From the Ground Up V, How to Be Pleasing to God

In your notes, there's an outline. I'd like you to take that now. If it is our intent, if our heart's cry is to be pleasing to God, to keep Jesus first, how do we do that? What keeps us from staying on course? What causes us, another way to ask the question, what causes us to drift into something less than God's best? I don't know, there's always a gap between the ideal and the real. The ideal is that I can drive both of my cars into the garage and open them and not hit anything on either side. The reality is there's stuff piled up everywhere and it's a mess and I've got to get some time to clean out the garage and get in there. There's a gap there. The ideal is that I weigh X number of pounds, look this certain way, feel this certain way, have this certain blood pressure, cholesterol. The reality is I look in the mirror in the morning and say, it can't be me. What's happening with this? How about you? Is there a gap between the ideal and the real in your world there? It's the same way spiritually. Ideally, we would all be passionately devoted, empowered servants of God. But in reality, if we're honest here, a lot of us would say, I'm just not there. Now, I don't want us to stay there. And I don't want you to feel it's okay to be there if that means that you're not going to change. But I do want to say there's hope for all of us who believe God has better things for us. Notice this top verse in your outline. Look at it. The Lord does not look at the things that man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord, well, he looks at the heart. And we rightly said to place our affections on God, to please God and reach out. Remember the PR church? Please God and reach out. I have discovered over time that four things tend to emerge to get in the way of that. Four obstacles, if you will, that will emerge. And they will keep you from becoming what God wants you to be. It astonishes me that a man called David in the Bible, King David, was a man that was said to be after God's own heart. Look at the next verse. David is a man after my own heart. Why does it astonish me? Well, I'm going to explain that for you. David was a great man. He was a king, a general, a leader, a scholar, a poet. He united nations under himself, kingdoms. He killed giants and led armies. He wrote the beloved Psalms that most of us read day by day. And yet, none of those achievements impressed God. It was his heart of worship that God said, I like that. He's a man after me. Now, the thing that's so difficult about that is, at the same time, David faced some things that revealed the other part of himself. And let's look at those things. Four tests. And you might be facing the same things yourself today. Number one, he faced the test of sin. Notice the graphic up here is a candle. The flame has just gone out. It's just a smoldering wick. You might be here today, and I'm sure that some of you are here, that are thinking, you know, I don't even know why I'm coming to church anymore. I don't even know what this is about. I used to feel more than I do now. You see, sin has a way of coming into our lives, and sometimes very subtly and surreptitiously taking away the flame of our passion. This is what happened to David. In fact, he was at the very top of his game, as it were. He was just appointed, anointed to be king. His armies had been defeating others. Everywhere he went, he was having victory. The Bible says that they were claiming him and saying, you know, Saul slew his thousands, but David slew his ten thousands. He was appointed to the top of the pile, and yet in the middle of his greatest moments, he became vulnerable, discontented, lustful of another man's wife, whom he then took and had an affair with, and conceived a child, and then had her husband killed after lying about the situation. You know, it's interesting. Take a look at your Bible, would you? On the outside jacket, does it say, look at it, does it say Holy Bible? Does yours say Holy Bible, or does it just say, you know, does it say anything else? Does it say Holy Bible? And yet, is this not one of the most graphic books out there? Does this book not talk about sexuality, and incest, and rape, and murder, and lying, and betrayal? I mean, in a way, it's like a soap opera. But it says Holy Bible. Why did God do that? Why put all that stuff in the Holy Bible? I think it's because God wanted you and I to know he recognizes how we struggle with sin. Aren't you glad for that? I am so glad for that. Not because I want to exonerate myself from responsibility, but because I want to know that I have a God who knows my weaknesses, and loves me the same, and gives me hope. That's why he put it in here. And I so value that. Because King David, the poet, the scholar, the leader, the general, the psalmist, was also a liar, and betrayer, and adulterer, and murderer. And yet, he is still spoken of as a man after God's own heart. So why does God say that? How could such a sinner be a man after God's own heart? Because King David was not