Sermon: A Misunderstood Characteristic of God

#1761
Martin G. Collins
Given 04-May-24; 62 minutes 2024-05-04

It is very common for people to seek pleasure in illicit sex, gluttony, drunkenness. The works of the flesh in Galatians 5 is a list of activities that worldly people often find pleasurable, if not through action, quite often through vicarious thought. People have a distorted, shortsighted sense of pleasure for which we will endure great hardships and sacrifice. For the world, this pleasure-seeking is usually in pursuit of something foolish and wasteful or at least, of little or no value when compared to God's plan of salvation for humanity.

Please turn over to Psalm 147, verse 10. Professional sports is a case in point. To some, there seems to be no greater pleasure than watching their favorite team play. Some sports are of debatable value and the obsessive behavior of the fans sometimes turns ugly. Most fans will excitedly watch a game over going to church if given the choice. Psalm 147:10 tells us that God is not excited over a person's athletic ability.

Psalm 147:10 He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man.

It is kind of a curious thought there. People, especially men, have always been intrigued and excited by the beauty and strength and the speed of a horse. Much effort and money are put into horse racing, which has been popular since early in human history. And a man's (or woman's) legs, if well proportioned, often represent power and athletic ability. Though God is pleased with His creation as good, physical athletes are not what pleases Him.

Pleasure is generally defined as the gratification of the senses or mind; agreeable sensations or emotions; the excitement, relish, or happiness produced by the expectation or the enjoyment of something good, delightful, satisfying, as opposed to pain and sorrow.

A misunderstood characteristic of God is what pleases Him.

Surprisingly, God is accused of being harsh or removed from reality or they refer to Him as weak or senile. And truly, an accusation of senility against God confirms the insanity of the accuser! Paradoxically, God seems to find pleasure in contradictory things. It seems puzzling that Isaiah tells us it pleased God to bruise Jesus Christ. But His pleasure is tied to the accomplishing of His will and purpose. So He was willing to sacrifice His precious Son to accomplish His plan and reach His goal of bringing many sons to glory.

Please turn over to Isaiah 53, verse 4. Nowhere is the righteousness of God's pleasure seen more clearly than in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah's prophecy. Isaiah speaks of how God the Father struck His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus' suffering is mentioned in verses 4 through 6.

Isaiah 53:4-6 Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

These verses appear to the casual world observer to show the harshness and cruelty of God the Father in smiting Jesus Christ His Son. But in verse 4, the paradox or the apparent contradiction is that God struck the Being He loved most. How could He do such a thing? Is God that cruel? Well, of course not! Jesus was put to death according to God's purpose; therefore, it was according to His good pleasure. God is breathtakingly gracious and He is willing to suffer the temporary "agony" necessary to complete His goal for the pleasure of adding a multitude of family members to His Kingdom. Therefore, He is pleased to have His will carried out in the overall scheme of things.

So all true pleasure must be bought at the price of pain—at the price of something valuable. The difference between false and true pleasure is just this: for true pleasure the price is paid before we enjoy it. For false the price is paid after we enjoy it. The price of true pleasure is paid before we enjoy it. The price for false pleasure is the price that is paid after we enjoy it. You can think about the consequences of the joy of the world and what they have to suffer afterwards.

Perhaps the most surprising statement in the Bible is found here in verse 10. Here, God the Father is described as pleased to bruise His Son.

Isaiah 53:10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him [that is, Jesus Christ]; He has put Him to grief.

This statement tells us that to bruise or His being bruised was pleasing to God. And that is, it was acceptable for His Son to be crushed by many sorrows.

Now, God decided and knew that what He wanted to happen would happen. He knew He would find pleasure in it when He had accomplished it. In other words, He determined that what He was working toward would give Him great pleasure once He had accomplished it. And He knew Jesus Christ would find pleasure in it as well.

The word "pleased" from the Hebrew, ratsah, means to be pleased, be pleased with, to accept favorably, to be satisfied. So there is another aspect of that. God was satisfied with what He had to do. Now, this is a common term in both biblical and modern Hebrew and it indicates that there is a sense of satisfaction in accomplishing something. So it does not necessarily imply that there was any direct action on the part of God in bruising Him. But only that the fact of Jesus being crushed and bruised in this way was acceptable to Him because it helped to accomplish His goal.

