place.

I'm sure we've all had experiences where someone's done that to us.

I I grew up, my I love my dad, and with a shout out to my dad.

He's doing great, by the way.

Thanks again for praying for his heart surgery.

Yay, dad.

Um, but my dad, before I was born, was a varsity uh basketball coach, and he went from being a varsity basketball coach in the like 70s to being my first grade basketball coach in the 80s, which was a transition.

Um and just suffice it to say, we won a lot of games, and we were terrified.

Uh, you know, because my dad was part of a different era, right?

When he was growing up as a coach, you know, those of you who are uh of a different generation, man, like coaches get away with all kinds of things that they would never get away with.

Now, like Bobby Knight, if you know who Bobby Knight is, Bobby Knight was like the gold standard of what a coach looks like.

And he would occasionally throw chairs across the entire court, and then he'd get a technical foul.

I've gotten technical fouls for hurting the feelings of a referee.

I have.

I've had three technical fouls my entire life as a coach, and I deserved all of them, but like they would never have been technical fouls 30, 40 years ago, right?

Not even so.

So my dad he grew up as this coach in an era where you know what was allowed as a coach as far as intimidation and intensity was just much different than today.

And so there's a story that my mom always told me about my dad when he was coaching high school.

He had these guys on his team that he couldn't stand.

They were kind of just punks, and he wanted him to quit.

And so he got this cheap watch and he wore it every day to practice.

And he found a way to insert this story that this watch was an heirloom in his family that had been given to him by his grandfather who passed away, and it meant the world to him, and it wasn't very nice, but there really wasn't something he prized more than that watch.

And then about a week later, at a moment in practice when those guys were doing the things that drove him nuts, he screamed very loud, took the watch off, threw it against the wall, smashing it into pieces, walked over and finished the job, and threw him out of the gym.

And they quit the team.

Because they're like, that guy's a psychopath.

Right?

The whole thing, it was this elaborate intimidation, it was this whole like elaborate intimidation type tactic where my dad wanted them to think he will, if he'll do that to his watch, from his grandfather, whom he loves, what will he do to us?

Like that's what my dad, and my dad wanted them to think that.

It was on purpose.

Abram, he definitely thinks that that is what's going on here in this story because that is the way that the world worked.

Those in authority had all kinds of ways of reminding those that they were over, the people underneath them, of who they were and and how things were going to operate, what would happen if you questioned them or got out of line.

What Abram is doing right here with God is entering what is called a blood covenant.

And it was a very common thing in his day.

It was something that kings would do to other kings that they had conquered to establish their dominance.

We see a lot of examples of this in scripture, the kind of brutality that dominant kings would use to put those that they had defeated and subdued, or those that were underneath them in their place.

In fact, we have an example of this in the book of Judges.

We have the story of a man named Samson.

Samson is the judge of Israel.

They didn't have a king yet at this point, but the judges were the leaders of the people.

And Samson is blessed by God tremendously, but also not faithful to God, and that gets him in a lot of trouble.

And eventually he is he's caught by his enemies, and this is what they do.

Judges 16, 21.

The Philistines captured him and gouged out his eyes.

They took him to Gaza, where he was bound with bronze chains and forced to grind grain in the prison.

We know that later on they have a big festival and party, and they bring out blinded Samson to amuse them.

This was common practice in this time period.

The Assyrians, who would rise to power not very long after uh Samson's time, they they had all kinds of ways.

When they would conquer a nation to remind those former kings and all their people who was in charge.

They were known for cutting off the noses of kings, cutting off thumbs, so that these people would always know you are underneath me, I am more powerful than you.

And one of the very common practices of that era when a powerful leader would put another person in their place was to enter into a blood covenant, like what Abram is doing here.

And here is a very common practice in that.

They would take animals, they would cut them in half, and then the lesser king, the king who's been conquered, or the king who is who is essentially submitting to this more powerful king, maybe to avoid a war or something like that, after these animals had been divided in half, that lesser king would walk between the carcasses, getting blood on their garments.

And this was a symbol, and it was a threat.

It was a much more brutal version of a watch being thrown against a wall, because the symbolism was that if you disobey me, if you do not keep your part of the bargain, let what has been done to these animals be done to you.

If you fail me, if you get out of line, I will do to you what has been done to these.

This was a common practice.

It's brutal, it's intense, but very, very common.

And so, again, from our perspective, this is nuts, right?

Abram takes some animals, cut them in half.

