They Will Reject You Also

11/1987

How do we prepare for those who will think what is happening is wrong? Amazing we kind of covered a lot of these things at least I’d say by accident. We prepare ourselves by saying that Jesus said, “No man is greater than his master. If they hated Me, if they rejected My name as evil, so will they also you.”

It’s okay to be rejected to an extent, but it just gets a little bit personal when they reject our name as evil. That’s getting a little bit rough. But they said Jesus was demon-possessed. Now I’ve heard people use that in kind of a self-righteous way, because they’re obnoxious and they’re self-righteous. They think they know something somebody else doesn’t know.

They’ve used that to say, “Well, that’s okay, because they persecuted Jesus, too. And I’m just like Jesus. I know everything Jesus knew. So if they persecuted me, I guess that’s the way it goes.” And they march on in arrogance and pushing a stick in man’s eyes. And that’s wrong. That’s not what I’m talking about at all. Hopefully, that is nowhere in my heart.

What I’m really saying is that in humility with a tear in our eye, we’re laying down our life for people - hand to hand, eye-to-eye, and mouth-to-mouth as Elijah was as he raised a dead man, a dead boy. If that’s the way we’re living our life - daring to share not only the gospel but our very life as well (1 Thess. 2) - then God will work through that. The questions will answer themselves about “how to respond when somebody rejects us.”

We’re going to want to say, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do,” rather than, “Ahh, I knew it.” It is “Father forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. They’ve been so abused. So dumped on by the world system that they just don’t’ know. Father, forgive them. They honestly don’t know what they are doing. Please don’t hold this against their charge. Don’t put it on their account. And as Jesus did, put it on my account Father, not theirs.” Now that’s the heart that God can work through. “Father, put it on my account, not on theirs. Hold me accountable for this, not them.”

Now, those are heavy-duty words, granted. But that is the heart that God humiliates satan through. Colossians 2 says that He publicly triumphed and made a public spectacle, openly humiliating satan on the cross. That’s the only way satan will ever be humiliated is on the cross. When we get on a cross to bear the iniquities of many, rather than to judge the iniquities of many. Jesus said, “I didn’t come to judge the world, but to save it.” And that has got to be our heart. Not to isolate ourselves, but to spend ourselves for everybody and every circumstance whether believer or unbeliever, churchy or unchurched, makes no difference. Spend our life as a ransom for the many while they’re yet sinners. That’s Jesus’ way.