God’s Timing is Always Perfect

Christmas Message

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

Dec. 14, 2025

God’s Timing is Always Perfect

I’ve brought a clock in to remind us that we live and breath in the atmosphere of time. The clock is always ticking and there’s no way to slow it, stop it or turn it back. Time helps us to order our lives and priorities, but it can also put pressure on us as we face deadlines and time sensitive things that need to get done. For instance, if you haven’t started your Christmas shopping yet, you still have time but you might want to set aside time to get it done!

The Greek have two words for time: chronos which simply means “time”. We get words like chronological, chronology from chronos. There is even a brand of watch called Chronos. The other Greek word is Kairos and that word means the right time, or an opportune time.

The Bible uses both words to describe Jesus coming as a man. Gal. 4:4 says

when the fullness of time (chronos) had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, ⁵ to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Gal. 4:4

And Rom. 5 says at just the right time (Kairos), while we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Rom. 5:6

From the moment God promised Adam and Eve that a Redeemer would come from Eve’s seed, God was counting down the years and days. When Malachi spoke God’s message to Israel, he probably didn’t know that would be the last they heard from God for the next 400 years. Think about that – 400 years is longer than we’ve been a nation. That’s a long time.

But God was waiting for the Kairos – the right time- He was waiting for the set chronos when the time would be perfect for Jesus to be born of Mary. After centuries of bloody wars and turbulence, Roman peace ruled over the world resulting relative stability around the world. Roman roads safeguarded by Roman soldiers made it possible for Paul and other missionaries to travel to countries quickly and relatively safely. Greek had become the universal language enabling missionaries to communicate the gospel in countries where they wouldn’t know the local language.

Finally, the gruesome practice of crucifixion was common in Jesus’ day and that was the means by which God determined Jesus would die.

Let’s take a few minutes to reflect on the birth of Jesus from the vantage point of time and God’s perfect timing.

1. When Jesus entered history, he entered our story

⁸ And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. ¹⁰ And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. ¹¹ For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹² And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” Luke 2:8-12

What is it about the Christmas story that touches our hearts so? As we think of baby Jesus in a manger, held by Mary and Joseph, surrounded by farm animals, I think a big part of the comfort and peace it brings us is believing that when God the Son entered history, he entered our story.

Our lives are our story. It’s the dash between the day we’re born and the day we die. That’s our story. Your life is your story. And our stories are complicated – we all have highlights and lowlights, chapters we love to remember and chapters we’d rather forget. There are happy times and sad times and a lot of not happy or sad days. We’ve made good choices and bad choices we’ve experienced noble moments and moments we’re ashamed of.

Woven throughout our stories is a longing for something more. The recognition that when we look outwardly at the world or inwardly on our own heart and character, something isn’t right. There is a deep problem with the human condition – a problem that external things like money or power or fame or comfort can fix. Time can’t fix it. Working on ourselves can’t fix it – we might make some improvements but we can’t fix the deepest problem because it’s a God problem. Sin has turned our hearts against God and His will and we are hostile to the things of God. And sin has made us unacceptable to a holy God – so we’re at war with God! All our other problems cascade from this deep, basic problem.Sin has alienated us from our Creator.

So when we read about peace with God and a Savior who came to save us from our sins, it touches us deeply not simply because Jesus entered history but because Jesus’ story enters our story. Jesus brings good news of great joy for all those who receive him! Peace with God is available to us if we believe in Jesus. That is what our souls long for at its deepest level. Salvation is available to us – to our stories, right where we live with all our hopes and dreams and flaws and failures and longings and aspirations and inconsistencies and sinfulness.

Unlike any other birth in human history, Jesus’ birth brought good news of great joy for all the people! People can reject that good news, but for all who believe and receive it, Jesus’ story enters our story and redeems our story – even the sad and regretful parts – for God’s glory and our good.

