Sermons About Wait
Blessed is the One Who Seeks for Him
Blessings for those who look to God for their help, look to Him for their hope, and look for Him to be God in their lives.
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Wait for the Lord
Isaiah words for the trouble people of his day is "Wait!" But none of us like to wait. So why did Isaiah following the guidance of God indicate that the best thing to do in tough times is just wait?
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Waiting
God's people have always been a waiting people. Waiting is at the core of the Christian life; to know Jesus is to wait in expectation of His return. In this sermon we are reminded through the story of Abraham & Sarah how waiting is God's tool for preparing and transforming His people.
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Portrait of Devotion and Grace (Psalm 119:145-152)
A vital spiritual life with the living God ultimately depends on only two key components: A Devoted Servant and a Gracious God. Devotion implies the discipline of the prayer and the study of the Word. Grace reminds us that it is the infinite grace of God that both infuses and energizes the spiritual life of His children.
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What Missional People Do While They Wait
Waiting around pre-Christians is never a waste of time provided you feel what missionaries feel.
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Where You Go, I Will Go Part 4
At Sovereign King, we have spent the past month discussing the promise that God is at work in this world and in our lives whether or not that work is always visible. A lot of the time, we have no idea where things are going or what God has planned. Because of that, the call of going where God takes us leads to a life of humility, trust, and patience. For example, we've followed Naomi from fleeing Israel during a famine through losing her husband and two sons to her return to Israel with daughter in law, Ruth to her expressed anger at feeling abandoned by God. We've followed Ruth from being a pagan, Moabite to becoming a widow herself to leaving behind her family and culture to professing faith in Jehovah God to working in the welfare fields so she and Naomi can eat to catching the eye of Boaz in whose field she works. Many of us have stories like that where we start in one place in life but wind up in another. Rarely are we able to chart out our life from point A to B and if we do decide where we want to be and wind up there, rarely is the road the one we thought it would be. In our church alone, we have folks who started out as social workers who are now training to be librarians. We have folks who were in the interior design field who now work at hospitals. We have folks who were homeless who are now headed to the military. We have folks who were school teachers who are now...pastors. We have folks who thought they would never get married who have are now happily married, and we have folks who thought they would never have kids but now they do. We may or may not like where we have ended up in life, but the big question all along has been and needs to be, "Can you rise up and call God good and blessed no matter the circumstance?" I mentioned a few weeks ago that God does have a purpose and a plan for everything, but it is important for us to remember that His purpose and a plan is just that…His. And we should think about that at times other than just when things don't go our way. We often hijack our own tribulations with the expectation that God is going to bring about some blessing other than our knowing Jesus better as if knowing Jesus better was not enough. I'm reminded of a conference that I attended a few months ago where one speaker said that failure was God's means of leading us to success. Then the following speaker stood up and said, "Only in America would a Christian say that failure was God's means of bringing you success. When it is all said you and done, you might just fail and all you will have is Jesus. The big question is…is Jesus enough?" Though the book of Ruth seems to be a million miles away from Jesus, I think that is a fair question to ask as we prepare to close this study. So this Sunday at Sovereign King Church, our Big Picture Question is this: Big Picture Question: No matter the consequence, whether good or bad, rich or poor, sickness or health, dreams fulfilled or dreams deferred, is Jesus alone enough for you?
