Why Isn’t It Done?
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INTRO
This morning week 3 YDH.
Talking about marriage. but also singleness.
17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.”
18 But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle.
10 When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord.
11 They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?
12 Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
22 And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
7 I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.
8 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am.
17 Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.
24 So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.
I titled the message this morning:
Why Isn’t it Done?
Pray
PEOPLE THAT ENJOY CLEANING
You know what I will never understand?
These sick and twisted people that find joy in cleaning.
Like… they wake up on a Saturday…and they’re excited about it
They’re like, ‘I can’t wait to reorganize the pantry today’…what is wrong with you?
Never once have I ever woken up and thought to myself “I can’t wait to clean today.”
EVER.
NOT ONCE.
I wake up and think….
I’ll look at something that needs to be done…
and I’ll think…‘yeah… I’ll get to that’
And then like… two days later…it’s still not done”
Eventually I start thinking why didn’t this clean itself…..
THE TURN
That’s funny…
Until you realize…
A lot of us are asking that same question about our lives..
I thought I’d be further by now
I thought this would be easier by now
I thought this would be different by now
…and now I’m standing here wondering…
‘why isn’t it done?’
DETAILS WE MISREMEMBER
One of the things I find fascinating…
is going back over Bible stories
and realizing how many little details we either miss…or just remember wrong
Let me give you an example.
Noahs Ark.
How many of each animal did God tell Noah to bring into the ARC?
If you said 2 of every animal. You’re incorrect. Not what the text says.
2 Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate,
3 and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth.
Now obviously there were two of some animals.
But when you actually read the text, God brought more of certain animals than we usually picture.
Which means the way we remember the story is often a simplified version of what actually happened.
RED SEA REFRAME
Now… I had one this week that got me.
Honestly caught me off guard.
We just read it at the beginning… and you probably didn’t catch it.
I want you to think about the parting of the Red Sea moment…
Picture the moment.
There is an army closing in behind them.
There is a sea in-front of them…
Moses lifts up his hands.
Now what happens?
What do you see?
Most of us… if not all of us…
Saw the sea split.
Right?
Except…
…That’s not what happened.
And some of you are already fact-checking me in your head…
Let me help you let’s reread it.
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
Did catch that little detail?
The Lord drove the sea back….
By a strong east wind…
all night…
And Then it says the waters were divided.
It wasn’t a moment…it was a process…
PROCESS VS INSTANT
This is the tension that I think a lot of believers live in.
Because we expect God to work in an instant, but He often works through process.
Let me prove it to you
17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.”
18 But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle.
There was a shorter route but the shorter route had more enemies.
God avoids it on purpose.
Not because he wasn’t strong enough…
But because He knew they weren’t ready yet.
GOD LEADS INTENTIONALLY
Something we have to understand about God is this:
God Leads Intentionally, Not Efficiently
A God that is all powerful and knowing doesn’t need efficiency.
He wasn’t trying to get them there faster…He was trying to get them there ready.
And this is where a lot of people go wrong when it comes to relationships…
We want to get there fast…
We want the finished product…
We want the ‘done’ version of life…
RELATIONSHIP APPLICATION
But God is far more concerned with who you are becoming than how quickly you arrive.
TO SINGLES
For some of you, you’re single…
and you’re thinking, ‘I thought I’d be married by now’
And if God was leading efficiently…you probably would be
But God is not trying to rush you into a relationship you’re not ready to sustain
TO MARRIED
“And for some of you, you’re married…
and you thought marriage would fix things faster
You thought it would feel easier by now
But marriage isn’t where everything gets finished…
It’s where a lot of things get exposed.
GOD LEADS INTO TENSION
The longer you follow Jesus the more you will understand this:
God Leads You Into Tension, Not Away From It.
Go back to Exodus 14
1 Then the Lord said to Moses,
2 “Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon; you shall encamp facing it, by the sea.
3 For Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel, ‘They are wandering in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.’
4 And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.” And they did so.
God tells them where to camp….
Remember Pharaoh has already let them go.
They’re free.
And then God says…
‘turn back… and camp right here’
Which puts them…
right in front of the sea…
with nowhere to go…
And then verse 4…
This is where it gets uncomfortable…
God says…
“I will harden Pharaoh’s heart…and he will pursue them”
In other words…
God didn’t just allow the tension…
He created it.
And this is where we get confused…
because we think tension equals evil opposition.
But tension doesn’t automatically mean evil…
TENSION DEFINED
Tension is Often God Positioning You for Something He Wants to Accomplish in You.
Here is one of my favorite details in the story because at this moment Isreal feels stuck.
They have a sea in front of them and an army closing in behind them.