God is satisfied when man is in a close spiritual relationship with Him. Christ is satisfied because His work and sacrifice have moved formerly separated people into an acceptable stance with God and have provided peace with God. And we are satisfied when we know we are accepted by God and in His fellowship.

So God foresaw the tremendous good Christ's excruciating and painful crucifixion would ultimately produce.

Isaiah speaks of how it would please God to bruise and grieve Jesus Christ as a sin offering for the sins and guilt of mankind but that the end result would be that His pleasure would prosper by the hand of Jesus, by the life and teachings and service and sacrifice of Christ. Isaiah 53 and verse 10 in its whole says this:

Isaiah 53:10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When you make His soul an offering [that is, a peace offering] for sin, He shall see His seed, and He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His [Jesus'] hand.

So even though Jesus was crucified at the hands of wicked men, His death was determined beforehand by God. Jesus was not a martyr, nor was His death an accident. He was God's sacrifice for the sins and guilt of the world.

Jesus did not remain dead! He shall prolong His days means that Christ was resurrected to live forever and in His resurrection, He triumphed over every enemy and claimed the spoils of victory.

Now, Satan offered Christ a present glorious physical kingdom of the world in return for worship, which would have meant physical salvation, bypassing His own crucifixion. But Jesus was obedient to death and God highly exalted Him. So by avoiding the temptation of temporary relief from suffering in this physical life, Jesus had the right vision and hope of the future glorious spiritual Kingdom of God clearly in mind.

Jesus' beating and humiliation ended in His death, producing the result God desired, and God willed this because He would have great delight that His goal of salvation for mankind was taking another step toward its accomplishment.

At the end of verse 10, the word pleasure in the phrase, "the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand" is the same Hebrew root word but in a different tense. Pleasure in Hebrew means, that which is precious as an object of delight. So Jesus is precious and someone in whom the Father finds great delight.

Verse 10 is almost shocking in its apparent disregard for Jesus Christ's emotional feelings and suffering, but God is not shortsighted and He always sees the end result of what He does. He always sees the end result of His decisions. And so according to God's overall plan, the end result will give Him great pleasure.

Now, the sense of this prophecy in verse 10 is that Jesus would be subjected to these sufferings, not because of His sins, but because under the circumstances, the result of His sufferings would be pleasing to God. They saw they were necessary and Jesus was willing to be subjected to them.

Another part of His reward is in the statement, "He shall see His seed" or His descendants. To die childless was grief and shame to the Jews. But Jesus gave birth to a spiritual Family because of His life, teachings, death, and resurrection, in one sense.

Isaiah's statement about his natural family in Isaiah 8:18 is quoted in Hebrews 2:13 and applied to Christ and His spiritual family. And so in the next verse it says,

Isaiah 53:11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.

So the Servant's—Jesus Christ—work on the tree brought satisfaction. To begin with, the Servant satisfied or pleased the Father. Now remember Jesus' words in John 8:29, "And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him." So the heavenly Father did not enjoy seeing His Son suffer. We know that the Father is not even pleased with the death of the wicked, let alone the death of the righteous Son of God, but the Father was pleased that His Son's obedience accomplished the redemption He had planned for eternity.

The death of the Servant also satisfied the law of God. The theological term for this is "propitiation." In pagan religions the word meant, to offer a sacrifice to placate an angry God. But the Christian meaning is much, much richer. God is angry at sin because it offends His holiness and violates His holy law. In His holiness, He must judge sinners, but in His love, He desires to forgive them. So God cannot ignore sin or compromise with it. That would be contrary to His own nature and law.

Now, do we see the necessity of suffering with Christ so that we too can learn and understand and really commiserate with others in their trials? Or are we so focused on our physical discomfort and misery that we cannot see the spiritual benefits of persevering through life for God, ourselves, and others?

Sometimes we suffer persecution, sometimes long-term illnesses, sometimes permanent injuries. God promises to heal as an act of mercy. He chooses the time to heal and His intervention often depends on certain conditions being met. He requires that we trust in His promise and power to do what He has promised according to His will and within His time frame. He requires faith in Jesus Christ's sacrifice represented by the bread and wine in the Passover observance. He requires repentance of any sins that may be causing the health problem. Often He heals as He reveals the problem to us.

