Responding to Rejection

Jesus is essentially saying to these people in Nazareth, they don't have the faith of a Gentile widow living in Jezebel's hometown.

She believed the prophet of God, and they will not. Now just imagine, beloved, the nudging and the whispering going through this synagogue. They're fine as long as you give them a verse they like, but as long as you give them a verse that cuts to their rebellious heart, well I don't think I like this guy anymore. Early in Jesus' ministry, he traveled to his hometown and prepared to deliver a message there. He was probably excited to see people he knew from his childhood and reveal himself to his family and friends. But the reaction to Jesus' sermon was not positive. His hometown friends rejected him. Have you ever experienced rejection from someone that you know and consider a friend? Stay with us today as Stephen explores this account from the life of Jesus and teaches you some practical implications from it.

This is Wisdom for the Heart and Stephen Davey has a message for you today called, Responding to Rejection. I read about a young man who had been away from his hometown for some time after entering the ministry. When he returned home, he was invited to preach and everybody just sort of packed the house to hear him. But what he decided to preach on was so upsetting to them and frankly so convicting that when he finished his sermon, the entire congregation agreed they never wanted to hear him again. And they never did.

Let me show you where it happened. Luke's Gospel chapter 4, the preacher is Jesus, and he's about to preach his first sermon in his hometown and it will be his last. He will never return to preach again. Keep in mind as you're turning, we're going to begin at verse 14 that Jesus is now a household name. He's had a few months of ministry. He's become rather famous actually.

In fact, the Bible tells us here in chapter 4 in verse 14, and Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country and he taught in their synagogues being glorified by all. I mean, get that. Being glorified.

This is heady stuff. The verb being glorified means you're receiving a claim and the tense tells us it's constant. He's constantly being deluged with a claim and applause. If he were living in this day, he'd be in all the newspapers. He'd be on the billboards.

He'd be invited all the talk shows. Everybody is literally singing his praises. You got to go hear him. You got to go see him.

You've got to meet him. Now we know, by the way, from other Gospel accounts that Jesus has just finished a rather remarkable, miraculous season of ministry in Capernaum, 20 miles away. And word has spread like wildfire back to Nazareth that he's heading their way.

You can just sort of imagine now all 400 people packed into this little synagogue and standing around the doorway and the windows to hear Jesus preach. Verse 16. He came to Nazareth where he'd been brought up and as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. We're not told if that was the text for the day or if this is what he asked for.

I think he probably asked for this text. He enrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written. The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Then he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.

Imagine no one is breathing. Now in typical fashion, the reader would stand and read no more than three verses from the Hebrew scroll, the text. The verses would then be translated into Greek or Aramaic, perhaps both depending on the audience.

Following the reading, someone would be invited to speak. They didn't have a professional clergy as it were. Perhaps a rabbi from the village taught the children in school. Obviously because Jesus is being seated, that indicates he's taking the seat of the teacher. And in that day they stood to read and they sat to preach and we often reverse it. Now we're actually never given his sermon, only his text. I just read it. And we are given his main point.

And then a couple of illustrations. We're told here in verse 21, he began to say to them, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. He must have given an amazing exposition on this prophecy from Isaiah and everybody loved it and they would. This is one of their favorite texts of scripture. This is one of their favorite prophecies from Isaiah. Notice here, they all spoke well of him. They're lined up.

This guy, what a sermon. They're nudging each other as they're listening. They're whispering to each other. Wow.

You believe this. Everybody's taking notes. They're on the edge of their seats. Nobody's sleeping during the sermon. Now you've got to understand the Jewish people are loving this prophecy and for good reason. Look at all the things the Messiah is going to do when he comes. He's going to end poverty. He's going to free everybody from oppression. He's going to give sight to the blind. When the anointed one arrives, that's a messianic expression, anointed Christus Christ. Life's going to get better.

This is utopia. It's going to arrive and Jesus now makes this stunning announcement here that he is the one Isaiah is referring to. Look at verse 21 again. Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. You could translate this rather woodenly to read. This scripture is being fulfilled while you are hearing me read it.

Wow. I am the anointed one. I am the Messiah who prophesied by Isaiah.

I am here now. Now they're thinking, as I'll point out a little later, this is great news because he's going to do all this stuff. We're his hometown. He's going to start with us. We're at the front of the line.

This is going to be great. The problem is this prophecy is spiritual long before it becomes physical. When he arrives, he arrives first to save sinners. Then you have that glorious kingdom, which he promised, which, by the way, hasn't arrived yet. It's been 2,000 years.

It's still in the future. But right now, Jesus says he's proclaiming good news to the poor. The word for poor, tokas, is the word he uses later in his sermon on the mountainside where he says, blessed are the poor. He's referring to those who are spiritually impoverished, those who recognize they are spiritually destitute. They are bankrupt. They have nothing to offer God. Blessed are they.

Why? Because they're going to receive the treasure of the Gospel. Jesus says, I'm proclaiming liberty to the captives. This is more than releasing people from bondage or jail.

In fact, we don't know of any time he ever did that. He's essentially saying, I'm here to release those enslaved to sin and the kingdom of darkness. He says, I'm giving sight to the blind.

