Where is God When You Have to Wait?
Part 2: Being God Centered
Introduction: As you can see… the title of today’s message is “Where is God when we have to wait?” Right off the bat, some of you, may have already tuned out… because waiting is not something that we love to do in the 21st century. In fact, most of us avoid waiting like the plague! Whether we are talking about waiting for traffic, or waiting in line at the grocery store, or waiting to see a show, or waiting to go see the doctor… as soon as we realize we have to wait… our annoyance level goes up!
• I don’t know about you… but one of the things that drive me crazy… is having to wait on the phone to talk to a real-life person rather than recording!
• Interestingly, Patience no longer seems to be a virtue… When is the last time you told your kids or heard someone say… “Good things come to those who wait”? My guess... long time ago!
• This shouldn't surprise us... Because According to a book “Faster The Acceleration Of About Everything” by James Gleick… what we most value today is speed! We pride ourselves on quickness, being fast, getting things done in the least amount of time as possible. That’s the reason everything today is in a rush!
• These two things… our hating to wait and our love for speed… believe it or not… has corrupted almost every area of lives.
• Think about it… we build fast cars, trains, planes… we are always looking to get to our destination faster! The Olympics will soon be upon us... and once again we will see many world records broken! And every time they do… we go crazy and celebrate!
• But it's not just sports we are interested in when it comes to speed. We are obsessed in seeing every aspect of life speed up... regardless of the cost!
• Did you know… in Salt Lake City... they are spent 1.6 billion dollars over four years to reconstruct I 15. And the result will be that drivers will approximately be able to drive one mile per hour faster! Wow!
• We are so consumed with speed… it wouldn’t surprise me to see something like this built in the near future!
• Now it’s not just speed concerning our physical movement we are obsessed with. Consider how we communicate these days. We don’t send letters in the mail anymore… that is much too slow. Now there’s email, instant messaging, FaceBooking so that we can get in contact within seconds.
• Everyone has cell phones these days... even our kids! Why? So that now we don’t have to wait for someone gets back home where they have a telephone so that we can call them. We can call them anytime, anywhere so that we can talk to them immediately. And we actually expect people to answer immediately regardless of what they might be doing... and I know this because people get irritated if they can't get hold of me right away!
• Something is wrong when I feel I have to apologize for not answering another person’s phone call right away because I was in the bathroom. You know what I’m talking about. Some of you actually have caved into this pressure by answering your phone when you are going to the bathroom. Be honest now! Just don’t let me know when you are doing this!
• Add to that... Just having cell phone these days isn't enough. Consider the changes that have happen just in the last few years when it comes to dialing!
• Forget about the old rotary phones… who no one has those in a more. Kids today don’t even know what you are talking about when you mention it. Now we have speed buttons and re-dialing so that we can get those numbers quick. With My phone... you don't even have to dial... you just speak the name… and the phone dials it for you!
• Of course this emphasis spills over at our work place… where we have to figure out how to be more effective without taking more time… leading us to come up all kinds of creative ideas... some of them I am sure they will never fly.
• And of course we have to take this whole mentality home… and are constantly looking for ways to get our house hold chores done in the least amount of time possible… like washing dishes…
• or lawn care…
• All kidding aside... Think about the changes we are seeing in our fast food restaurants. Even fast food restaurants aren’t fast enough for us anymore! Now there is expressed lanes, and expressed menus, and to save even more time… we can drive up and drive-through.
• The same could be said about our approach to our pain medicine. We like our medicine to work fast. We want to relief from headaches, stomach aches, back aches, and tooth aches... now! So one medication on the market advertises itself for those who don’t have time to be sick.
• And then there’s fashion. I have to laugh when I think about this. Even back in my day… we as teens loved a good pair of broken in jeans… but we realized it took us months and many washings to get our jeans looking just the way we wanted them to. Not now! We buy it right off the rack… pre-washed, pre-faded and torn… already patched… and will spend big bucks for this!
• That just kills me… I’d probably be a millionaire if I had not allowed my mom to throw away all my old jeans! But who knew?
• And the list could go on and on… the bottom line is that we are in a hurry and we just don’t like to wait!
• So it’s no wonder that as Christians that we have a hard time waiting on God! To be waiting for an answer for our prayers… whether it be for a job after we’ve been laid off the months… or for healing… for guidance or directions…or who to marry… or to have a baby… is never easy.
• Now waiting in line or for traffic is just annoying… but waiting for some of these other things like a job, mate or a baby is trying to the soul! For many… this can be a gut wrenching experience that can throw them into a crisis! Why? Because they don’t understand why God... who is supposed to love them... is taking so long to answer their prayers! They wonder why is God making them wait… especially when they are in so much pain. They just don’t get it.
