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Dufresne Ministries Podcast
Faith Works With Hope & Expectation | Morgan Dufresne | World Harvest Church | Murrieta, CA
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Hi, I'm Grant Dufresne and welcome to Dufresne Ministries podcast channel. We believe that as you listen to this message, your faith will be stirred and you will be encouraged in whatever you are believing God for today. Stay tuned at the end of this message to find out more information about our ministry.
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Turn with me, if you would, to Hebrews chapter 11. This morning I want us to talk about the subject, not faith, but the subject of hope. And without hope, faith is an empty action. Faith words are empty words. And I want you to know what it means to have Bible hope. And without hope, without faith. And we're going to talk about this this morning. Hope. Hope without faith is simply want. Simply want. That's the way the Holy Ghost has shown it to me. Hope without faith is just you wanting something. We all want things in life. But how many of you realize that your want, your wants in your life? I'm not talking about your needs, I'm talking about your wants. That your wants, when you find out what the word says about your wants, they'll turn into hope and can come to pass through faith. Your wants do not have to be left at once. And the enemy, what he's trying to do, he's not always going after your faith directly. He'll go after your hope. He brings discouragement, so you have no more hope. He brings frustration. Time passes to discourage you from continuing in hope. Now, the way I like to and we'll interchange these words this morning, the way I like to look at hope is expectation. So if you hear me use the word expectation, understand that I'm talking about Bible hope, that we must have expectation in order for our faith to have something to give substance to. So let's read here Hebrews chapter 11. How many of you know this is God talking to me? Say this is God. He's talking to me this morning. Now, faith. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for. Underline that word hoped for. Those two words. If you don't have those underlined. The amplified says. Now faith is the assurance, the confirmation, the title, deed of, of things we hope for. And then the second part of that verse is the evidence of things not seen. We always endeavor to minister every service here along the lines of faith in some way. We weave faith in because faith is what pleases God. It says that down in Hebrews 11:6. But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to him. God is not just please, please by your good deeds and your good works. He wants Faith attached to that. Many people can try to please God with religious acts, with good works, and those are fine, but those should be an outflow of our faith and our trust in God, not what we are basing our relationship with God on. My relationship with God is not based on my good deeds and my good works. My relationship with God is based off of my. My faith and my trust and my expectation in him. And because I have so much expectation and hope and faith flowing out of my heart unto God, all of my works and my actions, they line up accordingly. So we have to get things in proper order. God is looking for you to have first hope, have an expectation. He's not asking you to go through life looking at your past, looking at where you came from and thinking that's how it always has to be. That's a lack of hope. That's a lack of expectation. I expect and I have hope that by this time next year, my life will look different. So because I expect that, I add my faith and I find out what God's word says and I give such a substance to that hope. Because again, hope without faith is simply you wanting something. I want to get you get us this morning. We want to get past want. I want money. I want to be well. I want to have peace. I want to be sound in my mind. I want these things we all. Humanity wants many things. But what makes somebody with that as they were singing that that same spirit the word says, the scriptures say, the same spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he dwells in me. It dwells in me. When you receive Jesus, that same spirit comes to live on the inside of you. This is not a religion. This is Jesus Christ himself coming into your life, taking up residency in your heart and saying, you're no more alone. You're no more an orphan. You're no more by yourself. You're no more struggles, no more difficulties, no more how things used to be. The scriptures talk about, we are a new creature in Christ. In Christ. Christ is interested in making you somebody new on the inside. We're made new, but he's also interested in making what's on the outside new. He wants to make your mind new. He wants to make your. Your finances new. He wants to. He wants to give you a newness in your body. Do you think Christ Jesus, and this is, you know, this is the way we explain it to the kids. Do you think Jesus, who suffered so greatly on the cross, is okay with living and dwelling inside a body that's sick? He's not okay with that. But the Bible talks about we have to lay hold of these things with our faith and our trust in God. But you first have to have an expectation of healing. You first have to have an expectation that next year your finances are going to look different. If you want a house, you have to have an expectation that God has a new house for you. Well, I have a hard