God's action is motivated by love. Grace is love that has paid a price. And He knows our miserable state thanks to the intercession of Jesus Christ, who was struck, bruised. and grieved. Healing in this life will be granted only if it is in the best interest of God's purpose. That is an important principle to understand. You may be surprised to know that God's top priority is not our physical healing. His pleasure is our spiritual healing, in a matter of speaking. It is far more important that through physical discomfort and suffering we learn lessons necessary to perfect us or more accurately, complete us in preparation for His Kingdom.

We may have a spiritual problem or God may need us to understand and have compassion for the suffering of others in order to help others in the future. He certainly has the authority as our Creator, and He has the wisdom, being the Source of truth, to know specifically where we need our character strengthened. Any long-term sickness or an unhealed injury may be in God's wisdom the best way for us to receive the experience we need. And sometimes the cause is that members of God's church have angered God because of disunity, pride, and tolerance of sin. Or maybe we have allowed our protective wall to be broken because of letting the world's influence to dominate us.

I do not know what the reason is every time, neither do any of us. Sometimes we learn lessons that we never realize we learn. But God has taken us through a trial that has caused us to be corrected or improved or our character finetuned or whatever the case may be. Or sometimes it is for the group as a whole because one sin among us in God's church affects all of us. We all sin, therefore, we are being affected each time, sometimes greatly and sometimes not.

Please turn to Hebrews 11, verse 13. Look at what He both caused and allowed to happen to the heroes of faith.

Hebrews 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them [they had vision], embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

So they were living in the world but not of the world.

Now jump down to verse 32. We are going to read verses 32 through 40.

Hebrews 11:32-40 And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection.

Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

What a list of things that God has allowed to happen to His people and to us! And it is according to His pleasure because He knows the end result for all of us is going to be so much greater than what we we have to endure during this life. It is not to say He does not give us blessings. He is blessing us every day, almost every hour, every minute of every day. We just do not realize it and we forget to thank Him. Of course, we cannot thank Him every minute of every day. That would not allow for anything else.

Yes, the faithful suffer much but the eternal Spirit, spiritual gifts and rewards far outweigh the physical discomfort and suffering in this temporal life. Nevertheless, Jesus Christ has made healing our physical and spiritual sicknesses possible.

Now, why is God pleased with Christ's sufferings? Let us go back to that a little bit. We know that God is pleased not because He enjoyed watching the Innocent suffer; not because the Sufferer was in any way guilty or ill-deserved, and not because He was displeased or dissatisfied with what Jesus did or taught. So why is God pleased with Christ's sufferings? Because of three main things. There are others, but three main things that I have picked out here.

1. He is pleased with Christ's sufferings because Christ voluntarily submitted Himself to those sorrows necessary to show the evil of sin. All unrighteousness is sin.

One purpose of Christ's coming was to expose sin and annul the death penalty for repentant believers. Now please go back two chapters to Hebrews 9. I am going to read verses 24 through 26.

Hebrews 9:24-26 For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another [back there in ancient Israel]—He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages [consummation or climax of the ages or of history], He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

In view of what was to be gained, that is, the eternal redemption of His people, God was pleased that Jesus would submit Himself to such torture and abuse and death to save us. God was joyful over what He knew the end result would be.

2. God is pleased with Christ's sufferings because these sufferings show the justice and mercy of God. They demonstrate the extent of His righteousness.

Psalm 130:7 O Israel, hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is abundant redemption.

The psalmist, in the next verse, explains that God is pleased when we reverently and faithfully hope to receive mercy. I think I read this earlier.

Psalm 147:11 The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy.

Now, the gift of a Savior, such as He is, demonstrates unlimited lovingkindness; His sufferings on behalf of the guilty show the holiness of His nature and law.

Please turn over to Romans 3, verse 21. All demonstrate that He was ready and willing to make a great sacrifice to save us and yet resolved that no one would be saved by dishonoring His law without payment for the evil that had been done by sinful beings. And we know that Christ died so that we would or could be forgiven for our sins, as long as we are not sinning as a way of life and we are genuinely repentant and trying to overcome them.

3. God is pleased with Christ's sufferings because these sorrows result in humanity's eventual pardon, salvation, and eternal happiness.

This redemption process and God's plan is a whole work of lovingkindness, and God was satisfied with it as a work of pure and impartial love.

Romans 3:21-26 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God has passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

We are accountable for our actions and there is always a penalty for sin. Therefore, the price has to be paid. And Jesus Christ was willing to be the payment for us so that the ultimate pleasure of God the Father and His Family could be achieved.