• This shouldn’t surprise us… because if we are honest… most of us have this attitude towards trying times of… let’s just get on with it… fix it, do something with it so that we can just get on with life. I mean, why wait… God, if you can fix my problem…please do it now… answer my prayer now! Hop to it God!
• Unfortunately, God has a completely different view on pain and waiting. We have said this many times over the past… He sees pain as useful. He uses it to get our attention when we sometimes we don’t give him the time day.
• Pain… like nothing else can rouse in us a spiritual appetite and cause us to seek after God like nothing else can!.
• Pain can force us to stop focusing on what is trivial or insignificant, or superficial in life and help us begin to value what is important in life. In short, pain can make us change.
• CS Lewis once said… God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to our conscience, but shouts to us in our pains. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse the deaf world.
• You see… change is not brought about in our lives by God waving a magic wand over our heads. Change happens when God uses things like waiting and pain in our lives.
• By the way… this is one of God’s goals in our lives… to change us. God is not just interested in making a way for us into heaven; he wants to make us fit for heaven. And let’s face it; many of us are not ready for heaven yet.
• This is important for us to understand so we do not mistake God’s intentions. He does not have some morbid plan to make us suffer while we wait; on the contrary he will do everything he can to bring good into our lives… his best into our lives! Even if the process takes time and hurts.
• Catch this… He will gladly allow us to suffer a little bit of hell now in order to spare us an eternity in hell later.
• Now the good news is… we should be able to find some comfort in the realization that you are not the only one that God keeps waiting… as you study the Scripture… you begin to realize that God keeps everybody waiting! From Genesis to revelations… person after person…. He keeps waiting.
• Think about it… the children of Israel have to wait four hundred years in slavery before God sent them a deliverer to get them out of Egypt… Moses waited 40 years in the desert before God used him… after crossing the red Sea, Israel waited another 40 years before they entered into the promise LAND… David was anointed King for years before he was allowed to rule… Israel had to wait hundreds of the years for their Messiah… and the church has waited over two thousand years for his return.
• Clearly, waiting doesn’t seem to bother the Lord at all like it does us… leaving me with the conclusion… that there is no way around this… at different points in our lives… God is going to make us wait. And if we don’t understand how God views time while he makes us wait… we will be constantly find ourselves frustrated with Him in our day to day interactions.
• So I want to begin today’s message by giving you seven insights into God’s heart concerning time… but first let’s pray!
1. God has a totally different view of time than we do…
2 Peter 3:8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
The first big difference I see in how we view time verses how God views time… is that we think in terms minutes, hours and days… while God thinks in terms of years, lifetimes and generations … He sees things from the big picture… such as… what you will be like at the end of your life! Meaning you might be going through years of hardship… all the while God is thinking this is what it will take so that at the end of your life time you will be changed.
2. God is never worried about running out of time…
Rev 12:12 Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short."
The only one who should be concerned about running out of time… is the devil. One preacher said… God is never in a hurry but the devil is. … His time is short. Remember that next time when some sales person puts you under pressure to have to decide now! Buy now or in the next 30 seconds or it might be gone. Remember, only the devil is under pressure to hurry. God has all the time he needs!
3. God is driven by His purpose, not by time…
John 7:1-8 After this, Jesus went around in Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because the Jews there were waiting to take his life. But when the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near, Jesus’ brothers said to him, "You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the miracles you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world." For even his own brothers did not believe in him. Therefore Jesus told them, "The right time for me has not yet come; for you any time is right.
- Did you catch this…“for you any time is right!” We have a whole different take on timing! We live in the moment… where “now” is always the most operable time! And because of this we are always prone to pushing the hand of God before His time.
- But God has a plan… that has its own time table… regardless of we think what and when something should happen! He knows when its time or not… and Jesus knew that He did not want to force of premature confrontation with the Pharisees…
- We are driven by the clock, always in a hurry, conscious of needing to get things done by a certain time! But God is driven by His purpose and will take all the time he needs to accomplish what he sets his heart out to accomplish.
- Therefore, there is absolutely nothing we can do to rush God or force His hand… no amount of pleading or begging or bargaining with him does any good! We simply have to trust in his timing.
4. God is always on time… he is never too early or late.
- Rom 5:6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
- God was willing to wait for the right time, the right season, the right to year to send his son Jesus into the world.
- He is like the patient farmer who waits patiently until the crop is ripe… or the skilled craftsmen who take’s as much time as needed to create his masterpiece… or the master Baker who knows exactly how long his bread needs to be in the oven so that his loaf comes out just right!
- God is willing to wait until his grand purposes are ready to be accomplished in each of us.
