Let’s find Psalm 119, verse 68 today. While you’re turning there, let me just say — I’ve been sitting with this verse for weeks now, and it has quietly rearranged some furniture in my heart. I have a feeling it’s going to do the same for some of you.
Psalm 119:68 says this: “You are good, and you do only good; teach me your decrees.” Simple sentence. Almost too simple to preach on, right? “You are good, and you do good.” Sunday school stuff. But stay with me, because I think most of us — myself included — don’t actually believe this verse down in the basement of our hearts, even though we’d sign our name to it on a doctrine quiz.
Here’s what I mean. If I asked you to describe God in three words, what would you say? Go ahead, think about it for a second. Some of you would say powerful, holy, just. Good words. True words. But if I’m honest, and if a lot of you are honest, somewhere in that description — maybe not spoken out loud, but sitting there under the surface — is a fourth word that sneaks in uninvited: disappointed. Or maybe it’s “distant.” Or “demanding.” Some of you picture God the way you’d picture a boss who’s always got one eyebrow raised, just waiting for you to mess up the quarterly report. I want to be really careful here, because I’m not saying God isn’t holy or that sin doesn’t matter — it absolutely does, and we’ll get there in weeks to come.
But today, I want us to slow down on one thing: it matters — deeply, practically, Monday-morning matters — what you actually believe about who God is. Not what you’d write on a church membership form. What you believe when you’re lying awake at 2 a.m. What you believe when you’ve blown it for the third time this month and you’re deciding whether to run toward God or away from Him.
A.W. Tozer said it this way a long time ago — “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Let that sit for a second. Not what comes into our minds when we think about our job, or our marriage, or our bank account. What comes into our minds when we think about God. Because that thought — that picture — is going to shape everything else. It shapes how you pray. It shapes how you handle failure. It shapes whether you run to church or run from church when life falls apart.
Starting today, we’re kicking off a short series I’m calling “Who God Is.” Not “who we wish God was.” Not “who our grandmother told us God was.” Not “who that one Sunday school teacher with the flannel board made us afraid God was.” We’re going back to the text — over these next few weeks — and just letting Scripture describe God on His own terms. And today, we start with the most foundational one, the one everything else hangs from like ornaments on a tree: God is good. Not “God does good things sometimes when the numbers work out.” God IS good. It’s His nature. It’s not a policy He adopted. It’s who He is at the root of His being. And here’s my hope for you this morning — not just information, but a kind of exhale. I want you to leave here able to relax a little. Not relax about sin, not relax about obedience — but relax about the posture of your Father toward you. Because a lot of us are white-knuckling our way through the Christian life like we’re gripping the armrest on a turbulent flight, when the whole time, the Pilot is completely in control and He’s actually enjoying flying the plane. So let’s ask the Spirit right now — not “Lord, teach us something interesting,” but “Lord, would You correct whatever wrong picture of You I’ve been carrying.”
God DOES good Because He IS good!
Look at that verse again — Psalm 119:68. “You are good, and you do only good.” Notice the order of that sentence. It doesn’t say, “You do good, and therefore you are good.” It says the reverse. Being comes first. Doing flows out of being. God’s good actions are not the source of His goodness — they’re the overflow of it. That’s actually a massive theological distinction, and I want to try to make it land with a story.
Years ago, I took my son Rick water skiing for the first time. Now, I need you to understand — Rick grew up loving water. And Rick looked at those skis — and I promise you, to a ten-year-old, a lake looked like an ocean crawling with sharks — and he said, “Dad, I can’t do this.” And I got down on one knee, and I said, “Rick, you don’t have to do this. I’m going to do this. You just have to hold on.” So I picked him up — scooped him right up in my arms, skis dangling — and I said, “Just relax. Don’t fight me, don’t try to help me balance, just relax into me.”
And here’s the part I remember most: the second he actually did that — the second his little body went from stiff and bracing to soft and trusting — I felt him exhale. I felt the moment he stopped trying to save himself and just let his father help him get into the water. When he learned to rise out of the water on skis, he was breathless, saying “Again! Again!”
I remember thinking — this is exactly, exactly what it’s like with our Father. He doesn’t need our help skiing on a lake. He’s not up there going, “Come on, kid, pull your weight, we’re a team here.” No — He says, “Relax. Let Me carry you. I’ve got the skill, I’ve got the strength, and honestly? I enjoy carrying you.”
Here’s the connection to our verse. I didn’t help Rick with the skis because I was trying to prove something, or earn a good “dad” rating, or because Rick had been especially well-behaved that week. I helped him because I am his father, and that’s simply what a good father does.
