Harvest Pointe Christian Church, Milford Ohio is a non-denominational Christian Church (Church of Christ) on the Eastside of Cincinnati OH

People Who Have Uncertainties | Series: The People We Meet | 04-27-08

People Who Have Uncertainties
Luke 7:18-35
Series:  The People We Meet

  I. We all have moments of doubt.

 II. Fulfilled prophesies help remove doubt.

III. Though we doubt, God still loves us.

Full Text 

John the Baptist was calling the people to repentance.
 He didn’t care if you were rich or poor,
  he wanted everyone to turn to God.

Not only did he preach to the masses,
 he also preached to King Herod.

We saw Herod’s response back in Luke 3:19-20,
 where we read, “19But when John rebuked Herod the  tetrarch because of Herodias, his brother's wife, and all  the other evil things he had done, 20Herod added this to  them all: He locked John up in prison.”

Herod’s sister-in-law had moved in with him.
 John the Baptist called on him to repent.
Herod had John arrested,
 even though he liked hearing him preach.

So, John is in prison.
Jesus has just healed a Roman Centurion’s servant
 who was dying and
 raised a young man from the dead.

That brings us to Luke 7:18-20.
 “18John's disciples told him about all these things. Calling  two of them, 19he sent them to the Lord to ask, ‘Are you  the one who was to come, or should we expect someone  else?’ 20When 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?’’”

The first thing you are probably asking yourself is
 “Why would John the Baptist have doubts?
  Wasn’t he inspired of God?
  Wasn’t he preparing the way for Jesus?
  Why would he ask such a thing?”

Let’s think about where John is.

John, like everyone else,
 was looking for a Messiah who would
  conquer the Romans.

He starts preaching about repentance and baptizing people
 to prepare the way for the Messiah.

Everything is going well.
 Masses of people are flocking to him.
  This would be a great start for a mighty army.
 John is certain Jesus is the Messiah that
  God said would come.

But then everything falls apart.

John, who loves living in the wide open deserted areas,
 is arrested and finds himself
  confined and cooped up with a bunch of people.

And Jesus,
 instead of raising an army and
  amassing weapons,
tells everyone to love their enemies and
 do good to them.

And Jesus practices what He preaches.

Of all things, Jesus is out there
 HEALING A ROMAN SOLDIER’S SERVANT!!!
How could Jesus be God’s King who
 would reign forever
  if He is helping the enemy!?!

Jesus!  You should be
 loping the Roman Centurion’s head off or
 slipping a knife between his ribs,
not helping him!

And since John was the captive of a Roman ruler,
 shouldn’t Jesus be coming with an army
  to rescue him from Herod?
This was definitely not going the way John had planned.

John begins to 2nd guess himself.
 He wonders if he really did get a message from God.
 Maybe he was going crazy!

John was probably a special political prisoner.
 He would have a long thin chain
  connecting him to a Roman soldier.
That way he could work and pay for his keep.

It also meant he would be able to
 have friends and family drop by.

So when John’s disciples come him and
 tell him how Jesus is messing it all up,
John sends them to Jesus
 to find out if He really is the Messiah or
  if there is someone else out there
   who is going to get the job done.

John is doubting Jesus and this whole scenario.
 If he is going to be imprisoned,
  there better be a good reason!

Now before we get down on John the Baptist
 for doubting Jesus,
let’s point out that
I. We all have moments of doubt.

The Bible never tries to hide imperfections.
 Throughout we read of people
  momentarily doubting God.

Gideon, who with 300 men attacked a huge force,
 questioned whether or not God was
  telling him to do this ridiculous thing!

When God told Moses to tell Pharaoh to
 release the Israelites,
Moses told God to send someone else!

Elijah thought he was the only one left serving God and
 didn’t think God could protect him from
  the wicked queen Jezebel.
So he gave up and wanted to die.

Jeremiah told God he quit and
 wouldn’t speak in His Name anymore.

After Jesus rose from the dead,
 Thomas, one of Jesus’ 12 disciples,
  said he wouldn’t believe it unless
  he could stick his fingers in the nail holes!
Throughout history God’s people
 have doubted.

It is no wonder that
 we all have moments of doubt.
It is normal to have those moments.

Don’t worry about your salvation or
 think you are a terrible Christian
  if you have a time of doubt.

Lee Strobel says, “There’s no doubt about it, doubt scares  many Christians. They stare into the darkness at night  pestered by vague uncertainties and persistent  questions that make them feel anxious and vulnerable,  almost as if they were experiencing a spiritual vertigo.”

John the Baptist was confined and
 his life was filled with trouble.

Trouble has a way of either making or breaking us.
 It tests our faith.

And when the trial is over we will find that
 either our faith is destroyed or
  it is stronger.

Maybe your job is eliminated.
Maybe your health breaks.
Maybe a loved one dies.

And when those times come
 we all reach a point where we question,
“If there really is a God,
 why is He letting all this happen?”

But after we question, do we move on and
 continue faithful, or do we stay there and quit?

Mary was born November 8, 1922
 in a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
She was one of 8 children.

When she was only 6 years old
 her mother died.

A year later was Black Tuesday,
 the stock market crashed and
 the Great Depression hit.

At age 16 she found herself in an abusive marriage.
 She fled to Oklahoma and
  hid on an Indian Reservation.

When her husband went off to war during World War II,
 she returned home.

Returning from the war her husband
 took their son and left.

Mary spent several years trying to get her son back.

I’m certain there were times when
 Mary cried out, “Why, God?”

There must have been times when she
 doubted the love of God or
  even His existence.

But at age 14 she wrote something that
 through the years
she handed out to the struggling people she met.

Mary wrote:

One night I dreamed I was
 walking along the beach with the Lord. 
Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky. 
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.
Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
 other times there were one set of footprints. 

This bothered me because I noticed
 that during the low periods of my life,
when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat,
I could see only one set of footprints.

So I said to the Lord, “You promised me Lord,
 that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. 
But I have noticed that during
 the most trying periods of my life
there have only been one set of footprints in the sand. 
Why, when I needed you most,
 you have not been there for me?” 

The Lord replied, “The times when you have seen
 only one set of footprints in the sand,
 is when I carried you.”
Footprints in the Sand by Mary Stevenson, 1936

Maybe trouble has caused you to doubt.
 Don’t give up.
God is with you every painful step of the way.

We all have moments of doubt.
 So, what do we do with them?

Luke 7:21-23 “21At that very time Jesus cured many who  had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. 22So 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. 23Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.’”

Jesus is asked a question.
 Are you the man, or
  should we be watching for another?

We have been seeing how
 Jesus was good at doing the unexpected.
 He is radically different.

When John the Baptist was asked
 if he was the Messiah,
he just plainly said, “No.”

But apparently Jesus ignores the question at first.

Instead of giving a verbal response,
 Jesus goes on a miracle tear!
He starts healing everyone in sight!

You see, actions speak louder than words.
 What you do leaves a bigger impression
  than the words you say.

Then, after Jesus has
 “Wowed” John the Baptist’s messengers,
He tells them to tell John what they saw and heard.

Why?
Because this was a direct fulfillment of prophecy.
When John heard these things
 he would remember the Scriptures.

Passages like Isaiah 42:7.
 “To open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”

Or Isaiah 61:1.  “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the  brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.”

Which brings us to our 2nd point today.
II. Fulfilled prophesies help remove doubt.

Whenever life starts to weigh me down and
 I begin to have doubts,
I always fall back on the prophesies.

If the prophesies are true
 then the promises are true.

And God has promised in Hebrews 13:5,
 “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
God will get me through it.

I think of Daniel, over 500 years before Jesus was born,
 predicting the year Jesus would begin his ministry and
 the year of his crucifixion.

I think of Zechariah, about 50 years later,
 foreseeing Judas Iscariot betraying Jesus for
  30 pieces of silver and then
 returning the money to the temple and
  it purchasing the potters field where
 Judas hung himself and was buried.

Or I think of Isaiah, 700 years before Jesus
 telling of Jesus being crucified with the wicked,
 but buried in a rich man’s grave.

And the list could go on and on.

There are too many specific prophesies to be faked.
 The prophesies help remove our doubts,
  just as they did John the Baptist’s.

Thomas R. Berry tells a story in Reader’s Digest
 of his friend’s wife, Dawn,
who had just finished reading the book,
 Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus.

She sighed and she said to her husband,
 “You know what?
 Sometimes women don’t want men to fix their problems. Sometimes it’s just better if
  he just puts his arms around her and
  tells her that everything will be okay.”

The next morning Dawn and her husband
 went out to their separate cars to go to work and
  they saw that Dawn’s car had a flat tire.

Her husband looked things over,
 gave her a hug,
 reassured her and then
  left for work.

Sometimes you need more than arms around you: Sometimes you need an answer.
 Sometimes you need a solution.

The prophesies prove God will keep His promises.

Jonathan Edwards, a dynamic preacher of the 1800s said: “God wants to reach the heart but he never bypasses the mind on the way to the heart.”

Our faith in God is based on evidence.
 It is not some nice sounding platitude.
God and His promises are real.
 He will never leave us or forsake us.

Which brings us to our final point,
III. Though we doubt, God still loves us.
Verse 24.  “After John's messengers left, 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?’”

The people must have heard the question and
 began to think the John the Baptist was
  vacillating.
Has he lost his faith in God?

So Jesus puts His stamp of approval on John.

He asks the people,
 When you listened to John’s preaching,
  were you listening to “A reed swayed by the wind?”

Of course not.
 John spoke powerfully and definitely.

Verse 25.  “If not, what did you go out to see? A man  dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear expensive  clothes and indulge in luxury are in palaces.”

Maybe some of the people thought that
 in order for John to get out of jail
he was going to join King Herod’s camp, the Romans.

That was ridiculous.
 That wasn’t John’s style.
John was a rugged individual who
 wore clothes made out of rough camel’s hair.

Verse 26. “26But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 27This is the one about whom it is written:  ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’”

When Jesus said this,
 the people would have remembered Malachi 3:1.

This is another prophecy, written 400 years before.
 “‘See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the  way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant,  whom you desire, will come,’ says the LORD Almighty.”

By quoting this passage,
 Jesus was saying,
“John the Baptist is the messenger preparing the way.
 Remember his miraculous birth?
  His parents were so old.

And I am the one you desire.
 I am the one you have been waiting for.
 I am the Messiah!
Remember my miraculous birth of a virgin?

Prophecy is being fulfilled before your very eyes!”

Then Jesus makes a mind-boggling statement.
Verse 28.  “I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”

Not only is Jesus not condemning John the Baptist for
 his moment of doubt,
Jesus says he was the greatest ever born!

And yet, as great as John was,
 he is not as great as the least of the Kingdom.

The Kingdom was a term used to predict
 the coming of the Church.

That means each of you as Christians
 are greater than John.

Someone said, “John was a herald for the King, but
 we are children of the King.”

McGarvey and Pendleton write,
 “Farrar reminds us of the old legal maxim which says,
 ‘The least of the greatest is greater than the greatest of the least.’  which is to as much to say that the smallest diamond is of more precious substance than the largest flint....The dispensations rise like lofty steps, and the lowest that stand upon the New Testament dispensation

 are lifted above the tallest who rest upon the  dispensation of Moses.”

Didn’t know you were so great, did you?

Luke 7:29-30.  “29(All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus' words, acknowledged that God's way was right, because they had been baptized by John. 30But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves, because they had not  been baptized by John.)”

The people who had listened to John’s preaching and
 repented and were baptized
  acknowledged that God's way was right.
They listened to Jesus.

But the Jewish religious leaders,
 who had not repented and been baptized by John,
  rejected God's purpose for themselves.

They rejected God’s plan for their lives.
 II Peter 3:9  “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

God’s plan for your life is that you repent.
 That means you turn your life around and
  serve God.
 You follow His instructions.

But the Scribes and Pharisee rejected
 God’s call to repent.

Luke 7:31-35.  “31To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? 32They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other: ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not cry.’ 33For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ 34The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and ‘sinners.’’  But
  wisdom is proved right by all her children.”

The market places were open squares in the city where
 men did business and
 kids played.

Now, you’ve all see the kid that said,
 “There’s nothing to do.”
And when you try to give them suggestions,
 they don’t want to do anything.

Ever run into that frustrating kid?

Well, that’s what Jesus is talking about here.

There’s a bunch of kids in the market square.
 Part of the group is ready to have fun.
  They want to do something.

One talented kid starts playing a flute.
 It’s dancing music!
So the girls suggest they pretend
 they are at a wedding and
  everyone can dance.

So they start forming a big circle so everyone can
 lock their arms together and
  kick up their heels and dance!

But part of the group doesn’t want to.

They kill the spirit of the 1st group.

So, you know how kids are.
 The one with the flute starts making fun of
  the unfun group
 by playing a slow mournful song.

Then one of the boys gets a bright idea.
 “Hey, if they don’t want a wedding,
  let’s do a funeral.
 Dead bodies are cool!
Who wants to be dead?”

Somebody says,
 “Let’s kill little Jacob. 
  He won’t be too heavy to carry!”

And Joseph picks up a stick and
 pretends to kill little Jacob.

And little Jacob staggers around
 for 10 minutes dying.

But finally he croaks and
 the girls clean the dirt off his face and
 the boys put him on a mat and
they start carrying him off to bury him
 while they sing a funeral son.

But you know what?
 The unfun group still won’t play!

The unfun group of kids are just like
 the Pharisees.

John came.
 His preaching was serious as a heart-attack.
They rejected his message from God.
They refused to repent and turn to God.

Jesus comes along.
 Same message, but with Jesus,
  it’s a celebration!
People are happy and excited!

And still the Pharisees
 reject Jesus’ message from God.
They refused to repent and turn to God.
They missed out on God’s wonderful
 purpose for them to repent and
  join Him in Heaven forever.

This morning,
 Don’t you miss out on God’s purpose for you.
 Don’t miss out on Heaven.

If Jesus is not your Lord and Savior,
 listen to His message
  of repentance and baptism.

Don’t be like the Pharisees and miss out on
 the greatest celebration of all –
  Heaven for eternity.

Listen to His message today and
 come forward as we sing and
 we’ll help you every step of the way.

Or maybe you’ve done that and
 you would like to place your membership
  here at Harvest Pointe,
the come forward as we stand and sing.