God is not tarrying (Exodus 13:17)

How many have heard the saying that God is always on time, never late? We've all heard this, really. How many people here at some point have thought, is God really always on time and never late? Let's be honest. Has there been a moment in your life that you think, Lord, when? And it seems to stop a lot, a lot of times. We live in a society in which we have everything fast, fast food, fast money, you touch a few buttons and that's it... money is given to you in the money machine. That easy. But God is not an ATM machine. He also doesn't like fast food. Our God is a God that for Him one day is like a thousand years and how many of us know that for us a thousand years is like ten thousand years to wait. So sometimes it seems that we are waiting a long time for him to do something in our life and God is there, it seems that he does not arrive, but God is doing something and he wants us to know that he is never late.

Exodus 13, verse 17 to 18. The people had come out of Egypt and are escaping from their enemies and look what the Lord does at that moment. “...And after Pharaoh let the people go, God did not take them by way of the land of the Philistines, which was near; for God said: So that the people may not repent when they see the war and return to Egypt. But God caused the people to go around the way through the desert of the Red Sea and the children of Israel came up from Egypt armed. God did not lead his people to take the quickest way out. He guided them by the long way. There are times in life that God wants us to know that the long way is the right way.

2:41 How many like that? Very good, we have an honest people here. We had an appointment with the city authorities to approve the project that we want to do next door, the project of a new sanctuary that we are asking the Lord to give us resources and permits to build a new sanctuary on the park or here. The pastor is going to be talking more about that, and he had an appointment with the authorities to seek approval and I tell him: Well, Lord, let's pray in the service, may the Lord open the door for you now. He says: you know what? I have a bad feeling in my stomach that the Lord is going to force me to take a longer path and that this is not going to be a quick, easy victory, that for some reason God wants to make me suffer a little. And meet with neighborhood groups to seek their approval, here, our neighborhood associations, and that's how it happened. It's not going to be easy, nothing fast, he has to have meetings with many neighborhood groups that have very strong opinions about what they want in their neighborhood and what they don't want. The pastor is required to present the vision to many groups and go through a long process and I wish it was quick and easy, but God doesn't always work that way. So we are going to study why it is that God forces you to cook for a long time sometimes, and suffer. Let's pray.

4:26 Father, in the name of Jesus, we stand before you this morning and we give you glory because you know what you are doing in our life, and Father there are sons and daughters of yours who are here before you in On this day, they are suffering, some of them are going through long processes of waiting on you, waiting for you to fulfill your promises in their lives and Father, I ask you on this day, Lord, to give us a fresh word that we can listen to. not only an intellectual word, but the rhema of God, a living word, Lord, that lets us know that you are with us on the long road. In the name of Jesus, amen.

5:16 So Israel wanted to get away easy, fast and God says: You know what? I am going to guide you along an extended path because if you take the shortcut, the shortcut, the shortest path, you are going to find some very strong armies and it is going to get you into trouble. Sometimes God knows better what awaits us around the corner and guides us on a detour, on another path and we don't know that we are avoiding big problems, but He does know. But what's more, it seems that God himself got them into trouble, because they ended up in front of the Red Sea and how is he going to do it? It seems that it doesn't make sense. But God does know what he is doing.

I want you to go with me also to Exodus 23, 10 Chapters later. How many of us know that quality work takes time. Last year we bought a condo, here in Dorchester, my wife and I, nice old house and the people who were selling it did the renovation work on the house and it seems that I had my thoughts that they were not doing the job well, because they did everything fast, everything very fast and I told them: Look, take your time. Do the job right. And they say: Oh, yes, yes, we are doing the job well. I invited some brothers from the church who are experts in such things and a brother there looking at the work, the paint, the floors, and the things in the bathroom, the tiles in the bathroom had a look of horror. And one almost with tears looked at the other and said: bungled. And I, without knowing what "botched" means, knew that it was not good. And the other looks at that brother and says: botched on botched. And I.... how will it be. Because that's how fast things are. God takes his time to do quality work. How many of us know that a child sometimes wants you to give him the answer to a school problem? Maybe he's doing his math homework, and he says, Look, I want your help, dad, mom. Ok, I help you. Well do it to me. Do it for me! The father says; Look, you have to suffer a little. I'm not going to solve all your problems. You have to be there, work it for it to have a long-term benefit. Our Lord does not do things by halves, he does not make bungled Christians. He wants quality Christians.

