Giving Up: unREAListic Expectations with Ben Carruthers

Well, good morning.

My name is Ben Carruthers.

I'm the director of Student and Family Ministry here.

Great to be with you this morning, worshiping with you this morning.

For those of you online, thanks for checking us out.

We are in week two, like you've heard, of this sermon series called Giving Up, and last week we talked about giving up control, and this week we're talking about giving up unrealistic expectations, and that's an important piece of it, the unrealistic part of it.

Right, because there are expectations that we need to have in this world, of other people, of ourselves, but it's this unhealthy spot of unrealistic expectations and giving those up.

But we talk about giving something up.

Giving something up is hard, right, like there are physical things that you own that you would never want to give away, and we start talking about these concepts of control, unrealistic expectations.

When you think about unrealistic expectations, some of those have been ingrained in you since you've been a child.

It's part of who you are, it's part of your DNA, and so to give those up is extremely hard.

I was reminded of this at the Super Bowl when I saw this commercial.

So, for those of you online, we're going to watch a little video.

I'm sorry you can't watch it because we didn't pay to have the rights to stream it.

So only us get to enjoy it, but you at home enjoy a blank screen.

So for the rest of us, check out this commercial 希望 wanna.

Hmm, I'm going to go inside, not from the outside.

That's the same one thing.

Giving up is hard.

It's hard to do these things right, especially when we talk about unrealistic expectations, because expectations are a part of our world.

It's a part of our life.

This week I was texting my wife back and forth.

We were looking for a certain document, and so this is the text message strand that we went back and forth with.

I said I thought you had it in your basket of stuff in your office for insurance stuff.

She said no, I gave it back to you.

Did you put it in your car?

I probably did.

Oh well, I may have it in my car or, more likely, on my desk downstairs.

To which she replied I found it underneath the Donald Duck Squishamallow on your desk and I said to her is that a sentence you'd ever thought you would have to say to your husband?

Her response was no.

My response was expectations.

We have these levels of expectations, and we have them when it comes to people of this world.

It comes to our job, our family, our relationships.

The brilliant biblical scholar and philosopher, buck Peterson, aka my father-in-law, gave us this advice about marriage.

He said this men enter into marriage thinking that women stay the same.

Men enter into marriage thinking men will change.

And neither is true, believe it or not.

But we have these set expectations about who we are, who we're supposed to be, the level that we're supposed to live up to, and many of them are in this space of unhealthiness.

Just this week I was prepping the sermon and I'm going through it and I couldn't get these voices out of my head.

And it was man, how would Ryan deliver this sermon?

How would Sonia deliver this sermon?

Is this deep enough for this congregation?

All these different thoughts, and as I'm going through it, these things are really starting to cripple me a little bit.

And then I looked at the title of the sermon and it's giving up unrealistic expectations, and in that moment I had these unrealistic expectations.

I can't be Ryan, I'm not going to be Sonia, but these things have a tendency to creep in and really mess with us, this idea of unrealistic expectations and so this idea of expectations.

It truly is a balance.

There is this balance when it comes to this, because we said there are healthy expectations but say, if we're over here, where we have zero expectations, we have no expectations of other people, no expectations of ourselves, no expectations of God or what that looks like.

This is not a healthy place to be.

But we may know someone who lives here, who just lives in the dark, who just goes about life with no love, no passion, no relationships because there's zero expectations.

Now there's the other side of that.

The bar is set so high that it becomes you will never be able to reach that.

Your bar is perfection of yourself and others and you have this perception of what God is.

And these things cannot and will not be reached.

And you live over here, and this is an unhealthy place.

This is where fear of living also is.

This is where depression comes in, this is I'm never going to meet the standards of other people, so doubt and all of these unhealthy things settle in.

And so then there's this middle ground, there's this middle space here where we are able to live with compassion for other people, knowing that our expectations for them may not get met.

We live here with grace and with mercy and when it comes to our relationship with God.

This middle ground is understanding and believing and loving in a God, but also being able to live in the wonder of God, being able to be here and say, man, I have no idea what's going on.

I believe God, I know that he has a plan.

I don't know what that is.

I'm going to just live in this space of wonder because if we move to either side, that relationship that we have with God, those relationships in our lives, suffer.

And so today's goal, as we look at the life of Nicodemus, is to see how we can live in this middle space.

And when we talk about giving up these expectations, these unrealistic expectations, keep your mind and heart open.

What are some expectations that you have been trying to live up that maybe aren't quite real?

What are some expectations that you have held other people to that are possibly crippling them?

And what are your expectations of God?

Because on the way here today, man, you had expectations.

You had expectations of people that they would drive safe on their way here.

You had expectations that a pew would be available for you.

You had expectations that you'd hear a nice short sermon.

Get that out of your head.

I tell you right now, but be open to what God's gonna do.

So, before we dive into the story of Nicodemus, will you pray with me?

Hell, we follow God.

We give you thanks and praise for the story of Nicodemus Because, lord, as we've tried to balance expectations and live in this middle ground, that is a place of grace and mercy and forgiveness and motivation, but it's also an amazing place of transformation.

And so, as we look at the life of Nicodemus and the transformation that took place in his heart and his ability to live in this middle ground, we pray that for us this morning as well.

Maybe go into your word this morning with an open heart and an open mind to see what you are here to say to each and every one of us this morning.

It's in your name.

We pray Amen.

So unrealistic expectations.

So before we go into the story of Nicodemus which is very short we only have about three passages in the book of John that goes over the story of Nicodemus we have to know who he was, because that plays a major role in what we see in the Scripture and how it plays out.

So, right off the bat, in John 3, it says that Nicodemus was a Pharisee and part of the Sanhedrin.

So what this means is a Pharisee is someone who knew the Jewish law, who lived by the Jewish law, not so much as a Sadducee A Sadducee is another religious ruler at the time but they kind of did not believe in the wonder of God.

They believed in black and white and they missed out on the wonder.

They didn't believe in the resurrection and a couple other key pieces, but they played a major role in the lives of the Jewish people.

The Pharisees were able to live within this space of wonder still, and he was a Pharisee and he was a well-known Pharisee.

We hear that he was a part of the Sanhedrin, which was the Jewish ruling council, so like the Supreme Court of the day, so which was mainly made up of Sadducees.

Only a few Pharisees were on there and Nicodemus was one of them.

All that to say that Nicodemus was a person of somewhat authority, of power, of.

He was well-known amongst the Jewish people and that's really important.

And he knew the Jewish law, he knew the story of God.

This is really important understanding who he was as we dive into his story, because, as we see in John 3, 1 through 2, nicodemus is really interested in this Jesus guy.

John 3, 1 through 2, says this Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.

He came to Jesus by night and said to him Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.

Okay, something pretty incredible is happening here that if we read real fast we might miss it.

What time of day did Nicodemus go see Jesus?

At nighttime, that's something you really didn't do right, like you didn't kind of go at nighttime out in the streets and explore and try to find these people.

It just wasn't something that happened.

But he's doing it Now.

People think maybe a couple different reasons why.

Okay, some people believe that he wanted an extended period of time with Jesus because the crowds were following him at this part it was hard to kind of get a one-on-one with him.

So some believe that he went at night so he could have that one-on-one, maybe deep conversation with Jesus Maybe could be.

The other side that people think is that he went at night because he did not want to be seen by the other Pharisees, the Sadducees, the people of the city going to be with Jesus Because Jesus wasn't a popular figure to be around, especially amongst the Pharisees and the Sadducees, especially amongst Nicodemuses' own people.

And so he goes at night because he's worried about the expectations of others.

He goes at night because he's worried about what his peers will think of him and he goes under the cover of night.

I want you to remember that because we see something change throughout his story.

But the power of expectations of others is incredibly great.

I've been in youth ministry for about 15 years now and I've sat down with students time and time and time again and we go out for coffee and we talk about how life is going and the first they say is going great.

And you can just see in their eyes and in their shoulders the weight that they're carrying and I'm like what's really going on?

Well, tell me what's really going on.

And they say, man, I'm involved in sports, I'm doing well in school, I'm a brother, you know, I got parents all these things and they're having trouble not doing all the things.

But what's wearing them down is the expectations of all the people in their life.

When I go to school, I have to get straight A's.

