How do we wait for the Lord to come?

How do we wait for the Lord to come? Waiting on the Lord –what does it mean?

Often throughout both the Old and New testament we see the phrase, “wait on the Lord”. This is something that has always been hard for people to do but I think it’s especially hard for us now because now our lives are lived in such a fast pace. We are taught by the world from infancy to expect instant gratification and waiting is generally seen as a “bad” thing and something to be avoided if at all possible today. I even find myself getting annoyed at waiting for a full minute to heat my dinner in the microwave at times, so waiting is not something that comes easily to me either! Let’s look at some of the ways we see this phrase in God’s Word today and see how it applies to us and what if anything we gain by “waiting” on the Lord.

Jude 20-23 But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.Be merciful to those who doubt;snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

1 Corinthians 1:7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.

The type of waiting for the Lord mentioned in the above verses is something we’re especially familiar with since we all know that the Lord will be coming for us soon. Don’t let that first verse confuse you; even though we are already saved and in effect already have eternal life, that life begins when Christ comes for us at the rapture. That is when He brings us eternal life by instantly changing our bodies into new, immortal, incorruptible bodies.

I know most of us here are eagerly waiting for Jesus to come for us, and be revealed to us as He really is and that’s exactly what will happen at the rapture. The Lord tells us that even creation itself “waits” for this moment:

Romans 8:19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.

When Christ returns for us at the rapture, He is revealed to us as He really is and we who are His children, will also be revealed for what we really are then—His children, complete with immortal, incorruptible bodies!

Did you notice in the first verse that it says we’re waiting for the mercy of our Lord to give us these bodies and eternal life? This shows us once again that when we do receive our new bodies at the rapture and begin our new lives, that it is only because of His mercy and not because of anything we have done to “earn” it.

Now each of these verses gives us a little hint of “how” we are to wait. Let me post the first one again so we can look at it once more.

Jude 20-23 But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.Be merciful to those who doubt;snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

The first one tells us that we are to build ourselves up in our faith while we wait. Notice here that he doesn’t tell us to go to church or Sunday school so that the pastor or teacher can build us up in our faith. He tells us to do it ourselves for ourselves relying on Him to teach us and guide us. The word “and” is included in that showing us that part of building ourselves up in our faith is done through prayer in the Holy Spirit.

Praying in the Holy Spirit here is not talking about praying in tongues. By this he is telling us to pray in the power of the Spirit as our hearts our indwelt and enlightened by Him. In other words, praying as we are led by God not just about the things we normally would pray for. When we do that it draws us ever closer to the Lord and our relationship with Him deepens.

The third thing he tells us to do is to keep ourselves in God’s love while we wait. Since we’ve just been studying 1 John we already have a good background for understanding what he’s saying here. We know that the way to keep ourselves abiding (living) in the love of God is by keeping ourselves in a close relationship with the Lord Himself. These are all linked together because we build our faith through the study and reflection on God’s Word and through prayer and we also build our relationship with the Lord, making it a closer relationship and deeper one through those very same things.

So in those first two sentences we are given 4 exhortations: to build, to pray, to keep, and to wait. Now what does it really mean to wait? I’d like to share the definition of “wait” with you from a bible dictionary as I think it gives us a much better picture of just how we are to “wait”.

WAIT. (Lam. 3:25) qavah (kah-vah); Strong’s #6960: To wait for, look for, expect, hope. This verb is found some fifty times. Qavah is the root of the noun tiqvah, “hope” or “expectancy.” Qavah expresses the idea of “waiting hopefully” (Gen. 49:18; Job 30:26; Ps. 40:1; Is. 5:4; 25:9). In the present reference, even in the overwhelming tragedies Jeremiah experienced, he had hope in God’s salvation and was willing to wait for it. Also (Mic. 7:7) yachal (yah-chal); Strong’s #3176: To wait, tarry, hope, trust, expect; be patient; remain in anticipation. Yachal appears thirty-eight times in the Old Testament. Its first occurrence is in Genesis 8:10, in the account of Noah’s waiting seven days, from the time he first sent out the dove until he sent her out again. Yachal is often translated “hope” (Pss. 31:24; 33:18; 130:5, 7; 147:11). The correct way to hope and wait for the Lord is to steadfastly expect His mercy, His salvation, and His rescue, and while waiting, not take matters into one’s own hand (compare Gen. 15:1-17:22).
[1] [2]Hayford's Bible handbook.

Did you notice that several other words are always used in conjunction with the word “wait”? We are to wait with hope and with expectation of receiving, and we are to do this “steadfastly”. To wait steadfastly means to wait determinedly, immovable in our hope and in waiting. Immovable meaning not allowing scoffers or doubters to move us or cause us to change our minds or waver in our responsibility to wait and not to allow them to cause us to lose our sense of anticipation.

Finally he tells us to be merciful to those who have doubts, meaning that we should help build them up and encourage them in their faith so that they can grow to maturity in Christ. With those who are wandering off into heresy however we are to snatch them from the fire to save them, meaning again that we are to show them the errors of their ways so they can repent and turn back to the Lord. He continues saying show mercy mixed with fear.. Here he isn’t talking about worldly fear but Godly fear, “the fear of the Lord”. We are to show them mercy by showing them the error of their ways doing so in the fear of the Lord reminding them this way that the Lord is not someone to be trifled with.

The last verse we’re looking at today shows us again that we are to wait eagerly:

1 Corinthians 1:7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.

This makes me think of how my children waited eagerly for Christmas morning to come each December. They would get so excited and so eager that they always had trouble sleeping those last couple of nights! This is how we should be feeling as well!
Every day when we see the news, although it’s “bad” news and shows how bad things are getting here, instead of getting us down, we can instead see them for what they really are: signs pointing to the soon return of our Lord. Just like children waiting for Christmas morning, every sign brings us closer to our Lord’s return! How can we not be excited about that!

In conclusion today we can see that as we wait, we are only to be passive in the sense that we are not to try to take matters into our own hands. Other then that though our waiting should be spent in excitement as we work hard to build our faith and strengthen our relationship with the Lord.

Maranatha! Even so come Lord Jesus!

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