The Coming One (Lk. 7:18-23)
Hear
In his book, the Familiar Stranger, Tyler Staton tells a personal story about his son wanting to taste the cake batter before the cake is actually finished baking. He compares that experience with healing and other miraculous gifts of the Spirit of God. The power that we encounter here is just a taste of the finished product.
Healing, he says, “is a sign of the kingdom that points to salvation - the substance of the kingdom. Healing is a bit like being in the kitchen with the chef and getting an advanced taste of batter. It’s good, but you know something better is coming.”[1]
The disciples of John have watched (tasted) the power of Jesus to heal a centurion’s servant, to raise a dead boy back to life, and to restore a poor widow to a place of dignity within her community, but that was just the cake batter, something better was coming.
They run back to John and tell him everything they’ve witnessed.
Is the cake done? Can we finally have a slice?
“Could it be?” John thinks.
“Is He the One we’ve been waiting for?””
“Go ask Him,” John commands two of his own disciples and off they went.
This brings us to the scripture of our message for today - The Coming One.
Who is Jesus and how can we know for sure that it’s really Him?
What do we do with our questions and uncertainty about His person and activity (inactivity) in our lives?
Open your Bibles to Luke seven and let’s pick up at verse eighteen.
Luke 7:18–23 NKJV
18 Then the disciples of John reported to him concerning all these things. 19 And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to Jesus, saying, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” 20 When the men had come to Him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, ‘Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?’ ” 21 And that very hour He cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight. 22 Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them. 23 And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”
Doubt (Lk. 7:18-21)
Alexander Pope was a satirist and poet during the 18th century. Famous for many great literary works. One of his most notable catchphrases is taken from his original poem, An Essay on Criticism, where he states,
“To err is human; to forgive, divine.”[2]
For the purposes of our message for today, I want to adjust Pope’s phrase just a bit to say this,
“To doubt is human; to believe divine.”
I heard a story about a mother who received a phone call from her “son” saying that he was in trouble and needed help. He had been in a terrible car accident and the people he hit were basically holding him hostage at the scene, until he gave them money for the damages he had caused and the harm to one of the passengers. On one end of the phone was a desperate mother asking and answering questions. On the other end was the son frantically doing the same. What neither of them knew at the time was that, in between was a scammer, in another country, who was asking leading questions and recording specific parts of the conversation to be played back to the mother and son so that they believed that they were actually talking to the real person.
Stories like this one cause all of us to be skeptical of unknown communications.
Skepticism is commonplace in our world. Especially today with the pervasiveness of AI technology and scams. It can be hard to know who and/or what to trust. However, doubt is not new. It’s as old as time.
Adam and Eve got scammed as well. The serpent tricked them into doubting God in the Garden. Abram and Sarai questioned God about the possibility of having a child in their old age. Moses doubted that God could use him since he wasn’t good at public speaking. Who could forget the twin, Didymus, better known as doubting Thomas. Also, what about Zachariah, the father of the forerunner to the Messiah?
Today, we are introduced to another skeptic - John the Baptizer.
Luke 7:18 NKJV
18 Then the disciples of John reported to him concerning all these things.
They reported to him the miracle of the healing of the centurion’s servant when He had not even seen the man. How Jesus marveled at the faith of the centurion. How He credited a Gentile with more trust in God than God’s own people. They told John about how He had abandoned ritual purity for the sake of showing compassion to a desperate widow and mother. How He had brought a dead boy back to life with just a word. And they told John about how great fear fell on everyone that day as they declared Jesus to be a prophet sent from God.
Luke 7:19–20 NKJV
19 And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to Jesus, saying, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” 20 When the men had come to Him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, ‘Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?’ ”
At the time of these events in Luke 7, John is incarcerated (Mt. 11:2). He had let his faith cross the line entering into the political realm when he spoke out against Herod Antipas and his unlawful marriage to Herodias, his brother’s wife, who also happened to be their niece (Mt. 14:1-12).
We shouldn’t be put off by John’s question though.
There is something incredibly humanizing and relatable about John's need for assurance.
Haven’t we all been there at some point in our lives? When you’ve worn yourself out in prayer and the answer you hoped for doesn’t come, you question if God is listening. When life takes a sudden turn for the worse, you wonder if God even cares. But what do you do with those questions? How do they shape you and guide you going forward?
Denial or Discovery
I believe that there is one of two directions we can go when we aren’t sure about God. Our uncertainty can either lead us toward Him or pull us away from Him.
Denial
The first direction we can go in our doubt or skepticism is denial.
