Jesus is Surprising

At the very beginning of the year, we started a series called Following Jesus.

It's really simple.

We're spending our entire year going through the book of Matthew.

If you have kids, by the way, first grade, all the way up through high school, they're going through the book of Matthew as well.

So you're learning the same stories every Sunday as your kids in those areas, maybe with a slightly different take or focus, but the same exact stories.

We're doing our best just to understand who Jesus really is.

And that's actually the title of our little mini-series that we're doing within this study called Jesus Is.

We're looking at a collection of stories that we find right in the middle of the book of Matthew that really highlight the personality and the character of Jesus in some incredible ways.

When we're dealing with Jesus, we have to remember that Jesus is a person.

He is God and He is a person.

It's very easy for us to focus on one of those aspects, sometimes at the expense of the other.

So we can focus on Jesus as a person at the expense of his divinity, or we can focus on his divinity at the expense of his humanity.

But Jesus is God and man, which allows us to know him in a very unique way.

And obviously, as we've gone through the book of Matthew, we'll see it today in almost every single story.

We have the divinity of Jesus on display.

We see his power.

We see Jesus do things that no one else can do.

Or at least in a way that no one else has.

But these stories that we're looking at right now, they give us a chance to really focus on the humanity of Jesus, to see his personality, so that we can understand him better, so that we can we can feel closer to him.

We should always have a desire to know Jesus better.

We should always be curious about Jesus.

Just like when you meet someone who's awesome and you want to get to know him better, you try to find out as much as you can about them, what makes them tick, what are they really like?

Scripture gives us a chance to do that with Jesus, and today we're going to focus on this really amazing aspect of who he is.

We've really leaned into the humanity of Jesus the last few weeks, and so we looked a couple of weeks ago at the fact that Jesus is interruptible.

Even when he was doing something incredibly important, he was never too busy to help people.

And that's something we should remember about our God.

He is interruptible.

We can go to him anytime with anything, and we should be like that too.

We should strive to be like Jesus and be interruptible, not take ourselves so seriously that we're not approachable when people have a need.

Last week we learned that Jesus is resourceful.

The way that Jesus looked at life, he didn't see problems, he saw solutions, he saw possibilities.

And so when everyone else around Jesus was like, there's no way, there is no way to do this, there's no way to get it done, Jesus was like, hold on, hold on, there's a way.

We can figure this out.

There's a way.

And if you have Jesus, there's always a way.

And today, I'll just go ahead and tell you what we're gonna focus on today.

It's gonna seem a little random, but I actually think it's one of the most beautiful and important things for us to remember about Jesus.

He is surprising.

Jesus is surprising.

He has this way of sort of catching you off guard, subverting your ex your expectations, or in many cases, blowing them away.

And it's just something about Jesus we have to understand.

Now, how many of us in the room, out of curiosity, how many of us in the room would say, I love surprises?

I am a surprise person, surprise me.

How many of you are like, I would prefer not to be surprised?

I like it when things go according to plan.

All right, it's about half and half.

And just so you know, second half, I really thought about you guys today.

Because I had some ideas since the theme was surprise.

I I thought for a minute about having like a confetti cannon in the back, and just without any type of warning, boom, it goes off.

And I thought that'd be fun, but it'd be messy, someone would have to clean it up.

It's a holiday week coming up.

But also, those of you who hate surprises might be like, I would I didn't like that.

Why'd you do that?

Half of us would love it, the other half would be like, never do that again.

So I thought I just want you to know, I thought about you, I considered you, I thought about Rickrolling everybody as like a surprise.

Do you guys remember the Rick roll phenomenon a few years back on the internet?

Like Rick Atsley had this song in the 80s, never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down.

Here's a picture of what the Rickroll thing, you know what I'm talking about?

And there was this big phenomenon where, like, 10 years ago or so, um, showing my age, but you would see a link, someone would send you something, hey, click this, it's super cool, and you click it, and it'd just be the very beginning of that song, and you're like, ah, I got Rickroll.

