It’s great to be with all of you here today. This is a amazing church! You’ve got a wonderful staff! I trust that you know that. I get to a lot of churches and have been around the block a little bit, and when you find a good church that teaches you faithfully and pastors that follow the Lord well, you should be thankful. And so I’m just telling you, you should be a thankful people. This is a great place to worship together with you today.

As Pat mentioned, I’m the new President of the Gospel Coalition. I’ve been in pastoral ministry for 30 years and stepped into this new role to help TGC fulfill its mission which is to help renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient Gospel. So we have a Gospel that is given to us by our Lord Jesus and we have a setting in which we apply that in every generation, and our generation needs the Gospel in new and fresh ways. But here’s what I want you to know. That as significant as the reaches of TGC and all the things that we do, we exist to help local churches like this. We’re actually not the most important thing in the world. What’s happening right here every seven days is. This is the way that the world changes. So any way that we can help to make churches like yours healthy, stronger, and then also figure out how to partner with other churches… that’s the whole unification thing… — that’s what we’re all about.

So we have a council of pastors and theologians who meet twice a year, the TGC council, about 47 of us. We have a conference that we host. I have one in 17 days in Indianapolis. Love to have you come! 7,000 people are going to be worshiping the Lord, receiving teaching on the book of Ephesians. And then we have a website that reaches 30 million people globally. It has 850,000 unique pages of content. I learned yesterday, or two days ago, that one of the benefits of that is that when AI, when someone asks a question on AI, TGC has already helped to populate the web with information. So AI uses our information to give people answers because we’ve flooded the zone with biblical content. And I was like, “Yes! AI for the glory of God for accuracy,” right? So… usually, I should say, right? So I’m grateful to be here today.

And I want you to take your Bibles and let’s go to Psalm 27. And today I want to talk with you about a subject that I would guess that most of you don’t like. It’s the subject of waiting… waiting. The text that I want to read, just to highlight where we’re going to end our time in God’s Word, is verses 13 and 14. So Psalm 27:13-14. Here’s what it says.

Psalm 27:13-14

13 “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living! (So)

14 Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!”

So in full disclosure, I… really do not like to wait. I mean, really! You might say, ‘Well, wait a minute, Mark. Doesn’t everyone not like to wait?’ And that may be true at one level. When I say, ‘I don’t like to wait.’  Like, I mean it! And it’s been a problem for a long time. In fact, it’s actually built into who I am and even my last name.

So the name Vroegop is Dutch. My father was born in the Netherlands… came over to the United States when he was three. And good luck trying to pronounce it! I just gave it to you, but the faster you say it, the more accurate you are. It can be pronounced Vroegop… Vroegup, or if you’re from the homeland, you would say, “Fruhup.” But that sounds like something you do when you’re sick, so we changed it! (audience laughing)

So in the 1800s, though, that name was new to my extended family in history. In the 1800s, Napoleon conquered the Netherlands, and at the time, Dutch folks had last names like son of, son of, son of things like that. And Napoleon’s like, ‘No. You gotta get last name.’ So, I

mean, Dutch folks, my people, we’re not like super creative. So, like, ‘Okay, what should we

call ourselves?’ So, for instance, one group of people called themselves “Shoemaker.” Well, guess what that guy did for living, okay? Another guy called his family “Baker.” You know what he did. Do you have Meijer stores in Iowa? Meijer? Okay. So, Meijer’s a grocery store in the Indianapolis and Michigan and Ohio area, called “Meijer” and “Meijer” means “steward.” Another last name would be “Vander Meer”… “from the lake”… “Vander Molen”… “from the mill.” If you’re familiar with Kevin DeYoung’s writing, it’s a Dutch name. “DeYoung” means “the young one.” I love to remind him of that! Phil Ryken, who is the President of Wheaton, his last name means “rich,” which is kind of funny. His family decided they’d be called “the rich people,” which is great. So what does “Vroegop” mean? Well, “Vroegop” literally means in Dutch “early up.” So I would be known in the Netherlands as “Mr. Early Up.” It just kind of cracks me up! My great-great-great-great grandfather, when he was deciding, ‘What should we call ourselves?’ —he could have chosen things like, you know, “Napper,” “sleeps a lot,” or, I mean, something spiritual like “Sabbath keeper,” but No! No-no-no-no-no! He wanted to be sure he made a statement! And so he chose the name “Early Up,” as if to say, ‘All of you are sleeping, but my people, we get up early, because we don’t waste time!’ So, I grew up in a home where the kind of a mantra was ‘work hard, play hard.’ So, literally, “not waiting” is in my last name.

