Advent: Wait, Sunday, December 7, 2025

- All right, well, good morning, everyone. So good to see you all here today. It's your first time visiting. My name is Jason, I have the privilege of serving here as the lead pastor of our church. I wanna extend a warm welcome to all of you. We are in the middle of Advent. It's a season observed by Christians all over the world. It's always the four weeks leading up to Christmas. And the word Advent actually comes from a Latin word that means arrival or coming. So this season is a season of anticipation and preparation for Christ's coming, not only to commemorate and look back on Christ's first coming, some 2,000 years ago, but also to look forward with expectation for his second coming. Now, as many of you know, this year, we wanted to try something different at our church. So to enter the season with a little more intention, we created a super simple Advent devotional for our whole church. If you haven't downloaded it yet, you can do it. Not too late, you can get a digital copy and just jump right in where we are. But it's a daily devotional that's organized around four weekly movements. Weep, weight, welcome, and worship. And we thought it would be really great to have our Sunday sermons in December actually mirror the Sunday readings in the devotional. So if you're following along in the devotional, you can almost see this time each week as an opportunity to do your Advent meditation with the entire citizens' community. And so today, we're at the beginning of week two of Advent. And the theme for this week is weight, okay, weight. So word that parents say about 500 times a day to their kids, wait, can you please wait, all right? And you would think weighting gets easier as you get older, but it actually gets harder. When you're a child and you're hungry and your parent tells you to wait, you can throw a tantrum, you can get angry, but at the end of the day, you don't know how to cook, you don't have any money, so all you can really do is wait. But as you get older and you become more self-sufficient, you start to garner more resources. You stop needing to wait for people to have to do things for you all the time, which is why when life does make you wait, and it doesn't matter how wealth you are, how powerful you are, life will make you wait at some point in time. It's that much more excruciating. You think kids are impatient. Adults are some of the most impatient people in the world. We don't like to wait. My wife and I, we don't always agree on everything, but we do agree on this. Neither of us like Disneyland, okay? You're like, how could you not like the happiest place on Earth? It's not the happiest place on Earth, right? Because most of the day is spent in line waiting for hours to get on a ride that's like a minute long, okay? It doesn't make sense. It doesn't calculate, right? And I know this is a little bit like first world problems, but when we had kids, Carol and I really saw going to Disneyland as an act of sacrificial love to them, okay? We had no joy going to Disneyland, we did it solely for them. But all of this changed the first time we went to Disneyland with my younger brother, who as a gift to his nephew and niece, got our family something magical. And it was called the Disneyland VIP pass, okay? And this is where you basically get to experience Disneyland without any of the waiting, okay? So you go to the front of every line, you don't ever have to wait for food because someone orders the food for you ahead of time. So by the time you get to a restaurant, the food is already waiting for you. All you have to do is pick it up. And it's amazing, but you also kind of feel bad because whenever you cut the line, you have to walk by all the commoners. And you know, they're resenting you and their minds, they're hating you and their hearts. And all that to say, like, you try to just put your head down, don't make eye contact, get there as fast as possible. But this experience ruined our family, okay? Because now when we go to amusement parks and our kids have to wait even 10 minutes, they're like, oh, like what is going on? Because now to our kids, waiting is a glitch, rather than the norm. And I share this because we're living in a time in history when our culture has discipled us into believing that if we're waiting, something must be wrong. Like if our internet is even a little bit slow or laggy, we're like, what is wrong with you? Like we're like pointing it at the sky, right? Not realizing there was once a time when to get on the internet. I mean, first of all, you couldn't even get on with your phones because we didn't have smartphones. So you had to sit in front of your computer and you had to wait for your computer to dial a number, okay? And nobody knew what that number was or where that number was going. You just assumed it was going to somewhere important because there were all these blips and screeches and rings. And you waited there in front of your computer, but you didn't mind because you were just so happy the internet existed. But we're all spoiled now, okay? Because we live in the Amazon now generation. We live in a generation where if your food is even 15 minutes late, like on its delivery, then we demand a