"I'm Disappointed With Jesus"

All right, Porch, let's go! How are we doing? Are we doing okay? It's great to see you. Man, it makes my week every week to be here with you. Thanks so much for choosing to be here at The Porch, not just in Dallas, Texas, but also all over the globe. There are so many people tuning in with us all over the place. So we want to say a special "Hello." If you're tuning in with us online somewhere, from wherever it is you stream, or if you're listening to this at some point in the future, welcome. We're really glad to have you here. Special shout-out to Porch.Live Dayton, Scottsdale, and Boise. Let's give it up.

Hey, I want to do an exercise with you. Now listen. This is going to be a rhetorical exercise. I do not need you to speak back to me. I need you to think in the quietness of your inner self. I want you to go through the halls of your personal history back to that very first moment where you felt some sense of personal panic, some social embarrassment. You can work your way back there while I tell you about mine.

Mine was when I was in the seventh grade and I joined the football team for the very first time. I had not grown up playing football. I had been around sports (baseball, soccer), but I had never really spent any time around football. I didn't watch it. I didn't know the rules. I didn't know the position. Yet I had a bunch of friends who were all joining the team, so I was eager to jump on board with them as well.

So, the day comes, and we make our way out to try out for a specific position, but I didn't know anything about the sport, so I picked the only position I knew of. I chose to try out for quarterback. Did I know any professional quarterbacks? No. Did I know how to spin the peel? No, I did not. Did I know it was the most important position on the team? Of course not. I just simply knew this was a position everybody knew about.

So, the day came for me to try out. What I found out was the tryout was just a matter of you self-selecting into what you wanted, so I got put into this position, and it was amazing. I started learning the role really well. Eventually, as season started to approach, we got delegated into a variety of different teams. Much to my surprise, I was put on the A team, which was surprising to me, because I was not under the illusion that I was God's gift to the sport of football.

I knew I had worked really hard, that I had given it the good college try, that I had showed up early and stayed late. I thought, "Man! This is just my coaches recognizing the fact that I have really gone for it, so they're awarding all of my effort." So, the day comes for us to make our journey to my very first football game. I grab my gear. I board the bus. I say "Hey" to my buddies, and we go to Paris, Texas.

In Paris, Texas, we off-load from the bus, and I do what I always do. I find my fellow quarterbacks, grab a ball, and start to warm up the old arm. You know, eye socket to hip pocket. I'm working my drills with these guys until, eventually, our coach comes over, and he does what he always does. He does a head count, then he does a second head count, and then he does a third head count, because come to find out, he had one more quarterback than he was expecting…me.

My name had accidentally been placed on the wrong roster. Because I was not, in fact, qualified to quarterback the best of my 12-year-old companions, my coaches decided in that moment to remove me from the only position I was familiar with and put me in a completely different position that I had no familiarity with whatsoever. This is the stuff of prepubescent panic. I was freaking out. My whole world had flipped upside down.

It felt like the sky was coming down on top of me, because I was no longer playing on offense; now I was playing on defense. I was no longer calling the shots on the field; I was lost on the field. I had no idea what I was doing. I was not under the mistake that I was a part of the A team. No, I actually thought I had made the mistake of playing this sport to begin with. You see, I had expected one thing, but I experienced something completely different.

Now, why do I tell you that? Because, for many of us, faith can feel the same way. You boarded the bus of belief and made your way out to the big game, and then you off-loaded, and you realized, "This is nothing like what I thought it was. It's not just that I'm lost on the field; I'm actually lost in my faith. It's not just that I am a part of the wrong roster; I might be a part of the wrong religion.

It's not just that I'm questioning how to play this position; I'm actually questioning all of my claims to belief. I'm in a position where I'm not sure this is exactly what I thought it was supposed to be. I had some expectations, but my experience in walking with God has not panned out like I thought it would." The result is you've been left with disappointment.

Brené Brown, in her book Rising Strong, says, "Disappointment is unmet expectations, and the more significant the expectations, the more significant the disappointment." Listen. There's nothing more significant about a person than what they believe about God, which is why, today, many young adults, some of you included, are on the road to deconstruction. Your deconstruction from God is the result of your disappointment in God.

Now, here's the thing we need to know. When we wrestle with disappointment in God, there are a variety of different reasons that could be happening. It could be rooted in some sort of theological breakdown. You thought you believed one thing, but then you learned something different, and now your spirituality is spiraling. It could be you're facing a sociological dilemma. You know Christians, and you know what they claim, but then you know the way they live. All it feels like is hypocrisy, and all you can do is question the claims they say are, in fact, true.

