Unstuck - Overcoming Rejection, Part 1

Rejection.

I mean, even the sound of the word is negative. No one is immune to it. Everyone will experience, to some degree, rejection.

Here's the issue. It'll either make you or break you. We'll all be shaped by rejection. Today, you'll learn how to leverage your rejection for good. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram.

And can it really be possible for something good to come about when we experience a harsh rejection? Well, today Chip will answer that question and confront the cruel lies we believe about ourselves when we feel discarded and cast aside. So if you're ready, go in your Bible to Ephesians chapter 1, verse 7, as Chip continues our series, Unstuck. I want you to lean back, if you will, and just, you know, the word association sort of thing. I want you to think about where you were, what people come to mind, and what just sort of emotions popped your mind.

Lean back, even shut your eyes if you want to. And I'm just going to say some words very quickly, and I just want to give the Spirit of God a chance to maybe conjure up some thoughts so that we can get in touch with where we've been so God can speak to us where we are. What comes to your mind, what people, what circumstances, what painful memory, when you hear dropped, discarded, pushed away, shoved aside, spurned, jilted, brushed off, excluded, not invited, disinherited, fired, broke up, abused, neglected, abandoned, ignored, dismissed, kicked in the teeth, replaced, forsaken, betrayed. Everybody has some situations like that, and what I will tell you is that you are today in significant measure a result of the rejection of your past. We all experience rejection.

Those words, everyone in this room, some of those words you have experienced, some people have experienced them in traumatic, horrendous ways, other people in significantly deep ways. And for some, interesting responses are, for some, those verbal or nonverbal messages of rejection ignited like a stinger inside of you that you said because of your wiring and personality and even in the sovereignty of God, I'll prove them wrong, I'll be a somebody, I'll show you, and it clicked in a drivenness and a focus that has allowed you to be extraordinarily successful in some areas of your life. For other people, they hear those messages of betrayed, abandoned, you don't measure up, and it started a process of withdrawal, a process of believing you don't measure up, you don't share your opinions, you don't take risks, relationships are hard, you sort of like the proverbial turtle that you say, you know what, I've been rejected before and it really hurt, I think I'll keep my head inside the shell.

So you play it safe, it's hard to connect with people. But either way, it's the result of rejection. And the tragedy is when we experience rejection, there's a pattern that occurs that whatever we experience, we just pass on to the people around us, we pass it on, especially to our children, consciously and unconsciously. On the front of your notes, I put the rejection syndrome, if you are interested in more information on this, a fellow named Charles R. Solomon wrote a book called The Rejection Syndrome, you can Google his name, it's Solomon just like King Solomon, and he's written a number of books on the topic, but he says here's the message we hear, at the core of rejection is this message, you don't measure up, either you're not tall enough, you're not strong enough, you're not pretty enough, you're not smart enough, verbally or non-verbally, a message you got was you don't measure up, you're too tall, you're a loser, you're a mistake, you're an accident, we don't want you. The belief system is then creates I'm bad, I'm inferior, I'm unwanted, I'm unworthy of love.

So that becomes the filter, so for some of us we try and prove that's not true and for others we just live out thinking it is true. And by the way, when you believe that it's hard to receive love. This is a bizarre, bizarre type thing, people who don't believe they're lovable, when you try and love them they kind of shut you down, and so guess what? They put up walls, and you know what people feel like when you try and love someone and they put up a wall?

What happens to them? They feel rejected. So the very thing we don't even want to pass on, we do. The beliefs we embrace then creates the pain that we feel of isolation, abandonment, self-doubt, and self-hatred. And since those are too painful to deal with, most of us have games that we play.

Some of us go into denial, withdrawal, compensation, manipulation, we attack, we pretend, I mean, we just, all of us do those, or a combination of them. Our first parents blamed, Adam, did you eat from the tree? It was her.

Right? Some people just blame God, that's what Eve did. Who made this place? I don't know, where'd that serpent come from?

I don't know, I was just here. And so then the message that we send, often unintentionally, is to other people is you don't measure up. In our weird psyche, there's something about, depending on your personality and your background, there's something about then comparing yourself with other people, and so that if you can push other people down, even mentally or in your judgment or in your words, in some perverse way it makes you and makes me feel like we're better than. And so we compare ourselves with people all the time. And we put them down, and if they look different on the outside or from a different background or believe a little bit differently, and so we are constantly communicating rejection of other people that's rooted in this inferiority and insecurity and issues that the only way for some of us others are as we try and control everything and everyone to give us this sort of artificial sense of safety.

