Episode Transcript
[00:00:57] Speaker B: All right, everybody, good morning.
Hello.
My name is Harrick. I am one of the elders here Restore Temecula. If I haven't had a chance to meet you, I would love to welcome to our Sunday morning gathering.
This morning I am going to continue. If you're new, we've been in a series in the Gospel of Matthew for a while and we're going to continue that this morning. And I'm excited to share some things with you this morning. I've been chewing on this text that we're going to be going through today all week, and I think there's something for everyone that's here. So before we get started, I'm going to invite you to pray with me. Pray for me and ask Jesus to open up our hearts and our minds to receive what he has for us. So if you'll join me.
Father, I want to thank you for this morning.
I want to thank you for your kindness, your mercy. I want to thank you that you have sent your son on a rescue mission to Earth to restore lost sons and daughters to their rightful place as heirs of the kingdom.
And I want to thank you for the your word that you've given us and that your word is at work in our hearts. And so I want to pray and simply ask God that you would remove distractions this morning, that you would give us hearts that are open, hearts that are tender, hearts that desire Jesus and all that he has for us and more than what he can offer us, who he is, the Son of God, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the one in whom all of our longings are satisfied, the one that our hearts ultimately find their rest in, but also find so elusive to actually be at rest in Him. Would you help us this morning to take a step of faith to trust him and obey him as we see him more clearly?
Thank you, Father. In your name we pray. Amen.
9-10-2001, John O'Neill is sitting at a restaurant in New York City talking to a friend.
And he tells his friend, we're overdue. Something big is going to happen.
John O'Neill had been a member of the FBI, and he had been working very specifically on this growing threat that is called Al Qaeda.
And he was, at that point in time, just a couple of weeks, maybe two, three weeks past his retirement. He retired from the FBI in August of 2001, but he had been working on Al Qaeda for years. And if you don't know who Al Qaeda is, it is a group that was ultimately responsible for the event that I think marks my life more than any other growing up, which was 9, 11, September 11, a day when there were multiple planes that were crashed in New York, in Washington, D.C. and in Pennsylvania.
And so if you are a millennial, this is probably the event that you remember, actually. Who here remembers where they were on September 11th? Yeah, most of the hands in the room, yeah. Who here remembers where they were on September 10th?
A couple, two, three of us, yeah. So September 10th, John O'Neill is at this restaurant in New York, and he's basically preparing his friend for something big. And obviously he doesn't know exactly what it is. But John O'Neill was out of the FBI at that point, and he was actually possibly uniquely positioned to be one of the few people in the world that could have actually stopped 9 11. But he didn't.
And he didn't stop 911 from happening for a lack of trying. He didn't stop it from happening for a lack of wanting to.
He wasn't able to do it because he was blocked.
John O'Neill was a guy who grew up kind of humble, humble upbringing in New Jersey. And he was kind of a unique character in the FBI, apparently. And I don't speak from experience, this is just what I've read. The FBI was kind of like a by the book sort of place. People did most everything by the book. There was no, like, extravagant personalities. It was just kind of like you would fall in line. There are chains of command. And there was a certain way to do things. And John O'Neill did not do things the way that he was supposed to. He was considered at the time kind of. I don't know if this is the right term, but he was charismatic. Let's call him like, he dressed nicely, he had really nice shoes, his nails were always pristine, his hair was always slicked. And he kept this kind of large.
Entourage isn't necessarily the right word, but he had these relationships that he cultivated over many years. And he liked to hang out in Manhattan. He liked to work late, and he liked to go to these restaurants in the city where a lot of powerful people used to hang out. And he would get to know them, and he would pick up little bits of information. And his whole life was gathering information for one purpose. It was to stop Al Qaeda. It was to stop terrorism in the United States. And as you can imagine, the frustration he must have felt went over and over again. Because of his style, because of the way that he was, he was silenced. He kept hitting bureaucratic roadblocks, and eventually he, for lack of a better term, was forced into resignation. Even though he was the one guy who knew something big is going to happen.
Why do I tell you this story?
I think that it's important to recognize something.
There's always been men and women, young people in our world, that have been misunderstood, that have a really important story to tell, or they're doing really incredible work. And because of the packaging, because of the way that they don't match up to the expectations of the culture around them, they're silenced, or at least they're ignored. John O'Neill is a really good example of that in our modern times.
But Jesus, the one that we're ultimately here to learn about and hear about, was very much a man who went through something similar.
Last week, we celebrated Easter. For those of you guys who were here, it was a beautiful Sunday. We had baptisms. And Easter weekend is this unique opportunity to reflect, kind of slow down and reflect on the life of Jesus. I grew up Puerto Rican. I grew up in Puerto Rico.