When I'm on this basketball, this football, whatever athletic team, I have to be a star athlete.

I have to do well to get that scholarship.

I have to be the best and most excellent kid for my parents.

I have to be this, I have to be this, and the expectations of others are just crushing them and you can see it in their shoulders.

And for those of you that think this is just a teenage thing, man, there are adults in this space right now that know exactly what I'm talking about, that the expectations of others have pinned us in a corner.

How many of us have bought a car knowing that we cannot afford it, but because it's what is expected of the community that we live in?

How many of us have gone to house shopping and bought a house that was out of our budget, but this is the lifestyle that we want to appear to have?

How many times have we posted something on social media for people to see because it's expected from others that we should believe this or do this?

The expectations of others changes who we are.

Nicodemus is experiencing this.

He's experiencing that peer pressures of the unrealistic expectations from his peers, and so he goes in the dark of night to be with Jesus.

And now, it's interesting, sometimes we have this expectations of others, which are true.

There are people out there who expect this high bar and we can't reach it.

But I believe that most of the time that voices in our head, we hear what we think is the expectations of other people, but we never even hear them say it.

But in our mind we have made this story up.

My son, ezio our youngest son, he turned five last July and so for his birthday we're like what kind of cake do you want?

And we're looking at pictures of cakes and we come across a picture that looked very similar to this.

So he said I want a Black Panther cake.

And I'm like, all right.

And then he's like I want levels.

And we're like what do you mean levels?

And we watch a lot of baking shows in our house.

So he's like I want levels.

We're like do you want tier?

And we're like, yeah, I want three levels of cake.

And we're like, all right.

And I got really excited, man, because we do birthdays pretty big and he's such a creative kid.

I'm like, all right, man, we're gonna do this.

And so then I went online and saw how much these cakes cost to make and I was like well, we wanna live in our house for a while, so we're not gonna do that.

I'm like I'm gonna make it.

I'm gonna make this cake for my son.

He was so excited that dad was gonna make it.

So I go to the grocery store and I buy like three different kinds of cake mix.

You should know I don't bake, so it's a very important thing to put out there, right?

So I buy all this stuff, I go home, but I'm loving it.

I got my apron on, I got the music cranking, I'm making these cakes and I have this in my mind Ezzie is gonna be blown away by this cake man.

He's gonna love it.

And when it was done it looked like this Now, if you'd like to hire me to bake your kid's cake, I will be at the table following the service.

When I was putting this together, I was trying to ice it and the cake was crumbling off.

I went from like bebop and scap in the kitchen like all excited making a cake to be like I'm the worst father ever.

He is gonna see this because his expectation was the other one and I'm his dad right, like dad can do anything.

And if that's the cake that dad's gonna make for me.

That's the cake that's gonna look like.

I remember in the kitchen and I was kind of playing it off a little bit like it didn't bother me much, but it really bothered me Because that looks nothing like the cake that my son wanted.

It was three levels, thank you.

Thank you, I did have levels right, not like the levels he probably wanted, but levels right.

I didn't bring out the leveler.

There's a little angle there, but it was messing with my head, Like too enough, where I'm like maybe we should just throw this thing away, go to Dairy Queen, have him put black panther on it and call it a day.

I was like I don't want him to be disappointed.

And my wife was like no, it's great, it's fine.

And I'm like well, thank you, that's kind, but you're lying, you know.

And I'm like I don't want to be disappointed.

And so we put the presents out on the table for him and we got the cake there and we call up Ezzy and I'm ready, because kids are really honest.

Right, like, he's gonna walk in the room like dad, that's not good, right, like.

And he's gonna have no problem with it.

So I'm bracing my heart for that.

It's all in my head.

He comes in and he's got a couple of presents on the table but his eyes go to the cake and they get really big.

It's just like the picture or the side view agram and you see this.

She looked at me.

I'm like cool, I'm like you'll get it.

But you know, she sat down and the cake was like come here, have some arr計in'.

And she says do you have the cakes or something?

I'm like, I'm so upset there.

I'm like you know, do you have some?

I want anything, wieder some good.

It felt like fortnight and she holds me up the whole time and I gave some flowers for him to make me cry Get some flowers.