And we're very perfectionistic because the big world you can't control, and you can't control what's going on inside, so you just try and find some things you can control. And so the rejection syndrome keeps going on and on and on, and the definition of rejection, if you're just wondering, Webster says it's to throw out as worthless, useless, substandard, to pass over, to skip, to rebuff, especially to deny the acceptance or care or love of someone. But you know what, even just Webster's you read that, is that like depressing?

I mean, useless, substandard. Now I'm going to tell you that most of us are sophisticated enough and our denial levels are so strong that a lot of us have pushed those feelings down so deep, you don't even realize that some of your behaviors and patterns are rooted in that. Charles R. Solomon, I like his very quick definition of rejection, it's the absence of meaningful love. When you don't feel deeply loved.

Now I want to do a little research and I won't spend too much time on this, but I want to evaluate rejection, sort of there's two types, there's overt rejection, in other words it's very clear, it really comes at you, and then there's covert rejection, it's sort of under the water system. And then I want to talk a little bit about what it produces without getting into a lot of the, you know, this is part of my background in school and graduate school, because if you get your arms around that, then when we get to the truth, you've been a little bit more honest about, oh yeah, you know, in the healthiest of, quote, Christian families, this baggage lingers. Doesn't mean we're bad, doesn't mean there's something wrong with it, it's a fallen world. But what we tend to do is try and skirt over this and then power our way through it and actually deny that we have any of these kind of issues, and then we're not honest with ourselves and, you know, the Lord is near to the brokenhearted, He saves those who are crushed in spirit. The Lord, listen to those who call upon Him, to those who call upon Him in truth. What God desires is, Psalm 51, truth in our innermost being. You'll know the truth and the truth will set you free. The Father is one who pursues, right? John 4.

He's a pursuer of those who would seek Him in truth and in spirit. And so getting honest is really painful and really difficult and usually the only time you get there is unwillfully. When the world crashes in, when the things that you were trusting in, your looks, your success, your family, your kids, your degrees, your money, when those things either don't satisfy or fall apart, that's when we start saying, oh God.

But you don't have to wait. Overt rejection is just willful known abuse, verbal, emotional or physical. Some of you have been there. The covert is unintentional rejection that's emotionally perceived but not intellectually comprehended. We reject a lot of people and we have been rejected by people. They didn't mean it at all. I mean, they weren't trying to reject us.

Let me give you some examples how we do that. Physical isolation, I'm reading a book, in fact I just finished, called Unbroken and it's the story of a World War II man that was in concentration camp after concentration camp. It's a powerful, powerful book. But in it, it talks about the personal isolation that they put prisoners in to literally break their spirit, to make them feel unworthy. And the way they treat them in ways to get them where they loathe themselves.

Another kind is an absent parent through war, divorce, death, the overprotection. Some of us, we swing, we experience this, so as a parent we swing either the total opposite direction, we don't want to give our kids what we got, or unconsciously we do exactly what our parents did to us. So some people out of these loving, loving feelings, they overprotect, overprotect, be careful honey, and so you do too much for them. You know what, you communicate when you do everything for your kid or for someone else? What you're saying is, you're dumb, you're incapable, you can't do it, so I have to do it for you. Now, the words they hear are I love you, I love you, I love you, I take care of you. The emotions they feel are I don't measure up.

Spoiling is just a synonym for rejection. When you make all the decisions for people, when you give them everything, basically you're unconsciously saying you're helpless, you're inept, you have no self-worth. I have to bribe you to do everything. You always have to get your way all the time.

It creates people with no self-respect and no discipline and no self-worth. Smothering suffocates people. Have you ever had a friend where you got to know him a little bit, or maybe in the earlier days you had a boyfriend or a girlfriend, or you started dating someone and pretty soon it seemed like really good and then they call like every hour, or someone you meet at church, and oh they seem great, you have coffee, and this is kind of neat, and then they show up, I thought you'd be here, and then they call you, and then they email you, and then they text you, and you go like ahhh, right?

And what do you do? Then you push them away. When we smother people, we reject them. And then probably the most common, you can put a little star by this one is performance-based love.