I haven't changed that, I guess. I mean, I've been here for so long that I suppose I don't feel that way, or I don't come off that way. But I'm actually an islander, and I was born in Puerto Rico. And one of the things that was unique about growing up in Puerto Rico was that it has a lot of Spanish influence. Spain. And one of the things that we adopted was Catholicism. It was brought to us from Spain. And in fact, Puerto Ricans doesn't matter. Not going to get into it. We are a blend of Spanish and a bunch of other kind of cultures, But Catholicism was really important. And one of the things that I remember from growing up was that my abuela, my mom's mom, the week of Holy Week, so that's the week basically that culminates with Easter, had this very reflective, kind of somber mood to it. Did anybody grow up like this?
No. Yeah. Okay. One of us. Two, three of us.
So Good Friday was like a time when you didn't do anything. You just kind of sat in silence and you reflected. 3:00 on good Friday was like, everybody stops everything. That's the time that Jesus died and is commemorated. And so I grew up with this sense of.
A sense of the story without really understanding what it cost Jesus actually. And so today, one of the things that we're going to do is we're going to talk about what it cost Jesus to redeem humanity. It cost him very dearly in the form of rejection.
And if you're anything like me, if you're in this room, odds are you probably have an interesting relationship with rejection. It's probably one of those things if you're like me that you avoid at all costs. I don't know anybody that likes to be rejected or likes to feel rejected. But yet, like John O'Neill, like Jesus, you and I, whether you're. It doesn't matter what your age is, what your stage of life is. If you are a follower of Jesus or if you are a would be disciple, somebody who's investigating Jesus or considering his claims, you have to understand something. You're going to be a man or a woman or a young person who is out of step with the culture.
There's no way around it.
There isn't.
If you want to be a follower of Jesus. If we're going to learn about rejection this morning and what it cost Jesus to rescue humanity, because he has a lot to say about what it might look like for us not to rescue humanity, but to become a new humanity in this place. Turn with me over to Matthew, chapter 13. We're going to read just five verses today. Verses 53 to 58, Matthew 13, 53, 58.
If you're here and this is your first time, we're so glad that you're here. We spent many weeks going through parables, these short stories that Jesus told. Actually, sometimes they're sort of long, but oftentimes they're short stories. And what those stories did is they taught us about the kingdom. Jesus, if you don't know he's a king and he came to establish a kingdom on this earth. And he would tell these stories because the kingdom was surprising. The kingdom is surprising, I should say. And the kingdom kind of messed with people's expectations of what was going to happen. And so he told these stories. And we spent several weeks going through the parables. If you missed any of them, I think they're all worth going back to listen to.
But now we're kind of transitioning at this point in Matthew's gospel. Going to transition out of this block of parables. And what we're going to do is we're going to see Jesus go out.
And what's fascinating about Jesus parables, I don't know. You know, I was thinking about this. If you're a parent in the room, maybe you've told a story to your children, or maybe if you're an auntie or an uncle, you've told a child a story. And it may go something kind of like, there was once a boy named Josh.
My son's name is Josh. There was once a boy named Josh. And he was really struggling to do his homework. And then he did this, and then he actually did his homework. And you're hoping, right, that he will do what?
Right. How often does that work?
Never. Right? Never. Hardly ever. But here's the thing with Jesus. He's different.
He tells these stories, these parables, and you know what happens?
His stories, actually, they're enacted.
They become reality, as it were, or they describe reality and then you see it play out. And so does anybody remember? Is anybody here for the parable of the Four Soils?
Some of you guys were right. So it's the parable that Jesus told about the condition of people's hearts. There are four different soils. And so he talked about how a sower would go out and he would scatter seed. Do you guys remember this?
He would go out and he would scatter seed. And the seed represents the word of God's kingdom. And so Jesus is going out and he's telling everybody about his kingdom. And what do you expect to happen if God takes on flesh and comes to earth? What sort of things might you expect would happen?
Everybody would be like, on their face, right? They would fall on their face and worship him. But instead he tells this little story of like, well, some of the seeds came up and birds picked them up and ate them, right? Some of the seeds found really shallow soil and sprang up. And then they withered and some of them fell among thorns. And then all of a sudden the thorns choked out these seeds and it never produced fruit. And then there was this fourth kind of soil that bore abundant fruit. Do you guys remember this?
This is all review for a lot of you guys. If you weren't here. There it is. So what you're going to see here is Jesus parable of the Four Soils and enacted.
