The Rejection (Part A)

The work goes on. Feelings hurt or not. Rejection should never be enough to knock us out. We are hard pressed on every side but not crushed. Perplexed but not in despair.

Struck down but not destroyed. Persecuted but not forsaken. This is the Christian life. So make it count.

That's what I tried to do. I asked the Lord for a surge. I want to make these things count. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Mark.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now let's join Pastor Rick in the Gospel of Mark chapter 6 as he begins a new message called the Rejection. We are in the Gospel according to Mark and if you have your Bibles please turn to Mark's Gospel chapter 6 verses 1 through 13. Then he went out from there and came to his own country and his disciples followed him. And when the Sabbath had come he began to teach in the synagogue and many hearing him were astonished saying, Where did this man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to him that such mighty works are performed by his hands?

Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Josie, Judas, and Simon are not his sisters here with us? So they were offended at him. But Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor except in his own country among his own relatives and in his own house. Now he could do no mighty works there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them and he marveled because of their unbelief. Then he went about the villages in a circuit teaching and he called the twelve to himself and began to send them out two by two and gave them power over unclean spirits. He commanded them to take nothing for the journey except a staff, no bag, no bread, no copper in their money belts, but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. Also he said to them, In whatever place you enter a house, stay there till you depart from that place and whoever will not receive you nor hear you, when you depart from there, shake off the dust under your feet as a testimony against them, surely I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.

So they went out and preached that people should repent and they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them. The rejection, that's what we are considering this morning and it is of course something that can make you very bitter, to be rejected. There's nothing pleasant about it whatsoever and before becoming a pastor I seldom experienced rejection.

I mean here and there you get it but as a pastor it's almost routine. It is one of the strongest draws for retirement and every pastor learns that many who loved him one day will be rejecting him another day and this is the case with Apostle Paul. Paul to the Galatians says, What then was the blessing you enjoyed for I bear you witness that if possible you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me? And he says to them in the next verse, Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?

He was hurt. He knew they loved him, he certainly loved them and then they turned on him. This is the case with our Lord when they rejected him here at Nazareth it hurt.

We read it, it's just a text you know and they mocked him, they were offended by it but it hurt his feelings but that's not what he was after. You know there can be some pretty mean people that go to church regularly, read their Bibles, know their scriptures, they can serve. Paul said to Timothy, Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. May the Lord repay him according to his works. We need to hear these things, we need to be on guard against these things.

Those who sour and then go infect others and want them to be soured too. That's what was going on here in Nazareth. Oh Nazareth, Nazareth.

He said that about Jerusalem but he could say it about this home town also. In this sixth chapter we read about him being rejected by the people he grew up with. We read about him then sending out the twelve which is a significant part of his rejection because he says in that sending of the twelve out he says, With or without you the work goes on. You think you're going to reject me and that's it? The church shuts down?

You think I stopped preaching because you've rejected me? It continues. He sends out the twelve. We will later read of the murder of John the Baptist and the feeding of the five thousand.

We read of Jesus walking on the water and then we read about him crossing again to the east side of Jordan and doing miracles there from where he was chased away from previously. The work goes on. Feelings hurt or not. Rejection should never be enough to knock us out. We are hard pressed on every side but not crushed. Perplexed but not in despair.

Struck down but not destroyed. Persecuted but not forsaken. This is the Christian life. So make it count.

That's what I tried to do. I asked the Lord for a surge. I want to make these things count and by that punish the agenda of hell.

Should it be any other way? Well we look again at verse one. Then he went out from there and came to his own country and his disciples followed him.

What a beautiful picture. That's what disciples are supposed to do. They're supposed to follow Jesus. They followed him in the storm. We read about that in chapter four. Then there was the maniac and they were there with him for that one too. Then the solutions to disease and death. There was Christ and now they're here with him for the rejection.

They're still with him. The word loyalty. It's supposed to mean something in our lives.

It's not supposed to be a word we use for someone else. Are we loyal? Or at the first sight of pressure do we shatter? Do we crumble? Do we collapse?

Do we turn carnal at the snap of a finger? Alexander did me much harm. There was a lot of loyalty going on there. At one point you would have given your eyes for me. Now I'm your enemy because I don't do it your way.

This is life. Nazareth, his hometown, just twenty miles from Capernaum where he had done so many miracles, healed so many people, raised the dead and he wasn't finished doing miracles, raising the dead. This is his second rejection in Nazareth. Luke tells us about the first one. He says they weren't going to throw him off a cliff.

They were so upset. So he goes back to Nazareth about a year later and preaches again. Sort of like when Paul was stoned at Derby, Lystra Derby, he gets up, he goes back into the city.

I would have taken automatic weapons with me or something if I'm going back into the city where they just stoned me. What an example we have in these characters from scripture. So yes, Luke records the first visit at the beginning of his more public ministry there in Galilee. Matthew and Mark tell the story of his second visit to Nazareth. It took place near the end of his Galilean ministry.

