Special Event – A Theology of Waiting: Mark Lanier, 03/15/26

SE 058_A Theology of Waiting_PODCAST_031526
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[00:00:00] Thank you guys for being here. I know it's the end of spring break for some, and uh, there's always travel, there's always lots of things going on. Maybe you're visiting with. Maybe you're watching on the internet, regardless of how we get to you or how you get to us, we're thankful that you're here. I am technically teaching through Romans, but I kind of took a vacation from Romans because those lessons are pretty intense.

In terms of my preparation, those are lessons that can take me sometimes 20 hours a week to prepare. And when you've got a case going to trial, like I had, uh, 20 hours a week, you're hoping to find to sleep, um, many of you have been praying for me. I want to thank you for that. Uh, I, I wanna [00:01:00] tell you a little bit why I am teaching a theology of waiting.

Waiting is to a lawyer. A horrible, horrible thing. I will readily confess to you. I don't like waiting.

Um, it, it doesn't feel like it, it just doesn't fit my personality. Now here's the situation though. I'm try, I've been trying a case now for almost, I guess we've been there for eight weeks. If you count the pretrial stuff for a little bit longer out in Los Angeles and it's, it's a case if you wanna follow it or go back and read about it, you can read about it in the media 'cause they're all over the place.

But there is a, a, a, a, a poster on Instagram that she calls herself scrolling. Two, it's the number two death. Yeah. And she is in the courtroom every day, along with many others, and she goes out every [00:02:00] day and she, she, uh, records what happened from her perception that day in court. And so two of my daughters that aren't with me in trial, uh, have been keeping up that way because she actually does a, a really good job.

She also took one of the. Video thoughts for the day that I've done for you guys. And she, uh, posted it for everybody to, to watch. Uh, and she's got like 250,000 followers. It's a, it's, she's, she's a pretty, um, uh, notable, uh, I think they are called influencers. I don't know what they're called for sure. But anyway, um, I, I woke up Thursday morning.

And I had, um, or it was Wednesday morning, I guess, and I had, um, gone to bed and, and woke up at like one 15 in the morning to get ready for the day. And I noticed that my throat, I, my voice was gone. I mean, like gone like, like the [00:03:00] dodo bird, you know? It's just not there anymore. It's gone. I could talk like this in a very low register, in a whisper, and I had this critical cross examination coming up that day.

And it's not the kind of thing where anybody else on the team could do it. I had to do it. It was the key psychiatrist for the defense and I didn't, I didn't know what to do. I tried the hot shower. I tried throat coat. I tried. Everything I could by 5:00 AM um, I still can't talk. And now we're getting close to, uh, decision time.

The judge wants the case over, so we can't wait. The judge is not gonna be happy if I go in and say, oh, can I have a day to get my voice back? So I, um, texted a friend of mine who is a pediatric [00:04:00] ear, nose, and throat doctor. Who I happen to know was on spring break with his family in Florida. So I texted him and I thought, that's 5:00 AM California is 8:00 AM.

I'll just text him and ask him if he's got a minute to talk. So Dr. John, do you have a minute to talk text? Sure. Give me a call. And then I realized I can't talk, but I called him anyway. Hello, Dr. John. He said, have you lost your voice? I said, this is the only registered note I can talk, and what do I do?

And he says, steroids. He said, A shop will help you almost immediately, but you're gonna have trouble finding a doctor in LA to give you a shot. I can call in some prednisone. It'll take a couple of hours. But, uh, get me a pharmacy. So, um, Becky works [00:05:00] with him to get him a pharmacy and she's gonna go to CVS and pick it up the minute it's ready, but they don't have it ready until like nine 30 or 10.

Court started at nine. The bad guys realize I don't have a voice, so they start, uh, asking questions that I have to object to, and I have to stand up and go into a microphone. Objection, your Honor.

But I waited for my voice to come back, and by God's grace, by the prayers of the saints, by the prescription of Dr. John and by the medicine rules that God set up, I had enough of a voice to do the cross. By the time lunch was over, the drugs had really kicked in, and I not only had the voice, I had the energy of steroids.

