Yesterday morning I was thinking about an interesting question - does God enjoy us and love us when we are sinners? It might seem like the focus of this would be to lessen our concern for sin, but my real focus is on our identity and how God responds to us. To properly consider this question, I think I need to go back to the definition of sin that I am using. The words for sin most often used in the Greek and Hebrew are hamartia and chata, both of which basically mean to miss, miss the mark, to miss the path. Their secondary meanings include sin, and moral fault or failure, but the primary meaning is to miss the mark. I like to use the bulls-eye analogy, if you hit the bulls-eye you have hit the mark, if you miss the bulls-eye by an inch or by six feet, you have missed the bulls-eye. So my definition of sin is missing the mark, and small sins *(missing by an inch) or big sins (missing by six feet) are still sins. The only person who ever lived a perfect sinless life is Jesus. Everyone else is a sinner.
If we consider the definition of the bulls-eye, I believe it to be what Jesus demonstrated, perfect obedience to the Father in every word and every action! He was the perfect representation of the Father (Heb 1:3) and He said that every word He said came from the Father (John 14:24), and everything He did was directed by the Father (John 6:38). When we look at Jesus, we are effectively seeing the Father (John 14:9)! If this is the definition of the Bulls-eye, then I can see how often and in how may ways I sin. Much of everyday I am unaware of God's words and direction, and thus must be missing the mark. I might get lucky and hit the bulls-eye with my eyes closed, but more often than not I will miss. If I am unaware of God's direction and words, I am going to sin.
Next we need to understand that God has made a plan to free us from the penalty of our sins, by sending Jesus to pay for them all! He did this while we were still sinners, as Paul writes in Romans 5:8 NIV: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Notice the motivation of God was love, WHILE we were still sinners. He did this for ALL our sins, the misses by one inch, and the misses by six feet. Paul again writes in Colossians 2:13-14 NIV: "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, [14] having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross." Again, while we were sinners, He forgave us, and cancelled the penalty and punishment through taking it upon Himself! He purchased all our debt!
So, if we go back to the original question, "Does God enjoy us and love us when we are sinners?", I think we must answer yes to the second part of the question. He definitely loves us when we are sinners!! His whole plan of salvation was birthed while we were still sinners, and it was because of His love that He did this! As we understand from John 3:16-17 NIV: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. [17] For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."
So the next question is whether God enjoys us when we are sinners. Again, lets step and look at the fact that God knows us perfectly. He knows we are sinners, and yet He loved us in our sin. I think we can safely say He Loves us in our sin, for none of us are perfectly hitting the bulls-eye every day of our life, and thus if He loves us at any point of our life, He must be loving us while we are sinners! I believe it is possible to love someone and not enjoy them, so that is really the question at hand. We learn from Psalm 139 that God knows us intimately, and created us exactly as we are, and is aware of every thought and every word, and every deed. In fact it says that every day of our life has been written in His book, already! In other words He knows everything about us, everything we have done, or will do, everything we will say, or think, every day, and in spite of this He loves us. Paul writes the following in his letter to the Ephesians 1:4-5 NIV: "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love [5] he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-"
Isn't that amazing, He chose us in accordance with His pleasure! To be clear, the Greek word used here is eudokia, and it is defined as follows:
1) will, choice
a) good will, kindly intent, benevolence
2) delight, pleasure, satisfaction
3) desire
a) for delight in any absent thing easily produces longing for it
We are chosen, with His kindly intent, His delight, His pleasure and His desire! He did this while we were sinners, but with His plan for our salvation already in action. He loves us! He wants us to be with Him! He understands our human limitations because He created us! He recognizes that we will all sin, and yet He is undeterred. He gave us every gift, every talent, every ability, knows everything we will ever do and say, and He chose us.
One of My favortite authors, John Piper, wrote the following:
"God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him. That’s the shortest summary of what we mean by Christian Hedonism. If that is true, then there is no conflict between your greatest exhilaration and God’s greatest glorification."
"In fact, not only is there no conflict between your happiness and God’s glory, but his glory shines in your happiness, when your happiness is in him. And since God is the source of greatest happiness, and since he is the greatest treasure in the world, and since his glory is the most satisfying gift he could possibly give us, therefore it is the kindest, most loving thing he could possibly do — to reveal himself, and magnify himself and vindicate himself for our everlasting enjoyment."
This is really some amazing stuff. God is most glorified when we are exhilarated! Think of it this way, if you give a child a gift at Christmas, and they are overjoyed when they open it, and then spend the next 4 days playing with that gift, you are aware of the perfect gift you have given. Not only that, but others are aware that you gave your child the perfect gift. Your child is so grateful and thankful that it comes out in their exuberance and enjoyment! If the child uses that gift in ways that you hadn't thought or intended, do you suddenly hate them?? Are you angry with them if they accidentally break the gift while enjoying it?? If you give them a bike, but they haven't learned to ride one yet, are you angry and judgmental if they can't immediately ride it?? THe answer is clearly now to each of these. Rather, as the gift giver, we give gifts because of our love for our child. We take pleasure in their enjoyment of the gifts we give them. We love them even if they stop playing with the toy!
God loves us! He loves us in spite of our imperfections! He loves us in spite of our sins. He chose us for His good pleasure, His delight! Our actions are all known ahead of time, while the previous statements were true, thus our actions and sins can't negate them! Thus, we must believe that God actually loves us and enjoys us (takes pleasure in us) while we are sinners. If this is not true, than I can safely say that God never loved me or loves me or enjoys me ever, for every day I miss the mark. I am led to believe that all the previous statements about God's love ARE true, and thus He must love me and enjoy me even while I am a sinner.
My point in this discussion is to bring hope and the light of truth to those that are under the false belief that God hates them, or God is angry with them because of their sins. Religion would have us believe that our sin causes us to be cast away from God and can somehow undo everything that He has already done for us, while we were still sinners. Religion would have us believe that some sins are so bad that God could never love us or accept us. Religion would have us believe that we must change our behavior to ever be loved or acceptable by the Lord. All of these are untrue if we look at the truth of God's love as described by Jesus (and recorded by John) and later by Paul.
My prayer for us all is that we come to understand God's amazing love, His pleasure in us, His desire for us to be His sons and daughters, and His amazing Good News!
Amen
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