The Empty Chair

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Jesus got in trouble for the thing I am going to talk about this morning. They tried to kill Him for this. 

I am going to leave a little mystery hanging there. I am going to talk about expectation.
You’ve probably got a five minute drive or a fifteen minute drive here.
What is it you expect to get from God this morning? 

Think about that… Ask yourself the question, what is it that I expected this morning?

Some of you, came expecting donuts.
Can we be honest?
 How many people came expecting donuts this morning? 
And your expectations were met.
How many people were expecting a warm cup of coffee and warm fellowship?
Who forgot it was donut morning like me this morning?
I wasn’t expecting donuts.
What were you guys expecting if you didn’t come for donuts and warm fellowship?

Did you coming for the same old, same old?
Did you come to see friends, family?
Did you come to hear a couple familiar songs, to hear Ben play skillfully?

Because What we expect we get.

“You have not because you ask not,” and when you ask you don’t receive because you ask out of a wrong motive. I am going to say that again.
We have not because we ask not. 

See, God wants to meet you in this place, so let’s ask!

Remember the prayer of Solomon when he dedicates the temple. David had gathered materials for years but Solomon built the Temple. Solomon stands there a mere puny man cut out of the same fabric that we are, and he asks for God’s presence to come down.

The presence of God comes down and smoke fills the temple. The priests cannot stand and minister anymore. They have to fall on their faces or just get out of the building, because the presence of God is so thick. 

Well…that could never happen here!

Isn’t that what we think? That could never happen here…we don’t have Solomon… but we have the same God that Solomon prayed to and he filled the temple with smoke at one man’s asking.

Back in that time in every synagogue, it took ten men to form a synagogue, and every Synagogue had an empty chair. I thought about doing this last week but there were three rows of empty chairs, there is just not that many Saviors, there is only one. They had an empty chair right in the front row. Can anyone guess why that empty chair was there? Yeah! They were expecting a Messiah, and every week, every Saturday as they came, that chair stayed empty.
That chair stayed empty for a thousand years!
That chair stayed empty for two thousand years.
Then one day a man of about thirty years stood up and read out of the book of Isaiah, 

“the Lord has anointed me to preach the gospel, to the poor, to set at liberty those who are held captive, to open the eyes of the blind, to give the deaf their hearing, to heal the broken hearted and restore those that have been trodden down and lift them up” and that 30 year old carpenter sat down in that chair.

Because He sat down in that chair, they wanted to push him off a cliff and stone him. (more later about that)

But my question this morning is, “have we, in our hearts, have we left an empty chair?

Or are we coming, not expecting Jesus to really walk in our midst.
Did we come to church to talk about Him or did we come to meet Him?

That is the question we need to ask ourselves this morning.