Q&A: Does God Care About Me?

I realized last week I did a very poor job of talking efficiently through our Q&A. You guys left a ton of questions that are still left unanswered, so I’m going to try to do something new to help me be efficient and get through the questions that you have. I’ll do a fast Q&A before the lesson each week. We’ll see how this goes.

If you don’t have a note sheet, raise your hand. Cameron and Kiki are handing those out—and pens—because we will be taking notes today.

Our first question before we get into the lesson on “Ask Pastor Jake” is: “How do I join band?” Thank you for asking. That’s a great question. All you have to do is ask Kris Drent—Mr. Drent, who led us in worship today. Just talk to him, and he’ll work you in. Even if you’re not yet ready to play in front of people but want to learn or want to serve the church through music, you can come and practice. They have a little devotional; he’ll care for your heart. Chris is the answer—if you want to join band, talk to Kris.

That might have been the fastest Q&A question I’ve ever done.

Now, this was a really good question: Whenever you feel like God doesn’t care about you, what are good passages to go to for reassurance?

What I love about the question is that you see: it’s when I feel like God doesn’t care. So you address what you feel with what you know is real. If it’s in God’s Word, you know it’s true. Hopefully, when you ask this question, you’re asking it saying, “I feel like God doesn’t care about me, but I know that’s not true. Can you give me truth to preach to my own heart? Can you give me truth that the Holy Spirit would love to use to help me know the truth of how God feels toward me?”

Here are some really good passages. If you ask this question or if you ever struggle with this, you might want to write these down:

• Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted.” Often, when you’re brokenhearted, you feel like the Lord is far away, but the Bible assures you He is near, especially if you cry out to Him.
• Romans 8:38: “For I am sure that neither death nor life nor anything else, no matter what’s going on in my life, will be able to separate us Christians from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”
• 1 Peter 5: This is one of my favorite verses. I’ve actually felt what this question is asking before. If you’ve ever been in our living room, you’ll see this verse painted on a blackboard above the fireplace because I need to preach this to myself. It says, “Casting all your anxieties on Him.” So, I’m anxious. I feel like God doesn’t care—what do I do? I cast my anxieties on Him. And then he gives a reason. Does anybody know what that reason is? Because He cares for you. Look at that every day: because He cares for you.
• Isaiah 41:10: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
• Hebrews 13:5: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
• Galatians 2:20: “Jesus loved me and gave himself for me.” If you ever feel like you’re too insignificant, you’ve sinned too much, or you feel like God doesn’t care for you—look to the cross. The Bible doesn’t just say Jesus died for the world, but for you, personally, if you would turn to Jesus. Paul says, “Jesus loved me.” Not just us, but “me.” Even while I was His enemy, dead in my sins, He loved me and gave Himself for me.

So, when doubts come, run to Scripture, not just your feelings. Preach truth to yourself: God is near, God cares, God hasn’t left me. Then turn to Him in faith. Pray these verses back to Him. This isn’t a promise of an easy life; it doesn’t mean no suffering, but it means God is with you in suffering. God’s presence, God’s care for you, has nothing to do with your feelings. You’ll likely need to preach that truth to your feelings.

God’s love and care for you is not conditional on your performance. Sometimes I feel like I’m obeying well, and it feels easy to pray, but what’s really going on is that I feel good about praying because I think God is pretty impressed with me. You must never think that way. God is not more near to you when you’re doing well, as if He approves of you, so now He accepts you, and when you sin, you need to work your way back into His good graces. No—your acceptance before God and God drawing near to you isn’t based on your performance. Remember what Smedley preached the last few weeks in Revelation: God is with man and we are with God forever. Why? Not because we obeyed well enough or even believed hard enough, but because Jesus loved me and gave Himself for me.

If you feel like asking this question, it’s the perfect time to preach the gospel to yourself or go to someone you know who knows the gospel. That’s just the good news: Jesus loves you. Don’t say, “Jesus loves me so I can keep doing what I want and live for myself.” No—God cares for me. He died for me so that I would no longer live for myself, so I’d no longer be a slave of sin, but could live for Him. Many of these promises are to Christians. If you’re not sure if you’re a Christian, do what a Christian would do: when you wonder if God cares for you, believe that He does and turn to Him in repentance and faith. The cross proved, once and for all, that He does. Just remember—feelings make a really poor compass. They don’t rightly tell you what’s real; God’s Word does.

