Open the Bible

Colin Smith: We think of waiting primarily as something that we have to endure in order to get what we want. But God speaks of waiting as the way in which we grow when we don't have what we want, and there's all the difference in the world between these two things.

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. None of us like to be waiting. We live in this fast-paced, instant culture. So if God does want us to wait, do we just need to change our mindset?

Colin Smith: Well, I think it's a completely different way of thinking about our whole relationship with God. God is not like a kind of slot machine who's there for me to manipulate and get what I want and hey, I just have to wait a little longer and then I'm going to get what I want from God.

God may actually grow me in my faith precisely in the situation where I don't get what I want, and it's there that his mercy and his grace begins to bear fruit within my life. So sometimes when I don't have what I want, that's the most critical moment of development in the Christian life.

Steve Hiller: So often, as we look back in hindsight, we recognize those were the opportunities where our faith did grow and we were dependent upon God.

Colin Smith: It's just fascinating listening to people talk and giving their testimony. How many people have you ever heard, Steve, who say, "You know, I really grew as a Christian when I was being fantastically successful"? It's usually not the case. And fruit comes in some of the situations of disappointment where we're not receiving what we wanted and we're learning to look to the Lord in a way that's different from other times.

Steve Hiller: Well, today we want to look at God's Word. We're in the book of Jude, looking at verse 21 as we begin a message entitled "Learn to Wait." Here's Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: Now we're returning today to our series entitled "Keeping Yourself in Spiritual Shape," where we're learning seven workouts for a healthy Christian life. And as you have your Bible open at the letter of Jude, if you look at verse 20, you'll be reminded there of the early workouts that we've considered and learned and I trust been practicing together.

Number one: build yourself up in your most holy faith. Number two: pray in the Holy Spirit. Number three: keep yourselves in the love of God. If you want to live a healthy Christian life, this is how you get yourself in shape.

Now, if we pause there for just a moment, my observation would be this: there is nothing surprising there, is there? If you had been asked to write a list of key things that you should work on in order to have a healthy Christian life, I think you would have come up with these three, and so would I. You would have been able to say, "You know, I need to build up my faith, I need to work on prayer, and I need to know more about love."

But my question is, if you had been asked to write this list, would you have got the fourth one? Because I don't think I would have. Look at it in verse 21. "Keep yourselves in the love of God," and then here's the fourth workout: "as you wait. As you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life." You boil this fourth workout down to one word, it would be simply this: waiting. Waiting. What have you got to do if you're to keep yourself in good spiritual shape? You're going to have to learn to wait. To wait.

Now, at the beginning of our series, we noted that a good fitness routine will exercise all of the muscles of the body. And we also noted that the exercises, if we're in a training routine, that we enjoy the most are usually the ones that exercise the muscles that are already the strongest. That's why we enjoy it and that's why these muscles are strong, because we enjoy doing that exercise, we're good at it.

But of course, the exercise in any physical fitness routine that we most need is the one that addresses the muscle groups that are weakest within the body. And I think that this fourth workout develops an area of the spiritual life in which most, if not all of us, really struggle.

Now, just thinking about this subject, it struck me there is a lot of waiting that's going on among us right now. Some of us are searching for a job. We've been looking and we still are, but it hasn't opened up, and you're waiting. Some of us are looking for that special person to share life with, but we have not found them. You're waiting. Others are longing for a child, but nothing has happened, and you're waiting. Others are longing to see a deep change in someone who you love and have prayed for, but you have not seen it yet, and you're waiting.

So there is indeed an awful lot of waiting going on among us. We could multiply examples, they will tumble through our minds, I'm sure. And it could well be that learning to wait in the way that the Bible describes it to us will turn out to be one of the most important spiritual disciplines of your whole life. If you want to keep yourself in spiritual shape, you need to learn to wait.

Well, that's our subject this morning, and we're going to develop three exercises that will help us in this fourth workout. But first, I want simply to remind you of how important this subject of waiting is in the Bible, because it's only when we understand its importance that we'll be motivated to get into this fourth workout and to get ourselves in spiritual shape in this regard. So let me give you just a very quick sample of the Scripture that speaks to this very important subject of waiting. I want us to have the flavor. So let me just read to you five verses from the Old Testament and then five from the New.

And I want simply for us to have the sense of how God repeatedly speaks to us about waiting. Wait, wait, wait. Psalm 27:14: "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart, wait for the Lord." Psalm 37:7: "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him." Then notice the context: "Do not fret when men succeed in their ways and they carry out their evil schemes." You see evil being displayed on the news? Wait for the Lord.

Psalm 130:5-6: "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for morning." Isaiah 8:17: "I will wait for the Lord who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob." Very important verse there to understand the Christian life. There are times where God, though he does not remove his presence, hides his face, and I say, "Where are you, oh God?" And Isaiah says, "I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from Jacob."

And then Isaiah 40:31, perhaps the best known in the authorized version: "Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall soar on wings like eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not faint." Now when we come into the New Testament, it's fascinating that the whole Christian community, the church, is described as a community of people who are waiting.

