Goodness | Sermon | The Grove Church, Port St. Lucie

How Bad Are You, and How Good Could You Be?

Goodness must be planted in you.

Download the printable discussion guide (PDF)

Summary

Galatians 5:14–25 names goodness as the sixth fruit of the Spirit, and David Hancock, preaching at The Grove Church in Port St. Lucie, Florida, opens with the line on a tombstone between two dates and the question of what a life well lived would say there. He traces the Hebrew word tov back to Genesis, where goodness is the pulsing, life-giving energy Adam and Eve were meant to spread until Eden covered the earth, then names the problem: since the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, every human attempt at goodness runs through the flesh, a self-reliant monster that bites and devours even with good intentions. Using John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, he shows that goodness never grows out of us by effort; it has to come from outside, and Paul’s word for that is fruit. The sermon ends at the cross, where Christ, the seed of Eden, sowed our sin into Himself, rose by the Spirit, and gave that same Spirit to activate His goodness in us.

Key Takeaways

Goodness in the Bible is not rule-keeping but tov, the living energy of Genesis 1 that carries the potential to become who you were made to be and, through you, to make the world what it was meant to be.
Good intentions cannot make us good: the flesh is a monster that wears the mask of an angel, and all our effort produces is biting, devouring, and consuming the people we love.
It is good news that goodness is a fruit, because fruit means something from outside you has buried itself in you and is growing something new; Christ is the root, the Spirit is the vein, and the Christian is the branch.
Goodness is activated by walking by the Spirit and keeping in step with the Spirit, a daily, disciplined habit of admitting weakness and depending on the Spirit to animate the goodness of Christ, starting in the church and spreading outward.

Read Galatians 5:14-25 (ESV)

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Talk about it

1. If someone could read the line between the dates on your tombstone, what do you hope it would say? If your life ended this week, what do you fear it would actually say?

Good Good: What Does the Bible Mean by Goodness?

The word goodness has ancient roots. When God made the world He called it good, and when He finished He called it very good. The Hebrew word is tov, and it does not mean perfect. It means something closer to an energy pulsing with rich life, carrying the potential for completion and wholeness. Of all the fruit of the Spirit, goodness is the most active; it moves to transform.

KEY WORD: TOV Tov is the Hebrew word translated “good” in Genesis 1, where God looks at each day’s work and calls it good, and at the finished creation and calls it very good. It does not mean flawless or finished. It describes something alive and rightly ordered, full of the energy to grow toward wholeness, the way a healthy seed or a well-tended garden is good. When Paul lists goodness among the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22, this is the goodness in view: not mere moral correctness, but a life that carries and spreads the flourishing God built into the world at the beginning. The person marked by it has a backbone and gentle hands, like a gardener strong enough to pull weeds without tearing up the garden.

In Eden the Spirit hovered over the waters like a dove, the spark of all that goodness, and Adam and Eve were made to carry it outward: to have dominion, to cultivate like wise farmers, to grow Eden until it covered the earth. Even the land followed the pattern: a spring in the garden flowed out in four rivers to water the world. Goodness, then, is the potential to become who you were made to be and, through you, to make the world what it was meant to be.

Paul points to where that garden is now. Near the end of the letter he writes, “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10). The life starts in you, grows out of you, turns first to the church, and from the church to the world. The church has become the new Eden, the place where God’s presence dwells.

Talk about it

2. Goodness is not rule-keeping; it is life that spreads flourishing wherever it goes, starting in the church and moving outward. Where in your home, neighborhood, or workplace is there a patch of desert waiting for someone to plant something? What has kept you from planting it?

The Monster in the House: Why Can’t Good Intentions Make Us Good?

Like Adam and Eve, instead of growing Eden God’s way, we eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We redefine what is good and gain a terrible intimacy with evil, and since then we have not been able to stop eating. Even with good intentions we bite, devour, and consume the people we love. We imagine we are offering the world kisses, but behind the kisses are teeth.