Mark skips over the Lord's Judean ministry. So here's a brief overview of the ministry of Christ. It's that when he first started he was obscure, raised in Nazareth, no one knew anything about him.

He goes into the wilderness by himself and there he faces the devil. It's an obscure part of his ministry and his life. And then he comes on the scene and he does miracles and this is a time of popularity that people just love him.

And then the opposition that is spearheaded by the religious intelligentsia, the know-it-alls, the gatekeepers. And then his resurrection and his ascension. His early Judean ministry, which John really capitalizes on but Mark skips over. His Galilean ministry then comes next where we are now. Then another Judean ministry when he goes back into the territory of Judea, including the Jerusalem area. His Perian ministry across on the east side of the Sea of Galilee again and then finally back to Judea. So he's moving all around. But the whole time he's moving, he peaks. Everybody loves him and then it starts to come down.

And that had to hurt. He knew it but doesn't take away the hurt, he still came in his humanity. His disciples, they followed him to on his visit home, verse 2 now.

It's still ministry, it's not just, hey everybody I'm back, this is ministry. He is there to reach souls with the truth, verse 2. And when the Sabbath had come he began to teach in the synagogue and many hearing him were astonished saying, where did this man get these things and what wisdom is this which is given to him that such mighty works are performed by his hands? Luke tells us in chapter 4 of Luke's Gospel in verse 16 that it was his custom long before to come into the synagogue and teach. So they were familiar with him. Luke chapter 4, verse 16, this is his first visit or the first time he was thrown out. He came to Nazareth where he had been brought up. And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read. And of course that's where he read, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me.

And I'm the fulfillment of that. And they were incensed. Well again, you know, he's going back. They're astonished but this isn't the good kind of astonishment.

This is the bad kind. They were in shock that he would dare stand before them and say whatever it is he was saying with the authority that he said it, that he would dare perform such miracles which they knew all about by this time. I mean you just don't raise someone from the dead and keep that kind of thing hidden.

It was out there. So they resisted and they rejected his source of knowledge and his ability, ignoring the scriptural teachings, ignoring the consistency with Moses and Elijah and Isaiah and all the other prophets of scripture. That did not matter. Some never give the pastor the benefit of the doubt. They wouldn't give it to him.

They wouldn't, you know, the minute an accusation rises up, it's not, I don't believe that. It's, really? And it took on like wildfire here. You would love, you know, Paul at least. There were times when Paul, the congregation was divided. Some of them wanted to hear it, some did not. At one point the Gentiles said, we want this.

If the Jews don't want it, give it to us. Says that such mighty works are performed by his hands. This is what they were astonished by at one of the things. They rejected his signs and wonders. It wasn't enough. The miracles were not enough. Well, it wouldn't be enough for Judas Iscariot, would it?

It's amazing how messed up people can think. Loyalty would have helped. Just a dose of loyalty. Let's remain loyal to the word. Let's remain loyal to the truth.

That'll put before us. These miracles that they were questioning the origin of them, the source of them, they should have sealed for them his Messiahship. They should have said, that's what Isaiah was talking about.

Now he's doing it. This is Messiah. Isaiah 42 7. Isaiah speaks of the Messiah.

He says, to open blind eyes to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house, spiritually in bondage and liberating them. Now Isaiah is notorious for weaving the prophecies of Messiah into both comings of Christ. He really has the kingdom age in mind, but woven into that is the first coming of Christ, which the Old Testament writers really didn't understand.

They had no knowledge of the church. They saw Israel and God's kingdom. But Christ comes and he applies the first coming from the prophecies of Isaiah to himself.

He begins to open it up to expound upon these things. There are two comings of the Messiah, which even the apostles didn't get until much later. So Jesus said in John 15, if I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin. But now they have seen and also hated both me and my Father.

So Christ is saying, I've done the things the prophets said that the Messiah would do. And they know this. They rejected it anyway. You know how the flesh can be. You can see what's right and refuse to respond to it in the right way.

Rejected and this is what they were doing. His miracles demonstrated that the second kingdom, the millennial age kingdom, would be established and it was starting right here in person with him. That Satan's kingdom was going to be overthrown and it started now in front of their eyes. Matthew 12, 28, but if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. And this is the beginning of what the prophets were talking about. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, we read this from Paul, then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom of God to the Father, when he puts an end to all rule and authority and power. That is human rule and authority and power because he will be the authority and power.

And so there are the two comings. They're woven into the prophets as I said, but they should have picked up on it because his signs and wonder was so remarkably extraordinary. His preaching was so in line with the prophets they had no reason to doubt him and for this he says, Sodom and Gomorrah will come out better than you because they didn't see this and you did.

You tossed it to the wind. Verse 3, is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Josie's, Judas and Simon and are not his sisters with us? So they were offended at him. They knew his family well, they knew all the boys because the boys came to the synagogue. In fact, the boys were siding with Judaism against their brother against the Christ.

