What the Bible Says to the Jaded, Discouraged, and Worn Out

Article by Colin Smith

Christmas season is the season of joy, but it is also a time when the cumulative weight of all that has happened in the course of the year catches up with you. Moving into the last month of the year often causes a sense of being worn out, discouraged, or stretched thin. Someone described it to me as a “collective weariness.”  

What is the answer to collective weariness? Where would we look in the Bible for help when we feel jaded, discouraged, and generally worn out? 

My mind goes to Isaiah 40: “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31). That speaks to me. That’s what I need, but how do I get there? How do I get to Isaiah 40:31? The first 30 verses of this chapter might have something to do with it! 

Isaiah 40 is full of anticipations of the birth of Christ, but I want to use this article to show the promise of renewed strength God gives to all those who are discouraged at the end of the chapter. 

Lean into The Truth You Know about God 

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. (Isaiah 40:28) 

God reminds his people of what they already know, what they have often heard, because faith is strengthened, not by learning something new, but by coming back to what we have heard and known. 

Faith is strengthened, not by learning something new, but by coming back to what we have heard and known: Christ crucified and risen for us. What is it that every believer knows and has heard about God that we need to lean into in these times of weariness? 

God is your Creator

The Lord is…the Creator of the ends of the earth. (Isaiah 40:28)  

God formed you in your mother’s womb. He gave you life with the purpose of redeeming you. He purchased you at the cost of his own Son. And, he infused a new life into you, recreating you in Jesus Christ. 

God does not grow weary

He does not faint or grow weary. (Isaiah 40:28) 

God sustains all that he has made. He never runs out of resources. He never tires of you. There is never a time when God looks at you and says, “Where do we go from here?” 

God works on an everlasting timescale

The Lord is the everlasting God. (Isaiah 40:28) 

Time is at his disposal. None of us knows what God will do in the coming year, let alone in 10 years or in 50 years, or what God will do in the lives of our children or grandchildren. The granddaughter of your rebel son may turn out to have a ministry beyond anything you can imagine. 

No one can fathom his understanding

His understanding is unsearchable. (Isaiah 40:28) 

None of us will ever fathom the mind of God, or gain a full picture of what he is doing. So why even try? His understanding is unsearchable! 

Lean into The Truth That You Know About Yourself 

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. (Isaiah 40:29-30) 

Notice the words that are used here: “faint,” “no might,” “weary,” “fall exhausted.” That’s us! And notice that this is us at our best: “even youths shall be faint and weary.” 

Then God says “Young men shall fall exhausted.” The phrase “young men” literally means “picked men.” This is like athletes who are in peak condition, the ones who catch the eye of the Olympic selection committee. 

At the end of the marathon, even athletes in peak condition are weary. Some fall exhausted. Others look faint. Why? Because their bodies have been through a test of endurance that has pushed them to the limits. 

There are limits to all human endurance. Paul describes our bodies as tents (2 Corinthians 5), not palaces made of stone and held up by marble pillars, but tents made of canvas and held up by ropes that stretch, sag, and fray. So, no Christian should be surprised at this experience of weariness. God has placed his treasure in jars of clay. We live in this earthly tent that one day will be torn down. 

Here’s what you know about yourself: You are not God. You’re a created being with limits to your own strength and endurance. You will become weary. You will know what it is to feel spent and exhausted. Feeling worn out should not take you by surprise. Lean into the truth that you know. But that’s only half the answer. 

Lay Hold of the Hope That You Have 

Laying hold of the hope that you have is the natural result of leaning into the truth that you know. When you lean into what you know about God (that God is the everlasting Creator and that he does not grow weary), you will look to him and, as you do, he will give you strength:  

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. (Isaiah 40:29)  

Notice the word “gives.” This is an action of God in relation to his own people at times when we feel our strength is depleted, and our faith is burning low. He “gives power” and he “increases strength!” 

How does God do this? God does not faint or grow weary (Isaiah 40:28). The way he gives strength to the weary is that he gives himself to you.  This is not some zapping with power that moves an exhausted Christian into bionic overdrive. The effect of this strength is that God’s people keep pressing on. They keep running. They keep walking. 

Christ gives his Spirit to those who hope in him so that something of his divine power may touch us in our human weakness. Strength comes as we ascend by faith into the presence of the Lord and commune with our living Savior. Here’s what will come from that: You will keep running. You will keep walking. You will keep pressing on. 

Go to Jesus this Christmas 

Some of you do not yet have a living faith in Jesus Christ. I ask you today: Do you not know your own Creator? Have you not heard that strength and hope can be yours through Jesus Christ? This Savior says to you who are worn out, and to all of us, today, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). 

THE AUTHOR

Colin Smith

Colin Smith is the senior pastor of The Orchard Evangelical Free Church in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. He has authored a number of books, including Heaven, How I Got Here and Heaven, So Near - So Far. Colin is the president and teacher for Unlocking the Bible. Follow him on Twitter.

Posted at: https://unlockingthebible.org/2018/12/bible-jaded-discouraged-worn-out/

A Different Kind of Profanity

Article by David Prince

What would you do if one of your children walked in your house and spoke a string of four-letter words? What would you do if one of your children walked in your house grumbling? I fear that most of us would drop everything and confront their intolerable use of four-letter words (and rightly so) but would say nothing about the grumbling or maybe say something like, "I am sorry you are having a bad day." You may say, "Yes, but the four-letter words are profanities." So is grumbling.

We tend to reason that grumbling is not a big deal because it is not actually doing anything it is simply talk. In contemporary American culture grumbling is often ingrained as a way of life and many treat it as harmless personal therapy. We tend to rename it as something like venting in order to remove the stigma. Grumbling is so habitual that we often miss the irony of our words when we stand in front of closets full of clothes and murmur that we do not have anything to wear. Or when we stand before refrigerators packed with food and say we don't have anything to eat.

In the Bible, grumbling is described as corrosive. A grumbling spirit never stays self-contained but begins to infect all aspects of life and thought with an entitlement worldview. Parents who model grumbling or treat it as acceptable when their children grumble are placing their kids in character quicksand. Grumbling and thankfulness cannot coexist. One always vanquishes the other. A grumbler becomes immune to gratitude because no matter what happens circumstances will always bump up against our personal desires.

In Exodus, the Israelites leave Egypt walking between sovereignly walled up water; then, within one month of that event the awe-inspired gratitude is erased. Why? They are thirsty (Ex 15:22-17:7). The irony that they saw the power of a God who can control the Red Sea and now a bit of thirst has them complaining should not be lost on us. Moses had courageously been used by God to confront Pharoah and lead the nation out of bondage in Egypt but now they get a bit hungry and ask him, "Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger" (Ex 16:3).

