Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church

Not a psalm sung in many churches these days. It was a delight to sing earlier Psalm 118. I can never really sing this psalm without thinking of the Lord’s home and I think the area was called Multnomah Village. Think there was a 57th Avenue we had to turn on or something. And many years ago learning some of the psalms from the Genevan psalter, and we’d always sing this line here: “In the dwellings of the righteous.”

They’re joyful songs of victory. And those songs were heard in the dwellings of the righteous. Those that assembled at the Lord’s home to sing the praises of God and to sing at the altar and be reminded of the great truths in it. This church has had a purpose from its beginning. Today’s text is kind of one of those purpose texts. There was a wonderful memorial service or celebration of the life of Pam Forester’s father, Calvin Moore, yesterday at the First Church of the Nazarene only about a mile from here, and Pastor Chris May, who I got to know at the pastor prayer fellowships, who’s gone on to another church this last year, came back for that and gave a talk on Matthew 6 seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. He talked about it as a purpose, a priority text, helping us to understand what our priorities are to be, and then rejoicing in the life of this man who that was his priority. And the Lord God blessed him with, among other things, the Forester family and his grandkids in all kinds of ways.

Well, today’s text I’m going to take a part of this benediction that I love so much from Hebrews 13, and we’re going to focus on the phrase “what is well pleasing.” Please stand. We’ll read verses 20 and 21 of Hebrews 13.

“Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you what is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever.”

Amen. Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for your word and for the delightful text we have here. Father, it is a thing of unimaginable truth and joy that you give us—that we can do things that are well pleasing to you. Help us, Father, to focus on what that is in our lives today. Open your word to us and transform us by it. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated.

Elder Wilson is in Moscow worshiping at Trinity there this weekend, looking at New Saint Andrews. Elder Shaw is in Russia. He’s already had his worship service for the day, I’m sure. I guess they had a little trouble getting there. Missed some connections in Frankfurt, arrived very late the night before last. And so Doug H. and I are holding down the fort alone.

I had a talk with Chris W. about someone he’s been witnessing to, and he used the analogy of the house. This was a favorite analogy of Francis Schaeffer. In evangelism, you know, what we don’t want to do is just add a second story on somebody’s house that’s already pretty well in place. They built the foundations not upon Jesus but upon their own decision-making abilities, their own wisdom, and they want a little chapel. A lot of people want a little chapel in a room, second floor, little room off to the side where they can go and make them feel good about their own house.

God has no interest in such chapels. God declares that our entire house must be torn down if we’ve lived apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. Evangelism is speaking to people who have built on a foundation that is loathsome in the sight of God—their own works, their own wisdom. And evangelism is unsuccessful. In fact, it’s worse. It leaves the person in a worse state if they go away feeling good about their house because they’ve got a chapel they can occasionally visit.

Well, this text tells us that there’s something that God is going to empower us with through the benediction—that he is going to work in us what is well pleasing to him. And what I want to do as we approach this text is to say that I think this, like seeking first the kingdom of God, should be one of those purpose statements of the Christian life. Everyone should leave here today with a renewed commitment by the power of the Holy Spirit to seek first the kingdom, but to do what is well pleasing in the sight of God.

It is an amazing thing that we can please God. You know, there’s so many movies about alienated fathers and sons, or moms and daughters, or parents and children, because that’s the way the world is. And it’s sin. Man is alienated from his father in heaven. And we feel that alienation. We feel that displeasure that he has upon our sins. And we know how that plays itself out in our families. And so it’s a wonderful thing when a child is told by their dad, “Man, that really makes me feel good.” And you know, we don’t hear it enough. So we kind of give up trying for that a lot of times in families, and sons and daughters kind of give up on that whole thing.

And it’s the job of parents to remind them of the authority of God, but beyond that—God is well pleased with them. And so a reminder to them to live their lives for the singular purpose of being well pleasing to God.

So we’re going to take a little survey of the New Testament texts using this word “well pleasing” and its couple of different related cognates, I guess they call them—different nouns, adverbs, that kind of stuff. So it’s used in three different words. They basically come from the same basic meaning: to be pleasing, but to be really well pleasing. It’s a conjunction. So “well pleasing” actually is not a bad translation. It’s a translation of pleasing and pleasing somebody well.

This word is used in the New Testament about thirteen times, and it is used five of those times in Hebrews. So that’s kind of interesting—a heavy proportion of the distribution of the term. We said last week that really you could think of Hebrews, the theme of it is moving on to maturity. This is a big theme that’s repeated over and over, and we talked about that in terms of perfection, looking at different New Testament texts about what that meant. And if we look at the number of times that this acceptability thing, this well pleasing to God is talked about, then we can say that really is also the theme of Hebrews.

We’re to move on to maturity because that pleases God—to be mature Christian men and women.

So I want to just say: we’ll take your Bibles out. Nothing printed up here today. We had a wonderful men’s camp that I was at for three days. Love doing it. My week got a little compressed, so we don’t have an outline today, but we’ll just go through the scriptures.

