Waiting on God, Pt.1

One is impressed in reading the story of Jesus in the Gospels that repeatedly the Savior went at the very peak of his popularity, when the crowds were the largest and his schedule the most demanding, would insert calculated periods of retreat. Over in the second chapter of John, for example, in the feast day of the Passover, when Jesus was at the zenith of his popularity and hundreds were responding to him, he fearing somehow that the message might not be going out with clarity perhaps because of the shallowness of the response of the people. John saying many believed in him, but he did not believe in them. At the very peak of the invitation, as people were thronging his way, would beat a retreat and leave the crowd and go to the mountains to spend days alone in prayer. It has been the pattern of this church, and most churches like it, that understanding the necessity of such refreshing periods of time, when we can get away, that we have built into the calendar of the church and the youth and adult ministries, times for retreat and camps and gatherings away from our natural element, out in nature, near a lake, under the stars, by a stream, where God can speak to us and the stillness of nature draw our attention from things mundane and direct it toward things eternal. This church has provided for five years now a camp, a camp which is second to none with more creativity and more excitement and freshness and times of joy and participation and fun and good Christian recreation with Bible study and sharing, quiet times and refreshing seasons of the preaching and drawing of the net of the gospel of Jesus Christ that has become almost the backbone of the program of our youth ministries. Every year I hear the same thing, but with a kind of recurring, driving new dimension in that the kids are saying something is happening, but something new is happening and something better is happening. And I don't think they remember, but this is the fifth year in a row that I've heard them say this camp was different. This camp was deeper. This camp was less emotional. This camp was more rational. And our decisions were made more in an attitude of real sincere commitment. And the fact is that they are right. Each year has been and should be subsequently and successively that way. And I hope that next year will be the same. But the important thing is not that they went to a camp because the same thing could have happened in your closet or by your bed. And it can happen every day. And it must happen every day. The important thing was not that a location occurred, but that there was a disciplined, pre -planned, structured opportunity for consistent separation from the things of the world and separation unto the will of God where one could hear the voice of God. That's the important thing. And in the hubbub of a busy life in society like ours, it is imperative to you that you build such a structure in your own life. Jesus said, Come ye apart and rest a while. And I have found that unless you come apart and rest a while, you will come apart. I made the observation not long ago that I wouldn't want a pastor that was always available. It is critical that God's people have times when they're not available and not accessible to anyone or anything but the voice and impress of God. For unless we learn consistently to come apart from the things of the world and have a redirection, a refocusing, a rebalancing and establishing of priorities, then all of those things which go out from the periphery of the central experience will be to that degree out of balance. The Bible prophesied that in the last days many things would happen and they were primarily characterized by an increasing momentum. False prophets would arise, many would be deceived, knowledge would increase, cries for peace would be paramount. No escape from the problems of society would be caving in on us. Everywhere an increased tempo of life. He also said not only will knowledge increase but travel and speed will increase. I said a few Sundays ago that it may well be written over the epitaph of this generation about us that all we did was to hurry, worry, and bury. Kind of like the army where you hurry up and get there and don't do anything once you're there. So important is it? The Bible said in the last days many shall run to and fro. Our society is characterized by busyness, people in a hurry, running the Lord only knows where, scurrying to and fro. In fact we have jet travel that is so fast that with the changing of the time zones it is possible for a man to get on an airplane in New York City and fly non -stop on a jet to Los Angeles and be there before he left. I don't know how thing fast that thing goes but I show enough like to watch it take off. Boy that's moving down the line. I heard not long ago about two fellas who went out to get a job and interview and try to get in a school to learn how to be truck drivers and their names were Moe's and Fred. They were good boys. They loved to drive and they thought they'd make good truck drivers and knowing it made a lot of money they applied for the course. Well they did pretty good on their tests but they gave them a final questionnaire verbally before they decided that they were going to let them in the course. And they gave them a theoretical question first to Moe. He said, Moe, let's ask you this. Suppose you and Fred are driving across the desert and old Fred's had the last shift and he's tired and he goes to sleep. He crawls up in the bunk for five or six hours in back of the cab and you're driving along and you start up a mountain range and you're just going slower and slower and finally you get up there and barely creep over the crest of the mountain ridge and you start down the other side. And he said, Moses, you're coming down the hill. He said, you notice that as you put on the brakes to go around what the sign says is a hairpin curve 35 miles an hour that the brakes have gone out. And you're speeding around that thing at 45 and you're gaining momentum and the truck is accelerating and you're coming up to another hairpin curve that says 55 mile an hour limit and you jam it down in low and you strip the gears and the transmission's gone and you look down and you're going 65 miles an hour. And Moses, you're coming down to the very most dangerous hairpin curve of all and you look up and you're going 90 miles an hour. And the most dangerous hairpin curve you have ever seen is right in front of you. And you reach for the emergency brake and the cord brakes and there's no emergency brake. What do you do? Oh, Moses thought a minute. He said, I wakes up Fred. He said, wakes up Fred. How come you wakes up Fred? He said, cause Fred, he ain't never seen no bad wreck before. Well, I worked out when I'm a little bit better than the two this morning, I guess. You know, there are times when life is like that. We're just going pell -mell down the hill and the brakes are out and the hairpin curves are coming and all we can see at the end of the thing is that there's probably just going to be a real bad wreck like nobody ain't never seen before. You know, that's really where a man's life heads unless he has priorities and dimensions and disciplines and consistency and proximity to eternal things in his life. So God taught us in his word that it was critical for us to periodically have those seasons of refreshing. Kids, I think more than anything in the world, every one of you, desperately long to maintain the burning spirit of commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart that you feel right now. More than anything else, you want to keep what's happening. Well, it is possible for you, it is possible for all of us, to have something which maintains that. A mini -camp every single day. And I am talking about something the Bible calls waiting on God. Now, prayer is a conversation. But did you ever talk to somebody on the phone and say, hello, this is so -and -so, and write it off and say goodbye and hang up, and never give them a chance to speak? That's what we do in our prayers sometimes. Now, it's good to have a prayer time. It's good every morning to have five or ten minutes when you start off the day and get alone and retreat and talk to God. But I want to talk to you for a moment tonight about a critical part of your devotional life called waiting on God when at the end of your prayer, you don't say in Jesus' name, you just stop and wait and learn to listen to God to speak to you. That's the way you maintain the balance, which is a retreat that lets you go back into the to -and -froenness of life with stability and normality. You say, wait for God to speak to you? Has God ever said anything to you physically? Have you ever heard the audible voice of God? No, I don't really know that anyone has. I don't know that God has physical vocal cords. But I do know that God speaks to us if we will learn to listen through a still, small, silent voice. You can call it a holy hunch, if you will. You can call it a spiritual impression, if you will. But the truth is that the man who learns to counterbalance the activity of the hubbub of life by getting away and opening his mind to the reality of the presence of God in him will begin to sense that God is saying and doing something to him and in him. You can't explain it unless you've been there. But it's a wonderful thing. The Lord said this to his servant Moses who in the hubbub and activity of the Red Sea was probably far too interested in trying to figure out the physical mechanics of organizing 600 ,000 men, maybe two or three million people. And the midst of it stopped and said, Be still and know that I am God. How many times has it been true in the Bible? Moses was not spoken to by God until he spent 40 years on the backside of the desert. Raised in the rabble of Egyptian society, it took him that long to get in a position that he was alone and quiet enough for God to say to him all that he wanted to say. The first thing God did to the Apostle Paul when he was saved was make him where he couldn't say anything and couldn't see anything and then he sent him into Arabia to study and to be quiet and to learn and to wait and to sense God in his life. How many times did the message of God in the Old Testament come to the shepherds when they were alone, quietly looking up at the stars at night? I am suggesting to you that you can structure and must structure in your spiritual life opportunities of retreat of your own daily camp where you get away with God and give God a chance to speak to you. It's called waiting on God. I want you to look at two verses of Scripture. Turn over to Psalms and to Isaiah. You will please? Psalms chapter 62, the 62nd Psalm. And then Isaiah 40, Psalm 62 and Isaiah 40. Isaiah is about five or six books on after Psalms. So find the Psalms. That's the easiest. That's the biggest one in the Old Testament, isn't it? You can almost thumb through it and close your eyes and hit it. It's almost... It's almost everywhere you turn. Psalm 62, verse 1. Truly my soul waiteth upon God. From him cometh my salvation. This is only one of 40 times the Bible talks about waiting upon God. Now Isaiah chapter 40, verse 31. Isaiah 40, verse 31. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. And they shall walk and not faint. Gerald, do you know the little chorus called They That Wait Upon The Lord? You ever heard that? I'd sing a couple of bars, but my voice is bad. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall rise up with wings as eagles. They shall walk and not be weary. They shall run and walk and not faint. And then the last little phrase goes, teach me, Lord. Teach me, Lord, to wait. Now listen. Waiting on God, and repeatedly the Bible teaches, wait on the Lord, is not simply a mere abstract passing of time. It doesn't mean just to be patient. It doesn't mean slow down. You move too fast. It doesn't just mean wait around and see what happens. It doesn't just mean don't hurry. To wait on God is a specific spiritual exercise. If which rules you understand and observe, you may be assured that consistently in your daily prayer time, that as there are rules by which we speak to God, there are mechanics by which we learn how to wait and listen and let God speak to us. If you have a concordance, go home, and most of you do in the back of a Bible, and run every time you can find the Bible says, wait, particularly in the Old Testament, and read it this week. We're going to start right here, a little two -part series tonight and next Sunday night. I'm going to teach you the four rules, the four steps by which you wait on God and learn to have the other side of a communication with God, in which time after having spoken to the Lord in prayer, you learn to wait for God to speak to you. It is a terrific balance in the to and fro -ness of life and one that will certainly refresh the soul and teach a man to so live that he can live a life that mounts up with the strength of the wings of eagles and flies above the hurry and toilsome tearing of the world. May we stand and pray together. Our Father, the Old Testament writers repeatedly indicated we were to ask the Lord to teach us to wait. As we look next Sunday night at learning how to be taught of God to wait and to distinguish between the spirits and to know what is of God, these impressions, and what are not of God. We pray thee give us a spiritual appetite, a holy hunger this week to have daily times in our lives that we draw away for fellowship with God, that we might go refreshed, newly balanced into the world, to march to the beat of a different drummer and live as children of God. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Now it is always the pleasure of the pastor to extend the invitation of the church in their behalf to you for membership in this body of believers. Jesus Christ loved the church. He died for the church. He established the church. He built the church. He's coming again for the church. And as a mother or father, let me say to you, I would give anything in the world. I'd pay any price. I'd travel any distance to see that my teenagers were in a church with an exciting, Christ -centered, active, soul -winning youth program like this church. Many of you mothers and dads who may think it's too far to spend the gas and take the time to bring your kids every week and get in the church may by neglect let them ruin their life and eventually spend three times the amount of effort and time running to psychologists and psychiatrists and counselors trying to straighten out their lives. An ounce of prevention can be worth a pound of cure. Better to build boys than to mend men. Jesus Christ has been mending men for a long time. It was quite nothing quite like building a boy. How it has refreshed this pastor's heart to see kids. I can't help but say this. I remember the day little boy Brigham was saved. He was seven or eight, I guess, just a little kid, a little boy. He came down here, a little old fella, and he was saved. And I recognized that last name, one of our deacons named that. And I said, little fella, I've never seen you before. Are you related to Mr. and Mrs. Boyd -Brigman? I'm sure. He said, they're my mom and daddy. And that little guy has grown up just like that through the choirs and the Sunday school, the athletic program, the missionary activities, the camps, the fellowships, the ministry of this church. And today, at his first youth camp as a full -grown teenager, here he is winning an award as an outstanding Christian kid. Why? I'll tell you why. Because of a godly mom and dad and because of the ministry of First Baptist Church. That's why. I tell you, folks, I believe in this ministry and this program. And mothers and dads will invite you not just to send your kids, but to bring them to be a part of this ministry. We're here to do you good. Now, maybe you want to join tonight. Maybe you'd like a conference with a pastor. You're the associate or one of our youth directors. You'd just like to know some more. We'd be glad to talk to you. Maybe you've already decided we'd like to join the church. We invite you and welcome you into our membership. Maybe you've never accepted Christ as your Savior. Savior. Won't you let God come in your life and let the Spirit of God transform you? Now, many of you will have to admit, something's happened in the lives of these kids. They went away one way, they came back another way. That's what God does in lives. He'll do that in your heart, in your life. Would you come? And you who were saved at camp, and you who rededicated your life at camp, why don't you come quickly now? If you've rededicated your life, you don't need to take the time to fill out a card. There might be a large amount. But if you were saved, come and let us call your name and tell you who you are to the church. Come and make your decision public. And if you rededicated your life, come make it public too. If you want to rededicate your life, if you'll make a decision, you come on. We're waiting for you. Let's sing together.

Psalms 62 · chapter mention Psalms 62:1 Isaiah 40:31 Isaiah 40:31