In this sermon, Chris Carlson emphasizes the importance of living with an attitude of pleasing the heart of God. He shares how his own awareness of this began when he witnessed the fulfillment of prophecies and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. Pleasing God means bringing Him satisfaction and gratification, and it goes beyond mere obedience. Carlson uses the example of Noah and the five foolish virgins to illustrate the urgency of being prepared for the coming of Christ. He encourages listeners to constantly ask themselves what God wants them to do and to live in a way that brings pleasure to others, just as Chad did in the heartwarming story shared.

God has laid on my heart, these last few months, a principle of Christian living which has just revitalized and revolutionized and blessed me and simplified my life and I want to share it with you this morning. Because of the urgency of the days in which we live, the Lord has told me it's not just for me but to get it out to as many women as fast as I can. So that's kind of the way I'm moving right now. In Psalm 39.4, and please turn to it, I call this my birthday scripture. I read this every birthday. But I'm not going to read you the verse that I read for my birthday because that's not the point. But verse 5 is my birthday scripture and kind of save it for your birthday. When you get older, you'll really appreciate it. Okay, but Psalm 39.4. Lord, make me to know mine end and the measure of my days, what it is, that I may know how frail I am. Now in the marginal reference of my Bible where it says how frail I am, it says what time I have. In other words, Lord make me to know what time I have. I wish that God would just by a miracle say to me, hey you have 10 days, you have 10 years, you have 5 minutes. Don't you wish you would? I just wish you'd tell us exactly what time we have. David prayed that. He said, Lord let me know what time I have. And God is really, in a sense, letting us know what time we have. And we don't have very much. In the Living Bible, it says, Lord help me to realize how brief my time on earth will be. Lord help me to realize how brief my time on earth will be. If you suddenly had to evacuate your home because of a disaster, we've seen a lot of them this year so far. Fire, flood, a mudslide, what would you take with you? If a boat came out in front of your house that was flooding and a dam had burst or your house was on fire and you had to get out. What would you want to grab to take with you? Most of us think about it and, you know, we kind of, there's so many things. What is most important to me? This year we've seen so many disasters. I saw one the other night. I can't remember if it was Louisiana. Louisiana, yes. And the homes were just being flooded. It was horrible. And I saw this one man on TV. All he had time to do was leave his house and jump in the raft. He didn't have time to grab anything. And then a warning came over the radio to the people. Do not go back to your homes until the waters have completely receded because there are snakes and fire ants in the house. And you couldn't see them. Can you imagine? God is sending signs and warnings to us all the time. In 2 Peter, the third chapter, don't turn to it right now, but would you write it down in your notes to read when you get home? 2 Peter 3 describes the last days of this world. And as we know it, read it. It says, seeing that all these things shall be dissolved. Verse 11, seeing that all these things shall be dissolved. God is showing you over and over and over again that all the things that we're hanging on to are going to be burnt with a fervent heat and nothing's going to last except your eternal soul. And the work that you've done for him that are not wood, hay, and stubble, but are pure gold. They'll stand the test of the fire. They are going to last and nothing else. God is warning us. We flew over Mount Helens on our way home. Mount Helens, Washington, where the volcano is erupting right now. What a strange thing to have happen here. The rains we've had have been so heavy. The floods. I haven't seen floods like we had this past winter since I was a tiny little girl. And God is showing us. These things are out of our control. And he wants you to be aware that we are in last time. I saw Gordon Cooper on a talk show on TV a couple weeks ago. And the talk host asked him. Gordon Cooper was an astronaut. And the talk show host asked him, Gordon, what can you tell us about what's happening right now that won't scare us? Gordon Cooper is kind of a relaxed, pragmatic person, at least on TV. He kind of leaned back in his chair and he said, well, the Russians have developed some pretty powerful weapons, he said. They're called energy transfer. Now, I am saying it in my words. I'm paraphrasing a little bit because I didn't get a tape on it. But these are the three things he brought up. He said, first of all, I'll be putting this very simply. But as soon as it's perfected, and it should be sometime the beginning of next year, it will be a simple thing for Russia to paralyze any city in the United States. He said, for instance, they could paralyze the city of Los Angeles. Okay. The second thing, they can transfer germ warfare through this energy transfer any place in the world. And we know