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Lord this morning we just thank you for the blessing that you've given us in this rain that we can enjoy. Lord we just thank you that as the rain falls down so is your word as it falls down and it cannot possibly fail to produce fruit as it falls down onto the ground. Lord we pray that this morning as your word is preached that your word would be like this rain that it would fall into our hearts Lord and that it would produce some kind of fruit some kind of growth some kind of great flourishing plant to grow in us, Lord, a plant of desire, a plant of longing for the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray that today there would not be one person leaving here today and going home who would not desire to open the Word and look for the face of the lovely Jesus. Lord, we pray that today as we open your Word and as we look at this particular thing, this fear of rejection, this issue of codependency, we pray, Lord, that you would help each one of us to identify this thing where it lies in our hearts. And we pray, Lord, that you would help us to see something of what you have to say about it. Help us, Lord, to see something of the dangers. Help us, Lord, to personalise what we see in your word today so that we can apply it in our hearts by your empowering grace. Lord, we just pray that you would be pleased to bless us as we open your word today. We pray these things in the lovely name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. I want you to picture yourself this morning walking into the CNA, like I did a little while ago, and there in the CNA you see a whole lot of items that you may purchase, and a couple of them grab your attention. One particular item grabs your attention, and it's a little on the pricey side, but you decide to make a purchase, because you've been looking at this thing for a long time, and you eventually buy it. And along with this purchase, you purchase another couple of small things that the kids have laid their hands on while you've been walking around in the shops, and you decide to put those through at the tour. There you see a lady standing behind the counter, and while I can't say in this case that she was particularly good looking, but let's just say that the lady behind the counter is good looking and she's friendly, and and you feel that the experience of buying at the shop is a pleasant experience, because of the reaction you get from the lady behind the counter. Now, as in my experience, something goes wrong. Somehow the tool does some strange thing and she says, oh sorry, the scanner didn't work. Now I'm going to have to make two slips. Is that OK? Does it bug you that I'm going to have to charge you twice? You're going to pay the same amount of money and you say, oh, it doesn't worry me. And so you walk out of the shop and you've got your bag and you've got your things and you've paid the right money and you've got your slip. But something strange about that sale niggles in your mind and you can't work out what was wrong, but you think there was something strange happening there. And when you get home you pull your item out of the bag and you pull your slip out and you look and you see that you've only got a slip for the little things in the bag, not the expensive thing that you bought. And in this case it was a book. And as this thing turned over and over in my mind, I waited for Monday morning to come because this happened on a Sunday afternoon. And I waited for Monday morning and I phoned the CNA and I asked to speak to the manager and I said, I don't know what's happened here, But I think that somebody is doing you down in your shop. I think somebody is selling things off the shelves and putting the money in their pockets. And the lady said, oh really? And she asked me for the number of the slip, the number on the tool slip, and she asked me what I bought there and how much I paid for it. And as true as anything, she phoned me back about an hour later and she said, oh, you know, we caught her. We caught this lady, she was pretending that the till wasn't working and all that, and then she just, she takes the item, she takes the money, she gives you the item and puts the money in her pocket, and then it appears that the thing was stolen off the shelves. You've got your book, they can't trace you, and she's got the money and they can't trace her. Unless somebody like me phones on a Monday morning and says, there's something wrong here. Okay, now it doesn't end there. Let's just say, The next week you remember, hey, I need something at the CNA. Now this is where it starts getting a bit thicker. And you go to the CNA and you walk in the doors and you look at the till and you see there's that same lady standing there. And she knows it's you that phoned, obviously, you know, because you've named the item. And she looked in your eyes while she was cheating you the week before. And she knows it's you and you look at her and she looks at you and there are no words spoken and you walk around in the shop feeling the hair on the back of your neck standing up because you know they're glaring at you. And you know there's tension, you know there's something happening and you feel your cheeks starting to get a bit red, you feel a sort of flushed feeling in your face because you know that the air is thick there. You know that you've done what's right, but still there's some kind of a horrible feeling in you that you've violated a relationship that you have with somebody. Now that is what I want to speak about today. I want to speak about, last