In this sermon, I spoke about the topic of unmet expectations and how we can respond to them. I shared a personal story about a road trip with my wife where we had different expectations for a rest stop, highlighting the importance of communication and understanding each other's expectations. I then discussed how unmet expectations can be difficult, especially when it feels like God has let us down. However, I emphasized that unmet expectations are an opportunity for growth and that God is still present and working in our lives. I encouraged the congregation to look for God's grace in the midst of their unmet expectations, to submit to God's reign, and to trust in His plan.

Key takeaways:
- Unmet expectations are a part of life, but they can be an opportunity for growth and a deeper relationship with God.
- Look for God's grace in the midst of unmet expectations.
- Submit to God's reign and trust in His plan.
- Remember that God is always present and working, even when our expectations are not met.
- Trust in the expectation of eternal life with God, which will never go unmet.

In the summer of 2005, my wife and I were getting ready for the next part of our lives together. We had just gotten engaged and were planning a trip across the country to visit family. We left out of DC, headed westbound, and about two and a half hours into the drive, it was time to make a stop. I was looking for the lowest price of gas, and when I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed my wife looking at me. I was racking my brain, wondering what I had done or said wrong.

It turns out she was not expecting me to suggest she use the bathroom at the old school gas station. There was a door around the side, and you had to talk to someone to get a key with a hubcap attached to it. I remember there might have been a guy in a rocking chair, overalls, no shirt, and a banjo. That experience started a long conversation and series of conversations about expectations. I thought the most important thing was the price of gas, but my wife's expectation was for the bathroom to be clean.

We had some unmet expectations, but it was a great learning experience for us as we got married. We started to talk about our anniversary and what our expectations were for it. What did we want to do? We wanted to make sure that our expectations were met as much as possible.

Have you ever had an experience where your expectations were not met? Maybe you thought your friends or family would do something amazing for your birthday, but it didn't happen. Maybe you expected to get picked for the play or the team, but it didn't happen. Maybe you expected to be further along in your career, retirement goals, or recovery. Maybe you expected your kids to make different decisions when they left the home.

It can be hard when it's God who hasn't met our expectations. We prayed and worked hard, but it still didn't work out. We did what God was calling us to do, but nothing seemed to happen. We expected that because we prayed and God showed up, it would last, but it didn't.

Unmet expectations are a part of life, and in that moment, we have a choice. We can grow bitter, angry, and quit, or we can choose something different. Unmet expectations are an opportunity for us to remember that God is on His throne and He hasn't left us. He is very much involved in our lives, and if we can press into it, we can find a humble response in that moment.

Elijah had an amazing victory on Mount Carmel, where he represented the God of Israel, Yahweh, against 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah. After the confrontation, Elijah called down a bolt of fire from Heaven, incinerating his sacrifice and proving that Yahweh was the true God. The people who witnessed it fell down and cried out in praise. At Elijah's command, the 850 prophets were executed.

King Ahab, who was present at the confrontation, got in his chariot and headed to Jezreel. Elijah grabbed up his robe and ran to the same place. When Ahab arrived, he told Jezebel everything Elijah had done. Jezebel was furious and sent a messenger to Elijah, threatening to make his life like one of the prophets if he was not dead by the next day.

In the midst of God's reign, Elijah was faced with unmet expectations. In this moment, the first truth we can press into is to look for God's grace, as there is more going on than we can readily see. One that really took Baal worship and made it a thing of Asherah worship and really spread it through the nation were the guys that Elijah dispatched of, and she is angry. Just so we're clear, this is no idle threat. Jezebel has already proven that she will carry it out, and she's killed prophets before, many of them.

You have to imagine right here’s Elijah; he's coming off this great victory. Last week, he was trash talking them, he was like, "Man, your God's in the bathroom!" Louder, I would imagine. As the messenger comes up to Elijah, Elijah listens and he goes, "Hey, how about this? How about you go tell, uh, um, Jezebel to bring it? In fact, why don't you go back and tell her she's the one in trouble? Hey, why don't you go back and tell her you know the 850? How about we make it 850 and one?"

How does Elijah respond? Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. Why? I would submit to you it's unmet expectations. I would submit to you that as Elijah runs back from Mount Carmel to Jezreel, he thinks, "Finally, finally revival is going to come. Finally, God has answered his calling his people back."