that that's true because of the anthrax thing that went awry in that city where their germ warfare factory is and it exposed what they're doing. And the third thing, and this was scariest of all, he said, they can already do this. They can control the climate anywhere in the world by energy transfer. And I was thinking, ooh, when we were in Israel, they said they'd had more rain than they've had in, is it 16 years or even longer, more than they've ever had recorded almost. And they had that snowstorm, which was almost a blizzard while we were there. And I thought, this is really strange weather. Mount Helens exploding or erupting is rather a strange thing. You wonder what they're up to right now. And satellites are beginning to be missing. Like if you've been listening to Channel 40, their Angel 1 and 2 are missing. And it would be a very simple thing for the Russians to knock out satellites now. And you just think of these things. We know also another sign to all of us is the economic instability of our own country, the energy crisis. We don't know how much longer we're going to have oil and the price of gasoline is going up, up, up. We're in inflation. Have you bought a pair of shoes lately? I can't believe it. Mamas that have to buy school shoes for three or four children. I don't know. We couldn't do it very well when they were, you know, 14 years ago. Russia's invasion of Afghanistan is a very serious thing. Our inability to get our hostages back out of Iran. When we were in Israel this time, they're on a 24-hour alert in the northern part of Israel. If you read last week about the PLO terrorists coming down into that Moshe, it was right next to Far Giladi where we stayed, right up in that very northern part of Israel. Very, very dangerous. Syria is about ready to attack Israel any moment it could happen. And God is showing His body these things. And you'd have to absolutely have your head in the sand to not know that our world as we've known it is almost at the end. Henry Kissinger spoke at a luncheon, and I think a lot of you heard her at dinner. Chuck Missler was there, and I don't have the quotation exactly, so I'm not going to try to quote it, but it was very, very serious. And Chuck Missler said all the people left just stunned by what he said. We are almost at the end of this world as we've known it. And Christians, you must wake up. God has never destroyed society without giving warning after warning after warning. Noah preached righteousness for 100 years before the flood came. Now, people then lived to be 300, 400, 500 years old, even older. So 100 years wasn't as long a time. I mean, it would be comparable to what we are in now. But God always warns, and He told Noah to build an ark. And every day, the people that lived in Noah's community must have seen him building that ark. There was a living testimony of Noah, that man out there every day working on an ark, saying the floods are going to come, the floods are going to come. God is saying that to our hearts today. Destruction is coming. And you can be as Noah and be prepared, or you can be as the five foolish virgins and be unprepared for the coming of Jesus Christ. I'm not telling you these things this morning to frighten you at all, but to make you aware and to show you the principle that God has given me for living in these last days. The thought uppermost in the committed Christian's life in this time is, I think this is what most of us are thinking, what does God want me to do? Okay, if I have a few hours, if I have a few weeks, if I have a few months, if I have 20 years, what does God want me to do? 2 Peter 3.11b, don't turn, just listen, is the question, what manner of persons ought you to be? What should we be like? What should we be doing? Francis Schaeffer's book and pictures that he put out a few years ago were titled, How Should We Then Live? Seeing that all these things are going to be dissolved and all these things are coming upon us, how should we then live? If Jesus came for his church right now, what would you want to be doing? What would I want to be doing? Would I want to be praying? Would I want to be witnessing? How about if I'm bathing babies or if I'm cooking dinner or if I'm sitting in an office? What should the attitude of my heart be? Every turn Chris Carlson said this, I want to live as though somebody were following me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and could know what a Christian is. Don't you love that? I love that. How hearing and seeing and knowing this has affected me is what I want to talk to you about next. First of all, I think this just extreme awareness began with the filming of Future Survival when we were in Brussels and in Israel and when Chuck began to put all these things together, the last days prophecies and how one prophecy after another after another had been fulfilled and there's nothing left except for the Lord to come back and get his church really. Seeing that really stirred my innermost being. I started reading 2 Peter 3 over and over and over again and I came up with it to be diligent and pure and holy and I thought, yes Lord, I know that's the way you want us to be. Then Ramona Jensen came down, not the last time she came down, she told this story then, but the time before when she came down she