Outlasting Expectations vs Reality

TRANSCRIPT

Today, I want to talk about outlasting expectations. Expectations, isn't that a funny word? It's a, it's really kind of funny kind of thing about expectations, you know? Like we all have expectations, you know? You kind of expect that people will be kind most of the time. We expect that people, you know, like, might take a bath now and then so they don't stink, you know?

Like, a bit of hygiene kind of stuff. Some of us expect that people will meet needs if we're in trouble. Some of us expect our whippersnapper to work when you start it. And if you don't know what that's about, that's about a whippersnapper that didn't learn it's lesson and came to a tragic end. Just once, I have an expectation that I will get breakfast in bed.

Some of us have an expectation that our hair won't go grey or fall out.

We all have the expectation that our government will one day actually tell us the truth and behave kindly and courteously to each other. Oh sorry, that's not expectation, that's miracles, that's another one. Students have expectations, you have expectations, you know like, I can get straight A's but I don't need to study.

Got some expectations happen there, and then of course that's for the girls. Some of you actually believe that that Prince Charming is going to ride in on a noble white steed and sail off into the sunset with you. So we all have expectations. Now I know you had a bit of a chuckle there because the reality is we all know that expectations hardly ever work out the way that we think they should.

So what we want to talk about is Around expectations, how reality is defined around expectations, what delays are involved around expectations, and what significance is full. Now, if you've ever done this... done any traveling and driving and you're late at night or something like that and you're starving and you come up over the hill and you just see a yellow glow like these arches you know and you know and it's like I am so hungry I'm going in and you go in there with a certain expectation and you get to the drive thru and there's these pictures of these gorgeous burgers and so you get you You're going against everything of your better judgment right here.

But you order that burger and then you get outside and you realize that this is the kind of thing you see when you've got your burger. So what's the expectation? Put the first slide up. No, not that one. The food slide. Food slide. Burgers. Burgers. Burgers. Burgers. Burgers. There it is. There it is, that's right.

I knew we'd do it well if I did the actions long enough, we'd get there. So, this was your expectation. But when you opened the box, that was your reality. And it happens on a regular basis. Every food store you go into has this beautiful picture. I don't even know how they got the burger to go that high.

It looks beautiful. But when you open the box, it doesn't look anything like that. It's splattered. It looks like some of those degestation things or whatever. It's just, it's all apart. So what we want to look at, what defines reality with expectations? And we're going to look at a story. It's out of the, the Jewish portion of the Bible, the old covenants called book of Samuel.

And because I feel like this story really helps us understand expectations. Well, so the bit of the backstory is Samuel is a prophet of God. He, he speaks on God's behalf and God has said to him, I need you to go down to Jesse's house because down in Jesse's house, I need you to I need you to anoint, or empower, and prepare, give authority to a new king.

I'm going to take a new king out of Jesse's house. So, okay, so Samuel goes down here with the process of doing this. So, Jesse brings all his sons out, and he parades the first one. So let's pick up the first verse. It says, When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab. And he thought, surely this is the Lord's anointed.

So whatever this guy looked like, it was very interesting because he thought this was the Lord's anointed. But the thing is that God doesn't look the way that we look. He doesn't look at the outside, he looks at the inside. And we have a tendency to always focus on the outside, but the good news is that archaeological discoveries have actually turned up some drawings recently about what Jesse's sons look like.

So I have actually got a Photo here of what Eliab looked like, so if we put the first photo, this is Eliab and this is the reason why he said He came in and he said, surely this is the Lord's anointed, look at that, look at, look at, what a good looking guy, you know like Everything about this guy is just like, man, he is a king.

He looks like a king, you know, like, in fact, he looks beyond a king. He looks like a god of thunder. No, it doesn't matter. It's Eliab. Just remember, this is an archaeological discovery, right? So it's Eliab. So... I want to, I want to tell you something very, very, very, very you're not going to believe this, but it's hard to believe, but you put me and him in the same room with no windows and you get the lighting just right.

