The Fear of Rejection

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Transcript:

Have any of you ever been embarrassed? Kind of a silly question. I think we all have.

Have any of you ever been embarrassed by somebody else? Maybe you’ve had that time when you were out in public, you were in the Walmart, and your kids were screaming and you thought, okay, these are not my children. Ladies, maybe you’ve walked through the store and thought, please don’t let people know that that is my husband.

My wife has thought that on occasion because I walked through the store singing to myself without realizing it. I don’t realize it until people stare at me. We’ve all been embarrassed by people that were around.

I read an article from Forbes magazine yesterday. I believe it was Forbes. I don’t know how recent the article was because it was on their website, so I don’t know what issue it was from.

But it was about an American businessman, and he was talking about an experience he’d had in Germany where he was having lunch at a restaurant, and in the restaurant there was another businessman from the United States who was there with a client of his who was from Germany. They were having lunch in the restaurant, and he could hear the man all the way across the restaurant, instructing the German man on the proper way to run a business, because this is how we do it back home, instructing the man on how to raise children, because this is how we do it back home, instructing the man on how to eat, because this is how we do it back home, and doing it so loud that everybody in the restaurant could hear. And the man said, and he wrote in his article, he said he just sat there and put his head in his hands and said, I want to be Canadian.

He was embarrassed and didn’t want people to associate him with that man over there. I think not necessarily our nationality, although running around with Christian’s brothers in Mexico, I shouldn’t have lied, it was wrong, but running around with her brothers, I did tell people I was Canadian. So they wouldn’t know I was with them.

And I’ve asked the Lord’s forgiveness for that. I shouldn’t have lied. It was wrong.

We’ve all been embarrassed to some extent like that. I remember in my college days, a few years and a few pounds ago, that it seemed like once or twice a semester we would have these street preachers come on campus. And I’ve got no problem against street preaching.

It was just these particular men who would come on the University of Oklahoma campus. And sometimes they would bring their entourage with them who would carry these signs that were so big, they looked like they could be a sail. And the signs were so big and would catch so much wind, they actually had to build themselves a harness to wear it so they could be the signpost. And they would say things like, you’re going to hell, repent or die, or things like that.

The message wasn’t exactly wrong, but, I mean, let’s have a little grace in the way we present the message. And these men would stand out there and scream and harangue the kids. And again, it’s not that I disagreed with their message.

It was some of the antics that went along with it. That these men would stand out there, and I’ve seen street preachers who are firm in their convictions and are firm in what they’re saying, and I’ve got no problem with that. I’ve worked with some of those men.

That these men would stand out there, and they would indiscriminately yell at everybody that they were going to hell, just because they were there at the University of Oklahoma. Some of y’all might agree with that. But just because they were there, they were going to hell.

Point me out of a lot. As I’m walking through the South Oval, minding my own business, you’re going to hell. This book I’ve got here in my backpack says differently.

If you’d like to discuss it, that’d be fine. They didn’t know who they were yelling at. I mean, here I was, a born-again Christian.

Aside from that, not that it matters in light of eternity, but already a preacher for that matter. I mean, not just any lost person on the campus. They don’t know me, and yet they’re screaming that I’m going to hell.

I remember one of them got on two guys hollering at them about being homosexuals because they were wearing pink shirts. And the stupid man, and I will say stupid, the stupid man didn’t stop to realize that it was Breast Cancer Awareness Week and everybody had on pink shirts. And I would see these guys on the campus, and it wasn’t the message they preached, it was them.

It was the antics about them that made the gospel and made me, I was there day in and day out getting to know people and sharing my faith with people, and they made me look ridiculous. And they made the faith I professed look ridiculous. And I remember thinking to myself on more than one occasion, Dear God, don’t let these people.

. . And I mean that with all due respect, because I was speaking to God when I said it.

Dear God, don’t let people associate us with them. Because they made us look ridiculous. My fear was that if we were associated with them, that people would reject us, they would shut down altogether when we tried to talk to them.

Oh, you’re talking about the same gospel that those men screamed at us, the same good news. Yeah, but mine actually comes from somebody who loves you and is not just standing there screaming to make a point. Sometimes the associations that we have can be a source of embarrassment.

Sometimes, even if the associations we have are not a source of embarrassment, they can still cause people to reject us. I’m not even necessarily talking about bad associations. If you haven’t already, if you’ll turn with me to John chapter 15, Jesus addresses kind of this same matter, that sometimes we’re going to be rejected because of the company we keep.