You're actually going to see people respond because that parable, as it were. The parables, largely speaking, are about the receptivity of people's hearts. When they hear the message of the kingdom, what do they do with it?
And so we're going to see something here that might surprise you. We're going to see the response of those who are closest to Jesus in this world, his family.
So verse 53, if you'll jump in, if you're not, we'll have them up on the screen. Matthew 13:53, 58 says this. When Jesus had finished these parables again, these stories about the kingdom of God, he left there and he went to his hometown. Okay, so he's in Nazareth, where he's from. And he began to teach them in their synagogue. And so they were astonished and said, where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? So they're asking these questions.
And now astonished can mean positively astonished. You can be like, wow. You can be wowed by someone. And maybe you've. I don't know, maybe you've. If you've ever been wowed by someone when you're hearing them speak and they're just. And you're just like, wow. The way that they said something or what they're saying. He clearly had them, had their attention.
He wasn't boring them. Like, no one was dozing off with this. Like he was. He had their attention. And they're responding and they're asking questions. Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Verse 55. Isn't this the carpenter's son?
So they're talking about his genealogy, which was a really, really big deal to the ancient people.
Isn't his mother called Mary? And his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas and his sisters. Aren't they all here with us?
So where does he get all these things? And they were offended, scandalized in the Greek, who saw that one coming.
These are the people who arguably know him best. God takes on flesh, Human takes on our humanity. The people that see him for 30 years before he starts his public ministry, they see him doing all the things that he did. Which, by the way, if this is new to you, he did miracles. He did signs, he did wonders. He did impossible things for the benefit of people. He loved people.
He lived in a time and a place where the religious leaders of his time were loading people up with heavy burdens and responsibilities and obligations and doing nothing to lighten it. And he came and he lightened that load.
He came and healed people who were sick, people who were paralyzed, people who were blind. This is what he did. And the reaction at home was offense, scandalized, crazy. Let's finish up. Jesus said to them, he quotes this known, this proverb, a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his household.
And he did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief seen.
Just shocking.
Just shocking. Let's talk about what's going on here.
Let's talk about what's going on here.
Jesus in his own, in his hometown, in Nazareth, even his own family. According to Mark, chapter three, verse 21, they thought he was out of his mind and his neighbors dismissed him.
Some of the things that you may be wondering about, which I think is totally fair, like why would they be so upset at him? Well, I think there's different things at play here. Things that may not necessarily jump out at you unless you just happen to be kind of raised maybe in a more collectivist culture or if your family, if your family is from more collectivist place.
There were cultural expectations upon the firstborn male of a family.
So for example, in the family of Jesus, who was not there anymore, what prominent member of the family was not there?
Joseph. Right, Joseph. Father Joseph wasn't there. He died.
Presumably. He's not in the picture anymore. He passed away. And so who is expected to take over, as it were, and care for the family?
It's Jesus. He's the firstborn of the family.
But what does Jesus actually do?
Not that he goes off, he goes off telling people about the kingdom. He goes off telling these parables, telling stories, teaching, doing ministry.
And so what happened to his family?
Presumably, who had to step up?
The next in line? Probably James from what we can tell.
And so what am I getting at? Jesus didn't meet the expectations of his family.
He didn't.
And so what is his family doing?
Hey, man, you were supposed to be here, bro.
Where you been?
All of a sudden you come back and you're telling these stories about seeds and plants, doing magic tricks. What is this?
This is like a reputable family and you're dishonoring, you know. And so on the one hand, it's sort of like the dishonor in that James has to step up and take care of his family, James, one of his brothers.
And on the other side, they may be putting, this is an honor shame society. They might be putting a little bit of pressure on Jesus to fall back in line.
It's like, hey, this is what you're supposed to do, man. Like, what are you doing? They were offended by him.
Stunning in an honor shame society. Honor was what you lived for. What do we live for now? Typically, I'm speaking very broadly. Very, very broadly. What are the things that people in our culture cannot live without? What do they give themselves for? What do they kill themselves for? To acquire and to attain. You guys can throw out some ideas.
Security. Yep. Money. What else?
Success. Approval. House. Yeah, that's the stuff, right? That as modern Westerners, 21st century Californians will kill ourselves for success, for approval, for money. That is the cultural expectation.
Nobody out there really tells me what to value. I decide what I value and I pursue it. But typically it falls in line with what the broader culture ends up valuing. Right. So my own man, but I'm a product of my time, Right? It's kind of like that. That's how it typically works in this time and place. In Nazareth for the people, the Jewish people of the first century.
Do you know how they. What they lived for? Did anybody have an idea of what was most important to them?
