Good evening folks welcome once again to our Wednesday night Bible study prayer meeting and your prayer bulletin that did go out by email so please take a look for that in your email folder. Also the notes for tonight's study have been posted on the website and I believe on the Facebook page as well. So you can print those off or already have them printed off And ready to go for the lesson when we get into that I did want to take a second and just mention a couple of praises that were in our prayer bulletin for tonight the The surgery, the heart procedure that Kevin Dowdy went through earlier this week, everything went well. The doctors were pleased that it went so well. This was the second go-around with this same procedure, and so this time the doctors feel that this was a success. And we're just looking forward to his quick recovery from that. And then also a praise for Josh and Bethany Wormley that were able to be with us this past Sunday, our missionaries to Kenya. It was nice to get reacquainted with them, updated on what's been going on for their work there in Kenya. And also, um, I didn't go, I wasn't invited to the ladies brunch that they had this past Saturday. Uh, the ladies though, from what I've heard, had a great time and it was a really good blessing. Uh, Bethany was a speaker at that. And, uh, so they're just really appreciative, um, just to be able to get back together again too. And we're looking forward to that here at grace. Now we've had two Sundays back together here in the building, our Sunday morning services. And I know folks are going to be asking, some have been asking, when are we going to do Sunday night, Wednesday night? When are we just going to say, oh, forget it with all of this. It's going to happen, but we just want to proceed cautiously and responsibly with how we return back to what we once used to do. So having said that, let's go ahead and shift into our Bible study now for tonight. And if you would, Go ahead and get your Bibles out and turn to Judges chapter 11. Judges chapter 11. The topic for tonight, if we could just go ahead and throw that up there right now. The topic for tonight, it's a painful one, I think. We're dealing with rejection. And a lot of times that comes in the form of criticism. The criticism of something that we've done, We have put effort into doing something. Maybe we've put a lot of thought into it, maybe a lot of effort, maybe not a lot of thought and not a lot of effort, but it was something that we were responsible for, that we did. And then someone finds something wrong with it. That can be painful. A lot of times, you know, I'll read about different examples of this and some authors will put forth examples of the child who does something for his dad or his mom and he thinks it's really, really special and gives it to them or they see what he's done and they point out what was wrong with it. instead of recognizing it for what it was. Let me illustrate it this way. Ladies, it's your husband's birthday, okay? And you're going to make his favorite meal, from scratch there's no boxes or microwaves or frozen anything involved here you're going to make his his favorite meal from scratch so you start off early in the day you've spent hours in the kitchen you're maybe marinating the steak Peeling the potatoes, cutting the potatoes, adding just the right amount of spices, roasting those potatoes to perfection. And then you have fresh vegetables, his favorite, fresh vegetables. All the extra garnishments that go along with that are prepared and they're ready to lay out for him. You even have his favorite drink ready for him. Now, you've spent hours outside of the kitchen cleaning the house, setting the table. making sure there are no spots, water spots on the glasses and the silverware. You even have cloth napkins laid out. You have music playing in the background. Because of forethought, you've had some scented candles burning in the background as well so that the house will smell inviting when he comes home from work. And you have the meal all ready It's all set out on the table at the appointed time. Everything is hot. Everything is ready. Everything is perfect. He sits down. He looks around and he asks, what? No dinner rolls. Now, you did nothing wrong, but what's the problem? Why was it that you maybe took offense to that? Well, we crave acceptance. And many times when we don't get acceptance, we get what we interpret to be rejection. Many times we've done nothing wrong. but we're still rejected or we're still wrestling with that feeling. That was the case for Jephthah here in our passage for tonight. He was actually kicked out of his home, kicked out of his own hometown for something his parents had done. He had no control over it. Let's go ahead and look at a few of those verses in the judges chapter 11 in verse 1 it says now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor and he was the son of a harlot That's the key part right there and Gilead begat Jephthah And Gilead's wife, this is a different woman now, Gilead's wife bare him sons. And his wife's sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father's house, for thou art the son of a strange woman. Then Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob. and there were gathered vain men to Jephthah and went out with him. Jephthah's only problem was he was the son of a harlot, and he was rejected because of it. Now, we know this. Rejection comes in different forms. A parent may show a little more love to one of your siblings maybe growing up. A different form may be that you have a teacher who has a favorite