Let’s start in Hebrews, looking at the five occurrences of this word. And we’ll notice some things about this “well pleasing.”

So the purpose of the sermon is to reestablish in your mind a desire—that your purpose in life, how you’re going to set your priorities—is how to be well pleasing to God.

First in Hebrews, chapter 11, verses 5 and 6 is the first place this comes up. And this word is used twice here. Hebrews 11, verse 5. So turn there. And this of course is the Hall of Faith, so-called—these great exemplars of the faith that we’re supposed to see as examples. And here, you know, at the end of the benediction, it’s that God is going to do things through us that’s well pleasing to him. That we pick up what’s well pleasing by looking at the life of Enoch.

Verse 5: “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him. For before his translation, he had this testimony: he pleased God.”

So why did God do this? Why did God treat Enoch in a different way where he raptured him out, so to speak, instead of having him go through the normal process of death?

Well, before his translation, he had this testimony that he pleased God—that he was well pleasing to God. Same word, cognate to the same word used in Hebrews 13:21. So Enoch’s life was summarized as a life of being well pleasing to God. So you can see where it’s the goal of the life. It’s what characterized Enoch and what resulted in his being able to not go through death in the normal fashion but rather being translated.

And then verse 6: “But without faith it is impossible to please him.”

And this same word is used there. So to be well pleasing to God requires faith. Faith is what is absolutely of the essence of pleasing God. Remember, this is examples of faith. Enoch had faith in God, and as a result of that lived a life well pleasing to him—because of the faith, but then because of his actions.

What we’re going to see as we go through this term is that well pleasing to God is not primarily—in fact, it’s almost never—all the occurrences we’re going to look at are things that we do. We can always say, “Well, you know, we’re well pleasing because we’re in Christ and Christ. God sees us through Jesus.” So we have this imputed well-being, and there’s certainly theological truth to that. But that’s not the way God uses this word. The way he uses this word is people do certain things, and those things are well pleasing to him.

So we’re going to talk about what things are well pleasing. We’ve got several general verses and then we’ve got about half of them are very specific verses, and we’ll see specific things that you should attain to be well pleasing to God.

But notice here that first of all, to be well pleasing requires faith. And what does this faith describe? Well, it goes on to tell us in the second half of verse 6: “He that comes to God, this is what faith is. See, he said, ‘Well, without faith, it’s impossible to be well pleasing to God.’ And then he explains what he means by faith: ‘He that comes to God must believe that he is.’”

That’s the first half. So faith is believing that God is—that God has created all these things, that he’s our creator, our redeemer—to believe in God.

Now in another part of the New Testament, the demons also believe in God. So they don’t have the kind of faith that Enoch does because they don’t get to the rest of the verse. And that “he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” So faith means that we believe that God is, and faith is also connected then to say that God is the kind of God who rewards those that seek him.

So immediately when we look at this first text in Hebrews about what being well pleasing to God means, it means something about what you do when you leave the walls of this church. In fact, it means what you’re doing right now. You’re attempting to be well pleasing to him. You’re supposed to seek him. True faith seeks God, but not just seek him—you’re supposed to diligently seek him.

So right away, the bar is pretty high, you know? This is what we’re supposed to do. This is our purpose. But it requires a diligent seeking of him. It requires something more than a chapel in your house. It requires the entire foundation of your house being built to the glory of God, seeking him, and not wanting just the chapel to be well pleasing to him, but to recognize how unpleasing a life lived apart from diligent seeking of God and seeking to obey him and know him is. We must hate that kind of a thing and see it as offensive to God.

So to be well pleasing to God is what Enoch had. It resulted in great reward, and this reward is based upon his faith. It’s connected to faith in God—knowing that God is—and then not just that he is, but that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. So God rewards a life lived in a well-pleasing way to him. That’s what we have to believe.

Now, it’s faith. We don’t live by sight. A lot, you know, God’s ways are not our ways. His ways of rewarding us are not our ways of thinking about it. You know, we tend to use the value system of the world and say, “Well, you know, what do we have? How many possessions? You know, the guy that wins is the one who has the most toys when he dies.” That kind of thing.

You may not even understand whether or not God is giving you blessings and reward through relationships. Because, you know, in this Crucial Conversations class, one of the things they teach in the book is that you know, most husband-wife discussions or elders-deacons business discussions—people agree on 90% of things. 90% of the facts everybody agrees on. What you end up arguing about is the 5 to 10% you don’t agree on, because we tend to be in our sinful state argumentative.

But there’s a great deal of common interest. And parents can think about the little bit of stuff they’re not happy with their kids, ignoring their general faithfulness, ignoring their desire to follow Christ and their walk trying to please him. So God rewards those who diligently seek to come to God, and this is what faith is and this is related to what it means to be well pleasing to God. God is well pleased with those who diligently seek him and who have faith, believing what his word tells us. He rewards us as we diligently seek him.

