Beyond The Message: When Jesus Doesn’t Meet Our Expectations

Welcome to Beyond the Message, a midweek space where we continue the conversation from Sunday's sermon, unpacking context, exploring your questions, and growing as we listen, learn, and follow Jesus together.

Hi guys, welcome back to another episode of Beyond the Message.

I'm Jess.

I'll be hosting today.

We're joined by Pastor Aidan Wivell.

He did not preach last week.

If you listened, you'll know it was Pastor Grant Harris.

But Grant is away on leave.

Lucky him.

And so Aidan gets to sit in his seat and give us his thoughts and his reflections on Grant's message, which is super exciting.

Grant preached out of Luke 19 last Sunday with the message exploring when the king arrives, how will we respond?

Today we're going to unpack firstly what stood out to us in his sermon, explore our views of how Jesus can differ or change over time.

Answer an excellent question from one of our listeners and give you a sneak peek insight into our next mini-series and our final mini-series, really, other than advent for the year.

So lots to look forward to.

Should I jump straight into our sermon summary?

Yeah, what have you got for us?

All right.

So let's see if I've hit this on the nail or not.

Last Sunday, Grant wrapped up our King and Kingdom Come series in Luke 19, 11 to 44, exploring what happens when the king arrives.

So the parable of the menace.

Did I say that right?

Let's say so.

Yeah, just say it.

No idea.

We're just gonna like act confident, fake it till we make it.

Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his tears over the city.

We're challenged to consider whether we truly recognize Jesus as King and whether we're willing to follow him on his terms.

Grant, challenge us to consider as we live in the until he comes years, what has the king entrusted to us and how will we be putting it to work?

Is that a fair summary from what you heard?

You were here in person.

I reflected on the sermon notes because I was away.

Yeah, I listened to it twice actually, because service leading, so it's in both services.

I think it was a hard one to summarize because it was it covered a lot.

Um, but I think that was a great job.

He covered a lot of biblical stuff.

Um, but that key point, like you said, do we recognize Jesus as king and king on his terms?

Grant used that phrase a number of times, and I think that was a good distinction about the kind of king people wanted, and then perhaps how Jesus came not meeting their expectations, and we'll get on to talk about that a bit later.

Fabulous.

So I want to jump onto what stood out to you in this sermon.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, sometimes for me, um, we can become so familiar with Jesus that we actually miss him.

And um, I think especially if you've grown up, I've been thinking about this lately, if you've grown up in the church or been in the church for a long time, you can kind of fall into like just your normal rhythms of faith and what that looks like.

And then you chat with someone who's new to faith and just how excited and inspired and challenged they are by things that maybe we just look over because we're so used to it.

That was something that stood out to me.

It's something that I want to um be more intentional with not just being in a place of familiarity with Jesus, but being excited by him and actually intentionally learning more about it.

Was anything that stood up for you?

That's a great point.

Um, and just celebrate Alpha in that space.

It's like Alpha being a great space to kind of chat to people who are kind of exploring Jesus maybe for the first time, or um, who have that like excitement and curiosity and questions.

Um, and I'm really loving being part of uh Young Adults Alpha at the moment.

It's definitely a space where you get to see that.

I guess it must be quite cool for you as well, having studied theology, to be back in the space with people that are exploring it for the first time.

I have to explain it in ways that um can make sense um for a range of people.

It's it's a really good challenge and chat, like yeah.

Um I love it.

But uh, what stood out to me similar, like there was that verse 1944, which was kind of Jesus weeping over the city and saying, You did not recognize the time of the king's coming or or God's coming to you.

And that phrase, you did not recognize the time of God's coming, really is like kind of almost haunting me, you know, this week of like, um, do we recognize Jesus in our everyday?

Um, like he's always present, he's always active.

And where am I missing him?

Uh Grant finished in person.

We finished singing the song Um Open the Eyes of My Heart.

And I thought that was a great prayer to finish of like, Lord, open my eyes.