Although the specific suffering and sacrifice that Jesus endured had to be unpleasant, to say the least, for His Father while He witnessed it, it satisfied the Father because it was a major essential step in His overall plan of salvation for mankind. God finds pleasure in all His work because He always sees the end result of His efforts. He only sees success in His work because He knows He will accomplish it. And with God, there is no doubting—only the assurance that His will will be done!

Please turn over to Ezekiel 18, verse 23. God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Following the fall of Jerusalem, He saw the need to encourage the exiled Israelites. So He inspired Ezekiel to tell the Israelites that He is as faithful to His promise to bless as His promises to curse.

Ezekiel 18:23 "Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?" says the Lord God, "and not that he should turn from his ways and live?"

Ezekiel 18:31-32 "Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies," says the Lord God. "Therefore turn and live!"

Choose life. So here we see God's true desire is for all human beings to repent of sin and change their attitudes from the enmity to reverence and as a result, live. God created everyone specifically for His pleasure and not for our ultimate death.

The purpose of God is in favor of the salvation of everyone; and therefore not death, sin, or pain can be the ultimate purpose of God regarding mankind. God made all things for His pleasure and through that same loving motive, He preserves and sustains us all. And for this reason, it is very obvious that He wants every human being to have the opportunity for eternal life.

The world often pictures God as cruel and angry because they have hearts of stone and refuse to know Him truly. But the Word of God reveals that although He is very powerful, He is also very patient and a very merciful God.

In the same vein, God finds pleasure in each sinner who repents. He concluded Ezekiel's message of personal judgment for personal sin by encouraging the Israelites to repent individually of their sins. Ezekiel continues God's admonition:

Ezekiel 33:10-11 "Therefore you, O son of man, say to the house of Israel: 'Thus you say, "If our transgressions and our sins lie upon us, and we pine away in them, how can we then live?" Say to them: 'As I live,' says the Lord God, 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?'

God is pleading with people to repent, especially these Israelites at that time. Death and suffering may last for a time but if God has no pleasure in them, they are not the end at which He aims, but the means by which He accomplishes that end.

Neither death, sin, nor pain can be His ultimate plan or pleasure. They are the means by which His holy and righteous designs are implemented. God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked other than to destroy sin. And it is the sin that He is unhappy with. He is unhappy with the wicked, but they can repent and turn His judgment of them, so to speak, or His evaluation of them. That is a better word.

It is impossible for the purpose of God to fail and therefore whatever God wills will be accomplished for His pleasure. Revelation 4:11 says, "You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created."

Now, please turn over to Isaiah 55, verse 11. The whole world will have the opportunity to choose to see God. He says He will accomplish what He has set out to do by His word. So Isaiah repeatedly emphasized God's determination to accomplish His goal.

Isaiah 55:11 "So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it."

So the death of the sinner was not the purpose of creation. He created mankind for His righteous purpose and pleasure. And He assures us that His desire will certainly be fulfilled for anyone that is willing to submit to Him.

Isaiah 14, and we are going to read verses 24 to 27. This is of the time prophesying Assyria's destruction.

Isaiah 14:24-27 The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, "Surely, as I have thought, so it shall come to pass, and as I have purposed, so it shall stand: that I will break the Assyrian in My land, and on the My mountains tread him underfoot. Then his yoke shall be removed from them, and his burden removed from their shoulders. This is the purpose that is purposed against the whole earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations. The Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?"

Who has the power to defeat God's purpose? No matter how difficult a mission may seem, God's purposes are planned with complete knowledge and understanding of the circumstances. Nothing in heaven or on earth can resist His will and He assures us of His full dedication to His plan of salvation. That is His full dedication to each and every one of us. We have God's assurance that whatever trials may befall us, however depressing or sad our failures may be, and however negative His molding and shaping of us may appear at the moment, we are assured that all His plans are wise and will stand.

Please turn over to Romans 12. God the Father personally chose us according to the good pleasure of His will and He wills that we live our lives as living sacrifices for Him and His will is that we work with Him to renew our minds to be more like Christ.

Romans 12:1-2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

God finds great satisfaction in carrying out His plan of salvation and nothing will stop or delay it. But we do have our part to play in it, as we see in Romans 12.

Now flip over to Ephesians 1. We are to present ourselves to Him for His exclusive use and to work with Him as He transforms us into His firstfruits, thereby proving His ideal purpose for humanity, beginning with us as first in His Kingdom, first after Christ anyway. We are among the first of the firstfruits. We certainly pray for that, do we not? We know that our redemption is in Jesus Christ and that God has determined it according to the good pleasure of His will.

