The Established Path of Discipleship

We teach our children to pray, “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food.” Our children grow up quickly, too quickly, and they ask questions. They ask our favorite question, “Why?” Suppose you tell your children, “God is good.” Then they ask you, “Why is God good?” What would you tell them? Suppose you are talking with a friend who is not a Christian. In the course of the conversation, you speak of God’s goodness. Then your friend asks, “Why is God good?” Perhaps they even bring up all the evil happening in the world and say something like, “If God is so good, then why are people starving?” What would you tell your friend?

            If you know Christ, you need to have an answer to that question. Psalm 106 addresses the goodness of God. It is the theme of Psalm 106. It responds to the question, “Why is God good?” Psalm 106 makes it abundantly clear that our good God deserves our thanks, and his goodness demands a response. We must respond to the goodness of God.

God is good because:

          He never stops loving his people (vv. 1, 7, 45).

Notice verse 1 tells us, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.” God’s goodness is essentially the reason why we give thanks to God. We thank him because he is good. Why is he good? “For his steadfast love endures forever.” The ESV rightly translates the Hebrew word here as “steadfast love.” Some versions use “love,” and the KJV uses “mercy,” but I believe steadfast love or faithful love is the best translation because this word speaks of God’s unfailing, eternal love for his people. It is much more than love and involves more than mercy.

            If we contrast God with our experiences with humans, I think you will understand. Most of you know the heartache of someone saying they love you and appear to love you for a long time but then leave you later. God’s love is categorically different. He never stops loving, and he never leaves his people—ever! Did you know God loves his people so much and delights in us that he sings over us? Zephaniah 3:17 says, “He will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” One of the primary reasons God is so infinitely good is because he loves his people infinitely.

            Not only does he love, but he also demonstrates his love. God is good because:

            He does mighty deeds for his people.

The psalmist asks in verse 2, “Who can utter the mighty deeds of the Lord, or declare all of his praise?” In one sense, declaring all of God’s praise would take us forever. Who utters the mighty deeds of the Lord? Does the unbeliever? No, of course not. God’s people speak of his mighty deeds. God enables his people to do justice (v.3) and be righteous. The psalmist remembers God’s mighty deeds for the people of Israel. God enumerates his mighty deeds throughout the Psalms.

Do we not praise God for his power in creation? Do we not wonder when we look upon the vast expanse of the ocean as our little ones play in the surf? Don’t we praise God when he heals, delivers, and saves? Listen, I don’t need to tell you. God is still in the business of doing mighty deeds for his people. So, how should we respond to God’s goodness?

The required response: Save me because I am not good.

As we lay our lives beside the infinitely good God, we can only come to one conclusion: we are not good. As the psalmist does in verse 6, we must conclude, “Both we and our fathers have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness.” We must agree with the psalmist when he says in Psalm 14:3, “They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”

            Realizing our lack of goodness, we must respond as the psalmist responds. He writes, “Remember me, O LORD, when you show favor to your people; help me when you save them, that I may look upon the prosperity of your chosen ones, that I may rejoice in the gladness of your nation, that I may glory with your inheritance.” Our cry must be, “God save me because I am not good.” We are not good, so God needs to save us. Have you seen your lack of goodness—your sin? Have you cried, “God save me because I am not good?”

            I suppose it is difficult for someone to believe God is good, especially when his people do bad things. In verses 13-42, the psalmist lists some of the bad things God’s people have done. Yet, this does not change the fact of God’s goodness.

God is good even:

          When we disbelieve and give in to lust (vv. 13-15).

Verses 13-15 recount how God’s people began to miss the food of Egypt. Verse 13 says it best: “They had a wanton craving in the wilderness, and put God to test in the desert.” Lust is a “wanton craving” for something. It is an unhealthy desire for something. The Israelites did not believe God would provide as he promised. Yet, God is still good, even though we disbelieve and crave things that will not satisfy us.

            When we are discontent and envy others (vv. 16-18).

Discontentment says to God, “I don’t like the place: you have put me in life. I am questioning your right to rule over me.” In verses 16-18, the psalmist recounts some men’s jealousy, which Moses records in Numbers 16. These self-appointed leaders did not approve of Moses’s job as a leader. So, they did what many of us do. We appoint ourselves as the leader. It’s sad, but we often designate ourselves as Lord. We become jealous and envious of others, what they have, and the position God has placed them in. Yet, God is still good.

            When we try to replace God with idols (vv. 19-23).

In verses 19-23, the psalmist summarizes the making of the golden calf during the Exodus. Verse 20-21 says, “They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt.” We do the same thing, don’t we? We may not make a golden calf, but we do the same thing.

