Well, brothers and sisters, if the pages in your Bible are not stuck together from the heat, see if you can get it to open to Matthew 11. Matthew 11, and as you are turning, why don't you go ahead and stand once more, this time not so that we would lift our voices in song, but so that we would give honor to the voice of the God who speaks to us from His Word. Matthew 11. Beginning in verse two is going to be our text this evening. Matthew chapter 11, beginning in verse two, and I'm gonna read in your hearing through verse 19. This is the word of God, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, that is said to Christ, are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another? And Jesus answered them, go and tell John what you hear and see. The blind receive their sight and the lame walk. Lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me. As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John. What did you go out in the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you. Truly, I say to you, among those born of women, there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet, the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates. We played the flute for you and you did not dance. We sang a dirge and you did not mourn. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, he has a demon. The son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds. And thus ends this reading of God's holy, inspired, and inerrant Word. Go ahead and find your seats once again, brothers and sisters. The Proverbs announced to us, hope deferred makes the heart sick. Maybe another way that we might say it in our day and age is this, unmet expectations can be devastating. And you might think for just a moment back upon your own life, and maybe it was a class you took in school or a job that you had for a season. Many marriages, as you know, struggle for this same reason. There are expectations that are not met. The same is true in churches, of course. Simply put, it's routine, is it not? Things don't work out the way that we wanted them to, and then when they don't work out that way, it can rock us, it can put us on our heels. What about, though, when Christ doesn't meet our expectations? It's one thing when our boss at work or our teacher at school or our spouse at home doesn't meet our needs, but what about when Jesus doesn't meet our needs, at least our perceived needs? Let me be clear, our text this evening is not so much about John as much as it is about us. More to the point, it is about what we do when Jesus Christ does not meet our expectations. If I can put it this way, our passage this evening is really about when the kingdom of God looks different than we imagined. This is no doubt the case when it comes to John the Baptist, is it not? I don't know about you, but when I think of John the Baptist, I have this one image in my mind. I think of John only in this one category, and that is this locust-eating, fiery preacher, right? One who stands out in the desert and is calling the nation of Israel to repent. And that's not an unfair idea about who John is. I think even a cursory reading of the Gospels reveals that here is a man who is bold. Here is a man who is courageous. We might even go so far as to say, here is a man who is fearless. In fact, when we meet him in our passage this evening, he is incarcerated. He is in jail. Well, what got him thrown in the clink in the first place? Well, remember that he had the temerity to call out Herod, the ruler of Galilee at the time, for his heinous and immoral acts. I don't know about you, but I tend to think that it takes some gall to call someone out when that someone can remove your head from your body. But that's what John did. John was that guy. However, The picture that is in front of us this evening is a bit different, isn't it? Where once we saw John shouting in the wilderness, now he's sitting in a cell. Confidence, it seemed, has given way to confusion, discouragement, a swallowed up determination. And as he sits there in his cell and languishes, doubts begin to creep into his mind. In fact, so many doubts that he actually sends for Jesus, and he asks Him one question. It's found in verse 3. John wants to know, Jesus, are You the one who is to come, or shall we look for another? In other words, John is asking something like, what's going on? This wasn't supposed to happen. Why hasn't the judgment of God fallen yet? After all, didn't Jesus Himself say that the kingdom of God had arrived? So, in John's mind, whether by military might or by political revolution, or chances are by a little bit of both. John's thinking a new age should have been ushered in by now, one where God's enemies, especially Rome, is put down. And yet none of that has happened. John knows for sure none of that has happened, and he knows that for sure because of his damp, dark dungeon that he is sitting in. And so there he sits, there John suffers, there John doubts. I think it's worth pausing at this juncture. And I think it's worth pausing because we have something maybe that we don't need to learn here, but something that