told this story and this is the thing that began to really put everything together in my life. She told, and I've shared it with you in the Titus 2 study, but I'm going to do it quickly again. She told about going to Darmstadt, Germany, remember to the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary and how this woman came to the gate to meet her and the lady was in her 60s, Ramona is 28 and she said that the lady asked to carry her luggage and Ramona said, oh no, let me do it and the woman said, oh, it would please me to do it and the lady picked up Ramona's suitcase and carried it up to the registration hall. On the way up there she asked Ramona what her favorite color was, what her favorite flower was, what her favorite drink was and what her favorite scripture was. Then after registering they walked over to the room where Ramona was supposed to stay. In the room hanging were her favorite colored towels, her favorite flowers were in a vase on a table, her favorite drink was tea, a hot steaming pot of tea waiting for her there and on the wall in a frame was written out in hand her favorite scripture. When she went to dinner that night she said she had no trouble finding her place at the table because around her plate was a ring of flowers, her favorite flower and chocolates at that plate. When she sat down to eat the people stood up and began to sing songs like the Lord bless you Ramona, the Lord keeps you, the Lord causes faith to shine upon you. Wow, she was just so blessed by the whole thing. Before she got on the plane to leave they gave her a little booklet. As she was reading on the plane this little booklet she knew why they did it and the reason was not because she was Ramona Jensen but they would do that for any speaker that came, in fact probably anybody that they had as a guest. They did it to please the heart of God and that is the secret that God is programming into my heart as to how we are to live in these last days as women of God to please the heart of God. It is the most important way you can live in these last days. Please means to bring pleasure to, to satisfy and to gratify. Pleasing the heart of God became the chief area of meditation. I began to weigh my actions in the light of pleasing Him. It wasn't anymore doing things just out of obedience but with a desire to please God and there is a big difference. You know if you have children what it is like when they do something to obey you like take the trash out and just gripe all the way or one morning you go downstairs and the trash can has been emptied and they did it just to please you. That's the difference. You know the difference. You can sense the difference. This moves us way beyond obedience. Amy Carmichael tells about being in the orphanage that she started in India and one evening there were five little children that needed diapering and bottling and put in their bed and cuddling and loving a little bit and the lady that was taking care of them heard the chapel bells ring. It was time to go to chapel. And she picked up her prayer book and she said, I must go to chapel now, race up to the chapel and here were these five little babies needing all this care and Amy Carmichael was the one that fed them and diapered them and bedded them down. And you see she knew the difference between being obedient and pleasing the heart of God. Pleasing the heart of God was doing the thing that was most necessary at the moment to show forth His love to take care of these little ones. I began to think what if I lived that way all the time and I ran everything through the filter of does this please God's heart. It's not a new revelation. I believe it probably began at conversion. And I lived that way off and on all through my Christian life as most of us have. You know one day we really want to please Him and then another time we gripe over having to be obedient. But I often and I think a lot of us are phased Christians. That's my own definition. We go through phases. Either phases of obedience and disobedience or we go through phases of discovering a truth about God and then everything hinges on that truth. And for instance, when we first started out in the ministry, everything was faith. We had to live by faith. We didn't have any money and God was in the groceries. And I thought the greatest thing that you could have in your Christian walk was faith. Oh, if you have faith. And I tested everybody I met to see if they have faith, faith, faith. You know, do you have faith to believe for a nickel? Did it matter about love or anything else? Just did they have faith? And then I went through the love phase. And did they have love? Did they have love? And kind of, you know, that was the only thing that really mattered to me. Did they really have love in their heart? Did they really love God? And then I went through the obedience phase. And it reminded me of caring for a plant. And you take your little plant home and you say, I know what this plant needs more than anything else in the world. It needs water. Well, more plants have been killed by overwatering than anything else, I think. Well, then that didn't work. So then I go to the next phase. Oh, this plant needs light. So I would set it in the sunniest place in the house and it didn't matter if it was a begonia or a