This passage from Matthew 11 explores John the Baptist's questioning of Jesus' identity and mission, Jesus' affirmation of John's prophetic significance, and the broader implications of misunderstanding the nature of God's kingdom, particularly concerning human expectations versus divine reality.
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we will get started here this morning in our study as we continue going through the gospel according
to matthew making our way into the 11th chapter now after finishing chapter 10 and dealing with a
lot of issues related to persecution what it means to be a follower of christ jesus spent like the
entire last chapter talking about uh counting the cost of what it means to follow him in chapter 11
he goes on to it we're going to be speaking of john the baptist quite a bit here
it says after jesus had finished instructing his 12 disciples he went on from there to teach and
preach in the towns of galilee when john heard in prison that what christ was doing rather
he sent his disciples to ask him are you the one who was to come or should we expect someone else
jesus replied go back and report to john what you hear and see the blind receive sight the lame walk
those who have leprosy are cured the deaf hear the dead are raised the good news is preached to
the poor blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me as john's disciples were leaving
jesus began to speak to the crowd about john what did you go out into the desert to see
a reed swayed by the wind if not what did you go out to see a man dressed in fine clothes
no those who wear fine clothes or in king's palaces then what did you go out to see a prophet
yes i tell you and more than a prophet this is the one about whom it is written i will send my
messenger ahead of you who will prepare the way before you i tell you the truth among those born
of women there has not risen anyone greater than john the baptist yet he who is least in
the kingdom of heaven is greater than he from the days of john the baptist until now the kingdom of
heaven has been forcefully advancing and forceful men lay hold of it for all the prophets and the
law prophesied until john and if you are willing to accept it he is the elijah who was to come
he who has ears let him hear let's stop there that's probably about enough to take for one day
isn't it all right pray with me father god open our hearts to your word we look to you father
to speak to us in jesus name amen well there's probably a hundred things that we could pull from
this passage but i'm going to give you four i'm going to lay out kind of four things and i'll
put them up on the screen for those of you that are taking notes maybe this will kind
of help out a little bit but we're going to be looking at four things that we're going to be
considering through these first four excuse me 15 chapters and the first is john's question
that he poses to jesus through his disciples and why he asked it and and and what was behind it
uh secondly we're going to look at our lord's response to john what he says to john
then we're going to ask the question what did jesus mean about that falling away thing he
talked about on account of him what was that all about fourthly we're going to ask the question
who was john the baptist and just exactly how is he connected to the prophet elijah
so let's consider the first thing and that is john's question if you look again in verse
2 it tells us that when john heard in prison what christ was doing and that's a significant thing
for us to remember john was in prison he was there
because herod had imprisoned him simply because he was speaking out against king herod's marriage to
his brother's wife his brother was still alive and yet he took his brother's wife john knew that that
was wrong and that was committing adultery and so he spoke out against the king and because of that
herod had him in prison so you know here's john languishing in a dungeon and and you know
while i really don't want to get into all of the speculative psychology
that kind of surrounds the idea of how a person's perspective can change when they're imprisoned i'm
sure we could probably all agree that that's a big fat drag and that it would in fact
have an impact on your view of things how you see life and how you perceive what's going on um jesus
let me back up i actually wanna i wanna i wanna reference john first you know the
bible says that john came as a witness to the light but that doesn't mean john was
the light he was not the light in fact he said i am not the light the true light that lights
in men is coming into the world i am just a witness to the light but as a witness to the light
he didn't have full revelation of everything that the bible had to say about what the messiah was
going to do he had a lot of revelation but there were there were holes in some of his
understanding and there were things about the messiah's role that frankly the jews chose
not to think about isaiah had prophesied that the messiah would come and suffer but the jews
tended to downplay that and rather play up the idea of the messiah coming as the political
conqueror who was going to put down the enemies of israel and free them from their bondage to slavery
of course they they never really kind of conceived that jesus was going to come set
them free from slavery to sin they pretty much always interpreted that on a socio-economic level
and that was kind of the way they they thought and jesus went around saying things like the kingdom
of heaven is at hand the kingdom of heaven is at hand the kingdom of heaven is at hand and
that just kind of fueled the fire because in their mind the kingdom of heaven meant
political power it meant the kingdom of heaven in as it is embodied in israel with messiah ruling
and reigning on the throne putting down the enemies of the lord setting the jews free from
their oppression right and that's the way they thought i think that's the way john thought too
and so here he is now
expecting you know the messiah to come as a political deliverer he's the one who he knows
has been called to go before the messiah herald his coming probably figures it's just amount just
a matter of time before all this stuff starts to come down in such a way that you know jesus
takes over and he's going to be set free and it's not happening it's just not happening at least
it's not happening the way he expected and so he questions i thought the kingdom of god was coming
so he gets to the point of even saying through his disciples to jesus listen are you the one or
should we expect somebody else you know you can hear the doubt he's wondering
this whole idea of the kingdom of god and and and the misunderstanding they had about the kingdom
of god fueled many questions that jesus fielded during the time of his earthly ministry in fact
there's a there's a reference in the book of luke i'll put it on the screen for you in the
17th chapter where there's this conversation going on it says once having been asked by the pharisees
when the kingdom of god would come because they expected it to come in a way that they expected
jesus replied listen he says the kingdom of god does not come with your careful observation nor
will people say here it is or there it is because the kingdom of god is within you
you know i can only imagine what his hearers were thinking at a time like that
when he'd say things like the kingdom of god is within you and they're kind of like what
what the kingdom of god is within me the kingdom of god how can the kingdom of god be within me
it's the kingdom of god is going to be basically embodied by israel the bible says that jesus or
not jesus they didn't you know they just thought in terms of the messiah but the messiah is going
to is going to come and he's going to rule and establish his kingdom and and and there will be
incredible signs and wonders and and he will put down the enemies and and this that's what
you know they knew that this was a historical event that was going to take place and and when
jesus would say the kingdom of god is within you that must have just tweaked him something fierce
now you and i know from our perspective of things what jesus was talking about the kingdom of god
in his first coming begins in the heart of the believer right when we accept jesus as our savior
when we receive him the kingdom by the way in order for there to be a kingdom what do you have
to have you have to have a king and if there's king he probably has a throne well when jesus said
the kingdom of god is within you he's explaining the fact that during his first coming the kingdom
of god begins in the heart of every believer who receives jesus as savior who enthrones him in
their heart makes him lord of all and the kingdom grows from there and then in his second coming we
know that jesus will return with the saints and will establish his throne upon the earth for
that one thousand-year reign which we call the millennial kingdom if you have questions about
that you can go online and go back through my revelation study and we we talk a lot about that
but you see the jews took the the first coming and the second coming of jesus and kind of
intermixed them and and you know understandably so it's tough sometimes to to put them in their
proper perspective but they just decided they were going to kind of focus you know on the i mean who
wouldn't want to focus on the big were the victors part of it you know what i mean why focus on the
suffering servant part of the messiah because that was a little bit weird anyway it's like that kind
of that weirds me out i mean that i'm talking like a jew back then if you know when jesus started
talking about the fact that he was going to be turned over to the gentiles and and and mistreated
and finally killed that caused a lot of people in terms of their understanding of the messiah to say
well then he can't possibly be the messiah it says the messiah is going to reign forever
okay so you really threw a wrench in my understanding here you know you really
tweaked my theology i i don't get it now and that's because they they tended not to look
at those prophetic passages about the the suffering servant and focused instead on
his second coming and so on and so forth and what does that kind of teach us about human nature
it teaches us the fact that you know we are people who with expectations about life
you know we go into marriage we have an expectation of how it's going to be and then when
it's not that way you know we get disappointed we go to a new job we have expectations of how
it's going to be and then when it's not like that we get disappointed we have expectations
in relationships we have expectations in church we have expectations you know in everything
and and these people had expectations related to the messiah john had expectations related to the
messiah and when those expectations were not fulfilled in his understanding of i think this
is the way that the thing ought to go you know he said he sends his word with his disciples
hey listen go ask him this would you are you the one because it's not looking like it right now
it doesn't look like this is the way things were supposed to go with the
messiah so uh should we hang out and just wait for somebody else
it's understandable i suppose but john was not exempt as we see from
some of the misunderstandings which could potentially go with the jews