Oh, I can.
Honor. Where do you get honor from?
From your community.
From your community. And yes, there's an element of your legacy, certainly where you're from, your biology and your location determined who you were going to become.
And so Jesus, in many ways, he's not meeting their expectations because he left on itinerant preaching missions.
So he didn't do what he was supposed to do, which was to stay here and take care of the family, on the one hand. On the other hand, Jesus is from a very humble place, Nazareth. And he is from a place where not much is expected, if that makes sense. You're not expected to go out and become this great person that has all this honor. And so what Jesus is doing here is that he's upsetting the community.
Because now all of a sudden here we have someone who's not necessarily exceeded expectations, which if you've ever had a performance review, that's typically what you want. Exceeds expectations. Oftentimes it's something else. Meets expectations is where probably most of them should line up. Cause we're not all exceptional all the time or in every way. But Jesus was exceptional at all times, in every way. And yet he was shamed. He didn't have honor. And here's what I think is happening. Like they were expecting him to fall in line with the vision and the values of who you are. If you're from this time and place and he's overstepping his bound and they're trying to get him back in line, it's like, hey, man, you've gone too Far what's my point in saying all this? Jesus experienced rejection, and that's the word of the day. If you're taking notes, Jesus was rejected, and you may be too.
If you're taking notes, Jesus was rejected, and you may be too.
Jesus was rejected in family circles, his family circles, Jesus. The locals scoffed. Isn't this the carpenter's son? They couldn't believe that somebody from such an ordinary lineage could actually be God's chosen one.
And there was more. There were questions about his authority. Where did this man get these things? Obviously, what's the answer? Where does he get these things? What was the source of his power? It was God. But they were questioning. And some people actually in other parts of the Scriptures would ascribe to Jesus a different source. What source would they ascribe to Jesus?
Demonic.
And that's what the. If you've ever wondered about the unpardonable sin, that's what they were doing. They were ascribing to Jesus this.
You're not from God, you're from Satan.
Really, really crazy. If you think about it, God is on the flesh and he's being called the devil.
But I think that gives you a sense of, like, how serious the problem of the human heart really is. They didn't see it because he didn't meet their expectations.
It's sort of like John O'Neill at the FBI.
John O'Neill is that the more I learned about the story of the world? I was like, oh, my gosh, there's so much here.
He led the FBI's top counterterrorism unit, but he was increasingly marginalized by senior officials who felt threatened by him, threatened by him. And Jesus felt threatened. He made people feel threatened, and so he was marginalized. So I want to ask you a question. We're talking about rejection today.
Where do you feel overlooked or misunderstood by people who. Who know you best?
How do you respond when rejection comes from those whom you hoped would support you?
I think it's important to wonder about what's going on inside, because these texts, they're not just written to tell us an interesting story. They certainly are telling us a very interesting story about God walking on the earth.
But they're also calling us for those who want to follow Jesus. That means becoming like him. So these texts are telling us and preparing us. Here's what you can expect.
There's people who are close to you, who you may find to be among the most closed off to you if you're a disciple.
And I believe that part of what this morning's about is to encourage some of you that have experienced that kind of pain at the hands of people close to you. Jesus gets it.
Jesus was overlooked and misunderstood by his own family, by the people closest to him.
I believe he wants you to know that.
I believe he wants you to know that. That doesn't mean that you're off track.
You might be off track, don't get me wrong.
You may be.
But just because people are criticizing you or resisting you or rejecting you, that doesn't mean you're off track necessarily. It may mean that you're actually committed to a kingdom whose values counter this world's, and that people are reacting to that in ways to try to bring you in line with the values that they have embraced and adopted, which are not necessarily the same ones as the kingdom.
In that sense, even though we live in a very individualistic Western context, we're not that unlike the honor chain societies of the past.
Today, it might look like cancel culture.
It may look like online social media shaming. If you step out of line.
It may look like a lot of things. It may look like insults. It may look like personal jabs. It may look like passive aggressive little comments directed at you. It may look like that you miss out on promotions.
It may look like you miss out on financial freedom because you're committed to a higher level of freedom.
But expecting resistance helps us to not be surprised.
This is here for you. It's not written to you, but it's here for you.
For those of you who have been following Jesus for any period of time, odds are you have experienced rejection at the hands of people close to you.
You may go home after experiencing a conversion, if you'd like to put it that way. Or coming to a deeper understanding of who Jesus is. Or maybe for the first time experiencing the things that you have maybe affirmed for years on paper. And the response you get at home might disappoint you.
