The ABC’s of the Christian Life (21): Following Jesus Christ Rightly (14): Waiting on God

Well let's turn to Hebrews 11 and in a few minutes we'll read verse 13 which really summarizes the matter that we want to address today.

We're going to be considering a lot of scripture today, particularly with regard to the life of Abraham who is our father, our spiritual father.

He exhibited what it is to have faith and we follow in his footsteps. We want to talk about the matter of waiting on God.

This is another subject that one of you had introduced to me or asked me about a couple weeks ago and so I'm getting,

I'm continuing getting some ideas on how to prolong this series. I don't know how much longer we're going but we got it through today.

Following Jesus Christ rightly, the matter on waiting on God. Following Jesus Christ rightly may be summarily described as a life of faith in the

Lord Jesus, of course. Christianity is not chiefly a life ordered according to a set of laws, but rather it's a life in fellowship and dependence upon the person of Jesus Christ who died, rose, ascended, was enthroned, and now lives in his people, with his people through the presence and the power of the

Blessed Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul said this quite succinctly in confessing the manner that he lived with respect to his own relationship to the

Lord and so he wrote what probably many of us have memorized, for I through the law died to the law that I might live to God.

I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which

I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

The footnote in the New Reformation Study Bible I think is pertinent, sending forth Paul's meaning.

Union with Christ means that he represented us in his death and resurrection, but it means more.

It is a living union. Jesus is present with the believer. By the

Spirit the Lord lives in inward fellowship with his own.

Paul does not mean that the individuality of the person is suppressed or absorbed. He lives in the flesh by faith.

The union is a spiritual relationship of the utmost intimacy. And so the life of the

Christian is one of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, walking with him, being guided by him.

But the Christian life may also be rightly described, as we've been addressing it, as a life of following Jesus Christ.

And so there are different aspects of this Christian life. Yes, we have faith in the

Son of God and that we look to him and relate to him continually even as we depend upon him daily, but our faith in the

Lord Jesus is also that of following him, and hence our our subject matter of these many weeks.

Following Jesus implies a destination to which he's leading us. We're following him somewhere, aren't we?

To a place, to a destination, and we're traveling on this path being led and assisted by our

Savior, the Lord Jesus. The destination to which we are traveling is a state or place of eternal happiness, a life characterized by full joy, unshakable peace, an existence of perfect righteousness, which may be described as complete conformity to the will of God and the blessed presence of God.

May that day come soon. This destination is promised to us.

We haven't arrived. It's promised to us. We believe on the Lord Jesus. We never arrived to our desired haven in this life, although we were able to enjoy in this life many of the blessings that we will experience then finally and fully.

But we're able to enjoy them to a measure even now, thank the Lord. And so we may conclude or assert this, that much of the

Christian life involves waiting upon God. What is it to wait on God?

Why would God have us wait? Why would God not immediately answer our prayers, bring an end to our difficulty, bring us in into a more blessed state than we currently are?

Why is it that the Christian life is one largely of waiting?

There's a sense in which we're waiting. We're waiting for God to fulfill what he has promised us. And this waiting upon God is not always easy.

In fact, I would say it rarely is. Sometimes it's even resisted by us.

We don't want to wait. We want it now, please. But God calls upon us to wait on him until he fulfills his promise to us in his own time, in his own way.

The fact is, God is always the promise to his people. And so we wait for the things he has promised that they would then be realized by us.

And as we wait upon him, we show forth our dependence upon him, our delight in him, our confidence in him, our submission to him.

In short, in our waiting on our God to fulfill all his promise to us in his Son, we show forth a life of faith in him as he leads us onward and upward toward the day when we receive in full all that God has promised us in Jesus Christ.

We're a people in waiting. The writer to the Hebrews Christians described this life of faith in this manner when he summarized the faith of many believers of the

Old Testament period. And here we have our text in Hebrews 11, 13. These all died in faith, not having received the promises.

That means they were waiting all their life, doesn't it? They died not having received the promises.

But having seen them afar off, they were persuaded of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

We don't belong here. It's not our home. We're passing through, and we're waiting for God's promises to be realized.

And so the Christian life of following Jesus may be understood therefore as waiting on the Lord. It's a life of unrealized expectations in this world, even as we wait upon our

God to fulfill all that he's promised us in and through his Son. And so much of the

Christian life may be described as waiting on the Lord. The Holy Scriptures speak about this a great deal.

