Living Life with the Holy Spirit - Part 6: Great Expectations | Dr. Jim Blumenstock

Welcome to ECB's weekly sermon podcast. ECB is

an international church in Bangkok, Thailand,

with dozens of nationalities worshiping together.

We invite you to connect with us from wherever

you are through our website, ecb .asia, or our

mobile app. And now we pray that you are blessed

by this week's sermon. I have lived in Chiang

Mai for 17 years. I lived in Singapore for four

years prior to that. So I've been in Asia for

over 20 years. And I live and work with ABTS,

but I am self -supported as a missionary. And

I remember when I first went to candidate school

with my mission. And, you know, I was young,

naive, didn't know what I was doing. And you

go to this group and we're preparing for overseas

work. And this is what they told me. Expect the

unexpected. Has anybody ever told you that? Don't

you hate it when people tell you that? What are

you supposed to do with this phrase? How can

you expect that which is unexpected? Of course,

what they're telling you is you have all of these

grand ideas in your mind of what's going to happen.

And guess what? It's not going to happen that

way. There's going to be unexpected things in

your life, and you need to be prepared for that.

And there's value to that. Expect the unexpected.

You see, life is full of expectations. In fact,

that's how we live our lives. When you woke up

this morning, you had a number of expectations

that brought you here today. First of all, you

expected that you would wake up, right? You expected

that when you wake up, your body would have enough

power and ability to get you out of bed and get

you into the bathroom and downstairs eventually.

You expected that you'd still have a home, that

there'd be clothes in your closet, that there'd

be food in the refrigerator. You'd expect that

if you're driving here, your car is still there,

that it still functions, that you have gasoline

in your car to get you here. Or if you're taking

a grab, that there is still such a thing as grab.

You expect all of these things. In fact, when

you get here, you expect you're not the only

one that's here, right? That there still is a

Sunday morning worship service at ECB at 9 o

'clock. And so when you get here, there's all

these expectations. And usually in life, our

expectations are fulfilled. For example, you're

here now, which I'm assuming that all these expectations

you had this morning have been fulfilled appropriately.

Life is like that. You have to anticipate a little

bit into the future so that you know what decisions

to make. and how to move forward in life. But

sometimes those expectations are not fulfilled.

Sometimes the unexpected happens. And at times

like that, you can be discouraged, maybe confused,

maybe distressed. Depends on the level of your

expectation. For example, maybe after church

you're thinking, I'm going to have beef for lunch.

And you get home and you realize that your spouse

instead made chicken. Well, you had an expectation,

and depending on how much you like beef, it could

have been a serious distressing expectation that

has now been unfulfilled. But usually that's

pretty minor. You're like, okay, I can eat chicken

today. But there are other expectations in life.

For example, maybe you think you're going to

have a long life, but at a very young age you

develop cancer. Or maybe you have children, and

your expectations that they're going to grow

up in the love of the Lord, but instead they

fall away from the faith. How do you manage those

expectations, those distresses? Sometimes we

expect the wrong things, right? Skewed expectations.

And it can be devastating when we are trying

to understand God's role in this world and in

our lives. Because usually the first thing that

happens when our expectations are skewed or unfulfilled

is we wonder, God, where are you? What are you

doing? And it could be a crisis moment. So I

don't believe the answer to this is to lower

our expectations. I think our answer is to align

our expectations with God's word. That's what

we're going to look at today. We're going to

look at a story in Luke chapter 2, the story

Luke 2 · chapter mention

of Simeon, which is usually like a Christmas.