You can't tell us apart. Seriously, you can't tell us apart. Now, of course, the lighting that's just right is pitch black. You've got to be pitch black. But anyway, look what, so this, this, this good looking king, surely this is the Lord's anointed. But look what happens. But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him.

Jesse thought, this has got to be the one, man. This is my best boy. This has got to be the king. No, I'm sorry Jesse, you got another one? Well, yeah, I got another one. So in comes a Binadab. A Binadab! Man, this guy, he, it's gotta be him. Look at those abs, look at those pecs. It's a Binadab. Abs, abs, a Binadab.

That's him. That's him. So surely this is the one. This has gotta be the king, right? Like, this has gotta be the one. Same thing. The Lord says, no, no, don't look at the outside. I, I, I am rejected him. So Jesse, have you got another son? He goes, oh, well, yeah, yeah, I got another one. His name is Shema. So this guy comes out.

I go, oh, look at this one. This guy looks like he should like. I don't know, drive a spaceship or something like that. Shemma, beautiful blue eyes. Man, this has got, this has got to be the king. Man, there's three perfect kings. And God just says, no, no, I don't, not the right one, not the right one. He goes through six sons.

Six of them. And they all get rejected. It must have been awkward after that because then Samuel's scratching his head going, well I've been sent down here by God. So Jesse, have you got another son anywhere maybe? Oh no, yeah, no, but wait, there's one. But he's down, he's down looking after the sheep. You don't want that one.

That's not the king. Trust me, he's not the king. No, no, the, the king's in this lot. Look at him, look at all these guys, this, this is where the, well you better go and get him because I think the Lord might be him. No, Jesse's gone, trust me, it's not him. He's not like the other boys. He's one of those creative types.

If you know what I mean. Tell the Lord, he'd be much better, whether Binadab or Shem, you tell him. Okay, we'll bring him up. So then in comes David and here he is.

That's me. It was supposed to be Justin Bieber. Because I was going to go, whoop, whoop. Now that one, there it is. But now that you've done that, go back. Look at that. I could have been Justin Bieber. Whoop, whoop. So anyway, David comes in, he's going, whoop, whoop. Oh, must have been so embarrassing for Jessie.

And the Lord says, that's the one. That's the one that I've chosen. He's the one. Oh my goodness. Now as you've probably figured out, those weren't archaeological discoveries of what those guys look like. There was one picture that was found but it didn't have Jesse in it but it did have his wife and the seven sons and that's this one.

That one's more accurate. So the Lord says to him, take this one, anoint this one, because he's the one that's chosen to be the king. And it says from that moment, God's power rested upon David. Talk about expectations. Here's the first thing about this I want you to know. Our experience does not equal God's reality when it comes to expectations.

David had no expectation to be a king. The brothers had no expectation that he would be the king and neither did his dad. Now fortunately for David he did not write that on the inside of his belief window. Oh, dad didn't even think I was good enough to even come to be a son. But he didn't write that there so he did the right thing.

We tend to function that way. We look visually, we look at things and we go, it looks like this and so we judge and we go, that's what it is. But God doesn't look like that. His ways are different. He thinks differently. And the problem is, if you have an expectation, and you write it on the inside of that window, you actually pigeonhole what God can do.

Because He can't go beyond your expectation. You actually will stifle the potential that you have because you have got a picture that is not the right one. You have your expectation, but you don't have what God is in mind for you. Because His mind is not your mind. His thoughts are not your thoughts. His ways aren't your ways.

His, His understanding is way beyond ours. In fact, Psalm 147, David says, As great as our Lord mighty is His power, His understanding has no limit. There's no limit to his understanding. We have finite understanding. He has unlimited understanding. Imagine what would have happened if Samuel would have gone what his first impression was.

Well, surely this one's the Lord's anointed. Surely, that's gotta be the answer, that's who God would choose. What a mess. But God has something different. His reality and our expectation is different. So we've got to be very careful what you write on your belief window. Don't ever write an expectation that you've come up with on the inside of your belief window.

