Embrace the Wait: Timing Gods Promises

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Coming up on Renewed Mindsets. Waiting for God's promises can be challenging, but it is important to remain faithful and patient to eventually see the fulfillment of those promises in your life. With this show, I hope to encourage you to trust in God's timing and to speak about your own experiences and encounters with Jesus. And one other thing you make me promise his promises. So sorry that song has been stuck in my head all day. I thought I'd pass the earwig on to you. Why do I believe? Let's go, boys. Hey, welcome to Renewed Mindsets, where we study the basics of the faith through the lens of our middle-aged experiences. I'm Rick. Welcome to the show where I help you, gen Xers and millennials, navigate spiritually through a world that looks nothing like we expected back when cars were square and mullets were totally awesome. I am so glad you're here. I'm kind of in a holding pattern in my life, or coming out of a holding pattern. Really, discernment has always been a strong gift in my life. For other people, I'm the guy that can usually tell you if you're on the right track or not, if you're working in the will of God. But when it came to me, I could never discern anything. I realized that the problem was there was too much self in the way I was, in the way I was always trying to do it my way. It's crazy. Well, I've steadily been working on that, and the promise that I'm waiting on now is going to be clear when it comes, because I do hear God's voice now. I've surrendered all of me and all of mine to Him, and life is much less complicated now that I'm out of my own way. So what's the promise that you're waiting to see? You know, if we look at the life of Christ, there's something that is essential for every believer to help us grow in our understanding of Him and our relationship with Him. Now, over the days and weeks and months and years and centuries that you've been in church, you've probably listened to many people preach and teach about Christ. The fact that you're still here listening to me on a podcast kind of tells me that you still want to learn about God, you want to experience the blessing of knowing God more, and you want to grow closer to Him. To really follow Christ properly, though, we need to be in a daily relationship with Him. You've got to be honest. There are some days when you feel so close to God that you can sense His presence and His purpose for you in your life. And then there are some days when life just gets in the way and you struggle to find time to focus on God. Every day, there's things that grab our attention our relationships, families, our work. Just different situations or circumstances, our likes and our wants, your desires, even your hobbies can just get in the way when we should be waiting on God. A lot of times we just make God wait for us, don't we? Yeah, following Christ is not a stagnant process and it takes our commitment to participate, and sometimes it takes a commitment to wait. Right now, I want to take us to the very beginning of when Jesus first came to the earth and consider something that happened when Jesus was only eight days old, something that involves someone who'd been waiting a very long time for a promise that had been made to him by the Holy Spirit to be fulfilled. We're going to look at Luke, chapter 2, verses 25 through 32. At that time, there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon. He was righteous and devout and was eagerly waiting for the Messiah to come and rescue Israel. The Holy Spirit was upon him and he had revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen the Lord's Messiah. That day, the Spirit led him to the temple. So when Mary and Joseph came to present the baby Jesus to the Lord, as the law required, simeon was there. He took the child in his arms and he praised God, saying Sovereign Lord, now let your servant die in peace, as you have promised. I have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for all people. He is a light to reveal God to all nations and he is the glory of your people, israel. Now, reading on in verse 33 through 35, just so you can have the whole story Jesus' parents were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and he said to Mary, the baby's mother this child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall and many others to rise. He has been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him. As a result, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed and a sword will pierce your very soul. So this is just a beautiful account of an early event in the life of Jesus. Like many of the prophets, we know little about Simeon. The thing we know most is that God had given him a specific promise. He had been promised by the Holy Spirit to see Messiah before he died and, knowing that God keeps his promises, simeon waited. So has God given you a specific promise? Have you already seen that promise or are you waiting for God to keep his promise? I've talked to many people over the years and in those talks I was reminded of some of the specific promises and prophecies of God that he gave to the church. Some we've already seen God deliver and others we know and we believe. But we need to wait and God will fulfill them in his time, in his way, in his grace, in his love. Simeon was waiting. Simeon had the incredible promise that he would see Israel's salvation before he died, and God fulfilled that promise. Simeon was part of a long line of waiting people Centuries before God had promised a