only a great sinner, he was a great repenter. He was a great repenter. When he was convicted of his sin, he did not make excuses. He didn't try to rationalize. He didn't blame the pastor, or the elders, or the neighbor down the street. He just said, Lord, I am guilty. Look at the next verse. O loving and kind God, have mercy. Have pity upon me, and take away the awful stain of my sins. Wash me, cleanse me from this guilt. Sometimes, friends, guilt is a good thing. Let me be pure again, for I admit my shameful deeds. And the next verse. David knew that God would not reject a repentant heart. What does repentance mean? Loved ones, there's this misconception. Repentance is not a moment of emotion, when you say, oh, I feel so bad about everything. Repentance, metanoia, means a change of mind. Meta in the Greek means change. Noia is the word for mind. It's a noun that means mind. You have a change in your thinking about how you're supposed to conduct yourself. You're convicted. You change. And you turn around and go the other direction. That's repentance. And David repented of his sin. And it was that capacity, that softness of heart, that made him repent, that was so endearing to God Almighty. And I shared here several weeks ago that sometimes we are fooled by the devil to think that when we have failed, that we will be of no use, that the likelihood of our ever rising up again and serving God is gone, or making any difference in the world is gone. I want you to know something. It is often your greatest failure that can become your greatest ministry. Because God takes a repentant heart and fills it with His Spirit. And so today, I want you to just, would you help yourself with this? It's not for me, but it's for you. Evaluate today your responsiveness toward repentance. If you find, and no one's going to turn this in or check it, I'm not going to ask you to share with your neighbor, I'm not going to post it up here in the world. But honestly, between you and the Lord, if you think that you're quick to repent when you're convicted, give yourself a high mark, an 8, 9 or so. If on the other hand, today you're here and things have just gotten a little bit distant, and you're already getting an attitude about the whole message this morning, you might want to give yourself a 1 or a 2, or a 3, if you feel. It's important. Evaluate yourself. The Bible says, examine yourself. Go ahead and evaluate yourself. If you tend to blame others, and it's other people's fault that you're not growing, and it's other people who didn't do, well, you might just want to consider that. Be quick to repent. Second, the second test that can derail your passion for God, on the other hand, if you pass the test, then that smoldering wick's going to become a little flame. It's the test of stress. David carried a very heavy load. Make no mistake, the kingdoms were at war. The people were out to kill him. David was hiding in caves. He lived in one of the most dysfunctional families known to man. One son raped another daughter. Another son killed a brother. Another son tried to rebel and take the kingdom from him. I mean, talk about a family mess. And yet David didn't flee from God. He didn't stand paralyzed. Listen, the Bible says that he prayed and he trusted God. David's response to test was of a trusting heart. A trusting heart. Look at the next verse. In my distress, I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me and rescued me. He is for me. Everyone say that. He is for me. Not everyone. He is for me. God is for you. If God is for you, Romans says, who can be against you? So no matter what it is that you're facing, no matter how heavy the trial, David trusted the Lord. Psalm 73, 26. My mind and my body may grow weak, but God is my strength. He is all I'll ever need. You know, others would say, oh, it's Goliath. Goliath, I mean, he's out there threatening the nation. Goliath is too big to kill. I mean, he's too big to hit. And David looked at him and said, you know, he's too big to miss. I'm going right after him. God's all I need. He'll be my strength. I don't need Saul's arm right any other way to do it. I'm just going to go forward trusting God. Listen, every one of us here, I'm confident today, statistically I think I could bear this out, that probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of us are suffering today from some form of depression. You're feeling down about life. And in some cases, very far down about life. 20% at least. Listen, hear me now. Depression is not a sin. It is not a sin to feel down. What becomes a sin is when you choose to make that the place where you live. In fact, depression is really just a warning light that helps you to begin to address the fact that God is waiting to rescue you. Now, you might need some professional help, a counselor, a therapist, a psychiatrist, to help you to begin to see a little more clearly. But God is waiting there to lift you up. He wants you to put the full weight of your burden upon Him. I've often, over the years, enjoyed taking pictures. I've had a good