How good are you at waiting? We are an instant gratification culture, aren’t we? We have been spoiled by high speed internet, by Amazon delivery, by Netflix binging, by self-checkout lanes, and so on. Waiting is not in our programming. But waiting is core to our faith.
Our sermon title today is “Faith Waits.” How good are you at waiting? How good are you at “spiritual” waiting?
We’re dialing down to one verse, 5:5. Paul is explaining the error of getting circumcised in order to follow the Law. (Circumcision for health or cultural reasons is fine, there’s nothing wrong with circumcision in and of itself. But the issue Paul is speaking to is very specific: circumcision for religious reasons. Believers were thinking about getting circumcised BECAUSE they wanted to start following the Law of Moses – which required them to get circumcised. This is a problem – a huge problem. So Paul explains the error of circumcision in verses 1-6, then he condemns those pushing circumcision in verses 7-12. The last half of the chapter is devoted to the right way Christians should live: by the Spirit. In the last half of chapter 5 Paul finally explains what is the correct way to live out your faith as a Christian and it is not following the Law. It is “walking in the Spirit” (16), being “led by the Spirit,” (18), “living by the Spirit” (25), and “keeping in step with the Spirit” (v25).
Now our focus is verse 5. And you have to read it as it flows out of verse 4, because verse 5 is the correction of the error in verse 4. Verse 5 contrasts the right Christians view with the wrong view in verse 4. Follow along in verse 4 and 5 with me…
Our sermon title is “Faith Waits.” Let me pull out 4 elements of this faith-waiting we see here: 1) Faith Waits, 2) Faith waits through the Spirit, 3) Faith waits for righteousness, 4) Faith waits with Hope
FAITH WAITS
First of all, the basic thought here is faith waits. Waiting is an expression of our faith. Look how it says that “we eagerly await…” The NIV adds “eagerly” because that is the idea of waiting in the Greek.
- This same word is used to describe how creation is waiting in Romans 8:19, “For the creation WAITS IN EAGER EXPECTATION for the children of God to be revealed.” WAITING IN EAGER EXPECTATION. It is waiting for what you know is coming. And there is expectancy, I like describing it as being “eager for it to get here because we know its coming.”
- Then God is described as waiting too. In 1 Peter 3:19 it says, “God WAITED PATIENTLY in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.” God wasn’t tapping his watch, annoyed it was taking so long. Waited patiently is the same Greek word, and could be translated “waited with eager expectation,” just like creation was described as. God knew Noah would finish it, and He was eager for Noah to finish it, and He watched patiently and eagerly for Noah to finish it.
This waiting in Galatians 5:5 is the same word and conveys the same idea: our eyes, our thoughts, our posture are pointed towards the direction from which something is coming that we are waiting for – which is righteousness. We’ll come to that, but right now I want us to see that this idea of waiting means we wait eagerly, patiently, yearningly, for this thing to arrive – this thing that we confidently know is going to arrive.
Perhaps that is why Colossians 3 says to fix your eyes on Christ ABOVE and to set your minds on things IN HEAVEN – because it is from that direction that He is coming and the instruction is just another way of saying “WAIT for Him to come from there!” As a matter of fact, all the other uses of this same word “wait” in the Greek have to do with us Christians waiting: for our resurrection bodies (Rom 8:23,25) and for Christ’s return (1 Cor 1:7; Php 3:20; Heb 9:28). We’ll talk more about that in subsequent points.
APPLICATION: Waiting is core to our life of faith – to our Christian life. It is definitional – it defines us as Christians.
- We pray and we wait on God to answer. We all know this struggle don’t we? How many of you know what is meant when someone says, “I give it to God and my tendency is to take it back from Him!” Leaving it with Him is waiting, taking it back is saying, “I’m done waiting.”
- We learn about God’s promises and we wait for them.
- We learn about the future He tells us will come, and we wait.
- We also see that waiting is how we go through persecution for our faith. The whole idea of “patient endurance” that the Apostles displayed and instructed us about, is boiled down to waiting. When hostility comes to us for our faith in Christ we wait on the Lord, patiently enduring that hostility, because we have faith that the Lord is sovereign over the situation, that it is ultimately by His hand we are going through it, His ways are perfect and just and good, and that He in fact most certainly it is guaranteed WILL reward us for patiently waiting with endurance. Faithfulness does not go unrewarded because God Himself is faithful.
APPLICATION: Waiting takes faith. Waiting biblically can only be done by faith. Spiritual waiting is impossible apart from faith. Faith waits because faith is seen in waiting.
APPLICATION to the APPLICATION: One of the reasons God makes us wait is because the whole time we are waiting He is putting our faith in Him on display. How will we see God while we don’t yet see what we’re waiting for?
- How did Job see God as he waited in agony for God to tell him why all that suffering came upon him?
- How did Abraham see God while he waited year after year, adding wrinkle to wrinkle, for 25 years for the son that God promised? Having a kid at 75 was impossible – it became even more impossible as each year passed by since then!
- Or how did the aged prophet Simeon see God as he waited year after year to see what the Spirit had promised him? The Spirit told Simeon that he would see the Consolation of Israel. Imagine the intense spiritual elation of that frail old man when he took the baby Jesus into his arms and held Him up, praising God that it finally happened. Remember his words? “Now you can dismiss your servant in peace for my eyes have seen!”