The next verse is in Hebrews chapter 12, and we’ve looked at this before. Hebrews 12, verse 28. So the first two occurrences are in Hebrews 11 talking about Enoch. The last three occurrences are all in this last section of the book that we’ve been dealing with for several months now. And the introduction to chapter 13 really is verses 28 and 29.

“Wherefore we, receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably, well pleasingly, with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.”

Now, what does this tell us?

Well, first of all, just in terms of the structure of the book, this sets us up. Well, we should want to serve God in a well-pleasing way. And then at the end of this section, just before we get to the concluding little statements the writer makes, we have this benediction that God is going to accomplish and do things in us that are well pleasing to him. So we strive; God’s doing the work. And there’s kind of bookends to this section that are drawn out for us here.

So this “well pleasing” is talked about in verses 28 and 29, and overall it connects up. And we’ll have one other verse in the midst of chapter 13 we’ll look at in just a minute. But what does this verse tell us about what it means to be well pleasing with God?

Well, it says that it’s a response to the gospel. First of all, it’s a response. We do not attain the kingdom through being well pleasing. Rather, we receive a kingdom which cannot be moved. Let us then serve God in a way that is well pleasing to him. So your life—all these focal points on your diligently seeking him and making this the priority of your life to do things that are well pleasing to God—these are not what give you entrance into the kingdom. These are what may maintain entrance into the kingdom, into God’s presence, but it’s a result of God’s grace in giving us a kingdom.

So, you know, the word of God is gospel. It’s good news in that it calls for response from us. And the gospel is that he’s given us a kingdom. And the required response from us is that we’re supposed to commit ourselves, by his grace, to serve God in a way that is well pleasing.

Well, what is that way? Well, it tells us: “With reverence and godly fear.”

Now, that’s not a detail statement. It sort of is in a way. Remember that in its proper context here, the first application of this text is immediately to worship. He’s talking about going up and worshiping God. So one of the ways we show our proper prioritization of our lives to be well pleasing to God is by properly prioritizing his worship.

And you know, this is one of the most—this is one of several frustrating things for pastors these days—because the church of Jesus Christ, including people in Reformed churches, does not do this all that well. You know, Jesus came and redeemed humanity and the world clicked forward, you know, into the new age. And we’re now in the age of the Son. And the temptation before Jesus were false gods, and the temptation after Jesus are false humanities. And now the idol is no longer some god that’s just, you know, like Zeus or somebody. The idolatry now is humans—people—and we live in a context where churches, because they haven’t, they’re so often built little chapels on or second stories on them. They don’t try to make their entire life one of self-sacrifice, of service to God in a way that’s well pleasing to him.

And what we end up doing then is we sort of pervert things, and whatever is best for us becomes the way it works. So, you know, humanism enters in.

I’m a little astonished. I’ve had some conversations with a group of pastors recently about excommunicants and whether they should be allowed into the worship service. And for King’s Academy Chapel this last week, we’re going to move our way slowly through Psalm 15. And it’s an entrance requirement, right? Not everybody gets to come to church. Not everybody gets to come to King’s Academy. Not everybody, you know, gets in church. There’s requirements. Not because it’s a way of working our way in, but if you have life, if you have faith, you’re going to have works. And if you don’t, you should be excluded. And if you do, if you’re in relationship to God, you should be seeking to be well pleasing to him by being at worship. Number one priority.

You can’t get that straight. If you cannot prioritize the worship of God correctly, I don’t, I just don’t think you’re going to do it the rest of your life either, no matter how it might look to you.

So worship. That’s what’s going on here. Reverence, worship, and godly fear. This is another incredibly frustrating thing in our day and age. I mean, it was a wonderful service yesterday, and they sang a Calvinistic song: “Rock of Ages.” “Rock of Ages” was written by Augustus Toplady, I think in 1776. And incidentally, kind of interestingly, Augustus Toplady was a strong English Calvinist, and it’s a Calvinistic song, and it’s a great song to sing. And I was real happy, but they used the kind of modern lyrics. You know, Johnny Cash did this song, and there’s some modern lyrics, and they changed it just a little bit. And it’s kind of interesting because as we were singing this yesterday, we sang, “And be when I fly to parts I’m known, or whatever it is. Behold thee on thy throne. And behold thee on thy throne.” And I thought, “That’s not right. There’s something about judgment in there.”

And if you look at Toplady’s lyrics, the real line is: “See thee on thy judgment throne.”

In the modern world, modern churches sing a version where they leave out the judgment throne that Toplady spoke of, and instead it just talks about seeing God on the throne. So, you know, I don’t make a big deal out of this, but it’s a little example of how, you know, we forget Psalm 5. We’re not, we really don’t want to talk a lot about judgment, period. You see, well, you know, this verse tells us that there’s a degree of proper sense of fear. There’s a godly fear. “For our God is a consuming fire.” That’s supposed to drive our prioritization of this being well pleasing to God. You can’t be well pleasing to God if you leave out part of the motivation the scriptures give us—which is he has a judgment throne and he is a consuming fire and he’s not pleased if you just give him a little part of your house. You see, he’s upset about that.

