This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. All right, family. Let's go back to Luke chapter 9. Luke chapter 9. And we're going to be in the same nine verses, but I promise you it's a different sermon. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word? And he called the 12 together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases. And he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. And he said to them, take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money, and do not have two tunics. And whatever house you enter, stay there. And from there, depart. And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town, shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them. And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere. Now Herod the Tetrarch heard about all that was happening, and he was perplexed. because it was said by some that John had been raised from the dead. By some that Elijah had appeared and by others that one of the prophets of old had risen. Herod said, John, I beheaded, but who is this about whom I hear such things? And he sought to see him. It's the reading of God's word. Please have a seat. Let's pray. Our God, we pray that you would help us now. We are tired. Our minds are full. So many distractions creep in, but Lord, we want you and we want your word. And we don't want to miss any blessing you would have for us. Please help us now and help us to be faithful to the word. We pray this in Jesus's name. Amen. So in the morning, we talked about rejection. Rejection, a good amount. And we were talking about it from the perspective of our role in either embracing God or rejecting God. Embracing his word or rejecting his word. But there's actually another side of this passage and there's another side of this theme. What about when we become the messengers? What about when we become the messengers? See, the stakes were if we reject God, he rejects us. But then the other side of that equation is that if we embrace God, then the world rejects us. Then the world rejects us. When we become the messengers on behalf of the King, we become the rejected ones. And now there's new challenges to consider. Verses seven through nine, they add an ominous touch to this account. Herod is perplexed. Now this is Herod Antipas, that's the son of Herod the Great. In Herod Antipas, he ruled over Galilee where Jesus had been ministering primarily. And Herod is not some neutral ruler. No, he's not. He is the one who beheaded John the Baptist. All because John the Baptist had the nerve to speak the truth to Herod. No, this is not a neutral man we're talking about here. And why is he perplexed? He's perplexed because some wild rumors are going around about who Jesus is. And Herod is trying to sort out who this famous healer is. What is he about? And the ominous foreshadowing here is that the same man who executed John the Baptist, he is now interested and perplexed by Jesus. You see, Herod is not the kind of guy that you want to go around perplexing. He is dangerous. Herod has proven himself to be an enemy of the people of God. What he did to John, you have little doubt he would do to Jesus if circumstances pushed him that way. There is a hostile ruler and he is now paying attention to Jesus. See, Jesus had already offended the influential religious leaders. That's sort of an act of the past now, but now he's on the radar for the man who killed the forerunner of the Messiah. This ruthless, unbelieving man will be paying closer attention from here on out. In the last sermon, we talked about how we reject God, but the Lord was also preparing us in that very account for us being rejected when we serve him. And Herod is a sobering reality of what rejection can look like. So Jesus told us, he told us that we would be rejected when we serve him. That's not a hard teaching to find in all of Jesus's sayings. And you take these first disciples, they were authorized by Jesus. They were given power by Jesus. And yet that didn't mean that everyone welcomed them. That didn't mean that everyone welcomed them. Empowered authorized disciples were rejected. Process that. Does that surprise us? I mean, it shouldn't, but don't we assume sometimes that if only I am faithful enough, if only God displays enough power through me, then no one would ever reject me and no one would ever reject the good news that I bring. Turns out that's not the case at all. In Luke's gospel already, we've seen Jesus, Jesus himself be rejected. So why would his disciples fare any better? These disciples, they went out with eyewitness testimony of what God had been doing. And they went out with power. They went out with power to back up everything that they had been saying and yet they were rejected. Yet they were rejected. And if we are going to follow Christ today, we should likewise expect to be rejected. You see our fundamental mission, it is the same as those original disciples. We're not called to reenact this exact trip. We talked about that in the morning, but we are likewise supposed to proclaim who Jesus is. We're likewise supposed to proclaim what he has done. We are likewise supposed to proclaim what it means for humanity. We're supposed to tell people that he is the way and he is the truth and he is the life and that no one comes to the father except through