Why Your Expectations May Be Holding You Back | Kyler Sederwall

Let me introduce myself, if we have not yet met. My name is Kyler. I'm actually currently the campus pastor at the Northside Campus. And yeah, thank you. Things are going really well down there. About eight and a half months ago, I transitioned off of this staff here at the Hampton Campus, went down there, and was here for nine and a half years, which is fun because that means this Saturday is actually 10 years I've been on staff here at APC, which is exciting for me. Yeah, I moved here at 21 years old and had no idea what I was doing. And the funny thing is, some people will probably still say the same thing about me today at 31. But no, I've loved being in Pittsburgh and I just love, love, love being a part of this church. And since I'm here, let me just talk for a minute about what's going on at Northside. And one of our four years of faith goals is we really wanna see Butler and Northside function as missional campuses, where we send people on mission to serve. And we have a really exciting opportunity coming up this summer I wanna let you know about. So one of the things that kids lose access to when school gets out is they lose access

to the food that's provided at school lunches and things like that. So we were approached by the Pittsburgh Food Bank with an opportunity to just be a, for completely for free, but to be a summer feeding program host site all summer, which is amazing because we get to build long-term relationships with kids right and families right in our neighborhood. And so we're gonna do this on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 12 to two all throughout the summer. We're looking to build a team of consistent volunteers, people who can serve sporadically throughout the summer. And it's just a tremendous opportunity that we have. So if you're interested in checking that out, or you wanna learn more about that on the app, there's a little Northside project signup thing. You can fill that out or I'll be out at the Welcome Center after service. I would love to have a conversation with you about that in that way. And hey, let's say what's up to the guys at God Behind Bars who are watching. Let's give it up for them. We love you guys and anybody watching online. And so let's start the message this way today. In 1999, sounds like a long time ago, doesn't it? My goodness, wow. But there was an experiment done where people were asked to watch a video

and count the number of basketball passes made between participants wearing white in the video. And so half the participants wore white, the other half wore black. And the goal was to see if they would notice anything else that maybe entered the frame or the screen. And so I want to play this video for you. And I'm gonna ask everyone in this room to very obviously focus in intently on the players wearing white and count the number of basketball passes. So let's go ahead and play this. And this is probably gonna remind you of when you go to a Pirates game. I'm just gonna talk through this, the little baseball cap shuffle thing they do. So stay focused on the guys wearing white, count the passes. If you get it right at the end of this, there's a big surprise and a big gift you're all gonna get. No, I'm just kidding. But keep going, count the basketball passes for a few more seconds here. All right, how many passes did you count? Okay, number of passes was actually irrelevant to this entire thing. How many of you noticed something enter the frame a couple of seconds in? Okay, how many of you did not notice something

enter the frame ago? Okay, show that little screenshot there. Give me the next slide there, the picture. How many of you missed that gorilla that walked into the shot halfway through? Yeah, okay. So now you're seeing the goal of the experiment. In fact, how many of you remember this from middle school or high school? This is a pretty famous experiment. I remember them showing this when I was growing up. But here was basically the goal of the experiment. A lot of people missed the gorilla and they didn't miss it because it was, they were blind or the gorilla was subtle, right? Far from it, that is a gorilla standing right in the middle of the thing. But they were hyper-focused on something else. And so psychologists, they call this inattentional blindness or attention bias. And the idea is that you miss something obvious, not because it was not noticed. Not because it was not visible to the naked eye, but because your attention was focused somewhere else or it was looking for something else. And so it's this really interesting thing that our brains kind of discern and not discern. But the human idea is this, that what we focus on tends to shape what we notice or we don't notice.

Or we could say it this way, that what we expect, everybody say expect. What we expect tends to shape what we do or don't perceive. And this happens to us all the time in life. We can get locked in to an expectation or a thought or an assumption or a narrative in life and it's actually able to affect what we're able to perceive or not perceive. So let's have some fun here. How many of you have ever in life, you have convinced yourself that you have lost your phone? And so you have gone on a frantic search for your phone for two, for three, for five, for 10 minutes, only to discover it was either in your pocket or in your hand the entire time. Who would be willing to admit that? Yeah, right? Same thing with your keys. Where are my keys? I've lost my keys and you don't realize they're in your back pocket or for glasses or sunglasses wearers. Same thing, you realize they're on your head but because you've convinced yourself, I've lost this, I've got to go find them, we kind of miss. the obvious and the opposite is true as well. And so if you ever decide that you wanna start paying attention to a certain color or type of car, you start to notice more and more of those than you ever noticed before, why?