in the class and you weren't the favorite. No matter how hard you try, you just can't seem to fit in with a group that maybe you want to fit in with. And the result of all of those scenarios is we feel rejected. With Jephthah, It was something he was born with. Now, think about that category of reasons for feeling rejected. Something he was born with. For you, could be your ethnicity, your social status, maybe your appearance, your abilities. You just don't think you measure up to other people. That's not the way God looks at us. In his eyes, in God's eyes, let me say that again, in God's eyes, which are probably more accurate than our own eyes, in God's eyes, we're all equal. Acts chapter 10 in verse 34, it says, God is no respecter of persons. A lot of times here in our culture, we might hear the phrase or the idea that when we look at people, we don't see color. Everyone's equal. Well, God has that perspective when he looks at all of his creation, we're all equal. no matter our ethnicity, no matter our social standing, no matter what we look like, no matter what country we're from, where we were born, what side of the tracks we were born on, it doesn't matter. God looks at all of us as equal. In fact, in fact, James chapter two in verse nine, he specifically condemns the attitude where he says, if we have respect of persons, we commit sin. And that's that passage there in James where it says, if a man come into your assembly wearing a gold ring and costly apparel, and you say unto him, sit here in this good place, and then a poor man comes into your church, and you say, why don't you just sit over there on the floor? It tells us there in James that you commit sin. You are being a respecter of persons. Now, it is wrong for people to do that, right? And sometimes we feel rejection because we're being respected by people who are disrespecting us, or maybe we feel they are. But wait a minute, can I just stop here and get us to think? You know, for every side of a coin, there's another side of a coin. If we just flip that coin over, okay? So now we're not talking about the people that are sinning when they look at us because of our ethnicity or social status or our personality or our looks and thinking less of us, making and rejecting us. But Aren't we participating in that same thought process when we, the rejected one, feeling rejected, look at someone else and think, oh, I wish I could be accepted by them. I've never met a person, and even in my own experience with feeling rejected, I've never met a person and I've never experienced feeling rejected by everyone. In my personal experience, there's been one or two in my life that I just craved their acceptance. I wanted to be accepted by them. And I was being a respecter of persons. Why did I want to be respected by them? And I didn't care about these over here. See, I'm doing the same thing. God says we commit sin when we are a respecter of persons, and he doesn't clarify which side of that scale we're on. It can happen on either side of that coin. And Christ, he even said in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 511, blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Christ even tells us if you experience rejection, you are blessed. If you're experiencing it for doing what's right, you are blessed. Let's look at some sources of rejection. One of the sources of our rejection, and we just have to be honest here, can sometimes be our own mistakes, okay? We don't want to think that if we're ever rejected, they're wrong. How dare they do this? We have to be careful that we don't move forward thinking that if we are rejected, it's the other person's fault. And we've done nothing wrong, okay? Sometimes it is because of something that we've done. So if you are feeling rejected, first stop. First thing, we need to honestly examine ourselves to see how we may have caused it. If it's something that we may have done, then we need to take steps to correct it. Okay? So one source of rejection could be our own mistakes. Here's a second one. Our friends. Ouch. when our friends reject us. Now, rejection never feels good, but it does hurt even worse when it comes from our friends, the ones that we should be able to depend on the most. When we are rejected by our friends, we can be assured of this. Jesus understands how we feel Remember Hebrews 12 to I think we maybe mentioned that last week or the week before Looking unto Jesus it says Considering that he went He he was rejected by the very ones that he was giving his life for and This was the deepest rejection possible. The ultimate act of betrayal. Yes, he knows what that feels like. And because of that, he cares when we feel rejected. Now think back to the last time you were feeling rejected, okay? Maybe even right now. And if I were to say this right now, or we heard this in the past when we were feeling rejected, said, oh, it's okay, Jesus knows how you feel. What good would that do to us right then? Did that just, oh, oh, okay, everything's fine now. Chances are it didn't, but yet it's true. Hebrews 12 too, it says, look unto Jesus. Wait a minute. He was rejected by his very friends, okay? And he knows how we feel and he cares when we feel that way. Now, here's the third source of our rejection, our family. The final source of rejection that I guess we're gonna consider here tonight is our family. And we definitely saw it in Jephthah's family there in Judges chapter 11. Jesus actually experienced this as well. John chapter seven, verse five tells us, for neither did his brethren believe in him. Now you think about it, his brothers, his