The rest—this is what I talked about last week—the last point in terms of what we have to restore: capital punishment, excommunication. People probably thought, “What is that all about?” Well, that’s about this. We’ve left out the judgment throne, and we’ve turned him into something that is not anymore, you know, one who judges and brings temporal judgments upon those who are sinning.

And we’ll see another verse in a few minutes that says the same thing—that part of the motivation for being well—desiring diligently striving to be well pleasing to God—is supposed to be fearing his judgments, his temporal judgments in the world.

So the prioritization of being of living a life well pleasing to God is buttressed by an understanding that it’s a proper response to the gospel. It doesn’t, it isn’t the gospel. It’s not the way we get relationship. He gives us a kingdom. We then should strive to obey him in that kingdom, to walk in such a way as to be well pleasing to him, to feel his face smiling on us, right? “Lift up his countenance upon us and give us peace.” He’s happy. He’s well pleased. He’s a very happy father. You know, we may be immature, but when we bring what we’ve done to God, our father, if we’ve sought his being well pleased with us as our priority, then he’s going to beam his face upon us, and we’re going to love it.

All right. And then in verses 15 and 16 of chapter 13 is the next one. And now we get to some details and specifics—in Hebrews at least—in terms of what this means in addition to worship.

Hebrews 13:15-16:

“Therefore by him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”

Same word. So God is well pleased. Again, it starts with worship, right? Singing songs of praise to him, and then maybe that forming the pattern for our lives, but also serving him by helping other people, doing good, and sharing with other people, communicating. And we’ll look at another verse about that in just a moment.

But remember this sermon—you know, the application of Hebrews, if you get down to what these verses say at the end of the book—is you’re supposed to sing, serve, and share. When you’re singing, serving, and sharing, God is well pleased.

So if you sing songs to God during the worship service in a couple of minutes, understand: man, the Lord God is very pleased with you. He is well pleased—not just happy. And as you try to do good every day, don’t just, you know, blow it off. When you do good, the Lord God smiles at you. And when you don’t forget to communicate, when you share with other people the gifts that God has given to you—financial and otherwise—the Lord God is well pleased with you.

So we have some specifics about what it means. This response to the gospel that we’ve received a kingdom is summarized in singing, serving, and sharing. And then the benediction. All this is possible because God is going to enable us to be well pleasing. That’s the Hebrews text.

Now, we’re going to look at the other nine texts found in the New Testament, and we’ll begin with Ephesians 5, verses 6-12. So turn to Ephesians 5. Look at verse 6. We’ll start there.

“Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.”

So he’s going to exhort them to walk in a way that’s well pleasing to God. But he begins by telling them again about the importance of fear—of fearing the wrath of God, the consuming fire of God that comes upon us if we don’t.

In other words, there’s kind of two options here: you can either properly prioritize pleasing God—is what your life is supposed to be about—or you can suffer the wrath of the God who’s the consuming fire. Those are the only two options as these texts tell us.

“Therefore do not be partakers with them. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth, finding out what is acceptable, that is, well pleasing to the Lord.”

Well, this is interesting because it tells us that God’s not going to tell us everything that’s well pleasing to him. The Christian walk, in order to be well pleasing to God, includes trying to figure out what’s going to make him happy. You do that with your dads or your moms. You should try to figure it out. “What would make them happy? What would make them really pleased with me? I want them to love me. I want them to be happy with my actions.” Nothing wrong with that.

These verses tell us over and over again that we’re to desire God to be well pleased with us. But it’s not just on the surface. “It’s the glory of God to conceal a matter. It’s the glory of mature men to discover a thing”—to find out what’s going on. And so this verse tells us that we have to figure it out. And the other words for this is: walk as children of the light, finding out, proving, trying to figure it out what is acceptable, what is well pleasing to the Lord.

So God is going to reveal to us as we mature what is well pleasing. We start with worship and the obvious things—good deeds and sharing with people—but then our lives get more mature and we’re supposed to be actively seeking out what is pleasing or acceptable to God.

And then again, it’s gospel response, right? You’re children of the light. Walk that way. And to walk that way, try to figure out what’s going to make your father in heaven really happy. That’s what he’s saying here.

And he kind of repeats the same thing. It’s sort of interesting. Drop down to verse 15.

“See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It’s the same thing: You’ve got children of darkness out there. You got to figure things out. “What’s the will of the Lord? What’s going to make Father happy?”

How are you going to figure out what’s well pleasing? Well, you’re going to do it through singing of songs, through ministering the spirit to other people and them to you. By living in community in a joyous, thankful way, the Lord God will reveal to you more and more of specific actions in your life that will be well pleasing to him.

So again, it’s gospel response. We’re told here that to properly prioritize this—making it your purpose in life—isn’t static. You’re going to increase in your knowledge of what makes father happy.

Now turn to Romans 11:30 and following. Again, here we have more of a general statement, and a statement that’s sort of similar to what we saw in Hebrews in terms of worship. But again, it’s gospel response.

In verse 30 of Romans 11:

“For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you, they also may obtain mercy.”

He’s talking about the Jews and the Gentiles. You’re Gentiles. You used to be outside, but now you’ve obtained mercy. So see, it’s gospel. You’ve been given life. You used to be disobedient. Now you’re obedient. You’ve obtained mercy.

Verse 31: “Even so, these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you, they also may obtain mercy. For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.”

Verse 33-36: “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor? Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him?’ For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.”

He’s just praising God—that something that God is using sinlessly to minister grace to the Gentiles. And he’s praising God’s name for using everything—even the wrath of man to praise him and to affect his purposes.

That’s the setup for the well-pleasing statement in verses 1 and 2 of chapter 12.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable, well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service. 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 well pleasing and perfect will of God.”

So here it’s used twice. And what is he saying? Well, he’s saying again that it’s sort of like Hebrews 12. It begins with formal worship—”your reasonable service.” That word service is liturgy. And so it seems like this is first, and he’s talking about acceptable sacrifices, right? “A living sacrifice.” These are acceptable to God through Christ, well pleasing to him. So he’s talking first about the worship that you’re called to enter into.

So again, what’s well pleasing to God? Worship. We’re looking at Joshua 22 in my Sunday school class, and they almost come to holy war. And you know what the issue is? Worship. Whether you’re doing worship right or not. Godly, powerful dominion men—and by implication women—care deeply, care deeply about the worship of Yahweh. And they know deeply that the result of not prioritizing worship is the judgment of this God. He is a consuming fire upon us.

To be well pleasing to God means worshiping him first and foremost. But it doesn’t stop there. Then he says, in relationship to when you leave the church, don’t be conformed. And by the way, clearly the implication here is that everything that you are—don’t just commit a little part of your mind, your chapel part of your mind—you’re to present your bodies when you walk out. Everything that you are, right, to be committed to the singular goal of being well pleasing to your heavenly father. So everything—blow up the foundation, replace it with the good foundation of seeking to praise and please your heavenly father.

And then when you go into the world, don’t be conformed to this world. Don’t become a cookie-cutter image. That’s what the word means here. You know, don’t become a rubber stamp of what the world is like. Don’t be conformed to it. And clearly that’s, you know, we’re told that because that’s our tendency.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, well pleasing and perfect will of God.”

We talked about this Friday night with some of the kids. You know, there were Pharisees. They’d have nothing to do with the culture. They were, you know, they were in the ditch of not engaging the world at all. They just were kind of backed off. And then Sadducees—well, they were completely, you know, completely compromised. They were the ones who were conformed to the image of the world. Didn’t even believe in the resurrection anymore.

These two groups were, you know, several hundred years before, you had Jews who wanted to look like Gentiles and did everything. Wanted anything the Greeks did. And then you had the Maccabees who added laws to what God’s law says. We think of them as good guys, but they really weren’t. They were the proto-right wing. The right-wing and the left-wing are both criticized by Jesus.

And what we’re supposed to do is not, you know, watch movies or go into the culture or have conversations in a stupid, uninformed Christian way. That’s not well pleasing to God—to be conformed to the world. But we’re supposed to go out there into the world. God, you know, Paul says he doesn’t want us to not be in the world, but we’re not supposed to be of the world. You see?

So we’re supposed to engage the culture in a distinctively Christian way. That’s the implication. So it’s well pleasing to God to worship. And then it’s well pleasing if we engage the culture in a distinctively Christian way, avoiding Phariseism and Sadduceism on either side—this retreat or compromise of the things we don’t want to do.

So again, to be well pleasing, to put this as a priority, as a gospel response, as an emphasis on worship and liturgy—as in Hebrews—but then it goes out of the church into the rest of the world. We’re to seek to be well pleasing to God in our places of work, recreation, communities, etc. Don’t be conformed. But be transformed. Be part of a faith community, a church that is an active part in the context of the world.

Okay, next is Romans 14, verses 15 to 21. You know, by the way, go ahead and turn to Romans 14. But I should mention: you know, again, context is so important. After he tells them in Romans 12:1-2 to be transformed through worship and what they do in the world, to put being well pleasing to God as their priority, he also says:

“I say through the grace given to me to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members of one body, so all the members do not have the same function. It is well pleasing to God to understand that God has made you not as isolated BBs rolling around in this world, but as leaves on a tree. You’re connected to the body. And that’s well pleasing to God to operate in that way—that you don’t have everything. You need to depend upon the body of Christ. That’s well pleasing.”

Now in Romans 14, here we have some detail. And here of course we’re talking about Christian liberty and brothers who are offended by your food.

Verse 15: “Yet if your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who serves Christ in these things is well pleasing to God and approved by men.”

Therefore, let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for the man who eats with offense. It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine, nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak.”