Because you're actually looking for it, you're focusing on it. And then the same thing is true even in dating relationships or in new opportunities that get presented to us. Sometimes we can want something to work so badly that we miss or completely ignore red flags, clear red flags that are right in front of us because we tend to see only what we want to see or what we're looking for. Is this making sense? And so the idea again, the principle again, what we expect tends to shape what we do or don't perceive. And I start this way this morning because the same thing happens to us spiritually as well. We can develop opinions and expectations about God and about how we think God should move, respond, or work in our lives or in a situation or when God should respond, or what the answers to what we want God to do or what breakthrough should look like, or how about this one, what God's timeline should be. Who in here has ever had an expectation they've imposed on God for when he should respond in a moment, right? And we can develop these opinions and expectations and they can be sometimes so rigid that we miss what God is actually doing in our lives, what he's actually doing in our families, in our church, in our world, and we don't miss it because it's not happening,

but we miss it because it doesn't line up with our expectations of what we think should be happening. And so this is the setup that I wanna give for the text that we're gonna go into today, Luke chapter 19, if you have your Bible with you. If not, it'll be on the screen and I'll just kind of give some context to set this up. So Luke chapter 19, this is the moment right before what we celebrate the week before Easter. This is the triumphal entry, Palm Sunday as Jesus is riding into Jerusalem for what is the last week of his life. And he rides on a donkey and people are kind of waving palm branches. Hosanna, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. It's this celebratory, exciting moment before Jesus is gonna die about a week later. And I love the setup to this story because Jesus tells his disciples, hey, I want you to go into the city and I want you to find, you're gonna see a donkey tied to a stall there. I want you to take it and bring it so that I can ride in on it. And if anyone stops you and asks you, why are you untying this? Just say the Lord needs it and we'll return it. Now, I don't know about you, but I think that is the greatest excuse for theft

that you could ever get. The Lord needs it. I'll give it back. No, just kidding. But so this is what happens. They go in, they get the donkey, they bring it back. And Jesus rides into Jerusalem and people are laying down palm branches. They're praising him. And then there's obviously other people in the city who are upset and angry with Jesus. And this is where we pick up the story today in Luke chapter 19, beginning in verse 41. Here's what Luke writes. He says, as Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it. Okay, immediately that makes me pause because this is a celebration moment. This is an honor moment. And yet Jesus weeps over the city as he approaches it. And he says this, if you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes. And so the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another because you did not recognize the time

of God's coming to you. Okay, this text has always made me pause. I just said it for a moment there that this is a celebratory honor moment. And yet as Jesus is approaching the city, Jesus is moved by something. He begins to weep, which immediately makes me go, what's going on? It's also interesting to note that this is one of only two times in all of the New Testament that we're told that Jesus weeps or wept. Who remembers the other time when Jesus wept? At Lazarus's tomb, yes, as he was standing at the graveside of his closest friend. And so what's going on here? Like, why is Jesus so bothered? What has him so disturbed and sad? And I think there's some general things that we could draw from this, right? Jesus weeps because he knows he's entering the last week of his life and that ultimately the people that he came to die for were gonna reject him. And that's what the cross was gonna be about. We could also draw the implication that Jesus is weeping because he knows what's coming for this people in this city. If we look at Jesus's words, he says, not one stone here is gonna be left on another. And they're gonna dash you to the ground.

And 40 years later, that's exactly what Rome did. Rome destroyed the temple and destroyed Jerusalem. But when we look at Jesus's words here, I think we can see that there's something deeper going on underneath the surface. And we can see what's really disturbing Jesus. And we see that Jesus weeps because the people of Israel and the people that he came to die for had completely missed what God was actively doing for them. for them through his life. And he weeps because he's grieving what it is that they're missing. You know, look at Jesus' words again. He says, if you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace, like you have been looking for peace, you have been looking for the Messiah, you have been waiting and waiting and waiting, but now it's hidden from you, because he says at the end, you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you. Or another translation says, you did not recognize the time of God's visitation or your moment of visitation. So Jesus is weeping at their blindness to him and to what God was actively doing in their lives. And what's the reason for that? And that's really the question that I have. How can a city and a people be so close to Jesus and still miss what God was actively doing in their lives?

And I guess the question is, what's the parallel for you and I today? Like, is the same possible for us? Can the same thing be true of us as well? So I wanna slow down and walk through this passage for the next couple of minutes here. And if you'll allow me to, I just wanna make some observations from this text as we kind of unpack this a little bit more. And here's the first observation I'll give. This will be on the screen here. It says, you can be in the right environment around the right things and still miss who Jesus is and what he's doing. So you can be in the right environment around the right things and still miss who Jesus is and what he's doing. Where do we get this? Well, when we look at this story, we see that these were not people who were far from the story of God or outside of the circle of faith, right? These were the Jewish people, and not only just the Jewish people, but they were the people of God in the holy city where the presence of God was dwelling and where they would come and make sacrifices. And these people, they were looking for the Messiah. They were waiting. They knew what the Old Testament had said.

