Sixth Sunday of Lent - Palm Sunday

On this the sixth Sunday of Lent we celebrate Palm Sunday – the day we remember the Lord's entry into Jerusalem to the boisterous cheers of the crowds. St Matthew describes the tumultuous scene this way: “Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in the road. The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!” (Mathew 21:8-9)

 

But we know the rest of the story, don’t we? It’s only days before who-knows-how-many in that same crowd will clamor for His crucifixion. And despite the crowd’s boisterous acclamation on Palm Sunday, Jesus knew He was headed toward a gruesome death before the end of the week. He knew this was the time set by the Holy Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – the time to bring salvation’s plan to its culmination. Jesus knew all this as He rode into the city.

 

The question many of us have often considered – and which I want to spend some time in this message considering again, is “What happened to the crowd between Palm Sunday and Good Friday?” And I want to add one more question to that first one: Why does it what happened to the crowd between those two dates matter?

 

We will come back to those questions in a few minutes

Palm Sunday and Good Friday did not happen in a vacuum. The sin-drenched history of humanity poured out on the Altars of Self since the Garden of Eden brought Jesus to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Those sins would shortly lead Him from the donkey to the cross where He would engage in a battle of inconceivable proportions – a battle to determine the eternal destinies of every man and woman in Jerusalem on that fateful day – and every man and woman in this building today.

 

Most of us have heard this story of Jesus entry into Jerusalem dozens and dozens of times. Many of you grew up with the story told and retold in children’s picture books, Sunday School lessons and from pulpits year after year.

 

There’s a danger in all that, by the way. The danger being that the all-so-familiar story becomes a ho-hum tale of long, long ago. There’s a danger that the story on which salvation history hangs becomes diluted of its power to transform us from a “been there-heard it already” attitude to one of life-altering revelation, even if we’ve been walking with Christ for half a century or longer.

 

Many of you remember the old spiritual, “Where You There?”

 

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?/Oh, were you there when they crucified my Lord?/Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed him to the cross?/Were you there when they nailed him to the cross?/Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble/Were you there when they nailed him to the cross?

 

Does the story of our redemption at the cost of the Son of God's life cause us to tremble? At the very least, does it cause us to pause and reflect on such love, such wondrous loves as this, that God would love a sinner such as I – and you?

 

Actually, and in a very real sense, ‘Yes,’ You and I WERE there when they crucified our Lord. I believe God saw you and me through the lens of eternity when Jesus took His last breath and shouted, “It is finished!”

 

Make no mistake. What was finished was YOUR redemption, and mine. Two thousand years ago. And hear this again, please, if Jesus had NOT permitted Himself to be nailed to that tree, if He had NOT permitted those men – whose very DNA His hand wound together at their conception – if He had not permitted them to murder Him, then you and I would still be dead in our trespasses and sins and on our way inevitably and inexorably to an eternity in the Lake of Fire.

 

What happened to those in the crowds on Palm Sunday who also were part of the crowd on Good Friday? Well, we can’t really know what happened to them because Scripture is silent about that question. But knowing human nature as well as we know it – because we here are all human – I think it’s safe to make some speculative assumptions.

 

In the 53 years I’ve followed Jesus, I’ve seen many followers of Christ turn away from Him. And so have you. And while their reasons for turning back to the world might be varied, I think there is most often only of two fundamental reasons a person leaves Christ: Either they tire of doing what Jesus wants them to do, or they grow angry, or annoyed, or disillusioned when Jesus doesn’t do what they want Him to do.

 

And I think the shorter the time grows before the Lord Jesus’ return the more urgent Satan grows in his seduction of humanity – and especially of churchgoers.

 

Why especially churchgoers? Because if he can seduce you and me away from Christ, we don’t usually go away alone. We bring with us those who looked up to us, who trusted us, who thought we have the answers to questions like, “Are the Scriptures TRUE? Are they TRUE about forgiveness and eternal life? Are they TRUE when they tell me that God loves me, despite all that I have done?” 

 

As I prepared today’s message, the names three modern and well-known Christians came to mind because of what they did. I’ve mentioned them in the past, and I do so again to emphasize the point:

 

The first is Joshua Harris. He was a megachurch pastor and author the then-popular Christian book titled, “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”.  Several years ago, Harris told his church that he’d found freedom from Christianity. He divorced his wife and shortly thereafter marched in a Gay Pride parade.

