The Heart of God Towards Sinners
A few weeks ago I was standing on a beach next to the Hood canal in Washington State. A few families were there with kids running around and the air was cool with a kind of foggy mist that seems to uniquely cover the Pacific Northwest like a kind of cooling blanket. The sky above was mostly clear with the sun setting behind the Olympic mountains to the west. I was struck by the beauty of that place and that moment in a way that those kinds of places do. I asked again my very favorite question to ask in those moments, one of the most important questions any of us can consistently ask: What must He be like? The laughter of the children, the beauty of the sky’s colors, the glory of those strange mountains juxtaposed with the ocean water at their feet all combined to overwhelm me with a sense of gratitude and joy.
A.W. Tozer famously said in his opening to The Knowledge of the Holy: What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. C.S. Lewis spun Tozer’s question on its head saying: “I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important.” If you’ll allow me to reconcile two would-be friends, I think both questions to be of remarkable importance. Lewis’ concern must serve as the foundation. God is not whomever we make Him out to be, nor is He shaped by our opinions of who He should or shouldn’t be. God is the one unchangeably absolute person in the universe. As He reveals his name to Moses in Exodus 3:14, “I AM WHO I AM” Therefore what he thinks about us, his creatures, is of infinite importance when we consider our own lives. But Tozer’s point is that our own thoughts about God should, no must, conform to His own and should therefore be submitted to what He says in Scripture. And what He says concerning his own people- the people who cry out to him, who repent of their sins and plead for mercy and help, is simply and incomparably wonderful.
As we have worked our way through the book of Romans over the past couple of years we have seen some of the most glorious heights of His power and glory and work on our behalf in and through Jesus. Revealed in all of this is the heart of God towards sinners. What has been revealed in Romans, and indeed throughout the whole bible, is a God who delights to forgive sin. A God who eagerly welcomes discouraged sinners. A Father who does not wait for his children to get their life in order, but who goes to the uttermost to redeem them, forgive them and to bring them home. We must not minimize the horror of our sins, but we must never minimize the heart of God towards sinners who hate their own sin. As Paul reminded us in Romans 11:22, we must behold the kindness and the severity of God. His kindness towards us, his people, is staggering. His kindness towards us, his people, is the strength to renew weary hearts and anxious minds. His kindness towards us, his people, is steel poured into the spines of people who have grown afraid.
And so for the next four weeks, in preparation for wrapping the final chapters of Romans this fall, we will meditate on this marvelous gentleness towards us, his people. I pray that you will join us to meditate on these truths, and then to worship in response to these truths as we gather on Sundays downtown. We will walk through 4 ways God reveals his heart towards sinners in the gospel:
1- The Wrath of God Against Sinners
2- The Victory of God for Sinners
3- The Intercession of Christ on Behalf of Sinners
4- The Restoration of God to Sinners
Come and have your minds shaped by God’s almost unbelievable words concerning people like you and me. Come and behold what God thinks about us.