Because you will limit God's ability to work through you. Stick it on the outside by all means. It can be rubbed off, it can be changed, it can be adjusted. But don't let it get... on the inside. Because if you do, you will bring God down to the size that you can manage and you will miss out on so much potential that you currently have not stepped into because it's not in your frame of reference and understanding.

Now the thing with this is David was anointed a king at 15 years of age. Can anyone tell me how old he was when he, Gary's not allowed to answer this one, how old he was when he became king? 30, 30 came up there. I could tell, I could tell you just, you just looked straight at there and went 30. Yeah, you're right.

30, 30 years. So he had 15 years where he's, what, what's going on for 15 years? Why the big white, what are what? What are we hanging around here for? What's the day all about? So you've got to make sure you don't have a fixed expectation right now of what that thing is that God's got for you because you don't have it all right now that's going to come over time you know years ago in Ipswich we used to teach people goal setting 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years and then suddenly we just stopped the Lord just said, just stop just stop it because I am in the daily routine of life, and I'm adjusting people daily.

You put something down hard and fast, and then you will miss all of the interruptions that I'm bringing to actually prepare you for what I've got in store for you. And we said, you know what, just write a rough dream on the front, let God worry about the back. And just live one day, because they miss so much of life.

We had people that said, I'm not going to do anything until the 10 year mark because of that happens. You don't even know if you're going to be here in 10 years. And then they miss out on everything because there are stages of development that must take place. I get to Bible college in 1986. And it was an interesting experience.

That was our Bible college class. Can you pick me?

1996. God told me in one of the very first, first things that I went into, He said, you, you'll be called into full time ministry. I said, what does that mean? I didn't know what it meant. He said, it's okay, it'll happen. Just, just, just stuck that in the back of your head. Oh, okay. It was 15 years before anybody even let me lead anything.

It was 24 years odd before, sorry it was 10 years before I actually got the opportunity to lead anything. 15 before I ever got suggested, well maybe we could renumerate you for something. And then 20 years before getting the opportunity to lead beyond that. So there's a wait. There is this waiting period that is a part for when God is calling you to something.

Like with my wife and I, you know, we, she had another boyfriend before me, which is understandable. You know, and he was a guitarist in a band. Which is second best to the lead singer, let's face it. So anyway, she was she was dating this guy for a few years and I was just a friend. And then eventually after that, she kind of like left him but I stayed being her friend and then eventually I let her know that I had feelings for her and that really didn't go well. It didn't go well at all. She kind of slapped me really hard in front of the whole church when I told her. It was a big church. It was about 2, 000 people in there and everyone turned and looked at me like, phew, that was embarrassing.

So eventually she calmed down. And then eventually we did finally get together and we got married and, and then, a little while later well before we got married I had to say to her, I need to tell you a little bit about my background because it's not very good, so I had to spell out this and I had to, I had to be really honest and just say, I can't promise you a house in the suburbs, I know the things you'd like, I just don't know how our life is going to end up, you need to pray about that, and I also can't promise you that someone somewhere Might one day knock on the door and go, Hey, you're my dad.

See, it's awkward. So, but I had to be up front because I don't want that coming back on the back end. So then she said, Okay, I'll pray about it. And I thought, what? Pray about it? Look at me. Why do you want to pray about it? Aren't you supposed to say yes and we get on with it? No, no, no. I'll pray about it.

Three weeks later. Three weeks later she comes back and says yes. And then we got married. And there she is. And I've spent 35 years with that woman as my best friend.

And we could not even begin to dream of what God has done that would eventually one day be leading a church of people that are so passionate about loving God and loving people and reaching into their communities. It's amazing. It's amazing. But there's waits. Everything bothers. There's a waiting time.

There's a preparation time. So our expectation is not God's reality. So don't write your dream on the inside. Write it on the outside where it can be adjusted and moved and wait for God to write it on the inside, the reality. And then understand you're going to wait. Waiting is not passive. People think I'm just going to wait.