8:24 You know I'm going to take advantage. You've got to hear Mark's testimony. One night 23 years ago a friend of mine in college shared the gospel with a young student. The young man heard the gospel and accepted the word, then they prayed together and cast out some demons, I cast out the demons of the person. And then pray for him, the person receives the holy spirit and begins to speak in tongues. In three hours he accepted Christ, was released and filled with the Holy Spirit, but it took 23 years for this young man to prepare to fulfill the call that God had on his life. Mark Muller is now a man refined by the fire of God after 23 years of praying, serving, learning, studying, only now is he entering his calling. But many of us are not like that. We want it now, we want it fast, we want victory today, don't talk to me about tomorrow, let alone 20 years in the future. We want fast money. How many of us know what happens with money that is earned quickly? It's usually lost the next day, so it's okay, win the lottery, we want this but we know that fast things don't last many times.

10:04 Exodus 23, 27 to 30: God is speaking to Moses, telling them how he is going to win the battle for them. “I will send my terror before you and I will dismay all the people you enter and I will make all your enemies neck down on you. I will send before you the hornet that drives out the Hivites, the Canaanites and the Hittites from before you. I will not drive them out before you in one year, lest the land be desolate and the beasts of the field increase against you." God can win the battle in the twinkling of an eye. He can cast out your enemies, he can do the work in your life, from day to night. And yes, He does certain things quickly, but the work that lasts, the victory that is established is something that takes time to do. If the Israelites had conquered the land in a single year, they would not have had the people, nor the ability to build houses and inhabit the houses, plant fields and grow food and in that time the animals would have come and started living there in their homes. land, because they had no people, no time, and no capacity to inhabit the land. There was time, yes, to conquer but not to inhabit the earth victoriously. God does not want to solve your problems quickly and then you fall and you are worse than before. The Bible says that when a demon leaves a house, he looks for 7 uglier ones, demons uglier than him, and returns to the house, finds the house empty and fills the house again and the person is worse off than before. God says, I am going to cast out the demons room by room by room. For this reason, liberation is sometimes a long process because God sometimes casts out the devil, or helps you with a certain problem so that you can make changes that will last in the long term.

12:40 I have many friends who are coming out of vices, drugs, alcohol and for many of them God makes liberation in an instant. They come, they are prayed for, they are released, but then there is the surprise that God wants them to follow a long process of many years so that there is permanent change in their lives.

How many of us know that don't learn to be bad, like we all do, in a single day? It takes many years to learn to sin very well. It takes many repeated actions to learn and form bad habits, we were doing things for years and a bad habit is not undone in an instant. It takes many years of a different way of living to establish new patterns so that you don't just last one year in the Lord, but last for the long haul. God doesn't want botched Christians, He wants mature, established Christians.

13:57 We think of King David, many of us are like him. The prophet Samuel poured oil on him and said: you are anointed today, on this day, you are anointed as the king of Israel. David, a young man of 15, 16 years. For us many times God gives you an anointing and gives you a call, he tells you that I have great things for you and we think that tomorrow we are going to stop to preach and three thousand people are going to repent as happened with Peter. But what happened with David was forced to go through a process of 10 to 15 years of war against King Saul, he had to run in the desert, he had to be hidden from his enemies. King David walked more like a fugitive. You've seen the movie The Fugitive. David walked like this for a long time, running like a madman, making war, and even when he became king after the death of Saul, it took 7 more years before he took authority over the entire nation. Why so long? why so much fuss? Why is it that God sometimes forces you to go through long and hard and difficult processes in life? We know that King David, during this time of running from his enemies, met other fugitives, other people who were rejected by society and joined David, bad people, people in debt, people escaped from prison, joined David and together with David these men became an established army, an army of mighty men. If God had given David day and night to be there without help, without an army. In these years he learned to make war, he learned to be a leader, he learned to seek God's help and God's guidance, God directed him and also in these years God made it known to the whole nation that King Saul was evil and rejected so that David's kingdom would be firmly established. If we want established ministries, established lives, we have to be willing to pay the price, to be well-rounded, mature people.

