PEARLS OF PAUL
FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT – GOODNESS
DR. JIM DIXON
GALATIANS 5:16-25
May 28, 2000
In the year 1799, in the land of Egypt in the Nile delta, near the town of Rosetta, not too far from the city of Alexandria, one of Napoleon’s soldiers discovered a stone slab rising out of the mud. It was one of the greatest discoveries in the history of the world. That stone slab today is called the Rosetta Stone. It may be seen where it is kept, in the British Museum in London, England.
Two years ago, in 1998, Barb and I went to the British Museum in London, England, and we saw the Rosetta Stone. It is 11 inches thick. The surface of the Rosetta Stone covers 8 square feet. It has a three-fold inscription on it commemorating and celebrating the ascendancy of Ptolemy V Epiphanes to the throne of Egypt in the year 203 BC. But the greatness of the Rosetta Stone has little to do with Ptolemy V Epiphanes. You see, for centuries, the world of ancient Egypt was a mystery to us. The world of ancient Egypt was completely unknown to us, unknown to historians, because philologists and linguists were unable to decipher the meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphics, but the Rosetta Stone changed all of that.
The Rosetta Stone contains this three-fold inscription which is really a trilingual message, a single message given in three languages. That message is given in Greek, and then the same message is given in the demotic text, and then the same message is inscribed in Egyptian hieroglyphics. By comparing these three languages, the Greek, the demotic and hieroglyphics, linguists and philologists were able to decipher the characters in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic language, thus unlocking the entire world of ancient Egypt, opening up a whole new world.
I hold in my hand a Bible, and there’s a sense in which this Bible is a kind of Rosetta Stone. It unlocks the mystery of another world. It unlocks the mysteries of heaven and the kingdom of heaven. The Bible tells us that the kingdom of heaven is characterized by the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Today, we examine this 6th fruit of the Holy Spirit, which is goodness, but we cannot understand it apart from the Bible.
In the year 1864, Abraham Lincoln stood in front of a crowd, and he held a Bible up. He said, “Apart from this book, we would not know right from wrong.” Those were not empty words to Abraham Lincoln. He truly believed the Bible was the key that unlocked the meaning of goodness. This belief was shared by the founders of our nation and the framers of our Constitution. Even those founders and framers who were not Christians still believe in Judeo-Christian values. They still believed in the values taught in the Old and New Testaments. That is why the founders of this nation wanted the Bible placed in school classrooms all across America. Even Thomas Jefferson, who was not a Christian, wanted the Bible placed in school classrooms all across America. And why was that? It wasn’t because they were trying to force the Christian religion on people. They weren’t trying to do that. They believed in freedom of religion. But they wanted children to grow up with instruction regarding what is right and wrong. They wanted generations of Americans to grow up with a knowledge of goodness.
Of course, things have changed today. Today, even the Ten Commandments have been scripted out of classrooms all across America. You may have read where just recently, in the state of Ohio, their official state motto, “With God All Things Are Possible,” was just ruled unconstitutional by the courts. It has been stricken down because that motto was taken from a verse in the Bible, and the courts decided that it therefore violates laws concerning separation of church and state. Changing times, we live in. But the framers and the founders of this nation understood that apart from Judeo-Christian values, and apart from goodness, democracies will fail because liberty will be perverted to license.
What does the Bible have to say about goodness? I have two teachings this morning, and the first teaching is this: The Bible tells us that goodness does not characterize the human race. Goodness DOES NOT characterize the human race. In Mark’s Gospel, the 10th chapter, in Luke’s Gospel, the 18th chapter, we’re told how a rich man came to Jesus Christ and he posed a question. “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Now, at first, Jesus didn’t answer the question. Instead, He responded with a question of His own. “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but God alone.”
Now, the goodness of Jesus Christ is not doubted biblically. Everywhere in the pages of scripture we are told of the goodness of Christ. He is the Holy One. He is the Son of Righteousness. He is utterly without sin. He is good in every sense of the word, but Jesus did not want this man to apply the word “good” to the human race. Jesus went on to say, “God alone is good.” Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19. “God alone is good, and all goodness flows from God.”
In the year 1786, a man named William Brody was arrested in Edinburgh, Scotland, for burglary. The the citizens of Edinburgh were enraged. They didn’t believe that William Brody was a burglar. They said, “He’s a deacon in the local church!” “He’s a Christian!” “He’s a pillar in the community!” “He’s a devoted father and a devoted husband!” “He’s a family man!” “We don’t believe that he did it!” But as law enforcement officers began to investigate the life of William Brody, they found that he had a hidden side to his life. He had two other families that he was maintaining down in England. In his home in Edinburgh, Scotland, they found a secret room. In that room, they found disguises and masks which he wore on his face, and guns and rifles. They discovered that for 18 years, this deacon of the church had been burglarizing England and Scotland.
