Rick Warren - Daring To Wait On God—Part One

Hey, everyone, it's Daily Hope with Pastor Rick Warrening. So

we're continuing with this series called Daring Faith The Key

to Miracles. And in this series you're learning how to

have a bold, unshakable faith. And so far this series

is giving all of us powerful tools to share our faith,

a faith that gives you courage to impact the world

around you. And right now, here's Pastor Rick with part

one of a message called Daring to Wait on God.

A few things make us more irritated than having to wait.

Would you agree with that we don't like to wait?

Waiting in traffic? Does anybody actually like traffic? Yeah, Waiting

in a waiting room, waiting in a line at Disneyland, waiting,

We don't like wait. And technology, which has speeded up

everything in our world, has made us much more accustomed

to things fast, and so technology has actually made us

more impatient, far more impatient than say a farmer of

one hundred years ago. And yet waiting is an important

part of life. It's an important part of character development.

There are some things that we only learn in waiting

that we learn no other way. Would you agree that

every child has to learn the difference between know and

not yet.

They're not the same thing, are they.

But an immature child doesn't know the difference.

We know and not yet.

Our inability to wait is the cause of so many

problems in our lives. We get in a hurry, our

inability to delay gratification.

It is the cause of all debt.

It's the cause of all debt, the inability to wait

until you can afford it, you buy it on credit,

you get in debt. It's why America is in debt.

So many social problems, even diseases, come from our inability

to delay sexual gratification until marriage. And so many other

problems really come from this issue. I want it, I

want it, and I want it now causes broken hearts.

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

That's the most frustrating of all. When you're in God's

waiting room. You can rush your kids, but you can't

rush God, and that's frustrating. Some of you right now

are waiting on God. You're in God's waiting You're waiting

for God to open a door. You're waiting for God

to give you a job opportunity. You're waiting on God

for an answer to prayer. You're waiting for clarification, you're

waiting for new direction, You're waiting for God to remove

a pain or heal a relationship. And you go, I

don't get this. I've prayed and nothing happening, and there

is a delay. Remember no is not not yet. Why

does God delay things when clearly he could answer every

prayer instantly? Well, if you had every prayer answered, you'd

be a selfish little brat because you'd treat God like

a vending machine. God, I need this pollic trigger boom.

I got it instantly.

And God sometimes has to work on you before he

works on the solution. The Bible says to Ecclesiastes three eleven,

they're at the top of your outline. God does everything

just right and on time, but people can never completely

understand what he's doing.

Well, duh.

If you did understand everything God was doing, you'd be God.

God is God, and I'm not. And so I don't

understand what is just right, and I don't always understand

what's on time. So today I want us to look

at what do you do.

When you have to wait on God? Daring to wait

on God?

And I want to ask two questions, what do I

need to remember when I'm in the waiting room of life,

and what do I need to do when I'm in

the waiting room of life? Because this is an element

of daring faith. Waiting is as much faith as taking

the initiative. Waiting can be as much of a matter

of trust as it is taking a risk or any

of the other things we've looked at over the last

ten weeks. What do you need to remember while you're

waiting on God and what he need to do. Let's

look at these first. Let me give you five things

you need to remember, and you're going to need these

or write them down. When you have asked God for

something and it hasn't come yet, and you're in that

delay period where you haven't seen the answer to your prayer,

what do you do you remember five things? Number one,

Remember there's a natural delay between planting and harvesting. And

we talked about this in the message on the Laws

of Sowing and reaping. There's a natural delay between planting

and harvesting. I have a garden, and when I plant seeds, I.

Plant a seed.

I don't go out the next date to expect to

see full grown tomatoes. When I plant carrot seeds. I

don't expect to go out next day to see carrots.

There's always a delay between planting and harvesting. There's always

a delay between sowing and reaping. The Bible says in

Ecclesiastes three you there is a time for everything, and

there is a season for every activity under heaven. There

is a time to plant, and there is a time

to harvest. There is a time to scatter, and there

is a time to gather. This is simply talking about seasons.

