Pleasing God

Australian Erchana Murray-Bartlett completed 150 marathons in 150 days, running 6,300 kilometers (3,900 miles) from the country’s northern tip to the southern city of Melbourne in what could be a new world record. The 32-year-old runner crossed the finish line on Monday after a feat that, if confirmed, will beat the previous world record of 106 consecutive marathons set by British national Kate Jayden last year.

While Jayden sought to raise money for refugees, Murray-Bartlett completed her run to raise awareness of the threats to Australia’s biodiversity. She said, “Australia is fantastic, it’s so beautiful, and that was one of the key things I wanted to get out of this run, it was to showcase Australia’s beauty to the world.”

Murray-Bartlett raised more than 118,000 Australian dollars ($82,130) for the Wilderness Society, with all profits going towards conserving Australia’s native animals.

Australia, which has one of the world’s worst records on extinctions, last year announced a 10-year plan to try to prevent any more species from dying out in the country. The country’s wildlife has suffered the effects of natural disasters and the climate crisis, including catastrophic bushfires in 2019-20 that killed or displaced nearly three billion animals.

After setting off from Cape York in Queensland in August, Murray-Bartlett ran 42.2 kilometers (26.2 miles) each day, enduring scorching heat and storms as she crossed dirt roads, rivers, and beaches. She said, “It’s very exhausting, I’ll give you that but I feel very blessed have been out to get to the finish line.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Christians have our own marathon to run with perseverance. Our race begins anew every day, and also has purpose - to please the One who calls us and to share our testimony with the world.

How many smells are there? It’s an odd question, but give it some thought. Mentally flip through the pages of your personal smell catalog. You find burnt toast, shaving cream, Grandma’s kitchen, and pine trees. With a little effort you can come up with a lot of smells, but putting a number to them is difficult. How does one count the odors of a lifetime, much less all the odors in the world?

Author Avery Gilbert explores estimates from various scientists, fragrance manufacturers, and chemists who suggest that humans can detect anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 different smells. Researchers have found that no two people smell things the same way. There’s a scientific reason for it, and it all has to do with your DNA. There are about 400 genes coding for the receptors in our noses, and there are more than 900,000 variations of those genes. These receptors control the sensors that determine how we smell odors. A given odor will activate a suite of receptors in the nose, creating a specific signal for the brain.

Possible Preaching Angles:

Scripture often speaks of the uniqueness of fragrances. For example, 1) Christians spread the fragrance of Christ to others. Some people will be attracted and others will be repelled (2 Cor. 2:14-16); 2) Our prayers and sacrifice are a pleasing aroma to God (Ex. 29:18).

Ligonier Ministries asked Americans a practical question about worship. “Must churches provide entertaining worship services if they want to be effective?”

Frequent attendees of evangelical churches (monthly or more):

Strongly agree: 9%

Somewhat agree: 25%

Somewhat disagree: 25%

Strongly disagree: 39%

Infrequent attendees of evangelical churches (holidays only/rarely/never):

Strongly agree: 8%

Somewhat agree: 32%

Somewhat disagree: 27%

Strongly disagree: 29%

Millennial attendees of evangelical churches (ages 18 to 34)

Strongly agree: 11%

Somewhat agree: 29%

Somewhat disagree: 22%

Strongly disagree: 37%

Boomer attendees of evangelical churches (ages 50 to 64)

Strongly agree: 7%

Somewhat agree: 31%

Somewhat disagree: 22%

Strongly disagree: 37%

Japanese Marathon Runner Shizo Kanakuri competed in the domestic qualifying trials for the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. Kanakuri set a marathon world record and was selected as one of the only two athletes that Japan could afford to send to the event that year.

However, Kanakuri shockingly disappeared during the 1912 Olympic marathon race. He had had a rough 18-day-long trip to Stockholm, first by ship and then by train all through the Trans-Siberian Railway, and needed five days to recover for the race. Kanakuri, weakened by the long journey from Japan, lost consciousness midway through the race, and was cared for by a local family. Being embarrassed from his "failure" he returned to Japan without notifying race officials.

Swedish authorities considered him missing for 50 years before discovering that he was living in Japan. In 1967, he was offered the opportunity to complete his run. He accepted and completed the marathon in 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 5 hours, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds, remarking, "It was a long trip. Along the way, I got married, had six children and 10 grandchildren."