time believing that God would have something for me because of what I've been through, what I've done, where I've come from, and what you know, I don't understand certain things. He has a plan for you that is so far beyond what you could ever imagine or dream up for yourself. If he and I was telling the trailblazers this this week, if he would create mountains and we talked about who likes to go to the mountains and who likes to go to the beach, these things were created for our enjoyment. Do you think he would spin and use so much power creating so much beauty in this world just to leave you to come home to lack, come home to sickness? Oh, no. He's a good God. And we have to find out in His Word the way we have hope and expectation is we must get in His Word. And we're going to look at that this morning. So now faith is the assurance, the confirmation, the title, deed of the things we hope for. It's right. Those of you who have been hearing about faith and you understand some things about faith, you must not leave out hope, you must not leave out expectation. Because when you try to speak faith words and take faith actions, and you don't really have clear understanding of what you're expecting from God and what you're standing on. It'll sound empty. It'll just be actions. It will just be words. There'll be no power with it. So you have to understand what. What are we go home as a family, go home today and say, what are we expecting? I know this. I've shared my husband things I'm expecting by the end of the year that were prompted by God in my heart. And this is the best part. And we'll read some passages. He is going to author some things for you to hope for. So he's not even asking for you to figure out what to expect from him. He will make his own word come alive. He will point out things in your life and say, he, you can stop living with that. You don't have to wake up to that every morning. You don't have to go go to bed with that every night. You don't have to think like that anymore. And he'll stir in us through his word things to apply our faith to, things to be expectant about. Amen. That's part of it's a new day. You know what that, that phrase that the Spirit of God Pastor Nancy prophesied to us about. It's a new day. What is that? That's for us to put our expectation and our hope that every day when we wake up. I thank you, Father. It's a new day for me. I expect and I say with the word of God and you bring out what you're standing on with the scripture for whatever changes you want to see in your life. But you first have expectation. It's a new day. It's a new day. If you'll notice, every year when the Spirit of God ministers to us and prophesies to us at the beginning of the year, what was last year, year of divine acceleration. These are not to just stir faith, but they're to stir hope. They're really phrases to get you expectant, spiritual hope. Remember, hope without faith is just a want. So we're not wanting a new day, we're expecting a new day. Amen. Now, I want to give you some key points here so that we can lay a little bit of a foundation. I don't know if I'll get through this entire message this week, but I'll continue it the next time I preach. I believe Pastor Nancy, I think she's here next week. So love, this is the way I saw it in my spirit. We, and you've heard us make this reference before, you have parents, especially you have a vehicle. Let's just say your life is the vehicle and it's taking you. You're going places, right? We want to go places in life. We don't want to stay stagnant. We don't want to stay put. We don't want to be in a beat up old life, old car as we. You know, the analogy I'm going to use and you understand you have children in your life. Maybe you have grandchildren, maybe you have nieces and nephews. You have people in your life that are in your the vehicle of your life that are dependent on where you go and the way God showed it to me last night is to get places, we have to do things God's way. But number one, to get your life moving in the right direction. Love first is the key. Love is the key. That's what turns the whole thing on. If you don't walk in love, there is no power Flowing. No power can flow. How do I get power? Help me out here. What is it? From the battery, right to the engine. I don't know how that works. Thank you. Just say, yes, dear. That's his department. But you've got to get what happens when you go to turn that key and the battery is dead. Nothing comes on. Nothing works. If you don't have love, if you don't walk in love, nothing's going to turn on. Love is that key that gets that thing started. Not faith. Not faith. Faith works by love. You understand that? Faith works by love. That's what the scripture tells us. Faith works. And everything in your life works by love. Get the right key in. Your car doesn't move. By confession, folks, your car does not move. You don't go places just because you go to a certain church or just because you make certain religious actions. You're moving, but it may be in the wrong direction. You may be in neutral. Nothing's on. And you think you're moving, and really you're rolling backwards down that hill, you know, and you sense movement, but it's not in the right direction. And so just don't. Don't think just because you've made movement or you've made progress in the natural that you're really moving in the right direction. You may just be sensing movement, but it's not going the direction God has authored. Get that key of love in. Turn it on every area. On the job, with your