Message Information
- Key Scriptures: Luke 7:18-35, NASB
- Series: Luke (2025-2027), no. 18
- Date: Sunday, May 25, 2025 (Morning)
- Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
- Speaker: Jared Byrns
- Audio File: Open/Download
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When Jesus Does Not Meet Our Expectations
Someone sent me a sad video this week of a man speaking with a mixture of sorrow and anger. He spoke about sixty years of praying and talking to Jesus, and he said that not one of his prayers had been answered.
People in the comments replied, “Your prayers were answered; you simply did not like the answers.” There may be truth in that observation,
but it may not have been helpful in that moment as he spoke about a cancer diagnosis and losing his house. You could understand why he felt frustrated. The circumstances he faced had led him to doubt Jesus. He doubted Jesus’ existence, and if Jesus did exist, he doubted that Jesus was good or cared about him.
He doubted what Jesus said about Himself and what Scripture says about Him. That is the issue addressed in the next passage in Luke. Near the end of Luke 7, John the Baptist begins to question who Jesus is.
He began to question Jesus’ claims about Himself. I would not say that John had rejected Jesus, but he had begun to wrestle with serious questions. Questions like these often arise when we evaluate Jesus by the wrong kind of evidence.
So we’re going to look at this story about John the Baptist this morning and the way he approached Jesus and Jesus’ response, because Jesus showed John—and by extension shows us—how we can know that He is trustworthy. What evidence has He given us that we can trust Him? Luke 7:18–35 records:
Luke chapter 7, starting in verse 18. It says, the disciples of John reported to him about all these things. When Luke says “all these things,” he refers to the healings Jesus had performed throughout the region, including the healing of the centurion’s servant and the raising of the widow’s son earlier in chapter 7.
So the disciples of John reported to him about all these things. Summoning two of his disciples, John sent them to the Lord saying, Are you the expected one, or do we look for someone else? When the men came to him, they said, John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, Are you the expected one, or do we look for someone else?
At that very time, he cured many people of diseases and afflictions and evil spirits, and he gave sight to many who were blind. And he answered and said to them, Go and report to John what you have seen and heard. the blind receive sight the lame walk the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear the dead are raised up the poor have the gospel preached to them blessed is he who does not take offense at me when the messengers of john had left he began to speak to the crowds about john what did you go out into the wilderness to see a reed shaken by the wind but what did you go out to see a man dressed in soft clothing those who are splendidly clothed and live in luxury are found in royal palaces but what did you go out to see?
A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and one who is more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.
I say to you, among those born of women, there is no one greater than John, yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. When all the people and the tax collectors heard this, they acknowledged God’s justice, having been baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John.
Jesus continues in verse 31: To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children who sit in a marketplace, who sit in the marketplace and call to one another, and they say, We played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We sang a dirge, and you did not weep.
For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say he has a demon. The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yet wisdom is vindicated by all her children.
Doubt Born from Disappointed Expectations
John’s example in verses 18 through 21 shows that people begin to doubt Jesus when He does not meet their expectations. That is the tragic element in the story of the man from the opening illustration.
He was not evaluating Jesus by what Jesus had said about Himself. He was evaluating Jesus by what he expected and wanted. We easily fall into the same trap: “I wanted this, I prayed for it, and Jesus should have given it to me. Since He did not, He must not be who He says He is.”
We begin to doubt Jesus when he doesn’t meet our expectations. Even while imprisoned, John stayed informed about what Jesus was doing. He was aware of the healings.
He was aware of the miracles. He probably had heard already that people were being raised from the dead. Yet in verse 19, he sent his followers to question Jesus about His identity.
When the men came to him, they said, John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, are you the expected one or do we look for someone else? That was his question. It is the question John sent in verse 19 and his disciples repeated in verse 20.
Are you the expected one or do we look for someone else? The phrase “the Expected One” refers to the Messiah. Are you the one that God has promised?