The doing flowed out of the being. I didn’t become a good dad by carrying him — I carried him because I already was his dad, and that’s who a dad is.
Do you see it? “You are good, and You do only good.” God’s good actions toward you today aren’t a performance review. They’re not a reward for good behavior last week. They flow out of an unchanging, settled, secure identity. God does good because doing anything else would be a contradiction of who He fundamentally is. He can no more act badly than water can act dry.
Now — Here’s where this gets personal, and I want to be gentle but honest with you. If a good God made you — and Genesis 1 tells us He looked at what He made and called it “very good” — then something of that goodness is stitched into you.
Ephesians 2:10 says we are His workmanship, created for good works. That means when you fail — and you will, and I will — the failure is not who you fundamentally are. It’s a deviation from the design, not a revision of it.
A good Father made a fundamentally good creation, and even our worst days don’t erase the fingerprints of the Craftsman. This matters because so many of us carry shame like a permanent address instead of a temporary zip code we’re passing through. You mess up on Tuesday and you walk around all week believing “I am a mess-up” instead of “I am God’s good workmanship who had a messy Tuesday.” Those are two completely different foundations to build a week on.
Now, let me push a little further, because I promised I’d be honest with you. Here’s a question I want you to sit with, not defensively, but honestly: Who do you actually worship? Who do you pray to? Who do you tell your friends about when you talk about your faith? Because here’s the uncomfortable truth — a lot of us have built, brick by brick, over years of half-truths and painful experiences and secondhand theology, a concept of God. And we worship the concept. We pray to the concept.
We witness about the concept. And the concept is close to the real God — close enough that we don’t notice the difference most days — but it’s not Him. It’s a mental construction with His name tag stuck on it.
You can tell when this is happening, by the way. It shows up in worship.
Have you ever noticed how many of our songs are ABOUT God — third person, describing Him from a distance, “He is faithful, He is strong” — true things, good things — but sung the way you’d describe someone at a funeral, rather than sung the way you’d speak TO someone sitting right next to you?
There’s a shift that happens in real relationship, when your language moves from “He is good” to “You are good, Lord” — from description to conversation. From concept to Person. I’m not saying stop singing songs in third person — plenty of great, biblical songs are written that way. I’m saying pay attention to your own praying. Pay attention to whether your prayers are reports you’re filing to a Concept, or whether they’re conversations you’re having with a Person who is actually, presently, personally good toward you. I’ll be honest — this convicts me too.
It’s far easier to have accurate theology about God than an actual relationship with God. You can pass a seminary exam on the goodness of God and still, functionally, live like He’s mildly annoyed with you. Head knowledge and heart trust are not automatically the same address.
So here’s the application for this point, plain and simple: this week, when you pray, try saying “You” instead of “He.” Try speaking to God rather than merely about Him.
It sounds small. It’s not small. It’s the difference between reading a letter from your father and having your father actually in the room. Because – Knowing God Personally Changes Everything.
A Closing Prayer: Resting in His Peace
Would you pray this prayer with me?
Father, we come to You not as a concept, but as You — the living God who is good, and who only does good, even when our circumstances make that hard to feel. Thank You that Your peace doesn’t depend on us understanding everything. Thank You that we don’t have to white-knuckle our way through this life, gripping the armrest, bracing for impact. You are the Pilot. And You are trustworthy. For those of us who have been anxious this week — carrying burdens that felt too heavy, facing news that felt too big, wrestling with fear that felt too loud — we ask for Your peace right now. Not the peace the world offers, which depends on everything going right, but the peace that transcends understanding, the peace that held Carol steady when her whole world was uncertain, the peace that comes simply from knowing You are near. Teach us to relax into You, Father. Teach us to trust You, not because we’ve figured everything out, but because You are good, and that goodness never changes, never wavers, never runs out. Where we’ve been relating to a concept instead of a Person, forgive us, and draw us closer. Where we’ve doubted Your goodness because of hard circumstances, remind us that You are still carrying us, even now, even in this. Thank You that You are a good Father. Thank You that we don’t have to be afraid. Thank You that we can rest, we can trust, and we can enjoy the ride, because You are firmly, completely, unshakably in control. We love You, and we ask all of this in the name of Jesus, who showed us exactly what Your goodness looks like. Amen.
Pastor Scott Gabrielson serves as the Pastor of Craig Valley Baptist Church. He can be reached through the church office at 540-864-5667 or at CraigValleyBaptist.com. Visitors are welcome, Sunday at 11 a.m.. Casual dress.
Our FOOD PANTRY is available to everyone – there is no financial pre-qualification. Come by the church office on Monday, Wednesday or Friday from 9-12 for a free bag of food!
-Pastor Scott Gabrielson
