Why Waiting On God is So Hard?
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We are talking about Abraham today. We're talking about Abraham, and if you're a, if you're just a casual Bible observer you might wonder what the heck could Abraham do wrong," right? Like he's absolutely massive in the Bible. What could he have done? We even used to have a Sunday school song about Abraham, right?
Does anyone remember that Sunday school song? Father Abraham had many sons, and many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them and so are you. So let's just praise the Lord. Boom, boom. I love that man. All right. That's it. So well done. Give yourselves a clap. Yeah, so that's Father Abraham. Man the guy is in the hall of faith in Hebrews 11, which is like a trophy room of faith.
The guy was a genius of faith, and when I say trophy room, I remember one time I did a tour of the MCG one time d- when I was down in Melbourne, and man, it's like the hallowed turf. They speak in hushed tones when you go through the trophy room. And you look up at all the batsmen, that you've...
and the cricketers, and then you come to Don Bradman's section, and there's almost like a reverence. He was a famous batter, and he got the best average you could ever get, 99.9 or something like that, and it was, like, hushed tones. Kind of Abraham is in that level, he is just right up there.
I want to share with you a scripture this morning, and there's gonna be plenty of scripture this morning, 'cause that's the way I roll. I like a lot of scripture in my messages. And so we're gonna talk about... We're gonna look at Hebrews 11, which is the hall of faith, and we're gonna see a little bit of how good Abraham was.
So it says, "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance-" Obeyed and went even though he did not know where he was going. Imagine that, Sarah saying, "Hey, Abraham where we going?" "I don't know. God just told me we gotta go." So we, he packed up all the camels, and the donkeys, and the shuttles, and this, and that, and he said, "We're off."
And so by faith he made his home in the promised land, like a stranger in a foreign country, and he lived in tents, and he did as did Isaac and I- Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. We'll leave it there for the moment.
So that's Abraham. That's where he started off. And so wanna start this morning by getting you to imagine with me that you're walking in to an art museum, and you wanna see a famous masterpiece. You're gonna see Rembrandt or the pr- the return of the Prodigal Son. But as you step up to the canvas, you notice something strange.
The museum creators haven't just hung the finished painting. Next to it, they have displayed the artist's raw X-rays and early sketches. And you can see there's some flaws in those early sketches, and they've done s- maybe a hand too long, or a bit of scenery's out of place, or something's a bit wrong.
But this is a masterpiece, but you can see the mistakes, and you can see where the artist has sketched an arm or whatever, and you look at it, and you think, "Oh that's strange," but it's also amazing. And if we're honest, when we read the Bible, we like to look at the finished masterpiece of each and every one of these characters.
So we applaud their accomplishments. They've hit home runs. They've just done some amazing things. It's like they were stained-glass windows who never had a bad day. They never doubted. They never made a mess. We put Abraham on that kind of pedestal. We call him the father of faith. We preach about the breathtaking moment that he climbed Mount Moriah and he was ready to offer up his only son, Isaac, just showcasing a master class in radical obedience.
But if we pull back the canvas on Abraham's life, God has left those early sketches on display. Nothing's really hidden in the Bible. We can see the things that he did wrong. We can see the mistakes that he made, and God left that on display
God didn't erase Abraham's bad sketches. He left those for us to see in the Bible, because God wants us to know that the heroes of the Bible were not perfect people who achieved great faith. They were flawed people who discovered a perfect God. Today, we're not looking at Abraham's greatest victories.
We're gonna look at his deepest shadows. We're gonna, we're gonna look at moments where he panicked, moments where he lied out of fear, and the moments he grew so impatient with God that he took matters into his own hands, and he created a generational mess. We look at his mistakes not to look down on Abraham, but to look in the mirror, because if we're honest we've all tried to play the artist, we've all tried to play the artist in our own life.
We've all taken the steering wheel at times, only to make a mess of the canvas. But then you know what? You know what? God is wanting to make a masterpiece out of those early sketches in our life. He wants to make a masterpiece out of us. And I'm gonna give you another scripture this morning to back that up, and it says in Ephesians 2:10, "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared for us to do."
We are God's workmanship. What sort of workmanship do you think God does? Would it not be perfect workmanship? Would not a perfect God produce perfect workmanship? And you say I'm not perfect." Exactly right. I'm not perfect. But do you know what God does in His workmanship? He chips away at the rough edges of our lives.
He chips away so that we can start to improve. Some of the mistakes we made 20 years ago, maybe we're not making them now. Maybe we've become a little more like Jesus as we progress in our Christian life. Can you see that? That's what God is wanting from us. He wants us to progress. And even in Ephesians fi- 5, it says, "Since we are God's dear children, we should try to be like Him."
And that's our goal, and that is God's goal of His handiwork. He is making a masterpiece out of you. So is that good news? Is that... That's pretty good news, isn't it? He wants to make a masking- masterpiece out of you guys, and me. So let's have a look at mistake number one, The context is that a famine hits the land.