refund, right? We're writing things in the comments like, my kids were starving because you brought the food at 5.15 and not 5 o'clock. Companies get penalized for making people wait. Because today, instant gratification, it isn't just desired, it's expected. But here's the tension. When you read scripture, you find that the exact opposite is true. In the kingdom of God, waiting is not a glitch. It's a feature. It's where God's most important work happens. Moses waits until he's 80 years old before God encounters him at the burning bush and clarifies his calling for his life. I mean, some of you are always asking, what's God's will for my life? Imagine waiting until you're 80 years old. Abraham and Sarah wait 25 years before they get to hold baby Isaac in their arms for the first time. The Israelites wait in the wilderness for 40 years before they get to enter the Promised Land. If today you're here and you're waiting for something in your life, know that you're in great company. Because in the Bible, God often makes those he loves most. Wait the longest. Because it's often in the wait that God grows and forms his people. It's in the wait that God prepares his people for what's to come. Now again, nobody likes waiting, especially when it comes to waiting on God. But my hope today is to show you that as painful and excruciating as it may be to wait, it's often in our waiting. It's in the seasons of our lives when it feels like nothing is moving. It's in those seasons that God meets us in the most profound ways, okay? Turn with me to the book of Habakkuk. Some of you are like, what'd you say? Habakkuk is a book, a short book in the Old Testament. It's easy to miss. It's just three chapters long. We're going to go to Habakkuk chapter two. We're going to read verses one to three. It's going to be our anchoring passage, but I'm actually going to be referencing the entire book throughout this sermon. Habakkuk chapter two, verses one to three. This is the reading of God's Word. I will climb up to my watch tower and stand up my guard post. There I will wait to see what the Lord says and how He will answer my complaint. Then the Lord said to me, write my answer plainly on tablets so that a runner can carry the correct message to others. This vision is for a future time. It describes the end and it will be fulfilled. If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed. Amen. Let me say a prayer for us as we jump into God's Word. Holy Spirit, me the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be pleasing to you, our rock and our redeemer. Would you open our eyes, our ears and our hearts to receive what you would have for us today. We entrust this time and our lives into your loving hands. In Jesus' name we pray, amen, amen. All right, let me just situate us here. Give us a little bit of context. Habakkuk is a prophet. And he's unique among the other prophets in the Bible because typically prophets speak to the people of God on God's behalf. But here in this book, Habakkuk speaks to God on his people's behalf. So this whole book reads less like a sermon and a lot more like a transcript of an intimate conversation Habakkuk is having with God. And if you go to Habakkuk chapter one, the book opens with a barrage of questions and complaints directed toward God. And this is what it says, the first thing and out of Habakkuk's mouth in verse two is this. He says, how long, O Lord, must I call for help? But you do not listen. Violence is everywhere. I cry, but you do not come to save. Must I forever see these evil deeds? Why must I watch all this misery? Wherever I look, I see destruction and violence. I'm surrounded by people who love to argue and fight. Habakkuk is looking around at the world he lives in. This world that seems so unfair and chaotic and broken and he's like, where are you God? What are you doing? Why are you sitting on your hands while all of us here are suffering? How long are you gonna make us wait before you show up? Are we gonna be waiting here forever? And I imagine that many of us in this room are asking the same question this morning. How long, Lord, are you gonna make me wait? How long, Lord, must I call for help? But you don't listen. How long, Lord, before you hook me up with a job? How long, Lord, before you give me a spouse? How long, Lord, am I gonna struggle with depression? How long, Lord, until this season of parenting is over? I'm exhausted. I can't keep living like this. Or how long, Lord, are you gonna keep allowing injustice and poverty and mass shootings to be the norm in our country? Are you blind to what's happening? Are you not seeing what I'm seeing? Do you not even care? This is what Habakkuk is asking. Well, if you keep reading chapter one, God actually responds to him. And he says, I am aware of what's happening. I am doing something about it. But he says in verse five, even if someone told you what I'm doing, you wouldn't believe it. Because in your eyes, it's not gonna make sense. In fact, in your eyes, it's actually gonna look like your situation is getting worse. And isn't this what weighting feels like sometimes? It doesn't matter how many people tell us, God is doing something amazing in your life right now through this season, you're like, please