Jesus on the Road – Pastor Preston Whiteman – April 19, 2026

Pastor Preston Whiteman message for Sunday April 19, 2026. 

Welcome to the Northwest Church of the Nazarene podcast, where we share the heart of our church’s mission: discovering and engaging in a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ through inspired worship and intentional ministry. Each episode brings you sermons, insights, and messages that challenge and encourage spiritual growth. Whether you are part of our diverse, multicultural church family, or listening in for the first time, you’ll find a community that loves Jesus and welcomes everyone with open arms. Join us online at nwnaz.org or in person in Columbus Ohio, as we journey together toward a deeper, more meaningful relationship with Jesus and each other. 

Transcript

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Every Sunday at Northwest Church of the Nazarene in Columbus, Ohio, our congregation is challenged to grow spiritually. This podcast shares the sermons, insights, and messages that encourage our congregation to mature spiritually.

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One thing that I'd like to just interject and say real quick is uh I'm always thankful that the band's up here playing, and I'm always thankful and for the time that we have with worship. So I think we need to always reflect on that sometimes whenever the band's up here, because I sometimes think we take it for granted. That's just something that came to my mind real quick. But uh who, when they go to a restaurant, expects to get what they ordered when they order it? As any okay, so whenever you get something that's wrong, so you didn't order it, so you order, like, say a salad and you get a soup, what do you do? You send it back, right? Usually you say, this is wrong, this isn't right. Who sends it back? Who's too afraid to send it back? Oh, it's a large majority. So people rather just eat what they got than correct it. That's fair. I I can be afraid to do it sometimes. I just power through it sometimes. I don't I hate to say power through it. I I'll enjoy the food anyways, but it's not what I ordered. So I usually am like, hey, this I ordered the soup, or I ordered the salad rather than the soup. Uh but you know, when we go into a restaurant, there's a certain expectation that we expect to be met. You know, when we order the soup, we expect to get the soup. And when we order the salad, we expect to get the salad. There's certain expectations in place. But then there's one restaurant that I really enjoy in Japan. Uh I've never been to it, so I can't tell you how great the food is, but I enjoy the philosophy behind the design. And so at this restaurant, you are not allowed to ask for your food to be sent back to be changed. It's not even because of the culture, it's specifically this one restaurant and it's design philosophy. And the thing is, the waiters and waitresses, they're most likely going to mess up your food and get the order wrong. And that's not because it's one of those gag restaurants where they're jerks to you or whatever. It's because this restaurant, the waiters and waitresses, aren't young people who aren't paying attention. It's people who actually have early stages of the dementia in Alzheimer's. And that might sound weird, but the thing is, this group in Japan said these people typically, once they've reached this age, they're typically put in like homes or other places and are forgotten. So why don't we make them the stars of the process? And so this allows people with Alzheimer's and dementia to get up there, get serving, get you know, socialization time. But it's also a great experience for the people who are being served, and it still shows that you someone you never expect to be your waiter or waitress, even if they get it wrong, it's still a good experience. Even if your expectations were not met in the way you expected, something different happened and it could have been greater. And so sometimes in life, expectations we have, the expectations that we have in general, there's a couple things that can happen. Usually expectations can be met. Our expectations could be failed, as some might say, our expectations could be exceeded, or our expectations could be different from the expectations that we should have for reality. And again, life is full of expectations. When I drive on the road, we expect other people to follow the rules of the road, right? Uh for the most part. I will say I don't speed a lot, but sometimes I'll go like a couple miles over, and then I will say it's also Columbus, and I think everybody has crazy drivers everywhere, but I think Columbus is a special kind of crazy driver sometimes. Uh but you expect when you're in the right lane that the people in the left lane are gonna stay in the left lane and not come into your lane. There's a lot of expectations that you're not gonna play bumper cars with your cars. There's a lot of expectations that you're gonna be safe, and a lot of expectations that if you're stopping, the person behind you is gonna stop. But sometimes life has expectations that fail. Sometimes we don't have the same expectations as others. Sometimes we don't understand the reality of the situation. And so there's a story in the scriptures about the disciples, and they didn't have quite the same expectations that they would for the reality of the situation. Their expectations, I don't want to say, were failed from Jesus, because when Jesus died on the cross, a lot of them left Jesus, left Jesus aside, and went back to what they did beforehand. They went back to fishing and other jobs