They knew that God was one day gonna send a deliverer for them. And so Jesus, God's answer to their waiting for three years has been standing among them, teaching, healing, fulfilling Old Testament prophecy. He's been revealing who he is, yet they can't recognize Jesus for who he is or see what God is trying to do through his life. And I think to me, that's a really sobering and humbling kind of reality. Ben, here's what that is, is that you and I can also be really in close proximity to Jesus and to the right things and in the right environment, but still miss what God is actively trying to do in our lives. That proximity is not enough, right? Just because you're around church or you're around spiritual things or familiarity, like maybe you grew up in a family that followed Jesus and you're just kind of around that, or you're like, yeah, I'm just around spiritual things all the time. That doesn't automatically mean that we always are clued into what God is doing or we're able to discern what is going on. And I'm not just talking about missing Jesus, the person, but let's expand that to just the work of God in our lives, the activity of God in our lives and what he's trying to do. Sometimes we can actually be standing smack dab

in the will of God, but because it doesn't look the way that we want it to look, we assume that God's not in the moment. Is anyone kind of following me or tracking with me, right? Or sometimes we can be standing right in the middle of what is an answer to prayer, but because it looks different than how we expected it to look, we think that God is not in the moment. And I don't say this like in a bad or condemning way, like wake up, open your eyes, because I've been guilty of this too. I mean this really in a humbling, sobering kind of way where it's like we can fall victim to missing what God is trying to do in our lives and environment and proximity is not enough. In fact, even Jesus' disciples were not able to see exactly what it was that Jesus was trying to do. A month before Jesus goes to the cross, Jesus has to rebuke Peter because Peter's trying to stop the cross moment from happening, even though Jesus has spelled it out plain as day. And so how is it possible that we can be in the right environment, around the right things, close to Jesus, trying to follow Jesus and do our best, and yet still miss what God is trying to do? And you know, there's a lot of reasons that scripture gives for spiritual blindness,

but in this moment and in this text right here, one of the big ones that we see sitting right on the surface is this, that their expectations shaped what they were and were not able to see. And that's the second observation I wanna give you here today is that our expectations often blind us to what God is doing. Often blind us to what God is doing. Here's what we know from history, okay, that Jews expected their Messiah to come in a certain way, to look a certain way, to be a certain kind of savior and deliverer. Here's what they were looking for. The people of Israel had been conquered by nation, by nation, by nation, all throughout their history, and their idea of a Messiah was more of a Caesar. It was a ruler who was gonna come in, he was gonna be a warrior, he was finally gonna give them the territorial and the geographical peace that they had been waiting for, and finally all was going to be well. And so their expectations were not neutral, right? Far from it, and their expectations actually shaped the kind of king that they were looking. and the kind of king that they were able to see, but their expectations also prevented them from being able to see the kind of king

that they actually needed and the one that God was sending, right? And I think there's, Jesus says, you've been looking for peace, and I'm the answer to that peace. You've been waiting for generations and generations. You've been crying out for God to rescue you, and the peace that God is offering to you right now is standing right here in your midst and has been, and yet you're not able to see it because I don't look the way that you want me to look, or I'm not doing what you think it is that I should be doing. You're too attached to your idea of what I should look like. That's a sobering word, isn't it? And so what are the kinds of things that shape expectations? Because I think when we look in the story, we can see that the people of Israel, their expectations were shaped by past history, right? They'd been conquered for thousands of years, and so there's disappointment, there's frustration there, and that shaped their expectations of what they were wanting God to do in their lives. Their expectations were shaped by culture, right? This is just what everyone around them, they were all wanting the same things, and so it began to morph their view and their perspective of God. Their expectations were shaped by family, right?

This would have been passed down from generation to generation, hey, one day our Messiah's gonna come, and he's gonna do this for us, and he's gonna liberate us, and so you've got family history, cultural history, past history, and also just their own preferences of what they wanted. They were tired of being conquered. And I think there's a good word and a good warning in here for us, because often our expectations can be shaped by the same kinds of things, can't they? By past disappointment or hurt. Maybe God didn't respond in a way that you wanted to in a moment of your life, or there was a loss that you walked through, or there was something very, very painful, and it has begun to shape your view and your perspective of God because of maybe what he did or didn't do in a past moment of your life, or culture has begun to shape your expectation of who you think God is and how he moves and what he actually does and doesn't do, or maybe family, you grew up around it, and your family taught you certain things about God, and so because of that, that's your opinion and your perspective of God, or maybe it's just your own preferences that shape how you approach God and what you think he should or should not do in your life.