God had provided them water and he now provides them bread and quail. They are instructed to gather only as much bread as they need for each day, but not everyone obeys (Ex 16:20). When they get thirsty again and say, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?" (Ex 17:3). You get the point. Grumbling vanquishes awe-inspired gratitude. Moses rightly asserts, "Your grumbling is not against us but against the LORD" (Ex 16:8). The same is still true. Parents who grumble and permit their children to grumble are catechizing them in discontent with the Lord.

In the New Testament, John 6:25-59, Jesus asserts himself as the "bread of life" after his miraculous feeding of the five thousand (John 6:1-15). Jesus, like Moses, provides bread and meat for the people. Jesus tells them that they are to believe in him (John 6:29). Ironically, the people who just saw an amazing sign say they require a sign to believe. Jesus said, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst (John 6:35). How do they respond? "So the Jews grumbled about him" (John 6:41, see also, 43, 61). The Greek word for "grumble" is "gonguzō," which actually sounds like murmuring.

Paul tells the church at Corinth not to grumble as Israel did in the wilderness (1 Cor. 10:5-11). He says, "these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come" (1 Cor 10:11). James admonishes his readers not to "grumble" against each other' (James 5:9). Likewise, Peter tells his readers to "show hospitality to one another without grumbling" (1 Pet 4:9). In Philippians, Paul exhorts the church to have the mind of Christ and reflect his self-sacrificial example on display in his incarnation and crucifixion (Phil 2:5-11). Then, one of the first applications of how to do so is, "Do all things without grumbling or disputing" (Phil 2:14).

There seems to be a vast discrepancy between the way most of us think about grumbling and how the Bible speaks of it. We are wrong, the Bible is right. Parents often fixate on grades, success, and achievement in the lives of their children. However important these things are, they are far less significant than whether or not our children become grumblers with an entitlement worldview. To profane is to treat that which is holy as common. In Christ, our very lives are holy and our words are sacred. That reality is why grumbling in the Bible is profanity.

Grumbling is doing something, something profane and corrosive. Grumbling vanquishes thankfulness and makes us insensibly immune to awe. In other words, when we grumble, we are using our words to preach hellish sermons, not holy ones--sermons for which Satan would gladly say, "Amen." May we see grumbling as profanity against God, and correct it in our lives and in the lives of our children.

About the Author: David E. Prince is pastor of preaching and vision at Ashland Avenue Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky and assistant professor of Christian preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of In the Arena and Church: The Promise of Sports for Christian Discipleship and Church with Jesus as the Hero. He blogs at Prince on Preaching and frequently writes for The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, For the Church, and Preaching Today.

Posted at: http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2018/12/a-different-kind-of-profanity.php

God in Our Waiting

Article by Zach Barnhardt

Paul once said he had learned the secret of contentment, but he never had to shop at a grocery store.

Everyone has their hang-ups, and this is one of my many. Every time I walk through those automatic doors and grab a shopping cart (or “buggy” where I’m from), I know I’m entering a minefield of frustration and impatience.

It’s like the engineers who designed the shopping carts didn’t consult with the engineers who designed the width of the aisles to allow two shoppers to pass with ease. Some shoppers seem to think their carts are holograms and can be walked through as if they were immaterial. As I shop, thoughts run wild in my head:

Why do five people need to be looking for spices the moment I need to be?
Who had the bright idea of putting water pitcher filters in the hardware section?
Who goes through self-checkout with 35 items at DMV-level speed?

My shopping experiences sometimes morph into moments of inner rage. I don’t want to be this way.

I want to be grateful I get to shop for food at all, with little concern about having enough to pay for what I need.

I want to see people as God sees them, but then someone forgets how to use their credit card in front of me. It’s a trivial example of a deeper reality of my humanity.

Waiting is not easy.

ALREADY, NOT YET

Paul wrote, “For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out” (Rom 7:18). Many theologians have ascribed Paul’s reflections here to the Christian experience. Regardless of what Paul specifically meant in this instance, the sentiment itself could describe how Christians often feel.

We are thankful for the gospel’s promise of adoption and grace extended toward sinners like us (Eph 1:5-6), but we are discouraged when our flesh continually presumes on the riches of his kindness (Rom 2:4). We love the thought of receiving “new wine,” but this old wineskin of a body seems to be the wrong place for it (Mk 2:21-22). We live as a “new creation” right here and now (2 Cor 5:17), but a day will come when we are made new, indeed, sinless (Rev 21:5).

Here lies the already-but-not-yet reality of the Christian life, and the answer is not very satisfying: wait.

Why does God make us wait, specifically as it relates to the presence of sin in our lives? Isn’t he aware of how much we hate waiting? Hasn’t he seen us on the interstate or getting off a plane? We’re living in a push-notification, fast-food, tweet-able, convenience-store world; isn’t it about time he catches up with the rest of us and stops the waiting already? Hasn’t it gone on long enough?

Our microwaves and two-day shipping services have conditioned us to believe that waiting is wasting. But God never wastes our waiting.

LEARNING THROUGH WAITING

In fact, it’s only through our waiting that God can teach us certain aspects of himself. There is a reason God has not eradicated the reality of sin yet in us. To make us wait is not to punish, so much as it is to demonstrate and instruct. There must be something redemptive about waiting, as difficult as the tension might be, for God to deem it necessary for each of us.

Psalm 130 is a window through which we see the goodness of waiting and the “okay-ness” of the already-but-not-yet tension that marks Christian living. This psalm is recognized by Bible scholars as one of the seven Penitential Psalms. It’s found right in the heart of the Songs of Ascent, a collection of laments, praises, and prayers that frame a sort of “pilgrim’s progress” toward right worship of God.

There’s an emphasis on both the individual and communal aspects of sin and penitence. Therefore, this psalm has something pointed to say both to the Church at large as well as to the individual Christian when it comes to sin and hardship and how they relate to our waiting. In particular, it offers four reminders for the person facing sin and hardship.

1. GOD MEETS OUR MISERY WITH MERCY (PS. 130:1-2)

Our Father loves us too much to shield us from being brought to the depths. He is not like the over-protective parent who works tirelessly to keep his children free from struggle. We cannot know we are empty until we truly feel it. He will never coerce us into the wrong decision; rather he knows that it is in the depths that his children abandon all attempts at quick fixes and self-help, and turn their gaze upward.

This first stanza is the first of three instances where the Psalmist uses both “LORD” (Yahweh) and “Lord” (Adonai) to describe God. “Yahweh” was considered too holy of a name to speak when referring to God, and “Adonai” was often used in its place.