And I was like well, are you gonna buy that cake on ourselves?

We do this a lot and it causes us to shrink Down.

I know people who live in this world.

They live in this world of I can't do that because I'm not gonna meet their expectations.

Or they live in this world where they think the bar is set at a certain level and they know they can't meet it, so they don't try, but it's in their head.

The power of unrealistic expectations causes us not to live.

Not to live in this middle area where there is compassion, where there is grace and mercy for each other.

But we live on these extremes.

Nicodemus felt this.

Nicodemus also felt this other piece of unrealistic expectations, and that is when it comes to ourself and our relationship with God.

He felt this in his conversation with Jesus.

In John 3, verses three through eight, it says this so this is after you know.

Nicodemus sits down and he says those first lines.

He says hey, rabbi calls him teacher.

I have this envision of him sitting down with Jesus, kind of expecting this opportunity to change notes, right, like because Nicodemus is a Rabbi, nicodemus is a teacher, jesus is a Rabbi, he's a teacher.

He kind of sees on even playing fields, right.

So I view him kind of coming here like to exchange notes on teacher to teacher, kind of the same level.

And then Jesus says this Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.

Nicodemus said to him how can anyone be born after having grown old?

Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?

Jesus answered very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of heaven without being born of water and spirit.

What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the spirit is spirit.

Do not be astonished that I say to you you must be born from above.

The wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit.

Now, that's a lot and that's a whole sermon for another day.

But imagine being Nicodemus with the expectations to come and meet Jesus, exchange notes, rabbi to rabbi, teacher to teacher, and then Jesus flips the entire script and he says what you know as the kingdom of heaven is about to change.

What you think it looks like to be in a relationship with God it's about to change, and it turns his whole view on how he relates to God upside down.

His expectations are blown out of the water, the expectations that we have on God.

I coach my kid's flag football team and I've done it for a few years now and I love doing it.

But the first time I did it was for my oldest son, isaiah, and I'd never coached at that point, which will make a lot of sense as we talk about this story.

I had never coached, but I wanted to give it a shot and our team was pretty good.

We had a pretty good team.

They were pretty young it was about five years ago, so probably fifth or he was probably in fifth grade and came to the end of the year and it was pretty basic stuff, right, a lot of these kids just learning football, a lot of just some handoff stuff like that.

But they were a good team.

So I'm like we're gonna try something different today and they were all really excited.

I'm like we're gonna do a double end around and so for people who, the kids who knew football, they were excited.

They're like, yeah, that's what the pros do.

And so I had my little whiteboard, like all the professional coaches do in fifth grade flag football.

And so I'm like all right, here's our quarterback, right there.

Quarterback, he's gonna get the ball from the center, and then we're gonna have a wide receiver here fake goal for a pattern.

And then we have two wide receivers here.

Some of you are already like how old are these kids?

Okay, and I'm like this is what's gonna happen.

Quarterback's gonna get the ball and my son, isaiah's over here and our other player over there his name is Alex, now Isaiah when he was in fifth grade was a normal fifth grade height.

Wait, all that stuff.

Alex in fifth grade looked like he was the coach of the team.

Okay, huge kid, just massive, right.

And so the play was Isaiah's gonna get the ball from the quarterback, but Alex is gonna come around and take it, sweep it, get a touchdown, win the game coach of the year.

Okay, hands down, that's the play.

So, and I look, I'm like you guys understand, you're the quarterback, you got it.

Yeah, I got it, isaiah, you know.

Yeah, I got it.

Alex, you got it.

I'm like all right, let's go.

Are you guys ready?

Yes, they all go to the line.

I'm super excited.

The quarterback yells hut.

And it's like someone turned a light on in a row of cockroaches, like soon as the word hut was said, no one knew they were playing football anymore.

They're just running all over the place.

This like it's all over, like what's happening.

And the next thing, you know, isaiah comes over here, he does get the football.

And then Alex is coming trucking like the man he is, and just boom, lays out Isaiah.

I mean, the dude went horizontal, just laid him out and he's flying in the air and just boom, and everyone's like is he okay?

And after the first five seconds, if he popped right back up, we're like okay.

And then all the eyes went on the coach.

