Waiting on the Rain

That. All right. You can turn in your Bibles to the book of 1 Kings chapter

1 Kings 17 · chapter mention

17 today, and that's where we're going to take our text from.

And just to be very transparent with you guys on this sermon and where this is coming from,

there's been some prayers that me and Ashley have been praying for months now,

some things that we've been believing for and battles we've been fighting.

And don't walk up and say, well, what's wrong?

That's not what I'm saying this. I'm just trying to show you that everybody faces problems.

Everybody has, you know, uh, those things that, that happen in life where,

you know, you don't like diagnosis and you don't like what things are said and

you don't like everybody has things that happen in their lives.

And so just know that, that this is, this is this sermon this morning.

This is coming from what we've been living through.

And I believe in the reason why the Lord put this in my heart.

I really believe it is because so of you and many of you there's prayers You're

praying and you're waiting on God to move and you're wondering God win You know Glenda God win.

Are you going to move? Yeah, I know there's several of you John God When are

you going to move there's people around the room that I know you're praying

prayers and you're saying God When are you going to move and this is where this

is coming from this morning?

And I believe that God's got a word for our church this morning and individuals

in our church as well Well, 1 Kings chapter 17, verses 1 through 7, it says this.

1 Kings 17:1–7

It says, Now Elijah the Tishbite of Tishba and Gilead said to Ahab,

As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives before whom I stand,

there shall neither be dew nor rain these years except by my word.

And the word of the Lord came to him, and he departed from here.

The word of the Lord said, Depart from here and turn eastward,

and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan.

And it goes on and it says, now you shall drink from the brook,

and I have commanded the ravens to feed you.

So he went and did according to the word of the Lord, and he went and lived. Notice there.

He didn't just go and visit. The Bible says he went and lived there.

God created a place for him to live to sustain him.

Okay? So get that in your mind. So he went and he lived by the brook Cherith

that is east of the Jordan.

And sometimes we see that provision, don't we? But notice this.

And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat

in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

But verse 7 says this, And after

a little while the brook dried up because there was no rain in the land.

Initially what everybody else was going through didn't impact him. He was okay.

But eventually the brook dried up for him too.

And he didn't have that bread being delivered him too.

And he needed rain he needed rain

and so really what i'm what i'm

in my heart this morning and i know there's

a lot of people in here what do you do because we know that

god's going to move when we pray about things we know we know

that we could trust god but what do we

do in the time between the time we pray and we're

believing in the time when god shows up and

answers our prayer what do we do when we're still waiting for

the rain and you know what elijah was waiting for

rain you may be waiting for healing you may

be waiting for provision you may be waiting for restoration you may be waiting

for a lot of this rain symbolizes a lot of different things in your life and

in my life but what will we do when we're waiting for the rain that's what i

want to preach on this morning is we're waiting for rain we're waiting for rain

so let's let's pray as we go

before the word of god this morning father in the name of jesus we just thank

you for your holy Holy Spirit, we thank you for your word in this place.

We thank you, Jesus, that we can trust you in all things. So,

Lord, instruct us by your truth this morning.

Holy Spirit, speak to me this morning.

Make that personal right now. I want everybody in this room to say,

Holy Spirit, speak to me.

Just ask and make it personal. Holy Spirit, speak to us in this place this morning.

And we thank you for your word. In the name of Jesus, we pray. And the church said...

Amen. Amen. A few years ago, I've talked about this a few times,

but a few years ago, I slipped into a place of uncertainty in my career.

Several years back, I was transitioning careers at the time,

and I fell in a place of uncertainty, and it was a very troubling time,

a very confusing time, a time when I was waiting on God to give clear direction,

and months seemed like years.

Has Has anybody ever been there before?

And just so happened that at that time, it coincided to a time of transition in ministry in my life.

And for years, I'd been the youth pastor here at this church,

and I was transitioning out of youth ministry.

And I really didn't know, okay, what's next for me?

And on that time, I wasn't thinking, okay, I'm going to be the next pastor of the church.

That wasn't really what I was thinking right there. I was thinking,

what do I need to do in this church next?

And so because of really the chaos in my work life, it amplified,

God, what do you want me to do next in ministry?

And because of all of that, even in my personal life, sitting on the couch on

a Friday evening, Saturday morning, you know how it is, when there's things

that are going on, it seems like everything gets amplified. Has anybody been there before?

Yeah, it seems like you start getting paranoid about everything,

saying, God, when are you going to be moving in any area of my life?

And so I can remember it was a very difficult season in my life.

And some of you, we've been there, haven't we? We've been in those trying times

and those confusing times.

I started reading about this, what people said about waiting on God.

And Wayne Stiles says, one of the reasons that many people never see God working

in their lives is because they never hang in long enough for God to show his power.

I really do believe that some people give up a day before their miracle.

I believe that some people, they give in, they throw in the towel right before

God is wanting to do something extraordinary in their lives.

Chuck Swindoll said it this way, he said, we don't like waiting,

but that's when God does some of his best work on our souls.

It's that time between the time we ask and the time that we receive when God

is working on us as individuals. And I love this quote from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon.

He says, If the Lord Jehovah makes us wait, let us do so with our whole hearts.

For blessed are all they who wait for him.

He is worth waiting for. The waiting itself is beneficial for us.

It tries faith, exercises patience, trains submission, and endears the blessing when it comes.

The Lord's people have always been awaiting people.

I love that because for a lot of us, we say, God, when are you going to wait

or when are you going to work, failing to realize this reality that God's people

really have always been awaiting people.

We can go throughout scripture and see that we will go through some of those.

Now, in our text this morning, we're talking about the great prophet Elijah.

We know that he is going to to be the predecessor to Elisha,

and he is this prophet that would go and challenge Ahab,

and the Bible tells us that he goes before Ahab, and he makes a proclamation

that it is not going to rain.

No dew, no rain. You're going to see any kind of precipitation whatsoever.

It's not going to rain, and the Bible declares that at his word,

at Elijah's word, because.

Hey, listen, I know you're like me. We heard somebody say this week that the

time was changing so that we could have an extra hour of rain when in the daylight. Okay, I get it.

We've had quite a bit of rain lately, but the reality, could you imagine what

it would be like if you didn't have rain for 42 months?

That would be catastrophic. It was catastrophic in the nation of Israel.

We see here that Elijah, because his words, because his words were backed up

by God, that that Elijah, he spoke the words, and the words came to pass.

But here's the amazing thing, is that after he spoke the words,

Elijah, the Bible says that God sent him to the brook Cherith,

and that he was able to get water from the brook.

And then after that, there was a raven that would bring him cakes to eat.

I mean, you look at all of this, and this is pretty impressive.

But after this declaration, after he lives at the brook Cherith,

Cherith, the Bible says that all of a sudden the brook begins to dry up.

And for over three years, Elijah has to live in a drought situation just like everybody else.

So Elijah had heard from God. He believed God.

He trusted God. He spoke the word of God. But by the time it was all said and

done, Elijah was waiting on rain too.

He had to live through the same famine that everybody else lived through. Here's the reality.

This is what I was thinking about this week, because the majority of our lives

will be spent on waiting on God.

We need more instruction on waiting than we do miracles.

I know everybody's in here is like, no, I need a miracle.

No, that's not the way it works. We don't get to dictate when God brings a miracle.

The reality is God's people has always been awaiting people,

and we really do spend more time waiting than we do seeing miracles.

If you see it all throughout the Old Testament and into the New Testament,

they spend more time praying and waiting in the New Testament than they do seeing miracles.

They spend more time praying and fighting the devil in the New Testament than

they do seeing miracles.

And if that's the case, and listen, we don't need to stop talking about miracles

because there's people in here that we need miracles.

But at the same time, we have to realize that God does not do miracles on our

time clock, but God does a miracle on his time clock.

And so we have to learn how to trust God in the waiting.

Amen. I know that was a very very like a hesitant amen right there.

You're just like, yeah, it was one of those, right? That's hard truth, hard reality.

During the drought, Elijah initially was refreshed at the brook Cherith.

He was supplied with food by ravens, but eventually the brook dried up.

Eventually the ravens retired from the food service industry,

and he had to trust God like everybody else.

See, the miracle Elijah needed was rain, right?

Now, I've said this for us in here. That's not the miracle we need.