tulip or whatever it was. And I'd set it in that place. You know, a plant that gets too much light, gets yellow on its leaves, it can kill a plant. Now, that's not a spiritual analogy. Too much light will never kill you. But remember, I'm talking about a plant now. And all analogies break down someplace. And that's where that one just broke down. But we're going to recover it right here. Or I would think, oh, it's the soil. It needs this kind of soil. See, I went through phases in caring for my plant. And one day I was looking at the plant and I thought, hey, Kay, it needs all those things. It needs air. It needs water. It needs light. It needs good soil. But what is the purpose of that plant? The purpose of that plant was to bring pleasure to me in my home. It was to beautify my home. That's why I bought it. Did you ever buy a plant because you didn't want it to bring pleasure to you? You just buy a grubby old weed and put it someplace. I mean, you don't do that. You bought that plant and brought it into your home to beautify your home and to bring pleasure to you and to your family, to your friends that come in. Whoever sees it, it should bring pleasure to you. Or you don't care about keeping it around. Okay, as I meditated on this and it became so real to me, God began to confirm it to my heart. Because whatever I share with you and whatever my mind is programmed with, I want to be sure it's God's will for me. And the first thing that happened that really hit me that I knew was the confirmation was I was walking around the house one day singing, Thou Art Worthy. Just singing it. Just, you know, how you do your just praising the Lord. All of a sudden, the words, For thou hast created, hast all things created, and for thy what? Pleasure. They are created. All of a sudden, my mind, for your pleasure, everything was created. All things were created for your pleasure, God. That means I was created for your pleasure. You, every single woman in this room, was created for God's pleasure. Now, why he chose to do that, I do not know. We may never know. But the Word of God says that's why we were created. Revelation 411. I ran and got my Bible and I opened it and I read it in every translation and paraphrase and amplification I could. Because it blessed my heart so much. Because it was confirming what God said to me. This is the way I should have been living all my Christian life. Just for God's pleasure. Okay. We're created for His pleasure. Now, Adam and Eve originally were created for God's pleasure. But they chose to please themselves instead of God. And their relationship was destroyed. Sin and sorrow were the consequences. Your relationship with God will be destroyed and your fellowship destroyed through the same choice. The choice to please yourself instead of bringing pleasure to God. The next scripture God confirmed to my heart was John 8.29. And I just picked it out of a promise box one day or out of, I can't remember, a magazine or something. I opened it and it jumped off of whatever I was reading. And it was Jesus who is our example. The scripture, I do always those things which please Him. Jesus, who is the one we are to be following in all our example of our life, said, I do always those things which please Him. John 8.29. The third confirmation came through a little antique devotional that I keep by my bed. It's 100 years old. And it is the dearest devotional. Now, if I were looking for something to confirm God's word for the last days, I certainly wouldn't turn to a 100-year-old devotional. I would want something right now and just confirm it today, Lord, this way. I opened it up and I was thinking, what shall I share? Some place I had to speak recently. What shall I share? Shall I share this, Lord? And the scripture was Colossians 3.23. And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men. Whatever you do, do it to please the Lord. Do it with joy unto the Lord. Not to please men. And there was this little poem with it. Teach me, my God and King, in all things thee to see, and what I do in anything, to do it as for thee. Then I was praying one day about it. I go, oh, what is this? I just feel such a confirmation in my heart. This is where you want me to live. This is what you want me to share. To live pleasing unto you. Oh, God, just speak to my heart more about this. And through my mind went the name Enoch. I mean, it was just like that. Enoch. And it was strong. I stopped praying. I got my Bible. I looked up Hebrews 11.5. I knew Enoch was lifted with the men of faith there. And I want you to turn to Hebrews 11.5. And let's just leave our Bibles open to that place the rest of the time. I'll read it. 