When waiting takes too long...

Episode Title: The Promise, The Delay, and The Fulfillment

In this episode, Anthony walks through one of the most honest and relatable stories in Scripture — the long wait between God’s promise and God’s fulfillment. From Abraham and Sarah’s growing impatience to the moment they tried to “fix” what God promised to fulfill, this message explores how delay shapes us, stretches us, and sometimes exposes our tendency to take matters into our own hands. You’ll hear how the human fix created a human mess, how God stepped in with grace instead of condemnation, and how the birth of Isaac reminds us that God’s timing is perfect even when ours isn’t. If you’ve ever wondered whether God is late, silent, or distant, this episode will encourage you to trust His faithfulness over your frustration and to place your hope back in the God who always keeps His word.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

And welcome back to On the Road with Pastor Anthony. And I am your host, Pastor Anthony, and I am super glad that you all are here. I got this out just a little bit early since today is Father's Day. I wanted to get it out on Sunday. And so whenever you're listening to this, thank you and happy Father's Day again. Before we get started, please consider to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite platform so that you never miss an episode. And if you enjoy what you hear, give us a thumbs up and share the podcast with your friends. And by joining us each week, you will discover practical ways to live out your faith and to connect with others as we share Jesus and life one mile at a time. Super pumped to be back here again. Me and him hadn't really seen each other in a while. I just talked a couple times on the phone, too. But I'm glad to get the call. I'm glad I was able to come in. Matter of fact, uh my wife and I, we just celebrated 33 years on the 25th, and we were uh she actually got to go work with me. So he was talking about blessings. I'm like, yep, it was blessed. We were in Florida, so for a couple days, or about a day and a half. So but uh so that was good times. But uh, you know, I was thinking about uh the other day whenever they called me because I do uh a podcast and I was planning a series and and God put this one on my heart to uh to do, and uh, and I was sort of thinking about the world in which we live in, and I never even knew this or really paying attention, but it's the world is divided into 24 different time zones, and it's amazing how at the same moment uh you know it can look completely different depending on where you stand and why you're uh gathered, you know, here right now it's morning uh here. Well, it's really afternoon somewhere else, and in the you know, completely in the middle of the night somewhere else. And I'm reminded of this uh recently I was on a podcast with um uh it's called Extraordinary People doing extraordinary things, and the host lives in Colorado. So I had to sit down and you know give myself a headache because I had to do math, trying to figure out what time zone was, what you know, what time was going to be there, so I make sure that I was online and I wasn't late. And and I deal with this quite often is you know, being in RV transport, you know, having to drive across multiple states, you know, during the day and sometimes clear two time zones and trying to keep everything on track. But uh, you know, that losing an hour, gaining an hour, and all that, you know, can really kind of just mess with you. And uh, but uh I think sometimes as we think about those, you know, how it's kind of hard to keep track of some time and all that. And I think that's sometimes how it feels like when we're waiting on God. You know, we look at our clock, our calendar, our deadlines, our schedules, and we start thinking, you know what? God's late. Or where are you, Lord? Or maybe he forgot. You know, we start thinking that maybe God's just not moving. But in 2 Peter 3:8, it reminds us that the Lord, you know, with the Lord, one day is a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day. You know, God doesn't measure the time the way that we do, you know, he doesn't operate, and you know, we have six time zones here in America. And I'm like, I never even thought about what the other ones was. I knew you know, we had you know the eastern, central mountains, Pacific, but we also have Alaska and Hawaii Alecian, I think they say that. But I think we could say we have seven, really, when you think of the seventh being our own time zone. But God lives in a perfect time, He's never early, He's never late, He's always right on time, and the struggle is when we try to drag God into our time zone when waiting takes too long, which is the title of this message. We're going to be looking in uh throughout Genesis. We're gonna start in Genesis 12, and I'm gonna be kind of bouncing through different portions all the way through you know chapter 21, just pulling some uh some scriptur references and things from there. We want to use uh Abraham and Sarah as an example uh for our today's message. You know, God made a promise, but the promise didn't show up in their time zone. They tried to adjust God's timing to fit the room, and the moment they did, their everything became more complicated than it needed to be. And I think we all can relate to this. So let's go ahead and pray and ask God's blessing upon his message this morning. Father God, Lord, we come to you again and just thank you so much for all that you do in our lives. Firstly, and Lord, we thank you for the many blessings. And and you know, uh just I'm sure we could all share different praises and things as there's great things that uh done this week that we've seen you work and do, and uh Lord, but now we ask that you bless the reading of your word. We ask you bless our time together, teach us, open our hearts and