Series: “There Is Something About the Name of Jesus!”
Sermon Three: “The Great and Abundant Goodness of God”
Presenter: Rev. Dr. JoAnne P. King
Date: July 27, 2025
Good morning and Praise the Lord. You know Saints, we say God is good and we answer: “He is good all the time,” and He is! In fact, God is all good and God’s great and abundant goodness is for all who will receive it. Additionally, you can drive cattle but you must lead sheep. Sheep will only follow a shepherd. God’s goodness was evident at Creation. And, God’s glory is His goodness. The above statements are topics that we will go over today in this sermon.
- God is a good God; He is all good.
One day when Jesus was ministering to a multitude, a young man who was in attendance said unto Him, “Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” And He said unto him, “Why calleth thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matthew 19:16-17). The Amplified Version says: “And someone came to Him and said: “Teacher, what [essentially] good thing shall I do to obtain eternal life [that is, eternal salvation in the Messiah’s kingdom]?” Jesus answered, “Why are you asking Me about what is [essentially] good? There is only One who is [essentially] good; but if you wish to enter into eternal life, keep the commandments.” It sounds like the young man was trying to do one good thing that would entitle him to be able to gain salvation in the Messiah’s kingdom? Jesus was quick to tell him that only God was good and he needed to keep all the commandments. We tend as a people to only want to do the minimum – just enough to get by.
In the Bible, Jesus is always careful not to take any of the praise that belongs to God for the works that he does. For example, in John 5:30, Jesus says: “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. “
Since God is good and Jesus said that He only does the will of His Father, therefore anything that Jesus does or says is good, as well. Because Jesus was doing the will of His Father, this shows that a union existed between them.
Therefore, Jesus was accused of all sorts of things like blasphemy for healing people on the sabbath day which was a good thing and for almost all the good works that He did. The doctrines that He taught were His Father’s which were Good.
[The acid test of true doctrine is whether or not it is scriptural; whether it makes men love God supremely and others as themselves; and whether it glorifies God and produces peace among men. He challenged His enemies to judge His doctrine on this basis.]
[The acid test of true works is the same whether or not the healings, working of miracles, etc. are scriptural; whether they made men love God supremely and others as themselves; and whether they glorify God and produced peace among men. Jesus wanted to be judged on the basis of the works that He did.]
Many years ago, I used to watch a tele-evangelist by the name of Oral Roberts. Oral Roberts was a famous tele-evangelist with a healing ministry and was famous for saying: “God is a good God.” This was the theme song at all his meetings. In fact, he would open his show saying: “Something good is going to happen to you, today!”
You know, it would be a good thing for us to say every day, Something Good is going to happen to me today!
- God’s great and abundant goodness is for all who will receive it.
God’s great and abundant goodness is for all who will receive it. Ps. 145:6-9 says: “And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts: and I will declare thy greatness. They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness.”
“The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy.
“The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all His works.”
David wrote Psalm 145 and in it he is praising God for His goodness, and righteousness. How God is full of compassion and at the same time slow to anger and of such great mercy. He says that God is good to all, not just to some and has tender mercies over all his works! All we have to do is receive it! Praise, God!
The children of Israel were in captivity for 400 years in Egypt and had almost no knowledge of their covenant with God. For the Israelites to obtain a knowledge of their covenant, when the Israelites passed over Jordan to the “Promise Land,” the Lord had them take big stones and plaster them. Then, they wrote the law on those stones, built an altar and made sacrifices to the Lord God.
After this, God had Moses take the 12 tribes of Israel to two mountains, Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Ebal where they responsively shouted amen to THE BLESSING and the other group on the other mountain would shout amen to the curse. In this way, they were hearing the blessing when they obeyed the Law and a curse if they broke the Law. There were six tribes on each mountain. For example, the tribes on Mt. Ebal would say amen to the curse.
Deuteronomy 27:14-17: And the Levites shall speak, and say unto all the men of Israel with a loud voice, “Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and putteth it in a secret place.” And all the people [on Mt. Ebal] shall answer and say, Amen.
“Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark.” And all the people [on Mt. Ebal] shall say, Amen.
“Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother.” And all the people [on Mt. Ebal] shall say Amen.
Deuteronomy 28:2-6: “And all these blessings shall come on thee and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God.”
“Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.” And all the people [on Mt. Gerizim] shall say Amen.
“Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.” And all the people [on Mt. Gerizim] shall say Amen.
“Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.” And all the people [on Mt. Gerizim] shall say Amen.
“Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.” And all the people [on Mt. Gerizim] shall say Amen.
This was just a sample however, they did all the curses and the Blessings.
- You can drive cattle, but you must lead sheep. They follow a shepherd.
