Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Moving Past Rejection | Been There | Part 8

Episode Date: May 28, 2023

Have you ever experienced rejection? It hurts. Jesus was rejected by His own family, so He knows what it’s like. But how He responded was revolutionary—and it could help you move past the pain holding you back. Let’s begin overcoming rejection together in this message. ABOUT THIS MESSAGEHave you ever been hurt by a friend? Jesus has. Maybe you feel like God isn't listening? Jesus knows what that’s like. No matter what you’re facing, Jesus understands because He’s Been There.NEXT STEPSHave you made a decision to follow Jesus? You may be wondering what’s next on your journey. We want to help! Let us guide you to the next steps in your walk with Christ: https://www.life.church/nextCONNECT WITH A PASTORDo you need prayer? Would you like to find out how you can get involved at Life.Church? One of our pastors would love to meet with you. Schedule a video call with a pastor: https://www.life.church/meetwithusABOUT LIFE.CHURCHWherever you are in life, you have a purpose. Life.Church wants to help you find your next step. Our hope is that your journey will include joining us at a Life.Church location throughout the United States or globally online at https://www.live.life.churchFind locations, videos, and more info about us at https://www.life.church or download the Life.Church app at https://www.life.church/appFIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/life.churchTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lifechurchYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LCNowCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIGYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/craiggroeschelFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@craiggroeschel#lifechurch #craiggroeschel #beenthere Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, as we get started today, my question for you is this. Have you ever experienced the pain of rejection? So when I was 16 years old, and just for reference, I actually found my driver's license photo from when I was 16 years old that I'll have on the screen back here. This may answer some questions that you've had about me. Like, why does that guy always have a beard? Because if I didn't, I would look like that. That's why I have a beard. So me at 16, I had my driver's license, so I had wheels. I had a job, so I had money. A young lady at church caught my eye, and so I thought I need a date. So I got my courage built up.

One day I went into the kitchen, grabbed the landline. You guys remember landline phones on the wall of the kitchen? But no worries, because there was about a 30-foot phone cord in the kitchen. So I grabbed it off the wall. I walked out of the kitchen, went across the hall, went into the room, crossed from the kitchen, shut the door for privacy, pulled out a piece of paper from my pocket that had her seven-digit phone number on it. I dialed the first six numbers on the landline, and then I hung up. Not quite ready. A few deep breaths, dial all seven numbers. It rings. It was her.

Hello? Hey, Jennifer, this is Tim. Doremus from church. How are you? Good? Long pause. Hey, I don't know what you're doing Friday night, but I thought maybe we'd go to dinner or movie. I thought it could be fun, and I thought it'd be great. What do you think about that? Yeah, Tim, that could be fun. It's like, yes. But I need to ask my parents.

Seems reasonable. She puts the phone down for a long time. 37 minutes later, she comes back. I'm exaggerating. 36 minutes later, she comes back. She picks up the phone and she says, hey, are you still there? And I said, yeah, I'm still here.

And she said, hey, I was talking to my parents. and I completely forgot. Like we got this family thing, and I didn't think about it, so I'm not going to be able to go out Friday night. And I said, okay, no problem, I'll see you at church on Sunday, goodbye, and hung up.

Dejected, went to school the next day. I was telling my buddies about this. They knew I was going to ask her out. My best friend was standing across from me. He saw the pain in my eyes. He looked at me, and with all the empathy that a 16-year-old male could muster, he reached across to his best friend,

he put his hand on my shoulder, he looked me dead in the eye, and he said to me, he said, bro, you got rejected. The pain of rejection. Maybe for you, you weren't 16 asking somebody out. Maybe it was instead you were a kid growing up and your dad made it very clear that your best was never good enough and you didn't know what he wanted, but you knew he didn't want you. Or maybe it was the job that you've poured your life into that one day your boss sat across from me at the conference table and said, today's going to be your last day. or maybe for you, it was a relationship that you've been in for 12 years and you still live under the same roof. But every look and every phrase makes it very clear that you're not wanted.

