Seeing God's Goodness

you have blessed me this morning because as i looked around while we were singing you deserve it i saw your expression of worship i didn't see one single person that had a perfect life worshiping this morning i didn't see one single person giving their all in worship that everything's gone exactly the way that you would have wanted it to go but i did see people that recognize that even in the loss even in the struggle and the trauma into the tragedy there's a good god you've seen the goodness of god in your life and you are praising him and you are giving him glory and you're not withholding anything from him today he's worthy of that he deserves it oh thank you god i thank you for the testimonies around this room i thank you for how you've come through i thank you lord for how you've been with us in it when you may not have delivered us from it you've been with us in it and i thank you today god orchestrates all things well because what has been laid on my heart to talk about today is exactly this focus verse this morning is from psalm 27 and verse 14 13 rather i'm sorry psalm 27 and verse 13. i would have lost heart i would have given up i would have thrown in the towel i would have never praised again unless i had believed that i would see the goodness of the lord in the land of the living i would have lost heart because i was seeing badness i was seeing chaos and catastrophe and trauma and tragedy and loss and grief and i would have lost heart because that's what i was seeing unless i had believed that i would also see the goodness of the lord in the land of the living

i love you lord your mercy never fails me all my days i've been held in your hands from the moment that i wake up till i lay my hand oh i will sing of the goodness of god if you know it sing it with me all my life you have been faithful all my life you have been so of the goodness of god i love your voice for you have led me through the fire in the darkest night you are close like no other i know you as a father i know you as a friend and i have lived in the goodness of god oh of the goodness of god all my life you of the goodness of god i will see i will see of the goodness of god i will see of the goodness of god have you lived in his goodness do you see his goodness in your life's story this morning oh i thank you jesus i thank you jesus i thank you jesus

you can be seated we are seeing god's goodness because well i may be living this life and i may be the one experiencing the events i am not the main character of my story you are not the main character of your story god is the main character of our story this morning and because he is the main character the hero the center of the story then i really can rest and have peace and i can notice where he is in my story psalm 107 provides for us a wonderful illustration of our story being part of god's bigger story it starts off with verse 1 give thanks to the lord for he is good his faithful love endures forever that's verse 1 of a psalm if you read it in its entirety has ups and downs it has mountains and it has valleys it has storms and it has calm it has love and it has fear it has all of the things that our lives have but it starts with give thanks to the lord for he is good his faithful love endures forever the psalm starts with a core belief it continues and it gives examples of scenarios of people in a variety of catastrophes when they called on the lord and then he proved his goodness and his faithful love in those catastrophes the psalm ends by declaring that those who are wise will take all this to heart all of this to heart what is this this is that god is faithful in the chaos of our lives whether his plan is to end the storm the wilderness the darkness or if his plan is to simply see us through it he is faithful and he is good this story is about him he's good his faithful love endures forever it's a core belief that will center you in times of upheaval and core beliefs we can either hold to very tightly or we can hold too very loosely and if we hold loosely to a core belief we will end up holding tightly to a lie a deception that god is not good because my circumstances aren't good or god is not faithful because he hasn't done a b c or d but the core belief is god is good and his faithful love endures forever even though i'm in the suffering and i'm in the upheaval and i'm in the storm his faithful love endures for i can see god's goodness even in this