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 that, what? That he, what? Please, God. God put that in my mind in prayer. Third confirmation. Oh, Enoch. Now, you know what I was taught about Enoch when I was a little girl? That Enoch was the type of the church. Noah was the type of the Jewish people that would be sealed during the tribulation. But Enoch was the type of the church that was taken up in the rapture, in the translation. And it says he was translated that he should not see death. In other words, he didn't live through the flood. God could have caused Enoch to live through the flood. Two generations down, Methuselah lived 969 years. Enoch could easily have lived and been destroyed in God's punishment upon the world, then the flood. But in Genesis 5 it says he walked with God and was not because God took him. Because he walked with God. In the New Testament it said Enoch had this testimony that he, please, God. And that should be the testimony of the bride of Christ today. It should be your testimony that you please God. I tried to think of a feminine for Enoch so we could call ourselves something like the Enochettes or something. But it doesn't sound right. It just doesn't lend itself. It's not a particularly pretty name. But would you think of Enoch? Write it down. You might even write Enoch and put just the word around your house someplace to remind you of the man that lived to please God and he is like the bride of Christ. And he was translated. He was taken out before the great flood came that destroyed the world. Okay. Another reason that I feel that this message is so important to the body today, especially to women, is that because it simplifies the Christian life. It just simplifies it. Right now, think. If I had to evacuate my home in one minute, now all the animals and fish and birds would be taken out. Anything alive would be taken out and removed. But what would I take? And I want you to take one minute and think about it. Decide what you would take. Okay. Was it a hard decision? Most people it is hard. I've tried and tried and tried to think what I'd take. You wonder if you want to take your most treasured possessions or you wonder if you want to take the most practical things. You know, I love my pillow. Will I need a blanket? Would I rather have clothing for the next day? Or, you know, would I rather take this? And the one thing I have come up with over and over again are photographs of my babies because they can't be replaced. And I can see some man rowing a boat up to the door, and I'm coming out with photographs of my baby. Lady, you're crazy. But it's hard to decide when you know you're never going to be able to come back to those things. If you saw the hills that slid down and the mudslides, and you see homes that are destroyed by fire, everything utterly ruined, everything that was precious to you. You can't find anything, especially if your home is destroyed by fire. What one thing would you want to save? Well, I find the same thing is true in the Christian life. If you start thinking, Lord, what should I be doing? Let's see, I ought to be doing this. No, I ought to be doing that. Well, I ought to be praying. Well, if you came back right now, I ought to be, I want to be, I should be. And it gets complicated and it gets difficult. But if you think, Lord, I just want to please you. If I'm fixing dinner, I want to please you. If I'm cleaning house, I want to please you. If I'm in the market, I want to please you. If I'm driving my car, I want to please you. That's a hard place for some people who are always in a hurry. But can other drivers tell by the way I drive that I love Jesus or that I'm a Christian? I want to please you so that when you come back, wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, I will have the testimony that Enoch had. I will be pleasing unto you. Okay, some ways that it simplifies your life. One is that the right or wrong hassle is over. Is this right or is it wrong? And I was thinking of disco dancing. Now, I don't disco dance and I don't intend to ever disco dance, but there are a lot of Christians that do. And I was thinking, people have come to me and said, Kay, do you think it's a sin to disco dance? Is it all right to disco dance? It doesn't matter whether it's right or wrong. It matters whether it pleases the heart of God. Right? Does it please Him? Is that where He wants you to be? It's up to you. It's an individual thing. You have to decide for yourself. It's between God and you. It's not Pastor Chuck saying you mustn't or you shouldn't. It's not Kay saying that's wrong. It's not your friends deciding for you. It's a thing between God and you. Lord, would this please you? Will I bring joy to you if I'm doing this? It simplifies the right and wrong in life. It provides the right motivation for whatever I do. We're not looking for or expecting praise, recognition, approval, appreciation from people. Our joy will come from bringing joy to God. Sunday morning I was thinking about this again before I came out to church. I was reading the 43rd Psalm. The 5th verse is kind of lifted off the page. The gladness of my joy or my exceeding joy. God is my exceeding joy. He's the gladness of my heart. If He's that and I want to bring pleasure to Him, I'm not going to be living in this low self-esteem place where if somebody doesn't give me approval, I'm devastated. And if my husband doesn't appreciate me, I'm just going to be so hurt or crushed or angry or whatever a wife gets. We all know what ways we get when we're not appreciated or approved of. And that's not going to matter because whatever I do, I'm going to do it unto the Lord. And He's the one whose approval I'm going to be concerned with. In marriage, this is such a precious thing. I shared this when I was in the Titus 2 study, this principle of pleasing God. And I've had some feedback on it which has been really precious. How it has