week we spoke about this issue of the fear that you have because you feel a sense of shame. You don't want people to look at you and you feel a sense of shame because you were born as a sinner in this world. and because, possibly, you may have been sinned against in your life. You bear the sense of shame that everybody is looking at you, that you fear being exposed. You believe that people have this kind of gaze, that they can look into your heart and see what kind of person you really are. I want to compare these two things. The fear of being exposed and then the fear of being rejected. And this is the fear that I want to speak about today, this fear of being rejected, this fear of being disliked, this fear of people looking at you and saying, that's an unpleasant person, I don't want to be with that person. I can imagine that there's hardly a person sitting here who's never had that sense of plummeting worth, plummeting self-worth. When you sit down and you realise that somebody has excluded your name from a particular party invitation list or maybe from a wedding list, some good friend of yours who got married or even a family member and you're not invited. Now, we've had that experience a couple of times, but that kind of thing can knock you when you think that you're going to be the best man and you're not even invited to the wedding. Possibly you've been excluded from a group of people that you like being with and you suddenly realise that the like only goes one way. You realise that they generally don't really like you because you're a bit of a stick in the mud. Maybe you've been involved in a relationship with somebody and you continually feel that those people are pushing you down because they're not giving you the kind of love and acceptance that you really feel that you deserve. You feel that they are not honouring you in the way that you feel you should be honoured. And your sense of self-worth just drops and drops and drops, and you think, you know, I'm really not needed here. I'm really not important. People here don't really value me much. You know, in fact, if I just went away, they wouldn't even notice that I was gone. I used to go to another church, I won't mention the name, But Charlene and I were members there. We even had our little certificates to say that we were members. And eventually when we left that church, we stopped going there. And after two years, we happened to meet somebody who was at the church. And they were surprised to hear that we hadn't been there for the last two years. Big shock, you know. Wow, haven't you been there? Ah, okay. We didn't feel needed there, obviously. When we left, no one even noticed that we were gone. Now, Edward Welch in his book draws a wonderful picture. He speaks about an incident where him and his wife went out to dance one evening at a particular function. And he says that his wife is a wonderful dancer, and she's coordinated and she can move, and when he looks at her dancing, he's amazed. But, He, on the other hand, is not well coordinated. He says he can coordinate well, he can play tennis and everything with his arms, but his feet just don't do what he wants his feet to do. So, he describes what it was like when he attempted to dance with his wife on that evening. And late at night when they got home and he was sitting there, he found himself fantasising about that evening and thinking, just imagine, What it would have been like if I was sitting there, just this ordinary guy, you know, like you see in the movies, and my wife asked me to dance, and I was there, and I just stood up from my chair, and everyone thought I was just an ordinary guy, and I stood there, and suddenly I was transformed, and obviously in his day it was John Travolta, and he says, suddenly I was John Travolta, and everybody was amazed, and even my wife was amazed, and he says, well, you know where the fantasy goes. All of us have had that kind of fantasy, just daydreaming about the event where you are shining in the middle of a group of people and the people are looking at you and they think, wow, that's amazing, look at him. And he says it's really pitiful. It's actually funny on one hand, but it's actually so pitiful that we have to involve ourselves in fantasies that make ourselves look good in front of other people because we're so dominated by what other people think. In fact they might not even be thinking that. They might not even be looking at you saying, hey look at him, he can't even move his legs. Look at him, he's looking like a fool. And he was just speaking about the horrible sense that you get when you think that everybody's looking at you and they're thinking bad things about you and you feel that they don't appreciate you, they don't need you, in fact they're laughing at you, they think you're a fool. Isn't this why reality TV is such an amazing thing? I just think of things like Survivor. That's the only reality show that I've ever really seen. I mean, we don't see TV out there by the phone. There you see people who are living in ordinary circumstances and being pushed to their limits so you can see what's really in them. And when we look at those people being squashed in their little environment and being pressurised, We see what is inside really coming out. We see the stuff from the sponge squeezing out. And when we see them do something horrible, when we see them stabbing somebody in the back, I think to myself, well, phew, you know, look what he's like. I don't have to feel so bad. I'm not alone. I'm not the only guy like that. But then also when you see somebody who's