SPEAKER_01: Welcome to this week's podcast by Celebration Church Latatoga.
SPEAKER_01: We believe this message will empower and equip you to live a life of breakthrough.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know what Jesus Christ came to do?
SPEAKER_00: You ever thought about that?
SPEAKER_00: He came to seek and save that which is lost, us, came to set the captives free, came to give us abundant life.
SPEAKER_00: He came, the Bible says, to set the sinners in salvation.
SPEAKER_00: But he also came to heal the brokenhearted, which is a really awesome scripture, which is found in Luke 4.18.
SPEAKER_00: And where it talks about a broken heart, the original language is actually talks about a shattered heart.
SPEAKER_00: And there are people who could be cruising around.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe your story this morning that says you have a shattered heart, broken heart.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're subject to uh the storms of life or a bereavement or a loss, a situation that's gone down heavy on your soul, and it shatters your heart.
SPEAKER_00: You feel like it's broken in a million places.
SPEAKER_00: But what the one thing is the Lord is a healer, he's a great physician.
SPEAKER_00: So he's not just talking about healing our physical frame, our physical body, and having us walking in what is called divine health.
SPEAKER_00: He's actually referring to healed mind, a restored mind, uh healed memories, memories of the past and things that have happened that haven't been great, healing those, restoring our thinking, but also healing our emotions or bringing our emotions into wholeness.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I have prayed, and I think it's a good prayer to pray, is that Father, that you would help me to be emotionally whole.
SPEAKER_00: So uh the lens of how we view life is through wholeness, it's not through rejection, it's not through aggro, it's not through resentment or titlement or unforgiveness and so forth, it's actually through wholeness, emotional wholeness.
SPEAKER_00: But that's that's part of the deal, that's part of his provision.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he wants for us.
SPEAKER_00: And we get older, and uh, you know, you if we don't deal with these things, honestly, we don't deal with it.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't get any better, it actually grows.
SPEAKER_00: You think uh, you know, the thing's just like a little monster, the bit or a little seed that grows into a plant, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
SPEAKER_00: The thing grows all the time, and uh so we can put on a smile, but deep down there's an embittered soul, an embittered soul, and the Lord wants to set us free from that junk.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to totally set us free that this thing unravels itself around our life.
SPEAKER_00: Now, talking about rejection, rejection is interesting.
SPEAKER_00: I'll uh um I'll go relatively surface over it, but it's here nonetheless.
SPEAKER_00: I've called it here the mess of rejection, the mess of rejection and and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: There are five things that took place when Adam and Eve got into sin.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't understand sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's a concept, they didn't understand it.
SPEAKER_00: They were created not righteous, but they were created innocent, they didn't have the Holy Spirit inside of them, but they were in a sinless context, they didn't understand about brokenness or betrayal or uh crisis, uh broken relationships.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't understand any of this.
SPEAKER_00: This was just completely conceptually, mentally foreign to them.
SPEAKER_00: But the moment that they disobeyed a very clear critical instruction not to eat of the tree there, what had happened is sin immediately was injected into their life.
SPEAKER_00: Five things I've recorded here, I think it's five, as they they that immediately were listed, uh that became internally possessed by, okay?
SPEAKER_00: The first one is they were alienated from the presence of God, they were cut out, they were cut off, they were in the fellowship, they were walking with God.
SPEAKER_00: And you can be away from one country to another country and still be united in heart.
SPEAKER_00: Like we've got people overseas, but their wives are here or their husbands are here, their wives are away, but they're still because they're one spirit, but that broke, that connection totally broke.
SPEAKER_00: So now you've got a sinless context, not understanding sin, and now they've got the ultimate relationship, it's completely severed.
SPEAKER_00: The feelings of oneness, the feelings of togetherness and so forth, it's completely capiche.
SPEAKER_00: It's broken, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So the next thing is this is death, curses, and diseases were imparted into the human race as a result of that decision.
SPEAKER_00: The third thing is the seeds of corruption and rebellion and independence and pride began to possess their motivations.
SPEAKER_00: Their drive in life was now no longer pure.
SPEAKER_00: It was tarnished with ego, it was tarnished with independence and uh a self-will, if you like, or self-governance, self-reliance, and not in submission to the father, not in that community with him, talking and sharing and discussing.
SPEAKER_00: What do you think, Father?
