Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Why Does God Make Us Wait? | Christmas | Luke 2:22-35

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

How do you feel about waiting? Are you willing to wait on God? What does it look like to wait on God? https://twitter.com/KeithSimon_ (Keith) continues our Christmas series today in https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%202%3A22-35&version=NIV (Luke 2:22-35). Listen to find out how this passage reveals how to wait on God with hope and expectance. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/tmbtpodcast (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO and @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks (https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/) Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmbtpodcast (https://twitter.com/tmbtpodcast) Passages https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%202%3A22-35&version=NIV (Luke 2:22-35) Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to Tim Minna Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. And I'm Patrick Miller. We're in the middle of our Christmas series right now. We're exploring the stories around Jesus's birth and the prophecies pointing forward to it. How do you feel about waiting? I bet you love it, don't you?

You enjoy a nice, long wait. Well, if you're like me, you don't. I don't like to wait at all. I don't like to wait in line at the grocery store or wait on my luggage at the baggage claim. I don't like sitting at a stoplight waiting for it to turn green. How good are you at waiting? The Bible is full of people who waited. Abraham waited 24 years between the time God promised him a child and Isaac was born.

Israel waited 400 years in slavery in Egypt, waiting on God to deliver them. In Luke chapter 2, we see a man named Simeon waiting for the Messiah. Let me set the scene for you. A week has passed since Mary gave birth and now Joseph, Mary, and Jesus are in Jerusalem. They're going to the temple for Jesus's circumcision. The circumcision was supposed to take place on the eighth day of life, and it was at the same time that the baby was officially given a name. So, Luke 2.21. On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus. The name the angel had given him before he was conceived. Circumcision was the sign of the covenant that God made with Abraham. Jesus needed to be

circumcised to identify with his people. Circumcision was a sign that the person was in a relationship with God. It's interesting that an angel had told Joseph and Mary separately that the child's name was to be Jesus. Jesus means Yahweh saves. So his name explains who he is and what kind of mission he's on. All right, back to the story in Luke. When the time came for the purification rights required by the law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord, and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the law of the Lord,

a pair of doves or two young pigeons. After a woman had a baby, she was required to go to the temple to offer a sacrifice, and the law commanded the sacrifice of a lamb and a pigeon or a dove. But the law also made an exception for those who couldn't afford that offering. Instead, the woman could offer two doves or two pigeons. So when Mary and Joseph go to Jerusalem to the temple to offer the sacrifice, they have to offer the sacrifice of poor people. It was a public declaration of their family's poverty.

In many places around the world, and in many times throughout history, It's the poor who are quicker to come to Jesus because they see their need for Jesus. It's not that some aren't needy and some aren't. We're all needy, but only some of us sense our need for Jesus. Only some of us feel the weight of our need. Wealth and connections and good health, they all keep us from sensing our neediness. Psalm 346. This poor man called and the Lord heard him.

He saved him out of all his troubles. those who call upon the Lord are those who are poor, those who see their need. Well, while Mary and Joseph are in the temple offering their sacrifices, they meet a guy named Simeon, verse 25. Now, there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was on him. So Simeon is a good guy, right? He's righteous, he's devout, the Holy Spirit's on him, and he's waiting for the Messiah.

It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. So moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations. A light for the revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people is real. Now, imagine if you're Joseph and Mary and some stranger asked to hold your baby and then says,

okay, now that I've held your child, I can die in peace. I'll die happy. When my kids were babies and somebody asked to hold them, they said they were kind of cute because they looked like their mom. No one said that they could now die happy because they had held my kid. But that's exactly what Simeon, who is an older gentleman, said. He had been waiting to see the Messiah. We don't know how long he waited. All we know is it was probably just as hard for him to wait as it is for us to wait.

So the obvious question is, why does God make us wait? Why not just act now? Well, waiting is one of the ways that God works in our life. Waiting teaches us patience and trust. Waiting leads us to cling to God. So it's part of the process of God making us into the people that he wants us to be. So if God's plan includes waiting, we need to learn more about it. Biblical waiting is not waiting passively for something or someone to come along that will allow you to escape from your trouble.

People sometimes say, I'm just waiting for the Lord. More is an excuse not to face up to reality and take appropriate reaction or own up to their own responsibility. That's not what waiting on the Lord is. Waiting on the Lord is confident, disciplined, active, sometimes difficult, clinging to God. Waiting on the Lord is a daily decision to say, God, I'm going to trust you, even though the circumstances of my life are not turning out the way I want them to. God, I'm betting everything on you. So waiting on the Lord requires trust.

I've got to trust God that he knows. what he's doing. Trust him that he has a plan. Trust him that he is up for good in my life. Trust him for the timing in my life. 2. Peter 3.8. Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like one day. God's timing is different than our timing. We don't like God's timing much. We want God's resources, but we don't want his clock, right? I mean, we want his hand to move in our life, but we want it to be on our calendar, not his calendar. Maybe you're waiting for a relationship to heal. Maybe you're waiting for a job promotion. Maybe you're waiting for the doctors to come up with a solution for your health issues.

Will you wait on the Lord? Maybe you're tempted to force things to happen to manipulate people. Will you have the patience to not try to force something to happen, nor quit and walk away, but instead patiently wait on God's plan and God's timing. John Orkberg tells a story about a trapeze act, and he talks about the special relationship between the flyer and the catcher. The flyer is the one who lets go, and the catcher is the one who, well, catches. As you might imagine, that relationship is really important, especially to the flyer who lets go, because when he lets go,

he has to trust that the catcher is going to catch him. Now those who have done these acts for a long time say that the flyer has a tendency to try to catch the catcher. The flyer gets panicky as they hang there in the air and they start to reach out, but they must not do that. The flyer must wait still. He must wait and trust that the catcher will catch him. Do you feel like you're hanging in the air? Like you're sitting there vulnerable and you're hoping that God will catch you. You're tempted to try to flail about, to try to figure something out on your own, to try to manipulate people or circumstances to get what you want.

Will you sit and rest and wait for God to catch you? God's timing is perfect. He's never early. He's never late. He's always on time. Let's close with this promise from Isaiah 40. Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles.

They shall run and not grow weary. They shall walk and not faint. Let's wait on God. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually.

If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.