that they had before they encountered Jesus. Their expectations for Jesus were not aligned with the reality of what Jesus is. And I don't I don't want to say Jesus failed their expectations because Jesus doesn't fail, but humanly he failed their expectations. But sometimes the human expectation isn't a good expectation in general. And I know I'm saying expectation like almost every single other sentence, but that's what this entire sermon is about is what do we expect from God? What expectations do we put on the enemy, and what expectations do we put for God in our lives? Because I think it's important to make sure that our expectations are aligned with God. Because whenever we are living in a different reality that's not aligned with God, we might see things in a different frame from God's perspective, and that might not be the correct reality that we should be living in. It might not be the best reality we can live in. The expectations are misaligned, so we're misaligned. So the scripture we're reading out of today is Luke 24, 13 through 35. Now, the same day, two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them. But they were kept from recognizing him. He asked them, What are you discussing together as you walk along? They stood still, their faces downcast. What things? he asked, about Jesus of Nazareth, Nazareth, they replied. He was a prophet, powerful in the word, indeed before God, and all the people. The chief priest and over and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him. But we hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning, but they didn't find his body. They came and told us they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the woman had said, but they did not see Jesus. He said to them, How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter? Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter into his glory? In the beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scripture concerning himself. As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, stay with us, for it is nearly evening. The day is almost over. So he went with them to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took the bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, Were not our hearts burning with us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scripture to us? They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven and those with them assembled together and saying, It is true the Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon. Then two told what they had what happened to them on the way, and how Jesus had recognized, how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread. So I like to think of this scripture a little bit like the TV show Undercover Boss, if you've ever seen the show. A lot of times in the show, it's like a CEO or upper management of a business puts on a disguise and goes to like a local chain that isn't doing well. And they try to see what's not going well and what's going wrong with it and how it could be fixed and see how they could help it. And I always find it funny with undercover boss that these CEOs put on these big disguises with like glasses, mustache, wig, makeup. And then at the end of the episode, when they reveal themselves, the worker didn't even know who the CEO was in the first place. So the makeup didn't really do anything for them in the first place. They just got dressed up to get dressed up. But it makes me think of that a lot, where it's the the undercover boss likes to observe the situation, see what's going wrong, and fix it. Whether it's a worker that needs to be fired because they're not doing well, and then sometimes they'll see a worker that is doing well, but the equipment's failing them. So they'll fix the equipment, and oftentimes they'll bless the worker who's working well and who has been faithful to this company. And so I like to think of Jesus sort of like the undercover boss in the situation because he's right it up with these two disciples, uh, not part of the eleven, but these two disciples who are walking on the road. And I like to imagine that they're just kicking the dust as they walk along because they're just so disappointed and they're upset, and they they just feel defeated. And I I talked about this in a sermon a couple weeks ago, in which the expectations that these disciples, the Israelites had for Jesus was that Jesus would die and resurrect. Or not die, would not die and resurrect, sorry, that Jesus would be this king on earth that would redeem Israel, as they even say as they're walking along the road. They believed Jesus was going to be this king that brought Israel to power and helped the people out of the depression and oppression that they had been underneath for this long time. This rough time that they've been going through where they constantly were the lowest rung in the ladder, pretty much, other than slaves. And so the expectation that they had was not aligned with God's will. Because, of course, we know that God had a different story in mind. God wasn't going to be this earthly king. And the redemption that they wanted was an earthly redemption for the Israelites. Something that wouldn't last once they died. See, Jesus didn't want the redemption, didn't want them to just have earthly treasures. He didn't want them just to have this earthly redemption that just stopped once they died. He wanted to live forever with us. He wanted to have a relationship with us. God wanted this with us. And so the expectation from Jesus was never to have this earthly kingdom. It was to have a heavenly kingdom in which he built it with us. And