SPEAKER_00: You've called me to name the animals.
SPEAKER_00: What's a good idea for this one?
SPEAKER_00: We're told that Adam named the animals, right?
SPEAKER_00: People say, Oh, that's really intelligent thing, and perhaps it totally was, naming a whole lot of animals.
SPEAKER_00: And what should a giraffe be?
SPEAKER_00: A giraffe in Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality of it is, is that the relationship would be such.
SPEAKER_00: See, see, let me say this.
SPEAKER_00: The word of God says some things, but it doesn't say everything.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you have to look between the lines.
SPEAKER_00: There's a golden thread there, or look and understand.
SPEAKER_00: But surely the relationship would have been so in with Christ or in with God, it would be okay.
SPEAKER_00: I this is what I want to call it.
SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
SPEAKER_00: We're not told that.
SPEAKER_00: We was just told the instruction was to name them.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the relationship was such that what should we call this?
SPEAKER_00: I kind of think, probably.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, um, then the other one, the fourth one, is survival instinct took place.
SPEAKER_00: Selfishness, the lust and the greed and the covetedness and the this uh the selfish um survival instinct that we see today.
SPEAKER_00: And then the last one here is rejection and insecurity took place as an internal root.
SPEAKER_00: And you and I, you ready for this?
SPEAKER_00: You and I have inherited that.
SPEAKER_00: We have rejection inside our lives.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'm gonna submit this to or present this to you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: When the baby is born, that baby enters a world of rejection.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Enters a world of rejection.
SPEAKER_00: It is the spiritual warfare battle that we have.
SPEAKER_00: It is the most, it's one we're gonna overcome.
SPEAKER_00: We have to go overcome a whole lot of battles, but you'll find that's one that gets presented.
SPEAKER_00: That spirit, if you like, wants to train us, wants to teach us, wants to develop us, wants to begin to uh chaperone our thinking, that spirit power.
SPEAKER_00: Tries to mold us, tries to rearrange our thinking and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: And it's got we've got to see rejection as an enemy.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a friend.
SPEAKER_00: Cell pity is not a mate, it's an enemy.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna break that.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things this morning, I love to see the shack, the shackles of rejection broken off our life.
SPEAKER_00: And I've seen it this way in counseling, literally hundreds of people over time.
SPEAKER_00: Rejection, we mask it so well.
SPEAKER_00: What happens as infants and and and teenagers and perhaps young adults and so forth, different occurrences around our life, it begins to mold us, begins to shape us, and then out of that we begin to form our thinking.
SPEAKER_00: We put the lens of rejection out of our life and we begin to see things from that concept or that idea.
SPEAKER_00: And what it does, it actually twists and distorts us.
SPEAKER_00: So we deal with the roots of bitterness, but often the roots of bitterness they come out from pain, they come out from hurt, they come out from uh betrayal and being taken advantage of and hurtful experiences.
SPEAKER_00: So we want to talk about that this morning and deal honestly, have an honest conversation, because after all, we're talking to honest people, right?
SPEAKER_00: Can I get a witness?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus experienced rejection.
SPEAKER_00: We know that Isaiah 53 verses 5.
SPEAKER_00: This is what it says.
SPEAKER_00: It says, He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
SPEAKER_00: And we hid, as it were, our faces from him.
SPEAKER_00: He was despised, and we did not esteem him.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing within him that we wanted like that to go to go towards him.
SPEAKER_00: The word rejection actually means in the original to cast away, to dismiss or to refuse, to receive somebody or to approve of somebody.
SPEAKER_00: It's to be despised and set somebody aside.
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Those are strong words, but they that there, I I don't think there'll be too many people this morning that couldn't get up and tell their story or tell your story about an event, an occurrence, a circumstance that really did you in on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: Some people walk in rejection, they've still got rejection in their 70s and 80s, and they've never been able to overcome it sadly.
SPEAKER_00: They're still going through some of the results or the fruit or the characteristics, and we end up looking ourselves in the mirror and saying, I never thought that my life would be like this.
SPEAKER_00: I never intended my life to look like this, but what it is, it's the that spirit that gets around our life, it begins to break inside, break the wholeness that God has had within us.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Am I resonating with someone this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So, how it all starts.
SPEAKER_00: When did it get started?
SPEAKER_00: You've got a story.