Jesus is the Shepherd. He won’t drive you; He’ll lead you and love you. This is demonstrated beautifully in the 23rd Psalm, that “I shall not want.” I have been told that sheep are dumb animals and they have to be protected from all sorts of danger from terrain to animals. Just like sheep, we need to be protected from dangers seen and unseen.
He makes us to lie down in green pastures [Pastor Darryl has taught us that those green pastures are beautiful houses.] He’s a loving God who anoints our heads with oil and our cups runneth over. He is an abundant God. Then, surely goodness and mercy will follow us, how long? All the days of our lives. God is a Good God, Yes, He Is!
There are examples in the Bible like Jeremiah who God called to be a prophet. He gave God a lot of excuses as to why he wasn’t fit to be a prophet, but God’s goodness showed him that he was.
Just like many of us, we may feel inadequate for some of the tasks that God may ask of us but God is a good God. He will gently and oh, so sweetly, let you know that you are His child, He loves you and you can do whatever it is!
- God’s goodness was evident at Creation.
In Genesis 1:1, we read: “In the beginning, God (Elohim) created the heavens and the earth.” This indicates that everything was perfect and it was good. However, in the 2nd verse, we see that the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. From this picture, we can plainly see that something has happened between verse 1 where everything was good to verse 2 where everything was bad. Since God is all good, we know that something bad had to enter the picture.
In Luke 10:18, Jesus said unto them: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” He was referring to what happened in Genesis 1:2.
There is an untold amount of time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. [This untold amount of time is called the dateless past.] In the dateless past, the inhabitants of the earth were called pre-Adamites. At that time, Lucifer was the minister of music who led the pre-Adamites in worship of God all over the world. They are called pre-Adamites because they existed before Adam.
Lucifer was perfect when God made him. However, he became lifted up in pride because of his beauty and began to lead the pre-Adamites and one/third of the angels in rebellion against God. The method he used was slander and turning the pre-Adamites away from God in the heart; after that it was easy to lead them into open rebellion.
Here’s what Lucifer looked like and what God said would happen to Lucifer found in Ezekiel 28:11-19. “Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus, saith the Lord God: Thou sealest up the sum full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
“Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and to thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
“Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth: and I have set thee so: thou was upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
“Thou was perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created, till iniquity was found in thee.
“By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore, I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
“Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
“Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic; therefore, will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
“All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never Shalt thou be any more.”]
At the beginning of this statement, it says the king of Tyrus and not Lucifer would be cast out of heaven. To clarify this, in the Bible this is referred to as The Law of Double Reference.
In this scripture, the king of Tyrus is addressed, and the statements apply in particular to Lucifer – the invisible king of Tyrus. There are some statements in these passages which could not possibly refer to an earthly man.
A New Testament example of this law is: the case of Christ addressing Peter as Satan. When Peter declared that he would never permit anyone to crucify his Lord on the cross, Christ rebuked him saying, “Get thee behind Me Satan thou art an offence unto Me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men” (Matt. 15:22-23).
Both Satan and Peter were addressed in the same statement, and both were involved in the rebuke, Peter, for the moment, was unknowingly being used as a tool of Satan in an effort to keep Christ from going to the cross. Primarily, Satan was the one addressed; and so, it is with the passage above, where a visible creature is addressed, and the primary reference is to an invisible being.
You might ask, what caused this first judgment flood? This judgment flood came because of the rebellion of Lucifer.
The following are the rebellious words spoken by Lucifer that caused the judgment flood of Genesis v 2, found in Isaiah 14:12-15: [“How art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
“For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most-High.”
“Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.”
I am so glad that God didn’t let what Lucifer did stop Him from bringing into existence some things and reconstructing others. Why? Because God is a good God and He is good all the time!
The Genesis account says, “God saw that it was good.”
God is a good God, and He didn’t create anything but good.
However, there was something that was not good in (Genesis 2:18). It was not good that the man be alone. God saw that His work wasn’t complete in that man could not reproduce his kind alone. So, he made a help meet for him to enable him to propagate his kind (1:28; 1 Tim. 2:11-15; 1 Cor. 11:9). [A help suitable to man intellectually, morally, and physically – as his counterpart.]
God took one of Adam’s ribs and made a woman. She was handmade by God for Adam (Genesis 2:21-23). [Woman is said not to have been taken out of man’s head to be lorded-over by him, nor from his feet to be trampled on by him, but from his side to be equal with him, from under his arm to be protected by him, and from near his heart to be loved by him. (1 Cor. 11:3-12; 1 Tim. 2:9-15)]
Even when they fell, God was good to them. The first covenant in animal’s blood was God providing clothes for His family (Gen. 3:21). [The coats of skins were from animals that God had taught Adam to offer as sacrifice in looking forward to the promised Redeemer. (Heb. 9:22)]
- God’s glory is His goodness.
