Pleasing God - Pt. 2 — Kay Smith

Living to Please God

Hebrews 11 5 now this should be our greatest thing. It covers every part of our life and it simplifies our life. It is no more is this right or is this wrong. But is this pleasing to God. And I pray this week.

And we ask you to pray at the end of the class last week that you would pray one for another and for yourself that you would live pleasing unto God. And I just wish we had time for some testimonies on it this morning at the retreat they gave out little promises.

How many of you were at the retreat you have your promises with you. How many were really blessed by a promise you were given. Yeah they were all prayed over and hand-selected and handwritten out. And I read my promise and I thought oh praise the Lord.

And I you know look at it again. Now remember my class last Friday morning was on living pleasing to God. And the promise I received at my place Saturday night was when a man's ways please the Lord he make it even his enemies to be at peace with him.

Is that precious. When I'm woman's ways please the Lord he make it even her enemies to be at peace with her. I loved it and God confirmed it. Now not through somebody that I considered an enemy but through a situation that had not been too great in my life through someone who knows you know a little conflict.

And the person called me up and it was beautiful after I received this promise and I'm just going. Wow Lord you are so precious and so faithful. When you give a promise it's ours. We claim it and it's going to come to pass.

When we live pleasing to God. It is no more that thing of is this right or wrong. But does it please God. And I use disco dancing in this morning. I'll make you all cross. They're not all of you but at least some of you when you're watching.

I'm going to get that as an epitaph on my tomb. I guess they hated hated for us to watch soap operas. I saw a review of them on a program the other night. It was a Christian program and they were bringing out all the things that soap operas teach you and show you.

And you know what your eyes watch and become part of your behavior what you're taking in. That's why it's so harmful for your kids. And I could go off on a whole nother lesson. But it isn't our soap operas right or wrong.

I happen to feel they're wrong. But you may not. But is that pleasing unto God when you sit there and you absorb that stuff. When the world's coming to an end the world as we know it and trivial a great tribulation is at hand the prophecies of all been fulfilled and Jesus surely is coming soon.

Is that what you want to be programming into your mind. That is your decision. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'd love to believe me but God hasn't placed that in my hands. He wants you to ask the question.

Is this pleasing to you Lord. Before you pick up a book to read before you watch a TV program before you start to feel something verbally that maybe you shouldn't. Is this pleasing unto you Lord. And that check will come.

The Root Problem: Faith

Ok. I've caught you up with last week. We're ready to start this morning's lesson. What keeps me from pleasing God. We might answer. Well I really don't know as well. Or I want to do what I want to do.

And I think nine times out of ten is probably the latter. I want to do what I want to do rather than I don't know what his will is. The Bible gives us two very specific statements concerning not pleasing God.

And these are the essential foundation to pleasing God. Not going to sound like a negative lesson but it's going to be very positive because you're going to gain some insight through it. The Spirit has promised me he's going to open our eyes this morning every one of us including me to see how important these truths are to us.

There are two things that are very specific to please God. We're going to deal with just one of them this morning. I believe they deal so wisely with our root problem that looking at these words of God as we gain insight we're going to begin to be pleasing to him in a way we've never been pleasing before.

And we're going to learn how to pray about the place where we've been displeasing. And we're going to learn how to commit our lives fully unto him. Full to middle reminds me again of plants. You know sometimes your plants have external external problems.

They have mealy bugs which I found yesterday on some of mine and it's very exasperating to me. Or they're getting too much light or not enough light or the soil is too acidy. But sometimes the problem is in the root.

It's invisible. You can't see it and you can apply all the light air and water you want to. And you can polish the leaves as beautifully as is possible. And if the problem is with the root it's not going to do a bit of good.

And you're not going to have a pleasing plant. We talked last week about being plants. We bring plants into our home to beautify our home and to please that. And to please those who observe them. Okay the first problem Hebrews 11 6.

