Gal 5:16 …let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. (NLT) 5:22… the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23a gentleness, and self-control. (NLT)

Let’s work just on the nine fruit for a few minutes. I’ve broken it down into three sets of three.

1) Love, joy, peace,

2) Patience, kindness, goodness,

3) Faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

(right side, left side, under 50, over 50, men, women)

(first set, second set, third set)

Are you good? Are you good? This is harder to answer than… are you patient or are you kind. Patience and kindness show up in our actions and attitudes toward others… and are measurable…but goodness.

I usually put up the dictionary definition at this point but in this case it is, almost, useless. There are 17 definitions under the word "good" ranging from socially acceptable, suitable, desirable, worthy….to genuine, to having moral excellence.

What exactly are you asking, Pastor, Are you asking: Am I good in how I treat my friends, am I good in my private activities when no one is looking? Are you asking if I am good deep inside in my soul. None of us are completely good down in our soul…. How much bad can be in me, along with the good, and me still define myself as good?

Somebody here is going to remember Jesus words to the rich young ruler so we might as well get it out of the way…

Luke 18:18-19 A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 19"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone.

If only God is good… I just have to accept the fact that I'm just an "old sinner" and the only hope I have of heaven is for the goodness and grace of God to save me in spite of my sinful attitudes and actions… Before you get too comfortable…

2 Peter 1:3-6 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness;

* You have everything you need…. * But you must make every effort to add

When you got out of bed this morning you were a snarl-headed, foul breathed, oily skinned bath-robed shadow of what you are sitting here today. Inside your bathroom was everything you needed for presentability. If you had ignored the "everything you needed" part and come to church straight out of bed we would have noticed!

But you "made every effort" to add to your oily skin, soap, and to add to your snarly-head a comb, and you added to your morning breath… toothpaste and mouthwash…

What you ended up with, looked nothing like what you started with. Oh, the basic fundamentals were there. Same ears…same hair (+ or -) but what you "added" transformed the "un-presentable" into the breathless red-carpet visions of beauty we have here today.

That's a very base illustration of what God says he has offered, and is expecting, out of each one of us. Everything we need for life and Godliness is available to each of us but it's going to take concentrated effort on our part to take what God has graciously made available and make it part of our daily attitudes and actions.

What God has laid out on the "sink of our souls" is patience, and inner peace, and kindness, and love, and faithfulness, and self-control. God and the world around us are waiting expectantly to see what we are going to do with these qualities.

You know the drill by now..

1) These Fruit of the Spirit are all part of God’s character

2) These Fruit are not something God has… but who God is

3) When we become Christians God implants these nine fruit into us

4) Each starts in seed form but are expected to grow into mature fruit

5) Growing fruit is not optional but comes with corresponding NT commands

You’ve noticed that in each of the six fruit, so far, I start by showing you, from the Bible, that this fruit is one of God’s characteristics… and that he offers it as a gift to you… but in every case…by the time we get to the end of the sermon I’m reading you Scriptures that say that God expects these fruit to be showing up in your life in ever increasing quantity and quality. Every time we find Scripture that says that if the fruit are missing we should be concerned!

If the ever-increasing presence of the Spirit’s Fruit in our lives is evidence that we are spiritually growing… then the absence of those fruit is just as clearly evidence that we are not spiritually growing!

Let me add a completely new thought here… We said way back in the beginning that the word fruit in the phrase “Fruit of the Spirit” is not plural, but singular. Why would God say fruit (singular) then give a list of nine things?

What if the fruit of the Spirit is just one piece of fruit and the nine parts are all characteristics of that one piece? … That’s not far-fetched… Look at this apple:

1) Pretty and colorful

2) Small and round

3) smooth, taunt, crunchy skin

4) stem to hook to tree

5) core with seeds for reproducing more apples

All characteristics describe one piece of fruit… all are needed to make this apple desirable… nutritious… reproducible. The idea that you could get by without any of the parts is just not workable.

*All I have to do is peal the skin off one part of this apple and set it here till this evening and few in this room would not throw the rest away.

* What is everything about this apple was identical but it was covered in two inches of course apple hair.

* What happens when the outside looks like this and you bit in and the inside is brown and mushy?

Every characteristics is needed to make this an apple…..desirable… nutritious… reproducible.

If we have self-control out the wazoo… but our patience and kindness are like hair on an apple…we aren’t where God intended us to be.

If we look all Christian on the outside and people brush a hole in our exterior and we’re all brown and mushy on the inside… we’ve got some serious work to do.

Let’s relate all this to the fruit of goodness…

II. The Fruit of Goodness Explained

We need to establish that God is Good..

