2023-05-17 Why Impatience Could Be Sabotaging Living the Lord's Plan (John 2 Part 1)

Impatience can sabotage living according to God's plan and timing. God has a plan for each person with specific timing, but there are things we can do while waiting. Jesus performed his first miracle at a wedding in Cana, turning water into wine. Even Jesus had to wait for the right time to reveal his glory. We often feel impatient waiting on God's timing, whether it be for a job, a relationship, or healing in a broken relationship. We need to trust in God's timing and be obedient to his will. Mary trusted Jesus and told the servants to do whatever he asked. We need to be open to God's unexpected ways of answering our prayers. His timing is perfect, even if it doesn't match our expectations. Waiting is necessary and allows us to grow and learn. I want to talk to you about why impatience could be sabotaging living the Lord's plan and talking about God's timing. So what I want us to get out of this tonight, what I want us to learn is that God has a plan for you and that plan has specific timing attached to it, but there's also something we can be doing while we wait. So those are the three things I want us to get out of it, out of this tonight. So if you walk away from me and go, Chris, you missed one of those though, you can let me know. Okay, so if you're not sure God has a purpose for your life or even that he exists, I want you to know this is for you. And if you believe God has a plan for your life, but you're unsure when he's going to come through on it, this is also for you. And if you trust his timing, but you're not sure what to do in the meantime, this is also for you. So we're going to read, as I said, from John chapter two. Okay, starting in verse one. So on the third day, a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus's mother was there and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus's mother said to him, they have no more wine. Woman, why do you involve me? Jesus replied, my hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from 20 to 30 gallons. Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water. So they filled them to the brim. Then he told them now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. They did so and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where to come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink, but you have saved the best till now. What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him. After this, he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days. So I often feel impatient as I wait on God to do something in my life. How about you? You know, and it might be a few different things, right? You might be waiting for a job, perhaps. Maybe you've been hunting, you've been applying, you've been going for interviews and you're waiting and you're doing everything right, it just hasn't happened yet, you know. Or maybe you're a single person and you're waiting for someone solid to marry and there's not a lot of options out there, it feels like, you know. Or for healing in a broken or a rocky relationship. I don't know about you, but that often makes me feel frustrated at times as we're waiting and, you know, maybe we trust God, but there's frustration in there. What I want to highlight here is in verse 4 here. Jesus says, as he's requested by his mom, basically they run out of wine and she says, hey, it's gone, can you do something? She doesn't really say, can you do something about it? She says, she just let them know. She's just like, this is one of the, I'm just saying, do with that information what you will, kind of thing. And his question is, you know, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come. And I do want to point out here, I was looking in the footnotes, it's easy to read this like, woman, why do you involve me, kind of thing, you know. That's not the tone of this at all. Even in like the footnotes and stuff when I was looking it up, it specifically points out that the phrase woman here was not a tone, any kind of tone of disrespect, kind of thing. So he wasn't, he wasn't, he was just asking a question. He wasn't upset with her. He was just asking a question. Why are you asking me? And he points out that my hour has not yet come, which is an interesting phrase. And we see a couple times throughout the Gospels where Jesus is saying that his hour, his time has not yet come. Like, what does that mean, right? In his specific case, he's talking about revealing himself to everyone around him, right? Revealing who he is, which is interesting, because you think that's kind of why he came, right, in the first place. But he had specific timing, and he wanted it to be attached to specific things. If you look through the Gospels, and this is the first miracle that we see Jesus perform. But what's interesting is you don't really ever see willy-nilly miracles. Just Jesus was having fun, kind of thing, just like, here we go, here's a miracle, and you get a miracle, and you get a miracle. It was always tied to, at least the ones that we see, are tied to some sort of teaching for us as well, right? There's a reason why he did what he did. He never did anything just for kicks, right? And so he had a specific reason here. And so the reason he hadn't revealed himself to everyone yet was for very specific reasons. And he knew that sometimes people might have seen miracles and come to him for the wrong reasons, right? And so he pointed out that it was not yet his time. And it's important for us to know that even for Jesus, that timing matters, not just the things that God wants us to do, but that he has timing