The Power Of Waiting

Waiting is one of the most honest tests of faith, because it presses on the part of us that wants control, speed, and certainty. After Easter, we sit in that tension: Jesus has risen, the gospel is true, and yet we still find ourselves praying, “Lord, come quickly.” From Galatians 5:5, we explore how Christian hope is not wishful thinking but Spirit-shaped confidence, even when the calendar drags and the answers feel late. 

We trace the big Bible storyline of waiting, starting in Eden with the first promise of a rescuer, moving through Israel’s long centuries of prophecy and delay, and arriving at the surprising humility of Christ’s birth. Simeon’s moment of holding Jesus becomes a picture of what steady trust looks like when God’s promises finally arrive. Then the focus shifts again: after the resurrection, a new season begins, the wait for Christ’s return, and the daily question becomes how to live faithfully in the meantime. 

We get practical about “waiting on the Lord” as active trust, not passive inactivity: prayer, obedience, perspective, and refusing anxiety-driven choices. There’s also a personal thread of grief and hope, including family loss, the joy of a new grandchild, and a healing testimony that points back to God’s goodness and timing. If you’re in a waiting season right now, this is a grounded, Scripture-rich encouragement to stay ready, stay bold, and keep moving forward. Subscribe, share this with a mate, leave a review, and tell us: what are you waiting for, and what do you want God to grow in you while you wait?

Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are in the world - Welcome to Grapevine Ministries.

Transcript

Life After Easter And Waiting

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Well, we're back in beautiful sunny Western Australia after Easter, or how I put it is life after the cross for those that are taking notes. Galatians 5:5 says this, for through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. So, just how often have you encountered times of waiting? It could be specific situations, even seasons that seem to never end. We loathe waiting. Our culture even demands double drive-throughs at McDonald's, red roosters, or KFC if you're in a country that doesn't have red rooster. You're missing out. It's beautiful. For pleasant employment, who also standing out in the rain, weathering the conditions, just so they can actually be standing there with an iPad and process your order for your chicken tenders. Well, we may not admit it, but the struggle is real. I'm currently in a season of waiting that has challenged my faith and grown me in ways I likely won't see until this season is over. But let's look at how the gospel is overflowing with seasons of waiting. We're all familiar with the story of Adam and Eve, Christians and non Christians alike in the Garden of Eden. Life was paradise. Then the serpent came, and man fell prey to his ways, causing the original sin. In Genesis three fifteen we hear God deliver the consequences of the serpent which is Satan. I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. You will strike your head and you will strike his heel. Adam and Eve heard this as they also received from God the consequences of their sin. Even then they surely thought how long before this serpent's head will be crushed? God was speaking of a future rescuer, the Messiah, and likely Adam and Eve longed and waited for that glorious day that would not come in their lifetime, but would come according to the scriptures. Look, since we have been blessed with the scriptures, we know that the rescuer, as some say, the Messiah, Jesus, wouldn't come quickly for thousands of years later. Now don't panic, Isaiah 11 prophesies of the shot that will grow from the stump of Jess. This shoot was to be a banner for his people, and his resting place was to be glorious. If you read the Old Testament, you've learned of God's chosen people, the Israelites. Now they went from captivity to freedom, led by a stuttering leader, crossed the Red Sea on dry land, and eventually entered the promised land. But continually they were disobedient, yet God was faithful to his word. He had a plan to rescue them, but his plan had to wait. The prophets like Isaiah foretold this rescuer, the Messiah coming, yet surely those disobedient chosen ones wondered how long the wait was arduous, and some doubted a Messiah would ever come. Then just as God had promised, when the fullness of time had come, Jesus was born. Now we know this because we've just been through Easter. But he was born in a smelly barn with the animals, and the rescuer had arrived, but as a baby. How unconventional for a king. Yet after all, that waiting, God's plan was unfolding just as he designed it. One person who had waited excitedly for this day was Simeon. Now, this is the difference between those that have that strong, rigid faith and totally without any shadow of a doubt, believe that the scriptures will be and are being and have been fulfilled. When Simeon held the baby, that rescuer, Jesus, he said, For my eyes have seen your salvation. You have prepared it for the presence of all people, a light for revelation to the gentles and glory to your people Israel. Simeon's wait was over, but for everybody else they had to wait another thirty three years. Jesus would minister on this earth, cumulating in what was just celebrated as Easter, his death and resurrection. How can this be? The great rescuer had come and now was gone, but not dead. He is risen. Jesus had told his disciples if I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to myself, so that when I am, you may also be. Now lots of questions followed, yet over time, even after Jesus' resurrection, the disciples came to understand Jesus' word, and the gospel spread. But another wait began, the wait for Christ's return. Now today, as believers, we are still waiting for his return. Many a day may utter, even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly. We wait, but not without hope. See, life after the cross brings us hope and waiting, yet we see the thread of waiting through the gospel story. As we wait with anticipation, may we be bold in sharing the good news that brings the hope of Christ. See, we don't know when he's going to come, but we do know he is going to come. Jesus made it very, very simple, and yet, you know, in some cases it appeared quite complex. But as the scriptures have told us, He Jesus has left us with a comforter, the Holy Spirit. So our weight is not alone or in vain. Matthew 28.20 and John 8.13 tells us this very clearly. He's stating that he is always with you. Always. And we will continue to see his signs through miracles, signs, and wonders. You see, waiting patiently on the Lord means actively trusting God's timing through prayer, obedience, and hope. Rather than acting in panic, it transforms waiting from passive inactivity into a strengthening process that renews spirits, enables spiritual soaring, and yields divine blessing. The point that I'm trying to make here is there are key action steps included in resting in Him, avoiding anxiety-driven choices and maintaining expectants, expectations, and a positive attitude. See what I'm trying to say here is that we've got to realize that we um I put this, you can either be uh passive, or you can actually be, you know, aggressive, or you can actually just be expectant. How you look at life and where it sits for you is really all about our perspective on how we actually look at things, is really all to do with what we interpret the scriptures to be. Now, I'm gonna make this a little easier for you because I've done all the hard work. Uh, over the next few weeks, we'll look at uh this more in depth, but for now, the difficulty of waiting is knowing we live in an impatient, instant gratification world, but God is always on time waiting. Waiting is not just filling your time on this earth, it is a vital part of God's plan to test and strengthen our faith, and hopefully, I'll be able to reveal some of these keys in working through that anticipation of waiting. Now, let me put it this way: I'll give you a real life example of this. Now, you've all been told about my depends on whether you're a new listener or whether you've been listening to me from COVID days onwards. But we have had a very challenging 12 months, and the thing is, it's a bit like not only our life, but everybody's life on this planet that you see that over a period of time we have times in the valleys and times on the mountains. We can't be passive in waiting for the return of our Lord and Savior. He is our rescuer, so he has come, he has shown himself to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He lived, he died, and he rose again. You can't say that about any other spiritual leader. And no how man doesn't matter how many times you look at it, it is in it is un how am I trying to word this? Look, put it this way it is almost impossible for Jesus to have been a mythical tale or just somebody who you know was around just doing miracles, and then he had twelve people sort of like selling the story, so to speak. There's passages of scripture in even in the Quran about Jesus. Also, Mary has got a whole chapter in the Quran. What I'm trying to say, it is indisputable. That's the word I was looking for. It's indisputable that Jesus Christ is who he says he is, and you notice I'm saying he is, not he was, because he's the same today, yesterday, and forever. He has come, he has fulfilled the scriptures throughout the Old Testament, and if you do your due diligence and look through the book of Revelation and try and highlight all of the promises of God and see which ones have been fulfilled, and you'll be pleasantly surprised because the wait is almost over. But I'm gonna make it a little easier and I'm gonna go through some step-by-step processes of how you can actually see um the scriptures coming to life in your life, and there's a um there's a couple of movies out. I don't normally promote movies, but um I'm not really sure even if I got the name right. Uh it's God's Not Dead. Um basically it's about a university student who was ostracized at university because they basically saying that God doesn't exist, and so he was having a bit of a challenge with one of the you know the professors at the university, and he said, all right then, he said, let's have a have a genuine debate about this, and we will do our own research and come up with our own conclusion. Now, I don't need to tell you what the what that is all about because the idea is for you to go watch the movie. But the thing is, it was very, very clearly done, and and um the evidence was gathered in such a clinical way that if you go through the process, and many have tried this, there has been a lot of scientists that have actually tried to disprove the Bible and have actually ended up becoming born-again Christians. But that's for another time. But the point I'm saying right now is life after the cross, don't let your life journey stop after Easter and then reignite itself around Christmas time and then repeat the same. It says if you if you do the same thing over and over again and end up with the same result, well, there's a terminology for that, and I'm not going to say what it is, but you know, basically means that um you're a little short of the dollar, so to speak. Because you can't keep doing that. If you keep coming, if you keep researching something and coming up with the same result over and over again, then either your interpretation of what you're doing is flawed, or the answer that you're getting is the answer that it really is, even though that's not the answer that you wanted. If that makes sense, we will see in time to come. But I want to give you a real life example of this, okay, because there is power in waiting, and that's what I'm gonna be talking about over the next couple of weeks. But I give you a classic example, the last 12 months um with me and my wife has had a real roller coaster event, and I'll tell you why. Both um my wife's mother and my mother passed away within one month of each other. Now, my my mother was older, so in worldly perspective, that was expected. Um, Maria's mother, not so much. And let me put it this way: it doesn't matter whether you're nineteen or ninety, when someone loses someone they love, they care about, or has just been a very important part of their life, the way that our body is is made up, it's always too early. But let me give you a little ray of sunshine with that. The thing is, there's a time and a season for everything, everything is temporal, subject to change. Now, okay, so my wife Maria has got the worst of it because she's dealing with a husband who is severely disabled, and then she loses her uncle, uh, and then she loses her mother, and then she loses her brother. Then I lose my mother, okay, and but just as Jesus died and rose again, there's something that replaces it sort of like keeps the balance to books, okay? Now, the good side of that is that we welcome into the world our third grandchild, a beautiful young, healthy boy, to my son and his wife. Also, on the 11th of the 11th at 11 o'clock last year, God raised me up out of the wheelchair for a second time. Two totally different causes, two totally different situations, but I've been praying for a very long time over the last four years for God to give me the use of my legs, which He has done. So everybody tells me now that I've got to do book number two. But the journey's not over yet. But I intend to give all honor and glory to God, and coming up in um the end of August this year, um there is a city to serve, something like a Boston Marathon if you're in America or one of those type of things. And I got a group of uh fellow Christians, and we are going to have these shirts made up, which is you know, for the glory of God, and I'm going to walk four kilometers in. Preparation for me going on a missions trip and spreading the gospel and also letting people know that he is the healer.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