But Abram knows exactly what's going on.

Abram's sitting there doing this, and he's like, all right, here's the deal.

I've questioned God.

You know, he's greater than me, he's made me promises, but he's the one in charge, and I'm gonna cut these animals in half, and Abram knows what's next.

I'm gonna walk between them and I'm gonna say, Lord, I just I won't I won't question you again.

I won't get out of line.

I promise I'll do what you say.

And if I don't, I recognize that this is what will happen to me.

That is the way blood covenants worked in the ancient world.

And you can research this and look it up, by the way, there's lots written about it.

So this moment, while weird to us, very normal to Abram, what is not normal to Abram is what happens next.

And so let's actually go back.

Genesis 15, 17 through 21.

After the sun went down and darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses.

So the Lord made a covenant with Abram that day, and said, I've given this land to your descendants all the way from the border of Egypt to the great Euphrates River, the land now occupied by all the ites.

We'll have to read those again.

Now we go, what in the world?

What's the smoking firepot and what's the flaming torch?

And the simple answer is we don't know.

There's been a actually the whole firepot thing, that's even to like Jewish rabbis who are steeped in the tradition of the Old Testament, that is still a giant mystery.

But here's what we do know very often in Scripture, the Holy Spirit shows up in fire.

Right?

So go to the book of Acts, for example.

And if you know the story of Pentecost in the book of Acts, the followers of Jesus are still in Jerusalem, which is where Jesus was crucified.

This is not where they were from.

In fact, being in Jerusalem was risky for the disciples because Jesus had been killed.

Right?

Their home was up north in Galilee.

But Jesus specifically told them, do not leave Jerusalem, no matter how dangerous this place might be, do not leave here until the Holy Spirit comes upon you in power.

And they don't know what that is going to look like, but they're trusting that when it happens, they'll know.

And then it does.

At a festival called Pentecost, which takes place 50 days after Passover, and on that day the Holy Spirit comes upon them, and that spirit, visually, to those who describe it, looks like tongues of fire that appear over them.

Which is bizarre, but cool.

It's very often in Scripture that when the Spirit comes, the Spirit is depicted with fire.

And so it is very much understood biblically that what is happening here is that the presence of God, the Spirit of God, is passing between these carcasses, cut in half.

Not Abram, but God.

And so think about what a reversal this must be in Abram's mind.

This is something he has no category for.

This is a revolution.

Like I said to us, a mysterious moment, but to Abram, a revolution in his understanding of God.

Because as he's separating these carcasses out and as he's going through this, he knows what's about to happen, a blood covenant.

What he's expecting is he's going to walk through it because he's the lesser one.

And the greater always subdues the lesser, and the lesser is always the one that pays the price.

But God completely turns that idea on its head.

And it's like God is saying to Abram, I have made you this promise.

I have made you a promise of blessing.

I'm entering into a covenant with you, and if the terms of this covenant are broken, I will pay the price.

God is good.

He says it every week.

And it's not a nervous tick.

It's not.

It's the truth.

God is good.

We celebrate his goodness.

We sing about his goodness.

And I would even say, for me personally, I take for granted his goodness.

The idea of God being good is very normal to me.

But to Abram, this would have been, again, a revolution.

The gods of the ancient world, the false pagan gods that all the people worshiped, were not good.

They were not.

They were cruel.

They delighted in torturing people.

They demanded sacrifices.

They demanded blood.

Child sacrifice was an unbelievably normal part of pagan worship.

The gods had to be appeased.

And if you got out of line, they had no mercy.

They had no love for people.

Even what we read this morning, what Matt read, Jesus said that, hey, you parents, if your child asked for a loaf of bread, would you give them a stone instead?

If they would you give them a scorpion if they asked for a fish, like who would do that?

Well, the reality is the ancient gods did stuff like that all the time.

And when I say gods, I'm talking lowercase mythological stories, and we could have a whole different conversation about demonic spirits posing as gods to false nations.

It'd be a really interesting conversation.

But even look at the Greek myths of the Greek gods, of Zeus, and and all the pantheon of gods in the Greek understanding.

If you know those stories, were they good?

Were they good to people?

No, no, not not at all.

No, they messed with people, they they tricked people, they tormented people, and they enjoyed it.

They played games with people, they were cruel, they used people.

In fact, there's a Greek myth of Prometheus, and Prometheus teaches people how to use fire, which allows the people to become modernized, and it allows the people to be able to do things they couldn't do before.

