[Worship Drama—Lost and Found!]

     Did you see the article in the Butler Eagle this past week about the Boy Scout who found a wallet, much as Tony found the dollar bill in today’s worship drama?  The difference was the wallet the Boy Scout found had $800 in it.  Without hesitation the young man turned it over to one of his leaders.  The leader turned it into the police. The police were so impressed with the boy’s honesty that they threw a pizza party for the boy and his whole troop of 33 young men.  Not everyone would’ve turned the wallet in, or turned the money over.  When folks do such things we say they’re “good” people. Today’s focus in our ongoing Back to Basics series on the Fruit of the Spirit is “goodness.”  Let’s look again at all nine aspects of the Fruit of the Spirit as they come to us from Galatians 5:22-23.  Would you read these two verses aloud with me, please?  ²But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Galatians 5:22-23 NLT  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, GOODNESS.  The Greek word for goodness is “áãáèùóýíç—agathosune.”  It literally means “good-with” or “with-good”.  In our world today, we find a great deal of confusion about goodness.  In fact, most people think they’re basically “good” people, better than most.  Most of the world’s religions make the pursuit of goodness the requirement for entrance into heaven—if the religion has an understanding of heaven--or at least the requirement to stop endless cycles of reincarnation after one dies.  The Bible makes it clear, though, that goodness is not part of our make up as human beings.  We aren’t basically “good” people, and we aren’t inclined by nature to do good.

     To demonstrate what I’m talking about, consider this event from Jesus’ life and ministry.  One time a rich, young man ran up to Jesus and said, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Before answering the question, Jesus asked the young man a question of His own, “Why do you call me good?  No one is good—except God alone.”  (See Mark 10:17-18)  Goodness is NOT a human characteristic, according to Jesus.  Goodness is a trait reserved for God, and yet most people consider themselves to be good.  On the other hand, there are folks who live with a painful awareness that they’re not good enough. They’ve been told all of their lives by parents, teachers, coaches, and others that they just don’t have what it takes. They don’t measure up.  The amazing reality is:  No one is good apart from God, and yet EVERYONE can be good by the power of God!

     The rich young man thought that gaining eternal life was a matter of being good enough, doing enough,  working enough.  And, indeed, Jesus gave the young man an answer that sounded like actions can lead to eternal life.  He said, “¹⁹You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’” (Mark 10:19 NLT)  The young man quickly responded that he’d done all of those things since he was a boy.  Jesus didn’t refute the statement.  Jesus didn’t tell the young man that he was off base.  In fact, Mark tells us that Jesus looked at the young man and loved him.  Jesus saw that the young man’s heart was moving in the right direction.  But Jesus also saw that the young man had one, specific area in his life that was really not good.  The young man was extremely wealthy and extremely focused on his wealth.  Jesus said, “You lack only one thing.  Go sell everything you own and give it to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven.  Then come follow me.”  We’re told the young man went away sad, because he had great wealth. The “price” of eternal life was too great for him.  You see, each of us may seem to be good.  We may even have “kept the rules from our youth,” although most of us haven’t.  But something is missing in each of us.  For the rich, young man, it was an ability to understand that Jesus, and Jesus alone, is our wealth.  For others, it’s an unhealthy attachment to family.  For others, it’s an addiction to some substance or drug.  For others it’s following rules and regulations instead of following Jesus.  Whatever it is, each of us has some area in our lives where goodness fails. 

     We can’t be good enough on our own.  Yet, the Fruit the Spirit produces in our lives is:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, GOODNESS, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  As we have seen each week of this series the fruit the Spirit produces comes from the SPIRIT, from God!  We can’t generate enough love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness or self-control to be what God calls us to be, or to live how God calls us to live.  There just aren’t any good people by nature.  We’re born without goodness.  We aren’t “good-with” or “with-good.”  We are “without-good.”  That’s why we must trust Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord.  That’s why we must recognize that His innocent blood shed on the cross of Calvary is the only source of goodness for us.  When Jesus asked the rich young man, “Why do you call me good—no one is good except God alone?”  Jesus wasn’t saying that He wasn’t good. He was asking the young man if he recognized Jesus as God, because Jesus IS God, and therefore, He alone is good!

     As long as we think we’re basically good, we

ll never understand our need for a Savior.  In fact, our culture has been moving farther and farther in that direction for decades.  Much of what gets passed off as Christianity these day is no longer Christianity at all.  Much of it teaches an inherent “goodness,” an inherent “godliness” or “god-likeness” in us.  To be sure, God created Adam and Eve in goodness.  They came into existence as good people, as part of the good creation of God.  But when they sinned, all that changed.  Since Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden, no one except Jesus has been born good.  Jesus alone has inherent goodness.  I realize that doesn’t line up with much modern, or should I say “post-modern” thinking, but it’s true.  God’s word calls us to live in goodness, and recognizes that it’s only possible in the power of the Holy Spirit. 

