Pain in Waiting

Before we pray for a minute, I just want to take you on a little side trip into Hebrews chapter 1:

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels did He ever say,

“You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You”?

And again,

“I will be a Father to Him
And He shall be a Son to Me”?

And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says,

“And let all the angels of God worship Him.”                                        Hebrews 1:1-6

Let’s pray.  Father, You brought us into a world that is in a sense, holding its breath, it’s waiting, has been waiting for a long time.  Lord, we will not wait well unless we are falling in love with You, unless we are walking with Your Son.  So, I pray that we would fall more deeply in love with Him today, and in the days ahead.  Thank you that we are not waiting for nothing and that the waiting will not last forever.  Thank you that You said in Revelation, “Behold I am coming quickly.”  Lord, just speak to us now, I pray, from Your Word, and let us go away encouraged today.  I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, welcome back to our cheerful series on suffering and pain. 

But, as I have been working on this message, I just found myself continuing to be cheerful and encouraged, even though I am melancholy by nature and this is not the easiest subject.  If I get done today and I haven’t encouraged you in some way, you can come up and kick me.  Natasha and my mother said they would be the first ones in line.

Okay, Fred said something really interesting last week when he was talking about grief.  He said that grief started, where?  In the Garden of Eden.  And he said another thing is that when we feel anger, that’s  one of the stages of grieving. Our anger, all of our human anger in every situation, almost, except for a few exceptions is directed to God, really, ultimately. Even when the guy zooms around you on the interstate and cuts you off.  You might think that you are angry at him, but in the circumstances of our lives, we know one basic fact, that God could have made it different and He didn’t.  I think a lot of people who are professed atheists choose that because you could at least be relieved from that anger at someone who should be doing things the right way in your life.  You can say, “Okay, I’m just the victim of impersonal forces.”

So I don’t want this to be a total drag, but what was the waiting that began in Genesis?  It was an exciting waiting, actually.  When the Fall came, yes, when the Fall came, God said, speaking of the man and the woman’s seed, “He will crush your head, you will bruise His heel.”  The first messianic prophecy is right here, of the One who was to come.  The world was waiting ever since that day.  I love to hear Carl’s testimony because he talks about exploring Isaiah and being blown away by its power.  The first disciples in John were looking and they said, “Hey we found Him, the One whom the Scriptures talked about.”

So the waiting began, the clock started ticking right then, at that moment when He said, “He will crush your head, you will bruise His heel.”  We are also waiting for His return again.  One of the things I love about the Chronicles of Narnia, which I have been reading again, is that they just help you fall in love with Christ.  They give you a nice picture of what He is and what He’s like.  No matter what subject we are talking about, whether it is suffering or grief or Elisha or Elijah, the needle on our compass as Christians, the subject really is Christ.  It keeps swinging over to Christ.  And it has to be him today too.

There is a very sobering passage in Deuteronomy where God is talking to the children of Israel and He tells them what will happen if they decide walk away from Him and try to live their lives without Him. It says in Deuteronomy chapter 28: “So your life will hang in doubt before you, and you shall be in dread by day and night and shall have no assurance for your life.  For in the morning you shall say, ‘Would that it were evening,’ and in the evening you shall say ‘Would that it were morning,’ because of the dread of your heart.  That is a terrible kind of waiting when you have no assurance of any answer, and you’re just waiting for something to turn around. 

But we have God, we have Christ.  But it is very easy to slide into that condition, isn’t it?  That dread, having no assurance.  That’s why we need our High Priest who has experienced everything in life that we have and knows what we’ve been through.  And not only He knows, what we have been through, He has a desire to do something about it and a willingness to do it.  I love that place in Luke 15 where the leper comes to Him and falls down at His feet and says, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me well.” And Jesus says, “I am willing,” and touches him.

Well, I think Romans 8, which is printed on the front of your bulletin, in my opinion that is the definitive text on waiting, and we’re going to get into that in a little bit, but first I want to take another side trip into 1 Samuel because waiting in this life is inevitable, no matter which road you go down.  If you decide to bag Christianity and go that way, you will be waiting in a different way.  And it is possible to abort waiting.  Let’s look at a little incident you know well from 1 Samuel 13, where King Saul decides to skip over the waiting.  He’s tired of waiting, so he decides to take things into his own hands.

This is 1 Samuel 13:5-14. I’ll just read a section here, verse 13 is the key verse, though,

Now the Philistines assembled to fight with Israel, 30,000 chariots and 6,000 horsemen, and people like the sand which is on the seashore in abundance; and they came up and camped in Michmash, east of Beth-aven. When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait (for the people were hard-pressed), then the people hid themselves in caves, in thickets, in cliffs, in cellars, and in pits. Also some of the Hebrews crossed the Jordan into the land of Gad and Gilead. But as for Saul, he was still in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling.

