The Marks of a Good Christian: Pleasing God

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  The Marks of a Good Christian: Pleasing God

  Good morning Saints of HBC. Please turn in your Bible to 1 Thessalonians 4 as we move into some new territory in this study, in this wonderful letter of Paul to the church in Thessalonica. It was a young church. AD 50 had only been there a year or so, and Paul had only been there a few months. But God had done an amazing work there by his grace. And it was a good church. It was a church that was going through its own trials, sufferings, persecution. And Paul was hearing a good report about this church and wrote a letter to encourage them and build them up. And so we have seen in the last three chapters how a good leader builds up a good church, even though they were in suffering and persecution and affliction, and probably a lot of people were wondering what they should do, where should where they should go, what should happen next? Paul writes to comfort them, and he does that in the first three chapters by reminding them of who they are in Christ. And that's the beginning of this letter. For three chapters it's been about the identity of the Christian...who you are as a believer in Jesus Christ. Your identity in him being saved by faith in Christ alone, so that now as he comes to chapter four, he can turn, if you will, to a new direction instead of looking back to encourage them in the present, chapters four and five, he's actually now going to try to encourage them in the present by giving them an exhortation towards the future. Now that he's established their identity, who they are in Jesus Christ, he's reminded them of that. Now he wants to then move them on to love and to good deeds, to exhort them, to urge them, to implore them...all those words for action, all those words for activity. Now you will get a lot of in chapters four and five. And that's really Paul's formula in a lot of his letters, where he will write to a church, and he'll first want to remind them of who they are, telling them who they are in Jesus Christ, re-establishing a good foundation. We saw that last week when we talked about 1 Timothy 3:2 when he sent Timothy, he sent him as a worker in the gospel of Jesus Christ, verse two, to strengthen them. And we said that word for strengthen was his foundational word, an establishing word. If you're going to see these people you haven't seen in a while and you've heard differing reports of how they're doing, establish them in the gospel of Jesus again, before you just rush right in to telling them what to do. And again, that's a pattern of Paul, whether the book of Ephesians lays it out in some ways symmetrically...three chapters of identity, three chapters of activity, Ephesians 1 to 3, 39 times talking about who they are in Christ, in the Lord, in him. And then Ephesians 4-6 talking about walk worthy, walk in the light, walk in love, walk in wisdom, stand in the Lord, fight the good, fight. All those action ideas come after identity ideas. And that's how we live our Christian life..no different today. We don't just rush people into as soon as they have any interest in Christ and the gospel. A bunch of do's and don'ts, but one did. What did God do for you in Jesus Christ? Whose righteousness is it that justifies you by faith? We need that message at all times, in all places, in all situations and circumstances, to be reminded of who we are in Jesus. As much as we're going to see now, today, and then moving forward in this letter, how important it is then for us to get instruction for how to live the Christian life. Because it's a both/and. It's not an either/or. To understand your justification is the foundation from which your sanctification arises. Those two words shouldn't scare anybody off. They're the two words that describe our Christian life while here on earth. Glorification describes our life once we're in heaven and with Christ. But while we're down here, justification means what God has done for me in Jesus, his perfect righteous life, given, credited, counted to my account by faith in him alone. He perfectly fulfilled the law of God in every point possible. He did what seems unbelievable to our ears what Jesus said the commandment can be summed up in...love God with what?...all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, all your strength. You do that, you'll fulfill every command there is. Perfect love for God. Only one person did it...Jesus Christ. And that's why our faith is in his perfection, his righteousness not our own. That's you being justified. But now what of this sanctification...that word sanctification, sanctified, has the