“Not Losing Hope with Delayed Miracles” by Lisa Harper

Welcome to Gateway Churches Podcast.

Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

When I was uh 17 years old, my best friend and I, this was 1981.

How many of you were not born before 1981?

That's hateful.

You just shouldn't have raised your hands.

Um, I was a senior in high school in 1981, and my best friend Cindy and I started a Bible study with the Fellowship of Christian athletes.

Now we started it because we were hoping FCA would lure football players into the Bible study.

So we had an ulterior motive, but we started this Bible study in our high school, and it was just really cool how many people came.

And toward the end of that year, uh we studied the theme of adoption in Scripture.

17 years old.

But when I just kept seeing adoption in Scripture over and over and over again, you see God Himself saying, You're my family, you're my sons and daughters, you sit next to Jesus, you're co-heirs with Christ.

Both of us were really moved by that.

And both of us, as kids, 17 years old, tight skinned, high metabolisms, had no need for spanks.

We both made a vow that when we got older and got married, we would adopt.

Well, Cindy got married right after she graduated from FSU, married an amazing man named Peter, and they went on to adopt two children.

Meanwhile, I was kind of always a bridesmaid and never a bride.

I was very, very, very afraid of intimacy in my 20s and 30s.

I was very attracted to abusive men.

And so it took me a long, long, long time to believe that I actually could parent a child.

I actually had a woman in church tell me that I had sabotaged my shot at motherhood because she said, You've told our small group that there's sexual molestation in your backstory.

And just in case you weren't fixed in Christian therapy, you might unwittingly transfer some of the trauma you experienced as a child onto a child of your own.

So you should just go to the National Humane Society and adopt a dog.

And um, and I did that.

I adopted a chocolate lab with bladder control problems named Sally.

And so it took me decades as a Christ follower to believe that maybe, just maybe, one of the 140 million orphans in the world as we know it today might be better off with a chunky single chick in Nashville, Tennessee, than institutionalized or dying in infancy because they didn't have access to clean water.

And in 2014, by the absolute grace of God, I got to bring my daughter home from Haiti.

Um, she's right there.

She is not my hope.

Jesus is my hope.

She's tangible grace.

But here's the point I'm making.

If you had told me as a 17-year-old in 1981 that it would be 33 years before someone would call me mama, I think I would have kind of recanted on that promise.

I would say, 33 years, goodness gracious, I'm gonna be in a scooter with a flag in 33 years.

There's no way I can wait 33 years.

Now I'll tell you now, as a 61-year-old, now that I've been Missy's mom for 13 years, and I look back at those three plus decades of delay, I would say she is absolutely worth the wait.

If I could talk to my 17-year-old self today, I'd say, oh baby, it is so much better than you have the faith to even dream.

His miracles are worth waiting for.

That comes from the Greek word Ewangelion.

So even though they put Matthew first in our Bibles, chronologically Mark was actually written first.

And most scholars think that Matthew and Luke borrow most of their material from Mark.

John was written much later.

So most New Testament scholars will tell you absolutely the longest uninterrupted sermon Jesus ever gave is the Olivet Discourse.

Now, any idea why it was called the Olivet Discourse?

Young, talk back.

I'm not a pastor.

Because he was talking to him on the Mount of Olives, which is just east.

I was just there a few years ago.

I've spent a lot of time in Israel.

It's just east of that wall that we're told in prophecy that Jesus is going to return when he comes the second time for the second advent.

How many of y'all have been to Israel?

Okay, did y'all notice that there's a cemetery just on this side?

Like you can see it.

The Mount of Olives actually has a bunch of Jewish graves.

But if you go toward downtown Jerusalem and you get to those walls around the city, there is a cemetery that's not of the Christian faith.

Do you know why they put that cemetery there?

Because they know that in Semitic culture, the Jews were taught you cannot have anything to do with the dead body.

So they thought if we put dead bodies right there by the eastern gate, it'll stop Jesus from returning for his bride.

And I'm like, oh, you poor morons, he can fly.

So anyway, Jesus is at the Mount of Olives, and he's talking to just his disciples, and he gives the sermon.

And it's an interesting sermon to precede Easter.

I actually think it gives us the template for Easter.

Here's the sermon.

Matthew 25.

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.

Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.

For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.

As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept.

But at midnight there was a cry, Here is the bridegroom, come out to meet him.

Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps, and the foolish said to the wise, Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.

But the wise answered, saying, Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.

And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut.

Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us, but he answered, Truly I say to you, I do not know you.

Watch, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

Now remember who Jesus was preaching to.

Y'all remember?

Just his disciples.

They've spent three years with him.

So there are no paralytics, there are no lame, there are no blind, there are no lepers, there are no people here who have not yet encountered Jesus.

There is no Zacchaeus.

All twelve are believers.

I would argue Judas is a believer.

Jesus gave him communion before he went out and betrayed him.

But we know definitively that eleven were Christ followers.

And Jesus preaches a really hard message.

He says there's ten bridesmaids, which is actually a better word for the ten than virgins.

In the Greek, it's perthenos, perithenos, perithenos, close to that.

And it just means women of marriageable age.

So he says, you've got ten bridesmaids.

And we tend to go, well, you've got ten that are foolish.

In the Greek, the word is moros.

It's the word we get moron from.

So you've got ten who were morons, according to Matthew.

And then you've got, I mean, five, and then five who were wise.

And so we tend to segregate those into kind of the good girls and the bad girls.

But we've got to remember the common denominator between those ten bridesmaids.

All ten were invited to the party.

Which means all ten presumptibly had a relationship with the betrothed couple.

All ten RSVP'd, yes.

And all ten fell asleep.

All ten fell asleep.

Stick a finger in Matthew 25 and head over one chapter to Matthew 26.

You'll be in this in the next two weeks.

Matthew 26, verse 36.

Matthew 26:36

Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, Sit here while I go over there and pray.

And taking with them Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled.

Then he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even unto death.

Remain here and watch with me.

And going a little further, he fell on his face and prayed, My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass for me, neither nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.

And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping.

And he said to Peter, So could you not watch with me one hour?

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

And he went away for a second time and he came back and they were asleep a second time.

And he was like, Could you guys just go get some Mountain Dew or something?

I mean, I need you to be alert.

Remember who he's preaching to on the Mount of Olives?

He's preaching to the twelve.

And this takes place just a couple of days before Gethsemane.

Can you imagine how poignant that was when they realized oh, he just preached about this?

He just told us about the foolish ones who fell asleep.

Oh, but wait, he said the wise fell asleep too.

Would you, if you were to, and y'all know I don't care about babies in church, so don't worry.

I mean, I actually love babies in church, but don't worry about that baby.

Um, and then Finny all gave her a dirty look, you're gonna get hives tonight.

Ten, all ten fell asleep.

If you were to to talk about the the temperature of your relationship with God right now, would you say you are alert that spiritually you've had a double shot of espresso, or would you consider yourself drowsy?

Interesting, he's speaking to believers with this anecdotal message about a wedding party.

And then you've got to understand the parameters of a first century Jewish wedding.

I brought one of my favorite scholars to that regard, Alan Wright, and he says this about weddings in the first century, the context that Jesus was teaching in.

Betrothed couples could have a lot of fun preparing for marriage.

They could share their lives deeply, but there were limits to their intimacy.

They belonged to each other, but they did not wake up daily face to face.

In other words, in Jewish culture in the first century, during the incarnate ministry of Jesus Christ, you could put a ring on it, but you could not sleep with your spouse.

There were two ceremonies.

There was the betrothal, and you were technically considered married.

That's why Mary was, Joseph was considered her husband before they slept together.

It wasn't until the second ceremony that you actually slept together.

And the reason for that was cultural, because usually these Jewish men would ask women to marry them and they wouldn't have a place to reside with their wife.

And so they would put a ring on it and they would be officially married, and then that fellow would go back to his hometown and he would work and he would build usually an annex, an upper room, a cataluma on top of his parents' home.

Nowadays we would call that codependent.

Back then they just called it family.

And his father had to actually approve of this new building before he got to go back and have the wedding celebration where she became his bride in every sense of the term.

So Jesus is telling that story in that context.

They get what he's saying.

He's saying this couple is technically married, they're betrothed, they are not physically intimate yet.

He's gone back to another village.

They don't have FaceTime, they don't have texting.

So the bridesmaids, her family, they don't know for sure when he's coming back.