Sermon, a Christmas story, but we're going to

take it out of Christmas. We're going to have

Christmas in June. Okay? Sound good? And Simeon

is a story of Jesus coming into the world. He's

40 days old, and he's coming into a world of

expectations. People who are anticipating somebody's

going to come. They're anticipating a Messiah

who's going to come and relieve the people of

Israel from their distress. And so what does

that look like? How did Simeon, how did he expect

the Messiah? And what did that birth of Jesus

look like in this context? So we're going to

read together Luke chapter 2, and I'll read this,

Luke 2 · chapter mention

just follow along. When the time came for the

purification rites required by the law of Moses,

Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present

him to the Lord. As it is written in the law

of the Lord, every firstborn male is to be consecrated

to the Lord. and to offer a sacrifice in keeping

with what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair

of doves or two young pigeons. Now there was

a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous

and devout. He was waiting for the consolation

of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. It

had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that

he would not die before he had seen the Lord's

Messiah. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the

temple courts, and when the parents brought in

the child Jesus to do for him what the custom

of the law required, Simeon took him in his arms

and praised God, saying, Sovereign Lord, as you

have promised, you may now dismiss your servant

in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation,

which you have prepared in the sight of all nations,

a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the

glory of your people Israel. The child's father

and mother marveled at what was said about him.

Then Simeon blessed them and said to marry his

mother. This child is destined to cause the falling

and rising of many in Israel and to be a sign

that will be spoken against so that the thoughts

of many hearts will be revealed and a sword will

pierce your own soul too. So there is the passage.

And as we see, Mary and Joseph have a little

baby Jesus. And they're on their way to the temple.

And they're there at the temple for two basic

reasons. The first reason is for purification.

This is going back to Leviticus chapter 12. So

Leviticus 12 · chapter mention

Mary just had a baby. And so according to the

law, after you have a baby, there's the flow

of blood. And so you have to go through purification

rituals. You have seven days of being unclean.

You then circumcise the boy on the eighth day.

And then you have another 33 days of uncleanliness.

So at day 40, you then have to go to the temple

to present an offering. Now, according to Leviticus,

the offering should be a sacrifice of a lamb

and a bird. But it makes a concession if you

don't have much money, if you're poor, that you

can offer two birds instead. And as you can see

from Mary and Joseph, they offered two birds.

So they were not very wealthy. They are there

for a second reason, and that is for presentation.

And this is going back to Exodus chapter 13.

Exodus 13 · chapter mention

You remember the story of the Passover, right?

We all remember that story, and God had passed

over the firstborn of Israel, and as a result,

he says, now what I want you to do is to consecrate

to me every firstborn male that's born, right?

And you're going to consecrate them to me, kind

of like giving them to the Lord, but you can

redeem them back by paying five shekels to the

temple. So Mary and Joseph, of course, their

baby was a boy. And so they go to the temple

to present this baby boy there and to redeem

him back. So we learn here that Mary and Joseph

are pious and they're rather poor. They are offering

the doves, but they're actually doing what the

law requires of them to offer Jesus at the temple.

As they're walking there, they meet this guy

named Simeon. We don't know much about this guy.

Usually when we think about Simeon, we think

he's a bit older, maybe. Maybe he's like some

kind of priest or some kind of guy like that.

We're not even sure of that. We're not even sure

why he's here necessarily. He's just this kind

of like random character who's here, but it's

actually quite important because we have a little

bit of a description about him. The passage says

he's righteous and devout. We don't know exactly

what that means, but he's a person who is following

the law, who's following the Lord, seeking to

live his life for the Lord. In other words, he's

kind of an ideal Jew. If you think of Luke writing

this passage to people who are trying to understand

who Jesus is, the very first person who, after

Jesus is born, is going to declare who this son

is, we can trust him. He's reliable. His testimony

is reliable because he is a faithful Jew. He's

also, we're told, led by the Spirit. Several

times here, verse 25, the Spirit was upon him.

Verse 26, the Spirit revealed to him that he

would see the Messiah before he dies. Verse 27,

he's led by the Spirit specifically at the temple

at the right time on the right day to meet this

baby boy. Now think about it. You don't have

WhatsApp. You don't have Facebook. You don't

have Line. How do you figure out when the Messiah

is going to come to the temple? This is a tough

one, right? And so it was the Holy Spirit that

told him, okay, go to the temple. And I don't

know if it was an actual audible thing or just

kind of he felt led to go there. And I don't

even know how he knew of all these boys, little

boys coming to the temple that this was the Messiah,

but he did. And it was the Spirit that revealed

that. But perhaps most significantly about Simeon

is we're told he's waiting for the consolation

of Israel. Consolation of Israel. Consolation

is a strange word. We don't use that word very

often in language. Many of us, English is a second

language. I probably would guess you don't use

this word at all. I don't even use it, and English

is my first language. What is consolation? When

I first heard this word, I go back to the 1980s

when I was a kid. I grew up in America. And in

the 1980s, what we would do is watch game shows.