so, again, I don't want to ever say Jesus failed, because he didn't. He won. He beat death. And he beat it for us. But the thing is the disciples didn't see it as a win at the beginning. They saw it as a failure. They were downtrodden. They were sad. They were upset. They left everything that they had just known for the past three years. Imagine spending three years, day in and day out, with somebody. Seeing miracles happen. Specifically, Jesus doing those miracles. Raising people from the dead, making water into wine, curing people, healing people. And then once he dies on the cross, they just give up on the whole thing. That's when you realize their expectation was not a heavenly expectation. It was not aligned with God's will. But they got all redeemed in the end, and that'll be brought up later. So my question is what do you guys expect the enemy to do? Because we should all have, again, expectations in our lives, and we have expectations that we live on, and expectations for things that happen. I like to ask, what do you guys expect the enemy to do? And I like to say that because of this one story that I have. So one of my good friends, his father is a district superintendent, and I have another district superintendent on Northwest Ohio that I talked about this one story. And so they, these two district, well, a bunch of the district superintendents on the MVNU field went over to Africa. They went to a church, and in the middle of this church service, what was happening is somebody came in running, speaking in a deep voice, much deeper than natural. They were speaking blasphemy. They were saying a bunch of these horrible, horrible things. And then they prayed over them. They cast the spirit out. And the guy left the church with his needs met. And he was left on. And so that's strange to us. You know, that's not what we expect in this church, right? You don't expect somebody to come sprinting through those doors making a whole ruckus. We kind of just expect it to be calm and quiet and composed in here. And I I highly doubt that anybody would expect, again, a ruckus or people coming in with deeper than natural voices, saying blasphemy, saying crazy things. It's rare that this would happen, right? This wasn't as a rare occurrence to them. And it's not that this area was unnaturally cursed or anything like that. Uh the DS, one of them, the superintendent, walked up to the pastor of the church afterwards and said, What was that? You know? What was going on? And of course they explained, Oh, this guy was probably possessed because he was eating food from a dedicated idol in front of other people. And so there's a possibility of that. Uh or there's some other reason why the spirit was in him that was evil. And then they asked this next question that hurts my heart a lot to hear the answer to, but it's honestly probably the truth. They asked, why does this why doesn't this happen in America? The pastor answered, because in most of American churches, the devil's already inside the church. See, if we don't expect the enemy to be pursuing us because we know Jesus, then we're not expecting the best out of the enemy. The enemy is going to try its best to lure us away from Jesus. It's best to take us away from Jesus, that's best to tear us down. And it's going to try to infiltrate in any way it can. If it's in the church, it'll try to infiltrate in the church. If it's outside the church, it'll try to infiltrate into the church, into your mind, and try to make you not believe in Jesus. But we should be expecting that. When we set the right expectations for the enemy that it's going to try its hardest, then we can be prepared. Just like if you're driving, you expect that person to stop in front of you. What are you gonna do? You're gonna stop, right? So Jesus, we should expect Jesus will save us, right? But this is something in which we have to have that relationship with Jesus. In order to do that, we must constantly be on guard. We must constantly listen to Jesus, hear Jesus, and lean into Jesus, because he's the sword and the shield. He's gonna protect us, but if we don't expect that the enemy's gonna attack, if we lay down our shield, if we lay down our sword, we're open for an attack. If we don't expect the enemy to try to creep in, then we're open for it. And then if we also don't expect the enemy when we have it to attack, sometimes it attacks in different ways other than an emotional attack. It attacks different ways, and instead of a physical attack, it might the enemy might try to make us busy. Because busyness takes us away from God. When the enemy makes us busy, when the enemy takes us away from God with our time, when he has us dedicate our time to maybe scrolling on social media, which I've been guilty of multiple times, and I've actually gotten rid of social media in the past few days. I took it off my phone and I've noticed I've had much more time for Jesus. Uh but when when the enemy has made things in which we make them idols but don't like to admit that they are idols, that we spend time to, that we dedicate time to, that we feed time into, and it takes it away from Jesus, then we aren't expecting the enemy to do his best. Now we we should be expecting Jesus to absolutely destroy the enemy. But again, we must hold strong to Jesus. We must expect that Jesus will save us and take care of us, but the only way to do that is to listen to Jesus. So when you have a lack of expectations, you're not ready, right? Again, it's going back to that road analogy. When you are lacking the expectation that someone's going to that, well, if you're gonna stay in your lane, if you're