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Peace in the Waiting - The Missing Peace
41 Plays1 month ago
In this sermon, Ridley Barron preached about the beauty of waiting and God's perfect timing. He delved into the significance of the biblical texts, highlighted through historical events like the Pax Romana and the widespread use of Greek. Barron reflected on the struggles and growth that come with waiting, using examples from biblical figures such as Abraham, Joseph, and the woman with the issue of blood. Emphasizing that delays are often part of God's divine plan, he related these lessons to our modern impatience and the importance of trusting God's process. Encouraging personal reflection, Barron underscored the uniqueness of Christianity, where God pursues humanity, as demonstrated by the meticulously timed birth of Jesus—a moment surrounded by over 300 prophecies. The sermon concludes with an invitation for deeper faith and trust in God's ongoing work, even during times of perceived silence.
Timestamps:
00:00 Questioning God's presence and intentions while waiting.
05:06 The sign of Emmanuel and waiting explained.
08:54 Exploring Bible answers hidden within scripture.
09:47 God's timing: Sent Jesus for our adoption.
15:33 Greek enabled widespread Old Testament understanding.
18:42 Conquests dispersed Jews, spreading their religious influence.
22:48 Miraculous healing after years of faithful waiting.
25:43 Patience in faith; God's timing is perfect.
27:59 Jesus fulfilled prophecies; improbable odds calculated.
30:21 God waits for you to choose Him.
34:39 Trusting and waiting on God is difficult.
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Transcript
Personal Faith Journey
00:00:01
Speaker
Good morning church. Thank you for getting out on a blah kind of day and being here this morning I can't think of a better place to be and to get the fellowship worship together. You know um at age eight after growing up in a Christian home I accepted Christ and for the last 49 years of my life it's been a journey, a journey very similar to the one that many of you are on and as part of that journey it's a It's a learning process.
Understanding Prayer Responses
00:00:27
Speaker
It's a maturing process. You know, what is God showing me? What is God teaching me? And maybe one of the hardest lessons for me in my walk, because I have grown, is learning the lessons about prayer. I was taught early on at a young age that for someone who believes and trusts in God and who's obedient to God, every prayer is heard and every prayer is answered.
00:00:50
Speaker
And, again, at a young age, many of the things that were communicated to me was that God's going to answer every prayer. It may just not be the answer you think it's going to be. That God typically answers us sometimes in things like, yes, I'll do this, or yes, I'll work in that way. Or, no, no, this isn't right for you. No, this isn't according to my will. No, this isn't the time replace or place. And then the third one to learn probably is the hardest for me to hear is wait.
00:01:16
Speaker
Wait, I hear the chuckle. That's what I got at the eight o'clock service. We don't like waiting, do we? When it comes to our prayer life, we have very much a drive-through mentality. pull up, make your request, pull to the window, get your answer, and move on. And so when we have to wait, when we're forced to to wait just a little bit longer, it causes us to be ill at ease, to be uncomfortable.
Faith in Waiting Periods
00:01:38
Speaker
Sadly, many of us will rush into what we think is God's plan just because we're not content to wait. And we wind up messing up a lot of things in our lives. So you pray, you wait, and the more you wait, the more you wonder some of the things I have wondered over the course of my life. Are you even there, God?
00:01:55
Speaker
Are you hearing me? are you Are you messing with me? I still believe you can. I still believe you are who you promised to be, but I'm wondering if God hears me. I'm wondering if there's something that's been put between me and him. And I guess the biggest question is, God, what are you up to? What are you up to? And that's a question I want to answer today. I want you to know that you're not the first to struggle with that question.
00:02:19
Speaker
You're not the first to wonder what's going on while I am waiting on God. The people of God wondered that very same thing. Because they had been promised a Messiah, you remember from the very beginning, a Messiah that would come and rescue them from their sins and they waited for such a long time, for centuries in fact, for this Messiah to arrive.
Lessons from Genesis
00:02:42
Speaker
I'm gonna take you back to the very beginning of the story. Back in Genesis, remember the story, most of you are familiar, even if you didn't grow up in church, that God created the heavens and the earth, created all these incredible answers for us as far as environment, nature, animals, all the creation. He got to day six, he said, hey I'm gonna create man. Man was the climax of his creation, the pinnacle of everything he did. And he got through with that and he said, man, that's really good, but it's not good enough because he's alone and he needs a partner.
