Do I trust God enough to wait?

Good morning, church. We are going to be in Genesis

Genesis 25:29–34

chapter 25, verses 29 through 34.

If you don't have a Bible, there's one in the seat in front

of you or under, under the chair in front of you.

My goodness. So on page 18, some of you might

have different Bibles or a slightly different version.

So it might be on a page, a different page.

Once when Jacob was cooking Stew, Esau came in from the

field and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, let me

eat some of that red Stew, for I am exhausted.

Therefore his name was called Edom.

Jacob said, Sell me your birthright.

Now Esau said, I am about to die.

Of what use is a birthright to me?

Jacob said, Swear to me now. So he swore to him, and sold his

birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and

lentil Stew, and he and he ate and drank and rose and went his

way. Thus Esau despise his

birthright. This is the word of the Lord.

What's going on? Port City family and friends.

How we doing? Good.

My name is Tanner, the lead pastor here.

One of the things about Port City y'all, is we love God's

word. We put it under your chairs.

We read it before the service. We teach it in our prayer

groups. We have Bible studies on and

off. There's a immense 1 going on

right now. We read it with friends,

one-on-one. We encourage you to read it with

your kids. Y'all, if you want to thrive,

God's Word is going to play a role in that.

We're not trying to be Bible experts.

We're not trying to flex. I myself still have a lot to

learn, so I hope you don't ever feel intimidated by that culture

We're trying to build. We're just trying to invite you

to like we want you to thrive. You need iron, sharpening iron.

So you need people and you need God's word.

So we pray that you continue to dive in, come to equip, come get

the word any way you can. All week long, we hear in all

kinds of stuff. We hear more messaging and like

20 minutes in our culture right now than many did in a lifetime.

It seems like the amount of advertisement and what not so I

don't even notice that now they gave us all the streaming stuff

for free and now they're like tearing their things where you

only get the non commercial version of it.

If you spend like 500 they that's what they do.

They give it to you free. Then they bring the commercials

back. I thought they was gone now they

back. So all that to say, get the word

up in your life. OK, let me let me pray for our

time in God's word today and then we'll dive in.

Let's pray. Our Father, we love you, God, we

love your word. It is, it is natural and it's

supernatural. It's a book like others and it's

a book like no other. It was written by people and by

you, by you through people. So God, we need your word.

God, we're hungry for your word. God that it is unlike anything

else. And God, it helps us to thrive.

I want my friends under the sound of my voice to thrive.

So God, just get your word into us, do it through all kinds of

means and through people and just give us the, the courage

and the discipline, God and the just getting over the, the kind

of the, the fear factors and the the embarrassment factors and

just learning and just the process of it.

But God, would you change us by your spirit through your word.

So Lord, as we come to your word right now, what we don't know,

would you teach us what we don't have?

Would you please give us and who we are not?

God, please make us and let the words of my mouth and the

meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.

And everybody who agree with that said, Amen.

We all waiting is a part of life.

We used to wait in these things called lines, but then we

started using our phones to order online so you don't have

to wait in line. But then you get there and you

wait in the mobile order line. See how that works?

It's deep, but it's true. Now you waiting in a mobile

line, you use the mobile app to not be in line, and then you

waiting in line. OK, waiting, that's a line.

Come on. Waiting is a part of life.

OK, we wait in big ways. We wait in traffic, we wait in.

But then we wait for good gifts we want.

We wait for important phone calls.

We wait for good gifts like a spouse or or things that we

desperately crave. And waiting is hard y'all.

Here's the good news, the Bible. Waiting is good.

Waiting is not a waste. God does not waste our waiting.

That we wait with Him in. Waiting is part of God's means

to make you who He made you to be.

But this is just not natural in our culture right now.

One of the craziest things to me is the transfer portal.

And y'all, I'm not knocking it. If I was in college basketball,

I would you take the money, OK. But that's kind of the point is

why would back in the day, waiting had value to make you

somebody, right? The idea was ride the bench,

play a role, learn your thing, and eventually you're ready.

But why would I wait here if I can get paid there?

And it's really that simple. But we need to learn the value

of waiting. Let that not be said to the

church that we waste our waiting.

