The David Alliance

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Garth Heckman

Expectations

Craig Randall drives a garbage truck in Peabody, Massachusetts. in a garbage container one day, he noticed a Wendy's soft drink cup bearing a contest sticker. Having won a chicken sandwich the week before, Randall checked it, hoping for some french fries or a soft drink.

Instead, he peeled a sticker worth $200,000 toward the construction of a new home, reports U.S. News and World Report (11/6/95).

What we get out of life depends a lot on what we look for. Are we more likely to see each experience as trash or a potential treasure?

Maybe you’ve played this game before… Look around and find everything green. Now close your eyes and tell me what is blue.

**What are you looking for?

Puppy watching is a life of expectation… is he going to chew my chair, poop on my chair, pee on my chair, jump from my chair… every move he makes is a move of expectation on my part. 

Christmas is a time of EXPECTATION 

Children expecting… waiting… knowing there will be presents under the tree.

I used to get up Christmas morning at 4am! 

**have you lost that loving feeling… of expectation

FAITH, HOPE, EXPECTATION

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Faith… you have faith that in the future you will get married and have a family.

YOU GET MARRIED: You now hope to have a baby.

YOU GET PREGNANT: you are expecting. 

There are signs/evidence you are pregnant.

**Living in a state of signs… building expectation. 

Eager Anticipation of the Future

Earnest expectation--A single word in the Greek, and a very striking one. It means, literally, a straining forward with outstretched head, just as we might imagine the crowds outside a race-course straining over the ropes to catch a sight of the runners; an eager, intent expectation. The same word is used once again in the New Testament (Philippians 1:20).

God expects us to expect! 

Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! 12 Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Expectation creates participation…

Expectation creates participation in Gods plan

If I claim to trust God for provision, favor, and breakthrough, but refuse to be a vessel of those same things to others, then I am not operating in expectation—I am operating in self-interest.

If my faith stops at “God, do for me,” but never reaches “God, flow through me,” then I am not trusting God—I am trusting my own control. Real faith doesn’t just ask; it allows.

Option 4: Illustrative and Relational

The Golden Rule is not just about behavior—it’s about belief.

Faith that only receives but never releases isn’t faith at all—it’s spiritual entitlement. But when I allow God to use me for others, I demonstrate that I truly trust Him to take care of me.

Expectation without participation in Gods plan is not faith.

**Remember whatever you look for you see, you find- and you can enter into - expectation is looking through Gods spirit.

VERSE 12 “For This Is the Law and the Prophets”

This is massive.

Jesus is saying:

…can be summed up in this one relational principle.

In other words:

If you get this right, you are living out the heart of God’s law.

This aligns with Jesus’ later words:

“Love the Lord your God… and love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt. 22:37–40)