"Wait For The Lord"

Preached by Rev. Ed Brouwer at The Gathering Place
Pulpit Series Volume 17 Issue 2 01/14/2007

There are a number of God’s children who are at a point of doubting the wisdom of God's timing or the goodness of his guidance.

The Impatience Battle can be a little skirmish over a long check out line. Or a major combat over a handicap, illness or circumstance that knocks out your dreams.

Dealing with impatience is not some superficial denial of the frustration. It is a peaceful willingness either to wait for God where you are, or to persevere at the pace he allows on the road of obedience, to wait in His place, or to go at His pace

Impatience tempts you in two directions.

First it tempts you to give up. Just forget it. I won't keep this job, take the challenge, rear this child, stay in this marriage, or live this life. Impatience tempts you into Giving up.

Secondly, impatience tempts you to make rash counter moves against the obstacles in your way. It tempts you to be impetuous, hasty, impulsive or reckless. Rather then turn your car around and go home, you rush into some ill-advised detour in an attempt to beat the system.

You must understand impatience is a battle against your faith.
It is vital that you win this battle:

Luke 21:19 By your endurance (patience) you’ll gain your lives
Romans 2:7 To those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, God will give eternal life.
Hebrews 6:12 Do not be sluggish but be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

For the Christian, patience in doing the will of God is not an optional virtue, because faith is not an optional virtue.

Patience in well-doing is the fruit of faith.

Impatience is the fruit of unbelief. Because this is really a battle against unbelief. In your fight against impatience your chief weapon is the Word of God.

His Word equips you in this battle, by showing clearly showing you the relationship between the promises of God and the patience of the believer. Psalm 130:5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits and in His Word do I hope.

Waiting for the Lord is an Old Testament way of describing the opposite of impatience.
Waiting for the Lord is the opposite of running ahead of the Lord and it's the opposite of bailing out on the Lord. Friends, it is staying at your appointed place while he says stay, or it's going at his appointed pace while he says go.

So how does the Psalmist keep his patience as he waits for the Lord to show him the next move? Verse 5 says, I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and IN HIS WORD I HOPE.

The strength that sustains you in patience is hope, and the source of hope is the Word of God. In his word do I hope! Hope is just faith in the future tense.

Hebrews says, Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. So what we see in Psalm 130:5 is a clear illustration that the way to battle impatience is to build-up your hope (or faith) in God, and the way to build-up your hope in God is to listen to his Word, especially his promises.

If you are ever tempted not to wait peacefully for God to show you your next move - if you are tempted to give up on him or go ahead without him - understand that this is a moment for great spiritual warfare. Ephesians 6:17 says to take the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God and wield some wonderful promise against the enemy of impatience.

During Isaiah's day Israel was threatened by many enemies. During those times God sent the prophet with his word to tell Israel how he wanted them to respond to the threat. But one time Israel became impatient with God's timing. The danger was too close, the odds for success too small. Isaiah 30:1-2 describes what Israel did in her impatience. Woe to the rebellious children, says the Lord, who carry out a plan, but not mine; and who make a league, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my counsel, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh, and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!

Israel became impatient. God had not delivered them from their enemy in the time or in the way that they had hoped for. They sent to Egypt for help. They made a plan and treaty, but they weren't God's. The key words are in v2: They set out to go down to Egypt, WITHOUT ASKING FOR MY COUNSEL.

This is where many of us sin almost daily: charging ahead in our own plans without stopping to consult the Lord.

So the Lord gives a warning in v3: Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh (the king of Egypt!) turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation.

In other words, your impatience is going to backfire on you. Egypt will not deliver you, it’ll be your shame. Your impatience will turn out to be your humiliation.

Let this be a warning for us: When our way is blocked and the Lord says wait, we better trust him and wait, because if we run ahead without consulting him, our plans will probably not be his plans and they’ll bring shame on us.

What should Israel have done? The answer is given in v15 and 18. In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.

In quietness and trust shall be your strength. In other words, if you rest in God, if you look to him, if you trust him, He will give you all the strength you need to handle the stresses where you are. Then Blessed are all those who wait for him. This is the way you battle the unbelief of impatience.

You should consider the promise in

Isaiah 49:23 Those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.

Isaiah 64:4 No eye has seen a God besides you, who works for those who wait for him.

Isaiah 40:31 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.

So you battle the unbelief of impatience by using the promises of God to persuade your heart that God's timing and God's guidance and God's sovereignty are going to take this frustrated, boxed in, unproductive situation you are in and make something eternally valuable out of it.

There will come a blessing, a strength, a vindication, a mounting up with wings like eagles. His Word will conquer unbelief, and belief will conquer impatience.

I urge you to take hold of God’s infinite wisdom, love and power and use them to conquer the unbelief of impatience. In the words of Hebrews 6:12, Be imitators of me and of all those who through faith and patience inherit the promises..... For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Romans 8:24-25

Waiting, appears to be a spiritual discipline.

James tells us to let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete,

lacking nothing.

I heard a story about a man who was once hospitalized for a serious illness. His physician visited him one day and was running around checking medications, examining the charts, consulting with the nurses, checking vital signs. After observing this behavior for some time, Mr. Holmes finally became exasperated and bellowed out: For God's sake man, don't just do something. Stand there!

Well, for some 53 years I have been learning in my own way not just to do something. I am, I hope closer today to learning that sometimes it is important just to stand there.

Psalms 27:14 Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.

I Samuel 12:16 Now therefore stand and see this great thing, which the LORD will do before your eyes.

Ephesians 6:13 take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all, stand.

Wait on the LORD, wait, I say, on the LORD.