We don't need rain. We had rain yesterday.

We had some rain early this morning. We had rain.

We don't need rain, but that rain represents something different to all of us.

Everybody in here could substitute their miracle, the word that they need to

substitute there for that word rain.

And so all of us can relate with Elijah that God, we're waiting.

We trust you, but we need rain. rain. Now, from a human perspective,

it certainly seemed to be that God knew what he needed, that Elijah may have

asked for rain, but according to God, that season hadn't come yet.

Although most of us believe in God's miraculous power, we would have to admit

that we spend more time waiting on miracles than we do seeing it.

And so that's why I know that we got to admit this as as well,

that what we think we need and what God thinks, or what God knows,

I should probably reword that right there. I saw that in my notes.

What we think we need and what God knows we need are often diametrically opposed to each other.

Has anybody ever been there before? You were praying for something,

and then when you got something different, then you were like,

God, thank God that you didn't give me what I was praying for. Yeah.

I mean, some of you went to a high school reunion and saw somebody and said, thank God.

Somebody stepped into the reunion and it's like, oh yeah, thank you,

Jesus, that I didn't end up.

I know all of us have been at a place where we thank God that he knew what we

needed more than we desired or thought we knew what we needed.

So Elijah was soon going to discover the truth. And here's the three truths

that Elijah was going to discover.

I don't have time to preach these, so I'm just going to kind of let you be be

aware of these and this applies to our life too.

Number one, at times we need God's direction more than we need his mighty acts.

We're going to talk about this a little bit later, but the word that Elijah

was going or the experience that Elijah was going to get, the experience was

going to last longer than just the miracle was.

You need a relationship with God more than you need a one-time experience with God.

We're going to talk about that in just a moment because we got people that will

run from Florida to Toronto looking for an experience.

And really, they need a direction for life more than they need an experience with God.

Oh, I know, I know, because we're all looking for that. So who's going to knock

us in the floor? And then when we get back up, it's all good again, right?

Until the next time we need a miracle. And I want to say this right now,

if you trust in somebody that's able to, you know, if you have to drive to Florida

to get somebody to pray for you, or California to get somebody to pray for you

every time you need a miracle, then you don't know God very well.

All right. All right. The second thing, though, is if we allow ourselves to

be overwhelmed with what we need, we miss what God says.

We'll talk about that in just a moment as well. And then finally,

the things that God does for us may not last forever, but what God says will

have a lasting impact on us and the generations to come.

And I really believe that the key to receiving from God is being committed to what he says.

The key to receiving from God is being being committed to what He says.

If you really believe Him, no matter what the obstacles are,

no matter what it is it looks like is in front of us, then we're going to be

committed to what God is saying to us.

See, I know at the moment you may not be able to make it rain,

but you can set your heart upon God so that you trust God more than you trust

in the miracle that will eventually come.

We're going to get there. Proverbs chapter 3 says it this way,

Proverbs 3 · chapter mention

verses 5 and 6, 6, trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not to thine

own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths.

One of my favorite passages of scripture is found in Psalms 37.

Psalm 37 says in verses 4 and 5, delight. Everybody say delight.

Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give you the desires of your

heart. That sounds good right right there.

Commit thy way into the Lord, trust also into him, and he shall bring it to pass.

I love that passage of scripture because we see here that he may not bring it

to pass when we want him to and the way that we want him to,

but if we delight ourself in the Lord,

then we find that he will give us the desires of our heart.

I'm going to talk about that just a little bit in in just a moment,

but we start looking at the time clock, and we start being critical of God's time clock.

Vance Hanvers said it this way, and I love this, who waits on God never loses.

Or he who waits on God loses no time.

I love that right there, because sometimes we look at it, and we say,

God, if you don't work right now, I'm going to miss this opportunity.

God, if you don't work right now, I'm going to miss this relationship.

God, if you don't work right now, I'm going to to miss this promotion.

And as if we got to make God aware of the time clock, as if we've got a hymn

God in to work on our time.

We have to realize the Bible says as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so are his way higher than our ways.

God does not have to work on our time clock.

He does not have to bring it to pass when everybody around you needs to say

that he has to bring it to pass.

As a matter of fact, let's get

back to this word. The Bible says when we delight ourselves in the Lord.

Now that word delight right there means to become soft, delicate, or pliable.

So in other words, when the Bible says to delight yourself in the Lord,

and he gives you the desires of your heart, that word delight right there means

you become pliable to where God begins to mold you in that season of waiting.

And in the season of waiting, he molds your heart into something different that

by the time his timetable shows up, you're a different person with a different

heart, and the desires of your heart may be different than when you first started.

But all of a sudden, since I delighted myself in the Lord, he's given me the

desires of my heart. I mean, that's preaching right there.

Somebody needs to just get a hold of that and latch on to it,

because for some of us, God is changing our hearts so that we can become the

people that we need to be, to be delighted in the work that he's doing.

We see this all throughout the word of God. To delight ourselves in the Lord,

that means to say this, number one, God, I don't understand what you're doing,

but I'm not going to fight it.

Also, it means I don't know what you're doing in my life, but I'm not going

to become bitter because of the circumstances that surrounds me.

See, sometimes we get mad at God just because there's circumstances around us

that seem to be dragging us down and fighting against us.

That's not what the Bible teaches us that we need to do.

I know people say, well, you know, I tried God and I waited on him.

My goodness, Elijah waited for 42 months for it to rain.

I know some of us were like, well, you know, I tried and I waited seven days.

That's not, I mean, what are we talking about right here? Some of us are like,

yeah, you know, I was believing the Lord for a new car, and he didn't.

I mean, come on. Let's just get over some of this stuff.

Let's get back into it. We say we're people of faith. We say we're people of faith.

If we're going to be people of faith, let's put our delight in the Lord.

Let's delight ourselves in the Lord.

It's saying, I don't like the way that it's going, but I'm not going to give any resistance.

I'm just going to trust you. you. See, Elijah could have panicked,

but it wouldn't have done him any good.

He could have walked away, but his answer would not have been anywhere else he went.

See, I'm telling somebody right now, maybe you're growing frustrated with your

situation, and maybe you're just ready to give up on God.

There is nowhere you can go to find your solution.

There is nowhere else you can go to find your healing. There is nowhere else

you can go to find your restoration.

Everything we need is in the house of God. Everything we need is in the person

of Jesus Christ. We find everything that we need in God.

I want to be like the disciples Peter, that when Jesus looked at him and said,

all of these others have left me. Are you going to go away too?

The disciple Peter looked at Jesus and said, to whom shall we go?

Only you have the words of eternal life. I want to say this right now.

If we have to keep on enduring the church, let's keep on enduring things.

If we have have to keep on waiting. Let's keep on waiting. Where else are we going to go?

Who else has the words of eternal life? What other name is there under heaven

whereby men must be saved?

Only the name of Jesus.

See, what we have to realize is that the direction that we receive is going

to last longer than the rain.

The trust that we learn while we're waiting is going to last longer than your miracle.

I need to say that again. The relationship with God that you develop while you're

waiting and walking with God is going to last longer than that miracle that

you're praying for and working for.

See, I've seen this because I've seen people that have walked with God for a

number of years and things that they used to pray about and wonder about and

worry about, now something happens.

And because they know the character of God, because they walked with Him,

because they know the nature of God, because they've waited with Him,

now because they know God, they're able to say, yeah, this is the direction

I need to go because I've already seen it in His life.

See, here's what I've learned. I've told people about this. Is that when you

know somebody, when you walk with somebody, then you know a little bit more

about their nature and you're able to do things that you couldn't do otherwise.

I tell people that I pastor people right now who were pastored by Glenn Sturgill.

And Pastor Sturgill is one of my spiritual heroes, my heroes in the faith.

He's been in heaven now for almost 20 years.

But I pastor people that were his people. And the reason why I know how to pastor

those people is because I was raised under him and I knew him. I walked with him.

I would pray with him. I know who he was. and so I understand more of what his

heart was for his people.

I pastor people that Pastor Rob pastored, and so I grew up under Pastor Rob,

and I've walked with him, and I've worked with him, and I've vacationed with

him, and I've cruised with him.

Unfortunately, I've done Disney with him, and he's relentless at Disney.

But I know his heart, and because I know his heart, I am able to pastor people that he has a heart for.