i have a couple of core beliefs i've written them down they're in the front page of my journal i've had to go back to them i've had to add to them i've had to center myself in times of upkeep upheaval with them most recently when uncle roy lee passed away when we got the call that he had coded for the first time and would likely not make it through the night i pulled out my journal i went to my list of core beliefs and i said i'm gonna believe this and i'm not gonna believe that you failed us i'm not gonna believe that you're not a healer i'm not gonna believe that you're not sovereign and that this was a mistake god is good god is sovereign and he's in control god is my shepherd and my father so he loves and cares for these are core beliefs that that center me when i face a storm god redeems all things so even if i caused it and it's bad and it's a consequence of my sin or maybe i didn't cause it and it's happened to me god redeems all things he can work it so that it is good i can see god's goodness god is the source and all other things are a resource there are more but these are five that center me in moments of storms and in tests and trials temptations struggles and the psalm 107 starts with a core belief he's good and his faithful love endures forever verse verses 4 and 5 if you if you look at this psalm you will see some repeated verses such as verse 6 and 13 19 and 28 all say lord help they cried in their trouble and he rescued them from their distress their identical verses if you were a bible quizzer this would be an excellent cross-reference question okay but it doesn't stop there verse 8 verse 15 verse 21 and verse 31 all say the exact same thing as well let them praise the lord for his great love and for the wonderful things he has done for them the reason these are repeated is because there are four different scenarios that are common to all of humanity that are presented in this psalm common perils that humans fall into or um common emergencies that we all face and the psalmist works through some of these in verse four and five he says some wondered in the wilderness lost and homeless hungry and thirsty they nearly died in verse 10 the situation is some sat in darkness and deepest gloom imprisoned in iron chains of misery verse 17 the emergency is some were fools because they rebelled and suffered for their sins they were knocking on death's door the common issue in verse 23 is some went off to sea in ships and their ships were tossed to the heavens and they plunged again to the depths and the sailors cringed in terror they reeled and staggered like drunkards and were at their wit's end these are the scenarios that the psalmist presents a wilderness in a dry season feeling lost beyond the reach of standard human capability and help he presents the darkness and the deepest gloom getting into trouble because we've tried to do things our own way depression heaviness hopelessness despair feeling trapped or captured by heavy emotions that don't seem to lift and there is very little relief oppressed by heaviness some were fools foolish transgressions they sinned they messed up they gave into temptation they crossed a line they knew they shouldn't have crossed storms upsets things going from bad to worse terrified nothing feels stable there is upheaval not able to find firm footing at your wit's end no control and that leaves you feeling frantic and at the mercy of others and even worse at the mercy of an adversary but this is god's story don't make the mistake of believing that the story is about you that you're the main character god is the main character of your story even if it includes scenarios like these god is the main character let's see what god is doing in this let's see god's goodness in this we may currently find ourselves in only one of these categories at this present time but if we considered our lives as a whole we would find ourselves in all of these categories at one time or another a wilderness have you been in a wilderness emotionally spiritually mentally darkness where there's heaviness and you feel hopeless and you've begun to despair sin for all have sinned and come short of we've all lived in that scenario storms we've all faced storms some of you are presently facing a storm but the pattern that is in this chapter is we got into trouble we cried out to the lord he saved us we praise him it's a pretty simple pattern and he is at the core of it he is the main character of it the pattern repeats continuously throughout our lives and so i don't want you to think that because you've gotten over the last one that now when you face another one that means something's wrong with you it doesn't mean something's wrong with you god is the main character you're not the main character so the story's really not about you you're a player in the story but the stories about him the stories about his glory about his faithfulness and his goodness and his ability to see me through that's what the story is all about we get into trouble we cry to the lord he saves us and we praise him in this pattern we see our propensity to stray to get into messes that we can't get ourselves out of we see our utter dependence upon god we have to cry out to him to save us we also see that he comes through for us he saves us he rescues us he responds to your cry for help whether we should be in that mess or not when we turn to him he doesn't reject us he can redeem all things all the mistakes that we make the messes all the negatives all the opposition the tragedy and the dysfunction he can redeem it all it's dysfunctional from a human and earthly perspective it's dysfunctional if i'm the hero of the story if i'm the main character but it's functional from god's perspective he can use that he can work with that it's our weakness and it seems like a dysfunction and it seems like a detriment but it's functional with god he can work in your mess this morning and you've seen him do it you've cried out if you turn around and you look at your life you've seen him do it before so let's not doubt that he'll do it again when we turn around we can choose to see a myriad of different things we could choose to see the tragedy we could choose to see the intense emotion that it brought to us we could be tempted to see to look at the emptiness that we felt or the loss we could focus on seeing those things but psalm 107 teaches us to see the goodness of god in psalm 27 i had almost lost heart unless i had believed to see the goodness of the lord in the land of the living the final piece of the pattern is that we praise him what we've done here this morning how you have blessed me so much i i feel fed i feel strengthened and inspired by looking around and seeing people in the midst of dysfunction in the midst of chaos and upheaval in your life and tragedy and trauma that you are walking through and you have been praising him because you've chosen to see the goodness of god we recognize that he's done a work he's performed a miracle he's relieved the burden and he has been present in the disturbance he's forgiven the sin he's removed it from our record and so we praise him that pattern again repeats four times in this psalm but how often has it repeated in our lives and so my encouragement to you today is to turn around and look not just at the predicaments the messes the suffering the failures and the losses but how every time we went through something we cried out to him and he was there he didn't leave us because the story is about him as we look back over the seasons and eras of our lives we will see this pattern but that's not all we will see for that psalms very last verse in the new living translation 107 43 says they will see in our history the faithful love of the lord that phrase has brought me to tears for months i could take you to the first time in my journal that it hit me i think it was in the bible reading in november november the 9th actually uncle roy lee was in the hospital and we were praying and we weren't sure what was happening and i read that they will see in our history the faithful love of the lord and i thought okay if that's what people are going to see when they look at my life then that's what i want to focus on too

