Good News When Feeling Rejected Series

Audio @

http://www.adrian.warnock.info/2005/10/good-news-when-feeling-rejected.htm

Good news when feeling rejected

Gal 1:11- 2:16

Intro

REFER BACK TO LAST GAL TALK AND QUOTE 1:3-4

Everyone has experiences in live of rejection and acceptance.

’Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me’ is a LIE

Areas of the brain which light up when physical pain occurs also light up when people are rejected....

We will all know what it is to feel hurt, let down and rejected- a key question is how do we respond to that.

Do we

1.Fight back and reject others

2.bitter and withdrawn not daring to relate on an emotional level with others �the introvert� Can we trust anyone? Some people decide we cant-

-BOY ON A WALL/BUILDING -JUMP ILL CATCH YOU- e3 and on LAST ONE- DIDNT -boy landed hard, really hurt himself Father ’Now, let that teach you something- never trust anybody in your whole life- they will only let you down!’

If you dont wake anyone up they wont reject you

If you shout loud enough they wont have time to reject you!

2.Do we become fearful of rejection and work as hard as we can to please others in any situation we find ’the extrovert’

People today understand so little about love (REF other talk) that many of us grow up longing for love and approval one way or the other

Some people live with "youre not good enough" as kids and then as adults.

For many of us, we just want to hear someone say "well done"

Many of us make the drive for approval our defining purpose in life- this can be true of the popular one who is ever afraid that their popularity will evaporate, and the unpopular one who lives a life of quiet desperation

Some of us do anything we can to just avoid conflict

The most important question we can ask ourselves is -who are we trying to please?

"You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time but you cant please all of the people all of the time"

Who did Paul try and please?

"For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ" (Gal 1:10)

For most of us, our natural tendency is to want to please ourselves first and formost. We tend to want to please others because having others pleased with us is actually what we want.

Legalism is often about keeping others happy. It has a certain power to bring outside conformity to ’good behaviour’, but if such conformity is only skin deep it will not please God.

We need to live our lives for an audience of one. Cf ONE THING

For Paul, after his salvation, the approval of men was secondary. This is why he felt no need to go straight to Jerusalem to see the apostles.

Not a man pleaser, but a God-pleaser

He thought was committed to pleasing God even before he was saved- although he didn’t realise he wasn’t doing that - instead he wanted to please man.

RELIGION IS ACTUALLY OFTEN ABOUT PLEASING MAN, CHRISTIANITY IS ABOUT PLEASING GOD

Was a member of the sanhedran and voted in favour of putting Christians to death (And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. Acts 26:10)

If they hated Christ, they will hate you

But NOT an excuse to be offensive!

PAUL had to lay aside the approval of man, and live in obscurity for a while. God wanted to test him outside of the limelight to see if he would be the right sort of person in the limelight- God often does that with us.......

PAUL did not require man’s approval of his message as he had received it from God.

There is a sense in which this is true for all of us- we stand or fall before God alone.

Notice, however, he did see it as important that the church recognised his call- this second visit to Jerusalem is presumably the one recorded in Acts 11 so means that Paul had the approval of the Jerusalem Apostles before he set out on his missionary journeys. Thus, Paul’s gospel wasn’t moulded by the original Apostles, but it was consistent and subsequently approved by them. Paul knew that it was vital that the church taught the same thing. The same God who had taught him the gospel had taught the Jerusalem apostles. They joined hands recognising what God had done.