I cited a few passages before us. The psalmist wrote of this waiting, out of the depths

I've cried to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, that you may be feared.

And here it is, I wait for the Lord. My soul waits, and in his word

I do hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning. Yes, more than those who watch for the morning.

It's repeated for emphasis. And then a word of exhortation.

O Israel, hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is abundant redemption. And he shall redeem

Israel from all his iniquities. That's Psalm 130. I started reading through John Owens.

I've got 16 volumes. I'm hoping, I might be rather ambitious, but I'd like to read through it this coming year.

And he's noted for giving an extended exposition of Psalm 130.

It's supposed to be a wonderful piece of writing. I'm looking forward to it. The psalmist who wrote this was clearly in distress.

He declared to God, out of the depths I've cried to you, O Lord. He was praying that God would hear his prayer and answer his petition.

He knew and acknowledged he was a sinner, but that didn't seem to be a barricade to receiving

God's blessing. He knew he had no claims upon God, but he also knew, and he was confident, that God had forgiven him of his sins.

His sins were not a barrier to God answering his prayer. And so it's an expression of faith, isn't it?

In verse 5, the psalmist depicts himself as waiting rather anxiously for the Lord to fulfill his word to him.

I wait for the Lord. My soul waits. He was looking for God to fulfill his promises to him, and he was more attentive to the

Lord answering him than, say, even a watchman who was guarding, say, the city.

They would be very attentive through the night, because that would be the time of danger for the city.

So the watchman was watching carefully, lest an enemy approach the city undetected.

And the psalmist says, I am more watchful than they are as I'm looking to God to answer my prayer to fulfill his promises.

And so as the guard, as the watchman, waited for the dawn of the morning when the danger of the night would have passed, so the psalmist was looking to God.

One described the sentiment of the psalmist like this, when we, like the guards of a city, wait for the morning, we are waiting for more than simply time to pass.

We are waiting for the sun to rise and day to break, for the light to replace the darkness and the cold to be replaced with the warmth of the sun.

Waiting involves an expectation of something special. Waiting means anticipation, expectation, confident hope in something that will take place.

Ultimately, waiting on the Lord is like waiting for the sun to rise, waiting expectantly for the

Lord's answers to human needs as the sun brings the warmth of day. And so this is, as Christians, we're waiting for the day when all of God's promises are finally fully realized.

Other passages of the Old Testament speak to this matter of waiting. Characterizing the people of God, David wrote,

I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined onto me and heard my cry. Psalm 40.

Isaiah, the prophet, would encourage or strengthen those who waited on God, but they that wait upon the

Lord, they shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run, not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Those who wait, anticipating but patiently for the

Lord to answer. And elsewhere we read of instruction of the people of God that they are to wait on the

Lord. Psalm 27, wait on the Lord, be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart.

Wait, I say, on the Lord. Waiting is a major characteristic of the

Christian life. Every one of us as Christians have things that we are anticipating, wanting, and yet they're not here yet.

We're waiting. The Christian life involves waiting, not just in the

Old Testament. We read of waiting for the second coming of Christ. And so Paul wrote to the

Corinthians, I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus that you were enriched in everything by him in all utterance, all knowledge, even as a testimony of Christ was confirmed in you so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Does that characterize you? Does that characterize us? We're eagerly awaiting the return of Jesus.

When this difficult world is coming to an end and all that God has promised us will then be realized.

Paul wrote of the well -known testimony of the church at Thessalonica. They themselves, that is the people of Achaia, the whole people in that whole region of the world, declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you and how you turned to God from Isle to serve the living and true

God and to wait for his Son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, even

Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. And that wrath to come is not a future tribulation as so many teach, talking about God's judgment on sinners.

He's delivered us from that wrath through his own life and death. And so we

Christians are children of God, but all of what that means and entails has not yet been fully disclosed to us, certainly not fully displayed in us, but we wait for the day in which that will be manifest.

And so Paul wrote, we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth hangs together until now.

And not only that, we also, we are the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves.

I love that passage. Paul says, hey, the creation groans, we're groaning. He goes on to say even the

Holy Spirit groans in anticipation of this realization.

And we're eagerly waiting, there it is, waiting for the adoption. And what he's referring to here is when we are resurrected or when we are transformed and we have our glorified bodies, that's when our adoption as sons of God, children of God, will be fully realized by us.

You and I cannot fathom the glory that's going to be bestowed upon us.