him. We're supposed to proclaim that he died on a cross and he rose from the grave. We're supposed to tell people that because of their sin, judgment is coming. But if they repent, they can still be made clean. And as these disciples were given authority, the church has been given authority. The great commission. It is built on his authority. Do you remember how it goes? All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go. and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. The Great Commission doesn't exist without the authority of Jesus Christ. And so we too, we are going to go out. We too were authorized by Jesus himself, given a message to proclaim And we too are going to be rejected. And we're going to be rejected in all kinds of ways. The obvious way, it's, you know, some kind of argument. They present their view, you present God's views, and then they conclude by the end that you're just totally wrong. And at the end, maybe they're happy to state that they reject how God does things. That's like the black and white version of rejection. But you know, rejection, it's not always going to be hostile. It's not always going to be heated. You know, this past week, several of us went to the FIRE Church Conference. It's just a wonderful group of people. I'm so glad we belong to that fellowship. And so we flew to Denver. I flew by myself. I was supposed to go with Brian, but Brian obviously had to sit this one out. So I got to ride in the tiny plane to San Francisco by myself. I get on the plane and I take a picture of the row where you can like almost touch the ceiling with your head. And I told him, I said, you still owe me for this flight. But you go to San Francisco and what do you know, you get into an interesting conversation on the plane. The guy next to me, he notices I'm working on a sermon. And so boom, we're into a subject. You may not even be a preacher, just act like you're working on a sermon. And it's a great lead into conversations. But he notices, and actually later, after we're done talking, because I tell him I'm working on a sermon, and after we're done talking, he says, oh man, I'm sorry, I kept you from your work. And I said, well, semi-jokingly, I said, well, at least you gave me an illustration. And here he is in the sermon. Anyways, nice guy, interesting guy, and we had a lot of disagreements about his views of Christianity. We had a wide variety of subjects available to us where we were not seeing things the same. And by the end, he had very politely told me that all Christians were arrogant for believing that they exclusively possessed the truth. You've heard that one before, right? Well, around that time, it's a 37 minute flight, around that time, we are landing. And so, you know, I do what I can after that jam packed conversation, I invite the guy to church. I said, if you're ever back in our area, you should come join us. And he at least humored me to think he was thinking about it. Right. And in that whole conversation, he never raised his voice. He was never rude to me. But he rejected God all the same, didn't he? He rejected God all the same. These less obvious forms of rejection, they're all around us. There's that same conversation. You present God's views, they present theirs, and then they conclude with, well, that's interesting. And then they just go on their way. Functionally rejecting God's view, even if they're not the type of person to put that rejection into words. rejections all around us. We were finding ourselves on the other end of rejection more and more in our country, aren't we? We continue to thank God that we have never been exposed, at least not yet, to that kind of systematic, violent rejection like many of our brothers and sisters have. So we continue to have God to thank for that. But There's no doubt that our society is just continuing to reject God more and more. We've redefined morality, and so our morality has departed from God, and where those morals are now our foundation for legislation, we find that we are creating legislation that likewise rejects God. And so you find from the individual that you may be talking with, to that person on the airplane, to the society in which we live, rejection is happening all around us. And there's a number of ways that Christians think that they should handle this rejection. There's a variety of opinions there, but we can get solidly behind the idea that we will be rejected for following Jesus Christ. When people reject the master, they're going to reject his followers too. And we should be prepared for that. We should be prepared for that. Don't be surprised when you are rejected for being a Christian. Don't be surprised that people at large reject Christian standards. Don't be surprised that they are unpersuaded by Christian beliefs. Don't be surprised that people stand fervently behind anti-Christian beliefs. The rejection is already here and likely it's not yet as bad as it's going to get. So we need to be prepared to follow our Savior in faith and faithfulness through a storm of rejection that's only going to get more fierce. See, if we know the rejection's coming, we can be prepared for it. If you dread the rejection because you fear you are too weak to handle it, then take consolation because all you have to do is be faithful. God is the one who is strong, and