Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Kingdom You Didn’t See Coming | The Gospels | Matthew 11:1–19

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 Wilmuth. When was the last time your expectations didn't match your reality? Well, several years ago, we took our family to Northwest Kansas for our family reunion, and our kids were really little. So Eric's aunts and uncles suggested that we stay in their friend's house instead of a hotel while we were there. They told us about a pool table, enough bed.

Starting point is 00:00:34 for all six of us and walking distance to a park. Sounds pretty good. Well, this was before Airbnb was a thing, so it's not like we could just hop on and check the place out. We showed up with our kids. I remember Ashby was still in a pack and play, like one of those portable cribs. And the house was actually someone's garage. Okay, not a super big deal, except that it hadn't been used in years, like maybe decades. There was dust on everything. They were actually spiders crawling across the blankets. I thought I was going to die. Eric thought he was going to die because I was going to kill him. What do you do when your expectations are out of whack? Well, today we're in Matthew 11, where Matthew begins a group of stories going all the way through chapter 13 that show

Starting point is 00:01:23 how people are responding to Jesus and his message. And what they expected isn't exactly what Jesus is doing. Now remember that first, Matthew sets us up in chapters 8 through 10 with nine stories that show how Jesus is bringing the power of God's kingdom into the lives of people who were hurting and sunful. Then, after that, after the power and mercy of Jesus are on display in those nine stories, he sends out his disciples to go do what he's been doing. In other words, Jesus taught his disciples by example how to announce his upside-down kingdom and what to expect when they do. Now in chapter 11 and 12 and 13, Matthew is going to show us how

Starting point is 00:02:08 people are responding to Jesus and his message. And it's a mixed bag. Some love Jesus and think of him as the Messiah. Some are neutral and make it obvious that Jesus is not quite what they expected, even his family members. And some like the Pharisees and religious teachers have a negative response. They reject Jesus altogether. They think he is blasphemous. They think that he's a false teacher and that he's going to lead people astray in the false claims that he's making about himself. But Jesus isn't surprised by any of this. And he addresses each with truths and prophecies from the Old Testament that show what it would look like when he came to reign as the Messiah. His responses to their expectations show that he is the continuation and fulfillment of the Old Testament storyline. So today's passage, where he is, in Matthew 11, verses 1 through 19, and these verses focus on John the Baptist, who was in prison and under a death sentence from Herod. Verse 2 says, now, when John heard in prison what the Christ was doing, he sent a message through his disciples and asked him, are you the one who was to come? Or should we expect someone else? Now, this sounds kind of crazy to us. John the

Starting point is 00:03:23 Baptist's whole life was about paving the way for Jesus, the Messiah. So why is he looking for someone else. We'll see, the problem is that Jesus is not doing what John the Baptist was expecting him to do. Jesus is bringing God's kingdom to earth in a way that isn't what people had imagined. John was in prison because King Herod had taken insult to his preaching and his condemnation for marrying his brother's ex-wife. And now all this talk about a new king was a threat to King Heron. And so he was personally insulted by John, he put him in prison, sends him to death, and that's where we are. Now that John is in prison and hears about what Jesus is doing, John is disappointed, surprised. It didn't sound like the story he'd rehearsed in his mind, the one where Jesus would be a great and fiery judge who would come and bring punishment and justice to Herod and to all those who are persecuting believers and Jesus followers and the Jewish people.

Starting point is 00:04:20 No doubt, John was waiting for the day when Jesus would come and solve this, when he would confront Herod, when he would put his mighty power on display, maybe even take over the physical throne before getting his cousin out of prison. We could only guess what John the Baptist was really thinking. But Jesus responds to him either way with a rebuke and a different set of expectations. Let's just think about what Jesus was doing. He was going around befriending people that most of the Jewish people would have seen as outsiders, people like tax collectors, sinners, and women. In their minds, he wasn't keeping the Jewish law properly either.

Starting point is 00:04:56 He was associating with the unclean. And from John's vantage point in prison, Jesus was gaining some kind of a reputation, but not as a great and powerful political king who would come to give justice to the wicked and take over the throne. So had John been mistaken? Was Jesus really the one who was to come? So Jesus sent word back to him through the disciples. He said, go and report to John what you hear and see. The blind received their sight, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cleansed, the deaf here, the debt are raised, and the poor are told the good news, and blessed is the one who isn't offended by me. Now, there are three things we can learn from the way Jesus responded

Starting point is 00:05:39 to John. First, we should look closely at the type of people who accept Jesus and follow him. Most of the people who were transformed by encountering Jesus are those who were unimportant, even irreligious. They were the outcast. They were the least of these. They were the ones most lacking in self-sufficiency. They physically, mentally, spiritually were somewhere near rock bottom and didn't take offense to the need for a savior like Jesus. Another thing we see is that Jesus shows himself to be a different kind of king, not the one who's calling fire down from heaven to bring justice. In revealing his mission, Jesus refers more to prophecies that show what would happen when God's upside-down kingdom came to earth through him.

Starting point is 00:06:27 The blind would be able to see, the lame would be able to walk. John wants Jesus to bring judgment and restoration in the way that displaces power and restores Israel in a physical sense, but Jesus will lay down his power to restore Israel as the bride of Christ. The third thing, in Jesus rebuke of John, Blessed is the one who isn't offended by me. Jesus is showing that no matter how great you are among your religious, circle, and no matter what you've done in Jesus' name, only those who accept God's upside-down

Starting point is 00:06:59 kingdom and live by it are blessed. We're living in the true way of fulfillment. Think about it this way. Jesus was ushering in a new kingdom where Jews would not be set apart by God for following the religious rules like food laws and Sabbath and circumcision, but they, along with the Gentiles, would be saved by God's power, displayed at the cross, and called to be a different kind of family in God's kingdom. They would be a family of united believers, the church, who were going to demonstrate God's love, mercy, and kindness in a world that desperately needed it. You might have heard of Eugene Peterson. He's the preacher and writer who translated the Bible into the version we know is the message. In his memoir, he talks about a lot of things about being a pastor and what the church is called

Starting point is 00:07:46 to do. And one of those main themes is summed up by this quote. He said, the church most of us expected and wanted would have become the enemy of the church we were given. What kind of church do you think the Pharisees and religious leaders expected? Was it a church where everybody kept the rules? Was it a church where you could tell how you were doing by looking out the door to see how other people were getting along? What kind of church do you think John the Baptist was expecting? Was it a church where justice reigned and people were always held accountable for the things they were doing? What kind of church do you expect? I think what Jesus is getting, at here with those who are his greatest skeptics is that the kingdom they were expecting, a triumphant,

Starting point is 00:08:29 militant, political empire, was an enemy to the upside-down sacrificial kingdom they were actually being given in Jesus' name. Just as mercy was at the heart of Jesus' ministry, it remains at the heart of our church and its work today. Who in your community would benefit from the mercy you and your church could extend? How would the love, mercy, and kindness of Jesus transform not only your heart, but your relationships with your family and your friends? How would it transform your relationships with people on social media and in your community? Jesus is showing that his upside on kingdom is better than what we expect. When we live like we're trying to win a game, more than having a winning season, we lose sight of what Jesus is offering. He has a bigger and better story for us. It might mean

Starting point is 00:09:18 things don't work out the way we want them to right now, but Jesus' kingdom comes with a guarantee that what happens to him happens to us. We will, for a time, join his suffering, but we will also have his unending power to see us through it.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Kingdom You Didn’t See Coming | The Gospels | Matthew 11:1–19

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