In his book, If You Want to Walk on Water You Have to Get Out of the Boat, John Ortberg tells of a research team of psychologists from Stanford University back in the 70’s who performed an experiment on a group of 4-year-olds that they called, “the marshmallow test.” Here’s how it would work. The kids would be placed in a room-one at a time-with a psychologist who had a bag of marshmallows. The psychologist would then ask the child a series of questions or give him certain tasks to do. If the child answered the question or performed the task well, he would get a marshmallow as a reward but this wasn’t the real test. No, the REAL test came about a half hour into the experiment with a pre-arranged knock on the door. The researcher would respond by stepping outside for a moment and then come back to say,
“I’ve got to go run an errand. I’m going to leave a marshmallow here on the table in front of you. If you don’t eat the marshmallow while I’m gone, then when I get back you will get two. But if you eat the marshmallow, it’s the only one you’re going to get.”
Well, I’m sure that the moments that followed were tough for these little kids. To put it in Thomas Paine’s words these must have been, “…the times that try children’s souls.” I mean, think about it. This “marshmallow test” would be the ultimate “soul test” for any 4-year-old because it embodies the constant battle they wage between impulse and restraint, desire and control, gratification and delay. And these kids would develop all kinds of strategies to help enable them to wait. They’d sing songs. They’d tell themselves stories. They’d sit on their hands.
One little guy actually licked the table around the marshmallow, thinking that perhaps the flavor had somehow spilled over onto the surrounding wood.
But the REALLY amazing thing about this marshmallow test is what it revealed about the direction these children would take later on in life. You see, the research team tracked these kids into adolescence and then into adulthood. They found that those who were able to wait as 4-year-olds grew up to be more socially competent, better able to cope with stress, and less likely to give up under pressure than those who could not wait and popped the marshmallow into their mouths.
These “marshmallow wait-ers” also had SAT scores that averaged 210 points higher than their impatient peers.
And, the other kids-the noon-waiters-the “marshmallow-grabbers”- well, they grew up to be more stubborn and indecisive, more easily upset by frustration, and more resentful about not getting enough in life. Years later the study showed the “marshmallow-grabbers” were STILL unable to delay gratification. Their poor impulse control led them into delinquency, substance abuse, and divorce.
Sermon:
Now, to me these marshmallow test results are very interesting because, the truth is all of us struggle with WAITING don’t we?! In fact, I would say that our inability to control our impulses-our refusal to deny our desires-lies close to the core of human sinfulness. That’s the way was it was in the beginning. Remember? Back in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve couldn’t wait for God’s best and instead bit into the forbidden “marshmallow” in the Garden of Eden.
And waiting is particularly hard for us as in this day and age, because our culture teaches us not to wait. Think about it. We live in a micro-waving, Fed-Exing, fast-food-eating, high-speed internet society. We don’t like to wait for anything or anyone. Even the few seconds that it takes a computer program to boot up have become intolerable to us.
In fact, let’s take a moment to be honest and ask ourselves, “How good are we at waiting?”
- How do you feel about the traffic jams that frequent Muncaster Mill Road?
- What about those times when you’re at a stop light behind an “accelerator-challenged driver” who is so absorbed in his cell phone conversation that he causes you to miss the green arrow?
- How about those times when you hurriedly pull into a gas station and all the pumps are occupied and you have to WAIT for someone in front of you who has already filled his tank…
…but before moving his car so that you could gas up, he decides that he simply must go inside to purchase a pack of gum or something?
- How well did you deal with the long lines at department stores those days BEFORE Christmas or the even longer lines at department store RETURN counters AFTER Christmas?
Okay…let’s get a little more serious.
How good are you at waiting for medical test results? Sue’s dad was recently diagnosed with what we eventually learned was the early stages of a treatable form of lung cancer but not before we had to wait nearly two weeks for doctors to read two series of tests. Those days of waiting were hard for us to endure.
And, what are you waiting for now? What is the “marshmallow” in your life at the moment?
- Maybe you’re the parent of a prodigal and you’re waiting for them to return home both to you and to the Lord.
- Maybe you’re single and you’re waiting for the “marshmallow” of marital bliss.