stop. Like that's easy for you to say. You're happily married. Your job is secure. Last time I checked, things keep getting worse for me. I just keep getting older, still no prospects. I'm still doing the same work I was doing 10 years ago. I'm still not on speaking terms with my family. So yeah, it doesn't feel like I'm seeing anything. Yeah, it doesn't seem like God is doing anything. In fact, it almost feels like the more I pray about it, the less I see. And this is exactly how Habakkuk responds. Chapter one basically ends with Habakkuk saying, yeah, you're right, I don't see what you're doing. I don't believe anything you're doing right now and it's more rapid fire questions and that's how it ends. Seven questions in six verses and then chapter one just ends. But then we come to chapter two at the text we're looking at today. And it's right there in that place of confusion and disappointment and uncertainty that Habakkuk does something really important. He doesn't walk away. He doesn't shut down. He doesn't numb out and say, you know what, forget you, God. No, he says, I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guard post. There, I will wait to see what the Lord says and how He will answer my complaint. He's saying, Lord, I hate this so much right now. But I'm gonna stand here at my post and I'm gonna keep listening even when I don't understand. And this image of a watchtower is really powerful here because when do guards climb up a watchtower? They climb up at night. They climb up when you can't see anything. See, it's often when we don't see God, those are the moments that temptation lurks. When we can see God, those are the moments when it's easiest to give up, when it's easiest to give ourselves to distraction, to settle for lesser alternatives. All throughout the Bible, the people of God always make their worst decisions while they're waiting. They're waiting for Moses to come back down from Mount Sinai. After a while, they get impatient, they start getting anxious. What do they do? They start worshipping a golden calf. Abraham and Sarah waiting for God to deliver on his promise to give them a child. At some point, they're like, you know what, it's 12 years. He's not coming, hey Abraham, why don't you go sleep with Hegar? And you and I, we do the same thing. We say, you know what? I've been looking for a spouse. I've been on the apps for a while. God's not providing anyone for me. So I'm going to compromise all my values and settle for a toxic relationship. Hey, I can't connect with anyone at this church. It's been such a long time. It's been like three weeks. So like, you know what, I'm going to go find another community, right? But see, watchmen are different. The way they wait is different. While everyone else is sleeping, their one job is to stay awake. Their one job is to be attentive at night. This is what Habakkuk is saying when he says, I'm going to climb up my watchtower and stand at my post. He's saying, my reality is really dark right now. I don't see God. I don't hear God. But I'm not going to sleep through this. I'm going to stay put. I'm going to open my eyes and I'm going to pay attention to what God is doing so that when He moves, I'm ready to move with Him. I think it's very telling that the phrase, "Wait on the Lord," which we see over and over again in Scripture, is almost never used when things are going well. It's almost always used when things are dark and hopeless. In one of the most gut-wrenching books in the Bible, The Book of Lamentations, this book that is pure misery from beginning to end, there's this line in chapter three where the prophet Jeremiah, who's known as the weeping prophet, says this, he says, "The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord." And you read this and you're like, how can that be true? How does that make any sense? How can it be possibly good to wait on the Lord, especially when everything in your life feels dark? And yet this is God's ammo. He's always making His people wait. It's very interesting that God promises a Savior on page three of the Bible. In Genesis chapter three, he says, "From the seed of the woman will come one who will crush the serpent's head." And theoretically, God could have delivered on that promise on page four. The Bible could have been four pages long. God makes the promise, delivers on the promise, end of story would have made reading the Bible really easy. But that's not what He does. He makes a promise way at the beginning, and then He makes His people wait. When the book of Isaiah prophesies about the coming Messiah and says, "A virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him a manual." Jesus could have come right then and there. The Israelites would have loved that. Things would have made sense. But God makes them wait. And He doesn't just make them wait a little while. He makes them wait another 700 years from the time of that prophecy to the birth of Christ. Even when you look at Jesus' life in ministry, if there's anything that confirmed Jesus was God in the flesh, is that Jesus also made people wait. On the way to heal Jairus' daughter, who is literally dying as we speak, Jesus makes Jairus' rate wait, and He says, "Hold on, I'm gonna heal this woman "who's been bleeding for the last 12 years." And because Jesus delays, Jairus' daughter dies. In John chapter 11, Jesus gets word that one of His best friends Lazarus is sick and we read that after Jesus heard the news, He didn't go to Him immediately. No, we read after Jesus heard the news, He stayed where He was two more days. He makes everyone wait on purpose. And because He delays, Lazarus dies. Why does Jesus do this? And why does the Bible keep saying it is good to wait on the Lord? And let me just give us three reasons why. Number one, waiting on the Lord reminds us that we're not in control of our lives. Could God answer every single one of our prayers immediately exactly the way we want Him to? Yeah, He could, He's God. Well, then why doesn't He? Because He's God. And God will not be hurried by our timetables, by our schedules, by our preferences, because He knows what we need better than we do. God is never late, God never makes mistakes. You know, when I do premarital counseling at our church, and I ask the couple how they met, you know what I hear from the couple all the time? They say, "You know, Pastor Jason, there's no way we could have scripted a better story ourselves." There's no way we could have planned this ourselves. So many random things had to happen, so many things had to fall perfectly in place for us to be in the same city. I had to meet this person, and this person had to introduce me to this person, and I randomly came to church one day. You couldn't have scripted it yourself. See, sometimes we think we know better than God, and we think we can script a better story for our lives than God can, and so we try to tell the master artist how to draw his own picture. We're like, "God, can you add a line here? Can you put some color here? God, with a smile on his face, it's like, just sit down and wait. You're not in control of your life, and that's the best news ever. Because he says, "You're out here drawing "a two-dimensional picture with lines. "You may not understand what I'm doing right now, "but you're gonna see the finished product, "and it's gonna blow your mind. "Just trust me and wait." That's the first thing, number two. Waiting on the Lord allows God to form us into His likeness. It's interesting that if I were to ask every person in this room, how do you feel about God's promise to make you more like Jesus? You would say, "Amen, praise the Lord, I love that." Not realizing that when we say that, we're basically relenting to the fact that one of the primary ways God forms us into His likeness is by making us wait. Think about the fruit of the Spirit. These nine qualities that God says He's committed to growing in us, patience. How will you ever grow in patience unless there are seasons in your life when you have to wait? Self-control. How will you ever grow in self-control unless you're faced with moments when you have to delay gratification and choose what is necessary over what is urgent? How will you ever grow in gentleness and love unless you have to love people who are difficult to love unless you have to love people who don't ever change unless you have to love people for the long haul? See, we often think God is punishing us when He makes us wait. Could it be that God is not punishing us but pruning us? Could it be that God is stripping us of our self-sufficiency and pride, exposing the idols of our hearts, purging us of toxic narratives and patterns? Could it be that God is protecting us? See, what God does in us while we wait is often so much more important than the thing we're waiting for. Let me say that again, what God does in us while we wait is often so much more important than the thing we're waiting for. Yeah, God could give you the wife you've been praying for tomorrow. He could. But maybe what God is doing right now is turning you into the type of man who could love and serve a woman well. Maybe he's working on you so that you don't bring destructive patterns from your family of origin into your marriage. Yeah, God could give you a job tomorrow. But maybe what God is doing right now is giving you space to re-evaluate your unhealthy relationship with work. Now, quick caveat here. Sometimes when you hear this, it's easy to think, okay, so you're telling me as long as I'm willing to wait at some point, God is gonna give me the thing that I'm waiting for, right? And I don't want us to presume that that's true, that God will always give you the thing that you're waiting for. No, sometimes as we wait, the thing we're waiting for will die. Our plans and our dreams may die. Jesus let Jairus's daughter die. He let Lazarus die. But God will often let things die in order to make room for something new that he's doing. See, Jairus went to Jesus asking Jesus for a fever cure. Mary and Martha were hoping for a healing. Both didn't get what they were initially asking for. They got something better. They got a resurrection. But there's no way they knew what they were getting when they first went to Jesus. You know, when I was pursuing music in my 20s, I was very frustrated with God because it felt like I was putting in so much effort but the opportunities weren't coming. And I waited and I waited and I waited and never quite came. And as I watched that