The message
The reality is what he'd been talking about as he even preaches the biatitudes from the mountain is he's preaching an imagery of Christ that's different than what they had expected. Everything in the kingdom and their expectation even of the kingdom was upside down from the way and what they had expected.
And those expectations are not just locked generations ago, thousands of years ago for the Pharisees of that day or the nation of Israel in that day. Those expectations have traveled through time and sit in the hearts of men and women today in this house and in houses all across America and across the world. Every time you open your Scripture, there are expectations brewing inside your heart and you read his truth through those expectations.
Many of us are looking for truth alignment when we engage Scripture. We cast out those things, cast off those things which do not align with what we want and we hold true to those things which we feel do. Sometimes when the truth doesn't, we twist Scripture to make it say what we want it to say. Because at the end of the day,
We expect him to jump when we say jump, dance when we say dance, and behave the way we want him to.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 3:19
But he ain't here to serve you. He's here to obey the heavenly father. And Jesus has come and he has drawn near. And we are excited about that. And we've been celebrating that all through Matthew. We're not even to the halfway point. And we are happy that he drew near. Amen. Amen. He drew near to you and he drew near to me. And I'm I promise you today, I'm unworthy of him drawing near to me. Such a holy, Holy God drawing near. This is an un this is what I would view as an unholy union because you have what is holy drawing near that which is sinful. And that taint that would seem to taint something, right? It only like if you take if you take a glass of water and you put a little just a one an eyropper drop worth of sewage in there, I'm going to pass. Thank you.
Going to pass. Although a much of that water is good. I don't think I want any. Now, Pleasant Hill has a particular gift at getting inappropriate things in its water. And we are in boil orders 50% of the year. Not 50%. But it was interesting because when I moved from Harrisville back to Pleasant Hill, we had three months in a row, multiple weeks where there were boil orders and I'm like, "what is wrong with this city?
What is wrong with this city?" But it's been doing good, hasn't it? No boil orders since. I actually was talking about getting a life straw so I could go back out in the pond in the back and just suck up some water whenever the boil order hit. But
Even just a drop of tainted water would corrupt the whole glass. But not with Jesus.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 4:55
He draws near and he makes pure what is impure. And so we're thankful for that. We're thankful for that. I want to say this and I'm going to read Scripture. I want to say this and here's what I've tried to say in marriage conferences for a long time.
God doesn't expect anything from you. He's sovereign. He's kind of written it all out anyway. Okay? He's sovereign. He has a plan. He knows what he's doing. He's orchestrating a plan. He's not surprised by your idiosyncrasies.
He's not shocked by your bad choices. He's not surprised that you parent the way you do, you live the way you do, and you do what you do in the privacy of your house. He's not surprised by these things. He's God. He knows. So, he doesn't expect anything from you. We have a whole book here of commands and of promises.
We serve a God of commands and promises, not expectation.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 6:18
Okay? I don't think that it's healthy for us to live with expectations. You know, you might be able to debate me on this. We could get into a debate and it might be a healthy one. Well, I actually I'd probably lose because I've said I've not been able to defend this very good right up till now.
But expectations are dangerous. We're we're about to open a story and we're about to hear a story of a man who I believe grew sorrowful and I would even say to the level of disappointment because of expectations that he had of Jesus. Now he doesn't lose his faith but expectations will push you to the brink of disappointment. It is amazing because you can be a man of God. You can be a great man of God. You can stand. You can profess Christ.
You can call people to repentance. You can be somebody who blazes a trail for Christ in every area of your life. From your workplace to your house to your friendships, in your marriage, with your children. You can be the guy that people come to and when they need counsel, when they want to hear from the word of God.
You can quote Scripture and you can do all of that. But you can also move into times of great disappointment because God doesn't move the way you thought he would.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 7:41
And there will be seasons in each of your lives where you will come into places of disappointment. Now, I would like to just say here today, don't ever have expectations. You walk out today and you never be disappointed because you never had expectations. But that's just not going to happen. And no matter how much we talk about the expectations and how dangerous they are and how unhelpful they are and all of that and you realize you're not God and he has a plan that's different than your plan and his ways are higher than your ways and who will know the mind of God and all those things. I can quote all those Scriptures to you and you will know that even if you think you know what God's going to do, he's probably going to do the opposite because that's just the way he rolls.