SPEAKER_00: When parents neglect, when a partner chooses someone else, when someone was left to defend themselves, bullied, ridiculed, or perhaps picked on, when someone was overlooked and somebody else was chosen instead, when we were told we were not good enough, not needed or not wanted, when someone shamed, shamed us and exposed our vulnerabilities, when curse words were pronounced and we were publicly scolded or humiliated.
SPEAKER_00: When we were told that we were ugly, made fun of, we were devalued, taken advantage of, used, abused, and we were shamed.
SPEAKER_00: We were rejected for being a boy or being a girl, rejected for looking a wee bit different, rejected because we didn't feel we fitted in.
SPEAKER_00: We were rejected because we were born into a certain family or a religion or a people group.
SPEAKER_00: And the list goes on and on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: And rejection, sometimes rejection, we get it and it wraps itself around our lives, and we set up a course for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: That spirit, so pretty much you can be wounded, you can have a wounded spirit, the Bible talks about that.
SPEAKER_00: But then a demonic era can wrap itself or infest around our life so that other people reject us.
SPEAKER_00: So we think, what's wrong with me?
SPEAKER_00: How come it's it?
SPEAKER_00: I've got a pattern going on.
SPEAKER_00: They rejected us, this person rejected me, she rejected me, and it just goes on, and it's it's like a a course or a track that the enemy has begun to put us on.
SPEAKER_00: Well, in Proverbs uh 14, verses 10, it said, the heart knows its own bitterness, and a stranger does not share its joy.
SPEAKER_00: The wounding of rejection enters the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Now, now what happens is this is out of the heart, what the Bible says, our mouth speaks, out of the heart flow the issues of life.
SPEAKER_00: Divorce is an issue.
SPEAKER_00: I think pornography is an issue, relational breakups is an issue.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, a wounded soul is an issue.
SPEAKER_00: So when we have rejection, what it does, it it doesn't, where does rejection go?
SPEAKER_00: Does it just go into the mind?
SPEAKER_00: Because you can overcome that, you can logically or rationalize that.
SPEAKER_00: No rejection hits our emotion, it hits our soul, it gets into our spirit, if you like, it gets inside to us.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why that's important is because what life flows through the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you think about this, if you have this area of rejection inside of you, and life flows through your heart, and rejection has a part or a corner of your heart, then you will find that life's issues are now sifted through the lens of rejection.
SPEAKER_00: Seriously, now it's like I put some, I've got glasses on now, put some big glasses on.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the reason why they said no is because there are actual logical, tangible reasons, but we see it as a personal hit.
SPEAKER_00: We see it as, oh no, this is personal, they don't like me, or she doesn't like me, or they don't want me.
SPEAKER_00: We begin to see rejection through the context of a lens that we put around our life.
SPEAKER_00: There are people groups, I could name them right now, people groups around the world that are so full of rejection because of different things that have happened around their life and happened around their forefathers.
SPEAKER_00: Any other occurrence that comes their way is now seen through the concept or the lens of what happened to our forefathers.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just one race, it's a multiplicity of races against other races.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we're rejected because we belong to this family.
SPEAKER_00: I've spoken to people that talk like this, but it's a it's a powerful setting.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, I mean, it's it's the it's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: I tell the story, this actually did happen to me, and it's not over-exaggerate.
SPEAKER_00: I was told the story before, but when I was, I think, about four years of age, and uh my parents were up in Auckland and we were driving, and I was the chatterbox in the car.
SPEAKER_00: Any chatter boxes this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Please be quiet.
SPEAKER_00: But hey, you know, and I was doing all the talking, and my I was the youngest out of three, any youngest ones here, right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, kick kill.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but I was doing the talking and talking, and I must have just irritated my parents so much that my mother had a scheme.
SPEAKER_00: She had this idea.
SPEAKER_00: Any mums had ideas that weren't correct?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, mum had the idea, and any dads in the house that have just gone along with it and thought, okay, let's do this.
SPEAKER_00: So the idea was to drop me off, and that so they dropped me off on a uh country road.
SPEAKER_00: I saw the moon, I saw the stars, there were no lights, and they dropped me off at about a four-year-old kid with gum boots, and they dropped me off saying, Goodbye.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see you later.
SPEAKER_00: You've talked too much, that's it.
SPEAKER_00: No exaggeration.
SPEAKER_00: So here I am, like running, like forest, you know, running.
