Father Abraham // The Cure for our Impatience // Pastor Josh Evans

Amen. Amen. Thank you, Bob, and praise team.

If you have your Bibles, you can go to the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter number 16, and I hope that you are doing well. I want you to know it is good to see you in God's house. If you're excited to be in church today, can I hear an amen today? And I'm thankful that you are here, and we always look forward to Sunday. Listen, I'm a pastor, so this is like the Super Bowl of the week for us, and I hope that you look forward to it.

In fact, look to the person sitting next to you and tell them it's good to see you today. And I am grateful that the rain hopefully has held off just a little bit, and the enemy's trying to challenge if we're willing to go to church. I feel like it rains every single Sunday. Have y'all noticed that? And last week, many of you just parked your bass boat outside in the parking lot and just made your way here on a boat.

And this week, luckily, it kind of held off coming in a little bit later. But listen, it is so good to see everybody here today, and we are just grateful that you are here. I want to echo what Pastor Bailey said earlier, that if this is your first time, you are our honored guest. And I just thank you so much for joining us each and every week.

We get the opportunity to connect with people for the very first time, and we do not take that for granted. We love having new people here, so I pray that your experience with us, if this is your first time here, is welcoming and enjoyable. And I tell people all the time when they ask about our church, I say, listen, we are not a perfect church, and we're not a perfect church. But I'll tell you just a couple things about our church. We love the Lord and we love people, and so we don't get it right all of the time, but I promise if that's what you're about, about loving the Lord and loving people, I think you can find a home here. And so we are just thankful that you are here.

Hope you had a good weekend. Yesterday here on our campus, we had our fast car event down in the gymnasium, and we saw Ryan told me about 150 people here yesterday, which was awesome. And that's just an outreach of our kids ministry that we do. And so all the kids came and were able to race matchbox cars and just had a good time.

And I saw many pictures and things like that. And I heard that one raised their hand for salvation yesterday. Can we give God praise for that? And so exciting. And listen, that's what it's about. That's why we do these things.

And so I am grateful. I hated we couldn't be there. We actually had plans yesterday.

We have some friends of ours from Jacksonville, Florida. And so some of them have never even seen snow. And so we went up to the mountains yesterday and we snow tubed, which was a lot of fun.

It was like 50 degrees, even though there was a lot of fake snow on the ground. And so we had a good time yesterday with them. But I was excited to be able to text back and forth with Ryan to hear how God worked yesterday at that event. Appreciate him and his leadership and all that he does to further the kingdom there in our kids ministry. Well, if you have your Bible, like I said, Genesis chapter number 16, we're going to continue a series that we started a few weeks ago entitled Father Abraham. All right, Father Abraham.

And I have this is the third week in the service and I've made the joke about the song Father Abraham the first two weeks. I'm not even going to make it, but I really want to, you know, just because that's what I think of every time I hear the name Father Abraham. But we have looked at this series over the last two weeks and we'll continue that here today as we journey through the life of Abraham and looking at his life. And really the point of the series is this, and this was what we're looking at is that God continued to put Abraham in situations where he would have to choose God over something else. That's really the story of Abraham's life. If you look at every situation in his life, you're going to find God placing him into circumstances and situations where he's either going to have to choose God or he's going to have to choose something else. And so we've seen that in week one of the series, we saw that he had to choose God and God's will over his own will. Remember when God called, when God called, I love when phones ring in church. Listen, I love humor and I can't like listen to a phone ring and not make a comment. And so it just cracks me up.

It happens to the best of us until I get it. But we saw in week one of the series that God placed Abraham, he came to him and he commissioned Abraham, what we call the Abrahamic covenant, and he told him what he's going to do in his life one day, right? And he told him that and so he had to choose God's will over leaving where he grew up, his homeland and all of those areas, all of the family, the family that he was going to leave behind, he had to leave those things in order to find God's will.

Last week we learned that he had to leave family. Remember him and Lot had to separate and we looked at that last week and when they separated, he had to choose God's will over family. Today we are going to look at how he is teaching Abraham to wait.