All right, we’ve had a lot of general comments about well-pleasing and a priority. Now we have a specific action that we know is singled out for us as something that makes God happy with us. And that specific action is a laying aside of our Christian liberties for the greater cause of the good of our brother.

When you lay aside personal rights, liberties, agendas, and seek the well-being of the brother, this is something that is well pleasing to God. That’s what it says.

So here we have a detail. Here we have something specific. You can do it this week if occasion comes up. Yeah, you’re to seek the peace of the brother and the maturation of the people that you’re in relationship with.

Now it’s kind of tricky. The way it actually works out isn’t always what we think of. “Well Dennis, if that’s the case, why do you have this wine up here? Some people that are going to be offended by that.”

Well, that ticks me off. Those lousy sinners. In fact, we had a guy here last week in Sunday school class. I mentioned wine. Boom. At the end of class, gone. Can’t be in the presence of it. So what are we doing? Why do we have wine?

And this is what churches think: “Well, we’re supposed to just not offend anybody. And so pretty soon you leave judgment out of the judgment throne because it’s all lowest common denominator.”

That’s not what this text is saying. Think about it. They have a church at Rome, and there’s some people that think they shouldn’t eat this meat sacrificed to idols. And then there’s other people say, “Well, that’s crazy. It’s not an idol thing. There are no idols. This beef is good. Tastes good to me. God is going to give me life through it.” And they’re right.

Paul, as he writes to them—even while he’s telling them to lay it aside—he’s telling the people that want it laid aside: you’re weak. They read this. They heard the same epistle. This wasn’t just to the strong ones that he wrote it. No, they all heard it. So the ones who were sitting there not eating meat sacrificed to idols, they’re going to do some serious soul-searching, are they not? Because the apostle just told them they’re crazy, that their idol is nothing.

Now, he’s told their brothers to not make you sin. But that’s the idea here. It’s not to offend somebody in the sense of them getting taking umbrage, not liking you. He doesn’t want to cause them to stumble. He’s saying, “Look, you’ve got somebody who comes to your church, and they really don’t want to drink wine, and to them it would be sin to take communion with you.” All right.

If to a person, who’s going to, if he takes that wine and he goes home and feels guilty, he’s not done something Paul says in faith. He’s sinned. Nothing wrong with the wine, but he sinned against his conscience. You see? Because he did something he didn’t think God wanted him to do. That’s what it’s talking about.

When we have situations where we’re dealing with people—immature, weaker brothers who think that something is sin (to watch a certain kind of movie, to smoke a cigar, to want whatever it might be: dance)—you know, we’re supposed to not cause him to stumble. And so we’re supposed to give that up. And when we give up that personal liberty to do that thing, if it would cause him to sin—not if it would cause him to get ticked off at you, but if it would cause him to sin—lay it aside.

When we do that, God says, “This is well pleasing to your father.” He wants his kids to get along. What makes dad really happy is if you demonstrate your love for your brother.

And dads, you know how true this is. You know that in your homes. Well, I, you know, you go to these prayer meetings we have, and over and over again the prayer requests are kind of that you can just check it off. Usually it’s: help me not to argue with my sibling. Help me not to hit baby brother. Help me not to bite older sister, you know, help me not to be snippy or to make fun of my brother. I mean, this is what happens because the fall created difficulties.

And so it really is well pleasing to God if we go out of our way to love our brothers, and if necessary, putting aside what we think is good.

Now, at some point, you know, to tie off that liberty thing: I mean, I don’t think that situation went on very long. I think once those weaker brothers got the word from Paul of what the deal was, I think they probably all were eating meat pretty fast. I think Paul, you know, didn’t like the situation like we have today where “oh, no, we shouldn’t have wine. Oh, I’ll make everybody offended. We shouldn’t talk about the judgment throne. No, I’ll make everybody…” No. Paul had no problem identifying who the strong and weak brother was here. And the clear implication is: grow up. Grow up.

But for that to happen, we have to show deference by the setting aside of Christian liberty. And that is something that is well pleasing to our heavenly father when we really want to get along with our brother, and if necessary, give up the toy—put aside personal rights and liberties.

Now turn to Philippians 4:17-19. Here’s another detail.

So we’ve had these prioritization texts (worship and then the rest of our week involving everything that we are). And we’ve had some application: sing, serve, and share. And now we’ve had a specific application to put aside Christian liberty for the well-being of the brother. But it’s not for the well-being of the weak brother to make him think he’s the strong one. Does that help him to tell him, “Oh, yeah, you’re right. Drinking wine is sin. I’m not going to do it either.” No. You put an even bigger stumbling block in front of him. Now, you see, so that’s not what’s going on there.

But if you’re loving your brother, sometimes that means you’re not going to do something that might cause him to sin. So that was a specific.

And here in Philippians 4, verse 17:

“Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that abounds to your account. Indeed, I have all and abound. I am full, having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God.”

It’s amazing, isn’t it? How often sacrificial, Levitical speech is used in the New Testament. That should mean something to us. Anyway, okay. So it’s a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God.