You know, we're going to be talking with one another. I had no idea, you know, I had no comprehension of what has been so freely bestowed upon us as children of God.

But we ought at least know to a measure it's something to be eagerly awaited for, anticipated.

And so Paul says we're saved in this hope, but hope that's seen is not hope. For why does one still hope for what he sees?

But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. And hope, we've talked about in the past many times, is the grace that God gives to strengthen people to enable them to endure through trials.

And hope is always fixed on something God has promised in the future but not yet has given us.

And it's the hope, anticipation, that certainty that motivates us and strengthens us to endure difficulty.

Well, not only does a Christian life involve waiting for the second coming, but the Christian life involves waiting on the

Lord to answer our prayers. God doesn't always answer our prayers immediately, does he?

Sometimes he does, thankfully, but other times he doesn't, thankfully.

He's wise in that. And so the Christian life is not only waiting on the Lord for what he has promised to do after this life is over, but we also wait upon the

Lord in this life as we desire and anticipate the Lord working in the here and now.

The Lord has given us many promises that we may enjoy in this world, in this lifetime, even as we wait the consummation of all things, the second coming of Christ.

Most of our praying is for the Lord to intervene in our lives and to make changes to what is happening to us.

And most of the time we're waiting for that to happen, right? Most of our praying is for the

Lord to intervene. We pray frequently, hopefully we pray faithfully, and thankfully the

Lord many times answers our prayers, sometimes sooner than later, but he doesn't always answer our prayers in the manner and in the time frame we hope.

This, therefore, involves waiting. In causing us to wait for him to answer our prayers, he accomplishes several things.

First, the Lord shows forth our true desire for the thing for which we pray. Sometimes that's not evident until we have to wait for it.

We're continually praying for it. We pray once or twice and then immediately he answers, you know, the desire for the thing necessarily wouldn't be acute.

His timing is perfect. The Scriptures describe persevering, importunate prayer as a kind of prayer that God delights in answering.

And we can think of this Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman. Jesus traveled up to the

Northwest into Gentile country, and in Matthew 15 we have this account.

Jesus went out from there, departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. That's where Gentiles live. And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region, cried out to him, saying,

Have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David. My daughter is severely demon -possessed. But he answered her not a word.

She had to wait. He answered her not a word. Not much encouragement there. She's a

Gentile. He's a Jew. She's a woman. He's a man. Have mercy on me,

O Lord. My daughter is severely demon -possessed. His disciples came and urged him, saying, Send her away, for she cries out after us.

Not much encouragement there. You can imagine her feeling, you know, put off by them, and Jesus doesn't answer a word.

And then Jesus didn't encourage her. He answered, said, I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, implying you're not one of them.

You're on your own. I wasn't sent here to help you. Then she came and worshipped him, saying,

Lord, help me. Then he answered again a discouraging word, it would appear.

It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs. And she said,

Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master's table.

And then Jesus answered, said to her, O woman, great is your faith. Let it be to you as you desire.

And her daughter was healed from that very hour. And so we read the woman sought out

Jesus, not just any woman but a Canaanite woman. Verse 22 states that.

Here was a woman who had no claims on Jesus, but was driven to him due to her great need.

But her need was not an affliction of her own, but that of her daughter, her daughter severely oppressed by a demon.

Consider the nature of her faith. For she knew that she had no claims on Jesus, no basis whatsoever to appeal to him, unless the

Lord showed her mercy. Have mercy, Lord. She came to the

Lord who was crying, have mercy on me. She was a woman, not even a Jewish woman. She was a Canaanite woman, a

Gentile, who had no right nor claim upon the God of Israel or upon the

Savior. Nevertheless, she came to Jesus. Secondly, she had a very high view of the person of the

Lord Jesus. She addressed him, have mercy on me, Lord, son of David. She had a concept of the kingdom of God.

She had more sense than a lot of evangelicals have that Jesus was the promised son of David who was bringing in his kingdom.

And so she knew and confessed that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, the promised King. God had promised

Israel that he would send a Savior, deliverer, who would be a descendant of Israel's great

King David. She knew that. She had more understanding and faith than the Pharisees who had come to him from Jerusalem.

And then thirdly, she had a great need. Her daughter was severely demon -possessed. Now, she didn't wait long, of course, but she waited, didn't she?

It would seem even in the presence of discouraging words, attitudes, and treatment.

And initially, the Lord didn't give her encouragement. Thomas Manton, a great

Puritan writer, wrote these words regarding this. He heard well enough what she asked, but not a word of answer yet she from him.

