"Christ is Risen! So Why Do We Have to Wait?" Sermon

CHRIST IS RISEN! SO WHY DO WE HAVE TO WAIT?
Sermon by Judy Turner

For the last month, we have been on a journey as disciples of Jesus. During Holy Week we remembered the events of the last week of our Savior and leader’s life. Like Peter, John, and Mary we stood at the foot of the cross and could not take in the horror of the death of our Lord. We shared their sorrow as they laid Him in the tomb, and felt the death of hope. Easter Sunday we shared their amazement at news too good to be true. “He is risen?” How could that be? But we heard His beloved voice again, saw Him with our own eyes, our Lord was here with us again! And now, several Sundays after Easter, we continue the journey with those first disciples as gradually the reality sinks in. This is no illusion; Jesus is truly alive again. We are now in the period of 40 days when in His resurrected body the Lord Jesus continued to be with his disciples. What did he do during those 40 days? Luke tells us: He gave them instructions through the Holy Spirit, He spoke to them about the Kingdom of God. He gave many convincing proofs that He was alive.
Acts 1:1-8
1In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5For John baptized with[a] water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." 6So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" 7He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

WAITING CAN BE HARD
Luke may remember this occasion particularly, because Jesus said to wait, and (I can imagine) that seemed so counterintuitive. I can imagine the disciples were fired up and ready to go and change the world! But Jesus said to wait. And maybe as we’re on this journey with them, we feel puzzled, frustrated, and agitated. Why wait? How do we feel about waiting? Do you enjoy a nice, long wait? What about the long wait in the doctor’s office or in line at Wal Mart?

If you’re like me, we aren’t very good even at little waits in daily life. But there are much more serious kinds of waiting in our lives as Christians. There’s the waiting of a single person who longs for a life companion, there’s the waiting of a childless couple, but prayers seem to go unanswered. There’s the unemployed person waiting for a job, the waiting of a spouse that’s trapped in a hurting marriage that never seems to change. There’s the person struggling with an addiction, crying out to God to just take it away, but each day the battle continues. Or, maybe like the disciples after Easter, we are eager to do something significant for God, we feel a passion to do a particular work for God, but the door doesn’t seem to open. “You’ve called me to do this. You’ve put it in my heart. How long will I have to wait?” We get stressed and distressed with waiting. We ask, “Why does God make us wait? If God can do anything and He’s all loving, why doesn’t He bring us relief and give us answers NOW? Why doesn’t He open the doors and use me NOW?

WHY DO WE WAIT?
God Changes our Focus
Often, God does something in us as we wait that is as important as the answer or opening we are waiting for. While we’re waiting, God may refocus us from “The Kingdom of me” to “The Kingdom of God. Jesus started His ministry with a stunning announcement of good news, “The Kingdom of God is at hand, here, in your midst. The Kingdom is the reality of a loving God in charge, fulfilling His good purposes. And Jesus says that by following Him you can step into that reality here and now. You can experience a life of intimacy and interaction with God. It is available to you. The disciples didn’t get it, even after hearing Jesus teach about the Kingdom of God and demonstrate it for 3 years! The disciples say to the resurrected Jesus, “Are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” They want to return to the glory of the past. They need the Holy Spirit to give them understanding and change their focus. We can’t be too hard on the disciples. Sometimes, instead of being willing to move with faith and hope to face the challenges of our mission field today, we would really rather go back to the comfortable church of 1952. But it’s not about us and what makes us comfortable! God has to change our focus from the “Kingdom of me” or “The Kingdom of us” before we can truly be of service to the Kingdom of God.