revitalized and revolutionized some lives. But we have this thing of the husband neglecting and the wife punishing. And we have it over and over and over again in marriages. Or the wife neglects and he punishes. And we see this vicious circle just going round and round and round. But if whatever you do in your marriage, you do to please God's heart because it brings joy to God's heart. That you're showing love to your husband. That you're cooking a dinner that will please him. That you clean the house, you pick up after him because you know it pleases the heart of God that you're willing to be a servant. You have that humble spirit because that pleases the heart of God. It brings joy into your marriage. Now, I don't want you to go out of here and do something beautiful tonight for dinner. And your husband ignores it completely. And you turn to him and say, well, it really doesn't matter because I didn't do it to please you. I did it to please God, so there. You cad. And a cad is an ungentlemanly man. Don't do that. You don't say to him, I did this to please the heart of God so it doesn't matter. You just have that beautiful fountain of rejoicing in your heart. That Lord, I did it to please you. And then you know it's time to pray. And Lord, would you make him aware that I also did it to please him because I knew it would please you if I pleased him. And God is a God of miracles. He can do it. In friendships, we have what I call the Emily Post Syndrome. And you know what that is? You invite me to dinner so that I'll invite you back to dinner. Now, woe be unto our friendship and unto me if you invite me to dinner and I don't invite you back. Because Emily says, drop those friends. And I've even read that in Ann Landers. Have you ever read that? I mean, we all know that's the social custom. If you want to make new friends, you invite them over for dinner and then they invite you back. If they don't invite you back, it's a sign they don't want to be your friend. Phooey, don't you believe it? Jesus gave us a whole different principle. And in Luke 14, 12-14, don't turn to it, but you might write it down. And it's so delightful in Living Bible in Luke 12-14. This is what he says to do. And I just love it. Jesus said, when you put on a dinner, don't invite friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors, for they will return the invitation. Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Then at the resurrection of the godly, God will reward you for inviting those who can't repay you. Now that's the principle that comes with pleasing the heart of God. How long has it been since you invited a poor person, a crippled person, a lame person, or a blind person to your house for dinner? How long since you reached out to somebody that nobody else cares about? I think that is one of the biggest lacks in the church today, is reaching out to that person that nobody cares about. And they're around Calvary. I see people, and they just stand all by themselves, and they're lonely, and they're hurting. And maybe, you know, there are unlovely people in the world. There are. And most of us love to be around the lovely people. But what did Jesus say? He said, invite these people into your home. Chuck's dad was always inviting strange people into his home. And he really took this scripture literally. And Chuck had more interesting experiences in his life by some of the people that just got out of jail, or dad would meet on the street and invite home. They had some of the craziest things happen that just left the kids with their eyes like this. And it was beautiful. And it was a beautiful principle that dad taught Chuck as a little boy. There was a girl here at Calvary that's gone now, but very sad, very lonely girl. And nobody would befriend her. Nobody. And we just kind of took it on our hearts to invite her to our home, to make her a part of our life. And God blessed us over and over and over again through it and for it. Look around. Don't invite the people that are always being invited. You remember in high school, the popular kids, and they all, you know. And remember how rotten it was if you were unpopular. And it was terrible. High school can be so traumatic for kids if they're not popular. Well, churches can have the same thing. You look around and do what Jesus did. Now, is Jesus saying you can never have your friends and relatives over for dinner again? Of course not. Of course not. Jesus always used wisdom in everything that he said and everything that he did. He had God's wisdom flowing through him because he was very God. What he was showing was an attitude of the heart. The purpose for inviting people over. Is the purpose in inviting people over to receive an invitation back? Or is it just because you love the people and you want to be with them and they never invite you back again? You love them just as much? That pleases the heart of God. It does. And it's the way he wants you to live. This walk is a deeper, closer walk. It's living to please him. It gives grace to ignore or to bear injustice, unkindness. You want to forgive. You want to forsake. You don't want hatred and bitterness in your life. You get rid of jealousy. Sometimes it's difficult and sometimes it's easy. Your depth of love for God makes the difference. The Matthew 22, 37 