And you still have game shows today, right? In

all countries where people go up and they play

these games. And if you win, you get a prize,

right? But if you lose, what they would tell

us back in the 80s is you get a consolation prize.

Which when you hear that, you're thinking, oh,

you're a loser. You know, that's a negative thing

to get the consolation prize. Nobody wants that.

So when I first heard this, consolation kind

of takes on negative terms. Of course, it's not.

Consolation means to console, to comfort. It

implies a need, that you're in need of comfort,

that there's some kind of pain or circumstance

you're going through that therefore you need

comfort. Israel was in need of consolation. Why

is that? Well, as you know from your Old Testament

history, hundreds of years ago they went into

exile, right? The Babylonians came in and they

took over Jerusalem and they sent them into exile.

Eventually they came back, but Jerusalem was

never the same since. You had the Babylonians

take over. You had the Persians take over. You

had the Greeks take over. And now, of course,

you have the Romans. Idolaters. You're being

ruled by foreign idolaters in the land of God,

God's holy land. So the end of the exile seems

like it had never come in truth. And the problem

that the people of Israel had is they read their

Old Testament. And as they're reading passages

of Isaiah and many of the prophets who are proclaiming

that God is going to make all things new. He's

going to liberate Israel. And they're going to

rule again and the temple will be built and it's

just going to be better than old times. And yet

they look around them. And the Romans are ruling.

The reality is not liberation. The reality is

oppression. They need a Messiah. And in fact,

in the first century, there were so many people

looking for Messiahs. In fact, many false Messiahs

came around at this time. And there were groups

gathered who were kind of anticipating a Messiah

in their own way. One of these groups were the

Pharisees. We're very familiar with the Pharisees,

right? As we said when we were a kid, the Pharisees

are not fair, you see. They believed that consolation

is going to come through self -discipline. Their

motto, God helps those who help themselves. Because

the Pharisees were all about the law. If there's

going to be consolation in Israel, it's going

to come through following the Torah. But they

were very concerned, not only that we follow

the Torah, but that we don't break any rule even

closely connected to the Torah. So they added

more rules to the Torah. Now, I don't know if

you've read your books of Leviticus and Exodus,

and you've looked at all the laws. There's already

plenty there, right? It seems like we're okay.

We've got enough. But they felt like there should

be more, so they added around 600 more that have

to do with ceremonial purity, like washing your

hands, things like that. maybe things like tithing,

they were very careful. We have to make sure

we follow the Torah. In fact, we have to put

all these guardrails up there with extra laws

so that we don't even get close to breaking any

of those laws. And if we are faithful enough

and we work hard enough and we are good enough,

then consolation will come. That's the Pharisees.

Jesus did not have all those great things to

say about the Pharisees. The other group were

the Sadducees, who were sad, you see. They believed

that consolation came through political maneuvering.

See, their motto was, God helps those who get

political. Because the Sadducees were often the

people who were in the high ranks of religious

society. Oftentimes high priests, or at least

on the Sanhedrin, priestly caste. And so these

were people who were getting political. Let's

try to maneuver with Rome and do things with

Rome and see if we can make this work in our

favor. They were the elite aristocrats, the high

priests who had political power. Okay, Pharisees,

Sadducees. Jesus didn't have very good words

for the Sadducees either. One group that we're

not as familiar with because we don't hear this

name in the Bible are the Essenes. And the Essenes

were kind of a unique group because they believed

that in order to get consolation, they had to

escape. They are the people who created what

we know as the Dead Sea Scrolls. In fact, this

is the cave where those scrolls were found. And

they lived in the deserts. They kind of formed

their own unique community with their own rules

to escape everything else of what's going on

in town. And basically their belief was God helps

those who flee the world. If consolation is going

to come, we're just going to sit here and wait

for it. Was the idea. Right? We're not going

to go in town. We're not going to try to change

things. We're not going to get political. We're

not going to fight. We're going to escape. And

we're going to be in our little lifeboat here

in the desert waiting for the Messiah to come.