didn't make it easy we of course prayed for healing and we prayed for a miracle and we wanted an immediate victory don't we don't we all when we're in that we we just want relief from whatever is poking us and making us uncomfortable we want that immediate relief and our family wanted that we wanted the immediate victory but lamentations a book about grief and sorrow and pain and upheaval tragedy and trauma has in the very middle in lamentations three jeremiah saying this yet i still dare to hope when i remember this the faithful love of the lord never ends his mercies never cease great is his faithfulness his day to day presence his ever presentness great is his faithfulness his mercies begin afresh each morning and so i say to myself verse 24 i say to myself the lord is my inheritance therefore i will hope in him i'm going to be honest with you i had probably read verse 24 but i had never seen verse 24 until this past year i focused on verses 22 and 23 we do his mercies are new every morning his compassions fail not great is his faithfulness and we should focus on that but the lord is my inheritance stuck out to me because what is an inheritance it's something you get and in the midst of this story of suffering and pain and tragedy and trauma the psalmist says god is what i get i may not get my answer i may not get my miracle i may not get my immediate relief in the victory for my uncle but god is what i get because he's the main character of my story and i can grow close to him and i can recognize he's been there every step of the way his faithful love never fails it just never ends and while i may want the immediate relief what the lord spoke to me at 902 when we got the call that uncle roy lee would probably not make it through the night he said i am going to be with your family in the gradual you want the immediate but you are going to see my gradual grace my gradual faithfulness day by day my ever presentness you're gonna see that it's not what i wanted to see it's probably not what you want to see but the lord is my inheritance god is what i get and if god is what i get that's completely enough i don't i'm not going to demand that my situation turns out in a certain way because i'm not the main character of my story god is the main character of my story and so god if you get the glory out of this i'm gonna see you in the gradual i'm going to take heart and i'm going to rely on your faithful love and your faithful mercy and grace oh for grace to trust him more go for grace to trust him an apc