If you saw that in kind of all the music today, here's the thing that we're going to look at. He was teaching Abraham to wait upon the Lord. In other words, he's going to have to choose waiting on God instead of trying to take things on his own. Now, few of us, nobody in here probably loves waiting, right? If you love waiting, raise your hand. Anybody?

Is there any abnormal, weird person? Okay, I see one hand in this room. Listen, nobody likes to wait on anything, right?

We hate waiting and if you don't believe me, have you ever been put on a hold when you need to make a phone call and you're just wondering like, have they forgotten us or are they just kind of on the other line doing whatever and you kind of get frustrated or better yet, have you ever, your wife said, hey, let me run into the grocery store. It will only take a minute and you just sit tight in the car and if you circle the parking lot one time, by the time you're back up there, I'll be walking out. We'll time this perfectly. Man, we know that never happens ever. Amen.

Thank you, sir. And listen, it doesn't. I actually have used that as a game. You know, I'm pretty competitive and so I like to, I like to kind of see if I can ever time it right and I'm still not successful, but one day and so, but we hate that or if you ever are traveling and you get into traffic and you're waiting on that or you go to a restaurant and you're hungry and they see you and, and then you're waiting on, on a waitress to come or, or something like that or how about this one, especially for everybody younger, slow internet speed. Isn't that frustrating? It's like, man, can't we just make the fastest internet speed ever and just get there?

A doctor's office, you know, all these different things. We hate waiting. Our society hates waiting because when we wait, we feel like we're missing something or we feel like we are losing control over the situation. But listen, the spirit, the Christian life, what you and I are trying to live can be summed up as just a life waiting on God. Listen, I'm just going to tell you, if you signed up to be a Christian and you trust that Jesus as your savior, regardless of if that was yesterday or last year or five years ago or 50 years from now or 50 years ago, here's what I'm going to tell you is that the Christian life, you will wait on God a lot.

Many of you are in that situation right now. You've been waiting on him for something. It might be something that you are praying for, for healing, right? Maybe healing in your family or healing of a loved one or something like that. And you are praying and praying and praying and you're believing that God can heal this person in your life. And yet he's just chosen to make you wait and to teach you something about waiting. Some of you are praying for a loved one, maybe a family member, a child to come back to the Lord.

And you've been praying for years for this loved one that they would come back to God and start walking in the ways of God again. And you are continuously waiting on that. Some of you are waiting for direction. You're praying possibly about a career path or about something that you want God to lead God and direct you to whatever he wants you to do with your life. And you're waiting and waiting for answers and waiting. Some of you are praying for a child and God hasn't given you a child yet. And you're waiting for an answer, something that you want in your life. You see, waiting is difficult in any situation, but waiting on God is really hard. It's really hard. Listen, there's nobody in here.

Bob referenced this in our music a second ago. There's nobody in here who has mastered that. There's nobody in this room who is good and has just mastered the art of waiting on God. Listen, this pastor up here, I struggle with waiting on God.

When I'm praying for something, I still feel like, hey God, I need you to work in my life and fix this problem right here, right now. Don't make me wait. Don't make me wait. And here in Genesis chapter number 16, we are going to see Abram, his name hadn't been changed to Abraham yet. We're going to see Abram and Sarai and we're going to see what happens when we get impatient and we try to take things on our own will and in our own way.

And let me say, this is really the big idea that we're going to talk about for a few minutes together. The amount of patience or impatience that you demonstrate in the will of God, it will reveal the amount of trust you have in God. Let me say that again. The amount of patience that you demonstrate in the will of God is going to show and reveal the amount of trust you have in Him. If you're impatient on the Lord, it's probably because you don't deep down trust in Him enough.

You don't rest in Him enough. And that's what we're going to see here in this passage of scripture. I want to say this upfront before we jump into the text here today. There's a couple of things about Genesis chapter 16 that we need to recognize first before we jump in is this, is that back in this day, it was considered shameful for women to not have children. And that's super important as you look at the life of Abram and Sarai. For them, for Sarai, she didn't have a kid. And for them, it was shameful if they couldn't have a kid. So a lot of society back in that day, they would shame her because she couldn't have children.

