welcome to gospel in life thank you for joining as we go through this special series of meditations by Tim Keller trusting God and difficult times this new series is meant to encourage you to trust God more deeply and to meditate on his word and what it promises to give you strength and hope in difficult times and now here’s today’s meditation I’m gonna read from the second chapter of Habakkuk Habakkuk says I will stand at my watch and stationed myself on the ramparts I will look to see what he will say to me and what answer I am to give to this complaint and then the Lord replied write down the revelation and make it plain on tablet so that a Herald may run with it for the revelation awaits an appointed time it speaks of the end and will not prove false though it linger wait for it it will certainly come and will not delay the righteous will live by his faith now Habakkuk been asking God what are you going to be doing for Israel are you really how you just abandoned Israel have you no plan for it and of course God says I certainly have a plan but it’s gonna take a long time a long time for it to work itself out so he says to Ibaka wait for it and that’s a great question how do you wait for the Lord people talk about that all the time and the Bible speaks about it here’s God actually saying though it linger wait for it which is another way of saying wait on me what does it mean to wait on the Lord I think the text tells us three things we if we’re gonna wait on the Lord we have to wait patiently perspectively and Christocentric Lee first patiently when he actually says though it linger wait for it God is saying is saying these guys be patient and maybe this is simple but I would say patience is basically an act of the will it’s an act of the will it’s a deliberate laying down of the burden of assumed omniscience you see that in in job in chapter 23 verse 910 job is very he doesn’t understand what God is doing and he says when he is at work in the north I do not see him he’s talking about God here when he turns to the South I catch no glimpse of him but he knows the way that I take and when he has tested me I will come forth as gold now job’s struggles a lot and he’s not often in in his all his prayers he doesn’t always have that kind of equilibrium but you see even though he’s saying even though I don’t know where God is God knows where I am and I think I know how things ought to go but I don’t know how things ought to go and when he has tested me I will come forth as gold so to wait patiently to some degree he to wait on the Lord is simply an active of the will to say I’ve been assuming that I know what’s best and I lay that burden down secondly however to wait on the Lord is to wait perspectively now here’s what I mean by that Habakkuk says I will stationed myself on the ramparts and the ramparts means a tower which is interesting he you go up to the tower in a in a city to see what’s coming it was from the tower that you could see friends coming or enemies coming reinforcements coming or invaders coming or travelers coming and so it’s a way of getting perspective spiritually to wait on the Lord means do everything you can to get some perspective let me give you an example in Romans chapter 8 Paul says I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which will be real revealed to us now that word reckon is a Greek word l’église de mai which actually means to add up to add up to calculate and here’s what Paul is saying he’s saying I’m suffering I’ve got problems of my eyes I’ve got problems I got I got people after me people trying to kill me I’ve got a lot of problems but then he basically says to put in perspective my sufferings look really big until I compared them to the glory that will be revealed in me he says he is in a sense Paul’s going into the tower and he’s looking at all of his his sufferings but he’s got perspective he’s as I thought of my sufferings is really bad the only sickness that can really kill me has already been healed it’s sin the only debt that can really sink me has already been forgiven it’s it’s sin and so what Paul is doing at that point is he’s going up into the ramparts he’s getting perspective and that’s the second way which we can wait on the Lord there’s an act of the will to be patient and then there’s an act of the mind of thinking to get it in perspective spirituals perspective God’s perspective as much as we possibly can and then lastly there’s the weight Christocentric way now when when back when God says to back ik the righteous will live by faith that’s a Habakkuk chapter two verse four that verse is taken by Paul himself and in one of the great expositions of the gospel of grace in Romans chapter 1 Paul quotes that and he actually says we are not saved by our works we’re not saved by anything we do he who through faith is righteous will have eternal life and he’s taking that and saying it’s only through Jesus Christ that we’re ever going to live the way we ought to live now what that means is you will not be able to be patient with God you will not be able to wait for God unless you look at Jesus you have to look at him in the Garden of Gethsemane for example in a sense waiting on the father saying I don’t want to do this I don’t under I must I frankly I’m shrinking before the the terror and the pain of what’s going to happen on the cross and yet nevertheless not my will but thine be done when you see Jesus Christ doing that for you and for me when you see him being patient for you and for me enduring for you and for me being courageous for you and for me then and only then will we be able to be patient and brave and courageous for him and now here’s Tim and Cathy killer for a short time of qat on today’s meditation the part you read in Habakkuk about Revelation waits for the appointed time and that God’s plan of salvation in history is playing the long game as they say so often our deadlines are just not the same as God’s timetable and it is really easy to feel like God’s getting it wrong he hasn’t you know he missed the deadline he didn’t he didn’t fix this by the time it needed to be fixed I mean what’d he say to people who are really confused that God didn’t come through at the time when they needed him to the first thing you do is you show all kinds of sympathy you listen carefully you don’t give Pat answers or you don’t be emotionally uninvolved with whatever they’re suffering but then you do take them to the Bible you take them to a place for example in Galatians 4 it’s where it says when the time had fully come God sent his son born of a woman you know born under the law to redeem those under the law from the curse of sin and the Bible is constantly saying that God’s timing is perfect and it’s just not ours there’s plenty of examples of it you know the book of Esther is really extremely interesting even though God is actually not mentioned by name the book of Esther is all about God’s timing there’s a place where Esther has become Queen and she’s scared she’s going to be exposed as a Jew because the Jews are being destroyed and her uncle says who knows but you’ve you know come to power for such a time as this the other words you you are exactly where you need to be exactly at the right time and it’s your job to do your your duty and if you do you’ll find that God had been working it all out obviously the the Jesus death is exactly what it should be even though at the moment everybody’s looking at it and said this is a complete a complete mistake God can’t this just can’t be the way it’s done in fact one more thing most the Jews believe that when the Messiah came he’d come once and make everything right but the way God is working it out he’s he’s coming twice the first time he comes to redeem us for sin the second time he will come and make absolutely everything right and therefore there’s a period of time in the middle where we were able to do his will and to bring people to him and to grow in grace and God knows what he’s doing but you have to read the Bible and in constantly over the years it starts to sink in but it’s difficult when at the moment it feels like God is not that key God knows what he’s doing I should embroider that song he has to tattoo he has to if he’s God if you you don’t believe in God well then guess what everything actually is random but if you do believe in God he has to know what he’s doing if you found today’s meditation encouraging please subscribe below and be sure to share it with a friend to encourage them as well and if you’d like to hear more teachings by Tim Keller you can listen to new sermons every week at gospel and life.com slash podcast thanks again for watching gospel and life [Music]