I think we live in an era that is losing and learning to waste

their waiting. And it's being monetized to

never have to wait. And in today's text, Jacob and

Esau are the perfect negative examples of two ways to waste

your waiting. OK, one of them is just

forsaking the moment. Apathy, throw your hands up, who

cares? And the other way is to scheme.

Jacob's going to scheme and Esau's going to forsake.

But the question kind of under the text that Christ ultimately

fulfills is the potential of like walking in God's timing.

And then we, the Church of those who full of the Spirit, wait on

the Lord, wait with the Lord. So what we're going to do here

today, my hope for is we're going to walk out eager to wait

with God because you're going to be waiting with him in small

ways and big ways the rest of your life, Lord willing.

So we're going to look at Esau. We're going to look at Jacob,

We're going to look at Jesus. Then we're going to talk about

being the church that is waiting.

If you are ready, let me hear you say I'm ready.

Let's start with Esau, shall we? Back at verse 29.

That's what the Bible said. Once when Jacob was cooking

Stew, Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted and

Esau said to Jacob, let me eat some of that red Stew for I am

exhausted. Therefore his name was called

Edom. Jacob said tell me your

birthright. Now Esau said I'm about to die

of what use is a birthright to me?

Y'all two things I want to point out about Esau here.

First, is Esau flippantly forsook God just just flippant,

just like, eh, what use is it to me?

What is happening here is Esos coming in from the field.

He worked hard. Just to be clear, in the Hebrew

and even in our English translation, He is not about to

die. The man is hungry, OK?

He's exacerbated. He is hungry.

He is the little kid coming in and be like, give me something,

I'm starving. Give me some of that red stuff.

That's literally what the Hebrew is.

Give me some of that red stuff. And if you really get into the

language, at the end, it says that it he was given bread and

lentil Stew. So he was so out of his mind

that he didn't even get what was red.

If you really pay attention, he didn't get some of that red

stuff. He got some bread and lentil

Stew. So Esau is tripping, OK, and he

comes in the question that just jumps off the page to me.

These 3 words OK, I want you all to read them with me in verse 32

of what use is a birthright to me?

Underline that y'all birthright. We talked about the sum last

week. It's your position in the

family. In ancient Near Eastern culture,

you were the 1 you, you are the the the chosen 1, so to speak

for that family. All hopes are riding on you,

particularly when you're a male. You, you are, you are the, you

are the hope of the family. OK.

And so Esau here asked the question of what use is this

birthright to me? That question to me is extremely

pragmatic. It's practical.

And So what we're talking about here today is the concept of

waiting. Waiting.

I'm going to define it more later, but it's simply to turn

to God. When your next moment is not

clear, you turn to him, OK? It's just pausing.

It could be 5 seconds, it could go on for five months, it could

go on for five years. It's not going to a monastery.

You don't have to go to a monastery to wait.

It's the turn of the soul to the Lord when your next step isn't

clear. But who he is, who his character

is, his law, his desires, his promises are clear.

Esau doesn't do that. He calculates within himself and

he thinks of what use is this birthright to me?

Y'all, There's some Esau in all of us.

It's it's this idea of like, what good is the God stuff?

I got to I got to live that make sense.

I got to make my money. I got to have a spouse.

I got to get what I got to get. It's the idea that God is not

practical right now. Have you ever felt that way?

It started with Esau. It's this posture in US of like,

who cares? I'll worry about that on Sunday.

I'll worry about that at Bible study.

But right now I got to eat, right now I got to have this, I

got to have that thing or I'm going to die.

And isn't it so interesting that your flesh always feels like

it's going to die if you don't get what you want?

That's the essence of sin is I got to have it and God is of no

use to me. That is the heart of sin.

Y'all is to look at the Lord. And it's not to be like I hate

you. It's almost a just, it's just a

shrug of the shoulders. You know what I mean?

Like I'm out. That starts with Esau and we

can't miss in the text that Esau doesn't just flippantly forsake

God, he forsakes him for food. Y'all want to be very clear

about where the Bible is at with the body?

The the the Bible teaches that the body is good.

We're not antibody. Christians are pro body.

Jesus is resurrected and you remember touch my hands like he

he eats fish like the body is good.

You will be a resurrected person one day.

You are not soul and body. You are soul and body.

You are a person. OK, so we're not antibody.

Here's how the Bible thinks about the body.