But I decided not to do that because it's a little cliched and overdone.

So I just want you to know, I had a lot of ideas of ways that I could surprise you, but most of them I thought, nah, let's just, let's not.

So instead, I thought about times in my life when I've been surprised.

And what I've realized is that I think I'm I'm both of them.

I think all of us technically are probably both, I like surprises if they're good, but I hate surprises when they're not.

And life throws us both.

Like we've all had surprises that we would say, I wish that hadn't happened.

I'll give you an example.

Um one of, I won't say which one just for uh the protection of their identity, but one of my two younger children, my two youngest, a few years ago, we were at a water park.

We were on vacation, we went to this water park with a with a family that we're really close friends with, so it's four adults and like eight children, and it's hot, and it was it was interesting.

And about halfway through our water park experience, one of my younger children looked at Megan and I and said, Quiet, hey, mom and dad, I pooped in my pull-up.

To which our response was, you're not wearing a pull-up.

And what's amazing when you have little kids is sometimes they have these facial expressions that are very adult-like.

And I can promise you that when we said that to this child, they were as surprised as we were.

We were in the process at the time of potty training, and we thought they were further along than they were.

And so we were at the water park, and I guess they just decided, you know what, I'm just gonna do my thing, and they'll just change me.

Happens all the time, no big deal, but had forgotten that we were we were moving past that, and that wasn't part of the equation.

Because I love you, I'm not going to describe the next 15 minutes that followed.

I will never forget them.

I will tell you this: I had a temptation for a moment to say, you know, we're at a water park, we could probably just go on a slide and it would take care of 90% of this.

I had that thought.

I was like, there's water, it's moving fast.

I mean, let's just do that.

But I didn't do that.

I just want you to know I didn't do that because obviously that would be evil.

It would be evil to do that to people.

So we went to the we went to the restroom and we had a very interesting experience.

Surprises like that, I would prefer not to have any of them.

But life throws us those kind of surprises all the time.

It really does.

There's all kinds of situations in life where you go, what?

Excuse me?

Uh oh no, that happens a lot.

We don't like those surprises, but there's good surprises too, right?

You reach in your pocket, a pair of jeans you haven't worn for a while, there's$20 in the pocket, and you didn't know about that$20, you forgot about it, and that is the best.

That's a great surprise.

That is free money.

That is money that did not exist until that moment, and it must be spent immediately and frivolously.

That's what you do with that$20, right?

Those are those are good surprises.

When I was in college, Megan and I were in a long-distance relationship for about a year until we could be at the same college, and there was this one period of time where I thought we were gonna have to be apart for a really long time, but but she surprised visited me from a thousand miles away.

I didn't, it was amazing.

It was like all of a sudden she was back and we got to spend time together.

That was one of the best surprises of my life.

Surprises are both good and bad, and perhaps it's that we've had enough bad ones that we were a little resistant to them.

But the reality is if you're gonna follow Jesus, you need to be prepared to be surprised.

And I will say mostly in the good way, thankfully.

Because Jesus is surprising, he is unlike anyone else, and there's just no way that you can live with Jesus and have him in your life and follow him and expect everything to go as planned.

It doesn't work that way.

We're gonna see that in the story that we're looking at today in a really big way.

Now, for some context, the last couple of weeks we've talked about Jesus trying to get away from everybody.

He heard some really bad news.

He got one of those really negative surprises in life that his his close friend and cousin, John the Baptist, was murdered by King Herod.

And so Jesus was living in a place called Capernaum.

We'll kind of show you this on the map.

He was living in Capernaum on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, and when he found out that news, he got in a boat with his closest friends and followers, and they went across the Sea of Galilee to this area outside of Beth Seda, just to be alone.

And that's where he was interrupted, and that's where he performed this miracle, where he fed over 5,000 people.

That's where we got to see Jesus being interruptible and resourceful in amazing ways.

