Great Expectations

I titled my sermon after a Charles Dickens book. Most of you were required to read, I'd say. I was. Great Expectations was a story of pip, and you got to experience life at that time. And I do not believe there could be more powerful words written for us than the words Great Expectations. Do you have them?

God does. God has great expectations for you. So does Jesus Christ. We just heard a song about his life, how he gave up his so that we could have eternal life. So Christ expects us to do something. He expects us to achieve something. He expects us to become like him, to look at life as he and his father look at it. So I would like to look at a narrative of some of that. There's no way I could touch on all of it. But I'd like you to go with me. They're only going to have to go to one section of the Bible today. I'd like you to go with me to the book of Luke. To the book of Luke. And in chapter 13 of Luke, we see a parable. It's talked about last time. Parable. Comparing things. Looking at how they're the same and how they're different. It's what the story of a parabola in the Greek means. And in chapter 13 and verse 6, it says, He, Jesus Christ, also spoke this parable. A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. Zero. Ever had that? I have. Yes, Tracy has. No, everybody else always had trees that bore fruit. No. Okay. So you can relate to that. Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fruit tree and find none. Cut it down. Why does it use up the ground in the New King James Version? Also, my margin says, Why does it waste the ground? Parable? Weighing? Maybe comparing our lives? Are we wasting ground? Scary thought, wouldn't it be? But he answered and said to him, Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and I fertilize it. And if it bears fruit, well, but if not, after that, you can cut it down. Get rid of it. Now, is this discussing Jesus Christ being an arborist? No, he could be, though. He invented trees, he created them, he would know. But he tells this parable. And it pictures a fig tree, which everybody here like figs. I started, too, this weekend. I almost forgot I was going to bring a bag of figs so everybody could taste one. I think everybody's tasting it, but they are very good and they're good for you. And Christ used it here. They're even good with cookies, fig newtons. Used to be one of my favorite ones when I was a kid. So, here is this fig tree that it can't produce any fruit.

I have a better episode today about a fig tree. This tree, we've all seen them. We've seen fruit trees that you go there and there's no fruit. And that's disappointing. We have a mango tree in the back of our property. I've been there many times. No fruit. My neighbor has seven mango trees and they all produce mangoes falling on the ground. So many mangoes. And on the Smith property, zero. None. His name happens to be Smith, too. But how do you think about this? Because Christ gave this for us to think about, didn't He? He gave us this parable for us to kind of relate to.

We're riding up here today. Mary always fixes a lunch because we don't have time to stop. And so we eat on the drive up here. And so today there was apples and pears. And as she prepared, I'm more of a pear guy. And I ate pears first. She's more of an apple person. Wish you like apples? Apples? Pears? It's about half. And I like pears. But it's amazing how God made trees to bear fruit. And He made us to also bear fruit, didn't He? As a matter of fact, Jesus Christ on His last night as a human in His talk in John 15 and verse 8. You don't have to turn there. But He made the point that God desires that we bear much fruit.

He's not looking for bare trees. He says that His last night that He's going to go, but He's going to send the Holy Spirit. And through that Spirit, He's going to help us bear fruit. Much fruit. How's that going for you?

You don't have to answer because God knows. God knows what He gives us. And the amount of spirit, and whether we use it or not, and to what detail we use that. It's amazing because from Genesis 3, that tree in the garden, that fruit, all the way to Revelation 22, where that tree that constantly bears new fruit every month and the leaves are used for the healing of the nations, it's all through the entire Bible about fruit, physical and spiritual fruit. And He desires for us to bear spiritual fruit. It's what He wants. It's what He asks. As a matter of fact, He gives us two verses. Galatians 5, verse 22 and 23, every one of us knows it, right? Love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, you know. We've known that for a long time. This is a list of fruits He's asking us to bear. Matter of fact, I think He challenges us because He says He doesn't want one or two fruits. He wants much fruit. You know the list. How about you? Can you go down that list and go, yes, no, no, no, never, never, maybe, no, once in a while.

Is that what He wants? Love, and that's just not talking about heroes. Philio is talking agape. Godly love is a fruit. Is it on our list? Does He look down and say, Maria, okay, I got her list here. Okay. And does He put out, like He could put out beside mine, a grade? Like a school teacher? A, B, C, D, even an F. If it is so important to Him that we bear fruit, don't you think He's measuring?

I grew up on a farm and we had a tree there we harvested. We knew how much that tree would bear with a black walnut tree. Those nuts are hard to crack. It's hard, but wintertime when it's snow and cold, we had our little nutcracker in the house and we would dig out those nuts. We'd find that fruit because that was a fruit of the tree. Brethren, we have been called in this area at this time, at this time in your life, to bear fruit. That's it. That's all He wants you to do. You do this, everything else takes care of itself, doesn't it?

There's not going to be any doubt, doubt in your mind. There won't be any doubt if you turn to Him in prayer and say, Father, I need your help. Well, yes, I looked at your report card. I've got your report card. Do they even give report cards out nowadays? I don't know that they do. Do they? They used to hand it, they do, because they would give us ours and then sometimes my parents would get to see it and other times I couldn't remember where it went. Being honest. And other times when those grades were really well, hey, hey, hey, hey, here's my card.

I need you to sign it. You know, parents had to sign those back then. I got in high school, they never even did. They gave us a paper and you just, you know, you didn't sign it. You just knew whether you were doing well or not. God wants us to do well. God wants us to bear much fruit. How are you going to do that? Does he leave us saying, Go bear fruit, but he doesn't tell us how? No, he does it even right here.

He does it in multiple ways. That's why it's so important that we read the Gospels, that we read. We read the story of Jesus Christ. No matter where you turn, just just open your Bible and turn. Read a parable, read a gospel. Do something, read something in there because Christ is constantly, through every red word, if you have one of those Bibles, he's teaching us. That's powerful, and it's just for us. Those red words are not really for the world. There's a lot of words in there for the world, but those red words, it's for those wanting to bear fruit, and that's what he's all about.

So, with that said, let's go down to the next few verses. We'll stay right here because he's going to teach us a little something about fruit. Luke 13 verse 10. Now, he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.

Notice synagogues is plural. Tells us a lot. He didn't just spend a Sabbath and many Sabbaths and all of his Sabbaths in the same synagogue where Jarias was the head man over the synagogue. Since Jarias, he healed Jarias' daughter. You know, okay, here, come and take the stage. I'm going to do this. You can have anything you want. But he said most of his journeys were around the Sea of Galilee, Decapolis, 10 cities.

So, he would go into synagogues and he would teach, and this is one of those synagogues. It said in verse 11, And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. Think of your age and go back eighteen years, no matter what age you are.

Can you imagine living like that? Living life, looking at the ground, living life, maybe just a little bit to see a little sky, maybe just ahead to see other people's feet and knees, maybe to try to prepare some type of food. Bent over so much, this view is her life.

Eighteen years, my life, looking down, watching people move away from you because you really couldn't tell what direction you were going. Can you imagine it? Can you go home tonight as you walk in your house, bend over, walk in your doors, walk around your house, walk from room to room?

Can you imagine? We can't. Can you imagine? We can't. We can't imagine eighteen years.

Let's go to verse 12. But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him. You get that one? See, you have to realize, you're in a Jewish synagogue. Okay, the men are sitting here. The women are sitting separately, usually in the back. Not the same. They're not allowed because women were not considered on the level of men. Sexist? Oh, absolutely. And so here, Christ has the teacher for the day calls a woman up. It calls her from the back row to come up to the front where He's at.

Never been done before. Was never even thought about before. And the leader had to be thinking, wait a minute, they've always known their place. You're equating them to us, and you're bringing them up in our air?

Whoa. But Christ did it.

Eighteen years. She had gone through this. Live life like that. Now, in synagogues today, there are different ones. In the more liberal Jewish synagogues, you can sit in the same area like we are here. The more orthodox you get, they even have a divider down the center of the aisle. So you can't see. So you can't see. And the women sit on one side, and the men sit on the other. Other synagogues, the men sit down, and there's a row upstairs. There's a little balcony, and that's where the women sit.