we need to remember. Isn't that so much of the Christian life? So much of the Christian life isn't, I need more data points, I need more information, I need more content. Isn't so much of the Christian life simply being reminded of what God has told us in His Word? In other words, it's stuff you already know, but in the moment you forget it. Well, let me remind you. that our passage I think very clearly testifies to the fact that Christians can suffer. I don't know about you, but sometimes I get this idea in my mind, if only I were just more faithful. If I was just more obedient, if I was just a better Christian, then of course I wouldn't experience any tragedy or suffering or sorrow in my life. It's one of the ways that you could know as much as we abhor the so-called prosperity gospel, it sort of resides in each and every one of us at some level. We all just assume that if we would cross T's and dot I's the way that we're supposed to, that nothing bad would ever happen to us. But of course, that is a carrot, one that is dangled out in front of you, one that you will never reach, at least not this side of glory. The fact remains that Christians can suffer and that Christians do suffer. And if I can be so bold, chances are the more faithful you are, the more suffering you will experience. Second, and no doubt related, Christians can doubt. John sure did, didn't he? I want you to take heart this evening. I want you to take heart in the fact that even strong Christians can wrestle with doubt. Even strong Christians can have massive misunderstanding in their theology or how they think God is going to do something in the world. I want to encourage you that it is okay to have doubts and to have struggles, to have questions. And I want to encourage you to do something with those doubts and those struggles and those questions, and that is this. I want to encourage you to take them to your Savior, to lay them on Him. The fact is, you and I, we are weak. That is true. But the shoulders of the Lord Jesus are altogether broad. And He invites us, does He not, to come to Him and to lay our burdens upon Him. So come to Him, brother and sister, come to Him with your doubt and with your discouragement, and let the Lord Jesus sustain you." Back to John's question. How does Jesus answer it? Really with two words. Jesus says, look and see. John, you need to look and see. Or if you want the fuller treatment, it's recorded for us beginning in verse 4, go and tell John what you hear and see. And then he goes on to list, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news, literally the gospel preached to them. Notice what Jesus does in this answer. In quoting a whole handful of passages from the prophet Isaiah, all demonstrating that Jesus is fulfilling the promises of the kingdom as laid out in the Old Testament. In quoting all of these passages, Jesus is in effect calling John to look outside of himself. outside of his circumstances, outside of his situation, outside of what he sees in the mirror, and to look to Jesus. Jesus is saying to John, John, you need to look beyond the four walls of your cell so that you can actually see all the works that God is doing. The point is, Jesus is gently reminding John, and I trust us as well, that when it comes to the kingdom of God, when it comes to Christ, when it comes to the gospel, it is not to be determined by our preconceived ideas. Does that make sense? When it comes to the kingdom of God, when it comes to the gospel, when it comes to your standing before God, your relationship with Him, it's ultimately not how I feel that matters. It's not ultimately how my life is going. It's not even ultimately about what makes the most sense to me. None of that, we are reminded here in Matthew 11, determines the validity or the reality of God's kingdom. I alluded to this a moment ago, John was expecting the Christ to be a warrior king, one who would come riding on a war horse, unsheath his sword, and destroy all of God's enemies, most notably those pesky Romans. But that hadn't happened yet. And because that hadn't happened, John was concerned, and so Jesus reminds him. John, the kingdom of God has not failed just because things are not happening in the way that you think they should happen. Let this be a reminder to us, particularly as we suffer, particularly as we doubt. Our calling in the midst of suffering and doubt is to align ourselves with God's Word and not expect God to align Himself with us. Or if I can put it into those categories wherein Jesus taught us how to pray, when we come before the Father we are to pray, your kingdom come, your will be done, not my kingdom come, not my will be done. You see, that's the perspective that Jesus is offering. That's what He's trying to remind John of. There is more to life, there is more to the kingdom, there is more to the gospel than what you see scrolling through Facebook. God is at work. God is doing something. It's bigger than us. It's bigger than our homes. It's bigger than our church. And yes, sometimes it makes us scratch our heads. Sometimes it makes us cry. Sometimes it makes us angry. Notice