word Sanctus in it, in the Latin. It's a word for being holy. We're to be holy as God is holy. We don't have holiness in our own selves. We need to be made righteous in Christ. But then there is the expectation for every Christian, every person in Christ, to now become who you already are. As in if you are in Christ...now you start to walk like him, look like him, talk like him, live like him. That's what it means to be a Christian. If somebody were to ask you, you know what is the essence of the Christian life? Now, when I'm saying that question, I'm not saying what's the essence of the gospel, because the essence of the gospel is all of what Jesus did for us. What's the essence of the Christian life? How do you go on living it? The answer is found in today's section in verses 1 and 2. The essence of the Christian life is nothing less than pleasing God. You can't please God apart from Christ. In fact, you said it. You read it this morning already, didn't you?...in Romans 8. Those who are in the flesh are not in Christ without the Spirit of God. What did it say?...cannot please God. That's the great divide in the world. No matter what you see of people's religiosity on the outside. If they're not in Jesus Christ name whatever religion it is, however devout they are trying to keep whatever holy book they say they ascribe to. If you are in the flesh, living in your own power, trying to do enough good deeds for God to be pleased with you. Romans 8 levels that. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. It's not able to do so, not able to subject itself to that perfect submission to the will of God, to love him with everything in you. You can't do it. So flip that around. Can you be pleasing to God? Do we have it drilled in our minds so much that we're totally depraved sinners, and all our deeds are filthy rags? Why even try to please him? Well, if that's the case, what's the difference between us before being a Christian and after? If we can't please God, what's the Christian life for? There has to be some way, if it's possible, to please God, that we would be told. And we were. A few weeks ago, and similar to where the pivot point is in 1 Thessalonians 4, when Dave preached on Romans 12 and you had 11 chapters of identity, 315 verses in Romans 1 to 11, only seven verses give you any type of command. Every other verse is telling you who you are, who you are, who you are. But then you hit Romans 12:1 and what did they say? Therefore, in light of God's mercies, offer your life a living sacrifice which is pleasing to him. That's the start of the Christian life. What's the essence of the Christian life? It's to offer your life as a living sacrifice, pleasing to him. So I say all this by way of reminder that as we get to the...we want to call it like the Continental divide, the watershed moment of this letter. It's 1 Thessalonians 4:1-2, because it's now not talking about who you are in Jesus anymore. It's talking about what he expects of you and the fundamental priority of a good Christian. As we've labeled the series, what's a good church? What's a good leader? Chapters 4 and 5....the rest of the way. No ducking in any of it. Chapters 4 and 5 are what are the marks of a good Christian? But the fundamental piece of that is there in verse one...pleasing God. That's the aim of our life. If somebody were to ask you, what's the aim of your life as a Christian, you could say it's to please God. If you want to sound confessional, it's the Westminster Shorter Catechism, question number one...what is the chief end of man to glorify God and enjoy him forever? Well, you know, you could smash those two ideas together into the purpose of my life is to please God. I exist for him. I exist through him. 1 Corinthians 8:6, there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for him. And the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through him. There's the purpose of your Christian life. You exist in him and in him alone. And you do everything through him. John 15:5, abide in me and I in you. Apart from me, you can do nothing. So your Christian life boils down to pleasing God. And that's the turning point of this letter. All the commands for you to keep as a Christian the rest of the way in this letter start with this first one. How you ought to walk and please God. So let's look into it today. 
Read with me 1 Thessalonians 4:1-2. "Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as how you ought to walk and please God, just as you actually do walk, that you excel still more. For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.” This is God's word to us. May he plant it deep in us and it bear fruit through us. 