But we know that she couldn't have children because God had not given her a son yet. And so when God, remember a couple of weeks ago, we looked at this, when God came and revealed Himself to Abraham and He shared with him the Abrahamic covenant, He said, listen, Abram, I'm going to make of you a great nation. That means that there's going to be a ton of kids that are going to come out of your family and it's going to be this incredible, incredible nation.

And I'm going to build a nation out of your family. You know how old they were at that time? They were like 75 years old. Now, I mean, if that ever happened to you, you'd be like, that ain't happening, right? There's a few of you in here, 75 years old.

And you're like, no, that's impossible, right? When that day, they were thinking, man, I am way past the age of having a child. And so, but it was shameful and we got to recognize that. Another thing before we jump into this is that it was common in that day to take on multiple wives. That was the culture at that time. Now, men, I don't understand why that ever was a thing, right? I mean, I got one and I can hardly handle one, okay? I love you, babe.

I love you, okay? But listen, in that culture, it was very common. It was very common and that was normal in their different culture to take on multiple wives.

And so I wanted to say that upfront as we jump in, because there's some elements of Genesis chapter 16 that is going to make you, if you kind of sit in our culture today, you're going to think a couple of things about this story and you got to understand there were some more normalcy to some of these things that we're going to see. Verse one of Genesis chapter 16 says this, now Sarai, Abram's wife, bear him no children. And she had a handmaid, an Egyptian whose name was Hagar. Sarai said unto Abram, behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing, okay? So she does recognize right up front, Sarai recognizes that it was God's sovereignty, God's plan that I don't have children yet. She recognized that right up front that it is God that had not allowed me from having children yet.

I pray thee, go in unto my maid, unto Hagar. It may be that I may obtain children by her and Abram harken to the voice of Sarai. I want you to underline in verse two when it says, it may be that I may obtain, that I may obtain. Listen, she wanted God's will, that's to have a son, but she did not want to wait for that to happen God's way.

And that's the issue. And let me remind you this, she wanted the promise of God. That's that a great nation would come out of Abram and Sarai, but she did not want to wait on God's way to get there. Let me remind you today, you cannot obtain God's promise your way. You can't obtain God's promise for your life your way. You see, God has a will, but he also has a way of going about his will. And I believe, I don't know every single person in here that well, but I believe if we were to go one at a time through every single person in here and hand you a microphone and say, hey, do you want God's will for your life? I think everybody in here would say, well, of course, yes, I want God's will for my life. We all want that, but some of us don't want to find God's will and God's promises his way. We want it our way.

And that's what you're going to see here. Sarai, she wanted God's will, but she wanted to take it upon herself. So she's like, hey, go in unto Hagar and have a child with Hagar, our maid.

Verse three, and Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt 10 years in the land of Canaan, gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. So just an FYI, it's been 10 years since the promise that God would make of them a great nation. It's been 10 years up to this point. So they have waited for that. God had revealed himself 10 years ago and told them, hey, I'm going to make of you a great nation.

Okay. I'm going to make your name great. You're going to have land, everything. Remember he took them to the land. He said, Abram, look upon you that way, this way, that way, and this way, everything you see is going to be yours.

And you're going to have a great nation built from you. And then 10 years later, they still don't even have a son. You can imagine they're waiting. They're probably frustrated. They're like, hey, I'm running out of time. There's no way physically we can have children at this age.

So they become impatient, which can happen for you and me. So this is 10 years later, verse four. So he went in unto Hagar and she conceived, she got pregnant. When she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. Verse five, and Sarai said unto Abram, my wrong be upon thee. I have given my maid unto thy bosom.

And when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes. The Lord judge between me and thee. Now you can imagine the confusion right there of Abram, right? Sarai comes to him and says, hey, I want you to do this. He listens.

He does. She gets pregnant. That's exactly what Sarai wanted.

And now Sarai's mad at Abram for doing this to begin with. Men, can you relate? Let's just be honest. You ever had your wife say something to you, ask you something and you answer it and she gets mad at you for the answer that you gave, right?

It's like, thank you, man. I'm getting a lot of amens about this. Next week, we're getting out of this series and we're talking about marriage. Okay. That's what we're going to talk about.