1 Corinthians 1:7: "You do not lack any spiritual gift," Paul says to the Corinthian church, "as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed." Or 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10, speaking of the testimony of these people who'd come to faith in Jesus Christ: "You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven." Or Titus, speaking about holiness of life: "The grace of God teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled and upright and godly lives in this present age while we wait for our blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our God and Savior Jesus Christ."

Or Hebrews 9:28: "Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people. He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to who? Those who are waiting for him." You see, that's what the Christian community is. It is a community of people who are waiting, looking, longing for the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then finally, our verse this morning, Jude 1:21: "Keep yourselves in the love of God as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life."

Now, that's just a very, very small sample. Could have gone on throughout our entire time. The Bible is full of it, and it's one of the most neglected disciplines in the whole of the spiritual life in our instant society.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and a message called "Learn to Wait." Now we're going to pause here, but you won't have to wait long. We'll get back to the message in just a little bit. Our message is from a series called "Keeping Yourself in Spiritual Shape" as we take a look at the book of Jude.

And if you miss any broadcast in the series, you can listen online. Just come to openthebible.org. There you can stream the program or download an MP3 for free. You can also listen if you have the Open the Bible app. You'll find that for free at your App Store. Or one other way to listen is to order a copy of the series on CD. Again, it's called "Keeping Yourself in Spiritual Shape." You can ask about that when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. That's 1-877-673-6365, or you'll find ordering information online at openthebible.org.

Well, I love reading, but admittedly I don't have a lot of time to read. So when I'm in the car, I listen to a lot of audiobooks, I listen to a lot of podcasts, and maybe that's you. You resonate and identify with that. If that's the case, we're excited about a brand new podcast we want you to check out. It's called "Hike Through the Bible."

Colin Smith: Yeah, and the Hike Through the Bible podcast will take you on a journey through the entire Bible story, giving you the option of listening or watching rather than reading. And in each episode, I'll read a chapter of my book, "Hike Through the Bible," and then I'll discuss it with some friends.

I hope you'll join me in hiking through the Bible. You'll grow in your faith, you'll deepen your grasp of Scripture, and you'll come to love Jesus more. It's not too late to get started. You can subscribe to the Hike Through the Bible podcast for free wherever you get your podcasts, and you'll find more information at openthebible.org/hike.

Steve Hiller: Well, thank you, Colin. I do hope that you'll take that hike through the Bible with Pastor Colin. Certainly look forward to doing that together. Again, if you want more information, openthebible.org/hike. Well, if you just joined us, we're in the book of Jude looking at verse 21 today, continuing a message called "Learn to Wait." Again, here's Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: Now, the problem, of course, with waiting is that it always seems like a complete waste of time, doesn't it? "I'm waiting for a train. I'm waiting for my appointment." So we look for things to do while we're waiting, which is why there are magazines in a doctor's waiting room. We try and fill up the time that is redundant. I take a book in my pocket because I don't want to waste the time while I'm waiting.

So we think of waiting primarily as something that we have to endure in order to get what we want. But God speaks of waiting as the way in which we grow when we don't have what we want, and there's all the difference in the world between these two things.

Waiting, as God speaks to us about it, is never wasted time. Waiting is one of the workouts that will, properly used, shape your Christian life. Waiting can be one of the greatest growth opportunities in your entire walk with God. And if we could grasp that, it will change our whole perspective on some of the situations we find most difficult and most frustrating in our lives.

Now, I want to suggest three ways in which you can grow while you're waiting. The first is simply this: grow in patience as you embrace the disappointments of your life. Listen to our verse again. "Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life." Now, waiting is of course what we do when things have not worked out as we had hoped.

Somewhere within every heart, there is a dream. A dream of life as we would like it to be. That dream is placed in your heart by God himself. And when Jude uses the word wait, he reminds us that the dream in your heart will never be fulfilled in this world.

That's a fundamental Christian conviction if we're to order our thinking by the Bible. Our first parents—this is one of the first things you learn in the Bible—our first parents were driven out of the Garden of Eden. Paradise was lost. And the dream cannot be fulfilled here because this world, though blessed in so many ways by the goodness of God, is nonetheless under a curse. It is a fallen world in which we live this life.

Now, if you and I lived in a land that was blighted by famine, and if your total net worth was a small shack at the side of a track and a couple of buffalo, you would understand that absolutely clearly. But it is very hard for us to understand this Bible principle living in the northwest suburbs. You see, we are so blessed that we easily confuse this with paradise. We think that if we're not in paradise now, we're nearly there, and if we just have a little bit more, we will be.

I enjoyed the testimony of one of our high schoolers a few years ago now, coming back from the Jamaica trip. She'd been greatly helped and it had had a profound impact on her life. She said, "You know, it really helped me to go to Jamaica because my idea of suffering before I went was not getting a new car at graduation." Now, we smile and we understand that, and it was good for her to go.

But you see, we're living in a culture that is sold out in the pursuit of paradise now. And if you give yourself, whatever age you are, high schooler or at any other stage of life, if you give yourself to the pursuit of paradise now, you will be disappointed. You will live in disappointment.

