MOVING PAST "I HOPE SO. . .": God has given us the opportunity and means to live a life that makes Him smile.
- Colossians 1:10 – “may please Him in every way”
- An interesting idea: living to make God smile.
- When you ask many people whether they’re going to heaven, their answer is “I hope so.”
- When you ask many people whether God is pleased with their life, their answer is “I hope so.”
- That’s a scary way to live. These matters are of the utmost importance: am I ok in the sight of God?; is God pleased with how I’m living my life?; what do I need to be doing to honor Him with my life? They’re far, far too important to leave to a wish and a prayer.
- Thankfully, through His Word God has shared with us His heart so that we don’t have to live with a vague hope. Having shared, we can know what things that we do will please His heart.
- I said that God has given us the opportunity and the means. Let’s unpack that.
a. The opportunity.
- In our natural condition, we are sinners. We have within our own strength and resources zero chance to become righteous. We have no chance at heaven. We have no chance at being righteous before God.
- Thankfully, a door has been opened. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, we have the opportunity to become one of God’s children. We have the opportunity to be declared righteous in His sight. Jesus took our sins upon Himself so that we could be forgiven. Jesus was raised from the dead so that we could be resurrected as well.
- Our decision to receive what Jesus has done for us makes God smile (Luke 15:7, 10, 22-23).
b. The means.
- Sometimes when talking about what God has done we quit at the opportunity to be saved. He’s done so much more than that.
- Not only can we be saved, we can also walk with Him and live for Him. He has given us a new heart (Romans 6:6-14) and given us the mighty Holy Spirit (Romans 8:1-17). He has given us all the resources we need to be able to live lives that honor and glorify Him.
- We often justify our sin by saying, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace.” Well, I was a sinner saved by grace, but at that moment of salvation I became a new creature in Christ. Who I really and most deeply am now is that new creation!
- God has not only saved me, but also given me the means to be able to live for Him.
- Two of the errors that we make when it comes to thinking of God smiling down upon us:
a. Some envision God as a scowling, grumpy, cantankerous old man who would never smile on anything.
b. Others envision God as friendly, absent-minded grandfather who doesn’t care how you live your life.
- We need to understand the Biblical truth: God can and wants to delight in us, but that doesn’t happen when we’re mired in our sin and rebellion from Him.
- It happens when we live a life that’s honoring to Him.
- This is similar to a human parent who deeply loves their child, but certainly can’t rejoice in the self-destructive behavior their child is exhibiting.
WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE?
- Once you understand that it’s possible to please God, a second question immediately follows: what would that look like?
- Let’s talk for a second about some of the things that are not on the list.
- These are things that we often put a lot of emphasis on.
a. Acknowledging a list of doctrine.
- Many churches seem to define “belief” as “signing off on a list of doctrine.” True belief isn’t just a verbal assent. True belief leads to me changing my life because I’ve believed that Jesus is worth following.
b. Faithful church attendance.
- It’s not that this is not important – it’s that it’s more a consequence that happens automatically when the larger issues are in order.
c. Outward conformity.
- You’ve got to look like the rest of the church: Bible under your arm, no tattoos or piercings, fish on your bumper, etc.
- You know what to say in church, what words to avoid, what political allegiances to claim, what services you need to attend and which to skip, etc.
- Of course, none of that requires an inward change.
d. Special manifestations of the Spirit.
- In some churches, it all comes down to whether you possess one of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit. If you can’t, say, speak in tongues, then you clearly aren’t pleasing God.
- This passage mentions four specific things that are present in a life that pleases God.
- It’s helpful to have a specific idea of what to look for. As I mentioned a minute ago, there a lot of ideas thrown around about what God wants from us.
- As we look to His Word and see Him specifically telling us what pleases Him, it puts us in a great situation. No guessing, blindly throwing darts at the target, or just hoping for the best. We know our target, we know the road markers.
- This is not to say that there’s nothing else that pleases Him, but it’s certainly true that having these in our lives is evidence that we’re on the right path.
1. Fruit.
- Colossians 1:10 – “bearing fruit in every good work”
- What do we mean by “fruit”?
- Just like a healthy plant should produce a harvest, a healthy spiritual life should also produce a harvest.
- Jesus spoke in John 15 about the idea that He is the vine and we are the branches. When we are abiding (i.e. are in close connection) to Him, we’re naturally going to produce fruit.
- This could be a whole host of different things:
a. We witness to someone and they become a Christ-follower.
b. We show mercy to a co-worker and see their pain eased.
c. We find our marriage is a testimony to others because of our mutual commitment to a Chrsitian home.
d. We give money to a missionary and see lives touched.
e. We give money to a friend who’s hurting and He’s drawn to God through our compassion.
f. We teach a Sunday School class and children grow in their faith.
g. We forgive someone who has hurt us and, amazed by our action, in turn forgive someone who hurt them.
- When our commitment to Christ brings about a positive result through the power of the Spirit, we’re bearing fruit for God.
- Why is bearing fruit important?
a. It’s a way to give back to God, to honor Him in light of all He’s done for us.
- We should want to bear fruit. All that we can do to give back to the One who died for us is not enough to repay what He’s done for us.
- It’s not that we’re earning our salvation. It’s that our overflowing heart loves any chance to honor Him.
- There’s a huge difference between working for God in order to earn His love and working for God because you’ve experienced His love.
b. It’s evidence of a changed life.
- Some argue that we just need to be faithful. This usually is defined as showing up for services. Even if there’s no fruit in our lives, the fact that we showed up is all that matters.
