Go Getters Slobs and Waiters 1980

I'd like to start with a verse, really, that's probably a favorite for many of us here. Well, let's take two verses from Isaiah 40, 30 and 31. Even youth shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted.

But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary.

They shall walk and not faint. We're part of a culture where it seems we're given the choice of two possible roles that we can play. We can play the role of a go-getter, or we can play the role of a slob.

If we have ambition and drive and a little bit of savvy, we can get into the rat race and stay in it and carve out a career or make a living for ourselves in this world, get somewhere. If we don't quite have that drive or the nerve or perhaps even the skill to stay in the race, there are seats all along the racetrack where the slobs sit and criticize the go-getters. So we can take our choice.

If you're a go-getter, you're going to be inclined to be an optimist. And at the same time, you're likely to be very impatient with these people who forever sit around and cry in their beard. If you're a slob, you're inclined to be a sinner.

What's the use of even going in there? The cards of fate are stacked against me. Nothing ever works. When we come to know Jesus and we enter into the kingdom, we are inclined to take with us our favorite approach to these problems, to life.

And so if we're go-getters, we grab the five talents and we get cracking right away to turn it into ten. We achieve and we build and we hustle and we scheme and we connive for the kingdom. At least we think we're taking our five talents and turning them into ten.

And it may take us years to realize that our go-getter achievements are really not achievements at all in the kingdom economy. And that what we've built in this manner is nothing but religious flesh, wood, hay, stubble that are going to be burned up in the end. And in the end, we fall down exhausted.

If we come into the kingdom as slobs, we are inclined then to clothe our idleness in religious garb. Now we're not just idle or lazy, we're meditating. We're praying.

We're really into prayer. We call it prayer, but what we're really doing is daydreaming spiritually. We've taken our little talent, our one talent, and wrapped it in a napkin and tucked it away.

And we're not only exhausted at the end, we're exhausted at the beginning. We quit before, you know, why bother? So we quit before we ever start. When we enter the kingdom of God, we have to take either of these approaches to life that may be our favorite, whether we're slobs or go-getters, and push them behind us and learn something new.

There is a new way of life which we did not learn in this particular culture, but now we have to learn it. The way of the servant, the way of the waiter. Now, if we're really going to live in the kingdom of God and truly follow Jesus, each of us has to become like a waiter in a restaurant, where instead of having 15 or 20 or 100 customers, we have only one.

Our master. And we concentrate on serving him. We stand by and we bring him everything he needs, we answer every time he calls, we wait upon him, we serve him, we obey him, we do what he tells us to do.

We're no longer go-getters, running around, you know, winning in the rat race and stepping on heads if we have to. And we're no longer slobs sitting on the side of the racetrack, criticizing everybody who's running. We're waiters.

If the master promises that he's going to do something for us, we believe that he will. We trust, even if we have to wait and wait and wait for it to happen. And if the master asks us to do something for him, we do it.

This is our joy. But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles.

They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. All through scripture, we have this expression, waiting on the Lord, to wait for the Lord, to wait on the Lord.

The idea is that the go-getters who run ahead and take things into their own hands will fall down exhausted. And the slobs who are even afraid to get involved and take a risk and do anything are going to fall down exhausted and defeated. But those who wait for God and who fix their attention on him and really minister to him will all the time be renewed.

Wait on the Lord, it says in Psalm 27, and he shall strengthen thine heart. Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord.

They that wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. Abraham, for instance, was promised a son. He was already an old man and his wife was an elderly woman.

Whenever Abraham held on to the promise and kept looking to the Father and trusting that it would be, he experienced tremendous strength. Did things that put us all to shame. And whenever Abraham began to panic and get to become impatient and things that he had to think that he had to take it into his own hands.

He lost his strength and he would falter. You could say reading in Genesis, the life of Abraham, that his entire life was a study in waiting on God. And although he stumbled a few times, this man kept building altars for the Lord.

Kept going out there and doing what he was told to do. Kept lifting up his heart in worship to the living God. And he learned to wait on God to the point where he now he was willing to take that son of promise who had been given to him and offer him up to God.

His whole being was absorbed in just waiting on the Father. Jesus spent his life waiting on the Father. That's what he did.

Every move he made and every word he spoke came to him from above. Beneath that life of miracles was a heart that was fixed on just waiting on the Father. That's all he did.

