Great Expectations

Most of us go through life with an unspoken list of expectations. We have expectations of our spouse.  We expect our spouse to love us and be there for us through thick and thin, and we expect to go the distance together through the changes and uncertainties of life.  But when those expectations go south, often your marriage goes south and sometimes ends in divorce.  We have expectations of our government.  We expect our government to serve us, protect us and help us prosper and live peacefully together.  But when those expectations go south, we groan and complain and let anyone within earshot know that we don’t like what’s going on. And we can’t wait to the next election to give those guys the boot.  Now on a simpler level we have expectations when we go out to eat. We expect a friendly environment, great service and exceptional food. But when those expectations fail, we complain to our waitress or to each other, and most of the time decide we’re not going to ever eat there again.  Think about expectations.  We have all kinds of expectations that either reward us or disappoint us. But one of the expectations we rarely talk about are the expectations we put on God.  We expect God to love us. We expect God to protect us and keep us from evil. We expect God to make our lives comfortable and good.  And we expect God to bless our plans.  But what happens when God doesn’t meet your expectations? When your expectations of God don’t work out how do you handle it?  Do you groan and complain? Do you get angry at God?  Do you give God the boot?  Or do you do something entirely different?

This morning as we return to the story of Jesus, we’re going to see how Jesus reacted when great expectations were thrust on Him. And as we do, I believe He’s going to teach us a few of things.  First, how we often miss the point when we put unrealistic expectations on God.  And second, how God would have us respond when unrealistic expectations are put on us.

So, if you brought your Bible with you today, let me encourage you to find John 7:1-13, where we’re going to see how Jesus responds to the expectations put on Him.  Let’s begin by picking up Jesus’ story in verse 1, where John writes: After this, Jesus went around in Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because the Jews there were waiting to take his life. John 7:1

Now, if you’ve been following the story of Jesus with us in the Gospel of John, the last time Jesus had been in Jerusalem was recorded in John 5. While he was there, nearly a year previous to this, Jesus healed a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years.  When confronted by the religious leaders for doing work on the Sabbath, John records these words: “For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill Him; not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.”  John 5:18  So after that encounter, Jesus, knowing full well that ministering in Jerusalem would be dangerous to his health, chose to return to the countryside of Galilee.  And there he would continue to reveal himself as the Messiah through His words and works.  And we’ve seen that.  During the Passover Season Jesus revealed himself as the bread of life – the bread that came down from heaven – first feeding the 5000 and then by teaching about Himself as the bread of life at the synagogue in Capernaum.  However, with this last teaching, there were so many who took offense at His words that they decided to quit following Him. They literally walked away and were no longer going to be his disciples.  But as we learned last week, Peter in speaking for the 12 made one of the clearest confessions of faith when Jesus asked the disciples “You do not want to leave too, do you?”  Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” John 6:67-69

So now John picks up the story of Jesus some six months after Peter’s confession, where we are introduced to Jesus’ brothers for the first time.  And they’ve got something to say to Jesus.  They’ve seen and heard of his works.  They know of his fame throughout Galilee. But now that the Feast of Booths is at hand, they’re about to tell Jesus what they think He should do. Let’s read the text: But when the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near, Jesus’ brothers said to him, “You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the miracles you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.”  For even His own brothers did not believe in Him.  John 7:1-5

Now the first detail John wants us to notice, is that the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was at hand.  This is one of the three main Feasts that all Jewish men were required to attend.  This festival is also called the Feast of Booths. This feast was the most popular of the three principal Jewish feasts that brought the faithful flocking to Jerusalem. People living in rural areas would make the trek to Jerusalem and then build makeshift structures of light branches and leaves to live in for the week; town dwellers put up similar structures on their flat roofs or in their courtyards. And during this Feast the people remembered God’s providential care for them in the wilderness in a couple of ways.  First, by lighting lamps at night. Every night huge jars of oil would be lit at the Temple and throughout the city. So as the people sat in their booths at night the whole city would glow, and they would be reminded of God’s goodness to them in how He had guided Israel by a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of smoke by day. Then during the day Priests would come out from the Temple and pour out water on the stones of the altar to represent the moment when God was gracious to them by providentially caring for His people by giving them water from the stone.  For eight days the people would live in their makeshift booth and be reminded of God’s goodness to them.

So, since this was the most popular and best attended of all the Feasts, knowing that the biggest crowds would all be in Jerusalem at this time, the brothers are convinced they know what is best for Jesus.  And so, they tell him: “If you want to be famous –you’ve got to get out of these back road villages and go do your miracle working thing where the people are.”  You need to go to Jerusalem – that’s the big stage – that’s where you can have the greatest impact – if you want to make a name for yourself – you’ve got to go the religious center. “No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.”