And then sometimes our expectations are just off. Sometimes I think we think this, that if it's God, it should be easy, right? Or if it's God, it should be painless. Or if it's God, it should be quick. Ugh, is God ever quick? No. Or if it's God, it should be linear, right? Like all the dominoes are just gonna fall in order, and I'm gonna move to this city, or I'm gonna take this step of faith, and as soon as I do it, there's gonna be breakthrough that begins to happen, and the open doors are gonna just kinda roll themselves out. But how many of you know God works through detours sometimes, and there's unexpected things that happen in life? And man, when we look at Scripture, we see that God never promised ease. God did not promise painless. He never promised quick or linear, and we've gotta be careful and mindful that we don't ever place our own things on God that are rooted out of our own preferences and what we wanna see out of life. Because here's the danger. When God moves in a different way than our expectations allow for, we can mistake his difference in methods for his absence, or we can mistake his difference in methods

for his indifference or for his abandonment, and we're crying out in moments of our life, like, God, where are you? Like, you're supposed to be doing this. Like, I need you right now, and God's like, I'm doing the thing right here. This is a story for the people of Israel. It's like they're crying out for peace, and God's like, your answer for peace is standing right here, and he has been for three years, but your expectations don't allow you to see it. And so the first is you can be in the right environment around the right things and still miss what God is doing. Number two, our expectation, the reason is because our expectations often blind us, and here's number three, and here's why expectations become such a problem for us is because God often works in ways that do not match our preferred script. Isn't that the truth? In fact, can I just preach for a moment about just the way that God works and his character and who he is? Can I tell you that God's timing is different? How many of you have ever experienced God operating on a different timeline than you would have liked him to operate? If I can just be personal and share some of my family's story for a little bit. Maybe you remember this if you were here six years ago,

but maybe you're newer here, and you're like, I don't even know who you are standing on stage. So six years ago, when my wife and I, we had our firstborn daughter, Emma, she was born with some significant health complications. We spent the first four months in the NICU, seven surgeries, five of them in Pittsburgh. The last two were out in Nebraska somewhat emergently. I mean, it was just two years from hell, quite honestly. And I remember before her second surgery, this was about six weeks. she was born, I went on a little prayer walk around the cemetery there at Children's Hospital, and my wife was just in the room, and we were just praying on some things leading up to the surgery, and I felt like God had given me three really specific words for my daughter. My wife had sensed a couple of things that were very confirming of that, and so we were feeling good. It was like, okay, great. The surgery's in two days. Like, God, you're so kind to give us these words of healing and purpose and what you want to bring out of this, and so we both went into Tuesday's surgery like, this is gonna be great. Like, God's got this. It's gonna be handled, and I'll tell you, it was everything the opposite of that. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. Back to square one progress, five more surgeries after that, and I really had a moment of time in my life where I was shaken to the core, where I was like, God, did I not hear you right? Like, I thought I knew how to hear you. Like, I'm a pastor. I think I can hear your voice. Like, was that just what I wanted for my daughter's life? Like, was I just kind of imposing some of those things? And so I had a lot of wrestling moments with God as our life just kind of seemed to unravel and fall apart, but here's what I love about God. His word says in Isaiah is that his word never returns to him void or empty, and the things that he speaks come to pass, and so it wasn't for two more years that I saw all of those things come to pass, and I'm so thankful to say my daughter has not stepped foot in a hospital for over four years. She eats completely normally. I mean, everything that was wrong, and that is just the faithfulness of God,