principle to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. We have somebody around our house right now that's very much in love. Oh, she has found the beloved. And it's marvelous to be around her. And, you know, nobody has to tell her how to please him. Nobody. She's constantly thinking of food he likes to eat and the color he'd like her to wear and how to do her hair. And every time she does her hair, she comes in and says, Do you think Brian will like this? And, you know, I hear Brian, Brian, Brian. Nobody has to tell a heart of love to please its beloved. Love's heart desires to please. And when you have that love for God that you ought to have, you are going to desire to please him above everyone else. Now, I'm almost through. This morning I want to give you three fast admonitions. We've got five more weeks on pleasing God and all kinds of things that God has given me. But this morning, this is not how to please God. It's I want you to begin to think and to meditate on this, this wanting to please God. I pray that the Holy Spirit this morning has just burdened your heart with this desire to please God more than anything else in this life. When you say in your heart, I want to please God, I've made up my mind, that's what I want to do. Satan comes along and the flesh comes along and begins putting thoughts in your mind. And one of the first thoughts he puts in is, it's too stifling. I'll be bored. I'll be unfulfilled. I really don't want to please him in that area of my life because I won't have fulfillment if I do. That is a lie. Satan is a liar and a father of all lies. The thief comes for three reasons, to steal, to destroy, and to kill. That's all Satan wants to do with you. Oh, he'll give you temporary pleasure and happiness, but when that's over, what a miserable existence you have. Okay, first of all, Satan will say to you, you'll be unfulfilled if you live that life. And as you walk day by day, he'll whisper these things to you. Because I know if I'm walking in this, that this is what's happening. He'll whisper, he'll say these things. Sometimes he doesn't whisper them, sometimes he screams them. The second one, I don't have a great deal of trouble with this, but in a different area, I suppose I do. He'll require me to go to Outer Mongolia. Outer Mongolia. I've walked with the Lord 31, almost 32 years, and I haven't seen Outer Mongolia yet. I get to live, I'm privileged to live by the ocean, which I dearly, dearly love. Chuck and I are both ocean people. I love living just where I do. I wouldn't choose to live any place else in the whole wide world. I know contentment and I know peace. And that is such a blessing from the Lord. He will not require you to do anything that he won't strengthen you for. He will make you adequate for every situation. If you are in a rotten marriage and your husband's mistreating you, and he's being cruel to you, and you have the choice of pleasing the heart of God by staying, or pleasing self by leaving, do you know that God will give you the courage, the strength, the beauty of spirit to stay in that marriage simply to please the heart of God? He'll do it. He'll strengthen you. Not only will he strengthen you, but he will give you a joy in doing it. Now, you might be weeping, and you might be wearing ash cloth symbolically, and you might be very grieved in spirit, but inside there is a joy that comes with pleasing God that nothing else in this world can bring. The last thing, the last admonition is, and Satan loves to tell you this, and he says this to me quite often, You'll fail. I'll fail. Of course I'll fail. Of course I will. As St. Alain said, I'll never do otherwise unless you help me, Lord. Unless you forgive and strengthen me. I love the Christian life, especially for this reason as well as all the others, because it's a life of new beginnings all the time. 1 John 1.9 I sinned. I go to Him. I ask forgiveness. I repent. He forgives. I start all over again. It's a brand new page. Remember in school, I don't know if they did this when you were in school, but when I was in school they had this thing my teachers did about filling every bit of space on the paper. I hated it. Because sometimes it was all scribbly and scrawly and a mess. I loved it when they gave us a brand new sheet of paper to start on. You know, this pretty paper with no scrawls and scribbles and mistakes and erasures and crossed out places. And God does that every time you go to Him. Say, God, I failed. I've just really blown it here. I've messed up my life. Forgive me. I repent. I turn around. I walk the other way. I forsake that sin. He starts you all over again. Don't worry about your failure. Satan would love to have you concentrate on, oh, I'll fail, I'll fail, or maybe you did fail. I've failed many times in pleasing God. And I'm still failing in pleasing Him. I don't please Him every moment. But I'm going that direction closer and closer. When I first started cooking, when Chuck and I were first married, I used to always burn the lima beans. I don't know why, but I did. And I still, once in a while, burn lima beans. Not very often. It's very rare now. But, you know, I was taught to cook with hardly any water. Lima beans burn very quickly if you cook that way. And I just steam them. If somebody says, I know, we