03-24-13 But I Don’t Want to Wait...

Phil. 2:12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;

Phil. 2:13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

We have spent several weeks together

looking at what Paul is saying

in this remarkable sentence

in the second chapter

of his letter to the Philippians.

We have seen him call us to an attitude

of awe and reverence,

to fear and trembling as we begin to understand the commitment God has made

to each of His children,

an agreement in which He has chosen

to indwell each Christian,

and to express Himself through each Christian

in a way that perfectly fits

our unique, distinct personalities,

flavoring who we are

with who He is and what He has accomplished in our lives.

You realize, I hope,

that God has never asked us

to do anything FOR Him.

Doing things FOR God makes great religion,

but it has nothing whatsoever to do

with true Christianity.

God does not want

nor expect us to try to somehow

pay Him back

for all He has chosen to do for us.

The whole idea is absurd.

We have nothing to offer Him

that He has not first given to us.

No, what God is asking from us

is simply our willingness to allow Him

to express Himself through us -

Christ in you, the hope of glory...

And we have been looking at this sentence

from Philippians 2:12-13

in which Paul gives us greater insight

into how this “Christ in us” arrangement

between our Lord and ourselves

actually works itself out in daily living.

Paul has told us that God has committed Himself

to accomplishing two things within us:

He has promised both to WILL and to WORK FOR His good pleasure.

In other words,

God has promised to place within us

the DESIRES for the things He seeks to do within us,

and He has also promised to bring those desires into reality

in the way that perfectly fits with

all He is seeking to do through us.

Don’t you find the Christian life remarkable?

I have to tell you, my sense of WONDER

at what God has allowed me to enter into through Christ

grows more intense

the longer I live.

I spent so much of my earlier years with Christ

trying so hard to do and be

everything I thought I should do and be,

everything I thought He was requiring me

to DO and BE.

My life was so filled with the screaming demands

I was making on myself,

I could rarely hear the desires

my Lord was placing within me.

My walk with my Lord

was a little like trying to carry on a conversation with a good friend

in a room filled with 15 or 20 preschool boys and girls.

The noise level

and the amount of chaos made it extremely difficult

to catch the drift of the conversation.

But during the past 46 years

I have watched my Lord round up

many of those chaotic toddlers

and put them down for their naps.

And each time one more drops off to sleep

I can hear the voice of my Lord

just a little better,

and our conversations make a little more sense to me.

And I wouldn’t trade the growing sense of wonder

that I am discovering in my Christian life now

for anything I have ever known before.

What an amazing thing - that God should find

such pleasure in expressing Himself

through each of us

in His own perfect way.

We spent last week talking about this agreement God has made with us

in which He places within each of us

the desires for the things He longs do within us and through us,

and I mentioned that

if those desires are not present in a Christian

it is because something has happened

to block those desires

from becoming the motivating force God intends them to be.

We spent the morning looking at 3 possible desire-blockers.

#1. The first one is what we called Religious addiction.

It is falling victim to the lie that the path to security with God and to effective Christian living is found through careful observance of a prescribed set of religious duties.

It is an approach to God in which the bottom line is - learn the rules and follow them.

2. The second barrier we looked at is when the Christian is deceived into believing his or her needs cannot be met within God’s protective moral framework.

Once this lie takes root within the Christian,

once we believe we must choose between obedience to God on one side

and meeting some basic life need on the other,

it will paralyze our walk with the King

until we recognize and defeat the lie

with the truth.

And that, by the way,

is not simply or even primarily an intellectual process.

It isn’t like seeing our calculation error in a math problem

and then reworking the numbers to get the correct answer.

Certainly it often takes our learning or relearning some truth about ourselves or our God,

but the really hard part

is often our recognizing and confronting

the emotional lies within us -

those places where what we are feeling

is utterly inconsistent with the truth,

and utterly inconsistent with what will truly bring fulfillment and satisfaction in life.

There are times in that process

when we may find ourselves saying to our Lord,

“OK, this doesn’t feel at all right.

There’s no way I can see how what You’re saying

is going to get me where I need to be.

But I’m going to choose to trust You more than I trust what I feel.

I need You to get me through this

because right now I don’t see where we’re going,

much less how You’re going to get us there.”