And then when I think about waiting, my personality doesn’t help. I’m a kind of pro-action kind of guy. I like to work and accomplish things. If you’re into personality tests, like on the Strength Finders from Gallup, I have the “Activator talent,”— like, ‘Let’s go!’ The disc… not surprised. It’s a little bit of the dominance thing. Something’s broken? I just can’t wait to fix it! A great day off for me is a to-do list, and just like scratching off a completed task. It’s like… the win! Getting things done energizes me! I’ve read a lot of books on productivity. Pastoral ministry hasn’t helped me with this. I gravitate towards verses like Ephesians 5:16,

Ephesians 5:16, “Redeem the time because the days are evil.“

or Luke 11,

[Luke 12:48] “… to whom much is given, much is required…“

When I would read about a Puritan in church history who changed the world but he only slept four hours a day, I found another justification for this sort of passionate activity. When I read John Piper‘s, “Don’t waste your life,” I was determined, ‘I’m not gonna waste my life! Let’s go!’ But in the process of not wasting my life, I wasted something else… — my waiting.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve had to think about this. Pastoral ministry, church ministry, there were moments with great intensity over the last five years or so that were “gap moments,” sort of no-win situations or moments when I was powerless to do anything about the scenario that was in front of me. And so what I would do is throw my old patterns of overworking, overthinking, over-planning, and that didn’t work. I found myself filling this canyon of this “gap moment” with things like anxiety and fear and frustration. Maybe you resonate with that. Maybe, today you’re here and you’re in a gap moment, and you’re frustrated! Well, I knew how to lament the grief that I had experienced. I’ve done a lot of work in that space. But I didn’t know how to wait… well! And I needed to stop wasting my waiting. And I guess, you probably do, too. There’s things that you’re waiting on right now and you haven’t had the thought how actually might this gap moment be helpful or productive for me? I see a lot of young people in the room. You need to know that there’s gonna be a lot of seasons in your life in your future where you’re gonna have to live in the tension between what you don’t know about what’s going on. And in fact, you’re being raised in a culture where waiting is becoming less and less common and acceptable.

There was a day when the internet was invented and you had to actually dial up a phone number. Remember that? And then you’d hear this sound, “goo goo goo goo goo goo goo goo goo goo goo goo goo goo goo goo goo,” and then this beautiful next sound was “crrrr, crr, crr, crrrr,” and then there would be this buffering wheel, and you were like, ‘This is cutting edge technology!’ (Laughter) Today, man, if that bad boy buffer shows up, if one little line shows up, you’re like, ‘OK, Next website,’ and move on! If you go to an amusement park, you can pay extra money to be given the opportunity to cut the line. Or if you go to a fast food restaurant, look above the takeout window. You’ll see a countdown clock that’s monetizing, if you will, the ability of the restaurant to reduce waiting times. So we live in a culture where waiting is increasingly viewed as negative. Psalm 27, 13 though, says this,

Psalm 27:14, “Wait for the Lord;” This is verse 14, “… be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”

So if we’re gonna take some steps in learning, what does it mean to wait for the Lord? We gotta understand what Psalm 27 says. So I want to give you four action steps or think of this as an acrostic around the word “F.A.S.T.” So when you need to wait, do this F.A.S.T. When you need to wait, do this F.A.S.T.: Focus, Adore, Seek and Trust. Focus, Adore, Seek, Trust. When you’re in a “gap moment,” Focus, Adore, Seek, Trust. Do this F.A.S.T. Let me show you where I find this. First, Focus. Psalm 27 begins with…

Psalm 27:1, “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

Notice that there’s something that he’s afraid of, something that is concerning to him, verse two…

Psalm 27:2,

2 “When evildoers assail me (Notice this phrase) to eat up my flesh, (it was like people were biting at him) my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall.”

