Luke 7:18–35

0:00 A little over a century ago, when the HMS Titanic set sail from Belfast, Ireland, on her maiden voyage across to New York City, people said that she was unsinkable. The architect of the ship said God himself couldn't sink her. And that belief that the Titanic was literally unsinkable shaped everything about the ship. A lot of the measures that were normally taken on ships of that size, there hadn't been anything quite that big, but nearly that size, a lot of those measures just simply weren't taken because they thought there couldn't be anything that would cause her to sink.

0:38 There weren't enough lifeboats, for instance. There were only enough lifeboats for about half the passengers. When passengers boarded the ship, they weren't trained for evacuation because nobody thought that there would ever be a need to evacuate the ship. And even after the ship hit the iceberg on that fateful night, people didn't rush at all. They heard the shudder of the iceberg hitting the hull, and they had another cocktail. They grabbed another shrimp off the seafood buffet.

1:08 They played music, and they danced because no one was panicking. One guy's literally recorded as saying, why would I get on that little lifeboat? It's safer on here than it is in that little dinghy. When the moment came, some of the lifeboats were even lowered half full. Now, why did all that happen? Why were all of those steps not taken? Why were people so unpanicked when the Titanic hit the iceberg?

1:42 Well, it's easy, right? It's because the people quite literally could not believe. They were incapable of believing what was happening. Because their expectations about that ship had locked them into a singular, unassailable idea. This ship will not sink. And so when it started to, they didn't respond with the urgency, with the quickness that reality required.

2:12 After the sinking, after the whole thing was laying on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, one of the executives of the company that owned the ship, the White Star Line, said, I thought her unsinkable. I do not understand it. Those are some deep expectations, aren't they? Even when the ship is laying on the bottom of the sea, the executive looks at the whole thing and says, I don't understand how she got there. She wasn't supposed to sink. Friends, that's what happens when your expectations run so deep that even reality itself can't shake them loose.

2:50 You know, there's a kind of danger that doesn't come from lack of evidence or lack of knowledge or information, but rather from expectations you refuse to give up. Remember, there was an old wag at my childhood church who once said that it's not the things you don't know that'll kill you. It's the things you do know that just ain't so. It's true. It's not the things you don't know. I mean, it is, but a lot of times it's not the things you don't know that will kill you. It's the things you do know that just ain't so. Expectations you refuse to give up.

3:22 And in Luke chapter 7, we're going to meet some people who are facing exactly that danger. Some things that they knew to be so that just weren't the case. We've been working our way through the gospel of Luke this winter and last winter. We've come up to really the middle of chapter 7. So let me invite you to take a Bible. Turn over to page 863. That is if you're using one of these Red Pew Bibles. You'll be able to find that there on 863. We're going to be looking at Luke chapter 7, the second half of it, or second third of it, I should say, verses 18 to 35.

3:58 So what's been going on for the last six and a half chapters is that Luke, in this very orderly way, because he's trying to write to Gentiles, he's trying to write to people who are educated, maybe people even in the imperial court, he wants to lay out a very orderly case to convince people that Jesus is the Messiah, that he is the long-awaited king of Israel, that he is, in fact, he's already gotten here a little bit, he's going to get here more. He is, in fact, God in the flesh. That's the case that Luke has been making. Last week, we saw in the first half of the chapter, or first third of the chapter, we saw Jesus heal a centurion's servant with just a word. Remember that? He doesn't even have to go into the house. He just heals the servant with a word. And then we also saw him raise a widow's son from the dead. What we learned from that is that Jesus' authority is absolute. There is nothing that can stand against his word. There's nothing that can stop his hand. When he decides to do something, it will happen. His authority is absolute. And yet, we saw with the widow, his mercy is astonishing. He doesn't use that authority to crush. He doesn't use that authority to put people

5:03 down he uses it quite literally to raise people up now given all that and given everything we've seen jesus do he healing the paralytic raising of the widow's son healing the centurion's servant all of it you would think that given all of that everybody around jesus would just sort of fall in line and follow the guy i mean that's kind of what you'd expect if there was a dude walking around out here in louisville who was able to do that kind of stuff there would be a big following around him. But that's not what happens. So in today's passage, we meet three different responses to Jesus, some of them deadly. And remarkably, it turns out that the problem in every single case is not a lack of evidence. It's not a lack of knowledge or just the need for a little bit more information. The problem is wrong expectations. People have made the Messiah from their own imaginations. They've made the Messiah in their own image. They've constructed a Messiah that they

6:08 want, and Jesus is not meeting those expectations. So let's read it. Luke chapter 7, I'm going to start reading in verse 18. The disciples of John reported all these things to him. And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord, saying, are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another? When the men had come to him, they said, John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another? So in that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits.