But the two names have specific and differing points of emphasis regarding the character of God. “Yahweh” is often used in Scripture to point to the covenant faithfulness of God toward his people, while “Adonai” is often used when describing the power and sovereignty of God.

In verses 1-2, God’s faithfulness (Yahweh) and God’s power (Adonai) remind us that God is both faithful and sovereign in hearing our prayers. Our prayers do not fall on apathetic ears or into incapable hands. He is attentive to our cries for help from the depths of our sin. He mercifully ordains our misery, that he might display his power and faithfulness to us.

2. GOD MEETS OUR CONFESSION WITH FORGIVENESS (PS. 130:3-4)

One of the main reasons many Christians struggle with confessing wrongdoing is that it is simply humiliating. We feel more exposed than the Emperor with his new clothes, like a tabloid will be telling the world in bright and bold letters what we have done.

But as the psalmist recognizes, we are all exposed in the end. Why should we fear confession when we have all fallen short of God’s glory (Rom 3:23)? In verses 3-4, God’s faithfulness (Yahweh) and God’s power (Adonai) remind us that God is both faithful and sovereign in spite of our personal sins.

When we confess our sins, God clothes us with the garments of salvation (Isa 61:10). It is only through the way of confession that we come to understand being forgiven. And even more so, God allows us to go through the difficulty of confession “that [he] may be feared.” When we confess our sins, God will manifest his forgiving power in our lives, which will spark worship in our hearts.

3. GOD MEETS OUR HOPE WITH PROMISES (PS. 130:5-6)

Our only hope of being rid of the battle with sin once and for all is if God makes it so. It is hopeless for us to attempt in our own selves to finally eliminate sin. God must intervene, and therefore we must wait.

The psalmist says in our waiting for the Lord, we must hope. The way Scripture talks about hope is not the same way the world talks about hope. The world’s hope is frail. It’s quasi-confidence, with little to bank on other than chance. I hope the Bears win tonight. I hope I have studied enough. I hope life slows down soon.

But the Christian hope is not a shot in the dark. It is grounded not in sheer luck, but in a person. And not just any person, but Yahweh and Adonai Himself. God’s faithfulness (Yahweh) and God’s power (Adonai) remind us that our hopes aren’t hanging in the air. God not only hears us and forgives us but he has also given us his Word to form our hope.

He is worthy of being trusted with our hopes because he will do what he says he will do. His Word itself is power (Rom. 116), and therefore guarantees it.

4. GOD MEETS OUR WORLD WITH REDEMPTION (PS. 130:7-8)

The hope we’re guaranteed is redemption. God’s faithfulness (Yahweh) and God’s power (Adonai) are not only applied to us in an individual sense but in a communal sense as well. Jesus Christ is your personal Lord and Savior, but he’s more than that. He is also our shared Lord and Savior.

Sin has affected us not only as individuals but also as a community. The Fall ushered in a host of fault lines and distortions in our hearts and in our world. But through the cross, redemption is available to those who trust in him.

And, get this: it’s coming for the world God’s people live in, too. There is “plentiful redemption” available to the community and the nation of Israel, an inside-out “making all things new” that we await (Rev. 21:5).

AND NOW WE WAIT

Waiting isn’t easy. No one said it would be, not even Jesus. “I do not ask that you take them out of the world” (Jn 17:15).

Jesus’s plan for our growth is not escaping or fleeing—it’s going through the refining fire. It’s being exposed of our inabilities, confessing our need for God, trusting that his Word is worthy of our hope, and anticipating the work he intends to do in us and around us. It’s all bound up in the psalmist’s words: “I wait for the LORD, my soul waits.”

Perhaps our best shot at living a life of gospel witness is to choose the way of waiting. To slow down and ignore the shortcuts, to stay the course and fight our sin, to hold fast to his Word, and to endure in the world he is making new. Like watchmen in the black of night, we know our task during the dark is hard, but the dawn of morning is on the way.

The waiting will be worth it.

About the Author: Zach Barnhart currently serves as Student Pastor of Northlake Church in Lago Vista, TX. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Middle Tennessee State University and is currently studying at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, seeking a Master of Theological Studies degree. He is married to his wife, Hannah. You can follow Zach on Twitter @zachbarnhart or check out his personal blog, Cultivated.

The Joy of Overlooking an Offense

Article by Scotty Smith Pastor, Franklin, Tennessee

My wife and I just returned from an awesome eight-night holiday in one of our favorite spots in the world — the little village of Iseltwald, nestled on the Lake of Brienz, ten kilometers from Interlaken, Switzerland. No place makes me happier and hungrier for the life we’ll enjoy in the new heaven and new earth.

But as wonderful as it was to celebrate my wife’s “39th birthday” in Switzerland (we’ve been married 46 years), there were moments when the brokenness of my attitude contradicted the beauty of the Alps.

When Life Gets Very Irritating

My capacity for aggravation and irritability and resentment followed me onto our flight to Zurich and then into different scenarios in the land of yodeling and chocolate. What does a follower of Jesus do when:

• Fellow travelers put their oversized carry-on luggage in the overhead bin directly over your assigned seat?

• Flight attendants seem to enjoy attending to the needs of those all around you, but treat you as invisible passengers?

• Free Wi-Fi on your flight faithfully delivers “feedback” emails including “constructive criticism” about your last sermon and preaching attire, your “redneck” sounding accent, and your lack of late-night accessibility?

• Robust young men on a packed bus don’t offer your back-pained wife a seat?

• By happenstance, you run into an old friend in the high-elevation village of Mürren, who mentions the name of another college friend — a friend who has caused you the yet-to-be-healed pain of betrayal?

• A hotel reservation you made months ago, for your last night in Switzerland, suddenly disappears, though you have four confirmation letters, and you have to scramble to rebook in a region of sold-out hotels?

Indeed, what should a follower of Jesus do in response to everything from normal life-in-a-fallen-world brokenness, to encounters with irritating people and provoking circumstances, to intentional insults and mean-spirited slights?

The good news is that the gospel doesn’t make us less human, but more human. As followers of Jesus, we experience the full range of disappointments and emotions common to all image bearers of God. But, by God’s grace, we can learn to steward them rather than live as slaves to them. We can learn to respond as redemptively as possible, as opposed to reacting selfishly and self-righteously. And we can actually find joy when we “overlook an offense” (Proverbs 19:11).

Five Happy Reasons to Overlook an Offense

Joy in overlooking offenses? Yes. Joy from what? Let’s look at five things the Bible says can give us joy if we’re willing to receive them.

But first, let’s be clear: overlooking an offense must not be confused with submitting to abusive people or morally and ethically unacceptable circumstances. Jesus calls us to be foot washers, not doormats.

