Expect Something Great

And faith when you get to the essence of it

is an expectation, a confident assurance that a negative circumstance

still holds the potential to produce great purpose.

In my life. Come on, shout on that. I'm gonna

teach you all where to shout.

Y'all have been coming to church too many years to

not know where the shouting part is.

That's the shouting part.

Means I can walk into something dark and light it

up because of my faith, because the light of the

world lives in me. You say Jesus is the light

of the world. Absolutely he is, but guess where he lives.

It's an expectation.

Faith is an expectation to know that, even if the

sequence of things doesn't make sense in my life, that God,

who lives outside of time because he is eternal, knows

the end from the beginning. So then I have to

trust him with element op if he is Z and

A and if A.

Is related to Z, because he is.

Alpha and omega beginning in the end, first in the last.

My faith is an expectation that before the movie even starts,

he's already shot.

The closing scene.

It helps me to know today that I don't have

to live in suspense as to whether or not I

will see the goodness of the Lord in the land

of the living. Because faith is an expectation. Faith enables

me to wake up in the morning knowing that surely

goodness and mercy will follow.

Me all the days of my life.

And since this is one of the days of my life,

Goodness and mercy are my bodyguards, one on my right

and one on my left. You can't see them there invisible,

but if you look real close, I've got security. Tell

somebody say, I got security, goodness and mercy.

The favor of the Lord is the.

Filter through which I view the fights of my life,

knowing this that he who began a good work in

me will be faithful to complete it.

Don't know when, don't know how, not even sure what

he's doing yet. But my faith gives me an.

Expectation now unto him who is able to do in

measure more than we asked or imagine, according to His

power that works mightily in us, not according to my preference,

not according to my understanding or the finite finite. You know, small, little,

puny way that I tend to come at situations. But

my faith is an expectation, and this expectation is contagious.

Talk about talk about expectations. Man John the Baptist who

we just read about, he was he was really, really

familiar with the pressure of high expectations because he was

a miraculous, miraculously born baby, and an angel prophesied his birth,

and in fact, when his mother, Elizabeth got pregnant, you know,

his father Zachariah was so shocked by it that he

told the angel it couldn't happen because they were kind

of old, and so his expectation. You know, with age,

one thing can happen. With age, that's good. You can

get experience, but it can diminish expectation.

Do you know what I mean by that?

I'm looking for over forty because I'm not there yet.

I'm familiar with this. But John was born.

Before he was born, you have to understand that he

was the voice that prepared the way for the Lord

that the entire nation was expecting to deliver them from oppression.

That was their expectation of the Messiah, and they looked

for for hundreds of years in centuries, so that this

generation that was alive at the time the birth of

Christ had heard the stories, the rumors and the rumblings

about the possibility and potential of His coming into the world,

and this expectation from their heart was that He would

then set them free from oppression, whether economic or political,

or deliver them from their their circumstantial containment.

There's an expectation, and.

One thing you got to do when you have an

expectation is make sure that you connect yourself with people

who have a similar expectation. And this is important because

expectation is contagious. Say that out loud. Expectation is contagious.

Those of you watching this message, you didn't get to

be with us. In worship, I had everybody in the

church turn to each other and I had them check

with their neighbor and make sure that their neighbor was

the right neighbor, because I don't want I'm sitting next

to anybody who's not expecting God to speak today, just

gonna play something on their phone, you know, candy Crush

or whatever game is popular now.

I don't play that stuff. I read my Bible in

my free time. I was kidding. I was kidding, read

my Bible, watch YouTube in my free time.

But but I was just having him check you know,

because expectation is contagious.

Here's how contagious it is.

When John the Baptist was still in Elizabeth's womb, an

angel appeared six months after Elizabeth got pregnant with John

the Baptist, to Mary, who was a relative of Elizabeth.

Now you know, Mary, Mary, did you know from Christmas?

She was told that she was going to have a

baby and she hadn't had relations. And it's kind of

hard to believe a revelation that completely contradicts the circumstances

surrounding it. So the first thing that she did when

the angel left was going to the hill country to

see her relative named Elizabeth, because the angel said, she's

also expecting. The best thing you can do when you

are expecting is to get around somebody else who's expecting.

If you get around somebody who's expecting, your expectation will rise.

That's why I come to church, to be honest with you,

because you know what, I could watch it on my phone,

but there's something about being in an atmosphere with people

who are also expected. You know what, if you're watching

this message in your house, next time you watch it,

invite somebody over and you'll drink some coffee together and

get some expectation between the two of you, and get

a Bible, and break out your Bible and stand up

on your feet while I'm preaching.

Even if you're watching in your kitchen.

If you got somebody next to you, grab them right

now and tell them I'm expecting something.

And what I need is somebody who will help me with.

This expectation, because if I don't get around somebody who's

expecting something.

This is so real. This is so real that we've.

Got worship leaders in this church who lead worship and

don't even have a microphone. Because when we're pulling in today, Graham,

who's eleven, said to me, we listened to Heski Walker

on the way to church today, So I had I had,

I had the car bumping on the way in the

parking lot. And then we moved over into Israel Hoten circa.

Two thousand and six, and and then we pulled by

the parking team. And do you know my son said

to me when we pulled by the parking team.

He said, I love that guy. Now this is Graham.

Graham doesn't has never even said he loved me, but

he was like, I love him.

You can tell he's excited. Graham never said I love

Chris Brown. He never said it once ever, But that

parking attendant, Graham said, he does so much for our church.

What could we do for him? But it was a

childlike faith.

And I promise I'm gonna talk about John the Baptist

in a minute. But it's the craziest thing that when

somebody is also expecting, you know, it created an expectation.

Even in the parking lot. My son felt something. What

he felt though he didn't know.

It was the Holy Spirit in that man.

The Holy Spirit in that man who didn't need a microphone.

He had an orange baton, and he was expecting that

when you pull in my parking lot, you're pulling up

on the holy ground. So get ready something good. I'm

expecting something. So when Elizabeth and Mary got together, Mary said, oh,

I just got bumped. Mary said, what do you mean

I just got bumped? This is the new modern steam

fur the translation of Bible.

What do you mean you just got bumped?

She said, When you got here, the baby in your

womb made the baby in my womb leap for joy.

Now you can't see it, it's invisible, but something in

you the Jesus in you, the Christ in you.

I'm gonna calm down in a minute of preach.

But somebody who's got a purpose on the inside. Sounds

like you're expecting the greatest days of your life.

Come on on, every campus.

Let's take nineteen seconds and grace in it. There.

It's all right, it's all right. It's all right to

be expected.

It's all right, it's all right, it's all right to

love Jesus.

It's all right to be enthusiastic. It's all right.

It's all right to lift up your eyes to the

hills and know where your health comes from.

Expectation is contagious. Hey, thank you for watching.

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