How To Please God

Alba 10-22-2023

HOW TO PLEASE GOD

I Thessalonians 2:1-8

Back in 1975 Rick Nelson recorded a song called “Garden Party.” The song tells about the day he learned the truth: "You can’t please everyone."

If you remember the TV show, Ozzie and Harriet, you know that Ricky Nelson was one of their sons. He became a teen heart-throb in the late 1950’s. And in 1975 he was invited to sing in an “oldies” concert in Madison Square Garden.

The problem was, no one recognized him because he changed the way he looked, and instead of singing the familiar oldies exclusively, he also sang some of his new songs … and the crowd booed him right off the stage.

That inspired his song. The words of the chorus are: “Well, it's alright now. I've learned my lesson well. You can't please everyone, so you've gotta please yourself.” http://youtu.be/OvRVeIeGKu0

“You can’t please everyone, so you’ve gotta please yourself.” The first part is true, but the last part is not the “final answer.” Trying to please yourself isn’t really any better than trying to please other people.

We can’t live up to our own expectations any more than we can live up to everyone else’s demands. For a Christian, the goal is not to please self, but to please God.

The apostle Paul knew that to be true. In I Thessalonians 2:4 he writes to the church there saying, “But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts.”

Or as our Scripture Verse for Today in the New Living Translation has it, “For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts.”

Some people are hard to please. And there are those who think that God is hard to please as well, so they don't try. “After all”, they say, “doesn't the Bible tell us that 'No one is righteous. No not one.' So why should I try?”

Well, they may not know it but the scripture they are quoting is from Romans 3:10. If they would read on just a few more verses they would come to Romans 3:21-22 where it says, “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.”

And Romans 5:19 says, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.” God changes us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who gave Himself on the cross so that the wrongs we have committed can be taken away.

God is not looking for some sin and waiting for the moment He can see something we have done wrong and use it against us. In His love for us He calls us to repentance, and He will guide us in our walk with Him.

In these first eight verses of I Thessalonians chapter two we see several things that the apostle Paul did while explaining that his purpose in it all was to please God, not people.

He says he was bold to proclaim the gospel in spite of the opposition he received. You don’t have to dig around much in the book of Acts to find out that Paul knew what he was talking about when he mentioned opposition.

In Acts 13 Paul preached at Antioch Pisidia and was persecuted and run out of town. In Acts 14 Luke records how the Jews persuaded the people of Iconium to stone Paul and then drag him out of the city where he was left for dead.When the disciples found him, he got up and went back into the city.

In Acts 15 we find that Paul and Barnabas faced such sharp contention that their mission team split up. In Acts 16 he and Silas were put in the Philippian jail.

Then in chapter 17 he came to Thessalonica and for three weeks proclaimed Christ in the local synagogue. He was opposed and finally run out of town, but only after many had come to Christ especially from among the pagan Greeks and many of the women.

This is the same Paul who now writes that in spite of all the opposition, he preached the gospel boldly. Over and over and over in Paul’s life and ministry, God gets the credit for his enduring all he encountered during his ministry, and because Paul knew the source of his strength and power, he kept on.

All through the Scriptures we read of men and women who endured opposition because of their desire to please God. There will be times when we are going to encounter opposition. The opposition may take many forms and come at the worst of times, but the test of our commitment is whether our our desire is to please God and not ourselves.