 

Around the same time Harris fell into apostacy, another big-name Christian also turned away from the One he used to call his Lord. Marty Sampson was a worship leader and song writer for the Hillsong megachurch. Like Harris, Sampson also boasted of having escaped from Christ.

 

And only a month or so ago, Philip Yancey, author of many well-known Christian books, admitted to an eight-year-long adulterous betrayal of his wife of fifty years. And during those eight years he continued to write books and play the part of a faithful Christian.

 

Those are only three of many other modern examples of those who at one time shouted like the crowd on Palm Sunday, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,’ but ended up turning from Him. Such betrayal against the King of kings is nothing short of disastrous for them, their families, and for those who looked up to them. Why disastrous? Because Satan can now seduce those who once trusted them to walk away from Christ as they did.

 

What comes over a person who once proclaimed Christ as their savior and then turn from Him as some in that same crowd did on Good Friday?

 

Scripture gives us some insight – of course. Listen to what Jesus said in that third chapter of John’s gospel: “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” (John 3:19-20)

 

What happens to some people between Palm Sunday and Good Friday? I think some also walk away from Christ when He says things that, to us at the time, don’t make sense – as if, by the way, God is obligated to speak and to do what we can understand with our finite minds.

 

I think now of the Lord’s comments in that sixth chapter of John’s gospel when the Lord told the crowds: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me . . . .” (John 6:53-57)

 

At that point, many of His followers walked away from Him because they thought: “This is insane talk.” (verse 60). And I suspect many never returned.

 

But the story doesn’t end there. We pick it up at verse 67: “So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.” (John 6:53-68)

 

I asked at the beginning of this message if what happened to those in the crowds between Palm Sunday and Good Friday – does it have any meaning for us today? Was it – IS it – important?

 

The answer to both questions is an unqualified, ‘Yes.’ Those who today want to stay with Jesus – EVEN WHEN THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND everything He says, or does, or does not say, or does not do – those who want to stay with Jesus do so because – well, ‘Where shall we go?’ He alone has the words of eternal life.

 

I’ve said this to you before and I am grateful to say it again: Just look at yourselves. How many heartaches have YOU experienced in your Christian life? How many shattered dreams? How many disappointments? How many unanswered questions – especially the questions beginning with, ‘Why?’

 

How many of you suffer physical or emotional trials, and you know you might not get better in this life? And yet, here you sit. Week after week. Around the calendar. Year after year. And you still intend with God’s help to follow Jesus until you take your last breath.

 

Why? Your answers will all be individualized; And of course, the Holy Spirit continues to hold onto you. But you also have an important role to play in that ‘holding-on.’ What is that role?

 

You DON’T WANT to go. Surely you know that because of your sin nature and under the right circumstances you COULD make that disastrous decision to go your own way, to leave the love of your life. But you ALSO know, after all these years and all your life experiences, you know there’s nowhere else to go. Jesus alone has the words of eternal life, and Jesus alone can take you to eternal life.

 

And so, my point to all that I’ve said this far? Keep at it! The Palm Sunday crowd didn’t know Good Friday was around the corner. And no one on Good Friday knew that Sunday was a’coming.

 

Keep at it. The devil is a most seductive, magnetic, and beguiling liar. And he is not done with us until we are finally with the Lord Jesus in our new bodies after our death.

 

He’s not done with you or me because he hates us with a most malicious hatred – and if he can take us down, as he did with Harris, and Sampson, and Yancey – if he can take us down, he will take others with us.

BUT! – And this is a most important ‘But” – on the other hand – because of your faithfulness to Christ in it all and through it all – because of your faithfulness to Christ, our God uses your faithfulness to bring others also along with you to that Celestial city.

 

You NEED to know that in your heart of hearts. You and I are, as St Paul wrote, ‘co-workers with Christ’ in the building of His Kingdom. You Must believe that because the whole of Scripture tells us that is true.

 

As I bring this message to a close, I want to cite only one example of what I mean about how God WILL use our faithfulness to draw others to Himself. This story comes from the 6^th chapter of the historical book of 2 Maccabees, written a few hundred years before Jesus was born.

