Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are Your Expectations Keeping You from Jesus? | The Gospels | John 7:25–44

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

Why doesn't Jesus always meet our expectations? What if we're looking for the wrong kind of Savior? Could our expectations actually keep us from experiencing him? In today's episode, Tanya shares how John 7:25–44 invites us to lift our eyes from temporary expectations to the living water only Jesus can give. Read the Bible with us! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and it's never too late to join! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: John 7:25–44

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. When Eric and I travel, we have different expectations about how things should turn out. For example, he expects a functional place to sleep and time built in for both exploring and resting with no financial surprises. And I expect not to have time to rest because we're walking everywhere. I expect a nice place to sleep with quality linens and air conditioning. And I like to have a few surprises mixed in.

So how do we make it work? Well, we have to compromise on everything usually with the air conditioning. What we've realized, even if we don't always have emotional maturity to admit it in the moment and we don't, is that it's our expectations that get out of whack and cause most of the conflict. And honestly, it's not just our marriage, it's not just travel, but it's in life. Expectations aren't a bad thing. They're a God-given ability, I think, to look toward the future, to hope in what God has called us to do and to be. But when our expectations are fixed on creation, rather than the creator, they become a source of dissatisfaction and

doubt instead of peace. John's Gospel was written to show us that what the people of Jesus Day were expecting and how that did or didn't line up with Jesus' true mission. Were they in for something different than they expected? Yes. And so are we? So let's set the scene. John 7 reads like a back and forth. The crowd is looking for something tangible, something about Jesus they can put their

hands on. Jesus, meanwhile, keeps drawing their attention to something bigger, trying to expand their imaginations for something more. This chapter takes place during the Feast of Tabernacles, and this was celebrated at the end of the fall after the harvest. It was closing out the festival season that began with Passover, and it commemorated the bounty of the harvest and the provision of God's salvation and mercy. It was a reminder of when God brought Israel out of slavery, feeding them with manna in the wilderness, and now blessing them with the harvest of their own. The mood was somewhat solemn for seven days, then celebratory on the eighth. It was at its heart a celebration of abundance.

Now, during this feast, John records conversations between the Jewish leaders, the crowd, and Jesus himself. Each conversation reveals different expectations, that they all land on the same hope, that Jesus would fix their temporary problems and take away their immediate issues. Why? Well, because Jesus was too ordinary for what they had in mind. In a world where status was tied to family name and government position and wealth, Jesus didn't look like he belonged at the top. They wanted someone who could represent and protect them, someone with power and connection and status. And Jesus had all the power and status of the father himself, but he wasn't what they expected. So they found reasons to doubt him, to overlook him. They wanted something familiar and they got something different. He was different in where he was from. Let's look at verses 25 to 27.

Some in the crowd wondered whether Jesus could really be the threat the Jewish leaders feared so much. They said, but we know where this man is from. When the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from. What were they actually looking for? someone with no clear origin, someone who could appear with mystery and authority. In verses 28 and 29, Jesus answered by pointing past his earthly origin entirely. In verses 28 and 29, Jesus says, I am from him, and he sent me. Jesus was lifting their eyes from the physical to the spiritual.

What did they actually know about God? They'd been waiting for him to send his son, and his son was standing right in front of them. They wanted a mysterious origin story, and he gave them an eternal origin story, one that began before they were even created. He was also different in where he was going. In verses 33 to 36, when some wanted to have him arrested, Jesus told them he was going away, somewhere they could not follow. Now, they assumed he meant Greece, somewhere he could continue his ministry beyond their reach. They couldn't imagine a going away that wasn't about geography or some sort of foreign mission or army. But Jesus was going to the cross to satisfy God's wrath on our behalf.

He was going to be resurrected. He was going to be the first fruit of our own resurrection to come. They expected something they could track down, but he was headed somewhere different. And someone that would solve their actual problem with sin and death. He was also different in what he offered. They were looking for someone to solve the problems of their day, the oppression, the hunger, the thirst, the daily grind of survival. Jesus did often meet those needs, but he used those signs to point to something bigger.

He was coming to save them from sin and death. He would also care for temporal needs, but our temporary needs are never our biggest problem. That's the lesson underneath everything in this chapter, really in the whole Bible. our daily needs point to a deeper need. And when we find true rest and satisfaction, when we get a relationship and a comfort and when we're tethered to him and his heart, our circumstances stop being the thing

that determines the way that we feel about life, the way we respond. In verses 37 and 39, this all kind of comes to a head. Jesus says, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. He's pointing back to a verse in Isaiah 58-11 that says,

You will be like a well-watered garden like a spring whose waters never fail. Now this was a promise that Jesus was pointing to for the Holy Spirit, not yet sent, but coming to live among Jesus' followers. The Holy Spirit was going to strengthen, encourage, and counsel them for every good work. And everyone who received salvation through Jesus' death would receive this gift of the Holy Spirit, and through the spirit, they would become a blessing to others in turn. So the heart of it, the Harvest Festival celebrated abundance for that year. It was a satisfaction of hunger that would eventually run out and need to be renewed, hard work, more effort, more rain, more sun. Jesus offers an

abundance that requires no effort and no rationing. His power and and his presence in our lives will never run dry. So what about you? Are you in for something different? What do your expectations do to your relationship with Jesus? Do they leave you a little critical, a little bitter about how your life is going? Do they fill you with anxiety because you don't feel in control of your future? Do your expectations pile on stress because you can't seem to meet everyone else's expectations for you?

Do those expectations of you disappointed because your life isn't unfolding the way you hoped it would? Jesus is raising our eyes. He's inviting us to experience his presence, to recognize the Holy Spirit's power to quench our dry and tired souls. We may not understand how God will work things out in our lives. But if God is who he says he is, he can be trusted with all of our plans and all of our expectations. We are here to serve his purposes. And when we're tethered to him through that relationship, prayer and scripture and worship, when our strength and comfort come from that tether and not from our circumstances, our lives become like that well-watered garden, not just satisfy ourselves, but a blessing to others, a true blessing that brings light and life to tired and thirsty souls.

Were you in for something different? I hope so. because what Jesus offers isn't a better version of what you expected. It's something else entirely. And Jesus and His presence and his comfort and His peace and His joy never run out.