dream die, it was very painful for me because I gave so much of my 20s to that dream. And I was very bitter at God. But near the end of my 20s, so began a series of events that now in hindsight, when I connect the dots have ultimately led me to where I am today. And it's funny, people ask me all the time, if you could go back and God said, "I'll let you, I'll let you do this full time." And if you could have a career as a full time musician, would you do it? And I always say no. Not only because I love what I get to do now, but even more than that, I'm so grateful for how God formed me during that time of waiting. What God did in me while I waited was so much better than even the thing I was waiting for. So number one, waiting on the Lord reminds us that we're not in control of our lives. Number two, waiting on the Lord forms us into Christ's likeness. And finally, waiting on the Lord attunes us to God's presence. What just happened there? In the short pause, I could see it. People got tense. You became hyper aware of your surroundings. You became super attuned to the room. You were like, "Did he lose his place?" It's like when we do confession of sin, and the music stops, and you can hear your breathing, you can hear the people shuffling next to you. You become sensitive to everything. Watchmen standing in the dark all night, become hypersensitive to every movement and every sound. And because they've been trained in the dark, they're so alert at the faintest sign of light. In the same way, when we wait on the Lord, our eyes get trained to look for Him in the most unlikely places. We start to find joy in ordinary things. We start to see things we missed. And over time, we stop focusing on the dark, the things we don't have. Our hearts become more and more aware and sensitive to the light that's creeping in. More and more aware of the love that's always flowing toward us in Christ. Here's the interesting thing about the book of Habakkuk. In chapter two, in the text we're looking at today, right after Habakkuk tells God, "I'm going to climb up a watchtower and wait for you." God then gives Habakkuk a vision that he tells him, "I want you to write this down." He says, "It's going to take a while for this vision "to come to fruition, but I promise you it will come. "Evil will not prevail, but you're just going to have to wait." Well, now you get to chapter three, the final chapter in the book, and you would think this is the climax of the story, the book is about to end. So God must basically give Habakkuk the thing he's been waiting for. God probably speaks. Habakkuk finally gets all his prayers answered. God finally delivers on all his promises. But you know what's really interesting? None of that happens. After chapter two, God never speaks again. And not only does God not speak again, life actually gets worse for Habakkuk in chapter three. When you read chapter three, it's very clear that none of Habakkuk's circumstances have improved. And yet, let me read to you how this book ends. These are the last three verses in Habakkuk. Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines, even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren, even though the flocks die in the fields and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation. The sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes me as surefooted as a deer able to tread upon the heights. This is Habakkuk saying, Lord, I still don't see you. Lord, even though my world is falling apart, even though nothing about my life is going the way I plan, I rejoice in you for you are my strength. See, something happens to Habakkuk in the weight. His prayer shifts from what he needs God to give him to who God is and what God has already done. It's in the weight that he realizes that God has already given him everything he needs and that no matter what happens, he can trust in a God who is always working while we're waiting. And the season of Advent reminds us of this. See, when we read our Bibles, the transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament is the turn of a single page. But for the people of God, that page represents 400 years of prophetic silence, meaning after God speaks to his people through the prophet Malachi, there are 400 years between Malachi and Matthew where God pretty much goes silent. And you have to assume everyone was asking the same question Habakkuk was asking, how long, Lord? How long are you gonna make us wait? Do you even care? Have you forgotten us? But see, in hindsight, we now know that what was perceived as God's absence was actually God's preparation, because you know what happened in that 400 years of prophetic silence? Alexander the Great happened. And if you know history, you know about Alexander the Great. He basically conquered the entire known world and united the entire world under one language, interesting. During that time, because everyone was speaking the same language, they translated the Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek. So now when Jesus came, basically the entire known world could read the word in the same language. During those 400 years, Rome also started building all these roads. They started building protected trade routes in a common