 

During this time, the Jews lived under Greek domination. The Athenian king decreed that all Jews were to turn from their faith, make sacrifice to the Greek gods, and eat pork – something God forbade all Jews to eat. To refuse meant a torturous death. We pick up the story at verse 21, after 90-year-old Eleazar refused the non-kosher meat:

“The officials in charge of this sacrilegious meal took [Eleazar] aside privately because of their long acquaintance with him and urged him to bring meat of his own . . . and to pretend that he was eating the sacrificial meat that had been commanded by the king. In this way he would be saved from death.”

But Eleazar answered: “At this stage of my life it would be terribly wrong to be a party to such a pretense,” he said, “for many young people would be led to believe that at the age of ninety Eleazar had conformed to a foreign practice. If I should engage in deceit for the sake of living a brief moment longer, they would be led astray by me, while I would bring defilement and disgrace on my old age.  For the moment I would avoid the punishment of mortals, but alive or dead I shall never escape the hands of the Almighty. Therefore, by bravely forfeiting my life now, I shall prove myself worthy of my old age, and I shall leave to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly and nobly for our revered and holy laws.” With these words he went immediately to the torture rack . . [and] in this way he died, and by his death he left an example of courage and a model of virtue not only for the young but for the entire nation. (2 Maccabees 6:21-31)

 

Did you catch that? “I shall prove myself worthy of my old age, and I shall leave to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly and nobly for our revered and holy laws.”

 

What happened to Eleazar between his initial commitment to the God of Israel and the threat of death in his old age unless he gave in to such treason to save his life?

 

What happened? He WANTED to be faithful to His God. And the Holy Spirit enabled him to do so, even on the rack of torture.

 

What about us? Do we WANT to remain faithful to our God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, we do. But we should never be ignorant of Satan’s tricks and lies and sweet temptations. That is why we every day put on that armor of God St Paul spoke of in his letter to the Christians at Ephesus. You can find it in chapter six of that letter.

 

We WANT to remain faithful because – well – how could we commit such grievous spiritual adultery against the one who loves us so, so very much. How could we devastate Him? How could we break His heart by doing what some in that Palm Sunday crowd did on Good Friday?

 

Please, my brothers and sister, hear this one more time today: It is ONLY, ONLY, ONLY the Holy Spirit’s power that keeps you and me faithful. That is why we seek Him in prayer again and again to keep us humble, penitent, and obedient. Where else can we go? Jesus alone has the words of eternal life.

 

Keep at it. Keep walking with Christ. And know this: Sunday is coming!

Fifth Sunday of Lent - Delivered!

 

Today is the fifth Sunday of Lent. This entire Lenten season, as is true of each season within the Church’s calendar, was designed by the early Church to help people focus attention on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to that focus that we now turn to the primary text for today’s Lenten message. Look with me at this prayer in Psalm 86:11-13

 

“Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and will glorify Your name forever. For Your lovingkindness toward me is great, and You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.”

 

For our remaining time this afternoon, I hope to demonstrate how this prayer is applicable to our walk with our Savior – not only as we journey toward Easter Sunday, but also as it applies to our DAILY walk around the calendar with and toward our Lord.

 

When we pray with the psalmist, “Teach me, oh, Lord your way and I will walk in your truth” – our prayer presupposes an important point – that being  we WANT to know God’s truth – even if His truth is inconvenient or unpleasant. Scripture and even our personal histories give ample evidence that God’s truths can be inconvenient or unpleasant. For example, there’s the story in the 42^nd and 43^rd chapters of Jeremiah’s prophecy that illustrates that point.

 

The Babylonians had already ravaged their way through Jerusalem and Judah, and the small surviving remnant wanted to escape to Egypt for safety. They asked Jeremiah to seek guidance from God, saying, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with the whole message with which the Lord your God will send you to us. Whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, we will listen to the voice of the Lord our God to whom we are sending you, so that it may go well with us when we listen to the voice of the Lord our God.” Jeremiah 42:5-6

 

When Jeremiah received word from the Lord, he told the remnant that God wanted them to stay in Judah and NOT go to Egypt. He told them God would protect them from the Babylonians if they stayed where they were. But as soon as Jeremiah told them what the Lord had said, they responded: “You are telling a lie! The Lord our God has not sent you to say, ‘You are not to enter Egypt to reside there’” (see Jeremiah 43:1-2).

 

The remnant then rushed off to Egypt like they’d wanted to do in the first place. But it didn’t end well for them – as it never does when we disobey God. They all died in Egypt when the Babylonians chased after them. What the remnant thought would be their haven became their graves.