particularly heroic, you look at them and in your mind you can imagine, oh, I'm just like that guy. You know, if I was there, I would be the guy doing that. I would be the one pulling all the weaklings up, and I would be the one, you know, helping the team along, and I would be the one who would sit right there to the very end, and they wouldn't vote me out because they liked me. You know, you fantasise about being the guy on the spot or the lady on the spot. Now, both this shame fear and rejection fear have something in common. And that one thing in common is that they both show that we have exalted people in our minds to have a power that we don't even see God to have. We believe in our minds that they have a God-like all-seeing gaze, that they can look into our lives and see things that it doesn't matter whether God sees or not. If they see those things, then it really matters. But if God sees them, it doesn't matter. We perceive them to have some greater influence on our lives than God himself has. And as far as rejection fear goes, we give them a God-like ability to fill us, that word fill is an inverted commas, to fill us with a sense of admiration, acceptance, respect, love, or some other desire. We look at people and we say, if that person respects me, then I'm a more whole person, then I'm fulfilled, I don't need anything else. God can't give me that because He's invisible, I can't see Him. But people can immediately, I think, of being received by a group of people that you really didn't expect to receive you. You think of people that you look at and you admire them, and you come to speak to them. I spoke to a very great man once, and I was amazed at how he received me. I was just this little nobody. I didn't even introduce myself by name, and he wanted to know my name, and he wanted to know my surname, and he wanted to know where I lived, and I was amazed. It was such an amazing experience to speak to a great person and have him ask me all the details about myself. Instead of me saying, wow you're a great guy and I'm amazed by the books you've written and I'm amazed by what you said today. No, he's asking me about myself and I couldn't believe it. Every time I was giving him short answers so as not to burden him with more and more of my jammer and he asked me more questions, he wanted to know more about me. Isn't that an amazing thing? When you encounter somebody like that and you feel that you can receive more from people than you can receive from God. You can feel more accepted if people accept you than you can feel if God accepts you. What a horrible thing that is. This is the sequence. People begin to control you. You begin to behave in such a way that you will receive the admiration of people around you because you crave that. You will change your behaviour and you will receive the payoff. You will have that good feeling in your heart and you'll say, yes, yuck, did you see how he looked at me? Did you see, he shook my hand and I could see he really meant it when he said, thank you for what you've done. I think I was talking to my sister about Oprah Winfrey. I don't know, I imagine in this audience there are a couple of people who are Oprah Winfrey fans. And I don't want to insult her, but I can imagine what it must be like for that woman to sit there on television that goes all over the world and we were just talking about this day when she got some guys in there who needed vehicles and she gave them cars, fancy cars. And then at the end of the show it turned out that she'd bought a car for every single person in the audience. Now I didn't personally see that, but can you imagine what it's like for that woman to go home at night and to sit down and say, wow, you know, that feels good, you know, I just Hey, I've got my payoff today. I've got something. I've got what I wanted. I've got the thing that I was after. And in the same way, you and I can do the same thing. You know, I went and painted the old granny's fence today and she said, Oh, I don't know what I would do without you. And you feel so good and you think, you know, I really am a hero. I'm really the good guy. I'm the guy who counts here. What would she do without me? And you get your payoff. And the horrible thing is that you become consumed by chasing this routine. You become consumed when people control you and that granny asks you again the next day, won't you take me here, won't you take me there, and eventually you cannot say no. And you know that it's getting beyond reasonable limits when people take advantage of you and you just can't stop and you can't say no anymore because you're scared that that person's going to come to the point where they say, oh, you're not the guy I thought you were. You're not the hero I thought you were. And that's the most devastating thought to somebody who is controlled by other people's opinions. It's the most devastating thing for somebody to look at you and say, oh no, I accepted you in the past when you were the way you were. But now that you're not going to help me today, I don't see you like that hero. Now you've broken the relationship. You're not my friend. I can see that you violated our relationship. And that's the most devastating thing to you if you're controlled by other people. And the last thing you expected when you started painting that lady's fence and you felt that good feeling, the last thing you expected was that using people to meet your needs would leave you enslaved, it would leave you trapped, it would leave you in bondage to those people that you can't get away anymore, you can't say no, you