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Where You Go, I Will Go Part 3
***NOTE*** Because of a digital recording glitch, the last ten minutes or so of the sermon were lost in the audio recording. I've spent the last month and half studying prayer, and it has been the most productive and effective study in my entire Christian walk. I can that without any sense of hyperbole. You might ask, "How does one study prayer?" and the answer comes in different forms depending upon whom you ask. - Some would do a concordance study of every instance of the word "pray" or "prayer" in the Bible. - Some would do a study of the Psalms. - Some would read books like "Prayer by E.M. Bounds or "Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home" by Richard Foster All of these are good plans, and I think you could learn a lot by doing them. I however followed the example of a good friend who just….prayed. Now, I've written my prayers out in journals for years because closing my eyes means going to sleep, so with a few helps, I have journaled through the various petitions of the Lord's Prayer now for about a month and a half, and I think I've learned as much about myself as I have about God. I've learned that one of two things happen when you prayer continually about a desire: you either grow comfortable with God's plan and His timing or you grow discontent and bitter with it. This contentment or bitterness of course rises out of whether or not you think God is giving you what you really think is best. I guess a good question to ask would be, "What happens to the heart when you ask God for something for 40 straight days and nothing seems to happen?" Let's be honest. Praying for 40 days in a row may seem like a pretty long time in terms of discipline and passion, but 40 days in a row ain't nothing in light of eternity and how God works His plan. Don't get me wrong. I would love to hear from any of you folks online or the folks at Sovereign King that you are experiencing the joy of a disciplined, prolonged time over prayer over the last 40 days. It is just that none of us have any right to get too proud of ourselves because we got 40 days closer to obeying I Thessalonians 5:17 that says, "Pray without ceasing." We have to remember. God is not impressed with our obedience. It is what He expects from us. Yet still, what happens to the heart if we continue to pray for something and we feel that those prayers are going either unheard or ignored? You know there is a story about how Augustine came to faith. If you read his book "Confessions" you find that Augustine's mother Monica was a godly woman who prayed for her very rebellious son. In fact, at one point, she kicked him out of the house he was so rebellious. Day and night, Monica prayed and cried that Augustine would repent of his sins and profess faith in Jesus Christ. After praying and praying and crying and crying, Monica sought the wisdom of a local bishop. His response was that she should be consoled because the son of so many tears could not be lost to Christ. Of course, years later, Augustine finally professed faith in Christ and became an incredible early church father articulating great doctrines for the church. That story ends well, but it doesn't always. I wish we could say with that Bishop that enough perseverance and enough tears could change God's mind, but the God of the universe doesn't have a beaker full of your tears where He measures your sincerity. He is not waiting for you to hit some unknown amount of sorrow before He relents. No, the promise of answered prayer comes in 1 John 5:14-15 "And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him." Pray the will of God and God answers our requests. But the problem is, outside of the commands of scripture, we don't know the will of God which leaves us petitioning and waiting. As we approach Ruth Chapter 3 this week, we are going to see Ruth and Naomi have high and big hopes for what God might do. They do their part by obeying and keeping to God's word, but along the way, they too have to wait and see what God will do. So as we approach the scriptures this week at Sovereign King, we hope to answer one Big Picture Question. Big Picture Question: Knowing that all of God's decrees and desires come to pass, what is the proper posture of the believer while they wait?
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It Will Not Fail
Last week’s sermon laid the foundation for this series “Finding Good News in Bad Times†restating the basic idea of salvation through Christ. This week focuses on the accompanying idea according, to the apostle Paul, that if God sent Jesus to die for you, he will also give you “all thingsâ€. However, the problem many believers struggle with is the timing of it all or “when†to expect those blessings. God’s concept of time is vastly different from man’s finite understanding of linear time. God’s promises for your life will come right on time—in his time—just as Christ’s sacrifice came at the right time. You, as a believer, are to live by faith, waiting for God’s promised blessing that will certainly come just as Habakkuk 2:2-4 teaches—it will not fail.
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A Good Memory Brings Comfort to God's Child (Psalm 119:49-56)
The psalmist is in the midst of affliction and in the process of waiting on God for deliverance. However, in the midst of his waiting He calls on God to remember His Word, and he himself is comforted by remembering the past works of God on behalf of His people; and by remembering God’s nature and character. The remembrances and thoughts of God that comfort the psalmist and strengthen his love for God and hatred of wickedness, are all centered around God’s word.
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Stay Awake
While at his post, the guard stays alert, keeps watch. He reports all suspicious activity; he sounds the alarm when danger is near. He never sleeps on duty and is always prepared to act at a moment's notice. To be on guard is the responsibility of those assigned as guardians. They stand watch in the towers and remain vigilant and are trustworthy. The Church has been given the task of being a guardian of the faith handed down from Christ to His Apostles. She must "stay awake," being ever ready to sound the alarm.
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