Stephen N. Collins
Millville – 09/05/08
What Pleases God?
“What does the LORD require of you?”
-Micah 6:8
Icebreaker: (Show Pictures of Office)
Intro: I came in that day to my office, worn out. The stress of a busy week was getting to me, and I walk in my office to see that. And you know what? I laughed my tail off. My day got brighter. I love that sort of thing. I pick on my friends, and when someone picks on me a little bit, it lets me know that they consider me a friend, too.
-When someone does something like that for me, it lets me know that they have taken the time to get to know me, to remember things about me, and to invest their life into mine. It’s very pleasing to me. It brings me joy.
-What brings God joy? Have you ever thought about what pleases God? Have you ever thought what He wants for you?
-Maybe you think that there are some sort of strict requirements that you have to meet in order to please God.
-We had a wedding here yesterday at Millville and both the husband and wife had to meet some pretty stringent requirements in order to get married. They had to apply for a marriage license, they had to fill out all kinds of paperwork, they had to plan the wedding, they had to meet with me every 2 weeks over the course of about 5 months before the wedding, they had to read a book I required them to read and answer to pretty tough personal questions before I would perform the ceremony for them.
-Every facet of our lives has requirements and consequences. We’re used to both. We know the requirements our job places on us. We’re know the consequences if we don’t meet the requirements. We know the requirements of the law. We know the consequences if we fail to meet them. We know our requirements to pay taxes to the government. We know the consequence if we don’t. In this year’s presidential election, there’s a lot of talk about the “required experience” to serve in the highest public office in the land.
-We are used to requirements. So let me ask you: What does God require of you? What are required to do with our lives to please God?
-Today, we’re going to find out. I promise you this: it’s not as hard as you think.
(Pray)
-The first thing we’re going to look at are the most popular ways we humans displease God.
The 4 Most Popular Ways to Displease God
1. Living with an absence of a real faith. (Heb. 11:6a)
Illustration: Faith is important in relationships. For example, faith plays a big role in my relationship with you as the preacher today. You know why? Because it is only by faith that you came here today expecting me to have anything worth saying. And it is only by faith that I believe you’re actually paying attention when I speak!
Questions: So, faith plays an important part in our relationships, right? So how important must it be in our relationship with the author of our faith?
Main Point: Faith always pleases God. But living with an absence of real faith hinders us from pleasing God.
Scripture: Hebrews 11:6a
“And without faith it is impossible to please God.”
-We can’t please God if we constantly worry about tomorrow and all it might or might now bring, because God wants to be trusted, and He wants the world to see the peace he offers to those who have real faith in Him.
-Where’s the evidence of faith in your life? Some people talk a lot about faith, but that’s all it is – talk. They may know all the right words to say, but their lives don’t reflect God’s power. It’s nothing new.
Scripture: 1 Cor. 4:19 (NLT)
“But I will come—and soon—if the Lord lets me, and then I’ll find out whether these arrogant people just give pretentious speeches or whether they really have God’s power.”
-Paul says that the Kingdom of God is to be lived, not just talked about. There’s a big difference between knowing the right words and having a close walk with God. And pleasing God is always directly linked to our daily walk with Him. Whoever wants to find God must seek Him with their whole heart.
-So, are you really experiencing God’s power in your life? Would you say your faith is pleasing to Him or not? Are you seeking Him with all of your heart? If not, there’s no way your life can be pleasing to Him.
2. Allowing the activity of the flesh to guide our decisions. (Rom. 8:8)
Main Point: The 2nd most popular way to displease God is allowing the activity of the flesh to guide our decisions.
-When we refer to the term, “the flesh,” it is referring to our old, sinful, rebellious nature. Basically it’s that thing inside of you that makes you want to live for nothing more than yourself. That part of us that wars against anything that God is trying to do in our lives.
Scripture: Romans 8:8
“Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.”
-Fleshly activities, by definition, put self in place of God. When we pursue them, we want our way, our pleasure, and our glory. This can’t please God. Thankfully, God has placed His Spirit within the heart of every believer to help us win over our flesh so that His will can become ours.
-So when you look at your life right now, what’s guiding the decisions you are making? Are those decisions leading your closer to God’s heart and righteousness? Or do they seem to be leading you down another path entirely? When we allow the activity of our sinful nature to guide our decisions, we never get any closer to God, we always get further away.
3. Always striving to be a people-pleaser. (Gal. 1:10)
Illustration: When I was a teenager, I was the fat, nerdy kid. I ate way too much and didn’t get enough exercise because I stayed inside playing video games way too much. As such, I wasn’t very popular, but oh, how I wanted to fit in! Like a lot of people, I spent much of my teenage years just trying to get people to like me.
Questions: Did you ever go through that phase? I’m not the only one, am I? Okay, here’s a better question: Did you ever really grow out of it?
Main Point: I ask that because, you see, I know people in their golden years are so concerned with what others think of them that they are unconsciously hindering their walk with God. Some people are so worried about what others think of them that they don’t have any time to consider what God thinks about them.
