Pastor Bryan Grant | Blessing in the Waiting | December 6th, 2020

Welcome to Church at Home.

My name is Brian.

I'm one of the pastors here.

So glad that you can join us from wherever you are.

Just want to say a big welcome and thank you for joining us this morning to our KCC family as well as our Lake Country family.

We're so glad that you could be with us.

Let's take a minute, share with your friends, let them know that church is happening this morning.

So this morning, I want to talk about blessing.

We're on this really great series.

We've been talking about blessing.

Pastor Brody brought it up about know your blessing and where it comes from.

And Pastor Malachi last week spoke on having an open heart and seeing what God is going to do in the blessing.

And I want to shift our perspective.

I want to look at this a little bit differently from a position of waiting.

I know a lot of you right now are immediately like, I don't like waiting.

And I am with you.

But Psalms 130, verse 5 says this.

Psalms 130:5

It says, I wait on the Lord, my soul waits, in his word I hope.

So that's going to be kind of our anchor scripture this morning as we move forward.

And so I'm one of those guys that just I hate waiting.

You know, like if we're sitting at the stoplight and someone in front of me doesn't move right away, I get a little bit impatient.

Or, you know, when you're at Timmy's or you're at Starbucks or your favorite coffee place, wherever that happened to maybe, um if someone doesn't move in the line quick enough, or maybe I have to wait a little extra 15 or 20 seconds to get the coffee because they're super busy and I can't hold my patience in.

Um and I have to wait a little bit longer, I get upset, or if I'm going to Costco and I drive by and everyone at one time all came to Costco to buy toilet paper, and the line is up around the corner.

I'm not going to wait.

I'm just going to go home and get my chicken another time.

So I want us to come at this from a different perspective of waiting and waiting for the blessing and waiting to see what God wants to do without giving up before we actually get to see what the blessing really is.

So I'm that guy that hates waiting.

You can ask my kids.

I don't wait, I'm not very patient.

Uh sometimes it's one of those things that internally I'm working on because it's a character thing.

I gotta be a good waiter.

But waiting can be the worst.

And when I was doing some study on this, and I looked up the word wait in the Bible, and the version of wait, waited, waiting, is used 141 times in the Bible.

So as we come at this from a different perspective, I want us to look at it from you know that the blessing is coming.

It's not that you haven't been praying, it's not that you have been seeking God, it's not that you haven't been standing in faith for that thing, and maybe you're not even hearing his voice anymore, but it's not that we're coming at this from a perspective of blessing in the waiting.

Where is the blessing in the waiting?

So, what types of things are you waiting for?

Are you waiting for your marriage to maybe change and be restored to peace?

Are you waiting for uh a time when you might be able to quit your job and do what you're doing?

Maybe you're waiting for this next week when we hear if we can come back to church or not.

Maybe you're waiting for a child or a son or daughter who doesn't know Jesus to come to know Jesus.

Maybe you're waiting for that big thing that you've so desperately wanted, the future that's different that you no longer have to maybe worry about.

Maybe you're you're waiting for a solution to a problem that can't be solved.

Waiting can feel like an agony.

Waiting can feel like an injustice, like it's anger, it's frustration.

Because you don't know why your God, your good God, isn't pulling through the way you want him to.

But you have to wait sometimes.

And you're saying things to yourself, I know you will, but you're not.

Or you say things like, I know that you can, but why aren't you?

You may feel hopeless in what you're hoping for, because you have to wait and you're losing, losing that, that, that your patience, and you want God to do something.

I want you to I want to tell you something.

He is pulling through.

I want you to look to whoever you're with, to your left, to your right, to your family, whoever it is.

If you're by yourself watching this on your phone, I want you to point to the screen and say, God is pulling through.

And here's the truth: waiting is not about destroying hope, but renewing you.

This is what Isaiah 49, 23 says.

It says, You shall know that I am the Lord, for those shall not be ashamed that they wait on me.

You will not be ashamed if you wait on him.

Isaiah 30 says, Blessed are they who wait for him.

So here's some things and some blessings that I can see that come out of being in a position of waiting.

Waiting can address your heart issues.

What we may not be able to see when we have everything that we need, when we have all of the abundance, when we have all of the big bank account and the things that we know that we've been working hard for, those things that God has already blessed you with, what we may not be able to see become amplified when we wait.

So those things that may be a struggle in us, it when we're waiting, maybe it highlights your anger, maybe it highlights your irritation, maybe it highlights your bitterness or your frustration at God, maybe you're taking that out on others.

Waiting in this state, when we're in this position and we're waiting and we're frustrated and we're angry, this is a time that God can use.

