 There's a spot in Jeremiah where God makes a stinging indictment. He says, the ox knows his owner and the ass knows his master, but my people don't know me. In other words, donkeys and cows have a better understanding of their place in the universe than God's people. We're somewhere beneath jackasses and cows. And he doesn't say the drug dealer doesn't know me. He doesn't say the pimp doesn't know me. He says, my people don't know me. And that has been my experience as I travel around that there are two things that many professing Christians are ignorant of. One, what is God like? And two, what is the gospel? Here's a Gershner story for you, Pastor Mark. He and I were doing a conference together one time and somebody asked him this question. Are you concerned about the poor, innocent native in Africa who's never heard the gospel? And his first remark was, well, I'm not sure which one of them is innocent. He says, but yes, I am concerned about them, but not nearly as concerned as I am about all the people in the United States who go to church every Sunday and have still never heard it. You can't over-gospel a congregation. But you're going to hear the gospel in this series, but we're going to look at what is God like. If you ask the average Christian, what do you know about God? He would say, well, God is love. Well, yeah, what else? Well, there is nothing else. Oh my, yes there is. There's at least 14 other things that God is. And that's what we're going to look at. We're going to start with the first one the Scripture speaks of, and that is the goodness of God. In Hebrews it says this. This is the most foundational truth there could be. He who would come to God must believe that He is. That makes all the sense in the world, doesn't it? Before you can come to God, you've got to believe there is one. Unless you're Pope Francis who says atheists will go to heaven. That's not a paraphrase. That's a quote. So the Bible says you've at least got to believe there is a God, and Pope Francis says, no you don't. He who would come to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. In other words, God is a good God. Now I want you to turn with me to Psalm 119, and we are going to begin reading in verse 65 through the end of the book of Revelation. Okay, you are paying attention. Beginning in verse 65, just three verses, four verses. You have dealt well with your servant, O Lord, according to your word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe your commandments. Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word. You are good and do good. Teach me your statutes. Now the life of David was not an easy one. It was pocked with infirmities and trials, perhaps as much as he was blessed and gifted, he was afflicted and tried by God. And yet in this Psalm, which is comprised mainly of prayers, David does what we all should do more often. David talks to himself and tells himself the truth. Notice David's declaration. You have dealt well with your servant. And then notice how that dealing well is defined according to your word. God deals well with his servants, but he does so according to his word, not according to our wishes or expectations. You may have heard as I have people say, well, if I was God I wouldn't do that. Okay, good reason you're not God. You'd have done the wrong thing. If it is good according to the word, it is good. Period, exclamation point. Now everything that happened to David wasn't pleasant. But experience was not what defined God for David and it shouldn't be what defines God for us either. Rather what defines God is God's word. This is the only infallible source we have of what God is like. And God's word is very clear about what God is like. Notice verse 68. You are good and you do good. What makes something good is if the Scripture says and defines it as being good. Not whether or not we like it. That's the universal hermeneutic anymore, you know. Well, if I like it, it's true. And if I don't like it, it can't be true. It's what God says is good that counts. Not what we say or feel. If God says it is good in his word, we can draw one conclusion and one conclusion only. It is good. Pastor Mark mentioned that I was a football coach. That was for 20 years. And I used to give the boys a quiz. I was a defensive coordinator. So I would say to the boys, when is it a touchdown? Yeah, Bob, when the ball crosses the plane of the end zone. No. Because we've all seen the ball cross the plane of the end zone and they didn't call it a touchdown. When the receiver comes down with two feet in the end zone and has control of the ball, nope. I've seen guys have control of the ball, get two feet down, and the guy didn't call it a touchdown. And so we go through five or six. Well, when is it a touchdown when the referee goes like this? That's the only thing that counts. When is it good? When God says it's good. David begins this portion of Psalm 119 with thankfulness to God for his goodness. And then he interrupts that Thanksgiving to beg God to continue the same goodness. And interestingly enough, he shows in verse 67 that this goodness came by means of affliction. And then he renews his praise to God for goodness and begs him for more. There used to be an old joke where a guy would say, I often hit myself on the head with a hammer because it feels so good when I quit. Well, that's not what he's saying here. God is always good to His people, but we are most sensibly aware of it in our afflictions. Some of you are familiar with the Christian personality, Johnny Erickson Tata, who at the age of 19 was paralyzed from the neck down and spent the rest of her life since then in a wheelchair and just found out she had breast cancer. Now wouldn't you think that