What Does Jesus Think of Me?

How we deal with life, even the little details of everyday living, depends on lots of things, but most of all it depends on how our hearts understand God. If we imagine Him as a harsh master, we will deal with life with much fear or even hopelessness. If He is emotionally distant, we will become cold in our own affections. If He is warm and friendly but completely powerless, then life is a matter of doing your best to live carefully lest you get yourself into some trouble, since if you find yourself in a mess you’re on your own. So, we have a question that needs an answer. But be careful. The best way to ask the question is not, ‘How does my heart understand God? What do I think of Him?’ There is a more helpful way to frame the question. It’s better to ask, ‘What does God think of me?’ Or even better, ‘What does Jesus think of me?’ I say that framing the question this way is better because, for one thing, it’s easier getting an accurate answer to this question than to one about how your heart understands God. The heart is so very deceptive. It will hide from you what you really think. Getting an accurate and helpful answer to the question, ‘What do I think of God?’, is actually very difficult. So, adjusting the question helps. There’s another reason why it’s better to phrase the question as, ‘What does Jesus think of me?’ Answering this question will give you some truth to believe. And as you believe that truth, repenting of whatever sin gets in the way, then your heart will understand Jesus better. And that will help you to live life well, even in the details of everyday life.

Fortunately for us, the way to answer our question is not to find a quiet corner and try to figure it out. Jesus Himself answers this question in the Bible. But He does not answer it with a long and complicated paragraph filled with theological terms. The way that He answers our question is by revealing Himself in relationships. We get to see Him in action and, in this way, we are led to an answer. And that is what our text is about. It reveals what Jesus thinks about His people as He interacts with them. Today’s text isn’t intended to give us a complete answer to our question, but it does provide enough so that we have something to work on.

Now it’s time to read our text. So, please listen as I read Isaiah 48.

Here, we see Jesus interacting with His people, His exiled people in Babylon. Does it need to be said that they don’t come off looking good. The opening sentence sounds great until you get to the last phrase. ‘Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and who came from the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of the LORD and confess the God of Israel, but not in truth or right.’ That is a description of a hypocrite. Everything on the outside looks fine. But there are real problems in the heart. Add to that the insulting sin of idolatry. Jesus knows about their idolatry. Listen to what He says. ‘I declared them to you from of old, before they came to pass I announced them to you, lest you should say, ‘My idol did them, my carved image and my metal image commanded them.’ And then, to top it all off, we are shown Israel’s stubbornness. ‘…I know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your forehead brass…’ This is not a pretty picture. Here are the people of God – in all their sinfulness.

Jesus knows all of this. So, what does He do? Listen again. ‘Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth; say, “The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!” They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the rock and the water gushed out.’ Instead of destroying them, Jesus rescues them. He redeems these sinful saints. He even pictures it as another exodus, this time from Babylon. So, here’s a thought that you need to meditate on. Jesus knows all about your sin. All of it. And yet, He is still determined to rescue you, to lead you out of this place of exile and into His Promised Land. Some of you come close to falling apart when you get a clear look at your sin. You think that Jesus has got to hate you now. He should. But He doesn’t. He is your Redeemer. He is determined to rescue you from every sin until He gets you to your true home. That’s what He thinks about you.

Now, let’s take the next step. Why does Jesus respond in this way? There are lots of Scripture that point to how His love for you motivates Him. And you need to see that and to cling to it. It’s the truth. But did you notice that Isaiah doesn’t point to that here? Listen again to verse nine. ‘For my name's sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off.’ The reason that Jesus restrained His just anger at the sin of those exiles was for the sake of His name, or as another translation put it, for the sake of His reputation. He did for Himself.

It’s still a fact that most people, these days, believe in a god. But when pressed as to what this god is like, so many of them believe that this god exists to make their lives work. He exists for their sake. That’s idolatry. The real God exists, first and foremost, for the sake of His own reputation, for the sake of His own name. He is the star of the show. We are the bit actors. That doesn’t mean that we are insignificant. But it does mean that the show isn’t about us. It’s about Him. Our role is secondary to His role. The story – whether you are talking about the story of redemption or even just the story of your life – the story is about Him.

Understanding this down deep helps a great deal when it comes to living life well. Understanding this helps when our hopes are dashed or when we are faced with suffering for Jesus’ sake. If we grasp our true role in the story, then in these kinds of situations we also can say with Mary, ‘Behold the servant of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to your word.’ We can say that because, after all, the story isn’t about us. It’s about Him. He’s the star. So, as we are handed the script of our lives, one page at a time, and we see that the story isn’t turning out as we expected, we can talk to ourselves and remind ourselves that the story is about His fame and not our comfort. He’s the star of the show. Our lives will work best when we see this.

