Waiting on God

A Praying Life Waiting on God - Mark 4:26-29 November 30, 2025 This morning, we'll be concluding our sermon series on A Praying Life. If you have your bibles, we'll be in Mark 4 this morning. To be fair, we've taken a unique approach to prayer, but I hope that it has been fruitful for you, as it has been for me. So, as we conclude, I wanted to reflect on the topic of prayer. There is a great website and resource that I use regularly called gotquestions.org. The site - as you may have guessed - answers spiritual related questions - biblically. On the "topic" of prayer, there were about 124 questions related to prayer. None of them, however, answer the question on how prayer actually works. So, this morning, I will be answering that question! Nope. Never mind. I cannot exactly answer that question either. Why is that? Well, I think part of it is because if you are a bible believing Christian, then you believe that God is sovereign. So, as President and CEO of Desiring God, Marshall Segal put it so eloquently, "As many of us first discover the sovereignty of God on page after page of the Bible ... a strain sometimes emerges (in our immature thinking) between what he has planned and how we pray. 'Why would I pray if God has already planned what will happen?' Our prayers can begin to feel small, peripheral, even unnecessary next to the vastness of all that God will inevitably do. 'He will accomplish his purpose,' we might think, 'whether I pray or not.' We wonder what difference our prayers might really make." Have you ever had these questions, or similar? So, the question is less about "why do we pray?" and maybe, as I thought about in this sermon series, "what do I do after I pray?" Let's attempt to answer that question this morning by looking at a parable of Jesus from Mark 4:26-29: 26 AND HE SAID, "THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AS IF A MAN SHOULD SCATTER SEED ON THE GROUND. 27 HE SLEEPS AND RISES NIGHT AND DAY, AND THE SEED SPROUTS AND GROWS; HE KNOWS NOT HOW. 28 THE EARTH PRODUCES BY ITSELF, FIRST THE BLADE, THEN THE EAR, THEN THE FULL GRAIN IN THE EAR. 29 BUT WHEN THE GRAIN IS RIPE, AT ONCE HE PUTS IN THE SICKLE, BECAUSE THE HARVEST HAS COME." This passage is not about prayer. In fact, the context of this passage goes back to verse 10 of Mark 4, where Jesus gives the reason of why He spoke in parables. What we see there is that His parables were often to illustrate the Kingdom of God. So, how does this parable relate to prayer, if it is related to the Kingdom? It doesn't - at least not directly. Let me explain. Most commentators, when teaching on this parable, teach about evangelism. This seems to be most appropriate. The seed, of course, represents the spread of the Gospel, to build the Kingdom with more disciples. Of course, concluding that the Lord is the One who ultimately does the work. So, the answer lies less in the content of the parable than the lesson from the parable. You see, when Jesus spoke in parables, He was using stories that were familiar to the listeners everyday life. The principles were memorable, because they were relatable. The lessons from this parable can help us to understand prayer better. Or, more specially, help us to understand what happens after we pray and what we should do next. Let's discover the answers to these questions, first by reviewing the main idea of our passage this morning: A praying life is a waiting life. Now, let me be clear. Waiting here cannot be confused with passiveness, rather, as we will unfold this morning, this type of waiting is very active. The picture that Jesus uses in this parable is that of a farmer. There are several characteristics that we see in the farmer, that relates to the disciple of Jesus. There is one step - revealed in this passage - before we get to those two questions. To be consistent, I'll propose it in the form of another question: WHERE DO I BEGIN? Are your minds ready to be blown? Here it is: * Begin with prayer. (v.26) o Prayer connects God's people with Himself. o If we are to live a praying life, we must be intentional about our prayer. o I think this is one of the challenges that we face, sometimes we simply do not pray. o This could be for a number of reasons, but in the end, what really prevents us from prayer is a lack of faith. * That website I mentioned earlier said it this way: A lack of prayer demonstrates a lack of faith and a lack of trust in God's Word. o Maybe it's the fear of the unknown. o Maybe it's the fear of being told "no" o Maybe we just don't know what to say. o This parable does give us a lesson that addresses a lot of these concerns. o So, let's take a look at the passage to see what we can learn. o Look again at verse 26 o Here we see that the farmer begins by scattering the seed. o For our purposes today, the seed can represent our prayers. o If the farmer wakes up to plant, but does not scatter the seed, he cannot expect anything to happen. o This is the "reaping and sowing" principle. o The same can be true in our prayer life. o If we want to grow in our relationship with God, we must first seek Him. We do this in prayer, in His Word, and in fellowship with other believers. o In other words, we must first scatter the seeds. o So, naturally, we must ask ... WHAT HAPPENS AFTER WE PRAY? Simply stated ... * I watch God work. o Verse 27 is a perfect picture for us as we look at this parable in relation to prayer. o First, we see that after the farmer scatters the seed - prays - he goes to bed. o He shows trust that the seed will do what the seed will do. o The end of the verse is most telling, isn't it? o "HE KNOWS NOT HOW" is what Jesus reveals. * Isn't