When Jesus Doesn't Fit Your Expectations

By /
Speaker: Pastor
Series:

What Do You Do When Jesus Isn’t Who You Expected?

Imagine a farmer standing in a field, almanac in hand, insisting it won’t rain today, while storm clouds gather right over his head. He trusts the paper more than the sky in front of him. That’s exactly what was happening in Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles, when people who knew the facts about Jesus still couldn’t see Him standing right in front of them. They had information. They didn’t have Him.

This week I opened John 7:25-36, and the big idea I wanted us to wrestle with was simple: we must know and trust Christ as he has revealed himself, not as we expect him to be. Every one of us comes to Jesus with expectations already built in, about what He should do, how He should act, what following Him should feel like. And when He doesn’t fit those expectations, we have a choice: bow in submission to His word, or reject Him because He doesn’t match what we assumed.

Truth Number One: Your Assumptions Can Keep You From Seeing Jesus Clearly

The people of Jerusalem said something telling in verse 27: “we know where this man comes from. And when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.” They had the facts, the lineage, the background. In Greek that’s the word *gnosko*, knowledge of facts. But there’s another kind of knowing, a personal relationship, and they didn’t have that. As I said to the church, “you could be right about the facts and still be wrong about Jesus.” You can know the Christmas story and the Easter story and still not know Christ.

Matthew Henry put it this way: “Those that have plenty of the means of knowledge and grace, if they are not made better by them, are commonly made worse… The nearer the church, the further from God.” Familiarity breeds contempt, and the religious people of that day were so familiar with the facts that they missed the Savior standing in the temple. I asked our church to consider whether we’ve done the same, building assumptions about what following Jesus would look like, and then judging Him when life didn’t match the assumption. “Scripture, not your expectations and not your assumptions, has to be the lens that you read Christ through.”

Truth Number Two: Your Response to Jesus Reveals What You Really Believe

Jesus didn’t leave the crowd guessing. He proclaimed loudly in the temple, “you know me and you know where I come from… but he who sent me is true, and him you do not know.” And the responses split three ways. Some responded in hostility, seeking to arrest Him. Some were restrained, unable to touch Him because “his hour had not yet come.” And many believed, a decisive, completed act, literally believing into Him.

Same message, same moment, same person preaching, and yet different results. That’s still true today. “The word of God does not merely inform us. The Word of God ought to transform us.” So I asked the room directly: you know He commands forgiveness, how are you doing on that? You know He commands holiness, are you pursuing it? Sometimes the next step of faith isn’t learning something new. It’s doing what He’s already told us to do.

Truth Number Three: Faith Trusts Jesus Even When You Don’t Fully Understand Him

Jesus says in verse 33, “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me.” He’s calm. Deliberate. Not rushed, not panicked. He knows exactly where He’s headed even while the Pharisees are sending officers to arrest Him. Their hostility was real, but as I reminded the church, “we see the delays but God sees the dangers.”

Even the mockery in verse 35, where the Jews wondered if Jesus meant to go teach the Greeks, ends up an unintended prophecy. The gospel did go to the nations. Their insult became His glory, just like Joseph told his brothers in Genesis 50: “you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” I told the story of driving my kids from Chicago to Memphis, around curves and hills where they had no idea where we were or how we’d get there. But they trusted their father. That’s the posture Jesus calls us to when we can’t see the whole road.

Discussion Questions

  1. The people in Jerusalem said “we know where this man comes from” and used that fact to reject Jesus as the Christ. What’s a fact about Jesus you’ve held onto without letting it become a real relationship with Him?
  2. Three responses appeared in the same crowd: hostility, restraint, and belief. Which of those has been your honest response to something God has clearly spoken to you about recently?
  3. The almanac illustration pictures trusting an assumption over what’s right in front of you. Where might you be reading your circumstances through your own expectations instead of through Scripture?

If you’re here this morning and you don’t understand why, don’t understand how, I’d simply invite you to pray what I prayed at the end of this message: Lord, there are things I don’t understand, help me to trust you. There are things I do understand, help me to obey. And Lord, help me not to assume things about you, but to obey you. Whether you’ve walked with this church for years or you found us for the first time today, His hand is out and His word is true. Come as you are, and let Him be exactly who He says He is.

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!

Plan A Visit
Scroll to Top