All right. But sometimes it's like, you know, it's hard for us. I call these things lose, lose situations, right? There's just not, you can't win. It's like whatever I say, and men, by the way, sometimes it's best not to say anything. And if you don't say anything, just to remind you, you still lose. Okay. Does not matter.

All right. But here we have this situation. Sarai then gets mad at Abram for what is happening here in Abram verse six. But Abram said unto Sarai, behold, thy maid is in thy hand due to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. So Hagar leaves and the angel of the Lord found Hagar by a mountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to shore. And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence comest thou?

Or where are you from? And whither wilt thou go? She said, I flee from the face of my mistress, Sarai. The angel of the Lord said unto her, return to thy mistress and submit thyself under her hands. The angel of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitudes. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, behold, thou art with child and shall bear a son and shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord hath heard thy affliction.

And he will be a wild man. His hand will be against every man, every man's hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, thou God seest me.

For she said, I have also here looked after him that seeth me. Wherefore the well was called Bir lehayrai. Behold, it is between Kadesh and Bereth, and Hagar bare Abram a son. And Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare Ishmael. And Abram was four score and six years old when Hagar bare Ishmael.

I was 86 years old when Ishmael was born. Listen, Abram and Sarai, they got impatient because they like us struggle with waiting on God. Listen, I want you to understand, you know, I mentioned several things earlier in this message. Some of you are in that place right now that you're waiting on God for an answer of something. And I want to remind you that in scripture, it is not uncommon. In fact, it is very normal for God to want to teach us something while we wait. While we wait for the answer, while we wait for the healing, while we wait for the direction, while we wait for whatever we're praying for, God is teaching us something while we wait. If you remember Noah, Noah waited for 100 years for rain to happen.

By the way, something he had never seen before. Remember Joseph? Joseph experienced tons of waiting and then to cap it off, he gets thrown into prison, wrongfully accused.

And he waits for a long time in prison before he actually gets out. Moses found himself on the backside of the desert for 40 years. Remember the children of Israel?

Remember they were in captivity there in Egypt for 400 years. Job, you remember Job's life? One bad thing after another happened to him. You ever felt that way?

Like every time you turn around, something terrible is happening in your life. Well, Job can relate to that. And listen, Job, he waited through the suffering that he experienced. Remember David, when Samuel came to anoint him to be king and then he anointed him and what did he do?

He left. It wasn't until many years later that David would be anointed to be king. He had to wait for the promise of God. If you look at the last part of the Old Testament, after the book of Malachi, the Lord's voice was quiet for hundreds of years after that.

You see, there was a waiting period. If you look in the New Testament, remember Jairus' daughter was sick and he comes to Jesus and he's begging Jesus to come and heal his daughter. Just like if your daughter was sick and you knew that healing was in Jesus and you're begging and begging and begging and she's not getting healed. And we saw that Jesus was teaching him to wait.

How about Lazarus? When Lazarus died, word got to Jesus and he took his time getting there where he had been dead for several days when Jesus arrived. You see, there's something in scripture that God is trying to teach you and me about waiting.

And by the way, the question is not this. It's not if you're going to wait because we all are. It's about how you are going to wait. It's about how you're going to wait. Are you going to get impatient like Abram and Sarai with whatever situation you have going on in your life?

Or are you going to choose to trust in the will and way of God for whatever situation that you are going through? Listen, your patience reveals the degree to which you trust in God or not. Let me give you a couple of dangers of impatience from this passage first. Listen, impatience, taking things by yourself and handling things your way, impatience will open you up to heed carnal advice. Impatience will open you up to heed carnal advice. Let me just say that there is danger in listening to the advice of people that have not journeyed that far in faith and do not display the fruits of the spirit.

You know, this is what happened here. Sarai, she had not trusted in God. She had not placed in her faith in God that long before this and Abram here because they were impatient, it opened them up to really, really bad advice. This was ungodly advice. This was evil advice. This was sinful advice. Let me remind you that the best advice that you can ever receive from anybody is this, it's biblical advice. It's biblical advice. I want to ask you how many of you have relationships in your family and relationships, friends, where you can go to them when you are experiencing a problem and they can give you not just human speaking advice, but that they can give you biblical advice.

