“Spiritual Recovery: When I’m Tired of Waiting”
Sermon Title: Spiritual Recovery: When I’m Tired of Waiting
Scripture: Isaiah 40:27-31 ESV
Introduction
We’re continuing our series on Spiritual Recovery, and two weeks ago, we looked at Elijah when he was struggling spiritually, being burnt out, running into the wilderness wanting to die. And it was the Lord who came to revive Elijah through His presence and providence and gave him renewed purpose.
Today, we’re going to look at another piece of the pie of our spiritual condition called Spiritual Weariness. In other words, it’s the state of spiritual exhaustion that sometimes occurs when we get tired of waiting. It’s when you need that providence and strengthening that Elijah received, but no matter how long you wait, it doesn’t seem to be coming. You’ve prayed for so long, you’ve been patient for so long, holding on with no sign of hope. You’ve been running for so long, telling yourself just a little longer, just a little more, but time keeps going with no relief, no fruit in your life, no evidence of anything happening or getting better. And slowly, hope fades into disappointment, discouragement, and then hopelessness and despair.
This was exactly the kind of context in which the Lord speaks to Israel through Isaiah 40. Although scholars debate when exactly Isaiah 40 was written, what we know is that God is speaking prophetically to a people dwelling in exile, whose view of God was changing because of their circumstances. They had been waiting to be saved for a long time, and now they were tired of waiting.
Isaiah 40
We see this change in how Israel sees God in verse 27, where God addresses their complaint against Him.
There are two complaints, two accusations being made before God.
First, my way is hidden from the Lord. In other words, God doesn’t see what I’m going through. He doesn’t know what’s happening in my life or how I feel, and if He does, maybe He doesn’t care.
Second, my right is disregarded by my God. God won’t act on my behalf. God is neglecting me no matter how often I bring my case before Him in prayer.
There is a sense of injustice: Lord, those who don’t worship You, even those who hate You, seem to have the blessings I’ve asked for. Why have You not blessed me, who follows You and loves You?
These complaints are not necessarily a denial of God’s power, but arise because we believe in God’s power. And in these two complaints, we can see how they begin questioning the very character of God.
God, are You truly all-seeing, all-present, and all-powerful? Are You truly loving and faithful? Do You truly see me and know me?
This is how Israel began to change their view of God as they experienced exile, loss, suffering, and hopelessness. Unable to return home, ruled over by those who invaded and destroyed their country, wondering fearfully what tomorrow would bring, wondering if there would even be a tomorrow.
So in verse 28, God basically says: Have you forgotten who I am?
And yes, we can forget God. This is why God tells His people so many times throughout Scripture to remember the Lord their God. Because we can, and we do, forget.
As Christians, we may remember the Lord up here, in our heads, but forget Him here, in our hearts. And when our knowledge of God remains only in our heads, doubt and suspicion can take hold instead of trusting Him with all our hearts in faith.
In verse 28, God reminds Israel that He is the everlasting God, the Creator of the universe. His strength and power are limitless. He does not grow weak or tired. His thoughts and ways are higher than ours.
God is not limited by circumstances, especially not your circumstances. He is greater than your circumstances. He is in control of your circumstances.
He sees all, knows all, has gone ahead of you, and at the same time is with you. Therefore, there will be things you won’t see or understand, things that won’t make sense right now.
Just because we don’t see and understand what God is doing doesn’t mean God doesn’t know what He’s doing.
God’s Remedy: Waiting
The answer God gives us for our spiritual weariness is found in verse 31, where Isaiah speaks of those who wait upon the Lord receiving renewed strength, soaring like eagles, running without growing weary, and walking without fainting.
When we become weary and tired of waiting, the answer God gives us is, ironically, TO WAIT.
But waiting is more than just enduring the passage of time. When we look through today’s passage, there are movements that God shows us that lead us into waiting.
Waiting becomes easier to endure when you have something that motivates and drives you. It’s the same for God’s people. We can jump through all kinds of hoops, go beyond our means, and sacrifice more than we may be able to afford, but do it with joy because we are focused on God, and our motivation and drive is God Himself.
However, when our circumstances avert our eyes and hearts away from God, who gives meaning to our waiting, waiting becomes a burden, a frustration, and eventually exhausting.