Like, I I know every day I kind of get stuck in my thing, and I I miss you, maybe in that invitation or an interruption, or in somebody who's made in your image who I just rushed past, so like, where can I see God?

So, yeah, that's kind of was the thing that really stood out to me.

Uh, I was coming off the back of like a conference that I was at last week, which was all about spiritual formation.

Right.

And one of the speakers gave this a like really moving story of being a nurse and kind of getting asked to look after a patient like way past her shift.

She was meant to have gone home, and it's just like, oh, like fine, I'll I'll do it kind of thing.

Um and yeah, this this is her story, but it really stuck, struck me.

And she was she so she she did it and she didn't complain outwardly, but internally she was like, I should be gone home.

Um and it turned out that the the patient that she did the bloods, she got news that she had cancer, like out of nowhere.

And um this nurse was able to to be there with her, and she said that like as she drove home, she would just felt that conviction from God of like, I just wanted to be gone, I didn't want to be there for this person, it was an inconvenience, and yet there was an invitation to kind of sit with someone who was gonna get this life-changing news.

Um, and she summarized, said spiritual formation or kind of becoming more like Jesus is right there for us if we just recognize the opportunities, and that's kind of again been kind of haunting me of like we were talking offline off air just before about parenting and different challenges and stuff like that, and that idea that those challenges, as much as they are tiring and frustrating, and um they stretch us our opportunities where we can see God, where he can shape us.

So it's at hand our our eyes open.

So long way to answer, and yeah, it really met me in a situation where I was thinking about that.

Yeah.

I also think God's timing, the fact that you were on this conference last week, you come to Sunday, this is Grant's message.

God's good.

Convicting, challenging, but good.

I love it.

Um, and also funnily enough, on that note, I missed Sunday's message, so I only um read it or got to it um late yesterday.

But I was asked to do a centering practice in our staff meeting um on Monday morning and just felt God prompting me to lead our staff them and just having a moment of just sitting and being in the presence of God.

And I had no idea that God had, you know, spoken, I guess, to the church through Grant's message to exactly that.

Yeah.

Um, and I found that five, ten, fifteen minutes, however long it was, really life-giving.

And yet, how often do we actually set aside time to do that in our days?

Yeah, you called it like noticing, right?

You that was your encouragement to us was to go and notice uh your surroundings.

Uh yeah, it was a good challenge.

It was.

Another thing that just stood out to me very quickly, um probably quite convicting for me as well, was sometimes we can believe in Jesus as our savior, but struggle to receive him as our king.

Um, so we're happy for Jesus to save us, to wash away our sins, to forgive us, but we're less comfortable when he asks us to surrender and follow um and let him be our guide or give us the directional prompts for our life.

And I think a lot of us fall into that trap.

Um we don't necessarily reject Jesus, but we just think, like Grant used with the GPS imagery, we think we know a better route, and it's so easy to fall into that trap.

And yet God's saying, No, like actually, I have authority, I am king, follow me.

Um, so that was challenging for me personally, and I need to figure out how I I guess realign where I want to go with where God wants me to go as well.

But yeah, good stuff.

It was a really good message.

If you haven't listened to it, go and listen to it because there was a lot of great stuff in there.

One of the really interesting things in this passage is that the people of Jerusalem were waiting for a king, they just had a very different idea of what that king would look like.

So they wanted power and political liberation, something that is what kings would come and bring in that day and age.

And I guess it's quite hard for us to visualize it because we don't live with a king.

I mean, there's the king of England, but so far-fetched from us, and it's so different to what it would have been back in Jesus' day.

Um, but then Jesus came bringing a very different kind of kingdom, one marked by grace, sacrifice, and ultimately the cross.

I guess this got us to question when we were preparing for this, how is our own understanding of who Jesus is and the kind of king that he is shifted or changed over the years?

And I really struggled with this, but did you have anything you wanted to Yeah?

Uh I couldn't think of like any like really dramatic turnaround moment where it's like, oh, I thought Jesus was like this, and then boom, like no, he's he's like this.