interpretation of their own prophetic word related to the coming of messiah and and nor are we exempt
from misunderstandings and expectations and all that kind of thing and it's especially challenging
when we have expectations that we feel the lord ought to fulfill and those do not get fulfilled
you know i mean it's one thing to be let down by another person but we who read the bible
and understand the word of god know that people are fallible and that you know they're they're
going to they're going to let us down people are going to let us down it's it still hurts
it's still challenging i'm you know yeah we've all been let down by by other people and and and
what do you normally do when someone lets you down
usually you try to avoid them because it's you know it's uncomfortable it's
awkward to be around somebody who's let you down and so you just kind of choose to
kind of back away a little bit well do you know that people do the same thing with god
when their expectations of something god something they'd asked god for prayed about maybe even
diligently waited on the lord for or whatever are not fulfilled people tend to back away the same
way they do with other relationships and whether it's like you know this whole church thing i think
i'm just going to kind of give it a rest for a while and praying and and reading the bible um
yeah i'm just going to take some time off and you know there's a lot of things in the world that we
can get involved and distracted by to take up our time and energy and effort and so forth and just
kind of let things go on but you know when we get disappointed by god when we feel let down by god
can i just suggest to you people that that's a very very dangerous thing to happen
and and we are walking on very dangerous ground at that point very thin ice as they would say
because i'm sure i won't surprise one single person in this room
when i tell you that the enemy would just love to get his hands on your disappointment
and your discouragement as it relates to an expectation that you had in the lord
that was not fulfilled in the way that you wanted it or prayed about it
to be fulfilled and it's important christians that you don't allow your discouragement and your
disappointment to grow in such a way that it it it becomes this huge stumbling block to your walk
uh with christ so that probably begs the question how are we to handle our disappointments with god
well i want to advance for you this morning three things that i think are very very important to do
and again for those of you that are taking notes i'll put them up on the screen for you
but the first thing i think we ought to do when we are dealing with disappointment and
be feeling let down by god is number one we need to remind ourselves that god loves us because
you see the very first thing the enemy loves to do when we feel let down by god is to somehow
corroborate what we're already being tempted to believe and that is god doesn't love you you see
he loves other people and you hear about god loving other people but that doesn't mean you
and somehow some way the enemy sews that kind of a thought process into our hearts in such a way that
we actually we probably wouldn't even verbalize it to anyone else but we begin to believe we are
singularly unloved by god and it's at a time like that that you need to confront that idea
the temptation of that idea whether it's a still a temptation or whether you've grabbed on to it
you need to confront it with the word of god bathing your heart in the scripture
and let me just suggest one passage for those of you taking notes i think first chronicles 16 34 is
a great verse that says give thanks to the lord for he is good number one and his love endures
forever you know it is very very possible
for your mind to become so clouded in a time of disappointment and discouragement with god
that you will begin to believe that he is not good and that he doesn't love you
and you begin to believe all kinds of other things but you know
we have to live by faith we're called to live by faith are we not you know does the
bible ever say live by feelings does the bible ever say live according to your circumstances
no it says live by faith the righteous shall live by faith that means that what's going on out here
is not the basis by which i'm going to judge god and his goodness and his love for me
that that is not going to be the thing i am going to believe that he is good and that he loves
me well that's hard when life is crying out at that particular moment like that is not the case
missing pieces of the puzzle do you know it's the most natural thing in the world when we face
a terrible situation to try to figure it out to try to make some sense of it what do you hear on
the news after these terrible horrible shootings take place around the country in various places
what do you hear people say on the news what do they say they go it just doesn't make sense
so what are they telling you they're telling you that it is it is we have a gravitational pull in
our hearts to try to put pieces together and make sense of it and often we can't
and most certainly when god is doing things in our lives that we don't get
we're not going to be able to put it together in some kind of a rational reasonable understandable
way that we can look at and go oh i see what god is doing i mean that's not to say god can't reveal
things like that but boy i tell you in my history with walking with the lord he usually doesn't
and that is the time that you and i have to go back to the word and remember from isaiah 55
and i love this verse god says for my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my