“And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

All right. This is really a unique occurrence of this word. Out of these thirteen occurrences, this is the only one that says you did something that was well pleasing. All the rest of them, by the way—notice that in every one of these except one we’re going to get to, “well pleasing” is always connected up with God.

Out of thirteen occurrences, in twelve of them, it’s directly linked to being well pleasing to God, pleasing God, etc.—over and over and over. And in all but this one, it’s kind of held out there as a goal to attain to, and these are some things you can do. But in this case, he actually is evaluating their actions and says, “Man, you really made papa happy. You made Abba feel really good about you.”

And what was it? The specific detail. It was giving away their money. It was that sharing thing: sing, serve, and share. And in a way, that summation in Hebrews is what we’re seeing here, isn’t it? Worship and singing, serving, helping the weak brother, and now sharing. And this sharing is said to be something that made the father in heaven really happy.

Now, you know what they shared was—I mean, in part Paul is talking about their gift to him. But Paul is using most of these gifts to help the saints in Jerusalem. So part of it is: God is very well pleased with you folks when you bring your tithes, support the Levitical ministers of this church. And when you bring your offerings to help bring the Poles here, the Russians, to pay for John S. flying over to Russia so he can bring those churches into the CRC.

See, that stuff that you did—if you put a little money in that offering for the Poles or the Russians or for different benevolence needs that we’ve talked about from time to time—God was really happy with that. You see, that’s something that is specific. It’s the only place where evaluation is given that says you did it right.

So it’s pretty significant. If we desire to be well pleasing, if that’s our goal, our priorities will highly prioritize these specific details of serving our brother and sharing our financial gifts and other gifts as well with those around us.

So he doesn’t tell him here: you should strive to do this. He says: you did it. And that really pleased our father in heaven. Sharing financial gifts. A detail.

Next text is Colossians 3. We only have a couple more left.

Colossians 3:18-20. Another detail. And as usual, it’s in relationship to God.

All here: “It’s to the Lord.”

And children—I thought about putting this early in the sermon so you’d pay attention. But now’s the time when you should pay real attention. You can do something today, tomorrow, every day of your life. And while you’re a child, that will make God happy with you. And not just happy, but well happy—really pleased with you. You want that? I think that’s a wonderful thing.

I mean, I know how much I sin. And it takes faith like Enoch had to believe that God really is pleased with us. But here’s something you can do. And he says this is pleasing to him.

Colossians 3, beginning verse 18:

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.”

And we could go on, but let’s just leave it there.

Specifically, the thing, the specific detail of how you can make God really happy with you if that’s your goal and purpose of the benediction—is to get you to do things that are well pleasing to God.

Well, what you can do: you can obey mom and dad. That’s it. So easy. Just do what they tell you to do and do it with a good attitude. You honor your parents. You obey your parents. The Lord God beams upon you. He’s so happy with you.

So there’s a specific one. And now look: there are only three or four specific things that the Bible tells us will actually produce this well-pleasing state of God toward us. And there’s other things that we can search out, but he tells us specifically: put down your liberty if it helps your brother. Share with ministers and then with others that have need in terms of your money. And obey your parents. You see, this is well pleasing to God.

Now, I think by way of application, we could extend it out and say that he’s talking about a series of relationships. And then in each of these relationships, these are things that would be well pleasing to God. I mean, he focuses in on the kids, but I think we could probably by way of application of that one phrase say that when husbands love their wives and when wives are respectful and submit to their husbands and everything—this is also well pleasing to God. And of course, conversely, if you’re not obeying mom and dad, and if you’re not loving your wife, and if you’re not respecting and submitting to your husband, well, then you’re not well pleasing to God, and you’ve blown your purpose.

All right? So there was an action done on a horizontal level that pleases God. Okay?

So what we’re talking about, these details are things we do to people—weak brothers, people that need help financially, and now parents. So they’re doing, we’re doing things on the horizontal level toward image bearers of God that actually result in our vertical relationship to God being one of well-pleasingness on his part toward us.

One more: Titus 2:6 and more detail.

Now this is also a very unusual text in terms of this word study. And what makes it unusual is this is the only one of the thirteen verses where he’s not talking about well pleasing to God. Well, the word is used, not in terms of pleasing God. Well, the same word “well pleasing,” but the person that’s being pleased is not God.

So it’s kind of interesting. Every other occurrence has God. Verse 8, or six: Titus 2:6.

“Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded, in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works and in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you.”

“Exhort bondservants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, faithfulness, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.”

So what he says is the only—he says you’re supposed to act toward your masters in a way that is well pleasing to them. Now we can make application to the workplace. In its original context, this is talking about a master-slave relationship—the worst one you could think of. And still on that horizontal relationship with other men, we’re supposed to seek to have them be well pleased with us through this Christian character that informs that relationship.

And I guess that a way of applicating: you should, if you set the goal of being well pleasing to God as your priority, tomorrow when you go to work, you should seek to be a well-pleasing employee of your employer.