family, with your spouse, with people that you work with, people that you come in contact with. You know, people that you meet every day that you're endeavoring. You know what? I'm going to show the love of God. I'm going to put my flesh down. I'm going to prefer others above myself. You know, love. This is a. This is a whole, you know, series in and of itself. So we don't have time to camp here, but I want you to understand that in order for power to flow in your life and for you to even get to hope, you've got to have love. Number two, expectation is the fuel that keeps everything going. So now you can have power, you can have a charged battery, but if you don't have any gas, you're not going anywhere. You can step on. Listen, you can step on the pedal, which is number three, the pedal of faith. But without expectation, you don't go anywhere. I need expectation. I need to know what does the word of God say about my life? I need to know what can I expect God to do? What Am I believing for hope is not what I'm wanting. What do I. What am I believing for? What do I want God to do for me? Not what do I want? What do I want God to do for me? Well, you can't demand God. Wait a second. Scripture talks about, ask and you shall receive. Knock, keep knocking. You know, he is wanting us to come to him. He is not expecting his children to live as orphans or as abandoned children. He's not asking his family to look frazzled, you know, beaten down. He's going to show up and be a good father. He wants to. But see, he can't just do anything for you in your life unless we ask him. Pray. It talks about there in Mark 11. You know, whatever you ask when you pray, believe that you receive. You still have to ask some things. But see, expectation, it gives you. It causes you to search for what can I ask? How can I ask this? What does the scripture say about my situation that I need to be asking? So, number one, love is the key that gets the vehicle of your life going. Number two, expectation is the fuel that's running through that engine. Number three, the pedal of faith. Once you step on it. Remember, faith is the substance for things hoped for. You can have gas, you can turn on the car, but if you don't step on that pedal, you're going nowhere. There's a, you know, there's a lot. Lots of times I've been there myself. I'm guilty of it. I've got expectation, I've got love, and I'm making no effort to press on that. That pedal of faith. I'm just still in the expectation and hoping God's going to do something. How many? We've all been there. We've all been there. We really are hoping this is going to happen. We really want this to happen, but there's no substance there. Until one day we saw in the scripture, God stirred in us. We were in a service, and something on the inside of us went off. And we said, yes, that's the action I need to make. That's what I need to be speaking over my life. And we step on that pedal and all of our expectation, the fuel in our life, what's been sitting there stagnant, suddenly we start to make movement. We begin to go somewhere. Now, unless you're planning on driving from your driveway to your neighbor's driveway, typically it takes time to go somewhere, right? If you live in a neighborhood, you've got to make some turns, you've got to follow some signs. How Many of you know the spirit of God. The Holy Ghost is going to give us directions. He's going to be our gps. He's going to lead us and guide us. So everybody now most people have on their phone or in their car some sort of GPS system. That's the Holy Ghost in your life. He's not wanting you to go off in a ditch. Siri, that I've known of, she's never failed me yet. She hasn't. And if Siri can't fail, the Holy Ghost is definitely not going to lead you off into a ditch or out in some field. He knows exactly where you need to go, where God wants you to go. He's going to lead you in line with the perfect plan. And God is the author of the greatest book man has ever read. And he's authoring in your life another great plan. You understand the scriptures didn't stop with here. This is a living book. The scriptures are meant to stay alive in you in the generation to generation we're supposed to continue when we get to heaven. We will see that the scriptures didn't stop with this book. We are the scripture alive today. We're meant to be the scripture alive today. And so number one, love is the key. Number two, expectations, fuel. Faith is the pedal of acceleration and patience. Because like I said, unless you're going from one driveway to another, you know, one garage door bay to another, it's going to take some time, some usually to get places. So the steering wheel is patience. Faith works through patience. We've got to have patience that when the Spirit of God says turn, you turn that steering wheel. Well, are we there yet? Are we there? No, just make the turn you got to make. Be patient. If you take a turn too fast, right, and you cut that thing too hard, you're going to roll over in the ditch. Be patient about the things that God has for you. Be patient. Just grab on to that steering wheel of patience and say, father, I trust you. I got my foot on the gas. I've got expectation as my fuel. And I know that you're going to bring to pass the things that I hope for, the things that I desire. And it's all powered by love. Amen. So we want to see, I want us to look at one example that is in Genesis chapter 16. Let's go there real quick. Genesis chapter 16. How many of you know the story of Abraham? When Abraham, God promised Abraham a son and he was in his old age and he in the natural. It was an impossibility. How many of you today say, I'm facing things that seem like an impossibility, or I've got expectation and I've applied my faith to something that seems impossible. God is the God of the impossible. And we see all through the scriptures. That's what we learned about really this week in VBS. And it's impossible for Gideon's 300 to take on the Midianites. You know, Deborah and Barak going up against the chariots, the iron chariots. 