at some point you'd have earned the right to say, really? This was the next step, and yet she sees that as a positive. Rather than a why me, she thanks God for it. Sometimes it may appear that He's dealing harshly with us, but the Scripture couldn't be more clear. Verse 68, you are good and you do good. So Thomas Manton, that great and noble Puritan, said that sanctification of afflictions is a greater mercy than being delivered out of them. In fact, David praises God for the afflictions that kept him from going astray and then he declared God to be good. Who of us would reason that way today? Now I won't ask you to do this because it would be too embarrassing, but if I were to ask for a show of hands, how many of you believe that God is good? Most of you would raise your hands. And then if I were to ask, how many of you feel like God is good? It would be an interesting thing to see how many hands stayed up. But if you don't feel that God is good, you don't believe that God is good. Your feelings and your beliefs have to go hand in hand. Feelings today have taken over. Everybody wants to know, how do you feel about that? It used to be, after a sermon, it was not uncommon at all to hear somebody walk in. What did you think about the sermon? Nobody thinks about a sermon anymore. How did you feel about what he said? Who cares? What you feel about it is irrelevant to everybody in the universe except you. Notice that God does good because he is good. You are good and you do good. Now that's true of everyone and everything. You do what you do because you are what you are. You act like a man because you are a man. And so when the wife goes off on you and says, what in the world is a matter with you? And you go, hey, I'm just a guy. Now that sounds funny, but that's true. Guys act like guys. In fact, we kind of worry about them when they start acting like girls. Sinners sin because they're sinners. Righteous people do righteous things because they are righteous. What we are determines what we do. Everything acts according to its own nature. In fact, if anything, we should have a little bit of respect for sinners. They are much more consistent with their nature than you and I are with ours. They're sinners and they never do anything but sin. We're Christians and we sometimes act like it. Nothing has the power of self-creation. Nothing has the power of alteration. That is why the heart must be changed from something outside us. That's also why we need to be saved from what we are every bit as much as from what we've done. If we weren't what we are, we wouldn't do what we do. And this is true of God as well. As his being is, as his nature is, so is his behavior. He is good. Therefore, he does good. Now the implications of this are significant. If God is good and does good, then he can't possibly be evil and do evil. You can't be something and it's exact opposite at the same time. You cannot be something in its antithesis. You cannot be good and not good. Now when we see something in Scripture, we realize it must be true and it must be valid until the Scripture tells us differently. For example, in the Old Testament, there is a command to keep the Lord's day holy. And it is the Lord's day. It's not the Lord's hour. You don't show up for an hour, keep your eyes propped open with toothpicks and say, hey, I've done it. It's the Lord's day. Now there are people who believe that since that command is not replicated in the New Testament, it must therefore be revoked. What kind of reasoning is that? How many times does God have to say something before we think he means it? Where is the idea of keeping the Lord's day sacred ever revoked? Where does he ever say, okay, you can stop now, Jesus is here. We must conclude from Scripture because God never tells us that he stops being good or doing good. So we have to conclude that God is always good and always does good. And God being eternal must eternally be what he is at any given moment. So if God is ever good, he must always be good forever. If God ever does good, he must eternally do good. And there can never be, and there never will be a time when he's not good and doesn't do good, that's simply not possible. So nothing that God does is not good. Now that is not the same as saying we will realize it to be good. But those are two very different things. I was doing some Merrill counseling one time and the wife says, he doesn't love me. And I looked at him and I said, is that true? And she says, no, I love her a lot. And then her response is, how come I don't feel that? He has nothing he can do to affect that. What she feels is completely her stuff. But he just told her what he believed to be true. I love her a lot. And those two things, what we realize and what we know to be true, have no relevance whatsoever, except to totally self-centered people, which is exactly what we are, by the way. But if God says everything he does is good and we say, well, that wasn't, where does that put us? Oh, you mean it was good for me to back my car over my own child and kill it? That was good? All I know is what the Bible says. God is good and he does good. I can't explain how a certain thing may be good. And it may be quite a while before we understand why it's good. Years and years ago I had a friend who was an assistant pastor at a church in Southern California and he and his wife wanted children in the worst way. Well, they wanted it in the best way, not the worst way. And they could just not conceive. And it was a source of great frustration to them until something happened, and I don't recall what it was, but they went to the doctor and the doctor said, if this woman ever gets pregnant, it will kill her. Oh, so it is a good thing that we can't have