I will show you that though Christ love our persons, and not dislikes our petitions, but meaneth to grant them, yet for a time he will seem to take no notice of them.

In other words, there's waiting. That is a sore temptation, appeareth by the complaints of the saints and servants of God.

So he starts to quote scripture about this. Lamentations 3 .8, When I cry and shout, he shouteth out my prayer, as if God had locked up himself, and that their prayers should not come to him, or find access to him.

And so verse 44, Thou coverest thy self with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through, as if God wrapped himself in a thick cloud of displeasure against our sins, and that our prayers could find no entrance.

And so the spouse, now he's quoting canticles, which is an old English word for the

Song of Solomon, and clearly he's reflecting the historic allegorizing method of interpreting the

Song of Solomon, and here the spouse is supposed to be a emblem of the

Lord Jesus. I think they're right in that. Canticles 5 .6, I sought him, but I could not find him.

I called him, but he gave no answer. That's the young maid who desires her groom, her lover, and yet he did not respond to her.

That God would refuse and reject our prayers is a grievous trial to the faithful, who value communion with God.

Nay, this delay may be so long, till the cause seem hopeless. Psalm 69 .3,

I am weary of my crying, my throat is dried, my eyes fail, while I wait for my

God. This is a waiting for God to answer prayer. Psalm 22 .2,

O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hear'st not in the night season, and I'm not silent.

And all this while God seemeth to forsake them, nor to regard their suit, that is prayer, as if he had no respect to their hard condition.

To lose our labor in prayer is one of the saddest disappointments that we can meet with, when our

Lord in importunate cries bring no relief to us. Yet this is the common experience of Christians, having to wait for the

Lord to answer prayer. Why does the Lord tarry in this way, in answering our prayers?

Why would he have us wait for his answer? Well, to the end that he might be glorified, and that we might be strengthened while we're waiting.

He waits to answer for our ultimate good, that we might exercise our faith, as well as patience, and our love for him, and our true desire for the thing that we request of him.

Will we, in our patient persistence in prayer, show forth that we're true to him, and unwavering in our loyalty to him?

Or will our efforts be short -lived? Does our commitment to him last only as long as we receive the things from his hands?

Or do we keep praying, even though we don't receive from his hands, immediately?

Let us be as the prophet who said, these are wonderful words, though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive failed, and the fields yield no food.

The flog be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the

Lord, I will take joy in the God of my salvation. Is that the kind of faith, and joy, and praise you have of God, even though you're waiting on him, and it seems like he's not hearing you, and not answering you?

Our Lord's silence would not lead her to be silent, however, and further, she must have heard

Jesus's disciples regarding her. Send her away, you know, she's irritating to you and to us.

J .C. Ryle wrote of this, there is only too much of this spirit among many who profess and call themselves believers.

They are apt to discourage inquiries after Christ instead of helping them forward. They are too ready to doubt the reality of a beginner's grace, because it is small, and to treat him as Saul was treated when he first came to Jerusalem after his conversion, that believed not that he was a disciple.

Ryle's talking about new Christians, or those who are interested or concerned, and how we may not give them regard, just like the disciples did not give regard to this

Syrophoenician woman. Hard, callous. Let us beware of giving way to this spirit.

Let us seek to have more of the mind that was in Christ. Like him, let us be gentle, and kind, and encouraging all our treatment of those who are seeking to be saved.

Above all, let us tell men continually that they must not judge of Christ by Christians.

Amen. Let us assure them that there is far more in that gracious Master than there is in the best of his servants.

Amen. J .C. Ryle. But after hearing his disciples, the woman heard Jesus say further,

I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The Father had sent Jesus on a mission to fulfill his promise to the nation of Israel that he would redeem a remnant of his people for himself, to remove their transgression from them, to remove the curse that was upon them for having broken the

Mosaic Covenant. So God would send his Messiah as a shepherd to his flock, a remnant of Israel, as Micah declares.

I'll surely assemble all of you Jacob. I will surely gather the remnant of Israel. I will put them together like sheep of the fold, like a flock in the midst of their pastor.

They shall make a loud noise because of so many people. And so the Canaanite woman had no claims on Jesus.

She knew that he was the promised Jewish Messiah. She knew that he had the power to heal, but she knew that she had no basis of appeal, for she was not a

Jewish. Nevertheless, she was driven by her need and her concern for her daughter, and so we read, she came and knelt before him saying,

Lord help me. But our Lord gave her further cause for believing he wouldn't help her.

