DELAYED BY DESIGN
The 6 Phases of Faith -- Part 4
05-18-14 Sermon
How
does God use delays?
1. God uses delays to P_________________________________________
"When Pharaoh let the people go, God did
not lead them (directly) though that way was shorter. For God said, `If they face war, they
might change their minds and return to Egypt'." Ex. 13:17
2. God uses delays to T______________________________________________
"...God led you through the wilderness for
forty years...testing you to find out how you would respond and if you
would obey Him." Deut. 8:2
(LB)
What To Do While Waiting:
1. DON'T
F__________________________________________________
"...They
would not enter the land. They
said... `We are afraid ... The people there are stronger
and taller than we are..."
Deut 1:26 + 28 (GN)
Instead: _________________________________________
"Fear
not, for I am with you. Do not
be dismayed. I am your God, I will
strengthen you
and I will help you... and uphold you..." Isa 41:10 (LB)
2.
DON'T F__________________________________________________
"...On
the way the people lost their patience and spoke against God and
Moses. They complained..." Num 21:4-5 (GN)
"Impatience
will get you into trouble."
Pr. 19:2 (GN)
Instead: _________________________________________
"Rest
in the Lord; wait patiently for Him to act ... Don't fret and worry -- it only leads to harm." Ps. 37:7-8 (LB)
"God
has set the right time for everything." Eccl. 3:11 (GN)
3. DON'T F_________________________________________________
"All
the Israelites grumbled against Moses... `If only we had died in Egypt! ... We should
choose a leader and go back to Egypt.'" Num. 14:2-4
Instead: _________________________________________
"Let
us never grow tired of doing what's right, for if we do not faint, we'll
reap a harvest
at
the right time." Gal.
6-9 (Mof)
"You
need to pray continually and not lose heart." Lk. 18:1 (JB)
"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. They shall walk and not
faint."
Is.
40:31
4. DON'T
F_________________________________________________
"They
forgot the many times God showed them his love, and they rebelled ... at
the Red
Sea. But He saved them as He
promised... But they quickly forgot again! They wouldn't
wait for God to act..." Ps.
106:7-8 (GN), 13 (LB)
Instead: _________________________________________
"I
will bless the Lord and not forget the great things He does for
me." Ps. 103:2 (LB)
"The
Lord is not being slow to carry out his promises ...but He is being
patient with you... Do not forget this one thing, my dear friends, that
with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is like a
day. The Lord is not slow in
keeping His promise." " 2 Pet. 3:3-8 (JB)
"These
things won't happen right away.
Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be
fulfilled. If it seems slow, do
not despair, for these things will surely come
to pass. Just be patient! They will not be overdue a single
day!"
Hab
2:3 (LB)
DELAYED BY DESIGN
The Six Phases of Faith
Part 4
05-18-14 Sermon
Exodus 13:17 & Deut 8:2
Life
is filled with a lot of unanswered questions. Like…
If
nothing sticks to Teflon, how do they make Teflon stick to the pan?
Why
do they put flotation devices under airplane seats instead of parachutes?
Why
do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
If the Denny's restaurant is open 24 hours a day, every day of the
year, why do they have locks on the doors?
Why
are there interstate highways in Hawaii?
But
the most perplexing questions of all are ones we want to ask God. Many of us want to ask God, Why does He
wait to answer prayers? If He
hears it immediately and has the power to do it, why the delay?
Because
it's part of Phase Three in the Six Phases of Faith. Phase One is Dream -- God gives you a dream for your
life. Phase Two is Decision --
You've got to make the decision to go after the dream. Today we're going to talk about Delay
-- there's inevitably a delay.
Then comes Difficulty, then Dead End, and finally Deliverance.
God
uses these phases in your life to teach you about faith.
There's
always a waiting period. Dreams
are never fulfilled immediately.
Abraham had the dream of being the father of a great nation and he
waited 90 years before he was even told he was going to have a son. Noah had the dream of building an arc
but it took him 120 years. A long
wait. Joseph was going to be the
ruler in Egypt, yet he spent years in prison, waiting and waiting. David was anointed king, but he didn't
become a king immediately. He was
chased all around the country by Saul.
There's always a delay period.
The
classic story is of the children of Israel who were brought out of Egypt and
then wandered around for forty years before they went into the Promised
Land. It's only about two weeks
walk between Egypt and Israel. It
took them 40 years. What in the
world were they doing?
How does God use delays?
1. God uses delays to prepare us. The Israelites weren't prepared for war, and God was afraid
if they went to war they wouldn't be able to handle it. Every dream has difficulties. God uses delays to get us ready for
those difficulties. The delay here
was designed by God. God uses
delays in your life to prepare us for difficulties that are ahead.
