When Your Faith Feels Flat

A Faith-Filled Church that Pleases God

Scripture References

Primary text

• Hebrews 11:6
• 2 Corinthians 5:9

Other references

• Mark 6:6
• Luke 7:9

Overview

Thirty years in, Life.Church stopped to celebrate God’s faithfulness and to ask one piercing question: “Are we still a church—and people—who please God?” Scripture insists there is one indispensable ingredient for that kind of life: faith. Pastor Craig traced how bold faith launched the church in a two-car garage, warned how small views of God shrink faith, and invited everyone to repent of “safe faith” and believe God for more—especially for the next person who needs Jesus.

Main Points

Our Highest Aim

• Paul sets the target: “Our goal is to please God.” (2 Corinthians 5:9)
• Spiritual assessments and resolutions are good, but they must yield to this single ambition.

Faith: The Non-Negotiable

• “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” (Hebrews 11:6)
• Faith is not only mountain-moving moments; it is daily trust—opening Scripture, obeying prompts, loving difficult people.
• We “walk by faith and not by sight.”

Two Ways Jesus Responds to Faith

• Amazed at a lack of faith in His hometown (Mark 6:6).
• Amazed at great faith of the centurion who trusted a word from afar (Luke 7:9).
• Reflection question: Which response would Jesus have to your current faith?

How Your View of God Shapes Your Faith

• High view: holy, sovereign, awe-inspiring—produces growing, risk-taking faith.
• Low view: casual, familiar—breeds:
  • Conditional faith – trusts God only when outcomes match desires.
  • Stagnant faith – still present but no longer stretching or hungry.
  • Safe faith – avoids risk, always keeps a plan B; “You cannot play it safe and please God.”

Faith Stories from 30 Years

• Illustration: First offering in the garage—Pastor felt led to tell anyone in need to take cash out of the bucket. God has provided ever since.
• Illustration: Sudden loss of the middle-school venue; by faith Craig told the church God would open a door that week. A handshake secured a bike factory, paid for with a home-equity loan.
• Story: Transparency sheets flipped by “Jerome the four-fingered flipper,” a former drug dealer now worshipper.
• Story: Multi-site, video teaching, and Church Online all began as faith risks when “nobody was doing it.”
• Faith victories listed campus by campus—evidence that “a faith that costs nothing accomplishes nothing.”

When Faith Fades

• Pastor confessed seasons where grind and pain shrank his own faith into hedging prayers.
• Suffering and desperation drew him back to first-day dependence.
• Renewed burden: massive vision yet laser focus on the one far from Christ.

Declaration of Future Faith

“A church that pleases God will be a faith-filled church.”

• God “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine”; therefore the church’s best days are ahead.

Key Truths

• Pleasing God is impossible apart from active, growing faith.
• Jesus is either amazed by our unbelief or by our great trust—never indifferent.
• A low view of God produces conditional, stagnant, and safe faith.
• You cannot play it safe and please God; faith always involves risk.
• Remembering past faith stories fuels courage for future steps.

Response

• Examine your prayers and plans; ask, “Would these stretch Jesus’ amazement toward great faith?”
• Repent of conditional, stagnant, or safe faith and declare fresh trust in God’s character.
• Take one concrete, risky step this week—invite someone, give generously, obey a prompting.
• Recall and rehearse God’s past faithfulness to strengthen present courage.
• Pray bold, specific prayers that require divine intervention for the good of one person and the glory of Christ.

Closing

Pastor Craig urged the church to build faith again—individually and together—so the next decade eclipses anything yet seen. He called believers to renewed trust and invited spiritual seekers to surrender to Jesus for forgiveness and new life.

“A faith-filled church pleases God—so repent, believe again, and step out.”

Prayer

Pastor led the congregation to thank God for 30 years of changed lives, to ask for greater faith moving forward, and to welcome new believers who called on Jesus for salvation.