Waiting in Suffering | Advent 2024: Waiting with Hope | Pastor Zach Weihrauch

Exodus 223 through 25.

During those many days, the King of Egypt died, and the people

of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help.

The cry for rescue from slavery came up to God, and God heard their groaning.

And God remembered his covenant with Abraham,

with Isaac, and with Jacob.

God saw the people of Israel, and God knew.

Well, good morning

and welcome to the weekly gathering of Christ Community Chapel.

My name is Zach.

I'm one of the pastors here, and I'm so glad that you're here with us this weekend.

I hope you're coming off of a great Thanksgiving

and headed into a really wonderful holiday season.

And that begins, for us, at least at KCC this week.

This is the first week of our Christmas series, our advent series.

We're calling it waiting, with hope.

That's going to be how we think about the Christmas season.

For the next four weeks leading up to the actual, Christmas Day.

What we're after are really two major biblical themes.

The first is that in the Bible you'll find regularly

God is drawing near to people.

He's always doing that drawing near to us in creation, drawing near to us

in his covenant, drawing near to us, of course, in Christ and through his church.

That's just who God is.

He is always coming close.

That's one major theme of the Bible, but another major theme

is that we are often waiting.

People are waiting on God to draw close.

Waiting is a major theme in the Bible, and that makes sense

because waiting is a constant reality in our lives.

In fact, this series will be aiming at two truths

that you already know before I even name them.

The first is that life is full of waiting rooms.

Life is full of waiting rooms.

That's what this is meant to signify.

And just so you know, I sat in these chairs.

They are in fact uncomfortable. So perfect.

Perfect waiting room experience.

Life is full of waiting rooms now, by this I mean a couple different things.

Life is full of functional waiting rooms.

You're waiting at the dentist

or to get your oil changed, that you spend a lot of your life

just waiting on something to happen or get done.

Of course, there are more irregular waiting rooms,

like waiting for the doctor to come back with your diagnosis, waiting

to get into the marriage counselor to see if your marriage can be saved.

And then, of course, there are figurative waiting rooms, seasons of life

where you are waiting, waiting to see what will come of your relationship

with your rebellious teenager, waiting to see if you're going to have a job

after this quarter.

If the deal you've been working on for a year is finally going to come to fruition.

Life is full of waiting rooms.

And here's the other thing you know before I even say it, waiting rooms

are full of questions.

It's usually in the seasons of waiting

that we ask most of our introspective and existential theological questions.

It's in seasons of waiting, for example,

that we'll find ourselves asking, God, are you out there?

God, do you care?

Are you paying attention?

Will you do something to help?

Life is full of waiting rooms.

Waiting rooms are full of questions.

The next four weeks, this sermon series is designed for those rooms.

And those questions where spend the next four weeks looking at four different kinds

of waiting for different seasons of waiting that we will either

find ourselves in now or in the future, and how to navigate them.

Well, the first is we're going to talk about waiting in times of suffering.

And to do that, if you have a Bible,

would you take it out and open it up to Exodus chapter two?

We're gonna look at verses 23, 24 and 25, which were just so beautifully read,

perfectly okay, by the way, to take out your tablet or device to read,

if you're here and you didn't bring a Bible, but you'd like to follow

along in a Bible, you should know that verses will be on the screen behind me.

But if you want to

hold something in your hand, there is a Bible in the pew in front of you.

And, I'm using one of those Bibles so that I can tell you

today's reading is on page 42 if you want to join us.

Thanks for being here.

But however you're getting to Exodus

chapter two, I want to hold out an outline I'm going to use to guide our time together.

Three simple points and they'll go like this

I want to talk about the usual approach to waiting and suffering,

the biblical approach to waiting and suffering,

and how to move from one to the other.

The usual approach, the biblical approach, and how to move from one to the other.

All right, let's start with the first one.

The usual approach to waiting and suffering.

This is a passage on suffering and waiting.

At this point.

Israel, God's people have been in Egypt for 400 years.

That's a long time.

But the last 200 or so they have been in slavery

200 years, living under the oppression of the Egyptians,

building their buildings, waiting their tables, taking care

of their families under the thumb of Pharaoh and his army.