Now, almost a hundred years later, Robert Louis Stevenson authored his classic work, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” He confessed that before he ever wrote that book, he first read the life story of William Brody. It was the story of William Brody that prompted Robert Louis Stevenson to write “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Robert Louis Stevenson believed that in every human being, there is a Dr. Jekyll and a Mr. Hyde. In this sanctuary, in this worship service this morning in the worship center here, there’s a Dr. Jekyll and a Mr. Hyde in all of us. Good and evil mixed. The Bible tells us this is true. You see, the Bible tells us that God alone is truly good, intrinsically good because goodness could not be mixed with evil. In us, there is what we would call both good and evil.
It goes back to Genesis. In Genesis, chapter 1, we read how God created men and women in the image and likeness of God, the “Imago Dei,” “the image of God.” Because we were created in the image and likeness of God, the goodness of God was reflected in and through us. But the Bible tells us in Genesis, chapter 3, that the human race has fallen and sin has entered the world. We have all sinned. There is none righteous. No, not one. We are now born, the Bible tells us, with a sin nature. The “Imago Dei,” the image of God, is residual in us so that there is some good in us, some reflection of God through us. But we are fallen, and the sin nature characterizes mankind.
The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans, chapter 7, there is no good in my flesh, in my “sarks” (and sarks was the term used for the sin nature, the fallen nature of man). This teaching that we are fallen has become controversial in our time. Certainly, we would all admit that, throughout history, mankind has established laws to try to control the fallen side of man. We’ve established civil governments, and those governments have established civil laws, and they have formed police departments to enforce those laws. We’ve established judicatories to establish justice. We’ve established penal systems with incarceration, various penalties to make people accountable. All of this is evidence that there is a fallen side to man.
Some of you have heard of Sir William Golding. Sir William Golding was a British novelist. He wrote exciting adventure stories. They always centered on the theme of good and evil. Sir William Golding received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983. In 1988, he was Knighted by the British Crown. He died in 1993 at the age of 82. The year was 1954 when he wrote his most famous book, and that book was called “Lord of the Flies.” I think many of you read that book. Some of you read it because you HAD to read it when you were in school.
“Lord of the Flies” tells about a bunch of boys stranded on an island. Suddenly, they have no authority in their life. They’re stranded on this island. There are no moms and there are no dads. There are no police. They are all by themselves. As time passes, these boys slip into moral chaos. They try to bring some structure to their life. They establish hunters and fire makers, doers and thinkers, but eventually they war with each other. They find themselves committing acts that, in prior times, they would have thought impossible.
Now, “Lord of the Flies”, in the Bible, is a title of the devil Beelzebub. There is no doubt that Sir William Golding believed that there’s a little bit of the devil in everybody. He also believed in writing that book, “Lord of the Flies,” that he was writing a parable of mankind and the human predicament. You see, he believed that if civil law were taken away, or if divine law was taken away, that we would all begin to do things that otherwise we would not do. Golding believed that if you were to wake up tomorrow morning, and suddenly you had no concept of God or divine law… If you were to wake up tomorrow morning and there was no civil law, no police department, no court system, no prisons, no threat of incarceration, no threat of accountability or consequences, then it’s only a matter of time and you would begin to do things that today you think impossible. That’s what Golding believed.
This view of man is perhaps viewed as bleak by many in the world today, and yet I think there is truth in it because the Bible says the human race is fallen. It’s only in our fallenness that we are aware of our desperate need for grace. It’s only in our fallenness that we’re made aware of our desperate need for mercy. It’s only as we’re aware of our own sinfulness that we can come to the cross, embrace the substitutionary atonement of Christ and receive Jesus as Savoir.
We live in changing times. I have here a copy of The New York Times Magazine published May 7, in the year 2000. This magazine published earlier this month contains extensive surveys taken with regard to the subject of morality, the morality of modem day Americans. According to this magazine, most Americans today no longer believe in Judeo-Christian values. According to this magazine, most Americans today believe that all human beings are intrinsically good and that they are born with the dominance of good. The magazine rightly points out that this is a departure from the Judeo-Christian tradition. The magazine reveals that most people in America today also don’t believe in the Sermon on the Mount. In fact, when asked this question, “Do you think that immoral thoughts are okay as long as they don’t become immoral acts?” Most Americans said “Yes!” Of course, Jesus said the opposite in the Sermon on the Mount, that immoral thoughts are sinful whether you act on them or not.
