God Made Me — So Doesn’t He Owe Me Salvation?
00:00:00.000 | Welcome back to a new week on the podcast.
00:00:06.280 | Michelle is up next with her question.
00:00:08.320 | Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:09.520 | I'm a 25 year old avid listener of the podcast from New Zealand.
00:00:12.360 | I work at a university and often have conversations with the academics and
00:00:15.680 | university staff alike who are all mostly older than I am.
00:00:19.440 | By God's grace, I would sometimes have the boldness and courage to speak with them
00:00:23.360 | about Christ and challenge their unbelief.
00:00:26.000 | The normal accusation against God that they would pose to me would go something
00:00:30.700 | like this, God owes us because he made us.
00:00:35.120 | To elaborate, they would say things like, if I can be a good father to my child
00:00:40.420 | and forgive him when he rebels against me, then why can't God do that for all of us?
00:00:45.560 | He made us after all, or God must bless us because he made us.
00:00:50.720 | And why all the mystery?
00:00:52.640 | God owes us the explanation to all this because he made us and put
00:00:56.640 | us in this place to begin with.
00:00:58.800 | Now, I believe that God doesn't owe us anything, but in fact, we owe him everything.
00:01:04.760 | However, can you please help me explain this better to my non-believing colleagues?
00:01:09.800 | Let me try to answer Michelle in three different kinds of steps.
00:01:18.880 | First, for her own encouragement and stability, it would be good perhaps
00:01:24.480 | to remember the words of Jesus.
00:01:27.400 | I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these
00:01:32.600 | things from the wise and understanding and reveal them to little children.
00:01:37.880 | In other words, Jesus tells us not to be surprised that high level academics will
00:01:45.640 | be among the most blind people in the world.
00:01:49.120 | The apostle Paul warned about the very same thing when he said,
00:01:53.480 | "Where is the one who is wise?
00:01:56.360 | Where's the scribe?
00:01:57.760 | Where's the debater of this age?
00:01:59.760 | Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?"
00:02:03.440 | And he gives, Paul gives the reason why God reveals these things to those without
00:02:12.440 | any worldly credentials like this, "So that no human being might boast in the
00:02:19.880 | presence of God, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."
00:02:24.840 | In other words, the underlying problem is pride and self-exaltation and a deep
00:02:32.440 | desire not to find our significance and satisfaction in God's
00:02:37.480 | greatness, but rather in our own.
00:02:39.400 | So that's the first thing I would say to Michelle.
00:02:42.240 | I don't think that should cause us to give up on proud academic types any more
00:02:49.040 | than we want anybody to give up on us.
00:02:51.080 | So the second thing to say is that Paul did give an answer to the question of why
00:02:58.200 | God doesn't owe us, but rather we owe God.
00:03:01.480 | And he says it in two ways.
00:03:03.400 | He says it in Romans 11.34 like this, "Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has
00:03:08.920 | been his counselor?"
00:03:10.760 | In other words, give him counsel.
00:03:12.040 | "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid for from him and through
00:03:17.960 | him and to him are all things to him be glory forever and ever.
00:03:22.120 | Amen."
00:03:22.720 | In other words, none of us could ever give counsel to God since he knows everything
00:03:28.200 | and all our knowledge is dependent on his.
00:03:32.840 | And so we can never put him in our debt by offering him any counsel that he doesn't
00:03:38.480 | already know as though he would then need to pay us back.
00:03:40.760 | In fact, Paul says we've never given him anything.
00:03:44.080 | We've never given God anything that would put him in our debt because everything is
00:03:48.960 | his already.
00:03:50.160 | Instead, he says in verse 36, "From him, through him, to him are all things to him
00:03:57.840 | be glory forever and ever.
00:04:00.240 | Amen."
00:04:00.640 | In other words, since all things come from God and are sustained through God, they
00:04:07.080 | exist to call attention to his glory, not our glory.
00:04:10.720 | That's the root issue of proud people.
00:04:14.600 | They don't like everything existing for God's glory.
00:04:18.640 | They want some ground of boasting in themselves.
00:04:22.200 | That's the first way Paul says it in Romans 11.34.