 Well, right there in that first verse we establish as Christians, the purpose of our life. What are we here to do now? What do we exist for? Why did he leave us here? Why didn't he take us to heaven? Well, because Paul tells you. You in the Lord Jesus we request and exhort you. He's kind of warming them up to move towards some exhortation, some commands as a good pastor does. He doesn't, maybe he's meeting with people and talking to them immediately blast them with the command cannon and blow them away. But he revs them up a little bit. He primes the pump by saying, hey, we request of you. Which was it's a word for a kind urging. We exhort you that's a little bit stronger. It's almost as if he's saying, hey, um, you know, guys, um, what I'm trying to say is what I'd like you to do is, you know, I want you to walk and please, God. And you're doing it, but you need to excel still more. I mean, I've already let you know in this letter where you stand. You stand in Jesus Christ and in fact, look at his request and exhortation in 4:1 is that they are in the Lord Jesus, is it not? I mean, that levels any idea of...where are you coming from, Paul? Who are you to tell us what to do? Maybe they were cool with being told who they are. We all don't mind being talked about, especially in glowing terms as Christians. But what do we do when somebody then leans in on us with some commands, brings obedience into the conversation? We might get defensive. And so Paul, being the good pastor that he is, says, look, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, as in whatever we're going to command of you, implore you, uh, ask you to do. It's in Christ. I'm Paul in Christ. You're my brother and sister in Christ. That's where this exists. It's actually possible for you to do these things. If you're not in Christ, it's impossible for you to please God as we said before. If you're not in Christ here this morning, anything that I'm going to say today that has the force of a command to it should just hit right off of you. Not that you might not be receptive to it if you think you have something to gain by it. I mean, we might come to the Bible and think it is some magic lamp like a genie, that if I do these things, then God will do this for me. And I don't mind how that works. I mean, if you're into that, that's basically karma. I do something good, I get something good back. But if you're not in Christ today, that's not how it works. None of what I would command you to do makes any difference, because if you're not in Christ, you don't have his righteousness, and you can never do enough good, holy, righteous deeds to please him. Because one sin and one sin alone, let alone the hundreds and thousands and millions of sins accumulated in a lifetime, could our good deeds ever overcome. And that is why it is true that all our righteous deeds are as filthy rags, Isaiah says. But he's saying that about the self-righteous person that thinks they can earn their way to God. So if you this morning come in here and maybe that's been your background. In religion, or even in some form of Christianity, where there was this idea of you had to earn God's favor, you have to behave in a certain way for God to accept you. All your good deeds have to outweigh your bad deeds, and that'll get you to heaven. Listen, that's wrong. The gospel, and first and foremost, above all things, is what God has done for you, not what you do for him. And so if Paul were to meet a person like that and know that, you know, they come to him busted. Their life's upside down. They don't know why things aren't going the way they want. But they've been in church and they've attended and they've read their Bibles, but nothing ever makes sense. He wouldn't just jump right into giving them a bunch of commands to keep. He would say, listen. Let me ask you a few questions. What is the gospel? He'd go back to the foundation. As I would with any of you today who seem to not be able to make sense of you profess to be a Christian, but you just. There's no fruit in your life. There hasn't been for as long as you can remember. The only thing you know to count on is you have this old Bible that somebody wrote a date in, that you said something, you mimicked a prayer of a parent. And I'm not saying those things can't be legitimate. But if that's the only thing you got and there's no fruit in your life, Paul would say, and I would say, do you know the gospel? Do you know the foundation? A holy God, your creator, he rules in righteousness and holiness and dwells in unapproachable light. And we, the sinner, can do nothing to earn our way back into a relationship with him. So he had to send his Son to earth to die in the place of sinners, to take his wrath. And then I would ask you this morning, well, I've explained that part of it, but do you know who God's Son is? It's Jesus of Nazareth, born of a virgin, meaning he had no sin inherent in him from birth, and he committed no sin willfully by his own volition his entire life. Meaning he is the only perfect person ever. And will be the only perfect person ever. And if you try to smuggle in any idea of your own righteousness and right standing before God, then you put yourself before Christ. But he alone was able to go to the cross and receive the wrath and take your punishment so that you, understanding where you actually stand before a holy God, would say, be merciful to me, God the sinner. I need Jesus