God Changes Our Character
In our waiting times, God may be changing our focus. Sometimes, in our waiting, God changes our character, so we can truly do His work in His way. We hear a lot about trusting God. But how much can God trust us? We want to be able to pray and see prayers miraculously answered. We want to give our time and effort to doing great things for God. But what if God did pour out His power in our lives? Could He trust us to use that power rightly? I heard a young man named Steve share his story of a dream of planting a church. He felt called to that work of God. He had a passion for it. He targeted an area with lots of unchurched people. He worked his tail off. He reached some people and they started worshipping together, but the people didn’t stick. After several years of hard work and sacrifice, he had to close down the project. Steve cried out to God in his sense of failure and anger, “Why did you let me down?” “My son”, he heard in his spirit, “This was never my project. I’m crazy about you, but I’m not crazy about your pride.” Through what seemed like failure, God worked in Steve, developing in him the character of Christ, listening and obedient to the Father’s direction. God is crazy about you. You are one in whom Christ dwells and delights. But is there something in your life God isn’t crazy about? God want to do a work in you, so He can work more effectively through you? After several years of waiting, the Lord opened a door for Steve to plant a church, which is thriving.

HOW DO WE WAIT?
Practice of the 9 Ways
So, how do we wait? Do we sit and watch tv until God does something? Biblical waiting is not passively sitting and doing nothing. The disciples, told to wait, went to Jerusalem and “joined together constantly in prayer,” or another translation says, “they devoted themselves to prayer.” Can you imagine what might happen if we DEVOTED ourselves to prayer? The 9 ways are a way of life, and a roadmap for “waiting times” in our lives. When we wait, we actively practice the 9 Ways.
And we make daily decisions to trust and to hope.

Daily Decisions to Trust and to Hope
John Ortberg says, “ Waiting on the Lord is a confident, disciplined, expectant, active, sometimes painful clinging to God. Waiting on the Lord is the continual, daily decision to say, “God, I will trust you and I will obey you even through the circumstances of my life are not turning out the way I want them to, and they may never turn out the way I want them to. I’m betting everything on you, God, and there is no plan B. “ We wait with hope. Hope is the continual, steady expectation of good from God. We don’t know how God is going to work, but we wait expecting something really good, because God is loving goodness. That is His character. We choose to believe that God is always at work for our good, even if it seems that nothing good is happening. When we continually make these choices, we grow in our intimacy with God and we become people He can trust to do His work in His way.
WHEN GOD SAYS, “GO”

To our hopes and dreams sometimes God says, “No”, sometimes God says, “Wait”, and at some point, God says, “Go!” There comes a time when God moves. God acts. On the Day of Pentecost, God said, “Let’s go.” And the disciples received power: intellectual power, wisdom and knowledge; spiritual power, great faith to do impossible things as miracles of the Spirit; emotional power to deeply love one another and the people of the world; physical power, strength and endurance beyond their human capacity. The disciple received power and became Jesus’ witnesses, to the ends of the earth.

John and I have shared our story of how we got to this area. For over 20 years we had the dream, the passion, for mentoring spiritual leaders for Christ’s mission. We tried to move forward, but doors did not open. But in 2004, God said, “It’s time. Take some big steps of faith.” Our first response was, “Yikes!” As we took those steps, God miraculously provided the means, the place, the people. It is not to our credit that we took those steps of faith. We did it afraid, and were only able to do it because the Holy Spirit had more of us than at any time before in our lives. God had worked within us through those long years of waiting. We now look back and say, “God’s timing is perfect.” We weren’t ready to walk this walk of faith before now.
Easter Sunday I had a profound experience of gratitude for our journey of faith. As the service opened, Dawson and John stepped into the baptistry. Then Scott, our youth pastor, baptized Corey, Zach, and Trevor. These 4 young men on Easter Sunday were claiming the Christ who first claimed them, and setting the direction of the rest of their lives as a followers of Jesus. And I thought, “Oh God, thank you. I wouldn’t have missed this moment for anything! Thank you for putting your dream in our hearts 20 years ago. And when it was your time, you gave us the faith and courage to go. Oh God, there is nothing so satisfying as knowing you and doing your work.”

WHAT IS YOUR NEXT STEP?
God is always inviting us to take the next step in this journey of drawing closer to Jesus, becoming like Jesus, and doing the work of Jesus. What is your next step? Are you willing to put your hand in the hand of God and say, “Let’s go?”