 

The people of Isaiah’s day held similar attitudes, even though God rebuked them through the prophet: “This people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote.” (Isaiah 29:13)

 

And human nature didn’t change even to the first century. That’s why Paul wrote to Timothy whom he left to pastor the church at Ephesus: “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”

 

In the late 1960s, Paul Simon of Simon and Garfunkel said it well in his song titled, ‘The Boxer’: A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. I think that’s why so many people – even in churches – love to reinterpret Scripture. They want to make God say what He never said, so they can live in sin and justify to themselves their lifestyles.

 

“Teach me, oh, Lord your way and I will walk in your truth.”

 

Listen, please – We ought not to expect God to speak to us through His Scriptures or through His ministers if we choose to hear only what we want to hear.

 

Again, we each ought to pay very close attention. The Almighty God, the Holy God, the fiery pure God is not one to be trifled with. For good reason Jesus warns: “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.” (Matthew 7:24-27)

 

So, let’s return to the psalmist as he continued his prayer: Unite my heart to fear Your name.

 

If you’re like me, you find your heart often divided between what you want to do and what He wants you to do; Probably not in what we call ‘big things’ like living a morally pure life, but in a thousand little things such as what to watch on television, or whether to engage in a ‘little’ gossip, or holding on to the money you sensed the Lord directing you to send to some organization to feed the poor or the evangelize the lost.

 

What an important prayer this is: “Lord, unite my heart to YOUR heart.” Who doesn’t need to ask the Lord to make such a thing true increasingly so in their life?

 

Lord “Unite my heart to FEAR Your name.” And yes, it’s a good thing, a necessary thing, to have a healthy fear of God. As Scripture so often reminds us: “By the fear of the Lord one keeps away from evil.” (Proverbs 16:6b)

 

While growing up in my mother’s home, I loved her – but I also I feared her and her discipline, whether it was a swat on my bottom, or losing my television privilege, or whatever else it was, I feared her – and because of that fear I am in large measure the man I am today.

 

When we have a healthy fear of God, knowing that He will discipline us when we disobey Him – sometimes severely, if necessary – it is that healthy fear of God that protects us from ourselves.

 

I think our disintegrating culture is directly linked to the wishy-washy tripe too many pastors have been feeding their congregations for the last two or three generations, teaching, “God is love, God is love, God is love” – without hardly a mention that without JUSTICE, without DISCIPLINE, God’s love is nothing more than a sickeningly sappy and empty phrase.

 

Listen: God is serious when He says He expects from us holiness, obedience, and self-sanctification. Listen to these representative texts: (2 Corinthians 7:1) “Beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” And Hebrews 12:14 “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.”

 

Let’s go back to today’s text: “Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and will glorify Your name forever.”

 

When God teaches us His way, when we WALK in His way, when He unites our heart to fear Him, we will give thanks to Him with all our heart and glorify Him forever because our lives are rich with His presence.

 

But what might it mean to ‘glorify’ God? Surely it is more than simply singing worship songs or offering Him the words of our mouths. How can you and I, sinners as we are, give our awesome and mighty God glory? Well, Scripture tells us how we give glory to God.

 

For example: “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

 

Listen again to the Lord’s answer to that question in John’s gospel: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” John 15:7-8

 

How can we glorify the almighty God? Live in obedience to Him. And when we do as He tells us to do, we will not only bear fruit for Him, but also shine a light on His magnificence, a light directing everyone around us to look at Him.

 

He tells us through Isaiah: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;  So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”

 

Said another way, you don’t need a seminary degree to share with others what you know of God. You only need a heart desirous of bringing honor and glory to our Savior, and our sovereign God will use your words and your life to succeed in what He set it all out to succeed.

 

Let’s return to verse 13 of our text: “For Your lovingkindness toward me is great, and You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.”

 

Have you ever thought what your life would be like today – today, March 22, 2026 – have you ever thought what your life would be like today if Jesus hadn’t saved you? I hope you’ve thought about it – long and often. 

 

And if you haven’t, you should start. How can we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory if we don’t remember the horrible darkness that enfolded some of our lives. I don’t care if you were baptized as an infant, if you were raised on the front pew of the church, you and I are STILL sinners. We were all born in sin. And if Jesus hadn’t rescued us from the domain of darkness, it should be easy to extrapolate where we’d would be now. Today.