And if it’s for reasons like those men and just the shenanigans they would pull. I was trying to think of a good word there, and shenanigans just seemed to fit. Because of the stuff that they would pull, if it’s things like that that make people look at the gospel and look at us and say, I don’t want any part of that, then shame on them.

But we have no control over that. If it’s just the fact of our association with Jesus that makes people reject us, that’s really not our problem. And it’s really nothing to be surprised about.

John chapter 15, starting in verse 18, says, If the world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of this world, the world would love his own. But because ye are not of this world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

Remember the word that I said unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.

But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin. But now that they have no cloak for their sin, he that hateth me hateth my father also.

And we’ll stop there in verse 23. If you’ll recall last week, and I’m glad some of you showed up after last week, it was one of those messages that is not fun to preach because it sounds harsh. It sounded harsh to me, and I’m sure to you all too, but as Brother James said when I asked him, I said, was that too mean?

He said, it’s the whole counsel of God. So I’m glad that you all are back. Last week we talked about the curse of apathy.

When it comes to sharing our faith with other people, when it comes to evangelism and discipleship, the first objection that a lot of times we have comes from apathy. And we talked last week about people who are just apathetic in general. In general, don’t care whether people come to Christ or not. And unfortunately, in a lot of churches, that reflects the majority of the population.

As long as their ticket is punched, as long as they can have a good life, as long as they can enjoy their church and go home and then live however they want, it doesn’t matter whether anybody else comes to Christ. But even if we’re not talking about that kind of general apathy, there are times that each one of us gets apathetic in certain situations when really it just sounds like too much of a sacrifice, too much of a hassle. And we talked about apathy and how apathy will kill our evangelism and our discipleship efforts quicker than anything else. And that the only way to overcome apathy is with God’s help, with God actually doing it, with recognizing it, and then asking God, please deal with this in my heart.

If we were, and again, last week sounded harsh, but as I pointed out, because you’re here, I can’t imagine that any one of you are generally apathetic people. I’m kind of preaching the choir in that regard. Tonight, as we continue on with the objections to sharing, the next one, the one that we’re going to talk about tonight, is the fear of rejection.

And folks, if we’re honest, unless you are one of these street preachers who just really has long ago abandoned any thought of caring what other people think, and sometimes that’s good and sometimes that’s bad, depending on how you use that, unless you’re one of those people that has just said, I really don’t care what the world thinks. If we’re honest, all of us at some point or another deal with this fear of rejection. That we are not going to share the gospel with somebody.

We’re not going to witness to somebody. We’re not going to try to disciple somebody that’s already been saved because we’re afraid they’re going to reject us. This especially, we’ve been talking about evangelism and discipleship, this especially goes along with evangelism.

We are afraid, and I’ll admit I have this too from time to time, we are afraid to go and tell people the gospel. We are afraid to approach anybody and tell them about the hope that we have in Jesus Christ because we are afraid they will reject us. We are afraid.

I was afraid many times at OU that if I walked up to somebody that I didn’t know or barely knew on campus and talked to them about Jesus Christ, they were immediately going to say, oh, you’re one of those people and point back at Preacher Bob or whatever he called himself with the big sign. Oh, you’re one of them. And you know what?

That kind of fear paralyzed me at times. If I’m not careful, am I being too open about this? If I’m not careful, at times that fear will well up and paralyze me again, that they’re going to think I’m some kind of lunatic.

We come up with reasons that we’re afraid that if we share the gospel with somebody, they’re going to reject it. Can I tell you that the only 100% guarantee we have that people are not going to accept the gospel is that if we don’t give it to them. That’s the only guarantee.

But we’re afraid that people are going to reject us. Isn’t that it? If it was just the thought of, oh, they might reject the gospel, we could kind of deal with that.

But the idea that we think somehow they’re going to reject us in the process. And if we’re honest, I think we all deal with that fear. But Jesus here points out to the disciples that they were going to be rejected.

There were going to be times when they would be rejected and tells them what the reason was. I want to really focus on these first two verses that we read tonight. But he says, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.

He tells His disciples, He tells those that were gathered there that day, He says, if the world hates you, don’t be amazed, they hated me first. They hated Christ first. He tells them, if the world hates you, that lends itself to the very real possibility, probability, we should say, that people are going to reject us for Christ’s sake. And from this passage, we need to see that we are guaranteed that our witness sometimes will be rejected. I don’t know if that eases your fear or not, but I think sometimes the not knowing is worse than knowing that the bad thing has happened.