Savior and his people had been waiting. The first promise of Messiah came in the Garden of Eden when God said in Genesis 3.15, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. Then God's people waited. They knew they had to patiently wait for God's plan to unfold. David wrote in Psalm 130, 5-8, I wait for the Lord. My whole being waits, and in this word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning. More than watchmen wait for the morning Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love, and with him is full redemption. David waited, isaiah waited. Chapter 26, verse 8. Yes, lord, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you, your name and renown. For centuries the people waited. Noah and his children waited as the flood water subsided. Abraham waited. The Israelites waited through 400 years of slavery. They waited through 40 years in the wilderness, although I wouldn't say that it was patiently waiting. They were kind of a whiny bunch. They waited in times of victory and times of defeat. In Babylon, they waited during a 70-year exile. They waited as a remnant. There's a word we hear a lot these days. They lived in the light of a promise that was yet to be fulfilled. It's no wonder that the psalmist felt it important to say Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord Psalm 2714. Is that any comfort for you right now? Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Is that a promise for you today. Simeon waited for Messiah. Simeon believed Messiah would come. He demonstrated that belief by patiently waiting and Simeon could say I have seen him, my eyes have seen him, I've seen salvation. Simeon saw Jesus. He saw Jesus for who he really is. Do you know Jesus for yourself? Have you come to the place where you're in a relationship with him? Have you placed your trust in him? Have you placed your faith in him? Can you be like Simeon and say my eyes have seen salvation? Because Simeon was a believer. Simeon had been waiting for Jesus. Now, maybe to some people, waiting may seem like a useless way to spend their life, but waiting for the arrival of Jesus proved to be a great blessing to Simeon. We don't know how long he'd been waiting, but it appears to have been a long, long time. Now. Somebody once said good things come to those who wait. I tend to err on the side of Tom Petty. The waiting is the hardest part, and it is the hardest thing we're ever called to do, or it feels like it anyway. Do you ever feel like you have no time to wait? Do you want everything to be instant? We live in an instant society. Nobody likes to wait anymore I'll stand at the microwave and gripe because it takes three minutes to pop a bag of popcorn, and I grew up, like a lot of you did, where it took a whole lot longer in the pot on the stove. Do you miss spending time with Jesus because you don't make time to wait? Simeon waited, and when Simeon waited, the Holy Spirit worked in him. The Holy Spirit was upon him to empower him. The Holy Spirit revealed to him to teach him. The Holy Spirit led him to the temple to show him. And it's at this point that we see the empowerment by the Spirit, the teaching ministry of the Spirit, the discerning ministry of the Spirit. Why was Simeon faithful to keep waiting and waiting? Because the Holy Spirit was upon him. The Holy Spirit worked in him and the Holy Spirit works in us in many different ways. There's this convicting work of the Holy Spirit, there's the revealing and the convincing work of the Holy Spirit and there's the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. Simeon saw the salvation of the Lord because of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Do you want the Holy Spirit to be active in your life or just passive? Is your desire, your prayer, that you would experience more the ministry of the Spirit in your life. Is that your prayer today? Do you pray, holy Spirit, to send upon me Holy Spirit, empower me. Holy Spirit, teach me. Holy Spirit, empower me. Holy Spirit, enable me to wait Today. Are you willing to stand in faith? Are you willing to wait for God to move? Are you willing to let the Holy Spirit fill you fresh and new? Are you willing to pray the Holy Spirit would come upon you, like you did Simeon, that God would open your eyes, that God would open up the eyes of your heart to behold him for who he is? Simeon believed in Jesus. He waited for Jesus. He submitted to Jesus. He embraced Jesus, physically, held him in his arms. Simeon did not have this experience with Christ at a distance. He held him. He held him as a baby. A close encounter, a personal encounter. That's what real believers do. They embraced Jesus. They don't come just to learn the facts about him. They come to embrace him, to love him, to be in a relationship with him. Christ is our greatest joy and delight. Simeon has waited and then he speaks. He praises God for what he's seen and experienced. His speech to marry is God-centered, christ-centered and the Gospel-centered, and we can talk about what others have seen and experienced. But your friends will listen when you give your own testimony. What has the Lord done for you? Simeon says my eyes have seen. I can't speak for others, but I can speak for myself. Can you embrace Christ and not speak for him? If you have embraced your Savior, if you have experienced the joy of knowing your sins are forgiven, if you have come to the point where you know you've said Jesus, I believe in you, I trust you, I follow you, I do what you say. I know because of what you've done, I'm forgiven, I'm accepted. If you're born again through water