But now we're gonna see Jesus head back with his disciples.

And you'll see this on the map.

They start going back to where they came from, but they're gonna stop about halfway, and something happens on the water, which is kind of a theme with Jesus, actually.

Something happens on the water, and we get there in Matthew chapter 14, verse 22.

Matthew 14:22

It says, Immediately after this, Jesus insisted that his disciples get back into the boat and cross to the other side of the lake while he sent the people home.

This is right after he's performed this miracle where they've fed everyone and there's baskets of leftovers.

After sending them home, he went up into the hills to pray by himself.

Finally, he gets some alone time.

Night fell while he was there alone.

Meanwhile, the disciples were in trouble far away from land, for a strong wind had risen, and they were fighting heavy waves.

About three o'clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them, walking on the water.

When the disciples saw him walking on the water, they were terrified.

In their fear, they cried out, It's a ghost.

But Jesus spoke to them at once, don't be afraid, he said, Take courage, I am here.

Then Peter called to him, Lord, if it's really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water.

Yes, come, Jesus said.

So Peter went over to the other side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus.

But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and he began to sink.

Save me, Lord, he shouted.

Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him.

You have so little faith, Jesus said.

Why did you doubt me?

When they climbed back into the boat, the wind stopped.

And then the disciples worshiped him.

You really are the Son of God, they exclaimed.

Now, I've taught on this story many times, talked about it a good bit.

It's a classic story of Jesus.

In fact, if you're a fan of the show The Chosen, they just did this scene in an episode at the end of last season.

Really cool.

If you've never seen it, even just look it up on YouTube.

Really powerful scene.

So many different takeaways we could have.

So many different things we could focus on.

I mean, Peter and his boldness and faith, or maybe stupidity, it depends on how you look at the story.

To be like, hey, tell me to come out.

Jesus having the compassion to pull Peter out of the water.

I mean, he's promised that he's going to follow Jesus.

Peter ran his mouth a lot, but then he also fell short of those claims sometimes, and Jesus loves him in that moment.

There's so many things we could focus on.

But I just want to stop for a minute and try our best to give the disciples a little bit of credit.

Try to give the disciples a little bit of slack, I guess, and recognize that they had every right to be shocked when they saw Jesus walking toward them.

You know, we see this story, they're out there, they're on the boat, and they see someone and they're like, it's a ghost.

That is what they literally thought.

It is a ghost.

It is a it is an evil spirit, it's something like that.

They had a lot of superstitions in their culture about that kind of thing, and they freak out.

And we know it's Jesus because we know the story, so it's easy to look at the disciples and be like, you guys, come on.

But like, can we just acknowledge how surprising this is?

You're out in the middle of this huge lake, the Sea of Galilee, it's really a big lake, it's massive, and you see a man walking toward you on the water.

You are not prepared for that.

That is not a moment that life has taught you how to deal with.

Like it's not a moment where you can go, oh, it's just one of those walking on water situations.

Okay, well, everyone calm down.

This is just clearly Jesus.

No, they they freak out because you should be freaked out like that.

And even the idea that Jesus said, Hey, go, I'll I'll meet you guys back where we live or whatever, I don't know if Jesus was planning the whole time to walk on the water.

He's like, this is gonna be awesome.

You know, there are stories, by the way, where Jesus would do stuff like that.

There's stories where Jesus would tell people, oh no, you guys go ahead, I'm not going, and then he'd show up and everyone's like, I thought you were gonna be here.

Jesus kind of liked to mess with people sometimes, I guess.

I don't know if that's what happens here, or if if the storm caught him by surprise too, and all of a sudden he's walking, he's like, I better help them out.

Well, the fastest route is a straight line, I'll just start walking.

I don't know.

But I can appreciate the fact that from the disciples' perspective, this is one of the most unexpected things you could see.

This is surprising.

A man is walking on water in the middle of the storm toward you.