We, like them, find ourselves in a place where we wrongly think God has abandoned us. We, like them, think we can get our satisfaction from something other than God. We fashion this thing into an idol, and we make it our God. We bow down to sex, food, money, and power and think it will be our God. We believe it will save us, and it never does. Yet, even though we do this, God does not stop being good.

            When we complain (vv. 24-27).

If many people heard our complaining, they would wonder why we ever say God is good. God’s people despised the promised land of Israel in verse 24 and have no faith in God’s promise. “They murmured in their tents, and did not obey the voice of the LORD.” Murmur—it doesn’t even sound like a nice word. It doesn’t sound like a nice word because it is not a nice word. And isn’t this where we complain? In our tents—in private? Oh, we put on the religious face in church and public—yet we murmur in the privacy of our homes. What would people think of our God if they heard the murmuring we do in the privacy of our homes? We complain, yet God is still good.

            When we abandon God (vv. 28-31).

We don’t have to live long in the world to know not everybody is what they say they are. We don’t have to be in a church long enough to know not everybody who says they are a Christian is a Christian. Some abandon God and never return. In verse 28, some of the children of Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor—a false god. How could someone do that? Haven’t we seen those who call themselves Christians abandon God and later join some cult or false religion? Of course, we have—it happens all the time. Yet, God continues to be good.

            When we rebel (vv. 32-43)

Reading all the sins of God’s people can be overwhelming. The psalmist speaks of God’s people opposing him at the waters of Meribah during the time of Moses. He concludes in verse 43, “Many times he delivered them, but they were rebellious in their purposes and were brought low through their iniquity.” To rebel is to oppose the authority and direction of God. It is to plant our two little feet in the ground, cross our arms, and tell God no. It is to go in a different direction than God tells you to go. Our frequent rebellion will never change one thing: God is good.

            Now, wait a minute. How can a good God take all that sin from his people? He can because it is the ultimate display of his goodness.

God’s ultimate display of his goodness: Saving his people (vv. 8, 10, 23, 30, 43, 45)

          Why does God save?

            God saves to display his glory and power (v. 8).

“Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make know his mighty power.” Did you catch that? He saves for his name’s sake. God saves not for our name’s sake, not to make us look good, but for his sake—for the sake of his name—for his glory. When Ezekiel prophesies of God’s new covenant coming in Christ, he says, “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.” We have profaned God’s name, but he will glorify his name through us by saving us. When he saves us, he cleans us from all our uncleanness (Ezek. 36:25),  gives us a new heart (Ezek. 36:26), puts his Holy Spirit within us (Ezek. 36:27) who enables us to live in holiness before a holy God. And when God does this to any human being, it is an incredible display of his goodness.

            God saves to demonstrate his covenantal, never-ending love.

          “For their sake he remembered his covenant, and relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love” (v. 45).  To what covenant is the psalmist referring? We must go to the book of beginnings, Genesis, to answer that question. God reveals his plan to save and redeem a people for himself in his covenant with Abraham. These people include people from every ethnic group in the world. God tells Abraham in Gen. 18:18, “Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.” God promised to save first in Gen. 3:15, where he tells Satan that the offspring of the woman (Christ) shall bruise his head, but you shall bruise his heel (the cross). God puts this promise in covenant form in the Abrahamic covenant.

            Christ fulfills this covenant made with Abraham.

Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith (Gal. 3:7-9).

Faith in what? Faith in Christ. You must believe you are not good and you have sinned before a holy God. You must believe your sin deserves nothing but the wrath and punishment of God. You must believe Christ intervened on your behalf, just like Moses intervened and Phinehas intervened on behalf of the Israelites; Christ intervened on your behalf. You must believe he took the punishment and wrath of God for your lack of goodness, your sinfulness on the cross. You must believe God has raised Him from the dead to give you that new heart and the Holy Spirit—to provide you with that new life in Him.

Conclusion

          Some people will reject everything I’ve written because they cannot conclude they are not good. They espouse the prevailing worldview that humans are good. They may even talk about all the evil done in the name of religion to highlight their supposed goodness. If humans are good, what about Hitler, Stalin, and Mao? Oh, they were flukes? Flukes? Then why do these so-called flukes keep happening? Kim Jung Un in North Korea? Why do we so-called humans keep killing, raping, murdering, etc.? Well, I do none of those things, you might say. But do you lust, do you get jealous/envious, do you seek satisfaction in something other than God, do you complain, do you rebel? Have you ever stolen, have you ever lied, have you called someone a fool? Have you ever hated? If we are honest, we must conclude that we are not good. Something is fundamentally wrong with human beings.

            But there is hope. There is hope because God is good, even though we are not. God saves terrible people like me and like you. God saves us and loves us infinitely. Why does God do this? God does this because God is good! How will you respond to his goodness?