according to the Father's timing, and it's not ours. I heard somebody point this out the other day, and I thought it was really interesting, but let me ask you this first. Does anybody here like to bake? Okay, a few people. Okay, yeah. What is always interesting about baking versus cooking, they are two different beasts, because cooking, you can cook with feeling, and you can throw the recipe out the window, and you can just kind of, you know, smell it, and just kind of do the proportions of things any way that you feel like. You cannot bake with feeling, at least not the same way. Cooking is an art. Baking is a science. There's elements to both, but baking is very much the measurements actually matter. The timings of things matter very precisely, you know? So if you take a cake out five minutes before you're supposed to, it could ruin the cake or change it quite a bit, right? The timing is very, very important, but your kids who are waiting for that cake don't necessarily get that. They're like, can't we just take it out earlier? It's been in the oven for like a hundred years, mom. Can we just like take it out already? And that five minutes of difference makes all the difference in the world, but from their perspective, it doesn't seem so. And I think oftentimes we are like a kid in the scenario, right, where God's baking something here. He's put something together for us, and we're just wondering, why can't it just be five minutes earlier? Did you really have to wait that long, God? But he has a timing for everything that he does. We have to be humble to accept God's timing as we wait. I do think it's interesting, though, and I've often wondered about this myself, and I'll give you some, the reason that I believe this is the case here, but I've often wondered, why did Jesus bother to do this miracle? And I wonder that for a few reasons, and what I mean by that is he just finished telling Mary, my hour has not yet come, which sounds like there's a lot of nuanced conversation behind the scenes happening here, because she doesn't come up to him and say, there's no more wine, fill it up, or solve the problem, or do a miracle. She doesn't say any of those things. She just lets him know, they have no more. Now, he gets the idea of what she's trying to say, you know. I think that's a mom thing, isn't it, though, right? You know, it's not coming along saying, you should clean up your room. It's just, notice your room's a little messy, do with that information what you will, you know, and he answers to that, you know, my hour has not yet come. He didn't say, I want you to clean up your room. He didn't say, I want you to do a miracle. He didn't say, I want you to do a miracle. He didn't say, I want you to do a miracle. He didn't say, I want you to do a miracle. He didn't say, I want you to do a miracle. He didn't say, I want you to do a miracle. He didn't say, I want you to do a miracle. He didn't say, I want you to do a miracle. He didn't say, I won't do it. He didn't, he didn't even say, what are you asking me to do? He just said, my hour has not yet come. But I've always thought it seems to imply like he's saying, oh, I'm not going to do that. This is, this is not the time for that. But he does it anyway. Right? Very curious, especially curious when you consider the fact that a lot of Jesus' miracles had to do with things like healing people and with very serious afflictions and affirmaties. In some cases, raising people from the dead and things like that. We're talking about life and death, you know, and life altering things, not a very kind of petty insignificance. And we're like, okay, the wine ran out, like, so, right? It's not that important, at least from my vantage point. But he went ahead and did it anyway. And I think that the reason is because he knew based on his relationship with his father in heaven, that while it wasn't the time for a public revealing of his power, which is what he's addressing here, it was time to be, it was a moment to be respectful and honoring to his mother in the natural. We, and like I say, we even see that there's a respect in the way he says woman, if you look at it. This was not, yeah, it wasn't a disrespectful tone. And I think this indicates one of those times with a difference between God's perfect will and God's permissive will. What do I mean by that? There are things in our life when we're praying about things, and we should be praying about things, we should be praying about our decisions. I always say this way, some people I say, Chris, do I have to pray about this? Do I have to pray about that? Do I have to pray before I do this thing? I'm like, well, I mean, the litmus test for me is, if, you know, you're in a close relationship with someone, and you would ask that person before you would do that thing, you should probably ask God too. That's kind of what I would use. You know, if you wouldn't up and move to a new province without talking to your spouse about it, you probably shouldn't up and move to a new province without talking to God about it. That's how I would look at it. But, you know, as we, yeah, so talking about the perfect will and the permissive will here. So there's the perfect will, where we'll be praying about things, and God is going to give a clear answer, this or that. That's what I'd be talking about, perfect will. Permissive will is things that are, it's not going to affect anything negative or positive in the grand scheme of things, but he's giving you the option. And some of those can be big things too. There's been times in my life where I felt very compelled by God to like, okay, you've got to take, you know, this job