And you feel the pain of rejection because rejection hurts. Seriously, rejection hurts. Research tells us that the part of our brain that processes rejection is the exact same part of our brain that processes physical pain. So when we say rejection hurts, it's because rejection hurts. But you didn't need a study to tell you that. Because at one point, maybe your best friend walked out of your life and became somebody else's best friend. And you didn't feel wanted anymore. Rejection hurts.

We're in the final week of our message series called Been There. Today we're talking about rejection. Why? Because Jesus felt all the same emotions and all the same feelings we have because He was fully God. but he was fully human too. And he experienced rejection. And so the title of today's message is moving past rejection. How do we move past rejection?

We're going to be in God's word today. So if you have your U-Version Bible app, you can open it up to Mark Chapter 3. Maybe you have a Bible close by. You can grab that. If not, you can follow along on the screen with me. But we're going to spend a little bit of time in God's word. Why?

Because this is alive, active, and breathing, and it has something to say to us today. So Mark chapter 3. Here's the summary of the first three chapters of Mark. Jesus' early ministry, it's up and to the right. Everywhere he goes, the crowd gets bigger. Everywhere he preaches, there's more people. More people want to be healed.

So Mark chapter 3, verse 20, with that in mind, it says this, Jesus entered into a house, and again, what? Again, a crowd gathered. So that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. So Jesus shows up again. More people have heard about him. so even more people show up, the crowd is so big, they can't even fit into the house

that he and his disciples are simply trying to share a meal over. Put it in present-day context. Jesus' YouTube subscribers have just hit 500,000. He's about to monetize that thing. Right? You're standing in line at Walmart, getting ready to check out, and you see the Us Weekly, and whose picture's on the cover of Us Weekly?

It's Jesus. Because everybody's talking about him, and everybody wants to meet him. It's up and to the right. That's how life is supposed to be, isn't it? up into the right. Surely that's what it looks like to be blessed up and to the right. This is what happens in the very next verse. It says this in verse 21. When his family, so when Jesus's family, when his flesh and blood, when his family heard about this,

they went to do what? They went to take charge of him. For they said he's out of his mind. So when Jesus is family, the people who are, were supposed to show up to cheer him on. The people who are supposed to be there to support him, the people who are supposed to be there to take a picture of him, to put it on the mantle, to talk about when people come over, this is our son, this is our brother. When Jesus's family shows up, the people who are supposed to be there to cheer him on, his own flesh and blood show up, they don't show up to cheer him on. They don't show up to support him. They show up to do what? They show up to take him home. Because they're embarrassed of him and they don't want to be

associated with him because people think he's lost his mind because of the things that he's saying about himself. We don't want people to look at us and think those things are true about us and think less of us. So we need to take them home. They're embarrassed of them. They're ashamed of them. They don't want to be associated with them. Can you imagine being rejected by your own flesh and blood? But unfortunately, some of you can because you felt that pain. If that wasn't enough, the next verse talks about the religious leaders. So like the people, every Jewish person looked up to. They came, they didn't say he's out of his mind. They said he's possessed by a demon. The pain of rejection again. But like we read this and we think what? But that's

Jesus. Like that's the story of Jesus. Because even if you didn't grow up in church, you know enough about the story of Jesus to know that Jesus was probably supposed to experience some kind of rejection. Right. There's Christmas. Jesus was born of a virgin. He lives 33 perfect years. Then there's Easter. He dies on a cross, he's raised from the grave as a payment for my sin and for your sin. Like he had to. It was a part of the story. Surely Jesus has to experience rejection. He was supposed to feel that pain, but not me. Like surely that's not what my life's supposed to look like. So when you were a kid, somebody taught you how to cross the road. Maybe it was a neighbor, maybe it was a grandparent, maybe it was an older sibling. But most of us learned the same lesson,

and it was this. It was before you ever step out into the street, you better do something. Before you cross the road, you better, before you step out in the street, you better look both ways. Or you better be real good at playing frogger. Right? You better look both ways. When we read God's word, it's wise to look both ways. We look to the left before the passage. We look to the right after the passage. Why? because every single part of scriptures in the context of a bigger story. And sometimes what's before it and what's after it tells us how to interpret it. In this case, the fact that Jesus experienced the pain of rejection.