     We’re going to look at another Scripture right now, that focuses on our call to live lives of goodness, but I need to give you a little background first.  The Scripture comes from Romans 14:14-19.  The Apostle Paul is addressing something that we probably never think about in our daily lives:  food and the observance of holidays as a stumbling-block to faith.  In our day, food may be a stumbling-block to good health, but it’s rarely seen as a reason for stumbling when it comes to the observance of our commitment to Jesus Christ.  In Paul’s day, most of the converts to following Jesus had come from a pagan, idol-worshiping background.  Questions arose as to whether a believer could eat meat that had been sacrificed to a pagan idol.  Since the sacrifices were often sold in public marketplaces, it wasn’t always possible to know whether any piece of meat purchased there had first been sacrificed to an idol.  So, in order to be “faithful,” some folks became vegetarians. 

     Other folks believed that followers of Jesus could only worship on the Sabbath.  Others worshiped on “the Lord’s Day,” the first day of the week, when Jesus rose from the dead.  Again, we aren’t likely to worry about such matters, but they were big issues in the first century church.  Paul addressed these matters in the today’s focus Scripture:  Romans 14:14-19.  Please stand and let’s read God’s word together:  ¹⁴I know and am convinced on the authority of the Lord Jesus that no food, in and of itself, is wrong to eat. But if someone believes it is wrong, then for that person it is wrong. ¹⁵And if another believer is distressed by what you eat, you are not acting in love if you eat it. Don’t let your eating ruin someone for whom Christ died. ¹⁶Then you will not be criticized for doing something you believe is good. ¹⁷For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. ¹⁸If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God, and others will approve of you, too. ¹⁹So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up.  Romans 14:14-19 NLT  Let’s pray…….Amen.  (Please, be seated.)

   ¹⁷For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.   Do you see Paul’s point?  Followers of Jesus disagree over so many things.  We always have.  But the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, or when we worship, or how we dress.  It’s a matter of LIVING A LIFE OF GOODNESS AND PEACE AND JOY IN THE HOLY SPIRIT.  Would you say that me, please:  It’s a matter of LIVING A LIFE OF GOODNESS AND PEACE AND JOY IN THE HOLY SPIRIT.  In our day, most people have a “standard” of right and wrong, good and bad.  That “standard” is self-established, or established by a peer group.  By such standards we either “succeed” or “fail” at being good.  So, if we are “basically” honest, if we don’t tell “bald-faced lies,” if we work harder than “average,” we consider ourselves good.  If we don’t, then we’re bad.  The problem is human standards are never high enough.  God’s standard is PERFECTION.  Goodness as God sees it is GOD!  That means we all fall short of the standard.  No one is good.  Not one.

      Then, how can Paul tell us ¹⁷For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit?  It’s easy.  He can tell us that because of the last four words:  IN THE HOLY SPIRIT!  We can’t live a life of goodness, peace and joy on our own.  We can’t live a life of goodness, peace and joy by trying harder than anyone else.  We will ALWAYS fall short of the standard.  BUT, and this is a crucial BUT---but in the Holy Spirit we can live lives of goodness and peace and joy—and all the other aspects of the fruit of the Spirit.   I hope by now that you are starting to realize that my goal in taking nine weeks to examine the Fruit of the Spirit is so we will see that unless we are living in the Spirit we cannot bear the Fruit of the Spirit. 

    To use a simple example from nature, let’s say that we plant an apple tree.  We water the tree.  We fertilize the tree.  We prune the tree.  We even pray for our tree.  Every year we watch the tree grow.  Finally, after a number of years the tree gets beautiful blossoms on it.  Then after the blossoms come tiny fruits.  We watch the fruits grow.  As they get bigger and bigger we notice something.  The fruits are not apples.  They’re pears.  It’s a miracle!  Our apple tree has grown pears!  No.  It’s not a miracle.  The place we bought the tree simply had the tree marked incorrectly.  Pear trees produce pears.  Apple trees produce apples, unless they are altered in some unnatural manner.  When we were born, we were unable to produce the fruit of the Spirit.  Sure, as I said last week, we can love in a manner of speaking. We can be joyful in a worldly kind of way.  We can produce an imitation of each of the nine aspects of the Fruit of the Spirit, as an ornamental Fruit tree can produce an imitation of the real thing.  But only when Jesus Christ becomes our Savior and Lord, only when the Holy Spirit is living in us can we produce the Fruit of the Spirit.  I know this is simple, and I know I’ve been saying it week after week through this series, but the reason the world is not flocking to the church is because they don’t see the Fruit of the Spirit in enough followers of Jesus. 

     Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Apostle Paul had to exhort followers of Jesus to stop arguing about what to eat and which day to worship.  He told us: ¹⁷For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.  Then he said, ¹⁸If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God, and others will approve of you, too.   It really doesn’t matter at the end of the day whether others approve us, if we’re pleasing God, but when we serve Christ with an attitude of living in goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit other WILL approve of us, too.  Paul sums up his comments with this statement:

¹⁹So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up.   In our day, you can buy hundreds if not thousands of books on church growth, church health, on how to attract new members.  If you go to any church—any church in this area and ask, “Do you want to grow, or do you want to die?”  The answer is going to be, “We want to grow,” right?  You know it is.  But wanting to grow as a church is different than not wanting to die.  A church that wants to grow—the way Jesus wants the church to grow—will love Jesus and love one another.  That church will call on the Holy Spirit to fill and empower her daily.  That church will serve Jesus Christ with goodness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.  I see that happening more and more and more here at New Life.  As your pastor, I’m committed to seeing that happen as the NORM.  That’s why we’re investing this year in going Back to Basics.  Some of you are new, and you need to know the basics.  Some of us have been following Jesus for a really long time, but you know what?—We never outgrow the basics.

     I’ve been reading Bible for so long now that when I read any Scripture other Scripture comes to my mind.  I know we’re talking about goodness this morning, and I want to stay focused on that, but consider what I just said:  We never outgrow the basics.  When the Apostle Paul spoke to the leaders at the church of Ephesus for the last time, he warned them to root out false teachers.  He warned to watch over the flock—that is the church—diligently.  He charged them not to let anything happen to the truth in that church.  About thirty years later, Jesus spoke directly to the Apostle John, who was exiled on an island for his faith in Jesus.  He told John to write letters to seven churches, one of which was the church at Ephesus.  You may be familiar with the letter, but here’s what Jesus said, “²“I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don’t tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are liars. ³You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.

⁴“But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! ⁵Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first.  Revelation 2:2-5 NLT Do you see what happened they listened to Paul.  They rooted out evil people.  They rooted out false apostles.  They rooted out  false teachers.  They rooted out liars.  They patiently endured suffering without quitting.  But—they stopped loving Jesus and one another as they did at first. 

     The truth is so important.  In our day, people don’t value the truth.  Faithful Bible teaching is so important. In our day, people don’t value Bible teaching.  But in our efforts to know the truth, to know God’s word.  We must never forget the most basic basic of all:  Love God.  Love one another.  That will only happen when we are living in the Holy Spirit.  No one can make up enough rules for a church to Love God and Love one another.  No one can try hard enough, or even train hard enough to Love God and Love one another for decades if Jesus tarries.  Only by living in the Holy Spirit can we live lives of goodness, and peace and joy.  Only then will we continue to live in harmony and build one another up.  I want to tell you something, if every family in southern Butler County were treated the way my family has been treated for the last several weeks as we have gone through a lot of trial and difficulty, we would have to have ten worship services every weekend.  You people have loved God and us in tangible, practical, consistent ways.  We are so blessed to be part of this body of believers.

     Imagine what it will be like when we extend the love and care of God and one another to wider and wider circles of influence!  Then the people that think they’re good enough, and those who think they’ll never be good enough will get over themselves and realize that it’s not about them, or us—it’s about Jesus!  Amen?  Amen.  Here’s TODAY’S CHALLENGE:  I will live a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.  That’s actually Scripture, and that’s the point.  Our lives are to be the Bible for those who never read the Bible.  What if people watched us this week and they said, “That person lives with a goodness, peace and joy that I’ve never seen.”  Can you picture it?  At school—can you picture it?  Instead of moaning about four more weeks of school, or three or whatever it is, what if you said, “Holy Spirit fill me up, so I can be and do good,” and then started being and doing it—to teachers, classmates, custodians, cafeteria workers—everybody?  What if you went to work and instead of saying, “Man, it’s so nice out, I just want to go play golf.”  You said, “Holy Spirit fill me up, so I can be and do good,” and then started being and doing it—to your boss, your co-workers, your customers?  You say, “Chris, that’s pretty radical!”  You bet it is.  Basis Christianity is radical, because it consists of LOVING GOD, and LOVING EACH OTHER!  So, do you want to give a try this week?  Let’s say the challenge together:  TODAY’S CHALLENGE:  I will live a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.  We may not find a dollar or $800 on the ground this week, but if we do, and we’re living in the goodness and peace and joy of the Holy Spirit, then we’ll know what to do, won’t we?  Let’s pray…..Amen.