[Frank Dunkle] Brethren, it's been said that the United States and Britain are divided by only a common language. Which can be an amusing contradiction, but it comes from the fact that although we both speak English, we tend to sometimes say things slightly different ways, and we have some different names for things. You might notice that especially if you're driving. If you're in Britain, well, for one thing, you're on the wrong side of the car, but that's okay, so is the steering wheel, but if you need a fill-up, you pull into the station and you fill up with petrol. And you might lift the bonnet to check for oil.

And that brought to mind an occasion I remember. I was privileged to serve at the summer camp in Scotland for a number of years, and I remember well it was the first year I was there and several of us were there for a couple weeks in advance doing setup, which is basically building a camp on a sheep field. And we tended to have tea breaks. That's another thing we don't have much in America, but I learned tea doesn't mean just drinking tea but also snacks and cookies and all kinds of stuff. And so I was sitting there and one of the blokes next to me was opening a jar of orange jelly, and so his mate sitting on the other side looked at him and he asked him after he took a bite.

He said, "Is it nice?" I looked, "Nice?" He said, "Oh, yes, it's quite nice." And as the American there, I'm thinking, "Well, what did the G.M. do you a favor or paid you a compliment? How could it be nice? Shouldn't you been saying it's good?" Well, as you would guess, of course, that's exactly what they meant. They were just using that different word. I learned that whereas I only thought of nice as dealing with the way one person treats another, in Britain, it's commonly used to describe the taste of food or at least it was back then. And maybe they're onto something. I mean, why should we use the word good?

I think the official word that it should be is tasty, but I've never taken a bite out of a sandwich and said, "Boy, this is tasty." Now, there's nothing wrong with the word good, but it's a bit overworked in the English language. Matter of fact, I brought sort of a prop. This is my Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, and I thought I'd bring it out. I've referred to it a number of times in various sermons. I often call it my 20-pound dictionary, but I was disappointed yesterday. I went over to the mail room and asked Mrs. Treadway if she'd weigh it for me and it only came out to six and a half pounds. I might still call it 20 though just for fun.

But this dictionary lists 50 different definitions for the word good, 50. Nice has only 14. Now, I would wonder how they could come up with 14 different definitions for nice, but you can tell nice isn't working as hard as good. Now, unless you think I've got nothing more than a pretty unimaginative grammar lesson for you today, actually, I'm planning to try to make it a pretty imaginative grammar lesson. But this started from wanting to carry on something that I've done over the years and that's giving sermons on various of the fruits of the Spirit, which I'll read for you from Galatians 5:22-23. I'm guessing most of you have this memorized, so you don't have to turn there, but if you want to check up on me, you can.

"And the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law." There's no niceness there, but there is goodness. And I realized over the years, I've never given a sermon on goodness. Matter of fact, I don't think I've ever heard anybody else give a sermon on goodness. Why not? It sounds like a basic topic, something important to all of us, but I thought how much is there to say? Be good. Have goodness. Can I give a whole sermon on the topic? Luckily, we only have 90-minute services. I thought I'd give a try. So I'll mention my big fat dictionary, as I said, its most simple definition is that “goodness is the state or quality of being good” which struck me as surprising because, in grammar class, I thought you're not supposed to use a word to define a word. But still, the fruit of the Holy Spirit is goodness, so we could say that's the same as being good. Thus, having goodness means to be good. That's a pretty basic thing for Christianity. We should be good.

And I even found a very good scripture to summarize this goal. It's in Amos 5. Amos 5:14-15, if you'll join me in reading that. Amos 5 beginning in verse 14 says, "Seek good, not evil, that you may live; so the Lord God of hosts will be with you, as you have spoken. Hate evil, love good; establish justice in the gate. It may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph."

Well, I've got my scripture, I've got my topic, but I'm still going to have to fill some more time. But come to think of it… boy, you guys didn't laugh near as much. I should have saved that watch thing for now. But I might be making a pretty big assumption to think that we all are on the same wavelength or thinking the same thing about a definition for good. As I said, this dictionary has a lot to say about it, and actually mark the space, it's right here on… I can't read this without my glasses. Yeah, on page 609, but I copied some of the definitions into my notes.