6:39 And on many who were blind he bestowed sight. And he answered them, Go and tell John what you've seen and heard. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear. The dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me. When John's messengers had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John. What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see?

7:10 A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who are dressed in splendid clothing and live in luxury are in king's courts. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you in more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written in Malachi. Behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you. So I tell you, among those born of women, none is greater than John. And yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just, having been baptized with the baptism of John.

7:46 But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him. To what then? Shall I compare the people of just this generation? And what are they like? They are like children. sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another. We played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We sang a dirge, and you did not weep. For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and yet you say, he has a demon. The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

8:19 Yet wisdom is justified by all her children. All right, now in these verses, you really have one single story that's happening in this passage, And it just sort of runs from one end to the other. There aren't very clear places to break it up. It can be a little bit hard to kind of figure out where to divide it up, even for the purpose of preaching it at a time like this. But I think you can see three divisions in it. The first of those divisions is verses 18 to 23, which is the heart of it, right? Everything that comes after that is commentary on that first part.

8:53 But in 18 to 23, you get John's questions to Jesus and then Jesus' answer to John. We'll talk about that in more detail later. Then in the second division, 24 to 28, you have Jesus speaking to the crowd and he's really defending John. Because when John comes and asks this kind of wobbly question and Jesus has to answer it, there's some in the crowd who would have thought, wow, what happened to John? And in fact, you're supposed to be thinking that at the same time. We'll talk about that. But Jesus then turns, having answered the question, to say, look, this isn't a problem.

9:25 Like, John knows who I am, and he defends him in those verses. Then finally, 29 to 35, Jesus really draws a bright line between those who believe in him and those who don't. And he diagnoses that spiritual problem between those who believe and those who don't. He diagnoses that line with just scalpel-like precision. So that's where we're going. And what he's doing through really all three of these divisions is answering the question. Here it is. Here's the question. What if you, Jesus, what if Jesus is not meeting my expectations?

10:05 Now that's a good question, isn't it? Because that's not just an old question that old ancient people had to deal with. That's a question that we all at some point in our lives have to deal with. Sometimes we have to deal with that as a Christian, as you go through the decades of life and life doesn't turn out like you want it to. Other times we have to deal with that question even before we become a Christian. I thought Jesus was like this, but what I'm learning is that he's like this. What do we do when he doesn't meet my expectations? What if he doesn't? What if Jesus demands things of you that you didn't expect him to demand? What if he does things in your life that you didn't expect him to do?

10:44 What if he doesn't do things that you prayed for for years and years and years? What do you do? Well, here's the main idea, and I want you to hear it carefully. The main idea is this. When Jesus doesn't meet your expectations, when Jesus doesn't, you notice I don't say if, when Jesus doesn't meet your expectations, you will be tempted to remake him in your own image. Don't do that. When Jesus doesn't meet your expectations, you will be tempted to remake him in your own image. Don't do that. You have to receive Jesus as he truly is, or you do not receive him at all. You have to receive Jesus as he truly is, or you do not receive him at all.

11:36 So three points today to this sermon. We're going to just walk through these three divisions of the text, and I think what they reveal, finally, is three ways that you can go wrong when approaching Jesus. They all have to do with your expectations, but it's three ways you can go wrong. So here they are. Number one, don't stumble over the real Jesus. Don't let your expectations make you stumble over the real Jesus. Second, don't rewrite what you already know is true to match your expectations.

12:07 Don't rewrite what you already know is true to match your expectations. And third, don't demand a Savior on your own terms. You don't have the right or the authority or the power to do that. Don't demand a Savior on your own terms. That's what we're going to see today. All right. So point number one, don't stumble over the real Jesus. Don't stumble over the real Jesus. We're going to look at verses 18 to 23 right here. So the first thing that happens in our passage is that John the Baptist, he, at this point, if you think back to chapter 3, he's sitting in Herod's prison.

12:44 It's a stone prison. We still know where it is. We know where John was in prison, and it's an awful place. You can still see the stone standing. You can even see the iron hooks in the wall where they would have chained the prisoners up. It's an awful place. And there's John sitting in that prison, and he hears reports from his followers, from other people around him, about what Jesus is doing. And so he sends two of his disciples to Jesus with a question, and it is a stunning one given what we know about John. Look at verse 19. He called two of his disciples to them and sent them to the Lord saying, Are you, Jesus, the one who is to come, or should we wait for somebody else?