SPEAKER_00: No, but what happened is I ran some, and my mother tells this story.
SPEAKER_00: She said, You are so subdued and so silent after that time.
SPEAKER_00: As a four-year-old, and we could joke about it because I'm an adult now and been healed of that sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: But what happened as a four-year-old child?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if they did that to me now, I'd be laughing.
SPEAKER_00: You do that because you're an adult, because you know it's a joke, or or or whatever, and that you know it's a funny kind of weird kind of random kind of disciplining of a child for sure, with respect to my parents.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality of it is for a four-year-old or a three-year-old, you do that to a four-year-old, and you can close down and shut down an entire internal uh the spirit, you can shut it down.
SPEAKER_00: From that time on, I was distant.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what rejection does.
SPEAKER_00: When we are rejected, what we do is with naturally begin to withdraw our heart.
SPEAKER_00: If we don't feel we're wanted by the boss, we actually withdraw our heart, we put our heads down, but there's no connection.
SPEAKER_00: How about this?
SPEAKER_00: If we felt rejected by the pastor, it's very difficult to flow in the ministry with the pastor.
SPEAKER_00: If you feel like you're rejected by God, you're tolerated and not celebrated.
SPEAKER_00: How do you enter in on worship?
SPEAKER_00: How do you enter in on praise when you don't even feel loved by God?
SPEAKER_00: That you feel you're part of the generic program of God loves the world.
SPEAKER_00: But no, I tell you this: this is this truth here.
SPEAKER_00: When God sent Jesus' son to the cross, did you know your name would have come up in the heart of God?
SPEAKER_00: In his infinite wisdom and knowledge, the Lord would have known your name.
SPEAKER_00: He knows all the hair, the amount of them on your head.
SPEAKER_00: He knows your circumstance, he knows your very life.
SPEAKER_00: And your name would be part of the fold, part of the household of God, part of the salvation, predestination, if you like.
SPEAKER_00: God knew that you would say yes, so he chose you.
SPEAKER_00: So you weren't part of the group, you're just, yep, yep, you here's your ticket, you're in.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of thought behind you.
SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of feeling about your life.
SPEAKER_00: See, it takes a big God to care about small details.
SPEAKER_00: We think the Lord's interested in New York right now, and Israel with Iran and America and so forth, and some of the bigger players like the Chinese Republic, these nations around the world, we think, well, God's more attentive to that.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: God's eyes span the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: Right now, he is in Ethiopia, looking at all the people of Ethiopia and seeing the little girl that's lonely this morning, the little seven-year-old.
SPEAKER_00: The little kid that got scolded by his parents.
SPEAKER_00: Got eye, there's an argument, he was misunderstood, felt misrepresented, and the siblings ganged up.
SPEAKER_00: God is there.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, let me tell you this: did you know people say, Oh, you know, we need to go into the suffering world?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we do.
SPEAKER_00: But did you know this?
SPEAKER_00: God is with the suffering.
SPEAKER_00: That's where often revival is.
SPEAKER_00: You hear some terrible uh testimonies.
SPEAKER_00: I've got friends that have terrible testimonies of shocking things that took place and their lives are, you know, that I won't go into it here, and but terrible things are taking place around their lives, but salvation came to their household.
SPEAKER_00: And so, this area of rejection, what it is, is we grow up and we just learn to cope.
SPEAKER_00: You know, high school was really cool.
SPEAKER_00: College was really cool.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure of your experience of college and high school, but some things we weren't taught.
SPEAKER_00: We weren't taught how to balance a checkbook, we weren't taught about money too much, were we?
SPEAKER_00: How to spend it, how not to spend it.
SPEAKER_00: We weren't taught on how to deal with broken relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't that be 101?
SPEAKER_00: Did your parents ever sit down and say, okay, in life, things are gonna sting, but I'm gonna help you to overcome some of the storms of life.
SPEAKER_00: These are the storms that are gonna come your way, but I can help you with the wisdom of God through the book of Proverbs and so forth to help you navigate through these things.
SPEAKER_00: It will come.
SPEAKER_00: I'll teach you how to date and how to honor girls and how to honor guys and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: I'll teach you how to how to handle yourself in crisis into a threat situation.
SPEAKER_00: We'll sit down and we'll talk.
SPEAKER_00: How many parents actually did that kind of stuff?
