Waiting on God
- Stephen Phelan
- Dec 7, 2008
- Series: 1 Samuel
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It is advent, which is a season centered on waiting—waiting on God to show up. Like, for instance: “God, I was waiting on you to show up and help the Alabama Crimson Tide yesterday, where were you?” Painful—I thought about wearing all black today, but then I remembered that I am your pastor who is supposed to help you keep things like sporting events in perspective. Seriously, we’re going to talk about this advent theme of waiting b/c that is where our passage takes u. We’re going to look at 3 things involved in waiting on God..
- Why do we struggle to wait on God?
- What happens when we don’t wait on God?
- How do we get the power to wait on God?
Some of you struggle to wait on God because you’re not sure if he exists. You feel a lot like Bob Marley when he sang the song “Waiting in Vain.” This was a song that he sang about a particular woman and his point was this, “Look, if you’re not into me, then I don’t want to wait around in vain for your love. And he has that great way of making it catchy, “I don wanna wait in vain for your love, I don wanna, I don wanna, I don wanna.”
In the same way, if you’re not altogether sure about Jesus, then you say, “I don’t wanna wait in vain for some God to show up and waste my life if he doesn’t really exist, or alternatively, if he isn’t good and loving?” If that is where you are, then I would encourage you to say a little silent prayer right now, “God, I am waiting on you to show up in my life. If you’re real, show me.” Often this happens as his word is unfolded to you and you begin to see him.
But if you are not yet a Christian you aren’t alone in you’re struggle to wait on God. Christians also struggle to wait on God. And I’ll give you 2 reasons why—2 things that keep us from waiting on God and cause us to move ahead without Him and they all come from Saul’s life.
(1) Subtle, Unintentional Competitors. Think about it this with Saul. If you remember from chapter 10:7, Samuel commissioned Saul to go and attack this small outlying Philistine outpost in Gibeah (which can also be called Geba) to stir up the Philistines and cause them to amass their army and then he was to wait on Samuel at Gilgal before the full battle took place. Saul didn’t do so, but you see here in our text that Jonathan did what Saul’s hand was supposed to do. V2 “a thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah…Jonathan attacked the Philistine outpost at Geba, and the Philistines heard about it.”
But notice how Saul spins it. He doesn’t give credit where credit is due, to Jonathan, but v3-4 says that he gets people blowing trumpets and announcing a half-truth that he did it. Now, I know that as the King, he could rightfully say this, for he gets credit for what his subordinates do. But, Jonathan was doing what he should have done, and Saul knew it. Moreover, what you will see with Saul as the book progresses is that he becomes deeply threatened by those who wait on God and walk obediently in his ways, including his own son as he sides with a person that he also views as another competitor (David). So a big part of Saul’s struggle to wait on God was his battle with subtle, unintentional competitors.
Such is so often the case with all of us. Let me explain. For those of you who are not yet Christians and you’re pursuing God, there will be many subtle, uninentinoal competitors that enter your life. They won’t identify themselves as competitors. It is not as if you’ll have an announcer saying, “And here comes the challenger, the blue corner, weighing in at…” No, they’re subtle & unintentional competitors.
The competitor comes in a number of shapes and sizes. For instance, often it is an economic competitor. I simply can’t afford to keep reading through the evidence for God or to come to this Curious Discussion Forum. Why? B/c of my finances. We’re struggling and I have got to work over-time. Or, maybe it isn’t because your company is struggling, but it is b/c you’re doing so well in your job.
Or another common competitor I see that keeps people from pursuing God is a social competitor, most often a boyfriend or girlfriend. They either aren’t into what you’re doing or they just get very demanding of your time. Don’t go to that church again? Why are you spending time reading that book again?
But subtle, unintentional competitors also enter the lives of those of us who are Christians and lead us to act, rather than waiting on God to act. For example, imagine this scenario—it shouldn’t be too hard. God has called you to live within the framework of his provision (i.e. have a budget). But then what happens. A competitor enters. We see nice cars and houses all around us and all of a sudden our credit cards and lives are leveraged to the hilt.
