Finding Acceptance

Luke 4:14-30

Transcript

Let's pray, Father. May youy will be done, Jesus. May youy word be proclaimed. And Spirit, may youy work be accomplished in us. We pray.
Amen. Well, this morning's gospel reading is a very practical one, in my opinion. It has to do with Jesus going from a hero to a zero of going to his hometown after developing a high reputation among all the other areas in the region, going to his hometown to be rejected. I think this is very practical because many of us might deal with some sort of rejection in our life. And how is it that we ought to deal with rejection?
It seems that anybody who's experienced rejection experiences it in such a way that if they can just do enough good, if they can have a better reputation, if somehow they can manage the expectations that the culture puts on them, that they might not be rejected, but gain the approval of man. But our gospel lesson kind of demonstrates to us that's not true. Jesus being the Son of God himself, Jesus being perfect, sinless, spotless, finds himself being rejected by those who know him best. So rejection isn't just for those who have made poor decisions or have ruined paths. What our gospel lesson points out to us is that the world itself is just prone to reject.
Whether you're good, whether you have a good reputation, whether you have a bad reputation. If you don't meet their expectations, whatever it might be, if you do not align yourself to what they perceive as good, you're going to find rejection. Rejection hurts. Anybody who has suffered rejection feels lonely. It's a horrible thing.
I believe this is why Luke is trying to tell us that it's one of the hardest things in the human life to face rejection, to not be approved. Because the way Luke puts this narrative, Jesus in his hometown, coming to Nazareth and getting up in the synagogue, right, having already performed miracles in Calpurnum. See, that happens actually later on in Jesus ministry. But Luke puts it right up front, right after Jesus is tempted by Satan. So what I believe that Luke is trying to do and what I believe the Gospel lesson for us this morning is to see right out of the gate before Jesus goes on to do and perform his ministry and to achieve the will of God.
We see Jesus experience these struggles that all of us can relate to. We see him tempted in every way, in the way that we're tempted by Satan. And I don't have time to show you, but Luke does a phenomenal job of telling you about Jesus temptation and then goes right into Jesus rejection as his two primary struggles that he begins his ministry with and yet overcomes and if you could just read those two together, there's a lot of similarities. One you're going to see at the end of this sermon today. When Satan, you know, in his temptation tells Jesus to jump off the pinnacle of the temple, use his own willpower.
Hey, no, you. You throw yourself down. In order to tempt Jesus, we turn our attention to this, the rejection of Jesus. And this time it's just not Satan tempting. It's the people seeking and to attempt to kill Jesus by throwing him off a cliff.
It's for that reason that I believe Luke is trying to present to us how relatable Jesus ministry is for our own lives, that he experiences the same things we do. We're tempted by an adversary who prowls around like a roaring lion. And Jesus overcame him by the word, by the power of the word and staying true. And the hero we're about to see Jesus, who by all actions and purposes has a good repute with some people, finds himself in his hometown rejected. He goes from being a hero to a zero.
So what lesson can we learn to apply to our own lives? How can we relate to Jesus life so that his life can impact our own when we face rejection? Maybe you don't find it as practical of a lesson, but I do. I've experienced much rejection and even now, often almost every day am haunted by who might not approve of me, who is the next person who's going to seek after me and make sure that I'm rejected by others. It's haunting.
A lot of people who are rejected just want it to stop. They want to escape it. They want to run from it. They don't know how to handle it and it messes with them. It produces a whole world of sorrow and anxiety and depression.
It makes you want to flee to things that you shouldn't be fleeing for. It puts you right back into the hands of the lion who's tempting you to do things with your life you shouldn't be doing. So what can we learn about Jesus hometown rejection? Walk with me through this narrative. Jesus comes in, we're told Luke says, right from the get go, Jesus is filled with the power of the spirit.
Pay attention to that when you read the Gospel of Luke. Luke is always starting there. He's always saying, now Jesus, the power of the Spirit was upon Jesus and he goes and heals the power upon the Holy Spirit. The power of God was upon Jesus and he goes and proclaims, the Holy Spirit is upon Jesus. The Holy Spirit is upon Jesus and he's building this thing.