Abraham goes down to Egypt. Egypt always seemed to be the land of milk and honey, and so they always went down to Egypt when they were in trouble. And so they went down to Egypt, and there was plenty of good stuff down there. But Abraham, fearing that the Egyptians would kill him to take his beautiful wife, and I've gotta say that Sterah m- Sarah must have been some sort of stunner, because it says...
It mentions her beauty so many times in these passages, but she must have been amazing. But Abraham was afraid, and he convinces her to say, "Tell them you're my sister. Tell them when we get there, you're my sister." What was he doing there? He's protecting his own skin. "Tell them you're my sister." Let's read the passage so we know exactly what's happening here.
The passage is in Genesis 12:10, from verse 10. It says, "Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. And as he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife, Sarai, 'I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, "This is his wife."
And then they will kill me, but let you live. Say you are my sister so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.' So when Abram came to Egypt, the Egypt- Egyptians saw that Sarai was very beautiful. And when Pharaoh's officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace.
He treated Abram well for her sake. And when... And Abram acquired sheep and cattle and male and female donkeys and male and female servants and camels. But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram's wife Sarai. So Pharaoh summoned Abram, and he said, 'What have you done to me?'
He said, 'Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say she was my sister so that I took her to be my wife?' Pharaoh took her into his harem. 'Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go.' Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him away with his wife and everything he had."
So Abraham valued his own skin above his wife's safety and her dignity. That's what he did there. He wasn't protecting his wife. He was using his wife as a shield when he should have been shielding his wife And this was driven out of fear. This wasn't driven out of a recognition of God's promises on his life.
If he had of been thinking about God's promises at that point, he wouldn't have done this. He would have trusted God to say, "I know my God's gonna protect me. I've got promises. I know what God's gonna do in our lives." But no, he did a deception, and at the end of the day, God had to clean up the mess
And isn't that true in our lives at times? We make a mess of things, and we ask, "Oh, God, you've gotta clean this up." That's where we're looking in the mirror this morning. We can make a mess and say, "Oh, sorry, God, I messed up. I messed up." So God bailed Abraham out of Egypt despite his deception, and he... God protected Sarah, and He preserved the promise, and He brought them out even wealthier than they went in.
Isn't ama- amazing? Some people just, have that little Midas touch, my friend Graham used to say that about me. "Man, he messed up, but look, he's killed it again. He's looking he's looking like roses again." But at the end of the day, God had to clean up a mess and protect Sarah from that situation.
And isn't it also true that human nature rarely learns the lesson the first time? Egypt wasn't just an isolated bad day for Abraham. Egypt started to reveal a pattern. Abraham had a habit of trusting God when the sun was shining, but taking the steering wheel the moment the things got dark.
Anyone can relate to that a little bit? I know I can from time to time. And so that brings us to his next mistake. Years have passed. The panic of the Egyptian famine is behind them, but a new and heavier panic has set in. It's the panic of a ticking clock. Tick tick. There's still no baby.
He's been promised a son. He's been promised to be the father of many nations. Years have passed Every time they wake up in the morning, they look in the mirror, there's a few more gray hairs. Tick tick. There's a few more gray hairs. There's, there is no baby. What are we gonna do?
In Egypt, Abraham's enemy was fear, but here in Genesis 16, Abraham faces an even deadlier enemy, impatience. Impatience. Let's read the story. Genesis 16 from verse one. "Now Sarai," Sarah was the old name. I'll just keep saying Sarah. "Now Sarah, Abram's wife, had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar.
So she said to Abram, 'The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave. Perhaps I can build a family through her.' Abraham agreed to what Sarah said. And so Abram had been living in Canaan 10 years. Sarah, his wife, took her Egyptian slave and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarah said to Abram, 'You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that I know, now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.'" Abraham, always the rescuer, said, "Your slave is in your hands.
Do whatever, do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarah mistreated Hagar
In those days it was a curse, almost a curse for a woman not to have children, to not being able to be, to conceive. She was called barren. Imagine being called barren. Ladies, would you like to be called barren? Here, she was called barren, and she had to suffer the disgrace of that
And so they began to get impatient. They again, they began to feel the clock tick, tick, tick. It was ticking away. What are they gonna do?
It's just ticking away too fast, and they're starting to get very concerned, and they decide that they're gonna make a plan. They're gonna take a detour. They're going to do the thing that they shouldn't really do. Did they ask God about it? Did they pray about it? Did they actually commit any of this to God?
No. No, it was their own plan. See, God had promised Abraham a son, but Sarah remains barren. So she says, "Go and sleep with my slave Hagar. Perhaps I can build a family through her."
This was huge. This was a huge mistake. Abraham and Sarah mistook God's delay for God's inability
They were crushed under the pressure of waiting
Does anyone know that pressure? I know that pressure. They were crushed under the pressure of waiting, and they tried to manufacture a spiritual promise using fleshly and worldly methods What could he have done better? He should have resisted bad advice from his wife. Remem- reminds me of another little story in the Bible "Adam, just have a little bite on this.