This is probably the most common of all. This is I love you if, and I love you because. I love you if you get good grades. I love you if you do the right thing at the right time. I love you if you're a good athlete.

I love you if you have good SAT scores. I love you if you're affectionate with me. I love you because you gave me that. I love you because you came from a good family. I love you because you provided a great house.

I love you if, I love you because, performance, performance, performance. Many of us, especially in our tradition of loving God tend to think that even that's how we earn God's favor. God loves me when I have a quiet time. God loves me when I give 10%, He loves me more when I give 11, 12, 15, right? God loves me when I serve, He loves me more. God loves me when I go on a short-term missions trip. God loves me when I'm... I got news for you, He loves you whether you do any of that. Because love isn't based on your performance. Those things are simply, part of them are disciplines and conduits of grace to get to know and experience how much He loves you.

And the others are out of a heart of gratitude and love to love other people, not have a scorecard with God. Performance based love. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We'll return you to Chip's message in just a minute. So let me quickly share with you, God has called us to do incredible ministry work all around the world. And when you partner with us financially, you're part of what we do. So if you'd like to join us, go to livingontheedge.org. We appreciate you giving whatever God leads you to give.

Well, with that, here's Chip. The behavioral impact of either overt or covert rejection is that when we've been rejected, we will find ourselves rejecting others in the same way. Now, at the extreme level, what do we know? Abusers are people who have been abused. You do all the research, whether it's emotional, sexual, physical abuse. There's loathing.

I wish I'd never done it. But kids that were abused often, unless they break the cycle, will abuse their kids. Most of us, it's in lower key ways, we experience rejection in some ways.

And if you don't see it, own it, recognize it, you'll pass it on. The emotional impact is feelings of worthlessness, wishing you hadn't been born, feelings of superiority, fear of expressing your feelings. Many people are depressed because of rejection. Most of depression is anger turned inward and pushed down.

Emotional insulation, you put up walls, you don't let people in, overly introspective. For some of you, I used to tease my wife, she had horrendous rejection in her childhood, then horrendous rejection when she was abandoned. And I would tease her, probably not very appropriately, but a siren would go by, and I would just tease her because no matter what happened, it was her fault. No matter what happened, it was her fault. If this happened, oh, I'm sorry, it's my fault, it's my fault.

So a siren would go by, I don't know who's going to the hospital, but I don't know what you did wrong, honey. And I was just messing with her to try and say, Teresa, would you lighten up and not believe that everything is your fault? People who apologize all the time, oh, I'm sorry, there's this sense, that's the emotional payback of rejection, of perfectionism, this, boy, I've got to do everything just right because see, your performance is so important and your performance and you have gotten so intermeshed that if you don't do everything right, if you don't excel all the time, if the house isn't always clean, if the report isn't great, if you aren't just, just, just, well, then they're rejecting you instead of just, that's just what you do. And people are human and people make mistakes. And everyone doesn't get everything on time, perfect, all the time. But for some people, there is a drive, an invisible demand that actually ruins your life and makes the people around you crazy and means your kids have to excel all the time. And there's push, push, push, push, push, I mean, two-year-olds playing soccer, I want to go, are you kidding me? I have a friend who's a doctor and he's in one of our groups, people who've been extraordinarily successful that produces affluence and influence really have major issues in their life often.

And so we get those people together in the same room where they can love each other and shoot it straight and we help them work through those things and become disciples of Jesus because God's entrusted a lot to them. And we were in a conversation where people, I mean, this guy, his wife is completely angst about the six or seven schools they've evaluated for their two-year-old. And this one doesn't measure up, and what about this? Because if we do this, then he's six, this will happen, and I mean, if you don't get in Stanford, Harvard, or some other school, it's like you're a failure because your child has. Let me tell you something, you know what that is called?

Sick. And you know what that does to the internals of a child? You don't have, you can say all day, oh, I love you, honey, you're great, it doesn't matter, push, push, push. Oh, we just love you no matter what, you know, all the right words, push, push, push.

We do it in sports, we do it in music, we do it in academics. There's self-hatred, self-condemnation, guilt, and often the inability to express love. At this point, you may be wondering, is there any hope? Can the cycle of rejection be broken, and what I want to say emphatically is yes, yes, yes, and we're going to do more than just look at, you know, at this point, we could be in sort of a seminar about rejection, and then I could teach you five or six techniques to deal with your rejection. Here's how you need to think, here's I feel messages that you can say to people when you feel rejected, and we could go into lots of pop psychology.