00:03:12
Speaker
Amen? Ladies, you should have said that really loud. My husband needs me. My husband needs me bad. So yeah, he said, I'm gonna put you together now. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to be fruitful and multiply, and I want you to have dominion over the earth. Here's the thing they missed. Jesus, or excuse me, God said to them, he said, look, from one end of this garden to the other, it's yours. Enjoy every bit of it, except for one tree.
00:03:39
Speaker
And human nature, for all of us, is the same. That's the only thing we focus on. The one thing God said no to. And so Adam and Eve are drawn to this tree. Satan entices Eve to take the bite of the fruit, and that fruit is then passed along to Adam. And because of that rebellion, things fall apart.
The First Prophecy
00:03:59
Speaker
God shows up and for the first time there is shame in the world. And when we pick up the story here in Genesis 3.15, God is talking to them and he's saying, here's the consequences of your decision. Here's what's happened because of your rebellion. And he says to Satan, I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head and you will strike his heel.
00:04:22
Speaker
This is the first indication, the first prophecy that there will be a savior. And what's really cool about this is that God knew from the very beginning this is what was gonna have to happen. He knew there would come a time when the world would need his son and so he from the very beginning had this plan. So centuries passed and throughout the Old Testament we see hints.
00:04:46
Speaker
We see suggestions, we see shadows, if you will, that this messiah is still out there on the horizon, that he will someday show up and that he will someday deliver his people. In fact, 700 years before Jesus arrives, one of those prophets, a guy by the name of Isaiah, would write these words that we hear a lot on Christmas. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. See, the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Emmanuel.
00:05:16
Speaker
but still they waited and kings would come and prophets would come and they would talk about the blessed hope that would come for God's people and still they had to wait.
400 Years of Silence
00:05:27
Speaker
So what is God doing while you're waiting? When it appears that he's not doing anything or it feels like the heavens have closed up and they're just completely silent. Is he toying with us?
00:05:41
Speaker
Is he on some kind of power kick going, on I'm going to hold it back until I'm ready? Is he teasing with us? What I want to invite you to do is I want you to invite invite you to take a little bit of a journey through the entire Bible with me today. Don't panic, we're not going to read all 66 books. But we're going to visit this because I want to remind you that not only did God have a plan then, but God still has a plan today and God is not silent. God is still working.
00:06:10
Speaker
When he appears he's not doing anything, God is doing everything he needs to do. I wanna invite you to a period of the Bible we call the intertestamental period. It's a fancy word, but you might recognize it as the blank page in your Bible between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament. And the reason it's blank is on purpose because for 400 years, there was silence from God. 400 years, no prophets.
00:06:40
Speaker
400 years, no prophecies. At the end of Malachi, the very last verse that's there in that prophet's writing, he literally says something along these lines. There will be a new Elijah who will come and he will turn the the hearts of the children towards their parents and the hearts of the parents towards their children. And oh, by the way, if it doesn't, there will be my wrath.
00:07:01
Speaker
Well, how's that a way to leave you hanging, right? For 400 years, they're going, okay, what are we getting? The prophet or the wrath? Have we gotten it right? Or if we messed it up, can we just get some kind of answer from you? But there was no word from God at all, which made the waiting more difficult. At least in the Old Testament, there was something going on, some kind of communication from him. There are some of you here this morning who probably feel the same thing.
00:07:30
Speaker
You've been praying really, really hard. You've been praying for that sign, God, is this the job I need to take? Is this the girl I need to marry? Is this the choice that I need to to to make in my life? Is this direction that I need to take my family? And you have prayed, and you have prayed, and you have prayed, and you've got no sign that God heard you. No sign that he even cares at all.
00:07:57
Speaker
And if you're like me, what you're saying is, I just want some kind of answer. Anything, just some kind of sign, give me something. My encouragement to you is this this morning, just because God feels silent doesn't mean he's absent. While you're waiting, God is working. While you're waiting, God is working. He's a good, good God, and every plan he has for you is good.
