FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
GOODNESS
DR. JIM DIXON
GENESIS 3:1-5
JANUARY 17, 1993
One of the most frightening chapters in the entire Bible is Ezekiel, chapter 9, where the great prophet of God describes a vision wherein he saw seven angels. To one of the angels, God said, “Go to the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on every person who weeps at the iniquity of the city. Go to the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on every person who grieves at the sin that surrounds them.” To the other six angels God said, “Follow him and slay everyone who has not the mark. Slay everyone who does not weep at sin, everyone who does not grieve at iniquity.” The vision ends with this somber statement: “Begin with the household of God. Begin with my sanctuary.” Now, you see, wickedness was swallowing up goodness in the city of Jerusalem. A lot of the people just did not care. A lot of the people in the temple, a lot of the people in the house of God, a lot of the people in the sanctuary, did not care. The judgement of God was about to descend from heaven.
We live in a nation, a culture, where wickedness is swallowing up goodness and a lot of people just do not care. Wickedness is swallowing up goodness and even in the sanctuary, even in the churches, even in the house of God, a lot of people just do not care. Can the judgement of God be far away? This morning our subject is goodness. The Greek word for “goodness” is “agathos.” It refers to moral purity. It refers to goodness in the sense of good and evil or right and wrong. This morning I have two teachings. The first is this: God has revealed to the world what is good in the holy scriptures, the Bible.
Fifty years before Jesus Christ came into our world, Cicero, the Roman statesman, said, “The greatest tragedy of the human predicament is the inability of men to distinguish good from evil.” It is a tragedy. God knows that. You see, that is why God gave us the Bible. That is why God gave us this holy revelation. That is why God gave us the holy scriptures, that we might be able to distinguish good from evil. This nation, from its inception, has accepted the Judeo-Christian values found in the Bible as the standard of goodness. Our founding fathers, including those who were not explicitly Christian, still accepted the moral and ethical values taught in the Bible as foundational to American society.
President Woodrow Wilson once said, “America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelation of holy scripture.” An amazing statement!
President Calvin Coolidge once said, “The very foundations of our society and our government are established on the teachings of the Bible.” Now, these presidents were not 18th century presidents. They were not 19th century presidents. They were 20th century presidents… and yet, how things have changed as we approach the consummation of the 20th century. Judeo-Christian values are no longer foundational in our society. The Bible no longer sets the standard. The erosion of the Judeo-Christian values in America reached its fruition in 1984 when the United States Supreme Court banned the Ten Commandments from public school classrooms across this country. Our nation today is morally and ethically confused. We are not sure what is good anymore and we are not sure what is evil anymore. The Bible says in Isaiah, chapter 5, “Woe unto them who call good evil and evil good.” We have become a nation and live in a culture where many people call good evil and many people call evil good. I would like, by way of example, for us to examine for a few minutes the subject of homosexuality as it relates to our culture today. I want to ask you to bear with me. I know some of you will not agree with what I am saying. I want you to seek to listen and to have an open mind.
What I say is meaningless, but what God says is everything. What I am going to say, I want to preface with these remarks. I believe that our church has great compassion for homosexuals. We really care about gay people. We have a number of gays in our congregation. Some of you are gay. Some of you have been counseled by our counseling department and I have counseled some of you. I know there are some of you who are gay by orientation, and you love Jesus Christ, and you are asking Christ to change you, to transform you, that you might become heterosexual. Certainly, God has the power to do that, despite what the secular psychiatric community states. But God does not always choose to do that.
I know there are other gays in our congregation who are asking the Lord to give you strength and courage because you love Jesus Christ and you want to honor Him and you are asking Christ to give you the strength to live a celibate lifestyle. I want to say to you that God is going to honor you. Someday you are going to stand before Christ and He’s going to say, “Well done, My good and faithful servant.” He is going to say to you, “Come, O blessed of My Father. Inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world.”
I know that there are others of you who are gay, and you are practicing the gay lifestyle and you have rejected Bible and its tenets. I want to say that we have compassion towards you, too. We want to be a church that has compassion towards everybody. We recognize that it is not easy living in a world where you feel like you are different than most people. We do not believe in gay bashing. We do not believe in hate crimes.
In The Denver Post and The Rocky Mountain News, there are reports of a proliferation of hate crimes perpetrated against gays and lesbians since the passing of Amendment 2 in November of 1992. I do not know whether that is media hype or whether it is true, but if it is true, it is tragic, particularly if any Christian is involved in any acts of hatred. We are not called to hatred, but to love. When the woman caught in the very act of adultery was about to be stoned, Jesus Christ rebuked those who would stone her, saying to the woman, “Go and sin no more.” We want to be a church of compassion, but we also want to be faithful to call sin, sin.