He wasn't a slob and he wasn't a go-getter. He was a waiter. Our favorite son, at least for most of us.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. How can the Lord be my shepherd unless I wait upon him? How can he make me lie down in green pastures unless I wait on him? How can he lead me beside the still waters and restore my soul and take me through the paths of righteousness unless I'm waiting on him? Our whole life really has to become an exercise like Abraham's in waiting on God.

If we are ever going to translate the words of our Lord into flesh and blood and really, in fact, become the sons and daughters of God that Jesus has empowered us to be, we're going to have to learn this lesson of all lessons. We're going to have to learn to wait on God, to wait on Jesus the Lord the way he waited on the Father. To wait on the Lord is to turn away from our fears and fix our attention on him.

Again, Psalm 27. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life.

Of whom shall I be afraid? I would have fainted except that I believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord.

If we're honest, we all have to admit there are all kinds of things that we're frightened of. We're afraid of the future, many of us. We're afraid of enemies that are a literal threat to us.

We're often afraid of our own weakness in the face of mounting problems. Will I be able to cope? Can I handle the pressure? And what happens then is that we begin to wait on fear. We serve fear.

It's as if fear now is sitting at the table and we're the waiter. And we're bringing all the things that fear wants, and we keep feeding fear until fear gets so big it takes over our life. Now we turn away from fear, and we fix our attention on Jesus.

One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. And that's not a passive thing. That's like being a minister, waiting on him, waiting on him, serving him.

To wait on the Lord also means that I am now going to turn away from every kind of false help. To the only and one true help that there is. We have a tendency, all of us, to put our confidence in false gods.

We don't call them idols, but many times we put such confidence in certain people that it's as if they're a god in our life. Or we put confidence in money, whether we have it or whether we don't. Or we put confidence in our own brains.

I can handle it. I can figure it out. I always have.

One of the multitude said to him, teacher, did my brother divide the inheritance with me? But he said to him, man, who made me a judge or divider over you? And he said to them, take heed and beware of all covetousness, for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And he told them a parable saying the land of a rich man brought forth plentifully. And he thought to himself, what shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops.

And he said, I will do this. I will pull down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods.

And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, fool, this night your soul is requiring you.

And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. This man is putting confidence not only in money, but in himself. I can figure it out.

I know what I'm going to do. I can handle this. Sometimes, you know, we really look to money as our strength.

You know, but and we feel better when our pockets are full. We feel stronger, but it's a false strength. Or we put our confidence in our influential friends, the powerful ones, the ones at least who represent to us some kind of strength.

And we feel stronger when we're around them. But it's a false strength. Jesus says, if you abide in me, I am the vine, you are the branch.

If you abide in me, my strength will be made perfect in your weakness and will become your strength. To wait on the Lord is to turn away from our constant habit of serving ourselves and truly begin serving again. They that wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.

They shall mount up on wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.

And to wait for the Lord in this instance, in that passage, doesn't mean that we sit in a chair and wait for that vision to come. Wait for the angel to come into the room and tell us what to do. To wait for the Lord in this case is to wait on the Lord like a waiter.

To serve. Beginning where we are right now, by truly opening our hearts and ministering in praise to him, worshiping him. And then we go out into the world and we again serve him by manifesting his mercy to the world around us.

And as we wash feet and feed the hungry and comfort the mourners and bind up the brokenhearted, he renews our strength. To wait for the Lord is to turn away from our impatience and our discouragement, which we all know so much about. And to hang on to the promise our Lord gives us, knowing that it's going to be fulfilled, even if we have to wait quite a while yet.

Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the marriage feast so that they may open to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I tell you, listen to this.

Truly, I tell you, he will gird himself. You put on the apron and have them sit at table and he will serve them. He'll be the waiter.

The Lord, whom we have never seen in any other way but in the Spirit, will one day soon be knocking at the door. When we open the door, our eyes will see him. If all these years we have been waiters serving him, doing his will, then he will put on the apron and he will have us sit at his table and he will come and serve us.

And to encourage us to hang in there and believe this, he comes to us today in the bread and wine, encouraging us to hang on to his promise and keep our loins girded and our lamps burning, waiting for him. They that wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles.

They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. God help us to put the go-getting habits behind us and the slob habits behind us and to learn to wait on him in silence.

Let's take some time in silence now. Waiting on him in silence. I'll break the silence and we'll get into prayer.