Is God Good? The Good Shepherd's Sacrificial Love

Devotional

Day 1: Wrestling for Blessing in the Dark

Jacob spent the night gripping a stranger, demanding blessing even as his hip tore. Faith isn’t a tidy victory lap but a limping persistence that refuses to let go until grace reshapes us. The story of Israel—"one who struggles with God"—reveals that doubt and determination coexist in authentic faith. Brokenness becomes the birthplace of new identity when we engage God honestly. True humility isn’t avoiding hard questions but clinging to the One who renames us in the struggle. [35:24]

“So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’ But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’” (Genesis 32:24–26, ESV)

Reflection: Where is your faith journey requiring you to hold on despite pain? What blessing might emerge if you refuse to let go?

Day 2: The Shepherd Who Bleeds for the Brambles

The good shepherd doesn’t erase wolves or thorns but lays down his life amid them. Jesus redefines goodness not as the absence of danger but as sacrificial presence within it. His "goodness" isn’t a philosophical category but a body on a cross, a voice calling through chaos. The earliest Christians painted this shepherd in catacombs—not as a conqueror of death, but as one who enters it. True goodness costs everything and offers nothing less. [42:44]

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away.” (John 10:11–12, ESV)

Reflection: When have you expected God to remove danger instead of meeting you in it? How does the cross reframe your definition of "good"?

Day 3: No Quiz at the Table

The open table requires no membership cards or theological exams—only hungry hands. Communion isn’t a reward for the qualified but a gift for the wrestling, the wounded, the ones still limping. Jesus’ invitation scandalized religious gatekeepers, offering bread to betrayers and doubters alike. This table exists because the shepherd’s blood was spilled for wolves as much as sheep. To receive here is to trust that goodness precedes our worthiness. [50:02]

“Go quickly to the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame… so that my house will be full.” (Luke 14:21–23, ESV)

Reflection: What barriers do you unconsciously place around God’s grace? How might receiving freely today change how you offer it to others?

Day 4: Goodness Is a Verb with Scars

Jesus reroutes theodicy from explaining evil to embodying love. When called “good teacher,” he redirects the term to actions, not abstractions. Divine goodness is a bleeding wound, a seed dying in soil, a shepherd’s corpse guarding the gate. It’s measured not in philosophical coherence but in scars that outlast suffering. Our lives become theodicy when our costly love makes the claim “God is good” believable. [44:37]

“In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16, ESV)

Reflection: Where can your actions—not arguments—answer someone’s doubt about God’s goodness? What costly love is yours to give today?

Day 5: Blessing the Unanswered Why

Faith doesn’t resolve the tension between a good God and a broken world but inhabits it. Jacob’s limp and Job’s unanswered questions become altars where we stop demanding explanations and start encountering presence. Theodicy finds its partial answer in a table where the wounded gather, a shepherd’s voice that still calls, and a love that refuses to abandon us to the wolves. Sometimes “God is good” is a defiant whisper, not a shout. [49:18]

“Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.” (Job 13:15, ESV)

Reflection: What unresolved “why” do you need to hold with trust instead of fear? How might your current struggle become a place of meeting God anew?

Sermon Summary

Asking for a friend names the kind of questions that live both outside the church and inside it. First Peter gives the reason for doing that hard work: faith should be prepared to give an answer for the hope it carries, not with airtight debate tricks, but with words and actions that can tell the truth about hope.

Genesis sets the tone early through Jacob on the riverbank. Jacob wrestles with God through the night, refuses to let go, and walks away with a blessing and a limp. The name Israel means wrestles with God, and that name says something honest about faith. Faith involves struggle. Faith does not avoid hard questions. Faith engages them with humility, because nobody has this thing fully figured out.

The question, “Is God good?” begins with a familiar line: God is good all the time, and all the time God is good. That line sounds easy, but it makes a bold theological claim. God does not have good moments and bad moments. God has one setting and one setting only, and that goodness has no off switch. But real life pushes back fast. The sentence “If God were good, then blank wouldn’t happen” gets filled up quickly.

Theodicy names that tension between a good God and a world that clearly has evil and suffering in it. Job wrestled with that question long before there was a word for it. Ancient religions often solved the problem by making the gods fickle and flawed like human beings. Scripture does something different. Scripture looks to Jesus.

Jesus asks, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone,” because goodness is not casual praise. John 10 answers what divine goodness looks like: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” The good shepherd does not promise a world without wolves, thieves, thorns, or brambles. The good shepherd promises presence, protection, and costly love when danger comes.

Goodness, in Jesus’ language, is not a status, a feeling, or a guarantee that nothing goes wrong. Goodness shows up as action. A good tree is known by fruit, a good servant by faithfulness, good soil by what it produces. So the goodness of God is not proven mainly by winning a theodicy argument. The goodness of God is displayed through lives that bear good works and point beyond themselves to the Father.

The table of bread and cup becomes the final picture. The good shepherd did not merely theologize about laying down his life. Christ did it. The open table, with no membership card, no doctrinal quiz, and no earned seat, becomes a sign that God’s goodness came first. God is good all the time, even when the world remains broken.