The Greeks said the philosopher could reach goodness through reason; it is worth remembering that the serpent used reason to talk Adam and Eve into eating. Reason is a good gift, but a mind can build an argument for almost anything it already wants. The Hebrews sang a different song: “there is none who does good, not even one” (Psalm 14:3).

Into that debate steps Paul. There is a war in every person between the Spirit and the flesh, and the flesh is a kind of monster that Paul elsewhere calls self-reliance. Ask the monster to do good and it does not know how. It can wear the mask of an angel, but the teeth eventually show. Paul says it of himself: “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out” (Romans 7:18).

ROMANS 7:18 Paul’s confession that “nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh” is not false modesty. The flesh in Galatians and Romans is not the body; it is the whole self turned in on itself, determined to live by its own strength rather than God’s. That self-reliance can desire what is right and still lack the ability to carry it out. What a person refuses to name in himself runs free; naming it is the first honest step toward goodness.

Talk about it

3. A monster lives in the house of every heart, and we tend to love it and call it good right up until it wrecks our lives. Where have your best intentions recently produced biting and devouring instead of good? If you doubt that no one does good, would you run the experiment this week and try to love everyone, even your enemies, with a perfectly pure heart? What do you expect to find?

Fruit, Not Effort: Why Is It Good News That Goodness Is a Fruit?

Is there hope? Yes, and the first step is to admit the monster is there. For some that is easy; for others it is nearly impossible, because the worst kind of evil hides beneath pride and good deeds. A pastor who had destroyed his ministry through adultery was once asked by a seminary student why he had done it. He asked the student whether he believed in total depravity, the teaching that apart from Christ we cannot choose the good. The student said yes. “Well, I didn’t,” the pastor said. “I didn’t think I was capable of it, so I never put any guards in place.”

The hope is in the nature of goodness itself. Paul calls it fruit. Fruit means something from outside you has buried itself in you and is growing something new out of you. No one can nourish himself without food from outside, and no one can grow goodness by effort. Jesus said it plainly: “I am the vine; you are the branches… apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

KEY PHRASE: WALK BY THE SPIRIT, KEEP IN STEP Galatians 5:16 says “walk by the Spirit,” and Galatians 5:25 says “keep in step with the Spirit.” To walk is a habit, the ordinary pace of a life; to keep in step is to bring discipline to that habit, the way soldiers match their stride. The habit itself is complete dependence on the Spirit to make the goodness of Christ alive in a person. The Christian does not manufacture goodness by trying harder; the Spirit activates what Christ has already planted, so that it appears as fruit.

So how does His goodness enter and come out? Paul answers: walk by the Spirit, and keep in step with the Spirit. By faith Christ has made His home in you, a divine root system that lies dormant in far too many Christians. The Spirit is the vein that runs from the branch to the root and draws the goodness of Christ up into you. That is why Paul could say that when he was weak he was strongest; in weakness he depended most fully on the Spirit to animate Christ in him.

So there are two paths: become who you were made to be by the self-reliant monster, or throw down self-reliance, call yourself weak, and depend on the Spirit. The second is painful, because admitting you cannot do good puts the flesh on the cross, and the flesh wants to live. Yet the life on the other side is full of love, joy, and peace, so do not expect too little of yourself; God does not. Come to terms with the high calling to bring heaven to earth, come to terms with the fact that goodness is beyond you, and then, today, pick one person and bring a little Eden into their life with the other fruit of the Spirit: patience, undeserved favor, or simple forgiveness.

Talk about it

4. Goodness grows only from a root outside you, and the Spirit draws it up when you stop relying on yourself. Where are you trying to grow something good by your own strength right now? Who is the one person you will choose this week to bring Eden into, and which fruit of the Spirit will they need from you?

The Heart of It: How Does Christ Make Us Good?

