The Science of Knowing God: The Goodness of God

Pastor Fletcher preaches from Exodus 33:18-23, 34:5-7. Discussion points: What you believe about God shapes who you are, God is truly the standard for what goodness is, sin has generational consequences but God’s mercy and forgiveness are overflowing.

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  Scripture reader: [Exodus 33:18-23, 34:5-7] Moses said, please show me your glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But he said, you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.

  The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation.

  This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

  Preacher: Good morning. My name's Fletcher. I'm the lead pastor here at the church. It's a joy to be with you and to bring God's word. We're in the middle of a series, and, and this is kind of a series that we'll pick up over the years and put down, but, we're doing a series on theology and just kind of working our way through some of the most important topics of theology. This is actually just our 3rd sermon. In theology and it's actually kind of our first proper sermon in theology because the past two have just kind of been leading up to like what is theology, how do we know anything about anything, doctrine of revelation, that type of thing.

  This week we are starting theology in earnest as we look at the first of three sermons on what we might call the doctrine of God. In theology there's a lot of different subsets of theology. Some of these words you might be familiar with, some of them you might not be. There's ecclesiology, the study of the church, there's eschatology, the study of the last things, that's fundamentalist favorite -ology. There's, there's Christology, the study of Christ, there's, there's soteriology, the study of salvation, there is pneumatology, which is the study of the Holy Spirit. And so you have all these different -ologies, and you're left with one, which is just kind of the study of God Himself, of God the Father. We have pneumatology for the Holy Spirit, we have Christology for Jesus. What do you call the study of God the Father, and that is really funny because you just call it theology.

  And so there's a subset of theology called theology, and that is the doctrine of God and over the next couple of weeks we're going to be looking at the doctrine of God which is theology proper, Theo being kind of the Latin name for God and thenology the study of it comes from Lagos the word, the study of God. Which I can't think of a more important topic for any of us than the study of God. Who is God and what do we think about? You know, if someone came to you and said, I don't know anything about God, but tell me everything I need to know about God. Where would you even start?

  It's like if a friend tries to describe like if I tried to describe a friend where I start feels pretty important, you know, if a friend starts to describe me and he's like that guy, you know, he's like slightly balding and his beard is getting longer, like I'm not gonna, you know, that's true, but maybe slightly isn't the word but you know it's like that's true, but maybe not the most flattering way to start. And when we think about how we. Start to describe God. I think we have to think very carefully because it is an important topic. How do we describe God?

  Some might start with creation. God is the creator of heaven and earth. Some might start with the Trinity, both places that are good to start. But it's especially important, especially if that quote that Michael shared last week is true. He shared this AW Tozer quote, I, I think I have it for you up here. That what comes into your mind when you think about God, is the most important thing about you.

  About 15 years I was 15 years ago I was asked to speak at a youth conference. It was called a Discipleship now. Anybody familiar with Disciple Now or Discipleship now? I see a few heads shaking. Wow, you guys are awake this morning. that a few folks might be familiar with this. I, I was invited to speak at one of these in Virginia, and I went and the youth pastor asked me if I would speak on this quote, if I would explain this quote. I, it took me weeks to decide if I even believe in this quote. I mean, this is just something that I had to run through my head, like, really is the most important thing about me, what I think about God. Aren't there other things that are important? My character might be one of those most important things, or not maybe not what I think about God, but like what I actually believe about him. I just ran this quote through my mind nonstop, and here I am today, 15 years later, and I think I'm finally ready to affirm this quote as true. I'm sorry to that youth group. I don't know what you got that weekend, but I, it was like half conviction because I think I've just now gotten to the point to where I can say that is correct, that the most important thing about you is what you think about when you think about God.

