Jesus Pleased the Father

What Did Jesus Do?

“I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”
John 8.29

There are quite a few speakers who keep busy going around, for a fee, sharing their experience/insight/knowledge/secret/wisdom on how to lead people to Christ. And you could probably fill up a couple of bookshelves just with books that have been written about evangelism. Nevertheless, the majority of the world remains unconverted. Even here in western North Carolina little more than twenty per cent of the population are members of a local congregation. I'm not ruling out that some of the folks who stay away from church might be believers, but there could not be many of them in any event. So, why is it, when there is what amounts to a thriving Evangelism industry, that there is not more successful evangelism being done? I believe I may have come across something that many evangelists have missed. Certainly, the first evangelist was the Lord himself. But the Son's desire wasn't to evangelize, there was something else that delighted his heart even more—Jesus pleased the Father.

The thing is, as Jesus did and said the things that pleased the Father, the result was that “many believed in him.” (John 8.30) There are countless approaches to evangelism. You can attend schools of evangelism to learn how to be better at evangelizing. Revivals can be scheduled. Tent meetings can be held. Crusades can be mounted. But the key to effective evangelism now seems to me to be simply following the example of Jesus—to do and say that which gives the Father pleasure. If we were always to do what pleases the Father, I believe we would see significantly greater numbers of people coming to faith in the Lord.

The question is, then, how do we go about pleasing the Father? Well, consider these words of the Father,

“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Matthew 3.17
The obvious answer, then, to pleasing the Father, is that we need to follow the example of the life of Jesus, or, as we have been discussing for over a year and a half now, we need to do what Jesus did. Evangelism schools may be well and good, but what really leads to successful evangelism is studying the life of Jesus, and then going and doing likewise.

This is not to suggest that even if every believer were to closely follow the example of the Lord in their daily living that the whole world would ever be converted. Many people who met Jesus face to face, who heard him speak, who witnessed his works, never got who he was, or where it was that he came from, or who it was who had sent him. And all those who didn't get Jesus died in their sin, just as the Lord said they would (John 8.21, 24). The truth is, if many people didn't get him, there will be many who won't get our imitation of him. Even if we discipline ourselves to try and do what he did, many will still not get us/him.

Nevertheless, we can rely on the authority of the Word of God that, even as many will not believe, the example of a life pleasing to the Father will also be the means by which the Holy Spirit leads many to salvation. The bottom line is, we need to make the study of the life of Jesus a priority. We need to learn all we can about what Jesus did. This is not intended to get you to keep reading these WDJDs and forward them on to others, though I hope and pray that you will. Rather, when we read the Bible, and we need to be in the Word daily, we should be reading with the goal of gaining knowledge into the life of the Lord. If we were to distill the life of Jesus down to one key principle, and if I were pressed to offer one answer to the question “What did Jesus do,” we would arrive at this—Jesus pleased the Father.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4