And you don't know him like you think you know him. That all of you will have expectations and you will be faced in a moment like John where you wondering if he is who he said he is.
You'll be there. Let's read this chapter 11. When Jesus had finished instructing his 12 disciples, he went on from there to teach and to preach in their cities.
Now when Jesus heard Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of Christ, what was he doing? He was healing people.
He was helping people. He sent word by his disciples. He was casting out devils. That's beneficial. It's freeing the captives. And said to him, "are you the one who's to come or shall we look for another?" That word another there means another type.
Not another person, another type. That's that's that's important. A type different than a type I had constructed in my mind. You don't function the way that I thought you would function. You're not behaving the way that I thought you would behave. And Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and what you see. The blind receive their sight." Now he's quoting, he's quoting Old Testament here. The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, and lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised, and the poor have good news preached to them. But he leaves out the part about prisoners being set free from train chains. That's where John is now. He leaves that part out of the Old Testament text. He leaves that part out not to give him any false hope there. He just it ain't coming to him. He will free captives. Can I get an amen?
Some of you have been freed from captivity of sin and death. And you should be thankful today for what he has done. He has freed the captives. But that doesn't mean he will free every person in prison today. He will heal. But that don't mean that everybody that has cancer will be healed. He will cast out devils, but that don't mean everyone who has a devil, it will be cast out.
He does these things. These are signs that he is who he says he is. These are signs that help us understand that what he says and who he is, that it backs up his preaching and his teaching. He came preaching and teaching. How do we know that we can trust his preaching and teaching? Because of these signs. The signs were to back up the word.
To back up the word. That's why the signs came. And blessed is the one who is not offended of me. That word there offended means to stumble over. To stumble over.
Some of the deepest disappointments in our life are born not merely from what happened but what from but from what we expect to happen.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 11:51
We expected the marriage to feel different.
Brooke and I got married and we had been married for two months. We're driving back home to see some family. Pretty quick, right? And I was driving in the car and I had a headache ever since the day we got married and I hadn't been married long enough to know what you should say inside and what you should keep in there.
You gave you know where this is going, right? And I was driving and I just thought you just everything that you think in your mind, in your heart, you just say because you're infatuated with each other, you just say everything that's in here, you say it out there. I didn't realize there's some things that you just stay bottled up in there.
And I said, "Ever since the day we got married, I have had this migraine." And her head went sideways and she said, since when Since the day we got married. And then I heard the words that were coming out of my mouth. And I wanted to take him back.
And it wasn't her and it wasn't that we didn't get along and it wasn't any of that. But how many of you know that you think that marriage is going to be empty of headaches and empty of trouble and empty of problems and you don't think about bills. Matter of fact, you think this is two incomes coming together.
We're going to have even more money. And then you realize, no, you're not. No, you're not. Something just happens. This vacuous abyss just sucks all the money right out of there, right? And there's arguments. And I mean, I thought this would just be so easy.
We expect the marriage to feel different. We expect the children when we have them just Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I'd love to, sir. How do you want it emptied, sir? I love doing dishes, sir. And ma'am, yeah, good luck with that. Good luck with it. The kids don't do that. You can expect that all day. I'm going to be a great parent. All these parents in Walmart with kids throwing a temper tantrum in the ground. Not me. Not me.
I'm going to be the greatest parent the world has ever known. I'm not going to count to three. They're going to know if I say it, you don't do it, you're dead. And then you find yourself in Walmart with your kid laying on the ground counting one. One in 2000, 1.34. Right? Are you with me? You have expectations that your parenthood will be phenomenal.
I'm never going to use the word no. And I'm never going to spank my kid. We'll see. We'll see about that. We expect the church to treat us differently. For no one to ever get mad or look at us sideyed or treat us with disrespect and unkindness inside the church. Because when you come here, you've entered into a heavenly land full of bubble gum and tulips.