our minds, and challenge us today, Father, that we stay focused on you and uh you know, and and just stay in you know locked in to what you're doing in our lives and try not to help it alone. So, Lord, teach us this morning in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so Genesis chapter 12. I want to look at verses uh one through three first, and as you turn there, uh we're gonna be looking at some promises God made Abraham. But here in Genesis 12 is where the journey actually begins. Before Abraham ever took a step of faith, before he ever packed a bag, you know, he loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly, before he did any of that, before he left his homeland, God spoke a promise with something he declares, you know, long before Abraham could even see it. And let's look at what God said to Abraham as his foundation for everything that follows. Genesis chapter 12, one through three says, Now the Lord said to Abram, Get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to the land I will show you, I will make you a great nation, I will bless you and your name and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you, and in you all families of the earth will be blessed. So this is where Abraham's entire journey begins. Not with Abraham's idea, not with Abraham's plan, not with, you know, he wasn't trying to make anything happen. I mean, the dude was living here with his family. He probably had his work, I mean, he had everything going on. His thought process was not even remotely, you know what, I'm gonna move halfway around the world or whatever it is, and do none of that was even the thought process. And then here comes God going, hey dude, I got something for you. And so, and kind of shakes things up a little bit, but but the promise God gives in Genesis chapter 12 is only the beginning, it's the starting point, it's not the full picture. God speaks a word over Abraham's life, but he does not reveal every detail in that moment, and sometimes I think if he did, we would really mess it up. But the promise is given, but the pieces you know unfold over time, and that's exactly how it is with us. You know, God makes a promise and he prepares us for the next step in bringing his promise to completion. You know, we look, move on over to flip one if you want to, John Genesis 15, 4 through 6. But uh, as we read a little bit earlier in this in this particular chapter, you know, God and Abraham is kind of having a dialogue and and trying to figure out, you know, okay, God, he's trying to figure out what are you what are you doing? Can you just tell me some more? I mean, you know, you're telling me I'm gonna be this great nation, you're telling me that you're gonna do this, but where is the air going to come from? I mean, is it gonna be this, you know, somebody else? I mean, and he's going through it and going through it, and then we see here in uh verses four through six, we see more of the promise revealed. It says, And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, This shall not be your heir, but the one who will come from your own body shall be your heir. And then he brought him outside and said, Look toward the heaven and count the stars if you are able to number them. And he says, So shall be your descendants be, or so shall your descendants be. And believe in the and he believed in the Lord and he encountered it to him for righteousness. I mean, could you imagine God going, you know what? This is gonna be your family, and you're like, you know, you know, I mean, just the the thought processing, you know, of what that magnitude, you know, of what that really meant, you know. But Abraham, as he's listening to God, you know, he doesn't just hear a promise, he trusts the promise keeper. But God still isn't finished, he's still got some more. And Genesis 17, 15 through 21, I won't read yet, but he the promises becomes more specific. You know, God doesn't say somehow, someday, somewhere, maybe this might happen. He says the promise will come through Sarah. And God even names the child, Isaac. The pattern is the same time every time you know with God's promises are clear. God's word is dependable, God's timing is sovereign. And God didn't tell Abraham, hey, pull out your phone, let's uh let's set up a date. You know, pull your calendar app up, let's look at it, let's go ahead and and and jot down something here. Go ahead and start playing the baby shower now and your gender reveal. Let's do all that. He didn't he got he didn't do any of that. And I think sometimes, you know, we need to understand that it's he's you know, what God said is I will, and that should be enough. A revealed promise in stages according to his perfect timing. And I think sometimes this is where we can get tripped up. We just you know, we don't just want the promise, we want the timeline. We want the God to say, here's your miracle, and here's the exact date, the hour, I mean, right now, I mean, this is where you're gonna be standing. You know, He doesn't He doesn't do that, He doesn't give it, you know. I think about the I was talking about my wife this morning, I have a doctor's appointment coming up, and you know, it's still it's not until Tuesday. I've already gotten like 16 different uh you know alerts, you know, to reminder, are you gonna be here? Confirm your appointment. It's like God doesn't do that. It's we got to trust him, and that's what he didn't he didn't tell Abraham to be expecting an email confirmation. He just like, trust me, just wait. God simply said, I will, and he kept the schedule to himself. But I love one of my favorite verses, I think it really relates to us all is Jeremiah 29, 11. You know, it says, You know, I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord plans to prosper you, not to harm you and to give you hope and a future. In other words, God saying, Look, I already know the plan, I