I hope you understand that the Bible tells us that the practice of homosexual behavior is sin. The Bible does state that clearly in Genesis chapter 19; Judges chapter 19; Leviticus, chapters 18 and 20; 2 Kings chapter 23; 1 Kings, chapters 14, 15 and 22; 1 Corinthians chapter 6; Romans chapter 1; 1 Timothy chapter 1; and Jude chapter 1. These are just some of the passages of scripture where we are clearly told that God is not pleased with homosexual behavior. It is sinful in His sight. Now, with a little fancy footwork and some poor exegesis, you might be able to get around some of these passages, but there is no way you can get around all of them. Any honest appraisal of the Word of God must acknowledge that God has called the practice of homosexual behavior sinful.
Some of you have said to me, “Well, how can homosexual behavior be sinful if homosexual orientation is hereditary? If it is based on genetics?” First of all, we must say that the verdict is not in on that subject. We do not know whether homosexual orientation is based on heredity. There are some medical studies that would indicate that to some extent, in some people, there seems to be a genetic or hereditary factor. There are also many studies which indicate that there are environmental factors. I want to say that, biblically, it does not matter whether homosexual orientation is based on hereditary or environment or some complex interaction of the two. Biblically, it is still sin. You see, God wants us to understand biblical theology. Sin has invaded the creation. The world is fallen, and we are all born flawed. We are born with physical flaws. We are born with spiritual flaws. We are born with a sin nature. We are now born with emotional, relational flaws and yes, we are born with sexual flaws. The issue that confronts the world is, do we just embrace these flaws and say they are okay, or do we seek, where possible, to overcome them?
It is very interesting that in USA Today, which is a national newspaper, there was an article a couple of months ago on homosexuality. It was a medical scientific study which reported that there was some evidence of a hereditary factor in homosexual orientation. The article concluded that, therefore, homosexuality should be embraced and viewed as natural and good. Strangely enough, a few days later there appeared in the same newspaper, on the front page in the Lifestyle section, an article on alcoholism—a scientific study showing that there are strong heredity factors in the orientation to alcoholism, stronger than those in the study of homosexuality. Some people are just born with a genetic predisposition towards alcoholism, but the article did not conclude, strangely enough, that therefore alcoholism is okay. It did not conclude that alcoholism is good and to be accepted.
You see, you have the same statistics, the same facts, but they were interpreted differently because of the presuppositions brought to the data. God wants us to understand that alcoholism and homosexuality are both sinful. Even if there are hereditary factors, they are both sinful and God wants us to seek to overcome them. Life is a struggle. We are all born with crosses to bear.
Some of you have said to me (and written to me), “Well, why do you, and why does this church, spend so much time focusing on the one sin of homosexuality?” I want to say, “Give me a break!” Prior to this message, the most time that I have spent discussing homosexuality in a sermon is two minutes during my comments following the passage of Amendment 2. Other than that, through the eleven years of ministry of Cherry Hills Community Church, there have been only brief times when, on occasion, I would mention that the practice of homosexuality is sinful, biblically, acknowledging that we are all sinners, and that God loves all of us. If you want to know who is spending a lot of time focusing on the subject of homosexuality, it is the media—television and the newspapers. They have become tools of the gay lobby, and they are selling the gay agenda. The church of Jesus Christ must respond.
Since I first mentioned Amendment 2 in November, I have been inundated with letters, more than many of you would believe. Most of those letters have been highly critical. Some of them have been written reasonably and without hostility. Many of the letters have been written with incomprehensible hostility and people have called me an instrument of Satan. They have told me that I am selling hatred to our society and culture. I have always sought, before Christ, to speak the truth with love. I have always tried, in whatever I have shared from the pulpit, to manifest the kindness of Jesus Christ without compromising the truth of Christ.
I think hatred is a problem in our world. I must say though, I honestly believe that liberals have every bit as much hatred for conservatives as conservatives have ever had for liberals. I must also say that the radical liberal fringe, many of them, really do hate people who believe in the Bible and in moral absolutes. Some of you have said to me, “How can a Christian, any Christian, back any amendment which focuses on one sin and seeks to discriminate against that one sin? If Christians are going to be consistent, then they ought to develop amendments that deal with all sins and allow discrimination against all sin.”