He answered, it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to dogs. Talk about a rebuff.

What hope had she? She was not one of the privileged blessed children of Israel.

And again, she was a woman, wasn't treated very well. Jews only had the privilege, not dogs, a term commonly referred to, referring to Gentiles.

Of course, we know that God made provision for all peoples in Jesus Christ, but she didn't know that. And our

Lord referred to her as a little dog. The term, again, dogs, was a common demeaning metaphor that the

Jews used for Gentiles. Generally, dogs were seen as about the lowest form of life.

Now here, they're groomed and fed and pampered, you know, here in America. You go to a third world country, and Keith and I were there a year ago, and every dog looked like skinny, scrawny, kind of walk along with its head down by the, you know, down by its feet, and grungy looking things.

And this is how the ancient world viewed dogs. This is how they were.

But nevertheless, there's a ray of hope here in Jesus's words. He used the word for a dog that referred to the small household pet, rather than the scoundrel out there in the in the ashy, in the garbage dump.

Though not among children, Jesus did not depict her as the mongrel outcast, but rather one that was cared for and provided for by a loving family.

And they had pets, little dogs. And so it made possible a response.

In verse 27, she said, Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table.

And so she sought for deliverance for her daughter. Spurgeon wrote,

Great as was the blessing which she sought, it was but a crumb to the Lord's bounty and to Israel's portion.

And therefore she begged to have it, dog as she owned herself to be. Let us accept the worst character that the scripture gives us, and still find in it argument for hope.

Amen. Our Lord then responded to her in verse 28.

Then Jesus answered her, O woman, great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire.

And her daughter was healed instantly, and the Lord blessed her through her faith in him.

She had her petition granted to her. Her daughter was wholly healed, and then she glorified

God through this event. She waited upon the

Lord. Now, it was over an extended short period of time, but again, the same things happen to us when we wait on the

Lord. We sense discouragement. Perhaps we can think of every reason why the

Lord wouldn't answer us, shouldn't answer us, but our need drives us onward.

And so we wait, and we petition, and pray. What are some purposes for God having his people wait for him to fulfill his promises?

Well, let's think this through. Why would God do this? First, God has people wait upon him in order to discover who it is who truly trusts him, and who it is who does not.

Do they wait, and continually wait? King Saul is an example of this, isn't he?

He was told to wait, and he didn't. He waited for a time, and then other things became a priority, and he compromised.

King Saul was the first king of Israel. He was the people's choice to be king.

He was head and shoulders above every man. He was the people's choice. He was handsome, looked strong.

This is the guy who's going to lead us. But God's appointment of him was in some ways an object lesson, as well as a punishment for Israel.

Saul was ultimately a great disappointment, and a cause of much loss to the nation. Although he was very tall, very handsome, very admirable in these physical traits, he was not a man of faith.

He did not trust and wait upon the Lord in times of trial. He was an anxious man. He was filled with fear about many things.

Ultimately, he desired the approval of man rather than the approval of God.

That's what drove him, the fear of man rather than the fear of God. We may see this played out, and they can be recorded in 1

Samuel 13, verses 5 -9. Then the Philistines gathered together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots, six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the seashore, and multitude.

Now there is a formidable enemy. And they came up and encamped at Micmash, to the east of Beth -Avon.

And when the men of Israel saw that they were in danger, for the people were distressed, then the people hid in caves, and thickets, and rocks, and holes, and in pits.

And some of the Hebrews crossed over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead, but scattered. There's no way we can deal with this.

As for Saul, he was still in Gilgal, and all the people followed him, trembling. And then he waited seven days, according to the time set by Samuel.

But Samuel did not come to Gilgal. See, he had to wait. And the people were scattered from him, people scattering.

So Saul did something that was a terrible sin.

He intruded into the priest's office. Samuel was supposed to do this, and so he was to wait for Samuel.

But Saul said, Bring a burnt offering and peace offerings here to me. And he offered the burnt offering. He failed to wait upon the

Lord. He took matters into his own hands. And it was the fear of the people scattering, the fear of the force before him, that led him to compromise.

He was not a man of faith. He was a man of fear. Samuel told him to wait seven days, but Saul saw the threat.

He feared the consequences of the threat. He compromised. He responded to the things he saw, the enemy gathering, his people fleeing.