Exodus
13:17 "When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them (directly),
though that way was shorter. For
God said, `if they face war, they might change their minds and return to
Egypt'." They were Delayed by
Design. God had them wander around
for 40 years.
2. God uses delays to test us. Deut. 8:2 "God led you through the wilderness for forty
years... testing you to find out how you would respond and if you would
obey Him."
How
do you respond to delays? God says
it's a test of faith. Your test of
maturity is how well you handle the waiting rooms of life when things don't
come immediately. How do you
respond?
Sadly,
the children of Israel flunked this test.
They never got through Phase Three. Only two Israelites who left Egypt actually got to go into
the Promised Land. A whole
generation had to die in the desert.
The next generation got to go in.
Only two of the first generation -- Joshua and Caleb -- got to go
in. Why? Because they did the wrong thing in the desert.
When
you're going through the delays in life, waiting for an answer to prayer
there's four things God says don't do.
He says don't do these things because they prolong the delay.
1. Don't Fear
This
is the first mistake the Israelites made.
There are a lot of reasons for the delays that happen in your life but
this one is your own fault. God
says don't be afraid. "They
would not enter the land. They
said `We are afraid... The people
there are stronger and taller than we are..." They had enough faith to move out of Egypt but they didn't
have enough faith to move into the Promised Land. They were afraid.
The
problem with fear is that it keeps you in the wilderness, in the desert of
life, the barren stage. It
prolongs the delay. Many of your
dreams have never been fulfilled, not because of God, but because of you. Because you wouldn't step out in
faith. "One of these
days..." The bottom line is fear.
God says Don't fear. Fear causes the delays in your life and keeps you
from moving ahead.
Instead: focus on God's presence. The antidote to fear is to realize that
God is with you. When you're
afraid to go after the dream God has given you, you need to focus on God's
presence. He says, "I will always be with you." There will never be a time in your life
when God is not with you. He's
with you now, He always has been and He always will be. He's with you on your good days and
your bad days. He's with you when
you feel it and He's with you when you don't feel it. God says "I will
always be with you."
"Fear
not, for I am with you. Do not
be dismayed. I am your God, I will
strengthen you
and I will help you... and uphold you..." Isa 41:10 (LB)
There
are 365 "fear nots" in the Bible -- that's one for every day of the
year. God is saying, no matter
what you're facing don't be afraid.
"Fear not, for I am with
you." Not because of
positive thinking or motivational tapes or pulling yourself up by the
psychological bootstraps. You'll
never face any situation in life that God isn't facing it with you. We tend to forget that, and when we do
we start being afraid. Don't fear
but focus on God's presence -- He's with you all the time.
Some
of you are in the delay phase right now.
You've been praying about something and it hasn't happened yet. You start to think that God has
forgotten you. God has not
forgotten you. He knows what
you're going through. It is a
delay by design. God wants to
build your character and He wants you to learn to trust in Him. You can count on Him for His help. Don't fear.
2. Don't Fret
Fret
means worry. Don't get
worried. Don't get uptight. Don't complain. We do that when we get into
Delays. We worry, get uptight, get
stressed out, start griping. This
was the second response of the Israelites.
Num
21:4-5 "On the way the people lost their patience and spoke against God
and Moses. They
complained..."
This
is typical of people, but this was the sin that kept them out of the Promised
Land. They just griped all the
time, no matter what God had done for them -- the Ten Plagues, the opening of
the Red Sea. They complained about
the journey, the delay, the leadership, no water -- then God provided them
water. Then they complained about
no food -- and God provided them food.
Then they complained about the food they got. It's so easy to gripe when we're forced to wait. We don't mind waiting if we can
complain about it.
God
says don't fret, don't worry, don't get uptight about it. When we really grumble is when we're
waiting for God to act. We get in
a hurry. Prov. 19:2 "Impatience will get you into
trouble." When we try to
take matters into our own hands we get in trouble. We try to help God out. It's frustrating to be in a hurry and God isn't. God is never in a hurry. The Bible says with Him, a day is like
a thousand years and a thousand years like a day. He's larger than time.
One of the most useless things to try to do is to speed up God.
When
you get impatient you start trying to work it out yourself. You get a dream from God, make the
decision to go for it, and then when the delay comes and it's not fast enough
for you, you start trying to figure out ways of doing God's dream on your
own. You start trying to force the
issue.
Abraham
did this. God said He was going to
give him a son. At 75 Abraham
still didn't have one. Sarah was
incapable of conceiving. He
decided to have a child by Hagar, Sarah's hand maiden. Hagar gets pregnant and bears a
son. They name him Ishmael. Abraham thought he had the miracle
child in Ishmael. God said that
Ishmael was not the miracle. That
was just a normal conception. He
wasn't the baby God said would be the miracle baby. God blessed Ishmael anyway and he also became the father of
a great nation. He's the father of
all the Arabs.