But, you see, this does not represent an accurate summary of what has happened in our culture and time. The reality is that in the cities of Denver, Aspen, and Boulder, ordinances were passed which protected one sin. If you were an employer in those cities, it did not matter what job you were offering, what the nature of the job was, you could not in any circumstance refuse to hire a person because they were gay or because they practiced that one sin. No other sin was protected. If you were an employer in Denver, Aspen, or Boulder, you did not have to hire a gossip. You could refuse to hire them because there is no ordinance protecting gossips. The gossips of America have not come together and formed a coalition. They have not asked you to embrace gossiping as a good thing. If you are an employer in Denver, Aspen, or Boulder, you do not have to hire a fornicator. There is no special ordinance protecting fornicators. Fornicators have not come together to form a coalition, telling the nation to accept them and embrace their lifestyle. You would not have to hire a womanizer. There is no special law protecting womanizers. You would not have to hire an adulterer. There are no special laws protecting those who commit the sin of adultery. Amendment 2 was simply an effort to correct that, to make the sin of homosexuality no different than any other sin. People are free to choose sin, to practice sin, but no one sin should be singled out for protection.
Now, let us be honest. There are forty-three states in the United States which do not include homosexual orientation in their civil right laws. In effect, Amendment 2 just made us like those forty-three states. There are twenty-four states in the United States which have sodomy laws, homosexual laws that declare homosexuality a crime. Colorado is not one of those states. For people from those twenty-four states to be boycotting Colorado is the height of hypocrisy. It really is.
But you see, we live in a world where good is called evil and where evil is called good because there are no standards anymore. We have thrown out the Bible. We have thrown out Judeo-Christian values. Everything is relevant now. It is all up for grabs. Is it okay for a heterosexual to have sex prior to marriage? Our culture says yes. It is good if they are mutually consenting adults, even if they are mutually consenting teenagers… and it is good if they wear condoms. And it is certainly good if there is some shared affection there. The Bible says it is not good… and that’s not goodness. The Bible says it is fornication, and it is sinful. But you see, our culture calls good evil and evil good. The Bible says that sexual relations are good in the context of marriage where it is an expression of the union that marriage involves… the spiritual, emotional, relational, physical union of marriage. In these circumstances, it is very good. We live in a scary world.
I am sure that you have heard of vertigo. Vertigo is an affliction which some people have which causes them to be disoriented and everything seems to be spinning and moving about. According to the United States Air Force, many jet pilots have crashed because of vertigo. They have been flying along in their jet and because of atmospheric conditions, or perhaps some medical problems, the pilot begins to experience vertigo and everything begins to spin. The floor of the jet looks like the ceiling. The ceiling looks like the floor. The pilot is disoriented. The only reliable guides he has are his instruments, but sometimes the pilot chooses to ignore the instruments and, going on his own feelings, crashes the jet to the earth.
I want to say that our culture is morally and ethically a victim of vertigo. We are just confused and disoriented. If you throw away the instruments, if you throw away the one reliable guide and you go on your own feelings, if the people of our nation do this, we are going to crash. We desperately need to pray for revival in America. God has revealed what is good in His Word.
I have a second teaching. Only Jesus Christ can make us good. You see, God has revealed what is good, but only Jesus Christ can make us good. In the year 1786 in Edinburgh, Scotland, a man named William Brody was on trial for robbery. Of course, all the people of Edinburgh knew that William Brody was not guilty because he was a good man. He was a known Christian and a deacon at the local church. He was a good husband and father. He was an upright man in a society which placed a supreme value on that. But as the prosecutors examined the life of William Brody, they found that there was another side to him, a hidden side. They found that he had another woman in another town. He had fathered three children out of wedlock. In his home, they found a secret compartment full of guns and masks. In further study, they discovered that William Brody had actually committed armed robberies in Scotland and England for a period of 18 years and he had committed murder. William Brody, the good man, was also William Brody, the bad man.
Almost one hundred years later, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his famous little story, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” and he acknowledged that he did not write that story until after he had read the life story of William Brody. Robert Louis Stevenson firmly believed that human beings are dualistic, that there is a little bit of Jekyll and a little bit of Hyde in all of us.
There are none of us who are truly good, none of us. No matter how good we are, there is going to be evil within us, each one of us. The Bible affirms as much. Because of our own free will, we have fallen into sin. None of us are truly good. There have been people, and there still are, who think that by their own effort they can really be good, and they can remove all evil from their lives and from their behavior and from their thoughts.