#3. The last barrier we looked at that has the ability to seal us off from the desires

God is seeking to place within our hearts

is when we reject the growth project or issue He has selected for us.

And I want to add just a few words of clarification here before we move on.

There are times in each of our lives

when our Lord will seek to turn our attention to painful

or difficult

or confusing

or frightening issues within us -

unresolved residue

from our own sins

or the effects of the sins of others upon us.

Each time our Lord brings up one of these issues

it is His call to us to trust Him,

...to trust His strength to bring us through,

to trust His love

and His leadership

and His ability to bring the healing we need.

I think for most of us it is in these type of issues

that our practical trust in God

does most of its growing.

Watching God part the Red Sea is all well and good,

but quite honestly, it doesn’t change anyone’s life.

That entire generation of Israelites

who walked through that Sea

on dry land

ultimately perished in the dessert

because they refused to trust God.

No, the thing that changes our lives

is when our Lord reaches into our own life

and takes the raging sea within us

and brings peace and healing

where once there was only churning pain.

But that process often demands

hard choices of trust on our part,

choices to face honestly the issues

He is seeking to share with us.

When I talk about us rejecting the growth project or issue God has selected for us,

I am not suggesting that we should

spring for joy at the existence of the problem,

but I am saying that we must face it honestly with our Lord

and follow His lead through the healing process.

The kind of rejection I’m talking about

is when the Christian just denies there is a problem.

God does not ask us to have answers.

He has all the answers we will ever need.

He does, however, ask us to have honesty - with Him and with ourselves,

an honesty that agrees with Him

when He places His hand upon

an issue in our life that must be resolved.

#4. I think I might add one additional barrier to our list as well -

sometimes we cannot hear the desires

God has placed within us

until He has first been able

to put some of the toddlers in our life

down for their naps.

Now I know that’s a word picture

more than a concept,

but sometimes the kind of healing God needs to do in our life

involves His efforts to bring

a sufficient inner calm in us

so that we can focus on Him.

The Lord’s comment to Martha in Luke 10:41-42

is certainly the classic example of toddlers run wild.

Luke 10:41 But the Lord answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things;

Luke 10:42 but only a few things are necessary, really only one, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her. "

There is a process of uncluttering

that is essential to life with God,

and part of that uncluttering involves

throwing out all those things

the Lord has not given us to do.

Another part involves reworking our priorities

so that we can make choices

that take us where we really want to be.

Now, two weeks ago we were talking about the way in which God often

places a desire within us,

and then places us in a position

in which there is an extended period of time between creating the desire

and seeing it fulfilled.

In Paul’s terms here in Philippians 2:12-13

we are talking about a time gap

between when He WILLS within us

and when He WORKS FOR His good pleasure.

This waiting principle is so prevalent

throughout the history of God’s dealings with His people that it is almost a given.

When we were talking about it two weeks ago I mentioned that it is one of the most

effective tools God has for dealing with

the way in which our flesh

tends to corrupt the desires God places within us.

Our flesh messes things up in two major ways -

either we take the desires God has given us

and then try to figure out how we can use them to meet our own fleshly goals,

or we will attempt to accomplish the desires

through our own fleshly techniques.

I used Moses and his attempt to organize

a revolt among the Israelites

to pull off their own escape from slavery in Egypt

as an example.

And sometimes the best thing in the world for us

is to live with an unfulfilled desire

born out of the working of God within us,

knowing we are powerless to bring that desire into reality.

It builds within us a dependance upon God that nothing else can do,

bringing us to the point where we know

that only God can give birth and life

to the desires He has placed within us in a way that’s right.

And He does it in a way that builds within us

a heart of praise,

and gratitude

and dependance upon Him

that nothing else could accomplish.

Maybe an example out of my own life will help.

Most of you don’t know that nearly 40 years ago

I was on staff at another church

here in Soldotna.

I was the Youth Pastor - that was back when I had a lot more hair

and my beard was brown.

I was the youth Pastor, but what I really longed to do was teach the Bible.

It was a desire God had placed deep within me.

I was involved with that church for several years

and during that time my flesh took that desire and told me that the place

I really belonged was in the pulpit of that church.

The problem was that the Senior Pastor

had no intentions of leaving.