And the women were never supposed to be in direct eye line with the men. Because man might look over in lust after the woman. So it was a woman's fault. I'm just being honest. That's how they viewed it. But that's not how our Messiah viewed it, did he?

If you can't handle it, guess what? You got a problem. Because she's coming forward. And I'm about to do something that's going to blow your minds. And said to her, Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity. Who bound her? She was going to be loosed. No more. Imagine when she heard that. For one thing, you have to picture. She was as nervous as anything. Because he called her forward. She came. She didn't know that she wouldn't be beaten, cast out. For not knowing her place. Can you imagine her there? Can you imagine the hands that must have shook? As this man called her forward. And she's wondering, what? What? Did she have great expectations, every Sabbath? That something good may happen? Probably, but after a few years. You think that disappeared? But she came. Obviously, from our narrative here, she came. She was a regular worshipper of God. And she came every week.

So in verse 13, and he laid his hands on her. Single men didn't touch women. He didn't do that. He laid his hands on her. This infirmed, strange woman. Who the religious leaders of the day said, in their own minds, what sin did she commit? That's what they thought. That was their thinking. She must have done something bad. Or maybe it was her parents. And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight. Can you imagine? This, this, this. Her whole world changed. He changed her world. It got so much bigger, so much better. Can you imagine the tears that were rolling down her face? It's almost as if he'd healed her from being blind, because now he could see. Oh, wow! How did that happen? He laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. What did she do?

What would you do? Did she fall down on her knees? Because I believe she'd been there many times praying to her God.

Did she say, Praise God! Thank you! As her voice would have cracked, her hands still shaking, and she got to look around the room. She got to see what people looked like.

God, there's a sky, and it's so blue. It's so blue. Wow!

Wouldn't you have loved to have been there? Aren't you going to love doing this for someone down the road? Because it's going to happen.

Great expectations. With God, they're real. Real expectations for each and every one of you. But the world's going to call them great. We're just going to say, that's our God.

Verse 14, But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. And he said to the crowd, There are six days on which men ought to work. Therefore, come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day. And I believe he said it just like that, if not even more hateful. There's a wicked heart here, and he was a religious leader. You want to follow that guy? You want him teaching you? Neither does God. But, verse 15, Then the Lord answered him and said, Hypocrite! Except he didn't say that. The scripture's wrong.

It's not singular. In all, the majority of all scripts, the Greek, it says hypocrites. Not hypocrite.

He was not alone. He was not alone. And it fits the profile because leaders, religious leaders at that time, they didn't come one by one. The only one that ever did that was Nicodemus, and he got converted. No. They had their buddies. And a lot of times, they would let him speak at the synagogues just so they could find something that he did wrong. So it was a group of people with their Pharisees. He had to be a Sadducee because he's over the synagogues, and they only allowed the Sadducees were in power, and they allowed just the Sadducees to be over the synagogues. You tell me there wasn't Pharisees there, too? Hypocrite! Christ called it like he saw it. He didn't care. He didn't care if I hurt your feelings. Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath lose his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead it away to water? You treat your animals better than this woman. That's what he's saying. Well, you would do that on the Sabbath for an animal, yet you don't want this woman healed.

Then verse 16 may be the most powerful, powerful verse in this entire section. So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whoa, whoa, whoa. You don't say that. Try to find that anywhere in Scripture. You remember? Women were less than men. It was always sons of Abraham. Our fathers, Abraham! Christ not only raised her up, he raised her up here. He put her on the level with these men because she was a daughter of Abraham. Oh, this Christ was a genius when it came to speaking. See why thousands followed him? At the power of God, and he used it. So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound. He called him out.

Satan binds, I loosen. So this woman was put in this condition by Satan. The Messiah said it. It's clear. Was it for such a time as this? That this woman might have had to suffer for God to be glorified? Such a time as this, that we may have to go through sickness, that we keep our faith so that God may be glorified. The book of Acts didn't end. It continues. How many stories of you will be in there?

And then he says, I gotta go back. So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound. Think of it! Think of it! He's really kidding him. He said, can't you see? See, Christ had so much agape. Because if it had been me, I would have taken each one of those and bent them over. I would have made them see what it was like for a day to be like this. Or the next Sabbath and come back in. Oh, would you like me to heal you on the Sabbath? Or would you prefer me to wait another day? But see, that's me. I'm not there yet. That's why I'm still working. Still working on this thing. For eighteen years to be loose from the bonds on the Sabbath.

Think about it. No empathy.

No compassion. No sympathy, was there? You remember the list from Galatians 5 22? Where? Where were they? Where are they with us? Do we have that? Well, you know, I saw somebody the other day on the Sabbath. They were... I saw them pull in and guess, you know, they just went and got something to eat.

Yeah, I saw somebody. I called over somebody check and they were watching. Watching football game. I could tell in the background. Really? Is that what we do? I hope not. And I think we've outgrown that.

It's our job to be like Christ. It's not our job to make people like Christ. That's his job. And I'm not qualified. And to be blunt, neither are any of you. All Christ asks us to do is look at that list. And bear some fruit. That's all. What an example of those who didn't bear fruit. Great expectations. I think he expected more out of the religious leaders. They knew the law here.

So let me wrap this up. Verse 17. And when he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame. They were put to shame. They were embarrassed. I still remember the old Gomer Pyle. Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame. Remember that? They should have been ashamed. Because obviously it resonated with everyone in that room except for the leaders, didn't it? They got it. They saw this miracle performed. They knew this woman. Oh yes, most of them pitied her. Most wouldn't bend down and say, how are you today? No.

When his adversaries were put to shame, and all the multitude, in the adversaries, more than one, proves the hypocrite thing was right. And the multitude rejoiced, and for all the glorious things that were done by him. Eighteen years changed in an instant. One life.

One life was given a new lease on life. The Scripture. I come that they may have life and live it more abundantly. If any of you have asked me to anoint you, I usually say those words, because that's what he promised. I'm just asking him to do what he promised. This woman got to see it. Imagine her going to sleep that night, sleeping in a different position. I mean, think about it. If you were bent like this, how are you going to sleep? On your side, sitting in a chair, lying on the floor sideways and then switching this way. Imagine her feelings. Oh, that's a beautiful thing to picture. It's going to be a lot of healing in the kingdom of God in the first few years. A lot of people are going to need healing, mentally, physically, spiritually. God needs a team to do that. Could he do it himself? Absolutely! And he does. Stones out there he could raise up. No. Why? Because he has great expectations for those he has chosen. To get to do this thing and millions of others. Healings just like this. You want to miss out on that? I don't. I don't. I don't think you do either.

So what are your great expectations? Bearing fruit. What about each and every Sabbath? Do you have great expectations that God will deliver a word to you that will feed you for a week? Because God doesn't give words to feed you for a lifetime. He gives us so every Sabbath. You chew on that food and come back and get some more. And you should have great expectations that God will do that. And that comes from prayer. Praying for the sermons. Praying for us feeble human men who stand before you.

There are four things I covered here. Which one are you most like? Do you most relate to on this Sabbath day? The fig tree and the lack of fruit. The bent-over woman, physical ailments. I talked to someone last night. He's in his early 50s. And he was telling me, Man, I can't do what I could do 10 years ago. I should wait till you get another 10 or 15 of it. I said, it only gets worse. It doesn't get any better ailments that you have. So don't expect it to get better.

Bent-over woman.

How about the hypocrites? That's a fruit you definitely don't want. But if you bear these other fruits, you won't have to worry about being a hypocrite. Finally, the last one is Christ. That. That is who we need to relate to the most. Being like Christ, definitely great expectations. But it's not an impossibility. Matter of fact, it is our destiny. No matter how old, no matter what condition you are in. There's a new world coming. So much better than this one.

Great expectations. We should have them every Sabbath. And you know why? Because God is here. And He's alive. Christ is alive. And they're involved in each and every one of our lives. For one reason. They have great expectations of us.