There are those who react to this way of thinking. ‘This can’t be right. If I said that the story is about me, I’d be considered egocentric. Why can He say this and get away with it?’ Well, for one thing, there are the facts. The story really isn’t about us. It just isn’t. That’s a fact. It’s also a fact that the story really is about Him. So, Paul writes, ‘For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.’ So, it’s not being egocentric if what you’re saying is the truth. The real problem that too many have with all of this is boils down to one thing: pride. We just aren’t crucial to the story – but we want to be. We have been told that we can be like God, and we like that idea. That doesn’t change the fact that that idea came from Satan back in the Garden, and it’s still a lie. The story is not about us. It’s about Jesus. He’s the star, and we are bit actors.

So, on the one hand we are deeply loved. Jesus is determined to redeem us. And He does that at great cost to Himself. His love is more than fluffy words. But at the same time, we are not the focus of the universe. We’re not even the focus of our own lives. The most important person in our lives is not us. It’s Jesus. And so, that means that there will be things going on in our lives that we aren’t going to like. There will be those times when life is just plain hard. And we aren’t going to be able to enjoy all of the things that we have set our hearts on – at least not here. But that all just makes sense. We are bit actors in a story that really isn’t about us. Our role is to point to the star of the show. And if it takes difficult things in our lives to make Him look good, well that’s what it means to be a bit actor. So, we have two attitudes being balance. Jesus deeply loves us, and Jesus is pursuing His stardom through our lives. And that’s what Jesus thinks about us.

Listen to what else Jesus has to say to us. ‘Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.’ What is this? It is a lament. Jesus mourns the fact that His people didn’t listen to Him. If they had, their lives would have been so much better. He grieves over what we miss out on, what He must withhold from us. He feels no joy when He disciplines His people. This explains some of what Paul meant when he wrote, ‘And do not grieve the Holy Spirit.’ Jesus grieves over our sins.

At the same time, Jesus’ words are an appeal. Jesus yearns that we would enjoy the good that He offers. He wants us to have His peace, to enjoy His gift of deeply healed souls. He wants us to enjoy being holy people filled with what is good and right. He desires that these blessings flow from us to our children and their children to a thousand generations. And so, He appeals to us. It’s not too much to say that Jesus pleads with us. He wants us to be filled with good. That’s what He thinks about us.

Now, notice what He calls us to do so that we might enjoy His good gifts. ‘Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments!’ It gets back to obedience. But it’s not just some token attempts at keeping some rules. There is more going on when He pleads that we would pay attention to His commands. He desires an obedience that is thoughtful and thus whole hearted. All a slave needs to do is what he is told. But a father longs for his children to understand his heart. That’s what’s going on when Jesus says, ‘Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments!’ It is by means of your thoughtful obedience that Jesus gives you His gift of the good life of the Gospel.

Please bear in mind that the opposite of obedience to Jesus’ commands is not the failure to obey. The opposite of obedience is the refusal to obey. And yet, even when there is this refusal, the offer of redemption stands. All that is needed is repentance. So, to be more accurate, the opposite of obedience is the refusal to repent. And that is why that last sentence is included in our chapter. ‘“There is no peace,” says the LORD, “for the wicked.”’ There are those who refuse to repent even in the face of Jesus’ gracious offer of forgiveness. For these who continue to refuse there is no peace, no healing, no wholeness – not in this life and especially not in the next. Hell will be filled with nice church-going people who did many good things but who refused to obey Jesus. Refused. These are the wicked and it is clear what Jesus thinks of them.

So, back to our question. ‘What does Jesus think of me?’ I’ve given you the beginnings of an answer. I’ve talked about sacrificial love that redeems and refuses to quit. Jesus thinks you’re worth it. I’ve told you who the star of your life is. Jesus thinks that it isn’t you. He is the star of your life. I’ve told you about the importance of a thoughtful obedience. Jesus thinks that this will lead you to a life well lived and that refusing to obey Him in this way will lead you to hell. These are some things to think about. And you do need to take the time to think about them. But thinking alone will not result in developing the right answer to our question. The right answer is developed in the context of relationships. Your heart develops an answer to our question – ‘What does Jesus think of me?’ – by interacting with Jesus and then with others. There is a place for the lecture hall, but it’s in the lab that it all comes together.

None of us has any of this down pat. But that’s okay. Jesus doesn’t expect us to. That’s why He has given us His Spirit. He works with us to change us until we get this right. And we will, bit by bit by bit. So, here’s what you do. Pray. And the prayer can be really simple. ‘Lord, help me to get this.’ That will be good enough.