God Is Better Than You Think: 3 Qualities That Change Everything

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Good morning. Have you ever wondered what God was really like? Not what people say about God, not what your circumstances are thinking about, but what the Bible actually says about Him. Why don't we look and explore a little bit about that today? Today we're going to look in Psalm chapter number 86, and we're going to look at verse number five. And we're going to see three qualities of God that's important.

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And what those three qualities mean to you and me. Let's jump into it today. Psalm 86, verse number five. We read is a psalm of David, and we read, For thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee. In Psalm chapter 86, this is a psalm of David where he is praying for um deliverance. He's praying for deliverance from his enemies.

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He's praying for deliverance from his sin. And in in David's Psalms, he he a lot of times puts reminders in there of things that we need to make sure that we don't forget. And this is one of those instances here. David is reminding us of three qualities of God that we need to make sure that we commit to our memory so that when times of trouble is coming, we won't turn our back on God because we'll have a strong

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Steadfast faith in him. Let's break it down. Three of them he gives us here. First off, God is good. He says, Thou art good. And he says, and ready to forgive and plentious in mercy. Those are the three things. Good. He is good. He is ready to forgive, and he is plentious in mercy. Let's tackle the first one. Good. God is good. We've we've we grew up, many of us, at least in my generation.

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Many of us grew up saying a prayer every day, God is good, God is great. Let us thank him for our food. Amen. We've we've done that for years. God is good. It seems like such a simple statement to make, but we sometimes forget about that. We might we might proclaim God is good. But what happens when we're going through times of trouble? What happens when we're going through trials?

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What happens when things ain't working out exactly the way that we expect them to work out? All of a sudden our mind forgets that God is good and we start thinking, well, this evil is happening, this bad stuff is happening. This is the stuff I didn't sign up for. You know, there was a story years ago, I I shared it several times over the course of the years. But there was a a missionary that spoke in a men's group at a church one time.

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And he impressed the men's group so much that that they had decided they wanted to take a missions trip to this man's mission, mission field. So they sent him a letter saying, hey, if you can tell us a good road to take to get to where you are, we'd like to come. And to that, the the missionary responded saying, if you're only going to come because you want to have a good road, then don't bother coming. I want someone that's going to come no matter what.

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And a lot of times when we put our faith in God, a lot of times when we put our faith in Jesus, we think that um we think that we're gonna have a nice, easy road the rest of our lives. We think that we're gonna have we're gonna have it easy. We can put our feet up, we can, we can relax, and but a lot of times that's not the case. A lot of times, for lack of a better way to put it.

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A lot of times things might might seem like they're getting worse. And you could say, well, how can that be? The thing we have to remember when we put our faith in God, when we put our trust in Him, is that we're putting our complete trust in His will. God has a will for you and me, for each and every one of us. And while at the moment it may seem like only bad is happening.

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When you look at it in context of God's will, we can see where God's protection, God's guidance, the goodness of God is prevalent all through our life. Someone like me that's that's been walking with God for many years can look back at things that at moments I thought was bad. But in the big picture of things, you were able to see the goodness of God.

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even in those things that maybe wasn't exactly going the way I wanted them to go. So God is good. His plans are good. Everything about God is good. There's nothing evil. There's nothing bad. The second thing, and this is where I'm going to spend the bulk of our time today, is ready to forgive. Forgiveness is just a prayer away. Too often we we think we have to make ourselves good before we come to God.

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We have to get off whatever sins we're doing before we come to God. And that's not not the case. God wants you to come just as you are, and He'll forgive you. First John chapter number chapter number one says that if we confess our sins, John said he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You see, we got to take the first step. We got to reach out there.

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And ask for forgiveness. And the reason we need to go out there and ask for forgiveness is because we're all born into sin. It started way back in the Garden of Eden with Adam and it continues to this day. We are born in sin. And that sin is what separates us from God. We need to give forgiveness of that sin. We need to give forgiveness of the iniquity in our lives.

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In second first Timothy chapter number two and verse number four, Paul said to Timothy, talking about forgiveness now. He says, Who will have all men to be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth? God's desire is that all of us get saved. God would love nothing more than for all of us to spend eternity with him in heaven. The problem is so many of us don't want to.