That's the kind of people we need to surround ourselves with. We need to have relationships around us that can push us and challenge us spiritually that are going to give us advice that aligns itself with God's word, not just advice that you want to hear. Don't forget that the word of God is practical. The scripture talks about that in the New Testament. I know sometimes we look at the word of God and we think it's not practical to your daily situation. Well, let me remind you that the word of God says that it is profitable, practical for doctrine, that's teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness.

You say, what in the world does that all mean? I mean this, that the word of God has the answers that you are looking for in your life. That's what it has. It tells you how to live. It tells you how to make decisions. It tells you when you mess up how to get right and it tells us how to stay right.

It has everything that we need. And so many of us when we're looking for advice and we're looking for wisdom and we're looking for direction and we're looking for healing, we're looking for all of that all outside of the world and we forget that the best advice we can get of how to handle those situations is found in the word of God. Don't let the word of God be the last place you look for advice. Let it be the first place you look for advice.

It needs to be the very first thing. See here in Patience, it opened Abram up to really bad advice. The second thing in Patience did was this, in Patience it encourages us to listen to selfish desires. You see Abram wanted a son badly so it affected his decision making. In other words, his selfishness and what he wanted led him, by the way, and what he wanted wasn't bad. Wanting a son wasn't the sin, it was the way he went about getting that in his life. You see his selfishness, it made him or led him to take action into his own hands.

You see selfishness can lead you to take action into your own hands and make bad decisions. I can remember shortly after my wife and I got married, we got married and there was this moment, my phone stopped working and this was back in 2008 when we got married and so I had a flip phone. We had not migrated over to smart phones yet and so I had a flip phone and so that's all I had what stopped working so I had to make a decision. Are we going to go ahead and transition to get a smart phone or are we going to just get another flip phone and save that time to do it? Now I want you to understand, if you're young in here, you think that is a no brainer decision but I want you to know there's a few people in this room, I'm not going to call them out, that still have flip phones.

They know who they are. There's a few of them in here. But during that day, the reason why this was a big decision is because when that first happened, it was a major price jump to go from a flip phone to your first smart phone. It was expensive, the phone was expensive, you had to pay for all of this other stuff like internet and all that kind of stuff.

I know if you're young in here, you're thinking, wow, there was a day where we didn't have these. Yes, there was. And so I went into a store, it's called Altel at the time and so I went into Altel and that's how old I am by the way and so I went into Altel and I was looking at these phones and I found the one that I wanted.

I'll show you a picture of it. Here's what it looked like. So I saw this, it was like an Android and Android had just come onto the scene.

The Apple iPhone was there, but Altel, which was my carrier, didn't have an iPhone. And so I saw this and I was like, you know, this is what I want, this top of the line at the time. And so I was like, you know, I'm going to get this what was called a Droid Aries is what it was called. An Aries. Anybody have a Droid Aries?

Anybody or am I the only one? Okay, that should show you something. Thank you, sir. That's awesome. There we go.

We're good. And so I saw this phone and they were selling me on it and answering all these questions about it. And so my wife had told me she was at work at the time.

She had told me specifically, she said that before you make a decision, you need to call me. Okay. And so I saw this phone and I loved it.

And by the way, if you know anything about your pastor, I'm extremely gullible. You can sell me on anything, right? If you came up to me with a flip phone and told me this is the way of the future, I might buy one.

I don't know. And so I'll get sold on anything. So this guy is selling me on this phone.

And so I'm there and I'm looking and I'm just like, this is it. And he said, okay, do you want to purchase it? I was like, well, I got to call my wife first before I make the decision.

All right. I felt like I was calling my mom. And so, um, so I, I called Abby and she didn't pick up. So I called her again and she didn't pick up, called her again.

She didn't pick up. And so I was faced with a difficult decision. Okay.

Men, you know what I'm talking about? All right. So I was faced with a decision. Do I just go ahead and get it because I want it and this is what I wanted. And do I ask for forgiveness later?

How many men think that was the right decision? Raise your hand. Oh, amen. There's a few of you in here. Wow.

A few of our deacons raised their hand. Okay. And so, well, I took that advice.

So I said, you know what? I told the guy there, I said, listen, I want the phone. Let's get the phone. So I did.