Are you the one that we’ve been looking for? Or have I just been confused all this time and we’re really supposed to be looking for someone else? And that’s an odd question.
Anyone familiar with the Gospels will recognize how strange that question sounds. Because John the Baptist is the one who came and announced Jesus as the Messiah. John the Baptist does not seem like someone who would flatter another person merely to gain favor.
If he said that Jesus is the Messiah, it’s because he believed Jesus is the Messiah. We go back to Luke chapter 3, and he told his followers, one is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of his sandals, and he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. This messenger from God announced that Someone greater than he was coming.
I am not good enough even to touch his shoes. And he is going to baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire. He was clearly speaking of One who came from God.
In John chapter 1, he said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. When John saw Jesus coming, he told his followers, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” He says, this is he on behalf of whom I was sent.
He said, this man is the whole reason that God sent me here. After me comes a man who has a higher rank than I, for he existed before me. He said, he outranks me because he existed before me.
John the Baptist was about six months older than Jesus. So when he says Jesus existed before him, he’s not confused about their birth timeline. They were relatives and knew one another. He’s not confused about who was older. Children often emphasize which sibling or cousin is older.
I’m older. They knew who was older. When he says he existed before me, he’s talking about from eternity past. And then just a few verses down, he says, I myself have seen and have testified that this is the son of God.
I have asked this regarding Jesus’ brothers, but it is worth asking about John as well. Most of you in this room have cousins somewhere along the line. What would it take to convince you that one of those cousins you grew up with was God?
Most of us would find that almost impossible to believe about someone with whom we grew up. For John the Baptist to have grown up with this man and said, I’m telling you, I have seen it myself. He’s the son of God.
That is quite an endorsement. That makes it striking to reach Luke 7 and hear John ask, “Is it You, or should we keep looking?” And it makes you wonder what happened.
Somewhere along the way, Jesus had not met John’s expectations. Bible scholars differ over what John expected. Some suggest that because the Messiah would set captives free, John may have wondered why the Messiah’s own forerunner remained in prison.
I don’t know if that’s the right answer. I lean toward the more common expectation that the Messiah would drive out the Romans and restore David’s kingdom.
They were looking for a military leader. They were looking for a political leader. They were looking for somebody who was going to restore a golden age to Israel.
John may have seen what appeared to be one missed opportunity after another. Instead of organizing a movement against Rome, Jesus associated with tax collectors and lepers. And I don’t know that for sure either, but to me that makes more sense as the reason why John’s saying, are you him?
Somewhere along the line, Jesus did not meet John’s expectations of what the Messiah was going to be. And when he didn’t do what John expected, John began to doubt or to have questions. That’s where I say you and I may sometimes begin to doubt when Jesus doesn’t meet our expectations.
If we’re looking at the wrong kind of evidence to try to decide whether Jesus is everything he says he is or not. Jesus’ answer tells us how to respond. Jesus points to what He has done.
And that shows us that Jesus’ deeds demonstrate His claims. Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, the Son of God, and God the Son.
It has become popular online to claim that Jesus never claimed deity. The Gospel of John clearly records such claims. Some respond that John invented those claims because his Gospel was written later.
I certainly don’t have any problem with saying John was the last of the Gospels written. I don’t think it’s as far from the others as some people seem to think. Yet we have examined at least nineteen places in the Synoptic Gospels where Jesus makes claims only God could make.
The Synoptic Gospels are Matthew, Mark, and Luke—the very books some claim do not present Jesus as divine. No less than 19 places in Matthew, Mark, and Luke where Jesus made claims that only God could make. Jesus claimed to be God.
He claimed to be God the Son. He claimed to be sent as the Messiah by the Father. In verses 22 and 23, Jesus points to the works that verify and demonstrate His claims.
He did not merely claim to be the Messiah; He supported that claim and let His works speak. If you go to verse 22, he answered and said to them, go and report to John what you have seen and heard.
They weren’t going back to John and having to report rumors. He said, you have seen the things I’ve done. They’ve been done out in the open.
