What Pleases God? – EP79 (Mark 1:11)
Mark 1:11
And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
Hello and welcome to the One Thing podcast. A question for today, some thought for our hearts and our minds is: What pleases God? What can we do to make God happy? What can we do to truly please God and bring a smile to Him, to have something to truly delight in? What is it that we can do? What type of people should we be?
I asked this question to a few different people, and there were a couple different answers that I began to get. One person said, “I truly believe that my effort of working really hard is pleasing to God when I just give it my all and I really do a great job”. Another person actually responded and said, “I think I have a really hard time pleasing God. You know, part of me really wants to do a good job at it. Another part of me just seems to fail miserably over and over and it's so difficult to please Him”. And lastly, another person said, “It’s a person who prays a lot and I find that I am praying a lot more and I feel like because I'm praying more and because I'm thinking a little bit more about God, that it's so pleasing to Him”.
Now, I want to go to the Word of the Lord. And in the Word of the Lord, I'm so excited because it states clearly what is pleasing to the Father, what is truly pleasing, what type of person, what can we actually do to please the Father? And it'll truly answer every single one of the people that I've spoken to, even you today as you may be thinking, “What is pleasing to the Father? How can I please Him?”
“The only thing that is pleasing to God...”If you look at Mark chapter 1 verse 11, this is where Jesus was baptized and the Spirit of God had come upon Him and all of a sudden, a voice from Heaven, the voice of the Father spoke to His Son and this is what God says about Jesus. It says, “And a voice came from heaven saying: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’”
Think about that for a moment. The Son and the Father. The Father and the Son. God is looking down and He is saying, “You Jesus, are my Son whom I love.” See, the love between the Father and the Son is a perfect love. When Jesus looks to His Father, His Father looks directly back at Him and everything that He does is pleasing to Him. How do we know? He says, “...with you I am well pleased.” He is well pleased with Jesus. He is perfectly delighting and pleased in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus and the Father are one and they are one in love. They are one in mind, they are one in will and in purpose and this love is a powerful love. It is a pleasing love to the Father. And see, everything that Jesus did, everything that Jesus does, even this day, is pleasing to His Father. There's no mistakes about it. There's no left or right to it. There's no other ups and downs. It is truly Jesus and so what does that mean for us today? My friends, it is that the only thing that is pleasing to God is that we would be full of the Lord Jesus Christ.
“...even when we fail at times, there is hope.”The Bible says it in so many different places. “Clothe yourself in Christ.” “Be filled with Christ.” Why is it such a direct thing that God is calling us to? Because listen, our efforts may be ok, our desires may be somewhat for God, our prayers may be going day and night and maybe we may fall at times as well but all those things don't matter in comparison to the power of the Lord Jesus in our lives. You see, the gospel of Jesus is this: that when we turn to Christ, when we truly put our faith and trust in Him, He enters into our lives. He enters into the depths and the soul of man and woman and He is now living through us.
And why is this so incredible? Because when Jesus is in us, when we are filled with Christ, we cannot fail because He is pleasing to the Father. When Jesus speaks through us, when our prayers are no longer just our prayers, when they are the prayers of Christ in us, they reach the Heavens, they reach the Father and they are truly pleasing. When our efforts are not rooted in us just kinda trying hard, when the effort that we have is actually being compelled by Christ in me, Christ in you, this is the effort that is pleasing. This is the walk that is pleasing to God. And you see, even when we fail at times, there is hope. There is hope in the power and the grace of God. The mercy of God that picks us back up to go at it again because Christ in me cannot fail. Because Christ in me is the hope of glory.
Are you filled with Jesus this day? Are you looking to please the Father? Have you thought that being able to please Him is praying more or maybe just trying to study more? Now listen, all those things are good. All those things should be a result of Christ moving in us and giving us a desire for the Word and giving us a desire to move and to walk with God but ultimately, the only one that can truly please the Father is the Son.
“...the power of Christ in us...”And I pray today that we would come to the Son. That we would come to the Lord Jesus so that as we walk and as we begin to live out this Christian life, we would not be living in religion, we would not be living in our own effort, we would not be living according to what we think is pleasing to God but simply living in Christ, knowing that He is one with the Father. And He joins us also as one with Him knowing that He is pleasing which now makes me pleasing because it is not me but it is Christ in me. Christ, the one who God looked upon and said, “You are my Son whom I love. With you I am well pleased.”
Praise God today that we are no longer on the outside; we don't have to remain away from God. Praise God today we don't have to live in our own efforts. Praise God today we don't have to live according to what we think we are capable of doing but we can live in Christ.
May we cry out to Him today if we find that we truly have not lived a pleasing walk with God. If we find that we have been caught up in just doing works and things but doing it apart from the power of Christ in us, then I pray today that we would turn to Jesus. That we would find Him and that He would enter in to once again be Christ in the flesh, living and walking and breathing through you and through me.
Be blessed today and may you hear the voice of the Lord calling you to Himself and may you come deeper into Christ more than ever before. Amen.