You know when it comes to food, I don't know much about cooking, but I've observed that instant food like pouring water, which I did a lot of when I was single, usually doesn't taste very good. Fast food doesn't taste good. Another problem, you put a cake in the oven and then you're hungry and you take it out early and how does it taste? In English it's "half baked", half cooked in Spanish. I don't like undercooked food and God doesn't like undercooked Christians.

17:35 First let's say I don't want to be a half-baked Christian. I don't force you to say many things but I will force you: I don't want to be a half-cooked Christian. I don't want to be a screwed up Christian.

Moses, what happened to Moses? A young man called by the Lord, an anointed man, 40 years old, raised in Pharaoh's palace and he felt within himself the call to help his people, and one day he saw an Egyptian mistreating a Hebrew and he entered and He kills the Egyptian and then hides him because he feels that "I am going to be the savior of my people." "I'm going to be a great leader." And then the next day he gets into an argument between two Hebrews and says to them: Look, why are you arguing? they are hebrews. The thing is that Moses appears with a well-developed ego, to say: I am here to save everyone. And what do the Hebrews say to Moses: Young, full of vigor and anointing, and who are you, who do you think? Surely there are sayings in Spanish to say: Who in the world do you think you are? I don't know how to say it but you know how to say it. Moses gets scared, runs into the desert, spends 40 years living in the desert, a nobody. He had to live 40 years as a nobody. An unknown person for 40 years and then God appears to Moses and says: I have called you to free my people from Egypt and now Moses, what does he say? Very well, I know that I am the leader to conquer the enemy. He says: who am I to do this? how can i do this? I am nobody. And God says: Now if you are qualified for the work. God sometimes has to cook you more. At 40 years old Moses was half cooked, after 40 more years in the desert oven, he came out well ready for the work.

How many of us know that God cooks us well? But to do that he has to set fire sometimes. Hard fire, slow fire, but catch fire. Everything is so that we are well prepared, well tasty, not half cooked.

20:37 The Apostle Paul, I want you to go with me, Acts, Chapter 9: The Apostle Paul is converted as you know, he was a very bad man, he was killing Christians and one day on his horse looking to kill more Christians God grave of his horse and says: Why are you persecuting me? After 3 days of being blind and all scared, the Lord sends an unknown disciple, Ananias, we don't know more about him, pray for Paul. He receives his sight, is filled with the holy spirit and tells him: you are called to proclaim my name to the Gentiles, so Paul does precisely what any of us would do when we feel the call of God: Verse 20, Act 9 says: “ ...immediately Christ preached in the synagogues saying that this was the Son of God”. The next day he began to preach, thank God "...and all who heard him were astonished and said: Is not this the one who devastated in Jerusalem those who called by this name, and for this reason he came here to take us prisoners before the main priests. But Saul tried much harder and confused the Jews who dwelt in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.” And we will see the fruit of his ministry.

22:50 Verse 23: “...After many days the Jews decided in council to kill him.” Well, much success your first day of ministry. First, you surprised them. Second, you confused them. Third, they wanted to kill you. Welcome to the ministry, Pablito. This is not bad. It's not his fault, but in the future when he preached crowds of people were converted. Saul, at that time he had the name Saul, had to escape into the desert and spend three years cooking in Arabia and came back from that time ready to preach the Gospel and become the great Apostle Paul. This is not to say that one should not start now. I know people even before knowing Christ, starting to evangelize. I know people like that. We went on mission trips, when I was studying at the university, and sometimes unsaved people wanted to come with us, and they would walk with us and say: Look, I'm not a Christian but they believe that Jesus is Lord and that you have to accept it to be saved, so I haven't yet but... and people responded, so God even used horses to speak the word of God as he did with the prophets, no. So God uses everyone from the first day of accepting Christ, but many times we expect to be the big thing from day to night and God says: I want you to be prepared, to study, to pray, to prepare yourself, to you receive mentoring and discipleship, that you become a mature and established Christian in time. Get started now, but be prepared for a lifetime of ministry, so we're not going to be half-cooked Christians.