Um,

the jury went out to [00:06:00] deliberate Friday, so the jury is deliberating now, uh, not this moment, but, but they'll come back Monday morning, tomorrow morning and resume deliberations and we have no idea how things are going. We don't know what the jury's gonna do, and what we have to do as lawyers is wait and wait.

And wait, and, and it's a very serious case. So the jury is, is rightly taking their time. They're doing nothing wrong. They're doing everything right. It's just the result is waiting. And I don't like that. The Lord put me in a career where I have to spend time waiting 'cause I don't like to wait and my culture doesn't like to wait.

I can get stuff delivered to my house immediately. I don't have to wait each week for a show to come on. I can stream the whole series and watch [00:07:00] till my eyeballs dry. My favorite Chick-fil-A just added several more lanes. Did you know in 2026, there are places in this world where Amazon's delivering by drone?

And yet I feel like sometimes my life is still just waiting for me if I'm not careful. Waiting is a problem to be solved, and that's our culture. It's a problem to be solved. It's a failure in the system. If the system works, you shouldn't have to wait. When uh, we were building the Learning Center, pastor David Fleming.

I sat down with all of the blueprints with me and I said, you know, here's my thought. Here's my thought, here's my thought. He had his little ruler out and he said, now we gotta make this room bigger. And I said, what do you mean? [00:08:00] He said, well, this is the room where if we have a a, a dinner, the buffet lines will go through this room.

And I said, okay. He said, well, how many can we serve for dinner? I said, 350. And he said, okay. He says, you gotta make it bigger so it'll hold six buffet lines, or it's gonna take longer than 10 minutes to go through the buffet line. I said, what do you mean? He said, I hate events where it takes longer than 15 minutes to get through the buffet line.

You need to target 10. I thought that was a pastor of a mega church. That makes a lot of sense. We don't like, you know, it's a failure of the system if you have to wait. Now here's the bizarre part. The Bible treats waiting almost exactly the opposite way. Waiting Biblically is not a failure of the system.

God does not work around waiting. [00:09:00] He works through it, and that's the biblical teaching.

So here are three points that you've been waiting for. I want to first show you how waiting is woven into the biblical story. It is part of this arching narrative of scripture, and then I want to talk to you about the rich vocabulary we find dealing with waiting. Now I, I've told you many times in this class, the vocabulary of the Hebrew Testament, if you take names out, is about 6,000 words.

Our working vocabulary. It is around 35,000 words. So each of the Hebrew words does the duty of multiple English words. But here's the interesting backward twist. We have the word [00:10:00] wait. Hebrews got a bunch of words for waiting. Depending upon how you wait, what kind of waiting it is. And so I wanna look at this rich vocabulary, and then we'll close with the idea of how waiting is spiritually productive.

Now, let's begin. Waiting is woven into the biblical story, and as I just said, God doesn't work, uh uh uh, around waiting. He's working through it. Let me give you just the arc. Of this biblical narrative, and I just picked a few that stand out. The arc of scripture has this waiting meta-narrative, and we'll walk through these.

Let's look at 'em together, Abraham and Sarah. God says to Abraham, leave, come on. I'm gonna take care of you. I'm gonna make you people look out at the sky. As numerous as the stars are gonna be your offspring, you're gonna have a sun. [00:11:00] And what happens? Nothing.

Well, maybe next year. No, we'll send Sarah to a fertility doctor. They don't have 'em. Send Abraham to a fertility doctor. Well, Sarah already checked that out. She said, why don't you take my handmaiden, Hagar, and maybe we can help God. Give us the offspring. Technically, she's my property. So if she produces an offspring, technically it's mine.

Of course, she produces the offspring and now all of a sudden she feels like she's got some tie to Abraham that Sarah doesn't have. That's haywire and that doesn't work. And she goes, and God sends three visitors. God, himself, depending on how you're reading the passage, comes to Abraham. And says [00:12:00] Sarah's gonna have the baby.

She's 99 in the tent, laughing.

The son comes, Isaac is born, but Abraham and Sarah had to wait for 25 years.

