Colossians 1:9-14

Title: Live to Please God


Text: Colossians 1:9-14

Introduction:

There are those who just believe in God intellectually. There are those who play the game of religion. God looks for those whose lives will please Him. There are many things a Christian can and should do, but nothing is more worthwhile than to please God Will you be a God pleaser or a man pleaser? Paul prays for you.

Colossians 1:9-14.

For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. For he rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Pleasing God will change your world and change your effectiveness in the kingdom of God. Paul says: focus on these 4 areas! - fruitfulness, growth, steadfastness and thanksgiving.



If you want to please God and glorify Christ then you must start bearing fruit in every good work.

1. Bear Fruit!

a) IN the middle ages there was a huge emphasis on salvation by works. Today we know of people who still think that they need to do something so that they will be accepted by God. They attend faithfully, give sacrificially, and serve unreservedly, accumulating a long list of good merits hoping that they can make themselves feel worthy before God. It becomes a problem when we try to twist God’s hand or blackmail God with our good works, hoping he will bless us more.

b) On the other hand some who read Paul’s condemnation of works-salvation think that they need not do anything. Both these groups of people are wrong.

c) Definitely, works cannot save us because our salvation is based on the grace of God, who sent his son to die for us on Calvary. Whatever was needed to be done for salvation has been accomplished by Christ Jesus on the Cross when he said, ‘It is Finished!’ While it is true that we are not saved by our good works, we are saved for good works, more than that we are created for good works. Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:10 ‘For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them’.

d) ‘Faith’ and ‘good works’ are not opposites in Christian faith.

e) Paul is not against good works. in fact, he encouraged good works among the churches. In I Thessalonians 1:3 ‘your work produced by faith’, Gal 5:6 ‘faith works itself through love’ and 2 Thessalonians 2:17.







f) Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven (Matt 5:16). Let me give my youthful translation: when we do good works we make God look cool, we make him famous, we make him look good!” When you do true good to another person, God gets all the credit and praise. What better way to please God then? Abound in good works. Let your life be a fruitful tree of good works. When Christian performs good works, God gets glorified.

g) Mother Teresa is a very good example. Even non Christians are awed by her good works and give credit to her faith and the God she worshipped and serve. While Charles Darwin was finalizing his Origin of Species, Swiss humanitarian and Bible-believer Henri Dunant was planning the Red Cross and negotiating the Geneva convention for the care and treatment of wounded soldiers.

h) Church history is filled with examples of Christian who pleased God with their good works. And even recently in the newspaper you would have read of Mr Carstens who wanted to do more than just pray for the poor and he started a wealth foundation to help ordinary Africans get out of poverty. We praise God for people such as these who know God’s will – to reach the poor, the wounded, and the devastated, to bring hope and life into their hopeless and barren life.

i) We may not be Mother Teresa or Mr Petrus Carstens, but we can be that good Samaritan to our neighbours, our classmates, our colleagues, our fellow brothers and sisters, our community. I know of a youth cell group who live a God pleasing life by doing good works.











j) This cell group has a tradition and that is they would have a guys’ and gals’ nite. What they do on these occasions is that the guys will have their own activity while the gals will have theirs. And it was on one of these gals’ nite that the guys decided to do something different and so they decided to go shopping. They went shopping. They went to NTUC for shopping. They bought a lot of things with their own money and it was a trolley load of things when they checked out at the cashier’s counter. After the shopping spree, they divided the things they bought and went to the single-room blocks at Redhill to distribute to the residents there – old, lonely, broken, abandoned, residents with wrinkled faces and dejected look. I am sure when God looks down that nite and saw what they did he must be delighted.

k) You can start with giving a lift to your friends, buying him/her a meal, holding the lift door open for your neigbhours, giving food rations for those who are needy in your community, and keeping a look out for those who are in need. Babysitting for a couple so that they can have a nite off to date. Sharing an umbrella on a rainy day. Giving up your seat in the bus or MRT for the elderly, handicapped or pregnant women. There are many good works we can do and it will take eternity to list all of them for you. Always look for opportunity to do good to someone around you.

l) Fruitfulness should be a natural state of every Christian because a good tree will naturally bear fruit. A tree that is barren means that it is not a good tree. E.H. Chapin said this: To do good is the great thing. It is great not because it makes us feel good, but because it makes God feels good.

We please God by bearing fruit and by increasing in the knowledge of God.

2. Keep Growing!

a) Our age is characterized by the search for knowledge and ‘Knowledge is Power’ is the slogan of the age. Daniel 12:4 prophesied that in the last days ‘many will go back and forth, and knowledge will increase’ but the sad fact is that none today is seeking God?”

b) Some Christians also think that they have learned all they needed to know in the early days of their church schooling and are complacently apathetic about growing in knowing God (D.E. Garland). ‘All I needed to know I learned in Sunday School’ may be the attitude of most Christians, which is unfortunate.

c) The recipients of Hebrews had this same illness, the author wrote ‘for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food’. We may have been Christians for many years, 5, 10, or even 20 years, yet our knowledge of God never grows. We still ask the same question – can Christian drink alcohol, must we give tithes, does God hear prayer –Or we become critical of other Christians and even of the church. when we should be teaching and discipling others. We are still babies that cannot handle solid food but drink only milk. Hear again the admonishment of the writer, ‘leave behind the elementary teaching (the beginning word) about Christ, let us press on to maturity’.

d) To grow in maturity as a Christian we must grow in the knowledge of God, we must know him in increasing measure each day. Do you know God more now compared to last year? Or is it the same? Or less? Maturity is not measured by years but by how much we know our God.





e) But we must realize that knowledge alone does not please God, but knowledge that leads to a transformed life. The greater we grow in our knowledge of God, the more our life should be transformed. Knowledge alone will puff up the mind and brings more harm than good. But a knowledge that leads to godly and right living will please God. Every sermon, preaching, Children’s Church lesson, GLI courses, is useless if it does not change lives.

f) Christianity is about consistent growth in the knowledge of God. We please God by increasing in our knowledge of God – knowing God and not know about God. There is a difference between knowing someone and knowing about someone. It is different in knowing SM Lee and knowing about SM Lee. You can know about him through his two-volume Memoir, but you can only know him by having a relationship with him. Similarly, we must establish an intimate relationship with God in order to know him.

g) We can know a lot about God from what people write, from seminars, from classrooms, but you only know about him and not him. As a pastor I have the privilege of meeting up with members and it is through these meetings at Vivo City, Great World City, Velo-city … that I get to know them. We cannot know God through hear-say which becomes heresy if we are not careful; we need to be eyewitness – what we have heard, what we have seen, what we have looked at, and touched with our hands.

h) This kind of personal knowing can only be achieved through spending quality and quantity time with God. Spend time studying his word and not just reading. I hope you know the difference between studying and reading. There are many who read but not many who study. Beginning of this year, I made a point to study the book of Galatians verse by verse, and I took a step further. I not only study the book verse-by-verse but with the privilege of knowing Greek I study the entire book in 6 months in its original language. What I get out of this? Of course my Greek improved but more importantly I think I understand God and know God a little more.

i) Spend time in worship. It is in worship that many people encounter God. God loves his people worshipping him and Psalm says God dwells among the praises of his people. Worship is like going on a date with God. When couple dates, what do they do? They sing each other’s praises and they want to know more about each other. Worship is like that. We sing God’s praises and know him more as we worship him.

j) Spend time in prayer. Prayer is the time when we align our heart with God’s. Prayer is more than shopping time in heaven’s shopping center. Prayer should be a time where we learn to listen to God’s heartbeat and listening to his still small voice. We can learn more about God in prayer than from any renowned bible scholars.

k) While you are busy pursuing your academic studies, professional knowledge, learning the stock market and business trend, do not neglect pursuing after the knowledge of God. Always ask yourself this question: Am I daily increasing in this knowledge of God?



A life that is pleasing to God must be characterized by perennial fruit bearing, continuous growth in the knowledge of God. God will also be excited about us when he sees patience endurance.

3. Patiently Endure

a) Paul says to be ‘strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the purpose of steadfastness and patience’ It is God’s will that we be strengthened with power, that we be strong in our living for him and not to shrink back. Here we are told that we are strengthened not with any power but with the glorious power of God. This power is none other than the power mentioned in Ephesians 1:20 which he brought about in Christ, when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. It is the resurrection power of God. The good news for everyone is that you are endued with the resurrection power of God; you have a power that is more powerful than all the nuclear warheads added together.

b) This power is not for domineering subordinates, not for controlling cell members, not for abusing others, not for spiritual star wars, but for endurance and patience. It is power for us to live the kind of life that is worthy of the master and pleasing to him in every way. It is a power for living a God-pleasing life.

c) It is the power that strengthens you to live a Christian life at work, home, on the road, at church, school, neighborhood, community, and everywhere else. We need this for endurance and patience.