-God isn’t pleased with a person who is always striving to be a people-pleaser.
-I know people who are afraid to tell their close friends when they’re struggling with something because they’re afraid to appear weak.
-I know people who refuse to come into a church service because their afraid of what Christians there will think of them.
-I know people who are afraid to lift their hands in worship when we sing because they don’t want people to think that they’re some kind of fanatic.
-I know people who are scared to come to an altar or ask a friend to pray with them when we have time to respond to what God is doing in our service because they wonder how they’ll be perceived.
-And then on the flip side, there’s the Christian who always comes to church but never talks about Jesus or shares their faith with their friends or family because they don’t want to offend anybody.
-What it really comes down to is this: who are you living for? Who are you living to please? Whose approval do you really want? Paul asked that questions rhetorically:
Scripture: Galatians 1:10
“Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
If your goal is to impress people, chances are you won’t impress God.
4. Focusing your efforts on meaningless religious externals. (Micah 6:6-7)
Illustration: Outward appearances don’t mean all that much if there’s nothing on the inside. Like the husband who accompanied his wife to her thirty-firth high school reunion. While she was reminiscing with some of her old friends, a man approached the husband and confessed, “Years ago, I was madly in live with you wife.” The dry-witted husband smile and said, “So was I.”
Questions: How much do a marriage certificate and a ring mean to two people if there’s no love between them? The divorce rate of our country would probably give us a good estimate, right?
Main Point: Outward expressions of love don’t mean anything if there’s no inward affection. It’s the same way in our relationship with God.
-The prophet Micah in the Old Testament saw the people of Israel trying to win God favor through religious rituals, so he asked them sarcastically:
Scripture: Micah 6:6-7
“With what shall I come before the LORD
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
-This is what Micah was talking about: Focusing your efforts on meaningless religious externals will never please God.
-What does please God? Will giving all our money make Him happy? Going to church ever Sunday for the rest of our lives? Offering all our free time for worthy causes? Sacrificing our relationships with our children on the altar of our religious busy work? Surely, there’s a better way!
-Ready for Micah’s answer?
3 Ways You Please God Most (Micah 6:8)
Scripture: Micah 6:8
“He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.”
1. Do what is right.
-To act justly basically means to do the right things. Micah said that “He has showed you, O man, what is good.”
- So if we believe that God has shown us what is good, then we must believe that He expects us to do it. He expects us to take action. He expects us to be proactive about it.
-He expects us to look for ways to be His body and expand His Kingdom here on earth.
-And think about how much more this means for you and me today. God spoke these words to the prophet Micah before Jesus was even on the scene. You see, Jesus was God’s ultimate way of showing us how to live. Of how to do what is right in all situations and with all people. So it’s like we get a cheat sheet that Micah and the people of the Old Testament didn’t have!
-We have a leg up on the people God was speaking to in Micah 6. All we need to do is look to Jesus, turn our lives over to Him, and we will be able to truly know and do what is right.
Knowing what is right and doing what is right are two different matters, entirely.
-This is why it’s important to have a relationship with Jesus. Until you turn your life over to His control, all you can do is try to know what is right. When your life is in His hands, though, you can truly please God by doing what is right.
2. Love what is merciful.
-Do you see how one leads to another here? If you are always striving to do what is right, if you’re always doing what Jesus wants you to do, your life will be marked by mercy.
-What is mercy? It’s been defined as not receiving the punishment you deserve. To love mercy is against our human nature. When people mess up, we expect to see them pay for it. When someone does something stupid, we expect them to get what’s coming to them.
-But God’s Kingdom doesn’t operate like ours. God’s call for us is to love mercy. God’s call for us is to forgive those who wrong us. God standard for us is to love those who hate us. God’s expectation of us is for us care for those who have no one else to care for them, to love the unlovable, to give to the poor, to feed the hungry, to serve the lowly, to bring joy to the joyless and hope to the hopeless.
-Make no mistake, Christian: This is what God expects of you.
Others may see genuine kindness and mercy as weakness, but God sees it as strength.
3. Go where he leads.
-Micah finishes by challenging us to “walk humbly with your God.” Walking implies that we are actually moving somewhere with Him. So many of us turn our lives over to Jesus and then just sit there and expect Him to do all the work. It’s not enough. If you want to walk with Jesus, you’ve got to move. You’ve got to take the initiative to go.
-Micah also says to walk “humbly” with God. This means that we don’t seek what we want. We submit to His leadership and follow Him. We go were He leads.
-“Every thought within us must be brought down, to be brought into obedience to God, if we would walk comfortably with Him. We must do this as penitent sinners, in dependence on Jesus and His death and resurrection.” (Matthew Henry Concise Commentary)
Conclusion/Invitation
-Doesn’t pleasing God sound good to you? I’d like to share with you how I believe God is leading us as a church to please Him. (Introduce us as Community Meal Center West).
-We have a sign-up sheet in the narthex and if you would get behind this and sign up to be part of the 1st crew to go downtown to CMC, I believe this can be a great step for us to take as a church towards pleasing God in everything we do.