children. So, well, you can have children, but you can't have a wife and children. You'll have to pick. In fact, if there is a God at all, he must be good. For one reason, he alone would set the standard for what is good. How arrogant are people like us to tell God what is good? God is the chief good, and therefore he could never do or be better. God's as good as he's ever going to be right now. And as eternally good, he could never do worse. That's why complaining about God doesn't make any sense. Now, I want to make this distinction. It's one thing to complain to God, it's another thing to complain about God. Two very different things. Complaining about God is essentially telling God that he could have done more or he could have done better. And God is incapable of either one of those atrocities. I've often thought that when Jesus was on the cross and he asked a why question, you ever noticed that God did not answer his why question? Why have you forsaken me? No answer. Even Jesus didn't get an answer to a why question. And I think the reason might be is because Jesus knew there was no other way. If there was an easier way, Jesus, we'd have done it. Also something to consider is that as goodness itself, God's chief obligation is to be good to himself. It's possible that God could do something good too and for himself that you and I would not accept as good because we don't see what's in it for us. That's really how we define good. What did I get out of it? But God is more obliged to be good to himself than he is to lesser beings. If, for example, God did not love himself above all other things, he would not be good because he would not be loving that which is most good. And if God didn't hate and punish that which is opposed to himself and his goodness, he couldn't be good because he would be tolerating that which is opposed to his own supreme goodness. In love there's something of acceptance. For God, the love of sinner and his impenitence would be for God to accept the sinner and his sin, which God can't do. Don't ever tell anybody in your frequent evangelism God loves you just the way that you are. Now that's their problem. The way they are is their problem. That's not the good news. The way you are is why God hates you. He loves you when you're in Christ. You are accepted, Ephesians says, in the beloved, which is Christ, which means you're rejected in any other form. So self-love as far as God is concerned is the only option because there's nothing greater than himself that could lay claim to his affections. And if God didn't supremely love himself or his goodness it would be an injustice against himself. So it's a good thing for God to be good to God. And that's a better thing than for God to be good to creatures who are less good than he is, which is us. The more like God any creature is, the more goodness God has obliged to show that creature. The less like God any creature is, the less obliged God is to be or do good to that creature. Because to do good to a creature that's the antithesis of goodness would be for God to deny himself by showing good to the evil. As one Puritan Obadiah Sedgwick said, to show kindness to the wolf is to show hatred to the sheep. The Bible says we are to taste and see that the Lord is good. Where do we get that taste? It's in his word. Where we are said to feed on him. Now see where David evaluated the situation and the problem. Where according to David was the problem. Where was the deficiency? It was in David's comprehension and ignorance of God. So in the very next line after saying you are good and do good he says teach me your statutes. Since God is good and therefore he does good and since that knowledge comes from God's word then David petitions God to be better versed in the word and the law of God. He says teach me your statutes. Especially around Christmas time I think it becomes apparent that we get much more of our theology from our hymn books than we do from our Bible. So we sing about three kings. Where did you find out that there were three? All you know is that whoever the kings were they brought three gifts. So we assume they were cheapskates and only brought one each. Three guys, three gifts. What kind of kings are those? And we love to hear the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. It has nothing to do with Christmas and it has nothing to do with Easter. In fact as Handel put that masterpiece together he put the Hallelujah Chorus in the spot where God gets vengeance on his enemies in hell and then all of heaven sings Hallelujah. That may get a cheery song but that's where it comes. And that's where you hear it most is at Christmas it's a nativity scene which has nothing to do with it or at Easter it's a resurrection which has nothing to do with it. The only reason I ever doubt that God is good and does good is because I'm deficient in my knowledge of him as he's revealed himself in the Scriptures. So David says teach me more of the Scriptures because they tell me that God is and does good. So now the issue for me becomes what is my final authority? What's Pope Francis' final authority where he can contradict Scripture and think that's okay? How dare he? But we do it. Because if my final authority is me or my feelings or my experiences or my perspective on life then God may be good and he may not be good and thank you very much I'll be the final determiner of that but if my final authority is the word of God and that word tells me that God is good and does good then no matter what my feelings tell me and no matter what my experiences tell me and no matter what my slant on life may be the Bible is very clear God is good and does good and there's no discussion after that. End of story and that's