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Admit the truth. We don't want to admit the truth. We don't want to admit our sin. We don't want to admit that we're living away from God, that we have a need for a savior. We don't want to admit the truth. We like our sin. We like our lifestyle. We don't want to get away from that. But the fact is, we need to come to that knowledge of truth. We need to go and get that salvation. We need to let God's goodness come in our life.

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And we need to start living for him. And and some people, and and there's scoffers out there, there's people out there that that's never going to come to the truth, never going to accept that the the books of the Bible are true. It's never going to accept that everything I'm presenting to you is the truth.

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And there's some people out there saying, hey, God's never, Jesus is never going to come back. You're never going to need that forgiveness. But that again is is is is a f a false teaching right right from the devil. Can't put it any other way. Some people say, Why is God delaying so much? He's given us opportunities to come to him to get saved. Over the course of the last several weeks, um, I've shared

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Different episodes we've done on false teachings that's out there. And and sometimes I'll look at at the statements of these false teachers and these these false preachers that's out there, and and I'll say, How can they make a statement like that and God does not strike them down? This is why in Second Peter chapter number three and verse number nine, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise.

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His promise to return, as some men count slackness, but is long suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. God wants all of us to come to repentance. He wants all of us to come to the truth. He wants all of us to get that forgiveness. That's why he's long suffering to us. He's given us as many opportunities as he can for us to get saved.

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And the thing is, time is running out. Just like in the days of Noah, when Noah was building the ark, you know, eventually the ark was done. Eventually everything was loaded up. Eventually God shut the door, meaning no one else could get into the ark. That's what's happening again. Time is running out. I believe the door is about to be shut.

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Take this opportunity, come to God, come to Jesus, and get that salvation. But the problem is we don't want to accept the truth. We want to stay in our pet sins. We want to stay in those things. And if we jump down to verse number eight of Psalm chapter eighty-six.

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David says, Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord. Neither are there any works like unto thy works. Remember in David's day, um, you know, Israel, they followed the Lord, but there was all kind of pagan, false idol worship going on in his day, just like there is today. And we got to make sure that we don't fall victim into that. That's why David is saying, There is no other God like you. There is no other God like you, God. There is no other works.

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better than your works. And we have to remember that. We have to come to that saving knowledge of God, knowing that God is the true God, knowing that all these false idols and false gods that people worship are just that, false gods.

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And then one other point that I want to bring up here talking about salvation is so many people say, I I just can't trust this God stuff. I just don't know if I can depend on him. Well, you know, when you when when malls were a big thing, you know, I used to work in the food court of a shopping mall. And one thing we did every day was sample, sample different products so that people could taste and see that they like the product. Well, Psalm chapter 34 and verse number eight.

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David says, O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man.

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That trusteth him. Taste and see that God is good. Come and come to God. See God. See how what he does in your life. See what he brings you through. See that you can trust him. And finally, the third thing, real quickly, here, that he says here in verse number five about the the qualities of God is that he is plenteous in mercy. Mercy is sparing someone the full wrath, judgment, or penalty.

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That a person's wrongdoing or a person's sin has rightfully earned. Romans chapter 6, verse 23 summarizes what mercy actually is. And he Paul says here that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. So let's let's see how mercy here is. The wages of sin is death. That

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Is what your sins earned. That is the payment for your sins. You're getting a spiritual death, you're getting a sphysical death where you'll be separated from God forever and ever and going to a devil's hell. That's the truth. That's what you got to realize. Sin is death. The payment for that is death. But the gift of God is eternal life. That's the mercy of God. That's God saying, Yes, you deserve death.

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You deserve that separation because of your sin, but because I love you so much. Here, here is eternal life. I'll put your sins on Jesus. And that's what Paul wrote about in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse number 21, when he said, For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

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God put all our sin on Jesus so that we can live for God, so that we can get the righteousness of God. We see the goodness of God in the salvation, in his mercy. We see the goodness of God in salvation, in that salvation forgiveness is just a prayer away. And we see the goodness of God in his mercy.

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that he doesn't give us what what we deserve.

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Friends, have you accepted Jesus today? If not, what's holding you back?

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Think about that. Have a great day.