- Maybe you’re battling depression and you feel like you’re always waiting for the “dark clouds” to finally part in your life.
- Maybe your spouse or child is in Iraq or Afghanistan and you’re waiting for them to finally come home.
The truth is all of us have experienced difficult WAITING times in one form or other. Perhaps this is what inspired Lewis Smeades to write:
“Waiting is our destiny. As creatures who cannot by themselves bring about what they hope for, we wait in the darkness for a flame we cannot light. We wait in fear for a happy ending we cannot write. We wait for a ‘not yet’ that feels like a ‘not ever.’ Waiting is the hardest work of hope.”
Well, how can we sinful human beings learn to wait? I mean, what do we need to do in order to become like those “marshmallow waiters” -those children who had somehow disciplined themselves to wait? This is where a study of our fifth Christmas song singer comes in handy-because he was obviously very good at waiting. His name is SIMEON and Luke’s gospel tells us that he was a very old man who had been waiting all his life for the Messiah to come.
And Simeon was not alone-because there were several people like him in his day who were watching and waiting for God to fulfill His promise. They were referred to as, “The Quiet in the Land” and they believed in living a life of constant prayer and quiet watchfulness until God should send His Messiah. The prophetess Anna and the Pharisee Joseph of Arimathea were part of this group of godly people. All their lives they waited quietly and patiently for God. These QUIET ONES believed God’s promise in Proverbs 8:17 when He said, “…those who diligently seek Me will find Me.” And as a result, like those patient 4-year-olds, they reaped an incredible benefit for as the psalmist says, God, “…teaches the humble His ways.”
I think of Simeon and his peers as SENTINELS-watching and waiting year after year, decade after decade, for God’s Son to be born. Last week our family went to see the last instalment in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. Toward the end of this epic film the armies of the evil Sauron are marching to overwhelm and destroy the city of Minas Tirith and a signal fire is lit to call for help from the neighboring nation of Rohan. There’s this spectacular scene where these signals go quickly across hundreds of miles through a series of fires being lit by sentinels each of whom spend their lives living on a remote mountain top always looking for the signal, keeping their pile of wood dry and ready to light when the time comes to send the cry for help farther along the line. In the film, these fires are lit by each of these sentinels until finally the watchmen in Rohan see the blaze and know that the people of Minas Tirith are calling for their aid. Well, Simeon was like one of those sentinels in that he lived his entire life watching-watching for the sign that would tell him that the Messiah was born. He was always looking for the coming of the Lord’s Christ. I can imagine that every day as he went into the Temple area he must have looked about him to see if the Messiah had come, praying “Is that the One?” “NO.” “Is that the One?” “NO.”
And finally one day it happened! As Simeon squinted through his cataract-covered eyes he saw that the Light of the World had indeed come! He saw Him Who he had been waiting and watching for all his life! Take your Bibles and let’s read about this together. We’re looking at Luke 2:21-32.
21 – On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise Him, He was named Jesus, the name the angel had given Him before He had been conceived.
22 – When the time for their purification according to the law had been completed, Joseph and Mary took Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord.
23 – (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”),
24 – and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”
25 – Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
26 – It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.
27 – Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required,
28 – Simeon took Him in his arms and praised God saying-[or rather, SINGING]:
29 – “Sovereign Lord, as You have promised, You now dismiss Your servant in peace.
30 – For my eyes have seen your salvation,
31 – which You have prepared in the sight of all people,
32 – a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”
Okay, what can we learn from this godly man and his song of Christmas that will help us to deal with the waiting times of life?
1. Well the first lesson Simeon and his song can teach us is the importance of devoting ourselves to the study of the WORD of God.
As I tell you each Sunday, we must “let the Word of God dwell in us RICHLY.” We must use it as our guidebook in life.
Now, it’s obvious that Simeon looked at the Scripture in this way because in his short song of Christmas he quoted the Old Testament several times. And, this indicates that, like Mary, Simeon had meditated on God’s written Word. He had read of the ways that God had worked through His people in the past. He had studied the Messianic prophecies-and all this made it was easier for Him to see where God was at work. It also helped Him to better understand God’s ways.