And my, our bill like jumped, like major jumped and Abby always would handle the money anyway. I just was wanting the phone. And so my selfishness led me to get it. Needless to say, we don't have to talk about the rest of that story. It didn't go well.

All right. But you see, I got in a lot of trouble that day. I learned that day that it is always best to talk with, with her beforehand. I should have waited. That's what she wanted me to do. She wanted me to wait and describe all the details of, of how our, our bill was going to increase before I bought the phone.

Why didn't do it that way? You see what happened was my selfishness, what I wanted, that's what I wanted. I wanted deep down. I wanted this phone because everybody was getting them and that's what I wanted. And here's what it made me do. It made me become impatient. And sometimes what you desire is not bad.

There's nothing wrong with the phone. There's nothing wrong with Abram and Sarah. I wanted a child, but sometimes when we become selfish and we become impatient, our selfishness is what drives our decisions, not the will of God. You see, and that's what happened here is Abram and Sarah. I became selfish and that selfishness is what led them to make a bad decision.

The third thing that we see about our impatience is this. It causes us to ignore God's way. It causes us to ignore God's way. I've said this several times, but the interesting thing about this whole story to me is that both Abram and Sarah, I wanted God's will, a son. They both wanted the will of God.

It's not that they were pagan people who didn't like God and didn't want to follow God and didn't want to do his will. No, they wanted his will. If I asked, you know, if they were here today, they would tell you, we wanted the will of God.

We wanted a son. We wanted the promises of God. We wanted all of the good things that come with a relationship with God, but they weren't willing to wait for God's way. You see, I want to remind you God has a will, but he also has a way. And what you're going to see in scripture, if you want to know anything about the God that we serve, he has a way of going about things that is much different than your way.

And that's where the point of this whole message comes from. We hate waiting. And sometimes God's way is to get you to wait. Sometimes God's method is to make you wait on whatever he has for you. Hudson Taylor, the missionary to China said this, God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply.

Listen, we are supposed to wait on whatever God has for us. In Galatians chapter four, it depicts this story so perfectly, and it gives us some insight into what is happening. The apostle Paul is writing in Galatians four. Pastor Bailey just taught us this in our online Bible study on Sunday night. And Paul is writing, and he references this story with Hagar. So he references this many, many years later, and he references that Ishmael, that's the son that was born to Abraham through Hagar. It mentions that that is a sign of works righteousness.

You say, what exactly is that? Basically, Paul was saying that Ishmael is a sign of us trying to achieve a relationship with God our own way. You see, Abram and Sarah were trying to achieve the will of God in their life by trying to get there, their way, not God's way. And you see, isn't that the gospel in a nutshell?

Isn't that our world? That our world, we all try to get to God on our own. We try to get to him through doing a lot of good things or through going to church every Sunday or having your kids in Sunday school and things like that. And we try our best to get to him and to achieve a relationship with God. And God says, listen, there's not enough good that you can do to get to him. You see, that's the message of the whole gospel. That's the message of the gospel. The gospel is not a story of you getting to him. It's a story of him coming to you.

It's a story of him coming down to earth to you. You see, the Bible says that you and I, we were born into this world dead in our sins. And that's not very good, right? You say everybody? Yes. This pastor standing in front of you, you, every single person in here, look at scripture.

We can look at that. And it says that when we were born into this world, we were dead in our sins. Every person in here, the person on your right, the person on your left, all of us were born dead in our sin. You say, what exactly does, does that mean for me? That means that there's nothing that you can do to get to God by yourself.

There's nothing. So what did God do? Romans five, eight, God commended. He demonstrated his love to you and that while you were dead in your sin, you know what God did? He sent his only son Jesus to die in your place. You say, why would he do that? He came to live a perfect life.

Something you could never do. And he died a death that you and I deserve to die on a cross so that you could live forever with him. You see what he did is he came knowing you couldn't get to him.

He came and became the way for you to get to him. You see, you can't trust in your own power. You can't trust in your own way. You can't trust in your own will in order to get to God, in order to achieve a relationship with God, in order to gain righteousness from Jesus Christ. The only way for you to do that is by trusting in the only way for you to get there.