What are we to do with that? We look left. We look before that story. Fortunately, there's a heading on this story for those of us who don't want to read the whole thing. And it says that Jesus appointed 12 apostles. maybe you hear it more often Jesus appoints the 12 disciples. Talks about he names them. Here's who my disciples are.

And you go to him, what in the world does that have to do with this? Here's what it says in verse 14 of that. Jesus appointed 12, designating them apostles, that they may be what? They may be with him. So that he might send them out to preach and to have authority and to drive out demons. Mark says this. These are the 12 disciples who are to be with Jesus. Why? Because to be with Jesus is different

than being around Jesus. Right? Being with Jesus is different than being around Jesus. There were people who were around Jesus. There was the crowd. There was his family. There were the religious leaders. But the disciples were the only ones with Jesus. And what does Mark say if you're with Jesus? He says this. you'll experience the things that Jesus experiences. You get to preach the good news. You'll get to heal the sick. You'll get to cast out the demons because when you're with Jesus,

you get to experience what he experiences. You get to do what he does, but that's not it. You'll also pay the price that he paid. And so what Mark is doing is he's tying the disciples' experience to Jesus and saying this, if Jesus was rejected and you are with Jesus,

you will face rejection too. 11 of the 12 disciples he names in this passage face an untimely death. Why? Because they live life with Jesus. And sometimes rejection is the price that we pay to be with Jesus. When I was in college, my buddy Wes and I heard about this job where we could make more money in three weeks than we could in an entire summer. So being 20, 21 years old, we said sign us up. So we applied, interviewed, and got a job on an offshore oil rig. So I know when I say offshore oil rig, for some of you, especially if you're like 30, 35 or older, what image comes to mind. It's from the 1998 blockbuster hit Armageddon. Bruce Willis,

Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Aerosmith theme song, the rough and tumbled oil rig workers who saved the world by getting on a spaceship. I'm sorry if I spoiled it. It has been 25 years, though. And here's what I want you to know. When I say that I was on an oil rig, if you envision this, I'm cool with that. You can just put my face on Ben Affleck, if you want to, for this story. So we get a job on this rig. We have a three-week shift coming up. West said he had drive. We got in his car, drove to the end of the road in South Louisiana. It literally stopped. We got out, checked in, and got on a helicopter for the first time. We flew 90 miles due south into the Gulf of Mexico, where we landed on this rig.

This was the actual rig that I worked on. We landed on the heliolk. We landed on the heliolmise. a pad up there that's 200 feet off of the water. We got our one bag of belongings. We were shown to our bunk room where we threw our bag on our bunk and they said it's lunchtime. We walked into the lunchroom and I realized there's a lot more people that work here than I thought there were. There were 90 people who worked on that rig and they were from all over the world. This rig had been off the coast of Africa. It had been off the coast of the UK. Literally people from all over the world came to work for three weeks at a time. So we look for two empty seats in the cafeteria. We find two. We sit down. The guys across from us start asking us questions. Hey, what are your names?

Where are you from? Third question I didn't expect. Are you guys Christians? And I was like, cool, I'm about to make a friend in here. It's not exactly how it went. For the next three weeks, it was how stupid do you have to be to believe that somebody was raised from the dead. That can't happen. How crazy are you guys that you give 10% of your hard-earned money that you're out here for to the church? Have you guys lost your minds? You are not living life if you don't get to experience sex outside of marriage. They did not say at the G-rated version. For 21 straight days, we heard it over and over and over and over, and the pain of rejection became super real.

Why? Because being with Jesus is different than being around Jesus. And when you're with Jesus, you get to experience things that nobody else does, but sometimes you have to pay the cost of being rejected like Jesus. You see, the question is not, will I be rejected? Because Mark says, if you're a follower of Christ, you will. Or if you're just a part of the human race, you will experience rejection. The question is that will I experience rejection? The question is how will I respond to rejection?

So what we're going to do is we're going to look at how Jesus responded to rejection. Because I think whether you're a follower of Christ or not, it has something to say to how we can healthfully respond to rejection and how we can move past rejection. Before I get to the two ways that Jesus did respond to rejection, I want to talk about two ways that Jesus did not respond to rejection. Two ways that I see when I look in the world around me, and when I'm honest, two ways that I see when I look in the mirror in front of me.

