WIsdom is Justified by her Children

Luke 7:18-35
As Jesus begins to perform miracles and wonders the intrigue about him also begins to grow.  So much so that John the Baptist sends disciples to ask him if he is the Messiah (vs. 20).  Jesus does not begin to reason with them or appeal to their logic, but instead appeals to the illogical, the incredible, telling them to look at the miracles and decide whether or not he is from God or man (vs. 22, 23).  After they leave he turns the people and essentially asks them the same question that John's disciples were asking him.  Why had they gone out to see John in the wilderness?  To see something expected and natural (vs. 24).  To see something impressive or appealing according to earthly standards and curiosity (vs. 25)?  Or had they gone out to see the incredible, the unexpected, the unexplainable (vs. 26)?  The same appeal that John had with the people (the extraordinary) Jesus had also.  John proved his godliness through the incredible works, and so did Jesus, and so should we (II Corinthians 4:6, 7).  The people praised this, but the religious rejected this notion (vs. 29, 30).  The religious of that day appealed more to the logical (vs. 31, 32), trying to explain the things of God since they embraced law and would do anything to convert people (Matthew 23:15).  They rejected John and Jesus despite the incredible miracles, attributing them to the works of evil (vs. 33, 34) because of the threat it posed them and their ways.  They had forsaken the miracles of God and his mighty works in favor of appealing to man through the rational, through what makes sense, appealing to logic.  If they did A, they expected B (vs. 32), and if anything out of the ordinary occurred then it must be of the enemy, not God, because they believed that God works in ways that we understand and can explain and that make sense, appealing to us on our level, i.e. law.  But it is the very absence of what makes sense that displays God's glory (II Corinthians 4:6,7).  God does not appeal to our logic and our reasoning (Isaiah 55:8, 9).  And this performing of the extraordinary, the unexplainable is to be typical not just of John or Jesus or the biblical apostles, but all his followers (John 14:11-12).  It is when our lives makes sense and appeal to reason and logic that God loses his glory in us.  He has designed it so that our weakness shows forth an otherworldly power, evidencing that something higher and mightier is at work that is not of us.  The people understood this and embraced it, running to John and Jesus, while the religious rejected anything extraordinary as evil.  So, let us ask ourselves, do our lives make sense?  Have we embraced Jesus' way (expecting the extraordinary, the heavenly, the supernatural) or the Pharisees' way (the ordinary, the logical that makes sense)?  Have we set aside God's miracles in favor of earthly standards and appeals?  How do we look different from adherents to other worldly false religions?  Do we display the God we serve as not much different than we are, no different than the gods of other religions of the world?  Does our life show forth that we serve a living, all-knowing, all-powerful God who performs the unthinkable?  Or does our life show forth a God who does what is expected and ordinary, trying to persuade and convince the masses in?  Do we serve a heavenly God or an earthly God?  Do we serve the God of the Pharisees or the Father of Jesus?  Because Jesus says that if we serve the true God, the living God then our lives will make no sense and consist of the incredible, as a testimony of his power and authority.  Every biblical hero or figure that served God did incredible things, none lived the life of ordinary (Hebrews 11).  Why would we think any different today?  Have we robbed God of his glory in favor of what we think appeals more to us (Mark 7:9)?  Because it is in the unexplainable and incredible that God is glorified and worshiped, not in the typical and expected.