Do Not Grow Weary in Doing Good.

Introduction

Today is Celebration Sunday and our theme is “goodness.” Another fruit of the Spirit, or evidence of the Holy Spirit’s presence, control in our lives.

I am preaching earlier in the service today because right after I preach in the second service pastor Darren and I will be driven to the Vancouver airport where we will be boarding a flight to New York. 

We will be there taking a 5 day course at the Alliance Theological Seminary.

And so I will need to land my sermon on time so we can fly to New York! I am making Darren a praying man!!

And so we want to talk about “goodness.”

Someone has said, “If you spend your time polishing your reputation, your character will become tarnished.”

This morning, I do not want to only ignite in you continued passion for doing good but go much deeper and pull back the outer façade of our actions to expose our characters because goodness is a character issue.

Jesus said in Matthew 12:35 “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.”

And so goodness is first a character issue and good deeds must and will come from a character of goodness.

We must remember that when God measures a person He puts the tape measure around his heart, not his head.

3 points on goodness starting with “inward” character and moving “outward” to good deeds done with the goal of bringing glory to God.

First point starting with character:

1. No person is good or desires to do good deeds apart from the transforming work of Jesus Christ. 

You told a number of people this morning was a good morning! You very likely went to bed last night as said, “Good night, I am going to bed.  This morning and last night are good compared to what?

As someone has said, “Goodness is a relative term. Something or someone is good relative to some standard.”

The Canucks are a good team but not so good when compared to Anahiem.

You may hit a good one wood off the tee but good compared to what? If you are playing with me any shot on the fairway is good compared to the worm burners I slice into the undergrowth at a 45 degree angle.

Your same shot may not be good compared to Tiger Wood’s 300 yard drive rolling on to the green.

When we say something is good it is always relative to some standard.

Luke 18:18-19 “A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone.” 

Goodness is not a “fantastic human-made fabric of excellence” as some would have us believe.

The ultimate standard of good is the character of God Himself.

To be good literally means “to be like God.”

And God is good. 

As someone has said, “Our circumstances are not an accurate reflection of God’s goodness. Whether life is good or bad, God’s goodness, rooted in His character, is the same.”

A toddler goes tumbling down a flight of stairs. Immediately they start this high pitched hysterical crying terrified and hurt. After when relating the story to a friend we conclude by saying: “Thank goodness there were no broken bones.”

We cannot say “thank goodness” without invariably saying with the same words, “Thank God.”

There is good because God is good. 
Our girls like to show us how big they are getting. The twins will measure themselves against Breanna and Breanna measures herself against Trish mostly.
They will stand next to Trish for example, putting their heads against her body to measure. They hand will come off of their own head and find a mark half a foot above their own height very pleased with their growth.
It’s like the little boy who came to his mother and said, “Mommy, I’m eight feet tall.” She said, “You are?” “Yes,” he insisted, “I am eight feet tall.” His mother asked what he measured himself with, and he pulled out a six inch ruler
We make distinctions as people. We measure, we contrast, we compare ourselves with ourselves, or against some ideal we have set and determine our goodness relative to others around us.
Dictionary of N.T. Theology “…the distinction which is justified among human institutions breaks down before God. The natural man is irretrievably in bondage to the powers of sin and death and has no right to claim the attribute ‘good’ for himself.”  [Because only God is good.]
Psalm 14:2-3 “The LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. 3 All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.” 
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
Now listen to some amazing good news.

Titus 2:11-14 “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”

I had the opportunity last week to hear John Piper preach at a Refocusing Conference at Willingdon M.B. In the package they gave us some books written by Piper and one of them was the book “Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die.”

This passage in Titus is one of the reasons Jesus came to die. Piper has it as the 36th reason and listen to what he writes: “At the heart of Christianity is the truth that we are forgiven and accepted by God, not because we have done good works, but to make us able and zealous to do them…Good deeds are not the foundation of our acceptance, but the fruit of it…And the aim of Christ is not the mere ability to do them, but passion to do them…Zeal means passion. Christ did not die to make good works merely possible or to produce a half-hearted pursuit. He died to produce in us a passion for good deeds. Christian purity is not the mere avoidance of evil, but the pursuit of good.”

Goodness and good deeds are a character issue. 

Ephesians 2:8-10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ [changed by the powerful work of Jesus] Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” 

Christ commissioned and made possible through His death and resurrection good works and goodness for us.

In essence we could say that through Jesus Christ we are saved from captivity to evil and sin into goodness resulting in good deeds that God prepared in advance for us to do.

As David Ewert writes “Its like a road prepared by God on which the people of God are asked to walk.”

And so my first point No person is good or desires to do good deeds apart from the transforming work of Jesus Christ  leads me to my second point:

2. We yet must make a choice to do good deeds. 

Titus 3:8 “This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.”

As we understand our place in a global community we must honestly assess our affluence and agree that indeed we are the rich in our world.

1 Timothy 6:17-19 “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.” 

Fulfillment and joy in life, taking hold of the life that is truly life, comes through generosity, through willingness to share, and through being rich in good deeds.

Yet here is the reality. We become weary in doing good. We get discouraged and at times we want to give up because the old adage is true: no good deed goes unpunished!

We do good and yet because we do good does not mean that we are now immune to the consequences of evil yet present in the world. We are taken advantage of, we are hurt, we are treated badly by those we have loved.

Galatians 6:9-10 “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.[good deeds are like seeds planted in the lives of others and if we do not give up one day they will bring a harvest of changed lives, reconciled relationships, repentance and turning to God] 10Therefore, as we have opportunity, [we have a limited amount of time] let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

Second point: We yet must make a choice to do good deeds. Which leads me to my third and last point:

Conclusion:

3. Our goal in doing good deeds is to bring glory to God and that is what makes them good.

Matthew 5:14-16 “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

Jesus says we are light and we are to be who we are. In other words, we must let our lights shine and our lights shine through good works. The good works are the fruit showing what is inside. They are the light illuminating Jesus. 

Our good works reveal God. The goal is that others may see our good deeds and praise our Father in heaven.

Many people do good deeds in that they do things for others that are nice, useful, kind, even beautiful but they are not done to bring glory to God and so they are not good according to the ultimate standard of goodness which is God.

To be good is to be like God and God is zealous and passionate for His glory.

Our goal in doing good deeds is to bring glory to God and that is what makes them good.

And so we become passionate to do good by the transforming power of Jesus Christ. 

We choose to walk in goodness doing good deeds to bring glory to God and this goal of bringing glory to God is what makes our acts of kindness, our patience, our love, our gentleness good and acceptable to God.