"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. For just as rain and snow fall from heaven and do not return without watering the earth, making it bud and sprout, and providing seed to sow and food to eat, so My word that proceeds from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please, and it will prosper where I send it."
Isaiah 55:9-11
Henry Winkler once said, "Assumptions are the termites of relationships." Assumption, presumption, inference, conjecture... they're all worldly and destructive regarding relationships—especially our relationship with Christ.
Throughout the New Testament, Jesus' family, His disciples, the religious community, and even John the Baptist made assumptions about Jesus and His earthly ministry. Those tragic assumptions were never based on Scripture, but rather on the selfish desires of human customs and traditions... on the outcomes that we desire rather than the will of God.
In Matthew 8:24-27, when a sudden and violent storm erupted on the sea, the boat Jesus and the disciples were in "was being swamped by the waves." Seeing that Jesus was sleeping, "the disciples went and woke Him up, saying, 'LORD, save us! We're going to die!'" His disciples assumed that a sleeping Jesus was powerless. They extrapolated, deduced, and inferred that His apparent lack of control over the current situation meant they were all going to die. "Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm."
In Matthew 11:2-3 John the Baptist was in prison for his bold rebuke of Herod Antipas the Tetrarch for marrying Herodias, his brother's wife. "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 is to come, or should we expect someone else?'" John, the same guy who lept in his mother's womb (Luke 1:39-41) when a pregnant Mary approached with Jesus growing inside... the same guy who heralded Jesus as the Lamb of God (John 1:29)... the same guy who baptized Jesus, saw the Holy Spirit descend and rest upon Him... the same guy who testified "this is the Son of God," ...was now asking, "Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?"
Maybe John assumed the real Messiah would devise a rescue plan and break him out of prison. Maybe John pictured himself retiring in Florida with a nice little condo on a golf course drinking margaritas after all those years of faithful ministry. King Jesus didn't respond to John's query by hiring the best legal experts, appealing to Herod, breaking John out, or transporting him to heaven supernaturally via flaming chariot. Instead, King Jesus simply responded, "Go and report to John what you hear and see:" John was executed by beheading shortly thereafter.
In Matthew 12 Jesus caused quite an uproar in the Jewish community. He had successfully alienated the Pharisees and religious leaders to the point that they plotted to kill Him (Matt 12:14). In Matthew 12:46-50, Jesus' mother and brothers came to collect and restrain Him because they believed He was "out of His mind" (Mark 3:21).
Jesus' biological family and disciples were all still operating under the cultural assumption that "blood is thicker than water." The LORD exposed the sin of elevating anything, including biological family, over the family of God when, "stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, 'Here are my mother and brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.'"
In Matthew 14:13-14 King Jesus had the perfect ministry opportunity set up for His disciples. Rather than seeing it as an opportunity, His disciples saw only obstacles, impossibility, and inconvenience. After all of Jesus' displays of supernatural power through miracles, healings, and exorcisms, The Twelve were still operating under their flawed assumptions of personal experience, logic, reason, traditions, and the natural order.
Where King Jesus saw an opportunity and felt compassion for the multitude, His disciples "approached Him and said, 'this place is deserted and it is already late.'" They not only completely missed it, but then presumed to tell The Son of God how to handle things, demanding of Him, "Send the crowds away so they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves."
In Matthew 16:16 Peter confessed that Jesus was "Messiah, the Son of the living God." But moments later (16:21-22) King Jesus "began to point out to His disciples that it was necessary for Him to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised on the third day. Peter then took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, 'Oh no, LORD! This will never happen to You!'"
Peter assumed that his version and vision of Christ's ministry was how things needed to go down. Maybe Peter envisioned a multi-million dollar building project with iridescent windows topping off with a crystal cathedral with a steeple soaring to the heavens. Maybe Peter envisioned multiple "seeker-friendly" campuses, book deals, and headlining a podcast with millions of followers on social media. Whatever Peter envisioned, it didn't involve Christ suffering. It didn't jive with God's plan of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, so the LORD turned and told Peter, "Get behind me, Satan!"
As Oswald Chambers once said, "Whenever the insistence is on the point that God answers prayer, we are off the track. The meaning of prayer is that we get hold of God, not of the answer... Dejection is a sign of sickness... Dejection spiritually is wrong, and we are always to blame for it."
When we seek and strive for outcomes rather than simple obedience, we're not just flirting with disaster, we're in bed with it. Judas Iscariot made some assumptions too. His vision of Israel's Messiah was something very different than God's. When Judas finally realized that Jesus had no intention of violently overthrowing Caesar and Rome... no intention of reestablishing Israel as the top military power in the world... no intention of fulfilling all of Judas' misguided hopes and dreams with His Gospel of love, meekness, peace, humility, forgiveness, service, and personal sacrifice—Judas sold Him out for some pocket change.
Contrastingly, in Acts 5:40-42 we read, "They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and released them. The Apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing that they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Every day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ."
When we find ourselves disappointed, frustrated, heartbroken, or dejected it always boils down to our flawed assumptions and misguided outcomes. Those toxic feelings arise whenever we feel we're receiving less than we deserve from God. He could allow our consciences to become seared and let us embrace blissful ignorance on the wide path that leads to destruction. Instead, God allows us to experience those feelings of disappointment, frustration, brokenness, and dejection as a form of His loving correction. But how will we respond to it?
In Philippians 4:11 the Apostle Paul said, "I have learned to be content regardless of my circumstances." And in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Paul wrote, "Rejoice at all times. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in every circumstance, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus."
Feelings of bitterness and disappointment serve to remind us that all we truly deserve for our rebellion and sin is everlasting torment. They remind us that our eyes are wrongly fixed on the patterns of the world and the fateful outcomes of our dreams, our plans, and things below rather than on His plan, His kingdom, and things above. They remind us that we weren't born-again in Christ to revisit the prison and chains of our carnality and selfish desires—but for the good works God prepared in advance for us to walk in as our new way of life as members of Christ's Body & Bride.
Matthew's account of the Gospel begins with the words, "ΒΙΒΛΟΣ γενέσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ υἱοῦ Δαυεὶδ υἱοῦ Ἀβραάμ." It's not merely "A genealogy account." A more accurate translation might be, "The book of Genesis of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham." The entire work culminates at Christ's Great Commission in 28:18-20. The resurrected LORD isn't commanding His disciples to focus on outcomes and "make disciples," as that would contradict the entire narrative of Scripture. Instead, King Jesus invites us to obey His simple command, "disciple."
King David suffered. Moses suffered. Israel's prophets suffered. The Apostles suffered. King Jesus suffered. There's no way around it—we're going to suffer in this fallen world. In Matthew 7:25-27 King Jesus said that the rain, wind, and water will batter every house. The only difference is the foundation we build on—whether we put His words into action or not.
Let our suffering not be sourced in selfish agendas, good intentions, human traditions, or misguided assumptions and outcomes. Instead, let us be content, and even rejoice in suffering loss, prison, torture, and even death for His Name's sake. Just like the Apostles, let us rejoice for having been counted WORTHY to suffer disgrace for the Name of Jesus Christ our LORD.
Blessings and love,
Kevin M. Kelley
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