The Waiting Game

Introduction: Prayer for Uvalde

The Title of this sermon is the waiting game.

When you hear the waiting game you might think of a first of a first date:

Sky’s date. example

Kee Kee

We spend a lot of time Waiting

The following expressions you have probably heard:

Hurry up and wait

Good things come to those who wait

The waiting game

Let’s look at the Scripture

Isaiah 40:31 NKJV

But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

The average person spends five years throughout their lifetime waiting in lines and queues.

I can’t think of a business that we walk in including the store that you have to wait your turn.

-Dr. Offices

-checkout lines

-post office in line and waiting on parcels

-restaurants tables and for food

-wait on someone to get ready

-wait for the bathroom

-wait drivers licence office

-on the phone with bill pay or phone and internet problems.

-waiting in a hospital

Even when you have an appointment you have a waiting time.

Let me bring that around to the word of God.

You are appointed and anointed and gifted for the plans and purposes God has for you.

If we wait on appointments to get what we need or take care of business in the real world how much more will we wait for the things that are set in the heavens.

God’s view on time is perfect and so very different than ours.

2 Peter 3:8 NKJV

But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

That means that God’s timing is not like ours at all

We live in a fast food, microwave, express mail, email, internet world at the tip of our fingers generation.

Not only that we live in a consumer based society that if you have the right amount of money for the item or service you want to buy at instant gratification. You can have it your way. And if you don’t like it you can complain to the manager and their is a motto the customer is always right and the manager tries to compensation you or fix your experience or expectation of the goods and services being rendered.

We do not pay God for anything we desire from him. He is not swayed because we are impatient. We can’t fast and pray him into our world. God cannot be manipulated. He is going to do it his way or the highway. He gets to do that he is God. He does what he thinks is best for us whether it is a quick result or a slow one.

We know that stories of the addict who one day prayed and the cravings of drug addiction left and never came back. The ones where you here their testimony of how they struggled through files trials for a year and wanted to use and decided not to use.

The addict whose addiction cravings left was if they had never sinned and the addict who struggles is walking in grace daily. Jesus was sent so that God could see us in our redemption as if we had never sinned even when we fall and struggle and those who don’t fall and struggle and are set free it is miraculous. God chooses if you get the miracle or if you do the work. He chooses if you are instantly healed or wait a life time to walk in your healing in heaven. It is his good pleasure and his plan and his time.

Some of you might be waiting on a word to come to pass

Or you might be waiting on a thing that you prayed for

There is not answer as to when God will move and the appointed time that he has assigned your miracle or your blessing.

And just about the time the timing lines up or the blessing is almost here a lot of people give up the waiting and try to force their own will.

We lose our faith in God.

Waiting on God’s timing takes trust in him.

Some people never even try to wait because they judge God based on their experiences with man and they move anything and everything they can and make poor decisions trying to create the thing God told them or fulfilling their desire not God’s desires.

You are not waiting on God’s timing if you are always looking for the softer easier way. The word shows us not only is it never the softer easier way but going what looks like the easier way makes it even harder.

Moses and the Hebrews 40 years. It was already hard and they made it harder.

Exodus 32:1 NKJV

Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

They did not wait on God and then their judgment was to wander in the desert for 40 years and not go to the promise land.

We make it worse when we don’t wait for God. The journey might take longer if we don’t wait on God we might make a detour that we have to come back around to.

The story of how i came to church on the rock an my ex husband

Nothing like trusting God with your kids.

Proverbs 16:9 NKJV

A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.

God moves us or doesn’t move us according to the purposes and plans he has for us.

Why don’t we wait on God?

-we are uncomfortable not seeing what he has in store for us.

-we are impatient

-we think we know better and we are capable

-we get lonely

-your depressed and distressed

sometimes you are going to be waiting on God and heart broken with desire of the thing you heard God promise you

or so focused on the future you can’t think about anything else and it evades your thoughts to the point it becomes the idol

The thing God promised you or the thing that you prayed for becomes your focus instead of Jesus.

Not waiting on God can turn into a sin itself and not just that you might make a lot of poor emotional decisions

God plans for us to suffer its apart of dying to the flesh and being obedient to God

Waiting is not meant to be pleasant.

Suffer-96 suffered-50 suffering-10 Love 541 times

James 1:3–4 NKJV

knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

When they say be Patient is that also waiting?

Waiting means-delaying action until a particular time or until something else happens

Patience- bearing pains and trials calmly or without complaint

So Patience is waiting without an attitude. Its a fruit of the spirit. We need to lean on the Holy Spirit in our waiting so that patience comes out and not moaning and groaning.