and fire, can you say I am changed, I am redeemed, I am free because you can. If you are born again through water and fire, you can say it I'm changed, I'm redeemed, I am free. Don't go through life and never tell anybody about Jesus. Tell people what he means to you. What is the promise you're waiting to see? There's urgency in what I say. Because we are so stagnant, people are so lukewarm, and I'm so adamant about this because I was so stagnant, I was so lukewarm. I didn't wait on God. I didn't wait patiently, I got frustrated and I moved ahead myself. And what happened? Everything came tumbling down. You have to wait for the Lord and be strong and take heart. Wait for the Lord and while you wait for Him, believe in Him more than with your brain. Believe in Him means doing what he said Whoever believes in me shall not perish, but have everlasting life. You know people, to believe in Jesus is to take action and do what he says. You heard what he said. You listened to what he said. It made you cry at the altar. Now you have to do that yourself. You need to be committed to Him, submit to Him, embrace Him, speak for Him. It's that easy and it's that hard. People, we sit and we wait. We go to church on Sunday and we wait for an hour for it to be over. We're not waiting to experience God. We're not waiting to experience the Holy Spirit. The majority of people in this country go to church and wait for it to be over so they can go eat and have the rest of their Sunday because they did their duty. That is not a life touched by Christ. That is not a life filled with the Holy Spirit. That's a lukewarm American Christian. Those are some tough words. I was one of them. I don't want you to be one of them. I'm not mad. I sound mad. I'm intense, just like the Israelites were in the desert for 40 years. I'm intense, sorry, sometimes that doesn't go away. I love you. I've been talking to you for months now. I want you to have heard everything that God has given me to talk to you about and come to this point and say, look, you've got a decision to make, except the gift that God has promised, the gift of Christ, the gift of salvation, the gift of eternity with him. You don't have to wait on that. There's other promises that you'll have to wait on, but you don't have to wait to be born again. You will have to wait for the eternity in heaven, but while you're waiting, you've got work to do, and it should be sweet work telling people what Jesus did for you, telling people what the Lord has done and how the Lord has changed you so that they can have what you have. If you've been transformed by the Holy Spirit into a new person you want to tell other people. You can't say, well, it's just not my thing, I don't really talk to other people like that. That's wrong. God did not send Jesus to this earth to suffer and die for your sins, so that you can sit quietly and wait for life to run through its course, so you can spend eternity in heaven. On the same note, he also didn't send Jesus to suffer and die for your sins so that you can say a prayer and an altar and then go on with the rest of your life doing whatever you did before living in sin. That is deception and that's a lie. If you think you got saved at 16 and you're still saved now and nothing changed except you go to church on Sunday morning and put a dollar in the offering plate each week, then you're mistaken. That is not someone who's been touched or changed by the Holy Spirit. That's somebody waiting on something magic to happen. That would be awesome, though, if we could just live how we wanted to, do what we wanted, say what we wanted, watch what we wanted, act how we wanted, hurt people like we wanted to, because that's what you do. You're evil people. Unless you are a descendant of the ancient Hebrews, you are an evil, evil person descendant from a Gentile, and if you've received the Holy Spirit, if you are born again, you've been grafted onto that tree and you are now a new creation. You're no longer a Gentile. Gentiles didn't get the promises of God. The promises of God were for the Israelites Don't be a dog. Don't be a dog. That's what they called the Gentiles dogs. God has promises for you. God has so much more planned for your life, but you've got to do your part. You've got to do your part. You need to be born again and then patiently wait for God to show you what he has in store for you. It might be quick, it might not be quick, but you know what won't be quick Be burning in a lake of fire. I love you. You hear me say it every week. That's why I'm saying this now. I don't want anybody to suffer for eternity. That's why I'm doing this show. Yes, for me it's fun. This is a calling. I could have a hundred times more listeners if I ran a show about true crime or have my buddies on here with me and we could just chit chat like I did when I was in the Navy, making jokes that you couldn't turn around and tell your mother On paper. A Christian podcast is not the way to quit your job and podcast full time. But God has blessed this show in so many different ways and so quickly, which has just proved to me that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing and when you're walking in obedience, god will bless you, and I by no means am saying that I am perfect in doing everything that God wants. That's what's amazing, because I know my shortfalls, I know my sins, I know where I need to quit, I know what I need to quit. I know how I need to get better. But I also know that this show was a calling from God. Do it. It came at a perfect time in my life and those first couple episodes they were