But without faith now Cheryl stole this in her prayer this morning when she said all aboard without faith it's impossible to please you. I thought I knew it was a confirmation of the lesson. I thought God's been working in our heart and he's already prepared to hear this.

And it really blessed me. But the preachers always say oh they stole my left my sermon in prayer. Well I'm not a preacher so I'm not saying that he was really confirming it to my heart. But without faith it is impossible to please him.

Why we'll read on for he that cometh to God must believe that he is. I want you to stop and think there from that. You must believe that he is. Okay. Kate I'm glad we got over that. I believe that he is.

Therefore I don't have any problem with that. Believe me. I believe God exists. Let's see. He's God he's the Creator. And he's powerful and he's mighty. And I believe that most of us in the room this morning believe that God is.

I'm such. I can go a little further. I believe that everybody in the room believes that God exists. That he is. But you know in James 219 the Bible tells us that the devil believe in God and tremble. And there was a poll taken in America recently and in this particular poll they said that 96 of the people they pulled that they believed in God.

Now we live in a strangely hedonistic country. For 96 of the people believing in God don't we. So there must be more to this believing he is then just believing he exists in this chapter in Romans 11 as you read it and I hope you read it over and over.

It is one of the most moving vibrant chapters in the whole Bible. This chapter of faith. If your faith seems weak read this chapter of the exploit these men of God did. And women too. And how faith changed their life.

But the 11th chapter of Hebrews what'd I say. Oh well there I go again. Please correct me when I do that I need that over and over. I forget. Like you know Chuck says Moses we're all sitting there saying you mean and when he means no.

And we're going Noah Noah. And he's saying Moses. It's a disease in our household. It's a virus. We've all got it. Read this 11th chapter of Hebrews about these people who had such an intense belief in God our Father as a personal infinite God who created them for himself that they through faith subdued kingdoms.

They wrought righteousness. They obtained promises. They stopped the mouths of lions. They quenched the violence of fire. They escaped the edge of the sword out of weakness. They were made strong. They waxed valiant in fight.

They turned to flight the armies of the aliens. One of them build an ark for a hundred years in the middle of a desert. Another one had a baby at 80 or 90 years of age. Another one took thousands and thousands of people through a sea believing that God would part the sea and make it dry land for these people to walk through.

These were people who did not just believe he is some essence way up in the sky and he causes flowers to bloom and the Sun to shine. They believed he was a personal God who ponders you all you're going.

God as a Personal, All-Seeing God

Five two. It's a good scripture. Don't turn to it now. They're all good scriptures. But this is especially good on this point. God observes all our goings and he weighs all our actions. There is not one thing you do that our God isn't aware of.

And this is the message to you this morning. You are to be aware of God as a personal God who cares for you who ponders all you're going who is ever present with you a God from whom you can not hide. And if you think you can hide from God read Psalm 139.

David said though I take the wings of the morning and go to the uttermost parts of the sea yet I cannot hide from God. Though I make my bed in hell. I cannot hide from God. There is no way to hide from the infinite personal God you serve and believe in a God.

Or you should believe in a God who doesn't just exist but he has thought towards us more than the fans of the sea. And we shared that before in Jeremiah 29 11. In the living Bible it says that God has plans for us.

And I want to read it to you because you hear the four spiritual laws a lot of times and God has a plan for your life. And sometimes we've heard it so much we're prone to joke about it. But this is so beautiful.

In Jeremiah 29 11 the Lord said for I know the plans I have for you. They are plans for good and not for evil to give you a future and a hope. God has plans for every woman in this room and their plans for good and not for evil to give you our future and a hope.

These are hopeless days. And if we listen to the news and we read this newspaper and we look at Afghanistan and we look at Iran and we look at Israel and we look at Lebanon and we look at Africa and we look at America and we look at Central America and we realize what's happening.

We would be very very hopeless if we did not believe in a God who is there and who has a future and a plan and a hope for our lives this morning I'm here to tell you he is a God who is interested in you.