So what happens when the God who alone is good comes into the world? He overcomes our evil with good. Christ came into a world of weeds, thorns, and thistles as a seed from Eden, a seed of pure goodness to be planted in us. He became a strange seed: He took all our sin and sowed it into Himself, claiming our evil as His own though He had none, and when He was nailed to the cross our sin was crucified with Him.

Then the living waters of the Holy Spirit hovered over the grave as He once hovered over creation, and raised Him from the dead. He rose, leaving our sin in death, and gave us the same Spirit to animate the energy for good in us and through us. Our sin cannot be mastered, at least not by us; He can master it, and He has.

It starts in the church, a people learning not to rely on the monster but on the Spirit. We learn here and practice here, then carry it into our homes, neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, and everywhere God sends us, until the city starts to look like Eden.

Talk about it

5. You are capable of so much evil and so much good, and the goodness of Christ in you may have been dormant for a long time. Where have you been treating Christianity as self-improvement, a decent person becoming slightly better, rather than death and rebirth? What would it mean today to stop relying on yourself and ask the Spirit to activate the goodness of Christ in you?

Questions This Sermon Answers

What does goodness mean in Galatians 5:22?

Goodness, the sixth fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22, is not moral correctness but the active, life-giving energy God built into creation. It is the potential to become who you were made to be and, through you, to make the world what it was meant to be. It grows in a Christian as fruit, by the Spirit, not by effort.

What does the Hebrew word tov mean?

Tov is the Hebrew word translated “good” in Genesis 1, where God calls each day’s work good and the finished creation very good. It does not mean perfect or finished. It describes something alive and rightly ordered, full of the energy to grow toward wholeness, like a healthy seed or a well-tended garden spreading life outward.

Does the Bible say no one is good?

Yes. Psalm 14:3 and Psalm 53:3 both say “there is none who does good, not even one,” and Paul writes in Romans 7:18 that nothing good dwells in his flesh. The claim is not that people never do pleasant things, but that apart from Christ the self-reliant flesh cannot produce true goodness; only God is good.

Why can’t I be a good person by trying harder?

Paul says the flesh wars against the Spirit, and the flesh is a kind of self-reliance that cannot do good no matter how hard it is told to. It can imitate goodness for a while, but something twisted always shows. Goodness is a fruit, which means it must come from outside you, from Christ, by the Spirit.

What is the monster in East of Eden about?

In Steinbeck’s East of Eden, Adam Trask tries to build a garden of Eden in California while married to Cathy, a woman the author calls a monster, who shoots him and leaves him sitting in a chair for a year. The novel pictures the biblical truth that a monster lives in every heart, and good intentions alone cannot build Eden.

What does it mean to walk by the Spirit and keep in step with the Spirit?

Galatians 5:16 and 5:25 describe a habit and a discipline. To walk is the ordinary pace of a life; to keep in step is to bring discipline to that habit. The habit itself is complete dependence on the Spirit to activate the goodness of Christ already planted in a believer, so that it appears as fruit rather than forced effort.

What does timshel mean in East of Eden?

Timshel is the Hebrew word in Genesis 4:7 where God tells Cain he must rule over sin crouching at the door. Steinbeck renders it “thou mayest,” meaning you are free to master sin if you choose. The sermon argues this falls short: our sin cannot be mastered by us; only Christ can master it.

How does Jesus make us good?

Christ, who alone is good, came into a world of thorns as a seed of Eden. He took our sin into Himself, and it was crucified with Him on the cross. The Spirit raised Him from the dead, leaving our sin behind, and that same Spirit is given to believers to animate the goodness of Christ in them and through them.

Vision for the Christian Life

The Christian life this passage envisions is a people who know the monster in them and have the courage to say so, and who have stopped trying to be what they cannot be. They wake each morning knowing they have something important to do: a flower to plant in a desert, a tree to feed the poor in spirit, a leaf to cover someone exposed. They are not decent people slowly becoming slightly better; they are sinners made saints, something new growing from the ashes. The water of Eden has been under the land the whole time. Stop digging with your own hands. Let the Spirit draw it up, and watch the garden grow.