What were you thinking?

What is this?

But no, it was all planned out.

We had it the expectation.

They all knew it.

These are fifth grade boys.

Man, you just killed a child right there.

You know.

This is what I think we do with our expectations of God.

You see, we each have a playbook, the playbook of how we think our life needs to go.

And then our expectation of God is that we take our playbook of our life and we hand it over to God.

We say this is what my life looks like, this is what I want my life to be.

I'll be married.

I want to have kids, I want to have a good job, I want to be successful.

I want this.

This is what I want my life.

Here's my playbook, god.

And that's not how God works and that's not how we should work.

We shouldn't want God to take our playbook and run it because we are us.

Why would we think that we know what is best for our life when God, the Creator, who knows every piece of you, who knows your heart, who knows your mind, who knows the good things that he has planned for you.

We give him our human expectations.

What are we thinking?

Last night I was sitting at the table going over this and this phrase came to me.

I wrote it down because I would say it wrong if I didn't.

When we put our human expectations on God, we look for only our human expectations to be met.

When we put our human expectations on God, we are only looking for our human expectations to be met, and God is in the business of blowing our expectations out of the water.

But when we rest in that spot, when we are only looking for our plans to be met by God, that's where danger settles in.

That's where people run away from God, because they have these thoughts of what it means to be in a relationship with God and have these plans for their life.

And when they don't get met, then they ask questions like does God not love me?

Or questions like am I not doing enough of the right things?

These are hard questions.

These are questions that tears people away from God, all because we've handed God our playbook and we have not lived in this amazing wonder of God we have got to.

We hand over our expectations to God and we think that's the way to go.

So this is happening in the life of Nicodemus, right.

So he sits down and he has this amazing kind of transformation experience with Jesus.

And how do we know that?

We know that because we see Nicodemus two more times in the Gospel of John.

Remember the very first time we see him?

He goes to visit Jesus.

When, at night.

The two other times that we see Nicodemus, we see some pretty cool things happen.

The first spot is in John, chapter 7, verse 45 through 52.

John 7:45–52

And what's going on here is he's in the middle of all the Pharisees and the Sadducees and Nicodemus is there and they're starting to plot against Jesus.

They're starting to say we got to get this guy out of here, we got to stop him from teaching and preaching.

And Nicodemus, the guy who went at night so these people would not see him Nicodemus speaks up and he says maybe we got this wrong, maybe we need to cut Jesus some slack and immediately, all the people that are going to be like what are you from Galilee?

What are you Stupid?

This is not what you think.

This is horrible.

Can you imagine being in that space From being the guy who went at night to see him to having the courage to speak up.

There's something changing in the life of Nicodemus, there's something going on, and the very last time we hear from Nicodemus it's in John, chapter 19.

John 19 · chapter mention

And this is at the end of the gospel, and this is where Jesus has been crucified and they want his body to bury it.

And so in John, chapter 19, we read a little bit more.

John 19 · chapter mention

It says this afterward Joseph of Arimathea listen to this who had been a secret disciple of Jesus, living in the dark because he feared the Jewish leaders, asked Pilate for permission to take down Jesus's body.

When Pilate gave permission, joseph came and took away the body.

With him came who, do you think?

Nicodemus, the man who first experienced Jesus going at night so no one would see him, didn't want to live up to or fear the expectations of others, has had this transformational experience where he's starting to speak up for Jesus in front of his peers and finally, at the end, in the light of day, where everyone can see him.

To the person who had Jesus put to death, pilate, he says I want his body.

Not only that, pilate brings over or Pilate Nicodemus brings over 70 pounds of spices to wrap his body up hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth.

This is the man who went in the secret of night and now he's in the light.

You see, this is the transformation piece that happens when we live in this middle of realistic expectations.

Because Nicodemus could have gone both ways, man.

He could have said Jesus, you're a fool, I don't know what you're talking about.

Or he could have gone the other way with the rest of his Sadducees and Pharisees, but he chose to live in here in this wonder, and transformation started to happen.

I love this picture.

Olivia does all of our slides, we put our stuff together and she does a great job of finding really great creative images.

And I told her I want a picture that shows darkness to light.