Maybe it's not theological. Maybe it's not sociological. Maybe it's just circumstantial. You know God can show up. You know he will show up for others, but it just hasn't happened for you. It feels like the circumstances in your life have gone from good to bad to worse. Again and again, you have found yourself facing the unfairness of life, having your hopes dashed against the rocks of reality.

Whatever the reason, for many people, their experience of Christianity is more synonymous with disappointment than enjoyment of God. So, if you're here, and you're somewhere on the road to deconstruction (at the very least wrestling with your belief, and at the very most walking away from your belief), then you need to know this talk is for you, because we're going to see Jesus engage with someone who is facing their own personal disappointment in God.

We've been in a series called Deconstructed, because we know now, more than ever before, people are questioning their faith. We don't think that's inherently a bad thing. A.J. Swoboda says in his book After Doubt, "Deconstruction is a double-edged sword. It can edify our faith by helping us critically rethink wrong beliefs. But it can also go too far and bring our faith to nothing."

You see, there's a major difference between remodeling a room and tearing a house down. One is taking a space and making it more livable. The other is taking a space and rendering it completely inhospitable. My goal in this series, if you're here for the very first time, is I want to make the space where your soul resides as livable as possible. I want your faith to flourish. I want your inner person to thrive.

Yet, what we often have to do is to critically evaluate our belief and see what parts are weak. What in the foundation feels cracked? What do we need to reassess, and then what does it look like to not just deconstruct what feels weak but reconstruct something strong in its place? That's what we've been doing.

As we step farther inside the Christian story of reality, we often have to deal with the disappointments we feel about that reality, which is what Jesus is going to do with a guy by the name of John the Baptist tonight. We'll pick it up as they work through a series of steps on how to deal with disappointment. It says this in Matthew, chapter 11, starting in verse 1. We're just going to take it little by little.

"When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities. Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, 'Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?'"

Now listen. If you know anything about John B. (not John B. from Outer Banks but John B. from the West Bank)… John the Baptist is Jesus' guy. His entire story is one of, effectively, serving as Jesus' hype man. Do you know what that is? It's the guy who comes up before the main act, takes the stage, gets the crowd excited, and keeps injecting energy into the room to make sure the vibe is really great. That's who John is. He's the forerunner.

It says he's the one who came to prepare the way for God's Messiah, the Anointed One of Israel. He baptized Jesus in the Jordan. He stood there. He heard the voice from heaven say, "This is my Son with whom I'm well pleased." He also was self-identified as the voice in the wilderness, claiming, "Make straight the ways of the Lord."

John was a spiritual giant. Think about it in your own life. Who is the best believer, the fiercest of faith that you know? They don't stand a chance in comparison to John. John is a spiritual savant. Literally, at the very beginning of his life, while he was still in his mother's womb, it says he received the Holy Spirit. The best of us do not have that going for us. John was just built different.

Yet, despite the fact that his history is marked by moments of incredible faithfulness, in this story we find a moment marked by weak faithfulness. The reason for that is disappointment. You see, John is in prison for doing the right thing. He called out a wicked ruler by the name of Herod who had slept with his brother's wife, which is messed up. She also happened to be Herod's niece, which is really messed up.

So, John is doing the only right thing, yet they're not facing judgment for their wrong; he is facing judgment for his righteousness. That is disorienting. That's disillusioning. That's disappointing. Like, "God, this is not the way it's supposed to be. I'm doing the right thing. I'm saying the right thing. I'm taking the right stand. Why, God, is this happening? Jesus, you're the one who's coming to deliver us from evil, yet it feels like I'm being delivered straight into evil's hands as I await my own execution."

If we're honest, some of us have felt that way or feel that way here, tonight, with God. We have felt disappointed with him. We are asking the same question John himself is asking. "Hey, are you sure you're the right one? No, no, no. Hold on. Let me clarify. Are you actually the right one or do I need to be looking for someone else? I've had great expectations of who you are, yet my experience, as I've sat in prison for the last year to year and a half, doesn't necessarily jive with what I expected."

John is helping us realize the first point as we talk through disappointment tonight: disappointment can lead to disenchantment. You know this feeling. You go back and watch a movie you loved when you were a kid or you pull out all of the toys you used to play with or you go to the park, that place you loved from that time past.

