Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

We are on an expedition to recapture a right perspective on Jesus. We are surrounded by so many manmade ideas and teachings about Jesus that are so incredibly wrong. We are hungry to know Jesus, the real Jesus. The authentic Jesus. The vintage Jesus. In this series, we are looking at different pictures of Jesus from the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Revelation. Today we are moving on to the book of Luke. Luke is the third gospel book in the New Testament.

Luke was an impeccable historian. He wrote the gospel book of Luke and he also wrote the book of Acts. When you combine the two books, you get an incredible account of the life of Jesus and how His church came into being.One of the themes that Luke talks about in his gospel is the unexpectedness of Jesus. Jesus was not what people expected Him to be. And as we get to know the real, vintage Jesus, we’ll find that He’s not what we expect Him to be, either. Jesus does the unexpected. He is usually not what we expect Him to be.We’re going to see that in Luke 4 right after we pray. In chapter four, Luke begins to tell us about Jesus’ ministry. And how he chooses to introduce Jesus’ ministry is really significant. Starting in verse 16, Luke writes, “[Jesus] went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." (Luke 4:16-21, NIV)

This is how Luke describes the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus is in the Jewish synagogue. He finds a passage from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, reads it, and then says, “This is all about me. I am the fulfillment of this prophecy.”

But the really incredible part is the Scripture that He chose. He didn’t choose a wrath Scripture. He didn’t choose a Scripture that said, “When the Messiah comes, He’s going to come with guns blazing.”

He chose a passage in Isaiah that was all about love. And specifically, it was about loving the unloved. The left out. The forgotten. And He told everyone, “This is all about me. This is what I came to do.”

What we’ve got to understand is that this isn’t the Messiah that the people had planned on. This is easy for us to miss in our cultural context. In the first century, most Israelites thought that, when the Messiah came, He would restore Israel to its former glory.

The Israelites had been taken over by the oppressive Roman Empire. They longed for the glory days, when David ruled. When they had an army that could mow down any enemy. When the nation of Israel was being blessed beyond measure.

That’s what they wanted out of their Messiah. A leader of a revolution. An organizer of an uprising. A new political leader who would take Israel back to its position of prominence.

That’s not what Jesus gave them at all. And He told them right at the beginning of His ministry that He was not going to be what they expected.

He wasn’t concerned with establishing an earthly kingdom. He hadn’t come to restore the greatness of their nation. He came to love the poor. Give sight to the blind. Release those who were oppressed by the stranglehold of sin.

This is not what the people had bargained for. Jesus was not what the Messiah they expected…or wanted. So much so that if you keep reading in Luke 4, you find that they tried to throw Him off a cliff right after this episode at the synagogue. If you are wondering whether someone accepts you or not, trying to throw you off a cliff pretty much answers the question, doesn’t it? That’s what we in the business call confirmation. If someone tries to throw you off a cliff, it is confirmation that they don’t like you.

They didn’t like Jesus because He wasn’t what they wanted Him to be. The Israelites thought that the Messiah would come to love Israel and hate Rome. Jesus said that He had come to love everyone, with special preference given to the ones who were forgotten or excluded in this culture. The people that the religious Jews looked down on…those were the very people that Jesus came to love.

They had this idea of who the Messiah would be, but Jesus shattered all their preconceived ideas. He wouldn’t conform to what they wanted Him to be…and He won’t conform to what we want Him to be.

What preconceived ideas do you have about Jesus? What role are you trying to force Jesus to play? What agenda are you trying to make Jesus support?

A lot of people want to make Jesus their political pawn. And that becomes especially evident in an election season like we’re in right now. People on both the left and the right try to portray Jesus as supporting their agenda. When in reality, we are called to support His agenda.

A lot of people want Jesus to support their pet projects or their select position on issues. They will twist and contort Jesus until it appears that He is completely, 100% on their side.

There’s a great story in the Old Testament book of Joshua. Joshua and the Israelites were about to take over the city of Jericho. Joshua was sizing up the situation when he had a surprise visitor.

Joshua 5, starting in verse 13. “Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, "Are you for us or for our enemies?"

"Neither," he replied, "but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come." Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, "What message does my Lord have for his servant?"

The commander of the LORD's army replied, "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so.” (Joshua 5:13-15, NIV)

Joshua is totally surprised by the visit of this man. The Bible tells us that this man was the commander of the army of the LORD. A lot of people believe…and I believe…that this was an Old Testament appearance of Jesus. There is a ton of evidence that this was actually Jesus. Before Bethlehem, before the manger, before Silent Night, Holy Night…this was Jesus making an appearance on earth.