but I'll tell you what. My life could have gone in a very different direction if I had allowed my frustrations or my expectations in that moment to go, God, you didn't do what I wanted you to do in that moment, and so you know what? I'm done with you, and so his timing is very different. Can I also just say that God's methods are very different? I love what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. He says this, Jews demand signs, and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, and this is a stumbling block to Jews, and it doesn't make any sense. It's foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Jesus is the power of God, and he is the wisdom of God. Why? For the foolishness of God, it's wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Where the world expects signs, power, glory, strength, what does Jesus do to that? He sends, or what does God do? He sends a savior who would be crucified on a cross for the sins of the world, and it didn't make any sense to Jews. That's why they couldn't accept Jesus. They were like, this, this does not compute, and the Greek people of the time could not accept Jesus because that idea was foolishness, but how many of you are thankful that it is our crucified savior that we put our hope and our trust in, and for those who put their hope in Jesus's name, he is the wisdom of God, and he is the power of God, and so God's methods are different. Here's a practical example. When we ask God for patience, like God, would you help me grow in patience? I think we often expect this glorious deposit of untested patience just to kind of rest on us like a dove, right? It's like, wow, I'm more patient. Is that how it works? No. God gives us kids and people and co-workers and things like that that break us and stretch us to the limit, and that's how we learn patience, is the Holy Spirit teaches us what it means to actually be patient, and so the timing of God is different. The methods of God are different. How about this? God's priorities are often different than ours. The people of Israel, they simply thought they just needed territorial liberation and peace, and all would be good, but God had different priorities than that. God knew they needed more than that, and he was going to do more than that through Jesus, but God was not just interested in trying to save his own people. He was trying to save the world, and so here's what I hate saying this, or I hate realizing this about myself, because often our expectations are tied to our own selfish desires, and God is usually thinking much bigger than we are. In fact, I don't love this, but God's priorities are usually a little bit different than just the betterment or the ease of my own individual little life, and that's not a fun thing to realize, is it? Yeah, we can clap at that. I don't know if that's encouraging

to hear, but this is the God that we serve, and so his priorities are different. How about this? His wisdom and his perspective far supersedes our own. When God led the people of Israel out of Egypt very early in the Old Testament, he took them on a wild journey, and he knew that there were nations that they were going to have to go to war against, and he said, I'm going to go before you, and I'm going to do this, but look at what God says in Exodus 23 to the people of Israel. He says this. He says, I'm not going to drive them out in a single year. Basically, this is going to take time, because the land would become desolate, and the wild animals would be too numerous for you, and so what am I going to do? Little by little, I'm going to drive the people out before you until you as a people have increased enough to take the land. Translation, you're not ready yet, and sometimes would we be willing to admit that maybe God has a perspective? and foresight of things and a bigger perspective on our lives than we do. He knows things that are ahead that maybe we just don't. And would we be willing to admit that and say, God, yeah, I want this thing, but maybe I'm not ready for it yet. Maybe there's something you're aware of that I'm not. And then the last thing, I'll just say this. He doesn't work in ways that match our preferred script. Can I just say that God writes a better story than we ever could? I mean, man, if I were God, anybody like to play that game sometimes? Like, what would I do if I were God? If I were God, my story with my daughter would look a lot different. What it would have looked like was 20 weeks, the ultrasound, when we found out what was there, we would have prayed for healing, it would have gone away,

and my daughter would have been born totally healthy. That's not what happened. But can I tell you, now looking back, I would not trade those two years that we walked through for anything in the world because of who they shaped me to be, what they taught me about God and dependence on Him. And I would wager to say that some of the best testimonies and stories in this room right here are not always the things that God fixed quickly and painlessly, right? They are the seasons that we've had to labor through and stay faithful through. They are the moments where we've had to wait for God to come through in the last moment or where we learn to become dependent on God. And I'll say some of the best relationships in our lives are probably some of the people that we met as we were walking through the most difficult things in our lives because God writes a better story. This is just what He does. And if I could just prophesy this over our church for a minute here, none of us would have written the story of this church with what we've had to walk through the last couple of months. But can I just say, we serve a God who is able to bring beauty from ashes. And He is a God who writes a better story

than we could ever think of or dream of for ourself because this is just who He is and what He does because He's God and we're not. And He does things at His own pace and His own way with His own unique methods because He knows the end from the beginning and He knows all things. And so if this is the God that we surrender to and the God that we wanna live our lives for, then we would have to figure out what we do with our expectations because and with our hopes and with our dreams and the things that we wanna see because they will always fight to be in the way and cause dissonance or disruption if we don't figure out what to do with them. And I wanna clarify, I'm not talking in this message about like don't ever hope, don't ever dream, don't ever place trust in God for specific outcomes or belief for God to respond certain ways. I'm not saying that at all. But what I am saying is that we never want to grip our preferred outcomes so tightly that there's no room for God to be God and do it in the way that He wants to do it. Because here's the main idea of the message I wanna give you. When we cling too tightly to our expectations, we can miss what God is doing right in front of us. When we cling too tightly to our expectations,