Ephesians 1:3-10 [very familiar scriptures and some of the most encouraging passages in the Bible] Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.

In verse 9, "according to His good pleasure" refers to that lovingly kind design that He had purposed in Himself without being persuaded by any consideration from any outside source. His own good pleasure includes the time and method that He does it.

Ephesians 1:11-12 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.

In verse 11 Paul speaks of "the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will." Whatever God purposes must take place. Whatever God wills must happen. What God has purposed will be done for His satisfaction. God's purpose, what He wills, and His good pleasure are all the same thing.

What practical things can we learn personally from this?

By God's righteous standard we can see that not all we have to do to live our lives as Christians is pleasant. In fact, there is quite a bit of agony in it as we are very well familiar with, watching others as well as times in our own lives. The goal is not to just desire pleasure from blessings for obedience.

Please turn over to Romans 8, verse 16. If we truly are children of God, we must sacrifice and suffer with Christ and this is part of how we please Him. Obviously, this does not mean we should go out and look for trouble. You are crazy and not all that wise if you do. We should learn from others too and not do what they do. But the world in its insanity continues to do the same things over and over again. Obviously, this does not mean we should go out and look for trouble, but we can expect trials and tribulations to find us. And this is God's good pleasure for us at this time when He allows such a thing to happen.

Romans 8:16-17 The Spirit [itself] bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

Paul also describes our striving and suffering for Christ's way of life in his epistle to the Philippians. He exhorts the Philippian congregation to courage and faithfulness and suffering. Those who live by the Word of God and teach it have always faced adversaries. We heard a little bit about that in Richard's talk with us before the sermon.

(It is amazing how—I will just interject this—on a regular basis or even once in a while we get calls or I will get a call from someone in God's church and they will be complaining about what they have heard we have done here in Fort Mill or in this congregation and they will complain. "Why aren't you fixing this? Why aren't you visiting that person? Why aren't you doing it? Why aren't you. . .?" And in every single case, every single case it had been wrong. So if you call in, you better have the facts right. We are not going to chew you out, but we are not going to think very highly of you. I am serious—over and over and over again because of the gossip mill, Facebook, whatever is passed on. You do not know what is going on behind the scenes and there are things going on behind the scenes, and for your own sake, we keep them quiet and deal with them in a very loving way. So we do have our problems, all of us, to work on.)

Please turn to Philippians 1, verse 27. Those who oppose the gospel of Christ and persecute those who profess it are marked out for ruin. Being persecuted for righteousness' sake is a mark of salvation. Not that persecution in and of itself is a positive mark. Many hypocrites have suffered for their religion, but it is a good sign when we are enabled in a right manner to suffer for the cause of Christ.

Philippians 1:27 Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel, . . .

Is there one spirit in this congregation or in Church of the Great God? There should be. And you know what? There is. Because God's church is spiritual and God's Spirit is in God's people and the Spirit unites us. So if there is any disunity, then what spirit is that of? It is very, very serious.

Philippians 1:28-30 . . . and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition [destruction], but to you of salvation, and that from God. For you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, having the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear is in me.

So suffering for Christ's sake is both a privilege and a gracious gift. It is one way God achieves His purposes for His Son and all faithful believers. And I truly believe that there are a lot of faithful people in this congregation and in Church of the Great God. And there are a lot of faithful people throughout the greater churches of God. But we do know that there are tares among us and we do know that God allows that for our growth.

So I apologize if I made it sound like you all are evil. No, none of God's people are evil, ever, or they would not be God's people. So I apologize for making you sound like you all were guilty of something. But I may only be talking to, in the whole of Church of the Great God, one or two people. I do not know. God knows our hearts. I do not know what your hearts are. But I do know that I really admire the unity that we do have among those of you with God's Holy Spirit. I really appreciate that. And that is an understatement.

Please turn with me to II Timothy 3, verse 10. Paul tells us that he struggled with the same battles that we do. He encouraged Timothy by explaining that he must follow his example by applying basic Christian character traits to endure hardships from which God would deliver him. Paul said every righteous person will experience harassment.

II Timothy 3:10-14 But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance, persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra—what persecutions I endured. And out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them.