However, there are at least five reasons that joy is found in overlooking an offense.

1. Gospel Sensibilities

When we overlook an offense, we can rejoice that we’re growing gospel sensibilities and tasting true glory. The Bible says, “Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense” (Proverbs 19:11). The shorter our anger-fuse, the quicker we’ll take offense at anything and anyone. “Good sense” is gospel sense.

The more the truth of the gospel renews our minds and shapes our perspective, the quicker and easier we’ll overlook stuff. We’ll care more about honoring Jesus by our reactions to irritating people and aggravating circumstances and give up on the illusion of having a hassle-free, painless life. There is tremendous joy in caring more about God’s glory than our own reputation, convenience, and rights. God will always be most glorified in us when we are most satisfied, joyful, at peace, and free in him.

2. Owning Our Sin

When we overlook an offense, we can rejoice that we’re starting to acknowledge our own sin. We begin to believe that the log in our eye is a bigger issue than the speck in anyone else’s eye (Matthew 5:38–42). The freest, most joyful Christians I know are the quickest repenters. It’s not that they have less to repent of; they’re just faster at owning their sin, humbling themselves, and resting in Jesus.

As the gospel moves us from Satan’s condemnation into the Spirit’s conviction, we become more aware that we need the grace of God as much as anyone who sins against us, and there’s tremendous joy associated with that kind of humility. We take less offense and extend more grace; we are more patient and less petty; we are getting better at waiting than whining. We’re more realistic about life among ordinary sinners who, like us, love poorly — and wiser about what to take seriously, and what to completely ignore.

3. God’s Spirit at Work

When we overlook an offense, we can rejoice that God’s grace and Spirit are becoming more operative, transforming powers in our lives. As Christians, we are called to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Growth in grace results in our getting to know Jesus better, who desires that we will have the fullness of his joy in us (John 15:11).

And as we surrender to the work of the Spirit in our lives, he grows a vibrant crop of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control” — the very anti-fruit of an easily offended spirit (Galatians 5:22–23). The Holy Spirit also leads us into a greater experience of our sonship (Romans 8:15–17), which gives us even greater joy in seeing our Father at work in all things for our good — even in the most off-putting, irritating, and offensive scenarios (Romans 8:28). God never promised to do all things easy but all things well.

4. Freedom from Approval Seeking

When we overlook an offense, we can rejoice that we’re gaining freedom from living as approval seekers. Christians are a people whose joy need not be connected to what others think and say about us, or how they relate and react to us. As Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.”

To fear people isn’t so much to be afraid of them, but to esteem their approval too much. We look either to God or to people as the fountain and fuel of our joy. People always make poor saviors. We can’t freely or joyfully love anyone whom we’ve given the power to either shame us or exalt us.

5. Forgiving as the Forgiven

When we overlook an offense, we can rejoice that we’re getting better at forgiving others as we’ve been forgiven in Christ. There is no greater non sequitur in the entire universe, or the history of mankind, than for those of us who have been forgiven all our sins — every sinful thought, word, and deed — to withhold forgiveness from others (Matthew 18:21–35).

It was our Father’s kindness that led (and still leads) us to repentance (Romans 2:4). So where do we think our rigid, easily offended, keeping-record-of-wrongs attitudes will lead people? As Paul wrote, we are to “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). Our joy in forgiving others is directly connected to the unspeakable, glorious joy of God’s forgiveness of us and his great delight in us.

Scotty Smith (@ScottyWardSmith) is the founding pastor of Christ Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee.

posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-joy-of-overlooking-an-offense?fbclid=IwAR0oYxyt8JPzAxL94lZDTjFAGVqB-yGmpJDW1cbkjah4YgGNndjACq898Qo

Thank God We Do/Don't Know the Future

Article by Tim Challies

There are occasions in life in which we would all like to know the future. We come to times of sorrow and wonder when our tears will be dried, times of pain and wonder when we will be healed, times of uncertainty and wonder when we will gain confidence. In such moments we may wish we could elevate our gaze beyond the present moment to see into the future. And we know that it would be within the power of God to reveal it to us.

As Christians we have confidence that there is nothing—not one thing in all of time or space—that is beyond the knowledge of God. He knows all that was, is, and ever would, could, or will be. God knows the past because he existed omnisciently and omnipresently in every moment and part of it. God knows the future because he holds the future. He knew the position of every atom at the moment he brought it into being and he knows the position of every atom the day he will bring it all to a close. His knowledge of the future is every bit as extensive and intimate as his knowledge of the present and past. He is the one who “declares the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose’” (Isaiah 46:10).

Because God knows the future in exhaustive detail, he could have chosen to reveal the future in exhaustive detail. He could tell you and me about every event that will befall us, every blessing we will receive, every trial we will endure. But he hasn’t. And I am grateful.

I am grateful we don’t know the future. While our desire to know what will come is understandable, it is not wise. If we knew the future in detail, it would undoubtedly hinder us, paralyze us, destroy us. Imagine knowing the day your child is going to die and how that knowledge would change your relationship with her. Knowing she has a short life you’d be tempted to idolize her (“I only have a few months left!”), while knowing she has a long life you’d be tempted to neglect her (“We have many years left together!”). Imagine knowing the moment your life will end and all you might do to try to avoid that moment, that place, that situation. Imagine knowing the results of a vote before the ballots were collected or knowing the score on an exam before a word was written. Spend a few minutes imagining the impossibility of that life and you’ll conclude it is an expression of divine wisdom that God withholds the future from us.

Yet just as I’m grateful we don’t know the future, I’m grateful we do know the future. In God’s wisdom he has chosen to give us some detail. Particularly, he has chosen to tell us about what comes last and about what comes after that. He tells us that at an unspecified time in the future, a time known only to God, Jesus Christ will return to this earth and bring history to an end. He will separate the people who have believed his gospel from those who have not. Those who have rejected him will be cast out forever; those who have believed in him will be with him forever in perfected bodies on a perfected earth. That is the future God reveals to us and it is enough. It is enough to give us confidence that our sorrows will come to an end and our tears will be dried, that the afflictions we encounter are but “light and momentary,” that the uncertainty we face will be replaced by wonder at what God has accomplished in and through us for his own glory.

Until that great day, we hold fast to what God has made clear about the future. Until that great day, we continue to look in faith to Jesus Christ. Until that great day, we cling to the many powerful promises God has given us. Our confidence is not in knowing the future, but in knowing the one who holds the future.

Article posted at: https://www.challies.com/articles/thank-god-we-dodont-know-the-future/

How to Find Strength in the Strength of God

Article by John Piper Founder & Teacher, desiringGod.org

How do you do a task in the strength of another? How do you exert your will to do something in such a way that you are relying on the will of another to make it happen?