9. What is it? 900 iron chariots. It seemed impossible. David versus Goliath, a young boy versus a grown giant who was not just ready to physically assault them, but was verbally assaulting the people of God. How many of you have heard of words of opposition in your life? And you go, you wake up with him and the devil's telling you how it's not going to happen, how it's not going to work, how you're a fool for believing for that. You're a fool for expecting that. But see, we've learned this week all about these seemingly impossible situations and what God did, that it was not a man. It was just the faith of a man and a woman. All God is asking for is your faith. He's not asking you to be the hero. He's not asking you. These men and women were heroes through God. Heroes of faith. That's what we call them, the heroes of faith. Don't be the hero in your own life. Don't try to be the hero in your own life. You know, the spirit of God said to me this week, I was meditating on my God shall supply all my needs according to his riches. And it came up in my spirit. If I'm looking at my finances, I'm not looking at his riches. Did you know that your income is not his riches? So you don't have to be supplied from that. I am free from being supplied from my income. I'm freed from being supplied. Well, how does that work? That I have expectation that what God said, my God shall supply according to his riches. His riches are limitless. He can get money opportunities, business opportunities to you that you could have never obtained for yourself. You got to look at his riches. I'm free from. From looking at my. Because I tell you what, when I look at my income and I look at what I need, those aren't the riches. I'm free from looking at my. What? What? So. So don't ever look at every month, oh, well, how are we going to afford this? How are we going to afford that? Now you're not looking at his riches anymore. I've got riches in Christ Jesus. I've got to keep my attention, my expectation, my. My hope that tomorrow this could change like that. This could change. If you keep that expectation every day when you wake up, you won't be able to help but get out of bed excited and hungry for what the word of God says, because you're ready to add substance to that, that hope you get excited. I've got to get substance to this. I got to. I got to be able to speak. It's not empty words anymore. There are words based off of an expectation. But if you get up every day and you take too much time, you have. Pastor Nancy has been teaching on this, and you let too much time pass before you look at what God has said about your situation, then what happens is God's words and God's riches and the healing he provided is going to start becoming distant. You know what happens? That car starts slowing down. You've taken your foot off that accelerator. You're not necessarily going in the wrong direction, but you're not making the same speed. We must stay full of the Word. When we stay full of the Word, we'll be full of expectation, full of hope. That's why I said expectation. And hope is the fuel that keeps everything moving. The devil is looking to first steal your expectation. He doesn't even have to touch faith if you have no hope for anything. Now here in Hebrew or Genesis, chapter 16. Now, Sarah, Abram's wife, bear him no children. And she had a handmaiden, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarah said unto Abram, behold, now the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. I pray thee, go into in unto my maid that it may be that I may. That I may obtain children by her. And Abram. Hearken to the voice of Sarai. This was not God's plan. She had taken her foot off the gas, threw that thing in neutral, and started rolling backwards. Why? Because she couldn't hang on. She wasn't hanging on to patience, neither one of them. God promised it. And the expectation. Don't. If I could say this, don't let desire for something deter you. Let it strengthen you. Oftentimes our desire for something is so great, it ends up deterring us. See, it ended up deterring her. Instead of letting that desire and that hope fuel her to rehearse and add faith to that and hang on to the promise, she let her desire deter her. Don't let your desire deter you and get you off of what God has said, is yours. My husband and I would six years, we believe, for a home. And I tell you what, there were opportunities that the desire was so great to have a home, to buy a home, that we would get deterred and say, well, what about. And you'd start weighing an option that wasn't God. Why that desire was so strong. And really there was an expectation there that we knew God was going to meet us, that he had a place for us. Does that make sense? But thank God, we weren't deterred. We stayed steady, we stayed patient till the right plan came along to the right home came along. And what that did was that steadied us for the challenges that would come, the faith challenges that would come with the home that, that we knew how to stay steady, how