13:22 Now, I know that you've heard that a thousand times, and it probably doesn't strike you anymore, especially if you've been a Christian for a while, as stunning as it actually is. but you got to think about who's asking it. Think about who's asking this question. Are you him or are we waiting on somebody else, dude? Think about who's asking that question. This is John the Baptist. This is the man who baptized Jesus. This is the guy who saw the heavens open and the dove come down out of heavens who heard the voice of God say, this is my beloved son. Listen to him.

14:00 This is the guy who saw Jesus coming over the hill down into the river basin. And he declared, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And now that guy, who's been pointing to Jesus the whole time, says, are you really him or not? I mean, what happened? Like, literally, what happened? Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. A few months later, are you really, did I get that wrong?

14:33 Are you really him? Well, what happened is that Jesus wasn't doing what John expected the Messiah to do. Jesus just was not doing what John expected the Messiah to do. I want you to take your Bible. We're going to do this together. Go back to chapter 3 of Luke. It's just a couple of pages back. And I want you to look at verses 16 and 17. I want you to just read them quietly in your mind and answer the question in your own head.

15:06 What was John expecting from Jesus? So just read it quietly. Chapter 3, 16 and 17. What was he expecting the Messiah to do? And then once you've done that, I want you to look up the page a little bit to chapter 3, verse 9. and let that also inform that question. What is John expecting the Messiah to do? You see it? You see what he's expecting? John is expecting the Messiah to come with fire and a winnowing fork.

15:41 That's a tool used to separate the good from the bad, right? It's a judgment tool, right? So a fire, a winnowing fork, and an ax. That's how he expected the Messiah to come. And he even said, look, guys, the ax is already laid at the root of the trees. Every tree that doesn't bear good fruit is about to be cut down and burned. The Messiah is going to gather up the wheat. He's going to burn the chaff. He's going to divide humanity between good and evil. You see what he wanted, right? All of that is judgment language, and it's fierce judgment language.

16:14 John apparently kind of read all of the Old Testament passages about the coming of the Messiah with judgment, and he thought that's what the Messiah is going to do. He's going to show up, clean house, overthrow the wicked, establish God's kingdom and power. And if you're John, sitting in Herod's dungeon, well, of course, that agenda is going to include getting rid of Herod and allowing John to do his sort of, you know, Conor McGregor strut out of that prison. He was going to get out when the Messiah showed up. And none of that was happening.

16:46 None of it was happening. That's not at all what John was hearing. He was not hearing about axes and fires and winnowing forks and wheat and chaff. He wasn't hearing about the Messiah, you know, pulling some sort of Marvel thing and, you know, flinging the Pharisees against the wall. He's not doing any of that. What John's hearing is that Jesus is doing stuff like healing the sick, preaching good news to the poor, giving blind people their sight. I mean, it's great stuff, right?

17:19 It's great stuff, but where's the fire? Where's the axe? Where's the judgment? Where's John's own moment of strutting out of that prison? So that's what's in his mind. That's why he asks the question. John is not an unbeliever who's tossing up some smokescreen. That's not what he's doing. This is an honest man. This is a faithful man, and he's wrestling with the gap between what he expected and what he's getting. He's wrestling with the gap between what he expected and what he's getting.

17:52 Now, watch how Jesus responds to this because it's wonderful. You notice in the next couple of verses, he doesn't rebuke John. There's no sense of, John, how dare you question me? It's just not there. He doesn't scold him for his lack of faith, nothing like that. Instead, he just gives John exactly what he needs. He gives John exactly what he needs to settle his faith. It's a two-step answer. So the first thing you see in verse 21 is that he just does the miracles.

18:25 You see that? Verse 21, in that hour, as soon as the guys came from John, in that hour, he just did it. He healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits. And on many who were blind, he bestowed sight. He just does it right there in front of John's disciples. He heals people. He casts out demons. He gives people sight. He just does the miracles. And he lets John's disciples see it with their own eyes. So he gives them empirical evidence, eyewitness, on-the-ground proof, so that when John's disciples go back to John in the prison, they can say, John, it's not just stories, man.

19:01 We saw it happen. With our own eyes, we saw this impossible stuff happen. Okay, but then he does something else, too. Look at 22. And he answered them, go and tell John what you've seen and heard. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. Now, what is he doing there? What's he doing there? I mean, would it have worked just as well if he had said, guys, go back, tell John what you have seen. Rabbits are coming out of hats.