You know what I’ve done. You know what I’ve been about. Go back and report those things to John.
And he gives us a list here. In the New American Standard Bible, some phrases appear in small caps to indicate direct Old Testament quotations. That means that’s where it’s a direct quote from the Old Testament.
Each work listed here either fulfills what the Old Testament said the Messiah would do or displays power belonging uniquely to God. And he lists a few of them here. He says, one of the things you’ve seen, the blind received sight in verse 22.
That was promised in Isaiah 29, 18 and Isaiah 35, 5, that the Messiah would do that. And then it was fulfilled in Matthew 9. Jesus fulfilled that promise in Matthew 9 by healing the blind, among other occasions.
And some people have suggested there’s an escalation of the miracles. You start with the blind. That’s a pretty impressive miracle.
From the outside, however, someone unfamiliar with the man might question whether he had truly been blind. The change might be harder to verify immediately. The list then moves toward increasingly visible miracles.
You can’t look at somebody necessarily and tell they’re blind. Someone could plainly see that a man’s limbs were disabled and then see him walk.
And then you can see, now he can walk. You can see that man was dead, as we talked about last week. He was carried out in the open on this stretcher thing wrapped in linen.
And Jesus said, get up. And in full view of everybody, he sits up and starts talking. That kind of miracle could be observed directly.
So we start from these that are maybe harder to verify. I still believe they happen, but they’re a little harder to verify. You can’t deny this if you saw it.
The blind receive sight. The lame walk, promised again in Isaiah 35, 6, and fulfilled in John 5. The lepers are cleansed.
The Old Testament does not specifically say the Messiah would cleanse lepers, but it consistently presents cleansing from leprosy as God’s work. The priest verified the cleansing, but only God could accomplish it. We see in Exodus chapter 4, for example, Moses is told, stick your hand in your cloak and pull it out and you’re going to have leprosy.
Stick it back in and pull it out and it’s going to be gone. And God was using that as a sign. That’s one of many places in the Old Testament where we’re shown only God has the power over leprosy.
And yet we get to Luke chapter 5. We’ve already studied it. Jesus healed a leper.
The deaf hear. That was promised of the Messiah in Isaiah 29, 18 and Isaiah 35, 5. When the Gospel accounts are arranged chronologically, no earlier passage specifically narrates Jesus healing a deaf person.
Is there a specific story of Jesus healing a deaf person? There’s not a place before this where it specifically says Jesus healed a deaf person. There are stories that are told later in the Gospels of Jesus healing a deaf person.
Yet Jesus would not have presented the healing of the deaf as evidence if it had not occurred. If John was going to say, wait, that never happened, kind of undermines his credibility. Jesus had healed deaf people.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have given that as evidence to John. Why do we lack an individual account? The Gospels summarize many healings without narrating each one.
There are several places, just as we’ve been through Luke, where it says, and he went around Capernaum healing people. And it doesn’t detail. But Jesus, at times, had to leave the city because the line of people wanting to be healed was so long.
There were deaf people healed in those crowds. God gives us what we need to know, even when He does not satisfy every detail of our curiosity. But he had healed the deaf.
And again, with John the Baptist being a skeptic, he’s not going to throw that to him as evidence if it hadn’t happened. He says the dead are raised up. This was promised in Isaiah 26, 19, shown as something that is the exclusive work of God.
We know other people cannot raise people from the dead by their own power. or many grieving people would have tried to do so. If somebody’s raised from the dead, God has to be in it.
That promise had just been fulfilled in the preceding account. Last Sunday evening, we discussed the unusual timing of Jesus’ visit to that tiny village. It’s just a little village on the edge of a mountain that isn’t really on the way to anywhere.
Why was Jesus going there? He knew He would raise the widow’s son. He knew he was going to go heal him.
Why now? Why at this point? Sharon pointed to the connection with the next account about John the Baptist. Jesus raised someone from the dead so that when John’s question came, the evidence was already present. Are you the expected one? Go back and tell him I’ve raised the dead.