The Pharisees thought that way, and that is one of the reasons that Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount. He wanted us to know what goodness requires and He wanted us to know how unattainable goodness is. Jesus said, “You’ve heard it said of old, thou shalt not commit adultery. I say to you, anyone who looks upon a woman with lust has already committed adultery in his heart. You have heard it said of old, thou shalt not murder. Whoever murders shall be liable for judgement. I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother is liable for hellfire. You have heard it said of old, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I say to you, if anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other. You have heard it said of old, love your neighbor, but I say to you, love your enemy. Do good to those who hate you. Pray for those that abuse you. Bless those who curse you. You have heard it said of old, thou shall not swear falsely. But I say to you, don’t swear at all, either by heaven above which is God’s throne or by earth beneath which is His footstool or by Jerusalem which is the city of the king.”
You see, Jesus wanted the people to know what goodness required. Goodness just is not attainable. That is why we have the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is why He came into the world. Jesus Christ alone is good. He lived a sinless life. He fulfilled all the requirements of righteousness and then He want to Calvary’s cross, and He died for you, and He died for me. He took all of our sin, all of our evil, and He took it upon Himself. He paid the penalty for it. The great message of the gospel is now when we come to Jesus Christ, and we embrace what He did for us on the cross and we receive His grace and His mercy, and we invite Him to be our Savior from sin and the Lord of our lives… the good news is that He forgives us from all of our sins. “He removes,” the Bible says, “that sin from us as far as the east is from the west,” and His righteousness, His goodness, is imputed to us, vested upon us, and we are, in the courtroom of heaven, declared righteous. The righteousness of Christ vested upon us. We come under the umbrella of the cross. That is good news. We have been trusted with this message to take it to the world.
Now of course, we still sin and there is a process called sanctification. I know that, as Christians, most of us seek to do good and to be good, but that goodness needs to be rooted in the love of Jesus Christ. Who is the most evil man who ever lived? Have you ever wondered about that? Some would say Antiochus Epiphanes, the Greek Seleucid king who, in the second century before Christ, slaughtered Jews in the streets of Jerusalem, went into the Holy of Holies and set up the desolating sacrilege and became the prototype of the antichrist who is to come. Some would say Nero, or perhaps Caligula, two hideous rulers of Rome.
Some would say Atilla the Hun, called “the scourge of God.” He conquered more than a million square miles of earth’s real estate, butchering people as he went. Some would say Vlad the Impaler, the reality behind the Dracula myth. Some would say Rasputin, the Siberian occultic priest who brought about the downfall of Czarist Russia and the rise of Lenin. Some, of course, would say Adolph Hitler, the madman who incinerated six million Jews and brought the world to the brink of Armageddon.
But there are also historians who really believe that the worst man, the worst human being who ever lived was a man called Ivan IV, more commonly known as Ivan the Terrible because, you see, he just butchered children. He even murdered his own children. He had secret police who would go through the streets of Moscow and just slaughter innocent people. In moments of rage, he would send forth his armies over the countryside and into the cities and villages of Russia. They would simply murder, mass murder. The strange thing about Ivan the Terrible is that he was not always terrible. He came to the throne in 1545. He married Anastasia in 1547 and he loved her. She was, by the world’s standards, very good. She was a Christian and she sought to honor Christ in all things. Ivan was not known for evil yet. He loved her and so he did good. He began to build churches. He prayed and he fasted. He had ministries of compassion to the poor. For the first time in the history of Russia, the poorest citizen had access to the throne. At that time, there were actually people saying, “Of all the kingdoms of Christendom, no kingdom is more beloved than the kingdom of Ivan IV.”
In the year 1560, Anastasia died. The wife whom he loved died and suddenly Ivan IV changed. I mean, he went ballistic. He did not love Christ anyway. He only loved his wife. He had been good for her. He had not been good because of God. He became Ivan the Terrible.
What makes you good? My assumption is that each and every one of you, most of the time, wants to be good and do good. Why? Why do you want to be good? God wants you to know goodness is not really goodness unless it is rooted in faith in God. Etymologically, the word “good” comes from the word “God,” and if you long to please Jesus Christ then the power of the Holy Spirit is going to be released in your life and you are going to begin to manifest this fruit, this incredible fruit called goodness. The world is topsy-turvy. In His Word, God has told the world what is good. Judeo-Christian values are being rejected in our culture. Jesus Christ is looking for a people who will stand firm on His Word no matter what the cost. Only Jesus Christ can make us good. He invites you right now to embrace Him as Lord and Savior that His goodness might be imputed to you and your sins might be forgiven. He achallenges each and every one of us to live a life wherein we long to please Him that the power of His Holy Spirit might be released in goodness. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.