The first definition that it listed was “morally excellent.” “Morally excellent.” That sounds kind of like what we're talking about. Number 40 on the list is “moral righteousness,” and it also says “virtue as contrasted with evil.” And that seems pretty much in line with what we read there in Amos, and it sounds somewhat religious. Another in definition, number two on the list, was “satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree.” And as soon as I heard that, I thought, yeah, I've been at a restaurant where the waitress comes around or waiter and starting to refill my glass and when I have a satisfactory amount, I say, "That's good." Or for instance, if you're helping someone guide into a parking space, "Turn your wheels to the left, the left, and that's good. Back on in."

So yeah, there's some meanings we use all the time. I could go on. Number four was “well-behaved.” Number five was “kind, beneficent.” And number 15 really stands out to me. The 15th on the list was “agreeable, pleasant, genial.” One of the reasons that stands out so much, that was also the number one definition for the word nice, but the dictionary surprisingly, and to me somewhat disappointingly, didn't refer to taste in any of the definitions. I mean, nice and good, if Britain and the America are using those for taste, wow, boy, that should be in there. Although any food that I eat, if I think of it as agreeable or pleasant, then I could call it good or nice. Well, then again, as I said, we want to look at goodness as one of the fruits of the Spirit or a fruit of the Spirit.

So aside from my almost 20-pound dictionary, we, of course, want to look at how the Bible describes goodness. I mean, we want to have all the fruits of the Spirit exemplified in our lives, so we can't overlook goodness. And I'm going to start by going back to the Psalms. I've got a few scriptures in Psalms and they're very short, so you can turn there with me. I'm going to Psalm 100 first. Psalm 100, and I'll read verse 5. I was going to start to say you can just trust me if you don't want to turn there, but right now, you've had plenty of time, so what are you waiting for? Sorry, drinking a lot of water, I forgot to explain. If you've noticed, I don't sound my normal self.

Last Sunday, I came down with a little bit of a head cold, and I said, "It came, it wasn't a big deal, but when it left, it took my voice with it," and it's been struggling to get back to normal, but I've realized everybody that's ever been to Camp Cotubic says, "Oh, that's normal for Frank Dunkle. It happens that way usually by day 3." Getting back to Psalm 105. I turned to Psalm 105, but it's 100 and verse 5, Psalm 100:5 says, "For the Lord is good..." We could read the rest, "Mercy, everlasting is great and truth-enduring…” but God is good. That's a basic fact, He is good.

We could run back to Psalm 25:8, add something more to that. Psalm 25:8 says, "Good and upright is the Lord; and therefore He teaches sinners the way." What struck me is in all 50 of those definitions in my big fat dictionary, it never once mentioned God, and that seems almost more disappointing than that, it didn't refer to taste although it did mention the moral excellence and virtue. I would say moral excellence and virtue are totally determined by what God is, by His very nature.

So shouldn't be a surprise for us, again, to come back to that baseline conclusion, God is good. I want to read one more scripture if you'll turn to Psalm 34, it's a few pages away. Because I managed to bring two things that were important to me together. Psalm 34:8 says, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good." Ha! Taste does relate to goodness. And I'm going to leave that one. I purposely didn't look up the Hebrew word that was translated taste because I wanted to take what victory I could get and walk away. I did look up the Hebrew word for good. It's hard for me to pronounce sort of, it's towb. It'd be transliterated as T-O-W-B, towb. And according to my lexicon which also weighs about 45 pounds or really maybe 2, it's described as “good in the widest sense possible.” Just good in the most way it can mean. Variations of this word become adjectives and verbs, and that includes goodness that we, of course, see as the fruit of the Spirit.