d) We need this power to outlast the toil and stress and pressure in our world that fights against our desire to live a God-pleasing life. Everywhere around us there are forces that dissuade us from living this kind of life. Advertisements are like soft porn nowadays. Walk along Orchard Road, look at the kind of posters put up, and you will know what I mean. What has cars got to do with girls in bikinis? What has cologne got to do with men in briefs? And many others… …

e) We really need endurance in this time and age to live the kind of life God wants. Endurance has to do with how we handle circumstances. When every corner you turn you meet with temptations to lure you away from living godly lives, you need endurance. We need endurance under difficult circumstances. We need endurance to act in an apparently impossible situation. We need endurance to hang in there during tough times. (Illustration: using the concept of tug-of-war. Ask for two volunteers – a big guy (rep. the world) and a smaller built guy (rep. Christians). Have the big guy pull the small guy towards him. Say: we may not have the strength to overcome the world, but Paul says God can strengthen us. Ask for a bigger size guy (Li Sheng, winner of Strongman Singapore) to help the small guy. Say: When God strengthens us, we can stand against the pull of the world.)

f) I guess for the guys you really need endurance if you are still in the army. Believe me, National Service for guys is a make it or break it moment. In the army camp there are people from all walks of life and to meet with a fellow Christian is rare, it is even rarer to have one that loves to live godly life.

g) When I was in the army (like quite a while back) it was a very trying time and I really needed endurance. In my platoon there were only two Christians, myself and another guy. The other guy, even, today I am not quite sure that he is a Christian. I have Taoist priests, atheists, anti-Christians in my platoon. I have those who smoke, watch pornography, gamble, go for prostitutes during their off days and I stick out like a sore thumb among them.

h) I thank God that for most of the time I could stand strong, but there was times when I fail. Of course I don’t smoke, or go to prostitutes, but I do join them in coarse joking, gambling and drinking. I really needed God’s strength during those times.



i) There is no better way to draw strength from God than in prayer and in constant communion with God. We must also not give up meeting with the saints. One of the greatest dangers for anyone during the tough times in life is to skip church and cell groups because it is among his people that god can renew you and refresh you through the ministry of others. We all know the story of the burning coals. A piece of coal left in the open will die down very fast. But a pile of coals can burn strong and bright to give warmth and light. When you need strength to live for God, never give up assembling together with the saints.

j) But we need patience as well. Patience is about dealing with people. Hendriksen in his commentary wrote, “Patience or longsuffering characterizes the person who, in relation to those who oppose or mistreat him, exercises patience, refusing to yield to passion or to outburst of anger (39)’.

k) You are facing someone difficult in your home, work, school, office? Pastor, I can’t go back home, to the work, to the office, to the doctor. I don’t have the energy what should I do? Ask people to pray for you. Ask people to pray specifically for endurance and patience like Paul prayed for the Colossians. Trust also in God to provide you supernaturally his glorious power to go back home, to the work, to the office, to the boss, to the mother-in-law, to the father, mother, brother, sister… … to those who oppose you and persecute you when you try to live a godly life. Anyone who wished to live a godly life will be persecuted.

l) We only please the devil when we rely on our own strength but we please God when we appropriate his glorious power to live out those circumstances. We please God when we rely upon his power to out last the trying and difficult circumstances and peoples.



We please God by always giving thanks joyfully.

4. Constant Thanksgiving

a) Joseph Stalin considered gratitude a sickness suffered by dogs and no wonder he treated his people viciously and cruelly. During his reign it was estimated that the number of victims is between 4 million to near 10 million.

b) However, gratitude is the basic character of Christian. Gratitude is not one of the characteristics [of any genuine Christian]; it is the primary (Theodore Gill). Gratitude and thanksgiving should and must characterize the entire Christian existence!

c) Nouwen said, “Gratitude in its deepest sense means to live life as a gift to be received gratefully.” This is how apt for this passage. Our passage reads, ‘giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. Who rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.’

d) We were destined for the hell, for burning in hell and eternally lost in the bottomless pit. Our only inheritance is outside the city walls where there is gnashing of teeth and where the worms never die. The only kingdom we have is the kingdom of the dead. But God out of his compassion and awesome love did two things for us – he qualifies us! He rescues us! Let us repeat these two great truths: He has qualified us! He has delivered us!

e) The wear and tear of daily living can chip away at our trust in God and our appreciation for the bounty of life in Christ. The great and awesome work of God is easily forgotten in the busyness of the day.