00:04:25.160 | Here's the second way he says it in Romans 9.20.
00:04:28.320 | He says that God is like a potter and we're like pots.
00:04:34.440 | And then he says, "Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?
00:04:38.600 | Will what is molded say to its molder, the pot, to the potter, 'Why have you made me
00:04:46.000 | like this?
00:04:46.760 | Has the potter no right over the clay?'"
00:04:50.520 | Now, right there's the key issue.
00:04:51.840 | "Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for
00:04:58.120 | honor, honorable use, and another for dishonorable use?"
00:05:01.520 | In other words, creation has no right to tell the creator how he should have done his
00:05:08.040 | work or how he should run his work.
00:05:12.280 | So I think Michelle should make that point, which she does, I think, and then let it
00:05:18.000 | stand.
00:05:18.560 | If people reverse it and say that the creature has natural rights to dictate to the
00:05:27.480 | creator, well, that mistake is going to be exposed sooner or later.
00:05:31.880 | But here's the last thing, the third thing that I think might, just might, open a
00:05:38.760 | window, a door with the people that Michelle is working with.
00:05:43.240 | Jesus told a parable, Matthew 18, 21 to 35, about a servant who owed the king a
00:05:51.160 | million dollars, actually millions of millions, just off the chart, zillions of
00:05:55.280 | dollars.
00:05:56.600 | The king canceled the debt for this servant.
00:06:00.560 | And when the servant went out, he showed that his mindset had not been humbled to
00:06:10.400 | the point where he believed he really was a debtor to mercy.
00:06:15.280 | Instead, he acted like he deserved to be forgiven.
00:06:21.280 | So he choked, he choked his fellow servant who owed him $10 and tried to make him
00:06:28.200 | pay.
00:06:28.840 | Now, I think that parable is very relevant to Michelle's question.
00:06:34.160 | Doesn't it teach that when we have the mindset that thinks God owes us
00:06:41.480 | forgiveness, doesn't that mindset of "you owe me" naturally lead to an arrogant
00:06:50.440 | abuse of other people?
00:06:52.120 | Not just God, but other people.
00:06:54.880 | And that's what might cause her colleagues to sit up and take note.
00:06:58.400 | The mindset of being owed, "you owe me, God," is the essence of pride, and that
00:07:05.880 | leads to the destruction of others.
00:07:08.480 | You can see it in history.
00:07:10.440 | But the mindset of owing God everything, being a debtor to mercy, expecting nothing
00:07:19.400 | because of our merits, but only freely in mercy and deserving nothing good from God
00:07:26.240 | at all, that leads to a life of brokenhearted humility and service.
00:07:32.360 | And Paul put it just that way.
00:07:34.640 | He said, "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as
00:07:41.520 | God in Christ forgave you."
00:07:44.520 | If you are treated better than you deserve, then you have the mindset to treat
00:07:50.160 | others better than they deserve.
00:07:52.760 | So maybe that might give a breakthrough to Michelle's friends and help them see
00:08:00.840 | that it is a good and beautiful thing to humble ourselves as debtors to mercy
00:08:08.360 | rather than demanding of others, including God, that they owe us.
00:08:14.200 | Amen.
00:08:14.600 | That's wise.
00:08:15.120 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:08:15.880 | And thanks for writing us, Michelle.
00:08:17.600 | That's a perceptive question that you sent in.
00:08:19.400 | And this is my chance to let you know that you can subscribe to our audio
00:08:23.480 | feeds and search our episode archive.
00:08:25.280 | And you can even reach us by email with any of the difficulties that you're
00:08:29.240 | facing in life that you would like some biblical counsel to address.
00:08:32.520 | You can do all of that through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:08:37.600 | On Wednesday, we're going to return with a question about how to cultivate
00:08:41.040 | deep thinking in a culture that makes it too easy to slip into passive superficiality.
00:08:46.920 | We all feel this tug.
00:08:48.640 | So how do we break free from the current?
00:08:50.960 | We'll ask John Piper next time.
00:08:53.720 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:08:54.880 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:08:57.360 | We'll see you next time.
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