Rejection and Belief

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Good Morning. Glad that we can be here together this morning.
One of the great challenges we face today is the idea of rejection. Relationships and how we interact with each other and the rest of the world is one of the biggest challenges that we face in the world.
In my opinion this was an issue before the year 2020 and it only has gotten worse since then.
Dealing with rejection isn’t a new thing though and it has been around for a long time. It had me thinking about what are some of the different types of rejection that we deal with.

Professional Rejection

Have you ever tried for that dream job or a promotion and you worked hard and prepared. You get through the interview and you feel like it went well and you hope to hear back from the place of employment and you wait and wait but you haven’t heard a thing. You sit and wonder. What did I say that they didn’t like? What could have I done to improve my chances? Do i need to tweak my resume?
Over and over worrying about the different things that could have kept you from getting that job.
Than there is...

Social Rejection

You are out at the basketball game and you walk up to a group of friends and you hear them talking about the party that they had the night before and you have that awkward moment you realize…I wasn’t invited to this party.
Those moments of silence and people shuffling nervously.
Those moments we wonder about why people didn’t invite us. Are they really our friends? We feel left out disconnected and lost.
Fear and anxiety rising as we wonder about our position in the social world around us.
then there is...

Relationship Rejection

This one is a tough one. The fear of being rejected on a deeper level than just a friend. This one comes typically from closer relationships like a family one or a potential dating or actual relationship with another person.
It is the moment of hearing those dreaded words.
It’s not you it’s me.
Or I think we should just be friends.
With family it could be the moment of being rejected for our point of view or opinion on things. We saw that a lot this year with reports of families breaking apart over issues of politics and at times other issues.
These different areas of facing rejection are not the only ones but they are the most common ones and they probably affect the most of us in ways we don't’ always see but at the end of the day they all are impacted by the idea of how we deal with Rejection.

Dealing with Rejection

Now we could talk about the healthy way to deal with rejection but i think it is always a little more interesting to think about the unhealthy ways we deal with rejection.
One of the first ways that can be unhealthy with rejection is.
We take it Personally
Sometimes it is a personal slight but most of the time when we are rejected it isn’t a personal thing but just an unfortunate reality. Particularly around things like jobs. Even our friendships sometimes we dont’ get invited to a party because there may be a variety of reasons you aren’t invited.
If you friends throwing a BBQ but you don’t like BBQ do you think they are likely to invite you?
2. Comparison
We want to look around and we compare ourselves to others and wonder why they might have been chosen over us. At the end of the day we look and try to evaluate what we need to change and what we need to do differently to get the job, relationship, or outcome we want but sometimes there are things we can’t control and we can’t change and we have to recognize that is okay.
3. Downplay your feelings
Now I know in some ways the first two are rejecting your feelings but the truth is that it is okay to recognize that it hurts and it is painful to be rejected. We have feelings and they can be very valid, but there is an unhealthy way we can overconflate and undervalue our feelings when it comes to rejection. It is finding that happy middle ground that is very important.
4. Give up
Let’s be honest. When we get rejected it is not uncommon to just want to give up. To stop and to no longer try. Yet, if we all did this where would we be. In fact, could you imagine a world where this was the response to all forms of rejection?
What would happen?
What if God set that example for us?
Let’s see what the word says about this.
John 1:9–11 NIV
9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

God Faces Rejection

Could you imagine when Jesus came and the people rejected him, because yes people rejected him what would happen if God showed a human response to that rejection.
No i know God is obviously not us but what would it be like if God treated the rejection that he so often receives as we do. It is a scary thought isn’t it. Of course when Jesus came and experienced rejection this wasn’t the only time that God felt this experience of rejection. After all we have other examples.
Isaiah 65:2–3 NIV
2 All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations— 3 a people who continually provoke me to my very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick;
I bring this up because it is a good reminder of how much we experience God’s grace in our lives because as humans we see far too much rejection of God and not enough recognition of the grace that he has for us.
God doesn’t put up boundaries to keep us from continuously rejecting him but instead continues to reach out his hand. It is an interesting thing to be reminded of as we realize that God’s love for us is such that he holds out his hands to us at all times.
It does lead me to another question.

Do you Trust and have Confidence in Jesus?

Who he is?
What he says?
I know you might be saying right now Of course I do Pastor Andy. Why wouldn’t I trust in who he is and what he says?
Let me ask another question than.

Do your actions match your belief?

Uh oh now we have to get real about some things.
It leads us to questions like what does it really mean to believe.
Belief— is the state of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in someone or something
This is today’s definition and I did some word study on the Greek and Hebrew words that would be translated into our modern day English and they follow pretty much the same exact definition.
Do you trust and have confidence in God? Who he is and what he says? If we do why do our actions sometimes not match?
This is the challenge we face.
One possible answer is that for many peopel we have various levels of belief in things.
For some we hear a message of truth and we believe it is true or some measure of it but we don’t know how or what about it but it doesn’t shift us to our core. It isn’t enough to expunge all of our doubts and we see the merits but we aren’t fully devoted to it.
There are times we hear the message and it changes us and it shifts our view of the world and the life we live but we can be easily swayed to change another direction.
Then there are the times that we are so deeply moved it marks a deep character change in who we are. We are never the same after that one encounter. We are devoted. We all probably fall somewhere on that spectrum of belief.
Let’s look further at this mornings passage to see how that impacts us.
John 1:12–13 NIV
12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Right to Become

The grace of God is that we come to believe and we come to know who he is and we have the ability to be received into adoption into the family of God. Yet, just because we have this right doesn’t guarantee our adoption. Some believe yet they aren’t fully commited to who and what God does for us.
It isn’t that different then the Israelites in the Old testament. They believed in who God is but they often lived and showed their actions to be contrary to that belief. They knew what God was capable of and who he is and what he had done for them but they continued to choose to go down a different path than the one that God wanted for them.
This isn’t an idea that goes away in the NT either.
John 2:23–24 NIV
23 Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. 24 But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people.

Belief In Jesus

Jesus didn’t entrust himself to the people who saw the great signs and wonders he was performing because he knew what was really in their heart.
Some of them believed because they saw great things and they hoped and wanted to receive something and you were more likely to get that if you “believed” in him.
Yet others were truly changed and recognized who he is. Through the Gospels we read stories of Jesus having followers and crowds coming after him but than they would disperse when things got hard or difficult. They would give up their belief when it seemed like it wasn’t going to be advantageous for the them.

Rejection and Belief

Today we face a similar challenge. We want to say “I am a follower of Christ”....on Sundays.
Or “I am a follower of Christ” when there is something in it for me.
We have to deal with the fact we have a whole book that reminds us and draws us to the fact we can’t and shouldn’t be a people who reject God and what he wants for us but instead we have to give ourselves over to our belief in him and trust and have confidence in what he teaches us so that we can be a part of his family.
Now, That being said if we aren’t where we want to be its ok. We all are at different points along the path but we need to be moving toward him. We need to be drawing closer to him. We have to start recognizing that we can’t be sitting still that we have to work on this. We have to learn to be better and grow in our relationship with God. We are called to follow afte him and pick up our cross daily. This is a part of our belief. we can’t be guilty of knowing the truth yet only living it when it is conenient for us.
Thank God his grace is enough that he is still reaching out to us and that we know his hand is there for us as we work through this.
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