3 Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.”

So imagine you’re in a season where you’re having to wait for something. You don’t know what’s going on in your life. And one of the things about that season or that moment that can be true is that thought of what you don’t know can take a lot of energy. The fact that you aren’t certain as to what’s going on can literally take over your life. It can become an obsession. You can try and research your way out of it. And the ‘gap moment’ could sound like this.’Man! What’s going on? Why is this taking so long?’ It could sound like, ‘If I haven’t heard anything yet, it must mean…’ or ‘I gotta figure out what’s going on! I gotta…’ or ‘What have I done wrong that I can’t get an answer?’ Like that’s what we say when we’re in those sort of “gap moments,” and I wanna suggest to you that those moments are actually beautiful opportunities to shift your focus from what you don’t know, that’s what we focus on normally, to actually what you do know. So here’s my definition of biblical waiting. It is learning to live on what I know to be true about God when I don’t know what’s true about my life. So biblical waiting is learning to live on what I know to be true about God when I don’t know what’s true about my life. So waiting is simply embracing the tension that I don’t

know what’s going on in my life, but I do know what’s true about the Lord. I do know what’s true about God. I do know what’s true about His sovereignty, His rule in my life. I do

know what the Bible says about Him. And as a result, I can shift my focus from what I don’t know to what I do know. And if you can make this one shift in your gap moment, it’ll be exceedingly helpful! You see gap moments remind us that we’re actually not in control of our lives. Gap moments confront us with our lack of total sufficiency. And that’s why they’re so frustrating, because things are out of our control to change. If you’re a Christian, that means that there’s a way in which you’re to think about those moments and how you can transform them. If you’re here today and you’re not yet a Christian, it very well may be that God is using a gap moment in your life, something that you don’t know, a struggle, a health issue, a relationship conflict, a job situation to sort of wake you up to the central message of the Bible which is, you’re in trouble without God! And not just because of what you don’t know, or because of what you’re hoping will happen and isn’t happening yet, you’re actually in a bigger trouble than that, because the Bible says that the real problem for every human being is staring us right in the mirror, that there’s this gap between us and God because of our sinfulness, and the only way to be right with Him is a personal relationship with Jesus, to put your trust in the one who died, was buried, and was raised again on the third day so that you could be forgiven, cleansed, and made new so that, when you’re in those moments of uncertainty, the gap between you and God has already been closed, and you’re in a right relationship with the Lord Jesus, and it may be that this tension is actually the means by which God may awaken you to what it means to become a Christian. I hope that happens! That gap could actually be the means of grace in your life.

Now, if you’re a follower of Jesus, it means that you know all of that to be true, that God is sovereign over all things. He’s in control. But we need to operationalize it when we face those particular gap moments. The text says,

[Psalm 27:1] “The Lord is my light and my salvation. The Lord is the stronghold of my life.”

So how do I shift my focus? Well, you shift your focus by reminding yourself, what do I know about the Lord? The Lord IS my light. the Lord IS my salvation. And the Bible is filled with these kinds of statements. And what I’ve done is those ‘gap moments’ when they become a part of my experience, I flood the zone of my gaps with who God is rather than what I don’t know about my life. Again, waiting on the Lord is learning to live on what I know to be true about God when I don’t know what’s true about my life. So I could spend the gap thinking about what I don’t know, how I need to research, what’s going on, or I could shift and say, what? “The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life.” And by the way, the Bible is filled with these examples! I have like 35 verses that I have at the ready to throw at my gap moments, verses like…

Psalm 18:2, “The Lord is my rock and my fortress. The Lord is my deliverer. He’s my God, my rock and whom I take refuge, my shield, the horn of my salvation and my stronghold.” Or think of…

Psalm 23:1, “The Lord is my Shepherd…” or think of…

Psalm 34:18, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Or

Psalm 145:17, “The Lord is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His works.”