So at the end of his Gospel, when Jesus tells his disciple, my same Spirit that I've had this whole time, I'm going to give to you when I send to the Father, so that you might be able to know and demonstrate the same things that I did in my ministry, for your ministry in advancing the kingdom. So out of the gate, Luke tells us that the power of the Holy Spirit's on Jesus. And as he's going around teaching in the synagogues, he's developing a good reputation. A lot of people are marveling and astonished by him. They're seeing all the greatness that is coming from him.
They're getting glimpses of his glory. And then we're told he comes to Nazareth and like he's custom to do, he goes to church, his hometown church. He goes back, the people are excited to see him. Probably, I don't know, I'm imposing this. Now I know what it's like to go to my hometown and go back to that same church where everybody is like, oh, Bruce is back.
How wonderful. And then you're faced with reality. They know everything about you. And Jesus stands up like he's normally do. He's invited to, hey, come and read the Scriptures.
They hand him the scroll to Isaiah, and he finds the place that is prophesied about the Messiah, the one to come. And so he reads Isaiah 62 about the whole identity and the purpose of the Messiah. Then he rolls up the scroll, hands it to the attendant, and goes and sits back down. And people are amazed about this. This hometown church is amazed.
Their eyes are fixed upon him. And he says something. He says, today, this has been fulfilled in your presence. This has a particular meaning for Nazareth because that's the place he was born. This prophecy about the Messiah to come, this prophecy that foretells of all that the.
All the miraculous, wonderful things that the Messiah is going to do has been fulfilled in their very location by Jesus. Jesus says this, identifying himself as the Messiah, identifying the purpose for which he has come and been born to do. And you would think that people, in their aspect of him, that they're astonished by him, that they're like, wow, their eyes are fixed upon him. At hearing this, you think that they would get more excited. A small town like us have a superhero among us, a Messiah has come from us.
But that's not what they do. Immediately, we're told he goes from being the small town hero of good repute from all over the region to quickly becoming the zero. Probably somewhere in the back pew is saying, Wait, timeout. He just claimed to be the Messiah, but isn't he Joseph's son? Messiah is the Son of God, but he's Joseph's son.
Here's where the other gospels are helpful, because the other gospels have this. They don't just say that. That's all Luke says. One little phrase and then it just unravels into this disbelief that Jesus is the Messiah. It happens like this to Luke in the other gospels.
They're like, wait, wait, wait, wait. That's Joseph's son. Isn't that. That's Mary's son, right? We know his brothers, his sisters.
Aren't they sitting among us today? This can't be. We know where he comes from. He's a carpenter. We know that family drama between Mary and Joseph around when he was born.
And they get easily influenced by Jesus past because they know it very well. Maybe you've experienced some of this. Maybe you can't even escape the rejection of your own family because they know who you are behind closed doors and this little facade you might be presenting as being saved through Jesus Christ, they're not fooled by. Because for them and our culture and the world, past actions carry more weight than present realities. And that's what we discovered is true for Jesus.
That as Jesus presently is displaying his glory, his messiahship, as his reputation is gaining, as their eyes are even fixed on them, they ignore that present reality because of the past influence that bears so much weight in their minds and hearts. And Jesus, after they said, isn't this the son of Joseph? Jesus speaks for them. He says, you know what? You're going to quote to me some proverbs.
The proverbs that you're going to quote to me are, physician, heal yourself, do for us what you have done in Calpurnum. And that just goes to show you that those who are prone to reject others, those who find a lot of weight in people's past and poor decisions, they're very selfish, selfishly motivated. If you claim to be the Messiah, Jesus, then you need to be doing here, right here in your backyard, in your hometown, what you've been doing out there. Then maybe we'll accept you. Maybe then you can get your hero status back.
But we know who you are. And Jesus says, you're going to tell this to me. And you know where this becomes very evident is when he's on the cross dying for sinners. And they say, hey, if you can save yourself, then we'll believe in you. Come down off the cross and we'll believe.
That's Essentially, what he's accusing the people of saying, they're rejecting him because they think they know his past, but it's really their heart. They think much of themselves, and they're so selfish. They say, well, if you want to be somebody, then you're going to give me and live up to my expectations. You're going to do for me what you claim that you want to do and what you've done for others. We benefit.
And then we'll give you the approval you're seeking. And then he says the second proverb is this. A prophet is not welcome in his hometown. And this points to the reality that not only are they prideful and selfish, that they only use people and dish out rejection or approval based on what that person can do for them. But he exposes the history that all of us tend to have, is that we are not prone to receive any correction.
And that's what the prophets were sent to God's own special people. God sent prophets, and every one of them was not listened to. Every one of them was rejected and killed. And Jesus goes on to accuse all of Israel of this. And Jesus is not going to be any different.
They too will kill him, and they'll try to kill him by the end of this story.
So what we learn right out of the gate is that if Jesus, the son of God, who is of good repute with others, but in his own hometown, among the people that know him best, can find and be met with rejection and not gain men's approval, then we can come to expect that we too are not going to receive any approval by men, even though we hunger for it. I speak to you as one who is a confessor of wanting man's approval. I was hungry for my father's approval. I'm hungry for your approval. If I do something uncomfortable or something that you don't particularly like, I get devastated.
It highly influences me. I don't know if you're like that, but I am. Because I find validation in my value and my worth, in what you might think of me. And the problem is whether even if I was good or whether I was bad, I'm still not going to get the type of approval from the world and from sinners that I'm longing for. There's only one approval that we were only meant to gain, and that's God's.
There's only one status we were only ever to pursue, and that is to be a child of God, declared by his mouth that he favors us and we favor him.
So Jesus quotes these Parables, just revealing that they are a hometown, a people that are prone to reject, whether good or bad, it's the condition of their heart. And so how does Jesus respond to the rejection? This is really key. How does Jesus respond to this type of rejection from his hometown? Well, he gives them a little dose of their own medicine.
He reveals to them that though you're rejecting me, you actually have been rejected. And he paints two pictures. You know, you have God and God's people, the nation of Israel, all the apple of God's eye called Abraham. Abraham became a great nation. It was Israel, God's favorite people in all the world.
And instead of taking this status and giving it to the Gentile world, see, that's. The people of Israel were meant to be an agent to the world by which God's loving kindness poured through them to the rest of the Gentile world. But they didn't do that. They kept it to themselves. And as they kept it to themselves, they even stopped being faithful to the one true God.
They stopped being the people of God. And Jesus points this out to them. He says, you remember when the heavens were shut up and there was a great famine as a consequence because of your rebellion against your God as you claim to be his people, do you know that God did not go to any widow in your house among your people? He sent the prophet to a widow you rejected and wouldn't even give time of day to. And he provided for her.
He gave her life. More than that. Do you know the Syrian Naaman who was healed of his leprosy when there were all sorts of lepers in Israel, Remember that God didn't heal one of you, but he went to those you rejected and he healed him. Oh, this made them angry. This made the people in that church so angry.
And they took their rejection to the ultimate level. Level. We're told, as Luke recounts it, that immediately they got up, they laid hands on Jesus, and they were walking him to the cliff. They were going to hurl him down. All for what?
Because Jesus exposed that as they're rejecting people, they're no different than the people they reject.
And that just goes to show that all the world deserves to be rejected. Everybody is a sinner. We all have pasts that bear weight on our circumstances and our consequences. But all of us also in Jesus Christ have present realities that we have been transformed with that. As we look at this scene, we can understand that, okay, people just are going to reject the good and the bad.
But is there something. How do we align this? How do we make it right and we make it right by doing this. That we orient our hearts and our minds and focus on what is God, what does God say? What is God's will for our life?
What is God's purpose? What's our identity that comes from the Father. And if we focus in on that, we can learn how it is that Jesus responds to rejection. So how he responds to this rejection is he walks right through them as they seek to kill him. You know what walking through them means?
It's something you and I could not do. If you got your hands on me and took me out to that highway, strapped me down in the real middle of the road and say, cars, come play speed bump. I would die. I'd kill. I couldn't walk past you.
But you know why Jesus can walk past them is because he actually was the Messiah. He is the son of God. And his mission and his purpose and his identity can't be robbed of him because it doesn't belong in the hands of the people. You don't take the life of Jesus from him. He lays it down.
And by Jesus actions to how he doesn't have man's approval of how he receives rejection from his hometown shows two things. That it's about what his father thinks of him and it's about what the purpose his father sent him to do. That he orients his whole life, that he finds most valuable, that he finds guiding his purposes in life and every action. That. And that's the lesson for those who feel rejected.
