Seeking After God

Text: Hebrews 11:6

Series: Restoration Sermons

Date:

Speaker: Ed Rangel

Location: Waupaca Church of Christ

Bible Version: NASB 1995

Sermon Type: Expository

Learning Objectives

By the close of this lesson the hearer should be able to:

1. State the condition Hebrews 11:6 lays down for pleasing God — the two things faith must include.
2. Identify the five obstacles Satan places in the path of the person who begins to seek God, and name at least two scripture texts that address each.
3. Explain the specific irony of the $10,000,000 illustration — what it reveals about the actual commitment of the person who says "one church is as good as another."
4. Explain why Paul and the Ethiopian eunuch are the clearest examples of people who overcame all five obstacles.
5. State what prejudice does that mere intellectual resistance does not — what the second half of the battle is once a person is convinced.

Thesis

When a person begins to seek God, Satan begins to seek that person. The obstacles are predictable and consistent: laziness, pride, fear, prejudice, and the love of an evil life. Each has appeared in the lives of people who sought God and failed to find him — not because God was hidden but because the seeker was stopped. The person who overcomes all five will find God, because "He is a rewarder of those who seek Him" (Heb. 11:6).

Burden

The search for God is not interrupted by God's hiddenness; it is interrupted by the seeker's resistance. Every obstacle in this sermon is the seeker's own — laziness belongs to the seeker, pride belongs to the seeker, fear is the seeker's fear, prejudice is the seeker's commitment to what they already believe, and the evil life is the seeker's own love of what sin provides. The burden is to name the obstacles so that the person who is stopped by one of them can recognize what is happening and press through it.

Introduction

"And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him" (Heb. 11:6). The verse lays down two conditions for the faith that pleases God: the belief that God exists, and the belief that God rewards those who seek him. The second condition is as important as the first. The person who believes God exists but doubts that God will respond to a genuine seeker has not yet reached the faith the text describes. The search must be undertaken in the conviction that the search will succeed — that God is not playing hide-and-seek with those who want to find him.

The text also implies that seeking God requires something. If God were merely obvious — if faith in him required no effort, no overcoming of obstacles, no persistent pursuit — then there would be nothing to "reward." The reward is for seeking. The seeking costs something.

I. Laziness and Indifference

The first obstacle is the most basic: the failure of mental and spiritual effort.

Many never find God because they are too lazy mentally. The search for God requires sustained thought: reading the Scriptures, testing what has been heard, comparing what different people claim against what God has actually said. The person who is intellectually lazy — who prefers the comfort of inherited opinions to the effort of careful investigation — will not seek with the earnestness that finding requires.

The lazy seeker is the one who says "one church is as good as another" (Eph. 4:4 — "one body"; Col. 1:18 — "He is the head of the body, the church"; I Cor. 12:20 — "there are many members, but one body"). The claim "one church is as good as another" is not a theological conclusion — it is an exit from investigation. It is the statement of a person who does not want to do the work of finding out which claims are true and which are not.

The illustration makes the laziness visible: if the Bible told you how to find $10,000,000 you would study it in every language; you would investigate every claim to the method; you would not say "one way is as good as another." The person who applies that standard to money but not to their soul has revealed where their earnestness actually lies. The soul's destination is worth more than $10,000,000. The investigation it deserves is at least as serious.

II. Pride

The second obstacle is the three forms of pride that prevent the honest seeker from following the investigation where it leads.

Moral pride. The person who believes they are already good enough does not feel the urgency of the search. The moral pride that says "I am a decent person; God, if he is fair, will accept me as I am" has already answered the question that the gospel raises. It has not answered it from Scripture — it has answered it from self-assessment. And the self-assessment is the problem: Cornelius was by external measure an excellent man, and he was still lost until he heard the gospel and obeyed it (Acts 10-11).

Intellectual pride. The person who considers themselves too educated, too sophisticated, or too rational to take the gospel seriously has placed their own judgment above the evidence. Intellectual pride is the pride of having already decided — before the investigation is complete — what kinds of answers are acceptable and what kinds are not.

Social pride. The calculation of what the community will think if the investigation leads to a response. The people around me have not made this commitment; if I do, I will be different; I may lose standing. This is the pride that values social position more than truth.

Pride as a chain (Ps. 73:6). "Therefore pride is their necklace; the garment of violence covers them." The image is vivid: pride is not a temporary barrier but a chain — worn habitually, incorporated into the person's identity, not easily removed. "When pride comes, then comes dishonor, but with the humble is wisdom" (Prov. 29:23). "God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6). The obstacle that God himself opposes is among the most dangerous, because the person who is opposed by God finds every path forward blocked.

III. Fear

The third obstacle is the various forms of fear that prevent the honest seeker from acting on what they have found.

Some are afraid of a sneer. The contempt of people who know you and who will find your response to the gospel ridiculous, embarrassing, or socially inconvenient. The fear of being laughed at — by family, by colleagues, by people whose opinion matters — stops many people at the very moment they are ready to act.

Some are afraid of division (Matt. 10:34-39). "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother..." The response to the gospel can divide families. The person who fears that coming to Christ will cost them a relationship — a parent's approval, a spouse's peace, a family's unity — is facing a real cost. Jesus does not minimize it: the cost is real. He names it, and then says: "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me" (Matt. 10:37).

Some are afraid of popularity (John 12:42-43). "Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God." They believed; they did not confess. The fear of social consequences — being put out of the synagogue, losing standing in the community — stopped the confession that belief required. Belief that produces no obedience is not the belief that pleases God (Heb. 11:6).