Christ. I need to be saved. There's nothing in my life that I bring only to the cross I cling. What do you need to do to be saved? You need to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and trust him. Repent of your sins and turn to him. And when you change from the inside like that, when that works on the inside of you, then the idea of pleasing God actually becomes pleasing to you. Because you see him in a whole different light. It isn't this idea of seeing a God who just lays commands over top of you and you would say, kind of grumbling in your heart, there is no pleasing that man. You know, sometimes if you've worked for a hard boss or been around a heavy handed person and their expectations of you far outweigh anything you could ever do for them, and you would say something like, there is no pleasing that person. Well, when you in faith leave trying to please yourself and put yourself up as the God of the universe, and you turn and bow down to the one true God, then there is the ability to please that God. He's already been pleased by Christ's perfect sacrifice, and by faith you accept that and now you actually can live a life pleasing to him. And that's the joy of the Christian life. Pleasing God, as the reformers would call it, in the Latin phrase coram deo, all of our life before God. But rather than be in fear of God like Adam in the garden, knowing he sinned and trying to hide from him. When you understand that, you are now seen as righteous before him, accepted by the work of his son, then you do want to live all of your life before him. You want him to know all of you open before him as you would want to know all of him. That's the joy of wanting to please God. And that's how Paul is trying to move this church toward understanding how to obey. It's in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is receiving instruction, that word for instruction there. How you ought to walk is a word of authority in the New Testament. But notice the locus of that authority in verse 1 is in the Lord Jesus, and then the locus of the authority in verse 2 for keeping commands is by the authority of Jesus. So pleasing God is sandwiched right in the middle of that...in the Lord Jesus we urge and exhort. Under the authority of the Lord Jesus, we give you commands. What do you do in between that?...you live to please God? And you can do it because you're doing it in him, not in your own strength. So verse 1 establishes we exist in the Lord Jesus Christ. But is that enough just to exist in him? No. He says, you ought to walk and please God. And you do that. He softens the blow by saying, you guys are doing well. But then he moves from just saying, hey, life, you know, pleasing God just comes down to, as we've said around here, um, no expectations for actually doing anything. You know, I've used the phrase earlier on when we talked about the beginning of this book. Uh, the essence of the Christian or Christian theology is grace. Therefore, the essence of our ethics is gratitude. And we connected in chapter 1. A good church is a work of God's grace that leads to the gratitude of the believer for the gospel of Jesus and our spiritual growth. So we connect grace and gratitude. But when you read this and you see that we're expected to do something, I want to expand that definition out and say, listen, if the essence of our theology of believers is grace and the essence of our ethics, what we do is out of gratitude, then that gratitude ought to be seen in our good works. Because if it's from the heart, if you're thankful for what God has done for you in Christ and you have gratitude for it, then you're not just thankful. Like, oh, you know what my Christian life is...just thanking God all the time, but not actually doing anything for anybody else. I think that's short of the mark. You know, it's good to be grateful. Grace does produce gratitude in a true believer. But out of that gratitude, then we see good works as our opportunities to what?...bring more glory to his name, to let our light shine with our good works so that our Father in heaven is praised. And that's the connection that Paul was making in this first verse, that we should excel still more, having received instructions in the Lord Jesus, we should keep it going, which moves us to our second verse. 
 And the second point that excel still more moves us underneath verse 2’s authority. You know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. If we are made to please God, and we are. Then the question is how do I please him? And verse 2 unlocks the secret of pleasing God. It may not be exciting because it's some mystical experience, some spiritual high that well, I get in this zone, I go away on this weekend retreat and I meet the Lord at the Transfiguration, somewhere up in the Appalachian Mountains. And now my life has never been the same, and I know I never struggle. Everything's easy. Is that what Paul says in verse 2? No. The ability to please God and excel still more comes down to one shoe leather, faith word...obedience. Verse 2. Because he just says it. We instructed you how you ought to walk to please God, and we want you to excel still more in pleasing God. That's what you exist for. How am I going to do it? Verse two. Well, you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. And then in chapters four and five, he's going to give them all the commands he already gave them. He might expand on them. But this idea of saying today as a Christian...I exist through Jesus Christ to please God. So what am I supposed to do about it? You're supposed to obey. That's how it's seen. That's the fruit of your good life, your good works. As a Christian, you obey. But you obey from a heart that wants to please God, not a heart that wants to please itself. 