camera for probably about 20 years now. I know a little bit about how the process works. You take a picture, you get a negative, you go into what's called a what? To develop it. What's it called? A dark room. And in that dark room, there are all these little tubs and some of them have some acid in them, some fairly strong acid. You put the negative into the acid. And a strange thing happens. The acid doesn't eat up the negative. What does it do? It develops it into a beautiful picture. Some of you are in a dark room and the acid of circumstance feels like it's eating your life away. But I want you to know something. It's God developing you into a beautiful picture. He's making something of your life. And I know it hurts. And I'm not minimizing your pain. But believe it today. Put the full weight of your trust on Him. Look what David said, I kept on believing even when I said I'm completely crushed. Dear ones, it might be your career, your job situation. It might be a relationship you're in. It might be for a number of you financially, you feel crushed by it all. For some of you, it's your schedule. We're going to be giving a whole series about balancing your life starting next week. Put your trust in Him. Evaluate yourself on that, would you? If you're good about laying your stress upon the Lord, give yourself a high mark. But if you're having difficulty and you're finding the weight of that crushing you down, give yourself a lower number, okay? Just evaluate yourself. Where are you today in terms of being pleasing to the Lord? Now turn your outline over. The third test to see that you walk in a pleasing way to God is the test of obedience, or I'm going to call it the test of service. This, I believe, is the most subtle trap for many of us, especially here in the middle of a church service. Lots of you think, you know, I kind of find my way serving God. I sort of know what I'm good at. I've kind of gotten my groove. You know, I'm an usher. I'm a greeter. I'm a Sunday school teacher. I have Bible study. I do this. I'm on this committee. I do that. I serve here. And you know what? That's wonderful, and I commend you for serving, and I believe you should be. But God has a way. Everyone say comfortable. Comfortable. That is not one of God's favorite words. When he hears that word, and he sees that word work in you, he says, I'm going to do some things that are going to create some discomfort. And he loves to just kind of shake us up and throw things at us that we just didn't anticipate because he wants us to stay sort of on our spiritual tiptoes, kind of leaning into him because otherwise we tend to just get a little bit casual and cool and push back a bit and try to make it on our own. I know one brother who was kind of serving God and doing his thing, and he was leading a PK group, and he was involved in this and that. And God spoke to him and said, and by the way, he was in a major blue-chip corporation, upper-level management position. I mean, he had the retirement package and the whole thing, and God said, I think it's time to shake you up a little bit, and I want you to lay that all aside, and I want you to come and serve me. Would you do that? Well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't believe God's calling us all to do that, but the question is, would you do that? Would you be willing to pass the test of service and obedience? Would you do as David did whatever God called you to do? Acts 13, 22 says, David did everything I asked him to do. This is so important for us. It's important for us as people. It's important for us as institutions as well. The church needs to be willing to do whatever God tells us to do. If it's a new thing, to reach out. I appreciate Geneva College. We've had a relationship with them for a number of years. They realized that their missions focus was pretty slim over there, and so they've been working with our missions committee and our missions folks here, and our folks are helping them lead a mission trip with Geneva students next January over to China. I think that's exciting, and they're creating classes of missions. Why? Because they realized they were getting just a little comfortable. Here are just three ways. This isn't on your outline, but just jot down maybe in the column on the side there ways that you know that you're being available to serve. The first one is, just think about yourself. Are you doing it wholeheartedly? Or is it sort of casually as you're able? Is it with some zeal and enthusiasm? Will you go the extra miles, is what I'm saying. A few years ago, I was flying down to Norfolk, Virginia. Who knows where Norfolk is? It's over by on the east coast. I was taking a U.S. air flight out of Greater Pitt. We got on in the plane about 8.30, taxied out about 8.45, and it was snowing. This was in, I think it was December-ish, late November maybe, and it was snowing, I mean pretty hard. We said we're going to be delayed here for a while, and that's all we heard, and three hours and some later, I thought for sure they were going to cancel that