See, when you walk with somebody, you know more about their heart.

So when situations come up where you have to know what their heart would be,

because you walk with them, you can make that decision.

See, God is trying to get us to walk with him and wait with him so that when

circumstances arise in our lives, we don't have to wonder what the will of God

is, but because we've waited with him and we've walked with him,

we know what the heartbeat of God is.

We know what the will of God is. And that can only come through the waiting.

And the waiting, what God works in the waiting lasts longer than the miracle.

See, God, Elijah was saying, God, make it rain.

But God was working something for 42 months in the life of Elijah that was going

to last longer than the rain shower was that he was was praying for.

Oh man, you didn't get that the way that you needed to get that.

See, the reality was Elijah just wasn't going to make it rain at that time.

And the word of Elijah, it wasn't like, you know, it was Elijah's word that

it stopped raining because he'd heard from God.

But it wasn't like Elijah could go back and say, just kidding,

make it rain again. No, no, there were some things that Elijah was going to have to work through.

But in this time of dryness, God was dealing with with Elijah's heart.

See, I love this. Instead of getting rain, this is what Elijah got.

Notice this. The word of the Lord came to him, arise, go to Zarephath,

which belongs to Sodom, and dwell there.

Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.

That doesn't mean a lot to us sometimes in our culture, but we have to realize

that widows in that culture were some of the most most impoverished people in the culture.

That if anyone had a need, it was a widow in that culture.

And God was saying, I'm going to take the most unlikely source and I'm going to supply.

See, God's telling somebody right now that while you're waiting,

I'm going to take sources that you never even dreamed of.

I'm going to use things that you never, I'm going to use people that you never

even thought could speak into your life, but they're going to come up with a word for you.

I'm going going to have people praying for you that you didn't even know they

liked you, and they're going to be praying for you because God's going to teach

us some things in the midst of the waiting.

See, I know this. I know that God doesn't always move when and the way we want Him to move.

Martha Bolton said it this way. She said, sometimes when we're waiting for God

to speak, He's waiting for us to listen.

Have you been there before? We're saying, God, we just need to hear your word,

And the reality is God is speaking the word already.

It's just he's not speaking the word we want to hear.

See, some of us have selective hearing, right?

Yeah. The church, we're the bride of Christ, and we get that selective hearing

sometimes like a spouse, right? Some of you husbands, you know what I'm talking about.

You're watching a ball game, and your wife could come in and say,

it's time to take out the trash, right? Totally gender role right there, all right?

So, you know, take out the trash, husbands. Those are gender role assignments right there.

But she could come in, and you say, take out the trash, and it's like it was

never said, right? right?

Clark Kellogg is on the show, is on the TV talking about a basketball game,

and I never, see, that's the way we are sometimes in the body of Christ.

The Lord speaks, but because it's not what we wanted to hear, we don't listen.

All right, so here, I'm going to end this with three points,

three points, three things that I want to bring to our attention today,

three reasons that God might be

sending answers, and we might happen to be waiting on the Lord, all right?

Number one, number one, the miracle may be approaching, but from a different

direction than you anticipated.

The miracle may be approaching, but from a different direction than you anticipated.

See, we start thinking about the word of God, start thinking about biblical

history, because it's not just an Elijah thing.

Let's go back to a time when the people of God were under captivity in Egypt.

And for hundreds of years, they had

been praying for a deliverer from this captivity, this bondage in Egypt.

And in their minds, they were saying, God, send us a warrior,

send us a king, let him overthrow the Pharaoh and win a mighty victory and deliver us out of his hands.

However, when God was going to send a miracle, he sent a baby Moses that was

floating, picked up out of the bulrushes, that was raised in the house of Pharaoh,

and then eventually walked out with a stutter and said, let my people go.

We see this all throughout the word of God. God doesn't always work the way

that we think that he should work.

See, God is trying to tell us that he He can bring something out of nothing.

He can do things that will blow our mind.

We've got a friend that has a church down in Enterprise, Alabama.

He has a great church down there. He's been up here. He's preached for us before.

But down in Enterprise, Alabama, there's a statue in one of the main town squares in Enterprise.

And this is the statue. And it looks kind of unassuming when you're from a distance.

But when you zoom in to that statue up close, the next time I'm in Enterprise,

I want to go find this statue.

But there's a statue that's dedicated to the boll weevil.

And the boll weevil, the reason why you think to the boll weevil, yeah, it's weird.

But the reason why there's a statue down there is because years ago,

the boll weevil came into Enterprise, Alabama.

At the time, they were a major cotton farming community.

And so the boll weevil came in years ago and destroyed all of the cotton crop

and wrecked it to where they couldn't grow cotton anymore.

But here's what happened. They made a twist because of the boll weevil,

and they started farming peanuts instead, and they made a fortune in peanut farming.

They made more money in peanut farming as a community than they could ever make

in cotton, to the point to where they made a statue to the boll weevil,

because if it had not been for that boll weevil eating up their crop,

they would have never switched over to peanut farming.

See, sometimes God eliminates one avenue in our life. He allows calamity to come into our life.

He allows a little bit of confusion, the devil to bring confusion into our life

just so that he can turn things around and work it out for us.

Just like Joseph, we're able to look at people and say, you might have meant

it for evil, but God meant it for good.

God is trying to show us that he can bring things in a direction that we never

would have saw without him.

See, Proverbs, see, not only is our way not God's way, The book of Proverbs

says there's a way that seems right unto man But the end thereof is death.

So not only is our way not effective, our way ends in death.

See, I want God to give me the attitude of Job. I really do.

I don't want to go through what Job went through.

But I want the attitude of Job. We're going through our own crises. We are.

But I want the attitude of Job. Job says, look, I go forward,

but he's not there. And backward, I cannot perceive him.

When he works on the left hand, I cannot behold him. When he turns to the right

hand, I cannot see him. But he knows the way that I take.

That looks awesome, but let me read this in a paraphrase. Let me read this in the message. It says,

He's hidden his tracks.

A glimpse, but he knows where I am and what I've done. He can cross-examine

me all he wants, and I'll pass the test with honors.

I've followed him closely, my feet in his footprints, not once swerving from his way.

I've obeyed every word he's spoken and not just obeyed his advice.

I've treasured it. In other words, what Job is saying is, I know I've been through some things.

I know know I've had to wait, but God can give me, He can cross-examine me if

He wants to because I've trusted Him all the way. I've never left His footsteps.

I've never lost trust in Him. Even though I've had to wait, I still trust God.

See, for some of us, we look for God to do things in ways that if we're so focused

on our way, we might actually miss God's way.

There's a young young man that when I youth pastor, I love this guy,

still love him to this day and don't get to see him very much anymore.

But I remember when he was a student in the youth ministry, he had a crush on

one of the girls in the youth ministry. Right.

And I, and, and to the point to where he just wouldn't leave her alone.

And so I remember telling him on several occasions that if God walked miss right,

right in front of you, you would miss her because all you can focus is what what you want.

And you say, yeah, that's right. For those teenagers and their, and their crushes.

But it's that reality of a lot of the things that we pray for too,

is that we're saying, God, we want you to do it this way.

When in reality, if God was to walk his wheel right in front of us,

we'd miss it all because we're focused on what we want.

All right, so on that one. So

first of all, the miracle may be approaching from a different direction.

Number two, God may plan to do more than you originally thought.

Man, I started thinking about the disciples when they were out on the lake,

and they had fished all night, and they hadn't caught anything.

And we read the Word of God, and Jesus says, well, launch on out and let down

your nets for the drought.

And the disciple Peter said, yeah, but Lord, we fished all night.

We've not caught anything and it's not going to

do any good but nevertheless at your word i'm going to

do it anyway and we could read the scripture but the

bible says that when finally they let down their nets there

was such a great catch that they couldn't even pull it in the boat it was more

than the boat would contained and here's what the disciple peter he fell down

on his knees and said oh i'm a sinner i'm not even worthy of your presence but

the bible says for he was astonished and all that were with him at the draught

of fishes that they had taken in.

I believe that God wants to astonish people in this place.

I believe that we have so underestimated what God wants to do in our life that

he wants to delight us so much that we have limited him so much,

and God wants to astonish us.

And finally, there may be an area of your life that's in desperate need of an

adjustment, that God has determined that I'm going to make that adjustment during this time.

See, what we have to realize is that adjustment. We've talked about it.

That change, that faithfulness we've learned in God, it's going to last longer than the miracle is.

It is. For some of us, he's looking to do a purging in our lives.

Some things need to be purged out.

I started thinking about this with the disciple, the apostle Peter.

The disciple will eventually be the apostle Peter.

And Jesus said, Peter, I'm praying for you because Satan is going to sift you

as wheat. But I'm praying for you.

And I look at it, to sift is to separate the coarse portions from the fine portions.

What he was telling Peter is you need to be somebody, if you're going to be

the rock that this church is established on, you're going to have to be sifted,

and some of that coarse stuff's got to be sifted out of your life.

But Jesus said, I'm praying for you. See, I'm encouraged this morning because

God is sifting some of those coarse things out of our lives,

but I'm still glad that Jesus is praying for us.

The Bible says that he is sitting at the right hand of the Father,

and he's ever making intercession on our behalf.

The Bible also says in Romans 8, 28, that likewise the Spirit may help us with

our infirmities that when we don't even know what we should pray for as we are,

the Spirit makes intercessions for us with groanings.

In other words, when we don't even know what to pray, Jesus is praying for us.

When we don't know what to pray, the Holy Spirit is praying for us.

There's things that are being worked out in our lives that Jesus has already seen taking place.

Hope you'll come to the music this morning.

See, for all of us, God is wanting to do something. He's wanting to create a

relationship with us that's going to last longer than just a miracle.

For some of us, we say, God, I just want you to heal my foot.

I got up this morning, man, that ankle was hurting.

And if I just said, God, I want you to heal my ankle and bam,

it happened. How much trust long-term when things got difficult would I have in God?

How much would I know his ways and his faithfulness if he was all,

if he was, was a big big grandpa in heaven that just handed me money every anytime I asked for it.

I mean, we would be spoiled children, wouldn't we?

We'd be spoiled children, but God wants to teach us more. He wants,

he wants our relationship to last longer than our miracle.

See, for some of us though, you say, well, yep, but pastor Scott,

you don't know. I feel like I'm at the end of my rope.

I want to let you know this, that, that Jesus still sees that and he still has a miracle for you.

He still has a miracle you might been waiting a long time but

he still it looked like it's almost time

to give up but he still has a miracle there's a

friend that sent me an email that had a story on it a few months back and i

read this story i want to share it with you today it was a story about and i

traced the origins of it and it looks it appears to be a factual story it's

been changed a few times over the course of the last hundred years but but it

stills be from a factual uh occurrence.

But there was a man that was walking through the Louvre Museum in Paris one

day, and he was part of a tour group.

And as they was walking through the group, this one man, he stopped in front

of a painting and started staring at this painting.

And this one painting, it's called, it's entitled, Checkmate. Checkmate.

And the apparent title is derived from, you can see that it's Satan on the left.

It's supposed to be a representation of Satan on the left.

And this poor man on the right that's playing a game of chess for his soul, the Satan.

There's an angel that's looking on from behind.

And apparently Satan is sitting there with a smirk on his face while this individual

has had his head in his hand because obviously he's in defeat.

And so the man that was standing in front of the portrait, he got somebody that

worked in the museum and said, could you send the curator of the museum over?

I need to speak with him. And the man said, well, you know, this is busy.

What can I answer? He said, no, I need to see the curator now.

And so the man went hesitantly and got the curator of the museum to come.

And he said, so what's your question?

What can I do? He said, well, I was looking at this painting.

And the curator said, yes, it's called Checkmate. And he explained everything.

And the man said, well, I know. I know that.

But you see, I'm a world champion chess player.

And I've been standing here looking at this painting for almost an hour.

And it's come to my attention that you're either going to have to change the

painting painting or you're going to have to change the name of the painting.

And the curator looked at him and says, I don't think I'm tracking with you.

He said, well, like I said, I'm a world champion chess player.

And for you, it may not mean much. But when I look at the pieces on the board,

and if you'll take notice and really just look in at the pieces,

that one piece there called the king,

he said he, the king still has one move.

And with one move the king can

win the game I come to tell somebody right

now you may feel like that you're you're almost

at a pace place of giving up you may feel like

you're at the place of defeat and you may not see where

God is going to bring anything out of your situation but

I want to give you a good hope right now the king still has one more move the

devil might have tried to make you believe that the game is already over the

match is already lost But the king still has one more move you may not see where

it's able to come from It may come from an unlikely source.

Maybe you've been waiting for too long, but the key Still has one more move.

Let's all stand out of this building. I.

Waiting on rain. Some of you, you say, Pastor Scott, I just needed the rain.

And God is saying, what I'm working in you right now is going to be more valuable

than the rain that you're praying for.

It's going to be more valuable. It's going to impact you, your kids,

your grandkids, more than just the rain that you're praying for.

Every head bowed, every eye closed in this place this morning.

You say, Pastor Scott, I'm here

this morning and I've been waiting for an answer and

I've grown frustrated I've grown disheartened but I

believe this morning that hearing the word of God that God's

going to begin to work out situations that God is

working something in me but my prayer is

this morning God opened my eyes to the purpose of

this waiting if that's you I just want you to raise your hand right now yeah

there's hands going up here's another prayer that I had this is

this another another group that i'm that i'm i'm ministering to

this morning if you're here this morning you'd say pastor scott i felt

like the game was over i felt like the match was

already lost but i believe that the

king still has one more move i believe that rain really is going to come i believe

that if i keep on waiting the miracle i need i need to have the faith to believe

that he has one more move that's you this morning i just want you to raise your

hands that's me that's me there's hands going up in different places all over

this room this morning here's what i want to do i want to to come to this altar.

Things change at this altar. God meets us at this altar.

And so on the count of three, if you raise your hand for any of those calls

or if you have another prayer, I want us to step out.

One, two, three, step on out. Let's move up to this altar right now.

God, in the name of Jesus, as they're coming right now, I believe there's faith.

I believe there's faith waiting.

Not because it's at the front of this room, but because you are Jehovah.

Because you are the one that meets every need. Because you are the way maker.

Because you are the miracle worker.

Music.

Let's begin to pray in this place this morning. If we could have some ladies

and some gentlemen come down and pray with the people in this altar.

Some of our altar workers would come down and begin to pray with people in this altar.

Father, in the name of Jesus, we come before you. We thank you for your Holy

Spirit. We thank you, Jesus, that you're in the room.

Lord, we believe, God, that the waiting that we're facing right now, it's with a purpose.

That you're not just putting us through this for nothing. But we are waiting to grow us in the faith.

What you're working in us is greater than even the miracle that we've been praying.

Music.

I can't leave without saying this this morning because I really felt in my heart,

that God wants somebody to know that what He is doing in the wait,

is going to enable you to sustain the miracle that you've been praying for.

That if He would have given it to you when you prayed for it,

you wouldn't have been able to handle it.

But what He is... Man, I feel the Holy Spirit in this place.

But what he is doing in the weight is empowering

you to sustain the miracle that is

yet that the what what i'm saying is the weight is not

for nothing the weight is to empower you

to handle the miracle if you're believing for that right

now why don't somebody just lift up their hands in this place right now and say god

i believe it i believe it god i receive

that word in the name of jesus god i receive that

in the name of jesus father i

pray right now this church lord that you

would empower us to work through

the weight that you would empower us to receive through the weight that you

would empower us to grow through the weight in the name of jesus can we sing

one last chorus of that lord we just we trust you we trust you thank you holy.

Music.

Spirit i'm gonna wait on you,

I'm gonna wait on you,

I've tasted your goodness I'll trust in your promise I'm gonna wait on you,

I'm gonna wait on you,

I've tasted your goodness,

Listen, this is a believer's message this morning. This is strong meat.

If you scheduled the waiting revival, nobody would come.

But this is the way God works. God's people, Spurgeon said, I believe it.

God's people have always been awaiting people. Because we trust Him.

Because we trust Him. Father I just bless this

congregation in the name of Jesus God empower us

to go spread your word God bring us back safely for prayer meeting and school

of ministry tonight bring us back safely to this place on Wednesday God empower

us to spread your gospel to show the love of God to every living creature and

we thank you in the name of Jesus we pray and the church said,

shake somebody's hand tell them you love them.

Music.