And for that sin of lifting people up, Prometheus is punished in Greek mythology in an unbelievably brutal way.

That was their understanding of the gods.

And so when Jesus is saying, Hey, would you give your child something horrible when they ask for something good?

I mean, the the average person in the world at that time would be like, Yeah, the gods would do that all the time.

Because they don't love people, they don't care about people.

The gods were not good.

And there's nothing, there is nothing in Abram's existence.

And all of his interactions with all of the pagan false gods that he's aware of and all these other nations worship, there is nothing that would signify that God is good.

And we have to understand this, we have to appreciate this, because even to this day, I think it's something that goes unnoticed or or it's not discussed enough.

Our God is different, and he's not just different because he's real.

That is one of the biggest differences.

I will say that.

It is nice to worship a God who is real.

But he could be real and not good.

You can be powerful and evil.

Many people in this world have been that.

God could be awesome in the sense of like, wow, he's, and also not good.

God could be mighty, but not good.

Goodness is a unique attribute of God.

It's kind of like in our world, it's amazing how often talent or intelligence does not correlate with character.

Like you can be unbelievably intelligent and evil.

You can be incredibly talented and also be a horrible person.

Goodness is a unique attribute.

And God is showing Abram here that I am not cruel.

And I'm not like those false gods.

You can trust my promises, Abram, not because if you don't, I will punish you, but because I will pay the ultimate price on your behalf, even if you fall out of line.

And that is exactly what God ultimately fulfills through Jesus.

God is good.

And we sing about his goodness and we we talk about his goodness, and I'm so blessed that we have Jesus who takes his goodness and makes it even more clear to us.

But but I want us to understand we can't take this idea for granted because Abram would have had no category for this.

Our God is actually good.

And that is a really powerful and unique thing.

And it changes the way that we interact with him, and it changes the way that we are as people.

Like we can be generous because our God is generous.

We can be kind because our God is kind.

Even as you read through the Old Testament, people have the strangest misconceptions about God in the Old Testament.

Like He's angry and brutal, and typically what they're doing is they're they're handpicking a few very, very specific stories where, yeah, occasionally, even a good authority has to bring the hammer down sometimes.

Like that's, I'm sure those of you who are bosses, if you're a good boss, you occasionally have to be hard.

But those are like these hand-picked, cherry-picked examples, and nothing in between those is ever taken into consideration.

If you read the Old Testament, God is unbelievably patient.

And he gives people chance after chance after chance.

Even the story of Noah when he floods the earth.

How long does he give the people to change their minds to repent?

120 years.

That's a pretty generous warning.

Listen, guys, you got a century.

Alright?

You got a century to turn things around.

Like, who does that?

Our God.

In fact, the number one attribute in the Old Testament that describes God is actually kindness.

In the Psalms, it says that he is slow to anger.

It says that he lavishes love up to a thousand generations of those who follow him.

Right after that it says, but he does not, he doesn't just give sin a free pass.

I'm paraphrasing, it says that the sins of the Father will pass to the Son even up to seven generations.

How many of you grew up hearing that?

That the sins of the Father pass to the Son even up to seven generations?

How many of you just, out of curiosity, and if you didn't grow up in church and didn't hear that, how many of you always heard that like isolated as its own thing?

Like God, the sins of the Father pass to the Son?

How many of you didn't hear it connected to, but I will pour out my love to a thousand generations?

I'm sorry, I'm asking for a lot of hand raising right now, and it's a little nebulous.

Sorry.

Point is, I grew up hearing about the whole seven generations thing, like you better not mess up because seven generations, but that that is in the same sentiment as God saying, But I will pour out my love to a thousand generations of those who follow me.

So his love is a thousand generations, and his justice is seven?

Like there's clearly this comparison that's happening there, that his love is something that you can't even fathom.

Even the sacrifices that the people of Israel are are asked to make, you know, all the animals that they sacrifice, ultimately these are just an image to them of what Jesus will do for them.

But God actually says this to them in the book of Isaiah.

He says, What makes you think I want all your sacrifices?

I'm sick of your burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fat and cattle.

I get no pleasure from the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.

When you come to worship me, who asked you to parade through my courts with all your ceremony?

Stop bringing me your meaningless gifts.

The incense of your offerings disgust me.

As for your celebrations of the new moon and the Sabbath and your special days of fasting, they are sinful and false.

I want no more of your pious meetings.

