Making the Wrong Assumption: What We Miss When We Think We Have It All Figured Out

There is a particular kind of confidence that feels completely justified right up until the moment it is proven wrong. You know where you parked the car. You know which floor of the parking deck. You are absolutely certain. And then you spend the next twenty minutes wandering through a concrete structure, checking aisle after aisle, slowly coming to terms with the fact that you were wrong from the very beginning.

Most of us laugh at moments like that. They are harmless. But what happens when we carry that same unexamined confidence into the most important areas of our lives? What happens when we make assumptions about God, about truth, about eternity, and we are just as wrong?

That is exactly the situation unfolding in John chapter 7.

A Crowd Full of Assumptions

The setting is the Feast of Tabernacles, a joyous, festival-like gathering that drew enormous crowds. Jesus has made his way to the temple and has begun teaching. The people are astonished at his doctrine. The religious leaders are threatened by his authority. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, confusion reigns.

In fact, the identity of Jesus is questioned no fewer than twelve times in this single chapter. Who is he? Where did he come from? Can he really be the Christ? The crowd is divided. The Pharisees are agitated. And the assumptions are piling up faster than anyone can sort through them.

Three particular assumptions stand out, and each one carries a warning that is just as relevant today as it was then.

Assumption One: We Have Him Figured Out

The people of Jerusalem thought they knew exactly who Jesus was. They knew his family. They knew where he grew up. They knew his brothers. And because they had all of that information, they were certain he could not be the Messiah. A popular tradition of the day held that the Savior would appear suddenly, secretly, without any traceable origin. Since they could trace Jesus all the way back to Nazareth, he simply could not be the one they were waiting for.

The problem was that this tradition was a myth, not scripture. The prophet Micah had written centuries earlier that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem. The prophet Malachi had written that a messenger would prepare the way before him. The evidence was there. The prophecies were documented. But somewhere along the way, what the scripture actually said had been replaced by what people had heard, assumed, and passed down.

They were confident in a conclusion that had no real foundation. And that confidence caused them to miss the truth standing directly in front of them.

It is worth asking whether we do the same thing. How many of the things we believe about ourselves, about God, about what is possible for our lives, are built on what someone once told us rather than on what God actually says? Proverbs 3:5-6 calls us to trust God completely and resist leaning on our own understanding, with the promise that he will direct our paths. That is not a passive invitation. It is a call to replace our assumptions with something far more reliable.

Assumption Two: They Had the Upper Hand

When Jesus cried out in the temple, he was not whispering. The word used in the original language means to proclaim, to shout, to cry out with urgency. He wanted their attention. And what he said in that moment was unmistakable. He confirmed that yes, they knew where he was from in the physical sense. But he made clear that he had not come on his own accord. He had been sent by the Father, and more than that, he was of the Father. Not merely commissioned like John the Baptist, but existing before his arrival, fully God and fully man.

The Pharisees and the chief priests, groups that historically disagreed on nearly everything including the resurrection, found common ground in their opposition to Jesus. They tried to seize him. And yet no one could lay a hand on him, because as the text plainly states, his hour had not yet come.

There is something deeply instructive in that detail. Human opposition, no matter how organized or powerful, cannot override divine timing. The plans of God move forward on his schedule, not ours. The attempt to silence Jesus only revealed how little control his opponents actually had, despite how certain they were of their own authority.

Assumption Three: There Is Plenty of Time

This is perhaps the most sobering assumption of all. In verse 33, Jesus says something that should stop every reader cold: "Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me. Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come."

You will seek me and not find me.

The Messiah they claimed to be waiting for was standing in their presence, and they were too tangled in their assumptions to recognize him. They heard his words and debated his geography. They watched his miracles and wondered if the next person might do better. They had every opportunity, and they assumed there would always be another one.

But Jesus was not speaking about a geographic location. He was speaking about eternity. And the contrast between John 7 and John 14 is breathtaking. In John 7, he tells an unbelieving crowd they cannot come where he is going. In John 14, he turns to those who believe and says he is going to prepare a place for them, and that where he is, they will be also.

The difference between those two outcomes is not talent, background, or circumstance. It is surrender.

The Question That Remains

The people in John 7 heard Jesus. They watched him. They debated him. And after all of it, they still did not believe. They assumed they had more time. They assumed the next moment would be the one that finally convinced them.

That assumption cost them everything.

The invitation of the gospel has never been complicated. It simply requires honesty about what we do not have on our own and willingness to receive what only Christ can give. Peace. Forgiveness. Hope. Eternity.

Stop building your life on what you have heard and assumed. Build it on what God has actually said. His word does not return void, and his promises do not expire.

The question is not whether Jesus is who he says he is. The question is what you will do with him today.