Waiting on a Word from God.
As Christians, we should be following God. We know that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life… . We know that He is the only way. I believe that many Christians do have a genuine desire to know God’s will for their lives. The problem that we have in all of this is discerning and then doing God’s will on a day to day basis for the remainder of our lives.
Today we will look at a portion of the life of a man that learned to wait on a Word from the Lord. When I reveal to you the man’s name, you may be surprised. You may say that this man never waited on anyone or was considerate of any person, yet he learned to wait on God.
Jacob Genesis 27:41-46
I. The first thing that we see is that he was confounded in his early life.
Have you ever had a time, or times, in your life when nothing went according to your plan? No matter how hard you worked or how clever you were, you were confounded in reaching your goals.
A. He was a man that was led by emotion. How he felt things should go or be.
1. He was impatient. He determined to fulfill his destiny in his own time.
2. He was inconsiderate – devoid of feelings for others and what the effect of his actions would have on them.
B. He took advantage of circumstances to advance himself.
1. He used the misfortune of others to try and reach his own goals.
2. He lied to and cheated the disadvantaged.
3. He had no personal integrity- believing that the end justified using any means.
C. He was confounded in all of his attempts.
He had temporary successes, but eventually he lost it all.
1. When he was forty years old he left his home with nothing to show for all his efforts.
a. A betrayed father.
b. A worried mother.
c. A vengeful brother.
2. Jacob had tried to fulfill God’s will for his life in his own way. He had never learned to wait upon the Lord.
II. He was convicted in his heart by the presence of God. Genesis 28:10-22
A. He had finally come to the place in his life that he would act according to the will of God.
B. It is a shame that he had to become desperate before submitting to God.
1. He was alone.
2. He was in a strange land.
3. He was destitute. He had no dowry to give for a wife.
Isaac did not give to his son as his father had given to him. See Genesis 24:53
4. Isaac knew God’s will for his sons. He should have brought them up to honour God’s will, but he wanted to follow man’s tradition and hoped that it would work out – possibly thinking that God could and would change His mind.
C. Finally Jacob submitted his will to God.
III. He was constrained by God’s Word to wait on the Lord.
A. Look at the review of his life as he served Laban. Genesis 31:36-42
B. Look at the circumstances that he faced during this time.
1. He accomplished his initial goal – marriage. Genesis 27:44 …tarry thou a few days…
2. He longed for his home. Genesis 30:25
3. He was treated unfairly.
a. He was tricked into marrying Leah.
b. His wages were changed 10 times. The way that he stated this – it was not an increase!
c. He could have said “I do not have to take this – I am going home!”
4. He could have lost all that he had worked for due to Laban’s change of heart. Genesis 31:2
C. Jacob had a promise from God and he waited. Genesis 28:15
IV. He was commanded to return. Genesis 31:3
A. He received that which he had been waiting for – the Word of God.
B. He acted upon that Word from God.
Jacob faced a lot of problems during the 20 years he lived in Haran, but he had learned from his first 40 years of life that doing things his way resulted in having nothing but emptiness, loneliness, and fear.
He learned to wait upon the Word of God and to trust Him through the circumstances that he faced in life.
Many Christians are acting according to their circumstances. The are like Jacob was – living by emotion and tradition. They believe they know God’s will for their lives and they try and work it out themselves. The Lord has commanded in 1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
Let me exhort all of us today –
Be where God wants us to be!
Be doing what God wants us to do!
Seek God’s will – Know God’s will – Do God’s will – grow in God’s will. It is a circle of growth and maturity. Jacob remembered – it was lonely out there and so he waited upon the Lord – will you?