VOICES OF PINELAKE | JUNE 29, 2025

God and Unmet Expectations | Daniel Judge

Sermon Highlights

Key Passage: Matthew 11:1-6

Most of us carry expectations about how God should work. We trust Him until the healing doesn’t come, the prayer goes unanswered, or life takes a turn we didn’t see coming. That’s where following Jesus gets hard. Even those closest to Jesus wrestled with unmet expectations.

John was more than a bold preacher in the wilderness. He was Jesus’ cousin, the one chosen to prepare the way for the Messiah. He baptized Jesus, saw the Spirit descend, and devoted his life to God’s call. But sitting in a prison cell, John asked, “Are You the One?”

Three things to remember when God doesn’t live up to your expectations:

There is freedom to have questions.

John knew Jesus and had seen Him work, but he still had questions. In Psalm 77, the writer asks hard questions about God’s love and faithfulness but then chooses to remember what God has done in the past. Faith isn’t a lack of questions; it is clinging to the character of God in the midst of them.

There will always be something that doesn’t make sense.

Jesus was healing people and performing miracles, but John remained in prison and was eventually killed (Matthew 14:10). We won’t always understand why God allows some things and not others. Genuine love for God is revealed in our willingness to obey Him even when we don’t understand.

With God, there is always more.

Jesus pointed to what was happening: the blind saw, the lame walked, and the poor heard good news, even as John remained imprisoned. God’s purpose is bigger than comfort or quick fixes. He’s writing a greater story, one that leads to eternal life with Him.

John the Baptist didn’t see Jesus live up to his expectations in that prison cell. But the last time he closed his eyes, he opened them to see God face-to-face, and in that moment, everything made sense.

INTRO

Icebreaker

What’s something you thought would be amazing but turned out to be totally overrated?

Transition to Discussion Often, our expectations don’t line up with reality, and that’s not just true with food or vacations. Sometimes it happens with God. Let’s examine John the Baptist’s story and see how he navigated the tension between his understanding of God and his own experiences

GROUP DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Read Matthew 3:1-17 and 11:1-6

What stands out to you about John’s question in Matthew 11:3? Why do you think he asked it, even after everything he had seen and done?

Have you ever had a moment when you expected God to move a certain way, and He didn’t? How did that affect your faith?

What do you think makes it hard to bring honest questions to God? How have you experienced that personally?

Jesus didn’t directly answer John’s question. Instead, He pointed to what was happening. What does that teach us about how God responds to our doubts?

John had been faithful but still ended up in prison and eventually died. How do you wrestle with the idea that obedience doesn’t always lead to comfort or rescue?

What does it look like to obey God when you don’t understand what He’s doing? How can we grow in that kind of trust?

Why do you think God allows faithful people, like John, to go through hard and confusing circumstances? What does that reveal about who God is?

NEXT STEP

When God doesn’t meet your expectations, it can shake your confidence and raise real questions. Instead of pulling away, bring those questions to Him. This week, take time to reflect: Where in your life are you struggling to understand what God is doing? Write it down. Talk to Him about it. Then go back and remember where you’ve seen His faithfulness before. Faith grows not by avoiding the questions but by choosing to trust God’s character in the middle of them.

PRAYER

Let’s do something a little different for prayer time today. We will pray through Scripture together. As I read Psalm 77, listen with your heart. Let the words give language to your questions, your doubts, and your reminders of who God is. You don’t have to say anything out loud. Just reflect, listen, and let it lead you into a conversation with God.

Read Psalm 77:1–20 slowly and thoughtfully. Pause briefly between major sections or after moments that feel weighty.