On the edge of settling in the land of Canaan, some of the land has been conquered, while much was still a wild territory still needing tamed. Joshua will not be with them during the next phase of their journey as he will soon age-out. He will not leave them, though, without a final message. After rehearsing Israel’s story, he offers an altar call, challenging the people of God to make a choice. They can either serve the gods their forefathers served, including the ones in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the ones now in Canaan. Or, they can serve the One True God who led them from bondage through the wilderness and found victory during the early days of the conquest. Joshua’s conclusion is succinctly focused: who will they decide to serve?
Joshua touches on a theme relevant to life. We will serve something. History has proven this point time and time again. Humanity will serve gods created in the imagination of the human mind. Dark things always emerge from humanity’s mind, especially when tied to religion. For instance, who thought that such dark deep debauchery, like offering children as live sacrifices to Molech, was a good idea?
If Joshua were speaking to today, he might assess our culture differently and add a different god we tend to serve: ourselves. We can be so self-absorbed that we think of no one else but ourselves. Our rugged individualism drives our personal decisions so often that we hurt those around us, or most dear to us. We are not an island in and of ourselves, but we act like it, without ever realizing how our lives are so interconnected like a jigsaw puzzle. We can serve God, but it’s almost like we make it our goal to please ourselves.
Paul may not have Joshua in mind when he writes, “So we make it our goal to please him” (2 Cor. 5:9), but there may be a connection. While Joshua speaks of choosing to serve someone or something, Paul assumes we are choosing to serve God. Indeed, he ups the ante from simply serving to our goal of pleasing God. From our part we want God to experience great pleasure through our serving him. Let’s switch that narrative: from God’s part he wants to take great pleasure in our serving him.
Can you let that wash over you a bit? God takes great pleasure from our service to him. Like a child who draws you a picture and it gets mounted to your refrigerator; like a teenager who voluntarily busses the table and washes the dishes without being asked (at least more than once) and your heart is warmed; or when a patience receives foot care from a nurse or an aide and an amazing sense of relief comes over the patient.
Unlike the gods created in the minds of humanity where one never knows how to please their deities, or where they stand with them, or how the rules change from year-to-year or mood-to-mood. Our God is a god who not only takes pleasure in us but wants to take pleasure in his people. And our God is consistent with what pleases him.
When we extend the comfort received from God to others,
God takes great pleasure in us.
When we forgive those who have trespassed against us,
God takes great pleasure in us.
When we are paraded before the public as a stench,
God smells a fragrant aroma and takes great pleasure in us.
When we check our motives and agendas at the door,
God takes great pleasure in us.
When we experience the transformation power of the gospel so our lives conform to his
will,
God takes great pleasure in us.
When we feel our fragile brokenness and refuse to lose heart,
God takes great pleasure in the gospel planted in our lives.
When we endure suffering as a mark of an act of following in Jesus’ footsteps,
God takes great pleasure in us.
When we no longer burn bridges but take steps toward reconciliation,
God takes great pleasure in us.
When we operate out of generosity for others who are suffering,
God takes great pleasure in us.
When we finally see the shallowness of the celebrity glitz and glamor side of ministry,
God takes great pleasure in us.
God takes great pleasure in us,
Because God wants to take great pleasure in us.
So indeed, we make it our goal to please God.*
For eight years of my life I gave myself to competitive running. I know something of goals and motivation. Through high school and college I set my goals and worked toward them. I sacrificed and prioritized my life around running. I gave up sleeping-in or skipped parties that went late into the night. At the same time I made a list and set to accomplish them from running varsity, to school records, to conference championships, to State and National recognition. Some goals I achieved, others I never quite reached. Goals are important, but motivation to achieve those goals are as well. Looking back on those years, sometimes I lacked the motivation of the daily grind of running.
Paul offers the incentive for us to step out as we work to please God. While we find encouragement knowing that God takes pleasure in us, Paul, none-the-less, heightens our desire to achieve our goal of pleasing him. In 2 Corinthians 5 Paul offers us two motivations: a positive one and a not-so-negative one.
The Positive Motivation is from verse 8 when he says, “We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” This is not the only time Paul makes this claim, he makes it three times. In verse 6 he says, “. . . that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord,” and then after stating our goal is to please him, he adds, “. . . whether we are at home in the body or away from it” (v.9). All three times he alludes to our “bodies” being the physical barrier that prevents us from reaching God. In some ways we’re trapped as the physical body limits us. We cannot see God, except by faith. We cannot touch God, apart from faith. We cannot stand in his presence, but through faith. The body we inhabit, in many ways, keeps us away from God. No wonder we feel times of drought, believing God is so far away from us.
Paul is acknowledging the limited reality of our physical bodies, though he knows that one day we will be with the Lord. This thought is the positive motivation for pleasing God. We will see him and be with him and stand in his presence. All the pain will be gone. All the comfort we long for will be given. The scars of Jesus will permanently heal our scars. No more sin. No more remorse. No more shame. Pure joy and love will surround us. We make it our goal to please God because the payoff will be, not now, but then. The payoff will come when we are with the Lord. Think of it like this, God will return us to innocence of Eden where he will walk with us in the cool of the day. What a powerful image for motivation!
Do you remember that challenge about choosing either a million dollars up front or a penny a day doubled for a month? I’m not a math mathematician, but apparently if you take the million dollars up front you forfeit some four million dollars due to compound interest. Here’s the point, our pleasing God to encounter him later is the long road, not the short cut. We long for and believe in the later payoff, even willing to sacrifice a seemingly short term windfall. Our pleasing God may not pay off now, but it will then. And it will pay big.
The Not-So-Negative Motivation comes from verse 10 where he says, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each of us may receive what is due him, for things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” Paul is creating a somber moment where he describes Judgment Day like the tribunal he experienced when was brought before Gallio while ministering in Corinth (Acts 18:12-17). To be held accountable for (words and) actions while in our bodies is sobering for sure. I feel the bite as I have done and said plenty in my life I regret which still haunt me today. That said, Paul is not trying to scare us, but to motivate us to use our lives to please God, something he assumes we want to do.
More importantly, Paul does not mention “condemnation” nor “hell,” as we should be slow to insert those words here. The issue is not saved versus unsaved, but the quality of service rendered to God. Christ will be assessing our deeds done in the body, not our destiny. To be clear, Paul may be seeing this moment as his own personal vindication for the trials and suffering he has experienced while in the body during which the Corinthians have rejected his leadership for the antagonists who lured them away from Paul. The apostle looks on that particular day with hope that Jesus will say to him before the Corinthians and the antagonists, “I took great pleasure in the work you have done.”
The motivation is that God will be assessing our own goals of pleasing him, not our eternal destiny, as that is already settled. The question is, “Will God take great pride in our service, or will he expose us as nothing more than a fraudulent sham?
The “Not-So-Negative Motivation” leads us to purge our motives from all our false pretenses and agendas. We care for our patients and endure difficult environments, not because our job demands it. No. We work out of hope that one day we get to be with our Lord as he evaluates our service to him. I can see him saying, “I really enjoyed that time when you . . ..” So in the meantime, we make it our goal to please him.
Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)
* The list is comprised of themes found within Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians.