Timing is Everything
CCCAG June 3rd, 2018
Scripture- John 7:1-13
I want us to take a bit of a journey this morning. I want you to imagine that God has given you a mission and a promise for your life. God has shown you that He is going to have so much favor, so much blessing, and so much influence that your life will change the spiritual condition of an entire city. God has shown you things in dreams, He has had well respected and proven prophets of God prophesy over you exactly how He is going to move in your life and fulfill this mission. He has shown you the end from the beginning and it is a glorious life of blessing and Kingdom purpose.
The only thing God hasn’t shown you is when.
It’s my opinion that the number one thing that derails people’s faith in the dream or the promises that God has given them is the time they have to wait.
Right now our area is in or finishing the planting season. The seed is in the ground, and now we have to face the heat of the summer waiting for that which was planted in faith to grow and produce the harvest.
The Kingdom of God is like that seed that is being planted. A good farmer knows that he can’t plant one day and expect the harvest the next day. Crops aren’t microwavable in their growth, and neither are God’s promises.
Spiritually speaking, planted seed represents this time of waiting- and this waiting time is meant to produce the disciplines of trust and faith.
How many people here love it when God makes you wait for something? Don’t raise your hands because then I’ll have to change the sermon to one about lying.
In my life, it’s probably one of the things I struggle with the most-not trying to help God out in ways that will eventually damage the fullness of the promise HE wants to give me.
God does this in all of our lives
One of the best examples from the bible-
Abraham is 85 years old. He is in prayer one day when God tells him that he will be the father of many nations. Abraham says, “That’s impossible God, I have no children and especially no son to carry on my name. Not only that, but Sarah and I have been collecting SSI for 20 years…and people don’t have children at this age.”
God assures him-You will have a son.
Abraham believes God. He builds a crib, adds a nursey room onto his tent, and waits.
And waits
1 year
2 years
3 years. His wife Sarah is getting impatient. She suggests that they help God out and use her servant Hagar to be the surrogate mom. Abraham follows Sarah’s advice, and Ishmael is born. Ishmael is the product of two humans trying to help God fulfill his promise, and is therefore considered to be the son of the flesh.
Ishmael’s presence brings chaos on the home. Sarah resents him, Hagar thinks she is now first wife, Abraham is caught in the middle wondering why he ever listened to Sarah instead of God.
Finally, 14 years after the initial promise, when Abraham is now 99 years old, God tells him he will be a father this time next year- this time God’s way.
The next year, Issac is born- the son of the promise. The blessing and gift of God that came in our Father’s timing and not through any effort on the part of Abraham or Sarah.
It’s critically important for us to learn that discipline of waiting. To many of us are settling for the pain and chaos an Ismael brings when God has Isaac’s just waiting to bless us.
Jesus shows us how to do that here in John chapter 7.
Prayer
Premise- Jesus waited on God’s Timing.
What I want to look at this morning is how we can do the same and avoid having any more Ishmael’s in our lives that rob our blessing or our future from the one that God has prepared for us.
Jesus shows us the way. We saw in the video clip we watched of John 7:1-13 that Jesus own brothers are telling him to go to Jerusalem.
If you are Messiah, why are you messing around here in the sticks? We don’t even have a Walmart Jesus, get to the big city and show yourself for who you are.
Jesus didn’t do that. HE answered them-
John 7:6 My time is not yet here; for you any time will do.
Jesus had a laser focus on God’s will, God’s timing, and God’s methods, and nothing could sway Him from deviating one inch from what God’s plan was.
How did Jesus do that? How did Jesus resist the urge to speed things along, or ride a wave of popularity straight into an earthly palace?
I. Knew His Calling
Jesus filtered everything through His calling and mission. Knowing and discovering your calling, or purpose in life is critical for the fullness of God’s blessing to be upon you.
Heb 11:6 God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Seeking God is not just about praying, or reading your bible, or doing good works. Seeking God is about knowing His mind, His heart, and His plan for you, and then you responding in obedience to that calling.