It may be boredom, it may be apathy. Or it could be a little more active resistance to your story.
People may look at you and be like, it's gone into him.
What's gone into her weirdo.
People might look, I remember a friend of mine in Uptown years ago, he was a follower of Jesus and he was growing in different ways. And one of the ways that he was crowing, I'll never forget it, he told me once that he was doing his taxes and his accountant looked at him and he's like, you give too much.
What are you doing? You, like, question his generosity.
Have you Ever had an experience where the way that you've operated has caused others to question you?
It may be because there's mismatched values.
And so I said, you may be off track.
How do you know? Well, if you're experiencing resistance because you're embodying the values of the kingdom, you're on track.
If you're experiencing resistance because you're a jerk, you're off track.
If you're experiencing resistance because you're taking, as it were, a courageous step of faith to love something that God loves, and you get criticized, you're on track.
But rejection, it comes with the territory. It's what Jesus prepares us for.
John O'Neill.
I've spent a lot of time the last week reading his story. He wore flashy suits, tailored, bold fashion.
It didn't fit the FBI's mold, their conservative mold. People viewed him as reckless because he stayed out. He stayed out late. He liked to schmooze with people to gather information.
He was starting to warn of Al Qaeda's growing threat. And some FBI leaders sidelined him because what we needed was somebody who was more diplomatic, didn't fit their mold. Rejected, he tried to overhaul counterterrorism at the FBI and he was stonewalled. He kept running into bureaucratic infighting, resisted and ultimately rejected. But what did he have?
Truth.
He had something that we needed to hear, and yet he was silenced. And I just want to tell you, if you're a follower of Jesus, this is going to happen to you at one point or another.
Maybe it's not going to be bureaucracy that stops you, but it could be that you're tapping, you're pressing on cultural values that people hold dear that run afoul of the kingdom's values.
And as you try to embody the values of the kingdom, you experience the rejection of the community because you're not embodying their values.
I remember a time in my life when I was embodying a certain set of values that didn't, let me put it this way.
My priorities were pulled in a direction by the people around me, the values of the people around me. I was in college and I was prioritizing relationships. I was prioritizing, like, a certain level of acceptance that my peers gave me. And I knew that following Jesus, there are people on my college that were telling me about Jesus. I knew that following Jesus meant that I was gonna run afoul of the values of my community.
I was going to become a deviant, as it were, somebody who was going against the grain and so for me, what I decided to do was I decided to remove myself from the Christian community so that I can embrace this other community.
And so for several years, I ran away from Jesus.
And I've thought about that time in my life a lot. I've actually shared about it many times here from the front, because I think it was one of those moments in my life where I had a choice to make.
And oftentimes our lives are a series of choices, some of them small, some of them big, some of them that have outsized impact on our life.
And I want to tell you ahead of time, if you're in a spot right now in your life where you're not, hopefully there's nothing major or big looming on the horizon. But that will happen. You will come to a point in your life at some point or another where you're going to have to choose what values you're going to embody. You're going to have to choose what you want in life and what's most important to you. And you're going to have to choose what it looks like to make a decision in the moment.
And Jesus is preparing us for rejection from the world.
He doesn't want us to be surprised by it. It's going to happen.
Like me, you may choose the acceptance of your community, but I'm letting you know right now that you may choose differently and it may cost you dearly.
But Jesus knows what it's like.
So expecting rejection is super important.
It's a huge part of what it means to follow Jesus.
So I want to ask some questions.
Think about your if you're here and you're a follower of Jesus, I want to ask you this question.
Think about your relationships. Think about your workplace. Think about your family.
Think about your series of relationships, your community.
Are there ways you limit others or yourself because of labels or expectations from the past?
Are there ways that you limit others or yourself because of labels or expectations from outside of the kingdom?
Have you ever been in a spot where you might be tempted to underestimate what God can do through ordinary people, including you, because you may not look the part?
Resistance? How do you handle it when your calling or contributions are questioned, even when you're doing the right thing?
What keeps you grounded when others don't recognize your gifts?
Every person is going to have to deal with these things at one point or another. If you want to follow Jesus, where are you tempted to give up because of resistance, bureaucracy or unbelief?
And as you think about maybe people in your life that are closed off. What would it look like to stay faithful even though. Even when doors seem closed? What does faithfulness look like?
Jesus and John O'Neill were rejected not because of a lack of ability, but because they didn't match the expectations of their people.
And I just want you to know the same will happen to you at one point or another. Sooner or later, if you want to follow Jesus, it's going to happen to you.
There's going to be people whose expectations you don't match.