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Bible is full of stories of people who quit, but later, with God’s help, finished the race. Moses spent forty years in the wilderness before God renewed his call. Peter denied Christ, went back to fishing, but Jesus restored him. The list continues with John Mark, Sampson, and many others who eventually finished the race.

A pastor in India was confronted angrily by a man in his office one day. This man made many unfair and untrue accusations against the pastor. After finishing his angry outburst, the man asked the pastor what he had to say.

In response, the pastor got up from his chair, walked to the washroom next door, filled an empty basin with water and came back to the room. The angry man was surprised when he saw the basin of water and asked what it was for. The pastor replied that even though the accusations were not true, that since the person was nevertheless upset with him, he felt the right thing to do, was for him to ask forgiveness. He then offered to wash the man’s feet. What happened then was that the man broke down in tears at this act of humility and opened his heart to the Lord. The pastor's humility was shown to be a strength and not a weakness!

One of the most important character traits a Christian needs to cultivate is humility. True humility always stands out as a powerful strength instead of a weakness, and always pleases God. The Scripture says, “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another” (1 Peter 5:5-6).

Laura Mazur and Jessica Robertson had never met before they reached the mile 14 marker at the Pittsburgh Marathon. Mazur was running her 12th marathon overall, while Robertson was running her first marathon.

Mazur told reporters she was feeling paranoid because she didn’t want to finish last. She turned around and noticed another runner, Robertson, was there as well. Robertson said that she was feeling defeated and upset with her performance when she noticed Mazur beside her. The two began chatting and decided to buddy up and run the rest of the race together. Mazur later wrote in a Facebook post, “I told her I’d stay with her if she stayed with me.”

The two clicked instantly and encouraged each other along the way. Robertson, who was nervous about the possibility of not completing her first marathon said that Mazur’s words of encouragement kept her motivated and confident. Mazur said she told Robertson, “You’re fine! I know you’re OK! You can do this.”

Mazur said that despite holding up the rear of the race, they were cheered along by spectators along the way, including a large cheering section at mile 25 of the 26.2 mile race. “There was great crowd support,” Mazur said. "You feel like royalty. You feel like a real athlete. It's super awesome to have people cheer you on.”

It was this encouragement that propelled them forward to finish the race. Robertson said, “We made it 26. I can do 0.2 [more].” Mazur said, “I just took her hand and said ‘Let’s go!’ It was so great that we got everything done and we were still together. We finished what we started.”

Possible Preaching Angles: Encouragement; Body of Christ; Running the Race – It doesn’t matter if you finish first in the race of life. What does matter is faithfully doing your best to finish the course and encouraging others along the way.

To illustrate the truth that the Christian's body is no longer their own, pastor/author Ray Ortlund writes the following:

I try to drive carefully. But when I happen to borrow a friend's car, I drive very carefully. I don't want to damage the property of a friend and return it to him all banged up. Even so, our bodies are the personal property of someone else. The only way we could say, "Who does he think he is, telling me what to do with my body?" is by not belonging to him at all. Did he shed his blood to cover our sins? Has he given his Spirit to make us new? If so, then we should glorify him even in our physicality, especially our sexuality.

Talking about his hit song "Mean Old Man," singer songwriter James Taylor said,

This one was a big accomplishment, because it's a sophisticated song and a throwback. Paul McCartney called me up and said that when he'd first heard it, he assumed it was Frank Loesser or Cole Porter. I was, of course, absolutely thrilled. At one point, Bob Dylan told me that he'd been listening to [one of my songs] and really thought it was great, and that's enough for me. Ten critics can savage me, but I'll be fine as long as every once in a while, someone like Bob Dylan or Paul McCartney says, "Keep going, kid."

Possible Preaching Angles: Positive Illustration—Taylor reveals a truth that Christians should live by—when it comes to praise or criticism, consider the source. For us, the best source is God himself. Negative Illustration—All human applause (even from the important figures in our lives) has a short shelf life. We should look to God alone for praise and affirmation.

"The world is peppered with people who can coax small seeds of inspiration into richly flowering ideas that put humankind on a better path. And then there's that guy in Des Moines."