You see, we’ve redefined goodness in our culture and in our time. That’s a scary thing, because as you take the gospel to this culture, people who think that they are intrinsically good will not feel the same need for the cross. Indeed, these surveys show that most people think they deserve heaven. By virtue of their own goodness, they deserve heaven. So, as we go out into our culture with the message of grace and mercy and atonement and forgiveness, perhaps the soil won’t be quite as fertile out there. Nevertheless, we’re called to faithfulness, to take the gospel to this culture and all cultures, and we are not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation. So, we have this first teaching from the Bible with regard to the subject of goodness. It does not characterize humanity.
The second and final teaching from scripture with regard to the subject of goodness is this: It is meant to characterize the church. Goodness does not characterize humanity, but it’s meant to characterize the church of Jesus Christ. In Romans, chapter 15, and in Ephesians, chapter 5, in both cases the Apostle Paul concludes his letters by reminding the church at Rome and the churches at Ephesus that they are called to goodness. In 2 Thessalonians, chapter 1, the Apostle Paul reminds the church at Thessalonica that it is called to goodness. The Greek word is “agathosune.” It comes from the Greek word “agathos,” which is the Greek word for good. The word agathos is used throughout the New Testament to describe the church of Jesus Christ. The church of Jesus Christ is called to goodness.
As Christians we are fallen, just like the rest of mankind. We are all sinners. There is none righteous, no, not one. But individually and corporately, we have become the temple of God. The Spirit of God has come to dwell within us. The fruit of the Spirit is goodness, and so, goodness is meant to characterize the church corporately and it’s meant to characterize Christians individually as the fruit of the Spirit begins to be manifested in us. To understand this, to understand what it means to be good, we need to take a look at this word agathosune. It has three meanings. I want very briefly to look at each of them.
First of all, this word agathosune means “excellence.” Good means to excel. This is oftentimes true of the use of the word agathosune in the New Testament. In the Parable of the Talents where Jesus said, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” they are good because they have done well. It has to do with excellence. To be good means to excel. You see, God wants the church of Jesus Christ to be good. God wants the church of Jesus Christ to excel. He wants us to seek excellence.
On June 17 in the year 1885, the Statue of Liberty crossed the Atlantic and arrived that day, June 17, in New York Harbor onboard the French ship Isère. The Statue of Liberty was, of course, designed by Frederic August Bartholdi, the French sculptor. All agree that Bartholdi created an artistic masterpiece, an expression of artistic excellence. The amazing thing is, when you look at Lady Liberty, when you look at the Statue of Liberty up on the top of the head, there’s intricate detail. There’s excellence of work and craftsmanship at the very top, above the crown. Bartholdi surely knew that when that statue was raised on Liberty Island in New York Harbor to its full height of 151 feet, no one would see the top of the head. It would only be seen by seagulls. Of course, in 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright invented the airplane, but Bartholdi could not have foreseen that. Bartholdi had taken the face of his mother, and it is her face he portrays on Lady Liberty. Bartholdi believed that his mother would forever be looking down from heaven and seeing the top of that statue.
My father died 4 1/2 years ago. I know my dad is with Jesus whom he loved. I know my dad is in heaven, and yet I do not believe that he is looking down on me. I don’t believe the Bible teaches that, but even if my father were looking down on me, that would not be my highest motivation. My highest motivation is my awareness of the reality that Jesus Christ is looking down on me. What motivates the church of Jesus Christ? What motivates you to seek excellence? Do you really believe that Jesus Christ is looking down on you? Jesus said, “I will build My church and the powers of hell will not prevail against it!” Jesus is, the Bible tells us, the great Head of the church, His Body, and He wants His people to seek excellence in the church.
This past week, Dutch and I went to a conference. Theologians spoke, and sociologists and historians and ecclesiologists. It was a very helpful and a very productive time, but why did our elders want Dutch and I and the staff in general to go to conferences like that? They want us to go to conferences like that because they want us to improve. They want us to grow. They want us to excel. In fact, the Session of this church, the elder board of this church, wants this church to excel. The staff of the church wants this church to excel. But this church can only excel if you, the congregation, want the church to excel.
Excellence is really in your hands. If we’re going to have an excellent Sunday school, then hundreds of you need to volunteer to serve there. If we’re going to have an excellent small group ministry, hundreds of you need to volunteer to be small group leaders. Hundreds more, thousands of you, need to participate in small groups. If we’re going to have an excellent choir, then you need to volunteer for the choir, assuming that you can sing. As you support this church with your tithes and offerings to the extent you want the church to excel, you will support it well. You see, Jesus Christ wants the church to be good. He wants it to excel.