The way I I found it was more like um, you know, we talk sometimes they talk about is it like a diamond where you look at it from different sides and it's got doors, different angles, or like I think of like a mountain.

And if you if you walk around, or even Dangato, like you you look at it from different parts of Auckland and it looks different.

And I think that's kind of more how my expectations or my image of Jesus has grown is is more like oh, I thought you're like this, but you're also like this element that I hadn't really umbe hadn't resonated with me before or hadn't hadn't like fully gone into.

Um so a couple of ways like I've seen that like obviously biblically as we read more of the Bible and we we get I guess maybe you hear a certain sermon or somebody unpacks scripture and you go, Oh wow, that's always been there, but I never saw that side of Jesus.

So it's more for me seeing different sides like things perspectives, yeah.

Perspectives or kind of elements of his character that it doesn't necessarily mean that um some of the things I loved about Jesus were wrong.

It's just incomplete, it's just like he's so big that I didn't see that he was also that.

Um like one example would be um, which is gonna be probably the next sermon in this series when we get back to Luke um next year, is the flipping the tables.

Yes, so pe people often forget, I forget that side of Jesus that can be very confrontational, very um fiercely protective of the things that are important to him.

Um so I think there's like a classic meme about like when someone says be more like Jesus, remember that that can include flipping tables or something like that.

Sometimes we flip a table, yeah, or the memes about like what would Jesus do if he played Monopoly or something like that.

Oh my goodness.

Um just that whole element of the righteous anger.

Um it doesn't mean that he's not also loving and patient and a father, but like how do we hold all of that together?

That there's one biblical example culturally.

I've also learned this, um, particularly through my time at Kerry.

Um, one of the things I remember being taught was that Jesus or or God is too big to be fully um explained by one culture.

One culture cannot give us the full image of who God is because God, you know, made everyone in all cultures.

Um and like in Māori culture, one one thing that helps me get to know Jesus more is Faka Papa.

And you know, my culture, British culture, is not such a big thing in terms of like ancestral lines, but Māori beautifully shows us the importance of Faka Papa, of ancestry, of where we come from and why there's so many genealogies in the Bible.

Yeah, yeah, why it so matters who Jesus was and where he came from.

So that's one way that sort of culture can help me see a different side of Jesus.

It is so interesting because I think, especially in this day and age, we live in a world that's like, I'm gonna think this, and you can think that, and that's right, like that can be your view of Jesus, and this is my view of Jesus.

And yes, we do all see Jesus differently.

Um, but I guess it comes back to that idea of Jesus as savior and Jesus as king.

That's something that's really um challenged me a little bit.

Um, or maybe more so is so there's God the Father, God the Son being Jesus, and then the Holy Spirit.

And I think maybe my view of Jesus hasn't necessarily changed because I've always seen him as uh I guess uh gracious and um forgiving and um a teacher and wanting mercy and justice and all of that.

But through this, my view of God the Father has shifted um because of what I'm learning about Jesus, his son, and the greater story of the role of Jesus the Son in our restoration and our faith.

So forever learning.

Um, I had no idea that Jesus wept in this part of scripture.

I knew Jesus wept in other places, but I didn't know about this, and that was eye-opening.

Um yeah, it's been real good.

Speaking of um sharing ideas and thoughts, we love getting listeners' um reflections and feedback and questions.

And we have a really good one that we wanted to share, especially as we wrap up part two of our um King Kingdom Come series.

So I'm gonna read it out for you.

And then there's a question at the end that we can chat about.

So the journey through Luke that we have been on has been excellent.

Well done to you and the team.

There are so many parables in the Gospel of Luke, some of which are quite cryptic, from which to decipher Jesus' central message.

Personally, without the assistance of a concordance or commentary, some parables were very challenging to extract the full meaning of what Jesus was teaching.

The explanation of the parables has been consistently first rate from the winds of pulpit.

Again, well done to all our pastors.

I'm interested briefly, the listener asks, is there a theological formula that we might deploy in test to decipher the parable teachings?

Or do you recommend simply keeping a Bible commentary uh open alongside as we read them?

That's a great question because the parables or deciphering the parables has been a lot of what we've unpacked in our Beyond the Message podcasts.

True.

So do you have any thoughts, reflections?

I mean, I know we're pausing King of Kingdom Come.

Yeah.

But we're jumping back into it next year as we finish part three.

And people will always be reading parables, I imagine you know, outside of the series and Bible studies or small groups, or yeah, parables are something we're always looking at.

Um, and I have a uh a helpful companion here, which is uh this book called Reading Luke.

Um, if you're listening, it's by Frank Dickon.

Um, and this was a book that uh I got hold of for our preachers.

We have a couple of copies here at church.

Um, and I think I've also recommended it to some congregants, but it's more of an entry-level um theological book on Luke, how to read it well, and as part of that, has a whole chapter dedicated to parables because I learned from reading this book that Luke has more parables than any other gospel, and it has more unique parables, so parables that are not actually in Matthew, Mark, um, or John, but they're just in Luke.

Yeah, like I'm pretty sure like the prodigal son, like some of our most famous well-known parables only in Luke.

So it's a big thing for Luke.

So the um the whoever's asked the question is really right to kind of highlight this because if you misunderstand parables, you're gonna misunderstand a lot of Jesus' teaching in Luke.

So the chapter has eight ways or like eight points on how to read a parable.

I've got the first four written down here, um, which I can share briefly.

Please, I'd like to know.

Um, you know, that question was so nice, such great feedback about our church and very complimentary about our preaching, you know.

Um we can always do a better job both.

Thanks for that.

So, you know, if you're listening, uh, you can borrow this book from me for free because you've asked this question, so you can get all of the eight points.

Um, but in short, um, you know, the question was like, is there a way to do it and should we or should we just have a Bible commentary?

And kind of I would say both.

Like it's and part of the way how to do it is to look at extra material.

The but the four points that I've got here, and I think these are the most important.

When it comes to understanding a parable, the first rule, and I've said this on here before, is determine the central character or element.

So a lot of parables involve uh, you know, multiple characters, but who's the central character?

Um, for example, we had recently the widow who goes before the judge and pleads her case on and on until the judge eventually gives her justice.

In that parable, the widow is the central character.

We're talking about her persistence and the judge therefore is not God.

So you gotta work out who's the central character.

The second point is to give careful attention to the literary context, which means what happens before or after.

Luke's placed the parable in that part of his gospel for a reason.

Yeah.

So what comes before or after?

Point three, uh, understand the historical and cultural background of the parable.

Uh so you know, what was the status of widows in ancient Palestine?

Um, we got to be careful about importing like what our view of farming or agriculture or yeah no, social hierarchies.

We gotta try and understand that from for the people that Jesus was telling it to.

The time it was written.

Yeah, yeah.

He's telling the parable because people understand it then.

Yeah.

Doesn't necessarily have the same resonance to us.

Yes like the meaners was a good example.

I think that's how we're gonna say it.

Yeah, but like often like we talk about we think about it through an investing lens that we might have now with Sherzies or different things.

Like, it's very easy to start thinking in that way, and that's not necessarily wrong, but um, it's better you gotta start from the ground up and start what did it mean in that context.

And then how does it apply to us too?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, and then the fourth point, there are eight, but these are the four that I picked out.

Take note of Jesus' audience.

Oh, that's good.

Because it's not always the same.

Yeah.

So there would be a description Jesus said to his disciples.

So if it's just to disciples, that might make a difference, or sometimes it's to the crowds, or it's to the Pharisees.

So what and I probably what goes with that is sometimes there's a question from somebody that causes Jesus to tell the parable.

So those are some things that are helpful for that uh great question, but like I've got all of that from uh uh a book, so it's like get extra help.

You're not gonna understand the historical and cultural background without consulting something else as well.

So I think that's a great point as well.

Sometimes we just pick up a Bible and open it and start reading, and we might not necessarily get a lot out of it, but when we go through a series like this and we're actually looking at as much as we can, I mean, we haven't looked at every single verse in Luke, but we're trying to get all the key points.

You have the history, you have the context, you know the journey that Jesus is on, and so it helps us to be able to fully understand.

I'm being convicted of that because I definitely do verse of the day, which isn't a bad thing, it's not a bad thing, but enable being able to understand scripture better, I can still do that and then look at what comes before, what comes after, who is Jesus talking to, and not just look at as an isolated verse.

Yeah, yeah, it's a both hand thing.

That question was around like a kind of specifically more Bible study, and but uh you can totally go and read the parable devotionally and ask, what is God saying to me in this prodigal son narrative?

You can listen to it and go, and and that's different.

So don't feel guilty if you're just reading it and you're not going to a Bible study.

Yeah.

Uh but there's time for both, I think is the point.

Yeah.

So good.

That brings us to the end of our part two of our King Kingdom Come series.

We're not quite finished, as you mentioned earlier.

We're going to jump back into it early next year, and it's going to take us through to Easter, which we're very much looking forward to.

But we do have one more, I guess, key mini series before Advent this year.

Um, and I was wondering if you could maybe give us a little bit of an insider sneak.

Peak of what we can expect.

It's called Political Disciples.

And that in itself is going to address some obvious questions.

So is Political Disciples actually just going to be a series about politics?

Can you tell us a little bit more about the series, how we've landed here, and why we're going to be jumping into it?

Yeah, so uh so like Political Disciples, the tagline is following Jesus in public life.

And yes, there will be general elections within the time that we're in this series.

And like that is part of why we're doing the series, but it it is a series on politics, but it's not necessarily what people are gonna expect um politics to mean.

We're looking at politics in the broadest sense of the root of that word, meaning kind of how humans organize their lives together.

So party politics and governments are part of that on a big scale, but so are um, you know, parent teacher associations or little governance boards or sports clubs, or that's all people organizing their public lives together.

So the distinction is really that we're this is about following Jesus in public life.

It is not about me and my private life with Jesus.

It's like that's great, but then when you walk out of the door of your house, what does it mean that Jesus is king?

Well, that follows up really nicely with what we've been just unpacking in Luke.

Some people would say that the church should just stay out of politics altogether.

We know that there's a lot of uh divisiveness around politics, maybe not as much in New Zealand as other countries, but definitely getting that way.

Um and I know you mentioned that this isn't necessarily about who are you voting for and this is how to vote and blah blah blah.

It's not, but people are gonna have those thoughts going into it.

How would you respond to that?

Um putting you on the spot there, Aiden.

Yeah, don't worry, we're not gonna tell you who to vote for.

Yeah, there's no colours of blue or red or green or something.

We're trying to get orange because orange only.

Um in in terms of like the church should stay out of politics, you know.

I think Grant Grant will address this in week one.

And then um I should have said earlier that the series is based on uh a new book by Michael Rhodes, who is the Old Testament scholar at Kerry.

Um the book's called Reimagining Biblical Politics.

Uh it's just come out this year.

Um and Michael's gonna be speaking in week two of our series.

Awesome.

So the book um you can get to go along.

We'll we'll have some copies here in person when he speaks.

Uh it's also a podcast, so um you can like Google Reimagining Biblical Politics.

Start listening out.

And start listening, you know.

Like you can say you can listen to the first episode, and if you don't like it, don't come.

But I'm pretty confident that if you listen to the first episode, you'll you'll want to be here to intrigue.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It is intriguing because his take, like I said, he's a biblical scholar.

He's not a politician.

No.

Um, but he, as he'll articulate, he realized that like in trying to advocate for justice and and kind of try to outwork Jesus' kingdom, um, he needed to kind of get involved in politics because that's how things are changed, and that's how like you can seek for justice.

So he'll describe his own journey, but it was more of a kind of natural extension.

He grew up with the hey, church should be separate from politics, can't talk about politics, and then realized that actually for Jesus to say Jesus is king or or God reigns is a political statement.

Like, yeah, somebody being king is a political thing.

That's why Jesus was crucified.

It's like you're saying you're Lord while Caesar is Lord, um, and Jesus' kingdom is different, but it's still political language.

If God is king, that affects everything.

Um, even stuff that we might not see as political, stuff like the term like the good news or the gospel was actually kind of related to stuff that Rome would say, Hey, this is Caesar's good news.

Oh, and it's almost like taking something from the old testament, but it's also got like a cultural relevance back then.

I I I I don't know if this is completely correct, but it would be like taking phrase like uh Jesus coming now and saying, like, I'm the prime minister, or like I like it's like you think this is power, but I'm power.

And it's not the same, but it's almost playing off power at the time.

So it does really um closely follow the Luke series.

The whole King and Kingdom come thing, it's like a natural extension, which we'll say that we planned, but do you know what I'm really excited about?

Is it sounds like because you said a lot of it's formed from the Old Testament?

Oh, he goes, he goes into both, but yeah, his specialty is old testament.

I struggle with the old testament, so I'm really excited to hear how he can bring it into the here and the now.

I'm really keen on that.

Um, yeah, I'm not gonna lie, initially I was like, ugh, politics, really?

Yeah, no, trust me.

As you talk about it, it actually does sound very interesting and um very relevant to what we are um I guess journeying through as a church and as a people.

So very exciting.

Is there anything else you want to add before I wrap up for this episode?

Oh, lots to add.

Like I think you can sort of see I'm quite excited about this series and the resources that go with it.

And I would, yeah, I guess just reassure people that we understand that it could be something that makes people nervous.

Yeah.

Like, oh, there could be division, um, or it can bring up bad memories of kind of let's say the pandemic or different political decisions.

Um, so we understand that, but our conviction is that politics is part of our discipleship.

It has to be.

If Jesus is king of our lives, that affects my private life.

Totally.

I sorry, my public life.

Yeah.

Out out there beyond the walls.

Um, so we kind of have to, if we're gonna make Jesus king of our lives, then it's king of all of my life, including my politics.

Are we all gonna walk away after the series and vote for the same party?

No, guaranteed that we won't.

But hopefully it will be helpful in terms of how we think about Jesus' kingdom.

Yeah.

Um, how we go about our work, our our study, um and and and how we do church as well.

So um, I'm really excited about it.

I get that it's um something that sometimes people will be like, oh, those two things should not be in the same sentence, let alone a sermon series.

Um but I also think people have that intrigue as well.

Totally.

Yeah.

I think it sounds really cool.

I'm really looking forward to it.

Um and we're gonna kick it off on Sunday, September 20th.

Yes.

And so we're gonna have a little break from our Beyond the Message podcast because we only do follow-up, I guess, podcast episodes when we are in series.

So our first episode back will be on Wednesday, September 23rd.

So a little bit of a break.

But maybe while we have this break, go and listen to that podcast.

What was it for today?

Yeah, um, I think it's called Crossroads, and then the series is called Reimagining Biblical Politics.

Amazing.

If you Google that, you'll find it.

That might be a great filler for your week.

Instead of listening to us, you can listen to that and start preparing yourself, start putting together questions or reflections because that can always come in as part of this as well.

Because they're all aligned anyway.

We thank you for joining us as we've unpacked part two of our King and Kingdom Come series.

It was a split series, so it feels like we've been doing it for a long time and we have, but it's been so refreshing for a lack of a better word, um, and convicting in a great way and um eye-opening as well.

I've really enjoyed it.

So thank you to you and the team that have preached it for us.

Luke has given us a beautiful and challenging picture of Jesus, not simply as someone to admire, but as the king who calls us to follow him.

Jesus is king.

And so the question for us as we go upon the next couple of weeks, and I guess the rest of the year in our lives is if he is king, how are we going to respond?

Thanks for listening, sending in your questions and reflections over these last couple of months, and going beyond the message with us every Wednesday.

Until we're back on September 23rd, may God continue to shape us as we listen, learn, and follow Jesus together.

Thanks for listening.