I'm one of those increasingly common people in their mid-twenties who is single, still living at home, and still trying to finish school. I don't live up to society's expectations, or at least not American society's expectations. In Taiwan it is normal for a single person to live at home until they get married. I haven't lived up to my expectations for myself either. This is definitely not what my high school self saw my life looking like.
However, there are good things my high school self didn't foresee either. She didn't see mission trips to Taiwan, Niger, and France. She didn't foresee helping plant a church and helping build that church's youth ministry, kids ministry, and drama team or serving a two year term on the leadership council or leading a mission trip to France through that church. She never envisioned getting to participate in making a decision to purchase property for the church. She never envisioned getting to love on foster kids for a week every summer or helping kids from abusive situations at the Justice Center. She never thought she could break free form her insecurity and other issues. She never envisioned helping Burmese refugees. She never imagined the ways she would come to trust God and take risks for Him. Yet all things and more have happened.
By society's standards, it doesn't appear that I am super successful. But I think God is proud of me. I think He is there saying,"Well done, good and faithful servant; keep going!!!" After all, his own Son failed to meet a lot of expectations, as well.
Many of the Jews of Jesus' time expected the Messiah to be a military leader who would free them from Roman rule. Instead He came to free them from sin. He didn't fight Roman rule and even told them to give to Caesar what was Caesar's.
He didn't meet His family's expectations for Him either. There were times they were embarrassed by His behavior and thought He was crazy.
The religious leaders expected someone who followed their strict rules. Jesus broke some of the rules when keeping the rule would have made the rule lose it's purpose.
Peter expected Jesus not to die. He got majorly rebuked for it.
The Jews expected a great king. They got a man who died a humiliating criminal's death on a cross after being crowned with thorns. "King of the Jews" was meant to be an insult. Those that had followed Him with high hopes for the future were left confused and disappointed.
They expected Him to stay dead, but on the third day He rose from the grave!
Peter was probably expected to spend his life as a fisher of fish and not a fisher of men. Paul could have been a high up Jewish religious leader, but instead he gave his life to preaching the Gospel, even when that meant being followed and nearly stoned to death by mobs of angry Jews and imprisoned. The name "Christian" began as an insult. Yet these are the people who turned the world upside down because they put Christ above everything else.
Here's the thing: some of the things that the world considers success are good things. But Christ is better, and sometimes following Him requires us to sacrifice some of those things. Maybe temporarily, maybe permanently. Many of us are familiar with the story of Jesus and the rish man in Mark 10:17-31:
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17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’[a]”
20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
24 The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is[b] to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
26 The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”
27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
28 Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!”
29 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
And about the costs Jesus said are associated with following Him in Matthew 8:18-22:
"18 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. 19 Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
20 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
21 Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
22 But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”"
When Jesus began His time of ministry, He gave up His home and job. He dedicated His time to minsistry and had followers that offered material support. Not all of us will be called to this, but some of us will. We will all be called to sacrifice something to follow Jesus. Let's be willing to make those sacrifices. Let's also support our brothers and sisters that are making those sacrifices and celebrate with them as they hit God's milestones, even if they don't always hit society's.
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