Maybe you're in a spot right now where you feel defeated because you have close relationships in your life. You want people in your life to experience Jesus. You may want them to follow Jesus, and you might be actually trying to exert your influence in their life to help them follow Jesus.
And maybe you're frustrated, maybe you're disappointed, maybe you're feeling defeated.
What if I was to tell you that God might be able to bring meaning out of what looks like defeat right now?
Did you guys catch who was on the list of Jesus brothers?
Let's read it again.
Verse 55.
Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother called Mary? And his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas. Do you guys know who James is?
Who is he?
One of the authors of a book of the Bible. One of the authors of a book in the Bible, yeah.
James. If we can throw up the verse from Galatians.
This is James. This is from the letter that Paul wrote to the Galatians. Years later, Paul's writing and he's explaining some things about his life.
And it says, after three years, I went up to Jerusalem and did get to know Cephas, that's Peter. And I stayed with him for 15 days. So this is the apostles getting to know each other. Paul getting to know the apostles. But I didn't see any of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother. I declare to you, in the sight of God, I am not lying in what I write to you. I'm glad he threw that in. So he's telling the truth, not a lie.
Where was James when we read this passage? What was he up to? What was he doing?
He was resisting Jesus.
Yes. Do we agree on that? I know there's some scholarly debate. Is that James? There's good reason to think that that's the same guy. So let's assume that for a minute. Same James. What was he doing then? Resisting Jesus. What is he doing here?
Spreading the message.
The same message that he resisted.
He was spreading all over the place. And doing so with such effectiveness that we actually have his letter of James. It's an incredible piece of wisdom literature in the New Testament that has been helping disciples for generations, ever since. What's my point? Sometimes those that are most closed off to you, that are most close to you are among the most closed off. But just because someone's closed off today doesn't mean that they can't come around tomorrow.
They can.
I'm not making a promise here. I don't know. I'm not God.
I remember once somebody, well meaning guy who I think slightly theologically different than I am, promised, you know, kind of prophesied that members of my family were going to be saved within six months of that moment. Didn't happen. Kind of bummed me out a little bit. So I'm hesitant to make promises to you that so and so is going to become a Christian. You know, you can take it to the bank. I don't know what the future holds.
However, I do know this. Jesus can do incredible things in people that seemed really closed off at one point, including amongst his own family. And so I just want to tell you, if that's you today, if you have family members that are closed off and you have maybe started to give in to fear, to where you just don't talk about it, maybe you just kind of. I just want you to know that there is still hope for those members of your family so long as they're breathing, so long as they're alive. God can do many incredible things in the lives of people that seem closed off at one point.
What we see in the life of Jesus is that when he experienced people close to him who were closed off, what did he do?
He stayed the course, but he did pivot.
So Jesus, when he experienced such resistance from not from everyone, but from a lot of the Jewish people, it opened the door for something spectacular, something radical, something that the people at that time were not ready to hear.
But it's the reason why we're here. Jesus took the message to the gentiles, which is most of us in this room.
The reason why Jesus why we're here is because the message spread beyond Nazareth, beyond the ancient Near East. It's actually a global message meant for all time.
And the message is a really simple message that has profound implications. It's the message of the kingdom.
It's the message that we celebrated last week, that we actually celebrate every single week. It's the message that my grandma tried to instill in me through somber silence when I was a boy On Easter, on the week of Easter, Holy Week.
And it's a very simple message which is that Jesus was rejected so that you could be accepted.
On September 11, 2001, John O'Neill was in his new job.
He had retired, forced resignation from the FBI in August.
Do you know where he was working on September 11?
On the 36th floor of 1 of the Twin Towers.
He had been hired to do security for the. He was the head of security for the World Trade center. And he knew, not that somebody was going to fly a plane into his building that morning, but he had told his friend the night before, we're overdue for something big happening. He had a sense of what was coming and he was kind of like, there's nowhere else I'd rather be than here.
And the stories that come out of that day, he went down, he helped children at the World Trade center daycare, and the last place he was seen was trying to help people out of the 40 something floor of one of the buildings.
And they found his remains 10 days later, after 9, 11.
What fascinates me about the life of Jesus is that he didn't just have a sense of what was coming, he saw it.
He saw the cross. Those were symbols that were used at that time. They were all over the place. You would have seen many crucifixions, people hanging there. Those of you who are fans of the chosen, you've seen that scene probably where he walks past people who are crucified and he reflects on what is coming. Jesus knew what was coming.
He knew that sin and death were going to overtake him. On that day, on Good Friday. He knew that the failures of the people that he was reaching out to, the failures of Israel and ultimately the failures of the world to respond to the message would cost him his life. And yet there was nowhere else he'd rather be. Why?