where we'll find out if we are professing Christians who are actually practicing atheists. I remember when I was in Southern California and part of a very large singles group at Grace Community Church there were so many singles over 400 we had to meet all over the LA Basin particularly one I was in at about 30 to 40 singles and there was a fireman named Kelly and a school teacher named Helen who started dating and all the rest of us oh boy, one of us is getting married they got engaged seemed like a wonderful couple and then she broke off the engagement and she broke Kelly's heart so I went to her and I said I don't understand is Kelly a good man? oh, best man I've ever known you think he's a Christian? well he's an elder in the church he must be that doesn't prove anything but for her that said something I said you think he'd be a good husband? oh, he'll be a wonderful husband you think he'd be a good father? the best okay I just have one more question what's the matter with you? and she said my heart didn't tell me it was right you're what? she says my heart didn't feel good about it he's a believer he's a good husband he's a good father he's a leader in the church what's wrong with your heart? I said you realize that having a pizza at three in the morning can make your heart feel bad about a lot of things all the evidence in the world now I don't want to discount feelings and women's intuition and all that stuff but still wasn't this information significant so that your heart which you may have all kinds of psychological problems and issues with daddy and things like that that undoes everything else it's a famous story told about the late Dr. James Montgomery Boyce the young man came up to him after a sermon and says Dr. Boyce I just want you to know that I gave my heart to Jesus and Dr. Boyce says well what would he want with that dirty ugly old thing the only final authority is this this book now since God is good then all that he does is good because he can only do good if God could do both good and evil he couldn't be perfectly good he could be good sometimes and not good other times and then he might be evil and do evil at other times but that's inconsistent with the doctrine and character of God God is inherently and eternally good Psalm 100 verse 5 the Lord is good what else needs to be said the end of God's creating life and his creatures then was to communicate his goodness to those creatures if God is only good then revealing himself to us in whatever way he deems fitting is a communication of his goodness and he can't communicate to us other than what he is remember Satan's temptation of Eve and then Adam it began with trying to get her to distrust the goodness of God it wasn't about fruit and about food he said there are things that are good for you and God doesn't want you to have them now Eve was probably the last person to feel that way right come on haven't you ever heard the serpent hissing in your ear God's holding out on you you're going to have to do this one on your own his method in tempting her as it always is with us was to get her to think differently about God than what God had revealed about himself to her what did God say to them alright you're here in the garden look around you from every tree in this garden you may freely eat any of them well except one he's holding out that's the way we are if God puts one restriction on us he's not a good God that's the way kids are with their parents hey dad can I have the car tonight come on sure son here take the keys just be careful ok thanks dad you're great tomorrow night hey pop can I have the keys again so my friends are getting together over Jerry's house no girls no booze we're just going to watch ball games and play the Xbox sure every night for a week well sure son here take the keys then a week later dad can I have the keys tonight to the car not tonight son you never let me do anything that's the way we are we don't see restrictions as protections but as somebody holding our freedom in Satan convinced Eve that any restriction was not good God knows in a day you eat from that tree your eyes will be open and you'll be like God knowing good and evil isn't that what we all want to be like God and yet notice how Satan defined it you'll know more God didn't want them to know good and evil that's a knowledge that only God can handle I remember taking an abnormal psych class graduate class and I finished that class I don't want to know this stuff I don't want to know the aberrant things that people do I won't even tell you they're so gross even I won't tell you and it has to be really gross for me not to tell you see me afterwards God had placed a divine protection on Adam and Eve by his restriction of their menu but rather than trust that protection they interpreted it according to something other than what they knew of God rather than rejoicing in the of any tree part they rejected God's goodness on the basis of that except this one part but if God is always good and if God always does good then his restrictions must be good restrictions this led David to declare it is good for me that I was afflicted how can that be good because God had determined it best for David to be in an afflicted state and since God is good and does good and God did it therefore it must be good and we need to learn to think that way as well John Calvin was in his study one day and they came to him with news that his son had been killed in the battle I don't know how any parent handles that kind of information Calvin's response was it is the Lord let him do what seems good to him wow see I could never do that you will when you're put in that spot when you need that kind of grace God will give it to you he didn't