already know the timing, I already know the outcome, I've already been there, I know what it's going to take place. Just hang on. And something for us to remember is every promise God makes is backed by a plan, and every plan God has come up with a time and God already controlled. Abraham had the promise long before he saw the fulfillment, and so do we, and sometimes the plan comes with a delay, not a denial, not a cancellation, not a change of mind, just a delay. And that delay is where faith gets stretched, where trust gets tested, and the human heart starts wrestling with God's timing. So let's go on over to Genesis 16. I want to take a little bit of look uh here at this one part, uh, because this is where we see what happens when the promise is real, but the waiting gets long. Yeah, the promises we looked at in Genesis 12, 15, and 17 shows us what God said. But 16, 1 and 2 shows us what happens when the promises don't show up as expected. It says, now Sari, Abram's wife, had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. So Siri said to Abram, see now the Lord has restrained me from buried children. Please go into my maid, and perhaps I shall obtain children by her. And Abram heeded the voice of Siri. I'm going, Oh, you know, this is not going to end well. Abraham and Sarah had a word from God, but they didn't have the time on it. Years kept passing, the bodies kept aging, their faith was stretching, and the promise that felt so exciting. I mean, I'm sure when they first got this, you know, especially during this time, I mean, it was an honor for a woman to bear her husband a son, you know, a child, and all this waiting was, I mean, now it's starting to begin like this is never going to happen. This is impossible. You know, Genesis 16 opens with a sentence that hits every waiting heart. Now, Sari, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. In other words, the promise was real, but the evidence was missing. And many of us know what that feels like. We know what it's like to live in the space between what God has said and what God has done up until this point. And, you know, between the promises and the proof, between the word and fulfillment. And this is exactly where Abraham and Sarah were living. And you can almost imagine them sitting around their living room, sitting on the couch just talking, you know, trying to figure it out. I mean, watching YouTube videos, reading the books from the experts, I mean, you know, trying to make sense of exactly what was happening in their life right now because it felt like turmoil. They didn't know exactly what was going on. And I'm sure there was prayer, God, you know, what are you doing? Where where are you at? I mean, I know I afraid those that that very same thing. And here's the truth we don't like to talk about. The waiting, it exposes us. Waiting reveals our fears. Waiting tests our faith. I mean, James 1 3, he was talking about reading the book of James. Yeah, you want you want to get challenged to read the book of James. But it says, knowing the testing of your faith produces patience. Oh, there's that patience. There's that P word. Nobody likes that P word. Even though we don't like it, waiting forces us to confront what's really happening inside of us. Waiting is makes us wonder if, well, maybe we misheard God. If we misunderstood exactly what he was saying, or maybe we just missed something altogether. You know, Abraham and Sarah weren't doubting the promise, they were doubting the timing. I mean, who can blame them? God didn't give them a countdown clock, you know, to hang on the walls like, you know, this is gonna happen on this day. Get ready. I mean, just he didn't tell them, well, 14 more years to go, just hang on. Let's schedule a ride. Isaac's around. Nope, he didn't say none of that. He just gave him a promise, but didn't give him a timeline. And sometimes when the schedule is hidden, we become impatient. And sometimes that's when it really becomes a problem. I mean, impatience can definitely cause us problems because then our brain starts working. Because delay doesn't just test your patience, it tests your perspective. Delays whisper, maybe God changed his mind. Delay suggests maybe you need to help God out. How many of you thought about it? Delay tempts us to take control of what God never asked us to manage, and that's exactly what happens here with Abraham and Sarah. The longer they waited, the heavier the silence felt, and the longer it took for God to fulfill the promise, the more tempting it came became to create their own solution. The delay didn't cancel the promise, but it challenged their faith. And we have to understand a delay of God's promise isn't a denied promise. God's silence isn't God's absence, God's timing is not neglect. The delay is not punishment, it's preparation. Abraham and Sarah was waiting on a son, but God was shaping their faith. They wanted a timeline, but God wanted trust. They wanted a date, but God wanted dependence. And the same is true for us. The delay is where God grows us, strengthens us, and prepares us for what he has planned. And this is where the delay can become dangerous. Because when waiting wears us down, we start looking for ways to make God's promise happen ourselves. And that's the moment Abraham and Sarah stepped into the human fix, and that's where things get really yaked up. So we want to go ahead and look back at uh Genesis 16, 1 through 6. I'm gonna go ahead and read it again so we can get the context of it. It says now Sari and Abram's wife had borne him no children, and she's had an Egyptian maid servant whose name was Hagar. So Siri and Abram see now the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please go into my maid. Perhaps I shall obtain children by her. And Abram heeded the voice of Siri, and Syri's Abram's wife took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, and