GOD IS GOOD: DR. MENSA OTABIL – SPECIAL SUNDAY SERVICE, 24TH APRIL, 2022.
SPECIAL SUNDAY SERVICE BY DR. MENSA OTABIL (GENERAL OVERSEER INTERNATIONAL CENTRAL GOSPEL CHURCH (ICGC) CHRIST TEMPLE, ACCRA GHANA)
TOPIC: GOD IS GOOD.
DATE: 24TH APRIL, 2022
TEXT: Psalms 106:1
Let’s rise up together as we take our DECLARATION OF INCREASE in this Year of Increase:
Are you ready? Say with me:
I confess today that Jesus Christ is my LORD and Saviour. In Him I have life, His Abundant Life.
The Lord is my Light and Strength. As He is, so has He made me. By His Spirit I Increase in Word and in Wisdom. In Faith and in Favour.
The Lord has said: “In Blessing, I will bless you. In multiplying I will Multiply your Seed.”
So, I can boldly say: My God shall Increase me more and more. What I Place in God’s Hands grows into Overflow.
Though I begin small, my end shall Greatly Increase.
In this Year of Increase, I grow in Grace and in Strength. To be all that God wants me to be.
In Jesus’ Name – AMEN!
Today I am Preaching on “GOD IS GOOD”.
It is a Statement that we make very often – We say ‘God is Good!’ and we respond – ‘All the time! All the time; God is Good!’
And some times, you know we say these things as a Slogan – We don’t say them with meaning.
And today I am going to take us through what it means:
When we say: ‘God is Good’ in which way is He Good?
And how do we display His Goodness effectively?
Somebody say: GOD IS GOOD!
Do you really believe God is Good?
How many times? – ALL THE TIME!
Is He Good today, Good yesterday, would be Good tomorrow? – He is Good all the time!
GOD IS GOOD!
Psalms 106:1 (NKJV). And it says:
Praise the Lord!
Oh, give Thanks to the Lord, for He is Good! For His Mercy endures forever.
Throughout the Old Testament that Phrase reoccurs over and over – “The Lord is Good! And His Mercy endures for ever.”
It was the National Declaration of Israel. It was their Number one Praise and Worship Song. When they went to battle, they will be singing: “He is Good and His Mercy endures forever.”
In the Temple they will sing: “The Lord s Good and His Mercy endures forever.”
It was a Part of their Declaration because it underlines a very important aspect of Who God is.
We can know God, we can know His Power; we can know God is Great; we can know God is the Creator.
But if Somebody is a creator, and he is very Powerful and he is not Good – It is not Good to have a very Powerful Person who is not Good.
So in addition to all that we know about God and His Power and His Greatness and His Magnificence; what makes everything Valuable is His Goodness.
Because when He takes his Goodness out, His Power would be dangerous against us! His Goodness makes everything come together.
… The Lord is Good, and His Mercy endures forever.
IN WHAT WAY IS GOD GOOD?
- First, God is Good in Himself.
… God is Good in Himself – In His Nature, in His Character.
God does not derive His Goodness from us, neither does He derive it from His other Creation. God is Good by Himself – Wth Himself.
So His Goodness is from Himself. And it manifests in so many ways; and I will talk about three (3) of them.
I. God is Pure, He has no Moral Weakness.
When Powerful People have a Moral Weakness, their Power works to our disadvantage.
If somebody is very Powerful but have no Goodness in them; their Peer works to our disadvantage.
If they have Moral Weakness, then they will use their Power to execute their Moral Weaknesses.
If somebody is very Powerful Naturally – If he is a man; he is a President, he is King and he likes women. He is going to use his Power to execute that Moral Weakness.
He is going to take People’s wives from them, he’s going to take People’s things from them.
If he is greedy; he is going to use his Power to take People’s Property from them.
So, Power is Great! But if there is no Goodness in the Power, the Power becomes a Liability.
And that is why God’s Goodness is so Powerful, and is Pure.
God has no Moral Weakness. There is no danger that God will abuse His Power because He has no Moral Weakness.
He is Pure, He is Good!
II. Secondly, God is Good in Himself because He is Right all the time.
… He is Right all the time – He makes no mistake!
Can you imagine Somebody who is so Powerful who is Prone to making mistakes?
You shoot a missile in the air, Powerful Weapon. Then you make a Mistake and it hits the wrong Person. That’s dangerous!
But God is Good: He makes no mistake! He is Pure and He is Right.
III. And thirdly, God is Kind.
His acts are Benevolence – He does things for our Benefits.
God is not cruel – He does not take Pleasure in Misery.
God’s Goodness is sometimes referred to in the Scriptures as His Tender Mercies.
God is Good, through and through – In His Person, in His Personality. And that is why we can trust His Power that it would not be used capriciously, that it would not be used wrongly, it would not be used to satisfy a Moral Weakness in God. And it would not be used to do cruel things against us, because God is Kind – God is Good!
… But not only is God Good in Himself;
- God is Good towards us.
His Goodness is not only in Himself; but His Goodness manifests.