00:08:25
Speaker
Just because you don't see it doesn't mean he's not doing anything. I'm really excited about next year as we get into the Bible together in this chronological reading plan. Most of us have accepted the challenge. If not all of us, we're gonna be reading together the same passages day by day, week by week. We're gonna be digging into them in the sermons. And one of the things I'm excited about is that some of you are going to manage to adventure into parts of the Bible you've never been before in your life.
The Bible's Treasures
00:08:53
Speaker
And just be honest, Leviticus is hard.
00:08:56
Speaker
And how many times can we talk about numbers, right? And that's usually the place where we get stuck. But what we find as we get into God's word is that it often refers to itself as this treasure. And just like any good treasure, there's a lot of things hidden in there. And God just says, if you'll dig in, you'll find some amazing things. And what's gonna happen next year for some of us as we're reading this, we're gonna connect some dots and we're gonna go, oh,
00:09:23
Speaker
You mean God really did answer that question 2,000 years ago? I'd just never seen it before. And if you know the Bible, you know that's ah exactly the truth. Many of the questions you're asking here today, if you're here for the first time, kicking the tires to say, what is what is it about Christianity? I want to assure you that every question you've asked God has answered.
00:09:44
Speaker
And one of the questions we might be asking is, OK, God, what was going on for 400 years? Why in the world did you wait? Why was there such a long period between Adam and Eve's rebellion and the birth of your son that night? Well, in Galatians chapter 4, Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, answers that question for us. Verse 4, it says, when the time came to completion,
00:10:15
Speaker
When the time came to completion, God sent his son born of a woman born under the law to redeem those under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. Before I go back to the first part of the verse, I just wanna tell you some really good news this morning. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ today, if you have accepted him as both your Lord and Savior, you now stand as an adopted son or daughter of the living God.
00:10:42
Speaker
That's a high place to be. That's an incredible honor and you don't deserve it. Neither do I. That's the beauty of the gospel this morning. Your sins can be removed, your stain can be forgiven, and you can stand a place where you don't have to live with the shame just like Adam and Eve. But let's go back to the beginning part of the verse because it says, when the time came to completion, the perfect time,
00:11:10
Speaker
the right time. The Greek word there is, it's a double word, pleroma chrono. Chrono is obviously a reference to time. You hear it when we say words like chronologically. ah So it's a reference to time. The second word there may not be as familiar, pleroma means complete or fulfilled. And literally, if you put the two words together, what it's saying is, it was when the time was fully pregnant, God gave his son.
00:11:38
Speaker
Now I know some of you guys in this room, you've been in the same place I have. I have watched my pregnant wife give birth to three children.
Significance of the Virgin Birth
00:11:45
Speaker
Two things I have learned. Number one, if that baby ain't ready to come, that baby's not coming. You can walk, you can eat barbecue, you can use all the, whatever those little remedies are that everybody thinks they've got, right? Number two, when that baby's ready, ain't nothing slowing it down. That baby's coming.
00:12:04
Speaker
And if you try to stop it, or if you try to rush it, there's a good chance you're gonna mess things up. Same thing's true with God's timing. If God's timing is not ready, the last thing you wanna do is try to rush the process. But when the time is right, God's will cannot be stopped. It will be fulfilled according to his plan. And that's the beauty of this promise.
00:12:34
Speaker
Second thing that you notice here is that it says God sent his son born of a woman. This is an interesting use of language because everywhere else in scripture, when they're tracing the lineage of people, they always say the seed of Abraham or the seed of Isaac or the seed of David. Why? Because in that day and age, the lineage was always traced through the father or the husband of the family, the head of the home. But in this instance, God inspired Paul to write God sent his son born of a woman. What's the importance of that? Because God was not sending his son born of the seed of a man. Because if he had been the seed of a man, he would have inherited the sinful nature that all of us have. I get asked all the time as a pastor, is it really important that that Jesus was born of a virgin? Does that really matter? And the answer is absolutely.