Similarly, Psalm 107:9 comments on this and continues the theme that I've been developing. Psalm 107:9 says, "He satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness." So if you're hungry and you want something that tastes good, God can fill you with goodness, and of course, the Holy Spirit is the source of goodness if it's going to be in us. And we understand that comes from God because that's what He is and as His presence and His power dwells in us, that will become part of our nature, and I want to talk about that as we go.

Now, I'll reference the story without turning there, but if you remember when the children of Israel had left Egypt and they were all camped at the base of Mount Sinai, they were there and, of course, God spoke the Ten Commandments and they entered into a covenant and God had Moses come up to spend time with Him, and there was a problem with the golden calf. But eventually, God forgave the children of Israel. Moses had to come up to get some new tablets because he broke the old ones, but Moses had some special requests of God. He wanted to see His glory. He wanted to beg God, "Please go with us."

He said, "Let me see you as you are," and God told him, "No, you can't see me as I am. It'd kill you, but I'll put you in a cleft of a rock and cover and you'll see me from behind." And the wording in Exodus 33:19 is where He says, "I'll make all My goodness pass before you,” so God is good and He is goodness. That's what exudes out of Him. Well, we'd say God is good and He has goodness. Everything He makes is good. Think of what comes up in the Genesis account of creation. The evening and the morning God would create and He would say, "And it was good." He'd create something else and “it was good,” and I don't know why I'm saying it. I know which things He did on which days, but at the end in Genesis 1:31, it says, "God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good."

God doesn't do shoddy work. He's full of goodness. He's good and the things He does are good. It leads me to the question, though, what about us? Are we good? Now, at the point that God said that in Genesis, He had already created Adam and Eve. So in a sense, we could say, "Well, they were good." As I said, He doesn't make inferior work. They were created in His image. They were part of the everything that was good, but there is something else to consider. Jesus Christ made a pretty strong statement on this in Matthew 19:16. I'd like you to turn over there because I'm going to jump around and look at some other scriptures in Matthew as well, but Matthew 19:16, I want to just relate to part of this. This is a story where… actually, I probably want to… yes, I want to not start in verse 15, I want started in 16 like I said. I second-guessed myself.

"So now behold, one came to Him," that is to Jesus, "and said, 'Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I might have eternal life?'" Now, Jesus will go on to explain that he needs to keep the commandments, and beyond that, give up everything else he has to serve God, but before that, He corrects him. In verse 17 He says, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but One, that is, God." This seems to be saying that not only is God good, but that only God is good. Does that mean then that no person could be good? I build up a lot of time here saying that we need to be good, we need to have goodness.

Well, I'll answer that and say not exactly. If you flip back a few pages to Matthew 12, Jesus Christ refers to some good things. Matthew 12:35, one of His parables, He says, "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things." But here He says a good man, and He didn't put a parenthesis saying, "Oh, but there aren't any good men." Likewise, turning towards the front again in Matthew 5:45 as part of the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:45. I'm going to break partway down the verse, it says, "He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, sends rain on the just and the unjust."

So we could say there seems to be a continuum between good and evil. So if we compare human beings to God, we're nowhere near as good as that, but compared to evil, we can have some degree of goodness. So the closer we're going to God and away from evil, the more we are God… or we are good, not God. That comes with the birth of the first resurrection, but to consider one more example… actually, I'll just cite this one. In Acts 11:24, it mentions Barnabas who we know worked with the apostle Paul. Acts 11:24 says of Barnabas that “he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.”

 

So I don't want to keep struggling with what some people might say a contradiction. I would say the Bible is complementing itself and giving us a more full understanding. No human being can be good to the degree that God is good, but in contrast to evil, a person can be good. Barnabas was a good man, but I think it's worth connecting that to what it says afterwards. “He was a good man” to the degree that he was “full of the Holy Spirit.” And again, my goal was to discuss goodness as a fruit of the Holy Spirit.

Being filled with the Spirit, we'll have the result of causing a person to be good. To the degree we have God's Spirit living and working in us, we could be called good. Now, with that, I want to start turning away from this definition. I tend to give a lot of dictionary first parts of sermons, but I think that's important because we made a transition. As I transition away gradually, notice I was looking at Old Testament scriptures and moved to the New Testament, and I found a distinction in the Greek that wasn't in the Hebrew, and I've gotten used to that.

