Foundations Class – Session 2: What Does God Think About Me?

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Hello and welcome to session two of our Foundations class.
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In this session, we'll be continuing on and asking our second most important question we could ever ask, and that is, what does God think about me?
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You know, the two most important questions anyone could ever ask is what is God like and what does he think about me?
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And you know, last time we saw the essential nature of God and his character and how God has revealed himself.
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He is the God we can know.
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And so the question is, why is this foundational?
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Well, Jesus said it, and we looked at this verse last time in John 4.24.
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God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in in spirit, and worship him in spirit and truth.
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You see, you can't truly worship what you don't know.
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And so we noted several important realities about this last time, that uh God is a God who desires for us to know him, and what you think about God will ultimately determine how you live.
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What I think about God will determine how I live.
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Now in session two, we're going to look at this second question, not just what is God like, but what does God think about me?
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And so why is this such an important question?
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Uh I need to know what God thinks of me in order to rightly relate to Him.
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And when we think about this more deeply, there are really three, and this is not in your notes, you just write this on the margin or somewhere, but the three different perceptions of reality about who we are.
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Uh in other words, just speaking about our identity.
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And uh this should be uh no surprise to anyone, but there is the identity that the the person others see, and we would call this probably superficial uh knowledge.
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Most of us think in terms of what other people think about us.
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Do you think I'm likable?
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Do you think I'm smart, funny, so on?
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Uh do you like the shirt I'm wearing or the car I drive?
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Do I fit in?
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This is the the the person others see.
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Uh that's of superficial view.
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And then there's a second perceptive way of uh thinking about this, the person you yourself see.
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And this in uh some respects is a little bit better, but it's subjective.
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And uh, you know, I used to uh always be concerned when I was a teenager of having uh uh perfect hair.
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I live b back in the the 70s I would always carry, and I guess all the my friends carried a comb in their pocket, and we would always be combing our hair because we uh we thought this is uh made us look a certain way in the eyes of others.
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Uh but it was the way we saw ourselves, really.
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This is the person you yourself see.
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And then the most important really is this one is the person that God sees.
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And this is the reality.
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Sometimes uh the way people that we we uh relate to see us, that's not reality.
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Uh the way we see ourselves is uh subjective, it's not reality, but the way that God sees us, well, that's the truth.
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And uh what God thinks about you outweighs the superficial opinions of others, and it outweighs the subjective picture we often have of ourselves.
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So we're gonna cover this progression of beginning a relationship with God in this this time, and there's really four basic ideas we want to cover uh this time.
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The first one, and I'll just go through these in summary and then we'll go through them.
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Uh the first is man is a sinner.
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The second, man is the object of God's love.
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Third, man is forgiven through Christ's work on the cross, and then fourthly, man is the friend of God.
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And you say, Well, I've heard those ideas before.
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This is not new.
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I would just caution you uh to not pass over these truths too quickly or too uh lightly or with too much familiarity, because I always think God can reveal new truths to us as we even look at the old things that we think we know.
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And so let's just look look at each of these and uh really dig in and ask God to help us here.
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The first one is this man is a sinner.
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Romans 3, 10 through 12 says, as it is written, there is none righteous.
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No, not one.
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Well, that's an amazing statement.
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I won't in fact, uh, do this.
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If you got your pen or pencil uh while you've got your notes in front of you, circle the word none as we go through this, because it occurs four times.
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I'll just give you a hint.
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It's there four times.
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So circle these.
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As it is written, there is none, there's your first one, I'll give you help.
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None righteous, know not one.
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There is none who understands, there is none who seeks after God, they have all turned aside, they have together become unprofitable.
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There is none who does who does good, know not one.
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And so those four uses of the word none kind of hammers home for us the reality of one important truth, that is uh of universal sin.
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There is none righteous, know not one.
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Isn't isn't that an amazing statement?
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Just think of all the nice people you know, and all the nice people you know I would think of that I know.
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And uh think about uh all the people in this world.
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I don't know, several billion people.
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There's no one in the whole world that is righteous.
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That's that's astounding, really, because we know a lot of good people out there, but from God's perspective, and he's the one that gets to call the shots, there is no one who uh measures up to his standards.
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He's uh he's seeing them in relation to himself.
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And so this failure to be righteous in relation to and in comparison with God shows up in our failure to honor and glorify God as God.
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Uh so there's there's uh no one that is righteous, no not one.
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And he then goes on to say there is no one who understands.
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Uh you say, well, understands what?
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Well, no one understands what it means to honor and glorify God.
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People do not understand God, his character, his ways, and uh most people, and uh if they don't know the Lord Jesus, their thinking is is very often clouded, it's confused.