lacking the expectation that everybody's gonna follow the road rules, then you're just gonna crash into each other. You need to be ready. Now, what do you guys expect for God in your life? What do you guys expect for God to do to you, do for you? Again, we just talked about how God will save us, protect us, and keep us safe from the enemy, from the enemy's attacks, and the enemy coming after us if we lean into him. But what do you expect for God to do in your life? Do you guys ever wonder if God will do anything with you? Do you guys ever wonder if God really cares about you? Do you ever wonder if God really is speaking to you? Sometimes when we sit in this doubt, sit in this misunderstanding, sit in this misalignment from God's will, it's like we're giving it to the anime more. More and more we doubt and we don't understand. But if we expect God to move, if we put that faith in God, God will move. We just have to look for it. See, expectation can be a lot like faith and aligned in that way, in which faith itself is putting, I don't want to say stock in the God, but putting that trust into God that He will move. That's an expectation. I expect God will move. That statement is putting faith in the God that he will do something. God will do things even when we are doubtful. It even says in the Bible that a muster seed of faith. Can move a mountain. Even if we have the smallest expectation for God, God will take that and multiply it and exceed our expectation that we have. See, God exceeded the expectations of the disciples. They didn't expect anything really past the death of Christ. They didn't expect anything to happen after that. But when Jesus resurrected, they expected so much more. They expected grace, they expected forgiveness, they expected love, they expected a fulfillment of the spiritual needs, fulfillment of the mental needs that we have, fulfillment of everything. And you can see that just by the fact that they wrote their testimony down in the Bible. Imagine being the one, well, one of the disciples who walked away from Jesus after dying. Imagine admitting, hey, I was that guy who walked away from Jesus when he died. And you're written down in the Bible as an example of someone who walked away from Jesus. You're an example for anybody in the faith to look to for someone who walked away from Jesus for the rest of time. But the expectation from them was that Jesus will forgive them and use them and use their history, use their experience to help guide people, to help people come to Jesus. Even though they screwed up in the moment, their expectation for God's love and forgiveness and grace exceeded far beyond anything they could understand, in which they were willing to admit that they messed up and willing to write it down so other people know that it's okay to mess up, it is okay to screw up, and it is okay to not do your best because God will use that mustard seed that you had in him to multiply it, to make it bigger, to move mountains, and make sure that what you give to him, he will give so much more back. See, God expects us to mess up. His understanding is not misaligned. He expects us to not always do the best, but he is always going to do the best for us and take care of us. I don't think there's any greater story than talking about David and Goliath with expectations. Because when you look at David, this little shepherd boy, versus this mountain of a man, a nine-foot-tall man, a seasoned veteran warrior, and this probably unnaturally strong person. When you pin that up in a matchup, uh if you're betting and didn't know this, it was a David and Goliath story. Uh and if you had the bet, you'd probably be betting on Goliath. The expectation was Goliath was going to win, obviously. And we all know this story. But the thing is, David expected God to move. He expected God to take care of him. His expectation was not misaligned. He put his trust in God because he expected him to keep him safe, to keep him protected, to keep him in his eyes. And so the Lord knew he was expecting, David was expecting the Lord to move. And the Lord did move. He hit Goliath directly in the head, killing him. And David won that battle for the Israelites. Nobody expected it. The expect expectations were misaligned because one, they didn't have the expectation, the faith in David to win this battle in the first place. The only person who probably had that expectation was David in the first place. And they didn't have the expectation that God would move. They felt pretty defeated in that moment. I wouldn't say it's exactly like how the disciples felt, but they probably felt like this is the end. You know? This massive army, this strong man, we could never defeat them. We're gonna lose. The expectation was not high, it was low. But God again exceeded the expectation that they had set. They didn't, God didn't fail in any factor. God didn't fall short in any factor. God redeemed them. And so here's one of my favorite stories about expecting from God. And people may have already heard this before. It's a common story, but there's a guy who's sitting on a roof in a flood, and he's supposed to be escaping. And so there's this boat that comes up with people trying to get people evacuated. Comes up, rides up to this guy, and they go, get in the boat quick. We need to get you out of here. And he goes, No, God's got it. And so this boat drives off, and they're like, Okay, well, that guy's gonna die. And this helicopter comes by, and then they drop down a rope, and the water's rising even more, and he has less roof, and they're like, get in the helicopter, get in the helicopter right now, you