to keep our foot on the gas of faith, how to stay expectant. That's not to say that there's been times that our expectation. I've been there, I know what that's like to wake up and you really seems like you have no hope. This is a phrase goes, all hope is lost. Nothing is lost with God. God didn't lose anything. You may feel like you've lost hope, but we don't have to live by feelings. You can get in the Word and correct those feelings and instantly have expectation. Within moments, expectation can come back to you. This is why we come to church every Sunday and during midweek we're getting our expectations stirred for what God has for us. And amen. So Ishmael, I want to give you this. Ishmael is an example. Ishmael was not God's plan. And Ishmael has brought hardship even in the world today. The seed of Ishmael, we are the seed of Abraham through Isaac. The seed of Ishmael is the. The problems in the Middle East. Ishmael is the father of, you know, the. The Muslim, the terrorist, that, that. But say that pathway, because Ishmael was not God's plan. Ishmael was their plan. You don't have to do it yourself. You do not have to make God's plan come to pass in your own life. God will bring it to pass. So Ishmael, listen, is an example of hope without faith. They hoped for a child, but they had no faith. There's no substance of faith. They let go with their faith. Hope with, like I said, hope then without faith is simply a want. I'm sure they would. How many of you have done that? We've gone back and forth. We really, really want something. And then we see what the word of God says. And so then we add faith to it, but then we lose our expectation and we kind of go on this up and down, you know, roller coaster. I know that's not just me. Why? Because we still have a mind. We still have a flesh. We still have to wake up every day and face the natural circumstances. It doesn't mean you're failing if that happens, don't get under condemnation. If you're sitting here today and you realize I've lost expectation on some things or I haven't applied as much faith, I haven't been stepping on that pedal of faith the way I should. Don't sit here and, and get under condemnation and let the your own mind and the devil beat you up about what you coulda, shoulda, would've. That's the wonderful thing about faith, the wonderful thing about God. His mercies are new every morning. Today is a new morning. You're sitting here, it's still morning. So as you're seeing things say, father, I thank you. It's still morning. I thank you for my new mercy. Today I make that change. I can make that adjustment. Amen. Faith is not deterred by desire, but it's strengthened by it. That's what happened with a woman with the issue of blood. How many of you remember the woman with issue blood? We remember that. Let's go. Mark, chapter five. I want to look at this. Because this woman, her, I would say her and blind Bartimaeus are my favorite examples of those. Mark, chapter five are my favorite examples of the two that had great expectation. So great expectation. They were either shouting over everybody else or pushing everybody else out of the way. You know, they weren't, they weren't being rude, they weren't stepping on people, you understand? No, they were where. Listen, the one with issue of blood was where society had told her, you can't be under her condition. She was not supposed to be in public and blind Bartimaeus was labeled a beggar. That's why when he stood up, his expectation threw off that beggar's coat. Expectation did not just faith, expectation, faith was calling out expectation got rid of the coat. He expected something. Today it's going to be different. Today it's going to be different. If you expect your finances to be different, what are you saying about today? What are you saying about it today? Because if you're hoping, just hoping, with no faith, everything's always tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. But see, expectation will begin to make changes today, putting things in place today. Now look Here, Mark, chapter 5 Mark chapter 5 and verse 25. A certain woman which had an issue of blood 12 years, had suffered many things of many physicians and had spent all that she had. What is that expectation? She kept spending money. I want to be. I want to be well. I want to be better. I want it. She never gave up on that. Was she doing that the natural way? Yes. But you know what? God will meet those who want something different in their life. If you've never. If you don't fully understand faith, but you say, I know. I want something different in my life. God will meet you. God will meet you. Hope is really Bible. Hope is really another word for hunger. You're hungry, I'm hungry. I want something more. I want more of God. I'm expecting more of God. Hungry people are always hopeful and expectant people. Amen. Now look here. So we see here, she's expectant. Something's going to be different. I don't care how I'm going to get it. But one day she heard about Jesus and all the money that she had spent, all the resources. My guess is now at this point, she's at the end, she has nothing left. Talks about this was her last option. If you're sitting here today and you don't have any other options, good news. You're hearing of the greatest option. And those of you who know faith and know how to believe God, don't you ever let God be your last option. You know better. He will not, he should not be our last option. And he won't be satisfied if he's the last option in your life. God wants to be the first