A Christmas Sermon (kind of)

Sermon 2, Wait

Here it is Christmas season and every kid can show you a different picture of waiting. They have advent calendars filled with chocolate to make it fun and tasty to wait. When my kids were little we couldn’t put the presents under the tree even because they couldn’t wait to open them and would open and rewrap them. We wait for good news like birthdays, holidays, vacations, and bad news from doctors or events that are at our darkest moments like illness, loss, or death. But what does God say about waiting? “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.” Isaiah 40:31.

The promises of God are all worth the wait. Unlike a set day like Christmas God’s promises must be waited on in faith not by sight. If God spoke a word in your heart and you believe it to be true, it is backed up by scripture and then even if a prophet verifies it again to you, you can be sure that God cannot lie or go against His Word.

Abram waited 20 years and even tried to manipulate God by doing God’s promise his way rather than waiting on the Lord. God promised him a son and he would be the father of many nations, more numerous then the sands of the sea or the stars in heaven. Abram looked at what he saw and doubted God. He was an old man and his wife already went through menopause. He thought he would help God and went to his servant Hagar and had a son. Twenty years he waited, Sarah even laughed at the promise in unbelief. But he did have a son, Isaac. God keeps His promises. The verses before the waiting testify what and how God did this for Abram “He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might he increases strength.” Is. 40:29. God was able to do just that for Abram to accomplish His perfect will. Adam in the Garden when he disobeyed God, God still promised “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.” Gen. 3:15. Thousands of years later, Jesus.

God is outside of time. In Psalms 90:4 “For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night.” Peter reiterates “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.” 2Peter3:8. He is giving us encouragement to wait and goes onto say vs 9 “ The Lord is not slack concerning His promise as some count slackness but is longsuffering toward us not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” God is gracious and kind full of compassion and knows He cannot strive with man forever. He knows our frame he created us from the dust of the earth. “But now O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay and You are the potter; and all we are the work of Your hand “Is 64:8. “ Woe to him who strives with his Maker! … Shall the clay say to him who forms it, What are you making? Or shall your handiwork say He has no hands?” Is. 45:9. He knows the waiting is hard and encouraged Israel with prophets to turn back to God, to wait. He encouraged His disciples with the guarantee of the Holy Spirit. He encourages us with His word; He cannot go against His word and the Holy Spirit. He knows what we need even before we know we need it. He gives us the desires of our hearts because He is the one who put the desire there to be fulfilled.

The Good News of the Gospel is that we know the Potter. We know how and why we were created. We know the truth and the truth has set us free from sin. Free from missing the mark of God because Jesus is that Mark. Since we have received the free gift of salvation we now have the Mark living on the inside of us. We are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” Rom. 5:21. Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world. “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; old things have passed away behold all things have become new.” 2Cor 5:17.

We have the truth living on the inside of us and if we need to wait on the Lord we can wait in confidence and peace. Just like Paul in jail or Peter and Silas singing in prison, we can have joy because we know Him. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the knowledge of the Holy one; My people perish for lack of knowledge. This is the knowledge the wisdom, the fear that Christ died for us while we were still dead in sin, Christ died for us. Christ in you the hope of glory. If we hope for what we can’t see we wait patiently for it. All the promises of God are yes and amen. This is the confidence we have in Him that if we pray for anything in his name according to his word he hears us. If we put all our faith hope and trust in Him then everyday is Christmas. Everyday all things we go through we can have confidence that he is working all things together for good. “When it is impossible for God to lie” said the apostle. He cannot go against His word. He even prays for us where we don’t know how with groanings that cannot be uttered. He has provided for us all things freely to enjoy. We cannot be discouraged by the things we see. He is greater than this world and wants to do exceedingly above what we think hope or imagine.

I have been born again for 16 years. When God delivered me from alcohol I asked Him to heal my arm from tendinitis. I hadn’t played the guitar for 8 years because I was in so much pain I couldn’t put my arm over it. In 3 months God healed it and I have been playing ever since more than in my whole life and the pain never returned. I asked God to heal my son; he has 4x 1y chromosomes that bring on developmental delay and all kinds of odd physical problems. I brought Him to the altar, we prayed and I knew He was healed. God has confirmed in my spirit that he is healed, even sent prophets through the years who don’t even know that I have a son to confirm he is healed. Is he healed? Not yet but I take God at His word. He loves the Lord and sings worship songs and prays, and every time I see him I let him know that God has healed him. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. If we hope for what we see it is no longer hope. Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen. So it has been 16 years and if it need be another 16 years bless God. His timing is perfect He is not in error. I hang onto this scripture in particular because I used to get discouraged thinking maybe he will only be healed in heaven but God’s Word says “ I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” Psalm 27:13-14

God’s promises are ours today in His timing. I was raised catholic and went to 12 years catholic school, baptized all my kids catholic yet walked away in my late twenties and was never going back because they didn’t give me the answers I was looking for. God knew my heart and wouldn’t let me go. He sent someone to my house, a charismatic, born again Christian, to tell me the answers I needed, to let me know how much He loved me. I was 33; God has perfect timing for us all. He will heal Jeffrey, bring my prodigals home, and supply my every need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. He can be trusted. We can wait.

Just like the 10 virgins I have my oil of faith, and hope full and I wait for the bridegroom to come. And He will, when all things are fulfilled the Bibles says. He knows when that is, so I can rest in His love, joy and peace that He is for me and not against me. Be thankful in all things and wait. The Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11 are all who waited on God not seeing the full promise but only in part. Noah waited 100 years for a flood enduring mockery and ridicule, but knew God. Paul through all his shipwrecks, infirmities, beatings endured because he Knew God. We endure with patience. 2Peter 1:5-7 “…giving all diligence add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control patience, to patience godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.” So all these promises we have from God that God placed in our hearts, whether it be healings, salvation, ministries, finances, God is faithful. We are faithless, we are liars, we are sinners but there is no shadow of turning with God. He doesn’t promise and then say just kidding or I forgot about you.

We wait we endure, we press forward to the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. We know the one that called us is faithful and true and will finish the work he began in us. We run the race we don’t grow weary while doing well knowing that in due time we will have our reward. Jesus died on the cross and took all our doubt, all our unbelief, our fear our suffering and pain so we can be free. So we will find rest for our souls. So we can have life and peace and life more abundantly, to the fullest. The kingdom of God is righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. There is no doubt or hopelessness or unbelief in heaven, let there not be these things here in our hearts either. We can wait. The fruit of the Spirit is longsuffering, patience. He gives us the ability to wait to hope to believe. Faith as a mustard seed can say to this mountain be removed and cast into the sea. We can cast the mountain of unbelief doubt and fear into the sea with our mustard seed of faith hope and love in God.

Why do we have to wait? Because there are 6 billion people here and now and even more things to come and He sees and knows things which we cannot. He is infinite we are finite. He is outside of time we are inside it. Just like a child on Christmas why do they wait? Because it was ordained for them to wait for that day and time. God ordained that we should have to wait for what we pray for and in the waiting we grow spiritually, mature and learn to trust in Him. We get to know Him better in the waiting, in the hard times of faith. He is testing us but in a way we can test Him as well. Malachi 3:10 “ Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven, and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.”” We can bring all our faith to Him. He can be trusted and tested. He will accomplish that which he set out to do. God will have his way and if we pray according to His word, His will, we will have our way also because it will be His way.

What if in the waiting we learn, we trust, we grow, we humble ourselves, we seek His face, we obey, we walk with Him, we lean on Him, we give Him more and more of ourselves and die daily to ourselves.

I will see all the promises of God in the land of the living I will not lose heart, I will mount up with wings as an eagle, I will run and not grow weary, I will walk and not faint, I will wait.