The body is good, but it is weak.

OK, it could be good and weak. It is very wise in light of your

weakness to be watchful. That is how the church has

always approached. The body is to be watchful.

We're not antibody. We are watchful of it.

It's why Jesus says to Peter, the Spirit is willing, but the

flesh is weak. And when Paul uses flesh, he

tends to refer to your whole sinful nature little different.

When Jesus said he meant like your body, your members, you are

weak. So here at Poor City, we like to

say you are wicked and you are weak.

Wickedness is lust is pride, it's anger, it's resentment,

it's bitterness, it's it's gossip, it's all the things that

are just overflowing over our hearts that are wicked.

Weakness is your your finite. You get hungry, you got to

sleep, you are tired. Most likely the things you most

regret saying to a friend or a kid happened after 8:00 PM Amen.

Somebody you're like, if I could just literally never speak again

after 8 PMA, lot of the bad things that have happened in my

life probably wouldn't have happened.

That's because you are wicked and you are weak.

You see how that works? So in light of our wickedness,

we need to repent. In light of our weakness, we

need to be watchful. There are many things in our

lives you have no intention of forsaking with the Lord.

But the truth is, given the right amount of weakness, you

might. OK, so let us like Paul said,

let us take heed lest we fall. OK, so Esau represents not

waiting. He represents just a flip.

And see who cares, it's not practical.

Now let's talk about Jacob. Jacob is the schemer.

If Esau forsook the promise, Jacob schemes for it.

Verse 31 Jacob said sell me your birthright.

Now Esau said I'm about to die, of what use is a birthright to

me? Jacob said swear to me now.

So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.

Yeah. We learned in last week's story

that before the twins were born, it was told to them by God that

the older will serve the younger.

So God's plan was for it to go Abraham, Isaac, not Esau, but

Jacob. OK.

He chose Jacob to be the instrument.

Right. But that does not mean that

everything Jacob does, God is cosigning.

Are you with me? The idea is that the the Old

Testament is describing what happened, not prescribing what

you should do. This is not an endorsement.

It's just a description. So just because this is how it

went and God used it, it highlights God's grace.

It highlights God's redemptive arc despite brokenness.

It makes God look good. But that doesn't mean we should

do what Jacob does and be polygamous and all the stuff

he's going to do. OK, so I just want to be clear.

Part of what we can imagine a little bit is like, what would

it have looked like if he waited on God and turned to him?

But he didn't. He schemed.

OK, so he schemes his brother. I find it interesting that Esau

forsook the Lord. Jacob schemed his brother.

Y'all see that his brother comes to him in a moment of need and

Jacob leverages it for what he wants.

Y'all see that he comes in like I'm hungry and he's like, I'll

give you some food if you give me the birthright.

You see that And the word field probably jumped off the page to

some of y'all. Can you think of another two

brothers where a scene goes down in a field in the book of

Genesis before this, this is Cain and Abel.

If you've never read Genesis 4, go read that.

What's interesting about the Cain and Abel story is that in

that story, Cain is the one having a conversation with the

Lord. He's so full of anger.

He's like, hey, be careful that anger is going to take you

somewhere you don't want it to take you.

He takes his brother out to a field and he kills him.

And here's what's interesting. God says, where is Abel?

What does he say back? Am I my brother's keeper?

Isn't it interesting that sin can make you look at your

brother and say what do I care? So Esau was flippant about his

Lord and Jacob is flippant about his brother.

Y'all? What's so interesting about sin

is it just makes us far from waiting on the Lord, considering

His way. We are going to self protect and

self advance at the expense of God and others.

You see how that works? What sin does is it makes a

neighbor a puppet. You are playing my game.

And what's so dangerous, y'all, is we can justify it.

We can even like spiritualize it sometimes.

But at the end of the day, we are using people when we do

that. It's manipulation, exploitation.

You'll get what you need once I get what I want.

But we can do it with a smile on and we can do it.

And y'all, this is that the heart of every, there's a lot of

sibling rivalry that goes on in some of the households under my

voice. Amen.

It's every coach that knows their players will do whatever

they ask to get that spot. It's the heart of every

politician leveraging fear. It's this idea of like, I'm here

to serve so I can get served. You'll see how that works.