family had to have known there was something different about Jesus growing up with him. Kids are kids. They've always been kids all throughout history. Kids do things wrong. They get in trouble. They get punished by their parents, their discipline. And can you imagine being his brothers and thinking, man, why doesn't Jesus ever do anything wrong? There's something different about him. But they still, when he started his earthly ministry, they still, they didn't believe in him. Imagine Jephthah's feelings that he had as he was fleeing from his home, knowing his own flesh and blood didn't even want him. Family is one of the most precious gifts we have it's it's an understatement but rejection hurts and If we don't address it Before it overtakes our hearts and our minds it will destroy us and it will begin to hurt other things around us and Well, I tell you what, let's go ahead and consider one more source of rejection. It's kind of the obvious one, our enemies. OK, that doesn't surprise us. I guess when our enemies reject us, those that aren't really they're not our friends, they're not our family, but they reject us. And when some of them reject us, it hurts we feel rejection and if we're not thinking straight here if if i if we don't do what what i had just said about uh addressing it before it overtakes our hearts and our minds it will destroy us many many people young people we see this predominantly with younger people teenagers peer pressure they want to be accepted they don't like feeling rejected And so what do they do? They try to fit in. They compromise. Christian young people make decisions. They're not thinking straight. They didn't deal with that rejection. It got a hold of their heart and their mind. and it began to destroy them one compromise after another after another after another a lot of times this will be illustrated with with young girls that that feel rejected by the men in her in her life her their their fathers or or whatever the case is and they just want to feel accepted and though so they make compromises and they give in to Some guy they think is accepting them so they can feel accepted and they begin doing things they wouldn't normally do if they were thinking straight. But it's not just young people that do this. Adults will do this as well. Our enemies, we kind of expect this, but if we're not careful, this kind of rejection can lead us to make compromises, to get them to like us and accept us. All rejection, it twists our thinking. What happens is we become self-focused on our rejection, on us. Why we think we were rejected. What's wrong with me? We focus on self focused on self preservation. We become a can become untrusting, argumentative, unable to show grace to people, and even becoming a bitter person. So what do we do? We have to choose. Okay, we have to make a choice. Whatever the reason for your rejection, or who the rejection was from, or the responses to rejection, tonight you are at a crossroads. You can choose to stay on the course, stay miserable, stay feeling rejected, stay unhappy, stay fighting those feelings of rejection, which we've maybe been doing for a long time and it's not getting any better. Or we could choose a path of healing. Now, the path we've been on obviously isn't working. It's not changing anything. We're constantly trying to measure up, we're constantly fighting that feeling of rejection, might get it away for a little bit and then something happens and it backs, and it is back, or we could just choose a different path, a path of healing. What does this look like? We need to go to God's word for that. Let me give you some ideas of what that would look like. Number one, realize that rejection is sometimes a sign you're doing right. Rejection, okay, to choose the healing path, it involves thinking differently. And part of this thinking differently is thinking that, realizing, thinking that rejection is sometimes a sign that you're doing something right. Sometimes, you know, it comes down to choosing between acceptance or serving God. If I choose to serve God, I'm not going to be accepted here. If I choose to serve God, I want to be accepted here. A lot of times we try to do both. But think about this. If my focus is not on serving God and my focus is somewhat over here on something else, however small or large that focus may be, if I'm not 100% totally desiring to just serve and please God, part of me is over here. And if I'm not 100% here, then I'm going to start making compromises away from here so that I can have a little bit of this. And the more I get of this, the more I'm having to step away from serving God with my whole heart, soul, and mind and loving him. Rejection is not bad if we are rejected for doing right, but many times our fear of rejection keeps us from doing the right thing. Perhaps there's the passage in Timothy where it tells us the word of God. And the purpose for the word of God is for teaching us doctrine, telling us when we're wrong, telling us how to get right and telling us how to stay right. OK, one of those is described this way, reproving. Rebuking. Do we rebuke our friends when they're doing wrong? When they're gossiping to us, do we reprove or rebuke them lovingly? Do we? When they're complaining, when they're criticizing someone or something else that's not even there to defend themselves, do we rebuke them? Because God's word says we take God's word and reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all longsuffering. But do we do that with our friends? Why not? Is it because we're afraid? We're fearing rejection from them? Many times our fear of rejection keeps us from doing the right thing, all right? Letting the opinion of others direct our lives eventually is how it ends up. Well, it just doesn't bring blessing on our lives because I have walked away from the spot of blessing so that I could have acceptance from over here. And the more I walk away, the less blessings I'm getting. Let's look to God's Word. What does it say? 1 Peter 4, 14. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye. Let me stop reading right there. If you be reproached for doing what's right, happy are ye. If you are reproached for doing what God says we should do in discipling our Christian friends, Happy are ye, if you're reproached for that, for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth on you. On their part He is evil spoken of, but on your part He is glorified." Wow! Did you see that? The spirit of glory and of God resteth on you when you do what's right. And when you are rejected or reproached by this group for doing what's right, God's spirit is resting on you. Now, which would you rather have? God's spirit resting on you? or to be accepted by people who, as it says there, he is evil speaking of them. Realize that rejection, number two, realize that rejection has nothing to do with you. Often it has nothing to do with you. How about how about this this phrase? I'm gonna throw a bunch of different phrases out there in one sentence Okay statements that maybe we have thought in our minds if I were better-looking if I had a better personality if I was a little skinnier a little taller a Maybe if I had different parents, if I had more money, if I was more fun to be around, if I was less awkward, maybe they'd let me in their group. Are you thinking that? Have you thought that? Stop. Let's. Hebrews 12 to let's look to Jesus. Okay, let's look to what God says Jeremiah 1 5 before I formed thee in the belly. I knew thee and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. And he's speaking specifically to Jeremiah here, but there's a truth there for all of us. Before we were formed in the belly, in the womb, before we were conceived, before those cells first joined together, before we even existed, he says, I knew you. Before I started putting you together, I knew you. Before you came out of the womb, I had a plan for your life. We could say that in reverse. God had a plan for our lives that he planned for us before he even started putting us together. God had a special purpose and plan for you and he created you Prepared you made you Just the way you are in order to fulfill that specific purpose Remember those thoughts that I shared before I kind of streamed them all together Better looking better personality skinnier taller more money different background Yeah, he planned those things, too. I where you would be born, what town, what parents, what family. He planned all those things specifically. You are, well, let me back up here. How many of you, I bet everyone has some kind of a multi-purpose tool in their house, okay? This is tool that's like a Swiss Army knife. There's 42 different things in there, tools that you can use for different things. It's a multi-purpose tool. Not all tools are multi-purpose. Some tools are designed specifically for a task, okay? And to use that tool for a different task is not a good thing. I have a circular saw. My son bought me a circular saw about a year ago. That was a super gift. It's got a nice sharp blade on it. I've cut some wood with it. If you're a guy, you understand this. The smell of cut wood. It's a manly thing, okay? But if I took that saw, and let's say in the middle of August, I decide I want to plant some flowers. Now, by August, the ground is dried, it's hard, it's very hard to dig. Wait a minute, I got a saw, electric saw. I'll just get down there in the dirt and start running that saw over the dirt. Oh man, that's not going to work so well. That's gonna damage my tool because that tool was designed for a specific purpose. And as long as that tool is doing what it's designed to do, it'll last a long time. I bet some of y'all have circular saws in your garage that you've had for 15, 20 years. All you gotta do is change the blade occasionally, right? The saw just keeps running if you use it right. And we are designed not to be multi-purpose tools. Jeremiah 1.5 tells us that. He designed us for a specific job. And if we focus on doing that job and rest in doing that job and not wish we were a different tool or we were designed a different way, that's where we find peace and blessing. If someone rejects us for how we were created, they're rejecting God's handiwork. God made us the way we are. And when we're feeling rejected, okay, those people that we are feeling rejected by, if they are rejecting us, they're rejecting God's handiwork. Anything that God's created he looks at it and he says what it is good But there's one of those coins let's flip that coin around God created me the way I am and And if I've already examined myself and there's nothing that I've done wrong, there's nothing that I need to improve on. It's not that I have to improve on social skills or, or not stop being rude or burping in public or whatever it is. I've, I've ruled all those things out and I'm still feeling rejected and wishing that I were a little taller, a little skinnier, different background, more money, less awkward, whatever. I'm also rejecting God's handiwork. That's like me saying, God, I know you made me this way, but I sure wish I was that. Let's go on to number three. Remember, we're choosing the road that ends in healing. Here's a third