19:33 People are being sawn in two and then put back together. You know, card tricks are being done and they're incredible. Would that have worked just as well? No, no, it wouldn't have worked just as well. Because if you know your Old Testament, like John the Baptist knew his Old Testament, you don't, none of you do, I don't either. None of us know the Old Testament like John did. But if you did, you'd recognize all of these things that Jesus is talking about here. Because every single one of them comes from the book of Isaiah. Some from Isaiah 35, some from Isaiah 61.

20:06 But they're all passages that describe specifically what the Messiah is gonna do when he comes. They're prophecies of what he's going to do. So Jesus isn't just saying, look at all this cool stuff that I can do. Look at the rabbits and the card tricks. That's not what he's doing. He's saying, go back to your Bibles. Go back to your Bible. Because the things I'm doing are exactly what the prophets said the Messiah was going to do when he got here. So Jesus gives John not just empirical evidence that can be seen with the eyes.

20:40 He also gives him prophetic evidence. turns his mind back to the scriptures gives him a kind of biblical framework to understand what all that stuff is they're not just parlor tricks so you see what Jesus is doing here you see the kind of shape of his his answer John is questioning him but he doesn't rebuke him that's not that's not what he wants to do he doesn't rebuke him instead he very kindly and lovingly gives John two things he gives him the evidence of his eyes and he gives him the evidence of the scriptures He establishes his faith.

21:14 He basically says, John, John, think it through. You're asking if I'm the one that was prophesied, if I'm the one who was to come. Think it through, John. I'm not failing to be the Messiah. I'm doing exactly the things that the Messiah was supposed to do. Your expectations, John, are what is off. It's not me. and then he says this, and it's really the key line in the whole thing. Verse 23, blessed is the one who is not offended by me. Now, what does that mean? Blessed is the one who's not offended by me. Well, the word offended there is, in Greek, it's skandalizo, skandalizo. So, it's where we get the word scandalized, right? And when you get scandalized by something, you sort of trip on it, right? It catches your attention, and you want to get away from it. It's a scandal, right? That's where we get that word. So Jesus says, blessed is the person who doesn't

22:16 trip over me because I am not what they expected. Blessed is a person who doesn't trip over me because I'm not what they expected. There's a kind of gentleness in that, right? Because he's not threatening John. He's not threatening him. He's warning him. And in the process, he's warning us too. He's saying, look, the real Jesus, the one that actually exists, might not match the Jesus that you have constructed in your own head. And when that gap opens up, you will be tempted to stumble.

22:53 Don't. Now, let me take a minute to press this into your life for just a second, because this is not an old problem. This is not a problem that's unique to John the Baptist or to the disciples of the first century, this is a right now problem for us as Christians. It's a problem that comes up over and over again in our lives as believers. So let me paint you a picture that happens to a whole lot of Christians. So one day on a sunny Sunday, much like this, let's just say you decide you're going to become a Christian. You decide you're going to follow Jesus, and so you turn to your friend, or you come to me at the door, or one of the other members of the church, and you say, hey, I think I am a Christian. I am believing in Christ. And so then you do all the stuff, right?

23:35 You go through the membership classes. You do your membership interview. You get baptized on a different Sunday, and you join the church, and you start doing all the things that Christians do, and you love Jesus. And you expect, maybe not consciously, but somewhere deep down in there, you expect that obedience to Jesus will lead to a certain kind of life. You expect that your faithfulness will be rewarded on a timeline that you find reasonable. You expect that if you do the right thing, things will go well for you.

24:09 And then they don't. You're faithful in your marriage. But your spouse goes cold. You raise your kids in the church. You do all the things you're supposed to do according to shepherding a child's heart. And the kids walk away. You serve. You give. You sacrifice. You're a deacon. You're an elder. And the diagnosis comes anyway. You pray for years and decades, and nothing happens.

24:47 And in that moment, here's what happens in your heart and in your mind. Here's what happens when it doesn't go according to expectations. A gap opens in your mind and heart between the Jesus you expected and the Jesus you've actually got. And the temptation is not, listen to me, the temptation is not really that you're going to have a dramatic deconstruction of your faith. That happens sometimes. But for most Christians, that's not the temptation. We're not going to dramatically walk away from Christianity.

25:20 No, the real temptation is that we quietly cool toward Jesus. We stop praying with any real expectation that he's going to do anything. We keep showing up on Sunday, but with our hearts already checked out. You see what that is? It's to let an unspoken kind of disappointment with God harden into resentment.

25:54 Now, I know that it may not feel like it. It may seem too small to match that word scandalizo. But that's what it is. That soft cooling in your heart is stumbling. That's what Jesus means by being offended. And Jesus says, don't do that. Blessed are you if you don't do that. Blessed is the one who doesn't trip over me when their expectations are not met by reality.