ways declares the lord you know we've brought up that verse several different times but it's one of
those things you have to keep coming back to when i am feeling let down by god i have to realize
but you know what god i say i've been praying here about this thing and i've been giving you
all kinds of advice on what i think you should do but i have to remember at the end of the day
that my thoughts aren't your thoughts vice versa your ways aren't my ways and i just have to trust
you and there's another part of this that i think is just as important there's another
passage from the proverbs it's proverbs 3 5. it says trust in the lord with all your heart
and look at the second part lean not on your own understanding
if i had to be completely honest with you today and pinpoint one single verse in the
bible that i disobey the most it's this one i am constantly trying to lean on my understanding
and that means just like you i'm trying to figure it out and make sense of it and i can't
and when i think i do i just get myself into deeper trouble and i end up worrying more so
god's word is is is replete with with these kinds of statements that that that counsel you and i
don't do this don't go where you can't go intellectually you know you so don't don't
get yourself tied up in knots and don't let yourself feel it get you know don't let that
temptation to feel let down overwhelm you you just you don't know what god's up to and neither do i
at least not exactly how he's going about it we do know what the end result is though and that's the
third thing that we need to remember we need to deal with this situation by acknowledging that god
has promised to work good out of the circumstances and challenges and difficult situations in our
life we got to remember that you know you have to learn to say to the lord in the midst of your
trials god i believe you are going to bring good out of this situation i believe you are going to
bring glory to your name out of this situation you guys know what verse i'm going to put down here it
romans 8 28 we know that in all things god works right for the good of those who love him that
have been called according to his purpose i love the way this verse begins because it begins with
an affirmation we know we know what do we know we know that god in all things god works for the good
you know why i love that verse because i have to go back and read it and ask myself do i know that
i mean do i really know that
or do i say i know it but when push comes to shove i really don't believe it
well trials have a way of showing us up for who we really are don't they
they they have a way of showing our christianity for what it really is and sometimes we realize
when we go through a hard situation there's all these wonderful promises in god's word
that i could sit and quote and i learned him back when i was a kid or whatever and i know
them and i've got them underlined in my bible but you know what i really don't believe them
because my response to this situation tells me otherwise and i need to come back to god and say
lord forgive me for not putting my faith in your word forgive me for believing the difficulty of
my circumstances over and above your word forgive me for leaning on my own understanding forgive me
for not believing that you love me and that you're good forgive me lord for not really truly trusting
that you're going to bring good things out of this situation forgive me for that and now i'm going
to bathe my heart in the word of god and allow that to just wash over the the stuff that's in
my heart you know that tries to get me to believe things that are contrary to the word of god
and then jesus responds to john's question look with me again in verse 4. jesus replied go back
and report to john which you hear and see the blind receive sight the lame walk those who
have leprosy are cured the deaf hear the dead are raised the good news is preached to the poor why
is jesus telling them to go back and tell john those things because that's what was prophesied
he's reminding john of what else the prophecies had to say about what messiah would come and do
remember john was being rather selective like a lot of other jews were about the coming of messiah
and what that would mean and again they focused on the socio-political aspects of it to the really to
the exclusion of a lot else and so jesus is just gently saying to john's disciples and to john okay
go back and tell john this it's happening dude it's happening the way god's word said it was
going to happen the book of isaiah outlines that the messiah would come and do all those things he
would raise the dead he would the lame would walk the death would hear the the mute would
speak and so forth and so on and the lepers would be cleansed and the good news would be proclaimed
the messiah was to come and do all those things according to isaiah and it was happening
and then
jesus makes this interesting statement which has been called the misplaced beatitude in verse six
and it says blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me you know i have looked at
that verse in the past and i got to tell you i've scratched my head in wonders like what in
the world is jesus saying in this verse well one of the problems is that frankly the niv does not
do a good job rendering this verse i much prefer the new american standard bible which renders it
somewhat differently and and it goes like this and blessed is he who does not take offense at me some
of you who might have a different translation on your lap will read something similar to that
here's the thing the words take offense that you see there in the nasb and the the nivs rendering