Israel goes to Egypt. At first, it's a great thing they can c sight see at the pyramids. 'cause the great pyramid's been there almost a thousand years before Joseph shows up.

They can cite that. It's good, there's food. Joseph's high up in the government, the family's gonna be taken care of. But then a Pharaoh arises that doesn't know the offspring of Abraham, the Hebrews. And what started out as a [00:13:00] wondrous refuge turns into a place of slavery. But God said he was gonna give the land to Abraham and his descendants, whereas Abraham and his descendants, they're locked up metaphorically in, in Egypt.

And it's interesting because Genesis says. And they're gonna stay there until the iniquity of the Amorites is complete. God's waiting for something before he brings 'em back. They are waiting for deliverance for 400 years.

That's longer than America's been a country. 400 years ago was 1626. You don't even know who your relative was that [00:14:00] was alive in 1626. Unless you've spent a lot of time in the Mormon records up in Utah trying to chase 'em down. They keep great genealogy. Uh, 400 years waiting for deliverance until the time was right.

How about the exile? Babylon comes in. RINs, Judah, apart. Judah in exile in Babylon for 70 years. It's longer than I've been alive. 70 years ago. Was 1956.

Happy birthday. Uh, speaking of, uh, over 70, uh, there, my brother-in-law turned like what, 82? No, 70 something. Okay. Um, he is a young 70 something. Um, [00:15:00] 70 years. They wait. Oh, by the way, cool stuff happened while they were waiting in Babylon. You know, the temple's been destroyed. The sacrificial system has been destroyed.

You can't go sacrificing at a temple when you're in Babylon, and the temple's in Jerusalem and the altars been destroyed anyway, so it brought the people into a deeper adherence to the Torah, a deeper understanding of Jewish law, the rabbinical system that developed that was there at the time of Jesus.

Yeah, out of that time period flows a lot of different things waiting for restoration. And then how about this into the Old Testament, the time of Jesus. Three to 400 years of waiting for God to speak, three to [00:16:00] 400 years of silence. Empires come and go. Alexander the great wipes out the western world conquers it.

His kingdom is divided up into four. The Meads and the Persians have come and gone. But, but the, this, this, this time period sees the rising of the Roman Empire, the conquering of that world, and God is silent. You get to the New Testament on a personal level. How about the story of Simeon? The story of Anna, it's found in Luke chapter two.

Simeon is told you're not going to die until you see the Messiah. And so what's he doing? He's hanging out in the temple because the temple is where [00:17:00] you encounter the Lord. Jesus is presented at the temple and we can read about it. Simeon, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. Brent's got me really nervous about this.

He says, this camera will go out if I touch anything. Okay? There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was. Simeon, and this man was righteous. He was devout and he was waiting for the consolation of Israel. He's waiting. The Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. He wouldn't see death before he'd seen the Lord's Messiah.

And when he came into this in the Spirit into the temple. And when the [00:18:00] parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him, according to the customer of the law, Simeon takes Jesus in his arms, blesses God and says Lord, now you're letting your servant depart in peace. According to your word, for my eyes, have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all the peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.

And then you read a little bit later, just a couple verses later, there's a prophetess Anna. Daughter, Nathaniel of the tribe of Asher advanced in years having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin figure. She got married at 14. Typically that makes her 21 and then as a widow, until she was either 84 or she was a widow for 84 years.

You can fuss over which way it [00:19:00] should be translated. She did not depart from the temple worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day, and coming up at that very hour, she began to give thanks to God and to speak of Jesus to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. Waiting, waiting 84 years for Anna Jesus comes.

Jesus lives. Jesus dies. Jesus is resurrected. Jesus teaches. Jesus instructs Jesus ascends unto heaven. And what does he say? I'll come again. And the church, we've been waiting for Christ's return for 2000 years.

This is. Interest, an interesting dynamic. Mom was talking about this the other [00:20:00] day. Mom had said to someone, I don't remember who you said it was mom, but mom had said something about, Lord, come quickly. And, and, and this fellow said, no, no, no, no, no, not yet. Mom said, what do you mean? Said, I've got some people in my family that need to know Jesus before he comes back.