 

Just look at the culture all around us. Hateful. Angry. Jealous. Bitter. Selfish. Bigoted. Pugnacious. Not knowing the love of their Creator. Not knowing the life-changing change He could make in their life, even if they’ve ignored Him for decades.  

 

If Jesus hadn’t rescued us, we’d today be in danger of helplessly imitating the godless world around us. We would right now, today, be unredeemed sinners without hope and without God in the world.

 

Ah . . . ‘But God.’ If you’re His child through your obedient faith in the Lord Jesus Christ – if you’re a child of God, then your life now and your life after death all HINGE on that phrase: “But God.”

 

Listen to St Paul: “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins . . . and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.” (Ephesians 2:1,3-5)

 

Listen also to what he wrote to Titus: ^“But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:4-7)

 

Oh, how I need – how WE need – to remember where we were, where we could be, and where we are headed, because and only because of God’s mercy toward us through Jesus Christ. How we need to remember, with the psalmist: Your lovingkindness toward me is great, and You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.”

 

But not only did God in His righteousness and mercy saved us from a lifetime of self-destruction and the ruin of others, He ALSO saved us through Christ’s atonement from an eternity – a forever and ever – away from His very presence and in an inconceivably torturous place the Bible calls by a variety of names – Sheol, hades, and hell. But whatever the name, Scripture describes it as a place of suffering, fire, and unending anguish. (see for example, Matthew 13:42; Luke 16:23; Mark 9:48; 2 Thessalonians 1:9; Revelation 20:14).

 

Contrary to the ideas of those who prefer to deny Biblical truth, Hell is not temporary. It is not metaphorical or symbolic. It’s a real place. And also contrary to the ideas of those who prefer to dilute Biblical truth, hell is inhabited by souls even today as we sit here. The place of eternal torment was originally prepared for Satan and his demons (Matthew 25:41), but it is now and forever will be inhabited also by every person who rejected the atoning sacrifice of God’s Son for their sins.

 

If the eternality of hell is only allegorical, then it would be reasonable and logical to believe the eternality of heaven is also only allegorical. And if both heaven and hell are NOT eternal, then what else did Jesus and the apostles say that is not factual?

 

Christian!  Don’t go down that satanic-designed rabbit hole. As the Psalmist wrote: “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.” (Psalm 118:8-9); And again, “I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, and in His word do I hope.” (Psalm 130:5)

 

I close today’s message with the text I opened with at the beginning of our time today. This short prayer is rich with application to everyone calls Jesus their Lord, Master, and Savior. That’s why I urge you to try to memorize those few verses during the last few weeks of Lent. Doing so will serve you well through the remaining years of your lives.

 

“Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and will glorify Your name forever. For Your lovingkindness toward me is great, and You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.”

 

 

 

Fourth Sunday of Lent: Failed Expectations

On this fourth Sunday of Lent, my text today is from the 11^th chapter of Matthew’s gospel: “Now when John, while imprisoned, heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to Him, “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?” (Matthew 11:2-3)

The context of the passage in Matthew finds John the Baptist in a Roman prison, sharing a filthy cell with rats, vermin, and an overwhelming odor of feces and urine. And he had every reason to believe his life hung on a proverbial thread. It is no wonder he sent word to Jesus, asking Him, “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?”

Now, please remember, Jesus and John were cousins. We learn of their familial relationship in the first chapter of Luke’s gospel. So, it would be reasonable for John to EXPECT his miracle-working relative – His Messiah – to come to his rescue.

And John’s expectation is a really important point with direct application to our lives today. Many people live lives filled with a heartrending mixture of sadness, loneliness, and unmet expectations. We hoped for comfort, but we suffered – and still suffer – adversity. We expected close relationships with family as we grew older but ended up emotionally distant – even when family lives nearby. We thought God would answer our prayers – and sometimes He did; But at other times He did not.

And so, the question before us this afternoon: What are our expectations of Jesus? And – more important – what will we do if He doesn’t meet those expectations, just as He did not meet the expectations of many in that first century.

Luke tells of the time the Lord visited His hometown of Nazareth. He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and read this text from the prophet, Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19) He then closed the book and said, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

 

Those in the synagogue had heard of the miraculous works He’d done in other cities and towns. Why should they not expect Him to do the same in Nazareth, His boyhood home? After all, they were all His neighbors. He’d been to their homes, and they’d been to His. He played boyhood games with their children. Why shouldn’t they expect Him to heal their sick and hurting as He’d done for others? But they were about to learn, as we’ve all learned in life – God doesn’t always do what we want Him to do or expect Him to do.