give it to you beforehand say okay work on it for the next three months because something really bad is going to happen but at the moment you need that it will be there and you'll act just like John Calvin and just like the martyrs and just like the reformers who were burned alive at the stake you will stand strong for God because he will give you the grace to do that you'd have to argue this way from God's other attributes even if we didn't have such explicit statements from the scriptures as we've seen tonight if God is perfect then he must be good in fact he must be perfectly good if he's perfectly good he's incapable of being anything less than perfectly good if he's eternally must be eternally good if he's omniscient then his goodness is based on perfect knowledge of what is good and if God has perfect wisdom his goodness is based on that perfect wisdom if God's immutable incapable of change then he can never be anything but perfectly good if he's infinite then he must always be infinitely good if he's omnipotent he's always powerfully good and that could go on and on but the point I think is this whatever God is in his other attributes he is in his goodness because they always mesh together but there are some things about his goodness we need to realize first God is not equally good to everyone and everything he didn't make a plan of salvation or redemption for fallen angels like he did for fallen men I mean when the angels fell that was it there wasn't any Jesus to save them there isn't any second chance for fallen angels but God does that for sinful people like we are there is a general benevolence to all I don't ever use the phrase common grace one because grace isn't common and grace in the Scriptures always refers to something that has to do with salvation but there's a universal benevolence the Scripture says it makes the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous your evangelism would be so much easier if it only rained on truly saved people's lawns and you notice your lawn has died out you're not saved are you would you like to have a nice green lawn come to Jesus wouldn't it be easier if only believers kids got scholarships but God shows goodness to his sovereignty by being restrictive and remember God is more obliged to be good to himself than anything else God will always do what's best for God that is a truth that if we were to ever accept it and live by it would save a lot of attitude problems well it didn't seem good to me but it must have seemed good to God there's a dear man over in Scotland named Eric Alexander he is my favorite preacher in the whole world and it's an unfair advantage that the Scots have because with that accent they have they can read the phone book and people come forward well he and I were discussing the subject of worship one time and he told me this story and I'm going to do my best Scottish Brogue I was telling him this story and he started laughing and I said Eric it's not a funny story he says no what's funny is that you think we sound like that anyway he preached a sermon at his church in Glasgow and he said a young college student came up to him afterwards and said thank you for that sermon Reverend Alexander but I didn't get anything out of it and the way Eric tells the story after I composed myself I said to the young man young man whatever made you think that sermon was for you might it not be enough that God got something out of it where did we get the idea that this was about us this is all about God God will always do what is best for God God showed Moses his goodness when he wouldn't show him his glory God's mercy is not the same as his goodness God's goodness extends to more people than does his mercy God commands compassion for the poor when he may not have granted repentance and faith to the poor now God is good to all to some degree the psalmist says this his goodness extends over all but not equally to all yet in some measure to all every single sinner out there right now who could care less about God is God Aaron his lungs that's the goodness of God no one is totally void of the goodness of God in this life they will be in the next one third whatever God ordains is good because as a God who is good in what is good to come to pass but remember it will be good according to the word when God had finished creating he looked at everything he had made and he said it was what? good it must be so because that which is created will have the same nature as that from which it was created and God is as good as he is God Stephen Charnock was a great Puritan an assistant pastor to the great John Owen he said we as much undefy him when we deny him to be good as when we deny him to be God his being good is as necessary as his being God now look at verse 68 again you are good and you do good we see that God is good by nature and that nature is an active part in communicating itself to the creatures so whatever God reveals of himself and in whatever way he reveals himself must of necessity not only be good things but good means to a good end so it is good when God reveals himself and his word and therefore to withhold ourselves from the regular week in week out preaching of the word cannot be a good thing I mean when God says in Hebrews do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together there's a reason for that it's not good for you to do that however God action his providence must be a good thing because his activity is based on his nature when the angel told the young virgin Mary she was going to have a child without ever having known a man physically this story to me is an amazing story church tradition has always held that Mary was about 13 or 14 when the Holy Ghost came upon her and she was