WebWord for Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

WHAT MAKES GOD SMILE?

The ninety-fifth Psalm is one of a series of psalms which the Israelites sang together as they went up to the temple in Jerusalem to worship. The series begins with the ninety-fifth Psalm and concludes with the one hundredth Psalm. 5 songs that they would sing…(Sing go to next song) Each of these is a demonstration on how to worship. They are not only magnificent poetry but they are also instructions on what worship is and how it is to be done.

The most fundamental question you can ask in life is, Why am I here? What is my purpose in life? The Bible is very, very clear about this. It tells us in Revelation 4:11 why God made us. “You (God) created everything, and it is for Your pleasure that they exist and were created!" Circle “for your pleasure”. You were made for the pleasure of God. You were created to bring God pleasure. If you want to know why you’re here on this earth, if you want to know why you’re alive, if you want to know why you take the next breath that you take it’s because God made you to enjoy you. Not for your benefit – for His benefit. You were made to bring pleasure to God. That’s why you’re here. Until you understand that, you don’t understand life.

The Bible says in Psalm 149:4 “The Lord takes pleasure in His people.” Those of you who are parents, when you watch your children do you ever get pleasure by watching them. Sometimes. And the same is true of your heavenly Father. God says, I made them and I enjoy them. You were made to bring pleasure to God. That is your number one purpose in life – to get God's smile. He created you for His own benefit.

There’s a word that God uses that describes when we bring pleasure to God. That word is one of the most misunderstood and misused words in the human vocabulary. In fact, I guarantee you, everyone here, including me, has misused this word. It is the word “worship”. When we bring pleasure to God, we worship God.

Psalm 95:1 says “Come let us sing for joy to the Lord. Let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and praise Him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great king above all gods. In His hand are the depths of the earth and the mountain peaks belong to Him. The sea is His for He made it and His hands formed the dry lands. Come let us bow down in worship. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker. He is our God. And we are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care.”

Let me give you a definition of worship. Worship is living a life pleasing to God.

I got this card: “Dear Pastor Gene, I loved the worship today. I got a lot out of it.” I hate to tell you this but worship isn’t for your benefit. It’s not for you anyway. It’s for God. When we worship we’re bringing pleasure to God not bringing pleasure to ourselves. So if you came and said, “I didn’t get anything out of worship today,” you came for the wrong reason in the first place. Worship isn’t for you. It’s your first priority and we do it for God to bring Him pleasure.

I’ve got to learn what do I do first. When I learn that, then worship always gets off on the right foot. Psalm 95:2 says “Let us come before Him with thanksgiving.” The big idea here is you start to worship as you and I start our meal. You start your worship by offering thanks. That’s where it begins.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s plenty in life that’s tough. I’m not saying that when you come to worship you pretend that nothing’s wrong in your life. But what I’m saying is there’s never a moment in our lives when we don’t have something to thank God for. Our salvation, forgiveness, heaven, the fact that He sent His Son. What He’s done in the past, what He’s doing in the present, what He’s certainly going to do in the future. There’s never moment when we don’t have something to thank Him for.

Four ways you can make God smile:

1. We bring pleasure to God when we love Him above everything else.
Psalm 95 at the end of the Psalm the psalmist says, “Today if you hear His voice do not harden your hearts."

When you come to God and say, “God, I’m not coming to You because I’m in a crisis and I need You to bail me out. I’m not coming to You because I’ve got this big request or I want You to make me a millionaire or super successful. I’m just coming to You because You made me. And I want to get to know You and I want to love You.” That thrills the heart of God. When you come running into His arms and you delight in the fact that God made you and loves you, that brings God great pleasure. That makes God smile. When was the last time you did that?
Psalm 99:5 Exalt the Lord our God!
Bow low before his feet, for he is holy!

2. We bring pleasure to God when we trust Him completely.
Psalm 147:11 says “The Lord takes pleasure in those that honor Him and trust in His constant love.” It’s in trusting God you bring God pleasure.

Noah trusted God completely. He had incredible faith. “By faith Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn’t see and he acted on something he was told and his act of faith drew a sharp line between the evil of the unbelieving world and the rightness of the believing world. As a result, Noah became intimate with God.”

