Little by Little Until: Faith in the Waiting

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So exodus chapter 23 we're looking

Exodus 23 · chapter mention

at verses 20 to 30 and this

is what it says god speaking see i am sending an angel ahead of you to guard

you along the way and to bring you to the place i have prepared pay attention

to him and listen to what he says do not rebel against him he will not forgive

your rebellion since my name is in him if you listen carefully to what he says,

and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies, and I will oppose those who oppose you.

My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites,

Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out.

Do not bow down before their gods, or worship them, or follow their practices.

You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces.

Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water.

I will take away sickness from among you and none will miscarry or be barren in your land,

I will give you a full life span I will send my terror ahead of you and throw

into confusion every nation you encounter,

I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run I will send the hornet

ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way.

But I will not drive them out in a single year because the land would become

desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you.

Little by little, I will drive them out before you until you have increased

enough to take possession of the land.

I'm going to pray and then I'm going to speak a little bit about that text.

Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for both Old Testament and New Testament.

We thank you for the parts that easy to digest and the parts that are more difficult

to digest i pray tonight lord that,

All those things that we've brought into the room right now,

our thoughts and our emotions, our week, our day-to-day, the things that are

coming up tomorrow, next week.

I pray, Lord, that you would allow us right now just to have a moment where

we would open a door, we would open a window to hear what you've got to say,

to invite your words into our heart and to be willing to listen,

to be willing to be challenged and moved.

And I pray, God, that for each of us in our unique places in our life right

now, that you would indeed do that. Give us open hearts, God.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So in Exodus 23, and the story is also repeated from a different angle in Deuteronomy,

we find this story of God's people who in this time and moment essentially circling

the entrance to the promised land.

They've left behind so much in Egypt. They've come through so, so much.

And for the context of what God had promised them, they had been assured of victory.

But then he says to them, this victory that I promise, it's not going to happen all at once.

And it's a peculiar thing that God says to them.

If you think about everything that they've come through and everything that

they would be expecting and hoping,

which like us in our very different context, is just some sort of version of

peace or relief or rest or just the hard part being over,

God says to them, there's a pace to the promise that I'm making you.

The success, in adverted commas, will have a slowness in the way that it's going to unfold for you.

It's not going to happen for you all at once.

He says, little by little, I will drive them out before you until you have increased

enough to take possession of the land.

And that right there is often how God works in our life.

It's often how God works in our ministries.

It's often how God works in our faith. little by little until.

If my sermon had a title this evening, it would be little by little until.

And I wonder as you consider the things going on in your world right now,

in your life, the things that are capturing your focus, your attention,

the things that you are stressed about, worried about, the things that you're excited about,

I wonder if you might tonight be willing to put a little banner over the top

of them as you consider those things, as you consider the things in your life

that aren't quite what you might hope that they are yet,

put over this little banner of little by little until.

Not all at once, not overnight,

not necessarily with fireworks and fanfare, not in a way that everybody is going

to see and applaud, but little by little until.

This is how often, not always, but often God works.

Sometimes with our faith, sometimes just in our life, but sometimes with our

faith, what we want is a microwave and God instead gives us a slow cooker.

We want it one minute, two minutes. We want it soon.

We are thinking, okay, yes, I've come through the hard part.

I've come through the difficulty, and now I'm looking forward to rest,

relief, satisfaction, and I want it now that it's right in front of me. I want it soon.

But often we have to come to terms with the fact that even as we are arriving

into the things that we feel like God may have promised us, often we have to

come to terms with that it's going to be little by little until.

Often we We have to come to terms with that space between where in our life

we thought that we might be at this point—.

And where we actually, for many of us, that occupies a space.

There's a space there between where we thought we might be for whatever reason

and the reality of where we are, the space between the dream and the reality.

And sometimes that distance is self-made.

Sometimes we created that by comparing ourselves to other people,

by believing the scripts that the world gives us.

But sometimes it is the distance between what God has promised for us and what we've actually seen.