option, the first one that you turn to, the first shoulder that you go to, the first one that you cry to, the first one that you call out to, the first one that you rejoice to. God wants to be first. Says when she had heard of Jesus, came well, verse 26, and had suffered many things and many physicians and had spent all that she had was nothing better, but rather she had grown worse. I love that she grew worse. But her expectation never waned. Your financial situation could look like it's getting worse. But don't you lose your expectation. You keep that fueled with the word of God, fueled with what God has said, fueled with what you know in your spirit to be true. Because what gets worse affects the mind. But what God said is the truth will come out of your spirit. Don't look to your mind to confirm any kind of hope and expectation. It will always bring you back down to reality. Man's reality. Not God's reality, man's reality. And look at this. For she said, now this is faith. Expectation has got her moving. Expectation has taken her to the doctors. Expectation got her out of the house. And her faith has been saying, if I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up. And she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague. And Jesus immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press and said, who touched my clothes? It said the multitudes were thronging him, everybody was touching him. But the person with expectation and the substance of faith was the one who really had grabbed hold of the power that was on the inside of him. It says virtue that meant power went out of him. He felt that anointing, he felt that power go out of him. And, and I believe he stopped and turned, says Jesus, immediately, knowing himself that virtue of gone on, turned about in the press and said, who touched my clothes? And his disciples said unto him, thou seest the multitude thronging me and say, so who touched me? And he Isn't that similar response to what they told blind Bartimaeus? Sit down. Be quiet, be quiet. And what he do it said, he shouted all the more, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. I've already taken my coat off, Jesus. I'm not a beggar anymore. I've decided my expectation is not how many alms can I get sitting here? My expectation is now on you healing me and me getting to follow you and no longer being labeled blind beggar Bartimaeus. Amen. What are you labeling yourself? What are you thinking of yourself as? What are you calling yourself? What? What are you talking to yourself about? What conversations are you having in your own thought life? And his disciples said to me, see us out. So here they are, because it was the disciples and the people around him said, be quiet by my Be quiet. And here they are. Come on, Jesus, all these people are touching you. You know, I don't think anything really different has gone on. Said he looked around roundabout to see her that had done this thing. But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him and told him all the truth. And he said unto her, daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. Go in peace and be whole of thy plague. Well, we know that faith is the substance of things hoped for. So we know that at some point her expectation turned from the doctors to Jesus because her wanting to be healed was so great it Put an expectation on her to get out of that house. Amen. Faith is not. I said this. Faith is not deterred by desire. Notice she was not deterred by. You can't be out here. You're not supposed to be here. What if you get caught? Faith is not detour detoured by her desire. She could have just kept going to doctors. She could have kept just taking a natural route, and she didn't. She expected to get better because of Jesus. When you live by the substance of faith, and you might want to write this down, when you live by the substance of faith, you won't be made a victim of circumstance. When you live by the substance of faith, you won't be made a victim of circumstance. What substance are you living by? Something I love. Pastor Bishop David Oyedepo said, you are only qualified to enjoy what you expect. What you don't expect, you are not qualified to experience. You are only qualified to enjoy what you expect. What you don't expect, you are not qualified to experience. Want and expectation. Want stirs man's action alone. Expectation invokes God's action. I'll say that again. Want an expectation. Two different things. Want stirs man's action alone and expectation invokes God's action with man's action. True expectation has the substance of faith that's received from the word. So when I have true biblical expectation, what I'm doing is I'm invoking God's action. Want. Guess what, ladies? We say, I want a new dress. What do we do? We get up and we go buy a new dress. That's simply, I want a new dress. I take my own action. I want ice cream. You get up, you go to the freezer, you get ice cream. That's your action. Many times we're wanting to be healed. We are wanting to have different financial situation. We're wanting to have a new home. We're wanting to have things change in our family. We want that. But all that's ever going to do is invoke your action. Once you find out in the scripture and you start getting expectation according to what the word of God says, this is when faith shows up and you start invoking God's action on the scene. I want God's action, not just mine. Amen. Hope. And I'll say this one more time, hope without faith is simply want. Faith comes from God's word. So hope without faith is a natural desire with no power. Faith. I'm going to say faith comes from God's word. So hope without faith is a natural desire with no power. Did you know hope and expectation will lead you into oppressive faith? It'll lead you into a place that puts a demand on God. Now we'll close with this. Children of Israel have been slaves so long, they had no expectation for anything other than struggle. You see that it wasn't just a lack of faith. We talk about their lack of faith. They had been. They had been slaves for so long, they did not have expectation for anything other than difficulty and struggle. Why do you think when they began to struggle in the wilderness? Because of themselves, not because of God. They said, well, why don't we just go back to Egypt? Wouldn't it be better? Why? Because all they ever expected was difficulty. All they ever expected was hardship. Parents, you need to teach your children not to be victims. Oh, poor you. Oh, you're going through that, don't you, baby? Your kids. I'm talking about when they're really struggling with something. I'm not talking about not being compassionate, but I'm talking about when they're really struggling with something, the devil's really working on their mind or they've got symptoms in their body. Don't baby them, don't, you know, pet them. Because that's what the children of Israel were struggling with.
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They just enjoyed being slaves so much because all they expected was, at least our needs are met here. At least somebody had given us a home to live in. You know, we're out here in the wilderness and we don't know where we're going to go. They had no expectation for the promised land. They had no expectation for anything more than what they had already seen. Don't let your kids be okay with what they're dealing with. Stir up the word of God. Stir up hope inside of them. Honey, it doesn't have to be that way. Honey, it doesn't have to. Again, if you don't do that, they're gonna live victims. They're gonna live victims to what people say, to what happens to them. We live in a natural world. And one thing I've been able to teach my kids is, hey, buddy, that's life. You know what? It's not always perfect. And it doesn't matter what your last name is. It doesn't matter what family you're in. Such is life. You're nobody's victim. And you're going to have to learn the word of God for yourself. You're going to have to know what God says about you. He loves you and he wants more for you. But you have to get that for yourself. So the children of Israel had become slaves, had been slaves so long, and then when they came out of being slaves, they had no expectation. They did not know how to stir up in themselves and expect expectation for more of God. So they lived in the. In the wilderness for 45 years until the next generation. The difference between the two of them is they had expectation to go into the promised land. They said, wait, God said, that's ours? Did God say, that's ours? Did God really say, that's ours? Then what are we doing here? What am I doing out here living in this tent? What am I doing struggling when God says, that's ours? Oh, but then the parents say, but there's giants there. And they came back. Yeah, but too much had been. Too much expectation had been in their heart. When you've got so much, so much expectation of what God will do, it doesn't matter what anybody else says. You're able to push man's words out of the way. You're able to push the doctor's words out of the way. You're able to push what the bank says. You're able to push away what your finances say out of the way and say, I'm going for the promise. I'm getting up and I'm pushing that pedal of faith and I'm going for the promise. They almost hope for struggle because they asked to go back for it, right? Their hope was in. I'll just struggle because at least we're familiar with that. Don't ever lose your. Your spiritual expectation where all you expect now is difficulty. Don't let yourself get so accustomed to difficulty that you don't hope and expect change. When a championship team comes to play a team, let's say you've got a championship team and you got a team that's their records, what, 0 and 10, 0 and 20 could say a majorly losing team. That championship team is going to show up with a little bit different expectation. Right? But just because they show up with that, it doesn't mean they don't have to play. Everybody may kind of already know what the outcome is going to be, but they still have to play the game. You have expectation you can see, and you can stern you. I want more. I have a desire to want more, and now I see that God wants more for me. But if you don't add faith to it, see, that's like the team not even going out there. You still don't get a win just because everybody assumes you're going to win. Just because victory is inside of you and Jesus already won, you're going to have to get out there with your faith and play the game. You still have to step out and put action and put the right words and do something and act like the word of God is true. You win, the Scripture says, by fighting the fight of faith. You don't win by saying, well, I have victory on the inside of me, and taking a very casual approach to the Word. That's why I said, it's like a vehicle. You got to go somewhere. We're going to get somewhere with our life, with our faith. So we fight the fight of the scripture, fight the good fight of faith in. You still have to fight. But it's not a natural