The Tragedy of Living with Low Expectations
Acts 3:1-9
Introduction
I am constantly surprised, bewildered and honestly sometimes even disgusted at how people who claim to love God and claim to have accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior and even testify of the moving of the Holy Spirit in their lives, live so far beneath their privilege as children of the king.
I am disturbed over the fact that many of us have been in church longer than we have been in anything else and yet while we excel and achieve in other areas of our lives we keep flunking out in the area of spiritual development. We are seemingly hooked on holy happy meals and addicted to spiritual junk food. So much so that whenever an attempt is made to wean us off of the bottle so that we can be introduced to table food we rebel and must be given a pacifier to suck on. I am disturbed. So I wanna talk to you today about the tragedy of living with low expectations.
If we would be honest today many of us who have entered into the church today, this place that is sanctified and set apart unto the worship of our God have come in satisfied with your present spiritual level. Even though this place, the church, is a place that is pregnant with possibility and potential many have come today not expecting to get anything and have absolutely no intention of taking anything with you when you return back home.
Yes, you came ready to hear good singing, Yes you came prepared to hear powerful praying and some are even hoping that the preacher will put on a good show, but few have come expecting to leave here today challenged, changed, different, stronger, better, more stable, more secure, more confident, loosed, healed, delivered, set free. Few have come saying God, “my storage is empty and I am available to you.” Few have come saying.” Is there a word from the Lord.” Few have come saying, “ Lord, I give myself away,I give myself away, So You can use me, I give myself away, I give myself away,So You can use me." It's sad to say it but we have become content to live our lives daily with low expectations.
Now, I am not suggesting that you don’t come to church.
I am not suggesting that you don’t love fellowshiping with the saints.
I am not suggesting that you don’t read your bibles from time to time.
But what I am suggesting is that over a period of time we have become accustomed to not seeing much, so therefore we don’t expect much. Then the enemy comes in and tricks us into believing that not much is to be expected anyway and that this is just the way it is supposed to be.
Let me share a story with you I heard Paul Harvey share before, I think it fits good right here. (tell story of man and the bird)
The Man and The Bird
There was once a man who didn’t believe in the incarnation of Christ or the spiritual meaning of Christmas, and was skeptical about God. He and his family lived in a farm community. His wife was a devout believer and diligently raised her children in her faith. He sometimes gave her a hard time about her faith and mocked her religious observance of Christmas. “It’s all nonsense – why would God lower himself and become a human like us? It’s such a ridiculous story!” he said.
On that snowy Christmas Eve, she and the children left for church while he stayed home. After they had left, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blinding snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening.
Then he heard a loud thump, something hitting against the window. And another thump. He looked outside but couldn’t see. So he ventured outside to see. In the field near his house he saw, of all the strangest things, a flock of birds! They were apparently flying to look for a warmer area down south, but had been caught in the snow storm. The storm had become too blinding and violent for the geese to fly or see their way. They were stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter, unable to do more than flutter their wings and fly in aimless circles.
He had compassion for them and wanted to help them. He thought to himself, “The barn would be a great place for them to stay! It’s warm and safe; surely they could spend the night and wait out the storm.” So he opened the barn doors for them. He waited, watching them, hoping they
would notice the open barn and go inside. But they didn’t notice the barn or realize what it could mean for them. He moved closer toward them to get their attention, but they just moved away from him out of fear. He went into the house and came back out with some bread, broke it up, and made a bread trail to the barn. They still didn’t catch on.
Starting to get frustrated, he went over and tried to shoo them toward the barn. They panicked and scattered into every direction except toward the barn. Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where there was warmth, safety and shelter.
Feeling totally frustrated, he exclaimed, “Why don’t they follow me?
Can’t they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm? How can I possibly get them into the one place to save them?” He thought for a moment and realized that they just wouldn’t follow a human.
He said to himself, “How can I possibly save them? The only way would be for me to become like those birds. If only I could become like one of them! Then I could save them! They would follow me and I would lead them to safety.”
At that moment, he stopped and considered what he had said. The words reverberated in his mind: “If only I could become like one of them- then I could save them.” And then, at last, he understood God’s heart towards mankind, and he fell on his knees in the snow and worshipped Him.
This lame man reminds me of the bird.
He had become so accustomed to doing what he had always done, that even when an opportunity came to change his direction and destiny, he was content to stay where he was.
So I have come today to challenge somebody here to move out of your spiritual comfort zone. I just wanted to create an atmosphere that will make someone uncomfortable with where you are and cause you to become dissatisfied with your current level of living.