And he points a finger to those things that he wants to restore in your life through a heart of confession.

When we're waiting and we're frustrated, we can use that time.

This is a blessing.

We can take this waiting as a blessing and use it to actually take care of those things in our life that we know that we struggle with, that may have been amplified because we've been waiting.

Another thing that happens when we're waiting for the blessing is waiting creates a deeper dependence on God.

You know, when I really need to do something, when I have to hang a TV or I have to move some boxes or that are really heavy, or I have to do anything around the house, or I have to do something, I'm gonna go look for someone that I trust, that I know that I can depend on, that I have a bond with, that I know that we can do these things.

Same thing happens with God.

In this time that we have to wait, instead of us being pushed away, let's draw near to what he's saying, we are waiting for that blessing.

And what's your move?

Ask this question to yourself as we're sitting here.

What's your move?

And what I mean by that is what's the move that when you start to wait, do you work harder?

Do you focus deeper on things out there but not on God?

Do we network more?

Do we do more PowerPoints?

Do we do more this, that, and the other thing?

Are we doing more?

Or do you take a step, even in this pandemic, to focus more on what God is asking of us?

To focus more on who He is and His character and what He has done for us.

Do we focus more on depending on Him, to trust in Him, to build that deeper relationship?

So dependence is the first move and not the last.

Waiting can be challenging.

The next thing that happens as we're waiting for the blessing is waiting helps reassess your vision.

Sometimes waiting is such a struggle, we begin to desire something less than what God has for us.

You pray, you struggle, you seek, you do all the right things.

You desire that thing, and then you realize that after you fought for that thing, that isn't what you really wanted, you step, you took a step back instead of waiting for what God had for you, you took the lesser.

It's like if you're a car guy.

Instead of buying the Ferrari, you settled for the pinto, for the Ford escape.

But you settled for something less than the best that God had for you, and it helps you reassess your vision.

So it's in this time that you realize that it's not those things that brings you closer to God.

It's God himself and who he is and his character that you want to draw near to.

Waiting helps us uh realize our greater need for the greater thing.

And God is that greater thing.

Our vision readjusts.

We have like an epiphany moment in that time and realize we need more of Christ.

The next thing that happens when we're waiting for the blessing is waiting prepares your heart today for the abundance coming tomorrow.

In the waiting, God is preparing those gifts, the goodness, the great things that he's gonna bring you tomorrow.

As we wait and we focus on him and we build his kingdom, the lesser things in those life fall away as he prepares us to do the next thing.

I've always said that every job, all the training that I've had, the university courses, the HR conflict resolution, the learning how to run a skid steer, all of those things, all the preparation I've done in previous parts of life, build me up for the next thing that God has for me.

And if we look at waiting as a like a seed that is planted, if you look at the redwood tree, the redwood tree is a massive tree, big roots, goes out for a long way, deep, it's tall, it's big.

But that started as something really small, and you had to wait to see get bigger and bigger and bigger into that thing that God has created.

In the waiting, He prepares us for that next thing.

And so, even as we we focus on these, are some of the blessings that come from waiting for what God has for us.

We don't want to misuse that time and just always focusing on just the waiting part, but what God are you trying to teach me?

I want to talk about some things that you can do when we're in that position of waiting.

So I want to go through some scripture in Habakkuk.

The book of Habakkuk provides us some amazing uh dialogue and scripture uh between Habakkuk and God.

There's two chapters, one and two, where he's talking to God.

The first chapter, he's wondering about God's inaction as he sees things happening in the world.

And the second chapter is where I want to kind of go into as he talks about how he positioned himself to hear from God.

Now, you hear all through the Bible that when things got tough, maybe you know people like this in life, things got tough.

Some quit and run away.

Others turn and dig into what God has for them.

Habakkuk was that guy.

He didn't quit.

He stopped and he listened to what God had to say.

He didn't quit.

He positioned himself, and this is what I want to get to, church, is he positioned himself to be, to hear what God was saying to him, to listen to what he's saying.

So the first thing is that we're gonna listen.

This is what Habakkuk says.

I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts.

Station himself.

He's gonna put himself there.

I will look to see what God will say to me.

He stationed himself in a position, he stayed there with the intention to hear what God was gonna say to him.

He didn't run away, he didn't quit.

He positioned his heart to hear what God was gonna say to him.

And the truth is, listening isn't easy when we're waiting.

And sometimes waiting with when we're waiting, it brings hurt.

It's not easy.

You sometimes maybe we just don't want to listen.

We tell God what he should be doing.