after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, so he went into Hagar and she conceived, and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes, and then Siri and Abram or said to Abram, My wrong be upon you. I gave my maid into your embrace, and when she had saw that she had conceived, I become despised in her eyes, and the Lord judged between you and me. And so Abram said to Siri, Indeed, your maid is in your hand, do to her as you please. And when Ciri dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence. This is the moment where impatience meets opportunity, and opportunity meets bad decisions. Siri has a plan. Abram agrees. Hager is pulled into something that she never asked for. She didn't sign up for this. And the instant the plan works, the household unravels. Not because God failed, but because they tried to fix what God promised to fulfill. Siri looks at the delay and decides, well, you know what? God must need some help. And I got an idea, and I think that'll take care of it right now. But as soon as this happens, immediately tension erupts, Sarah immediately blames Abraham. Abraham steps back and Hagar runs away. The whole house is in chaos. Not because God had changed his mind, but because they took control of something that God never asked them to manage. And this is what we see over the next few chapters is that one human fix usually leads to another. In Genesis 17, 18, Abraham tries to secure the promise through uh Ishmael. It's almost like he's looking at the Lord like, um, you know, I I kind of screwed up here. But you know, if you can go ahead and just bless this, I think that will fix all, you know, just fix all of it. And you know, it might even calm the wife down just a you know a few degrees. Maybe that and we just smooth all this over. It's kind of what it's kind of what it's looking like he's talking when he's. Talking to God. And God responds responds to him, look, dude, Ishmael, he's not it. He's not the blessing that I was telling you about. Then in Genesis 18, 9, uh 18, 9 through 15, you know, they're talking about, you know, okay, this is what's going to happen. Okay, we're going to come back in about a year, and your wife's going to, she's going to give be pregnant, and she's going to give birth to a son, you know, and you're going through the whole spill and all this. And you know, Abraham was like, I don't know how this is going to work. I mean, we're getting pretty old. And Sarah laughs and disbelief because the delay has reshaped her expectations. She doesn't see what God sees. And then in Genesis 20, 1 through 18, Abraham falls back into old patterns, another human maneuver that complicates God's path. We get in the way all the time when God is trying to do stuff. I can tell you and raise my hand and tell you exactly that I've done it many times. But each scene reveals the same truth. When we try to manage what God has promised to handle, we create more problems than we solve. A.W. Tozer said the most dangerous thing a man can do is attempt to do God's work in the energy of the flesh. And that's exactly what Abraham and Sarah keep doing every time they step in. Things get more complicated. And now here's where we have to be honest with ourselves. When waiting wears us down, when we start looking for ways to make God's promise happen ourselves, we start strategizing, we start manipulating, forcing outcomes, and calling it faith. And that's not faith, that's frustration dressed up as faith. And most of the time it leads to consequences that leave us feeling defeated. Because the truth is, is the human fix always creates human mess. And God will not build on a divine promise, on a human shortcut. You know, I like said there's times I pray, you know, and I and I tell God all the time, I'm like, Lord, if I'm in the way of what you're trying to do, correct me. You know, gipslap me, as it were. You know, y'all pray know me in CIS, but you know, I have to pray those things because I do get in the way. Because you know, I'm a dude. I want to fix things. That's what I that's what I am. And so I try to take control of the situation, and then I end up making it worse, and then I have to go try it out. You know, like a little child that falls down and bumps a little noggin or something, you know, have to preach up, Daddy. Yeah, that's what I gotta do. And if we're honest, we do the same thing. When God seems slow, we create our own Ishmael. You know, we can reload, you know, rush relationship because loneliness is loud, we force financial decisions because fear is heavy, we push doors open in our careers because waiting feels like it's wasting time. And every time we do, we end up with stress, tension, regret, and complications that God never intended. The human fix always costs more than we expected, and it takes us farther than we wanted to go. But the good news is God's faithful and bigger than our failures, and that leads us to the final part of this story: the fulfillment. And when God steps in and does exactly what he told us he would do. So after all the waiting, all the wondering, and all the human attempts to make a promise happen, we finally arrive at the moment where God steps in and shows that his word was never in danger. You know, in Genesis 21:1 and 2, the Lord it says, the Lord visited Sarah and He said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he has spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the set time of which God has spoken to him. That's the whole story right there. God didn't exactly what he said he would do when he said he would do it, and not when Abraham expected it, not when Sarah had hoped it, not when their plans lined up neatly, but in his timing, in his way for his glory. You know, Isaac was born not a product of human effort, but of the fulfillment of a divine promise. You know, God waited until every human option was exhausted, so no one