bad. You probably didn't even notice. I'm very critical. I have gone back and changed them so you'll never hear how they originally were. But I'm excited about life again. I was stagnant. I was not born again. I was so close. Eternity is not like horseshoes. I want to move on to something like a deep thoughts now, because I'm just rambling. I've said what needed to be said. Talk to your pastor. If you don't have a pastor, get ahold of me. You can send a message to me on my website. You can send me an email. I'll jump on the phone with you. We'll jump on a zoom call. I might have to put a hat on, if it's one of those days where I just didn't feel like going outside and my hair is all standing up. But that doesn't matter. If you're close enough, I'll invite you to the RV. We can grill a burger, it's fine. But you need what I've got. You need what God's offering. You need the promise that's already come 2000 years ago. It was for Simeon, it was for me and it was for you. And now, deep Thoughts by Rick Uhaas. During a nuclear explosion, there's a certain distance of the radius where all the frozen supermarket pizzas are cooked to perfection. Hey, I hope you're enjoying these shows as much as I do, providing value in a way of conversations, interviews and content. So many of you have asked me how you can be a part of a show. Well, let me tell you. You can become a member of the Renewed Mindsets community. Just go to buymeacoffeecom. Slash renewed mindsets. You can support this ministry with a one-time gift or you may choose to send a recurring gift every month. We have several levels to choose from, starting at $2, all with extra benefits from being listed on the website, cool merch from the Renewed Mindset Store, and even two top tier spots, the Gabriel and Michael levels, where one of you will be mentioned at the end of every episode as a producer of the show. How cool would it be to have your name heard around the world. Your support of this show helps me get God's message out to people who might not hear it somewhere else. This just helps me with podcast related expenses, the websites and all the subscriptions, as well as supporting an alternative school option for the kids at my church. Look for the membership link in the show notes and have a great rest of your week. See ya Well, that's all for this week's show. You know the name of this show speaks my hope for you. It's taken from the words of Romans, chapter 12, verse 2. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. If you enjoyed what you heard, do me a favor, please, and tell someone you know about it. Send them a link in a text you know you may even need to download it to their phone and show them what a podcast is. If it was valuable to you, it will be to them. Visit renewedmindsetscom to hear past episodes, read the blog and check out the new merch and, as always, while you're there, send me a voicemail by clicking the button at the bottom right corner of the main page. Tell me what you think about this show. I just might play it on a future episode. Until next week, I'm Rick. I love you. See, ya. The intro and outro music for the renewed mindsets podcast is are you ready? By floodgate From the album are you ready? Copyright 2002, offbeat Ministries Incorporated. Floodgate can be found on Apple Music and iTunes. Music used with permission. Introducing a new daily podcast written and produced to jumpstart your day with wisdom from God. Wisdom for the day. This daily meetup is a way you can learn everything about wisdom from a biblical perspective. The book of Proverbs is all about wisdom from the wisest man in the Bible, king Solomon, covering one to a few verses a day. Each episode is around three to five minutes. A quick fill up of your wisdom to start your day or end it, and by the end of the year you will have heard and understand the entire story. You will have heard and understand the entire book of Proverbs. Visit wisdomforthedayorg and listen there, or hit follow for your favorite podcast app. And now a renewed mindsets two minute devotion. Do you ever feel neglected by God? Do you think he may be preoccupied with more pressing matters than yours? I struggle with this sometimes. I'm somebody who prays regularly. Sometimes my prayers consist of specific requests. Other times they're more general and broad. Regardless, I always keep a verse like John 1414 in mind. You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it. I believe that if I pray in the name of Christ, the likelihood of my prayers being answered is high. However, being human, I easily become frustrated after a few weeks when it seems like my prayers are going unanswered. I know I'm not the only one who thinks this way. In Psalm 113, how long, lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? That's David. David becomes weary as he feels that God is ignoring him. We can't be certain of the exact nature of David's desires, but it's pretty evident that he hasn't received him yet. I assume you can relate to David's emotions. Although many of your prayers are answered in an evident manner, there are some that appear to go unanswered. Why is this? The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him. Answered prayer or not. So let me ask you what are your expectations when you pray? How do you react when those expectations aren't met, and how does God's faithfulness to you influence your perception of him and your understanding of prayer overall? If you'd like to discuss this further, send me a message at renewedmindsetscom. I'll get right back to you as soon as I can. I love you, see ya.