That's the lesson for me is no matter how much I really care about what you guys think, no matter how much I don't want any of my past to be brought up in my life, that will always distract me from who God says that I am. And if you believe in Jesus Christ, the good news is that you have been made a child of God. And nobody, nobody's opinion and nobody's actions can strip that away from you. Even though you die, you will still be a child of God. That's your identity.
And you gotta cling. You got to renew your mind to think and to focus on that and not be distracted by who this, that and the other thing. I am a child of God. And being a child of God, the life that I now live, I live in Jesus Christ. And so I do what he calls me to do.
I'm not going to sing and dance and do what they, the people want me to do. I'm going to do what God wants me to do. That's what Jesus Says when he gives them that parable, you want me to heal you the way I've healed others, and then you're going to give me approval. I'm sorry I don't sing and dance for you. I sing and dance for my Father.
So I will do what I'm called to do. And I'm not going to be distracted by it. It hurts to be rejected. It's painful. Jesus reveals this pain later on.
All those miracles that Nazareth wanted, that was done in Calpurnum, that Nazareth wanted to be done in their hometown. Do you know what Jesus said about Calpernum? He says this. All the miracles I'd done in you, had they been done in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented. But the miracles that were done in you have not led you to repentance.
And he cast judgment on them. And he even says, how I longed to just bring you together, like a hen gathers her chicks. And it didn't happen. You rejected me. And they will go on to kill Jesus.
So we learned that rejection does kill. A people prone to rejecting others seeks to reject the only person whose acceptance really matters, not as Jesus Christ. And if they're willing to do that to him, they're willing to do that to us.
So overcoming rejection looks like this. We seek exclusively our acceptance from God. This is the phrase that I use to tell myself every time I feel rejected or feel insecure about. What people are saying around me is, if it's good enough for King Jesus, it's good enough for me. It should be good enough for them so that I can orient my mind and my perspective that Jesus is the one who matters.
What he says about me and my relationship with Jesus is what matters. And what Jesus tells me to do with my life is what matters, not what others think I should do with my life or not do with my life. If Jesus says, bruce, I have called you. You are mine, you are righteous, you are saved, you're a saint, you're a child of God. I receive that, I am that.
And I'm gonna try to focus on that. If he says, and then, bruce, I'm gonna take your life, and I'm gonna use it so that others can hear the message, the good news that I've saved them too. Then even when others say, like, well, you're not really qualified to do that, you're probably right. But Jesus, take it up with Jesus.
We have to seek after the acceptance of God and leave behind the opinions of man. This world is passing away, and all that's in it. The only things that remain is Christ is God. The second thing you need to do is embrace the status and the purpose for which God calls you to. One of the most influential moments in my youth group life in high school was this Disciple now weekend where Rob Merriman, I don't know if you know him, I just remember that name right now.
So I say it. Probably shouldn't say his name, but he was our Disciple now leader. And the only thing I got out of that weekend besides like all the inside jokes with me and my friends, was this act for the audience of one simple phrase, no context. But for me what that meant was, Bruce, you are performing for everybody. You live your life trying to gain acceptance and so you'll sing and dance for everybody else, but you're not doing it for God, so stop what you're doing, don't care what they think and live and act for the audience of one.
And who's that audience of one but God Almighty? You have to embrace the status that Jesus Christ gives you and you have to embrace your life, the purpose of your life that Jesus Christ affords you and asks you to accomplish. And you need to solely focus on that.
Which means the more time you spend with Jesus, the deeper your relationship with Jesus goes, the more his influence means more to you and the less others influence and approval means less so when you hear like you need to grow in your grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. For those who feel rejection, for those who have a temptation to seek after the approval of man, get closer to Jesus. If you have those ringing voices in your mind and in your heart of telling you how pathetic and how bad of a life you've lived. If. If you struggle with your identity, get closer to Jesus so that he is constantly speaking into your life and telling you who you truly are, which is a child of God if you believe in him.
The more time you spend with Jesus, the more his volume of his voice increases into your life and the less those other voices speak into your heart. Spend more time with Jesus and the closer you get then that rejection seems to wane. Recently I do struggle with rejection. I do struggle with insecurity. I do struggle with my past guilt and shame comes up like I'm about to throw up in like little hot flashes that oftentimes people get.