SPEAKER_00: Did any parents do?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, one parent.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, out of the amount of people here this morning, um, those statistics aren't that great, are they?
SPEAKER_00: It's a low, it's below one percent.
SPEAKER_00: But most of our parents, even though they meant well and intended things and want the best for us and provided for us and loved us, or perhaps even hugged us or took us places and did stuff for the honest conversations didn't quite happen for most of us.
SPEAKER_00: And part of our vision for our kids' church is to is for parents, train parents and equip parents for our uh uh uh one of our um uh um seminars or conferences here is to actually put tools in hands.
SPEAKER_00: One of the big questions is when kids ask these questions, what do we say?
SPEAKER_00: How what do we do?
SPEAKER_00: We just kind of like we're gonna flute them because they grow up in the Christian church, they're gonna be safe.
SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily so.
SPEAKER_00: We have to be intentional about parenting.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to come back and zoom back out a little bit and say this that when it comes to rejection, we need to actually teach our children how to handle peer pressure, how to handle rejection when they are left alone, or or somebody's not happy with our performance at work, and yet you think you did a grand job and they've got another story.
SPEAKER_00: How do we handle that without getting bitter, without getting frustrated or feeling like I want to get out of that place?
SPEAKER_00: It's rejection.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: Bitterness flows through the heart.
SPEAKER_00: So if you've you've got the heart here and you got rejected, and you've got an area of bitterness that's that's growing like a miniature plant, the judgments, the uh and so forth, the the reactions and that.
SPEAKER_00: When things take place and transpire through our life.
SPEAKER_00: We see them through the lens of bitterness.
SPEAKER_00: We see them through the lens of not being wanted.
SPEAKER_00: We see them through the lens of I feel less.
SPEAKER_00: We see them through the lens of comparisons in so far.
SPEAKER_00: So, what are the emotions that sit around rejection?
SPEAKER_00: What are they?
SPEAKER_00: What's wrong with me?
SPEAKER_00: I've heard people say that.
SPEAKER_00: Grief, sorrow, internal trouble and strife.
SPEAKER_00: We feel emotionally depleted.
SPEAKER_00: We want to run and escape and find a safe spot to be, or safe relationships.
SPEAKER_00: The feelings of being low and not being wanted.
SPEAKER_00: The feelings of shame and humiliation, the feelings of loss of confidence, the feelings of reproach, feeling like people are speaking against me or against us.
SPEAKER_00: We've been compared to, we've been judged.
SPEAKER_00: The feelings, the emotions of loneliness and of sadness, and the feelings of being devalued and unloved.
SPEAKER_00: And it goes on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: What rejection can actually do out of rejection it brings birth to insecurity.
SPEAKER_00: Insecurity brings birth to control where we condition and control our environment.
SPEAKER_00: So often we can look at a controlling people.
SPEAKER_00: It's not always that they've got an A-type personality or choric temperament.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they are controlling, but out of the control really comes the insecurity, the need to control and condition and control our environment, which came back to the root of rejection.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we're in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: We seek sometimes to control our partner.
SPEAKER_00: It just naturally flows out through our insecurities, through our fears and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: But the root wasn't fair.
SPEAKER_00: The root wasn't insecure.
SPEAKER_00: Comes back to the taproot of rejection that never quite got healed.
SPEAKER_00: A baby in the womb, the moment it is conceived, many believe the baby's own soul picks up, whether it's accepted, welcomed, or not wanted.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_00: That's why rejection can come in the womb.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I'm gonna say this for those who want boys and they get a girl, you love that girl.
SPEAKER_00: The moment you find that that's a girl, mate, we've got ourselves a girl.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: Or you wanted a girl because you've got five boys and you got another boy, it's just like, mate, change the paradigm quickly.
SPEAKER_00: We've never had that thing that we want a boy or we want a girl.
SPEAKER_00: I I won't go into the details around that, but there is a bit of uh internal psychology with that, mate.
SPEAKER_00: We get what we're given.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And we celebrate it.
SPEAKER_00: People say to me, What is it, a boy or a girl?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: We've looked, we haven't found out, we're gonna find out next week, and when we find out next week, we're gonna get excited about it.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's a boy or it's a girl, I don't care as long as it's one or the other, right?
