a popular film critic recently reviewed all the  movies he’d seen over the course of his career and   he made a list of the films he said these films  are so bad that they’re good in some movies the   plot is so weak the acting so poor the production  so flawed that the movies are worth watching just   so we can laugh at them and these movies have  created a cult following for being so laughably   bad they gather together to watch these movies  not because they’re good but because they’re so   bad our world has a hard time distinguishing  between good and bad our cultural values are

changing so quickly that virtues once prized  are now scorned and behavior once condemned is   now celebrated the prophet Isaiah anticipated this  when he wrote woe to those who call evil good and   good evil and put darkness for light and light  for darkness who put bitter for sweet and sweet   for bitter social scientists are scrambling to  try to redefine human goodness they have a hard   time breaking free from all the traditional  values in fact in a USA Today article are you   a good person morality experts say this is how to  find out whether you’re a good person or not what

does it actually mean to be good they right social  psychologists and religious leaders say we see eye   to eye on the big stuff we believe it’s good to  be kind and fair and just it’s bad to cheat and   murder and steal evidence suggests we’re all born  with some innate sense of morality and fairness   which makes us sensitive to the distress of  others in this postmodern age of relative   values I find this a fascinating admission even  non-religious people instinctively know there   is a moral standard somewhere in the universe  and that good and bad are objective realities

even amid shifting morals and manners we want  to be good people better people in fact over the   last two years the Marist Poll that chronicles our  New Year’s resolution reports that being a better   person has now topped the perennial favorite  of losing weight everybody wants to be a better   person even more than they want to lose weight  but goodness is so much more than the secular   writers can convey goodness is an attribute of God  himself and until we see goodness as God is good   we really don’t understand it at all by the way  where do you think we got the English word good

it is just God with an extra Oh one of the first  prayers we teach our children to pray when they   start to grow up in the faith is God is good god  is great and we thank him for our food well when   we say that what do we mean what do we mean when  we say that God is good the Bible presents this   truth over and over again I could spend the whole  time of my message just quoting you passages from   the Bible where we are told about the goodness  of God exodus 34:6 says the Lord the Lord God   merciful and gracious long-suffering and abounding  in goodness 1st chronicles 16 34 says oh give

thanks to the Lord for he is good some 30 4:8  says o taste and see that the Lord is good when   I say God is good I mean he is gracious I mean  he is merciful when I say that God is good I’m   talking about his perfection and his excellence  but the more I studied this word in the Bible   the more one central concept seems to jump out at  me it seems to me that God’s goodness is conveyed   mostly in his generosity perhaps God’s quality  of goodness means far more than his generosity   but it certainly includes his infinitely generous  attitude toward you and me by nature God longs to