Greatest Expectations

Bulletins

Brian Nielsen
02/18/24 - General

To be honest, I was never a literature scholar so I remember little about the Charles Dickens novel "Great Expectations" that was a junior high English assignment decades ago. But the title of the book sounds intimidating, doesn't it?

But those expectations had to pale in comparison with those told by an angel to Mary in Luke 1:31-32 -- "And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David."

Matthew 1:21, where an angel spoke to Joseph, may make those expectations sound even greater -- "And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins."

Talk about the weight of the world! As a young friend wisely said, can you imagine the pressure Jesus felt knowing what He had to do, that He was going to die for us, and that He had to be perfect to do so. No, I can't fathom how Jesus knew He had to live up to the prophesy in Isaiah 53 or what is summarized in 1 Peter 2:22 -- "Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth."

Jesus couldn't just succumb to "one of those days" and sin. He couldn't just get up on the wrong side of the bed. As Matthew 8:20 says Jesus didn't even have a bed: "And Jesus said to him, 'Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.' "

Jesus' perfection, necessary for us, did not come easily. In Hebrews 2:10 we read, "For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." In chapter 5, verses 8 and 9 in Hebrews, we are told, "though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him."

That salvation is conditional in that we must obey His gospel. This includes confessing Jesus is the Son of God (Romans 10:9-10), repenting (Acts 2:38, Luke 13:3-5), being baptized (Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38 and 22:16, 1 Peter 3:21), and then living faithfully (Matthew 10:22, Revelation 2:10).

How can we not obey? This is the doable part of the deal for us after Jesus' perfect sacrifice through much suffering. Or as the inspired writer says in Hebrews 2:3, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him."

(Scripture quotes are from the NKJV)