God is good all the time, and we know this.

Be Proactive Until He Comes

SPEAKER_01 22:47

If there is any doubt, you need to go back to the scriptures, you know, even in Psalm 41. Um verse 1, it says, I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined to me and heard my cry. The power of prayer, the power of positive thinking, the power of understanding just what God is doing in your life. Are you in a waiting period at this point in your life? Have you been waiting a long time or a short time? Is it something that is gonna bring joy to your life? Or, you know, there's a difference between a need and a want. So you need to take that into consideration as well. And sometimes that need and want is God's interpretation of that. Is it something that He believes that you need in your life, or is it something that you want, like a brand new car or a nice house, or you know, a job with lots of money, you know? As long as you, and I've said this on many occasions, and I really reiterated this yesterday with someone, because you know, like I was saying, we're going through all of these circumstances in our life, and then it uh finally cumulated with um yesterday when I was to officiate over a young couple's wedding. Now the thing is the wait was over for them. They were being very obedient to God and and uh living a Christian life in such a way that they made sure that they understood the scriptures and they wanted to make sure that they under God um joined together in holy matrimony before they lived together or anything like that. But there's always something going on in someone's life. Is it something to celebrate like the birth of our grandchild? Is it something to celebrate like the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Is it something to um not necessarily celebrate but be glad that the wait is over? Because not all waiting is in relation to something good at the end of it. Um it's like um my wife's brother. Um now, if you look at all of her siblings, uh he would be the last person that you would have thought that would have gone to the Lord um out of all of the six, you know. But um it wasn't to be, and he got a a really bad, you know, um cancer, and it literally ate him away, and so the wait for him is over, and now he is in heaven with our heavenly father, and he's with his parents, and he is enjoying, you know, paradise. But to others, okay, the wait is for something good, glorious, you know, like the birth of our uh grandson. Um he was overdue by a couple of weeks, so the waiting became more anxious in the in the natural because hey, when's this baby coming? When's this baby coming? And um, you know, my son and and his wife were doing the right thing that they were not so like talking to us every day and letting us know what the update is. They were waiting for the baby to come and then they were going to tell everybody. But um, my wife's getting there and she's impatient and she's sending text messages and making phone calls. Has he arrived yet? Has he arrived yet? Has he arrived yet? And I believe that for a very, very long time the Israelites were doing exactly that same thing in relation to the Messiah. Has he come yet? Where is he coming from? Is he going to you know destroy the the Romans and give the Israelite people back their country? And it's God's planning, it's God's timing, and there is a plan and a purpose behind everything that he does. What we need to do is we need to get on board with him. Okay, put him first and foremost in everything we say and everything we do, okay? And in Luke 4, 18 and 19, it says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. I mean, talking as you. You know, the Spirit of the Lord is upon you to preach the gospel, to heal the brokenhearted, to set those that are in captivity free, and to declare the acceptable year of the Lord. Do not stand idly by waiting on the Lord. Be proactive, be moving forward, because every time that you do something, you bring honor and glory to God, and that's what we need to do, you know. We need to make sure that we are being proactive, we have our due diligence, and we make sure that we are ready for when he comes. Because it talks about that in the scriptures, you know, making sure that we're ready because he can come anytime. We are in the end times, so that's where we start, and we'll continue on this over the next couple of weeks, and hopefully, it'll give you some solace, it'll give you some comfort, it'll let you know that you're not alone in your journey, and we all have times of waiting. Right? God bless, and we'll talk to you next week. Bye for now.