SPEAKER_00: But I just want to say this, and I don't mean this to condemn anybody, but please don't have that thing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping for it's a boy, I'm hoping for what and a girl pops out, and all of a sudden you want to put you know a man's apron around it with the tools and all sorts of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: No, celebrate with a dress.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you got.
SPEAKER_00: So we get excited about who's coming.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we don't have any with the grandchildren, it's not a case of we hope for boys for cardgalls, and assume one day that's gonna be a cook island name like Savage and Strickland and so forth, it might be in the men in 50 years' time.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: It's whether it's a boy or whether it's a girl, we're gonna celebrate them right into this world, amen.
SPEAKER_00: In Psalms 139, verses 13, you formed me.
SPEAKER_00: How's that?
SPEAKER_00: Woo! You formed my inward parts, you covered me in my mother's womb.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 1:5.
SPEAKER_00: Prophet Jeremiah, before I formed you in the womb, you know this.
SPEAKER_00: I knew you.
SPEAKER_00: Before I formed you in God's infinite wisdom, God knew you were coming on the scene.
SPEAKER_00: He formed you, he fashioned you.
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: How does rejection find its expression?
SPEAKER_00: Let's drill down a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: We feel we need to validate ourselves, prove our worth, promote our success because we feel more of a person when we do that in the eyes of somebody.
SPEAKER_00: I love it when I know that people have got high uh high achievements in life, but they don't say anything.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are like that, but it speaks to me of wholeness, it speaks to me of something good happening.
SPEAKER_00: Others, of course, hold back their dreams, put into a holding pattern because you're afraid that if you begin uh like Joseph, begin to expound your dream and tell others you're gonna have a whole lot of brothers are gonna shut you down, and the pain of rejection is too much to bear.
SPEAKER_00: We don't feel safe with certain people, so we put up barriers, hostile defenses, we get suspicious of people.
SPEAKER_00: Put people, people come too close.
SPEAKER_00: Too close.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like an onion.
SPEAKER_00: Remember Shrek?
SPEAKER_00: You know, onion peel, it's just like we how about this?
SPEAKER_00: We attach our worth to our titles, the titles that we hold, our achievements, our successes past and present.
SPEAKER_00: When others are evaluated, think about this others are lifted up, favored, honored, and evaluated, elevated, sorry, we feel we're crushed on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: Somehow their success is almost like our failure.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_00: Someone got chosen, so we feel like it's our favor, uh, our failure.
SPEAKER_00: Or somebody was elevated or praised or lifted up, but that thing is inside our life we feel like we've failed somehow.
SPEAKER_00: You haven't failed at all, it was just their time.
SPEAKER_00: When you get lifted up, elevated, and and and so forth, that's your time.
SPEAKER_00: And you're hoping that you have a whole lot of whole people around your life that can sing your praise too.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible says when someone rejoices, we rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: But someone goes down and weeps, we weep with them as well.
SPEAKER_00: There's places we won't go because they're not celebrated.
SPEAKER_00: Functions, we won't go because we feel so awkward, if you're socially vulnerable, if you're vulnerable to accusations and so sensitive to criticisms of others, and often finding ourselves having a private meltdown or a reaction, retaliation, shh, because someone said something.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe someone said something, but the motivation was right.
SPEAKER_00: But what they that came out a little bit wrong, but it's too late now.
SPEAKER_00: We want to kill them because we're viewing life through the pain.
SPEAKER_00: How about this one?
SPEAKER_00: We pressure our children to perform because if they perform well, it's a reflection of who we are.
SPEAKER_00: So we put performance pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure academically, sport, and all sorts of ways we possibly can, because if they're great, it means that we're great.
SPEAKER_00: As a Bible figure, if I begin to pull out the king Saul, how he sought just honor from the people, even though he had rebelled against the Lord, he wanted to be honored before the people.
SPEAKER_00: But you see a life of rejection, head in the baggage, selected to be the leader of Israel, head and shoulders taller than anybody else.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says he was incredibly handsome.
SPEAKER_00: But he was chosen as the king, God chose him, selection, but at the same time he hid.
SPEAKER_00: But you see the traces of rejection, you see the insecurity, you see the control around his life, sadly.
SPEAKER_00: And the end story is not great for him.
SPEAKER_00: So, what's our solution?
SPEAKER_00: I've got some good news.
SPEAKER_00: Let's jump right in to solution time.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, solutions are found this way.