So when a gap moment comes up and you find yourself, frustrated that you don’t know about a particular situation, you can instead shift your focus. ‘Okay. What do I do know?’ And part of the key is to understand that the tension of what you don’t know is actually part of what it means to wait. Waiting and tension actually go together. So when you feel the tension, the

key is to stop freaking out, because that’s just part of what it means to wait. In fact, the Hebrew word in Psalm 27:14 for “wait” is the word “qavah,” [kaw-vaw]. There’s two other words that could also be translated as “wait.”. But what’s fascinating about the Hebrew word, “qavah” is that it also can be rendered in our English translations as “hope.” So, get this. “Wait” and “hope” are the same thing in the Bible. Isn’t that crazy? I mean, in our culture “wait” and “annoying” are the same thing! I mean, in the Bible, wait and hope go together! But here’s another thing that the word “wait” comes from… the idea of a cord that’s twisted, or stretched, or has tension in it. So waiting always involves some kind of tension. So I’ve spent a lot of time being frustrated, that I’m experiencing this tension when the reality is tension and waiting, they just go together. So when I’m in a gap moment and I experience the tension of not knowing what’s going on, I simply remind myself, ‘Oh, I feel tense. That’s because I’m waiting!‘ Instead of freaking out that I’m feeling tense, oh yeah, because tension and waiting go together.

James uses a fascinating illustration of what it means to persevere by talking about a farmer. He says that we should wait like the farmer who waits. He plants his seed and then waits for the latter rains and commends spiritual perseverance in light of that. So essentially what James does is he uses this illustration of a farmer who plants the seeds and then he has to wait. Waiting is a part of the job description of a farmer. I mean, let’s be honest. If you don’t like waiting, you probably shouldn’t be a farmer ’cause that’s part of what the job is.

I wanna encourage you that waiting is central to what it means to be a follower of Jesus. In fact, Christian, that’s what we’re doing right now. We’re waiting for the return of Jesus. Like, everything we’re doing right now is waiting. We’re waiting. It’s a part of not only who we are, it’s a part of what we do. So we need to embrace the tension, and instead of focusing on everything that we don’t know, and all the questions that relate to what I wish I could know, or ‘Why is this not happening the way that I thought it was gonna happen?’ — instead, step back from that, and, instead of living on what you don’t know about your life, try living on what you do know, and maybe start filling the mental and emotional and spiritual space of your life with truths like “the Lord is my light and my salvation,” “the Lord is the stronghold of my life,” “The Lord is my Shepherd.” So we shift our focus.

Here’s the second thing. I move from focus next to Adore. He says this.

Psalm 27:4-6

4 “One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.

5 For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock.

6 And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the LORD.”

So Focus is the first one. Adore is the second one where David here takes this gap moment and instead of focusing on what he doesn’t know, he focuses on what he does know, and then he uses his gap moment as a platform for worship, to be able to confess that the one thing he wants in life is to behold the beauty of the Lord, to be able to contemplate God’s beauty,

to be able to study at his feet, to be able to focus his heart on who God is. You see, gap moments remind us that we’re actually not in control of our lives. That’s why you don’t like them! But it’s a reminder of who is in control of our lives and you actually could transform that moment into an opportunity to worship God while you wait.

Yet for so many of us, we’re annoyed that we’re waiting. We’re frustrated that we’re waiting, and yet God gives us an opportunity to transform this moment into a season of worship and adoration, to thank God that we’re in a season that we’re being reminded that He’s actually more in control of our lives than what we are. But so many of us are just so frustrated that we’re waiting, we don’t even think about that. In fact, part of the problem is that we have expectations about how our lives are gonna turn out or how something is going to go, and those expectations have a control over us.