But
God said there would be another child.
Later Abraham had Isaac through Sarah who was way up in years and
although she had never been able to have a child, at a grandmother's age she
had a baby. Isaac became the
father of the Jewish nation.
All
of the commotion in the Middle East between Arabs and Jews is just a family
feud. It's been going on for
thousands of years because Abraham got in a hurry. Ishmael and Isaac were half brothers. Whenever you hear of Arabs being
anti-Semitic -- that's impossible.
Both Arabs and Jews have the same father -- Abraham. Because Abraham got in a hurry, we've
had thousands of years of conflict.
Impatience will get you into trouble. God doesn't need your help. You need to relax.
Don't
fret, Instead: trust God's timing. Psalm 37:7-8 "Rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him to act. Don't fret and worry. It only leads to harm." Resting can be an act of faith. It means you're waiting on God. One time, Jesus and the disciples were
in a boat and Jesus fell asleep. A
big storm came up and the disciples freak out. Jesus is in the corner of the boat sleeping. They wake Jesus up, Why are you sleeping? "Do you think God is going to let
the boat sink with Me in it?"
Jesus, by His sleeping, was saying, I can trust God even in the middle
of a storm. I don't have to worry
about it.
When
we get into a storm, we lay awake all night. And we fret about it.
The very fact that we're laying awake at night means we're not living by
faith. We can't get any sleep
because we don't really trust God to work it out. God says, "Don't
fear, don't fret. Remember I'm
always with you and trust My timing."
The
verse says "Wait patiently for Him
to act." When you wait
impatiently it doesn't make waiting any better. All being impatient does is make you miserable.
"Don't fret and
worry. It only leads to
harm." Worry doesn't work. It just makes you miserable. So stop worrying and start trusting
God.
Eccl.
3:11 "God has set the right time for
everything." God's timing
is perfect.
I
believe of the Six Phases, for Americans, Phase Three is the most difficult
Phase. We don't like to wait. Americans are activists -- doers. We think it's far easier to work than
wait. If I can do something about
the problem in my home, do something about the problem in my body, do something
about the problem at work, or even do something about the problem in your life
-- then I'm Mr. Fixer. God says I'll fix it if you just wait. It's the delay that's building your
character. He can fix it
better than you can.
3. Don't Faint
When
you go through the delays in life don't faint -- don't get discouraged. Don't lose heart. Don't give up. This is the third thing the Israelites
did and it kept them out of the promised land. Numbers 14 "All
the Israelites grumbled against Moses... `If only we had died in Egypt!
... We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt." They gave up on their dream. They caved in. They had been in slavery 400 years but
now because they are having a little bit of delay they want to go back to
Egypt. "If only" and
"go back" are phrases that are tell-tale signs you're discouraged --
that you're fainting, losing heart.
If
only -- means we start to second
guess ourselves. When we get a
dream from God, make the decision to go for it and if it doesn't come
immediately we start second guessing ourselves -- "Maybe I didn't really hear from God. Maybe I just made this up. Maybe God is not listening and He doesn't care. If only I'd
done something different. If only
I'd done this or that..." We second guess ourselves.
And
then we say "Let's go back to
Egypt." When we go
through the delay phase of life we tend to idealize the past. We talk about the good old days --
which really weren't that good.
The only thing good about them is they're over. The grass isn't greener on this or that
side of the fence -- it's greener where you water it. The good old days always look better in hind sight than they
really were. We get into a
project, start having a delay, and then want to give up. The Israelites had been in slavery in
Egypt.
Some
people would rather live in slavery than face the fear of freedom. They are not willing to push through
and work on the problem until they get it right. They want to go back, give up. They settle for mediocrity in life. Don't settle for less than God's best
for your life. If that means going
through a tunnel of conflict, take the tunnel. In the middle of the tunnel it's dark and you want to run
back to the light. But you've got
to keep going and you'll come out in the light on the other side.
Instead of fainting -- be persistent and pray.
Remember
God told Joshua to march around the walls of Jericho and they'll all fall
down. It didn't happen the first
time they did it. They had to do
it seven times. Seven days in a
row. And on the seventh day they
had to do it seven times. Why the
delay? If God was going to make
the walls fall why didn't He make them fall the first time? He was teaching them to be persistent
and pray.