You always get the results of what you plant in

life in another season, not in the same season. You

don't plant and harvest in the same season. Many of

you have planted seeds in daring, faith, financial seed, seeds

of service, seeds of sacrifice. You're not gonna have the

harvest immediately. You just need to understand that it comes,

but it comes in another season. Write this down. I

reap in a different season than I sow, and during

that season of waiting, you wait quietly, you wait expectantly,

you wait patiently.

In faith.

I remember that there's a natural delay between planting and harvest.

So when I put in a request, it's not going

to be instantly fulfilled.

There is always a delay. Number two.

Second thing I need to remember is that there is

an unseen battle going on. There is an unseen battle

going on. There is a spiritual warfare going on in

a realm that we don't even understand. We don't see it,

we don't feel it. But in the cosmic heavenly is

there is a spiritual war in other dimensions, between good

and evil, between God and Satan, between angels and demons.

And the fact is you're caught right in the middle.

And if you're a child of God, Satan hates you

and he wants to mess you up. The Bible tells

us in Ephesians six, verse twelve, we're not struggling and

fighting against human beings, but against evil spiritual forces in

the heavenly realm, the rulers and the authorities and the

powers of darkness. Now what happens. What I'm saying, what

this versus say, is that when you send up a prayer,

there's often a battle on how that's going to be answered.

And Satan starts throwing while you're waiting. While you're in

the waiting, he starts throwing dart statue, the dart of doubt,

the dart of discouragement, the dart of disappointment, the dart

of delay, the dart of depression. And he starts throwing

these darts at you, and he says, we shouldn't we

should be aware that he's going to try to get

you down.

Now.

The truth is, we don't really know this much, and

the Bible doesn't even tell us that much about the

spiritual warfare that's going on behind your prayers. But we

do get a glimpse of it in one book of

the Bible. It's in the Book of Daniel. You may

have never even seen this passage in Daniel, but it's

the one time in the Bible it shows the spiritual

warfare going on behind the answer to the prayers that

you have prayed and the things that you're trusting God

for in your life. Let me read it to you.

It's here on the screen Daniel. Chapter ten says this

Daniel had a vision and he had a vision of

an angel come to him. And the angel says to Daniel.

In this vision, Daniel, God loves you deeply, and He

loves you deeply too, and God has heard your prayers

since the very first day you humbled yourself and let

me just say this. When you pray a prayer, God

heard the very first one. It's not like he wasn't

listening until number ninety five. God has heard every prayer.

He heard your prayer from the very first moment. The

Angel said, God loves you deeply, and he heard your

prayer since the very first day you humbled yourself. And

he says, I, the Angel have come in answer to

your prayer.

But now here's the interesting part.

The evil angel, prince of this kingdom opposed and blocked

me for twenty one days. He said your prayer hadn't

been answered for twenty one days. Said I was opposed

in this spiritual battle. Bok So Michael, one of the

archangels intervened to fight for me because I had been

blocked from coming to you with the answer. Is that

the wildest verse you've ever seen. There is a dimension

beyond your prayers that we don't need, and we don't

even have any more than that in scripture about it.

But the Bible tells us that Daniel had a prayer,

it wasn't answered.

It wasn't answered once I answered.

He's starting to get discouraged, and the Angel shows up,

says I'm here to get the answer. We heard it

from day one, but we've been in a battle over this,

and it was such an intense battle that Michael Angel

had to come down and help me with this battle.

So I can come and tell you the answer is

on its way. I don't know any more about it

than that. I just know that this is not as

simple as you think it is. So I want you

to write this on your outline. A delay is not

a denial. A delay is not a denial. When an

answer to prayer is delayed, it doesn't mean it's not

going to be answered. There may be some kind of

spiritual warfare going on behind it, and you got to

keep praying. A delay is not a denial. Number three,

the third thing we remember the first that there's a

natural delay between planning and harvesting, that there's a spiritual

delay because of the spiritual warfare that's going on. Number three,

there's another reason for delay, and it's this. Remember, God

is preparing me for a blessing. God is preparing me

for his blessing. When you have an idea and you

ask God to do something in your life, God usually

has a bigger idea and usually has a better idea,

and he's going to have to prepare you to get

you ready for a bigger and better answer to your prayer.