fall away believe it or not come from a single greek word and it means to run into or stumble
over something that was in your path kind of like i ran into our bathroom scale this morning on the
way to the back bathroom before the lights came on rather painful experience but yes it can refer
to things that we stumble over that are in our path that we don't see but it can also refer to
things we stumble over that we do see and what i mean by that is that there are times that jesus
reigns on our parade for lack of a better term in such a way that we're offended or he says
something that offends us he can say things you know jesus offended people all the time
he would say things like um i am the way in the only way
no man comes to the father except by me people still find that offensive
and people who do people who are offended by that will turn away from jesus and they'll say well you
know that's ridiculous that's offensive for you to limit it just to you now that would be probably
an unbeliever who would turn away and would be offended and would stumble over something that
he ran into in terms of jesus but do you know that christians can be offended by jesus too
we can be offended we can be walking along having a great old time with jesus and suddenly he
convicts us through his holy spirit of something in our life that we need to get rid of as it
relates to sin or some behavior that's damaging or detrimental in our lives and we're offended
that he would have the audacity to say things to me like unless you are willing to take up your
cross and follow me you're not worthy of me unless you love me more than father mother sister brother
husband wife you are not worthy that's offensive jesus how could you say such a thing jesus says
hey blessed are they who are not offended at me who don't stumble over the things that i say and
who understand the the implications of who i am and and and so forth and the things that i do say
you know i'll never forget a number of years ago back when we were meeting in the small sanctuary
on sunday mornings i had a guy come up to me after service and good looking guy youngish probably
early 20s and he dressed well and he was very um open and you know he wasn't shy about coming and
introducing himself i'd never met him before in fact i don't think i'd ever seen him in church
before but i was talking that sunday about the cost of following jesus and how if you're a
believer you might not always be mr popularity you know and or and or mr successful in as as to how
the world might determine success and he came up to me and i could tell by his demeanor he wanted
very much to be popular and successful and i think he was i think he was actually good at those
things great personality one of those guys that probably would have got a job really easy just
looks like a hard working clean cut i'm here to do the job kind of a guy you know sort of a thing
and and he impressed me from that standpoint but he was troubled you see by what he heard in the
scripture about jesus and he was like so um what's that all about anyway i was like hey well you know
if you're gonna be a follower of jesus you just gotta remember that the world hated him
they hated him and they wanted to be rid of him and they ultimately crucified him
so is that the kind of guy you want to follow because we're supposed to emulate
his life and if we do we're going to carry some of that same stigma and even persecution
that that that jesus i mean look at syed he's in prison right now because he's a believer well
that's what it means to to to live for christ if in certain countries in the world you could go
to prison and even lose your life for that and i was simply bringing that out like we've been doing
in these passages and and i i i remember have you ever watched someone's countenance fall
i mean i could practically hear his countenance fall it's like a thud when it hit the floor
because it was like for the very first time he realized this jesus character
might not be the guy i'm looking for because i'm not so sure he follows where i want to go in life
because i want to be popular and i want to make a lot of money i mean this guy
was not shy about telling me how much money he wanted to make by the time he was 30 years old
okay but just understand something if you're gonna follow jesus that means dying to self that means
taking up your cross and saying jesus i'll go where you want me to go i'll do what you want
me to do remember when we start to love things too much jesus might just say something to us like he
said to that rich young ruler tell you what buddy why don't you take all that money that your daddy
saved up and that you inherited and why don't you just give it to the poor and then come follow me
and it says what it says he went away sad doesn't it because he had great wealth you see he came up
against jesus and something that jesus said offended him to the point where i can't do that
and that's what jesus is saying here as it relates to john's question be careful john you're on dicey
ground here because the at the at the point where you begin to feel let down and disappointed by god
at the point that you begin to say you know what this just isn't living up to my expectations
at the point where you say i don't really like how where this is going where this is leading
i didn't i signed up to be the one the messenger didn't sign up for prison time
i mean that just wasn't on my radar this isn't going the way i thought it was supposed to
and i'm not totally sure that you are faithful and so forth it's a serious place to be
the last thing that we're going to look at here in just a few minutes that we have left
