In this sermon, the speaker uses a personal anecdote about helping his four-year-old son build a Lego airplane to illustrate the idea that life can seem overwhelming and confusing, but God has a plan and everything works out for good. The speaker emphasizes the goodness of God and how it is reflected in His actions. He references Exodus 34:6-7, where God proclaims His name and attributes, including being merciful, gracious, and abundant in goodness and truth. The speaker encourages the audience to seek a deeper understanding of God's goodness and to trust in His plan for their lives.

It's good to be back with you again today on Eagle's Wings. I'm back at my home now. We traveled for 24 days. Actually, I was thinking about this today. How God can take your life, my life, how he can take and do what he wants with it. How he can take and orchestrate the circumstances according to his will and do that and we will recognize that it's God and he will get the glory. How we can do that and when we will do that will be the release of the power of the Spirit of God in our lives. You know, as you and I move about here and there, God is interested in people. We seem to be program-oriented and God is interested in people. He's interested in me. He's interested in you. He's interested in the details of our life. He loves us and he is good. You know, what I wanted to share with you is that we went down to see my folks down in Louisiana for Christmas. When we took off, all we knew was that God wanted us to get there and we had a lot of problems getting there but that didn't stop us. At one point, we only had enough money to just barely make it in. We had a breakdown on our van and God had just convinced me in my heart that he wanted us to go. And I think I'd shared this with you but anyway, when we got down there, we had Christmas with the folks and New Year's but before New Year's, God had been burning in my heart and a buddy of mine, his heart down there for us to see him work. And so as I shared with you, we had meetings down there and it was exciting to see God working. When we got back home, as I looked back over what God had done, he had opened up from the 2nd of January to the 11th for me to share 11 different times. And I was just thinking of his goodness and while I was down there and sharing in the revival meetings in Louisiana, one morning I woke up and I said, God, would you show me something about yourself? And that morning, he began to show me about his goodness. Oh, how I wanted to start preaching on that but he wouldn't let me preach on it. He had other things he wanted me to preach on at different places. And I was just waiting till I could get back home and have the time that I needed to just dwell and study on his goodness. That God is good and that's what I've been doing today is just sharing on his goodness. And I feel like God wants me to share with you the things that he's taught me. You know, he's so good to us in so many different areas. We just trust him. The day that we left to come back, it was snowing down in Joplin. And I don't know how much snow that you got down in that area but I know that it was coming down and the roads were beginning to get slushy. We left at 4 o'clock that Monday afternoon and a good friend of ours, Ms. Johnson down there, just said several times, shouldn't we stay and wait and take off in the morning, get a fresh start. And that's been good because we drove all night. We drove 14 and a half hours to get back. And I was really listening to my heart and listening to the Spirit to see, was this God speaking to me through her? And this is the way God wants us to go through the day, listening to him speak to us through the word of God and through the circumstances, through people. And I was listening and several times she mentioned that maybe we should stay over. And I was saying in my heart, God, is this you speaking? You know what's going on. You know the details and everything. Are you speaking? And we were convinced that God wanted us to go ahead and come on home. And we did. And we came home without much trouble. The only problem we had was we missed a turn in Kansas City and had to go get off the interstate for a little while. But God was good and we got back home. And after we got back, we found out later on in the week that if we had have waited the next morning and came on about the time that we would have been coming the next night, we would have hit some bad winds that were blowing over 80 miles an hour and a stretch of highway that we would have been coming through there at that exact time that we would have been traveling. 80 mile an hour winds. They were blowing vehicles off the road, I understand. And the roads were icy up in that area. And vehicles were getting blown off. And I just said, thank you, God. Your spirit bore witness with my spirit that we should come ahead and go. And you knew that my son would be driving through there. And he's not that experienced in driving, just starting off this last year. You knew you were so good. You know, the goodness of God is not the same as His holiness. Let me give you Tozer's definition of God's goodness. And you know, we think about His goodness. Tozer said, the goodness of God is that which disposes Him to be kind, cordial, benevolent, and full of goodwill toward men. He is tenderhearted and of quick sympathy, and His unfailing attitude toward all moral beings is open, frank, and friendly. By His nature, He is inclined to bestow blessedness, and He takes holy pleasure in the happiness of His people. You know the story about how one day a young man came to Jesus in Luke 19, 16. He said, And behold, one came and said unto Him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God. But if thou will enter into life, keep the commandments. And what Jesus was saying there about goodness and God being good, He was saying that He was God. There's none good but God. For you and me as we go through life, if we will learn that behind all the trials of life is the goodness of God. You know, just as God is love and everything that comes out of Him is love, as I shared with you last week and the week before, God is also good. Everything that He does is good. You may not believe that, but I do. And if you don't believe that, then you don't know the same God that I know. We must trust Him and believe Him and know that He is good and everything that He does is good. I've been going through the scriptures, and I want to take you through the scriptures and just give you a little Bible study. So if you want to get your Bible, go grab it. On the goodness of God, it's excited my faith. It's given me more calmness in my life. God is good. As we moved around traveling back for those 24 days, back down in Louisiana and Missouri mostly, I was just overwhelmed with the goodness of God. When we left, we don't live on a lot. We live on what God gives us. But our van was just loaded down with stuff. We had jelly. And my wife would say, isn't God good? Because we were out