No, it's not like that. It's not passive. It's active. David had to wait 15 years. In that time, we knew he was a shepherd boy. He got a gig playing in the palace, playing worship songs for the King Saul. Then he was out battling Goliath. He had that thing to kind of deal with. Then Saul attempts to kill him because he's jealous of him.

And then Saul appoints him as the commander. And he becomes a great tactician, a military leader. And then Saul's jealous of him, tries to kill him again. And in the end, he has to die. to leave. He's running as a fugitive. You know, I'm, I'm thinking like, okay, so you've been told and anointed you're going to be king and how does this fit into the plan?

And he spends the last few of his years just hiding, just evading Saul, previous king that's trying to kill him. It's the bootcamp. Waiting is the bootcamp where God prepares you. He begins to prepare you. Now, if you want to, you don't have to, you can grab out your phone, there's a QR code, you guys online as well, I'd like to just, I'll keep teaching, but I'd like to hear from you.

Name something in life you've had to wait a long time for, and then we'll just see what the results are in a little while. I believe the waiting is the development of you. Whatever the dream, the thing that God puts into you, you have to be built for that. You've got to have the character for that. You've got to have the maturity of that.

It takes time to put that into you. When I went to Ipswich for the first time and I got up there, I went up there on this proviso. I'm going up for six months to work on my character. I got out. 20 years later, you don't even get that long for murder. I mean, like, really? Up there for that long? Which proves one of two things.

Either I had a lot wrong with me that needed to be fixed, and some of you are going to go with that one, I can tell right now, or I just really took a long time to actually learn the lesson that I needed to learn. It has to be developed. Waiting is where your character is developed, maturity is done. Also waiting is where God then gets in the stuff that you've written on the inside of your belief window that shouldn't be there, has to be removed.

And so he gets, he confronts that with his truth and you adopt it and you change and you move on. But it's frustrating. David was frustrated. Go to Psalm 13 and have a read of that. How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with these thoughts day after day and have sorrow in my heart?

Oh man, this guy's having a bad time. And he just goes on and on, but then something shifts. And he goes, but I trust in the Lord. And your unfailing love my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord's praises because he's been good to me Waiting can be frustrating But you have to wait and while you're waiting you must remain trusting and true So many people I know have got frustrated because God's not doing the thing that they believe he should do He is doing it, but they just can't see it because it's not going the way their expectation thinks it should go.

And so then you know what? You know what? Well if you're not going to talk to me, I'm not going to talk to you. I'm not doing soap devotions anymore. I'll show you. You might be the king of the universe and all that, but I got my rights. And then what happens is you end up dying and you end up missing God's best for you.

I think Pastor Wayne calls that, when you stop doing devotions, spiritual suicide. You have no capacity to deal with anything that comes along. See, in that waiting, David had to face all of those things. And each time he had to face some of those things, he had to deal with something else about him that maybe he didn't believe that needed to be adjusted, or something else new had to be placed into the equation.

I'll never forget that my first practicum, Pastor Wayne, said to me, and I think he still says it to a lot of people now, he says, Kev, don't rush into your future. I go, what do you mean, don't rush into my future? I'm not rushing into it, I'm galloping into it, man, I want it and I want it now. So, he said, no, don't do that.

He just says, prepare well for your future, and your future will come to you. Prepare well for your future and your future will come to you. Man, I have adopted that so many times. I sit with young ones and go, Oh, I just want to be married. I just want to get married. They say, well, do you know what's involved with being a wife or a husband?

No, I just want to be married because I've seen it on the movies and it's, oh, it's so glorious. Well, yeah. So I say, well you know what you need to do? You need to now go study and let God build on the inside what it is to be a wife. What it means to be a husband. And you don't have to chase them, they'll come to you when you are ready.

The whole thing shifts, the whole thing changes. You've just got to learn to trust in God. And if you're still sitting thinking, yeah, but why the wait? Why the wait? And how long am I going to have to wait? Here's the reason how long you're going to have to wait. How long will it take you to learn the lesson that God is trying to teach you?