I want him to hang on for a little bit. And I was reminded of that passage. Or Peter says, don't think God's just forgotten his promise to return, but he's being patient because he wants to give everybody a chance to get in. In a sense, this is an arc of scripture and I want to close this portion of the lesson with this passage out of Habakkuk too.

I will take my stand at my watch post and I will station myself on the tower. And I will look out to see what God will say to me. How's God gonna respond to my complaints that I've given [00:21:00] him? Then he says, the vision that God's given awaits its appointed time. It hasten to the end. It will not lie if it seems slow.

Wait for it. It's surely gonna come. It won't delay if it seems slow. Wait for it. Now look at this passage for a moment. I'll take my stand at my watch post and station myself on the tower and look out to see what he'll say to me. This, this verb form is, um, a, it's called in Hebrew, apl. All, but it's got this imperfect uh, uh, case form.

It's a pl imperfect, and it's got this sense of I'm, it, it's constant. It's just ongoing. I'm really doing it and I'm not [00:22:00] just kind of looking. I'm scrutinizing, I'm really searching. I'm really looking. Because the vision awaits its appointed time. It hasten to the end. It will not lie. This is what's gonna happen.

I'm looking for it because the vision, the hot zone, the vision awaits. Its appointed time, it's got an appointed time and, and this word, um. Kaka is, is the, the word for it. Well, it's actually fascinating. The awaited time is in two different places, but the vision still awaits. Its appointed time. This word for time.

Me, it, it, it's used, it would be used well of a fisherman who's sitting there with their line in the water.

It's like, I'm gonna get a bite. I've just gotta [00:23:00] wait.

I have a grandson who loves to fish, but he put his fishing pole in the water, and about a minute later, he pulled it out and said to me, there aren't any fish here. And I said, well, we have to wait. Well, I, I've been there, I've been waiting. We've gotta wait a little bit longer. Well, how long will it take? I said, that's the part about waiting.

Sometimes we don't know. And, and, and that's the, the word here is it, it's, this is, this is the concept of the vision awaits. It's appointed time. Just if it seems slow, just wait. Be patient. You're fishing, it's gonna come. And it's not gonna delay in the sense that, uh, it's gonna just get distracted. God is going to deal with it at appointed time.

By the way, that's the [00:24:00] same word for weight that's used in Isaiah 30. The Lord waits to be gracious to you. He's willing to sit there with his line in the water until you respond to him so he can be gracious to you. The idea behind this is waiting has a fixed appointment. It's not God just freelancing.

God's not just improvising. I mean, try and identify what you're waiting on right now in your life. Where are these areas where you're waiting? And as we understand weightings woven into the biblical history, look at the rich vocabulary that exists. Now I'm gonna take three. I've already used one Hebrew word, but I'm gonna take three Hebrew words and I'm gonna take a Greek word that are all translated weighting in different forms.

We've got a Hebrew word and and I put them in on jewels because these are precious, these are [00:25:00] treasures. Waiting is not a failure of the system. It's a treasure from the Lord. So we have kava, we have al, we have dumoff, which I spoke about recently in another, uh, sense. And we have, uh, epic Dema, uh, in, in the Greek.

Now let's look at these for a moment. Kava on kava. I'd like you to think about this as something, uh, it, it's fascinating. There is an ancient Hebrew or Semitic root, probably predates some of Hebrew that talks about something that's stretched or drawn taunt. If I was gonna make a rope back in those days, I don't have, well, maybe I can do it with this, if I was gonna make a rope.

Back in those [00:26:00] days, the way you would make a rope, okay, I can't do it with this. Yes, I can. Maybe, no, not, probably not. The way you would make a rope is you would take strands and you would pull them of, of hemp or whatever it is you're working with. You pull them really tight and twist them, and then when you let 'em loose, that tightness from twisting 'em together, that tightness.

We will hold it together and make it strong. And that's how you could make a chord or a rope. You pull it really tight. Well, something that's drawn and stretched tight, like that seems to be the root behind the word kava, which means weight. Uh, in fact, there's a noun. You take the same letters and turn it into a noun, and you get a chord, a line, a measuring string.

