Thankful for THE GOODNESS AND GRACE OF GOD

The Bible reveals to us from Genesis to Revelation that God is good, that it is His essential nature and eternal disposition to be good; that all of His creation, all of His commandments, all of His promises, all of His providential actions throughout human history are expressions of His goodness – of His infinite capacity for and delight in communicating the perfections of His eternal being for the joy, pleasure and satisfaction of mankind in Him.  Multiple passages reveal this most central of all truths about God (Genesis 1:31) (Psalm 33:5) (Psalms 34:8) (Psalms 100:4-5) (Mark 10:18).  It is stated most succinctly in Psalm 119:68 where the Psalmist declares of God, “You are good, and you do good…”

King David in recognizing God as the only and ultimate source of true goodness, writes in Psalm 16:2, “I said to the Lord, you are my Lord, I have no good apart from you.” Moses, after witnessing unimaginable displays of God’s majestic power in freeing Israel from 430 years of slavery in Egypt, prays in Exodus 33:18-19, “Please, show me Your glory.” Then He (God) said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” Then in Exodus 34:5-8, God reveals to Moses, and to us, the essential aspects of His goodness, namely grace, mercy, forgiveness, patience, truth, and justice.

The term grace or gracious as used throughout the Bible describes how God freely and generously displays His goodness on our behalf apart from us doing anything to earn, deserve or merit it. All things God made in the beginning were given for man to freely enjoy in relationship with God and one another (Genesis 1:26-29) (1 Timothy 6:17).

Pastor Kevin DeYoung in a sermon titled The Never-Failing, Never Changing, All Surpassing Goodness of God notes, “He loves to make his goodness known. He delights for the bounty of his goodness to spill out to others. The supply of His goodness is inexhaustible and the sharing of it knows no end.”

That God is good most simply means that in regard to mankind, He is fully inclined, fully committed and fully capable of making us exceedingly and abundantly happy in relationship with Him.

In Genesis 1:1-31 we see that God upon completion of each aspect of his six-day creation proclaims it to be “good”.  And at the end of the chapter (verse 31) declares everything and particularly mankind to be “very good” – perfectly agreeable and pleasing to the mind of God – perfectly capable of fulfilling the purpose for which it was created and exists which is for the glory of God (Isaiah 43:7).

It is out of God’s inexhaustible goodness that mankind was created in His image and likeness, with His righteous nature and character, so that we could live in His presence knowing only fullness of joy and unimaginable pleasures forevermore, just as God has known within the eternal love relationship of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Every aspect of our being, every experience of pleasure and delight that God intended for us to enjoy was to display the glory of His abundant goodness and amazing grace (Psalm 16:11).

And how was man to respond to this unmerited goodness from the hand of a gracious God if this relationship were to be sustained?  With thankfulness (Psalm 100:4).   Psalm 107:8-9 “Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men! For He satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness.” Psalm 136:1 “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good His steadfast love endures forever.”

Thankfulness or thanksgiving is the ultimate means by which we glorify God (1 Corinthians 10:31). It proceeds from a heart of gratitude – a disposition of the mind that acknowledges that God is good, and that every good thing we enjoy and experience in life comes from His kind and generous hand, and that we can and have done nothing to earn or deserve it (James 1:17). This as I have noted, is referred to in the Bible as grace. Grace is the free and spontaneous expression of God’s goodness to all mankind and to all of His creation in the daily providences of life which make Him alone worthy of the praise and adoration of all of His creation.

Kevin DeYoung in his sermon referred to above notes, “Gratitude honors God.” “Gratitude is the echo of grace as it reverberates through the hollows of the human heart. Gratitude is the unashamed acceptance of a free gift and the heartfelt declaration that we cherish what we cannot buy. Therefore, gratitude glorifies the free grace of God and signifies the humility of a needy and receptive heart.”

Pastor and theologian John Piper writes, “A heart of gratitude is one that consistently sends forth praise and thanksgiving to God, trusting, loving and obeying Him as the source of all good – all that promotes human flourishing and my individual happiness. Thanksgiving is the foremost way we honor and glorify Him.”

We are told, however, in Romans 1:18-32 that the great sin of mankind that is behind all other sins is ingratitude – our unwillingness to see and acknowledge and be grateful to God as the ultimate source of all of our good, looking instead to the creation rather than the creator for it, and in doing so have brought upon ourselves the judgement and wrath of God.

It is this sin of ingratitude, the consequences of it and God’s gracious response to it, that we will look at in my next post.

Grace and Peace ×