26:26 Listen, here's what you need to see in this. The problem with the gap, the problem with the gap between your expectations and the reality of Jesus is never, ever with Jesus. The problem's not with him. The problem is always with the expectation. John expected fire, but he got mercy, and that wasn't a failure of the Messiah. It was a failure of what John understood about the Messiah. Yeah, judgment's coming.

26:56 John's not wrong about that. It's coming. Jesus talks about that over and over again in the Gospels. But first he comes with mercy. And that's what John didn't understand. His expectations caused him to have a timeline in his mind that wasn't God's timeline. It's a funny thing, isn't it? I mean, the great prophet John the Baptist has the same problem that we do. Sometimes the hardest thing in the Christian life is to trust that Jesus' timeline and Jesus' methods are better than yours. It's a hard thing, but they are better.

27:31 They are always better. So don't stumble when your expectations fall short of reality. Number two, don't rewrite what you already know is true to meet your expectations. Looking at verses 24 to 28. Don't rewrite what you already know is true. So once John's messengers leave, in verse 24, Jesus turns to the crowd and starts talking to them about John. And what he says is incredible.

28:02 He basically asks them three questions. So look at verse 24. When John's messengers had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning them. He asked them these three questions. What did you go out to the wilderness to see? Did you go to see a reed shaken by the wind? In other words, just an unstable person, right, who gets knocked around by the wind. No, that's not what you came to see. Well, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothes? No, this guy was in like, you know, sheepskins and eating locusts and honey. He's not in the king's courts. He's not in luxury. That's not what you went to see. So what did you go out to see?

28:33 And then he answers it. A prophet? Is that what you went to see? Yes. Yeah, you went out to see a prophet. And what you got was not just a prophet, but you got way more than a prophet. Okay, so just pausing for a second. You see what Jesus is doing here. He's defending John. I mean, John has just sent messengers with what looks like a kind of wobble in his faith, right? It's just a sort of unstableness in his faith. Are you really the one, he had asked. And the crowd could easily interpret that as John losing his nerve.

29:08 But Jesus isn't going to let him think that. He's not going to let him think that the main witness to his messiahship has decided now that he's not the messiah. He's not going to let that happen. So he says, let me just remind you who this man is. He's not a reed blowing in the wind. He's not some soft man that's looking for comfort and luxury. He's a prophet. He's more than a prophet. Well, what does he mean by that, more than? Well, what he means is that John the Baptist is the last of the prophets. Look at 27, 28. This is he, John the Baptist, is the one of whom it is written in our scripture reading this morning from Malachi, Behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you.

29:50 Now, in Malachi, that phrase right there, those sentences, are God speaking to the Messiah, right? And he says, behold, Messiah, I am going to send before you my messenger who will prepare your way before you. And Jesus is saying, John is that guy. You see what that does. It makes John the last and greatest of the Old Testament prophets. I mean, last is obvious. There wasn't another one. But why is he the greatest? Why is he the greatest? Because the whole point of the prophets, every single one of them, they're all looking forward to the Messiah.

30:25 And it's all cloudy, right? And they have to squint. And Isaiah probably sees it the clearest, 700 years in advance. But they're all squinting to see the Messiah. And John goes, that's him. We're no longer waiting on him. We're no longer looking through the clouds. There he is. He gets to take his bony prophetic finger and point at the Messiah and say, that's him. And so he's the greatest. That's who John is. That's what John testified to.

30:57 And this moment of struggle in a prison cell doesn't change any of that. And that's the point I want you to see here because it matters enormously for your life. John's doubt in that moment didn't erase his testimony. John's doubt in this moment didn't erase his testimony. He had this moment of confusion, right? This moment of wobble, this moment of weakness, but it did not undo the truth that he had already proclaimed.

31:29 He was right about Jesus. He was right when he baptized him. He was right when he called him the Lamb of God. He was right when he said the kingdom is at hand. There's the Messiah. And he was still right, even in this cell, even struggling. The truth didn't change because John's feelings did. You hear that? The truth didn't change just because John's feelings did. It was still there. John just needed a little stabilization. But you see what he could have been tempted to do, right?

32:03 In the moment of wobble, rather than hearing Jesus and being stabilized, he could have said, no, no, no, no. No, it's my doubt that's correct. He could have reshaped his understanding of the world and reality according to his doubt instead of according to the truth he had already proclaimed. Listen to me. There's a difference between a moment of struggle or doubt and a settled rejection of Jesus. There's a difference between a moment of struggle or doubt and a settled rejection of Jesus.