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Key Takeaways

1. Faith carries a holy limp Jacob’s blessing did not remove the wound from the struggle. Israel’s name keeps the wrestling right at the center of the life of faith, not hidden off to the side as failure. Mature faith is not the absence of questions, but the humility that refuses to turn questions into posturing or easy answers. [35:24]
2. God’s goodness has no off switch The claim “God is good all the time” is not small church language. It says God is not mostly good, occasionally good, or good when circumstances make sense. That claim becomes hardest and most meaningful exactly where real life pushes back against it. [38:13]
3. Goodness is love that costs Jesus defines the good shepherd by self-giving action, not by the removal of every danger. The wolves still exist, but the shepherd does not run like a hired hand with nothing invested. Divine goodness is seen in love that lays itself down when danger is real. [43:22]
4. Lives become the proof text A skeptical friend is rarely convinced by a tidy argument about evil and suffering. Jesus points instead to visible fruit, good works that cause others to glorify the Father. The goodness of God becomes readable when a life carries the shape of the shepherd’s costly love. [46:15]
5. Grace checks no credentials The table does not ask for a membership card, a doctrinal quiz, or proof that a seat has been earned. The invitation rests on the character of the good shepherd, not on the qualifications of the sheep. God’s goodness comes first, and worship becomes response rather than payment.

## [50:02]

Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[32:26] - Asking for a Friend Begins
[34:02] - Prepared to Answer Hope
[35:24] - Jacob Wrestles With God
[36:41] - Faith Engages Hard Questions
[37:34] - Is God Good?
[38:13] - God Is Good All the Time
[40:06] - Theodicy and the Problem of Evil
[41:43] - Why Do You Call Me Good?
[42:30] - The Good Shepherd Lays Down Life
[43:22] - Wolves Still Come
[45:20] - Goodness Shows Up as Fruit
[46:15] - Lives as the Main Proof Text
[48:28] - Goodness Without Credentials
[50:02] - The Open Table of Grace

Bible Study Guide

Bible Reading

1 Peter 3:15
“But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,” [34:36]

Genesis 32:24-28
“And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day has broken.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’ And he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then he said, ‘Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.’” [35:24]

Mark 10:18
“And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.’” [41:59]

John 10:11
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” [42:35]

Observation questions

In 1 Peter 3:15, what are believers supposed to be ready to give, and what kind of attitude is supposed to go with that answer? [34:36]
In Jacob’s wrestling story, what changed by morning, and what stayed with Jacob after the struggle was over?
In Mark 10:18, how does Jesus respond when someone calls him “good,” and what does that show about how serious the word “good” really is? [41:59]
In John 10:11, what does Jesus say the good shepherd actually does for the sheep? [43:22]

Interpretation questions

If Israel means “wrestles with God,” what does that suggest about the place of struggle and hard questions in a life of faith? [36:41]
The claim “God is good all the time” is absolute. How does that claim become harder when it meets real suffering, and why do people feel that tension so quickly? [39:20]
Jesus does not describe the good shepherd as one who removes every danger, but as one who lays down his life for the sheep. What does that reveal about the kind of goodness Jesus is talking about? [44:37]
If goodness is known by fruit, actions, and sacrifice, why are lived-out good works often more convincing than a tidy argument when someone is questioning whether God is good? [46:15]

Application questions

Where in life right now does faith feel more like wrestling than resting? What question, grief, or frustration keeps coming up, and what would it look like to bring that honestly before God instead of hiding it? [37:34]
“God is good all the time” can be easy to say and hard to trust. When has that sentence felt hardest to believe, and what made it difficult in that moment? [38:13]
The good shepherd does not promise a world without wolves. Where does life feel dangerous, painful, or broken right now, and how might Christ’s presence matter there even if the situation has not changed yet? [47:17]
Goodness shows up as action. What is one concrete way a person in this group could show costly love this week to someone who is vulnerable, tired, lonely, or overlooked? [45:20]
A reason for hope is meant to be given with gentleness and respect. When spiritual conversations get tense or awkward, what helps a person stay gentle without becoming vague or silent? [34:36]
Our lives may be the main proof text many people read. What kind of “fruit” do others regularly see in daily life right now, and what fruit does God seem to be growing next? [46:44]
Grace checks no credentials. Is it easier to believe that God welcomes other people than to believe that God welcomes you? What makes receiving that kind of open invitation difficult sometimes? [50:02]

Sermon Clips

53s

#GraceForAll

“``Now we worship the goodness because the goodness came first. We're responding to the goodness that's already been given even in the midst of a broken world. We're not applying for it. Not trying to win God over, and that goodness doesn't check credentials at the door. Jesus says that God sends the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, that everybody receives the blessings of God. In one of his parables, a king throws a wedding banquet and sends his servants into the street to gather indiscriminately everyone until the banquet hall is full. God's goodness was never a reward for people who qualified for it.”

31s

#LoveThatWins

“none of this resolves the issue of theodicy. It doesn't explain away the existence of evil. It doesn't resolve the tension. If anyone hands you a tidy answer for that, why a good god allows what you've walked through, be careful. They're probably trying to sell you something. But it does tell us where to look. Not for a theological argument that wins, but for a love that wins.”

42s

#GoodShepherdProtects

“We aren't left to figure this out in the dark alone. He says there's a sheep pen. There's a place of shelter. This world is genuinely dangerous. We know that, and we have experienced it. It is genuinely broken. God does not pretend otherwise. He doesn't promise the wolves won't come, but he does promise that he will stand at the gate in defense. And when it counts, when the wolves do come, he doesn't run away like the hired hands do, someone with nothing invested. Instead, lays down his life.”

44s

#WrestleWithFaith

“So the stranger renames him, no longer Jacob, but Israel wrestles with God. And two things that I think we gather from stories like this, and this one in particular. Faith involves struggles. It just does. It involves wrestling. It doesn't avoid hard questions. It engages them. And that's one of the things we're trying to do with our worship this morning is engage in hard questions, hard conversations. Jacob doesn't walk away as a champion. He walks away limping, forced humility. None of us has this thing of faith and life fully figured out.”

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Aldersgate United Methodist Church Huntsville, AL This sermon · AI assistant

How should Christians respond to theodicy's challenge?

What does goodness mean when suffering persists?

Who is welcome at God's table and why?