Discussion Questions for Small Groups: Galatians 5

Download the printable discussion guide (PDF)

If someone could read the line between the dates on your tombstone, what do you hope it would say? If your life ended this week, what do you fear it would actually say?
Goodness is not rule-keeping; it is life that spreads flourishing wherever it goes, starting in the church and moving outward. Where in your home, neighborhood, or workplace is there a patch of desert waiting for someone to plant something? What has kept you from planting it?
A monster lives in the house of every heart, and we tend to love it and call it good right up until it wrecks our lives. Where have your best intentions recently produced biting and devouring instead of good? If you doubt that no one does good, would you run the experiment this week and try to love everyone, even your enemies, with a perfectly pure heart? What do you expect to find?
Goodness grows only from a root outside you, and the Spirit draws it up when you stop relying on yourself. Where are you trying to grow something good by your own strength right now? Who is the one person you will choose this week to bring Eden into, and which fruit of the Spirit will they need from you?
You are capable of so much evil and so much good, and the goodness of Christ in you may have been dormant for a long time. Where have you been treating Christianity as self-improvement, a decent person becoming slightly better, rather than death and rebirth? What would it mean today to stop relying on yourself and ask the Spirit to activate the goodness of Christ in you?

Related Messages in This Series

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Pastor David Hancock is the Lead Pastor of The Grove Church in Port St. Lucie, FL, a church where believers and skeptics wrestle honestly with faith and doubt.

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Read the full sermon manuscript

I’ve heard it said that the most important part of someone’s tombstone is the little line between their birth and their death. The line that represents their life. If someone could read your line, what would it say? No one wants it to read he was competent at his job; she was a mother who kept her house clean; he showed up for his friends when it was convenient. We want that line to represent a life well lived.

The Greeks had a word for this. The Good with a capital G. They believed that the good was the highest ideal, above beauty and even truth. But Plato believed that only the philosophers were the rare ones who could reach the good. We cringe at this because we all believe that we are the rare ones. The Bible is more offensive than Plato. It says, No one is good, not even one. God alone is good. What would happen to us if that Good came down? What would His goodness do to us? Would it destroy us or transform us? Much of the answer depends on how you respond to what you will discover today.

We are in our series called Christian Freedom in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, and today, my aim is that the little line on your tombstone would be filled with purpose and change the lives of all who you meet on that line of your life.

Galatians 5:14-25

14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

The word goodness is rich in meaning, and has ancient roots.

God made the world and said it is good, and when he finished He called it good good.

The Hebrew word for good is Tov.

It doesn’t mean perfect. It means something like an energy that pulsates with rich life, and carries with it the potential for perfection, completion, or wholeness.

Goodness is the most active of all the fruit of the Spirit. It moves with energy to transform.

Like the Spirit, hovering like a dove over creation, it was the energy that would spark an explosion of goodness.

Adam and Eve were to take the goodness, in Eden and grow Eden until it covered the earth. They were to have dominion and cultivate like wise farmers.

So not only was the Spirit the spark of goodness but there was something good in them, that was meant to overflow out of them as they built Eden out.

That pattern was also in the land. Eden had a special underground peaceful water that bubbled up and gave usually rich life to the land, and it peacefully flowed out from Eden, into 4 rivers that watered the earth. Perhaps Adam and Eve were to use that same water to cultivate Eden over the earth.

The man who is good has a rare combination of a backbone yet gentle hands. Bringing goodness into the world is like a gardener's strong but gentle hand, pulling weeds without destroying the garden.

The good man is the man with great purpose.

To sum it up: Goodness is the potential to become who you are made to be and, through you, make the world what it was meant to be.

What’s the garden for us?

Before Paul closes this letter, he says, “So then, as we have the opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

So this energy and pulsating life starts in you, grows out of you, and turns its focus first to the church, and from the church to the world.

