Rick Warren - When God Makes You Wait: The Incredible Story of Abraham

Have you ever been in a hurry when God wasn't.

One of the most difficult things in life is to

sit in God's waiting room. God's waiting room is when

there's something beyond your control that you can't speed up,

an answer to prayer, a miracle, a change in a situation,

and you want it to change, but it is totally

out of your control, and you have to wait on God.

The Bible says in Ecclesiastes three to eleven, God does

everything just right and on time, but people can never

completely understand what he's doing. Boy, is that the truth?

We don't know always what God is doing, and we

certainly don't know when He's going to do it, and

so much of life we spend waiting on God's timetable.

How do you keep on believing while you're waiting on God?

If any man had to wait, it was Abraham. God

gave him a promise that he'd have a baby who

would become a great nation, which later became the nation

of Israel. But Abraham had to wait one hundred years

for that baby. That's a long time to wait. What

do you do while you're waiting on God? The Bible says,

five things. Number one, you need to first understand the

six phases of faith. God always takes you through a

predictable phase and stages of faith. The first phase of

faith is when God gives you a dream, an idea,

an ambition, a goal.

God gives you a dream.

In at age seventy five, God gave Abraham a dream.

He said, I'm going to make you into a great nation.

But that's just the start. Phase two is a decision,

and a decision is when you decide to act on

that dream. A dream without a decision is worthless, and

every dream of God has a risk to it. It

has a part that you have to to take a

step of faith out. Abraham had to leave his existing

homeland and go to a place where he never knew.

He had never heard of, never heard of, never been there.

He took a risk.

And when God gives you a dream and says this

is what I want to do with your life, there's

going to come a point you have to make the

decision to say, Okay, God, I'm going to go after

your dream for my life, not my own dream. Once

you've done that, you move into phase three. And phase

three is delay because the dream is never fulfilled instantly.

When God gives you an idea of what he wants

to do with your life, and when he actually fulfills it,

there is always a time gap because He wants to

grow you, he wants to build you up. Eleven years

after God gave Abraham his dream, Abraham still didn't have

a child. And when he's eighty six, it says, but

Sarah still had not borne any children. What's happened in

those eleven years. The answer is nothing. He was just

waiting on God. He's tempted to doubt, tempted to despair,

tempted to take detours, but God says, no, You're going

to wait for the fulfillment of the dream I've given you.

Then comes along phase four, and that is difficulty. God

not only let you wait for a while, but while

you wait, he lets you.

Have some problems. Isn't that fun?

And so you go through the stage of difficulty, where

things go from bad to really bad.

To worse to impossible.

And you notice that at age ninety nine, Abraham still

didn't have a son. He's ninety nine, his wife Sarah

is eighty nine, and he still it says, how can

a son be born?

To a man my age.

Now, what's worse is that God changed Abraham's name. His

name originally was Abram, and God changed his name to Abraham,

which means father of a great nation. Now imagine this.

He walks into a seven to eleven. The guy says,

what's your name, father of a great nation?

Oh? How many kids you have? None? How old are you?

Ninety nine?

That's kind of embarrassing, folks. It's a test of his faith.

But eventually god fulfills the dream and at age one

hundred and his wife is ninety Sarah, they have a

miracle baby and they name him Isaac, which means laughter,

because they laughed at that thought. I mean, Sarah's ninety

years old. We know she didn't believe God when God

said you're pregnant because she laughed. Any woman who really

believed God at ninety and figured she was pregnant would

have cried. But she laughs, and God laughs, and Abraham laughs,

and Isaac is named Laughter, and they have a miracle boy.

And I think this is great. But then comes the

most difficult phase of faith of all number five, dead end.

And at dead end, God allows your dream to seemingly die.

Abraham was asked to give up the miracle child. God says,

I want you to sacrifice him back to me. Now

get this.

Abraham wakes one hundred years, gets a baby, he starts

to grow up, and God says, by the way, now,

I want you to give him back to me. I

want you to sacrifice him to me. Abraham's thinking, what

kind of God is this?

Is this a cruel joke?

He's asking me to sacrifice the very dream child that

was promised to me. And he looks he feels pretty hopeless.

How do you know when you're at a dead end,

you feel hopeless. Some of you are at a dead

end in your marriage right now. Some of you are

at a dead end and getting married. Some of you

are at a dead end when you look at your budget,

when you look at your career, when you look at

your friendships, your relationships. Some of you are at a

physical dead end and your help is falling apart. And

when you're at this stage, you start to doubt God's

wisdom and love and you say, why is this happening

to me? It's out of your control. Well, congratulations, God

is getting you ready. He is preparing you for the

final phase of faith, which is deliverance. And the greater

the dead end, the more hopeless the situation, the greater

the deliverance is going to be. The more of a miracle.

