What Pleases our Father? Part 1 – Himself, and What He Does
by Greg Wood
“You do you.” (Or, as Isabella sings, “What else can I do?”)
“Be true to yourself.” {Moana: “There’s a line where the sky meets the sea, it calls me!”)
“Look within to find yourself.” (Elsa: “You are the one I’ve been waiting for all of my life,” referring to herself).
These are some of the expressions of “expressive individualism.” The idea governs the character development in many popular Disney movies of our time, but it’s not only in kids’ movies. This line of thinking is so much a part of our modern culture that we can hardly see it - it’s like the air around us.
Yuval Levin, author of The Fractured Republic, describes what expressive individualism is like:
“The ethic of our age has been aptly called expressive individualism. That term suggests not only a desire to pursue one’s own path but also a yearning for fulfillment through the definition and articulation of one’s own identity. It is a drive both to be more like whatever you already are and also to live in society by fully asserting who you are. The capacity of individuals to define the terms of their own existence by defining their personal identities is increasingly equated with liberty and with the meaning of some of our basic rights, and it is given pride of place in our self-understanding.”
We might say that expressive individualism leads us to be pleased with ourselves, our own self-wrought identities and expressions of them. Is this how God intended identities to be formed? Did God purpose that we would find our pleasure in ourselves, in the identities we came up with?
The Gospel and our Identity
Now, in our age of expressive individualism, biblical pleasure and concepts like finding our identity in our union with Christ by faith can seem completely foreign to us. Rather than fundamentally finding pleasure in God and seeing ourselves as God sees us (sons or daughters, redeemed by the blood of Christ, reconciled to God through Christ), the world has taught us that we define ourselves and our concept of existence. So if we are like jellyfish, caught up in the tide of the present age, we will seek to please ourselves with ourselves. By that I mean that we want to have not only a self-pleasing self-image, but we want others to affirm us and thereby give us a sense of fulfillment.
That might sound foreign because it’s not consciously how we make decisions or choices – very few of us openly admit to seeking our pleasure in our self-image – but that’s the point. This way of thinking is so much a part of the air we breathe that we don’t notice when we’re participating in it.
But consider how you feel when those things don’t describe you.
When your spouse is irritable, do you get frustrated or distraught that they may be upset with you?
When your children misbehave in public or you get a note from a teacher, does your stomach knot with shame and anger?
When your boss sends you a curt email or a coworker upstages you on a project, do you get an extra scoop of ice cream or a drink after work to numb the pain?
All of us are prone to seeking our satisfaction and fulfillment in things that don’t last - and the cultural moment of expressive individualism is just one other offering for us to consider. Will our self-image, self-care, self-knowledge, etc., be the driving force of our peace or lack thereof?
God’s Pleasure
I am so thankful for the ways that we combat this with gospel-fluency among one another within New City. Gospel fluency is in part a communal practice of asking how the good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection change every part of our lives. I want to add to our gospel fluency toolbelts with a short series that I hope will root us in the truth of Scripture more and more.
To help all of us see more clearly how the gospel uproots this worldview, I want to slowly examine a few things that please God. In future posts, we’ll examine God being pleased with the Son, with the church trusting and delighting in the Son, and in the renewed image of God in us through the Holy Spirit.
In this post, I want to meditate upon God’s pleasure in Himself, as that will serve as the basis for both our deepest pleasure and our identity in Christ.
In Psalm 69:30-31, notice that David expects the LORD to be pleased with what David expresses to Him, namely praise for who God is:
30 I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving. 31 This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs.
So what is it that is pleasing the Lord? When you get down to it, it’s Himself. If God thought David should be praising something else, God wouldn’t be pleased – but He is! It is fitting to praise God, because God is not an idolator, valuing something else more than Himself.
Similarly in Psalm 104:31-34 the LORD rejoices in His works, and the writer expects that His meditation upon and rejoicing in the same will be pleasing to God.
31 May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works, 32 who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke! 33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. 34 May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.
Further, we could look at Isaiah 48:9-11 where we see God pursues His own glory and praise. And in Philippians 2:13 we read that God works in us “for his good pleasure.”
If this seems off-putting to you, remember that God alone is worthy of this praise, delight, and pleasure. He is the Holy One, the Creator of everything, perfectly good, perfectly righteous, perfectly wise. Any other good thing comes from Him. So when the Bible tells us that He takes pleasure in Himself, it presents it as a self-evident fact. Well duh, of course He does, He is the only one who is actually that good.
When we float along in the cultural tides, we get this exactly upside down. We take God’s place, make ourselves out to be the god who deserves praise, and try to find pleasure in ourselves. It is the Genesis 3 desire to be like God that has plagued humanity since Adam and Eve took matters into their own hands and ate what God had forbidden.
Instead, we were meant to be image-bearers, showing Him off in the world, reflecting His character and glory to those around us, and singing His praises back to Him. Because He is the glorious One. Truly, amazingly, ravishingly glorious. And we are His reflectors.
Who is God? He is the only One who rightly delights in Himself.
What has He done? He works in the world for His good pleasure.
Who are we? We are redeemed image-bearers being renewed in the image of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18)
What should we do? 1) Bring pleasure to our Father by praising Him; 2) find our identity in union with Christ; and 3) find our pleasure outside of ourselves in God and His work of redemption.