Jesus Understands Rejection

Isaiah 53:1-6

Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering,

yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

While God empathizes with how we arrived at a painful point, he doesn't endorse any sinful paths that pain has created, is creating, or could create for us

Yes, someone understands rejection...Jesus

Philippians 2:5-7 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

Kenosis = Christ “emptying Himself” at Incarnation

#1 Manger

Luke 2:7 “And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.”

#2 Family

Mark 3:20-21 Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’”

#3 His Own People

John 1:11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.

Admiration turned to fury.

Luke 4:28-30 28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

#4 Cross

Philippians 2:8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!

Paradox of Cross: It is in the ultimate place of rejection that Jesus secures our ultimate acceptance

Tips to Deal with Rejection