- The Bible does not teach that. The Bible teaches that a truly faithful life will be fruitful. Fruitfulness is the natural and inevitable result of a life faithfully lived for Christ.
- When we’re not bearing fruit, we need to drop the excuses and face up to the fact that our spiritual life is off-track.
c. It’s evidence of a life of impact.
- We only get a few years on this earth. We should want to leave a mark. Speaking of “bearing fruit” is just another way to say that our life is making a difference.
- This presumes our “good work.”
- This verse speaks of the fruit coming through the “good work” that we’re doing.
- We have many people today who presume that “believing in Jesus” is all they’re supposed to be doing. On the contrary, we should be “about our Father’s business” – actively and eagerly embracing daily opportunities to shine our light.
2. Growth in knowing God.
- Colossians 1:10 – “growing in the knowledge of God”
- I earlier mentioned knowing a lot of doctrine.
- Knowing about God is not the same as knowing God.
- Understanding that God is omnipotent is not the same thing as having peace in your uncertainty because you are content in knowing that God knows all even if you don’t. Knowing about God is not the same as knowing God.
- Understanding the God’s Word is inerrant is not the same thing as living boldly and consistently with the Bible as your unquestioned guidebook. Knowing about God is not the same as knowing God.
- Sometimes we refer to having a “relationship with God.” As we walk with God, we should be getting to know Him and understand Him better.
- Let’s compare this to a marriage relationship.
- When a couple starts out, there is still a lot of room for miscommunication. Although what they know about each other is significant, there are still many things that you can’t really know until you’ve experienced life together. In a good marriage, as you walk forward, you gradually increase in your trust and love.
- Obviously, God doesn’t increase in His knowledge of us, since He knows it all to begin with, but we do increase in our knowledge of Him.
- As we walk together, hopefully our trust and love increase.
- How does this happen?
- When we go through a job loss but see God provide in various ways during those two months, our trust for Him in money matters deepens.
- When we follow a difficult teaching of Christ and discover that what He told us to do actually works in resolving the problem, our trust for Him deepens.
- When we see accumulated blessings and realize they’re just from His goodness, our love for Him increases.
- When we see His tenderness to us in a time of heartache, our love for Him increases.
- God’s goal is not for us to know about Him; it’s for us to know Him.
- As the ancient catechism states, our goal in life is to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”
- This is one of the signs of a life that pleases God.
- To switch analogies, it’s like a parent who enjoys their close relationship with their adult child. You love it when they stop by to talk, when they call, when they include you in their life.
- That closeness brings you joy.
- The hard truth is that some of us are only interested in God for what we can get out of Him.
- We’re not really interested in knowing Him, in being close to Him, in having a relationship with Him.
- We just want Him to give us stuff, protect us from bad things, and take us to heaven someday (but even then to leave us alone).
3. Strength to endure.
- Colossians 1:11 – “being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience”
- Three parts:
a. Great endurance.
- This may not be something that we’re particularly happy about. What we’d probably rather have is all of our problems resolved quickly and painlessly.
- But any reading of the Bible makes it clear that endurance is necessary to faith. Faith that lasts only for a day is not much faith at all.
- Many of the heroes of the Bible waited years for their answers to come.
- We live in a society that pushes for “having it now.” If you have to wait for anything, you should probably just find another company to buy from.
- Yet there are some situations in life that we can’t fix like that. Sometimes we have to be able to endure.
- Obviously this is a sign of maturity because it’s tough to stay faithful when things aren’t going well. That’s exactly why this makes God smile: because our endurance expresses our faith in Him even when the immediate evidence doesn’t reward it.
b. Great patience.
- One way to think of the relationship between endurance and patience: endurance is the ability to make it through, patience is the ability to have a good attitude about it.
- Patience is the knowledge that sometimes things do take time and that I have to be willing to wait in order to see those outcomes.
c. Strengthened with all power according to His glorious might.
- That endurance and patience requires that receive something from beyond ourselves. We need His power.
- Thankfully, He has that in abundance.
- Of course, though, the fact that He has it doesn’t mean that we’ll enjoy its benefits. We have to be willing to receive that power from Him.
4. A thankful heart.
- Colossians 1:12 – “giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light”
- Finally, we need to have thankful hearts.
- This arises from realizing that so much of what we have is a gift from Him. He’s the One who saved us. He’s the One who can raise us from the dead. He’s the One who gave us the Holy Spirit. He’s the One who gave us a new heart. He’s the One who answers our prayers. And on and on.
- Having a heart of gratitude flows naturally from realizing how blessed we are.
- An attentive Christian would find nearly endless things to be thankful for.
A FINAL QUESTION: Do I want to please God?
- Do I want to please Him? Do I believe that trying to please God is a worthwhile way to live my life?
- The hard truth is that many Christians aren’t particularly interested in pleasing God, but are focused on pleasing themselves or pleasing others.
- Am I more interested in pleasing myself?
- The irony of Jesus’ teaching on this subject was that trying to save your life is the path to losing your life. But being willing to lose your life is the path to finding true life (Matthew 16:25).
- This is a totally different approach from “what do I want to get out of God?”
- Do I want to be forgiven and then to be left alone to live my life my way? Do I want Him to shower me with endless gifts? Do I want to be told I’m right in whatever I do?
- We’re not talking here about brown-nosing the teacher. We’re not talking about sucking up to Dad.
- We’re talking about having a loving relationship with your heavenly Father, being justifiably grateful for all He’s done for you, and believing that there is no greater life than following Christ. He is, after all, the most loving and dynamic Being in the universe.
