Expectations and Experience. 

Jesus didn’t do many miracles in the town where he grew up, but everywhere else people found him so miraculous they wanted to take him by force and make him their king. Not his hometown though, they had a different perception of him. In Matthew‬ ‭13:55-58‬ they say “Is not this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother called Mary? And his brothers, James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Where did this man get all these things? And they were offended by him." Can you imagine them saying, “Stop it Jesus, you’re embarrassing us! Where’d YOU get that, Jesus! Who do you think you are, Jesus? You’re a nobody, a nothing, and you’re going around acting like you're someone special, with your entourage of dirty fishermen. Come on Jesus! 

Because of their own pride, they saw him as less than themselves, and with it came the scorn and contempt that grows in a self-righteous heart. Listen to Isaiah 53:2-3  “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.”

Imagine someone that you hold in low esteem; they aren't as educated as you, as smart as you, as good looking as you, as strong as you, but what happens if they perform better than you? Envy, jelousy, and often hatred ensue. When Jesus was honored as some great man, showing to have great abilities, the people that knew him (The people who thought they were better than him) were outraged. Jesus was plain, probably less than average. His appearance was nothing special. He didn’t come from a connected, influential, or wealthy family. People rumored that he was an illegitimate child. Who does He think He is? They viewed life through the lense of pride, which equates value, a persons worth, with what they have, but Jesus didn't see others this way.

Jesus said, “If a poor man and a rich man come into your church, don't treat them differently.” Don’t honor the wealthy and despise the poor. Doing so is the symptom of finding our value and worth in possessions, appearance, or ability, this is the pattern of the world. If we do so we become judges of evil thoughts, and reveal that our minds are ruled by evil. So Jesus didn’t do “many mighty works there because of their unbelief.” They had an expectation of who Jesus was, based on previous experience, so he couldn’t be anything else in their minds. America is a lot like the hometown of Jesus. We have grown up with Jesus in some form or fashion. We have a preconceived idea of who God is, what God wants, and what God will do. We have expectations based on our past experiences. We don’t expect much from Jesus because we grew up in a culture that didn’t expect Jesus to do much, in a culture whose understanding of the gospel is; “If I want to go to heaven, I’ve got to be good.” Like the church of Laodicea; we see serving God as something we have to do from our own will and desire. We have become rich, and have need of nothing. 

I pray we awaken from this complacency. That God will give his “Church” a heart, hot and burning, baptized by fire. I pray we will remember the day of our salvation, when the Spirit of the Holy One overshadowed us, when we came to him broken and empty, and cried out, “Oh God forgive me a sinner!” I pray that we will worship in Spirit and truth. That we will not be like those foolish Galatians, who forgot to live by faith. I pray our eyes will be opened, and that we will see, that we continually need reviving.