He did not order his life and faith, patiently waiting in obedience to his God, but he acted out of fear, which is the opposite of faith.

He failed to wait upon the Lord. And he did what he knew was strictly forbidden in God's Word.

He was no priest. He was not from the tribal Levite. But because he was so fearful or anxious of what he thought might befall him, he acted.

So what happened? Verses 10 -14. Now it happened as soon as he had finished presenting the burnt offering that Samuel came.

Soon as it happened, all in God's providence. And Saul went out to meet him, that he might greet him.

Samuel said, What have you done? That's a good question for parents to ask their kids when they do something wrong.

What have you done? Put it on them, you know, to come up with it.

What have you done? Saul said, When I saw the people who were scattered from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the

Philistines gathered together at Michmash, then I said, The Philistines will now come down on me at Gilgal. I have not made supplication to the

Lord. Therefore, I felt compelled and offered the burnt offering. I just had to do it. I was forced to do it.

You would have done it too, unjustified in not waiting. He was justifying his sin.

Samuel said to Saul, You've done foolishly. You've 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 continue.

The Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart. That had been David, of course. And the

Lord has commanded him to be commander over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.

So he failed to wait. And Saul followed the principle that is everywhere reflected in Scripture, stated in Philippians 4 .6,

he would have been okay. Be anxious for nothing. But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

And I might just append that while you're waiting, that the

Lord can give you a sense of peace and well -being. As you're waiting for those things,

God may be promised that you anticipate your desire. Archaic cares and small -scale day -to -day cares can be injurious to us, as Charles Spurgeon wrote.

Once more, cares or anxieties are of no use to us, and they cause us great damage. If you were to worry as long as you wished, you could not make yourself an inch taller, or grow another hair on your head, or make one hair white or black.

So the Savior tells us, and he asks, if care fails in such little things, what can care do in the higher matters of providence?

It cannot do anything. The farmer stood in his fields and said, I do not know what will happen to us all.

The wheat will be destroyed if this rain keeps on, and if we shall not have any harvest at all unless we have some fine weather.

He walked up and down wringing his hands, fretting, making his whole household uncomfortable, but he did not produce one single gleam of sunlight by all his worrying.

He could not puff any of the clouds away with all his petulant speech, nor could he stay or hold off a drop of rain with all his murmurings.

What is the good of it? Then to keep gnawing at your own heart when you can get nothing by it.

And besides, it weakens our power to help ourselves, and especially our power to glorify God, a care -full heart hinders us from judging rightly in many things.

I have often used the illustration, I don't know a better, of taking a telescope, breathing on it with the hot breath of our anxiety, putting it to our eye, and then saying we cannot see anything but clouds.

Of course we cannot, and we never shall while we breathe upon it. If we were but calm, quiet, self -possessed, and God -possessed, we should do the right thing.

We should be, as we say, all there in time of difficulty. That man may expect to have a presence of mind that has the presence of God.

If we forget to pray, do you wonder that we are all in a fidget and a worry and we do the first thing that occurs to us, which is generally the worst thing, instead of waiting, waiting till we saw what should be done, and then trustfully and believingly doing it in the sight of God?

Care is injurious, but if you only turn this care into prayer, then every care will be a benefit to you.

Amen. You can see this is an ABC of the Christian life, isn't it, that all of us have to deal with in different degrees at different times.

And then secondly, God has his people wait upon him in order to teach them not to lean on their own understanding, but to desire that the will of the

Lord would be done. We read in Proverbs, 1. Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

2. Lean not on your understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.

Many of us could probably testify of the wisdom in following this instruction and the folly of failing to do so.

Those times when we failed to wait on the Lord, but rather leaned on our own understanding, were times when we tended to make a mess of things.

But those times when we waited patiently for the Lord to lead us and guide us in his own time, we can testify of the wisdom and the goodness of the

Lord to instruct us and lead us in the course that was best for us and was pleasing to him. We were going to call on Abraham, but this is lengthy, and so we can't do it.

But Abraham is a wonderful example in a positive sense, but a sad example in a negative sense as well.

If anybody ever had to wait upon the Lord, it was Abraham. His whole life was waiting.

God called him out of Ur of the Chaldees, Abraham, leave your family, your homeland, go to a place,

I'm going to give you and your descendants. Later he spoke to Abraham in the land and said, your descendants are going to have this land and blessing

I'm going to give you. Make your name great. All the families of the earth are going to be blessed by you.

