Hey, there. It’s Monday. I know what you guys think about Mondays. Nobody really likes Monday, but as I was coming home from work this morning I was listening to the radio — I get off work at 5 AM, and so the morning show was just coming on K99 FM, and they were talking about Mondays. And he was talking about how he loves Mondays because they have so much to talk about from the weekend. He said Wednesday is his new Monday. Wednesday is the day he doesn’t like because there’s just nothing really new.

And I got to thinking about that with my life as a follower of Christ, and I thought, you know what? Mondays don’t have to be dreaded and dreary. Mondays can be great because I get to reflect on all the things that God spoke to me about yesterday, on Sunday. And through preaching, through just interacting with people, and all these different things, that’s refreshing to me.

And so what I want to do this morning is, we were in Luke chapter 7 yesterday in our “Not a Fan” series, and we’re talking about intimacy with God. You know, one of the biggest questions that we ask, this is the biggest remark I’ve gotten since yesterday. By the way, if you haven’t seen that message, go onto our Facebook page, The Journey Community Church on Facebook, and check out that message there. It’s posted from yesterday.

But the one thing I keep hearing is, man, that was pretty convicting. And when we talk about, sometimes I get more excited and make better plans spending time with my spouse than I do spending time with God. So, you know, me just being transparent as a pastor, that’s one of my troubles, too. I tell you that all the time, that I’m not just preaching to the choir. This is for me, too.

So, what I thought I’d do this morning, as we spent some time together on this video blog, we would just have some time with God this morning. And so, I want to just kind of share with you my routine when I get into it, and so, I have a devotional. It’s called New Morning Mercies. If you’ve never had this devotional, I really encourage you to get on Amazon right now, it’s by Paul David Tripp, and buy this devotional. New Morning Mercies. It was our book of the year in 2018. We gave this away in January to everybody who was in our church, so hopefully you still have one. In mine, I’ve got some markups wherever I get into God’s Word. There’s things that I highlight, things that I circle, things that I underline that kind of mean a whole lot to me.

And so, we were talking about intimacy with God, and we were looking at Luke chapter 7, at how this lady that was considered the sinner came to Simon the Pharisee’s house when Jesus was invited in for a meal. And Simon was really there just to get more information. He didn’t treat Jesus the way Jesus was accustomed to being treated or the way guests were accustomed to being treated. He didn’t wash his feet. He didn’t greet him with a kiss. All these things. And he begins to kind of mock this sinner, as the Bible calls her, when she begins to worship him. And that’s the idea of who we are. We’re sinners coming to worship Jesus, and that’s the intimacy that we need to have with our God.

And so, this morning I want you to just kind of join me. We’re going to spend just a couple minutes here. We’re going to look at Paul David Tripp’s idea of March the second. Today’s March the second, 2020, and so every one of these dates in this book are labeled, and so I just went to March second.

And here what it says at the very top, and I think this is very fitting, especially for The Journey Community Church, the place where we are as a church right now. It says, waiting on God doesn’t mean sitting around and hoping. You know, we’ve been praying for a lot of things this year. And one of those things we’ve been praying for is for God to speak to us on a permanent meeting facility. We’ve been in the YMCA for two and half years. We love the YMCA. They’ve been great partners. They take really good care of us, but let’s just be honest. We’re coming up on year three of set up and tear down and it takes a toll. And so, we’ve been praying in 2020, God would You show us what You want.

And so, it says, waiting on God doesn’t mean sitting around and hoping. Waiting means believing He will do what He’s promised and then acting with confidence. That means we’re going to believe that God is going to take care of this church, and we’re going to act with confidence. That means we’re going to start making plans, expecting and believing that God’s going to come through. We’re not going to get in over our heads, but we’re going to make plans.

But it talks about, what does it mean to wait. It says waiting on God is internal rest, results, and courageous action. Think about that. When you rest internally, and the result becomes courageous action. And those words pump me up.

But I wanted to skip down to the very bottom, and I want to read to you what Paul says. He says, we don’t just wait. We wait in hope. And what does hope in God look like? We always say that we’re a church that we have real hope from a real God for real people. So what is real hope? And here’s what he says. He says it is a confident expectation of a guaranteed result. We wait, believing that what God has begun, He will complete. So we live in confidence, encouraged. There’s no reason not to. We get up every morning and act upon what is to come, and because what is to come is sure, we know that our labor in God’s name is never in vain.

You know that my life verse is 1 Corinthians 15:15. It says, therefore dear brothers, stand firm, let nothing move you. Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord because you know your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

And that’s exactly what he’s talking about. We know our labor in God’s name is never in vain. That means when you’re holding babies in the Journey kids area, when you’re doing set up and tear down, and you’re greeting, you’re setting up and making coffee, and going and picking up donuts, or showing up and setting up and tearing down, all these different things, your labor in God’s name is never done in vain.

And so it says, so we wait and act. We wait and work. We wait and fight. We wait and conquer. We wait and proclaim. We wait and run. We wait and sacrifice. We wait and give. We wait and worship. Waiting on God is an action based on confident assurance of the grace to come.

And so at the end of this it says for further study and encouragement, go read Romans chapter four. And so, if you’re going to put this book away, and you’re going to turn to Romans chapter four, you’re going to see the promise granted through faith. That’s part of that scripture there. And so, I don’t have a lot of time to get into that this morning, so what I’m going to do, is I’m going to begin read this and I’m going to encourage you to open your Bible now that we’ve understood what it means to wait with confidence, and wait and act, and have courage in action, and I want you to open up your Bible as you spend time, as you become intimate with God — that word yada in the Hebrew language that we talked about on Sunday — as you begin to open God’s word, I want you to have that intimacy as you read through chapter four. And I really want you to go down to verse thirteen and focus on thirteen through the end of the chapter, because that’s the promise that’s granted us through faith that it’s talking about. And I hope that’s going to encourage you.

So, again, just a little Monday morning quick information, quick recap on what it means to be intimate with God and so, I hope that this seven minutes that we’ve just spent together, this kinds of helps you become intimate with God yourself. So have a great rest of your day. I hope you’re getting involved in a community group this week. And if I don’t see you before Sunday, I look forward to seeing you Sunday when we have some baptisms scheduled. I’m really excited about some baptisms. So we’ll see you guys this coming Sunday. Have a great rest of your week.