I would today that someone would admit that you are tired, I mean sick and tired of always having your head hung down, tired of always being broke, alone, contemptible, miserable, insignificant, inadequate, insufficient, incapable, imperfect, sad, despondent, defective, deplorable, disgraceful, depressed, in despair, mad, flawed, substandard, pitiful, pathetic, poor, defensive, bringing up the rear, never the head and always the tail, always on the bottom and never on the top.
Tired of always moaning and groaning, tired of always crying and complaining, tired of getting life’s left overs. Is there anybody that is tired of living with low expectations?
This text today is a very familiar one and I won’t dare try to unpack it all. You know this story (summarize it)
However, on my way to my seat, let me lift just a few points for your closer consideration so that you might be aware of the symptoms of and suggested solutions to living with low expectations.
I read an article on yesterday that was entitled 7 signs of a stroke. The writer suggested that knowing the signs of a stroke may save someone’s life. I want to tell you today that understanding both the symptoms of and the solution to living with low expectations could very well save someone’s life and in fact the life you save just may be your own.
1. THE CRIPPLE ARE NOT ABLE TO STAND ON THEIR OWN TWO FEET
Now, when we investigate this text this man’s condition is clear. He is lame. He is a cripple. He is handicapped. His legs don’t work. His legs appeared to be just useless limbs stretched out on the blanket in front of him. They were attached to him but he had never felt them. He had never moved them. He never ran as a boy and nor had he walked as a man. Simply put, because he was lame he could not stand on his own two feet and I have discovered that even in the church we have some who are spiritual cripples and their lameness will lead to their living with low expectations.
Maybe not physically cripple, but they are spiritually cripple. Don’t look now but there is a good possibility that you are sitting next to someone who is spiritually crippled.
They sing during praise and worship but they are crippled. They serve within the ministry, but they are crippled. One of the clear symptoms of their crippled condition is the fact that they can not spiritually stand on there own two feet.
They are always living under their circumstances instead of living victoriously above their circumstances.
They have to be carried all of the time. Now we all need to be carried sometime but there ought to be sometimes when you can carry someone else. We all need to be helped sometimes, but there ought to be times when you are able to help somebody else. When you are a spiritual cripple someone else has to pray for you, worship for you, praise for you, shout for you, seek for you, fast you, ……….
But there ought to come sometimes when you say hey I don’t need anybody to do this for me. God has been too Good to Me!
You can’t tell it like I can tell it, what the Lord has done for me.
When I look back over my life and think things over, I can truly say that I been blessed.
All of my good days out weigh my bad days so I won’t complain.
In spite of all I been through I still got joy.
May not be rich, but I got joy.
This joy that I have, the world did not give it and the world can take it away.
2. ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY – THIS WAS NOT JUST A BAD DAY - HE WAS BORN THIS WAY AND BECAUSE HE WAS BORN THIS WAY AND AS FAR AS HE KNEW HE HAD ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY, THIS WAS NORMAL FOR HIM.
A. Begging for him was normal. Being pitied for him was normal. Being helpless and ignored was normal. In other words he had gotten use to this way of life. This was just his life. He had been captured and seized by his current conditions. He was use to living with low expectations.
B. I don’t know who you are, but there is someone here today who has been down so long that as far as you are concerned down is normal. You been sitting in the back of the church because deep inside you don’t feel worthy to be up front. You have been doing this so long it just feels normal.
Like the man in our text you are living with low expectations.
3. IT WAS NOT HIS FAULT – YOU DON’T ORDER THIS STUFF – IT JUST HAPPENS – SOMETIMES THINGS JUST HAPPEN
4. YOU DON’T HAVE STAY IN THE SHAPE THAT YOU ARE IN
A. He was brought to the church daily, but never got any better
B. HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN COMING TO CHURCH????
C. What should be your attitude when you come to church??
D. An attitude that says I came for a rendezvous with God.
E. I did not come for the pastor……………….I came to get with God.
F. Peter and John had seen him before
G. Peter and John said if God was able to help us He can help him
H. Peter and John exercised a contagious faith that caused the cripple to elevate his perspective.
The tragedies of ones life can be devastating. But those same tragedies can lead to greater developments. I heard Walter Hakins say that tragedies are common place but yet in the midst of your tragedy you have got to learn how to say," Thank you Lord for all You've done for me"
Bishop Charles C Jones 1/29/2012