And this text is kind of important because it’s, it’s not talking directly about God. But of course it means that God will be well pleased too. But he exhorts bond servants. He’s talking to a pastor. He’s telling me I’m supposed to exhort people reporting to others to be obedient to them, to be well pleasing. And then very specifically, what’s this thing that you’re to avoid to be well pleasing?

Not answering back. And every parent says, “Yeah, yeah, that’s right. That’s what my kids need to do is not answer back.” That’s right. That’s going to make your parents really happy with you. That’s going to make your boss really happy with you if you don’t carp and answer back and all that stuff.

Now, if he’s a smart boss, he’s going to look for your input at various times. But if he’s not, he’s not. Don’t answer back. Don’t argue again. It means he’s made a decision. Implement the decision in obedience. Make him really pleased with you. Make that your goal this week at work: well pleasing.

And that’s part of our overall goal of God being well pleased with us.

And then finally, last verse: 2 Corinthians 5. We’ll look at verses 6 to 11. The last verse. So we’re talking about this—this priority. Everything else should serve this great purpose.

When we leave here, when we get up tomorrow, when the alarm clock sounds tomorrow morning, here it is: a call to live your life in such a way as to make father happy with you and overly, overjoyous with you. I guess we could say well pleased with your actions. And so what are the specifics? Obeying authorities, whether it’s children, masters, being, you know, sharing what you have with others, serving your brothers and the worship of God. These are the specifics that are given to us. But of course, the calling is an overarching one.

2 Corinthians 5, beginning at verse 6:

“So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.”

So what’s better—here or with Jesus? Well, with Jesus is better. So he’s saying, “You know, should I die, should I not die? Well, you know, it’d be great if I died because I’d be with Christ.” You know, it’s a loss to us, a loss to the Foresters, Mr. Moore dying, and a loss to his wife, of course, but clearly he’s in a much better place. And that’s what Paul is saying here.

So he says, “We walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.”

Therefore, verse 9: “We make it our aim. We prioritize it. This is our goal. This is what we want to do. We make it our aim—whether present or absent—whether in this life or moving on through death into the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, we make it our aim, in the womb to the tomb, the whole of life.”

We make it our aim to be well pleasing to him. An overall statement again: to be well pleasing to him.

And now notice the motivation.

“Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences.”

So, that’s that’s really all we’re calling you to do today: set it as your priority to be well pleasing with him. And have that well-pleasing be a commitment to go right through your death in a way that’s pleasing to him.

It’s amazing to watch Mr. Moore sing over the last year or so. They had a videotape of him singing “Jesus Loves Me. This I know.” When I was over there at the hospital last year, this year, I know he sings. He would say “Amen” at the end of the prayers. You see, he was making it his goal to be well pleasing to heavenly father as he moved into the eternal state—from the womb to the tomb.

And what’s the motivation? Well, we’re back to the judgment seat.

Verse 10: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

The motivation is: we’re going to be judged on the basis of how well we did it. Now, you know, it kind of freaks people out: “Well, wait a minute. Our judgment is only on the basis of Christ’s righteousness. No. No, it’s not. These verses clearly tell us—several of them quite explicitly—that we’re going to appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

There is a judgment, not the eternal state, but there’s a judgment unto our works, whether good or bad.

Verse 11: “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences.”

So we make it our lifelong goal—womb to the tomb—to be well pleasing to God. And we look at those priorities: relationships to parents and masters, how well we’re, you know, sharing our resources with those that have need (particularly the gospel workers, the ministers of the gospel and the church), how well we’re worshiping and prioritizing that, and how well we’re serving our brother.

And we do this again because of the motivation of the terror of the Lord. You know, we always talk about fear of the Lord. “Yeah, fear is like a reverence. Yeah, it doesn’t mean frightened really. You know, it doesn’t mean really scared.”

Well, there’s a different sort of fear that it talks about. But here the word is translated “terror.” Terror. Do you ever think about the terror of the Lord? You ever think about his righteousness and his holiness? Do you realize that when you die, that Calvin when he died last a couple weeks ago, he went to the judgment seat of Christ to stand before him? And to realize that whether we did this well or poorly isn’t just, you know, an effect on the people around us here on the earth—we’re going to receive some kind of judgment from God, whether we did good or bad in serving Christ and desiring to do everything to the goal of being well pleasing to him.

The terror of God is the motivating factor here.

Once more, let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for our lives. We thank you for the clarity of your scriptures. Father, forgive us for not wanting to attend sometimes to these clear statements—that we have a proper reason to be fearful of you, Lord God. That you’re not some buttercup. You’re not somebody that just, you know, winks at us at our sins and doesn’t care about them. You hate them, Lord God.

Help us to desire as we leave this place to be well pleasing to you. Help us to remember that in several texts we saw that the motivating factor is the judgment seat—that we all shall stand before as we move from this world to the next. And may we have the confidence of Paul who lived his life, and moved toward dying as well, and moving to the next life with the one singular goal of being well pleasing to you.

In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.