can't change anymore. That's my first point. If you are controlled by your fear of people's rejection, if you are controlled by your fear of people's rejection, and my points follow a sentence today, I'm going to make one sentence today, so if it doesn't make sense to you, just wait. If you are controlled by your fear of people's rejection, the second thing is this, and this is a horrible thing, that you are continually driven to abandon God. Now you might say, what's the whole point of exposing this thing in me? I can see it and it galls me and I don't want to see it anymore. And the horrible thing is, and the main point that I'm going to bring here today, is that there's a danger to being controlled by other people. There's a terrible thing, there's a terrible odour about being controlled by other people in this way, seeking the payoff of feeling good because you've done something for somebody else. Has the desire to be liked become a controlling drive like a sinkhole in your life? Has this thing taken you? I know people that I see often who just cannot stop living, doing things for other people with a kind of compulsive drive about them. They cannot stop. Their minds are busy, busy, busy all of the time, and they're always thinking about so-and-so's leaking water pump, and so-and-so's fridge that doesn't stand straight and makes a noise, and so-and-so's window that's broken that's got to be fixed, and there's this whole list of things, this whole agenda of other people's things in their minds. I'm not saying that's all wrong. There are people who are genuinely concerned about other people. But it comes to the point in some people's lives where you're so obsessed with doing things for other people, and you're so controlled by making other people feel good, that it becomes a problem in your life. You're no longer driven by fear of God, you're driven by fear of people. You're driven by putting off the moment. of suddenly being found out to be what you really are. Edward Welch says this, and I've quoted this here before. He says, sometimes we would prefer to die for Jesus than to live for Him. If making a decision for Jesus meant death, it would be easier than if the same decision meant spending years being unpopular, ignored, poor or criticized. Then we will defer the decision, consoling ourselves with the fact that there will still be plenty of time to straighten things out with God. In other words, kill me, but don't keep me from being liked, appreciated or respected. When I read that, that had devastating force in my heart. When I thought, this is true, somebody can put me to death right now and I would die rejoicing, may God give me the strength. But if it meant that people that I love and people that I respect are going to turn away from me and say, we don't need you anymore, you're pretty useless, you know, you don't really amount to much. And you sit there living a pointless and aimless life, if it means that, if it means people not liking you, suddenly it's different. I mean, I've been speaking to Malcolm about walking around in Bronco Sprite telling people about the Lord Jesus. You're really not needed there. People really don't appreciate you there. And it's a thing that brings discouragement when you keep trying to deliver the passion in your heart for the Lord Jesus to somebody and they look at you and it's just, you know, it doesn't touch me. It's got absolutely nothing to do with me. Why even bother talking to me? this fear of men consumes you, it overwhelms you, it owns you, it tells you what to do, it tells you how to live, it tells you how to feel, it tells you how to act, it tells you what to wear, it tells you, and I've been in this situation too, I'm sure most of the men have, it tells you to laugh at the dirty joke when you're standing around among a group of men and somebody tells a joke and everybody's laughing and you're standing, you know, trying to decide what to do. This is what the fear of man does. It tells you to be frightened to death when you must speak in front of people. And I can identify with this too. I've stood in pulpits like this with my legs so weak I can hardly even stand up. You're glad you've got a pulpit so you've got something to hold on to. You know, I sometimes sit next to my wife in the chair before I speak and my teeth are actually clattering together. I'm so worried about standing up and speaking. And this is what the fear of men does. You stand here hoping that the people are going to look at you and like you. And may God give me the strength to speak the truth whether people like me or not. Whether people throw tomatoes at me or not. I'll preach the Word of God. Obviously, bowing down to the perceived demands of people like this, we are practically avoiding a genuine relationship with God. What a terrible thing, when you have an option in your heart to either come before God and say, Lord, what is it that you want me to do? And when you have the other option to say, what is it that the people are pushing me to do? What a terrible thing it is that this kind of drive, this immediate thing that's in front of our faces will drive us to do what the people want us to do rather than what God wants us to do. We'll postpone that life of worship toward God rather than to be unappreciated, rather than to be disliked by the people. The praise of people in that moment seems to us to be overwhelmingly more valuable than the praise of God. In John 5 verse 44 the Lord Jesus speaking to the Jewish people said, How can you believe if you accept praise from one another yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God? There's a whole bunch of people who are speaking to the Lord of the Universe And they don't care about his praise. They don't care about being right before God. They just want to stand there and move in a sort of a noble way and have people look at them and say, now that's, there's a man of character. There's a man of style. I wish I was like that. I wish I was holy like that man. They want people to look at them and say, wow, what a man. But they don't really care in their hearts about doing the work that earns the approval of God. You brood, I'm sure you can identify with me on this one, you brood more over a stupid comment that you made in a conversation with somebody, or you brood more over the outfit that you wore on a specific occasion and you wonder who saw you and what they were thinking. You brood more over those things than you brood over missed opportunities for Christ. It somehow doesn't matter as much when Christ is left out of the picture than when we look stupid in a situation. In fact, I overheard during the week, I won't mention names again, a little kid playing a game, and I heard him saying to another little kid, oh, now that makes me look stupid. I mean, it's even bred in little kids. Even kids are worried about their image and how they look in front of other people. And we are more concerned about looking stupid than acting sinfully, insulting God. And I find that so sad. That we are made out of the kind of material that we would rather push God into the corner and look good in front of the people than say, Lord, I want to earn the praise that comes from you. Lord, I want to do what's right in this situation. Lord, I want to delight your heart, no matter whether the people laugh at me or not. I don't want to laugh at that joke. I want to say, sure, that's sad. I want to say something like, you know, true humanity is so beautiful. It's a pity it has to be muddied like that. It's a pity it has to be messed up like that. I want to say something so shocking that people will dislike me forever, but that God looks good. And you know what kind of fear it is to say something like that. You know what kind of fear it is to make yourself deliberately look stupid in a situation like that. If you're enslaved by the fear of men, this fear causes you to abandon God and Christ practically in your life. It practically happens. I want to just point out what Paul said about this. In Galatians 1 verse 10, those who know this book, Paul said, Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God? Or am I trying to please men? Now notice what he says here. If I was still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. Those are hard words to take. I'm either a God pleaser or I am a people pleaser. In this situation I'm pleasing God or I'm pleasing people. And Paul is saying if I'm speaking to please men, I'm not pleasing God. That's something like what Paul said to the Romans, everything that does not come from faith is sin. If it's not something that I can say Lord, I have a principle and I'm acting toward principle because I believe I'm pleasing you in this. You're pretty much sinning before God because you're saying it might be sin and it might not be sin but I'm willing to take the chance that I might be sinning against God and I'm going to do it anyway. That's a serious thing and don't misunderstand Paul also struggled with this particular fear. Notice what he says to the Ephesians in chapter 6 verse 19 he says pray also for me that whenever I open my mouth this is really practical we open our mouths a lot of times and he says pray also for me that whenever I open my mouth words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel there's reason for fear when you open your mouth among unbelievers so he says pray that I could have that there would be no fear in me as I open my mouth and that God would put words in my mouth to speak that would make God look good. Verse 20 says, For which I am an ambassador in chains. The Gospel. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should. So Paul is asking the people, please pray for me so that when I speak I won't be so bound up by fear that I won't say things that bring glory to God. Even the Apostle Paul. How much more us? We just think of this text that we've been reading this morning. Peter, suddenly in that moment as Peter stood there and this servant girl came and faced him and looked at him and said, but weren't you one of them? Weren't you with Jesus? Oh, Peter is probably one of the men in the Bible with whom I can identify the most. And I think of Peter here in this portion as he goes out Peter replied in verse 60 of Luke 22, man I don't know what you're talking about. Just as he was speaking the rooster crowed in verse 61 the Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him before the rooster crows today you will disown me three times and he went outside and wept bitterly. What a horrible moment that is. Surely there are people here who've sat there just like Peter and sat there before the Lord and you've wept bitterly because of the kind of person that you are, the things that you've done. You've deliberately sinned against God knowing that what you are doing is wrong. Just like Peter, the Lord told him and he suddenly realized, I knew this was going to happen. The Lord told me it was going to happen and here it is. It's happened. And there he weeps bitterly And in that very moment, as he's denying the Lord, everything that he knew and everything that he really believed with all his heart, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And