Whenever I've done word studies, it seems fairly often that Hebrew doesn't have as much distinction as many words, but in Greek, often, there are fine differences. I think of I'm an example that you're probably familiar with, and we've heard many times how in Greek, there are three different words for the English word love, and we understand there's eros and agape and philia. Well, I learned that there are actually three different Greek words translated good in the Bible. So I thought it was worth sharing some of what I learned. I'm only going to discuss two of them in detail though. The first one in the Greek, eudokia. That's almost fun to say, eudokia. It's spelled E-U-D-O-K-I-A, and it's often translated as good and its primary definition is “pleasing, delightful, satisfactory.” It sounds to me a lot like the definition for nice.

The other Greek word that we see more often is kalos. Matter of fact, I brought some other props. That's often spelled K-A-L-O-S. I transliterated as K-A-L-O-S, and it means “good or virtuous.” But it's interesting, kalos, it seems often or in many places, is used to refer to appearance, goodness that can be seen. Now, I want to emphasize, it doesn't mean false appearance. It doesn't necessarily mean something that looks good but it's really not good, but it's more a goodness that can be observed. It's an outer goodness as opposed to the other Greek word, agathos, or agathos. agathos, A-G-A-T-H-O-S, means good in every sense. And it means rather than focusing on the outward appearance, it could be determined as intrinsic goodness or good through and through, good to the core.

So while kalos is not bad… I mean, literally, not bad, agathos is the word that Paul used or a variation of agathos is what Paul used to describe a fruit of the Spirit. And Galatians 5:22, it's agathosune. And I won't claim that I'm pronouncing these correctly, but I don't know if we have any Greek scholars in the audience. So agathosune. But when we read in Matthew 19:17, Jesus said that there was no one good but God. He was saying God was agathos. But He used that same word when He said that “the sun rises on the good and the evil,” the sun rises on the agathos and the evil. A good, agathos, man will bring forth good, agathos, treasure out of his heart.

Here in Acts 11:24, it was telling us that Barnabas was an agathos man and full of the Holy Spirit. Now, Jesus knew and understood the meanings of both of these words. I want to go to a passage where he used both. And Matthew 7, Matthew 7, we'll begin in verse 15. Well, you see that's part of why I brought these signs up. Matthew 7:15 says, "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they're ravenous wolves." This reminds me of the idea of kalos of an outer appearance, it's not the same, but that's not quite the same with kalos, but he says, "You'll know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree [that’s agathos] bears good [kalos] fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree, [agathos,] cannot bear..."

Let me make sure I'm getting this right. "Cannot bear good..." So I need extra set of eyes. “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, or a bad tree cannot bear good fruit… A bad tree cannot bear [kalos] fruit… Therefore, of course, by their fruits, you will know them.” So a bad tree can't even produce good-looking fruits. That's one of the reasons I wanted to include that, but a good tree can't help but produce fruit that's good through and through, all the way to the core, not just on the outside looking good, but it's really good. It's probably a fruit that is good-looking and that tastes good. And of course, taste keeps coming up in this, and at the risk of doing a completely concordance sermon. I want to make an important point, so I'm going to go through a number of scriptures relatively rapidly. So if you're taking notes, you might just jot them down because I'm not going to read the entire scripture, just some phrases in there for the purpose of seeing a pattern. And all of these words are based on the Greek word agathos. And I'm going to be going forward through the New Testament.

In Acts 9:36, it says that Dorcas, also known as Tabitha, “was a woman full of good works.” Romans 2:10, it says, "Glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good." Romans 8:28, a memory scripture, "All things work together for good to those who love God." Romans 13:3, "Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you'll have praise from the same." 2 Corinthians 9:8, "God is able to make all grace abound to you, that you… may have an abundance for every good work."