You cannot really believe this really believe it without the truth making a deep impression upon your heart. I was reading Tozer's Pursuit of God one day and this impressed me so much that I wrote it in my Bible.

A loving personality dominates the Bible walking among the trees of the garden and breathing fragrance over every scene always. A living person is present speaking pleading loving working and manifesting himself whenever and wherever his people have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation.

He is a God who is present speaking pleading loving working and manifesting himself to you whenever you have the receptivity to listen to heed him to look for him. If you really believe this is going to affect your heart your life and your behavior.

If I am truly aware of God being right here and watching my ways and weighing them I'm going to want to shape up but more than that the realization that he loves me and he cares for me and he has plans for me and he cares for me more than he cares for any star in the sky.

Then he cares for the Sun or the moon or any ocean. He didn't give his life he didn't give his son for any of those things. He gave his life for you and he gave his life for me. And when that realization hits me full force and when I hit you full force it's going to cause a response in your life.

And one of the problems with us as Christians is we go through our days forgetting God is there. Isn't it true. We do. We spend our hours and minutes doing what we want to do and forgetting that our God is right there with us.

Think about this meditate on it absorb it believe that he is. I was meditating on this this morning and I began to think of one of the first things that God said to Moses when Moses said well when I go before the people you know who am I.

And God said he didn't say it. Like this in paraphrasing God didn't answer Moses who he was. He answered who he was. He said tell him I am I am. He was saying I am the God of all possibilities. I am the God of power and might and I can part the red seat.

How many times we look at God was saying who am I. And he's looking down and he's saying oh it isn't who you are. It's who I am. It's who God is. That's the important thing. Know that he is. Know that he really is.

And he is your personal God. Without this awareness this strong conviction you will not care whether you please him or not. Now the reason that we don't go through our life pleasing God as we should is not because there's a shortness of his arm but because we do not have this continued awareness and I suffer from it as you do.

I am shocked sometimes at that how as you know I go through a day I start out with devotion and then I get involved in something and all of a sudden the Lord will speak to my heart and say Kenny you haven't looked up and just said oh Jesus I love you.

Oh Father I love you. Have you forgotten. I'm there. He wants us to have that continual awareness of his presence constantly. And it is possible I've gone through days and weeks and months like that. But you know Satan will do anything he will cause your flesh to work in any way to keep you from that continued awareness of him.

Chuck says the definition of ungodly simply means living as though God didn't exist. That's all we think of it as the gross wicked ungodly man. You know oh the person who's never accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior.

But what we're really saying. The ungodly person saying he's not around he's up in the sky I can do whatever I want. He doesn't see. He doesn't know and he doesn't care. And you know what your choices and your decisions are all made without any consideration of what his will is because you really don't believe he's there or here.

And that's why this is so important this morning that the Holy Spirit puts in every one of your heart that he is and he is with you right now every one of you in this room just where you're sitting your God is right with you.

And he's aware of everything you're doing he's aware of what you're hearing. And if you have a listening heart this morning he's aware of you so much that he wants these seeds planted in your heart today that they might grow and they might bear fruit and your faith will expand and increase so that you'll say I know what those Hebrews 11 people did by hit by faith in him.

I can stop the mouths of lions today. And you can when you are aware of his presence. And that faith is born in you because you know your God is with you. And you're not doing it but he's doing it through you.

There is not a miracle that cannot be formed by God working through you. That you ask him to perform. Okay. If you're not aware of the presence of God what to do about it. The rest of the verse tells you.

Diligently Seeking God

But without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe what that what that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Let's read verse 6 all together in this room.

If you don't have King James mumble along and whatever translation or paraphrase you have Hebrews 11 6 and keep your Bible open to it the whole time. Okay. 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 want you to turn to the person next to you just to to whatever way it works out. I'm not going to give specific instructions and I want you to read this to that person.

And I want that person to read it back to you. And I want you to stop after you read it put your hands on the Bible and say God make this real to my heart today. Okay. Is there anyone who didn't pray with someone.