You see, Abram and Hagar, they wanted God's will, but they didn't want to go about it God's way. So you say, this is good. I am impatient. All of us are, by the way. Give me something practical.

I'm a practical thinker. So in the closing, I just want to give you three things that I think will help you wait on the Lord. We all struggle with it. I encourage you to write these down, put them in your phone, whatever. But these are three things that I think from this story we all need in our life if we are going to wait patiently on God and his will for our life. The first one is this, immerse yourself in the promises of God. You have to immerse yourself in the promises of God.

You say, what exactly does that mean? Listen, the Bible is full of the promises of God. This is why we tell you to read the Bible each and every day. This is why we encourage you to join a Bible fellowship class.

You're like, man, one hour a week's all I need. Listen, we want you to join something or join. We offer ladies' Bible studies. We offer all of these different ways that you can grow in your life. And what I'm telling you this is if you want to grow and you're waiting on God and waiting for his will in your life, you have to be willing to immerse yourself in the promises of God. Immerse yourself with the word of God. Number two, surround yourself with people who give you godly advice.

Young person, if you're listening college age or teenager, this is probably as helpful to you as anything I'm going to say. You need to surround yourself with people who can give you biblical godly advice in your life. Not just practical advice. That stuff's good and we need people like that too.

Don't get me wrong. But the best people you need in your life, if you are going to make it and try to trust in God and wait on God and not get ahead of God and try to take matters in your own hands, is you need to have people around you who are giving you godly biblical advice. Third thing, finally, is rest in the will and the ways of God. Rest is only found in him.

You know what Jesus says in the New Testament? He says, come unto me, all you who are weary, who are tired, and I will give you rest. And I'll give you rest. Listen, some of you can't rest because you're trying to take everything matters into your own hands to get what you want. And it leaves us frustrated.

And it leaves us irritated. And what the scripture's telling you to do today is to wait on God. Rest in him. Rest in his plan.

Rest in his will but also his way. Listen, if you're in here and you're praying for something and God hadn't answered your prayer, maybe it's healing or whatever, some of the things that we've talked about, maybe it's direction, and you're praying and you can't seem to get it, listen, maybe he's wanting you to, during this waiting period, to grow in your relationship with God. Maybe he's trying to do a work in you in the waiting and you're missing it altogether because you're waiting on the promise.

You see, that's our problem sometimes. We all want the promise but we don't want to do the waiting game and sometimes that's when he wants to work in your life the most, is through the waiting. So I ask you this, how many of you are actually waiting on God?

How many of you are waiting on him for something? Today, maybe you should commit yourself to immerse yourself in the promises of God, surround yourself with people, give you godly advice and ultimately rest in his will and his way. Would you bow your heads with me?

Nobody looking around. I'm going to ask everybody in here just to stand, heads bowed, hearts lifted in prayer. Nobody looking around, this is just you and God, a time for you to just evaluate your own heart. You say, Pastor Josh, I am waiting on something in my life.

Maybe I mentioned it, maybe I didn't but I have something I have prayed about and God has not answered yet and I'm still praying about it. Would you slip up your hand? Anybody anywhere? Hands going up, wow.

Hands throughout the place. People saying, that's me, that I've been waiting and God hasn't chosen to answer. Listen, my heart goes out to you but let me remind you, during the waiting period, why don't you spend this time to gain a closer understanding or a closer relationship with the word of God?

Do you have people in your life who are giving you godly advice? And then some of you need to rest in his will. Listen, the altar is open, I'm going to pray and I want to invite you, if you had your hand raised, I want to invite you to come and maybe today you need to commit to say, God, I'm resting in you, I'm not going to get ahead of you but I'm going to rest in your plan and your way. Father, we love you. God, bless in this invitation time.

God, give people the courage to make decisions. Give people the courage to come and pray and kneel and ask you, Father, to help us rest in you. We love you, for it's in your name we pray.

As the music plays, if you had your hand raised, you can come. Maybe you need to come pray in your life. Maybe it's the will of God that you're praying for. Maybe it is healing. Maybe it's direction. Whatever it is, if your hand was raised, whatever you're waiting on, rest in him, his will and his way. If God speaks to you, you come.