What Do You Expect from Jesus?

3rd Sunday after Epiphany, 1/26/25 Luke 4:16-30 What Do You Expect from Jesus? I. The ever-changing desires of your human heart? II. The eternal blessings of God’s saving grace? When it comes to the expectations in our lives, people—including you and me—tend to have a very narrow focus. We expect that our expectations will be met. Let me repeat: We expect that our expectations will be met. Almost as if our expectations are guarantees. When in reality there are three outcomes to our expectations. The obvious one is that our expectations are met. What we wanted to happen, what we worked hard to make happen, what we hoped others would make happen for us turned out exactly. And that’s what we expected. And that leads to another outcome. Our expectations aren’t met. And we were so certain that they would be—as if there were some guarantee—that we’re crushed. We had prevented the option of unmet expectations from entering our hearts and minds. We simply didn’t consider it and therefore made no plans for it. So now what are we going to do? And we invite the response, “Well what did you expect?” But there’s a third outcome. It’s likely one that we don’t often consider or experience. Our expectations have been exceeded. What happened was better than we had hoped for or imagined. We didn’t see this positive outcome occurring and we’re thrilled! In fact, that might even happen when we’re initially disappointed by the outcome until a little time passes and we come to realize that what we thought was a disappointment actually turned out to be a tremendous blessing. If you do a little reminiscing, I’m guessing you can recall expectations in your life that line up under each one of those categories. This morning’s sermon text takes place in town of Nazareth, the town in which Jesus spent his childhood, teen years, and the first and only decade of his adult life. It’s safe to say that Jesus was a known entity in Nazareth. On this day in his life Jesus entered the synagogue of Nazareth and the people recognized him as the son of Joseph. They also surely knew his mother, Mary. Perhaps some of the children from his childhood neighborhood were sitting in that synagogue that day. It wouldn’t be stretching it to assume that everyone there that day knew who Jesus was. They had seen him before. They had heard the recent reports of what he had been doing. And the result was that they all had expectations of him. They combined what they already knew about Jesus with what they had recently heard about Jesus to form their individual expectations of Jesus. And on this day their expectations were largely unmet. And it made them furious. They wanted to kill him. Imagine that! Being so disappointed with Jesus that you want to kill him! That would never occur with you, with me, would it? I hope not, but it still makes me wonder, “What do you expect from Jesus?” Obviously, what these citizens of Nazareth expected was incorrect; dead wrong, even. Could the same be said of your expectations from Jesus? Let’s find out. I. There’s another term that can be used for my expectations. It’s what I want. Think about that for a moment. My desires become my expectations. And it’s been that way for most of my life. When I was a boy, I wanted to be older. Now that I’m older than I want to be, I wish I were younger. What I desired was a realistic expectation. I gained in age. But when I did, I wanted the opposite. My desires change. And so do my expectations. These citizens of Nazareth faced the same affliction, to some extent. The Jews had waited for centuries for the Messiah to appear. They had their expectations, their desires. But when he appeared, they were disappointed. At first, it doesn’t sound that way. Jesus stood up in their synagogue, read a prophecy from Isaiah about the Messiah, sat down and declared, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” And this was their reaction, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips.” But they were conflicted. The asked, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” In other words, they expected the Messiah to appear. When he did, they expected him to speak to them. And Jesus exceeded their expectations. But largely because they only considered him to be the son of Joseph. Jesus knew what was in their hearts. They really wanted to see him do a miracle. They expected to witness a miracle. And that expectation flowed not from a heart of faith in him, but from a heart of unbelief. So, he vocalized their unbelieving expectations, “Do here in your hometown what we heard that you did in Capernaum.” They had heard about the miracles he had performed in Capernaum, a distance of about 15 miles. He had miraculously met the needs of the people there. Now they wanted him to meet their needs here. They had their expectations, which were really their personal wishes. And what they failed to realize is that their wishes were opposed to the will and plan of the Lord, their God. If given the opportunity, they would have directed Jesus to make their lives a heaven on earth. To put a horse in every stable and tender veal on every dinner plate. To heal whatever ailed them. To drive out the hated Romans and restore the glorious Jewish kingdom. That would be their heaven on earth. But it would still be a sinful heaven on earth which would be no heaven at all, just an extension of hell. To satiate the desires of the sinful human heart without completely cleansing and changing the human heart is only jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Hell’s fire. Did you catch the stunning rebuke Jesus fired at them? He told his fellow Nazarenes that they were just like the hardened Jewish unbelievers in the days of the prophets Elijah and Elisha, about 850 years earlier. They rejected the Lord’s word and his grace, so he sent the prophets to Gentile people. You talk about an insult to Jewish people! And the result was that those Gentile people, rather than God’s own Jewish people, appreciated the grace of God and believed his saving word. And that’s all that Jesus wanted his fellow Nazarenes to do. That’s what he wanted them to expect. II. And he made that statement with a miracle, just not one the people were expecting. Listen to these words of our text, “All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.” He walked right through the crowd. And no one could stop him. It would even seem that no one touched him. A crowd wanted to murder him by throwing him to his death, but Jesus had complete control of the situation and prevented them from doing him any harm. And that’s because his work as the Savior had begun, but it wasn’t done. Jesus had just declared to them that he was the promised Savior. He told them that he was fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy before their eyes and in their ears on that very day. This was the grace of God shining forth. He was God’s himself speaking God’s word to them. And he proved it by his deeds. The people of Nazareth had already heard about the miracles he had performed in Capernaum. They wanted to see him do one in Nazareth. And see one they did. He used his almighty power to avoid their murderous intent. How’s that for a stunning miracle?! The almighty God used his power to bring their intentions—their expectations—to nothing. And he didn’t stop there. He continued to perform miracles. He even raised the dead. I’m certain these people of Nazareth heard about them. Did they come to believe in him as their Savior? I’m not sure. But the Lord continued to reveal his grace to them. In spite of their rejection of Jesus, the Lord made certain that Jesus continued on his path to Calvary’s cross. That was God plan. That’s what he expected Jesus to do. And that’s what Jesus did. And when he did, he didn’t exclude the citizens of Nazareth from his work. Jesus died for the sins of all people, for the sins of these Nazarenes as well. In doing so, Jesus won eternal blessings for all sinners. Those blessings come to us solely by the grace of God. We don’t deserve them. We don’t earn them. The forgiveness of sins and eternal life in heaven are ours by faith in Jesus, not by anything we can do or pay. So, what do you expect from Jesus? Is it the eternal blessings of God’s grace? If so, then your God doesn’t let you down. He meets those expectations. In fact, he exceeds them. But we struggle with that truth, don’t we? We have expectations about the here and now, what’s right in front of us, and it doesn’t appear that Jesus is meeting them. The needle on our “life happiness meter” seems stuck at less than half. Anxiety creeps up on us and then traps us in its painful grasp. And it seems like we spend more of our time pondering our regrets in life than our successes. And yet we have before us the truth that Jesus meets our expectations? How so? It all depends on what you expect from him. If you expect him to dazzle your life with miracles, like the Nazarenes did, you’re going to be disappointed. If you expect him to make your life endlessly happy here and now, you’re going to be disappointed. But if you focus on the reason that he came to this earth, if you focus on his death on Calvary’s cross for you, if you focus on the astounding miracle of his resurrection from the dead and it’s meaning for your life here on earth now and your life in heaven eternally, you won’t be disappointed. Your expectations are met, realized, even exceeded. For, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus you have every blessing that God has planned for you. You have life with him. Eternal life. If that’s what you expect from Jesus, you can count on it. You have it. Enjoy it! Amen.