of jelly. And God was good, and He'd given us other gifts from our friends. It was just great to be dwelling in the goodness of God. And we were so excited that we got to see a lot of our friends. It just about wore us out trying to get to see a lot of them in the Joplin area. And I've decided the next time we come down, we need to just set up maybe a meeting place and get together and have a good time together. Fellowship around the Lord. Maybe have a sermon. Who knows? Oh, it is so good to have friends. God is good. You know, I just can't get away from Joseph. He knew God's goodness. That's why he could go through all of that trial that he went through. And he had this testimony. Joseph was a goodly person and well-favored. That was because God was flowing out of his life. That's why in Genesis 50-20 he could say to his brothers, but as for you, you thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good to bring to pass as it is this day to save much people alive. You know, my little four-year-old was trying to play with some Legos. These little old toys that fit together and make all kinds of things. And they were a little bit beyond him. They were the small pieces. And he came to me and wanted me to help him make something. So we decided we'd make an airplane. On the instructions, there was this airplane. And to him, it was just a bunch of jumbled little pieces. For a four-year-old, these things were overwhelming. But for old dad, with all his years in the military with airplanes and things, we managed to get an airplane together. Only by following the instructions, and I only got a couple things wrong. It wouldn't fly, but we had fun. And God has shown me that life is like that. We look at it like a little four-year-old and we say, God, I don't see how all these pieces in my life can come out to any good. There's tragedy, there's heartache, there's disease, there's disappointments, there's failure, there's loss of jobs, there's loss of income. But let me tell you, my friend, if you'll learn about the goodness of God, you'll see that it all works out for good. Now, as we go through these Scriptures, as I take you through the Scriptures, and I don't know if we'll just do it this week or next week, I doubt that we'll even get close to maybe getting done this week, but I'm trusting that God will show you that He is good. You know, to do good, you must be good. And God is good, so all He does is good. Everything He does in my life and yours is good. And one of the reasons that men are not good is because they do not have God in their life. When God is in our life, then He produces godliness and goodness. If you remember the story, the testimony in Acts 10.38 about the Lord Jesus Christ, it said how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him. When you and I go about this day, who is it that they see manifested in our life? Is it ourself? Or do they see God in our life? And that will puzzle them. That's what puzzle describes in the Pharisees of Jesus' day. When they saw Him, they saw a man in a physical form, but it puzzled them because He went about doing good and He healed and He did good things and He was God in a body. And they just couldn't get over the fact that He was God in a body. That this Jesus of Nazareth was God in a body. And so when God has come down and He saves us and we've trusted Him as our Savior, we've come to the point where we realize that we can't save ourselves, that there's no good thing in us, nothing good, that we're just sin. And He says that we've all sinned and come short of His glory. And that we must by grace receive Christ as our Savior. We must be born again as Jesus said. And we come to that point where we totally cast ourselves upon Him. We say, Lord, I am a sinner and I by faith receive Jesus Christ. His righteousness is mine. Receive Him as my Savior. And the Spirit of God comes within us, dwells within us and begins to work. And so as we go through life, as we grow through the years, it's Jesus reaching out and talking to others through our lips. It's Jesus seeing a need through our eyes and reaching out with our hands and helping somebody. And we can be like Jesus in that we will go about doing good, but it is God which works in us. And in Him we live and move and have our being. But one of the most frustrating things in life is for you to be a Christian or me to be a Christian and to try to live the Christian life. You can't do it. The Christian life is not you trying to live a Christian life and live like Christ. It is Christ actually living His life through you. And this is why we must be filled with the Spirit daily. The Bible tells us in Ephesians 5.18 to not be drunk with wine where it is in excess, but being filled with the Holy Spirit. To keep being filled with the Holy Spirit. And we have to keep being filled because we keep leaking. Are you filled with the Holy Spirit right now? Is God the Holy Spirit in control of your thoughts? In control of your actions? You know, Jesus said out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. So is He in control? Is He really in control? I was thinking the other day about the passage over in Matthew 5.43-48 and you might remember this passage. How Jesus said, You have heard that it had been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you. And pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. The only way you and I can possibly do that is to have His Holy Spirit living in our lives and controlling us. And you know what else He went on to say? He said that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. For He maketh His Son to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same? And if you salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. He said, What do you more than others? The more of our life is God living through our lives. We can live average. Your neighbor that is not saved will stop and help somebody fix a tire just like you. But it takes that more for you to take the brother or the sister or whoever it is and go down and buy them a new tire. When it is in your capacity in God, the Holy Spirit says, Do it. That is what gets their attention when they see the unusual. This is why Jesus said when they compel you to go a mile, you go two miles. That second mile you are going to get a chance to talk to them about Jesus. To go about in doing good. You know the good Samaritan, the scribe and the Pharisee, the Levite, the legalist, the lawyers, those that knew the theology in their heart, but they, in their mind, but they didn't have it in their heart. They went by around the other way. Who are you? Who am I? Are we the Pharisee, the scribe, the legalist, the Levite? Are we the good Samaritan? Gets a little close to home sometimes, doesn't it? He went out of his way. Paid the expenses of the man that had been robbed and beat up. And said whatever more he needed, he would take care of the expenses. This is the type of goodness that flows out of God and that he wants to flow out of us. That's what