Lord, even if all deny you, I won't deny you. And everything he believed in that moment when the girl said, weren't you with him? No. It just suddenly, he just suddenly threw it all out of the window. At that moment, The fear of man, the fear of the situation, what are people going to do? What are people going to think? What's this girl going to think if I say, I'm with him? She's going to go tell somebody else and they're going to all come and say, but you were one of them as well. He's going to be found out, he's going to be exposed. And suddenly everything that he believed and everything that he knew became irrelevant at that moment. And he acted totally contrary to everything he knew and everything he believed. And that is exactly what you and I do. There's so many things that we know and so many things that we believe, but in that moment when somebody asks us something and we feel that the way that we're going to look better here is if we just tell a half-truth. You don't even have to lie. I'm saying that in jest. You just tell a half-truth. You put a bit of truth in mingled with a bit of deception. Just make the story a little bit bigger and people will think... look at you in a better light. What a terrible thing, everything that you know in that moment just suddenly goes and you sit afterwards and think, I shouldn't have done that, shouldn't have said that and now you've got to go back and you've got to untangle things that you've said to people, lies that you've told come back from the grave of the years and people say, oh this is the guy that did that and you think, oh man, you know, I remember I told that guy that And now you've got to go and untangle all of the damage and all of the web that you've got yourself into. Peter felt when the Lord Jesus looked at him naked and exposed like Adam in the Garden of Edom. Adam, where are you? Have you eaten? Oh, Lord, yeah. But we've covered up, you know. Makes it better. What is the purpose today? What is my point? Why am I telling you this? Why am I bringing you this whole thing that is living inside of you. I want to show this to you firstly, well there are three things, firstly so that you can identify it in yourself, so you can say that's it, pinpoint it, put it on the end of a toothpick so you can examine it. Secondly, I want to show you this so that you can see who's big in your life, who really has your attention. Who really has your adoration? Who are the people that you jump to when they speak? Who's big in your life? And then thirdly, I want to show you that this really is the war for the Christian today in this world. This is what you're struggling with. This is the thing that you must fight against. The fear of man, the fear of God, this is the thing that you're going to have to struggle with. If you are controlled by your fear of people's rejection, you are continually driven to abandon God. And finally, which is what Christ died to save you from. What a wonderful thing that you and I don't have to continue in this forever and ever. What a wonderful thing that you and I have a way out of this continual dogged way of trying to make people happy and we enslave ourselves by making the people around us happy in that way. We look at the Pharisees in John chapter 12 verse 42. The Lord Jesus is confronting these people again and some of the Pharisees look at the Lord Jesus and they see the Messiah and they say, wow, it's actually unfolding before our eyes. Here's the Messiah, He's arrived. Verse 42 says, Yet at the same time many, even among the leaders, believed in Him. What a wonderful thing. There were people among those, the Pharisees even, and the leaders of the people, the big top dogs among the Jews, who looked at Jesus and said, Yah, there He is, He's the Messiah. But Because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue for they loved praise from men more than praise from God. What a terrible thing that the fear of being disapproved of would actually cause them to abandon belief in the Messiah whom they'd identified. This is what the Jewish nation has been waiting for. But we're so scared that we're going to be put out of our position here, we're going to look stupid. So we're not going to say, yes, that's Him, and put our faith in Him, and believe in Him, and step onto His side of the line. What a terrible thing this fear of men can be. In Matthew chapter 22 and verse 16, they even tried this treatment on Jesus. They tried to make Him feel stupid so He would say something. They came to him with this high and mighty tone and they said, in verse 16, they sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. Teacher, they said, we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men because you pay no attention to who they are. And then they asked their question. Tell us then, what is your opinion? They're trying to make him feel accepted so that he will be bound to say something that pleases them. But obviously it didn't work. In the Lord Jesus case he heard this flattery, he heard this high case coming down on him to make him feel good and he gave them a straight and accurate answer and they were amazed. It just shattered them that he didn't play into their hands and do what they expected him to do. Side by side, we come back to Peter. We see a man who is riddled with fear and we see the great champion of boldness. There we see Jesus looking into Peter's eyes when Peter just said, I don't know him, I don't know him. Side by side we see a man riddled with fear and we see the champion of boldness in Luke 22. And there Jesus