32:34 John struggled, and Jesus did not condemn him for it. Jesus answered him, equipped him, and then publicly honored him. as the greatest man who had ever been born of women. So that's what I want you to hear. Struggle is not the same thing as falling away. Doubt is not the same thing as apostasy. But, and this is the danger of it, struggle and doubt can become something worse if you let it. If you take that moment of confusion and sort of let it metastasize into your way of thinking, if you start to sort of quietly revise what you knew to be true a month ago because your feelings have changed.

33:16 Well, in fact, you've moved away from struggling to rewriting. And that's a very, very different thing. I think this is one of the great dangers that Christians face in our own day. Because the entire world around us is constantly telling us that our faith and the truth that we proclaim need to be rewritten. Your faith can't exist in this world, they tell us. Your ethic can't exist.

33:49 Your exclusivity can't exist. You need to rewrite it. And a whole lot of Christians look at that pressure and they say, yes, sir. I'll just rewrite this. I'll rewrite that. I'll say this, even though I didn't believe that a month ago. I'll say this, even though I didn't believe that. Two weeks ago, they rewrite the faith. See, the problem is it's usually not just a dramatic abandonment of the faith.

34:20 Not usually. It's a slow, quiet drift. You know, you know who Jesus is. You've read the scriptures. You've seen Jesus' faithfulness in your own life. You know the gospel is true. But then comes the pressure. You've got cultural pressure. You've got personal suffering. You have relationships that you value. And so you start to soften things just a little bit.

34:54 Just a little here and there. We're just going to redefine that word just a little bit. I'm going to nuance that little phrase just a little bit. Maybe, maybe, maybe Jesus didn't really quite mean what he said about this or that. maybe his exclusivity in salvation isn't quite as absolute as I thought it was before. Maybe Jesus really would see things the way my friend sees things. You see the point?

35:26 You're not changing your opinion there because you got some new information that led you to a new conclusion. You're just letting pressure rewrite what used to be clear to you. And you need to recognize that for what it is and resist it. There are so many forms of this too, aren't there? And there's rewriting who Jesus is because you really want him to conform to what gives you joy.

35:58 This thing gives me joy. I don't know why it gives me joy, but it does. And I want Jesus to like it too, so I rewrite something that he said. There's rewriting who he is because you don't want him to be whatever it is that gives you the ick. I don't want Jesus to be for that because that gives me the ick and I don't like it. So I'm going to rewrite Jesus so that he looks more like me and gets icked out by the same things I do. There's rewriting who he is because you just can't bear the thought of him disagreeing with your friend or your fiance or your feelings or your own thinking.

36:44 But you see the thread that runs through all this, right? You're not learning more about Jesus and changing your conclusion. That's not what you're doing. You're just changing what you know to be true because it no longer lines up with what you want to be true. Charles Spurgeon, I think, said this really well. He says, these things, the things of the gospel, the things of the Bible are true, whether your heart dances for joy about them or sinks in despair. Whatever becomes of our changeful feelings, facts are stubborn things and they alter not.

37:25 Amen. That is exactly right. Facts are stubborn things and they alter not. What you know about Jesus doesn't become less true because you're in a hard season or because you've built a friendship that you value or because you've been hurt or because this or that group would or wouldn't like it. The reality of who Jesus is, the king, the savior, the son of God, none of that bends to your circumstances, friend. None of it bends to your circumstances. Facts are stubborn things. So be careful not to let a season of struggle make you rewrite what you already know to be true.

38:00 That was John's temptation. And that's the point Jesus is making about him. John had a hard moment. He sent a hard question. He sent a question that betrayed some wobble. But that moment of doubt didn't change the reality of who Jesus is. And it didn't undo the truth of John's own prior testimony. John was absolutely right about Jesus at the first. And now with Jesus' answer in his ears, settling his heart, making the concrete set, he holds fast all the way to the end when Herod chops his head off. His doubt was real, but it was a moment, not a direction.

38:37 The people we meet next are a different story entirely. So point number three, and finally, don't demand a Savior on your own terms. Don't demand a Savior on your own terms. We're looking at verses 29 to 35. So John's struggle was an honest heart in a hard moment. That's what that was. He was an honest dude who was having a bad moment. And Jesus, in that moment, responded to him with patience because it was a moment, not a direction, right? Helped him settle his faith.

39:09 But what comes next here is something very different from that. So in verses 29 and 30, they're kind of set off in parenthesis here because they're probably not Jesus speaking. This is Luke coming in and making some commentary. So they're set off in parenthesis. But Luke gives us two very different responses to what John and Jesus have both been saying. So look at the logic in 29 and 30. When the people heard all of this, right, everything that Jesus was saying, when the people heard Jesus' teaching and the tax collectors too, they declared God just.

