Unrealized Expectations
Kingdom Stories, part 4
Wildwind Community Church
David K. Flowers
April 1, 2007
Have you ever felt like the guy who said, "I can face anything but the future--and certain parts of the past and present!" I think none of us can face the past unless we know we are forgiven by the grace of God. I think none of us can honestly face the present unless we know we are strengthened by the presence of God. And I think none of us can face the future unless we are certain of the love of God. It is God’s love and grace and presence I want to talk to you about this morning.
I have always thought of church not as a place for perfect people, but as a place for people who have looked their imperfections squarely in the face. And rather than deciding, “Oh, everybody’s flawed, everybody messes up and sins,” I think church people are those who say, “I don’t want to die as flawed as I am right now. I want to improve. I want to strive for more.” There’s definitely a perception out there that Christians think they are perfect. But I don’t see that here. What I see here is Christians who know how imperfect they are, and come together every week to celebrate God’s perfection; who know how much they lack in goodness, and come to celebrate and learn about God – the only one who is really good. I see people who know they are flawed and won’t accept it as the status quo in their lives; people who realize that in order to get better, we need something more than self-help – we need God’s help. And it’s not just God’s help we need – it’s God’s heart. I need my heart of criticism to be replaced with God’s heart of kindness. My heart of lust to be replaced with God’s heart of love. My heart of contempt to be replaced with God’s heart of compassion. My heart of greed to be replaced with God’s heart of generosity. That’s the deepest need in my life, and Wildwind Church is about people who share that need and ask God to meet that need.
Ezekiel 11:19 (GW)
19 I will give them a single purpose and put a new spirit in them. I will remove their stubborn hearts and give them obedient hearts.
When it’s at its best, the church is a group of people who are allowing God to give them a purpose, to put a new spirit in them, to remove their stubborn hearts and give them obedient hearts!
Whether you come out of a bad church background, or whether you just have never had much exposure to the church, I want to seriously welcome you, and actually commend you for coming. It’s not easy to come to a church. You might have fears that you’re going to be asked to do weird things, or have public attention drawn to you. (That’s not going to happen.) You just don’t know what to expect, and everybody fears the unknown. So thank you for weathering that storm today and making your way here. I hope when you leave here today, you are glad you came, and that you would choose to join us again next Sunday on Easter as we start our new five-part series, “Stuff Jesus Changed.” I think because Jesus was born, lived, died, and rose from the dead, a lot of stuff about life can be really different. In Stuff Jesus Changed we’ll look at spiritual bondage, guilt, loneliness, suffering, and decision-making. I hope you will join us.
We’re wrapping up a series called Kingdom Stories today, looking at stories Jesus told about this place called The Kingdom of God. Remember those words of the Lord’s prayer, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Clearly Jesus’ desire was that God’s kingdom would come to this earth – that God’s will would be done here just like it is in heaven. So since the Kingdom was so important to Jesus, since he claimed to be from there and bringing it to this earth, we have been looking at what we can learn about the Kingdom from the stories Jesus told to illustrate it. Those stories are called “parables.” A parable is just a story used to illustrate some kind of spiritual or moral principle. Jesus was a master storyteller, and I intentionally saved one of his best-known and best-loved stories for Friend Day.
Luke 15:11-32 (MSG)
11 Then he said, "There was once a man who had two sons.
12 The younger said to his father, ’Father, I want right now what’s coming to me.’ "So the father divided the property between them.
13 It wasn’t long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had.
14 After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt.
15 He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs.
16 He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any.
17 "That brought him to his senses. He said, ’All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death.
18 I’m going back to my father. I’ll say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you;
19 I don’t deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.’
20 He got right up and went home to his father. "When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him.
21 The son started his speech: ’Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’
22 "But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ’Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
23 Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time!
24 My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.
25 "All this time his older son was out in the field. When the day’s work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing.
26 Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what was going on.
27 He told him, ’Your brother came home. Your father has ordered a feast—barbecued beef!—because he has him home safe and sound.’
28 "The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen.
29 The son said, ’Look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends?
30 Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!’
31 "His father said, ’Son, you don’t understand. You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours—
32 but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive! He was lost, and he’s found!’ "
I think there is something essential in this story that we need to learn about ourselves, about religion-as-usual, and about God. Let’s look at them in that order.
How can we boil down what we can learn about ourselves in this story? I thought about this for a while, and realized that the best way to boil this down, from my perspective, would be to say that 1) the fast-track to happiness is a dead-end. Here we have this kid, working away on his dad’s farm day after day. He lives and works right there in the shadow of his father. And he gets restless. He thinks, “You know, there’s my problem – my dad is the problem. This farm is the problem. I gotta get out of here.” How many movies do we see about the young person who feels constrained by country life and moves to the big city looking for more? How often do we see it played out in real life, that kids graduate and move out of town – they usually don’t even know what they’re moving toward, they’re just moving away from wherever they had been. It’s because of this restlessness that the son decides in our story to ask dad for his inheritance money, and just gets out of dodge.
In the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve were told by the serpent that eating the fruit would be the fast-track to becoming gods – to knowing all the mysteries of the universe. And the kid in this story, really, buys into that same idea – happiness lies “out there.” What I’m looking for cannot be found where I am – I must seek it elsewhere.
Let’s stop there for a moment. How many of us, right now at this second, are motivated by that idea? I’m not content. I’m not happy. It must be because I’m married to the wrong person, I’m in the wrong job, I don’t have the right body, I’m too boring, I’m not smart enough. In other words, there must be something “out there,” I am lacking called contentment, called happiness, called peace, that if I could just find it, if I could only acquire it, I’d have everything I need. And so marriages crumble as one or both spouses decides happiness is not in that marriage so it must be in another. People quit their jobs looking for the ideal job that will bring happiness. People join health clubs to tone their bodies, read self-help books to learn how to not be boring, take classes to become smarter. And there’s nothing wrong with joining health clubs or reading self-help books or taking classes. But when people do that stuff because they think they’ll find contentment in those things, that happiness will be found in them, they’re bound to be disappointed. The fast-track to happiness is a dead-end. Know why? Because the money will always run out. What do I mean by that? In the story, the boy takes his inheritance and spends it all. He has a blast, but eventually it disappears and he’s left with nothing. 1a) When you seek happiness or contentment or peace in knowledge, in money, in having a good body, in being popular – in things of this world that can turn on a dime – they always eventually will. You will reach the place where you discover that all that you know is not bringing you happiness, but in fact perhaps greater distress. All your money is not buying contentment. Your awesome body may be awesome, but the clock is ticking and it won’t always stay that way. You may be popular now, but what about when the money runs out? What about when your butt starts to sag? What about when you lose your position and people don’t follow you any more? It’s just a matter of time. Eventually, whatever you are looking for contentment in will run out, will be gone. The fast-track to happiness is a dead-end. 1b) The things of this world over-promise and under-deliver.
Now there’s at least one more essential thing we can learn about ourselves before we move on to what we need to learn about religion-as-usual. Are you good at predicting how other people in your life will respond to certain things you do and say? I’m terrible at it. I find that I consistently think people are going to be harder on me than they actually are. Do you know why? Because I’m hard on myself. I expect myself to never make mistakes, therefore when I make a mistake, I think other people are going to be upset with me for having done it. See, 2) your expectations of other people are a mirror of your expectations of yourself. And my friends, this includes God. In our story, after this young man runs out of money and decides to go back home to his dad, he has a set of expectations of his dad. “Dad is not going to welcome me as a son, so I’ll just ask if I can be a servant. Dad will expect me to account for my behavior and explain myself, so I’d better come up with a good explanation, or at least a well-considered apology. I’m probably going to have to go up to the house and knock on the door and convince him to even talk to me. Why does the son have these expectations of the Father? As we see in the story, they turn out not to be true at all! So where do they come from? They come from who this kid really is.
Based on his behavior, based on how he goes and demands his inheritance from his dad before his dad’s even dead (what an insult!), and then spends it on drugs and parties and hookers, where do his values come from? What does he believe gives him his value? Money, and the power and success and popularity it buys. Therefore, when the money is gone, and he is no longer powerful, successful, or popular, how does he think of himself? As worthless! So how does he approach his Father? As worthless! The fact is that this kid’s expectations of his father tell us far more about him than about his father.
And this is that next essential thing we can learn about ourselves in this story. My friends, 2) your expectations of God tell you far more about yourself than about God. How do you expect God to treat you? What kind of God do you think God is? If you were to approach him to give your life to him, to serve him, to follow him, what do you expect him to say? It doesn’t matter how you answer that question because no matter how you answer it, you reveal more about yourself than about God. You reveal your value system, what you feel you deserve, what you expect of yourself and probably of other people. Psychologists call this projection – when we project onto other people our own opinions, beliefs, values, fears, etc. Anytime someone says, “I’m going to tell you something, but you’ll probably just think I’m worthless,” what they have actually just said is, “I’m going to tell you about something I did that I’m afraid makes me worthless.” Or when someone says “I want to tell you about this, but I’m afraid you won’t love me,” what they’re really saying most of the time is, “I fear that I am unlovable.” This kid projected his value system onto his father. He was shallow, he was obsessed with the way the world measures value, and he projected that onto his dad. So I ask you today, what do you expect of God? What can you learn about yourself by looking closely at your expectations of God?
Okay, let’s deal with what we can learn about religion as usual here. Remember the reaction of the oldest son? “I can’t believe you’d do this for him – I’ve always been faithful to you and you’ve never thrown a party for me.” Or the two siblings in our sketch – “You mean HE gets everything in the estate? What’s up with that?” This represents religion as usual. Those who have tried to be faithful to God all their lives, have always tried to do the right thing, but instead of growing more gracious and merciful like God, instead they get incensed that God would show mercy to those who have squandered their inheritance, so to speak, who have done willfully sinful things, who have mocked God, and who have really, really screwed up their lives, and perhaps the lives of others in their path. What do we learn from this story about religion as usual? We learn that 3) religion as usual will steal your soul. This oldest son, after his brother having been gone for all this time, all he could find in his heart was bitterness and jealousy. The two siblings – all they could do was be shocked and revolted. None of them respected the will or wishes of their father. The faithfulness they were so proud of came not from love but from a legalistic sense of superiority and duty and rule-following. That’s religion-as-usual. When others didn’t meet their standards, they – the faithful – were the first to look down their nose. Christ-followers, be faithful to God. But let faithfulness come from your heart. Don’t let it become religion as usual. Don’t allow religion as usual to grow up in you a spirit of pride and superiority that is toxic to all that the Father stands for. 3a) Nothing is more toxic to the spirit of love and mercy and grace and forgiveness than religion-as-usual. This is what happens when we do the right things for the wrong reasons, when our faithfulness to God is motivated not by love for God, but for a desire for superiority over others.
Finally, let us look at what we can learn here about God, because that, after all, is the main point of the story. I believe ultimately this is a story about how 4) God will not meet your expectations. As we discussed earlier, you and I approach God with all these expectations of what he’s going to be like. And a lot of the time it’s not very good stuff. God will judge me, God will condemn me, God will make me feel terrible, God will scare me, God will demand penance from me. We think we have to grovel in front of him, expecting that he will be harsh with us. That’s what this son expected from his father, isn’t it? Now normally when we talk about unrealized expectations, we’re talking about good things we expect of people that they don’t end up delivering. But in the case of the lost son, we see that the Father doesn’t deliver on the son’s bad expectations. The Father doesn’t make him a servant, doesn’t allow him to grovel in the dirt, and in fact treats him in very much the opposite way. In other words, the Father’s response to his son’s sin has nothing to do with what his son expects or thinks is just.
In this story, Jesus is trying to show us what life is like in the Kingdom – how we can expect to be treated by God. And the bottom line is, God will fail to meet your expectations, in a great, wonderful way! In a way that will bring you freedom and joy!
Guests, regular weekly attenders, members of Wildwind – Jesus tells us here that many if not most of our expectations of God will go unrealized. The fact is that God often will not be who we expect him to be. He will treat us differently than we deserve, and in doing so, he will amaze us with his grace. In fact, that’s what grace is – God treating us with love and respect and tenderness and compassion, despite how obviously we do not deserve it! When you grew up, you may have had parents, teachers, and friends who your expectations of them went unrealized. As an adult, you undoubtedly have found that some of your expectations of your spouse and your kids have gone unrealized! And this has left you frustrated, and disappointed, and insecure. But the good news is that God will leave you with the best kind of unrealized expectations. He will not guilt you or demand explanations from you when you come to him. He will just love you, put robes and rings and shoes on you, and welcome you into his household as a son or a daughter.
So what have we learned this morning about the Kingdom of God? We have learned first of all that the fast-track to happiness is a dead-end. Peace and happiness and contentment are found not “out there” but “in here.” Where are you pursuing peace – out there, or in here?
Next we learned that our expectations of God tell us much more about ourselves than about God. What do you expect of God, and what does that say about who you are?
Third, we learned that religion-as-usual will steal your soul. There’s something in the nature of religion that kills and corrupts and leads to the very superiority and pride Christ wants to get rid of in us. We must allow God to give us new hearts that can rejoice when God shows mercy to even the least faithful among us.
Finally, we saw that many of our expectations of God will go unrealized – God will act toward us in ways very different – and very much better – than most of us imagine. That’s something to be thankful for this morning.
Guests and attenders of Wildwind, we are a Christian church and we believe wholeheartedly that God wants to extend to every one of us the compassion that the Father in the story showed to his wayward son. And we want to never fail to call people to turn from sin and come to God. Whether you respond to that call or not depends completely on you and there’s nothing I could or would say to manipulate your decision. Perhaps there are some here today who have been waiting for an opportunity to come to God and were just hoping I’d give you a chance. You are going to get that chance in a moment. Perhaps others aren’t sure and really just want to go home and think about this stuff and maybe come back next week to celebrate Easter and start our new series with us. Perhaps others just want to examine their expectations of God while we pray and ask the Holy Spirit to show what they can learn about themselves, and that God would show His love and grace to them. Wherever you are, would you pray along with me?
God, thank you that our worst expectations of you go unrealized, that you do treat us with mercy and compassion. The story of the gospel is that we can all come to you and experience your forgiveness just like the son did. We know from your Word that we come to you through your son Jesus who died to pay the price for our sins so that we can know you. Father right now will you send your Holy Spirit to live in every person who has decided to come to you, to turn away from the sin in their lives, and ask you for a new start?
If you did that just now, I’m going to ask you just to take a small step forward – I don’t care how small it is – just a tiny step to inform yourself that you have just done something real – that you crossed a line today, decided to start a new life with Christ as the forgiver of your sins and leader of your life.
God your Word says if we confess our sins, you are faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Thank you for giving us that promise and for being a God who keeps his promises to us. May your Kingdom spring up fresh and new in the lives of those who came to you today and may those commitments grow strong into lives of faith that bear fruit and impact others. Amen.
You received a response card when you came in today. We’d like to hear from you, so let’s take about 40 seconds. Let us know if you took a step today, or if there’s information you’d like about Wildwind. We want to come alongside and help you if that is your desire.