Or let me give you another scenario that flows out of addiction. I so love being a part of watching people get off the streets, out of rehab, and then they get a job. But here is what often happens--become consumed with the job, and they no longer wait upon the provision of God. God brings you up out of the pit, gets you clean, gives you a job, and then the very thing he gives you—a job--becomes a competitor in your life, competing against you having any time to worship God, serve God, have a community. No time for those things.
(2) An enemy,
Look at what happens in Saul’s life. After Jonathan riles up the Philistines by attacking their outpost, the whole army comes to Gilgal and is chanting and beating their chest and ready for war. V5 says they had “3000 chariots, 6000 charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as sand on the seashore.” V6-7 says Saul’s men were defecting like crazy and the ones who stuck around were quaking with fear. So Saul thinks, “Enough is enough—I know I am supposed to wait, but the enemy will win if I do.”
But…the enemy at the gates won out.
See, for us, in 2008 in America, we don’t have enemies lining up outside of our homes. But, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have enemies who attack us. Let me explain by showing you 2 enemies that we’re currently facing:
Currently, we have an economic enemy on the attack, wiping out jobs, retirements, etc. And it has Americans doing the same thing that the Israelites were doing—quaking with fear. And what will our response be? See, for those of you who ultimate treasure is in Christ, do you realize what an opportunity we have. If our treasure is in Christ, where neither moth or rust or the economy can destroy, then our joy isn’t wiped out when our 401K is. In a strange way, this is why I am somewhat excited about what is happening in our country b/c this gives us as followers of Jesus a chance to be unique, which is often hard in America where being a Christian is so easy. The world should ask us, “Why are you still smiling? Hasn’t the value of your property dropped like mine? Didn’t you lose your job like I did?” Yes, but there is this guy named Jesus, and He gives me my daily bread, and it is always enough.
An article in the Union-Tribune on Friday helped me understand how critical our response to this economic enemy that we’re facing is. there was an article that was titled this, “Want joy in life? Study says find some happy folks.” Listen to what Dr. Fowler, who co-authored the study said, “Happiness spreads just like a virus. But happiness is more effective than a mere biological virus. It can be transmitted indirectly, affecting people who may be 3 degrees removed from the jolly source. For example, Fowler said, you’re 15 percent more likely to be happy if you are exposed directly to a happy person; 10 percent if it’s the friend of a friend; and 6 % if it’s the friend of a friend of a friend.”
So 2 things that strike me from this study. The first is this? What are you contagious with? Are you contagious with fear, with anxiety, with a humbug view of the world. Or has that little baby that came in a manger, that prince of peace, infected you with a Christ-contagiousness. Are you one of those people who have a contagious happiness & joy about you, such that others want to be around you so that they catch it.
See this study just confirmed with CS Lewis and the Bible both affirmed. Long before the study was put out, listen to what CS Lewis said. “There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made. Good things as well as bad…are caught by a kind of infection. If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to get wet you must get into the water.”
Long before CS Lewis said that, listen to what Jesus said. In John 15:10-11 “Remain in my love…so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” If we remain in him daily, hourly, minute-by-minute and keep getting exposed and infected by His love, then we’ll catch his joy and happiness like the flu. And if we do this, my friends, we’ll be a contagious church, spreading this joy all around the gloom of our city as this economic enemy is on the loose.
TRANS:
2. What happens when we don’t wait on God?
For Saul, it wasn’t pretty. He went ahead and went through the ritual, did the offering himself and v10 says, “Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him. “What have you done?” asked Samuel. Saul then makes his excuses and Samuel says in v13, “You acted foolishly. You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart.” My friends did your hear the importance of obedience—of not just barging ahead either without God or in ways that are contradictory to God’s commands. God says, “If you waited, if you obeyed, I would have established your kingdom forever, but you disobeyed, and as a result, your kingdom will not endure.”
Here is what this means. You’re decision to either wait obediently on God or to disobey shapes what the rest of your life will look like. Our choice to obey has such a critical impact on what our future actually looks like. Let me explain with a scenario that is a modern day version of the Samuel story. God is pretty clear in the Bible when he says, “Do not commit adultery.” Then Jesus wratchets it up a notch in the sermon on the Mount and says, “You know, if you lust after another in your heart, then you have committed adultery.”
