How High Is Your Expectancy Level

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Speaker: Mike Ogden Date: 4th Feb 2001 Passage: Psalm ??

The psalm we just heard is a song of praise and thanksgiving. And I believe it offers us an insight into some of the values of biblical worship. During the psalm, there are offerings of descriptive praise, praising God for who He is and what He does, and also of declarative praise, praising God for the answering of particular prayers.

The psalms were written over a period of a thousand years, from the time of Moses in the 15th C to the time of Ezra in the 5th C B.C. And although David is the main author associated with the composition of the psalms, there were many other authors from different time periods contributing to what would become the book of psalms. Amongst the other authors were people who David had placed in charge of worship in Jerusalem like Ethan, Heman and Asaph. Solomon followed in his father's footsteps by writing psalms as well as proverbs. The psalms became a part of the community's worship but at the same time they remained a vehicle for individual expression as well.

The psalms were written in the language of response. Each psalm records in powerful poetic language one individual's response to God. From a desperate cry to an ecstatic shout of joy, each psalmist responds to God in the middle of a particular situation.

But what has that to do with our worship today? What is there that's different about how they worshipped in Old and New Testament times to today?

With regard to the order in which we worship in church today, I would venture to say nothing much has changed.

About 150 years after the death of Jesus, a man called Justin Martyr wrote this earliest description of the church's worship in his first apology addressed to the then Emperor of Rome Antonius Pius (there were two apologies written by Martyr to the Emperor and the Senate of Rome around 150 AD in defence of Christians who were being persecuted for their faith and being put to death):

'On the day which is called Sunday, all who live in the cities or the countryside GATHER in one place. And the memoirs of the Apostles or the writings of the prophets are READ as long as there is time. Then when the reader has finished, the president, in a DISCOURSE (sermon), admonishes and invites the people to practice these examples of virtue. Then we all stand up together and OFFER PRAYERS. When we have finished our prayers, bread is presented and wine with water; the president offers up prayers according to his ability and the people assent by saying Amen. The elements are DISTRIBUTED and they are sent to the absent by the deacons. Those who are prosperous, if they wish, CONTRIBUTE (giving) what each one deems appropriate; and take care of the widows and orphans and those who are needy because of sickness or other cause, and the captives, and the strangers who sojourn among us.'

What I find striking in this early text is that it has all the components which are a part of our experience in worship in church today (read out block print). So we can see that all the elements of our worship experience today is more or less as it was 150 years after the death of our Lord. Not much difference there.

But, the one thing that I believe is very different from worship in the early church to ours today is expectancy.

About 150 years before Justin Martyr's apologies, I believe the greatest worship service ever, took place.

In Acts 4, Peter and John are arrested and taken before the elders and chief priests of the law. They're questioned and Peter and John, filled with the Holy Spirit argue their case, are told not to speak to anyone in Jesus' name and finally released. They return to the other believers and after they have reported what had taken place, there was a spontaneous outburst of praise, song and prayer.

And what was the outcome? Not just the people were shaken, not just was the furniture shaken, but the whole building was shaken Acts 4: 31 (read passage). They had such a high expectancy that God would act, that I believe it was no coincidence that it happened. You see, they knew what God was capable of. They'd been with Jesus just a short time before, seen with their own eyes His miracles, water into wine, curing people of leprosy, raising of people from the dead and of course His own resurrection. That's why they prayed the way they did (read prayer). 'O Sovereign Lord, Creator of heaven and earth'. (Those first few words are an important indication to us as to what these believers knew of God. They knew that God made the world and everything in it, that He is the all powerful Creator). 'You spoke long ago by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor King David, your servant, saying,

“Why did the nations rage? Why did the people waste their time with futile plans? The kings of the earth prepared for battle; the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against His Messiah”.

(These people believed that God wrote the Bible. As Calvin said once, one of the best ways to pray is just to quote God's word back to Him). 'That is what has happened here in this city! For Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate the governor, the Gentiles and the people of Israel were all united against Jesus, your Holy servant whom You anointed. In fact, everything they did occurred according to Your eternal will and plan. And now, O Lord, hear their threats and give your servants great boldness in their preaching. Send Your healing power; may miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of Your holy servant Jesus'.

If they had been like us today, they would probably have said to Peter 'Look here Pete, we've done what we can, gone as far as we can go, let's set up a committee to look into what our options are and then report back in a couple of months!' If they had stopped there and then, the book of Acts would never have been written past this point.