I remember in the middle of, like it was 2021. I was meeting with a pastoral coach and counselor, and he said to me, he asked me a question. He said, “Mark, tell me about your expectations for pastoral ministry.” It’s a good question! —And then I responded, “Well, I actually don’t have any expectations.” Now, I’m not a counselor, but I know counselors are not supposed to laugh at the answers that their counselees give. And he started chuckling, and I was like, “Hey, dude, you’re not supposed to do that.” Like I was like… But then my wife was seated next to me, she started laughing and I was like, “Oh no! That’s a bad sign!” He’s like, “Mark, everybody has expectations. Can you name them?” I was like, “You know what? Maybe I do have expectations.” So I began the process of just kind of naming what I had expected pastoral ministry to be like. And what was interesting is un-named expectations actually had a lot of power in my life, — expectations of how ministry was gonna go, or maybe in your life, expectations of how your job, or your relationships, or singleness versus marriage, or maybe kids, or maybe how life was gonna turn out when you were 40, or 50, or 60, or retirement. We have these ideas, and one of the things we have to do is to uncurl our fingers from our own expectations and to allow God to write the story. You may have this expectation that you’re gonna be able to see how everything fits, but can I just remind you, Christian, just because you can’t see the plan, doesn’t mean there isn’t a plan. God’s working things out, just a matter of time until the story is going to become evident. If you look in the Bible, you’ll see all kinds of examples of people who had to wait on the Lord.

Peter Scazzero writes this.

“Abraham waited almost 25 years for God to follow through on his promise for the birth of Isaac. Joseph waited somewhere between 15, or 13 rather, and 22 years to see his family again after being betrayed by his brothers. Moses waited 40 years in the desert for God to resurrect the purpose for his life. Hannah waited years for an answer to her prayers for a child. Job waited years, not months, for God to reveal himself, redeem his losses and take him into a new beginning. John the Baptist and Jesus waited 30 years before the Father’s time for their ministries came to a fulfillment.”  Peter Scazzero

So you just trace the story in the Bible. Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting is all over the place! Why do you and I think we’re the exception to that plan? Or why do we resist it? — and think this waiting is pointless! No, it’s not. Think even the story of the Gospel. Jesus dies on Good Friday and then is raised again the third day on Resurrection Sunday. And guess what, there’s a gap between there. God built that gap into the plan of redemption. He could have had Jesus die and then immediately raised. But instead, No! The disciples are waiting! They have no idea what’s happening! They think they hitched their wagon to the wrong guy. They think that Romans and the Jewish leaders are coming after them! They think everything is lost! — And God lets them sit in that space until he flips the script and they learn of the resurrection and everything changes! So you have to think about where you are in the story that God is writing in your life. The cross makes a lot of sense when you look at it through the resurrection and through the empty tomb. But when you’re in the gap moment, that’s a season where you just have to trust that God is working out a plan, and a plan that eventually is going to be good.

So we’re to Focus, we’re to Adore, where David here is saying, “I will sing and make melody to the Lord.” [Psalm 27:6]

Third, (Focus, Adore, third) Seek.

One of the things I love about Psalm 27 is that it shows that waiting isn’t passive. Let me just run through all of the sort of action statements where he is asking the Lord to help him. He’s seeking God to enter into his gap moment. Verse 7;

Psalm 27:7,9,11,12

7 Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me!

9 Hide not your face from me. Turn not your servant away in anger, O you who have been my help. Cast me not off; forsake me not, O God of my salvation!

11 Teach me your way, O LORD, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies.

12 Give me not up to the will of my adversaries; for false witnesses have risen against me, and they breathe out violence.”

That’s a lot of requests! He’s asking God to come to help him. He’s asking God to empower him, to strengthen him. You see, a gap moment is a great moment of dependency where we call out to God and say, “I need you! I need You to help me!”

And that’s the problem. We don’t like that! We don’t want that! And yet from a spiritual perspective, that’s the very thing that opens up the floodgates of God’s grace! Instead, no, we lock down those floodgates because we would rather choose other things like anger, or anxiety or apathy. We’ll call those the three A’s, the triple A negative response. And most of us experience one of these, or we might experience all three of them, and we even kind of have an order that we go after them. In my life it’s anger, then anxiety and then apathy. So why anger? Anger is simply my attempt to regain control of a situation by force, by doing something, and as a result, trying to regain control. Anxiety is just overthinking, over analyzing, trying to figure our way out, to think our way out of a problem. Apathy, if anger demands action, if anxiety wants to think, apathy just simply stops caring. A person just says, “You know, I don’t care anymore.” — and they actually still care, but they’re just developing a defense mechanism if you will.

