Sermon Illustrations: Pleasing God

The triumph of Jesus Christ at the very juncture over the powers and principalities of evil is a major theme of the New Testament. He was tested by persecution at his birth and throughout his life. He was tested by false friends, by hostile religious leaders, by Jewish and Gentile civil authorities. He was tested in the healings, the exorcisms, the temptations in the wilderness. The principalities and powers attacked him through opposition from within his own circle. His own family assigned his notoriety to the devil (Mk 3:20-35) and one of his intimate friends sold him for thirty pieces of silver. No man was ever tested like Jesus Christ. He faced it all, and overcame it all, as no man before or since has done. The secret of his life was his determination to please his heavenly Father at all points (John 8:29) Michael Green (I Believe In Satan's Downfall) as quoted in C. Peter Wagner Territorial Spirits p186

The goal of pleasing the Father is traded for its pygmy cousin, the goal of pleasing men. D.A. Carson