or, you know, go to this place or that kind of thing. And it's been very, like, clear to me. But then there's been other times where it's like, you know what, it's okay, just choose. You know what I mean? And one of the ways to find that, when it's a permissive will, somebody once told me that it's this way, and I found this to be useful in my own life in the practical, is I remember when I was moving from Nova Scotia to BC. And I was really, really trying to seek God, like, is this your will? Do you want me to go? Do you not want me to go? What am I supposed to do? And I was praying about it and praying about it, and I really wasn't feeling like I was getting any kind of clarity or, you know, lots of people talk about getting a peace, and I didn't feel a peace, but I didn't necessarily feel a disturbance either, if you will. I was just like, what do I do with this? And a mentor of mine at the time said, Chris, I can see as, and that's another important piece of this equation, I was talking to other trusted believers about this as well to get their feedback. But he kind of said, you know, I've been able to walk with you on a little bit of this, talk with you to hear what you've been praying about, what you've been reading in the Word, the practical things that you've been considering as well, and I can see that your desire is to honor the Lord in your decision. And it hasn't necessarily been clear one way or another, this might be one of those times where it's just God's permissive will, and you're going to find out as you take a step, because if your heart is to honor God, even if you've made a mistake in that, it isn't as though he's going to be like, oh, you ruined it, now I can't, now I can't do anything with you, you know, he's going to work with you on those things. So don't stress too much about that, but I see this as one of those permissive moments. Something else I wanted to highlight here as well that I think we can take from is that Mary trusted Jesus in this situation, and she asked the servants to do the same, right? He didn't even say, I'm going to do it, I'm not going to do it, she just knew. She went to the servants, she's like, I know his character, and so she went to the servants, do whatever he asks you to do, do whatever he tells you. Obedience to God's will takes trust, and Mary trusted Jesus would do something, but she didn't know what it was going to be. She didn't say, you know, if he asks you to do X, Y, and Z, do that, she just, do whatever he asks you to do. She never dictated to Jesus what he must do, and I think often for us, we often have very specific expectations of God when we're praying for things, right? You know, we have requests of God, and the Bible tells us to make our requests to God, so that's not a bad thing. But we have requests to God, and we have a lot of expectation of how he's going to fulfill those requests, you know what I mean? I'll give you an example. Say you're having, you know, you're having difficulty with a coworker. They're very, you know, antagonistic, they're always putting you down, they're always kind of criticizing your work and that kind of thing, or making it harder for you to do your job, and you're very frustrated about this. So, you pray about it, and you say, God, this is a really frustrating situation, I need you to help me through this situation somehow. But the expectation in your mind could be, because we like to fill in the blanks, don't we, when we ask these things? We say, God, your will, as long as it's this, and not that, you know what I mean? It's like the classic prayer that you've heard lots of people say, God, do anything you want with me, but just don't make me a missionary to some dangerous country, or this or that kind of thing, you know? And so we fill in the blanks of what we do or we don't want, and so maybe you're praying in this situation, the difficult coworker, and your expectation is that he's going to solve the problem by giving you a new, amazing job. Or, that person's going to get fired, since they're so lazy and they always do it wrong anyways, right? But what ends up happening is, you end up spending more time with that coworker, and that coworker is just unloading all this stuff, all this in-conversation to you, and you're starting to hear about what's going on in their life, and then they start to feel like, you know, this person's listening. Because you're feeling, okay, I've got to be a good Christian here, I'm not going to get upset with them, right? So you're listening, and they're sharing all these things, and then you get an opportunity to speak the love of Jesus into their life. And it might not be a salvation conversation right there, but to even share the goodness and the kindness of God in their life. And that might be the way that God solves the problem. It solves the problem, it might not be what you expected, and it might not even be what you really wanted, but it solves the problem. And so, when we ask God for things, when we ask for His will, when we ask and we want to trust Him, we have to be open to the fact that things may happen differently than we expected. I don't know what Mary's explanation is, but I do know that she's talking about the fact that she's a Christian. She might have thought that he was just going to make wine up here, or that somehow, you know, he was going to, you know, he was going to make wine up here. And I don't know what Mary's expectation was here of what Jesus would do. Clearly, she felt he was going to do something, and that it was going to solve the problem. She might have thought that he was just going to make wine up here, or that somehow, you