3. We bring pleasure to God when we obey Him wholeheartedly.

Again, Noah is an extremely great example of wholehearted obedience. Hebrews 11:7 says “Noah obeyed and built a boat when God told him to do it.” Genesis 6:22 “Noah did everything exactly as God commanded him.” Circle “everything”. What is included in the word “everything”? Everything! All. In other words, when God said I want you to do this, Noah didn’t just build any boat. He built it to the exact specifications. And they’re quite long. They’re in the Bible there in Genesis. God says I want you to built it this wide and this deep and this high and here’s how I want you to put the door and all that kind of stuff. And Noah followed it to a T. He followed God, he obeyed God wholeheartedly.

It’s the attitude of David. “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it, Lord. As long as I live I'll wholeheartedly obey."

Actually, going through life, if you want to know God's will you can usually figure out “what would I normally do in this situation?” Figure out the exact opposite and that’s God's will. Because it’s natural for me to think about me, not you. It’s normal, it’s natural, it’s human nature for me to be self-centered and not care how it’s going to affect anybody else. And God says I don’t want you to think that way.

I must obey Him completely. That brings the smile of God.

4. We bring pleasure to God when we fulfill His purposes.

God smiles on our lives when we fulfill the purposes that He put us on earth to fulfill. In Genesis 9:1 after the flood is over and the ark has landed and they’re getting out of the boat, here’s what God says, “Then God blessed Noah and his sons and said...” I want you to go to church every day of your life and I want you to pray ten times a day and I want you to talk in spiritual terms and say Jesus and be really spiritual and let everybody know it. That’s not what He said. “Then God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them be fruitful and multiply [translated have sex] and replenish the earth.” Ok, God! Now, this I can get a handle on. God says, “Here’s what I want you to do now. I want you to go make love with your spouse, raise families and do the things I created humans to do. Be human! This is what I made you to be. God has given you certain abilities, capacities, as a human being and God takes pleasure in watching you be a human and do human kind of stuff.

This is very, very important. Because a lot of you think that the only time God is smiling on your life is when you’re doing something religious. That only when you’re doing something spiritual is God really pleased. For instance, right now God is pleased because you’re sitting in bible study. But when you go over the Chili’s and order nachos for lunch, He’s frowning. No. God smiles when you order nachos. He told me that! God takes pleasure in watching you enjoy. Who do you think gave you your taste buds? He gave you the ability to enjoy. In 2 Timothy it says “God has graciously given us all things for our enjoyment.”

It’s like that Olympic runner Eric Little, they made that movie about him years ago, Chariots of Fire. He said “When I run I feel God's pleasure.” Well duh! If God's wired you to be a runner, God takes enjoyment in watching you be what He made you to be. Of course He takes pleasure in watching you run if you’ve got an ability to run because He gave you that ability.

What I’m saying is everything in life can be done as an act of worship, everything in life can be done to bring glory to God, and everything in life can be done for God's pleasure if you do it with the right attitude. If you say, God, today I want to live for Your pleasure. You can wash dishes for the glory of God. You can mow the lawn for the glory of God. You can close a deal for the glory of God. You can play golf for the glory of God. Everything you do in life can be done to bring God pleasure if you’ve got the right attitude saying God, You gave me this ability and I want to please You with it. You can please in the kitchen and you can please God at work and you can please God wherever you are. If you live for His pleasure.

Psalm 37:23 “The steps of the godly are directed by the Lord. He delights in every detail of their lives.” Circle “every detail of their lives”. God delights in every detail of your life. If you like to sell, God enjoys watching you sell. Who do you think gave you that interest, that ability, that desire? It’s all for His pleasure in watching you be you. Every detail of your life. Whenever you use any talent or any ability that God gave you and you do it for God's glory that’s an act of worship.

Psalm 14:2 “The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who are wise. [And who are wise people?] Who want to please God.”

Will you be that person? Will you be that person?I invite you to live your life for the pleasure of God. I’m going to and I invite you to join me in Psalm 100.

Psalm 100
A psalm of thanksgiving.
1 Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth!
2 Worship the Lord with gladness.
Come before him, singing with joy.
3 Acknowledge that the Lord is God!
He made us, and we are his.
We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving;
go into his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the Lord is good.
His unfailing love continues forever,
and his faithfulness continues to each generation.

(With thanks to author Rick Warren of "The Purpose Driven Church")