He didn't love pain. He wasn't this weird guy who was like, I just want to die, you know, I'm not trying to make light of people who have pushed poo, struggle with, you know, not wanting to be here. I'm not, that's not what I'm saying. But he didn't have like this unusual fascination with death.
Although if you read the New Testament that last week, it kind of sounds like it. But it's not because he was excited about it, it's because he saw what was coming, his own death.
And yet he went to the cross. And it says in the New Testament that he went to the cross and he despised the, what Shame. In an honor shame society where honor is everything. He was willing to lose everything so that he could have you.
He was willing to lose his life, lose the honor that was properly due to him in his time and place, and become a humble servant so that you and I could be brought out of our tombs, spiritually speaking, into life.
The only way that he was able to do that, though, was by embracing what we've been talking about today. Rejection.
He experienced rejection. Not because it was right, it wasn't. The rejection that he experienced was wrong. The way he was treated was murder. He was murdered. The way that he was rejected by his own people was shameful.
But he was willing to do that because he had a higher purpose. He had a higher calling. It was to rescue you and me, the Jewish people, the Gentiles. It was to rescue the world. And so that's why we're here. That's literally why we're here today. And so I just want to invite you to stand, stretch out a little bit.
I'm going to call the band up to the front. Thank you, guys.
And I just want to remind you of Jesus.
Jesus died because of forces that he had warned people about. He talked about the hypocrisy of the leaders. He talked about the leaven of the Pharisees. He knew what the danger was of rejecting God's kingdom. And he exposed the hypocrisy of the people around him. And yet he died. Why? Because those people were trying to regain their honor that they had lost because of Jesus.
And he was silenced. He was an outsider at the time of his death. Did you know that? Jesus was an outsider at the time of his death? Like John O'Neill out of the FBI. Silenced. Jesus was an outsider. He was rejected by the religious establishment. He was viewed as not a leader, but as a threat.
Jesus was misunderstood. He was marginalized.
And on the surface, his death looked like defeat. Good Friday.
It is good. But it's a weird name for that day, isn't it? It's the worst day in human history, and yet we call it Good Friday. Why?
Because what seemed like a sure defeat turned into a victory on Easter Sunday when Jesus rose.
And when Jesus rose, what happened was that God vindicated him. Do you guys know what vindication means?
People, communities. Whether it's individualistic society like the one that we live in, or whether it's a collectivistic society like the one that he lived in, people make judgments and assessments of other people, right? We all do it kidding ourselves. If we say that we Don't. Some people are in, some people are out. There are boundaries, there are values, and there's consequences when you cross them. Who determines those in your life is a huge deal, by the way.
They can be determined by people or they can be determined by the king in his kingdom. You get to decide that.
But Jesus ran afoul of the expectations of his community.
And what looked like certain defeat was turned into victory because God vindicated Jesus. It's as if God was saying when he raised him from the dead, here he is, the one who deserves all the honor I have honored.
And here's why. That's good news for those of you who are disciples of Jesus, or if you're considering becoming a disciple of Jesus, especially if you're thinking, man, it's costly to do this. It's costly to follow Jesus. It's costly to be about his values and purposes.
What this resurrection offers you is the hope of vindication.
So that one day, whatever society tells you, however marginalized you may become in your family, in your friend group because of your commitment to Jesus, however marred your reputation might become, however. However you might be impacted negatively by following Jesus. The resurrection is a promise that all those who put their faith in Jesus, all those whose commitment, whose commitment to Jesus leads them to stay the course to the end. There's a promise of vindication for you.
And people's words over you, especially negative judgments and assessments of you, are not final. They are temporary. There's only one that's final. And it goes like this. Well done, good and faithful servant.
That's the one that will be spoken over every follower of Jesus at the end of his life or her life. It doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter how young you are. It doesn't matter. Male, female, doesn't matter. It's all about Jesus.
That may sound nice, but as you work it out, it's really hard because it will ultimately.
It will ultimately reveal the things that you really care about and value.
And you're going to find, like I have, that oftentimes it's values that run afoul of the kingdom.
Oftentimes I'm more like the opponents of Jesus than Jesus himself. But there is a great gift in it. It's called repentance.
At any time in your life, you find yourself not aligning with Jesus. Ways which include forgiveness, which include the family of God being made up of a diverse group of people.
It includes prioritizing him above all else. If at any point you find that your values Run afoul of the kingdom's values. Jesus extends you an olive branch and says, come back.