5. Its God’s great love for us that stay’s his hand until the right time!
- 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
- We all know this… but I just have to say it… God does not have some morbid desire to make us suffer by waiting. He is waiting because he doesn’t want turn anybody out or leave anyone behind or leave the work that he has started in your life unfinished! In other words… it is out of love, compassion and His great mercy that He is allowing us to wait!
- Remember that next time you accuse God of not loving you because you have to wait on him and his plan to come to past.
6. Truth is: God is waiting for us to change our behavior, or for us to turn from our sin, or to turn to him!
- Remember the story of the prodigal son? A father has two sons, one can’t wait to get his inheritance, and so demands it now. His father gives it to him… and he goes out and wastes it on wild living… and ends up in a job that would have been the most humiliating job to a Jew of that time… feeding pigs.
- But it took that extreme circumstance to wake this kid up to what an idiot he has been… and decides to go home
- Luke 15: 17-20 "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 1I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father. "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
- Catch this now… the father knew what his son was up to… but he doesn’t go out after him… or beg him to come home… or plead with him to consider how foolish he was being… trying to spare him from the pain of his foolish choices!
- God will wait as we run… head strong in a direction away from him… totally messing our life up… allowing us to waste all kinds of time until we hit bottom… and come to the end of ourselves because we had nowhere else to turn! He will wait to that moment where we finally look up and cry out to God with all our hearts.
- That is what God is willing to wait for!
- Going back to the story…notice the father wasn’t off doing little projects to keep his mind off it or keep himself preoccupied… but rather… he was sitting by the window waiting, looking intently, hoping against hope, with eager anticipation, most likely for years…
- And when the father saw his wayward son making his way home… He knew his purpose was fulfilled… so now there is no hesitation on His part…no waiting… no detours! Did you catch the emphasis of scripture here? He doesn’t jog out to meet him… he sprints out to him!
- What a revelation of God… someone who loves us so much… that he is willing to suffer through the time of waiting for us to come to our senses! No matter how long it takes us to hit bottom… he is graciously waiting for us to turn our hearts towards him.
- And when he does… boom… He’s there! Loving us, restoring us, empowering us to be everything he has called us to be. That’s the love of God!
7. What should our response be when we have to wait? Pray for faith!
- Heb 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
- Faith and waiting go together… faith bridges the gap between the visible, what we have now, what we can see with our eyes… and with the invisible, what we can’t see, what we don’t have.
- Faith does not have to see in order to believe. Faith continues to trust God even when there isn’t much to go on. Real faith believes God when it is the hardest thing to do. Real faith believes even when the waiting goes on and on and on.
- Personal Story… Something we had talked about and prayed for and dreamed about in the early 80’s was city wide worship… Our leaders tried to organize events… but never a good response. Then one time during my prayer… I saw… a vision for city wide worship… and Faith was birthed in my heart. My problem was that I wanted to see happen right now… so I tried to force the issue only to create schism in our leadership. I sought God, begged God, even threaten God with now or forget it… but God had different plan… he knew there things that had to happen in people’s hearts before they were ready for this…
- So when you are in a situation where you are waiting on God… pray for faith!
- But know this, even when God gives it to you faith… that doesn’t mean life will now be easy for you. On the contrary… life will still be a struggle… just different kind of struggle.
- Let me end our time here by giving you…
Three Life Lessons about waiting taken from the life of Abraham
• Abraham is called the Father of our faith. Out of all the Old Testament figures… His name is mentioned more times in the New Testament than any other person with exception of King David.
• Of all great religions of the world…three of them… Judaism, Christianity and Islam… acknowledge Abraham as the Father of their faith!
• He was given a promise that he and his wife would have a child…for it was prophesied that he would be the father of many nations. It took over 25 years before he saw that promise fulfilled! And during those 25 years and even after… he struggled with his faith. So from his life experiences I want to draw out three inspiring encouragements for us…
1. Do not despair because you have failed or have moved out of weakness…God does not give up on us… and God is not punishing us for past failures.
- I say this because some people fall into the trap of thinking… that the reason why God is not answering their prayers right now … is because God is punishing them for their past sins… That he has given up on them and is punishing them for their lack of faith!
- For example… someone trying to get pregnant… but can’t … think that God is punishing them because of a past abortion… or a person can’t find a job because God has given up on them for their past failures…
- Abraham had a number of moral failures along the way! One was when he and his wife were in Egypt, he had her lie about them not being married out of fear… not once, but twice! Yet God did not give up on him!
- So we need to remember that all sin was punished at the cross… and that God has completely different reasons for our having to wait! And regardless of those reasons, we know it’s his love and wanting the best for us that motivates him!