Some scholars tell us it could be longer than a year.

But he says, baby, I'm coming back.

I'm coming back.

Be ready for me.

And five of these bridesmaids are ready.

They have oil in their lamps.

And five aren't.

Five think I still have time.

Plenty of time.

It'll probably be a year.

I don't feel like going to Home Depot.

And so we'll just hang out and we'll sing worship songs, but I don't need to go get prepared yet.

And Jesus says, then there's a shout.

I usually drive my cars until things start falling off them.

And I got a new car a couple of years ago because my bumper fell off on I-65.

And this new car, the first time I went out, it's the first time I've had one of those cars that keeps you in the lane.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

And I am kind of a, if I talk, I tend to wobble.

And so I was talking and I drifted, and all of a sudden, something vibrated my behind, and someone yelled at me from my dashboard.

It was like, you're out of the lane.

I was like, ah.

It was so startling.

I don't like the buzzing in my fanny or the yelling in my dashboard.

I would like to wobble.

This is a buzzy verse.

When we get to this verse, and it says in verse 6, but at midnight there was a cry, here is the bridegroom.

That's a vibrating verse.

What would happen in their culture is the people on the edge of town, when they saw the bridegroom's party coming toward them, they would begin to yell back through the town, he's coming, he's coming, he's here, tell her he's here.

And people would begin to light all of their lanterns.

And by the time that shout got to the bride, she's like, He's here, he's here.

I mean, if I ever get married, I'm 61, I am coming down the aisle on rollerblades.

And when they start saying, He's here, he's here, the vibration went all the way through the village.

Only there are five who weren't excited because they realized, oh, crud.

We're not prepared.

We are SVP'd.

We know the couple, but we're not prepared.

And they said, Hey, y'all, will you give us some of your oil?

Now, over centuries, pastors have taught that the oil in Matthew 25 symbolizes Holy Spirit.

It doesn't.

Every great scholar will tell you Holy Spirit is represented as oil throughout much of biblical narrative.

But in this case, it's just oil, because otherwise the story wouldn't make sense because you can't run out of the Holy Spirit.

If you have the Holy Spirit, you don't leak all of him out.

So when it says they've run out of oil, the point isn't petroleum, the point is spiritual preparedness.

There is a point where we all think there's more time.

There's more time for my sister-in-law, there's more time for my best friend, there's more time for my spouse.

Until there isn't.

Until there isn't.

Our culture says, as Christians, y'all are so cool as long as you paint Jesus as an option.

As long as you say Jesus is a way to spiritual fulfillment, we really, really like y'all.

Same thing that happened in Greco-Roman culture during the time of Christ.

As long as y'all say there are a lot of options, we'll we we'll we'll kind of accept you into culture.

But as soon as you start getting clear about Jesus, that Jesus is the only way to be reconciled with God the Father, then y'all are narrow-minded, then y'all are hateful, then y'all aren't kind.

The point Jesus is making here is truth and grace were never meant to be segregate.

If it's true, then it's full of grace.

If it's just sloppy grace, that's not a grace at all.

That's actually cruelty.

To know where the hope is and think, I'll just let them get to it.

To never tell our own stories of moving from death to life is one of the cruelest things we can do.

On Wednesday, I was in a meeting in Nashville out in the country.

And we had just sat down.

We were about two minutes into this meeting.

And the gentleman I was meeting with said, Do you mind if I check this on Nashville severe weather?

And I said, No, sir.

And he checked his phone and he turned it on.

And a voice, a disembodied voice in his phone said, There is an unprecedented cell headed straight toward Arrington.

You have eight minutes to get underground or in a basement and wear a helmet.

And he said, This is Arrington.

We have eight minutes before a supercell tornado is about to hit us.

We were in a manufactured metal building.

And he said, Would you like to stay here?

And I said, No, sir, I would not.

And I took my daughter and we ran out to the car, and we were about not even a quarter of a mile from the interstate, and I floored it to the interstate, and then I drove as fast as I could opposite the supercell.

If that gentleman had not interrupted our meeting and said, this will be kind of awkward.

And we've only been meeting for two minutes.

I've just met this woman.

There's business involved here.

It's going to put kind of a wedge between us if I take this call.

Would that have been kind?