Folks, this place is filled with sinners. Amen. Who've been undone by sin and redeemed by Christ in spite of us.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 15:25
This is the land of hurt. And the deeper you go in here, the more at risk of pain you will suffer relationally with those who are a sinner just like you.
That expectation will make you angry at the church. It'll make you lock yourself up in your house and play videos instead of joining a community. And you'll say things that's stupid like just me and God. Just me and God. But there is no department in heaven where you get locked up into hermit town. You are sucked up and you are the body of Christ.
Yes. And that which you've rejected here, you will be united with in heaven. Right? And the greater question is, can you reject his body here and be joined to it there?
Can you say you love him when you hate his body?
Pastor Shawn Gray · 16:33
Or you just want his head, not his body. You just want to pick and choose the parts of Christ that satisfy you and reject the rest. It don't work that way.
We expect our service to people to be appreciated. People will take advantage of you. We expect God to answer sooner when we pray. He's not I've learned he's not in the business of just being fast.
He's just not in that business. We expect that if we obey him, pray faithfully, serve sacrificially and try to do what is right, life will unfold in A certain way. And then life did not cooperate with the picture we had drawn. And that's where disappointment grows.
Disappointment lives in the distance between what is and what we believed ought to be.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 17:33
That's where it lives. The greater the expectation, the greater the potential disappointment. And we are often wounded not only by what happened, but by what we had already decided was supposed to happen. Right. Yeah. The reality is we draw up expectations like quiet little contracts with God that he hasn't signed off on, but we signed his name for him and expected him to acquies to his fake signature on that contract. We write these contracts on our heart, attach the names of God and other people to them. And then we become angry when God and other people don't live according to the contract we've written in our hearts.
We assume a spouse should know what we need. We assume a friend should respond the way we would respond. We assume a church should recognize our sacrifice.
We assume our children should validate our parenting. We assume God should reward our obedience with the outcome we desire. And then
When reality differs from our expectation, affection turns into resentment and gratitude gives way to entitlement and faith begins to stumble over the very Christ we once used to profess.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 18:44
And this is where John is. Now there are some commentators because I know you guys are reading commentaries because I hear it. Let me just take a drink here to help myself. There are some commentators that say that the reason that John asked for his disciples to go ask if Jesus is who he says he is for their benefit.
But I don't line with those commentators. And just in case you think I'm alone, there are other commentators. Who believe that John had entered into a season of disappointment. We feel like we need to protect God's character here. I mean, John's character here, but every single person that God uses in the Bible has moments of stumbling, has moments of doubt. Yeah, great men and prophets were used but found themselves in cades, depressed over what was going on in their life, not even wanting to bring their hand to their mouth to eat, to nourish themsel because they were so saddened in their heart. And God would feed them and say, "Come on up out of there. I understand." He didn't disqualify them because they had a moment of doubt and a moment of sadness and a moment of disappointment. He calls them out of those things.
Why do we feel like we need to defend John instead of connect with him and understand that sometimes we orchestrate, we draw out a plan of how God should behave in our life and he just does the opposite and we enter into seasons of great disappointment. And I found in the church that sometimes our disappointment with God gets misdirected because we don't feel like that's really safe.
We redirect it towards men. Yes. Amen. Okay. When we get disappointed with God because we have an expectation that he don't acquies to, we begin to blame the church for the way we feel.
But
Our disappointment is not with the church. Our disappointment often is with the God of the church.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 21:24
Let me say this. I've seen some people get mad at the church or people in the church or people in their family because they're under a great amount of conviction.
The issue isn't about the program or the person. The issue is the conviction in your heart and you want to redirect it to somebody else.
Yeah, it's hard when God doesn't do what you had planned.
Matthew 11 brings us into a darkest prison cell where one of the greatest men who ever lived was wrestling with this very thing. He had preached with courage. He had called a nation to repentance. He had identified Jesus as the lamb of God. And he had confronted Herod's sin without fear. And guess what his reward was? Prison. I mean, he's going to end up getting beheaded because he went to Herod and said, "You're an adulterer." And Herod didn't like it.