Galatians 6:10, "As we have opportunity, let us do good to all,” of course, it says, "especially of the household of faith." Ephesians 2:10, "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,” Ephesians 6:8, "knowing that whatever good anyone does, he'll receive the same from the Lord,” Philippians 1:6, "He who has begun a good work in you will complete it.” Colossians 1:10, "walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work."

2 Thessalonians 2:17, "establish you in every good works." 1 Timothy 2:10, "professing all godliness, with good works." 2 Timothy 2:21, "prepared for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:17, "the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." Just a couple more, I'm getting near Revelation. Titus 3:1, "be ready for every good work." Hebrews 13:21, "make you complete in every good work to do His will,” 2 [1] Peter 3:11, "Let him turn away from evil and do what is good." And the last one, 3 John 11, "He that does good is of God, and he that does evil has not seen God."

Did you notice the pattern? No, you look like you just got bored with me reading all those scriptures. The idea is the word good, agathos, is over and over and over again put with either the word “works” or the word “do.” And if we put them together, it could be said do good works. We want to have goodness but we need to do good works. You might say, "Well, of course, Frank, everyone knows we're supposed to do good works." But I think it's worth bringing that out when we're looking at goodness as a fruit of the Spirit because it's easy to say, "Oh, I want to be good," as though the Spirit in me will make me just exude goodness. I'll sit here and be good, but the use of the word we see by the apostles was that you have to be good, a person has to do good. You can't just sit still doing nothing and be good.

And maybe I can illustrate that by a line from one of my favorite movies. I'm guessing it's one you've seen although it's a few years old, Forrest Gump. I remember, Tom Hank was Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks, trying to hurry too much. But he had a certain phrase. It'd come up a number of times when people say, "What are you? Stupid or something?" Say, "My mama always said that stupid is as stupid does." Okay, I'm not doing the best impression, but “if stupid is as stupid does,” I think it's certainly true that good is as good does. Good is as good does. And if we want to be considered good, we need to do good. We are good to the degree that we do good, and we could link that to the degree that God's Spirit lives and works in us, then we'll have the fruit of the Spirit that is doing good.

As I was writing that, I remembered my more former employer. I worked for the Ohio Humanities Council for a dozen years and we supported public educational programs. So we got grant proposals in and we'd analyze them, and I'd have to evaluate them for our Board of Directors. And sometimes, we get bogged down. And okay, "What method are they using here? And what are the qualifications of this person?" And our executive director or my boss would sometimes say, "Let's back it up and remember what our overall mission is. Our mission is to do good in the world." I said, "Yeah, our mission is to do good in the world." That was for an organization, but I think it's interesting we could say as Christians, part of our mission is to do good, to work good, and to the degree that we do good, we are becoming more like God. And we know it says “God is good.”

Before I move on, I don't want you to forget Forrest Gump because he had another phrase that outlived that movie. Actually, this probably isn't a good time for call-and-response, but you've heard of stupid is as stupid good. The other thing he said over and over again is, "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you'll get." That only relates to good and that I still want to remind you that good can taste good. Chocolate tastes good. Matter of fact, they were handing some of these out front. Chocolate tastes good. So could I say that good tastes good? You might be saying, "What? What are you talking about, Frank?"

I want to spin this in a way to relate these two concepts of goodness, doing good and also being intrinsically good, above and beyond appearing good. I made that difference between kalos which seems to focus on the appearance of good, and agathos being good through and through. When I put something in my mouth and taste it, I'm getting very intimate with the substance. God created taste as a chemical reaction. It's on a molecular level so that the molecules there… our taste buds are designed to interact with those. And if the molecular interaction is one we deem pleasant, we say, "Oh, this tastes good." If the reaction is unpleasant, we say, "It's not good."