i just as i was in here praying the other day i was walking these aisles and picturing you where you sit or probably where you used to sit because i'm more used to that but i was walking through knowing i was going to be talking about looking at our lives and seeing the history and the faithful love of the lord i began to weep and be so blessed thinking of just the testimonies that i know of in your life the prayer requests that have come across the pulpit that have been turned into victory reports and how god has come through and he's provided for you and he's healed you brother kessler i saw you worshiping darian you deserve it and i thought if ever anybody knows that god deserves it brother kessler knows with the cancer that was in his body and even recently god is good we see god's goodness and that story is is multiplied around this room sister sue you and brother mike your worship blessed me this morning because we're walking through it's a current struggle but we're seeing the goodness of the lord we're seeing the faithful love of the lord in our history and i was just thinking through so many of you jason and christy you came to mind as well how god has just been so faithful he's he's worked out family issues he's worked out health issues brother jason and sister gibson i saw you this morning and you were worshiping and you blessed me because i can see in your history the faithful love of the lord i can see it for you and you can see it for me and i want us to see it for ourselves today when you turn around and you look at the issues and the events and the catastrophes of your life what do you see in your history do you see the faithful love of the lord do you see his goodness

another psalm 23 david tells us what he sees when he turns around surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life all the days if i look back and i see the day that our family had a car wreck on the way to vacation i see goodness and mercy we all made it out of that car wreck i think the worst thing that happened was maybe a scratch that bled our car spun three times at the least maybe more we ended up in a ditch if i turn around and i look at when i was 12 and i suffered with severe back pain for months doctors had no answers they had no solutions they had no reason why that was happening therefore they had no treatment for it i see that day but all the days of my life i see goodness and mercy following me goodness and mercy in this day whether it's full of blessing or struggle when i turn to see former days marked by blessing or struggle i see goodness and mercy goodness and mercy on days that i celebrated and rejoiced and goodness and mercy on days that i mourned and i wept goodness and mercy on days i hit the mark goodness and mercy on days i missed the mark some days goodness was highlighted but for the others there was mercy and when i get to tomorrow when today is yesterday i will see goodness and mercy so don't lose heart in your today because goodness and mercy are present today they're with me all the days of my life the line of that song said i have lived in the goodness of god can you honestly say that this morning i have lived in the goodness of god i haven't lived in perfection and i haven't lived in bliss and where everything is going okay but i have definitely lived in the goodness of god

would you rise to your feet and lift your hands or kneel before him whatever feels appropriate to you you're welcome to come to the front and show that he's been good to you but would you just make an expression towards him today god we recognize lord that all of our lives all of our days are filled with your goodness and they're filled with your mercy i can look i see the days where i've wept i see the days where there were trauma i see the day where my loved one died but god i see your goodness i see that you never left me i see that you've never failed me i see the day that i sinned and i messed up and i went against your word but god i see your mercy in that day you didn't kill me you didn't wipe me off the face of the earth you didn't leave me you didn't forsake me all my life remember his goodness i'm gonna sing about it because it's what oh help us to see your goodness today i rebuke every barrier i rebuke every blinder right now in the name of jesus whatever would try to preclude us from seeing your goodness of the goodness of god we lay it before you today we recognize you're the hero of our story you're the main character of my story god i'm gonna rest in that for i will see the goodness every breath that i have

i'm not stealing pastor's sermon but you've heard him preach on memorial stones i love it that this is one of the props that has never been thrown away i don't know the first time he'd preached that sermon but this is still in our prop room there's actually two of them memorial stones important because they help us remember god's goodness psalm 102 and verse 18 says let this be recorded for future generations so that a people not yet born will praise the lord how is that going to happen because they're going to see in our history the faithful love of the lord and those memorial stones didn't start out as a good thing they were heavy i bet you they were a burden to carry there was some struggle involved with the stone but you know what when i look at that stone i don't see the struggle i don't see the hurt and the trauma and the tragedy i see a memorial to the goodness of god i see in my history the faithful love of the lord one more time would you just give him thanks in whatever way feels appropriate to you god we're gonna see your goodness we're gonna see your goodness your goodness is your goodness is down it's running back to me your goodness i is now i give you everything your goodness is is he's a faithful god oh hallelujah why don't you lift a hand and thank him for his faithfulness for his goodness for his grace hallelujah lord it is all about you it is all about what you have done hallelujah we praise you we thank you jesus hallelujah nobody like you hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah