Sermon Cloud

Luke addresses the book of Acts to a gentleman by the name of Theophilus. This is the same person to whom he addressed his gospel. Luke explains that in his ‘first book’, he wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven. The Book of Acts then is the sequel: about all that the disciples and apostles did from Jesus’ ascension into heaven through the first generation of believers.

And here is a curious bit of Bible trivia. It’s a free bonus for coming to church today. When Luke wrote his gospel and sent it to Theophilus, he must have been serving as some kind of Roman official, for Luke addressed him as “most excellent Theophilus.” The address of “most excellent” was reserved for persons of official Roman authority. But when Luke wrote the Book of Acts, he addressed him as simply “O, Theophilus”. There is some speculation that since Theophilus is not addressed as “most excellent” in

the sequel, that perhaps Theophilus came to have faith in Jesus, and either was stripped of his governorship, or stepped down, or completed his term, or perhaps because he became a believer in the Christ, he was no longer able to hold an office where he had to worship the caesar as a god. Pretty cool insight eh? That one was free.

Now, in verse four, Jesus tells the disciples not to leave Jerusalem, but to “wait for the promise of the Father.” That promise was that they would be filled with the Holy Spirit. That promise would completely transform their lives. That promise was exactly what they needed after Jesus had departed from them.

It is also interesting to see that the disciples were still thinking like most other Israelites of the time. They were inquiring if Jesus was about to establish his kingdom on earth, and get rid of all the Romans and restore Israel to its stature as God’s favorite people, and prosper them more than any other nation.

Well, Jesus had to straighten them out again, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority” for the restoring of Israel. But more importantly, Jesus says, to bring them back on topic, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

I think all of us have had times of impatience. We so look forward to a particular event in our lives that we almost cannot see anything else. The anticipation of the coming of our wedding day is often a great distraction, occupying almost all of our time, energy, and emotion as we long for that day to finally come. I have a couple of weddings already booked for 2010 where the couple has to wait over one full year for their “day” to come. That’s a lot of waiting.

We also can get impatient when it comes to our work and vocations. When we are out of work and desperately need an interview or a nibble or anything to give us hope. Or we have had the interview and we are going crazy waiting to hear if we have been selected or not. Or we have gotten an initial word of being selected but then there is a long and convoluted vetting process where they have to go through all kinds of background checks. And the waiting just to be able to get to work drives us crazy.

The line from Jesus is critical to remember, perhaps even memorize: “Wait for the promise of the Father”!

Sometimes we just get frustrated, but we manage to wait patiently for God’s plan to unfold. But sometimes, we try to help God along, or we decide that God “isn’t going to act” and we have to take matters into our own hands – this is ALWAYS a tragic mistake. There is a high price to pay for being impatient. One well-known example of this is the story of Abraham and Sarah. They had heard God say that he promised them a child – an heir. But more time went by, and still Sarah didn’t get pregnant. After all, Abraham was 99 and Sarah was 90. So Sarah, being impatient, and not believing that God can work miracles, decided that perhaps God would give them a child through Sarah’s handmaid, Haggai. Can you imagine the desperation involved here? So Sarah gives her handmaid to her husband to sleep with her, and of course she gets pregnant right away. Bad news! First, the handmaid begins to need all kinds of help and the roles reverse, and Sarah starts having to wait on Haggai, hand and foot. Then Haggai begins to get a little proud and snooty, that she was able to get pregnant but Sarah was not. Then when the baby was born, she really lorded it over Sarah so that Haggai made her life miserable. Finally,

Sarah couldn’t stand it any longer, and she ordered Abraham to expel Haggai and her son. In Sarah’s mind, it would be better to be childless and have no heir, than to put up with a servant girl who thought she was better than her mistress. The story of Haggai and Ishmael doesn’t end there. For the rest of history, the descendants of Ishmael have hated and fought against the descendants of Isaac.

God did fulfill his promise, exactly as he said, and in the normal way. Sarah did eventually get pregnant, and they had a healthy boy, Isaac. But look at the trouble they endured because they were impatient and couldn’t wait for God’s timing.

The Bible is full of God’s promises to us. All of them are dependable, reliable and trustworthy. And they apply to all of us regardless of who we are. One of the most important promises, related to today’s passage is a promise made in Isaiah, chapter 40. It is one that I have clung to most of my life. I learned of it when I was a camp counselor at West River Camp during my college years. This is the promise: “Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:29-31)

So no matter how weary you feel, no matter how frustrated you are, no matter how down-in-the-dumps you may be right now, if you place your problems, your concerns, your hopes and your desires into God’s hands, God will – in his perfect time – provide for your needs and answer your prayers. The imperative part is that we put our whole lives in God’s hands. We have to believe in his Son, we have to desire God’s will with all our heart, and we have to be committed to doing God’s will once it is revealed. When these conditions exist, and we pour out our hearts before God asking for something we need in our lives, God hears our prayers and provides for us at just the right time. I have a saying, that you may have already heard me say. It gives comfort whenever I begin to get impatient. The saying goes like this: “God is slow, but never too slow. God is late, but never too late.” It reminds me that because God has perfect timing, even when I think time has run out, or I think it is getting too late, still God has just enough time to work his miracles, and in fact part of the miracle itself is the ideal nature of his timing.

God doesn’t always answer our prayers the way we expect. So we have to have an open mind. God’s plans for us are often far more wonderful than we can ever imagine.

There’s a cute story of a woman who desperately needed a car so she could get to work and to take care of her elderly mother. She prayed and prayed, pleading with God for just a small car, something simple and not very difficult. She just wanted a little Volkswagen she could drive around in. She prayed and prayed, week after week, and month after month. She kept praying for a Volkswagen, something little and simple. Just a Beetle that would be able to get her around town and back and forth to work. She prayed and prayed, week after week, and month after month. One night while she was dreaming, she came into the presence of the Lord. She asked the Lord why he could not bring her a simple little Volkswagen so she could get around. And the Lord answered, “I have had a Cadillac waiting for you, but you are so fixed on getting a Volkswagen that I’ve been unable to give it to you.”

All of us go through rough times. All of us have had periods of suffering and frustration that have taken way too long to get better. We get upset, we get frustrated, we get tired. We begin to think that God doesn’t care about us. We begin to think that God isn’t listening to our prayers, or doesn’t know our plight, or worse doesn’t care that we are miserable and unhappy. But God does know. God does care. And God is already working on how to get us through it. Sometimes God leads us through these valleys for the lessons we need to learn. Sometimes God takes his time in order to line up the pieces of his perfect plan. We don’t know what God has in mind for us, but we can be absolutely certain that he loves us, cares about us, and is working on our behalf. That’s a promise.

I once heard a choir anthem that has stuck with me ever since. It is called Trust His Heart. The song mentions a variety of difficulties that we can face, but it’s the chorus that gives the greatest comfort. It goes:

“God is too wise to be mistaken.

God is too good to be unkind.

When you don’t understand,

when you don’t see his plan,

When you can’t trace his hand,

Trust his heart.”

So when you begin to get frustrated or impatient; when you begin to get confused about what God is doing in your life, don’t give up, but wait for the promise of his coming to your rescue. Wait for the promise to be fulfilled, which God will always do faithfully. We may not understand what God is doing, but we can always know for certain, that God is doing exactly what we need him to do. Our job is to keep the faith, and keep our mind open to the possibility that God has far greater things in mind for us than we have for ourselves. Amen.