I wonder if there's anything in your life where you feel that distance.

Maybe for some of us, it's a job that just hasn't come along yet.

Maybe it's a longing for a relationship that remains unmet.

Maybe for others, it's in your spiritual life.

You look around other people and when they worship God, it just seems so tangible,

so real to them and you're just waiting for that to click for you.

You thought you'd be further along in your maturity, perhaps.

Maybe you thought you'd be stronger, more settled. Maybe you thought that by

now you would be less easily shaken, less easily tempted.

Maybe you thought that you would be more successful. Maybe you would have more, more, more.

And that space between the dream and the reality is not uncommon.

But I think what I want to say to you tonight is a little bit what What God

was saying to God's people in Exodus is that that space that we have to sort

of wander into and be aware of uncomfortably is not uncommon.

It's not accidental. It's not a detour.

In fact, it's often in that wandering space.

That God wants to work in our life.

The place where faith has to live in the waiting, has to live in the unseen.

In Hebrews chapter 11, which I read from earlier, it talks about the fact that

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

our faith is the confidence in what we hope for and the assurance about what we do not see.

That even in our faith, there is a gap. There is a space of discomfort between

what we operate in, in terms of our faith and the thing that we have faith in.

And in that space is unseenness. It's not touchable sometimes.

We can't reach out and grasp it and feel the full relief and satisfaction of it.

Yet we are called to live in faith, in the things that we don't see.

Because it's often in the things in your life that you are not seeing right

now that God God wants to work in.

God wants to work not necessarily in success, in achievement.

Often God wants to work in the space in between, not with success,

not with breakthroughs, not even necessarily with what we would deem as successfully

answered prayers, but instead with the unseen, with the not yet,

with the quiet belief that God is doing something even when we can't see it,

even when we can't feel it.

One of the things I really love about working in youth ministry is working with

young people who have a potential,

who just by virtue of being a teenager are living in a place where there is

a space between their potential,

what the gifts that God has given them,

what it would look like for them if that was to be fully realized and come to

full fruition and where they are now in their teenage worry and anxiety and

stress about what other people think and all those things that us grown adults

don't deal with at all anymore. You grow out of that eventually.

Not really. But it's really cool sometimes, I think, to see a young person,

I think so anyway, I get really excited about it, whether it's in their school

life or their work life or their study, or whether it's,

especially when it's in their faith, when they take that step and they sort of have that thing of,

oh, that's what I can do.

That's what God has made me to be able to do, the life that he has given me to be able to live.

But there's a danger there as well. Now, I know everyone here,

looking, everyone here plays, yeah, FIFA, EA Sports on PlayStation 4, off PlayStation 5.

Yeah, I think about 95% of us are into that.

Just, yeah, I think so. And as we all know that in that game,

if you play in some sort of nerdy career mode type of thing that I haven't had

time for in about seven and a bit years,

often those players have the stats that they currently have,

but they have another stat.

It's their potential. And you can go to

some websites where they've done the hard work and you can sort all

the players in order from the

most potential downwards and that's

really fun because you go oh i'm going to get that player and that player and

that player and i'm going to do all the right things to have make them have

that high potential but what's really interesting is that these players are

real people in real life so this video game is making a call on real people

on what they are capable of and what happens is 10 years later,

when that player hasn't reached the potential that this video game thought that they would,

do you know who gets laughed at?

It's not the video game, it's the player. Oh, can't believe that they were going

to, they could have been an 88 player, they're just an 81 player.

We might laugh, but often in life, we do that to ourselves.

We view our life in terms of those sort of numbers and metrics.

And what's really cool is God doesn't see it that way.

If you look at who God uses in scripture, it's not the 88s. It's not the 90 potential type people.

It's the one who are right down the bottom that people are like,

why are they even in this game?

You might think of yourself as somebody, why am I even in this game?

How did I even get to be here?

Best I can hope for is that no one notices me and I don't do anything that's

so embarrassing that people say, why are you here?