The church has become like the new Eden, the temple presence of God.

Paul doesn’t mention this, but there seems to be a connection or flow from patience, to kindness, to goodness.

Patience we saw, is God’s hand holding back his anger and wrath for sin, like a dam holding chaotic back from swallowing us. Why? To give us time to find His kindness.

Kindness is God spoiling us with undeserved favor, giving us a lavish gift, an inheritance. All that is Christ’s he shares with us. Kindness is connected to goodness very closely. Kindness is the potential. Grace is the gift of Eden Christ secured. Kindness is tasting the gift, and goodness is actively bringing it around you.

Even more, goodness is the very life of God’s goodness pulsating in us, transforming us into people who bring heaven to earth, or Eden back.

There is something special about waking up knowing this is true for you. You have something important to do today.

To plant a new flower of Eden in the desert of our world, a new tree that nourishes the poor in spirit, a new leaf that covers and protects someone. You can be part of heaven growing on the earth. No big deal.

But, like Adam and Eve, instead of growing Eden God’s way, we eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We seek to redefine what is good, and then know a kind of intimacy with evil. Since then, we can’t stop eating of this tree.

As soon as we tasted the idea of evil, we couldn’t stop carrying out its vile purposes.

Even with good intentions we bite, devour, and consume those we love.

The Greeks said it was the philosophers who would reach goodness through reason.

I’d like to point out that it was the snake that used reason to convince Adam and Eve to eat.

It’s not that reason is bad; it’s good, but you can create any kind of argument in your mind to convince you that what is bad is actually good for you.

While the Greeks said that some people can reach goodness the Hebrews, sang in Psalm 14:1, 3: “They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good... They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”

Psalm 53:1, 3: the same psalm nearly word for word; “there is none who does good, not even one.”

Who is right? The Jews or the Greeks? You can imagine the online debates between to two systems of thought.

And in the middle of the debate Paul steps forward.

He starts off and tells us there is a war happening in all of us between the spirit and the flesh.

The flesh is a kind of monster in all of us. That monstrous flesh he also calls self-reliance.

Meaning, if you seek to do good by your effort, it’s only a monster, and monsters can’t do good.

They can wear the clothing of an angel, but deep down, Paul is saying they are monsters.

Paul says it of himself: Romans 7:18: “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”

Here is how it plays out in your life. You seek to do good by your effort and immediately the monster in you awakens. You say to the monster, do good. It doesn’t know how. It can pretend, but there is always something twisted in it. It wears the mask but eventually the teeth show.

We all have these good intentions to become good. To make our life matter, to have that line between our birth and death on our tombstone represent bringing some good into our home and world.

Yet, all our efforts produce is biting, devouring, and consuming. We think we are offering kisses to the world, but behind our kisses are sharp teeth ready to bite.

John Steinbeck wrote a novel about this. He called it East of Eden, named after the place Cain fled to after killing his brother Abel.

A man named Adam Trask comes to the Salinas Valley in California with his father's money and one intention: he is going to make his land like a garden of Eden for the woman he loves. He buys the best land in the valley. He hires an old Irishman named Samuel Hamilton to find the water, and Samuel finds it. It’s the best land in the valley and has all the potential for flourishing.

He tells Samuel: My name is Adam; I haven’t had my Eden yet, let alone lost it.

But Samuel starts to notice something about Adam’s wife, Cathy. She gives him the chills, and rightfully so. While no one knows it, even Adam, Cathy killed her parents in cold blood.

Yet she has tricked Adam into thinking she is the very symbol of goodness, but the author called her a monster.

Think about it like this: Adam is trying to build Eden, with a monster in his home.

Cathy gets pregnant, has two twin boys, and immediately after, she tells Adam she is leaving him and the kids. Adam won’t let her leave, so she shoots him in the shoulder and goes into hiding at the local brothel and eventually runs it.

For a year Adam sits there, in his chair with the best land in the valley, turning into weeds. He had good intentions. Plenty of money. A plan for Eden. But a monster in his home ruined it all.