And he usually has to take some time getting you ready.

Preparing you.

And the first thing God wants to do before he

answers your prayer for a job, for a mate, for

a child, to get married, whatever your prayer request is,

he first he wants to get you ready because God's

more interested in changing your character than he is in

answering your prayer, because your character is what you're going to.

Take to heaven.

And here's what the Bible says in First Peter, chapter one.

There's wonderful joy ahead. That's the inevitable answers to our prayers,

even though it is necessary for you to endure many

trials for a while. And this includes the delays, these

troubles circle. This test your faith. The troubles you're going

through right now, this is a test. They test your

faith so that it is strong and pure, just as

fire tests and purifies gold. And your faith is far

more precious to God than mere gold. Some of you

are going through the fire right now. Keep going. What

do you do when you're going through hell? You keep going.

You don't want to stay there. You keep walking. When

you're going through the fire, you keep going. He says,

these troubles are there to test your faith. You might

write this down. Waiting is always a test. When you're

praying for something in your life and it hasn't happened,

and you're in that delay, you're in that time zone,

you're in that season between harvest and sewing.

Waiting is always a test.

It tests your character, It tests your trust, It tests

your faith, It tests your endurance, It tests all kinds of.

Things in your life. Waiting is a test.

In fact, Paul compares waiting in life waiting on God.

When you really want something it hasn't happened yet. Paul

compares it to being pregnant in Romans chapter eight.

He's got a great analogy here. I love it.

In the message paraphrase Romans eight twenty four to twenty eight,

Paul says, this waiting does not diminish us. It doesn't

diminish us anymore than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We

are enlarged in the waiting. What we don't see is

what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait the

larger we become, just like a pregnant woman. The longer

we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful

our expectancy. Meanwhile, when we get tired in the waiting,

God's Spirit is right alongside helping us. And if we

don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter,

because He, the Holy Spirit, prays in us and for us,

and he knows far better than we know our He

knows us far better than we know ourselves, and he

knows our pregnant condition.

And that's why we can be so.

Sure that every d tail in our lives of love

for God is working into something good. That's a powerful passage.

Now he's saying here that it's just like being pregnant.

It's just like being expectant. Now in an expectancyat they

don't call it expecting for nothing, do they, Because when

a woman has a baby, she's expecting that baby. And

he says, this is what it's like to wait on God.

You know it's coming, you know it's going to happen,

but this is what you gotta do.

You gotta wait. Number four.

The fourth thing to remember, I need to remember when

I'm in the waiting zone. That I'm in good company.

I'm in good company while I'm waiting. Millions of saints

before you have sat in God's waiting room. You're not alone.

In fact, if you're in the waiting room right now,

you're waiting on a job, you're waiting on an answer,

you're waiting.

On a prayer.

There are a lot of other people sitting around you

right now who are in that same situation. Millions of

saints have sat in God's waiting room. You're in good company.

Hebrews eleven, verse two says this, people who lived in

the past became famous because of their faith, and every

one of those people had to wait. Think about Hannah

who had to wait years to have the baby that

she was praying that God would give her. Think about Joseph,

who God gave him a dream of being a ruler,

and he had that vision from a very young childhood age.

And he ends up being put in prison for fourteen

years for a crime he did not commit, falsely accrused

of rape, and he spends fourteen years in a prison

and dungeon in Egypt, waiting. God knew exactly where he was.

He is preparing Moses waits forty years in the wilderness

to know his purpose in life, to know his next assignment,

to know what he's supposed to do with his life.

Abraham waits one hundred years before he has Isaac, his

first child through Sarah, the promised child God had promised

him years before.