we can miss what God is doing right in front of us. And so in the closing kind of moments here, I wanna answer this big question right here. How then do we live with expectations or with hopes or with dreams that are surrendered instead of blinding? How do we live in a way with expectations that are surrendered instead of blinding? There's three quick things I wanna give us. And the first is this, surrender your script. It's the first thing we gotta do. Again, I'm not saying don't hope, don't pray specifically, don't desire breakthrough, but don't grip your preferred outcomes so tightly that there's no room for God to be God. We can hold our expectations and our hopes and our dreams, we can hold them honestly, we can voice them to God, we can express those to God, but we wanna hold them loosely because we never want to let our hopes harden into demands. That's when things start to get out of alignment. And I think oftentimes we pray prayers like this, and you've maybe prayed this in this room 100 times, like, Lord, do what you want, right? And I think we pray that because we think, God and I have the same heart on this thing, right? Like, yeah, there's sickness, God wants healing, I want healing, do what you want. Or there's this situation or relationship that needs restored or redeemed, and so, yeah, God and I want the same things.

This is great, and so do what you want. But I think there is another layer to that that I'm often scared to pray, if I can be honest, and I think many of us are maybe scared to scratch that surface too. Not just, Lord, do what you want, but, Lord, do it however you want to do it. And God's however can show up in a lot of ways that we maybe don't love, like confusion, loss, detours, rejection, things that don't make sense. But can I also say that God's however can show up in some of the best, most fun, surprising, out-of-left-field things that, again, you could have never dreamed a situation resolving in the way that it did, but why? Because he writes a better story than we do. God's however looks a lot of different ways, and I think sometimes the script, God, that God asks us to surrender is our plan for our life, and there's that card on the seats that Pastor Joe mentioned earlier. I think for some of you in this room here today, God has been nudging you toward things that maybe don't fit the college, the career, the retirement, or the life plan that you've mapped out for yourself. But every time we talk about APLA, or every time we talk about our four years of faith goal to send pastors and church planners and missionaries,

or every time we talk about stepping out to do something more with your life, to live for more than just yourself, there is this holy curiosity, or there's just this nudge that you don't know what to do with. And you're like, man, I don't know. Why do I get bothered? Why are there butterflies every time I talk? Like, I don't know what to do with that. And maybe God is asking you to consider something different than the script that you had for your life. And maybe your step of faith today, if I can just say this as a pastor, is to initiate a conversation and explore, God, what might you be leading me to or drawing me towards in my life? And so if that's you, take that card and check one of those boxes and just have the conversation. That's what we're here to do. We wanna help you discern what God is doing. Number two, so we, one, surrender the script. Number two, base your expectation on God's word and his character rather than on outcomes. What am I talking about? I'm talking about allowing the word of God to shape our hopes, our dreams, and our expectations. Because there is a difference between, God, I expected you to do this in this situation, or I thought you were gonna respond in this way,

or I thought you were gonna come through in this moment, versus, God, this is not working out the way that I wanted it to. This is looking a lot different. I'm not even sure what to do with this, but I know what your word tells me about your character, and I know that I can trust you, and I know that you're able to work things for good, and I know that you finish the things that you start. One of those is you-based, and the other one of those is character or scripture-based. And can I just say, I'm not preaching to you out of something that's a good idea. I've had to live this and wrestle through this in my life, but I can say on the other side of it that the healthiest way to live life is to let scripture shape your view of God rather than circumstances or outcomes. Because expectations are often formed out of pain, out of things that are just a little bit skewed, out of urgency, out of fear, out of selfishness, and what we need for them to be is reformed by the word of God. And this is actually where trust starts. And so throw that next slide on the screen there. There's three scripture verses that just as I have journeyed through life the last couple of years, that I have chosen to filter everything in my life through, and I pray that this is helpful

to many of you in this room here. Isaiah 55, eight says this. God says, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts, and my ways are higher than your ways. And so this idea that God has a greater perspective and he thinks on a plane that I can't even begin to comprehend. But Romans 8, 28 says this, that God works all things together for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. And so God has a higher perspective. I may not understand it, but I know that he's a God who doesn't just only do good things. It doesn't say he only promises good, but he says he will work all things for good. But not just for good. Ephesians 3, 20 says he's a God who's able to do exceedingly and abundantly more than we could ever ask, think, dream, or imagine. And so these have grounded me now for whatever comes through life, I throw it through this filter. God, I may not understand it. I'm done trying to figure you out because I know that your thoughts are on a different plane than mine, but I'm also thankful that you are a God who promises to work all the things in my life

