Expect Answers

Three Point Sermon

I read an eight word sermon this morning. Oh I expect the original was a bit longer but these eight words summed up the whole message AND, in my humble opinion, it clearly spelt out the main deficiency in our faith today. The eight words were : “Preach the Gospel – Heal the Sick – Expect Miracles”.

Preach the Gospel – A great start and the first part of the Great Commission in Mark 16:15-end. Preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, son of God, given for our sins, Crucified, dead and risen again – all so we could receive eternal life upon our own acceptance of Jesus as our Lord and Saviour.

Heal the Sick is another part of the Great Commission. It is one of the promises of signs and wonders following the preaching of the Gospel. Jesus didn’t say for us to pray asking God to heal, He told us to heal using His Name as our authority to do so.

Expect Miracles. This is our main stumbling block to healing and many other things. Expectancy is our block to receiving answers to our prayers. Why is it that we pray so much expecting so little? How many miracles do we need to see before we will expect our own miracles? Is our faith grown so dim that it no longer rises when we see others prayers answered. Are we now like the man, 38 years beside the Pool at Bethesda, waiting for someone else to do something in order for us to receive our miracle.

I have seen miracle after miracle of healing, provision, protection, and many others. Miracles which, when testified to in church, received rapturous applause yet seemed to achieve not one iota of faith among the hearers. “That’s for them but not for me. I will have to bear the thorn in my flesh a little longer.” Or “I don’t understand why God hasn’t answered my prayer but I do keep asking Him.”

Where is the expectancy in that? Where is the raised faith in that? Most people pay lip service only to their faith levels. They are so taken up with worry about themselves and their world that they forget that God made and cares about ALL the world, including them. Their prayers are so always for themselves and no-one else that they have become introverted and self-absorbed in their prayer life. ALL this and an expectancy level of zero.

I suppose the good thing is that we can only move upwards if we are starting at the bottom. Before you say, “Its all right for you,” let me tell you that this applies to me as well. I have to lift my own faith and expectancy levels too. There is a favourite saying I put out quite a lot – “pray for little, expect little – pray for much, expect much” It sums up where we should be in our prayer life. We should be praying much and expecting much. The truth is though that we pray a little and can only expect a little – if anything at all.

Personally, I love testimony as it really does excite me and encourage me. Next time you hear a testimony, try to raise your own faith and expectancy. Think positive – “God has done it for them and He can (and WILL) do it for me !!”

This is it, in a nutshell - Pray for little and you can only expect little, but pray for much and you can expect much. Lift your faith - think big and pray big. God is still bigger than we can think or even imagine.