thing. What's going on in my mind is, they're in Norfolk, Virginia. I know that the rental car that I'm going to pick up, I know, I'm told by the gal that I'm supposed to get in at quarter to ten or ten o'clock, something like that. She said, we close at midnight, sir. I said, that's no problem getting in two hours early. Well now, it's eleven o'clock, and the plane hasn't left yet. It's eleven-thirty, we're getting lifted off. We land in Norfolk, it's only a quarter to one. I'm thinking, now what am I going to do? Norfolk is closed. I mean this isn't Los Angeles where you just go to another, I mean it's the whole city's closed, I think. Get off the plane, and I'm thinking, what am I going to do? I don't know how to get to where I'm staying, the whole thing, and I walk up to the rental car place, and here's this young lady, in her early twenties, big smile on her face, and it's an hour and some past when she was supposed to close. She's standing there, and she says, are you Mr. Pasadena? I said, I am. She said, well, I heard that your plane was going to be delayed, and I just decided that you needed a car, and there was no other way to do it, so I just tell you, I'm happy to be here to give you your keys. Wow. I said, did you come from the rental car agent abuse recovery program? I mean, those people get so much abuse, I don't know how in the world, she was so nice. I mean, I wrote the president of the company a letter, I said, man, this is a great customer service. I mean, she didn't need to do that. She just went wholeheartedly into her job, and she was happy to make a difference. I just, ask that of yourself. Another thing that I think marks a servant's heart is being focused, and by that, I'm saying, you know, paying attention to what really matters. Now, listen carefully here. In our culture, the greatest enemy of God's best are the good things. I'm not really as concerned about us all just sort of wandering into some gross sin. I am more concerned that we all sort of sit back and sort of, you know, reclining position and sort of let things happen. Our culture is just loaded down with options, and I have to tell you, friends, and I say this with a heart of love as your pastor, some of us are so involved in so many things that we are spread so thin that we're making no difference anywhere. Some people are away so much that when you ask them to help, they're just never available. And some people say, well, I'll get to it eventually. And there's nothing wrong with what they're doing. I'm not saying they're sinning. I'm just saying that they're not available. And in the end, they have to ask the question, what is my life amounting to? Here's what I've discovered. For what it's worth, I've been walking with the Lord for 32 years plus. Here's what I've discovered. Cumulative consistency brings impact. Here's what I mean. Give me 12 weeks in a row with Mike, or Mike in a small group. Give me 12 weeks in a row and it'll change our lives forever. Give me 12 months here and there. Oh, I missed that week. I missed a couple weeks here. Sort of incidentally, nothing will come of it. I have discovered that is an axiom in the body of Christ. That's one way, one reason, by the way, that our small groups start that way. We just ask you for a minimum commitment, but a focused commitment. Give yourself in concentrated bursts and you'll find that that accumulates a sense of movement and impact. Just try it. It works. The third thing that David did was he was sacrificial. These are the three measurements of service. He was sacrificial. He wanted to offer something to the Lord and so this owner of a big field said, I'll give you grain. I'll even slay a bull. I'll create an altar. And David said, you can read it there, 2 Samuel 24, 24, I will offer to the Lord nothing. A sacrifice that costs me nothing. I won't do it. I won't offer to the Lord sacrifices that someone gives me. It's got to cost me something if it's going to matter to God. Friends, what is it about us that we have this inclination to want to get away with the minimum to please God? What's the minimum I can give and still be kind of acceptable? I'm just thinking of an illustration here and I appreciate those of, we accept all kinds of donations in this church to help people out. You know, appliances, furniture, cars. You'll see cars parked. And sometimes people will, they'll get a car over here and say, maybe I can give this to the church and get a tax write-off. And it's, you know, in some cases, now I'm not, I'm not saying even recently, but in some cases we've had cars that literally had to be pushed onto the campus. And then people wanted a tax write-off for it. It's kind of like, well, you know, no one else will take it. I'll give it to God. Well, he's not a mechanic. You know, I'm waiting for the person that's going to drive up in their new Mercedes and say, you know, I just felt led to give this to the Lord. Or some, you know, something like that. I mean, that would be great. Give the Lord something that costs you. That's wholehearted service. That's