It's like it looks like the right thing, but in reality, I

know what I want. So let me ask you this question

before we go on. Is there something in your life

you want so bad you'd be willing to forsake the Lord or scheme

somebody to get it? Y'all?

And it's hard. Like there are things that we

want that are good things, even gifts of God sometimes.

But when we don't consider the Lord and when he's impractical,

what can begin to happen is you default into a way of life you

would not have on the front end all because it feels like you

got to have it or you're going to die.

You got a scheme you got to exploit, you got to forsake.

So I just want to ask the question, like the question of

the sermon is, do I trust God enough to wait even on a good

gift that he might want for you? The good news is there is

somebody else in the Bible who's not like Esau and not like

Jacob, and that is Jesus. OK, so let us let us consider

Jesus for just a couple of minutes.

You know, what's so unique about Jesus is he kind of fulfills the

roles of both brothers here. If Esau is the older brother,

who is the inheritor of the family, the birthright, right?

So the younger brother wants what the older brother has.

And in this case, Jacob had to scheme Esau to get it, and Esau

was flippant. But Jesus is the truer and

greater Esau, who is the older brother, the inheritor of the

family. All things go through Jesus.

He made all things. He upholds them all and y'all,

he's the kind of older brother that you don't have to scheme to

get something from. He's the kind of older brother

that his whole life mission was to give you what is rightfully

his. That's the gospel.

He is the one who lived in such a way, had all power and all the

stuff, and he gave it all up to bring you in.

We could never earn our way into the family.

We couldn't scheme our way in. We have an older brother who

literally came to the earth, dwelt among us, full of the

Spirit, so he could give us what is his.

That's the gospel. You can't scheme for it.

You can't earn it. He just wants to give it.

He wants to give you the position in the family.

He's got believers. This is crazy.

For the next billion years you will be blessed and blessed and

blessed. Ephesians 27 says that in the

coming ages he might shower you with the riches of His grace.

And that's going to happen, not because of the bad things you

didn't do this week or how much you read your Bible, but because

Jesus lived in your place and died in your place.

Because He is the truer and greater Esau who gives you his

inheritance. You don't earn an inheritance,

you receive it. That's the gospel.

And Jesus isn't only the true or greater older brother who gives

us what we don't deserve. He is the younger brother who is

the chosen one but doesn't have to scheme to get it.

We, we are kind of the older brother that blew it.

And Jesus, the one who doesn't scheme to enter into God's

promises. He's the one who just serves.

He sees us in need and he doesn't think, well, I'll meet

your need and get what I want. He gives to our needs to the

point that he doesn't get his needs met.

He is the one who gave it all away.

He did not exploit us at all. He came not to be served, but to

serve and give his life as a ransom for many.

So the good news is here to day that Jesus has fulfilled

everything that Esau blew. Everything that Jacob blew, He

is the great one, the chosen 1, and it's because of that church

that we can learn to wait on him.

So let's talk about that for a few minutes.

Let's talk about waiting on God. Let's talk about waiting on God.

I want to read Psalm 130, verses 5 through 8 over you.

Psalms 130:5–8

Psalm 1:30 is a good one to memorize if you never have.

That's what it says. I wait for the Lord.

My soul waits, and in His word I hope my soul waits for the Lord

more than Watchmen for the morning, more than Watchmen for

the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord, for

with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with Him is plentiful

redemption, and he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

3 elements of waiting I want to talk about this morning.

First one, wait with a posture. Posture.

Somebody say posture. Here's here's the basic idea.

Waiting is a decision of your heart, not the default status of

your feet. Your feet can be in a position

of waiting, but your heart not be in a posture of waiting.

The way the Bible thinks about it, that your heart is is the

center of who you are. OK.

It's the Control Center, the desire factory.

Everything you do overflows from your heart.

OK, so the heart has to willfully, deliberately choose

to wait. But just because you're in a

waiting room doesn't mean you're waiting.

Are y'all with me? I remember one time I was in

this airport and my flights were getting delayed.

I'm sitting on the tarmac, you know, all all the things that

could go wrong were going wrong that day.

And I looked at my screen time. By the end of the day, the

screen time was high. But what really got me was the

number of phone pickups. It it counts your pickups.

I don't know if you knew that my pickups were at 159.

It's a lot of pickups, man. It's a lot.

