Pleasing God
Unregenerate people have not begun to please God, for “they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom 8:8).1 Sadly, even God’s people can displease Him, as illustrated in the experience of ancient Israel: “With many of them God was not well pleased” (1Co 10:5), a challenging thought.
Happily, as we are empowered by the Holy Spirit, we do have the potential to please Him. Paul expressed a major ambition of his life like this: “We make it our aim to please him” (2Co 5:9 ESV). There are various areas in which this can be done. We can please Him by our worship: “With such sacrifices God is well pleased,” including “the sacrifice of praise” (Heb 13:15-16). We can please Him by our witness: “So we speak; not as pleasing men, but God” (1Th 2:4). We can please Him by our walk: “Walk[ing] worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing” (Col 1:10). We can please Him by our warfare: “Pleas[ing] him who hath chosen [us] to be a soldier” (2Ti 2:4). Is our Father deriving any pleasure from our lives? Is the spiritual equivalent of the sweet savor of Old Testament sacrifices ascending to heaven daily? In attempting to fulfill his ambition, Paul had as his stimulus the fact that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2Co 5:10); the coming day of review was big in his thinking.
The purpose of this article is to explore the possibility of pleasing God outside the normal routine of Christian living, in particular, in situations where there has been conflict, unpleasantness and ill will. It is anticipated that disagreements can be resolved, but if no end to a dispute is in sight, can the behavior and the attitudes exhibited conceivably afford pleasure to God? In particular, we will try to find guidelines in Romans chapter 14.
Conflict
There was tension among the saints at Rome. It was the result of believers from diverse backgrounds adopting a differing outlook on the dietary and ceremonial laws of the Old Testament. Those from a Jewish tradition were strict about what they ate, and they were keen to celebrate the special days that had featured in their old religion. Believers who were saved out of heathendom regarded that to be of no consequence in that Christian era. Paul labeled the first group “weak” and the second “strong.” The weak were judging the strong. Had they never read their Bibles? Did they not know that pig meat is abhorrent to God? And so the muttering went on. The strong were despising the weak, maybe mocking their slavery to outdated legislation. Did they know nothing about Christian liberty? The temperature rose, with great potential for full-scale conflict.
Remedies
Paul gave clear instructions about resolving the conflict. First, both groups had an attitude problem that had to be addressed; the despising and the judging had to stop (v3)! Second, both groups had to give credit to the other for their aspiration to honor Christ by the stance that they took; their convictions sprang from a desire to acknowledge His Lordship (vv4-9). Neither group had to regard the other as rebels because they had a different attitude to eating meat. A third factor had to be an awareness that everyone’s prime accountability is to God and that that will be seen fully at the judgment seat of Christ (vv10-12): “Every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” I will never be asked to step forward to recount your life’s history, nor you mine. We have enough trouble keeping ourselves right without behaving like an assembly policeman trying to keep everyone else in line. We express Peter’s sentiments too often: “Lord, and what shall this man do?” We should be focused on our own obligation to follow faithfully. A caveat to this is that we cannot ignore unscriptural practices and turn a blind eye to violations of biblical order. These have to be faced head on, but that is not the emphasis in this article.
The strong believers had a further opportunity to be charitable by being willing to forego their right to eat meat to accommodate the weak brother’s scruples (vv13-15). Who would want to stumble a brother? Who would want to endanger the spiritual life of someone who is precious to Christ, “him … for whom Christ died”? The teaching spills over into chapter 15, where the strong are discouraged from pleasing themselves, with the Lord Jesus seen as the supreme example of the selfless attitude: “Even Christ pleased not himself” (v3). Insisting on exercising my liberty even if it saddens another believer puts me in the wrong. Foregoing our rights is one way to emulate the Savior and render pleasure to God in the midst of conflict. Gideon’s self-effacing, kid-glove approach to the proud opinionated men of Ephraim was far more effective than Jephthah’s mailed-fist method (Jdg 8:1-3; 12:1-6)!
A Key Verse
A critical verse in the section is chapter 14:17. It demonstrates that citizens of the kingdom are not taken up with “meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” In these things we can be “well-pleasing to God” (v18 RV). Righteousness in its legal sense is a major theme of the epistle, but it is obvious that the righteousness here is practical, in other words, good behavior. With conflict in the background, it is so easy to develop a sour disposition that devises underhanded means to get one over on an opponent. That will never please God. What will delight Him is the desire to promote peace, which will in turn stimulate joy. “Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace” (v19).
I firmly believe that Romans 14 should be interpreted strictly in its context, a context which airs a problem that does not really affect us today. I have a strong aversion to using the chapter to make applications that are too elastic. Too often, activities that are positively worldly and unscriptural are justified by asserting that if the person involved is fully persuaded in their own mind (v5), then all must be well. However, I judge that there are principles here regarding conflict resolution that should be heeded. We must ensure that behavior does not deteriorate in the midst of tension. If we follow the injunctions of Paul to the Romans, our actions and reactions can be such as will please God. “Ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God” (1Th 4:1).
1 Bible quotations in this article are from the KJV unless otherwise noted.
