Teach us to Pray - Part 7

I discovered this week people like when I share stats and

studies. Here's 1 you won't like.

Studies show that we spend on average five years of our entire

lives waiting. Five years, 24/7 waiting.

I don't know about you, but I hate waiting.

I think ranking up there with one of the things I hate waiting

the most for is parking. Maybe you haven't had it, but in

my BC days, you had it yesterday.

Yeah. More Lord, more.

Yeah. You get to that parking spots

and they, they see that you're waiting while they unpack all

the groceries and they take their time and they take their

time. Yeah, get a brother in arm.

And then they climb in the car. And I don't know, maybe they

check e-mail, you know, respond to that job offer, notify their

husband. Now.

I said, what? Gender Notify.

And she puts it in reverse. The lights are white, but the

car's not moving. And you missed four or five

parking spots because, you know, you're indicating here and they

don't get that one. Yeah.

And then they wind down the window.

I'm not leaving now. Yeah.

Or you go to that restaurants table for two, please.

Did you did you book? Have you made a reservation?

But like, it's empty, you know? Yes, but that one's reserved for

next week, Wednesday at 6:00. So we just don't.

Yeah, Uber Eats is kind of up there at the moment.

You know, you order from two different places.

The one arrives 10 minutes later.

The other one, you know, you're in bed and my wife is at the

gates. Thank you for the food.

Yeah, I don't know what WhatsApp are thinking.

Typing. Hey, babes, I'm at the shops.

Is there anything you need me to get for you?

Send receive blue tick typing. OK, still typing.

Let me go and get the trolley because clearly it's a long

list. So I get, you know, and you're

standing there. It's like a Cam ready typing

anything gone, no message. I'm like, I am highly medicated

and This is why all my favorite raw preachers and absolute

cracker, we're crying. The presence of God is here.

I get up to host and close the meeting and someone can't wait

for me to finish praying. They're ducking out because they

don't want to wait in line here. And it normally happens from

this group over here. And it's not even it's not a we

sneaking out. It's dragging little Johnny and

he brought drums to church in the backpack.

Who's it going to be today? I'll make sure Kai prays a long,

loud prayer because we hate waiting.

Can't even wait for an Amen. So we're doing a series called

Teach us to Pray. And today I want to.

If there's a titled swimmer sermon, it's teach us to wait.

Teach us to wait. So grab your Bible, get to

Isaiah chapter 64. I'll wait a little bit of a fine

Isaiah 64 · chapter mention

prints. I'm not going to answer all your

questions. This is not going to be a

theological thesis. This is just a guy on his knees

waiting who wants to show you a thing or two that I've learned

over the years as I 64. If you're not there and if you

don't have a Bible, why I'll put it up on the screen because I

want you to see this. Isaiah 64 verse 4 says since the

Isaiah 64:4

world began, no ear has heard and no eye has seen a God like

you who works for those who wait for Him.

What a verse, what a God. Since the world began, no ear

has heard and no eye has seen a God like the one we call Father,

who works for those who wait for Him.

Some translations say, Who acts on behalf of, who intercedes on

behalf of those who wait for him.

This is why we need to say, Lord, would you teach us to

wait? Because if we get this, what we

get in return is a God who works on our behalf, the God who works

for those who waits. If you have your Bible right in

the in next to verse 4, Two Chronicles 20, and then head on

over there. While you're paging there, the

back story to Two Chronicles 20, there's a king by the name of

Jehoshaphat and the enemies are amassing on their shores.

It talks about the Moabites and Ammonites and Meonites.

They've all gathered against the nation of Judah.

If you know your Bible history, there are 12 tribes of Israel.

Ten of them went the other way and they've already been taken

off by hoarding masses. And now you could just got these

last two tribes of Judah and Benjamin in Jerusalem.

It's the least of these, and three nations have now amassed.

And this is in verse 2. Some people came and told

Jehoshaphat, A vast army is coming against you from Edom

from the other side of the Dead Sea.

It's already in Haziz and Tamar, that is, in Gedi, that is less

than 40 kilometers away. Alarmed, Jehoshaphat called on

the mighty men, gathered his troops, sent money to Egypt to

get armies. No Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved

to inquire of the Lord. I don't know if it was you, a

threat of your life what you would do, I'd spring into

action. Jehoshaphat springs into waiting

on the Lord. It says in verse 4, the people

of Judah came together to seek help from the Lord.

They came from every town in Judah to seek Him.

So here you got a king who knows that since the beginning of the

world no ear has heard, no eye has seen a God who works for

those who wait. The king seems to know this.

The people seem to know this. They gather from all the cities

across Judah to come and wait on God.

And so the king now prays and he says, listen, we're not here

just out of happenstance. This has been taught to us by

our forefathers. It actually says in verse 8,

they built a sanctuary for your name, saying this is what our

forefathers did for us. It says they built the

sanctuary. And they said, if calamity comes

upon us, whether the sword of judgments or plague or famine,

we will stand in your presence before this temple that bears

your name. And we will cry out to you in

our distress, and you will hear us, and you will save us,

because you are a God who works for those who wait.

And then verse 12, one of my favorite verses in the Bible.

For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking

us. We don't know what to do, but

our eyes are on you. What a God, what an example.

We have no power to face this vast army.

What vast army are you facing? Maybe it's finances, maybe

you've been stuck in the hall. Maybe you just haven't recovered

since COVID. The side hustle is dying, you

haven't had a raise, inflation, petrol price, all of that and

now you're hemorrhaging finances.

What is your vast army? Maybe it's health.

Had a friend a few weeks ago. The doctor didn't quite know how

to tell them the news and so awkwardly said, I think you need

to work on your bucket list. What is the vast army?

Is this there? We have no power to face this

vast army. Maybe it's those in your

workplace that have risen up against you.

Maybe it's a spouse. Maybe it's that you're single.

From time to time, I help out with the AV team, which means

that I stand at the back there and I've watched ongoingly, a

husband and wife and their family come to church on a

Sunday and she stands in radiant worship of her heavenly Father.

And he sits, calls himself a Christian, but he won't stand

and worship this God. He'll he'll sit there sometimes

on his phone. And I've watched the ache.

I can. It's tangible because when she

brings her kids, her kids stand and they're teenagers, and her

son is from time to time looking at her husband, like, is it OK

if I stand in worship? You know, am I going to get

moaned at by Dad? Am I caught?

What is that vast army? I have no power.

We don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you.

We don't know what to do. This is unprecedented.

This is the end of me, the end of my career, maybe end of my

marriage, end of my finances. But we don't know what to do.

But our eyes are on you because since the world began, no eye

has seen, no ear has heard. A God like the God that we

serve, a God who works for those who wait, you know, And I

realized that you can. You can pick a page.

Pick a page in your Bible. Yeah.

Start right at the very beginning.

Joseph, Moses, Joshua. Page through to Ruth and Esther

and Daniel and David and Paul and Peter.

What do you find there are Saints, sons and daughters of

God are saying, I don't know what to do with my eyes or on

you. And you hear on those same pages

the whispers of God's word. Since the world began, no eye

has seen, no ear has heard of a God like me who works while you

wait. You can pick a page.

You can pick a person. Sabrina, Annie, Dennis, Royal,

Hilton, Kath, Kai, Wadner, Somaine.

Pick a person. I guarantee you there's been a

moment and it might even be today where you are saying, I

don't know what to do, but my eyes are on you.

To which I ask you, have you heard the whispers of God Says I

will work while you wait. What does that look like?

It's very easy to say Andrew Murray says it like this, says

the whole relationship of all creation to its creator.

Is this a continuous universal dependence on Him?

Therefore, the place and nature of man is nothing but this.

To wait upon God and receive from Him what He alone can give.

The whole relationship of all of creation to its Creator is to

wait upon God and receive from Him what He alone can give.

But man do I hate waiting. I wonder what the statistics

would show if we had to find out from those who drift from God,

who leave church, deny their faith.

I wonder how much of that revolves around waiting.

So what does it look like to wait on God?

I want to just pick up one Psalm because we can.

We can spend weeks on this. And this is Psalm 27.

If you have your Bible open over to Psalm 27.

I've been there so much. My Bible actually flips open to

Psalm 27. At the moment.

It's it's known as a war Psalm because he uses words like the

wicked advance against me in the day of trouble.

My enemies surround me. But it's also smear campaign.

David is saying things like they are false witnesses.

They are spewing malicious accusations.

They have literally declared war against me with their words.

So that's Psalm 27. Yeah, don't read it on a Monday.

Maybe read it on a Monday because the very last verse on

2714. It's like he's built this entire

monstrosity and it lands on one verse.

Psalm 2714 says wait upon the Lord.

Be strong and take heart and wait upon the Lord.

Now what does it mean to wait on the Lord?

That that word in the Hebrew is cava.

It's it's a word that's always translated into for us wait.

But the beautiful thing about Hebrew is it's an incredibly

colorful, rich, textured language.

And and wait is so 2 dimensional Kavar.

It can mean and does mean to wait, but it waits.

It means to wait where you sort of like if I were to grab hold

the reel as he's as he's walking out the door because it means to

tie together with twisting that's waiting to entwine

inseparably together or to rap tightly.

See, waiting is not let go and let God.

Waiting is grabbing a hold of God to entwine your heart with

his. I think this is what Jesus

starts when he says, listen, this is how you should pray.

Begin with our Father. Entwine your heart with your

father. Entwine your heart with his

purposes, with his plans, with his promises.

What has he spoken over that situation?

Entwine your heart, wait upon the Lord, be strong and take

heart. Wait.

And that middle portion there, it's a, it's quite a quaint

Hebrew phrase to take hearts and to be strong and courageous.

It can mean, you know, be alert, be brave, be courageous, but

it's also got this element of fortifying your heart of making

your feet firmly secure. So we're not just waiting

passively. Your God will do is look, we are

grounding and entwining ourselves into the heart of the

father and 11 translation actually says harden your heart,

which is weird because normally harden you harden your heart

against what God wants to do. But this is a picture of

hardening your heart like cementing your heart to his

heart. Be entwined with your God who

moves for those who wait, who works and acts and intervenes on

behalf of those who wait. And it's an absolutely

incredible picture because if you get this, if you get this,

actually what I've found over the last few days and studying

this portion of Scripture, it's like God has shown me some kind

of a delight in the wait. I think if we get this, there

will be such a delight in the wait that the answer will become

secondary. You know, if you've ever met

someone who's gone through some stuffs, lost everything, or came

close to death, you know, you chat to them and you ask them

like, you know, would you ever, always, I suppose you hope you'd

never go through that again. The answer is yes.

I really hope I would never have to encounter that again.

But I'm so glad I did, because in waiting on the Lord, He

entwines his heart to you. He deals, He exposes with

insecurities and fears and doubts.

He uses the time to peel back some layers so that you can

actually know what you believe. Just how much do I trust that

this God can heal my sick daughter?

He'll push all those buttons and slowly carve away all of that

which is of you and replace it with that which is of His heart.

And it is profound because we run from it, because we hate it,

because it hurts and it's terrifying to actually

encounter. What is it that you genuinely

believe? Is he really who he says he is?

Do you believe that he is who he says he is?

And so David ends it. I think he's talking to himself.

Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart and

wait for the Lord. A few years ago I had the

privilege of almost losing my business and going through

Hellfire. And the problem is we had just

done so well. The year before that I'd done

all the TV ads for the Rugby World Cup for Absa.

I was the voice of BMW and Samsung.

You can't afford me, Rory, anything else.

So we were we were printing money.

We were living large. So much so that we decided now's

a good time to try to have kids. Kath was pregnant.

Well, sorry, Noah was born. And so we just sort of working

her out of needing to work. And then I lost my anchor client

couldn't afford you snap before snap before if we could.

And we went from printing money to I don't even think we were

making 20% of budget. But I'm a man of God, got my

theology degree, and I would call myself a radical

intercessor. So I did what came naturally.

I just worked twice as hard. I started an hour earlier, I

worked through my lunch breaks and I finished an hour later.

And I worked part time on Saturdays because this thing

wasn't going to finish me this vast army.

And I decided that I would put together a proposal for a new

client and a new idea once every week.

And not one of those proposals were accepted.

Actually, it went the other way. I remember, I just remembered

this morning, there was one client we had to finally

there's, there's like nice one little bit of good work that

came through. And right at the very end they

said, listen, can you just put a statement together of, you know,

of all the bits and pieces? And so I emailed that through

and they paid for that entire statement.

I was like double paid. I'd already been paid for

everything, all the bits and pieces.

I sent it through to her and 5 minutes later I get paid, double

paid. I'm sitting there like, oh, what

do I do? She made a mistake.

No one would know. So I asked them for their bank

details and I paid the money back.

And she's like, sure, that's so weird.

We wouldn't have noticed it. I'm looking.

Don't tell me that days became weeks and weeks became months

and months became more than a year.

And you're like, Lord, where are you?

I was on my knees repenting of sins that you know.

That the pencil that I stole from my friend when I was 3 and

I remember I didn't return that toy and I broke my mom's mug and

like, Lord, that's like anything.

What do I, what's the formula? How can I get through?

Just don't make me wait. How can I short circuit this

thing? And then remarkably

supernaturally, I got an e-mail from a client.

A lot of the time I never actually met the clients.

You know, if you were doing work for East Coast radio or Seminar

2 or even OFM, you get an e-mail.

This is the job. This is the the brief, finish

the project, send it off and you get paid.

And the one lady, I remember it was about 3:00 on a Friday

afternoon. I get this e-mail and it's a

very awkward e-mail. She's saying to me, listen, I

don't quite know how to say this, but I'm a Christian.

So she didn't, she didn't met me.

She didn't know I was a Christian, but she's saying I'm

a Christian and I believe that my God speaks to me and he's

been speaking to me about you. And then she wrote a paragraph

word for word of what we were going through.

It was frightening. And right at the very end was

the promise. Wait on the Lord.

He works for those who wait. He'll come through for you.

You are of the head and not the tail.

Just receive Shabba Baba filled like yes, we're eating a spur

tonight going big, but not just that Monday.

My mom phones me. She says, my boy, you won't

believe this, but Barbara, which is her best friend and down in

Durban, was at church this Sunday and Barbara had gone.

And the pastor, before he started preaching, he said, hey,

listen, I just feel that I have a word for someone here.

Is there a Stephen? Can I see a Stephen?

No one. And that's really bad for a

pastor. Prophetic word.

I see clearly Stephen's son. Yeah, he's like anyone here,

married to a Stephen and he's at home, not a hand.

You got a son named Stephen, Please.

Yeah. And out of exasperation, he

says, did anyone know any Stephen at all?

Barbara puts up and my friend's son's paragraph exactly word for

word what we are going through. And it ended.

The Lord works for those who wait.

We're going big tonight got prophetic word.

It's been confirmed and it was almost eight months later.

We're on the brink of losing everything, huh.

I mean like properly we do like worst case scenario, move in

with your mother-in-law bad. Help me Jesus.

That's when you tested on what you really believe.

You know God, are you really good?

Actually, I've gotten to the point where I despise those two

prophetic words because those two prophetic words changed from

working to waiting, and I hate waiting.

Answer me now. Do you realize, Lord?

But we read here that to wait is to entwine your heart with the

heart of the Father, be strong and courageous, allow him to

circumcise your heart and in its place graft you into his heart.

And when you get that, when you understand that, you will know

that it is worth the wait. Because what happened at the

very end of that year somehow, and I can't explain why, I just

knew that I knew that I knew that I was called to full time

ministry. I never wanted anything to do

with it. My grandparents were

missionaries. I'd seen the dark side of

missionary work. My my father had stepped in to

help with a a church that was imploding.

I'd seen that very dark side of that.

Plus I wanted to be rich and God said I've called you to

ministry. Now that entwining of my heart

with his bears fruit. See what the world does when

you're facing this. There are two things on offer.

The one, I don't know if you remember it, I suppose I

remember it because of my advertising background, but

there was a credit card called Access.

I don't know if you remember that credit cards slogan.

Take the wait out of wanting. Yeah.

And you're offered that when you wait to fix it, do something.

And on the other hand, there's this whisper.

Since the foundation of the world was established, no eye

has seen, no ear has heard. A God stands ready to work.

If you'll just wait, I'll close with this.

So if you want to leave, now's a good time.

What God did in my heart back there is the reason why I'm

standing here today and He had to Get Me Out of very cautious,

very caged place to trust Him. And that's what He does in the

waiting. I don't know if you've seen the

movie Madagascar. It's a true story.

Must watch it. It will change your life.

I was reflecting on it. So the opening scene, for those

who haven't watched it is Marty the zebra is running in the

wild. But it turns out he's not

actually in the wild. He's in a cage and he's got this

wall painted with nature and he's on the treadmill.

But he just wants to be in the wild.

And at the end of the day, it's his birthday.

I think he's turning 10 or something like that.

And so all the animals gather around.

They wish him happy birthday. And then, of course, he has to

light the candle and make a wish.

And I'm like, what did you wish for?

I wish that I could be in the wild.

And they're all like, whoa, I'm out, bud, Alex the lion and

saying, listen, why would you want to be in the wild?

You know, they feed us every day plus of a raw.

You know, it's like we get the applause.

And I think the giraffe's name was Melman or something like

that. Yeah, he's like, but I get all

my medication. And if I get an owie, you know,

they put a plus on me and they'll love and care for me.

And in prepping, I realized that's us Christians love cages.

Now give us enough time and we all distill a relationship with

the God of all creation down to well, I might come on Sunday and

they can feed me my roar at last group and I get a pat on the

back. And we do that over and over and

over again. But what I've found during this

prayer series is that God has begun to awaken a call to the

wild in me. Surely this can't be it for you

and I. Surely this can't be cloistered

up on a Sunday. Surely God has more for us.

Surely there's a call, There's a whisper.

Do you not know three CI since the foundation of the world, no

ear has heard. No, I has seen a God who works

for those who waits. And so my charge and I close

with this. Would you come out of your cage,

get on your knees, and begin to wait again and watch what God

does with your dark places. Watch what he does with your

workplaces. Look what he does and watch as

you wait what he does with the dissonance and the destruction

that surrounds you. And watch as he works on your

behalf and deals with the advancing armies in your life in

Jesus name.