It's the same root from, from the same original word. So think of this as [00:27:00] a waiting that is tau tight, uh, uh, really, uh, uh, um, that you, you sense the tension in the weight. That's a word for waiting, a tense taught moment. Here's another Hebrew word for waiting yal. Now think of Yal as kind of a hopeful waiting, un expectant waiting.

Like, um, I'm waiting for the sun to come up. I expect it will, but I'm waiting. So we can say, uh, you know, we've got waiting for that taunt tense time, but we also have waiting for the sun to come up. Hebrew has two different kinds of words for those two. Then there's another word for waiting. Doah and [00:28:00] doah is, is rooted in the idea of stillness or silence or something that stops.

It's a calm waiting, like calm waters. It's awaiting, uh, um, that that's very.

You, you know, you, it's, it's, it's the duck on the water where you're not seeing maybe the feet that are furiously paddling underneath, but the duck's just there on the water. It's the calmness of the duck above the water. That's, that's what we've got here, uh, is, is a stillness in your soul. It can be a, a silence in your soul.

So three different Hebrew words. Let me give you, um, apai, the Greek word apai is got this kind of leaning forward. I, I almost for my picture, do [00:29:00] y'all remember when, um, Michael Jackson did that dance that he'd ne that the world had never seen before? And he is got that thing. I was gonna redo it, but there's not really room here.

Um, he's, I, I wouldn't wanna fall down the stairs and I'd moonwalk right into that. It just wouldn't work. But he's got this thing, you know, he is got the black with the white contrast and the hat and all, and he does this kind of leaning forward thing. Where it turns out, by the way, if you ever check on this, he had put little tap type nails in his shoes, had 'em in his shoes, and they had a little thing in the stage where his feet could like click into it and he slides and clicks his feet in.

So his feet are actually affixed to the stage, which allows him to lean like this. When, if I did that, I would be down, it'd be, it'd be 9 1 1. Um, but he's, it's that forward leaning. This [00:30:00] is an eager awaiting, and, and the the, you have to be careful anytime you break apart Greek words and other words because, um, you, you can take them apart, a compound word.

You can take it apart and you can make your point, but you don't really want to take the, like, the word understand in English. How many of us, when we talk about understanding something genuinely mean, I'm going to take my stance underneath this because it's part of what I gr you know, we don't mean that.

So you don't want to take the word apart. A butterfly is not really a fly made out of butter. You know, you, you just always, and you have to be careful in the ancient languages 'cause it's, you always want to try and find that old meanings and the semantic range of something, but you want to do it.

Responsibly where, where you're letting the word speak to you, not you're taking your ideas into the word to find them. So you gotta be kind of careful. But [00:31:00] this really is a leaning forward. This is, you're in the starting blocks and you're waiting for the gun ready? Aim P, and you're ready to go. You're tense, you're ready.

You're leaning forward. You're in that starting gate. Okay? So there are four biblical words for you. Something that's stretched or drawn, taut, waiting. That's the word in Isaiah 40 31. They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They'll mount up with wings like eagles. They'll run and not be weary.

They'll walk and not faint. Those who wait for the Lord. Now this weight is, is is that taut cord, that tightness. This is not clock watching and passivity. [00:32:00] This is a recognition that you are in a waiting mode, but look at the Isaiah passage carefully because it's telling us that while you are waiting, God is working on you.

This is, this is what God is doing. God is working on you. They who have this tether, this tie in their weight, they're gonna have their strength renewed. God's gonna do something during that. If you're in a waiting mode, let this wash over you. Understand that while you are waiting, God's working on you.

God's doing something in you. God's working to teach you to be stronger. God's working to teach you to fly higher. God's teaching you to run further. God's [00:33:00] teaching you to walk. I love the beauty of this passage in so many different ways. But look at, at, um, it's so contrary to the way I would've written it.