He was calling a nation to holiness. He actually said that there will come one who will judge and who will baptize with fire. Who will judge the world and call them to holiness. There will come one and the axe is already at the root of the tree who will separate and who will judge the world. Listen. But
Before he judged the world, he needed to first be judged himself that he could set free those he came to judge.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 23:04
Who were called to be saved. John was right. He was going to judge those who weren't living holy lives. He just wasn't going to do it right now. How many of you know there will come a day where the Jesus that you think is a big giant heavenly teddy bear will judge you. And I think you there's several people in the church who thinks Jesus would never go to hell. It says that Jesus is there tormenting people and punishing them for all eternity. He's very present in places you would never paint him to be.
He's coming, but not yet. So, what is John doing? He's going, "Judge, i've called people to holiness. They're living unholy. Why are you healing people and doing all this stuff? Judge them.
It's not what he thought he would do.
Expectations become dangerous when they harden into demands.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 24:29
John's expectations concerning Christ were not entirely wrong. They were incomplete. John had preached that the coming Messiah would bring judgment. Matthew 3:10, he declared that the axe was already laid at the root of the tree. Matthew 3:12, he said that the Messiah's winnowing fork was in his hand and he would burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. Notice that there he had an expectation that Jesus would do this and he will. The timing was off. So now he's asking questions. Are we going to do what I declared? You told me. I heard God say it. I declared it. When will it happen? Now? Are you the one who's going to do this? Is this what you're doing?
And he said, "Right now, what I'm doing is healing people, casting out devils. That's what I'm doing right now. But that's not the winnowing fork. And then John looks around and saw Herod still on the throne. No judgment, no winnowing fork for him. And the wicked man appeared free. And the faithful man was in chain. And let me tell you, when the wicked man seems to be succeeding, can I say something? And you're going to think this is you're going to be like, you're going to gasp. Both are wicked men. Right.
See the problem is you have an expectation for what God see how God sees you sees me as good. I go to church. I'm the good man. They're the wicked people. Herod's the wicked people. I'm good. That expectation how God sees you is not how he sees you. You know what he sees you? He sees you as a sinner. You're like, "Well, not now, Sean. I'm saved."
No. No. Still now. You know how he sees you? Hidden in Christ. That's the only way he don't see you as a sinner. Undone. Unholy. Guess how long do you stay hidden in Christ? Forever.
That's why it's good that in him you live and move and find your being. Because if you were outside of him, this passage does not merely speak to people who've rejected God. It speaks to us. John ha John had an expectation that Jesus would help him. This is why expectations create so much trouble in our relationships.
Expectations quietly turn gifts into debts.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:32
And instead of receiving another person's love with gratitude, we measure whether it was enough. Instead of seeing service as grace, we reward it as obligation. And this is what John has done with Jesus. Instead of appreciating what someone gives, we resent what they withheld. We stop living. We stop loving the person in front of us because we are continually comparing that person to the version we created in our mind. This is why marriages become torment because we created a version of them that they don't acquies to.
You can do this with your spouse, your children, your pastor, your church. You can do this with your friends. You can demand that they anticipate needs you never expressed. Heal wounds they did not create, carry burdens God never assigned to them, and provide the identity, security, and satisfaction that can only be found in Christ.
Then when they fail under the weight of such an expectation, we blame them for being the failure.
Sometimes people truly do sin against us and Scripture never asks us to pretend otherwise. Sometimes our pain is intensified because we expect a human being to never behave that way. John says in Luke 17:10, "so you also, when you've done all that you were commanded, say, we are unworthy servants.
We have only done what is our duty." In other words,
The Lord does not owe us the life we pictured.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:22
And other people do not exist to complete the story we wrote for oursel. You don't serve because you get a reward. Because you'll get disappointed when your reward is prison. You serve because it's your duty to do so. Here's the question. Have you expectations become demands? Have you begun to believe that God owes you a certain outcome? Are you punishing someone for failure failing to honor a contract you written in your heart and signed on their behalf?
Number two, the cross puts to death the life we think we're owed. This is why we are time and time again told to pick up our cross and follow Jesus. Luke 9:23, "if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me." We've heard that verse so often that it can lose its force.