00:13:32
Speaker
Because if Jesus is conceived and born just like every other child, then he's just like every other human. He has a sinful nature, which means that he is incapable of dying as the savior of the world. For him to die as the perfect Lamb of God meant he had to be perfect from the moment of conception to the moment of his death. And the only way that was possible was for the Holy Spirit to give the child to Mary.
00:14:00
Speaker
And so it's incredibly important and we understand that Jesus was born of a virgin, not the seed of a sinful man. He is conceived by the Holy Spirit. That's the only way he could be our Savior. Now, back to this inter-testamental period because this is important. You and I both know it's really easy to look back. We have that old saying that I always like to to quote, right? Hindsight is 20-20.
00:14:28
Speaker
You can easily look back and see what was going on. You can look back and see what God was up to. We have those moments where we go, oh, so that's why you didn't do it, or that's what you were protecting me from, or that's where you were trying to get me and the family headed. Well, hindsight is 20-20. Right now you may not get it, but I promise you, if you keep following God, there'll be a day when you will look back and you will understand.
00:14:54
Speaker
And that's what I want to do right here because, again, just because God feels silent doesn't mean he's absent. So what I want to do is I want to take a look at history for a second. Don't panic. There will not be a quiz after this is over with. And I realize that I love history and many of you despise it.
00:15:14
Speaker
So we're just going to dig in for a second.
Historical Context of Silence
00:15:17
Speaker
Five important things that God was doing during that 400 years of silence. Number one, Alexander the Great. You remember this guy from your history classes? Alexander the Great, Greek leader, conquered most of the known world at his time, his age, in less than 12 years. An incredible feat.
00:15:35
Speaker
and Because of that, for the first time since the Tower of Babel all the way back in the book of Genesis, for the first time, most of the world was speaking one common language, and that was Greek. okay Second event that happened was this. The Old Testament was translated into Greek.
00:15:56
Speaker
You see, until the year 280 BC, when Alexander did what he did and became the ruler of most of the known world, the Old Testament, which was their Bible, that complete Bible for them in that day and age, had been nothing but Hebrew. And so what that meant is the only people who could read it really understand it were the Hebrew people, the people of Israel. And because of that, they were the only ones who really understood the full story of God and his creation and that he was the one true God.
00:16:26
Speaker
Now, for the first time, the Bible has opened up to an entire empire because of that language commonality. This is why when you get to the story of Jesus later on in Jesus' is teaching, you see all these stories where people come in and they're described as being Gentiles but being God-fearers. The reason they became God-fearers is because they were opened up to the story of the one true God because the Bible is now available to all of them. Third thing,
00:16:54
Speaker
The Socratic Method. You remember a guy from your history classes that did philosophy, his name was Socrates? He developed something called the Socratic Method, which we still use to this day. Instead of just asking people to sit and for him just to lecture at them and tell them things, it became an opportunity for dialogue. You ask me questions, I'll ask you questions, and we'll let those questions guide our learning together. You know who really loved the Socratic Method? Jesus.
00:17:22
Speaker
Go back and read the gospel and you'll see how much he would ask questions of the people who were sitting at his feet. And many times he would frustrate people because they'd ask a question and he would ask a question to answer the question. But that Socratic method suddenly gave power to the listener because now they could ask questions to learn more. Fourthly,
00:17:41
Speaker
Rome comes along and they conquer the Greeks. And so we have the Roman Empire, which is now even larger than the Greek Empire. And because Rome was so successful in conquering the people they conquered, we have this period in history known as the Pax Romana.
00:17:57
Speaker
The Pax Romana, it is the Roman peace. Now the reason that's critical is because Rome was able to keep most conflicts down. There were no major wars during this period that they had to worry about. Rome was able to focus on building roads and highways and transportation systems. The very roads that the early church would use to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. So now, we set our stage for number five.
00:18:27
Speaker
The diaspora. The diaspora. What is this? Well if you remember your Old Testament history you remember that conquering nations came in as a punishment from God because the Israeli people would not follow their God.
00:18:40
Speaker
They came in and they would conquer them and as part of conquering them, one of two things would happen. People from Israel would run in fear and move to other places which were safer or most often they would be captured and part of the practice in that day was to take people you captured and move them back to your country so that you could retrain their thinking and orient them to your culture. So what that meant is during the period of the Assyrian and the Babylonian and the Persian empires, Jews were literally being spread all over the of the known world.