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They think that God is a certain way, or reality is a certain way.
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Think of all the people today who think they've captured the meaning and purpose of life.
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Uh they think their perception, their philosophy of life is accurate.
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Uh you know, maybe they think God is a figment of people's imagination, or or heaven and hell, uh those concepts are just that.
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They're concepts, but they're not they're not real.
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Or maybe why there's uh evil in the world, or that their their truth, their truth is the ultimate truth.
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And uh so in this uh second ideal where God is saying, there's no one who understands what real reality is.
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Uh and so that's part of what he's saying in this verse.
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And then third, he talks about there's none who under s who seeks after God.
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There's none who seeks after God.
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In other words, no one pursues God on their own.
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No one looks for God apart from his grace, which is his favor toward us.
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Uh they're looking for a God, not the God.
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Uh they're not looking for the God of truth and justice who is behind all things.
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They're often creating a God who they make up in their own mind or in their own image.
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And then he says they all have all turned aside.
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And that brings home to this idea human beings turn away from God and they seek other gods to worship.
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And so as a consequence of failing to understand, seek, and follow God, people become useless and do not practice what is good.
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And then he mentions one other thing here.
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He says they have together become unprofitable.
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There is none who does good, no one not no not one.
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He repeats that idea again.
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So I the question I would just ask uh all of us here is just do you struggle with this idea that man is a sinner, that there's no one in in the whole world that does good?
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No one has ever done good in comparison with uh God, um except for one person and his name is Jesus.
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But imagine that there was a camera that followed you around this past week and uh recorded all of your thoughts, and you say, well, there is there is one where I work and there's one at the the camera stop the uh camera at the stoplight.
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There's lots of cameras.
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Well, maybe what if you had one that followed you around and uh recorded all of your thoughts and my thoughts, and now we were able to press a button and on this Zoom call that we're uh you know, maybe on if you're watching this by Zoom, but if you're not, it's probably uh by recorded.
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But if you were able to push a button that would put them all on the screen so that everybody could see it, how many of us would want to be on that uh list or that uh camera shot?
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Uh I would dare say none of us.
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Uh but this is the description Paul highlights in the problem of sin.
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The original Greek word for sin is uh interesting.
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It literally means to miss the mark.
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In other words, all of us have gone outside of the boundaries or laws of God.
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And you can maybe just picture this uh, you know, if you shot an arrow at a target, and the target you never hit the bullseye.
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And say even you were an expert uh in archery, and you could never hit the bullseye.
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In in relation to what God is talking about here, that's the way it is with us in our life.
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We never hit God's target, his standard of righteousness.
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Uh Saint Augustine said this.
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He said, sin comes when we take a perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and try desperately to fulfill it without God.
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Not only is it sin, he says, it's a perverse distortion of the image of the Creator in us.
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So the reality is that we are totally helpless to save ourselves and restore that image of God in us.
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We all have been created in the image of God.
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We reflect His uh His person in certain ways, but uh there is nothing we can do to make ourselves righteous or restore that image.
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It at the uh the fall of man when Adam sinned, uh Adam and Eve sinned, that image was uh distorted.
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It didn't go away, but it was it was distorted, it was messed up.
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And so this is an enormous problem because what it means is that there's a separation between us and God.
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Uh Leviticus 19, verse 2 says, You must be holy as I am holy.
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And so if none of us are holy, then how can we have a relationship with a God who is holy?
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And none of us uh I don't I don't think like to hear, much less admit that we're sinners.
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In fact, that's probably the last thing that uh that people want to even uh you know hear about.
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But uh what do we do?
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We tend to try and cover our sin, don't we?
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We try to hide our sin, we try to make it where you know our faults and failures and uh things that don't uh measure up to things we know are not right or we don't do what we know we ought to do, we try to to hide those things.
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And none of us wants to agree that, for example, we're all liars, thieves, adulterers, murderers, etc., all at heart.
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But the evidence is pretty obvious, and uh God says we all have missed the target.
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And you say, What's the target?
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Uh well, Matthew 548, Jesus said it, he told us he said, You must be perfect, as my heavenly Father is perfect.
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He said that's a pretty tall order, a radical standard that goes far beyond any moral form of righteousness, and so that the goal that we have uh uh in what Jesus says here is that we uh mature and we grow into the very likeness of God, but uh this is not how we are without Christ.
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And so Jesus came so that we might become the righteousness of God, and he does that through what is uh is a gradual process as we come to know him.
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So this is foundational to know and to admit that I, even on my best day, am morally and spiritually bankrupt.
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To be cured of the problem, then I know that I, and we all have to first admit that I have an incurable disease.