I chuckled a little earlier, remember Psalm 34:8, where it said, "taste and see that the Lord is good." And as I said God is good on an intrinsic level, all the way through, every part of Him. Now, we don't usually think of it this way, but you could say our food, our perception of taste, is based on what the food does on that chemical level. As I said, the molecules actually interact so you could say there's some action on it, but it's based on its intrinsic substance regardless of how it looks. Doesn't matter if it looks good. I'm reminded of some time, I don't remember, is it two or three weeks ago? My wife, Sue, fixed something for dinner that Conner looked at it and I don't remember the exact words, but it was something like, “Blah!”

And yeah, it looked kind of “blah” but you know what? It tasted great. It was delicious. Had to work to make Connor get a taste of it, and then he realized, okay, looking good and being good aren't the same thing. And this analogy for Christians, for us to be good, to have goodness through and through, it has… it comes out in what we do on an intimate… you could say molecular level, at least at the basic levels. We've been through this. I've been thinking of overt actions. And doing good can mean things like visiting the widows and the orphans in their affliction. Certainly, we should do that. I mean, I think one of the most wonderful things about the Young Adult Weekend coming up here in Cincinnati is that it has this aspect of wanting to go out and do service and having that experience, that's good, that's great. But these big actions aren't wrong but it's worth adding if a person is good, if there is that agathosune, intrinsic goodness, it'll come out in all sorts of actions, both big and apparent and small. It can't be hidden. It's like sugar. I'm not going to eat any more of this because that's not what we're supposed to do on stage, but sugar, sucrose, its chemical makeup is perceived by us as sweet, and you can't make it not sweet. And if you mix it with other things, it's going to make those things sweet.

Take some sugar and you mix it with flour, eggs, some butter, vanilla, and baking soda, and you get a substance that's sweet. We call them cookies. Now, I love cookies. Sugar just can't help but taste sweet because chemically, it does what it is. It's just built into it. It should be that way with us. A Christian that has God's Holy Spirit in him, over time, becomes good. Our intrinsic chemical makeup should come to include that agathosune and we'll be doing what we are.

Of course, Jesus Christ didn't make the analogy with sugar as I just did, but we saw in Matthew 7 that a good tree bears good fruit, and it just can't bear bad fruit. It's just not part of its nature. Now, we've probably known some people that struck us that way, someone that you just think… you're around and you think, "Yeah, this person is pretty good," and you expect them to do good things. There's one example, maybe it's reaching a little, but it's in the 2 Samuel 18. If you'll turn with me there, 2 Samuel 18. Of course, this is growing out of a much longer story where King David is getting older in years and the son, Absalom, decides he wants to be king. And he carefully and steadily works to steal the hearts of the nation and then has himself proclaimed king, and David and those close to him end up having to flee just to survive. And I'm not going to read through all of that, but of course, some people meet him. They regroup. He gets supplies, and eventually raises an army that's going to have to fight against Absalom and his army.

Now, of course, at first, David says, "I'm going to go out there with you," and they said, "No way. They'll ignore all of us and focus on killing you." So, David, he's left behind. And it's important to realize because he's not going to know what happens in the battle until later. So he's there on edge. Certainly, any king would be wondering what's happening in the battle? I wish I were there. And he doesn't have a cellphone, so they can't send him a text. I'm trying to think what other… well, you know all the stuff he didn't have. As it turns out, David's army is victorious, and Absalom's army is defeated. And moreover, Absalom gets his hair caught in a tree and he's hanging there and Joab leads some men and they have him killed.

So there's good news and bad news. Good news for David, "Okay, your army is victorious." David considers that bad news that he loses his son which really says something about David. He loved his son and wanted good for him even though this son had tried to execute him and take over his kingdom. But picking up in 2 Samuel 18:19, Joab, the army commander, needs to send word back to David because, of course, he doesn't have a cellphone. And it's interesting, he's got, various messengers. It'd help if I were in 2 Samuel instead of 1. It was in verse 19. Okay.