00:19:09
Speaker
Why is that important? Because now suddenly you've got believers in the one true God who are planning synagogues. And if you remember our walk through the book of Acts, Paul would start every new church by visiting the synagogue of the place he went. Because now there's already a foundation for God. So in case you're not paying attention, let me connect the dots. We've got a world that now has one language ah a story of a true God, a one true God, who's written in that language, a language that all of them can read and understand for themselves. They've been given permission to read it and ask questions about what's going on there. They've been given a transportation system that was unrivaled. In fact, their roads still exist, ours don't.
00:19:57
Speaker
They crumble really bad. Our DOTs could learn a lesson from them. If you go over to the Mideast today, there are still roads that were built thousands of years ago by the Roman Empire. You can walk down them, they're just as good as they were then. It's an amazing feat. And on top of that, God has set up a foundation for his gospel to go out all around the known world.
Personal Growth During Waiting
00:20:20
Speaker
So, while God's people were waiting, God was working.
00:20:26
Speaker
and at just the right time he showed his hand. You see, God is always working. You may think this morning you're in a holding pattern. You may feel like right now that the the heavens are quiet, that you're just not hearing from God. But you keep waiting. You keep believing he can. You keep trusting that he is faithful. You believe that God can do what he says. You're just wondering why he hasn't.
00:20:58
Speaker
You're asking the question, what have I done wrong? Is there some unconfessed sin? Is there something in my background? Is it a lack of faith? Or does Jesus not care about me? Does God not see me right here in my little corner of the world? But if you're waiting, let me encourage you by letting you know you're not alone. You remember a guy by the name of Abraham? Abraham was the original covenant.
00:21:26
Speaker
God shows up to him and says, hey, Abraham, through you, I'm going to send an original, I mean, eventually a Messiah. And that Messiah is going to be the savior of the earth. And the process, I'm gonna create a great nation out of you. I know you've not had a child yet, but you're gonna be a great nation. And through that nation, the world will come to know my promises. They will come to know who I am. I'm gonna give you a great land right there in the middle of the world. All those promises are gonna come true for you. abraham saying Abraham in faith accepted what God said.
00:21:56
Speaker
and then promptly waited 25 years for that child to arrive. Maybe you remember Joseph, his great, great grandson. He did a study on Joseph just a few months ago. Joseph's story is that his brothers, his 11 brothers, were very jealous of him, very angry at him. They didn't like his attitude, his arrogance. And so being the kind brothers that they were, they beat him up and sent him off into slavery.
00:22:25
Speaker
But God promised Joseph he would be with him. He even gave him dreams and visions to say, someday I'm gonna set you up to be a leader for me. And so Joseph waited 13 years in a prison most of that time, suffering a penalty for a crime he didn't even commit. Maybe you remember the New Testament story of a woman who had an issue of blood.
00:22:56
Speaker
She had struggled with it for most of her life, spent every bit of her money on doctor after doctor after doctor, and you know that with every doctor's visit, she prayed and prayed and prayed to a God she believed was there. And then she had to wait for 12 years to touch the hem of his garment.
00:23:18
Speaker
And then the paralytic, the one who laid beside the pool of Ceylon, Waiting day after day after day, praying for just some kind of movement or feeling in his legs. Just the simple joy or thrill of being able to walk.
00:23:37
Speaker
And then 38 years later, a Messiah walks up and looks him in the eye and says, pick up your pallet. Your prayers have been answered. While you are waiting and don't see anything, God is always working.
00:23:56
Speaker
God's delays are not necessarily his denials. Just because he has it doesn't mean he won't. Just because he hasn't doesn't mean he won't. Maybe it's just not the right time. Maybe God's waiting on you to get ready. He's got something for you. He's got something he wants to do for you. He's got some answer for you.
00:24:22
Speaker
Maybe you're wondering, God, why won't you heal my marriage? I have been praying for this for years, 10 years we've been stuck in a rut, 15 years we've been struggling. I have been praying and praying and praying for my marriage. He may be working on it, but he also may be working on you. You see, God will often do something in you before he does something for you.