Then later on as he continued to wait, he complained to the Lord, Lord, you tell me that I'm going to have this blessed future and all

I've got is this Eleazar, this servant from Damascus. God said, no, no, you're going to have a son and he is going to be the one through whom all these things are going to be realized.

And so he had to wait. He continued to wait. And it was here that he failed to wait and we failed to wait.

And so what was the result? Sarah brought her handmaid Hagar before him.

Abraham went into her and had a son Ishmael. The results of that are some problems in today's world, right?

Ishmael was born. Abraham failed to wait upon the Lord. In fact, it's used as an illustration, the great illustration of resorting to flesh instead of faith in God and God's promises.

And later on after Ishmael had been born and was growing up, God appeared to Abraham again and said, no, no, no, it's going to be a son through Sarah who is going to be the one who

I'm going to bless. Abraham didn't want that. His failing to wait upon the

Lord resulted in him skewing everything in his mind. Ishmael, his son, he loved.

Isaac wasn't born. He didn't love him yet. He loved Ishmael. And so when God said, no, no, it's going to be through Sarah you're going to have a son and I'm going to bless him,

Abraham's response to God was, oh, that Ishmael might live before you. Oh, that Ishmael might be the one blessed of you.

And that was all born out of Abraham's failure. But God, of course, was true and right.

But he had to wait again. And then finally Isaac was born. And he continued to wait, of course, for years.

And then finally God asked him to sacrifice Isaac. How could this be? Sacrifice my son?

You said through him all these promises are going to arise. How can I sacrifice him? But he did. Abraham was convinced that God was going to raise

Isaac from the dead because God had promised through Isaac the blessings would come.

And if he killed Isaac on that altar, God must raise him from the dead because God cannot lie.

He's going to be true. He's going to raise his son from the dead. And so it was through this waiting all this life, he died, not having realized all the promises, but he died in faith.

And so really, you know, we might be thinking that if God were really to answer our prayers, very soon in a remarkable way, we'll really glorify

God. Now we really glorify God as we continue in faith while we're waiting.

And many times, in spite of all the evidence that would suggest nothing is going to come to pass, nothing is going to be realized.

It is that kind of faith in waiting that brings great glory to God.

It's not these health wealth guys out there proclaiming, you know, that God is greatly glorified when they claim to heal somebody or they get wealthy.

No, God glorifies himself in people waiting patiently in faith through periods of hardship and difficulty and that in a prolonged way.

And the fact is that God is wise in his dealings with us. I hope you take time to read through that in which we address these things more fully.

And then we have to wrap it up. But a third reason, God has, we're on page 11, God has his people wait upon him in order to teach them to be content in all conditions and situations in life.

We might cite Abraham, I don't have it in your notes, but Abraham and Sarah, again, can you imagine Abraham coming to Sarah there in Ur of the

Chaldees? You know, we're moving to Canaan and we're going to live in tents for the rest of our lives because we're really anticipating a city that God's going to build one day for us.

And can you imagine that life of difficulty and deprivation? It wouldn't be very inviting or appealing, would it?

But they learned to trust in God and to rejoice in their relationship with God through all their difficulty and hardship throughout their entire life.

And they had such a wonderful relationship with God that Abraham himself is described as a friend of God.

And again, that was due to his patient waiting upon God as he was waiting

God to fulfill his promises. And then lastly, God has his people wait upon him in order to lead them to highly value what he has promised them in order that their joy will be greatly enhanced when he fulfills his promises to them.

I don't know about you, but the longer I'm a Christian, the more the eternal state becomes attractive and desirable.

And I think the Lord takes all his people that by the time, you know, we're ready to pass out of here, we're ready to check out, move on.

And sometimes when we're younger, you know, there's a lot of things in this world that we still wanted to do, want to experience, want to have.

But by the time the Lord gets done with us, no, Lord, you know, come soon, come quickly. Amen. And the

Lord's producing that in us too as we're waiting. May the Lord help us that this demonstration of our faith and patient waiting and, you know, in a surrender to his purposes and his timing, he's wise and he deals with us rightly.

Amen. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. And thank you for the wonderful illustrations we have set before us, examples for us to follow.

And we pray, Lord, that you would help us to be faithful. Help us, our Lord, to be importunate in our praying.

Help us, our Lord, not to give up, but consider your promises and be persistent,

Lord, and to live in faith in joyful anticipation of the day when all that you've promised us will come to pass.