Go back and tell him that. His deeds demonstrate His claims. And the poor have the gospel preached to them. That was promised in Isaiah 61.
1, and it was fulfilled throughout Jesus’ ministry. Jesus also encouraged John not to abandon Him because of doubt. When he said, blessed are those who do not take offense at me, The word translated offense carries the idea of stumbling over Him and turning away.
Jesus encouraged John even in the middle of his questions. And notice here, he doesn’t critique John for having those questions. But he points him to the evidence and says, If you’re having trouble with who I am based on your expectations, look at the things I’ve done and understand God blesses those who are not embarrassed to the point where they abandoned me.
And sometimes that embarrassment can even just be, I didn’t get my prayers answered. I feel foolish for believing this. He says, look back at what I’ve done.
And that’s helpful advice for us today. There are times that you’re not going to get your. .
. I won’t say you won’t get your prayers answered. You won’t get them answered the way you want them answered.
That has happened to every one of us in here. There may be times in life where you question because that prayer wasn’t answered or that didn’t happen or that didn’t come through. Is he real?
Is he everything he claimed to be? Always go back to what he did. The issue that settled this for me was simple: two thousand years ago, Jesus either walked out of the tomb or He did not.
That event settles the question of His identity regardless of what happens in our lives today. Jesus also shows that John’s ministry corroborates His claims. The very fact that John came as this forerunner points to Jesus being the Messiah.
John made enormous sacrifices in order to bring a message from God and to stand firm in that message. When we get to verse 24, that’s what he’s talking about. John went out to the wilderness, and he says he was not a reed shaken by the wind.
When John preached God’s Word and proclaimed Jesus as Messiah, he stood firm even when it cost him. He was not like a reed shaken in the wind. As verse 25 says, he did not dress in soft clothing.
He did not live in the luxury of a royal palace. He lived in the wilderness, and he made people angry. And so Jesus calls him a prophet, and more than a prophet, he says, this is the one about whom it is written, behold, I send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way before you.
Jesus said he was fulfilling the prophecy in Malachi 3. 1 of sending a forerunner to announce the coming of the Messiah and prepare people for that. John’s calling to fulfill that role provided further evidence that Jesus was who He claimed to be.
And because John’s message was true and Jesus was the Messiah, we hold a more privileged position today even than John did. Jesus said there’s no one born of woman greater than John the Baptist, he says, and yet even those who are least in the kingdom are greater than John. John ministered under the old covenant, while believers now enjoy access to the Father and a place in the kingdom that earlier generations could only anticipate.
And he’s pointing again to even this man who is doubting at this moment, His ministry demonstrates demonstrates that all of this is true. Beginning in verse 29, Luke records the people’s response. Some heard the message and acknowledged that God was right.
The Pharisees and experts in the law rejected it. And it all depended on whether they even responded to John’s message to begin with or not. And Jesus began to teach and said that Israel at that moment, they were like those who sit in the marketplace and play a song, and they’re upset because nobody danced to their tune.
Jesus explains that John lived austerely in the wilderness and did not participate in ordinary feasting. He wasn’t feasting and going to the banquets and such. And they said, oh, he must have a demon because that’s where that’s not a leap at all.
I have children whom I rarely see eat, but I have never concluded that they must have a demon.
Perhaps I should investigate more carefully. But that was where the religious leaders went, oh, John the Baptist doesn’t eat anything, he must have a demon. Then Jesus attended banquets and ate with tax collectors and sinners, so they called Him a glutton and a drunkard—though He was neither.
But they accused him of those things and, oh, he hangs out with those people. Jesus’ point is that many in Israel were determined not to believe. They had already decided against belief and searched for any argument that might justify their rejection.
They did not want to believe. And so if John came and did one thing, they were going to criticize him for that.
And if Jesus came and did the opposite, they were going to criticize him for that. They were never going to be happy because there was no circumstance under which they were willing to believe. No evidence would persuade them because their decision had already been made.
Their unbelief did not make Jesus any less the Messiah. In fact, God’s Word had foretold their rejection. One example appears in Psalm 118:22: where it says, The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. Speaking of the Messiah, that he would be rejected.
Isaiah 53 gives a graphic account of the Messiah being rejected by his own people. So they looked at it and said, well, we don’t believe it, so it’s not true. Their unbelief actually confirmed what the prophets had said would happen.
In verse 35, but it says, yet wisdom is vindicated by all her children. Jesus teaches that the evidence will reveal what is true. What’s true and what’s false is going to show up.
He refers to God’s wisdom revealed through the prophets. Wisdom’s children are the works that vindicate it. What is true will eventually become evident.
Eventually, you’re going to be able to see what’s true. And that’s why He always pointed back to His works. Like in John 14, 11, He said, believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.
Otherwise, believe because of the works themselves. Jesus told His followers that if they struggled to believe His words alone, they should consider His works.
Promises, Not Preferences
All of this brings us back to an essential principle: Jesus does not prove His claims by doing what we want but by doing what He promises. He does not prove who he is by doing what we want, but by doing what he promises. “He did not answer my prayer about that illness.”
That doesn’t mean he’s not God. “He did not grant that request concerning my children.” That doesn’t mean he’s not God.
The question is not, did he do what I wanted him to do? The question is whether He has done what He promised. If He has fulfilled His promises, then He is who He says He is.
I keep thinking about the man in that video. I feel tremendous sympathy for him because I cannot imagine what he’s going through with this diagnosis. At the same time, he says, “I followed Jesus for sixty years, and it was a mistake.”
And I can’t help but think of all the people who have followed Jesus until they didn’t get what they wanted and then walked away. We see the same distinction in the crowds throughout Luke. In these crowds, there were people who followed Jesus.
Some stumbled and fell but rose again and followed Jesus even to death. Others did not truly follow Jesus; they merely followed Him around. They went with him.
They wanted to see what he was going to do. They enjoyed the spectacle until discipleship cost them something or Jesus failed to meet their expectations. There is a big difference between following Jesus and following Jesus around.
Following Jesus around means saying, “I am with You, Lord, as long as I receive what I want and expect.” “But as soon as You fail to meet my expectations, I am leaving.” In that case, we’re not really following Jesus because he’s not Lord.
He’s not master. He becomes little more than an ATM. It is dangerous just to follow Jesus around because he has proven to us who he is.
There will be moments when you are disappointed by God’s answers. I know that because I’ve been disappointed. I know this because some of you have spoken with me about those disappointments.
There will be times that you’re going to be disappointed by the answers you get. His identity as God, Lord, and Master does not depend on meeting our expectations. It depends on him living up to his promises.
As you face life’s struggles, heartaches, and disappointments, do not evaluate Him by what you think He ought to do. Evaluate Him by what He has done and promised. The most important thing that he’s ever done for us, the most important promise that he’s ever kept was the promise to deal with our problem of sin.
You and I were separated from a holy God because of our sin. Sin is anything we think, say, do, or fail to do that displeases God, and all of us are guilty. And because God is holy and God is just, that sin separates us from him.
You and I could never do enough good to erase the wrong that we’ve done. God planned from eternity past and promised from the garden onward that He would deal with sin. And he followed through on that promise every step of the way.
Jesus came to earth, was born of a virgin, lived a perfect and sinless life, and went to the cross to take responsibility for my sin and yours. He was nailed to the cross, shed His blood, and died to pay for sin in full. Three days later, just as He promised, He rose again. And he has promised us eternal life.
He grants eternal life to everyone who repents of sin and turns to Him in faith. Your relationship with Him begins with a promise He has already kept: He paid for your sin and made the only way for you to be right with the Father. You can trust Jesus now as your one and only Savior.
And you can ask for that forgiveness and you can have it because He keeps His promises.