The word agathosune not only means excellent, but it also means beneficial. In fact, in terms of the root meaning of the word agathosune, the root meaning is “beneficial.” Of course, the English word beneficial comes from the Latin root “bene,” which means “good,” so that beneficial means good, and good means beneficial. For a person to be good, it means that they must seek to benefit others. If the church of Jesus Christ is to be good, then the church of Jesus Christ must seek to benefit others. And so, if the fruit of the Holy Spirit is goodness, then the Holy Spirit prompts us to seek the betterment of others, the blessing of others, the benefit of others. The reason the Good Samaritan was called good was because he sought to bless another person. He sought the benefit of another, and this is the call of the church of Jesus Christ and the call of each individual Christian.
On March 2, 1962, Wilt Chamberlain scored a hundred points in an NBA basketball game in Hershey, Pennsylvania. It’s the only time an NBA player has ever scored a hundred points in a basketball game. No one since then has even come close. After the game, a boy, 14 years old, came up to Wilt Chamberlain and asked to shake his hand. Wilt Chamberlain smiled and shook this 14-year-old’s hand, and the 14-year-old immediately proceeded to steal Wilt Chamberlain’s basketball, the one with which he had scored the hundred points in that historic basketball game. He stole that basketball. He eluded the security guards in the arena, and he made his way out. In 1975, the statute of limitations made it so that this crime could no longer be prosecuted.
This boy was now 27 years old. His name is Kerry Ryman. He began to feel a little more comfortable. The most amazing thing is just a few months ago, April 28, 2000, Kerry Ryman finally sold that basketball at auction for $551,844.00, more than a half million dollars. Kerry Ryman made this statement, and I quote: “It’s not something I’m proud of. I was 14, and I made a mistake.” This is incredible! He says, “I would have given the ball to charity, but I would never have been able to make sure the money was actually put to good use!” So, he decided to give it to himself!
I mean, aren’t human beings amazing? Aren’t we just incredible the way we can rationalize? The excuses we find to benefit ourselves? You see, the truth is most people in this world wake up every day and they spend that day trying to benefit themselves. This goes back to the nature of man, the fallen nature of man. I mean, we wake up every morning and then we just begin to set forth to seek to bless ourselves, but this is not goodness. The Bible tells us that goodness is waking up each day and setting forth to seek to bless others, benefit others, help others. That’s goodness.
And so, this choice is laid before the church of Jesus Christ. Are we going to live like the world lives? Are we going to live in accordance with the call of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Are we going to seek goodness, the fruit of the Holy Spirit within us? Christ calls us to goodness, so He wants hundreds of you, and I would say thousands of you, to go into the inner city and be tutors, to seek to benefit inner city children. He wants thousands of us to go to Juarez and help build houses in the midst of a sea of poverty, that we might bless and benefit others. And yes, He wants us to go into the Sunday school classrooms to seek to benefit children and bless them. It’s all about goodness, and the church of Jesus Christ is called to goodness.
Well, finally, there’s one more meaning to this word agathosune, and that is this: Moral. Sometimes the word meant excellent. Sometimes it meant beneficial, but as the word evolved, most of the time it came to mean moral. If the church is to be good, the church must be moral. We must seek to overcome sin. We must strive for holiness and righteousness. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.” The church of Jesus Christ is called to morality.
Recently, at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, a Christian group on campus was de-recognized. This Bible study group at Tufts University was one of the many student organizations on campus. The Bible study group, as a recognized student organization, had the right to reserve classroom space for their meetings. They had the right to use the school’s publicity communications system to announce their meetings. They had the right to use the school bulletin boards, and they had the right to receive a portion of the financial pie, the money set aside for the recognized student organizations at Tufts University. But just recently they were de-recognized, and they no longer have any of those rights. They cannot even use the name Tufts in association with their group any longer.
What did they do wrong? Well, not too long ago, gays and lesbians came to the Bible study group, this Christian organization, and they said they wanted to join or they wanted to attend. The Christians said that would be great. Come and join us. You’re welcome here. The gays and the lesbians said, “Well, do you believe the practice of homosexual behavior is sinful?” They said, “We do. The Bible tells us that, but we also understand that we are sinners, and we need God’s grace, and we need God’s mercy, and you are welcome here.
Well, the gays and lesbians began to come to the Bible study group. After a period of time, one of the lesbian women asked to be on the leadership team. They said that if she was simply homosexual by orientation, but not acting on it, she could be on the leadership team. But if she was practicing her homosexuality, she could not be on the leadership team because the Bible says that’s sinful. They said that they applied similar standards to all of sexuality. They explained that heterosexuals who are sexually active but not married were also not allowed to be on the leadership team. This lesbian women complained. The school judiciary decided to de-recognize this Christian organization on campus. Incredible.