00:24:47
Speaker
God will often do something in you before he will do something for you. So my encouragement, don't waste the waiting. Don't waste the waiting. What do I mean by that? Some of you who are single people out there saying, hey, you know what, I've been praying for a long time for just the right man or woman to come along. I've been praying for that right person.
00:25:13
Speaker
And because you are human just like I am, you've driven to the window, you've placed your order, and now you're going, okay, why don't I have my answer? And the last thing you should do is settle for what comes next. The last thing you should do is settle for some kind of second best when God's plan is always perfect and his timing is always right on schedule.
God's Perfect Timing
00:25:41
Speaker
I know it's hard. I know, especially when you don't see some kind of sign, at least there some kind of yield sign that says, hold on a minute, I'll be there. But I promise you that it's worth it not to waste these moments.
00:25:56
Speaker
to continue to work on your faith, to continue to work on your maturity and your character, to continue to work on your own personal growth, so that when God does decide to pull back the curtain and show what he's done for you, you are absolutely the person that you need to be when it happens. Isaiah 64, the prophet again writes this, from ancient times no one has heard, no one has listened to, no eye has seen any God except you who acts on behalf of the one who does what?
00:26:26
Speaker
waits for Him, waits for Him. God's ways are always good. His timing is always perfect. Friend, He is not ignoring you. He has not forgotten you. He loves you better than you love yourself. And His plans are always more perfect than yours. Our God is always good. Christianity is unique among all the religions of the world.
00:26:55
Speaker
In every other religion that you will see, every religion you study, out of the thousands that are out there, every single one of them, the person works to try to win the favor of a God with good works or religious rituals that go on and on and on. If you're good, you gain the favor of the God. If you're bad, you lose his favor and sometimes enrage him. People try to earn their way into good graces of these gods that they have created.
00:27:26
Speaker
Christianity is extremely different. We serve a God who pursued us. You see, we didn't initiate that birth 2000 years ago. It wasn't our idea for a perfect son to be born on our behalf. It was God's way of saying, I love you and will pursue you to the ends of the earth. When the time was just right, when the moment was perfect,
00:27:53
Speaker
when all had been fulfilled that needed to be fulfilled, God sent Jesus. And I want you to know something. It's not an accident that he was who he was. Scholars tell us that there are over 300 prophecies in the Bible about Jesus' arrival, 300.
00:28:14
Speaker
Many years ago, a mathematician and professor, I think he was in the state of Texas, decided to say, hey, what's the chances of some guy fulfilling just eight of those prophecies? Some guy who actually met the criteria for eight of those prophecies, and he figured out that the odds are one times 10 to the 17th power. That's one with 17 zeros behind it. For those of you who like visual images, this is what he came up with.
00:28:43
Speaker
He said, what if you took a silver dollar, all the silver dollars you could find, and you created enough to cover the state of Texas two feet deep with silver dollars. Then you picked one silver dollar, you took a Sharpie and you colored a red dot in the middle of it. You threw that silver dollar back in the middle, mixed it all up, grabbed a random person, put a blindfold around them and said, you've got one chance to pull out the red dot.
00:29:12
Speaker
That's the likelihood that one man would fulfill eight of those prophecies. Our savior fulfilled 300. He was no ordinary child. This wasn't just some birth in the Middle East that got the world's attention. This was the dividing point of history. He was worth the 400-year wait. When the time was just right, when the moment was perfect,
00:29:42
Speaker
And Jesus came and
Purpose of Jesus' Coming
00:29:43
Speaker
said this. He said, listen, I'm not coming for the healthy, the wealthy, the powerful. I'm coming for the sick. I'm coming for the poor. I'm coming for the lame and the broken. I'm coming for those who live in darkness. I'm coming for those who are lost. I'm coming so that they may have hope. And so God sent Jesus full of grace and truth.
00:30:06
Speaker
Peter, the apostle would write these words, the Lord does not delay his promise as some understand delay. In other words, God's delays are not pointless. There's a reason behind them. And in this particular instance, he says, he's being patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. God is patient. God is long suffering. But I want to ask you a question that you need to really ask yourself this morning.