  What you believe about God shapes everything else about you, whether you realize it or not. If you believe God to be distant. And and uncaring. You will live like you were on your own. If you believe God, To be angry and impossible to please. You will live life. Full of fear and shame. And if you believe God to be a vague force of positivity, You would never take personal sin seriously. What you think about when you think about God, is the most important thing about you. It is what shapes who you are. Think about all the different things that people do in God's name, all over the world. It stems from a theology that leads to a practice. Our theology always leads to practice.

  And here's the problem though, we rarely form ideas based upon who God says he is. Instead, we develop ideas of God based upon who we want him to be. How many of us have had this conversation where it's not you're arguing about the reality of who God is or who God says he is, but who someone else wants God to be. And so we put God into this category where he agrees with all the values that we happen to agree with as well. And we use God as a defense for all the things that we believe. And we end up with a God who looks a lot like ourselves, which leads us to this really famous Mark Twain quote. I'm actually not sure it's Mark Twain, that's just who people ascribe quotes to when they're not sure who it was. I, I've seen this ascribed to Mark Twain, but God created man in his own image, and man, being a gentleman, returned the favor. So many of us take our values and we place them upon God. And we say that is what God is like.

  So as I've prayed about where to begin, as we discuss who God is and the theology of who God is, I've decided that the best place to start is where God describes Himself. And that is most clearly seen in Exodus 33 and 34, where we see God with Moses on the top of Mount Sinai, and I love this passage. There's just so much going on here. Moses is going before God, and he's saying, show me your glory. He's begging, he's pleading, he's saying, God, I want your glory. Will you show it to me? And God says, basically you can't handle my glory. He says, but I will agree to show you just a part of my glory. And so God agrees to not show his face, because no one can see his face and live, but instead, God decides to let Moses just see a passing piece of his glory, his back, metaphorically speaking, that he'll pass his back before Moses. And that he'll get a glimpse of the glory of God.

  And what happens, what we know is that God takes Moses and he puts him into the cleft of the rock, and he passes before him. Declaring the words that we read just a few moments ago, and then afterward, Moses is so influenced and impacted by the glory of God that he literally shines to where he goes down off the mountain and he's meeting with the Israelites again, he's seeing his own people, and they are afraid of him. They're like, why is your face shining? And so he has to wear a veil over his face so that people won't be afraid of him because he has experienced the glory of the Lord.

  But I don't want you to miss what God actually says in response to Moses as he's begging for his glory. So Moses is saying, please God, show me your glory. Will you please show me your glory? I want nothing more than your glory. In fact, just before this, he's having this whole argument with God. He's like, we're not going anywhere and what unless you go with us. And this is what God says, verse 19, and he said, I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord Yahweh. So as Moses is pleading for the glory of the Lord, what does God give him? He says, he doesn't say I, I will pass my glory before you. He says, I will pass my goodness before you. And so in God's mind. His own goodness is the fundamental essence of his glory. The goodness of God is the most essential aspect of who he is. I will allow my full goodness, my full glory to pass in front of you. What is the first thing that comes into God's mind when he decides to reveal himself? But his goodness. It is how he would describe himself.

  Theologians, we're talking about theology here. Theologians tend to break up the attributes of God into two different categories. The first category is what we call incommunicable attributes of God. And so the incommunicable attributes of God are those that God does not share with us. This is the omnis, OK? You've heard this before, the omnipresent, omniscient, the omnipowerful, omnipowerful, omnipotent. We go, this is the same thing. maybe the omni temporal, if you're fancy, we'll, we'll get to the omnis next week, OK? This week we're going to talk about the communicable attributes of God, which are those attributes that God does share with us. And when I say share, I mean that we have a part of, that we, we are not omnipotent, we are not omniscient, we can never be. Those are attributes that only are attributed to God.

  The communicable attributes are those that we do share a part of. So we are good in part as he is. Other attributes might be mercy, kindness, gentleness, patience, all these different things that we know God to be that he shares with us, but most theologians and many, I'm not, maybe not most, but many theologians would say there is one core communicable attribute that all the rest flow out of, and it is his goodness. That when you think about all the other ones, they could easily be subcategories of goodness, that God is just, that he is merciful, that he is kind. What do you call a person who is just, merciful and kind? A good person. At the core of his being is God's goodness. What does it mean for God to be good?