It is a matter of having the vision and the foresight to see the ultimate pleasure that results from submitting to God's will, as Jesus Christ did when He died for our sins. The pleasure of a true Christian is not necessarily to do what is pleasant now, but to do what is needful for the future, to do what is according to God's purpose, to take another step toward the ultimate goal—that is, to be Christlike in the Kingdom of God.

Please turn to turn with me to Psalm 111, verse 2. Our pleasure must be according to God's will, according to His pleasure, and His pleasure is in creating members of His Family. Our pleasure should be to work under His creative power and to become useful members of His Family. We can walk "worthy" of the Lord and gratify Him by becoming better acquainted with His true character. God is pleased with those who desire to understand what He is, what He does, what He purposes, and what He commands. And for this reason, He commands us to study His works and enjoy doing so.

Psalm 111:2 The works of the Lord are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them.

The works of the Lord are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them. The Lord's works are great in number, great in magnitude, great in wisdom, and great in goodness, and great in so many other things that are eternal.

This descriptive word, great, is as appropriate now as it was in ancient times when the psalmist looked up at the heavens with his naked eye, having an imperfect view of the real magnitude of the universe, and was impressed by the greatness of God's creation. I do not think we look up at the stars enough in this modern era of ours, partly because you cannot see it because of the lights in some areas, and the smog. But every time I look up there, I am speechless. I cannot imagine it in its reality. What we know of the greatness of the works of the Lord today gives us an even greater, more solemn, and awe-inspiring impression than it would have in the ancient times of the psalmist who wrote Psalm 111.

The word great will still be appropriate under the even larger views that may yet be obtained of the universe by more powerful instruments, by more accurate observation, and by more in depth study.

So those who desire to be gratified by God's works will study them. They learn of God's wisdom and His power and His goodness and His majesty and all of His other wonderful attributes because the invisible attributes of God are seen in His creation. The instruction that came from Psalm 111 implies that they desire to study His works or find pleasure in examining the proofs of the Being and attributes of God in His works. Anyone who truly loves God will have real pleasure in studying His works and His Word. And it is as rewarding to find pleasure in the one as in the other.

His works have made a world so beautiful that it invites us to contemplate His perfections as reflected in His creation. God delights in those who sincerely desire to understand His character and know what He is. And He enjoys those who inquire with humility and reverence into His counsels and will. One great error among those who weakly profess to be followers of God the Father and Jesus Christ is the neglect to study God's creation. By studying this a person learns and sees in vivid detail the attributes of God. The knowledge it gives is among the best ways of illustrating the Bible.

Romans 1:20 [Paul wrote] For since the creation of the world [as I mentioned before] His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and [divine nature].

So Paul prayed, asking God to fill the Colossians with the knowledge of His divine will and help them live lives worthy of Him. This results from knowing and doing God's will.

Now please turn over to Colossians 1, verse 9. God gives us knowledge of His will with practical intent. And since the end of all knowledge is conduct, the knowledge of God's will manifests itself as righteous conduct.

Colossians 1:9-14 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding [of course, this is Paul speaking]; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

The phrase in verse 10 "that you may walk worthy" or in some translations "live a life" translates from a single Greek word which literally means to walk. But it is often used in Scripture to depict life in its outward expression. That is what walk means, life in its outward expression. To walk worthy of the Lord means to live a life commensurate with what the Lord has done for us and is to us. It also implies acting in conformity with our union with Christ and His purpose for our lives.

The ultimate aim of knowing the will of God and living a worthy life is so that we may please God in every way. And the Greek word for please suggests an attitude of mind that anticipates every wish. So we are not just to obey God or just obey the Ten Commandments. We are to analyze and go beyond that and figure out what pleases God—even the things that He has not told us to do. Living our lives is more than just going through life trying to be a Christian. It is anticipating what God wants us to do and know. And that is why the phrase that I used earlier in a sermon or two before, to ask, "What would Jesus do?" What would God do in this circumstance?

The ultimate pleasure of God is for us to have a humble state of mind that desires to please Him in righteousness, even before He asks us to do something, and that we learn to anticipate His will in everything.

Verses 10 through 14 underlines some elements in or constitute parts of the kind of life pleasing to God. The leading ideas are expressed in Greek by four participles and they are rendered in English by "bearing fruit" in verse 10; "growing" in verse 10; "being strengthened" in verse 11; and "giving thanks" in verse 12. Grammatically, they all modify and express active conditions; and the Greek word describes "live a life." Here are elements of the worthy Christian life. These are not the only ones, but these are the ones that Paul mentions here.