It'll be you go, Wow, that was God. Only God

could have done that. And so God is getting you

ready for a miracle, the miracle of deliverance. Now, everybody

in this room, God's going to take you through these

six phases of faith many many times in your life,

over and over again.

You'll go from.

Dream to decision, to delay, to difficulty, to dead end

to deliverance, and then they'll do it again, and then

they'll do it again to keep you growing in your faith.

In fact, everybody here is at one of these stages

right now. Some of you are in the dream phase,

you're getting an idea. Some of you are in the

delay phase or the difficulty or the dead end phase.

But you have to understand how God works.

If you're going to learn to be patient and keep

on believing when you're waiting on God. The second thing

you do when you're waiting for deliverance is you remember

what God can do.

Remember what God can do.

The situation may be out of your control, but it's

not out of God's control. So you don't focus on

what you can't do. You focus on what God can do.

What can God do? Well, look at this verse Romans

four seventeen.

Read it with me.

Abraham believed in God, who gives life to the dead

and who creates something out of nothing. Folks, That verse

right there is the definition of a miracle. Because in

a miracle, here's what happens. Either God gives life to

something that's dead, or he creates something out of nothing.

And that's what it's all about. Though. That's what God

can do.

He can give life to a dead career, a dead marriage,

dead dreams, dead finances, and he can bring something out

of nothing. Jesus said, anything as possible if you have faith. Now,

I want you to notice something. This is very important.

What did Abraham put his faith in? Look at that verse.

What did he believe in? Did he believe in himself?

No? Did he believe in his feelings? No?

Did he put faith in faith, you know, like I'm

just put faith in faith.

No? Did he practice positive thinking?

No? He believed in God. Now I believe in positive thinking.

We've talked about this many times, but positive thinking and

faith are not the same.

Thing.

You hear these songs about positive thinking, like I believe

that for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows.

Folks, that's belowney.

If every drop of rain produced a flower, the world

would be covered with flowers.

We'd be tiptoing through the tulips. It's just not true.

And positive thinking works in one situation. It works in

situations where you have control over the situation. I, for instance,

you believe you're going to do a good job at something,

you'll probably do a better job than if you didn't

believe it. But positive thinking is worthless in things that

are out of your control.

You can say, I hope my mom is going to live,

but that's not going to change anything.

You can say I hope that he doesn't get heard

in that accident, but that isn't going to stop them

from getting hurt. I hope my team wins. I hope

I get a job. That's just wishful thinking. Positive thinking

is worthless in situations out of your control, especially when

you come to a dead end in life. When you

come to a dead end, you need more and just

a nice happy thought. You need faith in God. You know,

I could say, you know, I believe I look like

Brad Pitt. I could say it all the time I want.

It's going to make me look like Brad Pitt. What's

going to happen is the only thing that changes circumstances

is faith in God. Faith in God works when things

are out of your control.

Now here's a little secret. Most of life is beyond

your control.

So you need faith in God far more than you

need just kind of happy positive, you know, think pretty thoughts.

When you get to a dead end, you need to

remember what God can do Lotus's verse, what is impossible

with men is possible with God. The third thing you

do when you're waiting on God is rely on God's promises.

Rely on what God has promised. The Bible says in

Romans four eighteen, when hope was dead within him, Abraham

went on hoping in faith.

He relied on the word of God.

Have you ever felt that way that hope was dying

inside of you? How do you know when hope is

dying inside of you? You start using the word never.

I'm never going to get married, We're never going to

have a baby, I'm never going to be happy again.

I'm never going to change. Abraham went on hoping in faith.

This isn't just wishful thinking, This isn't just positive thinking.

This is hoping in faith, faith in God. You keep

on believing. How do you keep on believing when you

feel like doubting, when you feel like giving up? Well,

it says there he relied on God's word and nothing

is more reliable.

Now, I hope you've gotten this by now.

You've got to get into God's word if you're going

to be a man of faith, if you're going to

be a woman of faith, you have to get God's

promises in your life. Even here, once again we hit

it again. Rely on what God has promised. He relied

on the word of God, and that's what kept them

going when Hope wanted to give up. You need to

read this book, Study this book, memorize Bible verses Matthew

nineteen twenty six. With God, everything is possible and Glatians

five to six. The only thing that counts is faith

expressing itself through love. When you get the promises of

God in your life, you will be able to hope

in faith rather than giving up. Now when you come

to a dead end, rely on the promises. Notice this

next verse, While God was testing him, and that's what

waiting is.

It's a test.