2. Patient waiting is a necessary part of perfect timing

God promised Adam and Eve to send a Messiah who would crush the head of the serpent…and then began the long wait. Thousands of years went by as God continued His promise to Abraham and Moses and David and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Malachi and others. Generations came and went, not receiving the promise but seeing it from a distance, as Hebrews 11 – the faith chapter – puts it.

Where there’s time there’s waiting. Faith always has a period of waiting – we wouldn’t need faith if the minute we prayed for something God gave us what we prayed for. If God were like Fed Ex: when the answer to your prayers absolutely, positively needs to be there overnight. I’m sure some of you have prayers you’ve been lifting up to God for weeks, months, maybe years. I do. Waiting can be hard, but waiting is an essential part of growing strong in our faith.

The Bible says a lot about the importance of waiting on the Lord.

“I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry.” Psalm 40:1

But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint. Isa. 40:31

Mary received the promise that Jesus would save his people from their sins. As she took baby Jesus into the temple for purification, there was an old man named Simeon who had been waiting for the consolation of Israel. He took Jesus up in his arms and said Lord, now I’ve seen your salvation. You know what came then? More waiting. Nothing happened for another thirty long years. Waiting and waiting and then one day suddenly Jesus began his ministry. God’s timing is never set by what we want or when we want it. God sets His timing according to the perfect alignment of all the factors of His plan.

Rom. 5 says that at just the right time (Kairos – the opportune time), Christ died for us. It was there on the cross that Jesus fulfilled the promise made thousands of years earlier by triumphing over the devil and crushing his head. When Jesus ascended, the angels said that he’d come back in the clouds the same way he went up. And we’ve had two thousand years of waiting. Some have given up waiting. “He’s not coming back”. God always keeps His promises, but between the promise given and the promise fulfilled there is often a period of waiting.

Some of us in this room might be waiting on God for something. It might be provision or an answer to prayer or the salvation of a loved one. We never know when we’re on the eve of God doing it. The day before God’s answer comes feels like any other day. We can’t know when tomorrow is the day God answers our prayer. The provision we’ve been praying for suddenly comes. That person we’ve been praying for calls us and says, “I can’t explain it, but I feel like God is doing a work in my heart.” Don’t give up – pray all the more fervently.

⁹ Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time (kairo) we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.  Gal 6:9

Don’t give up or grow weary doing good – keep sowing those seeds of doing good – because in God’s perfect timing you will reap a harvest if you keep doing it and don’t give up. Patient waiting grows our faith and is a necessary part of God’s perfect timing.

3. Jesus drew near to us in time so that we could be with him in eternity

We sang What a Beautiful Name earlier and no line in that song has stirred up more controversy than the line “you didn’t want heaven without us, so Jesus you brought heaven down.” Now if someone were to say that heaven was incomplete without us or that God was so lonely He needed us to be with Him, that would be unbiblical and terrible theology. But it doesn’t say heaven was incomplete without us, it says God didn’t want heaven without us. Why? Because as great as our sin is, God’s love is greater. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus drew near to us in time so we could be with him forever in eternity. That’s the Christmas message we must not forget! Jesus didn’t just come to give us a better life – I believe he does, that even if life is harder with Jesus than it would be without him, life is richer and sweeter and more hope-filled with Jesus than it is without him. But the real gift Jesus came to give us doesn’t fully kick in until we leave time and enter eternity.

Eternity means forever. Life without end. Life full of love and peace and acceptance and joy. A life that has NO tears or pain or suffering or loss or sadness. Life forever in the presence of God and in the service of God’s good eternal purposes. We won’t be sitting around playing harps, we will be busy working for God in ways that bring us such meaning and fulfillment.

Jesus left heaven and stepped into time and history so that when we come to the end our life, when our clock stops ticking, our time runs out, we close our eyes to time and open them in eternity. We will be in the presence of our loving Father and Savior Jesus and the precious Holy Spirit who lived in us and stuck with us here on earth.

That is the greatest gift Jesus came to give us!