Is it possible to become so familiar with Jesus that we limit our capacity for real faith in Him?
Two things come to mind as companions to the message I preached this morning.
One is a song by Rick Elias.
The other is scripture:
from Isaiah 53, New International Version
Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
In Matthew 13:53–58, Jesus returns to His hometown. The people are astounded by His wisdom and deeds of power, but instead of receiving Him, they take offense. They know His family. They know His trade. They know His village. But their familiarity becomes a filter that blocks their faith.
Matthew gives us the haunting summary:
“And he did not do many deeds of power there, because of their unbelief.”
The danger is not that they knew too much about Jesus. The danger is that they thought they already knew all there was to know.
That danger is still with us.
We can know the songs, the stories, the symbols, the vocabulary, and the traditions of Jesus while still resisting Him when He comes to us as Lord. We can admire Him without obeying Him. We can invoke Him without surrendering to Him. We can build institutions around Him while keeping Him safely inside the box we have prepared.
But Jesus will not stay in the box.
He comes with wisdom.
He comes with authority.
He comes with mercy.
He comes with truth.
He comes to disturb our assumptions and awaken our faith.
The question is not whether Jesus has power.
The question is whether we are open to receive Him.
Watch the message above, and then read the fuller reflection with added study questions and spiritual formation tools here:
https://tomsims.substack.com/p/when-familiarity-blocks-faith
More links and resources:
Pastor Tom's Community 
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