his strength will shine beautifully in your weakness. If you hate the idea of rejection because you are supposedly strong and you should never be made to look like you are not strong, you should never be made to look weak, then I mean, for you, I would say humble yourself. Humble yourself and walk that path of rejection that your Savior walked before you, that your Savior walked for you. We should be prepared for rejection. We should be prepared to look around at this rejecting country and think, wow, I feel like an outsider, a total outsider. It's lonely to feel like you don't belong. It is tiring to feel like you don't belong. But it's what we expect. It's par for this course. And the rejection of this world, it's supposed to make us long for what is to come. The world's not supposed to satisfy you. The world is supposed to make you look forward, look forward to what is to come. Every rejection of this world only makes the acceptance that we have in Jesus Christ all the sweeter and all the more precious. We will be rejected. So our mission, it's fundamentally the same as those first disciples. It carries with it the same kinds of rejections, but good news, it carries with it the same hope too. Don't you imagine those disciples coming back? Wouldn't they have been so deeply encouraged at having lived out what Jesus had planned for them? Wouldn't that have been encouraging? They'd seen the provision. They'd left without bread or money or extra clothes or whatever, and God had provided. They'd seen the power. They'd gone out and been able by his power to do things they never could have imagined before. Their trust in him was vindicated because he accomplished exactly what he said he would. And we too have every confidence that Jesus is going to perfectly fulfill his plans through us. Not just disciples long ago, through us. Jesus is going to be vindicated once more because souls are going to be saved and disciples are going to be raised up. Rejection won't stop God's plans. It can't. Though our society rejects truth, God's truth is still going to be rescuing souls out of that society. Though our society is just deteriorating, going down the drain. He will continue to sanctify and transform his people. Though our society rises up with its philosophies and its agendas, the truth of God is going to stand as firm as it ever has. Though our society calls seductively for followers, God will preserve his people. God will raise up disciples. Though society will stand up as if it is God, as if it is a God unto itself, the authority of the true God is going to remain unscathed. Jesus provided for those first disciples, and he likewise provides for us. We are not under-equipped for this rejecting age. We have a saving gospel. We have a faithful Savior. And we have the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. Not under-equipped at all. So where do we go from here? The Lord wants us to continue depending on Him. Christ proved Himself true to those disciples. as they trusted him, as they set out on a mission that could only succeed by the help of God, he proved himself true. And we too, we have a mission that can only succeed by the help of God. If all you look at our circumstances, well, we seem too small and the world seems too big. We're outnumbered. We have little to no hope. But this is a mission that is not going to be decided by earthly circumstances. This mission will be decided by the God who works through us. The words of life will still bring life to the dying. The work of the cross, it is still sufficient to wash the guilty clean. And our God remains mighty to work even in our weakness. And as a result of all that, our God's glory will shine. It will shine. In the darkness of this age, the glory of our God will shine like the sun. God has chosen the weak and he has chosen the small and he has chosen the rejected to be his instruments for salvation. And he does this so that when his plans, not if, when his plans are accomplished and the gospel's going forward, saving souls, it is going to be obvious that he alone deserves the glory. So trust God to do his work. Trust God to provide for his mission. Trust him to strengthen the weak people he sends forward. Trust him to save the lost and to be a faithful shepherd to his people. Brothers and sisters, we can handle rejection because we have him. We have him and he was rejected for us. We know his work will go triumphantly forward because we have him and his perfect plans are not thwarted. He has shown himself faithful before. So trust him. He will show himself to be faithful again. Let's pray. Our God, we thank you for the great hope that we have only because of you. Lord, prepare us. Prepare us that for every time we embrace you, the world will reject us. Make our faith strong. When that rejection comes through friends, through family, through colleagues, through a government, whatever it is, when that rejection comes, may we have the faith to know that we are absolutely where we should be. Give us a confidence that there is no better place to be than to be rejected for Christ. Make us strong. And where we don't feel strong, Lord, make us faithful. We trust you and we praise you because we know you are working your plans out. We pray all this in Jesus's name. Amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.