Okay. Would you pray right now. Father engrave this truth on our heart. Let us see this morning the importance of knowing that you are and that you are our personal God that you care you watch your way.

Oh God. Engrave this on our hearts. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. The word of God is alive and powerful. And as you spoke that word to each other God begins to work in your heart of making this real to you.

It has got to be real to you. If you want to live a life that's pleasing to him you have to know he is there. And if I repeat it over and over and over it this morning it's because repetition is the key to learning.

And I don't want one of us to go out of this room this morning without the strong conviction realization and knowledge that God is your personal God and he's there. Okay. What do we do about we diligently seek him.

The next part of this verse. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. We must start searching for him. We must start looking for him. He promises he rewards those who diligently seek him.

And how does he reward them by finding him. By finding him now this morning is just the beginning of this realization in your life. And I don't care if you walk with God 50 years or two years or three months.

This is a brand new beginning in the awareness of God. I ask God to do that for you and to do it for me this morning. Every one of it in this room needs that new awareness. You may have come in this morning with a bleeding heart and a broken spirit.

And you're going through trials and you're just groaning and moaning. And as a girl at the retreat God gave knowledge was suicidal. She was at the end of her rope. Oh she was born again. She was spirit baptized.

But she was suicidal. Why. Because she for God was there. God was there to help her to strengthen her to build her up to bring her through the trial. He said when you pass through the water it shall not overflow you.

And through the fire you're not going to be burned and destroyed. Remember the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace. There was one in there with him likened to the Son of Man and it was Jesus that was in the fiery furnace with him.

And maybe you're in the fiery furnace this morning. You know the greatest thing you can know this morning is that Jesus is right there with you and he will bring you up. I'm not talking on the top of my head.

I've been there. I've been in the fiery furnace and I've been in the waters that could drown me and he has a let me drown and he has a let the fires consume me and burn me. He's been with me every single step of the way.

He's faithful and cares about me. Cast your care on him for he cares to you cares about you. Okay. How do we diligently seek him. And what will he do. He will reward us by revealing himself just I want to talk to you a minute about how he reveals himself to the unbeliever just in case there's one here this morning that doesn't know God.

I have a friend named Rose and they may have shared a little bit about her wisdom and not supposed to share too much because there's going to be a book and a movie out but sanguine person that I am. I always share a little more than I intended to but I'll try to be cautious and I asked the Holy Spirit to make me careful and he will.

Rose is the Jewish girl that I told you one time. I asked you how she came to know the Lord and she said I don't know. Okay I guess he just lifted the veil. I thought that was beautiful. I had a chance to spend more time with her one day and she was telling me and maybe I shared this in remember but she said that what actually happened is that she grew up in an affluent family in Beverly Hills and always had everything and always did whatever she wanted.

And she began to well she dated Elvis Presley that gives a little bit of her background and she sort of went all over the world and she met a man in Mexico who was very very wealthy and she became his mistress.

And while she was his mistress he introduced her to drug life and she just went downhill very rapidly and began just kind of floating around the world without any direction and just as someone says driven by the wind and how to tap is driven by the wind just going hither and thither without any purpose in life.

And she arrived in London with four guys. She was boarding a plane and she was arrested with the four men. Now she did not know this but the four calls she was with were importing a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of hash back into the United States.

They were a gang. She didn't know it. She wasn't into any of that but the police thought she were thought she was she said she was loaded at the time she was not only heavily into drugs but also alcohol.

The police put her in a jail in London. The drugs began to wear off and she said she the next day she awakened and she looked around and she thought where am I. And as she began to get free or free of the drugs she began to just think oh what am I going to do.

Is there any help. And she remembered her mother used to say for a road God will help you. God will help you. God will help you. She was a Jewish mother and that's all she ever programmed into Rose about God.

But Rose said hey I literally got down on my knees in the jail cell and I said God if you're there help me. And she said at that moment I had a vision of this is Jesus Christ. She said I knew it was Jesus.