So you have every right to freak out.

But the truth of the matter is, this is just one of the many examples that are constant where Jesus just does things that you couldn't possibly expect.

He is surprising.

And I hope that you'll see by the end of this why that's so important for us to remember, why we we need to appreciate this, recognize it and appreciate it and help us help it guide us as we live our lives connected to him.

Because he spent his whole life surprising people.

Literally from the beginning of his life on this earth.

Everyone was surprised.

For example, his mom, very surprised.

An angel comes to her and says, Hey, Mary, you're blessed.

God has favored you.

You're pregnant, and he's the son of God.

And in Luke chapter 1, we see Mary's response.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

How can this happen?

I'm a virgin.

That's that's a surprising moment.

Excuse me?

Like, people aren't gonna believe this.

What am I gonna do?

I mean, all the things flooding through her mind.

Jesus shows up in a very surprising way.

Right off the bat.

And this continues in his life when Jesus was 12 years old.

He went on a trip with his family to Jerusalem.

And they were there for several days, and then they left, and they would have been traveling with a huge crowd, all kinds of family and extended family and friends.

And Jesus was 12, so he was old enough to kind of go off on his own.

His family didn't see him, but they assumed, oh, he must be with his friends, he must be with some of our family.

And they get a good ways outside of Jerusalem and realize he's not with them at all.

So they panic, they go back, they look for Jesus for days.

And in Luke chapter 2, we we see what happens.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

When they couldn't find him, they went back to Jerusalem to search for him there.

Three days later, they finally discovered him in the temple, sitting among the religious teachers, listening to them and asking questions.

All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.

His parents didn't know what to think.

Son, his mother said, Why have you done this to us?

Your father and I have been frantic, searching for you everywhere.

Jesus says, But why did you need to search?

Didn't you know that I must be in my father's house?

But they didn't understand what he meant.

Jesus looks at them at 12 years old and he goes, Why are you surprised?

Why wouldn't you assume this is where I would be?

Here in my father's house, teaching and learning and all these things?

Like, clearly, I'm gonna be here, but his parents took him three days to go, let's try the temple.

Jesus surprises at every single turn.

In John chapter 1, we get to see one of the earliest disciples of Jesus react to finding out where Jesus was from.

John 1 · chapter mention

Philip went to look for Nathaniel and told him, We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about.

His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.

Nazareth! exclaimed Nathaniel.

Can anything good come from Nazareth?

Nathanael is very surprised by Jesus.

The Messiah was from this middle of nowhere, nothing town called Nazareth.

Did not have a good reputation.

Nazareth?

That's surprising.

Didn't think that the Messiah would come from a place like that.

Jesus surprises at every turn.

Matthew chapter 9.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

It says later Matthew, who was a tax collector that became a disciple of Jesus, invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners.

Tax collectors were the worst of the worst, and apparently there was a whole group of them along with other disreputable sinners.

These aren't even reputable sinners.

These are disreputable sinners.

These aren't good people, apparently.

But when the Pharisees, the religious leaders, saw this, they asked his disciples, why does your teacher eat with such scum?

The religious people were very surprised by the kind of company that Jesus kept.

It wasn't what they expected of a holy man, a prophet, a teacher, a rabbi, definitely not the Messiah, but this is kind of a theme for Jesus.

There's a story in Luke chapter 19 of a man named Zacchaeus who also happens to be a tax collector.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

He's very short.

Jesus comes to town, Zacchaeus wants to see him, so he climbs up a tree.

And in Luke 19, 5, it says, When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name.

Zacchaeus, he said, Quick, come down.

I must be a guest in your home today.

Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy, but the people were displeased.

He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner.

They grumbled.

They were very surprised that of all the people that Jesus could have chosen to spend time with when he was in their town, he picked Zacchaeus, the tax collector.

They did not see that coming.

Jesus is surprising.

In John chapter 4, it's one of my favorite stories in Scripture.