I hate your new moon celebrations and your annual festivals.

They are a burden to me.

I cannot stand them.

When you lift up your hands in prayer, I will not look.

Though you offer many prayers, I will not listen, for your hands are covered with the blood of innocent victims.

And this is what he says.

This is what he wants.

Not sacrifices.

Not blood.

Here's what he wants.

Wash yourselves and be clean.

Get your sins out of my sight.

Give up your evil ways.

And think about this: learn to do good.

Just do good.

Seek justice.

Help the oppressed.

Defend the cause of orphans.

Fight for the rights of widows.

God's saying, you know what I care about?

You know what honors me?

Do good.

Seek justice.

Help those who are helpless.

Serve orphans.

Fight for widows for people less fortunate than you.

That's what will bless me.

I don't care about your offerings.

I don't care about your sacrifices.

I don't care about your celebrations and your songs.

If you're doing those things, but you're not doing those other things, that's not meaningful to me at all.

I want you to do good.

Why?

Because he is good.

He is a good God, and that is a revolutionary idea.

There's no other God that is good.

Go read the beliefs of the peoples of Abram's day and the centuries afterward, and what their gods are like.

And they are nothing like our God.

He isn't just mighty and powerful and real.

He is good.

And that's a beautiful thing.

We serve a good, loving, kind, patient, merciful, caring God.

How amazing is that! And yeah, praise God.

He is good.

This is a category shift for Abram.

And God's gonna have to remind him of this again, because again, he has he's not been brought up to understand the idea of a good God.

You know, getting punished and getting threatened, that's normal to him.

Being sacrificed for not.

And so as we wrap up and worship team, you can make your way out.

What do we do with this?

How do we respond to a good God?

Well, by being like him.

You know, the ancient people in Abram's day were horrific.

Like when it actually says, I'm not gonna get into all the details, but when God says to Abram, you know, hey, um, your people are gonna come back here later because the sins of the Amorites have not yet warranted their destruction.

I mean, if you read historically what the Amorites were like and what they did, and for God to be like, it's not bad enough yet for me to put an end to it, you're like, God is way more patient than any of us would ever be.

Because the stuff they did was it was insane, it was horrific, it was more than barbaric.

And God's like, not yet.

He's unbelievably patient and kind.

We're called to be like our God.

And that's why those evil nations that surrounded Abram could justify all the things they did because they were just doing what their gods did.

I mean, if your gods are cruel, you can be cruel.

If your gods are evil, you can be evil.

If your gods are all about punishment and subjugation, then you can punish and subjugate.

But Abram has a whole new God, the real God who's good, and Abram is called to be good.

To be like God.

That's what it means to be godly.

It means to be like God, and our God is good, and we're called to be good.

Listen to what it says in Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do.

Imitate Him.

Because you're his dear children.

And what does that look like?

Live a life filled with love.

Following the example of Christ.

I'm gonna come back and finish this scripture in just a minute when we take Lord's Supper.

But I'll wrap up with this.

Um, all week long I was I was thinking about this concept of the goodness of God and how for Abram, he would have had no category for this.

There's no example that he's ever had set of like charity, kindness, goodness, mercy.

He hasn't.

This is God showing him I am totally different.

And it's a beautiful thing.

And here we are, guys, and we we get together every Sunday and we celebrate the goodness of God, and we sing about the goodness of God, and we talk about the goodness of God.

But just like he said through Isaiah to his people, what good would it be if we sang about the goodness of God but didn't walk out of here, living out that goodness and love?

Have you ever had an experience with someone where you just realized how good they were?

Like you're like, this person is really good.

Because they were so filled with the goodness of God.

I had an experience like that this week, and I have to give this person a shout out.

Um I had a pretty unique experience on Friday.

Um, I got a call early in the week from a woman who's been part of our church for many years named Mary Wagner.

She's been here longer than I have.

She reminded me of that.

Um sweet woman, and she she was really sick, 78 years old, and uh she was basically at a point where the only thing keeping her alive were some machines, and so she decided it was her time.

And so she asked, she asked if I would be with her.

And uh I've been in a lot of hospital rooms and I've done a lot of funerals, but I've I've never uh never been with someone at that moment.

And so I told her yes, of course.

Um so on Friday, I got a call from her children.

They said, hey, she's ready, and so I drove up and uh spent a couple hours with them and with her, and was there as she passed.

And you know what was crazy about the time I spent with her?