do that now. But then, you know, 31, almost 32 years ago, it wasn't as popular as it is now. But I didn't quit cooking because I burned the lima beans. I kept right on cooking. And I got better and better and better at it. And I learned what to do and not to fail at that all the time. And so it is with our lives. And I was thinking of when your children come home from school and they bring you that wilted little flower that they picked on the way home. You don't take that flower and say, oh, that ugly wilted thing, why did you bring me that and stamp it under your foot and, you know, toss it in the trash can. What do you do if you're a good mommy? You admire it. It's just the most beautiful flower of the day. And you take a vase and you put it in the vase and you leave it in the vase because those little eyes are watching. And you're saying, I love you, I love you, by how you respond. And they bring little crumpled papers home in their hands and you open it up and their mothers say, and they say, Dear Moth, M-O-T-H-E, you know. I love you, L-O-V, and all that kind of stuff. Remember you have, if you're a mother of a kindergartner, you have some of those probably too. Do you take those and just say, ah, you can't spell right, rotten kid. You know, you don't do that. You kind of hold it. I put them in boxes in a hall closet and, you know, I've got, you know, like this full of being spelled Moth instead of Mother. And, you know, you treasure them. Why? Because they tried to please you. They tried to show you love. And you know how much it pleased your heart? They are precious little things that your children bring home to you because they show what was in that child's heart. It isn't the failure that you look at. It's that they tried. It's what their heart was saying to you. Not what their little hands wrote or their little hands carried, but what their heart was saying. And you're listening to their heart. God is listening to your heart today. And He knows whether the attitude of your heart is to please Him. And He's not up there just pouncing on your failures. He's saying, Oh, get back up and try again. Try again to please me. There's a story of Chad, and I've shared it before, and I'm going to share it again because it fits in so beautifully this morning with what we're saying. Ann Kimmel told the story of Chad, a little boy who moved to a new neighborhood. And Chad wasn't well liked by the kids. He couldn't seem to make any friends. He would come home from school, and every day his mother would see a group of kids walking by her house, and they were chatting and laughing. And Chad would come all by himself down the street. And this went on day after day. One day Chad came home, and he said, Mom, the teacher told us we're all going to make valentines for Valentine's Day. And he said, I want to make one for every kid in the class, and we have 33 kids. And the mother looked at him, and she thought, Oh, it'll be so much work, and Chad won't get any valentines back, and he's going to be brokenhearted, and what will I do? And as she watched his little face that was just so glowy and happy and enthused with the idea, she thought, Well, I better help him do it. So she went out, and they bought rickrack and paper and paste and everything to put on a valentine, and they spent days and days and days, and Valentine's Day came, and he went to school with this little bundle of 33 valentines, thrilled that he had one for each kid in the room. And the time came for the teacher to pass the packets out, and then the valentines were put in the packets, and Chad received one valentine. That day at home, his mother began to think, Well, Chad's going to come home pretty brokenhearted today, so I'm going to fix him some cookies and some milk and have it all ready for him when he comes in. As the kids came home from school, Mom was looking out the window, and she saw this group of kids come down the street, and again laughing and talking, and behind him some feet was Chad all by himself with one little valentine in his hand, and his head was kind of down, and his mother looked at him, and she opened the door really fast. She thought, I want to get Chad in the house before he bursts into tears. She opened the door, and Chad walked in with his head down, walked right by her, turned around, and his face was just full of light. He said, Mom, I didn't miss a kid. I didn't miss a kid. He was so excited with the thought of bringing pleasure to others, he hadn't even noticed that he didn't receive a valentine. That's the way I want you to live for Jesus today. That's the way I want you to live in these last days, so infused with the love of God that you don't even notice these things of this life that bog you down. So we pray. Father, You are love, and You gave Your dearest possession out of love, and may that love this morning so fill our hearts that our hearts will be filled with no other desire than to please You, cleanse us, purify us, purge us, drive out every desire for anything but that one desire that Enoch had, to please You, and God, when Jesus returns for His bride, may we be a part of that bride, because our testimony is that we live to please You. Thank You for Your word and Your graciousness to us this morning. In Jesus' name, we ask this petition. Amen.