“Then Ahimaaz the son of Zadok, says to Joab, ‘Let me run now and take news to the king, how the Lord has avenged him of his enemies.’ Joab said, ‘No, you shall not take news this day, you'll take news another day. But today you shall take no news because the king's son is dead.’” Now, you might say, "Well, couldn't he tell him that?" The reason comes out a little bit later. Joab turned to another man called the Cushite and he said, “‘Go, tell the king what you've seen.’ So the Cushite bowed himself to Joab and he ran." Ahimaaz is still just burning with desire and there might be other motivations that we're not sure of, but he wants to go and he says, "Please, let me also run after the Cushite."

And Joab, "Why do you want to run? You won't have any news ready?” "Whatever happens, please let me run." “'Okay, run.’ So Ahimaaz ran by the way of the plain,” he actually outran the Cushite and would get there first. This was going to hopefully make sense when we get to the other side as they're approaching where David is because in verse 24, "David was sitting between the two gates. The watchmen were up on the roof… lifted up his eyes… he said, 'Oh, there's a man running alone.' He cried out to the king and the king said, 'Well if he's alone, there's news in his mouth.' So he came and drew near." And verse 26, "The watchman saw another man running… they said, 'There's another man running.' 'I think, well, he's also bringing news.' And the watchman said, 'I think the running of the first is like the running of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok,'" which I've always thought that intriguing. He had a certain style of running that somebody could recognize it, but he knew who he was. He tells David and what does David say?

I'll tell you as soon as I can find it. “The king said, ‘He's a good man, and he comes with good news.’" How would David know he has good news? Because he's a good man and good is as good does. David is accustomed to this man bringing good news, and of course, it plays out in verse 28, "Ahimaaz called out to the king and said, 'All is well!’ He bowed down… 'Blessed be the Lord your God, who's delivered up the men who raised their hand against the king!’" He brings the good news.

I said there's good news and bad news, but he only brings the good. I can't help but wonder. I want to go exploring and say, "Why didn't he? What was behind this?" There might be various motivations, but we know what happens next, is the Cushite come… well, before that, David asked about Absalom. "Is he alive? Is he safe?" And Ahimaaz doesn't answer. The next fella comes and he says, "May all your enemies be like that man," meaning he's dead. And of course, David starts crying and weeping and that goes into a whole different story with different lessons. But it becomes evident why Joab wanted to send one messenger and not the other. It's foreign to us to think, "Well, I have this person only say good things and this person can say bad," but that was the way they did it back then.

And I thought of an example that I could use that might make more sense to help bring this out, and I found one from my study of history and you might have trouble believing this, but the example is from American politics. And that is a good person representing good things. That's why it's hard to believe but because our current system where you vote for someone based just on what they'll do, their policy. “Is his policy what I want or not?” That came about following about the mid-1830s and into the 1840s and it became very common after that. But before that, there wasn't this discussion of the issues. People would look at the person standing for office as they used to saying, and they'd ask, "Is he a good man or not? Do I think he's good?"

“If James Madison is a good man, I'll vote for him because I think he'll enact good policies.” People might say that without even thinking about what the policies were. It's just if he's a good man, he'll do good. They believe that good is as good does. I've seen an equivalent that I really like in our summer camp program, something… actually, I learned this years ago from Matt Fenchel. He directed the northwestern camp for a number of years, and I heard him once discussing how he chose staff. And I might not have the quote exactly right, but he said, "I don't choose staff members for what they can do." He said, "I choose staff members for who they are."

And he discussed it a bit more, but I said, "I want to be like that if I'm ever running a summer camp," which kind of surprising that it ended up that way, but I've tried to follow that principle. When I'm choosing activity staff, it's of secondary importance how well they can play volleyball or how well they can dance, although luckily, we've got a great dance instructor here. But what I want to consider first is the character, what is their intrinsic goodness? How are they close to God? That's what camp is all about. With counselors, I'm not as worried about how well they can keep a schedule. Can they get the teenagers to walk in a straight line? Because as far as I know, since about 1978, no one can, but you choose your counselors for, are they people of quality, of Christian character? Spiritually speaking, do they taste good? And I believe God is looking at us that way preparing us for whatever roles He might have in His Kingdom.