Don't ask me how I knew but she said I knew it was the Messiah it was Jesus. And she said I never felt such warmth and love in all of my life. And she said I forgot I was in a cell. I just wanted that presence to remain with me forever.

That love and that warmth God brought her into the fold. She got out with a $10 fine got back to the state. She is a powerful witness for Jesus Christ right now. Another man who a man I'll call Jim because you don't know him but I don't want to get too close to somebody might need was an alcoholic.

He was a professional man. He lost his wife and his children was roaming around rather without purpose also remarried got back into practice again but could not give up this alcohol. Finally his wife and second family left and moved far away.

And he said he was effing desolate. One morning at four o 'clock in the morning he'd been lying awake all night. And he said I got up by the side of my bed and I knelt down and I said I don't know you God.

But I know I can't go on any longer. It's either you or it's suicide. And he said I can't tell you what happened to you except peace came over me and peace came into my heart. And I knew there was a God.

He is walking with Jesus today. It's been two years not a touch of alcohol. The most vibrant man when you meet him oh he's so alive. I wish I could. Well you know I wish I could tell you more beautiful testimony.

Maybe he'll give his testimony publicly. Doesn't attend Calvary but he does attend our Calvary. So I have to be careful. And the other day I was at an AIA luncheon athletes in action luncheon and we were sitting in a table with nine other ladies and there was a lady there who didn't know Jesus.

The speaker spoke and asked how many wanted to commit their lives to the Lord. And this lady all of a sudden this light came upon her and she committed her life to Jesus. And we looked and we said what happened.

And she said you won't believe this she said. Two nights ago I had a dream that I was going to come to a luncheon like this. And a lady was going to say to me Julie have you accepted Jesus. And she said after that lady prayed I accepted him.

And then that lady said to me. And she said that lady had no way of knowing. And the lady said did you accept Jesus. She said it was exactly like my dreams God had revealed in a dream first of all and awakened her heart to the fact that God is now.

The first two were diligently seeking the third one thought him in a moment and he was there. He's a rewarder of those that diligently seek him. And for those of us as Christians we could magnet we could tell story after story after story of every time we diligently desperately thought the Lord how he met us.

He's met me over and over and over again. There's never been an impossible place in my life that I haven't saw him that he hasn't answered and done what was impossible in the natural all right now how do we seek him diligently.

Seven Practices for Seeking God

First of all and I'm going to give you seven points here and we'll go through them quickly. First of all ask him to reveal himself to you. I am a little child when it comes to faith and things have got.

You heard Chuck say cake and start car motors. He's teasing. I curse. I can't but the Lord can't. Because I don't know a thing about a car motor. I can pray that will start and it does now. I've heard of people going long distances on heavenly Ethel.

How many in class have done that. We don't always know that it takes gasoline to run a car. Yes we do. We're not dumb. We just come to the Lord as a little child and say Lord it's dangerous for me to be out in this highway.

If my car runs out of gasoline you've got to get me home or you've got to get me to the service station. Okay first of all ask him to reveal himself. You become as a little child and just say God show me you're there show me let me know speak to me a special way whatever way reveal yourself to me.

And he will he wants to. Has that ever occurred to you that he wants to reveal himself to you much much much more than you ever desired him to reveal himself to you. He's just waiting for you. In fact sometimes he even intrudes on our plan says me ah well we didn't exactly ask him and we weren't exactly looking and we weren't exactly asking.

And he comes in. He says hey I'm here Jackie I'm here crystal I'm here I'm here. And and all of a sudden oh that's right. Ask him to reveal himself. Secondly ask him to become real to you. Oh God become real to me.

Jeremiah 29 13 he said you will find me when you seek me. If you look for me. And earners if you seek me with your whole heart you're going to find me. And when you find something it's real it's there when you really ask him to make himself real he will.

I've shared before that one New Year's Eve I was driving someplace early rather early in the evening prior on 630 or 7 we had sometimes I think I was taking series someplace I don't recall but I was to cross Newport Boulevard down around 15th Street and I had been praying all day that day Lord we're starting a new year.