200 years.

That's a long time.

To put that in perspective, let's just say that at this point,

the average Hebrew slave lives 50 years.

That would mean that four generations have come and gone

like great grandfather lived his whole life as a slave.

Grandfather lived his whole life as a slave.

Dad lived his whole life as a slave.

And now you, at the end of your life, have also only known slavery.

It is a time of suffering and it has been a long time of waiting.

It's like, I want you to see four things that this passage is teaching us

about suffering and waiting. Here's the first thing.

Suffering always comes with waiting.

Suffering always comes with waiting.

That's what makes it suffering.

If it didn't involve waiting, suffering wouldn't be the right word.

Like, let me give you an example.

Let me tell you about the worst pain that I can imagine feeling.

And ladies who have had children.

I'm excluding that because I have not experienced that.

Okay.

The worst pain that I've ever experienced is stepping on a Lego.

And if you're laughing, it's because you've not done it before.

Okay, stepping on a Lego hurts and it also sneaks up on you.

You're never ready for it, so it hurts even more.

It is.

I am not proud.

I'm not too proud to admit

I have said some things I would like back after stepping on a Lego.

It really hurts, but it isn't suffering.

That's because it hurts and then it goes away.

It doesn't last forever.

Suffering isn't the right word for that experience.

Suffering describes pain that doesn't go away.

Suffering describes difficulty

that comes over a protracted period of time.

Israel hasn't been in slavery for an hour

or a day or a week, but for 200 years.

Suffering always involves waiting.

Here's the second thing waiting

is its own kind of suffering.

Is that not true?

Suffering always comes with waiting in the waiting

is its own kind of suffering.

This protracted period of time where you're wondering, is anything going to happen?

Is anything going to change?

Will I be stuck here forever?

Or is this the way my life is going to go?

Suffering always involves waiting.

Waiting is its own kind of suffering.

And what this passage tells us is that suffering

and waiting lead to groaning.

Suffering and waiting lead to groaning.

Look at the verse with me. Verse 23.

This is what it says during those many days,

the King of Egypt died.

The people of Israel groaned because of their slavery

and cried out for help.

Now the Hebrew word here that's translated groaning

carries with it this kind of idea, this guttural, visceral lament,

this kind of sound that comes out of you without you even realizing it's

coming out to groan, is basically this.

You groan.

This, this word would mean when your pain exceeds your social consciousness.

Do you know what I mean by that?

I mean, most of us are pretty mindful of how we come off, right?

So you might cry in public, but it's going to be like that single tear

down the cheek, right?

You're going to be mindful of your posture.

We don't want to embarrass ourselves.

So sometimes we're experiencing pain,

but it doesn't meet the level of transcending our social awareness.

So we kind of hold it in.

But the word here conveys those moments where you no longer care what you look like.

This is not bubbles coming out of your nose.

This is the fetal position on the floor

where you got the news.

This is that visceral sound that comes out of you.

You don't even realize you're making it where you are.

Your body is just catching up to your heart and to your mind and letting out this groan

that is letting everyone know you're hurting and you've had enough

suffering and waiting lead to groaning.

By the way, by the way, some of us are so emotionally hardened

that we're very careful about letting any emotion show.

So I want you to know that the word groaning here doesn't have to be external.

It doesn't have to be verbal.

It could simply be internal meaning.

I think there's a way of living life where you get up in the morning

and you shower and you shave and you get dressed and you, you go to work

and you work and you come home

and you make dinner and you clean and you watch some TV, and then you go to bed

and on the outside you look fine, but in the inside

you're groaning.

On the inside you're suffering

and you're waiting, and you're wondering how long.

And everyone around you at work has no idea your marriage is crumbling

and everyone at home has no idea.

You might lose your job,

but you're groaning.

This is what I think Thoreau meant

when he said that most men live lives of quiet desperation,

that most of us have such a hardened social shell that we project.

But on the inside we're groaning, suffering, and waiting lead to groaning.

And here's the fourth thing groaning leads to a certain

kind of prayer.

The passage says

that Israel is groaning and they cry out for help.

But you notice what it doesn't say.

Who are they crying out to?

They don't even know.

It's been 200 years.

They have no idea.

They don't pray to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

They don't pray to the God of creation.

They don't pray to the God of the Bible.

They're they're just speaking a prayer into the void.

Because in times of suffering and waiting,

you're not praying theologically informed prayers.

You're praying prayers of desperation.

In fact, what comes to mind here is if you plan on celebrating

a good Christmas, then you know you have to watch It's a Wonderful Life

and if you don't, you're a monster.

What's wrong with you?

But you know, when you watch that movie, there'll be this scene where George Bailey

is sitting in Martini's bar and he's getting ready to get punched in the face,

and he will pray something like, God, if you're out there,

I'm not much of a prayer.

I don't even know if you exist, but if you're out there, would you help?

That's this kind of prayer.

How can you be honest enough to say

that for some of you, that's what brought you here this weekend.

This is about as deep as your prayers get.

I'm speaking things into the void, hoping that somewhere out

there is a God that I know nothing about

but will help me in my time of need.

That is the usual approach to waiting and suffering.

Now let me show you second point.

The biblical approach.

By the way, when I say biblical approach, please don't.

I don't want you to hear anything judgmental in that.

If you grown up in

and around the church, you probably probably that term has been weaponized against you.

Oh, here we go.

Oh, let's be biblical.

I just mean there's a usual way of dealing with it.

And then there's a way, a different way, an alternative way of dealing with waiting

and suffering that the Bible is calling us to.

And let me show you two things about that.

You can find both of these things, by the way, in verse 24, look at what it says.

And God heard their groaning,

and God remembered his covenant

with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

The first thing that the biblical approach to waiting and suffering teaches us

is that suffering and waiting never escape the attention of God.

Those suffering and waiting

never escape the attention of God.

You see, when you're suffering, when you're waiting,

your temptation is to say, God has forgotten me.

God doesn't care. I'm not on God's radar.

You might even be tempted to say there is no God.

But passages like this are telling us that suffering

and waiting never escape God's attention.

Now, I know that begs the question, well, if God knows I'm suffering

and he knows I'm waiting, why doesn't he do something about it?

I'm going to give you a quick answer on that in a second.

But before I do that, consider this what if you ask the opposite question

what if there is no God?

Well, certainly you must know then, that waiting

and suffering are completely and utterly meaningless.

Random, capricious, arbitrary.

They're simply a product of the country you were born into the century.

You were born into the family, the biology, the genetics.

You were born into.

They're meaningless.

Ultimately, they don't matter.

You came from nothing.

You're going to nothing. Nothing.

Your suffering is pointless.

You see, it's only when we interject the idea of God

that any question of hope actually

becomes a reality in the Bible,

and the Old Testament presents us with three major sufferers.

But there are lots of sufferers.

In the Old Testament there are three major sufferers.

The first is a guy named Joseph.

Maybe you know his story.

If not, hopefully you haven't seen the musical.

But if you had to sit through that, maybe you know it from that.

But Joseph is a sufferer.

Joseph has some dreams. When he is a young child.

He has visions of grandeur. He's a little cocky about it.

His brothers don't like it.

They sell him into slavery.

While a slave, he is accused of a crime he did not commit,

wrongfully imprisoned and left to languish in prison.

He is a sufferer.

He is a waiter. He's the first.

The second is Israel, here in Egypt,

suffering under oppression of Pharaoh, waiting hopefully for deliverance.

The third is a guy named Jobe.

The Jobe lives a life of suffering incredible, poignant, visceral suffering.

It takes over 40 chapters to tell his story.

So deep is his suffering.

Let's listen. Hey, by the way, did you know this? You might not have known.

So very instructive that the oldest book of the Bible is the Book of Jobe.

It was the first book written.

Now, the reason why that's instructive is because you take the Christian view

that the Bible is how God communicates with us, that God wanted to communicate

with us through a book that when God metaphorically sat down

to write the very first subject matter he turned his attention to was suffering.

Now these stories are very different.

But one common thread in Joseph and Israel, in Jobe

is that God is incredibly and intimately aware

of the suffering and waiting that takes place in each instance.

Suffering and waiting do not escape the attention of God.

He knows who you are.

He knows what you're going through.

He knows what you're experiencing.

It may not always feel that way.

It didn't feel that way for Israel,

but there are about three verses away from God doing some pretty incredible stuff.

Listen, feelings are not facts.

It may feel like God has forgotten you, but time and time again,

the Bible is telling us suffering and waiting

do not escape his attention.

But the second thing the Bible tells us about waiting and suffering.

The second part of the biblical approach to waiting and suffering is that for God's

people, suffering and waiting exist in the space

between God's promises made and God's promises kept.

God makes a promise,

and in the space between him making and keeping the promise,

suffering and waiting can happen, but they're always sandwiched in between.

That's what it means here in verse 24, what it says.

And God heard their groaning

and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

They're telling you that before their suffering,

God had made a promise to Abraham that through him

he would produce a family who would bless all the families of the earth.

He had made that promise, and he couldn't keep it.

If Israel died in slavery in Egypt.

So they were suffering.

Yes, they had been waiting, yes.

But their suffering and waiting simply existed

in the space between God making and keeping promises.

One other theme that you'll find in Joseph and Israel

in Jobe is that, and not a single one of those stories.

Does God waste the suffering?

Joseph's suffering will

result in Israel and Egypt and the known world surviving a famine.

Israel's suffering will become the backdrop for God's

convincing them that he has a plan for them into the Promised Land.

It'll set up the Red sea and manna and water from Iraq and Jericho,

and countless other ways God will build his reputation with Israel.

The suffering of Jobe will stand for centuries

as a testament to God's love and faithfulness to the sufferer.

Listen, I wish I could tell you

and each one of your individual stories what God is doing and why you are suffering

and why you are waiting, and where God is taking you.

I can't, but I can say this the theme in the Bible is clear God does not waste suffering.

God doesn't miss suffering.

He doesn't ignore suffering.

And suffering only happens in between him making and keeping a promise.

In other words, you can think about it this way

the difference between adults and kids in a waiting room is pretty simple.

Nobody likes the waiting room,

but adults know eventually the door will open

where they will move you to another way to grow.

Eventually the door opens and the dentist is ready.

The doctor is ready. The oil has been changed.

The counselor will see you. Your boss is ready for you.

Eventually the door opens.

Kids are convinced they will die in the waiting room.

They're never going to call our name.

That's a good sign.

Kids think they'll die.

They're.

See, what the Bible is telling us

is that the usual approach to waiting and suffering is a kid in a waiting room.

But the biblical approach

is that the God who told you he would open a door

will, in fact open the door.

The waiting will come to an end.

Now, if you've been paying attention, you'll notice I nuanced that and said,

for God's people, waiting and suffering

exist in the space between a promise made and a promise kept.

That begs the question, well, how do I know if I'm one of God's people?

How do I know if that's true?

For me, in my suffering and in my waiting?

How can I know that I'm simply existing

in the space between God making a promise and keeping a promise?

Well, that's my third point.

There's the usual approach to waiting and suffering.

There's the biblical approach to waiting and suffering.

How do I move from one

to the other?

Well, for Israel, how did they know that they were God's people?

That answer is in three parts.

First, God had a resume with them.

Look at what it says here.

And God heard their groaning.

Verse 24, And God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

Abraham was a sufferer.

Do you remember he and his wife Sarah could not have kids.

How long did they wait for kids?

But God came through.

Jacob was a sufferer, partly because he was a liar and a deceiver.

But God, in his mercy and grace came through for Jacob.

In other words, God was saying to Israel and to the reader, I have a track record.

Look me up, Google me,

I come through, you suffer and wait.

That's true.

But I always show up. I always come through.

He had a resume.

Now here's the thing.

If you're an Israelite slave and somebody says, well, remember

Abraham, remember Isaac, remember Jacob, you don't care about them.

Because you're in slavery today.

I don't need past faithfulness.

I need present faithfulness. So you don't just need a resume.

You need a Redeemer.

Just a few verses from now, baby will be put in a basket right?

Float down the river. It's going to be Moses.

He, Moses is whose you want. You got the resume? That's great.

But I need Moses.

I need a leader who stands toe to toe with Pharaoh.

I need a leader who gets between me and my enemies and says,

get behind me and watch what I do.

I need a leader who can split the Red sea and take me through

seeming death into life.

That's what Israel gets.

And then finally, third, not just a redeem, not just a resume, not just redeemer,

but a return to an actual living

life with God Promised Land right there going to be with God.

He will be their God. They will be his people.

Israel knows that they are God's people because God has a resume

of coming through for them.

God sent a Redeemer to rescue them.

God is promising a return to life with them.

You say, well, was that God's good for Israel?

How do I know?

In my waiting room, in my suffering

and in my waiting, how do I know that God will come through for me?

Well, friends, he's given us the exact same three things.

I don't know if you

realize this or not, but you know what the Bible is.

It's God's resumé.

It's not a textbook.

It's not inspiration.

It's not even family friendly.

It is God saying to you,

I know you wonder in your suffering if I will come through.

I know you wonder if I'll show up.

I know you wonder if I can face down your enemies.

I know you wonder if I've forgotten you.

Here's a story for that.

Here's a time where I did that.

Here's where you can go to know that I show up.

But second, because that resume doesn't mean anything to you

in your present suffering, he sends a Redeemer,

a greater Moses.

Jesus,

who puts himself between us and our enemies,

not Pharaoh, but sin and death.

Jesus, who leads us into death, splitting death

like the Red sea, saying to us, if you grab hold of me, if you get behind me,

if you walk with me, I'll take you through seeming death to life everlasting.

You say, well, how do I know if I'm one of God's people?

Well, if you were an Israelite, how did you know?

If you were with Moses?

He started walking

and you got behind him.

God has a resume.

God has sent a Redeemer.

And what does he promise?

A return to life everlasting with him.

Don't you know that's how the Bible ends?

God says, I know you're in the waiting room.

I know you're suffering.

I know you're waiting.

But the door will open.

You will not be in the waiting room forever.

You have not been forgotten.

And if you doubt it, check my resume.

If you doubt it, look to my Redeemer.

If you doubted, hear the promise of my return.

Friends, I wish I could offer you immediate help in your individual situation.

But what I can tell you is this.

Is that in your present moment, you exist in between the promises

God has made in Christ and the day of Christ's return.

We're all those promises will be kept.

You don't have to be the child in the waiting room saying,

I'm never going to get out.

You can sit with confidence

that God will come through.

Listen, I told you that in the waiting room we ask a lot of questions.

Has God forgotten me? Does God love me?

I'm going to end with this because the apostle Paul says this better

than I ever could.

In the book of Romans chapter eight, listen to what he says.

It's gonna be on the screen behind me, beginning in verse 31.

He says, what then shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

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

how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?

It is God who justifies, who is to condemn

Christ Jesus is the one who died more than that, who was raised,

who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Listen to this church, who shall separate

us from the love of Christ?

Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution,

or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

Don't you see we could put in there, or infertility, or unwanted singleness,

or losing my job, or a cancer diagnosis,

or divorce, or bankruptcy, or debt.

No. Well, I'm sorry I lost my place as it is written.

Got excited

for your sake.

We are being killed in all the day long.

We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am sure that neither death, nor life,

nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present,

nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth,

nor anything else in all creation, will be able

to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Do you see what he's saying?

Life is full of waiting rooms.

Waiting rooms are full of questions,

but Jesus Christ himself will open the door.

Waiting and suffering are present,

but they are not permanent.

Because of Jesus,

let me pray for us.

Father God.

What a gift that you talk about suffering.

The Bible is not propaganda.

It's not inspiration.

You wouldn't put this in there

200 years of slavery.

You wouldn't say that. The book of job.

You wouldn't include that.

The story of Joseph, so many others.

You wouldn't put him in there.

You wouldn't have the psalmist saying, how long?

Oh, God, where are you at?

God, what are you doing? God?

You put those in there for us.

Because you knew life

was full of waiting rooms, and you knew waiting rooms were full of questions.

You knew we would suffer and wait.

And in your kindness

you not only spoke into that experience,

but you came in Jesus to rescue us,

to open the door and to lead us out.

In his name we pray.

Amen.