thing for us to realize or recognize. Jesus is all you need. Now let's go back to Jephthah here for a moment. His family rejected him. They wanted nothing to do with him. I can't imagine I know there are people alive today who have experienced that from their families for different reasons, just expelled them, they want nothing to do with them. I cannot imagine what that must be like. His family, they didn't want anything to do with him. And if we went back to the narrative there in chapter 11, we would see all this written out for us. They didn't want anything to do with him until trouble came. His family, that kicked him out. There was a battle looming. Some other tribes had come around and they were going to battle and they were afraid. Now, for whatever reason, they came to Jephthah and they asked him to lead them into battle with this enemy. He agreed. What were his thoughts right then? If we had the time to go into the narrative, I mean, we would see based on what he said, we can come to a conclusion about what his thoughts were. If I could just. If I could just win this battle. All my trouble will be over. I'll be accepted by my brothers. But Jesus is all we need. People will look up to me, but Jesus is all we need. I'll get some respect, but Jesus is all we need. I'll be somebody, but Jesus is all we need. Let me diverge here just for a moment. If only, and then you fill in the blank. If only all those stream of things that I threw out there earlier, and there's probably many more that I didn't think of. If only, fill in the blank. If only I will have friends. But Jesus is all we need. If only I will belong, but Jesus is all we need. I'll get appreciation, but Jesus is all we need. You know, we sing the song sometimes in church, He's all I need. He's all I need. He's all I need. All, all to me. We sing that. But do we believe it? This right here that we're talking about tonight, this is how and where we apply that truth that Jesus is all I need. The question though is, do we believe it? Satan wants us to think that Jesus isn't enough. Because Jesus isn't enough and because we have fought that Then I have to I have to for some reason Get acceptance from this person in my life that I crave to be accepted by that I crave for For this person to recognize me What's driving that well I I can tell you what's missing for me and probably for all of us. What's missing is we don't really believe that Jesus is all we need. Satan wants us to think Jesus isn't enough, that we need something more, that we need something different, that we are not important unless we are loved by everybody. Here's the fourth thing. Focus on being a help to others. Now, I haven't really focused on this too much, but so far, everything about feeling rejected, when you're feeling rejected, when I'm feeling rejected, guess who I'm thinking about right then? I'm thinking about three people. And if you're from grace, you know what I'm going to say right now. Me, myself, and I. I am self-focused. So the first three things I gave you on this path to healing is just changing the way we think. And this fourth thing is dealing with actions, but start focusing on other people. This is an important step to recovery from rejection. But ultimately, ultimately, the only place that we find real acceptance is at the foot of the cross. Remember, Satan wants to get us to think that Jesus isn't enough, that we need something more from over here. So he gets us away from Jesus in our mind, okay, and we start thinking we're gonna find what we think we need over here because Satan has convinced us that Jesus isn't enough and we need more and he has pulled us away from, symbolically speaking, he has pulled us away from the cross. Ultimately, that's the only place we're going to find acceptance. If you're saved, you've already experienced that once. We're talking about rejection. The opposite is being accepted. When I came to Christ at 19, man, I was a mess. And this person, Jesus, accepted me. He accepted me when I was at my worst? Why do I think I need acceptance from these other people now? That's how Satan works in our minds. And we have to readjust our thinking, get back to the cross. Ephesians chapter 1 in verse 6 that tells us he made us and he accepted in and he made us and he made us accepted in the beloved Did you hear that? Ephesians 1 6 you can take the time to look it up but Accepted that's what we're wanting from here and he's already made us accepted and Jesus has already proved God's unconditional love when he died for us. There is nothing to fear. In Christ, we will never be rejected. No matter how awkward we may be, no matter what we might look like, what our ethnicity is, no matter what we slip out of our mouth from time to times and we just say the wrong things, we will never be rejected. Even when we are in the wrong, he never rejects us. And because of that, we are free to live a life of joy and blessing. Would you pray with me? Father in heaven, God, thank you. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for the love, the unconditional love and the acceptance that we have in Christ. God help us. Because sometimes we do get diverted from that. I don't know where it begins for me even, much less other people and where we start slowly drifting away from that. But God, tonight, I pray that those that are watching this tonight and even later, that we will make this choice now to go the other road, start returning back to Jesus, because thank you, but He is all we need. In Jesus' name, amen. Folks, have a great night, and I look forward to seeing you Sunday morning.