Abraham still trusted in God and his promises, so he

offered his son Isaac. Now this is a test. Isaac

grows up and God says, I want you to give

him back to me. I want you to sacrifice them

to me. But Abraham didn't panic. I would have, but

Abraham didn't panic. God said, give me your son back,

sacrifice them to me. But he didn't panic. For three reasons,

the Bible tells us. One, he believed that God would

raise him from the dead Hebrews eleven nineteen. Second, when

he's telling his servant, we're going up the hill to

make the sacrifice, he says, will be back, Not I'll

be back, but we'll be back. He fully intended the

son to come back with him. And Third, when his

little boy, Isaac is walking up the hill with him

and he says, Daddy, where's the lamb we're going to sacrifice,

Abraham says, the Lord will provide. He had every intention

and no doubt that God was going to spare his

son or resurrect him from the dead. Why he had

the promises of God. Now here's the big test in

your life.

What are you going to.

Do when God says to you, I want you to

sacrifice your greatest dream.

That is the ultimate test of faith.

When God says the thing you value most in life,

what you want most in life, what you crave most

in life, will you offer it on the altar?

To me, this is a test.

Will you do what Abraham did? Will you hope against hope?

Will you hope in faith? And will you rely on

the promises of God? Look at the next verse Romans

four eighteen. Though it seemed Abraham's hope could not be fulfilled,

he did become the father of many nations, exactly as

God has promised. Noticed the word seemed things are never

as bleak as they seem if you look at them

from God's point of view. The Disciples followed Jesus around

for three years, and they thought he was going to

bring in the kingdom and set up the kingom.

They'd all be rulers.

And one day they look up and Jesus is hanging

on the cross and he's dead. You talk about a

dead end. They are devastated. He's the Messiah, He's the

son of God. How in the world could be hanging

on a cross. They didn't know that Easter.

Was just a couple days away.

God specializes in turning dead situations around and resurrecting situations

that look.

Hopeless when we rely on the promises of God.

Notice, he says, he became the father of many nations.

Exactly as God had promised.

Promise is only as good as the integrity of the promiser,

and God cannot lie. The fourth thing you do when

you're waiting on God recognize the facts in faith. Face them,

but face them in faith. Recognize the facts of your

life in faith. Romans four nineteen and twenty says, without

weakening in his faith, he it's Abraham faced the facts

that his body was as good as dead and Sarah's

womb was also dead. He's been pretty blunt here, yet

he didn't waver with unbelief. God's word translation says, through faith,

he regarded the facts. Abraham recognizes that he and his

wife are beyond child bearing years. He's ninety nine, his

wife is eighty nine, and it is a medical impossibility

that they're going to have children.

Now.

He doesn't deny the facts. He faces them with faith.

This is very very important.

Get this.

Faith does not ignore reality. Faith does not pretend you

don't have a problem. Faith does not act like it's

no difficulty. Faith is not denial. Please hear that, because

a lot of people think it is. Let me give

you definition of faith. Faith is facing the facts in

your life.

Without being discouraged by them. That's faith.

It's not denying you have problems. It's not denying you

have difficulties. It's not denying you're facing a dead end

or a hopeless situation.

From a human standpoint.

It is facing the fact of problems in your life

without being discouraged by them. That is true faith. Some

of you are facing cancer. Some of you have loved

ones who are facing cancer right now. You cannot deny

the diagnosed, but you can defy the verdict.

Big difference.

You cannot deny the diagnosis. I don't have cancer, Yes

you do. They don't have cancer, Yes they do. You

cannot deny the diagnosis. That's fantasy, it's denial. But you

can defy the verdict, and you can fight it and

say we're going to work at this and we're going

to do all we can to beat.

It and defy the verdict.

You see, this is very important because there's a brand

of Christianity out there that says, deny all your problems

and just smile, smile, smile. That's not Jesus, that's Pollyanna.

You know.

It says, you know, I'm not sick. Positive confession, I'm

not sick. I got a one hundred and four temperature,

but I'm not sick. Or you know, I'm not in debt.

I'm on the verge of bankruptcy, but I'm not in debt.

Faith is not asking you to deny reality. It never does.

Faith asks you to face the reality in your life

without being discouraged by it. It's not living in denial.

Faith is not clinging to the past. Faith is not

stubborn foolishness. Please understand this. If you're still waiting for

eight Tracks to make a comeback, let it go.

It's over. It isn't coming back.

If you're still waiting for that special guy or girl

to invite you out on a date, that person from

high school and it's your fiftieth reunion.

Let it go. That puppy's not coming home. Just let

it go. Grieve deeply, but let it go.

Some of you need to do some legitimate, deep grieving

in your life. That things have not turned out as

you plan, that what you dream for your life isn't

gonna happen. But you don't have a pity party. You

believe that God knows best, and you say, yes, it

didn't turn out the way I plan, but I believe

God has a better plan.