the kind of service that means something. All right, evaluate yourself there. Are you obedient to the Lord? Give yourself a high mark. If God says do it, you're ready to go. If God, on the other hand, you're just like, hey, wait, I'm not sure. I don't know what to expect. Give yourself a low mark. Right now. Go ahead and do it. Okay, now look over on your neighbor's thing right now. I didn't, I said I wasn't going to tell you to do that, right? All right. Let me end with this. The final one. The one you'd least expect. The fourth test is success. Let me say that I really believe that most people do not think that God wants them to succeed. But look what the Bible says. In everything David did, he had great success because the Lord was with him. Here's the question. Is the Lord with you? I'm not hearing you. Jerry, is the Lord with you? Is the Lord with you, Mike? Can you expect success? Is the Lord with you, Mark? Beth? If the Lord is with you, can you expect success? Heather? If the Lord is with you, you can expect success. You can expect success. You can expect that what you're into, God is into because God is in you. And the problem that most people have is they think that somehow, well, I just don't know. I mean, there's been a lot of error taught there and a lot of people made mistakes, a lot of people got greedy and they have and all that's true. But nonetheless, dear ones, God owns everything in the world. Why can't he allow you to have some of it to bless you and to give away? It's part of God's plan. I believe that. And if we just open to it, God wants to pour it out. Now, there is, on the other side of that, a danger and the danger is and we've seen it over and over again that people, once they get some success, well, then they begin to pull away from God and just kind of say, well, you know what? I did real well here. I'm not so sure that really God needs to be all that involved. I mean, I'm doing pretty well for myself not knowing that the very success that they received was a gift from God. How should we respond? Well, David's response was to have a grateful heart. A grateful heart. Look at the second verse. Give thanks to him and praise his name for the Lord is good and his love endures forever. Thanks be to God, the next verse says in the New Testament, for he gives us the victory through Jesus Christ, our Lord. The key to handling success is gratitude. Moms and dads, what are the two words you love to hear from your kids? Thank you. Thank you. Just thanks for recognizing that we did something here. God is no less interested in hearing us say the same thing. How do I know that? Well, many times in the Bible it says Jesus, when he healed those ten lepers in Luke 17, he marveled that only one came back to give thanks to God. So trust me, if God's blessing you, the best thing you can do is be grateful. The worst thing you can do is take it for granted and keep it to yourself because success will trip you up and success, prosperity, has derailed a lot more folks than adversity ever will. And it's just the way the enemy ensnares us. Now, what is this about? It's about remaining pleasing to God, people who please him in their lifestyle. I used to think, listen, I used to think that God would look around and he'd pick some folks and he'd say, well, there's Rob. I'm going to bless Rob and Ginger. They're just such a great couple. I'm going to bless them and they're going to rise up and do something special. And he would pick certain folks and they'd be the ones who'd really have a blessing. But you know what? I don't believe that. I really believe that your response to God's grace will determine where you go in the kingdom. It's in your hands. The sovereignty of God and the grace of God are available in your life if you lay hold of it. The Bible says that God is searching to and fro throughout the whole earth looking for the one whose heart is perfect. That doesn't mean without fault. It means wholeheartedly toward him. That can be you today. Are you repentant? Are you trusting? Are you serving and obedient? Are you grateful? If so, then God wants to pour out blessing on your life. Listen, I close with this. God has called no one in this church to be average. I look out and I say, Lord, this isn't an average church. This is a great church. These are people who you want to move upon in a powerful way. You say, well, Pastor Jay, I'm not where I want to be. And I want to say to you today, I'm not where I want to be. But we have the cross and the grace of Jesus. We have the communion, the grace that we tangibly hold and partake and share together to say to us, no matter where we are, we can change. We can grow. So I'd like you to just close up your Bibles in your notes and say, Lord, right now, I need that touch. I want to be pleasing to you. Let's stand together. Let's prepare for communion. The ashes are going to go and take their places. Let's prepare for communion. John's going to come and lead us for just a moment and we're going to sing together. Heal me today, Lord. Let your grace pour over me.