infrastructure for people to get from point A to point B. Well, guess what? These were the exact routes used by the early church to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. God does his loudest work in his quietest seasons. So don't waste the weight. Pay attention. God is up to something profound. Now imagine that there are many in this room for whom this sounds great. But at the end of the day, you're just tired of waiting. You're tired of constantly being disappointed and constantly being let down. Like you're like, Jason, if you preached a sermon to me five years ago, I would have said, you know what? I'm going to climb up on my watchtower and stand my post. But today, this morning, I have zero desire to climb up the watchtower, even if you tell me that God is doing something profound in my life in the weight. And if that's you, I want to tell you, it's okay. Because the promise of Advent is that even if you're done waiting, God has never done coming toward you. You would think that after Abraham and Sarah took matters into their own hands and ruined poor Hagar's life. You would think that God would pull back his blessing and not bring forth Isaac anymore, right? You would think, you don't trust me, forget it, but he doesn't. God still delivers on what he promised. Their failure to weight well has no bearing on God's desire to bless them. When Jesus gets to Lazarus' tomb, both Mary and Martha immediately start blaming him for their brother's death. They're saying things like, if you had come earlier, our brother would still be alive. If I'm Jesus, I would be like, you know what? Forget you guys, ye of little faith. But he still raises Lazarus from the dead. See whether you're here today and you're standing alert on the watchtower or you're collapsed in disappointment at the bottom, whether you're attentive to God or completely numb to him, know this. The dawn is coming, whether you like it or not. There's nothing you can do to keep the sun from rising. A watchman can't control when the sun rises. They can only stand there and you can either stand there throwing a tantrum or you can stand there alert, but the sun is rising. The mercy of God is always coming for you. You know, our family delivers from Door Dash a lot and when our family delivers, especially when my son is hungry, he always asks for the phone because he wants to follow the driver, right? He wants to follow the map, right? And if he sees that the driver takes a detour and changes the projected time of delivery or if he sees that the driver is stopped in an intersection, he starts getting really upset and he starts getting pissed at the driver. Right, let's say the driver's name is Robert. He's like, I hate you, Robert. He's like, what's wrong with you, Robert? Like, God, Robert, please, you're the slowest driver. But see, here's the beauty of Door Dash. You can throw a tantrum all you want. You can curse your Door Dash driver all you want, but he isn't turning around. At some point, he's going to deliver your meal. And it's going to be a glorious meal. Pastor Rich Viotis, who's a pastor out in New York, says, "The good news of Advent is not that we are faithful in our waiting, but that God is faithful and is coming." The good news of Advent is that when we are faithless, God is faithful. Though we run from God, God never stops running after us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We're not saved by our patience and our steadiness. We're saved by His. The message of Christmas is not wait faithfully and then Christ will come. No, the message of Christmas is Christ has come. Christ has lived the life that you and I could never live. Christ has died, the death that you and I should have died. Christ has risen from the grave. And yes, Christ is still coming toward us so that in our seasons of waiting, we too would be able to say, "Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation." Let's pray. As our worship team comes back up, just want to give us a brief moment to respond. And just be honest with God, what are you waiting for? What is the thing that you feel like God has you on hold for? For those of you who feel like you've been in a long season of waiting, I believe God wants to speak to you today. And maybe it's not an answer of when or how long or what's next. Maybe it's simply the gift of His nearness and His presence. [Silence] Gracious God, we confess today that we are not good at waiting. We rush ahead. We shut down. We try to fix what only you can heal. And yet even when we're impatient, even when we're disappointed, you are so patient with us. You are so present with us and you never stop coming toward us. Lord teach us to wait like watchmen, not passively, not anxiously, but attentively. Help us to stay in the place where you have us to trust that you're at work in the dark. I especially want to pray for those of us in the room who are in a waiting season, who maybe want to give up, who are resigned to believe that nothing is ever going to change. Would you remind us today that the dawn is coming, that Christ is coming. You were faithful long before we were and you will be faithful long after we're gone. So we rejoice in you, our strength and our salvation in Jesus' name. Amen.