stands and even though every single person in that whole place was going for his blood, He knew he was not rejected. He knew that he was not unpopular. He knew that he was completely accepted and loved and admired and he was deeply satisfied in his father. What a wonderful thing to feel so accepted and so at home even though you're surrounded by complete hostility. What a terrible thing it is for somebody to see this hostility in this world as the final result. of your life. This is it. This is all there's ever going to be. And never see anything else. And never see anything greater. Jesus faced the very horror, even the very horror of being abandoned by his own father. I was just speaking to my friend Ben there just now about Kenya. And I hear that the lions there are big lions. Not like South African scrawny little lions that you see in the game park. But as I was thinking about the Lord Jesus being abandoned by his father on the cross for those hours, I think of what it would be like to be driving your car in the game reserve and in the back seat sits your child. And you stop at some point and you say, listen, it's time for you to get out now. And you open the door and your child gets out and stands on the road and you close the door and you drive away. and you leave your child to be eaten by the wild animals in that game park. The Lord Jesus Christ, you read Psalm 22 of how the bulls of Bashan gathered around Him to maul Him and to smash Him. Jesus was abandoned by His Father. His Father looked at Him in the rear view mirror as it were, driving away from Him, leaving Him to die in agony on the cross. What a terrible thing that must have been to be abandoned by his father. And surely, if you and I are swayed by the abandonment, the disapproval, the dislike of people around us, how much more would we be swayed if we knew that God Almighty was looking at us and He had His eyebrows in a frown and He was saying, you know, what you're doing is not right. I don't approve of what you're doing. I don't very much like you at this moment because of the way you live here. Can you imagine how that would sway you if you were fully conscious of that disapproval? And the Lord Jesus Christ went through the disapproval of men, knowing that he was accepted by his Father, and still, even at the point where he was abandoned by his own Father on the cross, he continued, as Hebrews 12 says, and I quoted last week, for the joy that was set before him. He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven. What a wonderful moment that was when the Lord Jesus Christ came bursting into eternal glory, having accomplished the work that His Father set for Him, and every angel is staring at Him, and they're delighted with what they see before their eyes. They say, this is amazing. And I want to say, if you appear in your own fantasies to be the hero, There's never any hero like the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you imagine the true honour, the true worth, the true majesty that is given to the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven right now? Can you imagine the angels still gosping for breath over what they've seen in the Lord Jesus last year in this earth, standing before God the Father and God turning His face and pouring out His wrath on His own Son and His Son says, I will still hope in Him. I will go on. There's joy before me. This is not the end." And the angels stand looking amazed. In fact, I don't know how they can sing with their mouths hanging open like that. I can't imagine what it must be like in their chests, that feeling of excitement when they stare at Jesus and they just say, Wow! In fact, that's what the whole book of Revelation is about, where they just keep saying, Worthy, worthy, worthy is the Lamb that was slain. Over and over and over, day and night they keep calling out, and they just can't stop being amazed by the hero that he really is. And I want to say that the most amazing thing about this is that if you are a child of God, you are considered by God to be in Christ. What an amazing thing that I, with all my failures and all my fear and this fear of people that drives me to do things that brings sorrow to the heart of God, me, He's put me inside Christ. And when the angels are staring at Christ, they're staring at people like me that God has made perfect in their sight. They're amazed at what God has done with me. Material like this, they've taken stuff like this and made it something like that. I'm in Christ, I'm hidden with Christ in God. What an honour, what a privilege, what an amazing thing. In Acts chapter 2 verse 27, We see what was in the Lord Jesus' heart. David said about him, this is verse 25 I'll read from, I saw the Lord always before me, because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. This really speaks about being in a situation when you're surrounded by people and you feel alone, like a little voice and you've got to say something that brings honour to God. But God feels so far away. And the Lord Jesus said, I saw the Lord always before me. He's there. Not just these people around me, not just the people condemning me. He's here. My father is here. Remember he said, I'm not alone. My father is with me because he is at my right hand. I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. My body also will live in hope because, why? You will not abandon me to the grave. Nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the paths of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence." What a delightful thing that as the Lord Jesus Christ lives in eternal