Our response in 2008—God, it isn’t practical. I’m single. Or God—if I had the right spouse, then I could do that. See that is Saul thinking---my men are defecting, they’re scared—I can’t wait in obedience on God.
It feels like every week I am interacting with someone—either a friend who is a pastor or just a friend—who isn’t waiting on God in obedience sexually. They’re either having an affair or hooked on internet pornography. Here is how bad the internet pornography deal is. The president of the seminary where I attended said that in the mid 90s he found that 1 in 2 entering students were addicted to internet pornography. By the time my class entered in 2001, he said that the percentage was so high that he just assumed that the entering freshman were all struggling with internet pornography.
And this is your clergy. And if the leadership is doing this, then it is no surprise that so are the people. For those of you struggling with this, I don’t say this to shame you. But I do want you to see that when we don’t wait on God in obedience, the consequences are devastating. Like Saul, things are ripped away. Maybe it is a flourishing church that dies b/c the pastor has an affair; maybe it is a marriage that dies; maybe it is your friend who was considering following Jesus but doesn’t b/c of your hypocrisy. But, if you’re in this pit—don’t lose heart, for I think there is tremendous hope that you’ll experience freedom from this addiction, that your marriage will prosper and experience a newfound intimacy. Here is how…the final pt—the power to wait on God.
Trans: We’ve seen the struggles to wait on God, what happens when we don’t wait on God in obedience, now lets look at our hope & power to wait.
(3) How do we get the power to wait on God?
Well, it is pretty clear that Saul didn’t have this power to wait obediently on God. He blew it royally. But if you look at our text, God says in v14, “The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people.” Clearly, this is David. God calls David a man after His own heart. And in the Psalms you hear David crying out over and over again, “Wait upon the Lord.”
Ps. 5-- In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.”
Ps. 27:14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.
Ps. 37: 34 Wait for the LORD and keep his way.
Here you see David connect the theme of waiting and obedience—keeping his way. To wait is to obey. Yet, David, we know, didn’t always wait for the Lord. On many occasions, the most notable of which is with Bathsheba, he didn’t wait for God, but he barged ahead with an adulterous affair. See this should give hope to all of you who are hooked on internet pornography, who have had affairs—God can redeem even our worst mistakes. He calls adulterous people like David—a murderer and adulterer—a man after his own heart.
But here is the gospel. The God of the Bible has a redemptive heart. Redemption, my friends, is what Advent is all about. This little baby that comes in a manger is, as we read in our advent Scriptures, of the house of David, born in the city of David, inheriting the throne of David, a son of David. Why does the Advent story keep going back to David? Because in King David, you saw glimmers and shadows and hints of what it means to wait on God, but in the son of David, who was also the Son of God, you see one who waited upon His Father in perfect obedience.
John 15:10 says, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.” See Jesus did what Saul & even David were unable to do—he waited perfectly in obedience to His Father’s commands, and in doing so he remained in His Father’s love. And then in the Garden he said, “Father, I see that there isn’t any other way--I’ll drink the cup of their disobedience. Every time they have barged ahead and disobediently decided not to wait on you, I will suffer their penalty for them. I’ll feel the hell of being separated from your love that I have always remained in. And now, Father, you can do what you have always longed to do: redeem and adopt.
Gal.4: 4-7 4But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman (Advent/Christmas), born under law, 5to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. 6Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba,[a] Father." 7So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.
The message of Christmas is that redemption has come—in the fullness of time, when God’s people had been waiting and waiting and waiting. A little baby showed up that changed everything. This means that we’re not like Bob Marley-we’re not waiting in vain for God’s love. It came. Don’t you see my friends--Jesus redeemed all of us who failed to wait on God, and as we put our faith in him, we get a new Spirit that gives us a new power to wait not only on God, but on Abba, on Daddy, as adopted sons and daughters of God.
In Christ, all of us who are struggling with our various addictions become even more than “A man after God’s own heart.” We become God’s adopted son or daughter—new heart, new power, new relationship. Sexual healing, marital healing, relational healing—all made possible b/c a little baby came and went to the cross so we can have a new power, a new Spirit as adopted children. Is this power, this hope yours?