Another thing struck me about this early worship service. When Peter and John got back, it says that 'The believers were united as they lifted their voices in prayer'. When we pray, how often do we pray out loud together? I only ever hear one person praying at a time. Isn't God able to hear all our voices together? Or are we afraid to pray out loud all together? They expected that God would act, and I believe this allowed an enormous freedom in their worship, it was very expressive, not relying on one single person to lead, but rather they were united together in a common bond of worship, fed by their expectancy and I believe led by the Spirit.

I don't think I understand what it means to be expectant, and to rely on God alone. Over the past 7 years, I've been struggling with a lot of different issues in my life. I lost my company in the recession. Lost my income, had to rely on Sheilagh's for a long time. Had no prospect of work because I hadn't any relevant qualifications. Prayed a lot, but I don't think I prayed with any real expectancy that God was going to resolve the situation we were in. I maybe did at the beginning, but as the months and years went by, my expectancy of God doing anything about the situation I was in took a hammering.

I believe that having a low level of expectancy, leaves us less open to hearing what God is saying to us. I don't mean that He can't and won't use us, but I mean that we're not expecting Him to and therefore we're far less likely to hear Him when He does speak to us and therefore much less likely to act. As our son, David has certain expectancy levels of his mum and me. That we will make sure he's clothed and fed, for one thing. But also that we will love him, protect, talk to and support him, buy him Easter eggs at the right time and presents for birthdays and Christmas, always high on the expectancy list! But, if he doesn't see us doing any of these things, he'll eventually become more and more distant from us, and I believe, more importantly, not able to reach and live up to his potential. And I believe that it's the same for us with God.

Think about the disciples, when Jesus was crucified. They hadn't been able to see God's hand in it at all, all that had gone before counted for nothing now, and all they could do was hide and deny, and all they could say was how terrible a thing it was that this should happen to Jesus. Their expectancy levels must have dropped way out of sight. But after Jesus was raised from the dead, they were able to look back and see, and say that God was the mover of all that happened. Satan had pushed Judas Iscariot into betraying Jesus, faithless men led Pontius Pilate to wash his hands of Jesus and send Him to His death, but God was the prime mover in all of these events. And these worshippers were able now to see this, the greater plan of the Creator God, the All Powerful, Majestic God of the universe. And they now, having realised these things had a very high expectation of Him.

Their expectancy also had an urgency about it. Reading verse 29 (read). On occasion, we find ourselves in a position where we want/need God to act like now. Urgency always means Lord do it today, now, immediately. But these believers weren't asking God to remove the problems they now found themselves in, they were just asking God for boldness to go on and witness and asking God to do only that which He had done before.

God responded of course in a way that no one had ever seen the like of before. And it hasn't happened since, unless it's happened and we haven't heard about it, but I'm sure we would have. God sometimes likes to just do something the once. The parting of the Red Sea; Joshua saw the sun stand still for twenty four hours; but they've never been repeated. On that day of Pentecost, tongues of fire descended onto the disciples as they spoke out God's message with boldness in many different tongues and dialects. That happened. And if our expectancy levels are as high as those of the disciples of the early church, even though they were so frightened and in hiding, who knows what God will or can do through us?

When I look around our church meetings from the front here, it's great seeing new faces being added to the congregation. I am starting to have an expectance for revival here, an expectation for a revolution of Jesus to spread out from our church into Burley and beyond. I'm starting to have an expectation of the reaping of a harvest in the fields of Burley that now stands ripe and ready to be harvested.

I want to be like John was, up to his waist in the water, working with a generation of people out there looking for answers, an answer we have here in Jesus. I want to be up to my waist in the water, listening for God. Perhaps you haven't heard God speak to you for a while, if you're anything like me, I don't seem to have enough hours in the …no, I don't seem to make enough time to spend time with God, but is that expectancy level in you now starting to rise? Is there a fresh expectancy building in you that is urging you to wade out into the water as well?

Is the Holy Spirit calling you tonight? I believe that expectations demand action. Our response tonight, our action tonight to receive is simple. Come forward at the end for a fresh anointing from God. I believe that expectations without action generate an emptiness. As the worship team play, come forward and let the Holy Spirit fall on you afresh tonight.

Next: The Eye Of The Needle (4th March 2001)

By Mike Ogden