That's a lot of. Yeah.

The idea here is we tend to, when we're in a position of

waiting, we turn to distraction. Distraction is just a symptom

that you're not depending, you're not waiting.

OK, We tend to distract ourselves and not even consider

what it would look like to wait, OK, and I want to be clear,

waiting is not some super spiritualized monastery moment.

It's just the turn, the posture of the heart to consider God,

his character, His law, His commands, His promises.

When your next step ain't clear, it's just turning to Him.

And it doesn't mean you're going to get a dream making your next

step clear. It's just to consider his way,

consider who He is. And that's what we're here to

talk about. There are two Hebrew words that

get used for wait a lot that just happened in our our Psalm

as well. I look back at verse five kind

of highlights it. I wait for the Lord, my soul

waits and in his word, I hope so.

The words wait and hope actually get used interchangeably a lot

in in Hebrew with the words kaval and yahal.

And the idea here this is, this is the idea.

Those words evoke the imagery of like a rope being pulled tight,

OK, Like a, a, a, a chord being pulled tight.

Like if you ever wonder how they measure lines sometimes like

they, they pull a rope tight like baseball, think home plate

to first base. They're going to pull a rope

really tight or a long string and then somebody's going to go

paint over the line. OK.

The biblical idea of waiting is pulling a line tight.

OK, what does that have to do with hoping?

Has everything to do with hoping.

The idea is to wait well is to pull hope tight is to allow the

moment to allow who God is to be being pulled and not go slack

because a slack rope is no use. Are you with me?

So to wait well is actually to build anticipation and build

hope. Let me give you an example of

the scripture of somebody who blew this.

OK. In addition to to Jacob Nesau in

First Samuel 13, King Saul blows it.

Some of y'all might know this story.

The prophet Samuel tells him, Hey, go wait for me for one

week, 7 days and I'm a show up and I'll make a sacrifice and

we'll we'll go to the next thing.

Well, King Saul on day 7 starts panicking.

OK, He he starts picking up the phone 159 times.

OK. I like to think sometimes like

my inwardly I'm like scrap from Ice Age.

Anybody know? The little thing was like,

that's me. OK, that's, that's me.

Inwardly, I'm just like, I love that guy.

And Saul was doing that. He was panicking.

The text says that he was afraid because his troops were getting

a little rowdy, starting to leave, and the enemy seemed to

be gathering. So what did he do?

He did not wait. He did not pull the rope tight

of what Samuel said. He didn't consider the moment.

Samuel said wait seven days. God chose me to be a king.

This is what he did in the Exodus.

This is who God is. This is who God is.

He didn't pull that tight. So you know what?

This is the idea, y'all. If you're not pulling who God is

tightly, something else is getting tight.

You see how that works? They're going to take over.

My people are going to leave. I won't be king.

They're going to find somebody else that felt more real.

So I got to alleviate that. Does that make sense?

If you're not building the right rope, the wrong one is getting

tighter. I think sometimes we think this

is a spiritual conversation. It's not what waiting does.

It reveals what story you're telling yourself that makes

sense. And so Saul was telling himself,

I'm about to lose the Kingdom. It's all going to fall apart.

And so he sacrificed early. And right when he did, guess who

showed up? Samuel.

And he's like, you blew it. And that's why the Lord already

raised somebody else up. And some of y'all know that

story, y'all. The idea of waiting is pull the

rope tight. And here's one way you could do

that. Wait on a promise.

Wait on a promise, a promise from God in context, hello is

pulling what you have access to. So for Jacob and Esau, all it

took was like, hey, God called my father.

Oh, and Abraham, Abraham and my father, and this is what he

said, this is what he said is to fill your mind with what is

clear and true that God has said in a moment where what you're

supposed to do isn't necessarily clear, right?

So God, God's word ain't going to tell you to take a left step

or a right step every single time.

But who he is, his character and His law is pretty clear.

And there's a lot of promises you can grab a hold of.

So believers in the room, do y'all have promises you just

pull the mess out of the rope on One of my favorites is First

Corinthians 15. My labor is not in vain.

I'm believing that when I change diapers I'm like Lord Jesus pull

it. Pull it people.

Because if not everybody just gets irritating to you.