You know those people you know they are going through it but yet they aren’t enveloped in it to the point they are expressing it at every turn.

Some things we wait on are scary.

Liora

Some thing we wait on are promises.

Some things we wait on we shouldn’t be waiting on. Like the return of Jesus or something that is not of God.

Lottery

Psalm 27:14 NKJV

Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!

Let’s look at our main scripture there is a promise about waiting.

Let those who wait on their momma

bishop

kids

Isaiah 40:31 NKJV

But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

Psalm 40:1 NKJV

I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me, And heard my cry.

Lamentations 3:25–26 NKJV

The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, To the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly For the salvation of the Lord.

We have to actively wait on the Lord.

If I wait on money and don’t go out to my job and make money I will not have any money. I can’t expect it to grow on trees miraculously.

What’s involved in actively waiting?

Let’s look at this scripture that has a song written based on it .

Ecclesiastes 3:1–6 NKJV

To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted; A time to kill, And a time to heal; A time to break down, And a time to build up; A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing; A time to gain, And a time to lose; A time to keep, And a time to throw away;

Actively waiting

Pray

Serve

Study

Plan

Bakery -

Husband-

House-

When i got my kids back.

Wait like its coming and Walk like your there

Have faith believe

Conclusion

10 years to become a pastor I came back to church on the rock in 2006 and became a pastor October of 2016 I’ve been a pastor this october will be 6 years.

Marriage that

I served while I waited. I had a willingness to be used by God in the transition.

I have been

children’s church teacher

jail ministry teacher

youth leader

cross trainers leader

worship leader

media designer

announcement video coordinator

bulletin

flyers and poster

taught sunday school

ran the sound board

media word runner

played guitar

coordinator of the outreaches

head church cleaner

choir director

counselor

fb live video

cooked the holiday meals and decorate for them

garage sales and fundraiser helps

finance office counter

administrative assistant

answer the phones

and probably more than i am thinking about .

Habakkuk 2 (NKJV)

I will stand my watch

And set myself on the rampart,

And watch to see what He will say to me,

And what I will answer when I am corrected.

Then the Lord answered me and said:

“Write the vision

And make it plain on tablets,

That he may run who reads it.

For the vision is yet for an appointed time;

But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.

Though it tarries, wait for it;

Because it will surely come,

It will not tarry.

“Behold the proud,

His soul is not upright in him;

But the just shall live by his faith.

“Indeed, because he transgresses by wine,

He is a proud man,

And he does not stay at home.

Because he enlarges his desire as hell,

And he is like death, and cannot be satisfied,

He gathers to himself all nations

And heaps up for himself all peoples.

“Will not all these take up a proverb against him,

And a taunting riddle against him, and say,

‘Woe to him who increases

What is not his—how long?

And to him who loads himself with many pledges’?

Will not your creditors rise up suddenly?

Will they not awaken who oppress you?

And you will become their booty.

Because you have plundered many nations,

All the remnant of the people shall plunder you,

Because of men’s blood

And the violence of the land and the city,

And of all who dwell in it.

“Woe to him who covets evil gain for his house,

That he may set his nest on high,

That he may be delivered from the power of disaster!

You give shameful counsel to your house,

Cutting off many peoples,

And sin against your soul.

For the stone will cry out from the wall,

And the beam from the timbers will answer it.

“Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed,

Who establishes a city by iniquity!

Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts

That the peoples labor to feed the fire,

And nations weary themselves in vain?

For the earth will be filled

With the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,

As the waters cover the sea.

“Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor,

Pressing him to your bottle,

Even to make him drunk,

That you may look on his nakedness!

You are filled with shame instead of glory.

You also—drink!

And be exposed as uncircumcised!

The cup of the Lord’s right hand will be turned against you,

And utter shame will be on your glory.

For the violence done to Lebanon will cover you,

And the plunder of beasts which made them afraid,

Because of men’s blood

And the violence of the land and the city,

And of all who dwell in it.

“What profit is the image, that its maker should carve it,

The molded image, a teacher of lies,

That the maker of its mold should trust in it,

To make mute idols?

Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’

To silent stone, ‘Arise! It shall teach!’

Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,

Yet in it there is no breath at all.

“But the Lord is in His holy temple.

Let all the earth keep silence before Him.”

Trust in God Perfect timing

Wait on God Activley

What are you waiting on ?

If we can wait 5 years of our life just doing the stuff to live life. Go to the grocery store and wait in all kinds of lines. How much more can we wait on God. So we don’t have to wait longer and we don’t have as much of a mess to clean up.