Pivot - 4

Pivot - 4

Matthew 11:1-19

Introduction

Wednesday, February 17 was a big day. It was a day that brought hope to despair. It was a day that brought joy to sadness. Pitchers and catchers reported for Spring Training. The boys of summer are officially back. Right now they are all gunning for the same goal…to win the World Series. No team right now is saying all they want to do is win 50 of their 162 game schedule. They want to go all the way to the end. 30 teams are headed for the same prize. And by the end of October, 29 teams will be disappointed. Of course, if you’re a Cubs fan, you’ll be disappointed by the end of May, as your season will probably be over by then.

We all feel disappointment, don’t we? It is a horrible feeling. The sense of let down. The rising up of hope and then the crashing down of despair. Disappointment comes when expectations do not align with experience. Unmet expectations are the direct cause of disappointment. You had an “appointment” to do something, to go somewhere, for something to happen…and that appointment fell through. Disappointment is crushing.

Eric Hoffer - “Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation."

TS - our text for today introduces us to a man in the midst of profound disappointment, particularly the kind of disappointment that is directed towards God. His name is John the Baptist.

Matthew 11:2-3 - 2 Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

We are first introduced to John the Baptist in Matthew 3 as a fiery preacher of repentance to the nation of Israel. He baptizes Jesus at the end of that chapter and then we don’t hear of him again until now. Only to find out he is in prison. What happened? Matthew 14 gives the account of his arrest and subsequent execution. King Herod of Galilee, the son of King Herod the Great, had gone to visit his brother in Rome, Herod II. While there he seduced his brother’s wife, Herodias. He came home to Galilee, dismissed his own wife, Phasaelis, and married Herodias. John the Baptist publicly denounced Herod for such a grievous sin and was quickly arrested and placed in the dungeons of the Fortress of Machaerus in the mountains near the Dead Sea.

He sits in that dungeon for two years before his execution. What do you do during such a traumatic time? You think. You rethink. You second-guess. You doubt. And that is exactly what John does here. John’s own disciples have reported to him all that Jesus has been doing. And Jesus’ deeds have sowed some seeds of doubt with John. You can hear it in his voice. “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” Are you the “one who is to come”…a clear Messianic title.

This Promised One of the OT. This one God has promised will arrive and bring justice to the Earth. Jesus, is that you? Or should we look, literally translates as ‘wait’ for another? Jesus, I have believed up to this point that you are this promised one…but now that I hear what it is you are actually doing, I’m not so sure. Are you him, or should I keep my eyes on the horizon?

Why would he doubt now? Isn’t John the one who pointed at Jesus and declared him to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world? Isn’t John the one who saw the dove descend and land on Jesus at his baptism and hear God audibly declare, “This is my Son in whom I am well pleased.”? Why doubt now? Well, time alone locked in a dungeon can do that to you. But I submit that John’s doubt here looks more like disappointment than anything else. John has some expectations about how the Messiah is going to be. Listen to snippets of his preaching:

Matthew 3:7-12 - 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

John’s message is repentance and judgment. Fire is coming. Wrath is coming. The axe is laid at the root and he is going to cut down the bad trees. And then Jesus shows up. His teaching is phenomenal. He heals. All good. But he isn’t the holy man John had expected. In Matthew 9 John’s disciples come to Jesus to ask why they and the Pharisees fast (like good, righteous Jews are supposed to) while Jesus and his disciples don’t. There is a disconnect there. Unmet expectation.

Then Jesus doesn’t seem to cut down any of the bad trees. He shows love and mercy to them. He even heals a Gentile’s servant…one of the clear enemies of God’s people. And as we are told later in chapter 11, Jesus is known as a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

John hoped the Messiah to come in and clean house for Israel so that the Jews could then overthrow Rome and gain back their freedom. But Jesus seems to be allergic to politics and isn’t even hanging out in Jerusalem. He’s in Galilee, the rural backcountry. It’s like hanging out in northern Idaho when the change can only happen in Washington DC. Unmet expectations. John is disappointed with Jesus.

Ever been there? Ever had a time where you just knew God was going to answer your prayer, but then he didn’t? In fact, it seems that God moved the opposite of what you were praying for.

Prayed for someone to get well, but they just got worse. Trusted God for that promotion or that new job only to lose out to someone less qualified. Needed God to come through financially but you got turned over to collections instead. Begged God for power over a sin only to find yourself back at it again. Asked God to make someone’s heart tender to you or even to God, but they only grew more hard-hearted over time.

This is a real thing, isn’t it? Where we find a disconnect between our expectations and our experience? Unmet expectations will disappoint every time. What do we do when we have them towards God? The rest of Matthew 11 addresses this very question. In it Jesus will give us two directions to look that will rightly align our expectations with reality and bring healing to our disappointment.

LOOK AT WHAT JESUS DID

Notice Jesus’ reply to their question:

Matthew 11:4-6 - 4 And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

John, if you want to know whether or not I am the promised one to come, look no further than my deeds.

the blind receive their sight…interesting that Jesus would start with this one. There is not a single recorded healing of the blind anywhere in the OT. This is new. This is unprecedented. This is a power that is beyond imagining. And while there is no record of the blind receiving sight until Jesus arrived, it is the most-often performed miracle that he does. Already saw in Matthew 9:27-31. Lame walk (Matthew 8:5-13 Centurion’s servant, 9:1-8) / lepers are cleansed (Matthew 8:2-4) / deaf hear (Mark 7:31-37) Dead are raised up…Matthew 9:18-26…Jairus’ daughter. Poor have the Gospel preached to them. Jesus hasn’t gone to the wealthy and influential. Tough to bring social change or defeat Rome with the poor.

