In our current series we’ve been going through an old list of questions and answers contained in the Westminster Larger Catechism published in 1648. Recently we’ve learnt about the covenant of grace by which God forgives sin and grants eternal life through the mediator Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully human. We’ve seen that the mediator had to be God to escape death, give worth to his obedience and satisfy God’s justice. This week I want to show you that the mediator had to be God to procure God’s favour for us.

To obtain someone’s favour is not easy. No one is compelled to favour anyone in this world, otherwise it wouldn’t be favour. Yet there are people that we naturally favour. For example, a parent is naturally favourable to their own child. In fact, children can even obtain blessing from a parent for their friends: a birthday party for a child brings blessing for not only the birthday child, but for their friends.

Thus if you are to have God’s favour then you really should get friendly with someone who has close connections with God. And who better than God’s Son who is also God himself.     Jesus was just such a Son. God declared from heaven: ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’ (Matthew 3:17). Notice Jesus is not just any son, he is a son that God loves and who God is pleased with. Now most of us would agree that’s a son who is most able to obtain God’s favour for us.

And thankfully that’s what Jesus does for us. We can be connected to Jesus and thus obtain God’s favour. Paul teaches us we receive God’s grace freely in the One that God loves: ‘For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves’ (Ephesians 1:4-6).

So if you want God’s favour, you must have someone put in a good word for you. And there is no better person than the Son of God whom God dearly loves. How do you get Jesus to put in a good word for you? Trust in him.

Have you trusted in Christ so you have God’s favour?

Joel Radford, Preaching Elder.