2 Corinthians 5:9 Paul says, therefore we have as our ambition, our aim, our goal, whether at home, he means down here on earth or absent away with the Lord in heaven to be pleasing to him. I've got one aim in my life I want to please God, Paul would say. And how do I do it? Verse two, I do it by obeying the commands of the authority of the Lord Jesus. That our Christian life is not just found in Christ to please God...through Christ we please him in our obedience. And that obedience is something that can always be improved upon, can't it? That none of us are going to arrive at perfection while we're down here. You can always excel still more. There's always more of your heart to give to the Lord and pleasing him. And then out of that excitement and joy in him, you would say, like 1 John says, his commandments are not burdensome. They're for my good. And you have to hold that intention in your heart right now that I can be perfectly accepted by God in Christ and loved by him, and that can never be lost. And yet I can excel still more and be pleasing to him. You know, I was thinking about that, how I put that together in my mind, at least. And it took me back to grade eight, Miss McCann's English class. Two things stand out from my eighth grade English class with Miss McCann. It was the first time I got detention. Don't remember what for. Because I was a teacher's kid. I wasn't a teacher's pet. I was a teacher's kid. My dad was a teacher. So anything I did, ever, he found out. So that prohibits one from getting too many detentions. You already know he's going to see it all and know it all. There's a certain omnipresence he had. That's the first thing that stood out. The second thing was in that eighth grade English class, four semesters, I got an A every semester. I mean, it's evident, isn't it? You hear me speak and write, right? I'm an eighth grade A student. After that it goes downhill. But she would give me the same comment every quarter. It's comment number eight...remember it...needs to exert more effort. Now that's a problem for an eighth grade boy who gets an A. What's the goal? Why exert more effort? I got the A. Help me out with that one. But I remember that still to today, and I see its relevance in our Christian life. In Christ, positionally, you are as justified and as saved and as redeemed as you will ever be. You've got an A. How you stand before God in Christ. And yet on all of our report cards of faith...excel still more. Wherever you are. Excel still more. Abound is the word for excel. It's used 39 times in the New Testament. It's a wonderful word that talks about something overflowing and thriving and flourishing and teeming with life. It's this idea that there's still more to do, because if there wasn't more for us to do, more for us to excel in, not to earn our salvation, but to live out of it, what would be the point of sticking around here. If there wasn't more race left to be run, and more people we can win for Christ and help in Christ and serve in Christ. So we excel still more. And God can look at our lives in a way that we really can't. He can see to our heart. And when we talk about excelling still more there might be this motivation that you hear about in John 12 where we could want the approval of man when we hear excel still more. You know, it's hard because in our fallenness we immediately could think of, you know, Hebrews 12 that Jeremy preached a few weeks ago. Hey, run the race. And immediately we think about, I need to beat somebody. And so we compare. And that's not how we run the race. It's not a race of comparison. You're in it. Now, you're in it with a bunch of other believers. But you're not there just looking around saying, am I faster than this guy? Am I slower than that guy? Yeah, well who do we look to in that?...Hebrews 12. The author and perfecter of our faith, the only one. And so we can certainly excel still more to try to catch him. But if you just set up for yourself people around you that you're trying to I mean, it's going to take you down a spiral, either a spiral of despair because you hang around some really great Christians and you figure I can never be as good as them. Or rather than despair, it pumps you up with pride because you look around and say, look at all these slouches. I'm dusting them. So we don't look around. That's what the Pharisees did. I was referencing that. Jesus is speaking in John 12 and he's saying to them, while you have the light, believe in the light, so you may become sons of light. But they were not believing in him. Verse 37 of John 12. And verse 42 tells you why. Nevertheless, many, even the rulers, believed in him, as in they might have as we talked about a few weeks ago agreed with some of the things he was saying, but they didn't put their faith in him. It says, uh, because of the Pharisees, they were not confessing him for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue. For they love the approval of men rather than the approval of God. We can still do that as Christians can't we? Might even get worse, because we think it's some kind of race around