Listen to the Lord’s response: “There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years, and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian" (Luke 4:25-27).

 

In other words, God does what He chooses, when He chooses, and for whom He chooses. And no one – not even Jesus’ neighbors and childhood friends – has a right to expect or demand He do otherwise. As He said through the prophet Isaiah many centuries earlier: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

If you remember the story, Jesus’ remark infuriated them. In a flood of rage, they drove Him out of the town and tried to throw Him over a nearby cliff. And don’t think for a moment that people have changed over the centuries.

 

Many still nurse bitterness toward God over withered dreams and crushed hopes. They rail against Him because an accident took someone they love, or their marriage crumbled, or their child wasn’t healed, or no one visits or calls, or they are in chronic pain, or – add your own disappointments.

 

And so, some who once walked with the Lord became disillusioned with Him because He had not met some of their even most desperate expectations.  And since they are unable to physically throw the Lord over a cliff, they instead throw away their faith. I’ve known more than a few in the past who did that. I suspect many of you do, also.

Listen, it’s a danger we all face, and we face it quite often during our lives as we wonder why He says no when we want so much for Him to say yes. Why does He work miracles for others, but not for us?

In my fifty-three years of walking with Christ, I’ve come to recognize these questions are truly critical questions that impact our faith – and I don’t think God will let any of us gloss over them. Our ability to mature in Christ DEPENDS on how we answer those questions, because each time we don’t receive what we ask, each time we get knocked to the ground, each time Jesus doesn’t meet our expectations, we face a choice, like those in the Nazareth synagogue faced – will we throw our faith over the cliff, or will we will persevere in our faith that God will work grace into our circumstances – regardless of how things look or feel at the present.

 

Several years ago, I talked with a woman who told me of her deep longing for a family of her own. It was something she’d always wanted, even from the time she was a little girl. But she never married and never had children. And now, because of her age, she thinks those blessings are things she will never enjoy. Then she asked, “Why am I denied something that others get as a matter of course? I think my life has been completely wasted.”

 

Who hasn’t faced a similar grief, a similar circumstance of unrealized expectation and hope? It’s true that when we’re drowning in depression it’s difficult to think rationally about our circumstances. But if we DID think clearly, we’d realize God works all things for the good of those who love Him. He works all things to draw us close and closer to Himself.

 

The Father sent His beloved Son to die that excruciating death for each of us for the express purpose of DRAWING us to Himself. There is nothing that God desires more than that we come closer to Him. The apostle Paul speaks of this very thing in Romans 8, but before we look at that text, it will be helpful to get a glimpse of the severe struggles he himself had to face – and that repeatedly.

 

Listen to what he wrote to the Christians at Corinth: (2 Corinthians 4:8-10) “[W]e are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.”

 

Earlier in that same letter he also wrote: (2 Corinthians 1:8b-9) “We were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.”

 

It’s against this backdrop, this reminder of Paul’s suffering, that makes his words in Romans 8 more powerful: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things . . . . For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

Paul didn’t say what I am about to say, but he could just as easily added another paragraph:  “Shall loneliness, or broken hearts, shattered dreams, destroyed hopes, unreconciled families, debilitating illness, or the death of those we love – NONE of these thing will be able to separate us from the God who loves us so much that He sacrificed His Son to die in our place so that we might share our eternity with Him.”

Hear it again – what can separate us from God’s love? What could ever happen to us that God designed to push us AWAY from Him? In all the circumstances of life –the good, the bad, the ugly – in all the circumstance of life, God’s design and desire is for us to draw close to Him, even to become conformed to the image of His Son. (See Romans 8:28-39)

 

Let’s circle back to John the Baptist for a moment. John had his own set of expectations and was disappointed when his Messiah didn’t fulfill those expectations. And the message the Lord sent back to him is a message Christ also sends to you and to me: “Yes, John – I AM the Expected One. I AM the resurrection and the life. I Am the Messiah. And I love you, even though I do not meet your expectations.”