Our Heavenly Father is so good that even when His children cry out to Him, I Just Want To See Your Face! In His Goodness, He shields us from seeing His Glorious Face and instead shows us His Goodness.
Moses said to God, “I want to see Your glory” (Exodus 33:18-19). Instead, God said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you.”
God is absolute goodness and there is no badness in Him—none! In the Old Testament, God appeared to many covering up His glory to prevent them from dying. I will share a few examples with you.
It is clear from Gen. 11:5 that God appeared on earth at the time of the tower of Babel, for it says, “the Lord came down to see the city and the tower.”
In Gen. 18:1 “the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre.” Verse 2 says Abraham “lifted up his eyes and looked, and low, three men stood by him.” These proved to be the Lord and two angels (Gen. 18:22; 19:1); and he could see them. Other statements in Chapter 18 prove a visible appearance: “Let water be fetched, and wash your feet” (v 4); “he took butter, and milk, and the calf he had dressed and set it before them … and they did eat” (v 8); “The men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way” (v 16); “the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great…I will go down now, and see” (v 10-21); “Abraham stood yet before the Lord. And the Lord went his way…and Abaham returned unto his place” (v 33).
God appeared to Isaac and confirmed the Abrahamic covenant with him, as is clear from Gen. 26:2-4. Verse 2 states, “the Lord appeared unto him.”
God wrestled with Jacob bodily as seen in Gen. 32:24-32. That this was a bodily appearance of God is proved in verse 30 where Jacob said. “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”
The Lord appeared to Moses “in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush” (Ex. 3:1-4; Acts 7:30-34). This is one of many instances in the Bible where the record uses “the angel of the Lord” for God, Himself. Whereas, Ex. 3:2 says, “the Lord saw…God called out of the bush.
The Lord “came down upon mount Sinai,” to give the 10 Commandments “in the sight of all the people” (Ex. 19:11-24; Dt. 5:4, 22-29).
God appeared to Moses and all Israel as recorded in Lev. 9:23-24. Verse 24 says “there came a fire out from before (not down from) the Lord, and consumed upon the altar.” This indicates a visible presence.
In Lev. 10:1-2, it is stated that “there went out fire from the Lord” to devour wicked priests who “offered strange fire before the Lord which he commanded them not.”
According to Num. 12:4-5, “the Lord came down… and stood in the door of the tabernacle” to be seen and heard by Moses, Miriam and Aaron.
“God came unto Baalam at night” to instruct him and warn him (Num. 22:20).
Joshua saw God in a visible body, having a “sword drawn in His hand (Josh. 5:13-15). That He received worship when “Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship,” proves the visible presence was God. Compare this with Rev. 19:10; 22:8-9 where worship was refused.
He appeared to Manoah and his wife together, in answer to prayer as seen in Judg. 13:8-23. That this was an appearance of God in visible form is clear from verse 22 which says, “Manoah said unto his wife, we shall surely die, because we have seen God.
God appeared to Job who said “I have heard of thee—but now mine eye seeth thee” (Job 42:5).
Acts 7:54-60 shows that Stephen saw “Jesus standing on the right hand of God.”
In closing, besides the above appearances, the prophets Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah saw God, His shape, His body (like that of a man, His hair, eyes and other bodily parts, His clothing and His chariot throne drawn by cherubim in visions. (Ezek. 1:2-28; Dan. 7:9-14; and Zech. 1:8-20).
We have reasons to believe that Enoch, Noah and others also saw God, for they walked with Him and received specific instructions from Him. (Gen. 5:22-24; Heb. 11:5-7; Jude 14-15).
Furthermore, on a number of occasions the glory of the Lord appeared to Moses and Israel and they saw it and heard God’s voice from it. This was more than an invisible presence (Num. 14:10-12; 16:19-30, 41-50).
In view of the above definite appearances of God to men, the often-quoted passage — “No man has seen God at any time” (Jn. 1:18) – can only be understood to mean that no man has seen Him face to face in His glory and comprehended Him fully as “the only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the Father, and “hath declared him.” In 1 Tim. 6:16, we read of the Godhead “dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto” but God is such a good God that He chooses to make appearances apart from this light, that man can approach unto. Therefore, humans have experienced this many times, both seeing and hearing God.
We have learned during these teachings that Jesus shares the same attributes as God, such as good or goodness in this case. Remember, Peter, James and John saw Jesus “transfigured.”
Saints, we know that Name! It is the Name of goodness, the Name of power, the Name of wonders, the Name of greatness, and it’s Jesus!
Therefore, let me assure you Saints, that in your God given assignments, at any time it becomes necessary to give you quick emergency information, protection, etc., you can expect a visitation from Jesus —in a dream, physical representation or a spoken message! Just do what He tells you to do!
Let the Church say Amen and Amen for God Is A Good God. Yes, He Is!!