Everything is in your way if you're not pulling that rope

tight. 2:00 PM when the coffee ain't hitting and your boss

calls a impromptu meeting. Are you pulling the rope that

your labor is not in vain that how you you respond in that

meeting matters or does none of it matter?

Let's just get to 5:00 PM and go home.

You see how that works? Pull the rope tight.

He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion of

the day of Christ Jesus. Sometimes I just feel like I'm

just as simple as the day I first believe and that might be

the case and I'm just like, Lord, am I just like, did you

waste your time saving me? And I just need to hear He's

going to finish what He started in me.

He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for his

all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all

things? Lord, You say.

You'll give me all things. You'll give us all things that

we need. God, you say, seek first the

Kingdom and everything else will be added.

Are you pulling those tight? Because if not, guess what's

getting tighter? You ain't getting any younger.

That was a good opportunity and you blew it.

Ain't nobody else going to come there No nobody else going to be

looking for the the promises that get loud are ones that you

got to be. You got to win, you got to

matter. You got to have status at your

job. You got to get married in the

next year or is gone and those things get really loud and then

you make foolish decisions. You forsake or you scheme are

y'all with me? God feels of no use to you.

That's how that works. But even more than we wait with

the posture or wait for a promise, wait with a promise,

y'all, we wait on a person more than you're waiting on something

from the Lord, you're waiting on the Lord.

We wait on a person. Isaiah 64 four.

This is a good one to memorize too.

It's what this says. Isaiah 64 four says from of old,

no one has heard or perceived by the ear.

No one has seen a God besides you who acts for those who wait

for him, who acts for those who wait for them.

Wait for him, y'all Sort of. The whole arrangement of you and

the Lord is not that. He was looking for people to

work for him. He was looking for people to

work for. If you think God saved you

because he needed you, you're missing it.

The reason, y'all, it's a rescue story.

He saves us because we're the needy party.

He's not the needy party, OK? He is looking for people he can

work for. One of my favorite Old Testament

stories, Exodus 14, OK, the people of God have been

delivered from Egypt. Now they're, they're on the way,

you know, to the promised land. And it's a fresh start.

And then Pharaoh gets this idea, why don't we just let our

workforce go? Let's go get them now.

Remember this. And so they're by the Red Sea

and here comes Pharaoh and his army.

And they just start panicking. They're, they're ready to kill

Moses. They're like, well, what are we

doing? And Moses has this line.

He says, look man, and sometimes he goes to the Lord.

He's like, Lord, what are we doing?

This one, he didn't have to check with the Lord.

He said, listen man, the Lord's about to work for y'all.

Just sit there and be quiet. Literally their role was just

sit there and be quiet. Just watch what God's going to

do. And a little bit.

That's the arrangement that we're a part of in this gospel

thing with Jesus and the Holy Spirit with the Father.

Y'all, God is looking for people that he can do something in and

for. He's not like looking for people

who can help him out. Now we serve the Lord.

All those things like that's part of how He rescues you is by

giving you a position of service to Him.

Him being your King is his gift to you.

But y'all, he don't need you. He is working for those who wait

for him. He is the God who is active.

He is the God who is looking to give away.

He is the one overflowing. He is not needy.

The whole arrangement is that He's working for us.

So we wait because we know God is working.

You see how that works? We wait because of who we know

God to be. When it doesn't make sense to

you at the core, even when you don't have a promise.

But the reason you pull the rope tight on a promise is because of

who God is. He's initiator, He's sustainer,

He's promise keeper. This is who he is.

And I don't know what's going on, but I know who you are and I

know what you've done. You see how that works?

Heard this illustration this week that I just thought was so

dope. I was listening to, I think her

name's Melissa Kruger. Some of y'all might know her.

They were doing a podcast on waiting and she used an

illustration. I was like, that's incredible.

I'm going to use it. I'll probably butcher it a

little bit because I don't know exactly what she's talking

about, but you'll get the gist. Here we go.

She brought up composting. Anybody composting here?

OK, good for y'all. Praise the Lord.

I did not go up in the family that composted.

OK, And I might start, but y'all, basically the gist I get

is composting is saving things that are natural, you know,

orange peels, egg shells, stuff like that, OK.

And you put it in a bucket or whatever.

And then over time that stuff makes really good natural

fertilizer. OK.