glory, He's filled with joy. He's filled with delight. That's the joy that was set before Him, accomplishing the purpose of the Father. Real life is going to burst upon you and I very soon. I don't believe that the coming of the Lord Jesus is going to be a long time from now. I have a sense of excitement in my heart. I have a sense that life is not going to be very long. I have a sense that the Lord Jesus is going to burst through the scene any moment, any day, any time now. And real life will be realised at that moment where you will see Jesus face to face as your judge or as your saviour. in spite of your present struggles, in spite of your present suffering, and in spite of being like Peter, in spite of all you know just saying something that you know you really shouldn't be saying, and then going and weeping bitterly because you've disgraced your name before your Heavenly Father again, the realisation of your deepest longings will be realised in your Saviour Jesus Christ. that intimacy that you long for, that acceptance, that approval, that delight, that filling will be yours at that very instant when you look at the face of Jesus. Now that doesn't mean, and I'm going to just finish with this comment, that doesn't mean that you are doomed to fear men and women for the rest of this period of time that you're going to live on earth, doesn't mean that you're just going to have to keep living like that because you're waiting for that great, wonderful glory that you're heading toward. You say, but even Peter, in Galatians, Peter is called the pillars, I forget the phrase now, pillars of the truth, I think they call them. Somebody might remember. Those reputed to be pillars, That's what they call Peter, and Peter's one of those, those reputed to be pillars. Now even Peter, who was reputed to be a pillar in the Church of God, even he folded. After he knew all of these things, he folded at the point where the Lord Jesus was handed over, and he folded, you will remember, in the book of Galatians, where Paul had to go to him and confront him and say, you're doing what's wrong. You're falling into the fear of men. You're so scared of what the Jews are going to think that you're not even eating with the Gentiles anymore. You say, what hope do I have if even Peter kept falling? I want to say that Peter didn't continue like that. And Peter said in 1 Peter 3, here is hope. Here is the reason to believe that somebody who fell as badly as Peter did, and as badly as I've fallen, can grow in a life where you can begin to disregard the opinions and the thoughts and the approval of other people and you can begin to delight God in your heart in the way that you react. Peter said in 1st Peter chapter 3 verse 13 and 14, Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right you are blessed Do not fear what they fear. Do not be frightened. And here's Peter's solution. Here's the way he goes about it. And I hope to bring you some solutions to these issues of fear in the last two weeks that I'm here. But this is it. Here's Peter's solution. But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Christ is my master. These people's opinions don't tell me what to do. Christ tells me what to do. I will do what my master says in this situation. Do I laugh at the joke or don't I? What does Christ say? What does my master say? In fact, it's very appropriate that a little saying that went around some time ago, what would Jesus do? What would he do here? Would he laugh or wouldn't he? Let's just close in a word of prayer. Our Father, this morning we've We've probed into some of the things in our hearts that we would rather not have people see. We've probed into some of the things that we'd rather not share with other people. And Lord, we've looked at things that don't really make us look good. Lord, we just pray this morning that you would be pleased to help us to identify this thing properly in our hearts, this fear of man, this fear of being rejected and disliked and this fear of having people's disapproval weighing upon us. Lord, we pray that you would help us, as Peter learned in his life, not to be afraid of people, even if they come to you and even if they make you suffer, and even if people have to die for the name of the Lord Jesus, as it was in Peter's case. Lord, we pray that you would help us to be bold, that you would help us to set apart Christ as Lord in our hearts. Lord that we could look at the lovely Jesus and see the joy that surrounds him right now and know that we are hidden with Christ in God. Know that we who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and who are saved are in union with the Lord Jesus. We have something Lord we have the honour that is given to the Lord Jesus by God. Lord we just pray that you would help us to grow in opposition to this fear of man. so that we can learn to delight the heart of God in a life of true worship. Lord, we just commend ourselves into your hands as we part company. We pray these things in the lovely name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
People Will Reject Me 2 of 4
Series Co Dependency so called
Co-dependency has been the mysterious label that has been pinned to many people today who really seem to match the title. Here, I have considered some thoughts on the issue. Much of what I have said here is inspired by Dr. Edward Welch's book, "When People are Big and God is Small".
Sermon ID | 3130791254 |
Duration | 50:33 |
Date | |
Category | Sunday Service |
Bible Text | Acts 2:25-28; John 5:44 |
Language | English |
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