So begins the news report about a police chase in Iowa that took an intriguing turn.

Early one morning, a trooper with the Iowa State Patrol had attempted to pull a man over—but he "stepped on the gas and triggered what turned into a 10-to-15-minute pursuit."

The chase finally ended when the cars got off the freeway, and "a pit maneuver forced the fleeing car and driver to a stop near a Des Moines elementary school."

So what caused the driver to speed away from his traffic stop? "[T]he 46-year-old at the helm of this idea told authorities that leading police on a chase was just something on his Bucket List."

Understandably, this reason isn't given very often—one of the local sergeants "told the Associated Press he'd never heard such an excuse" in almost 30 years of law enforcement work.

Potential Preaching Angles: Hopefully not many of us have a dream of being chased by police, but we do all have dreams and goals and "bucket lists." As we think on them, however, we need to see how they align with God's Word and, ultimately, hold them loosely. After all, "[i]n their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps" (Prov. 16:9).

In April 1967, hamburger lovers in Uniontown, Pennsylvania met a newer, bigger burger—it was called the Big Mac, and for 45 cents it delivered, as a 1970s jingle would have it, "two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions on a sesame-seed bun."

A year later, the Big Mac was on the menu at McDonald's restaurants all over the United States. By 1969, it accounted for 19 percent of the company's total sales. Today, the company sells about 550 million Big Macs annually in the United States alone, and millions more in 100 countries around the world.

But you've probably never heard of Jim Delligatti, the McDonald's franchise owner who invented the Big Mac. Delligatti owned about a dozen franchises in the Pittsburgh area by the mid-1960s, but he struggled to compete with the Big Boy and Burger King chains. After pitching the idea to his bosses and facing stiff resistance, McDonald's finally relented and agreed to let him try it out. The first Big Mac was introduced on April 22, 1967.

Sales perked up immediately. The company rolled it out nationwide, backed by a powerful advertising campaign. In 1986, The Economist magazine introduced its Big Mac Index, which shows whether a currency is overvalued or undervalued based on the cost of a Big Mac in one country relative to the cost in another. In 2007, Mr. Delligatti opened the Big Mac Museum Restaurant in North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, with a 14-foot-tall Big Mac sculpture as its centerpiece.

Many people assumed that Delligatti must have reaped a windfall worth billions. Not so. In 2007 he told a local newspaper, "All I got was a plaque."

Possible Preaching Angles: Sometimes human praise is underwhelming, which is why Christians need to live for the praise of the "Audience of One"—God's approval and pleasure.

The Chinese-American Christian leader Russell Jeung explains how his father taught him a profound lesson on the true nature of humility. Due to the maltreatment of many Chinese immigrants in America, Russell's dad taught him to work hard. But he also taught him he should not consider himself better than anyone else, even if successful.

"As the youngest child in my family," Russell explains, "my job at Chinese banquets was to make sure everyone's teacup was kept full. My dad, without fail, reminded me at these meals to be alert to the needs of others. I think he took as much pride in seeing me serve food to dinner guests as he did in seeing me get good grades."

Russell reinforces this concept of humility by pointing to the Chinese characters making up the words for humility—Qiang xun.

"Qiang means to have a yielding spirit, not seeking one's own pride or recognition. It pictures someone speaking while holding shafts of grain together, suggesting that words of humility prioritize the unity and harmony of the group first. Xun is the pictograph of the way a grandchild walks. We are to see ourselves like children, moving and acting in deference to our wiser elders."

Os Guinness writes in “Impossible People”:

I grew up in a China that had been ravaged by two centuries of European and American adventuring, and then by World War II and a brutal civil war. We lived in Nanjing, which was then the nation's capital, but there were few good schools to go to, so at the age of five I found myself setting off by plane to a boarding school in Shanghai.

Obviously, the conditions behind the decision to send me out at that age were extreme, and I was not the only one launched on that path so young. But it was the first time in my life that I had been away from my parents and on my own. So, to give me a constant reminder of the North Star of the faith at the center of our family life, my father had searched for two small, smooth, flat stones and painted on them his life motto and that of my mother. For many years those two little stones were tangible memos in the pockets of my gray flannel shorts that were the uniform of most English schoolboys in those days. In my right-hand pocket was my father's motto, "Found Faithful," and in my left-hand pocket was my mother's, "Please Him."