And she was bragging in the podcast on how once you store it

up long enough, you're able to use it as fertilizer.

She's like, this is the best crop I've ever gotten is from

this this composted fertilizer plus seeds and water and all the

stuff became the greatest crop of all time.

Okay, now here was the point she made.

Waiting is sort of like composting because in the moment

it's just an eggshell. In the moment it's just a it's a

peel. It's a it's a thing other things

you compost. They meant somebody, and at the

moment it doesn't feel like it's anything but waste.

But the idea is you're not the gardener.

You are offering something up to the one who is right.

God will not waste your waiting. He's the great composter, not

you. OK, so you just give them the

egg shells. You just give them the moments.

You give them the five seconds, you give them your season of

singleness. You give them the waiting on the

job. You give them the things.

He's going to bear the fruit. He's going to do the crop.

He's going to be the one in it with you turning it into

something. And you don't even know what the

fruits going to be. Who knows how God is using the

waiting? The point is he doesn't waste

anything. You see how that works?

But then she said this. And I was like, that's a bar.

OK, That's how I know you're a teacher.

So here's the thing about composting, though.

Takes a long time. And it stinks, quite literally.

I was like, that's that's really good.

Yeah, the flies be coming up and stuff.

And yeah, that's just part of it.

The process isn't always flashy, but it is worth it.

And when you waste it, it's gone.

Wasting waiting doesn't make you like a bad person, it's just

wasting the potential of what God could do.

Does that make sense? What we're talking about here?

Y'all is living. We get one life to live.

And God wants to work for those who wait for him.

God wants you to wait for him. God wants to live with you.

He wants you to walk with Him. And part of our felt experience

of walking with him is just learning to wait on Him.

See all where can we just learn to wait?

I was just thinking of like, there's millions of ways this

applies, but sometimes we just do things the default way.

Everybody does them because it's the way you do them.

If every business in your industry up charges everything

and automates everything and does this and does this, guess

what? You start doing that and that

and that and that and you're moving so fast, you're not even

thinking doesn't mean that there's some verse that tells

you what you to do at that next moment in your company.

It just means let's just let it breathe.

Let's think about it, let's pray.

What does this do to our customers if we keep treating

them that way? Are we treating them like they

have dignity or we treat them like idiots?

Like what are we doing here, y'all?

There's millions of ways to wait.

Students, you're not a bad person if you use AI and

homework. Hello, you probably get it done

10 minutes faster. But let's, let's think the long

game of what kind of thinker and person you'll be in 10 years if

you keep doing that, OK? There's this principle called

wisdom, which is just 'cause you can doesn't mean you should.

OK. And I think some of where we

need to learn to wait in different sees in our lives and

different vocations and careers, We're going to have to let

others in on those things because some of you are doing

things day-to-day. We don't even know about it.

Just be like, hey, this is the situation I'm dealing with.

What do you think? Because a lot of what we're

talking about is wisdom in the waiting.

It's not all like absolutely clear how.

And that's part of why it's composting.

Are you with me? It's not a formula.

This is an art, but it starts with a posture of the heart.

It starts with just pausing. It just starts with considering,

Lord, what does your word say? What does your character say?

What does the gospel have to say about this season in my life,

y'all? And for anybody who's been in a

prolonged season where it feels like God has literally put you

in a waiting room and you stop just distracting yourself

through it, you stop scrap mode and you just all right, Lord, I

got the jug of water in the Bible.

What are you trying to do? And you just sit there, y'all,

it's always worth it. And you always look back.

And some of y'all might be in one of those prolonged seasons

right now. Some of y'all might be in a

really busy season. I've heard it said that Jesus

was always busy and never in a hurry.

You have time to wait. Your heart has time to wait.

It's a posture, not just a a calendar issue.

Here's the last thing I'll say, and I'm done.

Y'all, as we consider Jacob and Esau in their failure to wait

y'all for some of y'all who don't know Jesus in here, we

can't miss just how bad they blew it.

Because some of you have to see what Christ has done and realize

the ways they blew it. I don't want it to be the way

you blow it, OK? Think about it.

Esau is convinced he has to have something and he's willing to

get it, and he got it and he blew it.

Y'all see that? He was convinced he had to have

it. He got what he wanted, and then

he resented it and didn't have an opportunity.