Some fear the hardships. The cross that Christ promises to those who follow him is not merely metaphorical: it involves cost, sacrifice, and the death of the self that was living for something other than God. The person who does not want to pay the price of discipleship stops the search before it reaches commitment.

IV. Prejudice

The fourth obstacle is perhaps the most intractable: the prior commitment that prevents the honest evaluation of evidence.

Stephen Decatur's statement — "May my country ever be right; but right or wrong, I'm for my country" — captures the structure of religious prejudice exactly. The person who says "I was raised [denomination]; right or wrong, I'm for my [denomination]" has defined their conclusion before the investigation begins. The loyalty is not to the truth; it is to the prior affiliation.

Just one half of the battle is fought when a person is intellectually convinced. The other half — getting the person to actually leave the position they are loyal to — is often harder. A person can be shown that their denomination's position on a specific subject is not what the New Testament teaches, and can agree with that conclusion, and still not leave. The intellectual battle has been won; the loyalist battle has not. Prejudice is not finally an intellectual problem — it is an identity problem. To give up the denomination is to give up part of who you are. That cost is real, and many people will not pay it.

V. Evil Life

The fifth obstacle is the simplest and the most honest: the person does not want to quit loving what sin provides.

Felix is the example (Acts 24:25). Paul reasoned before him of righteousness, self-control, and judgment to come; Felix became terrified; Felix said "Go away for now, and when I have an opportunity I will summon you." The obstacles visible in Felix's life include procrastination, but the deeper one is the life he was not willing to leave. Drusilla was present at that hearing — the woman he had induced to leave her husband and marry him. The righteousness Paul preached was specific, and Felix knew exactly what it would cost. He was not ready to pay.

The person who does not want to seek God for fear of what they would have to give up has not actually begun to seek. Seeking God earnestly includes the willingness to be found by him — which means the willingness to allow the encounter to change everything that needs to change.

VI. Two Examples of Persons Who Overcame All Five

The outline closes with two people who faced every obstacle and overcame them all.

Paul (Acts 9:1-9). Before his conversion, Saul of Tarsus embodied every obstacle in reverse: he was not lazy — he was zealous; he was not without pride — he had every form of it (Phil. 3:4-6); he was not afraid of contempt — he was among the contemptuous; he was not without prejudice — his entire identity was built on it; and his life was not evil in the conventional sense — it was what he believed to be righteousness. When Christ met him on the road to Damascus, every obstacle was stripped away simultaneously: the proud man fell to the ground, the intellectually certain man was confronted with what he did not know, the man without fear was reduced to blindness and trembling, the loyal Pharisee's loyalty was redirected. "Lord, what do you want me to do?" (Acts 9:6). The complete reversal.

The Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8). A man of high social standing who set aside social pride to sit in his chariot reading Isaiah. A man who was intellectually honest enough to say "I do not understand what I am reading" — no intellectual pride. A man who, when Philip explained the text, immediately asked "What prevents me from being baptized?" — no procrastination, no fear, no prejudice. He was told what to do; he did it at once.

Both Paul and the eunuch illustrate the reward Hebrews 11:6 promises: "He is a rewarder of those who seek Him." The person who genuinely seeks — who overcomes the laziness, the pride, the fear, the prejudice, the love of the old life — finds what they were looking for.

Application

Name the obstacle. The person who has heard the gospel and not obeyed is not simply undecided — they are stopped at one of these five points. The question is: which one?

If it is laziness: apply the $10,000,000 standard. If you would investigate that thoroughly what could only enrich this life, how thoroughly should you investigate what determines the next one?

If it is pride: "God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6). The obstacle is not just social or intellectual — it is theological. To remain in pride is to position yourself against God.

If it is fear: name what you are afraid of losing. Then read Matthew 10:37-39. Christ acknowledged the cost. He named it before you did.

If it is prejudice: ask whether you are for your denomination or for the truth. They may be the same; they may not be. The investigation is the only way to know.

If it is the love of an evil life: be honest about it. Felix's response was not "I have no inclination to repent." It was "Go away for now." He knew. The person who knows what they are holding onto is closer to giving it up than the person who does not yet know what the obstacle is.

Conclusion

"He is a rewarder of those who seek Him" (Heb. 11:6). The reward is not withheld because God is stingy with it. It is delayed, in case after case, because the seeker stopped seeking. The obstacles are not insurmountable — Paul overcame all of them in a single day; the eunuch overcame all of them in a single conversation. The question is not whether the obstacles can be overcome. The question is whether the seeker wants to overcome them.

Invitation

"You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart" (Jer. 29:13). The promise is as unconditional as it appears: the seeker who persists will find. What is required is the whole heart — not the divided attention of someone managing multiple obstacles, but the full commitment of the person who has decided that God and the truth about God are worth whatever the finding costs.

Believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Repent. Confess his name. Be baptized for the remission of your sins (Acts 2:38). The reward that Hebrews 11:6 promises is available. The seeking that produces it begins today.

Word Study

Scripture Interlock Table

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Converted from H. Leo Boles, Outline 143. Primary text: Heb. 11:6 (stated by Boles). OCR corrections: "lte puts" → "He puts"; "a.s:" → "as:"; "],Jan)'" → "Many"; "lll." → "III."; "lV." → "IV." Doctrinal audit: all five obstacles developed honestly without softening; pride as a theological (not merely social) problem developed from James 4:6; fear of division developed from Matt. 10:34-39 without minimizing the cost; prejudice developed as a loyalist (identity) problem rather than merely intellectual; Felix used as the paradigm of the evil-life obstacle (Acts 24:25, consistent with the earlier Procrastination sermon); Paul and the eunuch as positive examples of complete overcoming; invitation retains full obedient response (Acts 2:38).