Does that make any sense? Sometimes, in circumstances of life, the fear of the unknown is worse than what actually happens. And so maybe it makes us feel a little better to know that, yes, somebody’s going to reject the message that we bring.

You may go talk to your neighbor, and you know what? They may shut you down. You may go talk to the lady in front of you in line at the grocery store.

She may shut you down. It’s a very real possibility. You know, for years we’ve said, you know, it doesn’t matter.

Just go and tell them, and you’ll be surprised what might happen. Well, that’s true. You might be surprised.

Somebody might accept the gospel. But we need to prepare ourselves with the very real possibility that sometimes our message is going to be rejected, and that’s just part of it. Sometimes the message is going to be rejected.

He tells them that. If they hate you, he throws it out there. It’s going to happen.

When he says if here, yes, it’s talking about the potential if something happens. If a particular person rejects you, but in all the people that we’re supposed to witness to, In all the people we’re supposed to share Christ to, it’s guaranteed that somebody is going to reject the gospel. Somebody somewhere is going to reject the gospel.

And we’re guaranteed that our witness will sometimes be rejected. You know, there’s one way to overcome the fear of rejection just by knowing that it’s out there and it’s going to happen. It’s not something we have to worry about.

It’s something that Christ knew already that people were going to reject the gospel, and he told us to go and tell anyway. He didn’t say, you know, as you go, make disciples, and never realized that people out there were going to reject him. If anybody knew that people were going to reject Jesus, it was Jesus.

At the time he sent us on the Great Commission, he’d already been rejected in just about the worst way a man can be rejected. And they hung him and crucified him on Calvary as a result. So when he tells us to go and tell, or tells us as we’re going, tell, he already knows that some people are going to be rejected.

So we can’t say, well, Lord, I know you told us to go tell, but you really don’t know what’s at stake for me here. No, he’s already said, if they hate you. He’s already thrown out the possibility that, yes, it’s going to happen.

Someday, somehow, it’s going to happen. Somebody’s going to reject the message. Well, doesn’t that make you want to go tell somebody, tell you that somebody’s going to reject the message?

That’s why I told you before we got into these objections to sharing, that’s why I gave you all those reasons for sharing. Because we have the reasons. We know what the reasons are from the Bible and why we’re supposed to share the gospel.

But then we work ourselves into these objections, these excuses that we make before God, and we think they’re. . .

I say we. I include myself in this. We think they’re valid excuses.

Well, God, what about this? Well, God, what about that? That’s why in working on this series, I thought let’s go to the Bible and see what the Bible says about these excuses.

As far as the fear of rejection, we can’t use that as an excuse and tell God, well, they might reject me. He already said it was a possibility here. If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.

This second principle in here, I don’t know if it’s any more comforting than the first. There is the very real possibility. we’re guaranteed that our witness will sometimes be rejected. But also in John 15, 18, it points out, as it points out in other places in Scripture, that it’s not really us, it’s actually Christ that the people are rejecting.

It’s actually Christ that the people are rejecting. Now, that doesn’t mean that when we witness to somebody, when we tell somebody about the hope that we have in Christ, that doesn’t mean they’re going to say, well, I don’t care about that, but can I be your best friend anyway? No, sometimes they are going to cut us out of their lives.

They’re going to shut us down. But folks, it’s not because they hate us. It’s not because you didn’t use exactly the right words.

It’s not because you talk funny. It’s not because of any of these reasons. It’s because they’re rejecting Christ. They’re rejecting the message of the gospel.

And if our fear is, as I said before, our fear, I think a lot of times, isn’t, oh no, they might reject the gospel. We’re going to talk about that next week, the fear of failure when we actually do witness to somebody. But the fear is not that they’re going to reject the gospel.

The fear is that they’re going to reject us, and they’re going to link me with Preacher Bob, and they’re going to know those are my kids in the supermarket. They’re going to reject us. Well, here he points out, as again, I said so many places in Scripture, he points out it’s not us they’re rejecting, but Christ. He says, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me first. And he tells us in verse 19, if you were of the world, the world would love his own.

He said, but I’ve chosen you out of the world. And by the way, I know I’ve been addressing this topic a few times lately, but it’s kind of come up in the passages I’ve been looking at, and I don’t want to just jump around it. He says here that I have chosen you out of the world.