Many years have passed since then, and both of those little painted stones were lost in the chaos of escaping from China when Mao Zedong and the People's Army eventually overran Nanjing, returned the capital to Beijing and began their iron and bloody rule of the entire country. But I have never forgotten the lesson of the little stones. Followers of Jesus are called to be "found faithful" and to "please him," always, everywhere and in spite of everyone and everything.

In Marilynne Robinson's beautiful novel Gilead, the old preacher John Ames starts digging through a box of sermons in his attic. One day he figures out that he's filled 67,600 pages with his sermons, the equivalent of 225 books. He wrote, "There is not a word in any of those sermons I didn't mean when I wrote it. If I had the time, I could read my way through fifty years of my innermost life. What a terrible thought."

As Ames continues reflecting on his sermons he says,

I had a dream once that I was preaching to Jesus Himself, saying any foolish thing I could think of, and He was sitting there in His white, white robe looking patient and sad and amazed. That's what it felt like. Well, perhaps I can get a box of them down here somehow and do a little sorting. It would put my mind at ease to feel I was leaving a better impression. So often I have known, right here in the pulpit, even as I read these words, how far they fell short of any hopes I had for them. And they were the major work of my life, from a certain point of view. I have to wonder how I have lived with that.

One of the reasons that preachers need to pray is because of the inadequacy of our words. Apart from God, our words will fall short of their goal. It's good and healthy to realize this.

Possible Preaching Angle: Preaching; Ministry; Service—The power in preaching—or in any form of Christian ministry, for that matter—must ultimately rest in the power of God through his Spirit.

This shouldn't come as a surprise, but a study reports self-regard, self-promotion, and plain old bragging are far more prominent in pop music than they were a quarter-century ago. The authors of the study note that, in 1990, blatant bragging was basically confined to rap music. The study analyzed the lyrics of the top 100 songs from the years 1990, 2000, and 2010, as compiled by Billboard magazine. Coders looked for examples of eight categories of self-promotion, including referring to oneself by name and demanding respect.

The study concluded:

Compared with earlier years, songs in 2010 were more likely to include the singer referring to the self by name, general self-promotion, and bragging about wealth, partner's appearance, or sexual prowess. A similar, albeit nonsignificant increase, was also seen for bragging about musical prowess and demands for respect.

The researchers added a warning:

Music both reflects and influences the values of the culture. The hit songs we listen to "both represent the increasing individualistic/narcissistic tendencies in the culture, but also further convey that promoting oneself through bragging, demands for respect, and self-focus is acceptable … [Therefore], parents, educators, and those responsible for policy should consider how strongly individualistic messages influence young people and work to provide messages and opportunities that also advocate communal values.

Possible Preaching Angles: Although the conclusions to this study seem obvious, the comments from the researchers should challenge parents and churches to provide an alternative to this example of self-promotion.

Two students. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, sat in their dorm room at Stanford University and pledged themselves to the following mission statement: "To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." The result was Google, the most powerful and widely used search engine in the world.

Today, it seems that both large and small businesses are all adopting mission statements. Even businesses with an unambiguous and widely known purpose such as Federal Express, Barnes & Noble, and Nike all have mission statements. Nike's mission statement, for example, is "to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world." The mission craze has even begun to influence the government. For example, the state department now has a mission statement—"to create a more secure, democratic, and prosperous world for the benefit of the American people and the international community."

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Missions; Global missions—God is on a mission to rescue the world from sin and to bless all the nations on earth. (2) Christ, Death of; Cross; Christ, cross of—Jesus was also on a mission to die on the cross so he could "give his life as a ransom for many." (3) Dedication—Christians should have their purpose clearly in mind; "So we make it our goal to please him."

Oregon state officials have confirmed reports of several attacks on government workers outside its state capitol building, but have not recorded any arrests. Why? The attacker is an owl. "It's silent," says city parks spokeswoman Tibby Larson. "You're just walking along, minding your own business, and an owl comes silently at you from behind."

Owl attacks, believe it or not, are a relatively frequent phenomenon across the country. Although it may seem humorous that government workers have seemed to be the most frequent targets in this case, Larson noted that the owl is most likely more concerned with impressing potential mates than making a political statement.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sure, it's strange animal antics to impress a potential mate, but you have to ask about the strange stuff we do to impress and please other people.