But if you look at who God uses, if you look in scripture, who God uses the

most, it is often not the strongest. It's not the fastest. It's not the most skilled.

And it's often not the ones with the most potential as the world see it.

And actually, it's not always young people.

Sometimes it is. Jeremiah was told, I'm going to use you. And he said,

I'm too young. I'm too young.

But Moses, sorry, Abraham, other problem.

I am too old. Moses, his problem was, I don't speak very well.

This can't be me. This can't be me. He heard the I am and went, cool, still not me.

David, the overlooked child. Mary, who was an unknown.

And almost every time that god calls someone the

response is the same who am i i'm not ready i'm too

broken i'm too ordinary i'm too unlikely i've i've

gone to i've done too many wrong things i've gone down too

many wrong paths i'm i haven't my potential was out

there and i've just i'm just here you need to find somebody who who can do more

who is more and who will be more but god calls those people anyway why because

god is not impressed with our ability or our potential He is impressed with

our availability and our willingness to say to God, I will go.

God uses the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

He delights in turning what we might think is just ordinary into holy ground.

He calls the ones who think they've missed the boat, and he does it over and over and over again.

Just as somebody thinks, well, I gave it a good shot. I gave it a good crack,

and it didn't really happen for me.

That's the person who God uses. If you remember the disciples,

when they went fishing, what happened was that they fished all night,

fish, fish, fish, not catching anything.

And right then, that's when Jesus turns up and says, why don't you cast those

nets out just one more time?

Too many of us think that it's over for us, either because we lack the potential

or either because we didn't grow into any sort of potential.

We look past at what we didn't do. We look future and think,

well, there's nothing for me ahead. And God says, I want to call you and I want

to use you. I just want to know, are you available?

And what most of us do is instead of looking at our life like that,

we spend a huge amount of energy,

emotional energy, even spiritual energy, even financial energy.

We direct that trying to fix what we believe is wrong with us.

We all do this, we think, okay, there's a hundred things wrong with me.

What are the top five things that are wrong with me? All right,

I'm going to focus on fixing those top five things that are wrong with me because

if I can just fix those things, then I might be okay.

We think that our problem is that we aren't liked enough, that we aren't fit

enough, that we haven't achieved enough, that we aren't seen or recognized,

affirmed, or understood.

We think that we don't have enough skills, we don't have enough talent,

that we should have done this, or we need to do this in order for God to use

me. We think the problem is that we're not productive enough for God to notice us.

We think that we haven't made enough of our life for God to notice us.

And if we're honest, if we're truly honest, that's where a lot of our prayers end up landing.

God, help me succeed. God, help me be better.

God, fix this thing in me that disqualifies me.

But what, I wonder if tonight, what if that is not the real problem?

What if the real danger isn't in your lack of dot, dot, dot.

But instead it's a lack of trust in the fact that God wants to work in you little by little until.

What if the real question isn't, God, why haven't you made me more impressive?

Why isn't my life more comfortable? Why aren't I happier?

Instead, I wonder if the real question is, God, am I even listening to you right now?

God, am I making space for you to move in me? Am I available?

If you called me, would I hear? And if I heard, would I go?

And often the answer to those uncomfortable questions is no.

And there's another side to this, which is often we are resistant to discomfort.

It but faith has a discomfort element

to it it has a stretch element to

it there's a tension a resistance if you

look at stories of faith there's a sense of being pulled beyond comfort beyond

certainty beyond control when you work your muscles they hurt i have a line

with jeremiah Whenever we are doing a lap around the oval or we're doing something hard,

which is sore today, strong tomorrow.

So when you use your muscles, they hurt, they strain, they feel weak.

They meet resistance until they meet failure.

But that resistance and that failure today brings strength in the future.

And I don't go to the gym. I don't know these things. But Jordan has informed

me that when you go to the gym on a Tuesday morning, you don't go to the gym

on Tuesday morning so that you will be strong on Tuesday afternoon.

