Faithful Waiting: Embracing God's Promises and Obedience

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God often gives you what I would call maybe like a promise or a desire or a hope or an encouragement, and it's spoken usually in His Word. I'm going to get to that a little bit as we go on, but in His Word, maybe scripture will come alive. It confirms the situation you've been praying about, something God is doing in your own heart, and there's a word that God gives you. [00:10:38]

Noah did most of God's will. That just sounded off, but let me tell you, it begins there. It begins there. A lot of people will say, well, yeah, but I can't do it perfectly. Well, neither can I, but there's a desire to do all that God commands us to do, whether it's financial things or relational things or removing things. [00:02:24]

Waiting time is not wasted time. Waiting time when you're waiting on God and the promises of God, that's not wasted time. That is the time where you're being conditioned and built and strengthened. What athlete at the Olympics is going to say, I just wasted four years of my life training? [00:09:11]

The word in the Hebrew means that God acted. So it basically says then God acted on behalf of what He promised Noah. So God is acting on His behalf, and there comes a time where God says, you're going to wait, you're going to build 100 years of building this ark, and you're going to build this and keep waiting, keep waiting. [00:08:26]

Noah gives of his animals, the clean animals, for a sacrifice. The sacrifice cost a great deal. It's not like he had a lot of animals to spare, and so this cost him something. David said, I will not give God that which cost me nothing. There is a cost of following God. [00:18:16]

True sacrifice involves giving up our own desires to align with God's will. This surrender leads to a deeper relationship with God and a life filled with His peace and purpose. We bought the lie that success satisfies, and it doesn't. We bought the life we could just make this money or do this or retire at 40. [00:18:19]

Remembering the word that God gave you is more for your reflection, not God's. The power of remembering, remember you ever remember back, you remember those childhood things, the good things in childhood, or if you've drifted from your spouse, do you remember when you first met and fell in love? [00:30:12]

Consistent communion with God through prayer and worship aligns our hearts with His will. This relationship is essential for understanding and following God's guidance in our lives. Worship changes the worshipper into the image of the one being worshipped. Your word, what you worship, you become. [00:32:05]

God's timetable is not mine. God's timetable is not yours. Because I want the timetable, oh God, you promised this, can I go get it? He says no, you're not ready, you're not there yet, it's a process. And thank God, thank God, what's that country song, thank God for the broken road that led me straight to you. [00:36:26]

There was a long period there, obviously, to build the ark and do these things, and He said, okay, in seven days, I'm going to cause it to rain on the earth, basically saying get your house in order, get your house in order for what I'm about to do. There needs to be order, there needs to be an arrangement of things in an orderly fashion. [00:04:31]

The ark, the word ark literally means steered by God. The other time this word is used is when somebody named Moses was a baby and was put in an ark that was steered by God to Pharaoh's daughter. So God is steering this ark, it's not just a happenstance and going wherever it wants. [00:14:20]

The story of Noah also parallels the work of Christ, who, like the ark, provides safety and salvation from the wrath of God. The wrath of God was poured out on the outside, but the hope was in the inside, and when it accomplished its purpose of getting the people to safety, it rested, it was finished. [00:12:22]

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