need to leave. And the guy goes, No, God's got me. And so there's one last boat that comes through, and they're like, You literally are swimming in the water. Hop in the boat, we'll take you to safety. And he goes, No, God's got me. And then when he finally drowns and dies, and he meets God, he goes, God, why didn't you save me? And he goes, I sent two boats in a helicopter for you. His expectation was not aligned with what God was going to do, because he expected God to lift him out of the water, but sometimes God moves in ways that are less obvious. So we have to be expecting God to move, but that also means we have to be looking out for God to move. Because when we don't look for God to move, when we don't look at the situation, and I can't blame the disciples for not seeing Jesus because I'm assuming that Jesus kind of, I don't want to say veiled himself in a different look, but I think he just made it so they couldn't recognize him. And so we have to be expecting God to move in any shape or form. We have to be looking for that because when we don't look for God to move, when we don't recognize God moving, when we don't recognize God just in general, then he's I don't think he's gonna move often when we don't look for it. I mean he moves all the time, but it's gonna be much more recognizable when you look for it. And God wants us to look for it. He wants to have that relationship, that back and forth, uh, because the faith is the first part, listening is the second part. When you put faith in God and you listen, there's going to be a reciprocal relationship that goes, and your faith's going to improve, and you're going to hear God and you're going to trust in more in God, and you're going to be able to put that expectation on God that He will move because you have that foundation of understanding, yes, He did move. And so God really chose humanity, this broken part of the world, to be his people. He crafted us in his image. And again, when I say he expected us to fail, he knew we were going to fail. He gave us free will in the Garden of Eden. And we were in the Garden of Eden with the tree of life and tree of knowledge of good and evil. And sometimes when you have somebody, they just need to learn from their own experience because God expects us to fail, right? Sometimes we have to learn in that failure that God loves us and God cares for us, much like the disciples did. And so Adam and Eve completely screwed up, right? They ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But the thing is, we eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil pretty much all the time when we go and disobey God, because it's sinning just in general. When we sin when we take part in the idea that we know better than God. When we have the expectation of, well, I need to figure out the situation rather than God figure out the situation, then we lose it. And so God has so much faith in us, screw-ups, that is incredible. One of my favorite art forms going back to Japan is actually called Kitsugi. And Mark, could you throw up on the screen? So Kitsugi itself is an art form in which you take a broken vase, a broken bowl, a broken item, and you repair it with some clay and some gold. And then you fire it and it becomes whole again. See, Jesus saw us as a broken humanity. He saw us as this destroyed pottery because he is the potter who shapes us. He uses his hands, he uses his hands to mold us and he breathed his life into us. And then we went off and broke ourselves. And with Kusugi in Japan, it's a very, very intentional art form in which they take it and make it better than it was originally. Because honestly, I'd I think this was a probably boring bolt before this. But the thing is, God, when he takes us humanity, he expects us to be broken. But he expects that when we put faith in him, that he can rebuild us better than we were before. We come into this world broken, and then he adds gold to us. He makes beautiful things out of us. And when we are reconstructed, when we are put back together, when we are made beautiful again, we can then go and tell other people who are broken and say, look at what God did for me. These aren't scars. These aren't tear marks. These are the marks of God on us. So we should expect God to move in our lives. We should expect the enemy to come after us. And we should expect life to try to tear us down. But we should expect God to make us golden. We should expect God to fix those holes and to put the pottery back together. So I'm gonna invite the band to come back up. When we submit to God's love, when we submit to God, and He reshapes us into this new form, we can go out into this world and say, I expect God can do this for you. I expect God can change you, and I expect God will be faithful in that. The goal that has shaped me can shape you too. You can be loved and cared for and made new. You don't have to live this life like you were. So my question is, what will you expect from God? Dear Lord, thank you for this time. Help reshape us, help form us into new creations, to hold your love, to hold your wonder, and pour it out to other people. Help us to expect the best from you and exceed those expectations for us. And Lord, you know that we're gonna fail, so please, Lord, give us the grace that we need to live out as new creations. Reform us like Kitsuki much, like that. Take the pieces that have been broken, add the clay, add the gold, reshape us so that we may show off what you have done for us in our lives. Show it to other people. Help them understand that you are the god that holds everything.

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