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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/gary-sharp/waiting-on-god/
Book of Isaiah, please. Chapter 40. The book of Isaiah. Chapter 40. Isaiah 40 and let's read, please, at verse 27. Isaiah 40 and verse 27. Why sayest thou, O Jacob? God's asking the question. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?
Is it possible even today that some of you have questions such as Israel had? Where's God in my life and where his movements and dealings and where the results that I've been seeking in prayer? Why, why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, my way is hid from the Lord?
God's forgotten all about me, and judgment is passed over from my God. Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary.
There is no searching of his understanding. There is nothing about your case he does not know. There is nothing that's escaped his view or his understanding. There is nothing hidden to his eyes. He knows it all.
Verse 30, pardon me, verse 29, he gives power to the faint. It's precious. Sometimes you just feel your weakness. You feel you're absolutely incapable. Sometimes the Lord just comes near with might and ability and just eclipses.
It's wonderful. He gives power to the faint and to them that have no might. He increases strength. Even the ewe shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. And they shall walk and not faint. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Psalm 130 for a couple of verses here, please.
Psalm 130 and verse 5. Psalm 130 and verse 5. You can see earlier, and I know this is a song of ascent, but you can see earlier that the expression is made out of the depths. I've cried, Lord, hear my voice.
But here in verse five, they say, I wait for the Lord. My soul doth wait. You know, he's just kind of focusing down upon the most essential part of our being. My soul doth wait. I wait for the Lord. My soul doth wait.
And in his word, do I hope. My soul waiteth or looketh for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning. I say more than they that watch for the morning. Let Israel hope in the Lord. For with the Lord, there is mercy.
And with him is plenteous redemption. I wait for the Lord. Trust that God will bless what we've read from his precious word. I don't know about you, but I find waiting just a little irritating. I don't know why they call those lights stoplights.
I'd rather they were called go lights. It just bothers me sometimes that when I'm in a hurry and when I've got a certain thing on my mind, they get in my way. I don't like waiting. But then there's nothing new about that when you think of a little child and they're traveling on a journey and why you've hardly left home.
And the question is, are we there yet? Are we there yet? It seems to be life's most trying lesson to wait. One of the hardest things we do. And yet, how often has God brought us to that position where we are made to wait on him?
It's part of life. Waiting for the school bus. Sure. Or running for the school bus in some cases. But it's part of life, isn't it? You order a meal at a restaurant and somebody comes in and they see you there and you say, what are you doing?
Oh, I'm waiting. They're getting ready. And it's a good thing they are, because you see, that's important to have that preparation and then to set it down before you in. Well, the way it should be. You plant a fruit tree.
I planted a plum tree. I had been up in Manitoulin Island one year and enjoyed these wonderful plums of this tree. And I planted this plum tree and it was supposed to be a self-pollinating tree. And I planted it amongst my apple trees.
And I waited and I waited and I waited. And believe me, I waited 10 years. I waited and then we moved. And that year nearly broke its branches. I waited in vain. But the whole idea of a fruit tree is that very often we find ourselves waiting for the time to come when that fruit will be produced just in God's own season.
Waiting. It's part of life. Waiting is very practical. It affects our development. It affects our character. It makes us what we are. Waiting. And we still don't like it. We have a biblical example of it in the people of Israel.
Remember, when the pillar moved, they moved. And when the pillar stopped, they waited. Sometimes we like life on the move. And we've been hearing something about that today. And I'm not trying to directly oppose anything that's been said.
But I want to tell you this, that God takes issue with Israel way back here in the book of Isaiah. Why sayest thou? And sometimes, you know, we're found murmuring and complaining and disputing and sharing with other people about why we've got to wait.
Think about the reason why God lets us wait. Sometimes the most stressful time of our life when we have to wait. Sometimes there are questions that have to be answered, and sometimes there are issues that have to be decided, and there are decisions that have to be made.
And it all seems to weigh up on us. A couple of years ago, almost, I had so many things to do, I didn't know how I was going to get them done. And I happened to say publicly, and that's a dangerous thing to do, that I had no idea how I was going to get everything done between December the 20th and January 6th.
And two days later, I didn't have to do any of them. God just visited me and made me wait. You know what? It's the best winter I've had. I had a heart attack. Yeah. The best winter I've had in all my preaching life.
You see, we were married after I was already in the work and we never ever did have a winter quite as enjoyable as being able to sit by the fire and not feel guilty that I wasn't out beating the roads and we could just enjoy the fire and the quietness and fellowship.
Sometimes God just decides to make us wait. Sometimes the reason why God makes us wait is because we're not ready for the next step. We're not mentally, spiritually prepared for what's coming after this.
Sometimes we need to do a little internal house cleaning. Sometimes God wants to reach into our life and touch a thing or two and point out to us where our thinking is wrong and where our expectations are wrong and maybe where our goals are wrong.
Do you ever think that maybe you're waiting because you got your heart set on the wrong thing? Or maybe what you've got in mind is second best to what God has in mind. Or maybe there needs to be that cleansing of those things in your life so that God can give you his gifts in all their fullness and you will be able to enjoy them and delight in them as well.