One of my favorite authors of books that I read for just the fun of it is TOM CLANCY. One of his first novels was The Hunt For Red October. You may remember that its plot centered around a Soviet Submarine Captain who was attempting to defect to the United States and take his new, high tech nuclear submarine with him. He had no way of contacting the US armed forces to tell them of his intentions and as sonar showed his sub coming closer and closer to our shores, for all they new he was getting in range to mount an attack on our nation.
In a strategy sessions, the joint chiefs of staff were about to call for an attack on this rapidly approaching sub when that recurring hero of CLANCY’s novels, JACK RYAN, spoke up. He said, “Wait a minute….this Soviet captain is not going to attack!” One of the joint chiefs looked at this young man and asked, “How do you know that? How do you know he’s not going to launch an attack?” Ryan very confidently replied, “He wouldn’t do that. And I know this…I know what he’s doing…because I read his book.” Ryan had studied this soviet captain’s book on submarine warfare so he knew his tactics.
Well, the same is true of SIMEON. He was more sensitive to the “tactics”-the workings-of our Almighty God was because he had read HIS book (HOLD UP BIBLE). And, if we are to SEE God at work as SIMEON did-if we are to tune our spiritual insight to God’s wavelength-then we too must be students of God’s Book-The Bible. This is what Paul is referring to in Romans 12:2 when he says that in order to know what God is up to-if we are to better “understand what the will of God is…” we must “…renew our minds.”
And, as I said, Simeon lived by this principle. He was well-acquainted with the written Word of God-and that helped Him to understand and SEE things that others missed. He learned that as 2 Timothy 2:7 says, when we study God’s Word, “…the Lord will grant full insight and understanding in everything.” Simeon was like the psalmist who wrote, “Oh how I love Your law! I meditate on it all day long. I have more insight than all my teachers for I meditate on Your statutes. I have more understanding than the elders for I obey your precepts. How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Psalm 119:97ff)
In short, Simeon’s careful study of God’s written Word, helped Him develop a close walk with God Himself that gave him the inside track to truth that others missed. We see evidence of this relationship in verse 26 where Luke tells us that God had revealed to Him that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah-and this helped him to wait for God’s best.
You see, the truth is God is always at work around us-but only those who deepen their relationship with Him through Bible study and prayer are able to see Him at work. I mean, there are a lot of people-even Christians-who don’t embrace these essential spiritual disciplines and as a result they are spiritually blind-which tends to make them impatient. Think about it-isn’t it easier for you to wait if you can see what is up ahead? When I’m in a traffic jam I hate being stuck behind one of those huge semis because I can’t see. I can’t understand WHY I’m waiting. But if I’m able to see that it’s an accident that is causing my delay it’s easier for me to be patient and wait for ambulances to arrive. If I can see that it’s road work and that they’re letting one lane at a time through, I can be patient and wait for my turn. But if I can’t see-it’s very hard for me to wait.
Well, the same is true of spiritual things. If I’m familiar with God’s Word and the prophecies it contains-if I’m walking close with God and am therefore familiar with His still, small voice, well then I have a better understanding of His ways and that makes it easier for me to wait. But if I’m going through life spiritually blind-then I usually make mistakes based on my own impatience.
And this leads to the second thing we must do in order to deal with those times in life when we are force to wait.
2. We must humble ourselves and trust the PERSPECTIVE of God.
To use Simeon’s phrase in verse 29-this is part of what it means to means to make Jesus “SOVEREIGN LORD” of our lives. And, it’s obvious that Simeon humbled himself in this way, because Luke tells us that he always allowed himself to be moved by the Spirit of God. He literally walked where and when God told Him to walk. By the way, Simeon’s name means “hear and obey” and it suited him well because that’s the way he lived. He let God run every step of His life. Not only was he sensitive to the voice of God-he also did what God told Him to do. In short, Simeon humbly trusted in God’s perspective, no matter how long he had to wait to understand it. And we must learn to do the same. We must remember that God is the Creator. We are His creation. He is the Potter. We are the clay. God is infinitely more intelligent and loving than we are-so it only makes sense to trust His perspective on everything we deal with in life.
Romans 11:33ff says, “Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments and His paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.”