He acts out His Goodness – As a matter of fact He created us out of His Goodness.
We are the Products of His Goodness – Even when we are disobedient to Him, He still desires Good Things for us.
In Jeremiah 29:10-11, this is what the Lord says through the Prophet Jeremiah:
For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and Perform My Good Word towards you, and cause you to return to this Place. For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of Peace and not of evil, to give you a Future and a Hope.
Amazing! This is a Prophecy God is giving to Judah when they have acted in disobedience, they have disobeyed God for hundreds of years. He sent Prophets after Prophets to warn them – “Repent of your ways!”
And they will go after idols and they would turn against His, turn away from the Lord.
And the Lord would warn then, and He would send Prophets to warn them. And then finally God says: you know what? I’m going to allow the Babylonians to teach you something you should have learned otherwise.
So Babylon is going to take you. But afterwards I will bring you back to this same Land. And then He says something very interesting – That inspire of the fact that you are going into Captivity, I have thoughts towards you. And they are thoughts of Good and not of evil. I want to have a Great Future for you.
So although it would seems as if what is going to happen to them is bad, God says it is happening out of my Goodness.
Even when we are disobedient to God; when we fail – His Goodness never fails. When we turn away from Him, His Goodness never fails. Even when we are going through hardship, His Goodness is always Present.
So He says: “You will go, I will bring you back because I have Good Plans for you!” I am thinking Good thoughts towards you. I want things to be well with you. I want to give you a Future. But you are a very disobedient People.
… You are going to go through Hardship. But I have Good Plans towards you!
The Goodness of the Lord never fails. God always has Good thought towards you.
Some of us may be in a bad state in our lives, maybe because we did something very terrible and we are going through terrible things.
We say, “Oh maybe God doesn’t like me again.”
God’s Goodness never fails – Even in Babylon He loves you; in Captivity, He loves you. Even when you are fighting Him, He loves you and He is Good towards you!
God is Good towards us. He has Good Plans for us and He does Good Things for us.
You have to constantly remember – God has Good Plans for you, God has Good Plans for me and God is doing Good Things for us.
No matter where you are in your Life, remember this always – God has Good Plans for you!
Even when you have Bad Plans for yourself, God has Good Plans for you because God is Good through and through: At all times and in all situations.
Psalms 107:1-2 says: Oh, give Thanks to the Lord, for He is Good! For His Mercy endures forever. Let the Redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has Redeemed from the hand of the enemy,
What are the Redeemed supposed to say?
Oh give Thanks to the Lord, for He is Good! For His Mercy endures forever.
So the Bible is talking to the Redeemed.
WHO ARE THE REDEEMED?
The Redeemed are those who have been set Free from the Kingdom of Darkness and has been Born Again into the Kingdom of Light.
Sometimes we call them Believers. Other times we call them Children of God.
Sometimes we call them Purely Christians or Saints of God.
The Redeemed are those who know Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
I. And the Passage says the Redeemed must say something – They must say that God is Good!
… But before they say God is Good!
II. They must Believe that God is Good.
We must believe it – God is Good!
And then after you have believed it;
III. You must Declare it – That God is Good!
Let the Redeemed of the Lord say so.
Why? – The Lord is Good!
So when you are going through Pain and you are going through difficulty, the words that come out of your mouth would be – God is Good!
When you are down and you don’t know what to do, you just say – God is Good!
You lost all your money right now – God is Good!
Thieves broke into your house, stole your Precious Goods – God is Good!
Let the Redeemed constantly say – God is Good!
That was Job’s attitude – When he lost everything; he still said: God is Good!
I don’t understand it all, but God is Good! I don’t know why I have lost everything, but God is Good!
The Goodness of the Lord must never be doubted! – We must never doubt it.
And it is when we Believe God is Good and we Declare that God is Good; that we experience the Goodness!
So the Redeemed of the Lord must believe that God is Good and they must declare that God is Good!
You have to make it a Practice in your Life to constantly affirm that God is Good!
You have to! – Because, no matter what comes against you, the Redeem must say God is Good!
I. I don’t have all the answers but God is Good!
II. I don’t know how things are going to turn out but God is Good!
III. I don’t understand what is happening right now but God is Good!
IV. It has been a tough year but God is Good!
That is our Declaration – The Redeemed of the Lord must say so and we must declare that.
And why must we Declare that?
Not only is God Good! But if you come to the New Testament – Romans 8:28 says: And we know that all things work together for Good to those who love God, to those who are the Called according to His Purpose.
… Everybody say: I KNOW! What do you know? (Laughs)! Say I KNOW.
And we know that all things work together for Good to those who love God, to those who are the Called according to His Purpose.
We know! – Not something, but “ALL THINGS”.
Now think about it – All things, including the bad things; including People’s jealousy and envy; including People’s hatred, cruelty.
… All things!
We know that all things! He didn’t say all things are Good – All things work together for Good to those who are Called according to His Purpose.
What does this tell is?
It tells us that God uses all kinds of things to work out His Good Purpose in our lives.