If you want to know how long you've got to wait, it's how long is it going to take for you to learn this lesson. I had a gentleman once that was very heavily involved in the Old Covenant, very legalistic with his wife and with his kids, very domineering, and it was very cruel, and he was just continually wouldn't respond.

I said, mate, you need to love them the way it is. No, I'm the leader and this, and it went round and it went round, and he refused. And then one day, his wife said goodbye, out the door, and they've not seen him since. Then I get a call. Please help me, I'll do anything. Too late. The anything that you need to do should have been done ages ago, out of love for your wife and your kids.

He didn't learn the lesson. He went round and round and round. We have to learn the lesson. The reason some of us have to wait so long is because we don't learn the lesson. And it is dangerous to not wait. The whole reason that Samuel is down with Jesse looking for a new king is because Saul couldn't wait.

If you go and look in 1 Samuel 13, you'll see that. Saul's waiting. He's about to go to battle. He's instructed Samuel must come down and bring an offering unto the Lord. He's got to do it. It gets to that time and Samuel hasn't turned up. He's been delayed or maybe God just held back a little bit for a test.

Saul says I'm not waiting for Samuel, I'll do it myself. So he offers the offering himself which he shouldn't have done and the minute he's done it, guess who shows up? Samuel. And this is what he says to him. He said, what have you done Saul? You disobeyed the Lord's commands. Now the Lord is determined to take the kingdom from you and give it to another.

And that was the moment then from David was being prepared for. So to not wait is devastating. In fact, we can't afford to not wait. You have to wait, but not passively. You wait, and listen, and you face the circumstances, and you look at the delays, and you look at the frustrations, and you go, What is this all for?

Why doesn't God take it away? Because you're saying that you want to do something significant for me, well then I have to make you something significant so you can do something significant for me. But then you keep complaining because I give you stuff to prepare you to do something significant for me.

I was terrible like this. When I was younger in my faith, I was so bad. I like, I go, Oh God, use me. Use me God. I'd pour out my heart. Oh God, use me. Use me. And then the pastor would ask me to do something. Don't you use me like that. I'm not your doormat. And then it suddenly occurred to me. Oh, I'm supposed to say yes to that.

Yes. Took a while. So you gotta, you gotta figure this thing out. Don't write your expectation on here. Put His reality on here and understand that that wait, your waiting is your boot camp. That's your preparation. Don't fight it. Learn as quick as you can and then understand that significance is about God exceeding our expectations.

Once David got in there, it was marvelous. He ushered in what they call the golden era of Israel. He brought peace and stability. He unified the nation, made them fruitful, made them blessed. It was so good. He did such a great thing, but he didn't even realize the significance of what it was because he had no idea that out of his lineage from Jesse and David would actually come the Messiah.

He had no idea about that. And even in his expectations of King, he wouldn't have known that. He wouldn't have got that. So he goes to get anointed first time. No expectation to be a king. Jesse doesn't see it. He doesn't see it. Kid. The other fell. Other fellows don't see it. They think, they think it's ridiculous that they're given a kingship to him.

No idea that this is the backstory. He's gonna be used to usher in. The Messiah, the long awaited Messiah. It's amazing. But you've got to do, to do this you've got to outlast your own limitations and expect, expectations you put on yourself. And let God pack into you on the inside, what it is that He wants you to do.

Some of you are going to say, I don't know, I'm too young. You're never too young. 71.

It says, even when I'm old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to those that come. Just for a moment. If you, if you are in the more twilight years, let me speak to you for a minute. Don't think that this is time to shut off. We need you. More than ever.

We need you to keep telling us the fantastic things that God has done, the miraculous things. We need you to keep modeling faithfulness. Our vision is to become one church in multiple locations with multiple expressions. Done very simply by partnering with the Holy Spirit to teach people to love God, love others, and make disciples who make disciples.

We need you to keep championing that because we've only really scratched the surface of what God wants to do with that. We've only just scratched the surface. We're just working out our very first junction point, what that looks like, to become a place for unchurched people to belong, what they work out, what they believe.

To do that, you've got to make sure you never allow anyone to write anything on the inside of that window bar what God says about you. And you live out of that. So the only thing I have written on the inside of my window there is I'm to be holy as he is holy. I'm to make disciples who make disciples.

That's what's inside there. Everything else of mine, no matter how many dreams or fun things I get, that all stays on the outside because it could be easily removed and it also allows God to adapt it and say, well I thought this, but wow, that's the reality of what's going on. And that's how outlasters move further and faster, because they hang on to the master.

They hang on to the Master. They follow, they listen, they learn. So don't ever put something on the inside of your belief window. The only thing that goes on there is what God says it is written. You keep that inside there and you'll stay okay. Don't put any expectation in there that'll limit God. You know that he's called you to do.

You know what his plan is. You know what his purpose is. Allow him, put the dream on the outside and then allow him to lead you into it. Can you imagine what would happen if everyone lived like that? What if no one was ever running around trying to like make a big name for themselves or something like that.

Everyone was so confident about who they are in Christ and they just want to serve God by loving him and by loving people. Wow that's magnificent. The world would be a way better place. I think the struggle to make something of ourselves goes way back. I think it's exactly the same thing with Adam and Eve.

Goes right back to the garden. God wanted to reveal to them over time good and evil. He said, I'll tell you what that is. They didn't want to wait. They didn't want to wait. So they decided to self govern. No, no, we'll tell you what's good and evil and you can get on board with that. The whole thing with that, I believe, is they wanted to be a law unto themselves, not submitted to God.

Wouldn't wait. And the consequence of that, we know sin and death entered and the whole thing turned pear shaped. You've got to face the waiting. Let me finish off with this last story and then I'm going to get the team to come back and just lead us in a song. When I was in Bible College in 1986, a lot of weird stuff happened because I came straight out of the band scene.

I didn't understand a lot of these Christianese things and words and the stuff and that. So anyway, I went through the college and they came to this end thing was really weird. They had some people that I didn't know come in that wanted to pray for us and lay hands on us. And I knew some of the people and I also knew some of the challenges because even though I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, I can discern some things and I, and I kind of just watching these guys going along and praying for people and I'm watching them praying to scenarios that, that I know the leader knows there's a problem there and he probably wants him to say that.

Now, I'm not trying to be disrespectful about this, but I just, this is how my mind was working. You, you, that's not God. You already knew that. We had a problem with that all year. So, I, I saw that going on, and then they came to pray for me. So, I wasn't really in probably the most receptive state. And anyway, first thing, I see you like a wild horse running, rebelling.

So, yeah, that, that's classic. Yeah, and that's, that's a big, a big deal in that. And then he went on and said a few other things. And then he said, then he stopped. He seriously stopped and I went, Are you okay? It's like, he's like, maybe having a seizure or something. He just stopped and just, I thought, what's going on?

And then he said, he started stumbling for words, and then he said but I see... I see a daringness, a daring attitude coming. You're going to be able to go in and do some things, that other people are not able to do. You're going to be able to say some things, do some things. And you're going to go into places.

And he was fumbling over his own words, at this point in time. And then he, he couldn't get the language for the next part. And he goes, but I see it like, and I don't know, and But it's, he said, but it's not going to be like a boy senior. And I thought, what the heck is a boy senior? And he's rattling on about this boy senior thing and there's a few other military terms and, and then I thought, I had no idea what are you talking about?

He said, but I see a team. I see a team. And I see, but it's, it's, it starts very small with this fruitfulness, but then it gets very, very big. And I don't know, but he keeps going, but it's, but it's not going to be a boy senior, a boy senior. I'm going, and you know, for years. I kept going back to that thing going, What does that mean, Lord?

You know, what does it mean? And it wasn't until God started the journey down here with us that I understood what it meant. What he meant was, it's not going to be like a Moses model. With the big mans at the top, the boys senior, and everyone else is the servants. He was grappling because he was catching a glimpse of something that was not around yet.