00:30:37
Speaker
What if the guy you are waiting on is waiting on you? What if he's waiting for you to say yes? What if he's waiting for you to say, okay, now I understand?
00:30:55
Speaker
What if he's waiting for you to quit playing games with him and using him as some kind of moral good luck charm?
00:31:04
Speaker
What if he's waiting for you to say, you know what, I've chosen my path too long and I've seen the results for too long and I want what you have for me.
00:31:15
Speaker
What if he's waiting for you to say, the time is right and I choose you. Now you may be asking the question, why would God want me?
00:31:28
Speaker
Is it possible that a perfect, righteous, holy God would actually desire somebody like me? Somebody who's broken? Somebody who's got all kinds of junk in my life? Have you seen my relationship with my kids? Have you seen my relationship with my my husband? Have you seen the the desires that I hide in my heart? The darkness, the blackness, the insecurities?
00:31:54
Speaker
And the answer is yes. God sees it all, knows it all, wants it all. Because only then can He give you the promises He has for you.
00:32:07
Speaker
What if the God you're waiting on is waiting on you?
Trusting God's Plans
00:32:13
Speaker
Because His timing is always right. It's always perfect. His plans are always good. Will you pray with me this morning?
00:32:29
Speaker
Father, we have to confess most of us in this room, we aren't good at waiting.
00:32:36
Speaker
We like the immediate. We like the right now. We like the urgent. We like the quick fix. And while sometimes you choose to work that way most often, there's a learning process that you're putting us through. And part of that process says, hold on.
00:32:58
Speaker
When the time is right, the door will be open. When the time is right, I will point the way.
00:33:10
Speaker
So your lesson for us, Lord, is that in the meantime, we need to keep doing the right thing we know to do in this season. Keep digging into your word. Keep trusting your promises.
00:33:26
Speaker
Keep having faith that you can do what is impossible, even when we don't see a way forward.
00:33:36
Speaker
So Father, this morning,
00:33:53
Speaker
um
00:33:59
Speaker
I want you to know, I know most of you in this many times I know enough. And my encouragement to you is be patient while God is working in you.
00:34:20
Speaker
He's teaching you things. He's training you for things. He's chipping away at pride and arrogance and sinfulness and desires that don't honor him. He's reframing parts of your life that I can promise you to be worth the wait.
00:34:39
Speaker
For others of you in this room, you are scared to trust him. That's why you have such a hard time waiting because waiting means you have to trust him, right? Waiting means you have to take your hands off the steering wheel and go, okay, you're in charge. And we don't like that. We don't like that.
00:34:58
Speaker
Most of us have a real hard time saying, okay, I can't see you and I haven't heard from you in a very long time, but you're still there and I trust you. That's a really hard thing for us to do. And so maybe what you need to do is come to this altar this morning and go, you know, and okay, God, I have just kind of really messed things up a lot in my life because I jumped ahead of you.
Invitation to Return to Faith
00:35:19
Speaker
My divorce was because I rushed the plan. This dead end job I'm in is because I picked before you did.
00:35:30
Speaker
This fight that I'm having with my friend is because I didn't listen to you and decided to act on my own. That bad relationship with my kids is because I got impatient. So maybe this morning you need to come back and you need to come to this altar and you just need to hand it all back to God and say it's yours. It's really yours, I really trust you. Because the truth is everything else I touch is a mess.
00:36:00
Speaker
There's freedom in that confession. God fixes a lot of things and I promise you most of them are infinitely worse than what you're dealing with.
00:36:12
Speaker
You read the stories of the Bible, the heroes of the Bible, and they screwed up a lot of stuff. Most often because they didn't trust what God was up to.
00:36:24
Speaker
So this morning of God is speaking to you. This altar is open as always. We invite you to come. If you need to talk with one of our staff, one of our counselors, we'll be happy to put you with them and let you take all the time you need to have some questions answered, maybe get a little bit of encouragement. But our desires that you walk out of here
00:36:54
Speaker
That's who we want you to know before you leave here today. We stand with us as we sing and respond.