Waiting Patiently For The Lord by Pastor Poju Oyemade: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Psalm 40:1-2

I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

David took his time in the place of prayer to make sure what he walked away with was actually the word of the Lord, not simply a thought that had bubbled up in his own mind. That distinction, between what comes from a person's own reasoning and what actually comes from God, runs through scripture and determines the outcome every time.

Faith Operates With Precise Intelligence

Hebrews 11:7-30

By faith Noah, warned of things not yet seen, prepared an ark to the saving of his house. By faith Moses kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood. By faith the people passed through the Red Sea. By faith the walls of Jericho fell after being circled for seven days.

None of these were vague impressions acted on by guesswork. Noah received exact dimensions for a vessel that needed to actually float. Moses received a specific process, a lamb without blemish, blood on the doorposts, bitter herbs, exact timing. Joshua's people were told precisely how many days to march, how many times to circle the walls, and when to shout. Faith, properly understood, means operating with intelligence that exceeds anything available to the five natural senses, not abandoning intelligence altogether. This is why hearing from heaven should never be treated casually; someone who genuinely heard from God will see the result. If the result never came, the honest conclusion is not that God failed, it is that what was heard was not actually from Him.

Of My Own Mind vs. What God Says

Numbers 24:13, Numbers 16:28

Balaam said, "If Balak gave me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord, to do either good or bad of my own mind, but what He says, that I will speak." Moses said plainly that he had not done his works of his own mind.

There is a good decision that still originates entirely from a person's own mind, and there is what God actually says, and the two are not automatically the same thing. This is the same root failure that entered the garden: eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is, at its core, a person beginning to make decisions independently of God, sometimes intelligent decisions, sometimes even good ones by ordinary standards, but disconnected from what was actually spoken. A person can get a visa, a license, or an invitation to something glorious without God having sent them there at all; not everything that works out was actually God's leading.

Not Everyone Needs a Deep Revelation to Be Used

Hebrews 11:31, Joshua 2

Rahab did not perish with the disobedient because she received the spies in peace. She had no dramatic revelation, only ordinary information reaching her through the city's own intelligence network, and a heart soft enough to actually process what she heard and respond to it. The difference between Rahab and everyone else in Jericho was not access to information, it was a heart willing to process what God was doing and act on it. Jesus made the same point about His own generation, that the miracles done in their midst would have caused even Sodom to repent, yet many still walked past what was directly in front of them with a hardened, unprocessing heart.

Insist on the Presence, Not Just a Result

Exodus 33:15

Moses told God, "If Your presence does not go with us, do not carry us up from here." He refused to move forward on a lesser, secondhand token of God's involvement.

It is possible to get exactly what was asked for and still have God had no part in sending it. The real distinction of a person who carries God's presence is that they will not settle for a good outcome achieved apart from Him; they hold even a genuine achievement before God and ask directly whether He was actually the source of it. Every believer carries the Holy Spirit, but few consistently carry the Spirit's manifest presence upon their life and assignment, and that difference shows up specifically in the moments where waiting patiently for an actual answer was chosen over acting immediately on the first workable idea.