Okay. Fourth group. The zealots. We do encounter

these in scripture, right? Their view was consolation

comes through force. And their motto, God helps

those who are willing to fight. Because the zealots

had zeal. Zeal for the nation of Israel. Zeal

against the unlawful rule of Gentile rulers.

A revolt against Rome. That was their viewpoint.

Look, we can't just escape. We're not going to

get political because that doesn't work. Following

the law, okay, fine, but how is that really helping

us? Instead, we've got to go out there and fight.

Get up your swords. Let's go out and start an

insurrection. Of course, we encounter some zealots

in Scripture. One of the disciples was a zealot.

Do you remember who it was? Simon, right? And

of course, Jesus was crucified, and they let

go a zealot, probably, Barabbas, who was an insurrectionist.

So we have these four groups. And as Jesus is

born, these four groups are the ones who are

anticipating the Messiah largely. This is what

he's born into. The anticipation, the expectations

of the people of Israel were kind of like this.

And here is Jesus born into the first century

and Simeon holds him and is going to give a prophecy

about his expectations. And Simeon had very different

expectations. We see it in verse 29. He says,

Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may

now dismiss your servant in peace, for my eyes

have seen your salvation, which you have prepared

in the sight of all nations, a light for revelation

to the Gentiles and the glory of your people

Israel. What was Simeon's expectations? What

was he looking for in a Messiah? Well, interestingly,

as you read through this prophecy, it connects

a lot to Isaiah. Especially the suffering servant

of Isaiah's prophecy of who this Messiah will

be. He talks about this Messiah delivering from

oppression. Of course, the Pharisees, the Sadducees,

the Zealots, the Essenes, they'd all be in favor

of this. They'd believe that. He also talked

about the establishment of righteousness and

justice. It's not just about freeing a nation.

So that they don't have foreign oppressors. It's

about bringing peace and righteousness and justice

to the earth. He talks about how this Messiah

will bear our iniquities. At least in the book

of Isaiah. So he's not just here to give us what

we want. He's here to give us what we need. That

is the rescue from sins. And he's going to be

a light to the nations. This Messiah is not just

here for Israel. He's here for the Gentiles as

well. He's here, in fact, for the nations. And

his kingdom is going to expand throughout this

whole earth. It's so much bigger than what these

first century groups were anticipating. As we

learn in the passage, Mary and Joseph are listening

to this. They hear this prophecy and they marveled,

we're told. If you were to look at their faces,

it would be like, you know, what? Our son? They've

already seen and heard so many wonderful things

during the birth of Jesus, right? With the shepherds

coming and the kings and all those things. And

now Simeon gives this amazing prophecy. And as

they're marveling, Simeon's not finished yet.

And we're told he looks specifically at Mary.

And here's what he says. It's not all good news.

The child's father and mother marveled at what

was said to him. Then Simeon blessed them and

said to Mary, his mother, This child is destined

to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel,

to be a sign that will be spoken against so that

the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed,

and a sword will pierce your own soul too. Up

to this point, it was really good news. And everybody

could get on board with that kind of Messiah,

right? But here now, we have this prophecy that

turns into a little bit of a negative. Kind of

counter expectations that something is going

to happen with this Messiah. He's going to be

rejected by his own. Of course, Isaiah prophesied

this, right? Despised and forsaken of men. And

he looks specifically at Mary, which I find quite

interesting. Why Mary? You know, if you're a

mother, I think you kind of understand this a

little more. Here's your baby boy. And this is

going to be a Messiah and you have such high

hopes for him. But Simeon's kind of warning her

of what's to come. There's going to be an end

that's going to be a bit shocking. People are

not going to all follow him just simply because

he's the Messiah. He's going to be rejected.