  Wayne Grudem, one theologian, he describes it like this. He says the goodness of God means that God is the final standard of good, and that all that God is and does is worthy of approval. It's a great definition, but one that doesn't tell you very much, honestly, because there is just inherent circular reasoning in this definition. He's saying God is good, because goodness is God. OK. that would be like me saying, I am the greatest basketball player in the world. There's not quite the same, but go with me here, OK? This is obviously not true. Apparently to all of us in here, I am not LeBron James. Unless. I described the greatest basketball player in the world. If I define that as whatever I do on the basketball court, then I'm being log logically consistent, though not very convincing. Cause I might say I'm, I'm the best, and then define best as me, and sure, OK, I guess according to your definition, you're the best, but I'm not actually.

  And this isn't quite what we see with goodness though. Many people have claimed that this might be what we have with God, but goodness is something that all humans around the world aspire to in one way or another. Only a true narcissist would say that they are the definition of goodness and They all of us recognize every person and every culture that there is some standard of goodness that exists apart from what any of us may believe to be goodness individually, that there is a standard that we all live up to that some that there is something that defines good and evil, and as Christians, we believe that this standard is God. That the reason any of us have a concept of what is good in general is because we're made in the image of God, and because God exists and and is that standard, that goodness is not arbitrary, rather, it is personal, it is divine.

  Just a few things of what the Bible says about God being good. And then we're gonna go on to how he describes his goodness in Exodus 34. We believe that God alone is good, as Jesus states, Luke 18:19, when the rich young ruler comes to him, and he, he says, good teacher, he calls Jesus good teacher, and Jesus responds to him and says, Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone, which is putting the rich young ruler on the spot because Jesus is saying, are you claiming that I am God? Because that's a bold claim, even though it would be true, young man. We also believe that all good things come from God.

  James 1:17 says, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. We believe that he's inviting us to experience His goodness. One of my favorite passages, Psalm chapter 34 or Psalm 34. 0, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. God's goodness is central to his being.

  So what happens after God promises to pass his goodness before him? We actually see a description of what God does or what God says as he's passing before Moses. I never put that quite together, that as Jesus declared, as God declares these things, that this is actually him passing by, because verse 6 says, the Lord passed before Moses. And as he's passing before Moses in that cleft of the rock, the the very event that would cause Moses' face to glow, this is what the Lord declares. This is like the about me section of God according to God's own words, OK? This is how he would describe himself. And it is the most quoted passage of the Old Testament by the Old Testament. So when you go throughout the Old Testament, you're gonna see this quoted all the time, and not just quoted, but like riffed on, OK? They're gonna be writing poetry about this all over the place. And this is what it says, the Lord, the Lord. Now when you see Lord in all caps like that in your Bibles, that means it's Yahweh, the sacred name of God. So Yahweh, Yahweh, not just some, not just some vague god, but this specific God, Yahweh, Yahweh. A God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steads steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

  There's so much here to appreciate and basically every line is screaming, the God who is good, the God who is good. And you might be going with it like me, if you're anything like me, you're vibing until you get to that last line, right? And then you're like, what? OK, I can go with God being merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love, steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, for giving iniquity, transgression, and sin, good, good, good, good, good, good. OK, I can even go with the next line, but who by no means will clear the guilty. OK, good, like, we don't want guilty people going free. #Jeffrey Epstein there, OK. That's the topic of the day, but.