And I absolutely love the conversation between Joshua and Jesus. Go back to Joshua 5:13. Joshua looks up and sees this man standing in front of him with a drawn sword. So he immediately asks a pretty obvious question. “Are you for us or for our enemies?”

Jesus’ answer is simple: Neither.

Are you for me or for my enemies? Neither.

Are you for my agenda or against my agenda? Neither.

Are you a Republican or a Democrat? Neither.

Are you on my side or on my opponent’s side? Neither.

That’s what we do with Jesus, isn’t it? And Jesus gives us the same answer that He gave Joshua. When Joshua said, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” Jesus said, “Neither, but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.”

Are you for us or our enemies? Neither…but I’m here.

Jesus doesn’t support our agenda. We support His agenda. And He is with us every step of the way.

That is the most important thing to remember. Jesus may not support our agenda. And He may not be doing what we want or expect Him to do. But He is with us.

Let’s go back to the book of Luke. In Luke 7, we find that John the Baptist is now in jail. John the Baptist was the one that God sent to prepare the way for Jesus. He was preaching and preparing people for the coming of the Messiah. But now, John the Baptist is in prison and he had been for at least a year. And he sends his disciples to Jesus with a question.

Luke 7, starting in verse 20. “When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?’”

At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” (Luke 7:20-23, NIV)

This is really an amazing story because of the people involved. Before he was thrown in prison, John the Baptist had been preaching and preparing people for the coming Messiah.

Let’s go back and look at what He said. In John 1, the Bible says, “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29, NIV)

John preached and taught that Jesus was the Messiah. He was the one who was to come.

But now, things have changed. John isn’t free anymore. He is in prison. And he had been in prison for at least a year. That will change your perspective, won’t it?

Things were not going as planned. When the Messiah came, things were supposed to get better. For John, they had gotten much, much worse.

That’s what we see in Luke 7:20. In an understandable moment of doubt, John sent his followers to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who was to come or should we expect someone else?”

“Jesus, I thought you were the one. But now I’m not so sure. Things aren’t going well. My life isn’t playing out in the way that I had planned. And you aren’t doing what I expected you to do. These evil people are still in power. I’m still in prison even though I haven’t done anything wrong. This is not what I signed on for. This is just not what I expected. So I have to know…are you the one that we’ve been waiting on or is someone else coming?”

In verse 22, Jesus gives them an answer that, at first, seems like a non-answer. Instead of giving them a yes or no answer, Jesus said, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” (Luke 7:22, NIV)

Jesus said, “So you doubt who I am? Look at the results. Look at what is happening. Look at what I’m doing. Look at how I am loving all the people that everyone else has forgotten about. I’m doing exactly what I said I would do at the very beginning.”

John was going through a time of extreme doubt because Jesus wasn’t living according to John’s agenda. That’s when Jesus took the time to remind John that Jesus isn’t governed by anyone else’s plans or agendas. Jesus lives and works according to His own agenda, and no one else’s.

And then, He said one very interesting final thing to John’s followers. In verse 23, Jesus said, “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” (Luke 7:23, NIV)

Other versions of the Bible say, “And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” (Luke 7:23, ESV)

Have you ever been offended by Jesus? John was.

Jesus’ agenda was all about loving the forgotten and the neglected, and yet John was rotting away in prison with no hope of ever being released. That was not how the script of his life was supposed to go, and John was offended by that.

For a lot of us, life is not going according to plan. A lot of us feel like, if Jesus’ job is to love us, then He really stinks at His job because we’re not feeling it right now. We feel alone. We feel abandoned. We feel like we’re in a prison and we’re never going to get out.

And then when we hear words like, “Jesus loves you,” we get offended. Not because we don’t believe it, but because we just don’t see it.

This is why the Bible says in 2 Corinthians, “We live by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7, NIV)

It can feel offensive to hear the words, “Jesus loves you,” but see no evidence of the fact. It’s so hard to believe in the kindness and goodness and love of God when you can’t see anything but your prison walls.

That’s why Jesus answered John like He did. It wasn’t to scold John or to belittle him. Jesus was saying, “John, I know it’s really tough where you are. I know it’s almost impossible, but if you could lift your perspective…if you look above your prison walls…you would see that I have a purpose and I am accomplishing it. It’s so much bigger than you. I came to love, I came to redeem, I came to set free. And I’m doing it. My plans for you are different than my plans for others. You have to trust me. Don’t be offended by me. Don’t fall away from me. Trust me.”

Rubel Shelley wrote that, “The essence of personal faith is trust in God when things work out differently from our expectations.”