Everyone has the call of God on their lives. We have made the mistake in the modern church age of equating the call of God with a full time vocational ministry within the church.
No- that’s the least of the callings. Everyone looks at the pastor and says, “Wow, he has this incredible calling and blessing on his or her life.”
No…no..no
If I can do anything for you today, I want to show you the incredible plan of God for your life- and it has nothing to do with who stands behind this pulpit.
Let me illustrate this by asking you a question-
If you go to a rich man’s house, and he is giving you the grand tour. You see the inground swimming pool, the hot tub, the exercise room, the gold plated bathroom fixtures, and the huge living and dining areas. You marvel at the entertainment center and the expensive cars in the garage.
Do you walk away wishing he would have taken you into the sub-basement brushed some spider webs aside, and shown you the foundations of the mansion?
Well that is what a pastor is. He/she is a foundation.
However- You are the mansion that everyone marvels at. We are the things that gets walked on every day, and that’s fine- that is our calling. You are the living mansion of Jesus that gets to go out every single day and show the world how awesome your daddy is.
That’s how Jesus understood His calling.
Matt 20 Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many
Compared that to what Jesus’ brother’s were saying, and Jesus response makes much more sense. Their ideas didn’t fit within Jesus’ calling, and therefore was rejected.
That’s the one of the secret’s of Spiritual success- knowing what it is that God has for you to do on this earth, and then shaping your whole life around that, instead of simply existing.
Another way Jesus succeeded in God’s will and plan for His life is that He-
II. Understood the Timing
Years ago, John Maxwell was all the rage in church leadership, and His books were required reading in most bible colleges. Within one of his books, the “21 Essential Laws of Leadership”, John taught was the law of timing.
Within the Law of Timing, he gave these 4 truths
The wrong action, at the wrong time= disaster
The right action at the wrong time= massive resistance and rebellion
The wrong action at the right time= mistake and failure
The right action at the right time= success and massive growth
Let’s apply that to what Jesus’ brothers were suggesting. We know from reading the scripture that Jesus brothers didn’t believe in what Jesus’ mission was, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume they were sincere in their advice.
Let’s look at a few hypothetical situations
Wrong action at the wrong time- Jesus goes to Jerusalem 2 years early in the fall instead of the spring- disaster. Pilate was the new governor who was initially very heavy handed in his administration of Roman rule and most likely would have had Jesus and anyone who followed Him as an insurrectionist and immediately crucified them. The whole plan of salvation, much less most of the Gospels and the New Testament would have never been written, and we would still be dead in our sins because numerous prophetic scriptures would remain unfulfilled.
Right action, wrong time. Let’s say Jesus shows himself the follow spring during that Passover. The same result would have happened, and his fame had not yet reached the point where he would have had any public support and He would have met huge resistance among the people.
Wrong Action, Right Time- Let’s say Jesus in his 3rd year of ministry right before Passover assembles every follower He has in Galilee and shows up in Jerusalem surrounded by hundreds of people demanding He be made the King of the Jews.
Civil war- Herodians Versus the Pharisees Versus the Sadducees, and eventually Rome destroying Jerusalem.
However, the plan of salvation stayed intact because Jesus understood His calling, and Understood the correct timing and therefore came as the Old Testament prophesied that HE would- a suffering servant, during the Passover and the right action at the right time yielded massive success- His death and resurrection are the reason you and I are in this building today.
Jesus knew all about waiting for God’s timing. The bible says we have a high priest that sympathizes with our suffering, because he when through every temptation yet without sin. .
His earthly ministry began and ended with an attack by satan himself. But Jesus
III. Overcame the Obstacles while waiting
During the wilderness temptation- satan comes and tries to trip up Jesus by tempting HIM in three ways and they are the same three ways the devil tempts us today that will circumvent God’s sovereign and complete blessing for you-
Background of the 1st temptation- Jesus has been fasting for 40 days, so he’s a bit hungry.
