Goodness in the Local Church

One of the most underrated attributes of God is his goodness. Like all of God’s attributes, it informs a variety of other facets of life and theology, from creation (Gen. 1:31, “behold, it was very good”) to disability and election (Jer. 18:1, “he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do”). Stephen Charnock went so far as to call it “the captain attribute that leads the rest to act.”^[1] God’s people have often pinpointed God’s goodness as particularly praiseworthy. His people sing, “How great his goodness, and how great his beauty!” (Zech. 9:17), and “Oh, how abundant is your goodness” (Ps. 31:19), and “Confess to the Lord, for he is good, for his goodness endures forever” (Ps. 106:1). Such passionate praise should not be surprising, for God’s goodness is eminently practical. Below, I bring out three ways that the doctrine of divine goodness shapes the life of the local church; God’s goodness makes the church a people and place of overflowing enjoyment, of peaceful endurance, and of joyful energy and expectation.

A Place of Overflowing Enjoyment

God’s goodness is seen in his providential care for his creation. Not only did the LORD create, and “it was good,” but from his kindness we have not only what we need to survive, but we have senses and experiences that give us joy.^[2]  God’s goodness makes the church a people and place of overflowing enjoyment, of peaceful endurance, and of joyful energy and expectation. Click To TweetFood not only nourishes but gives us pleasure (Ps. 63:5)—hence the proliferation of cooking shows on television. We also enjoy beauty with our eyes. And we are moved by sounds—not only great hymns, but the compositions of great symphonists—all these are gifts that go beyond mere survival and necessity. God is a great gift Giver (James 1:17), who makes life sweet.

As those who know God’s greatest gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ, Christians experience the goodness of God refracted through the Good Shepherd. We do not want—in fact, we have an abundance (Ps. 23:1; cf. John 10:10)! By his hand, we lie down in green pastures. His provision for us cannot be hindered by the shadow of death or the presence of enemies. He provides more than is needed, bringing David to rejoice: “my cup overflows.” God’s goodness to his sheep is such that goodness and mercy, not the covenant curses we deserve, hunt us down all the days of our lives (Ps. 23:6).

God’s abundant provision means that the church cannot fall into H.L. Mencken’s criticism of Puritanism as the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be enjoying himself. God calls his people to delight and joy, not dour existence. The church is a place of enjoying God’s creation as very good, though fallen. While there are certainly positive aspects of the ascetic, monastic life (e.g., unplugging, fasting), we are meant to enjoy God’s good gifts to us in creation. He gives us beautiful landscapes—that testify to his own glory (Ps. 19:1), along with “intoxicating” sexuality within marriage (Prov. 5:19; Song 5:1). Amid a world of tears, God still provides earthly blessings; smiles and laughter are gifts from God (Ps. 126:1-6). Despite its pessimism about this world being utopia, Ecclesiastes confirms the goodness of enjoying earthly things even as we know that they are “vanity” that will let us down if we look to them for fullness (e.g., Eccles. 2:24; 3:12-13; 9:9).

We glorify God by enjoying his gifts as such. As the hymn “Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy” puts it, when we drink of the living water God provides, we “glorify…God’s free bounty.”^[3]  For example, this is lived out at one church through regular gatherings called “Fat Souls,” with this rationale: “What is the proper response to gifts, especially when the gift is good? We should, at the very least, enjoy it. Our duty is delight. Therefore, at Fat Souls, we consider God’s wonders in hopes of growing our delight.”^[4] Even those churches without a specific “Fat Souls” program enjoy God’s bountiful provision as they make time to adore God.In an age of pressure for constant productivity, we should take time to simply enjoy God, as unproductive as it sounds. Click To Tweet

In an age of pressure for constant productivity, we should take time to simply enjoy God, as unproductive as it sounds. Enjoying God and his goodness is not just a means to an end, but one of man’s chief ends (Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 1). In other words, the church basks and rests in God and his goodness, despite its seeming inefficiency. As Kelly Kapic rightly points out, many of the most worthwhile things we do in life are “inefficient,” like loving another person.^[5]

As Petrus Van Mastricht advises, we should be “frequent and deep in the contemplation of that infinite goodness and perfection which is intrinsic to God, that we may as it were taste and see it (Ps. 34:8).”^[6] We “taste and see that the LORD is good,” and particularly so in partaking of the Lord’s Supper, a meal of celebration, a preview of the richer feast to take place in heaven (Isa. 25:6).

The local church celebrates God’s abundant provision as God’s people enjoy his gifts with gratitude: “As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1 Tim. 6:17; cf. 4:4). Instead of despising God’s gifts, the local church heeds the call to a holy basking in God’s goodness.

A Place of Peaceful Endurance

The above section is easy to write in the affluence of America, but can the church still celebrate God’s goodness in poverty-stricken conditions? The answer is yes—God’s Word testifies it to be so. Habakkuk, for instance, anticipates a day when circumstances are dire and resources scarce, but God is still good.

I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation (Habakkuk 3:16-18; see also Ps. 4:7).The church is a place of enjoying God’s creation as very good, though fallen. Click To Tweet

Sometimes children’s books illustrate the truths of Scripture in profound ways, and I’ve found the book The Moon is Always Round to be one of those books. I have given it to congregants who suffered a miscarriage as a way of explaining it to their other small children. Without spoiling the book, here is the message: just as the moon is always round even when you only see part of the moon, God is always good, even when you experience loss.

