Sermon Tone Analysis

Pleasing God

Ron Dunn

Hebrews 11:6

 

By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation, he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

But without faith: it is impossible to please him for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

There are some verses in the Bible that stand out as strategic above other verses.

All verses, of course are important, but there are some verses that hold a strategic position and are meant to be like a compass to keep us on course.

I'm not a pilot, but I have always wanted to be.

I could never did get up enough nerve to try it.

I have a pilot friend who has a plane, and occasionally, he will fly me to a meeting.

When we are in the air, and everything is all right, there are times when he will let me "drive—steer."

We were going to Oklahoma, and it was a beautiful sunny day.

The main thing I wanted to do was keep it upright,  I didn't want to fly upside down.

After a while, he said you had better let me take this for a minute.

I asked what I was doing wrong.

He said, well I told you to watch this instrument.

If you keep on going in this direction, we are going to end up in Miami, Florida.

That's why the instruments are there.

It seemed to me like I was going the right direction.

He said, yes, that is one of the problems.

It feels like you are doing right, but you have to watch the compass.

I was way off course and going the opposite direction.

You know there are times in the Christian life when you feel like you may be going in the right direction, but you have to keep coming back again and again to the instruments to check yourself to make certain you are on course.

It is so easy for us to get off course.

There is a way that seems right unto man, but the end thereof is the way of death.

There are some verses that I think we need to come back to again and again as our compass to make certain we are on the right course.

It is remarkable that you and I can be pleasing to the Lord.

He says in Hebrews 11:6:  but without faith it is impossible to please him for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

I know there are some words and phrases we use so frequently that after awhile they lose their cutting edge with us.

If familiarity doesn't breed contempt, it can breed complacency.

We are so used to using phrases like pleasing God that I think sometimes we fail to realize what that really means.

If you stop and think about it for a moment, it is quite a remarkable feat, that it is possible for you and me to please God; God, who is holy and righteous, so holy the Bible says that he is too pure to even look upon sin, and has such an infinite moral standard.

Then you realize how weak and frail and sinful we are by nature.

Do you mean to tell me there is a way in which Ican be pleasing to a holy and righteous God whose standard is absolute perfection?

This is even more remarkable when I remind myself that I can't even please men.

Have you ever tried to please people?

By the way, that is one of the occupational hazards of a minister, of a pastor.

One of the things you must be accomplished in is pleasing everybody in a local Baptist church.

They don't have a course in seminary on that, but they should because that is what you are expected to do.

Of course, I found out a long time ago that trying to please people in the church is sort of like trying to put hub caps on a car.

Have you ever tried to do that?

A year or so ago we had a new car, and my wife and I had been up in Oklahoma for a meeting, and we were driving back about 1:00 a.m. in the morning when all of a sudden something went wrong.

The back end started sagging and fishtailing.

I pulled over to the side, and there it was.

The tire wasn't flat, it was just gone—disintegrated—brand new tire.

It had just come apart.

That will make you lose what little victory you have left.

I took off my jacket, got the jack out and pumped the car up and got the tire off.

You know how it is.

You get that old black dirt all over you, and your white shirt all messed up.

I threw the old tire in the truck and put the spare on.

Then it was time to put the hub cap back on.

I placed it on the tire and hammered it in at the bottom.

It went in real nice.

So I went up to the top and hammered it in—and it popped out at the bottom.

I pounded the bottom in, and it popped out at the top.

I tried it from another angle.

I went over to the side and hammered it in, and it went in real nice.

I started hammering it in on the other side, and it popped out over here.

By this time, the sweat was pouring down my face and burning my eyes.

My legs were aching, and I was getting frustrated.

I was upset and mad at this new car and new tire that had disintegrated.

I kept trying to get that hubcap on.

Finally, I got so frustrated I stood up and started to throw that thing across the field into a cow pasture.

Then I remembered that it cost $135 so I wasn't going to do that.

So I threw it in the trunk and went on.

Do you know that the car rode just as good without it.

I think the devil invented hubcaps.

Trying to please people is just like trying to put on a hubcap.

You try to get crowd A over here pacified and settled down and pleased.

About the time you do that, crowd B is upset.

So you come over and start working on crowd B.  By the time you get crowd B all settled down, crowd A is upset again, so you go back and work on crowd A.  About this time, up pops crowd C that you didn't even know was there.

I found out one day that when I was trying to please men, I was trying to do something that even God himself couldn't do.

But I realized that I could please the Lord.

Isn't that amazing?

I can't please men, but I can please the Lord so I decided to concentrate on pleasing God.

I discovered that when I am pleasing to him, he is able to take care of crowds A, B, C, and whatever others may pop up.

The fact is that you and I can be pleasing unto the Lord.

By the way, that is the purpose for which God has created us.

The epitaph upon every Christian life ought to be this:  he was pleasing unto the Lord.

It doesn't make any difference what else you may accomplish in your life.

I don't care how active or busy, well liked, or applauded you are in your church.

If it cannot be said of you that you are pleasing to the Lord, your life is a failure.

That is the test by which you and I need to size up and evaluate our lives.

Am I pleasing unto the Lord?

The method by which we please him is remarkable.

He says without faith it is impossible to please him.

I think if I had been writing that verse, I would have said  that without going to church it is impossible to please him.

Or without tithing it is impossible to please him.

Or without reading your Bible it is impossible to please him.

But God says that without faith it is impossible to please him.

Notice he doesn't say that without faith it is hard to please him.

He says it is impossible.

The tense of those words indicate that it is impossible to please God a single time apart from faith.

In other words, apart from faith, there is not a single moment when my life is pleasing to the Lord--  regardless of what I may do.

I may preach great sermons and sing great songs and lead a great church.

But apart from faith not one single thing I do is pleasing and acceptable unto the Lord.

The only person or persons in this building who are acceptable unto God and pleasing unto the Lord are those people who know what it means to live in faith.

Without faith, it is impossible to please him.

Well, what do you mean by faith?