In John chapter six, Jesus has been dealing with some Jews who took issue with Him saying that He was the manna which came down from heaven and fed God’s people in the wilderness. To further complicate the matter, Jesus says this crazy and hard to understand thing about eating His flesh and drinking His blood.
John 6:60–66 NKJV
60 Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?” 61 When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. 65 And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.” 66 From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.
The disciple’s uncertainty and confusion about what Jesus said, caused them to fall back. Instead of pressing in and saying, “Rabbi! I’m gonna need You to break this down for me.” They said, “That’s nonsense! I’m outta here.”
Is that the way you handle the questions you have about God when life is hard? When the Bible says to endure suffering, do you look at suffering and conclude that there is no God or that God lacks power? Does difficulty push you to deny the compassion and the love and the sovereignty of God? If the answers to your prayers don’t come when you expect them or in the way you wanted, do you question God? Or does it compel you to seek Him out even more?
Doubt can lead to denial or it can lead to something far better.
Discovery
The second place we can go in our doubt is discovery.
This is the path that John takes as he sits in prison. He goes straight to the Source to find the answers he’s looking for. “Are you the Coming One? Or should we expect someone else?”
Earlier in Luke’s record, Jesus made the audacious claim that He is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.
Luke 4:18 NKJV
18 “TheSpirit of the Lord is upon Me,Because He has anointed MeTo preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Meto heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captivesAnd recovery of sight to the blind,To set at liberty those who areoppressed;
There is a key piece that is left out of what Jesus says. John, just a chapter before this, spoke to all those who came to his baptism,
Luke 3:16 NKJV
16 John answered, saying to all, “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
I’m sure that John was familiar with Isaiah’s words of liberty to captives brought about by the coming of the Messiah.
Isaiah 61:1 NKJV
1 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, Because the Lord has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
John’s question about Jesus is most-likely inspired by the fact that he is still in prison. If what he is hearing about Jesus is true, if He is actually the Messiah, then John probably expects that He is going to break open his prison doors and set him free? Because that hasn’t happened, he wonders, “Are You the Coming One? Or should we look somewhere else?”
Again, we shouldn’t be surprised by this. It makes John so relatable and it gives us encouragement in our own uncertainties of life. What we learn from this event is that our doubts, when handled properly, will not drive us away from the God of our salvation, rather it will cause us to discover Him.
As Darrell Bock says,
The psychological adversity of doubt carries the seed of real growth, when the answer is sought from God’s perspective. [3]
Remember, Jesus told the crowds that He was the manna sent from heaven that fed God’s people in the wilderness. He says that they are to eat His flesh and drink His blood. Many of His own disciples, those who watched Him heal the sick, those who saw him give sight to the blind and cause deaf people to hear, those who witnessed Him stand against the hypocrisy of the religious leaders, many of His disciples questioned the seriousness of this statement and their uncertainty drove them away from Jesus.
Let’s go back to John chapter six and pick up at verse sixty-seven.
John 6:67–69 NKJV
67 Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” 68 But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Doubt doesn’t have to be a deterrent to faith in Christ. Doubt can actually be a driving force in our discovery of His sovereignty, and His love, and His ability to heal and comfort and save and restore if we will seek Him out in the darkness of our confusion. It’s the prayer of the father whose daughter was sick,
Mark 9:24 NKJV
24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
If you have questions about the existence of God, go to God with those questions. Seek Him out in His word. The psalmist confesses,
Psalm 90:1–2 NKJV
1 Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
If you question His love, take it to Him and learn,
John 3:16 NKJV
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Romans 5:8 NKJV
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
I’m sure that by now, most of you have heard about Reid Wiseman, one of the astronauts on the Artemis II. Wiseman left earth as a skeptic and doubter, but before he could make it around the moon, he had his entire belief system uprooted once he saw the miraculous works of God in space.
In an interview about his mission, a reporter asked the crew if their experience had shifted their consciousness in any way and Wiseman said, “Yes.”
He went on to explain what he meant.
After splashdown, Wiseman said,
“When I got back on the ship, I’m not really a religious person, but there was just no other avenue for me to explain anything or experience anything.”
He told the reporter that, “when the sun eclipsed behind the moon, I think all four of us—I turned to Victor, and I said, ‘I don’t think humanity has evolved to the point of being able to comprehend what we are looking at right now.’ Because it was otherworldly, and it was amazing.”
“So I asked for the chaplain on the Navy ship just to come visit us for a minute. And when that man walked in—I had never met him before in my life. But I saw the cross on his collar, and I just broke down in tears.”
