The Loving Father

Every now and again I read a quote in a book that just seems to leap off the page in front of me. This morning it happened twice while I was reading the same book, “The Discipline of Grace” by Jerry Bridges.

The first was a quote from Charles Hodge in his commentary on Romans. Read it slowly and carefully.

“The great difficulty with many Christians is that they cannot persuade themselves that Christ (or God) loves them; and the reason why they cannot feel confident of the love of God, is, that they know they do not deserve his love, on the contrary, that they are in the highest degree unlovely. How can the infinitely pure God love those who are defiled with sin, who are proud, selfish, discontented, ungrateful, disobedient? This, indeed, is hard to believe. But it is the very thing we are required to believe, not only as the condition of peace and hope, but as the condition of salvation. If our hope of God’s mercy and love is founded on our own goodness or attractiveness, it is a false hope. We must believe that his love is gratuitous, mysterious, without any known or conceivable cause, certainly without the cause of loveliness in its object; that it is, in short, what it is so often declared to be in the Bible, analogous to (comparable to) the love of a parent for its child. A father’s or mother’s love is independent of the attractiveness of its object, and often in spite of its deformity.”

When we doubt God’s love for us because we think there is something about us that makes us unloveable in his sight, we do God a disservice. God does not love us because of what we’re like, he loves us in spite of what we’re like, and he gives us his Son as proof.

The second quote comes from John Owen. As Bridges points out, Owen was not soft on sin, he took it extremely seriously. Here is what Owen said about the Christian’s attitude towards God’s love in “Communion with God”.

“The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you.”

I find those words to be both humbling, and tremendously reassuring.

Here’s Bridges comments on what Owen said;

“Does that sentence surprise you? Would you have expected Owen to say that the greatest sorrow and burden we can lay on the Father is to commit some scandalous sin? Isn’t that the way we tend to think of God, more as our Judge than as our Father? That is because we do not keep the gospel constantly before us. Owen was definitely not soft on sin, but he was more concerned that we keep before us the gospel: the love of God revealed in His Son Jesus Christ.”


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Because You're Worth It?

I know it’s not Christmas yet, but it’s getting close. Close enough for me to start preparing for the sermon I’ve got to preach on 20^th December. I’ve decided to go with Luke 1:26-38 where the angel Gabriel comes to Mary and tells her that she’s going to have a baby, and she’s to call him Jesus. Now I’m not going to give the whole sermon away because the chances are some of you reading this will be in church the morning I preach it. However, read on for something that’s struck me from verses 28-30 that I’d not noticed before.

I preached this passage on a camp during the summer, and I have to confess that I got at least one thing wrong. In verse 28 Gabriel appears to Mary with a message. In verse 29 Mary is troubled, or as many versions have it, “greatly troubled”.

Why was Mary troubled? In the summer my answer was that she must have been scared because there’s an angel stood in front of her and that would be a pretty frightening thing. It sounds feasible at least! But now, I don’t think that’s the answer to the question, "Why was Mary troubled?" Verse 29 says not that Mary was greatly troubled at the appearance of an angel, but, “at the saying”. It wasn’t what Gabriel looked like, it was what Gabriel said.

So what were the troubling words that God’s messenger Gabriel said?

“Greetings, O favoured one, the Lord is with you.”

Now I don’t know what you think, but those don’t seem to be particularly troubling words do they? Why would anyone be troubled by being told that God had favoured them, and was with them? That’s good news isn’t it?

So why was Mary troubled then? Why did she need to be told that she shouldn’t be afraid, v30? What is it about those words that’s got her so worried?

This is where a little bit of Greek comes in handy. The word translated “troubled” or “greatly troubled” in v29 is the Greek word dietarachthe. It means greatly perplexed, perplexed to the point of being troubled.

When Mary heard those words, “Greetings, O favoured one, the Lord is with you”, her instant reaction was one of, “surely that can’t be right, surely these words can’t be meant for me, it doesn't make sense."

We live in a culture that likes to tell us, “You’re worth it”, and that if you don’t think “You’re worth it” then you need to work on your self esteem, because really you are.

That’s not what Mary felt though, her reaction to Gabriel’s message was not, ”Well that makes perfect sense. Of course God has favoured me, and is present with me, I’m worth it!” She was perplexed and troubled because she knew she wasn’t worth it – there was no discernable reason as to why God would favour her in any particular way.

I think Mary’s attitude was absolutely correct. She was not worthy of God’s favour, so the angel’s words should in so many ways have been perplexing and troubling to her. It doesn’t appear to add up. How could God favour her?

So how does God, through the angel Gabriel, deal with Mary’s troubled state of mind and heart? Will he find some virtue in Mary to justify his favour towards her? No. Will he say “actually, you’re right, you don’t deserve it, I’ll go and find someone else to bless”? No.

The reply is simple and to the point in v30, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God.” Read that sentence with emphasis on the word “have”.

Because God is a God of grace, a God who gives out undeserved favour and blessing, he can show favour, he can show grace, to whoever he pleases. Our failings won’t get in the way of that because they’re dealt with in Christ.

God is gracious to those who know they don’t deserve it. And to those who are perplexed and troubled by the fact that they don’t deserve it, he says that in Christ, “you have found favour with God”.


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