The Disappointment and Discontentment of Expectations
Matthew 16:1-12
Tell me about your expectations – especially of people – and I will tell you about the disappointment in your life. Tell me about the details you expect to be fulfilled in your life, and I will tell you about the discontentment that you live with.
Your expectations are like your ceiling – people can jump up and touch them from time to time and they can wear themselves out trying to reach them as often as they can, but no one can live there.
The greater your expectations and the greater the detail of those expectations, the greater the disappointment in your life. And, the more you experience disappointment in your life, the greater the sense of discontentment you will also have in your life.
Think back for a moment to some great expectation you had in of someone in your life that didn’t come to true. Got one in mind? How big was that let down? How fresh is the hurt, the disappointment, the disillusionment, the discontentment?
Dennis Wholey, who hosted the popular PBS-TV series LateNight America, said this: “Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.”
Would you agree with that statement? Why is it, do you think, that we put such great expectations on situations and on people – expectations that we ourselves cannot live up to – and then get so offended and so angry and unforgiving and bitter when we are let down?
It goes back, I believe, to that old sin problem that cropped up back there in the Garden of Eden – the desire to be worshiped and the idea that we are worthy of it. That desire – inbred in us through our humanity and fed by us through our own self-seeking choices – puts us in the place of worshiping the “I” god. That in turn puts us in the place of us putting ourselves in God’s place – in our lives and in the lives of others.
That brings us to our text for today, Matthew 16:1-12. Let’s back up and start at 15:37, so we can flow into the text for today. Our friends the Sadducees and the Pharisees have returned, and they are more abrasively confrontive to Jesus than they have been in the past. We can feel the tension mount ever higher as the end for which Christ came draws nearer.
What does it take for adversaries to lay down their opposition to each other and unite instead?
Why, another adversary in common, of course.
The Sadducees and the Pharisees, while both being very much in the leadership of their nation and were strict adherents to the Law of Moses, stood very much opposed to each other on a number of key issues. Acts 23:6-9, tells us not only what those points were but also how Paul used that opposition to his advantage: “But perceiving that one group were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, Paul began crying out in the Council, ‘Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees; I am on trial for the hope and resurrection of the dead!’ As he said this, there occurred a dissension between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor an angel, nor a spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. Then a great clamor arose, and some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party stood up and contended sharply, "We find nothing wrong in this man. What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him?’”
Though there is a strong dissent between them, they are united in their opposition to Jesus. Why are they so opposed to Him? Why has He become their adversary? Several reasons, actually.
First, in regards to the Sadducees, because He consistently demonstrated and taught that there is a resurrection of the dead and there are angels and spirits. Second, in regards to the Pharisees because He consistently exposed them as impostors and laid bare their hypocrisy, pride ands tyranny over the people. And, thirdly, the two together, He failed to fulfill their expectations of what the Messiah would be like.
So, let’s look at the interplay as Matthew records it for us. The Sadducees and the Pharisees come together to Jesus and demand – demand, mind you – that He show them a sign from heaven in order to test Him (from Mark 8:21). Now, they were well aware of the miracles He had performed all over the countryside and in their cities and even in the lands of the Gentiles – including raising the dead.
What was it they were asking for? They were looking for the same kind of signs that accompanied God giving the Law to Moses (Exodus 19:16-20:25). The Law of Moses had actually become their God. Without it, they would have no power, no authority, no position and no prominence. There would be no way for them to pridefully lord it over the common people. So, they were looking for thunder and lightning and the rumbling of God’s voice in the mountains and earthquakes.
Another problem they had with Jesus is that they expected the Messiah to come in and be a political force, a dominating military force, and to drive out the Romans (or whoever happened to be suborning them whenever He did come) and establish His kingdom in Israel in the same way that King David had done. They were expecting to be a world-dominating power, a force to be reckoned with, a nation that was paid homage to by other nations.
Jesus didn’t fulfill any of that in any way, shape or form. He was humble, unobtrusive, shunned the limelight, discouraged publicity and even went so far as to tell people not to tell anybody about the amazing miracles He had done in their lives.
Nothing Jesus did or say fit what they expected it to look like or sound like. He just didn’t fit “the profile”; He just didn’t meet their expectations. And, they were disillusioned and disappointed as a result.
Now, isn’t that a lot like us these days? Don’t we kind of have the expectation that God is always going to do things the way He has always done them and that there is no new way for God to do anything? Don’t we have a difficult time sometimes seeing that God is at work in ways that don’t seem “biblical” to us?
