Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
HONOR/THANK Pastor Toby if he’s in the room
For obeying the vision that God gave you to start a school that would train and send out the next generation of pastors and missionaries to change the world for Christ!
Corn maze yesterday - Alyssa’s map on her phone
The direction of my life has sometimes looked more like a corn maze than a hiking trail.
Bible college - traveling ministry - volunteering/internship at church - China - part-time local church position - met Heather - moved to Seattle (disappointed) - NSC - RSM
If you look at my life history, a high school guidance counselor would be shaking their head.
Most of the time, I’ve sought to be led by the Spirit instead of taking the steps that I thought were best.
And it doesn’t make sense to a lot of people, and in the moment, His direction doesn’t always make sense to me, but when I look back at what God did when I trusted Him, it’s incredible what He has done.
I’m 37 now, and as I look back, I’ve seen God’s sovereign hand upon each step in my journey,
preparing me for each next step,
building my trust in Him,
shaping my character,
and equipping me for ministry.
He knew my future, and His way has been so much better than my way.
Serving Jesus with your life does not yield much in the way of certainty and security, but it’s so much better to live an adventure with the Lord than to choose my own path for my life.
If we don’t trust in God’s timing, we will make a mess of our lives when we take shortcuts to get what we want.
If we don’t trust in God’s timing, we get distracted from what He wants us to be doing with our lives RIGHT NOW.
If we don’t trust in God’s timing, we will miss out on many of the good things that He has planned for us.
The next 5 years for most of you will be filled with many decisions about what direction to take with your life.
What does God want me to do next?
Should I date this person?
Do I do Year 3?
Do I raise support and go to the mission field?
Do I take this ministry opportunity away from my family and friends, or not?
These decisions do have a significant impact on our lives, and it can be very stressful.
And that stress can cause us to want to control the direction of our life
I’m here to tell you this morning that
CENTRAL THEME: God’s timeline for our lives is more extraordinary than any plan that we could ever dream up.
God’s timeline is best!
His plan and His timing are perfect, but we have our own plans, and our own perspective on when God should act.
We need to trust God and let go of our own timeline for our lives.
Pastor Steve: “God is always two weeks late, and right on time!”
We think He’s taking too long in the moment, but looking back we can see that His timing was perfect.
It makes me think of when Jesus heard that His friend Lazarus had become deathly ill.
Lazarus’ sisters sent word to Jesus, but He chose to wait two more days to leave to see Lazarus.
When He arrived, Lazarus had died already.
Martha questioned why He was late, but also had a measure of trust in Him.
Mary also said the same thing
Some of the friends who were at Lazarus’ house were also questioning Jesus’ timing.
And that’s how we feel sometimes.
God, if you would have acted sooner, this wouldn’t have happened.
God, why didn’t you do anything about this?
Don’t you care?
But in reality, Jesus was about to do something that they never expected.
He raised Lazarus from the dead!
This was His plan all along, but they had NO IDEA.
Jesus had something even MORE extraordinary in mind than healing Lazarus.
Jesus knew the big picture, but the people living through it thought that He must not be good if He’s not doing anything.
Have you ever felt that way?
God, you really dropped the ball there.
I thought you had good plans for me!
We question His plan right up until it becomes clear how perfect His plan was all along.
His plan is always better!
God’s timeline is even better than anything we could come up with.
He has greater things in mind than we can anticipate, and we need to let go and trust Him.
I want to explore a passage about a time when Jesus had a more extraordinary plan for his 12 disciples than their plan and their timeline.
Disciples still wanted political salvation for their nation.
Jesus wanted to give them supernatural power to transform all nations.
They wanted certainty and predictability, and Jesus said to wait for the promise of the Father.
But they had to put their own hopes aside and wait for Him to act.
God’s timeline for our lives is more extraordinary than any plan that we could ever dream up.
3 Reasons Why God’s Timing is Better Than Ours:
God knows the perfect moment when we will be ready to receive the extraordinary gifts that He wants to give us.
Jesus wanted His disciples to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, but they had NO IDEA how good this gift would be and how it would empower them to transform the world.
Christmas lists
My kids are constantly asking for things that they want, so we keep a running list for birthdays and Christmas, because if we gave them every single toy they wanted, we would spoil them (and go broke).
Ava has been wanting her own phone for nearly 5 years!
Guess what?
She doesn’t need no stinkin phone at 9 years old!
But she has no concept of how to use a device in moderation.
She doesn’t understand how screen time affects her brain at this young age.
She doesn’t notice how screen time makes her want more and more and more screen time.
She doesn’t notice how it affects her mood.
She doesn’t have a healthy concern about the dangers of the internet.
It’s gonna be a while before she has her own phone...
Because I see the bigger picture of her development, I save certain gifts for certain times when I feel that she is ready for them.
And I think God does the same with us.
He knows the perfect moment to give us just the right gift.
God is working for our good, according to His purpose.
We have to trust that He is a good Father to us.
That may not be what you want to do in the moment.
It may not look like what you expect, but His goal is to work in your life for your good.
Do you trust Him to guide you to the next step in your life at just the right time?
Or are you trying to force them to happen right now, like a kid who sneaks downstairs and opens all their presents before Christmas?
Can you wait for the Holy Spirit to move, or are you going to rush God’s plan?
We only make a mess of our lives when we take a shortcut to God’s extraordinary gifts instead of trusting His timing.
Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and Ishmael
Abraham and Sarah thought God needed their help in order to fulfill His promise, His plan.
Sometimes we become bitter at God for not acting according to our timeline, but we have no idea that God is actually blessing us by making us wait.
Joseph stayed in an Egyptian prison for a very long time.
He was forced to stay in prison, but he chose to trust God’s plan even in prison.
And God had this perfect moment prepared for him to go from prisoner to second in command of the Egyptian empire in a moment.
Application
So when you feel like you’re ready for the next step, but nothing is changing, remind your soul to trust in God’s providence.
Wait on Him.
And whether you don’t know what’s next, you have a plan in mind, or you are living out your plan, make extra sure that you are taking time to listen to the Holy Spirit.
God’s blessings to us come at just the right time and in just the way.
And the reason He has perfect timing is that
God knows everything that we don’t know about the course of our lives.
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