That is faith.

Yes, things did not work out the way I thought,

but I believe God is not through with my life,

and He's working in my life, and God has good

things in store for me.

Still.

That is faith. It is facing the facts in faith.

It's not fantasy. It's just not being discouraged. One of

the things I've told pastors for many, many years, it's

an old cavalry military rule. It says, when the horse

is dead, dismount. Okay, don't keep beating the dead horse.

And when a dream dies, you just dismount and saddle

another one. Because God's not through with you. God is

not through with you. Some of you wanted to get married,

but you never did. Some of you wanted to have children,

but you never have. What do you do with a

blocked love? Pull yourself into a cell, build a shell

around yourself, be self concerned, a prickly pair. I'm never

gonna let anybody get close to me again. I'm not

gonna let anybody hurt me. I'm going to hold in

my emotions, of course not. What do you do when

a love is blocked? You redirect it, You rechannel it.

You know that story I've told you several times about

Corey tin Boom when she was a young woman, was

engaged to be married, and all of a sudden the

boy broke up with her and married a friend, and

she was devastated, and she never did marry, went through

life as a single woman. But she redirected her love.

She didn't pull herself into a little shell, and she

became one of the most loving Christian leaders of the

twentieth century, influencing millions and millions of people. She redirected

her love in a new direction. How do you keep

on believing when you feel like giving up? You do

these five things. First, you need to understand the six

phases of faith that God will take you through over

and over and over. Then you remember what God can do.

He can do anything.

Then you rely on God's promises and remember what He's

promised to do. Then you recognize the facts of your

life in faith. You don't deny them. You recognize them,

but you don't get discouraged. And finally you rejoice in anticipation.

In anti patient, you expect, You joyfully expect God to

act in your life and to do good things, even

if it's not the way you plan. He will do

good things. You expect him to act. Romans fourth, twenty

twenty one says this Abraham never doubted. He believed God

for his faith and trust grew ever stronger, and he

praised God for this blessing even before it happened. Wow,

he was completely sure that God was well able to

do anything he promised. Notice, even before it happened. That

is real faith. When you thank God for something after

it happens, that's gratitude. When you thank God for something

before it happens, that is faith. And the highest form

of faith is thanking God in advance.

God.

I don't even know how you're going to work this out.

I'm at a dead end, but I thank you in

advance that you know what you're doing. I thank you

in advance that you're going to work it all out.

One day, Jesus went up to a tomb and some

people had asked him to raise Lazarus from the dead,

and he walks up and he prays, Father, I thank

you that you've already heard me.

What was he doing thanking God in advance?

When God delivers, there are three kinds of deliverance.

The first is circumstantial.

Deliverance, and in that a type of deliverance, God changes

the situation. He miraculously turns the situation around. And God

will do that many many times in your life, but

he's not going to always do it. He will do

many miracles in your life, but he's not always going

to change the situation. Sometimes he does personal deliverance and

he changes you and you get a bigger perspective, you

get a deeper faith, you get a larger character, you

get a better attitude. And God changes you and leaves

the situation personal deliverance. But there is some pain in

life that is only going to be relieved through ultimate deliverance,

and that is Heaven. One day We're going to a place,

those of us who know the Lord, where there is

no sorrow, no tears, no suffering, no sadness. And that

is ultimately the deliverance that God wants to offer to you. Now, listen,

God has not promised to take away all your pain.

God has not promised that all your loved ones are

going to live for as long as you want them

to live. God has not promised that you will not

have any difficulties, that you will never have any dead ends,

never have any delays. He has not promised to take

away all your pain. He has promised to give you

the strength to handle it. And he has promised that

one day, ultimately, he will deliver you to heaven, where

there is no sorrow, no suffering, no sadness, and no pain.

The Bible says this, we rejoice in the hope of

the glory of God. What is the glory of God?

The hope of God's glory is heaven. But there's only

one way to get there, through Jesus Christ. You don't

work for it or earn it. It's through Jesus Christ. Now,

the Bible word for deliverance is the word salvation. That's

what salvation means. Jesus Christ is your savior. He is

your deliverer, and he will deliver you. And that is

a far cry from just positive thinking. You see, all

the world can offer is wishful thinking. The world hopes

for the best but Jesus Christ offers the best.

Hope that's bow our heads.

Are you at a dead end this morning? Jesus Christ

can turn your hopeless and into an endless hope. So

whatever problem seems hopeless to you, I urge you to

give it and your life to Jesus Christ right now,

to Jesus Christ. I give you my problems and I

give you my life.

We ask you for miracles in Jesus' name. Amen,