And when that happens, I'll tell you what you'll do: you'll be angry with God because you'll say, "God, you haven't fulfilled my dream." That's what you'll say. And that is where a great number of people in our culture who call themselves Christians are right now. It's where we are. And God has one word to say to us about all of this, and it's the word wait. Wait. Wait. You will not find paradise in this world.

You have to get that into your head if you're going to be a Christian believer. It is a fundamental point at which the Bible and our culture are in headlong opposition: you will not find paradise in this world. Now, I've got a little idea here, here's a practical suggestion for you. I've been thinking that we could design a little sign and it would say on it four words: "This is not paradise."

And I'm going to ask you to be creative in your minds now—and you can talk about this over lunch—as to all kinds of places where you could put this sign: "This is not paradise." I mean, you might want to hang it over the front door of your home, and it would greatly help you.

Because some of us are so sold out on the pursuit of this perfect family life, which we cannot attain within this world, that we become utterly crushing for everyone around us. Take a great deal of pressure off you if you could just acknowledge the truth of the Bible and put a little sign over your home that says, "This is not paradise."

You could put it over your desk at work. You could put it in your new car, because it would really help you when you're there on the Kennedy and you're so frustrated with this marvelous car and you can't go anywhere because you're in a traffic jam.

I'd be more than happy to put it on the entrance to the church here. "This is not paradise." If you came here looking for perfect believers and a perfect church, you certainly haven't found it. You have come to the wrong place. Keep looking, but you'll be very disappointed. Some couples might want to put it over the door to the bedroom. Take a lot of pressure off. My kids might want to put it over the door to their bedroom.

"This is not paradise." But the problem is that many of us think it should be because we don't believe the Bible. We expect more than God has promised in this life, and the result is that we live at a level of constant frustration and constant disappointment. The baseline for us is health and wealth and emotional fulfillment, to be loved, to be honored, to be appreciated.

We want the sinners around us to be saints, but at the same time, of course, we want the saints around us to understand that we are sinners. We want to work the minimum number of hours for the maximum amount of pay, we want it to be absolutely fulfilling work, we want larger cars, larger homes, more luxurious vacations. And in the pursuit of creating this paradise on earth, we run up massive debt. Massive debt.

And then we find out that the paradise that was promised has eluded us. That it was an advertiser's dream; it faded with the commercials. We find ourselves living under a burden, and we don't know how we got there. We got there because we didn't believe the Bible.

Now, when God does not give you what you want—in this world and this culture where we have so much—when God does not give you what you want, he opens a door of critical opportunity for your spiritual growth. Now I want to encourage you here: embrace that pain. Love God in that disappointment. Recognize that in a world of abundance, this may be one of the most important junctures in your Christian life.

Here is one place where you have the opportunity to detach yourself from the headlong pursuit of paradise in this world and to set yourself apart for Jesus Christ as Lord. And the places where you may have that opportunity in this life may be relatively few, so seize them. Grasp them. They are critical to your spiritual fitness.

The places where God calls you to wait are of great importance in your Christian life. This is a wake-up call to reality that God is giving you. There are discoveries of grace that you can make while you are waiting that you will never make while you're careering on your way with everything fulfilled. What you do not have is the place where God will do a deep work in your life. So grow in patience as you embrace the disappointments of your life.

Steve Hiller: Unfortunately, we do have to hit the pause button right there, but we're going to continue this message, "Learn to Wait," next time here on Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. Really a challenging message, I think, for all of us.

And you may want to go back and listen to this broadcast again or any other broadcast in the series. You can do that at our website; just come to openthebible.org. There you can stream the program or download an MP3 for free. You can also listen if you have the Open the Bible app. You'll find the app for free at your App Store. That's a great way to stay connected to Pastor Colin's teaching when you're on the go.

And whether you listen on the radio, on our website, or through the app, it's all made possible through your generosity. So thank you for giving to and supporting this ministry. If you're benefiting from listening to Pastor Colin's teaching each day, I want to ask you to stand with us as a financial partner. You can give online at openthebible.org or when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. Again, that's 1-877-673-6365, or again our website is openthebible.org. Colin, it's Friday and the weekend's coming.

Colin Smith: Yeah, and I want to encourage you to get to church on Sunday. Find a church where the Bible is opened and where Jesus is the center of attention. And if you live in the Chicago area and you don't have a church home, I'd love for you to join us at The Orchard. There are six locations in the northwest suburbs. For more information, go to theorchard.church.

Steve Hiller: Well, thank you, Colin, and thanks for listening. I'm Steve Hiller and I hope you'll join us next time. This program is a listener-supported production of Open the Bible.

Colin Smith: This is Pastor Colin, and I want you to know about a resource that will help you in your devotional life. It's called Open the Bible Daily. My colleague Pastor Tim Augustyn takes what you hear on Open the Bible and he edits it into daily, bite-sized chunks that you can read in your devotional time in less than three minutes. Every day you'll find a verse of Scripture, a short teaching from God's Word, and an application that you can carry with you through the day. People who use this tell us that they read it every day, and I think that if you try it, you'll love it too. For more information, visit openthebible.org/daily.