that true of our prayers as well? * As I mentioned earlier, we really cannot wholly understand how prayer works. * What we do know is this ... * Prayer works * Prayer is necessary in our relationship with our Father in heaven - which is something we've talked about a lot in this series, and * Prayer draws us closer to God because prayer aligns our hearts with His. o So, we pray. o Then, we wait. o All the while, watching God work. o When we are able to watch God work, we are acknowledging that nothing we do is the power behind what happens. o God is the One who works in the lives of those we're praying and interceding for. o Now, as I've admitted in the past, I'm not a farmer, nor do I have a resemblance of a green thumb, but what I do know is that it takes time to grow. o This is really where this final question comes into play. Here it is ... WHAT SHOULD WE DO NEXT? What do we do after we pray? As we are waiting for God? I have one simple answer to that: * I stay busy. o Busy? Doing what? o I'll give you ways to stay busy: * First, I keep praying. * We've all heard that sometimes God answers your prayer with a "yes", a "no," or a "not yet." * This principle is really just to remind us that we must continue to bring our concerns to Him and wait for His answer. * Frankly, this is why we stay busy, because sometimes, we're waiting on God. * What better way to wait on God than to keep praying? * Second, I continue in fellowship. * Let's face it, isolation is not useful when you're waiting. * Sometimes it's best to be around others - because, sometimes, others who may also be praying alongside you. * I've always had this picture in my mind of dozens and hundreds of prayers reaching the heavens at the same time, and how beautiful that must be for our Lord. * Several weeks back, we closed our time praying for a local teen who had run away from home. Later that night, we received word that he was found and returned to his family. * I couldn't help but think of the many other churches and families that may have been praying for him in that same hour. * What does James tell us in James 5:16? THE PRAYER OF A RIGHTEOUS PERSON HAS GREAT POWER AS IT IS WORKING. * Guess what the context of this statement in James was? * Fellowship with one another. Praying for one another. Confessing to one another. * There is power in prayer and there is power in God's people coming together. * Next, we stay busy by ... * Continuing to meditate and read God's Word. * At TFC, we've made it a practice to have a bible reading plan every year to help you systematically read through the bible. * Obviously, on Sunday mornings, we read and teach the Word. * On Monday mornings, we study the Word together. * On Wednesdays the ladies do a bible study together * The Second Saturday of the month, the men come together to study God's Word. * It is within the Scriptures where God reveals Himself to us. * It is where we find the Gospel that saves. * It is where we find the truth * It is where we find counsel, correction, and encouragement * While we wait for our Lord in prayer, we must spend time here. * Fourth, I continue serving. * I want you to think about something difficult that you've had to go through. * First thing that came to my mind when I was writing this is when my department was being investigated back in 2013 (which included myself and three of my supervisors). * Guess what? I still had work to do. I still had people to manage, a department to run, and my bosses to keep satisfy. * So, I had to keep going. Regardless of the possible outcome, I still had a job to do. * So, we too must trust that the Lord will do He wills to do, no matter how long it takes, or what path the Lord leads us while we wait. * So, in this context, I keep serving Him and I keep serving His people. * Fifth, I continue giving. * I don't think I have to spend a lot of time here, but I think it was important to mention as part of the Christian life. * Every week, we talk about how giving is part of worship. * Frankly, it facilitates a lot of what we've been talking about this morning. * Really, this, along with the other activities illustrate that on one hand, we are to be ready at all times for the Lord's return, but just like Paul told the church in Thessalonica, we cannot be idle, we must continue to be the church. * It is no different when we are waiting for the Lord to answer our prayers. * So finally, o How can we do this? * Through faith. * By trusting in the Lord. * This is how we pray. * How does it all work? * I still don't know, but I trust in the One who does know. * Maybe that is the answer after all. Faith. Earlier we said in our main idea that a praying life is a waiting life. This parable allowed us to see the process in which we wait in our prayers. Of course, there are many other biblical examples of this as well. As early as Genesis, we saw Noah wait 100 years for the rain as he built the Ark, later we see the example of Abraham waiting for the promise of his son. Even later, we see the example of Jacob, waiting 14 years for Leah. What about Hannah? Or Zechariah and Elizabeth? These lessons help us to learn to wait, and how to wait, for the Lord in prayer. It's not easy, I know. That's why we started this series by encouraging you to let your guard down, so to speak, and approach the Father as a child. We then encouraged you to wholly trust the Father, like a sheep would his shepherd. Last week, Pat reminded us that what we really get in prayer is God's presence. So, progressively, we build to the point where we can faithfully wait for the Lord when we pray. So, let's wait and see what the Lord has planned for us. Let's pray. 2