I would've said, those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They'll walk and not faint. They'll run and not be weary. They'll mount up with wings and soar. I'd have gone from the little, all the way to the magnificent. But the psalmist does it. The, um, the, the, the prophet Isaiah does it the other way.

He starts magnificent. They'll mount up with wings like eagles, and then he brings it down to they'll run, and then he brings it down to, they'll walk and he makes it. He's saying that you wait for the Lord and the Lord, he starts, but he does that work until it's all the way done to the end. And that's a beautiful concept.

So we need to not just be watching the clock. How long is this gonna take? We need to [00:34:00] know that God is at work and let that tautness, that tightness be one that binds us to him because while we're waiting, God's working on us. Alright, let's look at a second Hebrew word in in context to wait or hope al this expectant waiting.

This is. Part of what we have here in um, Psalm one 30, I wait for the Lord my soul waits, and in his word, I hope my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning. Watchmen are the people on the tower waiting for dawn so they can announce. Dawn to the town. Israel lived at a time where you couldn't say, Alexa, wake me up at four in the morning.

You had the watchmen who would announce for the town, but I wait for the Lord Kava. I wait [00:35:00] for the Lord. My soul waits, and in his word, I hope.

Now this is fascinating in his word, I hope. This word, hope is another word for weight. It's the expectant waiting, so it's translated here. Hope my soul waits for the Lord. Now there we don't even have the word wait because this expectant waiting is just implied by its placement earlier in the verse. But it's this expectant waiting.

My soul expects the Lord to show up. I'm more confident of that than I am. The sun's gonna rise. I am more confident that God will show up at the right time than I am. [00:36:00] The sun's gonna rise. Alright, I don't know if we have time for this. We got, we got an extra minute. We'll throw this in. We'll make it.

We'll make time. Don't worry. Dale Hearn. Oh, I forgot to tell y'all I have sound. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Let's go back. Um, uh, I have sound If I plug it in. Can you make it work? You think? Let's find out They are. Uh oh.

They are so good back there. I'll bet you Linda can flat do this. I don't know if it's Linda or who's back there. I don't. Okay, let's try it again. You ready? This is this word.

We got any sound? Who know? Okay, let's start it again. You got it. Crank it up some. Oh, it's Diane back there. Hi Diane. Okay. [00:37:00] Alright, you ready Diane? Who knows?

Could be. Who knows there's something due any day. I will know right away. Soon as it's your it make them cannonball and down through the sky. Gleam in its eye, bride is aro.

Rules. It's only just out of reach down the block. Beach. Can we turn it up some under a tree? I got a feeling there's a miracle Duke gone come through coming to me.

Could it be Yes it could. Something's coming. Something. If I can wait, if I can wait. Something's coming. I dunno what it's, but it's gonna be great [00:38:00] with a click. Alright. That's the idea. So if you know West Side's story and you know Tony singing that song, by the way, for Tony, bless his heart, he dies. But, um, spoiler alert, if you don't know, it gets real sad at the end, but before he dies, he's really excited.

Okay, something's coming. Something good. I don't know what it is. It may come cannon balling down, but I know it's gonna be great. It's gonna happen. It's gonna be good. That's that idea and that's built into the word. I wait for the Lord. My soul waits, and in his word, I hope. I'm excited. It's coming. My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchman.

For the morning. Something's coming. Something good. This is great. This is not hope that's floating around in the abstract. It's hope in the word of God. It's anchored in who God is. If you have weighed in your life, don't you worry if you are waiting in the Lord because you can be as confident. He's gonna show up [00:39:00] and he is gonna do what needs to be done at the right time.

You may be Sarah and Abraham waiting for 25 years. You may be Israel waiting for 400 years or 70 years. You may be Simeon, you may be Anna, you may be the church. But I'm telling you, God's gonna be there at the right time when it's done and right for you. That's it. That's the word of God. That's the promise of God, and that's what he's saying here.

He says, I'll wait for the Lord. My soul waits. And in his word, I hopefully wait. I expectantly wait. Next do Meah. We gotta get through this. This is to be still, this is to cease. This is that calmness, that calm waiting. You'll find this in Psalm 62. For God alone, my soul waits in [00:40:00] silence, do meah. From him comes my salvation.