At some level, I think Elijah in this moment thinks that he's going to be the one God's going to use to lead it. That God, in fact, like he answered Elijah's prayer on Mount Carmel, Elijah is the one, the one literally who stands up for God. So, God is obviously going to use me. So, Elijah is running back to Jezreel to see it happen.

In fact, this was Elijah's prayer right before God reigns fire down on the altar. Look at what Elijah says he prays, "Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people, like all the Israelites that are around, will know that you, Lord, our God, answered that prayer." In the moment after the fire, they all fall down, "Yahweh is God," they cry out. The second part of his prayer was, "And that you are turning their hearts back again."

Elijah expects, I think, at one level, God answered the first part of my prayer. God's going to answer the second part of my prayer. So, he goes to Jezreel thinking he's going to step into a revival. I imagine Elijah gets there and he's like, "Man, I'm going to see guys like tearing down Baal temples and Asherah poles. They're going to start building altars to the Lord. It's going to be a revival!"

Elijah gets there; there's not even one guy with a placard down with Jezebel. There's no one rising up. There's no revival. There's no one with a t-shirt, "I'm with Elijah." In fact, Elijah's there and he's sitting, "How can this be? Ahab and Jezebel, the ones who need to be in trouble, and I'm the one in trouble?"

I would imagine that Elijah in his head and heart is like, "God, I did what you told me to do, but I was the only one. Oh, by the way, have you been there?" Or like, "God, I did what you said. I prayed, I worked, I tried to obey. It didn't work out for me." Unmet expectations.

We were talking about this point, um, in our summer review on Friday, and what we said in that moment was someone says, "The reality is God's the one who calls us into the game, but winning the game is up to us."

Elijah is feeling despondent and frustrated with unmet expectations. He runs to Beersheba in Judah, the last town in the Promised Land, and leaves his servant there while he himself goes a day's journey into the desert. He comes to a broom tree, sits down under it, and prays that he might die. He says, "I've had enough, Lord, take my life, I'm no better than my ancestors." He lays down under the tree and falls asleep.

Elijah knows that it is God who decides life and death, and he does not presume to step into that place. God shows Elijah grace and sends an angel to make a meal for him. The angel touches him and tells him to get up and eat. Elijah looks around and finds a cake of bread baked over hot coals and a jar of water. He eats and drinks and lays down again.

The angel of the Lord comes back a second time and tells him to get up and eat for the journey is too much for him. He gets up and eats and drinks, and is strengthened by the food. He travels 40 days and 40 nights until he reaches Horeb, the mountain where Moses met with God in a burning bush and received the Ten Commandments.

At Horeb, Elijah goes into a cave and spends the night. To his despondent prophet, God shows him grace and cooks for him twice. God reminds Elijah that one of the best things he can do for his spiritual condition is to take care of his physical condition, like getting a good night's rest and having a good meal. God offers him grace, and Elijah is able to see all the other things that God is doing.

I recently had the pleasure of going to Disney World. It's a place of magic and memories, where cartoon characters and movie characters come to life and where a little mouse robs you of all your money. On one particular afternoon, I was at a concession stand and I noticed a father and his young son, probably about five years old, in a tense negotiation. The father was trying to convince the son to choose one item, either candy, ice cream cone, soda, or cotton candy, while the son wanted all four.

In the end, the father got the son an ice cream cone, but the son had a full-on meltdown. It made me think about how, even in the midst of a magical land, this little boy couldn't see it because one thing didn't go his way.

This reminded me of Elijah, who was in a tough spot with Jezebel. Even though Jezebel couldn't get to him on Mount Horeb, Elijah was still dealing with unmet expectations. To help with this, I wrote down my own unmet expectations in my journal and then listed all of God's graces, big and small. It was a reminder that, even when things don't go our way, God is still doing a miracle in and through us.

We all experience moments where it feels like God has let us down. In these moments, we can look for God's grace and submit to God's reign. In the Bible, we see this in the story of Elijah. Elijah was very zealous for the Lord God Almighty, but the Israelites had rejected God's covenant and put his prophets to death. Elijah was the only one left, and now they were trying to kill him too.