Jesus’ brothers thought they knew what Jesus needed to do.  So, they thrust their expectations upon Jesus. We think you should embrace our plans for you. Now, let me ask you:  Do we ever put these kinds of expectations on God?  Do we ever make plans for God?  Do we ever make demands of God?  Sure we do.  Think about our culture right now.  Our culture is in a moral free fall. The number of police officers shot and killed in the line of duty rose 55% over the last year.  From 295 in 2020 to 458 in 2021 with no end in sight. Now, our elementary aged children are being forced to attend Drag Queen Story hour in our public schools.  Transgender athletes are destroying the integrity of women’s sports.  Parents who want to have a say in how their children are educated are called by some Domestic Terrorists. And the sad thing, is that I could go on and on with examples of moral decline. So, what do we do?  We definitely groan and complain.  We pray, God heal our land now.  God stop the hatred dividing us.  God, please put an end to the abortion industry.  God, end these senseless shootings now. We want to take God and jam him into the middle of our political system and change the things we don’t like. We get so caught up with what’s going on, that we think we know what God should be doing to fix everything.  But at the same time, we fail to get caught up with what God wants to be doing in us and through us. We fail to bring the kindness and gentleness of Jesus to a world that desperately needs to see an alternative way to live.  Sometimes we’re just like Jesus’ brothers, making plans for God but forgetting about God’s plans for us.

We forget God may have different plans for us than what we expect.  So, there’s one more thing we need to see from the misplaced expectations of the brothers, and that’s this: When they said, “No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret, they believed what Jesus was doing in Galilee was a waste of His abilities. They thought that if Jesus would just go and do his miracles in Jerusalem, Jesus would be a success. To their way of thinking, Jesus was not a success.  So, they didn’t believe in Him because He wasn’t doing what they thought a Messiah should do.

And that happens to us too. We often think that God should be doing great big things.  But most of the time that’s just not how God works.  When God became flesh and lived among us, He had a different plan.  He came to serve in obscurity.  He spent time with the lowly.  He was drawn to the broken hearted. He became friends with sinners and ate with drunkards.  He got his hands dirty with the messes of life, not the successes of life. So, Jesus wasn’t going to alter his plans to the whims of his brothers, no matter how great they sounded.  Why?  Because He was already committed to the plans of the Father. He was locked in to doing God’s will God’s way.  And that’s what we see now in verses 6-9, Jesus told them, “The right time for me has not yet come; for you any time is right. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil. You go to the Feast. I am not yet going up to this Feast, because for me the right time has not yet come.” Having said this, he stayed in Galilee.

Here Jesus gives us two reasons why God’s plans are greater than any plans of man. The first has to do with timing.  The timing was not right for Jesus to go to Jerusalem.  Jesus told his brothers that they could use time anyway they wanted. But Jesus’ time belonged to the Father; He lived according to a different and pre-determined schedule.  The brothers could go to the feast whenever they chose. But Jesus, whose every step on this earth had a purpose, would only act according to God’s timetable. So, Jesus was waiting on God’s timing.

Why? Well, if Jesus were to go up to Jerusalem now, the way most Jews go – in pilgrimage – that is: together with family and friends and even whole communities, with his popularity – going up at the beginning of the Feast would cause such a stir that the crowds may simply want to join with him and make him King.  That was not part of God’s plan at this time. Because God’s plan for him was to go up to Jerusalem at the appropriate time.  Appropriate time for what? The appropriate time for Jesus to fulfill God’s plan to save the world. So now was not the right time to go to Jerusalem. No, now was the time for him to lay low and wait for God’s timing. That’s why He would stay in Galilee.  Now was not that time to go to the Feast.

I think his is a great example for us.  We often think any time is the right time to do something great for God. But sometimes God calls us to wait – to just continue serving others in the obscurity of everyday life.  Why?  Because that’s how Jesus lived.  He served, healed, loved and included others in His circle in the midst of ordinary life.  And as He served, he waited for the appropriate time to go to Jerusalem to lay down His life.  Waiting wasn’t hard for Jesus because He was committed to doing ministry God’s way.  But waiting on God is a hard thing for us.  We don’t like to wait.  But sometimes God calls us to wait. Like right now.  Most of us feel a sense of urgency that we should be doing something to help fix our world.  But instead of waiting we often try to craft our own plans and forget about God’s plan.  We forget that God’s way of changing the world is by changing one life at a time, by making disciples of Jesus Christ.  We forget that God’s ways are higher than man’s ways.  We forget that God’s plan for redeeming this world is not through the policies of man, but through the sacrifice of Jesus.

So yes, Jesus’ response to man’s expectations is our reminder that we need to wait on God’s timing.  God is still on the throne.  He is not an absentee landlord.  Even now His providential hand is working to do us good, not evil.  But we must wait on Him.  And as we do, we need to stay the course on what He has called us to:  To love one another, to love our enemies and make disciples of Jesus. So don’t get caught up like those who are coming unglued over the craziness in our world.  Sometimes the wisest and most difficult action we can take is the decision to wait on God.