  But visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. Now, I don't know about that one. Cause as you read that, it just doesn't feel like it goes with the rest of the chapter. Like, why should I be held accountable for my great grandfather's sin? I don't even know my great grandfather's name. None of them. I don't know any of their names. I should call my grandparents more often. I but I don't know any of the names of my great grandparents. Why should I be held accountable for their sin? And it, and not only that, but Moses seems to contradict this later, because in Deuteronomy, chapter 24, it says this, Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin. Now that seems like it makes more sense, does it not?

  So what are we to make of how God ends this very important description of himself, where he's going, and he's saying, I'm good, I am good, I'm good, and then you get to this last part and you're like, but that doesn't feel good. To punish the sins of a father on to his children and his children's children, to the 3rd and 4th generation. So, what do we make of this? There's a tension, OK? Two things I'm gonna draw out from this, and we're just gonna live in this tension for a moment. One, the first thing is that sin has generational consequences. And secondly, That grace abounds over justice. Sin has generational consequences, but grace abounds over justice.

  As much as we in the West would like to think that we're all individuals that we are just kind of the product of our own making, the reality is that none of us actually are, we all come from a family. That we all are shaped by those who came before us. And the the scriptures describe that sin has generational consequences. You see this in scripture, where the sin patterns of fathers are passed down to their children. Children, when you see with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, you see it with David and Solomon, you see this pattern of sin patterns being passed down. But not only that, we see that there are generational consequences to sin.

  I've seen this in my own life. My father was. A really enjoyable person to be around. He was my father after all, but. He also was someone that just couldn't settle down. And when I was 5 years old, he left my mother and I and moved out west where my father spent the rest of his life kind of bouncing from national park to national park working in maintenance or in in food service. We all he also would bounce from casino to casino and bar to bar just looking for the next hit of adrenaline that he could get that next dopamine hit and so my father wasn't around very often. It was my mother and I, I was, I'm an only child. And every once in a while my father would show up in his VW bus with a bed in the back, OK, just to give you the full depiction of the type of man my father was, and he, would take me for a week or two and take me somewhere, and we'd have a lot of fun. I would enjoy it and then he'd go drop me back off in Mississippi, where I was left to fight mosquitoes by myself, and I mean bird sized mosquitoes, just huge mosquitoes. Not really. OK, that's yeah.

  And the consequences of the way that my father lived his life. I mean, just think about the thousands of dollars of therapy that a child who grew up like that should probably walk through. Where it's like, you're not sure if your father loves you and the whole thing. He's not there for you. And not only that, but here I am living out the consequences, right? Because now I have 3 beautiful kids. And I don't have a father to look to as an example. Of what it looks, what it means to father, nor do I have a father to walk with me. And to be my father today, an earthly father at least. And, and so, not I'm not only am I bearing the consequences of my father's sin, which let's, let's be clear, my father's own father did the same thing to him. That my father's own father literally went out to find cigarettes one day and didn't come back. And then he came back much later in his life. Which I had always thought that maybe my dad would do.

  But now I'm here, and yes, I've lived much of my life directly with a direct ambition to not be like my father. Like that has been one of my life's ambitions that I might not be like my father. But my children are still. Bearing the consequences for my grandfather's son. Because they're not getting what I should be in many ways. I wish I could be. I mean, they're getting what God wants, you know, and I'm giving them all I can. But at the same time, sin has consequences and this is just where we're at. Sin has generational consequences. It doesn't just hurt the individual, it leaves a mark on the community and the next generation. And that leaves a mark on the next generation.

  But on the other end of the spectrum, we see that God's judgment has limits. OK? This is really, really kind of exciting and and amazing in this passage. OK. Look with me in the passage for just a moment. It says, The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love and faithfulness. Keeping steadfast love for thousands, OK, earmark that. In my Bible, it has a footnote that says, or to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third or fourth generation.

  So the reason why it has that footnote is because Hebrew is not easy to translate into English. It's difficult. It's a different language. And when you look at the original Hebrew, from what I understand, I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but the word generation is put in there in in English translations for us to understand what is happening. But when you look at the Hebrew, it actually just says that he's that he is keeping steadfast love for thousands, and then you get to this next part. But who will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the father and the father's children, the children's children to the third or fourth, that there is no generation. So we keep steadfast love for thousands. But that he will not clear the iniquity to the third or fourth.

