Approach: I like to start off with something funny
A man goes to Africa on a safari.
While there, he comes upon an elephant, in great pain, with a giant thorn in its foot. The man very carefully approaches the elephant, and gingerly removes the thorn from its foot. The elephant begins to walk away, then turns and stares at the man for a full minute, locking eyes with him. The elephant then continues on its way. "I wonder if I ever see that elephant again if it will remember me?" the man muses to himself.
It is a few years later
The man is at a circus back in the States. He notices that one of the elephants keeps looking at him, almost like it KNOWS him.
The man wonders, "Could this be that elephant I helped so long ago?" He decides to get a closer look. With the elephant still giving him the stare down, the man moves in closer, getting right up in front of the elephant. They lock eyes. A knowing look seems to cross the elephant’s face It reaches down ...
...picks the man up carefully with its trunk...
...lifts him high in the air...
...THROWS HIM CRASHING TO THE GROUND AND STOMPS HIM FLAT!
Turns out it wasn’t THAT elephant.
Interview: Have you ever felt like God was just a little bit upset with you about something?
In our world it is very common for people to be walking around carrying guilt, even for the Christian. As a matter of fact, I believe most Christians, most of the time, carry an uneasy feeling that God is a slightly perturbed with them about something. Do you ever feel like that?
Some Christians feel like that because of things in their past, sometimes even things they did years and years ago.
Some Christians feel like that because they do not believe they are living up to God’s expectations day to day. They feel they don’t pray enough, or they don’t read their Bible enough or they don’t witness enough or they are just not good enough.
Some Christians feel like this because they have something in their life they are still struggling with even though they may have been a Christian for many years.
Some Christians feel like this because they were raised in an overly-strict and condemning environment.
Demonstrate: God is pleased with you and he wants to free you from those feelings of guilt or uneasiness.
I am here to tell you that, if you are a Christian, a born-again believer in Christ Jesus, God is not upset with you about anything. In fact God is very very pleased with you. He is so pleased with you he smiles every time he thinks about you. And since he is thinking about you all the time he is always smiling on you.
When Jesus was baptized God did something he has rarely done in all of history. He addressed the world verbally. He spoke out loud from heaven and declared "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."
Then when we were born-again we were given this same blessing by being made children of God with whom God is pleased. John 1:12 says “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
The Apostle Paul taught us in Gal 4:4-7 “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”
God made us then he bought us and made us his very own children. And he declares you are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased.
Validate: Illustrations of God’s pleasure
Most of us remember the story of Pinnochio. What we remember most about Pinocchio is how his nose grew whenever he told a lie. The story is actually much deeper than that. The original tale was written by Carlo Collodi about 1883. Pinocchio is in many ways a beautiful illustration of what Christ has done for us. The original 1940 Disney film captures some of the essence of the original story by transforming a sadistic, cruel, heartless little wooden boy and turns him into a real boy with a good heart but who is weak-willed and doesn’t always listen to reason.
I love this story because it so well illustrates what God has done for us. He took us as we were, full of sin and unrighteousness and transformed us into his very own child. He has changed our hearts and while we still struggle to get it right and often do not get it right we have been made his very own child and he proclaims loudly before the whole world "This is my Child, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."
I am a huge Florida State Seminoles football fan. I was so disappointed two Saturdays ago when Florida State lost to Clemson at home. Clemson’s quarterback Will Proctor played a marvelous game. Will Proctor completed 16 passes for 192 yards leading Clemson to a 27 to 20 victory in Tallahassee, a feat that has not been done in 17 years. Proctor’s Dad was at that game and all through the first half the cameras kept cutting over to his dad showing how happy he was in his son’s performance. He was smiling, cheering, clapping, and even mocking the Seminoles tomahawk chop once. He didn’t complete every pass. He even made a couple really bad ones. His Father was proud of him because it was his son out there on the field.
This is how God feels about you all the time. God is really pleased with you because you are his child.
In the Prison Fellowship newsletter, Jubilee, Charles Colson told of a young boy who became excessively fearful during the great New York blackout of 1977. When his parents questioned their son, he confessed that at the exact moment the lights went out, he had kicked a power line pole. As darkness engulfed the city, he thought he was to blame and would be punished.
It is possible to live most of our lives in fear or guilt or just uneasiness that God is a little upset with us about our performance. I’m hear to tell you that God is pleased with you because you are his child.
