Week 7 ~ Be Good for Goodness sake

 

Truth Verses

 

Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness

 

Matthew 7:17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.

 

Luke 6:35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will

be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.

 

Ephesians 2:12 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared

beforehand, that we should walk in them.

 

Amos 5:14-15 Those who serve God will seek good, not evil... hate evil, love good

 

Truth Story

 

When my Mum was alive she told us a family story, which carries a clear message that warns of the perils of being badly behaved. Her youngest brother had been warned, time and time again, to stop using foul language and swearing at people. My grandparents had raised all her family within a God-fearing home, but this wayward sibling was bringing the family name into disrepute. Something really needed to be done to help him get the message that this had to stop! All the warnings seemed to fall on deaf ears until one Christmas Day, they decided to covey the message in no uncertain terms. Instead of receiving his usual load of presents, he was left with only one present. The gift was unwrapped and, to his surprise and horror, inside he found a bag of coal, yes, the stuff you put on an open fire, black coal.

 

This was ‘tough love’ for sure, for a son who'd been 'naughty not nice' all year.  The song 'Santa Claus is coming to town’ became his living reality, a surprise I’m sure that would be indelibly written on his mind. It is now written into the annals of our family folklore.

 

Whether he believed in Santa wasn't really the issue. My grandparents were certainly milking the essence of the infamous song for all it was worth, adapting its promises into their parental toolbox. They'd been "making a list, checking it twice, they were 'gonna let him know if he was ‘naughty or nice’. They knew who'd been ‘bad or good’. They were letting him know that although Christmas was certain, great presents were optional ...so 'You better be good for goodness sake'!

 

Just in case you think they were really cruel, they did in the end give him his presents, but not before clearly communicating a valuable lesson in the importance of being good in how we treat others.

Truth Unpacked

 

Interestingly, 1 Corinthians chapter 11 says love is patient, love is kind and seeks not it’s own. The letter to the church at Galatia similarly includes a similar theme, encouraging us to seek the empowering Spirits help in how we best treat others. Paul lists this ‘other-centred’ triad as patience, kindness and lastly goodness (Galatians 5:22)

 

The scriptures are replete with God as a God full of goodness (Numbers 10:29; Micah 6:8) Elsewhere we are encouraged to participate in His goodness, with the encouragement to taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8).

 

This moral quality of goodness involves not only demonstrating right behaviour but also in us avoiding its opposite characteristic, evil. The Star Wars movies, pick up a similar redemptive thread, a modern day twist that helps us distinguish these two opposing forces and kingdom’s of good and evil.

 

However, rather than just being caught in up in a ‘warp speed’ fiction adventure, let us go back to understand the facts through the lens of the creation story. This helps us understand the importance of us making good and right choices. The choice between good and evil has been with us since the Garden of Eden. This was when Adam and Eve ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:9). Since then God's distanced himself from those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter (Isa 5:20). The wise king Solomon encourages anyone wanting to obey God to pursue the wisdom to discern between good and evil (1 Kings 3:9; Hebrews 5:14). Those who serve God will seek good, not evil…hate evil, love good (Amos 5:14-15). 

 

Quote  (abbreviated) Goodness is love in action, love with its hand at the plough, love with the burden on its back; it is love carrying medicine to the sick, and food to the famished; it is love reading the Bible to the blind, and explaining the Gospel to the felon in his cell; it is love at the Sunday-class…or sailing far away in the missionary ship; but whatever task it undertakes, it is still the same – love following His footsteps, “who went about continually doing good” (Acts 10:38).

(James Hamilton [1814-1867] Scottish minister, Day’s Collacon,

compiled and arranged by Edward Parsons Day [New York: IPPO, 1884] 336.)

 

Praying the Word

 

Thank you Lord that your very nature is one of patience, kindness and goodness (Galatians 5:22). As we close this trilogy of how we are to treat others, help us to be carriers of your goodness, seeking to do what is right and shunning what is bad or evil. We know your eyes run throughout the whole earth seeking those whose ways please you (2 Chronicles 16:9). Find us to be your good and faithful servants (Matthew 25:21,23), those who walk in your footsteps (1 Peter 2:21). Thank you Lord that your goodness has led us to repentance and faith (Romans 2:4). Come fill our lives today (Ephesians 5:19). May the infilling of your Spirit overpower and purge any evil ways within us (Psalm 139:24), that we would live with integrity and uprightness and make right choices (Psalm 41:11-13:100:2). Help us in some way to reflect your goodness to our friends, families and work colleagues today (Colossians 3:10). Amen.

 

Lectio Divina [Prayer reading]

 

Pray, read and reflect.

•        Have those that are willing pray, asking that the Holy Spirit would help them hear His voice (John 10:27).

•        Read the scriptures again.

•        Then go around the room [allowing for ‘neighbour nudging’ to let people opt out should they not want to share]. Have everyone willing then reflect, acknowledging one thing they sense the Holy Spirit is saying to them as they read.

 

Pray, reinforce and contemplate.

•        Close the connect group time by praying that the Spirit would help empower everyone to demonstrate Jesus-like characteristic.

•        Reinforce this by participating in a symbolic gesture or creative activity that does something to express our desire to receive this change (e.g. Ask people to think of a bad choice they have made and reflect on the different outcomes had it instead been a good choice).

•        Ask everyone to contemplate; to consider how they can demonstrate this characteristic more in their everyday lives.