here, just trying to sprint faster than the next person and then evaluating our righteousness on a false standard. And how amazing is God that he looks at our hearts. He knows the effort we give. Um, there's times you're going to fall back and maybe you're in a small group and you feel like everybody else showed up for life group that week and confessed to have a good week, and you're the only one that was one of the worst weeks of your Christian life, and you feel like you're behind in the race. Well get back up, God says, I look at your heart. I know your effort. Are you in it to please me or to please them? Only an omniscient infinitely wise God can look at all his children and there's no game of comparison. I mean, the game's going on and everybody's playing at the same time. But he could see each one of you individually and understand the motive of your heart, either to please him or not, and rate your excelling. Based on what he knows is going on in the inside of you. I was thinking about that yesterday, watching. I took my kids over to a football practice for their school, and as I was trying to get my mind around it, then I kind of again, analogies fall apart, but on human levels they help us understand, how could God do that? How could it not be a race? And I was watching the kids compete and they're competing in the 40 yard dash. And they're being evaluated by their coaches. How fast they are. And I'm watching my kids. I have a particular interest in them. I mean, all the other kids are going, but I'm not really paying too much attention to them. I like them, they're nice. But my kid I'm really interested in and I had no ability to see what the clock times were. I was standing far enough away, but all I could really see was the effort, you know? Did it look like they gave their best? Even one didn't have his cleats and was falling down and getting back up. And I was pleased as his dad. I don't care about what the times were. Who's the fastest sixth grader? I just cared about the effort. That whatever he was going to do, he was going to give it his best. That's part of what it is to want to please God and excel still more by your obedience. It is saying if it's true, if this is how this Christian life works, that you know one day, we're going to stand before God. And he's not going to judge us based on comparing to everybody else. What's the parable of the talents? Somebody he gave ten. Someone he gave five. Someone he gave one. And he says, well done, good and faithful slave based on what you did with what you had. Not comparing you to the person who was given more or given less. And then in the Gospels, how many times does Jesus say that he who's given much, much more will be given to him? But he who does nothing, what he has, will be taken away? And then when you press on to know the Lord, to love him, to seek him, to please him, and you lean into that and run towards that and try to excel in that, he's going to be faithful to give. He's not going to withhold more of himself knowing him. He wants you to abound in those good fruits. He's not playing a game with you. But that comes back to your heart as a Christian. Do you really want to please him, or can you get caught up in a lot of other ways we think about our Christian life?...pleasing self, pleasing man. You know, as we move into these next few chapters in 1 Thessalonians, there's some commands of how to live a more pure life...sexual purity. And relationship with people around us. There's commands about how to live a quiet, productive life as a good worker. And to test our motives this morning, I could ask you, how do you think you would respond to the word the rest of the way in Thessalonians? If I said, you know, I've I've been pouring into these texts and it's been weeks of studying, I've actually unlocked the key to success at your job because he's going to talk about work. And it boils down to these three things. And here's the thing. If you keep these three principles about how to work...in a year, God will give you one million dollars. And I promise you that. And if somehow that was true, how compelled would you be to keep those three commands. If you knew $1 million was coming at the end? Be honest with your heart today. I think every one of us would give it our best varsity attempt, wouldn't we? We would try it. You're lying if you say you wouldn't. We'd all try it. We'd give it our best. You say I'm not motivated. Well, be motivated to send money to our missionaries. Okay, get the million bucks. I don't need money. Do something good with it. I'm just saying that motivation could be to keep a command, yet not be what?...interested at all in pleasing God. You can obey with no interest in pleasing God. You can take commands in the New Testament and take them in and of themselves and what they might hold out, and those could be good things. But the great thing is what?...doing it because you want to do what?...you want to please him. And so you'll do whatever it costs, without any thought of, well, pragmatically, what am I getting in response? That's not what it's about. Pleasing God is about loving him. And out of love for him and delight in him because of what he did for you, that he first loved you. So you love him. You're going to keep those commands and there's no magic tricks to it. You do these four things that Thessalonians 4 whatever says. That's not how it works, friends. Because God wants your