that in the midst of what could be tears, what could be questions, what could be anger, whatever would be going on in the mind of John as again he's languishing in prison, notice that strangely enough in the midst of all of this, Jesus actually commends John, doesn't He? That's the weird part. That's the part that doesn't make sense to us. And it doesn't make sense to us because, again, not only do we have this whole prosperity gospel idea sort of hardwired into us, we also have this sort of pharisaical idea hardwired into us, where we just assume that what God expects of us is that we would perform, and when we perform well, we get a gold star, and when we don't perform so well, and John is not performing well here, we just expect that we get a slap on the wrist. But that is not what Jesus does. Think about that. In verse 7, Jesus immediately turns to the crowd and He begins extolling John, doubting John, the same John who just sent a messenger to say, oh, are you really the guy we're looking for? He reminds Jesus, that is, He reminds them that this John is a prophet. And He's not just a prophet, but He's like the prophet. In fact, in verse 11, Jesus is recorded as saying, among those born of women, there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. According to Jesus, John is top shelf. Why? Well, I suspect it is because unlike all the other prophets, say Moses or Isaiah or Malachi, Unlike all of them, John not only prophesied of the Christ, he actually witnessed the Christ. Think about that. John saw Jesus. John touched Jesus. For crying out loud, John baptized Jesus. In the redemptive scheme of God, John was the last domino to fall, leading up to God's Son coming into the world. And so in that sense, no one on planet earth is greater than John. And you and I, we finally start going, okay, I guess that makes a little bit of sense. And as soon as we start nodding, what does Jesus do? But He immediately throws a curveball. Because after saying all of this about John, that no one is greater than him, in verse 11 he adds, yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he, greater than John. And we're right back to scratching our heads going, Jesus, why do you gotta make things so tough? What does Jesus mean here? Well, my suspicion again is that this has to do with redemptive history. Let me explain. You and I, we are greater than John in this one sense. We live on this side of the cross. From where we sit, the God-man is already at the Father's right hand. The new covenant has been enacted on the blood of the Savior. The Spirit has been poured out in a unique way. So much so that you and I, we can see the beauty and the wonder and the perfection of Jesus and His gospel, please hear this, more clearly from our vantage point than John could from his. But like I said, let me circle back really quick. Remember that in all this, don't misunderstand, Jesus is commending John. John is the same guy, just back in verse 2, in 3, who was doubting God's promises. This is the same John who has some serious doubts. Today, if he went on a podcast, they might say that John was having a crisis of faith. And you and I think, well, this is the time that God drops the hammer. This is when you get him. You will look in vain for anything that would resemble condemnation. Instead, Jesus commends him. Again, I think there's much encouragement here for us. And the encouragement, of course, is that Jesus loves and honors his people even when his people are knuckleheads. Jesus loves and honors and is committed to His people, even when His people are just sort of faithless, right? We need to understand, and I don't mean just like mentally, because that's only going to get us so far. Like we need to meditate upon this stuff until it's like in our DNA. We don't suddenly cease to be Jesus' people when hard times roll in and we start to struggle or doubt. What kind of Savior would that be? What kind of Savior would Jesus be? What kind of promise of the new covenant would that be? How efficacious would the blood of the Son of God incarnate be if it saved us and made us acceptable before God just until tough things happen in our lives and then it's like, we're on our own. Jesus has our back. Jesus has John's back. And Jesus has our back especially in difficulty. Now, with all that being said, allow me just two more very quick comments. Both of them come directly from our passage, and I think I need to speak to both of them very briefly. The first has to do with this whole idea of the never-satisfied generation. You'll notice that John is accused of being too strict. He didn't eat or drink, verse 18. He was a fundamentalist. Jesus, on the other hand, is pegged as being too loose. He both ate and drank, verse 19. That's how you know He was a Reformed Baptist. And so Jesus compares those in front of Him, those who on the one hand go, well, we can disregard John, you know, He's too this. No, we can disregard Jesus, too. He's actually too far the other direction. Jesus compares this generation to children who were never satisfied. And in the context, this is no doubt a warning, is it not? It's