Well, that means he picked somebody to be saved, didn’t it? That he chose somebody. He said, I chose you to be saved, doesn’t it?

Well, that’s what some would have us to believe. But remember, the principles in the book of John apply to Christians everywhere. But the book of John was not written with the idea of the primary audience of Christians everywhere.

It was written to Christians back then. And when Jesus is speaking, he’s speaking to a specific group of people, isn’t he? Who’s he speaking to in this passage?

Any ideas? The disciples. He’s speaking to his disciples.

And when he looks at the twelve and says, I have chosen you out of the world, he’s not saying, I predestined you to salvation. He said, I chose you, as we see in the beginning passages of the Gospels, where he goes and he picks them one by one or sometimes two by two and says, I’ve got a job for you. He says, I’ve chosen you out of the world.

He’s talking to these 12 and saying, I’ve chosen you out of the world for the purpose of being my disciples, for being this 12, that we’re going to be the first to carry my message. That’s what he’s talking about. I didn’t want to, it’s not really part of the message, but I didn’t want to gloss over that and just pretend it doesn’t exist. He said, I’ve chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

He’s speaking to the 12 disciples here and saying, because I chose you out of the world, because I called you out to be mine, the world hates you. And folks, even though he didn’t call the 12 of us, There are more than 12 of us here, I think. Did anybody take a count tonight for Brother Phil?

I’m sure there are more than 12. Even though he didn’t call us to the same exact office that he called the 12, and he’s talking to them and saying, I chose you out. Folks, the rest of these principles apply to us, I believe, just as they did to them.

That the world is going to sometimes hate us. The world is sometimes going to reject us. But it’s because they’re rejecting Christ. He said, they hated me first. Go back to the beginning chapter of John, the very first verses, And it talks about how the light came into the darkness, and the darkness did not receive the light.

His people, he came into his own. He came among his own people, and they would not receive him because they hated the light, because they loved the darkness better. So not exact quotes.

Go back and read it for yourself. Make sure I’m telling you the truth. But John chapter 1 talks about the fact that men would hate Christ. All throughout the Bible is given the idea that men were going to hate and reject Christ, by and large.

And so when we’re afraid of being rejected, folks, I don’t know how much consolation it is to you, but it’s not us they’re rejecting. It doesn’t matter whether they accept us or reject us or not. I’m sorry, accept us or reject us.

In the eternal scheme of things, it does not matter whether anybody likes Jared Byrns. Now, I still wish everybody would. When I know somebody doesn’t like me, I kind of get physically sick to my stomach.

It bothers me to know somebody doesn’t like me. I’ve had to get over that. I’d be sick all the time.

But it doesn’t matter for eternity whether anybody likes me or not. It doesn’t matter whether or not they accept Phil Meisenheimer. I like that you said up front.

I can pick on you a little bit. It doesn’t matter whether they accept us. It doesn’t matter whether they accept you for their eternity.

That’s not what’s at stake anyway. That’s not what the issue is anyway. What matters is what they do with the gospel, and when they reject what we have to say, they’re not rejecting us.

They’re rejecting the message of the gospel. They’re rejecting Jesus Christ and the hope that he brings. Now, if our concerns are, well, what are they going to think of me?

that should be a little bit of consolation. But folks, our concern can’t be, what do they think of me? This fear of rejection we have has to be dealt with because if we let the fear of rejection get the best of us, we’re ineffective at representing Christ. He tells us in verse 19, again, I’ve already read the verse a couple times, but it says, if you were of the world, the world would love his own.

He tells them, if you were of the world, if you were still the way you were when I found you and I chose you to follow me and I plucked you up out of there, if you were still with the world and you were still of the world, the world would love you. The world would have no problem with you. But they weren’t going to be loved and completely accepted, were they?

He said, no, on the contrary. If they hate you, if the world hates you, you know that they hated me first. But if you were part of the world, they’d love you. And folks, we ought to consider it a badge of honor.

I’m not saying we ought to go out and get people to deliberately reject the gospel. How twisted is that? To do everything that we can to turn people off to Jesus Christ. And some people, by their witness and some people, by their lives, you would think they were doing that on purpose.

I’m not saying that we should deliberately try to get people to reject the gospel and reject us in the process because it somehow makes us more spiritual. I’ve known men that thought that the more people that got mad at them, the better job they were doing preaching. Depending on the subject, that may be true. But in general, that’s not a philosophy I want to live my life by.