He said, a super cell is coming.

Your life is in danger.

What do you want to do?

And I said, I want to run.

It is not kind of us when we paint Jesus as an option.

That's not kind.

There's nothing kind about that.

He says, these five who were foolish, they get to the party and they say, Lord, Lord.

They use his title, a superlative title, implying, we know you, right?

And he says, I never need to depart from me.

Yeah, there is a point where the cross divides.

There's a point where the gospel is a stench of death to those who are dying.

And I think it's incredibly cruel that we're not telling everyone we get to rub shoulders with, y'all, there's a point.

There's a point when the door closes.

And I don't know when it is, but I've got to tell you how I was rescued.

I've got to tell you how I got moved from death to life.

I would so much rather be true than trend.

And we live in a culture that wants to trend.

I want to be true.

In 1998, I got to teach at a church right outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and I was nervous.

I'm always a little anxious when I get to be with saints like y'all because I know I just know I'm the least of these.

I'm grateful God says he uses donkeys and rocks.

And I walked into this church, and you knew it was about, I don't know, three or four hundred women.

Seemed like everybody was in crop pants with a quilted Bible cover.

And I just kind of felt like I didn't fit.

I walked in the back of the church.

And there was a woman in the back of the church, and she definitely looked like she didn't fit.

Kind of Stevie Nick's hair, too tight dress.

And when I walked in and I saw her, our eyes just met.

And you know how you see somebody and you're like, we would be friends if I got to spend time with you.

And we just kind of made that, you know, that eye contact, and then I went in because I was going up to teach.

And I taught and just prayed that if I spewed any heresy, God would protect them from it.

And I was surprised to see this woman who so didn't fit, she was still there at lunch.

It was all day Saturday conference.

At the very end of the conference, I thought she is still here.

She's in the very back pew.

How many of y'all are under 40?

Baby pews are long wooden benches we used to sit on in church.

And she was in the very back one.

And I had been teaching about Hosea and Gomer.

It's one of my favorite love stories in biblical narrative.

And I just sensed I need to talk about Jesus.

I need to talk about the fact that he's not an option.

That Jesus is the only way.

I know it's not very culturally appropriate anymore.

I know they threw rocks at the prophets in the Old Testament.

But I just feel compelled to talk about the fact that if you don't put your hope in Jesus, there will come a point when the door is closed.

And there will no longer be accessible hope.

He is so merciful.

But he's also God.

He's not Santa Claus.

And so I shared the gospel.

And everybody closed their eyes, and I had everybody raise their hands, and I usually have people open their right hands.

That's what we did when we were in a sorority in college, because then you can't tell if somebody's lifting their hand next to you because you know how nosy people are in church.

And I just would have them open their hand or close their hand if they wanted to put their hope in Jesus Christ.

And this woman who didn't look like the rest of us, she indicated that she had put her hope in Jesus Christ.

And it was hard for me not to vibrate at that point.

I thought, there's somebody else, there's somebody else who loves Jesus.

Well, at the very end of this event, I went back to the back and she kind of was loitering around waiting to talk to me.

And she said, Um, my name is Lori.

It's not her real name.

And I said, Well, I'm Lisa.

And she said, I don't know if you remember, but this morning we kind of made eye contact.

And I said, Oh, I totally remember.

And she said, You just kind of look like you didn't fit either.

And I said, Yeah, I normally don't.

And she said, I was really surprised when you were the one that got up on the stage and started preaching.

And I said, Yeah, I'm usually surprised by that as well.

And um, she said, I know you're not from here, so I know you don't know my story, but most of the women in this room do.

She said, Um, I work at night in this town.

And she told me your backstory of being abused when she was a young woman, and she thought a guy was rescuing her in high school, and he ended up employing a lot of women who worked at night.

And um, she ended up getting in that industry of solicitation, and it's a pretty small town, and most people knew.

And she was trying to get out of that vocation.

She had had a child, uh, didn't know who the dad was.

And she said, I'm just trying to live a different life for my son.

So she said, I got a job at a steakhouse on the edge of town.

They didn't know her whole story, they hired her.

And she said, one of the first weeks I was aware a waitress, Carol came in.

And she said, Do you know Carol?

I was like, maybe, you know.

And she said, Well, Carol came in.