And the one thing that I've been doing for weeks now is I don't have literally an elaborate prayer that I pray because I'm just so. I get fearful, I get scared, I get Timid, and I want to shrivel up. And in that moment when I feel those waves coming over me, I simply just pray. Lord, I trust you. Lord, I trust you.
Lord, I trust you. Lord, I trust you. Because I need to be pulled out of it. And that's all I can say, and that's all that needs to be said. Just trust in the Lord.
If you're feeling rejected, if you're confused with your life because you have all these voices speaking into it, just seek the Lord. Just say, lord, I just trust you. You got me. I trust you. I believe in you.
You have a purpose for me. I am yours, you are mine.
And lastly, if there's any place in the world that can embody the acceptance that Jesus gives by faith in him, it should be this place. What's interesting is, no matter how scandalous we might think, this story ends with people trying to push Jesus off a cliff. Satan didn't even do that, by the way. Satan would just say, hey, why don't you throw yourself down? These people do something worse than even Satan did to Jesus in tempting him.
They're seeking to kill Jesus.
But as scandalous as that might have ended the narrative in just a few chapters. Jesus, the disciples that he's gathering to himself, he sends them out and he tells them something. He goes, if you're rejected, I want you to wipe the sand off the soles of your feet and move on. If they're rejecting you, they're gonna reject me. And by rejecting you, they're going to face my judgment.
So you know what that means? That means right here we don't really hear a lot about judgment. We just hear about what the people want to do to Jesus. But when Jesus sends out his bride and he says, if they reject you, you just move on and I'll deal with them as if something weightier is going to happen. By rejecting his disciples.
I say all that to say this place, this sanctuary, this building, should be the tower that those who feel rejected can run into and find Christ's acceptance by faith in Him. I hope that this is not that small town church in Nazareth where people come back having ruined their lives, having made poor decisions, and find us being judgmental or them needing to gain our approval in order to be among us. I pray that if they walk through that door, and as long as I'm here and anybody walks in that door, they're going to get Jesus and I'm going to relate to their brokenness. I'm going to see that rejection and I'm Going to speak Christ into them. I'm going to speak what Christ would have them to know.
And they're going to find acceptance here among God's people if they desire it and want it and believe in Jesus for it. And if you have a problem with that, you need to get rid of me. I promise you, there's nothing that anybody who walks through those doors is going to tell me that I'm going to say, get out. Unless it's Satan. But somebody who's broken, who comes in bearing ugly and gross sin and says, I got to get rid of this.
Come here. Christ got you. And then when they offload their sin and put it on Christ in the cross and they've been freed from it, as he sets them free from it, as they've been forgiven, as they confess their sins, and he becomes faithful and just to forgive them of their sins and cleanse them from each and every unrighteous act they have ever done or will ever do and declares them righteous, then they will find that they are righteous. They will hear that they are among us and that they have become the bride of Christ.
Just saying, like, can we be a church that does that for people? Will we be a church? And let me say a word of encouragement. I have found that here. I have found that.
I have found that with the admin Council, the people that you have asked to lead. I have found comfort and peace as I poured out my life to them to say, now, look, this is who I am in Christ, and this is what Christ has called me to. But I do have this past, and it's kind of back there, but I still struggle with it. And I told them all that, and I've shared it from the pulpit. And in the moments when I feel weak and when I confess to them, I'm struggling.
I have moments of rejection from others, other pastors, other things for my life. They speak what Christ has already told me. You are a child of God. We got your back. Jesus loves you.
And you're doing the will of God for your life. And that's all you can ever do. That's what you need to hear. And that's what people will hear when they walk in our doors. And I pray that we will continue to be a church like that.
I'm thankful for you. Thank you for doing that.
So if you struggle with man's approval or rejection, there is one who understands that struggle. Jesus himself. But he can also help. If you come to Jesus and you learn from him, you grow in him, you will find that your desire to be accepted will be fulfilled by him, that your longing to be with others and to be a part of something will be filled by Him. Your reputation in the heavenlies will be well known to God, and His favor will rest upon you in Christ Jesus.
So cling to this. Those who are tired and weary, feeling rejected, struggle with seeking approval. Cling to that. Cling to Jesus, who knows where you're at, who has overcome when he was rejected, and he can lead you out of those dark places you find yourself. Let's pray.