Of course, their step-brother or half-brother according to the flesh. Mark is the only gospel where Jesus himself is called carpenter. Matthew says son of a carpenter. They saw him as a mere blue-collar worker. That was his rank and he was to be stuck there. He was not to come out of that rank and be some teacher of the word to them. It was fine if he went to the synagogue and he just read scripture to them but to apply it to himself, to apply it to them, they were astonished at this. Many still consider him a mere carpenter. Boy, are they going to be surprised when they breathe their last breath and find out he is more than a carpenter.

He is more than anything anyone could ever fully know. So they were not impressed by his sermon because they were not impressed by his status, his social status. The caste system, it worked for them and their little heads and their little minds. It was small thinking and people still do it in Christianity today. What seminary did you go to? The seminary of give you a knuckle sandwich.

That's the seminary I went to. I mean, they do. It's shameful because the scripture speaks on this thing.

It does not pass by. They perceived that these were not educated men but they had been with Jesus. That's what they said about Peter and the apostles. That's what we want them to say about us no matter what our background, no matter how well educated or not so well educated we may be. That is not the issue. The issue is what do we say about Jesus Christ from his word. That's what matters. Imagine, imagine if you as a parent had to, you know, what level parent are you?

You know, how high up the ladder have you gone as a parent? Some try to sneak that in anyway but we're not going to go into that. So they weren't impressed because some want more than truth. They're not satisfied with just Bible teaching. They're not satisfied with just the truth of the word.

They want something else even if they don't know what it is and their wants should not be met under those terms. They say here that he was the son of Mary. This is the only place in the New Testament where Jesus is referred to as the son of Mary. Now Joseph and Mary were of royal heritage. They were of the line of David but it no longer mattered to the rest of the people in Nazareth at this time.

It did really nothing for them in that society and the brother of James, Josie, Judas, and Simon and are not his sisters here with us. These are Mary's other children to which she gave birth after her first born. You do not call someone a first born if there are no more borns. You would say her only child. We see that in Scripture when someone's child was sick or dying, it was their only child.

That distinction is important. We just can't see Joseph taking Mary with the baby Jesus into Egypt with six other kids and then back out. These things are not realistic because they didn't happen that way and I know there are those that want to say Mary had no other children. That's not what the Bible says. James is the author of the epistle of James.

Josie's, it's a form of Joseph so they named him after their father. Judas, of course this is not Judas Iscariot, this is Jude who is the author of Jude's epistle. It says here in verse three, so they were offended at him. Last time they were really offended trying to kill him but they were arrogant, they were critical, they were self-impressed, they were so thrilled with themselves and the system that they had that nothing else could get in, not even from God.

The system was closed. Isaiah 53, over 700 years earlier, Isaiah called it. He said, for he shall grow up before them as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. Pause there.

A root out of dry ground owes nothing to the things around it because they're not contributing anything to it. He has no form or comeliness and when we see him there is no beauty that we should desire him. He personified, Isaiah does, the people here in Nazareth and other parts of Israel but right now here in Nazareth. He's not attractive to them. There's nothing they see in him that is appealing. No matter what he's preaching, no matter what he's doing, we have to, and we see this today, do we not? You can win a political office if you just look like they like you.

That's all you need. It doesn't matter what you say, what you do, just do you appeal to us? And he did not appeal to them. There is no beauty that we should desire him.

Quite profound. Men so out of touch with God that they were incapable of appreciating the beauty of God when face-to-face with it. May it never happen to us.

May we never be so spiritually dense that the light of God cannot get in. He owed them nothing. They contributed nothing to his being and that bothered them.

They wanted to be the ones that stamped approval. Okay, he's one of us. Okay, you know, if they wanted to say, well, if he was a rabbi's son, they would have been more receptive, but a carpenter's son. John 7 15 and the Jews marveled saying, how does this man know letters having never studied? We didn't teach him, so how could he know anything?

Again, still practiced to this day. Are these not the dumbest reasons for rejecting truth? Well, your family's here with us.

We know them, so we reject you. Well, maybe you've got a bad family like that, but of course, his family, they sided with these people. How far they sided with them, we're not sure. Mary, I don't believe, was really into it, but remember, they thought he had lost his mind and they all went to collect him that day. And of course, he would not be collected by them or anyone else.

And so here are these in Nazareth. They made up a criteria for preaching truth and doing signs and wonders from God, and a carpenter's son was not allowed to be a part of it. His rank was too low. Today, they set other silly rules oftentimes which have nothing to do with doctrine or truth.

And there's really not a lot anybody can do to stop it except on the individual level. So they called him the carpenter. What right had they to stunt his growth? What right had they to say, that's as far as you can go?

Listen, if you want to build things, if you want to, you know, do some woodworking for us, we'd love to hear what you have to say about your craft. But truth about God, we're not interested in it coming from you. And so he was deemed out of his class. Verse four, we could just go on and on about his pedigree and his background, which was divine from eternity past and they missed it. But we are getting it and we are entrusted with trying to communicate this to those who don't get it. May we never lose sight of our role, our mission.

What is my role here on earth? What is my mission to reach the loss? Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the Book of Mark. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You could search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the Book of Mark right here on Cross Reference Radio.