God initiated a conversation with Elijah and showed him that he was still pursuing him. God asked Elijah what he was doing there, and Elijah responded with a complaint about how he had been treated. God replied by telling Elijah to go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord.

God then showed Elijah his power through a great and powerful wind, an earthquake, and a fire. But the Lord was not in any of these. After the fire, there was a gentle whisper, and when Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

God was showing Elijah a fresh perspective and a fresh vision of his majesty and power. Through this, God was giving Elijah a new understanding of his unmet expectations and Jezebel's power.

Elijah had been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty, but the Israelites had rejected God's covenant, broken down His altars, and put His prophets to death with a sword. Elijah was now the only one left, and they were trying to kill him too. He was frustrated with the people of God, and he was struggling with his own expectations of God.

Moses had been on the same mountain hundreds of years before. He had been leading Israel through good and bad days, and God had shown up with smoke, fire, earthquake, and a voice. In that moment, Moses humbled himself and turned to God in obedience, carrying out what God had for him to do.

God was doing the same thing with Elijah. He was inviting him to come back and submit to His reign. He was showing Elijah that He had been there all along and He could take Elijah's frustrations.

Maybe today is the day for us to get a fresh picture of God. We can start with a prayer, submitting ourselves to His reign. God is God, and we are not. He knows our frustrations, and He is inviting us to come back to Him.

When we find ourselves in the moment of struggling to trust God's plan, we must watch out for growing bitterness. God calls us by the Spirit and has not forgotten us, even when our expectations are not met. What God is doing is speaking and working, calling us back to submit to His reign. We must look for God's grace, which is always there, and trust in His plan.

God showed Elijah that His plan was intact and working out. He said that He had 7,000 in Israel whose knees had not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths had not kissed him. God was telling Elijah that he was not the only one He was using and that He had everything He needed to get done.

God's grace to Elijah is that he still gets to play a part. We see Elijah in the New Testament on another mountain with Moses and Jesus. This gives us great encouragement and hope because we are so much like him. We must trust in God's plan and submit to His reign.

We can never lose our salvation; we're fully in God's grasp all the days of our life. But we can't take ourselves off the field; we can't take ourselves out of the game. I wonder for some of us if today's not the day where God's like, "I see you, come back and play your part. I'm not finished with you; you still have a place to come here because there's a place for you in what God is doing in this time."

Do you know how you're wired? Do you know how God has gifted you? Do you know how God would like to use you? Have you thought about it? Have you prayed about it? Have you figured out, "Man, this is what God can do in me, this is what I'm good at, this is how I would love to see God use me?"

Have you thought through those? Have you taken steps in them? As you sit here today, you're like, "I know how God has wired me, and I'm doing it, I'm on the field, I'm playing." Is that you? God, in fact, wants everyone. This is a great thing about the family of God; everyone plays, no one sits the bench.

The God in His grace, when He saves you, gives you a mission that's form-fit for you. Jesus, the night before He goes to the cross, He's not on a mountain with God; He's in a garden. What's interesting about what they talk about is they talk about God's plan for Jesus. What does Jesus say? Can we come up with a new plan? Three times the unstated answer in reply is the cross is the plan.

And all of us who have subsequently come to faith in Jesus thank Him for that because that's what saved us. The next day He goes to the cross, and then Jesus turns to you and I, and you know what He says? "I want you to follow My plan."

But Jesus, what about the unmet expectations that may come? They may come; they will come, but He says, "Follow Me." Why does He do that? Because there is one expectation that He has already promised us that will never go unmet, that whether He comes or we go, you and I can have an expectation of life eternal with Him.

Why do we know? Because in the garden, when the plan was, "Is there another way?" Jesus says, "I'll go." And because you and I have that as an anchor, that you and I have that as a surety, that there is no way that is ever going to be unmet, that you have that expectation.

And because of that, He says, "Trust Me with your life, regardless of what comes." That's the best life that you and I could possibly live. My expectations? An expectation of Heaven forever with your Father and your Savior. And it's because of that that we can take whatever step God has for us today.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank You for Your grace, Your love, and Your Word this morning as we watched You work with Elijah. We pray that You would continue to work with us, that all the things You want to do in us and through us would be accomplished by Your grace. We thank You for the power of Your Spirit for Your good and Your glory. We thank You that we have a part to play, and may we play it well in Jesus' name. Amen.