Like us, a monster lives in the house of our hearts. We love that monster; we think it’s good, but in the end it shoots us, wrecks our lives.

Paul and Steinbeck may not have convinced you yet and if that’s the case, I’d just encourage you this week to try and really love as you’ve always meant to love. And with a pure heart, to be sincere in all that you say and do, and as the Bible says, love even your enemy, and overcome evil with good. After you try the experiment, consider the verse: no one does good, not even one.

Is there hope for you? Yes. The first step is to admit you have a monster in you. For some of you that might be easy; but some of you can’t. You have the worst kind of evil about you. The kind that hides itself under pride and good deeds. You are convinced you’re pure, and it’s going to be your downfall.

The church is a place full of people who know their own depravity and have courage to say it.

If you can’t name it in you, it’s running free in your life. Doing whatever it wants because you don’t think it’s there.

I remember hearing a story about a seminary student who tracked down a famous pastor who cheated on his wife and destroyed his ministry. The student interviewed him in private and asked, why did you do it? You had so much impact, and you threw it all away. The pastor asked the student, “ Do you believe in total depravity?” A theological stance that we can’t choose to do good outside of Christ? The student said, yes, I do, “ and the pastor said, well I didn’t. I didn’t think I was capable of it, so I didn’t put any guards in place to keep me from doing this.

Where is the hope after we admit we can’t do good? Its found in the nature of what goodness is. Paul calls goodness the fruit of the Spirit.

Why is it hopeful that goodness is fruit?

It means something outside of you has buried itself in you, and it’s growing something new out of you.

Think of it like this: Can you nourish yourself and live without food or water? No.

The same way goodness can’t grow in you by your own effort. It requires food from outside of you.

Jesus says, I am the vine and you are the branches, without me you can’t bear the fruit of goodness. In the same verse, He says, you can’t do anything apart from Him. That anything is connected to bearing the fruit. We need Christ.

So how do we have His goodness enter us and be expressed in our lives?

Paul says it like this, walk by the Spirit and keep in step with the Spirit.

To walk is a habit; to keep in step is to be disciplined in that habit.

What’s the habit? Complete dependance on the Spirit to animate the goodness of Christ in you.

By faith Christ has made His home in you. He is the vine, or divine root system deep in you, lying dormant.

So the Spirit animates, or activates the goodness of Christ, that sits in you, makes it alive in you, so it might be expressed as fruit.

So you have all the potential for transformation in you because Christ is in you, but to activate that goodness, you must stop relying on yourself to express that goodness and rely on the Spirit to animate the goodness of Christ in you and through you to the world.

The Spirit is like the vein that runs from you, the branch, to Christ, the root system, to draw up the goodness of Christ.

I told you this last week. I came to the terrible but relieving conclusion that I am weak.

I can’t become who I’m made to be and now finally I can stop trying to be what I can’t be, and can start relying on Christ to make me who I’m made to be. That’s why Paul says when I’m weak I’m strongest, because he, in that moment, is most dependent on the Spirit to animate Christ in him.

You have no idea what is in you. Yes there is a monster, but also, the very goodness of God is in the Christian, and for too many of you it’s been dormant because you aren’t depending on the Spirit to animate the goodness of Christ in you and through you into the world.

And for others, you have been rejecting Christ, thinking this whole Christianity thing is for weak people. That is true, but Christianity is a story of rebirth. From the ashes something beautiful grows. From sinners to saints. Not from decent person to slightly better man. Something completely new.

In east of Eden. A year goes by, and Samuel Hamilton rides over to the Trask place. He finds Adam in the chair. The boys still have no names. Samuel talks to him. It does not work. So the old man hits him, hard enough to put Adam on the floor. Remember goodness has backbone. And then he picks him up, and stays for supper, and helps him name his sons. There is his gentleness.