Thank you for asking questions. I’m going to try to do a better job getting those up here and doing them rapid-fire like this, so please keep dropping questions in the bucket. That leads very well into our lesson for today.

How to Know the Bible: Introducing the Lesson

We’re going through an outline—whether you know it or not, this year we’re following the outline of the book Fundamentals of the Faith. This is actually chapter two: “How Do You Know the Bible?” We’re going to say some things that aren’t in this book and some that are, but if you have time, if your parents want to do this, or if you can talk your parents into it, say, “Mom, Dad, can we get this book and go through it during the week?” There are some exercises in it—it’s a fill-in-the-blank kind of book. I know it looks like school, but it’s better. There’s stuff that will help you do some things we won’t get to, particularly how you study the Bible. It’s a very helpful resource for understanding how to do that.

We won’t go through everything here, but try to see if your parents will get you this book and actually spend five minutes a night—you could get through it by next week. Next week, we won’t be in chapter three yet, so you have a couple weeks to do this one. It’s at our book table; you can buy it on Amazon. It’s called Fundamentals of the Faith.

How Do We Know the Bible?

We talked last time about what the Bible is. Now, how do we know it? The first thing you must do to know the Bible is to read it. You have to get it into you. You have to read it with faith.

Who here was here last year when we did “Lubot”? Who has no idea what Lubot means? Good, a few. Lubot is an acronym—it’s where you take the first letter of each word in a phrase and make a word. We made it a little robot, but it’s a reminder of what we should pray every time we expose our hearts and minds to God’s Word.

The first L in Lubot is “Listen.” So, you pray, “God, make me listen.” Sometimes I need help with that—I usually need help listening. My mind wanders. I’m sitting there knowing I should pay attention—this is God’s Word—but I’m thinking about the silliest things. In church, sometimes I do math on how many squares are in the auditorium while Smedley’s preaching, and my mind is thinking the dumbest things. I don’t know if you’re like that. I imagine I’m not the only one who gets distracted by dumb things. So I pray, “God, help me listen.”

I have the same problem when I read the Bible in the morning, or anytime God’s Word is preached. Do you ever do the thing where you imagine a ball bouncing between things in the room? I do. I get so distracted. I empathize. So there are a thousand things in this room that can distract you, and probably a thousand more in your heart. It’s right to pray, “God, will you help me pay attention right now? Will you help me listen to your word?”

But it’s not just listening or understanding the words on the page. Martin Luther once said, “An unregenerate man can understand the grammar of John 3:16.” Many people can say, “I understand every word you just said.” But you have to have a miracle happen in your heart to believe it. In one sense, even demons believe it—they know it’s true.

Lubot, Acronyms, and the Heart of Bible Reading

The L is Listen. The U is Understand. Demons understand John 3:16. A lot of people in the world do. But you have to be born again—you have to have the Holy Spirit do a miraculous work inside you so that you believe it. Whoever believes will not perish and has eternal life—not because they did the work of believing, but because that’s evidence that your name is written in the Book of Life.

If you’re saying, “I don’t know if I’m a Christian. I want to be, I don’t want to perish, I want eternal life,” say, “God, will you make me believe your word? When you give me a command, will you make me obey it? When you give me a promise, will you make me trust it?” You’re asking God to do a miracle when you open the Bible.

But even those who’ve been made new, who’ve been born again, can’t understand, believe, obey, or trust John 3:16 unless they’ve read it, unless they hear it. You have to put God’s Word in front of yourself. The L in “God, help me listen.” We’re actually going to come up with a new acronym—HRSMM: hear, read, study, memorize, meditate. Lubot was easier to remember, but maybe you’ll come up with your own phrase for HRSMM. The main thing I want you to know is, all these are the ways you get your mind in front of God’s Word.

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. You cannot get God’s Word into your heart, can’t understand it, believe it, obey it, or trust it, unless you hear it. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hear my word and keep it.”