He informs me that when he lifts today, he's not lifting for today.

He's lifting for next month. He's lifting for next year.

If you are going to go in a race, if you're going to run the Sydney Marathon,

the day before, you don't think to yourself, oh, I might go for a run today and sign up for it.

You know, people who prepare for a marathon, people who go to the gym,

they build strength over time.

And how do they do it? Little by little.

Not flashy, but persistent.

Just a little bit more this week. Just a little bit more. Just a tiny bit more. Just a tiny bit more.

And sometimes what I want to say is faith is like that too.

That we're invited into discomfort, not so much discomfort that we can't do

anything, but enough discomfort that we will be stretched.

But the more that we are stretched, the stronger that we become.

And you don't need to be flashy to grow in your faith.

You don't need to know the most Bible. You don't need to say all the correct words in prayers.

You don't need to have a clean record.

You don't need to be the loudest in worship.

You don't need to be seen or applauded. And God just asks us to,

in the moment that we're presented, to just be faithful to the little by little.

That's the kind of faith that Hebrews 11 describes, the kind that obeys,

that says yes to God again and again, even when there's no applause.

Some of us spend our energy and some of us have spent a lot of time and years

praying to God, great, but praying to God that he would make us more talented,

more impressive, more fruitful, richer, more successful.

Oh God, just help me with this next thing because if you can help me with this

next thing, then I will be okay.

And perhaps the enemy's greatest success is not in tempting us into sin,

but it's in distracting us from little by little obedience to saying,

oh, that's going to be a little bit uncomfortable.

But you know what? But yes, I can do that little bit more today.

We think we need to be more visible, more together.

But I wonder what would happen in your life if you stopped despising the little by little.

I wonder what would happen if you stopped despising that place of discomfort,

that exact space where God does some of his best work.

In Isaiah chapter 54, God says to his people, enlarge the place of your tent.

Isaiah 54 · chapter mention

Stretch your tent curtains wide. Do not hold back. Lengthen your cords.

Strengthen your stakes. I don't know if you heard some of those words.

Enlarge, stretch, lengthen, strengthen.

These are not static words. These are not words about staying still.

They are words of movement.

These are dynamic words, words of expansion, words that often in our life don't make much sense.

Don't ask me to enlarge, stretch, or lengthen, or strengthen.

Someone else has that capacity. But the whole point of these words is that it's

inviting you into that space where you don't have capacity.

That's where god invites us into too often we think to ourselves i'm just waiting

i'm just waiting to do the thing that's in line with my capacity somebody else

has the ability to enlarge the place of their tent but the whole point of these

words is that it's not there yet,

they're words of preparation they're words of expansion before the blessing arrives.

God tells us sometimes it's time to start stretching because faith doesn't wait

for everything to look ready and lined up.

It obeys before the growth.

Sorry, Jordan. But again, when people like Jordan go to the gym,

they inform me that they are lifting that weight because they know that if they

lift that weight, it will do something.

It will have an impact. It will be uncomfortable. It won't feel good today.

But if you are faithful and obedient to the moment of discomfort,

the bit that just slightly stretches you, if you obey before the growth, the growth will happen.

You can't wait for the growth to happen to start obeying.

And so what I think what I'm saying to us tonight is that little by little until

is forward facing. It's forward movement.

It's not inviting us to stand still. It's inviting us to take the next step.

And that for you might look like a whole bunch of things. I can't do the work.

You have to do the work in your own mind to think.

For you, it might be the person who you need to think about choosing to forgive.

It might be applying for that job again. It might be showing up to church,

even though you've been away for a while, which is a weird thing to put in a

sermon because those things, people aren't hearing that line.

So might need to rethink that one.

But maybe that was you. Maybe you've been through that season.

Faith is not the absence of struggle. It's the presence of obedience in the middle of it.

I think the last thing that I'm going to say about this little by little idea,

the way that God brings us into a place where we might have growth in the discomfort

is a passage in the Bible that says some of my favorite words in the Bible.