Now he waited seven days, according to the appointed time set by Samuel, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal; and the people were scattering from him. So Saul said, “Bring to me the burnt offering and the peace offerings.” And he offered the burnt offering. As soon as he finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him and to greet him. But Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “Because I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the appointed days, and that the Philistines were assembling at Michmash,  therefore I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not asked the favor of the Lord.’ So I forced myself and offered the burnt offering.”  Samuel said to Saul, “You have acted foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you, for now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.  But now your kingdom shall not endure. The Lord has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart… 

I think that is one of the saddest phrases in the entire Bible.  1 Samuel says, “Now the Lord would have.” The course of your life and the course of Israel would have turned out differently.  But Saul, and I can understand his feelings of Philistines massing against him. Sometimes it is other things, the bills are massing against you, or whatever, this life brings all sorts of pressure.  But Samuel said, “Now the Lord would have.”  I hope you do not hear that phrase from God in your life. 

And in a couple chapters later, just to finish off that little section, here’s another one of those scenes I wish I could capture on film, the drama is so great.  I won’t take the time now to read it, it’s kind of the end of this story where Samuel once again has come to Saul who has messed up and disobeyed God again.  And Samuel is rebuking him, and he is getting ready to leave, and he turns suddenly to go and Saul grabs his robe to try to stop him and his robe tears, and Samuel says, “Now God has torn the kingdom from your hand.”

This is a sobering thing.  We can try to abort the waiting process, and sometimes the pressure mounts really high, like I said Saul was under tremendous pressure but he had a clear word from God on what to do, and he turned away from it. 

And you younger people in church here have been very much on my mind as I have been preparing this.  I just counted this morning, of teenagers and young twenties and such there are at least 15 of you here today.  So I want to speak to you especially on this process of waiting and especially as it regards to sex.  Which is not easy for a shy person to talk about.  I know that most of you or all of you have been raised by great families and you know what is right, but I also know that sex is a powerful force, and the world around us is getting sexier all the time, and the message is, “you are missing out if you are not experiencing everything you can possibly experience.”

I just remember my time in high school.  I went to a secular high school, and it was a small town, so I think my graduating senior class was about 70 people, so everybody knew everybody and knew what was going on. As I got into my teen years, I became a believer when I was a young boy.  But you go through those years when you’re a child and spiritual things are out there on the periphery of your life, you say your prayers when you go to bed, but when you become and adult and start going to high school, then the choices come to you.

You notice, if you’re trying to follow God at all, that you’re starting to diverge from your friends’ path.  And I had these friends around me, and I just thought of one, her name was Bonnie, and I knew her since I was in junior high school.  She and this group of friends who were the “cool” people in school were into everything, drinking, parties, drugs, sex, and I just watched their lives.  As we got close to our senior year I looked at their faces, especially I remember Bonnie’s.  I remembered this little girl, kind of innocent, and sin does something to you, it makes you hard.  I just remember how hard their faces were. 

If you indulge, especially in sex, freely, it was never meant to be handled that way, and the only way you can survive that is to harden your heart, you have to become a hard person.  So I’m just telling you, young folks, don’t go that way.  

There’s a great verse in Isaiah that says, “Get you up on that mountain,” and I’ve been thinking about that.  Have you ever seen a picture from a war where there is a column of refugees who are leaving because the enemy is coming and they have their burdens over their shoulders and their wagons and carts piled up with stuff?  And then if you see or picture the trail they have left behind after they are gone, there is just stuff lying on the side of the road, discarded belongings and wreckage and baggage.  I thought of my friends in high school, just the wreckage and baggage left behind of their lives. 

But if you get out of that column of humanity that we’re all in, and go up on a high place and look back over history, all the things that look so enticing to you, young people, it has all been done before.  The cool people want to make it look like it is so enticing and rebellious and cool and fun, and you’re just not living, but it has all been done before!  It is as old as the world!  Say that to the cool guy in your class who is trying to get you to do something, “Man, you are as old as the world.  There’s nothing new.”  That’s what the Preacher said.  You know Solomon, he finally had that ultimate male fantasy, he had unlimited access to all the women he wanted and at the end of his life he was just kind of a burned out, bitter guy.  He said, “Vanity of vanities, all vanity.” 

It has all been tried before.  You’re not exploring any new territory.  I have heard of, you know, people who put on Christian conferences, and they have seminars you can sign up for.  They say if you want to guarantee to pack out a seminar, make the title “How to understand the will of God in your life.”  People just run to it because they want to know “What’s the will of God for my life?” I do too.  And sometimes the will of God is not that clear.