He'll be able to teach us how to do particular tasks, but He needs us right now to be developing goodness. But before I go off on that, there's one important way though that we're very, very different from the good fruit on the good tree, or from sugar that makes cookies sweet. And that is, of course, that we're thinking human beings who control our actions, and that's important. We're growing and developing character. And as we're saying, it's absolutely impossible to do that without God's Holy Spirit. That's why when God calls us and we respond to that call, we've come to see the need for repentance and baptism. And then the Holy Spirit is imparted. And from that time on, we've become a new creation.

As Paul described, "The old man is put to death, left in that watery grave." So you want to come up and be a new person, and that new creation takes time to develop just the way an embryo in the womb takes time to develop. And then once they're born out of the womb, boy, still it takes a long time to develop. Humans aren't like horses that come out and then they get up and walk around in no time. So it's an ongoing process. And we want to exercise and use that Holy Spirit, have it working in us. And with all that, I've been talking about how good is as good does. It makes me think maybe that can be turned around to some degree. We don't have to think that intrinsic goodness will be revealed by good actions. I think that's true, but could we think of good actions also contributing to developing goodness?

The way I put that is if good is as good does, can we say as goodness does so good will be? Maybe not. I wanted that to sound profound, as goodness is so goodness will be in us. If God's Spirit is in us and we're developing goodness, it'll come out in good works, but in another sense, as we do good works, sometimes even if we're not that good yet ourselves, it's developing that goodness. It can develop that character in us. We shouldn't just hope that God's Spirit will come out in good works. It should be that we're harnessing the power of God's Spirit and using it to help us make good decisions, go and do good things.

Again, I quoted earlier as I was setting that pattern, but Galatians 6:10, in Galatians 6:10, Paul said, "as we have opportunity, let's do good to all, especially the household of faith." I think, "How often do we have opportunity?" Well, it depends. If it has to always be some great altruistic work that people will notice, maybe not that often. But you have an opportunity to say a kind word to someone, to step back and let someone go first. I could start just thinking of all kinds of things, but I'd get in trouble, I don't have any of those in my notes. But I want to make the point, making the little decisions will lead to the big decisions. Doing little good things can lead to doing big good things, hopefully, can lead us into taking on the nature of Christ.

And in that case, we wouldn't have to sit around and wonder, "Am I tasting good?" And I mean that in a spiritual sense. And we could take action perhaps to help develop our taste and do good. I wondered if this analogy would break down before I got to the end, but it is possible to fill most of a sermon talking about one of the fruits of the Spirit that you wouldn't say much about it. And one thing I'll mention though, of course, it's good to remember that… and we sometimes point out Paul wrote fruit of the Spirit, he wrote the singular. We tend to say fruits because there are all these different traits, but they're all coming… the development, the maturation of God's Holy Spirit in us comes out in myriad of ways including, of course, goodness. But God's Holy Spirit in that fruit as a conglomeration perhaps of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. See, students, when I have it written down, I get it right. I often get them jumbled or say them out of order or miss… leave some out. It's not surprising. In sermons, in some of our teaching, we'll tend to emphasize some more than others because some might seem more sophisticated, more interesting. I can't remember how many sermons I've given based on the just love or a faith, but as I said, I've got just this one on goodness, but that doesn't make it less important.

It's okay if it's so basic. The heart of my sermon can still be, "Brethren, let's be good." That encompasses a lot. Ephesians 5:9 says it a different way. If you'll turn with me for one last scripture in Ephesians 5:9, we tend to forget that there was more than one place that Paul listed the fruit of the Spirit or maybe instead of "we," I should say I tend to forget that he did it in more than one place. We see in Ephesians 5:9, a more simple statement, but we see how prominent goodness is. Says, "The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth." Agathosune. That puts goodness first and foremost in this case. When we think like Barnabas, we should be filled with God's Spirit, and to that degree, be good. As I said, it's not just having the Spirit, goodness is as goodness does. So let's make ourselves that, brethren, let's all do good so that we can be good.