Like, God, you should be doing it this way, or this is what should be happening.

But we need to stop and listen to what he's saying to us.

We need to station ourselves, position our heart to hear what God's gonna say to us.

Sometimes he doesn't answer us in the way that we want to.

Things maybe went different the way, or you're maybe you're struggling to hear what he's saying.

But God's silence doesn't mean his absence.

Sometimes you say, I know what I want.

I want God to do this.

Well, if we're focused on what God is having and we're listening to his voice, we need to listen to what he is saying.

God often speaks to us.

He doesn't speak.

Maybe he doesn't listen, speak to you the same way that you want.

Like if we look at Paul, Paul, if you read through the scripture, you had uh what was called a thorn in the flesh, and theologians talk about this all the time.

It's they guess that it's maybe it was an addiction or it was blindness or pain or depression.

There's all kinds of things, but he pleaded with God, God, take away this thorn in the flesh.

Take away this thorn in the flesh, take away this thorn in the flesh, three times.

And the way God answered was no.

What God said to Paul was, My grace is enough.

What is God saying to you in that time?

What is God saying to you?

Is it no?

Is it something else?

Is it what is he saying to you?

But if we don't station ourselves, position our heart to hear in the waiting what God has to say, maybe we're missing something that he's doing for us.

The second thing that we can do as we write it down, this is what it says in Habakkuk 2.

Man, I'm struggling with that word today.

Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets.

Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets.

Write it down, document it, record it.

This is what we know is that the enemy is coming to steal, kill, and destroy.

He wants you to not remember, to not know, to change your tactics, to maybe get depressed or look at something different.

What happens?

The enemy wants to take from you what God has given to you.

So when God gives you a word, you document it.

You write it down, you put it on paper.

When my wife is hearing from God, she has pages of notes, pages of scripture, pages of.

Sometimes she'll wake up at two in the morning with what she thinks is the vision.

God gave her a vision and she's writing it all down.

But she's documenting it so we can go back.

Sometimes we we hear God in our devotions, or we hear God at church on a Sunday morning, and as soon as church is over, we race to the grocery store because we've got people coming over, and the kids are there and they're fighting, and you had to wait in line, waiting again.

You had to wait in line to get the stuff for the big party that people are coming over when the pandemic is over.

And you have all this happening and you forget to write it down.

Now you're distracted from what God had given you.

So you listened, but we have to write it down and document it.

And in that documenting, and in that listening and hearing what he's saying and writing it all down, we have an opportunity to praise God and all of that.

Silas and Paul heard what God was saying.

They were praising him before their miracle.

Some of you that are listening right now, as soon as we're done today, need to put some worship music on, to put some music on and give God the glory for what he's done and for what he is going to do in the next time.

God has something big for you that's planning.

The next thing that we do, and this is the tough one, is we listen, we write down what God is saying to us, we station ourselves to hear what God's saying, we listen to him, we position our heart to listen to what he's saying.

We get those words from God and we write it down.

We document it, we anchor that, we pray, and we say, God, I want more from you so I can write this down.

And the third one is the most challenging of everything, is again, we come back to waiting.

It's the worst.

And this is where a lot of us are right now.

We're sitting in a pandemic, we may not be able to go to church, may not be able even to go to work, we may not be able to see our family that's just across town because of the rules.

But God is saying to you, in the waiting, there's blessing.

And then the things that we're waiting for can weigh on us.

You're praying for that child to come to know Jesus, or you're struggling with an addiction, or you're waiting for healing to come.

Maybe you're looking for a job opportunity or more benefits to come, or your marriage is really struggling.

What are you waiting for?

You're saying, God, help me out of this, help me out of this, help me out of my addiction.

I'm stuck, or my depression, or my grief, or that pain I'm going through.

This is what 2 Peter 3 verses 9 says.

2 Peter 3:9

While we're waiting, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that you should any should perish, that all should reach repentance.

I love this.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness.

I always say that my speed is better than God's speed.

This is what Habakkuk 2 verse 3 says.

Habakkuk 2:3

For the revelation awaits, I want you to say this to whoever you're with, or say it to the screen.

For the revelation awaits on say this, appointed time.

It speaks of the end and will not prove false.

Though it linger, wait for it, it will certainly come and will not delay.

This is what God said to Habakkuk as he was struggling, as he was wondering about the inaction, and he stationed himself.

He heard what he was saying, then he wrote it all down, and now he's in that position to wait and to receive that blessing and hear what God's saying to him.

I want to tell you that what you're waiting for will be worth the wait.

If God has said it for you, that will be well worth the wait.

There's another translation of Habakkuk 2, verse 3, and I want to read it.

Habakkuk 2:3

It's really cool.

But these things I won't plan right away.

Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled.

If it seems slow, do not despair.

For these things will surely come to pass.

Just be patient.

They will not be overdue a single day.

Everything is in God's appointed time.

And when we're waiting, we can have blessing in the waiting.

God worked through me.

God's timing is perfect.

You know, I was just thinking about God's timing.

In the time didn't seem very perfect.

Um, Nat and I have been married for about five years, four or five years.

She'll probably correct us.

Four or five years, and we had a we gotten pregnant and she had a miscarriage.

And then a few months later we got pregnant and it was just filled with issues right at the beginning.

There was problems.

Um Natalie struggled in the pregnancies right at the beginning with all of our children.

She struggled right at the beginning, and oftentimes would would have to be on bed rest because of uh complications.

And then the time came for us to have the baby, and there was an emergency trip to the hospital, and then the struggle for the like two or three days in the hospital to be able to give baby, and nothing happened, and then we were waiting on something that was going, and then there was a uh we lost the heartbeat, and everyone rushed in, and I'm waiting on people to figure out what's going on, and then they figure out we have to do an emergency C-section.

Then we had to wait for the doctor to come in from wherever he was to do the operation for the C-section.

Then we had to wait for them to take her downstairs, and I'm waiting by myself, and all the thongs are going, all the thoughts are going in my head of what's going on.

They had to wait in the waiting room, and then I brought her in, and then we're waiting as they pull, they take the baby out, and we're waiting to see.

Uh, I'm waiting to see my son's uh like cry.

He's blue, there's a little bit of drugs in him from what I have to do for the emergency C section.

He's not crying.

I'm waiting for him to breathe.

And finally I hear that that cry, that baby cry that comes out, and it's just a sigh of relief.

But I had to wait for all of that to get to that blessing that God had for me.

And sometimes it feels like that.

It feels frantic and tiring and exhausting, and you're waiting so long.

But at the end of all this, this is what God has for you, and it's amazing.

And if it's not God's time, we can't force it.

But when it is God's time, you can't stop it.

Take them forever sometimes on these things.

Things are taking forever, it never comes to path.

Maybe we're not seeing anything.

And this is what that scripture says.

Though it linger, wait for it.

Maybe you're sitting in the waiting room right now and you're waiting, and God's gonna bring it to you.

God's delays are not God's denials.

This is what Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 4 says.

Habakkuk 2:4

See, the enemy Babylon is puffed up, his desires are not upright.

But this is this is the part right here.

The righteous person will live by God's faithfulness.

The righteous will live by faith.

When we're thinking about waiting, Lord, God, build me up.

My faith isn't just the result I want.

It isn't just that result.

I want the character and the goodness of God.

The righteous will live by faith.

I want to know that in the waiting, my God can, my God will, and even if he doesn't, I still believe in him.

And as the Lord says these things in that time of waiting, this is what Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 20 says.

Habakkuk 2:20

He says, But the Lord, those are key words, but the Lord is in his holy temple.

He is there, he is watching us, but the Lord.

No matter what I see, no matter what I feel, I'm gonna choose faith.

Even when I'm doubting, because doubting is okay.

Even when I'm doubting, I'm trying to believe.

Even when I don't see a way, God can make a way.

Even when I'm losing hope, there's always hope because of who God is.

Even if I'm hurting and I'm afraid and the waiting is so long, the Lord will never leave me.

I want to pray for you today.

So as I pray, I want you to do something.

You're by yourself, you're not at church, no one can see you, you were just with your family.

I want you to put your hands out and just say, God, I want to position myself to receive from you this morning.

So close your eyes with me and I'm gonna pray.

Lord Jesus, thank you for who you are and what you've done.

Thank you that even in the waiting, even in my frustration, even in my anger, maybe the inaction that I feel that you're doing, God, you're still with us and you're pulling through.

That there's so much that you have for us that's amazing.

Lord, that in all of this, you're gonna build us up.

You're gonna build character and faith in us as we go through this.

And we find the blessing in the waiting.

Lord, we know that you're a good God.

We trust in you, we believe in you, and you know that big things are happening.

Okay, Lord, and we want to now, Lord, show us in those areas that we're struggling with, that we can in the waiting, that you pinpoint those areas in us that we can be better at, that we can leave in your court that through confession, Lord, out of our mouth you're saying something that we're saying to you, Lord.

You take that from us, and we can be ready and willing to hear what you have and accept all that you have for us.

Lord, in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you very much for joining us today.