The God Who Is Impossible To Please
Pastor Erickson teaches from Hebrews 11:6 that without faith it is impossible to please God, walking through the heroes of faith from Abel and Enoch to Noah, Abraham and Moses. He calls the church to make faith a daily way of life, trusting God when things look impossible and asking Him to increase their faith.
The message in 6 points
The God who is impossible to please
From Hebrews 11:6 he says God is impossible to please only for faithless people. A child with a parent who can never be pleased carries that pain for life, but God has made faith the key to His approval, and he asks what the Bible would say about us if it read by faith with our name.
25:07Faith worships the way God desires
After the opening verses of Hebrews 11, he looks at Cain and Abel. Both brought offerings but only one worshipped, and like David dancing before the ark, faith brings God the worship He asks for even when it makes no sense to others.
32:34Faith walks with God and obeys
Enoch walked with God and did not just serve Him. Noah built the ark exactly as God said, without shortcuts, warned of things he had never seen, and 1 Peter 3:20 shows God waiting patiently while the ark was prepared.
43:01Nothing is impossible and heaven is home
Abraham went out not knowing where, and Sarah had a child when it was impossible, which is where faith takes on substance. These people died still believing, looking for a city whose builder and maker is God, and he warns a comfortable church not to call this world home.
50:09Faith is tested and sees God at work
Abraham offered Isaac, believing God could raise him from the dead. James 1 and Hebrews 12 teach us to count trials as joy, and Isaac, Jacob and Joseph show that God is at work in every circumstance, even when the impossible seems to be happening.
1:01:58Faith follows God and steps out
Moses felt unqualified, but God equips whom He calls and calls back those who ran from their calling. Faith acts without knowing what comes next, God is a rewarder, and he closes by asking the church to pray for more faith and a lifestyle of faith.
1:10:06
In his words
“My title is a little bit dark, it's a little bit morbid, but I want to make sure that it comes across right, but the God who is impossible to please is the God of faithless people.”
“Faith is the answer when there is no other answer, because God is faithful, and because God is faithful then He's worthy of our faith.”
“But the truth was Moses wasn't qualified, but he was called, and God will always equip who He calls.”
Taken word for word from the video, with punctuation added.
Scripture
He reads
Hebrews 11:6
6But 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.
King James Version.
Hebrews 11:1-3
1Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2For by it the elders obtained a good report. 3Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
King James Version.
1 Peter 3:20
20Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
King James Version.
James 1:1-4
1James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. 2My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
King James Version.
Hebrews 12:1-2
1Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
King James Version.
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