Negotiate: Christ made you righteous (without sin and right with God)
Someone would object, preacher, if you knew what a sinner I am you wouldn’t say that. I hear what you are saying, let me show you how it works and how I know it is true that God is pleased with you and see if you don’t agree that it is God’s greatness and not our goodness that makes him pleased with us.
I’m sure if you have been in church very long you have heard a preacher say something like this – “well, they just need to get right with God.” And it is usually within the context of some sin a person has done. I think the usual takeaway from a statement like that is they need to clean up their life and do better.
Well, dear brothers and sisters, I am here to tell you today: There is only one way to get right with God and that is by trusting in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. If you are trusting that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died to take away your sins you are right with God.
The Bible says “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law (by doing more right things or more things right);
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
Think of it like this: You cannot jump across a fifty-foot canyon no-matter hard you try. But if someone built a bridge you could easily walk to the other side.
Christ is our bridge - trust it and stop worrying about whether you can jump far enough to please God. God is pleased because you crossed the bridge he built not because you sidestepped his bridge and are trying hard to jump the canyon.
A man entered a bar, bought a glass of beer and then immediately threw it into the bartender’s face. Quickly grabbing a napkin, he helped the bartender dry his face while he apologized with great remorse. "I’m so sorry," he said. "I have this compulsion to do this. I fight it, but I don’t know what to do about it and it always makes me feel terribly guilty afterwards." "You had better do something about your problem," the bartender replied. "You can be sure I’ll remember you and will never serve you another drink until you get help." It was months before the man faced the bartender again. When he asked for a beer, the bartender refused. Then the man explained that he had been seeing a psychiatrist and that his problem was solved. Convinced it was now okay to serve him, the bartender poured him a drink. The man took the glass and splashed the beer into the barkeeper’s astonished face. "I thought you were cured," the shocked bartender screamed. "I am," said the man. "I still do it, but I don’t feel guilty about it anymore."
The truth is we don’t need a psychiatrist to remove our feelings of guilt. The truth of the matter is our guilt has been removed in Christ because of this our guilty feelings should also vanish away like the dew in the morning sun. We have been made righteous with God by God – end of story.
Close:
Dr. Paul Brand tells how amputees often experience some sensation of a phantom limb. Somewhere, locked in their brains, a memory lingers of the nonexistent hand or leg. Invisible toes curl, imaginary hands grasp things, a “leg” feels so sturdy a patient may try to stand on it. For a few, the experience includes pain. Doctors watch helplessly, for the part of the body screaming for attention does not exist.
One such patient was a medical school administrator, Mr. Barwick, who had a serious and painful circulation problem in his leg but refused to allow the recommended amputation. As the pain grew worse, Barwick grew bitter. “I hate it!” he would mutter about the leg. At last he relented and told the doctor, “I can’t stand it anymore. I’m through with that leg. Take it off.” Surgery was scheduled immediately. Before the operation, however, Barwick, asked the doctor. “What do you do with legs after they’re removed?” “We may take a biopsy or explore them a bit, but afterwards we incinerate them,” the doctor replied. Barwick proceeded with a bizarre request: “I would like you to preserve my leg in a pickling jar. I will install it on my mantle shelf. Then, as I sit in my armchair, I will taunt that leg, ‘Hah! You can’t hurt me anymore!”
Ultimately, he got his wish. But the despised leg had the last laugh. Barwick suffered phantom limb pain of the worst degree. The wound healed, but he could feel the torturous pressure of the swelling as the muscles cramped, and he had no prospect of relief. He had hated the leg with such intensity that the pain had unaccountably lodged permanently in his brain.
As Christians, we can be like amputees who suffer from that which has been removed. Christ has taken away our sin and our guilt and made us right with God. That sin has no power over us any more and we should not allow it to haunt our conscience or our confidence that God is pleased with us.
Now, every head bowed and every eye closed.
If you are a born-again child of God, please hold up your hand.
If you struggle with feelings of guilt or an uneasiness that God is not completely pleased with you keep your hand up.
I want you to repeat after me:
I am a child of God.
I am completely forgiven in Christ Jesus.
Father is not upset with me.
He loves me
And he is completely pleased with me.
Father made me his own child
through Christ Jesus
And he is pleased
to call me his child.
And he is pleased with me.
Amen.