And some of those techniques actually are very helpful. If all you want to do is treat the symptoms. At the core of emotional, psychological, and soul rejection is a spiritual issue. And the spiritual issue is until you are right with God, until you understand that you're loved apart from however anyone has ever treated you, or whatever is going on inside, then all the rest of that will never fall in place. And so what we're going to learn now from verses seven through about 14 is that you are the object of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and the maker and creator of all that there is affection. And he's expressed that affection in Christ. In fact, the theme of Ephesians chapter one, Ephesians chapter two, and Ephesians chapter three is just two words.

It's in him or in Christ. And often what I do is I did this recently. I take a big fish tank, a pail of water like this, and I get a big bolt that's about this big so they can really see it on the screen. And then I have a board that's about this big, and on the board I have a cross. And then I have a thick rubber band about like this. And then here's the illustration I use, because I want you to get this. If you get this, then what we're going to teach is going to make a lot of sense. And I hold up the bolt, and I say, this is a big bolt that's very heavy, and you can see it.

It's like a huge thing. And I say, if I drop this in this water, what will happen? It will sink, in which I say, fantastic, you're right. And then I take this piece of wood, it's about like this, and I say, if I drop this piece of wood in this clear tank, what will it do? And again, being the intellects that we are there, they say, it will float. And I said, well, why will it float? What's the nature of wood? Why does the bolt drop? Because it's the nature of the bolt.

It's the weight that it has. And then what I say is, I said, here's what Ephesians chapters one, two, and three is trying to help us understand, is that this is Christ, and He is overcome, and He floats because it's in His nature. He died, He rose again, He's conquered sin, He's conquered death, He's conquered the devil.

This is you. And then I take the bolt, and I take the big rubber band around it, and I say, when you trusted in Christ as your Savior, Romans six, you died with Him. Romans six, you were co-resurrected with Him, that you might walk in newness of life. Romans chapter seven is, there will always be a challenge and a battle between the flesh and the spirit, so it will be a struggle at this side of heaven. And Romans eight is, no one can live the Christian life. Only the Spirit of God, as you abide in Him, thanks be to God, there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. But the same Spirit that raised Christ in the dead dwells in you, and cries, Abba Father.

And so here's what I want you to know, is that now, you're seated with Him in the heavenly places, so when I draw it, then I put it in the fish tank. And I said, now tell me, what's happening to the bolt? It's floating.

Why? Is it because it's trying hard? Is it because it goes to a lot of meetings? Is it because it reads two chapters today, keep the devil away?

It's floating because it is in union with the nature of the wood, and now everything that's true of the wood is true of the bolt. And what the apostle Paul says for three chapters is, you are in Christ, and then he explains what that means. In fact, after his little verse three, that you have every spiritual blessing, literally verses two through 14 is one long sentence that I mean literally, he just goes off with all these theological words. And so what I want you to see is the key to your journey is to believe and to trust, both intellectually and then down in your heart, what it means to be in Christ, and then of seeking to earn God's favor, or earn God's love, or please people, I already have God's love, I have God's acceptance, I have an inheritance, I have his spirit, I'm adopted as his child. Now, how do I live, and then how do I begin to express that to other people without wanting things back? Because I've already got the acceptance from him. Does that make sense? That's a very different picture from the mental, emotional, and psychological picture that most people live the Christian life.

Unconsciously, most of us are still trying to please God, earn God's favor, and we feel good when we have our quiet time, read our Bible, and aren't messing and struggling with those besetting sins, and we feel really bad. And it's try hard, try hard, fail. Try hard, try hard, fail.

Try hard, try hard, fake it. And that's why we have the Barna research, and that's why we have the Gallup research that says about eight out of every ten Christians who claim they're born again, or in some studies nine out of ten, they say they believe this, they say I received Jesus, and their life and their lifestyle says the opposite story. We don't stay married any longer than other people. Our finances, our parenting, our priorities, and our time are not a nickel's worth of difference in America and in many parts around the world than those who don't know Christ. Jesus has become in America the self-help guru that in the name of Jesus will give you this wonderful life, this amazing marriage, and you just, here's the formula. Read the Bible, pray, feel good, get jacked up once a week with someone going everything's going to be okay. That's not New Testament Christianity. And by the way, it doesn't work. And that's why you have disillusioned Christians with their hands on their hips saying, hey God, I did the deal, how come my wife got cancer?