You might think, “Unless I can sit down and really study, it doesn’t count.” No—get yourself in a position to hear God’s Word. What are some ways you can do that? Podcasts—there’s a McCheyne’s Bible reading podcast by Crossway that reads the student ministry plan every day. Hearing a sermon—faithful exposition—reads and explains God’s Word. You can also hear God’s Word through others in ministry, singing, or reading the Bible aloud as a family. If you don’t already, you could start that at home.

If you feel a certain way, you need to have heard lots of God’s Word, because the world inundates you with other things all day. You need truth coming into your ears. Expose yourself to God’s Word. We do that at church. We read God’s Word every morning. You need to read it—big chunks of it. Just open up the Bible and read. You’ll understand some, and not understand some. But read it.

The goal isn’t just to have God’s Word go in your eyes or ears—mission accomplished. No, we want to read and do it, hear and do it, and you can’t do that unless you understand. Who here has ever read a whole page, but was thinking about something else? That happens to me all the time. One way that helps is to ask questions as I read. That’s the heartbeat of studying.

Study, Memorize, and Meditate on God’s Word

The heartbeat of study is looking really closely—every word, every phrase. Ask: Why is he talking about this now? What does this mean? Is this command for me? What’s the tense? Ask questions—the more you ask, the more you’ll start to see. Your mind will be filled with God’s Word, and if God does that miracle in you, your heart will be filled too. So, hear it, read it, study it.

Studying usually needs a pen or pencil. When you read the Bible in the morning, I encourage you—get a pen or pencil and a piece of paper. Circle things. If you don’t like circling in your Bible, print out the passage and mark it up. Underline every noun in green, every verb in orange. Or, underline every command, or circle everything about God. Doodle a picture if it’s a story. The point is, get your mind engaged—circle things, make connections. If something is mentioned five times in two sentences, it’s probably important. Use your mind, ask questions. Again, Fundamentals of the Faith gives helpful clues for studying.

Another way is memorizing God’s Word. Psalm 119:9 asks, “How can a young man keep his way pure?” By guarding it according to your word. “With my whole heart I seek you. Let me not wander from your commandments.” Verse 11: “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” Most times when you face temptation, when you face an opportunity to sin, you don’t have a Bible open to the right passage—you need God’s Word in your heart so you can say, “I know what God’s Word says.” Not just generally—you know it word for word, you’ve thought about it, you’ve stored it up for this moment.

Memorizing is hard, though. Who here regularly memorizes God’s Word? Maybe not many. But every single person here needs to start. Open up God’s Word every day and study. I want everyone to start memorizing God’s Word. That might sound hard, but here are some ways I do it: I’m a bad memorizer, but you’ve probably heard me just start quoting verses up here—it’s because I’ve stored them up. I use music—a lot. There’s an album called Hide It in Your Heart by Mark Alrog (A-L-O-G-E). Great songs—he’ll play it through twice, tell you the words, a third time with just music for you to repeat, then a fourth to sing. Even if you think you’re the worst memorizer, I bet if you listen to a song five times with your brain on, you’ll have it memorized.

If you pick that up—it’s on Apple Music and Spotify, and we may have some CDs at the book table—you can get those. They are so good. If you decide to memorize one song (one verse) a week, can you listen to a song five or ten times in a week? Probably. Then open up the Bible, learn it in context. How much time is that? Maybe on the way to school, or in your room—maybe five or ten minutes a day.

If you do one verse a week, sixth graders, how many will you have memorized by the time you’re done in student ministries? Let’s do the math: 52 verses in a year, 104 by seventh grade, 208 by eighth grade, and so on—over 350 verses if you start today, just one a week. That’s a lot of God’s Word hidden in your heart. What does David say? “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you. I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” If you keep that going, every ten years that’s 500 verses. By the time you’re my age, over a thousand. If you do that consistently, by God’s grace, you’ll have thousands of verses hidden in your heart.

God will use you if you do that—the sins He’ll guard you from, the good works He’ll lead you to. When you memorize verses, then you start thinking about them—that’s biblical meditation. This isn’t empty-your-mind yoga meditation. This is letting God’s Word soak into your mind. You meditate on it, think deeply about it: What does this say? How must this affect me? What does this teach me about God? Who can I bless with this verse? Who can I pray for? How can I obey better? Trust more fully? That will happen so well when you start memorizing scripture. You don’t need to memorize the whole Bible in one day. Just one verse at a time. Read God’s Word every day. Listen to it constantly. Saturate your mind and heart with God’s Word, praying every time: “God, do a miracle. Let your Word change me from the inside so that I might not wander from your commandments, that I might glorify you, that I wouldn’t turn from you, God—keep me close. Let me persevere.”

If you’re saying, “I want to be a Christian, I’m just not sure if this is my faith or my parents’”—you need to get God’s Word into your heart so you have an opportunity to believe, to obey, to trust. It’s not magic. It won’t happen apart from God’s Word. A Bible on your shelf won’t do it. A Bible read with your heart not engaged won’t do it. Sitting in student ministries or church, hearing the Word without listening carefully, without obeying, without believing every promise, without turning to Jesus—none of that accomplishes anything.

The same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay. A wax candle left in the sun gets soft; clay gets hard. Pray, “God, make my heart soft. Make my heart like the good soil Jesus talks about in the parable, so when God’s Word is sown, it sprouts and bears much fruit.” But if you hear God’s Word and harden your heart, it will be of no benefit to you, and your judgment will be just.

Jesus said to the Pharisees—they memorized the entire first five books of the Bible, the entire Pentateuch, and more. They surrounded themselves with God’s Word. Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.” And it’s true—eternal life is found in the Scriptures. But Jesus pointed out their fundamental problem: “Yet you refuse to come to me so that you may have life.” You can hear, read, study, memorize, and meditate on God’s Word, but unless you respond with hearing and faith, it’s worthless. So pray—and then do.

Bible Study: For Transformation, Not Just Information

Jesus said, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” The point is: believe every word in scripture. When God says, “Come to me, love me with your whole heart, love your neighbor as yourself,” and all these other commands—do it.

We read God’s Word to know and trust God—that’s point two. We have to read prayerfully, with faith, looking for God in His Word. Then we read to be transformed by the Spirit through His Word.

So: read, hear, listen, do it with faith—ultimately to get God, and then to be transformed.

When you see God as He is—this is what happens when Jesus comes back. Christians, God’s Word says you are God’s children now. If you believe in Him, you’re His child, but you still have this mixed condition—you still fall to sin, you’re not a slave to sin anymore. If you haven’t turned to God in repentance and faith, you’re still a slave to sin. When you believe, you become Jesus’s slave—you become His. What we will be in the eternal state is not yet here, but we know that when He appears, we’ll be like Him, because we’ll see Him as He is. When we die and go to Him, we’ll see Him—and be changed.

Right now, in God’s Word, we are changed when we see Him. Last year we studied that in 2 Corinthians. Paul prayed for the Colossians, saying, “From the day we heard of your faith, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” All spiritual wisdom is found in Jesus—God’s Word incarnate.

But what’s the purpose? If you read the Bible and you’re filled with wisdom and knowledge, but you’re not changed by it, mission’s not accomplished. Paul didn’t just pray, “Be filled with all knowledge,” but, “Be filled with the knowledge of His will so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.” The whole point is that the goal of your life—if God saved you, He saved you so that you would glorify Him, walk in a manner worthy of Him, bearing good fruit. The only way to do that is to know the will of the Lord and to know Him.

You can’t skip God’s Word. You don’t get to the life lived for Him without exposing your heart and mind to what He says. But don’t grow satisfied with just exposing yourself to God’s Word without also living for Him. Say, “My goal when I read the Bible is to know God, trust Him, and have the Holy Spirit change my life.”

So, that’s what it says on the bottom. I wrote it down so you can meditate on this and maybe put it in your Bible to remember what you’re aiming at:

Our goal in Bible study is not merely to understand the Bible, but to understand it rightly in order to see God’s glory revealed in the text. Which is why we always ask when we read the Bible: What does this say about God? How must this change me? I’ll say it every week, so that we can be transformed by Him.

I encourage you, if you’re not already doing it, pick up those Bible study note sheets in the back, put them in your Bible, read the Bible, listen to sermons with a pen in your hand, asking, “What does this teach me about God? How should this affect me?” and then pray, “God, do the miracle in me to accomplish your will.” So let’s go to our discussion groups now.