Bite on this fruit, it's really good." They both should have resisted bad advice and taken the spiritual leadership of their family and said, "No, this is not right. We're waiting on God." But Abraham passively agreed to this little plan, and it was a plan born of panic rather than prayer. He failed to lead spiritually his family.
He should have waited on God's method
What was the fallout here? Phew. The fallout is incalculable, really. Initially, it was deep domestic strife. Sarah grows resentful. Hagar is mistreated, eventually thrown out into the desert with I- Ishmael, and a rift is created that really echoes down through generations
This was massive. And this is something we have to factor into our own lives. Are we prepared to wait for the thing that we're waiting for? Are we prepared to wait, or will we try and do a little detour? Maybe take a little deception, maybe speak a little lie, maybe just do what it takes to get what we want.
Or will we wait on God? Going into Haggai was rooted in impatience and trying to help God out The mor-- the modern parallel might be just trying to force doors open that God has closed for us or taking unethical shortcuts to get a good result, maybe financially, maybe in relationships, maybe not to show yourself vulnerable.
We'll do something. We'll tell a little half-truth. We'll make ourselves look good To make happen what we want to happen
Do you know what? I just wanna tell you the obvious this morning Waiting on God is hard Waiting on God is hard. For some of you, you may not have the big thing that you're waiting for. But for s- for others of you, and as we progress in life, there is the big thing that we're waiting for, maybe the salvation of a loved one, maybe a health crisis, maybe something that financially that you're just on the brink of collapse, and you got a deadline, and you've got to have God come through for you, and it's tough
But I wanna tell you this morning, sometimes that big thing can get in competition with your very love for God And you can start to feel even a little ticked off with God that He's not coming through. And I'll confess, I've been there. A little... just a little ticked off. And your relationship with God just kinda diminishes because you got the weight of the big thing
But what we've gotta do is just trust God that He will come through. He will come through. And I always like to remember the passage about Jesus as He's going up the hill, and He's praying to God, and He's asking God, "God, if you..." And it's the day before His crucifixion, and He's asking God, "God, if it were possible, could you take this away from me?"
And then He says the famous words, "Not My will, but Your will be done." And I've have, I've come to that many times. Not my will, God, but your... I'm trusting you. I am trusting you. And I tell you what, as you begin to trust Him again, you forget about the tick, tick, tick. You forget about the circumstance.
You just have to trust Him and say, "God, I know that you want this as much as I want this, and I'm gonna trust you for your timing." Because God's timing is not our timing. God's ways are not our ways. He comes, He does it on His timetable. He will do it when He is ready, and we can trust Him with our big things.
We can trust Him with our big things Because really, the detour is gonna mess you up. You can try a detour. You can try and do something fleshly. You can try and make it happen in your own strength, and honestly, it's gonna be a disaster, as it was for Abraham and Sarah
We need to dig in, we need to sit, we need to trust. I remember mom told me the story, my mom, she's passed now, but she told me the story of her praying for me When I was out sowing my wild oats and going around the world with no particular plan, and Mom was praying for me and She said she felt God say, "Philip will all be, will be all right.
You don't need to worry about that." Mum was a wo- mum was a world-class worrier. She could worry about the peas at night or whatever. She was just a world-class worrier, but you know what? She took peace over that, and one of her favorite scriptures was, "Be still and know that I am God." And I always take heart from that when I think of my mom and I think, "Oh, wow, be still and know that I am God."
And so today I want you to just remember that your big thing, God has it under control. Waiting is hard. I get that. But if we're gonna call ourselves Christians, and if we're gonna call ourselves disciples of Jesus, let's do what He did. Let's give it to God, and let's be able to say, "Lord, not my will but yours."
And I wanna read you one more scripture to end this up, and it's in Isaiah 40 And it's from verse 28, and it says, "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might, He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall."
But here it is, "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." They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength I remember God saying to me once, clear as crystal, "I'm not taking this away.
I'm gonna make you stronger." And I will testify that He has done that. He has made me stronger, and I wanna pray for you today. If you're wrestling with your big thing, whatever it is, I'm gonna pray that you can wait on the Lord, and He's gonna renew your strength, and you are gonna trust Him in a fresh way today.
Heavenly Father, I pray for every single person today who is here that has a thing that's weighing them down, that they feel like there's a timeline, they feel like there's something devastating gonna happen or whatever it is, Lord, that they would put their trust in you, and Father, they would wait on you, and Father, they would not be tempted to take the detour and do it their own way, but they would trust you to do the thing that they would want and just be your...
be... You would be their strength. You would be their provider. You would help them through, and you would help them say, "Not my will but Your will," knowing that You have this thing in hand in Your time And Father, we just thank You for that in the mighty and wonderful name of Jesus. Amen