Or like me, maybe you collected rocks when you were a kid. That's kind of a weird thing to admit. You go back and look at it, and you're like, "Man, this is actually a pretty shambly collection of rocks. I don't really know what I was doing. I just kind of picked these things up at some point at some time in the past." You look at the things you once took great delight in, yet you find them semi-disappointing because they're not what you thought. It disenchants the entire experience you remember.

That's what's happening right here. That happens to Christians. We experience something in the faith that doesn't match what we expect, and it not only makes us sad; it makes us skeptical. You wonder, "Jesus, are you sure you're actually who you say you are or are you someone different altogether? This is not playing out the way I expected."

Maybe it happened in your own life. You thought Jesus was supposed to be loving, but your experience with him has felt like he honestly couldn't care less about you. Maybe you thought Jesus was supposed to be in control, yet you're dealing with some stuff, and it feels like he's nowhere to be found. He has forgotten about you altogether.

Or maybe you thought Christianity was meant to be more fulfilling. You've heard of this joy that Christians walk in, yet you've never found that. You've heard of the peace that's supposed to surpass all understanding, yet you've never felt that. You've heard of this forgiveness that transcends all wrongs, yet you don't know that you've ever received that.

Maybe it's not something that's happening in your life. Maybe it's something that happened in someone else's life. Maybe it's a youth pastor who you grew up knowing or a senior pastor of a church you loved. Or maybe it wasn't that. Maybe it wasn't someone who worked for the church; maybe it was someone you went to church with, a parent or brother or sister or spiritual mentor in your story. They loved God so much. They loved God more than anybody you had ever known, and then they decided to walk away from it all.

They punted on their faith. They denied their devotion. They went AWOL from everything they once believed. As you have seen them leave it all behind, it has only left you wondering in the process, "If it wasn't real for them, is it even real at all?" That's what's happening to John in this moment. He has faithfully lived his life doing the right things, following the right theology, living in the right way. He has done everything right, but in this moment, he wonders if it's all wrong.

Maybe you're here and you can resonate. Your belief is burning out. Your spiritual performance is exhausting. Your convictions are cracking. Your faith is growing faint, and you get John's question, the brutal honesty and guttural nature of his question. "Are you the right guy? I'm not sure anymore." It's to that question that Jesus responds. He doesn't want disenchantment to be the end of John's nor your story, so he says this.

"And Jesus answered them, 'Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.'"

In response to John's question about Jesus being the Messiah, Jesus answers with a messianic response. We won't go through all of the text, but what you see is Jesus pulls on four different messianic prophecies from Isaiah 29, 35, 42, and 61, all of which John would have been extremely familiar with. Jesus wants to engage John's disappointment, and to keep it from becoming disenchantment, he wants to speak the most enchanting words.

It's amazing. It's actually pretty beautiful. He's looking at him and saying, "Hey, man. I know you think I'm not who I say I am, yet let me just tell you from the book you believe in that I am, in fact, who you want me to be. I have done what only the Messiah can do. The blind can see. The lame can walk. The sick are healed. The deaf can hear. The dead are raised. I am exactly who you want me to be."

Jesus does all of this for John, and he does it for you and me, because he wants you and me to know that Jesus turns rumors into reality. Have you ever felt that? Have you ever read the Bible and wondered, "Man, this feels like a joke" or "This doesn't feel like a joke; this feels true, but that's definitely not real in my world"? Jesus is like, "All of that biblical rumor? It's real. It's actually biblical reality, and I'm going to help you find it." That's what Jesus is saying to John. That's what he's saying to us.

The Christian life is not a sensible reality at all. It is a spectacular one. According to the Bible, Christians not only believe that God exists. We believe that whole seas split in half, that heaven breaks into the earth, that pillars of fire fall from the sky. Whoosh! Animals talk out loud. Angelic armies appear to protect. The existence of an invisible reality actually does exist. Dragons and giants and demigods are all real. Supernatural gifts are given, not just to the people in this book but to people like you in these seats.

We also believe that people speak in languages they never learned at some point in the past, that the sun itself stood still, that resurrection from the dead is possible, and there is life everlasting to anyone who believes in Jesus. That's what we believe. There's nothing sensible about that. It is sensational. Reality for the Christian is more magical than materialism. It's more sensational than your circumstance.

That's why Jesus says to John, "Hey, everything you've expected of me is true. The blind see. The lame walk. The deaf hear. The sick are healed. The dead rise. Everything you expected is, in fact, true. Do not let your circumstances dictate your judgment." That is a really fair warning for you and me, because our expectations of Jesus can be clouded by our experiences in life. Let me say it again. Your and my expectations can be clouded by our experiences in life.

