What Does God Think of You?
Rom. 3:19-28
October 28, 2018 – Redeemer
The question on the minds of people 501 years ago, the question which sparked the Reformation is a question you didn’t even consider this past week. “How is a man justified before God?” Or simply “What does God think of me? Is He mad at me? Or pleased with me? Is He for me or against me?” What does God think of me? Did you ask yourself that this past week?
500 years ago, the common folk in the German countryside, were terrified of God. They were sure that God was utterly disgusted with them, that they were far outside of His favor. Martin Luther, perhaps more than most, felt this, even though he had left law school to become a monk, even though he punished himself severely for his sins, even though his own priest would chide him in confession for not having any real sins to confess. When Luther asked himself, “What does God think of me?” he answered, “God hates me. He is an unfair judge and I cannot stand Him either.”
What question do we ask most often? It isn’t “what does God think of me?” but “what do I think of me?” Am I happy? Am I pleased with my life? Or am I tired of it? Do I enjoy my family or am I already dreading Thanksgiving? Am I a success or a failure? Am I looking forward with hope or am I looking back with despair?
The evidence indicates we are unhappy and unsatisfied with our lives (much like the people of the middle ages believed God was unhappy with them.) So what do you do when you are unhappy with you? If you don’t like your job what do you do? Complain about your co-workers, your boss, the direction of the company, after all it couldn’t be your fault. If you don’t like your marriage – you call your wife your ex-wife. If you don’t like yourself (and we’re seeing a lot of that these days) you change your self-identification. Boys identify as girls. Girls as boys. Marriage is now identified as any two or more creatures who are attracted to each other in any way. Why? Because for a man and a woman to have a good marriage requires sacrifices – and who wants to do that? If I struggle as a pastor I’ll blame it on the congregation or the pastor who went before me. Congregations blame their pastors. If you don’t like you, you’ll magnify the faults of those around you and use your own words to make yourself more pleasing.
Do you know what all of that really is? It is the very same thing that was happening 500 years ago. It’s called justification. You might not be justifying justify yourself before God, you are justifying yourself to you. You are trying to feel good about yourself, right about what you’re doing. There’s only one problem. Your words do not make it so. You can shout at the top of your lungs. Demonstrate against your oppressors. Use your tongue to tear down everyone around you, but you will still be you. And you, by your word, cannot make your life right.
There is only One whose Word can change you and the good news is that He does this for you at absolutely no cost to you. It might not be the change you want because it is you that is changed – not your wife, not your boss, not your enemy, but you whom God changes.
This is how the text begins – “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.” There’s two very important starting points for justification in those verses – the first is “stop your mouth” from talking about you. If you cannot even please yourself, you certainly cannot please God. You can self-identify as living, but you’re dying. You might identify as good, but God’s Word reveals your evil and sin. Be quiet. Stop talking about you – you’re the problem.
The second truth is you are “accountable” to God. That’s a financial Word there, but you don’t need to be a bookkeeper to understand it. You owe God – He gave you your life, your body, all you need to live, your parents, your children, your neighbor, your work. What have you done with His gifts? with your body? to your neighbor? at your work? to your parents? Children? Do you know what you owe God now? Your life – the wages of sin is death. You deserve His eternal anger and that’s an account you can’t reckon. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
You’re in a tough spot. No defense. Guilty as charged. No assets to pay your debt. “But, writes Saint Paul, “now the righteousness of God has been [made known] apart from the law … the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” You have nothing to say or give, but thankfully God does. He speaks for you and gives to you. He speaks in your favor when He speaks His Word Jesus into the flesh, when the Virgin Mary conceives God’s Son in her womb. Your word has no power, but God’s Word does what it says. “Let there be light” and there was light. Jesus commanded the four day dead Lazarus to “come out” of his tomb and Lazarus came out alive.
This is how God justifies you. The Father speaks His only-begotten Son into the flesh of Jesus. This Jesus of Nazareth, this man who is also God, does everything right, always. He cleans His plate, eats his broccoli, does his memory work, and obeys His mom and Dad always. He loves the politicians, the prostitutes, the poor and the powerful. He was born without sin and never sinned – not one sin could count against Him. He had a perfect record. Before God His account was full of all righteousness.
Then the Father spoke His Son onto the cross. This is the other side of making us right. Jesus, who had no sin, became sin for us. Saint Paul uses the big word, “propitiation.” God put Christ Jesus forward as propitiation by his blood. Jesus on the cross is the person and place where your sins are forgiven. His perfect blood, the blood of God, is the price paid for your sins. Here we come back to that accounting language of justification. In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting your sins against you (2 Cor 5:19). God was setting your account in order. Your sins were counted against Jesus. His life and death are credited to your account when you believe.
Right now, God speaks this to you. Jesus Christ died for your sins. When those words create faith in your heart, when you believe in the work of Jesus, you are declared right with God. His Word makes it so – God forgives and favors you in Christ and that changes you, completely.
God no longer sees you as a sinner, but as His son or daughter. You are no longer dying, but living forever. You don’t need to live for the approval of the world (or even your own approval) you have God’s. You don’t need to live for yourself, now you can look on your work and family as opportunities to serve others. God the Father has you, right now and for all eternity. He is pleased with you in Christ and His pleasure is better than any pleasure you will find in this world, because His pleasure actually delivers. In Christ you don’t seek your pleasure, but you are pleased to love, and give, and serve others. You don’t need to blame others so you feel better. Christ took the blame for all your sins. You’re forgiven and God favors you.
What does God think of you? What do you think of you? Stop asking, stop talking about yourself and listen to God’s Word. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (that’s what you’ve done), and are justified (declared right) by God’s grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. (that’s what God does for you.) In Jesus Christ God says, “You’re all right” – every sin forgiven, every blemish covered, the good work of Christ’s death and life is yours. You’re justified as a gift when you believe in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm