By Chris WittsSunday 29 Sep 2024Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
In Part 1, I was talking about the fear of rejection, that people are going to reject me. And one of the saddest verses in the Bible I found is in Psalms 27:10. And here is the man who was the King of Israel, who had spent most of his twenties running for his life from another King—King Saul.
I’m talking about David and he said in Psalm 27:10 that “even my father and mother have forsaken me!” So he was a king who was rejected! And you know what? Even Jesus was rejected. Isaiah 53:3 says that “he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
Even Jesus suffered rejection
Jesus knows quite well what it feels like to be treated as a person of no value; to be treated as a worthless and useless individual. He is well acquainted with the sorrow and grief that come when people that you love turn their backs to you and reject you. In Luke 4:29 the people in his home town rose up and threw Jesus out of their city and planned to cast him headlong over a steep cliff because they rejected his message and rejected his person.
In Mark 5:17 the people asked Jesus to leave their city after he cast devils out of the man of Gadara. They rejected his miracles. Mark 3:21 tells us that Jesus’ close relatives tried to lay hold of him to shut down his ministry because they rejected his message. Jesus is well acquainted with rejection. He lived a perfect life, preached a perfect message, and only tried to help people, but he still had to endure rejection from the people that misconstrued his life and its purpose.
The story of sparky, the looser
I love this true story about a little boy in the US. The other kids called him ‘Sparky’ after a comic-strip horse named ‘Sparkplug’. Sparky never did shake that nickname. School was all but impossible for Sparky. He failed every subject in the eighth grade. He flunked physics in high school, receiving a flat zero for the course.
He distinguished himself as the worst physics student in the school’s history! He also flunked Latin, Algebra, and English. He didn’t do much better in sports. Although he did manage to make the school’s golf team, he promptly lost the only important match of the year. There was a consolation match, however, but Sparky lost that one too.
Throughout his youth, Sparky was awkward socially. He was not actually disliked by the other youngsters; no one cared that much. He was astonished if a classmate ever said hello to him outside school hours. There was no way to tell how he might have done at dating. In high school Sparky never once asked a girl out; he was too afraid of being turned down. Sparky was a loser.
But sparky had the gift of drawing
Everyone knew it. Sparky made up his mind early in life that if things were meant to work out, they would. Otherwise, he would content himself with what appeared to be his inevitable mediocrity. But one thing was important to Sparky: drawing. He was proud of his own artwork.
Of course no-one else appreciated it. In his senior year of high school, he submitted some cartoons to the editors of his class yearbook. Almost predictably, they were rejected. Despite this particularly painful rejection, Sparky was so convinced of his artistic ability that he decided to become a professional artist.
Upon graduating from high school, he wrote a letter to Walt Disney Studios. He was told to send some sample of his artwork; the subject matter of a cartoon was suggested. Sparky drew the proposed cartoon. He spent a great deal of time on it and the other drawings. Finally, a reply came from the Disney Studios. He was rejected once again.
The cartoon that changed the story
It was another loss for the loser. So Sparky wrote his own autobiography in cartoons. He described his childhood self, the little-boy loser, the chronic underachiever, in a cartoon character that was soon to become famous all over the world. For the boy who failed every subject in the eighth grade and whose work was rejected again and again was Sparky—his correct name was Charles Monroe Schulz.
He created the Peanuts comic strip and the little cartoon boy whose kite would never fly, Charlie Brown. Perhaps the reason Charlie Brown became so popular is because we can all identify with him. Each one of us has known rejection. Each one of us fears rejection. Jesus knows how you feel if you have been rejected. The Bible tells us that he was rejected in all ways. Jesus, the Bible says is the stone the builders rejected (1 Peter 2:7). The Gospel of John tells us that Jesus came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him (John 1:11).
The love of God is the greatest remedy to rejection.
What encouragement we find from Scripture to realise that when we feel rejected, or when we feel that we have been misunderstood, we are not alone. Jesus Christ has walked that very road ahead of us, and he stands at the end of the road, as if beckoning and motioning to us, Come, child, follow me; and I will show you the way to new life. The love of God is the greatest remedy to rejection.
Remember the three greatest words for someone rejected are God loves you—they are powerful words. We need to draw near to God, who “is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).