John 12:12-19
I really
don’t like to clean up. The hardest part
of cleaning up for me is getting started.
Sometimes when I look around at a dirty house or a dirty office, the job
just seems too monumental I’m afraid to start.
And I’m a great procrastinator so I start thinking of all sorts of
reasons to put it off. So getting
started is half the battle for me.
Some people
put off cleaning up their house or their room.
Some people put off cleaning up their life. If you’ve been putting it off, it’s time to
get started. We’ve been talking about
ways to clean up our lives for the past few weeks. I encouraged you to start reading your Bible
more. Then, we talked about getting rid
of false motives. Last week, we
discussed getting rid of distractions.
Today, I want to encourage you to get rid of false expectations about
God.
Today is
Palm Sunday, the day we commemorate Jesus’ triumphal entry into the Jerusalem
Temple while people shouted hosannas and waved palm branches for their long
awaited Messiah. It was a day of great
expectation. It was also a day so many
people misunderstood because they had false expectations of what the Messiah
would be. Let’s look at the story
together.
John 12:12-19
12 The next day, the news
that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. A large crowd of
Passover visitors 13 took palm branches
and went down the road to meet him. They shouted,
“Praise God!Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hail to the King of Israel!”
·
In Jesus’ day, it was common for well over 2
million people to flood into Jerusalem from all over the world for the Passover
celebration. They were already filled
with expectations for their trip to Jerusalem.
Many of them had dreamed their whole life of traveling to Jerusalem—the
same way many kids might dream of one day going to Disney world or adults might
dream of taking a cruise.
·
And then in addition, news that Jesus was coming
swept through the city like a wildfire along with the report that he had just
recently raised a man named Lazarus from the dead. Can you imagine the hopes and expectations? People are thinking, “This Jesus raised a man
from the dead after he’d been in a tomb for 4 days? Could this be the long awaited Messiah who
will lead a revolution of freedom from the Romans? And it’s happening while we are here in the
city!”
·
And it was this jubilant throng of expectant people
who cheered for Jesus as he entered Jerusalem.
They shouted a familiar chant from Psalm 118:25-26, which were verses
they had shouted for conquering kings before.
Though Jesus came in peace, the crowd expected Jesus to come for war.
14 Jesus found a
young donkey and rode on it, fulfilling the prophecy that said:
15 “Don’t be afraid, people of
Jerusalem.
Look, your King is coming,
riding on a donkey’s colt.”
Look, your King is coming,
riding on a donkey’s colt.”
•
Jesus knew the crowds’ false expectations for him. They wanted a king marching to war. There was no way for him to tell them they
had it wrong. There was no way for a
crowd like that to hear him above the shouts of jubilations—even if they were
willing to listen.
•
So Jesus chose a symbolic act to show his true intensions. He rode a donkey’s colt. You see, kings ride horses when they are
going to war. But when they come in
peace, they ride donkey’s colt. Jesus
was symbolically saying, “I come in peace.”
But the crowd wanted Jesus to make war against their Roman oppressors.
16 His disciples didn’t
understand at the time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy. But after Jesus
entered into his glory, they remembered what had happened and realized that
these things had been written about him.
•
Even Jesus disciples—his closest
friends—didn’t understand. They were swept
up in the enthusiasm of the crowds’ false expectations. Passion like this is contagious.
17 Many in the crowd had seen Jesus call
Lazarus from the tomb, raising him from the dead, and they were telling others
about it. 18 That was the reason so
many went out to meet him—because they had heard about this miraculous sign.
19 Then the Pharisees said to each other,
“There’s nothing we can do. Look, everyone has gone after him!”
False Expectations
I struggle with the celebration of
Palm Sunday. On one hand, I love to see
the children walk down the aisles of our church waving palm branches and I love
the joyous festive atmosphere, which recalls the jubilant crowd that praised
Jesus in Jerusalem in scripture reading.