When the time is right, God does what's needed. Remember David, he had to wait and the waiting time was not pleasant. I mean, he was being hunted like a partridge in the mountains. And he found what comfort he could with a bunch of rogues in many ways.
Those who were in debt and those who were in distress and so on. And sometimes even found himself in a cave, a dark, cold place. Sometimes it must have been difficult to wait. But God had a plan and God had a purpose.
And God was going to bring out of it something that was just best for him. We have a dear sister back home and she's been in the assembly for years. Her husband left her many, many years ago and she raised her family.
And thank God she's seen all but one of them saved. But, you know, it seemed as though God kept her waiting for years as she prayed and she prayed and she leaned hard on God. And just the last year and a half, we're just thrilled for her.
As God has begun to move in her life and in her family's life. And she's seen a couple of her children baptized. One of them received to the assembly. Some of her grandchildren say God at work. All those years of waiting and joy came in the morning.
The reasons why God makes us wait may be because some of the details of his will haven't yet been disclosed and they're not in place where he wants them to be. And sometime you may turn a corner and suddenly see.
Ah, that's what he had in mind. That's where his plan was. That's why he seemed to withhold from me that which I sought the most. Perhaps you'll even find it was better than you ever dreamed. God's goodness and grace is displayed even in making us wait.
The Lord's delays, the Lord's delays are designed to increase our faith. You know, there's something very, very sweet about finding yourself desolate and alone and looking up and finding that God is there.
And he's just as real as he's ever been. And his word is just as true and faithful as it has ever been to anyone else. And it will be to you as God makes us wait because he wants to fill in the details.
He wants to increase our faith. And he wants us to refocus our attention on him. Say, speaking of that, where is your focus? Where is it? I know that there's a certain sense in which we have to focus on the stuff of life.
I hope you're not focused on the rubbish of life. And there's a lot of rubbish out there. And I hope you're not focused on the things that are just temporal and passing and will soon be gone. And I hope you're not focusing on just material things because there's something so much better and so much more precious.
He wants us to turn our attention, our focus on him. You couldn't be better blessed. You couldn't be counted richer than if you really knew fellowship and intimacy with God in your life. Sometimes God just makes us wait because it's for our good.
But then I was thinking, not only of the reason, but of the right way to wait upon God patiently. Well, I have almost as much trouble with patience as I do with stoplights. Patiently, I remember when I was a young believer, there were a number of issues in my mind.
One was, of course, where someone to share my life. God made me wait till I got the best. Don't be afraid to wait. When it comes to a partner in life, don't settle for second best. You may get your desire and regret it the rest of your life.
But if you get God's design and God's person for you, you may spend hours on your knees in prayer beforehand, wondering who and how and all. But at least you won't spend hours on your knees with a broken heart because the wrong person came into your life because you were impatient.
How should we wait? Patiently. We should wait quietly. It's a good thing to be quiet before God. Be still and know that I am God. Do you know God? You know him better than you did? Is he so close to you that it makes you afraid?
You say, are we supposed to be afraid of God? God is greatly to be feared. Greatly to be respected. And I'm not saying I'm afraid of meeting him. I'm not. Maybe I should be. But when I sense his greatness and his majesty and his glory, and I think of how he looks at someone like me.
His mercy surround me, that his tender care has been extended towards me, that he has a plan for my life. So great I can scarcely grasp its dimensions. I tell you, it's enough to humble you. It's enough to bring you down in the dust.
It's enough to make your face down with a heart that lifts up to God quietly, patiently, dependently expecting that God will do what he said he will do. I got one minute. That's not enough, but we'll do.
And I was a boy. I had a dad who meant what he said. He promised me a licking. Well, that wasn't something you did with your tongue in those days. And if I was stupid enough to incur his displeasure, I wouldn't be waiting for him.
But he promised me a quarter. When he came home from work, I'd be standing at the front door with my hand up because I knew he was faithful. Can you depend on your God? What's our verse say? Wait on the Lord.
Wait on the Lord. And he says in Psalm 30, my soul waits upon God. My expectation is from him. And here in Isaiah chapter 40, we read those words. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings. You want wings to fly? They come from God. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run, not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Oh, that difference God can make in our lives, in the midst of our weariness and in the midst of our weakness.
It's God that we need. We need to wait patiently till he comes and has mercy upon us. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. I could say something about hindrances to waiting, but a busy world.
What busy lives we live. If you'll take this from an old guy, we're too busy and we've allowed life to become too complicated. And the rush of people around us has so infiltrated our thinking and our lives.
We've scarcely got time for God. And brethren, our strength is in the Lord. Not in human ability, not just in our grasp of certain truths in our Bibles, but our strength is in the Lord himself. And they that wait upon him shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings as eagles. Ah, friend, you can rise above the difficulty and the trial and the challenges by waiting quietly, dependently, specifically on God. And then when you see him move and when you see his hand, when you sense his power, lift your voice in praise to the Almighty, because everything that we are depends on him.