Waiting On God

Yeah, so my my wife and I, although we're from Frankie Mouth, we now live and work in Saginaw.

Um so it's not as much of a drive as some people have, but it is it is a bit of a drive.

Um and we we make it a priority to come here just because it it feels like a family here now to us.

Um we love the community here and the connections we've been able to build.

Um, you know, my family still comes here, and so it's kind of a family affair, and you know, we love we love the people here, and you know, it's a priority for us to come every week.

But um I also understand the value of you know having your church community where you live because um there's less of a barrier to inviting friends and neighbors and and people that you know in your community to church if your church is you know right next door um or down the street.

So, you know, while we love making the commute to FBC, um, of course, there is value in having your church be based in your community.

There are moments in life when waiting is hard.

So when you're stuck in traffic, for example, or maybe when you're on call and you get put on hold with customer service.

Um or perhaps if you're at a restaurant and you order food and everyone's food comes out first.

There are moments in life when waiting is hard, and the reality is all of us have to wait for things, that's just part of life.

But there are times, for me at least, when I just don't feel like waiting.

And so one example of this is when I'm at the grocery store.

I don't, maybe this is just me.

I don't know, we'll see.

But I think we all know when you go to the grocery store and you you get up to the point where you're ready to go to the checkout, if the all the lanes are really backed up, you have to make a calculated decision, right?

You look at the available lanes and you have to decide which one is gonna be the shortest, fastest line for you, and so you get in line.

We we all make that evaluation, we do that.

Um now, every time I do that, like every time, I notice another line starts moving much faster than I anticipated, right?

Is that just me?

Okay, thank you.

So you're looking like blank stares at me.

Okay, all right.

And in that moment, I'm faced with a decision, right?

Do I stay in the line that I'm at and just wait it out?

Or do I jump ship and try to go to a faster line?

You know what I do every time?

I jump ship.

I don't want to wait, I'm trying to move to the faster line.

And so there's a problem though.

Like, yeah, you got it, like clockwork, the moment I go to a new checkout lane, the line that I left, first of all, starts moving faster.

That's annoying.

But secondly, the line that I now am in comes to a screeching halt.

There's either a price check or there's someone who forgets a gallon of milk and has to go get it real quick, or the credit card machine is not working, scanner stops working, like something every single time it seems like something happens.

Now, here's what's interesting about this whole experience.

When we choose a particular lane at the grocery store, we're given a test, we're faced with a decision of sorts.

Do I stay and wait, or do I take matters into my own hands and try to fast track this whole thing?

That's the tension that I live with at the grocery store.

I don't know about you, but in fact, that's actually the tension that we find in many respects in our text today with the story of Abraham.

This morning, as we open the pages of scripture, we're gonna see two characters that if you've been with us, we're familiar with, Abram and Sarai, and they're going to be tested today.

They're gonna be tested, and the test really centers on this question: Do we wait patiently for God to fulfill the promises that He's given?

Do we trust in God's plan and God's timing?

Or instead do we take matters into our own hands and try to make things happen faster in our own strength?

That's the tension we're going to find in our text this morning.

And so just a heads up, today's message is all about the topic of waiting.

So if you're somebody this morning like me who needs to grow in the area of waiting, then go ahead and open your Bibles with me to Genesis chapter 16 today.

Genesis 16 · chapter mention

Genesis 16 is where we're at.

And uh just a heads up, uh, if you're a guest with us today, welcome if this is your first time.

If you bring your Bible on Sundays to FPC, you will use your Bible, I promise.

And so it's a wonderful thing to bring your Bible, but if you don't have one today, there's one in front of you.

And if you don't own a Bible, take that Bible home.

We'd love for you to have that.

Uh, Genesis is the beginning of your Bibles.

Chapter 16 is where we're at.

And as you're turning to Genesis 16, just a reminder, we're continuing a series we began a couple weeks ago called Multiply, where we walk through the life of Abraham together.

And as I mentioned, uh, this is a series where, yeah, we're looking at the story of Abram, but more than that, as you probably know, we're also looking at our story as a church.

We're going on a journey of faith as a church as well.

And so, collectively, as we go on this journey, we're visiting that and talking about that a little bit.

And so, as many of you know, our vision here is to see people connected, lives changed, and the church multiplied.

And this season in the life of our church, we're leaning into that.

In fact, for the last several years, we've been planning and preparing and praying to be able to multiply into new locations and establish campuses in the surrounding region so we can see the gospel expand even further around this whole area.

And so, this has been an effort we've been focusing on, if I'm honest with you.

This is something that's really taken quite a bit of time uh to do so far.

But now we're at a moment where we're beginning to take the initial steps to actually accomplish this.

And so that's why we have this series.

And so, for many of you, if you've been with us the last couple weeks, you know that we gave out the brochures that explain what this season is all about, what our campaign is about, what our uh strategy is about for multiplying.

We we have those brochures available.

If you didn't happen to get one of those on the way out today at the doors of the exits, there's one that's available there.

Also, just another shameless plug for tonight.

If you want to come tonight and really hear more about this plan and this campaign, uh, we're gonna kind of be more explicit and just up front about all the things we're looking to do.

There's also an opportunity, if you want to ask questions, you can text in some questions.

And if we have time, we'll try to field as many of those questions as we can.

And so just uh want to let you know about that.

But this season for our church is just a really cool season.

Because the reality is it's taking all of us to come together and to try to be part of this effort.

And uh, for those of you who don't know, at the end of this series, what we're gonna do is on November 8th, we're gonna have a moment where people can make commitments or pledges.

Now, those commitments or pledges are generosity commitments for a two-year duration of time over and above normal giving.

And so that's gonna really culminate on the 8th.

If you're not uh able able to be here on November 8th, we're gonna be able to catch up the following week and there'll be online pledges as well.

Uh, but this is just an awesome opportunity for our church to come together and to band together and really seek to bring the gospel further.

And so I just want to tell you, I'm excited about what God has in store for us.

I'm hopeful that the Lord knows exactly what he's doing, and I want to trust him through all this.

And so thanks for being a part of this so far.

But as we look toward what's ahead, I want to now take a moment to look back to what we've seen in the series because we're preaching through this Genesis story.

And so, if you've been with us, you may know that a lot has already happened in the two weeks that we started.

And so let's lean back into that just for a moment.

And so, to give you some context, Abram and Sarai are our characters in the story, and we know in Genesis 12, God called Abram from the land of Ur, along with his household, to leave behind a life of idolatry, to leave behind everything familiar, and to go to a place that God was showing him that Abram had never been before.

And so, along with that calling, God made good and precious promises to Abram.

God said he would make him into a great nation, that he would bless him.

Uh, God said that ultimately uh all the families of the earth would be blessed through Abram.

And God even said that the land of Canaan, where God was going to take him, was going to be the possession of Abram's offspring.

And so God made all these promises.

And so Abram, trusting the Lord, he left behind what was familiar and went on that thousand-mile journey uh with his whole household to the land of Canaan.

And so the story continued.

And if you remember last week, Abram talked about the fact that he still had no child.

In fact, he and his wife couldn't have kids.

They were advanced in years, and his wife Sarai was barren, and so they couldn't have kids, but God made a promise that Abram would, in fact, have a son, it would be his own child.

And so God makes this promise, and Abram hears the promise, and he trusts the Lord.

In fact, it says he believed the Lord, and God counted it to Abram as righteousness.

And so there we saw God crediting Abram with righteousness by faith.

That's what we saw last week.

And then more than that, God doubled down on the promises and he established a covenant.

If you remember, God solemnly guaranteed these promises.

He bound himself through the shedding of blood to the promises he made, and God established a covenant.

And so by the time we get to chapter 16, what we've seen is Abrams went on that journey.

He's trusting in the Lord, he's received God's promises, he's received the covenant.

But there's one significant problem.

You want to know what it is?

The problem is they're still waiting.

God still hasn't delivered on what he's promised.

They don't have a son yet.

And so that's the tension we're meant to feel as we jump into our text this morning.

And so the first section I want to look at with you, number one, is simply this the promise delayed.

The promise delayed.

And so as we jump into our chapter, let's read the first couple verses.

This is what it says.

Now, Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children.

She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar, and Sarai said to Abram, Behold, now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children.

Now, as our passage opens up, the author begins by reminding us of the underlying circumstances that are really going to lead to everything that unfolds in the entire chapter.

He opens by saying something we already know, but he reminds us.

Now, Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children.

Now, as you know, this is significant because God made these promises, and so the author is reminding us of Sarai's inability to produce a child for Abram, and that makes sense, right?

Her infertility in many respects is at odds with the promises of God.

And so God told Abram he'd have a son, Sarai can't have kids, that's an issue.

And to make matters worse, we've now moved quite a few years on into this promise and into this story.

And so if you read later on in the narrative, you find out that 10 years have now passed since they settled in the land of Canaan.

And so if my math is correct, that tells me that Abram, by this point, is probably 85 years old, and his wife Sarai is 75 years old.

And so I say all that to say that if there was ever any question before that maybe, just maybe somehow naturally they could have kids, the passage of time has now effectively removed all doubt.

Sarai, through her own efforts at least, is not going to be able to help fulfill this promise made to Abram.

It's not in her ability to do so.

In fact, notice what she says.

She says, Behold, now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children.

Now, isn't that significant?

I want to pause here for a moment.

In this statement that Sarai is making, she is reflecting something that we see throughout the Old Testament, and it's this this belief that God is the one who is sovereign over what happens with the womb.

Now, I believe that.

In fact, I believe that God is sovereign over all things.

But I think what's important here is she declares that as we understand the weight of what Sarai is expressing here in this moment.

In the ancient world, a woman's ability to bear children carried with it tremendous social and cultural significance.

And so for Sarai, the fact that she's barren, this would have been the source of tremendous grief and disappointment, perhaps even shame.

This is an honor-shame culture.

And so, for anybody even in the room today who's maybe experienced infertility, you know that this kind of pain is not associated just with the ancient world.

It's a pain that is very real and difficult today.

So for many of you, it's been a deep and difficult and personal struggle.

And so our heart to you, if this has been your struggle, it goes out to you today.

We do believe that God is sovereign over all things, but sometimes, you know, the desires of our heart, maybe those things don't come to fruition.

We know that God knows, but we want to let you know that we love you, we're here for you.

This is a real struggle for people, deeply personal.

Sarah, I live with this reality for years, and so even though God made the promise, her circumstances haven't changed, and she's just left there waiting.

I want to begin just kind of by feeling that for a moment.

Let's not gloss over her personal struggle.

This is a big deal for her.

And so as she's waiting and waiting and waiting, well, she's now tested.

But sometimes the longer we wait, the greater the test.

And what we're gonna even see here is before we move on to our next section, the author now gives us some foreshadowing of what's about to happen.

So notice how at the end of verse 1, we're introduced to a new character.

The text tells us this that she, meaning Sarai, had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar.

Now we haven't heard about Hagar up to this point.

We've not been introduced to her, we don't know where she came from.

We can presume that through that journey, we know that at the end of Genesis 12, Abram and Sarai and their household, they made a pit stop in Egypt.

And so presumably that's where they picked up Hagar.

We don't know for sure, but it's likely.

And that whole situation was a mess.

You can read about that on your own at the end of Genesis 12.

But they have this servant, and so this servant, as Sarai looks at her, an idea begins to formulate in her mind.

I would suggest to you it's kind of a crafty idea.

And that now leads to our next section.

Now that we've seen number one, the promise delayed.

They're waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting.

The next section I want to look at, number two, is the plan devised.

The plan devised.

Notice what Sarai, what it says here, was she she's talking to Abram as she's looking at Hagar, she says, Go into my servant.

It may be that I shall obtain children by her.

It says, and Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.

So after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram, her husband, as a wife.

Now, as our story continues here, this is the moment where, as I mentioned, faith is really tested.

Remember, God made promises, they believed the promises of God.

We know this.

Abram was promised a son, he believed him, he was credited with righteousness because of his faith.

And now, when God makes this promise, the natural assumption would be, well, God's gonna fulfill this with his wife.

That's what we would presume.

The text isn't explicit.

Up to this point, we've never read or seen that God says that this is gonna be a child through Sarai, but the expectation would be, well, Abram, you're married to Sarai.

That's how God's gonna provide.

That's the expectation.

What happens is Sarai begins to think, well, she looks at her circumstances, she considers the passage of time since God made the promises, and she begins to devise a plan to expedite the promises of God through her own efforts.

Rather than continuing to wait, she decides to roll up her sleeves and fast-track this plan.

And as crazy as it sounds to us, uh, this plan involves her taking her maidservant, Hagar, and giving her to Abram as another wife so that way she could bear children for Sarai.

Now, this kind of surrogacy, this approach where you have your husband sleep with another woman to produce offspring, believe it or not, this was something that it was pretty common in the ancient world.

This was not all that unusual.

Sounds an awful lot like an episode of Jerry Springer to me, but this is normal for the ancient world.

And uh often rich women, in particular, wealthy women, would have their servants, if they were barren, produce children for their husband and for themselves.

And there's even legal documents that depict this, which is really interesting.

My son this week uh came home from school, he's learning about the code of Hammurabi.

You maybe heard of that.

It's 4,000 years ago in Babylon, Mesopotamia area, there was a law that was given for the land.

Uh, that code actually was something that was established probably close to the time of Abraham.

Abram lived during that period of time, and he came from Ur, which is right near Babylon.

And so this is an established thing that was part of the culture.

And in the code of Hammurabi it says, if you're barren, you can get a servant to produce your offspring for you.

So I just share that with you because the truth is what she's proposing is not necessarily unusual, but I want to interject something very important.

Just because something is culturally acceptable doesn't make it right.

I'm gonna say that again.

Just because something is culturally acceptable doesn't make it right.

And that's what we see here.

From the very beginning, you remember the story of Genesis.

God designed marriage to be this covenant expression between a man and the woman as they join into this relationship.

In fact, God made like a decree, a paradigm for all marriages.

It says, Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

That's the way it was established in Genesis.

And when you read through then the narrative that follows, you actually begin to see a deviation from that expectation.

So you begin to see multiple wives brought into the picture.

In fact, polygamy is one of those things that is very prominent in the Old Testament.

We see it with the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.

We see it with people like Moses, David.

And so the assumption is that maybe that's not the design that God had.

But I want to suggest to you that just because we see that happen a lot, it does not justify the practice of polygamy.

In fact, if you look at the origin of it in the Bible, and I'll leave this for your own study, you can kind of research this on your own.

The first example of this happening of polygamy, look it up.

It's not a very good example.

But what I would say is the Bible often does this.

It describes things, but it doesn't prescribe them.

And so the Bible describes polygamy.

It's not prescribing that.

In fact, textually, when we look at the events where people take multiple wives, the patriarchs, it always ends up being a train wreck.

A really bad decision.

In fact, in our text itself, there are some really cool things that are woven in that reveal to us very, very clearly that what they're doing here is a very, very bad decision.

And so, for fun, let's just do this together.

Let's look at this.

Let's dig into the text.

So here's what I want to suggest to you.

Do you remember the story of Adam and Eve?

Remember in the beginning, God said to Adam and Eve that they can eat from any tree in the garden, but the tree in the middle, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they shall not eat of it.

The day they eat of it, they will surely die.

So God gives them that command.

God is clear on his instructions, but rather than trusting exactly what God says, they choose to go their own way.

They take matters into their own hands, and then everything falls apart.

I want to suggest to you that what we're reading this morning in Genesis chapter 16 is a replaying of the same kinds of events that took place in Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 16 · chapter mention Genesis 3 · chapter mention

And so there's really cool parallels.

So let me set the table for how to read this.

Abram in our text will be presented as a new kind of Adam.

Sarai in our text will be presented as a new kind of Eve.

And unfortunately, Hagar is going to be presented or treated like the forbidden fruit.

So notice, stuff that in your mind.

Let's look back at the text and we'll see how it's presented to us.

So notice verse 3.

It says, So after Abram lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram, her husband, as a wife.

Now do you remember when Eve saw the forbidden fruit, she saw that it was good for food, that it was pleasing to the eyes, and that it was desirable for gaining wisdom.

So she took it and ate it and gave it to her husband who was with her.

That's what Genesis 3 tells us, right?

Look at the exact same thing that happens in our text.

Hagar sees her, she takes her, and she gives her to her husband.

It's the exact same language that's used.

Coincidence?

I think not, but there's more.

Notice something even more explicit.

Let's look at verse 2.

It says this and Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.

If you remember back in Genesis 3, after the curses were issued upon humanity and the world and the man and the woman and the serpent, when God is speaking to Adam, he confronts him about his sin and he says this, because you have listened to the voice of your wife, you will be cursed.

It's the exact same language that's used here for Abram listening to the voice of his wife.

Now I'm gonna pause for a second.

Some of you out there are like, women, you know, they're the problem there, right?

It's all you women out there, you started this whole mess.

Can I remind you just some corrective biblical teaching?

In the Garden of Eden, right?

Adam, who was commissioned to care for and protect the garden and to really manage everything that was happening there, he lets the snake infiltrate the garden.

And then it says that she took and ate the fruit and gave.

Some to her husband who was with her.

So Adam is totally taking a backseat, abdicating his role and just watching his wife eat the fruit, and then he's like, oh, okay, great idea, and he eats it.

He is totally culpable and stupid in that whole story as well.

And then let's look at Abram for a second, and I'll kind of let leave this for your reading.

If you think that Abram is not the guy who screws up here, I want to suggest to you that when we see the story of Sarai giving Hagar, the first example of this really plays out at the end of Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

And Abram does the same thing to his wife that his wife just does to Hagar here.

And so everybody's culpable here.

And so what we see here, I don't think is accidental in the text.

That's what I'm trying to tell you.

I think this is very, very intentional.

What we read in the Bible is sophisticated literature.

It's meditation literature.

So when you meditate on the Bible, you'll see things like this all the time crop up.

And so the author of Genesis, along with the God who breathes out his word and superintends scripture, embedded this in the text so deliberately when we read this story, we can go, wait, this sounds familiar because it's a replaying of the same fall we saw in Genesis 3.

Once again, we have a husband and wife choosing to go their own way instead of trusting God's way.

And once again, the consequences are devastating.

See, the problem here isn't simply that Abram and Sarai are tired of waiting.

The problem is that they're willing to compromise God's design in order to hasten the promises of God.

And let me tell you, when we do this, it's a recipe for disaster.

Now, as you look at the text here, uh we see that there's a person caught in the middle of all this.

That person is Hagar.

I feel especially bad for Hagar in our passage.

Here's why.

When you read the opening verses, notice how Hagar doesn't even have a voice.

It's almost as if she's not personified at all.

It's like she's stripped of her humanity and she's objectified in our t in the text here.

Notice how she's taken and given like a commodity, as if she's some sort of object.

As if she's nothing more than a means to accomplish their selfish ends.

Tragic.

And so our story of Abram, unfortunately, he's this great figure in the Bible.

It takes a really sad turn.

And that's another example of the fact that all these figures in the Bible, they're flawed just like we are.

Sin is a reality, and so this is a really tragic part of the Abram story.

But here's what I want you to recognize as we continue to move through this passage.

Abram and Sarai, it's not that they're necessarily abandoning God's promises, they're simply trying to find their own way to fulfill them.

God promised a son, they believed the promise, that's good.

But as years passed and nothing seemed to change, they began to convince themselves that perhaps they needed to do something about it.

And so what did they do?

They took matters in their own hands and everything came off the rails.

What we see here is they try to accomplish the promises of God by compromising the truth and departing from God's design and taking matters in their own hands, and it all falls apart.

I think there's something we need to see in this, by the way.

Sometimes, sometimes the greatest temptation isn't that we're not trusting in God's promises, it's that we're not trusting in God's timing.

Sometimes that's our temptation, isn't it?

Because the truth is, waiting, as I said in the beginning, can be difficult.

And maybe for some of you, you're resonating with that this morning.

Maybe you've been in a season of waiting in your own life.

Maybe there are things that you've been waiting for for a long time.

Maybe there are unanswered prayers in your life.

Maybe there are a bunch of unmet expectations or unfulfilled dreams or goals in your life, and you've been waiting and waiting and waiting.

Waiting is difficult.

And in those moments, it's easy to become impatient and to get ahead of ourselves and to try to try to take matters into our own hands.

And when that happens, sometimes we make compromises.

And I would suggest to you today that when we make compromises, there are consequences.

It's these efforts that we have to multiply.

Through this process, I want to assure you that over the last couple years, we've been doing a lot of work on the back end to prepare for what's coming right now.

We've been praying a lot.

We've been seeing God open doors and closed doors.

We've had opportunities.

We've tried to walk in step with the Spirit.

And I'm going to be honest with you because I just feel like I can be transparent.

I'm like an action-oriented person.

And when you wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and don't act, it starts to drive me nuts.

And so there's a part of me that's kind of like, hey, let's get this going.

Why are we waiting further, right?

But the reality is through this whole process, as we've been praying and planning for multiplying, we know that this is all about God's timing and God's way.

And so it's required us to really focus in on what the Lord has before us and to be really thoughtful and keep in step with the Spirit.

And as we look to multiply, I'm also going to tell you it might take a little bit of time.

There are things that need to be done in order to take these steps.

And so while I'm excited to do this as a church, I want to assure you we don't want to try to outpace the Lord and circumvent whatever he has for us.

We're not looking to do whatever's fastest or easiest.

We're trying to be faithful and walk in step with the Spirit and carry out whatever God has for us in his way and his timing.

And so I just want to assure you that that's what we're pursuing.

You know, I mentioned in a previous service, it'd be awesome if the Lord just like had these golden plates that he just had float down from heaven.

Like, here's exactly how it's going to happen.

That's not how God operates.

Keeping in step with the Spirit is a prayerful, careful decision.

And we know that God's will is to multiply the gospel, and there are various means that churches do that.

So what we're pursuing is a good thing and a God-odering thing, but we want him to open the doors and lead us and guide us and direct us according to his timing.

And so I got to be patient.

And I hope that you're waiting and trusting the Lord through this too.

I would encourage you to keep praying for us as we take these big steps as a church.

If God's going to provide for us, which we believe he will, if God's going to provide for us, we got to put this in his hands and trust him and trust in his timing.

And so as we lean back into our text to go back to what we've seen, number one, this promise delayed.

God made the promises, but he hadn't delivered yet.

And that's a moment of testing.

Number two, the plan devised.

Abram and Sarai fail the test, and they come up with this plan.

They compromise truth and try to circumvent the promises of God by hastening and bringing about their own through their own self-effort these promises.

And everything begins to unravel.

And so now we get to point three.

What begins to happen is the people divided, we're going to see all sorts of conflict and drama.

Like I did last week, I'm not going to read the last part of this chapter.

You can look at it yourselves.

But basically, you remember how in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve sin, and the moment they sin, everybody starts blaming each other, and everything just gets messy.

Same thing happens here.

Let me just summarize this.

So Hagar becomes pregnant.

The child that she's carrying is a child who's going to be named Ishmael.

And the moment she becomes pregnant, the drama ensues.

It begins with Hagar and Sarai.

Surprise, surprise, right?

There's drama there.

Then it's also, as we see in the text, Abram and Sarai.

There's conflict there.

Surprise, surprise?

No.

You'd expect that.

In fact, all these actions that were chosen by Abram and Sarai in this moment, they ultimately lead to this child, Ishmael, being born.

And guess what?

The Lord declares over Ishmael that his future is going to be marked by conflict and hostility.

And that's true, and we've seen that play out.

If you read the rest of the biblical story, there's all sorts of conflict.

This whole situation is a mess.

I mean, really, it's it's a dumpster fire of a situation.

And isn't that what happens when we take matters in our own hands?

Isn't that what happens when we compromise, when we abandon the plans of God and we begin doing things our own way, that's what happens.

That's what happens.

But see, here's what I love about this passage.

In the midst of the mess, God never walks away.

That's what I love.

God never walks away.

First of all, my concern for Hagar, I love the way that God treats Hagar in this whole passage.

She ends up getting kicked out of the household and she flees.

By the way, her name in Hebrew means to flee.

She flees and she's in the wilderness, and there she has an encounter with an angel of the Lord.

It's a really cool thing.

Lots of nerdy stuff about it.

I'll skip it for now.

But either way, she has this encounter, and the Lord sees her.

He knows her plight, he cares about her, and he begins making good promises for her and for her offspring, and he blesses her.

Not only that, though, but despite Abram and Sarai's failure, God's promises remain intact with them as well.

See, God never pivots from his promises.

So God made them promises, and despite their failures, God keeps going with those promises.

You see, even when people are unfaithful, God is always faithful.

I'm thankful for that this morning, aren't you?

When I am unfaithful, which I am far too often.

When I am unfaithful, God is always faithful.

He remains faithful to his people.

And here's the thing, too.

When I'm impatient, which I am a lot, God is patient with me.

I've already shared with you this morning the way I am.

I want you to know that if God responded the way that I respond at long lines in the grocery store, he would have jumped ship a long time ago.

He would have.

But no, God is patient with me.

He hasn't jumped ship.

He is gracious and merciful and patient with me.

There's a promise in 2 Peter that I was thinking about this week, just kind of meditating on the text and thinking about this verse.

This came to mind, and it's a very helpful promise for us.

This is in the context as Peter writes this, the context of the return of Jesus.

You see, some people thought that Jesus was taking too long to come back.

And so Peter, he gives them this promise here.

He says, This the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

You see, God's patience is primarily displayed in the gospel.

I want you to think about that for a moment.

Despite my sin and rebellion, the debt that I earned, which deserves judgment, God sent his one and only Son Jesus to suffer and die on the cross, to pay the penalty for my sin.

And then Jesus, three days later, rose for my salvation, and by grace and through faith, trusting in Jesus, I'm forgiven and given the gift of eternal life.

And God is patiently calling people like me to himself right now, through the power of the Spirit.

Jesus is not delaying, he's not slow in his return.

God is giving us time to turn from our sin and to trust in Jesus Christ.

And God is giving us that time because he is patient with us.

Isn't that good news?

We have a patient God.

He's patient with us.

He's been good to me.

Has he been good to you?

God has been good.

And so as we seek to follow Him, may we begin to embody the same kind of patience.

This morning I want to exhort you, may we not grow weary in the waiting.

May we resist the temptation to take matters into our own hands.

May we never compromise.

And may we continue trusting him even when his timing isn't what you want.

I think very clearly at the end of the day, the big idea that we see from our text that we can apply to our own lives, but also to our own situation as a church, is this faith trusts in God's promises and his timing.

Do you trust in God's timing this morning?

Do you think that his timing is perfect?

Simply trusting in the promises of God is insufficient.

We need to trust in his promises and his timing.

Now, the truth is, those frequent prayer requests that you've had, it doesn't necessarily mean that God's gonna grant those.

He's not a genie.

That's not how God works.

He's not some cosmic wishgiver who gives us whatever we want.

He has his own will and his own way.

It's not always consistent with ours.

But he tells us to pray.

And there are times of those prayers where he says yes, there are times where he says no, and then there are times where he says, wait.

So are you content waiting for whatever God's plan is?

And are you content that whatever the answer is, that God is sovereign and he knows what's best?

Faith trusts in God's promises and his timing.

And so in your own life, I hope that this is a challenge for you and a source of exhortation for your life as you lean into this.

As a church, we need to do the same thing.

We need to trust that God knows exactly what he's doing.

He is the beginning and the end, the alpha, the omega, the first and the last.

And his timing, it's his timing.

So as we seek to take these steps as a church, may we trust in the Lord thoroughly, all the way, submit to his plans, his purposes, and trust in his timing.

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for this morning and thank you for your word.

I thank you that you are the patient God.

You don't fly off the handle and give me what I deserve, but you're patient toward me.

You offer time for your people to repent and turn from their sin and trust in your son.

You are the long-suffering God who puts up with our rebelliousness, foolishness.

I thank you for that, Lord.

And I pray that as people who declare that we're followers of your Son Jesus, I pray that you would enable us to walk and step with your spirit in a way that demonstrates that same patience.

God, your ways are not always clear to us.

We have sort all sorts of desires, ambitions, goals, dreams, prayers.

For those to turn out the way that we want would be a grace to us and a blessing, but Lord, we also know that your way is better.

So I just pray that in our lives, Lord, we would just fully submit everything we have into your hands.

So we thank you, Lord, for today.

We thank you for this opportunity.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.