is this statement concerning john i like how jesus began to talk to the people about john and and he
began to ask them questions saying you know what did you go out in the desert to see did you did
you out to see a reed swayed by the wind and again that means somebody who is just flows with popular
opinion or political pressure no that wasn't john john was this pretty strong man so did you go out
to sea did you go out to see a man dressed in fine clothes no wait a minute you don't find people
with fine clothes living out in the wilderness you find them in palaces so what did you go out to see
a prophet yeah yeah in fact more than a prophet and then he does something interesting jesus says
this is the one of whom it is said i will send my messenger ahead of you do you know
that he's quoting malachi if you look in your bible there should be a little footnote there
saying that that is taken from malachi chapter 3 malachi is the one who prophesied john's coming
and he said i will send my messenger ahead of you but in the next chapter of malachi
malachi said something else about a forerunner of christ i'll put it on the screen for you
malachi chapter 4 look at this god says see i will send you the prophet elijah
before the great and dreadful day of the lord comes what is he going to do he's going to
turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers
or else i will come and strike the land with a curse i want you to pay close attention to that
last statement on that verse that turning the hearts of the fathers to the children hearts
of the children of the fathers okay why is that important because that is almost the same verbiage
that the angel gabriel used when he appeared to john's
father to tell him he was going to have a son in luke chapter one this is what he's it says
this is the angel gabriel speaking he says many of the people of israel
will he bring back to the lord their god and he will go on before the lord oh look at this
in the spirit and power of elijah to do what to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children
and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous to make ready a people prepared for
the lord now it's not verbatim but it's close the angel gabriel is almost quoting malachi
which says what i will send elijah all right now what did jesus say to his disciples in
the passage that we're studying here in in matthew chapter 11. what did he say
he said and if you are willing to accept it is the elijah
who is to come
which is interesting isn't it is he saying that john is elijah well
not really remember that gabriel said to
zechariah john's father your son is going to go forth in the spirit and power of elijah
jesus said if you're willing to accept it he is the elijah he didn't say if you're willing to
accept it he is elijah necessarily so you know there's there's there's some squeaky
room there right well then we have the other issue what did john say about himself you know
when john started his ministry they started coming to him and saying who are you anyway
and we actually read about it in john chapter 1
and it says he did not fail to confess but confess freely i am not the christ and then they asked him
well then who are you for heaven's sake are you elijah and he said i am not that's interesting but
let's muddy the water a little further shall we later on in this very gospel that we're studying
in matthew chapter 17 it's going to say this the disciples asked him so the question came up again
why do the teachers of the law say that elijah must come first and that means before the messiah
look at this look what jesus says jesus replied to be sure elijah comes and will future tense restore
all things but i tell you elijah has already come and they did not recognize him but have
done to him everything they wished in the same way the son of man is going to suffer at their
hands then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about john the baptist
so what are you going to believe so is is john elijah is john the baptist elijah well
it's pretty obvious that he fulfilled at least in part let's go this far at least in part the
prophecies about the coming of elijah why would we begin to think that elijah is still coming
why why wouldn't we just leave it there and just say you know what john the baptist fulfilled the
prophecies of the coming of elijah gabriel said it jesus said it why should we be left with any other
opinion well it's because we go back to malachi 4 and it says see i will send you the prophet elijah
look at this when before the great and dreadful day of the lord that description is his second
coming not his first coming when jesus came it was not the great and dreadful day of the lord
it was the day of salvation it was the day of mercy and grace in the second coming
it will be the great and dreadful day of the lord and by the way elsewhere
in malachi he speaks of that day as a day when fire will burn up everything
and he says i will send you the prophet elijah in that day i believe that this
is one of the many examples in the scripture of what we call dual prophecy we see this frankly
a lot throughout the old testament where there is a near fulfillment of the word and a distant
fulfillment of a prophetic word john the baptist fulfilled in part the coming of elijah i believe
that god will also send the prophet elijah who by the way never experienced physical death
but was simply taken up to be with the lord and many people believe that that elijah uh will be
one of the two witnesses who come during the tribulation uh period to to testify
and and so forth but and that's conjecture but it seems that elijah is still yet to come embody
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