and bring beauty from ashes and not just bring good to where it's tolerable, but you do exceedingly and abundantly more than I could ever write up for myself or dream for myself. That is the God that we stand on. And man, when we live that way, that is how we hold our hopes and our dreams. And we hold them and we place them on something that is solid and unshakable. Can I get an amen in this room here this morning? And so we surrender the script, we base our expectations on his word and character. And number three, last thing here, we ask God to keep our eyes open and our heart soft to what he's actively doing. This is where it becomes a daily grind because naturally we move towards blindness and distortedness and our expectations and selfishness get in the way. And so the prayer to say, God, would you help me to stay soft and help me to discern what it is that you're doing in my life? Even if I can't make sense of it, I don't know what's happening and the unexpected detours of my life and confusion and disappointment and grief. Because one of the most dangerous things about rigid or unmet expectations is not just the pain or disappointment

from not having it met, but it's that they can harden us and they can lead us to bitterness and unforgiveness and resentment towards God. And I don't know about you, but I don't wanna live my life in that way. I don't wanna miss what God is up to in my world because I'm too frustrated or angry that he didn't respond in a way that I wanted him to respond. I want him to have room to do what he does and be God in the way that he is God. And I wanna live with a posture of life that is surrendered to him so that I can experience all the things that he wants to do in my life. Is anybody else there this morning that says, yeah, that's me too? And so let's do this. Let's bow for prayer. Today and before I go on we'll respond in a few different ways But I I want to give you an opportunity in this room if you're here today And you have never made the decision to surrender your life to Jesus and accept what he did on the cross for you I want to go back to what it says and what Jesus said in Luke 19 If only you had known on this day What would bring you peace and I just know from living life that oftentimes we try to find peace in a million different ways We try to find it in relationships. We try to find it in status We try to find it in success or financial security and maybe there's you in this room You have chased after peace every other Avenue in life But it has always left you feeling hollow and empty and I want to tell you this morning

That the only person who can offer you the peace that your soul is looking for is Standing here in the room and his name is Jesus Christ who went to the cross for you He died and took the penalty of your sins so that you could be restored to God and it's not just a Oh comfy Cozy feeling of peace what the Bible tells us is that because of our sin that separated us from God We were at war with him But Romans tells us that because of what Jesus did on the cross for your life and for mine that we can be at peace With God and that's what he stands here and offers you here today And so with every head bowed and every eye closed I'm just gonna ask you right now if you want to take a step towards God and you want to surrender your life to Jesus I'm gonna ask you right now to raise your hand. Is there anyone in this room who would say that's me. That's beautiful I see your hand. Is there anybody else who says yeah, that's me. I want to take a step towards Jesus That's beautiful. Keep your hand raised and can we do this? Can we just join in prayer as a room this morning? And here's what scripture tells us that if you believe in your heart and you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord You'll experience his salvation And so I want us all to pray this loud enough for our own ears to hear and can we pray now a prayer of? Surrender to Jesus and so all together. Can we say Jesus? Today, I take a step towards you I'm done running. I'm done looking for peace in all of the wrong places and Today, I surrender my life to you. I Ask you to forgive me. I Put my hope in the cross What you did is enough for me. And so today I Ask you to restore me to God Would you give me a new heart? Make me a new creation. I want to live my life for you I surrender my script. I Surrender my future and I place it into your hands in Jesus name Amen, amen. Let's let's celebrate for those who made that decision this morning That is a beautiful beautiful thing and you see Pastor Nick standing there in the back

If you made that decision, please stop and see him for a minute or two before you leave We would love to pray with you. We have a little area there We can put a Bible in your hand because this is not just a one-time moment This is a lifestyle a decision that you're making today. And so please stop and see him but for the rest of us Can we stand to our feet? We're gonna respond in two ways this morning And so I asked this team to sing this very specific song this morning We've sung it here before but the lyrics say my life is in your hands my future. My family is in your hands I surrender to your plan and I don't know where you find yourself here today but maybe you're here and you've just had a closed grip on your life and God is asking you if you can imagine like your fist is closed God is asking you to take a step of surrender and just begin to loosen the grip on your life so that he can begin To lead you into some of the amazing things that he has for your life Maybe you need to do some heart work with God as we sing and respond Maybe you're here and there's just some bitterness and pain from past disappointment that you need to process through with God and I believe as I was praying this weekend that God wants to begin to heal some hearts and release the grip of unforgiveness and bitterness even if it's towards God and Sometimes that is what it is But I believe God wants to heal some hearts in this moment and maybe some of you just need your perspective of God Expanded when this is the beautiful thing about worship as we take our eyes off of ourself and we look upward We recognize that he is a God who writes a better story and he's a God that has greater things and purposes in mind for Our lives than we could ever begin to think or to imagine and so can we just do that? Can we stretch our arms out in front of us and can we just begin to maybe you just need to say this out loud today God I surrender to you my life and my family. I surrender it to you My future is in your hands. And so Jess, can you lead us in this song as we sing this and let's just go to the Lord Hi sir My family's I don't need Sing my life ♪ My life, my life is in your hands ♪ ♪ My family's in your hands ♪ ♪ I don't need to understand ♪