The first way Jesus did not respond to the pain of rejection is Jesus did not retreat from rejection. See, I know when I was telling you guys about Colin Jennifer, when I was 16 years old, there were some of you good-hearted, kind, loving people who were supportive, and you were thinking this, Tim, maybe she really had something to do that. you should have asked her again. Did I ask her out again? No! Every male's like, no. Why? Because I've already experienced rejection once. I certainly don't want to experience it again. So what do we do? We retreat.

We isolate. We build up a wall to protect ourselves. If that's what it's like to let somebody into that part of my life, then I'm never going to let somebody in there again. And we build a wall to protect ourselves, maybe missing out on the fact that we're actually building a prison that keeps us from living the life that God wanted us to live. Jesus did not retreat when he experienced rejection. The second thing that Jesus did not do is not only did he not retreat, Jesus didn't retaliate when he experienced rejection. So when my son, Jack, was about six years old, my wife Katie and I had a nickname for him. And it was loving. Don't judge. me. It was a loving nickname, but we called Jack the porcupine sometimes. Because there were times as a five,

six-year-old kid, he could be like the warmest, most affectionate, most tender-hearted kid. And then there were other times, other times where he could be a little bit prickly. So we weren't super surprised one day when the phone rang and it was his teacher from school. And she said, hey, Jack said some really mean things to some of his classmates today. So we said, okay, we'll talk. to him. So I sat Jack down on his Transformers' bed. I pulled up the little chair next to it. I looked into his big old blue eyes set above his big fluffy cheeks. And I said, hey, buddy, your teacher called today. And she said, you said some pretty mean things to your classmates. He said, I did. And I said, like, buddy, why would you say that to somebody? Don't you know that you hurt their feelings?

And then his tears began to well up in his eyes and his little chin began to quake. He said, but daddy, sometimes people say mean things to me and it hurts my feelings and so i want to hurt them back and man that is heartbreaking to hear your six-year-old say that somebody hurt me so i want to hurt them back and it's just as heartbreaking to see a 26-year-old or a 56-year-old or an 86-year-old live that out lashing out at the people around them why because as pastor craig said several weeks ago hurt people, hurt people. And because somebody has hurt them, they want to hurt them back worse. And so we lash out at our ex or at our friends who aren't being very friendly, wanting them to feel what we felt. The only problem is that's not Jesus. Jesus doesn't retreat. Jesus doesn't

retaliate. So how does Jesus respond? Here's what it says in Mark chapter 3. As Mark picks back up the story with verse 32. It says this. It says a crowd was sitting around him. A crowd was sitting around him and they told him your mother and brothers are where? They're outside. That's important. They're outside looking for you. Jesus's response in verse 33, he says this. He says, who are my mother and brothers? And for years I read that and I thought what? Oh, burn. Way to get them. But they're not inside the house. He wasn't talking to them. He was talking to the people who were inside the house. And this is what he says to them. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around them and he said, here are my mother and brothers. Whoever does God's will is my brother and my sister

and my mother. You see, what Jesus does is this, is that when we experience the pain of rejection, we begin to feel like somebody's doormat, don't we? Right? Like that friend or that family member uses us as their doormat, and they have just wiped their feet all over us. And they've wiped all the junk in their life all over us before they walk out of our life. But they may have walked out of our life, but they're still running laps in our mind. But what Jesus says is this, I may feel like a doormat, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to roll out the welcome mat. Right? I'm going to roll out the welcome mat. How am I going to respond to rejection is I'm going to give an end. invitation. Because Jesus looked and he saw an empty seat that his family had vacated, but he didn't

see an empty seat. He saw an open seat. And he said, it looks like I'm in need of some family. If you're willing to follow me, if you're willing to be with me, Jesus says what? You can be my brother. You can be my sister because that's the good news of Jesus Christ. It's that Jesus felt rejected just like you do and I do. But Jesus responded to that with an invitation of, you know what, you need family. I'll be your family. You can be a part of God's family. John chapter one. verse 11 and 12 says this very thing. It says that he, Jesus, came to that which was his own. But his own didn't receive him. He was rejected. Yet to all those who did receive them, to those who believed in his name, he gave what? He gave the right to become child of God.