Here are some passages from the Bible that press this question on us:

• “By the Spirit . . . put to death the deeds of the body” (Romans 8:13). So, we are to do the sin-killing, but we are to do it by the Spirit. How?

• “Work out your own salvation . . . for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12–13). We are to work. But the willing and the working is God’s willing and God’sworking. How do we experience that?

• “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). Paul did work hard. But his effort was in some way not his. How did he do that?

• “I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me” (Colossians 1:29). We toil. We struggle. We expend effort and energy. But there is a way to do it so that it is God’s energy and God’s doing. How do we do that?

• “Whoever serves, [let him serve] as one who serves by the strength that God supplies” (1 Peter 4:11). We serve. We exert strength. But there is a way that our serving is the effect of God’s gracious power. What is that way?

Introducing A.P.T.A.T.

In 1983 I gave my answer in a sermon, and to this day I have not been able to improve on these five steps summed up in the acronym A.P.T.A.T. (rhymes with Cap That).

In 1984 J.I. Packer published Keep in Step with the Spirit, and gave the very same steps on pages 125–126. He calls it “Augustinian holiness teaching.” It calls for “intense activity” but this activity “is not in the least self-reliant in spirit.” Instead, he says, “It follows this four-stage sequence”:

First, as one who wants to do all the good you can, you observe what tasks, opportunities, and responsibilities face you. Second, you pray for help in these, acknowledging that without Christ you can do nothing—nothing fruitful, that is (John 15:5). Third, you go to work with a good will and a high heart, expecting to be helped as you asked to be. Fourth, you thank God for help given, ask pardon for your own failures en route, and request more help for the next task. Augustinian holiness is hard working holiness, based on endless repetitions of this sequence.

My five steps omit his first one (“note what tasks are in front of you”). I divide his second step into two: A. Admit (his word, “acknowledge”) that you can do nothing. P. Pray for God’s help for the task at hand. Then, I break his third step into two. He says “expect to get the help you asked for.” Then, with that expectation, “go to work with a good will.” I say, T. Trust a particular promise of God’s help. Then, in that faith, A. Act. Finally, we both say, T. Thank God for the help received.

A. Admit
P. Pray
T. Trust
A. Act
T. Thank

Trust God’s Promises

I think the middle T is all important. Trust a promise. This is the step I think is missing in most Christians’ attempt to live the Christian life. It is certainly my most common mistake.

“We don’t just pray for help hour by hour; we trust specific promises hour by hour.”

Most of us face a difficult task and remember to say, “Help me, God. I need you.” But then, we move straight from P to A — Pray to Act. We pray and then we act. But this robs us of a very powerful step.

After we pray for God’s help, we should remind ourselves of a specific promise that God has made. And fix our minds on it. And put our faith in it. And say to God, “I believe you; help my unbelief. Increase my faith in this promise. I’m trusting you, Lord. Here I go.” Then act.

Paul says we “walk by faith” (2 Corinthians 5:7) and “live by faith” (Galatians 2:20). But for most of us, this remains vague. Hour by hour how do we do this? We do it by reminding ourselves of specific, concrete promises that God has made and Jesus has bought with his blood (2 Corinthians 1:20). Then, we don’t just pray for help hour by hour; we trust those specific promises hour by hour.

When Peter says, “Whoever serves, [let him serve] as one who serves by the strength that God supplies” (1 Peter 4:11), we do this not only by praying for that supply, but by trusting in the promise of the supply in specific situations. Paul says that God supplies the Spirit to you “by hearing with faith” (Galatians 3:5). That is, we hear a promise and we believe it for a particular need, and the Holy Spirit comes to help us through that believed promise.

10 Promises to Memorize

So, here is my suggestion for how to do this. Memorize a few promises that are so universally applicable, they will serve you in almost every situation where you face a task to be done “by the strength that God supplies.” Then, as those tasks come, admit you can’t do that on your own. Pray for the help you need. Then, call to mind one of your memorized promises, and trust it — put your faith in it. Then, act — believing that God is acting in your acting! Finally, when you are done, thank him.

“Act — believing that God is acting in your acting!”

Here are ten such promises to help you get started. Of these, the one I have used most often is Isaiah 41:10.

1. “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)

2. “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19)

3. “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:8)

4. “‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’” (Hebrews 13:5–6)

5. “The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.” (Psalms 84:11)

6. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)

7. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” (Psalms 23:6)

8. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7)

9. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

10. “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” (Psalms 50:15)

Never cease to ponder Paul’s words, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Not I. Yet I. By faith.

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, and most recently Expository Exultation: Christian Preaching as Worship.

3 Key Beliefs that Fuel Contentment

Article by Michael Kelley

Find the source.

It’s a good practice in most areas of life. If you have water in your basement, don’t just clean up the water. Find the source of where it’s coming in. If you have ants in your kitchen, don’t just spray the ants. Find the source of where they’re gaining access. If you have a pain in your body, don’t just take Advil. Find the source to make sure nothing deeper is going on.

See the problem, then find the source.

So it is spiritually. We see a behavior manifest itself, and we should be quick to focus on the mess it creates. But we shouldn’t stop there – we should find the source. And when we follow the trail of that behavior, we will always end up back at the heart. There, in our hearts, we will likely find some misshapen belief about God that is working itself out in various ways. We treat those manifestations, but we ask the Holy Spirit to do surgery on our hearts.

Let’s apply that philosophy to an overall issue that most of us deal with – that of discontentment in life. Let’s say that you look around your life, and you find yourself constantly thirsting and striving for more. You are living with a sense of entitlement, borne by your discontent, and you are entertaining the fantasies of the ever elusive “else”:

• You want, and you deserve, something else in your marriage.
• You want, and you deserve, something else in terms of your income.
• You want, and you deserve, something else in terms of your living situation.
• You want, and you deserve, something else in terms of your personal importance.

In pretty much every area of your life, you are dissatisfied with the current situation. And while there is nothing wrong in and of itself, for example, in advancing your career, in these particular situations, you find an unhealthy preoccupation with that advancement. Your desire has morphed into something selfishly sinful and idolatrously entitled.

