1. Usually when we go to start studies at a new school of learning, or start a new job, one of the first things done is what is called orientation. In that process we're told where everything is and a little about what is expect of us.
2. One of the most challenging problems with life is that of orientations. Without it, we don't know properly what to expect from life. What are your expectations about your life? One man commented, "Never has a people been more in control of their environment. Yet, never have a people spent more time, energy and money trying to fill up the void of their discontentment and disappointment with life. Never has a people had so many unmet expectations about life." [Daniel Boorstein] There are many people running around looking for and expecting to find that right thing, right person, right environment and right job that will instantly give them the right kind of life they expect. Anything short of it leaves them with unmet expectations about life.
3. There is a picture of a little boy walking a typically large St. Bernard dog. In the first frame the boy and the dog are walking along happily side by side. In the second frame the dog began to go in a direction different from that of what the little boy wanted to take. In the last frame the little boy had grabbed the leash, planted his feet, and shouted at the dog, "Let's get something straight here! You are my dog. I'm not your boy." The boy had certain expectations about life which were obviously not shared by the dog. ^[1]
4. Depending on who teaches us, our experiences and our understanding, we may or may not form the proper world-view to give us our best expectation of life. With the wrong orientation we will begin wrongly and then the chances for our success in life are reduced. We may find ourselves saying something like, "How much easier life would be for us all if it were more cut and dry, if things were clearly defined; black or white; true or not true; right or wrong, rather then struggling in the circumstances of life to learn." Life is with the proper training.
5. There are things we can hope for and even realize them if we put in the needed effort, if things go our way, and if all turns out in our favor. Even then, sometimes things won't turn out for us. However, there are things everyone can expect out of life and realize. What is needed to have those greatestexpectations is:

1. A good example of how the wrong world view or understanding of life can give us the wrong expectation of life is found in the first coming of Jesus Christ. The people of Israel had expected someone very different. They had expected a messiah who would have come as a great physical king, who would meet their every physical need; giving them security, power and freedom from the domination of other people. Instead Jesus, came as a carpenter's son from Nazareth. Rather then surrounding himself with a great physical army he surrounded himself with fishermen, hated tax collectors, and others who the outcasts of society.
   1. It wasn't that the Jews did not have the proper information to orientate their expectations of Jesus but they had refused to pay attention to the orientation material which God had provided them in his written word.
   2. It points out the importance of daily Bible study (Psa 19:7-14).
      1. God has provided for us to develop the proper world view of life; to have the proper expectations of life, but to understand it we need to become avid students of his word.
      2. The encouragement to become such a student must begin with parents or those who have the authority over children.
         1. A documentary on television of some children of an affluent community in Conyers, Georgia. The program told a disturbing story of young people left mostly without a moral compass. They were given many material advantages, by their parents but were left to chart their own course regarding morals. The busy parents were oblivious to their children's lifestyle and it took an outbreak venereal disease to bring it to their attention. In interviews, many parents presented themselves as helpless, if not hopeless, while many of the children suggested that they wished their parents had been stricter. (PBS)
         2. Our children need us and they need guidance.
         3. There is no substitute for the power of God's word (Heb 4:12).
      3. It must come from our worship and Bible study classes.
      4. It must be made personal.
   3. From the very beginning the Bible begins with orienting us to the proper world view needed to understand what real expectations we can have of life.
      1. "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen 1:1).
         1. Immediately we are told that there is God and all that is didn't always exist - "God created the heaven and the earth" implying God is eternal, since he was not created.
         2. God's revelation of his will for mankind offers us real expectations for life.
      2. To reject this would be to give way to an orientation which would take one in a direction away from God who is at the center of created history.
      3. This is important because in conveying to us that he is the creator God explains he wants a relationship with us.
   4. Through that relationship God describes to us what is right from wrong in life. Therefore, he helps us to understand what we can expect in life with certainty depending on what direction we take with our lives (Psa 1:1-6).

Transition: As should be obvious, society will follow the direction to which lives have been oriented. The wickedness of our world, even of Christians,informs us many have never been properly oriented or have left the orientation given them.

1. Job in protests the unfairness of his suffering, well expressed the confusion that results from disorientation.
   1. Others express it with words such as, "If there is a God why does he allow ...?"
   2. Job's friends also well expressed the confusion that results from disorientation when they accused Job of wrong doing and wrongly urged him to confess his sins.
   3. Solomon also wrote of his disorientation in life when he wrote of life, "Vanity of vanities, ... vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun" (Ecc 1:2-3; 7:13).
   4. The apostle Paul declared the disorientation that came to those who lived by the law, which was apart from Christ (Rom 7:23-24).
2. Disorientation is observable among the denominations but also within the life of local congregations of the Lord's church.
   1. All Christians do not necessarily always live by faith in God.
   2. Christians do not always demonstrate maturity and spiritual growth.
3. Disorientation is certainly observable among the lost through heir attitudes and behavior.

Transition: Life can seem as a struggle to be born, a struggle to die and a great, long haul in between but there is a way to do more then just try to cope with it.

1. For those who were once properly oriented in the faith but have become disoriented or for those that have just always been disoriented regarding it, the way out of the disorientation is the Bible.
   1. We all need to realize that we can expect that difficulties will come upon us from time to time; some easy to deal with and others which will shake us like a tree in a violent storm(Jam 1:2-6).
   2. Saul of Tarsus, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as touching the Law a Pharisee. (Php 3:5), who persecuted the church of Christ thinking he was doing God's will, had to undergo a period of reorientation.
   3. To help with the confusion that sometimes creeps into our lives, the apostle Paul stated that though all things are not good, with God all things will come together for good (Rom 8:28).
   4. Reorientation begins with obedience to God's will, "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." (Rom 7:25-28).
      1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
      2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death

We all have expectations of life but the most important expectations have to do with what we know for certain. We know if we live faithful to God's word in this life, that regardless of the struggles we have had, he will take us to live eternally with him in heaven. There is no doubt about it.