Seeking is Not Accidental

**“Seeking Is Not Accidental”: Pastor Bailey Unpacks the Discipline of Pursuing God**

In a message marked by both candor and conviction, Pastor Paul Bailey of The Modern Pew delivered a sermon titled *“Seeking is Not Accidental,”* reminding listeners that truly following God requires intention, preparation, and humility. Preaching from the heart and with evident personal reflection, Bailey challenged his congregation not only to listen for God’s voice but to act on His direction—whether it’s convenient or not.

Bailey began the message with a transparent confession: “There are times when I think I resist hearing from God because I don't want to hear what God has to say.” That honesty set the tone for a sermon that would explore the tension between wanting God’s will and resisting the discomfort it sometimes brings.

### The Journey to Galilee: Obedience in Motion

Bailey anchored his teaching with the post-resurrection instructions Jesus gave His disciples: go to Galilee. While these words may seem simple today, Bailey unpacked their weight, explaining that the journey from Jerusalem to Galilee was roughly 70–80 miles—a four-day trip on foot.

“It’s not like hopping in a car and getting there in an hour,” Bailey noted. “That’s walking 20 miles a day, for four days, during one of the most emotionally turbulent times in their lives.”

Despite their grief and uncertainty, the disciples obeyed. Bailey highlighted that their willingness to leave comfort and familiarity to simply follow Jesus’ direction revealed the heart of true seekers—those who don’t wait for ideal conditions, but act out of obedience.

### Seeking Requires Intention

At the heart of Pastor Bailey’s message was the idea that seeking God doesn’t happen by accident. “There is action that takes place in the Christian life,” he emphasized. “Seeking God is intentional. It’s a pursuit, not a passive hope.”

Using Acts 1 and its record of Jesus spending 40 days with His disciples after the resurrection, Bailey offered a practical insight: some of those 40 days likely included time spent on the road—traveling to Galilee and back. “That means part of Jesus’ final lessons may have been taught in motion, while they were obeying His command. And one of those lessons,” Bailey said, “is simply: Go where I tell you to go.”

### Pride: The Hidden Obstacle

Drawing from Psalm 10:4, Bailey dissected a verse that often gets overlooked. “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.” He dove into the Hebrew meanings of key words—explaining how *pride* in this context refers to a resistance to dependence on God, and how the phrase *“not in all his thoughts”* really means God is not present in *any* of this person’s intentions, plans, or decisions.

In what he playfully called the “PEBV” (Paul Edsel Bailey Version), Bailey paraphrased the verse this way:
“Those who reject God's rule because of pride resist dependence on God. They will not resort to, inquire of, or seek God. God is not in their intentions, plans, or schemes. God is not just missing from their casual thoughts but absent from all plans and purposes.”

### When We Say We Need God—but Don’t Live Like It

Bailey issued a sobering reflection on how believers may claim to need God yet fail to demonstrate that belief in daily life. “If I can go a day without praying,” he warned, “I’m saying with my actions, ‘I don’t need God today.’”

Sunday-to-Sunday Christianity, he explained, is not enough. “God visited Adam in the cool of the day—not the cool of the week. He wants to visit with us daily.” Seeking God, he reminded the congregation, means engaging in prayer, reading Scripture, and pursuing God’s direction throughout the week—not just in a service.

### Destruction Follows Pride

Referencing Proverbs 16:18 (“Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall”), Bailey cautioned against spiritual arrogance. He pointed out how pride deceives us into thinking we can manage life on our own, and how quickly this leads to brokenness and collapse.

Using a humorous story about a man slipping off a roof and getting caught on a nail, Bailey illustrated the tendency to cry out to God in crisis—only to tell Him “Never mind, I got it” as soon as things stabilize. “We’re willing to say we need God on Sunday, but by Monday, we’re back in control,” he said. “That’s not seeking. That’s surviving.”

### A Warning from Rehoboam

Bailey turned to 2 Chronicles 12:14, describing King Rehoboam’s failure not as a mistake of knowledge, but of intention: “He did evil because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord.”

The message? It’s not enough to merely desire a relationship with God. Preparation is required. “You don’t accidentally walk into righteousness,” Bailey said. “It takes work. You can accidentally put on weight without thinking—but you’ll never accidentally become godly.”

### Faithfulness in the Fields Precedes Victory in the Valley

Bailey invoked the story of David slaying Goliath to reinforce that spiritual victories are born in secret, faithful seasons. “The victory may have happened on the battlefield,” he said, “but the preparation happened in the sheep field.”

Likewise, he added, the boldness of the three Hebrew boys who entered the fiery furnace wasn’t developed that day—it was cultivated through a lifestyle of seeking and serving God beforehand. “We think we’ll show up for spiritual warfare when it matters, but we’re not showing up for prayer today,” he challenged.

### What Seeking Really Looks Like

Bailey offered a modern example of mistaken ambition. In a book he referenced, a man claimed to be ready to do something great for God—preach crusades, lead revivals, be on TV. But when asked by God to simply give a fellow churchgoer a ride home, he hesitated. “We want the stadium,” Bailey said. “But can we obey in the small things?”

He drove the point home: “God may not be asking you to be famous. He may just be asking you to be faithful.”

### Letting God Order Your Steps

Quoting Jeremiah 10:23—“It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps”—Bailey called on believers to allow God to lead, rather than dragging Him along for the ride. “Don’t live life saying, ‘God bless what I’ve already decided to do.’ Instead, ask Him: Where should I go? Who should I speak to? What should I give? How should I live?”

Referencing Psalm 119:105 (“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path”), Bailey explained that the Word of God shows us both where we are and where we’re going. “The lamp reveals your current surroundings. The light off in the distance sets your direction.”

### Conclusion: Prepare Your Heart

Bailey closed the message by returning to the key idea: *Seeking is not accidental.* “Don’t expect to wake up one day a spiritual giant,” he said. “It doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by intentional pursuit, by daily surrender, by preparation.”

Using Hosea 10:12 as a final exhortation—“Break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord”—Bailey urged his listeners to sow righteousness, prepare their hearts, and pursue God’s voice not just in the mountaintop moments, but in the mundane, everyday steps of obedience.

> “You don’t just fall into the will of God,” he concluded. “It’s a straight and narrow way. And you have to walk it on purpose.”

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