Galatians
6:9 "Let us never grow tired of
doing what's right, for if we do not faint, we'll reap a harvest at the right
time." This is the
law of the harvest: In life, you
will reap whatever you sow. What
you plant you will sprout. If you
sow criticism, you will reap a lot of criticism in your life. If you sow love, you will reap love
back in your life. If you sow
generosity, you will reap back generosity. It's one of the laws of the universe. We'll always reap more than we
sow. If I plant one kernel of
corn, do I get on kernel back? No,
I get a whole stalk with thousands on it.
You always reap more than you sow.
But
in the Law of the Harvest there is always a delay between sowing and
reaping. There's always a
season. You plant in one season
and you reap in another. There is
a delay in between. God wants to
see if you're going to keep cultivating, planting, sowing -- see if you really
mean business. If God sees
consistency in your life then the harvest comes. It will not come immediately because it proves nothing if He
does it immediately. No delay, no
character development, no stretching your faith.
Calvin
Coolidge: "Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent
will not. There is nothing more
common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not. Unrewarded
genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not. The
world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination, alone, omnipotent. The slogan `Press on' has solved and
always will solve the problems of the human race."
Jesus
said that about 2000 years earlier.
Lk 18:1 "You need to pray
continually and not lose heart." Pray continually and lose heart are the two options you have
in life. You will always be doing
one or the other. If you pray
continually you will not lose heart, you won't be discouraged. If you don't pray continually, you will
lose heart. You will faint. You will get discouraged by the
problems you're facing in your life -- family, school, wherever. You've got to keep on praying.
What
do I pray during the delay phases of life? Pray "Help me hold on and not give up." The Bible says, "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. They shall walk and not faint." They won't give up. They'll keep on keeping on.
4. Don't forget
During
the delay, time causes us to forget many things. When there is a delay, we tend to forget our dream. We tend to forget what God had done in
our life. We tend to forget God's
goodness to us in the past. We
tend to forget that God is with us.
We tend to forget God's power.
We tend to forget how important it is that we stay in God's strength and
we start focusing on all our problems than on what He has done for us. The Bible says, Don't forget.
This
was the fourth mistake that the Israelites made out in the wilderness. Ps. 106 tells us "They forgot the many times God showed them his love, and
they rebelled at the Red Sea. But
He saved them as He promised. But they
quickly forgot again! They
wouldn't wait for God to act."
This says many times. It's
unbelievable how short their memory was.
In Egypt, God does ten plagues and the children of Israel forget it
because a couple days later they're at the Red Sea and saying "We're all
going to die!" They've
forgotten just what God's done.
God does a miracle and opens the Red Sea. They walk through to the other side and immediately forget
that miracle. "We're going to
die of thirst!" God provides
water miraculously. They forget
that and complain, "We're going to die -- no food!" They were always forgetting.
But
we should not be too quick to judge them because we do the exact same
thing. When a delay occurs in our
lives we start acting like God's never done anything for us. Has God done things for you in the past? Sure He has. You can count on Him to do it tomorrow, or the next
day... When you act like,
"God's not going to bail me out of this one!" you're forgetting all the other times
He's bailed you out. Some of the
times you didn't even know about it but He did.
What
have you been forgetting about God, how He's helped you so many times?
The
consequences of forgetting the Bible says is "...they would not wait." Instead of forgetting
you remember God's promises.
There are over 7000 of them in the Bible. When you have a problem, find a promise. When you face a problem, look for a
promise. The promises are always
greater than the problems you're facing.
Ps. 103 "I will bless the
Lord and not forget the great things He does for me." 2 Pet. 3:3-8. "The Lord is not
being slow to carry out His promises but He is being patient with you."
You ask, Why isn't God
fulfilling the promise in my life?
He's waiting on you. You
think you're waiting on God? He's
waiting on you to learn to not fear, not fret, not faint, not forget. He wants you to learn that before He
brings the solution. He has some
things He wants you to develop first, some growth patterns He wants you to put
into your life. God's never in a
hurry. He can do things
immediately, but He's working on a larger agenda. The delays that come in your life do not destroy God's
purpose. They fulfill God's
purpose in your life. They make
you a better person.
What
is it you've been waiting on God to do?
For Him to turn a problem around?
To answer a prayer? To make
a way in a place where it seems impossible for there to be a way, financially
or physically or any other way?
Maybe you've been waiting on God to bring that right person along? Maybe you've been waiting on God to
turn a crisis into a solution? God
hasn't forgotten. And a delay is
not a denial. Not yet is not the
same thing as No.
Hab.
2:3 "These things won't happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the
vision will be fulfilled. If it
seems slow, do not despair, for these things will surely come to pass. Just be patient! They will not be overdue a single
day!"
The
things you've waited for in your life, God will bring to fulfillment if you do
not faint, do not fret, do not fear, do not forget.
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