Therefore, before the Lord invites us to wait, God first invites us to remember.
In Isaiah 40:28, God calls His people to remember what they have already known and heard about Him.
Remembering the Lord is more than recalling information about God and the past. It is the spiritual discipline of deliberately and intentionally bringing the Lord and what we believe back to the forefront and center of our lives.
It is taking faded memories of God’s character, His love, faithfulness, power, and presence, and bringing them back into the foreground of our lives right now.
We must not only remember the truth of who God is, but speak it and proclaim it: Lord, You are faithful, compassionate, abundant in love. You do not grow weary. You renew the strength of the weak, and You are good.
When we speak these truths, we are not speaking our opinions, but what we believe because we can trust in God who is constant, eternal, and unchanging.
And most of all, remember God’s greatest act of love, giving us Jesus Christ, who held nothing back but gave Himself for us.
The cross of Jesus Christ prevents us from ever coming to the conclusion that God does not love us. That must be a constant anchor in our lives and how we view God.
1A. Remembering the Lord Leads to Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a command given to us according to God’s will, as we see in 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18, where Paul calls believers to rejoice, continue in prayer, and give thanks in every circumstance.
There are moments when we know we should be grateful, give thanks, and count our blessings, but our hearts are just not having it.
We try thinking about the things we have, people who are less privileged than us, and things we’ve taken for granted. And perhaps for some, that works, but sometimes it doesn’t. You feel just as ungrateful as before.
Perhaps it’s because, although finding things to be thankful for is not a bad practice, what we’re doing is trying to create reasons to be thankful.
Remembering the Lord is not about creating reasons to be thankful. It is being thankful knowing that God is still good, still faithful, still loving, and still with us this very moment.
At this stage, you don’t have to feel thankful. It isn’t always about your emotions. It’s about expressing thanksgiving through obedience and living faithfully before the Lord in all circumstances.
1B. Thanksgiving Leads Us to and Through Worship
We see this again in 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18, where Paul calls us to rejoice.
Remembering who God is and having reasons to be thankful helps us rejoice and praise, meaning worship, even when our emotions have not caught up to us yet.
Worship is not always about how you feel. It is not always about feeling okay, feeling better, or feeling like you received something from God.
According to the context of today’s sermon, worship is also what we do while we endure and while we wait.
And while we worship, the Lord invites us to wait for Him.
What Waiting Does in Us
1. Waiting reveals that our strength is not enough.
Isaiah 40:30 reminds us that even the young and strong eventually become weary and exhausted.
No strength, no power, no youth, and no experience will ever be enough to sustain ourselves. Waiting is about learning to depend upon God, whose strength never fails.
When you’ve reached the end of your own strength, you will learn to recognize God’s.
2. Waiting builds us up in Christ.
In Romans 5:3–4, Paul explains how suffering produces endurance, endurance develops character, and character produces hope.
3. Waiting prepares us to be vessels who are ready and spiritually equipped to accept what God, in His wisdom, desires to give us.
Waiting is not only the time in which we mature in our faith. It is the posture of faith.
And the renewed strength and blessings that the Lord gives are not rewards we deserve for waiting long enough. They are the grace of God for those who wait and trust in Him to the very end.
Conclusion
Lastly, waiting is not only our posture of faith, but waiting itself is one of the greatest ways we can express our thanksgiving to God. Waiting is one of the ways we show how much we love and trust Him.
Brothers and sisters, praying, worshipping, offering, serving, getting into the life of the church, and sharing life with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ are all wonderful ways we glorify and honour our God.
But the faithful act of waiting is also one of the ways we highly exalt and honour God, because it is a posture of faith, worship, and thanksgiving in the most difficult circumstances of life.
And in our spiritual weariness, when we feel tired of waiting, maybe what we are really tired of is not waiting itself.
Maybe we are tired because we cannot get ourselves out of our circumstances. We are tired of waiting for things to change. We are tired of waiting for things to finally get better.
Then stop waiting, but this time wait for the Lord, not your circumstances.
May the Lord renew your strength and restore you, so that you may soar on wings like eagles, carried by the powerful wind of the Holy Spirit, that you may run and walk through the circumstances of your life in the strength of our mighty God.