God sees and knows all things so, as we watch the calendar slowly drag by we need to learn to patiently wait and trust His timing instead of our own. And, this is easier to do if we can come to realize that, whereas we exist IN time, God lives ABOVE or OUTSIDE of it. In other words God sees all of our lives at once unlike you and me who only see one slowly moving moment at a time.
So, the days and months and years of waiting that we suffer through look different from God’s eternal perspective than they do to us. He sees more than we do. He knows the whole picture.
On the night of February 23, 1987 an astronomer in Chile observed the explosion of a distant supernova, a blast so powerful that it released as much energy in a single second than our sun will in ten billion years. But that event occurred on February 23, 1987 ONLY from the perspective of someone living on our planet. Actually, the supernova had exploded 170,000 years earlier, but the light generated by that event, traveling almost 6 trillion miles a year, took 170,000 years to reach our galaxy. Now, imagine a very large Being-larger than the entire universe-so large that the Being exists simultaneously on earth and in the space occupied by the supernova discovered in 1987. When that supernova was discovered, what “time” was it for this Being? Well, as Yancey reminds us in his book, Disappointment with God, that would depend on the perspective. From the perspective of earth, the Being would have “observed” 1987 history but from the perspective of the supernova, the Being would have experienced what the earth would not know about for another 170,000 years. This Being thus observed both past-when He saw the supernova explode-the present-as the astronomer discovered the supernova, and the future-what is happening NOW in the galaxy where the supernova was-events that will not be seen for 170,000 years on earth.
The analogy is not perfect but it gives us at least a small window of understanding through which we can see truth that God sees our TIMES OF WAITING from an infinitely better perspective that we do. 2 Peter 3:8-9 alludes to this principle when it advises, “…do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise as some think of slowness.”
Perhaps you’ve heard the story of the economist who read this passage from 2 Peter and was quite amazed by it and talked to God about it. He prayed, “Lord, is it true that a thousand years are just like one minute to you?”
The Lord said, “Yes.”
The economist said, “Well then a million dollars to us must be like one penny to you.”
And the Lord again said, “Well, yes.”
The economist then said, “Well, Lord, will you give me one of Your ‘pennies’?”
And the Lord said, “All right, I will. Wait here a minute.”
The truth is many times we want God’s resources, but we don’t want His timing. We want the “penny” but not the “minute.” We want His hand, but we don’t want His calendar. We forget that He knows what is down the road and we don’t so God knows that waiting will benefit us and help us to grow in ways we would not be able to otherwise. As Ben Patterson puts it, many times God’s work in us while we wait is more important than what we are waiting for. There are eternal truths that can only be learned in times of waiting.
Can you think of a time where you went through a difficult period of waiting and you wondered why God was allowing this but then it passed and you could look back and see that tough time was actually good for you? I can! In fact, there have been numerous times in my life that from that “20-20 hind-sight perspective” I could look back and honestly say with the psalmist, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.” (Psalm 119:71) What about you? Have you ever been able to look back and see how God used a time of waiting to help you comprehend precious eternal truth-truth you would not have been able to grasp other wise?
Do you remember the resurrection of Lazarus? Jesus allowed his sisters Mary and Martha to endure three days of waiting for Him to come and during those days of waiting Lazarus died. But when He did come, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead! So that time of waiting made it possible for these sisters to learn that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Wouldn’t you say that time of waiting that was well spent?
Well in relationship with God we can see that ALL TIMES OF WAITING are time well spent because God knows what He is doing. Just as the lyrics to the chorus go, God, “…makes all things beautiful in HIS time.” So, we must learn to say with the Psalmist, “I trust in You, O Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in Your hands.” (Psalm 31:14-15a) We must cling to Jesus’ promise in Luke 18:7 where He said, “God will always give what is right to His people who cry to Him night and day, and He will not be slow [according to His perfect timing] to answer them.” When we experience seemingly endless times of waiting we need the patience of the man who prayed, “God, I cannot grasp Your mind, but with my whole heart I trust Your love.”
So, to get through times of waiting, we must follow Simeon’s example and: study the WORD of God; we must also humble ourselves and trust the PERSPECTIVE of God but the MAIN thing that helps people WAIT…
3. …is faith in the SON of God.
