Sunday, Aug. 23, 2020
Pastor Troy Brewer, OpenDoor Church, Burleson, TX
This may come as a shock to you but God is good. No, really. God is real and so is His goodness. Ok, I might have just lost a bunch of you, especially a bunch of you Christians.
I think God has gotten the worst P.R. imaginable from His kids, and you and I have not represented His goodness very well over the past 2,000 years. Part of that is because I don’t think we have really believed God is all that good. In this book, we’re going to go for the throat of anything rising against a real, supernatural revelation of how good God really is.
The goodness of God is a very foundational principle.
God is good and the devil is bad. You can teach a three- year- old this but it’s nearly impossible to grasp it after the third year of seminary. No matter how smart you think you are, it’s that simple truth that changes everything and makes us free. Our childlike faith in the goodness of God causes us to receive the kingdom of heaven, first in salvation and then in our victorious journey through life.
Mark 10:15 NIV
“Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”
The one-two punch of God’s goodness is the wow factor, or the glory of God in our relationship with Him.
The Glory of God: “God’s visible awesomeness”
The weighty and heavy tangible presence of God
When we don’t see God’s goodness,
we miss the glory of God.
Moses, the old testament rock star, and marvel comic superhero, who parted the Red Sea and turned the Nile River into blood, wanted a back stage pass to the greatest show on earth. Dissatisfied with the depth of his relationship with God, the way Oliver Twist would be dissatisfied with “three meals of thin gruel a day, an onion twice a week, and half a roll on Sundays.” Moses approached the Creator in childlike faith and dared to ask for more.
Exodus 33:18
“…show me your glory.”
So here in the Bible we have this big drama worthy of a Hans Zimmer soundtrack. Maybe one of the all time epic moments in all of history, where God is going to let Moses in on something He doesn’t let anybody else in on.
Moses is going to get a peek, a glimpse, a shimmering second or two at the very heart of who God actually is. Not God’s works, not God’s ways, but Moses is actually going to get to see what God really, really, really looks like.
This is how God answers the brother:
Exodus 33:19 NIV
And the LORD said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence…”
GOODNESS IS WHAT GOD LOOKS LIKE.
You know the Bible gives amazing descriptions of how awesome Jesus is. I mean, He really is the single most amazing person in the universe.
The first and last, the Alpha and Omega
(Rev. 22:13) “Alpha” and “Omega” are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet (see also Rev. 1:17; Rev. 2:8; Rev. 21:6). This means that He is described as the beginning of all things articulated and the very end of everything expressed.
His Word is The Light (John 1:1,14) The Bright and Morning Star (Rev. 22:16). He is even the Sun of Righteousness in Malachi 4:2 and the Rising Sun in Luke 1:78. I guess that’s why He is described as the true Light in John 1:3-9 and in Isaiah 9:2.
He’s The Righteous One in Acts 3:14 and several other places like Jeremiah 23:6; 33:15-16; Acts 7:52 and 22:14.
There are times when Jesus even describes Himself. These are called The “I Am” sayings of John’s Gospel. Go ahead and break out your Bible. Let’s do a study on how Jesus describes Himself.
I Am – John 8:58
I Am the bread of life – John 6:35
I Am the light of the world – John 8:12
I Am the gate – John 10:7
I Am the good shepherd – John 10:11
I Am the resurrection and the life – John 11:25
I Am the the way, the truth and the life – John 14:6
I Am the true vine – John 15:1
But the point is that these pictures of Jesus are descriptive of His character, but not of His appearance.
HIS HOLY MUG SHOT
The biblical pictures of Jesus are descriptions of His titles, His ministry and so on. Never is there a single description that expresses what Jesus looks like in a very relatable, down-to-earth form.
Prophetically, when Isaiah wrote about His form. In Isaiah 53:2 he says:
Isaiah 53:2
“…He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.”
You don’t find scriptures like this:
“And he stoodeth at six foot two with blue eyes and jet blacketh hair. Yea, His countenance was muscular and his skin complexion was olive as iseth common among the Jews.”
–Troy’s Bizarre Bogus Bible Translation
No, other than supernatural descriptions of the appearance of Jesus, like at the beginning of the book of Revelation, we have no descriptions of how Jesus actually looked in human form.
I am convinced this is completely on purpose. Don’t you think that it’s odd, that a book having over 31,000 scriptures testifying of the Lord Jesus Christ would not actually describe the human appearance of Jesus?
It doesn’t describe the physical appearance of Jesus but actually the Bible does declare exactly what Jesus looks like in human form: GOODNESS!
GOODNESS IS WHAT JESUS LOOKS LIKE
I can see Jesus when I see God’s goodness. The world can see Jesus when His people demonstrate His heart through goodness.
Since that’s the case it’s no wonder to me why so much of the world doesn’t see Jesus.
Do you really want to know what Jesus looks like? Jesus looks like white and black people standing together with Martin Luther King Jr. against a horrible spirit in a wonderful nation. Jesus looks like a veteran being welcomed home at an airport and honored for his service. Jesus looks like an orphan or a young man being brought into a family after years of not being wanted by anyone. Jesus looks like a helpful visit to a lonely old lady. Sometimes Jesus looks like a bag of groceries or a check to pay somebody’s light bill.
I don’t know what Jesus physically looked like 2,000 years ago, but I am sure He looked like the thirty-three-year-old descendant of King David that He was. I am also sure that what people saw in Him was not just His Jewish features but they actually saw the heart of the Father.
I know what Jesus looks like. He looks like the heart of the Father. Jesus looks good.
God’s goodness and the face of Jesus are seen on this earth as selfless acts of His people. You see what He looks like in one less victim of abuse, one less addict, one less dropout, and one less suicide. God’s goodness is seen in one more restoration, one more transformation, one more person walking into something better and higher for their life. As Christians, that’s our job.
That’s what Jesus looks like and Jesus is exactly what the Father looks like!
Hebrews 1:3 NIV
The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being…
Jesus is the exact image of God. (See also John 14:9; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15)
FAINTING GOATS AND SHEEP
When we see heaven invading this planet, when we see the kingdom or the heart of King Jesus or the face of God Himself, we see goodness. If we can keep from twisting off but instead continue until we overcome, it’s because we actually see goodness, and through that we know God is real and that He is with us.
Psalm 27:13 KJV
I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
Our belief that God is good and that He will do good upon our behalf is the supernatural seatbelt that keeps us from falling out.
When you see goodness, in any of the forms I just mentioned, or in any form I didn’t, you do not see evil. Evil is diminished and downgraded the moment goodness shows up.
Romans 12:21
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.