with child now you dads out here who have young teenage daughters put yourself in that place one day Mary comes to her father she says daddy and you dads know that there's always something bad coming when they call you daddy daddy can we talk well sure baby let me put the hammer and the saw down for a minute what's up well dad I'm going to have a baby excuse me oh no nothing like that it's God's baby Mary first of all you drop this bomb on me and then you try to blame it on God dad it's true dads would you believe your daughter I wonder if I would no I've never been with a man dad this angel came to me and said what's conceived in you is of the Holy Ghost Mary I'm going to need some time to process this have you told this to Joseph no I wanted to come to you first well I hope he handles it better than I'm doing okay dad I'll see you later so she trudges off and finds Joseph doing whatever Joseph is doing she says Joseph can I talk to you for a minute in that tone of voice you know something's wrong whenever Beverly says to me can we talk oh no what have I done now so Joseph says sure I don't know how to tell you this but I'm pregnant okay we know who's it's not who's is it what's God's first you tell me this and then you blame it on God poor Mary the angel came to Mary and said the Holy Spirit is going to come upon you and you are going to be with child and you shall bear a child and you shall call his name Jesus the first thing the angel says Mary blessed art thou among women you have found favor with God really wow that's great what form is this favor going to take well you're going to have a child well yeah I'm getting married in a few months no no no no without ever having known a man it's God's baby but you're going to have it and they're going to say you had a one night stand with a Roman soldier and you blamed it on God because you didn't want to accept responsibility for your promiscuity and they're going to call your child a bastard and everybody's going to look at you as whole life huh I wonder who the father is now I just think this is Mary my response would be is there anybody else God wants to bless is there anybody else that he's found favor with because this doesn't sound that great to me it's not what she said listen to the words of someone with a heart for God it is the Lord let him do what seems good to him what a heart it's therefore no lack of goodness in God that he chooses to honor himself by punishing evil by punishing evil God adds good to the evil it wouldn't be God good if God didn't punish evil God is good when he opposes that which is opposed to himself and his goodness and if he didn't do that he would not be being good to himself now so at this point we say yeah so what okay here's the so what this should be of great comfort to us all if God is eternally good then he never gets tired of being good or doing good one thing you should remember however long this series lasts God never gets tired of being himself you may get tired of going to God and asking for forgiveness but God never gets tired of you coming to him and asking for it because then he gets to act like himself and he likes that the infinite God takes infinite delight in doing infinite good to his people and he takes infinite delight in the prayers that solicit that good from him so God is never tired of our prayers I'm tired of going to God and repenting he's not tired of you coming to him and repenting and it would be a lot worse if he got tired of it than you did when we pray to God we're simply asking him to act according to his nature but he will always do the ultimate good and that according to his word not necessarily according to our desires two if you're in Christ and bear the image of him God can never be anything but good to you he must love his own image of goodness it's not possible that God could love something because it's like him and then refuse to do good to it thirdly see what an incentive to praise this is time and again the scripture tells us to praise God for his goodness 1 Chronicles 16 34 O give thanks to the Lord how come? because he is good that is so much the desire of God's heart listen to Psalm 107 verses 8 and 9 O that men would give thanks to the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men for he satisfies the longing soul and here's what comes next he fills the hungry soul with goodness 4 see how obedience is then just a response to the goodness of God Romans 7 12 the law is holy and just and good and last see how justified God is in his response to those who reject his goodness according to Romans 2 4 the judgment of God is only on those who despise the riches of his goodness and Paul is quite clear it's the goodness of God that leads men to repentance so if men reject the goodness of God what's left for them but his severity he says behold the goodness and severity of God you reject the goodness of God what are you left with his severity but it's what you wanted it's a choice you made and one you'll have to live with Psalm 3410 no good thing will he withhold from them who walk up right Psalm 31 14 I will delight to do him good let him do what seems good to him wouldn't you rather have it that way do good what seems to you God not do good what seems to me Oscar Wilde is famous for saying when the gods want to get even with this they answer our prayers just think to yourself all the things you've prayed for I will tell you what you wanted what a mess your life would be the Lord is good and does good let's pray Heavenly Father we thank you for this time together for the clear instruction from your Word may we now act according to what the Word has said and live gratefully in obedience because of your goodness we ask it in Christ's name