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2. GOD'S PEOPLE MUST WAIT ON GOD WITH EAGERNESS

The Prophet also say something here. He says that "Lord come down, because we wait for you, not just with the confidence, but also we eagerness."

You see, there is waiting, confident that somebody is going to fulfill what he promised you. But there is waiting not just confidently about the eagerly, because when that somebody does what he said he will do, he will do it exceedingly and far beyond measure and expectation. And this is what the Prophet is saying, not only has God done great things in history, but the Prophet says that he has done things they did not expect. There are things that you could never imagine. Things that the limited, finite brain could never understand, and that is the nature of our God. If God  what everybody else can do, then he would not be different from anyone else. If God can only equal science and its ability to do its discoveries and innovations, at the best, we would call him a great scientist, but that doesn't deserve our worship and attention.

What sets God apart is that not only does he work on behalf of his people, but he works beyond expectation. He works beyond comprehension. He works beyond what anybody could ever think or ever deserve. And you see, it's the thought of that transcending ability of God to work beyond expectation that the Prophet says that we wait for God with ourselves on tip-toe. We are all like, "Oh my goodness, so when he comes, what will he do this time? on Mt Sinai there was fire, there was darkness, mountains were trembling... Now what should we expect? Will it be more fire or this time will it fire with the blood? Will it be just mountains quaking or this time we might see some angelic beings come down?"

And the next time we see God actually coming down which is at Christmas, not only does he do what is unexpected powerfully, but this time he does what is unexpected: not in power, but in weakness! And he leaves everybody wondering, "what kind of God are you?"

Picture the Christmas scenario and see what is really going on. The man, the Messiah that has been waited for all these thousands of years finally has arrived. And how does he arrive? As the great king who comes with a flaming angelic sword from heaven to cut down God's enemies and deliver and elevate Israel? No!  He's born of a simple village virgin young girl. His foster father of all people is a carpenter, as though God could not find any better. He's born in an unknown and an unfamiliar village in Bethlehem far away from the political city were being dynamic things happen. His first visitors of all people are the shepherds of Bethlehem! Really? The people who recognize his kingship and rulership are not the Jews who waited for him, but the wise men, the Magi, the Gentiles, who come all the way from the far east to recognize a Jewish king that the Jews do not recognize. On the day of his birth, it was business as usual.

It took Herod the king two years before he would know that the Savior had been born. When he finally did, the people who knew about him, the Jewish leaders,  did not care whether he had been born or not yet. When they were asked where the Messiah would be born, they were like, "you mean you don't know? Are you the only one who has not heard? In Bethlehem of Judea." They are not even curious to go and look for themselves and see if it is indeed true. So you wonder, all these thousands of years they waited, what were they waiting for?

Do you know that you can be waiting without knowing what you are even waiting for? So that even when it comes, you miss it. This is Israel's tragedy! They have been waiting: you read about old men like Simeon, who was in the temple, and the Lord had promised him that he would never die until he had seen God's Messiah. And all these years of waiting, he finally sees the baby, he recognizes him, and he makes one of those prophetic declarations you can ever imagine. His conclusion is: "he is here and now I can safely die and die in peace!"

Surprisingly, of the so many who waited and longed, he's the only one who recognizes Jesus. Anna also had been waiting in day-in and day-out, a widow of 84 years — waiting and longing, watching and looking. And when the long-awaited Messiah finally comes: it's a helpless baby, under the care of a small young, immature girl with a foster father, who is a carpenter, with a very bad image on their heads that it is possible they could have been engaged in promiscuity before marriage. Now if that is a wonder, I don't know what you call it.

The prophet Isaiah saying, when you come, you do things we don't expect. Whatever you do is beyond our understanding and imagination. And that's why we can't just wait, but we must wait on tip-toe because we never know what the next surprise is going to look like. And that is our God!

But he displays his power not just in the trembling of mountains, but even in the quietness of the birth of the Savior of the world. That his power is not just demonstrated when there is a lot of noise and big drama, but even in the darkness of Bethlehem's night.

You know, if you look at today's church, it seems to be operating under a cram work that is one-sided. That for God to come among these people, you must expect a lot of noise, a lot of banging, a lot of hard work, a lot of hurting yourself, going to the prayer mountains and you need to go when it is very cold. If you are there and it rains on you, that is even better... It's like the more you suffer and the harder you try, the more you access and actualize God's power. And the prophet Isaiah would beg to disagree. The prophet Isaiah would remind us that God is not limited to the dramas of men. And that is why church really has become one of the drama theatres of our day. That the power of the church today is measured by how much noise the members are able to make. And when you complain of the noise as a neighbour, they tell you that "you are resisting God's power. You are carnal. You lack the Holy Spirit. How can you have the Holy Spirit and not shout to the whole night?"

If you shut very loud and your voice becomes hoarse, actually that means you have received more anointing than anyone else.

God's power today is measured in containers and cylinders. You go to churches and they are giving out holy water, and these days they don't even pick it from familiar rivers around here, they go to the River Jordan - - as though River Jordan is more anointed than the rivers we have here.

The God of the Bible, you don't make measurements for him. Have you been in worship services where you hear people even counting the minutes before the Holy Spirit comes down?

These days, God demonstrates himself in food. I'm sure most of you who are here in Kampala, have heard of holy rice right? Maybe if I'm not mistaken, some of you have bought some kilos. There was a time a kilo was at 50,000. Some of you have bought anointed pens so that when you use it to write and apply for a job, you are automatically assured that you get the job and you will get a job beyond your qualification. What I don't understand is when you finally get it, what do you do with it? If you become a doctor who never studied medicine, how do you treat patients? But that's the kind of power we are looking for. That's the kind of power that makes us think that God is among us, but at best, it's noise and drama, and "Katemba" as the Baganda call it. Is that really what sets the church apart? The prophet Isaiah says no. God is not put in predictable limited ways of human techniques and antics. And if you find that you can predict how God is going to work in your life, chances are, that is not the God of the Bible.

And the next Sunday, he will do the same and will continue doing so Sunday after Sunday... God's people allegedly being filled with the Spirit, but remaining hopeless and helpless. And the world is looking. The world is watching. And it is looking at the idea of what we call church, and they are saying "I am better of where I am!"

"In that next three minutes, the Spirit of God is coming down and people start arranging themselves because some of them are going to fall, those who have envelopes begin to bring them near because they might vomit when the power is so much on them. They ashers prepared to receive those who are being slain in the spirit and the pastor is saying "one, two, three..." and he blows air into the microphone! And you are like, "really? You mean that is what we've been waiting for? The pastor blowing through the microphone?"

Sometimes, non-believers are forced to pray for us.

[laughter]

Yeah. They look at us and in their own limited a secular way, they make a short prayer on our behalf and they say, "please God if you are there, guide these misguided men and women!"

For how long are we going to be the church that brings ridiculed to the name of the Lord? For how long are we going to offer the world a God created in our own image that the world looks at and says, "our own worldly gods are better than theirs. We don't need theirs."

How can the church begin to present the God who is, the God who visited his people, the God who came down and made a difference, that believer and non-believer alike: can all tremble in the presence of God? That is when the church really becomes a church.

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