Stephanie Goleby serves as a Pastor at Park Ridge Baptist Church, bringing a wealth of experience from her previous role within the Australian Government. She pursued her studies at Malyon College, where she honed her theological insights and pastoral skills.
Since she began working at Park Ridge Baptist Church in 2021, Steph has become an integral part of the community in Brisbane. Beyond her professional and academic pursuits, Steph finds fulfillment in her personal life, sharing her journey with husband Steven, and their children.
Steph recently shared a special five minute sermon with us on Sunday Morning Together, emphasising the importance of having an expectant hope in God, without setting rigid expectations in our faith.
Read Steph’s full message below:
‘We’re going to start off in Acts 14:8-10. In Lystra there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.
This is incredible miracle. We see that in this passage, Paul had faith. But he also recognised faith in this man. So what is faith? Well, faith is actually expectancy. And we see this in Acts 3.
In Acts 3, Peter and John are on their way to the temple, and they see this lame man at the gate. They say to this man, hey, look at us. And this man looked at them. He looked at them in the eyes; he looked at them expecting to receive something. That’s the key.
In acts 3:5, this man looked at them, expecting to receive something from them. He’s expecting to receive money, but he had this expectancy. So that’s what faith is. Expectancy. Expectancy of good things, because God is good. That’s who He is. He’s the God of the impossible.
So, we can come to God with this expectancy. He’s going to work it out. He is the God who loves me, and He wants to give me good gifts and the desires of my heart. But faith is not expectation. An expectation is a strong belief that something will happen your way. So it’s grounded in you. It’s self focussed.
Expectation sounds like, if God is good, He will give me the job that I want today. Or if God is good, He will do this for me now. So that’s expectation. Expectancy in God is good. He can do all things however He wants.
Expectation is He must do it now. But God is not a vending machine. He’s not. What I mean by that is we don’t say to God, if I put $5 in, I can press a button and you’re going to give me a chocolate bar.
He is not that God. He’s the God that can do infinitely more than we can ever hope or imagine. (Ephesians 3:20). He’s the God that does things not according to our ways, but according to His. (Isaiah 55:8). We come to God with this expectancy, that He is going to do what’s best for us.
When we have a prayer request or whatever it is, come to God, say, God, I would love this, but I surrender to Your will. You know me best. You know what I need. You know if I need this job or not. You know if I need this money or not, You know best.
But I know You’re going to do good by me because that’s who You are. You’re a good Father who wants to give good gifts. That’s what faith is. And we also see that in this passage, Paul is a man of influence because he has faith, but he also can recognise faith in others.
We can be people that are very influential in our community as well. We can ask God to take us to places where we can recognise faith in others. We can pray that prayer, God, open my eyes. Help me recognise faith in others.
I love to do this with my kids. I say to my kids, how about we go and ask the Lord to show us where there’s faith. One time I said to my kids and their friends, how about we ask God to take us to people of faith?
I said to my kids, ask God for clues. And one of them said, I hear the word sore knee. Another one said, I see a local shopping centre. And the third one said, I actually see a man sitting on a bench underneath a tree next to a light. So I said, well that’s very detailed. Let’s go to the local shopping centre and find out.
So we go to the local shopping centre and we see a man actually sitting on a bench underneath a tree next to a light. And so I said to the man, hey, do you have a sore knee? And he said, yes, I do. And I’ve been sitting here, wishing that God would heal it.
We got to pray for him, and he was healed. He got up, was doing squats and running around. And that’s what we can do. We say, God take us to people of faith, because He loves to do that.
So, I just want to pray for us this morning that we will be people who have faith and that recognise faith in others. Holy Spirit, we just thank you that you are such a good God that you love to heal. You love to do the impossible.
You are the God of the impossible, and I pray that we will come to you with a posture of humility and surrender, having faith and recognising faith in others. I pray, Lord, that today we will ask you for opportunities.
We ask you to take us to people of faith, and we will see your kingdom advance. We will see miracles, signs and wonders because we dared to pray that dangerous prayer of God, take us to people of faith. In Jesus name, Amen.
Listen to Steph’s full message below:
