08/22/2025
Followers have expectations of leaders and all of us even have some expectations about how God should run our lives. But none of those expectations have anything to do with something bad happening to us. Life will sucker punch you. You get the wind knocked out of you. Sometimes it happens suddenly and it would have never been dreamed of a week ago. So how do you handle disappointment and confusion when some of that disappointment and confusion, dare we say this in church, involves Jesus, involves the Lord. "Lord. I thought by this time...fill in the blank..."
Just because you're in some. predicament or difficult circumstances, that is not a sign of God's absence. All you have to do is be aware of the martyrs in Scripture. I mean, my friends, sometimes our faith changes our circumstances.
Sometimes our faith does not change our circumstances. And those people who became martyrs, they were no less faithful, they were no less loved by God than Daniel, who had the mouths of lions shut. So we're going to take a look here at John the baptizer. He was the greatest man who ever lived, according to Jesus. And he was a spiritual rock star. He was a miracle child. He was a cousin of Jesus.
He did not have a vision for his life. He had a calling upon his life. He was the forerunner of Christ. He was there preparing the way for the arrival of the Messiah, Jesus. But let me head to the punchline of the little narrative we're going to read today, and here it is, from Matthew 11:6 "Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me."
Hmm.
Blessed means happy and peaceful is that person who does not stumble. Older translations will say, blessed is the person who's not offended by me. It's literally the word scandal.
Blessed is the person who's not scandalized by me, says Jesus. Now, a lot of people today are offended by Jesus. He says, I'm the only way to God. I'm the only way to forgiveness. A lot of people today are offended by certain Christian doctrines.
That's not what Jesus is talking about here, although that's certainly true. Don't let Jesus offend you.
John fully expected that Jesus would bring judgment and bring evildoers to account with unquenchable fire. All of that will happen under the reign of the Messiah, but not at that time, and maybe not today. Jesus brought the kingdom. It was inaugurated with his first coming. And now we live under the day of grace and mercy.
His resume is believable. But what Jesus is talking about here, blessed is that person who does not take offense, who does not pull back from our relationship because... you just don't understand what I'm doing. Because you're facing a predicament and a situation, and you're saying, God, why in the world would you allow this? Why don't you get me out of this?
I could be so effective for you if only you would... fill in the blank. Let me give you my paraphrase to this:
Blessed are you when you trust God enough to let him run his business in his way, his timing.
That is not a call to passivity, where we just sit back in the lazy pose and just say, whatever will be, will be. No, no, no. We're called to walk by faith. Walking is not passive. We're not called to sit by faith or watch by faith. We're called to walk by faith. That's action. In other words, you plan in pencil, but you're going to give God the eraser and we're going to walk in faith.
Ronnie Norman, Senior Minister Emeritus,
John the (Confused) Baptist
https://vimeo.com/1110744650