This discontentment is the symptom, but what is the source? If you and I are living in this way, there is something malfunctioning in our hearts. Our beliefs have been corrupted, and this kind of life is the evidence. Once we’re at the heart level, then, our question shifts. If we want to live a life of contentment, then that life should be fueled by what we believe to be true about God. So what must we believe to be true about God if we are to live contentedly? At least three things:

1. You must believe that God is in control. 

Did you come to this marriage, this home, this job, this life by accident? If you did, then by all means, seek something other and else. If it all happened by accident, then you should get all you can while you can. But if there is actually some kind of intentionality behind this, if God is truly in control, then there must be reason and meaning behind where you find yourself in life right now. If God is in control, then you can pursue and pray toward a sense of contentment where you are. But that’s not the only thing you have to believe. You not only have to believe that God is in control…

2. You must believe God is loving. 

Most of us at one point or another have had a boss that loved the little bit of power and control that he or she has over us. Because they loved it, they abused it. They used that power not to lift others up and to serve them, but used it instead to beat them down. If you only believe God is in control, but are not convinced He loves you, it means that you should do everything in your power to escape from under His thumb if that were possible, because you know that He will abuse the power He has over you for His own enjoyment. But if you do actually believe God is both all powerful and that He actually does love you, then you are free to be content in the situation you find yourself in. Though it might be difficult, you can choose to believe God has placed you there intentionally, and though you can’t for the life of you see how, you know that ultimately this, too, is for your good. Which leads us to the third thing you must believe about God to lived contentedly…

3. You must believe God is generous. 

Now this is where it gets even more difficult, because the root of many of our choices is actually a failure to believe in the generosity of God. One of the great lies that we believe over and over again is that God is holding out on us. It is, in fact, the same lie that the serpent fed to Eve on the day of the fall – that there is another tree that has the best fruit, and this best fruit is what God is actually keeping from you. So it is with us. We look at our jobs, our families, our incomes, and we foster the belief that God is holding out on us. And yet the truth is completely opposite.

God is not holding out on us because there’s nothing left for Him to hold out. He has already given us every spiritual blessing in Christ (Eph. 1:3).

Contentment is not a feeling you drift in and out of. Rather, contentment is fueled by belief. It’s a demonstration of our faith in a powerful, loving, and generous God. When we are content, we demonstrate that we believe God has intentionally placed us where we are, out of His love, and He was good and generous in doing so.

Michael Kelley

Michael Kelley, a Regular Contributor to For The Church, is a husband and father of three who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where he serves as the Director of Groups Ministry for LifeWay Christian Resources. He is also the author of Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God and Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life. Follow him on Twitter at @_michaelkelley or read more content like this at michaelkelley.co.

Article posted at:  https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/3-key-beliefs-that-fuel-contentment

Evaluate Your Day Before It Begins

Article by Matthew Westerholm

“Was today a good day?” I crawled into bed and prepared to sleep, my mind anxiously evaluating the previous 24 hours. Using a haphazard set of metrics, I interrogated myself, “Was today a success? Did I accomplish my goals and get what I wanted?”

I never fall asleep quickly when my thoughts spiral like this. And any sleep that I get is not particularly restful. My problem is that I tend to overanalyze my day once it has ended.

Instead of this end-of-the-day anxious spiral, the psalmist provides believers with a confident prayer that flips worry on its head. Psalm 90:14 says, “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” It is easy to read these nineteen words quickly, but this verse contains glorious truths that enable us to evaluate our day before it even begins.

Our Ultimate Request: Satisfy Us

That first word, satisfy, might be the most important word in this verse. At the start, the psalmist asks God to satisfy him, giving us both an example and permission to ask God to make us happy.

While our long lists of dissatisfactions often cause sleepless nights, our neediness and dependence unmistakably reveal the truth that we are not meant to achieve satisfaction on our own. In every circumstance, this psalm calls us to turn to the Lord and ask him to satisfy us.

What might a prayer for satisfaction in God look like in different circumstances? If we are disinterested or lethargic, we should ask God to fascinate and animate us. If we are bored or distracted, we should ask God to delight and captivate us. When we are lonely or miserable, we can ask God to accompany and comfort us.

Morning by Morning

While the others spend the entire day searching for satisfaction, God satisfies his children at the start of their day. Having received satisfaction from God in the morning, believers are liberated each day to glorify God.

This satisfaction of God sets us free to navigate our lives in faith. The world uses work to chase satisfaction through personal accomplishments. We are freed by God’s satisfaction, liberated to glorify God with our work and provide for our families.

The world uses recreation to chase satisfaction through the pursuit of pleasure. We are freed by God’s satisfaction, liberated to find joy whatever the circumstances. The world uses people to chase satisfaction through approval. We are freed by God’s satisfaction, liberated to glorify God by loving people — genuinely interacting and caring for them.

God’s love helps us receive and interpret our circumstances instead of having our hearts controlled by them. Rather than looking at our schedules and hoping for a good day, or creating a plan to make a good day, we look to the satisfying love of God that he generously offers each morning.

Steadfast and New

And we don’t need to wonder whether God’s love for us is going to fade or fail; God’s love is just as steadfast as he is. As Jeremiah wrote, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end.” God’s love and mercy, the prophet tells us, are “new every morning.”

We describe God’s love as both “steadfast” and “new” — a confusing pair of adjectives. But because God’s eternal nature never changes, his love toward his children is steadfast. And because God upholds the universe through new, creative energies that he inexhaustibly sustains (his gloriously plural, “mercies”), his love for his children is new every morning.

“The Lord is my portion,” the prophet concludes, so we can “hope in him.” (Lamentations 3:22–24). God gives us his merciful love each day; this is our daily baseline for hope.

Daily Satisfaction, Eternal Happiness

Normally, Hebrew poetry uses parallelism. That means that the Psalms make their point by using two (or more) closely corresponding lines. A strictly parallel reading leads us to expect the verse to say something like, “Satisfy us in the morning, that we may be glad till the evening.” If God satisfies us at the start of the day, we expect to remain happy until the day’s end.

Here, however, the psalmist surprises us. In a twist of gospel math, a daily(“in the morning”) prayer for satisfaction is answered by a lifetime (“all our days”) of joy and gladness.

How can one morning’s worth of satisfaction provide a lifetime of joy? Certainly some of the answer rests directly in the verse — God’s steadfast lovewill last our entire lives.

On Easter Morning

But the rest of the Bible explains this equation even more fully. One morning, the Lord Jesus Christ walked out of his grave, conquering sin and defeating death. And the resurrection power of the Son of God has been given to all God’s sons and daughters (Romans 8:11). So, now, because of that greatest morning of all, we can rejoice and be glad all of our days.

We don’t need to wait until an evening of anxious evaluation to determine whether today was a good day. God loves us with a steadfast love. The Lord Jesus conquered sin and death on Easter morning. And because we belong to him, today is a very good day.

Matthew Westerholm (@mwesterholm) is the pastor for worship and music at Bethlehem Baptist Church and assistant professor of music and worship at Bethlehem College & Seminary. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and three sons.

Posted at:  https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/evaluate-your-day-before-it-begins

The Miracle of Waiting Faithfully

Interview with Jackie Hill Perry

Audio Transcript

Jackie Hill Perry, thanks for being with us again. On Friday we talked about how hard it is to cling to God when life is easy. It was really good and challenging, and that’s why I love following you on Twitter and Instagram. Here’s another tweet that I think is really perceptive, and I want you to elaborate on it: “Sometimes the miracle isn’t in your prayer being answered but in your faith being grown as you wait.” Excellent. So explain to us, what is God doing to us in our waiting?

Holy Through Waiting

I think as a believer, one thing I’ve consistently had difficulty with is the whole concept and idea of perseverance. I think God is after that when we are praying for things that we don’t seem to be getting.

“A lot of times we are praying for things that we have no intention of giving back to God in the first place.”

I got encouragement for that in particular when I was reading 1 Samuel 1–2, when it came to the story of Hannah and how she wanted a child. She wanted a child for a really, really long time. She kept praying, as far as we know. But then when she went to the temple, she finally prayed to God and she let out her vexation to the Lord.

The Bible said that she walked away from the temple, and her face was no longer sad. And that was always really intriguing to me. Did that happen somehow when she prayed that prayer in particular, and asked God to give her a son? The interesting thing is that in the prayer, she said, “Lord, I will give the son back to you.”

I think a lot of times we are praying for things that we have no intention of giving back to God in the first place.

I wonder if Hannah’s heart had changed in such a way where everything that she was going to get from God, and everything that she wanted to get from God, she only wanted it for his glory. I think that part is what changed her heart so that she was able to walk away and no longer be sad by what seemed to be an unanswered prayer — before the prayer was even answered.

A Mighty Work

So, for me, my heart has been asking, “Man, what is God trying to do in me through my waiting?” Is he trying to help me see him more? Is he trying to help me understand that I don’t need what I think I need? Is he trying to teach me about contentment in the things that I do have?

I think God is always doing a variety of things in secret that we don’t realize or don’t see. I think the miraculous thing is that faith is not natural to me; sin is, rebellion is, unbelief is. The miraculous thing is that God will somehow use my waiting as a means to grow my faith so that I could see Jesus and want Jesus and crave Jesus.

Ultimately, we know that perseverance produces character, and character produces hope, and God just wants us to have hope in him (Romans 5:3–5). He wants us to get to the end where we will receive the crown of life, and you don’t get there unless you persevere. God is doing a mighty thing in us when he just doesn’t give us everything we want when we want it.

Yeah. And I suppose we’re all waiting for something. I feel like when I am being called to wait for an answer to prayer, I feel like I’m being singled out. Like, why me! But the reality is, as you read the Bible, waiting is part of the gig for all of God’s people.

Everyone’s Waiting

For sure. All throughout Scripture God’s people are waiting. I mean, Israel, they were crying out to God for deliverance for a long time. He had promised to do so, and he did it.

“God will somehow use my waiting as a means to grow my faith so that I could see Jesus and want Jesus and crave Jesus.”

Us, we’re waiting for the return of Jesus. We are all in a sense waiting for something, but everything God said he will do, he will do. So, in the meantime, as we wait, we keep trusting, we keep believing, we keep reading Scripture to remind ourselves what God has said.

We keep surrounding ourselves with other believers who can remind us of the truth when we don’t want to believe it. We keep praying, we keep believing, and in that, that’s where godliness comes out of.

If you think about it, you’re trying hard to hold on, and in holding on, God is doing all that he has to do to keep us to himself.

Find other recent and popular Ask Pastor John episodes.

Jackie Hill Perry (@JackieHillPerry) is a poet and hip-hop artist from St. Louis who has been saved by a gracious God. Her latest album is called Crescendo.

Posted at:  https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/the-miracle-of-waiting-faithfully

Battle the Unbelief of Impatience

Article by John Piper

Impatience is a form of unbelief. It’s what we begin to feel when we start to doubt the wisdom of God’s timing or the goodness of his guidance. It springs up in our hearts when the road to success gets muddy, or strewn with boulders, or blocked by some fallen tree. The battle with impatience can be a little skirmish over a long wait in a checkout lane. Or, it can be a major combat over a handicap, or disease, or circumstance that knocks out half your dreams.

The opposite of impatience is not a glib, superficial denial of frustration. The opposite of impatience is a deepening, ripening, peaceful willingness either to wait for God where you are in the place of obedience, or to persevere at the pace he allows on the road of obedience — to wait in his place, or to go at his pace.

The Battle Against Unbelief

When the way you planned to run your day, or the way you planned to live your life is cut off or slowed down, the unbelief of impatience tempts you in two directions, depending partly on your personality, partly on circumstances:

1. On the one side, it tempts you to give up, bail out. If there’s going to be frustration, and opposition, and difficulty, then I’ll just forget it. I won’t keep this job, or take this challenge, rear this child, or stay in this marriage, or live this life. That’s one way the unbelief of impatience tempts you. Give up.

2. On the other side, impatience tempts you to make rash counter moves against the obstacles in your way. It tempts you to be impetuous, or hasty, or impulsive, or reckless. If you don’t turn your car around and go home, you rush into some ill-advised detour to try to beat the system.

Whichever way you have to battle impatience, the main point today is that it’s a battle against unbelief, and therefore it’s not merely a personality issue. It’s the issue of whether you live by faith and whether you inherit the promises of eternal life. Listen to these verses to sense how vital this battle is:

• Luke 21:19 — “By your endurance [patience] you will gain your lives.”

• Romans 2:7 — “To those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, God will give eternal life.”

• Hebrews 6:12 — “Do not be sluggish but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

Patience in doing the will of God is not an optional virtue in the Christian life. And the reason it’s not is because faith is not an optional virtue. Patience in well-doing is the fruit of faith. And impatience is the fruit of unbelief. And so, the battle against impatience is a battle against unbelief. And so, the chief weapon is the word of God, especially his promises.

How the Psalmist Battled Against Impatience

Before we look at Isaiah 30, I want you to see this relationship between the promises of God and the patience of the believer in Psalm 130:5. How does the psalmist battle against impatience in his heart?

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
   And in his word I hope.

“Waiting for the Lord” is an Old Testament way of describing the opposite of impatience. Waiting for the Lord is the opposite of running ahead of the Lord and it’s the opposite of bailing out on the Lord. It’s staying at your appointed place, while he says Stay, or it’s going at his appointed pace, while he says Go. It’s not impetuous, and it’s not despairing.

Now, how does the psalmist sustain his patience as he waits for the Lord to show him the next move? Verse 5 says, “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope.” The strength that sustains you in patience is hope, and the source of hope is the word of God. “In his word I hope.” And hope is just faith in the future tense. Hebrews says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.”