heart. And he wants to ask you this morning before we launch into the rest of this letter, when you read how you ought to walk and please God, excel still more, you're under the commandments given by the authority of the Lord Jesus. Are you going to obey them? First and foremost, because you want to be pleasing to God. And there is a connection in the New Testament between our pleasing God and our obedience. It's not legalism. It's exactly the way the things laid out. In the same way that you can try to obey without desiring to please God. You can flip that thing around. You don't please him by not obeying him. That is plain and simple from the New Testament. Let me read you a litany of verses that put those two things next to each other. We'll start with Ephesians because it's nearby. Ephesians 5:8, you were formerly darkness, now you're light in the Lord. We're talking to Christians. Walk as children of the light, for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth. Ephesians 5:10, trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. There's your starting point. The connection between your obedience and pleasing God starts with this idea that as we become Christians and learn the Christian life and what it is to please God, we have to learn it, Ephesians 5:10. So wherever you are today, as a believer, it's okay to feel like I don't even know where to start. Aren't there like thousands of commands? Yeah. And part of you growing as a Christian is just learning how to please the Lord by knowing what those commands are and then obeying them. Some you might have never heard of before. Stick around long enough, you'll learn more of them. And then you're to grow in pleasing him in every respect. From Ephesians, just go two books over to Colossians 1. Paul's opening prayer to empower these believers. Colossians 1:9,he says, since the day we heard of your faith, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Here it is, verse ten. Colossians one. So that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please him in every respect. So how much of your life does God want you to please him in? Every respect inside and outside...thoughts, feelings, actions, of course...words. That you would please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work. And then. Here's what he wants with you too... Increasing in the knowledge of God. God wants us to obey him in every respect, in every good work, and bear good fruit, and in that we increase in the knowledge of God because we see around us the effect of the fruit of our lives when we do that, and we learn more about him. And he's more precious to us, he's more glorious to us. And that joyful obedience to him makes us want to do it all the more. Colossians says that. Hebrews 13:21, May he equip you in every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ. Hebrews 13:21. There's this idea in Ephesians 5:10, Colossians 1:10, Hebrews 13:21 that growing in our obedience to him is directly connected to our pleasing of him. That's a good thing for us. And then there's some specific ways we can do it. Any kids in the room? Any children in the room who want to honor the Lord? That's awesome. To be in Christ at a young age. To say you want to follow him. The greatest thing. The greatest thing you could want to do is to follow Christ with all your life if you're a kid in here, ten years old, 15 years old teenager. You know, God is kind to you, that though there's many things over the course of your Christian life that will be expected of you. He makes one commandment really clear to you, young person. And it's attached to being pleasing to him. Colossians 3:20. Children, be obedient to your parents in all things. For this is well pleasing to the Lord. If you say you're a Christian and you're a young person, whatever age, and you wonder like, what's man like...like curfew. Like, where's that in the Bible? I have to stop playing my video games. Where's that in the Bible? I got to take a bath. Where's that in the Bible. You know it is in the Bible? By obeying what your mom and dad ask you to do you can please the Lord. Is that enough motivation for you, young person? That you can obey the Lord in obeying your parents and bring glory and joy and pleasure to your creator. Because if you just limit it to the thing that your mom and dad are telling you you can't do. Oh, I'm just supposed to be obedient to them and do everything they say? Well, no. There's somebody even above them that they take their marching orders from. And when they're asking you to do something. Yeah, it may bug. And you may roll your eyes and then you, you got to take that heart attitude to the Lord. But then you got to come to Colossians 3:20 and say, wait a second. My obedience to my mom and dad in all things it says...that's well pleasing to the Lord. So God can put your life on the right track in obedience by you understanding the simplicity of Colossians 3:20. That's how kind God is to you young people. Now, for the rest of us, hey, it just adds. You read through the scriptures. There's more to obey. Our giving is to be well pleasing to the Lord. Philippians 4:18. What you have sent a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. When you give whatever age you are, when you work hard Monday to Friday, and you give that back to the Lord, that's well pleasing to him. You're sharing Hebrews 13:16 do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. How about keeping his commands? 