Psalm 145:3-9 Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise! No one can measure his greatness… 7 Everyone will share the story of your wonderful goodness; they will sing with joy about your righteousness….  9 The Lord is good to everyone. He showers compassion on all his creation.

Psalm 34: 8 Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!  9 Fear the Lord, you his godly people, for those who fear him will have all they need. 10 Even strong young lions sometimes go hungry, but those who trust in the Lord will lack no good thing.

There you have it… a chicken in every pot… a car in every garage.

Psalm 84:11 For the Lord God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right. (NLT)

Wow, what a promise…This must be why they say people who have everything their little hearts desires are “living the good life”. God withholds no good thing…

T or F The goodness of God is what makes the bad things in our lives go away!?

T or F The goodness of God is what leads us away from troublesome spots and makes our lives smooth like a glassy un-rippled pond?

T or F The goodness of God, in our lives, is when God pours material and financial blessings into our lives faster than we can consume them?

Why are you saying these are false when Psalm 84 clearly says that The Lord will withhold no goodies from those who want them? 'Cause that's not what the verse said?

The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right.

Is it possible that God's definition of what is a good thing and our definition of what is a good thing… might differ?

Is it possible that we might sometimes believe that a certain unfolding of events in our life would be the best gift a loving God could give us… and God completely disagrees with our assessment?

Is it possible that God sometimes knows that certain unfolding events in our life will be the best gift a loving God could give us… and we look on in horror that our God could treat us so poorly?

The Bible does have these often memorized verses in it:

James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (NIV)

Matthew 7:11 So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him. (NLT)

Are these Scriptures true? Yes!

Does God lavish good gifts on His children… even on those who reject him? Yes!

Do all the gifts of God have to "feel good" when we receive them? NO!

God Good Gifts: those gifts from the kind, benevolent, gracious, loving compassionate heart of God that will most allow us to leave behind our selfish sinfulness, to draw increasingly closer to God, and to take on more and more of his nature as our own.

It continues to fascinate me that we so often (mis)gauge God's goodness… based on whether or not He's giving us all the kind of goodies…. that so often make us even more self-focused and self-centered.

There are churches (and TV preachers) who build their whole theology around this theme. That's God's greatest goodness is found in him giving us the kind of gifts that tend to make us the most self-absorbed and the very kinds of possessions that often lead us to distance ourselves from him.

We used to have a man attending church here whose life dream was to own a motel. We prayed with him and God opened up the most amazing opportunity to fulfill his life dream. But as soon as he had the motel he became so busy with it that God quickly faded into the background. Finally when business fell off, we all read in the newspapers (the only reason I'm telling this is because it is public knowledge) that he had decided to convert the motel into a nudist camp.

My point being, that what we decide will define God's goodness to us… is not necessarily what God is seeing…at all.

It is possible that right now you are going through a very difficult and uncomfortable time…. Yet you are at the same time experiencing: those gifts from the kind, benevolent, gracious, loving compassionate heart of God that will most allow you to leave behind your selfish sinfulness, to draw increasingly closer to God, and to take on more and more of his nature as your own.

Of all those definitions that I told you about in Webster's dictionary… the only one that defines the Bible concept of goodness is the term.

Having moral excellence…

Everything about God's goodness comes down to that one definition. He is Good in that He…and He alone… is morally perfect…. And everything about God's goodness expressed to you is designed to move you in the direction of moral excellence.

Any understanding of God's goodness apart from the shaping process he is trying to bring about in you…is a misread of Scripture. The most important thing to God in the universe, is to use this 80 years of your lifetime to get your ready for eternity.

Whether or not you fulfill your dream of owning a motel, in this life, is not God's primary concern for you, unless it leads you in the direction of moral excellence. You can own a whole chain of motels and if you are moving in the direction of moral excellence God may give you even more. But if you are moving away from moral excellence don't expect God to "gift" you with something that is going to lead you even further away from him

Many of you quote this as your favorite Scripture:

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (NIV)

We need to be very careful not to read too fast and believe that we're being promised an adrenaline rushed X-game life. That's not what it says…. It says that God will take all the events of your life…both the fun and the not-so-fun and use them to shape you into a life of moral excellence.

That is the constant theme of God's Goodness… throughout the entire Bible: ****David certainly got it!

Psalm 119:65-72  You have done many good things for me, Lord, just as you promised.  66 I believe in your commands; now teach me good judgment and knowledge.  67 I used to wander off until you disciplined me; but now I closely follow your word.  68 You are good and do only good; teach me your decrees. 71 My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees. 72 Your instructions are more valuable to me than millions in gold and silver.

Do I need to ask, at this point, which two words define the Fruit of Goodness in us?

The Fruit of Goodness = Moral Excellence