But folks, we ought to view it as a badge of honor when the world hates us, when the world rejects us. Because it means we’re not of and with the world, that we’re with Christ, that we stand with Christ. It would be so very easy, folks, to gain the acceptance of the world. But the only way to guarantee the acceptance of the world is to go back and conform to the world.

So if you were with them, if you were doing the things that they did and believing the things that they believed, they would love you. They would eat you up. That’s my translation.

They would love you. They’d have no problem with you. But you’re mine, so they hate you.

And we let the fear of, oh, Lord, if I talk to them, they’re going to reject me, they’re not going to like me. We let that get the best of us and say, I’m not going to talk to them about Christ because they’re not going to like me. They’re not going to want to be my friend anymore.

We may not say it to ourselves in those exact words, but that’s our attitude sometimes. Folks, we ought to realize that we can’t have it both ways. That we can’t have the love and praise and acceptance of the world and be with Christ. No, if we’re His followers, He says, if they hate you, they hated me first. And I don’t believe that that means being antagonistic toward the world at all.

I tried to write a mean letter this week. I probably shouldn’t tell you all that. I got a collection letter in the mail for a bill that I had paid from back in Norman, but apparently the city of Norman turned me over for collection anyway, on a water bill for $7 that I had already paid.

And these collection people from Delaware sent me a hateful letter. And I wanted to send one right back because I knew my account. I even printed them off my statement from the city of Norman.

It’s paid. It’s been paid. Leave me alone.

And I wrote the meanest letter I could possibly write. And I read it to Christian over the phone to see if it needed to be toned down. She said, no, it sounds fine to me.

I said, okay. And my mother was in the car with her. She said, read it to your mother.

Because there’s a saying in my family that the burns comes out. Mom and dad and my sister are good people, but they’re known to be able to put people in their place sometimes. And I don’t really have that in me.

Sometimes the flesh rises up and I very desperately want to have that talent, but I just don’t. And I read it to my mother and she said, that doesn’t sound mean at all. I said, put Christian on the phone.

I said, she said my letter doesn’t sound mean. She said, well, it sounds mean for you, but not for normal people. I said, what’s that supposed to mean?

She said, it’s not in you to be mean to people. I said, but I want to be this time. It used to come so easy and so naturally to be mean.

to get my point across, to tell people off. Even 10 years ago, it used to be so easy. But the more I got into God’s Word and the more I studied it, there’s more to it than just be nice to people.

Folks, that’s a good start. And I remember a few years ago being very convicted by the verse in Romans that says, as much as lies within you, live at peace with all men. And the more that verse has convicted me, the harder it’s been to be mean and cause trouble with people.

I don’t like conflict unless I’m dealing with somebody in Delaware. or by mail that accused me of not paying my bills. I am the last person that would be standing in front of you and trying to make the point that we as the church need to walk around and stick our finger constantly in the eye of the world and irritate and antagonize as many people as we can just because they need to hear it.

I’ve heard preachers make that point. I won’t name names. Not that any of them are in this room.

I’ve heard preachers make that point that the church ought to stand completely at odds with the world, and you know what we should. As far as what we stand for, what we believe, we do stand at odds with the world. But almost this antagonistic attitude where they’re just about a peg below that Westboro cult from Kansas, trying to irritate people just because they think God said so.

I believe what the Bible says about living at peace with other people around you. All the verses in Proverbs about how much better your life is without conflict. I am not the guy that’s going to stand here and tell you we need to constantly irritate the world and make them hate us because otherwise we’re not doing our job.

Folks, at the same time, we need to understand that no matter how nicely we do it, no matter how much love is in our heart when we speak the truth, and we are supposed to speak the truth with love according to the book of Ephesians, that no matter how lovingly we tell people, and sometimes love means telling people the truth even when they don’t want to hear it, no matter how lovingly we express the truth, there are going to be people that reject the truth and reject us. And instead of looking at that as something we need to recoil from, something we need to be afraid of, When it happens, we need to realize what a badge of honor it is because, hey, we are different than the world. That’s a sign that we are doing what we’re supposed to be doing.

Granted, it’s an unenjoyable side effect, but it’s still a sign that we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing. And recognize it as a badge of honor that, hey, we’re identified with Jesus Christ. Because he says, if they hate you, you know they hated me first. And if they hate him, folks, he resides in us. And we’re supposed to be more and more like him.

Why would the world not hate us? And when they reject us, instead of being afraid of that, look at it as a badge of honor and a reason to pray for them all the more.