Sabbath School Summary

By Elder Dr Masimba Mavaza

To Be Pleasing to God

Lesson 3
Memory Text: “The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17, NKJV).

INTRODUCTION
Imagine the following scenario: a five-year-old child comes to his father with a poorly wrapped gift on Father’s Day. Excitedly, he hands the gift to his father. Imagine that the father says, “Son, I do not care about your gift. After all, there is nothing you could give me that would please me. Anything you could give me, I could get for myself, and anything you give to me was either bought with my money or made from materials that I paid for. So, keep your gift. I do not need it or want it. But I love you, anyway.”
What do you think of this father’s reaction? Such words as heartless, cold, and unfeeling come to mind. Is this the way God responds to us? Can we actually be pleasing to God? Hard as it is to imagine, even we as fallen beings, corrupted by sin, and prone to evil—yes, we can be pleasing to God! In other words, God does not look upon us, or the gifts that we bring Him, with the attitude of that father. On the contrary, we can be pleasing to God, but only through Christ.

SABBATH:
Pleasing God or people or yourself? In all ages, men have lived on earth that pleased God. Not by might, but only through Christ. As sinful as we are, we can be pleasing to God in Christ. Picture a case when a 5-year-old child’s attempt to give a Father’s Day gift to his father is met with a heartless reaction from the Father. He cites that the gift is bought with his money & so on. God is our Maker & all gifts are His but He does not treat us with the father’s attitude.

More Valuable Than You Can Imagine

SUNDAY:
In God’s eyes, we can’t go too far to be accepted back home. No soul is beyond redemption. Such is the case of the prodigal son. He asked early for his inheritance & left his father’s house. But when he lost all things & returned home, his father accepted him (Luke 15:11-32). The father stooped so low to run to meet his prodigal son (vs. 20). He stands for God who has compassion for each wayward soul. Such a great God!

Rejoicing With Gladness

MONDAY:
All heaven rejoices when even a soul decides to return to God. Human language is insufficient to describe the delight of God over His saved people. God comes to dwell with His redeemed people (Zeph. 3:17). Isaiah 62:4 uses a marriage analogy to capture God’s joy. His people will be called “Hephzibah” (“My delight is in her”) & the land will be called “Beulah” (“married”). We see this in Christ’s love for His bride (the church) as part of Himself (Eph. 5:25-28).

Pleasing God?

TUESDAY:
The earth is just a dot in the universe. Yet, God cares for it & loves us. How could it be that such a great God takes delight in mere humans? How could God Himself be delighted? & how could sinful humans bring Him delight? (Isa. 43:4). God can be pleased by us because He has our best interests at heart. He displeases us when we do evil (Prov. 15:8, 9). Also, God loves all but has a special love for the righteous & cheerful giver (Ps. 146:8, 2 Cor. 9:7).

Living Stones

WEDNESDAY:
Christ was the rejected stone that became the living Stone. But He does not reject us. All who accept Him also are like living stones built into a spiritual house (1 Pet. 2:4-6; Heb. 11:6). Even before the world was made or any prior human response, God loved us. He reaches out to us to call us to accept or reject His love (Rom. 8:1; 5:8). Without faith, we cannot please Him. A faith that saves accepts God’s love (Heb. 13:21, Luke 20:35, 1 Cor. 15:51-57, 1 John 3:2).

A Worthy Goal

THURSDAY:
Christ is the blessed hope! He’s the desire of ages & all nations. In Him, we can be counted among God’s beloved people who’ll live eternally. Can you be good enough? Do you have faith to truly love Him & be counted worthy? Believe that all things are possible with God. That was Jesus’ response to the disciples who couldn’t cast out demons (Mark 9:17-29). Jesus accepts every little faith (Heb. 11:5, 6, 2 Cor. 5:9, 10; 1 Cor. 1:10; 1 Thess. 4:1, Rom. 12:10-13).

Further Thought

FRIDAY:
You have been bought at a great price. Put value on yourself. God is disappointed when His people place a low estimate upon themselves. God wanted us. If not, He wouldn’t have sent His only beloved Son to die for us. He has a use for every soul. He’ll have a need of you if you accept His love. You may expect large things if you have faith in His promises & pray to Him. But to pray in Christ’s name means much. It calls us to reflect & obey Him.

—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 668

Keywords

God’s love- It is the kind of unselfish and sacrificial love a husband is to have for his wife.

Discussion Questions

📌 What might it mean to “unselfishly receive”? What do you think the relationship of giving and receiving will be like in heaven and in the new earth?

📌 Coming from a distant part of the cosmos—farther perhaps than the James Webb Space Telescope’s most squinting eyes can reach—heavenly messengers referred to the prophet Daniel as chamudot, “beloved, desirable, precious.” And they did so three times. In Daniel 9:23, Gabriel says ki chamudot attah, “for you are greatly beloved.” In Daniel 10:11, a heavenly being (perhaps Gabriel again) calls him ish chamudot, a “man greatly beloved,” a phrase repeated to Daniel later (Dan. 10:19). Think about what it says about God and how close He is to us. What hope can you draw for yourself from this amazing truth?

📌 How do the examples of the heroes of faith discussed in Hebrews 11 relate to the content of this week’s lesson? Specifically, what do such examples reveal about how one can be “pleasing to God” by faith? What can you learn and apply to your day-to-day life from such examples of faith and faithfulness?

For January 11–17. Happy Sabbath!