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Bob Deffenboss said this, he said, the gospel is no gospel at all if it does not have as its starting point man's utter hopeless condition in his own sins.
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Those who are lost can be saved, but those who are not desperately ill and dying think they need no cure.
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There are those who think that the gospel should make much of the love of God, but that the wrath of God should be played down.
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This is not the same gospel which Paul proclaimed.
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End quote that Paul Bob Deffenhawney is exactly right.
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So this idea that man is a sinner, this must be personal for us, always personal for us, and not thinking, well, that's for the other guy.
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That's about that guy.
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No, this is about us personally.
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This is the great irony that we have no problem seeing sin in other people, but we struggle to see it in ourselves.
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Uh G.K.
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Kestron said Kesterson said, Uh, what's wrong with the world?
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A newspaper editorial once asked.
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G.K.
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Chesterson wrote in reply, I am.
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I am.
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So uh if you will, take your pen and mark through the words man is and write in the words I am in that verse.
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Man is a sinner and put in there I am instead.
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And uh, you know, if we're really honest, that's certainly bad news.
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But there is good news, and that's the second idea.
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Man is the object of glu of love, of God's love.
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And uh Alistair Begg said one time, at best we are but clay, animated dust, but viewed as sinners we are monsters indeed.
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Let it be published in heaven as a miracle that the Lord Jesus should set his heart's love upon people like us.
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And it really is amazing that God would send his own son to die in our place, to take the penalty of sin for us so that we didn't have to dying a cruel death on the cross, suffering and dying and shedding his blood for us, so we we wouldn't have to do that.
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Uh you know, recently I read a story that reminded me of that.
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It was written by a nurse, and uh it goes like this it was a busy morning, approximately uh eight thirty a.m.
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when an elderly gentleman in his eighties arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb.
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He stated that he was in a hurry and that he had an appointment at nine o'clock a.m.
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that morning.
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Uh she said I took his vital signs and had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour before before someone would be able to see him.
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You know, that's kind of how it is with us when we go to the doctor's office.
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I saw him, she said, looking at his watch, and decided since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound.
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On exam, it was well healed.
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So I talked to one of the doctors, got the needed supplies to remove his sutures, and redressed his wound.
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While taking care of him, we began to engage in conversation.
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I asked him if he had an adoptor had a doctor's appointment this morning as he was in such a a hurry.
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Um and the gentleman told me no, that he needed to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife.
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I then inquired as to her health, and he told me that she had been there for a while and was a victim of Alzheimer's disease.
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As we talked and and I finished dressing his wound, I asked if she would be worried if if he was a bit late.
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And he replied that she no longer knew who he was and hadn't had not recognized him in five years.
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And she said, this nurse said, I was surprised and asked him, Are you you still go every morning, even though she doesn't know who you are?
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And he smiled and he patted her hand and she he said, She doesn't know me, but I still know who she is.
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Isn't that that an amazing story?
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And I thought about that story, and then it it sort of hit me in that this is the way God loves us in spite of our condition.
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In spite of us not knowing him, God still knows us and he still loves us.
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Romans 5, verse 8 says, But God he demonstrates his own love toward us in that yet while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
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That's on your notes there.
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And uh if you would circle that word, take your pen or pencil and and uh that word demonstrate, circle that.
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It's a word that literally means to place in a striking point of view, to place in a striking point of view.
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And where did God demonstrate this love?
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Of all places, on a cruel Roman cross, on the cross, the place reserved only for the worst of the worst criminals.
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God put love on display.
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The one who was perfect, holy, and good and sinless, dying for us, dying for imperfect, unholy, even sinful and evil man.
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Um of the most difficult things to accept, I believe, is that God loves me just like I am.
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Uh we think we have to work to deserve our His love or receive His love.
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God's love, you see, though, can't ever be earned by human effort.
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Uh no matter what your past has been or what you feel right now, God's love has been freely given.
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It's a gift.
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And uh He didn't begin to love us when we received Him into our life.
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He didn't begin to love you when you were, you know, first coming uh to know that you needed Him.
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He did that before you even knew about it.
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He didn't begin to love you when you were baptized.
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He doesn't love you because you come to church or you are attending this class.
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Uh in fact, there's never been a time that God didn't love you and He didn't love me.
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Um God is the initiator then, and we are responders to His love.
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And uh just just uh as before in point one, would you mark through the words man is in this point and write in the words I am?
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Man is the object of God's love.
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Mark through that and write in I am the object of God's love.
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Man, thirdly, can be forgiven through the work of Jesus Christ.
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Colossians 2 13 says, and you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he is made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.
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Now I'm using uh having you use your pen a lot here, but I want you to uh really pay attention.