I tried all sorts of subtle maneuvers

to try to arrange things the way

I really thought they should be,

and when I couldn’t make it work,

I finally just gave up,

and Sandee, Joni, and I moved to Dallas Texas to start over.

I can remember during the year we were in Texas

sitting in several churches

longing to be able to teach,

wondering if I would ever again have that privilage.

It was during that year that a number of families

here in Soldotna decided to get together

and form what has become Peninsula Bible Fellowship.

A year after our move to Texas

I received a letter from those families

asking if I would come back and provide teaching for the young church.

Looking back on it now

I realize I had the desire right,

but I had all the details wrong.

I just wanted a pulpit to preach in,

my Lord wanted a place for me

that fit me perfectly,

a place that gave me the freedom

and the support I needed to really grow.

Now I know all too well

the kind of questions we wrestle with

during those waiting times in our lives.

And at the top of that list

is the question, “So, what can I do during those waiting times?”

And the first obvious answer to that

is - we can do anything we want to do

within the moral framework of God.

Moses got married, had children,

found a career,

made a living,

planned for retirement,

and let go of any hope of fulfilling

the desire God had placed within him.

He didn’t let go of the desire,

but he did let go of his determination

to try to fulfill that desire through his own efforts.

I did the same type of thing -

I found a career installing modular office furniture,

paid my bills,

tried to understand what it meant

to be a good husband

and a good daddy,

and gave up any hope of ever being able

to fulfill the desire God had place within me.

After all, what church would ever want

a Bible teacher who had no Bible School or Seminary degree,

in fact no Bible school or Seminary training whatsoever,

no academic credentials,

no denomination behind him?

So the answer to the question, “What can we do while we’re waiting?” is - we can do anything we want.

But I think that is not the real question we struggle with.

I think the real question we have is,

“Are there things we can do during the waiting times

that will shorten the waiting times.”

I don’t believe there is any concept in Scripture

that goes more directly against the grain of our American culture

than this whole business of waiting on the Lord.

Productivity and success is the bottom line in our society.

How many,

how much,

how well,

how effectively are the measures of Religious success.

You see, even the fact that we ASK the question,

“How can we shorten the waiting period?”

grows out of our results-oriented perspective.

When we hear Paul saying,

for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure...

we just naturally assume that the GOAL

is getting that WORKING part fulfilled.

We just flat hate to wait!

We would often far rather burn ourselves out trying to do it for God

than wait on Him to do it in and through us.

Inactivity and non-productivity from our perspective are the worst possible evils.

I have been thinking about this question

of whether there is anything we can do

to shorten the waiting periods in our life,

and I’ll tell you the conclusion I’ve come to.

The answer to that question

has to grow out of an understanding

of what God is seeking to accomplish

through having us wait.

Do you know why He has us wait?

Because nothing in all the world

can more effectively build a kind of healthy dependence upon God

than our being forced to wait on Him.

I believe the purpose for having us wait

is to bring us to the point where we know

the only hope we have of ever seeing the desire He has placed within us fulfilled

is if God in His grace

chooses to step into our life

and bring it to fulfillment.

Waiting has the ability to develop in us

a kind of desperate, helpless dependence upon God

as nothing else in the world can do.

There is nothing our flesh detests more

than waiting.

Because of that, there is nothing

that is more effective in breaking

the power of the flesh than being forced to wait.

Waiting, and waiting alone

has the ability to bring us to the point

where we can finally say to our God,

“Lord, I give up!

I cannot do this for you.

I cannot do this without you.

I cannot do this!

And unless You bring it to pass,

it will never get done.”

So, here’s my conclusion...

God alone knows how long I need to wait

before I’ll finally pry my flesh fingers

off of those desires He has placed within me

and allow Him to take over.

It’s not a work I can accomplish in myself,

it is a work that only God can accomplish in me,

and because of that, there is nothing I can DO to shorten the process.

OK, we’re out of time,

but I think we need to do some more

with this whole waiting thing.

So next week we’ll all get together and celebrate the resurrection of our King,

and then two weeks from today

I believe I’ll pick up right here

and add some additional thoughts

that may help us better appreciate

what’s happening and why

when our God calls us to wait.