In 1 Thessaloninans, there is an interesting verse.  It says, “This is the will of God for you, that you abstain from sexual immorality.”  You may not know what it is, which job or what college to go to or a hundred other things, but this is one of those rare cases where God says, “This is God’s will for you, that you abstain from sexual immorality.”  And if you do that, you won’t lose out on anything, even though the world says you are losing out.

And I want to speak, back in Samuel again, if it should be that you have not waited in this area or some other area, listen to this.  The horrible, cruel God of the Old Testament as they tell us, in 1 Samuel 12:19-25, the people realize that they have really made a terrible mistake, by demanding a king from God and they were repentant, they realized “This is not the way we should have gone. Finally we see the truth.”  And here Samuel, the tough prophet who tells it like it is, who tells you, “Today God has torn the kingdom from you,” here’s what Samuel said.

Then all the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, so that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil by asking for ourselves a king.” Samuel said to the people, “Do not fear. You have committed all this evil, yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart.  You must not turn aside, for then you would go after futile things which can not profit or deliver, because they are futile. For the Lord will not abandon His people on account of His great name, because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for Himself.  Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you; but I will instruct you in the good and right way. Only fear the Lord and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you. But if you still do wickedly, both you and your king will be swept away.

In the Old Testament, in Isaiah 55:2, God says, “Come to me and I will abundantly pardon.” So there is forgiveness, because none of us has waited perfectly.  But wouldn’t it be great to arrive and not have to ask for forgiveness for every possible thing we could do. 

Here’s some thoughts on waiting.  I was thinking of Janet and Jonathan this week and the whole idea of courtship.  And if waiting for whatever it is that you’re waiting for in this life seems intolerable at times, remember the thing that we’re waiting for, ultimately, is Christ Himself.  We are the bride, and there is going to be a marriage.  And right now, this life on earth has something very special about it.  This is the courtship phase of our relationship with Christ.   And there’s something wonderful about courtship. 

Of course, we’re waiting, counting off the days like Janet is counting off the days.  We’re waiting for the consummation, for the marriage, and that is fine.  But there is something really special about courtship time, when you’re getting to know each other at a little bit of a distance.  The world, the way it works now is you meet some enchanted evening across the crowded room, you meet and you go straight to Motel 6.  There’s no waiting, there’s no getting to know each other, there’s no nothing.  Just right from square 1 to square Z in one step.

Now that might seem kind of thrilling, but you miss out on something if you don’t do it God’s way, if you skip the courtship.  And right now, you know we’ll never again have this chance to walk with God while He is still invisible to us, and to walk by faith.  This is our only chance.  This is the courtship.  So while we’re waiting, you can look at it as a burden or a special opportunity that is only here for a while.  Remember when Thomas wanted to stick his hand in Jesus’ side and Jesus said, “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed,” and they is you and me.

This is a special time and once it is gone it is gone forever.  We’ll be in Heaven with God and there won’t be any of the faith, hope, and love.  Only love will be left, because the others are taken care of.  One way to deal with waiting is to look upon this time as our courtship with Christ.  I love that passage from Hebrews where it talks about how He made everything and all things hold together in Him.  This is the One you are walking with.

I also thought about one of my cousins who had a huge influence on me spiritually.  He used to do bar evangelism with his group of Navigators up in Wisconsin.  They went to the same bar every week, on I think Friday nights, and they would just mingle with the crowd and get to know people and talk to them about God.  Or they would go to a big park and do the same thing.  The ones who came to the evangelism class, I told you about that.  He got me started on that, much against my will.  Fingernails were dug in, heels were dug in. 

But what is a bar? A big party where drugs and sex and everything is going on? But what is that but an admission that the Bible is right?  That the world is broken and we are empty and hurting inside.  Anyone walking into a bar is admitting that “something is missing from my life, I’m hurting, and I want something to relieve the pain in some way.”  And basically all the sin we’re drawn to is the same thing.  It is an admission that God is right.

But I love John 7:38.  I love Jesus, and here’s a great way to answer if you ever get in a situation where they’re offering you drugs or alcohol, or anything else.  John 7:38 Jesus said, “He who believes in me, as the scripture said, out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.” Not something you put in yourself to survive and get through the day, but out of your innermost being, from the inside out, life comes.

I was just thinking today, I had forgotten all about this. I was in Newark, NJ years ago, standing on the corner, waiting to cross the street; the light was against me.  You know, Newark, NJ is kind of the Las Vegas of the east, it is a gambling kind of town, but I had come with a girl friend of mine to a conference.  She was already in the building, and I was standing waiting to cross the street, and this big guy came up to me, and he said, “Hey man you want to do some drugs?”  Or something like that, I forget his exact wording, but basically he was saying “I can get you some good stuff.”

So I just said, “No, that’s all right.  Thanks, I appreciate it, but I have something better.”

And he said, “What?”

So I quoted that passage to him, and he said something like, “Ok, yeah, that’s cool…I think my grandmother believes in that stuff too.” (Something like that). Then he said, “Well, I can find you a girl too.” But then he said, “Wait, don’t tell me, you’ve got something better?”

I said, “Yeah, that’s right--same source.” So you can have some amusing conversations.

So let’s look at Romans chapter 8 (verses 19-23).  I think I mention this chapter in every message I give, probably. If you have your bulletin you can just read the front.  In fact, I think I will because it is nice big print.

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope  that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

I don’t know how many times “waiting” appears in that text, but I think this is the foundational text on waiting.  Waiting began in the Garden when the first man, as it says “For by one man, sin entered the world and death by sin.” And we also know that by one man redemption entered the world too.

So, when you are experiencing the pain of waiting, when it seems intolerable, when the Philistines are massing together against you, or whatever it is, when you are feeling like “my life doesn’t make any sense,” futility.  It says here that creation was subjected to futility through the fall of man.  And when you are groaning within yourself, don’t you hate those times in your life when, I don’t know if you want to call it depression or whatever it is.  It might be a little short term thing like an afternoon of having the blues or it might be days or weeks or months of groaning within yourself.  One of the worst things about it is looking around and everyone else seems to be cheerful and everything is going right for them and you think, “What is wrong with me?”

Well, God could give you quite a long laundry list, but mainly, what is wrong with you is that you’re living in a broken world, on a broken planet, and you yourself are a fallen person.  But even Paul experienced this, and if you look back at the Bible, David, all the great men of God have experience times like this.  Paul said that he despaired even of life.  Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

So, in one sense, nothing is wrong with you, and you have permission to groan, because that is only a logical response to a broken world. It is ok, you can groan.  Because we’re waiting for, what?: adoption as sons and daughters.  The whole creation is actually watching, it says, holding its breath for the revealing of the children of God.

What are a few principles we can draw out of this passage? Waiting happens to everybody.  It is a universal condition of man.  (If you see anything, feel free to sing out too.)  And if you decide to go away from God, you will still be waiting.  Our heart tells us, “Ok, I can escape from this agony if I go and pursue this particular course that looks so attractive to me.” But you’ll be waiting in a different way.  So waiting is there, waiting for us all.  And you’re not alone in waiting.

Waiting is the universal condition of man, and of believers too.  You’re not the only Christian who is groaning within yourself at times.  You’re not the only one who is waiting.  But to wait for God and for God’s will, I think everyone that does testifies that it is worth it.  I think Janet and Jonathan would say, “Yes,” that it’s worth it.

I remember being about 19 years old and saying, “God if I don’t get married in the next year, I’m going to explode! I’m going to die!” Then after 19 passed I thought, “Well, maybe I could make it to 21 or 22.”  So I kept revising it back as life went on.  “No further than 24! No way!” God has His own timing, and it’s always worth obeying Him and waiting in faith.  It takes faith; God has asked us to walk in faith.  For yet in a very little while He who is coming will come and not delay, as it says in Hebrews 10.

Well, what to do while waiting? It was a tremendous relief to me, I think I read this part about the groaning in a book by Larry Crabb, a famous Christian  counselor, the idea that it is ok to groan.  It doesn’t mean that you are messed up as a Christian if you are groaning.  But what should we do then?  This is fun too.  I googled it:  “How to wait.”  And you would not believe it, there’s all sorts of stuff.  I think I had heard about this site, called Wikihow.  You know about Wikipedia, well they have all this stuff about how to wait, and one was called “How to wait for the bus.” It had all this stuff, and some of it was pretty practical advice too, about waiting for the bus.  “How not to go nuts while you’re waiting for the bus to show up.”  Of course, if you don’t have an iphone you can’t check your email and all while you’re stuck at the bus stop.

But in Psalm 90:12 it says, “Lord, teach us how to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.” So, if you’re waiting for that special person or that job or whatever or to get out from under the thumb of your parents.  Oh man I couldn’t wait for that, “How away far can I move?” And then when I moved far away I thought, “Wow, that was kind of nice back at home.” 

If you’re waiting, take the time and let God do His work in you, and number your days and use this, whatever you’re going through, whatever it is, the rotten job…that cousin I mentioned to you for a while, I think when he was going to college, and he had what he called a “kachunka job.”  His job, was in some factory where they made these parts and his job was to stand at this machine and pull this lever you, know “kachunka, kachunka.” How can you do that for 8 hours without going insane? Being the weird kind of guy he is, he said, “I have to find some way to survive 8 hours on this job.” So he started thinking, “What could I do?” So he started doing all sorts of stuff, he started memorizing Scripture, he started watching the machine and seeing how he could become more efficient, and he got to where he was turning out more parts than anybody else, he made kind of a game out of it, and after a while they promoted him.  They said, “Okay, you’re good at this, no more kachunka for you, you can go do something more interesting.”

Wherever you are, whatever you’re waiting for, number your days so that you may present to God a heart of wisdom.  I like, speaking of teenagers and under your parents’ thumb, Luke 2:49 when Jesus disappeared suddenly and they came looking for Him, and He was kind of surprised.  They said, “Son, we’ve been worried to death. Where have you been?”  And He said, “Didn’t you know that I had to be about My Father’s business?” So that’s one of the things we can do while we’re waiting, for the marriage supper of the Lamb or whatever it is you’re waiting for, is be about your Father’s business,  because there is really nothing more exciting to do.  Everything the crowd is asking you to do… eventually the excitement wears off because it is not really significant.  But following God, testifying to the truth of the gospel, that’s exciting.

Natasha and I are doing something really wonderful, but simple.  We’re reading the book of John with some non-Christian friends of ours, which is kind of mind blowing.  I would give a lot of money if I could see inside their minds and see what’s going on.  I don’t know if they’re doing it just to humor us, but I see something is happening as they’re reading about Jesus, I don’t know what it is, but I think they’ve gone from total skeptics and totally humoring us to kind of interested in this guy. And they both have very keen minds.  But those are the kinds of things where all of Creation is sitting on the edge of its seat, when a person who doesn’t know God is exploring the possibility that there might be a God and He really wants something from me.  As you get involved in that, boredom kind of flees away in the face of things like that.

Let’s look at a verse together because I haven’t explored this, and I think this subject of what to do would be a great topic to brainstorm on, but Colossians 3:2, how to make this one practical, I’d love to hear from you on this one too.  “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”  Christ, who is our life.  Not something on the periphery, some character we believe in on Sunday morning, He is our life.  I love how in John chapter 1 it said “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

But how do we do that? Set your mind on things above not on things that are on earth?  There is another passage that talks about “Set your mind on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  I think this is something worth meditating on.  Actually somewhere, some place, far away where Jesus is actually there in body, with the nail holes in His hands, seated at the right hand of the Father, even though He’s here with us, too, inside of us, but there is an actual place where the body that was nailed to the cross is, right now.  Isn’t that kind of mind blowing to think about?  And He’s coming back soon, as it says.  But I think it would be a worthwhile exercise just to think, “How can I set my mind on things above?” And I know when you’re a teenager, that seems like, oh man, I have too much stuff going on here to… but try it.

Luke 18:7-8 when Jesus said “When the Son of Man comes again, will He find faith on the earth?” I was just thinking of the worst things I would want to be doing if Jesus came back, if the Rapture came.  Just imagine, you were sitting, watching television, some stupid show, when Jesus came back.  I would hate to be watching television, I don’t know why it is, because it seems so inane.  When He comes back, what will we be doing?  Will we be waiting in faith?

1 Timothy 4:8 Paul is talking about this crown he will get for being a faithful follower.  The last phrase he says, “and to all who have loved His appearing.”  I tend to go through my days thinking of everything else except Jesus coming back, but do you love His appearing?  And what can we do, how can we cultivate that within us where we love His appearing?

Well, as you know, there are about nine million texts on waiting in the Bible; this doesn’t even scratch the surface.  I’m going to finish up with a passage that I don’t even think exactly mentions waiting, but my mother said, “Finish up with this passage.” (She writes all my sermons.)

2 Corinthians 4:16-18, it’s a great place, let’s look at it.  

Therefore, we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.  For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look, not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 

There’s too much to dig out there in a few moments.  But this momentary affliction of waiting, whatever you’re waiting for, won’t last forever, and it’s worth it.  It’s worth it to wait in God’s way.  Don’t disrupt the process, let the process play itself out.  Walk with God in the process.  Let’s pray.

“Lord, Romans 8 says the whole creation is holding its breath, it’s waiting, and we are waiting.  We do long for you to come back.  Lord, help us to see this time as a courtship, our one chance in all of eternity to walk with You unseen, to walk with You when we don’t hear Your voice audibly, and help us not to panic, like Saul did, but to have faith.  Thank you that you are coming quickly.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.”