Are you expecting?

I preached yesterday.  It was a sermon about expectations.  What do we expect from our God?  This was a part of that sermon:

Eighty six years ago, a son was born to an African-American Baptist minister and his wife in Atlanta, Georgia.  He was born into a society that considered discrimination based on the color of skin not only acceptable, but inevitable.  He was born 67 years after Lincoln declared, “that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free.”  He was born in a time when our country had stated what it believed, but had not yet begun to believe what had been proclaimed.  He was born in a time when I imagine the situation seemed hopeless.  And yet, Martin Luther King, Jr, had expectations of his God.  He believed his God was powerful, loved him with an intensity he could never explain, and would keep his promises.  He believed that his God would turn water into wine, would scatter the proud, bring down the powerful, lift up the lowly, and fill the hungry with good things.  So he stood up, and he said so.  One hundred years after Lincoln had declared freedom, Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”  He had expectations of his God.  Later in the speech, he said, “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.  He said, “This is our hope.”

He stood up, and acted on his hope in God, expecting great change in what was a hopeless situation.  He stood up and declared what he believed, over twenty five hundred times, across more than six million miles.  He stood up, and others stood up with him, protesting the hopeless situation of our country and declaring that it should and must change.   If Martin Luther King, Jr., or any of the thousands of men and women who had stood with him had been asked what great thing they knew, they would have said, “I know my redeemer lives.”  They said it with their voices, and they said it with their actions.