  Do you see the difference there? That the author is very clearly trying to say, love abounds over. Justice, that God is a just God, and he has to be a just God to be a good God. Good Gods don't let guilty people off scot-free. You just can't be a good judge and a good person if you let guilty people go like that. But at the same time, His justice is restrained while his love abounds to the thousands. This is what theologians have historically called God's natural work versus his strange work. When we refer to his natural work, what we're referring to is love, kindness, mercy and compassion. And when we refer to his strange work, we're referring to justice and punishment for sin. Yet so often churches emphasize his strange work far more than his natural work, do they not?

  We want to be a church that is known for the things that God wants to be known for. And though it is there, his strange work is there, his natural work is what flows out of his heart. What God most longs to do is to forgive and to show mercy. He is the Father of mercy. He is longing to display mercy. A lot of times we think that God is on a hair. Trigger To show justice. And the opposite is actually true, that he is on. A hair trigger to show love and mercy and compassion. That he is longing to display that to you. That you don't have to live in fear, because what is gushing out of his heart, what he most wants to communicate to you, is forgiveness. It is what he wants to grant.

  And that leads us to Jesus. How does a good God show forgiveness and justice at the same time? When he looks at you and he sees that you are a guilty person that does deserve judgment, and we think that he's on that hair trigger to show us judgment, but at the same time. We believe that this God wants to show us forgiveness and kindness. How can he do both, but our immortal. I immortal, eternal God. Took on flesh. And became like us. lived the life that we should live, but none of us does. And took on the penalty that we deserve. You see Jesus. On the cross, bore the sins of the world, and by his resurrection we receive mercy. A lot of times we think about God, like he might wink at sin, but no, he, he bore our sin. The gospel is not God ignoring sin, it's him paying for it himself. And when you look to Jesus, you see the fullness of God there.

  I love how Paul kind of brings Exodus 33 and 34 to full picture. We got, I got this in our prayer meeting this past week. If you not many of you are attending the prayer meetings, I'm there, OK? So you know, I know who's at the prayer meetings, but the prayer meeting this past week, this was, really clearly showed to us as we're studying this passage and praying through it, that. Though Moses only got to see the back of God. That we get to behold the face of God and Jesus Christ. That when we look to Christ, We see his full goodness and his full glory. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, for God who said Let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

  This goodness is what shapes us. This goodness is what we most need to fight the evil within. It's not more willpower, it's not more accountability. It's not more discipline or a better schedule. What we most need, what you most need today is the goodness of God. This is why we have this, you know, kind of traditional thing that I think it's more traditional in black churches, but we've adopted it, OK, as a multicultural church where we say God is good. And all the time... That's right. We need God's goodness. What is it about God's glory?

  Here, look at this quote from Gentle and Lowly, which I have like a box of these books still. If you've lost yours, you're still welcome to have another one. what is it about God's glory that draws us in and causes us. To conquer our sins and makes us radiant people. Is it the sheer size of God, a consideration of the immensity of the universe and thus of the Creator, a sense of God's transcendent greatness that pulls us toward him. All those things are great. But this is what he says. No, Edwards, Jonathan Edwards, this is the old pastor would say, it is the loveliness of his heart. It is, he says, a sight of the divine beauty of Christ that bows the wills and draws the heart of men, a sight of the greatness of God and His attributes may overwhelm them, but seeing God's greatness is not our greatest need, our deepest need, but seeing His goodness.