could say, Hey, we did this. It was all us. Nope, we they can't deny that this was all God, that it was all Him. You know, Isaac stands as a reminder of what God promises don't depend on our performance, they depend on His faithfulness, and that's the what's beautiful. That God didn't abandon Abraham and Sarah because of their mistakes, he didn't cancel the promise because they tried to fix it, he didn't withdraw his word because they stumbled along the way. He redeemed their missteps, restored their hope, fulfilled his promise anyway. And this is the kind of God that we serve. He just doesn't work in spite of our failures, he works through them to show us that his grace is way bigger than our weakness. You know, Isaac's birth was proof that God's timing is perfect, God's plan, it's unstoppable. God's word, it's unbreakable. What he promises, he performs. What he speaks, he completes, and what he begins, he finishes. And this is where it becomes real for us because we've all been in places where we're waiting on God to fulfill something that he spoke. We all have promises we're holding on to, prayers we've prayed, dreams we've carried, burdens that we have brought before him again and again, and sometimes the delay makes us wonder as if God has forgotten. But the story of Abraham and Sarah reminds us that God's never late, He's just working on a different schedule than ours. The fulfillment may not look like what we expected, may not arrive as we hoped, but God brings it to pass, and it'll be better, be stronger, and more beautiful than anything that we could have manufactured on our own. You know, Isaac really, I mean, he outshines Ishmael in every way. God's fulfillment always outperforms our fixes. Here's the truth that carries us forward. If God said it, he will do it. If God promised it, he will perform it. If God began it, he will finish it. And the waiting may be long, the delay may be stretching, or that the human fix may have made things messy, but the God who kept his word to Abraham and Sarah will be the same God who keeps his word to us, and the fulfillment brings all you will remind us that his timing is worth trusting, his promises are worth holding on to, his faithfulness is worth building our lives on. The story of Abraham and Sarah leaves us with a question we can't ignore. What promises are you holding on to and whose hands are they in right now? Because at some point, every one of us has to decide whether we're going to keep trying to make things happen on our own strength or whether we're finally going to trust God to do the things that only He can do, you know, Isaac didn't come because Abraham pushed harder or Sarah was, you know, tried to be smarter. Isaac came because God is faithful, and the same God who fulfilled his word to them is the same God writing our story right now. So here's the challenge where do you need to stop fixing and start trusting? Where do you need to release the timeline and surrender the pressure and lay down the weight that you've been carrying? Maybe it's a door that you've been trying to force open. Maybe it's a prayer that you've been trying to answer for God. Whatever it is, the invitation is simple. Put it back in his hands. Let go. And when God brings it to pass, you will know that it wasn't your fix that done it. It was him. All him and that's what brings glory to God. Let's pray. Father God, again, we come to you and we thank you for just opening uh as we go through your word and teaching us, Lord, and help us remind ourselves that you know what, you got this, you're in control. I mean, you created the heavens and the earth. I mean, look at how beautiful it is. And so, Lord, anything that's going on in our lives, you've got it. And if you're trying to take us somewhere, then take us and don't let us get in the way. Father, we love you and thank you so much for all that you do. And Lord, you know, I'm not sure you know who maybe you send us online or maybe here that uh maybe they're struggling with some stuff. Lord, maybe today is the day that they let that go and give it back over to you to handle. Father, again, we love you in Jesus' name and amen. If this message has encouraged you, don't forget to like it, share it with a friend, and subscribe and hit that little bell so you get a notification and you never miss what is next. And if you want to help others find this message, leaving a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform, say that five times real fast. It really helps us reach more people with the gospel. And if you'd like to stay connected and be a part of what God's doing through this ministry, all the links are below. We have, you know, you can do stuff on Buzz Sprout. You can uh there's an app, uh buy me a coffee or buy you a coffee, something like that. And you can go there and help uh if you feel led to support the ministry, whether through prayer, sharing an episode, or giving, you know, through those apps, Buzz Sprout or Buy Me a Coffee. But I thank you so much. And your prayers mean more than you know, and your generosity helps us stay on the road, sharing the gospel and reaching more lives with hope. Again, all the links are in the description below, and thanks for being a part of the journey and continue to share Jesus in life one lot at a time, and we will see you on the next one. And real quick, before we do, buzz out, be ready. You know, next week we got a fourth of July uh episode coming out, and then we're starting our series. Base camp 7. Uh, you'll hear all about it. So make sure you're tuned in, make sure you're ready. Set those notifications so you're ready to hear because we got an eight-week series coming on, and it's I mean it's going to be great. I got uh it's gonna be at least three episodes for have a guest uh with me. Uh James Johnson is doing the four three uh stuff with me. And we're talking about it, and ready to get IMPS time,