a warning against a pervasive sort of spiritual hard-heartedness and cynicism. This was true of the religious leaders of the day, and in some sense it was true of the crowds more generally. And so they are warned. They are warned not too easily to dismiss either John or Jesus. And I would just simply say in passing that we ought to be careful that we don't fall into the same trap. We don't want to be like the fickle crowds always looking for a convenient reason or excuse to dismiss the Word of God. The fact is that the people of God are supposed to be those who hear and heed the Word of God. That's actually one of the evidences, is it not, that we are truly God's people, that we receive God's Word. The second quick comment, and then we'll close, has to do with verse 12, where we read these vexing words. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. This is admittedly an odd passage, and I would have you to know that there is some disagreement about how to understand it. For the sake of time this evening, I will spare you all the details, but suffice it to say, the kingdom of God does not come like the 51st Airborne Division. That is to say, the kingdom of God doesn't just drop in real quick, do a mop-up operation, and then everything is all good by the end of the weekend. It's actually the exact opposite. Though the kingdom of God has come and with it many of its blessings. That same kingdom of God that has invaded the world all the way back in the days of Jesus, it was then and it is still now resisted by the world and by the flesh and by the devil. John's imprisonment, of course, serves as a potent example of the sort of resistance that we're talking about. So you can look at verse 12 and say, well, the kingdom, verse 12, has suffered violence. We might say has suffered persecution. and verse 12, the violent do take it by force. In the context, whether we're talking about Herod or the Jewish religious leaders, the point is that violent men do in fact attempt to seize the kingdom and its messengers. Again, John's current imprisonment to say nothing of Jesus' future crucifixion bear this out. But I bring all of this up because, again, of the greater context. Remember, the kingdom that Jesus ushered in, it was not what John was expecting. Truth be told, it wasn't what anyone was expecting. You will remember where Jesus finds His disciples on Easter morning. It's not all of them waiting outside the tomb anticipating that He will be resurrected. They're hiding. They have the shades drawn and the deadbolt locked. No one was expecting the kingdom that Jesus inaugurated. And so I return to a previous point to simply say that it is right again here at this juncture that we have much to learn. The fact is that throughout our Christian life, we will suffer like John did. It's altogether possible that we will even have spells of doubt and discouragement. Yes, just like John did. And most likely, when our Christian life is not marked by sorrow and is not marked by doubts, do you know what it will be marked by? The very ordinary, dare I say even the boring. Beloved, we set our alarms, we go to work, we change diapers, we pay bills, we put gas in the car, we mow the lawn, we come to church, and we go, is this the kingdom? Is this what I was expecting? However, I would remind you that in the midst of our suffering, in the midst of our doubts, and yes, even in the midst of our ordinariness. Jesus is still King. The kingdom of God is still advancing, and in the midst of all of this, from the sorrows to the doubts to the changing of diapers, we remain firm in the grip of His grace, which also means that you can trust Him. You can trust Him in the damp and dark dungeon. You can trust Him wherever God has you, brother or sister. I don't mean this as a joke, but this might not be the kingdom that you expected, but it's the only one we got. And Jesus is King over that kingdom. And so I would say to you what Jesus said to John, look and see. Embrace the cross. Trust the Savior. Put one foot in front of the other and lean in and press on in grace. And as you do, be convinced that Jesus is with you, which I would submit to you is sort of the whole heart of the kingdom anyway, isn't it? The kingdom is that Jesus has come, and that Jesus is with His people, and that Jesus will not leave His people, and that the kingdom will advance until Jesus returns. Let's pray to that end. Father, encourage our hearts this evening. It is true we look at our lives, we look at the headlines that come across our phones, we look at the world that we live in, And we might have questions, we might have doubts, we might have concerns. We pray that in the midst of all of this, that you would give us eyes to see and savor the Lord Jesus Christ. And that as we see Him and savor Him, that we would be satisfied in Him and with Him. We pray that you would encourage our hearts. We pray that you would use one another here to build us up. to spur us on to love and good works as we continue to put one foot in front of the other and live for Jesus' sake. May it be so, we pray in the name of our Savior and your Son. Amen.