So what we have in Psalm 130:5 is a clear illustration that the way to battle impatience is to buttress your hope (or faith) in God, and the way to buttress your hope in God is to listen to his word, especially his promises.

If you are tempted not to wait peacefully for God, to let him give you your next move — if you are tempted to give up on him or go ahead without him — please realize that this is a moment for great spiritual warfare. Take the sword of the Spirit, the word of God (Ephesians 6:17), and wield some wonderful promise against the enemy of impatience.

The Impetuous Side of Impatience

Now let’s look at an illustration of Israel when she did not do this.

During Isaiah’s day, Israel was threatened by enemies like Assyria. During those times, God sent the prophet with his word to tell Israel how he wanted them to respond to the threat. But one time, Israel became impatient with God’s timing. The danger was too close. The odds for success were too small. Isaiah 30:1–2 describes what Israel did in her impatience.

Woe to the rebellious children, says the Lord, who carry out a plan, but not mine; and who make a league, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my counsel, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh, and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!

This is the opposite of waiting on the Lord. Israel became impatient. God had not delivered them from their enemy in the time, or in the way that they had hoped, and patience ran out. They sent to Egypt for help. They made a plan and treaty, but they weren’t God’s. The key words are in verse 2: “They set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my counsel.”

This is a perfect illustration of the impetuous side of impatience. This is where many of us sin almost daily: charging ahead in our own plans without stopping to consult the Lord.

The Warning of the Lord

So the Lord gives a warning in verse 3: “Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh [the king of Egypt] turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation.” In other words, your impatience is going to backfire on you. Egypt will not deliver you; it will be your shame. Your impatience will turn out to be your humiliation.

This is meant as a warning for all of us. When our way is blocked, and the Lord says wait, we better trust him and wait, because if we run ahead without consulting him, our plans will probably not be his plans and they will bring shame on us, rather than glory. (See Isaiah 50:10–11 and the case of Abraham and Hagar for the same point.)

What Should Be Done Instead?

What should Israel have done? What should we do when we feel boxed in by obstacles and frustrations? The answer is given in verse 15 and verse 18.

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”

Therefore, the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore, he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.

“If you trust in God, he will give you all you need to be patient.”

Here are two great promises this morning that should give you strong incentive to overcome the unbelief of impatience.

Verse 15: “In quietness and trust shall be your strength.” In other words, if you rest in God, if you look to him instead of dashing down to Egypt, if you trust him, then he will give you all the strength you need to be patient, and to handle the stresses where you are.

Then verse 18: “Blessed are all those who wait for him.” God promises that if you wait patiently for his guidance and help, instead of plunging ahead “without asking for his counsel,” he will give you a great blessing.

Preach to Your Own Soul

This is the way you battle the unbelief of impatience. You preach to your soul with warnings and promises. You say, look what happened to Israel when they acted impatiently and went to Egypt for help instead of waiting for God. They were shamed and humiliated. And then you say to your soul: but look what God promises to us if we will rest in him and be quiet and trusting. He will make us strong and save us. He says he will bless us if we wait patiently for him.

Then you might use the promise in Isaiah 49:23: “Those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.” And then Isaiah 64:4: “No eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him. And finally, Isaiah 40:31:”Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

So, you battle the unbelief of impatience by using the promises of God to persuade your heart that God’s timing, and God’s guidance, and God’s sovereignty are going to take this frustrated, boxed-in, unproductive situation and make something eternally valuable out of it. There will come a blessing, a strength, a vindication, a mounting up with wings like eagles.

Charles Simeon’s Patient Endurance

Let me close with an illustration of a man who lived and died in successful warfare against the unbelief of impatience. His name was Charles Simeon. He was a pastor in the Church of England from 1782 to 1836 at Trinity Church in Cambridge. He was appointed to his church by a bishop against the will of the people. They opposed him, not because he was a bad preacher, but because he was an evangelical — he believed the Bible and called for conversion, and holiness, and world missions.

For twelve years the people refused to let him give the afternoon Sunday sermon. And during that time, they boycotted the Sunday morning service and locked their pews so that no one could sit in them. He preached to people in the aisles for twelve years. How did he last?

In this state of things, I saw no remedy but faith and patience. [Note the linking of faith and patience!] The passage of Scripture which subdued and controlled my mind was this, “The servant of the Lord must not strive.” [Note: The weapon in the fight for faith and patience was the word] It was painful indeed to see the church, with the exception of the aisles, almost forsaken; but I thought that if God would only give a double blessing to the congregation that did attend, there would on the whole be as much good done as if the congregation were doubled and the blessing limited to only half the amount. This comforted me many, many times, when without such a reflection, I should have sunk under my burthen. (Charles Simeon)

Where did he get the assurance that if he followed the way of patience, there would be a blessing on his work that would make up for frustrations of having all the pews locked? He got it, no doubt, from texts like Isaiah 30:18, “Blessed are all those who wait for the Lord.” The word conquered unbelief, and belief conquered impatience.

“Battle the unbelief of impatience by preaching to your soul with warnings and promises.

Fifty-four years later he was dying. It was October 1836. The weeks drug on, as they have for many of our dying saints at Bethlehem. I’ve learned that the battle with impatience can be very intense on the death bed. On October 21, those by his bed heard him say these words slowly and with long pauses:

Infinite wisdom has arranged the whole with infinite love; and infinite power enables me — to rest upon that love. I am in a dear Father’s hands — all is secure. When I look to Him, I see nothing but faithfulness — and immutability — and truth; and I have the sweetest peace — I cannot have more peace. (Charles Simeon)

The reason Simeon could die like that is because he had trained himself for 54 years to go to Scripture and to take hold of the infinite wisdom, and love, and power of God, and use them to conquer the unbelief of impatience.

And so I urge you in the words of Hebrews 6:12, “Be imitators of” Charles Simeon and of all “those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

For additional study, see the connection of faith/hope with patience in Romans 8:25; 12:12; 1 Thessalonians 1:3; Hebrews 6:12, 15; James 1:3; Revelation 13:10.

For other texts on patience see Psalm 37:9; Lamentations 3:25–27; Luke 8:15; Romans 5:3; 1 Corinthians 13:4; Galatians 5:5, 22; Ephesians 4:1–2; Colossians 1:11; 1 Thessalonians 5:14; James 5:7–11; Job 1:21; Luke 2:25, 38; 2 Timothy 3:10. For God’s patience, see 2 Peter 3:9; Romans 2:4; 9:22; 1 Timothy 1:16; 1 Peter 3:20.

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, and most recently Expository Exultation: Christian Preaching as Worship.