Think about it this way. It's kind of as if the circumstances in your life are like the weather. Some days the sun is shining, the birds are singing, clouds are floating by (you can make shapes of them if you'd like), and Jesus is so very clear. He's easy to see. Even when you're not close to him, when he's across the way because you've not spent a lot of time together as of times recent, you can still see him.

There are other moments where the circumstances aren't so bright and shining, where storm clouds roll forward. The fog begins to rise, the thunder begins to rumble, and Jesus isn't so easy to pick out any longer. Porch, like the clouds, your circumstances are always moving. It may be dark today, it will be bright tomorrow, but that which does not change is Jesus. He stands with you. He stands for you. You need only keep your eyes fixed on him.

It is possible for two things to be true. Life can be hard, yet God can be good. Those two things can be true side by side at the same time. Hebrews 13:8 is a really simple but really profound verse. If you're in the business of trying to put things to memory, you should put this to memory. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."

What does that even mean? It means Jesus never, ever, ever changes. His feelings for you are the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. So it doesn't matter. You may feel shame for something that happened in the past, yet his forgiveness still reaches for you right now. You may be struggling against something here in the present, yet Jesus wants you to know, "My strength is sufficient for you today."

You may be feeling some deep sense of fear about something out in the future, yet Jesus wants you to know, "Hey, I stand beside you, and we will walk together toward it." He never changes, so our expectations of him should not change either, even when our circumstances say differently. "But, Kylen, doesn't he have the power to change my circumstances?" Yes, but that doesn't mean he will. He absolutely has the power to change your circumstances. He has the power to change John's circumstances, yet it does not mean he will.

It's really interesting. If you look at the passage we're studying, the words Jesus has John's disciples bring back to him are full of messianic prophecy, all of which Jesus is the fulfillment of, yet Jesus conveniently excludes one element of the prophecy. He excludes "liberty to the captives" and the "opening of the prison to those who are bound." He does not, in anything that is so far from ironic, tell John what John wants to hear.

He has the power to change John's circumstance, but he chooses not to. He can absolutely give to John what John wants, but he knows what John needs. He knows the best way to deal with disappointment isn't by changing your circumstances to accommodate your faith in God. The best way to deal with disappointment is to grow your faith to deal with any and every circumstance that would test you from your God.

He won't give you what you want; he will give you what you need. The beauty of it is it always leads you nearer to him. He wants to keep you close by, near to himself, not dependent on or satisfied or contented by anything else in this world. No, he wants you to cling to him, not circumstantial comfort. That's what he's doing for John. That's what he'll do for you. As he keeps going in verse 7, it says:

"As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: 'What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, "Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you." Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.'"

I love this. Jesus is not frustrated with John in this moment. He hears word of John's doubt, even John's disappointment, and he's not annoyed by it. He looks at the crowds that are listening in, and he's like, "Hey, this is my boy John. There's no one born among women who is greater." That's a high compliment. That's a big thing to say.

He also looks at the crowd, and he's like, "What did you go out to see? A reed shaken in the wind? John is not concerned with public opinion. He doesn't care what you think about him; he cares what God thinks about him. You went out to see if he wore soft clothing? No. He isn't allured by creature comforts. He doesn't need to sit in the halls of power, like kings' courts, because he sits with God. John is not concerned with you. He does not do what he does by way of the dictation of others. He's a prophet. He's my prophet, and he's the greatest among those born of women."

Jesus is not in the slightest disappointed with John, which should be wildly encouraging to us, because we may grow disappointed in God from time to time, yet God does not grow disappointed in us. God does not magnify your mistakes; he magnifies his grace. He doesn't fixate on your sins; he forgives them instead. He doesn't emphasize your shortcomings; he embraces you despite them. You may be disappointed with God at times, yet he is never disappointed with you.

Romans 8:1, a famous verse which you should preach to yourself daily, says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Not even a condemnation you might ascribe as true of yourself. There's none. You can self-condemn, but it is not what God condemns, because we know: "For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death."

Now, let me be abundantly clear. This does not mean we should overlook our sin. It doesn't mean we should pacify our depravity and leverage grace like a license or hall pass to do whatever we want. That's not what this is saying. What it is saying is that though we may feel despondent in life and disappointed in God, we do not run from him; we run toward him, because when there was good reason to be disappointed in you, he did not run from you; he ran to you. He came after you.

Through hell and high water, he made quick haste to get to those whom he loved, though there was nothing lovable about them. This is who our God is. He's not disappointed with you. He's wildly crazy about you. It's not because of something we've done nor earned nor merited, but simply because he chooses to lavish love. He welcomes your questions. He's not afraid of your doubts. He's not offended by your frustrations with him.