The first, "bearing fruit," means that, as Christians, we are to exhibit continual fruitfulness. The fruit consists of "every good work" or "act of goodness of every kind." The apostle Paul emphasizes good works in his letters, but he represents them as the fruit, not the root of a right relationship with God. We should bear the fruit of good works in this life and experience personal spiritual improvement. This idea is expressed in "growing in the knowledge of God."

The second term, "growing," like "bearing fruit," represents a present tense and puts emphasis on habitual action. It is a continuous action. In verse 10, the preposition "in" represents the knowledge of God as the sphere or realm in which spiritual growth occurs. However, the phrase can be translated as "growing by the knowledge of God." When rendered like this, the text supports the idea that the knowledge of God is the means by which we grow. So what rain and sunshine are to the nurture of plants, the knowledge of God is to the growth and maturing of our spiritual lives.

The third point that Paul brings out is "being strengthened with all power." It expresses a life pleasing to God. Christians are engaged in moral conduct with powers of darkness and nothing short of the divine empowerment of the Holy Spirit can enable us to stand against it because they are spiritual principalities. "Strengthened," which speaks of continuous empowerment, translates the same root word in Philippians 4:13 as, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." It is ongoing. He is always strengthening us. So this empowerment is according to God's glorious might. In other words, it is not proportioned simply to our needs, but to God's abundant supply. We ask God for an abundance of blessings from above and He has them. So He blesses us beyond our needs.

The Greek behind the phrase "His glorious might" is more literally rendered "the might of His glory," which is very similar. Its basic meaning is physical brightness or radiance, but its meaning must be determined by its various contexts. Paul uses the term more than 70 times in his epistles.

The fourth element of the worthy Christian life is "gratitude." One reason for giving thanks to God is that He has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the other saints. The Greek word for qualified refers to making us sufficient or competent and can have a shading of empowering and authorizing. So its usage in this passage suggests that we, as believers, have no personal ability to share in the inheritance of God's people. We can experience this only as God qualifies us for such a tremendous privilege or makes us sufficient or makes us competent for such a tremendous privilege.

To share in the inheritance of the saints is to have a portion of the heritage belonging to God's people. There is an obvious symbolism to the inheritance of ancient Israel in the Land of Promise, the share each person had in that. As individual members of the church of God, we also have an inheritance and each of us as Christians has a spiritual share allotted to us.

The proof that God has qualified us for a share in the inheritance of the saints is that He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness, as Paul spoke there, and is in the process of bringing us into His Kingdom. "Delivered" and "rescued" is a Greek word meaning to liberate or save someone from something or someone. And we have been rescued from the dark dominion of the sinful world's way of life.

Let us begin to wrap this up. God's purpose agrees with His will and pleasure. And He has purposed that we will be saved; and anyone else He calls and wants salvation will receive it according to God's time frame. But there are, in a sense, minimum conditions that must be met by everyone to receive the gracious gift of salvation from the Eternal Father and His perfect Son, Jesus Christ, according to Their will.

These minimum conditions are: repentance of sin, obedience to God's law, acceptance of Jesus, faith and works, sacrifice and suffering, and love of God and of our fellow human beings. These requirements do not earn salvation, but we are required to do them—and be good at it. Salvation and eternal life are gifts from God. Our rewards of responsibilities depend on our loving performance in life in submission and obedience.

Now, for final scripture, please turn over to Isaiah 46, verse 10. Isaiah assures us that God's will will be done no matter what anyone else wants. No one has the power to hinder or prevent God from doing all that is pleasing to Him. There is no better evidence that something should be done than that it is agreeable or pleasing to God. There is no better security that something is right than God wills it. And there is no more substantial and permanent ground for rejoicing with regard to anything than that it is what God desires, loves, and wills.

Isaiah 46:9-11 "I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,' calling a bird of prey from the east, the man who executes My counsel from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it."

I do not know if it gets any more definite than that, but God expresses it in very firm and determined ways.

What a wonderful opportunity we have to be recipients of God's pleasure. His pleasure flows from the essence of His character—His abundant love—so we can have confidence! And "we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and to those who are the called according to His purpose," as Paul encourages us in Romans 8:28. Our spiritual inheritance includes the pleasure of God characterized by love, goodness, and peace. So may God's pleasure be accomplished in your life as well.

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