Sheryl Brady - Find the Courage to Raise Your Expectations

On your way down, just hit somebody and tell them your expectations have to rise. In our text, we are looking into the life of a man whom the Bible calls lame. This particular lame man was lame from his mother’s womb, so lameness is all that he has ever known. Had he ever walked for a day, a week, or a month in his life, he might have been more inclined to reach for a miracle. But anytime you have been lame all your life, anytime you have been insecure all your life, anytime you have been broken, weak, and challenged all your life, anytime you have been angry, bitter, hateful, and hostile, anytime you have been ungrateful all your life, it is very normal for that type of behavior to become normal for you. He was in a bad situation, and he had been in that bad situation his entire life. It was so dire that he didn’t have any hope for change, so he made that his normal way of life. His lameness was not just a condition that he had; it became a condition that had him. He stopped looking for change, he stopped listening for change, he stopped hoping, dreaming, and expecting a change to take place in his life; he settled for it and built a routine around his lameness. I’m not going to ask you to lift your hands if you know anyone who has built a routine around their lameness, but the truth is that people do it all the time. He didn’t think he could change it, so when you think you can’t change it, what do you do? You build a routine around it. A routine is what you construct around the thing you think you don’t have the power to change. The Bible says that daily, daily, every day, there were some people who cared about this man. They cared enough to lay him at the gate called Beautiful every single day. He waited for someone to come and pick him up, to transport him and lay him in a particular spot where devout, compassionate, caring people gathered to pray. This was the prime place for him to be, and this has now become his routine, his norm. This was customary for him, and anytime you do the same thing the same way every day of your life, it’s easy to lose track of what day it is. You know what I’m talking about. If you’ve ever done the same thing every day, you can easily lose track of what today is. Every day, this man ended up sitting in the same spot. He might have worn different clothes, but he ended up in the same place. He might have been carried by different groups of friends, but every day, he ended up in the same spot. Does anyone here know what it’s like to live your life and seem to always land in the same situation? You attend different churches, but after a while, you realize you’re in the same spot. You get a different job, but after some time, you realize you are right here where you have always been. You marry a different man or a different woman; it’s nice at first, but then suddenly, you realize you are in the very same mess you were in before you ever got here. Daily, when it was all said and done, he was dropped in the same spot. What day is this—Thursday or Friday? And here’s the problem: when every day of your life looks exactly the same, the light goes out of your eye. You don’t always tell everybody, but I know what it’s like for the light to go out in my eye. And when that happens, you cease to be excited about tomorrow because you know it won’t look any different than yesterday. So why should I get excited about routine? I already know what it’s going to look like. You pick me up from the same spot, transport me in the same way you do every day to the same place, and then set me down in the same spot. This means that this man no longer had to think anymore. He no longer had to plan; he no longer had to engage his mind in the plans of his day. He didn’t expect anymore; he didn’t have to be challenged. He didn’t have to read a book; he didn’t have to do anything but roll out of bed, and they picked him up and carried him daily to the same spot. Every day, he was laid at the gate called Beautiful. Now, the gate was one of the entrances that led into the temple in Jerusalem. It was renowned for its very impressive architecture. The wall was 60 feet high, and some say it was overlaid with gold, bronze, and silver. This man was daily laid there, with his ugly problem, in this beautiful place. I know that this is a Bible story and that we have heard it repeatedly, but I want you to know today that this is very relevant to where many people are living. As a matter of fact, there are some of you who are…