John 4 · chapter mention

Jesus goes to this place called Samaria.

It's a place that the Jewish people avoided at all costs.

It was kind of right in the middle of ancient Israel, in between Galilee, where Jesus lived, and Judea, the southern part where you had Jerusalem.

And the Samaritans were so unliked by the Jewish people that when a Jewish person would make a pilgrimage to go from Galilee down to Samaria, rather than just go straight through it, which would not take very long, they would take the long route to avoid Samaritans.

That was the level of hatred that existed between them.

But Jesus goes right through, he goes to Samaria, and he has this amazing conversation with a woman at a well, and she's a woman who's been married like five times, and she does not have a good reputation in her community.

She's sort of an outcast.

No one else will be around her.

But Jesus speaks with her.

In fact, she is the very first person that Jesus ever looks at and says directly, I'm the Messiah.

She's the first one to have Jesus reveal that directly.

And it says in John chapter 4, after Jesus does this, the disciples came back.

John 4 · chapter mention

They were shocked to find him talking to a woman, but none of them had the nerve to ask.

The woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village, telling everyone, come and see a man who told me everything I ever did.

Could he possibly be the Messiah?

So the people came streaming from the village to see him.

In this situation, Jesus surprises.

They were shocked.

Why is he talking to her of all people, a Samaritan woman?

Jesus surprised people left and right.

His teachings were incredibly surprising.

Jesus says, Hey, uh love your enemy.

Love them.

That's a surprising thing to say.

That wasn't some popular opinion of the day.

It wasn't something that sounded good.

It wasn't like people wore t-shirts with feel-good statements on them back then.

People had real enemies, people who wished them harm.

And Jesus says, love your enemy, pray for your enemy.

No one saw that coming.

That was surprising.

One of the biggest debates of Jesus' day had to do with taxes because the Jewish people were forced to pay taxes to Caesar, but Caesar at this point in time, this would be Caesar Augustus.

It's the first time that the rulers of Rome started to sort of be deified and worship.

So the Jewish people thought, well, to pay taxes to that man who considers himself a god is like to worship a false god.

What are we supposed to do?

And so they tried to trap Jesus.

They tried to trap him to ask him a question about taxes because if he says don't pay taxes, then the Romans are mad.

If he says pay taxes, then the religious leaders are mad.

And Jesus takes a coin and he says, Hey, whose picture is on this coin?

And they say, Well, Caesar's.

He goes, All right, well, give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God.

And everyone was shocked, surprised by that answer, because it was so good.

It was so perfect.

And no one could be mad.

And they all just kind of walked away.

Jesus surprises people over and over again.

He once looked at the Pharisees and a lot of the people who consider themselves religious, and he said, Hey, you you think you're great.

I'm paraphrasing here, because you say that you've never committed adultery.

All right, well, have you ever looked at someone and lusted after them?

Well, then you've committed adultery in your heart.

Don't act like you're perfect.

That surprised people.

People didn't think God cared as much about the inner stuff.

It was just what you did behaviorally.

And Jesus says, No, surprise.

God sees the heart.

Time and time again, Jesus surprises people.

Here's one of the more surprising stories, at least for me.

We see this in Mark, rather, chapter 11.

The next morning, as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry.

He noticed a fig tree in full leaf a little way off.

So he went over to see it and to see if he could find any figs.

But there were only leaves because it was too early in the season for fruit.

And then Jesus said to the tree, May no one ever eat your fruit again.

And the disciples heard him say that.

That's surprising.

Jesus is hungry, he sees a tree.

I wonder if there's figs on it.

There's not.

May no one ever eat fruit from you again.

He's mad at a tree.

We see a little bit later in Mark chapter 11, verse 20, the next morning as they passed by the fig tree he had cursed, the disciples notice it had withered from the roots up.

Mark 11:20

And Peter remembered what Jesus had said to the tree on the previous day and exclaimed, Look, Rabbi, the fig tree you cursed has withered and died.