39:41 In other words, they responded to it positively. They went to Jesus. And why? Why does he say that they responded to Jesus' teaching positively? By declaring God to be right. He says it's because they were baptized with the baptism of John. They responded positively to Jesus because they'd been baptized by John. Now, why? Interesting question. Look at the other half of it, though. But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves. In other words, they responded to Jesus' teaching negatively.

40:14 They rejected it. Why not having been baptized by John? Interesting. So you've got the tax collectors and the people, the sinners, the outsiders, the ones you wouldn't expect. They hear John preach, and they get baptized, and then they hear Jesus preach, and they respond by declaring God to be true, and they respond positively to Jesus. And then you've got the other people, the Pharisees, lawyers, religious insiders, the experts, the theologians.

40:45 They hear John preach, reject his message, hear Jesus preach, reject his message too. What is going on? What divided those two groups? Well, it wasn't intelligence, education. It wasn't religious knowledge. The Pharisees had more of that stuff than any tax collector did. What divided them, what made the difference, the scalpel move that Jesus makes, what divides them is that their hearts were open to respond to John's preaching.

41:16 And what was John's preaching? Repent because the Messiah is here. do you see that their hearts were ready to repent their hearts were ready to receive the messiah so they got baptized because john told them that's what they needed to do to prepare for the messiah and then when the messiah got there their hearts were still ready to receive him the other people listen to john's message repent because the messiah is here no absolutely not and they refused to be baptized so that when the messiah showed up their hearts were still hard against him.

41:53 That's what Jesus is saying. See, that's the dividing line that runs through the whole passage. This is the dividing line that runs, frankly, through the whole Bible and the whole world. It's not how much you know. It's whether you're willing to let God be right about you. Well, in the next few verses, Jesus tells this parable that's going to expose what is really going on with that second group, the ones that rejected Jesus. Look at 31, to what shall I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? And he's talking about the Pharisees here. They're like children who sit in the marketplace and call out to one another, we played the flute for you and you didn't dance. We sang a dirge and you didn't weep. For John the Baptist came eating no bread, drinking no wine, and yet you say he has a demon. Son of man has come eating and drinking, and you say, look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Do you see what he's saying here? You see what he's saying here? You're acting like a bunch

42:54 of kids who just no matter what God does, you will not accept him. If he comes playing a flute and trying to get you to celebrate, you won't do it. If he comes playing a funeral dirge, you won't weep. You don't like anything God does. And John comes. He's not eating or drinking anything except locust heads in honey. He was austere. He was ascetic. He's out in the desert. And they look at that and they say, he's got a demon. He's too severe. He's too ascetic. So Jesus comes eating, drinking, going to dinner parties, all the rest of it. And they say, look at that. That one's a glutton and a drunkard. He's a friend of sinners. Too loose, too permissive, too celebrative.

43:41 And you see what happens, right? It doesn't matter what God does. John was too much one way. Jesus was too much the other way. Nothing satisfies these people because the issue was never really about John's lifestyle or Jesus' dinner companions. The issue was control. They wanted to dictate the terms. They wanted to decide what kind of messenger and what kind of Messiah they would accept. And neither John nor Jesus fits their specifications, and so they reject them both.

44:16 That, of course, is the deadliest response of all. That is not an honest struggle of a John the Baptist. That is not somebody who is honestly looking at the situation and saying, I have a few questions, I need a few things answered. It's not what it is. That's not even the slow drift of a believer in a hard season. What these guys are doing is a willful, deliberate refusal to receive Jesus on any terms but your own.

44:48 And the terrifying thing about that, here's the really scary part about that. It disguises itself as discernment, as thoughtfulness. I mean, think about it. The Pharisees weren't saying, we don't care about God. They weren't even saying, we reject the Messiah. They weren't doing that. were just scratching their beards and saying you know we have standards for our messiah we want him to be like this and not like that they had criteria for what the messiah should look like how a prophet ought to behave what true religion ought to be and they evaluated jesus and they evaluated john and they found them wanting every time it was not because the evidence was lacking It's because they'd already sent in the verdict long before Jesus ever got there.

45:44 Let me take just a minute to tell you what this looks like today. Because I think the situation has not changed much. Their hearts are exactly like many of our hearts. There are some people who want a Jesus who asks nothing of them. Just gives them things. Helps them. Kind of cosmic caddy, right? on the golf course of the universe. He exists to make your life better, make things run smoothly, never really makes demands. Other people want a Jesus who's just endlessly tolerant, who would never say anything as offensive as I am the way, the truth, and the life.