And she sent this one and at first I was like, ah, I think I want a bit bigger light source.

You know a bit much to really show the transformation from dark to light.

But I think she nailed it, because this is what it looks like, because Nicodemus just didn't talk to Jesus and be like whoa, man, this is crazy.

You're absolutely right.

This is fantastic.

It was this process of transformation.

It was opening that door a little bit and letting the light shine a little bit more and then a little bit more.

That's what I think it looks like to live in the wonder of God, because the door is never gonna be fully open.

While we're here on this planet, we just sit in the wonder of God Central.

Are you living in expectations of other people, expectations within your own mind, or are you living with different expectations of God?

I'm gonna close with this quick story, so I've told my story before and I'm not gonna do it again.

But years ago I was in ministry about 12 years.

That's all I knew.

My whole adult life was youth ministry and I had done things in my job that had made me lose my job.

I got booted out of ministry.

I got fired and I fully expected never to set a foot in a ministry position the rest of my life.

I was ready for that.

I was grateful for God to give me a different job.

I was working in a warehouse.

My wife stayed with me, our family was still good.

My expectations for myself was this is it.

I'll be working in this warehouse to the day I die, and I'm okay with that.

And we came to church here, central Christmas 2018.

And on the back of the I was gonna say brochure what are they called?

Worship pages, whatever you call them.

They it was a little thing that said they were hiring for a new youth director.

And my wife was like, hey, you should really apply.

And I was like, no, I don't wanna go through that, I already know the answer.

Right, like no.

And so we're like let's just talk about it later, let's have a merry Christmas, right.

And so Christmas, sure enough, passed.

And she's like, hey, what about that job position?

I was like I thought you'd forget, right.

And because she's my wife, I said okay, I'll apply.

So I put my application in here at Central to Rachel and I figured that would be the end of it because I was fully okay with it.

And I got a call from Rachel that said, hey, we'd like to set up a time for you and Ryan to get together and chat.

And I was like, okay, I can do that.

And I was so nervous because I had to tell my whole story and it's so emotionally exhausting to say that I took the whole day off work even for just this half hour time to talk to Pastor Ryan, and he called and it ended up being much longer than a half hour because he asked questions.

And then I told him my whole story.

I told him everything.

I said no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

This is everything.

Here it is.

And at the end of it he was really kind, he was really honest.

He said, ben, I'm not gonna lie, it would be a challenge, it would be a risk to bring you on, and he was absolutely right.

And then he said the nice pastor things, but God's got plans for you, young man, you know like, oh, thanks, right.

And so I got off the phone, I clicked it off and I just went up, I took a nap.

So I was so exhausted.

I went back to work the next day, kind of thinking that was it.

Two days later or four days later, I got a call from Ryan and I was at work, I worked at a warehouse and I just said that for the voicemail, right, like because I didn't want to hear the like hey, you know, we like chatting with you and you're a good guy.

We're going a different direction.

And I'm like, oh, I didn't want to hear that.

So I sent it to voicemail and then the voicemail message popped up and it looks like this.

I still have this on my phone today.

I walked out to the dock and I listened to it and in it he just said I don't know what God's doing here, but God's doing something and we like to pursue this a little bit more.

And I was blown away.

I was blown away.

I was sitting on a dock at a welding factory and I just started crying and so we kept going.

But I keep this in my phone.

I keep this as a reminder of the expectations that we put on ourselves that trap us in these little boxes of who we are and who God is and our relationship with him and what he wants for our life.

Because I was totally okay to be in that box.

If I would have handed God my playbook, it would have said Ben's gonna work here for the rest of his life.

But that's not what it is.

That's why living in these unrealistic expectations are dangerous, because God has so much more for you planned.

I love this.

It's about five years to the day.

I thought that was pretty ironic, that this was the topic that I got to preach on, and it's been five years since I've been here.

Those five years could have been spent elsewhere, but I've been lucky enough to live in the wonder of God for the last five years, and so that's my hope and prayer for all of us that we can give up on these expectations that we have on ourselves, that we have of others, and we can live in the middle, with grace for one another, with compassion for one another, with love for one another and this amazing awe for the wonder of what God can do.

Amen, thank you.