SPEAKER_00: Recognize it if it's an issue, we recognize it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not we don't have to be embarrassed.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we get embarrassed.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I've never been rejected.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't, I'm all right.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Well, well, maybe we're not.
SPEAKER_00: And it takes a humble person to actually you know rise above these things and just have a little bit of an admittance, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And uh push for wholeness and so forth, push for honesty.
SPEAKER_00: But here we go.
SPEAKER_00: Recognize it.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man, I get rejected, I feel it.
SPEAKER_00: I you know that that that's that's a good thing to to say if if it's if it if it's you.
SPEAKER_00: Unforgiveness is tied tight to rejection.
SPEAKER_00: So what we do, we list those people that have hurt us, or list those people that have offended us, left that we've got offside with.
SPEAKER_00: We list them one by one.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says you count your blessings one by one in song, but you count your enemies, or those who have caused pain in your life, perhaps parents, siblings, uncles, aunties, former bosses, school teachers, peers, maybe it was a love partner, a relationship, maybe your husband and wife, maybe it's your siblings, I said, maybe it's your children, but you list them, put them up there, don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: And you go through systematically, say, I declare forgiveness over so and so.
SPEAKER_00: I'm dealing with this all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And I put my hand up, father help me to be a reconciler.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about like an arbitrator at natural things.
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm actually talking about a biblical reconciler.
SPEAKER_00: So but I understand this if you the proverbs says if you get in between a quarrel, both sides can attack you.
SPEAKER_00: I understand that.
SPEAKER_00: But where I'm called for it, actually to get in and try and help, try and help out of out of our own uh journey, if you like, and out of the word of God wanting to be.
SPEAKER_00: And that's part of uh Matthew 5 9.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
SPEAKER_00: And if, like I've said before, if you want a ministry, look in the word of God, where you've been given the ministry of reconciliation, you've been given the word of reconciliation to reconcile people to God, but also people to people.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of your ministry.
SPEAKER_00: It requires the wisdom of Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: He had it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so here's what we know in Proverbs 18, 14, and just about to close, a man's spirit sustains him in sickness.
SPEAKER_00: So rejection alters your spirit temperament or alters your soul.
SPEAKER_00: So when things come your way, it's hard to overcome it.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible says a man's spirit shall sustain him in sickness.
SPEAKER_00: So when you build prayer, and I'm gonna submit this to you.
SPEAKER_00: This Jesus said, What did he say?
SPEAKER_00: Pray to the disciples so that you don't fall into temptation.
SPEAKER_00: I've worked this out.
SPEAKER_00: The less we pray, the more prominent temptation is.
SPEAKER_00: The more we pray, we seem to hold the enemy at bay.
SPEAKER_00: Seriously.
SPEAKER_00: So the more you pray for your children, the more you're putting a circle of protection around them, the more you pray for your marriage, the enemy is at bay because you're praying.
SPEAKER_00: Now I know that may have just gone over your head like that, and you think, oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, that's an absolute revelation reality.
SPEAKER_00: The more you pray will keep the enemy at bay.
SPEAKER_00: It's like a force field, but I've worked this one out.
SPEAKER_00: When you don't pray, you drop praying.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like temptations, trials, difficulties begin to come around their life.
SPEAKER_00: You think, what's wrong?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I've dropped my prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I've dropped praying, I've I've dropped uh declaring his word.
SPEAKER_00: Psalms 91.
SPEAKER_00: I've stopped embracing the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: But I tell you, if the church would but pray, he would do more if we would pray more.
SPEAKER_00: If we would but pray, we would establish a reservoir reservoir of breakthrough on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: You carry prayer.
SPEAKER_00: David said, I am prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He identified with praying so much.
SPEAKER_00: You're not praying to an unknown God, you're praying to the most intimate person that there is, who's just a breath away, just a touch away.
SPEAKER_00: That's how close he is.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, Father, help me.
SPEAKER_00: Father, protect us.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, protect my children as they travel, protect our marriage, Lord, protect us as we go this way, protect us, bless us, prosper us, Lord God.
SPEAKER_00: Father God, I'm not ashamed to ask, Lord, it's part of the cross, it's part of the breakthrough.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not ashamed to ask for financial breakthrough, Lord God.
SPEAKER_00: We're tithing members, we're offering.