He'll perform those miracles, but it's deeper than that. Jesus will refer to religious leaders who were blind leading the blind. Matthew 15, 14. The blind are those who are spiritually dead. They're lost.

They need to be redeemed. Their eyes need to be opened to the glorious Gospel of Christ. 2 Corinthians 4. Now, wait a second.

Back to the main point. Jesus is the Messiah. Somebody pipes up in verse 22.

Hold on a minute. You're Joseph's son. You're Joseph's son.

It'll help to understand this. Mark adds to this event the information that Mary's mother is in the audience. And so are his four half-brothers and half-sisters, born to Mary and Joseph after Jesus's virgin birth. He got the whole family there. No doubt the extended family. And remember, in addition to that, there are friends he grew up with. There are clients he served. They knew his parents. Joseph isn't mentioned in Mark's Gospel.

He evidently has already passed away. They remember Joseph. They remember Jesus tagging along, you know, as he comes along with his tools to repair a stone wall or build an addition. They remember. Jesus reads their minds, and he does that because he is the Messiah, by the way. And he says in verse 23, he said to them, Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb.

He knows they're already thinking it. Physician, heal yourself. Physician, heal yourself. That's an expression that was common to the Greek and Jewish writers. That means prove your worth as a physician.

All right? You're the Messiah. Do something about it. In fact, embedded in this, scholars believe, is this implication where Jesus is exposing their pride. This could be expanded to mean physician, heal your own people rather than those people in Capernaum.

What did you do waiting so long to get here? Notice further in verse 23, what we heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well. And he said, Surely I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. In other words, you won't take my word for it.

You won't believe that what I'm telling you is the truth. You just want a little show. See, these villagers want Jesus to prove his stuff.

They want some fireworks. Show us some amazing miracles. We're your hometown crew. I mean, we're the people that you ought to be dazzling. You're from here. Start with us.

Show us what you got. Mark's gospel account, by the way, will mention Jesus did no mighty works in Nazareth because of their unbelief. He knew their heart.

He's not about to put on a sideshow to impress his hometown audience. Instead, he changes gears and he addresses their underlying rebellion against God's word, their unwillingness to listen to the prophet of God. And he's going to essentially say you're just like Israelites throughout history. Verse 25.

What in truth I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heavens were shut up three years and six months and a great famine came over all the land and Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath in the land of Sidon to a woman who was a widow. Now, what Jesus is going to do here is he's going to dip into Israel's history to a very dark time of unbelief. And he's going to give two illustrations. He's read the scripture.

He's given them his main point. He illustrates it. And this first illustration takes us back and I'll just summarize for the sake of time. First Kings chapter 17, where you've got this wicked king and queen named Ahab and his wife. You remember her name? Tell me, do you Jezebel?

Most know of her. They were cruel. They were corrupt. They led the Israelites into idolatry in the worship of Baal. In fact, Jezebel was the patron saint of Baalism. She supported out of their own treasury 450 prophets of Baal. Now, since Baal was supposedly in control of the weather, God stopped it raining. And we'll see who's in control of the weather.

And it didn't rain for over three years. God sent a prophet by the name of Elijah to confront Ahab, Jezebel, and the idolatrous nation of Israel. Now during this drought, when there were many needy people, widows especially, were destitute, God sends Elijah to help a Gentile widow living in Zarephath that happens to be the hometown of Jezebel. So you have the prophet of God being sent to the worst place on the planet, as far as God's concern, or the prophet of God would be concerned, and to the most unlikely person to ever believe a prophet of God.

And this is the point. When Elijah encounters her, you remember she's about to use her last remaining little bit of flour, a little Crisco oil, all she's got left, she's going to make a little loaf of bread, she's going to feed it to her son, and then she says, we're going to die. And he says, well, here's what I want you to do. Believe my word, I want you to give me that bread, and if you will believe me, then you'll never run out of Crisco or flour until this drought's over. Believe my word, and then a miracle will occur.

See what Jesus is doing? And this Gentile widow believes his word. She trusts his word, and gives him the food, and suddenly she's got plenty of flour and oil that lasts throughout this famine. Jesus is essentially saying to these people in Nazareth, tapped into this synagogue, they don't have the faith of a Gentile, a pagan widow living in Jezebel's hometown. They can't get close to her faith. She believed the prophet of God, and they will not. Now just imagine, beloved, the nudging and the whispering going through this synagogue.

This is insulting. He's telling us we're sinners. He's telling us that we need a message where we're told we're not believing the word of God.

How in the world could he ever be so judgmental? This is the heart of unbelieving mankind, whether they're in the first century or the 21st century. They're fine as long as you give them a verse they like. But as long as you give them a verse that cuts to their rebellious heart, well, I don't think I like this guy anymore. But Jesus isn't finished, by the way. Illustration number two, verse 27, but there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.