But most significantly, Mary, a sword is going

to pierce your own soul too. Who knows what that

means? It could mean something about her own

relationship with her son and whether she believes

and how that goes about. But most likely, it

refers to Mary standing before the cross as her

own son is brutally tortured and killed. That's

hard for anybody. Imagine your own son and having

to watch that at the foot of a cross. And of

course, Simeon is also telling us that there's

going to have to be a response. The Messiah doesn't

just come and make everything great and everybody's

happy. He comes and brings what we need, and

that means there's going to be a response on

our behalf. We have to respond to this, and not

all of us will respond well. It will cause the

rising and the falling of many. See, Jesus doesn't

come to meet our expectations. He doesn't come

to conform to our expectations. He challenges

what we think we need and offers what we truly

need. And isn't this why Israel rejected him

in the end? If you think about the life, Jesus

had these followers and people who were with

him, but at the end they turned their backs on

him and they yell out, crucify, crucify. This

isn't the Messiah we signed up for. He's not

meeting our expectations. He's supposed to just

kind of come in as a king and take over Rome,

but instead he's talking about sins and he's

going to a cross. It reminds us of Isaiah where

Isaiah talks about the stone metaphor. Remember

the cornerstone? You can stumble over that stone

or it can be the corner of your house, of your

building. What's your choice? So the question

for us today is, who is your Messiah? You know,

in the first century, these different groups

were expecting a Messiah. They had read Isaiah.

They knew Isaiah frontwards and backwards. What

happened? How could their expectations be so

skewed? They perceived the Messiah through a

nationalistic lens, that God is going to send

a Messiah to deliver them from Roman oppression,

to free them from political aggression so that

they can live in freedom in their land. And God

had a bigger purpose. A more significant role

of not just giving them freedom in their land.

Hey, that's great. But there has to be a deeper

problem that's resolved. The problem of sin.

And they miss that. Well, what about us? We have

the advantage of the New Testament. We come to

church. We talk about the Messiah all the time.

We think we're different from these groups. We

have the right Messiah. We understand scripture

well. And maybe we do. But just like the people

of the first century, cultures can skew our expectations

of the Messiah. For some of us, we grew up in

cultures where we were looking for a therapeutic

Messiah. A Messiah that will make us feel happy

and good about ourselves. So that when trials

come in our life, we kind of look around and

say, what happened? Where's God? I thought he

was here to make my life better. For some of

us, we're looking for an on -call Messiah. We

can go about our lives on our own, and we're

perfectly fine until something happens in life

we can't control. Sickness, a death, loss of

work, no income, the list goes on. And then suddenly

we're on our knees crying out, Lord, where are

you? Please help me. Have you been there? That's

me. I'm sufficient in myself. I can kind of make

this happen. It seems like life is going well

until it doesn't, and then I'm on my knees crying

out to the Lord. Just remember the last time

you were sick, right? And the problem with these

messiahs is they're all focused on me. God's

there for me. Or we think we can control God.

We expect God to meet our expectations to do

what we want. And what Simeon and Isaiah remind

us is this isn't about us and we don't control

God. He is saving the cosmos and we fit into

his plan. Isn't this the value of living in a

different country for many of you? I assume many

of you live here and you've maybe traveled the

world and you've seen different things. At least

I have. And it kind of reminds me that God is

not American. Can you believe it? And sometimes

you get that perspective when you're just stuck

in one spot. You just think, okay, I think I

got a grasp of what God wants. And then he kind

of conforms to those expectations. But when you

travel, it broadens your perspective and you

realize, oh, God's doing a lot of things I didn't

even understand. And it humbles me. I don't have

the answers like I used to when I was 20. Travel

adjusts our expectations. It removes our provincialism.

It gives us a bigger picture of what God's doing.

Reminds us that God is a light not only to the

nation of Israel, not only to America or Thailand,

but to the whole world. But secondly, we don't

control him. He confronts us and he demands a

response. And to tell you the truth, the reason

I'm giving this sermon today is because this

is what I struggle with. It's a feeling of like

I have control of my life and I expect God to

meet those expectations. I can kind of maneuver

him to do what I need him to do. Let me give

you a story about this. We've lived in Asia for

20 years. Our very first year we moved to Asia,

2004, we adopted a child. As soon as I say that,

it already gives you a lot of information about

the expectations that were already unfulfilled

in our lives for me and my wife, Karen. When

you're young and you're 20 and you get married,

what are your expectations? We're going to have

children. So for 10 years, we struggled with

infertility. We met with doctors. We had no answers.