They are stuck.
For many of us this how our relationships feel.
We feel trapped.
We feel stuck.
GOD IS WORKING WHILE YOU FEEL STUCK
But here is the part that we often can’t see.
19 Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them,
20 coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
God is working on both sides….
Not only is He sending a wind to part the waters….
He’s holding back the Egyptians on the back end.
Israel could not see that.
And neither can we.
We feel stuck.
we feel like nothing is moving.
Nothing is happening.
But in reality God is working miraculously in front of us and behind us.
What Feels Like Nothing is Often God Doing More Than You Can See.
I heard a Pastor say one time
We ask God for tables, but God Doesn’t make tables, He makes trees.
In other words:
We want God to give us finished products, but God wants to form us.
Israel wanted a clear path… God sent wind to form one.
THE WIND IS THE WAY
We have this image in our mind that God parted the sea instantly and they walked through it but that’s not what happened.
And here is the cool thing.
You might think that diminishes the miracle but it actually makes it stronger.
Because God wasn’t just trying to show His power…He was trying to build their trust.
He had already taken them the long way…and now He’s doing the same thing at the sea.
He could have split it in a moment…but instead He let the wind blow all night…
Because He wasn’t just making a way for them…He was teaching them how He leads.
This is why He took them the long way in the first place.
To get them to realize…
If my God can control the wind….He can do anything.
If my God can hold back an entire Army…He can do anything
If my God can part the sea….He can do anything.
Understand something
The Process is Not Separate From the Miracle. The process is the Miracle.
God was not just revealing His Power, He was revealing His purpose.
Could God have parted the red sea in an instant?
Absolutely.
But it was about so much more…
And it wasn’t just for Israel.
God says in Exodus 14:4,
“I will get glory over Pharaoh… and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.”
Which means…
God was working on both sides of the sea.
He was building trust in His people…and making Himself known to the world around them.
So what felt like delay…
what felt like tension…
what felt like “why isn’t it done?”
“The process wasn’t just about getting Israel out…it was about making God known.”
The wind didn’t look like a miracle.
But without the wind…
there was no miracle…
So after all of that….
After the wind….
The waters part…
There’s finally a path.
PURPOSE OVER POWER
22 And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
God’s provision requires your participation….
The path was there but you still have to walk on it.
The miracle did not remove their responsibility. It revealed it.
This isn’t a story about how God got Israel out.
It’s a framework that reveals how God forms people.
TRANSITION TO CORINTHIANS
Okay… that was the intro.
Time to start the actual message…
Remember when I read from 1 Corinthians 7?
I didn’t forget.
verse 17:
17 Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.
We will skip the circumcision verses for another day….
verse 20:
20 Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.
And Paul keeps saying it…
remain…
remain…
remain.
Now… I want to be really clear about something.
When Paul says ‘remain’…
he is not saying stay in something that is unsafe or harmful.
This is not a call to stay in abuse…
this is not a call to stay in an unhealthy situation.
There are other places in Scripture that speak to that…
We will get to those in the coming weeks.
CORE APPLICATION
But That’s not what Paul is addressing here.
What he is addressing…
is our tendency to think…
“If my situation changed… my life would finally be better”
Listen to me:
If you’re single, You’re not behind. God is working in front and behind.
If you’re married, you’re not stuck. God is working in front and behind.
Don’t Assume Your Relationship Status is What Needs to Change. God May Be Trying to Change You.
CALLING OVER COMFORT
Paul shifts focus towards the end of chapter 7
32 I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord.
33 But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife,
34 and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband.
35 I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.
What is Paul saying here?
Paul’s not saying marriage is bad…
he’s saying marriage adds responsibility.
When you’re single… your focus is simpler.
When you’re married… your focus is shared.
And if you don’t learn how to be devoted to Jesus when it’s simple…
it doesn’t get easier when it gets complex.
Marriage Doesn’t Remove Pressure, It Reveals What’s in You.
If Jesus is not at the center before marriage…
He won’t magically become the center after it.
FINAL LANDING
Here is where I want to land….
Everyone wants god to speak…
but not everyone will let God work.
This is not a typo….
Because a lowercase god…
is a god that speaks on your terms.
Gives you answers when you want them…
confirms what you already feel…
and gets you out of tension as fast as possible.”
“But the real God…
doesn’t just speak…
He works.
He forms.
He leads.
He stretches.
He takes you the long way…
He sends wind instead of instant answers.
So the question isn’t…
is God speaking?
The question is…
Will You Let God Work?
Some of you are standing at the edge…
waiting for the water to move…
And God is saying…
I didn’t forget you…
I’m making a way…
just wait…the water is still moving.