the scripture teaches on the goodness of God. It's important for us to know. It's important for us to know because if we're going to know him and if we're going to be like him, we need to understand that God is good. Do you know what the scripture teaches on the goodness of God? Have you really taken a good look at it? Well, that's what I'm planning on doing with you this morning and next week, the Lord willing. Now, do you know what the first scripture is that has even the word good in it? You say, well, I know that. Yeah, back in Genesis chapter 1 and verse 4, and God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. And he goes on down there and he creates things and they're good. And when he's finished in verse 31, and God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. That's our God. He is good and what he makes is good. What he does is good. And it may not look like it's good to you, but there is a scripture that says all things work together for good to them that love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. You know what? God is pleased when we seek to know him. Do you know that? When you cry out to God, oh God, I want to know you, he is pleased. That excites him. Because he wants to know you and he wants you to know him. He is very pleased. You remember the story how God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses over in Exodus? And how he came down and he was angry and he threw and he broke them? And then he went back up again on the mountain a little bit later. And when he got up there, Moses had this conversation with God and this was the testimony of Exodus 33, 11. It says, The Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle. And Moses in verse 12 of Exodus 33 said unto the Lord, now listen to this. See, thou sayest unto me, bring up this people, and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight. And consider that this nation is thy people. And he said, my presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. Wasn't that a beautiful answer? God said, my presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And then Moses went on a little bit more, just didn't stop there. And he said unto him, if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth. And the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken. For thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. And then Moses said this, in verse 18. And he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. Nobody had ever asked God that, I don't think, up to that point. Nobody had ever come to God and said, show me thy glory. Now you've got to understand that Moses had went through some stuff to get to this point. To where he had such a close fellowship with God, to where he could say, show me thy glory. I'm convinced that many of us as believers never get to the point to where we feel like we know God close enough to where we can say, God, show me thy glory. Because we have not been willing to let God take us into the desert and strip us of our self. And we've not learned to fly on eagle's wings. We have not learned to live by the grace and the power of God. Because we've been afraid to turn our life over to Him. We've been afraid to turn loose of our safety nets, our little things that we've got to catch us in case something happens in life. My friend, the one that will cast himself completely on God, and that will just commit himself completely to God and His will, and will let Him do with him whatever He wants to with him, will know God. And he will come to know the goodness of God. Moses had come to a point, and so he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And you know what God said to him? And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. And he said, Thou canst not see my face, Moses, you can't see my face. For there shall no man see me and live. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock. My friend, God is trying to get you to a place in life to where you will see His goodness. And that's what He showed Moses. He said, There is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock, and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by. And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen. Now, our time is going away, and I want to finish this little story with you. But let me share with you how it ended up. You slip down to chapter 34 of Exodus, in verse 4. And it tells us that Moses, it says, he hewed two tables of stone, likened to the first. I thought this was pretty cute. God says, You're going to have a couple more tables of stone to have the Ten Commandments on it. Only you're going to chop these out. You do the work on this one. You and your anger broke the other ones. Now you chop them out this time yourself. But He said, He hewed two tables of stone, likened to the first. And Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up into the Mount Sinai. And as the Lord had commanded him, and he took in his hand the two tables of stone, and the Lord descended in the cloud. And this whole section right here is another whole subject in itself. I've got a series entitled, That I Might Know Him, that starts off with these verses. And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed the Lord. The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth. Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. And that will by no means clear the guilty. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped. And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us. For it is a stiff neck, people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance. Now I just want to share a couple of thoughts with you as our time is almost up. When God reveals himself, it is always in a way that we can understand him and know him. And God did that with Moses. Oh, he showed himself as being abundant in goodness and truth. And another thought. When we do understand and know him, we will have these two desires. We will have a desire to worship him as Moses did. He says he bowed his head toward the earth and worshipped. So many today do not care to worship him in our churches, in the fellowships, in their own personal life. Because they do not know him. They do not know God and his goodness. And then Moses said, I want you to go among us. And we do not want him to go among us. Because we do not know him. Paul said that I may know him. That I may know him. He had met God and found out that he was good. And he wanted to know him. My friend, do you know him? Have you been born again? Once you learn to know him, life will take on a new fragrance of joy and peace and excitement. But you must first invite him into your life to be your Savior. You must first repent of your sins. And come to him just as you are. Do not try to cover up. It does not do any good anyway. Come to him. And he will save you. And he will bear you on eagles' wings. Until next time, may God bless you. And remember, Jesus Christ is all you need. Is he all you want? God bless you, my friend.