When God Is Satisfied With Us

When God is Satisfied with Us

Acts 17:24-27

When is God most satisfied with us? Is He most satisfied with me I’m reading my Bible; is He is most satisfied with me when I’m doing good deeds; is He is most satisfied with me when I pray; is He is most satisfied with me when I’m working in the church, etc. Now all these things are good and should be done by us but is that when God is most satisfied with us? Our text this morning gives us the answer to this question. But what we need to understand is that pleasing God can never be based on what we think but what he says pleases Him. We are going to look at four things in our text this morning that are prescribed by Paul that shows us the proper motivation for God to be pleased with who we are in Him.

(Acts 17:24-27)

24“God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;

I We must worship God for His supremacy (24) Look at verse 24. “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.” In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and He is Lord of them. That’s how Paul describes this inescapable fact. God is independent in creation and supreme in the entire universe. The Lord ask Job in ch. 38, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth, who determined its measurements, to what were its foundations fastened, who laid the cornerstone, who shut in the seas with doors and made the clouds its garments and told the waves where they must stop. (Psalm 19) The heavens cannot contain Him and this building is not His home. When we come to church it is for what reason? Each of us has our own but there is really one reason that matters. We come not because were suppose to but because He is the God who flung the stars into heaven, he is the God who has told each planet where to stay; He is the God who has commanded gravity to hold things in place on this earth. We come to worship God because there is no other. And if you go to church for any other reason it will not do.

II God cannot be served apart from His grace (25) “Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands as though He need anything, since He gives all life, breath and all things. You cannot serve God on your own. You might be saying wait a minute. I can’t serve God? Let’s translate this verse. God is not served with men’s hands, feet, legs or any other part of our body as if he needed anything from us, since He gives life, breath and everything else you posses.” In our way of thinking which is of the flesh we say we give back to the Lord. Now let me ask what are we giving back if it’s already His? We say we should serve Him. What are we to serve Him with if He is the one who gave it? You see all the work you and I have to do never originated from us in the first place. If we feel as though we have to work in our salvation it is a works based faith. Now don’t get me wrong work follows faith (James 2:14-18) For example Paul said in (Ephesians. 2:9-10) Not of works lest any man should boast, now listen to verse 10, For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which GOD PREPARED before hand that we should walk in them.” We get the “I HAVE TO DO” mixed up with what God had prepared for us to do. God isn’t glorified when we work for Him; He is glorified when we do the work He has prepared for us. This messes up our theology. Jesus said in (Mark 10:45) “The Son of man did not come to be served but to serve.” Jesus came to serve and honor God and to honor God was to do His will, to go to the cross, to heal when appointed, to do miracles when told. None of us can do that because God chose to honor Himself through Christ and we cant make up for what He has done for us. That’s the key He came to serve God and man believes the sacrifice was for us but it was to God to atone for the sins of the world. We need to understand that this life is not about mans glory but God’s. Look at (Romans 11:33-36) You cant work off your debt to God because you will always owe Him and if you want to honor grace you must always remain a receiver. If not we disgrace God because He is the giver of all things which we had nothing to give from the beginning. We believe we must give back to God but that puts us as the giver and God the receiver and is backwards theology. Look down with me at verse 27 of our text. I want to jump down to this verse because it is what ties this together. The first thing we saw is God is independent acting alone in creation second serving God is unacceptable unless we serve Him in His grace. And last