It was where the switch went, like this, to the servant model. And he saw it, but he couldn't explain it because no one had language for that. Everybody used this model. And so it's only in the recent times now that I understand what God was saying in 1986 is what he's doing now. Some... 35 years later, and I've had to wait.

I, I so resonate with David. Man, I've been through disappointment. I've been through betrayals. I've been through sickness. I've been through depression. I've been through unfair treatment. I've been through getting so angry with other leaders because I felt like I'm picking up and fixing your mess and this is not fair and rah rah rah.

And then God would have to get in my face and go, what makes you think this has got anything to do with you? Well, all right, point taken. So it's got nothing to do with me. It's got nothing to do with you. I'm doing something that I want to do in the hearts of my people here because I want to do something different to reach out into the community so the community starts to see the church in action again.

The ones that will step out, ones that will pour out their heart just to love and to give and to serve. It was amazing. It's amazing now to think that 35 years ago this guy was catching glimpses of this but he couldn't really articulate it but it's taking place now and I remember coming down here and I was 30 years of that, I came down here as mid 40s.

I was a complete wreck. Been through clinical depression, complete and utter disaster. And then I get down here and it's like full on and I'm trying to still like Spinning my wheels and trying to just do the best I could and I remember sitting I sat with a lot I said listen Why didn't you bring me down when I was 30?

Man? Oh, it was Spectacular then man, I could bridge up a storm and I could run like and I could just I could do it He said yeah, he said yeah, but the troubles it was When you were in that place, there was no room for me at all. You had all the expectation, all planned about what you were gonna do. There's no room for me.

He said, and now you're all broken, and you're busted up, and pretty well useless. And now I got plenty to work with. And that's where it started.

I love the way that God takes broken things and fixes them. You've got to outlast your expectations. Whatever expectation you've got inside your window, if you've written in there, it's going to be too small. Because you see everything from a God size perspective. Don't put that in there. Put all your dreams and all your stuff, put them on the outside of the belief window.

Just have written inside here, Love God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength. And then go make some disciples. Teach some other people to do the same. And then you become an outlaster. Then God can do great things. As I said, what's written on the inside of mine right now is it is written, and not our will, but your will be done.

It's taken a while for me to get there, but you eventually get there and you just say, you know, I don't want my will anymore. I want your will and you build whatever you want to do. And I'll be totally fine with that. And that's how outlasters are born over a very, very long period of time where they get beyond their expectations, trust God.

and stay in the fight. Refuse to jump out of the pause and the weight and allow God to build you to what he needs you to be and what he's got planned for you. And I got to tell you, it'll be way better than anything that you can ever dream of. Let's pray. Lord, I just thank you for this series and I thank you for Pastor Wayne and the team that originally wrote it and we're adapting it and adding to it for what we feel that you want to say to us and Lord, I just am so grateful this because I have seen so many people miss their entire, their entire thing that you wanted to do with them because they had an expectation in their head that wasn't quite right, but they couldn't let it go.

So And they also wouldn't wait. Because they wouldn't wait and they wouldn't allow you to chip some things off and change some things and break some things and then reshape some things, they ended up missing it completely. Lord, we don't ever want to be that around here. We want to be people that love you with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.

And then be available to you as just a servant. Our expectation is on the inside is that your will would be done. Your will would be done. And we would be okay with that. In fact, we'd be joyful about that. Because whatever you do through us, that's significance. It's hard to do significance in our own strength, but when we allow you to do something significant in us, that changes everything.

So Holy Spirit, as the team just sings, would you just help us to remember, all you want is our heart. You just want us to love you with all of our being. Coming as we are, broken in all different shapes and places and forms and that. Not trying to fix anything, but allowing you to come in. Help us out of that brokenness.

Heal us. Restore us. Shape us. Change us. Remove what needs to be removed. That we be conformed to the image of Christ. And know our place in this world instead of walking around lost in it. So Holy Spirit, thank you for this series in Jesus name. Amen.