He alone is my rock, my salvation, my fortress. I'm, I might be shaken, but I won't be greatly shaken. I love that I might be shaken up a little bit, but if I won't be greatly shaken,

why can we wait in silence? Why can we wait expectantly? Why can we wait with that tension? Why do you see the why there waits in silence from him? Because he's my rock. He's my salvation. He's my fortress. You can shake me, but I won't be greatly shaken. Then we've got this Greek word, which brings us back to Romans in a way that's this eager awaiting, [00:41:00] that's this leaning forward.

This is what Paul uses in the chapter of Romans. We're studying now in Romans chapter eight. Look at verse 23. Not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit. We groan inwardly as we wait. APIC deco by as we eager wait eagerly for his adoption. His sons. We, we await, man.

We're, we're coiled. We're ready. We're in the starting blocks. We, we are, we are. Paul goes on to say, in this hope we were saved. Now, hope that seen is not hope, but who hopes for what he sees. If we hope for what we don't see, we wait aide with patience. We're in the starting blocks. When the, when the, the official says ready.

We're not taking off. Running,

waiting [00:42:00] has such a rich vocabulary and that's because it's a rich experience and it's a common experience for the history of humanity there has been waiting.

So let's end with waiting is spiritually productive. And here is my point that I was making before that God does not just reward waiting. He works through it. And if we understand that, then we approach it differently. I'm waiting for the jury. I hate waiting for the jury. I was talking to some of the other lawyers I, my team Friday, and I said, how do y'all feel about waiting for a jury?

They're like, I don't like it. I thought, I don't like it either. I bet I, in fact, I bet I don't like it more than you don't like it. We started having a competition over who dislikes it the most, but that's not the tune that should be playing in my head. The tune that should be playing in my head is, what's God teaching me right now?[00:43:00]

What can I be learning? How can I be a better person? How can I be more prayerful?

I had gotten up at, um. For closing arguments. We did closing arguments on Thursday and I had my team trying to get the stuff that I needed and Rachel, our daughter and Sarah are my second and third chairs and, and, but we've got probably 40, 50 people working this trial and um, so I said to Rachel, I said, look, I've gotta go to bed.

Uh, I've gotta try and get my voice. I've gotta try and all the rest of that stuff and get some sleep, but I'm gonna get up early and I'm gonna finish closing argument and I do my own PowerPoint, so I don't have a service doing that, but I've gotta ha and I write my own closing argument. I don't have a service do that, but I've gotta [00:44:00] have.

I've gotta have people who can find me this document, find me that quote, find me this from day seven of trial, find me this from day 20 of trial, find me this, get me that. And so I said, Rachel, I said, Rachel, I want you to set up two shifts. Who can work until three in the morning? And then who can come on board at three and work until we go to court?

So Rachel divided it up. So the, the, the, the hotel where we are in la, um. Becky and I have a, a bedroom that's up a spiral staircase and you go down the spiral staircase and there's what is our war room, and that's where we've got, you know, all the boxes, it's tables and all the rest. So I go up, I go to bed while I wake up at 12:49 AM and um, I go down the spiral staircase, uh, and I'm just in my pajamas.

I'm just going down to work. But I hear all this talking. I realize that there are people still down there working that haven't gone to bed yet. I mean, and that's understandable. It's 12:49 AM and [00:45:00] so I run back upstairs, I pull on some clothes and then I go back down and find that my daughters and two other lawyers are down there working.

And I said, okay, uh uh what are y'all doing? They said, well, we're the shift till three o'clock, and we just thought we'd work here. And I said, okay. So I went over to my desk and I started working and I'd get this and I'd get that from 'em and all the rest, and then. Um, at three, five till three, I made them go to bed and put up a text chain of, of the three o'clock shift, and then I could just text them and they could send me what I needed.

So by the time it's time to go to court, we're leaving for court around 7:45 AM I've been up now for seven hours. I am, I am ready to go. I'm on day two and a half of steroids. I, I am. I am ready. [00:46:00] I mean, I'm in the starting blocks, man, and we get to court, you know, the first thing that happens when the jury comes in, the judge reads the instructions to the jury, and it takes 40 minutes.