2. Don’t ever try to do an end run around God’s plan
- You remember the story… Abraham and Sarah were beginning to get frustrated with all this waiting. They were getting up there in years… and wanted to get things going… so they figured they could help the process along…by taking things into their own hands… and of course the results was catastrophic!
- Sara decided to give Abraham her hand maiden. I know what you are thinking… What wife in her right mind would hand over another woman to her husband… but according to the customs of that day… this did not seem so farfetched!
- The hand maiden gave birth to Ishmael. Of course this wasn’t God’s plan. Sarah gave birth herself to the promised son at the ripe old age of 90… and called him Isaac.
- And as you would expect… a conflict arose between Isaac and Ishmael… and so Ishmael had to leave and went on to become the father of the Arab nations of today… which of course is still at odds with Israel. Amazing isn’t it? A rival that started over 4000 years ago is still going on… and is in fact threatening to consume the whole world!
- Going back to our story… we must remember that God is just as concerned with the means of attaining His goal as is the goal itself!
- God had the same goal as Abraham, but a different plan of attaining it… one that required them to trust God rather than their natural circumstances! One that asked them to put their faith in God’s ability rather than their own ability!
- Unfortunately, Abraham and Sarah’s attempt to do an end run around God had dire results… Think about it… how different things would be today had not they tried to help God along! There would be no Muslims…or no Islam religion. Therefore no threat of war between the Arabs or Israel simply because no Arabs would exist!
- Now before we get all depressed with that thought… the good news is despite their lack of faith and their failed attempt to help God… God still came through… in his own way… and in his own time! And this attempt to do an end run on God didn’t disqualify them from God’s purposes! God still had his way with them.
- Now in today’s setting… I have often seen this same scenario played out many times. I have known numerous people… who were looking for a life partner… and found someone… who unfortunately had all kinds of faults… and character flaws… and was someone who they were totally incompatible with! Yet they thought… there will be no one else. That somehow… out of the 6 billion people that exist in the earth… this was it… their best option!
- So rather than wait on God to bring the person he has in mind for them… they took their situation into their own hands… and got married… thinking they were going to change their partner.
- Of course we all know how that worked out. Years and years of hard work learning how to live with them… and make their marriage work! Some of those relationships ended in divorce and bitter lawsuits over child custody.
- Did God abandon them? Of course not… he is still working intimately with them bringing about his purpose and plan in their lives.
3. The essence of every trial you go through… God is after your heart!
- As most of you know… there was one more huge ordeal Abraham went through concerning his son Isaac… where years later God asked Abraham to sacrifice him…
- Once again this sounds crazy… but in those days this was a common practice among the other religions of that day…
- So without hesitation… he takes his son… travels three days… go up on the mountain… ties him up to the altar… raise the knife which he is about to sacrifice his son with… and the angel of the Lord stops him… and says…
- Gen 22:12 Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.
- In other words… This whole thing was a test! God put him through this whole ordeal to see what is in his heart…
- Put yourself in Abraham’s shoes for a moment… what he must have been feeling as he considered going through with this sacrifice. Losing his son to death at this point in his life… meant that Abraham would have to wait on God once again until God’s promise would be fulfilled!
- That God still had some plan to fulfill his promise… whether it meant that God would have to raise Isaac from the dead… or he would have to start all over again with impregnating Sara again… who was over a hundred years old now.
- Either way… it meant he would have to wait again!
- This would be equivalent to running a marathon, disliking it every step of the way… and so relieved when you finished… only to be told to prepare yourself for another one… and this one might be even longer… like the ultimate marathon (hundred miler)! Can you imagine all emotions that Abraham had to be going through… fear, despair and hopelessness… can I really trust God with this again… do I have what it takes?
- Of Course Abraham doesn’t know that this is a test; he just sees this as something he only needed to be obedient to…
- So the point here being… that many of the trials that we go through… where we have to wait and wait on God… are designed by Him to reveal what really is in our hearts!
- Why? Because this is what God is really after… he wants our hearts. He wants us to completely put our trust in Him alone!
- Like Abraham… God wants to come to us and be able to say… now I know I am first in your heart… that there is no one else! I am the center of your life!
- This leaves us with one question… the big question that everyone of us must ask ourselves…
Conclusion:
• Why is God having us wait on Him?
• Because… He is after our hearts!
• He wants to capture the very seat of our affections… that He would be our all and all!
• I remember while preparing first for this message… I felt something of God’s compassion that he has for those who find themselves calling out to God for help… and haven’t seen any answers to those prayers.
• Father wants to encourage you today… He wants you to know that He hasn’t forgotten you… That he is fully aware of your plight… and the pain you are in… and He feels your pain… He wants you to know… that He is far more involved with your life than you think… and He wants you to trust him!
• Believe it or not… there is light at the end of the tunnel! Let’s pray…