On the other hand, it’s troubling to me because the crowd misunderstood
Jesus’ purpose. They had such high
expectations for him, but they were the wrong expectations. Some people in the crowd just wanted to see a
famous celebrity. The majority expected
a conquering king to save them from the Romans and restore Israel’s prestige. The political/religious authorities expected
a trouble maker, a threat to their power that needed to be eliminated. Each group’s false expectations about Jesus blinded
them to the miracle that was before them.
The Son of God had come in peace to conquer—not the Romans—but their
sinful hearts.
False Expectations
about God
Two
thousand years have passed since the first Palm Sunday, but we still struggle
with false expectations about God. I
want to go over three common false expectations we have of God.
First of all, we expect God treat us all the same.[i] We equate fairness with equality. We trust The problem is we are not all the same. Each one of us is a unique masterpiece God is creating. He is not working the same way in my life as He is in yours. Therefore, He does not treat you the same as me.
God to be fair and so we expect God to treat us all the same.
My children
often complain that I did not treat them all the same. My 13-year-old daughter gets made when I punish her more severely than my 8-year-old for the same offense. "Why aren't you as strict on her?" Because a 13-year-old knows better and the 8-year-old didn't know any better. All my children are different. I love them all the same, but I don't treat them all the same because each one is an individual with different strengths and weaknesses and different needs. I treat each one how they need to be treated for their own good.
Second, we expect God to give us an
easy life if we follow Him. We often
feel like God should reward us if we are doing all the things He asks us. Well, God does take care of us (whether or
not we are obedient). Yet, God never
promised He would give us an easy life.
It’s a good thing too, because an easy life often produces lazy,
selfish, immature people. God doesn’t
want that for us. He wants us to be strong,
generous, and mature people. He wants us
to overcome some difficulties in life to develop our character, strengthen our
faith, and teach us to endure. Hardships
actually bring us closer to God, while an easy life tends to cause us to drift
away from God. So hardships are not a
sign that God doesn’t care; they are a sign that God cares deeply and wants to
grow your faith and draw you closer to Him.
Third, we expect God to protect the
innocent from pain and suffering. We
might be OK with dealing with a little suffering ourselves, but it is hard to
see others (often people we love dearly) suffer. We cry out, “Lord, why are you letting—my
child, my mother, my spouse, etc.—suffer.
What have they done to deserve this?”
Sometime we are appalled when we hear of exceptionally good people
suffering.
The first
thing to note is, no one is innocent.
Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fall short of God’s glorious
standard.” So if “innocent” is our
standard that says, “God should not let ‘innocent’ people suffer, we have
already made an irrelevant statement. No
one is innocent.
“Ok,” you
say. “This is semantics. No one is innocent. But shouldn’t God protect those who maybe-aren't-so-innocent-but-not-as-bad-as-axe-murderers?” I don’t want to give you some cliché as an
answer. There are some terrible things
that happen in this world that I just don’t understand. I don’t expect you to understand it all
either. All I know is that if God can
take the ultimate evil of the crucixion—when the world took God’s Son, the only
truly innocent man who ever walked the earth—and turn it into the ultimate
good, God can take whatever evil befalls a person and turn it into something
incredibly good. I think the worse the
pain or suffering that is endured, the greater the ultimate good will because
it brings the greatest glory to God.
What God Expects of
Us
We need to
get rid of our false expectations of God.
Instead, we need to focus on what God expects of us. He
expects us to trust Him. Even when
we don’t understand, even when we don’t agree, even when we are afraid, God wants
us to trust Him. He is trustworthy. He has done everything in Christ to show His
love and power and that He is trustworthy.
God expects us to obey Him. Obedience is the outward expression of
trust. If we belive God is trustworthy
and has our best and ultimate interest in mind, we will do what He says.
God expects us to love Him. God wants more than mere obedience. God wants a relationship. Just as your spouse or children or friends
desire your companionship, God wants to be with you. God wants you to come to Him like a small
child climbs up in his mother’s or father’s lap.
Challenge - This
week, I challenge you to get rid of your false expectations about God and focus
on what God expects of you.
[i]
http://blogs.bible.org/engage/sue_bohlin/why_our_expectations_of_god_are_unrealistic
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