Believers worldwide acknowledge God’s goodness even when they experience the equivalent of what Habakkuk described (the fig tree does not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines). For example, I will never forget the joyful worship on the Lord’s Day I participated in at a shack in Iquitos, Peru, while there on a short-term mission trip. No one wore suits; the muddy streets of the slums would have marred that if people could have afforded them. There was no sound system, only a tiny congregation. But the pastor enthusiastically proclaimed the truth from Philippians: to live is Christ, to die is gain. God’s goodness lives even on third-world streets.

Believers the whole world over know the truth of Psalm 119:68: “You are good and do good; teach me your statutes.” God’s goodness enables the church to count it as joy even when they face various trials (James 1:2). As William Plumer comments on Psalm 119:68, “Is not the physician good, when he gives needful medicines, though they are distasteful? Is not the surgeon good, when he sets the broken limb and binds it up, although his manipulations give us great pain?”^[7] The church is a place where we weep with those who weep, looking to the God of all comfort. We echo Job in declaring: “…blessed be the name of the LORD…Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 1:21, 2:10). After all, as his servants we say to the LORD, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you” (Ps. 16:2).^[8]

A Place of Joyful Energy and Expectation

As the local church meditates on divine goodness, her people are energized to serve him out of gratitude. Matthew 25:14-30’s parable of the talents conveys this lesson. A man going on a journey entrusts great sums of money (a “talent” was at least hundreds of thousands of today’s dollars) to three servants. The first man was given five talents, and he immediately went to work on increasing it, over time doubling the money. Likewise, the second man received two, and went and made two more in his business endeavors. Yet the third man received one talent, and he put it in the ground. This was a conservative course of action before the day of FDIC protected banks, yet it produced nothing. As the parable continues, we learn that the first two men are richly praised, while the third man is condemned because he acted out of fear, explaining: “Master, I knew you to be a hard man…”

One of the great messages of this parable is that when we fall into viewing God as hard, as harsh, rather than good, it paralyzes us and makes us unprofitable servants. As Martin Luther is said to have remarked when trying to win God’s favor by works, “Love God? Sometimes I hate Him!” This is where Adam and Eve also went wrong: Satan led “our first parents into hard thoughts of God.”^[9] Satan invited our first parents to question God’s goodness and does the same with us. As Charnock puts it, “Satan paints God with his own colours and represents him as envious and malicious as himself” in Genesis 3.^[10] Resisting the schemes of the devil, we instead “enter into the joy of our master,” as we delight in God; as we recognize his goodness and seek to be like him, doing good.The local church shaped by God’s goodness expects great things of God, according to his promises. Click To Tweet

God’s goodness thus energizes the local church in her worship, witness, and discipleship. We serve the Lord with zeal and the expectation that, because he is good, he will do good things among us! In that Matthew 25 parable, the unprofitable servant and his master both speak of the master’s ability to reap where he has not sown and gather where he has not scattered seed (25:26). Because God is no thief, I take this as Jesus’ way of energizing God’s people to action by showing us we can expect great things from God. He can do miracles like reaping where he has not sown. He has, after all, brought back Jesus from the dead and brought us from death to life (Jn. 5:24).

The local church shaped by God’s goodness expects great things of God, according to his promises. We expect that if we only believe we will see the glory of God (John 11:40). We expect that if we open our mouths wide, he will fill it (Ps. 81:10). We know that though we may sow gospel seeds in tears, we will reap with shouts of joy (Ps. 126:5-6).

Conclusion: God’s Free Bounty Glorify

God’s goodness should be in our thoughts day in and day out (Ps. 16:8). Divine goodness produces gratitude in us, it gives us peace like a river even when sorrow washes over us, and it energizes us to joyful service. It is a preventative against sin—there is no need to take matters into our own hands when God has abundantly provided all we need—and besides, what is the goodness of the sins we crave next to the goodness of God?

Divine goodness impacts us Sunday to Sunday; one of my chief goals in Lord’s Day preaching is to illuminate the beauty and glory of Christ as revealed in God’s Word. That is to say, what are our worship services if not great banquets celebrating God’s goodness? As Calvin remarked, “it was from God’s mere goodness, as from a fountain, that Christ flowed to us with all his blessings.”^[11]

God’s goodness is such that even meditating on it is good; “Praise the Lord, for he is good; sing to his name, for it is pleasant” (Ps. 135:3).

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Endnotes

[1] Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (1681-82; 1864; Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2010), II:285.

For an accessible introduction to God’s goodness, see Christopher R.J. Holmes, The Lord is Good: Seeking the God of the Psalter (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2018).

[2] See Charnock, Existence and Attributes, II:312.

[3] Likewise,

“Thy bountiful care what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air; it shines in the light;
It streams from the hills; it descends to the plain;
And sweetly distils in the dew and the rain.” – “O Worship the King” by Robert Grant, 1833 (based on Ps. 104).

[4] See https://www.providencetemecula.com/fat-souls/

[5] Kelly Kapic, You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2022), 149.

[6] Petrus Van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology: Volume 2 Faith in the Triune God (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2019), 338.

[7] William S. Plumer, Psalms, Geneva Series of Commentaries (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1990), 1052.

[8] Anselm writes, “Love the one good in which all good things exist, and it will be sufficient for you.” Anselm, Proslogion in Patrologia Latina158:240, as quoted in Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, 2.337.

[9] John Owen, Of Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in Works of John Owen (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1965), II:35. See also Terry Johnson’s fine section on this in Johnson, The Identity and Attributes of God (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 2019), 257-264.

[10] Charnock, Existence and Attributes, II:365.

[11] John Calvin, The Gospel according to St. John 1-10 (Edinburgh: St Andrew Press, 1959), 74 (on John 3:16). See also John Webster, God Without Measure: Working Papers in Christian Theology: Volume I God and the Works of God (New York: T&T Clark, 2016), 154-5.