He gave an invitation. He rolled out the welcome mat, even though he felt like a doormat. He had an empty seat that he turned into an open seat. How do we respond to rejection? Maybe it's the adult who's made it very clear they want nothing to do with you. Do we give up on them? No. Do we stop praying for them? No. But what we do is we say what? Looks like I have an open seat and there's probably somebody in this world who needs a parent in their life. So God, who is it that you want to use me to show your love to? What is the open seat that you have in your life that God could use? Why? Because although you may feel like a doormat, we're called to roll out the welcome mat. How did Jesus respond to rejection? He didn't retaliate, he responded with love. He responded with love. How do we respond to rejection?

We respond with love. Not only did Jesus not retaliate, he didn't retreat. Jesus didn't retreat. How did he respond to rejection? Jesus refused to give up. He refused to give up. We looked to the left of this passage and we saw Mark attach the disciples to Jesus' rejects. we look to the right and what do you see Jesus do after this passage. You see him preaching about the kingdom of God. You see him healing the sick. You see him raising the dead. What's he doing? The exact same thing he was doing before he was rejected. Why? Because Jesus did not allow his rejection to turn into his resignation. So often we go what? Hey, if that's how family acts, I'm done with it. Then I'm done with family. If that's what it's like having a friend, then I'm done with

friends. I don't need them. Jesus refused to give up, though. He continued to be who God had called him to be. Why? Because rejection doesn't have to lead to resignation. Instead, rejection can be the direction for where God wants to work. We don't give up on the people who've walked out, but we do look at the people who are there. God, how do you want to use me to make a difference in their life? Galatians 6-9 says this, let us not become weary in doing good, right? the thing that we were created to do. Let us not become weary and doing good, for at a proper time,

we will reap a harvest if we do what, if we do not give up. You lost your job? Man, there's real pain there. Don't give up. Your friend walked out on you? That hurts. Don't give up.

Your spouse doesn't want you anymore? Man, that's traumatic. Don't give up. Jesus did not retreat. He refused to give up. Jesus did not retaliate. Instead, Jesus responded with love. How's he able to do that? How are we supposed to do that? So I've got a question for you. Earlier I was telling you a story about working on an oil rig one summer. So here's the question. Was that a good experience? Or was that a bad experience?

was that negative or was it positive before you answer that maybe i'll tell you a little bit more about that story after three weeks of being called crazy stupid dumb because of our faith because of being with jesus the shift on the oil rig ended and for three weeks i had thought of this question and the question was this what am i going to do with all this money i'm making narrowed it down to two things. I was either going to buy a four-wheeler because boys have to have their toys, right? I can buy a four-wheeler, or I can buy an engagement ring because I've been dating my girlfriend, Katie, for about a year. So our 21 days in, we get back on the helicopter, we fly back to the end of the road, we get back in my friend Wes's car, and we drive straight to

New Orleans. We drive straight to the French quarter, maybe not for the reason. and you're thinking, because I had somebody to see. We get to the French Quarter and we walk to this fancy hotel. It's called the Royal Sinesta. It's got like this long rectangular lobby lined with windows on either side. It has marble floors in it. It has these rows of couches with these big floral displays. It was in the morning so this bright light was shining all around and it was coming down into

the lobby. And it was like the scene of a movie. Because here you had me and my buddy West. and we were looking rough because we had just been offshore for 21 days, and we were tired. And we opened the door to this lobby, and on the opposite end, there's this row of elevators, and one dings as soon as I open the door, and when it opens up, there's my girlfriend, Katie, standing there. And I can still remember what she was wearing. She had on these capri-length, teal, raw silk pants. It was a few years ago.

She had this sleeveless black cable-knit sweater, these fancy black slides. And as she stepped off the elevator, that morning sun was coming in and her blonde hair just lit up. And she saw me walking in the door as she was walking out of the elevator. And it's ingrained in my mind as she screamed out my name. She said, Tim! And she started running across the lobby. And she looked at me and I looked into her eyes. And I started running to her.

