That He Might Be Repaid.

    Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
    “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
        or who has been his counselor?”
    “Or who has given a gift to him
        that he might be repaid?”
    For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
(Romans 11:33-36 ESV)

You aren't awesome. You aren't a good person. You're not basically a good person with a good heart who just occasionally does bad things. You aren't righteous. You don't have what it takes to be acceptable to God. You don't do good and you don't deserve anything from God.

I get all those mean and depressing statements from Romans 3.

  as it is written:
    “None is righteous, no, not one;
        no one understands;
        no one seeks for God.
    All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
        no one does good,
        not even one.”
    “Their throat is an open grave;
        they use their tongues to deceive.”
    “The venom of asps is under their lips.”
        “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
    “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
        in their paths are ruin and misery,
    and the way of peace they have not known.”
        “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
(Romans 3:10-18 ESV) 

You are part of the "no one". No one is righteous. No one seeks God. No one does good not even one. NO ONE is basically a good person. You see, a lot of people think they are good and they just mess up every once in a while. A lot of people think that because of their good deeds God owes them something. The point of the passage in Romans 11 is that God owes you nothing. You can never do anything to make an infinitely perfect God owe you something.

“Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” You can't earn your way to God. You can not do anything to make God love you, because everything you have is a gift from God (including your faith and salvation).  God made everything and that means that nothing you have can be worthy of God.

"For from him and through him and to him are all things." In other words, God made all things and he keeps all things going. You can't be good enough to please a perfect God. It's like a little kid trying to repay his dad for all his dad has ever spent on him with the allowance his dad gave him; it just doesn't work. Doing good things so that God will bless you doesn't work. You can't be good enough to earn God's favor.

At this point you may be thinking something like, "that's not very fair. Why would God make us in a way that keeps us from him? How can God be so angry with sin if he knows that no one is righteous?" The answer to questions like that is found in verse 33. "How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!" God is the judge and you are not. God is the one who made you and now you want to turn around and judge him? You, who is not righteous, want to tell a perfectly righteous God that he's not fair? God's judgements are sometimes confusing to us but they are always good. It's ok to ask questions and try and figure out what God is doing, but it's not ok for an imperfect man to judge a perfect God.

So, in light of all this the question now becomes, how do I please God? It's impossible to please him through your good deeds. You can't live a good enough life to please him. I can't be righteous enough to seek good. You must be completely perfect to reach God, and no one is perfect.

The only way to please God, the only way to be righteous, is to receive the gifted righteousness of Jesus Christ. By becoming a Christian through faith and baptism, you become righteous and perfect before God.

      For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
(2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV)

Here's how this works. Jesus Christ came to earth so that you could be righteous and acceptable before God. He did this not because you earned it but because he loves you. When he died, the sins of the world were placed upon him and he bore the punishment you should have.  Jesus died the death you deserve, and because of that you can become the righteousness of God; you can be saved.

If you are a christian then you continue to live by this principle. You don't become a Christian and then work to repay him. Being saved means that Christ repaid all of your debt, every little bit. You don't add to your righteousness through works because Christ has given you complete righteousness. When you do a good work it isn't to earn favor with God, it's simply because you love him. "To him be glory forever. Amen."