God is Unlimited in what He can use to make us experience His Goodness.
We have Limitations on the things we can use or influence. But God is not Limited:
He can use the affairs of men, Government, Powerful People, Little People, Elements.
He can use the Sun, Moon, Stars, Rivers, Seas, Stones, Sand.
He can use all things, working together.
God use things you don’t think fit – He picks from here and picks from there and mixes it up and Produce Good.
It’s like a typical African Cook who uses Stinky fish, Stinky bush meat, hot Pepper, slimy okra – each one of them in their own right undesirable to make a pot of soup. All the ingredients working together for the Good of the Cook (Laughs)!
If the African Cook makes all things work together in your fufu bowl; then what about the Creator of the Universe?
He can use People’s Stinky Attitudes, Hard Realities of Life. He can use things that really make you to feel just like Nothing and puts it all together, and what comes out of it is better than any African Cuisine.
It is better because GOD MAKES ALL THINGS (He doesn’t leave anything behind) work together for your Good.
The house you were born in, your father and mother who gave birth to you, your Neighbourhood, the School you went to, that Prefect that didn’t like you – God is making all things:
You experience, Bad, Negative and Painful experiences; He puts them all together. And by the time He is finished, it is working for your Good.
And that is why the Bible says – And we know that all things work together for Good to those who Love God, to those who are the Called according to His Purpose.
… God uses all things!
God’s Purposes will overrule all other Schemes and devices.
God is able to work our Present Sufferings to our Good – He overrules all the Schemes of Men and Joseph understood that!
You know the Story of Joseph – He started well: Coat of many Colours, Brothers jealousy, sold him to Slavery, decieved his father that he was dead (a wild animal had killed him); went to Potiphar’s house, imprisoned, forgotten!
… How can these things work together for Good?
Then he comes up – He becomes a Prime Minister. And his brothers who sold him come to Egypt looking for corn. Then they saw Joseph!
What a scare it would be when your enemy who tried to destroy you sees you in Power!
And at that time you can do them bad.
Joseph’s brothers for all their lives were scared because they felt as a Natural Human Being – This guy is going to Pay us back some time.
And the reason why he is not Paying us back is because our father is still alive.
So their father died! They said oh, the Protection is gone! Now all the bad that Joseph has been incubating will come.
So they went to Joseph and told a lie!
These brothers were liars (and they are still lying).
They said to Joseph – By the way, our father before he died gave us a last wish – That you should mistreat us (laughter)!
What kind of brothers are they! You lied and sold him into slavery, now you are lying again!
And so they said: You know our father said you shouldn’t mistreat us, you should treat us well – It was is Last Wish.
Joseph understood it. And this is what he said in Genesis 50: 19-20:
Joseph said to them – “Do not be afraid, for am I in the Place of God? But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for Good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many People alive.
Are you getting it?
Joseph is saying: You had a meaning – You meant it for evil. But God also meant it for Good.
In other words, actually, what you did was God at work!
God was at work! – He was using the Jealousy and envy of the brothers to remove him from the family to another Place so that he will Prepare for their Safety and Security.
“You meant it for evil against me. But God meant it for Good – In order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many People alive.”
… What People mean and what God means!
Somebody said to you – “You would see!” And God says “YOU WOULD SEE!”
But their own: “You would see” is not God’s own “YOU WOULD SEE.”
They mean: ‘You will see Bad Things” and God says: you will see my Glory, my Power, my Goodness, my Favour – Amen.
They declared it for one Purpose; but God is using it to work out another Purpose.
Listen! Never be afraid of Man’s hatred. Never be afraid of Man’s cruelty – Never be scared by those who hate you.
Because God is working out all things for the Good of those who are Called according to His Purpose.
And that is why the Scripture says – Let the Redeemed of the Lord say so.
Let the Redeemed of the Lord say God is Good!
That is the confession of the Redeemed.
In all circumstances, under all conditions, we declare that God is Good! For His Mercy endures forever.
They mean it for one thing, but God has another meaning for the same thing. And what was meant for evil God will use it for Good.
Always remember that your God is Good! That is why there is a Good Friday.
Because if you were there seeing Jesus whipped, torn to Pieces, nailed to the Cross, being mocked – you would say – “Oh what a Bad Day”
But what was meant to be a disgrace to the Son of God became the Foundation on which He was Glorified.
What was meant for evil God meant it for Good!
The Prayer Point is that God will turn everything that was meant for evil to your Good!
Everything that has happened to you that you think is the worse thing that has happened; this morning or as you read on the Label of DMC, it is going to turn for your Good – Amen.
I said, it is going to turn for your Good – Amen!
And we know that all things work together for Good to those who love God, to those who are the Called according to His Purpose.
CLOSING PRAYER
Father we Thank You this Morning for your Word; we know that all things are working together for our Good.
Things we know and things we don’t know; things we understand and things we don’t understand. That Your Name will be Glorified in our lives.
And we give you Praise Father!
In Jesus’ Name – Amen!
Thank you so much for staying all through to read.
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