And I did. I prayed it over and around doing well make yourself more real to me than you ever have ever ever ever just make yourself more real. And as I was driving the car with Sarah was going back home and I was saying Oh Lord you know it's getting late in the evening and I just asked you today to reveal yourself to me more than you ever have before I start this new year.

I need it I need it. I just need this reality of your presence. As I got to the signal and as the signal was about to get what was about a block before I got to the signal across Newport the Lord spoke to me and said not in an audible voice but to my heart do not cross Newport Boulevard till every car in every lane of traffic has stopped.

And as we're so prone to do okay you're really getting squirrely. You're thinking about them. Have you ever done that. When God spoke to you sure you have you go. Yeah that's me. That's my conscience.

That's not really God. That's not the voice of God. So I sort of put it to the test. What you know could this be. You ask me again. Spoke to my heart. Hey do not cross Newport Boulevard till every lane of traffic stops.

I got to the signal and I thought well Lord I think it's you and but I'm not sure and I don't want to do anything dumb. But I'm going to creep across Newport Boulevard just in case that you're speaking to me.

Just in case I started across lane stop. All the cars are left to me. Every lane stop to the right. Every lane stop till the last lane. And I was almost stopped by the time I crept across there. A pickup truck came screeching.

Didn't see. The signal came right through the signal. Made a complete saw me made a complete circle about up in that little place where you go up on 15th a complete circle came back facing this side of my car missing completely.

Does God speak to us. Does he make himself real to us. More real than the breath we breathe. Oh ask him today. Ask him to make himself real. He wants to make himself real. He doesn't want to just be an essence up there in the sky.

He wants to make himself real to you. Okay. Third. Search out the scriptures that teach you or show you. He is a personal God. Search out those scriptures. Write them down. I keep telling you to write down scriptures and put them on your mirror.

And I told you that so much that from now on out when you look in your mirror you're going to see God instead of you because his word is just going to be up in front of you all over your mirror. Well if the mirror is full put in any place you can put them.

Put them in pockets and pull them out. Put them on the car seat. Put them any place. Put them on your kitchen windowsill wherever. Strap around the vacuum cleaner. That's taking me to the vacuum cleaner.

You couldn't even you know. Stop taking on the corner of a dust rake any place somebody said on the TV so they caught the screen. Search out scriptures that teach you or show you he is a personal God.

And I'm not going to give you examples because I want the Holy Spirit to teach you what it is to find scriptures that tell you he is a personal God. All right. Fourth. Study the lives of men and women in the Bible and in any books that you can get about Christian men and women and discover and meditate on the ways God moved in their lives.

I think my god better wait. Don't they repeat it. Okay. I should do your own shorthand. Put study lives. Bible books. Okay. And you can write this down. I'll read the whole sentence. Use which one. Study not just read.

Study the lives of men and women in the Bible and in other Christian books and discover and meditate on the way God on the ways God moved in their lives. The entire Bible is about God dealing with man with you with his creation with me.

That's what the Bible is all about. It's not about a God who's way up in the sky with a white beard and long white hair looking down ready to conk you on the head with a club not what it is. It's a God of infinite love who watches who waits is present.

Who cares. Study the lives of men and women who diligently saw him discover and meditate on their way. Especially study the life of Jesus who said I do always those things to please him. Jesus came to earth not only to die for us but to reveal God to us.

If you want to know what God is like study the life of Jesus what is God. Like what was Jesus. Like he had compassion he forgave sin he walked among the people he cared he raised the dead he healed the sick he opened the blind eyes he taught.

He took a woman at the well and he gave her living water and she never thirsted again in the same way study about Jesus. If you want to diligently know that God is there you must seek him. And these are ways.

Hearing and Recognizing God's Voice

Study this. Listen to him listen to him speak to you. He has spoken to every woman in this room. You know that God has spoken to you. But unless you believe he is as I've explained and defined it this morning you won't recognize his voice.