You, you get what I'm saying? Like he forfeited it.

He forfeited for what he got. Like he gained the whole world,

forfeited his soul, sort of kind of right.

I don't want that for you. I don't want you to live your

whole life chasing after something that you might

actually get. That isn't the Lord, that isn't

Christ, that is the bag, that is the money, that is the

relationship. What if you get what you think

you got to have? Well, me and my friend when I

was in like fifth grade and we would do a sleepover or whatever

we would be like, if I make this shot, you go marry so and so.

And I remember just like every once in a while I have.

And of course you if you miss, you just.

But I got three more and you just keep shooting till you.

Has anybody ever done that? All of all of the the hoopers in

the room, like yeah, Nerf goal and y'all, what if that's us

still sometimes even as adults? What if you're still that person

that thinks you'll be happy if you get what you want?

What if the worst thing that can happen to you is you get what

you want? What if there is a God who's

waiting on you? What if he's been drawing you?

What if he's trying to convince you that his inheritance for you

is better than the one that you're about to just give up?

Are you with me? Like what God wants for you is

better. Him being a king to you is

better. His way is better and he loves

you, but it starts with just recognizing and sometimes God

gives us the gift of a story like this to just take a step

back and say, is that me? Are some of y'all being Esau

right now? You're hearing God's word,

you've heard the truth of his word, you've heard about sin,

you've heard about Christ, you've heard about the cross,

you've heard about how it's a gift.

Salvation is a gift. You just have to agree with God.

You just have to recognize and come to your senses that you are

your biggest problem and you getting what you want is your

biggest problem. Right before you come to your

senses. Sometimes you think you have the

whole world at your fingertips. There was nothing like 18 year

old Tanner who thought he was the coolest dude in the world

who could get whatever he wanted and was so happy.

And then a few months after that I was miserable and that was my

fault and God in his mercy helped me come to my senses that

I got me there. OK, some of y'all need to come

to your senses, not be in Esau and trust Jesus who died in your

place while you were Esau. That's the idea.

The goal is not to go from let me Esau.

Now let me start scheming. It's let me I realize the way

into the family is to repent is to believe it's not through your

effort cleaning yourself up going to church more and then

there's some Jacobs in the room. OK scheming is I can get it

scheming is I'll just tell the Lord all the good things I did.

It's our most of the time it comes in the form of self

righteousness. Well, I said no to these sins.

I did this. Let me just make it perfectly

clear there's no scheme in the Lord.

There is no work around. There is no well I didn't say

these bad things or I always went to church or I grew up in

this family. Yo, you need grace.

The way in with the Lord is through what he's done, not what

you do. This is not about how good of a

person you are. You are not good enough.

You need Christ, you need the Son of God to die on the cross

for your sins. That's the reality of your

situation. So let the two brothers point to

what if you did get what you wanted and what if you can't do

this? This is not about you.

You ain't scheming your way in. It's grace only Christ did it.

It's a gift in church. Let us learn to wait on the Lord

in big ways and little ways all day every day.

David said I wait all the day long, Amen.

Let's pray our Father, we love you.

I pray first and foremost for the people under the sound of my

voice who don't know you, King Jesus, God.

May there be just some sobriety in the room that maybe we've

been chasing the wrong thing for a long time and it's time to

disagree with you. Stop exchanging you for for a

bowl of soup. Yeah, maybe it's our career or

maybe it's some other thing, but it's still just a bowl of soup

in comparison to the riches of Christ.

So I pray that somebody would come to their senses even today.

And Father, may we not scheme, may we not put our trust in our

righteousness and our good deeds, God, but may we recognize

that's, that's that's not what you want.

God, that that the weigh in is through Christ and through the

gift of salvation in him. And God, I pray for your church

on the sound of my voice. God, would you teach us to wait?

Teach us to wait in mundane ways, like in our jobs and our

parenting, in our friendships. God, God, just teach us to wait

and got in the big seasons with the big gifts.

God, that may or may not come. God, teach us to pull the rope,

the story of your word really tightly, because God, there is

another story just tempting us all the time that we'll be happy

if we get what we want. So God, teach us to trust you

that you are better, your way is better, you're good, you love

us. You are looking to work for

those who are waiting for you. Holy Spirit, do this work in us.

We pray in Jesus name, Amen.