1. “Turn these stones to bread” Use your divine power for yourself
I want all of us to understand something this morning about life. It really doesn’t even matter if you are a Christian or not, this truth still applies-
It’s not about you.
It’s not about me
It’s not even about this church.
You want to know the meaning of life- here it is
God has given all of us a calling and mission. He has endowed us with Gifts and talents meant to be used in that calling. Those of us who have accepted Christ as LORD and Savior have the Holy Spirit within us to supercharge those talents and gifts, but they all come from God.
Your gifts, your talents come from God, and therefore are to be used for HIS glory and His plan and not your own. When we use them for ourselves and to increase our fame and notoriety, we fall into the same trap that satan is trying to set for Jesus-
Satan is saying- “Jesus, you created everything. Some God you are- you are a sweaty, smelly, and hungry mess in the desert and all you have to do is use your abilities for yourself-speak the word- that same word that caused the universe to spring into existence, and even the rocks around you will turn into food for you.”
Use your powers for yourself.
How many lives have been wrecked from people using their God given gifts for themselves? One glance at the entertainment industry shows us that.
It’s also one of the biggest infections of our nation today- to exist in fame, or in infamy. Is it any wonder why one of the most popular entertainment shows that ever existed was called American Idol?
The 2nd Temptation satan throws at Jesus
2. “Throw yourself off the top of the temple” (Show yourself to the people now!)
If we were to modernize satan’s temptation it would sound like this-“Reveal yourself Jesus. You don’t have to take the slow road of 3 ½ year of walking along hot dusty highways preaching to the people in the sticks. I can book you right now in the Jerusalem equivalent of Madison Square Gardens in front of an audience of the biggest movers and shakers in the nation. Let them see you take a 10-story dive and be lowered the ground by angels. Then they will believe you. You don’t need to wait.”
In our lives, the temptation to take the short cut is huge. Give a little on the honesty on the job. Play the political game. Use gossip to your advantage. Claim credit to yourself and not your team. Take out your opponent and rise above the crowd.
The need to be famous by taking a short cut was seen in the 1994 Us Figure Skating Championship when skater Tonya Harding and her husband conspired to take out her biggest rival, Nancy Kerrigan by striking her behind the knee with a baton. Tonya Harding ended up losing everything through trying to take a short cut to Olympic gold, and instead is looked at as an example, like now, of allowing your ambition to take over and do the unthinkable to get ahead.
3. The third way satan tempted Jesus in a modern way of saying it is- “I’ll give you what you want- the entire world if you worship me”
“Jesus, you don’t have to do the cross. You don’t have to participate in the punishment for humanities sin. You can get everything you want, everything you desire, if you do this one thing-
Change the object of your worship. Worship me and my ways instead of God’s”
The first two temptations of Jesus were really all about the third.
Jesus using His power for himself would have been falling into self worship, which really is satan worship.
Jesus making Himself famous by performing a miracle in front of the entire Jewish ruling class would have falling into satans trap of seeking fame for oneself.
Finally satan takes off the mask and shows exactly what he wants- Jesus’ worship.
It’s the same thing he wants from us- our worship.
Jesus was able to resist these by following these temptations by understanding His calling, knowing and abiding by God’s timing, and overcoming the temptations and obstacles thrown into His path.
We can overcome by following this principle found in the book of Hebrews-
Heb 12:2-3 And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God
If we can do that, then we also share in Jesus’ triumph.
IV. Enjoyed the triumph
One of the biggest hinderances to modern spiritual growth is that our attention spans and our tolerance for waiting is at an all time low. Modern technology has made things so easy that it has stripped the need to persevere through the tough times.
It a fact of human existence, and it is a vital necessity to spiritual growth- if you want to live in triumph, you will have to submit to God’s timing for you. You can’t hurry it, you can’t change the timetable.
The only thing you can do is derail it through insisting your plan and timing is better.
I want to take a moment this morning and ask God to show us where we might be meddling in His divine timetable, and release all of that to HIM.
Conclusion
Altar Call