SPEAKER_00: So, Lord, we ask the holdups and the hiccups and the hindrances and the delays to break in Jesus Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for that spirit of plenty.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for that breakthrough in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for our children to do exceedingly well.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for a prosperous and rich marriage as we get older.
SPEAKER_00: It's full of vibrancy and passion and communication and well-being.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for our physical bodies.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for the grandchildren and their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren, the Lord Tarry, that they would walk in the dimension of great health, that somebody would go through the family line at one point and begin to see all these levels of health.
SPEAKER_00: These are the things we can kind of pray.
SPEAKER_00: But when we don't pray, we drop that ball.
SPEAKER_00: That's when the enemy comes in like a flood, ready to pounce.
SPEAKER_00: We need to lift up the power of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus taught that.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus taught.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 26, 41.
SPEAKER_00: Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit's willing, the flesh needs to be overcome.
SPEAKER_00: It's weak.
SPEAKER_00: James 5, 13.
SPEAKER_00: Is anyone among you suffering?
SPEAKER_00: James 5.13.
SPEAKER_00: Let him pray.
SPEAKER_00: Next one, two more.
SPEAKER_00: Number three.
SPEAKER_00: So speak well of.
SPEAKER_00: Don't retaliate.
SPEAKER_00: So you used to work for those guys, ah, rotters.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Just speak well of people.
SPEAKER_00: Bible says for us, speak well of them.
SPEAKER_00: It's history.
SPEAKER_00: Paul said these things are past.
SPEAKER_00: We press on.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't happen for us, it didn't work, but we live to live another day.
SPEAKER_00: Another day of breakthrough.
SPEAKER_00: Another day of adventure in him.
SPEAKER_00: This is now a learning skill.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't happen, but what?
SPEAKER_00: We learn something out of it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a failure necessarily.
SPEAKER_00: It's how you see it.
SPEAKER_00: The last one is this memorize scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, memorize it.
SPEAKER_00: Actually learn scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Learn it.
SPEAKER_00: We think, oh, we do that as children's church.
SPEAKER_00: Where do we get off on that?
SPEAKER_00: Where we sort of think that that we need to learn scripture when we're children at Sunday school.
SPEAKER_00: No, when you're an adult, you should know three, four hundred scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Try and learn them all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Just learn them, learn them, learn them, learn them, learn them, learn them, learn them.
SPEAKER_00: And then you speak them out because that's exactly how our Christ did it.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't negotiate with the enemy, didn't stiff arm them, didn't call angels down to deal with them.
SPEAKER_00: He quoted the word.
SPEAKER_00: All you have to do is speak the word, and my servant will be healed.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, speak the word to the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: These things you know.
SPEAKER_00: But you talk, you memorize scripture.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a child of God, I've been forgiven by God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm seated with the heavenly places, I'm a new creation, I'm no longer a slave to sin.
SPEAKER_00: I belong to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I belong to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Confess these things out.
SPEAKER_00: So when rejection begins to come to me, then I say, No, I am a child of God.
SPEAKER_00: I refuse to have those feelings of rejection.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give them a benefit of the doubt, but I'm not going to capitulate and come under that spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to allow that to get around my mind, to get around my emotions, and to deflate me and to bring me down today.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to allow it to happen.
SPEAKER_00: I believe in God.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that all things work together for those who love God, and according to our according to his purposes, you memorize scripture, Psalms 27, 10.
SPEAKER_00: Here's one.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it amazing?
SPEAKER_00: Though my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.
SPEAKER_00: And Ephesians 1:6.
SPEAKER_00: To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the beloved.
SPEAKER_00: How can you be rejected when you are accepted?
SPEAKER_00: You need to walk with that fresh identity that God is for you, He's not against you, He's welcoming you in.
SPEAKER_00: But the enemy will stand as the chief accuser and have a go with God over it and have a go with you.
SPEAKER_00: But that's why we've I'm saying that we need to embrace one another and love one another and have the tendered-heartedness towards one another.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly how God sees us.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to break the shackles of rejection.
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, some people don't get it and they don't see it.
SPEAKER_00: But their life, you trace it and you can see, oh my goodness, can't you see what's coming out of your mouth all the time?
SPEAKER_00: Can't you see uh your worldview, your personal worldview, the what your mindset, your frame of mind?
SPEAKER_00: You we want to break that in Jesus Christ's name this morning.
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SPEAKER_01: Until next time.