Now again, what he does here is he fast forwards the tape to 2 Kings 5. This is the scene where you have this Gentile warrior. Okay, that's about as bad as it gets because he's probably killed Israelites. He's from Syria, avowed enemies of Israel, despised Gentile enemies, and a Syrian commander has the audacity to drive his chariot along with some other soldiers into the land of promise, into Israel's land, and approach the great prophet of Israel, asking to be healed of leprosy. Doesn't he know that leprosy is a sign of sin? Doesn't he understand it's a sign of the judgment of God? That's what he ought to be expecting from God. He's an enemy of God. I mean, who does he think he is? He has no right to the miraculous power of the prophet of God. Instead of turning him away, what happens? Elisha says, well, he sends to his servant a message.

You go down to the Jordan River and you immerse yourself in there seven times and you'll come up clean. Well, he recoils against this. Why? He doesn't want to do anything humiliating. He expects Elisha to come out and wave his hand in the air and say something magical. And with some kind of spectacular show of power, the great general is healed. No, go into that muddy water and go under seven times, get good and wet, and name and listen.

Get this. Elisha wants him to trust his word before he sees anything miraculous. And if he will trust the word of the prophet of God, he's off to the right start. In fact, notice the key word here in verse 27. It's the word clean. Jesus doesn't say he was cured.

Cured is merely physical. He uses the word cleansed. That word is in reference to the cleansing of sin and being made right with God. So here you have Jesus saying in verse 27, none of the lepers in Israel were cleansed.

The lowest of the low were not right with God. Only this pagan enemy of Israel who was willing to believe the word of the prophet of God. And again, here's the point that the people in Nazareth immediately understood. Jesus is the prophet.

He's saying, I'm the one. I'm delivering to you the word of God. But you're refusing to believe, which means you're worse off than apostate Gentile enemies of Israel. Jesus is telling these synagogue-keeping Jews they are unclean, while Gentiles who are willing to believe the prophet of God can be cleansed. And even more specifically, he's daring to suggest that Gentiles are more worthy of his teaching and healing ministry than they are in Nazareth.

And that did it. This is like a nuclear bomb dropped in that synagogue. I mean, they didn't even wait for the final benediction. You know, the closing song, the Aaronic blessing, the hymns, all the amens. They explode with self-righteous fury. Look at verse 29.

And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built so that they could throw him down the cliff. They're going to kill him. Never mind a trial.

You don't need a trial. According to his little law in Deuteronomy 13 and their hypocrisy they're going to follow, which means you don't need a trial to kill a false prophet. Jesus is not a false prophet. All he did was preach a sermon from their favorite passage and apply it to their rebellious hearts. And they rush forward in their rage to take his life. What does Jesus do now? We're told in the next verse, verse 30, but passing through their midst he went his way.

By the way, when you're ridiculed for your faith, when you're rejected because you follow Christ, you suffer in some way, some injustice, some ridicule, some demotion. Here's how to respond like Christ. He gives us a model here worthy of imitation. Let me get down into three thoughts.

First, don't lose control. He passed through their midst. We're not told if this was miraculous. There isn't any evidence that he disappeared. He could have.

He will. This verb here simply means he walked through. More than likely, at some point, as they're rushing him up that hill, it's his bearing, disposition. More than likely, he simply revealed dignity and control that they didn't have, and it silenced them, perhaps even shamed them. And then he just walked through them.

Secondly, don't lose heart. Now, don't ignore this response by saying, yeah, well, that's Jesus. That's how Jesus responds. That's what we expect Jesus to do. True? Just don't forget he's fully God and fully man.

This hurt. These are his friends. These are colleagues, his families there. These are people he served.

He never mistreated anybody. And now they're enraged and they want nothing more than to kill him. How's that for your first sermon back home? It occurred to me if you'd asked Jesus later on, I heard you preached in your hometown, the synagogue was packed. Did anybody respond? Yeah, they all responded. They all came forward.

They ran down the aisle. It's possible to be hurt and not lose heart. And we know that because Jesus is going to continue moving forward, and that leads me to my final response to rejection. Third, don't lose sight.

Don't lose sight. Notice again, but passing through their midst, he went, literally translated, his way. The verb he went away means he pursued the journey which he had begun to take. And the test of the verb means he continually took that journey, which means you could say he continued from that moment to continue on his way, the way he had already chosen to go. In fact, Jesus will announce a little later on in the same chapter, verse 43, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose. He didn't lose sight.

And aren't we glad he didn't? The most important thing we have to offer to our world is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the truth that he really is the Messiah who can forgive and cleanse and save. The message you just heard here on Wisdom for the Heart is called Responding to Rejection in a series called The Ministry Begins. If you'd like to hear this message again, share it with a friend, or listen to the full length version, we have it available on our website, wisdomonline.org. I encourage you to install our app to your phone so that you can quickly and easily access all of our Bible-based resources. Our desire is to equip you to know God's word and understand the implications for your life.

Our app can help do that. That app contains the audio and the transcript of each of these daily Bible messages. We also make available the archive of Stephen's Bible teaching ministry with the full length sermons arranged by Book of the Bible. You can follow along in our daily Bible reading plan and more. It's free to install and use, and it's a great companion for your personal Bible study. Well, thanks again for joining us today. We're so glad you were with us, and I hope you'll be with us for our next Bible lesson tomorrow, right here on Wisdom for the Heart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .