Genesis: Waiting on the Lord

So we've been going through the book of Genesis.

We've been hopping through different stories.

If you haven't been with us, and we haven't been hitting every story, we've been hitting a lot of stories.

What we've been discovering, what we've been seeing is that these stories in the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, these stories are just layer after layer after layer of truth.

And so this morning we're going to be in Genesis 12 again, and we're going to hop into Genesis 16 and then hop over to Genesis 21 by the end of the sermon.

And so we're back still in the story of Abram, which means exalted father later.

We'll see that his name turns to Abraham.

Don't let that trick you.

Same guy.

Then Abraham means father of many.

So let me read, and you can look in the insert and kind of hang with me.

It's a bitter reading, but I'm confident you can read along with me.

Genesis 12, and then we jump to Genesis 16.

So Genesis 12, 1 through 4.

The Lord had said to Abram, Go from your country, your people, and your father's household to the land I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you.

I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.

And Lot went with him.

Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran.

So there is the promise given to Abram.

We talked about it last week.

I'm not going to repreach last week's sermon.

You can listen online if you're really curious.

So then to Genesis 16, verses 1 through 4.

Genesis 16:1–4

Now Sarah, Abram's wife, had borne him no children.

So we had this promise of children.

There's no children.

But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar.

So she said to Abram, The Lord has kept me from having children.

Go sleep with my slave.

Perhaps I can build a family through her.

Imagine the disbelief.

For this to be your idea of how this is going to work out.

Well, Abram agreed to what Sarah said.

So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarah, his wife, took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.

He slept with Hagar and she conceived.

And when she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.

So last week, what we said is we said, when we constantly need the outcome, we miss his constant nearness.

When we're almost the idolatry of control, when we just have to know.

We have to know, we have to control it, we have to make it happen, we have to have our hands on those details of what's going to play out next and next and next.

And when we constantly need that to feel at peace in this moment, then we miss his constant nearness to us, which is actually what gives us our peace.

And what we see with Abram and Sarah is then they start to grasp instead of trust.

And once they start to grasp, that's when they start to do destructive things.

This week I spent most of the week just thinking about Abram.

Just thinking about everything that went wrong amidst the promise.

Everything that went wrong, I mean, God's faithfulness and God's promise to him instill Abram and Sarah and all the problems they created as they grasped.

I mean, we just see Sarah, she's just so beaten down at this point.

I mean, it's been 11 years.

I mean, 11 years of hoping for a child, never getting a child.

Just waiting and waiting, and she can't be probably ashamed.

Just tired of waiting, unto the point of, hey, honey, take Hagar.

I mean, that's a pretty low point.

That that's the way out.

That's the way forward.

They hatched their own plan.

See, they never had a problem with the what of the promise.

They never had a problem with the fact that a child will come.

They had a problem with the how, the waiting.

They didn't like that part of the promise, that the promise contained waiting.

And this is so easy for us to do, to have some promise that we were holding on to of what God wants to do in our life, that He wants to transform us, He wants to conform us, He wants to do great things in us, He wants to build our inner character.

But how that happens is what we have a problem with.

And see, this story speaks to our inner impulses to control the how of our lives.

And rather than waiting in dependence, that nagging question gets to us, does God really, does He really have my best interest at hand here?

Like in this waiting, in this amount, in this painful amount of waiting.

In this year, in this five years, and this ten years, and this 20 years, and in this lifetime of waiting, does God really have my best interest here?

I hate waiting.

You can ask Christy.

I get fussy, I get mean, I get spiteful.

There were there were a couple of years I wouldn't eat at a restaurant that didn't take reservations because I didn't like to wait.

That's how bad.

That's how bad this issue is inside of me.

No lie, right?

Yes, it's true.

She's like, hey, why don't we eat here?

Do they take reservations?

No.

Off the top, no chance.

You know, just wherever they take reservations.

I don't have to like the food, as long as they take reservations, and I can walk right in.

I I don't like to wait.

I hate every all the sin in me, the pride and the selfishness just rises up.

You know the feeling you're driving 75 South and you're just cruising along, and and you gotta you gotta get over for 285, and you're in a lane and it's moving and you're going great, and then it stops, and the other lanes moving so great, and you look over, it looks so good.

Everything's gonna be better over there.

And so what do you do?

You finally, a miraculous merge occurs, an opening you could have never, it was God given, and you move, you go over and and you you a hundred yards down, and then you stop, and then the other lane, and everything in you, right?

Just everything inside of you, you know, certain words and thoughts, and you are so angry.

Right?

You know the feeling when you walk into Chick-fil-A, and every once in a while, uh you know, usually the lines are all formed, but you know, there's four or five cashiers, and everybody's organized.

Every once in a while you walk in, there's like seven or eight people, and it's just kind of like a grouping, and nobody's approached the cashiers, and you walk in, you're not sure, should you go in front of them?

Or so you kind of hang just for a second.

You know what I'm talking about?

You kind of hang because you know the seven that were in front of you.

It's very clear, and and you're hanging there, you know what you want, you already know it, and and then you know, Jojo walks in behind you, and he walks in, he pauses for a second, and he's checking out, and then the cashier says, uh, you know, who can I serve next?

And he walks in front of everybody and you hate him, right?

I mean, you a box of nuggets, you shove it down his throat.

I mean, you hate him, right?

Because you're now he cheated in front of everybody.

You are now waiting behind him, and you're you're probably gonna wait in front of these behind these other seven people.

They were there first, but you really hate him because you're waiting behind him.

You hate to wait.

Do you remember having to wait for your SAT score?

Do you remember having to wait whether you got accepted to that school?

Do you remember when the girl said, Oh, I'll think about it?

Or the boy d doesn't seem to ask.

Or you thought you would be married when you were 26 or 30 or 35 or 40, and you're not.

You thought you would have a baby when you were 26 or 30 or 35 or 40, and you don't.

I mean your husband is like just continually distant and you keep waiting.

Your wife is continually demanding and you're waiting.

Your kids are continually rebelling and you're waiting.

There's just a lot of waiting.

And it's easy to trust the Lord when everything happens on our timeline according to our plan.

Think how different this story would be if Abram and Sarah received the promise, and nine months later, they had a baby.

Instead, it was 11 years, and then Sarah hatches a plan, and Hagar has a baby, and it's not the baby of the promise.

So it's this idea of waiting on the Lord.

And maybe maybe that's a new term to you, but you're new to church, or you're that's just a new for you.

Maybe you've been around church a lot.

You've heard this term, waiting on the Lord, wait on God.

We say it a lot, right?

We can say it so much we forget what it means, or we don't know what it means to begin with.

And so I just wanted to pause in the middle of the story, and there's three points here.

What does it mean to wait on the Lord?

Number one, waiting on the Lord means to become silent.

Psalm 62, verse 1.

Psalms 62:1

Truly my soul finds rest and God, or truly my soul finds waiting and God.

Or silence and God.

My salvation comes from him.

So your prayer has been spoken.

Now your soul and you just need to shut up.

You just need to get quiet.

You've already talked it out.

I read it this week, this week.

It's not that God doesn't want to hear you anymore.

He'll continually hear you, but there becomes a point where the healthiest thing for you is just get silent.

This week I read it worded this way we need the comfort of the hush.

Just stop talking.

Stop trying to figure it out.

Stop saying it over and over and over again and just sit or walk or whatever you need to do and just get quiet.

Stop telling him so many things that you've already told him a hundred more times and get quiet before him.

This is not wasted time.

Maybe the greatest thing you do for yourself or your family or your job or your church or your ministry or your neighborhood, the greatest thing that that thing that you're waiting on and you're so urgent, you keep voicing God over and over and over again, and you don't seem to get any peace out of voicing it to him 500 times over.

Maybe you just need to hush and get silent.

I went paddle boarding with my my college roommate, one of my best friends, this week.

Um, yeah, the water was cold, if you're wondering.

Uh we went to Stone Mountain, and so he has two paddle boards.

I'm thinking about one for the summer, and so he said, Well, come try it out, come try it out, and then you can figure out if you want to do it.

And so uh his little boy was with him, and so his little boy was on a sit-on-top kayak, and so we're out there and we're paddling, and I'm I'm you know, not good, like all my energy is just trying not to fall into the freezing water, and my buddy he's cruising around.

He's dealing with at one point he goes and he starts to deal with his son, who's kind of ventured over toward an island full of birds, and I think he was worried he's gonna get attacked or something.

So he heads over there, and so I'm out in the middle of the lake at Stone Mountain, and I sit down, and I have a lot going on in my busy brain that I'm voicing to God, I'm just voicing it over and over and over and over again.

He wants to hear it, he'll he'll continue to hear it.

And at some point I just sat on the board and then laid down.

It was a beautiful day.

It was sunny, I laid down, completely laid down, just looked up at the blue sky, and I've I've been studying this this week.

And I'm just like, can I get silent?

Can I get silent before the Lord and have these concerns and present them and then just silent and wait?

And what I'm learning is I need to do that.

I need to voice them.

I need to continually voice them, but I at some point I've got to get quiet.

I need the comfort of the hush.

Waiting on the Lord means to become silent.

Second, waiting on the Lord means to live in expectation and hope.

Isaiah 40, verse 31.

Isaiah 40:31

But those who hope in the Lord, or those who wait in the Lord, will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

So we wait in silence, but there's hope.

There's hope that something's gonna happen.

God's gonna do something.

There's expectation.

But here's the thing here the expectation is not that God will make your every plan come true.

The expectation comes from knowing his character.

That he is for you.

He knows you, he hears you.

And it might not be playing out to your plan, but he is at word.

And there's expectation there that a loving, good God is hearing you, knowing you, and is at word.

This brings us to the third point.

Waiting on the Lord means we live in a watchful manner.

Proverbs 8, 34.

Blessed are those who listen to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway.

So the man in this proverb, he doesn't know when the master is going to open the door, so he stays there.

He's quietly waiting, but he's ready.

So he's passive, but he's active.

So years ago, right after I graduated college, I went and studied at this place called Labris, which is there's one campus in southern England.

A theologian named Francis Schaefer started these different study centers around the world, and you can go and you can stay for a week or a couple days, or you can stay for a semester, and you you kind of go, and there's theologians on staff, and you can go in and have your own what you can go in and say, Well, here's what I want to study, here's what I'm thinking about, here's what I'm dealing with, and the theologian helps you kind of guide you into studying.

And so I go and I'm freaking out, I don't know what I want to do with my life, and uh some friends are marrying off, I don't have a girlfriend, you know, what is God's will for my life and what's gonna happen, and there's all this waiting going on, and well, I want to study, I want to learn about God's will because I want to get control of this, right?

Like I understand all of control and thinking, that's what I'm thinking.

What is my role to act, and what is my role to wait, and it all seems quite confusing to me.

And so I went to the theologian on staff, and he points me to a lecture that Francis Schaefer gave, and there's this phrase in the lecture, which is also in his book True Spirituality, is this idea that he coined, and it's called active passivity.

And you go, what is active passivity?

Well, I love this because I think this is what uh this ties in perfectly to Abram and to Sarah.

Here's what Schaefer says about active passivity in his book True Spirituality.

There's a bit of reading.

If we were fancy church, we'd have a big plasma with the words up there.

Maybe we'll get there one day.

But right now, you just have to listen.

We have to pretend like we're like 50 years ago.

So we must believe God's promises at this one moment in which we are.

Consequently, in believing God's promises, we apply them.

The present meaning of the work of Christ for the Christian for and in this one moment.

If you only can see that, everything changes.

If we believe God for this moment, the Holy Spirit is not quenched, and through his agency, the risen and glorified Christ as the bridegroom of the bride, the vine, brings forth his fruit through us at this moment.

This is the practice of active passivity.

And it is the only way anybody can live.

There is no other way to live but moment by moment.

So what does that mean?

Well, it means this.

See, time, days, weeks, months, years of waiting are made up of moments, of moment by moment.

We wait and we trust, we grow silent and we hope in him, and we watch and we do this moment by moment in an active passivity.

So we're active, right?

I mean, we desire to see our lives move ahead.

We seek wisdom, we research, we we pray and we respond and we we make decisions, but but it's in a passivity.

It's in a humility that welcomes the Lord to open and close doors.

So it's it's a humility that can receive a promise.

And this is what Abraham and Sarah when they left active passivity.

This act of passivity is a humility that can receive a promise and can wait 11 years for a child, and can wait 12 years and 13 years and 14 years and 15 years and can wait 25 years to when they finally had a child.

See, it's a it's a humility that doesn't have to cut corners or compromise to get to the things that you think you need.

And Schaefer wrote that when we practice this, that we are now ready for war, we are ready to be used, we are ready to keep our balance.

So last summer, most of my grass died off.

I know you you were wondering, you wanted an update on my fescue.

I have fescue, fescue is like the most fickle grass, it's very frustrating.

Um, and so all my fescue kind of died off, and we have a shady yard, so that plays into it.

I think my soil's horrible, I've got to work on that.

And my girls, they we trample all over it, and so it dies off.

So in the fall, we reseeded.

It's when you're supposed to reseed, in case you're wondering.

Anybody reseed in the fall?

Thanks, okay.

All right, Mark, we've we've taught grass before, thanks.

So he's with me, he knows about fescue.

And so, but I've seen your lawn.

You have lots of sun.

You're like you're very privileged, very great lawn.

You have a great lawn.

I've seen it.

Good job.

Bo, you should be proud.

All right, so my lawn, not so great, not looking good.

Lots of dirt, dirt coming in the house.

I don't like it.

So I I go, I decide I'm gonna reseed in the spring.

You're not it's not gonna be very successful.

I already know it, but I'm gonna do it anyways.

And so on a rainy day, I go out there and I don't rent the aerating big machine because we don't have a big lawn, but I have this uh kind of like a rake you roll and it kind of digs it up, and so I wait till it's raining and I go out there in the rain with my jacket on, and I'm out there just tilling up some of this soil.

And so my plan is, my plan, aerate, seed, water, and then I'm gonna have grass.

Aerate, seed, water, and then I'm gonna have grass.

I'm gonna have wonderful, lush, beautiful green grass, and my girls are gonna do somersaults in it.

It's gonna be so perfect.

Well, here's the deal: it's been a few weeks.

And I go out there and I look, and I'm just waiting for little bitty blades of green to come up, and I'm not seeing a lot.

It's very frustrating.

I don't like the waiting.

I didn't like it on day one or day two, and I don't like it on like day 14, 15, 16 when I go out there and I'm still not seeing it.

It's very frustrating.

You just want to hurry this up, hurry it up.

Come on, hurry it up.

And then the worst thing about it, the thing that maybe frustrates me the most is that I know there could possibly be a whole nother plan.

A plan that was not my aerate, uh, seed water and have beautiful grass, but like a whole nother plan might have to exist that's outside of my plan.

And this is what really bothers me, because it's gonna cost me some stuff.

It's gonna cost me some money, it's gonna cost me some time, because it's gonna be like amend the soil and plow, and I don't even want to think about it.

I mean, this is my worst nightmare for this long.

I just want it to work.

Here's what I'm learning.

As I think about how much I hate the idea that there's a plan outside of my plan.

Here's what I'm learning.

Learning from Abram, learning from my grass is that my plan and my timing are often working against the very best thing for my heart.

Because see, the waiting does something.

The waiting's not for no reason.

See, the the waiting, as we're silent, as we're hopeful, as we're watching, we are stripped of our self-sufficiency.

God is stripping us of that, and we're forced to know Him and His character more.

That we don't take peace and joy in beautiful lawns or the perfect timing of our family forming or the getting into the school you thought you were going to get into, or having the right amount of money at the right age, or whatever the thing is you're waiting for.

But the waiting forms in us, it strips us off of depending on all those things so that we depend on the one that actually can bring us love and joy and peace.

So Abram and Sarah, they waited 11 years before they hatched their plan.

That inner impulse to control the how came out, and they had Ishmael 14 years later.

14 years, so 25 years from the promise, and then Sarah gets pregnant.

And they have the child of the promise, which is Genesis 21, verses 1 through 3.

Genesis 21:1–3

Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said.

And the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised.

Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the very time God had promised him.

Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him.

So Jesus.

This week I was just thinking and praying about all the areas of our lives.

We're trying to create new life, and we can't.

And what we need to do is wait.

We need to wait on the Lord.

We need to learn to grow silent, learn to be hopeful, learn to watch, learn that active passivity.

And what we see here is that maybe your plan is not the plan.

Maybe you're discovering that, you're fighting against that.

And the greatest thing for you to do is just to become open-handed with it.

What we see here is we see that God does, God is faithful.

He does fulfill the promise.

God's covenant, he began in Abraham, it's fulfilled.

And God's covenant is ultimately fulfilled through Abraham.

It's 14 generations from Abraham to David, another 28 generations from David to Jesus.

Out of Abraham comes Jesus.

So all the times that we don't trust God, all the times that we can't stand waiting, we're control addicts, all the times we grow self-absorbed and obnoxious, and refuse to wait, and we turn destructive and sinful in reaction to it, all of that, Jesus comes to take all of that sin.

There's maybe you hear the three points about waiting, you're going, not good at that, and not good at that, and not good at that.

Failed at that one, failed at that one, failed at that one.

And Jesus, who comes out of Abram and Sarah, he takes all of that upon himself, and he gives to us his perfect righteousness, who he perfectly waits before the Father.

And he took all the mess of Abram and Sarah, he took it upon himself, he pays the price, he pays our price, he pays our penalty, and the promise is secure, and the promise is secure for them, and the promise is secure for us in the waiting, in the silence, in the hope, in the watching, we are forever God's beloved.

Let's pray together.

God, we come before you to wait, to wait before you, to wait on you for so many things in our lives that are discouraging, that we're hoping for, and we're just hoping it's around the next corner, and we keep and we make the turn, it's not there, and we hope again, it's not there.

Would you strip us of our self-sufficiency, of our pride, of our inner impulse to control?

Would we be left with nothing but your sovereign grace to us, which will be the best thing for our hearts to come to that place?

Forgive us for trying to take control of the how of our lives.

We know the what that you are at work in us to conform us to the likeness of your son.

But forgive us for taking control of the how.

We know the what that you are for us.

You are with us.

You want good for us, but forgive us for taking control of the how and compromising to make things happen.

God, we thank you that you're enough for us.

You're enough for all of our horrible waiting, all of our inability to become silent before you.

All the ways that we fight the thing that you're doing in us, as in your mercy and your grace you patiently have us wait.

Would you give us more faith?

Help us to trust in you, that we might know a greater peace that comes from you and you alone.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.