REJECTION Doesn't Get the Final Word!

How's everybody doing tonight? Good. My name is Katie Hawk. Hi. I'm a grateful believer in Jesus Christ. I celebrate recovery from fear, shame, brokenness. Tonight, I want to add a word to that. I want to add that I celebrate recovery from rejection. Now, this may seem a little bit silly, but I can remember being rejected back to about 12 years old. I was in sixth grade, and there were three things that just stand out in my memory. One was a teacher who made fun of my artwork in front of the entire class. And then there was a boy that rejected me in front of all the popular kids. And then I tried out for cheerleading. And do you know, I come from a small school. I was the only girl that did not get chosen for the cheerleading team. Every other girl did. Okay, and so it may sound silly, but it started a pattern in my life, right, of being and feeling rejected in so many areas. But tonight, I believe that I have healed from that because of something so beautiful that the Lord showed me in his word. And I cannot wait to share that with you. So first, I want to know, like, has anyone in here experienced rejection? Yeah, I thought I'd see a lot of hands. Sometimes the rejection isn't the same. What you felt and what I felt could be very, very, very different. So I'm just going to name a few ways that maybe some of you are feeling tonight, okay? Some of you were rejected before you were even born. Some of you grew up with a father who walked away. Some of you had a mother who couldn't love you the way that she should

because of her own brokenness. Some of you were abused by the very people that should have protected you. Some of you were bullied, left out, betrayed by a spouse, cheated on. Some of you were rejected because of your addiction. Some of you were rejected by a church. Some rejected by friends. And some of you are rejecting yourselves right now as you sit in this room. So let me ask you, what did that rejection teach you about yourself? Because rejection doesn't just hurt. It whispers lies into our ears, right? We find ourselves thinking, I'm unwanted. I'm not enough. I'll never belong. I'll have to earn love if I want it. If people really knew me, they'd leave too. I'll reject them before they reject me, or I'll just numb the pain. Right? But the problem is those lies become beliefs, and those beliefs become decisions, and those decisions become habits, and those habits become addictions, and those addictions become prisons. And that's why this verse that I'm going to share with you is so important tonight. Before we read this passage, though, can I just give you a little bit of Bible history? I love to just teach a little bit because I feel like once you understand what's happening leading up to this passage, it's going to make the promises in it so much more beautiful. Okay? 700 years about before Jesus was born, Israel, who were God's chosen people, they had wandered far from God, even though they had seen who he was and what he could do, they had wandered away from him. And they dealt with idolatry and rebellion, and they ignored warning after warning, and finally judgment came on them.

Families were separated. Jerusalem, their capital, fell. Their temple was destroyed, and many of them were dragged off to a foreign country. Everything in their lives felt hopeless. But despite their sin, God never stopped pursuing his people. He raised up a prophet named Isaiah, and Isaiah answered his call. You may know the verse when Isaiah said, Here I am, send me. Right? Such a beautiful verse, but God told him something shocking after he said that. He said, Go and preach, but most people aren't going to listen to you. Isaiah spent his whole life faithfully proclaiming God's word, but Jewish tradition tells us that people got so tired of hearing him talk about it that they sought him and have to shut him up. Right? So faithfulness doesn't always lead to acceptance. Sometimes it leads to rejection. But God never told Isaiah to be successful. He told him to be faithful. Okay, so I want to read something that he wrote, and I want you to remember that he wrote this to a broken, desperate, sinful nation. Okay, we're in Isaiah chapter 61. The whole chapter is beautiful. I'm just going to read the first three verses. tonight. This is Isaiah speaking as what the Lord told him to say. He said the Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted and to proclaim freedom for the captives and to release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn and to provide for those who grieve in Zion, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of

mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. Isaiah first spoke those words to a nation that was carrying shame and loss and they were in captivity and they desperately needed help. He's talking about the Messiah who's coming for them, but do you know that the Messiah didn't just come for Israel? The Messiah came for every brokenheart in this room tonight, including yours. So I want to go back through those verses together and just break them down a little bit, okay? It says the Messiah is going to bring good news to the poor. Now this doesn't just mean poor financially, okay? These are those people who are poor in hope, poor in joy, poor in peace, poor in confidence. Some of you have been emotionally bankrupt for years, but he is going to bring you good news, okay? It says he's going to bind up the brokenhearted. Lots of things break a heart. I'm sure lots of us in here have reasons that our heart is broken tonight. A dad leaving, a mom rejecting you, abuse, divorce, betrayal, death, church, her addiction, words that were spoken over you that could never be taken back. He's going to bind up that broken heart. It says he's going to bring liberty to the captives, but maybe you don't even know you're captive, right? You can be captive to people-pleasing, fear, approval, control, bitterness, addiction, anger, performance, shame. He's going to set you free. It says he's going to open prison doors. Now I know we have some people in here tonight who are in actual prison, right? But some of you tonight are in a prison without bars, right? Some of you are sitting in a cell made of memories made of labels, made of lies that someone told you when you were seven years old that you still believe. He is going to walk you right out of that cell. It says he's going to comfort those who mourn. Maybe you're mourning the childhood that you lost, the marriage you wanted, the years that addiction stole from you, the relationships that never healed, the dreams that died, right? He's going to comfort you in every one of those losses. It says he's going to give beauty for ashes. Ashes are what's left when everything's been burned down, not just damaged or singed, gone. Ashes are what's left that you're holding when

there's nothing left to save, and God says he's going to take those and make something beautiful from them, and he's going to give a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. Rejection almost always leaves behind that kind of despair, and underneath despair is usually shame, and you don't say, I did something bad, but you start to believe I am bad, but Jesus came to replace that shame with honor. So the brokenhearted, captive, prisoners, mourning, ashes, shame, does that sound like anyone's life before Jesus? Now imagine hearing those promises in Isaiah 61. Imagine that those promises are being passed down from generation to generation, parents telling their children one day God is going to send a Messiah, and the brokenhearts are waiting, and the prisoners are waiting, and everyone's waiting, wondering when, when is it going to happen? And nearly 700 years pass, and then one Sabbath morning, Jesus walks into a synagogue in his hometown. I want you to picture the scene for a minute. It's Sabbath, so the whole town has gathered at the synagogue, and the way they did every week, right? It was normal for a visiting rabbi or a teacher to be invited to stand and read from the scriptures, so when Jesus stood up, nobody thought anything special was about to happen. This is Nazareth. It's Jesus's hometown. Every person in that that room watched him grow up. To them, he wasn't a prophet, he wasn't a miracle worker, right? He was just Joseph's boy, the carpenter's son, someone they'd known their entire life. No one in that room expected the Messiah to walk in. So the attendant hands him the scroll the same way they'd hand it to anybody who's about to be invited to read. And Jesus intentionally opens up to Isaiah, right? What we today call Isaiah 61, not Genesis, not Psalms. He could have opened to anything, he opened to Isaiah

and he read that chapter that we just read. He read the promises that we just talked about, the good news to the poor and the freedom for the captives and the release for prisoners and the beauty for ashes. The same words to the same people who had been waiting 700 years to see them fulfilled. And then he rolls up the scroll and he sits back down. Luke tells us, because this is in the gospel of Luke chapter four, he tells us every eye was on his room. They're wondering, what is he going to say? It's silent. And then in one sentence, Jesus said, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. And I don't think we can understand the magnitude of exactly how shocking that was. Jesus is saying, I'm the one. Guys, I'm the one who heals broken hearts. I'm the one who frees captives. I'm the one who opens prison doors. I'm the one who gives beauty for ashes. I'm the one who removes shame. It's me, I'm here, I'm him. I would think there would be celebrating and there would be joy, but do you know what happened? If you keep reading that chapter, it says they rejected him so much, they dragged him out of town and tried to throw him off a cliff. It's crazy. And do you know how Jesus responds?

This is incredible. Do you know how he responds? He doesn't argue, he doesn't beg, he doesn't chase their approval, he doesn't compromise, he doesn't quit. Luke simply says, he passed through the midst of them and went on his way. He went on his way. I don't believe Luke left that detail out by accident. He's showing us what real freedom looks like. He went on his way. Guys, Jesus didn't let rejection redirect his identity or his mission. He didn't start to question who he was. He didn't think, gosh, maybe I'm not really called to do what my father said. He didn't think, man, they're rejecting me. Maybe I'm not the Messiah after all. Maybe this isn't for me. Maybe I don't know what I'm doing. Maybe I'm wrong about my path in life. No, he didn't think any of that. The rejection of Nazareth did not change his path. At his baptism, before he ever preached a sermon, before he ever healed a single person, before he ever performed a miracle, the father said, you are my beloved son, and Nazareth could not undo what heaven had already declared, and neither can the people who rejected you.

Have you ever been to a circus fun house? Okay, and they have that room with all the weird mirrors, right? None of the mirrors actually show you the truth. That's what this is supposed to represent tonight, right? You stand in front of the mirror, and maybe you're like really tall, or maybe you're like this short, or you have no legs, or you're super skinny, or you're super fat. I hate that one. Or it twists up your face so that you look all weird. You guys have all seen those mirrors, right? We can think about those mirrors, and we can recognize that it's a circus mirror, right? But I want to be clear. It's not showing you a slightly different version of you. It's showing you a completely made up different version of you, right? Because you don't really look like that, right? And we can laugh, but I think if you stood in front of that mirror long enough you might start to believe that's what you actually look like. And that's what rejection does. Rejection puts you in front of a circus mirror and says here, look at you. You look ridiculous. Look how ugly you are. You're so weird.

But guys, none of it is true. But if it's the only mirror you look in, you're gonna start making decisions based on a reflection that was never accurate in the first place. You'll pick your relationships based on it. You'll punish yourself based on it. You'll believe you didn't deserve better based on that. But guys, there's a real mirror. Think about the mirror you looked at this morning. in your home when you were getting ready, right? It didn't stretch you, it didn't shrink you, it didn't twist your face into something you didn't recognize. It just showed you exactly what was there. That's what an accurate mirror does. But do you know there's an even better mirror than your bathroom wall? One that shows you a more accurate picture than any other mirror could. James 1, 23 and 25 says the word of God is like a mirror that we can look into. It is the only thing that gives you an accurate reflection of who you really are. It's the only one worth trusting when you make decisions. So tonight I want you to step away from the circus mirror. Rejection has had you standing in front of it long enough. And I want you to pick up the real mirror. Okay, because if you are a child of God tonight, if you are in Christ, if you have accepted him, let me tell you what this mirror says about you, okay?

You want to know what the real reflection says? It says you are chosen. It says you are adopted. It says you are forgiven. It says you are redeemed. It says you are a new creation. You are God's workmanship. You are an heir of Christ. You are more than a conqueror. You are a son. You are a daughter. You are a child of the most high God. So I want to ask you whose voice has more authority, okay? The one who created you or the person who rejected you? I want you to say with me, guys, say this with me. Rejection is an event. It is not my identity. I need you to understand that. Being rejected, that is an event. That is not who you are. This book tells you who you are. Now if you keep reading Luke 4, okay? That where we just were where Jesus tells him he's the Messiah and they try to throw him off a cliff and he goes on his way. Do you know he leaves Nazareth? He went on his way and he teaches and he casts out demons and he heals and he does miracles and crowds are amazed and lives are changed.

Now imagine if Jesus had stayed in Nazareth trying to convince people who had already rejected him of who he was. The rest of Luke 4 would have never happened. Sometimes we spend years trying to convince the people who already rejected us, right? To see who we are and to see our worth when God is calling us to take the next step into our purpose. So sometimes the most faithful thing we can do is exactly what Jesus did. Go on our way. Okay, and I want you to notice something else. Jesus didn't lose anything that day. Nazareth did. They missed the Messiah. They missed the miracles. They missed the teachings. They missed the healings. They missed the freedom. Rejection didn't rob Jesus of his purpose. It robbed Nazareth of his presence. So we have this backwards, guys. Almost every time it happens when someone rejects us, we think something must be wrong with us. We think we must be less than, not enough, unworthy of those people. We are losing out. But if you look at what happened in Nazareth, nobody there walked away better.

They walked away emptier. They kept their pride and lost their Messiah. So rejection is rarely as much about you as it feels like in the moment. Most of the time, it's about them. It's about their fear and their pride and their blindness and their own brokenness that they haven't dealt with. So when someone rejects you, they are the ones who miss out on who you are. It is not the other way around. Guys, rejection is not a verdict of your worth. It is a picture of their brokenness. When you stop looking in the circus mirror through a lens of rejection, when you start looking in God's mirror and you begin to see yourself the way that he sees you and all those things he says about you, you begin to believe them, your vision gets clear. But I have to tell you, it's not just clear about who you are. It also clears up who they are. And what if we could get to a place where we stop crying because of someone and start crying for that person, right? Because crying because of someone is what rejection produces. Naturally, it's that hurt, that offense, that sting of being treated badly. But getting to a place where you... can cry for them, that is beautiful.

It happens when you finally see what's driving their behavior. Their own hurts, their own brokenness, their own wounds, their own rejections that they've never dealt with. If we knew the story behind the people who treated us so poorly, we'd stop feeling hurt and we'd start feeling something a lot closer to grief. I'm not saying it erases what they did. I'm not saying it makes it okay. But if you can move your heart from a place that only holds hurt to a place that also holds mercy, that would be incredible. Remember what I told you earlier about Isaiah, how the very people that he tried to reach and save and warn, they eventually got so tired of him they sawed him in half to shut him up, imagine that. The man who wrote the words we read together at the beginning, the same words Jesus stood up in that synagogue and said and claimed as his mission, he was so rejected that people killed him for saying it. His own people missed out on him the same way Nazareth missed out on Jesus. But here's what history remembers. We don't call Isaiah the man nobody wanted to listen to. We call Isaiah the greatest prophet who ever existed. And Jesus, they wouldn't listen to him, they rejected him, they tried to kill him, they nailed him to a cross. We don't call him a rejected rabbi

from a small town no one's ever heard of. No, we call him savior. We call him king of kings. We call him the name above every name. Rejection did not get the final say over Isaiah's life, it did not get the final say over Jesus' life, and it doesn't get the final say over your life either. How amazing is that? Can we give God praise for that tonight? You know how every week we end with the serenity prayer, right, in a few minutes Stephen's gonna come up here and he's gonna lead us through it and we stand up and we repeat it every night. How many times do you think you've said it by now? Do you think, yeah, a lot. That's right, anyone have it memorized? You can say it, yeah, yeah. Jesus once told the religious leaders of his day that by your tradition you nullify the word. And we do that when we repeat something over and over and over without thinking about what it means. It just becomes words leaving our mouth while our minds are often entirely somewhere else, right? So how many of you have actually ever sat down and studied that prayer and really thought deeply about what it meant? Amen, amen, it took me a long time to do that. I'll be honest, I repeated it every week. I have it memorized.

Until one day I was like, what does this even mean? And I sat down, I wanna explain to you how it relates to message on rejection tonight, okay? It relates to a lot of things. But I just wanna show you how it relates to this, okay? It starts with God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Guys, we can't change our pasts, right? We can't change who left, who abused us, who rejected us, who said what. We can't change what happened. So we have to accept it. And acceptance is not saying it's okay. Acceptance is saying it happened, it hurt, but it will not define me. The next line is the courage to change the things I can. We can change the lies we believe. We can change the bitterness we carry. We can change whether we forgive, whether we trust God, whether we keep walking. That's exactly what Jesus did. He kept walking and it took real courage every single step and you can keep walking too. It says, the next line, and the wisdom to know the difference. Guys, sometimes rejection is correction and we have to check something in our hearts. Sometimes it's consequences. Sometimes it's persecution. Sometimes like Isaiah, it's obedience.

We need to ask the Lord to help us know which one we're facing because we have spent far too long trying to change what we need to accept and trying to accept what we actually need to change. The next line is living one day at a time. Guys, we don't have to heal from every rejection we've ever experienced tonight. Healing takes place one day at a time, one moment at a time, not all at once. We just have to take today. The next line says enjoying one moment at a time. Rejection is trying to steal the present by chaining you to the past. We cannot enjoy this moment if we're still standing in a moment from 10 years ago. Let it go. Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace. As Jesus didn't avoid hardship, he walked straight through it. Nazareth was hardship. The cross was hardship. But peace came out of the other side for both. And it will for you too. Taking as Jesus did this sinful world as it is. As people are going to disappoint you, people are going to reject you. Jesus never promised otherwise. He didn't ask you to pretend the world was safe. He said, trust me in a world that isn't.

The next line says, trusting that you will make all things right if I surrender to your will. Nazareth rejected Jesus, and he was hung on a cross. But what happened next? He was raised from the dead. He saved all of humanity. Guys, God always gets the final word, even when it doesn't feel like it in the moment. And the last line, so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with you forever in the next. Reasonably happy here, supremely happy forever. Rejection doesn't get to touch that second part, no matter how hard it hits in the first. Keep your eyes focused on eternity. So tonight when we pray this prayer to close our meeting, I don't want it to just be words leaving your mouth. I want you to think about it. I want you to meditate on it, and I want you to mean the things that you're saying. Isaiah promised a Messiah who would heal broken hearts, who would free captives, who would open prison doors, who would replace ashes for beauty, and who would replace shame with honor. And the greatest demonstration of that was Jesus. And when the people rejected him, he went on his way. This week, I hope that you do the same thing. Keep loving, keep serving, keep forgiving, keep obeying,

keep becoming who God created you to be, because someone else's rejection never has the authority to rewrite what God has already spoken over your life. Remember, rejection is an event. It is not your identity. Lord, thank you so much for every person in this room. Lord God, thank you for their hearts. Lord, thank you, Lord, for who you are. Thank you for sending Isaiah with those beautiful promises, but thank you even more for sending Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the one who heals, saves, delivers. Lord God, we are so grateful. Lord, even when we were those people in Nazareth who rejected him, Lord, he still died for us. He still saved us. Every person in this room, Lord, thank you for that. Lord, I pray that every person in this room, when they look in the mirror in the bathroom, Lord, that they see themselves the way that the mirror of your word says that they are. Lord, I pray that they see themselves as beautiful and holy and righteous and just special. Lord, I pray that they know that you have a plan for them and nothing anyone has ever said or done can interfere with the plan that you have for them. Lord, let them take the next step. Let them walk on their way. Let them be bold. Lord, give them peace.

Give them courage. Give them strength. Give them wisdom. Everything they need to just walk through the crowd and go on their way. God, we just love you and we thank you and we praise you and we give you all the glory and all the honor in the mighty name of Jesus we pray, amen. España.