3. What Are We Waiting For? Psalm 39:7

Text:  “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.”
                                                                                                                   Psalm 27:14.

Good morning, waiting Christian!  Let us ask ourselves the question this morning, beloved international Bible Class – ‘Just what are you and I waiting for at present?’ 

When one asks plenty of questions, one is assured of receiving plenty of answers.  If one is afraid to ask the vital questions, one will never receive the knowledge of truth that one desperately needs to know.  “Ask, and ye shall receive…”  (Matthew 7:7)

True Christians should always be ‘waiting Christians’; not sitting around waiting in that common sense of the word, but waiting, as in servants waiting upon tables in the service of the Lord Jesus Christ.  We are to be waiters for Jesus consistently.

However, too often we hear of genuine Christian believers, who have undoubtedly been brought to the Cross of Christ, granted faith to believe, and been gloriously redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb – yet, who seem to have grown tired of ‘waiting’ for the return of our Lord Jesus, and have gone off to heap up worldly honours; applause from men; material possessions; and financial riches.  They seem to have completely forgotten God’s instruction: “Ye cannot serve God and mammon…” 

“No man/woman can serve two masters; for either he/she will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.  Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”  (Matthew 6:24)

Dictionary Definition: Mammon – (Noun) riches regarded as the root of evil; (with capitals) the god of riches; devoted to ‘money-getting’ and gain. (The Chambers Dictionary, page 974)

Verse 7.  “And now, Lord, what wait I for?  In Psalm 39 we find king David sitting, as it were, taking a very deep reality check of exactly where he is with serving God; what his daily focuses are on; where his most sincere thoughts are taking him; and how he is spending his allotted time.  And it is ‘NOW’, the very present time, that he is placing under the magnifying glass of his meditations.  This should be a constant exercise for any genuine Christian servant of Christ Jesus today.

In other words, the Psalmist, David, is taking stock of his relationship and fellowship with the Living Lord God – as you and I should consistently be doing day by day.  He is checking up on himself, on his heart’s desires; on his ambitions; on his prayer-life; on his practical and Spiritual service to the Lord God.

Had he continued to be so diligent in this positive exercise in later days, he would have undoubtedly not allowed himself to get too comfortable on the rooftop of his palace, and permitted his eyes to wander down to watch the beautiful Bathsheba bathing; allowed lust to control him to grievous sin; then arrange with Joab for Bathsheba’s husband, Urriah, the faithful soldier, to be sent to his death in battle! 

What a litany of serious sin would have been averted had David continued to take these serious ‘reality checks’ on his life as an anointed servant of Jehovah God!

What primary lesson does these facts from Scripture hold for you and for me?  What futile fantasies and activities are you and I allowing to clog up our minds, disabling us from serving Christ Jesus as our hearts already know that we should be doing?

George Rogers (1874) states: “The World’s Trinity consists: 1. In fruitless honours: What appears to them to be substantial honours are but a vain show.  2. In needless cares.  They are disquieted in vain.  Imaginary cares are substituted for real ones.  3. In useless riches; such as yield no lasting satisfaction to themselves, or in their descent to others.”  

Of such temporal, unimportant, fantasies and activities in this world, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) wrote: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.  Out, out, brief candle!  Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

So.  What should be important in this life to you and to me and to all genuinely redeemed, ‘born again’ regenerated; Bible-believing Christian man or woman?

We should, surely, be more interested in Eternal values than mere temporal ones.  We should conduct very genuine ‘reality checks’ on our Spiritual state more consistently – and, when we find that we have slipped down from the standard of Christlikeness and personal holiness demanded of all followers of the risen Christ Jesus, we must go more promptly to God’s throne of grace in prayer, confessing our sins; and forsaking them once more; seeking a new filling of God the Spirit; and pleading with Him to ‘possess our reins for Christ Jesus afresh’.  We must be progressively sanctified for service to God, if we are in fact, ‘…waiting for Christ’s soon return in glory…’

Verse 7.  “…My hope is in Thee. If our true and genuine hope is in Christ alone, then we need to get serious afresh as to how we are living today before the eyes of mere men.  We have no other real ‘hope’, only in the Cross of Christ.  Therefore, let us try to be more like Him day by day right NOW?

Thought:  ‘Lord, help me to be more like Thee, and much less like me, daily.’

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