know, he was going to make wine up here. Or that he was going to guide someone to come that was going to bring wine, or something like that, right? So, I don't know what her expectation was, but she never voiced it here either. She just said, do whatever he tells you. And so, we have to be open to whatever, and whatever that's going to look like in your own life. And I think at times, as we go through these times of waiting, so we're trusting on God to do something. We're trusting for him to come through, but we have to wait. We may feel frustrated, but I'm always amazed at, when I look back in hindsight, to see how perfect God's timing is. I'll give you two quick examples. I was talking to a person the other day who was sharing how they were in a situation where they were out of work for seven months. And during those seven months, though, and they never would have been able to anticipate this, that someone in their life went through significant panic attacks, unrelated to this, but significant panic attacks and all of these different things that they were going through, and they were able to be there for that person who couldn't even just leave the house, because they just had this overwhelming anxiety. They were able to be there for that person over that seven months, and they never would have taken seven months' time off for that person as much as they care about them. It's just not something you would think to do in all of that time. But God arranged it in a way, maybe not the way they would have preferred, but God arranged it in a way that they were able to be there for that person in that time of need. Another example from my own life is, again, going back to when I left Nova Scotia and I came here. There was a lot of different things, a lot of different dominoes, domino effect that one hits the other and then the other and then the other. The first job I had in Nova Scotia was working at a burrito place. It was a minimum wage job. It wasn't even really getting me by, it was just kind of slowing the tide. But it was a blessing, and I met some amazing people through that. Then God brought something along my way where I was working at this engineering company, and I was doing proofreading, basically, really dry stuff, proofreading on technical manuals for ships. What happened was, and that was a temporary thing, and God used it as the connection to get me here to BC. Because it was after this that God started putting on our hearts to come out to BC, and honestly, we didn't really know why. But then it just so happened that they also had an office here, and so I was able to transfer from there to here to finish things out. Long story short, one thing led to another, and here I am today. But all of those things, all of those waiting, like, why am I doing this job? I'm grateful for the job that I was able to have when I was doing that proofreading thing, but to be honest, it was a very negative environment and that kind of thing, too. So in the moment, I was like, this is a negative environment all the time. I'm not feeling like, why am I doing this? You have to have something better than this, God. He's like, yeah, I do, and it's right around the corner. I just need you to wait. The cake is coming out of the oven. Just calm down, kind of thing, right? And he brought it together. So we have to be patient with this timing. Kelly, did you? Yeah, I was just wondering if your mother did that for you. What's that? No, no. But, yeah, so I just really, I want to encourage you that God has a plan for you, number one. God has a specific timing for that plan, number two. And God has ways he wants you to honor those in your life while you're waiting and trusting him in obedience, the way that Jesus was honoring to his mother here. When it wasn't yet his time yet, but he was honoring her in this moment. So whatever that means in your life, whether you're in the job that you'd rather not be in, but God's provided it, and you're there for this season. Honor him in it by doing a good job at your work. Honor your coworkers by trying to be a light to them in that season. Because you might be the only light that is shining in their life right now. You don't know all the details of what's going on in their life. So honor in that regard, too. So let's just pray. As we're praying, I want you to think about the different things that God may have been laying on your heart. Things that you've been waiting on God for patiently. And think of those things as we pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have a plan for us. You have a good plan for us. And there is specific timing, Lord. We don't always know, even looking back, we don't always know why that timing was the way that it was. But we trust you. We trust that your timing has a reason and a purpose. And so I pray for each person here tonight who is waiting on you for something. Whether it's a job, whether it's healing in a relationship, whether it's for a relationship to start, Lord God. Whether it's whatever it may be in their life. Whether it's for more opportunities to share you that they maybe haven't seen yet. Or to use different gifts that they have and things like that. And skills, Lord, that they feel like are underutilized, Lord. Just dreams and things that they have, Lord God. I pray that you would show them that you care for them. That you love them, Lord. And that you are cooking up an amazing cake for them. And that they just need to be patient, Lord. Show them where they can be honoring to the people that they're with and the circumstances that they're in. And to you, most importantly, in this time of waiting. In Jesus' name, amen.