So not only did Jesus get mad at a tree, he killed it.

Jesus killed a tree because it wasn't producing fruit, but it wasn't apparently the season that it was supposed to.

It's one of those stories with Jesus where you think you have them figured out.

You're like, I get Jesus, I understand Jesus, I don't what why?

He's surprising.

So many things about Jesus that surprise people.

His his death certainly surprised people.

His disciples did not see that coming, even though he told them on many occasions, I'm gonna die.

They were shot.

How could this man who had all the power in the world be captured and tried and put on a tree and hung on a cross?

His behavior on the cross is certainly surprising.

When he was crucified, there were two other men, one on each side of him, being crucified as well.

They were both thieves.

Probably means that they weren't just people who stole something.

They were more likely revolutionaries, people who had caused a lot of trouble, people that the Roman government wanted to make an example out of.

And one of them looked at Jesus on the cross and said, Jesus, remember me when you're when you've come into your kingdom.

And Jesus replied, I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.

Even on the cross, Jesus isn't focused on himself.

Here's this man who apparently has lived a very selfish, you could argue, extremely wrong life.

We don't know exactly what he had done, but he's being executed.

And we can assume that at least in many situations where people had done the crimes, unlike Jesus, but Jesus isn't concerned with his past.

In that moment, he says, You're going to be with me in paradise.

I doubt that that man expected that the day he was crucified alongside Jesus.

That was a surprise.

As the Roman soldiers nailed Jesus to the cross, Jesus said this, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

I've never really heard stories about people being executed and praying forgiveness for those who were doing it to them before.

That's certainly surprising.

As surprising as his death may have been, his resurrection, we can all understand it was a lot more surprising.

Because we've all seen people die.

We've all experienced loss in some way, shape or form.

But um resurrection, that's that's a little different.

That's a little unique.

In Luke chapter 24, we get an interesting story, a little window into that moment.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

These women go to the tomb of Jesus to pay their respects, and when they get there, he's gone.

And there's these angels that show up.

It says that they were terrified, they bowed with their faces to the ground, and then these men who were angels asked, Why are you looking among the dead for someone who's alive?

He isn't here.

He's risen from the dead.

Remember what he told you back in Galilee that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, that he would rise again on the third day?

I love this because they're like, Why are you here?

The angels are going, you guys are why would you look for Jesus in a tomb?

He's alive.

They're surprised that the women are at a tomb.

And the women are surprised that Jesus isn't there.

Everyone's surprised.

Do we get it?

Jesus is surprising.

You read his life, what he said, what he did, and at every turn, again, he subverts your expectations, he does something you don't see coming, he blows you away.

Jesus is full of surprises.

And here's why we need to know this.

I'm gonna wrap this up really quickly.

In fact, worship team, you guys can make your way out.

I'm I'm cutting the message a little bit shorter than normal today because I'll let you guys know this.

Uh, we have a bunch of people getting baptized.

Like, super exciting.

And so I want to make sure that we we leave room for that.

And this is not a complicated topic, but it is an important one.

You might say to yourself, like, why is it so important that we understand Jesus is surprising?

A couple of takeaways.

This is so big.

Understanding that Jesus is full of surprises, he's hard to predict, should should humble us.

It should keep us humble.

1 Corinthians chapter 8, verse 2 says, anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn't really know very much.

1 Corinthians 8:2

There's this tendency, especially in church, especially in religious circles, where people like to uh pretend to be experts about God.

Someone in my position teaches on a regular basis, spends a lot of time studying and reading, doing our best to, with the help of the Holy Spirit, interpret things correctly, teach things correctly, but I promise you, when I die, I don't know if it's gonna work this way, I don't know if God's gonna like, let's go over your messages.

We have all of eternity, let's go through them bit by bit.

I promise you there's gonna be things that I've said where I'm like, I'm so sorry.

I was clearly wrong.