So can you think about that in your life when you’re in a gap moment or when you don’t know what’s true about your life? Where do you go quickly? Which one do you go first? Which one appears quickly? Is it anger? Is it anxiety? Is it apathy? That’s helpful because when you’re in those gap moments, when you feel that rising, let’s just say anger, you can realize, ‘Oh, the reason that I’m tempted to get angry right now is because I want this situation to be resolved, and I’m gonna do something no matter what the consequences are,’ — And just realize what I’m really trying to do is, I’m trying to control the situation. Oh anxiety, the reason that I’m overthinking about all this is because I don’t like this tension and I want to resolve it, or apathy, I just don’t want to be emotionally disappointed anymore so I am projecting that I really don’t care. Instead of asking God to help us, we use these three mechanisms to attempt to reassert control over the gap in our life. So what does it mean to wait on the Lord? It means that I learn to live on what I know to be true about God when I don’t know what’s true about my life.

And then we come to the end, look at verse 13. So Focus, Adore, Seek, Trust. Here comes the conclusion.

Psalm 27:13-14

13 “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living!

14 (So) Wait (there it is… Qavah… wait) for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!”

I love this verse! “Wait for the Lord; Be strong…” The idea is, have strength! Have fortitude! Have commitment! Don’t rush. Don’t panic. Stay in the space! Allow there to be some time. Allow God to do His work. In fact, it says, “Be strong, let your heart take courage.” The idea that having my mind is this library with all of these books and they all have the word “courage” in the spine and God lets me check out his courage book so I can take it. I can take courage from the Lord, and I can then go out into the world and live in these gap moments and not have these gap moments become the means by which suddenly my faith falters, or I give into sinful expressions of anger, or anxiety and apathy. It means as a Christian, I realized my whole life is about waiting for the Lord right now, and these gap moments only verify that I’m not in control of my life. And so therefore, the best news in the world is I’m not God! I’m not in charge! I don’t know what’s going on. I’m not ultimate. I’m not omniscient. I’m not omnipotent. I’m not omnipresent. I can’t control my life. That’s how I came to Christ in the first place. I realized I need help! And guess what. Even after you become a Christian, bro, sister, you still need help! You still need help! And gap moments remind us of our need for God to continually provide grace and help us. And I’m telling you that some of the best lessons that you are gonna learn in your life come from these gap moments. If you can simply realize how helpful, and tense, and beautiful, and uncomfortable they actually are because God calls Christians to wait for the Lord, to wait on the Lord, and not just how this happened to them, but actually the lean in and say, I’m gonna wait on the Lord. I’m gonna look to the Lord with hope, I’m gonna look to Him, believing that He can help me!

So can I ask you, what are you waiting on right now? What is the thing in your life that creates tension? And what are you doing to try and solve that problem? Anger, anxiety, apathy? What are you doing? What are the things that are taking place in your life right now that create tension? — And instead of seeing those things as inherently negative or things that should be put aside, embrace that gap as an opportunity for God to be exalted in your life! And for you to live on what you know to be true about God when you don’t know what’s true about your life. Psalm 27 gives us a hopeful, charge. Wait for the Lord. Be strong. Let your heart take courage all you who wait. Wait for the Lord. Let’s pray together.

Oh Lord Jesus, we thank You that there’s never a moment in our lives where we are alone. You meet us and walk with us. and You use the most uncomfortable seasons to teach us the most important things. So I pray today for brothers and sisters who hear this today at Saylorville Church who are in seasons of waiting. Oh Lord, it can be hard. It can be exhausting! I pray that today they’ll focus, they’ll adore, they’ll learn to seek and to trust. And thank You that when we release our expectations, You’re willing to help us, and meet with us, and be with us. And God, for those, today, who may not know You as Lord and Savior that this teaching on Psalm 27 and the context in which they find themselves might be the breaking point where they realize ‘I need someone else to take control,’ — And oh, Jesus, I pray that they’d find that in You, maybe even today. I pray this in the name of Christ our King.