What Makes God Smile?

WHAT MAKES GOD SMILE?

(All my sermons use illustrations from Sermon Central and scripture is NIV unless otherwise noted)

Have you ever wondered if by something you said, or by your actions, you have made God smile? I know as a parent there are things that my children do and say that make me smile. NOW, I will admit that there are something that my children say that would cause most anyone to smile, children can be that way sometimes.

On the last day of school, children were bringing gifts to their teacher. The florist’s son brought the teacher a bouquet. The candy storeowner’s son brought the teacher a pretty box of candy. Then the liquor storeowner’s son brought a big, heavy box. The teacher lifted it up and noticed that it was leaking a bit. She touched a drop of liquid with her finger and tasted it. “Is it wine?’ she guessed. “No” said the boy. She tasted another drop, “Champagne?” “No,” said the little boy. “It’s a puppy!”

Eph 5:8-11 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

This morning, I want to focus on that little command you find in verse 10, find out WHAT PLEASES GOD! In the NIV Strong’s Concordance the word pleasure is listed 20 or so times BUT most of them are talking about what God would NOT see as something that would bring Him pleasure. However, if we go to the Living Bible we see that there is one man that was a pleasure to God, that would be Noah. The NIV says: Gen 6:8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. And the Living Version says: Gen 6:8 But Noah was a pleasure to the Lord. It is important to look at the word BUT in both of these versions before we go any further, the Word BUT is there because just prior to this verse the Bible tells us that God was disgusted with that which He had created,

Gen 6:5-7 The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air--for I am grieved that I have made them."

BUT, Noah was a PLEASURE to the Lord! Just ponder this for a moment. In the midst of the wickedness and the evil, God looks down and sees this one man and says, “Hey, Noah is alright” “Yeah, that Noah has his act together, he makes me smile!”

Have you ever done that with your children? Have you ever looked at other children in the world, and then said to yourself, “you know, I am lucky that my child is not like that”? I know that I have smiled many times, when comparing my children to some I have seen on the world. BUT WHY? What is it that would make us smile and make our heavenly Father smile as well? I think we can gleam some things from scripture by simply looking at the life of the child that brought pleasure to God.

The first thing I see is that God smile when we have a loving and close relationship with Him. Nothing makes a mother smile bigger than having her son call her without having to threaten his life. I know that my mother is smiling when I call her just because, I am sure there are mothers that can relate to this as well. When our child nestles up close to us and say, “love you!” it puts a smile on our face. Whether our children are young or old, it puts a smile on our face when we see them making an effort to do as we have taught them, to travel the path we have placed them on and to contact us, and tell us that they are happy we are their parents. (That last part I do not personally know of yet, but as my seven children grow, I hope at least one will say something along those lines) The point is, we as parents have dreamed, and trained, and disciplined our children in hope that they would follow the right path and keep a close relationship us. God desires the same thing, turn back with me to Genesis 6:9 Gen 6:9 This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.