A, The Fourth Sunday in Lent - Ephesians 5:10 "A God Pleasing Person"

And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. (Ephesians 5:10 ESV)

What is the will of God? How do we know what God wants?  Where do we go to find this out?  “God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven” Jesus teaches us to pray! (Matthew 6:10)  So we pray for his will to be done. But how do I know it’s being done?  Where do I look to check?  How do I know?  Is it a certain feeling or is that feeling just a bad case of spiritual indigestion — self-justification set to repeat on me?

How we discern, find out, work out, or prove something has moved folk throughout the ages into great explorations, expeditions, across oceans, deep into the unknown, to illuminate our human desire to know.

The desire for knowledge drives one to search.  Science searches the unknown in laboratories as well as in locations that have kept their existence covered in mystery.  Medical science searches to uncover the truth of the human body.  Humanity likes to uncover all sorts of things in its desire for knowledge.

From not long after we’re born, we want to learn.  We learn to walk, to talk, to read, to explore and discover.   But what’s the purpose of finding out?  Why do we study these things? 

Mostly the study of “unknown stuff” helps us gain knowledge to do certain things.  In our eyes we seek knowledge for our own good, or the good of others, or the “greater good”.  It’s been this way since Adam and Eve were tempted to know what God knew!  However, their discernment was not pleasing to the Lord!

Our search to prove, to understand, to fathom, to distinguish, to learn, also means we misunderstand, misread, mishear, misfit, mistake, misjudge and misuse when we want to know.  The end result is  that we often find our desire to know makes us miss the mark.  Our knowledge for good or the “greater good” ends up being practised in bad ways.  Why is this so?  Why do we have the desire to do good, but when it comes to doing it, it’s not all that good at all.

Human desire is geared for pleasure.  Originally that pleasure was intended to please God but now it misses the mark and is used to please ourselves.  As a result, the pleasures of the human heart are now clouded with darkness.  When Adam and Eve got up to mischief in the garden, their mischief was literally a bad head, turning from God their head to their own heads through the deception of Satan.

Jesus’ words from Matthew chapter fifteen tells us that, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” (Matthew 15:19 ESV)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in contemplation over these words of Jesus says, “It is the deep night that hovers over the sources of all human action, even over all noble and devout impulses.” (Life Together: 31)  

We see in our readings today how easy the desires of the human heart can lead a person astray. 

Samuel was brooding over God’s rejection of King Saul. 

How often do we find ourselves brooding and fretting over the way things have gone when the good, we’ve sought, usually for ourselves, has gone bad for us.  I imagine Samuel’s grief was caused by him being turned in on himself, seeing only his actions rather than the bigger picture of what was pleasing to the Lord.

Even though God regretted with a deep sigh over Saul, he calls Samuel out of his grief over Saul to do his work of anointing a new king.  

But on entering Bethlehem to anoint a new king, Samuel’s desires were misplaced as he looked on Jesse’s oldest son, Eliab, to be the new king.  Yet we hear, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7 ESV)

Even as we walk as children of the light, there’s still within us a longing to slip back into the darkness of our human desires.  Samuel was there only by God’s will, and it pleased God to bring an unseen son to light for Samuel to anoint.  Samuel brooded in darkness, and in the darkness of his heart he could not see as God saw, until God brought the light of his will to light.

The disciples of Jesus could not see the truth of a man born blind from birth.  But then again, how could they see by their own desires?  So, they ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (John 9:1–5 ESV)

Human desire creates human blindness.  Ironically the gospel reading begins with a blind man, and the blind understanding of the disciples, and after the healing of the blind man Jesus announces, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” (John 9:39 ESV)

In other words, a person whose desires once stopped them from seeing what pleased God will be able to see and please God, and those who see what pleases God and don’t please him will become blind and remain in their guilt!

So, it’s important to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. But how does one do this without becoming blinded by our own darkness of sight? God’s will, God’s desire, God’s pleasure is done on earth and in heaven by Jesus Christ.  We can only please God through Jesus Christ!

The blindness of the disciples was exposed during Jesus’ earthly ministry.  In Jesus’ death and resurrection, the disciples witnessed the fulfilment of God’s pleasure to forgive humanity.  In the wake of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit continues to fulfil the pleasure of our Father in heaven, as humans are led to lay down their arms through repentance and daily grow in understanding the costly price Christ made to please the Father.   And, the Holy Spirit continues to work within helping believers forgive as each of us have been forgiven.

This all centres on Jesus and the Holy Spirit’s work within.  When we turn in on ourselves we return to our desires clouded by darkness, and once again become blind.  This is like a blind man deliberately gouging out his own eyes after receiving his sight from Jesus.  Or, like after God chose to anoint David, Samuel decides, “No! I believe Eliab is the one” and anoints him instead.

In Paul’s encouragement to discern what pleases the Lord as a child of God he commands you, “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” (Ephesians 5:17 ESV)

And the only way possible for this to occur within us and between us is to, “be filled with the Spirit… giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5:18b,20–21 ESV)

You and I are not the light of the world.  We shouldn’t expect to be able to please God through what we desire to do.  When we take it on ourselves to please God by thinking we can be our own rays of eternal light and life, the only light we emit is the deceptive light of Lucifer.

However, in submitting to Christ as the only Light of this world, we please God by allowing the Holy Spirit to work the daily death of self and resurrection in Jesus Christ through repentance and the forgiveness of sin and our forgiving of sin.

This reverence for Christ is not a fear that’s afraid of him or of what the world thinks when we confess, are forgiven, and forgive through repentance  No! It’s reverence and desire to please God and be in his holy presence knowing he’s invited us into fellowship with him, through the Light of Life, his Son Jesus Christ. 

When you allow the Holy Spirit to make Jesus Christ the “Light of your world!”  Know you are his child invited by Jesus to “come and follow me!” ­— to repent and forgive as he has forgiven, is forgiving, and will forgive you! 

Jesus promises us, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32 ESV)

“For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13 ESV)

Let the Spirit lead you from yourself to Jesus!  God the Father will reveal the mystery of doing and being a God pleasing person.  Amen.