I want to go so bad. I've got ants in my pants. I'm just ready to hop up, you know? And the judge has to read the chart. She's not doing anything wrong. That's what she's supposed to do. But for 40 minutes, I have to wait before I can go

thinking, well, what does God want me to do now? Sit here and go Be, be, be, be, be, be, be, be, be, be. I mean, I know everything she's saying because we've been working on this, these instructions. I've got 'em in my closing argument. But I have this hour and 50 minute closing argument that is so popping outta me, and I have to sit there and wait.

So what do I decide? Well, God doesn't just reward [00:47:00] waiting. He works through it. So maybe what I need to do is be prayerful and just pray those instructions as she reads each line over the jury and see that not as 40 minutes of waiting, but as 40 minutes of praying. Because that's what happens. You know, Paul, in Romans eight, he says, the present suffering and the future glory, this present suffering, we can wait through it because we know what's coming.

We know that God's producing character in us as we wait, and it's why we can wait with patience. We know that God has, you know when, when Jesus goes to call Lazarus. Back from the grave. Jesus waits several days. What is four days? And Martha and Mary are not happy. If you'd have been here earlier, you could have healed him.

Now he's dead. We buried him. Jesus says, [00:48:00] no, no, no, no, no. This is part of God's purpose. See, waiting can reveal a greater purpose of God. Waiting is a time where we can learn to lament in the rubble. Do you remember, um, the end of that lamentation passage that we often sing? The Lord is my portion, says my soul.

Therefore, I will hope in him, the Lord the very next verse, the Lord is good to those who wait, who experience this tension from him kava to the soul who seeks him. The Lord is good. It's good that one should wait quietly. And here we have a different word, yaha. You expect it's good for the tension. It's good to be waiting.

And then we have a third word. It's good. That one should wait quietly. It's good to wait. Expectantly. Wait tight. Wait, quiet. It's good to wait. All of those different ways.[00:49:00]

The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore, I will hope in him the Lord's good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It's good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. That's just amazing and it brings us to our points for home. One. Waiting is working time. Those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength.

God's at work on you in whatever it is you're waiting for. But we need to be waiting actively. We need to be, you know, we need to be expecting. We need to be out there on the walls waiting for the sunrise. I hope my soul waits for the Lord more than watchman for the morning. The watchman doesn't show up.

Fail to show up 'cause Well, I gotta wait. He's up there, he's doing his thing. He's getting ready. While you're waiting for [00:50:00] the Lord, doesn't mean you're not doing your thing. Maybe it's praying, maybe it's serving, maybe it's loving. Maybe it's just internally growing. Excuse me. But what are you waiting for?

You wait for the glory of God. You wait for adoption. You wait for the redemption of your souls. Now that's your class, but I gotta tell you something. I've decided to add something to Points for home. This is brand new. Are you ready? Excuse me. Many of you will go to lunch with someone. Maybe it's your wife, maybe it's your iPhone.

I don't know who you go to lunch with,

but I wanna give you a lunch topic. Something to discuss over lunch. What is something that you're [00:51:00] currently in a season of waiting about, and based on this today's class, how would you describe the kind of waiting you're doing? Is it expectant? Is it, uh, energetic? Is it calm? How would you describe it? And as you do it, remember.

That waiting is not a problem to be solved. It is not a failure of the system. Waiting is God working on you and the situation around you. That's biblical waiting. Alright, so with that, let me bless you in the name of the Lord and we will have, uh, uh, we'll be done. Lord in the name of Jesus, I ask your blessings on all who hear this message.

Lord, tune our hearts to waiting in ways that are biblical. Tune our hearts to see you [00:52:00] at work in the waiting at work in us, at work, in circumstances and situations, at work, in others, at work for your kingdom. And Lord, give us the patience to wait faithfully for your timing, for your work in us, in those around us, in the world, in history, as we await the consummation of things and the return of our Lord Jesus, through whom we pray.

Amen.