- A lot of the faith-giants in the Faith Hall of Fame in Hebrews 11 were described as waiting – looking forward to what God promised them. Go read it and you’ll see what I mean.
APPLICATION: You know you’re spiritually waiting when peace subdues your heart. It’s not true waiting if we’re agitated. Real spiritual waiting does not make us pace back and forth – nor does it mean that we have to have some metaphorical straight-jacket to restrain our anxiety. We are waiting when we have that inner, transcendent spiritual peace. Waiting in faith means waiting in peace.
FAITH WAITS THROUGH THE SPIRIT
The second point is that faith waits through the Spirit. Notice how Paul says it, “For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith…” Most translations say it that way – the KJV, the NASB, the NET, the ESV and so on. It is through the Spirit that we wait – we eagerly wait. What does it mean for us to wait “through the Spirit?”
First of all, it rules out the flesh. It rules out the idea that spiritual waiting is done apart from the Holy Spirit in us. All of the Christian life is spiritual – all true and valid Christian living is spiritual. Anything that is done apart from Christ or apart from the Spirit or apart from faith (all of these go together) is considered Christian. Jesus said, “apart from me you can do nothing.” We can correctly extend that to say, “apart from Christ, apart from His Word, apart from faith, and apart from the Spirit we can do nothing.” That is, nothing of spiritual worth before God, nothing of glory to God. The flesh cannot produce this spiritual waiting the Bible describes..
Second of all, anything and all things that are done through the Spirit are done by faith. Faith means relying on. All Christian living flows out from our faith – all Christian living flows out from a reliance on the Lord – we are the branch and He is the supplying Vine. Faith in Christ, faith in God’s word, faith in God’s character as revealed in His word and proven in our experience as we trust Him and obey Him (“Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him, how I’ve PROVED Him o’er and o’er”). Faith and only faith is how we live “through” the Holy Spirit. Faith and only faith is how we wait through the Holy Spirit. Our faith and the empowering of the Holy Spirit go together.
Third, the idea of waiting “through the Holy Spirit” in the Greek means that the Holy Spirit is the agency of our waiting. In other words, He is the means by which we are able to wait. This means that without Him we are unable to wait spiritually – the way we’re supposed to. To help myself I had to study this a little extra, and I think it will help you too. This exact same Greek word and its grammatical use shows up in several other passages. When you see it used in relation to other things it helps to paint the picture of what it means to do something “through the Holy Spirit.”
- “He will baptize you with water” (Mk 1:8) Water is the means to baptizing, without water there is no baptizing
- “He cast out demons with a word.” (Mt 8:16). The demons were cast out by means of His word. His word was the force that made demons be cast out, and they won’t be driven out apart from His word doing it
- “Burn up with unquenchable fire.” (Lk 3:17). The thing that enables burning up is the unquenchable fire. Burning up won’t happen without the fire.
- “By grace you have been saved” (Eph 2:5, 8). Grace is the thing that enables salvation, without grace salvation won’t happen.
Now go back to our verse: “Through the Spirit we eagerly await.” The Spirit is the agency of our waiting. Because of Him we are able to eagerly await. This is a spiritual waiting, not a fleshly waiting. This is done not as a display of our personal grit and conviction, but a display of our inner faith that we have in our hearts. Our refusal to rely on ourselves and instead our focused reliance on Christ. What that faith really is, is our trust in and our reliance on and our ongoing confidence in what God has said.
And it is right there that a connection must be made: our confidence is centered on what God has said. Our strong reliance is on God’s words. Where do we find what God has said? In the Bible. Our knowledge of the Bible is critical to our faith. No preacher has ever overstated the danger of being ignorant of the Bible. The Bible informs us of what it is we are supposed to be expecting, and what it is we are supposed to be relying on, and what it is that we are supposed to be waiting for. If you don’t know the bible how much faith can you actually have? How “on track” with God can you actually be?
This is why the Word of God is central to the local church’s ministry: everything is governed by God’s Word. The Word of God rules everything and nothing that comes from or is validated by God’s Word should have any place in the ministry of a local church. That is what it means to call the Bible the “canon,” it is the rule that everything is measured by, validated or invalidated by, proven true or false by. No belief and no practice is taken up unless we know the Word of God approves it.
Furthermore, you are established only by God’s Word. You mature only by God’s word. You grow only by God’s word. You glorify God only by His Word. Your holiness increases only by God’s word. People come in here and get saved only by God’s word. We please God only by God’s word. Living through the Spirit only happens by an informed commitment to God’s Word. Eagerly waiting through the Spirit for what God has promised only happens as we know and trust God’s Word that tells us those promises.
A prayerless Christian is not a spiritual Christian. A Christian who is not praying is a Christian who is not waiting.
CONCLUSION
How well do you wait? I urge each of us to learn the Christian value of waiting. Let me leave you with these take aways and then some silent reflection:
- Are you waiting and is your faith being proven by how you’re waiting?
- Are you waiting because you understand God’s Word and what it says?
- Do you have the peace of Christ in your spirit as you wait? It is the same peace that is a fruit of the Spirit (v22).
Next week we’ll finish the other two points: Faith waits for righteousness and faith waits with hope.