1 John 3:21 to 22, we have confidence before God, and whatever we ask, we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight. You never move past it. 10 or 100...being pleasing to God is seen in the fruit of your good works, your obedience to him. That's what Paul is trying to set up in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-2, before he moves out into all the details. He wants our hearts and these people to understand that it has to come from your heart. It has to be about pleasing God. And then when it's about pleasing God, walking in the ways that he commands under the authority of Jesus, you can do it. You can become who he's created you to be. But there's no other option to take. The path of legalism, which just says, I'm just going to perform. I'm not going to worry about my heart. I'm just going to do it on the outside. That's not the path. The path of Libertinism, which says, I stand as a child of God. He accepts me as I am. I'm perfect just the way I am. Don't give me any commandments. Really? I don't know what you're going to do with the rest of Thessalonians. But he says, here's the path. God has been gracious to you in Christ. Your heart response of gratitude leads to your good works done to please him, not to please man. That's who you look to. It's like a kid who, um, he's out with his buddies. Maybe. Not that I'm telling on myself, but maybe he was in eighth grade, and, um, there was a bunch of old steel mills around, abandoned and a favorite target of eighth grade boys to want to throw rocks through all those windows. And so say, this guy's hanging around with his friends and, you know, they're having a good old time breaking the law. Um, but he won't join in. And these kids are looking at him going. What's wrong with you? What are you afraid of? If your dad finds out that, what's he going to do to you? Is that why you're not doing it? And he just says no. I'm not doing it because what my dad might do to me if he finds out. It's what it would do to him. Do you live your Christian life that way? You know that fear of, oh, if God finds us out, he knows it. He sees everything. He sees down to your heart motive. So it's not about him finding out. Now there is a fear of the Lord, Hebrews 12 says, we should have. Just as earthly fathers disciplined us, our heavenly father will discipline us. But if the only realm you have to motivate your obedience is fearing God, you're missing out on a really big part. The part that motivates you to obey God based on wanting to what?...please him. That your disobedience doesn't please him like that kid. And you go, oh, I know what it does to him. And that's what hurts me. More than maybe even the chastisement that I'm going to get. It's letting him down. Because I know of what he did for me. I mean, you understand that, you know that's the highest form of motivation. When somebody has loved you so much, given so much for you, sacrificed for you, and then you turn around and you say, what should I do for them? Well I can't ever pay him back? But I just want my life to bring joy to their life. I want my service to them to bring pleasure to them. And we talked about that last week when Paul says in 3:8, now we really live if you stand firm in the Lord. Is your life so bound up in your love for the Lord that that's how you feel about obedience. Man that I can bring him joy. One day I will hear and you will hear. Well done, good and faithful slave. You excelled still more. Adam. You finally learned how to exert more effort. Enter into my joy. At my right hand are pleasures forevermore. Because what you've been told your whole life about its joy, its joy, its pleasure, let that motivate you. John 15:11, if you've heard my commands, you have them. My joy will be in you. Your joy will be made full. If you really believe that, why would anything change for eternity? When you get to God and you stand before him and he says, enter into the joy of your master. I've got pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11. It's just one continuation of it, isn't it? So you got to get a taste of it now. Live a life pleasing to him and want to excel still more in it. Just like Christ, for the joy set before him obeyed all the way to the cross. Us? We don't got to go to the cross. We just got to carry it. But we got to go all the way to what...he calls us home. And then we get the reward. More joy, more pleasure. If that doesn't motivate you to obey, I really don't know what can. Let's take a moment and pray. And then as we do that, the band will come back out. We'll have a time to remember the Lord's table today together. Um, you can actually raise your hand now if you don't have one of these. The band will make their way to the stage. Just keep your hand up and some of the ushers will come down and give you one of these. But while they're doing that, and while the band is coming, let me pray for our time before the Lord's table today. 
Father, we thank you for your grace to us in Christ. We thank you that we exist in you to please you, and we exist through you to please you. And our life is bound up in you as you first loved us, and now we love you. And so this time, now that we reflect on the gospel, Christ, we reflect on your body being broken and your blood being poured out...that it would renew the affections of our hearts for you. For that's what you want. We ask this in your name. Amen.