I thought that was the way it is, but seeing you now, I recognize there's things about you I didn't fully understand.

Paul admitted that, by the way.

Paul, who wrote this in much of the New Testament, he said, right now, we don't see things clearly.

We see things in sort of a hazy way, but one day it'll all clear up.

We have to remember that.

God surprises us.

That should humble us and it should keep us from ever acting like we really have it all figured out.

Because you can't have it all figured out with Jesus.

He's always gonna do something that you don't see coming.

And we have to, we have to have the humility to recognize that, to protect against that sort of pride that says, no, I've got God totally figured out, I've got him in this box.

I promise, whatever box you put God in, he will break out of.

And remember, the Pharisees, they were religious experts.

They were religious experts.

They knew the law, they knew all of the Old Testament by heart, they could have quoted it to you out of memory, and they were so convinced that their interpretation was exactly right that they missed the Messiah completely.

Because they thought they had it all figured out and Jesus didn't match their expectations.

They were surprised by Jesus.

There's no way that could be God.

And you'll find a lot of people today, people who mean well, who think they have, let's take the book of Revelation, for example, they think they have the end times figured out.

They know exactly how it's all gonna go down.

It's gonna be just like this and just like that.

And I have a feeling a lot of those people are gonna have very similar experiences to the Pharisees, where they're gonna go, oh, this isn't what I thought.

This isn't going the way that I thought it would go.

That's the way God is.

And there's a humility in saying, I want to know you, I want to follow you, I want to study you, I want to know everything about you, but at the same time, I recognize that you are going to surprise me.

And I'm never gonna let my heart become hardened by pride, thinking that I have you completely figured out.

I've been married to my wife for 20 years.

I do not have her completely figured out.

She does things often, and I'm like, interesting.

My children, I've raised them, they've grown up in my home, and yet constantly they do things where I'm like, I didn't see that coming.

And often I don't handle it very well when that happens, to be honest.

Because I wasn't expecting it.

Well, if that's how people are, and we are, let's be honest, far more complicated or less complicated than God, shouldn't we expect God to surprise us as well?

Doesn't mean he's gonna disappoint us, but it does mean he's gonna do things that we don't expect.

That should humble us, and it should protect us from ever becoming too attached to our perspective about God.

Always be open to God blowing your perspective away.

Now, I will say this, it's important.

Whatever God does is going to line up with the truth of Scripture.

There will be people who will come along and give you some version of God that is very different than maybe what you've been taught about God, but if it doesn't line up with scripture, it's not true.

Everything Jesus did lined up with the truth of God's word.

It's just that the Pharisees, they had their own version of that truth so solidified in their hearts that they couldn't see it.

But be open to God, be open to Him surprising you.

In fact, maybe pray that.

That's a, by the way, a dangerously powerful prayer.

Surprise me, God.

Surprise me.

I've never really prayed that before.

I'm really good at telling God, here are my plans, make them happen.

Lord, I have, I would like this to happen in my life.

I'd also like this to go this way, I'd like this situation to happen this way, I'd like this to all get wrapped up.

Lord, make my dreams come true.

It's very easy to pray that.

But have you ever prayed, Lord, surprise me?

Do something I don't see coming.

That's a dangerous prayer.

But what would the what would the world be like if Christians prayed dangerous prayers?

David was like that.

King David, he once prayed, search my heart, point out anything that bothers you.

And I'll change it.

Have you ever prayed that?

Hey God, take a good hard look at me and find anything you find that you want to change, tell me about it.

That's a dangerous prayer because God will probably find something.

But what would it be like if Christians didn't pray safe prayers, but pray dangerous prayers?

Prayers like, Lord, whatever you've got in mind, do it.

I'm along for the ride.

Surprise me.

Remembering that God is full of surprises, it should humble us, it should open our hearts.

We should have a sense of wonder.

We sang about it today, by the way.

One of the songs was like, Let me never lose this sense of wonder.

I don't want to have God all figured out.