24:57 There is a third reason that sometimes God puts you in situations of waiting a long time. The first reason is that He does not want superficial Christians; number two, sometimes it does it to shape you in ways you wouldn't have known before; number three, God is a great novelist, writer of novels. He writes our lives as if it were a movie more interesting than any movie in the cinema and He knows how to make things interesting. And He knows how to write a beautiful story and sometimes God forces you to go through trouble and then get you out of trouble so that you have a very spicy testimony to tell. This is not just to make life interesting, it is for us to learn that God lives. If we are never in trouble, in trouble, we never know the God who can get us out of every trial. If we never go hungry, we do not know what it is like to feed us with his own hand.

I want us to think about the story of Adam and Eve together. Sometimes we think that if I go through a long process, a time of waiting for something, we think that we are wrong, perhaps it is that I am in sin and God is disciplining me or we think that perhaps I am immature and God is forming me. Sometimes it's not like that. You are not wrong, you are not in sin, but God is making you, forcing you to go through a time of waiting for something to show you his power in a special way.

26:48 Let's think about Adam and Eve. We have Adam without sin, fresh, he hasn't even had time to sin, and he's there alone in the Garden of Eden and God says: It's not right for man to be alone. But well God, why didn't you make Eva right there? Why put him through a time of not being well? There is no sin, there are no problems, but Adam is with something that he needs that he does not have next to him. And I start to think, why did the Lord do it like that? why didn't you do it from the beginning? I start to think that God wants to make life more interesting for Adam. Even in the Garden of Eden. I start to think about what it would be like after many years, with the grandchildren asking Adam and Eve, Look, grandpa, granny, tell us the story of how you met. And Adam, what is he going to say? Well, the Lord made me, I woke up, I woke up and there I was, always. God says, you know what Adam, I don't want you to take her for granted. I don't want you to assume that this is automatic. I want to put you through a time of need so he's been meeting animals for a long time. Putting names, analyzing them, he realizes that no, no, no..... After God forces him to sleep for a long time, there is a sense of anxiety in the text that says: No suitable companion was found for Adam, and then he goes to sleep and God does this surgery, removes the rib and... makes Eve. He wakes up, presents it to her and in Hebrew says: Wow! Literally in Hebrew it is: Finally, wow! This is flesh of my flesh, bones of my bones.

By going through a time of need, he came to recognize that it is God who meets the needs that he has, that he does not meet them alone. Many of us have to go through a desert and starve so that God draws water from the rock, starve so that God gives us bread in the desert to learn that it is not only by bread that I live, but by every word that comes out. from the mouth of the Lord, that I live. Who is He who provides, let us think of Abraham. God makes promises, you are going to be a great father of nations. He is 75 years old, it seems that at that time it was possible to have babies at 75, the wife in her sixties. But God made him wait 25 years until he is 100 years old and his wife 90, many years, old people, and then God says: now they are ready to have a baby. God wanted to make it clear that this is not yours. I did this in your life, so I made you go through a time of waiting for me to perform a miracle for you to know that I am the God of life.

Like Lazarus who is dead and Jesus does not wait one day, not even two days, Jesus waits 3 days until he is dead, but dead and lifts him up saying: I am the resurrection and the life and I want to make it very clear , that I am the God of miracles, but to show you my miracles I have to put you through processes, so that you remember that I am the one who did it. Then with Abraham, with the baby, he became a young man and God asked Abraham to offer up Isaac and how was he able to do it? I believe that Abraham could offer his son, Isaac, because he said to himself: I serve a God who can even raise the dead and for this reason I trust God because I have learned to trust. But one learns in the desert to be well prepared for these things. So there are long processes.

31:53 Brothers, I think of the people of Israel, God not only brought them out of Egypt, He made Pharaoh's heart harden to put many problems on them, to be able to bring them out with great glory, to give them a testimony. God wants to give you a testimony. If you have a problem at this time, the bigger the problem, the bigger the liberation that God is going to do in your life. The bigger the mess, the bigger the testimony. The bigger the mess, the bigger the testimony of what God can do in my life.