It's in Matthew chapter six, where God gives instructions,

sorry, where Jesus gives instructions on the Sermon on the Mount halfway through,

and he starts to talk about how you might pray, how you might give, donate,

and how you might do things like fasting or other sort of spiritual acts.

And what he tells us is he tells us to do our goodness in secret,

to give in secret, to pray in secret, to fast in secret,

not to perform, not to impress.

Not to draw attention to our strength or our sacrifice, but to have faith that

if we do that thing, we don't need the applause for it to work.

In fact, Jesus says in Matthew 6 that those who do it for the applause,

he says these words, that they have already received their reward in full.

Essentially in some ways he's saying their little

by little isn't going to work because they wanted

the reward straight away and the reward that they wanted was

public praise adoration but god

tells us don't do it that way don't wake up tomorrow and post on social media

hashtag little by little this is what i'm doing today go lift that weight knowing

it's uncomfortable today but believing that that's where God will bring growth.

We've been trained to evaluate our worth based on A, visible results,

and B, the approval, the nodding of other people. Yes, that's right. Yes, that's good.

Yes, you're doing awesome. And I'm telling you, you probably are.

But don't depend on those things to know that God is working in that space.

Little by little is a sacred space.

Just because no one is clapping for your quiet obedience, just because no one's

noticing the prayers that you whisper in pain, just because no one sees your

commitment. your integrity.

No one sees the times when you could have cut the corners and you didn't.

No one will fully know the journey that you've been on, the path that you've

been on, the difficulties that you've had.

And some of us in this room are carrying disappointment that we think will be

fixed if we were to just amplify it to enough people.

It's because we think that if we get enough attention on it,

enough spotlight on it, then we will have the success, in adverted commas,

that God has promised to us. But that isn't how it works.

And so I wonder tonight, what is God forming in you?

What is happening in that space for you, that space of discomfort,

that space of where you thought you could be, that space that is in between

that version of you that's in your head,

or even better, the version of you that God says is in your future as you circle

the entrance to that place and you think, oh, I just want to go there now,

but God is saying, no, you're going to be taking a while, little by little.

I wonder what God is forming in your life in that space, in that little by little.

What parts of your life feel like they're moving too slowly?

And I wonder, as you think about those things in your life that you think are

moving too slowly, I wonder if tonight you might be invited and encouraged to

look at them differently, to maybe have a faith that says, actually,

I wonder if God is using this for something.

I wonder if we might think to ourselves, maybe God needs to stretch me first.

If you go back to that original passage where God talked to God's people about

going into the land, he says, little by little until, he says,

you need to be big enough and strong enough before I send you in there.

Because if I send you in there when you're not strong enough yet,

you're not going to hold it for very long.

I need to prepare you first.

And for some of us, that'll be a year. For some of us, it'll be 50 years.

God is not ignoring your pain. He's not uninterested in your progress or what

feels like a lack of progress.

I want to encourage you, challenge you, make you perhaps think that tonight

maybe God is building something in you that cannot be rushed,

that cannot be brought into the light of applause because it will be broken

and ruined if you try and bring it there too soon.

Perhaps God is preparing you for something that your current self just couldn't carry.

And in that delay, perhaps where you're being stretched, where you're being

formed, maybe you just might tonight be a little bit excited that if God is

doing that, I wonder what is coming.

I wonder what is coming.

Let's pray. God, we thank you so much for what you do in our lives.

We thank you for what feels like success. And we thank you even tonight for

those parts that feel like progress that's too slow, that feels like discomfort.

We ask you tonight, God, just a moment right now for each person,

just to think about the things in their life that don't feel what they should

be yet, what they could be yet, what they might be.

But God, tonight, ask us as we sing to have faith, Lord, to have faith that

you are working, that you are moving in our life.

We pray all this and we believe all this and we come in this moment to sing

again in a faith that you are good and that you are God.

In Jesus' name, amen.