Yet, at the same time, we don’t really seem to expect Him to do what He has done, do we? When was the last time you really expected a miracle form God on the scale of a parting of the Red Sea or a collapsing of the walls of Jericho or the slating of a giant with a single stone from the sling of a shepherd boy?
Let’s go on and take a look at how Jesus responds. Notice that He is not intimidated, not at all hesitant or timid or shy about His response. He says (verse 2-4): “But He replied to them, ‘When it is evening, you say, “It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.” And in the morning, “There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.” Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times?”
Now, the earliest manuscripts do not contain verses 2-3. However, in Luke 12:54-56, Jesus says almost the same things, so it is not unreasonable for them to be included here.
So, what is Jesus saying? The miraculous signs that He had been performing in full view could not have been done by anyone not sent from God. More specifically, they had never been done on this scale, to this degree at anytime in the history of God’s Chosen People, and everyone knew it. We have already read, “But when the crowds saw this, they were awestruck, and glorified God, who had given such authority to men (Matthew 9:8).”
The miracles Jesus worked were evidence enough of Who He was, Who had sent Him and where He was from for the unprejudiced and not proud. For the proud and arrogant, however, only the signs of their own choosing would be enough. Think about this for a moment – think about how outright foolish this was!
What if Jesus had given them the kind of sign they were looking for? Would they have been terrified that they had defied God and demanded of Him what they had no right or entitlement to demand? I think not. I believe that they would stand face to face with Him and proudly proclaim their right to have their demands met! I am sure they would say, “See, we were right to wait until his sign was given. Otherwise we would have been taken in by a charlatan.” The proud and self-righteous will not be humbled by any means except that which devastates their stand.
Jesus has pretty much had enough. He has given them every opportunity to see the truth that is right in front of them, but they will not see or accept. They pride themselves on being wise and wonderful, but they cannot see the signs of the times as easily as they can see the signs of what the weather will be. So, He tells them very bluntly that they are spiritual whores and that there will be one final sign coming that they won’t accept either – the “sign” of Jonah and his three days and nights in the belly of the great fish.
There are many types and shadows in the Old Testament of the life and character of Jesus Christ. Jonah is just one of those. Not the recalcitrant prophet who refused to obey and turned his back on God, but the dead-to-the-world experience Jonah had before he completed God’s mission for him.
And, just as Jonah preached repentance for salvation, that is the same message that Jesus preached when He came as well. In fact, anytime we preach the Gospel, that is what the gospel is: Jesus Christ is God-in-the-flesh Who took our punishment for us and that acceptance of that substitutionary sacrifice and repentance of our sin must bring us to the place of humble acceptance of the price we could not ourselves pay.
Any gospel that does not preach that is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Remember the very first message that Jesus ever preached: “From that time Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matthew 4:17).’”
Are the Sadducees and the Pharisees interested in repentance? Not in the least. Al they are interested in is seeing their standards, their expectations met. They have set themselves up as the standard. They have set themselves up as the arbiters of what is of God and who the Messiah really is. What arrogance!
But, before we judge too harshly, we must allow the Scriptures to act as a mirror of our own hearts and motivations. We must allow the Scriptures, the words of Jesus, to open up our own motivations and our own tendencies for examination and scrutiny.
Think about how harsh a judgment these self-proclaimed experts on God and His standards have just received from the lips of one whom they despise and regard as a heretic and a false prophet – even a blasphemer. They have been called spiritual whores! They who have faithfully and religiously been righteous in their strict adherence to the Law of Moses as interpreted through the traditions of the elders. How dare He!
Now, our text indicates that Jesus had this conversation with the Sadducees and the Pharisees before His disciples joined Him on the other side of the Sea of Galilee in Magdala (also know as Magadan (Matthew 15:39) and Dalmanutha (Mark 8:10)). . They had evidently remained on the other side somewhere in the region of Decapolis where Jesus had fed the four thousand. But, they had not been with Jesus when He had had His little set-to with the religious leaders that we just studied.
Not only had they been absent during the interchange, they had also forgotten to bring any bread with them. This seems a bit odd since “daily bread” was a daily staple of the Israeli diet. At any rate, it is not surprising that they might be a little out of step with Him when He says, "Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees (verse 6)."
Now, from what the text tells us of their response and why, it is hard not to think, “You knuckleheads!” But we have to understand something that we have been discussing all along and that is the theme of our study today – expectations. How hard is it, really, to change our expectations, especially when we have held those expectations for our entire lives?
There is not a person I have ever met that did not have some kind of lie, some kind of shame-message rolling around in their head that made them feel less than they were, that made them feel defeated when there was no logical reason for it, when there was no real proof that what they thought was real.
Here is where the Sadducees, the Pharisees the disciples and us – yes, us, too – have something in common. All of us have expectations of God that He is simply not going to meet. He is going to be who He is, do what He is going to do, and say what He is going to say no matter what we want, think, hope or expect. He is God, for crying out loud!
When we can really get a firm grasp of that, really get that embedded in our hearts, we are going to see that there are things He wants to do in us and in our lives that we cannot even imagine. Paul says it best, I think, in Ephesians 3:20: “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.”
In the Greek, He is “superabundantly” able to do beyond all that we ask or think, and that power is at work in us. We’ll come back to this is a bit. Just let that steep in your heart for now.
Let’s continue. Why do you think the disciples forgot to bring bread? Could it be that they were still so awed by Jesus feeding thousands from such meager supplies a second time that they lost sight of everyday needs? I think this is quite likely. I have felt that rush of overwhelming excitement over something that God has done while I have been present and been so full of it that the everyday needs of the moment seemed unimportant and distant.
God wants us to know that, even though He is in the business of working wonders in the world, we are still in need of our “daily bread” until He takes us home. The Sadducees and the Pharisees had forgotten as their great ancestors had forgotten in the wilderness that the daily supply of our sustenance is itself a miracle from God.
He doesn’t have to do that…He chooses to do that. That is why Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” We get to the place where we expect our food and our sustenance to be there and we so easily take it for granted.
Think about the billions of people that God feeds every day, all over the world, of all different nationalities, languages, social and economic levels. And, think about all of the people who waste food that God wants to use to feed those who are in need. God supplies our needs :superabundantly”. Why? So that we can give to those less fortunate in His name and represent Him to the lost and needy.
Jesus tells the disciples, “"Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Because they had forgotten bread and because they had missed His confrontation with the religious leaders, the disciples misunderstood. Jesus was speaking on a spiritual level; they were trying to understand on a temporal level.
In this text, we see that there is a balance, a dynamic tension between the spiritual and the temporal. While we do need to be aware of every day needs, we need to be even more aware of the spiritual dynamics at work in this world. We need to be tuned into the heart of Jesus Christ as we navigate through this life. We need to seek to have His mind and His heart about things and to be on guard against anything and everything that lies against the truth of Who He is and why He came.
In Matthew 6:33, Jesus said, "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” We are to be intoned to Him and to seek after what His will is and not worry about our daily needs. We simply submit those needs to Him in faith and He will supply. Our mission is to be His ambassadors in the world. We are not to forget about our temporal needs, but we are to surrender them to Him in faith.
That is why Jesus says to His disciples in verses 8-11, "You men of little faith, why do you discuss among yourselves that you have no bread? Do you not yet understand or remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets full you picked up? Or the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many large baskets full you picked up? How is it that you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees."
Leaven, or yeast as we know it today, works in secret. It works in the dark, away from prying eyes. It doesn’t take very much of it to affect an entire batch of dough. In the same way, hypocrisy and self-righteousness can very quickly permeate a fellowship and poison the whole place. In fact, what we have going on today in our nation and our world is poisoning the lot of us.
There are those who hold themselves up as “experts” in science, logic and other fields who demean, minimize and marginalize people of the Christian faith. Atheism is on the rise, and there are many people blessed of God with great minds who refuse to acknowledge the source of their ability to think and to reason and to understand.
There are those in the entertainment industry who don’t even have high school diplomas who hold themselves up as experts in science and matters of faith who are accepted by the masses simply because they happen to be famous, not for any real or rational reason at all.
The leaven of the Sadducees and the Pharisees has been at work for a very long time and is spoiling the whole batch. The batch needs to be “punched down”, and maybe even thrown out. God will not allow it to all to continue unabated forever. He will soon say, “Enough!”
Our mission is to be “salt and light” in the world – the two most natural and most effective substances to slow and even neutralize yeast. Isn’t it amazing how full and substantive Jesus’ teachings are? He knew when He instructed us to be “salt and light” (Matthew 5:13-17) that large doses of both would be necessary to countermand the work of the yeast of His adversaries. A little salt helps the yeast ferment and grow; a lot of salt neutralizes it and makes it virtually ineffective.
Where do you sit right now? How are you doing with being a “salt and light” disciple of Jesus Christ? See. It isn’t about bread at all. It isn’t about supplying food and shelter for ourselves and our loved ones. It’s about supplying the world with the love and truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, testifying that His three days and nights in the “belly of the fish”, His three days and nights in the tomb, were all the time that was needed to give all of mankind what we truly have needed all along – the Bread of Life, who is Jesus Christ.
Let’s pray.