And you can do that. And so I'm gonna call the ministry team back up, back up to the front for the first time. If you're on the ministry team, come on up to the front.
And what we're gonna do is we're gonna spend a couple minutes, we got time, and we're gonna answer some questions silently that may help you to determine are my values in alignment with the values of the kingdom. And if the answer to any of these questions leads you to believe that it's not, this is a promise, as it were. Safe, trusted people here in the front who are ready to receive you as you confess, as you turn to Jesus and say, like, I've been wrong or I've been off track, please forgive me. And the guarantee is that if that's your prayer, he will. Let's throw up the reflection questions in the front.
I'm going to read them and I'm just going to ask you to quietly ponder them for a minute or two.
I'm going to read them just in case you can't see them in the back. I realized I had everybody stand.
Yeah, let's have you sit, actually. Thank you.
Here are the reflection questions. Way everybody can see them.
Whose approval am I chasing?
Where am I silent to avoid shame?
Here's a big one.
In light of the story that I just told you guys about Jesus, what group's value shape me more than Jesus does?
All of us are shaped by a group or various groups.
What group's values shape you?
4. Where is Jesus inviting me to embrace the cross, not just manage my image?
It may look like last week Tom talked about COVID Sometimes we need to be uncovered in order to experience the freedom of forgiveness. And by that I mean we need to come real about where we're at instead of managing an image.
Five, in light of all this, what bold step of obedience is Jesus calling me to now that my honor is secure in him?
I'm gonna give you guys a minute to think through these, but I just want to key in one last little thing here. My honor is secure in him. Did you know that for the follower of Jesus, your honor has actually been secured that Jesus, what he does is he gives you a new identity and a new status when you put your faith in him. Son, daughter, pure, cleansed, washed.
If that's what's true of you, how does that free you to take a step of obedience to Jesus? What is that step of Obedience. I'm going to be quiet for a minute, and then I'll have you guys stand.
All right? I'm going to invite you to stand.
If you want to take a picture of the of those questions, feel free to if you want to reflect on it later.
If you can't get it, just find me later and I'll be happy to email them to you.
So maybe you're here and you quietly crave approval from someone or some group to the point where you might actually be willing to compromise to get it.
If that's you, or if you just even feel tempted in that direction, I want to just invite you to come and receive prayer, come and confess it, and ask Jesus to strengthen you.
Maybe you're here and that's not necessarily you, but maybe you've held back at times in your discipleship.
You've held back maybe truth. Or maybe you've softened obedience because you feared rejection.
Or maybe you've just felt ashamed of Jesus in the public square. If that's you, I want to encourage you. Come up and get prayer.
He longs for you to experience his warm embrace. What you might need is to actually experience his love, not just talk about it.
Maybe you're here, maybe that's not you, but maybe you feel like pressure or a pull because of unspoken rules in your friend, group, workplace, or family.
Maybe you're here and you're like, I actually feel like there are honor codes that I follow without questioning about success, about parenting, politics, image.
Maybe that's you.
Maybe there's certain things that you keep quiet around around certain people.
Man, if that's you and you feel like Jesus is speaking to you about that, I want to invite you to come up and get prayer.
There could be others of you where your faithfulness feels very costly right now, where you want to be about this, where you want to follow Jesus, but it feels costly and you are just tempted to hide, blend in or just chill.
I totally get it.
Maybe you felt like you've said no to Jesus not because you don't believe in him, but because you don't want to feel the shame or the cost of following him somewhere. Man, if that's you, I want to ask you to come and get prayer.
And lastly, maybe you're here and you're just frustrated at the state of your closest relationships, your family, and you're just tired.
Maybe you've been banging your head against a wall, trying as hard as you can to get people to follow Jesus or to hear you, and I just want to encourage you, if that's you come up and get prayer, or if you're on the other side, maybe you're like, oh, man, this isn't a big priority to me. But in light of this, I think it ought to be. You can come up and receive prayer, too.
And lastly, before I stop talking, man, there could be people in this room where you have family members that you've been praying for for a long time or that you've been worried about for a long time. And I just want to encourage you that in this passage, we see that Jesus isn't anxious or worried about his family.
I'm not saying that he didn't care about them. He clearly did.
But it could be that you're in a season, like Jesus, of transitioning.
There might be other people that God is calling you to be your primary mission field while you continue to pray for your family.
That could be true for you today, maybe not. But for some of you, if that. If that resonates with you, I want to invite you to come up and get prayer, because I think Jesus sees you in all that. And so we're going to go ahead and respond through prayer and praise.
And I want to invite you guys to enjoy him and respond to his leading.