We finally realized, okay, well, maybe this isn't

for us. We moved to Singapore and we thought,

let's do adoption. So in 2004, we adopted our

baby girl, Ella Grace, or Cheng Jing Ying, who

is Chinese, born in Taiwan. And she was three

months old. And from the start of when we first

put in our paperwork to adopt Ella to the time

we picked her up, it took three months. I don't

know if any of you are involved in adoption,

especially international adoption, but that is

remarkably fast. It usually takes one or two

years at least for paperwork to be processed

and where you can actually pick up a child. So

our baby daughter was very young. She was only

three months old. So we were able to go to Taiwan.

That's a picture of me holding her for the very

first time. And the joy of that overwhelmed those

expectations I had of having my own children.

Like if you've had adoption, it's like a whole

unique, amazing experience. I wouldn't trade

it for anything. And so like God fulfilled our

expectations in ways we didn't even expect. But

that's not the end of the story. You see, our

expectation was to have several children. So

we adopted Ella. It took only three months, as

I said. She graduated actually just this year.

She's 22 years old. She just graduated from college,

so she's now a little bit older. But after about

a year, we decided let's try for a second. So

what we did is we went to the same orphanage

in Taiwan. We figured it only took three months

the first time. This is going to be really fast.

You know where this is going, don't you? We send

in our paperwork. And the paperwork comes in.

We get the response, okay, now we're waiting.

Three months goes by. We're thinking it should

be any day now. Of course, it takes four months,

five months, no response. About six months, we

go back to the orphanage. We say, did you get

our paperwork? Is everything okay? Yup, yup,

it's just things are slower now. You might have

to wait longer. Okay. Well, the year goes by.

And about that time, our school decided to move

from Singapore to Chiang Mai. So we moved to

Thailand. which means we have to get all of our

paperwork renewed, we have to pay all the expenses,

we have to do home studies, we send in all the

revised paperwork. Okay, it should be any moment

now. Another year goes by. Another year goes

by. In the meantime, my daughter is like four

or five years old, and every night I sit with

her at bed and we pray for her baby sister, that

she would come soon. We prayed that way for years.

After six years, We finally decided God doesn't

have this for us. That's painful. Now let's process

this for a moment. Does God love families? Does

he want us to have children? Does he love adoption?

He adopted us as his children. There are so many

kids out there who don't have good homes. We

want to bring a child into our home. Doesn't

God want that? So what happened? Why didn't God

meet this expectation? You know what? I don't

have an answer for you. And that's the point.

I don't control him. And this is the value, the

power of this passage, because if you look at

this passage again, he's not my Messiah. He's

not your Messiah. According to Isaiah, whose

Messiah is he? Look at your passage. He's the

Lord's Messiah. God sent him for his purposes,

to do his purposes, to meet what he wants to

do in this world. It's not about me. You know

what I need to do? Is trust him. I wish I had

a second. Honestly, I really do. And it's hard

for me even sharing this today, after all these

years. But I trust him. I trust him that he knows

what he's doing. I trust that he knows what is

good and he's doing what's good in my life. And

I trust and surrender to his will. That's hard

to do, isn't it? And I pray for you if you're

going through something like that, that today

would be that day of trust and surrender. Heavenly

Father, this is hard to speak about. These are

not easy things. Really hits at the core of life

and the struggles that we face in life and how

it is that we walk by faith because when things

don't happen as we expect, especially big things,

we wonder where you are and what you're doing.

And what a great reminder today that your Messiah

is doing things even bigger than we expect, that

we can trust you, that you know what is good,

you know what is perfect. We surrender. Amen.

If God is calling you to support our ministries,

you will find giving options on our website.

And remember to join us next week. God bless

you.