Wait on the Lord
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Waiting is a thing that most of us are not good at
One time a deacon in this church told me he purposely gets in long lines at the grocery store to grow his patience.
I thought it was one of the most godly things I had ever heard!
But most of us hate to wait in traffic
We hate to wait in lines
We hate to wait for a YouTube ad
We simply hate to wait
Patience does not come to us easy.
The early church father John Chrysostom said that “Patience is the queen of virtues.”
Well if that is true, many people have rarely met that queen.
We tend to live our lives in a hurry.
Every app is about convenience.
Every store is installing self-checkout
Every ad seems to promise everything you want will come to you quick and easy.
And yet, here is what the Psalmist says:
I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living!
Wait for the Lord;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the Lord!
PATIENT IN ADVERSITY
PATIENT IN ADVERSITY
The truth is that we do not struggle to be patient in times of victory and triumph.
When things are going well, we want time to slow down.
When our team wins the championship, we want the offseason to last forever.
When our vacation is going along swimmingly, we want the days to pass slowly.
When we are spending time with the people we love the most, we say things, “Let’s keep talking! I have all the time in the world!”
Our impatience tends to come in adversity.
For example, in Psalm 27, David is experiencing a high level of adversity.
Evildoers assail him and eat up his flesh (v. 2)
An army encamps against him and war rises up to oppose him (v. 3)
False witnesses have risen up against him and breathed out lies about him (v. 12)
You and I are not kings. We do not have literal armies encamped against us.
We do not have neighboring enemies who want to devour our flesh.
But we do have our enemies.
We have the ancient foe, Satan.
We have people that come in and out of our lives that seem to set themselves in opposition to us like a wolf to a sheep
The book of Revelation has shown us how the government and the evil network of humanity will come again us as the Lord’s church.
And we have the enemy of sin—an enemy our old flesh is all too eager to entertain
And yet, we struggle to be patient in trying times, don’t we?
We want to take matters into our own hands
We try to fight temptation in our own strength
We try to deal with people in our own sufficiency
We try to stare down the world without God’s supply of grace
And in our impatience, we often fall and fail and then only grow more frustrated.
When in reality, we simply need to wait on the Lord.
This is what David models for us in Psalm 27—
He says the Lord is his Light and Salvation—who should he fear? (v. 1)
The Lord is His stronghold—who is there he should tremble over and be afraid of (v. 1)
He is confident that his enemies will stumble and fall (v. 2-3)
His head will be lifted up above his enemies (v. 6)
He believes he will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living (v. 13)
And ultimately he cries out, “Wait for the Lord.”
HOW DOES THIS COME ABOUT?
HOW DOES THIS COME ABOUT?
So how can David be so patient when he has enemies breathing down his neck?
Where does his hope come from?
Well it comes from worship.
One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in his temple.
And now my head shall be lifted up
above my enemies all around me,
and I will offer in his tent
sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to the Lord.
It comes from trust in God’s protection.
For he will hide me in his shelter
in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
he will lift me high upon a rock.
It comes from prayer.
Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud;
be gracious to me and answer me!
You have said, “Seek my face.”
My heart says to you,
“Your face, Lord, do I seek.”
Hide not your face from me.
Turn not your servant away in anger,
O you who have been my help.
Cast me not off; forsake me not,
O God of my salvation!
For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
but the Lord will take me in.
It comes from being surrendered to the Lord’s Word
Teach me your way, O Lord,
and lead me on a level path
because of my enemies.
See, David’s strength and the courage of his heart does not come about in a vacuum.
His ability to wait on the Lord is born from his commitment to worship, to pray, to learn and to find refuge in the God who reigns over his life.
The God who puts everything in its perfect place.
The God who is beautiful and good—and who David longs to see.
WAITING ON THE LORD
WAITING ON THE LORD
In regard of God, patience is a submission to His sovereignty. To endure a trial, simply because we cannot avoid or resist it, is not Christian patience. But to humbly submit because it is the will of God to inflict the trial, to be silent because the sovereignty of God orders it – is true godly patience.
Stephen Charnock
May God teach us not to writhe, but to wait.
With each trial
With each season
With each temptation
With each bit of adversity
May God teach us not to try and fix everything all the time.
But to wait and see how He might fix things from the heavens...
How He might take what you worried about yesterday and solve it today or tomorrow...
As individuals and as a church—let us wait on the Lord.
CLOSING PRAYER
CLOSING PRAYER
Father of Light and Fountain of all goodness; be helpful to us in the time of our affliction. When we are in our greatest need, do not draw back from us. Whatever falls to us, strengthen our hearts, that we would be hopeful and patient people—waiting on all that You have promised to us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. In His name, Amen.