And I realized something in that moment. And what I realized was I'm not buying a four-wheeler. Because that's not my girlfriend running across the lobby. That's the person who's going to be my wife. And so I went to a jewelry store and I wrote a check for every penny that I earned on that rig and more to buy an engagement ring. Why? Because she was worth it. And she wanted to be with me.

So let me ask you that question again. Is that a positive story or a negative story? Kind of depends. It depends what you look at. The pain of rejection or the prize of who is with us. How did Jesus endure the pain of rejection but not retaliate, instead respond with love, not retreat, but instead refused to give up. Because in verse 34, here's what it said.

We read it before. I'm going to read it again. It says, then he looked at what? Then he looked at those who were seated in a circle around him. He didn't look at the people who weren't there. He didn't look at the people who'd walked out. He looked at those who chose to be with him. How do we respond to the pain of rejection,

which is real with love and refuse to give up. I suppose it depends on where we look. Do we focus on the pain of rejection? Or do we focus on who is with us? You say, Tim, nobody's with me. Nobody. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, somebody is always with you.

Because Jesus was also called in the Bible Emmanuel, well, which means God with us. There's always somebody with you. It says this of Jesus. In Hebrews chapter 12, for the joy set before him, for the joy set before him, he endured the pain of the cross. What was the joy set before him?

It was you and it was me. the people who were with him. The question isn't, am I going to experience rejection? The question is how am I going to respond to rejection? And I guess to answer that question, we have to answer another question. Where am I going to look? The pain of rejection or the prize of who is with us.

He is worth it. The people in your life are worth it. so that you respond with love and you refuse to give up. If you'll bow your heads and close your eyes and a spirit and attitude of prayer, I'm going to ask a question today. And here's why I'm asking. Because until we're willing to be honest with ourself and until we're willing to be honest with God, it's hard for us to grow.

It's hard for us to become more Christ-like. It's hard for us to heal. And so my question today is this. Have you ever experienced the pain of rejection? And yet you're tempted to respond by retaliating. Or you're tempted to respond by retreating. If that's you, you've experienced the pain of rejection. Sometimes you retreat.

Sometimes you retaliate. I'm going to ask that you raise your hand right now. St. Tim, that's me. I've experienced that pain. Sometimes I don't respond the best. My hand is up with you. Let me pray for us. God, thank you so much for your grace.

and your forgiveness and your love. Thank you for the truth that you are with us and you will never leave us and never forsake us. Give us your peace, give us your comfort. Heal those wounds inside of us so that we can respond to a world who's in need of your love with love and we would refuse to give up.

As we continue in an attitude and a spirit of prayer today, maybe you walked in here or maybe you logged in online and you're feeling the pain. of rejection. And you're not so sure that there's anybody with you. Well, the good news for you is that even though Jesus felt like a dormant experiencing the pain of rejection, he rolled out the welcome mat. And who was that welcome mat for? It's for you and it's for me because the good

news of Jesus Christ is this, although we've separated ourselves from God by our own action, our own sin, he looked at those around. He looked at me and he looked at you with love and compassion and grace and forgiveness and does not want to be separated from us, but wants to open up a seat in his family for you and for me. So if you're here today feeling the pain of rejection, but you don't have that relationship with Christ, and you're willing to admit, you know what, God, I've sinned, you're willing to believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, and you're willing to confess Jesus as Lord of your life. I'm going to ask that in just a second, you say, you know what, I'm ready to receive God's grace. I'm ready to receive his forgiveness. I'm ready to receive his mercy.

So I'm going to count to the count of three. And when I get to three, if you're ready to make that decision to become a part of God's family, to receive his grace and his mercy and to experience him being with you, I'm going to ask that you do that. At one, two, three. Go ahead and raise that hand. If your life church online, click right here below me as we're celebrating you becoming a part of God's family. We're going to pray out loud because nobody should pray alone when they're at church. So pray this out loud with me today.

Pray aloud. Heavenly Father. I'm ready to turn from God. my sin and to follow Jesus because I believe that you love me enough to sin Jesus, to die on the cross, and be raised in the grave so that I can be saved. So thank you, Lord, for this new life you're giving me as I give you my life. And it's in Jesus' name that everybody said. Amen. Life Church, why don't we celebrate? Celebrate big. Welcome to the family of God. Thank you.