While We Wait

The following are my sermon notes from Sunday, February 20th, 2005. Enjoy...

Introduction:

1. Thank the team’s commitment to their church.
• The sacrifices people make in order to have a church that blesses people are amazing. Our team refuses to lead a church that is not effective in bringing people closer to God.
• One of the things I admire the most about the team is their willingness to wait for the blessings of God. Our team understands that worthwhile blessings require a waiting period. Therefore they work hard, they pay the price of pioneering, and they are resourceful, serving with few tools but with all of their hearts. They keep the hope alive of seeing their dreams for the church become a reality. For example our Shaved Ice Ministry started with one 10 year old and her little shave ice maker.

2. The microwave lifestyle is growing in our society.
• There is an increase of impatience in our culture that is causing people to make poor decisions or to miss great opportunities that appear right in front of them.
• We want our promises NOW--Financial promises, spiritual promises, ministry promises, relational promises (spouse), etc.

3. This world is the waiting room for the Citizen of Heaven.
• It’s interesting to observe what people do while they are in a waiting room.

4. God’s purpose in placing us in the waiting room.

“He commanded then not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised…”
Acts 1:4

• A period of waiting comes after the promise. That’s God’s way!
• He promised the HS to the disciples, but they had to wait a certain period of time in order to receive that promise. How long did they waited?
• God promises life eternal but we must wait to see that promise fulfilled. The same happens to each promise of God.
• We can be sure that between the promise and its fulfillment there is a godly and holy moment of waiting. It may not be our favorite way to do things, but it’s God’s way.
• As we wait in the Lord, He will be working in our lives and in those around us. Then when our hearts have been prepared and made ready, the promise eventually comes as a reality and a blessing.
• When promises are pursuit and connived out of timing, they will not be as fruitful as they could be. We can see this happening often in dating relationships. Promises become ripe and reach their maximum potential while we wait patiently in God’s waiting room.
• While we are in the waiting room, the promise becomes more valuable, desirable, and appreciated. Also our hearts become more humble and dependable in God’s word.
• In the waiting room we develop a deeper love not only for the promise but for the giver of the promise.
• Our problem is that we don’t like to wait, but we rush and run as fast as we can towards the promise before the best time for optimum fulfillment.
• The many seeds we plant daily will not germinate until there is a long period of rest, silence and unnoticed development. We must never doubt that God is always at work in our lives, even when we are waiting in places where we cannot see what’s going on. The Lord always works the night shift while nobody notices what he does. But when the morning comes and His work is revealed for all to see, then we will explode with joy, thanksgiving and praise.


How can we learn what to do while we wait for God’s promises?


1. START WITH A CLEAN HOUSE

“And He entered the temple and began to cast out those who were selling, saying to them,
“It is written, ‘And My house shall be called a house of prayer’”.
Luke 19:45-46

• This event in the ministry of Jesus reveals His zeal and passion for what is His. He was outraged with the way vendors where treating the Temple.
• We just read in our daily devotions through the book of Leviticus that the worship system in the temple demanded the sacrifice of bulls, goats, and sheep in different occasions. The Levitical law system even included doves for the people that couldn’t afford the most expensive animals to sacrifice. Vendors were allowed to sell all these animals and other temple paraphernalia in order to serve the sincere worshippers.
• But when Jesus came to the temple that day, he found that the vendors became greedy and started making unreasonable profit out of the merchandise. They also offered animals with defects at the price of animals without defect. Vendors were in cahoots with some priests in order to force worshippers to buy merchandise from them. These vendors were not concerned in building God’s kingdom but their own kingdom.
• That’s why Jesus confronted them and rightly accused them of turning his house in a house of robbers. Their practices became corrupted because their hearts were corrupted. Jesus was not upset because there were merchandise for sale, but because of their motivation in selling that merchandise.
• Some people have wrongly judged the growing resource Christian industry by misinterpreting this passage. Christian books, worship CD’s, clothing, apparel, and many other items are sold in many churches today. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as the purpose of those sales is destined to bless people with quality resources and to advance the kingdom of God. In our church all profits from resources are reinvested in God's kingdom.

Illustration:
The couple that built their home with the purpose of creating great family memories. They paid a high price to have a wonderful home. They spend lots of time and money in renovating their place. They even used all their savings and their vacation time for several years to work in the house renovation. They spend lots of attention in the family room and its furnishings. The father handmade a special game table with the purpose of spending quality time with his two daughters playing fun games. They also put a lot of time in the master bedroom. After several years of hard work and several thousands of dollars, they finished the project and the couple decided to take some time off for a very well deserved second honeymoon. Their two teenage daughters were grown up and in age to take care of themselves, so they decided to leave them under the passive supervision of friendly neighbors. The couple left on a Monday morning and the girls thought what any teenager would think in an opportunity like this—to have a party in their recently renovated home. The girls invited their few closest friends but the word spread out in their high school like wildfire. Friday night they have over 100 people in the house, many of which came with illegal drugs and alcohol. The whole place became a mess. In the mid-time, the couple decides to come two days earlier because they miss their girls. When they arrived home, they were outraged, frustrated, and highly disappointed. Their home was being abused and misused.

If you can relate with the way the parents felt, then you can relate with the way Jesus feels when something that is His becomes corrupted, misused, and abused.

Pay close attention to this:
Our hearts have become the dwelling place of God. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. What would happen if Jesus decides to bring the fulfillment of his promises to your life and visit His dwelling place in you? What is he going to find as soon as he opens the door of your heart, which is His house? Is he going to find a filthy place or a welcoming throne to rule? Is he going to find corruption like he found that they in the temple? Is he going to find selfish motives? Or unresolved sin? Or bitterness? Or lack of forgiveness? All these are crucial questions e need to ask ourselves and hopefully answer with the highest level of honesty.

Single people: What happens if God is about to bring your spouse of your dreams into your life but when Jesus arrives with the gift he finds that your heart is attached to the wrong person, or that your heart is tinted with immorality, or that your selfishness will not be able to handle the kind of relationship He wants to give you?

Business people: What would happen if God is about to bring a financial blessing but when He arrives and opens the door of your heart He finds that your heart is greedy? What if God gives you a monetary blessing to give you and instead of using that blessing wisely to pay your credit card bills you go ahead and foolishly satisfy your desire for more stuff?

In order to wait properly for the fulfillment of God’s promises we need to have a clean house.

* Evaluate constantly and repent quickly

"Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?"
1 Corinthians 3:16


Becoming a Christian has nothing to do with becoming sinless but everything to do about becoming repentant. What do you do if when carrying your trash out you fall and spill everything in the living room floor? Do you clean up immediately or you wait few weeks until the stench burns your nostrils? Isn’t it the purpose of taking daily showers to keep our body clean and healthy? What about our heart? Are you repenting often? But repentance shouldn’t be taken as a game or as a senseless habit.

* Take action steps of true repentance

If you are living in an immoral lifestyle do everything possible to make things right according to God’s word. If you are sexually active with a significant someone and you are not sure that that person is God’s chosen person for you then take action steps of true repentance and break that relationship off. If on the other hand you know that you can live for the rest of your life with this person, then make plans to get married as soon as you can. One of my favorite things to do in ministry is performing weddings. If you struggle with alcohol or drugs, ask for help and be diligent in cleaning yourself up. You get the point...


2. FIND YOUR GIFTS AND USE THEM

"As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another,
as good stewards of the manifold grace of God."
1 Peter 4:10

• There’s a reason why when we receive Jesus in our hearts we are not transported immediately into heaven. God wants us to be citizens of heaven living on earth with the purpose of becoming a blessing for others. We must discover and deploy our gifts in effective service to God.

(The Following notes are written by my good friend Creighton Arita, who sent them to me right when I was preparing for this sermon)

• Remember everyone is a 10 somewhere and we ALL have been DESIGNed for significance. The most powerful place of ministry for each of us is not going to be found by comparing ourselves to others...although that is what the devil would want you to do to plant seeds of pride or discouragement. The most powerful place of ministry is simply serving out of who God made you to be. It is truly awesome and provides so much freedom that I don't have to be a like someone else. The most powerful testimony for Jesus comes as I serve out of who God made me to be.
• The Holy Spirit will flow through me regardless of my position as long as I walk in OBEDIENCE to Him. Whether you are the head usher or a teacher in the ark or the servant that cleans the bathrooms...our positions at NHDH do NOT reflect our value to Jesus!!! That in contrast to what is reinforced in the world, positions in our church offer little value. Our spiritual authority comes as we walk in obedience and serve one another in love. In fact, the higher you move in leadership, the more you become a servant to others...you must be willing to give away the credit and take the blame, willing to deny yourself and to pay the price when no one is looking. That as Jesus stated, the greatest leader becomes the greatest servant.

* Dedicate Everything to God

We need to dedicate EVERYTHING to Him and start with an overflow of gratefulness because of His mercy...remember we love much because we have been forgiven much. As we dedicate our hearts to him, THEN Jesus will begin to reveal His plans for our lives.

"And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice--the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is."
Romans 12:1-2

* Get involved somewhere.

Getting involved allows you to discover and develop your spiritual gifts. Everyone has spiritual gifts and spiritual gifts answer the question WHAT I should be doing while I wait for the Lord’s return.. When you serve in your gifts, you operate with maximum effectiveness and maximum JOY. As we all begin to function in our gifts, there is a JOY of serving that becomes a lighthouse to the community. People will visit our service and comment that those people at NHDH serve with so much JOY...seems like they are on happy medicine or something.

Please make the greatest efforts to operate in your giftedness. A person outside of their gift will begin to doubt their value and their DESIGN for significance. The biggest disservice we can do to people in ministry is to leave them in a place where they will not be fruitful. It's like taking a healthy fern and placing it in the direct sunlight. Overtime the fern will begin to whither and die. Hello....Nothing wrong with the plant...the gardener just put it in the wrong place. Even if the plant yearns to stay in the sunlight because all the BIG plants are in the sunlight...the "smart" gardener will move the fern into the shade even though the fern may not initially understand. The fern may even feel a little slighted. However, overtime the fern begins to blossom...it begins to understand its unique DESIGN....it begins to feel that it is actually an important part of the garden...it begins to taste and understand the goodness of the Lord. The fern praises God and becomes a testimony of God's creation!!! Wow that was kind of a stretch...but you get the point.

As God's messenger, I give each of you this warning: Be honest in your estimate of yourselves, measuring your value by how much faith God has given you. Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ's body. We are all parts of his one body, and each of us has different work to do. And since we are all one body in Christ, we belong to each other, and each of us needs all the others.

"God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out when you have faith that God is speaking through you. If your gift is that of serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, do a good job of teaching. If your gift is to encourage others, do it! If you have money, share it generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly."
Rom 12:3-8

CONCLUSION:
My dear friend Ron Mehl once told me that one of the keys to endure until the end is to remember that God always works the night shift. The fact that you are in the waiting room doesn't mean that God is incapable, unwilling, or too busy to take care of your needs. He is at work, even when you cannot see Him. So while we wait, let's keep our house clean and let's use our gifts to serve others and bring them closer to God.