It can lose its force.
A man that's carrying a cross is hard to offend.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 30:38
Let me say it this way. Dead men are hard to offend. On.
You know what happens? I've I've known a lot of people who get a diagnosis that they have three weeks to live.
And you know what I seen change most in them? Besides sadness, besides fear, you know what I see change most? Expectations. It's like pending death puts to death every expectation. It's fascinating. Watch somebody who has a few weeks to live. Watch how their relationships change. Watch how their priorities change. Watch how their lives change.
The cross teaches us to love without an invoice.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 32:16
Much of our frustration comes from serving while secretly expecting repayment. We sacrifice and expect appreciation. We give and expect loyalty. We speak and expect agreement. We live in a land of reciprocity. And most of what we do, we are motivated by what we will get because we expect to get something in return for our service.
And John is sitting there and I've been in seasons like this going, "I paved the way. I handed off my disciples. I did and preached what the Lord said word for word. I prophesied to the nations. You're my cousin and you're the Lord and you can't even set me free from prison.
You ever been there? I mean, it's scary to say yes. It's scary to say that, but you ever been there where God didn't really move the way you thought?
I've been there. I've been so angry at God, I wouldn't even kneel down and pray. I've been angry. I've actually said stuff like, "Don't you know what I've done for you?" Oh man.
You know what? You know what Jesus does in this time of disappointment? You know what he does? He doesn't turn him to go turn to a therapist inside the prison to talk to. You know what he does to help him? You know what he does? Track with me. Guess what he does? He doesn't turn him to another friend that he become friend with in the prison. He didn't turn him to that. You know what he does? He doesn't say, "Hey, hang in there, buddy.
I'm coming." He doesn't do that. He doesn't make promises that he's not going to fulfill. He doesn't do that. He didn't say, "I'm going to pray for you." How many of you come in a time of darkness in their Somebody's come to you in a time of darkness in their life, a time of imprisonment, enslaved and in chain, hoping to be free, expectations that their life will change, and you say, "I'm going to pray for you." And you don't even pray for them. Oh, maybe some of you are really holy, and you pray for them in the instant, and you pray that God would deliver them from the chains. And I'm not saying you shouldn't ask and beseech the Lord. I'm just saying that's not what Jesus does. So if we're going to get an example of what we should do to help people in their time of darkness, here's what we do. Here's what we do. Track with me. He turns them back to Scripture. That can't be sufficient.
Amen. I can't be sufficient. That can't be sufficient to help my hurts. Scripture, that can't do the trick. I need Scripture and something else. That's not what Jesus does. It's not what he does. Well, wait, but John probably still had so many questions like, "you just partly quoted Scripture from a prophet. You just partly quoted it. What about the prisoner free thing? What about that thing? What about that thing? You quoted Scripture, but you left that part out.
What about that thing?" Guess what Jesus Guess what Jesus says? He doesn't explain it. He simply points him to Scripture. So what are we to do with that? Scripture accomplishes what God intends without your flowery without your flowery what's it called?
Elaboration. You know, there was a young king that decided to read the word every day to a nation until the nation turned and repented.
All they did was just read the word. They explained it, right? No, they just read the word.
It has the power to change nations. It has the power to deliver sinners. It has the power to make dead people undead.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 36:49
It has the power to change lives. It has the power to restore marriages. It has the power to change how parents parent. It has the power to change how you evangelize. It has the power to change what you are in bondage to sinfully in your life. It has the power.
Andy Stanley recently said from the pulpit and he's a he's a great communicator, you know, and I'll just say today, communication was never a problem for the devil either.
But listen to me today. He said from the pulpit just recently that homosexuality is a sin all unto itself and people can't be freed from that.
It's not an issue of Andy Stanley. This is an issue of what he says here is not sufficient. So we create other avenues where we defend sin and negate truth. That's right. Oh, and it's happening right inside the walls of churches. It's a problem. Right.