You see, Jesus’ coming-His birth, sinless life, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection-well, it give’s us a sure hope that some day our time of waiting will end. We know that when we ask Him, He forgives us of our sin and gives us the promise of eternal life in Heaven with Him, so in the back of our minds is this glorious understanding that this life with all it’s painful times of waiting will eventually end. We can say with the apostle Paul,
“I know WHOM I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him AGAINST THAT DAY.” (2 Timothy 1:12)
So as a Christian-as someone who has put his faith in Jesus-I can endure physical and emotional pain because I know someday there will be no more pain. I can endure times when I am treated unfairly because I know someday every wrong will be righted. I can get through times of being separated from those I love because I know that one day we will all be together. I can wait through times of deep grief because I know someday I will join my loved ones who have died…those who have put their faith in Jesus…in Heaven.
You know, some of the most powerful words in the Bible make up the oft-repeated phrase, “this too shall pass!” Thanks to our faith in the saving work of Jesus we know that it won’t always be like this! Painful times-times when we are treated unfairly-lonely times-grief-filled times-because of Jesus, they all will PASS!
And Simeon understood this. That day in the temple courts he took that little baby Jesus and held Him in his hands and saw in Him the hope of humanity’s eternal salvation. In fact his brief impromptu chorus celebrates one wonderful truth: GOD’S SALVATION HAS FINALLY COME!!! He basically said, “God, You can end my life now! I’m ready for eternity because Your Redeemer has come!”
Scott Wenig shares the story of some friends, Marshall and Susan Shelly who sent out the following Christmas letter one year:
“On March 14th of this year our daughter Mandy was born, and before she had completely emerged the doctor said, ‘We need to measure her head,’ When I asked if something was wrong, he said, ‘It looks small, possibly micro cephalic.’ That was the first time we heard that word, but it wasn’t the last. Mandy indeed had a microcephala condition, which means her brain was not fully developed. The first three months of life led to her also having seizures and developing cataracts in both eyes. Surgery removed the cataracts and medication has the seizures basically under control, but her brain is still not and probably never will be normal.
Mandy is a precious child, a gift from God, but one who will need special care for whatever years God sees fit to allow us to have her. We still don’t know if she can see or hear and the chances that she’ll learn to walk or sit up are remote. The first few months were filled with an aching loneliness. Where was God in all of this? What possible good could come out of this?”
Wenig reports that things got worse. The year after Mandy was born, Susan got pregnant again. Early in the pregnancy they realized something was wrong with this baby. The following November she gave birth to Toby and he had so many problems he only lived outside of the womb for a few short minutes. Four months later, his big sister, Mandy, died-so this couple lost two kids in less than four months. Can you imagine what that must have been like for them? A few years later as Marshall looked back on the experience of losing two kids he wrote this:
“Before my children died, I considered the doctrines of resurrection and heaven pleasant but remote, a bit quaint. Now they’re central and strategic. As I held both Toby and Mandy within seconds of death I was overwhelmed by a sense of how close every one of us is to eternity. I was cheek to cheek with a child now entering everlasting life. Now that sense, though sometimes overshadowed by the busyness of life, is never far away. Many times now heaven seems so much more substantial than earth. My wife Susan sometimes says, ‘I have one foot in heaven and one foot on earth.’ We’ve already sent part of ourselves on ahead, and we can understand better what Jesus meant when he said ‘Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.'”
Friends, Jesus is our only hope for healing in a hurting world. It’s our hope in Him and the salvation that only He provides that ENABLES us to wait-especially in tough times.
Let us pray.
Father God,
Help us to be like Your servant Simeon. Show us how blind we are in life without an understanding of the principles and precepts found in Your Written Word. Give us the patience and courage and humility we need to follow You as Lord-even when we can’t understand why it takes us so long to get where You are leading. Most of all remind us of the eternal glory that waits those who put their faith in Your Son. Let that understanding give us the peace that Simeon had.
In Jesus Name I pray. AMEN
Invitation:
We close to give you an opportunity to be like Simeon-to TRUST AND OBEY-as He did all his life. If God is leading you to make a public decision: to confess Jesus as Savior and Lord of your life, to join this church, or to do anything, I urge you to trust and obey Him and then to come and share that decision with me right now as we stand and sing.