  And so how can you embrace God's goodness in your life today? a few years ago, my wife and I were at a worship gathering downtown Boston, and this was a period of particular darkness, especially in my wife's life where, you know, depression and anxiety, it was, it was a difficult time and um. We were singing a song. I don't even remember the occasion. It was like a joint gathering of some sort, but we were singing a song, a song that I don't really like honestly, that we don't sing here. it's like a song that I call it a 7-Eleven song, same seven words 11 times over again, and it, it's, it goes like you are good, you are good, oh, and you just sing that for a long time. Do you guys know that song? Yeah, OK, we, yeah, we know this. OK. I, I was probably looking at it with skepticism. But I looked over and Megan had, and this is big for her. She has a single tear, OK, at that moment. And at that moment, I believe that God did something in her heart, and I think she would describe that too. That as we sang with our sister Tiara, who's led for us many times, I remember her singing. That God touched her with her good with his goodness. And let her taste and see and be reminded again that he is good. That she'd experienced it before, but she needed it again. That he knows what she's going through. And that he's never gonna let her down. That he cares for. That goodness triumphs over justice.

  Maybe you've been reticent to really entrust yourself to God. Fearful of what he might call you to do, fearful of what surrender to his way might cost. Maybe you've been somewhere deep down, wondering if you can really trust him with your wounds, your past, your future, but friends, look to the face of Jesus. He is the radiance of God's glory, the exact imprint of his nature. What do you see when you look at him? But goodness, goodness that touches lepers, that weeps at graves, that welcomes prodigals like you and I. That's glory. It's the goodness of God. And when you look to Jesus and you see his goodness, it changes you. It changes you. It frees you to let go of fear, it pulls you out of hiding, it softens your heart, it creates in you something more like him.

  And the only way you can become more like him is by looking to him. It's not always easy. It will oftentimes mean a death to self. It will oftentimes mean hard long roads, but it is good. And I can't do a whole sermon on the goodness of God without talking about the Chronicles of Narnia for just a moment, because, you know, it's not a, it's not a City on a Hill sermon unless CS Lewis is quoted and Narnia is my favorite.

  So at the end, at the beginning, honestly, in the middle of the very let's just name it, OK, the first book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Susan, one of the children, looks and is first introduced to Aslan and first introduced to the idea of Aslan from the beavers, and she, she asks, who is Aslan? And Mr. Beaver responds, Aslan is a lion, the lion, the great lion. Oh, said Susan, I thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? What a British, you can't do that without a British accent a little bit, quite safe. I, I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion. That you will, dearie, make no mistake, said Mrs. Beaver. So there's, if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most, or else silly. Is he safe, then, then he isn't safe, said Lucy. Safe? Don't you hear what Mr. what Mrs. Beaver tells you, says Mr. Beaver. Who said anything about safe? Of course, he isn't safe, but he's good. He's the king, I tell you.

  And friends, that's what we most need, not a God that is safe, that we can control. That we can make do the things that we want him to do, but we need a God who is bigger than us and who will do the right thing in spite of us. Who loves and whose ways are better than ours. And who longs to forgive. Today is an opportunity for you to come back to him, for you to meditate on this, for you to give your doubts and your skepticism to God. during the next song we'll invite you to participate in communion along with us. If you are a believer here today, if you have trusted in Christ and accepted him as your God, we invite you to receive this meal. But I just encourage you to stay where you are until you have meditated on this idea that God is good. And when you're ready to receive him as a good God, come forward. I mean, anyone who is trusting in Christ is welcome to receive, but I would say that that would be your meditation this week, that God is good. And that he cares for you. Shall we stand and prepare ourselves to sing and to receive the meal? If you're able.

  God, we pray now for anyone who's had really difficult times with you. Really difficult times trusting that you are good. God, would you be with them in this moment? And reveal your goodness again, that we might trust in you. That we might not trust in ourselves, but in what you have done for us. God, we thank you for your word, revealing to us that we might know you. And God, we pray that that would be true for us today. Father, we, we give you all the praise and all the glory, and we ask that you would continue to fill us again. Thank you for this meal. We ask these things in Christ's name, Amen.