Pleasing God - by Spurgeon

Beloved friends, it becomes to the believer the prevailing character of his life to please God. That is a beautiful testimony that is borne concerning Enoch: "Before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God" (Heb. 11:5). Many have not yet even thought of doing such a thing as this, and there are some who may have thought of it who perhaps have not yet attained to it. But what a blessed thing it is for a man to be brought so to trust in the Lord Jesus, so to seek the glory of the Savior, so to yield his will to God's will, and so to feel that God is his all and in all, that he comes to please God! You know what it is to be pleased with your child and pleased with what he has done. it is not perfect. From your standpoint you can see many imperfections, but still it is most acceptable as coming from your child. He has done it with all his heart, and you are well pleased with him. Well now, that should be the prevailing character, and it is the prevailing character of the life of every man who has really been renewed in the spirit of his mind by the work of the Spirit of God. The Lord Jesus could truly say of His father, "I do always those things that please him" (John 8:29). And in the proportion as we grow more like our Lord, this becomes a true description of our lives: they are well pleasing unto God. What a contrast there is between the man who pleases God and the ungodly man! The ungodly man does what pleases himself, what pleases his wife, or what will please his neighbors, but heh Christian man, although he is willing to please his neighbor for his good to edification, yet aims first at this mark; not to please men, but to please God. This makes his life altogether different from the life of the man who has not God in all his thoughts.

from a sermon preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in Newington in September 1877.