All these deeds that Jesus has performed are incredible, and certainly sound like what the OT prophesied that the Messiah would accomplish. In fact, Jesus himself stood in a synagogue early in his ministry and read a prophecy of the coming Messiah from Isaiah 61. Here is what it said:

Luke 4:18-19 - 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives

and recovering of sight to the blind,

to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

All of those are mentioned specifically by Jesus here in Matthew 11…except one. Which mark of the Messiah’s ministry did Jesus not include to John, the one in prison? “Liberty to the captives.” Could it be that John is disappointed in Jesus because one of the marks of the Messiah’s ministry is the release of God’s people from prison? Yet here John sits in a dungeon. Are you really him? Because if you are, shouldn’t I be free by now?

What John is missing is the bigger picture. He is focused a bit on himself and the predicament he is in. Jesus, are you going to rescue me? But Jesus is more concerned with a different kind of freedom. At the cross, Jesus will provide freedom for all his people. Freedom from sin. Freedom from death. A true, lasting, ultimate freedom. And if Jesus tries to maneuver politically or militarily, it would be a deviation from his true mission. Jesus’ mission was never political. It was never for Israel’s national pride. It was for salvation for all those who would trust in him.

Notice Jesus’ last phrase to John at the end of verse 6…”blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” That word ‘offended’ is the Greek word skandalidzo, where we get scandalized. It literally means to ‘get tripped up’ or ‘to fall away.’ Jesus famously used it in Matthew 5:29-30 when he said ‘if your eye or hand cause you to sin, cut it off.’ “Cause you to sin” is skandalidzo. So blessed is the one who does not fall away, who does not stumble because of me, Jesus says. You are blessed John when you don’t fall away because of what I do, or because of what I don’t do. Don’t let your unmet expectations push you away from Jesus.

LOOK AT WHO JESUS IS

Now that Jesus is finished with his answer to John, he now turns to the crowd and starts talking about John. And it is clear that Jesus holds John in high regard.

Matthew 11:7-15 - 7 As they went away, 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? 8 What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. 9 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is he of whom it is written,

“‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face,

who will prepare your way before you.’

11 Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12 From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. 13 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, 14 and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. 15 He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

This is essentially a 3-point sermon by Jesus about who John is.

He is a prophet. He’s certainly not a reed swaying in the wind. John was as firm and solid as they come. He definitely isn’t soft (King’s wear soft clothing…think ‘silk’). Not John. His clothes were like his demeanor…hard, tough. He’s a prophet. John stands in the long line of those men who speak for God. Moses is described as a prophet in the OT. Elijah. Elisha. Isaiah. Jeremiah. Daniel. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. John The Baptist. But John is more than that. When Jesus says in v. 9 that John is ‘more than a prophet’ that word for ‘more’ means ‘exceedingly more, abundant.’ John is the Super Prophet. Why?

Because he is the last one. He is the crescendo. All those other prophets spoke for God, but John prepares the way for God. Which is exactly what Jesus says next. Not only is John a prophet, but is himself the object of a prophecy. This is from Malachi 3:1. God promises through the OT prophet Malachi that a forerunner will come and will prepare the way for God himself to arrive on the Earth. John got to do something that none of the others could dream. He is the greatest man to ever live. v. 11 - Among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John The Baptist. Wow, that is quite a statement. John truly was unique and exceptional. This is why crowds of thousands flocked to the desert to see this odd man and to hear his great preaching.

Yet, the least in God’s kingdom is greater than he. Now, Jesus is not denigrating John in any way. He is simply acknowledging that John is old-school. He is the greatest prophet of the Old Covenant. But Jesus brings a new covenant. His kingdom supersedes all that has gone before him. And because God’s kingdom is so great, even the least, the smallest (Greek word is micro) is greater than he is. v. 14 - he is Elijah. This is the fulfillment of Malachi 4:5 - 5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. The Jews knew that the Messiah would not arrive, God would not walk the Earth until Elijah came as the forerunner. So they waited…not for the Messiah, but for Elijah. Still today when Jews celebrate the Passover, they leave a seat empty at their table for Elijah to show they are anticipating his arrival. Which is so sad…Elijah arrived a long time ago.

Quite a sermon about John The Baptist. Though it isn’t really about John, is it? No, this is all about Jesus.

If John is the super-prophet, who is Jesus? If John is the greatest in the pre-kingdom era, who is Jesus as King of that Kingdom? If John is Elijah, the forerunner of Yahweh himself, who is Jesus?

Maybe you are disappointed today. Many around the world live in a perpetual state of disappointment. John Cheever - “The main emotion of the adult American who has had all the advantages of wealth, education, and culture is disappointment.” It doesn’t have to be this way. Maybe today you feel like God didn’t come through for you. You had some expectations and he didn’t meet them. You are disillusioned. You are doubting. You are disappointed. Friend, there is a solution.

Look to Jesus. Don’t look to your expectations about him. Look to him. The real him, not the one you imagined, fabricated, fantasized, invented. Look to Jesus. Look at what he did. Push your mind back, past where you think he didn’t come through for you, and go all the way back to the cross. Because he absolutely did come through for you. He took your sin upon himself and nailed it to the cross. By faith in Jesus he will remove the penalty for your sin…separation from God and eternal death. By faith in Jesus he grants the hope of eternal life. He came through for all of God’s people.

Look at what Jesus did. Look at who Jesus is. He is the one who supersedes all who have ever lived. He is greater than the greatest. He is King over the Kingdom. He is God in the flesh. He is love. He is mercy. He is grace. And he welcomes all those who place their trust in him. Look to him…and live.