 

Listen! Please. Life isn’t like some feel-good Hollywood movie. That’s because sin has infected and infested every facet of life. And as a result of that hard reality, we can either carry our cross, or we can fling it to the ground and go our own way. We can take the chalice of suffering God has given us, or we can spill the contents on the dirt and mix our own drink instead. May God help us to not do something we will terribly regret later.

 

So now let’s look at this theme of failed expectations from another angle. What can we do when our trust in God is just not up to some of the desperate challenges we face? What ought we do when we believe God has given us too much to bear?

 

I know what it’s like to have feeble faith that’s not up to the challenges when life’s storms thrash our little boat up and down and side to side until we feel like we are going to throw up. What can we do when our faith falters? What SHOULD we do when our faith falters?

 

It’s this: If we can’t trust Him like we want to and like we should, if our emotions overrule our faith – there is still yet one thing we can do: We can still OBEY Him. We can still obey what we know are His commandments.

 

Anyone can trust God when life floats along on warm, gentle waters. But what about when God is deafeningly silent and it seems heaven is ignoring you? Obedience is an act of the Will. It’s about what we CHOOSE to do when heaven seems brass, and we think God has turned His back on us?

 

In one hour, Job lost his ten children and his vast wealth. A short time later he lost his health to excruciating boils all over his body. But I am glad his story is in Scripture because it can encourage each of us. Listen to what he said in the midst of his agonies: “It is still my consolation, and I rejoice in unsparing pain, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.” And in the thirteenth chapter he cried out: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” Job 6:10 and 13:15a

 

If Job could obey God despite his multiple tragedies – then so can we.

 

 Nancy and I know a woman living a nightmare from which she cannot seem to awaken. She recently suffered a double-mastectomy for breast cancer – and afterward learned all the cancer cells had not been removed, so she not only faced more painful and invasive procedures but also rounds of nauseating treatments. Compounding her horrible situation are the mounting financial pressures and her stark loneliness as she fights this battle nearly all alone.

 

But listen to what she told us several weeks ago: “I know better than to ask why I'm going through all of this, because as Job the Righteous learned when he questioned God, I simply don't have the standing or credentials to question. It's not up to me to understand why; It's up to me to trust him and to keep stepping forward one foot at a time with the light from his lantern that only gives me enough [light] to see the next step. It's not about understanding Him, it's about trusting Him. No matter what.”

 

In 1970 Simon and Garfunkel wrote Bridge Over Troubled Water. Here are some of the lyrics: When you're weary, feeling small, when tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all. I'm on your side, oh, when times get rough and friends just can't be found - Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down; Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.

Who is a bridge over troubled waters like Jesus? Who but He ever laid down His life to span the tumultuous gulf between where we were, where we are, and where we can be? To paraphrase what Jesus told us: “In this world you will have troubled waters. But be of good cheer – I have overcome the storms.”  (paraphrased John 16:33)

 

During the Last Supper, the Lord Jesus said to His disciples, “You are those who have stood by Me in My trials.” (Luke 22:28) He knew what was about to happen to Him in just a few short hours. I’m certain His voice was rich with the emotions of gratefulness, even of thanksgiving for their faithfulness.

 

But one day when I read that passage, my mind shifted direction. I imagined Jesus looking at His 21st century disciples – you and me and all who still follow Him – I imagined Him looking at us and saying with equal emotion: “You are those who have stood by Me in your trials.”

 

Please don’t miss the subtle – but important – change: “You are those who have stood by me in YOUR trials.”

I don't think it harms that Scripture if we for a moment alter that one word. Think for a moment of the emotional and physical traumas you’ve faced in life – and through which you have persevered. Those trials aren’t anything to be glossed over, are they? They represent your life, your blood, your sweat, and your tears.

 

At any time, you could have given up. You could have walked away. But you didn’t – and even if you did at one time walk away – you’ve returned. Thanks be to God – you’ve returned.

Our journeys are almost over. And here’s the thing: When we come at last to that celestial City, we know we have God’s unchanging promise – a promise which can never fail for the true child of God – we have God’s promise, the promise that rightly fuels our biblically-based expectation of being received into His eternal Home.

The season of Lent should be more than just a time of preparation for Easter Sunday. It should be a reminder that life is not about us and OUR expectations of Him; Life – around the calendar – must be about Christ, and HIS expectations of us. It’s about serving Him, living for Him, obeying His commandments. As the psalmist wrote: “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Thy name give glory.” (Psalm 115:1)