Eugene Peterson says, "The reason many of us do not ardently believe in the gospel is that we have never given it a rigorous testing, thrown our hard questions at it, faced it with our most prickly doubts." What's Eugene saying? True faith does not walk out on Jesus when he fails to meet our expectations; it leans into Jesus, that he might help us sort it out. The reason for that is because there is no road to maturity without disappointment.

There was no one like John B. Okay? He was the greatest born among women, yet we know John's maturity was not the result of an absence of disappointment but the presence of it. How do you grow in maturity? Not by age. Not by intelligence. You grow through experience…don't miss this…especially those experiences that do not meet your expectations, those experiences that lead to your disappointment.

That's why you can't just apply for whatever job you want in life. Some of you are in the job hunt right now. You need to know some positions require experience, because at some point, as you ascend into the heights of hierarchical power within corporate America, it doesn't matter how many degrees you have, it doesn't matter how many letters are after your name, or how many books or knowledge you know. What matters are the problems you've solved, the issues you've addressed, and the challenges you've faced. You need experience, which is not learned but lived.

If we want to grow, particularly into godliness, we need to live through some disappointment. We need to be willing to undergo some adversity. Now, let me just say, in a room this size, I'm not too naïve to know that the amount of disappointment felt is deep, and the source of that disappointment is broad, but I'm also not too naïve to know that God is working through those disappointments for your good.

Some of you are so disappointed that your walk with God doesn't feel sensational. It feels sensible. What you need to know is that God is at work. God is stirring up in you a holy discontent to break you out of your sensibilities. He wants you to wrestle and question and struggle and wonder for more of him. This has been my reality for the last two years.

I'll just level with you, Porch. I don't want to play the Christian game. I don't want to stand onstage and look the part. I don't want to say the right things yet not actually mean them. I don't want to read this book, know it's true, yet not actually believe it. I want this to be real. I want this book and the lessons I've learned and the lives I've seen to be real in my own experience.

I pray every single day, "God, would you be real to me? Would you be real to me? Would you be real to me, God? I don't just want to live in a world full of rumor; I want to live into the kind of reality you've come to bring. Help me, God. Unlock me from these sensible ways and unleash me into a spectacular life."

By his grace, he's doing it. If he'll do it for me, he'll do it for you. I promise you he will, not because you earned it. "Man, you deserve it. You know what? You look like you actually could use it." No. He will do it simply because he cares for you to know him as he is. Does anybody want that? It's available.

Some of you are disappointed that you know what's true, you just don't feel what's true, but God is at work. He's renewing your mind beyond sterile knowledge and leading you into a beautiful and bold belief. Here's the thing. Maybe, instead of just doing Christianity the right way, you should do it in the way that works for you. Maybe you should read your Bible at night. Maybe you shouldn't read through your journal; you should draw in your journal.

Maybe you shouldn't read books; you should listen to audiobooks. "But, man, that's not as spiritual as those guys who sit down and just read book after book after book." Who cares? The right way of doing things is the way that leads you to love Jesus, as revealed by his Word, more. So do that. My goal every day is to end the day and love Jesus more than I did at the beginning of it. I will relentlessly pursue that in my life, and I am giving you permission to do the same.

Some of you are disappointed that God hasn't answered that prayer you've been praying. Listen. He is at work. He is inviting you not just to trust in him but to process with him, to plead with him, to implore him, to not pull your punches, to maybe forget your manners when you pray to him, maybe to yell.

God had no issue with those who grumbled to him; he took issue with people who grumbled about him but wouldn't actually come and talk to him about it. He can handle your problems. He already knows. It's not secret. He's very clearly aware of what's going on in here. So why don't you tell him about it? He's already aware, and the beauty of it is he actually wants to listen to you.

Isaiah 62:6-7. It's amazing. It says, "On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth." What's that saying? God is saying, "Don't quit asking me. Don't quit talking to me. Don't quit processing with me. Don't quit praying to me. Don't quit pleading with me. Give me no rest. Be a constant, incessant annoyance in my life, because I love you and I want to hear from you."

Some of you are disappointed that God hasn't given you what you really and rightly have wanted…a husband, a wife, a job, some opportunity, rest, healing, friends. You have rightly wanted, and you have patiently waited, but God is at work. He's calling you to wait with him, not just on him. He would be glad to let you wait longer if it brings you closer, because he cares about you that much.