Now, that’s the first reason Jesus didn’t cave to the expectations of men.  Here’s the second:  The world hates Jesus.  Now we’ve already seen that the religious leaders were looking for a way to kill Jesus.  Sounds pretty much like hatred. But their hatred stemmed from religious reasons.  To them, Jesus was a religious rebel.  Everything he was doing was weakening their religious hold on people.  The common people were flocking to Jesus, so they didn’t just want to discredit Jesus, they wanted him killed.

But the world’s hatred of Jesus is more than a power struggle.  It’s a moral hatred.  For Jesus says, “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil.”  Who are the world?  Who is Jesus talking about here?

Well to answer that, we need to understand the meaning of the term “world” as used by Jesus.  When Jesus speaks of “the world” he is referring to people who are opposed to God and refuse to submit to His will.  The world refers to a way of thinking, a philosophy of life that makes man the center of all things.  In this sense the world wants nothing to do with God, wants nothing to do with His truth or His ways. And so the world rebels against absolutes, making up their own rules.  You could say we are seeing the fruit of the world’s anti-God thinking today.  They are hostile to God and only live to please themselves.  So when Jesus says, He testifies to what it does is evil, he is saying that he exposes their sinful rebellion and they hate Him for it. This lines up perfectly with what Jesus said earlier about those who love darkness. He said: “Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” John 3:19-20

So, the world is not a fan of Jesus. That’s why Jesus is not willing to compromise God’s plans for him by going up to the Feast at the first of the week.  Jesus knows that when he goes to Jerusalem the people who hate the truth are going to react to his presence.  He knows there will be people who will want to make him King; that there will be people who will reject him because he’s exposed their wickedness; and that there are those who hate him so much that they want to kill him.  So, Jesus knows that if he must make an appearance at the Feast, it must be more towards the end of the feast.  Because as soon as he makes himself known, sparks will fly.

So, he’s not going to cave to his brothers plans for him.  Instead, he says this: You go to the Feast. I am not yet going up to this Feast, because for me the right time has not yet come.” Having said this, He stayed in Galilee. John 6:9

But then we read in verse 10, However, after his brothers had left for the Feast, He went also, not publicly, but in secret. Now at the Feast the Jews were watching for him and asking, “Where is that man?” Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about Him. Some said, “He is a good man.” Others replied, “No, He deceives the people.”  But no one would say anything publicly about Him for fear of the Jews.   As Jesus leaves for the feast, the scene is being set.  He’s going incognito. He doesn’t want to be seen, at least not yet.  And yet, there are those who are watching for him and others who are whispering about him.  What John is doing for us here, is giving us a picture of the unrest at the Feast.  The crowds have come from all over Israel to celebrate God’s goodness to them, but that’s not what’s on their minds.  Jesus is.  Everyone is expecting Jesus to be there. The Jews are expecting him to be there so they can trap him and perhaps fulfill their desires to kill him. The crowds are expecting him to be there, but their opinions are divided.  Everyone is whispering about him. Some are in favor of Jesus. They believe He is good.  They love what they have heard and seen from Jesus.  But others aren’t so sure. They don’t trust him, saying his teaching deceives people. So, there is tension in the air. And over all this tension is the pallor of fear. For it’s the fear of the Jews – the religious elite, has whispering about Jesus. But that’s all about to change with the coming of Jesus.  For when He comes, He’s going blow the lid off their expectations.  For when He comes, there’s going to be a Feast Fight.  But to see how that turns out, you’ll have to come next week.

But for now, I want to leave us with three takeaways from the brother’s expectations of Jesus today:

First, there will always be people who will seek to have you compromise God’s plans for your life. There will always be people who will want you to do things God’s never called you to do. There will always be people who think they know what’s best for you and who will challenge to trust their instincts, their ideas, rather than trust God in God’s plans for you.

Secondly, there are going to be times you will need to wait on God’s timing.  There are going to be times when you will have to trust that God’s in control and God knows what He’s doing.  There will be times when you feel tremendous pressure to do something, but it’s often at those times when you’ve got to wait and trust that God is going to work.

Third, there are going to be times when the world opposes you. After all, if the world hates Jesus, if you follow Jesus, then the world will hate you.  They’ll disagree with  you, work against you, and even try to destroy you. Remember, we live in a post Christian culture that’s growing increasingly hostile to Christians, because they want nothing to do with God.

Finally, the good news:  God’s plans will prevail. That’s why Jesus didn’t respond to his brother’s expectations.  He trusted in God’s plans for Him. God plans for you will always be greater than your plans for Him.

So, what is God calling us to do today?  He’s calling simply calling us to trust that He is working. He’s calling us to wait on Him and continue to trust in His plan to change the world.  That means stop getting all caught up with what’s going on, and instead get caught up with Jesus and start doing the things Jesus would do: love one another, love your enemies and get intentional about changing one life at a time with the love and truth of Jesus.

For His plans for you will always be greater than your plans for Him!  Let’s pray