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Uh the reason I'm asked to ask you to do this.
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And so here's another one.
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Circle that little word in the last phrase of this sentence, the word all.
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All.
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And uh that word all means all my sin, all that I know of, and all that I don't know of, all that's been forgiven for all time.
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And so we think about all means all, all in the in terms of past, all uh sin that maybe you committed today, your present this week, and even future sin.
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Uh God has forgiven it all, and the forgiveness Christ gives us is uh is radical.
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It's extraordinary.
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God placed the sin of the world, all sin, past, present, and future, where on the cross with Jesus, and he took the sin of the whole world and he paid for it there on the cross.
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He took it and and delivered us, forgiving us of our sin.
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The power of sin over the life of the Christian then died there with Christ.
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And that's the truth.
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The act that Jesus uh did for us on the cross, it secured for us the certainty of salvation, for the certainty of forgiveness and certainty of restoration with God.
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See, the issue of of man's sin then has been dealt with once and for all.
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And now would you mark through the words man can be and write in the words I can be?
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Uh man can be forgiven to I can be forgiven.
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I want to stop here and say if you've not ever received Christ, if you've never truly trusted Christ and placed your faith in him and his work on the cross to save you from your sin, and then to to to go on into a into a a personal relationship with him, you know you can do that right now.
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Uh and I I just want to pray this prayer.
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You pray this prayer.
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If you've never done that, uh just encourage you to pray this prayer with me right now.
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And uh just praying together, just say it out loud.
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Dear Jesus, I know and admit that I am a sinner.
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I know there's nothing good in me, and I believe that uh you died for me and paid my sin debt for me on the cross.
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Uh Lord, I know that you love me.
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Would you just now come into my life and be my Savior, my Lord, and my friend?
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And I ask you that by faith in your holy name, because that's what you said, and I believe it.
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In Jesus' name, amen.
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You know, if you prayed that prayer in sincerity and in faith, guess what?
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You can know you have eternal life and have entered into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
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And the last part of our lesson today is really the best part, because after we come to know Christ, we can say that number four says this man is a friend of God.
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John 15, verse 5 says this, and this is Jesus talking.
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He says, No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends.
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What is a friend?
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Well, the book of Proverbs gives us uh several things that reflect the qualities of a true friend.
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Let me just give some of these to you.
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It's uh reality.
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We all know a friend loves at all times.
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A friend sticks closer than a brother.
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A friend reproves and rebukes when he sees a need.
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A friend is known by his good and faithful counsel.
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All these things and and many, many more are uh true when God becomes our friend.
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You know, uh in Exodus 33, we talked last time about how Moses wanted to see God and God sort of hit him in the cleft of the rock.
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And as Moses developed his relationship with God and he led the people of Israel through the wilderness as they came out of the uh of the land of Egypt and moved into the promised land, uh Moses became their leader, and one of the uh instances was where Moses would go up and uh he received the Ten Commandments, and he would come down and he would he would go into the tent and he would speak with God.
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And uh the Bible says in Exodus 33, verse 11, so the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend.
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And that was an unknown, that was an extraordinary thing that people saw it, and yet Moses uh really revealed that God uh wanted Moses to be a friend.
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So what does it mean then to be God's friend?
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And I think friendship is defined as one whom we we love and we esteem more and above other people.
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Uh we can think of a person who we impart and give our thoughts to, our mind, uh, more freely than we do other people, telling them things we don't tell other people, and sharing thoughts and and uh concerns and uh just uh fears and all these things with uh with one that we trust.
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And this is the intimate relationship God desires with us, and uh we can have that, all of us can have that.
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God desires it for us, and we I know uh would be blessed if we uh find that our friendship with God grows as we follow Christ.
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Now, I want you to mark through one other place here, and uh this is what we've been looking at here this idea of the word man, man.
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Man is a friend of God.
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And if you agree with God that you are a sinner, that you uh have by faith responded to Christ's work on the cross and received his love and forgiveness, would you just write over to the top of that word man is there and uh and just look at it and put in your name.
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Um put your name over the word man.
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What does it mean to be God's friend?
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Well, it becomes personal when it's you and it's me.
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And I just pray as we pray, let me finish our prayer, uh prayer for us to to this uh lesson we've talked about today, that uh we would come into these truths in a deeper way.
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And uh so, Lord, we thank you for your truth today in this second lesson of what you think about us.
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And Lord, we know that you love us.
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You proved it by giving your son to us, dying for us, and so that we can uh be forgiven.
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But more than that, Lord, we can be your friend.
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And we pray, Lord, as every person who is uh taking this class, uh that you would just reveal these truths in a deeper way.
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For we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.