♪ I surrender, seek my future ♪ ♪ My future's in your hands ♪ ♪ I lean into your plans ♪ ♪ I don't need to understand, I surrender all ♪ ♪ So let my life be worship to the king ♪ ♪ And my worship more than words I sing ♪ ♪ Oh, with every breath I breathe ♪ ♪ Lord, have your way in me ♪ ♪ So let my life be worship to the king ♪ ♪ Sing, let my life, my life is in your hands ♪ ♪ My life is in your hands, my family's in your hands ♪ ♪ I don't need to understand, I surrender, seek my life ♪ ♪ My life is in your hands, my family's in your hands ♪ ♪ My life is in your hands, my family's in your hands ♪ ♪ I surrender all, I surrender, seek my future ♪ ♪ My future's in your hands, I lean into your plans ♪ ♪ I don't need to understand, I surrender all ♪ Let's pray together, this is such a good song to sing when we need to just continually keep the grip on our lives loosen. And so God, you see us here this morning, and God, we do that, we surrender our lives, we surrender our families, our expectations, our hopes and our dreams, and we surrender them to you because God, we recognize who you are. We recognize that your ways are higher than our ways and your thoughts are higher than our thoughts. But God we thank you that you promised goodness to us, that you're a God who works all things for good, for those who love you,

who've been called according to your purpose. And God, we thank you that you are able to do exceedingly and abundantly more than all we could ever ask or imagine. And so God, in the places of our heart where we need to surrender, or the places of our heart where we need healed, I pray that you would do exceedingly and abundantly more than we even expect of you to do, because that's just who you are. And we love you, we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen, amen. All right, we're gonna do one more thing here as we respond, and I actually wanna invite any of our ministry school students still here in the room this morning. Yeah, and I'm gonna invite you guys to come down to the front. We can give it up for them as they come. I don't know how many there are. They've been here for some of the other services, but why don't you come down. Kalito, why don't you come down here, my guy? That suit, man, I love that suit. That's amazing, but come on down. And here's what I wanna do. We've just done this every service, but I think with what these guys have submitted themselves to, the process that they've endured a year,

I think it would be a beautiful thing if as a church, we just prayed blessing over them in this moment. And so if you're comfortable, would you just do that? Would you stretch your hands forth, and can we just begin to pray over just the four students here, but also the other 18 who went through the class this year, and let's pray over what God has for them in their future. And so Father, we thank you again for the things that have been set in motion this year. God, we know so many students came in questioning their calling, questioning purpose, and whether or not you could ever use them. They came in carrying all sorts of doubt, fear, but God, you've broken that off of them, and you've begun to ignite significant, significant things in their spirits. And so Father, we now just pray for the significant things that you have in store for their futures. God, we know that you have plans to send many of them to the mission field to plant churches and to be a part of ministries, but God, also, there are callings that you have to send people back to start businesses,

to be present in their workplaces. And Father, whatever the case is, I pray that every environment that they walk into would be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit as they walk forth with your boldness and with the courage and confidence that you give. Father, I pray that territory would be claimed for the kingdom of God in every place, that they step their feet, there would be healings that take place, there would be supernatural signs and wonders that accompany the preaching of the gospel. And so bless the things that you have for their future. We thank you for what you have begun, and we know your word says that you'll carry it to completion. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Here's what I wanna do, we're gonna dismiss, but if you're a prayer leader in the room, I would love to invite you down, or I'm gonna ask you students here just to kind of turn around and face the crowd. And if you feel like you need prayer for anything, whether it was related to what I was talking about, or just you're like, man, there's some stuff going on in my life or my family or friends,

these students here, many of them just got back from Mexico where they've seen people get healed, and they're full of faith for what God can do. And I believe the power of God wants to move even in this moment here. And so I just wanna make them available to you as we get ready to close the service. And if that's you, you had one of those cards and you filled it out, you can drop it off in the offering bucket there. But let me just pray blessing over you as we get ready to celebrate many people taking the step to get water baptized. And so Father, as we go out from here into our week, I pray that you would go before us, that you would order our steps like your word says, and that you would be present in our families, in our homes, in our workplaces. And God, that this week we would just see a glimpse of your goodness going before us. Every place we step our foot, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen, amen. All right, guys, prayer leaders are here. If you want prayer for anything, people are getting water baptized, and we will see you next week. Thanks for being here.