For a whole lot of us, life is not working out according to plan. The plans and dreams you had for your life have gone unfulfilled. You have been blindsided by hurt and pain that you never saw coming. You are in prison and it hurts.

And Jesus just isn’t coming through for you. He is not doing what you expected Him to do. He is not the Savior or the Messiah that you expected Him to be.

That’s how John, and so many other people, felt during Jesus’ earthly life. They were disappointed by Jesus. He fell short of their expectations, and they were devastated.

What they failed to realize, and what we have to realize, is that Jesus is going to accomplish His purpose in our world AND in our lives.

And if His purpose is for us to suffer for a time, then we must suffer well. If His purpose is to take us through a dark period to shape us and refine us, then we must follow well.

Walking by faith is all about trusting Jesus when He doesn’t do what we think He should. And if you follow Him long enough, you’ll go through this season.

There are seasons when darkness falls from out of nowhere. It is completely unexpected and unwanted. And God seemingly sits idly by.

But we can’t give up, because these words from Isaiah 64 are also true.

“For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.” (Isaiah 64:3-4, NIV)

God acts on behalf of those who wait for him. He does awesome things that we don’t expect when we wait for him.

Faith is trusting God’s timing, even when His timing makes no sense. It is trusting in His goodness when all we experience is badness. It is trusting that you are not abandoned even though you feel incredibly alone. It is trusting in Jesus when Jesus is not the Savior that you had expected.

The Bible says in Philippians 1 that, “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6b, NIV)

Jesus didn’t die for you just to give up on you. He hasn’t brought you this far to drop you now. Charles Spurgeon said, “[Even] if I cannot trace His hand, I can always trust His heart.” We may not always be able to understand what the hand of God is doing, but we can always trust the heart behind it.

Things might not make sense right now. You might be in a very dark time and God just doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it.

Wait for Him. Wait for Him during the unexpected times of hurt and heartache and struggle. Wait for Him to finish the work He started in your life.

I realize that this isn’t what you signed on for when you decided to follow Jesus. And there are people in this room who are about to cross the line and leave Jesus completely because He just isn’t turning out to be what you expected.

Go back to Luke 7:23 one more time. Jesus said, “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” (Luke 7:23, NIV)

Jesus promised you a blessing if you don’t fall away on account of Him. He will bless you if you don’t leave Him, even when He doesn’t live up to your expectations.

If you stick with Jesus through your job loss, you will be blessed.

If you don’t leave Jesus when your spouse leaves you, you will be blessed.

If you don’t give up on Jesus when you lose someone that you love, you will be blessed.

If you cling to Jesus when the world is closing in on you, you will be blessed.

I don’t know exactly what the blessing will be. It will probably be something very unexpected, because that’s how Jesus likes to work. He loves to do the unexpected.

What I do know is that He promised to bless you if you will stay with Him through the dark times, through the uncertain, hard times.

In James 1, the Bible says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4, NIV)

At first glance, doesn’t this seem like the dumbest thing you have ever read? Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds. Are you kidding me?

This is why Jesus seems to disappoint us. This is why He is not what we expect. We expect Him to remove the trials from our lives, and instead, He promises in His Word that trials are coming. And when they come, we are supposed to receive them joyfully.

It seems ridiculous, but that’s because we can’t see the greater work that He is doing. We’re like John. We can’t see past the prison walls. We can’t see how Jesus is using this trial to do a work in us. We can’t see how He is using it to form us and shape us.

All we can see is the hurt. The pain. The disappointment. And if we leave Jesus in the middle of our trial, that is all we will ever see. We’ll never receive the blessing if we bail out in the middle of a trial.

Look…I know that for a lot of us, life sucks right now. It really does. You’ve been dealt a hand that you didn’t ask for and you’re about ready to cash in your chips and walk away.

As hard as it is, you need to own this truth. The greatest blessings lie on the other side of the greatest trials. Jesus promised that He would bless you if you don’t fall away on account of Him. If you don’t bail out during the tough times, you will receive the blessing that He has prepared for you.

This is not what we expected life to be like when we signed on to follow Jesus. There are times when it can really seem like Jesus has let us down. I know. I’ve been there. I’ve been disappointed by Jesus a lot in my life. But I’ve also walked with Him long enough to learn this…when I stay with Him when it doesn’t make sense, that is when He does His greatest work. When I stick with Jesus even though He isn’t what I expected Him to be, that is when He does the most unexpected and most awesome work in my life.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: faith, Jesus, Luke, suffering, trials, Vintage Jesus