When Jesus Doesn’t Meet Our Expectations

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What Do You Do When Jesus Won’t Cooperate With Your Plans?

Speaker: Pastor
Series:

When I was 19, freshly saved and desperate to be married, I moved to a Christian campus with a two-to-one ratio of women to men and thought, Lord, I have arrived. Then I read the rule book: no dating for two years. I spent that season praying, waiting, and quietly asking God why He’d forsaken me. I’ve since learned that when God doesn’t move as quickly as I think He should, I don’t just struggle with my circumstances. If I’m not careful, I start struggling with His character.

That struggle is exactly what’s happening in John 7:1-13, where Jesus’ own brothers, the hostile Jewish leaders, and the crowds all have an idea of what He should do, when He should do it, and who He should be. As I opened that passage this week, the question I kept coming back to was simple: “What happens when Jesus doesn’t meet our expectations?”

We Try to Tell Jesus What He Should Do

Jesus’ brothers tell Him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing… If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” They wanted Him at the big feast, in front of the crowds, acting like the political leader they expected. But John tells us plainly, “not even his brothers believed in him.” Their strategy sounded like good marketing. It was actually unbelief wearing a helpful mask.

I said it this way: “Unbelief refuses to receive Jesus as he is.” We do this constantly. Jesus, I knew you’d be different than you are, but if you really love me, wouldn’t you step into this situation? Whether we’re trying to remove Jesus like the hostile leaders, or remake Him like the brothers, both moves put Jesus on our terms instead of receiving Him on His.

We Try to Tell Jesus When He Should Do It

Verse 6 records Jesus’ answer: “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here.” His brothers saw an obvious opportunity. Jesus saw something they couldn’t: “an opportunity is not automatically a green light from God.” I thought of David in the cave with Saul, promised the throne yet refusing to seize it his own way. “Knowing God’s promises does not mean we get to dictate God’s timing.”

I’ll confess I’m an ambitious person. I talk in terms of going “150 percent,” doubling down, going all in. And the Lord has had to teach me to slow down and wait on Him. Jesus went to the feast eventually, but privately, not on His brothers’ terms. He “refuses to go on their terms,” and the question for us is whether we’ll trust the Father enough to obey Him in the present while leaving the timing in His hands.

Do We Trust Who God Really Is?

By verse 12, the crowds are murmuring, some calling Jesus a good man, others saying He leads people astray. But John won’t let us stop there. Jesus is not merely a good man, he “is the God man… co-equal and co-eternal with God the Father.” I pointed out how easily we do the same reducing today, wanting Jesus’ compassion without His holiness, wanting Christian morals without surrendering our lives to Him.

The word “muttering” in verse 12 is the same word used for the Israelites’ murmuring in the wilderness, at the very feast commemorating how God sustained them there. “They are celebrating the God who provided for them in the wilderness while failing to recognize God’s ultimate provision standing among them.” That’s convicting, because we do the exact same thing, surrounded by evidence of God’s faithfulness and still questioning Him when His provision doesn’t match our expectations.

Jesus doesn’t offer us reframed expectations. He offers Himself. “He’s going to give you himself. He’s going to give you the sustainer himself, the one who satisfies.” The real question isn’t whether every desire gets fulfilled, it’s this: “do you feel satisfied in God?”

Discussion Questions

  1. Ken shared how his desires “hardened into expectations” during his season of waiting on campus. Where in your life have your desires started to feel like demands God must meet?
  2. Jesus told His brothers, “my time has not yet come, but your time is always here.” What’s one area where you’re trying to force God’s timetable instead of trusting it?
  3. Some at the feast called Jesus “a good man,” others called Him a deceiver. Have you settled the harder question, that He is fully God and fully man, or are you still keeping Him at a comfortable distance?

If you’ve never turned from your sin and trusted Christ, today is the day of salvation, ask Him to make you new. And if you already belong to Him, do what I asked our whole church to do this morning: name the expectation you’re still wrestling with, surrender the timetable, and be faithful to Him today. Whatever you’re praying for, whoever you’re waiting on, don’t give up. The God who saved you will sustain you and satisfy you while you wait.

We hope you enjoyed the sermon and would love to see you in person. Plan your visit to Community Baptist Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee today!

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