On September 28, 1882 the Worcester Ruby Legs from Massachusetts played the Troy Trojans from New York in a pro baseball game. It was a famous game in pro baseball history because it set a record for the lowest number of fans in the stands. Six people watched the Trojans trounce the Ruby Legs 4-1.

That record stood for almost 125 years. On Aril 29, 2015 the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox played their game in front of empty seats. Zero fans. This bizarre development was mandated by Major League Baseball in wake of protests and outbursts of violence in the city of Baltimore. Here's how an Associated Press article reported one incident from the fan-less game:

Chris Davis might have hit the quietest home run for the home team in Orioles history. As the slugger pounded the ball deep onto Eutaw Street, just a few feet from where fans normally would have sprinted after a chance to catch a souvenir, there was almost nothing to hear. The only muffled cheers came from a pocket of die-hards locked out of Camden Yards yelling "Let's Go O's!"

On this day, 30,000 Orioles fans had been muted. The wild applause had been silenced. There were no fans to stand for a standing ovation. Just Davis' teammates in the dugout coming over for high-fives. "When you're rounding the bases, and the only cheers you hear were from outside the stadium," he said, "it's a weird feeling."

Editor’s Update: To this could be added the dozens of sporting events that were played before empty stadiums during the COVID-19 Pandemic. You can read a psychological take on this here

Possible Preaching Angles: No live audience, no cheering fans, no applause. As a Christian, how much does the audience affect your performance? How much does the cheering crowd motivate you to do a good job? Or are you content to live before the Lord, the "Audience of One"?

In a 2015 commencement speech at Dillard University, Denzell Washington urged graduates to put God first and thank him constantly:

Put God first in everything you do … Everything that I have is by the grace of God, understand that. It's a gift … I didn't always stick with him, but He stuck with me … While you're [on your knees], say thank you. Thank you for grace, thank you for mercy, thank you for understanding, thank you for wisdom, thank you for parents, thank you for love, thank you for kindness, thank you for humility, thank you for peace, thank you for prosperity. Say thank you in advance for what is already yours … True desire in the heart for anything good is God's proof to you sent beforehand that it's already yours … When you get it, reach back, pull someone else up.

Think about this the next time you feel pressure to please someone or to please a group of people rather than trying to fear and please God. Picture yourself at your life review with God having the following conversation:

God: "So, why didn't you take the opportunity I offered you?"

You: "I really wanted to and I knew it was your will for my life, but you know how upset _____ would have gotten if I did. It would have been awful."

God: "You are right, ______ would have gone through the roof and would have been upset with you. And, I have a meeting with _____ later … in exactly three years, two months, six days, seven hours, and thirty-three minutes. At that time, I'll be talking to ______ about his [or her] tendency to get mad at people when they did not please him [or her]. I will take care of that issue. But that is ______'s life, not yours. You are responsible for your own choices. You are responsible for your own decisions and ________ is responsible for how he [she] responded to you … That will be his [or her] problem. But, the fact that you chose to give in to him [or her] is your problem, and now I want to show you the life that you gave up by living the life that other people wanted. Watch that screen over there … ."

Then you see what could have been if only you had not tried to live your life to please others instead of first pleasing God.

At age 26, Ken Elzinga joined the faculty of the University of Virginia. After a tenured colleague warned him that being explicit about his faith would hinder his career, Elzinga was stunned to see a flier with his face on it placed at a prominent campus location. A campus ministry had posted it to advertise a talk he had agreed to give.

A relatively new believer, Elzinga worried. Would fellow professors think less of him? Might this harm his tenure chances? He experienced a dark night of the soul, returning to campus and secretly taking the poster down. But the next morning, Elzinga put the poster back up. After hours of soul-searching, he concluded that his life was not about career ambition but about faithful discipleship, and that being private about his faith was not an option.

In the four decades since, Elzinga has been named professor of the year multiple times and is still a speaker in high demand. He will be the first to say that serving only one master has been liberating. Why? Because pleasing an audience of one makes us less anxious, less sensitive to criticism, and more courageous. Because in doing so, we become more secure and compete less for our honor.