This pulpit is not a place where we go and attack a bunch of people who are out there in ministry trying to whatever. That's not what we're doing. But you need to be aware. Be careful little ears what you hear. Be careful little hearts what you feel. And be careful. Be careful. When man begins to set the expectation of how God should behave and what truth should do and what it should call us to, we end up getting sermons like that.
We expect love to behave a different way to be non-judgmental and to call not call us to a life of holiness. But it does.
When death is in view, it teaches us to receive life as mercy. I'm almost done. To live fully is not to do everything you desire. It is to be fully present in everything God assigns.
Expectation makes us inspect life. Gratitude allows us to inhabit it.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 39:33
Oh man. You know what I love about John? Now that we've kind of beat up on his disappointment and expectations. You know what I love about him? Look where he turns. I'm going to close with this. Faith trusts Christ when expectations remain unfilled, unfulfilled. And faith turns to him. I'm going to say it again because I think the greatest attack on the church today is that the scriptur is insufficient to accomplish everything you needed to accomplish in your life.
So we turn to everything else when all hell breaks loose. Or to make oursel feel a little spiritual and not to feel so bad, we turn to Scripture plus another thing.
John did not hold a private conversation with his doubts until they hardened into unbelief.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 40:50
But when they did, he sent the question to Jesus. That matters. John has questions and so do you. But he took his questions in the right direction. Where do you take your questions? I'm not saying it's bad to talk to your friends. I'm not saying it's bad to talk to your wife. And I'm not saying bad to talk to your husband. I just think it's bad to prioritize them over him.
I have a problem. I run to my mom. That's like two blind people trying to find a corner in a room that's a circle. I'm sorry. You're going to the wrong person. Well, Sean, I don't have Jesus sit down in front of me. Here's his words.
This is the greatest love letter the world has ever known.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 41:52
That's right. If you were in love with somebody, spent 40 years with them, and they died, and you found in a box under A board up in your attic, a box of with a box with a giant love letter in it from your loved one, and you had not received that yet. And you would read that and every word that night by the fireplace some of you have not even read all the way through this.
This is the greatest love letter ever. You know why we haven't read all the way through it? It's because we don't believe it's sufficient. We just don't believe it. We don't believe in the sufficiency of it. But John knew where to turn. Notice how John responds in Matthew 11:4-5. Go and tell John what you hear and see. The blind receive the sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised, and the poor have good news preached to them.
And Jesus did not provide John with an explanation of providence. He did not tell him when the prison season would end. He did not promise that Herod would repent. He did not explain why one servant was free to preach while another servant remained confined. Jesus pointed John to his works and to the word of God. The language of Jesus directs John back to the promise of Isaiah. That's the word.
He's saying look at what Scripture said the Messiah would do. Look at what I am doing.
Let the word interpret your circumstances rather than allowing your circumstances to rewrite the word.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 43:38
And that's our problem today. That's our problem. That is a battle of faith. And then Jesus said in Matthew 11:6, "and blessed is the one who's not offended of me." Did you catch it? Did you catch that?
I'm closing with this. Just did you catch that? Blessed. Y'all remember the biatitudes? Yeah. Blessed is the one not offended of me. Blessed. He threw. It's like PS. Here's a PS. Blessed. This may be one of the most searching biatitudes in all of Scripture. Jesus acknowledges that the way he conducts his kingdom may become a stumbling stone to our expectations.
We can hold our perverted vision of God so tightly that we stumble over God as he has actually revealed himself in Christ.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 44:47
Then he says, "Blessed is the person who does not trip over Jesus when he refuses to follow their script.
Oh, and Jesus is not in the habit of following your script, man. But blessed is the one who does not trip over him. It doesn't say blessed is the one who never doubts.
It doesn't say that. Blessed is the one who does not walk away but stays abiding in Christ. In other words, blessed is the true disciple who's not offended. You know what it is? It's a guarantee. You will be offended. And there will be opportunities for you to trip. But blessed is the one who's kept. Oh, let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. If it were up to John alone, he'd have tripped.
But there is a God who doesn't just call you. There is a God who keeps you. There is a God who keeps you.
Jesus may not fulfill every expectation, but he will fulfill every promise.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 46:12