There's all kinds of things about Jesus that if you ask me, I'm like, oh, I don't know.

And maybe that means I'm not very good at my job.

But I'm really okay with that.

I recognize that there's just things about Jesus that the only way we're gonna get to know them or to spend eternity with him in his presence.

Like he's that incredible.

And so I'm I'm hungry to know all I can about scripture and his word and to get to know him better all the time and do my best to adjust to all my failures and all my mistakes, which are many, and readjust to be closer to him.

But at the same time, I recognize that he is always gonna do things that I could never have seen coming.

His surprises are good.

They're good, they're different, but they're good.

And so as we wrap up, I just want to encourage us to remember this really small but really important detail about Jesus.

He is different, he is surprising, he doesn't do things the way that we think he often would or should.

But what that means is that we have a God who doesn't lower himself to meet our expectations.

But we have a God who's good enough that he will raise us up to do the things that only he can do, which often blow away our expectations.

What would you rather have?

A God who just does what you've been able to dream up, what you've been able to think of?

Would you rather serve a God who can do so much more than you could have ever imagined?

Would you rather serve a God who can blow your expectations out of the water?

Would you rather serve a God who could surprise you by how good he is and how powerful he is and how loving and kind and forgiving and merciful?

I don't know about you, I want to be surprised.

And so, be humble.

Recognize that you don't have him all figured out.

Don't ever let someone come along and convince you that they have him all figured out.

Be open to him surprising you and maybe even pray for it.

Hope for it, long for it.

God, surprise me.

I'm in the boat.

And if you want me to walk on the water, I'll do it.

You just tell me what to do.

Wow, if we could live that way, it would change everything.

It really would.

Let's take Lord's Supper as we wrap up.

Um, if you miss this, by the way, we have cups with bread and juice.

They're on the tables in the back.

If you want to go grab one, you can.

And I think we can recognize, we kind of mentioned it earlier, that this moment represents a big surprise twist in the story of Jesus.

Even though he said it many times to his disciples, the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of the rulers and authorities and killed, and then he will raise again.

Even though he said that, the disciples were surprised when it happened because they probably thought Jesus was just being metaphorical in his descriptions.

He was like that a lot.

But no, no, when Jesus died, this surprised everybody.

And honestly, it should still surprise us.

Even 2,000 years later, it should still blow us away that the God of the universe would become a person, would live among us, teaching us, healing us, being gentle and kind, loving us, correcting us when we need correction, challenging us, but then dying for us as a sacrifice to pay the price for our mistakes and our sins and our failures, and then giving us his righteousness and his goodness.

If that doesn't surprise you, I don't know what else can.

So never let this moment that we celebrate, never let this moment become mundane, never let this moment lose its sense of wonder.

Never let this moment become some just ritual that we do over and over again because, yeah, Jesus died on the cross.

This is this is the greatest surprise in history.

That your creator died for you to give you life that you can never have yourself.

That's a wonderful surprise.

And so, with that in mind, let's take the bread, let's pray for it.

Father, we thank you for this piece of bread.

This is your body, given as a sacrifice, nailed to a cross, hurt, injured, in ways that we can't imagine.

But you did this willingly.

You love us so much that you gave yourself entirely to us to save us from our sin, from the evil that exists in all of our hearts, and to give us new life.

We thank you for this, Jesus.

Let's take the bread.

Now, the Jews.

Lord, thank you for this surprise.

You shed your blood for us.

You had spent, Father God, centuries teaching the people of Israel how to offer sacrifices.

And countless animals were sacrificed as a reminder that sin is serious and something or someone has to pay the price.

But no one ever expected you to pay the price.

No one saw that coming.

And you surprised all of us when you came down and put an end to the sacrifices once and for all by becoming the final sacrifice, the full sacrifice, completely and totally paying for all of our sin for all time.

It's a beautiful surprise.

We thank you so much, Lord.

Let's take the juice.