“It’s very hard to fully grasp what we just went through.” [4]
Wiseman could’ve discredited what he experienced. He could’ve let his doubt set in, pulling him away from the Master. He could’ve denied that there was a light starting to burn a hole through the darkness of his doubt, but he didn’t do that. He took notice of the sovereign hand of God and He went looking for answers.
Wiseman got a taste of cake batter while out in space, but there is something far better coming for him if he will continue the journey of discovery.
In his final notebook, Dostoevsky confessed,
"It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt."[5]
Again, doubt doesn’t have to be a deterrent to trusting in God, it can actually lead us to discover Him for who He really is.
Declare (Lk. 7:22-23)
What do you do with what you have discovered about God? You tell somebody.
Jesus responds to John’s disciples by saying this,
Luke 7:22–23 NKJV
22 Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them. 23 And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”
Jesus’ response to the question of His identity comes first through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah where Yahweh promises a time of deliverance and hope and restoration to His people (Isa. 35:5-7; 26:19; 29:18-19; 61:1). And this latter part about being offended is a massive piece of encouragement for us.
Don’t let the things that haven’t happened, the questions left unanswered, cause you to stumble, instead take notice of what Christ has already done and tell somebody about it.
Philip told his brother Nathanael about Jesus (Jn. 1:43-49).
The woman at the well told the men of Samaria about Jesus (Jn. 4:39-42).
The demon-possessed man in the country of the Gadarenes
Luke 8:39 NKJV
39 ...went his way and proclaimed throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.
You don’t have to know the Roman’s Road to talk about Jesus. You don’t need a theology degree. You just share the reason for your hope. What has God done in your own life that gives testimony to who He is and what He is capable of doing?
You have a story to tell as well.
Tell your friends and neighbors how God has brought the nations to this church and how many, for the first time ever, are hearing and reading the Gospel of God’s love.
Tell how God shook the prison doors open for Ali & Hedie.
Tell how God has comforted you in the darkness of your own life.
Tell how God has given you victory over a persisting sin.
How He has held your marriage together when divorce seemed inevitable.
How He is walking with you in the midst of your sorrow.
Talk about the many ways He is restoring what the locust has eaten in your life.
How He removed the veil from the mind and heart of a young boy named Asher for the salvation of his soul.
Tell them how God brought you out of the darkness into the marvelous light of Jesus Christ, making you a new creature. How He gave you a hope and a future.
This is our testimony!
We don’t have to make up stories about the greatness of our God. We just need to tell people what we have seen and heard.
Alister McGrath
Alister E. McGrath is a historian, a biochemist, and a former atheist. McGrath has authored several intellectual works like, The Dawkins Delusion and Coming to Faith through Dawkins where he and other scientific thinkers share how the claims of Richard Dawkins against Christianity actually assisted in the conversion of other atheists. Through a very reasoned and well-thought out process, McGrath came to discover, through the researching of his own doubts, that he was wrong about the Christian faith. He recalls that his conversion didn’t happen all-at-once but rather gradually. He says that over time he realized that he had made a huge mistake about the God of the Bible and Christianity - “a correctable mistake.” Today, McGrath is a theologian and apologist for the Christian faith where he spends his time telling what he has seen and heard about the God he discovered in his doubts.[6]
Respond
My friends, you can come to that same realization today if you will yield to the grace of God that is calling out to you right now.
Don’t allow the things you don’t know about God keep you from acknowledging what He has revealed about Himself. Jesus is the One who was promised to come and take away the sins of the world by offering Himself as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the entire world.
If you don’t know Him, or you have doubts, come and place your trust in Him and allow Him to walk you through a discovery of His love and grace for you.
You don’t have to know or understand everything. There are only three things that you need to be convinced of today.
1. You are a sinner.
2. You need a Savior.
3. Jesus is the One who has come to save you.
Sources cited
[1] Tyler Staton, The Familiar Stranger, 140-141
[2] Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, Part II
[3] Bock, Luke, 136
[4] Reid Wiseman: https://churchleaders.com/news/2216319-reid-wiseman-chaplain-lunar-mission.html/2
[5] Dostoevsky, Last Notebook (1880–1881), as cited in Kierkegaard, the Melancholy Dane (Harold Victor Martin, 1950) and The Dostoevsky Encyclopedia (Kenneth Lantz, 2004).
[6] Alister McGrath https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp6SuVaxuJ0; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvA6mkXy11o&t=92s