f) It is always easier to complain of the things we don’t have than to give thanks for those we have. Our materialistic culture may be the reason why. This culture breeds discontent. We are fed by advertisers always to want more, and they promise fulfillment, bliss and well-being are just a phone call away, you just need to push a button. To get these things, many ‘max out’ their credit cards and choke up a huge debt. This kind of lifestyle naturally chokes out even the slightest breathe of gratitude.

g) Many times we forgot or have not truly cherished what God has done for us in Christ which we are to be eternally grateful. Helen Keller, who became blind and deaf at an early age, wrote in her autobiography, ‘For three things I thank God every day of my life: thanks that he vouchsafed me knowledge of his works; deep thanks that he has set in my darkness the lamp of faith; deep deepest thanks that I have another life to look forward to – a life joyous with light and flowers and heavenly song.’ She is so thankful for what God ahs done for her in Christ that she has no time to think about what is denied her. (D.E. Garland)

h) The forgiveness of sin and our salvation and liberation from darkness into light should quicken the joy deep within us. It should inspire songs of praise and words of thanksgiving. Our whole being should be dancing with joy inexpressible. Sin cripples and chew away our soul in bitterness and despair; God’s grace in Christ frees us to our full humanity, our human-ness, our true being before our Creator.

i) Forgetfulness kills gratitude. We must always come back to Christmas, Good Friday and Easter to remind ourselves of the tremendous blessings we have in Christ - God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.







j) Always count your blessings. Keep a journal of the blessings God has bestowed in your life. Stop in between your work each day and utter a prayer of thanksgiving before continuing with your task. Have a 60-30 exercise, said a thanksgiving after every 60 minutes for 30 days. Have a blessing box and every nite before you sleep jot down the day’s blessings and drop into the box. Have a count blessing day and count the number of blessings you have accumulated over the month. Find every way and method to keep you from forgetting the goodness of God. We must echo the words of the psalmist in Ps 103 ‘Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits – who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good as long as you live, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles’.



Our life will please God when we are fruitful in good deeds, constantly grow, face every trial with endurance inspired by his glorious strength and giving thanks always for the forgiveness we have in him.

Diane Komp, a pediatric oncologist, tells the story of Arthur, who developed cancer when he was three years old. He had multiple relapses over a five-year period and was often close to death.

One day, Arthur’s mother called the doctor to ask something that had been weighting her down for years. She said that in the early years of her marriage, she had an affair and left her husband for another man. She became pregnant by him. When he learned of her pregnancy, he gave her something to swallow trying to induce an abortion. It did not work, and he abandoned her. She returned to her husband, pregnant with Arthur. She asked for forgiveness and received his forgiveness. He knew the truth but has always treated Arthur as his own son.

Her question to the oncologist was this: “Do you think that the concoction I drank to abort the pregnancy caused the cancer?” Deep inside her soul she must have felt that her sin caused all this suffering for her son.

Arthur’s mother latter wrote the doctor that she had grown up in a church that preached forgiveness through Christ’s sacrifice. In spite of this religious tradition, she had never been able to forgive herself and had rejected the forgiveness that God had offered in Jesus. There was no one in her church with whom she can share her burden. When she finally forgave herself, she underlined every passage in her Bible that referred to God’s forgiveness and was amazed that the burden was finally lifted. The healing of memories and guilt can sometimes be more difficult than healing cancer.

Arthur was one of the first in the country to receive a new experimental drug. It worked. His mother called the doctor to invite her to his wedding. One can imagine that it was going to be a big celebration. How else can we respond to the forgiveness of God? (D.E. Garland)

Celebrate with joy because God has forgiven us. Bearing fruit, growing constantly, patiently endure and joyful thanksgiving – focus on these 4 areas. Want to be effective in the kingdom of God, focus on these 4 areas. I want to please God. That is what drives me. It is not because I can impress God by what I do. Not because of my abilities. I live to hear his “well done, good and faithful servant”. That’s worth every sacrifice, every pain, every misunderstanding. These are building stones for effectiveness in ministry, church, and life. That’s what lifts my motivation, my drive, my effectiveness in serving God and man.

Some need to recommit your life to fruit bearing.

Some need to work on knowing God more intimately.

Some who need to pray for endurance and patience, You need God to strengthen you with his glorious power.

Some need to experience a new the forgiveness of God so that you may experience the joy of salvation and burst forth with thanksgiving to him.

No matter where you are, I want you to come to the altar this evening, to the altar of God’s divine providence and grace. Come! Let us dedicate our lives anew to Him. Let’s us press on to his destiny for our lives.