Some of you have waited for so long. To God, a year is but a day. Time is so very far outside of him. If it feels like it's taking long, it's because he wants longer with you. Maybe, instead of waiting on him, you just need to wait with him. God does not waste disappointment. He wants to use it.

Last story. In 1951, shortly after relocating his family to Switzerland, Francis Schaeffer, a theologian and apologist who defended the Christian faith following the postwar era, underwent the most influential faith crisis of his life. Today, we know his crisis was known as the hayloft experience, where for three months, he plunged into the darkness of his own personal deconstruction and paced the hayloft of his Swiss chalet, seeking answers about God.

You see, Francis had been one of the lead members in a brand-new evangelical movement, one that was zealous for theological precision and ecclesiological correctness, yet, as he spent time amongst this movement and they began to build momentum, he grew disappointed in the fact that they were zealous for all manner of other things except loving their neighbors.

So, it was out of this movement, frustrated by the fact that people were more focused on serving Jesus than actually enjoying Jesus, that he took an existential hiatus. He sought after God, and he set himself to answer this question, as quoted by him: "If so many zealous Christians were lacking the reality central to Christianity, is Christianity itself [even] real?"

As he recalls, he had to know that Christianity was real, that one could experience a true sense of God's presence, and that the Scriptures were, in fact, God's revelation to man, and he committed that if by the end of his questioning he couldn't emerge from his hayloft with a deep sense of the reality of it all, then he would altogether abandon the faith forever.

By the end of those three months, pacing back and forth in his Swiss chalet, Francis emerged, and what was once an existential crisis was replaced by existential bliss as he learned, "My God is real, his Word is true, and he does save. I will go to him, I will be with him, and I will be his forever."

Francis made a commitment in conviction, believing all of these things are actual reality, stepping farther into the experience that God was inviting. Because he did, his life changed, his family's life changed, and the entire world changed to the point that we're standing in a room with several thousand young adults talking about it right now.

Friend, are you disappointed with God? Perhaps your experience does not meet your expectation because Jesus is calling you to a new experience that you know not even to expect. That's what the gospel promises. The gospel is a message of God liberating us out of the disappointment of our status, lost in sin, estranged from God, enemies to one another, and hating our brother, yet Jesus came to solve the disappointment in our lives.

All the fulfillment we sought yet could never find he came to give. All the purpose we longed for yet could never find he came to offer. All the hope we wanted yet could never attain he came to bestow. Jesus came to enchant the disenchanted. Son of God enthroned in glory becomes Son of Man down here with the lowly, because he wanted to take you, a disenchanted, poor soul, and enchant you into the experience of a son and daughter of God.

Jesus came to turn rumor into reality. Rumor has it that we had no hope, yet Jesus knew he could change that story by living the life we could not and dying the death we deserve, being buried in our place, yet rising forth from the grave to replace the rumor of your eternal condemnation with one of everlasting life. Jesus came to mature the immature, not apart from our disappointment but by bearing our disappointment, the disappointment of our sin, in himself.

There is an experience of God that will never disappoint, because that experience of God has a name, and his name is Jesus Christ. He has come to seek the lost. He has come to save the dead, liberate the captive, and give you the enjoyment you so very much long for in this life. Do you believe it's true? Because it, in fact, is. Let me pray you would.

God, we love you. O God, I pray… You and I have talked about this so much, that, God, I want The Porch to be a place of experiential spirituality where everything we read is true, we would realize as true in our own lives; that, God, we would know your presence isn't just something we study about. It isn't just something we know about. Your presence is here, and we get to be loved by you.

O God, I pray that you would pierce whatever barriers exist within this room and over our hearts and you would liberate us from sterile Christianity, boring spirituality, and you would lead us into an experience, not an emotional experience but, God, a real and genuine experience of you that leads us to claim, "This must be true. There's no other explanation than the fact that God is who he says he is, that Jesus Christ has come to save and he has, in fact, saved me."

I pray, God, that even in this next moment we would stand to our feet, we would not rush from this room, and we would sing to you, not at you but to you; we would pray to you, not at you but to you; and, God, we would hear from you, because one word from you can change a person forever. We love you. It is in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Porch, let's stand to our feet. Everything we just talked about we are about to do. We have worshiped, we have taught, and now we're going to experience the goodness of God. We're going to declare to him that he and he alone is worthy of our pursuit. So let's sing to him now. If you need to pray with people, we have folks down to stage left and stage right. They'd love to engage with you. The time is yours. The King is here. Let's sing to him together.