You know that many times I think that if it's taking me a long time to do something, I feel like I'm wrong, or that I'm out of God's will. But I have learned that sometimes when things are more complicated, sometimes it means that God is more involved than usual. Let me explain: I believe that there are certain decisions in life that God already guides you, teaches you what to do, but there are other moments, and He says: Look, I'm going to let you choose to do what you want, and then God blesses you But there are other times that God has such a specific plan for you that he makes you, and forces you to wander a bit in the desert until you find the right path.

For example: 7 years ago I was looking for a church, I always found churches quickly wherever I went, to study or work or live elsewhere. The first church that I visit, I felt God's blessing, I stayed and was blessed. It was always somewhat easy to find church. Later I come here to study in a Bible institute here, and I'm looking for a church and for the life of me I couldn't find a church where I felt good, that the Lord wanted me there. And I got to thinking: what dumbest seminarian can't find a church? It's just that I'm studying the Bible and I can't find a church, what a problem. God, maybe I'm far from your will, maybe I'm not listening to you well. Finally, after two years of visiting different churches, a seminarian invited me here and I came and look what I felt, what an interesting church. There is a lot of noise and everything in Spanish, I understand almost nothing but very interesting. And I met the pastor in the bathroom downstairs, he thought that I had come to record the service in English and he spoke to me there in the bathroom and I felt: what an interesting church! Maybe I'll visit again. But I didn't feel like: this has to be God's will, I just felt that it was a very interesting church. And after a few months I decided to try it again. And I felt: I'm staying here for a while, to see what happens. And I liked the pastor and the church and I learned to feel at home. But even then I wasn't sure what God had for me. Until the Lord gave me a scholarship to travel through Latin America, at that moment I felt: Ok, I'm staying here. I'm going to learn Spanish, eat Latin food, maybe stay here in this church. Thank God.

35:47 It was a long process, it wasn't a clear process, a quick process. It was a process very like saying in English “it was a hit or miss process”, trying things. And then I admit that it took me a while to find this church because God wanted to close every door to make sure I didn't get lost in a place where He didn't want me to be. Sometimes He has such a special plan that He will complicate your life until you find the right path that He has for you. And it costs time!

A friend of mine to end this and then let's pray, he was studying and he was the best student in the seminary, he got all "A's" and after graduating he applied to look for scholarships to study his doctorate, and every school did. rejection. I was rejected by all the schools and I start to think: But, Lord, what is it like? He is an intelligent student, he is fasting and praying, why are you closing so many doors? He was left there with nothing to do and decided: Well, I'm staying here for another year, I don't know what, to work... and that year he met a girl in the seminary and ended up marrying her. And then we realized: Ah, that's why the Lord closed the door for you to be where you had to be. But maybe you don't know why God is forcing you to go through a desert. Maybe you don't know why there are so many closed doors. What I want to tell you this morning is that God knows what he is doing. He wants to cook you, cook you well, this is good, not bad. He wants to prepare you to be an established, savory, prepared Christian. He wants you to be where you need to be and sometimes forces you to go through a long process to do so. It is up to us to persevere, do not give up, be faithful every day because he is with you, and he knows what he is doing, and he knows how to fulfill his purpose in your life.

38:11 Let's pray. I invite you to stand up. And we are going to close this time with prayer. Father, in the name of Jesus, thank you Lord that you know what you are doing, Lord. You know, Lord, that even when there are complications, You are in things, Lord, and you are working, Lord, perhaps not in the way that we want, but you are doing a profound work in us. Father, in the name of Jesus I pray for your deer that are here before you, I pray, Lord for a spirit of peace, a spirit of safety, Lord for You are the God who makes all things work together for good. for those who love you and are called according to your purposes. Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask you Lord that we be sure of your guidance in our lives. I'm going to say a prayer, you can pray it with me.

39:19 Father, I thank you that you are in control of my life. I give you all the control to guide my steps. I will follow you, Lord. I will go through your processes, Lord, to be the man or woman of God that you want me to be. Thank my Lord. Oh holy spirit consecrate your people.