In 1997, a similar thing happened to a Christian Bible study group at Grinnell College in Iowa. Right now, at Middlebury in Vermont, and at Whitman College in Washington, similar things are going on with regard to Bible studies there. According to U.S. News and World Report, there is this movement that is beginning to gain momentum that Christian organizations must cease to exist on campus if they will not allow gays and lesbians in leadership because that is discriminatory and it does not provide equal opportunity. I must say that in response to the U.S. News and World Report article, and that article asked Tufts University if they believed in freedom of speech and freedom of religion, Tufts University has now reversed their stand and just recently has decided to re-recognize that Christian group.
Do you see what’s going on in the world? There’s a conflict concerning the definition of goodness. What constitutes goodness? The world’s concept of goodness is constantly changing and evolving. The church of Jesus Christ receives its concept of goodness from the Bible. The church and the world are oftentimes going to be at odds. This has always been true. This has been true for millennia. It will be true in the time to come. The church will be at odds with the world in terms of what constitutes goodness. But as Christians, we must stand on God’s word, contend for the faith which once and for all was delivered to the saints. God is immutable. He does not change. His values are not evolving, and He’s called us to faithfulness.
He’s called us to love, so we’re called to be salt and light in the culture, but in a loving way. Our primary purpose as Christians is not to lecture the world. I mean, we are to be salt and light in a loving way, but our primary purpose is not to lecture society. What’s more important is that we seek sanctification in the church, we seek holiness in the church, we seek righteousness in the body of Christ, that we, as God’s people, are seeking to follow Him head to toe, that this church, Cherry Hills Community Church, seeks goodness. I know some of you are in the midst of temptation. We are all sinners. Some of you are struggling with addictive sins, and God says to you, “Never give up!” He wants to remind you again today that you are called to goodness and that goodness means moral, and that, by the power of the Holy Spirit who has taken up residence within you, you are to seek holiness and victory over sin. It’s not easy.
I want to share a little story with you as we close. It comes from Greek mythology. In Greek mythology, the Island of Capri in the Bay of Naples, contains beautiful sirens. These were sea nymphs, lesser Greek deities. These beautiful women were evil. They sought to entice sailors as they sailed through the Bay of Naples past the Island of Capri through alluring music and through enchanting music. They tried to entice the sailors to jump off ship and swim to shore and they drowned. Or to get in a boat and come to shore where they would crash on the rocks.
Well, in Greek mythology, Ulysses, who in the Greek was actually called Odysseus. When he took his ships past the Island of Capri in the Bay of Naples, he sometimes tied his men to the mast. He blindfolded them, and he put plugs in their ears so they could not hear the alluring enchanting music of the beautiful sirens. But the strategy failed and men jumped overboard. Ulysses decided to bring, on his subsequent voyages, Orpheus with him. Orpheus was a good man. In Greek mythology, he was part deity, and he had this tremendous ability to play beautiful music that was wholesome. And so, Ulysses brought Orpheus with him. When they came past the Island of Capri in the Bay of Naples and the beautiful sirens began to play their alluring music, Orpheus would then begin to play on the ship. The sailors were more drawn to Orpheus than they were to the evil of sirens.
Now, as Christians, we live in a world where evil is alluring and it’s enticing. Sometimes we seek to blindfold our eyes and plug our ears, perhaps tie ourselves to the mast. Hear no evil, see no evil. There is a place for that. There are times when we just need to try to remove ourselves from the presence of temptation. But it is also true that if we’re really going to be victorious, we need to hear the beautiful music of Christ. We need to hear the beautiful music of Christ. We need to let Him play.
I think every time you come to church, you need to want to hear the music of Christ, but Christ wants you to understand that you need to hear His music every day. We do that in Bible study groups. We do that in private devotionals. If you don’t have a time every day where you get a cup of coffee and go out on your patio (maybe early in the morning, maybe late in the day) and you get your Bible out and you pray and you read. If you’re not letting Him play to you, if you’re not letting Him sing to you, you’re going to fail in this struggle for goodness, and you’re going to be defeated in your struggle with sin if you don’t let Him play to you every day. So, this can be a new beginning for all of us, that we would seek goodness, excellence in the church, that we would seek to be beneficial as a church—and as individuals, that we would live to benefit others, and that we would seek to honor the commandments of Christ in all we do and say as we let Him play for us every day. Let’s close with a word of prayer.