He waits. He's one hundred years old.

Noah had to wait one hundred and twenty years before

it rained. You think you're in a waiting period. How'd

you like to wait one hundred and twenty years? And

the whole time you're building an ark and everybody's coming

and say, what's an arc?

Said, it's a big boat. Why because it's going to rain?

What's rain? I said? It never rained up to that point.

Can you imagine building an arc in your front yard

and how your kids, your teenage kids, are all embarrassed.

My dad's a nut.

You know how long has he been working on the

bout one hundred and twenty years? Why because it's gonna flood?

What's a flood? God waited thousands of years before sending

the Messiah. We get in a hurry. God is not

in a hurry. Look at this verse on the screen.

Hebrews six says, after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised,

but the waiting is essential to faith. Number five the

fifth thing to remember. I remember there's a time to

lay between planning and harvesting. I remember that there's a

spiritual battle going on. I remember that God is preparing

me for the answer. I remember that I'm in good

company while I'm waiting. At number five, I remember that

God always keeps his promises. That's what you need to

remember when you're waiting on God, because unlike other people,

you can count on God to come through. You can

count on God to come through because over these seven

thousand promises in the Bible that He has made, he's

staked his reputation. So what you do in the waiting

room is you don't focus on what you can't do.

I don't have the money, I don't have the talent,

don't have the connections, I don't have the opportunity. You

don't focus on what you don't have. You focus on

what God does have, what God can do. And one

of the ways you focus on what God can do

is do the promises of God. Promises can help you

focus on God and his unlimited abilities instead of you

and your limited abilities. The Bible says anything is possible

if you have faith.

A back at two. Verse three says this on the screen.

God says, at the time I have decided, my words

will come true. You can trust what I say about

the future. It may take a long time, but keep

on waiting. It will happen. Some of you need to

write that verse down on a card and put it

up on your refrigerator. God says, my word will come true.

You can trust that if I say it, it's going

to happen. It may take a long time, but keep

on waiting. It will happen.

What a life giving message from Pastor Rick. And now

here's Rick with a special message.

Jesus told his disciples that they should live their lives

according to five specific purposes. He said, you've got to

love God with all your heart. That's worship, and love

your neighbors yourself. That's ministry. That's called the Great Commandment.

And then Jesus said, go make disciples. That's evangelism. Baptize

them into the Family of God. That's fellowship, a sign

of fellowship. And then he said, teach them obey everything

I've taught you. That's discipleship, and we call that the

Great Commission. We believe it Daily Hope that a great

commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission will

produce a great Christian, a great church, a great company,

a great community. You know, I started Daily Hope so

I could spread the good news about Jesus, not just

across America, but all around the world. And we want

people to know that God's word is filled with hope

and truth and the power that we need to follow

him every day is available to every single one. You

know as well as I do, that the Word of

God changes lives. It's a live it's active, and it

bringes new life and new love into all of our lives.

So wherever you listen to this, whether you listen on

the website, whether you listen on a radio station, or

whether you listen to a podcast, you're a part of

the Daily Hope family, and I need your help. We

could not do this without your support. Now, you know,

I don't take any funds from this broadcast. We don't

have any giant, million dollar donor who's giving big gifts

to this. It comes from daily donations from listeners like you.

We're one hundred percent listener funded. Would you continue to

pray for this broadcast and would you continue to support us,

and let write to me, let me hear from you.

I absolutely love reading the stories that sent to me.

So write me, pray for me, and support this ministry

and God will bless it, and God will bless you,

and we'll get to heaven and we'll thank God for

all the people going to be in heaven because you cared.

If you'd like to help support Pastor Rick in this

ministry with a financial gift, just go to Pastorick dot

com or text the word hope to eight hundred six

hundred five thousand and four. Again, that's Pastorick dot com.

Or text the word hope to eight hundred six hundred

five thousand and four, and thank you.

So much for your support.

We hope you'll join us next time when we look

into God's Word for our daily hope. This program is

sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial

support