Carol ended up being one of the women who was running this conference.

She said, Carol came in, and she was so kind to me, and she wrote a verse on her receipt and left me a huge tip.

And she said, the next week, Carol came back in and requested me as her waitress.

And once again, she wrote a verse and she left me a huge tip.

And she said, about six months ago, Carol had her first child.

And I was one of the first people that she let hold James.

And she said, I told her, You might not want me to hold him.

She said, I'm pretty convinced the only reason I kept my job as a waitress is because of Carol.

And she said, I couldn't believe she wanted me to hold her child.

And she said, Two weeks ago, Carol wrote on her receipt, once again, something kind, and she left a big tip, and she put a ticket to this conference on her receipt.

And she said, The only reason I came this morning is because Carol is one of the few women in this town who's ever been kind to me.

And she said, My plan was to come in the back and make sure Carol saw me, and then I was just gonna leave as quickly as I could.

And she said, I don't know if you can tell, but this is a borrowed dress.

And she said, But then you started talking, and you seem more like me than them.

And I found myself staying for the whole day, and then at the end of the day, you told a story about a woman in the Bible who's just like me.

And I didn't know there was a woman named Gomer in God's story, a woman who sold her body.

And she said, When you talked about Hosea saying, That's my wife, and buying her back, it's the first time I thought, maybe, just maybe, Jesus could love a woman like me.

So when you said we could pray and give our hearts to Jesus, I'm not sure if he wants mine.

But that's the first time anybody's given me that invitation.

And I just, as a young, wet behind-the-ears Bible teacher in 1998, I just decided I'm never ever again gonna tell stories about Jesus when I don't make it clear.

Because to be unclear is not kind.

To say Jesus is an option is not kind.

Because there will be a moment that the door closes.

And some of the people we love very much will be laying in hospital beds or they'll get in a car accident, or he'll come back.

The parousia, fancy word, for the second coming of Jesus Christ, will no longer be delayed.

And I don't want anyone I rub shoulders with to say, Lisa didn't make it clear.

I thought if I just sang the songs and bought the t-shirt, there'd be more time.

There will come a point when there's no more time.

And that's what he tells his followers right before Easter.

That's the template of Easter.

He gives us an action point.

He says, if you want to be kind in the world that I've called you to live in, that I don't want you to just be consumers, I want you to be carriers of my grace.

Would you pull out any paper you have in your pocket?

It can be a gum wrapper or half of a deposit slip, just pull out a small piece of paper.

Something in your Bible, a sticky note, a traffic ticket, just a slip of paper.

And would you write the first name, just the first name?

No number, no email, just the first name of someone you love who doesn't yet know the unconditional love of Jesus Christ.

Maybe a friend, maybe a family member, might be a neighbor.

Might be the parent of one of your children's friends, someone you really care for who doesn't yet know.

The miraculous compassion of Jesus Christ, and just write their name.

If you're sitting next to a nosy Nancy, a sharp elbow to the ribs usually works wonders.

Just write their first name or their initials.

And then would you fold that paper over?

Pastor Mark is gonna close our family meeting.

But as he's closing, I just thought it would be really cool for us as a family to speak these names and to carry them to the altar.

Because what we're gonna do is we're gonna collect every single name.

And the prayer people, the prayer team are gonna pray over those saints that you love who don't yet know the love of Jesus Christ, and maybe you've grown tired and waiting for the miracle of their salvation.

Jesus says, Don't lose hope during the delay.

Don't lose hope because I'm coming back.

I'm coming back.

So would y'all just take that saint in your hands and carry them to the altar and set them on the altar?

And as you're making your way up here, would you speak just their first name out loud?

I'm gonna ask y'all to be nosy at this point.

Would you listen to the first names those brothers and sisters are speaking out loud around y'all?

I'll tell you one of mine, John.

When you hear those names, would you commit as a family of faith to just carry that name this Easter season to pray for the salvation of that saint they love who doesn't yet know the love of Christ?

Don't give up, y'all.

Don't give up.

Hang on to hope, hang on to the goodness of God during the delay.

And don't stop telling your story.

He's not an option.

He's our only hope.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you'd like to connect with us, text Connect to 71010 or visit gatewaypeople.com.

We hope you have a great week.