fight, it's a spiritual. It's not you trying to make it happen. It's God making it. It's God enforcing the victory that he already provided for you. But it takes our expectation, our hope and our faith. Amen. Go with me in the last scripture is Psalms. Well, go to Romans 15. Since we're already in the New Testament. Go to Romans 15. We'll close with this. Romans, chapter 15. I'm hoping this is making some things this morning a little bit easier to understand our part. And I'll just read this out of Psalms 62, verse 5. And David said, my soul, wait only upon God and silently submit to him, for my hope and expectation are from him. That's what I'm saying. When God will give you what to expect. David's saying, God gives me my hope and my expectation. He's not even asking you. He's going to put in you what to believe. For he'll put that. He'll put that in front of you what to expect. And then he says down in verse 6, when I remember in Psalm 63, verse 6, when I remember you upon my bed and meditate on you in the night watches. That's how he stirs up his hope. David would meditate on God when he'd go to bed. When he'd get up, he was always meditating. That's all Psalms is, is a meditation and songs of things that David was rehearsing to himself that God did. He stirred up his own expectation. Romans 15 in verse 13, May the God of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing. The King James says, now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Amplified says, that by power of the Holy Spirit, you May abound and be overflowing, bubbling over with hope. Now we know what we should be bubbling over with. Expectation. Expectation. And it says, fill you with joy and peace in believing. This is what God said to me this morning. You know, our children, they set their expectation based off what we say. So we should, with God, set your expectation based off what he said about you. Not what somebody else, not what your circumstance says. Base your expectation on what Jesus said, said what Jesus did, what the word of God says. Because children do the same thing. They sit there. If I say we're going to Target tomorrow, they love going to target. They set their expectation based off of that. What do they do? They go to bed and they wake up with that expectation. If you'll get in the word, you'll go to bed and you'll wake up with the expectation of what God said. And it's much easier to shut down what expectations the enemy's trying to give you. His expectations are always beneath defeat, lower than or to settle for less than. Hope is God given and God driven. Your expectation should be God given and God driven. But in romans here, chapter 15 and verse 13, that he may fill you with all joy and peace in believing. Joy. You know that you're in joy when your expectation is stirred. And you know you're in peace when your faith is engaged. Joy comes from expectation. Peace comes from resting in what God has done in your faith, in Him. That's how those two joy and peace. Joy comes from the excitement. You wake up every day, it's a new day. I expect a new day. I expect that things. By the end of this year, things will be different for me. I'm expecting something greater within me, something greater around me. Something bigger is happening than what I could ever imagine, think or ask for. I thank you, Father. And you begin to speak the Word over your life. Speak what God has said. Speak what Jesus has done. Then joy. Right? You cannot help but get happy when you talk about. Why do you think we have psalms? Because David would get happy when he would rehearse all the times God had come through for him, all the things God had done for him. And you stay in peace because you know by faith that the mountain is moved. By faith I am healed by faith. Everything is by faith, according to. Remember, according to your faith, Jesus would turn and say to him, according to your faith, you have been made whole. You're in peace. Because you know your faith in God is. The power is flowing. You've got your foot on that, on that, that pedal. And Power is flowing. You're going somewhere. So joy and peace in believing. Joy from expectation and peace from knowing God's doing the work. God is doing the work. His promises are mine and he's doing the work. Amen. Amen. Why I hope that was be able to be a help to us this morning, all of us that I've been stirring, probably stirring on this, just this sermon alone. For the past two months. These, these things have been stirring inside of me. I'm getting learning what it means to be expectant because there's been times I've been there where you know what to believe, you even know how to believe, you even know what to believe for. But it seems like you get up in the morning and there's no expectation. Hope seems lost. You, you don't have that joy in the believing. You're believing, but there's no joy to it. How many of you say, I've been there, I'm believing, but there is absolutely no joy to this whatsoever. Go back to your expectation. Go back to what am I expecting, what am I really excited about? And like, like our children, they base their expectation on our words. It's got to be based on God's God driven God, God's provision, God authored. He is going to help you to stir up inside of you expectation for him. Expectation is the fuel. You can't push that faith gas pedal if you got no expectation. And if you wake up down without joy, without knowing what God's word said, it's going to be hard to go anywhere. Amen.
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