Here's what her concerns were.

Um she gave me$80 from her wallet, and she said that every time she goes to the grocery store, she looks for somebody to give money to.

She said that God had really blessed her.

And so she's really concerned that that would stop.

And she said, Here's what I have left.

She gave it to me through her through her children.

She had a hard time speaking.

And her concern well, is her birds are fed, the deer that she feeds, and the cats that she feeds, but her kids have ensured that those will be fed.

Um but she she talked with me a few days before just about how for years she always keeps some cash on her.

And when she goes out, she just is looking, she's searching.

Who looks like they could use some help?

And she just goes up to them and she gives them 20 bucks and says, Here.

So she her concern was that the money in her wallet, which she would no longer need, she was like, I really need this to get to somebody in need.

And so it was given to me to give away.

And that was just like, just what?

You're in your last moments of life, and your concern is giving that this be given to someone in need?

I mean, just how good is that?

How good.

And so I told her something, and I'm sorry, uh, because I made her a promise that you have to keep.

Um I didn't ask your permission, so I'm asking your forgiveness.

But I said, first and foremost, yes, I will give that away.

But just kind of to honor her and that goodness that she exemplifies, that she admits, comes from God.

She is good, she blesses because God blesses her.

I was like, how about I tell everybody at his hands on Sunday to give$20 away this week to someone who needs it?

So all of you have to do that.

Because just real quick, who's in?

Who's in?

$20 this week.

And and and really ultimately not for Mary, but for him, for God.

And like she said, the reason I do this is because he's been so good to me.

And she lost her husband four years ago.

She's had uh some hard things in her life.

It's not.

We there's a difference between God being good and life being good.

We don't worship God because life is good.

Life often is not good.

He is good.

In fact, he is good when life is not.

We have a good God and we are called to be like him.

And so as I sat with Mary in the hospital this week, blown away by her goodness, I'm just I'm like, Lord, thank you.

My heart was just filled with gratitude and challenge because I want to be like that.

I just want to be like my God.

And if my God is generous, I want to be generous.

And if he's kind, I want to be kind.

And I fall short of that all the time, including this morning.

And so let's let's be good this week.

Because he's been good to us.

We're gonna wrap up with Lord's Supper.

And if you're new to His hands, by the way, we take this little meal every single week, and you're all welcome to join us.

There's bread and juice in the back tables.

If you didn't grab this on your way in, go for it.

You're you're good.

Um I read Ephesians 5 just a moment ago.

I want to read it in its entirety, the first two verses.

Anyway.

It says, Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.

Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ.

He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us.

A pleasing aroma to God.

Abram would have had no concept of a God who sacrifices himself for his people.

That would have been an absolute, I mean, just audacious idea.

And how beautiful is it that that's a normal thought to us.

I'm so grateful.

That's a normal thought.

Like it is awe-inspiring, and I don't want to take it for granted, but it's not, it's not unusual to me.

Yeah, Jesus died for me.

I've known that since I've been alive, since I first heard about Jesus.

He died for me.

He died for us, he sacrificed for us.

But that's not normal.

But it is good.

And so as we take this meal together, we're reflecting on the goodness of our God, his kindness, his mercy, his love, his goodness.

And we're asking the Holy Spirit to bring that out in us, which can't happen through our own strength.

It's only by his spirit that we can be like him.

But he's given us a spirit, so we can do that.

And that's what led Mary to do what she did, and that's the way we're meant to live our lives.

And so, with that said, let's take the bread and let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for being good.

Time and time again, you prove your goodness.

And every time we think you've outdone yourself, you do more.

You give us freedom.

You make us family with you, you adopt us as your own children, you give us your spirit as a taste of what's to come.

You're so good.

And as we take this bread, Lord, we just we're reminded that you are not the God who subdues us with threats of violence.

But it's your kindness that leads us to repentance.

And we're grateful for that, Lord.

Thank you.

Let's take the bread.

Lord, we thank you for this cup.

This is your blood which was spilled.

It's a reminder to us that that same covenant you made with Abram is a covenant that you've kept.

You keep your covenants, you keep your promises because time and time again we fall out of line.

We make mistakes, we veer off course.

Sometimes, Lord, we do it on purpose.

And when we do, it's your blood that covers the sin, not ours.

Your blood, Jesus, covers our sin, washes it away, makes us clean.

We thank you for that, Jesus.

We thank you for your goodness.

We love you.

Let's take the juice.