I did the deal, how come my kids didn't turn out right? I'm doing all the things. I'm in church every time the doors are open. I don't have an intimate marriage, we hate each other. This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and you've been listening to part one of Chip's message Overcoming Rejection from our series Unstuck. Chip will be back shortly to share some helpful application for us to think about. Pain, it's an unfortunate part of the human experience. Whether it's a broken promise, a dysfunctional family relationship, or prejudice, we've all had to deal with being hurt.

So what are we supposed to do when that heartache cripples us to our core? In this insightful series, Chip reveals the hope and restoration that Jesus promises. As he studies the book of Ephesians, Chip will remind us who we are, whose we are, and why our past pain doesn't have to define our futures. To learn more about this series, visit LivingOnTheEdge.org. Our Bible teacher, Chip Ingram, is with me in studio now to share a quick word.

Chip? Thanks so much, Dave. I want to ask you something really important. Would you choose to become a financial partner with us? Now, I'm not using that language to disguise the fact that I'm asking you to give or trying to be fancy or asking for money. But when you invest in this ministry, it's more accurately saying, yes, I will partner with you.

Yes, I'll go to work with you. Yes, I want to be on this mission with you. When you give, you become a part of all that we do, a part of the hundreds of thousands of people hearing God's Word, a part of discipling new Christians and encouraging persecuted Christians in China and the Middle East.

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Thanks Chip. We believe helping Christians really live like Christians will radically change the world we're living in. So if you'd like to join us in that mission, we'd love to have you on our team. To become a monthly partner, go to livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or visit livingontheedge.org.

Have listeners tap donate. Well with that, here again is Chip. As we close today's program, one of the things that we all tend to do with regard to rejection is what I call denial. In other words, rejection really, really hurts. And it's like when someone pokes you, you automatically react and you protect yourself. And we spent considerable time today talking about the impact of rejection. But it's really painful to even think about it. And I would like just for a minute or two, where have you been rejected? Just go there with me.

Okay. Who has rejected you? Was it parents or was it an employer?

Maybe a close friend? Maybe it was a marriage that didn't work or the breaking up with a boyfriend or a girlfriend? Maybe you felt rejected.

It was through sports. You didn't get in the school that you wanted. And here's what I want you to just allow your emotions and ask God, even as I'm talking, to say, Lord, will you help me face and see some of these feelings that I have of being worthless or on bad days wishing I hadn't been born or being depressed or I find I withdraw from people? Or you've become like this. What I did is I became this like over the top overachiever. I'm going to prove that I'm worthwhile. I'm going to prove that I'm a somebody.

I'm going to prove. And I just ramped up over all those insecurities, but I never really understood that there was deep rejection at the heart of it. And what I want to remind you today is Jesus was rejected. He was rejected by his own people. He's the creator, and he was rejected by his creation. And what you're going to find in our next broadcast is out of that pain, he literally being fully human and fully divine, he is going to redeem, and he's going to pay for your sin and mine, and he's going to forgive and cleanse and do something where he puts your past behind you. And because he's been through rejection, right now, today, you can talk to him and you can say, Lord Jesus, I feel really lousy and maybe it was my parents or maybe it was this friend of mine.

But why don't you bring that up to your consciousness, and why don't you say, Lord, I really have been rejected. I need your help. I want you to help me. I want to face this. I want to get where I can forgive this person, but I need you to do something in me.

And if you're not quite sure of how this plays out, can I encourage you? Go to livingonthedge.org, livingonthedge, it's all one word,.org. Click on the message notes, and everything that I shared, all those specifics, it's right there on the website.

It's absolutely free. And then go to Ephesians chapter 1 and read verses 7 through about 12. It'll really help you in that journey of overcoming the rejection that's really shaped your soul. Thanks, Chip. And you'll find the message notes he just mentioned under the Broadcasts tab at livingonthedge.org. Tap listeners, tap fill-in notes. You'll get his outline, all of his scripture references, and lots of fill-ins to help you remember what you're learning.

They'll really help you get the most out of every program, so I hope you'll take advantage of this resource. We'll listen in next time as Chip picks up in his series, Unstuck, from the book of Ephesians. Until then, this is Dave Drewy saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge. We'll see you next time.