Now listen to what Steinbeck has done without meaning to. Adam Trask could not build the garden. He could not even stand up. Goodness did not grow out of him; it walked into his house from outside, in a poor man's boots, and knocked him down to wake him up. And the water was under his land the whole time. He just could not reach it alone. That is you, and that is us as a church, sitting in the chair while we could be growing Eden here, in our homes, neighborhoods, and workplaces. When a church wakes up the waters of Eden rise.

We either seek to become who we are made to be by our self-reliant monster, or we cast down our self-reliance, call ourselves weak, and depend on the Spirit to animate the goodness of Christ in us.

Can I confess a horrible sin of mine? There is a part of me, the monster in me that wants to grow the Grove by my own efforts, to prove I can do it without God, so I can show I’m worth something. It’s vile and evil. It’s the monster in me, and I’ll name it as such, so it doesn’t get out of control. That is the temptation in the garden. Build without the need for God.

I need to admit I can’t grow something as glorious as Eden on the earth, and ask God to grow in me and through me, what the monster in me would only destroy.

This is a painful process. It’s even deadly. It’s a dying to the self, to admit you can’t do good. The flesh in you is prideful and self-reliant.

To say you can’t do it is to put the flesh to death on the cross and the flesh wants to live.

The pain is to admit you are weak, and can’t do this without the Spirit.

If you can’t admit it. I suspect it might be because you have no idea the life God has called you to. A life full of love, joy, and peace. Of humility, and kindness, bringing all of that where ever God carries you.

Don’t expect too little of yourself; God doesn’t. But He gives Himself to help you become who you are made to be.

If you learn to turn your back on yourself, in the best way, a repentant way, and rely completely on the Spirit of God, you will be changed and will begin to change the world around you in the best way.

1st thing to do is come to terms with the high calling God has given you, to bring heaven to earth.

2nd come to terms with goodness is beyond you. There is a monster in you that you can’t kill.

3rd: Today, pick one person in this room, depend on the Spirit and bring Eden into their life with the other fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness. Be patient with them, spoil them with favor, or simply forgive them.

It starts with the church. You learn this here; then you bring this goodness into your home, then your neighborhood, your workplace, until all of us together do this and our city starts to look more and more like Eden.

In Steinbeck’s efforts to show how to grow Eden, he still didn’t fully capture our need for the Spirit.

He introduces us to a word, timshel. He translates it as though mayest.

The place where God in Genesis 4 says to Cain, “sin is crouching at the door.” It’s often translated at “you must rule over it.” Steinbeck, through a character, says, “you may rule over it.” He is saying you are free to rule over it. It’s your choice to rule over sin or not.

But he misses it. Our sin cannot be mastered. At least not by us.

Our hope is in Christ alone. We cannot master our sin, but He can.

So we ask again. What would happen if Christ came into the world? The God who alone is good.

He would overcome our evil in us with good.

Christ came into the world to take the power of our sin and destroy it.

Christ alone is good, and he came into a world full of weeds, thorns, and thistles.

Yet, He came a seed from Eden, a seed of goodness to be planted in us and our world.

He became a strange seed. He took all our sin and sowed them into himself.

Claiming our evil as His own, though without sin.

When Jesus is nailed to the cross our sin was crucified with Him.

He became the seed of Eden, the seed of pure goodness, with the potential to change you.

And then the living waters of the Holy Spirit hovered over the grave as He hovered over creation, and raised Him from the dead.

He rose, leaving our sin in death, and then gives us the same Spirit to animate the energy for good in us and through us.

It starts here in the church. A people who are learning to not rely on the monster in them to bring the good life, but the Spirit in them. We learn here, we practice here, and then we go into our homes, and learn to grow little Eden’s there, and from our homes, back into the church, into our neighborhood, workplaces, schools, marketplace, politics, and everywhere God carries us.

You are capable of so much evil and so much good. Choose goodness by depending not on yourself but the Spirit to activate the goodness of Christ in you, that has been dormant for far to long.

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