46:20 Nobody comes to the Father except by me. Other people just kind of want to coach Jesus, right? Who cheers you on, rewards your efforts, keeps score, lets you earn your spot on the team. You see what all those are doing? You see what they're all doing? They all start with what you want and think you need and then goes and looks for a Jesus to fit that bill. That's backwards.

46:51 It's like the children in the marketplace. Play a tune I like, Jesus, or I'm not going to dance. But you can't construct your own Jesus. You just can't. He's not a gaming avatar that you can just say, well, I want his compassion at a level five, but I want his wrath at a level one. Or maybe it's the opposite. You don't get to construct him. He's the king. He's the only savior that God has given.

47:25 So you don't get to set the terms of how he saves you. He does. Look how Jesus ends this section, verse 35. He says, yet wisdom is justified by our children. What does that mean? I mean, it's a kind of high way of saying it, but it basically just means, look, the proof is in the fruit. The proof is in the fruit. You can nitpick, you can find fault, you can play games all day long, but look at the results. Look at the people whose lives have been transformed by Jesus. Look at the tax collectors who heard John and repented and then repented again when they saw Jesus.

48:01 Look at the sinners who came to him. Then and now, and were forgiven of their sins. Wisdom, the right thing, is vindicated not by the people who sit in judgment over her. Wisdom, the right thing, is vindicated by the people who do the right thing and then enjoy the fruits. So the question is, this morning, okay, if Jesus has run this scalpel through humanity between those who have hearts of repentance that will believe in him and those who do not, Those who will accept him as he is and those who have made him in their own image to reject him.

48:35 Which group are you in? Now, if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, I want to take a minute and press this honestly into your heart. It's a real question. What is your real objection to Jesus? What is your real objection to Jesus? not your stated objection I want you to think a little deeper than that think a little deeper than the intellectual question or the philosophical puzzle or the you know I just have a few issues that I need to work out I want you to think deeper what's the real objection and be honest with yourself is it really that you actually lack some piece of information that you need some extra answer or extra evidence. Because if that's really it, friend, we can help you with that.

49:30 There's some exceedingly smart people here who have been Christians for a long time. We can get answers to lack of evidence and lack of information. We can do that. But is it that? Or is it more that you just don't like the terms? Because those are very different things. If you just lack evidence, Jesus is happy to meet you there. He met John there, gave him evidence, empirical and prophetic, and said, here, think it through.

50:02 Here's what you need. But if your real issue is that you want a Jesus who doesn't make demands or who doesn't have exclusive authority, who doesn't call you a sinner in need of mercy or who gives you a certain emotional experience that you've been waiting on, then, friend, your problem is not intellectual. It's a problem of choice. You're just a child in a marketplace saying, play the song I want or I'm not going to dance. And nothing's going to satisfy you because what you really want is to be in charge.

50:39 And listen, that is not a safe place to be. Jesus, the real Jesus, has made himself known. He's done the miracles. He's fulfilled the prophecies. He's risen from the dead. The evidence is overwhelming. What else do you want? And one day, you just need to be aware, one day the mercy that's being offered right now is going to give way to the judgment that John wanted back in that day. It will give way to that. And friend, you do not want to be standing there on that day still holding out for a Savior who will come to you on your own terms.

51:19 Embrace Jesus as he is. Look, some of you, Christian or not, are in John's place right now. In your circumstances, in your life, Jesus just isn't doing what you thought he would do. And you're tempted, some of you, I mean, I can say that pretty clearly, I think there's like 600 people in here. Some of you are tempted, not so much to walk away from the faith, but just to quietly revise him a little bit. Lower your confidence just a tick in his goodness.

51:51 Soften your obedience to his word just a little bit. Reshape Jesus into something that is more manageable up against your expectations. And you know what I think Jesus' word to you would be? It would be, blessed is the one who is not offended by me. Don't stumble over the real Jesus and don't rewrite what you already know is true and don't demand a Savior on your own terms. Receive Jesus as he is. Trust him as he is.

52:23 Follow him as he is. Because the only Savior that there is is the one God has sent in Jesus. That's it. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we pray that you would take the lessons of this text to heart. We pray, oh God, that we would not let our expectations swamp reality or rewrite reality or cause us to doubt you.

52:55 But Lord, we pray that we would know you truly, that we would know you as fully as we can in this life, and that we would give ourselves to following you until you return to take us home. We pray all of this in Jesus' name, amen.